CHAPTER III
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THE reign of Henry V was one of the shortest in English history—nine years, filled with great military achievements and both colored and dignified by a display of justice, moderation, and fairness in all respects. As a man Henry was deeply religious, chaste, and honorable, which set him apart from most kings. He was free of the besetting sin of the Plantagenets, extravagance. In fact, there was a frugality in everything he did, and it was only in the equipment and maintenance of armies in the field that he was ready to draw heavily on parliamentary support. The wildness he had exhibited as a prince, which was due in no small degree to his lack of money (Henry IV was always poor and his son was supposed to draw his income from a Wales in arms which paid not a shilling in tribute), fell from him like an outworn cloak.
As a general he must be ranked above the great Plantagenets who had preceded him: Richard of the Lion-Heart, Edward I, Edward III, and the Black Prince. There was brilliant strategy in the Agincourt campaign and in the conquest of Normandy which followed.
Everything about him seems admirable. As a negotiator he was direct and in no sense devious. He did not hide behind subterfuges or resort to vague half promises. It was said that he would listen in silence to the reasoning of those about him and finally say either, “It is impossible,” or “It shall be done.” When he had taken a stand, he remained firm and resolute in it.
It is unfortunate that he was so obsessed with the need to recover all the ground lost halfway in the Hundred Years War. This left him with little time to tend the legislative and administrative fields at home. If he had given himself instead to peace-time pursuits, what straight and enduring furrows he would have plowed!
Had he lived longer he would undoubtedly have been acclaimed the greatest of English kings. Many historians so rank him. All agree that he was the best loved.
These nine brilliant, incisive years, these years so full of accomplishments and so free of chivalrous nonsense and wasteful ceremony, are chiefly remembered for two things: the remarkable victory at Agincourt which left France prostrate at Henry’s feet and the king’s romance with a daughter of the French king, who is called in history the Fair Kate. There is a temptation to write about Agincourt, because it was fought so boldly and aggressively and because there was better strategic planning back of it than in any of the earlier English victories. But even allowing for Henry’s boldness and his cool foresight it was a case of the French losing the battle rather than the English winning it. For thirty years the single-minded nobles of France had been restrained from offering battle and it is probable that, if Henry had been disposed to load his army back on his ships and depart, they would have been ready enough to see him go. But Henry had crossed the Sleeve to fight, and so, after much marching and countermarching along the fords of the Somme, they came face to face at last on ground well suited to battle within sight of the castle walls of Agincourt.
The French had learned something from their defeats at Crécy and Poictiers, but not enough. They took up their stations along the field the night before, at least 50,000 of them as against the English 8000 to 10,000, and they were supremely confident. But they still believed in the mounted knight and there was so much cavalry around the castle that the ground was reduced to pulp by the hoofs of the horses. It is even true that many of the young knights sat all night in their saddles so their shining armor would not have a fleck of mud when the time came to ride into battle; and the next day their weary steeds floundered and went down or turned and bolted in mad panic into the thick ranks behind. In contrast Henry ordered his knights to dismount and fight on foot, a demeaning innovation in the eyes of the Gallic foe. He even arranged his thin line so his foot soldiers would provide some guard for the all-essential archers. The French still lacked archers to compete with the stout English longbow men.
The French died by the thousands, the English by the hundreds, and again it was a great English victory. But all this is familiar ground to readers of the Plantagenet story. And so—better to choose the romance of Henry of England and Katherine of France.
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King Henry: Now fie upon my false French! By mine honor, in true English, I love thee, Kate; by which honor I dare not swear thou lovest me; yet my blood begins to flatter me that thou dost, notwithstanding the poor and untempering effect of my visage. Now, beshrew my father’s ambition! He was thinking of civil wars when he got me; wherefore was I created with a stubborn outside, with an aspect of iron, that when I come to woo ladies, I fright them. But, in faith, Kate, the elder I wax the better I shall appear; my comfort is that old age, that ill layer-up of beauty, can do no more spoil upon my face: thou hast me, if thou hast me, at the worst; and thou shalt wear me, if thou wear me, better and better. And therefore tell me, most fair Katherine, will you have me? Put off your maiden blushes; avouch the thoughts of your heart with the looks of an empress; take me by the hand and say,—Harry of England, I am thine: which word thou shalt no sooner bless mine ear withal but I will tell thee aloud, England is thine, Ireland is thine, France is thine, and Henry Plantagenet is thine—Come, your answer in broken music—for thy voice is music, thy English broken; therefore, queen of all, Katherine, break thy mind to me in broken English—wilt thou have me? Katherine: Dat is as it sall please de roi mon pere.
