During the whole of the long minority of Henry VI. the varying fortunes of the French war were almost the only topic that stirred the interest of the nation. The internal history of England is well-nigh a blank; no period since the Conquest is left so bare by the chroniclers, who seem to have no eyes or ears for anything save the fate of our armies across the Channel. The quarrels of Duke Humphrey with his colleagues in the regency are the only other topic on which they touch. The council carried out the policy of the late king, so far as any body of statesmen of average ability can continue the work of a single man of high military and political genius. They strained every nerve to keep up the war in France, and subordinated every other end to that purpose. Their wisest act was the release of the young King of Scots, after seventeen years of captivity. Seeing that his kinsman Albany was helping the French, they set James I. free, and sent him home. He married, ere he departed, Joan Beaufort, daughter of the Earl of Somerset, and granddaughter of John of Gaunt, a lady for whom he had formed a romantic attachment in the days of his captivity. By her influence it was hoped that he would be kept firm in the English alliance. In some degree this hope was fulfilled: James promptly slew his cousins of Albany, and devoted himself to pacifying and bringing back into order the country from which he had been so long exiled.

We must now turn to the aspect of affairs beyond the Channel, the subject which seemed all-important to the English nation at this time. The old mad King of France had died only two months after his son-in-law, Henry V. (October, 1422). Bedford had, therefore, to proclaim his little nephew as king at Paris, and to rule in his name, no longer in that of the unhappy Charles VI. The Dauphin also assumed the title of King of France, and was acknowledged as monarch in all the lands south of the Loire. But he was an indolent and apathetic young man, governed entirely by his favourites, and wholly unskilled in and averse to military enterprises. He did so little for himself, and seemed so contented with his unsatisfactory position, that men called him in scorn "the King of Bourges"—his residence for the time—rather than the King of France.

There still appeared to be some chance that the English might maintain themselves in possession of Northern France. But this hope rested entirely on the firm and continued fidelity of the Burgundian party to their English allies. It was only by their help that success could be won, for ten or fifteen thousand English scattered from Calais to Bordeaux could not hold down a hostile France. For some time the Duke of Burgundy aided Bedford, and the Burgundian citizens in each town maintained their loyalty to King Henry.

Bedford's regency commenced with two victories, at Cravant (July, 1423) and Verneuil (August, 1424), which so tamed the Dauphin's partisans that the English were able to work slowly west and south, subduing the land. More would have been done, but for a sudden risk of a breach with Burgundy, caused by the reckless selfishness of the Duke of Gloucester.

Tired of long bickerings with his uncle, Bishop Beaufort of Winchester, and the other members of the council of regency, Humphrey had resolved to go off on an enterprise of his own. There was at this moment a distressed princess in the Netherlands, Jacquelaine, Duchess of Holland and Countess of Hainault. She had married Philip of Burgundy's cousin, the Duke of Brabant, a stupid debauchee who treated her very ill. Escaping from his court, she fled to London, and offered herself and her lands to Duke Humphrey, if he would take her under his protection. Of course, a divorce from her husband had first to be procured; but the pope refused to grant it. In spite of this trifling difficulty, Gloucester performed a ceremony of marriage with Jacquelaine, though both of them were well aware that it was a rank case of bigamy. They then crossed to the continent to take possession of her dominions, which were held by her husband, John of Brabant. This, of course, meant war; and not only war with Brabant, but with Burgundy also, for Duke Philip was the close ally of Duke John, and had no wish to see Gloucester established in his neighbourhood as ruler of Hainault and Holland.

Both Bedford and the English council of regency completely disavowed Gloucester's doings, but it was hard to persuade Burgundy that England had not determined to break with him. If Gloucester had been successful, there is no doubt that Burgundy would have joined the French and driven the English out of France. But fortunately for Bedford, his brother proved singularly unlucky in Hainault. Seeing himself outnumbered and surrounded by the Brabanters and Burgundians, Humphrey left his quasi-wife in the lurch, and fled back to England. The bigamous duchess fell into the hands of her enemies, and was placed in confinement. Gloucester took the news with equanimity, and consoled himself by marrying Eleanor Cobham, a lady of damaged reputation, whom he had known long before.

