unite his arms to those of King Charles and the Duke of Burgundy, in order to subdue the adherents of Charles, the pretended dauphin; and that these three princes should make no peace or truce with him but by common consent or agree ment. The marriage was concluded at Troyes, in the month of May, and immediately after Henry repaired with King Charles to Paris, and took possession of that city, which for many years after remained in the hands of the English; and when he found himself firmly established in the rights conferred on him by the treaty of Troyes, he turned his arms against the adherents of the dauphin, who had, as soon as he heard of the treaty, assumed to himself the title and authority of regent. Sens, Montereau, and other places, soon submitted to King Henry; and then leaving the Duke of Exeter, his uncle, as governor of Paris, he carried his young wife over with him to England, and after remaining there a short time to collect supplies of men and money, he left her and returned to push on the war against the dauphin, which had not gone on well in his absence. Town after town fell before Henry; the dauphin was driven beyond the Loire; his troops almost totally abandoned the northern provinces, and he was even pursued into the south by the united arms of the English and Burgundians, and threatened with total destruction. In the midst of Henry's triumphant successes a son was born to him, whose birth was celebrated by great rejoicing in both countries. On the 21st of May, 1422, Queen Katharine arrived at Harfleur in grand state, attended by ladies without number, and escorted by a large fleet, fill ed with men-at-arms and archers, under the command of the Duke of Bedford, brother to the king. She, travelling in royal state, set forward towards Paris; King Henry and his princes went to meet her; and she was received by them "as if she had been an angel from heaven." She was conducted to Paris, where she and King Henry were lodged in the Louvre, and the King and Queen of France in the palace of St. Pol. "On Whitsunday," says Monstrelet, "the King and Queen of England held a grand court, which was attended by all the English at Paris; and the Parisians went to the castle of the Louvre to see the king and queen at table, crowned with their most precious diadems. But King Charles was now seated in his hôtel of St. Pol, at table with his queen, deserted by the grandees and others of his subjects, as if he had been quite forgotten. The govern ment and power of the kingdom were now transferred from his hands into those of his son-in-law, King Henry; and he had so little share that he was managed as the King of England pleased, and no attention was paid him, which caused much sorrow in the hearts of all loyal Frenchmen." But all King Henry's glories were drawing to an end. He was attacked by a painful disease, and expired at the castle of Vincennes on the last day of August, 1422, in the thirty-fourth year of his age. A magnificent funeral was all the state now left to the conqueror-and the vain pageantry of the car bearing the poor mortal remains of the great king, with a leathern image painted to represent life, with a rich crown of gold on the head, and a sceptre and golden ball in the hands laid above the coffin-the canopy of silk borne over it-the attendance of priests, knights, nobles, and weeping relatives, as they escorted the mournful procession, until the coffin was laid to rest in the Abbey-church of Westminster, served but to remind all who beheld it, that he who had conquered at Agincourt, and had made the crown of France his own, was passed away, and had left his inheritance and his conquests to the weak hands of an infant of sixteen months old. Kings and conquerors are but mortal, like their subjects or their slaves : The glories of our birth and state Death lays his icy hand on kings: All heads must come To the cold tomb; Only the actions of the just Smell sweet and blossom in the dust. |