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FRANCIS LANCELOTT, ESQ. Queens of England. Vol.1.

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FRANCIS LANCELOTT, ESQ.
Queens of England. Vol.1.
page 262



to the peer, took part in the joyous festivity. At one of the tournaments which marked the occasion, the Earl of Warwick amused and delighted the King and his consort, by, in their presence, triumphantly keeping joust in the Queen's name against all comers. As Joanna dreaded that the hostility subsisting between the English and their French and Breton neighbours would render her position as Queen of England, and mother of the young Duke of Brittany, unpleasant, or perhaps critical, she endeavoured to conciliate the Bretons, by immediately after her coronation confirming the guardianship of her sons, the Duke of Brittany and his brothers, and their patrimony, to the Duke of Burgundy, and prevailed upon the King of England not to sanction the hostile descents of the English mariners upon the coast of her son's duchy. But her efforts failed of their purpose. Since the death of Kichard the Second, the French King and his ministers had, without either a declaration of war or an interruption of the external relations of amity, encouraged their nobles to insult Henry, by making descents on the most exposed parts of England, and plundering and murdering his subjects. Before Joanna's marriage rejoicings were ended, Walleran de St. Pol, who having married a sister of Kichard, declared that it was his duty to revenge the fate of his brother-in-law, fitted out a formidable fleet, and inflicted severe injuries on the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight, and of the southern coast of England; and ehortly afterwards, the Admiral of Brittany, being completely under the control of France, swept the channel, and after committing fearful havoc off the coast of Cornwall, returned home with fifty English vessels as prizes, and about two thousand prisoners,—a proceeding which annoyed the King, and rendered the Queen unpopular with the nation. These injuries, however, were not permitted to go unrevenged. William Wilford and other daring English mariners sailed to Brittany, sacked and burned several of the coast towns, and took or destroyed every Breton or French ship that came in their way. The Parliament, too, which in this reign firmly established its right to voto the public money, and inquire into all grievances which endangered the nation, or increased the burdens of the people, demanded in 1404 that the King would moderate his expenses, and reform the government of his household ; that he would discharge four persons from his Court—his Confessor, the Abbot of Dore, Kichard Derham, and Crossby, a valet of his chamber; and, above all, that he would banish all the Queen's foreign attendants, and permit no alien, male or female, to remain in the royal household, except the Queen's daughters, and Marie Sante, Nicholas Alderwyche, and John Puryan, and their wives, "hecause," say the Commons, "these foreigners are mostly Bretons, French, or Navarrese, who, being hostile to Englishmen, might inform the enemies of the state secrets of the kingdom, Henry, remembering that he had been placed upon the throne by the voice of the people, replied to these requests by declaring in parliament that he knew of no cause why his Confessor, and other three attendants, should quit his service ; hut, as he was convinced that what the lords and commons should ordain was for the advantage of the nation, he had discharged them all; adding, that he would do as much by any other about his person, whom he should find to have incurred the indignation of his people. Although the recommendation of the parliament respecting the Queen's household was assented to by the King, it was only carried out in part. Joanna, less politic than her royal husband, applied to the lords ; and, having obtained their permission, retained six of her men and five of her women attendants, mostly Bretons, besides eleven washerwomen and a valet, all natives of Brittany. And, to add to her unpopularity, she shortly afterwards greatly increased the number of her foreign domestics. Joanna, however, soon learned that she must bow to tho will of the parliament. In 1406, the commons, in bold language,


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