The duke of Burgundy would have remained in perfect ignorance of this treachery, had not his niece been told of the wicked designs of her husband against her uncle; and instantly quitting the place she was in with her son, attended by her servants, she hastened to the duke, then besieging Deventer, and told him of the plots against him. This caused the duke to lose no time in closing with the offers of those in Deventer, so that the treaty was immediately concluded, and hostages were given for its performance. The duke raised the siege the 27th day of September, and returned to Utrecht, and thence to the Hague, where he disbanded his army, leaving his son David in peaceable possession of the bishoprick of Utrecht. He was under great obligations to his niece for the information she had given him; for if he had remained two days longer at the siege, he would have been attacked by the duke of Gueldres and the Frizelanders before he knew any thing of their intentions, and it would probably have been unfortunate to him by reason of his being totally unprepared to receive them. The duke of Gueldres was much reproached for this conduct, considering that he had married the duke of Burgundy's niece, and that the good duke had sent their daughter to marry the king of Scotland, at his own expense, and had done many and very great kindnesses to the duke of Gueldres. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 229: Deventer,--on the Issel, the capital of Overissel.] CHAP. LXVI. THE DUKE OF ALENÇON IS ARRESTED AND THROWN INTO PRISON.--THE TURKS ARE MIRACULOUSLY DEFEATED IN HUNGARY.--OTHER EVENTS THAT HAPPENED IN THIS YEAR OF MCCCCLVI. Soon after the feast of Pentecost, the duke of Alençon was arrested in Paris, by orders from the king and the count de Dunois, bastard of Orleans, and sent to Melun. From Melun he was carried before the king, and convicted, as it was said, of having intrigued with the English to accomplish a marriage between his eldest son and the eldest daughter of the duke of York, unknown to the king, and of having engaged to deliver up to the English his strong places, to the prejudice of the king, and particularly the duchy of Normandy. Having confessed his guilt, he was closely confined until after the death of king Charles. When he was arrested, it was currently reported that the duke of Burgundy was implicated in these intrigues of the duke of Alençon with the English, which so much displeased the king that he had it proclaimed throughout the realm, that no one, under pain of death, should make such charges against his good brother of Burgundy, nor any way speak disrespectfully of his honour. In the month of June in this year, a comet with a prodigious tail appeared in the west, having its tail pointed toward England: it continued visible for three months. The new wines of this season were so sour that the old ones were in greater request for their superior goodness and flavour.