Henry VI
Page 32
1 Stevenson, Wars, I, 151–2.
2 Ibid., 118.
3 Ibid., 109.
4 Ibid., 116.
5 Over two dozen examples of this correspondence are recorded in print, most of them by Beaucourt in his edition of the Chronique de Mathieu D’Escouchy, vol. III (Preuves).
6 Stevenson, Wars, I, 164–7, signed Marguerite (MS fr. 4054, f. 37).
7 Ibid., 183–6, signed Marguerite (MS fr. 4054, f. 33).
8 Ibid., II, pt. ii, 639–42.
9 Ibid., 87–159.
10 i.e. Gascony, which the French normally called Guienne and the English indifferently Gascony or Aquitaine. The French defined this as the three seneschalries of Bordeaux, Landes and Bazadais.
11 B.N. MS fr. 18442, f. 173, subsequent instructions to the French negotiators; Beaucourt, op. cit., IV, 285 n. The allegation that the undertaking to surrender Maine was first made ‘de bouche’ by Henry is repeated in B.N. MS fr. 4054, f. 71, printed in Eschoucy (ed. Beaucourt), III (Preuves), 194 (letters from French ambassadors to their English opposite numbers, 1448).
12 B.N. MS fr. 18442, f. 173.
13 Lecoy de la Marche, op. cit., II, 258–60 (see above p. 172); Arch. Nat. P. 133418 no. 106.
14 Beaucourt, op. cit., IV, 208, no. 8
15 Foedera, XI, 106–7, 108–14.
16 See above p. 185.
17 Escouchy (ed. Beaucourt), III (Preuves), 151–3. Parliament was dissolved on 9 April 1446.
18 He received the temporalities on 3 December 1445.
19 Stevenson, Wars, II, pt. i, 368–71.
20 Ibid., I, 178–82.
21 First unequivocally styled count of Maine on 23 September 1447 (below p. 194n), but see above pp. 163–4 for evidence of a grant and authority exercised there before 1443.
22 Before 21 September: ibid., 163.
23 R.P., V, 102–3.
24 Escouchy (ed. Beaucourt), III (Preuves), 156–7.
25 P.P.C., VI, 46–9, 52–3.
26 Ibid., 53, 54.
27 Foedera, IX, 138–9.
28 P.P.C., VI, 51.
29 Foedera, XI, 138–9.
30 Beaucourt, op. cit., IV, 289, citing B.N. MS Clairambault, 307, pp. 570–61; Foedera, XI, 152–3, 14 December 1446.
31 Beaucourt, op. cit., IV, 290; Foedera, XI, 153–5.
32 Stevenson, Wars, I, 147, his final words, through Cardinal Kemp to the embassy of July 1445.
33 By the death of his brother John, 27 May 1444.
34 His commission delivered 24 December 1446: Burney, op. cit., 145.
35 Philippe de Commynes, Memoirs, ed. & trans. Michael Jones (Harmondsworth 1972), 141–5; two great princes of equal power should meet each other only when they were both very young and had thoughts only for their pleasures.
36 Jules Delpit, Collection générale des documents français, i, 263; Calendar of Letter Books of the City of London, Letter Book K, ed. R. R. Sharpe (London 1911), 320.
37 Foedera, XI, 175–6.
38 Ibid., 193–6.
39 Stevenson, Wars, II, pt. ii, 693, 694. According to the French (see below p. 195) these were the duke of Buckingham, the duke of Suffolk, Adam Moleyns, lords Scrope and Dudley and Thomas Kent.
40 Foedera, XI, 172–4.
41 Ibid., 184.
42 Stevenson, Wars, II, pt. ii, 692–702, 704. Somerset is there styled count of Maine, captain general and governor of the counties of Anjou and Maine on 23 September 1447.
43 Printed by J. Quicherat in his edition of T. Basin’s Histoire des règnes de Charles VII et de Louis XI, IV, 286–9, from the original B.N. MS Du Puy vol. 760 f. 161.
