The Plantagenets: The Kings That Made Britain (22 page)

This event added urgency to the need for Henry’s coronation. He was crowned at Westminster on 5 November, and plans were made for him to travel to Rheims for his sacred initiation as French king. In April 1430 he crossed the Channel with a large army to reinforce the one already there. The following month Joan of Arc was captured by the Burgundians. Deserted by the French royalists she had led to victory, she was examined by the Inquisition on charges of heresy and witchcraft and in May 1431 was burned at the
stake. The unsettled military situation in France prevented Henry from being crowned until December 1431, when Beaumont, recently made a cardinal, presided over the ceremony, not in Rheims but at Notre Dame in Paris. Shortly afterwards, however, the Duke of Burgundy changed sides and this initiated the gradual collapse of English power in France. In February 1432 Henry’s only visit to France came to an end.

English fortunes in France did not improve, partly because Bedford, Gloucester and Cardinal Beaufort could not agree on a policy. Peace talks were held at Arras in 1435 but broke up in disagreement. In September Bedford died, and in the same month the alliance of Charles VII and the Duke of Burgundy was formalized.

The death of Bedford left the young king at the mercy of the conflicting counsels of Gloucester and Beaufort. Gloucester, who was now heir presumptive to the childless king, believed that the mantle of the charismatic Henry V had fallen upon his shoulders. He was headstrong, determined to regain military superiority in France and had a considerable public following. The cardinal had the backing of the church and the more cautious councillors for his irenic policy, and he increasingly influenced the young king to seek peace with France. Throughout his adolescence Henry was dominated by these strong characters, and he saw little of his mother who had become involved in an affair with Owen Tydr (Tudor), a relation of Owain Glyn Dwr and one of Henry V’s Welsh captains, and the couple eventually had four children. Gloucester was furious at this royal scandal,
ordering that Tudor be imprisoned and Catherine be secluded at Bermondsey Abbey, where she died at the beginning of 1437. Tudor eventually escaped to north Wales. By 1437 Henry had assumed formal control of affairs, but he was unable to shake himself free from his feuding uncle and great-uncle.

1438–49

As Henry approached manhood it became clear that he was not cast in the same heroic mould as his father. He was shy, bookish, pious, generous to friends and protégés and committed to the peace of his realm. Henry was to prove an enthusiastic patron of church building. He took a considerable step forward in the royal patronage of educational and ecclesiastical buildings with the founding of Eton College (1440) and King’s College, Cambridge (1441). He was passionately devoted to their development and embarked on these projects as soon as he assumed full control of the government.

He did, however, lack both the assertiveness necessary for a wartime leader and the political cunning necessary for effective diplomacy. He was easily dominated by Cardinal Beaufort, whose foreign policy was directed towards ending the conflict with France. Gloucester tried to have the cardinal indicted on charges of embezzlement, fraud and usurping the position Gloucester felt to be rightfully his, and although the attempt failed it did damage Beaufort’s reputation. In 1441 Gloucester’s own standing was affected by the conduct
of his wife, Eleanor (née Cobham). She enjoyed the position of first lady in the land but ambition prompted her to consult with an occult circle to discover the date of the king’s death, and a rumour rapidly spread through London that she was conspiring with a priest/necromancer and Marjorie Jourdemain, the Witch of Eye, to bring about Henry’s demise. Henry, particularly sensitive to spiritual influences, both evil and benign, took a close personal interest in the trial of the offenders, which resulted in Eleanor’s forced divorce and her lifelong incarceration in a succession of detention centres.

The continuing squabbles between Gloucester and Beaufort undermined their credibility and paved the way for new influences to enter the king’s life. The principal beneficiary was William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, who had served with distinction in the French war, had been sworn on to the council and was appointed Steward of the Household. He now became Henry’s closest adviser and from about 1440 set about achieving a peace settlement with France, backing an alliance involving the marriage of Henry to Margaret of Anjou, the French queen’s niece. Arrangements were concluded in 1444, and in the following May the 15-year-old queen was rapturously received in London. With a young royal couple capable of producing an heir on the throne and lasting peace in prospect the people had much to celebrate.

