he could get across that stream. Consequently,
when, on his way, he reached Azincourt, he found the
whole chivalry of France arrayed against him in his
path. The great battle of Azincourt followed,
with frightful ruin and carnage of the French.
With a huge crowd of prisoners the young King passed
on to Calais, and thence to England. The Armagnacs’
party lay buried in the hasty graves of Azincourt;
never had there been such slaughter of nobles.
Still, for three years they made head against their
foes; till in 1418 the Duke of Burgundy’s friends
opened Paris’s gates to his soldiers, and for
the time the Armagnacs seemed to be completely defeated;
only the Dauphin Charles made feeble war from Poitiers.
Henry V. with a fresh army had already made another
descent on the Normandy coast; the Dukes of Anjou,
Brittany, and Burgundy made several and independent
treaties with him; and it seemed as though France
had completely fallen in pieces. Henry took Rouen,
and although the common peril had somewhat silenced
the strife of faction, no steps were taken to meet
him or check his course; on the contrary, matters
were made even more hopeless by the murder of John,
Duke of Burgundy, in 1419, even as he was kneeling
and offering reconciliation at the young Dauphin’s
feet. The young Duke, Philip, now drew at once
towards Henry, whom his father had apparently wished
with sincerity to check; Paris, too, was weary of
the Armagnac struggle, and desired to welcome Henry
of England; the Queen of France also went over to
the Anglo-Burgundian side. The end of it was
that on May 21,1420, was signed the famous Treaty
of Troyes, which secured the Crown of France to Henry,
by the exclusion of the Dauphin Charles, whenever poor
mad Charles VI., should cease to live. Meanwhile,
Henry was made Regent of France, promising to maintain
all rights and privileges of the Parliament and nobles,
and to crush the Dauphin with his Armagnac friends,
in token whereof he was at once wedded to Catharine
of France, and set forth to quell the opposition of
the provinces. By Christmas all France north
of the Loire was in English hands. All the lands
to the south of the river remained firmly fixed in
their allegiance to the Dauphin and the Armagnacs,
and these began to feel themselves to be the true French
party, as opposed to the foreign rule of the English.
For barely two years that rule was carried on by
Henry V. with inflexible justice, and Northern France
saw with amazement the presence of a real king, and
an orderly government. In 1422 King Henry died;
a few weeks later Charles VI. died also, and the face
of affairs began to change, although, at the first,
Charles VII. the “Well-served,” the lazy,
listless prince, seemed to have little heart for the
perils and efforts of his position. He was proclaimed
King at Mehun, in Berri, for the true France for the
time lay on that side of the Loire, and the Regent
Bedford, who took the reins at Paris, was a vigorous
and powerful prince, who was not likely to give way