by David Loades
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The Queen as Trophy: Catherine de Valois Catherine was the youngest daughter of Charles VI of France and his consort, Isabella of Bavaria. She was born in Paris on 27 October 1401 at the Hotel de St Pol, which was used almost as a retreat when her father’s mental illness was particularly severe. Her upbringing was eccentric, being marked by periods of neglect and even privation as her father was not in touch with reality and her mother was pursuing her ow
n agenda.1 At one point she was even abducted by her uncle, Louis of Bavaria, but on that occasion the King recovered his reason at the critical time. Isabella was imprisoned at Tours and Catherine was placed temporarily in other hands but she never seems to have borne her mother any ill will for her erratic behaviour. She had been called into political service long before she was old enough to be aware of what was happening and before her second birthday was betrothed to Charles, the grandson and heir of Louis, Duke of Bourbon. However, Charles died in 1409 and even before that Henry IV of England had been proposing a peace settlement to be sealed by a marriage between Catherine and his own heir, Henry of Monmouth. However, there were a number of stumbling blocks in the way of such a settlement, not least Henry’s claim to the Crown of France and the scale of the bride’s dowry, which the English king is alleged to have set at two million crowns. Charles VI offered 450,000, and the negotiation came to nothing. When Henry IV died on 20 March 1413, the issue was still unsettled but his successor, who was still unmarried and 25 years old, was keen to continue the quest and in January 1414 vowed that he would wed no other. France, however, was in a state of almost constant crisis, with the Burgundians and the Armagnacs at each other’s throats. The king was again mentally ill and only occasionally fi t to conduct business. It seems that Henry may well have had it in mind to secure his bride by capture rather than negotiation because he was obviously anxious to take advantage of France’s problems. He entered into an alliance with John the Fearless of Burgundy for that purpose in 1414. On 13 August 1415 he attacked on the fl imsiest of pretexts and laid siege to Harfl eur. Shortly after he won his great victory at Agincourt, and began the systematic conquest of Normandy. Negotiations for peace and marriage alike disappeared from view.
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With the King incapacitated and the Queen discredited, the government of France was temporarily in the hands of the Constable, Bernard of Armagnac. The royal family was in almost total eclipse. Two successive dauphins had died and the third, Charles, was as yet too young to assume any responsibility. John the Fearless had held aloof from the Normandy campaign but as the English increasingly gained the upper hand so his relations with Henry became closer. In May 1418, operating in the name of the Queen, he seized Paris, and with it the formal government of what was left of France. The Dauphin, Charles, however, had escaped from Paris and, showing no signs of his father’s debility, in spite of his youth, set himself up as regent at Bourges. From there he controlled (more or less) a large area in the centre of the country. In order to resolve this deadlock, an agreement with the offi cial government in Paris now became increasingly desirable from Henry’s point of view and on 7 May 1419 envoys were appointed to negotiate such a settlement. Catherine, now 18, seems to have been present at these discussions, together with her mother who is alleged to have exercised great infl uence over her. Once again the size of the dowry was a sticking point. Meanwhile John of Burgundy was also negotiating with the Dauphin because, clearly, an agreement that included him would be preferable to one that did not. He was strong enough to make a considerable nuisance of himself if he were excluded. However, on 10 September 1419, the two had a blazing row on the bridge at Montereau, as a result of which the Duke was set upon and murdered by the Dauphin’s followers. Charles was not actually present when this happened but was generally (and reasonably) held responsible. This put paid to any chance of a tripartite settlement and since the rest of the royal family, including Catherine, was under the control of Philip of Burgundy, John’s son and heir, the way to a more limited agreement was now open. At the same time Philip’s animosity to the Dauphin could be taken for granted.
