Henry VI

by Bertram Wolffe

  A more immediate task for Henry’s ambassadors than pursuing his courtship thus turned out to be controlling the mounting tide of panic in Bordeaux. A public reading and display of Henry’s signet letters declaring that massive aid would quickly follow had some effect. The Armagnac archdeacon himself hurried on to rejoin his master at Lectoure, but Roos was forced to accept the post of regent ad interim at Bordeaux and communication with the count of Armagnac soon became very slow and difficult. No local portrait painter could be found; further progress to a meeting came to turn on the production of safe conducts from Charles VII, unlikely in the extreme, in spite of the facile optimism or, more likely, cautious procrastination of the count, since it was clear that Charles was now well aware of the conspiracy to bind Armagnac into alliance against him and was determined to isolate the count from his new-found friends.

  It was not until late October 1442 that Sir Edward Hull arrived back in Bordeaux from England with a portrait painter, one Hans, who was sent forward to Armagnac on 3 November with appropriate messages concealed inside a pastoral staff in case of capture by the French. By 22 November Hans was reported diligently at work and had finished one likeness in four or five days. But no further progress with the portraits was ever reported: a letter of 3 January 1443 arrived in Bordeaux on 14 January stating that the cold winter was preventing Master Hans’s colours from mixing. By then Beckington had left to return home empty-handed. He put to sea on 17 January. Unlucky in the weather and driven into a Breton port, he only presented himself to Henry at Maidenhead on 20 February and found there his fellow ambassador Roos, who had left Bordeaux several days later than himself.44 This was the last heard of Henry’s courtship of the daughters of Armagnac. The French king alone determined the issue. Later that year Charles VII sent the dauphin in his role of governor of Languedoc at the head of an army to execute judgement on Jean IV of Armagnac for two other offences: continuing to style himself count by the grace of God, for which title he had solicited the support of the Paris Parlement, and for refusing to surrender lands belonging to Charles’s deceased tenant-in-chief Marguerite countess of Comminges. Henry VI’s would-be father-in-law, together with his family, were imprisoned and his patrimony taken into the French king’s hands.45

  In the midst of his exasperating, long-distance negotiations with Jean IV of Armagnac, perforce conducted from Bordeaux, Sir Robert Roos had threatened on 24 August 1442 that the prevaricating count would himself be the first target of a new English army, coming to the aid of the Gascons in their resistance to Charles VII’s aggression. Indeed, by 21 September 1442, Henry had decided that the pleas for help from Bordeaux would be answered by a force commanded by John Beaufort, earl of Somerset.46 But progress here was slow. In November measures were taken to provide for an advance party under Sir William Bonville, who was made seneschal of Gascony on 1 December, and he finally sailed from Plymouth with 600 men some time before 2 March 1443.47 Meantime, although the main force was being raised, the onset of the severe winter, and Charles VII’s withdrawal from Gascony, relieved the immediate pressure. In this breathing space a new debate was raised: the relative needs of Normandy and Gascony.

  In Normandy York was occupied clearing the potential dangers of French garrisons in the English rear, but Granville had fallen by treachery to the French commander of Mont St Michel in November and Talbot was locked in a protracted siege of Dieppe. Intelligence from the Council of Basle and elsewhere suggested that Charles VII had now turned his attention to Normandy48 and that he was even preparing an assault on Rouen. He had kept Whitsun at Poitiers in company with King René of Anjou and the duke of Orleans, who was by now reconciled to him, and he had made the dauphin Louis governor-general for the lands between the Seine and Somme. On 14 August 1443 Louis duly appeared before Dieppe with a substantial force.49

  From this background of competing claims of Gascony and Normandy emerged the ultimate English plan, not of aid to existing hard-pressed areas but of new aggression and conquest in areas between Gascony and Normandy. Put in charge of John Beaufort, newly created duke of Somerset,50 as commander-in-chief, this was bound to rouse the resentment of York and also of Somerset’s own younger brother the earl of Dorset. In April 1443 Henry informed York ‘it is seemed full behoveful and necessary that the manner and conduct of the war be changed’, and that he had appointed Somerset to ‘use most cruel and mortal war that he can and may, in the king’s right to fight his adversary and get the victory of him’.51 Here the king again gave unmistakable evidence of that ambivalence in decision which was ultimately to cost him all his French possessions and much else besides.

