Joan of Arc 2

Joan of Arc by Caster Helen part one two like another Messiah this was not how it was supposed to be Charles of valah the 17-year-old doin Deen knew that he was the heir to France he had been the last born of his father Sons but by the will of God he now stood as the next successor to an unbroken line of illustrious Kings reach back to the glories of Charlamagne and before him to the saintly Clovis the first of France's Christian monarchs it was to Clovis almost a thousand years before that God had sent the holy ampulla a miraculous vial containing the sacred oil with which every Roy Trace cren was anointed during his coronation a sacramental right held by long Tradition at Ron where the ampula itself was guarded with the utmost reverence it was Clovis to the dolin knew or had it been Charlamagne who first rode into battle bearing the oriflam a banner of Vermilion silk hung from a golden Lance which rallied the people of France to fight to the death whenever the kingdom was in Mortal danger and the protective powers of the oriflam were more than simply military since this hallowed flag had been a gift from St Deni the holy man who had converted Pagan Gul to Christianity exactly who Dennis had been and when he had brought the gospel to France were questions of some complexity and much learned debate but the the answers mattered less than the evident fact of his support for the kingdom and his special relationship with its king the oriflam itself was kept in the Saint's own Abbey just north of Paris ready for when the king should have need of it along with the Priceless regalia that were transported to Ron whenever a coronation took place charlamagne's Imperial Crown and his great sword called joy as well as the crown of the doin's great great great great great grandfather Louis the 9th the crusading king who had been recognized as the saint within three decades of his death his ciret fittingly for this blessed Monarch contained a fragment of Christ's crown of thorns and a lock of the savior's Hair St Louis himself like all the kings of France of the last 200 years was buried in the Abbey that belonged to St Ane from there these two patron saints of the French Crown watched over ls's Royal descendants in nearby Paris the capital founded Long Ago by Noble Trojans fleeing the sack of their own City that had since become in wisdom might and Holiness a new Athens Rome and Jerusalem and from Paris in turn the French King watched over the chosen people of a holy land a kingdom full of clerics Scholars relics and Saints all of this was the Dolphin's Birthright yet now it seemed his inheritance was being ripped from his fingers the fire red blazing of the oriflam had been trampled into the mud at a zort where the sacrifice of French lives had brought only defeat and humiliation not god-given Victory Paris the pillar of faith and the seat of the French Crown had fallen into the grasping hands of Burgundian traitors the consecrated precincts of the Abbey of St Den had welcomed Henry of England an upstart in a ruthless Predator whose device of a fox's brush elegantly embroidered could not disguise the fact that his teeth and Claws were sticky with French blood on his journey to Troys and in the cathedral there he had been greeted by the Dolphins Royal parents as their newly adopted son meanwhile the doin himself stood accused of murder most foul Henry of England and Philip of burgundy had agreed in a bilateral treaty five months before Troy that they would work together to ensure that Charles and his accompli were appropriately punished for their evident crimes even his own father or those who now spoke on the distracted King's behalf had issued letters patent proclaiming the fact of the prince's guilt and declaring that as a result he no longer had the right to use the title of doin instead he was simply Charles the ill advised who calls himself of France the dolin himself of course did not acknowledge that he bore any form of responsibility for the death of John of burgundy but even if he had he would not have accepted that disinheritance was its necessary consequence monan Len declared an armeniac pamphlet written in 1420 in response to the Treaty of Troys was the only true eror of the king in the Kingdom the treaty was therefore no peace but instead a fountain of Discord War murder plunder Bloodshed and horrible sedition an act of tyrannical usurpation that was most damnable most unjust and abominable and contrary to the honor of God and faith and religion still in order to stop that usurpation in its tracks some improvisation might be required if The Guiding Light of the oriflam had dimmed then the Dolphins Army would fight instead under a banner depicting the golden Flur de Lee of France on a background of celestial blue a venerable flag Laden with meaning the Lily standing for the purity of the Virgin its three Petals For The Trinity and the whole for the greatness of the French Crown which had also handily been presented to Clovis by an emissary from Heaven some people said that it was St Den who had brought the Flur Dee to the holy king but now that Dennis had faltered in his role as guardian of the kingdom it seemed more likely that the gift had come from the hands of the Archangel Michael God's Own standard Bearer