Page:The Queens of England.djvu/208

176 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. "Katherine. Is it possible that I should love the enemy of France ? "Henry. No, it is not possible that you should love the enemy of France, Kate ; but in loving me, you should love the friend of France ; for I love France so well that I will not part with a single village of it ; I will have it all mine ; and, Kate, when France is mine, and I am yours, then yours is France, and you are mine." Shortly afterward, Henry, king of England, accompanied by his two brothers and many of the great lords of England, with about sixteen hundred combatants, the greater part of whom were archers, set out from Rouen and came to Ponthoise, and thence to St. Denis. He crossed the bridge at Charenton, and left part of his army to guard it, and thence advanced by Prov- ins to Troyes in Champagne. The Duke of Burgundy and sev- eral of the nobility, to show him honor and respect, came out to meet him, and conducted him to the hotel where he was lodged with his princes. Shortly after his arrival, he waited on the king and queen of France, and the lady Katherine their daugh- ter, when great honors and attentions were by them mutually paid. When all relating to the peace had been concluded, King Henry, according to the custom of France, affianced the lady Katherine. "On the morrow of Trinity-day, the King of England espoused her in the parish church near to which he was lodged ; great pomp and magnificence were displayed by him and his princes, as if he were at that moment king of all the world." Thus did the vile Isabella of France consent to disinherit her own- son, and Katherine her own brother, by this marriage. There is something monstrous in the whole arrangement. The King of France, a wretched maniac, signing away his own in- heritance, and all parties holding the nuptial festivities in the midst of the devastations of France. So bloody and unnatural a marriage was perhaps never contracted, and in blood it was steeped and in horror unspeakable, for within a fortnight King Henry butchered the whole garrison of Montereau on its sur- render to please his ally, called "Philip the Good" of Burgundy. After the conclusion of the feasts and ceremonies of the mar- riage, Henry and Charles, accompanied by their queens, the Duke of Burgundy, and the whole army, departed from the city of Troyes to besiege the town of Sens in Burgundy, which was occupied by a party of the dauphin's men. When they had taken