8
Despite his efforts, Henry had raised very little money to pay for his wedding. He had pawned the crown jewels, but then realised he needed them for the ceremony, and was forced instead to pawn some of his personal jewellery and plate to retrieve them.
On 23 April 1445 Henry VI married ‘the most noble Lady Margaret’ in a quiet ceremony at the abbey of the Premonstratensian monks at Titchfield in Hampshire. The ‘venerable Master William Ayscough, Bishop of Salisbury’ and confessor to the King, officiated and gave the young couple his blessing. Henry placed on Margaret’s finger a ring set with an enormous ruby which had been given to him at the time of his coronation by Bishop Beaufort. Margaret also received an original wedding gift from an unknown admirer – a lion, which was brought to her at the abbey and then promptly dispatched at considerable expense to the royal menagerie at the Tower of London.
After the wedding the King and Queen spent several nights at Titchfield Abbey, and the Charter Rolls record that the abbot and convent were well rewarded for their hospitality. The chronicler John Capgrave, for whom Henry VI could do no wrong, predicted that ‘this marriage will be pleasing to God and the realm, because that peace and abundant crops came to us through it’. The marriage itself looked not to be so fruitful. Henry was twenty-three, Margaret sixteen; their wedding night is not likely to have seen the flowering of any grand passion, since the King’s confessor, Bishop Ayscough, had warned him against self-indulgence and having his ‘sport’ with his bride, advising him not to ‘come nigh her’ any more than was necessary for the procreation of heirs. As Margaret did not produce an heir for eight years, we may conclude that Henry took his confessor’s advice to heart.
Others were not so immune to his wife’s charm, for all contemporary sources agree that Margaret was beautiful. Chastellain called her the exemplification of ‘all that is majestic’ in woman, and one of the most beautiful women in the world. ‘She was indeed a very fair lady, altogether well worth the looking at, and of high bearing withal.’ She had, he added, excellent manners. A Milanese envoy described Margaret as ‘a most handsome woman, though somewhat dark’. Whether he meant her hair – which was very long – or her skin is not clear, but the surviving manuscript illustrations of Margaret portray her as blonde or auburn-haired; the ambassador, however, had seen her, the illustrators had probably not.
The best surviving representation of Margaret of Anjou is a head and shoulders profile relief on a medal struck in 1463 by Pietro di Milano and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. A copy is in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Both show Margaret with upswept hair wearing a crown. This sitter bears more than a passing resemblance to a noble lady painted by René of Anjou in a tournament scene in his manuscript Le Livre de Tournois, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale. This lady is evidently of high rank, for she is attended by a bevy of well-dressed ladies, and is shown standing at the right of the page, inspecting the helms of jousters. Did René here depict his own daughter? It is tempting to think so.
Margaret appears in several authenticated manuscript illustrations. The most famous is one in which she and Henry VI are being presented with an illuminated copy of John Talbot’s Poems and Romances; it dates from c. 1450-3 and is now among the King’s MSS in the British Library. There is a fanciful portrayal of Margaret’s wedding in the Royal MSS in the British Library, and a beautiful picture of her and Henry kneeling before the altar in Eton College chapel in the manuscript of Ranulf Higden’sPolychronicon, now in Eton College Library. Margaret appears as an older woman, hooded and at prayer, in a manuscript owned by the Worshipful Company of Skinners of the City of London, of whose guild – then the Fraternity of Our Lady’s Assumption – she was patron.
There are fifteenth-century carvings of Henry and Margaret at Lambeth Palace in London. A corbel head said to portray Margaret is in the porch of the parish church of Henley-in-Arden, while her head and Henry’s are shown in relief on a five-hundred-year-old bell that once hung in Valle Crucis Abbey in North Wales and is now at Great Ness Church, Shropshire. In nearby Wrockwardine Church is an ancient chair carved with an illustration of Queen Margaret confronting a robber, a famous episode from the Wars of the Roses. Finally, there is a stained-glass window in the church of the Cordeliers at Angers, showing Margaret kneeling in prayer, but this is an eighteenth-century copy of a fifteenth-century original.
