In estimating the character of an individual, nothing is more calculated to mislead ourselves, or to subject him to injustice at our hands, than a disregard of the time, and country, and circumstances in which he lived. It is equally unwise, and unfair, and deceitful, for a human judge to establish one fixed standard[246] of excellence in any department whatever of scientific or practical knowledge, and then to try the merits of all persons alike with reference to that one test. The injustice and absurdity of estimating the talents for investigation and acumen, the skill, and industry, and perseverance of a chemical student, many centuries ago, by the knowledge of the most celebrated men of the present day, and to pronounce all who fell below that standard to have been deficient in natural talents, or in a faithful exercise of them, would be seen and acknowledged by all. At this time, errors in navigation would be unpardonable, which would have implicated a pilot in no culpability at all, who lived before the invention of the mariner's compass, and when half our globe was as yet unknown. The same observations are applicable when we would estimate the moral excellence of an individual, his worth in a private or a public capacity, his character as a subject or a governor,—as the framer, or the guardian, or the administrator of the laws. Many a practice in ordinary social intercourse, which would not be tolerated, and would fix a stigma on those who were examples of it as persons to be shunned and excluded from society in one age or country, might in another not only be endured, but be even countenanced and encouraged by those who would take the lead in the improvement and refinement of civilized life. The grand broad fundamental principles of right and wrong must abstractedly be acknowledged always and in every place; but in the interpretation[247] of them, and in their practical application, we shall find in the records of successive ages every conceivable diversity. If, in these days, we are tempted to brand with the mark of ignorance, and superstition, and cruelty, those among our predecessors who enacted laws against witchcraft, and condemned to death those who were found guilty of dealings with the spirit of wickedness, we must at the same time remember that persons who are examples of every Christian excellence, of reverence for God's law, of justice and charity, are now engaged in occupations which those men held in abhorrence. They believed in the reality of witchcraft, and condemned those who were pronounced guilty of the crime; we believe that the crime cannot be committed, that it is merely a creature of the imagination, and we denominate those who pretend to the power of committing it impostors: just as by the Mosaic law they were condemned as deceivers, pretending to possess a power and knowledge independently of the Almighty. Our predecessors considered the lending of money upon interest as an offence against the law of God, and reprobated those who so employed their capital as usurers, who had forfeited all title to the name of merciful Christians;—whilst in the present day the most scrupulous person does not hesitate, as in a matter of conscience, to depend for the means of subsistence on such a source of income. Assuming that in each of these two cases our views are formed on a sounder principle of moral and religious philosophy, we have no more right to disparage the character of any individual, who did his best in the midst of less favourable circumstances, than we should have to reprobate the helmsman of former days, because in the darkness of a starless night he had no compass wherewith to save his ship from wreck.
These principles must be borne in mind, and acted upon whenever we would examine the spirit and character of any individual on the charge of superstition, bigotry, cruelty, and unchristian persecution. Had not these principles unhappily been laid aside for a time and forgotten, we should scarcely have been pained by so severe a portrait of Henry of Monmouth, as a writer who ought to have known better has drawn, not in the warmth of debate and the hurry of controversy, but in the hour of reflection and quietude. "In the midst of these tragedies died Henry V, whose military greatness is known to most readers. His vast capacity and talents for government have been also justly celebrated. But what is man without the genuine fear of God? This monarch, in the former part of his life, was remarkable for dissipation and extravagance of conduct; in the latter he became the slave of the popedom,[248] and for that reason was called the Prince of Priests. Voluptuousness, ambition, superstition, each in their turn, had the ascendant in this extraordinary character. Such, however, is the dazzling nature of personal bravery and of prosperity, that even the ignorance and folly of the bigot, and the barbarities of the persecutor, are lost or forgotten amidst the enterprises of the hero and the successes of the conqueror. Reason and justice lift up their voice in vain. The great and substantial defects of Henry V. must hardly be touched on by Englishmen. The battle of Agincourt throws a delusive splendour around the name of this victorious King."[249]
It is very painful to read this sentence; but the historian and biographer must not be driven by such sweeping condemnation into the opposite extreme; nor be deterred by the apprehension of unpopularity from laying open his views both of the moral and religious question in the abstract, and also of the acts, and character, and spirit of the individual subject of inquiry.