Thus, in King Henry V, Shakespeare describes the wooing of the Fair Kate by the forthright English king.
But the story begins much earlier, dating back to the day when Prince Henry first saw Isabella of France. It was soon after the deposition and death of Richard, and the twelve-year-old girl, who had thus become a widow before being a wife, was in the depths of despair. In spite of her grief, it was apparent that she was becoming a slender, graceful, and delightful-looking girl. The prince was an impressionable youth of thirteen and he stood tongue-tied in the presence of the little queen. Later he informed his father that he wanted to marry Isabella as soon as they were old enough.
It happened that this was completely in accord with the ideas of the new king, who was anxious to make a lasting peace with France. The French government was agreeable to the union, because Charles VI was falling with greater frequency into his spells of insanity and the country was torn by the struggles between two political parties, the Burgundians and the Armagnacs. But they failed to reckon with the firm spirit of the girl widow of the dead English king. Isabella had acquired a real affection for her handsome spouse. His defeat and death had broken her heart (or so she believed), but without breaking her spirit. She hated the new king who had been responsible for Richard’s death and she would have nothing to do with any member of the Lancastrian family. The roses mounted in her cheeks, her eyes flashed angrily, and she gave her answer with one word—No!
Young Henry was so obsessed with her delicate beauty that he begged his father to persist. Isabella was approached several times, but her answer never varied. No, no! Finally she was allowed to return to France, without her dowry or even her personal jewelry, and later married a prince of the Orléans line for whom she felt a deep affection. She died within a year in childbirth. It is doubtful if the prince ever outgrew his infatuation for her. It was a day of great sadness for him when he learned of her death.
But there were three younger sisters in the French royal family, Michelle, Marie, and Katherine, and he decided that one of them might fill this vacant place in his heart. Michelle, first, but she was promised to the son of the Duke of Burgundy. Marie, then; but Marie was taking the vows in a convent. Well, it must be the youngest of them, Katherine. He received reports about her and even had a portrait sent to him. She was an attractive girl, even though she seemed to him not as beautiful as his first love, Isabella; but she had charms of her own.
When he had been crowned King of England, Henry entered suit for the hand of Katherine. His demands seemed to the French wildly exorbitant. He was demanding that they give him Normandy, all the territories which Eleanor of Aquitaine brought with her when she married Henry II of England, and a dowry of 2,000,000 crowns. France wanted peace, but what grounds had this young and untried king, the son of a usurper, moreover, to make such demands? Once again Henry suffered the mortification of having his suit rejected.
3
It is doubtful if Henry knew of the conditions under which the three daughters were being raised. The princess who had been sent to France on approval was now serving as a queen on sufferance. As the king was in the grip of his malady most of the time, Isabeau gave full rein to her lascivious tendencies. She saw to it that the three children were raised in the Hôtel de St. Pol, where their father was kept during his mad spells. The royal finances were always low, so Queen Isabeau found it difficult to maintain herself in the full splendor she desired. Little of the royal revenue was used for the unhappy household at the St. Pol. The servants, who were not under any suitable form of supervision, saw to it that they themselves had plenty of food, even when there was not enough for the children. One dress had to be used in turn by all three, which was particularly hard for Katherine, who received it after a second alteration. It is even said that they had no changes of linen. The insane king was in worse stead. Kept in a dark and closely shuttered room, he attacked with maniacal fury any servants or doctors who attempted to enter. He was left alone and so went for months at a time without any change of clothing or a bath. The apartments of the royal children were some distance from this chamber of horrors but they could hear his wailing and screaming and his bickering with the hostile visitors he fancied about him.
On one occasion he regained his senses unexpectedly and was stricken with horror at his own condition, and even more so when he saw the misery of the princesses. Wine had been brought him in a gold goblet and he ordered that it should be sold to buy suitable clothes for his daughters.
Perhaps unaware of the true state of affairs at St. Pol, or unconcerned about it, Queen Isabeau continued on terms of more or less open intimacy with the Duke of Orléans, who was said to be the most handsome man in all France and the greatest philanderer. One night in Paris, after supping with the queen, he was returning at a late hour. It was a dark night and, as always, dangers lurked in the unlighted streets. The duke was accompanied by two squires only and had sent a handful of servants ahead on foot to light the way with torches. Suddenly a party of armed men emerged from concealment behind a house known as Image de Notre-Dame and surrounded him.
“Death! Death!” they cried.
“I am the Duke of Orléans!” he protested.
