HENRY VI. «II. with foreign powers. Though these, as far as CHAP. regarded peace, had been hitherto unsuccessful, they served to augment his popularity. The nation, exhausted by a long and ruinous contest, naturally transferred its attachment from the patron of war to the advocate of peace. At length the two rivals made the grand trial of their strength. The duke of Orleans had often and earnestly sued to obtain his liberation, promising to exert all his influence to bend the French cabinet to proposals of peace. The cardinal favoured, the duke opposed his petition. The former argued, that in the present exhausted state of the nation, it was prudent to employ every probable expedient to put an honourable termination to the war: and that at all events the ransom of the duke would enable the king to continue the contest for two years without any additional burden to the people. Glocester built his opposition on the abilities of the prisoner, and his acquaintance with the policy and resources of England. Charles and his son, he observed, were princes of slender capacity, guided by their ministers, and placed in opposition to each other by the intrigues of their favourites: but were the duke of Orleans to obtain his liberty, he would unite the two parties, assume the direction of the cabinet, and teach the English to condemn their own folly in supplying the enemy with Liberation duke of Orleans. of the 1439. CHAP. so able a counsellor." To lessen the in II. fluence of the cardinal, Glocester delivered to the king a memorial, containing the real or supposed transgressions of that prelate under twenty different heads: but though it is probable that out of so great a number, some charges may have been founded in fact, the majority prove rather the enmity of the nephew than the guilt of the uncle.98 The king read the 37 Rym, x, 765. 9s He accuses him of ambition in seeking the dignity of a cardinal after he had been prohibited by the late king, and of contempt of the royal authority in receiving the papal bulls, retaining his bishopric of Winchester, and procur. ing an exemption from the authority of the primate, without the king's permission. But if these offences subjected him, as Glocester maintained, to the penalties of a præmunire, it should be remembered that they had been long ago pardoned by act of parliament. In the next place he complains of Beaufort's avarice, whose riches are too great to have been honestly procured. He makes, indeed, loans to the king, but seldom executes his engagements with fidelity, seeking pretexts to appropriate to himself the securities he receives, and defrauding the crown by means of his officers, who receive the customs in the port of Southampton. The eardinal's services in foreign embassies, so frequently applauded by the parliament, have, he maintains, produced advantage to no one but the king's enemies. By the congress at Arras he furnished the means of reconciliation to Charles and the duke of Burgundy: and by the late negociation at Calais, to the duke of Burgundy and the duke of Bourbon. It was the private interest of his family that induced him to liberate without authority the king of Scots; and some similar motive urges him now to insist so earnestly on the release of the duke of Orleans. In short he has contrived to arro gate all the powers of government to himself and his creature the archbishop of York; keeps at a distance from the king all those prelates and lords that are sincerely attached to the royal person ; memorial: but it seems not to have made on his mind any impression unfavourable to Beaufort. The negociation with the duke of Orleans continued and as the council was divided in ́opinion, the arguments on both sides, according to the late arrangement respecting such cases, were laid before Henry in writing He decided in favour of the cardinal. Glocester, who could ill brook his defeat, lodged on the rolls of chancery, a solemn and argumentative protest against the measure:99 and, to give the greater publicity to his disapprobation, retired to his barge on the river, as soon as the mass began, during which the duke of Orleans was to swear on the sacrament, that he would fulfil his engagements.100 tion of the of Gloces ter. The duke was, however, destined to expe- Prosecu rience a still more cruel disgrace. Though, by dutchess his marriage with his mistress, he had legitimated their union, he had not raised her character in the estimation of the public: and the pride, the avarice, and the licentiousness of and has on all occasions opposed the offers of the duke of Glocester to lead an army into France and recover for Henry the whole of his inheritance. See this memorial at length in Hall, 161-166. But he has placed it in the wrong year. From internal evidence it appears to have been composed after the negociation at Calais in June 1439, and before the renewal of that negociation in May 1440, or the assumption of the cardinalate by the archbishop of York on 4th February 1440. I conceive therefore that it was presented to the king about the close of 1439. "Rym. x. 765–767. 100 See Fenn's original Letters, vol. i. p. 3. CHAP. II. dame Eleanor (so she was called) ultimately led to her ruin. There have been in all ages professors of the black art: nor is it so very long since men have had the good sense to laugh at their pretensions. One of the duke's chaplains, Roger Bolingbroke, was accused of necroJuly 25. mancy, and exhibited with the instruments of his art to the admiring populace on a platform before St. Paul's, "arrayed in marvellous at 1441. Juns 28. tire," bearing in his right hand a sword, and in his left a sceptre, and sitting in a chair, on the four corners of which were fixed four swords, and on the points of the swords four images of July 27. copper.101 The second night afterwards dame Eleanor secretly withdrew into the sanctuary of Westminster, a step which naturally excited suspicion. She was confronted with Bolingbrooke, who declared that it was at her instigation that he had first applied to the study of magic. From the inquiry which followed, it appeared that Eleanor was a firm believer in 101 Clericus famosissimus unus illorum in toto mundo in astronomia et arte nigromantica. Wil. Wyrces. 461. It was probably on account of his learning that he had been admitted into the duke's family. That prince is celebrated by contemporaries as the great patron of learned men. Æneas Sylvius, afterwards pope Pius II. in a letter to Adam Molins, whom he praises for his eloquence, says: "Sed magnæ ob hanc causam grates clarissimo illi et doctissimo principi Glocestriæ duci, qui studia humanitatis summo studio in regnum vestrum recepit, qui, sicut mihi relatum est, poetas mirifice "colit, et oratores magnopere veneratur." Ep. 64. p. 584. 66 66 II. wise ang and Junished very the mysteries of the art: that to secure the af- CHAP. Oct. 21. |