The rejoicing was short-lived. Within months it was learned that, as part of the marriage negotiations, England had forfeited Maine and Anjou. When, despite this sacrifice, war resumed, with Margaret’s father, the Duke of Anjou,
among the leaders of the army that invaded Normandy, the queen’s popularity slumped. Nevertheless, she rapidly began to exert influence over her husband and, in concert with Suffolk, turned him decisively against Gloucester. In February 1447, when the duke arrived at Bury St Edmunds to attend parliament, he was arrested. His enemies intended to charge him with treason, but he died, as one chronicler puts it, in sinister circumstances, ‘the sickness how God knoweth’. In April Cardinal Beaufort died. It was the end of an era.

1449–54

By the time parliament met in November 1449 the government was in crisis. The English army in Normandy was being steadily driven back from fortress to fortress. The treasury was empty. There was growing resentment at the suspicious death of Gloucester, for which Suffolk was blamed by the populace. But what lay at the root of the widespread and growing discontent was the personal ineffectiveness of the king. Not only was Henry the first king not to lead his armies in foreign battle, he was also incapable of directing policy. But he seems to have been oblivious of the mounting malaise. He lavished lands, titles and appointments on Suffolk, who was made a duke in 1348, and when the Duke of Somerset, leader of land forces in France, returned after a disastrous and lacklustre campaign, the king publicly expressed complete confidence in him. However, parliament called Suffolk to account and in January 1450 despatched him to the Tower, accusing him of enriching himself at the nation’s expense,
of misleading the king and of plotting to assassinate him. Henry tried to save his friend and minister by issuing an edict of banishment, but this had two results: it diminished Henry’s reputation still further, and it allowed Suffolk to escape. The duke was captured in May as he tried to board a ship, and he was immediately beheaded by a group of sailors.

Suffolk’s body was brought ashore at Dover, and within days hundreds of men from Kent and the southeast were marching on London. What the leaders of Cade’s Rebellion, as this protest movement was known, were protesting about was a ‘lack of governance’. They regarded themselves not as rebels but petitioners. There was general discontent about the collapse of law and order throughout the country, and, as is usual in popular revolts, the spokesmen protested their loyalty, insisting that they only wished to rid the king of his ‘evil councillors’. But what fixed the timing of this revolt and gave it its emotional intensity was the loss of Normandy – the final English stronghold fell in July. Not only was this a huge blow to national pride, it also brought great suffering to thousands of English families who had settled in the English cross-Channel dominions and were now forced to flee, leaving their homes, lands and livelihoods behind them. These destitute refugees, smouldering with resentment, were now entering the country through the ports along the southeast coast.

There are similarities between the rebellion of 1450 and that of 1391, but there are also important differences. The leader, Jack Cade, was a smooth-tongued Irishman and an
ex-soldier. During the brief insurrection he was guilty of cold-blooded murder and other acts of violence. With a small army at his back he attacked London and, while claiming to be acting in the public interest, accumulated a considerable amount of personal loot. However, his supporters were far from being a vulgar rabble. Included in their number were 74 gentlemen, 500 yeomen and numerous merchants and craftsmen. Important dignitaries included members of parliament, the mayor of Queenborough, the bailiff of Sandwich as well as several constables (manorial officers responsible for keeping the peace) and commissioners of array (officials charged with mustering local levies in the event of threatened invasion). These leaders of rural and urban society were concerned about the state of the country, and they joined Cade’s protest march to draw the government’s attention to ills that were crying out for redress. To gull the ‘better sort’ into following him, Cade called himself ‘John Mortimer’, a supposed cousin of the Duke of York (the current heir presumptive to the throne; see p. 228).

