The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [79]
Henry ignored the storm and did nothing until the last minute. Then on 30 April, knowing that he could delay no longer, he sent orders to the governor of Maine and Anjou to evacuate the provinces, preparatory to ceding them to the French. This confirmation of the rumours sparked a further wave of protests, and when the governor defied the King and refused to obey there was general jubilation. Such was the mood of the people that Henry dared not force the issue.
Margaret was not so timid. In May she reminded the King of his promise to Charles VII, begging him to keep his word. He would not listen, being too fearful of his subjects’ reaction. Margaret was being subjected to a barrage of pressure from the French king, but she could do nothing to move her husband, and negotiations with France over Maine and Anjou dragged on throughout the rest of the year without reaching a conclusion satisfactory to either side. King Charles became increasingly exasperated by Henry VI’s dilatoriness, and in the winter made efforts to force him to surrender the territories, dangling the carrot of extending the truce until January 1448. Still Henry dithered.
Margaret, meanwhile, hoping to cement further the truce between England and France, had proposed a marriage between York’s four-year-old heir, Edward, Earl of March, and Madeleine, daughter of Charles VII, but although Suffolk gave the proposal his backing, nothing came of it. Nevertheless, the suggestion was a tacit acknowledgement of the dynastic importance of York, and may well have been intended also as a means of diverting the Duke’s interests towards French politics.
In December 1446, an incident occurred which gave the court party cause to wonder whether York might be secretly plotting to seize the throne. York’s armourer, John Davies had as an apprentice a villein, William Catour, who claimed to have heard Davies say that the crown belonged by right to York. Suffolk had the man hauled before the Council to repeat his accusation, while York, who realised that others might believe – or try to allege – that he himself was implicated in Davies’s treasonable assertion, demanded that the armourer be brought to justice and punished. Davies denied having said any such thing, but his judges decreed that he and Catour should undergo trial by combat, using single sticks. The trial took place at Smithfield, in the presence of the King, the Queen and the whole court. Catour was victorious, and it was therefore deemed that God had given His verdict. Davies was hanged and his body burnt. From now on, the Queen and her party would be suspicious of York and his dynastic intentions.
When Gloucester had found out that Suffolk had, seemingly without consulting Council or Parliament, secretly promised to cede Maine and Anjou to the French, his anger had known no bounds, and his violent and vociferously expressed opposition to the court faction’s policies had won him much popularity among a disenchanted populace who regarded him as their champion. Those who knew that it was not against Suffolk but the King that Gloucester’s fury should have been directed were therefore concerned to curb ‘Good Duke Humphrey’s’ public speeches, lest he should unleash a scandal that would compromise the throne itself.
Gloucester, far from heeding warnings to temper his criticisms, became ever more outspoken, and by December 1446 the King and the court party knew that something would have to be done to silence him, lest he discover and broadcast the truth. He had also incurred the enmity of the Queen, who regarded his censures as insults to herself which could not be forgiven or forgotten, and he had fallen out with most of his fellow councillors. Gloucester seemed unaware of the peril in which he stood. Abbot Whethamstead of St Albans states that ‘satellites of Satan’ had poisoned Henry’s mind against his uncle, who was ‘so respected and loved by the people and so faithful to the King’.
The Duke was causing so much dissension that Henry VI, in vindictive mood,