Henry VI.

WARS

In 1423 the Earl of Salisbury and the Burgundians defeated the French and Scots with great loss at Crevant on the Yonne. In 1424 the Dauphin's troops attempted to penetrate Normandy, and were defeated with great loss by the Duke of Bedford at Verneuil, the Scottish auxiliaries suffering especially, and the Earls of Douglas and Buchan being killed. In 1428 the siege of Orleans was begun; in 1429 Sir John Fastolfe defeated the French, who attacked his convoy of provisions for the besiegers at Rouvray, called also the Battle of the Herrings. In 1429 the siege of Orleans was raised, the Earl of Suffolk was defeated at Jargeau and Sir John Talbot at Patay. The war hence forward was not marked by battles on a large scale, and the French regular soldiers, aided by an improved artillery and by the sympathy of the inhabitants recovered towns and castles rapidly. The Duke of York did all that was possible for the defence of Normandy in 1436 - 1437 and in 1442 - 44, but in that year he was superseded by the Duke of Somerset, a truce was concluded, and the defences of Normandy were neglected. In 1449 war was resumed, and Rouen and most of Normandy was conquered. In 1450 Sir Thomas Kyriel was defeated at Fourmigny in Normandy, and Cherbourg was taken. In 1451 Bordeaux and Bayonne surrendered, the latter after a long defence. In 1453 Talbot was defeated and killed at Castillon; and Bordeaux, which had again declared for England, was finally surrendered.

If Henry V had lived two months longer he would have been proclaimed King of France, for the insane Charles VI whom, under the terms of the Treaty of Troyes, he was to succeed, died in October 1422. As it was, his son, already Henry VI of England, was proclaimed instead. And he was only ten months old, the youngest sovereign who had ever toddled to the English throne. His Uncle John, Duke of Bedford, was made Regent of France and his Uncle Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, became acting Protector of England under a Regency Council. Duke John was a thoroughly sound man. From his headquarters in Paris he exerted himself to secure and extend Henry V's conquests. His chief concern was to maintain The alliance with Philip, Duke of Burgundy, whose support was as necessary to him now as it had been to the great Henry. The rightful French heir to the Crown, Charles VI's son, was duly acclaimed by his party as Charles VII. His power lay chiefly south of the River Loire and there seemed little likelihood of its ever being extended; for Charles was a poor, weak, misshapen youth with little spirit and no qualities of leadership.

Joan Of Arc
The war fizzed and spluttered on with occasional bursts of flame, like a damp bonfire. Then, in 1429, it suddenly flared sky high at the siege of Orleans. Joan of Arc, with her heavenly voices and visions, appeared on the scene to save the city and France and to bring Charles to his crowning at Reims. The siege was raised, more astonishing successes followed and Charles was triumphantly crowned. Then came the Maid's capture - as sensational a prize as Hitler would have been in the Second World War - and her death at the stake in 1431. By her own fervent faith she had stemmed the tide of English conquest and rallied France to rise up and save itself. The English continued to battle on stubbornly, but four years later the staunch Duke of Bedford died and Philip of Burgundy went over to Charles. After that they were fighting Henry V's northern conquests were reduced to Normandy and Maine. In 1444 Maine was practically given away as the price of a truce concluded at Tours. And in 1450 Normandy itself was lost. Then, three years afterwards, the last remnant of Guienne (Gascony) in the south, which the English had held for three hundred years, was torn from their grasp. Only Calais - Edward III's prize - remained. The Hundred Years War was over, leaving England with empty hands.

Empty and bloodstained hands they were. For a generation now England's leaders and England's fighting men had plunged recklessly into the carnage of war and learned the lawless life of the camp. The time was at hand when the horrors of civil strife, of which they had so blithely taken advantage in France, were to be let loose on their own homeland in the snarling dog-fight of the Wars of the Roses. The spirit of violence that infected the country was part of the legacy of Henry V's misguided lust for foreign conquest. But, to learn how the catastrophe came about, the course of events in England from the time of his death must now be followed.

Surrender of Maine
For twenty years and more there is little worthy of record. The Lords of the Regency Council quarrelled like pigs round a food trough for power and profit and for a controlling influence over the growing King. One ever-recurring subject of their bickering was the question of seeking peace with France. The Council became sharply divided into a war party and a peace party. The truce of Tours was negotiated by the Earl of Suffolk, a prominent member of the peace party. In the hope that it would lead to the end of the war Henry, then twenty-two years old, was betrothed to Margaret of Anjou, a niece of the French Queen. But to secure this desirable though uncertain breathing space Suffolk, in secret, basely allowed himself to be persuaded by Charles into agreeing to the surrender of Maine.

The agreed surrender of Maine (which was trickily delayed for four years) was kept a guilty secret in England; but, when at length the cat was out of the bag, a howl of indignation went up. At this time the leader of the war party was Richard, Duke of York, Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, the former leader being dead. Richard's influence on affairs, and the people's respect for him, were strengthened by the fact that he had two possible claims to the throne. On his father's side he was descended from Edmund of York, Edward III's fifth son, and was Henry's heir, in the male line, if the latter died childless. On his mother's side he was descended from Lionel of Clarence, Edward's third son, and inherited the rights of Edmund of March (now dead) which Henry IV had usurped. The peace party was led by the King's ministers, Suffolk and the Earl of Somerset. They were hand in glove with the Queen and the three of them had the innocent Henry completely under their thumbs. Naturally, therefore, the King would not listen to any complaints against his trusted ministers. When, however, the fighting was resumed and Normandy lost, Henry could no longer shut his ears to the general outcry. He banished Suffolk overseas for safety; whereupon he was seized and beheaded in the Channel by some angry patriots. But he still could not bring himself to dismiss Somerset and the other friends of Suffolk. In 1450 the national discontent over the mismanagement of the war and the abuses of government reached flash point in " Jack Cade's Rebellion." The outbreak was one of many signs that the temperature of the country was dangerously feverish. The germs of civil war, indeed, were heating its blood; for the angry brawlings of the lords had spread from the Council to parliament and to the country at large