Part III
9
On 15 April 1450, at Formigny, near Bayeux, the army of Charles VII won a decisive victory over that of Henry VI, ‘king of France and England’. Some weeks later, following this defeat, the English abandoned the soil of Normandy. The Hundred Years’ War was almost over, and the prophecy of Joan of Arc, who had proclaimed that the English would be ‘kicked out’ (‘boutez’) of France, was being fulfilled.
For the English, this defeat marked not only the end of their thirty year long rule of Normandy: it was also the low point in a decade of difficulties characterised by political problems. Ever since 1435, when a fruitless meeting between representatives of the kings of France and England had taken place at Arras, the war had gone badly for the English who, in spite of some successes, had seen their zone of influence reduced year by year. To bring this tendency to an end, the English had sent several armies into France under the command of a variety of captains, noble or not, their long military campaign being accompanied by a diplomatic campaign during which the English leadership attempted, by means of an agreement with Charles VII, to maintain themselves in at least a few of their ancient continental possessions.
On the French side, the dying years of the long dynastic struggle with England witnessed the renaissance of the kingdom and the triumph of the house of Valois. By contrast, one notes the effects of military defeat upon English society, and a rapid decline in the country’s morale: the loss of territories in both Normandy and Gascony followed, not long afterwards, by the defeat of the house of Lancaster during a civil war seen by some as resulting from the events influenced by the loss of English territories in France in 1450 and 1453.
During these years, attempts made by the English government to settle the problem of the French lands, above all that of Normandy, aroused a variety of reactions in England. The period saw, on the one hand, the creation of a point of view favouring a cessation of the war; on the other, the growth of opposition to any form of peace which criticised the procrastination of those close to the king. A study of these reactions, however brief, can reveal useful indications of the mind set of certain sections of English society at this time, showing that peace, however desirable, could create very important social and political problems in English society.
The history of England between 1440 and 1450 is characterised by a growing hostility shown towards a group of persons led by William de la Pole, earl, then marquis and finally, in 1448, duke of Suffolk, who controlled the king and the royal council. Certain of these, including Suffolk and Adam Moleyns, bishop of Chichester, were to meet violent deaths.1 Others, including Edmund Beaufort, duke of Somerset,2 Sir Thomas Hoo, formerly Chancellor of Normandy for the English, and Reginald Bowlers, abbot of Gloucester, escaped death but witnessed attacks on their lands by the people.3 They supported the countercoup of Suffolk’s unpopular policy, namely the abandonment of Maine and Anjou in the spring of 1448, followed, two years later, as an inevitable consequence of this policy, by the defeat at Formigny and the loss of Normandy, a province conquered by Henry V’s army thirty years earlier.4 The events of the reign of Philip Augustus seemed to be repeating themselves, for only a part of Gascony and Calais remained faithful to the English king. For one reason or another, the year 1450 was a sombre year in England.
1 C. L. Kingsford, Prejudice and Promise in Fifteenth-Century England (Oxford, 1925), ch. VI; R. Virgoe, ‘The Death of William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 47 (1964–65), pp. 489–502.2 ‘… lui fu dit qu’il avoit vendu aux Franchois ladicte duchie de Normandie … et aveuc ce, le commun poeupple estoit sy mal content de luy que a touttes fins voloient que on le fist morir…’ (La Chronique de Mathieu d’Escouchy, ed. G. Du Fresne de Beaucourt Paris, SHF, 1863), I, p. 314).3 Six Town Chronicles of England, ed. R. Flenley (Oxford, 1911), pp. 106, 134; The Historical Collections of a Citizen of London in the Fifteenth Century, ed. J. Gairdner (London, 1876), p. 196; C. L. Kingsford, English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century (Oxford, 1913), pp. 355, 372.4 For the accusations made against Suffolk early in 1450, see Rot. Parl., V, 177–182.
However, well before 1450 it was clear that certain persons were accusing Suffolk of having betrayed English interests in France, and particularly in Normandy. His policy of withdrawal was seen as being but little judicious, if not perfidious. For a great number, retreat was only the betrayal of a glorious past to which many remained as witnesses. To abandon English pretensions to the crown of France constituted an insult not only to the memory of Edward III and Henry V (‘the moost victorious noble Prynce of blessed memorie’, as the late king was called before the Parliament of 1450) but an attack, too, on the honour of the current king and his house. Even worse, by surrendering Maine, Anjou and Normandy the king would give the impression to his subjects that he was no longer concerned with making a reality of his title ‘king of France and England’. Would it be necessary to have all royal seals recast? Worse still, as Humphrey of Gloucester, brother of Henry V and uncle to the current king, asserted, would be the dishonour which such a policy would reflect upon his country.5
5 See Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council of England, ed. N. H. Nicolas (London, 1835), V, pp. 391–395: Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Wars of the English in France during the Reign of Henry the Sixth, ed. J. Stevenson (London, RS, 1864), II, pt. 2, pp. 440–441.