Owing to Gloucester's failure in Hainault, the breach between England and Burgundy did not widen into open disruption, but Duke Philip never again supported his allies with such vigour as in the earlier days of the war. It was not till 1428 that the English felt strong enough to make a fresh advance against the lands beyond the Loire. In that year the regent Bedford succeeded in equipping a small field army of five or six thousand men—half English, half French partisans of England. Placing them under Thomas Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, one of the best captains who had served Henry V., he sent them southward. Salisbury at first aimed at taking Angers, but turned aside to besiege Orleans, the key of the central valley of the Loire, and the one place of importance beyond that river which the French still held. On the 7th of October, 1428, he took post in front of it, and built strong redoubts facing each of its gates, for he had not a large enough army to surround so great a city. Thus Orleans was blockaded rather than besieged, since it was always possible for the French to get in or out in small parties between the fortified positions of the English.

Orleans held out long and stubbornly, and while its siege still dragged on, a new factor was suddenly introduced into the struggle. The widespread misery and devastation caused by thirteen years of uninterrupted war had moved the hearts of the French to despair; the people lay inert and passive, hating the English, but caring little for the despicable Charles and his Armagnac court at Bourges. It was left for a simple peasant girl to turn this apathy into energy, and to send forth the whole people of France on a wild crusade against the invader.

Jeanne d'Arc was the daughter of a villager of Domrémy, on the borders of Champagne. She was from her youth a girl of a mystic, visionary piety, who believed herself to be visited by dreams and visions from on high, which guided her in all the actions of her life. At the age of eighteen her "voices," as she called them, began to give her the strange command to go forth and deliver France from the English, whose arrogance and cruelty had moved the wrath of Heaven. Jeanne doubted the meaning of these hard sayings, but in repeated visions she thought that she saw St. Michael and St. Catherine appear to her, and bid her go to the Dauphin Charles and cause him to place her at the head of his armies. She resolved to obey their behests, and betook herself to Chinon, where she presented herself before the prince. Charles at first treated her slightingly, and his courtiers and captains laughed her to scorn. But she vehemently insisted on the importance of her mission, and at last made some impression on the Dauphin's weak and wavering mind. Apparently she revealed to him a secret known to himself alone, by some sort of clairvoyance. Charles resolved to give her mission a trial, and his captains agreed that perchance the company of an inspired prophetess might put heart into their dispirited troops. Jeanne's "voices" bade her clothe herself in knightly armour, display a white banner before her, and ride at the head of the Dauphin's men to the relief of Orleans. They promised her complete success in the enterprise, and prophesied that she should lead the prince in triumph to Rheims, and there crown him King of France.

In April, 1429, Jeanne entered Orleans with a convoy of food and a small troop of men-at-arms. The townsmen needed her encouragement, but their English foes outside were also in evil case. The task was too great for the little army of the besiegers, who had already lost many men, and had seen their leader, Thomas of Salisbury, slain by a cannon-shot as he was reconnoitering the walls. The Earl of Suffolk, who succeeded him, still held his ring of fortified posts round the city, on both sides of the Loire, but was quite unable to prevent food and reinforcements from entering it. Nevertheless the men of Orleans sorely needed the aid that Jeanne brought; for the Dauphin seemed to have abandoned them, and they had begun to despair. The success of Jeanne's mission was settled from the moment when the burghers of Orleans hailed her as a deliverer, and placed themselves at her disposal. If they had doubted and sneered, like the Dauphin's courtiers at Chinon, she could have done nothing. But the moment that she was within the walls, she bade the garrison arm and sally forth to attack the English redoubts that ringed them in. Her first effort was crowned with success; a sudden assault carried the nearest fort before succour could reach it from Suffolk's camp. The men of Orleans cried that Jeanne was indeed a prophetess and a deliverer sent by God, and henceforth followed her with a blind devotion which nothing could turn back or repel. It was in vain that the mercenary captains of the Dauphin's host endeavoured to moderate the reckless vigour of Jeanne's movements. After her first success she bade the garrison go on and conquer, and on four continuous days of fighting led them against the entrenchments of the English. One after another they fell, for the French were now fighting with a force and fury which nothing could resist. "Before that day," says the chronicler, "two hundred English would drive five hundred French before them. But now two hundred French would beat and chase four hundred English." The invaders came to dread the approach of Jeanne's white standard with a superstitious fear; they declared that she was a witch, and that the powers of hell fought behind her. At last Suffolk was fain to burn his camp, and to withdraw northwards with the remnant of his host.