Margaret’s mother and grandmother were strong, capable women, and she took after them in many respects. She was intelligent and courageous and had great strength of character, which was apparent even in her youth. Charles, Duke of Orléans was of the opinion that ‘this woman excelled all others, as well in beauty as in wit, and was of stomach and courage more like to a man than to a woman.’ She was talented and valiant, but she had also inherited the hauteur and pride of her royal forebears, and could be domineering, ruthless, autocratic, hot-blooded and impulsive. She had a quick temper, and her changeable moods often irritated her male contemporaries, who complained that she would often change her mind ‘like a weathercock’. She could be vindictive, quick to repay the smallest slight or insult, and was therefore not a person to be trifled with.
Margaret’s native tongue was French, but she quickly learned to speak English well, applying herself with her usual energy to the task of learning the language of her adopted land. She was highly literate and particularly loved the works of Boccaccio, which were in light-hearted contrast to the pious tomes that made up her husband’s reading matter.
Margaret quickly became the dominant partner in the marriage. She had energy and drive enough for two, and Henry accepted her tutelage without protest; he had, after all, been dominated since infancy by a succession of strong characters, and Margaret was another such. Blacman says that Henry ‘kept his marriage vow wholly and sincerely, even in the absences of the lady’, which in later years ‘were sometimes very long’, through force of circumstances. Nor, ‘when they lived together, did he use his wife unseemly, but with all honesty and gravity’. He was a generous husband, anxious to ensure that Margaret lacked for nothing. She seems to have conceived a genuine affection for Henry, referring to him in her letters as ‘my most redoubted lord’.
In many ways they were unsuited: Margaret was in most respects the complete antithesis of Henry, and probably viewed his willingness to forgive his enemies and opponents as a weakness. Instinctively, she began to shoulder his burdens and responsibilities, and he let her, being content to allow someone else to take the initiative. Nevertheless, from the first they were deeply loyal to each other, spending as much time as possible together.
The physical side of marriage was of no great importance to Henry at least, and here again he was failing in his duty as king, for it was a king’s responsibility to provide for the succession. This failure rebounded on Margaret in time, for in that age infertility in a marriage was regarded as a dereliction of duty on the part of the wife. In a queen such a lack was a national disaster, for the provision of an heir was crucial to the well-being and stability of the realm.
The royal marriage represented a triumph for Beaufort and Suffolk, but the English people in general did not want peace with France: they wanted glorious victories and conquests against their old enemy. The young Margaret represented a peace they regarded as ignominious, and they disliked her for it. Later, when it brought England only defeat and humiliation, she was held responsible, however unjustly. In addition her belief in the peace policy strengthened Henry’s resolve to pursue it in the face of public opposition.
And there was much of that. Later it would be said that, from the time of his marriage, King Henry never profited. Gloucester seized every opportunity to voice his disapproval and, although he was not, to begin with, personally hostile to Margaret, he did his best to engender distrust of her in the minds of the people. As a result of this, and the inbred Francophobia of the English, the marriage was never popular. Gloucester, and many others, felt that the truce constituted a threat to England, in that it gave the French time in which to re-arm and plan a decisive assault on England’s remaining territories in France. Nor would this have been difficult, for during the years of truce the English forces in France were in some disorder, lacking consistent or effective leadership and undermined by lawlessness and lack of discipline.
The royal marriage also led to increasing bitterness between court factions. From the first Margaret identified herself vigorously with Beaufort’s party, in the belief that she was helping her husband. By her willingness to support a particular faction she did much to exacerbate the divisions in court and household. Automatically placing herself in opposition to Gloucester and York, she thus, probably in youthful ignorance, made enemies of both of them.
In the opinion of the Duke of Orléans, ‘England had never seen a queen more worthy of a throne than Margaret of Anjou. It seemed as if she had been formed by Heaven to supply to her royal husband the qualities which he required in order to become a great king.’ The Milanese ambassador wrote in awe-inspired tones of ‘the magnificence of the Queen of England’. From the first, Margaret was every inch a queen, having a commanding presence and a haughty manner. Etiquette at her court was rigorously formal. Duchesses, and even princes of the blood, were obliged to approach the Queen on their knees, and on one occasion the mayor of Coventry found that when he was escorting Margaret from his city he was expected to carry his mace of office, which he had only hitherto done for the King.