Cade’s host marched to Blackheath and published their demands in placards sent to the king and widely distributed. The list of grievances was a long one but may be summed up in two clauses from the rebels’ petition:

The law serveth of naught else in these days but for to do wrong, for nothing is sped almost but false matters by colour [under cover] of the law for mede [bribery], drede [fear] and favour, and so no remedy is had in the court of [according to] conscience …

We say our sovereign lord may understand that his false council hath lost his law, his merchandise is lost, his common people is destroyed, the sea is lost [a reference to the French having regained control of the Channel], France is lost, the king himself is so set that he may not pay for his meat nor drink and he oweth more than ever any King of England ought, for daily his traitors about him where anything else should come to him by his laws, anon they ask it from him.
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Henry set out to with an army to meet the rebels, who immediately dispersed because they did not want to be labelled as traitors. However, when the king tried to follow and round up the rebels several of his own captains refused to proceed against their countrymen. Henry, having no confidence that he could command obedience, withdrew, first to Berkhamsted and later to Kenilworth.

On 23 June Cade re-established his base on Blackheath. Growing bolder, he moved to Southwark on 2 July, and sympathizers from Essex set up camp at Mile End. There was no effective opposition from the city. Cade gained control of London Bridge, and he and his men plundered at will the houses of several noblemen and civic dignitaries. To give the colour of legality to their proceedings, they indicted certain individuals before judges at the Guildhall but, impatient with the slow process, took matters into their own bloody hands.

The citizens had had enough of such behaviour, however, and on 5 July they regained control of the bridge. This led to prolonged fighting, and it was Queen Margaret who, next
day, took the initiative to end this confrontation. She sent two archbishops and a bishop to offer a pardon to all rebels who would disperse. Cade’s followers seized the opportunity and the rebellion fizzled out. Cade fled with a price on his head. He was tracked down on 13 July and died in the ensuing scuffle.

This appalling display of weak kingship was the background to the intervention of Richard, Duke of York. In the absence of any son born to Henry and Margaret he was heir presumptive to the throne. On his father’s side he was descended from Edward III’s fifth son, Edmund, Duke of York, and on his mother’s side from Edward III’s third son, Lionel, Duke of Clarence. His claim was, therefore, impeccable. In addition, he had acquired great wealth by marrying into the powerful Neville family (his father-in-law was Earl of Westmorland and his brother-in-law was Earl of Salisbury). He had served with some distinction in the French wars and, because of the poverty and incompetence of Henry’s government, had funded the army largely out of his own purse. York had been removed from his military position in France in favour of the Duke of Somerset, who had been largely responsible for the loss of England’s cross-Channel possessions. Unsurprisingly, York and Somerset loathed each other, but Somerset had the advantage of enjoying the king’s favour. In 1447 York was appointed the king’s lieutenant in Ireland, to get him out of the way, but the more the king and his council lost credibility, the more people looked to York to restore morale and efficient government.

In September 1450 York returned from Ireland without
permission. His motives were probably a mixture of a desire to assert his own right to a place on the council and a response to pleas that he should break the power of the Somerset clique. His appearance certainly alarmed the Lancastrian leadership, and efforts were made to arrest him. Nevertheless, he reached London and established himself on the king’s council. During the next two years the rival factions vied with each other for power, but Somerset continued to enjoy royal support.

In July 1453 England suffered the final humiliation of the loss of Gascony. Of all the continental lands that Henry VI had inherited only Calais now remained. It may have been this disastrous news that broke the king’s health, and he had a complete mental breakdown. The implications for the country and the dynasty were dire. Ironically, it was at this time that Queen Margaret was delivered on 13 October of the long-awaited heir, christened Edward, but the king’s incapacity made it imperative to make arrangements for a regency. Margaret, who now began to emerge as the real power behind the throne, staked her claim, but the following spring parliament appointed York as protector and defender of the king and realm, and he wasted no time in having Somerset and his other opponents arrested.

In December Henry recovered as suddenly as he had fallen ill, and the roundabout of power turned again. Somerset, released from the Tower, was determined on a showdown with his rival, and both sides gathered their forces for a possible military confrontation.