44 Foedera, XI, 189–91 (confirmation), 193–4 and C.C.R. 1447–54, 37–8.
45 Escouchy (ed. Beaucourt), III (Preuves), 172–5.
46 Stevenson, Wars, II, pt. ii, 704–10.
47 Ibid., 702–3.
48 Ibid., 692–6.
49 Ibid., 646–50
50 Ibid., 650–87.
51 Ibid., 687–92.
52 Ibid., 710–3.
53 R. Planchenaull, ‘La délivrance du Mans en 1448’, Revue Historique et Archéologique du Maine, LXXIX (1923), 188, 198; Escouchy (ed. Beaucourt), III (Preuves), 176.
54 Stevenson, Wars, 198.
55 Escouchy (ed. Beaucourt), III (Preuves), 182–3; Stevenson, Wars, I, 365–6.
56 Planchenault, op. cit., 196–202, gives specific details from records at Angers how heralds and messengers were sent out to summon the captains of the army to appear by various routes with their contingents from all corners of France and provision made for artillery, stores, billetting, musters, etc. for the siege of Le Mans. op. cit., 196–202.
57 Berry herald, 430.
58 His own is printed from B.N. MS Baluze 9037–7 by Stevenson, Wars, I, 361–8, wrongly dated 1445. The other, from Pierre Brézé and the rest of the French commissioners, is printed in Escouchy (cd. Beaucourt), III (Preuves), 181–92.
59 Foedera, XI, 196–7.
60 Stevenson, Wars, I, 202–6.
61 Escouchy (ed. Beaucourt), III (Preuves), 197–8.
62 Stevenson, Wars, I, 479–83.
63 Escouchy (ed. Beaucourt), III (Preuves), 180.
64 Foedera, XI, 199–203 (French version), 203–4 (compensation terms), 206–10 (English version); Stevenson, Wars, I, 207–8, and II, pt. ii, 717–18 for conventions of 15 March.
65 Escouchy (ed. Beaucourt), I, 128–31.
66 Drawn up and attested by the public notary Jean Brandelli: Foedera, XI, 204–6.
67 Planchenault, op. cit., 195.
68 Foedera, XI, 215–6.
69 P. Jeulin, ‘L’hommage de la Bretagne’, Annales de Bretagne, XLI (1934), 446–8; Morice, Preuves, II, cols 1399–1400. Stevenson, Wars, I, 263 (July 1449).
70 See A. Bourdeaut, op. cit., and Morice, Preuves, II, for a comprehensive collection of the relevant correspondence and treaties.
71 Book of Noblesse, ed. J. G. Nichols (Roxburghe Club, London 1860), 3, 5, and see below p. 266.
72 Stevenson, op. cit., I, 281 (deposition of de Surienne).
73 Foedera, XI, 164, 193.
74 Charles Taillandier, Histoire ecclésiastique et civile de Bretagne (Paris 1756), 21.
75 Pretentions des Anglais à la couronne de France, ed. Robert Anstruther (Roxburghe Club, vol. 64, 1847), 88–117, dated by A. Bossuat, Perrinet Gressart et François de Surienne, agents de L’Angleterre (Paris 1936), 331–2, to 1464.
76 French Rolls 36 Hen. VI, m.6, 6 April 1448 (Deputy Keeper’s Report, XLVIII, Appendix).
77 Escouchy (ed. Beaucourt), III, 210, 14 June 1448.
78 Morice, Preuves, II, cols 1430–7.
79 P.P.C., V. 62–4.
80 Morice, Preuves, II, cols 1439–41.
81 Ibid., cols 1412–15.
82 Ibid., 1429–30, received at Mehun-sur-Loire 24 September.
83 De Surienne’s own story is in Stevenson, Wars, I, 278–98.
84 Printed by J. Quicherat in his edition of Thomas Basin’s Histoire, IV, 290–347.
85 Stevenson, op. cit., I, 82, 214, 216–17, 241–2; Escouchy (ed. Beaucourt), III, 243–4.
86 Proceedings at Rouches Tranchelion (Indre-et-Loire) printed ibid., 243–51 and partly by Stevenson, Wars, I, 243–64 (mis-dated).
87 Narrative of the Expulsion of the English from Normandy 1449–50, ed. J. Stevenson (R.S., 1863), 408.
88 Escouchy (ed. Beaucourt), III (Preuves), 225 (instruction given 3 June 1449).
89 For Port St Ouen, Louviers and Bonport see Narratives, 379–514, previously printed by Morice, Preuves, II, cols 1454–1508,
90 Escouchy (ed. Beaucourt), III (Preuves), 256 cf. Stevenson, Wars, I, 263.
91 Bourdeaut, op. cit., 108.
92 Bossuat, op. cit., 325, quoting B.M. Add. MS 11509, fol. 24V.
93 Escouchy (ed. Beaucourt), III (Preuves), 250; Stevenson, Wars, I, 296; deposition of Jacquemin de Molineaux in T. Basin’s Histoire, ed. J. Quicherat, IV, 326.
