sted as he rode to Parliament on a charge of secret conspiracy;
and a few days later he was found dead in his lodging. Suspicions of
murder were added to the hatred against Suffolk; and his voluntary
submission to an enquiry by the Council into his conduct in the
marriage-treaty, which was followed by his acquittal of all blame, did
little to counteract this. What was yet more fatal to Suffolk was the
renewal of the war. In the face of the agitation against it the English
ministers had never dared to execute the provisions of the
marriage-treaty; and in 1448 Charles the Seventh sent an army to enforce
the cession of Le Mans. Its surrender averted the struggle for a moment.
But in the spring of 1449 a body of English soldiers from Normandy,
mutinous at their want of pay, crossed the border and sacked the rich town
of Fougeres in Britanny. Edmund Beaufort, who had now succeeded to the
dukedom of Somerset, protested his innocence of this breach of truce, but
he either could not or would not make restitution, and the war was
renewed. From this moment it was a mere series of French successes. In two
months half Normandy was in the hands of Dunois; Rouen rose against her
feeble garrison and threw open her gates to Charles; and the defeat at
Fourmigny of an English force which was sent to Somerset's aid was a
signal for revolt throughout the rest of the provinces. The surrender of
Cherbourg in August, 1450, left Henry not a foot of Norman ground.

[Sidenote: National discontent]

The loss of Normandy was generally laid to the charge of Somerset. He was
charged with a miserly hoarding of supplies as well as planning in
conjunction with Suffolk the fatal sack of Fougeres. His incapacity as a
general added to the resentment at his recall of the Duke of York, a
recall which had been marked as a disgrace by the despatch of Richard into
an honourable banishment as lieutenant of Ireland. But it was this very
recall which proved most helpful to York. Had he remained in France he
could hardly have averted the loss of Normandy, though he might have
delayed it. As it was the shame of its loss fell upon Somerset, while the
general hatred of the Beauforts and the growing contempt of the king whom
they ruled expressed itself in a sudden rush of popular favour towards the
man whom his disgrace had marked out as the object of their ill-will. From
this moment the hopes of a better and a stronger government centred
themselves in the Duke of Y