Further resistance, however, was hopeless. The walls lay in ruins, and another assault could hardly be repulsed. Henry again offered terms. He had been personally insulted during the siege, but this did not affect his temper, which indeed was remarkably imperturbable, either by pity or anger. The terms offered and accepted were not more severe than the military practice of the time permitted. Four persons, among whom was the Bastard of Maurus, with all English, Scotch, and Irish soldiers, were excepted from the King’s clemency: the rest of the captives were to be kept close prisoners till the close of the war. On May 11th Meaux was given into the King’s hands. The Bastard of Maurus was beheaded, and his body hanged on the tree which he had made notorious by his cruelty. The other excepted prisoners were taken to Paris, and executed after due trial. We do not hear of any other severities. The capture of this town was Henry’s last exploit. CHAPTER XVII THE DEATH OF HENRY On May 21st Queen Katherine landed at Harfleur with her infant son. She was accompanied by a brilliant court, and by the Duke of Bedford, who had been summoned to join his brother, now feeling, we may suppose, a pressing need of the assistance of his military skill. The Queen journeyed from Harfleur on to Rouen, and from Rouen to Vincennes, where Henry met her. Their entry into Paris was magnificent. It was noticed that the English queen had two mantles of ermine borne before her carriages, to mark, it was supposed, her dignity as Queen of England and France. Charles was at that time also in Paris, and it was again noticed that it was the English court rather than the French that formed the centre of attraction. Meanwhile Henry was winning good opinion from the commonalty by his just and moderate government, and especially by his exact and impartial administration of justice, a new thing in a country where privilege was always so powerful. On June 22nd Henry and his Queen left Paris for Senlis. He was soon again in the capital to inquire into the circumstances of a plot which had been discovered for the delivery of the city into the hands of the Dauphin; and it was after his second return to Senlis that his health began manifestly to fail. Of the nature of his illness we are not exactly informed. Monstrelet says that it was St. Anthony’s fire or erysipelas; other accounts speak of a fistula and pleurisy; in Walsingham the cause of death is given as “a sharp fever with vehement dysentery.” Henry did not come of a long-lived race. His great-grandfather indeed reached an age (sixty-five) which, though often since exceeded, had only once before been reached by an English king; but his grandfather--the “time-honoured Lancaster” of Shakespeare--had died, worn out, at fifty-eight; his father, after years of suffering, expired at forty-seven; and his mother died in her twenty-fifth year.