whose Abbey at monts Michelle in Normandy was even now holding out against the English Invaders and so the dolphin ordered two new standards to be prepared for his army each showing the Heavenly Knight St Michael with his sword un sheathed to kill the devil that wried before him in the form of a serpent the naked blade of a sword clasped in an armed hand was also the dolins personal device painted delicately onto the silk and banner of white gold and blue that hung from from his lands but in practice despite the money that he lavished on suits of golden armor the prince could not lead his soldiers himself it was not just that he was not a warlike man as The Burgundian chronicler George chastellain later remarked noting his puny frame and unsteady gate it was also that he was Irreplaceable though the newly married Henry of England had as yet no son to succeed him he could rally his troops on the battlefield in the knowledge that he had three Royal Brothers The Dukes of Clarence Bedford and Gloucester fighting at his side ready to take his place if he fell but the brothers of the doin Charles were all dead the run of the Val litter was Now The Last Hope of the armanac cause as a result when the next confrontation came the armanac Army would have to look elsewhere for its Captain while the English and the burgundians had been occupied with the making of their diabolical compact to deprive him of his inheritance the dolphin and his troops had moved together through the south of the Kingdom to secure The Obedience of these armeniac lands with a show of strength but the ceremonies at Troy the sealing of the Anglo Burgundian treaty and the wedding of Henry of England and Catherine of France a little less than two weeks later did not keep the English king from the field for long on the day after the Triumph of his marriage the Knights of England and burgundy proposed a tournament in celebration instead the king ordered that they should leave immediately for SS 40 Mi west of of Troy where he said we may all tilt and joust and prove our daring and courage not in the lists but by besieging the aragn a week later s had fallen a fortnight after that Henry's Army stormed into mono fault Yan there the mutilated body of John The Fearless was exhumed from its shallow grave in the Parish church and reverently laid with salt and spices in a lead coffin for its Journey Back to the dead Duke's Capital at dejon then the English and Burg Indian troops marched Northwest to the Fortified walls of meloon a key staging Post in the campaign to sweep the armagnacs out of the region immediately to the south of burgundy and Paris but the soldiers of the armanac Garrison dug in their heels and by the middle of July it was clear that meloon would not so easily be taken now if ever the armanac cause needed an inspirational military leader to come to the town's rescue and put a stop to the English King's inexorable advance and the 17-year-old dolin new just what to do he ordered himself two new suits of gilded armor mustered an army of 15,000 men and put his cousin the count of Veris at the head of it at 24 Philipe of verus carried the weight of his world on his young shoulders his elder brother the Duke of Orlon was still under lock and key in England so it was to Philipe that the responsibility of safeguarding the family's future had fallen and now his Prince the doin required him to lead the army that would rid France of English Invaders and Burgundian traitors alike the count had made his base at jargo 10 Mi east of Orlon and the dolin joined him there in early August 10,000 newly stitched pennant fluttering in the breeze above the heads of their Mass troops but by the end of the month they had made no move to advance the count it emerged was unwell on the 1st of September he succumbed to his illness and all Prospect of stemming the Anglo Burgundian tide died with him the dolin immediately turned tail retreating Southward to his luxurious Palace of mayen ever near Borges and 6 weeks later the town of melon with no hope now of rescue was starved into surrender the stage was set for the triumphant English king to take possession of his new French capital on the 1st of December 1420 Henry of England Philip of burgundy and the pitiful figure of Charles of France our French Lords as the journal writer approvingly called them rode into Paris it was a hard winter and food was so scarce that beggar children were dying in the streets but still the city's hungry inhabitants turned out in their thousands to welcome the Royal procession many dressed in red the color of the Cross of Henry's Heavenly Patron St George the next day it was the turn of the Queens to make their magnificent entrance Henry's wife Catherine riding through the Port St Antoine between her mother Queen isabo and her newly acquired sister-in-law The Duchess of Clarence while cheering parisians toasted the coming of Peace in the wine that flowed da why and night from the city's conduits 19-year-old Catherine had been at her husband's side at the siege of meloon where in the only not to romance this battle hardened bridegroom was prepared to make he had ordered musicians to play for her every evening as the sun went down she was with him in Paris when two days before Christmas he and her father sat on