The first part of the following year (1419) was spent in negotiation. Early in March the Duke of Britanny paid another visit to the King for the purpose of confirming the friendly relations between them. At the same time overtures were made to him by both the parties who claimed to direct the government of France—by the Dauphin11 on the one hand, and the Duke of Burgundy, acting in the name of King Charles the Sixth, on the other.

The negotiations with the Dauphin came to nothing, nor was it indeed possible that they should have any result. Henry persisted in his claim to be king of France; and if he consented to discuss any other conditions of peace, always reserved this right. The Dauphin, as the eldest son of the reigning king, could not seriously treat with such a claimant. Overtures made on either side could only have been feints. The Duke of Burgundy, on the contrary, had no pretensions that were absolutely irreconcilable with Henry’s claim. He had in his power the imbecile King, the Queen, and all the royal family, the Dauphin only excepted. In right of the authority which the King was said to have delegated to him, he claimed to be Regent of France. He would doubtless have wished to be Regent under the imbecile Charles rather than under the vigorous Henry. So far he was adverse to the success of the English king; but it was quite possible for him to secure out of that success terms advantageous to himself. The accession of the Dauphin, in the probable event of the death of Charles, would make his position untenable. On the whole we may conclude that he was not indisposed to come to an agreement with Henry, but did not see his way to obtaining such an agreement as he wanted.

On May 30th, after various negotiations, which it is needless to relate in detail, a formal meeting took place at Melun. All the arrangements were of the greatest magnificence, and the most rigorous etiquette, dictated doubtless by mutual suspicion, was observed.

On the side of the French came the Duke of Burgundy, Isabeau, Queen of France, and the fair Katherine herself. It was on her charms indeed that the French negotiators relied greatly for their success. All accounts agree in giving the greatest praise to her beauty, though it is a praise scarcely justified by her portrait. The nose especially is of an excessive length, and falls a little over the mouth, a characteristic of the Valois face; but, says Monstrelet, “King Henry was very anxious to marry her, and not without cause, for she was very handsome, of high birth, and of the most engaging manners.” Henry’s attachment indeed had something almost romantic about it. There had been many plans of finding an alliance for him, but ever since he had been able to act for himself he had never swerved from his purpose of winning Katherine the Fair of France for his wife. He was now a man of thirty-two, and, if we put aside the dubious reports about the excesses of his youth, we may say that, as far as we know, he had never thought of any woman but her. Marriage to a daughter of France might help him, he thought, to gain the crown; nor was he willing to abate his claim, even in the minor matter of dower, in consideration of Katherine’s beauty. Still we cannot doubt that he was a sincere and even ardent lover.

At three in the afternoon Queen Isabeau came out of her tent, the Lords of her Council walking two and two before her, and the Duke of Burgundy leading her by the hand. The Princess Katherine followed, led by the Count of St. Pol. Henry, who was accompanied by his two brothers Clarence and Gloucester, and by his uncles the Duke of Exeter and the Cardinal Beaufort, advanced to meet them. He bowed, took the Queen by the hand, and kissed her. Then he saluted the Princess in the same way. His brothers did the same, but instead of bowing, bent the knee almost to the ground. It was observed that the Duke of Burgundy, in saluting the King, made the same gesture of respect. The whole party then entered the pavilion that had been prepared for their conference. For all his courtesy Henry did not forget his pretensions. He claimed to have the upper hand of the French queen, and, after a long dispute, had his way. A conference followed, but it was not intended that business should be transacted on that day. This was postponed till the next meeting, which, it was arranged, was to take place on June 1st.

The month was spent in further discussion. We may gather from what has been recorded that Henry was content to fall back, at least for the time, on the terms of the Treaty of Bretigny, and that the French commissioners, on the other hand, sought to minimise their concessions. They could not execute the Treaty of Bretigny, because many of the places named in it were in the hands of the Dauphin. Henry, who had not been allowed another sight of the Princess, was profoundly irritated at the manifest intention on the part of the French negotiators to baffle him, and especially at the way in which they sought to utilise his position as a suitor. His anger broke out in a fierce reply to the Duke of Burgundy, when this prince reproached him with the want of moderation in his demands. “I will have you know,” he cried, “that I will not only have your Princess, but your King himself in my power; and that I will obtain the marriage that I seek, or force him from his throne, and drive you out of the kingdom.” The Duke replied, “You may say what you please; but I doubt not that before you force him from his throne, or drive me out of France, we shall make you weary of your undertaking.” Another meeting had been fixed for July 3rd; but Henry, coming to attend it, found that the French commissioners had left the place. It seemed that peace was as far off as ever.

