OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN 



of Bourges," Paris was held by the Burgundians, 

 who were in league with the English. The 

 Dukes of Burgundy and of Brittany were alike 

 vacillating in their policy, being at one time 

 attached to the king's party, and at another 

 allied to the English. With the exception of 

 a few castles, the strongholds of lords loyal to 

 the Crown, the English possessed the whole of 

 France north of the Loire, from the Meuse to the 

 Bay of Mont St. Michel. Hither the Duke of 

 Bedford was sent as regent for the English king, 

 Henry the Sixth, then ten months old, who, by 

 the terms of the Treaty of Troyes (1420), was 

 the lawful king, the right of succession having 

 been conferred on his father, Henry the Fifth, 

 when he married Catherine, the daughter of 

 Charles the Sixth of France. 



Charles the Seventh divided his time between 

 Bourges and Poitiers, where the government 

 was carried on, and Loches, Chinon, and Tours, 

 the places he dearly loved, and in which he 

 sought the solitude he craved for. But even in 

 these seemingly peaceful retreats his lethargy 

 and indolence were disturbed by perpetual 

 intrigues, which it must be admitted were 

 largely fostered by his own caprices and fickle 

 affections. Meanwhile a cry of misery was 

 arising from the war-devastated land. Churches 

 and convents, castles and cottages, were all fallen 

 into ruin, and brambles grew on the unfilled 

 land where once golden corn had waved. 

 Peasants hid their horses during the day and 



150 