The servants had dropped their torches and fled for safety. In the small light thus left, the assassins dragged the debonair duke from his saddle and hacked him to death on the cobbled street.
Queen Isabeau fled from Paris, knowing that her affair with the duke had been one reason for his murder. She remained at Melun four months and then returned with an escort of 3000 men, taking up her residence at the Louvre. The tragic consequences of her open dalliance with Orléans had not served as a curb on her licentious conduct. She had been scandalously open in the favors she had shown a nobleman of Auvergne, one Louis de Bosredon. The latter had begun to swagger and even to boast publicly. The king regained his reason quite unexpectedly and was informed of what was going on. He acted promptly. Bosredon was taken into custody and put to the torture. He confessed abjectly and, on the king’s orders, was sewn in a leather sack and thrown into the Seine. On the outside of the sack the words had been printed: Let the King’s justice run its course.
Between the time that Louis de Bosredon went down with the tide in his leather sack and the momentous days when the English threat loomed upon the horizon again, Queen Isabeau experienced a change of heart. The poor mad Charles was never going to recover and the sons she had borne him had the stamp of the Valois on them—in other words, they were spindling specimens with the Valois nose jutting out from pale and hollowed faces. The two older ones had died early, and the third, now called the dauphin, was deeply immersed in the political quarrels, with a genius for getting on the wrong side. A hand was needed at the helm and she decided that her own was the only one available. It was, in fact, a beautifully white and slender hand despite the fact that the years were broadening her to an effect almost of obesity. To compensate for the passing of her period of pulchritude, the queen had actually begun to develop a sense of statecraft—to divide her interests, at least, between counterpane and chancellery. With the princess Michelle already married to the heir of Burgundy, and quite unhappy in the relationship, and with Marie taking her vows, there was only Katherine left to serve as a pawn in her mother’s hands. She was whisked out of her squalid obscurity. Instead of wearing dresses cut down and stitched up by clumsy fingers, made of sleazy materials or soiled velvet, the last daughter was now attired in the silks and satins which befitted her rank.
Mother and daughter became attached to one another. There was some trace of affinity between them which both recognized. Certainly they had one objective in common. Katherine must marry Henry of England.
4
Even those who admire Henry most and revere his memory, and this includes all who have read much history or have seen the Shakespeare play, are compelled to concede that he had no just reason for going to war with France. He did not at first claim the French throne but limited himself to demands for the return of Normandy and the Angevin provinces in the west and south. The rejection of his offer for the hand of Katherine offered the most flimsy pretext but, in lieu of something better, he made much of it. The honesty and forthright qualities of the great warrior king were less perceptible in this phase of his career than at any other time.
His brilliant victory at Agincourt had set England aflame with enthusiasm for the continuance of the Hundred Years War. Again the ports saw the unloading of great stores of booty, and even common soldiers had come back with feather beds on their backs (the king later forbade the use of such comforts) and pockets filled with jewelry. After a brief visit home and a triumphant reception at London (where he was too modest to display the battered helmet he had worn in battle as proof of his personal part in the fighting), Parliament decreed such liberal financial support that the young king returned to France with an army estimated at 50,000 men. France was to be beaten to her knees with one more decisive blow.
The campaign which followed was a demonstration of sure strategy, and on June 19, 1419, Henry had the satisfaction of receiving the capitulation of Rouen, the capital of Normandy where William the Conqueror had ruled. Paris was now almost within sight. The poor madman was still king and the bitter strife of the factions kept France in turmoil. How could they hope to defend themselves against this conqueror?
It was not until May 28 of the following year, however, that Henry met the Fair Kate.
Charles had recovered a small shred of reason and he accompanied his queen, the Duke of Burgundy, and his last available daughter to discuss peace with the new master of Normandy. They rode regally down the Seine in a barge which blazed with color. A temporary enclosure with webbed planks had been built on the river at Pontoise, with tents on each bank. It was in this somewhat insecure structure that the great romance began.
Henry entered the enclosure after the French royal party had seated themselves. Poor Charles was not present and so Isabeau sat in the center. The English king’s eyes inevitably fastened themselves on her first. Although she had become almost massive and her once wonderful complexion could no longer be simulated even with the most skillful use of cosmetics, she still commanded first attention. Her eyes were large and brilliant, her hair was lustrous, and she had an air that was not only regal but intensely feminine. It was only on a slow second glance that Henry realized there was a slender girl seated beside the dominating figure of the queen.
