Part 19

From this depth of despair the party which, with all its faults, represented the national sentiment of France was rescued by the astonishing exploits of Joan of Arc. Charles and his counsellors had no great confidence in the mission of this prophetess and champion, when she presented herself to them, promising to relieve Orleans and turn back the English. But all expedients are worth trying in the hour of ruin, and seeing that Joan was disinterested and sincere, and that her preaching exercised a marked influence over the people and the soldiery, Charles allowed her to march with the last levies that he put into the field for the relief of Orleans. From that moment the fortune of war turned; the presence of the prophetess with the French troops had an immediate and incalculable effect. Under the belief that they were now led by a messenger from heaven, the Dauphinois fought with a fiery courage that they had never before displayed. Their movements were skilfully directed--whether by Joan's generalship or that of her captains it boots not to inquire--and after the first successes which she achieved, in entering Orleans and capturing some of the besiegers' forts around it, the English became panic-stricken. They were cowed, as they said, "by that disciple and limb of the fiend called La Pucelle, that used false enchantments and sorcery." Suffolk, their commander, raised the siege, and sent to Bedford for reinforcements; but as he retreated he was set upon by the victorious army, and captured with most of his men at Jargeau and Beaugency (June 1429). The succours which were coming to his aid from Paris were defeated by the Maid at Patay a few days later, and for the most part destroyed.

Coronation of Charles VII. at Reims.

The regent Bedford was now in a desperate position. His field army had been destroyed, and on all sides the provinces which had long lain inert beneath the English yoke were beginning to stir. When Joan led forth the French king to crown him at Reims, all the towns of Champagne opened their gates to her one after another. A large reinforcement received from England only just enabled Bedford to save Paris and some of the fortresses of the Ile de France. The rest revolted at the sight of the Maid's white banner. If Joan had been well supported by her master and his counsellors, it is probable that she might have completed her mission by expelling the English from France. But, despite all that she had done, Charles VII. and his favourites had a profound disbelief in her inspiration, and generally thwarted her plans. After an ill-concerted attack on Paris, in which Joan was wounded, the French army broke up for the winter. They had shaken the grip of the English on the north, and reconquered a vast stretch of territory, but they had failed by their own fault to achieve complete success. Nevertheless the crucial point of the war had passed; after 1429 the Burgundian party began to slacken in its support of the English cause, and to pass over piecemeal to the national side. This was but natural: the partisans who could remember nothing but the foul deed of Montereau were yearly growing fewer, and it was clear that Charles VII., personally despicable though he might be, represented the cause of French nationality.

Capture and execution of Joan.

The natural drift of circumstances was not stayed even by the disastrous end of the career of Joan of Arc in 1430. The king's ministers had refused to take her counsels or to entrust her with another army, but she went forth with a small force of volunteers to relieve the important fortress of Compiegne. The place was saved, but in a sortie she was captured by the Burgundians, who sold her for 10,000 francs to Bedford. The regent handed her over for punishment as a sorceress to the French clergy of his own party. After a long trial, carried out with elaborate formality and great unfairness, the unhappy Joan was found guilty of proclaiming as divine visions what were delusions of the evil one, or of her own vain imagination, and when she persisted in maintaining their reality she was declared a relapsed heretic, and burnt at Rouen on the 30th of May 1431. Charles VII. took little interest in her fate, which he might easily have prevented by threatening to retaliate on the numerous English prisoners who were in his power. Seldom had a good cause such an unworthy figurehead as that callous and apathetic prince.

Philip of Burgundy joins Charles. Treaty of Arras.

