King Henry VI (1422-1461) was the third and last Lancastrian king of England. There is no systematic, chronological analysis of the sources for Henry’s reign. Four of the principal sources, the Proceedings of the Privy Council, the Foedera, the chronicles covering Henry’s reign, and Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Wars of the English in France are brought together here with references to other authorities, primary and secondary. King Henry’s regnal year dates from 1 September to 31 August.

See Introduction.

Money

A pound sterling (£) was worth twenty shillings.  A shilling (s) was worth 12 pence (d). A mark was the most common money of account in England. It was worth 13s 4d or two thirds of a pound sterling. The livre tournois was the most common money of account in France. Nine livres tournois equalled approximately £1.

Contents

Weather and Food. Pestilence

Living conditions for most people in England and in France were bad throughout 1434 and into 1435. The winters were harsh, rainfall was abnormally high, ruining the crops, and there was widespread pestilence among people and animals.

King Henry

King Henry would be thirteen at the end of 1434. He was beginning to take an interest in government, but the Minority Council rejected the suggestion that he was old enough to have a role to play.

Queen Katherine

Wine and other supplies for the queen’s household to be purchased in Normandy and shipped to England.

The Duke of Bedford and the Duke of Gloucester

The Duke of Bedford summoned a Great Council. The Duke of Gloucester proposed to lead a large army into France at a prohibitive cost. This was rejected by the council.

The Duke of Bedford’s Proposals

The Duke of Bedford considered the Council’s request to remain in England. His proposals to continue the war in France were provisionally accepted by the Council. The enmity between the two royal brothers remained despite King Henry’s order for them to reconcile.

The Duke of Bedford and the Duchy of Gascony

The Duke of Bedford requested grants of lands in Gascony. The Council was obliged to refuse.

The Duke of Bedford’s return to France

The Duke of Bedford returned to France in July and summoned the Estates of Normandy. Lawlessness was a serious problem.  Richard Venables.

Council Proceedings

Law and Order

Judges: William Goodrede. Gaol Keepers: Thomas Clarence.  Lancashire disturbances. Sir William Bishopton.

Royal Household

John Tyrell. John Hampton. Sir Philip Courtenay. 

Crown Finance

Writs of liberate. The Earl of Stafford.

Grants

Sir Thomas Stanley and Ireland. Sir John Radcliffe. Wiliam Fynsborgh. Paul, Count of Valacles. Lord Desgerville (?). John of Luxembourg. Henry Grey.

Cardinal Beaufort’s Loans

The crown was heavily in debt to Cardinal Henry Beaufort. He demanded security for repayment.

The Magnates

Sir Thomas Rempston. John of Vendôme, vidame of Chartres. Thomas, Lord Clifford.

The Bishops

Thomas Bourchier, Bishop of Worcester. Thomas Brouns, Bishop of Rochester.

Pilgrimages

1434 was a Jubilee Year for the shrine of St James de Compostela. Licenses were issued to a number of ship’s captains to take pilgrims to Spain

Customs Duties, Taxation, and Trade

Imports and Exports Denmark. Foreign merchants. Genoese merchants. English merchants.

Foreign Relations

Scotland

Negotiations with the Scots were acrimonious, with accusations of bad faith being made by both sides.

The Earl of Salisbury

Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, Warden of the West March indented to become became Warden of both Marches for one year, replacing the Earl of Northumberland as Warden of the East March.

The King of Portugal

King Joao died. He was succeeded by King Durate I.

General Council of the Church at Basel

The Council sent a second embassy to the General Council of the Church at Basel.

The War in France

Lord Talbot and the Earl of Arundel recovered some of the towns lost to the French in 1429/1430.

The Duke of Brittany

The Duke of Brittany urged the Council to resume peace negotiations with the French.

The Duke of Orleans

The Council put a proposal to the Duke of Orleans renew his invitation to French magnates to come to Calais for peace negotiations.

The Duke of Bourbon 

John, Duke of Bourbon died in England in January.

The Proceedings record fifty meetings of the Minority Council in 1434. One at the end of January. Thirteen in February, none in March, three in April and four in May while the Great Council was in session and fourteen in June while the Duke of Bedford was preparing to return to France. Five times in the first week of July after the Duke of Bedford left England. Three in October and six in November. No meetings are recorded for August, September or December.

Misdating

The safe conduct in the Foedera dated 18 May but without a year issued to four servants of King James of Sicily is a mystery unless it is seriously misdated or is a misprint for Scotland (1).  King James II of Aragon was also known as King James I of Sicily, but he died in 1327. There was no King James of Sicily in 1434 (1).

A receipt by Gilles de Durmont abbot of Fécamp, was seriously misdated to 3 November 1434 by Stevenson. It is for 150 livres tournois paid to Durmont going on embassy to the Duke of Gloucester.  It is clearly dated lannee cccc xxiiij and belongs to 1424 (2).

See Year 1424: The Duke of Gloucester and Hainault.

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(1) Foedera X p. 588 (King James of Sicily).

(2) L&P ii, pp. 273-274 (Giles de Durmont).

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Weather and Food

The winters in 1433/34 and 1434/35 were harsh.  That of 1434 to 1435 was particularly severe, a ‘great frost’ brought freezing temperatures from the end of November to the middle of February.  An English Chronicle called it the worst winter in living memory.  The Thames froze over so that horses and carts could cross it on the ice.  Imported wine which would normally have been transported upriver had to be brought into London by road from Gravesend over the very steep Shooters Hill near Greenwich.

The chronicles all record ‘the great frost’ and its consequences:

“And the winter was bitter, for God did not lift the frost from the land between the feast of St Katherine and the feast of St Scholastica. Many Londoners crossed over the Thames on the ice.”  Benet’s Chronicle, p.  184

“In the xiij^the  yere of the regne of Kyng Henry the vj^te was the grettest froste that was in many a day before for it began vpon Saynt Kateryn even and lasttit to þe iiij^te day of Marche the space of xvj wekes. And Temmes þat tyme was so sore frosen             that the vintage of Burseux went ouer Shoters Hill: for þe shippis with wyne might come nonerre then Sandewiche and þat froste þat tyme distroyet oisters, and muskelles and fresshe-water fish through þe moost party of Englond.”    Brut Continuation H, p. 571

“A^o xiij.  In this year was a grete frost that enduryd from seint Katerines day unto seint Valentynes day after wherfore the vyntage myght not come to London but by carte over Shoters hille frome Gravesende, Northflete, Greneheth, and other places both on Kent side and Essex.  A Chronicle of London, J B I, pp. 171-172

“In this same yere began a grete frost that began on Seynt Andrrewys day and duryd vnto seynt Valentyn, and grete snowe with all, that grete multitude of Byrdes and fowlys dyed ffor honger.” Chronicles of London, Cleopatra C IV, p. 137

“And in this yere, and in pe yere of grace M.ccc.xxxiv, þe xxij day of Nouember, the grete and hard frost bygan; and it endured vnto the fest of Candelmasse next, which destroyed þe olde peple, bothe men and women, and also yong children. And also in that same tyme deyed many bay trees, and rosemary, sauge, tyme and many oþer herbes.”  Brut Continuation F, p. 467

“And in this yere was a passing grete winter and a colde frost Which began on seynt kateryns eve and dured into the x^th day of the Moneth of Feverere than next suyng.  It was so stronge that no ship might saile. Wherefore the wynes of the vyntage came by londe to London in Cartes from the downes through Kente and ovyr sheters hille. Which seldom hath be seen or nevyr.  Great Chronicle, pp. 171-172

Weather in Chronicles: English Chronicle, p. 60; Short English Chronicle, p. 61; Chronicle of London (Harley 565) p. 120; Brut Continuation G, p. 503; Annales (pseudo Worcester), p. 761; English Historical Literature (Waltham Annals) pp. 351-352.

Pestilence

There were outbreaks of plague in 1433 and 1434/35, in London and other populous towns. Bad weather and food shortages may have been a contributing factor to the high death rate.

“And in þis same yere was a grete pestilence in London, bothe of men, women and children; and namely of worthy men, as aldermen and oþer worthi communiers; and also thrugh England þe peple deyed sore, bothe pore and riche which was grete hevynesse to all peple.”    Brut Continuation F, p. 467

Brief Notes in Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles (p. 149) records a great frost and a great pestilence.

At the end of October 1434, the Chancellor was directed to issue writs to the justices and law officers that as the king’s sergeants and attorneys had withdrawn from London because of plague the law courts were to be suspended from November 1434 to January 1435, and the sheriffs were to retain custody of all returnable writs during this period (1).

(1) PPC IV, pp. 282-283 (law courts closure).

King Henry

King Henry was growing up. He would be thirteen on 6 December 1434.

On 1 July the Council authorised the Earl of Warwick, as the king’s governor, and the Earl of Suffolk as steward of the household, to ‘remove’ the king ‘for an evident cause or other necessity’ (1). Since Warwick had been granted authority in 1428 to move the royal household whenever and wherever he saw fit if there was a threat of plague or pestilence, or for any other reason, this directive appears to be unnecessary. Was the Council concerned, as the Earl of Warwick had been in 1432, that it was too easy to gain unauthorized access to the king?

See Year 1432: King Henry and the Earl of Warwick.

Henry moved to the royal palace at Kenilworth for the summer and remained in the West Country throughout the winter of 1434-1435.

“And in 1434, about the Feast of St John the Baptist, [24 June] the king went to Kenilworth, and stayed in the west of England until Easter [17 April 1435]” Benet’s Chronicle, p. 184

Henry was in residence at St Mary’s Abbey, Cirencester in Gloucestershire as the guest of Abbot William Wotton on 12 November where he received an unexpected visit from his council with one notable omission, the Duke of Gloucester. Cardinal Beaufort, Archbishop Chichele, Archbishop Kemp, the dukes of York and Norfolk, four other bishops, the Earl of Warwick, the Earl of Suffolk and William Phelip Henry’s chamberlain who were presumably with Henry in Cirencester, the earls of Stafford and Northumberland (but not Huntingdon). Lords Beaumont, Wells, Hungerford and Tiptoft, and Treasurer Cromwell. They presented Henry with a remonstrance signed by them collectively:

William Lyndwood, Keeper of the Privy Seal, produced the document and Chancellor Stafford read it to the king: it had come to the Council’s attention that Henry was being encouraged to take a more active part in government and possibly to change the membership of the council, and that this dangerous advice might be repeated. They acknowledged that Henry was as intelligent and well informed as any prince of his age could be, but he was not sufficiently mature or experienced in government to make decisions in matters of state, ‘matters of great weight and difficulty.’

They declared that while they would never accroach on the royal prerogative or the freedom and power of the king, they respectfully requested that Henry should not listen to any advice given to him without the Council’s knowledge. They had governed the country faithfully on his behalf since he came to the throne, and he should trust them to continue to do so. He should not consider taking any action whatsoever without first consulting them (2, 3).

The delegation remained in Cirencester for four days (4). According to the council’s minutes King Henry, probably overawed by their sheer numbers, accepted the rebuke. That the Council sought the endorsement of the Dukes of York and Norfolk who were not members of the Council, indicates that they were seriously concerned by the possibility of interference in the future government of the realm.

They undoubtedly believed that the culprit attempting to influence the king was the Duke of Gloucester. The Duke of Bedford had returned to France, there would be no one to check Gloucester’s ambitions if he gained influence over the young king. But Henry himself may have thought that he was old enough to be allowed some say in government. He had taken an active part in the Great Council in May and had been used by the Council to silence the Duke of Bedford and the Duke of Gloucester at that time.

See The Duke of Bedford and the Duke of Gloucester below.

The king’s advisors were protecting their own interests, and the young king’s natural inclination was sacrificed in the name of good government. Henry’s compliant nature made him accept what his father at the age of thirteen would not have tolerated, and it set an unfortunate precedent for the future.

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(1) PPC IV, p. 261 (Warwick authorised to ‘remove’ the king).

(2) PPC IV, pp. 287-289 (Council’s rebuke to King Henry).

(3) Rot. Par.l V, p. 438 (Council’s rebuke to King Henry).

(4) Wolffe, Henry VI, pp. 79-80

NB: PPC IV, p 159. The first item in an obscure undated memorandum assigned by Nicolas to 1433 may belong here:

‘First my said Lord [the Chancellor?] shal mowe shewe unto þe Kyng þe devoirs [and] diligences his said Counsail hath doon þis tme.”

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Queen Katherine

King Henry’s mother, the Dowager Queen Katherine maintained her own household from her dower lands. These included estates in Normandy granted to her by Henry V.

Jehan le Sac was her receiver general in Normandy.  A letter from Katherine to Le Sac in Letters and Papers dated by Stevenson to February 1435 probably belongs in 1434. It is from Hertford Castle, dated 20 February 1434 (old style), which fits with Katherine’s other instructions for this year.

Le Sac was to pay £26 to a Paris goldsmith, Jehan Chienart, for a pair of silver flagons which the queen had ordered from Chienart ‘together with our other affairs,’ ‘that is to say 3 nobles for each pound of the said money [ 3 nobles = £1] the noble at the rate of 64 écus.’

Le Sac was to obtain and send by Ralph Waller, marshal of the queen’s hall, ‘six pounds of sugared red wax.’ Her letter is Le Sac’s authority for the purchase (1).

In May Le Sac travelled from his home in Vernon to Rouen to request the ubiquitous Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Lisieux, Katherine’s chancellor, to provide him with money from the queen’s Norman estates on the queen’s orders (2).

In October, writing from Hertford Castle, Katherine sent her butler (wine keeper) John Newburgh, to Le Sac with instructions to purchase wine and other necessities for her household: 60 pipes of red wine and 6 puncheons of white wine of good quality; he was to select them himself, and to despatch them promptly.

Le Sac was to give Newburgh enough money to cover the cost of shipping the wine, and for his costs and expenses, at Le Sac’s discretion. A certificate of what Le Sac paid the wine merchants, and the financial arrangements between him and Newburgh, was to be presented in his accounts to her auditors (3).

