Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester: A Biography

by Kenneth Hotham Vickers

HOME POLICY

The details of Gloucester’s home government are hard to extract from the central theme of party strife, but more than once we find him the fearless supporter of the arm of the law. The kingdom was in a state of potential upheaval all through the period of his power. Henry IV. might say to his son, when speaking of the crown of England:

‘To thee it shall descend with better quiet,

Better opinion, better confirmation;

For all the soil of the achievement goes

With me into the earth.’[1074]

But this was not true of Henry IV.’s grandson. ‘De male acquisitis non gaudebit tertius heres,’ quotes an old chronicler,[1075] and leaving the ethics of the case aside, this was undoubtedly true of poor misguided Henry VI. Ever since the feudal barriers which restrained the great lords had begun to disappear, the too powerful subject had been a problem to be faced. Henry IV. had found this when confronted with the insurrection of the men who had helped to place him on the throne. The wars of Henry V. had aggravated the danger by increasing the wealth of the nobles, who made fortunes by means of the armed men they provided for the King. With a minor on the throne this development became still more dangerous, and Humphrey had to meet it. He did his best. The pretensions of the Earl of March were nipped in the bud by his dismissal to Ireland: later the quarrel which almost grew into a private war between Norfolk and Huntingdon was interrupted by his action, and his appearance in the neighbourhood doubtless restrained these lords. He issued warnings against the use of retinues of unnecessary strength, and took a personal interest in the precautions which were to ensure peace between the lords who accompanied the King to France. His reputation as an enforcer of the King’s peace must have been great, for at the time when power was slipping from his hands, his enemies agreed to his appointment as Chief-Justice in South Wales, a difficult and unsettled district, and he held the same office at Chester[1076] on the border-land, where the work of the Justice can have been no sinecure. In minor breaches of the peace, such as those of 1427, he showed himself eager to put down all kinds of lawlessness, and by his prompt action he nipped the movement of Jack Sharp in the bud, a movement which, in spite of its insignificant appearance in the pages of history, might well have developed into a rebellion against the House of Lancaster. In all these instances it was by no deputed power that Humphrey enforced the majesty of the law, but by personal exertions and visits to the centres of disturbance.

Nothing bears greater testimony to the success of Gloucester’s rule than the change which came over the state of the country as soon as he was driven from power. Under his government there had been disturbances, but nearly always for some definite reason. When Beaufort became supreme, however, the country degenerated steadily into anarchy, not on account of personal claims or dynastic troubles, but simply because the central government had lost all control over the people. In the west a private war of some magnitude raged between the Earl of Devon and Sir William Bonville, Wales was in revolt, York and Norwich were the scenes of considerable disturbances, Northampton was at war with Lord Grey of Ruthyn, riots occurred in London, Salisbury, and Derbyshire. Beaufort’s firm ally, Archbishop Kemp, was attacked by the men of his diocese and the Earl of [Northumberland], whilst to still further complicate affairs, the finances were in an even worse state than when Gloucester was in power.[1077] If Gloucester was not an ideal ruler, Beaufort and his faction fell still further short of that ideal, and if we judge by results, we must conclude that England was happier and better governed under the ex-Protector, than under the party which supplanted him.

CHARGES OF OPPRESSION

Stern represser of revolt, and enforcer of the law, was Gloucester himself a defaulter in these respects? Accusations to this effect there are, but few and of doubtful importance. In Parliament, together with other lords, he was complained of as illegally exacting the royal right of purveyance,[1078] but his position as heir to the throne may form some excuse for his action, and the complaint was made at a time when his enemies were closing their coils around him. More detailed and circumstantial is an account of how one John Withorne had his lands seized by Gloucester, who claimed him as nativus suus, and was taken off to spend the remaining seven years of his pretended master’s life in prison in Wales. At the end of that time, blind, decrepit, a wreck of humanity, he was released by the order of the King.[1079] The story may be true, but it dates from immediately after the death of Gloucester, and looks suspiciously like an attempt by his enemies to justify their opposition to him, a theory supported by the mention of Wales, that wild land whence he was to lead his mythical hordes to dethrone the King, and establish himself in his nephew’s place. Further there are the charges of undue severity imposed on prisoners recorded as part of his indictment by some later chroniclers,[1080] but the strongest argument against this and all other charges is to be found in the fact that there are not the slightest signs of a genuine detailed indictment of the Duke by his enemies, who had to rest content with poisoning the King’s mind with regard to his uncle. Nevertheless some truth may be found in the story of the imprisoned villein, for rapacity was a vice which Humphrey shared with his uncle of Winchester, and an anonymous chronicler tells us how his wife Eleanor wrongfully deprived the Hospital of St. John of Pontefract of certain lands belonging to them.[1081] This fact is attested by a grant dated February 27, 1447, whereby certain lands in Norfolk, including the Manor of Sculthorpe, lately belonging to Gloucester, were given to the Hospital of St. John,[1082] and when we remember that Sir Robert Knollys, the founder of this institution, lived and died at the manor-house of Sculthorpe, the probability of the charge becomes a certainty.