the same judicial bench to hear a Burgundian demand for justice against her brother the so-called dolin and his accomplices in the murder of John The Fearless the dolin was summoned to answer the charges before the 6th of January to no one's surprise he failed to appear and was sentenced in his absence to Exile from the realm and disinheritance from the crown and by then Catherine and Henry were on their way to England to show the new Queen to her people and to raise more money and men for the final defeat of the armanac Rebels the doin however had other ideas he had lost his cousin of verdis but his protector St Michael to whose shrine at mon San Michelle still holding out against English Siege he had just sent a Pilgrim's offering would provide him with new Champions The Burgundian traitors might have the help of the English France's ancient enemy in their attempt to dismember the kingdom but the dolin could call on France's ancient Ally the Scots who had recognized in him the true line of French sovereignty for more than a century Scotland had taken every opportunity to support France in its conflicts with England whenever English armies moved South across the channel to ravage French lands Scot soldiers had launched raids across England's northern border hoping to inflict debilitating wounds while English backs were turned now with France convulsed on itself the Scots saw their chance to fight the English at a safer distance from their own Frontier side by side with the armanac French the first few hundred Scott soldiers archers in the English style as well as man at Arms had arrived in France in the spring of 1419 but by the end of that year a major force of six or 7,000 troops had made landfall at lar R roelle under the command of John Stewart Earl of buckin and his brother-in-law archal Douglas Earl of wigtown along with other captains including buckins distant relative and namesake Sir John Stewart of darnley this Scottish Army had not been sent by the Scots King James I he had been captured by the English as a boy of 11 14 years earlier and the governor of the Kingdom during the long years of his absence Buck's father the Duke of Albany had no particular enthusiasm for the prospect of curtailing his own power by securing the king's release the English response to the arrival of Scottish troops on French soil was to summon the captive King James to join the English army the dophins forces therefore found themselves confronting not one but three kings Henry of England the ailing Charles of France and the Prisoner James of Scotland in order that the armagnacs and the Scots could be accused of treachery and bearing arms against their own sovereigns this grant standing from the moral High Ground always Henry's favored terrain had dangerous implications for troops who could expect no mercy in defeat if they were deemed to have broken their allegiance but the Scots remained unmoved and by February 1421 another 4,000 men had sailed from Scotland to join the contingent under Buck's command marching against them was not Henry himself who was by now back in England for the first time in more than 3 years but the lieutenant general he had left behind his brother Thomas Duke of Clarence Clarence was eager to seize this chance to emerge from his older brother's Shadow as a hero of the war and apparently looking for a fight in which he might cover himself in glory to rival Henry's he led a Detachment of the Anglo Burgundian forces south from Normandy into Anu but there on the 22nd of March just outside the town of baj he encountered the fresh troops newly arrived from Scotland with buckin and wigtown at their head Clarence charged into the attack neither listening to his Captain's advice nor waiting for his archers to catch up and found himself overwhelmed in a bloody route he died on the field with hundreds of his men and the Scottish Earls wrote an exaltation to invite the doin to advance immediately into Normandy because with God's help all is yours at last Divine favor had been restored to the true heir of the most Christian King the dolphin giddy with Euphoria hurried to give thanks in the great Cathedral at pias and set out the same day to meet the Victorious Scots at tours until now these Interlopers from a tiny Kingdom far to the North had been received with disdain by some at the Dolphins Court drunken mutton eating fools was the phrase whispered with lips curled behind elegant French hands what do you think now the dolin demanded after news came of the Triumph at baj one Scottish chronicler proudly reported and as if struck on their foreheads by a hammer they had no answer instead the Earl of buckin seemed to have Arisen like another Messiah among in with them within days this savior of France had been named Constable of the Kingdom the highest military Post in the gift of the crown which gave buckin authority second only to that of the dolin himself and the dolin ordered some more armor this time in the Scottish fashion and another Banner of St Michael and prepared for an assault that would surely Drive the English and their Burgundian allies from France forever with the image of the warrior Archangel born before them the armagnacs and the Scots pressed northward into Normandy and then turned East in the direction of Paris