The History of England, Volume II Henry VI Affairs of the English
by David Hume
[1432.] The affairs of the English, far from being advanced by this execution, went every day more and more to decay: The great abilities of the regent were unable to resist the strong inclination, which had seized the French to return under the obedience of their rightful sovereign, and which that act of cruelty was ill fitted to remove. Chartres was surprized, by a stratagem of the count of Dunois: A body of the English, under lord Willoughby, was defeated at St. Celerin upon the Sarte:h The fair in the suburbs of Cäen, seated in the midst of the English territories, was pillaged by de Lore, a French officer: The duke of Bedford himself was obliged by Dunois to raise the siege of Lagni with some loss of reputation: And all these misfortunes, though light, yet being continued and uninterrupted, brought discredit on the English, and menaced them with an approaching revolution. But the chief detriment, which the regent sustained, was by the death of his dutchess, who had hitherto preserved some appearance of friendship between him and her brother, the duke of Burgundy:i And his marriage soon afterwards, with Jaqueline of Luxembourg, was the beginning of a breach between them.k Philip complained, that the regent had never had the civility to inform him of his intentions, and that so sudden a marriage was a slight on his sister’s memory. The cardinal of Winchester mediated a reconciliation between these princes, and brought both of them to St. Omers for that purpose. The duke of Bedford here expected the first visit, both as he was son, brother, and uncle to a king, and because he had already made such advances as to come into the duke of Burgundy’s territories, in order to have an interview with him: But Philip, proud of his great power and independant dominions, refused to pay this compliment to the regent: And the two princes, unable to adjust the ceremonial, parted without seeing each other:l A bad prognostic of their cordial intentions to renew past amity!
[Defection of the duke of Burgundy.] Nothing could be more repugnant to the interest of the house of Burgundy, than to unite the crowns of France and England on the same head; an event, which had it taken place, would have reduced the duke to the rank of a petty prince, and have rendered his situation entirely dependant and precarious. The title also to the crown of France, which, after the failure of the elder branches, might accrue to the duke or his posterity, had been sacrificed by the treaty of Troye; and strangers and enemies were thereby irrevocably fixed upon the throne. Revenge alone had carried Philip into these impolitic measures; and a point of honour had hitherto induced him to maintain them. But as it is the nature of passion gradually to decay, while the sense of interest maintains a permanent influence and authority; the duke had, for some years, appeared sensibly to relent in his animosity against Charles, and to hearken willingly to the apologies made by that prince for the murder of the late duke of Burgundy. His extreme youth was pleaded in his favour; his incapacity to judge for himself; the ascendant gained over him by his ministers; and his inability to resent a deed, which, without his knowledge, had been perpetrated by those under whose guidance he was then placed. The more to flatter the pride of Philip, the king of France had banished from his court and presence Tanegui de Chatel, and all those who were concerned in that assassination: and had offered to make every other atonement, which could be required of him. The distress, which Charles had already suffered, had tended to gratify the duke’s revenge; the miseries, to which France had been so long exposed, had begun to move his compassion; and the cries of all Europe admonished him, that his resentment, which might hitherto be deemed pious, would, if carried farther, be universally condemned as barbarous and unrelenting. While the duke was in this disposition, every disgust, which he received from England, made a double impression upon him; the entreaties of the count of Richemont and the duke of Bourbon, who had married his two sisters, had weight; and he finally determined to unite himself to the royal family of France, from which his own was descended. [1433.]For this purpose, a congress was appointed at Arras under the mediation of deputies from the pope and the council of Basle: The duke of Burgundy came thither in person: The duke of Bourbon, the count of Richemont, and other persons of high rank, appeared as ambassadors from France: And the English having also been invited to attend, the cardinal of Winchester, the bishops of Norwich and St. David’s, the earls of Huntingdon and Suffolk, with others, received from the protector and council a commission for that purpose.m
[August.]The conferences were held in the abbey of St. Vaast; and began with discussing the proposals of the two crowns, which were so wide of each other as to admit of no hopes of accommodation. France offered to cede Normandy with Guienne, but both of them loaded with the usual homage and vassalage to the crown. As the claims of England upon France were universally unpopular in Europe, the mediators declared the offers of Charles very reasonable; and the cardinal of Winchester, with the other English ambassadors, without giving a particular detail of their demands, immediately left the congress. [1435.] There remained nothing but to discuss the mutual pretensions of Charles and Philip. These were easily adjusted: The vassal was in a situation to give law to his superior; and he exacted conditions, which, had it not been for the present necessity, would have been deemed, to the last degree, dishonourable and disadvantageous to the crown of France. Besides making repeated atonements and acknowledgments for the murder of the duke of Burgundy, Charles was obliged to cede all the towns of Picardy which lay between the Somme and the Low Countries; he yielded several other territories; he agreed, that these and all the other dominions of Philip should be held by him, during his life, without doing any homage or swearing fealty to the present king; and he freed his subjects from all obligations to allegiance, if ever he infringed this treaty.n Such were the conditions, upon which France purchased the friendship of the duke of Burgundy.
The duke sent a herald to England with a letter, in which he notified the conclusion of the treaty of Arras, and apologized for his departure from that of Troye. The council received the herald with great coldness: They even assigned him his lodgings in a shoemaker’s house, by way of insult; and the populace were so incensed, that, if the duke of Glocester had not given him guards, his life had been exposed to danger, when he appeared in the streets. The Flemings, and other subjects of Philip, were insulted, and some of them murdered by the Londoners; and every thing seemed to tend towards a rupture between the two nations.o These violences were not disagreeable to the duke of Burgundy; as they afforded him a pretence for the farther measures which he intended to take against the English, whom he now regarded as implacable and dangerous enemies.
[14th Sept. Death of the duke of Bedford.] A few days after the duke of Bedford received intelligence of this treaty, so fatal to the interests of England, he died at Roüen; a prince of great abilities, and of many virtues; and whose memory, except from the barbarous execution of the maid of Orleans, was unsullied by any considerable blemish. Isabella, queen of France, died a little before him, despised by the English, detested by the French, and reduced in her later years to regard, with an unnatural horror, the progress and success of her own son, in recovering possession of his kingdom. This period was also signalized by the death of the earl of Arundel,p a great English general, who, though he commanded three thousand men, was foiled by Xaintrailles at the head of six hundred, and soon after expired of the wounds which he received in the action.
[h] Monstrelet, vol. ii. p. 100.
[i] Ibid. p. 87.
[k] Stowe, p. 323. Grafton, p. 554.
[l] Monstrelet, vol. ii. p. 90. Grafton, p. 561.
[m] Rymer, vol. x. p. 611, 612.
[n] Monstrelet, vol. ii. p. 112. Grafton, p. 565.
[o] Monstrelet, vol. ii. p. 120. Hollingshed, p. 612.
[p] Monstrelet, vol. ii. p. 105. Hollingshed, p. 610.
