did not stipulate for his surrender of the failure of the second war for the establishcrown of France, or at worst of the duchies ment of the Plantagenets in France, conof Normandy and Aquitaine, in full sove- ducted by Henry V. with a splendor of sucreignty. He dissuaded them from the re- cess which hid its impolicy and iniquity lease of the duke of Orleans and the other from the elated multitude. This part is prisoners of Agincourt, till the majority of altogether foreign, and rather, indeed, bethe king. Orleans was, in fact, detained longing to the history of France. It exin captivity for twenty-five years.* tends throughout the first thirty years, He expressed his wish that his brother which are called the reign, of this prince, the duke of Gloucester might be protector who was as imbecile in mature years as in of England, and that his brother the duke the tenderest infancy. It is a curious peof Bedford, with the advice of the duke of culiarity of this contest for the sovereignty Burgundy, should be regent of France. of one of the greatest and most civilized And he again solemnly declared, that, be- monarchies, that both the competitors were fore the beginning of his wars, he was in truth inactive and insignificant byfully persuaded by wise and holy men that standers at the struggle which was to dehe might justly and rightly follow them, termine the pomp of their titles, and the without the danger of God's displeasure. boundary of dominions in their hands barely His noble hearers assured him, amidst nominal. With a brief narrative of the sighs and tears, of their reverence and ad- events of this quarrel it is intended to conherence to his dying commands; and being clude the present chapter; reserving for told by a physician that he had no more the opening of another those transactions than two hours to live, he directed his of a very different nature which form the chaplains to chant the seven penitential internal history of England till the extincpsalms, and in the midst of the performance tion of the house of Plantagenet. of these sacred rites, he calmly breathed When Henry VI. was proclaimed king his last, at Vincennes, on the 31st of Au- of France as well as of England, at the gust, 1422. In two months more he was age of nine months, the western and northfollowed to the grave by the unhappy ern provinces of that great kingdom were lunatic, who was still termed king of held in his name; Paris, the accustomed France. His death at that critical moment seat of power and justice, owned his sway; happily deprived the foreign rulers of all and the closest alliance with the duke of shadow of French authority. Not a prince Burgundy threw all the resources of his of his own blood attended his funeral. On opulent territories into this scale. The the interment of Isabella his widow, some central districts, the south-eastern, and years after, her corpse was thrown into a even the southern as far as the line which wherry, and rowed to St. Denis by a few separated Languedoc from Gascony, adhired attendants, with no more ceremonial hered to the cause of the dauphin, whom, than that of a Parisian tradeswoman. The as he was finally successful, it is convenient remains of the victorious Henry were in- henceforward to call Charles VII. Geneterred at Westminster with unwonted pomp, rally, the countries between the Loire and amidst the undue and unreasonable regrets the Seine were the theatre of the most of a populace drunk with victory; but with active warfare. two mourners, James, king of Scotland, During the seven years which followed and Edmund Mortimer, earl of March, the accession of the infant king, the forthe sincerity of whose sorrow it is not un- tune of the English arms was generally candid to doubt. HENRY VI. TO THE APPROACH OF THE CIVIL WAR. 1422-1452. prevalent. At the battle of Verneuil, in 1424, the French army was defeated so signally that it was compared to the victories of Crecy, of Poitiers, and of Agincourt. The Scottish auxiliaries were, on that day, cut to pieces, under their leaders of proud name,-the Stuarts and Douglasses, to the satisfaction, as it is said, of THE long reign of Henry VI. compre- the French, whom they had come to help; hends two distinct portions, which have but who, like other nations in such circumlittle resemblance in their character, and stances, were oppressed as cruelly by their not much more connexion with each other lawless allies as by their open enemies. than through the tie which necessarily Every part of the country was, during this joins contemporary occurrences in neigh- period, the daily scene of skirmishes, inboring countries. The first is the history roads, towns stormed, villages burnt. of the calamitous progress and ignominious" France to the north of the Loire had be * Paston Letters. come one vast solitude; the country was deserted, and there were no men but in forests or fortresses; even the cities were same source. She was more than once enrather quarters for soldiers than dwelling- joined by "her voices," or, as she someplaces of the inhabitants. The cultivation times said, "by the king of heaven," to unof the soil was abandoned, except around dertake the delivery of her king and counthe walls, under the ramparts, and within try, whose last hopes seemed now to hang sight of the sentinel in his tower. As soon on the fate of Orleans. That fortress held as an enemy was discovered, the alarm-bells out with such desperate valor as to be the were rung, the laborers flew into the town; theme of every tongue, and deeply to move the very cattle had learnt a sort of instinct every truly French heart. The poor maiden which taught them to take to flight. Theft of Domreny gained time to surmount the and robbery were of necessity the only oc- obstacles which seemed to render it imposcupation of houseless wretches."