Background
Humphrey of Lancaster was born in 1391. He was the fourth and youngest son of Henry IV.
Humphrey of Lancaster was born in 1391. He was the fourth and youngest son of Henry IV.
Possibly educated at Balliol College, Oxford, he was made a knight of the Garter at the age of 9 and was created Great Chamberlain of England in 1413 and Duke of Gloucester the following year.
During the French campaign he served on the War Council, supervised the plundering of Harfleur, and was wounded in the stomach by a dagger while fighting beside his brother Henry V at Agincourt (1415).
While recovering, Humphrey was made constable of Dover and warden of the Cinque Ports. He returned to military service in the second campaign of Henry V, where he led the forces that entered Bayeux without opposition and took Lisieux in 1417 and Cherbourg the next year. Made governor of Rouen, he also acted as regent in 1420-1421, when Henry was on his last French campaign; and, though named sole regent by Henry V on his deathbed, Humphrey was given the title of Protector with power to act only as the deputy of John, Duke of Bedford, his older brother.
In 1422 Humphrey recklessly married Jacqueline of Hainaut and reconquered her lands only to lose them to Philip of Burgundy in 1425 and to alienate Burgundy from the English cause. In spite of interfamily feuds with his uncle, Henry Beaufort, a cardinal and the bishop of Winchester, he was reconciled through the efforts of his brother and became Protector again in 1427-1429 and Lieutenant of the Kingdom in 1430-1432. After his first marriage was annulled, he married his mistress, Eleanor Cobham, who was convicted of witchcraft in 1441, sending his influence into decline.
Serving as captain of Calais and lieutenant of the army in the 1430s, Humphrey became the champion of the English claims against France, where he tried to arrange an Armagnac marriage for Henry VI, and in 1445 he argued for a violation of the truce. When the King came of age in 1442, the protectorate ended, and Humphrey was replaced as the chief adviser to the Crown by William Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk. Suspected of planning to kill the King and seize the throne for himself, Humphrey was arrested on Feb. 18, 1447, soon after Parliament met at Bury St. Edmunds. He was found dead in his bed 5 days later. Foul play has never been proved, but popular belief claimed that the Duke of Suffolk was responsible. There are, however, strong reasons to believe Humphrey's death was natural.
Humphrey's influence on English politics was limited and of passing importance as he won support from the masses for his nationalistic antipapal policies. The epithet "Good" derives from this and from his support of literature and men of letters, and his protégés included John Lydgate, John Capgrave, and Titus Livius of Ferrara, the historian, who wrote A Life of Henry V. As a strong churchman, he endowed monasteries, including St. Albans. Humphrey had a reading knowledge of Latin and Italian literature as a result of a visit to Italy, and he made large gifts of books (his own library had over 600 works) and money to augment the small university library at Oxford, as well as founding temporary lectureships that terminated at his death. His donations remained at Oxford until the Reformation, when, in 1550, the commissioners under Edward VI ordered them removed. The room where the library was kept, known as "Duke Humfrey's Room, " was restored by Sir Thomas Bodley and in 1602 again became the public library of the university.
Though he was buried at St. Alban's, a tradition developed that Humphrey was buried at St. Paul's Cathedral, London, where the poor would gather to solicit food, giving rise to the expression "to dine with Duke Humphrey. "
Humphrey was the exemplar of the romantic chivalric persona. Mettled and courageous, he was a foil for the beautiful Jacqueline of Hainaut, his wife. His learned, widely read, scholarly approach to the early renaissance cultural expansion demonstrated the quintessential well-rounded princely character.
In about 1423 he married Jacqueline, Countess of Hainaut and Holland, daughter of William VI, Count of Hainaut. Through this marriage Gloucester assumed the title "Count of Holland, Zeeland and Hainault", and briefly fought to retain these titles when they were contested by Jacqueline's cousin Philip the Good (see: War of Succession in Holland). They had a stillborn child in 1424.
The marriage was annulled in 1428, and Jacqueline died (disinherited) in 1436.
Meanwhile, Humphrey remarried in 1428, his second wife being his former mistress, Eleanor Cobham. In 1441, Eleanor was tried and convicted of practising witchcraft against the King in an attempt to retain power for her husband. She was condemned to public penance followed by exile and life imprisonment.