York’s first successor in Normandy, appointed by Henry, was a political compromise, the king’s tutor, Richard earl of Warwick, an unwilling and elderly stop-gap of fifty-seven, who most inconveniently died in harness on 30 April 1439. The office was then put into commission with both Beaufort brothers, the cardinal’s nephews, prominent members of it, until the king, as he now said, could either appear there in person, or make up his mind whom to appoint as his deputy. He was a long time in deciding. First Humphrey of Gloucester was made ‘general gouverneur’ in absentia and the elder Beaufort earl of Somerset, already on the spot but a soldier rusty from seventeen years of captivity in French hands, was appointed ‘lieutenant et gouverneur général sur le fait de guerre’, a title which he ambiguously retained even after York’s ultimate reappointment. Finally, with obvious reluctance, York was at last acknowledged to be the only possible satisfactory, long-term candidate and reappointed on a five-year term from 2 July 1440 until Michaelmas 1445. He made conditions, insisting on Henry’s formal conferment upon him of all the powers which his uncle Bedford had had. A whole further twelve months was needed to organize his return. By the time he landed at Harfleur in June 1441, with a large army and an English council of his own choosing,23 Somerset was back in England and the floundering Norman ship of state once more had a reasonably competent captain and steersman after four years of stopgaps and political compromises which had followed Henry’s personal assumption of power.
York had been advised in drawing up his conditions by his own council, which included Sir John Fastolf, Sir William Oldhall and Sir William ap Thomas, all able and experienced in Norman affairs, and he had required this council to be augmented by the addition of at least one bishop (he specified Norwich, Salisbury or Lincoln), one lord (Viscount Beaumont, Lord Hungerford or Lord Fanhope) and a knight (Sir Ralph Butler, Sir John Stourton or Sir John Popham). He was thus clearly demanding the secondment to him of a representative selection of those about Henry who were known to enjoy his confidence. He also requested the services of a further notable number of knights, esquires, yeomen and others from Henry’s own household. The era of Bedford’s administration was now to be revived. His powers were to be those of Bedford, or of those which Gloucester ‘had or should have had now late’. He was to be able to call upon the assistance of the duke of Brittany, to have £20,000 per annum from England, on firm surety and assignments, which were not to be diverted or employed to other purposes (a significant requirement),24 so that he should have no cause to leave the king’s service there (as had ominously just happened to the earl of Huntingdon in the comparable post in Gascony) and sufficient extra for ‘great war or laying great sieges’. For the expenses of his household he was to have 30,000 francs per annum (12,000 less than Bedford, 6,000 more than Warwick). Also, from the king, were to come sixteen pieces of artillery with twenty-six gunners and all other necessary arms and ammunition. He was to have the right to return to England if the appointments were not fully kept (as they were not), after due notification to the king and council. He also specified power to appoint to all military posts in Normandy, over-riding with his own nominees any existing life or term of years grants unless they were being adequately performed in person or by deputy.
Avoiding the traditional wasteful and profitless siege warfare condemned by Fastolf, he marked his advent in Normandy by a brilliant Seine and Oise campaign, conducted in conjunction with Talbot and centred on Pontoise, in the course of which the French king and the dauphin, harried to and fro over the rivers, were ignominously chased almost to the gates of Paris. The pursuers found the royal bed still warm at Poissy. But inexorable logistics dictated an autumn return to Rouen for the triumphant but exhausted and near-starving army.25 Charles VII took Pontoise by assault on 19 September 1441 and the 1442 campaigning season was notable only for Talbot’s capture of Conches and siege of Dieppe.
