[Illustration: Gilt-latten effigy (back view) of Richard Beauchamp,
Earl of Warwick, died 1439: from his tomb at Warwick. Made by William
Austen, of London, founder, 1453.]

13. =Continued Rivalry of Beaufort and Gloucester. 1439--1441.=--The
chief advocate in England of the attempt to make peace at Calais in
=1439= had been Cardinal Beaufort, whose immense wealth gave him
authority over a Council which was always at its wits' end for money.
Beaufort was wise enough to see that the attempt to reconquer the lost
territory, or even to hold Normandy, was hopeless. Such a view,
however, was not likely to be popular. Nations, like men, often
refuse openly to acknowledge failure long after they cease to take
adequate means to avert it. Of the popular feeling Gloucester made
himself the mouthpiece, and it was by his influence that exorbitant
pretensions had been put forward at Calais. In =1440= he accused
Beaufort of using his authority for his own private interests, and
though Beaufort gave over to the public service a large sum of money
which he received as the ransom of the Duke of Orleans from a
captivity which had lasted twenty-four years (see p. 303), Gloucester
virulently charged him with an unpatriotic concession to the enemy.
Gloucester's domestic relations, on the other hand, offered an easy
object of attack. When he deserted Jacqueline he took a mistress,
Eleanor Cobham, and subsequently married her, which he was able to do
without difficulty, as his union with Jacqueline was, in the eyes of
the Church, no marriage at all. The new Duchess of Gloucester being
aware that if the king should die her husband would be next in order
of succession to the throne, was anxious to hasten that event. It was
a superstitious age, and the Duchess consulted an astrologer as to the
time of the king's death, and employed a reputed witch to make a waxen
image of the king under the belief that as the wax melted before the
fire the king's life would waste away. In =1441= these proceedings
were detected. The astrologer was hanged, the witch was burnt, whilst
the Duchess escaped with doing public penance and with imprisonment
for life. Gloucester could not save her, but he did not lose his
place in the Council, where he continued to advocate a war policy,
though with less success than before.

[Illustration: Tattershall Castle, Lincolnshire: built of brick by
Ralph, Lord Cromwell, between 1433 and 1455.]

14. =Beaufort and Somerset.