Richemont was persistent. He went to the Pope’s legates. ‘While the Duke allies himself to the English the war will go on,’ he said. ‘If we could break that alliance it would mean the English would have no alternative but to return to their own country. Burgundy wants to break it. It is unnatural. I beg you to help.’
As a result the legates spent hours talking with Burgundy.
‘For the love of Jesus Christ,’ they said to him, ‘put an end to this strife. Put your country out of its misery. We are ordered by the Holy Father to beg you to forget your vengeance against the King of France. You must no longer seek vengeance for the death of your father. Nothing would add more to your fame and standing in the world than if you forgave and forgot the injury you have suffered. The King of France is close to your blood. He is your kinsman … yet for the sake of revenge you have joined his enemies and the enemies of France.’
The Duke, who had always prided himself on his honour, was deeply disturbed. He greatly desired to put an end to his alliance with England, yet he did not see how he could extricate himself from the dilemma in which he found himself.
‘I must have time to ponder this,’ he said. ‘It is a matter which deeply concerns my conscience.’
The Comte de Richemont said that he should have several days to consider.
‘He is a wise man,’ he said to the Papal legates. ‘He will see what is best.’
The Duke of Bedford rode back to Rouen. He felt old and tired. The conference now in progress at Arras was an indication of how much had been lost since the ill-fated siege of Orléans. Ever since then his health had declined with his spirits. It was as though a curse had been put upon him.
God knew that he had tried to keep his word to his brother, and he had always acted in a manner which he believed would please him. That noble image had been before him always and at first it had seemed that he could not falter.
And then … the tide had changed, so swiftly, so unaccountably that one could almost believe in supernatural influences, and in spite of all his skill and dedication he had been fighting a losing battle ever since.
He would never understand it, but he would never forget that fearful day in Rouen when he had stayed behind stone walls but in spirit was out there in that square.
By the time the towers of Rouen came into sight he was exhausted. What had happened to him? Only a year or so ago he could spend hours in the saddle and hardly knew the meaning of fatigue. Affliction had come to him swiftly. He thought often of Henry, who had died so young. He had been but thirty-five years of age. And he, Bedford, well he was forty-six – not exactly young, ageing perhaps but not yet old surely. Young enough to lead his armies for a few more years.
The Cardinal was watching him anxiously. There was something wrong. Bedford was the last man to betray any weakness and now he was too tired to attempt to disguise it. The Cardinal, too, was remembering how suddenly Henry the Fifth had died.
‘It has been an exhausting matter,’ he said. ‘There is so much anxiety about Burgundy.’
‘He is a man of honour,’ said Bedford. ‘He will not find it easy to break his word to me.’
‘Nay,’ said the Cardinal, ‘but methinks it is only this one point of honour that keeps him with us.’
‘If he breaks with us,’ replied Bedford, ‘we must perforce count him among our enemies.’
‘He has always been an uneasy friend,’ answered the Cardinal.
There was small comfort in the contemplation of a break with Burgundy. The last King had said his friendship was essential to them and that was as true today as it had been when he said it.
It was a period of great anxiety and Bedford felt too exhausted to consider it in all its menacing possibilities.
As soon as he reached the castle he went straight to his apartments and remained there. The next day he felt too weak to rise.
His young wife came to him in consternation. He had always seemed very mature to her but now he looked like an old man.
‘My lord,’ she said, ‘you are ill.’
‘Tired,’ he said, ‘just tired and disappointed.’
She knelt by the bed.
‘Oh, my lord, what can I do?’
‘There is little anyone can do,’ he answered.
She said: ‘I can send for the physicians.’
He lifted a hand to protest but dropped it again. He was too listless to care whether they came or not.
The next day he was asking for news from Arras. There was none.
The Cardinal came to see him. God help us, he thought. He has the stamp of death on him.
He went back to his apartments in a state of gloom. He prayed fervently for the health of Bedford. He dared not contemplate what the future would hold if Bedford were not there to apply his sane and steady judgements.
A few days later Bedford was in a fever. His thoughts were muddled. He was not sure where he was. He kept thinking that Anne was near him and that he could not quite reach her.
His eyes wandered round the apartment. It was in this very chamber where he had waited, while the crowds gathered in the square. He thought it was happening now. He could picture Joan with those calm clear eyes raised towards the skies as though she saw something there which was denied to the rest of those who were with her. What was it in those clear, limpid eyes? Innocence, he thought. Yes. Innocence of guilt, innocence of the world, innocence of evil. It was a beautiful quality.
‘We should never have burned her as a witch,’ he muttered.
And I … am I to blame? I could have stopped it. They gave her to the English and we burned her as a witch.
Dear God, I had to do it. She was a menace to my armies. With what power had You endowed this girl that she could affect us so. We burned her; but it was her own people who betrayed her. And the King of France for whom she had done so much deserted her and allowed her to die … miserably … horribly. And yet they had said that when she cried out in her final agony they saw her soul in the form of a white dove ascend to Heaven.
I did it … I did … but what else could I have done? Forget her. She is dead. What of the future? Burgundy … Burgundy … will you break with us? Anne … Anne won’t let it happen. But Anne was gone and he was trying now to reach her.
‘We should send for the priests,’ said Jacquetta.
The end was very near, they all knew it.
The Cardinal felt a sudden despair. What would happen now … not only to him but to England? It seemed that the future of both was very bleak.
Gloucester would now be next to the throne. If only Henry were older; if only he had a wife and an heir. But he was but a boy yet. It would be necessary to keep an eye on Gloucester.
The death of the Duke was received with a shocked silence throughout Rouen. People began to talk about the Maid. Was it not strange that the Duke had died here in the very town close to the very square where Joan the Maid had been burned at the stake?
Was it a curse on Bedford? Was it a curse on the English?
They buried the great Duke in the Cathedral at Notre Dame and they wondered gloomily what would happen now that he was dead.
‘Dead!’ mused Burgundy. His old friend and enemy!
Who would have believed it possible? Bedford with those ruddy healthy looks had seemed far from death.
And now he was gone and that, of course, made all the difference to Burgundy. His alliance had been with Henry the Fifth, a man whom he had admired as much as any other he had ever known; Bedford had followed his brother and he had admired him also. It had seemed good to ally himself with such men. But now they were dead and surely that could be an end to an alliance which had always seemed an incongruous one.