John of Gaunt and English policy towards France 1389–1395

John of Gaunt and English policy towards France 1389-1395

Christopher John Phillpotts

In the years after the truce of 1389, English and French embassies met in a series of conferences to

formulate a peace treaty. The chief English dip-

lomat, John of Gaunt, negotiatedfor his own ambitions in Guylenne rather than for the claims of

his nephew, King Richard II. Despite his skill at the conference table, these claims continued to /we-

vent the achievement of a dejkitive peace. In the duchy of Guyenne, Gaunt failed to establish himself by force or diplomacy, and the truce remained

fragile. With his uncle’s peace policy in ruins, Richard took control offoreign affairs and agreed

a long truce with France in 1396. A reconsideration of the diplomacy of these years casts new light on Anglo-French relations at the central point of the Hundred Years War.

The Hundred Years War was a conflict

characterised by its truces, periods of open

war alternating with long periods of truce.

The longest of these phases of truce began

in 1389, lasting through many vicissitudes

until the Agincourt campaign of 1415. One

of the declared purposes of late medieval

truces was to provide a setting in which

peace could be finally established. The

truces of the early 1390s were dominated by

negotiations for a peace settlement between

English and French delegations, a series of

conferences in which John of Gaunt, Duke

of Lancaster, was the principal ambassador

on the English side. These negotiations

have been seen by some historians as the

best chance of ending the war during its

whole course, or at least since the Treaty of

Bretigny in 1360. In this article I aim to

show that Plantagenet claims to the French

throne and an assemblage of fiefs in France

continued to obstruct progress towards

peace in these years, although these claims

were subverted when English policy was

harnessed to the personal ambitions of John

of Gaunt. These ambitions were ultimately

thwarted and all that could be achieved was

a prolonged truce.

The course of the peace negotiations

demonstrates that there was a motivation

towards peace on the English side in the

latter half of Richard II’s reign. On the

French side of the Channel it was believed

that King Richard himself truly desired to

make a final settlement but was restricted

by his relatives and the English nobility,

whom the French sought to circumvent by

arranging a personal meeting between the

two monarchs. Amongst contemporary

writers Philippe de Mezieres portrayed

Richard as enthusiastic for peace in contrast

Journal of Iledieval History 16 (IWO) 363-386

0304.4181/90/53.jO 0 1990-Elsevier Science Publishers B.1.. (Sorth-Holland) 363

to the attitude of his uncles, the cl&3 of Lancaster, York and Gloucester. He alleged that Richard made the first move towards friendship betn-een the two kings (Coopland 1969a:400; 1975: 19, 32). Froissart also represented Richard as consistently fa\,ourable towards a peace settlement and credited him with initiating the project of his marriage to Isabelle ofFrance. He coupledJohn of Gaunt with Richard in this pacific polic), (Kervyn de Lettenhove 1871:80-l. 147, 183, 237-8). Twentieth-centur>, historians have followed these indications in their analysis of Richard’s personal motives and policy. According to Edouard Perroy, peace with France was an obsession for Richard which began to take hold in 1386. He \vas dra\vn progressivel), inm the political sphere of the Valois until he c\.cntuall>- met Charles in 1396 and became the ser\,ile promoter of French polic) in Europe for the last three years of his reign, a role in wliich he drew his sole domestic support from Gaunt. He belie\red that his nelv father-in- lalv’s military aid \vas an essential element in his struggle to crush the recalcitrant En- glish nohilit), and establish an autocrac)’ (1933a:353, 363, 386, 390; 1936:153--4; 1951:197, 199). X.B. Steel’s biography of Richard follow:ed the same lines, though his interest in foreign afTairs w’as more limited. For Steel, Richard’s French policy was connected to his unstable psychological condition (1941:178n. 1, 203, 212-3).

Dr. John Palmer has offered a more mod- erate explanation of Ricllard’s position in Anglo-French relations, though it is still not without its sensational aspects. He presents both Richard and Charles as genuinel) seeking a final peace in these years. \vith the support of their uncles and the aristoc-

rat). of both countries. HoLvever, Richard xvas not prepared to engage in a policy of appeasement. In his pursuit of a “firm but soundly based peace” he laid the founda- tions for “the genuine peace and real co-op- eration kvhich \vas to be the hall-mark of the mid-1390s.” The climax to his diplomat)- ivas not the settlement of 1396 but the draft peace of 1393 and a hypothetical trea- t>- in 1394. both based around the permanent separation of Guyenne (Figure 1) from the English crokvn under a dynasty founded b!‘ Gaunt. Richard regarded the truce and marriage of 1396 as a less saCsfactor)- arrangement; the diplomacy of his last years M as therefore a relative failure (1966a:81; 197la:77-9. 107; 1972:142-3, 171).

Xii~~ final settlement of the Plantagcnct- \‘alois conflict Ltould have to tackle the terms on Lvhich the king of England held Guyennc and his other lands in France. To prestw’e the feudal integrit). of the kingdom of France, it \vas essential for the French to clcmand liege homage from the king of En- gland for those parts of .Acluitaine he held b?. the terms of a compromise. The fundamental objection of’ the English to this demand, \vas that it Lvould place the English crokvn in subjection to the French crown; it \\.ould be an intolerable restriction on the freedom of action of the king of England and his subjects. This basic division \t-as recognised in all negotiations. During the Caroline phase of the \\-ar (1369-1389) the English Lvould al\va)-s repl)- to the French protestation, insisting on liege homage, w+th their o\vn protestation that the king of En- gland lvould hold his French lands from the \‘alois only b)- fief and ressort.’ Since neither side felt able to abandon its position on the issue ofso\.ereignt), some means had

364

ROUERGUE

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, t.

: ?

‘L. ,t-‘” l_.,*,“‘*-

Figure 1. The Duchy of Guyenne in the Treaty of BrCtigny.

365

to be found to circum\,ent this impasse. The

boldest solution was the alienation of

Guyenne by the English king to a cadet line

of his own family, Ivhich would hold the

Duchy in perpetuity under the sovereignt)

of the French kings. This would have sepa-

rated the feudal entities of England and

France for the first time since the earl).

twelfth centuq.. The burden of homage to

the French king kvould be removed from the

king of England and transferred to the nc~

duke and his descendants. The Valois could

afrord to be correspondingly more generous

in ceding land to the ne\v En,glish d!-nasty.

This arrangement has been represented b\.

Palmer as the only feasible negotiated set-

tlement of the Hundred 17ears \Var. It kc’as

the on&. \va)- in which the English could

\vlthdra\v from their costly in\-ol\.enlent in

France without humiliation: the disputed

territory Mould remain in the hands of an

English prince, and its assimilation into

\‘alois France xvas too remote a possihilit).

to he obstructi\,c. Palmer drahvs on a fe\x

pieces of tenuous e\.idence to maintain that

the perpetual alienation of Guyenne to John

of Gaunt and his heirs under French

so\,ereigntv was the basis of‘ e\-er)- Anglo-

French peace conference from its tentative

proposal 1, 1 ! t le Papal mediators at Brugcs

in March 1375 (cvhen it \\‘a~ rcjcctcd t)). the

English), to the negotiations fi>r the

T\\ent).-Eight Yeai truce in 1395

(1971b:j5; 1972:28-36. 41-2). On 2 hIarch

1390, at the end of the Parliament held at

\vestminster, Richard II in\,ested his uncle,

SJolln of Gaunt, as duke of Aquitaine for life

under his so\.ereignt)- as king of France,

\\itll the assent of Parliament (R>mel

1728:659-60) .” To Palmer this action MXS

Richard’s declaration of‘intent to bring the

negotiations of the previous fifteen )-ears to

a conclusion. His real intention was that

Gaunt should found a new ducal dynast\- in

south\vestern France. \Vhen, as he ‘es-

pccted, Richard relinquished his title to the

French crokvn to Charles VI, the homage

owed to it b>- Gaunt and his heirs for his

new Duch, would also be transferred. The

two principal obstacles to a final peace, the

Plantagenet claim to the French throne and

the \‘alois claim to sovereignt!- o\.cf

Gu)-enne, kvould be remo\.ed at a stroke.

The implementation of this master-plan

\vas sabotaged b>. the unwillingness of the

Gascons to accept Gaunt as their duke; the)

are thus held responsible for ruining the

best chance fbr a diplomatic solution to the

conflict ( 1966a:85; 197 11,:35; 1972:36-42,

144: 160, 163).

