The danger to Church and State was over, and the movement of the man of ‘Wygmoreland’ had been suppressed by the Regent’s quick and decided action, yet the very assumption of this name showed that the House of Lancaster was not free from the danger which had threatened in the Southampton conspiracy of 1415, and in the later pretensions of the Earl of March. The inevitable dynastic struggle was only postponed till a time when a weak and vacillating king in the hands of unintelligent advisers should find himself unable to cope with a movement which this time had been nipped in the bud.

After the execution of ‘Jack Sharpe’ Gloucester visited several other places in the kingdom, making inquisitions concerning certain heretics, traitors, and rebels, and punishing them according to their demerits.[776] Indeed during the Regency executions for illegal acts and Lollardy were frequent; now it was a courtier punished for the misuse of a patent seal, now a Lollard who by his faith threatened the House of Lancaster. All through Humphrey’s justice seems to have been firm and true, and during the time of his government of the kingdom one chronicler at least appears to hint at a more drastic and organised government by the number of executions that he records.[777] At the same time there is no record of any serious disturbance in the kingdom, and the rising of Jack Sharpe is peculiar, not because of its existence, but because of the summary justice meted out to it. By November Humphrey was back again to London and in attendance at the Council. The days of the Regency were now drawing to a close. The King was now, after many delays, on the eve of his coronation in Paris,[778] and his return to England at the beginning of the New Year was certain. With him would come Beaufort and his supporters in the Council, and Gloucester feared that fresh attacks would be made on his position. He therefore prepared to meet them by a counter-movement, to be made whilst he was still governing the country and had a complete ascendency over the Council, and it was to this end that the question of Beaufort’s cardinalate was again raised.

1431] INTRIGUE AGAINST BEAUFORT

At a meeting of the Council on November 6 the King’s Serjeant and Attorney presented a petition which requested that Beaufort should be deprived of his see of Winchester on the ground of his having accepted a cardinal’s hat. In support of this petition it was argued that Archbishops Langham and Kilwardby had been deprived for this reason, and that the good of the kingdom demanded compliance with these precedents. The Regent, who evidently inspired this action on the part of the legal officials of the Crown, asked the Bishop of Worcester whether it was true that the Cardinal had procured from Rome an exemption for himself, his city, and his see from the jurisdiction of the Primate. After much hesitation the Bishop was compelled to acknowledge that the Bishop of Lichfield had told him that he had acted for Beaufort in the purchase of such an exemption from the Pope. After debate the matter was referred to the judges, who were instructed to search the records and give their decision on the legal point. Meanwhile nothing further was to be done till the Cardinal returned to justify his action.[779]

Though to us this attack may seem trivial, and its occurrence, at a time when its object was not in the country to defend himself, unfair, we must not forget that the Cardinal had laid himself open to the gravest suspicion by invoking the interference of Rome in a matter of purely English importance. It is also to be noticed that Beaufort had realised the probability of losing his English benefices when created cardinal, as at the time of his appointment he had procured a papal Bull which enacted that ‘he schuld have an reioyse all the benefyces spirituell and temporell that he hadde had in Englond.’[780] Thus he had laid himself open to the pains and penalties of the statute of Provisors, which forbade the acceptance of letters from the Pope appointing people to benefices in England, and showed that Gloucester’s suspicion that he was using the papal alliance for furtherance of his ambitions at home was fully justified. Jealousy of papal power had ever been one of the chief tenets of the Englishman’s creed, and had a less powerfully connected ecclesiastic than Beaufort ventured on such a step, his punishment would have been swift and sure. Indeed the only voice raised in protest against the action of the Council in this matter was that of the Bishop of Carlisle,[781] a man well known to be a minion of the Beaufort party, and one to whose appointment to his present see both Gloucester and Lord Scrope had objected strongly only a few years before.[782] The decision of the judges seems to have been hostile to the Cardinal, for on November 20 the Council ordered writs of Præmunire and attachment upon the Statute to be sealed against him, though they were not to be executed till the King came back.[783]

