Mistress of the Monarchy (46 page)

The strain told on John. At the beginning of February, after Parliament rose, he was suffering from a high fever, and was obliged to retire with Katherine to nearby Lilleshall Abbey for a couple of days to recuperate.
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By this time, he was, as he confided to the King in a letter, suffering from a recurrent illness that proved intermittently incapacitating, and this was probably one such attack.
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Lilleshall Abbey, where John rested with Katherine, was a remote but imposing Norman house of red sandstone founded by Arroasian (later Augustinian) canons in 1148 and extended in the thirteenth century. Extensive ruins remain today, and the west front is especially magnificent.

Confronted with the prospect of his own mortality, John was having
to face the possibility that Richard II had designs on the Lancastrian inheritance, and Katherine would certainly have shared in her husband’s anxieties on that score, and indeed been concerned for him too. The King had already moved against three Lords Appellant, so what was there to stop him from proceeding against the other two? Even if he stopped short of indicting Henry for treason, he might yet use devious means to seize the Duchy for the Crown. As soon as he was well enough, John sought from Richard an assurance that he would not use the forfeiture of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, in 1322 as an excuse to appropriate the Duchy’s lands, a request Richard readily granted.
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So far, then, there had been no tangible evidence that the King was entertaining any sinister intentions towards the House of Lancaster. On 5 February, he again showed generosity to John Beaufort, appointing him to the prestigious offices of Warden of the Cinque Ports and Constable of Dover Castle, the key defensive fortress of the realm, and on 9 May Beaufort would be named Admiral of the North and West.
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In granting these offices, Richard was acknowledging John Beaufort to be one of the leading lords in the kingdom, a worthy son of his father.

John of Gaunt was evidently in better health by 5 February, for on that day the King again commissioned him to treat for peace with the Scots, and on the 20th, he was at Pontefract again, on his way north.
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He may have left Katherine there to await his return, for it is unlikely she accompanied him to Scotland, in view of the lawlessness of the Border regions.

There was much adverse comment when, on 27 February 1398, Henry Beaufort, a proud and ambitious young man of just twenty-one, was named Bishop of Lincoln by the King. He had been provided to the See by a bull of Pope Boniface IX, who was ever eager to gratify the wishes of the influential Duke of Lancaster, the Duke having shamelessly canvassed for the appointment; normally thirty was the minimum age for bishops. Even for the son of the mighty John of Gaunt, this was too rapid a promotion, and a flagrant abuse of the power of the Papacy. Evidently the aged Bishop Buckingham thought so too, because, rather than meekly submit to being translated to the less prestigious See of Coventry and Lichfield, ostensibly for the benefit of his health, but in reality to make way for his successor, he insisted on continuing with his episcopal duties in Lincoln up until 12 July that year. By then, he was too infirm to carry on anywhere, and was sent to live out his days in Canterbury, where he died on 10 March 1399. On 14 July 1398, having resigned as Chancellor of Oxford and renounced most of his other offices in order to focus on his episcopate, Henry Beaufort was consecrated Bishop of Lincoln, receiving his temporalities five days later at Tutbury.
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He was to prove a typical career
bishop, busy and competent in all his affairs, who would enjoy power within the State as well as the Church, and whose interests embraced both the secular and the sacred, yet who saw himself, before all else, as a Lancastrian prince. With his preferment, Katherine found herself the mother of a marquess, a countess and a bishop — attainments she could never at one time have dreamed of for her bastard children.

In the middle of March 1398, near Kelso, John of Gaunt appointed deputies to serve on the northern Marches, then rode south, unaware that he had just completed his last diplomatic mission — appropriately in the interests of peace.
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From that time onwards, he was to play little part in public life, a clear indication that his health was failing fast, as is the sudden cessation of his witnessing royal charters in July 1398.
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Worry about his son must have been a contributory factor.