Opposition to Suffolk’s policy was increased by another element: the loss of the means of existence intended to support certain Englishmen deeply and personally committed to the maintenance of the English domination of Normandy and the surrounding areas. Some had been there since the reign of Henry V, or for more than thirty years or so; others had taken part in the great victory won by the English at Verneuil in 1424 and had received lands in recompense; others still were civilians (including some clergy) who had worked in the service of the king and of other great lords. For such as these, life was not easy, yet many of them did not wish to leave Normandy which they regarded as their ‘patrie’, war and administration being sources of revenue. Like Foukes Eyton, donor of a portrait (still to be seen) on a stained-glass window in the church at Caudebec-en-Caux, begun at this time, they felt themselves to be an integral part of the country. They were certain to feel resentment against any plan to abandon them.6
6 ‘Gentes Anglicae nationis, tam nobiles, domini, milites et plebes habuerunt ex dono praefati domini regentis ducis de Bedforde, pro eorum bono gestu et strenuitate in bello de Vernelle in Perche. … dominia, maneria, terras, et tenementa in dicto comittatu de Mayne…’ (Letters and Papers, ed. J. Stevenson, II, pt. 2, pp. 550–551). Similar sentiments were expressed in another text: ‘Supplient tres humblement les gens d’eglise, nobles, souldoyers et aultres … nagueres estans et demourans es villes, pays et forteresces du conte de Maine … et chascun d’eux … ayent servy defunct le roy … vostre pere [Henry V] et vous … ou fait de la guerre et a faire la conquest du conte du Maine, qui est votre droit et propre heritage, a vous appurtenant des le temps du roy Henry Second. … pour raison desquelz services, et affyn qu’ils eussent de quoy ilz peussent mieux vivre et maintenir leurs esttas honnourablement en vostre dit service. … vous leur eussies donne et octroye, plusieurs benefices, terres, seigneuries, assises en icellui conte, desquelles ils ont joy et possede, et employe grant partie de leurs biens … pour les reparer, maintenir en estat et les faire valoir (Letters and Papers, II, pt. 2, pp. 598–599). These lines are very telling and worthy of close study.
Seen from a strategic point of view, the loss of Normandy could prove inauspicious for England. During periods of war the English derived great advantage from their occupation of the Duchy which served them as a base for expeditions into France (this had been shown by the duke of Bedford when he had conquered Maine and Anjou) but equally it served as an area to which they could retire if the situation turned against them. At the same time the occupation of Upper Normandy allowed them to dominate the valley of the Seine and, thus, the roads leading from the sea to Paris. It also gave them the possibility of exercising almost complete domination of the Channel by controlling both sides of the sea which allowed the coastal populations of England to sleep more soundly. The loss of Normandy, however, would create fear of French attacks among these populations, a fact which caused the inhabitants of Kent to take part in the revolt, called after Jack Cade, in 1450. In that same year it was reported in Parliament that the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight planned to repair their fortifications to repel attacks which, according to certain rumours emanating from France, would soon take place.7
7 These attacks, led by Pierre de Brézé, did not resume until 1457 (C. F. Richmond, ‘The Keeping of the Seas during the Hundred Years War: 1422–1440’, History, 49 (1964), 284).
Feelings of being abandoned, which had dominated official English policy after 1445, were born of a duality of motives which led them to waging war in France. Independently of the strategic problem (which would never affect more than a small part of the population) we find ourselves in the presence of two complementary motives. Many Englishmen left for France to defend the legitimacy of the English cause and to support, as vigorously as possible, the claims of English kings to the crown of France. The English had the duty of claiming, if necessary by force of arms, not only the crown but also certain territories with which they had historical links, and which they considered belonged to them. Such were the motives which Shakespeare was to rely upon at the end of the sixteenth century. He showed how the chroniclers of the preceding century had described a king (Henry V) leaving for war with the intention of winning back for himself and his people what the enemy, the king of France, withheld illegally. To certain historians this was sheer hypocrisy. It was ambition, not a wish to achieve justice, which motivated the king. It is legitimate to have this opinion of Henry V, although it is somewhat debatable. The king appreciated the benefits of a successful war: but for him the duty of regaining possession of lands and rights which, he believed, legitimately belonged to him, was the most important consideration. The legal character of these claims had significant implications; they were suited to the methods of diplomacy, and allowed the English to have recourse to their archives to justify their pretensions. Furthermore, records of the past could inspire those who wrote propaganda, while speeches made in Parliament conveyed the character of continuity to what the king was doing. There is no doubt that Henry V and many of his subjects attached great importance to such arguments. At the same time these were not sufficient to lead an army into the invasion of Normandy, and to the reconquest of the duchy by force.
