Not long after the battle, Henry went to Paris, and there the princes and nobles told him that, if he would let the poor mad King Charles be called king while he lived, Henry and his children should be always Kings of France. And so peace was made, and Henry governed France for a little while, and he married the French Princess Catherine, and they had a little son born at Windsor, who was called Henry of Windsor, Prince of Wales, and was afterwards King Henry the Sixth.
Very soon afterwards, King Henry the Fifth was taken very ill at Paris. He knew he was going to die, so he sent for his brothers and the other English lords who were in France, and gave them a great deal of good advice about ruling England and France, and begged them to take care of his little son. He then told his chaplain to chant some of the psalms to him, and died very quietly.
The English people wept and lamented bitterly, when they found that they had lost their king.
He was kind to them, and so true and honest, that even his enemies trusted entirely to him. He was very handsome, and so good-humoured, that everybody who knew him liked his company; so good and just, that wicked men were afraid of him; so wise, that his laws were the fittest for his people that could have been made at the time; so brave, that the very name of Henry, King of England, kept his enemies in fear. And above all this, he was most pious towards God.
CHAPTER XXXI.
HENRY VI.—1422 to 1461.
How Henry the Sixth became King while he was an infant; how the Duke of Bedford governed in France; how Joan of Arc persuaded the Dauphin and the French soldiers to take courage; how they nearly drove the English out of France; how Joan was taken prisoner and put to death.
Henry of Windsor, the poor little Prince of Wales, was not a year old when his father died. He was made King of England directly, and became King of France soon after.
The parliament that his wise father left gave good guardians and protectors to the little king, and to England and to France.
The war in France began again, for the mad king having died, his son, who was almost as good for France as our Henry of Monmouth had been for England, began to try to get back all his father’s kingdom. However, the Duke of Bedford, uncle to the little King of England, managed so well for the English, that it really seemed as if France was always to be subject to the King of England.
It was fortunate, for the good of both countries, that it was not to be so.