to be surrounded by a set of wretches, who took pride in com mitting the most illegal acts with the prince at their head. The king was not a little mortified at this degeneracy in his eldest son, who seemed entirely forgetful of his station, although he had already exhibited repeated proofs of his valour, conduct, and generosity. Such were the excesses into which he ran, that one of his dissolute companions having been brought to trial before Sir William Gascoyne, chief justice of the king's-bench, for some misdemeanor, the prince was so exasperated at the issue of the trial, that he struck the judge in open court. The venerable magistrate who knew the reverence that was due to his station, behaved with a dignity that became his office, and immediately ordered the prince to be committed to prison. When this transaction was reported to the king, who was an excellent judge of mankind, he could not help exclaiming in a transport, "Happy is the king, that has a magistrate endowed with courage to execute the laws upon such an offender; still more happy in having a son willing to submit to such a chastisement "This in fact, is one of the first great instances we read in the English history of a magistrate doing justice in opposition to power; since upon many former occasions, we find the judges only ministers of royal caprice.

Henry, whose health had for some time been declining, did not long outlive this transaction. He was subject to fits, which bereaved him, for the time, of his senses; and which at last brought on his death, at Westminster, in the forty-sixth year of his age, and the fourteenth of his reign.

THE

CHAP. XVII.

HENRY V.

A. D. 1412-1422.

HE first steps taken by the young king confirmed all the prepossessions entertained in his favour. He called together his former abandoned companions, acquainted them with his intended reformation; exhorted them to follow his example; and then dismissed them from his presence, allow ing them a competency to subsist upon till he saw them wor thy of a farther promotion, The faithful ministers of his fa, ther, at first began to tremble for their former justice, in the administration of their duty; but he soon eased them of their fears, by taking them into his friendship and confidence. Sir William Gascoyne, who thought himself the most obnox

ious, met with praise instead of reproaches, and was exhorted to persevere in the same rigorous and impartial execution of justice.

About this time the heresy of Wickliff, or Lollardism, as it was called, began to spread every day more and more, while it received a new lustre from the protection and preaching of Sir John Oldcastle, baron of Cobham, who had been one of the king's domestics, and stood high in his favour. The primate, however, indicted this nobleman, and with the assistance of his suffragans, condemned him as an heretic to be burnt alive. Cobham having escaped from the Tower, in which he was confined, the day before his execution, privately went among his party, and, stimulating their zeal, led them up to London, to take a signal revenge on his enemies. But the king, apprised of his intentions, ordered that the city gates should be shut; and coming by night with his guards into St. Giles's field, seized such of the conspirators as appeared, and afterwards laid hold of several parties that were hastening to the appointed place. Some of these were executed, but the greater number pardoned. Cobham himself found means of escaping for that time, but he was taken about four years after; and never did the cruelty of man invent, or crimes draw down such torments as he was made to endure. He was hung up with a chain by the middle; and thus at a slow fire burned, or rather roasted, alive.

Henry, to turn the minds of the people from such hideous scenes, resolved to take the advantage of the troubles in which France was at that time engaged; and assembling a great fleet and army at Southampton, landed at Harfleur, at the head of an army of six thousand men at arms, and twenty-four thousand foot, mostly archers. But although the enemy made but a feeble resistance, yet the climate seemed to fight against the English; a contagious dysentery carrying off three parts of Henry's army, who, when it was too late, began to repent of his rash inroad into a country where disease and a powerful army every where threatened destruction; he, therefore, determined to retire into Calais.

The enemy, however, resolved to intercept his retreat; and after he had passed the small river of Ternois at Blangi, he was surprised to observe from the heights the whole French army drawn up in the plains of Agincourt; and so posted, that it was impossible for him to proceed on his march without coming to an engagement. No situation could be more unfavourable than that in which he stood. His army was wasted with disease; the soldiers spirits worn down with fatigue, destitute of provisions, and discouraged by their re

treat. Their whole body amounted but to nine thousand men ; and these were to sustain the shock of an enemy near ten times the number, headed by expert generals, and plentifully supplied with provisions. As the enemy was so much ́ superior, he drew up his army in a narrow ground, between two woods, which guarded each flank; and patiently expected in that position, the attack of the enemy. The constable of France was at the head of one army; and Henry himself, with Edward duke of York, commanded the other. For a time both armies, as if afraid to begin, kept silently gazing at each other, neither willing to break their ranks by making the onset; which Henry perceiving, with a cheerful countenance cried out, " My friends, since they will not begin, it is ours to set them the example; come on, and the blessed Trinity be our protection." Upon this, the whole army set forward with a shout, while the French still waited their approach with intrepidity. The English archers, who had long been famous for their great skill, first let fly a shower of arrows three feet long, which did great execution. The French cavalry advancing to repel these, two hundred bowmen, who lay till then concealed, rising on a sudden, let fly among them, and produced such a confusion, that the archers threw by their arrows, and rushing in, fell upon them sword in hand. The French at first repulsed the assailants, who were enfeebled by disease; but they soon made up the defect by their valour; and resolving to conquer or die, burst in upon the enemy with such impetuosity, that the French were soon obliged to give way.