Katherine was still thin, but her figure promised an engaging maturity without any fear of reaching the outlines of the licentious Isabeau. Her complexion had the Bavarian freshness of snow and mountain berries. She had her mother’s eyes, quite as large and with the same brilliance. Some say they were black but a safer judgment makes them of a very dark gray with glints of a slate blue in them.
It should be explained at once that Katherine had one mark of the Valois about her. She had the Valois nose, although in modified form. It lacked the hump which some of the royal daughters had, and which seemed to qualify them for riding a broomstick through midnight clouds, but it was slender and just long enough to incline slightly over the upper lip. Such a nose might produce an effect of homeliness in middle years but, when set in a fresh beauty of coloring, it suggested that individuality and character went with the prettiness.
While the Earl of Warwick, who spoke French fluently, launched on a long speech, Henry seated himself before the princess and never allowed his eyes to wander from her face. It was clear that he was mightily pleased with her.
She was wearing a gold circlet covered with a veil like mist from a fountain. A mantle, trimmed with ermine, had been thrown over a tight-fitting gown of the richest blue velvet. She sparkled with jewels.
This first meeting was brief and there was no discussion of peace terms. When it came to an end, Henry kissed Isabeau and then drew the slender shoulders of the princess close to him and kissed her with noticeable warmth.
Later he was asked by a French spokesman if he had been pleased with the princess. Henry, honest to a fault in all matters, said, Yes, he had admired her much and wanted her for his wife. Then, it was insinuated, since he found her so desirable, he would undoubtedly be prepared to accept a smaller dower with her. Henry shook his head. No, he saw no reason for accepting a crown less.
When this was reported to the queen, the thought ran through her mind, without a doubt, This stubborn young man must be taught a lesson. When the second meeting was held, the princess was not present. Henry showed that he was disappointed. But he did not retreat from his position. He loved Katherine, but he felt his terms were just and he had no intention of moderating them.
It is highly probable that the queen and the princess were at odds on their lines of strategy. Katherine had fallen as quickly and completely in love with Henry as he had with her. The speech which Shakespeare has put into the mouth of the English king is a deft delineation of the forthrightness of Henry, except in the references to his own appearance. He had not been created with “a stubborn outside, with an aspect of iron.” When he came to woo ladies, he did not “fright them.” Henry had his share of the traditional good looks of the family. His face was oval in outline and his features were handsome as well as strong. His eyes were the Plantagenet blue, although his hair departed from the accepted pattern in being dark instead of flaxen. In build he was tall but rather on the slender side, which did not lessen his strength nor his skill with weapons, as he had proven at Agincourt and on countless other occasions.
He also possessed in some degree, at least, the pride (call it vanity, if that word seems more apt) which the members of the family had in their appearance. It is doubtful if he would have belittled himself to the woman he wanted to win.
After a number of conferences, none brightened by the presence of the Fair Kate, the royal family went to the extreme of not appearing at one meeting. Henry said to the Duke of Burgundy, who alone was on hand:
“Fair cousin, we wish you to know that we will have the daughter of the king or we will drive him and you out of his kingdom!”
The pride of the duke took fire at this. “Sire!” he exclaimed. “You are pleased to say so. But before you have driven my lord and me out of his kingdom, I make no doubt you will suffer much weariness and pain!”
Following this exchange of words, it was announced that a peace had been patched up between the conflicting parties in France, headed by the dauphin and the Duke of Burgundy. It looked as though the French had decided to break off all negotiations and to refuse finally Henry’s suit for the hand of Katherine. The English king heard the news with a composed face.
His countermove was instantaneous and brilliant. He made a surprise attack on Pontoise and captured it without difficulty. This brought him closer to Paris than any English army of invasion had previously attained. It was reported to him that the people of Paris had not been thrown into a panic by his near approach. On the contrary they seemed ready to welcome the “Go-dams,” so great was their dislike for both parties to the French political struggle. Henry, wisely, did not make any move to capture the capital city at this stage. He had proven his ability to do so and now he preferred to make his inevitable entry in the role of peacemaker.
The culminating point in this drama of tangled relationships was created by the dauphin, who had been irked by his enforced alliance with the Duke of Burgundy. The latter was invited to a conference which was to be held on the bridge at Montereau. The two leaders were to pass through wooden gates and to meet in a central compartment with exactly the same number of supporters. When Burgundy arrived there with the allotted number, the gates behind him were slammed shut and bolted. The central space was filled instantly by armed men, wearing the dauphin’s colors. The duke went down under the swords of his assailants. A wave of horror swept over France and the feeble explanations that the dauphin put forth were scornfully rejected.