I r Richard intended the Lancastrian

d) nasty to hold Gu!.cnne for e\.er, in accor-

dance kvith a11 a,greement kvitll Charles VI,

he must have con\.erted his original life-

grant into a grant in perpetuit)-. The onl)

authorit). for such a donation is Jean Frois-

sart. He implies this \vas made in mid- 1394.

but omits an!- mention of the earlier life-

grant. He states that Richard made tile

grant in a Chuncil, \vhich approved the ac-

tion, resrrxing the homage to himself (Ker-

1.)-n de I,ettenllo\.e 1871: 135-6, 157-9). i

Froissart’s rcliabilit). in describing details of

f‘eudal tenure is to he doubted. Besides him,

onI\, the author of the Edogium Historiarum suyqats that the grant \vas made at the I I- same time as the earl of Lhmdel’s protests

concerning it, in the Parliament of,Januar).

1394, and his clironolog). is liopelessl>. con-

fused. He is \vrong too about the terms of

the grant, but does not mention a perpetual

alienation (Ha).don 1863:370).’ In conf’er-

366

ring the Duchy on his uncle in March 1390,

Richard clearly stated that the grant was ad

totam vitam tuam and that on Gaunt’s death,

it would revert to the king and his heirs.

These terms were confirmed in Richard’s

further letters in November 1390, Sep-

tember 1394 and July 1397.” These latter

two confirmations preclude a grant in per-

petuity in Council or Parliament in 1394.

By the terms of the donation of March

1390, Gaunt was to hold the Duchy by liege

homage from Richard as king of France, the

sovereignty and ressort of the Duchy being

reserved to Richard and his heirs as kings

of France. This arrangement was confirmed

when the terms of the original grant were

repeated in July 1392 (Rymer 1728:727),

but was not specified in the letters of Sep-

tember 1394 or July 1397. Richard’s pur-

pose here seems to be to emphasise his title

to the French crown, by acting in his capac-

ity as king of France when investing a

member of the royal family with an appan-

age. Similarly, before and after the dona-

tion, he appointed judges to hear appeals in

Aquitaine to him as king of France accord-

ing to the procedure of his court of France.”

However, to Palmer this clause indicates

that Richard was suppressing his right to

the Duchy as king of England, in order to

facilitate its proposed alienation to the

Valois (1972:39-41). But in the proposals

for homage made at the conference of 1393,

it appears both sides recognised that the

duke would remain his nephew’s vassal

(Hector and Harvey 1982:5 18; Kervyn de

Lettenhove 187 1: 135-6; compare Palmer

1972:40). There is no reference in any offi-

cial document to an intention by Richard to

abandon Gaunt’s homage to Charles, as an

adjunct to his title to the French throne.

The outlines of Palmer’s hypothesis have

been followed by some subsequent writers.

R. H. Jones, Anthony Tuck and Anthony

Goodman have regarded Gaunt as the con-

sistent supporter of Richard’s rkgime

throughout the 1390s. Goodman, Margaret

Labarge and Maurice Keen have accepted

that an Aquitaine permanently separated

from England under a new Lancastrian

dynasty was the basis for a projected peace

settlement. Tuck largely endorses Palmer’s

reconstruction of the diplomacy of 1393-

1395 (Jones, R. H. 1968:66, 74; Tuck

1973:138, 168-70, 209; 1985:198, 203-5;

Goodman 1985:76, 85; Labarge 1980: 179-

84; Keen 1973:289). However, James Sher-

borne has raised some doubts about the im-

portance of the draft of 1393, the existence

of another treaty in 1394 and the perpetual

grant of Aquitaine to the Lancastrians

( 1981:61-2). A review of the circumstances

of Gaunt’s acquisition of the Duchy and the

sequence of negotiations for peace and truce

in the early 1390s suggests a different in-

terpretation of events, a more developed

and flexible model than those of Perroy and

Palmer. This has implications not only for

the state of Anglo-French relations at this

pivotal point in the war, but also for the

domestic politics of Richard II’s reign and

the functions played by truce and diplo-

macy in the conflict.

By 1389 mutual exhaustion had induced

a military stalemate, and truce was neces-

sary both for recovery and to seek new ad-

vantages by the acquisition of allies. The

conflict between England and France was

transferred from the field of battle to the

negotiating table. At this time John of

Gaunt was absent from England. After the

abandonment of his ambitions in Spain,

367

Gaunt had arrived in Guyenne in autumn 1387 and sown the seeds of his later peace policy. The settlement he made with Juan I of Castile in ,Jul>- 1388 included the sale of his claim to the Castilian throne for an initial payment of 600,000 francs and an an- nual pension of 40,000 francs. Since Gaunt had failed to break the France-Castilian alliance and make a separate peace between England and Castile, he no\v favoured a peace with France to ensure the continued receipt of his pension and the position of his two daughters, Philippa, queen of Portugal. and Catalina, shortly to be queen of Castile. This was to remain a moti1.e throughout the 1390s (Kerryn de Lettenhove 187 1:8 1, 238: Russell 1955:506-i, 509,5 12). Gaunt turned his attention to negotiating a truce in Guyenne Lvith the duke of Berry, each acting as the lieutenant of his royal nephelv. At Bla)re on 18 August 1388, their representati\,es sealed a truce ending all acts of 12-a] south of the Loire. to last until the follow.ing hlarch. I,ater it \vas prorogued until the end of‘July 1389.’ Tl ie English negotiators appointed truce conservators for nine districts: Bordeaux, Bordefais and Bazadais; I.andes; Agrnais and Querc); Bigorre; Pirigord; Au\.ergne and Rouergur; Limousin; Poitou. Saintonge and Angoumois; and the marches between the ri\vs Garonnc and Dordogne. OnI!. in the first t\vo districts did the En- glish have complete control: the othei-s represented outf>+ng fortresses and enclaves in French territor).. Each w’as assigned two or more local fords or captains as conservators, except Bigorre, wfiich the Captain of 1,ourdes lvatched o\.er alone.

\Yhife Guycnne \~a?; protected b) a focal truce, English and French ambassadors Lvere discussing a full truce betlveen the two

countries at Leulinghen in Picardy. The conference proved to be long and arduous. The point of difficulty was the French protestation that their king could not negotiate separately from his allies and was obliged to consult the Scats and the Castilians before concluding a truce. E\identfy the French Lvished to include both these parties, while the English resisted SCJ complete a sus-

pension of hostilities, especially in regard to Scotland.” After an adjournment. the French point of \+ecv prevailed on Richard, \vho took control of the Council in i’vIa>, 1389. New commissions were issued to the ambassadors and the conference moved quickly to a conclusion.” On 18 <June 1389, the English, French and Castilian ambassadors at Ixufinghen agreed to a truce including all the allies of both sides by name, to become operational b>. land and sea on 15 August and continlle until three )-ears from that date (Rymer 1728:622-30).

In ,No\-ember 1389 Gaunt returned to En- gland from his lieutenant). in Gu),cnne, fol- fo\ving a summons fi-om Richard to come and play his part in the ,go\.ernmcnt of the kingdom (Rile). 1864: 193: Hector and Har- \-c)’ 1982:406: Nicholas 1834: f-l-c-cl, 18: Rymcr 1728:641. 648). X few weeks later Gaunt made his mark on English politics, at the Council of Reading, Ivherc he pre- sided o\‘er the pacification of the quarrels of the 1380s. He was fbrmally appointed to the C:ouncif in Parliament inJanuar). 1390 and. I\-lth the duke of Gloucester and the chan- cellor, established control o\.er all grants made out of’ crobvn revenue (Rile\- 1864: 194-5; Strachq and others 1783:262a; Hector and Hal-\-c). 1982:406-8; Nicholas 1834: 18a-b). During the next )-ear he quickly built up his influence in England

368

until he was the dominant figure. An impor-

tant stage in this was the hunting-party he

held at Leicester in July that was attended

by the king and queen, the dukes of York

and Gloucester, and other important mag-

nates (Lumby 1895:313; Hector and Har-

vey 1982:440-2; Store); 197 1: 149). Gaunt’s

territorial ambitions were now diverted to

Guyenne. He fixed upon Guyenne as his

prospective principality, envisaging himself

as the semi-independent ruler of an en-

larged duchy, perhaps in imitation of Duke

Philip of Burgundy. Like Philip, Gaunt

wished to be the governing mentor of his

nephew’s kingdom, with his own territory

partly inside and partly outside the king-

dom and his own foreign spheres of interest.

He did not expect to found a dynasty in

Guyenne, but he may have regarded himself

or Bolingbroke as the natural successor to

the childless Richard’s English throne and

French claims (Haydon 1863:369-70).