by the beginning of July the Dolphins Army was camped outside the walls of chart trees just 50 Mi Southwest of the embattled capital they were poised at last for a climactic confrontation with the traitors and Invaders who had so grievously usurped the birthright of France's Heir but amid the exhilaration of their triumphant baj they had forgotten for a joyous fleeting instant that defeating the Duke of Clarence was one thing facing his brother the victor of a Zen Court quite another after almost 6 months absence Henry had returned to France in June with fresh soldiers at his back he arrived in Paris on the 4th of July and the very next day citing sickness among his troops and the difficulty of feeding an Army in the field after an exceptionally long and bitter Winter the dolphin began a Southward Retreat to the safety of his castles in the Valley of the lir and his court at bourges the hunger and disease were real but so unmistakably was the loss of nerve military operations would continue under buckins command but the moment had been lost and when Maneuvers resumed the dolin would no longer be there to witness them meanwhile the Serene and implacable elect of God Henry of England moved to besiege Mo a heavily fortified and strategically vital armanac Town 25 miles east of Paris whose Garrison had long been a thorn in the capital side this time there would be no musical interludes as night fell on the siege Henry had come back without his wife Catherine instead he brought news to strike dread into her brother's heart she was carrying a baby with plantagenet and vwa blood mingled in its veins the Treaty of Troy would soon be made flesh in an heir to the twin Thrones of England and burgundy in France and though the doin might be safe for now in his Refuge behind the protective Waters of the lair the Glorious promise of the victory at baj was fading like the sunlight as summer gave way to aad and Autumn with rain falling from leaden Skies the bers at Mo needed all their King's Relentless determination to sustain them when illness took hold in the camp and food ran punishingly short but Henry knew that God's purpose was unfolding on both sides of the channel he sent a messenger riding 60 mil West to The Abbey of kulam near chart trees to take possession of the forkin of Christ a sacred Relic that offered special protection for women in childbirth so that it could be dispatched to England for the approaching confinement of his young Queen just before Christmas word came that this holy object had done its work on the 6th of December C had given birth to a healthy boy named Henry after his Royal father while Bells rang and bonfires were lit in the streets of Paris the journal writer in the city contemplated the future of the divided Kingdom this infant had been born to rule his hatred of the arm magnax whose treachery had caused these bitter troubles this intolerable life this our csed war burned as fiercely as ever but he saw little reason to celebrate the cause of The Burgundian Duke and the English king might be just but peace had not come and on every side it was the poor betrayed by their rulers who suffered it is not one year or two he wrote in despair it is 14 or 15 since this dismal dance began that much the doin knew those 14 or 15 years were all he could remember but the salvation of his people he was certain even if they were not lay in the Vindication of the armeniac cause his Scots captains could not save Mo from its fate it fell after after 7 months of Siege through the grimmest of winters in early May 1422 what he could however do for himself even from the Sheltering Valley of the lir was offer a response to the dynastic threat of his nephew's birth he was 18 plenty old enough to be a husband and father and the identity of his bride had been fixed years earlier when they were both children Marie the 17-year-old daughter of Yolanda The Dowager Duchess of Anu who had done so much to a establish armanac power in the south in what some now disparagingly called the kingdom of burges the dolin had been encouraged by a visit the previous year from a holy hermit Jean de Gand who told him of a vision Sent From Heaven that he would wear the crown of France and father in heir to the throne now preparations were put in train and in a magnificent ceremony in April 1422 the kingdom of bores acquired its doine by the Autumn Marie was pregnant but by then everything had changed after the fall of Mo Henry had spent some time in Paris with his wife they kept great state at the palace of the louv dining in their jeweled Crowns While on the other side of the city her father and mother who were still hard though it might be to remember the king and queen of France were left to wander amid the gardens and galleried Courtyards of the hotel St Paul but beneath the pomp of Henry's Court a new vulnerability became suddenly shockingly apparent in June the king set out Southward in blistering heat to help relieve the siege of The Burgundian town of Ky by armeniac forces he never arrived he was only 25 miles south of Paris when it became clear that this unyielding Soldier was too weak to stay in the saddle Hollow faced Henry was carried in a litter to the castle of vincen southeast of the capital there in the cool of the Don Johan tower that loomed