‘Therefore, my most redoubted lord, I beg you will not disappoint me; for what I have required is but just and reasonable, as will be apparent to any one. My very dear lord, may it please you to order me according to your good pleasure, and, with the will of God, I will obey you faithfully in all things.’
When the duke of Orleans had sent this letter to the king, he wrote others of the like tenour to the chancellor of France, and to such of the ministers as he knew were favourable to him, to entreat that they would earnestly exert themselves in pressing the king, queen, and duke of Acquitaine, to dismiss those of the council who governed under the name of the duke of Burgundy, and whose names have been already noticed,—and that he might obtain justice on the murderers of his late father. Notwithstanding the many attempts he made by repeated letters to the king and to others, he could not at that time, through the interposition before mentioned, obtain any answer which was satisfactory.
CHAP. XXVI.
THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF BAR.—THE KING OF FRANCE SENDS AN EMBASSY TO THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY,—AND OTHER MATTERS.
In this year died that valiant and wise man Henry duke of Bar, and was succeeded by his eldest son Edward, marquis du Pont, in the duchy of Bar and castlewick of Cassel, excepting a part which he had bequeathed as an inheritance, after his decease, to Robert de Bar, son to the deceased Henry de Bar, his eldest son, and to the lady de Coucy, namely, Varneston, Bourbourg, Dunkirk and Rhodes[68]. In consequence of his death, Edward was styled Duke of Bar, and began his reign prosperously.
At this period, the king of France sent ambassadors to the duke of Burgundy, who, beside what they delivered to him in speech, gave him the letters which the duke of Orleans had written to the king, containing his charges against him and his accomplices. He was much displeased at this conduct, and made reply by these ambassadors, that the charges brought against him by the duke of Orleans were untrue. When he had received the ambassadors with every honour, he took leave of them, and went to his county of Flanders: and they returned to Paris without any satisfactory answer to the matters concerning which they had been sent.
It was not long before the duke of Burgundy raised a large body of men at arms, whom he sent into the Cambresis, and toward St Quentin; but immediately after, by orders from the king and council, he dismissed them to the places whence they had come.
On the 15th day of July, master John Petit, doctor of divinity, whom the duke of Orleans had intended to prosecute, before the university of Paris, for heresy, died in the town of Hesdin, in the hôtel of the hospital which the duke of Burgundy had given him, beside large pensions, and was buried in the church of the Friars Minors in the town of Hesdin.
At this time, a tax was laid on the clergy of France and of Dauphiny, of half a tenth, by the pope, with the consent of the king, the princes, and the university of Paris, and the greater part of the prelates and cities, to be paid by two instalments; the first on Magdalen day, and the second at Whitsuntide following. It was so rigorously collected that the poorer clergy complained bitterly.