The wine was to be shipped to England in a safe vessel, accompanied by Newburgh, but he has no experience of how to manage such a transaction or how to provide for conveyance of the wines from Rouen to Harfleur. Le Sac was to appoint a trustworthy guard to accompany Newburgh to Harfleur and approach the captains of ships sailing in convey to allow Newburgh’s ship to join their company for safety.

William Gedney, Katherine’s secretary, informed her that Le Sac had to borrow money to meet the cost of the wines she had ordered.  In December Katherine sent her retainer Fulk Eyton to Le Sac instructing him to deliver £30 to Eyton to make certain purchases on her behalf and to send them to her as soon as possible. It appears that Eyton was to settle a debt, either for the wine or for other purchases, ‘so that as that the said things should [be] in no way retarded by default of payment.’ Was the queen worried that the wine might fail to arrive in time for Christmas? (4).

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(1) L&P II, pp. 275-276 (dated by Stevenson to 1435).

(2) L&P II, pp. 265-266 (Jehan le Sac receiver general).

(3) L&P II, pp. 270-273 (instructions to buy and ship wine).

(4) L&P II, pp. 263-264 (This letter is without a year. Stevenson dated it to December 1433, but it makes more sense if the date is 1434).

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John, Duke of Bedford, Regent of France

The Duke of Bedford and the Duke of Gloucester

Parliament had granted the Duke of Bedford virtually unlimited powers in December 1433 to persuade him to remain in England.

See Year 1433: The Duke of Bedford in England.

Bedford summoned a Great Council to convene at Westminster on 24 April 1434 (1).  It was attended by Cardinal Beaufort, the Duke of York, Archbishops Chichele and Kemp, eight bishops, six earls, ten barons, and thirty-eight knights and squires, some of whom were members of the Commons. He would need their compliance if he was to raise an army for France. The Commons, while commending Bedford, had declined to vote taxes for the war.  Bedford hoped that some of those attending the council would be prepared to support his war effort with men and money from their own pockets, much as they had for Henry V.

The Duke of Gloucester came to council in a belligerent mood. If Bedford remained in England Gloucester’s status would be reduced to that of one councillor among many, and he had no intention of allowing his brother to upstage him. On 26 April, he submitted a memorandum criticising the conduct of the war and offering his own solution: he would lead a large army into France, win a decisive victory, and bring the war to an end by forcing ‘the adversary’ to make peace; no further war taxes would be needed.

Gloucester did not doubt his military abilities, or that he could do what he offered, provided the Council furnished him with enough men and money. The Council was not so sure. Gloucester had very little military experience. He had done well in Normandy under Henry V’s watchful eye, but the king still had to rescue him at Agincourt. And if Gloucester had not actually run away in Hainault in 1424/25, he had certainly avoided giving battle. Sinc then he had not set foot outside England.

See Year 1424: The Duke of Gloucester and Hainault.

One can imagine the men assembled at Westminster listening to Gloucester in appalled silence. Not only was he criticising the Duke of Bedford, to whom they had entrusted with the government of the country, he was demanding to be given between £48,000 and £50,000 for his venture.

Gloucester was always sublimely indifferent to the cost of his schemes. He expected the crown to finance whatever he proposed. The sheer impossibility of the Council being able to raise such an enormous sum for one expedition bothered him not one whit.

Harriss’s argument that Gloucester proposed to raise the money by having Cardinal Beaufort prosecuted under the law prohibiting the export of bullion, and impounding Beaufort’s wealth, as he had tried to do in 1432, is problematic (4). There is no evidence that Gloucester contemplated this in 1434. Gloucester’s reference to it in 1440, when he was again at loggerheads with Beaufort, was to what he believed should have been done in 1432, i.e., retain the treasure, not to what he believed could be done in 1434.

See Year 1432: Cardinal Beaufort’s Treasure.

Gloucester requested to have his memorandum exemplified under the Great Seal, and the Council agreed, but after ten days of deliberation they firmly rejected Gloucester’s offer.  Gloucester had claimed that the people would welcome his proposal because his victory would end the war and the need for taxation. Concerned that they might be blamed in public opinion for refusing to accept a plan which promised such a desirable outcome, the Council insisted on recording their reasons in the council minutes.

They did not deny that Gloucester’s proposal, had it been possible, would be of great benefit to the country; after all the Duke of Bedford had suggested, probably to persuade Parliament to vote a tax, that military success in France could reduce taxes.

The Council averred that if Gloucester, or anyone else, could suggest how £50,000 could be raised when Parliament had refused to vote additional taxes and the attempt to raise loans for the king on the security of crown jewels had failed dismally, they would gladly consider it. They opined that the Chancellor should ask Gloucester if he thought Parliament should be called to vote on his offer. The Chancellor also wanted to know if the question should be referred to the king.

The Council’s response was read out 7 May in King Henry’s presence. The Chancellor asked the knights and squires representing their localities if they wished the king to summon Parliament and they replied that they did, provided the Lords on the Council agreed.

The Duke of Bedford was outraged by Gloucester’s memorandum. He demanded to be given a copy of it and time to study it. On 8 May he put his answer in writing, ‘for the salvation of his honour and estate.’  The Council’s minutes do not record what he said, but a month later at a meeting of the regular council, he recapitulated his defence.

In the years following King Henry V’s death, he, as Regent of France, and other loyal servants of the crown, had continued the late king’s great work: they had conquered large parts of France, which he enumerated with pardonable exaggeration. Bedford appealed to English pride and patriotism. It would be a lasting disgrace to surrender France after the glorious efforts of Henry V and others with him, many of whom had lost their lives or been wounded in the king’s service. As Henry V’s and Henry VI’s nearest relative. and heir to the throne, this touched him deeply. He would continue, as he had throughout his life, to serve his nephew as he had served his brother, until King Henry came of age.

Bedford claimed that after Thomas Montagu, Earl of Salisbury was killed at the siege of Orleans in 1428 English soldiers lost heart; their courage had been undermined by defeat, and by the arrival of Joan of Arc ‘the leman of the fiend called La Pucelle’ who employed ‘false enchantments and sorcery’ to achieve her victories. He would not have it said that the losses had been due to his negligence; he had fought in person, but his resources had been stretched too thin by lack of support from England.

The war had gone well until Salisbury laid siege to the city of Orleans, ‘taken in hand God knoweth by what avys.’  Bedford had never favoured this campaign; he had wanted to invade the Duchy of Anjou. He reminded the Council that the purpose and destination of Salisbury’s army had been discussed and agreed to by the Council without his knowledge before Salisbury left England. Bedford’s reference to ‘by what advice’ may have been aimed at Gloucester.

See Year 1428: The Earl of Salisbury’s Army.

Bedford said that the people under his rule in France were loyal to King Henry and to him, but that the impoverishment of the countryside through continual warfare, especially around Paris, had made them desperate. French depredations meant that the Parisians dared not till their fields or pursue trade. Only succour in the shape of men and money from England to protect them and keep them safe to go about their business could retrieve the situation and retain their loyalty.  It was for this reason that he had called a meeting in Calais with his brother and other councillors in 1433, and why he had come to England to put his case to Parliament; but sadly, they had failed to support him (3).

Gloucester asserted that Bedford’s statement impugned his honour, and he demanded the right of reply. A public quarrel between the royal brothers would benefit no one and the spectacle of his uncles reviling each other across the council table may have distressed the young king, Henry, possibly advised by Cardinal Beaufort, whom he had been taught to trust during his stay in France, put an end to the argument. With considerable aplomb he ordered Bedford and Gloucester to surrender their memoranda into his hands and he declared them null and void. Nothing more was to be said or written by either. In his judgement their honour had not been called into question, and he held them both in equal esteem as his affectionate and faithful uncles. Optimistically he required them to reconcile their differences. The Council hastily confirmed the king’s judgement (4).

Cardinal Beaufort then stepped into the fray. To ease the tension, he offered a loan of 10,000 marks for the war in France. King Henry thanked him personally and promised that the £6,000 Beaufort had pledged in 1432 to recover his jewels impounded by the Duke of Gloucester would be repaid (5).

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(1) PPC IV, pp. 212-213 (Great Council and names of those attending).

(2) Harriss, Beaufort, p. 236 (Beaufort’s treasure).  

(3) PPC IV, pp. 223-226.  (Bedford’s statement).

(4) PPC IV, pp. 213-216 (Henry VI ended the argument).

(5) PPC IV, pp. 238 (Henry VI and Cardinal Beaufort).

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The Duke of Bedford’s Proposals

The Duke of Gloucester’s offer to lead an army into France, implying as it did that the Duke of Bedford was no longer up to the task, completed the breach between the brothers. Bedford made up his mind, at least temporarily, that he could govern England and France simultaneously through councils on each side of the Channel. It would give him control of royal finance and curb whatever ambitions Gloucester still cherished.

Perhaps to test their commitment to him, Bedford asked the Council what salary he might expect as the king’s chief councillor in England. He reminded them that Gloucester had received between 4,000 marks and 8,000 marks annually as Protector and chief councillor. The Council was stunned at what they took to be Bedford’s demand for parity, but Bedford shamed both them and Gloucester. He said he would  accept the reduction to 1,000 marks as he had promised in the previous November.

They thanked him and awarded him £1,000 annually backdated to 18 June 1433, the day of his arrival in England. He would also receive £500 for crossing from England to France and another £500 for crossing from France to England as agreed by Parliament and exemplified under the Great Seal on 12 February 1434 (1).

Bedford then put his proposals on how best to finance the war in France. He had prepared his ground in advance. John Leventhorpe, Keeper of the Records of the Duchy, had been instructed in April to draw up and submit to the Council a register relating to the immunities and privileges of the Duchy of Lancaster (2).

Bedford’s first and most contentious proposal was to divert the income from Duchy of Lancaster lands currently in the hands of King Henry V’s feoffees to pay the late king’s bequests under his will. It would fund a permanent army for France and a yearly recruitment of 200 men-at-arms and the appropriate ratio of archers (3).  An uncooperative Parliament would not have to be coaxed to vote additional taxes.

If the Council agreed, Bedford offered a generous contribution of his own: the income from his estates in Normandy for two years would be used to raise a second army of the same size as that raised from Duchy of Lancaster income.

Did Bedford expect Cardinal Beaufort to agree to his scheme?  Loans from duchy income under Beaufort’s control contributed regularly to sustain the armies for France while his large personal loans ensured his position in council. He would not willingly surrender control to Bedford or anyone else.

Cardinal Beaufort and Lord Hungerford on behalf of the other feoffees, asked for a day to consider whether they could in conscience divert Duchy of Lancaster income to the war in France.

Only five of the original sixteen feoffees were still alive: Cardinal Beaufort, Henry Chichele, archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Langley, Bishop of Durham, Lord Hungerford and the duchy official John Leventhorpe.  With Bedford in the debating chamber and making generous offers, it was difficult to refuse him outright. They temporized. If sufficient funds were assigned to them by November 1434 to enable them to meet their obligations under Henry V’s will, and they were quit of any future liability, they would agree to the duchy income being diverted to Normandy. There was very little likelihood that this condition could be met.

An agreement in principle to divert income from the Duchy of Lancaster was signed by some members of the Council but not by Gloucester, Cardinal Beaufort, Henry Chichele, or Lord Hungerford. With the exception of Gloucester, they were all Henry V’s feoffees.

Bedford’s second proposal was to put the garrison at Calais under his direct command. He said that although he had acceded to King Henry’s and Parliament’s request to govern England, it would be necessary to sustain his past services by returning to France from time to time. He would need an army for his own protection and to prosecute the war. The Calais garrison was ready made for the purpose, and if the resources of the Pale of Calais as a whole, with the exception of the Duke of Gloucester as Captain of Guines, were put under his command, he could use the income accruing to the crown from trade and taxes to pay the garrison’s wages and sustain them in the field wherever they might be needed. This would in effect give him a private army, independent of the English Exchequer.

The Council thanked Bedford for his offer to finance a second army. They ordained that Duchy of Lancaster accounts should be searched to establish the income in the hands of the feoffees, and indentures for the command of Calais should be signed between the crown and Bedford. (4).

The Treasurer, Lord Cromwell, should inform the captains and lieutenants of the castles in the Pale of Calais that they were now under Bedford’s command. Cromwell was to negotiate with them (at his own suggestion?) for the lowest rate of pay that they would accept, ‘to bring them to as little a sum as he may,’ for themselves and their retinues, to be paid within two years (5).

As a gesture of their commitment, the Council undertook to send 5,000 marks to Louis of Luxembourg in Rouen, to pay the garrisons in France for the Easter term last past. Richard Caudray, clerk of the council, and Jean Rinel, the king’s secretary would take the money to Normandy. Rinel would receive an additional 26 nobles above what he had been paid previously to escort money to France (6, 7).

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(1) PPC IV, pp. 218-221 (Bedford’s salary and travel costs).

(2) PPC IV, p. 207 (delivery of Duchy of Lancaster records).

(3) PPC IV, pp. 226-229 (Bedford’s proposals).

(4) PPC IV, pp. 230-232 (Council’s reply).

(5) PPC IV, p. 261 (wages of Calais garrisons).

(6) PPC IV, p. 233 (5,000 marks to Louis of Luxembourg; payment to Rinel).

(7) Foedera X, pp. 590-591 (5,000 marks to Louis to Luxemburg; payment to Rinel).

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The Duke of Bedford and the Duchy of Gascony

The Duke of Bedford hoped to recoup some of the loss of income he would sustain by his offer to finance an army from his revenues in Normandy with grants of lands in the Duchy of Gascony. He was singularly ill informed about the status of the lands he had in mind, unless he expected the Council to override previous grants in his favour.

He requested a grant to ‘him and his heirs of the town, barony, and castle of Espar [Lesparre] together with the castles etc. thereto belonging in the Isle (sic) of Medoc in Bordeaux; the castles and lordships of Rozan [Rauzan]  nd Pouios [Pujols] in the seneschally of Baxards [Bazas?]; and the castle, castellany and town of Gensac’ (1).