Philip, the new Duke of Burgundy, husband of Katherine’s sister Michelle, said to his wife next day when the tragic news was received, “Your brother has murdered my father.” He was gentle with her, however, in contrast to the furious haste with which he proceeded to renew his alliance with the English. He agreed to recognize Henry as heir to the French throne and to accept his other terms.
Negotiations proceeded slowly in spite of this. The English forces had moved up to take Paris in a pincer movement before Henry answered a request for a final agreement with the statement that he would treat “with none but the princess Katherine herself.” Queen Isabeau, figuratively speaking, threw up her hands at this and sent the Bishop of Arras to see the English king, with authority to say that, if he would come to Troyes, Katherine would espouse him there. A letter which the bishop surreptitiously delivered to the king from Katherine was “full of sweetness” and left the ardent lover very happy.
Troyes had become the temporary capital of France in this period of incessant strife. It was a strong and high-walled city, lying a hundred miles or more southeast of Paris. However, the English forces were in possession of Melun and so lay close to the main road between Paris and Troyes. To go on to the latter city did not on that account offer too much risk. Thinking, perhaps, of the foolhardy unconcern with which the Burgundian duke had walked into the trap on the bridge at Montereau, Henry decided to go to his rendezvous in force. Early in May he assembled at Pontoise an army of 7000 men, under the command of his brothers Clarence and Gloucester. Then began a careful march to Troyes by way of the roads through Brie and Nogent. They arrived on May 20, to find the city bedecked with flags and noisy with trumpets to welcome the bridegroom.
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Henry and his princess were not wedded in the cathedral of Troyes, which was large and grand and finely suited for such a ceremony. There was a reason for this which will bear explaining.
When the victorious Henry reached Troyes he was met by the Duke of Burgundy and escorted to the Hôtel de Ville where he was to stay. The next day he met the French royal family for the betrothal and had his second glimpse of Katherine, finding her more charming and desirable than before. Henry had arrayed himself with complete disregard for all the rules, coming to the ceremony in full armor and with the brush of a fox in his helmet. Another rule was broken when he placed on the finger of his prospective bride the magnificent ring which had belonged jointly to all the queens of England, being transferred from one to the other when a new consort was crowned. He had established an even more surprising precedent by announcing the appointment of Sir Lewis Robsart, one of his knights, to act as the bride’s guard while she remained in France. Henry, in fact, was taking no chance of more diplomatic shilly-shallying. Katherine now belonged to him.
There was some bickering back and forth over the terms of the peace treaty and so the marriage did not take place for another week. The impatient Henry did some wandering about in the meantime and found much to please him in this medieval city over which three flags floated, the standards of England and France and the arms of Burgundy. He was pleased in particular by a church of no great size but much charm which was so closely hedged in by the massive buildings in the heart of the old town that it was not easily seen. He liked its hint of quaintness and the ivy of earlier centuries on its gray walls.
This recalls one of the most romantic of Robert Louis Stevenson’s stories in which he tells of a town held jointly by the English and the Burgundians in this exact period, and of a young Englishman becoming lost at night in the maze of dark streets, leaning finally against a door which swung back and projected him into the home of a vicious uncle and his beautiful niece.
The English king paused at the church door in bright sunlight, but when he went in it was dark, still, and peaceful. The thought went through his mind, This is the place for my fair Kate and me to plight our troth, kneeling together in this friendly shadow, with no one to hear or see!
And so on June 2, Trinity Sunday, the marriage was solemnized in the church of his fancy, St. Jean, with the Archbishop of Sens officiating and the bride wearing the English royal mantle, with all its conventional tassels and jeweled embroideries, which had been brought over hurriedly. How Henry was dressed is not recorded, but, at least, he had laid aside the foxtail.
But it was not as he had pictured it, he and his Kate kneeling in the quiet of the little church, with the services chanted for their ears only. The nave was so filled with the nobility and their wives, and the high dignitaries of the church, and the townspeople who wedged themselves in somehow, that there was not an inch of standing room left anywhere.
Henry was introduced that night to a custom completely French. It was in the middle hours and, without a knock, the doors of the nuptial chamber were thrown open to admit court officials carrying tall candles in silver holders. These were followed by what seemed a long procession of royal servants. Henry struggled to a sitting position and reached for the handle of his sword, which was propped against the side of the bed.
Katherine, who had wakened at once, touched his arm and whispered: “There is no need for alarm, my dear lord and husband. It is a custom of my country.”
The purpose of the intrusion was to bring wine and soup for the newly wedded pair. Henry may have fallen into accord with etiquette to the extent of drinking a goblet of wine, but one doubts if he felt disposed to try the soup. The bride, sitting up so close beside him that her arm pressed against his, may have sipped a little of it, the French being much addicted to soup. But what happened must be left to the imagination, for nothing more is set down in the records.
