Gloucester, knowing how precarious his own position was, and guessing his enemies would swoop upon him as an accomplice if he openly supported his wife, kept silent throughout Eleanor’s trial and condemnation, even though he must have realised who was responsible for it.
Although there was never any evidence that Gloucester had been involved in his wife’s crimes, his political credibility and influence were radically diminished after her conviction. His position on the Council was irrevocably weakened, and he only attended meetings infrequently thereafter. He was not sufficiently crushed as to cease criticising the King’s peace policy, but his was now a discredited voice. After twenty years, Beaufort had finally vanquished his rival.
W
ith Gloucester chastened and quiescent, Cardinal Beaufort was free to concentrate all his energies on procuring the desired peace with France, a project he worked on ceaselessly throughout 1442. But by the spring of 1443, the prospect still seemed remote, for negotiations had again broken down and there seemed little hope of reviving them. This unhappy state of affairs was mainly due to the dogmatic insistence of the English on Henry VI being recognised as the lawful king of France, even when it was obvious that the French were gaining the ascendancy in the war. King Charles’s ultimate objective was to reconquer the territories taken by the English, but in the meantime he was insisting on them being held of him, as overlord, and that was not acceptable to Henry VI.
At this point Charles and his son, the Dauphin Louis, invaded the province of Gascony, part of the duchy of Aquitaine. The English had been expecting an attack on Normandy and were so preoccupied with preparing its defences that when they realised what was going on they were too late to halt the French in the south. In April 1443, the Council appointed Somerset Lieutenant and Captain General in Aquitaine without reference to York, who was furious at the snub, for his command extended to the whole of France. To make matters worse, Somerset’s military career had so far been a non-event. He had been captured at the Battle of Baugé in 1421 and had spent seventeen years as a prisoner of the French. He had therefore had little experience of warfare or politics, and proved to be an amateurish and incompetent commander.
In August 1443 Somerset was created Duke of Somerset and Earl of Kendal and given command of an expeditionary force which he was to lead into Gascony, again with no reference to York. Somerset attempted to mollify the Duke, sending him word that he would be a
shield ‘betwixt him and the adversary’, and assuring him it was not his intention ‘to do anything that might prejudice in any wise the power that my cousin of York hath of the King in this country of France and Normandy’. Nevertheless, it appeared that York had been deliberately slighted, and to crown it all, while York was receiving very little financial help from London, Somerset’s expedition was generously funded.
Worse was to come. York was expecting much-needed reinforcements in Normandy, but he soon learned they had been diverted to Gascony where Somerset’s campaign ended in ignominious failure, although not before he had managed to anger England’s ally, the Duke of Brittany. He was forced to return to England in shame without having accomplished anything.
In Rouen, York seethed with resentment. He was now in severe financial difficulties, thanks to the government’s failure to forward his £20,000 annuity, which was meant to cover not only his salary but also the wages of his soldiers and administrators. Thus he had to pay them himself or face desertions or mutinies. The Council were under the complacent impression that York was doing very well on the proceeds of Norman taxation, but in fact the Duke hardly received any money from this source because it had all been diverted to other necessary causes.
Fat was added to the fire when York learned that the government had agreed to pay the ineffectual Somerset an annual pension of £25,000. This spurred the Duke to write to the King asking for his annuity to be paid to him forthwith, as provided for in the terms of service agreed upon at the time he took up his commission. Henry had the audacity to reply that, as so much money had been spent on equipping and provisioning Somerset’s army, he hoped York would ‘take patience and forbear him for a time’. York would not. In vain did he petition again and again for payment, not only of his expenses but of the debts owed him by the Crown. Throughout two terms of office he had subsidised the government of Normandy and military campaigns, and was now so financially embarrassed that he was forced to pawn one of his prized possessions, a heavy gold collar adorned with precious stones and enamelled white roses of York and hung with a huge, spear-pointed diamond. Apart from the crown jewels, this collar was the most priceless item of jewellery in England. York was the wealthiest of Henry’s magnates, but he had beggared himself in his master’s service, and would only have parted with this collar in extreme necessity.
