Caen was stormed, but when once submission was secured Henry took care that justice and order should be enforced, and that his soldiers should abstain from plunder and outrage. In Paris affairs were growing worse. The citizens rose against the Armagnacs and imprisoned all of them on whom they could lay hands. Then the mob burst into the prisons and massacred the prisoners, the Count of Armagnac himself being one of the number. Henry's army in the meanwhile closed round Rouen. The magistrates, to prolong the defence, thrust out the poorer inhabitants. Henry, who knew not pity when there was a practical object to be gained, thrust them back. During five months the poor wretches wandered about half starved, dying off day by day. On Christmas Day, in honour of Christ's nativity, Henry sent some food to the few who were left. Famine did its work within as well as without the walls, and on January 19, 1419, Rouen, the old ducal capital of the Norman kings, surrendered to Henry. 1419 MURDER OF THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY 305 and Armagnacs seemed for a moment to forget their quarrel and to be ready to join together in defence of their common country; but the hatred in their hearts could not be rooted out. At a conference between the Duke of Burgundy and the Dauphin on the bridge of Marriage of Henry V. and Catherine of France: from the 'Life of Richard Montereau, while the Duke was kneeling to kiss the hand of his future sovereign, one of the Dauphin's companions, Tannegui du Châtel, who had once been attached to the murdered Duke of Orleans (see p. 296), split with his battle-axe the head of the mur X derer of his lord. Agreement between the factions was no longer possible. The new Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, at once joined the English against the Dauphin, whom he regarded as an accomplice of his father's murderer. Even Queen Isabella, the mother of the Dauphin, shared in the outcry against her own son, and in 1420 was signed the Treaty of Troyes, by which the Dauphin was disinherited in favour of Henry, who was to be king of France on the death of Charles VI. In accordance with its terms, Henry married Charles's daughter Catherine, and ruled France as regent till the time came when he was to rule it as king. 21. The Close of the Reign of Henry V. 1420-1422.-The Treaty of Troyes was very similar in its stipulations to that which Henry II. had made with Stephen at Wallingford (see p. 137). The result was, as might have been expected, totally different. Henry II. had the English nation behind his back. Henry V. presumed to rule over a foreign nation, the leaders of which had only accepted him in a momentary fit of passion. He never got the whole of France into his power. He held Paris and the North, whilst the Duke of Burgundy held the East. South of the Loire the Armagnacs were strong, and that part of France stood by the Dauphin, though even here the English possessed a strip of land along the sea-coast in Guienne and Gascony, and at one time drew over some of the lords to admit Henry's feudal supremacy. In 1420 Henry fancied it safe for him to return to England, but, in his absence, in the spring of 1421 his brother, the Duke of Clarence, was defeated and slain at Baugé by a force of Frenchmen and of Scottish auxiliaries. Clarence had forgotten that English victories had been due to English archery. He had plunged into the fight with his horsemen, and had paid the penalty for his rashness with his life. Henry hurried to the rescue of his followers, and drove the French over the Loire; though Orleans, on the north bank of that river, remained unconquered. Instead of laying siege to it Henry turned sharply round northwards to besiege Meaux, the garrison of which was plundering the country round Paris in the name of the Dauphin, and seemed likely to shake the fidelity to Henry even of Paris itself. Meaux held out for many months. When at last it fell, in 1422, Henry was already suffering from a disease which carried him off before the end of the year at the age of thirty-five. Henry V. had given his life to the restoration of the authority of the Church in England, and to the establishment of his dynasty at home by means of the glory of foreign conquest. What man could do he did, but he could not achieve the impossible. End of the alliance with the Duke of Burgundy. 1422 1429 1435 1445 1450 1451 1. Bedford and Gloucester. 1422.-In England Henry V. was succeeded in 1422 by his son, Henry VI., a child of nine months. In the same year, in consequence of the death of Charles VI., the infant was acknowledged as king of France in the north and east of that country. The Dauphin, holding the lands south of the Loire, and some territory even to the north of it, claimed to reign over the whole of France by hereditary right as Charles VII. Henry V. had appointed, his eldest surviving brother, John, Duke of Bedford, regent in France, and his youngest brother, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, regent in England. In England there were no longer any parties banded against the Crown, and the title of the Earl of March had not a single supporter; but both the Privy Council and the Parliament agreed that the late king could not dispose of the regency by will. Holding that Bedford as the elder brother had the better claim, they nevertheless, in consequence of his absence in France, appointed Gloucester Protector, with the proviso that he should give up his authority to Bedford if the latter were to return to England. They also imposed limitations upon the authority of the Protector, requiring him to act by the advice of the Council. 2. Bedford's Success in France. 1423-1424. The English nation was bent upon maintaining its supremacy in France. Bedford was a good warrior and an able statesman. In 1423 he prudently married the sister of Philip of Burgundy, hoping thereby to secure permanently the all-important fldelity of the Duke. His next step was to place difficulties in the way of the Scottish auxiliaries who poured into France to the help of Charles. Through his influence the captive James I. (see p. 295) was liberated and sent home to Scotland, on the understanding that he would prevent his subjects from aiding the enemies of England. Bedford needed all the support he could find, as the French had lately been gaining ground. In 1424, however, Bedford defeated them at Verneuil. In England it was believed that Verneuil was a second Agincourt, and that the French resistance would soon be at an end. 3. Gloucester's Invasion of Hainault. 1424. Bedford's progress in France was checked by the folly of his brother Gloucester, who was as unwise and capricious as he was greedy of power. Gloucester had lately married Jacqueline, the heiress of Holland and Hainault, though her husband, the Duke of Brabant, was still living, on the plea that her first marriage was null on the ground of nearness of kin. In 1424 Gloucester overran Hainault, which was under the government of the Duke of Brabant, thereby giving offence to the Duke of Burgundy, who was a cousin and ally of the Duke of Brabant, and who had no wish to see the English holding a territory so near to the county of Flanders, which he held in right of his wife. The Duke of Brabant re covered Hainault and captured Jacqueline, who had already been abandoned by Gloucester. A coolness arose between Burgundy and the English which was never completely removed. 4. Gloucester and Beaufort. 1425-1428.-In England as well as on the Continent Gloucester's self-willed restlessness roused enemies, the most powerful of them being his uncle, the Chancellor, Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester (see pp. 301, 335), a wealthy and ambitious prelate not without those statesmanlike qualities which were sadly lacking to Gloucester. If Beaufort ruled the Council, Gloucester had the art of making himself popular with the multitude, whose sympathies were not likely to be given to a bishop of the type of Beaufort, who practised no austerities and who had |