The movement which Joan had set on foot was in no way crushed by her execution. For the next four years the limits of the English occupation continued to recede. It was to no profit that Bedford brought over the young Henry VI. and had him crowned at Paris, in order to appeal to the loyalty of his French partisans by means of the king's forlorn youth and simplicity. Yet by endless feats of skilful generalship the regent continued to maintain a hold on Paris and on Normandy. The fatal blow was administered by Philip of Burgundy, who, tired of maintaining a failing cause, consented at last to forget his father's murder, and to be reconciled to Charles VII. Their alliance was celebrated by the treaty of Arras (Sept. 6, 1435), at which the English were offered peace and the retention of Normandy and Guienne if they would evacuate Paris and the rest of France. They would have been wise to accept the agreement; but with obstinate and misplaced courage they refused to acknowledge Charles as king of France, or to give up to him the capital.

Death of Bedford. English defeats.

Bedford, worn out by long campaigning, died at Rouen on the 14th of September 1435, just before the results of the treaty of Arras began to make themselves felt. With him died the best hope of the English party in France, for he had been well loved by the Burgundians, and many had adhered to the cause of Henry VI. solely because of their personal attachment to him. No worthy successor could be found--England had many hard-handed soldiers but no more statesmen of Bedford's calibre. It was no wonder that Paris was lost within six months of the regent's death, Normandy invaded, and Calais beleaguered by an army headed by England's new enemy, Philip of Burgundy. But the council, still backed by the nation, refused to give up the game; Burgundy was beaten off from Calais, and the young duke of York, the heir of the Mortimers, took the command at Rouen, and recovered much of what had been lost on the Norman side.

Truce with France.

The next eight years of the war were in some respects the most astonishing period of its interminable length. The English fought out the losing game with a wonderful obstinacy. Though every town that they held was eager to revolt, and though they were hopelessly outnumbered in every quarter, they kept a tight grip on the greater part of Normandy, and on their old domain in the Bordelais and about Bayonne. They lost nearly all their outlying possessions, but still made head against the generals of Charles VII. in these two regions. The leaders of this period of the war were the duke of York, and the aged Lord Talbot, afterwards earl of Shrewsbury. The struggle only ceased in 1444, when the English council, in which a peace party had at last been formed, concluded a two-year truce with King Charles, which they hoped to turn into a permanent treaty, on the condition that their king should retain what he held in Normandy and Guienne, but sign away his claim to the French crown, and relinquish the few places outside the two duchies which were still in his power--terms very similar to those rejected at Arras nine years before--but there was now much less to give up. To mark the reconciliation of the two powers Henry VI. was betrothed to the French king's niece, Margaret of Anjou. The two years' truce was repeatedly prorogued, and lasted till 1449, but no definitive treaty was ever concluded, owing to the bad faith with which both parties kept their promises.

Supremacy of the Beauforts in England.

Character of Henry VI.

The government in England was now in the hands of the faction which Bishop Beaufort had originally led, for after long struggles the churchman had at last crushed his nephew Humphrey. In 1441 the duchess of Gloucester had been arrested and charged with practising sorcery against the health of the young king--apparently not without justification. She was tried and condemned to imprisonment for life; her guilt was visited on her husband, on whose behalf she was acting, for if Henry had died his uncle would have come to the throne. For some years he was constrained to take a minor part in politics, only emerging occasionally to make violent and unwise protests against peace with France. The bishop now ruled, with his nephew Edmund Beaufort, duke of Somerset, and William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, as his chief instruments. As he grew older he let the power slip into their hands, as it was they who were mainly responsible for the truce of 1444. King Henry, though he had reached the age of 23 at the time of his marriage, counted for nothing. He was a pious young man, simple to the verge of imbecility; a little later he developed actual insanity, the heritage of his grandfather Charles VI. He showed a blind confidence in Suffolk and Somerset, who were wholly unworthy of it, for both were tricky and unscrupulous politicians. His wife Margaret of Anjou, though she possessed all the fire and energy which her husband lacked, was equally devoted to these two ministers, and soon came to share their unpopularity.

Death of Humphrey of Gloucester and Henry Beaufort.

