Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester: A Biography

by Kenneth Hotham Vickers

Besides gifts to the Abbey, Humphrey gave some of his goods into the keeping of the monks, and at the time of his death many of his jewels were found in their hands.[1126] The presents were not all on his side; we find many entries in the accounts of the monastery recording payment made to the Duke and to his retainers at the time when the renewal of the charter of the Abbey was procured through his mediation with the King.[1127] Soon after this Wheathampsted resigned the Abbey, but before long Humphrey was summoned as chief patron to adjudicate between the late Abbot and his successor, John Stoke, since they had quarrelled over the former’s right of maintenance out of the revenues of the Abbey.[1128] After the retirement of Wheathampsted there is no recorded visit of Gloucester to the Abbey; he seems to have been there for the last time to celebrate the renewal of the Charter in 1440; but he did not forget the monastery of his choice, and less than four years before his death he bequeathed to it the alien Priory of Pembroke, in return for which masses were to be said for his soul and for that of Eleanor his wife.[1129]

ST. ALBANS MONASTERY

As we have seen, it was in St. Albans Abbey that Gloucester found his last resting-place, in a tomb built for him before his death by Abbot Stoke at the considerable cost of £433, 6s. 8d.[1130] The tomb is still to be seen at the south side of the shrine of St. Alban, and though considerably mutilated on the north face, it still remains a very fine specimen of Perpendicular workmanship. It bears Humphrey’s arms with supporters, and the canopied niches above have once held figures, still to be seen on the south side, but impossible to identify, more especially as they seem to have been moved from their original places. It is possible that they are meant to represent the royal benefactors of the Abbey, most of whom would be in some way related to Humphrey. In 1703, while digging a grave for Mr. John Gape, the vault of the tomb was discovered, and the Duke’s body was found ‘preserved in a kind of pickle’ and enclosed in coffins of lead and wood.[1131] The tomb and body became thenceforth one of the sights of the place, and Lady Moira recounts that in 1747 she ‘took from the skull of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, in his vault at St. Albans Abbey a lock of hair which was so perfectly strong that I had it woven into Bath rings.’[1132] Others were no more particular about spoiling the dead than Lady Moira, and in 1789 only the lead coffin and bones were left,[1133] and even some of the last have been removed, and are to be found in the possession of private persons. There are still some of the remains of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, lying in the vault in which they were reverently laid by those who knew and who loved him, and there still may be seen the faded remains of a picture of the Crucifixion painted on the wall at the foot of the coffin.

PRIVATE CHARACTER

Of Gloucester’s personal appearance we have little information. No contemporary gives us any description of him, and though we have some fairly authentic portraits, they are not sufficiently definite to give a clear conception of his personality.[1134] The utmost we can be sure of is that he had a somewhat emaciated face, and was clean shaven. His countenance, so far as we can know it, bears no sign of his individuality, and we must fall back on the scanty notices of the chroniclers for a description of his character. Later generations regarded Humphrey almost as a saint; he is eulogised in the pages of Camden;[1135] all the virtues he obviously lacked are attributed to him by Holinshed;[1136] Hall and Sandford unite in calling him the father of his country;[1137] his biographer, John Cooper, not to be outdone, declares that he was a ‘miracle of wisdom and goodness.’[1138] There seems to have been no divided opinion on the subject, probably due to his undoubted popularity with the people, and a writer who was perhaps born soon after the Duke’s death speaks of his ‘honourable fame and of his ‘liberalite.’[1139] Amongst his contemporaries, too, there is no lack of praise for his merits, though the unrestrained style of later centuries is modified. Mathieu de Coussy declares him to be the wisest, most powerful, and best loved prince in all England,[1140] and even Waurin, the follower of the Duke of Burgundy, turns aside from his account of the quarrel of Gloucester and Duke Philip, to say, ‘car pour verité, sans personne blasmer, il estoit prince de grant virtu, large, courtois sage et très vaillant chevallier de corps, hardy de ceur.’[1141] Wheathampsted, his friend and supporter, was possibly biassed in his favour when he says:

‘Fidior in regno Regi Duce non fuit isto.

Plus ne fide stabilis, aut maior amator honoris.’[1142]

It cannot be doubted that Humphrey had many knightly qualities, and that there are many actions in his life which may be regarded as creditable, if not great. His personal character was spoilt by an entire lack of concentration and purpose. He had no philosophy of life, and no substitute for one. He accepted certain canons of policy and conduct, but could not live up to them, and this weakness was entirely due to the taint in his moral character which made him the victim of his passions. A weakness in itself, this indulgence drained all the life-blood from his actions, and increased year by year his inability to carry out a set purpose. He became more and more a producer of high-flown phrases, which sounded large and meant little owing to the lack of power behind them. This was especially evident in those sporadic bursts of energy during the last few years of his life, and there is much truth in the verdict of Pope Pius II., who declared him to be more suited to a life of letters and lust than to a life of arms, and accused him of never justifying his vast pretensions and of caring more for his life than for his honour.[1143] This unfavourable summary of his character was provoked by Humphrey’s actions in Hainault, and therefore was made under circumstances most unfavourable to him, and at a moment when his conflict with the canon law would colour the judgment of a papal writer. Nevertheless, Pius II. with unerring instinct placed his finger on the weak spot in the Duke’s character, and laid stress on just that element which spoilt his whole life.

CHARACTER

Equally to the point is the sketch given by an anonymous chronicler who wrote in England, one that bears the impress of truth from its obvious impartiality, and sums up the situation in the best possible manner. ‘Duke Humphrey excelled all the princes of the world in knowledge, in comeliness of appearance and in fame, but he possessed an unbalanced mind, was effeminate and given over to sensual pleasures, a tendency which vitiated all his actions, prompted though they were by his many other good qualities. Moreover, he did not desist from his sensual indulgences either at this present time (the time of his marriage to Eleanor), or in the future, for which he received his due reward.’[1144] There could be no juster estimate of the man. That he had exhausted himself by indulgences, even as early as his twenty-fifth year, is established by the testimony of his physician Kymer,[1145] though too much emphasis may be laid on this dietary, for Humphrey was probably passing through a stage very common to young men in his position. To expect strict morals from him in the age in which he lived is to create a public opinion which did not exist, and we must remember that both his brothers Thomas and John left illegitimate children. Nevertheless, much of that instability of character which wrecked his life may be traced to indulgence in his besetting sin, an indulgence which seemed excessive even to his contemporaries, and it may well have been with his great patron in his mind that Lydgate penned the words: