es. Through the whole of
1474 the English king prepared actively for war. A treaty was concluded
with Britanny. The nation was wild with enthusiasm. Large supplies were
granted by Parliament: and a large army gathered for the coming campaign.
The plan of attack was a masterly one. While Edward moved from Normandy on
Paris, the forces of Burgundy and of Britanny on his right hand and his
left were to converge on the same point. But the aim of Charles in these
negotiations was simply to hold Lewis from any intervention in his
campaign on the Rhine. The siege of Neuss was not opened till the close of
July, and its difficulties soon unfolded themselves. Once master of the
whole Rhineland, the house of Austria saw that Charles would be strong
enough to wrest from it the succession to the Empire; and while Sigismund
paid back his loan and roused Elsass to revolt the Emperor Frederick
brought the whole force of Germany to the relief of the town. From that
moment the siege was a hopeless one, but Charles clung to it with stubborn
pride through autumn, winter, and spring, and it was only at the close of
June 1475 that the menace of new leagues against his dominions on the
upper Rhineland forced him to withdraw. So broken was his army that he
could not, even if he would, have aided in carrying out the schemes of the
preceding year. But an English invasion would secure him from attack by
Lewis till his forces could be reorganized; and with the same unscrupulous
selfishness as of old Charles pledged himself to co-operate and called on
Edward to cross the Channel. In July Edward landed with an army of
twenty-four thousand men at Calais. In numbers and in completeness of
equipment no such force had as yet left English shores. But no Burgundian
force was seen on the Somme; and after long delays Charles proposed that
Edward should advance alone upon Paris on his assurance that the
fortresses of the Somme would open their gates. The English army crossed
the Somme and approached St. Quentin, but it was repulsed from the walls
by a discharge of artillery. It was now the middle of August, and heavy
rains prevented further advance; while only excuses for delay came from
Britanny and it became every day clearer that the Burgundian Duke had no
real purpose to aid. Lewis seized the moment of despair to propose peace
on terms which a conqueror might have accepted, the security of Britanny,
the payment of what the English deemed a tribute of fifty