The de Courcy Matter, Part II: The French side of the story….

I hope that by the time you read this article you will already have visited yesterday’s Part I, which relates the English version of Marguerite de Courcy’s return to France. She left England under the cloud of having lived far too high a life for a governess and of stealing some English royal jewels. These are the charges levelled against her in most of the books I’ve read where she is referred to. The tale is often used to show Richard II in a poor light for sending his young queen’s beloved governess away and then going away himself, leaving the child alone. Apparently this is what the French thought of it. Nasty Richard! Boo! Hiss! Or, of course, it’s all propaganda, aimed at improving the image of his Lancastrian usurper, Henry IV.

Now, further delving has turned up much more. I will begin with the Chronique de la Traïson et Mort de Richart Deux Roy Dengleterre, which as you may guess/already know is a French chronicle and standard work here in the UK. It was written by Jean Creton a French historian and poet who served as valet de chambre to Charles VI of France and came over to England to observe life here. His work has been described as the “fullest and most circumstantial of the various contemporary narratives” and is certainly very well-known here, but it has to be said that his word-for-word stories do sometimes seem to warrant a pinch of salt. Anyway, in the Chronique Marguerite is referred to throughout as Mary de Coucy [sic], Countess of Cilley, and the matter of her abrupt return to France is related in some detail.

Referring to her as Coucy leads to a little confusion with Isabel de Coucy, daughter of Edward III and wife of Enguerrand de Coucy VII. This is especially evident in the lengthy biographical footnote on page 165. Nor have I been able to discover why she is called Countess of Cilley. Unless, of course, it’s a weird medieval way of spelling Coucy/Courcy. As far as I know she was born a Paynel and became a de Courcy on marriage. She doesn’t seem to have married again after the death of her husband. Be assured that the extracts I’ve taken from the Chronique are definitely about Marguerite de Courcy, Queen Isabella’s governess.

Here’s how the Chronique’s story goes. On St George’s Day 1399, which was the eve of his departure from Windsor for Ireland, in the presence of Isabella’s chamberlain Sir Philip de la Vache, Richard sent for the queen’s guardians (her confessor and Master Pol the king’s own physician) and asked them to answer truly the questions he was about to put to them. “Do you consider the Lady de Coucy to be sufficiently good, ‘gentile’ and prudent to be guardian and governess of such a lady as Madame, the Queen of England, my consort? and consider well among yourselves, that you may advise me.” Please note that it is not stated what prompted Richard to summon these three men.

They didn’t want to reply, until Richard commanded them on their consciences. The confessor, who knew most about the French ladies of the household, replied that he didn’t think the lady was prudent enough. Sir Philip de la Vache stated that she wasn’t sufficiently discreet to be governess and wasn’t fit to be trusted. Then the physician agreed too, and added that “she lives in greater state, all things considered, than does the Queen; for she has eighteen of your horses at her command, besides those belonging to her husband, when he comes here. She keeps two or three goldsmiths, six or eight embroiderers, two or three mantua-makers, and two or three furriers, constantly employed,—as many as are kept by you or the Queen. She has also built a chapel which cost fourteen hundred nobles.” It was remarked that if she had been in France she would have done nothing of the kind.

At this point Richard sent for William Scrope, Earl of Wiltshire and Treasurer of England, and instructed him as follows: “I tell you what I wish you to do, and you shall have received letters from me: cause to be paid, on my account, all the debts which the Lady de Coucy, or her people, have contracted in our kingdom, and give her sufficient money to take her to Paris, and provide a ship for her passage; and send to the Lady Mortemer and appoint her principal lady of honour and governess of the Queen, by my desire.”

This done, the king and queen walked hand-in-hand from Windsor Castle to the lower court, to the Deanery of St George, where Richard was dressed in the mantle etc. of the Order of the Garter. (So, please note, Creton pinpoints the meeting to St George’s Day.) After a service, Richard took his tearful leave of Isabella, telling her she would soon come to join him in Ireland. “He then took the queen in his arms, and kissed her more than forty times….[and later] lifted her from the ground and kissed her a long while….[then] placed her on the ground and kissed her at least thrice more….” That’s a lot of kissing and if true indicates the deep affection that had developed between them.

