I. crowned with a magnificence hitherto unparal- CHAP. leled in the English annals.81 After the ceremony they made a progress through the kingdom: but at York their joy was clouded with the melancholy news of the battle of Beaujé. The duke of Clarence, whom the king had appointed his lieutenant in Normandy, undertook to lay waste the county of Anjou, which still recognized the authority of the dauphin. To oppose him La Fayette had assembled an army of the natives, to whom he joined five or seven thousand Scottish auxiliaries under the earls of Buchan and Wigton, and the lord Stuart of Darnley. The duke suffered himself to be deceived by the false reports of his prisoners. He hastened without the archers to surprise the March 22. enemy; and was surrounded with his men at arms by a more numerous force. Twelve hundred of the English remained on the field; three hundred were taken. The duke, who was distinguished by his coronet of gold and jewels, received a wound from sir William Swynton, and was slain with a battle-axe by the earl of Buchan. The archers arrived in time to recover his body: but the enemy, who retired in haste, carried off the prisoners. This victory raised the fame of 81 La fut faicte telle et si grande pompe, et bobant, et jolivite, que depuis le temps que jadis le trés noble combattant Artus, roy des Bretons et Anglois commença a regnez jusques à present ne fut veue en la dite ville de Londres la pareille feste de nuls des roys Anglois. Monst. i. 303. Fabian has preserved the names of all the dishes served at the three courses for dinner, p. 402. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. the Scots, and their general was named by the dauphin constable of France.82 I. Henry returns to France. 83 84 Revenge and vexation speedily recalled the king to the theatre of war. Troops were ordered to assemble at Dover; loans were raised in every county; and the parliament and convocation were summoned. Both, at Henry's request, approved and ratified the treaty of Troyes. The clergy voted him a tenth: from the lords and commons he did not receive, probably did not May 12. ask, any grant of money: but they cheerfully empowered the ministers to raise loans for the use of the crown on the security of parliament. Anxious to wreak his vengeance on the men who had slain his brother, the king resolved to oppose Scot to Scot, and to procure the ministers of his resentment from among their own counMay 30, trymen. Archibald earl Douglas, in consideration of an annuity of two hundred pounds, contracted to serve him during his life, with two hundred men at arms, and two hundred foot soldiers and James the young king of Scotland, who had now spent sixteen years in 82 Elm. 302-304. Monst. i. 306. Des Ursins, 389. The Scottish historian, who ascribes all the merit of the victory to his countrymen, tells us that only 12 Scots and 2 Frenchmen were killed. Ford. xv. 33. Monstrelet more honestly admits the loss of the two nations to have amounted to more than a thousand men. Monst. ibid. Per ipsum et tres status regni sui,. .videlicet prælatos et clerum, nobiles et magnates, necnon communitates dicti regni. Rot. Parl. 135. This passage must distress those, who contend that the king himself is one of the three estates. 84 Ibid. 130. .... I. captivity, on a promise that he should revisit CHAP. his own country within three months after his return, consented to accompany the expedition in quality of a volunteer. He probably was not aware of the object of Henry; who indulged a hope that the Scots in the pay of the dauphin would not venture to fight against their native sovereign. In this he was disappointed: but the presence of James afforded him a pretext to gratify his revenge; and every Scot taken in arms was immediately executed as a traitor.85 86 June 10. The king landed at Calais with a reinforcement of four thousand men at arms, and twentyfour thousand archers. By his orders they proceeded towards the seat of war under the command of the earl of Dorset, while he paid a rapid but welcome visit to his father-in-law at the Bois de Vincennes. Returning to the army, he drove the dauphin from the walls of Chartres; and, leaving the king of Scots to besiege Dreux, chased his adversary into the strong city of Bourges. Thence, to pay his court to the Parisians, he repaired to the capital; and at their request undertook to reduce the city of Meaux. Oct. 6. Siege and Its commander was the celebrated bastard of reduction Vaurus, whose activity and barbarity had rendered him an object of terror and detestation. Bursting from his asylum with unexampled rapidity, he often swept the whole country to the 85 Rym. x. 124, 125. Ford. xv. 34. 86 Monst. i. 307. of Meaux. CHAP. very gates of Paris: and was accustomed on his return to hang on a particular tree every prisoner, who would not, or could not, pay the ransom which he demanded. The town at the end of ten weeks was carried by storm: but the garrison retired into an adjoining work called the marketplace; and during five months bade defiance to the united attempts of Henry and his father-inlaw. Famine at length compelled them to surMay 10. render at discretion. The governor was de 1422. He falls ill. capitated. His banner, surmounted with his head, was fixed in his favourite tree, and his trunk suspended from one of the branches. With him were executed three of his officers, who had earned the distinction by their insolence and inhumanity: a few persons, accused of having participated in the murder of the duke of Burgundy, were sent to Paris to take their trials before the parliament. 87 By the surrender of Meaux the northern division of France from the frontier to the Loire, with the exception of Maine, Anjou, and a few castles in Picardy, was brought to acknowledge the authority of the king of England: and to add to his good fortune, his queen had lately been delivered of a son, who had received Dec. 6. in baptism the name of his father. As soon as Meaux was reduced, she left England, in the 1421. 87 Mons. i. 313. 316. 318, 319. Tit. Liv. 92, 93. Elm. 315 I. 1422. May 21. company of the duke of Bedford, and hastened CHAP with her child to her father and mother at the Bois de Vincennes. Henry flew to join her: and the two courts repaired together to Paris against the festival of Whitsuntide. The citi- May 30. zens gazed at the magnificence of the regent and his nobles: but at the same time pitied and resented the comparative insignificance to which their own sovereign had been reduced. The shews and pageantries with which Henry sought to amuse them, did not sooth their feelings, nor silence their murmurs: and these nascent expressions of discontent might have taught him to entertain a doubt of the ultimate result of his enterprise. But his attention was now called to a more serious subject; a secret malady, which he had for some time affected to despise, but which rapidly undermined his constitution, and baffled the skill of his physicians." At the invitation of the duke of Burgundy he July 30. undertook to raise the siege of Cosne: but the failure of his strength rendered him unable to proceed; and at Corbeil he delivered the command of the army to his brother the duke of Bedford. The dauphin, alarmed at the report of his advance, had retreated across the Loire.90 88 From Corbeil Henry was conveyed back to And dies, By different writers it is de scribed as a dysentery, a fistula, and a pleurisy. Raynald, vi. 50. 90 Tit. Liv. 94, 95. Monst. i. 324. |