But the disasters of the English were not yet ended. Jeanne had no intention of allowing them to remain unmolested; the troops who had already fought under her were ready to follow her anywhere, and the peasants and burghers all over France were beginning to take up arms, "now that the Lord had shown himself on the side of the Dauphin." With a host largely increased by fresh levies, Jeanne went to seek the English, and caught them up at Patay. There she charged them suddenly, "before the archers had even time to fix their stakes," and destroyed almost the whole force, taking captive Lord Talbot, its commander.

Jeanne now bade the Dauphin come forth from his seclusion and follow her to Rheims, the old crowning-place of the French kings. He obeyed, and brought a great host with him. At the approach of "the Maid of Orleans," as Jeanne was now styled, fortress after fortress in Champagne yielded. The regent Bedford was too weak in men to quit Paris, and so Jeanne was able to fulfil her promise by leading Charles to Rheims and there witnessing his coronation (July 17, 1429).

She then declared that her mission was ended, and asked to be allowed to return home to her father's house. But Charles would not suffer it, because of the enormous advantage that her presence gave to the French arms. She then bade him strike at Paris, the heart of the English possessions in France. For the first time in her career she failed; the Burgundian citizens manned their walls too well, and served their faction rather than their country. Jeanne was wounded in a fruitless assault on the city, and had to withdraw. But her campaign was not fruitless; Soissons, Laon, Beauvais, Senlis, Compiègne, Troyes, and well-nigh the whole of Isle-de-France and Champagne, were recovered from the English. The land which Bedford ruled as regent was now reduced to a triangular patch, with the sea as its base and Paris as its apex, and included little more than Normandy, Picardy, and Maine.

In spite of her failure at Paris, the prestige of the Maid of Orleans was still unbroken; she went on winning place after place for King Charles, though he supported her very grudgingly, and left her to depend on the enthusiasm of the people rather than the royal arm. But her career came suddenly to an end; while endeavouring to relieve Compiègne, then besieged by a Burgundian army, she was unhorsed in a skirmish, and fell into the hands of the enemy. Philip of Burgundy would not slay the maid himself, but he meanly sold her for ten thousand crowns to the English, though he knew that Bedford regarded her as a witch, and was resolved to punish her as such.

The cruel tragedy which followed will always leave a deep stain on the character of the regent, who in all other matters showed himself a just and righteous man. Jeanne was kept for many months in prison, subjected to cruel and ribald treatment, and examined again and again by bigoted ecclesiastics who were determined to prove her a witch. She constantly withstood them with a firm piety which moved their wrath, maintaining that her visions and voices were from God, and that all her acts had been done with His aid. After much quibbling, cross-examination, and persecution, a tribunal of French clergy, headed by the Bishop of Beauvais, pronounced her a sorceress and heretic, and handed her over to the secular arm for execution; the English, therefore, burnt her alive in the market-place of Rouen (May, 1431). Her callous master, Charles VII., made no attempt to save her, and seems to have viewed her fate with complete indifference.

Though Jeanne had met a martyr's death, her cause continued to prosper. The spell of the invincibility of the English had been broken, and with their inferior numbers they could no longer resist the French assaults, in which nobles, burghers, and peasants now all united with a single heart. It was in vain that Bedford brought over the little ten-year-old Henry VI. from England, and crowned him at Paris (1431). The ceremony was attended by hardly a single Frenchman; even the Burgundian faction in the capital were beginning to doubt and draw apart from their old allies.