  On 6 February 1443, in Henry’s secret chamber at Westminster, Henry required the assembled council to debate in his presence the alternative merits of possible action, either in Gascony or Normandy. The various advices tendered led nowhere. The treasurer, Cromwell, on financial grounds, appeared to favour sticking to the original Gascon plan because he considered previous outlays on Normandy had not produced value for money; the two cardinals wanted to know exactly what forces could be raised, but on the vital question of priority Kemp could only offer prayer, and Beaufort a suggestion that the lords temporal and spiritual be consulted.

  The issue had in fact already been pre-empted by the king’s designation of Somerset as his chosen commander-in-chief for the original Gascon expedition,52 because Henry allowed Somerset’s own personal wishes ultimately to prevail in deciding where this force should be used. But Somerset was a sick man,, too sick even to attend at Westminster, so Adam Moleyns was deputed to attend on him personally to ascertain what his wishes were.53 It was in fact nearly a month before the possibility of two separate expeditions being mounted, one for Normandy and one for Gascony, was finally scotched by Treasurer Cromwell simply on financial grounds. He especially urgently pressed for a decision by the king, the council and the commander-in-chief on where the one expedition should go. He wished to get on with the job of indenting for the wages.54 The army meantime was still being raised ostensibly, to relieve Bordeaux and Bayonne, the original intention.55 Everything now had to hang on the duke of Somerset’s recovery. Not until 9 March did Moleyns, supported by Sir John Stourton, manage his personal visit.56 Ships were ordered to the Camber to be ready to sail on St George’s Day57 but it was 30 March 1443 before Somerset was even well enough to appear at Eltham to discuss with the king various written advices and demands he had meantime submitted to him as the conditions on which he offered his services. It now emerged that he intended to use the great army for an assault on those parts of Anjou and Maine not under English control. The ultimate English plan was thus not to give aid to existing hard-pressed forces but to launch new aggressive conquest in the area between Gascony and Normandy. Whatever the appearances still kept up, the relief of Gascony had now become a secondary consideration.

  Somerset’s wish to carve out a patrimony for himself in Anjou and Maine, or Alençon, or in all three counties, cannot be doubted. He requested Henry to grant him the county of Alençon to himself and his heirs. He also wanted Anjou and Maine. But his younger brother Edmund earl of Dorset58 already held Maine by Henry’s grant, although Henry’s French council was objecting to the grant being made under the French seal. Pending the settlement of his brother’s rights, Somerset was given the governorship of Anjou and Maine for seven years.59 If the younger Beaufort was not actually count of Maine in 1443 he had exercised power and authority there for a number of years. At the end of a campaign which he had waged there in 1438, he had made a tripartite agreement with the French duke of Alençon and count of Maine to put the possessions of these two princes under the protection of appatis. In this agreement he had been styled captain general and governor of the king in the regions of Anjou and Maine, etc.60

  Thus, as a result of the elder Beaufort’s ambitions and Henry’s weak accommodation of them, there was now a new source of conflict over Bedford’s former Angevin patrimony between the two Beaufort brothers themselves. But the
intentions of the new commander-in-chief also raised another, much more serious, conflict of interests: between him and Richard duke of York, the king’s already established lieutenant general and governor of the realm of France and Normandy. Somerset’s powers were to be declared in two separate commissions under separate seals, one for France under Henry’s French seal and one for Gascony under the English seal, but a declaration that his powers would in no way be detrimental to York could hardly disguise the contradictions, implied criticisms and mark of no confidence in York which the mere fact of this new, ill-defined Beaufort appointment implied. On 30 March Henry blithely ‘granted’ Somerset, who was himself very anxious over this point, that he would have York’s good will towards him.61

