[Transcriber's note: This production is based on
https://archive.org/details/popularhistoryeng02guiz/page/n7/mode/2up
The typesetting, inking and proofing of this book are
exceptionally defective. Missing letters and words (in square
brackets) have been inserted and spelling and punctuation errors
have been corrected.
As in the first volume, the recurring theme is death and
deception. This is a list of words occurring at least 20 times
each, in order of frequency:
death (143), army (116), Tower of London (95), war, died,
battle, arms, money, power, enemies, soldiers, reign, prison,
unhappy, insurrection, condemned, vain, treaty, refuge,
possession, influence, forces, poor, arrested, prisoner,
secret, anger, suffered, blood, execution, prisoners,
insurgents, violent, victory, siege, dying, cried, treason,
surrounded, scaffold, rebels, executed, sentence, killed, die,
crime, attack, enemy, crimes, blow, sword, mercy, fight, fatal,
courage, struck, rival, retreat, knights, danger, attacked,
seized, ruin, reinforcements, pardon, defend, conspiracy,
captive, perished, defeated, beheaded, arrest, vengeance,
trial, threatened, repulsed, captured.]
[Image]
Parting Of Sir Thomas More And His Daughter.
{1}
A Popular History Of England
From the Earliest Times
_To The Reign Of Queen Victoria_
BY
M. Guizot
Author of "The Popular History of France," etc.
_Authorized Edition_
Illustrated
Vol. II
[Image]
Publisher's Logo: ALDI DISCIP ANGLVS
New York
John W. Lovell Company
150 Worth Street, Corner Mission Place
{2}
{3}
Volume Two.
Parting of Sir Thomas Moore and his Daughter. -- Frontispiece.
The French Chivalry the Night before the Battle of Agincourt. -- 18
Henry V's Review Before Agincourt -- 20
Entry of the Burgundians into Paris. -- 26
Joan of Arc recognizes the French King. -- 50
Assassination of the Earl of Rutland. -- 78
Interview between Edward IV and Louis XI. -- 98
The Tower of London in 1690. -- 108
Henry Tudor crowned on the Battle-Field of Bosworth. -- 114
Confession of Peter Warbeck. -- 144
Chapel and Tomb of Henry VII. -- 152
Landing Henry VIII at Calais -- 160
Cardinal Wolsey Served by Noblemen -- 180
Henry VIII -- 210
Anger of Henry VIII on his First View of Anne of Cleves. -- 246
Catherine Discussing Theology with the King. -- 262
Death of Anne Askew. -- 274
Edward VI Writing His Journal -- 280
The Corpse passed under her Windows -- 286
Mary Vows To Marry Philip II -- 302
Mary, Queen of Scots -- 346
George Douglass seized Darnley's Dagger and Struck Rizzio -- 348
Mary Stuart Swearing She Had Never Sought The Life
Of Elizabeth. -- 402
{4}
{5}
Table Of Contents.
Chapter XIII. Grandeur and Decline
Henry V. (1418-1422)
Henry VI. (1422-1461) -- 9
Chapter XIV. Red Rose and White Rose
Edward IV. (1461-1483)
Edward V. (1483)
Richard III.(1483-1485) -- 81
Chapter XV. The Tudors
Re-establishment of the Regular Government
Henry VII. (1485-1509) -- 117
Chapter XVI. Henry VIII. and Wolsey (1509-1529) -- 154
Chapter XVII. The Royal Reform
Personal Government
Henry VIII. (1529-1547) -- 210
Chapter XVIII. The Reformation
Edward VI. (1547-1553) -- 268
Chapter XIX. Persecution
Bloody Mary (1553-1558) -- 293
Chapter XX. Policy and Government of Queen Elizabeth,
Her Foreign Relations (1558-1603) -- 324
Chapter XXI. Social and Literary Progress of England
under Elizabeth -- 429
{6}
{7}
Guizot's
History Of England,
Vol. II.
From the accession of Henry V.,
to the death of Queen Elizabeth,
1413-1603.
{8}
{9}
Chapter XIII.
Grandeur And Decline.
Henry V., Henry VI.
(1413-1461).
Henry of Monmouth ascended the throne under happy auspices. His
father had expended the popularity which in the first place had
carried him into power, and had lived amidst the anxieties and
cares of usurpation; but the work was accomplished, and his son
felt his authority so well established, that the first acts of
his reign bear testimony to a generous disdain towards
conspiracies and rivals. The body of King Richard II. was carried
away from the convent of Langley, and solemnly brought back to
Westminster, to be interred there beside his wife, Anne of
Bohemia, as the unhappy monarch had wished during his lifetime.
The king himself was the chief mourner. The young Edmund, earl of
March, was restored to liberty, and the son of Hotspur Percy was
recalled from his long exile in Scotland. Everywhere the former
adversaries of Henry IV., exiled or punished through his fear and
prudence, experienced the clemency of the young king, who
contrived to gain the affection of the greater number of them, by
the firmness and energy of character which were united in him
with generosity.
Recovered from any follies and excesses which may have sullied
his youth, Henry V., when he ascended the throne, showed himself
from the first to be austere in his life and in his morals,
resolved to fear God, and to cause his laws to be respected. He
was not in favor of the religious movement which was being
propagated in his kingdom, particularly among the lower classes
of society.
{10}
The doctrines and the preaching of Wycliffe, and the knowledge of
the Holy Scriptures which he had begun to diffuse, had born much
good fruit; but the disciples had, upon several points, swerved
from the teaching of their master, and from free investigation
had sprung up many dangerous errors as well as the most sacred
truths. The people designated the reformers under the name of
"Lollards," a word, the origin of which is not exactly known, but
which very possibly came from the German heretic, Walter Lolhard,
burnt at Cologne in 1322. Already, under Henry IV., the secular
arm had descended heavily upon the partisans of the new
doctrines. A priest, formerly rector of Lynn in Norfolk, and who
had for awhile abjured his opinions, had asked to be heard by the
Parliament, before which he had frankly expounded the doctrines
which he had been compelled to abandon. Being declared for this
deed a heretic and a relapser, Sacoytre was burnt at Smithfield
in the month of March, 1401, presenting for the first time to the
English people the terrible spectacle of a man put to death for
his opinions. A tailor, named John Batby, suffered the same
punishment in 1410. But at the beginning of the reign of Henry
V., the anger and uneasiness of the Church were directed against
a personage better known, and of higher rank. The Lollards had
become sufficiently numerous to have attributed to them a
declaration, placarded by night in London, announcing that a
hundred thousand men were ready to defend their rights by arms.
All regarded as their chief Sir John Oldcastle, generally called
Lord Cobham, by the right of his wife. He was a good soldier, and
the friend of Henry V., in his youth.