Gaunt advocated an Anglo-French peace as

a precondition for a wider settlement of the

divisions of Christendom, principally, the

Schism and the organisation of a crusade

against the Turks, and later he showed

some interest in a joint crusade with Philip

of Burgundy and Louis of Orleans.“’ But

these European considerations were subor-

dinate to the personal short-term advan-

tages he could gain from a general peace:

his interests in Spain and Guyenne were

best served by the cessation of French inter-

ference in southwest Europe. To further

these interests, Gaunt needed to gain con-

trol of English policy, towards France. His

influence had extended to foreign policy by

the time the instructions for the embassy to

France were drawn up in the Council in

April 1390. Since he lacked the personal au-

thority of the king, Gaunt was obliged to

direct negotiations through the Council,

and in his position as the chief ambassador,

and eventually to submit his conduct of dip-

lomacy to the consideration of Great Coun-

cils and Parliaments. By 1392 he was pre-

eminent in the Council, stating his opinions

on questions before they were debated by

the other members (Baldwin 1913:498, 499;

see also Phillpotts 1984:510, 512, 515-6).

His power was based on a close relationship

with Richard, who made little effort to di-

rect policy until the summer of 1394, despite

his sudden self-assertion in May 1389. The

king retained ultimate control over foreign

affairs and occasionally expressed his opin-

ion, but through either indolence or lack of

confidence, he was content to place his re-

liance in Gaunt and the Council (Steel

1941:193; Tuck 1973:138; 1985:197-8).

Gaunt pursued his ambitions for Guyenne

through negotiations for peace and truce at

large-scale conferences, with an emphasis

on ostentation and ceremony. Here he

adopted a diplomacy of direct discussion

between Plantagenet and Valois princes,

designed to achieve a compromise by the

successive surrender of points on both sides.

The sequence of Anglo-French confer-

ences in these years opened at Leulinghen

in June 1390 (MoranvillC 1889:367-g; Hec-

tor and Harvey 1982:436). Gaunt met the

French ray-al uncles at three major confer-

ences at Amiens in spring 1392, and Leulin-

ghen in the spring of 1393 (in which there

were two sessions) and of 1394. There were

subsidiary- meetings at Leulinghen in July

1392 and August 1393.” The negotiations

of 1390 and <July 1392 quickly broke down

over procedural disputes, each side trying

to extract a concession from the other before

369

engaging in serious bargaining. The ex-

changes of 1393 resulted in the draft peace

of 16 June and those of 1394 in a four-)-ear

truce. Peace proposals were also discussed

in England, at meetings of the Great COUII-

cil at Clarendon in September 1389 and

Stamford in Ma), 1392, and at the Parlia-

ments held at \I:inchester in January 1393

and \Yestminster in Januar). 1394 (Nicholas

1834: 1 l-l 2; Hector and Harvey 1982:488-

90, 516-8; Kervyn de Lettenhovc 1872:389;

Lumby 1895:3 18; Riley 1864:206; Strache).

and others 1783:300-2, 313-5; Bellaguet

1840:74).

The failure of each side since 1385 to

make an impact on the others’ territor)

meant that the French advance into

Gu)-enne in the 1370s still dictated the

course of the discussions of the 139Os, cnsur-

ing that the main debate concerned the cx-

tent of what Richard \vas to hold in

Guyenne, and the terms of its tenure. The claims and concessions the two sides were

prepared to make in diplomatic exchanges

reflect the balance of ad\rantage between

them and the precise terms express their ex-

pectations at this point in their conflict. These expectations kvere most fluid in the territorial elements of proposed settlements. The boundaries of these ranged right across the four romttfs and sixteen z’icomtis which

were considered to make up the ancient

duchy of Aquitaine. The proposed frontiers usuall>- bore no relation to the geographical position of English and French armed strength. ” Negotiat ors could afford to be flexible about the amount of land to be ceded, but points of principle Were more troublesome. Any feasible settlement would have to include solutions to all the outstanding differences hetween the t\vo sides.

Clauses about homage for English lands in France, the Plantagenet title to the French throne, the tenure of Calais and the inclu- sion of allies were used as bargaining coun-

ters no less than blocks of territory, and were perhaps more important. Financial claims of one side against the other might also be introduced at conferences. All these elements had to be considered in the con- struction or assessment of an offer for a peace treaty.

In 1390 the English ambassadors were instructed to ask for all the lands which had been assigned to Edward III by the treat) of Bretigny, including the comte’ of Ponthieu

(Nicholas 1834: 19-24). The request was

never made at the conference, but the

French memorandum of this year shows

that the Valois were conscious of the im-

pro\.ement of their position o\.er the last

thirty years:

By the time Gaunt presented the English position at the Amiens conference in March 1392 he was willing to give up the claim to Ponthieu, but still requested all of Guyenne. This would include Poitou, the usufruct held for life by the duke of Berry from the duke of Guyennc, but reverting to the Duchy on his death. This arrangement would allo\v the English to retain the rights of the Duchy over Poitou, and gain its even- tual assimilation, without forcing Berry to pa)’ homage directly to Richard. After Gaunt’s death the re\.ersion of Poitou would pass back to the English royal house with the relrersion of Guyenne. On this occasion the French ambassadors replied with a

370

specific territorial offer, but it still fell short

of English requirements, omitting Poitou,

Limousin, Saintonge north of the river

Charente and Quercy south of the river

Aveyron. However, the following year at the

second session of the Leulinghen confer-

ence, a definitive compromise was reached

on the amount of territory to be ceded. The

French added Limousin, southern Quercy,

La Rochelle and the little comte’ of Gaure to

their offer. Richard was to retain the march

of Calais as defined by the treaty of Bri-

tigny, and to renounce various titles to other

lands mentioned in the treaty, or inherited

from his predecessors. Gaunt now agreed to

the permanent loss of Ponthieu, Poitou and

most of northern Saintonge, but he won a

notable success in gaining La Rochelle and

the lands around Montauban from the

French.

These gains helped to persuade Gaunt

and his brother the duke of Gloucester to

accept the other main component of the

draft, the promise that English lands in

Aquitaine should be held by liege homage

from the king of France, by its duke as one

of the twelve peers of France. The French

had been consistent in demanding liege

homage for whatever territory was ceded by

Charles VI. The English instructions of

1390 had completely rejected the concept of

liege homage but had conceded that the

duke of Guyenne (that is, Gaunt, though he

is not named) as Richard’s assign, could do

homage for the Duchy, provided no services

were demanded from him. The contest over

sovereignty was not entirely settled when

the indenture was sealed at Leulinghen in

June 1393. The English delegation had the

phrase ou aians cause de lui inserted into sev-

eral clauses, and stated that either the En-

glish king or his assign would do homage

for the Duchy. This was another attempt to

avoid Richard paying homage to Charles.

The French countered the evasion by de-

manding that during the lift-tenure of

Gaunt, Richard should do homage for the

proprietary right and his uncle for the usu-

fruct. The English rejected this contrivance

of two homages for the same land, and the

matter was left open to discussion at a per-

sonal meeting of the two monarchs.‘”

According to the Monk of Westminster

the French terms in both 1392 and 1393

specified that the present French posses-

sions in Aquitaine would be held by the

dukes of Berry and Burgundy for life, and

on their deaths, when reunited with English

Gascony, would revert to Gaunt and his

heirs in perpetuity. In 1392 it was Gaunt

and his descendants who were to do homage

to the king of France for the Duchy; in 1393

it was Richard (Hector and Harvey

1982:490,5 18). The 1392 terms may be sim-

ply the chronicler’s confused account of the

negotiations at Amiens. Or they may repre-

sent a verbal offer made by the French royal

uncles to Gaunt at the end of the confer-

ence, since he had told the French that their

written offer was insufficient to communi-

cate to Richard. However, the Monk’s re-

port of the 1393 terms does not accord with

the text of the draft peace, and this must

cast doubt on his version of the diplomacy

of these years. The diplomatic solution of

an Aquitaine separated from England and

held by Gaunt or his heirs under Valois

sovereignty, was no more than a French

proposal in 1392 and 1393, in which Gaunt

colluded with the uncles of Charles VI.

Only the unlikely testimony of the Monk of

lvestminster suggests they considered this

371

as an arrangement lasting longer than Gaunt’s lifetime. Characteristically, it was the French who put forward this feudal solution to what they regarded as a feudal conflict.

Throughout the negotiations of 1390- 1393 and before, it was accepted by both sides that modifications should be made to Charles VI’s sovereignty and ressort in Guyenne, to make them more acceptable to the English in an)- settlement. These modifications aimed chiefly to limit the extent of Charles‘ appellate jurisdiction in the Duchy, to relieve Richard of the obligation to attend the French courts personally when summoned, and to eliminate the French king’s right to confiscate the Duchy. B) these measures a repetition of the e\.ents of 1369 would be prevented. The agreement of such modifications was the main purpose of the meetings of July 1392 and August 1393.‘” The first quickly broke doM-n and the second did not succeed in adding clauses about modifications to the draft peace, as the Commons commented in Par- liament a few months later (StracheJ- and others 1783:3 15). The complex problem of French sovereignty- o\.er Guyenne remained an obstacle to peace.

