Cobham is yielding its fruits at this day. Had Sawtre, Badby, and Cobham been careful of their name, their honor, their lives; had they blushed to stand before tribunals which they knew were prepared to condemn them as traitors; had they declined to become a gazing-stock to mobs, who waited to scoff at and insult them as heretics; had they shrunk from the cruel torture and the bitter death of the stake — where would have been the Protestantism of England? and, without its Protestantism, where would have been its liberty? — still unborn. It was not the valor of Henry V., it was the grander heroism of Lord Cobham and his fellow-martys that awoke the soul of England, when it was sleeping a dead sleep, and fired it to pluck the bandage of a seven-fold darkness from its eyes, and to break the yoke of a seven-fold slavery from its neck. These are the stars that illuminate England's sky; the heroes whose exploits glorify her annals; the kings whose spirits rule from their thrones, which are their stakes, the hearts and souls of her noblest sons. The multitude lays its homage at the feet of those for whom the world has done much; whose path it has made smooth with riches; whose head it has lifted up with honors; and for whom, while living, it provided a stately palace; and when dead, a marble tomb. Let us go aside from the crowd: let us seek out, not the men for whom the world has done much, but the men who have done much for the world; and let us pay our homage, not indeed to them, but to Him who made them what they were. And where shall we find these men? In kings' houses? in schools and camps? — not oft. In jails, or at the bar of a tyrannical tribunal, or before a bench of Pharisees, or on a scaffold, around which mobs hoot, while the executioner stands by to do his office. These are not pleasant places; and yet it is precisely there that those great examples have been exhibited which have instructed the world, and those mighty services rendered which have ennobled and blessed the race. It was amid such humiliations and sufferings that the Lollards sowed, all through the fifteenth century, the living seed, which the gracious spring-time of the sixteenth quickened into growth; which the following centuries, not unmingled with conflict and the blood of martyrdom, helped to ripen; and the fully matured harvest of which it remains for the generations to come to carry home.
CHAPTER 8
LOLLARDISM UNDER HENRY V. AND HENRY VI
Thomas Arundel succeeded by Henry Chicheley — The New Primate pursues the Policy of his Predecessor — Parliament at Leicester — More Stringent Ordinances against the Lollards — Appropriation of Ecclesiastical Possessions — Archbishop Chicheley Staves off the Proposal — Diverts the King's Mind to a War with France — Speech of the Archbishop — Henry V. falls into the Snare — Prepares an Expedition — Invades France — Agincourt — Second Descent on France — Henry becomes Master of Normandy — Returns to England — Third Invasion of France — Henry's Death — Dying Protestation — His Magnificent Funeral — His Character — Lollardism — More Martyrs — Claydon — New Edict against the Lollards — Henry VI. — Maltyrs in his Reign — William Taylor — William White — John Huss — Recantations.
THE martyrdom of Lord Cobham has carried us a little way beyond the point to which we had come in tracing the footprints faint and intermittent — of Protestantism in England during the fifteenth century. We saw Arundel carried from the halls of Lambeth to be laid in the sepulchral vaults of Canterbury. His master, Henry IV., had preceded him to the grave by only a few months. More lately Sir Roger Acton and others had expired at the stake which Arundel's policy had planted for them; and, last of all, he went to render his own account to God.
Arundel was succeeded in the primacy by Henry Chicheley. Chicheley continued in the chair of St. Anselm the same policy which his predecessor had pursued. His predecessor's influence at court he did not wield, at least to the same extent, for neither was Chicheley so astute as Arundel, nor was Henry V. so facile as his father; but he inherited Arundel's hatred of Lollardism, and resolved to use all the powers of his high office for its suppression. The persecution, therefore, still went on. The "Constitutions of Arundel," passed in the previous reign, had spread the net so wide that scarcely was it possible for any one who had imbibed the opinions of John Wicliffe to avoid being caught in its meshes. Besides, under the reign of Henry V., new and more stringent ordinances were framed to oppress the Lollards. In a Parliament held at Leicester (1414), it was enacted "that whoever should read the Scriptures in English, which was then called 'Wicliffe's Learning,' should forfeit land, cattle, goods, and life, and be condemned as heretics to God, enemies to the crown, and traitors to the kingdom; that they should not have the benefit of any sanctuary, though this was a privilege then granted to the most notorious malefactors; and that, if they continued obstinate, or relapsed after pardon, they should first be hanged for treason against the king, and then burned for heresy against God."
While the Parliament stretched out one hand to persecute the Lollards, it put forth the other to despoil the clergy. Their wealth was enormous; but only the smallest fraction of it was given for the public service. The complaints on this head were growing louder every year. At this same Parliament of Leicester a storm was like to have burst out, had not the wit and policy of Henry Chicheley arrested the danger. The Commons reminded the king of the demand which had twice before been made in Parliament — first in Richard II.'S time (1394), and next in Henry IV.'s (1410) — relative to converting the lands and possessions of the clergy to the service of the State. "This bill," says Hall, "made the fat abbots to sweat; the proud priors to frown; the poor priors to curse; the silly nuns to weep; and indeed all her merchants to fear that Babel would down."
Though Henry had lent the clergy his power to burn Lollards, they were far from sure that he might not be equally ready to lend the Parliament his authority to rob the Church. He was active, bold, fond of display, lavish in his habits; and the wealth of the hierarchy offered a ready and tempting means of maintaining his magnificence, which Henry might not have virtue to resist. They thought of binding the king to their interests by offering him a wealthy gift; but the wiser heads disapproved the policy: it would be accounted a bribe, and might be deemed scarce decent on the part of men in sacred office. The Archbishop of Canterbury hit on a more likely expedient, and one that fell in with the genius of the king, and the aspirations of the nation.
The most effectual course, said the archbishop, in a synod at London, of averting the impending storm, is to find the king some other business to employ his courage. We must turn his thoughts to war; we must rouse his ambition by reminding him of the crown of France, descended to him from Edward III. He must be urged to demand the French crown, as the undoubted heir; and if refused, he must attempt the recovery of it by arms. To cause these counsels to prevail, the clergy agreed to offer a great sum of money to defray the expenses of the war. They further resolved to give up all the alien priories in the kingdom, to the number of 110, the lands of which would considerably increase the revenues of the crown.
This policy, being approved by the synod at London, was vigorously advocated by the primate in the Parliament at Leicester. The archbishop, rising in the House, addressed the king as follows: — "You administer justice to your people with a noble equity; you are illustrious in the arts of a peaceful government: but the glory of a great king consists not so much in a reign of serenity and plenty, in great treasures, in magnificent palaces, in populous and fair cities, as in the enlargement of his dominions; especially when the assertion of his right calls him out to war, and justice, not ambition, authorizes all his conquests. Your Highness ought to wear the crown of France, by right descended to you from Edward III., your illustrious predecesssor." The speaker went on, at great length, to trace the title, and to establish its validity, to the satisfaction, doubtless, of the audience which he addressed; and he wound up his oration by a reference to the unprecedentedly large sum which the liberality of the clergy had placed at the service of the king, to enable him to make good his title to the crown of France.
The primate added, "Since therefore your right to the realm of France is so clear and unquestionable; since 'tis supported by the laws both of God and man; 'tis now your Highness' part to assert your title, to pull the crown from the heads of the French usurpers, and to pursue the revolt of that nation with fire and sword. 'Tis your Highness' interest to maintain the ancient honor of the English nation, and not, by a tame