The Hundred Years War - Desmond Seward [95]
The Beauchamp chapel at Warwick, built by Earl Richard from a fortune which owed much to the French wars.
Royal plunder. The Cup of the Kings of France and England, made for Charles V c. 1380, was in Bedford’s hands by the 1430s and was later taken to England.
On 10August, a day of blazing heat, the Dauphinists tried to fight their way into Lagny and the besiegers tried to stop them. The struggle centred round a redoubt which defended the west gate; the English left wing captured it, but when their right wing was routed the Bastard attacked them and the townsmen joined in, the redoubt being retaken by the enemy. The Regent led another ferocious assault on the redoubt to stop Dauphinist wagons entering the city, and the fight surged backwards and forwards. At 4 o’clock Bedford reluctantly gave the order to disengage; the confused, untidy battle had lasted eight hours, several of his troops had died from heat-stroke and every man-at-arms, including himself, was exhausted—dehydrated, choked by dust, blinded by sweat, stunned and deafened by blows. (It is probable that Bedford’s exertions damaged his health permanently.) He had lost only 300 men but had suffered a moral defeat. He was further discouraged by a sudden change in the weather which brought heavy rain and caused the Marne to flood. When the Bastard made a feint as if to march on Paris, Bedford decided he had had enough and on 13 August raised the siege, abandoning his artillery.
At the end of 1432 the Regent’s wife, Anne of Burgundy, fell ill. She died in Paris on 14 November. According to the Bourgeois she had been the most agreeable of all ladies in France—‘bonne, belle et jeune’—and Monstrelet says that Bedford ‘had at heart very great sorrow’. Moreover, in the current situation it was political disaster. Wavrin explains that the English and all those Frenchmen who supported the dual monarchy ‘feared that because of this unhappy event the love and alliance which had existed for a long time between her husband and Duke Philip of Burgundy, who had loved her very dearly, would grow somewhat cold’. No doubt wishing to ally himself with another powerful Burgundian family, Bedford remarried in April the following year, despite his sorrow. His new wife was Jacquetta of Luxembourg. Duke Philip was angered by this marriage to the daughter of one of his richest nobles and best generals, which had taken place without his consent.
The only thing that saved Bedford now was the poverty of the Dauphin, who was unable to exploit his superior revenues and mount a really formidable offensive. But Burgundy, in complete control of Hainault and Holland, feared a possible alliance between Charles and the Emperor and was also nervous of a compromise agreement between Charles and the English. He himself began to make tentative diplomatic approaches to the Dauphinists. In June 1433 he sent envoys to England to explore the possibilities of a general settlement ; they received a very cold reception. Philip was not deterred, and he was helped by the activities of the Papal Legate, Cardinal Niccolò Albergati, who had been working for peace since 1430.
In June 1433 the Regent returned to England, to deny before Parliament rumours that he was incompetent and neglectful. He did so to such effect that in November the Commons complimented him on his management of affairs in France where, they claimed, he enjoyed obedience ‘right tender, young and green’, and they noted how he had ‘exposed his person to the labour and adventure of war, as the poorest knight or gentleman there in the King’s service, and achieved many great and fair things, worthy to be had in perpetual remembrance ; and especially the battle of Verneuil, which was the greatest deed done by Englishmen in our days, save the battle of Agincourt’. Both Houses begged Bedford to stay in England as the King’s chief counsellor. He accepted. Yet, despite his popularity, he was unable to extract fresh