The tenure of English possessions in northern France also presented problems to a negotiated settlement. Cherbourg and Brest had been obtained on lease from theil owners, the king of Na\,arre and the duke of Brittany, and the French pressed Richard to fulfil his obligation to return them. Richard and Gaunt showed little interest in keeping these towns, and the return of Cherbourg was agreed in 1393 before the conference at Leulinghen had begun. This \vas dependent on Charles VI paying back

the mortgage to Richard on behalf of Charles of Navarre, and a similar arrangement may have been accepted for Brest.“’ In the event Brest was not returned until 1397. The English were more reluctant to surrender Calais, the indispensible path for further forays into northern France. Several times the French asked for the destruction of the fortress, but the suggestion was vehe- mently rejected, and the)- finally gave \va> at Lzulinghen in 1393. ” The English Lvished to retain Calais, its fortress and its march intact, but Gaunt and the Council had accepted by 1392 that they might have to be held from the French crown, and that the form of their tenure should be discussed by a meeting of the t\vo kings (Moranvill4 1889:371; Baldwin 1913:496). This \vas the arrangement incorporated into the draft peace the folio\\-ing ).car. Throughout these conferences the English maintained a demand for a million and a half francs for the remainder of king ,Jean’s ransom. but the standard French offer for payment fell short of this bv 300,000 francs. In 1393 this too was left to be settled by a meeting betxvcen Richard and Charles, besides the form of homage for Gu),enne and the tenure of La Rochelle. After the indenture had been sealed in June it \vas expected that Richard would cross the Channel, meet with Charles, and quickly proceed to the settlement of the remaining points and the ratifi- cation of the completed treaty. Some French chroniclers belie\,cd that it \t-as 0111) Charles’ ill-health \vhich prex,ented this sequence of events and therefore the conclusion of peace (Bella,guet 1840:82; Kervyn de Lcttenho\,e 1871: 127). Certainly- Richard rno\.ed to Canterbury for the last ten days of nla,- and \vas preparing to cross to

372

Calais. He was ordering preparations as

late as 26 June.18 But it appears that

Richard was not yet ready to ratify the

terms his uncle had agreed at Leulinghen

(Lute 1862:331; Riley 1886:157), and he

later made it clear to both the king of Por-

tugal and the Commons in Parliament that

he had made no commitment to the treaty

(Perroy 1933b:no. 196; Strachey and others

1783:314). The land he was to receive in

return for surrendering his French title was

virtually the only matter which had been

fully settled in the “draft peace”, which was

otherwise mostly an agenda for further dis-

cussion. It does not appear to be an

adequate basis for Dr. Palmer’s final settle-

ment.

Any peace treaty between the English

and French would have to address the wider

ramifications of their conflict in Europe.

The French were anxious to include their al-

lies in a comprehensive settlement, especial-

ly Scotland and Castile. Gaunt and Richard

preferred to exclude the allies of both sides,

but felt obliged to protect the position of

Pope Boniface in Rome (Perroy 1933b:no.

133 and 226n. 133; Riley 1864:200-2; Hec-

tor and Harvey 1982:458, 466-72; Kervyn

de Lettenhove 1871:124-j). In the 1393

draft, each side made a protestation that its

allies should be included, but the text does

not deal with the question. The French del-

egation resisted Gaunt’s request to include

Boniface, but in an ancillary agreement

conceded that there should be separate

Anglo-Scottish peace negotiations and also

separate settlements between Gelders and

Brabant, and Portugal and Castile.” To

gain this free hand to deal with Scotland

was another major achievement for Gaunt.

Progress towards the draft peace was far

from smooth and the needs of England’s al-

lies twice caused her to threaten war during

this series of peace conferences. In February

1391 an English mission was sent to Paris

to dissuade Charles from launching his pro-

posed expedition against the Urbanist Pa-

pacy (Perroy 1933b:no. 126 and 223n. 126).

It seems clear that either this project or

Charles’ attempted retaliation against Brit-

tany in August 1392 would have been re-

garded by the English as breaking the truce

and therefore as a cusus belli (Lute 1862:317,

331). An Anglo-Breton alliance had been

under discussion for several years and the

pace of these negotiations quickened be-

tween November 1391 and the summer of

1392, when the terms of the alliance were

revised through several successive drafts

(Phillpotts 1984:407- 12 and appendix 5).

Haggling for the alliance had not been com-

pleted by the time the crisis broke in the

summer. The danger of war was averted by

the first onset of Charles’ insanity near Le

Mans. Dr. Palmer considers it unlikely that

England would have gone to war over Brit-

tany, and believes that “good relations”

were already well established with France

(1972:143). 0 n the contrary the three

policies involved in the triangular relation-

ship between England, France and Brittany

were in a constant state of flux in the early

1390s and the duke of Brittany’s indepen-

dent role between the two kingdoms was

not yet over. The English could not afford

to discard his alliance by failing to protect

him; he was a necessary counterweight to

the France-Scottish alliance.

Gaunt’s peace proposals met with in-

creasing domestic opposition as he sought

wider approval for his policy from the polit-

ical community of the realm. England was

373

urged towards a war policy in 1392 by another prominent ally, Duke IVilliam of Gelders, at the Council of Stamford. The mood of this Great Council was not pacific and it made rigorous objections to the French offer that Gaunt had brought back from Amiens. Under the influence of his uncle of Lancaster, Richard was favourable to the offer, but wished to extract better terms from the French. By the duke of Gloucester’s advice, it was decided to refer the matter to a full parliament (Hector and Harvey 1982:488-90; Riley 1864:206-j; Kervyn de Lettenhove 1872:389). This as- sembled at \Vinchester in Januar\- 1393 and rejected the French offer, displaying a pref- erence for war. Money was voted for the forthcoming peace conference but tlvice as much was to be collected should hostilities recommence and Richard lead an expedition abroad (Strachey and others 1783:300- 2; Bellaguet 1840:74). The duke of Glouces- ter was now added to Gaunt’s team of diplomats. He was known to favour a peace based only on the Bretigny terms and this principled stand was intended to counter- balance the ambitions of his elder brother. However Gaunt was able to bring Glouces- ter round to his viewpoint, so that he was willing to accede to the concession of liege homage at the Leulinghen conference (Hec- tor and Harvey 1982:5 18).

The conference was interrupted because of a violent reaction to the ambassadors’ de- liberations by the men of Cheshire. Armed bands swore to kill the two dukes because they intended to rob Richard of his title to France for their private gain (Rile). 1886: 159-60). Cheshire kvas an area noted for violence and a prominent recruiting ground for soldiers. To many of its people,

a peace treaty meant the prospect of un- employment. Richard later established close links with Cheshire, which he trans- formed into a principality in 1397 and where he recruited his notorious bodyguard (Davies 1971:256-79; \Volfe 1971:58, 76). In 1393 his sympathy lay with the insur- gents to some degree and he felt it necessar! to deny that he was encouraging them (Rymer 1728:746). Gaunt and Gloucester were not informed of the rising, but first heard of it from the French ambassadors, and hurried to England to dispose of this opposition. This was against the kvill of Richard and the Council. Gaunt dealt sw?ftly and efficiently with the disturbances, protesting his innocence of the rebels’ accusations, and giLring them militar!, employment in an expedition he planned to lead to Gascony. 1,ittle use of force was necessar) (Rile), 1886: 160-2). Gaunt had reacted energetically to quash a re\.i\.al of the incli- nation to war, which he had reason to sus- pect was connected with Richard’s court. \Yithin a month he was back at Calais (CPR 14O.S8:98).

Against this background of belligerent), in Council, Parliament and country, Gaunt and his diplomats sought to implement his peace polic), in Picardy. They and their op- posite numbers were also empowered to treat for truce. Il’hen negotiations for peace reached an impasse, it was usually to the solution of a longer truce that the negotiators resorted. This happened in the conferences of 1390 at Leulinghen and 1392 at Amiens. On this second occasion the current truce was extended until Michaelmas 1393 (MoranvillC 1889:368-g, 373; Rymer 1728:714-18, 728-9). In <July 1392 the French delegation was instructed that if a

374

truce was discussed, it was to press for the

longest possible. The emphasis of its in-

structions was on measures for keeping the

truce, implying a readiness to abandon

peace-making in favour of a long truce. This

seems to have been considered at the meet-

ing at Leulinghen. The instructions of Feb-

ruary 1393 to the dukes of Berry and Bur-

gundy reversed this emphasis: they were to

broach the subject of a long truce only after

attempts at peace had been exhausted

(Moranville 1889:373-5, 377-80). The

French government now abandoned the

confrontation of irreconcilable claims in

favour of a serious attempt to reach the

point of settlement. The first session of the

Leulinghen conference resulted only in

another year’s extension of the truce

(Rymer 1728:748), but the royal uncles kept

peace on the agenda in the second session

and the draft peace followed. The terms on

which these truces were agreed and pro-

longed are as important as the proposals for

peace in assessing the aspirations of each

side.

