Political manoeuvres started almost immediately to find a new wife for the widowed duke. These may not have been initiated by the duke himself but by those around him who sought some advantage from the situation. Louis of Luxembourg, Bishop of Thérouanne, a close friend and confidante of the duke of Bedford, arranged for him to meet his niece Jacquetta. She was the daughter of the Count of St. Pol, and at the age of only 17 she was undoubtedly very attractive. Contemporary reports describe her as pretty and lively and there is no reason to doubt this description. While no contemporary image of her was made, or survives, it seems reasonable to infer that she was very presentable.
The Count of St Pol, not well known in English history, was a figure of some importance on the continent. The counts in the fifteenth century were from the House of Luxembourg and could claim descent from Charlemagne. They were considered to be one of the great noble houses of northern Europe and at times in the 14th century the Luxembourg family controlled Bohemia, Brandenburg and other territories in what is now eastern Germany, as well as Luxembourg and Brabant in the west. By the 15th century the family had declined from its earlier power, but was still important in the north eastern part of France. The centre of the county was Saint Pol sur Ternoise, which today is a small town of about 15,000. The county was one of several in North Eastern France, along with Picardy, Artois and Flanders, that were vital to England’s strategic interests.
Jacquetta’s great great grandfather had married a niece of Edward I. Her great uncle Valerian had married Maud Holland, a daughter of Joan (later mother to Richard II) by her first marriage. Bedford therefore would have found nothing to object to in her lineage, appearance or personality. He may even have been smitten, but considerations of state ruled. The alliance with the duke of Burgundy against France was becoming less dependable, and with the death of Anne of Burgundy, had an uncertain future. A new alliance with the Luxembourg family would therefore help to shore up the English position in France. Against this was the knowledge that the Duke of Burgundy would be offended, but since relations were already strained to breaking point Bedford may have taken this factor into consideration when creating this new alliance.
Jacquetta had no say in the matter, nor would have expected to. Like almost all women of her status and upbringing an arranged political marriage was always going to be her destiny. Whether or not she accepted it with a good grace or not it is impossible to divine.
Accordingly the ceremony was performed at the Archbishop’s palace at Thérouanne on 29 April 1433, with the archbishop himself officiating. Bedford presented two bells to the Cathedral to celebrate the event.
As anticipated, the Duke of Burgundy was outraged, and added this latest affront to a list of supposed grievances. Luxembourg was a vassal state and should have sought permission. Bedford had openly disregarded the memory of his recently deceased wife, the duke’s sister. He was reminded that another woman from a vassal house, Jacqueline of Hainault, had married Bedford’s brother Humphrey, again without his consent. Efforts were made to mediate between the two dukes but without avail and the rift between them remained to the end of Bedford’s life.
On 18 June the couple sailed for England and reached London on 23 June, where they proceeded in state through the streets. It was a lukewarm reception; the triumphant progresses of his elder brother Henry V and Bedford himself during the previous decade were now tempered by a general war weariness. This latest round of the conflict with France had now extended almost 20 years. To compound this problem there was a political struggle for power between duke Humphrey of Gloucester, his youngest brother, and his uncle Cardinal Beaufort. Neither was winning this struggle and some economic mismanagement had left the Treasury empty.
Bedford made the maintenance of the French kingdom, the legacy of his brother Henry V to his infant son Henry VI, his life’s work. Henry VI was, according to a treaty agreed between Henry V and the French king Charles VI, the heir to the throne of France as well as England. Charles VI’s son, known as the Dauphin but in reality Charles VII of France had been disinherited, although he and his supporters never did accept his mad father’s capitulation. From 1422 the English position was unsustainable in the long term, and so it proved, and but for the competent leadership of the duke of Bedford, Regent in France, English rule may have crumbled a lot earlier. As it was, these last years were difficult for Bedford; hostility to English rule was rising in France and support from the home country could only be described as tepid. His journey to England in 1433 was designed to build support for the French enterprise but the political situation in England required him to take charge of the government and it was not until July 1434 that the worsening situation in France compelled him to return.
In this period the young Jacquetta was more or less invisible. It is assumed, but by no means certain that she accompanied her husband as he shuttled back and forth between London and his seat at Fullbrook in Warwickshire, but there is no mention of her. There really are no clues that we can draw upon to assess the state of the marriage. They married. She was widowed after two years and five months. There were no children.
Given Jacquetta's later fecundity this is surely worth comment. John did have two illegitimate children, a boy, Richard, who was alive in 1434, and a daughter Mary. She married Peter de Montferrand and died after 1458. John was unable to successfully father children by his first wife, Anne of Burgundy. He married her in 1423 and she died during childbirth on 14 November 1432. It is quite probable that other unsuccessful pregnancies preceded this, but none were recorded. Jacquetta was young and strong and without doubt capable of bearing children. Yet there was no pregnancy of record during the more than two years of their marriage, and this is a puzzle. The duke was certainly in poor health at this time but in the previous year (1433) he was still notionally potent. The couple were separated in age by 27 years; he was old enough to be her father, although this was not a barrier to sexual union. It is possible that he had reached a stage in his life when he was no longer interested in the sexual act. That, together with his manifold responsibilities may have kept him and Jacquetta from enjoying a proper union. It is also possible that she had no appetite for him and they may have mutually agreed to not sharing the same bed, both content to maintain the outward show of the marriage for the diplomatic purposes behind the union, and since his brother’s son was already king there were no dynastic pressures on him to produce an heir.
When she and Bedford returned to France in July 1434, he was already in decline and, a year later, on 14 September 1435, he died.
John, duke of Bedford was buried in Rouen Cathedral, the spiritual home of his Norman ancestors, beside the tomb of Henry II's eldest son, Henry 'the young king’. The tomb was a lavish one and even after the French had taken control of Rouen in 1436, the tomb was respected by successive monarchs. In 1562 the effigy on the tomb was smashed by Calvinists, but a plaque, with Bedford's arms, survived until the 18th century. The grave was dug up in 1860 to expose a large framed skeleton, which fits contemporary reports of Bedford's physique.
His will provided an estate of La Haye du Puits for his illegitimate son Richard but nothing for his natural daughter Mary. Perhaps he assumed that her marriage to Peter de Montferrand took care of everything. The rest of his vast estates were bequeathed to his widow, Jacquetta, for life. She was also gifted the value of 12000 livres in moveable goods.
This made her a wealthy woman. Her dower income (one third of her former husband’s estates) amounted to £1133 even though she did not get everything her former husband had left. She was allowed to enter her estates in 6 February 1436 provided that she seek the king’s permission before she married. This was a sensible precaution; a widow wth her lands was almost certain to be the target of another wealthy magnate who might significantly enlarge his wealth and power and present a threat to the security of the realm. She harboured other ideas and no doubt felt entitled to please herself the second time around and accordingly she did. She married for love.
The administration of his will proved more difficult in practice. The king's council granted Harcourt, one of the duchess's estates to Edmund, duke of Somerset. Some other estates were contested by Humphrey, duke of Gloucester. She was not, in any case, entitled to everything under English law. As a dowager she was entitled to one third of the estates, the other two-thirds normally going to the heir. In this case there was no heir and the duke's brother and cousins spotted this and stepped in to fill that breach. She fought hard to retain her estates but in 1437 the duke of Somerset was able to secure Harcourt.
Her time during this period, between the duke's death in September 1435 and her secret liaison with Sir Richard Woodville, was almost certainly occupied with securing her estates. It is recorded that she sold some woods on the Harcourt estate and ordered the repair of mills at La Rivière Thibouville. She also held extensive estates in England.
