Minority Council.  Food Shortages. Eclipse.

The War in France. Gascony.

The Duke of Brittany. Scotland.

Council at Basel. Peace talks.

Mutiny at Calais. Bedford and Jacquetta.

Council at Calais.

The Duke of Bedford in Parliament.

Lord Cromwell. Taxation. Royal Household.

Hugh de Lannoy, Burgundian Ambassador.

The Duke of Orleans.

The Duke of Bedford in England. Bibliography.

 

The most important event of 1433 was the return to England of the Duke of Bedford and his new wife after the council he called to Calais failed to promise him the resources he needed to continue the war in France.

Only three small campaigns are recorded in the chronicles for 1433.

Cardinal Albergati’s peace talks stalled, and whether to continue to negotiate with the French or to resume the war on a large scale was the big question.

The Duke of Burgundy sent envoys to England to gauge the Council’s position,

The Duke of Orleans, still a prisoner in England, failed in his bid to arrange a peace conference that would lead to his release.

An English delegation arrived at the Council of the Church at Basel. 

Royal debt was out of control, the soldiers in the Calais garrison mutinied for lack of pay, and the garrison at Berwick was restive for the same reason.

Lord Cromwell became Treasurer of England with authority to deal with the financial crisis.

English commissioners were sent north to redress violations of the truce along the Anglo-Scottish border. 

Parliament petitioned that the Duke of Bedford should remain in England to conduct the government.

The Minority Council

The Proceedings record thirty-nine council meetings in 1433:  one in January, eight in February, three in March, three in April, and three in May. None in June, six in July after the Duke of Bedford’s return to England, four in August, one in October, seven in November and three in December. 

Henry V’s Legacy

Ten years after his death the Council was still paying off Henry V’s debts. 

£2,000 was owed to the Abbot of Westminster ‘for the performance of certain services for the soul of the late king.’ The Abbot was to be paid in yearly instalments of £100 from the issues of alien priories. If these proved inadequate (and they would) then revenue from the lordship of Chirk would be assigned (1). 

Henry V had bequeathed £4,000 to his household servants, to be raised by his executors from Duchy of Lancaster lands. In 1432 the Council had ordered a list of names to be drawn up so that appropriate payments could be made.

NB: The commission to Lord Hungerford, Sir William Phelip, Sir William Porter and Sir Ralph Butler to distribute £4,000 on the petition of the household servants dated 15 April but with no year is assigned in Foedera to 1433 but probably dates to 1432 (2).  

See Year 1432 Parliament: Henry V’s legacy. 

The need for ready money was so acute that in February 1433 the Council diverted the £4,000 to expedite the dispatch of an army into France. £4,000 for the household servants was then assigned on the customs of Southampton.

Henry’s household, still loyal to their old master and his ambition to conquer France, agreed that £3,000 from the Southampton customs should be loaned for the war, but the assignment for repayment was to remain on the customs until this sum had been repaid in full (3). In the meanwhile, the servants were to receive £1,000 between February and Easter 1433 and the balance in the following year (4).

(1) PPC IV, p. 142 (Abbot of Westminster).

(2) Foedera X, p. 548 (£4,000 to the household, possibly misdated).

(3) PPC IV, pp. 141 and 143-144 (Henry V’s servants’ loan).

(4) Somerville, Duchy of Lancaster, p. 204 (£1,000 to servants).

Prospero Colonna

Cardinal Prospero Colonna, Pope Martin’s nephew, became Archdeacon of Canterbury in 1426. The Colonna family were excommunicated in 1431 when they revolted against Pope Eugenius IV in Rome and Archbishop Chichele seized the opportunity to deprive Colonna of the archdeaconry (1).

See Year 1426 The Duke of Bedford in England for Colonna.

The excommunication was subsequently lifted and in January 1433 the Council authorised Master Robert London, Colonna’s proctor, to collect the income due to Colonna from the archdeaconry (2, 3).  

(1) Harvey, England and Papacy, p. 96 (Colonna).

(2) PPC IV, p. 140 (income to Colonna).

(3) Foedera X, p. 534 (income to Colonna).

Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury had contributed a loan of £2,000 to King Henry’s coronation expedition in 1431. It was to be repaid by assignment on the subsidy granted by Convocation to be collected at Martinmas, November 1431 (1). Not surprisingly, the original assignment had not been honoured, and in February 1433 the Council undertook not to change it, i.e., not to reassign it to another possibly less reliable source for repayment (2).

Two days later, on 22 February in consideration of his great services, the Council granted Chichele permission to acquire lands and rents to the value of 40 marks annually to endow his foundation of Chichele College for secular canons at Higham Ferrers, his birthplace (3).

 (1) PPC IV, p. 89 (Chichele’s loan in 1431).

(2) PPC IV, p.152 (assignment not to be changed). 

(3) PPC IV, p. 154 (Chichele College).

 

Foreign Merchants

Alien merchants were required to deposit about one third of the bullion (gold and silver coins) they brought into England at the mint in the Tower of London to be melted down and reminted into English coins of a standard set weight. The Council was prepared to relax the letter of the law to encourage the import into England of scarce coinage.  In 1433 the Treasurer was permitted to extend a reasonable delay for the deposit of imported bullion at the mint (1).

(1) PPC IV, p. 145

Talbot and Xaintrailles

John, Lord Talbot had been captured by Poton de Xaintrailles in 1429. Xaintrailles was captured by the Earl of Warwick in 1431. Negotiations for a prisoner exchange began in 1432.

See Year 1432 Foreign Relations for Talbot and Xaintrailles.

On 6 February 1433 a safe conduct was issued for Bernard de Genescell [Genestelle], Xaintrailles’s retainer, to come to England, presumably to finalise these negotiations (1). Talbot was released and returned to England in the spring of 1433 (2). Xaintrailles was released in July. He was issued a safe conduct on 23 July ‘going to procure his ransom’ (3).

(1) Foedera X, p. 536 (safe conduct, February).

(2) Pollard, Talbot, p. 18 (Talbot and Xaintrailles release).

(3) Foedera X, p. 553 (safe conduct, July).

 

William Croyser

Safe conducts for two months were issued at the end of April to William Croyser, Archdeacon of Teviotdale, and William Turnbull, rector of Hawick, and four other Scots to travel through England on their way back to Scotland from Rome carrying Pope Eugenius’s letters summoning James Cameron, Bishop of Glasgow to Rome to answer charges of sponsoring anti-papal legislation (1, 2, 3).

In October a safe conduct was issued to James Cameron to travel through England on his way to home.  

(1) Foedera X, p. 549 (Croyser).

(2) Papal Letters VIII, p. 281 (Croyser).

(3) Balfour Melville, James I, p. 206 (on James Cameron).

(4) Foedera X, p. 568 (Cameron’s return).

Robert Danvers

Robert Danvers appeared before the Council on 20 June suspected of having erased some of the wording in a memorandum attached to an unspecified act of the Council. Any deliberate falsification of an act by the Council was taken very seriously, but on examination it was shown that Danvers was not responsible for the erasure.

On 23 July the chancellor was ordered to enter his exoneration on the chancery rolls (1). Danvers was an attorney, trained at Lincoln’s Inn, and such an accusation would have been detrimental to his career. He went on to become Recorder of the City of London in 1442.

(1) PPC IV, p. 166.

Denmark

It appears that an ambassador from King Eric of Denmark was in London in July. The Council made him a gift of a silver gilt cup worth £10 on King Henry’s behalf.  I have found no other published reference to this visit (1).

(1) PPC IV, p. 168.

 

Roger Winter

In July 1433 Roger Winter was paid £85 19s for his costs and expenses in a round trip of six weeks taken in February 1432 from London to Winchelsea to Dieppe and Rouen and back to London, carrying £2,500 to the Duke of Bedford (1). 

See Year 1432 The Siege of Lagny for payment to Bedford.

Winter was a trusted courier, in July he was ordered to take 5,000 marks to Arques in the Pale of Calais for Louis of Luxembourg, Chancellor of France, for the expenses of the war (2, 3). He was to travel in the retinue of Lord Talbot who was preparing to return to France after a short stay in England following his release from captivity (Talbot see above).

(1) PPC IV, p. 165 (a recapitulation of Winter’s journey in 1432).

(2) PPC IV, p. 167 (5,000 marks to Louis of Luxembourg).

(3) Issues of the Exchequer, p. 422 (5,000 marks to Louis of Luxembourg).

Margaret, Duchess of Clarence

In August Margaret, Duchess of Clarence was exempted from paying customs duties on twelve casks of salt salmon sent by her to her daughter Queen Joan of Scotland (1).  Joan was Margaret’s daughter by Margaret’s first marriage to John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, the elder brother of Cardinal Beaufort, who died in 1410.

(1) Foedera X, p. 554.

Queen Katherine

A petition from Queen Katherine to King Henry, dated by Nicolas to [August] 1433 reported that the Exchequer had defaulted on payment of her income from land grants made to her by King Henry VI ‘on account of some ambiguity in the said letters.’ She asked him to issue correctly worded writs to the Treasurer and Barons of the Exchequer to accept all the sums she claimed, and to suspend all proceedings against her (the reasons for non-payment?) until the next meeting of Parliament. The petition, dated xiiij die [….] anno xj, was granted by Gloucester, Archbishops Chichele and Kemp, Chancellor Stafford, and the Earl of Huntingdon (1). Huntingdon, who had been campaigning in France, was back in England in time to attend the second session of Parliament, October to December 1433. 

(1) PPC IV, pp. 179-180 (Queen Katherine’s petition).

Joan Countess of Westmorland, her son, then Sir Richard Neville, and the executors of her late husband’s will had petitioned Parliament in 1426 concerning a dispute between King Henry V and Ralph, Earl of Westmorland who died in 1425 (1).

In 1427 Richard Neville, John, Lord Greystoke and Sir Thomas Turnbull posted a recognizance for £800 that if the judgement of the Exchequer, which had found in favour of the king, was upheld the executors would settle the claim within three months.  This was subsequently cancelled ‘by the chancellor on the advice of the council’ (2).

Countess Joan, Richard Neville, now Earl of Salisbury, and the other executors of Earl Ralph petitioned Parliament again in 1433 to be allowed to present evidence to substantiate their claim that the judgement in favour of the king, passed by the Exchequer, was erroneous (3). They were once again referred to the Council and ordered to present themselves at Westminster after Easter in 1434 (4). 

(1) PROME XI, Appendix no. 25, p. 155 (background to the petition).

(2) CClR 1422-1429, p. 325 (recognizance, 1427).

(3) Rot. Parl. IV, pp. 469-470 (the 1433 petition in full).

(4) PPC IV, pp. 189-190 (order to appear before the Council in 1434). 

Food Shortages

Food shortages were acute in Paris in the early months of 1433. The Bourgeois of Paris recorded that the weather was so cold the Seine froze over and ‘all provisions therefore cost more, especially all grains that will make flour’ (1).

Consignments of grain were shipped from England to France:

In February a license to export wheat from Kent, Surrey and Sussex was issued to John Noisieux, a servant of Queen Isabelle of France.

Two Italian merchants Nicholas and James Bernardyn were permitted to export 50 quarters of wheat and 200 quarters of oats to Paris. 

John Loutrell was licenced to export wheat and oats to Rouen, and in April the Duke of Bedford himself was licenced to arrange for the export of 1,000 quarters of wheat ‘of which there is a great scarcity in France.’ A quarter weight equalled about 28 pounds (2).  

(1) Bourgeois, p. 285 (food scarcity).

(2) Foedera X, pp. 534-535 (wheat exports).

 

An Eclipse

The chronicles report a total eclipse of the sun on St Botulfus day, 17 June 1433. NASA records show that a total solar eclipse occurred on 17 June 1432, so the chronicle dating may be off by a year. It appears to have been predicted, the study of astronomy and astrology was widespread, and prophesies of portents inspired fear and awe.

“The xj yeer of this kyng Harri was the grete and general clip of the sunne on saynt Botulfis day; wherof moche peple was sore aferd.”         English Chronicle, p. 55

“In this year there was a general eclipse  . . . . on St Botulfus’s day in the afternoon.”

                                                            Annales (pseudo-Worcester) p. 760

“An in this same yere was the Clipse in þe after-None þat Asshewell, þe white frere and oþer clerkes spake of longe tyme before; which all peple dowted and were sore aferd of, thurgh the speche of þe seid frere. And this clipse was the xvij day of Iuyn.”

                                                            Brut Continuation F, p.  466

The War in France

A letter in King Henry’s name to the Duke of Burgundy in July 1433 claimed that the English had 3,700 men in the field under the command of Lord Willoughby, the Earl of Huntingdon, and the Earl of Arundel, not counting the 6,000 in the garrisons scattered across France, Normandy, Anjou (sic) and Maine (1).

The Earl of Huntingdon

John Holand, Earl of Huntingdon, became Earl Marshal of England in November 1432 after the death of John Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk while Norfolk’s son was still a minor (2).

In February1433 Huntingdon was appointed to lead an army of about 1,200 men into France to defend Lower Normandy, with the same powers of command as the Earl of Salisbury or any other commander had during Henry VI’s reign (3). 

Huntingdon was awarded the considerable sum of 1,300 marks for his services past and present in France, and for the expenses and losses he had sustained (4). He had been captured at the Battle of Baugé in 1421 and only returned to England in 1426 following complicated negotiations for his release. He played a major part in the campaigns of the coronation expedition until he was defeated, with John of Luxembourg, in Compiègne.

See 1424 and 1425 Parliament: John Holand, Earl of Huntingdon for his ransom.

See 1430 The Campaigns of 1430 for Huntingdon in France.

“And in this same yere the xxij^th day of Aprell, the Erle of Huntyngdon, with other dyuers lordes, knyghtes and squyers, with men of armes and archers, shipped at Hampton, and went ouer the see into Normandy and so to Fraunce, for to mayntene kepe and gouerne the right of oure Kyng and þe parties of Fraunce and Normandy.” 

                                    Brut Continuation F, p.  466

(1) L&P II, p. 258 (numbers of men in France).

(2) CPR 1429-36, p. 242 (Huntingdon as Earl Marshal).

(3) PPC IV, p. 146 (Huntingdon to command army).

(4) L&P II, p. 257 (Huntingdon 1200 men).

Montargis

“And that same yere the erll of hontyndon went in to the reame of ffraunce with c speris and vii c bowys. And he did many jornayes and whan many smale placys in gattinas, vp toward Montarges; and rescewyd Montarges, the wich whas besegid by the Arminakes. And than he cam dovne into Normandy ayen, ande kom in to Englond the same yere.” 

                               Cleopatra C IV, p. 136       

Montargis

The Earl of Huntingdon did not ‘rescue’ the castle at Montargis, as claimed in Cleopatra C IV.  The Earl of Warwick had been defeated by Dunois, Bastard of Orleans at the siege of Montargis in 1427 and the Duke of Bedford offered a reward of 10,000 gold crowns to anyone who could recapture it.

See Year 1427, The War in France, Montargis

Montargis remained in French hands until July 1433 when two mercenary captains, Perrinet Gressart, and the flamboyant François de Surienne, called L’Aragonais, gained access to the castle by bribery.  

Their biographer, André Bossuat casts doubt on the tale of a barber of the town who was bribed by the woman he wished to marry to show them where to scale the castle walls. He suggests that Berry Herald told the story to gloss a French defeat, just as Cleopatra C IV credited the victory to an English captain (5).  

There is an oblique inaccurate reference to Montargis in a marginal note in The Great Chronicle: “this yere the Frenche men toke by stelth y^e towne off montarges & y^e castell off Rouen butt thenglishemen shortly recoveryd them.”  Great Chronicle p. 171

In September 1433 Bedford issued a mandate for the payment of 5,000 saluts, half the sum originally offered, to Francois de Surienne (2).

The question might be asked as to why the Earl of Warwick, supposedly with 3,000 men, was unable to take Montargis in 1427 while the mercenary captains, with far fewer men apparently did so with ease in 1433, even allowing for help from inside the castle.

(1) A. Bossuat, Perrinet Gressart et François de Surienne, pp.196-98. 

(2) L&P II, ii, pp. 427-428 (mandate for payment of half the sum, 5,000 saluts).

NB: The mandate is dated 6 September 1434, 12 Henry VI. But 6 September 12 Henry VI is 1433.

 The Earl of Arundel

The Earl of Arundel with a force of about 900 men, campaigned in the second six months of 1433 to recover towns and fortresses lost to the Armagnacs in 1429 and 1430. He recaptured the much fought over abbey at Sées on the River Oise northeast of Saint Cénéri, which had changed hands a number of times since its capture by Henry V in 1418.

“And the same yere all the cristmas tyme the erll of Arondell had leyd siege vnto a full fayre place callid Seynt Selerin (Saint Cénéri) and whan ther with Cely Gillam (Sillé le Guillaume) with a composicion, and the abbey of Ses (Sées), and many other placys in Normandy and in mayn.”    Cleopatra C IV, p. 136

Arundel then set about dislodging the French from Saint Cénéri itself. The castle belonged to Ambroise de Loré who had forced Lord Willoughby to abandon his siege of it in 1432.  The garrison held out for three months, but Arundel had learned the value of heavy artillery during the French raid on Rouen. His gunners blew a huge hole in the castle wall, killing a number of the defenders, including Loré’s lieutenant, Jehan de Armenge. This time Loré did not come to their rescue, even though his wife and children were in the castle, and Saint Céneri surrendered in 1434. Arundel permitted the defenders to march out, but without any of their possessions (1).

See Year 1432 France, The Duke of Bedford, Rouen for Arundel in Rouen.

In February 1434 John Stanlowe, the treasurer of Normandy was sent to supervise the demolition of a town that had become something of an embarrassment to the Duke of Bedford (2). 

(1) Chartier, Chronique I, pp. 164-165 (siege of Saint Cénéri).

(2) Beaurepaire, Les états de Normandie, p. 45 n. 93 (John Stanlowe).

 

The Siege of Saint Valery

Robert, Lord Willoughby and Peter St Pol, Count of Luxembourg, with 1,600 men (500 of them under St Pol contributed by the Duke of Burgundy) campaigned in Picardy between May and August 1433 to recover the Burgundian town of Saint Valery (1). 

The Duke of Bedford made a special effort to prove to the Duke of Burgundy that his alliance with England was worth more than his truce with France. Expenditure for a quick recovery of Saint Valery far outweighed its worth: St Pol was paid 500 marks by the English Exchequer for his services (2). 

Cardinal Beaufort loaned 5,000 marks while he was in Calais, for the wages of the Calais garrison and the siege of Saint Valery (3). Archbishop John Kemp had received 1,000 marks for his expenses to travel to the Church Council at Basel, but his departure was postponed, and he was ordered to pay the 1,000 marks to Louis of Luxembourg to help finance the siege (4).

Men from the Calais garrison were sent to take part in the siege. At the end of May 1433 Richard Buckland, Treasurer of Calais, received 500 marks from the wealthy London mercer, William Estfeld, who often loaned money to the crown, ‘to pay men-at-arms and archers for their wages and rewards for services performed at Saint Valery and other places held by the enemies of the king’ (5).       

In August, the mayor, constables, and the staplers at Calais were instructed to send 2,000 marks to the receiver of Pont Neuf toward the costs of the siege (6).

(1) L&P II, p. 257 (1600 men).

(2) PPC IV, p. 163 (500 marks to St Pol).

(3) PPC IV, p. 243 (repayment of Beaufort’s loan, 1434).

(4) PPC IV, p. 168 (1,000 mark from Archbishop Kemp).

(5) Issues of the Exchequer pp. 421-422 (Estfeld’s loan).

(6) PPC IV, p. 178 (Calais Staple loan).

Peter St Pol, Count of Luxembourg

The siege of Saint Valery was ended by negotiation in August 1433 and St Pol garrisoned the town, presumably with Burgundian troops. He was preparing to lay siege to Rambures where he died unexpectedly on 31 August, probably of disease contracted at Saint Valery. His body was taken to St Pol and buried in the abbey church of Cercamp (1). 

A funeral mass was held for him at St Pauls while the Duke of Bedford and Jacquetta were in England. Peter St Pol was  Jacquetta of Luxembourg’s father.

“In this yere the ix^th day of Novembre the terment of therle of seynt powle fader unto the wyfe of the duke of Bedford and Regent of Fraunce full solempnely was holden at powles in london.”

               Great Chronicle, p. 171

(1) Monstrelet I, p. 620 (St Pol death and burial).

Gascony

From 1430, while he held the ascendancy in Council, the Duke of Gloucester began to acquire lordships in the Duchy of Gascony to add to his income. In each case Gloucester could claim that he was protecting the interests of the king and the crown, albeit at a distance, against unlawful encroachment (1).

Lordships in the Médoc region of Gascony on the banks of the Gironde estuary north of Bordeaux were held by Pons VIII, Lord of Castillon, but a part of this inheritance was claimed by Gaston de Foix, capital of Buch. In 1428 the Council in Bordeaux had adjudicated in a dispute between Gaston and Pons and found in favour of Pons.

See Year 1428 Gascony, The Judiciary, for the dispute.

Pons’s Médoc lands escheated to the crown when he died childless in 1430 and they were granted to the Duke of Gloucester as custodian or trustee because Pons IX adhered to the French king (2). 

In 1431 Jean, Count of Foix, King Charles VII’s lieutenant in Languedoc, and Gaston’s brother, claimed Pons’s Castillon lordship.

See Year 1423 Gascony for Jean de Foix.

Bernard Angevin, an ex-Constable of Bordeaux, was ordered to examine the custody of Pons’s lordships of La Marque, Castillon, Carcans, and Breuil and prepare a report for the Council in England ‘for the resistance of the count of Foix’ (3). Angevin came to England at the end of 1432 accompanied by Bernard de la Planche, Bishop of Dax, to report on this and other concerns.   

“And in this same yere, anon after Cristmaase þe Bisshop of Acres [Dax] in the land of Navern come to the Kyng in ambassiatry.”   Brut Continuation F, p. 465.

They informed the Minority Council in February 1433 that not only were Pons’s Castillon lands being claimed by Jean de Foix, the castles and lordships within the Médoc held by  Bernard de Lesparre, Lord of LaBarde, who died in 1417, ‘which the king ought to possess’ were now in the hands Gaston de Foix, Captal de Buch and Count of Longueville, who was supposedly an ally of England.

The Council promptly granted Bernard de Lesparre’s lordships to the Duke of Gloucester and his heirs male, ‘lest the king’s right therein should be lost’ (4).

At the end of March 1433, letters of protection were issued for all ‘the officers, servants, serfs (questales), subjects, castles, towns, houses, lands, revenues, lordships with high and low [justice], movable and immovable goods pertaining to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester in Gascony, and governed by him in this duchy.’ The seneschal, the constable of Bordeaux, the judges of Bordeaux, and all the other king’s officers in the duchy were to maintain and protect them. The Constable of Bordeaux was instructed to pay the officer’s wages as a first priority ‘before all others’ (5, 6).

Gloucester never paid for anything if he could possibly avoid it, and he exploited his position as a royal duke to the full. The Council confirmed his exemption from paying ‘fines and fees for charters, letters patent, writs and all other things whatsoever appertaining to the king as had been granted to him in the reigns of Henry IV and Henry V’ (7).   

Gaston de Foix

Possibly because of the extensive land grants in Gascony to the Duke of Gloucester, the Duke of Bedford and the Council considered it expedient to retain Gaston de Foix’s loyalty. The vicomté of Benuages granted to him in 1426 was confirmed to him and his heirs in August 1433. It is the same grant as that of 1426 with a different witness list allowing for changes in Council personnel (8, 9).       

See Year 1426 Gascony, Gaston de Foix.

The Council also authorized Gaston de Foix’s servants to purchase and transport ‘without impediment, from whatever port of England’ to the Duchy of Gascony, two  silver gilt basins (pelves) , two silver gilt bottles, four silver gilt jars (olle), two silver gilt spice plates, twelve silver gilt cups (ciphi), one silver gilt ewer, two silver bottles, two silver basins, two silver jars, thirty cups three with lids, three silver salt pots with coverlids and one silver ewer, bought in France (10).

Charles de Beaumont

The Council had already conferred on Gloucester ‘the castle and castellany of Mauleon, of Soulle, and the bailliage of Le Bert [Labourt]’ belonging to Charles de Beaumont alferitz (standard bearer) of Navarre who had died in 1432 (11). King Henry IV had granted these lands to Beaumont for life, so they too could be claimed by Gloucester as the king’s inheritance and in need of protection.

Charles de Beaumont was an illegitimate son of Louis of Navarre, Count of Beaumont. When Louis died in 1376 the young Charles was brought up at the court of King Charles II of Navarre with the king’s legitimate children, Charles III and Joan, later Duchess of Britany and Queen of England, the wife of King Henry IV. Charles de Beaumont married Anne of Curton who held lands in English Gascony, and he visited England in 1430 as part of an Aragon/Navarrese delegation. 

