1429] CORONATION OF HENRY VI

Bedford, however, wanted more than reinforcements. In the face of the French successes under the influence of the enthusiasm engendered by the Maid of Orleans, and the favour with which Frenchmen generally were beginning to look on the hitherto despised cause of the ‘King of Bourges,’ it was necessary to do something to rehabilitate the Lancastrian cause in France. It was with this object that the Regent earnestly asked the English Council to send the little King to be crowned at Paris.[745] When Parliament met on September 22 it agreed to comply with this request, and preparations were rapidly made so that Henry’s coronation in England might first take place. Gloucester naturally took a large share in these preparations; it was always with zest that he arranged a great function. On October 10 he was appointed to act as Steward of England for the occasion,[746] whilst he was allowed to appoint a deputy to perform his duties as Great Chamberlain.[747]

It was on St. Leonard’s Day, Sunday, November 6, that the coronation took place, shorn of some of its glories by reason of the haste with which preparations for it had been made. Archbishop Chichele, assisted by the Cardinal Bishop of Winchester, who had returned from France for the occasion, performed the ceremony, which ended with a banquet in Westminster Hall, such as Gloucester had supervised nearly ten years before on the occasion of Queen Catherine’s coronation.[748]

CHAPTER VI
GLOUCESTER AS FIRST COUNCILLOR

The coronation of Henry VI. had its significance at home as well as abroad; for Gloucester it meant the abandonment of the title which he had held since the death of Henry V. The festivities were barely over when Parliament declared that, since the King was now crowned, he had taken the responsibility of the government on himself, and that therefore the Protectorate was at an end: on November 15 Humphrey resigned his office, stipulating that by this action he did not prejudice the right of his brother Bedford.[749] In this premature ending of the Protectorate we cannot fail to see the hand of Beaufort and the jealousy of the Regency Council. To say that a child, who had not attained the age of eight, had become capable of governing the country simply because a ceremony, which might have been performed with equal justice seven years earlier, had taken place, was on the face of it absurd. It may be that Beaufort had suggested the coronation to Bedford when he was in France with this end in view; certainly this summary ending of the Protectorate shows that the Council were determined to limit the power of the man who was nominally at the head of affairs, thereby hoping to increase their own importance. The lords had just told Gloucester that the title of Protector was nothing but a title, and now they proceeded to take away even that, and to reduce him to the rank of First Councillor. There was neither logic nor policy in this action. Whilst it could not serve to help on the good government of the kingdom, it only added another reason for the discontent and factiousness of the man it was meant to curb.

We find Gloucester’s protest against his compulsory resignation of the Protectorate in this very same Parliament, when it was questioned whether a cardinal had a right to be a member of the Council. Beaufort secured another victory when the Lords decided that not only was it allowable but very desirable that he should attend the meetings of the Council on all occasions, except when matters connected with the Papal See were under discussion.[750]

1430] THE FORTY SHILLING FRANCHISE

The Bishop of Winchester had now considerably more power than his rival, and we may see traces of the antipathy to Gloucester prevalent amongst the Lords of Parliament in a famous measure passed in the second session of this same Parliament. The representatives of the counties in Parliament were chosen in the County Court, and Henry IV. had taken steps to make this representation adequately reflect the wishes of all who had access to that court. A reaction against this wide qualification for the franchise now set in, and it was ordained that none but those who possessed a freehold of the value of forty shillings a year, and resided within the county, could vote for the knights of the shire who sat in Parliament.[751] It is to be noticed that, whilst driving the theory of constitutional government to an extreme, Parliament was now limiting the possibilities of its claim to represent the nation: the reason is obvious. The more limited the franchise, the more powerful would be the lords who desired to rule the country, and the less powerful would be Gloucester, who numbered his supporters amongst the rank and file of the commonalty now excluded from the franchise. The Bill spoke of the riot and disturbance caused ‘by great attendance of people of small substance and no value whereof every of them pretended a voice equivalent, as to such elections, with the most worthy knights and squires resident,’[752] and the true meaning of this complaint does not lie far below the surface. Humphrey may be indicted on many counts, but he cannot be said to have championed the lords against the people. What strength he had was based on his personal popularity with the ‘people of small substance,’ and his opponents were the men who, working under the pretence of desiring a stronger Parliament, were attempting to secure absolute domination over the country. Having secured a preponderance in the kingdom, they proceeded to quarrel among themselves, since the inevitable result of conciliar government was at this time civil war. Gloucester, with all his faults, stood for the rights of the people, not perhaps from disinterested motives, but because the people were ready to support him. Neither lords nor commons had an exclusive right to govern the kingdom during a minority, nor had they the political capacity to do so, but this limitation of the franchise was a measure aimed by the nobility at Gloucester and the commons at once. Supported by Beaufort, who thought himself able to control them, the lords shut the door on those who alone could check their turbulence, and weakened the position of a man, who with a less limited power might have given strength to the kingdom and dynasty, even although he was almost entirely selfish in his aims. Beaufort was not able to control them, and the ultimate result of their quarrels was civil war.