Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/578

564 Charles VI., instead of seating Henry of Windsor on the throne of France, gave a shook to the English power there from which it never recovered.

The dauphin, when the news of his father's death reached him, was in Auvergne; and his knights at once conducted him to a little chapel near, erected the banner of France, and proclaimed him king. They then marched to Poictiers, where, Rheims being in the hands of his enemies, he was solemnly crowned and proclaimed as Charles VII.

Even in Paris there was some attempt at rising in his favour, as in England there had been a rising on the borders of Wales in favour of the old line; but, in both instances, the power of Henry's authorities crushed the movement, and all for the time remained quiet.

The Seal of Henry VI.

In Paris there appeared for some time after the king's death to prevail a sort of interregnum. Henry VI. was not proclaimed as King of France, and the Parliament of Paris ignored his name in its acts; but, on receiving his full authority from England, and hearing what the dauphin was doing, the Duke of Bedford ordered Henry to be proclaimed. He moreover summoned a great assembly, consisting of the Parliament, the archbishop and his clergy, the university, the chief military officers, the magistrates and principal burgesses of the city, who all swore allegiance to Henry VI., King of England and King of France. The same ceremony took place throughout all the provinces of France which were subject to the English and Burgundians. Thus France had two monarchs, and it remained to be decided by the sword which of them should prevail. On the side of Henry of England was military and territorial power; on that of Charles VII., the less conspicuous, but far more potent, force of nature and of patriotism.

The Duke of Bedford exerted himself to strengthen the English alliance to the utmost. To bind to him more securely the powerful Duke of Burgundy, he concluded the marriage with the Princess Anne, the youngest sister of the duke, which had been contracted at the treaty of Arras. On the 17th of April, 1423, he met at Amiens, Burgundy, the Duke of Brittany, and his brother Arthur, the Earl of Richemont. Bedford knew that, next to Burgundy, the Duke of Brittany was the most desirable ally of the English. The provinces of France now in possession of England lay between the territories of those two princes, and must always be exposed to their attacks, when not in friendship with them. The Duke of Brittany had already acceded to the treaty of Troyes in resentment towards the Government of Charles VI., and had done homage to Henry V., as the acknowledged heir to the throne. But Bedford sought to bind him by fresh ties. His brother, the Earl of Richemont, was a bold and ambitious man, and Bedford planned to gratify his ambition. The Earl of Richemont had been one of the prisoners taken at Azincourt. While in England, Henry V. had shown him much kindness, and had permitted him to visit Brittany on his parole, where affairs of state made his presence highly desirable. He was in Brittany when Henry's death took place, and declared that as his parole was only given to Henry, it was now void, and, therefore, he declined to return to England. The plea was wholly untenable according to the laws of honour, but Bedford, so far from seeking to enforce the obligation, sought to lay him under one of a more pleasing kind. He proposed a marriage between Richemont and another of the sisters of the Duke of Burgundy, the widow of the dauphin Lewis, the elder brother of Charles. By this marriage Richemont became not only allied to Burgundy, but to Bedford, and the Duke of Brittany more deeply interested in the career of these princes. At this meeting they all swore to love each other as brothers, to support each other against the attacks of their enemies, whoever they might be; but, above all, to protect the oppressed people of France, and to banish as soon as possible the scourge of war from its so long afflicted soil.

The new King of France, meanwhile, was not idle. He sought to strengthen himself in the only quarter from which he had hitherto received essential aid—namely, amongst the Scots. The Duke of Albany, the Regent of