  The elder Somerset from the start proved to be an exacting and ungenerous recipient of Henry’s favour. All his demands were conceded by Henry: provision for his widow, for a possible unborn child, the title of duke, with precedence over the duke of Norfolk because of his nearness in blood and the magnitude of the service he was about to perform and, finally, a promise of a considerable landed endowment in England. The king gave him the lands of the earldom of Kendal, last held by the duke of Bedford. This was Somerset’s own choice of land and the young king gave it to him personally, after the council had refused to advise for or against it. Two months later Somerset made an appearance in the council chamber simply to accuse the treasurer, Cromwell, of delaying the implementation of this grant and Henry duly ordered the council to take collective responsibility for its fulfilment.62

  On 5 April Garter was briefed to go out to Normandy and put York in the picture. He was to represent Somerset’s advent into a part of Normandy as a defence and shield for York because he would meet and fight Charles VII wherever he might be in the areas not yet in Henry’s obedience and, by his offensive there, would finally be able to pass over the Loire in triumph, to link up with English Gascony. All the defences of Normandy must be on maximum alert and York must, in addition, give all possible help and comfort to Somerset. While the king would do all in his power to send York reinforcements, he trusted he would understand that the vast expense of mounting Somerset’s expedition had made it quite impossible to deliver the £20,000 now due to him. Garter was to impart these high matters on the future conduct of the war to York as a prime secret, to be divulged to no one else. Such was the full extent of Somerset’s specious instructions, as far as the knowledge of them could be trusted by word of mouth, even to the king’s personal deputy and representative in France.63 Further than that, as the malicious bishop of Lisieux afterwards put it, Somerset declared that he would burn his own shirt if it discovered his military intentions. Whether or not he himself ever discovered them was still a secret at the end of the campaign.64

  St George’s Day came and went without the departure of the great army. So did the months of May and June. On 6 July Cromwell resigned from the treasurership with the enterprise still unlaunched, on the plea that a day longer under the strains of office in those circumstances would irretrievably ruin his health.65 Some three days later Somerset sued for a third delay in his musters, though requiring continued payment meantime. The council now estimated that every day he had tarried in England since he had undertaken to muster on 17 June cost the king £500 and even Henry’s patience with his pampered and pernickety commander now at last gave out. He sharply contrasted this unprecedented selfishness^ ingratitude and rapacity with the practice of his uncle Gloucester who in similar circumstances in 1436 had himself borne the costs of transporting his army to France when he failed to fulfil his contract by the lack of a mere two men in his musters. Somerset was now roundly told that his parasitic forces were a greater burden on the shires than four complete subsidies would have been, and a comfort only to the king’s enemies.66

  Early in August 144367 Somerset at last landed at Cherbourg with a force of some 8,000 men, a heavy artillery train, siege and bridging stores, etc. Purveyance of horses, carts and men and local taxation, levied for his transportation without any authority from York, proved necessary to enable him to pass safely through Normandy because no provision had been made at home for his transport beyond the port.68 The greater part of the English forces already on the frontiers of Normandy made their way towards him, expecting to be engaged in battle, and swelled his numbers to some 10,000 combatants.69 Ironically, to the north, on 14 August, the dauphin forced the raising of Talbot’s nine-month siege of Dieppe, dramatically highlighting the effects of the abandonment of the needs of Normandy which this great new enterprise inevitably signified.70

  The scanty information about it which York had been allowed had quickly caused him to despatch a powerful embassy led by Talbot, Sir Andrew Ogard, John Stanlow and the French secretary, Master John Rinel, to impress on Henry his alarms and fears of the consequences. But Henry had no personal inclination to listen or to reply. That unpleasant task was deputed to a council meeting of 21 June 1443 which was then otherwise busy approving the cost of a novel bridge of barrels intended for Somerset’s river crossings. York received only a letter appealing to his cousinage and good personal relations with Somerset and repeating Somerset’s personal assurances that absolutely no ‘disworship’ was intended towards him.71

