Shakespeare's Kings (71 page)

greedy,
sensual
woman
of
doubtful
antecedents'
¹
who
was
formerly waiting-woman
to
his
first
wife,
Jacqueline
of
Hainault
-
was
accused of
using
sorcery
against
the
King
by
making
a
wax
image
of
him
and melting
it
over
a
slow
fire.
Her
motives
were
plain
-
Gloucester
was heir
to
the
throne
-
and
the
evidence
incontrovertible.
Of
her
two accomplices,
one
-
Roger
Bolingbroke,
a
known
professor
of
the
black arts
-
was
hanged,
drawn
and
quartered;
the
other,
Margery
Jourdain, was
burnt
at
the
stake.
Eleanor,
her
life
spared
by
the
King,
was
sentenced to
walk
barefoot
for
three
days
through
the
City
of
London
carrying
a lighted
taper,
and
to
perpetual
imprisonment
thereafter;
she
was
to
die fourteen
years
later,
at
Peel
Castle
on
the
Isle
of
Man.
Her
husband, we
are
told,
did
not
lift
a
finger
to
save
her.

The
eclipse
of
Gloucester
left
something
of
a
vacuum
on
the
political stage;
but
it
was
quickly
filled.
William
de
la
Pole,
fourth
Earl
of
Suffolk, has
already
made
his
appearance
in
these
pages.
Born
in
1396,
he
and his
family
had
devoted
their
lives
to
the
French
wars.
His
father
had died
before
Harfleur,
from
which
he
himself
had
been
invalided
home; his
elder
brother,
the
third
earl,
had
been
killed
at
Agincourt;
another brother
had
met
his
death
at
Jargeau
where,
as
we
have
seen,
William had
been
taken
prisoner.
Having
managed
to
pay
his
own
ransom,
he had
returned
to
England
in
1431
and
married
the
Countess
of
Salisbury, the
widow
of
his
old
chief.
²
Thenceforth
his
rise
had
been
rapid.
A close
friend
of
Charles
of
Orleans
-
whose
official
custodian
he
became in
1432
—
he
was
an
active
and
influential
member
of
Beaufort's
peace party
and
conseque
ntly
a
bitter
opponent
of
Gloucester;
it
came
as
no surprise
when
he
was
appointed
one
of
the
commissioners
to
inquire into
the
charges
of
sorcery
made
against
the
Duchess.
His
principal achievement
of
these
years,
however,
was
to
engineer
at
Orleans's suggestion
-
and,
it
need
hardly
be
said,
in
the
teeth
of
vociferous objections
from
Duke
Humphrey
-
the
marriage
of
the
King
to
Margaret,
daughter
of
Count
Rene
of
Anjou.

Margaret's
name
was
not
the
first
to
have
been
proposed
in
this connection:
among
other
candidates
there
had
been
the
daughters
of

1.
Dictionary of National Biography.

2.
She was the granddaughter of the poet Geof
frey Chaucer. Her extraordinary
tomb, with its macabre
memento mori
beneath,
stands in the church of Ewelme,
Oxfordshire, and is well worth a visit.

the
Holy
Roman
Emperor
Albert
II,
of
the
King
of
Scotland
and
of the
Count
of
Armagnac.
The
year
1438
even
saw
the
beginning
of negotiations
for
a
daughter
of
Charles
VII,
but
the
French
had
proved so
unenthusiastic
that
the
English
delegation
had
taken
offence
and gone
home.
Margaret,
however,
was
different.
Her
father,
known universally
as
le bon roi Rene,
was
not
only
Count
of
Anjou
and
Provence, Duke
of
Bar
and
Lorraine;
he
was
also
titular
King
of
Naples,
Sicily and
Jerusalem
and
the
brother-in-law
of
Charles
VII,
who
had
married his
sister
Mary.
And
even
this
was
not
all:
through
her
mother,
Isabella of
Lorraine,
Margaret
was
a
direct
descendant
of
Charlemagne.
In
1444, though
still
only
fifteen,
she
was
already
famous
for
her
beauty
and
her intelligence.
Her
strong
personality
would,
it
was
hoped,
instil
some backbone
into
her
feckless
husband;
at
the
same
time
she
was
young enough
to
take
direction
from
those
in
authority.
Suffolk
was
deputed to
lead
an
embassy,
first
to
Charles
VII
to
seek
at
least
a
temporary peace,
and
then
to
Count
Rene
to
make
a
formal
request
for
his daughter's
hand.
At
first
he
seems
to
have
been
distin
ctly
reluctant
to accept
these
two
tasks,
demanding
(and
receiving)
a
formal
indemnity in
advance
for
any
agreement
he
might
make
in
the
course
of
either set
of
negotiations;
but
both
ultimately
proved
successful.

Reaching
Harfleur
in
mid-March
1444,
Suffolk
and
his
train
joined the
Duke
of
Orleans
a
month
later
at
Blois.
Together
they
sailed
down the
Loire
to
Tours,
where
they
were
met
by
Rene
and
where
Charles VII
received
them
all
on
17
April.
Negotiations
for
both
the
marriage and
a
two-year
truce
proceeded
smoothly
enough
and
were
virtually completed
by
early
May,
when
Margaret
and
her
mother
arrived
from Angers.
On
24
May
1444
the
betrothal
of
herself
and
Henry
was solemnly
celebrated
in
the
church
of
St
Martin
at
Tours,
with
Suffolk standing
proxy
for
the
absent
King.
Charles,
we
are
told,
took
a prominent
part
in
the
ceremony,
which
was
followed
by
a
great
feast in
the
Abbey
of
St
Julien,
Margaret
being
treated
with
all
the
respect due
to
a
Queen
of
England.