The truce terms that were agreed at

Leulinghen in June 1389 had now twice

been renewed at peace conferences and re-

mained in force unchanged until 29 Sep-

tember 1394. The forma of the truce was

substantially based on the truce Gaunt had

made south of the Loire in 1388; terms suit-

able for Guyenne were now extended to

cover the entire conflict. The future af

Aquitaine dominated the discussions of

truce in these years, as well as those about

a peace treaty. The French were clearly un-

happy with these arrangements as it was

the English who benefited most from the

rigorous application of the patis system.

Patis were sums paid by towns, villages and

other communities to buy the non-aggres-

sion of neighbouring castle garrisons, exac-

tions which had become regularised into a

system of ransom districts. In the confer-

ences of 1392 and 1393 the French delega-

tion asked for a reduction in the rate ofpatis

and sought to reinforce the truce with other

supplementary clauses. The English man-

aged to repulse French efforts to incorporate

these terms into the truce. At these confer-

ences the French also asked the English to

replace their conservators with men of sufft-

cient authority to enforce obedience to the

truce and sufficient probity to keep it them-

selves (Moranville 1889:373-4, 380). The

same conservators remained in office on the

English side in Guyenne from 1388 to

1392.” They included several notorious

routier captains such as Ramonet de Sort,

Nompar de Caumont and Pierre Arnaud de

Beam. The trade of these men was frontier

warfare with frequent raiding for booty and

their appointment as conservators added

further sanction to their activities by the

English government. They were more likely

to protect the interests of their own party

than willingly enforce the amendment of

damages done to those in the Valois obedi-

ence. But to fail to appoint them was to risk

losing their allegiance, and they were in ef-

fective control of their own areas. Encour-

agement of routiers kept up continual pres-

sure on the French frontiers without the

necessity of paying troops (Fowler 197 1:

201-2; Keen 1965:117).

However, John of Gaunt had determined

to acquire an extended Aquitaine by negoti-

ation rather than by military conquest. By

the time he returned to England from Bor-

deaux in November 1389, he must have

realised that the current conservators were

375

insufficient to pacify the Duchy. In order to regain central control of the truce, commissioners were appointed to supplement the efforts of the conservators in February and September 1390 (the second commission headed by Gaunt’s seneschal of Guyenne, IVilliam le Scrape),“’ the conservators and their districts were re-organised in Jul), 1392 (Rvmer 1728:724-S) and more commissioners were assigned in ,July 1393.” These commissioners were often nominated in response to French complaints of truce infractions. The)- bore rigorous powers to enforce the evacuation of frontier castles and to remove conser\.ators who had failed in their duties. Both English and French commissioners were acti1.e in Guyennc and achieved some results. The French suc- ceeded in buying out the routier companies fighting in Richard’s name in Quercy, AulTergne and Rouergue. ending their Went) )‘ear appatisement of these ter- ritories.‘” Between 1390 and 1393, Gaunt was prepared to co-operate with the French government to end the endemic w.arf:are in Aquitaine, but he resisted French pressure for a general reduction ofpath, which kvould threaten the English ability to maintain a cheap military presence. The main function of the truce in these years seems to have been the establishment of the projected principality that Gaunt \vas seeking for himself in the current peace negotiations. In order to establish himself in Guyenne. Gaunt required an absence of Anglo-French hostilities; in order to augment its area, he needed the terms of a peace settlement.

The negotiators of the draft peace realised there was much to be done before the two kings could meet, so they drew up a timetable for further talks. Only the meet-

ing about modifications in August 1393 took place before Charles’ continued sickness delayed any more progress.” These delays allowed the proposed settlement of 1393 to come under the critical scrutiny of the \Vestminster Parliament in January 1394. Gaunt advocated its terms, trying to persuade the members that Richard’s title to the French throne brought no ad\,antage and that Calais was more expensive to maintain than it was Lvorth. The earl of Arundel launched an attack on Gaunt for his cordial relations with Richard and his conduct of the negotiations; he implied that Gaunt had exceeded his mandate and be- harped treacherously. He also objected to Richard’s grant to his uncle of what was now to be, b>, manipulation, an enlarged Aquitaine. The C1ommons agreed that peace should be made, and apparentl) made no objection to the amount of terri- tar)- the French were prepared to cede, but they \rehemently rejected the fundamental principle on kvhich the draft treaty \vas based, that of liege homage. They considered it absurd that the king and kingdom of England should be placed in a dependent feudal relationship to the kingdom of France, thus jeopardising their liberty. They presented their own terms for a peace: Richard should render simple homage for Aquitaine, hvith French so\.ereignty mod- ificd to prevent confiscation; the liberty of the English crown and its subjects should be guaranteed; and the Plantagenets should be able to resume their title to the French throne if the treaty was broken by the C’alois. About the unsettled cluestions of the tenure of Calais, King Jean’s ransom and the position of allies, the)- made no com- ment (Haydon 1863:369; Hector and Har-

376

vey 1982:lxii, 516-8; Strachey and others 1783:313-15). Th e indenture between the dukes of Berry, Burgundy, Lancaster and Gloucester remained a dead letter.

Gaunt returned to Leulinghen late in March with the duke of York, to meet again with Berry and Burgundy, empowered to negotiate for peace or truce.25 He was instructed to treat of “certen things being in variaunce.“.‘” He reported Parliament’s reaction to the draft of the previous June SigniJicans Francigenis Anglorum ultimam uolun-

tatem (Hector and Harvey 1982:5 18). He was therefore in the difficult position of being obliged to retract his position of the previous year. The French delegation must have rejected Parliament’s terms, since any settlement without the essential element of liege homage was unacceptable to them. In- stead, the two sides shelved the problem and concentrated on formulating a revised truce to regulate the frontier in Guyenne. Discussions were lengthy, for an agreement was not made until 27 May. Probably the French were pressing the English to assent to a very long truce, to substitute for the peace treaty that had been lost. A new truce was agreed to last four years, from the expiry of the present truce at Michaelmas until autumn 1389, with the allies of both sides included.” No arrangements for further meetings were made and the principal figures of this series of negotiations scat- tered across \Yestern Europe in pursuit of their own projects: Richard and Gloucester to Ireland, Gaunt to Gascony, Berry and Burgundy to Avignon. Gaunt, Burgundy and Louis of Orleans contemplated em- barking on a crusade.

Palmer believes that the conference of 1394 resulted in a secret agreement, based

on the separation of Aquitaine from the En- glish crown under Gaunt’s lordship and French sovereignty. This was never pub- lished or implemented because of Gaunt’s failure to establish himself in the Duchy (1966a:84-5; 1971c:lO-12, 16; 1972:31, 150, 160). The evidence for this hypothetical treaty is derived from Froissart’s chronicle and Charles VI’s letter to Richard of 1395. Froissart’s confused account seems to de- scribe the negotiations of the previous year, despite his reference to a four-year truce, and his mention of an unpublished agreement refers to the draft of June 1393 (Ker- vyn de Lettenhove 187 1: 122-5; compare Bellaguet 1840:82). Later he has Renaud de Corbie say that the negotiations at Amiens and Leulinghen had produced no agreement, and only a temporary truce was in force (Kervyn de Lettenhove 1871:182). Charles’ letter of lCIay 1395 exhorts Richard that they should preserve the peace against any violation (Legge 1941:no. 172), but MPzieres’ longer Epistre 2 Richard II, which accompanied it, discusses the desirabi&l: of making peace, and repeatedly refers to the current truce (Coopland 1975:3, 4, 8, 9, 24 etc.).

Both sides returned to the conventional form of conservators’ areas for the new truce, with no supplementary commissioners. The English conservators in Guyenne were again reorganised into a new pattern of seven districts. Most of their names are familiar, but Ramonet de Sort and Pierre Arnaud de Biarn now disappear finally from the list (Rymer 1728:775, 778-9). The areas of Quercy, Rouergue and Auvergne were now entirely excluded from their jurisdiction reflecting the success of the French commissioners against the routiers there two

377

years before. All of Quercy and Rouergue had been included in the Duchy defined in the draft peace of 1393. That the French compelled the English to abandon the superintendence of this territor) now, marks the end of the idea of an extended Aquitaine under John of Gaunt’s rule; this idea and the draft peace based around it, failed together. Gaunt was now obliged to be content with the Duchy as it was pres- ently held under the control of the English arms.