The resulting Treaty of Troyes, signed in May 1420, has been represented as the nadir of French fortunes. Although in one guise the Duke of Burgundy was a great nobleman of France and could not unreasonably negotiate on the King’s behalf, at the same time he was also an independent ruler in alliance with the King’s enemy. The ambiguities of the French political system were as much to blame for the humiliation at Troyes as Charles VI’s weakness. Henry V agreed to give up the title ‘King of France’ in return for recognition of his sovereignty over those territories which he already controlled. Henry and Charles would both continue for the time being to rule their respective realms but if Charles should die fi rst the King of England would succeed him, and any child born to Henry’s union with Catherine would inherit both kingdoms. The text of the treaty reads (in part):
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First it is agreed between our said father of France and us, that for as much as by the bond of matrimony made for the good of peace between us and our most dear and beloved Katherine, daughter of our said father and of our most dear mother Isabel his wife, those same Charles and Isabel are made our father and mother, and honour them as such, and as it fi tteth such and so worthy a prince and princess, to be honoured especially before all other temporal princes of this world …
2 At the same time, instead of demanding a dowry, Henry agreed to fund his queen to the extent 40,000 ecus a year from the realm of England, which amounted to some £7,500; that being what ‘Queens of England hitherto were wont to take and have’, with an additional 20,000 francs from his lands in France if he should predecease her
.3 The English lands were to be assigned principally out of the Duchy of Cornwall and the Earldom of Chester. The Estates General, the Sorbonne and the City of Paris all endorsed the treaty. A few days later, on 2 June 1420, Henry and Catherine met for the fi rst time and were betrothed. Although Shakespeare’s famous account of their meeting is fi ction there does seem to have been a genuine chemistry between them, which was just as well because a few days later they were married. The ceremony was performed in the parish church at Troyes by the Archbishop of Sens and their honeymoon was spent recovering the town of Sens from the Armagnacs, which when taken was restored to the Archbishop with considerable bloodshed. Philip of Burgundy said of Catherine at this point that ‘she had passionately longed to be espoused to King Henry, from the moment that she saw him …’, which would suggest that she had fi rst set eyes on him at the abortive meeting in 1419, although they had not actually
met.4 After their turbulent honeymoon the bride seems to have returned briefl y to her parents, who were at Bray-sur-Seine, until the time of their state entry into Paris, which occurred in December. The Treaty of Troyes was a realignment of forces rather than a genuine peace, because the Dauphin remained (understandably) unreconciled and was quite strong enough to continue waging war in defence of his own position. How, his propagandists complained, could Catherine claim to transmit a claim to the throne of France to her heirs while he was still alive? That was not, of course, the point, because it was Henry who was recognized as Charles’s heir, not his daughter. The Salic Law, in any case, would have prohibited any claim transmitted by her but it was a telling point for a French audience anxious to work up a head of steam against the ‘betrayal of the fl eur de lys’. So the war continued and although Catherine was established with a generous English household (for which Henry paid) she was not expected to accompany her husband on campaign, remaining instead at Bray-sur-Seine, where Henry was a frequent visitor. Her time came when there were triumphs to be celebrated and, although 16
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the Dauphin won some victories against lesser English commanders, the King himself proved well-nigh invincible. He did not need to conquer Par
is, but he did need to make his presence felt there; consequently, after several months of campaigning, he made a ceremonial entry, accompanied by his queen in December 1420. They kept Christmas at the Louvre with great pomp. Whatever efforts Henry might have made to teach his wife English – and it would hardly have been necessary because he spoke perfect French – she had not yet visited his homeland. However that was remedied on 27 December when they cut short their Christmas celebrations and set sail for England.