The fact was that the Duke of Burgundy was playing a double part. While the conferences at Melun were going on, he had been in frequent communication with the Dauphin. Twelve days after his last conference with Henry, the Dauphin and the Duke met at Pouilly-le-Fort, a place only a league distant from Melun itself. The interview of the two was, to all appearance, cordial and even affectionate. The Duke bowed several times very low, and finally kneeled to the Dauphin, who raised him in the most gracious way from the ground. At parting the Duke insisted on holding the stirrup while the Dauphin mounted. The two princes were to share the administration of the kingdom between them; they were to give each other all the help in their power; they were not to enter into any agreement without mutual consent. The treaty, which was finally concluded on July 29th, was published throughout France.

To Henry, of course, this was a declaration of war. He immediately took the field. The first point of attack was Pontoise in the Isle of France. The town was taken by a surprise, skilfully planned by Henry himself. The English troops arrived in the early morning, scaled the walls before the guard was even aware of their presence, and, after a sharp struggle with the garrison, made themselves masters of the town. Pontoise was a great prize. It contained a great store of war-material and a large sum of money; and it was the only fortified place between the country occupied by Henry and Paris itself. The King declared in a letter to his Council at home that it was the most important place that he had taken since the beginning of the war. The fact was emphasised in the course of a few days by the appearance of the Duke of Clarence before the walls of Paris.

But Henry’s victories, brilliant as they were, could hardly have brought him final success but for the criminal folly of his adversaries. On September 10th the Duke of Burgundy was murdered at the Bridge of Montereau. What share the Dauphin had in this atrocious deed—whether he commanded it and even gave the signal for the assassins to strike, or whether he simply stood by and suffered it to be perpetrated without interfering—scarcely concerns us. Perhaps we may take the more favourable account of Monstrelet, who indeed had the best opportunities for learning the truth. “While these things were passing,” he says, “the Dauphin leaned on the barrier, looking on, but soon drew back, as one much frightened.” And indeed the Duke had private and public enemies who would not scruple to take his life. One cannot wonder at the violent death of the man who had perpetrated such a deed as the assassination of the Duke of Orleans.

But whether the Dauphin was an accomplice before or after the act, the result was the same. The murder of the Duke gave Henry the crown of France. Paris, where the dead prince had been popular, was furious at his death. The provosts of the city, assembled by the Count of St. Pol, swore a solemn oath that they would employ their lives and fortunes in avenging this execrable deed. The King and Queen renounced their son, and declared their intention of making peace with the king of England, as the only hope for the country. And, most important of all, Philip Count of Charolois, eldest son and heir of the murdered Duke, threw himself heart and soul into the English alliance.

The Dauphin withdrew to Poictiers. France south of the Loire was in his hands, but north of that river it substantially belonged to the English king and to his Burgundian ally. During the autumn of 1419 and the following spring there were no military operations of much importance. A desultory warfare was waged with the Dauphin, while, on the other hand, there was a succession of truces between Henry and the party of the French king. Negotiations, meanwhile, went busily on, and this time with a real intention on all sides that they should lead to some result; and this result may be seen in what was called “The Perpetual Peace of Troyes,” finally concluded on May 21st. King Charles was to have undisturbed possession of the crown during his life; after his death the crown should go to Henry and his heirs; during Charles’s incapacity to reign, Henry should be Regent of France, and should be styled by the King “our most dear son Henry, King of England and heir of France”; the Princess Katherine was to become Queen of England, with the customary annuity of forty thousand crowns.

On the same day that the treaty was finally ratified, the betrothal took place in the Church of St. Peter at Troyes. The Queen of France and the Princess were attended by the Duke of Burgundy and forty of his council. Before the betrothal Isabeau and Henry went together to the high altar, where the articles of peace were read aloud, and both affixed their seals to them. Then Henry and Katherine joined hands and were contracted, while the Duke of Burgundy took an oath to obey Henry as Regent of France so long as King Charles should live, and after the latter’s death, to acknowledge him as his liege-lord. Nine days later, the marriage was celebrated with great magnificence. Henry had attained the object of his ambition—he was Regent and heir of France, and he was the husband of the Fair Katherine.