For 1441–2 York’s £20,000 was paid promptly, largely by diverting assignments intended for Henry’s own household, but after that he had to wait until February 1444 for anything more from England, when he received a further £10,300.26 It was not that all sources of financial support from England suddenly failed. Other expensive and contradictory projects had meantime secured the attention of Henry’s weak and vacillating resolve. York had at last been given a long-term, well-endowed appointment ‘for the defence and conservation of the duchy of Normandy and realm of France’. But the year 1443 saw Henry, with the administrative assistance of his English council, marshalling the resources of the English kingdom for a contradictory, grandiose plan in which York would play no part, a revived plan of complete conquest, of the thwarted, expansionist ambitions of 1428, with the elder Somerset now cast in the role then played by the earl of Salisbury. But this was no long-term, carefully thought out master-plan to determine the future of Henry’s French kingdom. An opportunity to employ this force in this manner was hastily contrived out of the near-desperate needs of Henry’s other duchy, Gascony, and at the expense of resources already promised to Normandy. As it turned out, it provided no benefit whatsoever, either to the duchy of Normandy or to the southern duchy whose cries for help had first occasioned the raising of its great army.
The appointment of John Holand earl of Huntingdon as lieutenant general of English Gascony for nine years, in the midst of the preparations for the peace conference of Gravelines, had been the first such military appointment since Thomas earl of Dorset’s in 1413.27 It was occasioned by aggressive French expeditions against the duchy in 1438, planned by Charles VII, which had advanced on Gascony from the Agenais, Armagnac and Béarn, under the Castilian routier Roderigo de Villandrando, Poton de Saintrailles, Alexander bastard of Bourbon and Charles II sire d’Albret. The ravaging of the whole of the Médoc and its occupation as far as Soulac at the mouth of the Gironde culminated in the capture of the Saint-Seurin suburb of Bordeaux, which lost 800 men in an unsuccessful sortie against them. This French tide ultimately spent itself and fell back, due to lack of sufficient artillery, provisions and the hostility of the countryside, but savage war had been carried into the heart of English-held areas which had been free of it for many years before. The solitary key fortress-town of Tartas in the Landes, to the far south on a tributary of the Adour (some forty-five miles north-east of Bayonne), held by Charles II, sire d’Albret, now became a symbol for deciding the loyalties of all the feudal lords of the Midi.28
At the end of August 1440 the earl of Huntingdon and the seneschal of Gascony, Thomas Rampston, began a long siege of Tartas and ultimately obtained terms for a conditional surrender of the city from Albret.29 On 21 January 1441 Rampston signed a local treaty which would give joint possession of Tartas to Albret and the English, with the assent of the viscount of Lomagne, eldest son and heir of Jean IV, count of Armagnac, mutual exchange of hostages and a truce of twenty years between Albret and the English. But all this was made conditional on the issue of a trial of strength, a journée, to be held between English and French forces at Tartas on a stipulated day. This day was finally postponed, at the request of the English captains on the spot, to St John’s Day (24 June) 1442.30 The stronger army, English or French, which appeared in the field before Tartas on that date, would thus secure the allegiance of the lords of the Midi. Before February 1442 Charles VII sent most solemn and binding letters to Albret, promising, in view of his composition to hand over Tartas to the English on 24 June, that he would be there with the greatest force he could muster on that day.31
Gloucester had publicly indicted Henry’s wavering policy towards Gascony in June 1440 as part of his condemnation of the release of Orleans, complaining that Huntingdon’s indentures were not being kept and that he most probably would have to abandon his charge. He also warned about the danger inherent for English Gascony in alliances then pending between Orleans and the houses of Armagnac, Foix and Albret.32 Huntingdon was in fact recalled some time before 21 December 1440, why is not known,33 and the affairs of Gascony left without supreme direction.
Nearly twelve months later nothing had yet been done towards facing up to the pending trial of strength at Tartas on 24 June 1442. Ambassadors from the three estates of Gascony, pressing for provision to be made before the appointed day, were then promised by the chancellor, John Stafford, bishop of Bath and Wells, that the council would put their case to Henry.34 Nothing further happened. No decisive confrontation in the field, as planned by Huntingdon, was forthcoming. Charles VII, by contrast, kept his word to Albret and appeared before Tartas in strength on the appointed day. Thus he gained the allegiance of the feudal lords of the Midi, as well as possession of Tartas, because the English made no appearance there to oppose him.
