had nothing in him to
appeal to the popular imagination. So bitter was the feud between
Gloucester and Beaufort that in =1426= Bedford was obliged to visit
England to keep the peace between them. Before he returned to France
he persuaded Beaufort to surrender the chancellorship to Kemp, the
Bishop of London, and to leave England for a time. Moreover, in =1427=
he himself swore that as long as the king was under age the Council
and not the Protector was to govern. When Gloucester was asked to take
the same oath, he signed it, but refused to swear. In =1428=, after
Bedford had returned to France, Beaufort came back, bringing with him
from Rome the title of Cardinal, and authority to raise soldiers for a
crusade against heretics in Bohemia. A storm was at once raised
against him. A Cardinal, it was said, was a servant of the Roman See,
and as no man could serve two masters, he ought not to hold an English
bishopric or to sit in the English Council, far less to send to
Bohemia English troops which were needed in France. Gloucester fancied
that the opportunity of overthrowing his rival had come. Beaufort,
however, was too prudent to press his claims. He absented himself from
the Council and allowed the men whom he had raised for Bohemia to be
sent to France instead. Before the end of the year the outcry against
him died away, and, Cardinal as he was, he resumed his old place in
the Council.

5. =The Siege of Orleans. 1428--1429.=--The time had arrived when the
presence of every English soldier was needed in France. Bedford had
made himself master of almost the whole country north of the Loire
except Orleans. If he could gain that city it would be easy for him to
overpower Charles, who kept court at Chinon. In =1428=, therefore, he
laid siege to Orleans. The city, however, defended itself gallantly,
though all that the French outside could hope to do was to cut off the
supplies of the besiegers. In February =1429= they attempted to
intercept a convoy of herrings coming from Paris for the English
troops, but were beaten off in what was jocosely styled the Battle of
the Herrings, and it seemed as though Orleans, and with it France
itself, were doomed. Frenchmen were indeed weary of the foreign yoke
and of the arrogant insolence of the rough island soldiers. Yet in
France all military and civil organisation had hitherto come from the
kings, and unfortunately for his subjects Charles was easy-tempered
and entirely incapable eith