The truce with France had offended the natural pride of the nation, which still refused to own itself beaten. The evacuation of the French fortresses in Maine and elsewhere, which was the price paid for the suspension of arms, was bitterly resented. Indeed the garrisons had to be threatened with the use of force before they would quit their strongholds. A violent clamour was raised against Suffolk and Somerset, and Humphrey of Gloucester emerged from his retirement to head the agitation. This led to his death; he was arrested by the order of the queen and the ministers at the parliament of Bury. Five days later he died suddenly in prison, probably by foul play, though it was given out that he had been carried off by a paralytic stroke. His estates were confiscated, and distributed among the friends of Suffolk and the queen. Six weeks later the aged Bishop Beaufort followed him to the grave--he had no share in Gloucester's fate, having long before made over his power and the leadership of his party to his nephew Edmund of Somerset (1447).

Renewal of the war with France.

Loss of Normandy.

The truce with France lasted for two years after the death of Duke Humphrey, and came to an end partly owing to the eagerness of the French to push their advantages, but much more from the treachery and bad faith of Suffolk and Somerset, who gave the enemy an admirable _casus belli_. By their weakness, or perhaps with their secret connivance, the English garrisons of Normandy carried out plundering raids of the most impudent sort on French territory. When summoned to punish the offenders, and to make monetary compensation, Suffolk and Somerset shuffled and prevaricated, but gave no satisfaction. Thereupon the French king once more declared war (July 1449) and invaded Normandy. Somerset was in command; he showed hopeless incapacity and timidity, and in a few months the duchy which had been so long held by the swords of Bedford, York and Shrewsbury was hopelessly lost. The final blow came when a small army of relief sent over from England was absolutely exterminated by the French at the battle of Formigny (April 15, 1450). Somerset, who had retired into Caen, surrendered two months later after a feeble defence, and the English power in northern France came to an end.

Jack Cade's Rebellion.

Even before this final disaster the indignation felt against Suffolk and Somerset had raised violent disturbances at home. Suffolk was impeached on many charges, true and false; it was unfair to accuse him of treason, but quite just to lay double-dealing and bad faith to his charge. The king tried to save him from the block by banishing him before he could be tried. But while he was sailing to Flanders his ship was intercepted by some London vessels, which were on the look-out for him, and he was deliberately murdered. The instigators of the act were never discovered. But, though Suffolk was gone, Somerset yet survived, and their partisans still engrossed the confidence of the king. To clear out the government, and punish those responsible for the late disasters, the commons of Kent rose in insurrection under a captain who called himself John Mortimer, though his real name seems to have been John Cade. He was a soldier of fortune who had served in the French wars, and claimed to be in the confidence of the duke of York, the person to whom the eyes of all who hated Somerset and the present regime were now directed.

Cade was not a social reformer, like his predecessor Wat Tyler, with whom he has often been compared, but a politician. Though he called himself "John Amend-all," and promised to put down abuses of every kind, the main part of the programme which he issued was intended to appeal to national sentiment, not to class feeling. Whether he was the tool of other and more highly placed malcontents, or whether he was simply a ready-witted adventurer playing his own game, it is hard to determine. His first success was marvellous; he defeated the king's troops, made a triumphant entry into London and held the city for two days. He seized and beheaded Lord Saye, the treasurer, and several other unpopular persons, and might have continued his dictatorship for some time if the Kentish mob that followed him had not fallen to general pillage and arson. This led to the same results that had been seen in Tyler's day. The propertied classes in London took arms to suppress anarchy, and beat the insurgents out of the city. Cade, striving to keep up the rising outside the walls, was killed in a skirmish a month later, and his bands dispersed.

Richard, duke of York, heads the opposition.

