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A.D 1421, and efforts of the English, and thus continued a long while, as you shall afterwards hear.

In those days also it was ordered by the royal council at Paris that the flourettes which had been current for four deniers, as has been above adverted to, should be reduced to two deniers, and the gold crown was placed at eighteen Parisian sous : about which changes, following those of which mention has already been made, many people were greatly troubled, seeing that the property which they had in the current coins and deniers was diminished an eighth part in value. And for a supply of new money that might be valuable there were coined golden saluses, which circulated for twenty-five Tours sous each, and there were emblazoned on these two crowns, one of France and the other of England; and with regard to white money, they coined doubles, which went for two Tours deniers each, and at last were commonly called niques, and continued in circulation only about three years.

1

In those days the Duke of Burgundy desired and laboured hard that through the dauphinist prisoners whom he kept in his hotel in the town of Lille he might find means of getting rid of the men who occupied the town of Saint Riquier and greatly disturbed his territories. So it was concluded that the said prisoners should be set entirely free without paying anything in case they could persuade the Lord of Auffemont and his companions within the said town of Saint Riquier to surrender it to the Duke of Burgundy with the prisoners whom they held, and had taken since they came there, acquitting them of their ransoms. This was done in the way you have heard, and thus was the town of Saint Riquier given up to the Duke of Burgundy.

Sic.

Here is made mention of an encounter in which the AD. 1421. English obtained the victory over Sir Jacques de Harcourt. CHAPTER XVIII.

ABOUT this time Sir Jacques de Harcourt, riding in Vimeu with six or seven hundred fighting men, was met by some English, who, by chance had gathered from Arques, Neufchâtel, and other places to go and seek adventures against the dauphinists, their enemies. At this encounter there was fierce and cruel battle; however, in the end the English had the victory, and the said Sir Jacques lost from two to three hundred of his companions, killed or taken prisoners, but by means of the good horse on which he was mounted he saved his own person by flight, and so did some of the knights and esquires of his company. Among those captured was the Lord of Verduisant, who was then one of the captains of Saint Wallery for the Dauphin. After this victory the English, very joyful at their to their own places.

good fortune, returned

During this this time the Duke of Burgundy, after the festival of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ was over, set out from his town of Arras, where he left the Duchess Michielle his wife, daughter of the King of France. So they took leave of each other never to meet again, for she died soon after the departure of the Duke her husband, as shall be told hereafter in its place. After the Duke left Arras with the Count de Saint Pol and a standard unfurled, he pursued his way till he came to Paris. So he went to see the King and Queen of France his father-in-law and mother-in-law at the Forest of Vicaine, and they made him good cheer. After he had stayed there some days,

1 With great spoils to the garrison whence they had started, with little loss of their men. H.

death of her major-domo and the departure in H.

A.D. 1421. he went by Lagny-sur-Marne to the King of England his brother-in-law, who was laying siege before the town and market place of Meaux-en-Brie, and by whom he was grandly received and worthily entertained. And they held several great consultations together touching the business and affairs of the kingdoms of France and England; but before the said duke went to King Henry the Prince of Orange with a great number of Burgundians separated from him. The cause of his departure, according to common report, was that he did not choose to go to the King of England with the duke, so that he might not be asked or obliged to make oath to him, as had been lately done by the Lord of St. George, who had gone to the king to make humble request for the liberation of his nephew, the Lord of Châtel-Villain, who by the said king's order had been long detained a prisoner at Paris, but was set free according to the request and prayer of the said Lord of St. George soon after he took the oath.

When Duke Philip had sojourned a while at the siege of Meaux with the King of England, he took leave of him and withdrew to Paris, thence by Troyes he went to his own country of Burgundy, to see the duchess his mother and his sisters, by whom he was joyfully received. And there he received homage and fealty from his subjects with the usual oaths; then after several feasts and amusements of jousts and tourneys got up to welcome him, he went to see his uncle by marriage and his aunt, the Duke and Duchess of Savoy, and this visit being accomplished he returned into his own country of Burgundy, where he remained a while settling his affairs.

How the King of England heard news that the queen A.D. 1422. his wife had given birth to a fine son, and of the arrival of Sir John of Luxembourg, and of Arthur of Brittany, Count of Richemont. CHAPTER XIX.

DURING the time that the King of England was maintaining the siege of Meaux-en-Brie, Sir John of Luxembourg came to him with a small retinue to negotiate for the release of the Count of Conversan his brother, who had for a long time been a prisoner of Pieron de Lupel in this town of Meaux; and the said Sir John having arrived there, so managed and negotiated with the help and by means of the King of England that his said brother was released from prison on condition of a large sum of money paid for him to the said Lupel at his deliverance on the day appointed; and he afterwards remained in the service of the King of England during the siege of Meaux, and Sir John his brother returned into Picardy, of which he was captain general, having in his company Sir Hugh de Lannoy, who had been newly appointed master of the crossbowmen of France on the part of the two kings of England and France.

In this year Catherine of France, Queen of England, gave birth to a fine boy, who by order of the king his father was named Henry at the font by those who were commissioned thereto; and he was held up by Lady Jaqueline of Bavaria, Duchess of Brabant, who was at this time in the said kingdom of England. King Henry's heart was filled with great gladness on account of this birth; also throughout the kingdom there was perfect joy displayed, more than there had been seen for a long time before about any other royal infant.

A.D. 1422.

At this time the dauphinists took at the first onset the town of Avranches, at which from two to three hundred English were killed or taken prisoners, with which the King of England was much displeased when it came to his knowledge, so he sent from his camp at Meaux a certain number of his people to aid the Earl of Salisbury, who was governor of the whole of Normandy, and who used such diligence that this town was soon reconquered, and many dauphinists were killed and taken.

At this same time, Arthur Count of Richemont, and brother of the Duke of Brittany in France, returned by treaty from the prisons of the King of England, and after his release he went with a great number of men-at-arms to the camp of Meaux to serve the King of England, in which service he continued during the lifetime of this King.

How the Lord of Offemont came expecting to enter
Meaux, but was taken prisoner and brought to
the King, and was lodged in the Abbey of St.
Pharan. CHAPTER XX.

DURING the siege of Meaux the Lord of Offemont with about forty combatants, the most expert and renowned in deeds of war that he could obtain, entered into Brie, and proceeded to pretty near the town of Meaux, where the King of England was keeping up the siege, as has been narrated above in several places, with the intention of entering secretly into that town to assist in defending it, and to comfort the besieged, who had several times besought him to be their captain; these apprised of his arrival, were prepared to receive him, and had in the evening placed outside the walls a ladder by which he was to

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