Shakespeare's Kings (60 page)

Some
time
in
mid-December
the
captain
of
the
garrison,
Guy
le Bouteiller,
realizing
that
he
could
no
longer
feed
those
refugees
who were
unable
to
play
an
active
part
in
the
defence,
turned
some
12,000 of
them
out
of
the
city.
When
Henry
categorically
refused
to
allow them
through
the
English
lines
they
were
simply
left
in
the
surrounding fosse,
there
to
die
of
cold
or
starvation
-
though
a
few
days
later
he allowed
a
little
food
through
so
that
those
who
were
still
alive
could celebrate
Christmas.
Not
till
19
January
were
the
keys
of
Rouen
finally surrendered,
Henry
making
his
formal
entry
on
the
following
day
for a
thanksgiving
mass
at
the
cathedral
and
looking
-
as
always
on
such occasions
-
pensive
and
sad.
The
citizens
and
garrison
were
treated sternly,
but
with
none
of
the
savagery
he
had
shown
to
the
people
of Caen.
They
were
made
to
pay
a
fine
of
300,000
crowns
at
the
rate
of 80,000
a
year,
and
to
surrender
their
arms,
armour
and
other
military equipment,
including
horses.
The
Normans
in
the
garrison
were
all taken
prisoner:
had
they
not,
the
King
demanded,
been
resisting
their rightful
lord?
The
others
were
free
to
go.

★

Henry
spent
two
months
in
Rouen,
reorganizing
both
city
and
duchy, while
his
generals
mopped
up
the
few
surviving
pockets
of
resistance. Now
in
a
strong
position
for
negotiation,
he
arranged
a
meeting
with the
sixteen-year-old
Dauphin
in
March
1419,
and
was
furious
when on
the
appointed
day
the
young
man
failed
to
appear.
Somewhat
more successful
was
the
meeting,
held
under
a
two-month
truce,
outside Meulan
on
29
May,
with
Queen
Isabella
and
the
Duke
of
Burgundy. (Charles
VI
had
come
as
far
as
Pontoise
but
was
in
no
condition
to
go any
further.)
At
last
Henry
was
able
to
discuss
terms
personally
with those
in
authority.
He
was,
he
told
them,
prepared
to
renounce
his claims
to
the
French
throne;
the
price,
however,
would
be
all
those territories
ceded
to
Edward
III
at
Bretigny
in
1360,
together
with
those that
he
himself
had
conquered
since
his
landing
at
Touques.
The agreement
would
be
sealed
by
his
own
marriage
with
the
Princess Katherine,
whom
he
now
met
for
the
first
time
and
by
whom
he
seems to
have
been
genuinely
struck.
Her
family
offered
a
dowry
of
800,000 crowns
-
minus,
however,
the
600,000
which
they
maintained
should have
been
returned
to
France
with
Richard
II's
widow,
Queen
Isabelle. Both
sides
had
in
fact
overplayed
their
hands
and
the
meeting
ended in
stalemate;
but
the
ice
had
been
broken,
both
knew
where
they
stood, and
the
ground
was
now
satisfactorily
prepared
for
the
more
detailed negotiations
that
were
planned
for
the
following
year.

By
then,
Henry's
position
was
to
be
stronger
still.
The
moment
the truce
expired
after
the
Meulan
meeting,
his
army
attacked
the
Burgundian headquarters
at
Pontoise
in
an
early-morning
operation
which
took
the garrison
completely
by
surprise.
The
town
was
sacked,
yielding
provisions and
stores
valued
at
two
million
crowns
and
bringing
the
King
within twenty
miles
of
Paris.
For
the
French,
everything
now
depended
on
a united
front.
If
the
Burgundians
and
the
Dauphinists
could
reach
agreement
between
each
other,
there
might
yet
be
a
hope
of
driving
back
the English;
and
it
was
finally
agreed
that
Duke
and
Dauphin
should
meet
on Sunday
10
September
on
the
bridge
at
Montereau,
some
forty
miles south-east
of
Paris,
where
the
river
Yonne
flows
into
the
Seine.
Such
was the
mutual
distrust
that
a
special
enclosure
for
the
two
of
them
was
built in
the
middle
of
the
bridge,
with
barricades
at
each
end
to
restrain
their followers;
but
the
precautions
proved
useless.
Hardly
had
the
conversation
begun
when
John
the
Fearless
was
felled
by
a
battleaxe.

Who
wielded
the
weapon,
whether
the
assassination
was
the
result of
a
premeditated
plot,
and
if
so
whether
the
young
Dauphin
was
a party
to
it,
we
shall
never
know.
From
the
French
point
of
view, however,
it
was
a
disaster,
destroying
as
it
did
the
last
chance
of
uniting the
country
against
the
English
invaders
and
playing
straight
into
their hands.
The
Dauphin
and
his
followers,
after
leaving
a
garrison
in Montereau,
retired
south
to
Provence,
Languedoc
and
Gascony,
where they
enjoyed
the
strongest
support;
meanwhile
John's
son
and
successor, the
twenty-three-year-old
Philip
—
later
to
be
known
as
'the
Good'
— swore
vengeance
on
the
Dauphinists
and,
six
months
afterwards
on Christmas
Eve,
concluded
an
alliance
with
England
against
them,
to
be sealed
by
the
marriage
of
one
of
his
sisters
to
a
brother
of
the
King.
¹