Margaret’s motto was ‘Humble and loyal’, but she was also ambitious and loved power for its own sake. She used her rank and influence to secure the advancement of her favourites, and thereby ensured that the court party remained dominant. Headstrong and inexperienced, she was unable to assess the damage she was doing to her reputation. In France and Italy, where she had spent her formative years, rule by factions was accepted as a necessary evil, but in England it was bitterly resented. Unfortunately, Margaret never learned to understand the prejudices and fears of her husband’s subjects, and would not have paid much heed to them even if she had, believing that it was not their place to question the decisions made by their betters.
Not since the time of Isabella, the ‘She-Wolf of France’, wife of Edward II, in the early fourteenth century, had a queen of England ventured to involve herself to any degree in politics. Margaret made it clear from the first that she was to be no passive consort, content to remain in her husband’s shadow. She had a fine brain and meant to use it, even though the business of government was then considered to be a male preserve. By thrusting herself forward and taking the initiative on the King’s behalf, Margaret confirmed the suspicions of those who suspected that she would have preferred the ineffectual Henry to concentrate his energies exclusively on his prayers and his foundations, so that she could get on with the serious business of ruling England in his name.
The Queen’s willingness to involve herself in politics drew much adverse comment from all classes. It did not, of course, happen overnight, but was a gradual process. The more she discovered just how inept Henry was, the more she was driven to make decisions for him. She certainly had enough self-confidence to do so. But until 1453, when the whole political scene shifted and changed, Margaret’s opponents, despite their criticisms, were not overly concerned about her influence because she was childless and would have no power whatsoever if the King died. She herself seems to have realised this, and until then she trod a fairly cautious path, aware of the precariousness of her situation.
Margaret made the most of the financial advantages of her position. Despite the state of the treasury, she did not lack for material comforts, although she spent comparatively little on herself. She wasted no time in obtaining a licence to export wool and tin wherever she pleased, thereby evading customs duty and the strict rules of the Merchants of the Staple at Calais. As the Paston Letters confirm, ‘she spareth no pain to sue her things to an intent and conclusion for her power’. She did, however, attempt, with some success, to boost England’s wool trade by importing skilled craftsmen from Flanders and Lyon, and she also tried to introduce silk weaving into England, bringing in foreign weavers, encouraging women to join the trade, and becoming patron of the Sisterhood of Silk Women, a guild based in Spitalfields, London.*3 Margaret also paid for the fitting out of English merchant ships destined for ports in the Mediterranean.
The Queen’s Wardrobe Book for the year 1452-3 survives. It shows that she did not lavish large sums on clothes. The only items she bought were bolts of silk and cloth of gold, which were imported from Venice and cost £72.12s.6d. (£72.62½), and jewellery and items of goldsmiths’ work amounting to £125.10s.0d. (£125.50). These were, of course, luxury items, but a queen was expected to attire herself in a manner worthy of her rank, for it was an age that set much store by outward appearances.
Margaret attended Mass daily and offered 4d on each occasion, unless it was a holy day or royal anniversary, when she gave more. She patronised many charities and gave liberally to them, as well as giving financial help to members of her household who were ill or getting married, or to those who had suffered bad luck, such as the two Newmarket men whose stable had burned down during a royal visit; to them, she gave £13.6s.8d. (£13.33).
Margaret is often credited with being the foundress of Queen’s College, Cambridge, but this is not strictly true. The college was founded in 1446 as St Bernard’s College by Andrew Docket, Rector of St Botolph’s, Cambridge, who urged Margaret to become patroness the following year. Margaret petitioned the King to grant a new charter to the college and rename it Queen’s College. In 1448 Henry did this, donating a sum of £200, but it was Docket who bore the lion’s share of the cost of the foundation. There is no evidence that the Queen gave any financial endowment, although she certainly took an interest in the college, sending her chamberlain, Sir John Wenlock, to lay the foundation stone of its chapel in 1448.
Wenlock is listed in Margaret’s Wardrobe Book as the head of her household, earning £40 per annum. The Queen maintained a large establishment, but found it hard to meet the cost of it because she was generous to those in her service and assiduous in obtaining promotion for them. Those members of her household in holy orders could realistically hope to be preferred to a prebend or deanery if they gave good service; two brothers, William and Laurence Booth, became successive archbishops of York thanks to the Queen’s favour.
