[Footnote 22:  A group of smaller seigniories was also involved, Quercy, Perigord, La Rochelle, etc. See letter-patent, (Comines-Lenglet, “Preuves,” iii., 97.)]

[Footnote 23:  Duclos, “Preuves” v., 302.]

[Footnote 24:  Comines-Lenglet, “Preuves,” iii., 68; Lavisse, iv^{ii}, 364.]

[Footnote 25:  See Lavisse iv^{ii}, 364.  He states that the king named all the deputies that the towns were to appoint.]

[Footnote 26:  Duclos, “Preuves,” v., 307.]

[Footnote 27:  Commines, iii., ch. v.]

[Footnote 28:  Commines, iii., ch. vi.]

[Footnote 29:  See instructions given to him for this mission, Wavrin-Dupont, iii., 271.]

[Footnote 30:  Commines, iii., ch. vii.]

[Footnote 31:  As soon as Edward and his English exiles sailed, Charles published a proclamation forbidding his subjects to aid him.]

[Footnote 32:  Letters, iii., 4.]

[Footnote 33:  See Gachard, Etudes et Notices historiques concernant l’histoire des Pays-Bas, ii., 343, en approuvant et emologant toutes les choses deseurdittes et chascune d’icelles et a fin que plus grant foy soit adjoustee a tout ce que cy desus est escript, avant signe ce present instrument de nostre propre main et le fait sceller de nostre seau en signe de verite, l’an et jour desusdit. [This in French, the body in Latin.]

“CHARLES.”]

CHAPTER XV

NEGOTIATIONS AND TREACHERY

1471

All work had ceased at Paris for three days by the king’s command, while praise was chanted to God, to the Virgin, and to all saints male and female, for the victory won by Henry of Lancaster, in 1470, over the base usurper Edward de la Marche.  From Amboise, Louis made a special pilgrimage to Notre Dame de Celles at Poitiers to breathe in pious solitude his own prayers of thanksgiving for the happy event.  The battle of Tewkesbury stemmed the course of this abundant stream of gratitude, and there were other thanksgivings.[1]

In the spring of 1471, Edward IV. was dating complacent letters from Canterbury to his good friends at Bruges,[2] acknowledging their valuable assistance to his brother Charles,[3] recognising his part in restoring Britain’s rightful sovereign to his throne.  To his sister, the Duchess of Burgundy, the returned exile gave substantial proof of his gratitude in the shape of privileges in wool manufacture and trade.[4]

Like one of the alternating figures in a Swiss weather vane the King of England had swung out into the open, pointing triumphantly to fair weather over his head, while Louis was forced back into solitary impotence.  He seemed singularly isolated.  His English friends were gone, his nobles were again forming a hostile camp around Charles of France, now Duke of Guienne, who had forgotten his late protestations of fraternal devotion, and there were many indications that the Anglo-Burgundian alliance might prove as serious a peril to France as it had in times gone by but not wholly forgotten.