Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester: A Biography

by Kenneth Hotham Vickers

Falshode, myschef, secret synne upholdyng,

Whiche hathe caused in Engeland endeley langoure.’[1066]

The government of Henry VI., or rather that of those who had his ear, was already unpopular, and we have seen how still more hostile to it the nation became after 1447, and how Humphrey’s reputation increased as that of his opponent’s diminished. Jack Cade invoked the name of Gloucester as one of the justifications of his hostility to the Government, and it is a significant fact that the three men who were suspected of complicity in the murder, namely Suffolk, Adam Moleyns, and Lord Saye de Sele, all met violent deaths at the hands of the people.

But mere unpopularity was not the worst danger which the Government had to fear, as a result of Gloucester’s death, and to understand this aspect of the matter we must recall the history of the two parties in the State since the death of Henry V. The reign of Henry VI. had opened with a declaration of party war. From the first there had been two distinct parties in the kingdom, each fighting to secure the supreme control, the one headed by Gloucester, the other by Cardinal Beaufort, both of whom were members of the House of Lancaster, though the latter’s family was excluded from succession to the throne. Gloucester’s position as ‘lymyted protector,’ as a contemporary ballad writer calls it,[1067] had been at once a source of some strength to him and a point of attack for his enemies. Throughout the period of the King’s minority the struggle had been for the control of the Council of Regency, Gloucester asserting his privileges as Protector, Beaufort denying them and trying to secure further limitations of his power. So the struggle had worn on with varying success, till with Henry’s coronation in 1429 the Protectorate had come to an end. Thenceforward the contest had been between the same parties on a somewhat different field. Henry, as he gradually increased in understanding and knowledge, had been besieged by Gloucester and Beaufort, each trying to influence him in his own favour, and so it had continued till the great triumph of the Beaufort policy in the release of the Duke of Orleans and the marriage of the King to Margaret of Anjou. Hereafter the scene had changed. The Bishop of Winchester had passed out of public life,[1068] leaving the control of his party to his two nephews, John and Edmund, successively Dukes of Somerset. The Earl of Suffolk, apart from the fact that he was the ablest member of the Beaufort faction, is a negligible quantity in this history of party division. On the other hand, the Duke of York had come to the front as the opponent of the Beauforts and as a follower of Duke Humphrey, though he never came anywhere near to supplanting the latter as leader of the opposition to the existing state of government.

Throughout this long struggle, hostile as it was to the peace of the kingdom and to the good government of either party, there had never been on either side any suggestion of hostility to the House of Lancaster as such. Were not both leaders members of that House, and were not their best interests bound up with the preservation of the throne to Henry VI.? The fall of the King would have meant annihilation for both of them, and not for a moment had the possibility of such a thing occurred to the rivals. They had forgotten the shakiness of the Lancastrian House; they had forgotten the claims of York; they had forgotten that the present Duke of York was the son of a condemned plotter against the throne. Their rivalry had been merely one of ambitious men who strove for the mastery, the one with the claim of seniority, the other with the claim of a personal stake in the welfare of the kingdom. The story of that long-protracted struggle is not creditable to either Beaufort or Gloucester, though we must remember that the challenge had come from the former, who was excluded from the succession and had no such claim to have a preponderating influence in the kingdom as had the brother of Henry V. The Cardinal Bishop of Winchester has appealed to the sympathy of posterity by reason of his supposed constitutional attitude, but his pose cannot be taken seriously. Keen to see his own advantage, he had supported the rights of the Council merely as a means to curtail the power of the Protector, and thereby increase his own, but whether we take his constitutional attitude seriously or not, we must condemn his policy. On the other hand, Gloucester inadvertently had stumbled on a policy, which was the only possible one that could save England from internal disorder. In claiming the fullest powers as Protector he had probably no idea beyond asserting what he considered to be his just and legal rights, and obtaining a position which would satisfy his ambitious nature; but his policy was sound. The one hope for England was a government concentrated in the hands of one man, who would not be hampered by opposition at the very fountainhead of justice, who would be able to deal out summary retribution to the wrong-doer. Under these conditions the government of Henry VI.’s favourites would not have become a byword in the country, and have given a handle to the rival House of York.

Thus the rivalry of Beaufort and Gloucester was more personal than political, in no sense was it dynastic, and though it weakened the hold of the House of Lancaster on the country, yet in itself it did not threaten the throne of Henry VI. Still less was this the case when the Beaufort faction had won their final victory, and had definitely placed Gloucester in permanent opposition, where he acted as safety-valve to the reigning dynasty. Just as so many years later the House of Hanover was strengthened by the opposition of successive Princes of Wales, so did Gloucester’s opposition secure the House of Lancaster. He, it must be remembered, was heir to the throne, for the marriage of Henry VI. had not yet produced a son who would supplant him. Round him the discontented elements in the nation circled, the Duke of York and his following owned him as their leader. In the country at large he was still popular, and no faction could rise to drive Henry from his throne with any prospect of success if it had not the support of ‘the good Duke Humphrey.’ On the other hand, the Duke of York and his claim had to be kept in the background so long as Gloucester stood as heir to the throne and leader of the opposition to the maladministration of the governing clique. Moreover, the adhesion of York to Gloucester’s party was a guarantee against civil war, for those two men who worked together had totally antagonistic claims to the throne of England.

