1436, and advanced at once towards the beleaguered town, which had then been invested for about six weeks. The approach of relief encouraged the garrison to make a responsive effort. The Duke of Burgundy had prepared a number of hulks laden with stones, with which it was his intention to block the mouth of the harbour, and so prevent approach to it from seaward; but before the vessels could be placed in position for scuttling they were attacked and burnt by seamen from the town. This disaster, and the rapid approach of Gloucester, obliged the enemy to abandon the investment and to retire.[1]
Yet, in spite of this local success, the English in France rather lost than gained ground during the next two or three years. John Talbot, who, in 1442, was created Earl of Shrewsbury,[2] was the last remaining effective champion of the English cause on the continent; and in 1439, with the co-operation of a fleet under the Duke of Somerset,[3] he reduced Harfleur after a four months' blockade. In 1442, again he landed with a small expeditionary force in Normandy, and gained some advantages. But his ability and bravery were almost neutralised by the incapacity, or worse, of the Duke of Somerset, who, sent in 1443, with about five thousand men, to assist in the blockade of Dieppe, which appeared to be near the point of surrender, if vigorously invested, postponed his arrival until the English had been obliged to raise the siege.
The weakness of England led, in 1444, to the conclusion of a disadvantageous truce; and in the following year Henry VI. married a French princess, Margaret of Anjou, daughter of René, Count of Guise, and niece of the King of France. The alliance was a very injurious one to England, the queen becoming a violent political partisan, and identifying herself with the cause of the unpopular and corrupt Dukes of Somerset and Suffolk, to the prejudice of the Yorkists. Her intrigues seem to have encouraged an Irish rising, which the Duke of York, with a small force, suppressed in 1449. They also necessitated the dispatch to Normandy in 1450 of reinforcements under Sir Thomas Kyriel. And they brought about the far more serious domestic troubles known as the Wars of the Roses, during which the power of England was almost paralysed. Indeed, even before these wars formally broke out, the jealousy of