94 Morice, Preuves, II, col. 14
85.
95 Ibid., cols 1451–4, 1508–10.
96 Ordonnances des roys de France de la troisième race, 22 vols (Paris 1723–1846), XIV, 59–61.
97 Bossuat, op. cit., 333. Citing Talbot’s urgent appeal for reinforcements on 11 April to which Henry look a month to reply. Letter to Talbot and the Rouen council of 12 May (P.R.O., E. 28/78) and ibid., 13 May 1449, his letter to Jean Salvin, bailli of Rouen.
98 Bossuat, op. cit., 333–4, citing E.101/71/4 no. 923, 27 May 1449, and E.403/775, 29 July 1449.
99 Stevenson, Wars, I, 503–8.
100 Berry herald, 456.
101 A. H. Burne, The Agincourt War, 310–12.
102 Berry herald, 452–6.
103 P.R.O., E.28/80/83, August 1450: £50 paid to Lord Scales to feed soldiers daily troubling the king’s household.
104 Burney, op. cit., 248.
105 K.B. McFarlane, ‘The Investment of Sir John Fastolf’s Profits of War’, T.R.H.S., 5th Series (1957).
106 Burney, op. cit., 257, citing P.R.O., C.47/25/9/18–21 to show £600 paid to York, £200 to Scales, 2,000 gold saluts to Oldhall and 1,500 silver saluts to Ogard from the profits of their Norman estates in 1448.
107 Included in York’s accusations made against Somerset in 1452, printed by Gairdner in Paston Letters, Introduction, cxxiii.
Part IV
THE AFTERMATH OF DEFEAT
Chapter 12
PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION AND POPULAR RISINGS, 1449–1450
During the first half-century of its existence, to 1449, the Lancastrian dynasty had had remarkably little trouble from its parliaments. With the exception of an awkward initial five or six years, the frequent assemblies which it called, thirty-seven in all, had served it- well, cooperating obediently in royal policies. Fifteenth-century parliaments were still intermittent bodies, summoned and dissolved entirely at the king’s will to give effect and authority to royal policies throughout the shires of England. They were his cash-producing, legislating and publicity agencies. Nevertheless, parliament, when assembled, was a well-established institution with recognized powers, privileges and procedures. During Henry’s long minority, those members summoned by individual writs, the ‘Upper House’, peers of parliament, or lords spiritual and temporal, who assembled about the throne in the parliament chamber proper, in theory a body of some thirty-five lay and forty-eight spiritual peers, enjoyed a peak period of political power. Whenever parliament was sitting they took over from the council as the ultimate authority in the land. After Henry had attained his majority, the lay peerage had been expanded and their formal dignities had been enhanced and graded to a unique degree. In 1441 additions to the basic grade of peer began to be made by charter and patent with a solemnity hitherto reserved, with two solitary exceptions, for earls. By 1449 ten new peers of the realm had been so created.1 In addition another eight swelled the ranks of the peerage by being summoned to the parliaments of 1445, 1447 or February 1449 for the first time by personal writs.2 In the same period there were six creations to dukedoms, two creations to a new dignity of marquis, set between dukes and earls, five creations to earldoms and two to another new dignity of viscount, an importation from France.3
This marked enhancing of the dignity of the lay peers of the realm and the increase in their numbers during Henry’s personal rule emphasizes the growing importance of the peerage in fifteenth-century English society. It did not, however, reflect an increase in the political importance of the ‘Upper House’ itself. Indeed, with the re-establishment of personal rule, the powers of the lords spiritual and temporal assembled in parliament had declined, like those of the council. Also, recent study of attendance of the lords, both spiritual and temporal, at parliaments, has revealed a wide discrepancy between numbers of peers summoned to parliament and the consistently low numbers attending. In 1435, for example, only twenty-four lords appeared out of the eighty summoned. Attendances at great councils, called to discuss affairs of state, normally exceeded the attendance of peers at sessions of parliament.4 The more important section of a mid-fifteenth-century parliament in session was undoubtedly the representative, elected members, the Commons, or ‘Lower House’.
