Richard The Chird (2 page)

By this time Charles the Seventh possessed a well-trained army, formidable in its artillery, and he was well aware of the weaknesses of the English. In exchange for the hand of the King of England, Suffolk could secure only a two years' truce. This offer was the sole dowry of the prospective bride, Margaret of Anjou, Suffolk persuaded the royal councilors, however, that the truce could easily be transformed into a treaty of peace which would leave England her chief possessions across the Channel.

In early March of 1445 Margaret was married by proxy to Henry the Sixth at Nancy. York met her at Pontoise, the southeast limit of the English lines in France. Accompanied by Suffolk (now a marquess) and a train of noble ladies, he escorted her

across Normandy to Harfleur. She was not yet sixteen, a proud, learned, and beautiful girl, daughter of the Duke of Anjou and niece of Charles the Seventh. The bells of Portchester which greeted her ten days later were the first knell of the House of Lancaster. Within fifteen years Margaret was to prove as fatal to her cause as to her greatest enemy.

It was a marriage of fire and milk.

Henry was now twenty-four years old, but no more a ruler than when he lay in his cradle. He was a pathetic prisoner of his darkening mind, his feeble will, and his good intentions. His greatest pleasure was in prayers. His favorite companions were priests— those priests who, his councilors had made sure, would not preach against the ills that ravaged the land. The sight of a low-necked gown would drive him from his chamber, crying, "Fie! For shame!" Because he sat upon a throne, his virtues had become rods to scourge his country. Credulous and loyal, he nursed a blind affection for his advisers which enabled them to transgress at will against justice. Generous, he cheerfully allowed himself to be pillaged of lands and treasure until the Crown was hopelessly mired in debt. In 1450 he owed nearly ,£400,000; his yearly income had shrunk to j£ 5,000, and the officers of his household spent and embezzled ,£24,000 a year. The magnates of Cardinal Beaufort's party—all-powerful since 1440—had discovered that it was even easier to rule by the King's favor than by the council. Of the wretched state of his realm Henry was only dimly aware. All would be well, he was sure, if only men would trust and love his ministers as he did. With timorous and maidenly delight he welcomed the bride they had chosen for him as the pledge of peace.

Although Margaret of Anjou was only fifteen years old when she was wedded, she was already a woman—passionate and proud and strong-willed. However humiliating it must have been to her to discover that she was married to a monk, she quickly perceived her duty: she must zealously guard the rights of the Crown; she must crush those who were pointed out to her as its enemies. Awed by her beauty and her strength of will, Henry at once became her humble vassal

Indomitability was a tradition among the women of her family. Her father, "good King Rene," owned glittering titles and small powers or talents to make them good. While he happily passed his time as a prisoner of the Duke of Burgundy in writing poetry and staining glass, his wife struggled to establish his claim to the kingdom of Naples; and his mother governed Anjou with a man's hand, reducing the province to order and keeping out the English. By family example, as by temperament, Margaret was well prepared to become the champion of the Crown. She had no sense of responsibility to England as a nation. Her outlook was personal, feudal, and dynastic. She was as primitive as her father was cultured.

It never occurred to her that the Queen should be above party strife. She quickly discovered her friends: they were the men who had made her marriage and wanted peace with France, the Cardinal's men, Suffolk and Somerset and their followers. 1 Her enemies were Humphrey of Gloucester and his party. Humphrey not only urged the prosecution of the war, but was the heir to the throne; and behind the aging Humphrey stood Richard, Duke of York. "The Quene," a correspondent of John Paston's reported a few years later, "is a grete and stronge labourid woman, for she spareth noo peyne to sue hire thinges to an intent and conclusion to hir power." 2

Within a year of her marriage, a tide of public indignation against misgovernment at home and double dealing abroad was beating against her and her favorites. Suffolk, it was discovered, had secretly promised to surrender to the French the province of Maine, the bulwark of Normandy. The Queen was easily persuaded that her unpopularity was due to the machinations of Gloucester and York. In February of 1447 Duke Humphrey was suddenly arrested as he arrived at Bury St. Edmunds for a meeting of Parliament. Five days later he was dead—the victim of a stroke, the court party explained. 3 * As for the Duke of York, who since 1445 ^&d been seeking a renewal of his lieutenantship of France, he was excluded from the King's councils and was finally got out of the way by being appointed Lieutenant of Ireland. France was given to the Duke of Somerset.