York’s petitions were ignored. However, when government money did become available – which was not often – Somerset was
given priority claim to it, to clear his private loans. York saw clearly that, while the incompetent Somerset enjoyed the favour of the King, he himself was to be left out in the political wilderness, with no redress for his grievances. It was at this point that his anger and frustration crystallised into a deadly enmity against Somerset, whom he rightly perceived to be his chief political rival. In this lay the origins of the long-standing feud between York and the Beauforts, a feud that would not be resolved other than by death.
By 1441, Henry VI had conceived ‘an earnest desire to live under the holy sacrament of marriage’. Like any young man he was anxious to secure a bride who was personable and attractive, and to this end he insisted on being sent a portrait of any suitable candidate. None of these likenesses, alas, has survived.
Henry was also convinced that he should conclude a marriage alliance that would cement the hoped-for peace with France, and from 1441 to 1443 was considering a match with the daughter of the Count of Armagnac, Burgundy’s rival. Then in the autumn of 1443 Cardinal Beaufort proposed Margaret of Anjou, Charles VII’s niece by marriage, a suggestion that was enthusiastically supported by Suffolk, who had little difficulty in persuading the Council to agree to the match. Philip of Burgundy had suggested Margaret as far back as 1436, but Charles VII had then vetoed it. Now, apparently, the Duke of Orléans was urging it. Naturally, Gloucester opposed the idea, if only because Beaufort had suggested it, but Gloucester had no influence with the King, who was enthusiastic at the prospect of marrying Margaret.
While an official approach was made to King Charles through an embassy of bishops, headed by the Cardinal himself, the young King used his own methods of procuring information about his proposed bride. There was on parole in London a French knight of Anjou called Champchevrier, who had been captured by Sir John Fastolf. Henry was acquainted with this knight and, knowing the man had seen Margaret, Beaufort and Suffolk briefed him to sing her praises to the future bridegroom. Soon Henry was enraptured by Champchevrier’s eloquent descriptions of the rare endowments which nature had bestowed on the princess, and which more than compensated for the fact that she had no dowry.
Henry wanted a miniature of the lady, but this presented a problem, because the English ambassadors had not yet commenced formal negotiations, nor was there any certainty as to how their proposal would be received. The whole matter required careful diplomatic handling, but Henry dispatched Champchevrier to the
court of Lorraine, where Margaret and her parents were residing, to obtain a portrait secretly.
Meanwhile, Sir John Fastolf had learned that his prisoner had apparently broken parole and escaped back to France without waiting to be ransomed, a most dishonourable act on the part of a knight. Because a ransom was due, Fastolf was entitled to ask Charles VII if his prisoner might be returned to him; such were the laws of chivalry. Fastolf did just this, and Champchevrier, with a portrait already in his possession, was arrested by French soldiers on his way back to England. Granted his request to see King Charles, he confessed to him the reason for his visit to France. Charles was secretly pleased to learn it, for he too could see the advantages of an alliance between England and France. Champchevrier was released and allowed to return with all speed to England, Charles having urged him to impress upon Henry VI the benefits of a marriage with Margaret of Anjou.
Henry duly received her portrait, a miniature by a renowned but anonymous French artist in the pay of Suffolk, and instantly fell in love with it. By October 1443 he was writing to Suffolk and describing the sitter as ‘the excellent, magnificent and very bright Margaret’.
Margaret of Anjou was born in March 1429 at Pont-à-Mousson, Lorraine. She was the daughter of René, Duke of Anjou and titular King of Naples, Sicily and Jerusalem, by Isabella, daughter of Charles the Bold, Duke of Lorraine. Baptised at Toul, she was reared in infancy by her father’s old nurse, Théophanie la Magine, and spent her early years moving between the castle of Tarascon on the River Rhône and the old royal palace at Capua in Naples. Her mother, herself a gifted woman, saw that she was well-educated, tutoring her herself and perhaps arranging for her to have lessons with the scholar Antoine de la Salle, who taught her brothers. In childhood Margaret was known as
‘la petite créature’
.