See Year 1430 Foreign Relations (Aragon and Navarre) for Beaumont’s visit.

Charles de Beaumont’s heir was Louis de Beaumont, Lord of Curton and Guissen. He became Count of Lerin in 1424 when he married Jeanne, an illegitimate daughter of King Charles III of Navarre.

In July 1433 the Council granted Louis de Beaumont a licence to transfer to Gascony 200 ounces of silver and two ounces of gold, his gold and silver dishes (plate), a gold collar set with a sapphire, a ruby, and pearls, armour and equipment, bedding, and all his other luggage, any ordinance against the export of plate and jewels notwithstanding. Louis may have visited England in 1433 (12).

(1) Vale, Gascony, pp. 99-100 (early grants to Gloucester).                                       

(2) https://www.gasconrolls.org/edition/calendars/C61_124/document.html

(3) Vale, Gascony p. 100 (Bernard Angevin to survey Pons lands)

(4)  PPC IV, p. 142 (LaBarde lordships granted to Gloucester).

(5) Foedera X, p.  545 (protection and wages for Gloucester’s officers).

(6) https://www.gasconrolls.org/edition/calendars/C61_125/document.html

(7) PPC IV, p. 156 (Gloucester exempt from payments).

(8) Foedera X, pp. 544-555 (Gaston de Foix vicomté of Benuages).
(9) https://www.gasconrolls.org/edition/calendars/C61_125/document.html

(10) Foedera X, p. 543 (Gaston de Foix to export jewels).

(11)  PPC IV, p. 152 (Charles de Beaumont lands).

(12) Foedera X, p. 543 (Louis of Navarre to export jewels).

 

Administration

The seneschals of Gascony and the Landes, Sir John Radcliffe and Fortaner de Pommiers Lord of Lescun, were to proclaim publicly that no subject of King Henry VI was to take service with, or accept payment from, Jean, Count of Foix or Jean, Count of Armagnac on pain of forfeiture. They were to keep the king’s peace but at the same time they were ‘to injure them [Foix and Armagnac] to the utmost’ (1, 2).

This may refer to the otherwise undocumented attack on English held Chateauneuf-sur-Charente and Ratière  ordered by Jean de Foix in the previous year. 

See Year 1432 Gascony for this attack.

The seneschals were also empowered to receive homage to King Henry VI from local lords and to confirm fiefs in his name where appropriate. The Seneschal of Gascony and the Constable of Bordeaux, Walter Colles, were authorized to coin money at the Bordeaux mint (3).

Legitimation

Letters of legitimation were granted to Augerot de Saint-Pée [Saint Pere in Foedera], the illegitimate son of Johan [d’Amézqueta], lord of Saint-Pée in the march of Labourt, to allow him to succeed as if he were his father’s legitimate son. Johan d’Amézqueta petitioned King Henry that he and his predecessors had served the king and his ancestors faithfully, and, desiring to have an heir permitting the survival of his name and coat of arms, and not able to have children from a legitimate union, he requested that his son Augerot de Saint-Pée be allowed to succeed him (4).

Judicial appointments

The Council rewarded Bernard de la Planche by appointing him to the Council of Bordeaux with an annuity of 10 marks (5).

In March 1433 he was appointed a judge for civil cases in the superior court of Gascony along with a number of others, listed in the Foedera: Bernat d’Ibos, Bishop of Bazas , Hélias de Faurie, abbot Bournet, Tétbaut d’Agès, dean of Saint-André of Bordeaux, Per-Arnaut de la Biscomtat, dean of Saint-Seurin of Bordeaux, Binsens Durrieu, treasurer of Saint-André of Bordeaux and Guilhem Fulheron, rector of Lormont near Bordeaux.

Sir Johan de Jalles, Galhart de Jonquière, Master Ramon de Sestairne, and Master Ramon Carles, Bachelors of Common Law, were appointed as judges of criminal cases in the superior court of Aquitaine, receiving the customary fees and wages (6).
NB: The authorization for de la Planche to proceed to the Council at Basel in February 1433 is misdated in the Proceedings. It belongs in 1434 when he was again in England.  

CPR 1429-1436 dated June 1434 (de la Planche as envoy to Basel).

Council in Bordeaux

The Council in Bordeaux, represented by Brother Arnald de Saint-Quentin, master of theology of the Augustinian Order, Bernard of Saint Abit and Bernard de Garos, a burgess of Bordeaux had indicted Pey Eyquart [Achard in Foedera] otherwise known as Lassalle, Mathiu Olivey, Guilhem de Gayac,  Guilhem Bidau and their accomplices for committing insurrections, riots, fights and conspiracies in the city of Bordeaux in 1428. Some of those indicted had escaped to England, and King Henry had ordered these charges be examined.

The accused must have made a good case: in April 1433 the English Council reversed the judgement of the Council in Bordeaux and granted a pardon to the miscreants: the charges against them were to be dropped as they did not enter Bordeaux illegally (which seems illogical). They were not to be prosecuted by the king’s officers; their good reputation was to be affirmed and all their goods were to be returned to them (7). 

According to a footnote in the Gascon Rolls these men may have been clerks in Bordeaux and come under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Bordeaux, David de Montferrand. He was summoned to appear before Henry VI, i.e, the Council, in 1429 which may account for his being in London when he died in May 1430 (8). 

See Year 1430 London for Montferrand’s death.

(1) PPC IV, p. 156 (not to take service with Foix).

(2) Foedera X, p. 543 (not to take service with Foix).

(3) Foedera X, p. 544 (to coin money and take homages).

(4) Foedera X, p. 540 (legitimization of Saint-Pée).

(5) Foedera X, p. 541 (annuity to Planche).

(6) Foedera X, p. 543 (Planche appointed to judiciary and others appointed).

(7) Foedera X, p. 547-548 (pardon).

(8) gasconrolls.org C61 125 (Montferrand’s summons).

 

Sir John Radcliffe

Sir John Radcliffe had reluctantly returned to the Duchy of Gascony as Seneschal in 1431. The Treasurer, Lord Hungerford, had warned the Council that Radcliffe’s wages for his earlier services had not been paid, and in 1432 Radcliffe lost the income from Amonion Bégney’s estates in Gascony, valued at £40 a year, when the Council granted them to Bernard de Montferrand. 

Radcliffe came home in 1433 to claim his unpaid wages: four shilling a day as Seneschal of Gascony, and wages for 200 archers at 20 marks a year, plus 1,000 marks a year as Captain of Fronsac, dating back to his 1423 indentures with Henry VI, and his earlier indentures with Henry V for Fronsac.

The Council acknowledged that he was now owed £7,029 13s 1d and assigned the profits from Caernarvon and Merionneth, and the lordship of Chirk and Chirklands in North Wales to him. The grant was confirmed by privy seal in May (1, 2). But revenue from the lordship of Chirk had been assigned earlier in the year to pay off a debt to the Abbot of Westminster (see above) and there was little likelihood that the large sum owed to Radcliffe could be recovered from lands in North Wales. 

Radcliffe petitioned Parliament in October 1433 that the income from the customs of the port of Melcombe, assigned to him in 1430, should be transferred to the port of Poole as customs duties were no longer collected in Melcombe, which was granted (3).

See Year 1423 Gascony for Radcliffe in Gascony.

See Year 1425 Parliament for Radcliffe’s resignation as Seneschal.  

See Year 1428 Minority Council (Gascony) for payment to Radcliffe to return to Gascony.

See Year 1430 Radcliffe and Gascony for the crown’s debts to Radcliffe.

(1) PPC IV, p. 155 (grant of income from North Wales).

(2) CPR 1429-1436, pp. 269-270 (grant of income and resumé of wages owed to Radcliffe).

(3) PROME XI, p. 126 (petition to transfer debt to customs at Poole).

The Duke of Brittany

The treaty of alliance between England and John, Duke of Brittany, negotiated in 1427, had been publicly proclaimed in England on 28 January 1428.

Duke John had sent an embassy to England in 1432 to discus, among other things, the problem of piracy. The Breton envoys had promised to send commissioners to England to meet with their English counterparts.

In February 1433 William Bruges, Garter King at Arms carried a letter of credence to Duke John of Brittany, in King Henry’s name signed by members of the Council, and a personal letter from King Henry stating that the king was in good health, enquiring after the health of the Duke and Duchess of Brittany and expressing the king’s pleasure in the company of his cousin Giles of Brittany, the duke’s son, who had remained in England after the Bretons left (1). 

In November the Council agreed that Giles of Brittany, should receive 250 marks for the past year (125 marks at Michaelmas and 125 marks at Easter) and the same sum annually in future for his private expenses (6, 7).  Giles had been in England since 1432 and apparently there were no immediate plans to return him to Brittany.

See Year 1432: The Duke of Brittany

Garter was instructed to raise three issues with the duke: the first and most important being Breton piracy.

Piracy was endemic in the English Channel, and it is a toss-up as to who were the worst offenders, the men of Brittany or the men of the West Country. Ships and cargoes were routinely seized, often as ‘retribution’ for a previous act of piracy.  The treaty between King Henry and the Duke of Brittany of 1427provided for redress of seizure for both sides, and there are numerous entries in the Calendars of Patent Rolls for the restoration of goods seized from Breton ships. But Englishmen, although guilty of the same practices, complained constantly of Breton raids on coastal towns as well as piracy at sea, and commissioners were supposed to meet regularly under the terms of the treaty, ‘for the redress of grievances.’

Garter was to remind the Duke of Brittany that his commissioners had failed to arrive in the city of xeter (the West County was a hotbed of English pirates) as he had promised, to treat for ‘reparations of many injuries, robberies &c. committed by both parties,’ and to urge him to send them immediately.  Only King Henry’s strict ordinances had restrained his citizens from retaliating for the damage inflicted on them through the loss of their merchandise to Breton pirates.

In March, the Council appointed William Lyndwood, Keeper of the Privy Seal, Reginald Kentwood, Dean of St Pauls, William Estfield and John Welles, aldermen of London, Sir Walter de la Pole, Master Thomas Beckington, and Master John Stokes in expectation of the Breton envoys’ arrival (3).

It is not known exactly when they arrived, but Doctor John Pregent, and Jacques Godart, the Duke of Brittany’s secretary, were in London in June 1433. Hugh de Lannoy reported their presence to the Duke of Burgundy although he did not meet them (4, 5). In August the Council awarded them a gift of a cup and ewer of silver gilt, valued at 20 marks (6).

There are numerous entries in the Calendars of Patent Rolls for the restoration of goods seized from Breton ships, but Englishmen also complained constantly of Breton raids on coastal towns as well as piracy at sea. A petition in Parliament from English merchants while the Brteon envoys were in England requested that action be taken to secure restitution of the value of ‘goods and chattels’ seized by the Bretons. All future claim by Bretons should be refused in the admiralty courts, until they put up sufficient security to satisfy the claims of Englishmen (7).

Garter’s second instruction concerned the Council of the Church at Basel. The English delegates at Basel objected to the way voting at the Council was organized.  Voting was by ‘deputation’ i.e., by groups voting as individuals, rather than by ‘nations’ i.e., the English voting en bloc, as had been the custom at the earlier Council of Constance. Garter was to inform Duke John that he was expected to send delegates to the Council of Council of Basel to support the English position that voting should ne by nation, and to endorse any proposals for peace that might be put by the English or Burgundian delegates.  

See General Council of the Church at Basel below.

Garter’s third instruction was to complain that Sir Walter Hungerford’s ransom had been paid, but that the bonds given for payment by his father, Lord Hungerford, had not been surrendered. They were still held by Lord Beaumanoir, the Breton who had captured Sir Walter in 1429. Lord Hungerford and seven other councillors signed Garter’s letter of credence (2).  

See Year 1432 An Army for Normandy for Sir Walter Hungerford’s ransom.

(1) PPC IV, pp. 150-151 (Garter’s letter of credence).

(2) PPC IV, pp. 149-150 (Garter’s instructions).

(3) Foedera X, p. 546 (English commissioners named).

(4) Ferguson, Diplomacy, pp. 196-198 (names of Breton and English commissioners).

(5) L&P II, ii, p. 243 (Breton commissioners).

(6) PPC IV, p. 178 (Gift to Breton commissioners).

(7) PROME XI, p. 132 (Petition against Bretons).

 

Scotland

King James sent his special representative, Thomas Roulle, to London in 1433 to complain of violations of the truce along the Scottish border and at sea and of the difficulties experienced by Scots who claimed redress. 

See Year 1430 Scotland, a Five-Year Truce.

The Council riposted on 23 July with a counter claim: from the time it was proclaimed in January 1431, the Wardens of the March and the English conservators of the truce had been instructed to maintain the peace and offer redress when necessary. It was the Scottish commissioners, not the English, who failed to appear on March Days and King James should make sure that his commissioners respected and attended these meetings.

See Year 1423, Scotland for March Days.

The Scots were equally guilty of violating the truce, perhaps more so: only three weeks earlier on 1 July they had raided the area around Berwick and carried off 60 horses and 600 neats (cattle). A week later on 8 July they raided Glenvale, taking prisoners, burning houses, and rustling sheep and horses. 

The Council would shortly send Lord Scrope, or another suitable magnate, to King James and they requested a safe conduct for him and sixty people in his retinue. The designated ambassador would deal with ‘the state of the inhabitants of Berwick and Roxburgh,’ the question of peace, and the problem of the Scottish hostages (1).

See Year 1432 Scottish Hostages for the most recent exchange.

On 26 July Sir John Bertram, a Northumberland knight, a former sheriff and MP for Northumberland in 1429 and 1432 was instructed to bring the Scots complaints to the attention of the people living along the English March and order them not to violate the truce. The garrison of Berwick was in the same plight as the Calais garrison, their wages had not been paid. Bertram was given the unenviable task of asking them to do their duty to ‘keep watch and ward’ and to promise that payment would be made to them ‘as sone as any mony may growe to the payment of the same’ (2).

On the same day 26 July, two northern lords, Lord Dacre and Lord Fauconberg were excused attending Parliament so that they could be present at a March Day to discuss truce violations. The Earl of Northumberland, Warden of the East March, who was in London to attend Parliament, was a signatory to the Council’s order (3).

In August Lords Dacre and Fauconberg and Sir John Bertram were appointed with other commissioners as conservators of the truce, and in November the sheriff of York was ordered to proclaim the Mayor of Berwick and the Prior of Coldingham Abbey as conservators (4, 5).

The Council sent Edmund Beaufort, Earl of Mortain, Cardinal Beaufort’s nephew, and a Doctor of Laws, Master Stephen Wilton, to King James rather than Lord Scrope. They were paid 200 marks ‘by way of a loan’ (an advance for their expenses?). Mortain persuaded King James to grant ‘favours’ (concessions?) to the inhabitants of Berwick (6, 7).

Berwick was obviously considered vulnerable. The Council, on the authority of Parliament, ordered that £500 of the customs duties from the port of Hull was to be allocated to the Earl of Northumberland for his and the soldiers’ wages at Berwick ‘in preference to all other payments’ (8). 

(1) PPC IV, p. 169-172 (Council’s reply to Roulle).

(2) PPC IV, pp. 172-173 (Bertram and Berwick).

(3) PPC IV, p. 174 (Dacre and Fauconberg excused Parliament).

(4) Balfour-Melville, James I, pp. 208-209.

(5) PPC IV, p. 564 (Mayor of Berwick and Prior of and Coldingham).

(6) PPC IV, p. 178 (embassy to King James).

(7) PPC IV, p. 351 (‘favours’ for Berwick).

(8) PPC IV, p. 178 (payment to Northumberland and Berwick).

The General Council of the Church at Basel   

The General Council of the Church at Basel had been in session for two years by the beginning of 1433, but it had not accomplished much. Its scope was too broad, its attendance too diverse, and its threefold aims, to root out heresy, to pacify Christendom and to decide on and implement a general reform of the church, were too wide ranging. They were beyond the reach of any single council, even a united one, which Basel most certainly was not.

An English delegation, smaller and less prestigious than that envisaged in 1432, presented themselves to the Council at Basel at the beginning of March 1433.

See Year 1432 The General Council of the Church at Basel.

Only two bishops, Thomas Polton of Worcester, and Robert Fitzhugh of London, who arrived separately, seven clerics, and Sir John Colville, attended. The seven delegates were Robert Burton, Precentor of Lincoln, John Salisbury, Subprior of Canterbury, William Worstede, Prior of Holy Trinity, Norwich, John Symondesburgh, Archdeacon of Wiltshire, and Thomas Brouns, Dean of Salisbury, Master Peter Pertrich, Chancellor of Lincoln, Master Alexander Sparrow, Archdeacon of Berkshire and possibly Master Henry Abendon, Chancellor of Wells (1, 2).

Bishop Polton, William Worstede, John Symondesburgh, and Thomas Brouns, who was allowed to take £300 with him and given permission to leave Basel if his expenses were not paid, were authorized to negotiate with the Bohemian heretics to reunite them with the Orthodox church, a somewhat ambitious procuration for a small delegation to a much larger gathering (3).

Fifteen Bohemians had been invited to come to Basel in January 1433 to debate and try to resolve the contentious issues of the doctrine known as the Four Articles of Prague which had caused the split between the Hussites and the Catholic church: communion in both kinds, freedom to preach, the clergy to be as poor as the apostles, and the public punishment of sinners.

Procopius, the Hussite military leader, an Englishman, Peter Payne a follower of John Wycliff’s teaching who had espoused the Hussite cause, and the most famous Hussite preacher, John of Rokycana led the debate. Giuliano Cesarini, Cardinal of St Angelo presided as head of the Council. He allowed the Hussites full licence to make their arguments, but they were divided among themselves. John of Rokycana represented the Utraquists (moderates); Peter Payne and Procopius the Taborites (extremists).

“And that same yere began the generall counsell at Basill of all cristen londes, and theder kam the pragans thei of prage; and on master Pers a clerk that whas of Englond and whas Renagate, and another heretyk cam theder with hem. And there were many articles and poyntes of the ffeith determyned and spokyn of; and so they departyd withowten eny lettyng. And the cause whas of thei of prage had worthi clerkis of owre feith in plege for hem of Prage for to goo sauf and com sauf. And ellis they hadden goo to the fire, as men supposed that were ther.”  Cleopatra C IV, p.  135

“And atte this couseill were mony Articles and poyntes oute of the feithe commoned and determyned And so the Praganers past ayen to prage with oute only harme or lettyng  or they hadde worthy Clerkes of oure feithe in plegge that they shuld go sauf and come sauf. Orellys they hadde goo to brente wode as moost men supposed.”

                                     Great Chronicle, p. 170

The accounts in Cleopatra C IV, Gregory’s Chronicle, and The Great Chronicle derive from the same source; the original compiler was indignant and astonished that the heretics were allowed to go free and not burned at the stake as their founder, John Hus, had been. The explanation offered is disingenuous: the heretics were holding good catholics as hostage for their safe return.

Reconciliation was not, apparently, on the English agenda. The delegates disrupted the Council’s proceedings as soon as they arrived. They began by criticising the Council’s tolerant attitude towards the Hussites. They were too late to take part in the debates, but they objected to the presence of Peter Payne whom they dubbed a heretic and a traitor. Payne had been a fellow student with Peter Pertrich, Chancellor of Lincoln, while they were at Oxford together. Pertrich called Payne a Lollard and a traitor to his king and demanded his extradition to England to be tried under English law. Despite the wide-ranging debates, the inevitable stalemate over doctrinal differences resulted in the Hussite contingent leaving Basel, and Payne left unmolested with them in April. They were accompanied by representatives of the Council for further meetings with the Diet, the governing body of Prague (4).

The licences for Cardinal Beaufort and John Kemp, Archbishop of York to go to Basel, issued in 1432, were renewed in February 1433. But the Cardinal now planned to visit Emperor Sigismund on his way to Basel and he was licenced to take the enormous sum of £20,000 with him. Beaufort probably wished to ascertain Sigismund’s attitude to the split between the Council at Basel and Pope Eugenius now that Sigismund appeared to be on better terms with Eugenius, who would crown him Holy Roman Emperor in May. 

Beaufort named his attorneys, John Assh and Nicolas Radford, to look after his interests while he was away. A protection was issued for Nicholas Strode, Abbot of Hyde, going in the cardinal’s retinue (5).

Archbishop Kemp requested a safe conduct for himself and his retinue to go as an ambassador to Pope Eugenius as well as to Basel. He was permitted to take £2,000 in coin, and plate to the value of 1,000 marks (6, 7). The English Council, especially the bishops, were uneasy at siding with a General Council against the Pope, and Kemp’s embassy was probably intended to effect a reconciliation, or at least offer an explanation. 

Thomas Polton, Bishop of Worcester, and Robert Fitzhugh Bishop of London may have been late arrivals at Basel. Schofield claimed, on the strength of an entry in an anonymous diary of the proceedings, that Fitzhugh arrived in the middle of February (8).

Robert Fitzhugh had become Bishop of London in 1431 while he was in Rome as a royal proctor. He was consecrated in Italy and did not leave Rome to return to England until September 1432 at the earliest (9). He probably reached London early in 1433 and as it was his first time in England as Bishop of London, the London chronicles record that he became Bishop of London in 1433.

“And that same yere a-non aftyr the xij day the xxix day of Janyver, was the Lorde Fehewe ys brothyr stallyd Byschoppe of London.” Gregory’s Chronicle, p.  177

The Great Chronicle (p. 171) omits the words ‘his brother’ when referring to the bishop. Robert’s elder brother, William, was Lord Fitzhugh.

A protection for Fitzhugh going to Basel was issued in March, together with a quittance for the money he had received while he was in Rome as the king’s proctor, a licence to export £1,000, and a protection from any prosecution for a year (10).

A letter in King Henry’s name to Thomas Polton also in March 1433 ordered him to be in London a week after Easter ‘fully prepared to proceed with the other ambassadors (named in February) to the General Council (11).  

Easter Sunday was 12 April in 1433 and Polton’s first verifiable appearance in Basel was in late April or early May when he and other members of the English delegation lodged a formal protest in the name of Henry VI as King of France and England against the proceedings of the Council. Representatives from Charles VII, who got there first, had been admitted by the Council as delegates from the King of France (12). Peter Pertrich, Robert Burton, and John Salisbury lodged a similar protest on 5 May.

All delegates to the Council at Basel were required to swear an oath of loyalty to uphold its decrees, which the ‘King of England’ considered degrading to kings and princes. Voting on these decrees was by ‘deputation’ i.e., by groups voting as individuals, rather than by ‘nations’ i.e., the English voting en bloc, as had been the custom at the earlier Council of Constance. The English delegation protested vigorously at this method of proceeding and the protest may have been Polton’s only contribution to the Council. He died in Basel at the end of August.

The Council in England, in King Henry’s name, forbade further participation in the Council at Basel until the objections lodged by Bishop Polton and the other English delegates had been recognised and rectified. The delegates were instructed to withdraw altogether if they were not satisfied, and the threat was taken seriously.  Cardinal Landriani, who had been so successful in obtaining a promise of English participation in 1432 was sent back to London in October 1433 to urge the English Council not to withdraw their delegation (13). In November the Exchequer was ordered to pay him 100 marks for his visit (14, 15).

But between the promise made to Landriani in 1432 of a substantial delegation and the arrival of a depleted delegation, English policy towards the General Council changed, and enthusiasm for it cooled, although the pretense of an English commitment was maintained. Robert Neville, Bishop of Salisbury and Theobald Dages, Dean of Bordeaux, were named as delegates in February 1433 and John Clederowe, Bishop of Bangor, was named in March, but they did not go (16).

At the beginning of May, Archbishop Chichele added Marmaduke Lumley, Bishop of Carlisle, Nicholas Frome, Abbot of Glastonbury, John Whethamstede, Abbot of St Albans, and Richard Chester, Vicar of South Willingham, to the list of delegates. They received letters of protection and licence to go to Basel, but they did not leave England (17). At the same time a letter of protection for one year was issued to Alan Kirketon, Abbot of Thorney, who was to join the Duke of Bedford’s retinue in France (18).

From March to May the focus of the Council in England was firmly on Cardinal Albergati’s peace initiatives and on a Great Council called to Calais by the Duke of Bedford.  Participation at Basel was, at best, a sideshow in 1433.

(1) Foedera X, pp. 525-533 (names of those going to Basel).

(2) Schofield, ‘First English Delegation,’ p. 178, n. 6 (list of names who attended).

(3) Foedera X, pp. 529-530 (authorization to treat with Bohemians).

(4) Cambridge Medieval History, vol. VIII, ed. C.W, Previté-Orton (1936) pp. 30-31 (Payne and Pertrich).

(5) Foedera X, pp. 538, 539 and 541 (Beaufort).

(6) Foedera X, pp. 536 and 539 (Kemp).

(7) PPC IV, p. 152 (Kemp).

(8) Schofield, p. 179 n. 3 (Fitzhugh at Basel).

(9) Papal Letters VIII, p. 280 (Papal request for safe conduct for Fitzhugh).