{11}
When Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, came to accuse Lord
Cobham before the king, the latter could not decide to deliver
him up to the Church, and he promised to labor himself to reclaim
him; but the king's powers of controversy were not equal to the
convictions of Lord Cobham. The monarch became angry, and as his
old friend had taken refuge in his manor of Cowling, in Kent,
Henry abandoned him to the archbishop. For some time the clever
soldier contrived to avoid the delivery of the arrest warrant,
but a body of troops sent by the king having surrounded the
castle, he surrendered, and was conducted to the Tower. For two
days he defended himself unaided against all the clergy
assembled, he was then condemned to the stake; but the king, who
still retained some affection for him, obtained a respite, during
which Sir John contrived to escape from the Tower. He no longer
hoped to live in peace; perhaps he reckoned upon the devotion of
his brethren. It is related that he assembled a considerable
number of Lollards, and that he made an attempt to surprise the
king; having failed in his design, he had convoked his partisans
in the fields of St. Giles, near London, on the morrow of the
Epiphany. The king was forewarned of the conspiracy and repaired
thither. Sir John was not there; a hundred men at the utmost had
assembled in the meadow; they carried arms, and confessed that
they were waiting for Oldcastle. Two or three other little
assemblages were also captured, and, on the 13th of January,
thirty Lollards suffered at St. Giles's the punishment of
traitors. The Parliament was agitated, and the State was believed
to be in danger; the judges, and magistrates were authorized to
arrest every individual suspected of heresy, and made oath to
prosecute the guilty in all parts. Death and confiscation were
decreed against them.
{12}
Sir Roger Acton, a friend of Oldcastle, was arrested, quartered,
and hanged on the 10th of February. The Archbishop of Canterbury,
Arundel, died on the 28th of the same month; but his successor,
Chicheley, was no less ardent than he against heresy, and it was
at his request and at his suit that Sir John Oldcastle, Lord
Cobham, after having for a long while remained concealed, was
rearrested in 1417, and burnt at a slow fire in the meadow of St.
Giles, on the 25th of December following.
The terror which the Lollards had caused was beginning to
subside. The king had had leisure to reflect upon the sad
condition of France; the weakness in which it was plunged
reminded him of the counsels of his dying father. It is said that
Henry IV. had advised his son to engage his country in a great
war, to divert it from conspiracies. The ardour of the young king
had become inflamed at this idea, and he had come to look upon
himself as the messenger of God, sent to punish the crimes of the
French princes, and to deliver from their hands the kingdom which
they were oppressing. In the month of July, 1414, he suddenly
laid claim to the crown of France, as the decendant of Isabel,
the daughter of Philip the Fair. This pretension, groundless on
the part of Edward III., became absurd in the mouth of Henry V.,
because the right of succession if transmissible by females,
belonged to the Earl of March. The Duke of Berry, then in power,
peremptorily repelled the demand of King Henry, who thereupon
proclaimed other pretensions. He consented to leave the throne to
King Charles, but he claimed for England the absolute sovereignty
of Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Aquitaine, besides the towns and
territories ceded in other parts of France by the treaty of
Brétigny.
{13}
He claimed at the same time one half of Provence, the inheritance
of Eleanor and Sanche, the wives of Henry III., and of his
brother, the Duke of Cornwall; and the fifteen hundred thousand
crowns remaining to be paid upon the ransom of King John;
finally, he formally demanded the hand of the Princess Catherine,
the daughter of King Charles VI., with a dowry of two million of
crowns. In reply to these exorbitant demands, the Duke of Berry
proposed to surrender Aquitaine to the King of England, and to
give him the Princess Catherine, with a dowry of six hundred
thousand crowns. Never had a daughter of France brought so large
a dowry to her husband, and the payment of it would probably have
been difficult in the state of poverty which the country was in.
King Henry thereupon recalled his ambassadors, convoked the
Parliament, and, having obtained large subsidies, sent a second
mission to the court of France. The Earl of Dorset entered Paris
with a magnificent retinue. He proposed a prolongation of the
truce for four months, and consented to receive the princess with
a dowry of one million crowns only. Henry had also renounced his
pretensions to Maine, Anjou, and Normandy. The answer was the
same, but two hundred thousand crowns were added to the dowry of
Catherine. The ambassadors started back for England in March,
1415; the preparations for war immediately commenced.
The situation of France was more than ever deplorable. The
Armagnacs and the Burgundians were contending with each other for
the power, and a third competitor had entered the lists; the
dauphin, Louis, the eldest son of the unhappy Charles VI.,
arrived at manhood, and supported by his uncle, the Duke of
Berry, endeavored to seize the reins of government.
{14}
Dissolute and unmannerly, as profligate and as cruel as his
adversaries, he sometimes made use of the king's name, at others
he declared him incapable of directing his affairs, and plotted
to drive out the Armagnacs or the Burgundians. Blood flowed in
all parts, and the unhappy populations of the towns and the
country, exhausted by taxes and exactions, sighed after each
abuse for a new master: "What worse could the English do than
that from which we suffer?"
While the French nation, overwhelmed by its misfortunes, lost
even the wish of defending itself against foreigners, King Henry
had summoned a council of the Lords at Westminster. In the last
Parliament, his uncle, Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester and
Chancellor of England, had delivered a great speech upon this
text: "While we have time, let us do every good work." The king
announced to his councillors that he had resolved to put his hand
to the task and to recover his inheritance. All the prelates and
barons approved of his intentions, and his brother John, duke of
Bedford, was nominated Regent of England during his absence. The
conditions of military service were determined. The king
undertook to make a regular payment, curiously graduated
according to the rank of those who followed him; a duke was to
receive every day thirteen shillings and fourpence; an earl, six
shillings and eightpence; a baron, four shillings; a knight, two
shillings, an esquire, one shilling, and an archer sixpence. All
were to bring a certain number of horses, which the king
undertook to equip. Henry had pawned his jewels, contracted
loans, and had collected a very considerable sum of money, when
he marched forth in the month of July, to embark at Southampton.
{15}
At Winchester, the king encountered the Archbishop of Bourges,
sent by the Duke of Berry, in the frivolous hope of appeasing the
storm which threatened France. "I have a right to the crown,"
said Henry, "and I will conquer it with my sword." In vain did
the archbishop invoke the help of God, of the Virgin Mary, and of
the saints, who would defend the just cause of King Charles; in
vain, exasperated by the disdain of the English, did he exclaim
that the king had only made such liberal offers for love of
peace, and that King Henry would soon find himself repulsed as
far as the sea, if he should not be killed or made a prisoner;
Henry contented himself with smiling. "We shall see shortly,"
said he; and loading the prelate and his retinue with presents,
he sent him back with no other reply.
The embarkation of the troops had already commenced, when the
king was suddenly warned of a plot against his life. One of his
friends, Lord Scroop of Masham, in whom the king reposed such
confidence, that he always made him sleep in his own chamber, and
Sir Thomas Grey Heton, had conspired with the Earl of Cambridge,
the brother of the Duke of York, and as treacherous as he. The
king dead, the young Earl of March was to replace him upon the
throne. The three conspirators suffered the penalty of their
crime. Henry at length set sail for France, on the 13th of
August, 1415. The fleet entered the Seine on the morning of the
14th, and thirty thousand men, which it carried, landed within a
league of Harfleur. The spot was ill-chosen for the landing, and
the defence would have been easy; but no obstacle presented
itself to impede the operations of the English, and, on the 17th,
King Henry laid siege to Harfleur. The town was strong and well
defended by the Sire d'Estouteville; sickness was beginning to
ravage the English army; several barons of consequence died, as
well as a large number of soldiers; but the besieged suffered
also, and the governor in vain asked for assistance.