against the blue Summer Sky his terrified Physicians found that they could do nothing to relieve his fever the elect of God Invincible though he was in the face of the enemy was not immune it appeared to the nine cramping flux that had ravaged his army in the mud outside Mo in the will he had written when he left England for the last time 14 months earlier he had commended his soul to God Christ the Virgin and the Saints his Patron St George chief among them now on the 26th of August as always facing what lay ahead with Lucid control he dictated a list of the silver and gold plate he wished to bequeath to his wife Katherine and to the baby son he had never seen he left alter hangings to The Abbey of St Den outside his French capital and to The Abbey of Westminster beside his English one and on the 31st of August 1422 in the darkness of the early hours Henry Died it seemed impossible that the Ferocious energy that had been two kingdoms to his will could be so abruptly extinguished but the shocked observers who watched the imposing Cortez that bore his body north from vincen had no choice but to believe it on the large lead coffin draped in Crimson cloth of gold lay an effigy of the king himself fashioned out of boiled leather delicately painted and dressed in Royal robes with a Golden Crown on its head and Orban scepter in its hands an embodiment of Henry's Majesty is an anointed Sovereign which endured even on this journey to the Grave the stately procession made its way first to St an the necropolis of the monarch of France and then by water to Ruan there 300 mourners men of England and Normandy all dressed in black with torches blazing in their hands attended the corpse as the tolling of church bells hung heavy in the city air and everywhere voices were raised to sing the Psalms and masses of the office of the dead until the king reached Cala and the Sea and England it was the 5th of November by the time Henry entered London for the last time the coffin was drawn through the streets to rest for a night in the great Cathedral of St Paul's before its final Journey beyond the city walls to Westminster there on the 7th of November the requium mass was sung a knight dressed in Henry's Exquisite armor rode through the west door of the Abbey and spurred his War Horse onto the choir where in a startling moment of spiritual theater man and horse were stripped of their arms which were offered up symbols of the king's Earthly power at the high Altar and then at last Henry's mortal remained were laid to rest in the Tomb he had chosen nestling close to the shrine of Edward the Confessor England's Royal Saint Henry of England was in his grave at Westminster and four days later another funeral right was enacted for another Sovereign at St Den on the 21st of October just 7 weeks after Henry's death at vincen Charles of France had taken his last breath in the hotel St Paul for two or 3 days his body lay where he had died the room full of light the journal writer said so that all those who wished could see him and offer up their prayers then on the 11th of November he too was carried through crowded streets with a crowned Effigy dressed in Ur lined robes lying on his coffin for burial beside his ancestors in the hallowed vaults of France's Royal Abbey Henry had been feared and poor perplexed Charles had been loved both were succeeded by an heir who was neither Henry of Lancaster King of France and of England as the her haral proclaimed at St Den the 9-month-old baby son of Henry and Grandson of Charles now in the care of his nurses at Windsor Castle in him the provisions of the treaty so carefully enacted at Troy had been fulfilled but with dangerous prematurity despite the obvious hazards of war no one had truly expected the English king God's Own Soldier to be struck down so young and so abruptly before even his fragile father-in-law now that both were gone in the space of 2 months the Lords on either side of the channel who had committed themselves to the union of the two crowns were shaken to find themselves suddenly responsible for securing the rule of this double monarchy in England the younger of the Dead Kings two surviving Brothers Humphrey Duke of glester established himself at the head of a council of nobles as protector of the realm and of the infant Henry V 6 but in France it was his Elder sibling John Duke of Bedford a steadier and more conscientious figure than either Gloucester or Thomas of Clarence who had died at baj who was named Regent on his nephew's behalf Charlemagne's Joys the Great Sword of state of the French sovereigns was carried upright before Bedford when he rode in procession from St an back to Paris after the old King's funeral in token of his new Authority at which the people murmured very much reported the Parisian Observer but had to endure it for the time being their disqui was prompted by the absence of Duke Philip of burgundy the prince of the blood who Port had made a French air out of the English Monarch but Phillip who had been a solemn presence in the Black Velvet of mourning for his murdered father at the wedding of Henry and Catherine and their triumphal entry into the capital two years earlier did not appear at either of the royal funerals in the Autumn of 1422 his interests and Ambitions much more