What, no doubt, was to draw a large number of Englishmen to Normandy was not so much the pretentions of the crown as the possibility of personal profit and advantage being offered to them. The chronicles of the fourteenth century indicate clearly that self-interest was already at that time a powerful springboard to action. War could lead to fortune; this was a European phenomenon, governed by laws and customs involving ransoms and the sharing of ransoms; the occupation of lands and properties; the attribution of titles and honorific titles to captains of the victorious army, not all of whom were men of noble families.8 The renewal of the war in 1415 had similar consequences. The economic and financial interest was very powerful.9
8 M. H. Keen, The Laws of War in the Later Middle Ages (London, 1965).9 See C. T. Allmand, ‘The Lancastrian Land Settlement in Normandy, 1417–1450’, The Economic History Review, 21 (1968), 461–479.
Such considerations were to have decisive effects on the character of the English invasion of the fifteenth century. By multiplying the sources of benefit which were not simply judicial but economic, too, and which consequently varied from individual to individual, Henry V succeeded in making his invasion of 1417 more attractive for a part of the English population. The descent upon Touques involved more than simply the king of England’s claims; this invasion was soon to transform itself into an occupation directly involving those taking part in it, and giving them the material benefits of a successful invasion. Using profit as an incentive, Henry V was able to attract representatives of all social groups. The soldier was not alone in finding that war brought advantages; the civilian, too, was well rewarded. It is interesting to note in particular that the great nobility was to play a role of diminishing importance, its place being taken by the lesser nobility: knights and esquires who, as individuals, were to make use of the conquest of Normandy, its administration and its defence against French armies.10 The kings of the Lancastrian dynasty would not have achieved very much without their help and support. They needed attractive offers to bring them to devote themselves to royal service in France.
10 ‘The chivalry of England was no longer maintaining its previous interest in the French war, and there was now a correspondingly greater reward to be won by those who were prepared to continue an overseas military career’ (J. S. Roskell, ‘Sir William Oldhall, Speaker in the Parliament of 1450–1451’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, 5 (1961), 93); this opinion was reinforced by M. R. Powicke, ‘Lancastrian Captains’, Essays in Medieval History Presented to Bertie Wilkinson, ed. T. A. Sandquist and M. R. Powicke (Toronto, 1969), pp. 371–382. The importance of esquires was underlined by K. B. McFarlane, ‘A Business-Partnership in War and Administration’, English Historical Review, 78 (1963), pp. 290–310.
How did Henry V manage this situation? The senior ranks of the army – princes of the blood, nobles, some knights as well as a certain number of esquires – were awarded the rank of captain which they sometimes held with other functions (which occasionally led to them being named royal lieutenants) for which they received a salary and other financial benefits. More important, however was the attribution of lands in strategic areas where they had to maintain garrisons at the expense of the king and from which they sometimes drew certain benefits. From the most experienced among these were chosen those who filled important offices, consultative and administrative, military as well as civilian. It was thus that certain Englishmen became baillis in Normandy, while others were given lands of modest value but which brought with them titles and allowed the beneficiaries to rise in the social scale. This opportunity of social advancement was not without importance. Documents are witness to the fact that Englishmen advertised their titles of nobility which they had recently acquired. For some, the war could lead if not to fortune at least to titles and other outward signs of social advancement. Soldiers of inferior rank also had the chance, in the days following the battle of Verneuil in 1424, for example, to see themselves granted small areas of land or, perhaps, certain minor offices. For these, as for all soldiers, the more tangible rewards of war, ransoms and booty, were available. It should be admitted, however, that, generally speaking, there was less pillaging in the fifteenth century than there had been in the previous century.
Nor should we forget the non-combatants. Their presence, particularly in the towns, tells us that the war waged by the kings of the house of Lancaster was not simply a succession of military campaigns, but was intended to lead to a permanent English presence. It is clear that the advantages which they received, lands and offices, houses in towns, benefices for the clergy,11 the possibility of doing trade given to merchants established by Henry V in the ports of Harfleur, Caen, Rouen and elsewhere had as their aim the integration of those involved within the duchy of Normandy, an ambition in some cases successfully achieved if one is to judge by the not infrequent references to ‘So and So, ‘Bourgeois de [Caen], natif du pays d’Angleterre’. When describing the ‘petty nobility and gentry’ who Henry V hoped would establish itself in Normandy, Richard Newhall could have added that the hopes of this social group depended in good measure not only on royal grants in the form of lands, but also on the distribution of administrative posts within the government of the duchy.