Thus Gloucester thought that he had successfully clipped the wings of his rival, and his ascendency in the Council was still further emphasised by a movement to increase his salary as Regent. According to the existing arrangement he received two thousand marks per annum as First Councillor, and four thousand marks whilst he was Regent in the King’s absence. It was the Treasurer, Lord Hungerford, who now proposed in the Great Council, on the same day as the writ of Præmunire was issued, that in consideration of the great expenses that Gloucester had incurred in the past, both in preserving the kingdom from the malice of rebels and traitors, and ‘especially of late concerning the taking and execution of the most horrible heretic and impious traitor to God and the said Lord King, who called himself John Sharp, and of many other heretical malefactors his accomplices,’ he should receive an increase of two thousand marks per annum for his services as Regent, returning to his usual salary when the King came back.[784]

1431] GLOUCESTER’S SALARY INCREASED

That this was an evasion of a demand for increased pay by Gloucester seems to be evident, as the Regency was drawing to a close, and therefore no material benefit would accrue to the Regent by this motion. Moreover, the excuse of the expense of putting down the rising of John Sharp was merely a formal plea, as a payment of five hundred marks had already been made in this respect on July 17.[785] It was not to be expected that Hungerford should propose any measure of great advantage to the Regent, for he had sided throughout with the Chancellor in opposing Gloucester, even as he had been intended to do when appointed to office by the influence of the Beaufort faction. Now he evidently wished to conciliate Humphrey at small expense. Lord Scrope, however, who was a steady supporter of the Regent, proposed an amendment to the effect that Gloucester should have five thousand marks a year in his capacity of First Councillor after the King’s return, as well as the six thousand marks of his proposed salary as Regent. After considerable discussion this last suggestion was agreed to, though it was strongly opposed by Chancellor Kemp, the Bishop of Carlisle, and Lords Harrington, De la Warr, Lovell, and Botreaux. The Treasurer accepted the amendment, probably in the hope of conciliating one who proved to have such strong supporters. One qualification, however, was secured by Gloucester’s opponents, when it was arranged that the salary now voted should cover all expenses he might incur in the King’s service.[786]

The result of all this was a decided victory for the Regent, and he was made secure of an exceedingly handsome allowance, which he felt to be necessary owing to his expensive and luxurious habits, and the charges which he incurred as a patron of letters. The sum was not excessive, for in the past both Bedford and himself had received annual salaries of four to eight thousand marks as First Councillors.[787] Nevertheless this was not a time to wring money from an already depleted exchequer. The Lancastrians had always been poor, and now especially the constant sinking of money into the bottomless morass of the French wars had reduced the dynasty and kingdom to a very low financial state. Once more Gloucester showed that personal gratification was more to him than patriotic considerations. Throughout his regency he had shown the same traits of character we have found in other parts of his career. Administrative power, good government, a determination to punish sedition and violence speedily and efficiently, all may be seen in this brief tenure of office. Criminals were brought to justice; in the face of seething discontent and the growing violence of the barons, peace reigned. Yet, despite all this, the government was subordinate in Humphrey’s eyes to his own personal aggrandisement. He had used his spell of power to strengthen his position in the kingdom irrespective of his executive duties, which were treated more as isolated incidents than as part of a constructive policy. He had taken advantage of the Cardinal’s absence to direct an attack on his position in the kingdom; he had struck at the very foundation of Beaufort’s power when he had tried to deprive him of some of his possessions; he had levelled against him a charge which, if successful, would entail his banishment from the kingdom. At the same time he had taken steps to strengthen his own position by increasing his income, and these monetary considerations remind us of the new era that was dawning, the approach of that time when no longer birth or hereditary position were to define a man’s power, but the length of his purse and his capacity to command the services of others by purchase. Humphrey’s Regency, therefore, is important partly for the added indications of his power of administration, but more so for the stage it marks in his attempt to undermine the power of his great enemy.

1432] RETURN OF HENRY VI.