(10) Foedera X, pp. 542 and 547 (licence to Fitzhugh 1433).

(11) PPC IV, p. 156 (Henry VI’s letter to Polton).

(12) Schofield, pp. 181-182, n. 1 (protests by the English delegation).

(13) Schofield, ‘First English Delegation, 1433,’ passim.

(14) Foedera X, p. 565 (payment to G. Landensis Episcopus).

(15) PPC IV, p. 185 (payment to Landriani, wrongly identified by Nicolas as Guillaume de Champeaux, Bishop of Laon).

(16) Foedera X, pp. 538, 539 and 546 (additional delegates).

NB: Foedera X, p. 539. The letter of protection for Sir John Colville who was at Basel, dated 28 November belongs in 1432.

(17) Foedera X, pp. 549-550 (delegates to Basel named, May).

(18) Foedera X, p. 551 (Kirketon).

Peace Talks

Cardinal Albergati had postponed the peace conference at Auxerre in November 1432 to reconvene in 1433 at Seine Port, a small village not far from Corbeil. Seine Port, unlike Auxerre, was deemed safe for all the participants. French, English, Burgundian, and Breton delegates gathered there on 21 March 1433.

See Year 1432 Peace Talks Resumed for Albergati and the peace conference.

The Duke of Bedford came to Corbeil to be on hand for consultation. Courtesy and policy required the Regent to treat the pope’s representative with respect, and Bedford paid a personal visit to Cardinal Albergati.  

Regnault de Chartres, Christopher Harcourt, and Jean Rabateau were the French delegates. They demanded, as they had in 1432, that the Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon and the Count of Eu, prisoners in England since they were captured at Agincourt in 1415, must be brought to France, possibly to Rouen, to take part in the discussions. As a gesture of goodwill, the English offered to have the prisoners brought to Dover; safe conducts would be issued for French representatives to consult with them there.  

Regnault de Chartres agreed to refer the offer to King Charles, and the conference broke up. Cardinal Albergati made his way to the French court to persuade Charles VII to consider the English offer. Charles welcomed Albergati, but it took time to wring a small concession from him. He ignored the offer to bring the French prisoners to Dover but suggested a four-month truce. Elated, Albergati and Regnault de Chartres drew up a treaty, and in July Albergati returned to Corbeil to submit it to the English. He was too late. On Bedford’s orders, Louis of Luxembourg, Bedford’s Chancellor of France, refused to sign.

Albergarti gave up in despair. He arrived in Basel in September to report the failure of his mission, and his belief that the protagonists were headed for war (1).

(1)  Beaucourt, Charles VII, vol II, pp. 453-454 (rejection of the truce).

 A four-month truce was no use to Bedford. He needed at least a year to persuade the English Council and Parliament to endorse his programme for the war and more importantly to raise sufficient funds through taxation and loans to recruit an army large enough to launch a full-scale campaign in 1434.

Bedford’s reasons for rejecting the truce are outlined in Henry VI’s letter to the Duke of Burgundy, although the door to peace is left open:

“. . . the truce of the said four months cannot be of any profitable effect for the king [or] his subjects. For in so short a time very little good could be done in so important a matter, and the said time would scarcely suffice to select a place to open and hear the sureties which were necessary for the said truce; but if the truce were longer means might be found for making peace, if the adverse party was not against it.”                          Letters and Papers II, p. 256

Calais Mutiny

Bedford was at Corbeil attending Cardinal Albergati’s peace conference when he received news of a mutiny at Calais. The wages of the Calais garrison were as usual seriously in arrears, due partly to King James’s failure to pay his ransom, which had been assigned to the garrison, and partly because whatever money was available had been diverted to King Henry’s stay in France.

John Madley had come to London from Calais in December 1432 to represent the garrison and request payment of their wages. 

Madley attended a Council meeting at the Duke of Gloucester’s London house and received the stock reply and excuse: King Henry recognised and sympathized with the soldiers’ plight, ‘the greete poverty and indigence [which they] long han suffred.’ He had instructed the Treasurer to consign 4,000 marks to the Deputy Treasurer of Calais at Dover, to be delivered to Richard Buckland, the Treasurer, but only after the Duke of Gloucester received a written statement of good behaviour from the garrison: ‘a certificate and promesse of goode reule and gouvernance.’ This was typical of Gloucester but was hardly conciliatory, it contributed to the garrison’s ugly mood and led to mutiny in 1433 (1). 

The garrison lost patience with the empty promises from England; they seized all the wool in the warehouses in Calais, just as they had in 1423.

See Year 1423 Calais for the earlier mutiny.

The dating in the chronicles is contradictory, some say Bedford came to Calais before Easter and some say after Easter (Easter Sunday was 12 April). The account of Bedford’s movements in Cleopatra C IV is both critical and confused:

“And than the Duke of Bedford aftyr her deth [Anne of Burgundy] he cam dovne to Roon; and ther he toke his leve ande went in to Englond ward by Caleys. And there the Duke heldde his cristmas. And so the Regent playd hym a bought in Pykardy tyll it whas esteryn. . . . . . . .

“And the xxij day of April the Duke of Bedford, Regent of ffraunce whas weddyd vnto the erll dowter of seynt poule in the tovne of Tirwen” (Thérouanne).” 

                                    Cleopatra C IV,  p. 135

Brut Continuation H is the only chronicle to give details of Bedford’s actions, although its chronology too is confused (2):

Sir William Oldhall was in Calais as Bedford’s deputy when the mutiny broke out. He had apparently ordered the soldiers to return to barracks, but they were having none of it. They threatened Oldhall and ran him out of town, forcing him to leave his wife behind. Oldhall made his way hot foot to the Duke of Bedford. As Captain of Calais, Bedford could not allow a mutiny to go unpunished.

He met Richard Buckland, treasurer of Calais and Captain of Balingham, at Balingham, a small town within the Pale of Calais. Buckland negotiated with the soldiers on Bedford’s behalf and promised them that their wages would be paid out of the Calais customs. All unpaid assignments in the soldiers’ hands were to be collected and turned over to Bedford.  

Bedford then demanded the keys to Calais, a symbolic gesture, and ordered the arrest of between 80 and 110 of the mutinous soldiers. They were confined in the castle, with the overflow housed in the marshal’s prison. This was as much as Bedford had time for, he left Calais for Thérouanne, thirty miles to the south in Burgundian territory, where he was to be married. 

(1) PPC IV, p. 139 (Calais garrison wages).

(2) Brut Continuation H, p. 570 (first phase of Calais mutiny).

Bedford and Jacquetta of Luxembourg

On 20 April 1433, five months after Anne, Duchess of Bedford’s death, Bedford married Jacquetta of Luxembourg. It was a political alliance contracted in haste amid mounting pressure on the English position in France. Jacquetta was seventeen, Bedford was forty-four and old before his time. They were married by Louis of Luxembourg, Bishop of Thérouanne and Chancellor of France, who arranged the marriage (1).  

“wherfor þe Duke of Bedforth Regent of Fraunce, being þan Capytain come to Caleys þe Twesday in þe Ester weke;  . . . . And in þe same weke  he rode to Terewyne; & bi þemean of Bisshop of Terewyn he wedded þerles doughter of Seynt Poul & came ageyn to Caleys.”               Brut Continuation G, p.  502   

“and in the Estre woke the forsaid regent rood into Picardie to Tyrywe, and there the bysshop of Tyrewyn dede wedde the regent to the erles doughter of Seynt Poule; and whanne they were weddyd he com to Caleys ageyn”                                      A Chronicle of London (Harley 565), p. 120

Louis and John of Luxembourg were Jacquetta’s uncles. Louis had shared the burden of government in Paris for many years as Bedford’s second in command. Louis’s brother, John, was one of the finest soldiers of his day. He had captured Joan of Arc in Compiègne in 1430 and turned her over to the English. The extensive Luxembourg family were clients and vassals of the Duke of Burgundy, but its leading members had long been in English pay, and Bedford trusted in their loyalty.

See Year 1430 Campaigns of 1430 for Joan of Arc captured at Compiègne.

The Duke of Burgundy was outraged. The Luxembourgs were his vassals, but the marriage took place without his knowledge or consent. Anne of Bedford’s death had shattered the last link between Bedford and Burgundy, they no longer trusted each other, if indeed they ever had.  The rift between them widened after 1432 and was not healed before Bedford died. Bedford suspected that despite years of placating Burgundy, Duke Philip was prepared to abandon the Anglo-Burgundian alliance.

Did Bedford have a personal as well as a political reason for marrying Jacquetta? Did he hope that Jacquetta would give him a son? Bedford was heir presumptive to the throne of England, and the next in line was his brother of Gloucester whom Bedford also profoundly mistrusted.  While he was in England in 1433/34 Bedford petitioned Parliament that his titles, Duke of Bedford, and Earl of Kendal, granted to him for life by Henry V, should be re-granted as hereditary (2). If he nursed such a hope, he was to be disappointed. Jacquetta had a large family by her second husband, Richard Woodville, but Bedford died childless except for one illegitimate daughter.

(1) The marriage is also noted in Gregory’s Chronicle, p. 176; Great Chronicle, p. 170; and Brut Continuation H, p. 569.

(2) PROME XI, Appendix, p. 154 (request for hereditary titles). 

 

Bedford and the Calais Mutiny

Bedford tucked his hasty marriage into only a few days. He returned to Calais accompanied by his new duchess and Louis of Luxembourg and was received by the mayor and town officials with the customary welcome.  

Bedford was not in the best of tempers, and he dealt harshly with the mutineers. He ordered Richard Vere, the mayor of Calais, to convene a special court and he came in person to preside over it, with the sword of state lying on the table before him. The soldiers who had been imprisoned were marched in and paraded unarmed.

Bedford condemned four of the ringleaders to death, including John Madley, who had led the delegation to England to complain of the non-payment of their wages in 1432. Eighty men of the garrison, segregated to the left side of the court, were ‘banished’ (dismissed) and their wages were forfeit. The soldiers who lived in Calais (the married men?) stood on the right. They were docked their wages and back pay (1).

“and the xi day of Jun on seynt Barnabe day were foure sowdeours of Caleys beheded; that is to sey John Maddeley, John Lunday, Thomas Palmere and Thomas Talbot; and v score and x banshyd that same tyme; and before that tyme were banshyd vi score.”            Chronicle of London (Harley 565) p. 120                                         

Bedford had to make an example of the mutineers, but his handling of the situation undermined his popularity. The sympathies of the Brut Continuation H clearly lie with the soldiers; it adds that Bedford “had neuer after bodily hele till him dyet.”   

Bedford recognized that the best way to prevent future outbursts was to split the garrison up.  In May Richard Buckland  was ordered to pay the wages of the soldiers who were to be sent from Calais to defend Le Crotoy (2).   

(1) Brut Continuation H, pp. 570-571.  

(2) PPC IV, p. 162 (Calais soldiers to Le Crotoy).

A Council Meeting at Greenwich

The Council was called to a meeting at Greenwich on 15 April in the presence of King Henry to discuss the Duke of Bedford’s summons for a Great Council to meet at Calais.

The Duke of Gloucester, Chancellor Stafford, William Lyndwood, Keeper of the Privy Seal, the Earl of Warwick, Bishop Morgan of Ely, Bishop Grey of Lincoln, and Lord Cromwell were present.

The Council agreed that Gloucester and Chancellor Stafford should go to Calais. On 22 April Stafford delivered the Great Seal to John Frank, the clerk of the chancery rolls, for use during his absence (1, 2).

The Treasurer, Lord Scrope, reported that as he had to pay the expenses of Archbishop Kemp and Lord Hungerford, who were going to Basel via Calais, there was no money to meet the second quarter’s wages of the Earl of Huntington’s army, which was about to muster (see above). He prayed Gloucester and the Council to make provision to meet this expenditure before they left for Calais, and to hold him blameless if the money could not be found. Gloucester ordered it to be recorded that Scrope was not to be held accountable (3).

Council Deliberations

The Duke of Gloucester’s recapitulation the Council’s recent deliberations, dealing mainly with English expectations for the General Council at Basel, is at times obscure. Dated by Nicolas to April 1433 at the council meeting in Greenwich, it could equally well date to 1434, especially the reference to the Earl of Salisbury as Warden of the East and Marches (4).

Letters in King Henry’s name had been sent to the Council at Basel.

Letters were to be sent to Albert V Archduke of Austria, and to the Electors of the Empire, the Archbishops of Trier and Mainz, the King of Bohemia, the Duke of Saxony, the Margrave of Brandenburg, and the Count of the Palatinate.

A separate letter would be sent to the Archbishop of Cologne, also one of the Electors, and to the Bishop of Sens (under English jurisdiction), and to the Lord of Walesey (?) presumably to request their support for the English position at Basel. 

Bishops and abbots in England were to prepare to go to Basel or to send their proctors, and letters would be sent to the archbishops and bishops in Gascony and Ireland. Messengers had come from Gascony and Ireland.

There is a reference to the ‘deliverance’ of an Ambassador from the Pope. Pope Eugenius sent his sergeant at arms John Ely, to England in 1433 with letters to Archbishop Kemp and others to explain that he had modified his stance and accepted the presence of a council at Basel. Eugenius hoped to recover English support for the papacy (5).

Convocation was to be summoned ‘in all haste’ and small abbeys and priories were to be asked how many of their clergy would attend, two, three, or four.  Convocation did not meet until November 1433 when the Council put pressure on the assembly to bring the collection of the subsidy granted in 1431 to a date earlier than September 1434. The lower clergy granted three quarter of a subsidy but it was to follow on from the September 1434 collection. (6)

Two items not concerned with Basel, refer to the Earl of Salisbury and the Duke of Brittany.

Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury was Warden of the West March towards Scotland. The Council discussed making him captain and warden of both the East and the West March. Salisbury was appointed warden of both Marches, in July 1434 (7). 

See Year 1434 The Earl of Salisbury.

The last item may refer to the embassy of Garter King of Arms to the Duke of Brittany in February 1433: “Also about the expedition of the instruction and the letters that Pophā shall have with him from the Earl of Warwick and to the . . . . of Brittany.” Sir John Popham’s whereabouts in 1433 is unknown. Was he an envoy from the Earl of Warwick to the Duke of Brittany concerning the presence of Brittany’s son Giles in King Henry’s household?  This is speculation.

(1) PPC IV, pp. 157-58 and PPC VI, p. 351 (the Great Seal to be held in chancery).

(2) Foedera X, pp. 548-459 (surrender of the Great Seal and its return to the Chancellor on 23 May).

(3) PPC IV, pp. 158-159 (Scrope’s report on lack of finances at the Treasury).

(4) PPC IV, p. 160 (the list of the Council’s activities is undated but appears to belong with the Council meeting on 15 April).

(5) Harvey, England and Papacy, p. 155 (John Ely to England).

(6) Harriss, Beaufort, p. 234 (Convocation).

(7) PPC IV, pp. 268-269 (Salisbury as Warden of the Marches, July 1434).

A Council Meeting at Calais

 The Great Council that met in Calais at the Duke of Bedford’s behest for a month from late April to late May was impressive. It combined members of the Minority Council, the Council in Rouen, and the Grand Conseil of Paris.

The Duke of Gloucester, as the king’s chief councillor, John Stafford, as Chancellor of England, William Grey, Bishop of Lincoln, and Philip Morgan, Bishop of Ely, the Earl of Suffolk, who had custody of the Duke of Orleans, Lord Hungerford, who expected to go to on to Basel, and Lord Cromwell, included for his financial expertise, came over from London. The surprise omission is John Langdon, Bishop of Rochester who had conducted the earlier negotiations with the French. Cardinal Beaufort and John Kemp, Archbishop of York, on their way to attend the Council at Basel, were diverted to Calais (1). 

See Year 1432 Peace Talks Resumed for John Langdon.

Louis of Luxembourg, Bedford’s Chancellor of France, Raoul Le Sage, his trusted councillor, Sir John Fastolf, his master of household, who had taken part with John Langdon in earlier negotiations with the French, Jean de Courcelles, a member of the Grand Conseil, Robert Piedefer, President of the parlement of Paris, and Raoul Roussell treasurer of Notre Dame, who would become Archbishop of Rouen, represented the interests of Lancastrian France (2). 

“And in this same yere, anon after Ester þe Archebisshop of Caunterbury (an error for the Archbishop of York) and oþer Bisshoppes with othere clergy and the Duke of Gloucestre with oþer lorde[s] knyghtes and squyers went ouer the see to Caleys, for trety, and made þere a consayle betwene þe Frenssh and þe Englissh.  And þider come out of Fraunce the Duke of Bedford, Regent, with many other Frenssh lordes, bothe spiritual and temporall; and also þider come þe Cardynall þe Bisshop of Wynchestre.”

                                                Brut Continuation F, p.  466

The wording in the Brut is misleading. Its reference is to members of the Grand Conseil not to representatives of King Charles VII.

Two crucial points of policy were at issue: should a truce or a peace with King Charles be pursued and if so on what terms; or, if the French proved unreasonable, as there was every reason to suppose they would, how could the war best be pursued?

The Council agreed that negotiations with the French should continue until the question of peace or war could be resolved. William Wytlesey was paid £1 for copying the terms of the ‘great truces’ concluded in the past between England and France to be sent to Bedford and Gloucester in Calais (3).

As the French had requested the Duke of Orleans, the Duke of Bourbon, and the Count of Eu were brought to Dover in May 1433. King Charles was expected to send his representatives to Calais for possible cross channel discussions, but Charles was not interested, and he failed to send even a low-level delegation (4).

Bedford was already exasperated by the Calais mutiny. Wages for the garrison at Calais were the responsibility of the Minority Council and if they could not even meet this obligation, where was the money for future campaigns in France to come from? He blamed Gloucester and the Council for financial negligence and a lack of commitment to the war. Only Cardinal Beaufort’s personal loans, and loans under his direction from the feoffees of Duchy of Lancaster lands administering Henry V’s will, were keeping the war effort afloat.

Cardinal Beaufort now agreed to loan another 10,000 marks for ‘the defence of the realm of France’ and for the siege of Saint Valery (5). The money was to be delivered to Louis of Luxembourg as Chancellor of France (6).

Richard Buckland, Treasurer of Calais, was to receive £200 to pay the soldiers of the Calais garrison who had been transferred to the defence of Le Crotoy on the Duke of Bedford’s orders, and 500 marks was to be sent to the Count of St Pol for his services at the siege of Saint Valery (see The War in France above). 

Bedford was also concerned that the Anglo-Burgundian alliance had become fragile, due in part to his hasty marriage to Jacquetta of Luxembourg. What could be done to restore it and prevent Duke Philip from making a separate peace with France?

The Duke of Gloucester magnanimously conceded the need, however distasteful, to conciliate the Duke of Burgundy. Possession of Hainault no longer interested him and he agreed that Bedford and Cardinal Beaufort should act as arbitrators to end his long-standing but outdated quarrel with Duke Philip (7, 8).

Cardinal Beaufort always got on better with Duke Philip than Bedford did, and he offered to visit Burgundy and resolve the hostility that had sprung up between them. Bedford agreed to go to Saint Omer for a personal meeting to be arranged by Beaufort (9).  

The deliberations at Calais ended unsatisfactorily. The royal brothers were agreed that Henry VI’s title as King of France must be maintained, but they differed on how this was to be achieved. Bedford wanted a firm undertaking of ongoing financial support from the Council. He did not get it. Gloucester was convinced that he could do a better job of waging war in France. He criticised Bedford’s management of the war as being responsible for recent losses and defeats.

Bedford decided that the only thing for it, especially in the face of Gloucester’s criticisms, was for him to go England, take control of the Council, and face Parliament. Neither Bedford nor Gloucester acknowledged what some of the other councillors recognised: the Exchequer was empty, parliamentary grants were proving harder to obtain, and were in any case inadequate.

The Duke of Gloucester and Chancellor Stafford were back in England by 22 May. The Great Seal was restored to the Chancellor on 23 May 1433, and the Council reconvened at Westminster on 24 May with Gloucester, Stafford, Archbishop Chichele, Bishop Langley of Durham (supposedly retired) William Lyndwood, Keeper of the Privy Seal, the Earl of Warwick, Lord Scrope, and William Phelip present.

They agreed that Cardinal Beaufort’s loan of 10,000 marks, made in Calais, should be the first loan to be repaid out of the anticipated tax grant by Parliament ‘or other’ (10). 

(1) Schofield, ‘First English Delegation,’ pp. 185-187 (list of those attending the council in Calais).

(2) Beaucourt, Charles VII, vol. II, p. 462 (list of those attending the council in Calais).

(3) Issues of the Exchequer, p. 420 (copying of earlier truces).

(4) L&P II, pp. 254-255 (French prisoners at Dover; no French representatives at Calais).

(5) PPC IV, pp. 162-164 (Cardinal’s loan).

(6) Issues of the Exchequer, p. 425 (money paid to Louis of Luxembourg).

(7) L&P II, ii, pp. 417-418 (Gloucester’s agreement to reconcile. Stevenson misdated it to 1428).

(8) Vickers, Gloucester, p. 236 (points out that the agreement is dated at Calais. Gloucester was not in Calais at any time before 1436 except for the council at Calais in 1433).

(9) Wavrin IV, p. 38 (Bedford to meet Burgundy at St Omer).

(10) PPC IV, pp. 163 (repayment of Beaufort’s loan).

The Duke of Bedford in Parliament            

Chancellor Stafford issued writs on 24 May to summon Parliament to meet on 30 June in anticipation of the Duke of Bedford’s arrival in England. But five weeks was not considered long enough for the sheriffs to arrange the elections and for the members to arrive and Stafford extended the date to 8 July (1). 

Parliament met on 8 July 1433. The first session was short; it was prorogued from 13 August to 13 October because of pestilence in London. The second session lasted from 13 October to about 18 December. Curry notes that it is unlikely that parliament sat until the Purification (2 February 1434) as claimed by Benet’s Chronicle (2). 

“And about the Feast of the translation of St Thomas the Martyr the king held a parliament at London which lasted until the Purification of the Virgin. It was attended by the duke of Bedford with his new wife.”   Benet’s Chronicle, pp. 183-184

Cardinal Beaufort returned to England on 10 June. The Duke and Duchess of Bedford crossed from Calais to England between 21 and 23 June.

“. . . . Herry Beauford, Cardynall Bisshop of Wynchestre, come ouer the see into England, and so to London the x^th day of Iuyn, to his Maner of Seint Mary Ouerey in Suthwerk.”  Brut Continuation F, p. 466

“. . . . Iohn, Duke of Bedford with his newe wedded wife, þe Erles doughter of Seintpoule; and they come from Fraunce ouer the see into England, and so come to London the xxiij^th day of Iuyn þat was Mydsomer Even. And the Mayre and aldermen, with many worthy comouns of London brought theym from the Blak-heth in Kent and so to London into Fletestrete, vnto þe Bisshoppes Inne of Salesbury with all honoure and reuerence.”                 Brut Continuation F, pp.  466-467

For only the second time in Henry VI’s reign, the Duke of Bedford received a summons to Parliament. Using the same tactics that Cardinal Beaufort had employed  a year earlier, Bedford rose in his seat in the Lords to claim that malicious persons had accused him of mismanagement of the war and misgovernance of Normandy. He issued the standard challenge to any such persons to come forward and make their accusations public; he would answer all comers, regardless of their rank.

Bedford was a large man, and he had a commanding presence. His authority and integrity had never been questioned, and it seems probable that there was an appalled silence before King Henry, the Duke of Gloucester, and the Lords hastened to deny that they had heard, or believed, any such rumours. Chancellor Stafford, in the king’s name, assured Bedford of their trust in his leadership, their recognition of his great services, and their gratitude to him (3). If Gloucester was behind the rumours, and this is by no means certain, his attempt to discredit his brother had miscarried.

Bedford used his influence in Council and in Parliament to reward several men who served him in France. Jean Rinel [Reynel] one of the king’s French secretaries, received letters of denization (1).  Rinel began his career in the service of King Charles VI of France. He passed into Henry V’s service and then into the Duke of Bedford’s.  His signature appears on numerous orders issued by Bedford from Rouen and Paris throughout the 1420 and 1430s (4, 5).

Raoul Le Sage, Lord of St Pierre was one of Bedford’s most trusted councillors. Bedford had sent him to try to persuade the Duke of Gloucester to withdraw from Hainault in 1425, and Le Sage was with Bedford at the siege of Lagny in 1432. In August 1433 he was awarded an annuity of £40 ‘in consideration of the services he had rendered to the late and present king in France and in the Duchy of Normandy (6).         

John d’Arundel, Bedford’s lieutenant in Lower Normandy, petitioned Parliament in absentia to recognise him as Earl of Arundel, and thanks to his war service and Bedford’s influence, his petition succeeded.

