s first
fell before the arms of England and Burgundy, and immediately after
siege was laid to Montereau, where the assassination of John the Bold
had been committed.

Henry also now took upon him the whole executive power of the
government. The governors of towns, the officers of state, the
magistrates and the dignitaries, were placed and displaced at his
pleasure. The currency of the country was altered at his suggestion,
and his counsels swayed everything in France. However, England was
still at his heart, and leaving a country that his sword and his
policy had conquered, as soon as he could do so with any security, he
carried his beautiful bride to be crowned in London.

The moment, however, that his foot was out of France, his interests in
that country declined; and the rashness of his officers brought
confusion and ruin into his affairs. Town after town was taken by the
Dauphin; and at length the Duke of Clarence, the English monarch's
brother, with all the chivalry that accompanied him, were defeated at
Bauge, in Anjou, and the duke himself, as well as three thousand of
his men, remained dead upon the field. This news, accompanied by the
further tidings that the Dauphin was advancing to besiege Chartres,
called upon the king imperatively to return to France; and leaving the
queen to follow at a future time, Henry set out for Calais accompanied
by four thousand men-at-arms and twenty-four thousand archers.

His coming gave new courage to the Burgundian faction, and struck fear
into the followers of the Dauphin. Scarcely pausing at all in the
capital, the English monarch advanced direct toward Chartres, before
which the Dauphin had already been encamped three weeks; but long ere
the English reached the town the gates were free, and the adverse army
with all speed retreated toward Touraine. Thither the English monarch
followed, breathing revenge for the death of his brother. Dreux and
Beaugency-sur-Loire were conquered by the way; but after pursuing the
Dauphin ineffectually for some time, the scarcity of provisions
obliged him to return toward Normandy. On his march back, he is said
to have fallen in with a party of the Armagnac faction, who retreated
before him into a castle called Rougemont, which was instantly
assailed and taken by the English. All who were within, the French
historians assert, to the number of sixty persons, were, by the king's
order, drowned in the Loire, a fact which accords too well with t