Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

Burgundian and Armagnac by their common enemy. Each party, however, first attempted to renew the negotiation with Henry in the hope of Feb. 1419. finally by his aid defeating its rival. The

Dauphin's ambassadors were assured by Henry that he only desired to have the sovereignty of all he had now conquered, and all that the Peace of Bretigny' had secured to Edward III., and he asked a personal interview with their master, which was agreed to; but that Prince feeling it impossible to take this basis for the negotiation never came to Dreux, the place appointed for the meeting. The Burgundian then proposed to treat, and English ambassadors were sent to him at Provins, where at that time the King, his tool and pageant, held his court. But the Dauphin's troops set upon them on their way thither, Feb. 26, and were repulsed with great loss by the united English and Burgundian guard. An agreement was then come to that the parties should meet in person, and accordingly Henry and his court met the Burgundian, accompanied by the Queen and the Princess Catherine, at Meulan on the Seine. The meeting took place with all the pomp and magnificence usual in that age on such occasions. The French King's melancholy illness being then sorely upon him, prevented him from appearing; but his beautiful daughter is said to have

1419.

May, 1419.

Called the Great Peace: it gave England in absolute sovereignty and also in fief Guienne and Poitou in the south, Calais, Guisnes, and Ponthieu in the north; all these had long since been reconquered by France.

made a tender impression upon the English monarch, insomuch that the Queen-mother, with the calculating and sanguine spirit of her sex, hoped for better terms. In this, however, she was disappointed, for he insisted upon the Peace of Bretigny, the independent sovereignty of all his recent conquests, as well as the Princess's hand, and he refused to give up his claim to the crown itself, which had been abandoned by Edward III. at that peace. The listening to such terms as these the Burgundian, like the Dauphin, felt would be his destruction with the people of France, and Henry lost his temper on meeting a spirit as high as his own. "Know, fair cousin," said he, "that we will have the daughter of your King, and all else we have asked, or we will drive him and you out of his kingdom." To this unseemly threat the reply was immediate, and it was calm as well as firm: "Sire, you are pleased to say so; but before you can do so, I make no doubt that you will be heartily tired."1

July 11,

This negotiation being thus at an end, 1419. another was set on foot between the Burgundian and the Dauphin. They met at Melun, and in a week concluded a treaty by which it was agreed that all former differences should be buried in oblivion; that the Duke should honour and obey the Dauphin next after the King; that the administration of the government should be carried on by them jointly; and that both parties with their ad

Monstrelet, ch. ccvii. Mez., i. 1022.

herents should unite in pursuing the most rigorous measures for reforming all abuses at home, and for defending the realm against "the damnable

1

enterprize of the English." To this im

July 20, 1419.

portant instrument were affixed, beside the names of the two chiefs, those also of the other Princes, of the Prelates, and of the magistrates of different towns. It was brought to Paris with much solemnity by the Archbishop of Sens, and with letters from the Dauphin and the Duke, as well as an edict of the King, was read in full Parliament, the members of which were sworn to its observance. The peace was then proclaimed with a general amnesty, a procession was made to the church of St. Martin des Champs, and thanks were returned for this happy consummation. The Dauphin and the Burgundian proceeded immediately to withdraw their forces from whatever posts they held hostilely to each other, or they only kept garrisons in towns exposed to the English; while each appointed such commanders and such governors of different places as were acceptable to both parties. The joy diffused by this auspicious event was general; it was lively, too, in proportion to the distressing evils which the civil broils had brought upon the country, and to the grievous inconvenience which the people had so long endured in the management of

Rym., ix. 770. Monstrelet, ch. ccvii. Juv. des Urs., 367. He represents the Burgundian and Queen as having acceded outwardly, in the conference at Meulan, to Henry's terms, but resolved to make demands which they knew he would not agree to. He also represent the treaty of Melun as never having been quite finished.

their ordinary concerns even in districts exempt from the immediate pressure of the war.

It must be confessed that this change in the relative position of his adversaries was calculated to effect a great revolution in Henry's prospects, and it appears manifest that he owed the perils by which he was now surrounded altogether to his own headstrong violence. Those perils, notwithstanding his successes, were of the most formidable magnitude. His occupation of the Norman Duchy was confined entirely to the ground held by his troops. On the part of the inhabitants, no indication whatever had appeared of a disposition to submit, and receive him for their sovereign. Terror subdued for the moment the common people who could not quit their towns and villages, or the peasantry who were attached to the soil; and many who at first had fled were induced by the sufferings of an exiled or a wandering life to return when the conqueror promised them protection. But the submission thus rendered was by compulsion; and so many, especially of the artificers and other crafts, remained permanently in those parts of the country whither they had fled, that some of the most flourishing towns in Brittany and the well known fabrics of the province trace their origin to this invasion. On the other hand, no person of mark, no nobles, or knights, or considerable landowners of rank yielded even an outward obedience, much less did any of that class take the invader's part. They almost all continued in the neighbouring province,

any

insomuch that its historians consider most of the Breton families to have been originally Norman.' Henry in vain appealed to the Normans as the ancient subjects of his crown. Such language was wholly unintelligible to the inhabitants of a territory which had for two centuries been severed from the English dominions, and which had long since been reclaimed from the national prejudice once so prevalent against France during the accidental connexion of the Duchy with England. The only person of any distinction who is recorded as having sworn allegiance to Henry is Guy le Bouteillier; and although this was in all likelihood only the result of a desire to retain his extensive possessions, it stamped him with infamy among his countrymen, and gave birth to a conviction in their minds, unsupported by proof and at variance with the well known history of the siege, that he had betrayed his trust while Commandant of Rouen at the surrender of the town. The failure of a sortie by the props of the bridge being secretly sawed through was universally imputed to his treachery, no man doubting that they had been cut by his orders. All Henry's measures for consolidating his dominion and for gaining over the Normans, though not ill combined, had failed, because coupled with acts of a conquering power. The establishment of courts and chambers of accounts in the greater towns, and the appointment of able captains as their governors, had been accompanied with grants of the lands

B. d'Argentine's Hist. de Bretagne, tom. ii. p. 17.

N

« ZurückWeiter »