ples of justice: the
first, because he was twenty-seven years old, and the Dauphin not
twenty; the latter, because it were unjust "to expect that so
important a stake should be hazarded on the result of such a meeting."
To enhance Henry's guilt of cowardice, we are told that he challenged
"a mere youth, of whose prowess or bodily strength there is not (p. 152)
the slightest evidence, and who died _in the December following_."
This is not the first time we have had occasion to remark on this same
writer's injustice towards Henry's memory. Why mention the Dauphin's
death in the following December, except to insinuate that Henry _knew_
he was then in a weak state of bodily health? Of this, however, there
is not the shadow of reason for suspecting Henry. On the contrary, the
evidence tends to the directly opposite conclusion. The Dauphin died
on the 25th December following; but so sudden was his decease, that a
suspicion was excited of his having been poisoned. He had for a long
time been actively engaged in heading one of the contending parties in
France, and he is reported to have been a bold and presumptuous
prince.[121] And, even a month after the battle of Agincourt, we find
him, apparently in full strength both of body and mind, exercising the
authority of the King, his father, in Paris; vigorously and
effectually resisting the entrance of the Duke of Burgundy, who
marched with his army direct to the gates of that city, determined to
force for himself an entrance into it. And, on his father's relapsing
into his malady, he vigorously seized the government, setting the Duke
of Orleans at defiance, and carrying off the King, his father, ill as
he was, to the siege of Arras.[122] Whether the difference of (p. 153)
age between these two young warriors is so great as to justify such
strong reflections on Henry's courage, must be left to the judgment of
impartial minds. But, when the Dauphin is called a mere youth, it must
be borne in mind that he was considerably older than Henry was when he
headed his father's troops in Wales, or fought so gallantly in the
field of Shrewsbury.

[Footnote 121: Abrege Historique.]

[Footnote 122: Ibid. p. 114.]

But we must not let this charge, affecting Henry's valour and justice,
be dismissed without observing that not only did Henry believe, but it
was the universal belief of the age, that "trial by battle" was a
proper way of ending a disp