142 Constitutional History. [chap.
confession, made shortly before Iiis death, he stated some mat-
ters which Suffolk had to disavow, although the name of duke
YetSuffoik Humfrey was not mentioned. Yet there is nothing in the
was never σ
⅛gallyd bistory of either of these men that would give the least proba-
Withmurder. bility to such a charge as this. The commons, when in 14511
they petitioned for sentence of forfeiture against Suffolk, did
not go beyond terming him the cause and labourer of the
arrest, imprisonment, and final destruction of the duke ; the
accusation in its complete form was the work of the triumphant
The death Yorkists long after. On the whole, the evidence, both of direct
probably ~ ,
natural. statement and silence among contemporary writers, tends to the
belief that Gloucester’s death was owing to natural causes,
probably to a stroke of paralysis ; his arrest to some design in
hhar8ht which all the leading lords were partakers. Tlie charges made
against against his servants, who were arrested at the same time, were
Gloucester’b . e
servants. definite enough ; they had conspired to make the duke king of
England and Eleanor Cobham queen; they had falsely and
traitorously imagined the death and destruction of the king,
and had conspired together for the purpose ; they had raised
an armed force and set out for Bury S. Edmund’s to kill the
king2. On the 8th of July Thomas Herbert and four others
were tried by a special commission, of which Suffolk was the
head, and convicted by a Kentish jury at Deptford; but a
Tkey are week later they were pax,doued by the king ; and in the month
of October their reputed accomplices received a similar pardon.
We may infer from this that Henry could scarcely have be-
lieved the story of his uncle’s treason ; but the favours which
were afterwards showered on both Suffolk and Moleyns show
1 Rot. Park v. 226.
2 Rymer, xi. 178. Tliirty-Oiglit of the eluke’s servants were arrested.
On Priday, July 14, five were condemned to the penalties of treason and
brought to the gallows. At the last moment Suffolk produced the pardon
and they were released; Gregory, p. 188. A list of forty-two is given by
Ellis, Original Letters, 2nd Series, i. 108, 109; cf. Leland, Coll. ii. 494.
Gregory says that the arrested persons never ‘ ymagenyd no falseness of
the that they were put upon of.’ The pardon is granted in consideration
of the approaching festival of the Assumption, on which day the pope had
granted indulgences to those visiting the king’s college at Eton : it is
dated July 14, and was no doubt the king’s independent act. See
Blakman, p. 301.
XVIIi.] Cardinal Beaufort. 143
equally clearly that he did not believe them responsible for the
duke’s murder.
On the 11 th of April, six weeks after the death of Gloucester, Death of
the cardinal of England passed away ; not, as the great poet Beaufort,
has described him, in the pangs of a melodramatic despair1, Apnl ɪ447'
but with the same business-like dignity in which for so long he
had lived and ruled. As he lay dying in the Wolvesey palace
at Winchester he had the funeral service and the mass of
requiem solemnised in his presence ; in the evening of the same
day he had his will read in the presence of his household, and
the following morning confirmed it in an audible voice ; after
which he bade farewell to all, and so died ; leaving, after large
legacies, the residue of his great wealth to charity2. He IiadHisweaith.
been indeed too rich for his own fame ; Henry, when the
bishop’s executors offered him a sum of .£2000 from the residue,
put them aside, saying, ζ Hy uncle was very dear to me and did
much kindness to me whilst he lived ; the Lord reward him.
But do ye with his goods as ye are bounden ; I will not take
them3.’ Henry spoke the truth; Beaufort had been the main- Hispoiiticai
stay of his house; for fifty years he had held the strings of
English policy, and done his best to maintain the welfare and
honour of the nation. That he was ambitious, secular, little
troubled with scruples, apt to make religious persecution a
substitute for religious life and conversation ; that he was
imperious, impatient of control, ostentatious and greedy of
honour,—these are faults which weigh very lightly’ against a
great politician, if they be all that can be said against him. It
must be remembered in favour of Beaufort that he guided the
helm of state during the period in which the English nation
1 Hall, Chr. p. 210, on the authority of John Baker, a counsellor of the
cardinal, gives a last speech, which contains nothing positively unnatural,
hut much that is improbable. It is asserted that the bulk of the cardinal’s
wealth fell to Edmund Beaufort, the marquess of Dorset, his nephew, who
was one of his executors. This does not appear from the will ; £4000 is
left to the bastard John of Somerset, and to the king the jewels pledged
by the parliament to the cardinal and in his hands at his death. His last
loan to the king seems to be one of 2000 marks in 1444; Rymer, χi. 55 :
but he had provided £20,000 in 1443.
2 Cont. Croyland, ap. Gale, p. 582.
3 Blakman, de Virtutibus Henrici VI, p. 294.