There were other officers in the Queen’s household – the Clerk of the Closet, the Private Secretary, the Clerk of the Signet and the Clerk of the Jewels, while two Knights of the Board (table) earned forty marks per annum each. Margaret had five female attendants; one was Dame Elizabeth Grey, daughter of Sir Richard Wydville and wife of Sir John Grey; none could have then predicted that Elizabeth would one day be Queen of England. Another attendant was Elizabeth, wife of the powerful James Butler, Earl of Wiltshire, one of the foremost members of the court faction and a great admirer of the Queen.
In the lower ranks of the Queen’s servants were ten ‘little damsels’, two chamberwomen, grooms, pages of the robes, pages of the beds, pages of the bakery, scullions, kitchen staff who worked in the buttery and pantry, the Queen’s gardener – who was paid 100s. (£5.00) per annum – twenty-seven esquires whose salary bill was £143.4s.4d. (£143.22) annually, and twenty-seven valets at £93.15s.6d. (£93.77½) a year. The Queen paid £7 a day to the treasurer of the King’s household for the maintenance of her own household, although she often found to her dismay that some of the money due to her as part of her dower, the income settled on her by the King through Parliament, was paid late. She therefore had to stretch such resources as she had to the limit.
Margaret’s influence made the court once again the hub of fashionable society. In the year of her marriage Henry VI ordered that the Queen’s apartments at Eltham Palace be rebuilt with a new hall, scullery and range of lodgings for the Queen to use prior to her coronation. In other royal palaces his wife’s apartments had to be renovated as they had not been used for more than a decade. In these refurbished apartments Margaret entertained royally and encouraged a livelier atmosphere at court. She hunted frequently, ordering that the game in her forests be preserved exclusively for her use, and that bloodhounds be especially trained for her.
Margaret’s chief mentor after her marriage was Suffolk, though rumour soon had it that they were lovers, and Gloucester later accused Cardinal Beaufort of turning a blind eye to the fact and even encouraging such wickedness. But no contemporary chronicler, however hostile, ever hinted that there was anything improper in the relationship.
When Suffolk met Margaret he was forty-eight and she fifteen. He was a suave, experienced man of the world with cultivated charm, while she was a young, untried girl about to leave her family and the land of her birth for a strange husband and a new life. Suffolk was kindly and avuncular, and made no secret of his admiration; she was flattered and susceptible to his warmth. His party had arranged her marriage and therefore she supported it.
Suffolk even saluted Margaret in romantic verse:
How ye lover is set to serve ye flower . . .
Mine heart is set and all mine whole intent
To serve this flower in my most humble wise
As faithfully as can be thought or meant
Without feigning or sloth in my service.
For wit thee well, it is a paradise
To see this flower when it begin to spread
With colours fresh enewed, white and red.
This poem is a typical example of the kind of courtly doggerel that was then fashionable, it being socially acceptable for knights and lords to write in such terms of a lady whose rank precluded any closer relationship. Nevertheless, the enemies of Margaret and Suffolk made political capital out of their friendship and spread scurrilous rumours about it.
Suffolk used Margaret’s confidence and loyalty to his own and his party’s advantage, and in return protected her from criticism, keeping her in ignorance of public opinion and dissident voices in Council and Parliament. Together they made a formidable political team, for the court faction headed by Beaufort and Suffolk controlled both King and government; Suffolk even manipulated his adherents so as to ensure that important decisions were taken independently of the Council.
On Friday, 28 May 1445, the Queen rode from Eltham Palace to Blackheath, where she was officially welcomed by the Lord Mayor of London, his aldermen and sheriffs, all clad in scarlet and attended by guildsmen in blue gowns with embroidered sleeves and red hoods. Gloucester, attended by four hundred retainers, then escorted her to his palace of Placentia at Greenwich.
On the following day, Margaret made her state entry into London, coming up river by barge to Southwark and entering the city by London Bridge, above which was a device representing ‘Peace and Plenty’. She then processed through the streets of the capital, which were decorated with a profusion of marguerites in her honour, beneath triumphal arches, and alongside fountains sprouting ale and wine. At several points the cavalcade halted so that the Queen could watch miracle plays and pageants, with verses composed by Lydgate. Although she made a fine sight in her white damask gown and coronet of gold, pearls and precious stones, seated in a chariot pulled by two white horses caparisoned in white damask, some of the people were less than enthusiastic about their new queen, for Gloucester’s supporters had already stirred up anger among them over Margaret’s lack of a dowry. Others greeted her merrily, though, sporting daisies in their caps or hoods.
