Philip had married Charles’s sister Michelle of France; but he eagerly
adopted the theory of his English counsellors, that Charles was the
assassin; and he went home and exclaimed O Michelle your brother has
murdered my father! The poor princess threw herself into his arms and
declared that his enemies were her enemies, and the tragedy worked no
breach between them.
But Philip thought of nothing but revenge. He sent an envoy to the
English king offering a formal alliance with him for the destruction
of the French monarchy. The _astonishing treaty_ as Hume calls it, by
which this prince of the blood royal of France declared himself the
enemy of his family, of his country and of that throne to which he was
so nearly related that in the chapter of chances he might become its
heir, is called the treaty of Troyes from Troyes in Champagne where it
was signed.[8]
It was about the time of this treaty that the English court was set
agog by the flirtation between Jaqueline and the duke of Gloucester,
and by the application they were making to both popes to open the
way to their marriage. Nothing could be more threatening to the House
of Burgundy than that an English prince should acquire Holland and
the other provinces that had fallen to Jaqueline; and duke Philip,
notwithstanding his alliance with Henry, interfered vigorously and
successfully to prevent pope Martin from annulling the previous
marriage of Jaqueline. When the annulment was finally obtained from
Benedict, Philip appealed to Henry himself to stop the espousals by his
royal authority. But Henry was quite willing his brother should win
so great a prize. There was to be sure, hazard in it; but he trusted
to his own address to keep Philip quiet, and allowed the marriage to
take place. Nor did he trust in vain. That gifted monarch had sounded
the depths and the shallows of his ally. He knew that Philip was the
most pig-headed of mortals; and that he would submit to still greater
humiliations rather than give up his schemes of vengeance.
Up to this time the arms of England had been successful; but they now
met with a reverse the consequences of which were far-reaching; though
English historians affect either to ignore the transaction, or to refer
to it as an affair of no importance. Henry had gone back to England,
leaving his victorious army under the command of his brother Thomas
duke of Clarence. Thomas could not forgive himself for not having been
at Agincourt on that day of glory; and he resolved to have an Agincourt
of his own. The French under the Marshal de Lafayette--an ancestor of
our own Lafayette--were in a strong position at Beaugé. A little way
off lay a body of Scotch under the earl of Buchan, ready to second the
French; but the English despised the Scotch even more than they did the
French, for they had beaten them oftener and at greater odds.[9]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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