The next day a great state banquet was held, to which all of the English knights had been bidden. Henry here proceeded to set a precedent of his own. Hearing much talk along the tables of a tournament to celebrate the marriage, his brow clouded with disapproval. “I pray, my lord and king,” he said, directing himself to the father of the bride, “to permit and I command his servants and mine to be in readiness tomorrow to go with me and lay siege to Sens, where are our enemies.”
This was a lesson which Katherine was to learn over and over but never to accept willingly. Nothing was ever as important in Henry’s eyes as the performance of his duties as a king. He felt the need of directing everything himself, even to the inspection of arrows for the archers and the contents of the barrels containing the salt fish and beef for his men. If a battle lay ahead, he must look over the ground in advance. If a conference were pending, he must study all the documents, no matter how long it took. And his wife, dearly loved though she was, must abide herself in patience until everything had been done to his satisfaction.
Henry spent the first days of his honeymoon fighting before Sens, and Katherine waited for him with her parents, and with the ubiquitous Sir Lewis Robsart lurking in the background; whether in wifely patience or the impatience that came natural to her, history does not say.
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After Christmas (in the meantime Sens had fallen and Montereau as well, with great slaughter) Henry took Katherine back to England with him, anxious to show the people his radiant young bride. She was received like “an angel of God” (which indeed she was not) and her coronation took place on February 24. The banquet which followed was unique in one respect. As Lent was starting, nothing but fish could be offered. The cooks, who were artists in those days, served twenty-two kinds of fish in all manner of odd ways: bream of the sea and jelly colored with columbine, conger with cream of almonds, white leche with hawthorn leaves and red haws, perch with gudgeon, eels roasted with lampreys, roast porpoise; well, so it went.
Katherine sat in great state at one end of the table, with Archbishop Chichele, Cardinal Beaufort, and King James of Scotland grouped about her. The Earl of March (who, strictly speaking, should have been king) and Warwick squatted on their haunches on each side of the royal chair, holding her scepters, and the Countess of Kent was under the table at the queen’s feet, holding a napkin. Neville was cup bearer, Stuart was sewer, Clifford pantler, and Grey of Ruthin (Owen Glendower’s old enemy) was naperer. A high degree of state indeed!
The queen then went to Windsor where she expected to be joined by Henry. But at this stage she was to learn the bitter lesson over again, that she did not come first in the king’s mind. He wanted heavy financial support from the House for another smashing campaign and so went off on the medieval equivalent of a “barnstorming” tour, a processional which took him to practically all towns in the kingdom. He would have taken Kate with him, because he knew the consuming curiosity there was about her, but she was with child and nothing must be done to disturb the even course of nature. Kate stood this dreary solitude at Windsor as long as she could. She had only the ladies of her household about her and their names added to the monotony of things: Joanna Belknap, Joanna Troutbeck and Joanna Coucy, all named no doubt after Henry IV’s second wife. She set out to join her errant spouse, catching up with him at Leicester. They returned together in time for the meeting of Parliament in May.
As one of the king’s brothers, Thomas of Clarence, had been defeated and killed at Beaugé, Henry hurried back to France, leaving Kate to have her child alone and with a stern admonition that the event must not take place at Windsor. But the queen felt at home in Windsor, and nowhere else in England, and so in spite of the king’s instructions, she gave birth there in the Queen’s House to a boy who was to be named Henry after his sire, a quiet baby with small features and very blue eyes. When Henry heard of this, he is reported to have improvised a piece of verse, with a prophetic ring about it:
I, Henry, born at Monmouth,
Shall small time reign, and much get;
But Henry of Windsor shall long reign, and lose all.
But as God will, so be it.
Leaving the newborn heir to the throne, Katherine crossed to Honfleur in May, followed by the large army which the parliamentary grants had made possible, 20,000 men under the Duke of Bedford, the ablest of the royal brothers. She was shocked when she saw her husband, although she knew he had been through a grueling period. Henry, who had been so fleet of foot that he could catch deer in the royal enclosures without the use of dogs, now walked slowly and stumbled under the weight of his armor. The fine complexion so general in the family had deserted him and his cheeks were gray. A short time before, he had been stricken with a mysterious malady, the exact nature of which left the royal physicians at a loss. All maladies seemed to have been mysterious in this day of medical ignorance, but Henry’s condition seems to have been a severe case of dysentery, from which Edward I had died.
