Henry VI

by Bertram Wolffe

  It is clear, at least from July 1436, when Henry, merely by signing his name ‘Henry’ at the bottom of a petition, personally granted certain valuable lands which had been Bedford’s to his Beaufort great-uncle for life, that the process of granting royal graces was re-established.2 On 23 November 1436 he alienated the islands of Jersey and Guernsey, also former possessions of Bedford, to his uncle Gloucester and his heirs male by minuting Gloucester’s petition ‘R.H. nous avouns graunte’.3 In another grant to Gloucester, made on 19 December 1436 at Eltham palace, the clerk in attendance recorded that Henry simply handed the document to the keeper of the privy seal, ‘present Ralph Botiller, knight and others’.4 Another early, solitary example of authentication was the application of a wooden stamp signature ‘Henry’. But Henry wrote an autograph initial ‘R’ before and ‘nous avouns graunte’ after it.5 The existence of a wooden stamp signature would have meant that persons other than the king might have applied it to documents and its use was not repeated. Between 7 November 1436 and the end of that month Henry signed at least twenty-seven petitions, so there can be no doubt that well before his fifteenth birthday he had been given the wide range of powers of kingship which can be described as royal graces. Some instruction in their exercise was definitely provided by the council because on 21 November 1436 their minutes included a memo to advise him to give office only to such persons as the office were ‘convenient to’, that is, in the conventions of that time, not to high estate a small office, nor to low estate a great one.6

  His English council had informed the Estates of Normandy that from his fourteenth birthday (6 December 1435) Henry had at last begun to hear and attend constantly to his affairs. In May 1436 his tutor the earl of Warwick was discharged from his duties about the king’s person, but no successor was appointed, another indication that his initiation into the processes of government was in progress.7 Since there is no record of his making grants before July 1436 this initiation must, in the first instance, have consisted of the communication to him of the contents of state papers and his attendance at meetings of the continual council and the intermittent great councils which still governed the country. This was of course now in addition to those ‘dignified’ appearances at parliaments which had been his lot from birth. Consequently some meetings of the continual council were now held, with Henry’s presence noted, in royal palaces, as distinct from its official home, the Star Chamber. One such meeting was recorded as early as October 1435 when they met at Kennington palace to appoint a successor to Bedford in the key military post of Captain of Calais.8

  The detailed workings of government are actually preserved for these years in a unique, if intermittent, record extending from 21 November 1436 to 22 July 1446. The ravages of time alone could be responsible for the haphazard degree of survival, but the need for this new record probably only arose because of the new factor of the young king’s involvement in the processes of government. The council of the minority had had its proceedings written up ex post facto by its privy seal clerk, Richard Caudray, who had kept the record from 1421 until the summer of 1435, selecting for preservation those items considered most important, but in November 1435 another clerk of the privy seal office, Henry Benet, began a new, rough but instant record of its proceedings.9 It reveals that, prior to the complete transference of power, some matters before the council had already been considered by the king. In a minor matter, for example, one William Peres, a converted Moslem, had petitioned for sustenance. On 2 May 1437 the clerk, Henry Benet, noted that the treasurer reported to the council that the king wished the suppliant to have 2d per day, which was then done.10 Again, on a rather more important matter, shortly before 8 June 1437 a problem arose in the council regarding Henry’s ex-tutor, the earl of Warwick, who was then reluctantly about to take up the lieutenancy in France which Richard duke of York had insisted on relinquishing. Among the conditions which he had laid down for acceptance was one which he absolutely insisted on having, and he said he would not go without it. This was a firm undertaking that Henry would personally accept an enfeoffment of the lordship of Abergavenny from him for two years and one week, and subsequently grant it back to him, the surest means he could think of to establish and preserve his rights therein during his absence. When this came before the council the archbishop of York said he knew that Henry had in fact already agreed to this on Whitmonday 20 May while he was at Merton Priory, but other council members were not satisfied that he had. Therefore the keeper of the privy seal was sent to the king who was then at Copped Hall near Waltham Abbey, where he had audience on 7 June. He had been instructed to ascertain Henry’s wishes on this matter as well as on a pardon for Lord Willoughby and on other things which the clerk did not specify. Presented with a schedule of the items concerned and asked if he had already given his assent the king replied that ‘he was not advised that he had’, but if his council approved then he agreed. When the privy seal reported back to the council in the Star Chamber next day they affirmed that they were still in agreement and that the schedule should now pass by warrant under the privy seal in its present form, which was done.11 Thus new channels of communication for purposes of government had had to be established between the king and the council. The great officers themselves might now have to attend the king on government business and the whole council might meet in his presence away from Westminster.12

