e is free from
excesses, and truthful: he never makes himself too familiar. On his
face are visible dignity and supreme power.'[68] He possessed in full
measure the bold impulses of his ancestors, their attention to the
general affairs of Western Christendom. In the war with the Lollards
he was once wounded; that he recovered from his wound was designated
as the work of divine Providence, which had destined him to be the
conqueror of the Holy Land. He informed himself about its state as it
was then constituted under the Mameluke rule: a Chronicle of Jerusalem
and a History of Godfrey of Bouillon were two of the books he loved
most to read. And without doubt such an undertaking would have been
the true means, if any such means were possible, of uniting more
closely, by common undertakings successes and interests, the realms
already bound together under one sceptre. The Ottomans had not yet
extended themselves in the East with their full force: something might
yet have been effected there; for the King of France and England, who
was yet young in years, a great future seemed to be at hand.

Sometimes it seems as though fortune were specially making a mock of
man's frailty. In this fulness of power and of expectations, Henry V
was attacked by a disease which men did not yet know how to cure and
to which he succumbed. His heir was a boy, nine months old.

Of the two surviving brothers of the deceased King, the younger ruled
England under the already established predominance of the Estates of
the Realm, while the elder governed France with an increased
participation on the part of the Estates: their efforts could only be
directed towards preserving these kingdoms for their nephew Henry VI.
We might almost wonder that this succeeded so well for a time: in the
long run it was impossible. The feeling of French nationality, which
had already met the victor himself with secret warnings, found its most
wonderful expression in the Maid who revived in the French their old
attachment to their native King and his divine right; the English, when
she fell into their hands, with ungenerous hate inflicted on her the
punishment of the Lollards: but the Valois King had already gained a
firm footing. It was Charles VII who understood how to appease the
enmity of Burgundy, and in unison with the great men of his kingdom to
give his power a peculiar organisation corresponding to its character,
so that he was able to oppose to the English troop