First as a minor, for he was only eleven at the time of his accession, and later when he developed frequent attacks of insanity, Charles VI was destined to be some one else’s tool, while round his person raged those factions for which Louis VIII had shortsightedly prepared when he set the example of creating appanages.[29] First one ‘Prince of the Lilies’ and then another strove to control the court and government in their own interests; but the most formidable rivals at the beginning of the fifteenth century were the Houses of Burgundy and Armagnac. The latter centred in the person of the young Charles, Duke of Orleans, the King’s nephew and a son-in-law of Count Bernard of Armagnac, who gave his name to the party: the other was his cousin, John ‘the Fearless’, Duke of Burgundy, who was also by inheritance from his mother Count of Flanders, and therefore ruler of that great middle province lying between France and the Empire. The King himself in his moments of sanity inclined to the side of Charles of Orleans and the Armagnacs; and it happened that just at the time when Henry V of England landed in Normandy and laid siege to Harfleur the Armagnacs controlled Paris. It was their faction therefore that raised an army and sent it northwards to oppose the invaders, while John of Burgundy stood aloof, for besides being unwilling to help the Armagnacs he was reluctant to embroil himself in a war with England, on whose wool trade the commercial fortunes of his Flemish towns depended. At Agincourt Henry V, who had taken Harfleur and was marching towards Calais, came upon his foes drawn up across the road that he must follow in such vastly superior numbers that they seemed overwhelming. The battle that followed, however, showed that the French had learned no military lesson from previous disasters. The heavily-armed, undisciplined noble on horseback was still their main hope, and on this dark October day he floundered helplessly in the mud, unable to charge, scarcely able to extricate himself, an easy victim for his enemy’s shafts. The slaughter was tremendous; for Henry, receiving a false report that a new French army was appearing on the horizon, commanded his prisoners to be killed, and numbers had perished before the mistake was discovered and the order could be reversed. When the news of the defeat and massacre at Agincourt reached Paris, that had always hated the Armagnacs, the indignant populace broke into rebellion, crying, ‘Burgundy and Peace!’ but the movement was suppressed, and it was not till 1418 that John ‘the Fearless’ succeeded in entering the capital. By this time Henry V, who had returned to England after his victory, was once more back in France conquering Normandy; and French indignation was roused to white heat when it was known that Rouen, the old capital of the Duchy, had been forced to surrender to his victorious arms.