The revenues from Lesparre, Rauzan and Pujols, valued at 3,000 francs bordeaux annually, had been assigned to Lord Tiptoft in 1426 for debts due to him while he was Seneschal of Gascony under Henry V. Bedford had been in England at the time this grant was made.

See Year 1426: The Duchy of Gascony, John, Lord Tiptoft.

The castles and lordships formerly belonging to Bernard de Lesparre had been granted to the Duke of Gloucester in 1433.

The Médoc lordships of Pons VIII, Lord of Castillon had been placed in Gloucester’s custody after Pons’s death in 1430 until, in 1433, they had been granted to Gloucester and his heirs in full possession.

See Years 1430 and 1433: The Duchy of Gascony, the Duke of Gloucester.

The Lordship of Gensac had been granted only a month earlier, in May 1434, to the Gascon Johan de Lavergne for his and his family’s lifelong services to the crown in the war in Gascony for which he, and they, had receive no payment (2).

Regretfully in Council informed Bedford that lands in Gascony had been acquired by King Henry V at great expense. They did not dare to alienate the king’s inheritance or break his letters patent, and they prayed Bedford to hold them excused. If he wanted any other lands in Gascony which might escheat to the crown or through forfeit or rebellion, they would willingly grant them to him. They added naïvely that when King Henry came of age in 1437, they would advise him to reward Bedford’s eminent services by granting him any lands he requested. It was the only request that the Council ever refused him, albeit apologetically.

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(1) PPC IV, 246-247 (Bedford’s request for lands in Gascony).

(2) gasconrolls.org C61 125 # 86 dated 12 May 1434 (grant to Johan de Lavergne).

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The Duke of Bedford’s Return to France

The Duke of Bedford attended a council meeting in the Star Chamber at Westminster for the last time on 20 June 1434. He reminded the members of the powers bestowed on him by Parliament, with which they had concurred, and required them to swear an oath ‘by the faith of their bodies’ that they would not make any attempt to undermine him in his absence by voting to alter or amend any of them (1).

His presence is noted at a council meeting at Gravesend on 30 June/1 July as he prepared to embark for France. Cardinal Beaufort and the Duke of Gloucester did not attend.

In a gesture of goodwill, or of conciliation on the eve of his departure the Council rewarded three Bedford’s close associates:

Jean de Courcelles was a member of Bedford’s Grand Conseil in Paris. He had served King Charles VI but lost most of his inheritance by remaining loyal to Henry VI and Bedford (7). He may have accompanied Bedford to England, or he may have been sent by the Grand Conseil to urge Bedford to return France. He was awarded 100 marks [£666 13 4d] on 6 July (2, 3, 4).

James Lunayn was one of the king’s secretaries in France. Louis of Luxembourg sent him to England probably to find out when Bedford might be expected to arrive in France (5).  On 30 June, the Council awarded him 20 marks.

John of Luxemburg, Count of Ligny, now his brother-in-law, had served Bedford as a war captain in France throughout the years of the Anglo-Burgundian alliance.

See Year 1430: Joan of Arc Captured at Compiègne

The Council granted him 1,000 marks in July 1434 for his recent services to King Henry in the Marches of Picardy.

The money was to come from the fee for the marriage of Henry Grey, taken from Grey’s lordship of Powis, and from certain obligations still owed to the crown by the late Henry, Lord Scrope. Luxembourg would be paid when the money should come to hand (1).

(1) PPC  IV, pp. 261-262 (payment to John of Luxembourg).

 The Duke of Bedford in Normandy

The Duke and Duchess of Bedford returned to France at the beginning of July 1434 and went straight to Rouen.

“And that same yere the regent cam ow[gh]t of Englond in to ffraunce with vi^c men with him; and so he cam vnto Rooen and put his men into garnisons.”  Chronicles of London, Cleopatra C IV, p. 137

“And in this same yere, in the yere of grace M⁺ ccccxxxiiij^ty, þe viij. Day of Iuyn, Iohn, Duke of Bedford and his lady þe Duchesse went ageyn ouer þe see to Caleys and so into Normandy and Fraunce with a grete nombre of peple in strengthing and mayntenyng of oure Kynges right in Fraunce and Normandy.”   Brut Continuation F, p. 467

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(1) PPC IV, pp. 243-244 (Bedford’s reminder to council).

(2) Rowe, ‘The Grand Conseil, p. 212 (Courcelles).

(3) PPC IV, p, 242 (reward to Courcelles).

(4) Issues of the Exchequer, p. 426 (payment to Courcelles).

(5) PPC IV p. 259 (payment to Lunayn. This is the only reference to him in the Proceedings).

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The Estates of Normandy

Bedford summoned the Estates of Normandy to meet at Vernon on 20 September 1434 (1). Stevenson printed two of the writs issued on 2 September, instructing Clement Bourse, the lieutenant of the bailli of Caux to be present, and to the Vicomte of Arques, who was to arrange for the election of ‘one or two knights or esquires’ as representatives (1).

The Estates proved more amendable, or more generous, than the English parliament: at his urgent request, or threat, they voted 344,000 livres tournois, the largest single sum Bedford had ever demanded, to pay for manning the frontier garrisons and to suppress lawlessness (2, 3).

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(1) L&P II, pp. 266-269 (writs to attend Estates).

(2) Beaurepaire, Les États de Normandie, pp. 46-47 (grant of 344,000 livres).

(3) Allmand, Lancastrian Normandy, p. 177. (Estates of Normandy summoned).

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Richard Venables 

Lawlessness was on the rise throughout the Duchy of Normandy. Lack of pay and Bedford’s absence in England contributed to the ill-discipline among the troops garrisoning Norman towns and added to a sense of insecurity among the understrength garrisons. While wages went unpaid desertion was high. Many of the soldiers became free-booters, foraging and pillaging the lands and people they were there to protect.

One such was Richard Venables who had volunteered for service in France with a contingent of his own. He appears to have been a good soldier, with leadership abilities, for he enticed a large number of men to follow him. They occupied the fortified abbey of Savigny-le-Vieux on the Norman/Breton border and supported themselves by pillaging the countryside for miles around, but they also fought French troops wherever they encountered them (1).

A strict disciplinarian, Bedford had prohibited pillaging. He could not allow Venables to go unpunished. In August, not long after his return to Rouen, he sent Jean de Rinel and other royal officers to Savigny with an armed escort to apprehend Venables. One Thomas Turingham was credited with capturing Venables and was rewarded by Bedford with 1,000 saluts (2).

“and anon aftyr whas Venables taken and brought vnto my lorde the regent; and he was jugged be the duke of bedford that he schulde be hangid, draw and quarteryd and behedid; ffor he made a riseng in the lond of Normandy of the comens ayenst the kyng and the lordys, my lorde being that tyme in parys.”  Cleopatra C IV, p. 137

Venables was a deserter who had incited others to follow his example. He was tried and sentenced to death as a thief and a traitor. He and other free booters like him, undoubtedly contributed to the unrest in Normandy, but he not guilty of massacre (3).

A massacre

At about the same time as Venables was being apprehended, soldiers from the garrisons at Falaise and/or Lisieux, and possibly both, were engaged in pillaging and stealing from the local inhabitants. Some two thousand local men, armed with whatever weapons they could afford, banded together to defend themselves. They attacked the marauding soldiers, who would have been better armed but inferior in numbers and drove them back to the safety of their garrisons, killing some and wounding others.

The citizen army then broke up and the men began to return to their homes, but the soldiers ambushed them and exacted a terrible revenge. Caught unawares in the villages of St Pierre-sur-Dives and Vicques between Falaise and Lisieux some 1200 of them were massacred (3, 4). The Bourgeois of Paris dates the outrage to 2 August 1434. Word of the atrocity was carried to the authorities in Paris.  (4, 5).

“And all this tyme were chorlys of Normandy were wepond, and born harness.”    Chronicles of London, Cleopatra C IV, p. 136

The acidulous chronicler Thomas Basin, writing many years later, is the only chronicler to conflate Richard Venables’s plundering with this massacre, and he put his own anti-English spin on it: the English had encouraged the Normans to arm themselves so that they could be incited to rebel and could then be cut down! (6). Chartier was bemused by the English condemning one of their own when he was known to be fighting the enemy. He attributed it to English envy: Venables had waged war successfully but on his own initiative. As a Frenchman Chartier would have had no sympathy for Venables had he been responsible for the massacre of Norman citizens.

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(1) Chartier, Chronique I, p. 175 and 177

(2) Luce, Chronique de Mont Saint Michel II, pp. 41-42

(3) Barker, Conquest, p. 212 and n. 9 (Basin mistaken).

(4) Monstrelet I, p 632 (does not mention Venables).

(5) Wavrin IV p 50-51 (does not mention Venables).

(6) Basin I, Charles VII, ed. Samaran, pp. 199-203.

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Council Proceedings

Law and Order

William Goodrede became a justice of King’s Bench in1434.  He had served on assorted royal commissions from 1429. He was a justice of the peace for the town of Cambridge in 1429-1430 and for the county of Norfolk in 1430-1431. He was appointed a justice of assize in June 1434, and a justice of King’s Bench during pleasure on 3 July.

In addition to his salary, he was granted 110 marks a year and robes at Christmas and Whitsuntide, in order that he ‘may honourably maintain his estate’ (1, 2).

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(1) PPC IV, p. 265

(2) CPR 1429-1436, pp. 345 and 437

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Gaol Keeping

Thomas Clarence (identified as William Clarence, a groom of the chamber, in the Calendar of the Patent Rolls) was granted the keepership of the gaol at Ilchester in Somerset in 1430 ‘for good service’ (1).

On 22 June the council decided to dismiss Thomas Clarence. They ‘agreed that on account of great defaults the Treasurer should charge the sheriff of Somerset with the gaol of Ilchester and disappoint Thomas Clarence thereof, who held an estate therein during the king’s pleasure’ (2).  Had Clarence failed to prevent gaol breaks at Ilchester?

Gaol keepers were usually, although not always, appointed by the crown. (The Mayor and Common Council of London appointed the keepers of Newgate and Ludgate). Keeperships were lucrative posts, sought after because the keepers were permitted to charge prisoners for their maintenance, for favourable conditions of imprisonment, and for other services. They could also be held accountable for excessive mistreatment of prisoners, although this was rare. Keepers were held responsible for allowing prisoners to escape. “Keepers of gaols feared all escapes” (2). The usual penalty was a fine, but they could be imprisoned themselves if the escapee was important enough.

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(1) CPR 1429-1436, p. 59 (grant to William Clarence).

(2) PPC IV, p. 247 (dismissal of Thomas Clarence).

(3) Bellamy, Crime and Public Order, p. 178 (gaol keeping).

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Lancashire

While visiting King Henry at Cirencester in November, the council dealt with the case of Ralph Radcliffe  and Robert Longley, esquires of the county of Lancaster. They had been bound by the justices William Babington and James Strangeways to appear before the council to answer for their participation in riots in Lancashire (1). Both men had taken the oath administered throughout the counties of England in May 1434 to keep the peace and ‘not to maintain peace breakers’ (2).

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(1) PPC IV, pp. 288-289 (two men accused of riots in Lancaster).

(2) CPR 1429-1436, p. 379 (oath to keep the peace).

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 Sir William Bishopton

In February 1434, while the Duke of Bedford was in England, the Councill ordered Lord Cromwell and the Barons of the Exchequer to deliver ‘a certain chest’ to Sir William Bishopton (1).

The chest had been seized by command of Lord Hungerford, who was Treasurer of England between 1426 to 1432. Hungerford entrusted it to Robert Whittingham, a retainer of the Duke of Bedford and an influential member of the London oligarchy. Whitingham had been involved in settling the dispute between John Reynwell, the Mayor of London, and the merchants of the Calais Staple in 1431. He would become Treasurer of Calais in 1436.

See Year 1431: Calais

Bishopton had been captain of Chateau Gaillard when it was lost to La Hire in 1430.

See Year 1430: Chateau Gaillard.

Chateau Gaillard was believed to be impregnable and the Duke of Bedford punished Bishopton severely for negligence. He had Bishopston imprisoned in Rouen and imposed a heavy financial penalty: Bishopton had to pay the wages of the garrison for three months, he was fined 2,000 livres tournois and he had to find the high ransom La Hire demanding for Bishopton’s son whom he held hostage (2).

Did the chest contain bullion or other valuables which Bishopton had attempted to smuggle out of the country, possibly to meet Bedford’s extortionate fines?  Was it returned to him in 1434 on compassionate grounds because he was going blind?

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(1) PPC IV, pp. 206-207 (‘certain chest’).

 (2) Barker, Conquest, pp. 142-143 (Bishopton).

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Royal Household

John Tyrell

John Tyrell, treasurer of the household, claimed that he had not received the 500 marks assigned to him for the royal household which was recorded at the receipts of the Exchequer as being paid on 16 May 1432. The then Treasurer, Lord Scrope had ordered John Olney and Thomas Walsingham customs officers in the port of London to make the payment.

In July 1434 Tyrell, and Thomas Gloucester, the cofferer of the household, John Darrell, a former under treasurer of England, and four tellers at the Exchequer, were called before the council to settle the dispute.  John Darrel said he had made a bill for the 500 marks to be delivered by Thomas Walsingham to John Tyrell through Thomas Gloucester. Walsingham said he had paid it, Tyrell and Gloucester denied receiving it.

Testimony from all parties was lengthy, and the entry in the Proceedings ends with the statement that so many arguments were introduced ‘that at this tyme to reherce or to declare were too longe’ (1). The Council’s judgement, if any, is not given, but John Tyrell kept his post as treasurer of the household, so presumably his word was accepted.

(1) PPC IV, pp. 266-268 (investigation of the receipt of 500 marks).

When Lord Cromwell became Treasurer of England in August 1433 he announced that in managing the crown’s debts he would give priority to the costs of the royal household and the repair and maintenance of the king’s castles and manors. He set about investigating every detail of royal income and expenditure.