11 For details, see C. T. Allmand, Lancastrian Normandy, 1415–1450: The History of a Medieval Occupation (Oxford, 1983), chs 3 and 4; ‘The English and the Church in Lancastrian Normandy’, England and Normandy in the Middle Ages, ed. D. Bates and A. Curry (London and Rio Grande, 1994), pp. 287–298.
The campaigns of Henry V had, therefore, a rather different character from those of Edward III in the previous century, for the objectives had changed in the intervening years. Well before the treaty of Troyes of 1420, the English had begun to install themselves in Normandy, a process which the double monarchy and, therefore, a double kingdom was to encourage. But in order to attract Englishmen to Normandy and avoid alienating the native populations, already regarded as subjects of the king of England, the duchy had to be spared the worst excesses. Military ordinances were published by Henry V and, later, by the duke of Bedford, regent for the young Henry VI, in a not entirely successful effort to control the excesses of the troops of occupation. Since the aim pursued was the introduction of a large number of Englishmen into Normandy, it was necessary that everything be done to make this ‘colonising’ movement as profitable as possible. A devastated Normandy would have been a much less attractive proposition to the English.
Commenting on the contract made in July 1421 between two Englishmen, John Winter and Nicholas Molineux, K. B. McFarlane wrote that this document evoked perfectly the spirit of those soldiers who went to serve Henry V in France.12 It is unlikely that these two men, who promised to support each other in case of disaster and to share the profits of their booty, were in any sense exceptional. War was a business like anything else and, as McFarlane argued, there were few who appeared ready to pursue the war for patriotic or chivalric reasons. They thought, rather, of the profits and losses which the conflict could bring them. There were, therefore, a good number of soldiers of fortune in the armies of the invader: among those rewarded for their services in Normandy were not only Englishmen but also Welshmen, Scots, Irish, Gascons, Flemings, Danes and Portuguese. Even before 1420 we find Englishmen exchanging and selling lands in Normandy which they had received from the king. At the same date, too, Englishmen were already appointing receivers to collect the revenues from their French estates. It is not surprising, therefore, that during the negotiations which took place at Arras in 1435, the French should have accused the English of making war for financial advantage. Nor is it surprising to find Englishmen who, having received no reward in France, should have demanded such when they returned to England.
12 It is worth emphasising the title, ‘A Business Partnership…’ chosen by McFarlane. See note 10, above.
It should be emphasised, however, that the war which the English waged in France was in no sense exceptional. Wars in Ireland and in Wales, in particular, had shown the same tendency. The evidence of the Patent Rolls and of the Rolls of Parliament shows that during the wars of the early years of the century against Owen Glyndr and the Welsh rebels, the Prince of Wales (the future Henry V) was already granting lands, offices and other sources of revenue, some of them confiscated, to his supporters, just as would happen later on in Normandy. When he invaded France, Henry V knew well from personal experience what his supporters would expect and would demand. Having won back Normandy between 1417 and 1419, he rewarded them with lands, demanding, as feudal custom entitled him to do, that the newly recovered lands should be properly defended. However several of those whom the King had made rich did not fulfil this obligation. Just as certain captains were blamed for not having provided sufficient guard on the border between England and Scotland, and Ireland had an ordinance against absenteeism applied to it, so Lancastrian France suffered from the neglect of English commanders: for example, captains who failed to provide a proper guard for the towns and castles placed under their care; others not paying their men, who were obliged to satisfy their needs by other means; soldiers who, having received their wages, failed in their duties and sometimes tried to return to England, where the authorities were ordered to arrest them on their arrival at English ports. It was of such individuals, for whom the war had less importance than having full pockets, that the English captain, John Fastolf, would complain bitterly in 1435. For such as they, war presented considerable risks: yet the benefits which could be hoped for were even greater.
