Page:The Queens of England.djvu/214

i8o THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. her husband. In company with this knight, who had about sixty horsemen with him, she took the road to Calais, whence after some stay she crossed over to England, where she was most honorably received by the king, who made her general prom- ises of aid in all her concerns. This eccentric personage is she who afterwards occasioned so much political confusion by her fatally precipitate marriage with the Duke of Gloucester. To this union, which may be de- nominated absurdly rash, for it occurred while her first husband was still living, historians generally attribute the disasters which afterwards befell the English in France, as it is sup- posed to have alienated from their alliance the Duke of Bur- gundy. This conjecture, however, will admit of much ques- tioning; but, as this is not the place to investigate it, we will proceed to narrate the proceedings of Henry, whose return to France was disagreeably hastened by the unlucky battle of Bauge, in which his brother, the Duke of Clarence, was killed., He disembarked at Calais with an army of twenty-four thou- sand archers and from three to four thousand men-at-arms, and thence proceeded to Montes to meet the Duke of Burgundy. With this prince it was arranged that he should return to Picardy to oppose Sir John Harcourt, and that the king should attack Dreux. After the surrender of this place, he besieged Meaux, where he heard of the accouchement of Katherine, whiom he had left behind him in England, of a son and heir to the two kingdoms. It is singular that Henry, before quitting England, had strictly enjoined the queen not to let the expected heir be born at Windsor, The queen, however, disobeyed this command ; the child was born at Windsor, and on the king anx- iously inquiring, on receiving the news, where the boy had been born, and being answered at Windsor, he sighed, and immedi- ately recited a well-known rhyme, importing that he himself should have a short reign and get much, but that his son should have a long reign and lose all. Most probably this prophecy, which had come to his knowledge, was the cause of his prohibi- tion of Windsor as the child's birthplace. Be that as it may, it was singularly fulfilled, possibly hasting its own accomplish- ment. The royal infant was, by command of his father, baptized Henry, and one of his sponsors was the whimsical Jacqueline. The birth of his son gave unbounded gratification to the king, and the rejoicings throughout England were on an unprece- dented scale of pomp.