{16}
The Sire d'Estouteville formed his resolution; he issued secretly
out of the town and repaired in person to Rouen, where the French
forces were beginning to assemble. But confusion and disorder
reigned there; no one thought of delivering Harfleur. The brave
governor returned, re-entered the town, and surrendered it on the
22nd of September, after a siege which had lasted thirty-six
days. King Henry installed a garrison there, then embarked his
sick and wounded soldiers, whom he sent back to England, and took
account of his army thus diminished, nine thousand men at the
utmost remained under his banners. His supporters hesitated to
advance into France. Henry had sent to the dauphin a challenge to
single combat; but Louis had not even replied.
The king silenced the timid counsels. "No," said he, "with the
help of God, we must first see a little more of this good soil of
France, which all belongs to us. We will go, with God's help,
without hurt or danger: but if we should be interfered with, we
will fight, and the victory will be ours." Reassuring his men
thus, the King of England set out on his way to Calais, on the
6th of October. The army at Rouen, under the orders of the king
and the dauphin, did not stir; but that of the Constable had
preceded the English in Picardy, and every day troops passed by
on their way to join him. Watched by some detachments larger than
his entire army, Henry traversed Normandy without any obstacle;
near Dieppe, however, he was attacked by the garrison of Eu, but
the enemy was thrown back in disorder.
{17}
Like Edward III., Henry found himself stopped by the river Somme,
and could not discover a ford; Blanche Tache was guarded; the
greater number of the passages were furnished with stakes. The
soldiers were beginning to murmur, when, on the 19th of October,
a passage was found between Bethencourt and Vogenme, and the
English army crossed the Somme without impediment. The Constable
had established himself at Abbeville, and the military council
assembled at Rouen decided that battle should be given. The
immense superiority of the French army had caused the wise usages
of King Charles V. to be forgotten.
On the 20th of October, three French heralds presented themselves
at the camp of the enemy, and the Duke of York conducted them to
the king. "Sire," they said, bending the knee before him, "my
masters, the Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon, and my lord the
Constable, inform you that they intend to give battle to you."
"God's will be done," replied the king without emotion. "And by
which road do you intend to proceed?" resumed the heralds, who
had noticed with amazement the small number of English tents, and
the weary appearance of the soldiers. "That of Calais, straight
along," replied Henry. "If my enemies wish to stop me, it will be
at their peril. I do not seek them, but I will proceed neither
faster nor more slowly to avoid them." And raising his camp on
the morrow, Henry indeed continued his march, as though death or
defeat could not lie hidden behind each hill, or await him in the
neighboring plains. On the 24th he had crossed the river of
Ternois, when he perceived the first columns of the enemy. He
immediately formed his troops into battle order; but the
Constable having fallen back upon Agincourt, the King of England
took up his quarters in the village of Maisoncelles. The royal
standard of France was planted on the road to Calais; death or
victory was imperative.
{18}
King Henry had sent his marshals to reconnoitre the position of
the French. They brought back alarming particulars as to their
strength, and the number of pennants and banners spread out in
the wind; the soldiers were laughing around their fires, and the
spies heard them calculating the ransom of the English barons.
The veteran knights alone appeared less joyful; the Duke of
Berry, who, when quite a child, had fought at Poictiers, had
opposed with all his might the project of giving battle. He had
succeeded in preventing the arrival of the king. "It is better,"
he said, remembering the captivity of his father, King John, "to
lose the battle than to lose both the king and the battle." The
English trumpets sounded throughout the night; but the soldiers
had confessed, and many of them had made their wills; they
appreciated all the danger that threatened them.
At daybreak, on the 25th of October, the king attended mass.
Three altars had been erected in the camp, in order that the
soldiers might all be present at divine worship. The English were
composed of three divisions; two detachments were stationed at
the wings. The archers, placed in the form of a quoin in front of
the men-at-arms, drove into the ground long stakes, intended to
protect them against the charge of the cavalry; for the first
time, the points of the stakes were furnished with iron. The
baggage, the priests, and the greater number of the horses had
remained in the rear-guard, near Maisoncelles. The king rode
slowly along the lines upon his little grey horse; the crown
which surmounted his helmet sparkled in the rays of the sun, but
the youthful and handsome countenance of the young sovereign
above all attracted the attention of his soldiers.
[Image]
The French Chivalry the Night before the Battle of Agincourt.
{19}
"My course is taken," he said, "to conquer or die here. Never
shall England pay a ransom for me. Remember, Soissons, [Footnote 1]
my archers; the French have sworn to cut off three fingers
from the right hand of every one of you, so that you may never be
able to shoot an arrow again in your lives. We have not come to
our kingdom of France like enemies; we have not sacked the towns
and insulted the women; they are full of sin and have not the
fear of God before their eyes." A gallant warrior, Walter
Hungerford, said aloud, as the king passed by, that he would like
to see at his side a few of the good knights who remained idle in
England. "No," cried Henry, "I would not have here one man more.
If God give us the victory, the fewer we are, the greater will be
the honor; if we fail, the country will be less unhappy." And he
smiled, like a man certain of victory.
[Footnote 1: Two hundred English archers, prisoners of war,
had been hanged at Soissons.]
The French did not make an attack. By the advice of the old Duke
of Berry, they had resolved to await the onslaught, and they had
seated themselves upon the ground, like the English at Crecy.
Henry had reckoned upon the confusion and disorder which every
movement would bring upon this compact and confused mass, where
each knight obeyed his liege lord, without concerning himself
about the general direction, and he hesitated to make an attack.
The Constable wished to wait for the Duke of Brittany, who was to
bring fresh reinforcements; but, seeing that the English remained
stationary, he despatched Messire Guichard Dauphin to King Henry,
to offer him a free passage, if he would surrender Harfleur and
renounce his pretensions to the crown of France.
{20}
Henry refused without hesitation; he was willing to negotiate, he
said, upon the conditions which he had offered from London. They
could delay no longer; the English army was destitute of
provisions. The king gave orders to his two detachments to creep,
one to the left and the other to the rear of the French army; he
then in a ringing voice cried, "Advance, banners!" It was
mid-day. Sir Thomas Erpingham, the venerable commander of the
archers, threw his white staff into the air, and gave the order
to "Shoot." The English, having advanced within bowshot, planted
their stakes, and, uttering their battle cries, began to shoot.
Their comrades, hidden upon the left flank of the French,
answered them with cries and with arrows. Messire Clignet de
Brabant charged the archers, crying, "Montjoie! Saint Denis!" The
ground was soft and moist with rain; the horses slipped and fell;
the horsemen were wounded by the arrows, and their lances could
not reach, behind the ramparts of stakes, the bare breasts of the
archers, who had nearly all thrown off a portion of their
clothing so as to fight more at ease. The Brabantines were
compelled to retire in disorder, breaking up at their rear the
advancing ranks. The mass became so confused and the ranks so
crowded that neither horses nor men had room to move. The English
archers had drawn their stakes, and, having discontinued
shooting, charged with mallet and battle-axe in hand. The French
cavalry had made a side movement, but the horses sank into the
freshly ploughed soil; the men, heavily armed, had difficulty in
dismounting, while their enemies ran lightly upon the yielding
ground.