We may ask ourselves if the ambition of those who took part in Lancastrian expeditions to France was always satisfied. It is difficult to know whether the war benefited the English economy. Certain people, it must be admitted, drew considerable benefits from it.13 Yet even in such cases doubts persist. What trust can be given to an estimate of the value of a property for the year 1440 if this rests on information collected in 1410? Granted the destruction caused by wars, it is advisable to be careful. On the other hand, when figures are lacking, what is to be done? Certain facts are beyond discussion. Neither Normandy nor the English administration was prosperous during the last years of the occupation, the English sometimes being obliged, for lack of cash, to pay their servants by giving them lands taken from the domain, although this method must, in the final analysis, have accelerated the impoverishment of the administration. It is true that certain persons, among them Sir John Fastolf, were enriched by war; but war is an adventure, and the gains of one day could be lost the next. If Fastolf ran a profit, it was in part because he understood, in 1440, that it was time to return to England. Some English would remain in France buying lands (perhaps at knock down prices?) at the time of the recovery of Normandy by the forces of Charles VII.14
13 K. B. McFarlane, ‘The Investment of Sir John Fastolf’s Profits of War’, TRHists, 5th series, 7 (1957), 91–116.14 Documents Relating to the Anglo-French Negotiations, 1439, ed. C. T. Allmand, Camden Miscellany XXIV (London, Royal Historical Society, 1972), pp. 79–149.
It is appropriate that we should now ask how the English, having come to Normandy under conditions and with the ambitions we know about, should have reacted before the prospect of peace and expulsion which official English policy was offering them. Two kinds of source can be helpful in this respect. On the one hand, there are memoirs such as the one drawn up by Sir John Fastolf at the time of the conference at Arras in 1435; or that written by Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, younger brother of Henry V, just before the release of Charles, duke of Orléans, in 1440, both of which give us the point of view of certain leading English notables.15 On the other hand we have the advice of the diplomats sent from England to negotiate in the pale of Calais during the summer of 1439. Such evidence reflects the opinions, state of mind and reactions of these medieval colonists.
15 ‘Sir John Popham’s personal history, the loss of his estates in Normandy … made him less likely to support court policy. Having assisted in the winning of much of what was now all but lost, he represented something of a reproach to the royal administration’. Many survivors of the debacle across the Channel were now disappointed, sour unforgiving men, … eager to bring down the dynasty which had failed itself, and them too. (J. S. Roskell, The Commons and Their Speakers in English Parliaments, 1376–1523 (Manchester, 1965), pp. 227, 242).
Opposition to peace and concession was based on two factors, one legal, the other reflecting the material situation enjoyed by certain Englishmen in France. If a final peace were to be agreed, these would have to renounce all pretensions to the crown of France, which would be a denial of past claims and of all that had happened in past years. The claims of Henry V and the presence in Normandy, and elsewhere, of numerous Englishmen would have no legal basis, since they would depend entirely on force. There must, therefore, be vigorous opposition to any concession on this vital issue. And were the enemy to achieve military successes, it would be necessary to seek truces which would give the English time to re-establish their military position, which would avoid putting an end to the war. For once the war was over, it would be difficult to claim the crown of France with much hope of winning it. Truces had a further advantage: Normandy and the other territories where Englishmen could be found would not be irrevocably lost. Truces gave hope to those who needed it, while peace signified the end of all their hopes. Peace, therefore, must be avoided at all costs.
If those defending this position relied, at the same time, on both ancient English pretensions to the crown of France and on the presence of Englishmen there since the invasion of Henry V (positions which combined elements of de iure and de facto), others based themselves on the effects of the present occupation by the English in France for the past twenty years, what one might call the human aspect of the problem. A final peace would involve the restitution of Norman lands to those to whom they had belonged before the invasion of 1417; the English would therefore seek compensation for the loss of those lands, offices and other forms of revenue, both secular and ecclesiastical. This aspect of the war deserves to be closely considered, for it played an important part in English policy towards the means of ending the war. The problem was raised at the negotiations which took place in 1439 between France, Burgundy and England. The English demanded that they should be given compensation (provision) for the lands and benefices which they would lose if obliged to leave Normandy. This compensation, they claimed, would involve the king of France, but the king of England was willing to contribute a quarter of the sum involved. Not surprisingly the French opposed such a plan: it would cost too much and, above all, it was important to avoid any gesture which would give the impression that the French were ready to buy back the lands which belonged to them by right. On the contrary, it was for the English themselves to restore to the Norman nobility and clergy the lands and benefices which they had illegally detained. It is therefore little of a surprise that given the conditions of occupation by the English, and the advantages which certain Englishmen drew from them, that such demands were rejected. Nor is it surprising that the French should have refused to consider demands for indemnity put forward by the English. Diplomatic documents allow us to see that, towards the end of the war, certain Englishmen encouraged its continuation not so much to satisfy their legal claim as to appease those who would lose financially if the occupation were to end. Peace had become both a political and a social problem.
In 1447, after eight years which had witnessed the gradual progress of French forces, the problem was considered afresh. English ambassadors demanded considerable sums in indemnities, but these were denied them by the French envoys under the pretext that to admit the English demands would be ‘a kind of sale’ (‘seroit une maniere de vendicion’) which the king of France would not allow, adding that this means of coming to an agreement also presented certain legal problems which they were unwilling to resolve. With the military situation slowly but perceptibly turning against them, the English could obtain no important concession in return for the cession of Le Mans and the county of Maine.
