1428] GLOUCESTER CENSURED
Thus Humphrey allowed the year to close without having done anything to help the lady who could hardly be called his wife, and on January 9 in the new year the Pope finally issued a Bull, whereby the marriage of Jacqueline with Brabant was definitely recognised as valid, and any marriage contracted by the former in the lifetime of the latter was declared to be illegal.[707] Gloucester was weary of the whole affair. He had not protested against Bedford’s opposition to the last projected expedition to Hainault, for he had given up all hope of a continental dominion from the day when he first turned his back on Hainault. He was too deeply occupied in asserting himself in English politics to trouble his mind over a matter which had passed so entirely out of his thoughts, and his preparations in answer to the grant of 9000 marks had been spiritless and unconvincing. Now, though Jacqueline lodged a protest against the final decision of the Court of Rome, he took no action, and on March 17 procured the cancelling of the bonds of the 9000 marks loan of the previous year.[708] This callous behaviour with regard to his former wife seems to have shocked his contemporaries. On March 8 the Mayor and Aldermen of London appeared before Parliament, and said that they had received letters from Jacqueline, whom in defiance of the papal Bull they called Duchess of Gloucester as well as Countess of Holland and Zealand, in which she appealed to them for help. They declared that the nation ought to rescue her, and said that they were ready to help within reason.[709]
More definite than this implied censure on Gloucester was another scene enacted within the precincts of Parliament about this time.[710] A woman from the Stocks Market,[711] which occupied the present site of the Mansion House, and was so called from the stocks which stood there, came openly into Parliament, bringing with her some other London women, and handed letters to Gloucester, the two Archbishops and other lords there, censuring the Duke for not taking steps to relieve his wife from her danger, and for leaving her unloved and forgotten in captivity, whilst he was living in adultery with another woman, ‘to the ruin of himself, the kingdom, and the marital bond.’[712] The women of London at this time were apt to assert their right to a voice in public matters. In the very next year we find the wives and daughters of the citizens of Aldgate taking the law into their own hands, and killing a Breton murderer by pelting him with stones and canal mud in spite of the intervention of the constables who were escorting the prisoner to the coast.[713] In this case the victim of the murderer was an old widowed lady who had shown him much charity, and it would seem that it was only in matters which affected their own sex that the London women took an interest. The story of the women’s petition to Parliament is handed down to us in the pages of a chronicler of the friendly house of St. Albans, though the entry has been cancelled by another hand; it therefore helps us to understand the intense sympathy felt in England for Jacqueline, when the men and women of London both came to censure their ‘Good Duke.’
It is possible that news of the ultimate declaration of the Court of Rome had not yet reached England, for we find Jacqueline termed Duchess of Gloucester in an official document of March 18 in this year,[714] but this did not detract from the blame which the Duke had incurred by his neglect of the woman whom he had claimed as his wife for the last six years. We cannot but find the censure of the market-women well deserved. In the hope of increasing his possessions and his power Humphrey had made a questionable marriage with Jacqueline, but this could be forgiven him if, when he had done so, he had been loyal to his wife, who at one time at all events had loved him for himself. It was not the perception of the political complications which would result from further action that restrained him, but the realisation that the prize was not worth the energy needed to win it, coupled with the fact that he had become a slave to what was perhaps the one real passion of his life.
1428] ELEANOR COBHAM
We have seen how Gloucester was accompanied home from Hainault by one of Jacqueline’s English ladies-in-waiting, and how he had fallen a victim to her charms. Eleanor Cobham was of great beauty, so the gossiping Æneas Sylvius tells us, whilst Waurin bears testimony to her wonderful charm and courage,[715] but her honour had been besmirched before Gloucester made her acquaintance.[716] Notwithstanding this, she had gained a complete ascendency over her royal lover, to whom she had probably borne two children by this time, and the superstition of the age did not hesitate to say that it was through potions provided by the Witch of Eye that this ascendency had been secured.[717] Throughout these last years it had been the attractions of this woman that had caused Gloucester to forget Jacqueline, and he now carried his infatuation so far as to marry her. Freed from all obligations to his former wife by papal decree, he hastened to legalise his relations with Eleanor, whence ‘arose shame and more disgrace and inconvenience to the whole kingdom than can be expressed,’ says a contemporary chronicler,[718] whilst a later writer says, ‘and if he wer unquieted with his other pretensed wife, truly he was tenne tymes more vexed by occasion of this woman—so that he began his marriage with evill, and ended it with worse.’[719] Monstrelet also looks askance at the marriage,[720] and even the poet Lydgate raised his voice against the ‘Cyronees,’ who tempted
‘The prynci’s hert against al goddes lawe
Frome heos promesse truwe alle to withdrawe
To straunge him, and make him foule forsworne