Amid all these problems of his French inheritance, the defence of Normandy and Gascony, the assertion of his right to the French crown with the consequent commitment to aggressive war, and the impossible pursuit of peace terms acceptable to two sides with irreconcilable claims, it was the attainment of peace by negotiation which proved to be Henry’s over-riding interest. Hencc the release of Orleans on 5 November 1440.35 Henry thought this would open a line of direct, fruitful contact between himself and Charles VII, his uncle of France, which would ultimately lead to peace.
Charles duke of Orleans, premier prince of the Valois blood royal, and a prisoner in England since his capture at Agincourt in 1415, was released by Henry, after twenty-five years of captivity, specifically to bring about realistic peace terms through the special personal influence which, it was believed, only he could exert over Charles VII. Henry reached this decision after considering written submissions weighing the advantages and disadvantages likely to ensue, which were provided for him by the council at his request. His uncle Gloucester was adamantly opposed to the release and said so with the utmost publicity. A striking act of open government then followed, made necessary by his uncle’s attitude when he demanded, and was granted, an exemplification under the great seal of his arguments against the release.36 Through the council the king himself now issued his own counter-manifesto of justification.37 Gloucester had pursued a vendetta against the two cardinals, Beaufort and Kemp, for their role in the abortive peace conference of Gravelines and stigmatized the release of Orleans as their doing.38 When the mass began after Orleans had solemnly sworn on the high altar in Westminster Abbey to observe the conditions imposed upon him as a peacemaker, Gloucester ostentatiously marched out and took to his barge.39
Gloucester’s accusation has led to Beaufort’s part in Henry’s peace policy being exaggerated. The details of the negotiations at Gravelines show that Beaufort was only the executant of Henry’s policy and any decisions had to be referred back to him. Beaufort and Kemp were the first of a long line of ministers who were saddled with the responsibility for policy which was actually the king’s. On this occasion the king cleared his ministers of such responsibility, openly and unequivocally stating in his counter-proclamation40 that the release of Orleans was his own personal doing, made not of ‘simpleness or self-will’, but of’ his own advice and courage’, stirred by God and reason, in the best interest of himself and his people. Some of the reasons behind it were necessarily his secrets, he said, but he could state publicly that it was done specifically because, in his considered opinion, it would lead to the attainment of peace. The history of one hundred years of conflict, and the present position in France, he declared, both showed that a complete English conquest of the might of France was impossible. Even Edward III had been content with less than this, and Henry’s father, just before his death, was about to treat for peace, as those then about him and still living had told him. Henry believed (mistakenly) that his adversary was really disposed and inclined towards peace and (again mistakenly) that Charles VII had himself made the release of Orleans a sine qua non of any treaty. It was thought that those about his adversary who opposed a treaty were the very ones who opposed the release of Orleans, since they feared for their influence at the French court should he return (here again Henry was wrong in his diagnosis). A subsidiary reason given was that it was contrary to the law of arms to keep a man in perpetual prison when he was prepared to offer reasonable finance, and a bad example for a king to set. Orleans had never had access to English state secrets and it was unlikely that a man who had been kept out of affairs of state and the conduct of the war for a quarter of a century would be much of an asset to his adversary (this turned out to be true only so long as Orleans and Charles VII remained at loggerheads). Finally both Charles VII and the dauphin would be solemnly bound as parties to any agreement. Orleans’s task was specifically to resolve the contention between the two kings over the right and title to the Regnum Francie. No hostages were to be taken, but he was bound to return to captivity if he had failed after twelve months. Success would bring cancellation of his ransom and Pope Eugenius IV, through the agency of the apostolic court and chamber, would mediate over any breach of the terms.41
All this was wishful thinking. Three years later Orleans was still at liberty and nothing had been achieved, not because, as Gloucester had feared, the able Orleans had at once proved a god-send to a dim-witted French king and dauphin, but because Charles VII had declined to receive him and had not taken him into his confidence, let alone been influenced by him. The French king, when approving his release, had bound himself only to accept a ‘fitting and reasonable peace’,42 which to him meant no concession over sovereignty in any part of the Regnum Francie and, equally, no concession at all over the title to the French crown and arms.