The breakdown of these negotiations removed the last hope which those with land in Normandy might have had for the future, and must have encouraged them in their determination to fight to the end. They felt themselves betrayed by the English crown whose subjects they were: it had failed in its duty to protect them. The indemnity which was to be received by the duke of Somerset, count of Maine, Mortain and Harcourt, and captain-general and governor of Anjou and Maine, in compensation for the loss of these two territories, exasperated those who were to receive nothing. The English government, unable to negotiate reasonable conditions with the king of France, risked losing the respect and following of its subjects in Normandy. The accusation made against the duke of Somerset, according to which he had not distributed sums of money destined to those who had lost their lands in Maine, reveals much regarding the feelings of a good number of Englishmen towards the king of England and, above all, his officers. The demand for indemnity presented in 1452 in the name of former inhabitants of Maine who had retired to Normandy, only to lose everything they had there a year or two later, was predictably rejected. It underlines, however, the feelings of bitterness felt by these ‘dispossessed’. Should one be surprised to see these people hurling accusations, even false accusations, against those whom they regarded as having betrayed them?16
16 ‘… considere how that oure said ij duchies be of the most auncient enheritance that hath belonged unto [us] and to oure noble progenitors, kings of England…’ (Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Counci, ed. N. H. Nicolas, v, p. 1).
Such were the reactions of certain Englishmen when confronted by French successes in Normandy. How did those living in England react to those same developments?
The abandonment by Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, of his alliance with England at the conference at Arras in 1435 had made the king and the royal council of England more determined than ever to continue the war as vigorously as possible. True, in 1436, Hue de Lannoy was reassuring the duke of Burgundy that the English were tired of war; yet, in the very same year the English council could write to Louis of Luxembourg, chancellor of France for the English, that ‘it is not our intention, nor will it ever be, to abandon anything on the far side of the sea for as long as God gives us life’. This policy was supported by the appointment of Richard, duke of York, as royal lieutenant in Normandy, with the orders to persevere with a bellicose attitude towards the enemy. The defensive war in Normandy was to continue. In spite of pressures exercised in favour of a policy favouring the protection of Calais and the preservation of the country’s maritime interests, the council gave its moral support, as well as its financial help, to the duke of York.
However a change of policy was soon to be seen. The rise to power between the years 1435 and 1440 of Henry, cardinal Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, and of John Kemp, archbishop of York (he, too, became a cardinal in 1439) and of William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, marked a change of view regarding the conduct of the war. In 1439 negotiations with France were renewed. Advantage might be taken of the fact that Normandy was poor and insufficiently populated; that English armies there were badly organised and unpopular, the lack of discipline allowing the soldiers to oppress the native populations; that English captains did nothing except seek their personal profit. In 1440, replying to the duke of Gloucester who had protested vigorously against the release of the duke of Orléans, a prisoner in England since the battle of Agincourt, twenty five years earlier, the council could reply that great kings, such as Edward III and Henry V, had well understood that the conquest of France was an unattainable ambition. As things stood, the king of England was losing too many soldiers and was wasting his revenue on the defence of land which did not merit it. Did the population of Normandy not deserve that peace should be granted to it?
The English council also had to consider the case of Gascony upon which, ever since 1442, king Charles VII and the dauphin had exercised strong military pressure. What should the English do in this case? Was it better to send the insufficient military forces which remained in Normandy to Gascony, or to divide them between the two provinces? The years 1442 and 1443 marked a crisis of confidence in the regions of France controlled by the English, who had, for a very long time, controlled Normandy and Gascony,17 but no longer had the manpower or the financial resources required for the defence of both. As the archbishop of York admitted before the council at the beginning of February 1443, it was not a case of doing what one wanted, but rather what could be done. Normandy does not appear to have had an effective and determined defender within the council, so it is likely that it was as much the lack of a determined policy and the needs of Gascony (albeit a rather more prosperous province) rather than a conscious decision to either ‘sell’ or ‘betray’ Maine and Anjou and, as a consequence, Normandy, too, which provoked the anguish of Englishmen in the duchy at this time.
17 ‘… the whiche contrees … of tyme that noo mynde is, have be under the paisible rule, governance and obeisance of oure progenitours ad predecessours, kings of Engelande, and of us, without any intterrupcion’ (Letters and Papers, ed. J. Stevenson, II, pt. 2, p. 465).