* Still, sible that she should ever deliver to Charles as hostilities were not urged with that un- VII. her message from heaven. She forced ceasing and overwhelming vigor which her way through them into his presence, treads out every spark of revolt, time was and obtained from him a party of troops, at lending its accustomed though scarcely the head of whom she was to throw herperceived aid to those who clung with un- self into Orleans;-with no neglect, we conquerable attachment to the defence of may presume, of those human precautions their country. It is not easy to account for in the choice of experienced soldiers to the languor of the English campaigns. guard, and skilful officers to counsel her, Jealousies among the princes, intrigues which might be reasonably numbered among ministers, the common occur- among the conditions of the miraculous aid. rences on such occasions, contributed All were alike believers in such superdoubtless the common share. It has be- natural succors. But all were also consides often and most happily occurred that vinced that they might come either from conquerors of the most vigilant and vigor- the God of Truth, or from the Prince of ous character suffer themselves to be lulled Darkness. The theologians of Charles at into supineness by the undisturbed posses- Poitiers said, that her offer was lawful; sion of a capital, of the ensigns of authority, and what, indeed, could have been a purer and of the solemnities of law; looking object for the exercise of divine power, with contempt on the bands who preserve than the delivery of France by the spotless the national spirit, till these gallant men hand of a chaste and devout maiden? She spread their own patriotism among a people. made her way into the besieged city, The French people naturally, and in-mounted on a white horse, and with the deed justly, imputed all their calamities to veteran Dunois by her side. The troops, the foreign invaders; whose deportment in in the first fervor of their enthusiasm, atother countries than their own has, it must tacked the works of the besiegers. She be owned, been in general more just than was so grievously wounded that it was kind. Resentment against them gradually necessary to carry her from the field: her spread to the highest and the lowest classes disappearance spread a general panic; till of the community. The affairs of Charles she, compelling her friends to place her on VII. wore, perhaps, their gloomiest aspect horseback, advanced with her standard, when the English laid siege to Orleans, in which again terrified the enemy and re1428. A spark of national feeling was animated the French troops. The English then struck out, which showed the suscep- army, which had besieged the town from tible condition of the general temper. the 12th of October, 1428, now raised the Jeanne d'Arc, the daughter of a peasant siege on the 8th of May, 1429,-actuated at Domreny, in Lorrain, beautiful, innocent, by terrors from which the bravest men are pious, modest, laborious, had been from her not exempted by their courage; by terrors childhood devoted to the severest observ- as strongly felt by Talbot and Chandos as ances, and to the most mysterious medita- by the lowest hind in their army. She tions of religion, such as are cherished by then entreated the king to go with her to a young female full of sensibility, amidst be consecrated at Rheims. The danger the lonely occupation of a district of moun- was great, and the suggestion at first retains and forests. Her own fellow-villagers jected. But the importance both of the were zealous royalists. The neighboring consecration and of the courageous expevillage was so Burgundian that a sort of dition which it required, in the eyes of the civil war prevailed between them. She people at large, was clearly evinced by the had long told her parents of admonitions earnest prayers of the good maiden, whose which she believed had come from heaven, simple heart partook every movement of and which they and all their neighbors had popular feeling. no difficulty in believing to flow from the * Barante, iv. 204. After having witnessed a defeat of the English at Patay, in which Talbot himself was made prisoner, she had the happiness, on the 17th of July, 1430, to see Charles VII. all others then believed in the reality of consecrated in the cathedral of Rheims. sorcery; and the most important lesson She entreated permission to retire to