Cassell's History of England, Vol. 1 (of 8) / From the Roman Invasion to the Wars of the Roses

by Anonymous

This was the last expiring effort of the Welsh in that glorious struggle which they had maintained for ten years under their illustrious countryman, Owen ap Griffith Vaughan, better known as the unconquerable Owen Glendower. We say unconquerable, for though Wales—a small country, engaged in an unequal contest with a far greater and wealthier nation, and with two of the most renowned generals of the age, Henry of Lancaster and his son—was compelled to yield, it is very clear, from abundant historic facts, that Owen himself never retired from the struggle, never was subdued. In the Rolls of Parliament, and in Rymer's "Fœdera," we find that in 1411 he was excepted by Henry in a general amnesty; in 1412 he was on foot, and made prisoner; in 1415, just before the battle of Agincourt, Henry V., his old antagonist, who seems to have respected him as he deserved, commissioned Sir Gilbert Talbot to treat with Meredith, the son of Glendower, for a pacification of his father, and his still unconquered associates; and again, shortly after the great triumph of Agincourt, Henry renewed the honourable overture. But Glendower was resolved to live and die free, a prince, without subjects or country, rather than the subject of the conqueror of Wales. He still continued to haunt the wilds and mountains of Snowdon; and, if we may believe one tradition, died peaceably at his daughter's house at Monington, in 1415, while another shows us his burial-place beneath the great window of the south aisle in Bangor Cathedral. Both accounts may very well be true; but, wherever Owen Glendower rests, there rests the dust of a man who only wanted a wider field and a more numerous people to have become the saviour, as he was the true hero, of his country.

The nine years which Henry had now been on the throne had been years of constant insurrections, bloodshed in battle, and bloodshed on the block. He had put down all his internal enemies, and, save some occasional struggles with the remaining power of Glendower in the marshes of Wales, the kingdom was at peace with itself, and continued so during the few remaining years of this reign.

At sea there were still attacks from the French, though that Government disclaimed them, and pretended to maintain the truce between the two countries. That truce, however, had been badly preserved in regard to the English provinces in France. In 1406 the Constable of France and the Count of Armagnac had made extensive inroads on Guienne and Saintonge. According to the complaint of Sir John Tivetot, the Speaker of the House of Commons, they had taken ninety-six towns and castles there. Nothing, indeed, but the miserable and distracted condition of France could have prevented them from taking the whole and driving the English totally out of that kingdom; for Henry, perpetually occupied in battling with his own insurgent subjects, had neither money, men, nor time to devote to his French provinces. The most pitiable entreaties were sent over from time to time for aid, but in vain; Henry was engaged in a life or death struggle at home.

In 1406 there were great efforts made on the part of the French court to seize the tempting opportunity to gain possession of all Henry's Continental territories. The two most powerful nobles of the realm were commissioned to execute this vast enterprise. The Duke of Orleans, the king's brother, was to lead the forces against Guienne, whilst the Duke of Burgundy, called "John Sanspeur," or the Fearless, was to expel the English from Calais. He cut down a whole forest to construct machines which should batter down the walls, and burst in the gates of that strongly-fortified town, and reduce the houses to heaps of ruins by flinging in entire rocks. He was provided with two hundred pieces of cannon, and the most complete success was anticipated from his efforts. They resulted in nothing, and, like the Duke of Orleans, he returned to Paris, complaining of not having been supplied with sufficient funds, and demanding not only the cost of his useless machinery, but immense sums which he asserted had been due to his father. These he was not very likely to obtain, for France, Paris, and the court were in the most wretched condition of anarchy and exhaustion. The malady of the king—recurring fits of insanity—had left the Government in the hands of the contending princes, especially of Orleans and Burgundy. The queen and Orleans, united in a guilty alliance, managed to keep the main power in their hands. The king was a cipher and the country a ruin. At this time the royal household had not even food, except such as it took by force from the bakers, butchers, and dealers, in which they were imitated by the great nobles.

To this unhappy condition of things were now added the fierce disputes and recriminations of the rival dukes; but Orleans, supported by the queen's interest, maintained his stand, and Burgundy, in high dudgeon and disgust, retired to his own dominions, vowing vengeance against his chief opponent.

The Duke of Berri, uncle to both the contending princes, exerted himself to effect a reconciliation between them, and prevent the menaced civil strife, in addition to the already crushing calamities of France. In this he at length appeared successful; but the success was only apparent, the result was really tragical. Burgundy returned to Paris, visited the Duke of Orleans, who was somewhat indisposed, and there appeared the most cordial reconciliation. The Duke of Berri, enchanted with the happy effect of his good offices, on the 20th of November, 1407, accompanied his two nephews to the Church of the Augustines to hear mass, and there these seemingly amicable relatives took the sacrament together in token of their perfectly reconciled minds. In three days after, Orleans was murdered in the Rue Barbette, by eighteen assassins in the pay of his dear friend, the newly reconciled and forgiving Burgundy. What was worse, it came out that both these thoroughly depraved princes had entertained the same design of dispatching his rival, and that Burgundy had only got the start with his assassins. Burgundy absented himself from Paris for a short time, when he returned again, and boldly justified his deed. The king, who was at the moment in one of his more lucid intervals, wept over the fate of his brother, and vowed to avenge it; but the power of Burgundy was beyond that of the feeble monarch.

The Orleans family, finding that no justice was to be obtained from the feeble and corrupt government, but, on the contrary, that the people of Paris hailed John of Burgundy as a second Brutus, who had freed his country of a tyrant aiming at the crown, and that the very lawyers and clergy justified the murder on the same pleas, declaring that Orleans had produced the king's insanity through sorcery and drugs, determined to take arms and enforce it for themselves.

Burgundy, to strengthen himself with the Parisians, promised to reduce the monstrous weight of taxation under which they groaned, and they applauded him as their saviour. Revolt amongst Burgundy's subjects in Flanders withdrew him for a time from Paris, during which the queen, in the name of her son, the dauphin, declared Burgundy an enemy of the state, and threw all her energies into the interests of the Orleanists. But Burgundy returned victorious from his contest with his subjects, and in November entered Paris at the head of 6,000 men.

Once more, in the following March, the farce of a reconciliation took place between Burgundy and the young Duke of Orleans, at Chartres, where the children of Orleans embraced their father's murderer. But this base unnatural union was as hollow as the former one; the old animosity burst forth anew; and the young Duke of Orleans, who had married a daughter of the Count of Armagnac, was supported by that able and energetic nobleman in his opposition to Burgundy. From this day the whole of France was divided into the great hostile factions—the Orleanists and the Armagnacs—so called from the Count of Armagnac assuming the lead in his son-in-law's quarrel by his superior vigour and experience. The Dukes of Berri and Brittany, and the Count d'Alençon, embraced the cause of Orleans, and Burgundy was compelled to retire from Paris.

Henry IV., relieved from his own domestic foes, had watched this contest from the commencement with the deepest interest. His calculating soul saw that now the time was coming for him to take vengeance on France for its insults and injuries during the whole period of his struggles with his rebellious nobles. He foresaw that the first failing combatant would turn to him for aid, and he determined that it should be granted, because it would damage France. What he knew must come came now; and it was the more agreeable, because it enabled him to pay to the son of Orleans the debt of hate which he owed to the father for his haughty defiance and his taunts of murder.