Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/571

A.D. 1421.] France under his banners; the condition being his return to Scotland three months after the termination of the campaign. Henry deemed that by this measure he should not only put Scot against Scot, but should, by having the Scottish king with him, deter any of his subjects from taking arms on the other side, and thus actually fighting against their own monarch. In this hope he was disappointed; but as the Scots had entered the French service without any declaration of war made by Scotland against England, the presence of the Scottish king on his side furnished him with the plea of treating every Scot who did battle on the other side as a traitor; and he sullied his fair fame when he came into the field by hanging every such Scot as foil into his hands.

Besides having the person of James I. in his army, Henry also prevailed on Archibald, Earl Douglas, to engage in his service with 200 men-at-arms and 200 foot-soldiers. Earl Douglas had been for some years a prisoner in England in the reign of Henry IV., and he had his causes of discontent with Albany, the regent, who had sent out his son, the Earl of Buchan, and the Scots army to aid the dauphin. The estates of the expatriated Earl of Marche, who figured so conspicuously in England in the last reign, had been granted to Douglas; but Albany, without consulting Parliament, had recalled Marche, and restored to him all his forfeited estates. Douglas, therefore, readily took arms against the army of Albany in France. He agreed to serve Henry on the usual terms of pay for his men, and an annuity of £200. Besides this, the fact of their young monarch going out with Henry speedily brought to his standard, at Dover, Alexander, Lord Forbes, Alexander de Seton, Lord of Gordon, Sir William Blair, and other Scottish knights and gentlemen.

Henry saw there collected under his banner a gallant army of 4,000 men-at-arms and 24,000 archers. With these he landed at Calais by the 12th of June, sent on 1,200 men-at-arms by forced marches to Paris, to strengthen the garrison of the Duke of Exeter, and followed himself at more leisure. At Montreuil he met the Duke of Burgundy, and arranged the plans of action. Burgundy, in consequence, marched into Picardy, attacked and defeated the dauphinites at Mons-en-Vimou, and took Saintraille and others of their bravest leaders prisoners. This revived the spirit of the royalists, and they speedily reduced various other places in the north-west.

Henry left the army under command of the Earl of Dorset, and hastening to Paris, paid a hasty visit to his father-in-law at the Bois de Vincennes. He then joined the army and advanced against Chartres, which was besieged by the dauphin. The siege of Chartres was raised at Henry's approach, Beaugency was next taken, and the dauphin retreated, beyond the Loire. Meantime, the King of Scots, to whom Henry had assigned the siege of Dreux, prosecuted his mission with equal zeal and talent, and brought that strong place to capitulate on the 30th of August.

The whole of France, from the north to Paris, and from Paris to the Loire, was almost entirely in the hands of the English and their allies the Burgundians. The dauphin, unable to stand a moment before the superior genius and troops of Henry, fell back successively from post to post, till he took refuge in the well fortified city of Bourges. The troops of Henry had suffered considerably by their rapid marches and from scarcity of provisions. Henry, therefore, quitted the pursuit of the dauphin for a space; the country, from its past calamities, still lying a desert, and the miserable people perishing of hunger. He sought out sufficiently good quarters for his army, and left them to refresh themselves while he paid a short visit to Paris. He was very soon, however, in the field again, and by the 6th of October had sat down before the city of Meaux on the Mame. He was induced to undertake this siege from the earnest solicitations of the people of Paris. They represented that it was the stronghold of one of the most ferocious monsters who in those fearful times spread horror through afflicted France. This was an old companion of the late Count of Armagnac, called the Bastard of Vaurus, who had become so infuriated by the murder of his master, that the whole of mankind hardly seemed sufficient to appease, by death and suffering, his revenge. Meaux was his place of retreat. It was reputed to be one of the very strongest towns of France, about twenty-five miles distant only from Paris. One part of the town in particular, called the Marketplace, was deemed impregnable. Sallying forth, ever and anon, from this fortress, the Bastard of Varurus swept the whole country, and up to the very gates of Paris. He plundered and murdered the poor people of both town and country; and such of the farmers and tradesmen as were worth a ransom, he tied to the tails of his horses and dragged them after him to Meaux. Here he kept them till they wore ransomed by their friends, occasionally applying torture to quicken the motions of their families on their behalf. Against the English and the Burgundians his rage and cruelty knew no bounds. He often massacred them on the spot with the most incredible barbarities; but his favourite pastime was to hang them, and all such unlucky wretches as were not redeemed with a good sum, on a great tree outside Meaux, thence called the Oak of Varurs. This man and his companions became the terror of Paris.

It cost Henry ten weeks to carry the town; and then the monster of Vaurus retired with his garrison to the Market-place, which defied all the efforts of the English and their allies. The siege was carried on with sanguinary fury; no quarter was given on either side. On the 10th of May, 1422, the Market-place was compelled to surrender from absolute famine; though the dauphin had dispatched the Sieur d'Affemont to endeavour to throw supplies into this fortress. Affemont was taken prisoner, and the place fell. The Bastard of Vaurus was beheaded, his body hung up on his own oak, and his banner, surmounted with his head, was attached to its highest bough. Three of his chief companions, who had vied with him in their violence and ferocity, were executed with him; and a number of persons suspected of being accessory to the death of the Duke of Burgundy, were marched to Paris to take their trials.

Henry had spent seven months in these operations. They had cost him a great number of his brave soldiers, and some of his most tried officers—amongst them the Earl of Worcester and Lord Clifford, who fell before the walls of Meaux. Sickness swept away many others;