to demand the hand of the princess. The ambassadors were presented, and
the Earl of Northampton, marshal of England, putting one knee to the
ground before her, said, "Madame, please God you shall be our sovereign
lady and Queen of England." The young girl, well tutored, answered, "If
it please God and my lord and father that I should be Queen of England, I
would be willingly, for I have certainly been told that I should then be
a great lady." The contract was signed on the 9th of March, 1396, with a
promise that, when the princess had accomplished her twelfth year, she
should be free to assent to or refuse the union; and ten days after the
marriage, the king's uncles and the English ambassadors mutually signed a
truce, which promised--but quite in vain--to last for eight and twenty
years.

About the same time Sigismund, King of Hungary, threatened with an
invasion of his kingdom by the great Turkish Sultan Bajazet I., nicknamed
Lightning (El Derfr), because of his rapid conquests, invoked the aid of
the Christian kings of the West, and especially of the King of France.
Thereupon there was a fresh outbreak of those crusades so often renewed
since the end of the thirteenth century. All the knighthood of France
arose for the defence of a Christian king. John, Count of Nevers, eldest
son of the Duke of Burgundy, scarcely eighteen years of age, said to his
comrades, "If it pleased my two lords, my lord the king and my lord and
father, I would willingly head this army and this venture, for I have a
desire to make myself known." The Duke of Burgundy consented, and, in
person, conducted his son to St. Denis, but without intending to make him
a knight as yet. "He shall receive the accolade," said he, "as a knight
of Jesus Christ, at the first battle against the infidels." In April,
1396, an army of new crusaders left France and traversed Germany
uproariously, everywhere displaying its valiant ardor, presumptuous
recklessness, and chivalrous irregularity. Some months elapsed without