arties concerned, from which nothing resulted. Charles
had various reasons for delay. There was trouble in other quarters of
his domain. Flanders was in a state of ferment at his requisitions
for money, and the Franche-Comte was on the point of making active
resistance to the imposition of the _gabelle_.

In view of all these complications, Charles decided to prolong his
truce with Louis XI., to May 1, 1475. That monarch was well pleased
to continue to pursue his own plans under cover of neutrality. The
determination of the anti-Burgundian coalition in Germany to keep
Charles within the limits of his own estates was a pleasant sight to
the French king, and he felt that he could afford to wait.

In June an edict was sent forth from Luxemburg, forbidding all owing
allegiance to the Duke of Burgundy to have any commercial relations
with the rebels of Cologne, or of Alsace, or with the cities of the
_Basse Union_, and declaring the duke's intention to take the field
at once, to reinstate the archbishop in his rightful see. This was a
declaration of war and was speedily followed by the duke's advance
to Maestricht, where he spent a few days in July, collecting a force
which finally amounted to about twenty thousand men.

On the 29th he sat down before Neuss, which had again emphatically
refused entry to him and his troops. Three days the duke gave himself
for the reduction of the town, but there he remained encamped for
nearly a whole year! Neuss was resolved to resist to the last
extremity, while Bonn, Andernach, and Cologne contributed their
assistance by worrying and harassing the besiegers to the best of
their ability. It was a period when Charles seemed to have only one
sure ally, and that was Edward of England, whose own plans were
forming for a mighty enterprise--no less than a new invasion of
France.

On July 25th, the very day that Charles was on his march up to Neuss,
his envoys signed at London a treaty wherein the duke promised Edward
six thousand men to aid him to "reconquer his realm of France."
Nothing loth to dispose of his future chickens, Edward, in his turn,
pledged himself to cede to Charles and his heirs, without any lien
of vassalage, the duchy of Bar, the countships of Champagne, Nevers,
Rethel, Eu, and Guise, all the towns on the Somme, and all the estates
of the Count of St. Pol. Other territories of Charles were to be
exempt from homage. Yes, and by June 1, 1475, Edward would land in
France and