clearly than his father's now lay principally in the low countries where Civil War had broken out over the disputed succession of his cousin Jacqueline to the counties of pout Holland and Zealand that bordered his own Rich territories of Flanders and Artois while he was occupied there in the north and his redoutable mother kept a watchful eye from her court at dijon on the fortunes of the two burgundies in the East his concerns within the war torn Kingdom of France centered on the protection of his own lands rather than the Quest for control and government that had consumed his father's life the honorous task of leading the campaign to defeat the dolphin was therefore one he was happy to leave to Bedford from this secondary position in the service of the king of France as his financial officers had pointed out in 1421 he could demand that his military costs be paid by the regime in Paris he also retained enough Elbow Room to renegotiate the terms of his engagement With the armanac Enemy should the passage of time and political circumstance require for now however the Duke of Bedford was his ally not least because Jacqueline of hanout had fled from her unhappy marriage to a Burgundian husband Philip's cousin John of Brent into the arms of Duke Humphrey of glester in England to keep glester out of the low countries and his inexhaustible ambition in check Philip of burgundy needed the help of the Duke's elder brother John of Bedford and so in the spring of 1423 a treaty was sealed at amen by which Bedford married burgundy's favorite sister Anne Bedford was 33 an imposingly powerful man both physically and politically while an of burgundy was 18 one of four girls who were all one ungallant Observer reported as plain as 's but she had charm Grace in an impressively quick mind and soon it was said Bedford would go nowhere without her by the same treaty Her Sister Margaret married Arthur count of richmont the brother of the Duke of Britany and through these two marriages Bedford and richmont stepped forward into the Bree left in the Anglo Burgundian front line by the sudden loss of England's warrior king support of the kingdom of Borges meanwhile were preoccupied not simply with the Practical consequences of Henry's death but with its meaning armanac chroniclers could not deny that there had been much to admire in a man who had been a brave Soldier a formidable leader and a prince whose Justice was dispensed with unbending rigor but for his life to be cut short in the midst of his triumphs when he was just 35 suggested something other than the Divine mandate Henry had always claimed perhaps perhaps they thought he had been punished for disturbing the holy shrine at Mo that held the relics of St Faker whose feast day tellingly had been the last full day of his life the dolin whose daily routine included two or sometimes three masses so unstinting was his devotion knew that God's will could also be revealed to the world through the movement of his Heavens among the gifts he had bestowed on the Earl of buckin after the victory at baj were the services of an astrologer named Geron deal who it was later reported had immediately foretold the imminent deaths of the Kings of England and France even for those less confident in the science of the Stars than their royal master it hardly mattered whether this was skillful prognostication or wishful thinking now that it had come to pass whatever grief the dolin felt for the father who had disowned him France's future depended on one overriding truth that in the moment when Charles I 6th Soul had left his body his son had become Charles iith the new Roy Trace cren his title was proclaimed in the Sumptuous surroundings of the Royal Chapel at mayen ever on the 30th of October but his difficulty was that the crown itself remained physically Out Of Reach the circlets of Charlamagne and St Louis rested as they always had in the Abbey of St Dene under the usurping power of the Duke of Bedford although the coronation of the most Christian King could perhaps be performed in their absence the sacred right could only take place in the Cathedral at Ron with the Holy oil of Clovis that was guarded there and Ron 80 Mi Northeast of Paris in the county of champagne where only a few Hardy armeniac garrisons held out in beleaguered isolation lay beyond the current borders of the kingdom of Borges in the circumstances unction from the holy ampula would have to wait but there were at least other signs of God's blessing in the last week of September while his father languished in his final illness at the hotel St Paul the the dolin had set out Westward from Borges to muster the threatened defenses of L roell the only sea port on the Atlantic coast that remained in armanac hands there on the 11th of October he sat in state to receive his supporters in the Great Hall Of The Bishop's Palace suddenly with a heart-stopping Lurch the floor collapsed beneath their feet into the void of the chamber below amid the choking dust and splintered debris many died and more were badly hurt but apart from a few scratches the dolin was miraculously unharmed a fortnight later when reports arrived of his father's death the Divine Purpose for which he had been saved became clear and the new king knew where thanks were due he made a