The quarrel between Henry and Mowbray was still unresolved, and for Richard II, this was a God-sent opportunity to press home his advantage, for he had come to see the House of Lancaster, with its enormous power and vast wealth, as a threat to himself and his throne, and was indeed resolved to neutralise it. On 19 March, the two protagonists again appeared before the King at Bristol, and since honour had to be satisfied and neither party was willing to be reconciled, the case was referred to the Court of Chivalry to consider a ‘wager of battle’. John of Gaunt, ‘greatly upset’, according to Froissart, went to Westminster with Henry on 25 March, but he and Katherine had retired to Leicester by 14 April, and so John was consequently spared the ordeal of witnessing Richard II, on the 29th at Windsor, ordering that, since there were no witnesses to the fateful conversation, the issues between Henry and Mowbray be settled by judicial combat between the protagonists
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— an outdated but still legal (until 1819) process whereby guilt was apportioned to the man left dead or disabled, or the one who ended the fight by crying ‘Craven!’ In this case, ‘the duel was to be a matter of life and death’.
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Henry raced north to break the news to his father and to hone his skills for the coming fight. John of Gaunt now faced the terrible prospect of his beloved son and heir being killed and branded a traitor, but on the other hand, Henry was an expert swordsman and jouster, and his father may have been optimistic as to the outcome. For all that, the Duke ‘was much annoyed and disturbed’ by the King’s actions, although he did not wish to say a word against Richard because Henry’s honour was involved, as was his own.
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A sense of disaster threatening may well have overshadowed the family’s time at Pontefract, where they resided from at least 9 June until 14 July, before removing to Rothwell.
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It would appear that Richard was unaware of his uncle’s increasing frailty, for at
the beginning of July he renewed his commission as Lieutenant of the Marches.
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Early in August, Henry received word that the trial by combat would take place on 16 September. Richard may have been trying to lull John of Gaunt into a false sense of security when, on the 8th, he confirmed and extended his powers in the palatinate of Chester, upgraded the earldom of Chester to a principality and appointed the Duke its hereditary con-stable.
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But this was to be the last public office ever granted to John, whose relinquishment of the Duchy of Aquitaine that year suggests an awareness that he was no longer able to bear the responsibilities that possession of that turbulent domain entailed. In his place, at the end of August, the ever-upwardly mobile John Beaufort was appointed King’s Lieutenant in Aquitaine for seven years.
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At last, 16 September dawned, the day everyone concerned had been awaiting or dreading, and the two protagonists faced each other at Gosford Green, Coventry, with the King (who was lodging at Sir William Bagot’s house), the young Queen, the Duke and Duchess of Lancaster, the whole court and vast crowds of sightseers looking on. But as the contestants sat there on their steeds, poised to charge, the King threw down his staff and forbade them to proceed. Instead, they were summoned to kneel before him, and without further preliminaries, he sentenced Henry to ten years’ banishment, and Mowbray to exile for life. Both were commanded to leave England by 20 October.
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At a stroke, Richard had rid himself of the two remaining Appellants.

‘The whole court was in a state of turmoil.’
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The summary sentences — handed down without any charges being made or any form of trial — stunned everyone and provoked much criticism of the King, not the least because Henry was ‘extraordinarily popular’ in England.
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At last Richard had revealed his hand, showing that he had meant all along to have his revenge on every one of the former Appellants. On the plea of John of Gaunt, he did immediately reduce the term of Henry’s banishment to six years, but he was otherwise implacable. Banishing Henry and Mowbray had been a clever move on his part, for he must have been aware by now that the Duke did not have much longer to live, and with Henry abroad at the time his father died — as he surely would be — it would be far easier for the King to appropriate the vast Lancastrian estates.

For John of Gaunt and his son, however, it was a tragedy, for it meant that Henry had to leave his father, with whom he had always enjoyed a touchingly warm relationship, at a time when the latter’s health was failing fast and it must have been obvious that the prospect of their meeting again in this life was remote indeed. John may have made this point, to
no purpose, in his plea to the King. More than that, the future security of the Lancastrian patrimony, which for over thirty years the Duke had preserved and enriched as the inheritance he would leave his son and the heirs of his dynasty, was now clearly under threat. Many historians have observed that he made no public protest; Froissart says that he ‘was very angry and felt that the King should not have reacted as he had … And the more sensible of the barons agreed with him.’ Nevertheless, while he ‘deplored the matter in private, [he] was too proud to approach Richard II, since his son’s honour was involved’. That is understandable, but, given the King’s unpredictable humour, probably he did not dare to protest, for to do so might only worsen the situation, and so much was at stake. He had, after all, pleaded with the King in private, and failed to soften his resolve.