  There were now instances recorded of his personal wishes being expressed and met. Soon after the death of his mother (2 or 3 January 1437) he summoned his step-father to his presence. Owen Tudor was Queen Catherine’s clandestine second husband, by whom she had had four or more children. He was ultimately brought to Henry, not without difficulty, through the agency of the duke of Gloucester, though their conversation is unfortunately not recorded. On another occasion a deadlock in the council had to be settled by his personal intervention. Weak, faulty and subject to changes and reversals as his decisions proved to be, from the autumn of 1437 Henry had to take the final decisions if disagreement arose in the council. On 24 October 1437 agreement could not be reached as to whether the captive duke of Orleans should be allowed to go to Cherbourg on a peace mission to meet his fellow lords of the Valois blood only if he paid the considerable expenses involved himself. Gloucester, Beaufort and Archbishop Kemp, in agreement for once, stood out against the rest in maintaining that the king should not pay the expenses, since in negotiations with his adversary of France one concession on his part would only lead to another being demanded. The duke of Orleans was therefore brought to Henry at Sheen the following Monday, to commune with him about the prospects of peace. Henry’s final decision was to pay his expenses out of a lay tenth and fifteenth.13

  On All Saints Day 1437 Henry presided in state over his court at Merton Priory wearing his crown, when it was recorded that he changed the name of Anjou herald to Lancaster herald and created a new pursuivant called Collar. The presence of the earls of Warwick and Stafford was noted in the chamberlain’s warrant as witnesses. The occasion was only recorded at all because it involved a financial transaction, paying for two silver bells presented to the heralds.14 But this formal crown-wearing may have marked his assumption of full ruling powers, because within a few days the council’s arrangements for the transference of power to the king were formally ratified by the appointment and commissioning of a new council. Someone had found a detailed definition of the functions of a royal council, made for Henry’s grandfather in 1406, which was now made to serve again in the different circumstances of 1437. This document of 1406 had described the council as existing to lighten the king’s burden in the governance of his realm; to conserve his rights; to oversee the collection and just augmentation of his revenues; to preserve the laws, customs and statutes; to see that right and justice was done to rich and poor alike. Written precedents were scarce, and even this one was not entirely apposite to the needs of 1437, because Henry’s grandfather in 1406 had then been stricken with illness and had consequently been increasing the po
wer of his council. Some historians have therefore supposed that the same was happening in 1437. But while the 1437 document was in large part an English translation of the French document of 1406, there were essential differences between them. In 1437, publication of the names of the new council members in parliament was not an issue, as it had been in 1406, because the council was now losing, not gaining, power. There was now no order that the king’s instruments endorsed by the chamberlain, or his letters under the signet, or his other warrants directed to the chancellor, treasurer or keeper of the privy seal, should be submitted to the council before they passed, as in 1406. There was now no provision that these officers should not act without conciliar approval. Moreover, additions made to the 1406 document now ensured reservation to the king of all matters of royal grace and included new provisions for limiting the council’s powers. In all matters of great weight and charge they were to debate, but not to reach a conclusion without the king’s advice. In other matters, which were within their competence to conclude, they must no longer do so if there was significant variance of opinion, for example half against half or two-thirds against one-third, and the king must be informed of the differing opinions so that he himself might conclude the matter. In short the new council, appointed at the attainment of Henry’s majority in 1437, was to have no authority to act in matters of royal grace and its initiative was to be confined to minor matters over which it could reach near unanimity. Their role would henceforth be entirely determined by what the king chose to refer to them and by what they did in advising him in his presence.15

  Fifteen members of the old council were reappointed16 and four new ones added.17 They were placed under contract to the king and their terms of appointment registered in indentures, exchanged with him. Hereafter the council kept its own set terms in the Star Chamber, fixing their length itself.18 But it now also met in the royal palaces when summoned by the king. In composition this new council was a conservative body, nicely balanced as regards princes of the blood, spiritual lords, lay lords and royal officers, but its functions had now been reduced to those traditionally performed by English royal councils: advising the king and executing his decisions. There are no grounds whatsoever for believing that the council of the minority was greedy to maintain itself in power, and determined in this document to preserve its supreme authority intact, while conceding only a semblance of power to the young king. All the evidence points the other way.

