Duke Humphrey of Gloucester

“ Sir Robert Roos, though he accompanied Beckington on his embassy to the Court of Armagnac, was prominent in carrying out the peace policy which Humphrey opposed, and in 1445 was intrusted with bringing Henry VI.’s Queen over to England. Sir John Stanley may possibly be the man to whom the Duchess of Gloucester was intrusted when she was confined in Leeds Castle, and when we look further afield we find that Piero del Monte, the friend of Duke Humphrey, did not hesitate to give the papal blessing to the union of Margaret and Henry VI. when they were married by proxy at Tours. ”

“ No man has left a greater mark on the progress of English thought than this Duke Humphrey, and in the realm of ideas, whither we must now follow him, he did the good work he failed to do in the realm of action.
CHAPTER IX
THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND
No period of English history is less romantic than that in which Humphrey of Gloucester’s life was cast. Apart from the fleeting glories of Agincourt, there is no outstanding event of transcendent interest, no episode of which Englishmen may be honourably proud. ”

“ GLOUCESTER’S LITERARY INFLUENCE
Herein lies the importance of Duke Humphrey’s career. He not only understood the meaning of the new doctrines, but he paved the way towards their fuller appreciation by the nation as a whole. As a layman and a man of affairs he was able to take a more comprehensive view of the significance of the new learning than the churchmen who hitherto had held the monopoly of English knowledge, and he laid the foundations on which others were to build. In the first place he taught men that it was to Italy that they should look for direction in their studies. ”

“ At the end stands the inscription, ‘Cest livre est A moy Homfrey duc de Gloucestre des seaulmes les quels jay esleus du saultier,’ of which the first part is only legible when restored by chemicals. Those who secured the books of the dead Duke were remarkably anxious to remove the traces of his ownership, even when they were not part of his gifts to Oxford. This book is an interesting personal relic of Gloucester, and apart from this it is also a very favourable specimen of the art of the period. ”

“ GLOUCESTER’S ARMS, BADGES, AND SEALS I. ARMS
Like his brothers, the Duke of Gloucester adopted the arms of England and France quarterly, but whereas their arms were differentiated with various labels, his own were surmounted with a border argent (Garter Types, College of Arms) . At this period the arms of France, as borne by the English Kings, were changed from ‘azure semée of fleur de lys or’ to ‘azure three fleur de lys or,’ and this is the only difference which marks Humphrey’s arms from those of a predecessor in the Gloucester title, Thomas of Woodstock. ”

“ Gloucester was an able man and a brave soldier, but he could never have become even a passable commander. Within circumscribed limits he had no equal; there was no captain in the English army who could have surpassed him before Cherbourg, but under no circumstances could he have taken the position which his great brother holds in military history. The natural bent of his mind was inclined to the interests of the moment, and he could never have planned out a campaign, or nursed his men up to a supreme effort, as did Henry on the march to Agincourt. ”

“ This citizen support cannot have been welcome to the other members of the governing class, and it is probably due to it that so much opposition was shown to Gloucester in the early days of the reign of Henry VI. In the outward events of the regency there are few signs of the policy which Humphrey pursued, but we shall see its fruits as the story of his life proceeds. ”

“ Personal motives, therefore, did not always overrule his sense of justice; it cannot be for nothing that Gloucester earned the title of the ‘Good Duke,’ [1084] and it is impossible to believe that he would have been so popular with the people, if he had been guilty of frequent acts of oppression. Taken with the facts of his career, it is more likely that this popularity sprang not from a mere charm of manner, but from the fact that he alone of the great men of his time tried to curb the licence of the nobles and the depredations of the lawless. ”

“ Apart from this lapse from honour and wisdom in his government of the country as Protector, what shall we say of Gloucester’s action in home policy? To deny the evil effects of the struggle for power between himself and the Cardinal Bishop of Winchester would be to blind ourselves to a clear historical truth, but we must remember—and in the light of the modern judgment on Humphrey it cannot too often be reiterated—that the struggle did not originate with him. ”

“ Thus the Duke of Gloucester devoted a large amount of his superfluous energy to the really great work of encouraging learning in England; yet at first sight it may seem that he laboured in vain. England did not at once adopt the new doctrines that were paving the way to modern methods of study, and it has been thought that Humphrey simply worked in the spirit of the mediæval scholar, and did not in any way appreciate the importance of his actions. England had lagged behind other nations in accepting the doctrines of the Renaissance scholars. ”

“ Men imbued with the scholastic spirit had journeyed to Italy before the days of Duke Humphrey, but they had not understood the message which the Italians taught them. Richard of Bury had been the friend of Petrarch, but had entirely failed to understand his point of view, and when the future Duke of Gloucester was but five years old, a certain Augustinian monk, known in Italy as Thomas of England, was lecturing in Florence, but was said by Leonardo Bruni to have loved Humanism only so far as an Englishman could understand it. ”

“ Look to it, lords! let not his smoothing words
Bewitch your hearts; be wise and circumspect.
What though the common people favour him,
Calling him 'Humphrey, the good Duke of
Gloucester,'
Clapping their hands, and crying with loud voice,
'Jesu maintain your royal excellence!'
With 'God preserve the good Duke Humphrey!'
I fear me, lords, for all this flattering gloss,
He will be found a dangerous protector.
BUCKINGHAM Why should he, then, protect our sovereign,
He being of age to govern of himself? ”

“ If Gloucester followed the wrong policy in advocating war, we could not expect it to be otherwise when we remember his early training. It is a truism—like so many truisms, too often forgotten in practice—to say that a man must not be judged by the standards of an age that is not his own, and it is absurd to condemn Humphrey’s war policy when we look at the attitude of his contemporaries to the same subject. Advantage there was none for him to be reaped from the continuance of the war; factiousness is no longer a possible explanation of his motive ”