On Sunday, 30 May, Margaret was crowned at Westminster Abbey by Archbishop Stafford. The coronation was followed by a splendid banquet in Westminster Hall and three days of tournaments.
Parliament now conferred upon the Queen a dower of land worth £2000 per annum and an annuity of £4666.13s.4d. (£4666.67), the same amount as had been assigned to Katherine of Valois. The money was to come from the revenues of the duchy of Lancaster and the duchy of Cornwall, customs dues and the Exchequer.
On 2 June, Suffolk announced to Parliament that a French embassy would shortly arrive for the purpose of discussing a permanent peace to supersede the truce, which was due to expire in April 1446. There was, of course, a hidden agenda, of which Parliament knew nothing, and when the embassy arrived on 13 July it brought the predictable request that Henry VI cede Maine and Anjou to King René without delay, as provided in the Treaty of Tours. Now that the marriage was completed, Henry was expected to fulfil his part of the bargain. Henry prevaricated and dithered, even when the envoys produced letters from King Charles to him and the Queen, urging him to honour his promise, and saying this would be the best means of achieving a permanent peace. Henry played for time, and the only benefit to result from the meeting was an extension of the truce for three months, until July 1446.
Meanwhile, Gloucester was making his anti-French views known, much to the King’s embarrassment, and when he saw the ambassadors again on 15 July, Henry spoke contemptuously of his uncle, while Suffolk informed them that the King no longer had any regard for the Duke. Thus Henry publicly dissociated himself from Gloucester’s policies.
In the late summer of 1445 Henry recalled York from Normandy, since the Duke’s five-year term of duty was at an end and there was apparently no question of him serving a further one. York’s enemies had been busy: Waurin says that, despite York’s obvious qualities,
envy reared its head among the princes and barons of England, and was directed at the Duke, who was gaining in honour and prosperity. What is more, he prospered far too much for the liking of those who did not devote themselves loyally to the benefit of the King and his country. Above all, envy prompted Somerset, who despised the Duke of York and found a way to harm him. Somerset was well-liked by the Queen. She worked on King Henry, on the advice and support of Somerset and other lords and barons of his following, so that the Duke of York was recalled to England. There he was totally stripped of his authority to govern Normandy, which he had done well, and for some time, and despite his having acted commendably throughout the whole English conquest of France.
The way the tide was turning had been made clear to York earlier that year with the appointment of Sir Thomas Hoo, a member of Suffolk’s affinity and hostile to York, as Chancellor of Normandy.
York returned in the autumn. The Crown still owed him £38,677; he was a wealthy man, but even he was crippled by the loss, and his financial problems only exacerbated his feelings of bitterness. To make matters worse, he now learned that Somerset was to replace him in France, an appointment that amounted to a slap in the face to one who had carried out his duties responsibly and effectively and who would have welcomed a second term of office. The appointment was also catastrophic from a military point of view, for Somerset was not nearly as experienced a commander.
York believed he could have achieved more in Normandy had he received adequate support from the government in England, though it would not have been in the interests of the peace party at court to have him making conquests in France. Waurin says that Somerset and Margaret had pointed out to Henry VI that ‘Normandy was costing him a lot to maintain in wages to the soldiers that he was keeping there’, and they even recommended that the duchy ‘should be handed back to the French in order to avoid all these expenses’. Henry was not yet prepared to concede that much, but he certainly did not want York winning golden opinions.
Despite his just grievances, York met with scant sympathy or support in England. Most people at court were openly supportive of the King’s peace policy and preferred not to identify themselves with a man who had backed Gloucester’s call for a more aggressive stance in foreign policy. Out in the cold once more, York fell back on the support of his small circle of loyal friends, men who had served him well in Normandy and who were angry that he was so badly treated by a King and Council who should have been grateful to him.
