[43.1] No. 102.
[43.2] No. 79.
[44.1] A value probably equal to about £3000 of our money.
[44.2] Nos. 102, 135.
Fratris Johannis Pasten ... Ordinis Cluniacensis.’
text reads ‘Fratis ... Chuniacensis’
Footnote 41.1: Inquisitions post-mortem, 27 Edw. III.,
comma after “III.” missing
[The Duke of Suffolk]
Fall of the Duke of Suffolk.
As to the causes of Suffolk’s fall we are not left in ignorance. Not only do we possess the full text of the long [45] indictment drawn up against him this year in Parliament, but a number of political ballads and satires, in which he is continually spoken of by the name of Jack Napes, help us to realise the feeling with which he was generally regarded. Of his real merits as a statesman, it is hard to pronounce an opinion; for though, obviously enough, his whole policy was a failure, he himself seems to have been aware from the first that it was not likely to be popular. Two great difficulties he had to contend with, each sufficient to give serious anxiety to any minister whatever: the first being the utter weakness of the king’s character; the second, the practical impossibility of maintaining the English conquests in France. To secure both himself and the nation against the uncertainties which might arise from the vacillating counsels of one who seems hardly ever to have been able to judge for himself in State affairs, he may have thought it politic to ally the king with a woman of stronger will than his own. At all events, if this was his intention, he certainly achieved it. The marriage of Henry with Margaret of Anjou was his work; and from Margaret he afterwards obtained a protection which he would certainly not have received from her well-intentioned but feeble-minded husband.
The king’s marriage.