  John Beaufort, duke of Somerset, the eldest surviving son of the senior of John of Gaunt’s three illegitimate sons by Catherine Swynford, was a man of straw. Captured by the French while in his early teens at Beaugé in 1421, in the army of his step-father the duke of Clarence, he had spent seventeen years in French captivity. The need to find 16,000 marks from his own resources to pay for his ransom, after his release in 1438, probably lay behind the extraordinarily demanding ‘articles of his desires’ with which he conditioned his appointment to lead the original relief force to Gascony, and which had now burgeoned under his soaring ambition into this grandiose expeditionary force of 1443. In his few brief years of freedom he had certainly served with some credit in the armies of Normandy and had, for a few months, been acting governor of Normandy before York’s second appointment in 1440. But his only qualification for receiving the mantle of Henry V, as deputy for his unmartial son, was his nearness in the half blood to his royal cousin. His obvious ill-health, an adult lifetime of captivity and a lack of substance of his own to maintain his high estate combined to make him singularly unqualified to hold this supremely demanding office for the re-opening of the conquest of France which had now been conferred upon him.

  The facts of his 1443 campaign are not in dispute. Proceeding down the marches of Brittany and Alençon he besieged and took the stronghold of La Guerche by assault or composition. According to the contemporary heralds’ accounts this belonged to the French duke of Alençon,72 a peer of France and, at that time, Charles VII’s commander-in-chief in the area. Somerset believed it did.73 He then stayed for some two months before Alençon’s other stronghold of Pouancé, and ravaged the country between Angers, Craon and Château Gontier from that base, but quite failed to find any major French force to fight. His army was next reported successfully besieging Beaumont-sur-Sarthe and, finally, after its surrender, the English commander moved not south to cross the Loire with his bridge of boats but northwards to reinforce the frontier garrisons of Normandy. From here he took final, ignominious refuge with York in Rouen, from where he returned, sick and discredited, to England. He died the following May, 1444, allegedly by his own hand, from chagrin at his disgrace and failure, but certainly from no sudden unexpected illness as one chronicler has it, for bad health had dogged him from before the onset of his campaign.

  Further charges of his crass stupidity on the campaign, taken to bear out Thomas Basin’s picture of the elder Beaufort as a vain, presumptuous, secretive and purposeless commander appear to have been unjustified. The most serious of these charges was that he had deliberately attacked the territory of Henry’s ally and vassal, the young duke of Brittany, Francis I, then in perfect peace and harmony with Henry, thus seriously undermining one vital prop of Hen
ry’s French inheritance. The duke certainly sent an outraged complaint to the English court through his brother Gilles, Henry’s youthful friend and companion, that this new lieutenant and captain general of Henry’s realm of France, quite unprovoked, had sacked his town of La Guerche and ransomed it for 20,000 saluts. Ironically it had been Somerset himself, when earlier briefly in office as Henry’s lieutenant general and governor for war in his realms of France and Normandy, who, on 11 July 1440, had concluded the final treaty of peace and friendship between the duke’s father, the old Duke John of Brittany, and Henry VI.74 From Sheen on 17 December 1443 Henry sent on a copy of the complaint to Somerset and ordered him to make full restitution if the facts were as he had stated.75 But the history of La Guerche in the campaign of the frontierless Breton March suggests that Somerset was correct in regarding this as a hostile garrison. The old duke of Brittany, who had captured it from the duke of Alençon in 1432, along with Pouancé, had subsequently restored both strongholds to Alençon under conditions of obedience,76 but Somerset’s younger brother Dorset had deemed it prudent to take it on his very similar 1438 campaign south from the Cotentin, without any international complications.77 It was certainly garrisoned for Charles VII in 1440.78 Somerset’s fault was that he allowed immediate military considerations to prevail, without considering possible diplomatic consequences, when the vital allegiance of Brittany was in the balance and Duke Francis was urgently considering on which side his best interests lay.