The coronation of Queen Katherine was performed on February 24th. About a month later came the news of a great disaster to the English arms in France. The Duke of Clarence had been defeated and slain at Beaujé in Anjou. He had made a plundering expedition into that province, and lay at Angers, on the Mayenne, when he heard of the presence of the Dauphin’s army a few miles to the east. Misinformed of the real strength of the enemy, or perhaps taught by a long succession of victories to despise him, he hurried to the attack, refusing even to wait till his whole force could be brought up, and riding on with his cavalry only. The details of the conflict that followed are obscure, but the result was a disastrous defeat. The Duke was killed, and with him fifteen hundred, or, according to some accounts, two thousand of his troops, among whom were the Lords Ross and Gray, and the Earls of Huntingdon and Somerset. The honours of the victory belonged to the Scotch, seven thousand of whom were present under command of the Earl of Buchan, youngest son of the Duke of Albany.

And in other ways things were not going well. The138 Duke of Exeter’s position in Paris was unsafe, while in Northern France, of which the English had seemed to have undisputed possession, the party of the Dauphin was again making head. Henry saw that his presence was imperatively needed, and hastened his preparations for another expedition.

There were signs of exhaustion in the country. It was becoming increasingly difficult to raise both men and money. At least a hundred thousand troops had already crossed the Channel; and the losses, by battle and disease, had been very large. The difficulty of money had, as we have seen, always been serious; and six years of incessant war had greatly increased it. Henry, however, persevered with indomitable energy, and the nation, among whom his popularity seems to have suffered no diminution, seconded his efforts. On June 10th he embarked with an army numbering no less than four thousand men-at-arms and twenty-four thousand archers. This time Dover was his point of departure, and a prosperous voyage brought him to Calais on the same day at noon.

His first care was to relieve the Duke of Exeter. A force of twelve hundred men was at once despatched, and reached Paris without encountering the enemy. The King’s presence, indeed, seemed to revive the English cause almost instantaneously throughout Normandy and Northern France. One of the principal operations of the campaign was the relief of Chartres, which the Dauphin had invested while Henry was still in England. On the approach of the English army the French retired without fighting a battle: the victory of Beaujé had not restored the confidence which had139 been lost at Agincourt. It is significant to find that in the account of a battle fought in the course of the campaign between the Dauphin and the Duke of Burgundy the chronicler tells us that the French were much encouraged by finding that there were no English in the Duke’s army. The capture of Dreux, which was surrendered on August 20th, was also an important gain. Henry—and the fact is a notable proof of his military capacity—had in the course of some ten weeks regained all that had been lost during his absence.

The English arms being again supreme in Northern France, he proceeded to extend the limits of the territory which they occupied, and marched southwards to the Loire. Vend?me fell into his hands, and, after Vend?me, Beaugency. Crossing the Loire, he proceeded as far south as Bourges, where the Dauphin, who steadily persisted in his policy of avoiding a battle, had shut himself up. But Bourges was too strong to be taken except by operations for which Henry had not then the means; and Orleans, still unreduced, was in his rear. A more pressing necessity was the capture of Meaux. As long as this fortress remained in the hands of the Dauphin, the position of the English in Paris was not safe. Meaux was accordingly invested on October 6th. The King left the conduct of the siege for a time in the hands of the Duke of Exeter, and returned to Paris, where many civil matters called for his presence.

The pressure on his supply of troops had now become exceedingly severe. He was forced to enlist large numbers of French soldiers to fill up the gaps in his English army: he sent envoys to the Emperor Sigismund soliciting help in men-at-arms and archers;140 and a similar request was also made to John, King of Portugal. In addition to losses in the field and by sickness, four thousand of his men are said to have died of an epidemic in the course of a single march during the campaign on the Loire; and still it was necessary to garrison every town or fortress of military importance that might be won from the enemy. Arthur, younger brother of the Duke of Britanny, who had some time before been released from his long imprisonment, came with a considerable reinforcement to join the army; and after Christmas the Duke of Burgundy paid a visit to the King, who had by that time returned to the camp. But the ............