The prospect of death was undoubtedly in John’s mind at this time, for on 17 September, only one day after Richard pronounced his terrible judgement, the Duke obtained from him a licence to found a chantry for himself and Katherine in Lincoln Cathedral, where their souls could be prayed for in perpetuity by two chaplains.
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When his time came, John would be buried in the double tomb he had built for himself and Blanche in St Paul’s, but he desired to retain a spiritual affinity in death with Katherine, who must already have decided that she would be laid to rest in Lincoln Cathedral, a place with which she had long enjoyed a close association, and where she and John had been married. That she had the right to burial there is perhaps further evidence that she was a member of the cathedral’s confraternity, although her long residence in the Close might have qualified her for the privilege, and her royal status.

After their marriage, John and Katherine had forged even closer links with Lincoln Cathedral. They bestowed rich gifts. In his will, John left a gold chalice graven with a crucifix and an image of Christ, a gold table, large gold chandeliers and a stone altar he called ‘Domesday’ that was encrusted with sapphires, diamonds, pearls and rubies, all of which were from his own chapel, as well as new vestments of red cloth of gold adorned with gold falcons, and an altar cloth with the images of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary and the twelve Apostles embroidered in gold thread.

During her marriage and widowhood, Katherine too gave beautiful vestments, some from her own chapel; these comprised ‘a chasuble of red baudekin [rich silk] with orphreys [ornamental bands or borders] of gold with leopards powdered [sprinkled] with black trefoils, and two tunicles and two albs of the same suite’; twenty ‘fair copes’, each having ‘three wheels of silver in the hoods; … a chasuble of red velvet with Katherine wheels of gold, with two tunicles and three albs, with all the apparel of the same suite; … five copes of red velvet with Katherine wheels of gold,
of the which three hath orphreys of black cloth of gold, and the other two hath orphreys with images of Katherine wheels and stars’. There were also four other copes ‘in red satin figured with Katherine wheels of gold, with orphreys having images, staffs and Katherine wheels’, and ‘two cloths of red velvet embroidered with Katherine wheels of gold of divers lengths and divers breadths’. All were ‘of the gift of the Duchess of Lancaster’, and they were recorded in an inventory taken in 1536, when they were still proudly numbered among the cathedral’s treasures. These descriptions give some indication of the splendour in which the Duke and Duchess worshipped, while the proliferation of Katherine wheels testifies to the Duchess’s desire to be identified with her patron saint.
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Immediately after obtaining his licence from the King, John rode with Katherine to Leicester Castle. To show that he bore the Duke no ill will for the misdeeds of his son, Richard visited them there from 20 to 24 September,
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and on the last day of his stay, he granted Mowbray’s lordship of Castle Acre in Norfolk to Thomas Beaufort.
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Were these sops to lull John into believing that Richard had no further moves against the House of Lancaster planned?

During his visit, Richard must have seen a deterioration in John of Gaunt’s health. For some time, says Froissart, John was ‘low spirited on account of the banishment of his son’, and he was clearly not a well man. Although on 3 October Richard was apparently anticipating that his uncle might undertake another trip to Scotland in 1399, this was perhaps a ploy to make people believe he thought the Duke would live to see his son return from exile, in order to deflect any suspicions that he had his eye on their lands; for on that same day, he went so far as to issue letters authorising Henry to receive his inheritance in the event of John’s early demise.
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Katherine was probably present with John at Eltham Palace that month to witness Henry taking his leave of the King. Their own sad farewells were made soon afterwards, and on 13 March, Henry, riding through vast crowds of people ‘weeping and crying after him’, left London for Dover, where he was to board a ship bound for France.
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On his father’s advice, he had arranged to spend his exile in Paris, at the French court,
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near enough to England for him to be able speedily to return if necessary.