[Image]
Henry V.'s Review Before Agincourt.
{21}
The Constable had been slain; the Duke Anthony of Brabant fell
beneath a battle-axe, at the moment when the second French
division attacked the English men-at-arms who were advancing in
their turn. The struggle then began between the cavalry. The Duke
of Clarence had been overthrown; Henry, standing before his body,
defended him single-handed. Eighteen knights, bearing the banner
of the Count of Croy, attacked him at the same moment; they had
sworn to capture the King of England dead or alive. A blow from a
battle-axe caused the knees of Henry to bend; he was about to
perish, when his knights rejoined him; the king rose, and the
eighteen assailants were killed. The Duke of Alençon, sword in
hand, had arrived at the foot of the standard of England, having
overthrown the Duke of York. King Henry defended his treacherous
relative, and the battle-axe of the French prince smashed a half
of the crown which surmounted his helmet. At the same moment the
duke was surrounded. "I surrender," he cried. "I am the Duke of
Alençon." But already the blows of the English had stretched him
upon the ground, and when King Henry went to receive his gage, he
was dead. The French troops faltered; their chiefs were either
captured or slain. The third division began to fly; the ground
gave under their feet; the horses sank into the mud. Then a great
tumult arose in the rear of the English. The third division
rallied, the Duke of Brittany was hourly expected with numerous
reinforcements: King Henry gave orders to kill the prisoners with
whom each Englishman was encumbered; the greatest names of France
were falling beneath the dagger. Again the alarm subsided; the
peasants who had made a raid upon the baggage had been repulsed,
the French cavalry had resumed their gallop; the King of England
arrested the slaughter, and gave orders to raise the wounded.
{22}
The day was ended; the king rode over the field of battle with
his barons; the heralds examined the arms of the dead knights.
Henry encountered Montjoie, the French king-at-arms, who had been
made a prisoner. "This butchery is not of our doing," he said,
"but of the Almighty, who wished to punish the sins of France. To
whom falls the honor of the victory?" "To the King of England,"
gravely replied Montjoie. "What is the name of this castle?"
resumed the king. "Agincourt." "The day's work shall then be
called the battle of Agincourt," said Henry, and he resumed his
march amidst the dead and the dying. Eight thousand gentleman had
fallen upon the field of battle, of whom one hundred and twenty
were great noblemen bearing banners. The Duke of Orleans, the
Count of Richemont. Marshal Boucicault, the Duke of Bourbon, the
Counts of Eu and Vendôme, were prisoners. Amongst the English the
Earl of Suffolk and the Duke of York had been killed.
The king retook the road to Calais, the young Count of Charolais,
the son of the Duke of Burgundy, whom his father had forbidden to
take part in the combat, had performed the last duties towards
his uncles, the Duke of Brabant and the Count of Nevers. At the
same time, he caused to be interred at his own expense, all those
whose friends had not come to take away their bodies. Nearly six
thousand men were deposited in the cemetery improvised upon the
field of battle, and the Bishop of Guînes said the last prayers
there.
{23}
The King of England had merely passed through Calais, then
returned home, laden with booty, amidst the shouts of joy of his
subjects, some of whom, on his arrival, threw themselves into the
sea and carried him to land upon their shoulders. In its
gratitude, the Parliament had granted to him, for his lifetime,
the subsidy upon woollens and leathers, which it had formerly so
bitterly regretted presenting to King Richard. Henry V., however,
was too much occupied by his foreign ventures, and was naturally
too just and too generous to abuse the favors of his people.
During the whole course of his reign he lived in peace and in
mutual understanding with his Parliament.
The King of England was occupied in receiving with magnificence
the Emperor Sigismund, who was travelling, like a knight errant,
from kingdom to kingdom, endeavoring to effect the cessation of
the schism which was desolating the Church, by causing the
anti-popes to abdicate and thereby restore to Christianity a
universally recognized chief, when, in the month of August, 1416,
came the news that Harfleur was closely pressed by a body of
French troops. The king was ready to embark; but Sigismund
dissuaded him, under the pretext that this enterprise was not
worthy of so great a prince, and the Duke of Bedford was
entrusted to deliver the garrison of Harfleur. He found a pretty
considerable fleet, reinforced by some Genoese and Spaniards,
which awaited him at the mouth of the Seine, and on the 15th of
August he was attacked by the French who were soon defeated; but
the Genoese caracks rose so high above the water, that the
English sailors were compelled to climb up like cats to board
them: they succeeded, however, for "at sea," says the old
chronicler, "neither those who attack, nor those who defend have
any place of refuge or means of escape, and the combat is
therefore more desperate." The French fleet was destroyed, and
the land forces were retreating in disorder; but the sea was
covered with dead bodies, which came floating around the vessels,
and the sight was still horrible when the Duke of Bedford
returned to England, leaving Harfleur revictualled and in a good
state of defence.
{24}
The Emperor Sigismund had accompanied his royal host to a
conference, at Calais, whither the Duke of Burgundy, who began to
incline towards the English, had repaired. The Count of Armagnac
was all-powerful in Paris, and King Henry was preparing a large
army to attempt a fresh invasion of France.
The Dauphin Louis was dead, poisoned, it was said, by the
Armagnacs, who dreaded the influence of his father-in-law, the
Duke of Burgundy. Prince John, who had become dauphin, had been
accompanied to Compiègne by his brother-in-law, the Count of
Hainault. He was quite a Burgundian, and did not long survive his
elevation. "At the beginning of 1417," wrote the Duke of
Burgundy, "our much dreaded lord and nephew was stricken one
evening with so severe an illness that he died immediately; his
lips, tongue, and face all swollen, which was a pitious sight,
for like this are persons who are poisoned." The new dauphin,
Charles, was but sixteen years of age; he belonged to the
Armagnacs, who had caused Queen Isabel to be seized in the castle
of Vincennes, and had imprisoned her at Tours. She had thereupon
entered into friendly relations with the Duke of Burgundy, whose
partisans had been driven in a mass from Paris. The English
disembarked at the same time at Touques, in Normandy.
From this period, and for twenty years, the history of England is
made in France. Absorbed at first in their conquests, then in the
attempt to preserve them, the English princes asked nothing of
their native country but men and money. The towns of Normandy
fell one after another into the power of King Henry: Caen was
taken by storm; Lisieux, Bayeux, Laigle, had been abandoned by
the population, who had taken refuge in Brittany.