Arundel’s father, another John, who died in 1421, had claimed the earldom as a cousin and closest male heir of Thomas Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, who childless died in 1415 but the claim was disputed by John Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. The dispute turned on who rightfully held the castle of Arundel from which the title stemmed. John became Earl of Arundel officially in November (7, 8) although he had apparently been recognised de facto if not de jure well before 1433 as the chronicles refer to him as Earl of Arundel, before 1433.                  

(1) PPC IV, p. 163 (Parliament summoned).

(2) PROME XI, pp. 67 and 88 (Parliamentary sessions).

(3) PROME XI, pp. 77-78 (Bedford in Parliament).

(4) Foedera X, p. 552 (Rinel denization).

(5) Otway Ruthven, King’s Secretary, pp. 91-93 (Rinel’s career).

(6) PPC IV, p. 175 (Le Sage annuity grant).

(7) PROME XI, pp. 117-122 (Earldom of Arundel claim and counter claim).

(8) Powell & Wallis, House of Lords, pp. 463-64 (Arundel’s claim).

Ralph, Lord Cromwell, Treasurer of England

The Duke of Bedford had returned to England with one purpose in mind: to obtain moral and financial backing for the war in France under his direction. He had obtained the first with the Lord’s endorsement of him in Parliament; to obtain the second he needed a firm and steady hand at the Exchequer.

Two days before the end of the first session of Parliament, on 11 August, Bedford removed Lord Scrope, Gloucester’s choice as Treasurer of England and replaced him with Ralph, Lord Cromwell, an original member of the Minority Council who had attended Bedford’s Great Council in Calais.

Cromwell was about forty years old in 1433. He had been in royal service all his life.  An astute diplomat he had served Henry V and had helped to draft the Treaty of Troyes in 1420. He held the important position of chamberlain of Henry VI’s household until he was dismissed by the Duke of Gloucester in 1432 (1). As a senior member of the Council, Cromwell had complained in Parliament that his dismissal was unjust (2).

See Year 1432, The Duke of Gloucester, the Council, and the Household, Royal Household.

Cromwell accepted the role of Treasurer of England, but only on his own terms (3). He would hold it for ten years, the longest serving treasurer of the fifteenth century, during which time he would manage to become a very rich man.  

On 12 August the Council ordered the collectors and controllers of customs duties in all the major ports to come to Westminster bringing ‘all books, rolls, tallies, monies, and other things necessary for their charge and discharge in their accounts and to make no payments in the meantime.’ The Treasurer would appoint as financial officers only those who would agree to reside at their posts and carry out their duties in person (4).

On 13 August Cromwell put a stop on the Exchequer. No payments against assignments of any kind over £2,000 were to be made except for the royal household and repayment of loans to the king (5). A complete audit of royal finances was to be put in hand.

In the two months between his appointment and the opening of the second session of Parliament in October, the clerks of the Exchequer under Cromwell’s guidance prepared a detailed statement of income and expenditure, extrapolated from the records of the years 1429-1432, which Cromwell presented to Parliament.

Cromwell began with a statement that he had accepted the post of Treasurer on the understanding that the accounts he presented would be examined in detail because he believed that the Lords and the Commons alike, although they had been made aware by previous treasurers of the crown’s debts, did not fully understand the extent of the problem and what it might mean for them and for the country. He was not prepared to be held accountable, or responsible, for the situation when he took over the Exchequer.

Cromwell demonstrated that if crown expenditure continued at its present level without adequate funding the situation would never be corrected and could only get worse.  He established that the crown’s gross income was about £65,000 but that outstanding assignments would reduce it to £35,000, with an on-going deficit running at over £21,000 annually, excluding the costs of the war in France (6,7).   

The first requirement was for Parliament to vote sufficient taxes to cover the costs of the royal household, the government of the country, the defence of the realm, i.e. the war in France, and to settle royal debt. This was a tall order and it drew little sympathy from the Commons. 

Cromwell proposed to give priority to the expenses of the household, the wardrobe, and repairs to royal palaces and castles; furthermore, all future assignments should be subject to his scrutiny before they were confirmed by the Council.

Cromwell also requested that the Council set guidelines for the order of preferment for payment of assignments so that those whose assignments could not be honoured would not blame him. In other words, crown debt was a collective responsibility (8).

On 17 December, the day before Parliament was dissolved, Cromwell made sure that he was granted all the wages, fees, and ‘regards’ that his predecessors had received (9).  He was also to receive 200 marks annually for his attendance at council (10). Whoever was to miss out financially under the new regime at the Exchequer it would not be Lord Cromwell.

The royal finances would have to be carefully managed and stringent restraints would be needed over a long period to reduce the deficit and replenish the bankrupt Exchequer. Substantial parliamentary tax grants from the Commons, and loyal support, in the form of loans, would be required.

As a start to the austerity programe in November Bedford offered to reduce his salary as chief councillor, from 8,000 marks (£5,333 6s.8d to £1,000, forcing the parsimonious Gloucester to follow suit. (11).

Gloucester was to be paid the £1,000 as chief councillor back dated to May 1433 (12).

(1) R.L. Friedrichs, ‘Ralph, Lord Cromwell and the Politics of Fifteenth Century England,’ Nottingham Medieval Studies 32 (1988), pp. 207-226

(2) PROME XI, pp. 17-18 (Cromwell’s complaint in Parliament 1432).

(3) PPC IV, p. 175 (Cromwell became treasurer of England).

(4) PPC IV, pp.  175-176 (Customs collectors to present their accounts).

(5) PROME XI, p. 78 (no assignments over £2,000).

(6) PROME XI, pp. 102-112 (Cromwell’s financial statement).

(7) Harriss, Beaufort, pp. 232-34 (deficit).

(8) PROME XI, pp. 112-113 (Cromwell’s request for guidelines).

(9) PPC IV, p. 188 (Cromwell’s wages as Treasurer).

(10) PPC IV, p. 187 (Cromwell’s wage as councillor).

(11) PPC IV, pp. 185-186 (reduction in Bedford and Gloucester’s salaries).

(12) PPC IV, p. 1860187 (Gloucester’s salary).

Taxation

“This parliament granted the king a fifteenth, to be paid over four years (sic) from which the laity was excused 6,000 marks.”  Benet’s Chronicle, p. 184

The Commons did not meet Cromwell’s or Bedford’s expectations. They granted a tax of a tenth and a fifteen spread over two years, in four parts, the first part to be collected on 23 March 1434 with a deduction of 6,000 marks (£4,000) for the relief of the poorest parts of the country. They renewed the subsidy on tunnage and poundage and on wool and wool fells ‘for the defence of the realm,’ and introduced a new levy of 12 pence in the pound for the export of finished woolen cloth and increased the subsidy on every sack of wool and woolfells exported by alien merchants from 43s 4d to 53s 4d from November for three years (1).  It was nowhere near enough to reduce the deficit, let alone finance war on a large scale in France, but it was the best that Bedford could get.

(1) PROME XI, pp. 88-90  

The Royal Household

Cromwell made the expenses of the royal household his top priority. On 12 August, the day after his appointment, John Merston, keeper of the king’s jewels, was allocated £40 ‘for the king’s chamber,’ i.e. for Henry’s private expenses (1).

Merston was also instructed to deliver a mitre which had belonged to Archbishop William Courtney in the fourteenth century to Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury. The original order for the delivery, dated 1 July 1426, issued to two clerks, had not been carried out, and the mitre was still in the royal jewel collection (2).

A form of protection was issued for Sir John Tyrell, treasurer of the household, and Thomas Chaucer, chief butler, in charge of the royal cellars. It was agreed in Council that wines brought from Bordeaux for the household for the next year should be transported at the king’s risk and not at that of Tyrell or Chaucer (3).

In October the Council instructed Robert Rolleston, keeper of the king’s great wardrobe to deliver robes of the Order of the Garter ‘suitable to his rank’ to Emperor Sigismund annually (4, 5). This should have been done automatically from the beginning of Henry VI’s reign, as Sigismund had been installed as a Knight of the Garter with great pomp and ceremony by King Henry V in 1416. Why was the order issued in October when the ceremonies took place in April?  Did Bedford’s presence in England have anything to do with it, or was it connected with the English presence at the Council of Basel?

Joan Astley, King Henry’s nurse, had been granted an annuity of £40 in 1424 and this was to be paid to her ‘notwithstanding any restrictions’ (6).

(1) PPC IV, pp. 177-178 (£40 for the king’s use).

(2) PPC IV, p. 177 (mitre to Archbishop Chichele).

(3) PPC IV, pp. 178-179 (treasurer and butler of the royal household).

(4) PPC IV, p. 181 (Sigismund).

(5) Foedera X, p. 563 (Sigismund).

(6) PPC IV, pp. 181-182 (Joan Astley).

Hugh de Lannoy, Burgundian Envoy

The Duke of Burgundy had begun to wonder if he had backed the wrong horse, perhaps he could get more out of the English than he could out of the King of France. He sent Hugh de Lannoy and the unnamed Treasurer of the Boulennois to England in June 1433 on a factfinding mission to mend fences with the English Council and discover if they were considering a peace with King Charles that might exclude Burgundy. Lannoy, a staunch Anglophile, had been Burgundy’s ambassador to England twice before, in 1426 while the Duke of Bedford was in England, and again in 1429, to suggest a peace conference.

The Burgundians landed at Sandwich and were on the road to Canterbury when they met up with the reception committee sent to welcome the Duke and Duchess of Bedford. Lannoy introduced himself to William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk who was with the reception party and delivered a letter from Duke Philip to Suffolk. He asked Suffolk to facilitate an interview with King Henry and Suffolk, ever the courtier, was flattered by this attention and declared his willingness to be of service to Burgundy.

Lannoy’s first visit when he reached London was to the Earl of Warwick. He presented Warwick with a letter from Burgundy like that addressed to Suffolk. Warwick was not welcoming, he treated Lannoy coolly but courteously and requested news of the Duke of Burgundy. Lannoy asked Warwick where he might find King Henry and when he could meet with him. Warwick replied that the king was not in London, he was away hunting, but he would inform Lannoy of a time and place when Henry would grant the Burgundians an audience. 

They met Cardinal Beaufort at mass on the following day. He received them graciously but not as warmly as they expected, although he said he would do what he could for them. Warwick informed them that Henry was at Guildford and would receive them on Friday morning. They journeyed to Guildford where they found King Henry surrounded by his Council. 

Lannoy formally presented the Duke of Burgundy’s letters to Henry whom he described as ‘ung tres bel enfant.’ Henry addressed him graciously in French and asked after the Duke of Burgundy’s health which gave Lannoy the opportunity to reply pointedly that Burgundy was in excellent health and was in fact even then campaigning in Champagne with an army ‘to resist his enemies and your own.’

Henry ordered the Burgundians to retire while Burgundy’s letters were read and discussed by the lords in Council. The Burgundians were then recalled, and Warwick informed them that their letters of credence would be presented to a Great Council in London on the following Tuesday or Wednesday.

The Council met at Westminster on Wednesday 1 July. Lannoy presented his credentials and put the Duke of Burgundy’s proposals to them. He was asked to present the proposals in writing, but he refused, because he had been told what he was to tell the English, Burgundy had not committed his instructions to writing.  Reluctantly, and being careful to keep a copy of what he wrote to show Duke Philip, Lannoy complied. 

He then began to prevaricate and obfuscate: the Duke of Burgundy had been informed by ‘certain lords’ of ‘certain things’ which might aid King Henry while causing ‘very great damage’ to ‘others.’ This was far too vague for the Council, and Lannoy was instructed to meet privately with Cardinal Beaufort, Henry Chichele, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Earl of Warwick to spell out exactly what he was talking about. The Council would reply to all the points he raised.

The meeting took place at Cardinal Beaufort’s palace in Southwark. Duke Philip, through Lannoy, strongly advised the Council to seek the friendship of Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, Burgundy’s ally, who was on bad terms with Charles VII.

Lannoy claimed that  John, Duke of Brittany and his brother Arthur de Richemont, the Constable of France had approached the Duke of Burgundy as to act as intermediary to form a new coalition. The Duke of Britany was an ally of England, but Arthur de Richemont was the Constable of France. Within the limits of preserving his honour, Richemont, who was out of favour with Charles VII, might be willing to join his brother and Burgundy in giving military aid to the English.

Basically, Lannoy’s message was that if King Henry wished to win the war, he would need assistance from those French magnates who were at odds with King Charles. Lannoy did not identify them, obviously Richemont was one, but he thought that King Henry could easily win their good will and support with an offer of lands, estates, and money as rewards! Duke Philip believed in bribery to achieve his ends; he had accepted bribes from the English for years.

Cardinal Beaufort suggested in King Henry’s name, that Lannoy should encourage Burgundy to pursue talks with the Duke of Brittany, with Arthur de Richemont, and with Amadeus of Savoy and make as good a deal with them as he could.   It was impossible for Henry to make any promises to the French lords until Parliament had met and discussed the matter, but Beaufort promised that an English embassy would be sent to Burgundy as soon as Parliament was dissolved, to discuss ‘many other great matters which at present could not be declared.’ Lannoy reported that peace or war was debated in Parliament.

The Earl of Warwick was less conciliating. He roundly informed Lannoy that the Duke of Burgundy had insulted King Henry. Not once during Henry’s long stay in France had he received a visit from the duke. Lannoy countered that it was not surprising given English ill will towards his master: he had heard Burgundians spoken of harshly on all sides and even threatened by the Londoners, but he was sure that if King Henry were to visit France again, Duke Philip would make him welcome.

On the day before he left England, Lannoy visited the Duke of Bedford and Duchess Jacquetta. Beford said he was sorry that the Duke of Burgundy had such a bad opinion of him. For his part he did not hate the duke, far from it. He knew that the coldness between them was prejudicial to King Henry and to the good of the country. He would continue to act, as he always had, in King Henry’s interests, but this did not preclude the interests of the Duke of Burgundy, and he hoped, God willing, that they might become friends again at some future date. 

Bedford humbled his pride by sending this message. Only the necessity retaining Burgundy as an ally and not as an enemy would have forced even this much out of him. Bedford had gone to St Omer after the conference at Calais to meet Burgundy as arranged, but despite Cardinal Beaufort’s persuasions, Burgundy had refused to visit to Bedford and Bedford in turn, as ‘a son and brother of a king’ had refused to go to the Duke of Burgundy’s lodgings (1, 2).

Lannoy wrote his report at Lille on 17 July. He included a rumour of the possibility of a marriage between King Henry and a daughter of Charles VII to obtain peace, but that no steps had been taken and it was unlikely to proceed. His overall impression was that the Duke of Bedford and the Council, while deploring Burgundy’s close contacts with Charles VII, whom they still referred to as ‘the Dauphin,’ wanted to retain the Anglo-Burgundian alliance and had no intention of making a separate treaty which would exclude Burgundy (3).

(1) Wavrin IV, pp. 38-39 (Bedford and Burgundy).

(2) Monstrelet I, p. 615 (Bedford and Burgundy).

(3) L&P II ii, pp. 218-248 (Lannoy’s report is in three parts: arrival in England, pp. 222-230; interview with the Duke of Orleans, pp. 230-238 (see below); and incidents in London during his stay, pp. 238-248).

King Henry’s  Reply

As promised, the Council wrote a long reply in King Henry’s name dealing with the points raised by Lannoy, beginning with a recapitulation of the Council’s willingness during the past two years to negotiate with the French for peace or at least a truce and the refusal of ‘the Dauphin’ to consider reasonable terms. 

The Duke of Burgundy’s accusation that King Henry had not done enough either for peace or in war was untrue. It was the Dauphin’s fault that a truce had not been signed. His envoys had demanded that the captive French magnates must be brought to France and the Council had brought them to Dover and offered safe conducts for French representatives to cross from Calais to Dover, but the French had failed to come to Calais. Their subsequent offer of a four-month truce had rightly been rejected. Only a truce for at a least a year and preferably longer, would give time for a lasting peace to be negotiated.

King Henry appreciated Burgundy’s offer to continue the war in person and to make a financial contribution in so far as he could, but only if King Henry and the Council agreed to raise an army large enough to be deployed in various places (undoubtedly in Burgundian territory). Burgundy had also requested 400 men, to be paid for by the English, to join John of Luxembourg in Picardy. (This is not mentioned in Lannoy’s report). King Henry’s letter pointed out that English were already maintaining three armies in the field, one of them in Burgundian territory. 

The letter ends on a cautionary and possibly threatening note. King Henry was conscious of the poverty and misery in France because of the war; he acknowledged the expense Burgundy had incurred in the fighting, but with God’s help, Henry would right these wrongs in person as soon as he was old enough. He would remember who had served him well, and who had not, and he would not forget those who had rendered him the greatest service. Henry, as King of France, accepted Burgundy as his loyal subject; he would never believe any report that said otherwise, since he knew that Burgundy ‘would distain to do a thing which was unloyal and dishonourable, and such as a loyal and honourable prince ought not to do’ (1).

(1) L&P II, ii, pp. 249-262 (‘King Henry’s’ reply to Lannoy’s articles).

Charles, Duke of Orleans

After his return from Guildford and the meeting with King Henry, Lannoy paid a visit to the Duke of Orleans who had been transferred to the sympathetic custody of the Earl of Suffolk in July 1432 (1, 2).

Suffolk complacently allowed a meeting to take place. Orleans inquired after the health of his cousin the Duke of Burgundy. Lannoy replied that the duke was desirous of learning how Orleans was faring. Orleans said he was in good health physically but distressed and depressed by his long years in captivity. Lannoy at once suggested that these years would not have been wasted if Orleans, with his extensive knowledge of each, might become the mediator between the King of England and the King of France.

Orleans replied that he had offered time and again to take on such a role, as his good ‘cousin’ the Earl of Suffolk could confirm.  But, he said, ‘I am like a sword in a sheaf.’ He could not act as a mediator, or in any other role, unless he was allowed to return to France to consult his friends. Orleans claimed that he had influence with many French lords who would act on his advice, and he knew he could count on the Dukes of Burgundy and Brittany to join him in his efforts to achieve peace – once he was a free man.

Orleans was a poet with a turn for the dramatic: he declared that if he could be the means of restoring peace, he would willingly suffer death. The rest of the exchange proceeded more prosaically along approved diplomatic and propaganda lines: Lannoy piously affirmed that the Duke of Burgundy ardently desired peace to relieve the suffering of the people of France who had been ruined by the war. Suffolk sententiously confirmed that he knew Burgundy was ‘well disposed towards peace.’ Orleans came in on cue: neither he nor Burgundy was the cause of ‘the evils which have come to the kingdom of France.’

Orleans insisted that he was more likely than any man alive to achieve peace, which meant more to him than his freedom, if only King Henry would make use of his services. Orleans wished to elaborate, but it was a step too far for Suffolk, who brought the interview to a close. He hastily reminded Orleans that King Henry had not kept him in isolation, that safe conducts had been issued over the years for Orleans’s people to come to him freely.  Orleans urged Lannoy to visit him a second time and Suffolk agreed that this might be arranged, but Lannoy doubted it, he said he knew that meetings between himself and Orleans were not approved by the Council.

Lannoy claimed that Orleans had asked for permission to write to Burgundy through him, but Suffolk had sent Jean Cauvel, one of Orleans’s guards, described as Suffolk’s barber,  to inform Lannoy that Orleans could not be allowed to communicate directly with Burgundy. Was this true? Orleans had been in touch with his friends in France for many years. What was to stop them forwarding a letter from Orleans to Burgundy? Or was Orleans’s correspondence censored?

Two days later Orleans attempted to set up a clandestine correspondence with Burgundy. He sent Jean Cauvel to assure Lannoy, in case the Duke of Burgundy had heard that Orleans hated him and wished to fight him (because of the old feud between their fathers?) that this was not true. He had heard Orleans say that he loved Burgundy more than any other French lord.

Cauvel claimed that as a native of Lille he was a loyal Burgundian who would never betray the Duke of Burgundy, and he offered to carry letters secretly between Orleans and Burgundy. Cauvel told Lannoy that he had won Orleans’s trust because he spoke excellent French!  Lannoy thanked Cauvel and told him to tell Orleans that he could rest assured that Burgundy would do all he could for him.

How much of Lannoy’s report to the Duke of Burgundy on who said what on the question of peace and Orleans release is open to question. Suffolk had assured Lannoy that the Duke of Burgundy would be informed of any decisions on peace or war taken by the Council. Was Suffolk acting on his own initiative, or was he being used as a spokesman by members of the Council to reassure the Duke of Burgundy?  Lannoy claimed that Suffolk had high hopes of peace though the agency of Orleans, especially now that Camail, Orleans’s herald, and a delegation including one of King Charles’s secretaries, had been granted safe conducts to come to England.   

When Lannoy returned to Calais he met Orleans’s councillor, Jehan de Saveuses (on his way to England?). Saveuses had recently visited the French court, and he told Lannoy that most people at court believed that peace was possible, but only if the English released the Duke of Orleans, and King Henry renounced his claim to the French crown – in that order (3).

Lannoy’s report reflected what he knew the Duke of Burgundy wished to hear. Burgundy wanted Orleans released for reasons of his own that had nothing to do with altruism. Orleans free and back in France might distract King Charles’s attention away from the war of attrition that Charles was waging against Burgundy, especially if Orleans kept his promise to agitate for peace.  

The Duke of Burgundy, and Orleans himself, failed to understand that King Charels did not want Orleans back in France. The French demand during peace negotiations for Orleans’s release was a stick King Charles used to beat the English. He paid lip service to the movement to free Orleans because it would tarnish his image if he did not.  

Charles of Orleans was next in line to the French throne after the Dauphin Louis. An alliance between the Duke of Orleans and the Duke of Burgundy, the two most powerful nobles in France, would undermine King Charles’s ambition to unite France and bring his unruly magnates under his jurisdiction. The king did not want peace except on his own terms and these did not include allowing Orleans to return to France and ally himself with Burgundy. And Charles was right: this is precisely what Orleans did when was finally set free in 1440.  

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(1) PPC IV p. 182 (Orleans’s keep. In November 1433 the Council authorized payment to Suffolk for custody of Orleans from 29 August 1432 at the rate of 14s 4d a day for custody of Orleans from 29 August 1432 at the rate of 14s 4d a day).

(2) Foedera X, p. 564 (Orleans’s keep).

(3) L&P II, pp. 230-238 (Lannoy’s report on his meeting with Orleans).

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 Orleans’s Proposal

Orleans had been bitterly disappointed when he had been allowed to go Dover to take part in peace discussions, only to be returned to captivity when King Charles failed to send representatives to Calais.  Orleans was now forty-four years old and had been a prisoner in England for eighteen years. There are indications in Lannoy’s report that Orleans was growing impatient with King Charles for failing to obtain his release, and that he was planning to take matters into his own hands.

Orleans saw an opportunity in the division of the Minority Council over the question of peace or war. In August 1433 he submitted a long, involved, and repetitive text couched in legal language which he claimed was his own, not influenced by anyone else (1, 2). The key to its interest for the Minority Council lay in the second paragraph: Orleans reneged on his earlier refusals to accept the Treaty of Troyes, and he addressed Henry VI as ‘King of France and England.’

He adjured Henry to issue safe conducts for a peace conference to convene either at Calais or in Normandy on 15 October, just two months away. Orleans claimed he had been in touch with his friends in France, and they had promised him they would attend, although somewhere in Normandy would be preferable to Calais.

Orleans named Yolande, Duchess of Anjou, and her younger son Charles; John, Duke of Brittany, and his brothers Arthur de Richemont and Richard of Étampes; the Duke of Alençon; Jean, Count of Armagnac and his brother Bernard, Count of Pardiac; Jean, Count of Foix; the Count of Clermont; the Archbishop of Rheims (or of Embrun), and the Bishop of ‘Belira’ (Béziers ?) as his supporters. He would advise them as to time and place as soon as a date had been fixed by the English Council.

Orleans received regular information from France through his servants who were permitted to visit him regularly, but they may well have told him only what he wanted to hear. The recipients of his pleas probably expressed their hope that he would be released and endorsed his suggestion for a peace conference, but, with the possible exception of the Duke of Brittany, Orleans’s ‘supporters’ formed what might be called the war party at the French court.

Yolande was King Charles’s mother-in-law; she had married her daughter Marie to King Charles when he was still the Dauphin. Yolande had great influence with Charles and she consistently urged him to fight the English, giving him all the support she could. Her son, Charles of Anjou, was one of King Charles’s favourites. Her daughter, another Yolande was married to John of Brittany’s son and heir, Francis.

The Duke of Alençon had fought alongside Joan of Arc as one of her chief supporters. Charles of Clermont, the Duke of Bourbon’s son, was loyal to King Charles despite the possibility of his father’s release if he agreed to swear allegiance to Henry VI.

In outlining his terms Orleans entered fantasy land: ‘The Dauphin’ would be offered a settlement, provision notable et honnête of lands and lordships in France (unspecified).   At the same time ‘King Charles’s’ subjects would retain their liberty and ownership of their lands or be compensated with an equivalent grant.

A general peace would be signed, and Orleans magnanimously offered to return to England and remain there for a year until peace was established; after that he would be set free without paying his ransom.