It was probably the French delegation that most influenced the forma of the new truce, against protracted English opposition. It at last established the principle that the patis should be reduced. New methods of procedure for the conservators were introduced into the truce and both sides took measures to halt the cumulative process of reprisal warfare.2” After the miscarriage of the draft peace, the French diplomats at Leulinghen were resigned, in spring 1394, to the continued militar). occupation of Guyenne b?. both sides. Now that a settlement was no longer regarded as imminent. the), sought to regularise this frontier society and limit its turbulence for as long a period as the English Lvould accept, which was four )-ears.

The habit of xvar was nowhere more difficult to break than in the Duchy of Guyenne. On the frontiers of the English possessions in France, the two factions lived in a state of almost permanent infraction of the truces. The complicated relationship be- twecn the English crown and the Duch). \vas one of the most important factors in Anglo-French relations. The maintenance of the English position there depended on the loyalty of its inhabitants to the king as

duke, and particularly the loyalty of the nobility and the towns. The local nobility’s patterns of allegiance were dictated by in- heritance structures rather than geography, and by a mixture of temporary alliances and traditional ties, especially to the houses of Fois and Armagnac, whose feud over Bigorre dominated the region from 1251 to 1425. The nobles of the southwest fre- quently changed sides between the French and English, as the early career of Renaud de Pans and the tergivisations of the Sire de Limeuil in Henry IV’s reign show (Vale 197O:\riii, 90, 154, 165, 166, 170-3; Chava- non 1902:2). The crown was obliged to treat them with a blend of discipline and generos- ity, making them grants of annuities and offIces (which were regarded as heritable possessions), portions of the ducal demcsnr and estates confiscated from rebels. The lo).alt), of Gascon towns depended on the manipulation of urban factions, royal grants and confirmations of privileges, and respect for urban liberties by royal officials. The tolvns generalI!- f‘elt their privileged position bvould be better preserved under Plan- tagenet rule than that of C:harles VI (hlar- tiniirc 1913:337; \‘alc 1970:8, 30, 41-2, 43- 6, 53, 170, 203, 205, 206). 111 return for their continued allegiance the Gascons expected the king of England to provide them hvith militar)- support, to redress their grievances and to refrain from interference in their in- ternal affairs.

A serious miscalculation b?, Gaunt about the Gascons’ attachment to their privileged status contributed to the failure of his ambitions in the early 1390s. His careless treat- ment of their liberties provoked such detcr- mined resistance that he was unable to establish himself as the ruler of the Duch>,.

378

The increasingly vociferous opposition centred on Bordeaux, but also included the towns of Bayonne and St. Sever, all the prominent Gascon nobility, the archbishop of Bordeaux and other senior clergy. The Gascons had reasons to oppose Richard’s investment of Gaunt, on both theoretical and practical grounds. Since Henry III had donated the Duchy to his son in 1252, they were privileged to be ruled only by the king of England or his eldest son, so that Guyenne should never be separated from the crown of England.*” This privilege was also held individually by the towns of Bor- deaux, Bourg and Bayonne, which insisted on it even if Richard granted to the contrary. 3o Richard’s grant to Gaunt defied this privilege and all precedents. Certain chroniclers state that this was the real objection to Gaunt and the reason why Bor- deaux refused to admit Henry Percy as his seneschal in 1393, and Gaunt himself in 1394 (Hector and Harvey 1982:484; Riley 1886: 158, 169). By the terms of the original donation and its confirmation in November 1390, Richard specified that this privilege was to be suspended for Gaunt’s lifetime only, but at the same time he contradicto- rially informed the Gascons there were same< toutdis a vous vos privileges franchises et

libertees (Rymer 1728:659-60; Barkhausen 1867:231). They suspected that what could be suspended once might be suspended repeatedly, and therefore sought Richard’s as- surances that the grant could in no way be regarded as a precedent.3’ Their real fear was that the Duchy would be gradually lost by England. This they stated in the oath of Union in 1394:

en ayssi per temps avenir lodeyt dugat poyre estre de tot en tot separat foras de la corona danglaterra.‘”

They stated it again at the Council of El- tham the following year (Kervyn de Let- tenhove 1871: 157-9). Richard’s use of his sovereignty as king of France was also contrary to Gascon privilege. The absence of this clause from the later confirmations of the grant in 1394 and 1397 suggests Richard may have abandoned it as a pointless dis-

tinction.

From the arrival of William le Scrape as Gaunt’s seneschal in September 1390, the Gascons were prepared to accept the quin- quagenarian Gaunt as duke for what remained of his life, provided he took the cus- tomary oath of the dukes of Guyenne to preserve their liberties and granted a written confirmation according to a pre-determined text. Meanwhile they would only receive Scrape as Richard’s representative, and they specifically excepted their allegiance to the English king and his sovereignty over them in all oaths of obedience to Gaunt.33 \Vhen Gaunt confirmed their privileges in September 1391 he departed from the text they had requested to specify that the Duchy would be governed by his officers or their deputies, and that their expenses should have precedence over assignments previously granted in drawing upon the Duchy’s revenues (Barkhausen 1867:293- 4). From the concessions he granted to the Estates and Bordeaux in March 1395, it is clear that these officials, and the way they abused their position, were resented. Com- plaints were made about perversions ofjus- tice, hanging and torturing, the seizure of houses in Bordeaux as quarters and the control of its brothels, the protection of run- away serfs and debtors, the taxing of pil- grim traffic and the farming of ofices (Bark- hausen 1867:259-67, 269-72). In August

379

1392 Bordeaux withdrew its obedience from Scrape, alleging he had violated its privileges. Envoys were sent to Gaunt to ob- tain redress of these grievances but they remained outstanding. For this reason Henr) Percy was not formally received as Scropc’s successor when he arri\red late in 1393, although he exercised authority in the Duch) and Gaunt was still accorded his ducal title.“’

All these difficulties might eventuall) have been resolved, had the Gascons not come to believe that the donation of the Duchy had been made against Richard’s will. There are some indications of this rumour in 1392 but it \vas denied on both sides (Legge 1941:no. 150 p. 216; R>,mel 1728: i27). Then late in 1393 or earl) in 1394, Bordeaus sent its hIa).or.John Traill) and its town clerk Guillem Arnaud de Taudimar to Richard and Gaunt to learn the truth. Richard told them he regretted making the grant, but having made it, he wished it to stand:

Finally in April 1394 Gascon representa- tives gathered in the Chapel of the Madonna in the cloisters of Bordeaux Cathedral to hear the reading of a credence brought b>- Pierre Arnaud de Beam from Richard and sealed with his Signet, stating that the donation had not been made by his \vill. As a result they swore oaths to each other to be henceforth only under the rule of the king and crow~1 of England, and to bind together in a Union against all cvho opposed this. Ambassadors were sent to En- gland to take this response to Richard.“’ He

seems to have accepted this turn of events with some reservations. Between 11 June and 1 July, under his own authority and without an)- mention of Gaunt, he appointed Henr)- Percy as his lieutenant in Guyenne, gave him pobvers to grant confiscated goods to those who had given loyal service, re-appointed Trailly as mayor of Bordeaux, and summoned several nobles and other representati\.es of Gascony to meet him at \Vaterford in October.”

hlore than a decade later Henry IV \vrote to Pierre Arnaud de Beam about the grudge his father had borne against him, prohabl) because of the e\rents surrounding the Union.,‘” There ma\- also ha\,e been some tension between Gaunt and his king in the summer of 1394, for on 2c7 Xugust he wrote to Richard from Pontefract to den)- reports of his dislo)-ait!- (1,eggc 1941 :no. 29 p. 74). But onI>. a few \\zeeks later he had rc-cstab- liahed his influence. Richard kvrote to the Gascons again, confirming the donation of 1390. den+ng that it \~as made against his ITill and abrogating the oath5 of the Vnion?” Armed \\-ith these letters and 1300 soldiers (partI>. recruited from the Cheshire rc\.olt of the previous ).ear) Gaunt set out fi)r Gascon!, in September and landed at Libourne. He threatened to resort to the remedy of \var if he wxs not admitted to the possession of the Duch?~, but nonetheless he 11-as rcfused.40

Gaunt’s arrival in force threatened the fragile truce with the French on the borders of Gu),enne. English companies had seized fortresses in Au\-ergne in 1393, which were retaken by l\IarPchal Boucicaut. The troops of Boucicaut and the Sire de COLIC). spread terror along the frontier, coercing English strongholds into surrender. In 1394 Pierre

380

Arnaud de Beam responded by taking a for-

tress in Saintonge and another in An-

gouleme. The French government sent

Boucicaut to meet Gaunt at Bergerac to as-

certain he did not intend to break the truce,

but he insisted the captures had not been

made with his assent.“’

In January 1395 Gaunt was still asking

merely for passage through Bordeaux. In

March he was finally allowed to enter the

city on condition that he exercised no suzer-

ainty until an agreement had been reached.

