It was a grand sight when Charles the Dauphin went to Rheims, and was crowned, while all the nobles stood by, and the Maid of Orleans close to him, holding the white flag of France in her hand.
I am sorry to tell you the end of the brave Maid of Orleans. She was taken prisoner by the English, and kept in prison for some time. At last, they were so cruel as to burn her alive, because they could not forgive her for saving her country and her king. But they pretended she was a witch.
Soon after this cruel murder the Duke of Bedford died, and by degrees the English lost everything in France but a very little corner of the country, out of all that Henry the Fifth had conquered.
I shall end this chapter here, because we have nothing more to say about France for a long while; but we shall have to read of some sad civil wars in England, which began at this time.
CHAPTER XXXII.
HENRY VI.—Continued.
How Queen Margaret and Cardinal Beaufort are said to have caused Duke Humphrey to be murdered; how the wars of the White and the Red Roses were brought about; how Edward of York was chosen King by the Londoners.
Henry the Sixth grew up to be a very good but very weak man. He was married to a beautiful lady called Margaret of Anjou, who was very fierce and cruel, and who behaved more like a man than a woman. She wanted to govern the kingdom entirely herself; and as the only person she was afraid of was the king’s uncle, Humphrey, the good Duke of Gloucester, it is supposed that she agreed with Cardinal Beaufort and another person, who hated Duke Humphrey, and that they had him put to death very cruelly.
Soon after this, as the queen and her friends behaved so ill, several of the noblemen, most of the gentlemen in Parliament, and the people in London, began to think it would be better to take away the crown from the poor king, who was too silly to govern for himself, and was often so ill that he could not speak for days together.
The person they wished to make king was his cousin the Duke of York.
I have read, that some gentlemen were walking together in the Temple garden after dinner, and disputing about the king and the Duke of York; one of them took the king’s part, and said, that, though he was silly, his little son Edward, who was just born, might be wise; and he was determined to defend King Henry and his family, and desired all who agreed with him to do as he did, and pluck a red rose, and wear it in their caps, as a sign that they would defend the family of Lancaster.