During the reign of Henry IV. Humphrey took no definite part in public life; however, we find record of one official appearance when, with his brothers, he agreed to observe the treaty made in 1412 between the King of England and the Dukes of Berri, Orleans, and Bourbon.[33] At the time of his father’s death he was present at Westminster, and accompanied the body in its journey down the river to Gravesend, and thence overland to Canterbury. After the funeral he returned with his brother, now King Henry V., to London.[34] At the very beginning of the new reign he was made Chamberlain of England,[35] an office which entailed his presence at court ‘at the five principall festes of the yeare to take suche lyvery and servyse after the estate he is of,’[36] and added yet further to his already extensive possessions lands situated in South Wales,[37] together with an annuity of five hundred marks for himself and the heirs male of his body, till such time as an equivalent in land was given him.[38] Personal danger there was, too, even as there had been when Henry IV. ascended the throne; an abortive rising of the Lollards threatened for a moment the lives of the King and his brothers.[39]

The accession of Henry V. increased his youngest brother’s dignity, for besides bringing him a step nearer to the throne, it placed him more on an equality of age and standing with those in whose hands the government of the country rested. It may be, too, that the death of his father changed his future life materially, for his entire absence from all political functions, and his inactivity, whilst his brothers, little older than himself, had taken an active part in the management of public affairs, suggest the impression that he was not destined for a political career. Moreover, for the first year of his brother’s reign, Humphrey de Lancaster, as he had hitherto been styled,[40] does not appear at all prominently in public life, and it was not till he was twenty-three years old—for those times a somewhat advanced age—that he took his place definitely among the great men of the kingdom. On May 16, 1414, letters-patent were issued creating him Earl of Pembroke and Duke of Gloucester, at the same time that his brother John was made Earl of Kendal and Duke of Bedford. Though only raised to the peerage at this time, John had already taken his share in the duties of government, and before this had represented the King in several important offices of trust. The peerage thus conferred on Humphrey was for life only, and was accompanied by a modest allowance of £60 to be paid out of the proceeds of the county of Pembroke; of this £40 was for the maintenance of his dignity as Duke, and the remaining £20 in respect of his Earldom.[41] At once the new duke passed from insignificance to prominence. He had had no education in the duties and responsibilities of high rank and executive power, but by a stroke of the pen he became one of the chief men of the kingdom, and by reason of his royal blood took precedence in the peerage and in the kingdom of the holders of titles of longer standing.[42]

1414] HENRY V.’s FRENCH POLICY

Humphrey was not slow to enter upon the duties of his new rank, and on the very day of his elevation to the peerage he took his seat in the Parliament then sitting at Leicester.[43] Here he witnessed the enactment of severe measures for the repression of the Lollards,[44] in pursuance of a policy which he himself was later to carry out: heresy, it must be remembered, was under the Lancastrians a political danger, for Henry IV. had usurped the throne as the champion of the Church. It may be, too, that the newly created duke took part in a debate which dealt with matters of more pressing interest. It has been said that the negotiations which were proceeding with France were discussed at this time, but the Rolls of Parliament bear no record of this; be this as it may, the question of English relations with France had appeared on the horizon to herald that second phase of the Hundred Years’ War, which, beginning in all its glory with the first appearance of Humphrey of Gloucester in public life, was to end with its full complement of disgrace and disaster almost simultaneously with his life.

To Henry at Leicester had come ambassadors from France—two rival embassies in the interest of the two rival factions in that country. With an insane king at the head of affairs, France was distraught by the struggle of Burgundian and Armagnac for the control of the government. The origin of this bitter strife dated some years back to the murder of the Duke of Orleans in the streets of Paris at the instigation of the Duke of Burgundy, in revenge, it is said, for the seduction of his wife by the murdered man.[45] This personal hatred had rapidly developed into a political struggle, and it had continued with varying successes till at the present time Burgundy had been driven from Paris and declared to be a rebel and an enemy to the kingdom. Thus the Armagnac faction, as the party of the Orleanists was now called, was for the time supreme, and it may naturally be supposed that Henry V., if he wished to take advantage of these internal dissensions in the French kingdom, would hope to secure more favourable terms from the exiled party, than from those who held the supremacy. Thus at Leicester the envoys from the Duke of Burgundy received a warmer welcome than their rivals, and agreed to sign a defensive and offensive treaty with the English King, whereby their master promised to help Henry in any attack he might make on Armagnac territory.[46] The terms of this treaty, however, were not revealed, and Burgundy denied the existence of any hostile alliance when he came to a temporary agreement with the Armagnac faction at the Treaty of Arras in February 1415.[47] The King of England, too, did not cease to intrigue with both parties, for he was not slow to realise the advantage which these dissensions gave him. He had meddled in French politics before he came to the throne, not always to his father’s satisfaction, and now in the spirit of the old crusaders he meant to take advantage of the sins of France, while at the same time he fulfilled a divine commission to punish the transgressors. In him France was to find her true redeemer, the healer of her internal wounds, and to this end he continued his intrigues with both parties, offering to marry both Catherine of France and Catherine of Burgundy as a means to establish his purely illusory claim to the French throne.[48]

