Of Duke Humphrey’s character and proceedings after the Pope’s bull had declared his first marriage void, Sharon Turner further says: “Gloucester had found the rich dowry of Jacqueline wrenched from his grasp, and, from so much opposition, placed beyond his attaining, and he had become satiated with her person. One of her attendants, Eleanor Cobham, had affected his variable fancy; and tho’ her character had not been spotless before, and she had surrendered her honour to his own importunities, yet he suddenly married her, exciting again the wonder of the world by his conduct, as in that proud day every nobleman felt that he was acting incongruously with the blood he had sprung from. His first wedlock was impolitic, and this unpopular; and both were hasty and self-willed, and destructive of all reputation for that dignified prudence, which his elevation to the regency of the most reflective and enlightened nation in Europe demanded for its example and its welfare. This injudicious conduct announced too much imperfection of intellect, not to give every advantage to his political rival the bishop of Winchester, his uncle, who was now struggling for the command of the royal mind, and for the predominance in the English government. He and the duke of Exeter were the illegitimate brothers of Henry the Fourth, and had been first intrusted with the king’s education. The internal state of the country, as to its religious feelings and interest, contributed to increase the differences which now arose between the prelate and his nephew, who is described by a contemporary as sullying his cultivated understanding and good qualities, by an ungoverned and diseasing love of unbecoming pleasures. It is strange, that in so old a world of the same continuing system always repeating the same lesson, any one should be ignorant that the dissolute vices are the destroyers of personal health, comfort, character, and permanent influence.”[24] After narrating Duke Humphrey’s death, Turner thus sums up his character:-- “The duke of Gloucester, amid failings that have been before alluded to, has acquired the pleasing epithet of The Good; and has been extolled for his promotion of the learned or deserving clergy. Fond of literature, and of literary conversation, he patronized men of talent and erudition. One is called, in a public record, his poet and orator; and Lydgate prefaces one of his voluminous works, with a panegyric upon him, written during the king’s absence on his French coronation, which presents to us the qualities for which, while he was living, the poet found him remarkable, and thought fit to commend him.” These verses are in the Royal MS. 18 D 4, in the British Museum, and are here printed from the MS., not from Turner:--