66 smiled with a grin of demoniacal satisfaction as he recognized in the features of any of the slain, those of the confederates who had injured him by their threats or their suspicions. The dead bodies of the Duke of Exeter and the Earl of Somerset seemed, from the peculiar expression of his features as he gazed upon them, to be objects which gave him peculiar delight. That delight, however, seemed to be heightened to a frenzy of rapture as he approached the yet warm corse of the young Duke of Surry. Why point ye not your sword at me now?" he said: "why use ye not that dagger which is yet clutched by your assassin hand? why call ye me not traitor, and coward, and villain? I am near enough to hear you!" As he thus spoke, he stooped down and gazed into the sightless balls, when he fancied that he saw a yet remaining ray of life in them, and he felt his hand suddenly grasped by the apparently dead man, who drew him towards him. A sudden fear, as well as the loss of strength which he had sustained even in his small share of the fatigues of the battle, deprived the Abbot of the power of motion; and Surry exerting all his remaining strength to retain his grasp of his enemy with one hand, while with the other he pointed his dagger at him, threw himself upon him, and died with the effort which enabled him to bury his weapon in his throat. The Earls of Salisbury and Gloucester were soon after taken by the King's forces and beheaded; the priest Magdalene was also apprehended, as he endeavoured to make his escape into Scotland, and was hanged at Tyburn; and the Bishop of Carlisle, although he survived the carnage in the streets of Cirencester, soon after died in that town, more from fear than sickness. Thus did the Abbot's plot fail in effecting the ruin of King Henry, and end in the destruction of all its projectors. HISTORICAL SUMMARY. Benry the Fifth. 1413. HENRY THE FIFTH began his reign by dismissing his dissolute companions after making them liberal presents, and strictly enjoining them never to appear in his presence till they had convinced the world of their entire reformation. Sir John Oldcastle was condemned for heresy, but he escaped from the Tower the day before the time appointed for his execution. Henry demanded of the King of France restitution of the provinces which had been ceded to Edward III. 1415. Henry, having entered into a private treaty with the Duke of Burgundy, determined to attack France. Whilst he was embarking his troops at Southampton he was informed of a conspiracy against his person, which cost the Earls of Cambridge and Northumberland and Lord Scroop their lives. Henry landed in France, took Harfleur, gained a complete victory at Agincourt over the Constable of France, commanding an army five times as numerous as his own, with incredible loss to the enemy, and returned to England, where he was received with joyful acclamations. 1418. Henry returned to France this year, and was very successful in what he undertook, as the French factions were more intent in destroying each other than in resisting the common enemy. Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, was taken and burnt as a heretic. 1420. The factions still continued in France. The Constable Armagnac was taken and murdered by the Burgundy party. The Dauphin and Duke of Burgundy were apparently reconciled, but soon afterwards the Duke was assassinated at a conference held on the bridge of Montereau, which so exasperated the Duke's son that he immediately entered into the strictest alliance with Henry to revenge his father's murder. Henry made very rapid conquests, and France was obliged to conclude the peace of Troye, by which it was agreed that Henry should marry the Princess Catherine, daughter of Charles VI. who was to keep the crown for his life, and on his demise Henry was to succeed to the throne of France. Henry married the Princess, and carried her and her father to Paris, where he took on himself the title of Regent. 1421. He went to England to meet the Parliament, and left the Duke of Clarence to command against the Dauphin, and the Scots, whom the Duke of Albany, Regent of Scotland, had sent over under the command of the Earl of Buchan to assist the Dauphin. The Duke was soon afterwards defeated and slain in an action at Beaugé, in Anjou. The Dauphin made the Earl of Buchan, Constable. Henry carried over to France a considerable army, with which he was very successful against the Dauphin. The Queen was delivered of a Prince named Henry. 1422. Whilst Henry was carrying on a successful war against the Dauphin he grew so ill of a fistula that he was obliged to be carried in a litter to the Bois de Vincennes, where he died on the 31st of August, leaving his brother, the Duke of Bedford, Regent of France, and his brother, the Duke of Gloucester, Protector of England, during his son's minority. Henry was carried to England, and buried at Westminster. Charles VI. of France, did not survive him two months. A Legend of Agincourt. "Like bonfires of contributory wood, Every man's look show'd fed with either's spirit, Like forms of life and death each took from other; CHAPMAN. |