HENRY AND QUEEN JOANNA
There is a strange episode in Henry’s history which cannot be passed
over, but about which it is difficult to form any satisfactory
conclusion. This episode concerns his relations with his stepmother,
Joanna of Navarre. I deal with it now, though it belongs by right to
a later period of the narrative, because when this is disposed of,
nothing need interrupt the story of Henry’s career as a conqueror.
Under the year 1419 Walsingham writes: “In this year the King’s
stepmother, Queen Anne, was accused by certain persons of some
wickedness that she had contrived to the injury of the King. All her
attendants were removed, and she was committed to the custody of Sir
John Pelham, who, hiring five new attendants, put her into the castle
of Pevensey, there to be kept under his control.”
At Pevensey Queen Joanna remained till within a few weeks of Henry’s
death. On July 13th, 1422, the King made a communication to the Council
at home to the following effect:--That for reasons known to them
he had for a time taken into his own hand the dower of his mother,
Queen Joanna; that, doubting whether it would not be a charge on his
conscience to keep the said dowry any longer, and being indeed advised
not to suffer such a charge to lie, he now instructed them to make
deliverance unto the said Queen wholly of her said dower. She was to
appoint her own servants, so that they were the King’s liegemen. All
her furniture was to be delivered to her again. She was to have five or
six gowns of cloth, and of such colour as she was used to wear. As she
would not choose to remain in the place where she then was, she might
have horses for eleven cars to remove her goods, and she might go to
any place which she might choose.
It is not difficult to see causes of an estrangement between the
Queen and her stepson. Her eldest son, the Duke of Britanny, had been
expected to become a warm ally of the English in the war against
France. He had disappointed this hope. It would even seem that it was
only by an accident that he had not fought against Henry at Agincourt.
Her second son, Arthur, though an English subject, as having done
homage for the earldom of Richmond, had been actually taken prisoner
in that battle. Some accounts even represent him as having made an
attack on the English camp during the night of the 24th of October.
The Duke d’Alençon was her son-in-law. Charles of Navarre, Constable
of France, was her brother. A lady so closely connected with the enemy
might well become an object of suspicion. And she was, or had been,
unpopular in England. Parliament had complained of the foreigners whom
she kept about her person, and with such effect that the King (Henry
the Fourth) had dismissed all but a few. But one cannot help thinking
that her dowry had more to do with the matter than anything else.
Henry, compelled even to pawn the royal jewels for the expenses of his
expedition, may have looked with coveting eyes on his stepmother’s
wealth, wealth which she seems to have been careful to save, and even
to increase by trade. A jointure of ten thousand marks had been settled
on her by the House of Commons in 1406. She enjoyed, in addition, a
large income as Dowager-Duchess of Britanny. We hear of various trading
ventures, especially of the export of ore from certain lead mines which
her second husband had granted her. Special privileges as regards
export and import duties seem also to have been accorded to her. On the
other hand, it has been pointed out that her charities were unusually
small for a person of her exalted station. On the whole the impression
is left that she had both the opportunity and the will to accumulate
wealth. Such accumulations, if they existed, could hardly have failed
to attract the attention of a sovereign who was doing all that he could
to procure the sinews of war. Indeed we hear of Henry directing one
of his officials to send all the money that he could possibly borrow
from the dower of Joanna the Queen, leaving her only money enough for
her reasonable expenses and to pay any annuities that she might have
granted. This injunction was followed in the same year by the arrest of
the Queen. It is not unlikely that she resisted the attempt to extort
the money, and that her resistance was punished by the accusation
which Walsingham records. The crime charged against her was probably
sorcery: “she had compassed,” it was said, “the death of our lord the
King in the most high and horrible manner that could be imagined.” On
the Parliamentary roll that contains this statement there follows with
suspicious promptitude the confiscation of all the accused person’s
property.
Henry was not in England at the time when this happened, but he cannot
be acquitted of responsibility in the matter. It is certain that when
he returned he did nothing to redress his stepmother’s wrongs. This
was left, as has been said, till nearly the end of his life, when her
imprisonment had lasted for more than three years. The only excuse
that can be offered is that he probably regarded the confiscation of
Joanna’s wealth as a military necessity; and where a military necessity
was concerned, no other considerations were allowed to interfere with
his action.