“ A very interesting copy of the ‘Historia Anglie’ of Matthew Paris (Royal MS., 14, C. vii.) likewise belonged to Duke Humphrey, though it was not presented to Oxford. The ‘History’ is in the author’s own hand, but is continued down to 1273 by some other chronicler. When finished by Paris it was presented by him to the Abbey of St. Albans whence it may have been given to Gloucester by Wheathampsted. ”

“ Whatever may have been his motive, it is plain that so far as his English ambitions were concerned it was folly to embark on any undertaking which would take him away from England. However, considerations of policy never deterred Duke Humphrey; ever confident that what he wished to do was wise, he had already taken the first step towards his new undertaking before the question of the Protectorate was finally settled, and we must therefore pick up the thread of this policy, and his relations with the fugitive Countess of Hainault, who was the pivot on which this part of his career turned. ”

“ That this sudden change was entirely due to a loss of physical power is hardly likely; it is possible that with his usual impetuosity he had devoted himself to other pursuits, and that politics no longer occupied the prominent place in his thoughts that they had hitherto enjoyed.
On his return to England Gloucester rested from his labours, and together with his Duchess went down to his house at Greenwich. They both received New-Year’s gifts from the King. ”

“ Humphrey, therefore, had chosen the better part, and had concurred in a policy of which he was not the originator, but the Beaufort party showed no signs of following this good example. They knew that Henry’s marriage would have an immense bearing on home politics, and that his wife would probably be able to influence him as she liked. They must therefore provide him with a bride entirely of their own choosing, and one who would not be acceptable to Gloucester, whose influence was to be counteracted by their nominee to the position of Queen of England. ”

“ A Spaniard by birth, but an Italian by education, Vincent was a man of considerable scholarly interests, a friend of Gloucester’s chancellor Beckington, and at one time favoured by Henry VI., who recommended him to Oxford as a suitable recipient of academic honours. [1243] A certain Maufurney, of French origin, acted as Humphrey’s private secretary for a considerable time, and in that capacity received the honour of naturalisation in 1426. ”

“ Had Gloucester’s power been less openly restrained, and had his opponents been less ready to bind him with Acts of Parliament, he would not have been compelled to act on the aggressive from the first. The result of the Beaufort policy was not to reduce the Protectorate to a mere name, but to convulse the kingdom by giving every encouragement to Gloucester’s factious tendencies. The challenge had been given, and we cannot blame Gloucester for accepting it. It might perhaps have been unwise to place full power in the hands of such a volatile man ”

“ The very first words of the dedication strike the right note of genuine friendship, when Humphrey’s position as a prince among men by reason of birth is set aside, and his true title to respect is based on his scholarly interests. ‘You have no real pleasure,’ writes Piero, ‘apart from the reading of books.’ Still more stress is laid on the Duke’s energy, which enabled him to take an active part in the affairs of state, as well as to be a man of letters—a very unusual combination, so says the author. ”

“ For as are princes so are servants, who improve by imitating their masters.’ [1179] Æneas showed no inclination to dwell on the virtues of Humphrey when narrating his relations with Jacqueline, so this praise from him deserves close attention, doubly so, as it must have been in no way pleasant to the recipient of the letter, who was one of the faction so bitterly opposed to Gloucester.
Humphrey, therefore, was instrumental in bringing the fruits of the Italian scholarship to England, and he did this in two ways. ”

“ His discarded Duchess may flit across the stage, for a brief moment he may revert to his early participation in the French war, but these are merely unimportant incidents in a busy political career. The rest of his life, too, is entirely moulded by the opposition he experiences. The spirit which had inspired the limitation of the Protector’s power was to meet him at every turn, and throughout the next twenty years all English history was to find its central theme in the great struggle between the Duke of Gloucester and the Beaufort faction. ”

“ For Gloucester, however, the romance of his marriage with Jacqueline, such as it had been, was quite worn off, and he had already transferred his affections to the lady who was to bring him far greater disaster than did his foreign bride. Amongst Jacqueline’s ladies-in-waiting there had been a certain Eleanor Cobham, daughter of Reginald Cobham of Sterborough in Kent, [604] and she had accompanied her mistress to Hainault. When Humphrey had returned to England he had brought her with him, and it seems that it was about this time that she became his paramour. ”

“ Thus the rivalry of Beaufort and Gloucester was more personal than political, in no sense was it dynastic, and though it weakened the hold of the House of Lancaster on the country, yet in itself it did not threaten the throne of Henry VI. Still less was this the case when the Beaufort faction had won their final victory, and had definitely placed Gloucester in permanent opposition, where he acted as safety-valve to the reigning dynasty. ”

“ The drama of Gloucester’s life is drawing to a close, and the tragedy of its end is in sight. Any lingering regard for his uncle in the mind of the King had passed, and his attitude during the visit of the French embassy which came to England in 1445 illustrates the success of the tactics employed by Margaret. It was on July 15 that the ambassadors came before the King, whom they found supported by Suffolk, Dorset, the Cardinal of York, the Chancellor, Adam Moleyns, Gloucester, Chester, and Warwick. ”

“ Again we can trace the direct influence of the Duke. This last band of scholars who finally established the new learning in England were, like their predecessors, all Oxonians. The University which Gloucester had started on the way of good things was the parent of the new school of thought, it carried on the work of its great patron. It is to the lasting fame of this indifferent politician that through him the humanities came to be taught in England, that through him Oxford was induced to lead the van in introducing the new culture. ”