The principles of religious liberty were ill understood through many years before, and subsequently to, the time of Henry V. The sentiments of persons in every rank of life in those days seem to have been built upon an understanding, that the authorities, ecclesiastical and civil, were bound in duty to expel heresy by force. It was not the case of a dominant party enacting penalties abhorrent from the sympathies of the mass of the people; "the people themselves wished to have it so, and the priests bore rule by their means." So thorough a triumph had the gigantic policy of Rome achieved over the freedom, and the wills, and the judgments of the inhabitants of Europe! Like her other victories, this too was the work of progressive inroads on the liberties of Christians. Never at rest, ever active, the arch-conqueror fastened to her chariot-wheels, one by one, the most valued rights and most solemn duties of responsible agents. The right of private judgment in matters of religion had been resigned by the vast majority of the people of Christendom, and the duty and responsibility in each individual of searching for the truth himself had been laid aside long before Henry V. was called to take a part in the affairs of this world. Bold and noble spirits, indeed, were found in successive periods to assert their own rights and to declare the privileges and the duties of their fellow-creatures, and to think for themselves in a matter which so deeply involved their own individual and eternal welfare; whilst the bulk of mankind in Christendom not only resigned their faith to the absolute control of the priesthood, but exacted also from their fellow-citizens a similar surrender, on pain of losing their share in the protection and advantages of the state. Thus had heresy, in various nations of Europe, become synonymous with rebellion and treason; a rejection of the determinations of the church in matters of doctrine was identified in most men's minds with rejection of the authority of the civil magistrate;[250] and every one who dared to dispute the jurisdiction of Rome was regarded as a dangerous innovator, and an enemy to his own country.
That this was a state of things to be deplored by every friend of liberty and lover of truth, is not questioned; that domination over the consciences of men has ever been the object of the church of Rome, and that the spirit of persecution will ever be characteristic of her principles, is not here denied; nor are these observations made for the purpose of softening the feelings of abhorrence with which any persons may be disposed to view the proceedings of a persecuting spirit in those things which concern our most momentous interests so awfully. We refer to these historical reminiscences solely for the purpose of forming a more correct estimate of the individual character of one who lived in those times, and was born, and cradled, and educated in that atmosphere. It is easy to charge Henry V. with "the ignorance and folly of the bigot, and the barbarities of the persecutor;" but it were more worthy of a historian (his eye bent singly on the truth) to substitute inquiry for assumption, and careful weighing of the evidence for indiscriminate condemnation. There is such a thing as persecution, though the dungeon and the stake be not employed for its instruments; and true charity will be tender of the character of a fellow-mortal, though he is removed from this scene of trouble and trial, and has no longer the power of answering the accusations with which his good name is assailed. We may be as honest as those who write most bitterly, in our abhorrence of persecution; and yet think the individual who put its most rigid laws into effect, deserving of compassion and pity that his lot had fallen in such days of bigotry and ignorance, rather than of reprobation for not having discovered for himself a more enlightened path of duty.
It is not because we are obliged to confess that even the outward acts of Henry V. have been those of a persecutor, that these preliminary remarks are offered; it is rather to prepare our minds for a fair examination of his conduct, with reference to the only just and equal standard; for a candid and searching analysis of the evidence drawn from original sources, before it has become turbid and coloured by the channel through which it is often forced to flow; and for an unprejudiced judgment on his character,—a judgment perverted neither, on the one hand, by the dazzling splendour of his victories, nor, on the other, by that very common but most iniquitous principle of adjudication condemns the accused from hatred of the crime laid to his charge. The Author's sentiments on the character of religious persecution in general, and of the persecuting spirit of the church of Rome in particular, need not be disguised. He would never be disposed to acquit Henry V, or any other person, from a feeling of sympathy with the spirit of persecution.
