1420-1422 believing their master's life in danger, fell on the Duke and slew him. After this an agreement between the factions was no longer possible. The new Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, at once joined the English and in 1420 was signed the Treaty of Troyes, by which the Dauphin was disinherited in favor of Henry, who was to be king of France on the death of Charles VI. In accordance with its terms, Henry married Charles's daughter Catherine, and ruled France as regent till the time came when he was to rule it as king. Henry V. presumed to rule over a foreign nation, the leaders of which had only accepted him in a momentary fit of passion. He never got the whole of France into his power. He held Paris and the north, while the Duke of Burgundy held the east. South of the Loire the Armagnacs were strong, and that part of France stood by the Dauphin, though even here the English possessed a strip of land along the sea-coast in Guienne and Gascony, and at one time drew over some of the lords to admit Henry's feudal supremacy. In 1420 Henry fancied it safe for him to return to England, but in his absence, in the spring of 1421, his brother, the Duke of Clarence, was defeated and slain. Henry hurried to the rescue of his followers, and drove the French over the Loire; and then turned sharply round northwards to besiege Meaux, which held out for many months. When at last it fell, in 1422, Henry was already suffering from a disease which carried him off before the end of the year at the age of thirty-five. Henry V. had given his life to the restoration of the authority of the Church in England, and to the establishment of his dynasty at home by means of the glory of foreign conquest. What man could do he did, but he could not achieve the impossible. I Chapter XX HENRY VI AND THE LOSS OF FRANCE 1422-1451 LEADING DATES REIGN OF HENRY VI., A.D. 1422-1461-THE ACCESSION OF HENRY N England Henry V. was succeeded in 1422 by his son, Henry of the death of Charles VI., the infant was acknowledged as king of France in the north and east of that country. The Dauphin, holding the lands south of the Loire, and some territory even to the north of it, claimed to reign over the whole of France by hereditary right as Charles VII. Henry V. had appointed his eldest surviving brother, John, Duke of Bedford, regent in France, and his youngest brother, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, regent in England. In England there were no longer any parties banded against the Crown, and the title of the Earl of March had not a single supporter; but both the Privy Council and the Parliament agreed that the late king could not dispose of the regency by will. Holding that Bedford as the elder brother had the better claim, they nevertheless, in consequence of his absence in France, appointed Gloucester Protector, with the proviso that he should give up his authority to Bedford if the latter were to return to England. They also imposed limitations upon the authority of the Protector, requiring him to act by the advice of the Council. The English nation was bent upon maintaining its supremacy in France. Bedford was a good warrior and an able statesman. In 1423 he prudently married the sister of Philip of Burgundy, hoping thereby to secure permanently the all-important fidelity of the Duke. His next step was to place difficulties in the way of 1423-1428 the Scottish auxiliaries who poured into France to the help of Charles. Through his influence the captive James I. was liberated and sent home to Scotland, on the understanding that he would prevent his subjects from aiding the enemies of England. Bedford needed all the support he could find, as the French had lately been gaining ground. In 1424, however, Bedford defeated them at Verneuil. In England it was believed that Verneuil was a second Agincourt, and that the French resistance would soon be at an end. Bedford's progress in France was checked by the folly of his brother Gloucester, who was as unwise and capricious as he was greedy of power. Gloucester had lately married Jacqueline, the heiress of Holland and Hainault. In 1424 he overran Hainault, thereby giving offense to the Duke of Burgundy, and a coolness arose between the Duke of Burgundy and the English which was never completely removed. In England as well as on the Continent Gloucester's self-willed restlessness roused enemies, the most powerful of them being his uncle, the Chancellor Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, a wealthy and ambitious prelate not without those statesmanlike qualities which were sadly lacking to Gloucester. If Beaufort ruled the Council, Gloucester had the art of making himself popular with the multitude, whose sympathies were not likely to be given to a bishop of the type of Beaufort, who practiced no austerities and who had nothing in him to appeal to the popular imagination. So bitter was the feud between Gloucester and Beaufort that in 1426 Bedford was obliged to visit England to keep the peace between them. He persuaded Beaufort to leave England for a time. In 1428, after he had returned to France, Beaufort came back, bringing with him from Rome the title of Cardinal, and authority to raise soldiers for a crusade against heretics in Bohemia. A storm was at once raised against him. Beaufort, however, was too prudent to press his claims. He absented himself from the Council and allowed the men whom he had raised for Bohemia to be sent to France instead. Before the end of the year the outcry against him died away, and, Cardinal as he was, he resumed his old place in the Council. The time had arrived when the presence of every English soldier was needed in France. Bedford had made himself master of almost the whole country north of the Loire except Orleans. 