In 1449 the Duke of York set out for what the court regarded as his exile in Ireland. Well for him was it that he traveled strong. Royal commands were dispatched to Cheshire, to the Welsh Marches and the seaports in Wales, that the Duke was not to reach his destination. Among those sent to waylay him was Sir Thomas Stanley, of an old Cheshire family, whose sons would repeat the act against York's sons. The Duke evaded all traps and ambushes, however, and passed safely over to Ireland. 4 In less than a year he had converted his exile into a triumph. He made friends of the Irish chieftains; he settled the quarrels of the English who dwelt in the Pale; he not only maintained order but sought to offer justice. His rule was the best that that unhappy island had known in a long time; ever afterward it zealously supported the House of York.

Meanwhile, the final disasters overtook the English in France. Suffolk and Somerset had surrendered Maine in the spring of 1448. The following year, though they knew that their grip upon the Norman towns was feeble, they wantonly broke the truce in order to sack the rich city of Fougeres and compounded their folly by refusing to make reparations.

In the summer of 1449 the French armies fell upon Normandy. Townsmen and peasants seized weapons to aid their countrymen. In a few weeks the thirty-year rule of the English had igno-miniously collapsed. By November Somerset was besieged in Rouen. To purchase safe passage for himself and his family, he surrendered not only the city but numerous towns as well. Within six months England had lost all of France save Calais, hers for a hundred years, and Guienne, which her kings had ruled for nearly three centuries. By the end of 1451 only Calais remained.

Despite the lands and offices which Suffolk (since 1448 a duke) had swallowed down, the doting affection of the King, and the ardent support of the Queen, he could not maintain himself against the storm which the news of these disasters roused in England. In early January of 1450 his colleague Adam de Moleynes, Bishop of Chichester, was murdered at Portsmouth by a band of soldiers, whom he had apparently sought to defraud of part of their pay.

Seventeen days later, the Commons * petitioned for the impeachment of the Duke of Suffolk. He was charged with criminal mismanagement of French affairs, subverting justice to maintain his authority, and antagonizing the King against the Duke of York. Since he did not dare to plead the privilege of trial by his peers, the Queen and he took the only other means by which he could be saved. The King's reputation must be sacrificed for the sake of the minister. On March 17 King Henry, in a humiliating mummery of justice, merely ordered Suffolk to absent himself from England for five years, his banishment to begin on May i.

But by this time London was howling for the favorite's blood. The next night he barely got away, some two thousand citizens sallying to St. Giles in the hope of intercepting him. On April 30 he embarked at Ipswich. Off Dover his ship was captured by a vessel which had been lying in wait for him. Two days later he was thrust into a small boat and made to kneel above a rough block. Brandishing a rusty sword, a churl took half a dozen strokes to smite off his head. Body and head were then cast upon the sands of Dover.

Though the King might mourn in horror and the Queen seek savagely for revenge, the anger of the people was by no means slaked. England heaved in an earthquake of popular discontent. Ayscough, Bishop of Salisbury, one of the court party, was murdered by his own flock. In June, Kent rose at the call of Jack Cade. Whole districts took arms en masse; many a knight and gentleman sympathized with the rebels. At Sevenoaks, Cade defeated the vanguard of the King's hastily assembled troops. The residue of the royal army melted away. In this crisis the Londoners offered to live and die with King Henry and to pay the expenses of his household for six months if he would but stay with them. Heeding the voice of Queen Margaret, however, he fled shamefully to Kenirworth. But Jack Cade was able to lord it in London for only four days. After a bitter night battle on London Bridge his forces were barred from the city. Offered

* Since the phrases "House of Lords" and "House of Commons" were not employed until the sixteenth century, I have used "Lords" and "Commons," the terms customary in Richard's day.

free pardons, they hastened to accept. Cade was captured in flight and killed.

