CHAPTER VII.

IMPRISONMENT OF THE DUKE OF ORLEANS-KING

HENRY

AGAIN INVADES FRANCE-SIEGE OF ROUEN-MURDER OF THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY.

THE wretched state of his army prevented Henry from taking any immediate advantage from his victory, and he found that his purpose would, for the present, be better effected by intrigue than by fighting. Nearly two years passed before he returned to France, and during that period he was continually tampering with the Duke of Burgundy, seeking, and, as in the end it proved, not ineffectually, to attach him to his interests.

Among the prisoners taken at the battle of Agincourt was the Duke of Orleans, the son of the murdered duke, who remained

CAPTIVITY OF THE DUKE OF ORLEANS IN THE TOWER OF LONDON.

captive in England for five-and-twenty years. During this long residence in England he perfectly learned the language; and whilst he was shut up in the tower, he wrote many poems, several of them in English; and there is at this day, in the British Museum, a beautifully written manuscript of these poems, ornamented with many paintings, one representing the duke writing in his prison in the Tower, which I have copied for you. He was not, however, always confined in the Tower, being sometimes permitted to go where he pleased on giving his parole, or word of honour, not to attempt to escape out of England; but he spent a long time in close confinement, which he whiled away by amusing himself by writing, as I have just mentioned.

His absence did not, however, break up the party of the Armagnacs, who still op

posed all the attempts of the Duke of Burgundy to repossess himself of the government of France. Thus two years passed on, that kingdom being in a more wretched condition than ever. During this period Louis, the Dauphin we have hitherto spoken of, died, and his next brother, the Duke of Touraine, who then became heir to the crown, dying soon after, Charles, then a youth of sixteen years old, the fourth son of the king, assumed the title of Dauphin, and eventually ascended the throne.

In the summer of 1417, Henry again invaded Normandy at the head of twentyfive thousand men, and subdued many places, among others the important town of Cherbourg; and Caen, which he took by storm; and during the whole of that and the succeeding year, he continued steadily increasing his advantages. Meantime the queen, who had received a great