A Popular History of England, From the Earliest Times to the Reign of Queen Victoria; Vol. II

by François Guizot

Melun had at length been compelled to capitulate, on the 18th of November, and the King of England made his entry into Paris. That city was a prey to the most frightful misery; little children were abandoned and died of hunger and cold in the streets; wolves entered the cemeteries and even into the streets, to devour the dead bodies which none took the trouble to inter. Notwithstanding the distress, all Paris was holiday-making for the arrival of the two kings; the poor Charles VI. rode beside his son-in-law, who vied with him in courtesy at the doors of the churches when the relics were presented to them to be kissed. The Duke of Burgundy as well as all his household, clad in mourning, followed the King of France: the Dukes of Clarence and Bedford accompanied their brother. The misery was redoubled within Paris after the magnificences of the royal reception. Henry established himself at the Louvre, where he held court sumptuously; the old king had re-entered the Hotel St. Paul, but few people repaired thither to wish him a happy Christmas.

The Duke of Burgundy had formally demanded justice for the death of his father, and the murderers had been condemned by a decree of Charles VI., without giving the names and without personally accusing the dauphin. The King of England was in need of money, and, entrusting the command of his army to the Duke of Clarence, after having provided for the principal officers of the kingdom men who were devoted to him, he set sail for England, notwithstanding the severity of the weather. He landed at Dover, in the middle of January, welcomed by the acclamations of his people. The royal retinue resembled a triumph when it entered London. Catherine was crowned at Westminster, "with such great pomp and feasting and jollity, that since the time of the very noble and very warlike King Artus was not seen in the city of London a similar rejoicing for any English king," says Monstrelet. The sovereigns had commenced a journey in their states when, at York, the king learnt the sad news of the death of his well-beloved brother, the Duke of Clarence, slain in the combat of Baugé. He was ravaging Anjou, which still recognized the authority of the dauphin. The Seigneur de la Fayette had raised a few troops to resist him, and a numerous body of Scottish auxiliaries had joined him under the orders of the Earl of Buchan. Clarence did not know with what enemies he had to deal; he had imprudently advanced and had been killed by Lord Buchan together with a great number of English who remained upon the field. The dauphin then nominated the Earl of Buchan Constable of France.

Negotiations were then in progress for the release of King James of Scotland, so long a prisoner at the court of England; King Henry caused him to come, and, his face flashing with rage, he said, "Forbid all your subjects ever to lend assistance against me to the dauphin." "I should make a sorry figure by giving orders, being a prisoner," firmly replied James; "but if you will take me with you to France, I shall learn the art of war in a good school, and, perhaps, when my Scots shall see me with you, they will not fight on the other side." Henry V. had an affection for the King of Scotland, and granted him his request; but Archibald Douglas was already preparing to proceed to France, to join Lord Buchan.

Meanwhile, the king was assembling a more considerable army than any that he ever led beyond the seas, the Parliament having liberally voted subsidies. On the 10th of June, 1421, Henry landed at Calais, leaving Queen Catherine in England. The King of Scotland was entrusted to besiege Dreux, and Henry himself laid siege to Meaux, which detained him for several months; the town was commanded by the bastard De Vaurus, who had made of it a haunt of crimes and of pillage. When the castle was at length surrendered, in the month of May, 1422, the governor was hanged upon the great oak of which the branches had so often borne the corpses of his victims. Catherine, accompanied by the Duke of Bedford, had rejoined her husband, to whom she had recently presented a son. The dauphin, driven back by degrees by the English arms, had finally taken refuge in Bourges; but the Earl of Buchan continued to keep the field; he had taken La Charité and was besieging Cosne. The dauphin had repaired to the army, and the King of England, already for a long time enfeebled by fever, was preparing to attack him with the Duke of Burgundy, when his strength completely failed and he was compelled to halt at Corbeil. The Duke of Bedford having assumed the command of the army, the king was carried back in a litter to the castle of Vincennes: the queen having remained at Paris.

The hand of God was about to arrest this great career; at thirty-four years of age, King Henry V. was dying; the Duke of Bedford was arrested in a march during which he had encountered no enemies, by the wish of his brother, who desired to say farewell to him. Every worldly gift had been lavished upon the young conqueror; the master of two kingdoms, surrounded by the esteem and affection of his English subjects, recently married to the woman of his choice, just become the father of an infant son, he was about to leave them; but the faith and resignation of a Christian surmounted in the soul ready to take flight, the frail benefits of the earth. Amidst his grandeurs and his conquests Henry had led a pure and austere life, and had not neglected to serve God. He dreamt continually, when peace should be re-established, of proceeding to the East, to deliver the Holy Sepulchre; this vision still floated around his death-bed. He had caused his faithful servants to be summoned, "Since it is the will of God, my Creator, thus to shorten my life," he said to them, "His will be done! Console my sweet Catherine; she will be the most disconsolate creature there is in the world." He confided the education of his son to the Earl of Warwick. "You cannot yet love him for his own sake; but, if you should think that you owe me anything return it to him." He had entrusted John, duke of Bedford, to govern France, and designated Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, as regent of England. "Tell Humphrey to beware of quarrels for love of me, and never to allow anything in the world to separate him from John; do not separate yourselves from the Duke of Burgundy." He had summoned his physicians, asking them how long he had yet to live. They hesitated. "Speak," said he impatiently. "Sire," said one of them, "think of your soul, for in our judgment you have not two hours to remain on earth."

The king had finished his last instructions; he had said farewell to the affairs of this world; his confessor and the priests of his chapel surrounded his bed; the 51st Psalm was being recited: "Build the walls of Jerusalem!" chanted the chaplain. "Upon the faith of a dying king," murmured Henry, "if it had pleased the Lord God to prolong my life, I intended to proceed against the infidels, and deliver the Holy Sepulchre from their hands." The voice was dying away; he closed his eyes, and, amidst the prayers which were being repeated around him, the great soul of King Henry V. entered into eternal repose.

No life in its brevity had been more active than his and no monarch was more bitterly regretted; it was so even in France, for the people saw themselves thrown back into the horrors of internal dissensions; he was mourned for in England, with sincere and profound grief. After the magnificent ceremonies celebrated in France, the body was brought to England, and solemnly interred at Westminster, beside the shrine of Edward the Confessor. King James of Scotland was chief mourner, while the Duke of Bedford, profoundly sad, seized in France the ill-secured power which his dying brother had confided to him, and endeavored to secure the two crowns upon the head of the child destined to lose them both.

The religious ceremonies had been prolonged in France; Queen Catherine embarked in the month of October, accompanying the body of her husband, when her father, King Charles VI., died of quartan ague. Notwithstanding his thirty years of madness, and the evils which they had suffered under his reign, the French had remained attached to their unhappy monarch, and the mob thronged the hall of the Hôtel St. Paul, where he was exposed. "Ah! dear prince!" it was said, amidst tears, "never shall we have one as good as you; you have gone to your rest; we remain in tribulation and grief, and seem made to fall into the distress in which were the children of Israel during the captivity of Babylon." The Duke of Burgundy was bitterly reproached for not having come to see the king during his sickness, and also for not having followed his funeral; the Duke of Bedford was chief mourner, and on the 10th of November, 1422, in England and in France, at Westminster and at Saint-Denis, the obsequies of King Henry V and those of King Charles VI. were solemnized. The royal remains being lowered into the grave, the heralds broke their wands and cried, "God grant long life to Henry, by the grace of God King of France and of England, our sovereign Lord." And the people shouted, "Long live the king!" The hand which was to bear this weighty inheritance was not yet one year old.