But worse was to come. In Parliament Bishop Moleyns accused York of misgovernment and financial malpractice in Normandy. The court party did not want him at court or in the Council, interfering in politics, and were now so confident that they dared to accuse the man who was technically second in line to the throne of such crimes. York himself believed that Suffolk was behind the plot to disgrace him; placed as he was, he could hardly have been unaware of it, and from that time on relations between York and Suffolk, which had been quite friendly in France, grew icy.
York defended himself ably against Moleyn’s accusations, summoning officials from Normandy who testified that the Bishop had offered bribes to York’s soldiers to complain about his failure to pay them. Against all expectations, York was cleared of suspicion. Nevertheless, he now knew that while the court party controlled the King he could never expect preferment.
In October 1445, René of Anjou wrote to Henry VI, urging him to surrender Maine and Anjou. That same month a second French embassy arrived in London in response to Henry’s request for a further extension of the truce.
Urged by her father and uncle, Queen Margaret began to exert pressure on Henry to do as they wished and honour the treaty. First she pleaded and cajoled, then she nagged, raged and threw tantrums; still Henry prevaricated. On 17 December, Margaret wrote to King Charles and promised to do all she could to obtain Henry’s compliance. Whatever wiles she employed had their effect, for on 22 December the King himself gave Charles a solemn written undertaking to cede Maine and Anjou to René by 30 April 1446, this undertaking being given ‘to please the King of France and at the request of his wife’.
Characteristically, Henry did not bother to inform his officers who were stationed in Maine and Anjou of what was to happen, nor did he wait for the approval of the Council. But somehow rumours of his secret arrangement leaked out, unleashing a storm of protest. His subjects, from Duke Humphrey downwards, considered they had been betrayed. Yet it was Suffolk upon whom most of the opprobrium fell, for it was he who had arranged the Treaty of Tours.
Henry ignored the storm and did nothing until the last minute. Then on 30 April, knowing that he could delay no longer, he sent orders to the governor of Maine and Anjou to evacuate the provinces, preparatory to ceding them to the French. This confirmation of the rumours sparked a further wave of protests, and when the governor defied the King and refused to obey there was general jubilation. Such was the mood of the people that Henry dared not force the issue.
Margaret was not so timid. In May she reminded the King of his promise to Charles VII, begging him to keep his word. He would not listen, being too fearful of his subjects’ reaction. Margaret was being subjected to a barrage of pressure from the French king, but she could do nothing to move her husband, and negotiations with France over Maine and Anjou dragged on throughout the rest of the year without reaching a conclusion satisfactory to either side. King Charles became increasingly exasperated by Henry VI’s dilatoriness, and in the winter made efforts to force him to surrender the territories, dangling the carrot of extending the truce until January 1448. Still Henry dithered.
Margaret, meanwhile, hoping to cement further the truce between England and France, had proposed a marriage between York’s four-year-old heir, Edward, Earl of March, and Madeleine, daughter of Charles VII, but although Suffolk gave the proposal his backing, nothing came of it. Nevertheless, the suggestion was a tacit acknowledgement of the dynastic importance of York, and may well have been intended also as a means of diverting the Duke’s interests towards French politics.
In December 1446, an incident occurred which gave the court party cause to wonder whether York might be secretly plotting to seize the throne. York’s armourer, John Davies, had as an apprentice a villein, William Catour, who claimed to have heard Davies say that the crown belonged by right to York. Suffolk had the man hauled before the Council to repeat his accusation, while York, who realised that others might believe – or try to allege – that he himself was implicated in Davies’s treasonable assertion, demanded that the armourer be brought to justice and punished. Davies denied having said any such thing, but his judges decreed that he and Catour should undergo trial by combat, using single sticks. The trial took place at Smithfield, in the presence of the King, the Queen and the whole court. Catour was victorious, and it was therefore deemed that God had given His verdict. Davies was hanged and his body burnt. From now on, the Queen and her party would be suspicious of York and his dynastic intentions.
When Gloucester had found out that Suffolk had, seemingly without consulting Council or Parliament, secretly promised to cede Maine and Anjou to the French, his anger had known no bounds, and his violent and vociferously expressed opposition to the court faction’s policies had won him much popularity among a disenchanted populace who regarded him as their champion. Those who knew that it was not against Suffolk but the King that Gloucester’s fury should have been directed were therefore concerned to curb ‘Good Duke Humphrey’s’ public speeches, lest he should unleash a scandal that would compromise the throne itself.
