The stormy career of Jacqueline de Brabant, his first wife, belongs to the history of her time rather than that of London. Yet because her misfortunes first awakened the voice of the women of London her life may be briefly noted in this place. She was the only daughter and the heiress of William, Count of Hainault and of Margaret of Burgundy his wife. No one, to outward seeming, could be more strongly protected or in safer hands than this girl. She was married at five years of age to John, second son of Charles VI. of France, the young prince being like herself, a child. On the death of the Dauphin John took the title of the Dauphin du Viennois. He was killed by poison immediately upon arriving in France. Jacqueline was thus a widow at sixteen. They married her immediately to John, Duke of Brabant, her cousin german, by dispensation of the Pope. The Duke was an imbecile, with whom his wife refused to continue. In 1420 she left him and came to England. Here Duke Humphrey proposed to consider the marriage null and void. On the death of Henry V. a bull was obtained to that effect from the anti-Pope Benedict XIII., and she and Gloucester were married. Gloucester then demanded of the Duke of Brabant the restitution of his wife’s estates. On his refusal he entered the country with 5000 English troops prepared to encounter the allied forces of Brabant and Burgundy. But the latter withdrawing, Gloucester returned to England leaving Jacqueline in Mons. She was taken prisoner, conducted to Holland, escaped in the disguise of a soldier, and, then being reduced to great straits and receiving no succour from Gloucester, who could probably get none, she concluded peace with the Duke of Burgundy, her cousin. The Duke of Brabant was now dead. In the treaty of peace she acknowledged that she was not the lawful wife of Gloucester; she named the Duke of Burgundy her heir; and she engaged not to marry again without the Duke’s permission.
It was before this treaty, which separated Jacqueline entirely from English sympathies, that the women of London, for the first time in history, made their appearance in public. Filled with sympathy for the misfortunes of this unhappy heiress, thus driven out of her estates, a prisoner, a wanderer, deserted by her cousin and her husband, they presented themselves before Parliament in the year 1427 and laid before the Commons at Westminster assembled, a petition or letter complaining of the Duke’s behaviour towards his wife. In the following year the citizens themselves begged the consideration of Parliament for the abandonment of the Duchess. This would lead us to believe that in the distracted condition of the State the Duke of Gloucester simply could not get succour for his wife. It would be interesting to know how the women were got to act together, whether by meeting at Paul’s Cross and by female oratory, or, which is much more likely, by house-to-house visitation. Nothing, however, came of their interference.