her taught by the event is the value of that native village, but her presence served so knowledge, the fruit of free inquiry and much to animate the troops that her prayer fearless reflection, which has banished such was rejected. She obtained for the two imaginary crimes from the civilized world. villages of Greux and Domreny an exemp- But her accusers were unable (for assuredly tion from taxes, which they enjoyed till they were not unwilling) to produce such all public imposts were equalized in 1789. proofs of the pretended offence, as would in On the 25th of May, 1430, she was made other cases have been required even by prisoner by a detachment of the allied army themselves. Having by artifice and fraud near Compiegne. However imperfect the involved her in a capital charge, they prosecurity of prisoners of war still continued ceeded, under the abused formalities of law, to be, it is certain that the maiden was re- to destroy the deliverer of her country. It ceived to quarter by Dunois, the officer to must, however, be owned that the abominawhom she surrendered; nor was she then, ble practice of convicting culprits for one or afterwards, charged with any breaches offence in order to put them to death for of the laws and usages of war which could other causes, still lingers in the administrasubject her to the jurisdiction of a military tion of criminal justice among the most tribunal. During several months of her civilized nations. close imprisonment at Rouen, her powerful While the spirit of the French people enemies sought for charges against her, thus manifested itself in the heroine, the but, as it should seem from their subsequent duke of Burgundy, the original conspirator accusations, in vain. The prelates and against the independence of France, began doctors who were the creatures of her ac- to be slowly weaned from his apostasy. cusers could extract from the narratives of Bedford dreaded the aggrandizement of her worst enemies no more than that "she so formidable an ally. The duke of Burhad lightly or presumptuously believed gundy disliked the foreign regent who revelations or apparitions, undoubtedly pro- stood in his way. ceeding from the evil spirit; that she had The capricious amours of one of the blasphemed against God, by imputing to most giddy and self-indulgent of princesses him a command that she should wear man's early sowed the seeds of distrust between apparel; and that, insomuch as she refused the Plantagenets and the duke of Burgundy. to submit to the church, she was a heretic." Jacqueline countess of Holland, Friesland, The ecclesiastical tribunal pronounced Zealand, and Hainault, whose inheritance sentence that she should be cut off from extended from Westphalia to Picardy, over the church as a corrupt member, and de- provinces already important from traffic livered over to secular justice. A recom- and seamanship, had no issue by her first mendation to the lay judges was, as al- husband, John, the elder brother of Charles ways, subjoined, that they should moderate VII. Married a second time to her cousin the punishment as far as it extended to life the duke of Brabant, she soon grew weary or limb. She was for a moment betrayed of him, and professed scruples about the by the craft and subtlety of her adversaries validity of a marriage within the degrees into an abjuration. But, on the 30th of forbidden by the church. Without waiting December, 1430, after the cardinal of Win- a sentence of nullity from Rome, she made chester had announced those tender mercies her escape into England, where she found of his church which were so cruel, saying Humphrey duke of Gloucester as eager to to her, "Joan! go in peace, the church can master her dominions as she was to be no longer defend thee; she delivers thee united to his person. over to the secular arm!" she was dragged The duke of Burgundy, who was the to the scaffold and committed to the flames. duke of Brabant's next heir, was displeased A proclamation* against the deserters, who, at the chance of losing so fair a prize. appalled by the terrors of the virtuous Though Henry V. and the duke of Bedford maiden, had fled from their standards, re- regretted and withstood the unseasonable vealed the base motive of these cruelties ambition of Gloucester, which threatened against her. Henry himself declared that to embroil them with the most valuable of the death of lord Salisbury and the defeat their allies; and though Gloucester, who, at Orleans "were caused in great part by like Jacqueline, was inconstant as well as the unlawful doubt that they had of a dis- impatient, had treated their irregular marciple and limb of the fiend called the Pucelle, who used false enchantments and sorcery." It is true that her accusers and * Rymer, x. 272. December, 1430. riage as a nullity, by espousing his beautiful mistress Elinor Cobham; yet the passions of the unsteady and adventurous Jacqueline in no small degree contributed to the alienation of Burgundy from the Plan tagenet party. In 1431, Henry VI. was Charles had hitherto made no demonstraled in mournful triumph into Paris, where tions against Aquitaine. The