He strove to make light of it, being certain that his strong constitution would prevail. He sent Katherine on to Vincennes to join her parents while he completed the campaign. It soon became apparent that there was no hope of recovery and he was taken in a litter to Vincennes. He died almost at once, in a penitential mood because he had accomplished so little of what he wanted to do. Jerusalem had been in his mind and he had desired to lead a final crusade for the liberation of the holy city. He had even sent a Burgundian knight named Gilbert de Lannoy to reconnoiter Palestine and had received a hopeful report.
“How long have I to live?” he asked the physicians.
They answered with great reluctance. “Sire, not more than two hours.”
“Comfort my dear wife,” he said to his brother John of Bedford, who stood beside the royal couch. “The most afflicted creature living.”
He did not live out the time they had allowed him. Perhaps he drew on his ebbing strength to issue instructions for the government of the kingdom and for the care of his infant son. He did not name Katherine as regent nor did he commit the little king to her care, thinking probably that this would be done as a matter of course.
He died at two o’clock in the morning of August 31, 1422. It was a night of heavy black clouds, as indeed it should have been. Black clouds would hang over England during all the long years of the reigns which would follow immediately after.
Katherine, who mourned her dead lord with an intensity of grief, accompanied the body back to England. When the cortege entered London, a large clerical body, made up of fifteen bishops and a long line of abbots, chanted loudly as they followed the bier through the city. All householders stood before their doors with lighted torches.
Parliament met shortly after and Katherine came from Windsor, carrying her son on her knee as they traversed the streets to Westminster. The little king conducted himself with much gravity. It was well that this occurred on a weekday, for the boy had already developed the habit of refusing to engage in any activities on Sundays!
7
With Henry dead so young and buried at Canterbury under his emblazoned shield, his saddle, and his battered helmet, the story continues with the sorry balance of Kate’s life. For three years she lived in various of her dower homes, but mostly at Baynard’s Castle in London, and had the care of the infant king as her chief concern. She was unhappy, as a widow who had loved her husband very much, must be.
It is said that she sought to settle a quarrel between two of Henry’s brothers, John of Bedford and Humphrey of Gloucester but nothing could be done to create a permanent healing between two men of such wide differences—John so able, honest, and just, Humphrey so selfish and unprincipled. Something further should be told about her relationship with the two brothers.
Stout Bedford had been the main prop and stay of Henry, the kind of assistant that a great chief of staff can be to a military leader of genius. He was capable of leadership himself but willing to serve in a secondary capacity. After Henry’s death he conducted the operations in France with vigor and skill, winning two great battles, one at Verneuil, which is sometimes compared with Crécy and Poictiers. John of Bedford ranks among the great men who somehow fail to come alive on the pages of history. This may have been due in his case to a certain stolidity of character and a degree of insensitivity which he manifested in acquiescing in the burning of Jeanne d’Arc.
There were three possible husbands for Katherine in the royal family if the council had desired to use her in cementing the French regency. Bedford was handsome, rather stocky in build, and Kate would perhaps have been sensible enough to accept his hand had he offered it. But John was willing to comfort her, as Henry had desired, but not to marry this sister-in-law with her beauty and charm, her Valois nose, and her inherited tendencies, and it was almost certain that the Pope would refuse his consent. Then there was Humphrey, for whom Kate had no respect, and Edmund Beaufort, a grandson of John of Gaunt by his third wife. It is certain that Kate would have married this handsome and sophisticated young man and almost certainly the Pope would have consented. But Humphrey, the persistent troublemaker, fought the idea bitterly, knowing that Beaufort, with Kate as his wife, would be directly in line for the French regency.
Kate was not temperamentally fitted to a long widowhood and, when she found that the English council would not sanction her return to France (she was not particularly anxious to go) and was not concerning itself with finding a new husband for her, she began to notice that there was a handsome Welshman in her household, one Owen Tudor. He was serving as master of the wardrobe, which brought them in contact a great deal. He is described as having a bright eye, a well-turned pair of dancing legs, and a regard for the main chance. On one occasion some members of the household were dancing while the dowager queen sat watching with her ladies. The adroit Owen missed a step and stumbled against her, as expert a loss of balance as could conceivably be achieved.
He had to consult her about the intimate details of her wardrobe and the great lady in her mourning robes became very conscious of his presence. It was soon noticed that he was in and about her apartments oftener than duty necessitated. Despite the long and easy flowing robes that ladies wore in those days, it was impossible to conceal from the keen feminine eyes about her that she was facing the inevitable consequences of her folly.