See Year 1433: Ralph, Lord Cromwell, Treasurer of England

He ordered an inventory of crown jewels. John Merston, keeper of the king’s jewels was to turn over certain jewels in his care to the Treasury, and to make a list of those he retained, presumably for King Henry’s immediate use. He was to ‘make a book’ of them and deliver it to the Treasurer for safe keeping (1).

Merston was allowed 1,000 marks for the petty expenses of the king’s chamber in October (2).

Sir John Steward, Master of the King’s Horse, was granted 20 marks in May to buy four sumpter horses for King Henry’s use. Sumter horses were pack animals used to transfer the royal household’s goods during Henry’s moves from one royal residence to another (3).

Cromwell requested that he should decide what repair work was to be done, and by whom, to keep a tight control on household expenditure. He was given the authority to direct the Keeper of the Privy Seal to issue the necessary orders to artisans and craftsmen (4).

In November £200 was delivered to William Clere of Gedlyng in the county of Nottingham for repairs at the king’s manor of Clipston (4).

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(1) PPC IV, p. 201 (inventory of jewels).

(2) PPC IV, p. 284 (1,000 marks to Merston).

(3) PPC IV, p. 216 (purchase of pack horses).

(4) PPC IV, p. 206 (repairs to royal residences).(5) PPC IV p 284 (William Clere to make repairs).

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John Hampton

Hampton was a king’s esquire by February 1434 when he was granted 50 marks, the fee for an esquire of the body, even though he had an income from earlier grants by Henry V (the office of ranger of the forest of Kinfare) and Henry VI (the office of water bailiff of Plymouth) to the value of £9 yearly, and the office of sheriff of the commote of Merrioneth in Wales (1).

In May he received a temporary grant of £40 from ‘the issues of the city of London, until compensation could be granted to him elsewhere to the same value for life’ (2).

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(1) PPC IV, pp. 196-197 (Hampton).

(2) CPR 1436-1441, p 401 (Hampton).

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Sir Philip Courtenay

Philip Courtenay of Powderham in Devon was a king’s knight. He was the eldest of the junior branch of the Courtenay family, Earls of Devon. He married Elizabeth Hungerford, daughter of Walter, Lord Hungerford, Treasurer of England.

Courtenay was steward of the county of Cornwall, during pleasure; Sir John Arundel had surrendered the position in Courtenay’s favour in February 1430. He was to receive 40 marks annually from the receiver general of Cornwall (1). At the end of October 1434 Courtenay was made Master of the king’s hunt and surveyor of all the parks in the county and duchy of Cornwall (2, 3).

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(1) CPR 1429-1436, p. 47 (Courtenay steward of Cornwall).

(2) PPC IV, p. 284 (Courtenay master of the hunt).

(3) CPR 1429-1436, p. 428 (Courtenay).

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Crown Finance

The Council was at Gravesend at the beginning of July for a final meeting before the Duke of Bedford left for France.  Perhaps to reassure royal officials and crown employees of the government’s stability writs of ‘liberate’ were issued to everyone holding long standing annuities and those granted by the king, to park keepers, constables, and the like. Writs of liberate were issued by the Chancery to authorise payment of a pension or other royal allowances (1).

(1) PPC IV, p. 261 (writs of liberate).

Humphrey, Earl of Stafford

Stafford petitioned the king for redress of an Exchequer prosecution against him. He had been called on to account for the wages he has received as a councillor because the record of his presence at, and absence from, council meetings were incomplete (he had been in France with King Henry from 1430). A long preamble in the Proceedings for 2 July 1434 recites the precedents set in 1424 for councillor’s wages, the amounts individual members were to be paid according to their rank and length of service and the deductions to be made for their absence.

See Year 1424: The Minority Council, Wages.

Stafford was required to account at the Exchequer for the money he had received from the Treasurer charged against him as ‘apprests’ and when he had received it, to set the record straight.  The Exchequer was instructed to accept Stafford’s account of his attendance and absences, provided he reported them faithfully, and to compensate him for any losses he may have had sustained through incomplete record keeping (1

(1) PPC IV, pp. 262-265 (Earl of Stafford to account for his salary).

Grants

Sir Thomas Stanley

Stanley had been promised 5,000 marks for his first year’s wages when he became the King’s Lieutenant of Ireland in 1431.

See Year 1431: Ireland, Sir Thomas Stanley and Parliament, Crown Debts

Due to the drain on the Exchequer of King Henry’s coronation expedition Stanley had not been paid. The Council ordered payment to him of 5,000 marks in 1434 but the Treasurer, Lord Cromwell, ‘declared that he dared not comply,’ there were too many more pressing debts to be met. The Council meekly agreed that only assignments authorized by Cromwell should be made to Stanley.

(1) PPC IV, pp. 198-199 (payment to Stanley in Ireland).

Sir John Radcliffe

The Council had assigned the profits from the counties of Caernarvon, Merrioneth, and Chirk in North Wales to Sir John Radcliffe in 1433 to reduce the crown’s debt to him of £7,029 13s 1d as seneschal of Gascony.

See Year 1433: Gascony, Sir John Radcliffe.

In February 1434 they appointed him Chamberlain of North Wales, even though Sir Richard Walkstede, an Oxfordshire knight, held the position (1).

It was a potentially lucrative office, and Radcliffe may have demanded it to ensure that he could collect what was due to him; the Chamberlain held the king’s great seal for North Wales. The anticipated income from North Wales was assessed at £727 10s 2d. Out of that, Radcliffe was to pay the fees of the auditor of North Wales and sundry other small charges. The crown was to receive £467 11s 8d. If there was a surplus it would be credited to Radcliffe, but if there was a loss then Radcliffe must bear it (2).  Radcliffe was to arrange with the Council ‘as to the manner in which he should dispose of and account for’ the income received. Under the terms of the agreement Radcliffe was not entitled to the chamberlain’s salary of £60 a year. Radcliffe might expect to receive approximately £260 annually, which was not much to set against the £7,000 owed to him, but at least he could deduct at source whatever surplus he could raise.

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(1) PPC IV, pp. 199-200 (Radcliffe appointed chamberlain).

(2) CPR 1429-1436, p. 338 (terms of the agreement).

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William Fynbargh

The crown claimed a yearly tribute (unspecified) from the Priory of Lewes whenever the king was at war with France. Henry IV had granted William Fynbargh 100 shillings (£1) a year from this payment. Henry IV was not often at war with France and the grant became invalid. Wages of royal servants were more often than not in arrears or not paid at all, and most of them received a grant of income from other crown resources. But if this was not paid, they could end up nearly destitute which is what apparently happened to William Fynbargh ‘after long service.’ On his petition in February 1434 the Council re-instated the 100 shillings drawn on Lewes Priory (1, 2). Fynbargh was dead by May 1440 (3).

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(1) PPC IV, p. 190 (Fynbargh).

(2) CPR 1429-1436, p. 45 (Fynbargh).

(3) CPR 1436-1441, p. 414 (Fynbargh).

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Paul, Count of Valaches

Paul ‘count of Valaches’ was granted an annuity of 40 marks in 1427 when he came penniless to England. The Council authorised a payment of 20 marks to him for half a year in May 1434, ‘notwithstanding any restrictions’ (1, 2). The Vlach or Aromanians were an ethnic minority in Greece belonging to the Orthodox church, living mainly in Epirus and Macedonia but under the rule of the Ottoman Turks.  There was intermittent warfare there in the fifteenth century and ‘Count’ Paul may have been on the losing side. Nothing more is heard of him.

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(1) PPC IV, p. 216 (payment to Valaches).

(2) Foedera X, pp. 583-584 (payment to Valaches).

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Lord Desgerville (?)

The Earl of Warwick was to be repaid the £40 that he had given to ‘Lord Desgervyle’ on the Duke of Bedford’s orders when ‘Desgervyle’ was last in England. I have been unable to identify Desgerville, or D’Esgerville, or why he came to England. Was he a Frenchman in Bedford’s employ? (1).

(1) PPC IV, p. 222 (Desgerville).

Cardinal Beaufort’s Loans

The crown was heavily indebted to Cardinal Beaufort. He had loaned 10,000 marks during the council meeting in Calais in May 1433 at the Duke of Bedford’s request. The Council stood surety for 5,000 marks; repayment of the other half was assigned on ‘the first money’ accusing from the tax granted by Parliament.

See Year 1433: A Council at Calais and Parliament, Taxation.

In February 1434 the Council agreed to give priority to refunding the security pledged by themselves, and on 14 June the Exchequer refunded the 5,000 marks (£3,333 6s 8d) to them (1, 2).

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(1) PPC IV, pp. 202-203 and 242-243 (agreement to repay the security for the loan).

(2) Issues of the Exchequer, pp. 425-426 (repayment made).

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On 15 June 1434, the same day as the Council approved the Duke of Bedford’s proposals to finance the war in France, Cardinal Beaufort demanded guarantees for repayment of his loans:

‘Here folowe demandes þat I, Henry Cardinal of Englond aske and desire to be granted me of my sovereign lord’ (1).

At the Great Council a month earlier, he had offered a loan of 10,000 marks and King Henry had promised him that the £6,000 he had pledged in 1432 would be refunded to him.

See The Duke of Bedford and the Duke of Gloucester above.

Beaufort requested to be informed as to what assignments would be made for repayment and when. He wanted an undertaking that all the assignments made to him to which he had agreed would not to be altered or reassigned by anyone, including the Dukes of Beford and Gloucester.

As to the method of payment, he stipulated that it should be in gold. He wished to retain the crown jewels valued at 7,000 marks as well as bonds from the council for 3,000 marks until the whole 10,000 marks had been repaid, plus the wages still outstanding for his services in France.

Beaufort announced that he had made certain vows which he must fulfil, and he requested a renewal of the licence issued to him in 1432 to take £20,000 out of the country when it was thought he would go the Council at Basel. And  a licence to go wherever he pleased without disclosing his destination, ‘because it would be dangerous for him if the time of his departure and the places to which he was going should become known.’

Harriss suggested that Beaufort planned to visit the shrine of St James at Compostella, but there was no reason to keep this visit a secret. It is more likely that the Cardinal planned to visit Rome and Pope Eugenius. Rome was a dangerous destination politically. Did he go? Beaufort’s whereabouts following the Duke of Bedford’s departure for France in July are unknown (2).

His terms were accepted by the full council, including the Duke of Gloucester. A lengthy warrant to the Treasurer and the Exchequer for the refund of the £6,000, was issued on 16 June. It recapitulates the entire history of the fate of Beaufort’s treasure, from its seizure at Sandwich by royal officers on Gloucester’s orders in 1432 to its restoration to him by Parliament in 1433 on his pledge of £6,000, and the promise by King Henry at the Great Council in May that the money would be repaid to him (3).

See Year 1432: Cardinal Beaufort in Parliament.

‘At the special contemplation of my seid lord of Bedford’ the Council requested Beaufort to loan another 3,000 marks to enable the duke to cross to Calais with an army. Beaufort complied ‘on certain conditions.’ He reminded the Council of his outstanding loans and reiterated the terms on which those loans had been made as set out in his memorandum of 15 June. He requested that every member of the Council, including the Duke of Bedford should swear a personal oath that his conditions would be met (4).

In some ways the Duke of Bedford was as naïve as the Duke of Gloucester when it came to royal finances. Like Gloucester, he assumed that the Council could, would, and should approve his plans and find the money to pay for them. But even Bedford’s expenses could not be met by the Exchequer. Was he aware of the irony that although he was heir to the throne, the king’s chief councillor, and Regent of France, the money to pay for his return to France had to be borrowed from Cardinal Beaufort?

Jewels to the value of 10,000 marks had been assigned to Beaufort at the Exchequer on 10 June (5). It is not surprising that on 23 June he was given permission to retain possession of them, but he extracted an unusual concession: not only could he retain the jewels until his loans were repaid in full, but he was given the right, if they were not redeemed, to sell the jewels to recover his money (6, 7). Crown jewels were routinely used as pledges for loans and often redeemed at a lower price agreed to with the Treasurer, but they could not be sold.

Beaufort indented with the Treasurer Lord Cromwell on 27 June for delivery of the jewels. They were presumably part of the collection which John Merston as keeper of the king’s jewels had been ordered by Cromwell to turn over to him at the Exchequer in February 1434:

The king’s rich collar of gold studded with gems; the great ouche of the arms of St George; a gold sword called the sword of Spain; a gold tablet made in the shape of a book depicting the passion of Christ; a tabernacle of gold set with an image of Our Lady. Two great golden candlesticks, set with gems; a pair of gold basins decorated with royal coats of arms. A model of a ship called the Tiger set with rubies and pearls, and a pair of gold censors.

Beaufort may also have got his hands on “the crown Harry” valued at £6,000 which Henry V had pledged to his brother Thomas Duke of Clarence. It had been redeemed from Thomas’s widow, Margaret Duchess of Clarence, by the then Treasurer Lord Hungerford in 1430 (8).

See Year 1430: John, Duke of Bourbon for ‘the crown Harry.’

The crown of England was mortgaged to the Cardinal of England (10). Unlike Shylock, Beaufort did not demand his pound of flesh, but he did drain the crown’s life blood. The crown’s debt to him was never cleared, before or after King Henry came of age or before Beaufort died in 1447 (9).

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(1) PPC IV, pp. 232-236 (Beaufort’s terms).

(2) Harriss, Beaufort, p. 242 (Beaufort’s destination).

(3) PPC IV, pp. 236-239 (warrant to repay £6,000).

(4) PPC IV, pp. 244-246 (loan for Bedford’s army and Council oath).

(5) Issues of the Exchequer, p. 425 (jewels worth the full 10,000 marks were delivered to him on 10 June).

(6) CPR 1429-1436, p. 414 (to retain the crown jewels).

(7) Foedera X, p. 593 (retain jewels).

(8) PPC IV, pp. 247-250 (list of jewels).

(9) Harriss, Beaufort, Appendix I, pp 401-406 (Beaufort’s loans).