But the troubles of England were only just beginning; the protest against the misgovernment of Somerset and the rest of the confidants of the king and queen was now taken up by a more important personage than the adventurer Cade. Richard, duke of York, the heir to the claims of the house of Mortimer--his mother was the sister of the last earl of March--now placed himself at the head of the opposition. He had plausible grounds for doing so; though he had distinguished himself in the French wars, and was, since the death of Humphrey of Gloucester, the first prince of the blood royal, he had been ignored and flouted by the king's ministers, who had sent him into a kind of honourable banishment as lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and had forbidden him to re-enter the realm. When, in defiance of this mandate, he came home and announced his intention of impeaching Somerset, he took the first step which was to lead to the Wars of the Roses.

Battle of Castillon. Loss of Guienne.

Yet he was a cautious and in the main a well-intentioned prince, and the extreme moderation of his original demands seems to prove that he did not at first aim at the crown. He merely required that Somerset and his friends should be dismissed from office and made to answer for their misgovernment. Though he backed his demands by armed demonstration--twice calling out his friends and retainers to support his policy--he carefully refrained for five long years from actual violence. Indeed in 1452 he consented to abandon his protests, and to lend his aid to the other party for a great national object, the recovery of Guienne. For in the previous year Charles VII. had dealt with Bordeaux and Bayonne as he had already dealt with Normandy, and had met with no better resistance while completing the conquest. Six months' experience of French rule, however, had revealed to the Bordelais how much they had lost when they surrendered. Their old loyalty to the house of Plantagenet burst once more into flame; they rose in arms and called for aid to England. For a moment the quarrel of York and Somerset was suspended, and the last English army that crossed the seas during the Hundred Years' War landed in Guienne, joined the insurgents, and for a time swept all before it. But there seemed to be a curse on whatever Henry VI. and Somerset took in hand. On the 17th of July 1453 the veteran earl of Shrewsbury and the greater part of his Anglo-Gascon host were cut to pieces at the hard-fought battle of Castillon. Bordeaux, though left to defend itself, held out for eighty days after Talbot's defeat and death, and then made its final submission to the French. The long struggle was over, and England now retained nothing of her old transmarine possessions save Calais and the Channel Islands. The ambition of Henry V. had finally cost her the long-loyal Guienne, as well as all the ephemeral conquests of his own sword.

The last crowning disaster of the administration of the favourites of Henry VI. put an end to the chance that a way out of domestic strife might be found in the vigorous prosecution of the French war. For the next twenty years the battles of England were to be fought on her own soil, and between her own sons. It was a righteous punishment for her interference in the unnatural strife of Orleanists and Burgundians that the struggle between York and Lancaster was to be as bitter and as bloody as that between the two French factions.

V. THE WARS OF THE ROSES (1453-1497)

Origin of the Wars of the Roses.

The Wars of the Roses have been ascribed to many different causes by different historians. To some their origin is mainly constitutional. Henry VI., it is argued, had broken the tacit compact which the house of Lancaster had made with the nation; instead of committing the administration of the realm to ministers chosen for him by, or at least approved by, his parliament, he persisted in retaining in office persons like Suffolk and Somerset, who had forfeited the confidence of the people by their many failures in war and diplomacy, and were suspected of something worse than incapacity. They might not be so personally odious as the favourites of Edward II. or of Henry III., but they were even more dangerous to the state, because they were not foreign adventurers but great English peers. In spite of the warnings given by the assault on Suffolk in 1450, by Jack Cade's insurrection, and by the first armed demonstrations of Richard of York in 1450 and 1452, the king persisted in keeping his friends in office, and they had to be removed by the familiar and forcible methods that had been applied in earlier ages by the lords ordainers or the lords appellant. Undoubtedly there is much truth in this view of the situation; if Henry VI., or perhaps we should rather say, if his queen Margaret of Anjou, had been content to accept ministries in which the friends of Richard of York were fairly represented, it is probable that he might have died a king, and have transmitted his crown to his natural heir. But this explanation of the Wars of the Roses is not complete; it accounts for their outbreak, but not for their long continuance.

Claims of the duke of York to the crown.

Birth of Edward, prince of Wales.

Queen Margaret.

Condition of the country.