If a general peace could not be concluded at the meeting in Calais, Orleans would persuade the French nobles to support him in recognising Henry as King of France, and the English would be permitted to take over the government of France until peace could be imposed. Even some men who were not French, such as the Dukes of Milan and Savoy, would join Orleans’s alliance.

 Orleans would pay homage to Henry VI and his heirs as the true King of France and England and swear to serve him until the conquest was complete. He engaged to persuade the Duke of Alençon, John, Count of Armagnac and Bernard, Count of Pardiac as well as his own brother the Count of Angoulême, still a prisoner in England, ‘and all his other friends’ to follow his example.

As a gesture of good faith, he would turn over his lordships of Blois, Orleans, and Chateaudun, with some of his smaller estates, to King Henry, and order his subjects to recognise Henry as their king. Anyone who refused would be severely punished. His influence was such that once he was in France, he could secure the submission of the great port of La Rochelle and of Mont Saint Michel, which the English had never been able to capture, as well as other towns loyal to King Charles: Limoges, Saintes, Bourges, Chinon, Poitiers, Tournani, Tours, Béziers and Loches, which the English had no hope of capturing. 

As soon as some part of these enticing promises had been met, Orleans would be allowed to leave England, and when they had all been met, he would be free to go without paying his ransom.

Did Orleans or the Earl of Suffolk, whom the Duke of Bedford had just appointed steward of the royal household,  persuade the Council that Orleans could bring the French to the negotiating table? On 7 October Nicholas Ansell a king’s messenger, delivered thirty-four safe conducts to the Earl of Suffolk ‘for the Queen of Sicily and other persons coming with her from France to the king’s town of Calais.’ (3).   

The Duke of Bedford would have had to authorize the safe conducts since their recipients would travel through Lancastrian France: Dunois, Bastard of Orleans, was included with those Orleans had named, plus two additional bishops, four war captains, including La Hire and Xaintrailles, the Abbot of Blois, and fifteen others, most of them Orleans’s servants (4).

King Henry’s letter issuing the safe conducts does not name the English representatives he would send to Calais, it refers to ‘certain lords of our blood and lineage and other notable persons, bishops and lords,’ the implication being that Bedford, Gloucester or Cardinal Beaufort might accompany Orleans to Calais. If this was designed to entice the French magnates, it failed.

A letter in King Henry’s name informed the Duke of Burgundy, not of what Orleans was offering, but merely that Orleans had suggested a conference between French and English representatives to meet at Calais in October. It was hoped that Burgundy would attend in person or send representatives.

Burgundy was sceptical; he instructed Quentin Menart, Provost of Saint Omer, to investigate. Menart approached William Oldhall, Bedford’s deputy in Calais, and Oldhall informed him that no one had come to Calais by the end of October. He had questioned one of Orleans’s servants who was on his way to England carrying letters to King Henry and the Duke of Bedford to explain why the meeting had not taken place. All the man could tell him was that it was postponed, possibly to Christmas, because the French objected to Calais as the venue.  Oldhall himself was going to England and would try to learn more details (5). Without King Charles’s permission none of Orleans’s ‘friends’ would come to Calais or anywhere else. Orleans’s grand plan fizzled out and he remained in England for another seven years.

At the end of 1433 the Council issued safe conducts for two servants of Dunois, Orleans’s half-brother, ‘coming to England for the ransom of the Earl of Suffolk’ (6). Suffolk was now Steward of England, but he had been Dunois’s prisoner and his ransom had not been paid. Did Dunois suspect that Suffolk had not lived up to his promise to do all he could to obtain Orleans’s relief in return for a reduction of his ransom?  

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(1) Foedera X, pp. 556-561 (Orleans’s proposal).

(2) Beaucourt, Charles VII, vol. II, p. 463 (Orleans proposal).

(3) Issues of the Exchequer, pp. 422-423 (safe conducts delivered to Suffolk. Nicholas was paid 6s 4d).

(4) Foedera X, pp. 561-563 (Henry VI’s letter issuing safe conducts).

(5) Plancher, Histoire de Bourgogne IV, cxxiv-cxxxvi (Henry VI’s letter to Burgundy; Oldhall to Menart and Menart to Burgundy).

(6) Foedera X, p. 566 (Dunois’s servants to England).

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The Duke of Bedford in England

There was little enthusiasm in Parliament for Bedford’s war policy. The Commons would much prefer him to stay and continue to direct the government.  On 24 November they petitioned the king to persuade him to remain in England where his presence was sorely needed. He alone could maintain law and order and supress faction, in council and out of it (1). This ringing endorsement tempted Bedford to consider governing both countries simultaneously; it was, after all, what Henry V had planned to do.

On 18 December the day Parliament was dissolved, Bedford demanded and received from Parliament powers which gave him the regency in all but name. He was to be consulted on all conciliar appointments and no councillors could be dismissed without his consent. Parliament was not to be summoned until he had been informed, wherever he might be, so that he could arrange to attend it. All major appointments to offices, including bishoprics, were to be referred to him. The undertaking Bedford had given in 1427 to recognise the supremacy of the Council in government would be negated, and Gloucester’s position as ‘chief councillor’ would be seriously undermined.

See Year 1427 The Duke of Bedford and the Council for Bedford’s acceptance of councilliar authority.

On a more humane note, all old servants of the House of Lancaster, dating back to John of Gaunt, Henry IV, Henry V, and the present king were to be rewarded for their (often unpaid) services by grants of offices or corrodies commensurate with their rank, whenever such became available (2).

Bedford may have seriously considered continuing to govern England, but he did not lose sight of his real objective, the war in France. He kept in constant touch with his Chancellor, Louis of Luxembourg. Dennis Longchamp, a pursuivant, carried letters from Louis to Bedford and returned to France with Bedford’s replies. Longchamp was granted 5 marks by the council for his journeys (3).

On 16 December elaborate arrangements were made to transfer 8,000 marks, which ‘the king had promised to pay in all haste’ to Louis of Luxembourg in Rouen, despite Lord Cromwell’s stop on the Exchequer.

Of the 8,000 marks (£5,322 13s 4d) 3,700 were to come from the English Exchequer.  The larger sum, of 4,300 marks, was to be met by bills of exchange on the Exchequer in Rouen, through Richard Leyland, treasurer of Bedford’s household (3,000 marks), Giles Ferrers, the duke’s secretary (800 marks) and John Rinel, the king’s secretary, serving Bedford in Rouen (500 marks) (4, 5).

Rinel was paid 25 marks for the exchange of the 500 marks sent through him to Louis of Luxembourg, as King Henry had promised (6). At the beginning of February 1434 Louis of Luxembourg in Paris, acknowledged receipt of the 8,400 nobles assigned to him and issued a quittance to the Treasurer, Lord Cromwell (7).  

It was nowhere near enough for the campaign Bedford had in mind, but like the parliamentary grant, it was all Bedford could obtain by the end of 1433. There was to be a Great Council meeting early in 1434 for further discussion of the war. Lord Hungerford and William Grey, Bishop of Lincoln, who had attended Bedford’s Great Council in Calais and William Alnwick, Bishop of Norwich, King Henry’s confessor, received a special summons to be at Westminster by Easter 1434, presumably to support Bedford’s plans for the future (8).

Parliament was dissolved on 18 December, and as a further economy measure, King Henry was packed off to stay as a guest with the Abbot and monks of Bury St Edmunds from Christmas 1433 to Easter 1434 (9). Was it during this prolonged stay that he developed habits of extreme piety?

(1) PROME XI, pp. 83-84 (petition for Bedford to remain in England).

(2) PROME XI, pp. 85-87 (Bedford’s conditions).

 (3) PPC IV, p. 182 (Longchamp).

(4) PPC IV, p.188 (8,000 marks to Louis of Luxembourg).

(5) Foedera X, p. 565 (8,000 marks to Louis of Luxembourg).

(6) PPC IV, p. 187 (payment to Rinel).

(7) Foedera X, p.  568 (Luxembourg’s quittance for 8,000 nobles).

(8) PPC IV, p. 188 (summons to Westminster for 1434).

(9) Wolffe, Henry VI, pp. 74-75 (King Henry at Bury St Edmunds).

Bibliography 1433

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Annales (pseudo-Worcester) in Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Wars of the English in France during the reign of Henry VI, ed. J. Stevenson, Rolls Series, 2 vols in 3 (1861-1864)

Benet’s Chronicle. John Benet’s Chronicle for the years 1400-1460, ed. G.L.& M.A. Harriss, Camden Miscellany XXIV, (Camden Soc., 4th ser. IX, 1972)

Bourgeois of Paris, A Parisian Journal, trans. J. Shirley (1968)

The Brut, or the Chronicles of England II, ed. F.W.D. Brie,  (Early English Text Society, 1908)

CPR. Calendar of the Patent Rolls 1429-1436

Chartier, J., Chronique de Charles VII, roi de France, 3 vols, ed. A. Vallet de Viriville, (Paris, 1858)

A Chronicle of London, ed. N.H. Nicolas & E. Tyrell (1827)

Chronicles of London, ed. C. L. Kingsford (1905)

An English Chronicle of the reigns of Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V and Henry VI, ed. J.S. Davies (1856).

An English Chronicle 1477-1461, ed. W. Marx (2003)

Foedera, conventiones, literae……  20 vols., ed. T. Rymer, (1704-35)

Handbook of British Chronology, ed. F. M. Powicke and E.B. Fryde (1961)

The Great Chronicle of London, ed. A.H. Thomas & I.D. Thornley, (1938)

Issues of the Exchequer, ed. F. Devon (1837)

L&P: Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Wars of the English in France during the reign of Henry VI, ed. J. Stevenson, Rolls Series, 2 vols in 3 (1861-1864)

Monstrelet. The Chronicles of Enguerrand de Monstrelet trans. T. Johnes, 2 vols., (1877)

Papal Letters. Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland, vols VII and VIII, (1906 and 1909)

PROME. The Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, vol. X, ed. A. Curry (2005)

PPC IV, Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council of England, 6 vols., (Record Commission, (1834-37)

Waltham Annals, English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century, ed. C.K. Kingsford, (1913).

Wavrin, J de, Recueil des croniques et anchiennes istories de la Grant Bretaigne, a present nomme Engleterre, eds., W. & E.L.C.P. Hardy, 5 vols., (1864-91).

 

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Balfour-Melville, E.W.M., James I, King of Scots 1406-1437 (1936)

Beaucourt, G. du Fresne de, Histoire de Charles VII, vol II, (Paris, 1881-1891)

Beaurepaire, C. de Robillard de, Les États de Normandie sous la domination anglaise (1859)

Bossuat, A., Perrinet Gressart et François de Surienne, (Paris, 1436)

Cambridge Medieval History, vol. VIII, ed. C.W, Previté-Orton (1936)

Emden, A, B., A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, vol I (1957)

Ferguson, J., English Diplomacy 1422-1461 (1972

Friedrichs, R.L., ‘Ralph, Lord Cromwell and the Politics of Fifteenth Century England,’ Nottingham Medieval Studies 32 (1988)

Harriss, G.L., Cardinal Beaufort, (1988)

Harvey, M., England, Rome, and the Papacy 1417-1464 (1993)

Otway-Ruthvin, A.J., The King’s Secretary and the Signet Office in the XV Century (1939)

Plancher, U., Histoire générale et particulière de Bourgogne, vol IV (1741). 

Pollard, A.J., John Talbot and the War in France 1427-1453 (2005)

Powell. J.E. & Wallace, K., The House of Lords in the Middle Ages (1968).

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recaptured the much fought over abbey at Sées on the River Oise northeast of Saint Cénéri, which had changed hands a number of times since its capture by Henry V in 1418 (1).

“And the same yere all the cristmas tyme the erll of Arondell had leyd siege vnto a full fayre place callid Seynt Selerin (Saint Cénéri) and whan ther with Cely Gillam (Sillé le Guillaume) with a composicion, and the abbey of Ses (Sées), and many other placys in Normandy and in mayn.”    Cleopatra C IV, p. 136

Arundel then set about dislodging the French from Saint Cénéri itself. The castle belonged to Ambroise de Loré who had forced Lord Willoughby to abandon his siege of it in 1432.  The garrison held out for three months, but Arundel had learned the value of heavy artillery during the French raid on Rouen. His gunners blew a huge hole in the castle wall, killing a number of the defenders, including Loré’s lieutenant, Jehan de Armenge. This time Loré did not come to their rescue, even though his wife and children were in the castle, and Saint Céneri surrendered in 1434. Arundel permitted the defenders to march out, but without any of their possessions (2).

See Year 1432 France, The Duke of Bedford, Rouen for Arundel in Rouen.

In February 1434 John Stanlowe, the treasurer of Normandy was sent to supervise the demolition of a town that had become something of an embarrassment to the Duke of Bedford (3).  Arundel and his army moved on to Sillé le Guillaume. 

(1) L&P II, p. 258 (900 men under Arundel).

(2) Chartier I, pp. 164-165 (siege of Saint Cénéri).

(3) Beaurepaire, Les états de Normandie, p. 45 n. 93 (John Stanlowe).

 

The Siege of Saint Valery

Robert, Lord Willoughby and Peter St Pol, Count of Luxembourg, with 1,600 men (500 of them under St Pol contributed by the Duke of Burgundy) campaigned in Picardy between May and August 1433 to recover the Burgundian town of Saint Valery (1). 

The Duke of Bedford made a special effort to prove to the Duke of Burgundy that his alliance with England was worth more than his truce with France. Expenditure for a quick recovery of Saint Valery far outweighed its worth: St Pol was paid 500 marks by the English Exchequer for his services (2). 

Cardinal Beaufort loaned 5,000 marks while he was in Calais, for the wages of the Calais garrison and the siege of Saint Valery (3). Archbishop John Kemp had received 1,000 marks for his expenses to travel to the Church Council at Basel, but his departure was postponed, and he was ordered to pay the 1,000 marks to Louis of Luxembourg to help finance the siege (4).

Men from the Calais garrison were sent to take part in the siege. At the end of May 1433 Richard Buckland, Treasurer of Calais, received 500 marks from the wealthy London mercer, William Estfeld, who often loaned money to the crown, ‘to pay men-at-arms and archers for their wages and rewards for services performed at Saint Valery and other places held by the enemies of the king’ (5).       

In August, the mayor, constables, and the staplers at Calais were instructed to send 2,000 marks to the receiver of Pont Neuf toward the costs of the siege (6).

(1) L&P II, p. 257 (1600 men).

(2) PPC IV, p. 163 (500 marks to St Pol).

(3) PPC IV, p. 243 (repayment of Beaufort’s loan, 1434).

(4) PPC IV, p. 168 (1,000 mark from Archbishop Kemp).

(5) Issues of the Exchequer pp. 421-422 (Estfeld’s loan).

(6) PPC IV, p. 178 (Calais Staple loan).

Peter St Pol, Count of Luxembourg

The siege of Saint Valery was ended by negotiation in August 1433 and St Pol garrisoned the town, presumably with Burgundian troops. He was preparing to lay siege to Rambures where he died unexpectedly on 31 August, probably of disease contracted at Saint Valery. His body was taken to St Pol and buried in the abbey church of Cercamp (1). 

A funeral mass was held for him at St Pauls while the Duke of Bedford and Jacquetta were in England. Peter St Pol was  Jacquetta of Luxembourg’s father.

“In this yere the ix^th day of Novembre the terment of therle of seynt powle fader unto the wyfe of the duke of Bedford and Regent of Fraunce full solempnely was holden at powles in london.”

               Great Chronicle, p. 171

(1) Monstrelet I, p. 620 (St Pol death and burial).

Gascony

 The Duke of Gloucester

From 1430, while he held the ascendancy in Council, the Duke of Gloucester began to acquire lordships in the Duchy of Gascony to add to his income. In each case Gloucester could claim that he was protecting the interests of the king and the crown, albeit at a distance, against unlawful encroachment.

The Médoc lordships belonging to Pons, Lord of Castillon, escheated to the crown when Pons died childless in 1430; they were granted to Gloucester on an interim basis to protect them from rival claimants. In 1431 Jean, Count of Foix, King Charles VII’s lieutenant in Languedoc, claimed Pons’s Castillon lands which were part of the Médoc inheritance.

See Year 1423 Gascony for Jean de Fox.

Bernard Angevin, an ex-Constable of Bordeaux, was ordered to examine the custody of Pons’s lordships of La Marque, Castillon, Carcans, and Breuil and prepare a report for the Council in England ‘for the resistance of the count of Foix’ (1).

The Council in Bordeaux sent Angevin and Bernard de la Planche, Bishop of Dax, to England at the end of 1432 to report on this and other concerns.   

“And in this same yere, anon after Cristmaase þe Bisshop of Acres [Acques] in the land of Navern come to the Kyng in ambassiatry.”   Brut Continuation F, p. 465.

Angevin and de la Planche informed the Council in February 1433 that not only were Pons of Castillon’s lands being claimed by Jean de Foix, the castles and lordships of Bernard de Lesparre, Lord of LaBarde, who died in 1417, ‘which the king ought to possess’ were in the hands of Jean’s brother, Gaston de Foix, the Count of Longueville, an ally of England. In 1428 the Council in Bordeaux had adjudicated in a dispute between Gaston and Pons over Gaston’s claim to parts of the Pons inheritance.

See Year 1428 The Judiciary, Gascony for the dispute.

On hearing Bernard Angevin’s report, the Council promptly granted LaBarde’s lordships to the Duke of Gloucester and his heirs male, ‘lest the king’s right therein should be lost’ (2).

A week later, on 20 February, the Council conferred on Gloucester ‘the castle and castellany of Mauleon, of Soulle, and the bailliage of Le Bert [Labourt]’ belonging to Charles de Beaumont alferitz (standard bearer) of Navarre who had died in 1432 (3).  King Henry IV had granted these lands to Beaumont for life, so they too could be claimed by Gloucester as the king’s inheritance in need of protection.

Charles de Beaumont was an illegitimate son of Louis of Navarre, Count of Beaumont. When Louis died in 1376 the young Charles was brought up at the court of King Charles II of Navarre with the king’s legitimate children, Charles III and Joan, later Duchess of Britany and Queen of England, the wife of King Henry IV. Charles de Beaumont married Anne of Curton who held lands in English Gascony and he visited England in 1430 as part of an Aragon/Navarrese delegation. 

See Year 1430 Foreign Relations (Aragon and Navarre) for Beaumont’s visit.

At the end of March 1433, letters of protection were issued for all ‘the officers, servants, serfs (questales), subjects, castles, towns, houses, lands, revenues, lordships with high and low [justice], movable and immovable goods pertaining to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester in Gascony, and governed by him in this duchy.’ The seneschal, the constable of Bordeaux, the judges of Bordeaux and all the other king’s officers of the duchy were to maintain and protect them. The Constable of Bordeaux was instructed to pay their wages as a first priority ‘before all others’ (4, 5).

Gloucester never paid for anything if he could possibly avoid it, and he exploited his position as a royal duke to the full. In March 1433 the Council confirmed his exemption from paying ‘fines and fees for charters, letters patent, writs and all other things whatsoever appertaining to the king as had been granted to him in the reigns of Henry IV and Henry V’ (6).   

Charles de Beaumont’s heir was Louis de Beaumont, Lord of Curton and Guissen. He became Count of Lerin in 1424 when he married Jeanne, an illegitimate daughter of King Charles III of Navarre.

In July 1433 the Council granted Louis de Beaumont a licence to transfer to Gascony 200 ounces of silver and two ounces of gold, his gold and silver dishes (plate), a gold collar set with a sapphire, a ruby, and pearls, armour and equipment, bedding, and all his other luggage, any ordinance against the export of plate and jewels notwithstanding. Louis may have visited England in 1433 (7).

The Council also authorized Gaston de Foix’s servants to purchase and transport ‘without impediment, from whatever port of England’ to the Duchy of Gascony two  silver gilt basins (pelves) , two silver gilt bottles, four silver gilt jars (olle), two silver gilt spice plates, twelve silver gilt cups (ciphi), one silver gilt ewer, two silver bottles, two silver basins, two silver jars, thirty cups three with lids, three silver salt pots with coverlids and one silver ewer, bought in France (8).

Possibly because of the extensive land grants in Gascony to the Duke of Gloucester, the Duke of Bedford and the Council considered it expedient to retain Gaston de Foix’s loyalty. The vicomté of Benuages granted to him in 1426 was confirmed to him and his heirs in August 1433. It is the same grant as that of 1426 with a different witness list allowing for changes in Council personnel:  Bedford, Gloucester, Archbishops Chichele, Kemp, Chancellor Stafford, the bishops of Ely and Lincoln, the Earls of Warwick and Stafford, the Earl of Suffolk, the newly appointed Steward of the Household, Lords Cromwell, Hungerford, William Lyndwood, Keeper of the Privy Seal, and some others (9, 10).       

See Year 1426 Gascony for the Benuages grant.

(1) Vale, Gascony, pp. 99-100 (early grants to Gloucester).                                       

(2)  PPC IV, p. 142 (LaBarde lordships).

(3)  PPC IV, p. 152 (Charles de Beaumont lands).

(4) Foedera X, p.  545 (protection and wages).

(5) gasconrolls.org C61 125

(6) PPC IV, p. 156 (Gloucester exempt from payments).

(7) Foedera X, p. 543 (Louis of Navarre to export jewels).

(8) Foedera X, p. 543  (Gaston de Foix to export jewels).

(9) Foedera X, pp. 544-555 (Gaston de Foix vicomté of Benuages).
(10)  gasconrolls.org C61 125

 

Administration

The seneschals of Gascony and the Landes, Sir John Radcliffe and Fortaner de Pommiers Lord of Lescun, were to proclaim publicly that no subject of King Henry VI was to take service with, or accept payment from, Jean, Count of Foix or Jean, Count of Armagnac on pain of forfeiture. They were to keep the king’s peace but at the same time they were ‘to injure them [Foix and Armagnac] to the utmost’ (1, 2).

This may refer to the otherwise undocumented attack on English held Chateauneuf-sur-Charente and Ratière  ordered by Jean de Foix in the previous year. 

See Year 1432 Gascony for this attack.

The seneschals were also empowered to receive homage to King Henry VI from local lords and to confirm fiefs in his name where appropriate. The Seneschal of Gascony and the Constable of Bordeaux, Walter Colles, were authorized to coin money at the Bordeaux mint (3).

Legitimation

Letters of legitimation were granted to Augerot de Saint-Pée [Saint Pere in Foedera], the illegitimate son of Johan [d’Amézqueta], lord of Saint-Pée in the march of Labourt, to allow him to succeed as if he were his father’s legitimate son. Johan d’Amézqueta petitioned King Henry that he and his predecessors had served the king and his ancestors faithfully, and, desiring to have an heir permitting the survival of his name and coat of arms, and not able to have children from a legitimate union, he requested that his son Augerot de Saint-Pée be allowed to succeed him (4).

Judicial appointments

The Council rewarded Bernard de la Planche by appointing him to the Council of Bordeaux with an annuity of 10 marks (5).

In March 1433 he was appointed a judge for civil cases in the superior court of Gascony along with a number of others, listed in the Foedera: Bernat d’Ibos, Bishop of Bazas , Hélias de Faurie, abbot Bournet, Tétbaut d’Agès, dean of Saint-André of Bordeaux, Per-Arnaut de la Biscomtat, dean of Saint-Seurin of Bordeaux, Binsens Durrieu, treasurer of Saint-André of Bordeaux and Guilhem Fulheron, rector of Lormont near Bordeaux.

Sir Johan de Jalles, Galhart de Jonquière, Master Ramon de Sestairne, and Master Ramon Carles, Bachelors of Common Law, were appointed as judges of criminal cases in the superior court of Aquitaine, receiving the customary fees and wages (6).
NB: The authorization for de la Planche to proceed to the Council at Basel in February 1433 is misdated in the Proceedings. It belongs in 1434 when he was again in England.  

CPR 1429-1436 dated June 1434 (de la Planche as envoy to Basel).

Council in Bordeaux

The Council in Bordeaux, represented by Brother Arnald de Saint-Quentin, master of theology of the Augustinian Order, Bernard of Saint Abit and Bernard de Garos, a burgess of Bordeaux had indicted Pey Eyquart [Achard in Foedera] otherwise known as Lassalle, Mathiu Olivey, Guilhem de Gayac,  Guilhem Bidau and their accomplices for committing insurrections, riots, fights and conspiracies in the city of Bordeaux in 1428. Some of those indicted had escaped to England, and King Henry had ordered these charges be examined.

The accused must have made a good case: in April 1433 the English Council reversed the judgement of the Council in Bordeaux and granted a pardon to the miscreants: the charges against them were to be dropped as they did not enter Bordeaux illegally (which seems illogical). They were not to be prosecuted by the king’s officers; their good reputation was to be affirmed and all their goods were to be returned to them (7). 