1414] GLOUCESTER’s FOREIGN POLICY

Meanwhile, in England, men’s minds were turning to war. The martial glories of Edward III.’s reign were not entirely forgotten, and the trade interests of the kingdom were not inclined to oppose a policy which might tend to stop the depredations of French privateers. The Church, if not absolutely encouraging the war, as has been asserted by later writers, did nothing to oppose it; dissentients there were, of course, but for the King’s councillors the only question was, with the help of which party should Henry enter France. The King himself, with Bedford and the Beauforts, looked to Burgundy as the most likely ally, whilst Clarence, supported by Gloucester and the Duke of York, favoured an Armagnac alliance.[49] This divided opinion was a renewal of the disagreements which had arisen in the court of Henry IV. The younger Henry had always inclined to the Burgundian alliance which his father had opposed, and which now was no more favoured by his two brothers. In the career of Humphrey it is interesting to note that on the first occasion on which he definitely asserted his opinion he found himself in opposition to the policy of the Beauforts, who were to be his bitterest enemies through life, and in alliance with the House of York, the only family which supported him in the later years of humiliation. Above all, we must not ignore the fact that he here showed his distrust of Burgundian methods and Burgundian policy, and that he now opposed an alliance with a house whose strongest enmity he was to incur at a later date; that, on the other hand, he advised an Armagnac alliance which was to form an essential part of his policy in the days when this King Henry’s son was seeking to strengthen himself by a French marriage. Nothing could give a more accurate forecast of his future life and policy than the line which Humphrey took on this question, and it helps to give a strange consistency to his career; to borrow something akin to prophecy from the darkness of the unknown future.

It is probable that, in spite of his embassies and overtures, Henry never expected to come to terms with either party; at any rate his demands from the French King were too preposterous to be taken seriously as an overture of peace,[50] and at home he never ceased to prepare for war on a large scale. Ships were secured from Holland and Zealand; money and munitions of war were collected for the great undertaking; indentures were entered into with the chief men of the kingdom to serve abroad with the King, and amongst these we find the names of the Dukes of Clarence, Gloucester, and York.[51] With these preparations the time wore on, Humphrey taking his share of the work. In April he appears as a member of the King’s Privy Council for the first time,[52] and in the previous March he was employed to bring home to the city fathers the immense advantages of English aggrandisement on the Continent. Accompanied by the Dukes of Bedford and York, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Winchester, he went to the Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London, and, showing great deference to these civic magnates, joined his associates in persuading them to support the war with a substantial gift of money.[53] Thus early in his career he was brought into close contact with the Londoners, who were to prove his best and most faithful friends.

Though preparations for war had gone so far, negotiations with France were still pending. The Dauphin, who had taken the place of his demented father, after exasperating the English with his present of tennis balls in the previous year,[54] had taken no steps to meet the danger which threatened his country, and it was only at the instance of the Duke of Berri, whom he had recently called to his councils, that an embassy was despatched to meet Henry at Winchester on June 30.[55] The King was holding his court in the bishop’s palace, and there, with his three brothers standing on his right and Chancellor Beaufort on his left, he received the ambassadors with all pomp and ceremony. Both this and the next day were occupied with formal receptions, wherein Gloucester was specially prominent, for he alone of all the temporal peers was allotted a special seat at the official banquet, being placed on the King’s right hand. When business began in earnest the Archbishop of Bourges and the Bishop of Lisieux—‘vir verbosus et arrogans,’ says Walsingham—were spokesmen for the French, whilst Beaufort spoke for the King of England. The negotiations lasted till July 6, and were marked by a somewhat more conciliatory attitude on the English side, but from the first they were doomed to failure, for neither party meant to give way,[56] and at length Henry broke up the meeting and dismissed the envoys with every courteous attention.[57]

1415] THE SOUTHAMPTON CONSPIRACY