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The Magnates

Sir Thomas Rempston

Sir Thomas Rempston was captured by Tanneguy du Chastel the Prévot of Paris at the Battle of Patay in 1429. His ransom was set at 18,000 écus; 6,000 écus had been paid by 1433; another 3,000 écus would be paid when Rempston was released. The other 9,000 écus would be covered by the transfer to Tanneguy of William Le Bouteiller (1).

The background to Le Bouteiller’s captivity, and the conditions for his release in exchange for Rempston are complicated; they stretch back over twenty years and involve a number of important people.

Thomas, Duke of Clarence, King Henry V’s brother, had led an army into France in 1412 to aid the Armagnac (Orleanist) faction against John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy. By the time Clarence arrived a fragile peace had been patched up, and Clarence’s presence was an embarrassment, but Clarence refused to leave.

He demanded compensation for his expenses, or he would ravage the Duke of Orleans’s lands. By the Treaty of Buzançais in November 1412, the Duke of Orleans and the Dukes of Berry and Bourbon, agreed to pay Clarence 150,000 écus to take his army out of France. Clarence extracted the promise of another 60,000 écus before he would do so, a total of 210,00 écus (£40,000 to £42,000) (4).

Orleans callously pledged his younger brother John of Angoulême and six other hostages for payment, knowing full well it was beyond his means. Clarence returned to England taking Angoulême and the hostages including Le Bouteiller with him (2). Bouteiller’s servant, John Wanebier, received a safe conduct to visit him in 1427 (3).

Although most of the ransom would go to Clarence, his war captains were entitled to a share, but by 1434 Edward, Duke of York, Richard, Earl of Cambridge, and Thomas Beaufort, Earl of Dorset, later Duke of Exeter, were dead.  Sir John Cornwall, however, was very much alive.

“That wily knight Sir John Cornwall exacted no less than 21,375 écus for himself and his household with the additional proviso that after all payments to Clarence had been made, the hostages surrendered to ensure the terms of the treaty should remain in Cornwall’s household until he had received the whole sum due to him” (1)

In 1433 the Council requested Cornwall, now Lord Fanhope, to expedite Rempston’s release ‘that long hath abided and yet abideth among the king’s enemies in hard prison in France’ by agreeing to exchange William Le Bouteiller for Rempston, even though the Duke of Orleans had undertaken that none of the hostages he had given for his debt to the Duke of Clarence should leave England until the debt was paid.

Cornwall agreed to release Le Bouteiller provided the Council permitted Orleans, as royal prisoner, to pay him 2,000 écus (£410). The duke promised ‘on the word of a prince’ to pay Cornwall by 1 November 1433. The Chancellor was instructed to issue a licence under the Great Seal authorising the agreement, and a safe conduct for William Le Bouteiller to return to France (5, 6). The Duke of Orleans reneged on his promise, as he was apt to do, and Le Bouteiller remained in England.

Sir Thomas Rempston’s plight was raised in Council on 8 July 1434, possibly by the Earl of Suffolk who had been engaged in the early negotiations for his release.  Sir John Cornwall again agreed to allow Le Bouteiller to return to France on the same conditions as before, provided he could be assured that Orleans’s promise that the other hostages in Sir John’s custody would not be allowed to leave England until he had received all that was due to him (7, 8). “Green Cornwall was never one to let a single penny slip through his fingers” (1).

A safe conduct for Le Bouteiller to return to France was issued on 13 July 1434 and two days later safe conducts were issued to William Bourgoing (or LeBourgoing) and Benedict de Vaux ‘going to France to treat with Tanneguy de Chastel for the liberation of Thomas Rempston.’ The same safe conduct for LeBourgoing ‘and others, servants of the Duke of Orleans,’ was issued again on 4 November (9). The negotiations failed and Rempston remained in France.

A petition on his behalf was submitted to Parliament in 1435 ‘considering that the said suppliant is unable to have his release in any other way than by the release of the said Guillaume’ (10). The petition requested that Le Bouteiller be placed in Rempston’s mother’s custody and that of her associates. She had raised the first half of his ransom from her own resources by borrowing, and by coming to an arrangement through the Earl of Suffolk with the Duke of Exeter’s executors over any claim they might make on the 9,000 écus of Rempston’s exchange for Le Bouteiller.

See Year 1427: The Council and the Magnates, The Duke of Exeter.

The king assented, provided that it did not set a precent for the release of Angoulême or the other hostages, and provided that Margaret, Duchess of Clarence, gave her consent. When Clarence was killed at the Battle of Baugé in 1421 custody of Angoulême passed to his widow (11). Like Cornwall Duchess Margaret never let money slip through her fingers if she could help it, and she refused.  If Cornwall was one of the impediments to this hostage exchange, the other was the Duchess of Clarence.

After the Duchess’s refusal, Rempston, or more probably his mother and the Earl of Suffolk, arranged to borrow the second half of the ransom from a consortium London merchants which Rempston undertook to repay in a complicated, confused, and indeed mysterious series of financial agreements.

Thomas Rempston was back in England by the end of 1435 or early 1436. Le Bouteiller remained in England until 1440 when a payment of 10,000 écus towards the Count of Angoulême’s ransom secured his release. Safe conducts were issued to him and to his servant Ralph Vaguet on 20 June 1440 ‘going from England to France for the liberation of William Le Bouteiller (12).

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(1) J.L. Bolton, ‘How Sir Thomas Rempston paid his ransom’, in L. Clark (ed.) Conflict Consequences and the Crown in the later Middle Ages (2007), pp. 101- 118; pp. 104 and 109 for the quotations.

(2) Jones, ‘Beaufort Family,’ p. 24 (Bouteiller a hostage).

(3) Foedera X, p. 374 (Bouteiller’s servant safe conduct).

(4) Sumption, Cursed Kings, pp. 326-328 (Orleans and Clarence).

(5) PPC IV, pp. 164-165 (agreement of May 1433).

(6) Foedera X, pp. 551-552 (agreement of May 1433).

(7) PPC IV, pp. 278-279 (agreement of July 1434).

NB: The agreement to release Le Bouteiller is followed in the Proceedings IV (pp. 279-280) by a recapitulation of the authority granted by Parliament in 1431 for peace negotiations be opened with France provided the conditions were favourable. This was presumably a reminder, in the context of a prisoner exchange, that negotiations with the French could legally be undertaken at any time.

(8) Foedera X, p.  595 (agreement of July 1434).

(9) DKR xlviii, French Rolls, pp.  299 and 301 (safe conducts).

(10) PROME XI. pp. 179-180 (petition for Rempston’s release).

(11) M. Jones, ‘Henry VII, Lady Margaret Beaufort and the Orleans Ransom,’ in Kings and Nobles in the Later Middle Ages, ed. R.A. Griffiths and J. Sherborne, pp. 254–257.

(12) DKR xlviii, French Rolls, pp. 334 and 336 (Le Bouteiller’s release).

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John of Vendôme, vidame of Chartres

A safe conduct was issued at the end of 1433 for Louis, and Reginald of Vendôme, Blanchet d’Estouteville, and John Thibaut, a servant of Vendôme, to come to England to arrange the ransom of John, vidame of Chartres.

Safe conducts were issued in March 1434 and again at the end of April to John, vidame of Chartres, Reginald of Vendôme and John Thibaut to return to France for one year to raise the vidame’s ransom (1).  A safe conduct for Sir John de Vendôme and Blanchet d’Estouteville ‘going from Calais into the interior of France’ was issued on 9 October 1434 (2)

It appears that they returned to England, perhaps bringing an instalment of the ransom, for in October 1435 safe conducts were issued again on pledges by Vendôme for himself and Blanchet d’Estouteville to allow them to go to France for three months (1).

When did John of Vendôme, vidame of Chartres, become Walter Lord Hungerford’s prisoner?  Was it at Agincourt, where Hungerford captured eight men?  Or during the siege of Meaux in 1422? There is no record that the vidame John of Vendôme was at Meaux.  Hungerford was in France with King Henry V throughout Henry’s campaigns.

In May 1437, King Charles VII gave Vendôme 1,000 livres, pour l’aider à payer sa racon (3, 4). John of Vendôme was free by 1441. He took part in the French siege of Pontoise in that year (5).

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(1) Foedera X, p. 566 (December 1433), p. 574 (March 1434), p. 580 (April 1434), p. 624 (October 1435) (safe conducts for Vendôme).

(2) DKR xlviii, French Rolls, p. 302 (safe conduct October 1434).

(3) Beaucourt, Charles VII, vol. III, p. 141 n 3 (Charles VII’s contribution).

(4) L&P II, Preface p. lxv (Jehan de Vendôme).

(5) Chartier, Chronique II, p. 26.

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Thomas, Lord Clifford

The Cliffords and the Dacres were northern marcher lords, neighbours rather than clients of the Percys and the Nevilles. Thomas, Lord Clifford was betrothed to Lord Dacre’s daughter while still a child and brought up in Lord Dacre’s household.

See Year 1423: Wardships and Marriages.

In February 1434, when Clifford was twenty and about to come of age, Lord Dacre was ordered to send him to the Council ‘with all speed’ (1). The reason is not given, but Thomas’s mother, Elizabeth Percy had married Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmorland as her second husband. Parts of Clifford’s inheritance may have been caught up in the dispute between Westmorland and Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury over the partition of the Neville lands.

It could also have been the war in France. Thomas is in the list of the Duke of Bedford’s retinues ‘in the French wars’ without date; he was too young to have joined Bedford much before the summer of 1434, but he may have accompanied Bedford on his return to France (2)

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PPC IV, p. 201 (Clifford to be sent to the Council).

(2) L&P II ii, p. 435 (Clifford with Bedford in France).

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Henry Grey

Henry Grey was the son of Sir John Grey of Heton, whom Henry V created Count of Tancarville. John was killed at the Battle of Baugé in 1421. Henry’s mother, Joan, Lady of Powis, died in 1425.  Her lands and Henry Grey’s wardship had been granted to the Duke of Bedford. King Henry knighted Henry Grey at Leicester in 1426.

See Year 1425: The Minority Council, John Duke of Bedford.

On 26 October 1434 the Council confirmed a warrant under the privy seal dated 20 September granting Henry Grey £40 yearly during his minority, his lands being in the king’s hands (1). He married Antigone, the natural daughter of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester.

(1) PPC IV, p. 280 (Grant of income to Henry Grey).

Thomas Bourchier

Thomas Polton, Bishop of Worcester died while attending the General Council of the church at Basel in August 1433. Pope Eugenius provided Thomas Brouns, Dean of Salisbury who was also at Basel, to the see of Worcester (1). The Council refused its consent.

In November 1433 they recommended Thomas Bourchier, the youngest and most precocious of the three Bourchier brothers,  to the prior and canons of Worcester as their next bishop (2). Born in 1410/1411 Thomas was too young to be consecrated as a bishop, but he was a great grandson of King Edward III.

King Henry’s letter to the prior of Worcester in November 1433 recommending Bourchier stated that Thomas was Parliament’s choice, ‘considering the closeness to us in blood,’ but this is not recorded on the parliamentary rolls.

The English Council forbade Brouns, who was also at Basel, to accept the papal provision to Worcester. He was told that it was against the king’s wishes, and he must inform the pope at once of his “full and utterest disposition in this matter” to refuse the provision (3).

Adam Moleyns was sent to Rome to plead Bourchier’s case.  He remained in Rome throughout 1434 in papal service.  Eugenius referred to him as ‘a palace chamberlain and member of the Pope’s household’ (4).

The see of Worcester remained vacant for a year until John Langdon Bishop of Rochester died in Basel in September 1434. It may have been Moleyns who suggested a compromise: Pope Eugenius should appoint Thomas Brouns to replace Langdon as Bishop of Rochester and accept Thomas Bourchier as Bishop of Worcester. Moleyns returned to England in 1435 carrying letters from Eugenius to Cardinal Beaufort. Eugenius commended Moleyns who had ‘with great diligence’ presented the promotion of Thomas Bourchier as bishop of Worcester (5).

Despite his youth Thomas Bourchier became Bishop of Worcester and Brouns was compensated with the bishopric of Rochester (6, 7).

See Year 1435: The Bishops.

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(1) Papal Letters VIII, pp. 213-214 (Pope Eugenius’s letters).

(2) PPC IV, pp. 183-184 (Bourchier nominated as Bishop of Worcester).

(3) PPC IV, p. 285 (Brouns instructed to refuse the bishopric of Worcester).

(4) Papal Letters VIII, p. 282 (description of Moleyns).

(5) Papal Letters VIII, p. 218 (Eugenius to Cardinal Beaufort).

(6) PPC IV, p. 286 (Brouns to be Bishop of Rochester).

(7) Harvey, England and Rome, pp. 158-159

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Pilgrimage

The Council issued an exceptional number of licenses to ships’ masters in January and February and again in April 1434 to transport pilgrims to the shrine of St James of Compostella in Galicia.

If St James’s Day, 25 July, fell on a Sunday, as it did in 1428 and 1434, that year was proclaimed a Jubilee Year for the shrine which meant a considerable increase in the number of pilgrims.

See Year 1428: Pilgrimage.

No less that twenty-four ships, varying in size, set out mainly from West Country ports in 1434. One ship, the Marie of Southampton was permitted to carry one hundred pilgrims. The rest varied between 60, 50, 40 and 30, with 24 as the lowest number of passengers (1, 2).

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(1) Foedera X, pp. 567-569 and 572 (pilgrims).

(2) French Rolls DKR xlviii, p 296 (ships).

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Customs Duties, Taxation, and Trade

Denmark

King Eric of Denmark and Norway complained in 1434, as he had in 1429, in 1432, and possibly in 1433, that English merchants were disobeying the Council and Parliament’s edicts to trade only through the royal staple at Bergen in Norway.

See Years 1429, 1430 and 1432:  Denmark. 

In April 1434 a warrant was issued to the king’s officers in the busy port of Chepstow recapitulating the edicts of 1429 and instructing royal officers to proclaim them publicly and to arrest anyone who failed to abide by them. The warrant set out at length the agreements between King Eric and King Henry (1, 2).  It is unlikely they were obeyed, English merchants traded in the Baltic whenever and wherever they could.