The king was now out to impress. He was ‘with triumph come from France’
and was given a suitably enthusiastic welcome by his devoted subjects. In the wake of the Southampton plot, he needed to establish that he was unchallenged in England as well as victorious in France and to impress his wife with the completeness of his contr
ol.5 At the same time (although obviously this was not said) his wife was a trophy of the successful war. She was 19 years old and by all accounts extraordinarily beautiful. They entered London together on 21 February and she was crowned at Westminster on 24 February. This was Catherine’s moment of high exposure to the social and political elite of England. Henry deliberately did not attend, leaving her to preside at the coronation banquet and to bear the full weight of the elaborate ceremonial, every last detail of which was solemnly recorded in Fabyan’s Chronicle. 6 They then went off on progress to the north of England, where Henry was again at great pains to display his trophy, until Catherine returned to Westminster in May. It must have been during this progress that their child was conceived. Catherine spent the summer and autumn of 1421 becoming more visibly pregnant. With so dominant a husband, she had little political role and seems to have been content to busy herself with works of piety and other ‘female concerns’, like managing the love affairs of her friend King James of Scotland. It seems that she did not even administer her own estates. No accounts survive to provide an indication, and such evidence as there is suggests that the King’s offi cers continued to be in charge and simply paid over to her Steward the proportion of their revenues that the marriage treaty required. How the Steward then disbursed that money we do not know. Presumably Catherine paid for the staff and upkeep of those houses which had been allocated to her, but whether she was also expected to pay for her residence at court when in her husband’s company is not clear. Despite his obligations under the treaty of Troyes, there is no sign that Henry allocated a specifi c estate for her maintenance but rather took revenues from whichever lands happened to be available to make up the required sum. Sometimes these were Duchy lands; at other times the dower lands of the Queen Dowager, Joan of Navarre, seem to hav
e been used.7 By July Henry was
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back in France, pursuing the Dauphin along the Loire, where he took Dreux on 8 August. By November Catherine had retreated into the customary seclusion at Windsor, and there on 6 December she was safely delivered of a son.
8 The child lived and fl ourished and the Queen had performed her most important and inescapable duty. There was an heir to both thrones. Before Easter she had joined her husband, leaving their son in the safe care of his nursery and they spent the Whitsun time together in Paris, before Henry set off again on campaign. She was, presumably, served by her normal retinue of ladies, whom she would have paid, but for some unknown reason she was also on this occasion accompanied by several additional women whom the King rewarded. Lady Margaret Roos, Elizabeth Fitz Hugh, Catherine Chideock, Joanne Belknap, Joanna Troutbeck and Joanna Carey cost the exchequer an additional
£140, but why they were employed is a mystery and their rewards are listed as ‘extraordinary’. Perhaps the King owed their kindreds an obligation. More surprisingly, her confessor, John Boyers, was paid in the same way.
9 This time Henry had been summoned to relieve a Burgundian garrison at Cosne sur Loire but it soon transpired that the sickness that he had picked up at the fall of Meaux earlier in May was actually dysentery. By the time that he got to Corbeil he was too weak to continue and he had to be carried in a litter to Vincennes, where he died on 31 August. Catherine may or may not have been present (the sources do not agree) but if she were not, this should not be taken to suggest any kind of a rupture between them. Henry had in a sense died on active service, which his consort could not be expected to share. They had been married for a little over two years. The Queen’s grief was palpable and we are told ‘greatly edifi ed the people’. She conducted his body back to England in a solemn and magnifi cent cortege, and erected a great tomb in his memory. It might have been expected that after the obsequies, Catherine would have returned to her own family because she was still only 21. However, her father died on 21 October and her brother was locked in combat with her son’s Council for control of the kingdom of France. In the circumstances, home was where her son was, and she remained in England. Soon after the parliament confi rmed her dower at the slightly reduced, but still substantial, fi gure of £6,000 a year, taken mostly from the Duchy of Lancaster and therefore presumably assessed on different lands. No more is heard of the 20,000 francs from France but the provision made was perfectly adequate for a Queen Dowager.