The liaison continued for over ten years and in that time Kate brought five children into the world, three sons and two daughters. History has been at a loss on the question of the legitimacy of the Tudor children. Tudor historians, whose purpose was always to present Henry VII in the best possible light, never expressed a doubt that a marriage had taken place, although they were unable to discover when, where, or by whom the ceremony was performed. In 1428, when the scandal had become an open one, Parliament passed a law prohibiting the queen dowager from marrying anyone without the consent of the king, her son, or his council. Because of this it has been argued that she could not have been married to Tudor before that date and, in consequence, that it was later when the nuptials occurred. This supposition overlooks the likelihood that, because of the parliamentary prohibition, the marriage never took place at all.
It is significant that after his mother’s death Henry VI erected an altar tomb in the Lady Chapel at Westminster in which she was inscribed the widow of Henry V and no mention made of a subsequent marriage.
There is doubt also about the antecedents of Owen Tudor. He is often described as a Welsh gentleman of minor standing and no wealth. Some historians (of the Tudor period, naturally) claim an antiquity for his family, tracing it back to Ednyfed Fychan, who had property on the Isle of Anglesey and who married a daughter of Rhys, Prince of South Wales.
The relationship between the dowager queen and the handsome adventurer, whether legal or not, was allowed to drag along until 1436 when Henry took action to end it. Tudor was arrested and placed in Newgate Prison and Kate retired or was committed to Bermondsey Abbey. The father of the children managed to escape from prison with the connivance of his servant and a priest. The boy king then made it known that he desired that “Oweyn Tidr the which dwelled wt the said quene should come to his presence.” This sounded ominous to Tudor, who was living quietly at Daventry, and he demanded that he be given a written safe conduct. On reaching London he went into sanctuary at Westminster (a curious course if there were any proofs he could produce) and remained there for some time before issuing out to defend himself. He was again confined to Newgate and again made his escape.
When the king came of age he was generous enough to settle an annuity on him. Tudor repaid this generosity by fighting well on the Lancastrian side during the first stages of the Wars of the Roses. He was captured at the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross and on orders from Edward of York was beheaded in the market place at Hereford. A sentimental admirer, a woman presumed in the chronicles to be mad, proceeded in a weeping condition to comb the hair and wash the face and to place around it many lighted candles.
Kate died at Bermondsey on June 3, 1437. Whether death was due to physical disabilities or grief cannot be determined; probably both figured in her early demise. She was thirty-six years of age and had survived her mother, the indestructible Isabeau of the easy morals, by one year only. And from this sordid relationship to which she had devoted all of her last years came in time the extinction of the Plantagenet line in favor of the able and arrogant Tudors. Edmund Tudor, the eldest son of the union, married Margaret, a daughter of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and bore a posthumous son who became Henry VII under circumstances which will be told later.
The five Tudor children were kept in a nunnery in care of the Abbess of Barking until Henry VI came of age. He then asserted himself by looking after this brood of half brothers and sisters with an affectionate care. Edmund, the first son, was made Earl of Richmond. Jasper, the second, was created Earl of Pembroke, and it was in his tall western castle that the son of the Richmond family was born. The third brother, Owen, took holy orders. Of the two sisters, Jacina married Reginald, Lord Grey of Wilton; the other became a nun. It is said that the gentle Henry VI became quite fond of his half brothers and sisters and gave them every honor, save an acknowledgment of legitimacy.
Poor Katherine’s body was not to be allowed the calm of one resting place. When Henry VII became king he found it necessary to demolish her tomb because he needed the space for the elaborate new chapel he was erecting. The epitaph her son had placed above her was removed and in its place a long poem was chiseied into the stone, concluding with these lines:
Of Owen Tudor, after this, thy next son Edmund was,
O Katherine! a renowned prince, that did in glory pass.
Henry VII, a Britain pearl, a gem of England’s joy,
A peerless prince was Edmund’s son, a good and gracious roy;
Therefore a happy wife this was, a happy mother pure,
Thrice happy child, but grand-dame she, more than thrice happy sure!
Thrice happy wife and mother! After this absurd and inelegant epitaph, could any historian of the day do else but assert the legitimacy of the union?
The tomb over the body of the dowager queen was never raised again, but the coffin was opened and it was found that the body had become almost mummified and had remained in an unusual state of preservation. The bier was kept open for three centuries for the benefit of curious visitors. In the reign of Charles II a fee of tuppence was charged for looking at the brown and wizened countenance. Samuel Pepys paid his tuppence and that night, in excessive bad taste, wrote in his diary that he “this day kissed a queen.”