{25}
Nothing arrested his triumphal march. In vain did the French
deputies endeavor to negotiate; Henry demanded the hand of the
Princess Catherine, and only consented to leave the royal title
to Charles VI. on condition of governing during his lifetime as
regent, and having possession of the crown after his death. The
winter had arrived and the Scots had attempted an incursion into
the Northern counties; but Bedford had repulsed them. In the
beginning of the spring (1418), King Henry resumed his military
operations. Large reinforcements had arrived from England;
Cherbourg, Domfront, Louviers, Pont-de-l'Arche, besieged by large
detachments, surrendered almost at the same time. The whole of
Lower Normandy was in the hands of the conqueror, who established
his government there. The salt tax was abolished, and the
chancellor of the duchy was entrusted to govern with strict
justice. On the 30th of July, the King of England laid siege to
Rouen.
Meanwhile Paris was more than ever a prey to flames and
bloodshed. The Duke of Burgundy had released Queen Isabel, who
had declared herself regent of the kingdom, without concerning
herself about the rights of her son. She was advancing against
Paris, which trembled under the Count of Armagnac. "In those
days, it was sufficient in Paris to say that a man was a
Burgundian for him to be dead," say the chronicles. The
population began to weary of this sanguinary yoke. In the night
of the 23rd of May, 1418, one of the gates of the city was
secretly opened to a small body of Burgundians, by Perrinet
Leclerc, the son of a civil guard.
{26}
The Sire of Isle-Adam, who commanded the detachment, hastened to
the Hôtel St. Pol; the dauphin had already been dragged as far as
the Bastille by Tanneguy-Duchâtel, a Breton knight and an ardent
Armagnac. The Constable had concealed himself; the poor king,
awakening with a start, recognized Isle-Adam. "How is my cousin
of Burgundy?" he said courteously. "It is a very long time since
I have seen him." The populace of Paris had risen and were
rushing upon the Armagnacs; the king was placed on horseback and
conducted through the streets of Paris. The Constable had been
discovered, and thrown into prison with his partisans; but on the
12th of June a cry was raised that the enemy were at the gates:
the people ran to the prisons, the captives were dragged into the
yards, and immediately slaughtered, notwithstanding some efforts
of the Burgundian knights. Nearly five thousand persons perished
in this massacre, which lasted several days. Tanneguy-Duchâtel
had conducted the dauphin to Bourges, when the Duke of Burgundy
and the queen entered Paris in triumph. The two parties
endeavored to negotiate with King Henry, who listened to them but
rejected their proposals one by one: he having persuaded himself
that he was the avenger sent by God. "He has conducted me hither
by the hand to punish the sins of the land and to reign as a true
king," he replied to the solicitations of the Papal Legate in
favor of peace. "There is neither law nor sovereign in France,
none think of resisting me; I will maintain my just rights and
will place the crown upon my head. It is the will of God."
Meanwhile the siege of Rouen still continued. From every captured
town and abandoned castle, the best combatants had taken refuge
in the capital of Normandy. The citizens thereof had always been
valiant and passionately attached to independence.
[Image]
Entry of the Burgundians into Paris.
{27}
Henry in vain repeated to them that he was of Norman race, a
descendant of Rollo and William the Conqueror; the Rouennais kept
their gates closed, fighting valiantly upon the ramparts, and
making frequent sorties. Hunger, however, began to make itself
felt; an old priest left the city secretly and repaired to Paris
to ask for assistance. He addressed himself to Maître Pavilly,
the greatest doctor and preacher of the Sorbonne, beseeching him
to preach a sermon in favor of the unfortunate besieged of Rouen.
The eloquence of Maître Pavilly moved all his auditors to tears.
"I have come to raise the hue and cry," said the old priest.
Assistance was promised him, but days elapsed and nobody came.
The dogs and cats were eaten; the besieged caused a capitulation
to be proposed to King Henry. "In your present state," replied
the conquerer, "I intend to see you at my mercy." When Messire Le
Bouteiller, the governor of the city, received the answer, he no
longer took any counsel but that of despair. "Let us set fire to
the houses," he said, "and arm ourselves as well as we are able,
with the women and children in our midst; we will thus make a
breach in the wall, which is ruined, and will throw ourselves
upon the camp of the English, to go where we can." The rumor of
this resolve reached the ears of King Henry. He was harsh, and
urged on his projects without concerning himself much about human
sufferings; but he was unwilling to see Rouen reduced to ashes;
he promised to the men-at-arms their life and liberty, on
condition of not fighting against him for one year. The citizens
retained their property and their liberties, by paying a fine of
three hundred thousand crowns. The king entered Rouen on the 16th
of January, 1419, amidst the dead bodies with which the streets
were strewn: fifty thousand persons, it was said, had perished in
the city during the siege.
{28}
The consternation was great in France, when it was learnt that
Rouen had succumbed. The Duke of Burgundy quitted Paris with the
king and queen, and negotiations were again entered into with the
King of England. The conditions offered by the Duke of Burgundy
were so advantageous that Henry consented to negotiate in person.
The plain beyond the environs of Meulan was chosen for the
interview; the court of France was at Pontoise, and the King of
England had established himself at Mantes. On the 30th of May,
two magnificent retinues appeared in the field, around whom a
crowd of people thronged; silken tents had been erected. For the
first time Henry saw that Princess Catherine with whom he had
been smitten through a portrait, and whom he had chosen for the
lady of his thoughts. Tall, slim, fair, with black eyes, the
beauty of the princess made a lively impression upon her knight,
but without disturbing for a moment the policy of the king.
Interviews succeeded each other, but Henry abated nothing of his
demands. "Good cousin of Burgundy," said he, "I will have the
daughter of your king for my wife, and with her all that I have
demanded." But when the King of England presented himself for the
eighth conference, the French tents were deserted. A treaty had
been concluded between the Duke of Burgundy and the dauphin, they
having embraced upon the road between Melun and Corbeil; the two
parties were for the moment reunited against the English. King
Henry, indignant at this treachery, and swearing to avenge
himself unaided, advanced as far as Pontoise, which was taken on
the 27th of July. Isle-Adam, who defended the town, was compelled
to fly, leaving behind him the treasure which he had amassed in
Paris by hanging the Armagnacs.
{29}
The Duke of Burgundy was at Saint-Denis; but he made no effort to
defend Pontoise. Paris remained undefended; nobody thought any
longer of taking possession of that unhappy city, the scene of so
many horrors and crimes. There was uneasiness around the King of
England; the negotiations which were on foot between the court of
France and the Regent of Scotland were known; the King of Castile
had armed a large fleet which ravaged the coasts of Guienne.
Henry V. alone had not lost confidence: he counted upon the
justice of God as well as upon the internal treachery of his
adversaries; the event proved that he had not been mistaken.
Since his reconciliation with the dauphin, the Duke of Burgundy
strongly urged the latter to repair to Troyes, where the king and
queen were; the young prince, or rather his councillors, insisted
upon a preliminary interview at Montereau. The duke hesitated; he
had received several warnings of the evil designs of
Tanneguy-Duchâtel. But the influence of a woman, the Dame de
Giac, gained over by the Armagnacs, decided him to risk all, and
he started for Montereau. Tanneguy-Duchâtel came forward to meet
him; the servants of the duke still insisted on his retreating.
