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break their ranks by making the onset; which Henry perceiving, with a cheerful countenance cried out, My friends, since they will not begin, it is ours to set the example; come on, and the blessed Trinity be our protection !" Upon this the whole army set forward with a shout, while the French still waited their approach with intrepidity. 11. The English archers, who had long been famous for their great skill, first let fly a shower of arrows three feet long, which did great execution. The French cavalry advancing to repel these, two hundred bowmen, who lay till then concealed, rising on a sudden, let fly among them, and produced such a confusion, that the archers threw by their arrows, and rushing in, fell upon them sword in hand. The French at first repulsed the assailants, who were enfeebled by disease; but they soon made up the defect by their valour; and, resolving to conquer or die, burst in upon the enemy with such impetuosity, that the French were soon obliged to give way.

12. They were overthrown in every part of the field; their numbers, being crowded into a very narrow space, were incapable of either flying or making any resistance, so that they covered the ground with heaps of slain. After all appearance of opposition was over, there was heard an alarm from behind, which proceeded from a number of peasants who had fallen on the English baggage, and were putting those who guarded it to the sword. 13. Henry, now seeing the enemy on all sides of him, began to entertain apprehensions from his prisoners, the number of whom exceeded even that of his army. He thought it necessary, therefore, to issue general orders for putting them to death; but on a discovery of a certainty of his victory, he stopped the slaughter, and was still able to save a great number. 14. This severity tarnished the glory which his victory would otherwise have acquired, but all the heroism of that age is tinctured with barbarity. In this battle the French lost ten thousand men and fourteen thousand prisoners: the English only forty men in all.*

15. France was at that time (A. D. 1417) in a wretched situation; the whole kingdom appeared as one vast theatre

The duke of York and earl of Suffolk were among the few who fell in this battle on the side of the English. Also three valiant Welshmen, named Davy Gam, Roger Vaughan, and Walker Lloyd, who had rescued the king, and were afterwards knighted by him as they lay bleeding to death. -Monstrelet.

of crimes, murders, injustice, and devastation. The duke of Orleans was assassinated by the duke of Burgundy; and the duke of Burgundy, in his turn, fell by the treachery of the dauphin.

16. A state of imbecility, into which Charles had fallen, made him passive in every transaction; and Henry, at last, by conquests and negotiation, caused himself to be elected heir to the crown. The principal articles of this treaty were, that Henry should espouse the princess Catharine, daughter of the king of France; that king Charles should enjoy the title and dignity for life, but that Henry should be declared heir to the crown, and should be intrusted with the present administration of the government; that France and England should for ever be united under one king, but should still retain their respective laws and privileges.

17. In consequence of this, while Henry was everywhere victorious, he fixed his residence at Paris; and while Charles had but a small court, he was attended with a very magnificent one. (A. D. 1421.) On Whit-Sunday, the two kings and their two queens, with crowns on their heads, dined together in public; Charles receiving apparent homage, but Henry commanding with absolute authority.*

18. Henry, at that time, when his glory had nearly reached its summit, and both crowns were just devolved upon him, was seized with a fistula, a disorder which, from the unskilfulness of the physicians of the times, soon became mortal. He expired with the same intrepidity with which he had lived, in the thirty-fourth year of his age, and the tenth of his reign.

The revenues of the government, and the grants of parliament, were so inadequate to Henry's expensive armies and expeditions, that he was forced to pawn his crown to his uncle, Cardinal Beaufort, for a large sum; and certain jewels to the lord mayor of London, for ten thousand marks; he was also obliged to pledge two gold chased basons, weighing together 28lb. 8oz. to two canons of St. Paul's, for six hundred marks; and two golden shells to the dean of Lincoln, for one hundred more. The cost of his army was great; each knight received 20s. per diem; a squire 10s. and each archer 5s. Besides which, he had a costly band of music, among which were ten clarions, which played an hour, night and morning, before his tent.-Bertrand de Moleville, &c.

Born 1421. Deposed March 5, 1461. Died April 21, 1471. Began to reign August 31, 1422. Reigned 38 years.

SECTION I.

1. (A. D. 1422.) THE duke of Bedford, one of the most accomplished princes of the age, and equally experienced both in the cabinet and the field, was appointed by parlia ment protector of England, defender of the church, and first counsellor to the king during his minority, as he was not yet a year old; and as France was the great object that engrossed all consideration, he attempted to exert the efforts of the nation upon the continent with all his vigour. 2. A new revolution was produced in that kingdom, by