princes in my time; and if any think I have exaggerated, others who lived in my time, will be of opinion that I have rather said too little. But it pleased God, at one blow, to subvert this great and sumptuous edifice, and ruin this powerful and illustrious family, which had maintained and bred up so many brave men, and had acquired such mighty honour and renown far and near, by so many victories and successful enterprises, as none of all its neighbouring states could pretend to boast of. A hundred and twenty years it continued in this flourishing condition, by the grace of God; all its neighbours having, in the meantime, been involved in troubles and commotions, and all of them applying to it for succour or protection: to wit, France, England, and Spain, as you have seen by experience of our master the King of France, who in his minority, and during the reign of Charles VII., his father, retired to this court, where he lived six years, and was nobly entertained all that time by Duke Philip the Good. Out of England I saw there also two of King Edward’s brothers, the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester (the last of whom was afterwards called King Richard the Third); and of the house of Lancaster, the whole family or very near, with all their party. In short, I have seen this family in all respects the most flourishing and celebrated of any in Christendom: and then, in a short space of time, it was quite ruined and turned upside down, and left the most desolate and miserable of any house in Europe, as regards both prince and subjects. Such changes and revolutions of states and kingdoms, God in His providence has wrought before we were born, and will do again when we are dead; for this is a certain maxim, that the prosperity or adversity of princes depends wholly on His Divine disposal. CH. X.—How the King of France received intelligence of the Duke of Burgundy’s last Defeat, and managed his Affairs after the Duke’s Death.—1477.