According to a footnote in the Gascon Rolls these men may have been clerks in Bordeaux and come under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Bordeaux, David de Montferrand. He was summoned to appear before Henry VI, i.e, the Council, in 1429 which may account for his being in London when he died in May 1430 (8). 

See Year 1430 London for Montferrand’s death

(1) PPC IV, p. 156 (not to take service with Foix).

(2) Foedera X, p. 543 (not to take service with Foix).

(3) Foedera X, p. 544 (to coin money and take homages).

(4) Foedera X, p. 540 (legitimization of Saint-Pée).

(5) Foedera X, p. 541 (annuity to Planche).

(6) Foedera X, p. 543 (Planche appointed to judiciary and others appointed).

(7) Foedera X, p. 547-548 (pardon).

(8) gasconrolls.org C61 125 (Montferrand’s summons).

 

Sir John Radcliffe

Sir John Radcliffe had reluctantly returned to the Duchy of Gascony as Seneschal in 1431. The Treasurer, Lord Hungerford, had warned the Council that Radcliffe’s wages for his earlier services had not been paid, and in 1432 Radcliffe lost the income from Amonion Bégney’s estates in Gascony, valued at £40 a year, when the Council granted them to Bernard de Montferrand. 

Radcliffe came home in 1433 to claim his unpaid wages: four shilling a day as Seneschal of Gascony, and wages for 200 archers at 20 marks a year, plus 1,000 marks a year as Captain of Fronsac, dating back to his 1423 indentures with Henry VI, and his earlier indentures with Henry V for Fronsac.

The Council acknowledged that he was now owed £7,029 13s 1d and assigned the profits from Caernarvon and Merionneth, and the lordship of Chirk and Chirklands in North Wales to him. The grant was confirmed by privy seal in May (1, 2). But revenue from the lordship of Chirk had been assigned earlier in the year to pay off a debt to the Abbot of Westminster (see above) and there was little likelihood that the large sum owed to Radcliffe could be recovered from lands in North Wales. 

Radcliffe petitioned Parliament in October 1433 that the income from the customs of the port of Melcombe, assigned to him in 1430, should be transferred to the port of Poole as customs duties were no longer collected in Melcombe, which was granted (3).

See Year 1423 Gascony for Radcliffe in Gascony.

See Year 1425 Parliament for Radcliffe’s resignation as Seneschal.  

See Year 1428 Minority Council (Gascony) for payment to Radcliffe to return to Gascony.

See Year 1430 Radcliffe and Gascony for the crown’s debts to Radcliffe.

(1) PPC IV, p. 155 (grant of income from North Wales).

(2) CPR 1429-1436, pp. 269-270 (grant of income and resumé of wages owed to Radcliffe).

(3) PROME XI, p. 126 (petition to transfer debt to customs at Poole).

The Duke of Brittany

In February 1433 Garter King at Arms was furnished with a letter of credence in King Henry’s name signed by members of the Council, to John, Duke of Brittany, and a personal letter from King Henry stating that the king was in good health, enquiring after the health of the Duke and Duchess of Brittany and expressing the king’s pleasure in the company of his cousin Giles of Brittany, the duke’s son (1). 

Garter was instructed to raise three issues with the duke: the first and most important being Breton piracy. The second was that the Council expected Duke John to send delegates to the Council of Basel to support the English position there. Lastly Garter was to complain that Sir Walter Hungerford’s ransom had been paid, but that the bonds given for payment by his father, Lord Hungerford, had not been surrendered by Lord Beaumanoir, the Breton who had captured Sir Walter in 1429. Lord Hungerford and seven other councillors signed Garter’s letter of credence (2).   

See Year 1432 An Army for Normandy for Sir Walter Hungerford’s ransom.

Piracy was endemic in the English Channel, and it is a toss-up as to who were the worst offenders, the men of Brittany or the men of the West Country. Ships and cargoes were routinely seized, often as ‘retribution’ for a previous act of piracy.  The truce between King Henry and the Duke of Brittany provided for redress of seizure for both sides, and there are numerous entries in the Calendars of Patent Rolls for the restoration of goods seized from Breton ships. But Englishmen, although guilty of the same practices, complained constantly of Breton raids on coastal towns as well as piracy at sea, and commissioners were supposed to meet regularly under the terms of the truce, ‘for the redress of grievances.’

Garter was to remind the Duke of Brittany that his commissioners had failed to come to Exeter (the West County was a hotbed of English pirates) as he had promised, to treat for ‘reparations of many injuries, robberies &c. committed by both parties,’ and to urge him to send them immediately.  Only King Henry’s strict ordinances had restrained his citizens from retaliating for the injuries inflicted on them and their merchandise by the Bretons.

In March, the Council appointed William Lyndwood, Keeper of the Privy Seal, Reginald Kentwood, Dean of St Pauls, William Estfield and John Welles, aldermen of London, Sir Walter de la Pole, Master Thomas Beckington, and Master John Stokes in expectation of the Breton envoys’ arrival (3).

It is not known exactly when they arrived, but Doctor John Pregent, and Jacques Godart, the Duke of Brittany’s secretary, were in London in June 1433. Hugh de Lannoy reported their presence to the Duke of Burgundy although he did not meet them (4, 5). They were still in England in August when the Council awarded them the gift of a cup and ewer of silver gilt, valued at 20 marks (6).

A petition in Parliament from English merchants requested that action be taken to secure restitution of the value of ‘goods and chattels’ seized by the Bretons. All future claim by Bretons should be refused in the admiralty courts, until they put up sufficient security to satisfy the claims of Englishmen (7).

(1) PPC IV, pp. 150-151 (Garter’s letter of credence).

(2) PPC IV, pp. 149-150 (Garter’s instructions).

(3) Foedera X, p. 546 (English commissioners named).

(4) Ferguson, Diplomacy, pp. 196-198 (names of Breton and English commissioners).

(5) L&P II, ii, p. 243 (Breton commissioners).

(6) PPC IV, p. 178 (Gift to Breton commissioners).

(7) PROME XI, p. 132 (Petition against Bretons).

Scotland

King James sent his special representative, Thomas Roulle, to London in 1433 to complain of violations of the truce along the Scottish border and at sea and of the difficulties experienced by Scots who claimed redress. 

See Year 1430 Scotland, a Five-Year Truce.

The Council riposted on 23 July with a counter claim:  from the time it was proclaimed in January 1431, the Wardens of the March and the English conservators of the truce had been instructed to maintain the peace and offer redress when necessary. It was the Scottish commissioners, not the English, who failed to appear on March Days and King James should make sure that his commissioners respected and attended these meetings.

See Year 1423, Scotland for March Days

The Scots were equally guilty of violating the truce, perhaps more so: only three weeks earlier on 1 July they had raided the area around Berwick and carried off 60 horses and 600 neats (cattle). A week later on 8 July they raided Glenvale, taking prisoners, burning houses, and rustling sheep and horses. 

The Council would shortly send Lord Scrope, or another suitable magnate, to King James and they requested a safe conduct for him and sixty people in his retinue. The designated ambassador would deal with ‘the state of the inhabitants of Berwick and Roxburgh,’ the question of peace with Scotland, and the problem of the Scottish hostages (1).

See Year 1432 Scottish Hostages for the most recent exchange.

On 26 July Sir John Bertram, a Northumberland knight, a former sheriff, and MP for Northumberland in 429 and 1432 was instructed to bring the Scots complains to the attention of the people living along the English March and order them not to violate the truce. The garrison of Berwick was in the same plight as the Calais garrison, their wages had not been paid. Bertram was given the unenviable task of asking them to do their duty to ‘keep watch and ward’ and to promise that payment would be made to them ‘as sone as any mony may growe to the payment of the same’ (2).

On the same day 26 July, two northern lords, Lord Dacre and Lord Fauconberg were excused attending Parliament so that they could be present at a March Day to discuss truce violations. The Earl of Northumberland, Warden of the East March, who was in London to attend Parliament, was a signatory to the Council’s order (3).

In August Lords Dacre and Fauconberg and Sir John Bertram were appointed with other commissioners as conservators of the truce, and in November the sheriff of York was ordered to proclaim the Mayor of Berwick and the Prior of Coldingham Abbey as conservators (4, 5).

The Council sent Edmund Beaufort, Earl of Mortain, Cardinal Beaufort’s nephew, and a Doctor of Laws, Master Stephen Wilton, to King James rather than Lord Scrope. They were paid 200 marks ‘by way of a loan’ (an advance for their expenses?). Mortain persuaded King James to grant ‘favours’ (concessions?) to the inhabitants of Berwick.   (6, 7).

Berwick was obviously considered vulnerable.  The Council, on the authority of Parliament, ordered that £500 of the customs duties from the port of Hull was to be allocated to the Earl of Northumberland for his and the soldiers’ wages at Berwick ‘in preference to all other payments’ (8). 

(1) PPC IV, p. 169-172 (Council’s reply to Roulle).

(2) PPC IV, pp. 172-173 (Bertram and Berwick).

(3) PPC IV, p. 174 (Dacre and Fauconberg excused Parliament).

(4) Balfour-Melville, James I, pp. 208-209.

(5) PPC IV, p. 564 (Mayor of Berwick and Prior of and Coldingham).

(6) PPC IV, p. 178 (embassy to King James).

(7) PPC IV, p. 351 (‘favours’ for Berwick).

(8) PPC IV, p. 178 (payment to Northumberland and Berwick).

The General Council of the Church at Basel   

The General Council of the Church at Basel had been in session for two years by the beginning of 1433, but it had not accomplished much. Its scope was too broad, its attendance too diverse, and its threefold aims, to root out heresy, to pacify Christendom and to decide on and implement a general reform of the church, were too wide ranging. They were beyond the reach of any single council, even a united one, which Basel most certainly was not.

An English delegation, smaller and less prestigious than that envisaged in 1432, presented themselves to the Council at Basel at the beginning of March 1433.

See Year 1432 The General Council of the Church at Basel.

Only two bishops, Thomas Polton of Worcester, and Robert Fitzhugh of London, who arrived separately, seven clerics, and Sir John Colville, attended. The seven delegates were Robert Burton, Precentor of Lincoln, John Salisbury, Subprior of Canterbury, William Worstede, Prior of Holy Trinity, Norwich, John Symondesburgh, Archdeacon of Wiltshire, and Thomas Brouns, Dean of Salisbury, Master Peter Pertrich, Chancellor of Lincoln, Master Alexander Sparrow, Archdeacon of Berkshire and possibly Master Henry Abendon, Chancellor of Wells (1, 2).

Bishop Polton, William Worstede, John Symondesburgh, and Thomas Brouns, who was allowed to take £300 with him and given permission to leave Basel if his expenses were not paid, were authorized to negotiate with the Bohemian heretics to reunite them with the Orthodox church, a somewhat ambitious procuration for a small delegation to a much larger gathering (3).

Fifteen Bohemians had been invited to come to Basel in January 1433 to debate and try to resolve the contentious issues of the doctrine known as the Four Articles of Prague which had caused the split between the Hussites and the Catholic church: communion in both kinds, freedom to preach, the clergy to be as poor as the apostles, and the public punishment of sinners.

Procopius, the Hussite military leader, an Englishman, Peter Payne a follower of John Wycliff’s teaching who had espoused the Hussite cause, and the most famous Hussite preacher, John of Rokycana led the debate. Giuliano Cesarini, Cardinal of Frascati presided as head of the Council. He allowed the Hussites full licence to make their arguments, but they were divided among themselves. John of Rokycana represented the Utraquists (moderates); Peter Payne and Procopius the Taborites (extremists).

“And that same yere began the generall counsell at Basill of all cristen londes, and theder kam the pragans thei of prage; and on master Pers a clerk that whas of Englond and whas Renagate, and another heretyk cam theder with hem. And there were many articles and poyntes of the ffeith determyned and spokyn of; and so they departyd withowten eny lettyng. And the cause whas of thei of prage had worthi clerkis of owre feith in plege for hem of Prage for to goo sauf and com sauf. And ellis they hadden goo to the fire, as men supposed that were ther.”  Cleopatra C IV, p.  135

“And atte this couseill were mony Articles and poyntes oute of the feithe commoned and determyned And so the Praganers past ayen to prage with oute only harme or lettyng  or they hadde worthy Clerkes of oure feithe in plegge that they shuld go sauf and come sauf. Orellys they hadde goo to brente wode as moost men supposed.”

                                     Great Chronicle, p. 170

The accounts in Cleopatra C IV, Gregory’s Chronicle, and The Great Chronicle derive from the same source; the original compiler was indignant and astonished that the heretics were allowed to go free and not burned at the stake as their founder, John Hus, had been. The explanation offered is disingenuous: the heretics were holding good catholics as hostage for their safe return.

Reconciliation was not, apparently, on the English agenda. The delegates disrupted the Council’s proceedings as soon as they arrived. They began by criticising the Council’s tolerant attitude towards the Hussites. They were too late to take part in the debates, but they objected to the presence of Peter Payne whom they dubbed a heretic and a traitor. Payne had been a fellow student with Peter Pertrich, Chancellor of Lincoln, while they were at Oxford together. Pertrich called Payne a Lollard and a traitor to his king and demanded his extradition to England to be tried under English law. Despite the wide-ranging debates, the inevitable stalemate over doctrinal differences resulted in the Hussite contingent leaving Basel, and Payne left unmolested with them in April. They were accompanied by representatives of the Council for further meetings with the Diet, the governing body of Prague (4).

The licences for Cardinal Beaufort and John Kemp, Archbishop of York to go to Basel, issued in 1432, were renewed in February 1433. But the Cardinal now planned to visit Emperor Sigismund on his way to Basel and he was licenced to take the enormous sum of £20,000 with him. Beaufort probably wished to ascertain Sigismund’s attitude to the split between the Council at Basel and Pope Eugenius now that Sigismund appeared to be on better terms with Eugenius, who would crown him Holy Roman Emperor in May. 

Beaufort named his attorneys, John Assh and Nicolas Radford, to look after his interests while he was away. A protection was issued for Nicholas Strode, Abbot of Hyde, going in the cardinal’s retinue (5).

Archbishop Kemp requested a safe conduct for himself and his retinue to go as an ambassador to Pope Eugenius as well as to Basel. He was permitted to take £2,000 in coin, and plate to the value of 1,000 marks (6, 7). The English Council, especially the bishops, were uneasy at siding with a General Council against the Pope, and Kemp’s embassy was probably intended to effect a reconciliation, or at least offer an explanation. 

Thomas Polton, Bishop of Worcester, and Robert Fitzhugh Bishop of London may have been late arrivals at Basel. Schofield claimed, on the strength of an entry in an anonymous diary of the proceedings, that Fitzhugh arrived in the middle of February (8).

Robert Fitzhugh had become Bishop of London in 1431 while he was in Rome as a royal proctor. He was consecrated in Italy and did not leave Rome to return to England until September 1432 at the earliest (9). He probably reached London early in 1433 and as it was his first time in England as Bishop of London, the London chronicles record that he became Bishop of London in 1433.

“And that same yere a-non aftyr the xij day the xxix day of Janyver, was the Lorde Fehewe ys brothyr stallyd Byschoppe of London.” Gregory’s Chronicle, p.  177

The Great Chronicle (p. 171) omits the words ‘his brother’ when referring to the bishop. Robert’s elder brother, William, was Lord Fitzhugh.

A protection for Fitzhugh going to Basel was issued in March, together with a quittance for the money he had received while he was in Rome as the king’s proctor, a licence to export £1,000, and a protection from any prosecution for a year (10).

A letter in King Henry’s name to Thomas Polton also in March 1433 ordered him to be in London a week after Easter ‘fully prepared to proceed with the other ambassadors (named in February) to the General Council (11).  

Easter Sunday was 12 April in 1433 and Polton’s first verifiable appearance in Basel was in late April or early May when he and other members of the English delegation lodged a formal protest in the name of Henry VI as King of France and England against the proceedings of the Council. Representatives from Charles VII, who got there first, had been admitted by the Council as delegates from the King of France (12). Peter Pertrich, Robert Burton, and John Salisbury lodged a similar protest on 5 May.

All delegates to the Council at Basel were required to swear an oath of loyalty to uphold its decrees, which the ‘King of England’ considered degrading to kings and princes. Voting on these decrees was by ‘deputation’ i.e., by groups voting as individuals, rather than by ‘nations’ i.e., the English voting en bloc, as had been the custom at the earlier Council of Constance. The English delegation protested vigorously at this method of proceeding and the protest may have been Polton’s only contribution to the Council. He died in Basel at the end of August.

The Council in England, in King Henry’s name, forbade further participation in the Council at Basel until the objections lodged by Bishop Polton and the other English delegates had been recognised and rectified. The delegates were instructed to withdraw altogether if they were not satisfied, and the threat was taken seriously.  Cardinal Landriani, who had been so successful in obtaining a promise of English participation in 1432 was sent back to London in October 1433 to urge the English Council not to withdraw their delegation (13). In November the Exchequer was ordered to pay him 100 marks for his visit (14, 15).

But between the promise made to Landriani in 1432 of a substantial delegation and the arrival of a depleted delegation, English policy towards the General Council changed, and enthusiasm for it cooled, although the pretence of an English commitment was maintained. Robert Neville, Bishop of Salisbury and Theobald Dages, Dean of Bordeaux, were named as delegates in February 1433 and John Clitheroe, Bishop of Bangor, was named in March, but they did not go (16).

At the beginning of May, Archbishop Chichele added Marmaduke Lumley, Bishop of Carlisle, Nicholas Frome, Abbot of Glastonbury, John Whethamstede, Abbot of St Albans, and Richard Chester, Vicar of South Willingham, to the list of delegates. They received letters of protection and licence to go to Basel, but they did not leave England (17). At the same time a letter of protection for one year was issued to Alan Kirketon, Abbot of Thorney, who was to join the Duke of Bedford’s retinue in France (18).

From March to May the focus of the Council in England was firmly on Cardinal Albergati’s peace initiatives and on a Great Council called to Calais by the Duke of Bedford.  Participation at Basel was, at best, a sideshow in 1433.

(1) Foedera X, pp. 525-533 (names of those going to Basel).

(2) Schofield, ‘First English Delegation,’ p. 178, n. 6 (list of names who attended).

(3) Foedera X, pp. 529-530 (authorization to treat with Bohemians).

(4) Cambridge Medieval History, vol. VIII, ed. C.W, Previté-Orton (1936) pp. 30-31 (Payne and Pertrich).

(5) Foedera X, pp. 538, 539 and 541 (Beaufort).

(6) Foedera X, pp. 536 and 539 (Kemp).

(7) PPC IV, p. 152 (Kemp).

(8) Schofield, p. 179 n. 3 (Fitzhugh at Basel).

(9) Papal Letters VIII, p. 280 (Papal request for safe conduct for Fitzhugh).

(10) Foedera X, pp. 542 and 547 (licence to Fitzhugh 1433).

(11) PPC IV, p. 156 (Henry VI’s letter to Polton).

(12) Schofield, pp. 181-182, n. 1 (protests by the English delegation).

(13) Schofield, ‘First English Delegation, 1433,’ passim.

(14) Foedera X, p. 565 (payment to G. Landensis Episcopus).

(15) PPC IV p 185 (payment to Landriani, wrongly identified by Nicolas as Guillaume de Champeaux, Bishop of Laon).

(16) Foedera X, pp. 538, 539 and 546 (additional delegates).

NB: Foedera X, p. 539. The letter of protection for Sir John Colville who was at Basel, dated 28 November belongs in 1432.

(17) Foedera X, pp. 549-550 (delegates to Basel named, May).

(18) Foedera X, p. 551 (Kirketon).

Peace Talks

Cardinal Albergati had postponed the peace conference at Auxerre in November 1432 to reconvene in 1433 at Seine Port, a small village not far from Corbeil. Seine Port, unlike Auxerre, was deemed safe for all the participants. French, English, Burgundian, and Breton delegates gathered there on 21 March 1433.

See Year 1432 Peace Talks Resumed for Albergati and the peace conference.

The Duke of Bedford came to Corbeil to be on hand for consultation. Courtesy and policy required the Regent to treat the pope’s representative with respect, and Bedford paid a personal visit to Cardinal Albergati.  

Regnault de Chartres, Christopher Harcourt, and Jean Rabateau were the French delegates. They demanded, as they had in 1432, that the Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon and the Count of Eu must be brought to France, possibly to Rouen, to take part in the discussions. As a gesture of goodwill, the English offered to have the prisoners brought to Dover; safe conducts would be issued for French representatives to consult with them there.  

Regnault de Chartres agreed to refer the offer to King Charles, and the conference broke up. Cardinal Albergati made his way to the French court to persuade Charles VII to consider the English offer. Charles welcomed Albergati, but it took time to wring a small concession from him. He ignored the offer to bring the French prisoners to Dover but suggested a four-month truce. Elated, Albergati and Regnault de Chartres drew up a treaty, and in July Albergati retuned to Corbeil to submit it to the English. He was too late. On Bedford’s orders, Louis of Luxembourg, Bedford’s Chancellor of France, refused to sign.

Albergarti gave up in despair. He arrived in Basel in September to report the failure of his mission, and his belief that the protagonists were headed for war (1).

(1)  Beaucourt, Charles VII, vol II, pp. 453-454 (rejection of the truce).

 A four-month truce was no use to Bedford. He needed at least a year to persuade the English Council and Parliament to endorse his programme for the war and more importantly to raise sufficient funds through taxation and loans to recruit an army large enough to launch a full-scale campaign in 1434.

Bedford’s reasons for rejecting the truce are outlined in Henry VI’s letter to the Duke of Burgundy, although the door to peace is left open:

“. . . the truce of the said four months cannot be of any profitable effect for the king [or] his subjects. For in so short a time very little good could be done in so important a matter, and the said time would scarcely suffice to select a place to open and hear the sureties which were necessary for the said truce; but if the truce were longer means might be found for making peace, if the adverse party was not against it.”                          Letters and Papers II, p. 256

Calais Mutiny

Bedford was at Corbeil attending Cardinal Albergati’s peace conference when he received news of a mutiny at Calais. The wages of the Calais garrison were as usual seriously in arrears, due partly to King James’s failure to pay his ransom, which had been assigned to the garrison, and partly because whatever money was available had been diverted to King Henry’s stay in France.

John Madley had come to London from Calais in December 1432 to represent the garrison and request payment of their wages. 

Madley attended a Council meeting at the Duke of Gloucester’s London house and received the stock reply and excuse: King Henry recognised and sympathized with the soldiers’ plight, ‘the greete poverty and indigence [which they] long han suffred.’ He had instructed the Treasurer to consign 4,000 marks to the Deputy Treasurer of Calais at Dover, to be delivered to Richard Buckland, the Treasurer, but only after the Duke of Gloucester received a written statement of good behaviour from the garrison: ‘a certificate and promesse of goode reule and gouvernance.’ This was typical of Gloucester but was hardly conciliatory, it contributed to the garrison’s ugly mood and led to mutiny in 1433 (1). 

The garrison lost patience with the empty promises from England; they seized all the wool in the warehouses in Calais, just as they had in 1423.

See Year 1423 Calais for the earlier mutiny.

The dating in the chronicles is contradictory, some say Bedford came to Calais before Easter and some say after Easter (Easter Sunday was 12 April). The account of Bedford’s movements in Cleopatra C IV is both critical and confused:

“And than the Duke of Bedford aftyr her deth [Anne of Burgundy] he cam dovne to Roon; and ther he toke his leve ande went in to Englond ward by Caleys. And there the Duke heldde his cristmas. And so the Regent playd hym a bought in Pykardy tyll it whas esteryn. . . . . . . .

“And the xxij day of April the Duke of Bedford, Regent of ffraunce whas weddyd vnto the erll dowter of seynt poule in the tovne of Tirwen” (Thérouanne).” 

                                    Cleopatra C IV,  p. 135

Brut Continuation H is the only chronicle to give details of Bedford’s actions, although its chronology too is confused (2):

Sir William Oldhall was in Calais as Bedford’s deputy when the mutiny broke out. He had apparently ordered the soldiers to return to barracks, but they were having none of it. They threatened Oldhall and ran him out of town, forcing him to leave his wife behind. Oldhall made his way hot foot to the Duke of Bedford. As Captain of Calais, Bedford could not allow a mutiny to go unpunished.

He met Richard Buckland, treasurer of Calais and Captain of Balingham, at Balingham, a small town within the Pale of Calais. Buckland negotiated with the soldiers on Bedford’s behalf and promised them that their wages would be paid out of the Calais customs. All unpaid assignments in the soldiers’ hands were to be collected and turned over to Bedford.  

Bedford then demanded the keys to Calais, a symbolic gesture, and ordered the arrest of between 80 and 110 of the mutinous soldiers. They were confined in the castle, with the overflow housed in the marshal’s prison. This was as much as Bedford had time for, he left Calais for Thérouanne, thirty miles to the south in Burgundian territory, where he was to be married. 

(1) PPC IV, p. 139 (Calais garrison wages).

(2) Brut Continuation H, p. 570 (first phase of Calais mutiny).