Meanwhile in England the continued ill-success of the war was leading to the growth of a peace party, at whose head was Henry Beaufort, the Bishop of Winchester, who had lately become a cardinal. That Beaufort supported any scheme was a sufficient reason for Gloucester to oppose it, and Humphrey made himself the mouthpiece of those who pleaded for perpetual war. The cardinal and the duke quarrelled in and out of Parliament, their followers were always brawling, and the action of the council of regency grew weak and divided.

At last Beaufort prevailed on the council to submit proposals for peace to the French court. At Arras the ambassadors of Henry VI., Charles VII., and Philip of Burgundy met, and strove to come to terms (1435). But the English still insisted on claiming the pompous style of King of France for their young master, and on retaining Paris and all the North for him. The French were only ready to grant Normandy and Guienne, and insisted on the renunciation of Henry's French title. It cannot be doubted that these terms were quite reasonable, but they were rejected, with the most disastrous results. Philip of Burgundy was now tired of the struggle, and thought that he had sufficiently revenged his father's murder by fifteen years of war with the murderer. On the ground that the English had rejected fair conditions of peace, he broke off his alliance with them, and made terms with Charles of France. He got Picardy and the counties of Macon and Auxerre as the price of his change of alliance.

Just as the Congress of Arras was breaking up, John of Bedford died, worn out before his time by his fourteen years of toilsome government in France. The breach with the Duke of Burgundy and the death of Bedford had the results that might have been expected. With one common accord the last French partisans of England threw off their allegiance to Henry VI. Paris itself opened its gates to the troops of Charles VII., and the English had soon to stand on the defensive in Normandy and Maine, their last foothold in Northern France (1437).

Nothing is more astonishing than the obstinate way in which the English government clung to the last remnants of the conquests of Henry V. By desperate and unremitting exertions the war was kept up in Normandy for no less than twelve years after Paris fell (1437-49). The heroes of this struggle were the veteran Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and the young Richard, Duke of York, who had just begun to come to the front. This prince was the son of that Richard Earl of Cambridge, who had paid with his life for his attempt to overturn Henry V. He was Duke of York as successor to his uncle Edmund, who fell at Agincourt, and Earl of March in right of his mother, the sister of the childless Edmund Mortimer, the last male of his house. York was governor in Normandy during the most important years of the struggle for the retention of the duchy, and gained much credit for repeatedly driving back the invasions which the French launched against it. He grew intoxicated with success, and made himself a prominent supporter of the unwise war-policy which Humphrey of Gloucester continued to advocate.

Meanwhile Cardinal Beaufort and the party which opposed Duke Humphrey—its chief members were Beaufort's nephews John and Edmund, successively Earls of Somerset, and William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk—were always watching for an opportunity of concluding a peace with France. Whenever they took negotiations in hand they were denounced by Gloucester as the hirelings of Charles VII., but they persisted in their purpose. In 1444 they thought that they had achieved it, for the French king, wearied by constant repulses in Normandy, consented to make a truce for two years, and to treat for a definite peace. He signed the compact at Tours, and ratified it by giving the hand of his kinswoman Margaret of Anjou to the young king Henry VI.; in consideration of the treaty, the English were to surrender Maine and its fortresses, while retaining Normandy entire.

Gloucester and Richard of York saluted this wise marriage and treaty with loud cries of wrath. They said that the Earl of Suffolk, who negotiated it, must have been sold to France, and spoke of the surrender of the fortresses of Maine as treason to the English crown. The greater part of the nation believed them to be right, for Humphrey and Richard were both popular with the masses, and it soon became a matter of faith that the Beauforts and Suffolk had betrayed their young master.

A strong king might have crushed this unwise opposition to peace. But Henry VI., who had now reached his majority, was anything but a strong king. He was frail and feeble both in body and mind, a simple soul much given to exercises of piety and to quiet study. He always sought some stronger arm on which to lean, and when he had chosen his friends, wisely or unwisely, he clung to them with the obstinacy that so often accompanies weakness. Worst of all, he had inherited a taint of madness from his grandfather, the insane Charles VI. of France, and from time to time his brain was clouded by fits of apathetic melancholy. Henry had learnt to trust his great-uncle Cardinal Beaufort and his minister Suffolk; he would never listen to any accusation against them. His views were shared by the fiery young queen, who soon began to rule him by dint of her stronger will.