We have here the chief reason why the death of Humphrey was at the same time the death-blow to the House of Lancaster. The Duke of York was not dangerous so long as Humphrey lived, for though their interests in the kingdom were divergent, they had acted together through the last years of Beaufort’s domination. Both alike had been excluded from the Council of the King, and both alike had made common cause in the name of order and a different policy. We have seen the various shifts which had been used to minimise Gloucester’s influence with the King, York had been intrigued against by the Beauforts whilst in command in France, and finally he had been sent off to Ireland, so that he could not make his voice felt in the councils of the nation.[1069] His connection with the King’s uncle was of long standing. Gloucester had held the guardianship of the lands that he inherited from the Earl of March, he had supported him in 1437, when it was proposed to put the Earl of Warwick in his place as Commander-in-Chief of the army in France,[1070] and he had complained bitterly in his indictment of Cardinal Beaufort that the Duke of York had been alienated from the King.[1071] In return for this the Yorkist party had supported Gloucester in opposition; after his death they helped to bring home the guilt of his murder to those who had contrived it, and as soon as they obtained the ascendency they vindicated his memory by a public act. In the Parliament which met after the first battle of St. Albans, under the auspices of the Duke of York, the question of Humphrey’s good fame, which had often been unsuccessfully mooted before, was again raised; a petition was framed by the Commons asking the King, in remembrance of his uncle’s services to the Crown, and of the fact that he had been accused of treason by certain wicked persons, to declare the aspersions cast on his good name to be unfounded. This petition, quite spontaneous on the part of the Commons, was taken up by the Duke of York, and by his help and favour it was granted.[1072] This attitude on the part of York has its significance. It was a declaration that the policy which he espoused, the policy of good government and justice, was the policy of Humphrey; it was a party cry too, an appeal to the favour of the people, who believed that the good Duke had done his utmost for the good government of the kingdom.

HAINAULT POLICY

When we come to examine the facts of the case, and the right which Gloucester had to the reputation for good government, we must confess that, though the adulation of the seventeenth-century chroniclers may seem excessive, it is no more exaggerated than the obloquy which has been heaped on his memory by more recent historians. His campaign in Hainault and his whole policy in that matter, quite apart from his behaviour to Jacqueline, is worthy of the heaviest censure. Blind to the effects of his actions, he did nothing to minimise them when he had tardily realised the possible alienation of Burgundy from the English Alliance. He had allowed his personal interests and ambition to take precedence of the advantage of his native country. Yet even here we must reflect before we ascribe all the failures of the English in France to his action. Signs are not wanting after the death of Henry that the Duke of Burgundy was not the warm supporter of his English allies that he had been in the past; the English also were not devoted to the Burgundian alliance, the Earl Marshal made no objection to leading the Hainault expedition, and the Earl of Salisbury, enraged by an outrage offered to his wife, came over to offer his services to Gloucester.[1073] Nor did the Council treat the matter very seriously. Humphrey on his return received no reprimand, despite the statement to this effect by certain foreign chroniclers. If Gloucester erred, he did so along with much of the public opinion of his time, and had he proved more faithful to the course he had undertaken, one might be inclined to judge his line of action in Hainault less hardly. Nevertheless, apart from all matters of foreign policy, he must be condemned for leaving his infant nephew at home unguarded save by a man whom he most profoundly distrusted. This, far more than the more obvious count of alienating Burgundy, must condemn him in our eyes, if we look at the matter from his point of view.

Apart from this lapse from honour and wisdom in his government of the country as Protector, what shall we say of Gloucester’s action in home policy? To deny the evil effects of the struggle for power between himself and the Cardinal Bishop of Winchester would be to blind ourselves to a clear historical truth, but we must remember—and in the light of the modern judgment on Humphrey it cannot too often be reiterated—that the struggle did not originate with him. He claimed the Protectorate as his right, even as Bedford did, and it cannot be said to have been a more ambitious move on the part of the one brother than on that of the other. It was the late King’s wish that he should be Protector, and it was a wise arrangement. He distrusted Humphrey’s capacity as a general with an independent command, but he had reason to believe that the man who had governed England quietly and well for him, was the proper person to whom to confide the kingdom during his son’s minority. Apart from that disastrous struggle for supremacy over his uncle the Cardinal and his party, how did Humphrey comport himself as Protector, and later as chief Councillor?