!2’ithin the next week he made settlements

with the jurats of Bordeaux and the three

Estates of Guyenne, conceding all their de-

mands. Gaunt was willing to pay a high

price for the Duchy, for he now bestowed

gifts and privileges liberally on Bordeaux

and the principal nobles. The whole affair

was referred to a panel of theologians and

lawyers, and with their advice the Ar-

chbishop absolved the Gascons from the

oath of the Union. The dispute over the ten-

ure of Guyenne was not resolved, but it was

agreed that it should be submitted to the

judgement of Richard.” In July 1395 the

ambassadors of Bordeaux brought the mat-

ter before the Council of Eltham, which

consulted another panel of lawyers. This

panel pronounced against the validity of the

donation to Gaunt, but the duke of Glouces-

ter spoke strongly in support of his brother’s

title and as no-one dared to contradict him,

no conclusion was reached (Baldwin

1913: 135-7, 504-5; Kervyn de Lettenhove

1871:147-51, 157-65). However at the close

of the Council, Richard granted a safe-con-

duct for four years to the ambassadors and

burgesses of Bordeaux, and announced his

intention to send Henry Percy and Ralph

Selby (one of the panel of lawyers) to the

city and to his uncle.“3 At Bordeaux in

November, Percy and Selby, acting as

Richard’s ambassadors by his commission

under the Privy Seal and the Signet, pub-

lished notarial copies of all the charters

guaranteeing Guyenne’s attachment to the

English crown, the original conditions made

for the reception of Scrape, the archbishop’s

absolution from the oath of the Union and

the oaths of previous lieutenants and senec-

hals.” This amounted to a royal recognition

of the claims of the Gascon opposition, yet

Richard again confirmed his donation to the

Duchy in July 1397.”

Gaunt remained in Guyenne until late in

1395, but achieved little, despite the expen-

diture of vast sums of money. Richard

therefore recalled him and he returned to

England spe frustratus.‘” Palmer has linked

the development of the Gascon opposition

to stages in the peace negotiations, cul-

minating in the formation of the Union as

a protest against the draft peace (1966a:91-

2; 1972:160; compare Vale 1970:28nn. 4

and 5). The oath of the Union does not

mention the peace talks however; at the

time it was sworn, Gaunt was at Leulinghen

negotiating the abandonment of the draft.

In reality the Gascons acted to maintain

their privileges, particularly the privilege of

attachment to the English crown. They

were unwilling to accept the rule of a sepa-

rate duke without stringent conditions,

since this would entail a reduction of their

independence. Through his mishandling of

the acquisition and exercise of ducal rule,

Gaunt alienated the most important sec-

tions of Gascon society, although they re-

mained loyal to Richard. Richard’s impa-

tience with Gaunt may have led him to un-

dermine his uncle’s position in the Duchy

381

in spring and summer 1394, and again in autumn 1395.

Nevertheless Gaunt persevered in his ambition for a semi-independent principalit) throughout 1395 and he now sought a dynastic alliance with Brittany to protect its northern flank. On his return home via Brittany, he and Duke Jean hammered out the terms of an alliance between them and a marriage treaty between his grandson Henry of Monmouth and *Jean’s daughter Marie. Marie’s dowry was to include 150,000 francs in cash, and the castellanies of Brest and Renan, all to be delivered to Gaunt to hold in the name of the young couple. The title to Brest was dependent on Gaunt securing Jean’s rights to the manor of Rising and the honour of Richmond in England. The lands in Brittany were to be held under Breton sovereignty and both parties to the alliance reserlred their allegiance and homage to their respecti\re kings (hr. <Jones 1983:nos. 1033-e). Despite his failure at Bordeaux to establish more than the titular possession of his ne\2 Duch~., Gaunt ~t‘as still seeking to extend his territorial interests in France and to monopolise English holdings and polic!. there. In doing so he made dangerous concessions to French and Breton rights of feudal superiority. \vhich recall the terms to which hc had acceded at 1,eulinghcn in 1393. In the arrangements for Brest, Richmond and Rising he made promises that xt’ere outside his authorit)-.

Richard kvas entirely excluded fi-om these negotiations and >vas not prepared to ap- pro1.e of the marriage treat).. since he \2;as promoting a matrimonial link bet\veen ,John Holland’s family and the Breton ducal house (Lcgge 1941:no. 268: RI. <Jones 1970: 135, 136). Charles \‘I no\~ out-man-

oeuvred Gaunt on the diplomatic marriage market with Richard’s collusion, by negotiating with England for matches bc- tween his daughters Isabelle and Michelle, and Richard and Henry of Nonmouth. Gaunt had miscalculated badly: he was no longer in control of English policy towards France. Since his departure from England for Guyenne, an independent Ricardian polic!, had emerged. characterised by an ag- gressi1.e and impatient diplomacy. and a predilection for manipulation, in stark contrast to Gaunt’s direct approach and osten- tatious display of the earl), 1390s. The new policy is most clearI>. seen in Richard’s instructions to his embass)- to France in Jul) 1395, in which he used excessive demands to break \vith the precedents that Gaunt had set in the draf‘t peace at Leulinghen ti2.o !.ears bcfhrc (Palmer 1972:256-7).” \\‘hen Gaunt returned to England at the end of 1395, Richard receii-ed him coldlv:

This contrasts strongl>. with the kvarnitli of’ their relationship described be- Richard and Xrundel in Januar) 1394. In the inter\.al the suspicions raised about Gaunt’s conduct of the 1393 negotiations in Cheshire and in Parliament, his failure to achieve a final settlement \+ith France. his lack of progress in Guyenne and finally his untrustworthy conduct in Brittany had disillusioned Richard with the policies and ambitions of his uncle of Lancaster. Gaunt’s political career now became less acti1.e and evident]\. he w’as soon reconciled to his nephew. He no longer pursued his own projects but acted as a firm supporter of Richard’s rule and policies.

382

1Yith the collapse of his foreign designs,

his interest in diplomacy subsided. At

Richard’s meetings with the French in Au-

gust and October 1396, Gaunt’s role was

purely formal.

Gaunt’s diplomacy had ended in failure

but he had shown himself to be a skilful

diplomat, resisting French attempts to un-

dermine the English patis system and taking

prompt action to prevent French incursions

into Italy and Brittany. At Leulinghen in

1393 he broke the deadlock of Anglo-French

peace negotiations by his acceptance of the

demand for liege homage for Guyenne,

though this was chiefly to further his own

ambition. But if Gaunt often negotiated on

his own account rather than England’s this

may not have been a distinction he drew in

his own mind. It appears that Gaunt’s sign-

ing of the draft agreement in 1393 was re-

garded as treacherous. This was the conno-

tation of Arundel’s accusations in the Par-

liament of January 1394 and the Monk of

\\‘estminster’s comments on the session

(Strachey and others 1783:3 13b; Hector

and Harvey 1982:518). Contemporaries

readily accused Gaunt of treason. During

his trial in Parliament in January 1397

Arundel again rounded on Gaunt:

Et si tu, Johannes, bene rsse examinatus, plum fecisti

tu contra regem quam ego (Haydon 1863:375).”

English policy towards France between

1389 and 1395 was largely the policy of

John of Gaunt. He was able to dominate in

foreign policy because he was the dominant

figure in domestic politics too. He was the

richest man in England, retaining followers

on a vast scale with generous fees (Pugh

1972:107; Goodman 1985:79-80, 87; 1987:

133-47). He directed affairs as the leading

member of a large and aristocratic Council,

in which his formidable personality tended

to stifle debate. Gaunt was an arrogant

man, very conscious of his position as one

of the foremost princes of Christendom,

with interests and activities that extended

over most of Western Europe during his

long career. In these years he channelled

his efforts towards the establishment of a

principality for himself in Guyenne through

diplomacy and force. However Gaunt’s fai-

lure over the course of six years to instal

himself in a Duchy either expanded by

negotiation or in its current form, left the

English in a weaker position there. There

was never any question of Gaunt holding

Guyenne as a heritable fief from the Valois,

nor was his concession of liege homage for

the Duchy endorsed by Richard or Parlia-

ment. In these respects and in others there

is a need to revise John Palmer’s model of

Anglo-French relations in the 1390s. These

relations were not co-operative, but com-

petitive. The truces made at conferences re-

mained fragile on the frontiers, despite the

efforts of both governments to reinforce

them. And the English government was pre-

pared to break the truce and renew the war

to protect its interests and allies.