The truce of Tours lasted for some three years. During this space the factions in England grew fiercer than ever, and in 1447 came to a head. At a Parliament at Bury St. Edmunds, Gloucester was suddenly arrested by order of Suffolk and the queen, and charged with treason. He died within a few days, probably from an apoplectic seizure, and not from any foul play. But it was natural that the rumour should get abroad that Suffolk had secretly murdered him.

Gloucester was only outlived for a few weeks by his lifelong rival, the old Cardinal Beaufort. Their deaths cleared the way for the rise of new men: the Cardinal's place at the head of the peace party was taken by Suffolk and Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, men of far lower stamp than the old churchman, who, though proud and worldly, had always done his best to serve England. Suffolk and Somerset were busy, self-important, self-seeking men, and coveted power and office for their own private ends. The Duke of York, who succeeded to Duke Humphrey's position, was a far more capable man, but he was committed to the hopelessly unpractical programme of perpetual war with France. His position, too, was rendered difficult by the fact that Duke Humphrey's death had made him next heir to the throne after the feeble young king, for there was now no other male of the house of Lancaster surviving. The queen, Suffolk, and Somerset began to look on him with suspicion, and he had to walk warily lest charges of treason should be brought against him, as they had been against his cousin of Gloucester. Meanwhile he was fain to accept the position of Lord Deputy of Ireland, which kept him out of harm's way.

In 1449 the truce with France which had accompanied the king's marriage was broken, by the gross fault of his minister Suffolk. Some of the Norman garrisons were left so long unpaid that they broke into mutiny, crossed the border, and sacked the rich Breton town of Fougéres. Failing to get satisfaction from Suffolk for this outrage, Charles VII. declared war. Normandy was now in the charge of Somerset, a man of very different calibre from Richard of York, who had held it against such odds in the days before the truce of Tours. The French, on invading the duchy, swept the English before them with an ease that astonished even themselves. The peasants and townsfolk rose against their masters on every side, and gave the invaders their best help. Town after town fell; Rouen, the capital of the duchy, was betrayed by traitors within the gates; and the unhappy Somerset had to fall back on Caen. That town, with Cherbourg and Harfleur, was soon all that remained to the English on Norman soil.

This terrible news stirred up great wrath and indignation in England against Suffolk and Somerset. An army was hastily got ready at Portsmouth, and sent over to Cherbourg, with orders to join Somerset at Caen. But the French threw themselves between, and forced the army of succour to give them battle at Formigny. At this disastrous fight well-nigh the whole English force was destroyed, overwhelmed by an attack from the rear at a moment when it was already engaged with a superior French army in front. Only its general, Sir Thomas Kyriel, and 400 men were granted quarter, while no less than 3000 were slain (April, 1450).

This disaster settled the fate of Normandy. Somerset was compelled to surrender Caen, and returned, covered with ignominy, to England. The other garrisons yielded one after another, and nothing remained of all the mighty conquests of Henry V. in Northern France.

Even before Formigny had been fought, or Caen had fallen, grave troubles had broken out in England. Suffolk had always been unpopular ever since he gave up Maine and signed the truce of Tours. The news of the loss of Rouen, and the other Norman towns, sufficed to ruin him. In spite of the king's continued assurance of his confidence in his minister, the House of Commons began to send up petitions against Suffolk, accusing him not only of losing Maine and Normandy, but of having sold himself for bribes to the King of France. Seditious riots in Kent and London gave point to the Commons' accusation. Cowed by such signs of danger, the feeble king removed Suffolk from office. The Commons then formally passed a bill of attainder against him for treasonable misconduct of the king's affairs during the last five years. But Henry would not allow his trusted servant to be harmed, gave him a formal pardon, and bade him go beyond seas till the trouble should blow over. Suffolk sailed for Calais, but in the Dover Straits his vessel was beset and captured by some London ships, which had been lying in wait for him. He was caught and beheaded after a mock trial, and his body was cast ashore on Dover Sands. The guilty parties in this extraordinary crime were never traced or convicted.

