"Then," said Henry, "since all battles ought to be named after the nearest castle, let this battle bear henceforward and lastingly the name of the battle of Azincourt." This name the English have corrupted into Agincourt.

The loss on the side of the French was frightful: "never had so many and such noble men fallen in one battle." The whole chivalry of France was cropped. Seven near relations of King Charles-the Duke of Brabant, the Count of Nevers, the Duke of Bar, his brother the Count of Marle, his other brother John, the Constable D'Albret, the Duke of Alençon, had all perished. Among the great lords, the Count of Dampièrre, the Count of Vaudemont, the lords of Rambure, Helly, and Verchin, and Messire Guichard Dauphin, met the same fate. In all, there perished on the field eight thousand gentlemen, knights, or squires, including one hundred and twenty great lords that had each a banner of his own. Among the most distinguished prisoners, who were far less numerous than the slain of the same class, were the Duke of Orleans the Count of Richemont, the Marshal Boucicault, the Duke of Bourbon, the counts of Eu and Vendôme, and the lords of Harcourt and Craon. The loss of the English is differently estimated, but at the highest account it was only sixteen hundred men, among whom were the Earl of Suffolk and the Duke of York, who, after his manifold treacheries, met a soldier's death, a more honourable fate than he deserved.

The Duke of Orleans, who had been dragged out wounded from beneath a heap of the dead, was sorely afflicted at the most unexpected turn that affairs had taken. Henry went to console him. "How fare you, my cousin?" said he, “and why do you refuse to eat and drink?" The duke replied that he was determined to fast. "Not so-make good cheer," said the king, mildly; "if God has given me the grace to win this victory, I acknowledge that it is through no merits of my own. I believe that God has willed that the French should be punished; and if what I have heard be true, no wonder at it; for they tell me that never were seen such a disorder, such a licence of wickedness, such debauchery

such bad vices as now reign in France. It is pitiful and horrible to hear it all; and, certes, the wrath of the Lord must have been awakened!" On the following morning, when the English left Maisoncelles, the king and the Duke of Orleans rode side by side, conversing in a friendly manner. As the English crossed the battle field, they killed a number of the common wounded who were unable to move. They had already stripped them of their armour and of the best clothes they wore; and the moment they were gone, thousands of the French peasantry, women as well as men, hurried to the scene of horror to glean after them. These latter considered nothing beneath their attention, and they left more than ten thousand of their countrymen lying naked as they were born. The Count of Charolais, afterwards called Philip the Good, eldest son of the Duke of Burgundy, was at the castle of Aire, not far from the battle, in which he had been prevented taking a part by the strict orders of his father. When he heard the dreadful news, he was inconsolable, and refused all nourishment; but he sent the Bailiff of Aire and the Abbot of Ruisseauville to superintend the burying of the French, while he attended in person the funeral of his two uncles, the Duke of Brabant and the Count of Nevers. The abbot and the bailiff bought twenty-five roods of land: here three immense pits were dug, and five thousand eight hundred men were buried in heaps. Then the Bishop of Guines went down and sprinkled holy water, and blessed this vast sepulchre of the aristocracy of France. Many hundreds who had friends at hand were interred with more decency in the churches of the neighbouring country, or conveyed to their own castles. Thousands who had crawled from the field into the villages, or into the neighbouring woods, were buried there, or left a prey to the wolves and the ravens. According to a French account, the English, not having time to bury their own dead, threw them into a barn to which they set fire. It is not in the battle-in the maddening rapture of the fight-but in the after-scenes that the horrors of war appear in their disgusting nakedness.

NFORTUNATELY for his coun try, as well as himself, Henry VIII. of England was led into much folly and extravagance in the early part of his reign, owing to the confidence which he placed in a proud and ambitious priest, who was his prime minister, Cardinal Wolsey.

Wolsey was a minister who complied with all his master's inclinations, and flattered him in every scheme to which his anguine and impetuous temper was inclined. He was the on of a private gentleman, at Ipswich. He was sent to Ox

ford so early, that he was a Bachelor at fourteen, and at that time was called the Boy Bachelor. He rose by degrees, upon quitting college, from one preferment to another, till he was made rector of Lymington by the marquis of Dorset, whose children he had instructed. He was soon after recommended as chaplain to Henry the Seventh; and being employed by that monarch in a secret negotiation, respecting his intended marriage with Margaret of Savoy, he acquitted himself to the king's satisfaction, and obtained the praise both of diligence and dexterity. That prince having given him a commission to Maximilian, who at that time resided at Brussels, was surprised in less than three days to see Wolsey present himself before him; and supposing that he had been delinquent, began to reprove his delay. Wolsey, however, surprised him with an assurance that he was just returned from Brussels, and had successfully fulfilled all his majesty's commands. His despatch on that occasion procured him the deanery of Lincoln; and in this situation it was that he was introduced by Fox, bishop of Winchester, to the young king's notice, in hopes that he would have talents to supplant the earl of Surry, who was the favourite at this time; and in this Fox was not out in his conjectures. Presently after being introduced at court, he was made a privy counsellor; and, as such, had frequent opportunities of ingratiating himself with the young king, as he appeared at once complying, submissive, and enterprising. Wolsey used every art to suit himself to the royal temper; he sung, laughed, and danced with every libertine of the court; neither his own age, which was nearly forty, nor his character as a clergyman, were any restraint upon him, or tended to check, by ill-timed severities, the gaiety of his companions. To such a weak and vicious monarch as Henry, qualities of this nature were highly pleasing; and Wolsey was soon acknowledged as the chief favourite, and to him was entrusted the chief administration of affairs. The people began to see with indignation the new favourite's mean condescensions to the king, and his arrogance to themselves. They had long regarded the vicious haughtiness and the unbecoming splen

dour of the clergy with envy and detestation; and Wolsey's greatness served to bring a new odium upon hat body, already too much the object of the people's dislike. His character being now placed in a more conspicuous point of light, daily began to manifest itself the more. Insatiable in his acquisitions, but still more magnificent in his expense; of extensive capacity, but still more unbounded in enterprise; ambitious of power, but still more desirous of glory; insinuating, engaging, persuasive, and at other times lofty, elevated, and commanding, haughty to his equals, but affable to his dependents; oppressive to the people, but liberal to his friends; more generous than grateful: formed to take the ascendant in every intercourse, but vain enough not to cover his real superiority.

Such was Wolsey's rise. Now mark his fall. The king's desire to divorce queen Catherine of Arragon and marry Anne Boleyn, placed the prelate in an embarrassing position, between the church and the sovereign. During the course of a long and perplexing negotiation, on the issue of which Henry's happiness seemed to depend, he had at first expected to find in his favourite Wolsey a warm defender and a steady adherent; but in this he found himself mistaken. Wolsey seemed to be in pretty much the same dilemma with the pope. On the one hand, he was to please his master the king, from whom he had received a thousand marks of favour; and, on the other hand, he feared to disoblige the pope, whose servant he more immediately was, and who, besides, had power to punish his disobedience. He, therefore, resolved to continue neuter in the controversy; and, though of all men the most haughty, he gave way on this occasion to Campegio, the pope's nuncio, in all things, pretending a deference to his skill in canon law. Wolsey's scheme of temporizing was highly displeasing to the king; but for a while he endeavoured to stifle his resentment until he could act with more fatal certainty. He for some time looked out for a man of equal abilities and less art; and it was not long before accident threw in his way one Thomas Cranmer, of greater talents, and probably of more integrity. Cranmer proposed