What were the thoughts of those outside the royal council? If we are to believe Hue de Lannoy, writing in September, 1436, ‘the ordinary people of their kingdom are very tired and concerned by the war, which has caused great divisions among them: ‘… and so, taking all things into account, it is very likely that if they could return to a more reasonable life, they would enter into it in good heart…’. According to Lannoy, the diplomatic setback suffered at Arras had been the cause of much discontent in England. It is clear that opinion was sharply divided. If voices favouring peace were beginning to make themselves heard, the mercantile section of the population had, ever since 1436, been demanding the defence of Calais, which may have led cardinal Beaufort to come closer to the Flemish towns, a policy which culminated in the agreements of September, 1439. From then on, Beaufort felt freer to concentrate his attention on the other English lands in France, notably on Gascony, for which a part of the population, which appreciated the economic importance of the region, was making representations. As we have seen, the royal council was divided. If, finally, more money was sent to Gascony than to Normandy,18 one reason was because there were more Englishmen of rank in Gascony than in Normandy, which leads one to think that it was the small proportion of English officers in Normandy who had encouraged the royal council in England to commit disposable funds to the area where control over their expenditure would be in English hands. One may wonder whether Normandy was not becoming terra incognita for most members of the English council, a fact which would have important consequences for the future.
18 ‘Normandy was not popular with the council’ (E. F. Jacob, The Fifteenth Century, 1399–1485 (Oxford, 1961), p. 468; M. G. A. Vale, English Gascony, 1399–1453 (Oxford, 1970), pp. 114–131).
The truce of Tours (1444) was none the less well-received by the Normans, the citizens of Rouen giving a warm welcome to the earl of Suffolk. In the following year, the young Marguerite of Anjou, who was to marry Henry VI, was welcomed in London, politely rather than enthusiastically. The royal council, and even the duke of Gloucester, thanked Suffolk for having negotiated this truce. Yet a year later a change in public opinion was already discernible. Rumour was rife that the king was to go to France to discuss peace with his uncle, Charles VII. A meeting between two such personages could only mean one thing: that the king was himself trying to resolve the French problem, which would probably involve concessions not only on his behalf, but, equally, concessions by his subjects who lived and had interests in Normandy.
From the beginning of the year 1446 one observes opposition to a final peace growing, along with indignation against the person of the earl of Suffolk. In April, the chancellor, John Kemp, archbishop of York, who, until that moment, had favoured a compromise with the king of France announced his personal opposition, as well is that of the two houses of Parliament, to all ideas of peace, reminding the king that the treaty of Troyes had expressly stipulated that no peace should be made with the dauphin (now Charles VII) without the agreement of the estates of both kingdoms.19 The following year, 1447, was marked by the abandonment of Le Mans to the French; the feeling of being betrayed by their own leaders, underlined in the chronicles written by supporters of the duke of York, was increasing. This was hardly surprising, for there were in England during these critical years many people who had lived in France and who would have preferred to continue the war. As stated in a memoir of 1449 – the work, perhaps, of Sir John Fastolf – the war should be maintained on several fronts, for it would be wrong that those, French as well as English, who had sustained the royal cause for thirty-two years, should lose all their possessions at a stroke.20 Besides, it was dangerous to allow too large a number of people, whether noble or not, to return to England since the war in France had offered them a good life and a level of existence which they would never be able to maintain.21 For such as these inaction, whether military or political, was the equivalent of treason. They saw all around them the collapse of the regime which they had helped set up and maintain. For them, the loss of Maine and Anjou, followed by that of Normandy, went contrary to the interests of both the king and his people. Unable to do anything, they could only protest – or turn to violence.
19 Kemp’s change of mind may stem from the fact that he had served as a senior functionary in Normandy, and was therefore one of those who had tasted the advantages of the French war. He had also probably played a role in negotiating the terms of the treaty of Troyes two decades earlier.20 ‘Item, considerandum est quanta esset inhumanitas et defectus caritatis erga proximum relinquere illos nobiles viros, tam linguae Anglicanae quam Gallicanae, et etiam populares, qui pro factis regis per xxxii annos tot onera sustentaverunt: et si (quod Deus avertat) in manus adversariorum inciderent, quantas divitias pro redemption corporum suorum extrahere oporteret’. (Letters and Papers, ed. J. Stevenson, ii, pt. 2, p. 726).21 ‘… durante guerra in Francia laute vivere soliti sunt, et illam vitam in Anglia continuare non possent’ (Ibid, p. 726).
