the Scots to serve in France, where Charles treated them with great
honor and distinction, and where the regent's brother enjoyed the
dignity of constable, broke out afresh under this feeble administration:
new succors daily came over, and filled the armies of the French king:
the earl of Douglas conducted a reenforcement of five thousand men
to his assistance: and it was justly to be dreaded that the Scots, by
commencing open hostilities in the north, would occasion a diversion
still more considerable of the English power, and would ease Charles, in
part, of that load by which he was at present so grievously oppressed.
The duke of Bedford, therefore, persuaded the English council to form an
alliance with James, their prisoner; to free that prince from his long
captivity; and to connect him with England by marrying him to a daughter
of the earl of Somerset, and cousin of the young king.[*] As the
Scottish regent, tired of his present dignity, which he was not able to
support, was now become entirely sincere in his applications for James's
liberty, the treaty was soon concluded; a ransom of forty thousand
pounds was stipulated;[**] and the king of Scots was restored to the
throne of his ancestors, and proved, in his short reign, one of the
most illustrious princes that had ever governed that kingdom. He was
murdered, in 1437, by his traitorous kinsman the earl of Athole. His
affections inclined to the side of France; but the English had never
reason during his lifetime to complain of any breach of the neutrality
by Scotland.

* Hall, fol. 86. Stowe, p. 364. Grafton, p. 501.

* Rymer, vol. x. p. 299, 300, 326.

But the regent was not so much employed in these political negotiations
as to neglect the operations of war, from which alone he could hope
to succeed in expelling the French monarch. Though the chief seat of
Charles's power lay in the southern provinces beyond the Loire, his
partisans were possessed of some fortresses in the northern, and even in
the neighborhood of Paris; and it behoved the duke of Bedford first
to clear these countries from the enemy, before he could think of
attempting more distant conquests. The Castle of Dorsoy was taken after
a siege of six weeks: that of Noyelle and the town of Rue, in Picardy,
underwent the same fate: Pont sur Seine, Vertus, Montaigu, were
subjected by the English arms: and a more considerable advantage was
soon after gained by the united forces of England and