But the death of Suffolk did not imply the removal of Suffolk's friends from office. The king kept his ministry unchanged, a piece of obstinacy which provoked a fresh burst of popular indignation. In June, 1450, occurred the great political insurrection known as "Jack Cade's Rebellion." John Aylmer or Cade was a soldier of fortune, who had served under the Duke of York in France and Ireland. He gave out that he was akin to the house of Mortimer, and that he was acting by the consent of his cousin, Duke Richard. His programme was the removal and punishment of the king's ministers, and the restoration of strong government and even-handed justice. His rising, in short, was political in its objects, and did not aim at redressing social evils only, like that of Wat Tyler. Possibly, Richard of York may have had some hand in the business, but we have no actual proof that he had egged Cade on.

All Kent and Sussex rose to join Cade, who advanced to Blackheath, and boldly sent in his demands to the king. Many of the Londoners favoured him, and the gates of the city opened at his approach. For a moment he was in possession of the capital. Smiting London Stone with his drawn sword, he cried, "Now is Mortimer Lord of London." He exercised his lordship by seizing and beheading Lord Say, the treasurer, and Crowmere, Sheriff of Kent, two friends of Suffolk. He would have done the same with others of the king's servants if he could have caught them. But this violence and the plundering of houses and shops by his disorderly followers provoked the citizens, who closed the gates and came to blows with the rebels. The king brought up armed retainers to help the Londoners, and after a space Cade's men dispersed on the promise of a royal pardon. Their leader, however, refused to take advantage of the amnesty, fled to the woods, and was tracked down and slain a few weeks later. His rising had failed mainly because he was a mere adventurer, and could not keep his followers in order.

But hardly had Cade fallen, when the Duke of York, whose name he had been using so freely, suddenly came over in person from Ireland to put himself at the head of the opposition. His first demand was a change of ministry, and especially the dismissal of Somerset, who had now returned from Normandy, and had been placed at the head of the king's council, as if he had come back covered with glory instead of with dishonour. But Henry and his queen were set on keeping their cousin of Beaufort in power, and York had for the time to hold back, lest he should be accused of open treason.

His opportunity of speaking with effect was not long in coming. In 1451 the French attached Guienne, the last province over-sea where the English banner was still displayed. The loyal Gascons made a stout defence, but the king and Somerset sent them no aid, and Bordeaux was finally compelled to surrender. The loss of Guienne added the last straw to the burden of Somerset's misdeeds. York, aided by several other peers, took up arms to compel the king to send away his shiftless minister. Henry called out an army, and faced York in Kent; but both were unwilling to strike the first blow, and on receiving a promise that Somerset should be dismissed, and tried before his peers, the duke sent his men home.

The king, however, with a want of faith that he rarely displayed, refused to put Somerset on trial, and retained him as his minister. He endeavoured to distract the attention of the nation from his favourite's misdoings, by proposing that a vigorous attempt should be made to recover Guienne. The Gascons hated the French conqueror, and had sent secret messages to London offering to rise if assured of English aid. No one could refuse their appeal, and with the consent of all parties a new army was enrolled for the recovery of Bordeaux. It was given to the charge of Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, the last survivor of the old captains of Henry V. The gallant veteran landed near Bordeaux with 5000 men, retook the city by the aid of its citizens, and overran the neighbouring districts. But fortune had definitely turned against England: in the next year he was slain and his army cut to pieces at the bloody battle of Castillon (July, 1453). Bordeaux held out for three months more, but was forced to yield to starvation before the year was out.

Thus was lost the last remnant of the great inheritance of Eleanor of Aquitaine, after it had remained just 300 years in the hands of the Plantagenets (1154-1453). England now retained none of her old possessions beyond sea save Calais and the Channel Islands, a strange surviving fragment of the duchy of Normandy.

The house of Lancaster and the English nation had sinned in company when they embarked so eagerly in 1415 on the wanton invasion of France. They had already paid for their crime by lavish expenditure of life and treasure on foreign battle-fields: they were now to incur the worse penalty of a savage and murderous civil war.