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(1) Foedera X, pp. 578-579 (Denmark, Baltic trade).

(2) PPC IV, pp. 208-210 (Denmark, Baltic trade).

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Alien Merchants

The Parliament of 1433 had increased the subsidy paid by alien merchants on every sack of wool and woolfells from 43s 4d to 53s 4d for three years (1).

See Year 1433: Parliament, Taxation.

In February 1434 Thomas Chalton and Hugh Dyke, customs collectors in the port of London, were excused in their accounts for collecting the lower amount during the period between the act of Parliament and the instructions to them to implement it (2.  Chalton and Dyke were members of the Mercers Company and Chalton was sheriff of London in 1433-1434.

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(1) PROME XI, p. 90 (tax grant).

(2) PPC IV, pp. 205-206 (Chalton and Dyke excused).

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Import and Exports

As part of his overhaul of finances, Lord Cromwell had called in the customs officers and their records shortly after he took office in 1433 and had presumably instructed them to charge as high a duty as they could get away with for the king’s benefit. This elicited protests from the merchant community.

In May the customs officers in the ports of Sandwich and Southampton were reminded that they should levy duty only on the usual prices of merchandise being landed from six Genoese carracks (1). The large carracks carried luxury goods from the Mediterranean and the near East.

The Council decreed that merchandise for export must be valued at the price agreed between merchant and merchant (seller and purchaser) not by customs officials. The value set on imported goods was more complicated. Before the merchandise was landed and sent to the purchaser’s warehouse, he should be required to take an oath as to its current value (what he had paid for it) abroad. These were the prices on which the subsidies due to the king were to be collected.

Two copies of the decree survive; Nicolas printed them both because the council’s minute is shorter, and the second version contains an important variation (2):

The Chancellor asked the Council for their opinion of the decree, and they all agreed to it, except for the Treasurer, Lord Cromwell, who dissented. He demanded that the work he had done as Treasurer to protect the king’s interests in the collection of the subsidies should be acknowledged in the records of the council, which was done.

The second version contained an additional clause after the treasurer’s statement: Fearful that English merchants might take offence at what they would see as over regulation and an attempt at price fixing, some members of the Council opined that the decree should be relaxed by the king’s grace, and certain merchants might be excused the oath, to avoid ‘great noise, losses and other inconveniences.’ They advised that the king’s clemency should be exercised in preference to a stringent application of the law. Did they expect resistance to lead to tax evasion, or even to illegal smuggling in some quarters?

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(1) Foedera X, p. 584 (Genoese imports).

(2) PPC IV, pp. 239-242 (two versions of the customs decree).

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Scotland

King James sent Dragon pursuivant to London in January 1434 to complain that the English had not kept their promises of redress for English raids (1). Despite his repeated protests to the Earl of Northumberland, the men of Berwick continued to abuse the privileges he had granted them at the Earl of Mortain’s request. James felt that he had conceded more than he had gained.

See Year 1433: Scotland.

He demanded that the inhabitants of Berwick and Roxburgh should be disciplined, or he would no longer restrict his own people; as King of Scotland, he could not allow the favour he showed to Berwick to be exploited, and he would not allow the English to rob and pillage as they pleased and therefore redress for Scottish raids would be deferred.

James alleged that he had dealt with the complaints of truce violations lodged against the Scots with the Prior of Coldingham, but the English Council had done nothing about the Scots complaints lodged with the Mayor of Berwick. He ended by pointing out that his earlier request, made through Thomas Roulle, for an exchange of hostages and for safe conducts for his representatives to come to England and go to the Council at Basel had been ignored (2, 3).

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(1) Documents relating to Scotland IV, p. 220 (‘The Council rewarded ‘Dragaunce’ pursuivant with a gift of 66s 4d).

(2) PPC IV, pp. 350-352a (James’s articles).

(3) Balfour Melville, James I, pp. 211-213 (James’s articles).

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In reply to James’s complaints the Council issued instructions to William, Lord Fitzhugh and other (unnamed) commissioners on how to deal with truce violations. These dealt first with the methods of punishment and compensation for robberies at sea in accordance with the sixth article of the truce of 1430. They were not to offer compensation for piracy from the time of the signing of the truce unless the Scots did the same.

See Year 1430: Scotland.

The second dealt with settling boundary disputes around Berwick and Roxburgh.  The envoys should not agree to make good the damages inflicted on Scottish soil unless the Scots offered redress for the injuries inflicted by the Scots within Berwick and Roxburgh’s boundaries. (1).

(1) PPC IV, pp. 193-196 (Instructions to English commissioners).

 

Border Defences

The Minority Council did not trust King James. English defences along the border were strengthened throughout the year. In February the crown indented with Robert Ogle for the safe keeping of the town and castle of Berwick, and with his son, Sir Robert Ogle, for the custody of Roxburgh Castle. He was paid £10 to lay in stocks of food (1, 2).

In May £100 was allotted to the repair of Roxburgh and for the purchase of artillery, bombards, and powder (3).

Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland as a conservator of the truce and Warden of the East March, routinely attended March Days and other meetings with King James’s representatives. In February 1434 ‘in consideration of the great labour and expenses which he had sustained,’ the Council awarded Northumberland £50 by payment or assignment, probably the latter, as Lord Cromwell strictly controlled cash payments by the Exchequer (4).

He was to retain £1,000 in tallies to pay the wages of the garrison at Berwick (5).  On 1 June Northumberland and the burgesses of Alnwick were licenced to build a wall round Alnwick because the town had recently been burned by the Scots (6).

Northumberland resigned as Warden of the East March in June. The payments offered him were derisory and offensive.  By his indentures of 1424 he should have received £2,500 in peace time and £5,000 in time of war. The government failed to honour its obligations, and it is usually inferred that this explains his resignation. But there was another reason: Northumberland was a member of the Council; he preferred to spend his time in the south where he had estates and could attend council meetings; being Warden of the East March had become too onerous.

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           (1) Documents relating to Scotland IV, p. 221 (Robert Ogle, Berwick,     Roxburgh).

(2) PPC IV, p. 204 (indentures with both Robert Ogles).

(3) PPC IV, p. 217 (Roxburgh).

(4) PPC IV, p. 203 (Northumberland).

(5) PPC IV, p. 218 (Berwick).

(6) PPC IV, pp. 217-218 (Alnwick).

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Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury

Northumberland was replaced by Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, the Warden of the West March.

On 6 July 1434 Salisbury indented to become custodian of the castle and town of Berwick and Warden of the East March commencing on 25 July for one year, receiving the same wage as the Earl of Northumberland, and custody of the castle and town of Carlisle and the West March for one year at a wage of £2,500 in time of truce, commencing on 12 September 1434.

Salisbury had the good sense to demand better security than Northumberland. He set out the terms for his indenture in a list of ‘items’ to the Council to be recorded and confirmed under the privy seal. Letters were issued under the privy seal to command the Chancellor to enrol the agreement under the Great Seal.

“The desires of the Erle of Salisbury . . . . if he shul take upon hym the kepyng of the towne and castell of Berwyk and of the estmarches with the westmarches” (1).

The castle and town of Berwick were his principal concern: the castle was to be adequately victualled and fortified by the following June. The burgesses of Berwick had reported that the defences of the town were in a dilapidated state, and these, together with the castle, must be repaired to make them defensible.

The Earl of Northumberland was to turn over to Salisbury the records of the East March: ‘all the books of the wardein courts . . .  conceryning the estmarches’ and all the ‘stuff’ in Berwick castle.’ Ships to carry victuals for the relief of Berwick must be provided if required.

Salisbury wanted £1,000 in ready money to pay the garrison’s wages. He should also be paid, or have assignments, for the money due to him as keeper of Carlisle in the West March. Customs officials in the northern ports should be instructed to pay the customs duties assigned for the purpose directly to him.

He would have the authority to negotiate local truces with the Scots, to grant safe conducts along the Marches, and to Scots travelling through England to Jerusalem or Basel. If an exchange of Scottish hostages was arranged, a list of their names must be made and recorded in letters of the privy seal.

On the same day as his indentures, 6 July 1434, Salisbury was awarded 600 marks from the customs of Kingston upon Hull:  400 marks for attending two March Days held at Lochmabenstane with the Earl of Douglas and other Scottish commissioners,  and 200 marks for his costs in keeping some Scottish hostages (2).

The Council accepted most of Salisbury’s demands (3).

‘Reasonable’ repairs, i.e., what could be afforded, would be made to Berwick by the following September. Eight small guns, twelve culverins (small cannon) twenty-four arbalesters, (crossbows), forty-eight pounds of thread for (bow) strings and twelve cases with quarrels (quivers with arrows).  would be delivered to Berwick and paid for by the crown, but Salisbury must pay for bows and arrows. If this ordnance was not supplied by November 1434, Salisbury would not take responsibility for the defence of Berwick, and he could resign his bond.

Salisbury would receive 500 marks ‘in cloth’ (assignment) £500 in cash and another £500 drawn on the estates of the late Duchess of York; if money from this source proved to be inadequate, the Treasurer would make up the difference, but if it came to more than the £500, he could keep it!  He would also receive an additional 700 marks by Michaelmas 1434.

His wage as Warden of the West March would be assigned on ports to be agreed between him and the Treasurer.

If for whatever reason Salisbury wished to resign, he was to give four months’ notice to the king and council before the date of the expiry of his indenture for Berwick and the East March.  He could also reign the keeping of the West March and Carlisle (4).

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(1) PPC IV, pp. 269-271 (Salisbury’s requests).

(2) Foedera X, pp. 594-595 (600 marks for attending March Days).

(3) PPC IV, pp. 271-273 (Council’s reply).

(4) PPC IV, pp. 273-279 (Salisbury’s indentures).

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Treaty

King James renewed the offer he made in 1430 for a peace treaty to be sealed by the marriage of King Henry to one of James’s daughters.

See Years 1429, 1430 Scotland

This possibility had been mooted off and on ever since James returned to Scotland in 1424 but there was little likelihood of it being implemented.

In February 1434 Doctor Stephen Wilton, who had been with the Earl of Mortain as envoys to James in 1433, was paid £40 to return to Scotland to treat for peace ‘and other business.’ King James was to name a day for a meeting to which the Council would send ‘notable numbers’ of commissioners. Sir John Bertram, a conservator of the truce, was awarded £10 for ‘setting out on the same business (1, 2).

Wilton’s letters of credence informed James that the Council had discussed his peace proposal several times, but the councillors were reluctant to express an opinion on the matter of a marriage since it intimately concerned King Henry: ‘how nygh it toucheth the kingyis owne persone.’ The proposal would be put to the Great Council due to meet after Easter and an answer would then be sent to James ‘in all reasonable and goodly haste’ (3).

This was diplomatic speak for a polite refusal. Bedford and the Council could not refuse to negotiate for peace with Scotland, they had been urged to do so by Parliament in 1431. But they could refuse to accept the terms on offer.

Wilton’s commission was reissued in May (4), but it was not until 12 July that the Council instructed Wilton, Marmaduke Lumley Bishop of Carlisle, and Sir William Ever, to negotiate for peace or to prolong the existing truce. They were to demand payment of James’s ransom, that he send hostages to England to replace those who had died and make reparations for Scottish violations of the truce. A marriage for Henry VI was not among the terms of reference (5).

A series of meeting to prolong the truce probably took place during the autumn of 1434 although no record of them survives. In November King James, in Edinburgh, instructed Snowdon Herald to proclaim a prorogation of the 1430-1431 truce with England (6).

James had the most to gain from his proposed treaty. A Scottish princess on the English throne would make it almost impossible for the Council to implement its threat of war if James chose to ally himself with France.  And, as part of the negotiations, he could hope for a serious reduction in his ransom, and the release of the Scottish hostages.

The Duke of Bedford favoured peace to prevent James sending military aid to France; it might also mean a reduction in the number, and therefore the cost, of soldiers required to garrison Berwick and Roxburgh. But neither Bedford nor any member of the Council would seriously consider James’s meagre offer of one of his younger daughters, since the eldest, Margaret, was betrothed to the Dauphin Louis.  A Scottish princess, even with an English mother, was not acceptable as Queen of England.

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(1) Documents relating to Scotland IV, pp. 220-221 (Wilton and Bertram).

(2) PPC IV, p. 197 (Bertram).

(3) PPC IV, pp. 191-193 (Wilton’s letters of credence).

(4) PPC IV, p. 217 (authority to Wilton in May).

(5) Foedera X, pp. 596-597 (Commission to treat for peace or a truce).

(6) Foedera X, pp. 599-600 (prorogation of truce).

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Safe Conducts

In January and February and again in May safe conducts were issued to the servants of the Scottish hostages William Jardine, Duncan Wemyss, William of Stirling and David of Athol to come to England (1). The first three were part of the exchange of hostages in 1432; David of Athol was one of the original hostages of 1425, he died in the Tower (2).

A safe conduct was issued in February, to John Fitz Adam [Adamson], a Scot who was in England, to travel to Bruges with his goods and return to Scotland via England (3, 4).

Twelve unnamed Scots, travelling to the Council of the Church at Basel, received safe conducts in February. (5). This may be the same as the safe conducts issued to Walter, Abbot of Arbroath and ten attendants going to Basel (6).

Columba Dunbar, Bishop of Moray, had received a safe conduct in December 1433 to pass through England on his way to visit Pope Eugenius, probably in connection with the Council at Basel (7).  In May 1434 Columba, Walter, Abbot of Arbroath, and Ingleram Lyndsey, a servant of Pope Eugenius, received safe conducts going to the Council at Basel (8).

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(1) Foedera X, p. 590 (Scottish hostages).

(2) Balfour Melville, James I, pp. 293-295 (Scottish hostages).

(3) PPC IV, p. 204 (safe conduct for John Fitz Adam).

(4) Documents relating to Scotland IV, p. 220 (Fitz Adam safe conduct).

(5) Foedera X, p. 572 (Scots safe conducts).

(6) Documents relating to Scotland IV, p. 221 (Abbot of Arbroath).

