“Our very excellent lord, we have heard that it has pleased Our Lord to take to Himself and to withdraw from the world the good Duke Philip, our beloved lord and father, prince of glorious memory, august duke, most Christian champion of the faith, patron and pattern of the virtues and honours of Christianity, and the dread of infidel lands.  By his valorous deeds, he has won an immortal name among living men, and deserves to our mind to find grace before the merciful bounty of God whom we implore to pardon his faults.

“Alas! our most doughty seigneur, thus dolorous death shows what is to be expected by all mortals.  How many lands, how many nobles, how many peoples, how many treasures, and how many powers would have been ready to prevent what has come to pass, and how many prayers would have risen to God could He have prevented this death!...

“Death is inevitable, and the death of the good is the end of all evils and the beginning of all benefits, but still your loss and ours cannot pass without affliction.  Nevertheless, our most puissant lord, when we consider that we are not left orphans, and that you, his only son, remain to fill his place, this is a cause for comfort.

* * * * *

“We implore you to be pleased to count us your loyal subjects
and very humble servitors and to permit us to go to you, to thus
declare ourselves, etc.

“A.  DE CROY, “J.  DE CROY.”

At the time of the duke’s death, Olivier de La Marche was in England, whither he had accompanied the Bastard of Burgundy on a mission to King Edward.[2] Right royally had the latter received the embassy.

“Clad in purple, the garter on his leg and a great baton in his hand, he seemed, indeed, a personage worthy of being king, for he was a fine prince with a grand manner.  A count held the sword in front of him, and around his throne were from twenty to twenty-five old councillors, white-haired and looking like senators gathered together to advise their master.”

Thus appeared Edward on the occasion of a tourney given in honour of the embassy which La Marche proceeds to describe in detail.  The Bastard of Burgundy, wearing the Burgundian coat-of-arms with a bar sinister, made a fine record for himself.

After the tournament he invited the ladies to a Sunday dinner,

“especially the Queen and her sisters and made great preparations therefor and then we departed, Thomas de Loreille, Bailiff of Caux, and I to go to Brittany to accomplish our embassy.  We arrived at Pleume and were obliged to await wind and boats to go into Brittany.  While there, came the news that the Duke of Burgundy was dead.  You may believe how great was the bastard’s mourning when he heard of his father’s death, and how the nobility who were with him mourned too.  Their pleasures were melted into tears and lamentations for he died like a prince in all valour.