  Until 1437 there was nothing to suggest that Henry was unlikely to develop into an able and thoroughly satisfactory king; in fact quite the reverse. The record of his childhood and adolescence, even allowing for natural partiality in describing a king, suggests physical strength, normal but not excessive piety and the natural ambition of a young monarch to become king, in fact as well as name, just as soon, if not sooner, than his advisers approved. There could therefore be no reason at all for the council needing to maintain their power once the king came of age. They had shown great restraint in governing during the minority so that Henry should come to power with undiminished royal authority. They had achieved their end and in 1437 it was time for the normal processes of royal government to be resumed.

  1 For a detailed examination of fifteenth-century machinery of government in full working order during one earlier year of personal rule, September 1404 to September 1405 see A. L. Brown, ‘The Authorization of Letters under the Great Seal’, B.I.H.R., xxxvii (1964), 125–55.

  2 P.R.O., E.28/57 dated 28 July, 14 Henry VI.

  3 P.R.O., E.28/58/66; P.P.C., V, 5.

  4 P.R.O., E.28/58/75.

  5 P.R.O., E.28/58 dated 27 October 15 Henry VI, petition from Master Richard Praty dean of the Chapel Royal for presentation to the parish church of Prescot, exhibited in Pedestal 14 in the P.R.O. Museum.

  6 P.P.C., V, 3.

  7 C.P.R., 1429–1436, 589, dated 19 May.

  8 See above p. 80–1.

  9 These records are discussed by A. L. Brown in The Early History of the Clerkship of the Council (University of Glasgow, 1969).

  10 P.P.C., V, 22–3.

  11 Ibid., 29–30, 40–1.

  12 For example on 13 and 17 October 1437 at Kennington palace on the second occasion in the king’s chamber (P.R.O., C.81/1545/60, 63). On 21 October he attended a meeting of the great council in the parliament chamber at Westminster (P.R.O., E.28/58/9).

  13 P.P.C., V, 67–8, 86.

  14 Ibid., 63.

  15 Ibid., 71–2; VI, 312–15 (12–13 November 1437).

  16 The duke of Gloucester, Cardinal Beaufort, Henry Chichele archbishop of Canterbury, John Kemp archbishop of York, William Alnwick bishop of Lincoln, John earl of Huntingdon, Humphrey earl of Stafford, Henry earl of Northumberland, William earl of Suffolk, Walter Lord Hungerford, John Lord Tiptoft, John Stafford bishop of Bath and Wells, the chancellor, Ralph Lord Cromwell, the treasurer, William Lyndwood, the keeper of the privy seal and William Philip, knight, the chamberlain.

  17 Thomas Rodbury, bishop of St David’s, Richard earl of Salisbury, John Stourton, knight, and Robert Rolleston, the keeper of the great wardrobe.

  18 P.P.C., V, 73.

  Chapter 6

  THE ROYAL ENTOURAGE

  The governance of England from 1422 to 1437 had been vested in the council and was static, conducted from one centre, the Star Chamber in Westminster Palace. Even a few council meetings held in Cardinal Beaufort’s lodgings had been sufficient to draw protests from Duke Humphrey, as evidence of his uncle’s unlawful usurpation of power. But from 1437 the centre of government became the household of a peripatetic king, moving from palace to palace with royal officers, clerks and seals in attendance as required.1 Henry’s main residences proved to be Windsor castle or the principal lodge in the park there, Sheen (now Richmond) and Eltham. Kennington2 and Westminster were less popular but much used. Transfers of the court by land between these palaces were frequent, but communication by river made them all easily accessible to one another for the king, four of them being directly on the river. A royal barge was permanently stationed at Lambeth, adjacent to Kennington palace, for passage over to Westminster and elsewhere and there was a royal ferry boat at Sheen manor in the charge of the keeper of the king’s ferry.3 After the death of Duke Humphrey in 1447, when his manor of Greenwich was given to Queen Margaret, this became a further royal residence with river access. Both Sheen and Eltham were twice extensively rebuilt, extended and refurbished in the 1430s and 1440s to meet the needs of the burgeoning, peripatetic royal household.