1428-1429 If he could gain that city it would be easy for him to overpower Charles, who kept court at Chinon. In 1428, therefore, he laid siege to Orleans. The city, however, defended itself gallantly, though all that the French outside could hope to do was to cut off the supplies of the besiegers. Frenchmen were indeed weary of the foreign yoke and of the arrogant insolence of the rough island soldiers. Yet in France all military and civil organization had hitherto come from the kings, and unfortunately for his subjects Charles was easy-tempered and entirely incapable either of carrying on war successfully or of inspiring that enthusiasm without which the most careful organization is as the twining of ropes of sand. It would need a miracle to inspire Frenchmen with the belief that it was possible for them to defeat the victors of Agincourt and Verneuil, and yet without such a miracle irretrievable ruin was at hand. The miracle was wrought by a young maiden of seventeen, Jeanne Darc, the daughter of a peasant of Domremi, in the duchy of Bar. While she was still little more than a child, tales of horror, reaching her from afar, had filled her with "pity for the realm of France" and for its young king, whom she idealized into the pattern of every virtue. As she brooded over the thought of possible deliverance, her warm imagination summoned up before her bright and saintly forms, St. Michael, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret, who bade her, the chosen of God, to go forth and save the king, and conduct him to Rheims to be crowned and anointed. At last in 1428 her native hamlet was burned down and the voices of the saints bade her go to Vaucouleurs, where she would find a knight, Robert de Baudricourt, who would conduct her to Charles. Months passed before Baudricourt consented to take her in his train. She found Charles at Chinon, and, as the story goes, convinced him of her Divine mission by recognizing him in disguise in the midst of his courtiers. Soldiers and theologians alike distrusted her, but her native good sense, her simple and earnest faith, and above all her purity of heart and life disarmed all opposition, and she was sent forth to lead an army to the relief of Orleans. She rode on horseback clothed in armor as a man, with a sword which she had taken from behind the altar of St. Catherine by her side and a consecrated banner in her hand. She brought with her hope of victory, enthusiasm built on confidence in Divine protection, and wide-reaching patriotism. "Pity for the realm of France” in 1429-1433 spired her, and even the rough soldiers who followed her forsook for a time their debaucheries that they might be fit to follow God's holy maid. Such an army was invincible. On May 7, 1429, she led the storm of one of the English fortified posts by which the town was hemmed in. After a sharp attack she planted her standard on the wall. The English garrison was slain to a man. The line of the besiegers was broken through, and Orleans was saved. On the 12th the English army was in full retreat. The Maid followed up her victory, and pressed the English hard, driving them northwards and defeating them at Patay. She insisted on conducting Charles to Rheims. Hostile towns opened their gates to her on the way, and on July 17 she saw with chastened joy the man whom she had saved from destruction crowned in the great cathedral of Rheims. For her part, she was eager to push on the war, but Charles was slothful. In the spring of 1430 the Maid was allowed again to attack the English, but she had no longer the support which she had once had. On May 23, in a skirmish before Compiegne, her countrymen doing nothing to save or to rescue her, the Maid was taken by Burgundian soldiers. Before the end of the year her captors sold her to the English, who firmly believed her to be a witch. The English had no difficulty in finding an ecclesiastical court to judge their prisoner, and in spite of an intelligent and noble defense she was condemned to be burned. At the stake she behaved with heroic simplicity. When the flames curled round her she called upon the saints who had befriended her. Her last utterance was a cry of "Jesus!" An Englishman who had come to triumph hung his head for shame. "We are lost," he said; "we have burned a saint!" The English gained nothing by their unworthy vengeance. It was in vain that towards the end of 1431 Bedford carried the young Henry, now a boy of ten years, who had already been crowned in England the year before, to be crowned at Nôtre Dame, the cathedral of Paris. In 1432 the armies of Charles VII. stole forward step by step, and Bedford, who had no money to pay his troops, could do nothing to resist them. The English Parliament, which had cheerfully voted supplies as long as there seemed a prospect of conquering France, hung back from granting them when victories were no longer won. In 1433 Bedford was again forced to return to England to oppose the intrigues of Gloucester, |