This was the last time they would ever see each other.

Richard’s journey to Ireland from Windsor was by way Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire and then along South Wales to Milford Haven, where he embarked his ship called La Chambre on 30 May 1399. At Milford Haven he instructed the Duke of York to dismiss the Lady de Courcy, as he had ordered before. Presumably this led to the letter promised to Scrope.

It seems that after Richard’s departure (and before Marguerite left) Isabella was “ill with grief for a fortnight or more”. She was at Windsor Manor, the new palace five miles south of Windsor Castle, and on the advice of the Duke of York she was moved to Wallingford Castle. Then (in October or November 1399, according to the Chronique) Marguerite was dismissed, so surely her grief was due to being part from Richard.

Marguerite didn’t leave England finally until January 1400, by which time Henry IV had ursurped the throne and Richard was most probably dead. She is credited with taking the news of his downfall to France.

The Chronique makes no mention at all of missing jewels, or that Marguerite was made a Lady of the Garter at the St George’s celebrations. Would Richard really have invited her into such a charmed chivalric circle if he had reason to suspect she was taking considerable advantage? Maybe even stealing jewels, as other accounts relate? I can’t believe so.

The French version of Wikipedia is very informative (as I have often found) and is an excellent source of information that simply doesn’t make it to the UK platform. I paid it a visit to seek more information about Marguerite and began with its page on the Courcys in general here.

Marguerite’s husband, William IV de Courcy, Baron de Courcy, was a military man who took part in the campaigns of the 1380s, including Flanders, Scotland and Castile. King Charles VI was impressed enough to make him his chamberlain. William married Marguerite Paynel, who came from an Anglo-Norman family that is thought to have originated southeast of Calvados but was also established in England. You can find a detailed genealogical tree of the Paynels here. Marguerite’s particular genealogical entry has been extracted on the right below:-

The trusted Courcys were required by Charles VI to watch over his small daughter, Isabella de Valois, when she came to England as Richard II’s second queen. William de Courcy’s younger brother Richard, a priest, accompanied them as Isabella’s secretary.

When Richard II was overthrown and murdered, far from being despatched in disgrace by the English, Marguerite de Courcy was summoned to return to France. Not booted out by the rotten rostbifs. She landed at Boulogne and, according to Froissart, rushed immediately to Paris to warn the king about Richard’s fall. Henry IV wouldn’t let Isabella leave England (he wanted to keep her dowry and marry her off to his son and heir, Henry of Monmouth) and it wasn’t until two years later that Charles VI’s diplomatic envoys (who included Marguerite’s husband William) managed to obtain Isabella’s return to her homeland.

Right, so the French say Marguerite wasn’t kicked out under a cloud, and as if to prove it, once in France the she and her husband were rewarded for their services by her being appointed lady-in-waiting to Queen Isabeau and him becoming Captain or Governor of Paris in 1404. All was well and good then. No stigma, just a jolly good time all around.

But now things did go horribly wrong. The Courcys’ many privileges stirred up resentment, and out of malice (and possibly truthfully, to bring Marguerite down a peg or three) an unnamed member of Queen Isabella’s retinue accused Marguerite of having “misplaced many of the young queen’s jewels, some of which were of great value”. Then her husband was accused of divulging information to Henry IV, from whom he was receiving a pension. In fact, the English (presumably Henry IV at this point) had heaped the Courcys “with gifts on their departure: a pension of £100 a year for the household, forty marks for Richard [meaning the de Courcy brother and priest who was Isabella’s secretary?], and the right granted to William IV to export wheat to England free of customs duties.”

Luckily for William the French king supported him and he was cleared of all suspicion. William still resigned his post as Captain or Governor of Paris, but retained those of counsellor and chamberlain to the king.

