Great Britain -- History -- Henry VI, 1422-1461; Margaret, of Anjou, Queen, consort of Henry VI, King of England, 1430-1482
Antoine said that it was out of his power to liberate Rene, for he had
delivered him to the custody of the Duke of Burgundy, who had been his
ally in the war, and the duke had conveyed him away to his castle at
Dijon, and shut him up there, and that now he would probably not be
willing to give him up without the payment of a ransom. He said,
however, that he was willing to make a truce with Isabella for six
months, to give time to see what arrangement could be made.
[Sidenote: Hostages.]
This truce was agreed upon, and then, at length, after a long
negotiation, terms of peace were concluded. Rene was to pay a large
sum to the Duke of Burgundy for his ransom, and, in the mean time,
while he was procuring the money, he was to leave his two sons in the
duke's hands as hostages, to be held by the duke as security. In
respect to Lorraine, Antoine insisted, as another of the conditions of
peace, that Isabella's oldest daughter, Yolante, then about nine years
old, should be betrothed to his son Frederick, so as to combine, in
the next generation at least, the conflicting claims of the two
parties to the possession of the territory; and, in order to secure
the fulfillment of this condition, Yolante was to be delivered
immediately to the charge and custody of Antoine's wife, the mother of
her future husband. Thus all of Isabella's children were taken away
from her except Margaret. And even Margaret, though left for the
present with her mother, did not escape being involved in the
entanglements of the treaty. Antoine insisted that she, too, should be
betrothed to one of his partisans; and, as if to make the case as
painful and humiliating to Rene and Isabella as possible, the person
chosen to be her future husband was the very Count St. Pol whose
squire had cut down and captured Rene at the battle of Bulgneville.
[Sidenote: Hard conditions of peace.]
[Sidenote: Rene can not procure the money for his ransom.]
These conditions were very hard, but Isabella consented to them, as it
was only by so doing that any hope seemed to be opened before her of
obtaining the release of her husband. And even this hope, in the end,
proved delusive. Rene found that, notwithstanding all his efforts, he
could not obtain the money which the duke required for his ransom.
Accordingly, in order to save his boys, whom he had delivered to the
duke as hostages, he was obliged to return to Dijon and surrender
himself again a prisoner. His parting with his wife and children,
before going a second time into a confinement to which they could now
see no end, was heartrending. Even little Margaret, who was yet so
very young, joined from sympathy in the general sorrow, and wept
bitterly when her father went away.
[Sidenote: His long confinement.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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