(7) PPC IV, p. 565 (December 1433).

(8) Foedera X, p. 584 (May 1434).

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Andrew Meldrum

Andrew Meldrum was the principal administrative officers for the Hospitallers, the Knights of St John of Jerusalem, in Scotland. He had been summoned to Rhodes in 1432 and was on his way back to Scotland in 1433 (1).

Robert Mallore [Malory], Prior of in England requested the Council to issue a safe conduct to Sir Andrew Meldrum in November 1433. He was  Flanders on business for the Grand Master of the Knights at Rhodes.

Meldrum received a safe conduct in February 1434 to pass through England to Scotland and return, and another in May to attend the chapter of the Knights convened at Clerkenwell by Robert Mallore (2, 3).

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(1) ‘Knights of St John of Jerusalem in Scotland,’ Scottish History Society Publications, Series 4, Vol 19 (1983), p. xlii (Meldrum).

(2) Foedera X, pp. 564 and 585 (Meldrum).

(3) Documents relating to Scotland IV, pp. 219-220 (Meldrum).

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Portugal   

King João of Portugal died in August 1433 and his son became King Duarte I.

See Year 1428: Portugal.

The Council had apparently not heard of King João’s death until Durate’s younger brother Ferdinand, sent, John Rodericus, with letters to King Henry and the Council informing them of his brother’s coronation ‘and other affairs.’ Rodericus received 100 crowns as a gift (1, 2).

Letters of condolence from King Henry to Durate and to Ferdinand, acknowledging the arrival of Rodericus, were signed by ten members of the Council in November 1434.

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(1) PPC IV, p. 284 (report of Duarte’s coronation, reward to Rodericus).

(2) Issues of the Exchequer, p. 426 (payment to Rodericus).

(3) Foedera X, pp. 598-599 (letters of condolence).

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General Council of the Church at Basel

English interest in the General Council at Basel had waned during 1433 but revived in a desultory fashion in 1434 (1).

Ten delegates were commissioned to represent English interests at Basel (2, 3) . A blanket protection for one year was issued on 14 April 1434 to them and to those accompanying them (4). Formal instructions under the Great and Privy Seals were issued on 31 May and their names were confirmed in a letter of credence dated 3 June 1434.

(1) Schofield, ‘Second English Delegation to the Council of Basel,’ passim.

(2) Foedera X, p. 589 (delegates’ names).

(3) CPR 1429-1436, p. 342 (lay delegates named).

(4) Foedera X, p. 576 (protections and letters of attorney).

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English Delegates

Of the ten delegates named, seven was ecclesiastics and three were laymen. Five of the ecclesiastics and one of the laymen from the earlier embassy were already in Basel.

See Year 1433: The General Council of the Church at Basel.

Edmund Beaufort, Earl of Mortain, Cardinal Beaufort’s nephew, was to take 3,000 marks with him (1, 2). Protection for four men accompanying him was issued in June: Thomas Caldecote of Hawich, William Auderby of London. and Louis Rede, a clerk (3).

Sir Henry Brounflete volunteered to go for six months or longer at the king’s pleasure. He was authorised to take £2,000 (4, 5).

Sir John Colville was in Basel.

Robert Fitzhugh, Bishop of was in Basel. The Council confirmed that he would not be required to go elsewhere, and he could return to England in a year’s time; but should he be sent somewhere else he would be paid the usual wages of a bishop on a diplomatic mission. He could export 2,000 marks and be free of any demands by royal officials for as long he remained abroad (6).

John Langdon Bishop of Rochester should have gone to Basel in 1433 but he got sidetracked by Cardinal Albergati’s peace negotiations.  Landon had special instructions to handle possible truce negotiations with French delegates. He may have been expected to hire legal experts or to resort to bribery; he received 100 marks for distribution  (7). Langdon never got a chance to take part in any deliberations, he arrived in August and died in September 1434.

“Ande that same yere at the Counselle of Basyle dedye the Byschoppe of Rochester.     Gregory’s Chronicle, p. 177.

Langdon’s death is noted in Chronicles of London (Cleopatra C IV, p. 136, and Great Chronicle p. 171.

William Worstede, Prior of Holy Trinity, Norwich, was in Basel and was presumably xpected to remain there (8).

Thomas Brouns, Dean of Salisbury was also ordered to stay put. On 26 April he was awarded £180 for six months (9).

William Wells, Abbot of St Mary’s, York was in Basel as a representative of Convocation. He was licenced to export 1,000 marks and received a protection (10).

Nicholas Frome, Abbot of Glastonbury was also at Basel to represent Convocation. Three letters of attorney were issued for him (11).

Bernard de la Planche, Bishop of Dax, was authorised to take books, plate, jewels, and gold and silver coin, to the value of 400 marks to maintain himself and his servants (12). Walter Colles, the Constable of Bordeaux was ordered to pay him 100 marks for his expenses, and the bishop petitioned that it might be paid to him in England (13).

Sir Thomas Launcelewee turcopolier of Rhodes was a late appointment. He was licenced to take 500 marks (14). ‘Turcoplier’ was a rank in the army of the Hospitallers, the Order of St John of Jerusalem at Rhodes, in command of mounted archers.  Launcelewee may have been visiting the headquarters of the Order of St John in England at Clerkenwell in 1434.

Two others who were named but did not go:

John Ripon, Abbot of Fountains was licenced in May to take 1,000 marks as an ambassador for Convocation (15, 16) but he is not listed in the official authorisation with Wells and Frome. He may have been too ill to make the journey, he died in 1434.

Theobald Dages, the Dean of Bordeaux, is not listed among the ten delegates accredited to the General Council. Like the Bishop of Dax he was authorised to export books, plate, jewels, and gold and silver coin, provided he went to Basel (17) but apparently, he did not go. Planche and Dages were Gascons, and it may be that the English bureaucracy became confused as to which of them was to go, since the same permission to export goods and coin was issued to both.

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(1) Foedera X, pp. 570 and 571 (Earl of Mortain).

(2) CPR 1429-1436, p. 340 (Earl of Mortain).

(3) Foedera X, p. 592 (Earl of Mortain’s retinue).

(4) Foedera X, p. 574 (Brounflete £2,000).

(5) CPR 1429-1436, p. 337 (Brounflete).

(6) PPC IV, p. 582 (Fitzhugh).

(7) PPC IV, p. 221 (Langdon to retain advocates).

(8) Foedera X, p. 567 (Worstede).

(9) PPC IV, pp. 207-208 (Brouns).

(10) Foedera X, p. 586 (Wells)

(11) Foedera X, p. 587 (Frome).

(12) Foedera X, p. 572 (Planche).

(13) PPC IV, p. 153 (Planche, misdated to 1433).

(14) Foedera X, pp. 588-589 (Launcelewee).

(15 Foedera X, p. 586 (Abbot of Fountains).

(16) CPR 1429-1436 dated 13 May 1434, p. 341 (Abbot of Fountains).

(17) PPC IV, p. 204 (Dages).

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Emperor Sigismund

In July the Council sent John Stokes on a special embassy to the Emperor Sigismund, probably in connection with English participation at Basel. He was to be paid 20 shilling (£1) a day for his expenses (1, 2). Stokes had previous experience of dealing with Sigismund: King Henry V had sent him and Walter de la Pole to negotiate with Sigismund in the summer of 1421 and he may have visited Sigismund in 1423 when on embassy with William Grey, Bishop of London to the papal court at Rome (3).

See Year 1423: Foreign Relations

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(1) Foedera X, p, 594 (Stokes to Sigismund).

(2) PPC IV, p. 265 (Stokes to Sigismund).

(3) Foedera X, p. 144; Wylie and Waugh III, p 359 (Stokes envoy of Henry V).

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Instructions to Delegates

High sounding rhetoric required the delegates to behave impartially and not out of self-interest, and to act in unison with discretion and dignity. They were to keep their instructions and deliberations a secret (which seems pointless). They were to seek the support of the Emperor Sigismund and other ‘influential persons’ (by distributing largess?) and to delay their formal incorporation as recognised members of the Council at Basel for as long as possible (which was the reason for their mission) until they learned the Church Fathers’ views on important issues, presumably the quarrel with Pope Eugenius. They were not to take the oath of incorporation until concessions on its wording had been made to them (recognition of their status?).  In this, and only this, they were successful.

Their instruction vis à vis Pope Eugenius was ambiguous. If they learned before reaching Basel that the cardinals had proceeded against the pope they were not to go on,  but to stay wherever they were and send word back to England for further instructions.

When they got there, they were to urge the General Council to avoid a schism, but to use their judgement as to how far they might legitimately support the Church Fathers in their bid to curb papal authority. A the same time they were to protest against any specific measures the Council proposed to take against the Pope.  They were to oppose any measures detrimental to the good of the Church and this included the election of a new pope to replace Eugenius. To discipline a pope was one thing, to remove him was quite another.

The rest of their instructions concerned English ecclesiastical jurisdiction. They should reject any attempt by the Council to interfere with the ecclesiastical statutes and ordinances of the English Church. They were to declare that they could not debate such an important question, it had not been raised by the General Council’s letters to the king, and they had no powers to deal with it.

They were to insist on the legality of the crown’s appropriation of alien priories, begun by Henry V and continued under Henry VI. It was fully justified as the income had been used for religious purposes only, which was entirely proper (if not strictly true). If any of the Norman clergy who had been deprived of their benefices by Henry V complained to the Council their complaints were to be rejected.

The delegates were to confer with England’s allies, the envoys of the Dukes of Burgundy and Brittany, as to the status of the churches in France under English jurisdiction and to demand the same privileges for churches in Gascony as was permitted to those in France.

They were to insist that voting should be by nation and not by groups of individuals. The Council of Constance had required the consent of the nation as a whole for any edicts affecting that nation and this precedent should be followed. King Henry’s French delegates must be given seats on the council with the English since his title as King of France was not to be questioned.

The English were attempting to have their cake and eat it too. On the one hand they insisted on the right to vote as a nation, and on the other they demanded that the General Council accept the dual monarchy and recognise Henry VI’s French/Norman delegates.  They achieved neither (1, 2).

Although mentioned in their letters of credence, the possibility of peace negotiations comes well down the list of instructions. Offers by the cardinals at Basel to act as mediators were to be declined. It was well known that King Henry wanted peace, he had done all he could to accommodate ‘his adversary of France,’ but the French had twice refused the opportunity offered them to come to Calais and negotiate.

If, however, an impartial mediator was appointed, the English would consider meeting French envoys on neutral ground, at Cambrai, in Hainault, or in Brabant, significantly in Burgundian territory.  Their preference was a truce to last for several years.  John Langdon, Bishop of Rochester had been given special instructions on this point, and it may have been his death that prevented any discussion.

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(1) Beckington, Correspondence II, pp. 260-269 (instructions).

(2) Schofield, ‘Second English Delegation to the Council of Basel,’ pp. 36-38 (instructions).

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Largesse

The Council thought it prudent to buy a little goodwill. John Merston, keeper of the king’s jewels, was given £100 in cash to purchase ninety collars, six of gold, fourteen of silver gilt and seventy ‘other collars of silver,’ to be delivered to the Treasurer and sent to the Emperor Sigismund for distribution to knights, esquires, and the inhabitants of Basel as the Emperor and the English delegation saw fit (1). At the end of May 400 ducats were allocated to the delegates ‘to be expended in retaining advocates on the king’s behalf’ (2).

But the Council was always one step behind events. On 17 November, just as the Earl of Mortain and most of the delegation left Basel, the Council ordered letters of exchange valued at 1,000 marks to be sent to ‘the king’s ambassadors’ at Basel to be distributed ‘according to their discretion for the king’s honour and advantage’ (3).

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(1) Foedera X, p. 576 (purchase of collars).

(2) PPC IV, p. 217 (retaining advocates).

(3) PPC IV, p. 289 (1,000 marks to be distributed at Basel).

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The English at Basel

Robert Fitzhugh presented the English credentials to Cardinal Cesarini on 17 August. In his speech he referred to Henry VI as King of France. This elicited an objection from the Bishop of Lyons and an altercation between Fitzhugh and the Archbishop of Tours.

English members of the delegation, and Sir Thomas Launcelewee the turcopolier of Rhodes, were accepted for incorporation on 22 October. The Norman/ French delegates, representing Henry VI as King of France, not included in the instructions, and were excluded from incorporation. The English swore only to deal faithfully with the General Council and give impartial advice. They did not swear to accept or uphold conciliar decisions as the full oath required. This brought protests from the French envoys representing King Charles VII and from the King of Castile’s ambassadors.

Apart from the concession of a modified oath, which was of very little practical use, the English accomplished nothing at Basel. The Earl of Mortain and Thomas Brouns left Basel in November with the same empty fanfare with which Mortain arrived, escorted by his retinue of knights and musicians, with his ships flying the English flag. Sir John Colville had already left.

Robert Fitzhugh, Bernard de la Planche, and William Worstede stayed on into 1435 to hold a watching brief for English interests probably made good use of the money.

It is difficult to elucidate what the Minority Council hoped to achieve at Basel in 1434 and who was behind the muddled thinking in the instructions: possibly Archbishop Chichele, well-meaning but ineffectual.  The instructions stop short of outright support for Pope Eugenius while rejecting the idea of a replacement and denying the General Council’s authority in any claims of questions relating to the English church. Fitzhugh was to insist on recognition of Henry VI as King of France, and the individuality of England as a nation.  Peace talks might be opened but not with the General Council as mediator. The documents should perhaps be viewed as a masterpiece of tortuous diplomacy.

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(1) PPC IV, p. 207 (purchase of collars).

(2) Issues of the Exchequer, p. 424 (purchase of collars).

(3) Foedera X, p. 576 (purchase of collars).

(4) PPC IV, p 221 (400 ducats to retain ‘advocates’).

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The War in France

John, Lord Talbot

Lord Talbot had returned to England in 1433 after his release from captivity.

See Year 1433: Lord Talbot and Poton de Xaintrailles.