Gloucester, far from heeding warnings to temper his criticisms, became ever more outspoken, and by December 1446 the King and the court party knew that something would have to be done to silence him, lest he discover and broadcast the truth. He had also incurred the enmity of the Queen, who regarded his censures as insults to herself which could not be forgiven or forgotten, and he had fallen out with most of his fellow councillors. Gloucester seemed unaware of the peril in which he stood. Abbot Whethamstead of St Albans states that ‘satellites of Satan’ had poisoned Henry’s mind against his uncle, who was ‘so respected and loved by the people and so faithful to the King’.
The Duke was causing so much dissension that Henry VI, in vindictive mood, decided that the Duke must be silenced once and for all. He was supported in this resolve by Queen Margaret, Suffolk, the ageing Cardinal Beaufort, and Somerset, who had all managed to convince their royal master that Gloucester was in fact plotting a coup, with the intention of setting himself up as king and immuring Henry and Margaret in religious houses. Margaret was so convinced of his evil intentions that she begged Henry to order his arrest. The King, however, decided that his uncle should be summoned to answer certain charges before Parliament.
In February 1447 Parliament met at Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, a region where the de la Poles exercised a great deal of influence and Gloucester very little. On the 10th, in bitter weather, the King and Queen arrived at the head of a great army, and the King formally opened Parliament in the refectory of St Edmund’s Abbey. The next day was devoted to a discussion of the Queen’s jointure.
Gloucester had as usual received a summons to attend Parliament, but he was entirely unaware of the conspiracy against him, and when he arrived at Bury on the 11th he was surprised to receive an order to wait upon the King without delay. When he came into the royal presence he was confronted, not only by his unsmiling sovereign, but also by a hostile group that included the Queen, his old enemy the Cardinal, Suffolk and Somerset. Suffolk wasted no time in charging Gloucester with plotting treason against the King and the realm, and of spreading rumours against the Queen’s honour, rumours that named Suffolk as her lover. Gloucester hotly denied this but Margaret said coldly, ‘The King knows your merits, my lord.’
Gloucester was allowed to retire to his lodgings while the King decided what was to be done with him, but when he arrived there he was overtaken and arrested by a deputation of lords including the Duke of Buckingham and the Queen’s steward, Viscount Beaumont, who was also Lord High Constable of England. Beaumont charged him in the King’s name with high treason and informed him he was to be placed under house arrest.
Gloucester remained in his lodgings for twelve days. On 23 February 1447 he died there. The cause of his death has never been properly established. Contemporary rumour had it that he had been strangled, suffocated with a feather bed, or ‘thrust into the bowel with an hot, burning spit’. No one pointed any finger of suspicion at the King or Queen: it was Suffolk who was deemed guilty of his enemy’s alleged murder, although if this had been the case he would hardly have acted without the King’s sanction, for Gloucester was a prince of the blood and heir presumptive to the throne. Nor would Queen Margaret or Cardinal Beaufort have given the order for Gloucester’s assassination without Henry’s knowledge or approval.
There is no evidence, however, that Gloucester was murdered. His great friend Abbot Whethamstead believed he had died from natural causes, and modern historians have tended to agree with him. The Duke was fifty-seven, and had ruined his constitution by physical excesses and debauchery over many years. There is no doubt that his arrest came as a shock to him, and every possibility that it may have hastened his end, perhaps from a stroke, for he lay for three days in a coma before expiring. Nevertheless, his passing was certainly timely, and undoubtedly many in high places wanted him out of the way as an embarrassment and a political liability. Gloucester’s wife had tried to bring him to the throne by witchcraft, and although he had not been implicated, it is clear that Henry VI had never again trusted him and was all too ready to believe the lies of his detractors.
Gloucester was buried, as he had wished, in the Abbey of St Albans, where his tomb still survives. He left no legitimate issue. After his death, ‘Good Duke Humphrey’ became something of a legend. People remembered his charities, his generosity and his patriotism, and forgot his self-seeking ambition and anachronistic policies. It was those who were commonly believed to have murdered him who were perceived as the enemies of the state.