The duke of Orleans, thus released by Henry specifically to bring about realistic peace terms, was in fact rebuffed by Charles VII. The French king flatly refused to receive him in state when he proposed to present himself at court. He had first made a triumphal progress through Northern France, with nothing short of regal honours, fresh from a lavish reception by Burgundy. He had declared his adhesion to the treaty of Arras, had been installed as a knight of the Burgundian Golden Fleece and had married Burgundy’s niece Mary of Cleves.43 Rebuffed by Charles VII, Orleans withdrew in frustration to his own estates. He became involved in a new Praguerie of the French princes of the blood, designed to impose their will on Charles VII, their lawful sovereign. Henry’s reliance on the good offices of Orleans for the achievement of peace thus enmeshed his interests with those of the rebellious princes and immeasurably complicated both the diplomatic and the military position. Among the diplomatic consequences were proposals for Henry’s marriage to a daughter of Jean IV, count of Armagnac, one of the leaders of this rebellious league of French princes. He was led to offer the hand of one of his daughters to the young Henry VI at the instigation of the princes of France in order to add the support of the English king to their coalition against Charles VII.
In 1442 the count of Armagnac sent his chancellor Jean de Batute, archdeacon of Saint-Antonin at Rodez, to London to broach this subject of marriage between Henry VI and one of his three daughters, at the king’s selection. He acted, the count specifically stated, at the request of the dukes of Brittany, Orleans and Alençon. The overtures were favourably received by the young king, and he even at first authorized the opening of negotiations on the basis of a firm choice of one of the maidens. He sent ambassadors, his secretary Thomas Beckington and his household knight Sir Robert Roos, to accompany the archdeacon on his return to his master. But Henry soon had regrets, not about marrying at all, but about thus closing his options of choice among three maidens in advance. He sent hot-foot after his ambassadors to Plymouth with messages signed ‘of our owne hand, the which as ye wot well we be not much accustomed for to do in other cases’. The ambassadors, duly checked, sent the messenger, the king’s esquire, Nicholas Huse, back to Windsor post-haste for new credentials and received in reply their final instructions. They were to obtain portraits of all three daughters ‘in their kirtles simple and their visages, like as ye see their stature and their beauty and colour of skin and their countenances, with all manner of features’. They were to base themselves on Bordeaux or Bayonne, whi
le a portrait painter did this work and an envoy was to be sent back to the king with the likenesses so that he could signify his final choice.
Henry thus appears to have shown a quite normal interest in the fair sex, but his intimate negotiations, alas, were not to be allowed to proceed smoothly. Charles VII, accompanied by the dauphin and most of the nobility of south-west France, including the count of Armagnac’s own heir, the viscount of Lomagne, set out from Toulouse on 11 June 1442 at the head of a considerable force en route for the Tartas journée and to reconquer English Gascony. The marriage embassy had in fact learnt something of these intentions from Sir Edward Hull even before they embarked for Gascony, as early as 15 June. They had met him by chance at Enmore in Somerset, on his way to court. Hull had been sent by the terrified community of Bordeaux to solicit Henry’s immediate aid. Before they themselves landed at Bordeaux on 16 July, Tartas had actually fallen, Thomas Rampston, seneschal of Gascony, had been captured, the road to Bayonne was cut, Dax was under siege and communications with Armagnac already uncertain. To the north of the mouth of the Gironde Royan had capitulated. With Saintonge and the Landes lost, Entre deux Mers and Médoc were in immediate danger. So much for the activities of Orleans the peace-maker.
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