and unsuccessful attack on Paris.
The release of Orleans was quickly followed up. The English were hotly pressed. In June, Jargeau on the Loire was taken, and Suffolk with it; while on the 18th of the same month, Talbot and Fastolf suffered a thorough defeat at Pataye, while attempting to save other fortresses lower down the river. Joan of Arc had set herself two great duties to perform—the relief of Orleans, and the coronation of the Dauphin at Rheims. To this second duty she now addressed herself. Her difficulties arose chiefly from the folly of the Dauphin, who was under the influence of his favourite, La Tremouille, a strong Armagnac, whose object it was to prevent his master from entering upon an independent course of action. These difficulties were at length overcome. At the head of a small army, Charles and the Maid of Orleans marched successfully into the heart of their enemy’s country, securing either by force or by negotiation the strong cities on the way. At Rheims the coronation was completed, and thence the French generals directed their march on Paris at the persuasion of Joan. But there, while Joan had been overcoming the reluctance of the French Prince, Bedford had assembled an army of sufficient strength to resist them. He had summoned to his aid the Bishop of Winchester, who had returned from his pilgrimage to Rome with instructions to collect troops to assist the Emperor Sigismund against the heretic Hussites of Bohemia. With this little army he now joined his nephew; and Bedford, alarmed by the rapid defection of great towns such as Blois, Beauvais and Compiègne, determined, if possible, to destroy the superstitious confidence of the French by a successful battle. In this he was disappointed, for, after an indecisive skirmish near Senlis, he was compelled to fall back to cover Paris. For the present, however, this formed the limit of the French successes. A fruitless attack on the city, in which the Maid was wounded, caused timid counsels to prevail, and the army withdrew behind the Loire.
Capture of Joan of Arc. 1430.
Coronation of King Henry.
Joan’s death. 1431.
The winter was employed by Bedford in continued efforts to retain the friendship of the Duke of Burgundy; and the united armies of Burgundy and England were attempting to regain Compiègne, when in March Joan of Arc again took the field. She succeeded in passing through the two armies, and in entering the city, but was surprised during a sally and taken prisoner. Her capture gave the English hopes that they might still retain their conquests, as the sluggish and vacillating character of the French King was well known. Bedford set to work to do all he could to regain the prestige he had lost the preceding year. Shortly after the coronation of Rheims, he had caused King Henry to be crowned at Westminster, and with his brother Gloucester had retired from his official situation. He now determined to have the coronation repeated in France. Henry was brought over for that purpose, but it was found impossible to crown him at Rheims, now completely in the hands of the French. Bedford had to content himself with a coronation at Paris. Meanwhile the unfortunate prisoner had been given up to be tried as a sorceress. She was found guilty, and handed over to the secular arm: for a moment she was induced to confess herself guilty, abjuring the truth of her Divine calling; her resumption of arms in the prison was regarded as a relapse into heresy: she was therefore burnt at Rouen. The strangely superstitious character of the age, and the devout belief which existed in sorcery, cannot excuse what was, in fact, an act of base revenge.
Increasing difficulties of the English. 1432.
Conduct of Gloucester.
Bedford re-marries. Second blow to the Burgundian alliance.
Formation of peace and war parties.