But the earthquake still shook the realm. There were uprisings in many shires, restlessness everywhere. About midsummer there arrived at court the worst news' of all: the Duke of York was returning from Ireland. Panic-stricken, the Queen and her favorites summoned home the Duke of Somerset, who had remained prudently in France, and once more commanded their followers in Cheshire and the Welsh Marches to waylay York. On the way to meet him, Sir William Tresham, a former speaker of the Commons, was ambushed and murdered. But the Duke succeeded in eluding his enemies and came safely to his strongholds in the Welsh Marches. 5

In the early fall he confronted Henry at Westminster. He swore that he was the King's true liegeman and servant. He demanded his rightful place at the council table in order that he might help to restore order and good government. Finally, he inquired why the King had covertly sent men to intercept him on his journeys to and from Ireland. Henry made a shuffling answer. He had been persuaded that the Duke had unworthy motives. He was now sure, however, that the Duke harbored no such motives.

"We declare you," said the King hopefully, "our true subject and faithful cousin." He agreed to summon Parliament and he piously assured the Duke that he was a lover of good government. 6

When Parliament met in October, Somerset was accused of criminal misgovernment, and reforms were demanded, among them, that the Duke of York be acknowledged as the first councilor of the King. Early in December, however, the Queen and her party regained their courage; Henry, as usual, dotingly did their bidding. Suddenly Somerset was released from prison, appointed Captain of Calais and Comptroller of the royal Household. Parliament was prorogued until May; in June it was dissolved before it could accomplish anything; for daring to propose that York be formally recognized as heir to the throne, the Speaker of the Commons was thrown into prison.

In disgust the Duke of York retired to his Welsh estates.

The struggle was resumed in earnest in January of 1452* Hearing that the King's heart was hardened against him "by sinister information of mine enemies," York once again addressed a petition to Henry. 7 It was ignored. In early February, the Duke began to assemble followers. Soon he was at the head of a sizable army and advancing on London. When his application to enter the city peaceably was refused by the magistrates, he crossed the Thames at Kingston and moved into Kent.

The Queen and the court, meantime, had succeeded in gathering an army even larger than York's. With Henry in nominal command, it moved through London and camped at Blackheath. The Duke had friends among the nobles in the royal army. Through their good offices negotiations were opened. York reiterated his demand that Somerset be brought to trial. King Henry acquiesced, swearing his royal oath that it should be so. At once disbanding his army, the Duke of York came, almost unattended, to Henry's tent. There, to his astonishment and anger, he discovered Somerset, still in power. The Queen's wish had canceled the King's word. Now helpless, York was hustled to London. His life may have been saved by the rumor that his eldest son, Edward, a boy of ten, was marching from Wales at the head of ten thousand men to rescue his father. Or the Queen and Somerset may have feared the storm his murder would provoke. On March 10 at St. Paul's cathedral, in the presence of a great assemblage of lords and commons, the Duke of York was forced to swear an oath to keep the peace, to raise no troops, and to be obedient to the King's command. 8 Despite his popularity with the commons, his desire to strengthen the power and dignity of the Crown, and the support of a considerable portion of the nobility, he had accomplished nothing. Protests and parliaments meant little, and the King's word meant less, now that Margaret and the court party had ceased to be a government and become a faction. By treating him as an enemy, the Queen had turned York into one.

Shortly after his humiliation, the Duke retired to Fotheringhay, where his Duchess Cicely, great with child, awaited him.

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