They were overthrown in every part of the field; their numbers being crowded into a very narrow space, were incapable of either flying or making any resistance; so that they covered the ground with heaps of slain. After all appearance of opposition was over, there was heard an alarm from behind, which proceeded from a number of peasants who had fallen upon the English baggage, and were putting those who guarded it to the sword. Henry now seeing the enemy on all sides of him, began to entertain apprehensions from his prisoners, the number of whom exceeded even that of his army. He thought it necessary, therefore, to issue general orders for putting them to death; but on the discovery of the certainty of his victory, he stopped the slaughter, and was still able to save a great number. This severity tarnished the glory which his victory would otherwise have acquired; but all the heroism of that age is tinctured with barbarity. In this battle the French lost ten thousand men, and fourteen thousand prisoners; and the English only forty men in all.

A. D.

1417.

France was at that time in a wretched situation; the whole kingdom appeared as one vast theatre of crimes, murders, injustice, and devastation. The duke of Orleans was asassinated by the duke of Burgundy; and the duke of Burgundy, in his turn, fell by the treachery of the dauphin. A state of imbecility into which Charles had fallen, made him passive in every transaction; and Henry, at last, by conquest and negociation, caused himself to be elected heir to the throne. The principal articles of this treaty were, that Henry should espouse the princess Catharine, daughter of the king of France; that king Charles should enjoy the title and dignity for life; but that Henry should be declared heir to the crown, and should be entrusted with the present administration of the government; that France and England should for ever be united under one king, but should still retain their respective laws and privileges.

A. D.

1421.

In consequence of this, while Henry was every where victorious, he fixed his residence at Paris; and while Charles had but a small court, he was attended with a very magnificent one. On Whitsunday the two kings and their two queens, with crowns on their heads, dined together in public; Charles receiving apparent homage, but Henry commanding with absolute authority. At this time, however, when his glory had nearly reached its summit, and both crowns were devolved upon him, he was seized with a fistula; which, from the unskilfulness of his physicians, soon became mortal. He expired with the same intrepidity with which he had lived, in the thirty-fourth year of his age, and the tenth year of his reign.

CHAP. XVIIK

HENRY VI.

A. D. 14221460.

HE duke of Bedford, one of the most accomplished princes of the age, and equally experienced both in the cabinet and the field, was appointed by parliament protector of England, defender of the church, and first counsellor to the king, during his minority, as he was not yet a year old; and as France was the great object that engrossed all consideration, he attempted to exert the efforts of the nation upon the continent with all his vigour.

A new revolution was produced in that kingdom, by means apparently the most unlikely to be attended with success.

In the village of Domremi, near Vaucouleurs, on the borders of Lorraine, there lived a country girl, about twenty-seven years of age, called Joan of Arc. This girl had been a servant at a small inn; and in that humble station had submitted to those hardy employments which fit the body for the fatigues of war. She was of an irreproachable life, and had hitherto testified none of those enterprising qualities which displayed themselves soon after. Her mind, however, brooding with melancholy stedfastness upon the miserable situation of her country, began to feel several impulses, which she was willing to mistake for the inspirations of heaven. Convinced of the reality of her own admonitions, she had recourse to one Baudricourt, governor of Vaucouleurs, and informed him of her destination by heaven, to free her native country from its fierce invaders. Baudricourt treated her at first with some neglect; but her importunities at length prevailed; and, willing to make a trial of her pretensions, he gave her some attendants, who conducted her to the French court, which at that time resided at Chinon.

The French court were probably sensible of the weakness of her pretensions; but they were willing to make use of every artifice to support their declining fortunes. It was, therefore, given out, that Joan was actually inspired; that she was able to discover the king among the number of his courtiers, although he had laid aside all the distinctions of his authority; that she had told him some secrets, which were only known to himself; and that she demanded and minutely described a sword in the church of St. Catherine de Firebois, which she had never seen. In this manner the minds of the vulgar being prepared for her appearance, she was armed cap-a-pee, mounted on a charger, and shewn in that martial dress to the people. She was then brought before the doctors of the university; and they tinctured with the credulity of the times, or willing to second the imposture, declared that she had actually received her commission from above.

When the preparations for her mission were completely blazoned, their next aim was to send her against the enemy. The English were at that time besieging the city of Orleans the last resource of Charles, and every thing promised them a speedy surrender. Joan undertook to raise the siege; and, to render herself still more remarkable, girded herself with the miraculous sword, of which she had before such extraordinary notices. Thus equipped, she ordered all the soldiers to confess themselves before they set out; she displayed in her hand a consecrated banner, and assured the troops of certain success. Such confidence on her side soon raised