These themes continued in English diplo-

macy after 1395, although the diplomatic

styles of uncle and nephew were markedly

different. Richard’s strategems took advan-

tage of the state of truce to seek a wider

circle of influence for England in Spain,

Italy and the Rhineland. At all points on

this circle, he presented a challenge to Va-

lois interests. Richard’s negotiations with

France resulted in the interim settlement of

1396 based around his marriage to Isabelle

of France, and a twenty-eight year truce to

383

take effect on the expiry of the current truce in 1398. This long truce recognised the failure of Gaunt and his predecessors to achieve peace in the last twenty years b) postponing the problem for another thirty. The intractable positions of both sides were maintained, and at best a truce was an in- terlude in a state of war.

Notes

I BN MS. Fran@ 1.5490 f. 2.51,. i He had ahead!- hrcn referred to as duke of’

Guyenne on 28 Feb., Rymcr 1728:658.

For Palmer’s USC of Froissnrt’s testimony SIY 1972:31, 139; 1966x:93: Sherbornc 1981:62. -I The e\.ents of this parliament are described

under the yar 1396. but appear to conflate tllc grant

of 1390 uith the ohjectiuns of 1394. i PRO C:.61/101 m. 2; C:. (iI/ m. 12: E. 301

1232 mm. 3, 6. 7: R!-mrr li28:687-8; Barkhauscn

1867:228%9. 0 In .iugust 1389 and So\.cmber 1390. Rynlcr

1728:642; PRO C:. 61/101 m. 2. 7 AN EL. 53 no. 80: Rymrr 1 i28:59ip8: (:ha\.anon

1902:doc. 41 fi-om .\rchi\w ~Iunicipnlrs dc Perigueu\-

E. 1113. R BN hlS Frnnqais I.5490 1: 2.51.: Rile) 1864: 179:

Hector and Harry 1982:376. 1,

PRO Ct. 76/73 m. 3: K)mer 1728:616. ci23G:

Perroy 19331,:21 l-12 n. 9Y; Hector and Harvey

39X2:398. 10 BL .\dditional C:hartera 337 l-4. 3376. 3375; Ku\-!n de Lrttenho\-c 1871:80-l: Palmer 1972: I!)+

3% 200--t; Perro!- 193%a:338. I I PRO E. ?A/188 1: 42-42~ : I\Iol-anvil16

1889:370-80; Kervyn de I.ettcnho\~c 1872:313. 385-6; 1871:79-80. 112-16. 124-5: Bcktguct 1839:734-6.

710: 1840:74-8: Hector and Harvc)- 1982:486, 3 14.

5 18: Palmer 19661,: 182-5; Perro! 19331):243n. 196-i. Id For \\-hich SW BN IIS. Franc;ais l.5490. unnun- lxwcl page and f’. 27: Edinburgh Unix.ersit)- kIS. 183

f. 79x \-ale 1970:5-8 and RIap 1: Pcrro)- 1933x I Il. Ii BN RIS. Franpis 1.5490 1: 29. I/ For a ditkrcnt reading of 0u nicrus coue c/c lui see Palmer- 1966a:88-9. He considers tllat the Frcncll

delegates expected Gaunt and his heirs to be dukes

in lxrprtuit\-. and \vcrc concerned lest Richard sllould create him duke tar life o/~/l,

/ i Bodleian Librar). Oxford, Bodl. nlS. 88.5 fijs.

53-58: BN MS Franpis 15968 fos. 758-768\.:

Phillpotts 1984:appendixl. I/,

PRO E. 30/316: C:. 76/77 1x1. 2: .\N J. 643 IN. 3: Kervvn

1728:764~5. de Lcttcnho\.e 1871:126&7: Rymcl

i; BN XiS. Franqais 1.5490 f. 26~; Nervy de I,ct-

tenhove 1872:315, 383. 38.5; 1871:l 12. I $1

PRO C. 76/i7 m. 2: C:. 76/78 m. 18: BL hclcli- tional hlS. 33 I I5 fbs. 22x.-23\.. I’, PRO E. 28/6 no. 3 I: E. 36/ 188 f: 42\-.

PRO S.C:. l/63 no. 279; BL .klditionnl C:llar-

tt’r\ 11310; Klmer 1728:639-40. 717. 718. 2, Rymcr 1728:656-8: PRO C. 61/101 m. 4. 00 __ Rymer 1728:747: PRO C:. 61/103 mm. 1 and 2. 1’ ! Fwvlcr 197l:200 II. 73: Keen 1963:38. 94-9,

149. 253 II. I; PRO E. 101/41/20: E. 101/319/40:

P.R.<). 31/8/13.i Section I no. 2. from .\N C:artons

dcs Rois. There had been a previous etlbrt to e\‘acuatt

the fortresses in these turitorirs in 1387-88. Krcn 196.5:95 II. 2; BL :\dditional Charter 3362. 2, t’crro> 1933b:nos. 196 and 197. pp. 243-4 n.

1%-i; Bella~uct 1840:92; PRO E. 36/188 t: 42%421.. .’ i Ryn1c.r 1728:X&i. 769-70; Perroy 19331,:24-k II. I!f(i-i: PRO CZ. 76178 111. 8. u? ‘l‘hcse iwtruction\ \vcre kept in the ‘I‘reasur>-

in Hcnr\ \.III’s rcig-n in A box marked B. according

to an in;,entory, but hnw jincc disappeared. PRO E.

36/186 f’. .X\.; RI, Harlq 51s. 9-1 f’, 1 Il. Later lists

conlilse these instructions with those of 27 Feb. 139i,

HI, ~\clclitional nIS. 1891 1 drticle 13 f, 367x; Stowr

.\IS. 138 f: 631; Harley SIS. 94 I’. 128. ” :

3 i,, BaltlIvin 1933:.jO3: PRO E. 3011232 m. :3: E.

30/29j; BN nou\~rll~~~ acquisitiona fixnpises 3382 no.

I i0 tl 2:34\ iI PRO E. 30/1234: E.. :30/1232 111. 1. (i

BN n~)u\~cllcs .wquisitions fiu~ptiscs 3382 1’.

234; PRO E. 30/1232 mm. 1. 2. 4; E. 30/1234; E.

I7X1/3. i,

PRO E. 30/1232 m. 7. The crrclcncc ofTraill~-

and Taudimar is at E. 1 iX/.i. f‘acled and damped.

Untortunatclv the clauses about Gaunt’s oath as clulic of‘ Guvcnne arc illrgiblc and partI\- torn xwav. i,, ‘PRO E. W/I”32 mm. 5-6. P;rrrc .\rnaucl‘s cre-

dence bxs omitted li.om the ofticinl record 01‘ the. pro-

384

ceedings at the request of the Jurats of Bordeaux. ii PRO C. 61/104 mm. 9 and 10; E. 30/1232 m. 7. iR PRO E. 28114 no. 7. 3’1 Barkhausen 1867:228-g; PRO E! 30/1232 mm.

6-7. to Lumby 1895:32 1: Riley 1886: 169; Haydon

1863:370-371; Kervyn de Lettenhove 1871: 135; PRO

E. 30/1232 m. 7. For protections. general attorneys

and arrest of shipping for this expedition SW CPR

1391-96 522 and PRO C. 61/104 mm. 7-9. Gaunt

was delayed on the Breton coast by contrary winds.

Legge 1941:19. +i Kervyn de Lettenhove 1871: 15 l-2; Le Livre

Boucicaut:235: PRO E. 175/3/5. 12 Barkhausen 1867:244-j, 253, 257, 259-67.

269-72: BN hlS. Duchesne 108 fos. 17-19; PRO E.

3011232 mm. 2-3. 7-8; E. 301324. li Baldwin 1913:505; PRO C. 61/104 m. 5: E. 28/

4 no. 34. General attorney for Percy 28 Aug., C. 61/

104 m. 4. -1-I PRO E. 30/318: E. 30/323; E. 301324; E. 30/

325; E. 3011234. -li PRO C. 61/105 m. 12. +i, Haydon 1863:371. See also Kervyn de Let-

tenhove 1871:182: Riley 1886:188; AN J. 644 no. 35. li Printed from BL Cotton MS. Vitellius C XI

nos. 2-3. In The trial of Airundel is one of the few events

described in any detail in this part of the chronicle.

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Documents

John of Gaunt and English policy towards France 1389–1395