The religion of the Gospel abhors all persecution. The faith of Christ must be maintained and propagated by more holy and heavenly weapons than those which can be forged by human authority and power. Persecution prevails in a Christian community only so far as the genuine spirit of the Gospel is quenched or checked among its members. The church has a power of compelling men to come to Christ, and to embrace the true faith, but its instruments of compulsion must be spiritual only: its sword must be supplied from God's own armoury. The sentence, "Having the terrors of the Lord, we persuade men," conveys an idea of tremendous consequences in store for those who refuse to obey the truth; but the consequences are reserved for the immediate dispensation of Him "who knoweth the thoughts." That believers, when possessed of temporal power, should have recourse to bodily restraint, and torture, and death, as the earthly punishment of those who entertain unsound doctrine, is a monstrous invention, which can derive no countenance from "the Word," and must be supported only by a worldly sword, and the arm of man wielding it. If, indeed, Christians are so far forgetful of the spirit of the Gospel as, on the plea of defending and spreading its genuine doctrines, to disturb the peace, and shake the foundations, and threaten the overthrow of society, the civil magistrate, whether Christian or heathen, will interpose. But neither has he, more than the church, any authority whatever for interfering by violence with the faith of any one. It is the duty of a Christian magistrate to provide for his people the means of religious instruction, and worship, and consolation; but, on the principles which alone can be justified, he must leave them at liberty to reject or to avail themselves of the benefit. Their neglect, or their abuse of it, will form a subject of inquiry at another tribunal; and the final, irreversible judgment to be pronounced there, man has no right to anticipate by pain and punishment on earth. These are the true principles of Christianity, and a church departs from the Gospel whenever these principles are neglected.
In adopting, however, these principles, and making them practically one's own, it must never be forgotten that there is a danger of confounding them, as they are unhappily too often confounded, with the results of a philosophy, falsely so called, which would teach governments to be indifferent to the religion of their people, and would encourage individuals to take no interest in the dissemination of religious truth. East is not more opposed to west, than the spirit of persecution, which would compel others by secular punishments to make profession of whatever doctrines the government of a country may adopt, is opposed to that Christian wisdom which maintains it to be equally the bounden duty of the state to provide for the religious instruction and comfort of its members, as it is the duty of a father to train up his own children in the faith and fear of God. The poles are not further asunder, than that holy anxiety for the salvation of our fellow-creatures which would impel Christians, to the very utmost bound of the sphere of their influence, to promote as well unity in the faith as the bond of peace and righteousness of life, is removed from that narrow bigotry which fixes on those who differ from ourselves the charge of wilful blindness, and obstinate hatred of the truth, to be visited by man's rebuke here, and God's displeasure for ever.[251] A wise and pious writer of our own has said,[252] "Show me the man who would desire to travel to heaven alone, regardless of his fellow-creature's progress thitherward, and in that same person I will show you one who will never be admitted there." The principle applies equally to an individual and a commonwealth. Show me a State which neglects to provide for the spiritual edification and comfort of its members, and in its institutions proves itself unconcerned as to the advancement of religious truth, and in that State you see a commonwealth whose counsels are not guided by the spirit of the Gospel, and therefore on which, however for a time it may shine and dazzle men's eyes with the splendour of conquest, and be making gigantic strides in secular aggrandizement, the blessing of the God of Truth and Love cannot be expected to descend.
A Christian legislature is bound by the most solemn of all obligations to supply with parental care the means which, in the honest exercise of its wisdom, it deems best fitted for converting the community into a people serving God; each obedient to his law here, each personally preparing for the awful change from time to eternity. But with each individual member of the community, from those who make its laws or administer them to the humblest labourer for his daily bread, it must ultimately be left to accept or to reject, to cultivate or neglect, the offered blessing. The moment compulsion interferes with the free choice of the individual, the religion of the heart and the outward observance cease to coincide, and hypocrisy, not faith working by love, is the result. "Persecution[253] either punishes a man for keeping a good conscience, or forces him into a bad conscience; it either punishes sincerity, or persuades hypocrisy; it persecutes a truth, or drives into error; and it teaches a man to dissemble and to be safe, but never to be honest."
With these observations we would proceed to inquire historically into the personal character of Henry V. with regard to religious persecution; a prince who lived when all Christendom was full of the darkness of bigotry and superstition, and when persecution had established its "cruel habitations" in every corner of the land.