For the next few years, Catherine acted mainly as the mother of her young son. This was a personal, not a political role because, offi cially, the Earl of Warwick was the guardian of the King’s person but the Queen Mother appeared regularly with the infant Henry. At the same time England was run by the Council, presided 18
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over by the King’s uncle, Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, as protector. The French lands were similarly ruled by Humphrey’s brother, John Duke of Bedford, who had his own council. Henry was moved around a good deal, partly for the sake of his health and partly to prove to the people that he was still alive and well. Catherine was, however, still only in her mid-twenties and was apparently highly sexed. As one chronicler put it (not too discreetly), she was ‘unable fully to control her carnal passions’
.10 There were rumours of an affair with Edmund Beaufort, the nephew of the Cardinal Bishop of Winchester, accompanied inevitably by talk of a marriage, to which the Duke of Gloucester was adamantly opposed. It might have been as much because of this known weakness as because of the need to be near her son that Catherine went on living in the King’s household until 1430. Henry VI was crowned in 1429 and this was presumably a rite of passage in more than one sense. He was now in the fullest sense a king but his education would also have moved on, into the hands of male tutors. He was no longer ‘living among the women’ and his mother was surplus to requirements. Despite the fact that the parliament of 1427–8 had decreed that the Queen Mother could only re-marry with the consent of the Council, Catherine seems to have celebrated her freedom by uniting herself with one of her sewers, a Welsh squire named Owain ap Maredudd ap Tudur. Owain was the son of Maredudd ap Tudur ap Goronwy of Penmynydd in Anglesey and claimed descent on his mother’s side from the princely house of Deheubarth. How he fi rst encountered Catherine is something of a mystery. There are a number of unsubstantiated stories about his youth and upbringing and some of his kindred seem to have been involved in Glyn Dwr’s revolt, although Owain himself would have been too young. Perhaps he had some connection with Henry as Prince of Wales although he would only have been about 13 when the latter became King. The fi rst certain thing that is known about him is that he served in the retinue of Sir Walter Hungerford, the steward of the King’s household, in France in May 1421. This would suggest that he held some position in that household, although what that might have been, and whether it was on the King’s side or the Queen’s is not known. Elis Gruffudd, the sixteenth-century Welsh chronicler, says that he was Catherine’s ‘sewer and servant’ and that is probably correct although it cannot be substantiated. Most likely Owain was a handsome and well set-up young man and the sexually frustrated Catherine fancied him. There is a story that during a dance at court he fell into her lap while trying to execut
e a diffi cult pirouette but that would seem to be symbolic rather than factual! Under other circumstances she might have simply taken him as a lover but the risk of unattributable pregnancy was simply too great and at some time in 1529 or 1530 they were secretly married.
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Her ladies apparently remonstrated with her for lowering herself in ‘paying any attention to a person, who, although possessing some personal accomplishments
… had no princely or even gentle alliance’. Worst of all, he was Welsh. Catherine apparently responded that, being a French woman, she did not understand that there were racial differences within Britain. He summoned some of his more respectable kindred to speak for him – but unfortunately they knew no language but Welsh.
Although after Catherine’s death in 1537 he was disparagingly described in a council minute as ‘Owen Tudor which dwelt with the said Catherine …’ there is no reason to doubt the reality of their marriage. Although it was recorded that
‘the high spirit of the Duke of Gloucester could not brook of her marriage’, it was not openly challenged at the time. Aspersions of bastardy were subsequently cast on both her sons, but that was for transparently political reasons. It was probably when she realized that she was pregnant that Catherine withdrew from court and took up residence at Much Hadham in Hertfordshire, where at some point in 1430 their eldest son, Edmund, was born.
The Queen Mother was understandably concerned to make her position appear as respectable as possible. In 1431 she seems to have arranged for Owain’s pedigree to be presented to the parliament, presumably emphasizing his connection with the quasi-royal house of Deheubarth and in 1432 he was granted letters of denizenship. These he needed, because although he was the King’s subject, being a Welshman he was technically an alien in England and this was at a time when the Glyn Dwr revolt had left a number of anti-Welsh statutes on the record, making it (for example) illegal for a Welshman to hold land in England. By becoming a denizen, Owain became an honorary Englishman, although it is not clear that he ever held any signifi cant property in England. Over the next fi ve years Catherine must have been almost constantly pregnant because she bore Owain three more children: Jasper, who was born at another of her residences, Hatfi eld, at some time in 1432, David, who subsequently became a monk at Westminster and an unnamed daughter who seems to have died in infancy. Apart from motherhood, it is not clear how Catherine spent her time at this stage of her life. Her son, the King, seems to have regarded her with warm affection, and just a few days before her death, sent her a New Year’s gift of ‘a tablet of gold with a crucifi x, garnished with saphire’ and valued at £40.