Shakespeare's Kings (78 page)

The
scene
now
shifts
to
France,
where
we
see
the
Pucelle
first forsaken
by
her
familiar
spirits
-
a
serious
challenge
to
any
director
-and
then
personally
captured
(another
fiction)
by
the
Duke
of
York. We
also
have
the
first
appearance
of
Margaret
of
Anjou,
the
future Queen.
Once
again,
Shakespeare
has
abandoned
history
altogether
in the
interests
of
his
drama.
The
idea
that
Margaret
had
been
taken prisoner
by
the
Earl
of
Suffolk
is
little
short
of
ludicrous,
as
is
the suggestion
that
he
had
become
infatuated
by
her;
Suffolk's
mission
to France
in
the
spring
and
early
summer
of
1444
had
been
undertaken
at the
command
of
the
King
-
notwithstanding
the
vigorous
objections of
Gloucester
-
and
was
conducted
with
perfect
propriety
throughout. So
too
was
his
mission
the
following
winter
and
spring
(during
which he
was
accompanied
by
his
wife)
to
fetch
Margaret
from
Lorraine
and escort
her
to
London,
despite
the
unjustified
accusations
—
taken
up
by Shakespeare
in
V.iii,
where
Suffolk
and
Rene
(Regnier)
discuss
the marriage,
and
again
in
the
opening
scene
of
Henry VI Part II—
of
having surrendered
Maine
and
Anjou.
¹

After
yet
another
appearance
of
the
Pucelle
—
over
which,
once
again, it
is
kinder
to
pass
without
comment
—
Cardinal
Beaufort
appears
at the
English
camp
to
announce
the
decision
to
conclude
not
a
two-year truce
but
a
full
treaty
of
peace.
York
rounds
on
him
angrily
('Is
all
our travail
turn'd
to
this
effect?')
but
accepts
the
inevitable
when
he
hears the
terms.
So,
after
some
initial
reluctance,
does
Charles
VII,
who
agrees henceforth
to
wear
his
crown
as
Henry's
Viceroy.
The
final
scene returns
us
to
London,
where
Gloucester
makes
one
last
attempt
to persuade
his
nephew
to
marry
the
Armagnac
bride
rather
than
the

1. See Chapter 11, p. 231.

Angevin. But Suffolk's arguments in favour of Margaret - together with the King's own inclinations, such as they are — carry the day. Gloucester warns of coming disaster, and Suffolk brings down the curtain with a cry of ominous if ungrammatical triumph:

Thus Suffolk hath prevail'd; and thus he goes,

As did the youthful Paris once to Greece;

With hope to find the like event in love,

But prosper better than the Trojan did.

Margaret shall now be Queen, and rule the King;

But I will rule both her, the King, and realm.

And so for the next five years, he did.

king
.

Thus stands my state, 'twixt Cade and York distress'd;

Like to a ship that, having scap'd a tempest,

Is straightway calm'd, and boarded with a pirate.

KING HENRY VI PART II

The truce of
1444
- which, with prolongations, continued effectively for five years - proved to be exactly what France needed. Whereas a quarter of a century before she had been largely incapacitated by a mentally unstable monarch while England was inspired to victory
after victory by the greatest mi
litary leader ever to have occupied her throne, now the situations of the two countries had been neatly reversed: young Henry VI of England had proved a pious simpleton - if he were not yet clinically insane, he soon would be - while Charles VII of France, awoken to a sense of his responsibilities first by Joan of Arc, then by a number of brilliant and energetic captains and finally by his beautiful mistress Agnes Sorel, had revealed qualities of character which in his youth had remained unsuspected. He first used the breathing space to restore law and order throughout his domains; he then set about reorganizing his army, equipping it with modern artillery considerably more sophisticated than anything possessed by the English. By the time the truce came to an end, he — and it - would be ready for the last great effort: to drive his enemy back across the Channel once and for all.

England, meanwhile, remained preoccupied with her own affairs. A chapter ended in
1447,
when Duke Humphrey of Gloucester and his old antagonist the Bishop of Winchester died within a few weeks of each other. Humphrey, as we have seen, had by now lost much of his power, having never really recovered from his wife's trial for witchcraft

in
144
i
.
Ever
since
that
time
his
nephew
the
King
had
been
understandably
suspicious
of
him,
though
for
some
years
he
was
careful
to
press no
charges.
Not
till
1447
did
the
crisis
finally
come,
when
Parliament met,
on
10
February,
at
Bury
St
Edmunds.
The
Duke
appeared
a
week later,
attended
by
eighty
horsemen.
He
was
met
at
the
entrance
to
the town
and
peremptorily
ordered
to
go
straight
to
his
lodgings;
and
there, that
same
evening,
a
number
of
high-ranking
noblemen
arrived
to
put him
under
arrest.
On
23
February
he
died,
aged
fifty-six.
There
were the
usual
dark
tales
of
smotherings,
red-hot
pokers
and
the
like,
but
we can
probably
accept
the
cause
of
his
death
that
was
officially
announced at
the
time
-
an
apoplectic
stroke.
He
was
buried
in
the
abbey
of St
Albans,
now
its
cathedral:
probably
the
most
cultivated
man
in England,
but
with
a
character
so
fatally
flawed
that
it
was
to
prove
his undoing.
To
the
young
King
he
had
been
both
a
good
example
and
a bad
one;
but
Henry's
life-long
enthusiasm
for
literature
and
learning was
almost
certainly
due,
in
very
large
measure,
to
him.

Two
months
later
the
Duke's
arch-enemy
Henry
Beaufort
followed him
to
the
grave.
Twenty-one
years
a
cardinal,
Beaufort
never
became an
archbishop,
preferring
to
retain
his
beloved
see
of
Winchester
until his
death.
He
was,
however,
the
worldliest
of
prelates,
for
years
dominating
the
political
scene
-
despite
the
indefatigable
opposition
of
Duke Humphrey
-
as
much
as
he
did
the
ecclesiastical,
working
for
peace just
as
determinedly
as
the
Duke
had
championed
the
continuation
of the
war,
if
with
rather
less
success.
Much
of
his
immense
wealth
he spent
on
the
rebuilding
of
his
cathedral,
and
the
re-founding
and enlarging
of
the
Hospital
of
St
Cross,
which
still
survives
today.
The sum
of
£2,000
from
the
residue
of
the
estate
he
left
to
the
King,
but Henry
refused
it.
'My
uncle,'
he
said,
'was
very
dear
to
me,
and
did me
much
kindness
while
he
lived,
may
the
Lord
reward
him!
Do
with his
goods
as
ye
are
bound
to
do:
I
will
not
have
them.'