"No," said he, "if I die, it will be as a martyr, and the
councillors of my lord the dauphin are good knights." Then, as
Duchâtel entered, "This is what I rely upon," he said, resting
his hand upon his shoulder; "Messire Tanneguy answers for my
safety." The Armagnacs reiterated protestations, while leading
the duke towards the pavilion which had been prepared upon the
bridge. Barriers closed it upon both sides; they were carefully
thrown down as soon as the duke had entered.
{30}
He uncovered his head and placed one knee upon the ground before
the dauphin, who leant against the balustrade in the centre of
the pavilion. The young prince scarcely answered, muttering some
reproaches. At the same moment, upon a movement of John Sans Peur
which caused his sword to clatter, Tanneguy cried, "A sword
before my Lord," and struck the duke a blow upon the head with
his battle-axe. The Sire de Navailles, raised his arm to defend
his master; but the Viscount of Narbonne sprang upon him. The
duke had been thrown down without having been able to draw his
sword; two noblemen raised his coat of mail and plunged their
daggers in his breast; the Burgundians of the retinue were made
prisoners and two of them were seriously wounded. The troops of
the dauphin had scattered the escort; the young prince had
retired; John Sans Peur remained upon the bridge, lifeless, and
divested of his jewels and his rich habiliments. This bold and
cunning heart, this egotistical ambition which nothing arrested,
this magnificent life of pleasures and politics, all had been
ended by a crime, and the public indignation enumerated the good
qualities of the duke without recalling his vices; the death of
John Sans Peur opened a wide entrance for the English in France.
Philip, count of Charolais, now Duke of Burgundy, was at Ghent,
when he learnt of the assassination of his father. "Michelle," he
said, turning towards his wife, the daughter of Charles VI.,
"your brother has killed my father." Amidst deputations which
arrived from all parts to deplore the crime, and to throw the
responsibility of it upon the dauphin, the first care of the new
duke was to enter into negotiations with the King of England.
{31}
Anger and vengeance were about to give to Henry all that his
victories had not yet been able to wrest from the weakness of
France. The proposals of the dauphin had been rejected; but when
the young Duke of Burgundy was entrusted to negotiate by Queen
Isabel, the king entered into parleys; the hand of the Princess
Catherine was promised him, with the regency of the kingdom, and
the crown at the death of Charles VI. He consented, in his turn,
to renounce the title of King of France during the lifetime of
King Charles, to govern his new kingdom upon the advice of a
French council, to respect the liberties of the Parliaments and
towns, and to reannex Normandy to the crown of France on his
accession to the throne. A private treaty assured certain favors
to the Duke of Burgundy. Neither of these documents contained the
clause which had led to their conclusion; but it was understood
that the dauphin should be pursued to the death.
The Duke of Burgundy had assured himself of his revenge; he
returned to Troyes; all the constituent bodies had already
reassembled at Paris,--the Parliament, the Chamber of Accounts,
the University,--and all had approved of the treaty with the
English. The great qualities of King Henry were enumerated;
prudent and wise, loving peace and justice, maintaining a strict
discipline among warriors, protecting the poor people, resigned
to the will of God, praising Him in good fortune and accepting
bad fortune without anger. It was added that he was of noble
bearing and of an agreeable countenance. None objected; people
were weary of the civil wars; misery had exhausted their hearts
and benumbed their courage; the Duke of Burgundy was
all-powerful. A few noblemen alone dared to complain: the Duke
Philip had great difficulty in making John of Luxemburg and the
Bishop of Thérouenne, his brother, to swear peace.
{32}
"You wish it," they said, "we will therefore take the oath, and
also will we, keep it until death." Others formally refused, and,
in the duchy of Burgundy, all the towns at first resisted the
oath of fidelity required by the King of England. "Those who
looked displeased," says Juvenal des Ursins, "were treated as
Armagnacs, but they were only good and loyal Frenchmen." The
treaty of Troyes was the disgrace of France.
King Henry arrived at the court on the 20th of May, followed by
the flower of his army, upon which he had imposed a severe
discipline; in traversing the country, he had everywhere required
the soldiers to put water in their wine. The Princess Catherine
was awaiting her chevalier, who was affianced to her with great
ceremony, and on the morrow the treaty was signed. The King of
England, regent of France, had received the oaths of his new
subjects, when his marriage was celebrated on the 2nd of June, by
the Archbishop of Sens, amidst the most brilliant ceremonies. The
young knights and gallants hoped for a joust and some passages of
arms on the occasion of this great union; but Henry was not so
full of love as to forget his affairs. "I beg my lord the king,"
he said, "for permission, and I command his servants as well as
my own be in readiness to-morrow morning to proceed to lay siege
to the city of Sens, where are the enemies of the king. There
each of us will be able to joust, tourney, and display his
prowess and courage, for there is no finer prowess than to mete
out justice to the wicked in order that the poor people may
live." The court of Queen Isabel was not accustomed to this
serious and firm language, but they set out for Sens without
complaining. The town was taken at the end of two days; the king
caused the archbishop to be called, and conducted him to the
church. "You have given me a bride, and I restore yours to you,"
he said to the prelate.
{33}
From Sens the army went to Montereau; the Burgundians were
fighting furiously, eager to have possession of the spot in which
the body of their duke reposed. The garrison had been compelled
to retire within the castle, where the Sire de Guitry defended
himself yet for some time. Scarcely had Philip of Burgundy
entered the town, when the women conducted him to the church
wherein his father had been hurriedly interred. He caused the
tomb to be opened; the body was riddled with wounds, disfigured
by the blows of the battle-axe of Tanneguy-Duchâtel; all wept
while looking at him: the body was transported to Dijon with the
greatest honors, and deposited in the tomb of Philip the Bold.
The bastard De Croy, killed during the siege, took, in the church
of Montereau, the place which the Duke John left empty.
The army had repaired to Melun; but the town was defended by the
Sire de Barbazan, one of the dauphin's most gallant knights. The
siege might have been protracted; the court came and established
itself at Corbeil. Every day the besieged made sorties; an
assault had been attempted without success; mines were defeated
by counter-mines; the English, Burgundian, and French knights
sometimes took pleasure in breaking lances in those dark
galleries; the Sire de Barbazan there had the honor of
encountering the King of England without knowing him; but the
combats of the men-at-arms were more serious, and the knights
sometimes took part in them.
{34}
"You do not know what it is to fight in a mine," said De Barbazan
to the young Louis des Ursins, who was preparing to descend
there; "have the handle of your battle-axe cut down; the passages
in the mines are often narrow and zigzagged; short sticks are
necessary for fighting hand to hand."
Meanwhile the people suffered cruelly within the town, and the
dauphin could not succor it: the English and Burgundian forces
would have crushed his little army. The besieged still held out.
King Henry had in vain caused Charles VI. to be brought to the
camp; De Barbazan replied that he would open the gates to him
willingly, but not to the mortal enemies of France. Already the
English and the Burgundians began to quarrel among themselves;
the French noblemen complained of the small court and the shabby
costume of their king, while the King of England had a gorgeous
establishment. Henry, besides, feeling himself surrounded by
scarcely subjected enemies, and little accustomed to all the
delicate shades of French courtesy, treated the barons with less
consideration then they were wont to encounter. The Marshal of
Isle-Adam, who was in command at Joigney, had come to Sens on
some matters of business. "Is that the dress of a marshal of
France?" asked King Henry, while surveying him from head to foot.