Bedford and Jacquetta of Luxembourg

On 20 April 1433, five months after Anne, Duchess of Bedford’s death, Bedford married Jacquetta of Luxembourg. It was a political alliance contracted in haste amid mounting pressure on the English position in France. Jacquetta was seventeen, Bedford was forty-four and old before his time. They were married by Louis of Luxembourg, Bishop of Thérouanne and Chancellor of France, who arranged the marriage (1).  

“wherfor þe Duke of Bedforth Regent of Fraunce, being þan Capytain come to Caleys þe Twesday in þe Ester weke;  . . . . And in þe same weke  he rode to Terewyne; & bi þemean of Bisshop of Terewyn he wedded þerles doughter of Seynt Poul & came ageyn to Caleys.”               Brut Continuation G, p.  502   

“and in the Estre woke the forsaid regent rood into Picardie to Tyrywe, and there the bysshop of Tyrewyn dede wedde the regent to the erles doughter of Seynt Poule; and whanne they were weddyd he com to Caleys ageyn”                                      A Chronicle of London (Harley 565), p. 120

Louis and John of Luxembourg were Jacquetta’s uncles. Louis had shared the burden of government in Paris for many years as Bedford’s second in command. Louis’s brother, John, was one of the finest soldiers of his day. He had captured Joan of Arc in Compiègne in 1430 and turned her over to the English. The extensive Luxembourg family were clients and vassals of the Duke of Burgundy, but its leading members had long been in English pay, and Bedford trusted in their loyalty.

See Year 1430 Campaigns of 1430 for Joan of Arc captured at Compiègne.

The Duke of Burgundy was outraged. The Luxembourgs were his vassals, but the marriage took place without his knowledge or consent. Anne of Bedford’s death had shattered the last link between Bedford and Burgundy, they no longer trusted each other, if indeed they ever had.  The rift between them widened after 1432 and was not healed before Bedford died. Bedford suspected that despite years of placating Burgundy, Duke Philip was prepared to abandon the Anglo-Burgundian alliance.

Did Bedford have a personal as well as a political reason for marrying Jacquetta? Did he hope that Jacquetta would give him a son? Bedford was heir presumptive to the throne of England, and the next in line was his brother of Gloucester whom Bedford also profoundly mistrusted.  While he was in England in 1433/34 Bedford petitioned Parliament that his titles, Duke of Bedford, and Earl of Kendal, granted to him for life by Henry V, should be re-granted as hereditary (2). If he nursed such a hope, he was to be disappointed. Jacquetta had a large family by her second husband, Richard Woodville, but Bedford died childless except for one illegitimate daughter.

(1) The marriage is also noted in Gregory’s Chronicle, p. 176; Great Chronicle, p. 170; and Brut Continuation H, p. 569.

(2) PROME XI, Appendix, p. 154 (request for hereditary titles). 

 

Bedford and the Calais Mutiny

Bedford tucked his hasty marriage into only a few days. He returned to Calais accompanied by his new duchess and Louis of Luxembourg and was received by the mayor and town officials with the customary welcome.  

Bedford was not in the best of tempers, and he dealt harshly with the mutineers. He ordered Richard Vere, the mayor of Calais, to convene a special court and he came in person to preside over it, with the sword of state lying on the table before him. The soldiers who had been imprisoned were marched in and paraded unarmed.

Bedford condemned four of the ringleaders to death, including John Madley, who had led the delegation to England to complain of the non-payment of their wages in 1432. Eighty men of the garrison, segregated to the left side of the court, were ‘banished’ (dismissed) and their wages were forfeit. The soldiers who lived in Calais (the married men?) stood on the right. They were docked their wages and back pay (1).

“and the xi day of Jun on seynt Barnabe day were foure sowdeours of Caleys beheded; that is to sey John Maddeley, John Lunday, Thomas Palmere and Thomas Talbot; and v score and x banshyd that same tyme; and before that tyme were banshyd vi score.”            Chronicle of London (Harley 565) p. 120                                         

Bedford had to make an example of the mutineers, but his handling of the situation undermined his popularity. The sympathies of the Brut Continuation H clearly lie with the soldiers; it adds that Bedford “had neuer after bodily hele till him dyet.”   

Bedford recognized that the best way to prevent future outbursts was to split the garrison up.  In May Richard Buckland  was ordered to pay the wages of the soldiers who were to be sent from Calais to defend Le Crotoy (2).   

(1) Brut Continuation H., pp. 570-571.  

(2) PPC IV, p. 162 (Calais soldiers to Le Crotoy).

 

A Council at Calais

A Council meeting at Greenwich on 15 April in the presence of King Henry discussed the Duke of Bedford’s summons for a Great Council to meet at Calais.  

The Duke of Gloucester, Chancellor Stafford, William Lyndwood, Keeper of the Privy Seal, the Earl of Warwick, Bishop Morgan of Ely, Bishop Grey of Lincoln, and Lord Cromwell were present. The Council agreed that Gloucester and Chancellor Stafford should go to Calais. A week later, on 22 April Stafford delivered the Great Seal to John Frank, the clerk of the chancery rolls, for use during his absence (1, 2).

The Treasurer, Lord Scrope, reported that as he had to pay the expenses of Archbishop Kemp and Lord Hungerford, who were going to Basel via Calais, there was no money to meet the second quarter’s wages of the Earl of Huntington’s army, which was about to muster (see above). He prayed Gloucester and the Council to make provision to meet this expenditure before they left for Calais, and to hold him blameless if the money could not be found. Gloucester ordered it to be recorded that Scrope was not to be held accountable (3).

The Great Council that met in Calais at the Duke of Bedford’s behest for a month from late April to late May was impressive. It combined members of the Minority Council, the Council in Rouen, and the Grand Conseil of Paris.

The Duke of Gloucester, as the king’s chief councillor, John Stafford, as Chancellor of England, William Grey, Bishop of Lincoln, and Philip Morgan, Bishop of Ely, the Earl of Suffolk, who had custody of the Duke of Orleans, Lord Hungerford, who expected to go to on to Basel, and Lord Cromwell, included for his financial expertise, came over from London. The surprise omission is John Langdon, Bishop of Rochester who had conducted the earlier negotiations with the French. Cardinal Beaufort and John Kemp, Archbishop of York, on their way to attend the Council at Basel, were diverted to Calais (4). 

See Year 1432 Peace Talks Resumed for John Langdon.

Louis of Luxembourg, Bedford’s Chancellor of France, Raoul Le Sage, his trusted councillor, Sir John Fastolf, his master of household, who had taken part with John Langdon in earlier negotiations with the French, Jean de Courcelles, a member of the Grand Conseil, Robert Piedefer, President of the parlement of Paris, and Raoul Roussell treasurer of Notre Dame, who would become Archbishop of Rouen, represented the interests of Lancastrian France (5). 

“And in this same yere, anon after Ester þe Archebisshop of Caunterbury (an error for the Archbishop of York) and oþer Bisshoppes with othere clergy and the Duke of Gloucestre with oþer lorde[s] knyghtes and squyers went ouer the see to Caleys, for trety, and made þere a consayle betwene þe Frenssh and þe Englissh.  And þider come out of Fraunce the Duke of Bedford, Regent, with many other Frenssh lordes, bothe spiritual and temporall; and also þider come þe Cardynall þe Bisshop of Wynchestre.”

                                                Brut Continuation F, p.  466

The wording in the Brut is misleading. Its reference is to members of the Grand Conseil not to representatives of King Charles VII.

Two crucial points of policy were at issue: should a truce or a peace with King Charles be pursued and if so on what terms; or, if the French proved unreasonable, as there was every reason to suppose they would, how could the war best be pursued?

The Council agreed that negotiations with the French should continue until the question of peace or war could be resolved. William Wytlesey was paid £1 for copying the terms of the ‘great truces’ concluded in the past between England and France to be sent to Bedford and Gloucester in Calais (6).

As the French had requested at Auxerre, the Duke of Orleans, the Duke of Bourbon, and the Count of Eu were brought to Dover in May 1433. King Charles was expected to send his representatives to Calais for possible cross channel discussions, but Charles was not interested, and he failed to send even a low-level delegation (7).

Bedford was already exasperated by the Calais mutiny. Wages for the garrison at Calais were the responsibility of the Minority Council and if they could not even meet this obligation, where was the money for future campaigns in France to come from? He blamed Gloucester and the Council for financial negligence and a lack of commitment to the war. Only Cardinal Beaufort’s personal loans, and loans under his direction from the feoffees of Duchy of Lancaster lands administering Henry V’s will, were keeping the war effort afloat.

Cardinal Beaufort now agreed to loan another 10,000 marks for ‘the defence of the realm of France’ and for the siege of Saint Valery (8). The money was to be delivered to Louis of Luxembourg as Chancellor of France (9).

Richard Buckland, Treasurer of Calais, was to receive £200 to pay the soldiers of the Calais garrison who had been transferred to the defence of Le Crotoy on the Duke of Bedford’s orders, and 500 marks was to be sent to the Count of St Pol for his services at the siege of Saint Valery (see The War in France above). 

Bedford was also concerned that the Anglo-Burgundian alliance had become fragile, due in part to his hasty marriage to Jacquetta of Luxembourg. What could be done to restore it and prevent Duke Philip from making a separate peace with France?

The Duke of Gloucester magnanimously conceded the need, however distasteful, to conciliate the Duke of Burgundy. Possession of Hainault no longer interested him and he agreed that Bedford and Cardinal Beaufort should act as arbitrators to end his long-standing but outdated quarrel with Duke Philip (10, 11).

Cardinal Beaufort always got on better with Duke Philip than Bedford did, and he offered to visit Burgundy and resolve the hostility that had sprung up between them. Bedford agreed to go to Saint Omer for a personal meeting to be arranged by Beaufort (12).  

The deliberations at Calais ended unsatisfactorily. The royal brothers were agreed that Henry VI’s title as King of France must be maintained, but they differed on how this was to be achieved. Bedford wanted a firm undertaking of ongoing financial support from the Council. He did not get it. Gloucester was convinced that he could do a better job of waging war in France. He criticised Bedford’s management of the war as being responsible for recent losses and defeats.

Bedford decided that the only thing for it, especially in the face of Gloucester’s criticisms, was for him to go England, take control of the Council, and face Parliament. Neither Bedford nor Gloucester acknowledged what some of the other councillors recognised: the Exchequer was empty, parliamentary grants were proving harder to obtain, and were in any case inadequate.

The Duke of Gloucester and Chancellor Stafford were back in England by 22 May. The Great Seal was restored to the Chancellor on 23 May 1433, and the Council reconvened at Westminster on 24 May with Gloucester, Stafford, Archbishop Chichele, Bishop Langley of Durham (supposedly retired) William Lyndwood, Keeper of the Privy Seal, the Earl of Warwick, Lord Scrope, and William Phelip present.

They agreed that Cardinal Beaufort’s loan of 10,000 marks, made in Calais, should be the first loan to be repaid out of the anticipated tax grant by Parliament ‘or other’ (13). 

(1) PPC IV, pp. 157-58 and PPC VI, p. 351 (the Great Seal to be held in chancery).

(2) Foedera X, pp. 548-459 (surrender of the Great Seal and its return to the Chancellor on 23 May).

(3) PPC IV, pp. 158-159 (Scrope’s report on lack of finances at the Treasury).

(4) Schofield, ‘First English Delegation,’ pp. 185-187 (list of those attending the council in Calais).

(5) Beaucourt, Charles VII, vol. II, p. 462 (list of those attending the council in Calais).

(6) Issues of the Exchequer, p. 420 (copying of earlier truces).

(7) L&P II, pp. 254-255 (French prisoners at Dover; no French representatives at Calais).

(8) PPC III, pp. 162-164 (Cardinal’s loan).

(9) Issues of the Exchequer, p. 425 (money paid to Louis of Luxembourg).

(10) L&P II, ii, pp. 417-418 (Gloucester’s agreement to reconcile. Stevenson misdated it to 1428).

(11) Vickers, Gloucester, p. 236 (points out that the agreement is dated at Calais. Gloucester was not in Calais at any time before 1436 except for the council at Calais in 1433).

(12) Wavrin IV, p. 38 (Bedford to meet Burgundy at St Omer).

(13) PPC IV, pp. 163 (repayment of Beaufort’s loan).

The Duke of Bedford in England            

Chancellor Stafford issued writs on 24 May to summon Parliament to meet on 30 June in anticipation of the Duke of Bedford’s arrival in England. But five weeks was not considered long enough for the sheriffs to arrange the elections and for the members to arrive and Stafford extended the date to 8 July (1). 

Parliament met on 8 July 1433. The first session was short; it was prorogued from 13 August to 13 October because of pestilence in London. The second session lasted from 13 October to about 18 December. Curry notes that it is unlikely that parliament sat until the Purification (2 February 1434) as claimed by Benet’s Chronicle (2). 

“And about the Feast of the translation of St Thomas the Martyr the king held a parliament at London which lasted until the Purification of the Virgin. It was attended by the duke of Bedford with his new wife.”   Benet’s Chronicle, pp. 183-184

Cardinal Beaufort returned to England on 10 June. The Duke and Duchess of Bedford crossed from Calais to England between 21 and 23 June.

“. . . . Herry Beauford, Cardynall Bisshop of Wynchestre, come ouer the see into England, and so to London the x^th day of Iuyn, to his Maner of Seint Mary Ouerey in Suthwerk.”                      Brut Continuation F, p. 466

“. . . . Iohn, Duke of Bedford with his newe wedded wife, þe Erles doughter of Seintpoule; and they come from Fraunce ouer the see into England, and so come to London the xxiij^th day of Iuyn þat was Mydsomer Even. And the Mayre and aldermen, with many worthy comouns of London brought theym from the Blak-heth in Kent and so to London into Fletestrete, vnto þe Bisshoppes Inne of Salesbury with all honoure and reuerence.”                 Brut Continuation F, pp.  466-467

For only the second time in Henry VI’s reign, the Duke of Bedford received a summons to Parliament. Using the same tactics that Cardinal Beaufort had employed  a year earlier, Bedford rose in his seat in the Lords to claim that malicious persons had accused him of mismanagement of the war and misgovernance of Normandy. He issued the standard challenge to any such persons to come forward and make their accusations public; he would answer all comers, regardless of their rank.

Bedford was a large man, and he had a commanding presence. His authority and integrity had never been questioned, and it seems probable that there was an appalled silence before King Henry, the Duke of Gloucester, and the Lords hastened to deny that they had heard, or believed, any such rumours. Chancellor Stafford, in the king’s name, assured Bedford of their trust in his leadership, their recognition of his great services, and their gratitude to him (3). If Gloucester was behind the rumours, and this is by no means certain, his attempt to discredit his brother had miscarried.

Bedford used his influence in Council and in Parliament to reward several men who served him in France. Jean Rinel [Reynel] one of the king’s French secretaries, received letters of denization (1).  Rinel began his career in the service of King Charles VI of France. He passed into Henry V’s service and then into the Duke of Bedford’s.  His signature appears on numerous orders issued by Bedford from Rouen and Paris throughout the 1420 and 1430s (4, 5).

Raoul Le Sage, Lord of St Pierre was one of Bedford’s most trusted councillors. Bedford sent him to try to persuade the Duke of Gloucester to withdraw from Hainault in 1425, and Le Sage was with Bedford at the siege of Lagny in 1432. In August 1433 he was awarded an annuity of £40 ‘in consideration of the services he had rendered to the late and present king in France and in the Duchy of Normandy (6).                            

Bedford had John of Arundel’s claim to the Earldom of Arundel recognised by Parliament. Arundel’s father, another John, who died in 1421, had claimed the earldom as a cousin and closest male heir of Thomas Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, who died in 1415. His claim was disputed and not granted. The younger John claimed the earldom in 1429 when he came of age but was not recognised. The dispute turned on the rightful inheritor of the castle and lordship of Arundel, which was held by John of Arundel, but claimed by John Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk who died in 1432. The Mowbray claim was maintained by the current duke who was still a minor and the king’s ward.

John of Arundel had crossed to France with King Henry’s coronation expedition in 1430 and was currently fighting in France (see The War in France above). In 1433 he petitioned Parliament in absentia to recognise his claim and this time, thanks to his war service and Bedford’s influence, he succeeded. He became Earl of Arundel in November 1433 (7, 8). The chronicles refer to him as Earl of Arundel, before and after 1433.

(1) PPC IV, p. 163 (Parliament summoned).

(2) PROME XI, pp. 67 and 88 (Parliamentary sessions).

(3) PROME XI, pp. 77-78 (Bedford in Parliament).

(4) Foedera X, p. 552 (Rinel denization).

(5) Otway Ruthven, King’s Secretary, pp. 91-93 (Rinel’s career).

(6) PPC IV, p. 175 (Le Sage annuity grant).

(7) PROME XI, pp. 117-122 (Earldom of Arundel claim and counter claim).

(8) Powell & Wallis, House of Lords, pp. 463-64 (Arundel’s claim).

Ralph, Lord Cromwell, Treasurer of England

The Duke of Bedford had returned to England with one purpose in mind: to obtain moral and financial backing for the war in France under his direction. He had obtained the first with the Lord’s endorsement of him in Parliament; to obtain the second he needed a firm and steady hand at the Exchequer.

Two days before the end of the first session of Parliament, on 11 August, Bedford removed Lord Scrope, Gloucester’s choice as Treasurer of England and replaced him with Ralph, Lord Cromwell, an original member of the Minority Council who had attended Bedford’s Great Council in Calais.

Cromwell was about forty years old in 1433. He had been in royal service all his life.  An astute diplomat he had served Henry V and had helped to draft the Treaty of Troyes in 1420. He held the important position of chamberlain of Henry VI’s household until he was dismissed by the Duke of Gloucester in 1432 (1). As a senior member of the Council, Cromwell had complained in Parliament that his dismissal was unjust (2).

See Year 1432, The Duke of Gloucester, the Council, and the Household, Royal Household.

Cromwell accepted the role of Treasurer of England, but only on his own terms (3). He would hold it for ten years, the longest serving treasurer of the fifteenth century, during which time he would manage to become a very rich man.  

On 12 August the Council ordered the collectors and controllers of customs duties in all the major ports to come to Westminster bringing ‘all books, rolls, tallies, monies, and other things necessary for their charge and discharge in their accounts and to make no payments in the meantime.’ The Treasurer would appoint as financial officers only those who would agree to reside at their posts and carry out their duties in person (4).

On 13 August Cromwell put a stop on the Exchequer. No payments against assignments of any kind over £2,000 were to be made except for the royal household and repayment of loans to the king (5). A complete audit of royal finances was to be put in hand.

In the two months between his appointment and the opening of the second session of Parliament in October, the clerks of the Exchequer under Cromwell’s guidance prepared a detailed statement of income and expenditure, extrapolated from the records of the years 1429-1432, which Cromwell presented to Parliament.

Cromwell began with a statement that he had accepted the post of Treasurer on the understanding that the accounts he presented would be examined in detail because he believed that the Lords and the Commons alike, although they had been made aware by previous treasurers of the crown’s debts, did not fully understand the extent of the problem and what it might mean for them and for the country. He was not prepared to be held accountable, or responsible, for the situation when he took over the Exchequer.

Cromwell demonstrated that if crown expenditure continued at its present level without adequate funding the situation would never be corrected and could only get worse.  He established that the crown’s gross income was about £65,000 but that outstanding assignments would reduce it to £35,000, with an on-going deficit running at over £21,000 annually, excluding the costs of the war in France (6,7).   

The first requirement was for Parliament to vote sufficient taxes to cover the costs of the royal household, the government of the country, the defence of the realm, i.e. the war in France, and to settle royal debt. This was a tall order and it drew little sympathy from the Commons. 

Cromwell proposed to give priority to the expenses of the household, the wardrobe, and repairs to royal palaces and castles; furthermore, all future assignments should be subject to his scrutiny before they were confirmed by the Council.

Cromwell also requested that the Council set guidelines for the order of preferment for payment of assignments so that those whose assignments could not be honoured would not blame him. In other words, crown debt was a collective responsibility (8).

On 17 December, the day before Parliament was dissolved, Cromwell made sure that he was granted all the wages, fees, and ‘regards’ that his predecessors had received (9).  He was also to receive 200 marks annually for his attendance at council (10). Whoever was to miss out financially under the new regime at the Exchequer it would not be Lord Cromwell.

The royal finances would have to be carefully managed and stringent restraints would be needed over a long period to reduce the deficit and replenish the bankrupt Exchequer. Substantial parliamentary tax grants from the Commons, and loyal support, in the form of loans, would be required.

As a start to the austerity programme in November Bedford offered to reduce his salary as chief councillor, from 8,000 marks (£5,333 6s.8d to £1,000, forcing the parsimonious Gloucester to follow suit. (11).

Gloucester was to be paid the £1,000 as chief councillor back dated to May 1433 (12).

(1) R.L. Friedrichs, ‘Ralph, Lord Cromwell and the Politics of Fifteenth Century England,’ Nottingham Medieval Studies 32 (1988), pp. 207-226

(2) PROME XI, pp. 17-18 (Cromwell’s complaint in Parliament 1432).

(3) PPC IV, p. 175 (Cromwell became treasurer of England).

(4) PPC IV, pp.  175-176 (Customs collectors to present their accounts).

(5) PROME XI, p. 78 (no assignments over £2,000).

(6) PROME XI, pp. 102-112 (Cromwell’s financial statement).

(7) Harriss, Beaufort, pp. 232-34 (deficit).

(8) PROME XI, pp. 112-113 (Cromwell’s request for guidelines).

(9) PPC IV, p. 188 (Cromwell’s wages as Treasurer).

(10) PPC IV, p. 187 (Cromwell’s wage as councillor).

(11) PPC IV, pp. 185-186 (reduction in Bedford and Gloucester’s salaries).

(12) PPC IV, p. 1860187 (Gloucester’s salary).

Taxation

“This parliament granted the king a fifteenth, to be paid over four years (sic) from which the laity was excused 6,000 marks.”  Benet’s Chronicle, p. 184

The Commons did not meet Cromwell’s or Bedford’s expectations. They granted a tax of a tenth and a fifteen spread over two years, in four parts, the first part to be collected on 23 March 1434 with a deduction of 6,000 marks (£4,000) for the relief of the poorest parts of the country. They renewed the subsidy on tunnage and poundage and on wool and wool fells ‘for the defence of the realm,’ and introduced a new levy of 12 pence in the pound for the export of finished woollen cloth (1).  It was nowhere near enough to reduce the deficit, let alone finance war on a large scale in France, but it was the best that Bedford could get.

(1) PROME XI, pp. 88-90  

The Royal Household

Cromwell made the expenses of the royal household his top priority. On 12 August, the day after his appointment, John Merston, keeper of the king’s jewels, was allocated £40 ‘for the king’s chamber,’ i.e. for Henry’s private expenses (1).

Merston was also instructed to deliver a mitre which had belonged to Archbishop William Courtney in the fourteenth century to Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury. The original order for the delivery, dated 1 July 1426, issued to two clerks, had not been carried out, and the mitre was still in the royal jewel collection (2).

A form of protection was issued for Sir John Tyrell, treasurer of the household, and Thomas Chaucer, chief butler, in charge of the royal cellars. It was agreed in Council that wines brought from Bordeaux for the household for the next year should be transported at the king’s risk and not at that of Tyrell or Chaucer (3).

In October the Council instructed Robert Rolleston, keeper of the king’s great wardrobe to deliver robes of the Order of the Garter ‘suitable to his rank’ to Emperor Sigismund annually (4, 5). This should have been done automatically from the beginning of Henry VI’s reign, as Sigismund had been installed as a Knight of the Garter with great pomp and ceremony by King Henry V in 1416. Why was the order issued in October when the ceremonies took place in April?  Did Bedford’s presence in England have anything to do with it, or was it connected with the English presence at the Council of Basel?

In November it was agreed that Giles of Brittany, still resident in King Henry’s household, should receive 250 marks for the past year (125 marks at Michaelmas and 125 marks at Easter) and the same sum annually in future for his private expenses (6, 7).  Giles had been in England since 1432 and apparently there were no immediate plans to return him to Brittany.

Joan Astley, King Henry’s nurse, had been granted an annuity of £40 in 1424 and this was to be paid to her ‘notwithstanding any restrictions’ (8).

(1) PPC IV, pp. 177-178 (£40 for the king’s use).

(2) PPC IV, p. 177 (mitre to Archbishop Chichele)

(3) PPC IV, pp. 178-179 (treasurer and butler of the royal household).

(4) PPC IV, p. 181 (Sigismund).

(5) Foedera X, p. 563 (Sigismund).

(6) PPC IV, p. 181 (annuity to Giles).

(7) Foedera X, p. 563 (annuity to Giles).

(8) PPC IV, pp. 181-182 (Joan Astley).