English aphe was consecrated by an English prelate peared now to limit their hopes in the north the monarch of unwilling subjects. The to Normandy and Calais. The duke of death, in October 1435, of the duke of Bed-York, the son of Richard earl of Cambridge ford, a prince of remarkable ability, pru- beheaded at Southampton in 1415, united dence, and moderation, abated the confi- in his person, after the extinction of the dence of continental governments in alli- Mortimers, the hereditary pretensions of ance with England; and especially that of the house of Clarence. On the death of the court of Burgundy, influenced by the the duke of Bedford, the king appointed his known ascendant of his duchess, a Burgun- formidable kinsman York to the regency dian princess, in his councils. At the same of France, perhaps for the purpose of givtime, a congress, to treat of a general peace, ing the appearance of an unanimous contest was assembled at Arras under the mediation of all English parties for national honor of the Holy See. The French insisted on to the struggle still vainly maintained in a renunciation of their crown as a prelimi- France. The French offered to cede Nornary condition. The English minister quit- mandy and Guienne as fiefs of the crown ted the congress, protesting against such of France; but the arrogance of the victors demands. The government of Burgundy was not yet quite tamed. In the years cannot be charged with indecent haste to- 1448 and 1449, Normandy, which the Planwards allies to whom the Burgundian policy tagenets had never ceased to look at as had for years been a sufficient warning that their patrimony, was wrested from them; Philip must at length provide for the peace and in 1451, even the Gascon and Pyrenean and safety of his own dominions. In De- provinces, alienated from Paris by language, cember, 1435, he accordingly concluded a and united to it by no habits of common separate peace with France, of which the obedience, were reduced under the sway principal articles regulated the satisfaction of the house of Valois. The people of Guiand reparation due for the murder of the enne showed a desire of obtaining English late duke of Burgundy on the bridge of succor. Talbot, the most renowned of Montereau; which, says the treaty," the Henry's captains, and perhaps the only lauking would have withstood to the utmost relled head remaining of those from whom of his power, if he had possessed the same the glory of Agincourt was derived, was understanding and knowledge which he sent to Bordeaux to their help in the eightinow enjoys." The duke was exempt from eth year of his age. A gleam of fame vassalage during his own life and that of seemed to light up the brow of the aged the king. The counties of Maçon and Aux-hero; but though deserted by his ancient erre, together with the towns of Peronne, fortune as a commander, he died at the Roye, and Montdidier, were ceded to Philip. battle of Chatillon like a brave soldier. It was agreed that the king should never Thus closed the second war of the treat with the English without the duke's Plantagenets to re-establish themselves in consent, and that the king should succor France: the contest had, in some degree, him, if attacked by that nation on account been waged for a century; and with it of the treaty now concluded. But whatever happily ended all English projects of terrispecious language of neutrality, or even of torial aggrandizement on the continent of friendship, towards England was employed Europe; the success of which must have in this negotiation, it was manifest that thrown a power into the hands of English Philip could not long continue neutral. He monarchs altogether irreconcilable with libshortly after declared war against Henry. erty, the peculiar and characteristic glory After several actions, in which the invaders of England, the inestimable distinction bewere worsted at the gates of Paris, lord tween her and other nations, the source of Willoughby, who commanded the garrison her greatness, the school of her virtues, and of that capital, was obliged to throw him- the nursery of her genius. self, with a handful of soldiers, into "the An historian who rests for a little space Bastile" (or building) of St. Antony, which, between the termination of the Plantagenet like the tower of London, was in successive wars in France, and the commencement of ages used as a palace, a citadel, and a state the civil wars of the two branches of that prison. Here he could hold out no consid- family in England, may naturally look erable time. He was suffered to march out around him, reviewing some of the more on the 13th of April, 1436, and Paris was important events which had passed, and once more restored to her native masters, casting his eye onward to the then unafter a possession of seventeen years by marked preparations for the mighty mutaobnoxious foreigners. tions which were to affect the relations of states towards each other, their internal * Dumont, Corps Diplomatique, ii. Pars. 2. p. 309. rule and condition, and to produce an influ ence on the character and lot of the Euro-[about to lead them through the