The first occasion on which Henry of Monmouth's name is in any way connected with religious intolerance and persecution, is recorded in the Rolls of Parliament, 7 and 8 Henry IV. The circumstance is thus stated by Prynne,[254] or whoever was the author of the passage which is now found in the "Abridgment of Records in the Tower." "At this time the clergy suborned Henry, Prince, for and in the name of the clergy, and Sir John Tibetott the Speaker, for and in behalf of the Commons, to exhibit a long and bloody bill against certain men called Lollards,—namely, against them that taught or preached anything against the temporal livings of the clergy. Other points touching Lollardy I read none; only this is to be marked, for the better expedition in this exploit, they joined prophecies touching the King's estate, and such as whispered and bruited that King Richard should be living; the which they inserted, to the end that by the same subtlety they might the better achieve against the poor Lollards aforesaid. Wherein note a most unlawful and monstrous tyranny; for the request of the same bill was, that every officer, or other minister whatever might apprehend and inquire of such Lollards without any other commission, and that no sanctuary should hold them."
The Biographer of Henry V. needs not be very anxious as to the real intention of this petition. The allegation that Prince Henry and the Speaker of the House of Commons were suborned by the clergy, is a pure invention; no proof, or probable confirmation of any part of the charge, is afforded by history. The Speaker is named as the chief member of the House of Commons; the Prince is named as President of the Council, and chief member of the House of Lords; each acting in his official rather than in his individual character.
The petition was presented on Wednesday, December 22, in the parliament 7 and 8 Henry IV. which was dissolved that same day. The Roll records that "The Commons came before the King and Lords, and prayed an interview with the Lords by John Tybetot the Speaker." Different petitions were presented; one touching the succession of the crown, and the petition in question. The petition is not drawn up in the name of the Commons and Lords; it purports to be addressed to the King by "his humble son Henry the Prince, and the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in this present parliament assembled;" and the Speaker, in the name of the Commons, prays the King that the petition might be made the law of the land until the next parliament: and the King "graciously assents." Whatever were the real object of this law, if its aim were merciful, the Prince ought to have no additional share of the praise; if it were adding to the severity of the existing law, he deserves no additional blame, from the fact of his name appearing in the petition. In either case it appears there just as the Speaker's does, officially. But what was the real drift of this petition? Suppose it to have been on the side of severity, will it deserve the character assigned to it by the author of the "Abridgment?" Can it be called a "bloody" petition? It prayed that after the feast of Epiphany next ensuing, without any other commission, "Lollards, and other speakers and contrivers of news and lies, might be apprehended and kept in safe custody till the next parliament, and there to answer to the charges against them." Suppose this to have been an extension of a former persecuting law, it gave no power of life or death, or any further severity against the person, than merely safe custody, a power now given to any magistrate against persons accused of any one of a large class of offences usually treated as light and trifling. But we may suppose that the real bearing of this petition were altogether the other way,—that it was intended to mitigate the severity of the existing law,—to deprive the real persecutors of the power, which they would undoubtedly have had, "of citing the suspected heretic, punishing him by fine and imprisonment, and, in the case of a relapsed or obstinate heretic, consigning him to the civil power for death." This power the statute[255] 2 Hen. IV. c. 15, conferred on the diocesans; and the petition in question might have been virtually a suspension of that sanguinary law till the next session. If this be so, we have precluded ourselves from ascribing any individual merit to Henry of Monmouth above the rest of the peers who drew up the petition; but he must share it equally with them; at all events, the charge of his having been suborned by the clergy to present "a long and bloody petition" falls to the ground. On this question, however, it were better to cite the opinion of an author certainly able to take a correct view of such subjects; and who, not having Henry the Fifth's character before him at the time, but only the historical fact, must be regarded as an unprejudiced authority. Mr. Hallam,[256] in his History of the Middle Ages, makes this comment upon the proceeding in question. "We find a remarkable petition[257] in 8 Henry IV. professedly aimed against the Lollards, but intended, as I strongly suspect, in their favour. It condemns persons preaching against the Catholic faith or sacraments to imprisonment against the next parliament, where they were to abide such judgment as should be rendered by the King and peers of the realm. This seems to supersede the burning statute of 2 Henry IV, and the spiritual cognizance of heresy. Rot. Parl. p. 583; see too p. 626. The petition was expressly granted; but the clergy, I suppose, prevented its appearing in the Roll."[258] Certain it is, that, unless the statute framed upon this petition suspended the power of the existing law, the hierarchy had full authority, without the intervention of the civil magistrate, to apprehend any one suspected of heresy, to try him, to sentence him, and to deliver him over to the secular power for death, upon receipt of the King's writ.[259] Certain it also is, that, on those who might be apprehended in consequence of this petition, none of those rigours could be visited: on the contrary, they would be placed beyond reach of the ecclesiastical arm. Surely to talk of Prince Henry being suborned by the priests to present a bloody petition, savours rather of blind prejudice than of upright judgment.