René of Anjou has been described as a man of many crowns but no kingdoms. Born in 1408, his early political career had been chequered. He inherited the duchy of Anjou in 1434, but it was then occupied by the English. In 1435 he had claimed the kingdom of Naples, but had to cede his title to Alfonso of Aragon. René nevertheless continued to call himself King of Naples and Sicily, though it was as empty a pretence as were his claims to be King of Jerusalem and Hungary.
In 1441 René returned to France where, thanks to the marriage of his sister Marie to Charles VII, he built up a sphere of influence at the
French court. The friendship between Charles and René dated back to their childhood, when both had been as brothers at the court of René’s father at Angers. Now he found himself a member of the King’s council and an honoured courtier, who was constantly at Charles’s side at tournaments, courtly ceremonies and banquets. He also campaigned on the French king’s behalf in Normandy and Lorraine. By 1444 René, despite his landless status, was a considerable power at the French court, and the Milanese ambassador observed that he was ‘the one who governs this entire realm’.
René lived in some style, surrounded by luxuries such as silks and porcelain imported from as far away as China. He was a highly cultivated and talented man, a gifted artist and poet, whose illuminated manuscripts are arguably the best-executed of the period. He was also a musician of some renown. His small but brilliant court attracted all kinds of talented people seeking patronage. Most of all it was famed for its tournaments, which René raised to an art form, and for its artificial creation of a pastoral idyll inspired by the new humanism sweeping across Europe from Italy.
René had five children, including his heir, John of Calabria, Yolande, who was married to a Burgundian nobleman, and Margaret, whom the Burgundian chronicler Enguerrand de Monstrelet describes as one of the younger daughters. During her childhood her father had considered several possible husbands for her, including the Emperor Frederick III. In 1443 he sent her to live with her aunt, Queen Marie, at the French court, and early in 1444 was considering a match for her with Burgundy’s son, Charles, Count of Charolais. But René’s ancestral territories of Maine and Anjou were still in the hands of the English, and when he learned of Henry VI’s interest in his daughter he saw a means of getting them back.
Margaret spent a year at the French court, where she won golden opinions for her beauty and character. The Burgundian chronicler Barante wrote: ‘There was no princess in Christendom more accomplished than my lady Margaret of Anjou. She was already renowned in France for her beauty and wit and her lofty spirit of courage.’ Already she had an admirer in the courtly tradition: Pierre de Brézé, Seneschal of Anjou, had conceived an entirely proper and chivalrous passion for her, and carried her colours at jousts, calling himself her ‘Chevalier Servant’.
In January 1444 it seemed that peace with France was within England’s grasp, for in that month an agreement was reached between Henry VI, Charles VII and Philip of Burgundy that their
commissioners should meet shortly at Tours to discuss peace terms and a possible marriage alliance between England and France. Also present would be René of Anjou, father of the prospective bride.
In February an English embassy headed by Suffolk travelled to the French court at Tours. Suffolk appears to have been unenthusiastic about his mission, almost certainly because he had belatedly realised that peace with France would not be popular with the English people, and as a result he did not wish to be too closely associated with it. In vain he had pleaded with the King to send someone else, but Henry, for once, was obstinate. He had great confidence in Suffolk’s ability to succeed in his task, and Suffolk therefore had no choice in the matter. Even Gloucester now realised that prolonging the war was hopeless, although he was urging the King to negotiate an advantageous peace while he was still in a position to dictate terms. He would have been horrified to learn that Henry believed by this time that peace could only be achieved by making concessions to the French, even secretly if need be.
Suffolk and his entourage landed at Harfleur in March 1444, magnificently equipped at great cost to the Exchequer. In April he was courteously received by René and Charles, and given all the trappings of a state welcome. Peace talks then commenced. Suffolk made a formal request for the hand of Margaret of Anjou, to which René readily agreed, but he warned the Duke that he was penniless and could not provide his daughter with the customary dowry. He then had the temerity to demand that England return to him the counties of Maine and Anjou as part of the terms of the marriage treaty, and this demand was backed by King Charles. Suffolk referred the matter back to the Council in England, knowing full well that the cession of Maine and Anjou in return for a queen who brought no financial advantage whatsoever would be bitterly unpopular in England. Unfortunately Henry VI had just learned that the Count of Nevers was on the point of offering for Margaret, and knew he had to act quickly.