SECOND PART
That proud and wicked French nobility who dragged their country todestruction, and who were every day and every year regarded with deeperhatred and detestation in the hearts of the French people, learntnothing, even from the defeat of Agincourt. So far from uniting againstthe common enemy, they became, among themselves, more violent, morebloody, and more false--if that were possible--than they had been before.The Count of Armagnac persuaded the French king to plunder of hertreasures Queen Isabella of Bavaria, and to make her a prisoner. She,who had hitherto been the bitter enemy of the Duke of Burgundy, proposedto join him, in revenge. He carried her off to Troyes, where sheproclaimed herself Regent of France, and made him her lieutenant. TheArmagnac party were at that time possessed of Paris; but, one of thegates of the city being secretly opened on a certain night to a party ofthe duke's men, they got into Paris, threw into the prisons all theArmagnacs upon whom they could lay their hands, and, a few nightsafterwards, with the aid of a furious mob of sixty thousand people, brokethe prisons open, and killed them all. The former Dauphin was now dead,and the King's third son bore the title. Him, in the height of thismurderous scene, a French knight hurried out of bed, wrapped in a sheet,and bore away to Poitiers. So, when the revengeful Isabella and the Dukeof Burgundy entered Paris in triumph after the slaughter of theirenemies, the Dauphin was proclaimed at Poitiers as the real Regent.
King Henry had not been idle since his victory of Agincourt, but hadrepulsed a brave attempt of the French to recover Harfleur; had graduallyconquered a great part of Normandy; and, at this crisis of affairs, tookthe important town of Rouen, after a siege of half a year. This greatloss so alarmed the French, that the Duke of Burgundy proposed that ameeting to treat of peace should be held between the French and theEnglish kings in a plain by the river Seine. On the appointed day, KingHenry appeared there, with his two brothers, Clarence and Gloucester, anda thousand men. The unfortunate French King, being more mad than usualthat day, could not come; but the Queen came, and with her the PrincessCatherine: who was a very lovely creature, and who made a real impressionon King Henry, now that he saw her for the first time. This was the mostimportant circumstance that arose out of the meeting.
As if it were impossible for a French nobleman of that time to be true tohis word of honour in anything, Henry discovered that the Duke ofBurgundy was, at that very moment, in secret treaty with the Dauphin; andhe therefore abandoned the negotiation.
The Duke of Burgundy and the Dauphin, each of whom with the best reasondistrusted the other as a noble ruffian surrounded by a party of nobleruffians, were rather at a loss how to proceed after this; but, at lengththey agreed to meet, on a bridge over the river Yonne, where it wasarranged that there should be two strong gates put up, with an emptyspace between them; and that the Duke of Burgundy should come into thatspace by one gate, with ten men only; and that the Dauphin should comeinto that space by the other gate, also with ten men, and no more.
So far the Dauphin kept his word, but no farther. When the Duke ofBurgundy was on his knee before him in the act of speaking, one of theDauphin's noble ruffians cut the said duke down with a small axe, andothers speedily finished him.
It was in vain for the Dauphin to pretend that this base murder was notdone with his consent; it was too bad, even for France, and caused ageneral horror. The duke's heir hastened to make a treaty with KingHenry, and the French Queen engaged that her husband should consent toit, whatever it was. Henry made peace, on condition of receiving thePrincess Catherine in marriage, and being made Regent of France duringthe rest of the King's lifetime, and succeeding to the French crown athis death. He was soon married to the beautiful Princess, and took herproudly home to England, where she was crowned with great honour andglory.
This peace was called the Perpetual Peace; we shall soon see how long itlasted. It gave great satisfaction to the French people, although theywere so poor and miserable, that, at the time of the celebration of theRoyal marriage, numbers of them were dying with starvation, on thedunghills in the streets of Paris. There was some resistance on the partof the Dauphin in some few parts of France, but King Henry beat it alldown.
And now, with his great possessions in France secured, and his beautifulwife to cheer him, and a son born to give him greater happiness, allappeared bright before him. But, in the fulness of his triumph and theheight of his power, Death came upon him, and his day was done. When hefell ill at Vincennes, and found that he could not recover, he was verycalm and quiet, and spoke serenely to those who wept around his bed. Hiswife and child, he said, he left to the loving care of his brother theDuke of Bedford, and his other faithful nobles. He gave them his advicethat England should establish a friendship with the new Duke of Burgundy,and offer him the regency of France; that it should not set free theroyal princes who had been taken at Agincourt; and that, whatever quarrelmight arise with France, England should never make peace without holdingNormandy. Then, he laid down his head, and asked the attendant prieststo chant the penitential psalms. Amid which solemn sounds, on the thirty-first of August, one thousand four hundred and twenty-two, in only thethirty-fourth year of his age and the tenth of his reign, King Henry theFifth passed away.
Slowly and mournfully they carried his embalmed body in a procession ofgreat state to Paris, and thence to Rouen where his Queen was: from whomthe sad intelligence of his death was concealed until he had been deadsome days. Thence, lying on a bed of crimson and gold, with a goldencrown upon the head, and a golden ball and sceptre lying in the nervelesshands, they carried it to Calais, with such a great retinue as seemed todye the road black. The King of Scotland acted as chief mourner, all theRoyal Household followed, the knights wore black armour and black plumesof feathers, crowds of men bore torches, making the night as light asday; and the widowed Princess followed last of all. At Calais there wasa fleet of ships to bring the funeral host to Dover. And so, by way ofLondon Bridge, where the service for the dead was chanted as it passedalong, they brought the body to Westminster Abbey, and there buried itwith great respect.