[a.d. 1412.]
[CHAP. III.]
THE DUKES OF BERRY AND OF ORLEANS, WITH OTHERS OF THEIR ADHERENTS, SEND AN EMBASSY TO THE KING OF ENGLAND.—THE CONSEQUENCES OF IT.
At the commencement of this year, the dukes of Berry, of Orleans, and of Bourbon, the counts de Vertus, d'Angoulême, d'Alençon and d'Armagnac, and the lord d'Albreth, calling himself constable of France, with other great lords, their confederates, sent ambassadors to the king of England, with instructions, under their seals, for them to act according to the occasion with the king of England, his children and ministers.
As they were journeying through Maine to go to Brittany, and thence to England, they were pursued by the bailiff of Caen in Normandy, who, with the aid of the commonalty, attacked and defeated them, making some of them prisoners, with their sealed instructions and other articles: the rest escaped as well as they could.
After the defeat, the bailiff dispatched an account of it to the king and council at Paris, and sent the sealed instructions, with the other articles, in a leathern bag, well secured. The king assembled a great council at his palace of St Pol, on the Wednesday after Easter, for the full examination of these papers. He was present, as were the king of Sicily, the dukes of Acquitaine and Burgundy, the counts de Charolois, de Nevers, and de Mortaigne, the lord Gilles de Bretagne, the chancellor of France, namely, master Henry de Marle[2], the bishops of Tournay, of Amiens, of Constance, and of Auxerre, the rector of the university, the provost of Paris, and several others, as well of the king's council as capital citizens of Paris and students of the university.
The chancellor of the duke of Acquitaine, the lord d'Olhaing, lately an advocate in the parliament, then declared, that there had been given to his charge, by the king's ministers, a leathern bag, which had been taken by the bailiff of Caen, together with a knight, chamberlain to the duke of Brittany, from de Faulcon d'Encre and friar James Petit, of the order of the Augustins, and other ambassadors from the lords mentioned in the papers contained in the bag, which had been transmitted by the said bailiff to the king's council. He added, that he had found in this bag four blank papers, signed and sealed by four different persons, namely, Berry, Orleans, Bourbon and Alençon. Each blank had only the name signed on the margin above the seal. He had also found many sealed letters from the duke of Berry addressed to the king of England, to the queen, and to their four sons; and in like manner, from the duke of Brittany to the earl of Richmond and to other noblemen in England. There were also many letters without any superscription, being credential ones for the aforesaid Faulcon and friar James Petit, to the king and queen of England.
These letters were publicly read, and in them the duke of Berry styled the king of England, 'My most redoubted lord and nephew;' and the queen, 'My most redoubted and honoured lady, niece and daughter;' and they were signed with the duke of Berry's own hand. In the one to the queen, there were two lines in his own handwriting, desiring her to place full confidence in the said ambassadors.
These blanks were publicly displayed,—and the king held them some time in his hand. There was a small article on a single sheet of paper containing the instructions for the ambassadors, which was likewise read aloud, and contained a repetition of the charges made against the duke of Burgundy, by the duchess of Orleans and her sons, for the death of the late duke of Orleans. It recited, that they had frequently demanded justice of the king of France for this murder, but could never obtain it, because the duke of Burgundy had prevented and evil counselled the king, by persuading him that the duke of Orleans had been a disloyal traitor to his king and country, which was false,—adding, that the duke of Burgundy had seduced the commonalty of France, more especially the populace of Paris, by asserting that the late duke of Orleans wanted to destroy the king of France and his family, which was also a falsehood, for it had never even entered his thoughts.