Negotiations were then in progress for the release of King James of Scotland, so long a prisoner at the court of England; King Henry caused him to come, and, his face flashing with rage, he said, "Forbid all your subjects ever to lend assistance against me to the dauphin." "I should make a sorry figure by giving orders, being a prisoner," firmly replied James; "but if you will take me with you to France, I shall learn the art of war in a good school, and, perhaps, when my Scots shall see me with you, they will not fight on the other side." Henry V. had an affection for the King of Scotland, and granted him his request; but Archibald Douglas was already preparing to proceed to France, to join Lord Buchan. {37} Meanwhile, the king was assembling a more considerable army than any that he ever led beyond the seas, the Parliament having liberally voted subsidies. On the 10th of June, 1421, Henry landed at Calais, leaving Queen Catherine in England. The King of Scotland was entrusted to besiege Dreux, and Henry himself laid siege to Meaux, which detained him for several months; the town was commanded by the bastard De Vaurus, who had made of it a haunt of crimes and of pillage. When the castle was at length surrendered, in the month of May, 1422, the governor was hanged upon the great oak of which the branches had so often borne the corpses of his victims. Catherine, accompanied by the Duke of Bedford, had rejoined her husband, to whom she had recently presented a son. The dauphin, driven back by degrees by the English arms, had finally taken refuge in Bourges; but the Earl of Buchan continued to keep the field; he had taken La Charité and was besieging Cosne. The dauphin had repaired to the army, and the King of England, already for a long time enfeebled by fever, was preparing to attack him with the Duke of Burgundy, when his strength completely failed and he was compelled to halt at Corbeil. The Duke of Bedford having assumed the command of the army, the king was carried back in a litter to the castle of Vincennes: the queen having remained at Paris.