Parties in
France.

his claim to the French crown; and had done homage to him for Burgundy and Alost. The French cabinet gave full credit to the report; and to mark their abhorrence of his conduct, ordered the Burgundian prelates and envoys at Constance to be excluded from the meetings of the French nation : but there is reason to think, that the duke was calumniated; and that, if such proposals were made to him at Calais, he rejected them as incompatible with his interests, or his honour. '

From the congress Henry returned to England to obtain supplies from his parliament, and to make preparation for a second expedition. Sigismund proceeded through Dordrecht to Constance, to support by his presence the prelates, who sought by the deposition of the contending pontiffs, to restore the peace of the church. The duke of Burgundy retired to put in execution the plans which he had formed for his own aggrandizement, but which he had carefully concealed from Henry. At Valenciennes he met the second son of the king of France, who, on the death of his elder brother, had assumed the title of Dauphin. The two princes instantly swore eternal friendship to each other: the Dauphin engaged to unite with the duke in removing the Armagnacs from the administration; the duke to assist the dauphin in opposition to the claim of the

1

Rym. ix. 397. 401. 436. Monst. i. 240. That such proposals were made, appears from the protocol of a treaty preserved by Rymer, in which the duke was made to say, that though he formerly doubted, he was now convinced of Henry's right to the French crown; to promise that he would do him homage, as soon as he should have conquered a notable portion of France; and to engage to make war on A. B. C. if they should oppose the king's pretensions. This, though no more than a draught of a treaty without date or signature, shews what was demanded from him. See. Rym, ix. 395, 396.

king of England. But this union was speedily dissolved by the unexpected death of the young prince: and the moment that event was known, his unprincipled mother, Isabel of Bavaria, was arrested by order of her husband, stripped of her treasures, and sent a captive to the city of Tours. The duke seized the opportunity to send a circular letter to all the towns and cities in France. He charged his opponents with having administered poison to the dauphin; attributed to their rapacity and ambition all the evils which afflicted the kingdom; and claimed the aid of every good Frenchman to reform the government, and punish the traitors. At the head of sixty thousand cavalry he marched towards Paris. Many cities and towns opened their gates through fear of his resentment by others he was welcomed as a saviour of his country but the Armagnacs defied his power from the walls of the capital, and quelled the efforts of his partisans within the city. Isabel had been hitherto his bitterest enemy: her captivity taught her to solicit his assistance, and to offer her co-operation against the men who were equally enemies of them both. Early one morning, under pretence of devotion, she prevailed on her keepers to accompany her to a church in the suburbs of Tours: in a few minutes she was in the hands of her deliverer, the duke himself, who during the night had arrived with eight hundred men at arms in a neighbouring forest. She immediately assumed the title of regent during the malady of the king, and by proclamation appointed the duke of Burgundy her lieu

This rapid view of the state of parties in France was

■ Monstrel. i, 241–257.

lands in

The king necessary to explain the conduct, and subsequent success Normandy. of the king of England. When the Burgundian com

Aug. 1.

menced his march towards Paris, Henry landed without opposition on the coast of Normandy. But the failure of his former attempt had taught him to pursue a different policy. He no longer sought to irritate the vanity of his enemies by an insulting but dangerous march through the country. He came prepared to make permanent conquests: and his army, amounting to sixteen thousand men at arms, and probably an equal number of archers, was provided with a long train of artillery and military engines, and a useful body of artificers and sappers'. It was in vain that he called on the Normans to receive him as their lawful duke. At the expiration of two centuries, the natives felt nothing of that attachment for the descendants of Rollo, which had animated their ancestors: they looked on Henry as a foreign adventurer; and defended their country with the most steady, and often enthusiastic, bravery. But they received no aid from their countrymen; they were even deprived of the presence and example of their nobles, whom the

1

Elm. 92. Tit. Liv. 31. 33. This army was raised in the following manner. The Duke of Clarence furnished 240 lances, the duke of Gloster 100, the six Earls of March, Warwick, Salisbury, Huntingdon, Suffolk, and the earl mareschal, 470, thirteen barons 526, seventy-seven bannerets and knights 950, in all 2186 lances, or 6558 men at arms. Ibid. They also furnished an equal number of archers mounted. The rest of the army, making up the gross amount .of 16,400 men at arms, were the king's retainers, and private knights, who had entered into his service. Some of the numbers are incorrectly printed in Livius : but the mistakes may be corrected by comparing the number of archers with the number of men at

. arms.

Sep. 2.

Sep. 19.

Armagnacs detained at Paris to oppose the efforts of the Burgundians; and fortress after fortress fell into the hands of the invaders. Tonques, Auvillers, and Villers surrendered after short sieges: if Caen refused to capitulate, it was carried by assault : Bayeux submitted spontaneously, and obtained the confirmation of its privileges; and the campaign was terminated by the successive reduction of Aigle, Lisieux, Alençon, and Falaise 1. During its continuance the French government did not attempt to oppose the king in the field, but solicited a peace or an armistice. Henry, however, would not suffer his career to be interrupted by negociation; and when at last he consented to listen Nov. 28. to the envoys, cut short the conference by the inadmissible tenor of his demands. He would grant neither peace nor armistice, but on condition that Catharine, the daughter of Charles, should consent to become his wife; that the regency of the kingdom should be given to him during the lifetime of the king, and that he should be declared his successor in the event of his death. 2

of Sir Johu Oldcastle.

But while Henry was thus occupied with the con- Execution quest of Normandy, a feeble attempt had been made to deprive him of England. In consequence of a secret understanding between the Scottish cabinet and the chiefs of the lollards, the duke of Albany and the earl Douglas suddenly crossed the borders, and laid siege, the former to the castle of Berwick, the latter to that of Roxburgh. It proved, however, a « foul raid ». They had persuaded themselves that the kingdom had been left

'Tit. Liv. 33-49. Rym. ix. 480. 487. 490. 493. 532. Elm. 96-138.

2 Rym. ix. 521–524.

Nov.

without a competent force for its protection: but when they learned that the dukes of Bedford and Exeter were approaching at the head of one hundred thousand men, they decamped with precipitation, and disbanded their armies'. At the same time sir John Oldcastle emerged from his concealment, and arrived in the neighbourhood of London. The retreat of the Scots defeated all his projects. At St. Alban's he eluded by a precipitate flight the pursuit of his enemies : in the marches of Wales he was taken after an obstinate resistance by sir Edward Charlton, a retainer of the lord Powis 2. At the petition of the commons (the parliament was then sitDec. 14. ting) he was arraigned before the peers: the indictment on which he had been formerly outlawed, was read; and he was asked in the usual form by the duke of Bedford, why he should not receive sentence of death. Instead of replying directly to the question, he preached a long sermon on one of the favourite doctrines of his sect, that it is the duty of man to forgive, and to leave the punishment of offences in the bands of the Almighty. Being interrupted, and required to return a direct answer, he said that he would never acknowledge the authority of that court, as long as his liege lord king Richard II. was alive in Scotland. Judgment was instantly pronounced; that he should be hanged as a traitor, and burnt as a heretic. St. Giles's fields, which had been the theatre of his rebellion, witnessed also his punishment. By his partisans he would have been

' Wals. 398. Ford. xv. 24. Elm. 163.

2 In the rolls, the capture of Oldcastle seems to be attributed to lord Powis (p. 111): but Herne has published a writ, dated Dec. I, in which it is expressly asserted that he was taken by sir Ed. Charlton. Tit. Liv. 219.