"Sire," replied the marshal, "I had this light grey robe made to
come here by water." "What!" cried the king, "do you look a
prince in the face in speaking to him?" "Sire," and the
Burgundian drew himself up, "in France it is the custom when one
man speaks to another, of whatever rank, or whatever power he may
be, that he pass for a bad man of little honor if he does not
dare to look him in the face." "It is not our fashion," muttered
Henry, and shortly afterwards Isle-Adam was deprived of his
command.
{35}
Melun had at length been compelled to capitulate, on the 18th of
November, and the King of England made his entry into Paris. That
city was a prey to the most frightful misery; little children
were abandoned and died of hunger and cold in the streets; wolves
entered the cemeteries and even into the streets, to devour the
dead bodies which none took the trouble to inter. Notwithstanding
the distress, all Paris was holiday-making for the arrival of the
two kings; the poor Charles VI. rode beside his son-in-law, who
vied with him in courtesy at the doors of the churches when the
relics were presented to them to be kissed. The Duke of Burgundy
as well as all his household, clad in mourning, followed the King
of France: the Dukes of Clarence and Bedford accompanied their
brother. The misery was redoubled within Paris after the
magnificences of the royal reception. Henry established himself
at the Louvre, where he held court sumptuously; the old king had
re-entered the Hotel St. Paul, but few people repaired thither to
wish him a happy Christmas.
The Duke of Burgundy had formally demanded justice for the death
of his father, and the murderers had been condemned by a decree
of Charles VI., without giving the names and without personally
accusing the dauphin. The King of England was in need of money,
and, entrusting the command of his army to the Duke of Clarence,
after having provided for the principal officers of the kingdom
men who were devoted to him, he set sail for England,
notwithstanding the severity of the weather. He landed at Dover,
in the middle of January, welcomed by the acclamations of his
people. The royal retinue resembled a triumph when it entered
London.
{36}
Catherine was crowned at Westminster, "with such great pomp and
feasting and jollity, that since the time of the very noble and
very warlike King Artus was not seen in the city of London a
similar rejoicing for any English king," says Monstrelet. The
sovereigns had commenced a journey in their states when, at York,
the king learnt the sad news of the death of his well-beloved
brother, the Duke of Clarence, slain in the combat of Baugé. He
was ravaging Anjou, which still recognized the authority of the
dauphin. The Seigneur de la Fayette had raised a few troops to
resist him, and a numerous body of Scottish auxiliaries had
joined him under the orders of the Earl of Buchan. Clarence did
not know with what enemies he had to deal; he had imprudently
advanced and had been killed by Lord Buchan together with a great
number of English who remained upon the field. The dauphin then
nominated the Earl of Buchan Constable of France.
Negotiations were then in progress for the release of King James
of Scotland, so long a prisoner at the court of England; King
Henry caused him to come, and, his face flashing with rage, he
said, "Forbid all your subjects ever to lend assistance against
me to the dauphin." "I should make a sorry figure by giving
orders, being a prisoner," firmly replied James; "but if you will
take me with you to France, I shall learn the art of war in a
good school, and, perhaps, when my Scots shall see me with you,
they will not fight on the other side." Henry V. had an affection
for the King of Scotland, and granted him his request; but
Archibald Douglas was already preparing to proceed to France, to
join Lord Buchan.
{37}
Meanwhile, the king was assembling a more considerable army than
any that he ever led beyond the seas, the Parliament having
liberally voted subsidies. On the 10th of June, 1421, Henry
landed at Calais, leaving Queen Catherine in England. The King of
Scotland was entrusted to besiege Dreux, and Henry himself laid
siege to Meaux, which detained him for several months; the town
was commanded by the bastard De Vaurus, who had made of it a
haunt of crimes and of pillage. When the castle was at length
surrendered, in the month of May, 1422, the governor was hanged
upon the great oak of which the branches had so often borne the
corpses of his victims. Catherine, accompanied by the Duke of
Bedford, had rejoined her husband, to whom she had recently
presented a son. The dauphin, driven back by degrees by the
English arms, had finally taken refuge in Bourges; but the Earl
of Buchan continued to keep the field; he had taken La Charité
and was besieging Cosne. The dauphin had repaired to the army,
and the King of England, already for a long time enfeebled by
fever, was preparing to attack him with the Duke of Burgundy,
when his strength completely failed and he was compelled to halt
at Corbeil. The Duke of Bedford having assumed the command of the
army, the king was carried back in a litter to the castle of
Vincennes: the queen having remained at Paris.
The hand of God was about to arrest this great career; at
thirty-four years of age, King Henry V. was dying; the Duke of
Bedford was arrested in a march during which he had encountered
no enemies, by the wish of his brother, who desired to say
farewell to him. Every worldly gift had been lavished upon the
young conqueror; the master of two kingdoms, surrounded by the
esteem and affection of his English subjects, recently married to
the woman of his choice, just become the father of an infant son,
he was about to leave them; but the faith and resignation of a
Christian surmounted in the soul ready to take flight, the frail
benefits of the earth.
{38}
Amidst his grandeurs and his conquests Henry had led a pure and
austere life, and had not neglected to serve God. He dreamt
continually, when peace should be re-established, of proceeding
to the East, to deliver the Holy Sepulchre; this vision still
floated around his death-bed. He had caused his faithful servants
to be summoned, "Since it is the will of God, my Creator, thus to
shorten my life," he said to them, "His will be done! Console my
sweet Catherine; she will be the most disconsolate creature there
is in the world." He confided the education of his son to the
Earl of Warwick. "You cannot yet love him for his own sake; but,
if you should think that you owe me anything return it to him."
He had entrusted John, duke of Bedford, to govern France, and
designated Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, as regent of England.
"Tell Humphrey to beware of quarrels for love of me, and never to
allow anything in the world to separate him from John; do not
separate yourselves from the Duke of Burgundy." He had summoned
his physicians, asking them how long he had yet to live. They
hesitated. "Speak," said he impatiently. "Sire," said one of
them, "think of your soul, for in our judgment you have not two
hours to remain on earth."
The king had finished his last instructions; he had said farewell
to the affairs of this world; his confessor and the priests of
his chapel surrounded his bed; the 51st Psalm was being recited:
"Build the walls of Jerusalem!" chanted the chaplain. "Upon the
faith of a dying king," murmured Henry, "if it had pleased the
Lord God to prolong my life, I intended to proceed against the
infidels, and deliver the Holy Sepulchre from their hands." The
voice was dying away; he closed his eyes, and, amidst the prayers
which were being repeated around him, the great soul of King
Henry V. entered into eternal repose.