generous donation to The Abbey of Montan Michelle to provide that each year on the anniversary of the accident there should be sung a mass of St Michael the Archangel whom we venerate and to whom we entrust the greatest confidence St George might fight for the English but St Michael the standard Bearer of Heaven would protect the true king of France from now on Charles and his court would put aside the white sash of the armagnacs in favor of the white cross not just the ancient Badge of the French Crown but the emblem of St Michael himself even with the archangel's help however it was apparent that the task of driving the English into the sea would take some time the renewed sense of purpose within the court at Borges was matched by the Duke of bedford's determination to defend his brother's Legacy and military operations continued with fresh energy but to inconclusive effect in the summer of 1423 an Armagnac Army commanded by John Stewart of darnley besieged the town of Karent which lay 70 miles Northeast of Borges within the duy of burgundy itself bedford's troops were occupied elsewhere to the north and west but from dejon Philip of burgundy's mother sent for help from her son's allies and on the 31st of July 4,000 men English Burgundian appeared at kravit likee lightning from the clear sky their effect was as deadly darnley soldiers were slaughtered and darnley himself lost an eye in Savage fighting before he was taken prisoner if the Scots were the saviors of France their intervention clearly would not always be as miraculous as it had been at baj Charles quickly wrote to reassure his faithful subjects in Leon that very few french noblemen had been party to the defeat only Scots and Spaniards and other foreign soldiers he said so the harm is not so great smoothly dismissive words might be necessary in public to maintain confidence in his cause but that did not mean the Scots were any less vital to his plans darnley had been in command at Kraven only because the ears of buckin and wigtown had sailed for Scotland that summer to raise more troops and by October there was good news to report buckin was about to return with 8,000 men Charles told the people of Tor cheerfully the y of Normandy was in hand and once this new Scot's Army stood on French soil he intended to defeat the traitors and Rebels reclaim his kingdom and make his way to Ron for his coronation and in the meantime it had pleased God to provide France with an heir on the 3rd of July at Borges his young Queen had given birth to a fine son named Lewis after France's Royal Saint despite kravit then the Omens were good when buckin made landfall at l r roelle in the spring of 14 24 bringing with him not only fresh soldiers but wigtown father archabald Earl of Douglas a 55-year-old veteran of the wars between Scotland and England who had already lost an eye and a testicle in earlier battles the grand old man had decided to take his son's place on the front line in France in part because the rewards on offer were so great when he arrived at Borges in April to kneel before the 21-year-old King Douglas was immediately granted the Royal duche of ter Reign and named Charles's Lieutenant General in the waging of his War through all the kingdom of France this was unprecedented honor and extraordinary power to bestow on a foreigner but if it resulted in the expulsion of the English and the defeat of the burgundians it would be a price worth paying appalled though they privately were at the prospect of their uncouth Scottish Duke the citizens of Tours welcomed Douglas with stiff necked public ceremony and watched grim-faced while he set about plundering the city's treasury as thoroughly as his troops were pillaging the countryside roundabout sooner or later they knew he would have to earn his extortionate keep and on the fourth of August having extracted another small fortune from the city to pay his soldiers he led his army north towards Normandy and the war they had come to fight marching beside the Scots were French troops under the command of two Lords whose own Norman lands had been overrun by the English 17-year-old Jean Duke of alanh con whose father had died at zc court and Jean de Harcourt count of AML the experienced captain of Mont San Michelle who had struck deep into Normandy the previous Autumn and had begged his King to launch this campaign and riding to join this Franco Scottish force was another contingent from outside the realm heavy Cavalry 2,000 strong recruited from the duy of Milan these Lombard Riders and their horses men and animals all plated in steel thanks to the superlative skill of millanes armorers were equipped to with stand English arrows and The Archers within the Scots Army stood ready to return English fire this Charles and his commanders could be certain would be Noah as in court the thought had almost been enough to bring the king to the battlefield in the weeks before his troops moved North Charles had once again ordered new Coats of Arms and trappings for his warhorse now that France had an heir his baby son kicking in his cradle should he ride with his men to reclaim his kingdom but Michael's protection had already been tested once at l r roell and by August all were agreed that Prudence was the better part of Royal Valor the army of France