  With no dowager queen left alive after 1437, no royal offspring to provide for, no brothers and only one uncle, and with both the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall in hand, Henry had a wider choice of habitable royal residences than any king of England before him. Other castles and houses kept in repair for royal occupation included three hunting lodges in the vast area of the great park of Windsor (Easthampstead, Henley-on-the-Heath and Guildford). A wider circle included Havering-atte-Bower, normally a queen’s residence, Berkhamsted castle,4 Hertford castle,5 which was surveyed for renovation and extension by Lord Bardolf, Henry’s household chamberlain, soon after Queen Joan’s death in 1437, King’s Langley, also previously occupied by Queen Joan, Copped Hall near Waltham, Pleshey6 and Odiham. Clarendon and Woodstock were at a greater distance. In the Midlands the duchy of Lancaster castles of Leicester and Kenilworth, the latter with its lodge of Pleasance in the Marsh, Goodrest Lodge four miles to the south, and Fulbrook Lodge three miles south of Warwick, which had belonged to his uncle Bedford, also accommodated Henry. Nottingham and Pontefract castles were put into a good state of repair and Pontefract partly rebuilt at this time, although Nottingham saw him only once and Pontefract twice before 1450. Bishops’ palaces, abbeys and priories, a few houses of the nobility and often tented camps, briefly provided the court with additional accommodation on his progresses. Between 1437 and 1453 these, rather than Westminster, were the places from which government was conducted.

  With the exception of the
years 1442 and 1443, royal progresses were made every year between 1437 and 1453 outside the inner circuit of royal residences between Windsor and Greenwich. The shortest period in any one year was twenty-seven days in 1441, which yet took Henry to Canterbury, Winchester and Cambridge. Between his return to Eltham on 13 January 1442, from a pilgrimage to Canterbury, and 23 March 1444, when he left Sheen for Woodstock, he did not move away from the Thames-side palaces. It has been suggested that this comparatively static period marked an early illness, but there is no evidence of this, and during that time he still moved about freely between his Thames-side residences, also using the hunting lodges in Windsor great park for short periods. This prolonged stay in the environs of London was more likely due to pressure of work or inclination. For the remaining eleven years between 1437 and 1450, his progresses beyond his normal residences averaged about 90 days a year, the longest period being 120 days in 1448. In 1451 a new policy developed; the 253 days he spent away in the two years 1451 and 1452 were mainly occupied in judicial progresses with his judges.

  The king’s mobile household consisted of the personnel of his court, his entourage, and those who provided for their everyday needs. The whole body moved from one royal palace to another, each of which kept only a minimum staff of keepers, parkers, bedders and gardeners in permanent residence. In 1445 very precise and elaborate regulations were promulgated in parliament to order the numbers, conduct and discipline of this entourage which was then rapidly increasing in size, to define their duties and the duties of those who fed and clothed them, to regulate the purchase and consumption of provisions and to control entrance and exit from the precincts. Set over all were the ‘sovereigns’ of the household, the great officers ruling all its various departments. ‘Above stairs’ were the chapel, hall, wardrobe, counting house and chamber. The chamber was the king’s own living quarters, itself a considerable suite of rooms with its own hall, where the elite personnel about the king dined and the king’s secretary sat with his clerks of the signet, performing their writing duties. ‘Below stairs’ were the stables, the mews, the kitchen, pantry and all other domestic offices. By 1449 there were normally twelve hundred souls within this household verge or precincts, under the exempt episcopal and archidiaconal jurisdiction of the dean of the royal chapel. Henry’s entourage was headed by the king’s confessor, always a bishop, the chamberlain of England, who was only occasionally in the king’s presence when the office was held by Gloucester, but almost continuously so when he was succeeded by Suffolk, the seneschal or keeper of the household, the keeper of the great wardrobe, the household chamberlain, the king’s carvers, who were two or three knights of the chamber, the master of the horse, the controller and the cofferer, the dean of the chapel, the royal almoner and a host of select esquires and yeomen of the body in the chamber, and yeomen of the hall.