Hugh de Lannoy, Burgundian Envoy

The Duke of Burgundy had begun to wonder if he had backed the wrong horse, perhaps he could get more out of the English than he could out of the King of France. He sent Hugh de Lannoy and the unnamed Treasurer of the Boulennois to England in June 1433 on a factfinding mission to mend fences with the English Council and discover if they were considering a peace with King Charles that might exclude Burgundy. Lannoy, a staunch Anglophile, had been Burgundy’s ambassador to England twice before, in 1426 while the Duke of Bedford was in England, and again in 1429, to suggest a peace conference.

The Burgundians landed at Sandwich and were on the road to Canterbury when they met up with the reception committee sent to welcome the Duke and Duchess of Bedford. Lannoy introduced himself to William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk who was with the reception party and delivered a letter from Duke Philip to Suffolk. He asked Suffolk to facilitate an interview with King Henry and Suffolk, ever the courtier, was flattered by this attention and declared his willingness to be of service to Burgundy.

Lannoy’s first visit when he reached London was to the Earl of Warwick. He presented Warwick with a letter from Burgundy like that addressed to Suffolk. Warwick was not welcoming, he treated Lannoy coolly but courteously and requested news of the Duke of Burgundy. Lannoy asked Warwick where he might find King Henry and when he could meet with him. Warwick replied that the king was not in London, he was away hunting, but he would inform Lannoy of a time and place when Henry would grant the Burgundians an audience. 

They met Cardinal Beaufort at mass on the following day. He received them graciously but not as warmly as they expected, although he said he would do what he could for them. Warwick informed them that Henry was at Guildford and would receive them on Friday morning. They journeyed to Guildford where they found King Henry surrounded by his Council. 

Lannoy formally presented the Duke of Burgundy’s letters to Henry whom he described as ‘ung tres bel enfant.’ Henry addressed him graciously in French and asked after the Duke of Burgundy’s health which gave Lannoy the opportunity to reply pointedly that Burgundy was in excellent health and was in fact even then campaigning in Champagne with an army ‘to resist his enemies and your own.’

Henry ordered the Burgundians to retire while Burgundy’s letters were read and discussed by the lords in Council. The Burgundians were then recalled, and Warwick informed them that their letters of credence would be presented to a Great Council in London on the following Tuesday or Wednesday.

The Council met at Westminster on Wednesday 1 July. Lannoy presented his credentials and put the Duke of Burgundy’s proposals to them. He was asked to present the proposals in writing, but he refused, because he had been told what he was to tell the English, Burgundy had not committed his instructions to writing.  Reluctantly, and being careful to keep a copy of what he wrote to show Duke Philip, Lannoy complied. 

He then began to prevaricate and obfuscate: the Duke of Burgundy had been informed by ‘certain lords’ of ‘certain things’ which might aid King Henry while causing ‘very great damage’ to ‘others.’ This was far too vague for the Council, and Lannoy was instructed to meet privately with Cardinal Beaufort, Henry Chichele, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Earl of Warwick to spell out exactly what he was talking about. The Council would reply to all the points he raised.

The meeting took place at Cardinal Beaufort’s palace in Southwark. Lannoy explained that John, Duke of Brittany and his brother Arthur de Richemont, the Constable of France had approached the Duke of Burgundy as intermediary. Within the limits of preserving his honour, Richemont, who was out of favour with Charles VII, might be willing to join his brother and Burgundy in giving military aid to the English. Duke Philip, through Lannoy, also strongly advised the Council to seek the friendship of Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, Burgundy’s ally, who was also on bad terms with Charles VII.

Basically, Lannoy’s message was that if King Henry wished to win the war, he would need assistance from those French magnates who were at odds with King Charles. Lannoy did not identify them, obviously Richemont was one, but he thought that King Henry could easily win their good will and support with an offer of lands, estates, and money as rewards! Duke Philip believed in bribery to achieve his ends; he had accepted bribes from the English for years.

The Great Council’s answer was delivered to Lannoy on 7 July 1433, the day before Parliament convened. King Henry would reply separately to the Duke of Burgundy in a closed letter. In the meanwhile, the Council supplied Lannoy with a letter he could forward to Burgundy with his report. He would also receive a reply from Cardinal Beaufort, Chichele, and Warwick in response to their meeting.

Cardinal Beaufort suggested in King Henry’s name, that Lannoy should encourage Burgundy to pursue talks with the Duke of Brittany, Arthur de Richemont, and Amadeus of Savoy and make as good a deal with them as he could.  It was impossible for Henry to make any promises to the French lords until Parliament had met and discussed the matter, but Beaufort promised that an English embassy would be sent to Burgundy as soon as Parliament was dissolved, to discuss ‘many other great matters which at present could not be declared.’ Lannoy reported that peace or war was debated in Parliament.

The Earl of Warwick was less conciliating. He roundly informed Lannoy that the Duke of Burgundy had insulted King Henry. Not once during Henry’s long stay in France had he received a visit from the duke. Lannoy countered that it was not surprising given English ill will towards his master: he had heard Burgundians spoken of harshly on all sides and even threatened by the Londoners, but he was sure that if King Henry were to visit France again, Duke Philip would make him welcome.

On the day before he left England, Lannoy visited the Duke of Bedford and Duchess Jacquetta. Beford said he was sorry that the Duke of Burgundy had such a bad opinion of him. For his part he did not hate the duke, far from it. He knew that the coldness between them was prejudicial to King Henry and to the good of the country. He would continue to act, as he always had, in King Henry’s interests, but this did not preclude the interests of the Duke of Burgundy, and he hoped, God willing, that they might become friends again at some future date. 

Bedford humbled his pride by sending this message. Only the necessity retaining Burgundy as an ally and not as an enemy would have forced even this much out of him. Bedford had gone to St Omer after the conference at Calais to meet Burgundy as arranged, but despite Cardinal Beaufort’s persuasions, Burgundy had refused to visit to Bedford and Bedford in turn, as ‘a son and brother of a king’ had refused to go to the Duke of Burgundy’s lodgings (1, 2).

 Lannoy wrote his report at Lille on 17 July. He included a rumour of the possibility of a marriage between King Henry and a daughter of Charles VII to obtain peace, but that no steps had been taken and it was unlikely to proceed. His overall impression was that the Duke of Bedford and the Council, while deploring Burgundy’s close contacts with Charles VII, whom they still referred to as ‘the Dauphin,’ wanted to retain the Anglo-Burgundian alliance and had no intention of making a separate treaty which would exclude Burgundy (3).

(1) Wavrin IV, pp. 38-39 (Bedford and Burgundy).

(2) Monstrelet I, p. 615 (Bedford and Burgundy).

(3) L&P II ii, pp. 218-248 (Lannoy’s report is in three parts: arrival in England, pp. 222-230; interview with the Duke of Orleans, pp. 230-238 (see below); and incidents in London during his stay, pp. 238-248).

The Council’s Reply

As promised, the Council wrote a long reply in King Henry’s name dealing with the points raised by Lannoy, beginning with a recapitulation of the Council’s willingness during the past two years to negotiate with the French for peace or at least a truce and the refusal of ‘the Dauphin’ to consider reasonable terms. 

The Duke of Burgundy’s accusation that King Henry had not done enough either for peace or in war was untrue. It was the Dauphin’s fault that a truce had not been signed. His envoys had demanded that the captive French magnates must be brought to France and the Council had brought them to Dover and offered safe conducts for French representatives to cross from Calais to Dover, but the French had failed to come to Calais. Their subsequent offer of a four-month truce had rightly been rejected. Only a truce for at a least a year and preferably longer, would give time for a lasting peace to be negotiated.

King Henry appreciated Burgundy’s offer to continue the war in person and to make a financial contribution in so far as he could, but only if King Henry and the Council agreed to raise an army large enough to be deployed in various places (undoubtedly in Burgundian territory). Burgundy had also requested 400 men, to be paid for by the English, to join John of Luxembourg in Picardy. (This is not mentioned in Lannoy’s report). King Henry’s letter pointed out that English were already maintaining three armies in the field, one of them in Burgundian territory. 

The letter ends on a cautionary and possibly threatening note. King Henry was conscious of the poverty and misery in France because of the war; he acknowledged the expense Burgundy had incurred in the fighting, but with God’s help, Henry would right these wrongs in person as soon as he was old enough. He would remember who had served him well, and who had not, and he would not forget those who had rendered him the greatest service. Henry, as King of France, accepted Burgundy as his loyal subject; he would never believe any report that said otherwise, since he knew that Burgundy ‘would distain to do a thing which was unloyal and dishonourable, and such as a loyal and honourable prince ought not to do’ (1).

(1) L&P II, ii, pp. 249-262 (‘King Henry’s’ reply to Lannoy’s articles).

Charles, Duke of Orleans

After his return from Guildford and the meeting with King Henry, Lannoy paid a visit to the Earl of Suffolk where he found, as expected, the Duke of Orleans.

Charles, Duke of Orleans had been transferred from the custody of Sir John Cornwall, Lord Fanhope, to that of the Earl of Suffolk in July 1432. In March 1433 the Council ordered payment to Fanhope of £40 still due to him for the expense of keeping Orleans (1).  In November the Council authorized payment to Suffolk for custody of Orleans from 29 August 1432 at the rate of 14s 4d a day (2, 3).

Suffolk complacently allowed a meeting and Orleans naturally inquired after the health of his ‘cousin’ the Duke of Burgundy (4). Lannoy replied that the duke was even more desirous of learning how Orleans was faring. Orleans said he was in good health physically but distressed and depressed by his long years in captivity. Lannoy at once suggested that these years would not have been wasted if Orleans, with his extensive knowledge of each, might become the mediator between the King of England and the King of France.

Orleans replied that he had offered time and again to take on such a role, as his good ‘cousin’ the Earl of Suffolk could confirm.  But, he said, ‘I am like a sword in a sheaf.’ He could not act as a mediator, or in any other role, until he was set free and allowed to return to France to take council with his friends. Orleans claimed that he had influence with many French lords who would act on his advice, and he knew he could count on the Dukes of Burgundy and Brittany to join him in his efforts to bring about peace – if he were freed.

Charles of Orleans was a poet, and he had turn for the dramatic: he declared that if he could be the means of restoring peace, he would willingly suffer death. The rest of the exchange proceeded more prosaically along approved diplomatic and propaganda lines: Lannoy piously affirmed that the Duke of Burgundy ardently desired peace to relieve the suffering of the people of France who had been ruined by the war. Suffolk sententiously confirmed that he knew Burgundy was ‘well disposed towards peace.’ Orleans came in on cue: neither he nor Burgundy was the cause of ‘the evils which have come to the kingdom of France.’

Orleans reiterated that he was more likely than any man alive to achieve peace, which meant more to him than his freedom, if only King Henry would make use of his services. Orleans wished to say more, if only he could, but it was a step too far for Suffolk, who hastily reminded Orleans that King Henry had issued safe conducts for Orleans’s people to visit him freely and brought the interview to a close. Orleans urged Lannoy to visit him a second time and Suffolk agreed that this might be arranged, but Lannoy knew that meetings between himself and Orleans were not approved by the Council.

Two days later Orleans attempted to set up a clandestine correspondence with Burgundy through the Treasurer of the Boulennois. He sent Jean Cauvel, one of Orleans guards, described as Suffolk’s barber, to the Burgundians. Cauvel informed Lannoy that he had won Orleans’s trust because he spoke excellent French. Cauvel claimed that as a native of Lille he was a loyal Burgundian who would never betray the Duke of Burgundy, and he offered to carry letters secretly between Orleans and Burgundy. 

Cauvel assured Lannoy, in case the Duke of Burgundy had heard that Orleans hated him and wished to wage war on him (because of the old feud between their two houses?) that this was not true. He had heard Orleans say that he loved Burgundy more than any other French lord. Lannoy thanked Cauvel and told him to tell Orleans that he could rest assured that Burgundy would do all he could for him.

Orleans asked permission to write to Burgundy through Lannoy, but Suffolk sent Cauvel to inform Lannoy that Orleans could not be allowed direct communication with him. Was this true? Orleans had been in touch with his friends in France for many years. What was to stop them forwarding a letter from Orleans to the Duke of Burgundy?

How much of the rest of Lannoy’s report on who said what on the question of Orleans release is open to question. He claimed that Suffolk had high hopes of peace though the agency of Orleans, especially now that Camail, Orleans’s herald, and a delegation including one of King Charles’s secretaries, had been granted safe conducts to come to England.  Suffolk had assured Lannoy that the Duke of Burgundy would of course, be informed before any final decisions on peace or war were taken. One wonders if Suffolk was acting on his own initiative or if he was being used as a spokesman for more influential members of the Council to reassure the Duke of Burgundy.   

Lannoy also reported that on his return to Calais he met Jehan de Sauevse who had recently visited the French court. Sauevse told him of the general consensus that peace was possible, but only if the English released the Duke of Orleans and King Henry renounced his claim to the French crown – in that order. It was what the Duke of Burgundy wished to hear.

Lannoy knew that Burgundy wanted Orleans released for reasons of his own that had nothing to do with altruism. Orleans free and back in France might distract King Charles’s attention from the French war of attrition against Burgundy, especially if Orleans kept his promise to agitate for peace.  

Charles, as Duke of Orleans, was the next heir to the French throne after the Dauphin Louis. He was potentially the most powerful magnate in France. Philip of Burgundy was aware of this: a combination of the Dukes of Orleans and Burgundy could undermine King Charles’s ambition to unite the whole of France and bring his unruly magnates under his jurisdiction. And this is precisely what they attempted to do when Orleans was finally set free in 1440.  

King Charles paid lip service to the movement to free Orleans, it would tarnish his image not to, but did Burgundy, or Orleans, understand that the demand for the latter’s freedom was a stick that Charles used to beat the English with and thus defer a peace settlement?  Charles did not want peace except on his terms, and he did not want Orleans back in France.

(1) PPC IV, p. 156 (Orleans’s keep).

(2) PPC IV p. 182 (Orleans’s keep).

(3) Foedera X, p. 564 (Orleans’s keep).

(4) L&P II, pp. 230-238 (Lannoy’s report on Orleans).

 

Orleans’s Proposal

Orleans had been bitterly disappointed when he was allowed to go Dover to take part in the peace discussions, only to be returned to captivity when Charles VII failed to send representatives to Calais. There are indications in Lannoy’s report that after eighteen years Orleans was growing impatient with King Charles for failing to obtain his release and was planning to take matters into his own hands.

Orleans saw an opportunity in the division of the Minority Council over the question of peace or war. Lannoy’s visit encouraged him to put a proposal to King Henry. In August 1433 he submitted a long, involved, and repetitive text couched in legal language which he claimed was his own, not influenced by anyone else (2). The key to its interest for the Minority Council lay in the second paragraph: Orleans reneged on his earlier refusals to accept the Treaty of Troyes and he addressed Henry VI as ‘King of France and England.’

He adjured Henry to issue safe conducts for a peace conference to convene either at Calais or in Normandy on 15 October, just two months away. Orleans claimed he had been in touch with his friends in France, whom he named, and they had promised him they would attend, although somewhere in Normandy would be preferable to Calais.

Orleans named Yolande, Duchess of Anjou, and her younger son Charles; John, Duke of Brittany, and his brothers Arthur de Richemont and Richard of Étampes; the Duke of Alençon; Jean, Count of Armagnac and his brother Bernard, Count of Pardiac; Jean, Count of Foix; the Count of Clermont; the Archbishop of Rheims (or of Embrun), and the Bishop of ‘Belira’ (Béziers ?) as his supporters. He had promised to communicate with them as soon as a time and place for a conference had been fixed by the English Council.

Orleans was completely out of touch with the French court. He received regular information from France through his servants who were permitted to come to England, but they may well have told him only what he wanted to hear. The recipients of his pleas probably expressed their hope that he would be released and endorsed his suggestion of a peace conference to that end, but, with the possible exception of the Bretons, Orleans’s ‘supporters’ formed what might be called the war party at the French court:

Yolande was King Charles’s mother-in-law; she consistently urged Charles to fight the English and had given him all the support she could. Her son, Charles of Anjou, was one of King Charles’s favourites. The Duke of Alençon had fought alongside Joan of Arc as one of her chief supporters. Charles of Clermont, the Duke of Bourbon’s son, who had been defeated at the Battle of the Herrings, was loyal to King Charles despite the possibility of his father’s release if he agreed to swear allegiance to Henry VI.

In outlining his terms Orleans entered fantasy land: ‘The Dauphin’ would be offered a settlement, provision notable et honnête of lands and lordships in France (unspecified).   At the same time ‘King Charles’s’ subjects would retain their liberty and ownership of their lands or be compensated with an equivalent grant.

A general peace would be signed, and Orleans magnanimously offered to return to England and remain there for a year until peace was established; after that he would be set free without paying his ransom.

If a general peace could not be concluded at the meeting in Calais, Orleans would persuade the French nobles to support him and imitate his action in recognising Henry as King of France, and the English would be permitted to take over the government of France until peace could be imposed. Even some men who were not French, such as the Dukes of Milan and Savoy, would join Orleans’s alliance.

 Orleans would pay homage to Henry VI and his heirs as the true King of France and England and swear to serve him until the conquest was complete.  He engaged to persuade the Duke of Alençon, the Counts of Armagnac and Pardiac and his own brother the Count of Angoulême, still a prisoner in England, ‘and all his other friends’ to follow his example.

As a gesture of good faith, he would turn over his lordships of Blois, Orleans, and Chateaudun, with some of his smaller estates to King Henry, and order his subjects to recognise Henry as their king. Anyone who refused would be severely punished. His influence was such that once he was in France, he could secure the submission of the great port of La Rochelle and of Mont Saint Michel, which the English had never been able to capture, as well as towns loyal to King Charles: Limoges, Saintes, Bourges, Chinon, Poitiers, Tournani, Tours, Béziers and Loches, which the English had no hope of capturing. 

As soon as some part of these enticing promises had been met, Orleans would be allowed to leave England, and when they had all been met, he would be free to go without paying his ransom (1, 2).

It is surprising that the English Council appeared to take his farrago of nonsense seriously. Did Orleans or the Earl of Suffolk, whom the Duke of Bedford had just appointed steward of the royal household, replacing Gloucester’s choice of Sir Robert Babthorp, persuade them that Orleans could bring the French to the negotiating table?

The safe conducts had to be authorized by the Duke of Bedford, since their recipients would travel through Lancastrian France: Dunois, Bastard of Orleans, was included with those Orleans had named, plus two additional bishops, four war captains, including La Hire and Xaintrailles, the Abbot of Blois, and fifteen others, most of them Orleans’s servants (3). On 7 October Nicholas Ansell a king’s messenger, delivered thirty-four safe conducts to the Earl of Suffolk ‘for the Queen of Sicily and other persons coming with her from France to the king’s town of Calais.,’ He was paid 6s 4d (4).   

King Henry’s letter issuing safe conducts does not name the English representatives he would send to Calais but refers to ‘certain lords of our blood and lineage and other notable persons, bishops and lords,’ the implication being that Bedford, Gloucester or Cardinal Beaufort might accompany Orleans to Calais. If this was designed to entice the French magnates, it failed.

A letter in King Henry’s name was also sent to inform the Duke of Burgundy, not of what Orleans was offering, but merely that Orleans had suggested a conference between French and English representatives to meet at Calais in October. It was hoped that Burgundy would attend in person or send representatives. Burgundy was sceptical; he instructed Quentin Menart, Provost of Saint Omer, to investigate. Menart             approached William Oldhall, Bedford’s deputy in Calais, and Oldhall informed him that by the end of October no one had come to Calais. He had questioned one of Orleans’s servants who was on his way to England carrying letters to King Henry and the Duke of Bedford to explain why the meeting had not taken place, but all the man could tell him was that the meeting was postponed, possibly to Christmas, because the French objected to Calais as the venue.  Oldhall himself was going to England and would try to learn more details (5).

How seriously was Orleans proposal taken in France or in England?  Was it a charade or a farce?  Or was it welcomed as a delaying tactic by Bedford and by Charles VII (who is rarely mentioned) while war measures were vigorously pursed? Without King Charles’s permission none of Orleans’s ‘friends’ would have come to Calais or anywhere else. Orleans’s grand plan fizzled out and he remained in England for another seven years.

At the end of 1433 the Council issued safe conducts for two servants of Dunois, Orleans’s half-brother, ‘coming to England for the ransom of the Earl of Suffolk’ (6). Suffolk was now Steward of England, but he had been Dunois’s prisoner. Did Dunois suspect that Suffolk had not lived up to his promise to do all he could to obtain Orleans’s relief in return for a reduction of his ransom?  

(1) Foedera X, pp. 556-561 (Orleans’s proposal).

(2) Beaucourt, Charles VII, vol. II, p. 463 (Orleans proposal).

(3) Foedera X, pp. 561-563 (Henry VI’s safe conducts).

(4) Issues of the Exchequer, pp. 422-423 (safe conducts delivered to Suffolk).

(5) Plancher, Histoire de Bourgogne IV, cxxiv-cxxxvi (Henry VI’s letter to Burgundy; Oldhall to Menart and Menart to Burgundy).

(6) Foedera X, p. 566 (Dunois’s servants to England).

The Duke of Bedford in England

There was little enthusiasm in Parliament for Bedford’s war policy. The Commons would much prefer him to stay and continue to direct the government.  On 24 November they petitioned the king to persuade him to remain in England where his presence was sorely needed. He alone could maintain law and order and supress faction, in council and out of it (1). This ringing endorsement tempted Bedford to consider governing both countries simultaneously; it was, after all, what Henry V had planned to do.

On 18 December the day Parliament was dissolved, Bedford demanded and received from Parliament powers which gave him the regency in all but name. He was to be consulted on all conciliar appointments and no councillors could be dismissed without his consent. Parliament was not to be summoned until he had been informed, wherever he might be, so that he could arrange to attend it. All major appointments to offices, including bishoprics, were to be referred to him. The undertaking Bedford had given in 1427 to recognise the supremacy of the Council in government would be negated, and Gloucester’s position as ‘chief councillor’ would be seriously undermined.

See Year 1427 The Duke of Bedford and the Council for Bedford’s acceptance of councilliar authority.

On a more humane note, all old servants of the House of Lancaster, dating back to John of Gaunt, Henry IV, Henry V, and the present king were to be rewarded for their (often unpaid) services by grants of offices or corrodies commensurate with their rank, whenever such became available (2).

Bedford may have seriously considered continuing to govern England, but he did not lose sight of his real objective, the war in France. He kept in constant touch with his Chancellor, Louis of Luxembourg. Dennis Longchamp, a pursuivant, carried letters from Louis to Bedford and returned to France with Bedford’s replies. Longchamp was granted 5 marks by the council for his journeys (3).

On 16 December elaborate arrangements were made to transfer 8,000 marks, which ‘the king had promised to pay in all haste’ to Louis of Luxembourg in Rouen, despite Lord Cromwell’s stop on the Exchequer.

Of the 8,000 marks (£5,322 13s 4d) 3,700 were to come from the English Exchequer.  The larger sum, of 4,300 marks, was to be met by bills of exchange on the Exchequer in Rouen, through Richard Leyland, treasurer of Bedford’s household (3,000 marks), Giles Ferrers, the duke’s secretary (800 marks) and John Rinel, the king’s secretary, serving Bedford in Rouen (500 marks) (4, 5).

Rinel was paid 25 marks for the exchange of the 500 marks sent through him to Louis of Luxembourg, as King Henry had promised (6). At the beginning of February 1434 Louis of Luxembourg in Paris, acknowledged receipt of the 8,400 nobles assigned to him and issued a quittance to the Treasurer, Lord Cromwell (7).  

It was nowhere near enough for the campaign Bedford had in mind, but like the parliamentary grant, it was all Bedford could obtain by the end of 1433. There was to be a Great Council meeting early in 1434 for further discussion of the war. Lord Hungerford and William Grey, Bishop of Lincoln, who had attended Bedford’s Great Council in Calais and William Alnwick, Bishop of Norwich, King Henry’s confessor, received a special summons to be at Westminster by Easter 1434, presumably to support Bedford’s plans for the future (8).

Parliament was dissolved on 18 December, and as a further economy measure, King Henry was packed off to stay as a guest with the Abbot and monks of Bury St Edmunds from Christmas 1433 to Easter 1434 (9). Was it during this prolonged stay that he developed habits of extreme piety?

(1) PROME XI, pp. 83-84 (petition for Bedford to remain in England).

(2) PROME XI, pp. 85-87 (Bedford’s conditions).

 (3) PPC IV, p. 182 (Longchamp).

(4) PPC IV, p.188 (8,000 marks to Louis of Luxembourg).

(5) Foedera X, p. 565 (8,000 marks to Louis of Luxembourg).

(6) PPC IV, p. 187 (payment to Rinel).

(7) Foedera X, p.  568 (Luxembourg’s quittance for 8,000 nobles).

(8) PPC IV, p. 188 (summons to Westminster for 1434).

(9) Wolffe, Henry VI, pp. 74-75 (King Henry at Bury St Edmunds).

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