would be led by alanh con and AML buckin and Douglas their target was ivery a castle on the Norman Frontier reclaimed a year earlier by an armc Garrison but now close to Breaking Point under English Siege knowing how few cards they had left to play 's Defenders had negotiated a truce according to the chalc laws of war fighting would stop while they appealed for help from their King but if reinforcements did not arrive by the 15th of August they would lay down their arms and surrender the castle into English hands while Charles's Army marched to save Iver therefore the Duke of Bedford mustered his troops to stop them on the 14th of August the Duke arrived outside the walls of the castle and picked his ground for battle but the next day the Summer sun rose and fell and the armagnacs did not come inste instead there were Riders breathless and terrified from the town of vernoy 25 miles further west with shocking news Alan Khan AML buckin and Douglas had realized that the Lombard Knights still behind them on the road could not reach I in time and too much was at stake to risk meeting the English without them it would mean grave dishonor if the army of France failed to appear at evver on the appointed day but honor had not saved the princes of the blood at a Zin court so while Bedford waited they had turned West to renoi they had called for volunteers from within the Scots ranks men who spoke English and bound them backwards and their horses spat ER with blood as if they were prisoners before vero's walls they paraded these bogus captives who shouted to the town's people that the English at ivery had been slaughtered and there was no hope of help in consternation and fear the people of vernoy opened their Gates and gave up the town without a fight and when Bedford heard of this Brazen trick he set out in Furious Pursuit on the 17th of August the English army reached the broad plane just outside veroy to the Northeast to find the might of France or at least the part of it that the kingdom of Borges could command ready for battle together the French and the Scots outnumbered the English almost 2 to one and in front of their lines stood the newly arrived Lombard Cavalry a wall of muscle and bone encased in steel this time lowborn English archers would not not preside over a field of blood this time a noble French assault in the ominous shape of millanes mercenaries would break them where they stood at a signal the Cavalry wall began to move faster and faster hopes pounding into Tinder dry Earth when the shuttering impact came the English ranks buckled and staggered sharpened Stakes too quickly planted could not bring down horses in armor and the Lombard Riders carved a path of Devastation of trampled broken IES through the heart of the English army the Cavalry had done its work but as the Lombards fell upon the spoils of the English baggage train they did not see the battered ranks of the enemy taking shape again behind them it was the French and the Scots in shock who saw English men at Arms advancing out of the dust storm kicked up by the H's heels brace though they were the assault was brutal in dense chaotic fighting so ferocious that the Earth was dark and slippery with blood no one could tell who was winning until with a great Roar the English archers who had flung themselves out of the way of the Lombard charg regrouped to join the melee daggers and axes in hand English pressure began to bite and at last the French line broke Panic spread and Men fled for their lives only to be trapped and butchered in the Deep ditches outside the town walls the count of AML died where he fell the young Duke of alanh con was captured on the field of the few who escaped almost none were Scots as the plane of vernoy became a killing ground Douglas buckin and the army they LED were hacked to Pieces outside e two days earlier Bedford had ridden before his troops wearing a blue velvet robe emblazened with a Red Cross of St George within a white cross of St Michael two Saints two kingdoms England and France the claim could not have been clear now it was Vindicated in the bloody Triumph of vernoy Bedford himself who did that day wonderful Feats of arms said an admiring Burgundian chronicler who fought with the English army returned to Paris to be greeted with processions songs and pageants by elated crowds all dressed in the red of St George relief at the defeat of the V AR magnax was so profound the journal writer observed that the Duke was welcomed to the great Cathedral of notra Dame as if he had been God while celebrations continued in Anglo Burgundian France lubricated for ously by the best and most plentiful vintage anyone could remember the kingdom of Borges occupied itself with more somber tasks the city of Tours received the lifeless bodies of its Duke archal Douglas and his son-in-law John Stewart of bucken and buried them quietly in the choir of the cathedral dearly loved and delightful they were in life said the Scottish chronicler Walter Bower and in death they were not divided the people of Tours made no comment other than to blockade the gar of Scots soldiers that Douglas had left in the castle until they agreed to go away it was clear to the Roy Trace cren contemplating the state of his kingdom that France was going to need another savior