A controversial figure, he has been characterised as reckless, unprincipled, and fractious, but is also noted for his intellectual activity and for being the first significant English patron of humanism,[2] in the context of the Renaissance.

Created Duke of Gloucester in 1414, he participated in Henry V's campaigns during the Hundred Years' War in France: he fought at Agincourt in 1415 and at the conquest of Normandy in 1417–9.

[3] His learned, widely read, scholarly approach to the early renaissance cultural expansion demonstrated the quintessential well-rounded princely character.

Despite the errors in his public and private life and the mischief he caused in politics, Gloucester is also at times praised as a patron of learning and a benefactor to the University of Oxford.

[5] A staunch opponent of concessions in the French conflict and a proponent of offensive warfare, Gloucester gradually lost favour among the political community, and King Henry VI after the end of his minority, following defeats in France.

During the reign of Henry IV, Humphrey received a scholar's education, possibly at Balliol College, Oxford,[7] while his elder brothers fought on the Welsh and Scottish borders.

Humphrey and his brother, the Duke of Clarence, led an Inquiry of Lords to try Cambridge and Scrope for high treason on 5 August.

[8] For his services, Humphrey was granted offices including Constable of Dover, Warden of the Cinque Ports on 27 November and King's Lieutenant.

He welcomed the emperor on the shoreline with a sword in his hand, "extorting" from Sigismund the renunciation of his prerogatives of dominion over the king of England before allowing him to land on the evening of 1 May 1416.

[11][12] In each subsequent year, a petition was made to Parliament to rehabilitate 'Good Duke Humphrey', and by the end of the century his reputation had been restored.

In 1428 Humphrey married, secondly, Eleanor Cobham, his mistress, who in 1441 was tried and convicted of practising witchcraft against the king in an attempt to retain power for her husband.

The Duke Humphrey Tower surmounting Greenwich Park was demolished in the 1660s and the site was chosen for building the Royal Observatory.

His friendship with Zano Castiglione, Bishop of Bayeux, led to many further connections on the Continent, including Leonardo Bruni, Pietro Candido Decembrio and Tito Livio Frulovisi.

It found its way into the possession of his kinswoman, Lady Margaret Beaufort, who bequeathed it to her confessor, Dr Edmund Wilford, of Oriel College, Oxford.

How it reached Lady Margaret is unclear, but a fellow of the college has conjectured that it came through her husband, Thomas Stanley, who had custody of Eleanor during her imprisonment and was involved in liquidating Humphrey's estate.

[21] Saki updates the phrase by referring to a "Duke Humphrey picnic", one without food, in his short story "The Feast of Nemesis".

In fact, Humphrey's tomb is in the Abbey of St Albans (the cathedral): it was restored by Hertfordshire Freemasons in 2000 to celebrate the millennium.

Shakespeare portrays Humphrey's death as a murder, ordered by William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, and Queen Margaret of Anjou.