Nothing in Gloucester’s whole career has left such a blot on his character as his expedition to Hainault. Not only did he embark on an impolitic course, which came near to wreck the national policy and the schemes of his brother—a policy which he espoused himself in later life, when it had become but an empty dream—but he could not even bring himself to stand by her whom he had undertaken to champion, in the day of her distress. He had alienated the men whom he had attempted to govern, he had shown himself unable or unwilling to control his soldiers, and when thrown on his own resources, he had betrayed his weakness as a general. A soldier of ability and experience, his instability of character had rendered him helpless when he had no controlling power to look up to; an ardent lover, he had soon proved unfaithful, and had betrayed more worldly ambition than unselfishness in his love; a man who claimed to guide the destinies of England, he had shown himself blind to that which must have been clear to any one possessing the merest germs of statesmanship. All his weaknesses came to the front, and none of the virtues to which he could lay claim were apparent; it is by this episode in his life that he is best remembered, as the foolish knight-errant who adopted a mediæval pose, whilst possessing none of the mediæval chivalry which alone could make that pose bearable.

CHAPTER V
THE PROTECTORATE

With Humphrey’s return from Hainault the second phase of his life ends and the third begins. His early life had been that of a soldier; he had celebrated the death of his brother by making a bid for the position of an independent prince; now he was to devote the rest of his days to political intrigue, and it is perhaps in this last phase that his career assumes its greatest interest. Undoubtedly his actions during the minority of his nephew have more importance in the history of his country than those of his earlier years, and from them we are enabled to realise more clearly the various threads of his policy and the governing influences in his life. Henceforth Humphrey’s whole energies are devoted to English politics. His discarded Duchess may flit across the stage, for a brief moment he may revert to his early participation in the French war, but these are merely unimportant incidents in a busy political career. The rest of his life, too, is entirely moulded by the opposition he experiences. The spirit which had inspired the limitation of the Protector’s power was to meet him at every turn, and throughout the next twenty years all English history was to find its central theme in the great struggle between the Duke of Gloucester and the Beaufort faction. Barely six months after his departure from England, Humphrey had returned to find preparations being made for the holding of Parliament, and it is probable that he had timed his departure from Hainault so as to be present at this meeting, fearing lest some hostile move should be made against him in his absence. On April 27 the young King was brought up from Windsor, and, being met at the west door of St. Paul’s by Gloucester and Exeter—the protectors of his kingdom and his person respectively—was lifted out of his chair by them and escorted to the choir, where he was ‘borne up and offred.’[596] Three days later he was present at the opening of Parliament, that his uncle might remember that he was the servant, not the master of the realm.[597]

1425] ATTITUDE OF THE COUNCIL

After so inglorious and impolitic a proceeding as his recent campaign Humphrey might well have expected criticism of no light kind from the strong faction opposed to him, and if we are to believe the French chroniclers, such criticism he did receive at the hands of the Council,[598] but no traces of this are to be found in the official records. Nay more, there is ample evidence that the Protector’s influence both in Parliament and Council was considerable. Not only in the face of a revenue deficit of £20,000 did Parliament grant him a loan of 40,000 marks to be paid within four years, but the Lords of the Council agreed to act as sureties for its repayment;[599] in a dispute between the Earl Marshal and the Earl of Warwick for precedence Parliament decided in favour of the former, who was not only a supporter of Gloucester, but had also commanded his troops in Hainault;[600] finally the wardship of the estates which devolved on the young Duke of York by the death of the Earl of March was given to the Protector.[601] It seems hardly credible that Gloucester would have been given so much, or have championed his friend so successfully had his influence not been predominant. That he had met with some opposition cannot be doubted, for the six months’ power enjoyed by the Bishop of Winchester during his nephew’s absence was not likely to make him content with a secondary position, and therefore bitter, and undoubtedly justified, criticism was probably levelled at Humphrey by his rival. It may be that high words passed between them; at any rate it was not to be long before their mutual recriminations became a danger to the state. It is about this time, therefore, that the struggle between the two chief men in the kingdom passed from the stage of political rivalry to that of personal competition. Gradually Gloucester and Beaufort become bitter personal enemies, and the state of distrust inaugurated at the beginning of the reign, now becomes a contest which the full bitterness of individual dislike tends to increase every day. Henceforth no stone is left unturned by either of the men to damage the position and reputation of his rival.

1425] JACQUELINE DESERTED

Nevertheless there is no evidence that Gloucester’s Hainault policy had reaped that universal condemnation in England which it so richly deserved. Bedford, it is true, saw the danger of alienating Burgundy, and he had done his best, first to avert the provocation of his anger, and secondly to minimise the effects of that provocation, but even he seems to have felt considerable sympathy for his brother,[602] and perhaps he remembered that the late King might be held largely responsible for the turn of events. Englishmen generally seem to have looked with kindly eyes on this mad expedition, for there was about it some of the glamour of mediæval romance in appearance if not in reality, whilst Jacqueline herself had won golden opinions in England, where her unhappy lot had obtained universal sympathy.[603] For Gloucester, however, the romance of his marriage with Jacqueline, such as it had been, was quite worn off, and he had already transferred his affections to the lady who was to bring him far greater disaster than did his foreign bride. Amongst Jacqueline’s ladies-in-waiting there had been a certain Eleanor Cobham, daughter of Reginald Cobham of Sterborough in Kent,[604] and she had accompanied her mistress to Hainault. When Humphrey had returned to England he had brought her with him, and it seems that it was about this time that she became his paramour.[605] At any rate Hainault ambitions play henceforth but a very small part in Humphrey’s life, for though we shall find that later he took some steps to send aid to his unfortunate wife, yet he never showed the slightest inclination to return to her side, a fact which caused no small scandal at a later date.

Meanwhile at Mons things had been going ill for Jacqueline. Her husband had no sooner turned his back, than the Brabanters rose again, and the citizens of Mons, unmindful of their recent promise, refused to support her.[606] On June 6 she wrote a most pathetic letter to Gloucester, telling him how the citizens had come to her on the third of that month,[607] and had shown her a treaty signed by the Dukes of Brabant and Burgundy, uniting her dominions under the rule of the former, and confiding the care of her person to the latter. In spite of her entreaties all help had been refused her, and she pointed out how her sufferings were due to the love she bore her English husband, begging him therefore to come to her help, though he seemed to have forgotten her existence.[608] In a second letter of the same date she alluded to a suggestion made by Gloucester that she should once more flee to England, a course which she declared it was now too late to adopt. Indeed, this was soon proved to be the case, for these letters were intercepted by Burgundian emissaries,[609] and within five days she was being conducted a prisoner to Ghent.[610]