It therefore causes little surprise to see among the accusations made against the earl of Suffolk in 1450 several which concerned France quite specifically: that Suffolk had conspired with king Charles VII to deprive the heirs of Henry VI of their patrimony; that he had ceded Maine to the French, handing them the means of invading Normandy: and that he had prevented the departure of English armies to defend legitimate interests in France.22 Following the English defeats, Suffolk was being cast in the role of scapegoat. Documents reflect an air of treason when they report on events in Normandy, a province which all those living there, lords, captains and others, wished to preserve.23 To show that he was one of those who knew France, Suffolk, in his protestation of innocence presented to the king in January 1450, emphasised that his father and his brother had both been killed on French soil in 1415, the first at Harfleur, the other at Agincourt; that two other members of his family has also been killed or taken prisoner in France; that he himself had spent several years in France without returning to England, and that he had even spent time in a French prison.24 But it is unlikely that even if he had said, as he could have done, that he owned large states in Normandy, that he could have saved his life or reputation.25 Accused with his collaborators of having sold Normandy to the enemy, he had to pay a heavy price for its failure.
22 Rot. Parl., V, pp. 177–179.23 ‘Normandie was desired universally by the kynge’s subjects beynge ther, as well lords, capteyns and other’ (Third Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts London, 1872), p. 279).24 Rot. Parl., V, p. 176.25 He was lord of Bricquebec (Manche). The contract of the sale he negotiated with Bertram Ent-whistle, in 1429, is recorded in Archives de la Seine Maritime, Rouen, Tabelionnage register 1431–1432, fol. 43.
All this enables us to appreciate the diversity of opinion in England in the face of the events of the war: in the face of the prospect or, worse still, the menace of peace and the future of the monarchy itself. The war was regarded from several points of view, of which two stood out. One was that the king of England wanted to maintain his claims to the crown of France; the other was the defence of the interests, rights and personal ambitions of those who had taken part in the conquest, occupation, defence and administration of Normandy.26 The negotiations of 1439 had underlined the reality that, in the final analysis, these two kinds of interest could no longer be reconciled. Towards 1440 it was recognised that the royal interest – the crown of France – could be given up. At this critical moment the royal council, dominated by Cardinal Beaufort and composed almost entirely of leading members of the nobility and bishops, began to lose interest in the fate of Normandy. At the same time members of the lower nobility, whose members had played a role of great importance in the conquest and conservation of the duchy, felt itself abandoned.27
26 Thomas Basin distinguished between English rights and English interests in Normandy (Histoire de Charles VII, ed. C. Samaran, I, p. 187).27 We find an example in the person of John Lampet, captain of Avranches, whom the administration was unable to help when the town, situated on the western border of Normandy, could not be reached. Men such as Lampet had little sympathy for those who failed them in this moment of crisis. The nobility, whose members controlled the royal council, did not have the same commitment to the defence of Normandy, a division of interest which was to prove fatal to the English effort.
In conclusion, a few words should be said regarding the special place which Normandy occupied in the English mind. We know that, by the terms of the treaty of Troyes, the duchy was granted a particular status, and that in certain respects, and contrary to the treaty, the duchy was not regarded by the English as forming part of the kingdom of France. After the death of Charles VI (1422), the English often made the distinction between France and Normandy in order to emphasise that, in their view, for historical and legal reasons, the duchy was a territory set apart. There were other reasons, too. It was from Normandy that the conquest of Maine and Anjou was undertaken and Orléans was besieged. That same siege had marked a decisive moment; the victories of Joan of Arc had underlined the fact that the military conquest of the whole of France would never be accomplished: the treaty of Arras and the loss of Paris, in 1435 and 1436 respectively, underlined this. It thus became necessary to give up all hope of claiming the crown of France. From that time onwards, the English began to withdraw physically and psychologically into Normandy, which found itself rapidly becoming isolated. The Palace at Rouen, symbol of authority, was rebuilt; a ‘Chambre des Comptes’ for Normandy was created; the autonomy of Norman courts, already encouraged for some years past, was emphasised; a University was founded at Caen, between 1432 and 1439. In this way it was hoped to create a form of enclave subject to the king of England.
But, for this dream to become a reality, men must be ready to defend themselves against the French king’s armies. The earl of Suffolk, however, did not wish to fight. Rightly or wrongly, his policy was one of withdrawal or, as his enemies insisted, a policy of defeat dishonourable for both the king and for those of his subjects who had maintained his conquests for many years. For this reason, Suffolk and his friends were branded as traitors, the king being warned that he was surrounded by men who had treason in their heart. Military defeat exasperated the opposition, and their shame led to anger. Most, perhaps, had never seen Normandy. But we can understand why those who knew her were so touched by her loss.28
28 For a more detailed treatment of this aspect of the war, the reader may turn to Allmand, Lancastrian Normandy, 1415–1450, ch. 9.