At the beginning of Henry’s majority rule the Commons in parliament were made up of 74 ‘knights of the shire’, so-called, although most of them were esquires in status, two from each of the 37 English counties,5 and 190 burgess members, two each from 93 cities and boroughs, and four from London. The increasing status and importance of the Commons is evident from the establishment of the first statutory code of parliamentary electoral law between 1406 and 1445. From 1406 sheriffs were bound to make returns of shire ‘knights’, freely elected in the shire courts or assemblies, by indenture bearing the seals of all the electors, under penalty of £100 if the Justices of Assize found any irregularity (1410), and all electors and elected in shires and towns were to be residents (1413). The right to vote had now become a valued piece of property which was restricted in the shires, from 1429, to those freeholders having land worth at least 40/- per annum. Finally, in 1445 the same system of indentured returns was to be applied by the sheriff to city and borough elections and ‘knights’ of the shire were to be selected only from notable esquires, gentlemen by birth, able to take up knighthood, if not already dubbed knights, and not from those of yeomen status or below.6 How far these conditions of free election, residence and status were observed is a measure of the influence which could be exerted over elections by the king and his officers or by individual lords.
At first sight it might appear that considerable royal patronage was exercised in elections. The number of household servants who were also members of parliament varied considerably from rather more than a fifth to below a twelfth of the identifiable membership of the Commons.7 From 1442 it was made easier for household members to obtain seats by the creation of new parliamentary boroughs. By 1453 twelve had been created, providing twenty-four new seats, many of which were occupied by men in the lower ranks of the household. Some of five small boroughs newly created in Wiltshire were also controlled by those magnates who could be expected to be loyal to Henry’s government. With the exception of Plymouth, all these new boroughs returned members of the household to parliament on one or more occasions between 1442 and 1460.8 Studies of borough representation during this reign have now revealed that outside patronage of any kind was still not the deciding factor in the majority of borough elections. Rather more than half of the borough representation was still by resident burgesses, as laid down by the 1413 statute.9 For the rest a mixture of candidates, outside gentry, lawyers and royal servants, put in by noble or ecclesiastical patrons or owners, was blurring the difference in status between knights of the shire and burgesses of the boroughs. The household element in the boroughs remained fairly constant, but it was never more than twenty-five members, at most an eighth of the overall borough membership.
On the whole knights of the shire predominated in the household contingent and fluctuations in its share of the county representation were much more pronounced than in the borough membership. There is no evidence that the shire seats were subject to any permanent or consistent form of patronage. In addition to the king, a few of the greatest nobility could exert some influence over the choice of knights of the shire. The best known instance of this, of the dukes of York and Norfolk deciding together who should represent Norfolk in the 1450–1 parliament, resulted only in their securing one of the two members between them. It is true that in the 1455 parliament, after York’s victory at the first battle of St Albans, they again acted in concert and, on that occasion, secured both seats, but considerable local resentment was expressed that the gentlemen of the shire should as a result have to suffer as their representative John Howard, Norfolk’s kinsman and ultimate successor in the dukedom, who was a ‘strange man’ (i.e. unknown in the locality) with no livelihood or standing in the shire.10 This was stigmatized as an ‘evil precedent’. Deference to great lords was a factor in deciding some shire el
ections, but on the whole ‘knights’ were freely elected and represented the local county community, possibly in some form of rotation where separately identifiable local interests were in conflict. The knights of the shire assembled in parliament were consequently neither credulous nor easily led, either by the king or great lords. Some of them were men of substance, equal to if not surpassing members of the baronage in landed wealth, with wide experience of rule in the shires, and with a certain long-standing continuity of membership in the Commons. Community of aim, outlook and interest was needed to bind them to the support of a government, or of great lords.11 The number of household servants in the Commons reflected not so much any consistent attempt at patronage, but the standing of the government at the time of the elections. It was a barometer of the decline and recovery of royal influence. In 1447 there were 29 household knights of the shire; this dropped to 15 in 1450 and rose again to 36 in 1453. The size of the household or government element in the Commons thus provides an indication of the political standing of Henry’s government in successive parliaments. On all counts this plumbed the depths in 1449.