Royal: Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, 1390-1447

The Plantagenets could fight with one another but stood as one against a common enemy.  The sons of Henry IV, Henry V, King of England, Thomas, Duke of Clarence, John, Duke of Bedford, and Humphrey, Duke of Clarence, 1390-1447, were a close-knit bunch.  When Humphrey was wounded on the battlefield at Agincourt and in danger of being overrun by French knights in 1415, Henry came to his aid.  So did their cousin, the Duke of York, who was killed trying to cover the King and Humphrey. 

Humphrey's place of birth is not known.  His mother was Henry IV's first wife, Mary de Bohun, daughter of Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford.  Thus, Humphrey was named for his grandfather.  Like his older brothers, Humphrey was schooled in the arts of war and chivalry, but he was also a man of letters who amassed a considerable personal library.  Duke Humphrey's Library is part of the Bodleian Library at Oxford.  In 1422, Humphrey married Jacqueline, Countess of Hainault in her own right.  At the time, they were the It Couple, Humphrey praised as a chivalrous knight, skilled commander and generous patron and benefactor of Oxford University.  Jaqueline, beautiful, proud and used to getting her way.  They had no children and their marriage was annulled in 1428.  Humphrey then married his mistress, Eleanor Cobham, by whom he had an unnamed son who died in infancy, and a daughter, Antigone, later Countess of Tankerville.  Eleanor would become embroiled in a bizarre plot to kill the unpopular Henry VI by means of sorcery.  She maintained that she'd sought the aid of a wise woman for potions to help her conceived children.  The alleged witch was burnt at the stake and Eleanor was made to do public penance at Paul's Cross, forced to divorce her husband and was imprisoned in various castles the rest of her natural life. 

Humphrey served in various positions under both Henry V and Henry VI, both in Parliament and as a member of the Privy Council.  He was a skilled commander in the ongoing Hundred Years War, his knowledge of classical siege warfare coming in handy several times.  He also became Constable of Dover Castle and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.  In 1422, on the death of Henry V, Humphrey was made Lord Protector to his young nephew, Henry VI and later claimed the Regency after his older brother Bedford's death.  This latter claim was rejected by the Lords in Council.  In 1436, Duke Phillip of Burgundy attacked Calais, the last English stronghold on the Continent.  Humphrey was made garrison commander and successful withstood the siege.  In person, he was known as being generous to the poor.  However, this all-around successful life couldn't last long.  In 1448, he was accused of another plot against Henry VI, but died of a stroke before he could be arrested and brought to trial.

He was buried at Bury St. Albans, but local legend had him buried in Old St. Paul's Cathedral.  In reality, the tomb belonged to John, Lord Beauchamp de Warwick.  Thieves and other petty criminals often sought sanctuary in the Cathedral, where they relied on the alms of the clergy to sustain them until they decided to give themselves up for trial.  Needless to say, they often went hungry.  Perhaps in a nod to Humphrey's reputation for alms-giving, the phrase, to dine with Duke Humphrey, meant to go without a meal.  A Humphrey picnic meant later the same thing.  Duke Humphrey was given the manor of Greenwich and began building a house there which he called Belle Court.  It would grow to become Placentia and later Greenwich Palace, showpiece of the Tudors and Stuarts before becoming a Naval hospital and old sailors home, then the Naval Observatory.