The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [63]
As well as providing for his stepfather, Henry VI also took care of his half-brothers, Edmund and Jasper Tudor. Sometime after March 1442 he arranged for them to be brought from Barking Abbey to live at court. Here, says Blacman, Henry was at great pains to do his best for ‘the Lords Edmund and Jasper in their boyhood and youth, providing for them most strict and safe guardianship, putting them under the care of virtuous and worthy priests, both for teaching and for right living and conversation, lest the untamed practices of youth should grow rank if they lacked any to prune them’. It was a dull regime for two lively boys, and the sources do not even record that they received any knightly training, although they must have had some, since both were later given responsible military commands. The King’s obvious concern and affection communicated itself to Edmund and Jasper, and fostered fraternal bonds that would endure for life.
From the time Henry VI assumed control of the government in 1437 Cardinal Beaufort and his family prospered. Never before had a king been so generous to his relations. By 1441, eleven members of the Beaufort family had been appointed to the office of sheriff, thus dispersing their influence through eleven English shires. The Cardinal’s ally, Suffolk, who was being groomed as his political heir, also benefited from this largesse, for during those years his wealth and influence increased enormously.
Gloucester, who had campaigned to continue the Hundred Years War throughout the 1430s, now found himself and his supporters in a minority on the Council. Thanks to the enthusiastic support of the King, Beaufort’s views had prevailed, and Gloucester was left virtually in political isolation, his influence with his nephew diminishing daily. It was now obvious to most of his fellow Council members that Gloucester’s policies were too unrealistic to be successful, and that since the Treaty of Arras England’s hopes of conquering France were nil.
Beaufort’s first peace embassy to Charles VII, in 1439, ended in failure. The Cardinal concluded that England had to offer better terms and greater concessions, and that a royal marriage should be negotiated in order to seal the peace. That year, as a temporary replacement for Warwick, the Cardinal’s nephew, John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, was appointed Lieutenant General of France, and awarded the exorbitant salary of £7200 per annum.
In 1440, Charles of Valois, Duke of Orléans, who had been held a prisoner in England since being captured at Agincourt in 1415, was released by the English in the hope that his liberation would predispose the French to discuss peace terms once more. Gloucester saw through this ploy and asked the Council if Henry V would have released the Duke without an enormous ransom.
York supported Gloucester, being already disillusioned with the faction fighting in England and angered by the way in which the government had let matters deteriorate in France. With the Duke’s support, Gloucester accused the Cardinal and his party of influencing the King against him and York, but his protests were in vain. The Council was now dominated by Beaufort and his cronies – Suffolk, John Kempe, Archbishop of York, Adam Moleyns, Bishop of Chichester, and the earls of Northumberland, Stafford and Huntingdon – while the King had little time for the outdated policies of his uncle of Gloucester.
York, at any rate, could be disposed of. On 2 July 1440, the Council once more appointed him Lieutenant General of France for a period of five years, with expenses of £20,000 per annum. York was perhaps the only man of stature and rank who could fill Warwick’s place. He had gained some experience of governing France during his previous tenure, and was also aware of the difficulties involved. Whatever his personal views on the Cardinal