It was this state of things that tempted Henry V. of England to revive an absurd claim to the crown of France which had been trumped up as a pretext for plunder, by his great grandfather Edward III. Henry invaded France and won the battle of Agincourt. Both factions courted his alliance, each being more anxious to wreak vengeance on the other than to save their common country. Henry after some coquetting, sided with the Burgundians who were the stronger of the two, and held the north of France including the capital which they put into his hands. In that city he afterwards married Catharine daughter of Charles and Isabella, and was declared heir of the monarchy, in contempt of the rights of Catharine’s young brother the dauphin Charles. The demented king and his disreputable queen deserted the cause of their son and of France, and went over to the English. The dauphin himself was rescued from the clutches of his father and mother, by a bold stroke of Tanneguy du Châtel an Armagnac noble who broke into the boy’s lodging one night, snatched him out of bed, wrapped him up in his cloak, mounted his horse with him, and made good his escape; and Charles lived to recover his inheritance and more besides. The Armagnac faction thus became the party of the dauphin, the party of the nation and of the independence of France. There were among the Burgundian barons some who remembered they were Frenchmen and who fought reluctantly on the side of England. These projected an interview between the dauphin and duke John, with a view of reconciling their differences, and uniting their arms against the common enemy. The meeting took place on the bridge of Montereau, and John-the-fearless was struck dead at the feet of the young prince. Thus did one foul murder avenge another murder equally foul committed twelve years before. Some English writers inform you that John-the-fearless was assassinated by orders of the dauphin. Charles at that time was an indolent boy of sixteen; and he probably was not allowed to know that such an act was meditated. Indeed so impolitic was the murder that it is far from certain that there was any premeditation about it. It is much more likely that duke John fell a victim to a sudden outbreak of revenge on the part of nobles he had long pursued. His son and successor Philip was in his twenty-third year. He is called in history Philip-the-good for reasons perhaps as satisfactory as in the case of his great grandfather king John II. He was good tempered however, and whenever his domestic servitors, his equerries and his chamberlains came to talk with him about household matters he received them affably instead of kicking them on the shins with his jack-boots as his sire had done, and as was indeed the style in those days.