John Edgar - The Wars of the Roses

Henry the Fourth regarded young March with jealousy, and had him vigilantly guarded. But Henry the Fifth completely won the earl's loyalty, and made him a most zealous adherent. March showed no ambition to reign; and the nation, intoxicated with Agincourt and glory and conquest, cared not an iota for his claims. At the time when the hero-king expired at Vincennes and the Earl of March died in England the dynastic dispute was scarcely remembered, and it would never, in all probability, have been revived had the Lancastrian government not become such as could not be submitted to without degradation. It was when law and decency were defied, and when Englishmen were in danger of being enslaved by a "foreign woman," that they remembered the true heir of the Plantagenets and took up arms to vindicate his claims.

On St. Nicholas's Day, in the year 1421, there was joy in the castle of Windsor and rejoicing in the city of London. On that day Katherine de Valois, youthful spouse of the fifth Henry, became mother of a prince destined to wear the crown of the Plantagenets; and courtiers vied with citizens in expressing gratification that a son had been born to the conqueror of Agincourt – an heir to the kingdoms of England and France.

Henry of Windsor, whose birth was hailed with a degree of enthusiasm which no similar event had excited in England, was doomed to misfortune from his cradle. He was not quite nine months old when Henry the Fifth departed this life at Vincennes; and he was still an infant when Katherine de Valois forgot her hero-husband and all dignity for the sake of a Welsh soldier with a handsome person and an imaginary pedigree. The young king, however, was the beloved of a thousand hearts. As son of a hero who had won imperishable glory for England, the heir of Lancaster was regarded by Englishmen with sincere affection; the legitimacy of his title even was unquestioned; and the genius of his uncles, John, Duke of Bedford, and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, under whose auspices the royal boy was crowned in London and Paris, created a feeling of security seldom felt by kingdoms at the beginning of long minorities.

For a time the aspect of affairs was cheering. At a critical period, however, Bedford expired at Rouen; and ere long England was distracted by a feud between Gloucester and that spurious son of John of Gaunt, known in history as Cardinal Beaufort, and as chief of a house which then enjoyed the dukedom of Somerset. Gloucester charged the cardinal with contempt for the laws of the realm; and the cardinal avenged himself by accusing Gloucester's duchess of endeavoring to destroy the king by witchcraft, and banishing her to the Isle of Man. It soon appeared that the rivalry between Duke Humphrey and his illegitimate kinsman would involve the sovereign and people of England in serious disasters.

Nature had not gifted Henry of Windsor with the capacity which would have enabled a sovereign to reconcile such foes. Never had the Confessor's crown been placed on so weak a head. Never had the Conqueror's sceptre been grasped by so feeble a hand. The son of the fifth Henry was more of a monk than a monarch, and in every respect better qualified for the cloister than for courts and camps. In one respect, however, the king's taste was not monastic. Notwithstanding his monkish tendencies he did not relish the idea of celibacy; and the rival chiefs, perceiving his anxiety to marry, cast their eyes over Europe to discover a princess worthy of enacting the part of Queen of England.

Gloucester was the first to take the business in hand. Guided at once by motives of policy and patriotism, he proposed to unite his nephew to a daughter of the Count of Armagnac; and he trusted, by an alliance, to allure that powerful French noble to the English interest. The king did not object to the Armagnac match. Before striking a bargain, however, he felt a natural desire to know something of the appearance of his future spouse; and with this view he employed a painter to furnish portraits of the count's three daughters. Before the portraits could be executed circumstances put an end to the negotiations. In fact, the dauphin, as the English still called the seventh Charles of France, having no reason to regard the proposed marriage with favor, placed himself at the head of an army, seized upon the count and his daughters, and carried them off as prisoners of state.

Meanwhile, Beaufort was not idle. Eager to mortify Gloucester and increase his own influence, the aged cardinal was bent on uniting the king to Margaret of Anjou, daughter of René of Provence, and niece of the French monarch. René, indeed, though titular sovereign of Jerusalem and the two Sicilies, was poor, and Margaret, albeit the Carlovingian blood flowed in her veins, was portionless. But, though not favored by fortune, the Provençal princess was richly endowed by nature; and, young as she was, the unrivaled beauty and intellect of King René's daughter had made her name familiar in France and famous in England.

Never was an intriguer more successful than Beaufort. While Gloucester was negotiating with the Count of Armagnac, the cardinal, aware of Margaret's charms, contrived to have a likeness of the princess transmitted to the court of England; and the young king became so enamored of the fair being whom the portrait represented that his wish to espouse her could not decently be combated. Matrimonial negotiations were therefore resolved on; and William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, was sent as embassador to bring home the princess. René drove a hard bargain. Before consenting to the marriage he insisted on the restoration of Maine and Anjou, which were among the Continental conquests that the English were in no humor to surrender. But Suffolk, who was thinking more of his own interests than of his country's honor, yielded without scruple; and the marriage of King René's daughter was made the basis of a treaty which could not fail to prove unpopular. At first, however, no complaint was uttered. Suffolk brought the royal bride to England, and declared, in allusion to her poverty, that her beauty and intellect were worth more than all the gold in the world.

One day in April, 1445, the marriage of Henry of Windsor and Margaret of Anjou was solemnized at the Abbey of Tichfield – the bridegroom being in his twenty-fourth, the bride in her sixteenth year. The religious ceremony having been performed, the wedded pair were conducted to the capital of their dominions, and the English, being then devotedly loyal, were prepared to welcome the spouse of young Henry to London with an enthusiasm which could hardly fail to intoxicate so young a princess. The nobles, displaying all the pride and pomp of feudalism, wore the queen's badge in honor of her arrival. At Greenwich, Gloucester, as first prince of the blood, though known to have been averse to the match, paid his respects, attended by five hundred men, dressed in her livery. At Blackheath appeared the mayor, aldermen, and sheriffs of London, arrayed in scarlet robes, and mounted on horseback, to escort her through Southwark into the city. Passing under triumphal arches to Westminster, she was crowned in the Abbey; and that ceremony was the occasion of general rejoicing. The shows, the pageants, the tournaments, the display of feudal banners by the nobles, and loud applause of the populace might well have led the royal pair to prognosticate a life of peace and happiness. Nobody, who witnessed the universal joy, could have supposed that England was on the eve of the bloodiest dynastic struggle recorded in her history.

In fact, the people of England, knowing nothing of the restitution of Maine and Anjou, were at first delighted with their queen, and enraptured with her beauty. Her appearance was such as could hardly fail to please the eye and touch the heart. Imagine a princess in her teens, singularly accomplished, with a fair complexion, soft, delicate features, bright, expressive eyes, and golden hair flowing over ivory shoulders; place a crown upon her head, which seemed to have been formed to wear such a symbol of power; array her graceful figure in robes of state, and a mantle of purple fastened with gold and gems; and you will have before your mind's eye the bride of Henry of Windsor, as on the day of her coronation she appeared among peers and prelates and high-born dames in the Abbey of Westminster.