However, in 1415 at Agincourt, things finally turned into a nightmare for Marguerite when her husband, “his brother Georges, his two sons Richard V and William V (presumably her sons too), all perished in the battle”. It is claimed that after this Marguerite de Courcy née Paynel enjoyed the personal protection of King Henry V. Why? If the Courcy men were loyal Frenchmen and all died fighting for France, shouldn’t she have had the protection of the French king? Or did the aforementioned £100 pension etc. and the fact that she was still a Lady of the Garter mean she became an English responsibility?

To continue. The French Wikipedia article declares that the Chronique’s claim that Marguerite was dismissed from office by Richard II is contradicted by all other sources, including Froissart. But why would Creton, a true Frenchman, be accused of telling fibs/manipulating the facts….and in such detail? Richard’s conversations are verbatim, as if Creton was also in the room! On reflection, to include her induction to the Order of the Garter after such a damning conversation would surely be rather ill-placed. It might even make Richard seem unhinged. Creton, who is on the whole favourable toward Richard, may have thought so too, and omitted it. If that is why he brushed aside any reference to the Order, then I have to say he too suspected (or knew damned well) that what he was writing was untrue. And if it’s all a fabrication anyway, why is it so often stated in English biographies etc. that she was sent away for living far too well and filching royal bling?

Now it has to be pointed out that while Creton was in England and did witness all that went on, he didn’t actually write it all down until he returned to France between November 1401 and March 1402. So he left when Henry IV was on the throne. Creton actually believed that Richard survived the usurpation, until during a visit to Scotland, he met the man who claimed to be Richard and knew him for an imposter. Creton claimed a great affection for Richard….so why, if he, Creton, was safely back in France, would he write untruths about Richard’s treatment of Marguerite de Courcy? Might it perhaps be that there were indeed rumours about the governess’s lavish living? Might whispers have reached France and that was why she was recalled pdq? It’s all in the timing, of course. And Creton definitely doesn’t include the accusations about the jewels. That morsel would arise later in France from within Isabella’s household, and had nothing to do with Richard.

It’s possible that Richard didn’t know about Marguerite on St George’s Day, so that she was already a member of the Order when he found out and sent for Sir Philip & Co. Creton states that 23 April was the “eve” of Richard left for Ireland, which doesn’t necessarily mean the very day before the king left, but could, more loosely, imply a few days before departure.

There are a few days post-23 April when the meeting of these men could have taken place. By 2 May 1399 Richard himself was in Osney, Oxfordshire, on his way to Ireland. Yet Creton is emphatic that it was on St George’s Day because he describes events immediately after the meeting when Richard is dressed in the robes of the Order and a service takes place. So I can’t be 100% certain whether or not Richard knew about the governess’s activities on the very day she was accepted into the Order of the Garter. I simply can’t believe he did.

Even so, such an important event as the induction of a Frenchwoman into an Order as exclusive and important as the Order of the Garter would surely be worth Creton mentioning? You’d think so. Especially as he was launching (in detail!) into the goings-on that were to cause her disgrace in England!

As for the English claims that the French were furious about the whole matter. Furious about what? According to them nothing had happened. She was recalled and everything for her and her husband was hunky-dory until a mischievous viper in Isabella’s retinue cast jealous aspersions.

Now then….to Isabella’s retinue. Does this mean the members of it who returned to France in January 1400 with Marguerite? Or the ones that returned to France in August 1401 with Isabella herself? The implication is that the accusation was made after William became Captain or Governor of Paris. He resigned the post when the scandal about his wife broke, so it was 1404 or after. This means that everyone—women and men—who had been or still were in Isabella’s retinue must be under suspicion of making the accusation. We’ll probably never know who it was.

So we at least have to be honest here. Which account should we believe? Was Marguerite de Courcy booted out in disgrace by Richard? Or recalled honourably to France and fêted? It has to be one or the other.

And what about the jewels that English records list so meticulously as missing? Were they missing? If so, what happened to them? Who did purloin those royal baubles?

So there you have the story of Marguerite de Courcy as both sides view her. Which do you believe? That she was a dedicated governess and innocent victim of vindictive whispers? Or a sneaky jewel-thief living a grand old life at Richard II’s expense?