unplowed pean and even of the human race. ocean to the famous regions of the East. A very few particulars only can be select-Civilized men, hitherto cooped up on the ed as specimens from so vast a mass. shores of the Mediterranean and the At The foundations of the political system lantic, now visited the whole of their subof the European commonwealth were now ject planet, and became its more undisputed laid. A glance over the map of Europe in sovereigns. The man* was then born, who, 1453 will satisfy an observer that the terri- with two undecked boats and one frail sloop, tories of different nations were then fast containing with difficulty a hundred and approaching to the shape and extent which twenty persons, dared to stretch across an they retain at this day. The English isl- unpassed ocean, which had hitherto bounded anders had only one town of the continent the imaginations as well as the enterprises remaining in their hands. The Mahomet- of men; and who, instead of that India reans of Spain were on the eve of being re-nowned in legend and in story, of which he duced under the Christian authority. Italy was in quest, laid open a new world, which had, indeed, lost her liberty, but had es- under the hands of the European race was caped the ignominy of a foreign yoke. one day to produce governments, laws, manMuscovy was emerging from the long domi- ners, modes of civilization, and states of nation of the Tatars. Venice, Hungary, society almost as different as its native and Poland, three states now placed under plants and animals from those of ancient foreign masters, then guarded the eastern Europe. Who could then-who can even frontier of Christendom against the Otto- now-foresee all the prodigious effects of man barbarians, whom the absence of fore- these discoveries on the fortunes of mansight, of mutual confidence, and a disregard kind? of safety and honor which disgraced western The moment was fast approaching, though governments, had just suffered to master unseen by civil and spiritual rulers, when Constantinople and to subjugate the eastern a Saxon monk was to proclaim (without his Christians. France had consolidated the own knowledge and against his opinions) greater part of her central and command- the right of every man to think for himself ing territories. In the transfer of the Neth- on all subjects, the increasing duty of exerlands to the house of Austria, originated ercising that right in proportion to the sathe French jealousy of that power, then credness and awfulness of the subject, the rising into importance in south-eastern Ger- injustice and tyranny of all laws which formany. The empire was daily becoming a bid men to aid their judgment by discuslooser confederacy, under a nominal ruler, sion, and to disclose to others what they whose small remains of authority every day prized as invaluable truths. The discovery contributed to lessen. of the free exercise of reason, thus unconThe internal or constitutional history of sciously and undesignedly made, was the the European nations threatened in almost parent of every other invention and imevery continental country the fatal estab-provement; but it could not have been, perlishment of absolute monarchy, from which haps, effected at that time without another the free and generous spirit of the northern occurrence, which strikingly illustrates the barbarians did not protect their degene- contrast between the lasting and the morate posterity. In the Netherlands, an an- mentary importance of the facts which cient gentry, and burghers enriched by affect the temporary greatness of single traffic, held their still limited princes in states, and those advances in civilization in check. In Switzerland, the patricians of which the whole race of man partakes. a few towns, together with the gallant Paris, as has already been stated, was peasantry of the Alpine valleys, escaped a evacuated by the English in 1435. The master. But parliaments and diets, states- conquest of Bayonne, in 1453, completed general and cortes, were gradually disap- their expulsion from France. Few events pearing from view, or reduced from august could then have been deemed of more moassemblies to insignificant formalities; and ment. Had statesmen been as voluminous Europe seemed on the eve of exhibiting writers as they now are, their correspondnothing to the disgusted eye but the dead ence could scarcely have handled any other uniformity of imbecile despotism, dissolute matters. Of these events, thus once mocourts, and cruelly oppressed nations. mentous, a well-educated man might now In the mean time the almost unobserved mistake the date to the extent of ten or advancement and diffusion of knowledge twenty years. In the very year of the evacwere paving the way for discoveries, of uation of Paris, as we learn from the rewhich the high results will be contemplated cords of the city of Strasburg, a lawsuit was only by unborn ages. The mariner's com- carried on there between John Gutenberg, pass had conducted the Portuguese to distant points on the coast of Africa, and was w. Irving. *Columbus, born 1441, or earlier according to Mr. |