Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/566

552 France, familiar as it was with crimes and tragedies, was intense. One burst of execration was heard throughout the country against the dauphin. That a young man of seventeen could stand calmly and see so vile a murder perpetrated—a murder which, it was plain, had been planned in his own councils—promised but a gloomy future to France. The people vowed to renounce all allegiance to him, or regard for his power. The Parisians in particular swore vengeance on him and his accomplices. They demanded a truce of the English, sent in all haste for the Count of Charolais, the son of their murdered leader, and demanded immediate alliance with the English, as the most certain means of exterminating the diabolical faction of the dauphin.

Armour of the Fifteenth Century. (Interior View of the Great Hall, Brougham Hall, Westmoreland.)

This storm of indignant contempt aroused the dauphin to vindicate his concern in the affair. He issued a proclamation, declaring that the Duke of Burgundy had made an attempt upon his (the dauphin's) life, and had been slain by his attendants in defence of their prince. Bat this was so notoriously false that it only deepened the scorn of the public against him; and his more honest followers went about boasting of the deed as a grand stratagem and a truly glorious exploit.

Meantime, Philip, the new Duke of Burgundy, afterwards so well known by the title of Philip the Good, received the news of his father's assassination at Ghent, and immediately set out to take vengeance for it. He was married to a sister of the dauphin, and exclaimed bluntly, on learning the bloody fact, "Michelle, your brother has murdered my father!" The duke had been very popular with his Flemish subjects, and with one voice they vowed to support his heir in punishing to the utmost the assassins. At Arras the new duke was met by deputations from Isabella, from the city of Paris, and from his own Burgundian subjects, all offering alliance and support in his righteous work of retribution.

The duke at once made overtures to Henry of England, as the certain means of crushing the dauphin and his furious partisans. Henry proposed, as the price of his co-operation, the hand of the Princess Catherine, that he should be announced as regent of the kingdom, and as the successor to Charles, setting wholly aside the dauphin. These terms were at once accepted, placing Henry at the height of his ambition, for nothing was too dear for the vengeance required. Within two weeks these preliminaries were signed, but the minor points occupied five months, and, in fact, were the business of the whole winter. These were, that Henry should settle on Catherine 20,000 nobles, the usual income of an English queen; that during his regency he should govern with the advice of a council of Frenchmen; lay aside the title of King of Franco during the present king's life; should re-annex Normandy to the crown of France on ascending the throne, and conquer the territories held by the dauphin for the benefit of the king, his father. He was bound to preserve the Parliaments and nobles, the charters of all cities, and the liberties and privileges of all classes of subjects, as they then existed; and to administer justice according to the laws and customs of the realm.

It was, moreover, stipulated between Henry and the Duke of Burgundy, that the Duke of Bedford, one of the king's brothers, should marry a sister of Burgundy; that together the king and the duke should pursue the dauphin and the other murderers; and that Henry should on no account allow the dauphin to go out of his hands, if ho took him, without the consent of the duke. Besides this, Henry was to settle on Burgundy and his