The only other occasion which places Henry of Monmouth, whilst Prince of Wales, before us in conjunction with bigotry, intolerance, and persecution, is the martyrdom of a condemned heretic, executed in Smithfield. Fox, and those who follow him, say, that the martyr was John Badby, an artificer of Worcester, condemned first in his own county, and then definitively sentenced by the Archbishop, the Duke of York, the Chancellor, and others in London; the Chronicle of London records the same transaction, but speaks of the individual as a "clerk, who believed nought of the sacrament of the altar!" There is no doubt, however, that the two accounts, as well as the Archbishop's record, refer to the same individual, though the Chronicle of London is mistaken as to the sphere of life in which he moved. It will be borne in mind that the question is not, whether John Badby ended his life gloriously in defence and in testimony of the truth, nor whether those who charged, and tried, and condemned him, were merciless persecutors; the only point of inquiry immediately before us is, Whether, at the death of John Badby, Henry of Monmouth showed himself to be a persecutor. The circumstances, however, of this martyr's charge and condemnation, independently of that question, are by no means void of interest; though our plan precludes us from detailing them further than they may throw more or less direct light upon the subject of our investigation. The following statement is taken from Archbishop Arundel's record.[260]
John Badby was an inhabitant of Evesham, in the diocese of Worcester, and by trade a tailor. He was charged before the bishop with heresy, and was condemned in the diocesan court. The point on which alone his persecutors charged him, was his denial of transubstantiation. His trial took place on the 2nd of January, 1409, and he was subsequently brought before the Archbishop and his court in London, as a heretic convict. His examination began on Saturday, the 1st of March 1410, at the close of which the court resolved that he should be kept a close prisoner till the next Wednesday, in the house of the Preaching Friars, where the proceedings were carried on. The Archbishop, for greater caution, said that he would himself keep possession of the key. When the Wednesday arrived, the Archbishop took, as his advisers and assistants, so great a number of the bishops and nobles of the land, that (in the words of his own record) it would be a task to enumerate them: among others, however, the names of Edmund Duke of York, John Earl of Westmoreland, Thomas Beaufort Chancellor of England, and Lord Beaumond, are recorded.[261] Prince Henry, though present in London, and actively engaged with some of the same noblemen as members of the council, was not present at Badby's examination, either on the Saturday or on the Wednesday.[262] In all his examinations Badby seems to have conducted himself throughout with great firmness and self-possession, and, at the same time, with much respect towards those who were then his judges. Looking to the circumstances in which he was placed, it is almost impossible for any one not to be struck by the weight and pointedness of his answers. He openly professed his belief in the ever blessed Trinity, "one omnipotent God in Trinity;" and when pressed as to his belief in the sacrament of the altar, he declared that, after consecration, the elements were signs of Christ's body, but he could not believe that they were changed into the substance of his flesh and blood. "If," he said, "a priest can by his word make God, there will be twenty thousand Gods in England at one time. Moreover, I cannot conceive how, when Christ at his last supper broke one piece of bread, and gave a portion to each of his disciples, the piece of bread could remain whole and entire as before, or that he then held his own body in his hand." At his last appearance before the large assemblage of the hierarchy and the temporality, when asked as to the nature of the elements, he said, that "in the sight of God, the Duke of York, or any child of Adam, was of higher value than the sacrament of the altar." The Archbishop declared openly to the accused that, if he would live according to the doctrine of Christ, he would pledge his soul for him at the last judgment day.
