Page:Historyoffranc00yong.djvu/93

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

v.] THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 6g 22. Murder of John the Fearless and Treaty of Troyes, 1419. — The fall of Rouen startled the Duke of Burgundy into seeking a reconciliation with the Armagnacs. But Du:hatel kept the dauphin apart from his family, fearing to lose influence, and on the loth of September, 1419, at an interview between the duke and the dauphin on the bridge of Motitereaii over the Yonne, while John was bending the knee, he was treacherously slain. There is little doubt that it was with the consent of the dauphin, who was only fifteen, and in a strange, sluggish, helpless mood, entirely led by Duchatel. The immediate effect of the murder was to throw the whole north of France into the hands of the English. The new Duke of Burgundy, Philip, called the Good, aged twenty-three, at once went over to Henry with all the forces of Flanders. The cry of Paris was, " A hundred times rather the English than the Armagnacs, so that the saying arose, " the wounds of John the Fearless were the hole that let in the English." Queen Isabel, in the name of her defenceless husband, denounced her son as a traitor and murderer, and in the May of 1420 caused the king to sign a treaty at Troyes. By this it was agreed that Charles should keep the crown of France for life, that Henry should govern the kingdom, marry his daughter Katharine, and succeed him as heir apparent. From that time England and France were to be separate kingdoms under one king. Henry now gave up his title of King of France, and took that of Heir and Regent of France. The dauphin and his Armagnac friends were declared traitors and outlaws with whom no peace could be made. 23. Deaths of Henry V, and Charles VI., 1422. — The Armagnacs were thus turned into the patriotic party, and, profiting by the old dislike betv/een north and south, they retired into Auvergne. and became a rallying point. To their aid came various troops of Scottish adventurers, who hated the English for having kept their king a prisoner from his childhood. While Henry V. was absent in England, his brother, the Duke of Clarence, on a plundering expedition in Anjou, was cut off at Bangi by a band of the Scots and French in 1421. This brought Henry back to France, where he ruled with sternness indeed, but with rigour and justice unlcnown since the days of St. Lewis. Meaux was in the hands of a horrible freebooter, who robbed and murdered all travellers to Paris Henry spent the winter in besieging