VALENCIENNES, SIEGE OF.—Besieged from May 23rd to July 14th, when the French garrison surrendered to the Duke of York, 1793. Retaken by the French, on capitulation; the garrison and 1100 emigrants made prisoners, with immense stores, viz. 200 cannon, 1,000,000 pounds of gunpowder, 8,000,000 florins in specie, 6,000,000 of livres, 1000 head of cattle, &c., on August 30th, 1794.
VALUE OF PRINCES.—£400,000 was the price paid to the Scots for delivering up to the English Charles I.
Margaret of Anjou was ransomed for £12,500.
£1,000 offered by Parliament for the head of Charles II.
£30,000 for that of the Pretender.
Richard I was ransomed for the large sum of £100,000 or 150,000 marks; he had before been sold by the Duke Leopold of Austria, to the Emperor Henry IV, for £60,000.
King John, of France, was to be redeemed by his subjects for the enormous sum of 3,000,000 crowns, but they could not raise the amount.
VARNA, BATTLE OF.—The Emperor Nicholas of Russia arrived before Varna, the head-quarters of his army, then besieging the place, August 5th, 1828. The Turks made a vigorous attack on the besiegers August 7th; another on the 21st, but they were repulsed; surrendered to the Russians, October 1st, 1828. Famous as the point of rendezvous of the Allied army, preparatory to the Crimean war. The cholera made dreadful devastation in both the English and French armies; then a great fire nearly destroyed the town, but purified the air; and the news of the Crimean invasion expedition dispelled the gloom and melancholy which pervaded, to a very great degree, our troops.
VIENNA.—Besieged by the Turks, under Solyman the Magnificent, with an army of 300,000 men, but forced to raise the siege having lost 70,000 soldiers. Again besieged in 1683, and the siege raised by the celebrated John Sobieski, King of Poland, who totally routed the Turkish army of 100,000 men. Taken by the French, November 14th, 1805, and afterwards retaken and taken for some time.
VILLA FRANCA, BATTLE OF.—Engagement here between the British cavalry, under Cotton, and the French cavalry, under Soult. The French were defeated, April 10th, 1812. When Napoleon heard of the result he reproached Soult the first time in his life.