[297.1] No. 882.
[297.2] No. 885.
[297.3] Nos. 891, 892.
[298.1] Inquisition post mortem, 17 Edw. IV., No. 58.
[ Death of Charles the Bold]
The allusions to public affairs contained in the letters about this time are of some interest. News came from Rome that a great embassy, consisting of Earl Rivers, Lord Ormond, Lord Scrope, and other lords of England, had been honourably received by the pope, but after their departure had been robbed of their plate and jewels at twelve miles’ distance from Rome. On this they returned to the city to seek a remedy for the property they had lost was worth fully a thousand marks. Defeat of the Duke of Burgundy by the Swiss. In the same letter mention is made of the conquest of Lorraine by the Duke of Burgundy, and his disastrous expedition into Switzerland immediately after. By the first of these events the prospects of Margaret of Anjou were seriously impaired, and the French king paid less attention to her interests. In the second, the victorious career of Charles the Bold had been already checked by the first great defeat at Grandson. His vanguard had been broken, his artillery captured by the Swiss, his whole army repulsed, and booty of enormous value left in the hands of the enemy. ‘And so,’ as Sir John Paston reports the matter, ‘the rich saletts, helmets, garters, nowches gilt, and all is gone, with tents, pavilions, and all; and so men deem his pride is abated. Men told him that they were froward karls, but he would not believe it. And yet men say that he will to them again. God speed them both!’[299.1]
His death. A.D. 1477, 5th Jan.
This expectation, as we know, was verified, and the result was that the defeat of Charles at Grandson was followed by another still more decisive defeat at Morat. Yet Charles, undaunted, only transferred the scene of action to Lorraine, where he met with his final defeat and death at Nancy. The event made a mighty change. The duchy which he had nearly succeeded in erecting into an independent kingdom, and which, though nominally in feudal subjection to France, had been in his day a first-rate European power, now fell to a female. The greatness of Burgundy had already departed, and the days of its feudal independence were numbered. To England the state of matters was one of deep concern, for, should France [300] turn hostile again, the keeping of Calais might not be so easy, unless the young Duchess Mary could succeed in organising a strong government in the Low Countries. A Great Council was accordingly convoked by the king, and met on the 18th of February. The world, as Sir John Paston wrote, seemed to be ‘all quavering.’ Disturbance was sure to break out somewhere, so that ‘young men would be cherished.’ A great comfort this, in Sir John’s opinion, and he desires his brother John to ‘take heart’ accordingly.[300.1]
[299.1] No. 889.
[300.1] No. 900.