{39}
No life in its brevity had been more active than his and no
monarch was more bitterly regretted; it was so even in France,
for the people saw themselves thrown back into the horrors of
internal dissensions; he was mourned for in England, with sincere
and profound grief. After the magnificent ceremonies celebrated
in France, the body was brought to England, and solemnly interred
at Westminster, beside the shrine of Edward the Confessor. King
James of Scotland was chief mourner, while the Duke of Bedford,
profoundly sad, seized in France the ill-secured power which his
dying brother had confided to him, and endeavored to secure the
two crowns upon the head of the child destined to lose them both.
The religious ceremonies had been prolonged in France; Queen
Catherine embarked in the month of October, accompanying the body
of her husband, when her father, King Charles VI., died of
quartan ague. Notwithstanding his thirty years of madness, and
the evils which they had suffered under his reign, the French had
remained attached to their unhappy monarch, and the mob thronged
the hall of the Hôtel St. Paul, where he was exposed. "Ah! dear
prince!" it was said, amidst tears, "never shall we have one as
good as you; you have gone to your rest; we remain in tribulation
and grief, and seem made to fall into the distress in which were
the children of Israel during the captivity of Babylon." The Duke
of Burgundy was bitterly reproached for not having come to see
the king during his sickness, and also for not having followed
his funeral; the Duke of Bedford was chief mourner, and on the
10th of November, 1422, in England and in France, at Westminster
and at Saint-Denis, the obsequies of King Henry V and those of
King Charles VI. were solemnized.
{40}
The royal remains being lowered into the grave, the heralds broke
their wands and cried, "God grant long life to Henry, by the
grace of God King of France and of England, our sovereign Lord."
And the people shouted, "Long live the king!" The hand which was
to bear this weighty inheritance was not yet one year old.
The Duke of Bedford had taken the reins of government in France
without opposition; in England, the lords of the Parliament had
contested the right of the deceased king to designate the regent
of the kingdom, and had given to the Duke of Gloucester the title
of Protector of the State and of the Church, which was to remind
him, it was said, of his duties. Henry Beaufort, Bishop of
Winchester, brother of King Henry IV. by the third wife of John
of Gaunt, was entrusted to second the Earl of Warwick in the
education of the little king. The Parliament voted the necessary
subsidies, and the war continued in France.
The death of Charles VI. had rallied a few adherents around the
Dauphin, proclaimed King of France at Mehun-sur-Yèvres, in Berry,
under the name of Charles VII. Shortly afterwards he caused
himself to be crowned at Poictiers, Rheims being in the power of
the English. Right was upon the side of Charles, dispossessed as
he was; the memory of the kings his ancestors, the natural
aversion to foreigners, increased by eighty years of war, fought
in his favour; the noblemen who did not rally around him were
less eager to serve the Duke of Bedford than they had been to
second Henry V., and, already it had been necessary to stifle; at
Poissy, a trifling insurrection in favor of the Dauphin.
{41}
Meanwhile, the Duke of Bedford had caused all the large towns and
constituent bodies in France to swear fidelity to his nephew, and
in order to strengthen that intimacy with the Duke of Burgundy
which had preoccupied King Henry even upon his deathbed, he had
married Anne of Burgundy, his sister Madame de Guienne, the widow
of the first Dauphin, shortly afterwards gave her hand to the
Count of Richemont, the brother of the Duke of Brittany, and a
solemn treaty of friendship united the three dukes to each other.
Brittany and Burgundy, at the same [time], concluded a private
alliance unknown to the Duke of Bedford.
The Regent was returning from Troyes, where his marriage had been
celebrated and was fighting upon the way when he learnt that the
Earl of Buchan was attacking his fortress of Crevant-sur-Yonne,
endeavoring to open up a communication between the northern
territories, which recognized the authority of Charles VII., and
the southern provinces, where his cause had made great progress.
The Earls of Salisbury and Suffolk were immediately despatched to
relieve Crevant; a troop of Burgundians joined them. The orders
of the Duke of Bedford were precise: the archers carried their
stakes.
The battle was to be fought on foot, as at Agincourt, without
giving any quarter to the enemy. The army of King Charles VII.
was, it was said, superior in numbers to that of the English.
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On arriving before Crevant, the assailants found themselves
arrested by the river Yonne, and remained there two days; when
the English had at length forced a passage, they attacked the
Scots, leaving the French troops to the Burgundians. "There is no
other antidote for the English than the Scots," said Pope Martin
V. after the battle of Baugê, but at Crevant the Scots were
defeated. The French had promptly yielded, only the bravest
knight had supported their allies; Lord Buchan and the Count of
Ventadour had both lost an eye, and were taken prisoners, as well
as Saintrailles, a famous Armagnac knight; subsequently the
English re-entered Paris in triumph. Scotland, however, was not
exhausted of knights in search of adventure. Archibald Douglas
had disembarked at La Rochelle with five thousand men, and King
Charles VII., in his gratitude, conferred upon him the title of
Duke of Touraine; he loaded with honors the other Scottish
noblemen, of whom several finally became naturalized in France;
the barons began to complain of the favours which the king
lavished upon his foreign allies. The Duke of Milan sent him a
large reinforcement of Italians.
The Duke of Bedford was uneasy concerning the relief which
arrived from Scotland for his adversaries, and he hoped to dry up
the source of it by sending back King James into his dominions;
negotiations had been opened up; the marriage of the captive
prince with Jane Beaufort, daughter of the Earl of Somerset, and
niece of the Bishop of Winchester, had been celebrated; the
ransom was settled and James I. had returned to Scotland after
nineteen years of captivity, there to govern with an honest
firmness to which his people had not been accustomed; but the
tide of emigration towards France, although slightly slackened
had not ceased in the meanwhile; the justice of the king was
rigorously exercised upon the old enemies of his family, and a
large number of Scottish knights, flying from his anger, took
refuge in the army of Charles VII.; it was with their assistance
that the royalist noblemen marched, in the month of August,
against Ivry, in Normandy, which the Duke of Bedford was
attacking.
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But the position of the English was strong, discord reigned in
the French army, deprived of a chief by the indolence of Charles
VII. Douglas and Buchan wished to make the attack; the Count of
Alençon and the Count of Aumale refused their consent, and drew
the army with them. In withdrawing they surprised Verneuil; the
town was important, and the duke of Bedford followed the French
thither. A tumultuous council resolved to repulse him in the open
plain; the royalists, all on foot, quitted Verneuil; the Milanese
alone remained on horseback. The English awaited the attack from
behind the stakes of their archers. "Let us allow them to come,"
said Douglas; but the French noblemen despised the adventurers,
as they called their valiant allies, and they made the attack.
The combat was terrible; at one moment La Hire and Saintrailles,
at the head of the Milanese, broke the reserve of the archers;
but the reinforcements of the principal body repulsed them, and
they were completely routed. Douglas had been slain, as well as
his son. Lord Buchan lay upon the field of battle with the Counts
of Narbonne, Tonnerre, and Ventadour; the Count of Alençon and
the Marshall de la Fayette were prisoners. On his side, the Duke
of Bedford had suffered; but the army of King Charles VII. was
destroyed; the town of Verneuil surrendered immediately, and the
Duke of Bedford caused to be beheaded those of the prisoners who,
having sworn allegiance to his nephew, had not kept their oaths.
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