He indented early in 1434 to go back to France. In April a safe conduct was issued to Arnold Savage, going to France in the retinue of John Talbot (1).

The Council treated Talbot as a special case: he was promised that if he or any of his retinue inherited lands while they were in France, they would not be required to do homage for them to the king until their indentures expired (2).

The Council also agreed to pay Talbot £1,000 ‘in consideration of the services rendered by him in France and Ireland’ (Talbot had been the king’s lieutenant in Ireland under Henry V). He and his retinue of twenty-four lances and the proportionate number of archers, had served in France for eighteen months until his capture in 1429 without wages or rewards.  £1,000 was a large sum given the near bankruptcy of the Exchequer and Talbot promised to make no further demands provided this was paid (3). He received 1,000 marks from the Exchequer, and 500 marks ‘by the hand of Richard Leget’ (4).

Talbot campaigned along the river Oise and captured Pont Sainte Maxence. He marched on the castle of Beaumont-sur Oise which had been refortified by Amadeo (Maddok) de Vignolles, La Hire’s brother. At Talbot’s approach Vignolles decamped hastily to the more heavily fortified town of Creil. Maddok was killed in the skirmishing outside Creil and the town surrendered on 20 June (5).

Talbot linked up with the Earl of Arundel and together they contemplated an assault on Beauvais but abandoned the idea; Beauvais was too strongly garrisoned for an assault to succeed (6).

“Ande the x daye of Marche the Lord Talbot wente in too Fraunce whythe a goodely meyne.”  Gregory’s Chronicle, p. 177

“And the x day of Marche, my lorde Talbot went into Fraunce with a goodly meyne ^[& wan the towne off Crayle^]”.                 Great Chronicle,  p 171

“and than the lorde Talbot wan pont seynt messans (Pont Saint Maxence) and Bermond-sur-oyse (Beaumont-sur-Oise) and many other placys.”

“And þe x day of marche the lorde Talbot went in to ffraunce with an viij^c men of werre and went and leyd sege vnto a full riall tovne and with a full ryall castell, the wich tovne is Crail-Sur-Oyse, and wan it with a composicion and ther whas maddok la hire capteyn therof with vi^c men of armys with him; at the se[ge] the seyd maddok whas slayn with an arowe; and sone aftyr the tovne whas sett vpon a day of Rescevys; but yef to were that they were reskevyd be a certeyn day, they for to yold vp the tovne, and thus it whas won.”  Chronicles of London, Cleopatra C IV, p. 136

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(1) Foedera X, p. 577 (safe conduct for Arnold Savage).

(2) PPC IV, pp. 197-198 (inherited lands).

(3) PPC IV, p. 202 (£1,000 to Talbot).

(4) Issues of the Exchequer, pp. 423-424 (payment to Talbot).

(5) Bourgeois, p. 290 (Creil).

(6) Pollard, Talbot, pp. 18-19 (Talbot in France).

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The Earl of Arundel

Saint Cénéry

The Earl of Arundel had laid siege to Saint Cénéry in 1433 and it surrendered early in 1434. Arundel permitted the defenders to march out, but without any of their possessions.

See Year 1432:  Lord Willoughby and Saint Cénéry  (Willoughby lost it).

See Year 1433: The Earl of Arundel (Arundel recovered it).

In February John Stanlowe, the treasurer of Normandy, supervised its demolition (1).

Sillé le Guillaume

Arundel then besieged Sillé le Guillaume. An army under the Duke of Alençon marched to its relief, but the French commanders were wary of engaging Arundel in the field and Arundel had too few men to risk a pitched battle. He agreed to the French demand that the hostages he was holding for the town’s promise to surrender if no relief came should be set free, since relief had come to the town. Their honour satisfied, the French retired. Arundel did not. He proceeded to take Sillé le Guillaume by assault (2, 3, 4).

Crépy en Valois

Arundel also took the town of Crépy en Valois. Monstrelet credits Lord Talbot with taking Crépy, he does not mention Arundel, but Crépy lies further east than Talbot’s main area of operations, so it seems probable that Arundel detached troops from their joint army to take Crépy (5).

“And then was the tovne of crepy in Valeis [Crépy en Valois] with the castell whas wonne by assaute of the Erll of Arondell.”  Chronicles of London, Cleopatra C IV, p. 136

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

(2) Chartier, Chronique I, pp. 160, 164-69 (Sillé dated to 1432 or 1433 new style).

(3) Barker, Conquest, p. 201 (Sillé dated to 1433).

(4) Ramsay, Lancaster and York I, pp. 462-463, citing numerous sources, dates Sillé to 1434. Since Arundel linked up with Talbot a date of early 1434, as in Cleopatra CIV, seems more likely.

(5) Monstrelet I, pp. 627-628 (Crépy).

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John, Duke of Brittany

Duke John of Brittany sent three ambassadors, Jean de Malestroit, Bishop of Nantes and Chancellor, who had led previous embassies to England, Thiebault de la Claretiere, and Aloyan Caynon to England in June 1434 to urge King Henry to make peace with King Charles VII, referred to in King Henry’s reply as ‘son adversaire le Dauphin.’

A short personal letter from King Henry acknowledged Brittany’s letters and assured his tres cher uncle that he was in good health; he expressed his pleasure at learning that the duke was in good health too.

A formal reply to the Duke of Brittany in King Henry’s name was drafted on 30 June at Gravesend and signed by the Duke of Bedford just before he left England and other members of the council (1).

The letter reiterated the by now standard English response to those who urged the king to make peace with France, that he had done all he could: he had the captive French lords brought to Dover and kept there for six weeks in 1433, but the French had failed to come to Calais. This unaccountable behaviour had made it far too dangerous in time of war, and too expensive, for him to consider having prisoners conducted as far as Caen, as had been suggested.

See Year 1433: The Council at Calais

Duke John was reminded that Henry had refused the Council at Basel’s offer to take over the peace negotiations, because he did not think it right to jeopardise Cardinal Albergati’s efforts; but in 1433, after Albergati failed, he had sent ambassadors to Basel, and requested Brittany to do likewise, for the good of the church and to assist the English and Burgundian delegates to negotiate a peace. The English delegation had been specifically instructed to contact the Breton embassy with this in mind.

See Year 1433: The Duke of Brittany.

It seems probable that Jean de Malestroit also requested that Giles of Brittany, the Duke of Brittany’s younger son who had been resident in the royal household as a companion for King Henry since 1432, should return to Brittany with them.

See Year 1432: The Duke of Brittany.

On 6 July the Council gave permission for Giles to join his father, who was reported to be anxious to see him and wished him to be reunited with Duke John’s other children (2).

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(1) PPC IV, pp. 254-250 (formal reply to the Duke of Brittany; King Henry’s personal letter).

(2) PPC IV, p. 278 (Giles of Brittany).

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Charles, Duke of Orleans

The Duke of Orleans had offered to broker a peace with the French in 1433 in order to obtain his release (1). His faith in his influence with the French nobility was misplaced.

See Year 1433: The Duke of Orleans.

Nevertheless, to demonstrate to the Duke of Brittany and the Church Fathers at Basel, that they were doing all they could to make peace, certain members of the Council resolved to approach the Duke of Orleans.  The only members noted in the Proceedings, as being at the meeting in Gravesend on 1 July when this was decided were John Kemp, Archbishop of York, three other bishops, the Earl of Stafford, and the Earl of Suffolk, Lord Hungerford the ex-treasurer, and Lord Cromwell the current treasurer.  They hoped to ease the burden of financing the war, but they were not representative of the Council as a whole, and certainly not of the Great Council.

On 15 July safe conducts were issued to the servants of Jean de Dunois, Bastard of Orleans to come to England. Dunois had worked tirelessly for Orleans’s release. Was he to be the go-between to help his brother revive a meeting with the French in Calais?  (1).

The Earl of Suffolk, who may have promoted the scheme, was instructed to put the Council’s proposal to Orleans: (2).

If the French princes would come to Calais at Orleans’s request, or send their proctors, which they had previously refused to do until they could speak with Orleans in person, the Duke of Bedford, the Duke of Gloucester and Cardinal Beaufort would meet them there, and Orleans would be brought to Calais, but only after the French had arrived.

If the French lords did not come in person but sent their ambassadors, Orleans would be brought to Calais after his safe passage was assured. He would be kept in safe custody while he was there.

If Orleans failed to secure a treaty or a truce, he would be required to pay the expenses of the embassy King Henry would send with him, as well as his own. He must give security for this before being allowed to leave England, and even then, the consent of the rest of the Council (those not at Gravesend?) would have to be obtained. Orleans could not be allowed his liberty on the responsibility of any one man (the Earl of Suffolk?)

It is not known how or even if the Duke of Orleans reacted to the Council’s proposition. Perhaps the failure of the French magnates to attend his proposed meeting in Calais in October 1433 made him wary of trying to approach them again. Perhaps, since it had not been endorsed by the full council, it was a suggestion only that was never implemented. The councillors were as anxious that Orleans should pay his ‘expenses’ as they were that a meeting in Calais should take place.

Despite the crowning of the Dauphin Charles as King of France at Reims in 1429 with all his nobility present, and the crowning of King Henry in Paris in 1431 after a two years delay, with no French lord, not even the Duke of Burgundy, present, the belief persisted in England that the ‘Dauphin’ was of no account, and that the princes of France would be willing to set him aside and reach an accommodation with the English on the advice of the Duke of Orleans.

Factions at the French court opposed King Charles and his favourites on more than one occasion, but no one in England, including Orleans, had grasped the vital point that the French nobility, whatever their differences with their king, would never recognise Henry VI as King of France.

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(1) Foedera X, p. 590 (safe conducts).

 (2) PPC IV, pp. 259-261 (Council’s proposal to the Duke of Orleans).

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John, Duke of Bourbon

John, Duke of Bourbon died in England in January 1434. His death attracted little interest; only the Great Chronicle has a note, added in the margin:

“this yere died John duke off burbon whiche had byn prisoner yn England sythe battell of agyncort.    Great Chronicle, p. 171

In February a safe conduct was issued for Bourbon’s servant Pierre le Bolengier to carry the news of the duke’s death to Duchess Marie and to Bourbon’s eldest son the Count of Clermont. It was not a visit of condolence; the messenger was ordered to collect the money needed to pay the late duke’s debts.

Bourbon’s custodian, Sir Thomas Comberworth, was authorised to distribute Bourbon’s possessions among his servants and to pay for his burial (1, 2).  Comberworth, a Lincolnshire knight, was still owed  £173 10s 6d for Bourbon’s keep, In February 1435  the Council granted Comberworth the manor of Bond in Lincolnshire, which he had leased for £16 annually, rent free from Easter 1435 for seven years, plus £8 from the farm of the priory of Wyngall in Lincolnshire for seven years, making a total of £168, slightly less than Comberworth was owed, a common practice by the crown (3, 4).

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(1) PPC IV, pp. 201-202 (Bourbon’s death and debts).

(2) Foedera X, p. 570 (Bourbon’s death and debts).

(3) Foedera X, 602 (grants to Comberworth.

(4) CPR 1429-36 dated 8 February 1435, p. 461 (grants to Comberworth).

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John, Duke of Bourbon was the son of Louis Duke of Bourbon, and Anne of Auvergne.

He married his niece, Marie of Auvergne, the daughter of John, Duke of Berry in 1400. Marie had been married to Philip of Artois, Count of Eu, who died in 1397 and their son, Charles d’Artois, Count of Eu, also a prisoner in England, was Bourbon’s stepson.

John became Duke of Bourbon in 1410 at the age of twenty-nine. He was a firm ally of the Duke of Orleans and an active partisan of the Dauphin Charles and the Armagnac party. He fought in the civil war against John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy.

He was one of the hot heads who urged that the French army should engage Henry V in battle in 1415. He and the Duke of Orleans sent their heralds to issue a challenge to King Henry. Bourbon was captured at the Battle of Agincourt and claimed by Henry V as a royal prisoner. Taken to England, he was kept in some comfort; a keen sportsman, he was allowed to send for his huntsmen, hawks, and hounds (but not his horses) and he enjoyed copious shipments of wine.

Initially Bourbon and the other French prisoners refused to acknowledge Henry V’s claim to be heir to the Kingdon of France. Bourbon’s first attempt to obtain his freedom came in 1417 with an offer to reconsider his position. He said that as he understood it, Henry V was willing to withdraw his claim to the French crown in return for being granted the provinces ceded to King Edward III in the Treaty of Brétigny in 1360, plus Harfleur and its surrounding districts, in full sovereignty.

He argued that if he and Raoul de Gaucourt, also a prisoner, were allowed to return to France on parole to put the proposal to King Charles VI’s council before Henry V launched his second invasion, he believed he could persuade some of the French nobles to agree. If the French council refused, Bourbon promised to do homage for all his lands to Henry as King of France and to urge the others to do likewise.

He pledged 200,000 écus to return to England and bring his two sons with him. Henry V’s council advised Henry to accept, provided the parole money was increased to 240,000 écus, but Bourbon was unable to raise the security he had offered (1).

Henry V set the terms for Bourbon’s release in 1420. He must recognise the Treaty of Troyes, do homage to Henry as King of France, and pay a ransom of 100,000 écus.

Unfortunately for Bourbon, King Henry died in 1422, and the Minority Council felt obliged to fulfil the late king’s instructions to the letter.  Over the next thirteen years efforts were made periodically to obtain Bourbon’s release by Bourbon himself, by the Duchess of Bourbon (but not his son the Count of Clermont) by the Duke of Bedford, the Duke of Burgundy, and Cardinal Beaufort, each with their own agenda.

The long-drawn-out negotiations for a prisoner exchange with John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset never came to fruition. In desperation in 1430 Bourbon agreed to do homage to Henry VI as King of France. The Council and Parliament were willing to release him, but only if he paid the balance of his ransom, which was all they were interested in. Bourbon was unable to do so, and he died in England in debt to his custodian in 1434.

See Years 1427, 1429 and 1430: John, Duke of Bourbon

Bibliography 1434

Primary Sources

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