The registrar, in recording these proceedings, employs expressions which too plainly indicate the frame of mind with which this poor man was viewed by his persecutors. Had the words been attributed either to the Archbishop himself, or to his remembrancer, by an enemy, they might have excited a suspicion of misrepresentation or misunderstanding. "Whilst he was under examination the poison of asps appeared about his lips; for a very large spider, which no one saw enter, suddenly and unexpectedly, in the sight of all, ran about his face." To this absurd statement, however, the registrar adds a sentence abounding with painful and dreadful associations. "The Archbishop, weighing in his mind that the Holy Spirit was not in the man at all, and seeing by his unsubdued countenance that he had a heart hardened like Pharaoh's, freeing themselves from him altogether, delivered him to the secular arm; praying the noblemen who were present, not to put him to death for his offence, nor deliver him to be punished." Whatever force this prayer of the hierarchy was expected to have, the King's writ was ready. The Archbishop condemned him before their early dinner, and forthwith on the same day, after dinner, he was taken to Smithfield, and burnt in a sort of tub to ashes. The Lambeth Register[263] mentions the mode of his death, and affirms that he persevered in his obstinacy to the last, but says nothing whatever about the Prince of Wales. The further proceedings with regard to this martyr, and which connect him with the subject of these Memoirs, are thus stated by Fox, in his Book of Martyrs.
"This thing[264] [the condemnation by the Archbishop, and the delivery of Badby to the secular power,] being done and concluded in the forenoon, in the afternoon the King's writ was not far behind; by the force whereof John Badby was brought into Smithfield, and there, being put into an empty barrel, was bound with iron chains, fastened to a stake, having dry wood put about him. And as he was thus standing in the pipe or tun, (for as yet Perilous' bull was not in use among the bishops,) it happened that the Prince, the King's eldest son, was there present; who, showing some part of the good Samaritan, began to endeavour and assay how to save the life of him whom the hypocritical Levites and Pharisees sought to put to death. He admonished and counselled him that, having respect unto himself he should speedily withdraw himself out of these labyrinths of opinions; adding oftentimes threatenings, the which would have daunted any man's stomach. Also Courtney, at that time Chancellor of Oxford, preached unto him, and informed him of the faith of holy church. In this mean season, the Prior of St. Bartlemew's in Smithfield, brought, with all solemnity, the sacrament of God's body, with twelve torches borne before, and so shewed the sacrament to the poor man being at the stake: and then they demanded of him how he believed in it; he answered, that he well knew it was hallowed bread, and not God's body. And then was the tunne put over him, and fire put unto him. And when he felt the fire he cried, 'Mercy!' (calling belike upon the Lord,) and so the Prince immediately commanded to take away the tun and quench the fire. The Prince, his commandment being done, asked him if he would forsake heresy and take him to the faith of holy church; which thing if he would do, he should have goods enough: promising also unto him a yearly stipend out of the King's treasury, so much as would suffice his contentation. But this valiant champion of Christ rejected the Prince's fair words, as also contemned all men's devices, and refused the offer of worldly promises, no doubt but being more vehemently inflamed with the spirit of God than with earthly desire. Wherefore, when as yet he continued unmoveable in his former mind, the Prince commanded him straight to be put again into the pipe or tun, and that he should not afterwards look for any grace or favour."
Milner having told us, that "the memory of Henry is by no means free from the imputation of cruelty," gives an unfavourable turn to the whole affair, and ascribes a state of mind to the Prince, which Fox's account will scarcely justify. Milner's zeal against popery and its persecutions, often betrays him into expressions which a calm review of all the circumstances of the case would, probably, have suggested to his own mind the necessity of modifying and softening. Fox attributes to Henry "some part of the good Samaritan," and puts most prominently forward his desire and endeavour to save the poor man's life. Milner ascribes to him a violence of temper, altogether unbecoming the melancholy circumstances of that hour of death, and directs our thoughts chiefly to his attempt to force a conscientious man to recant.
The account of Milner is this: "After he, Badby, had been delivered to the secular power by the Bishops, he was by the King's writ condemned to be burned. The Prince of Wales, happening to be present, very earnestly exhorted him to recant, adding the most terrible menaces of the vengeance that would overtake him if he should continue in his obstinacy. Badby, however, was inflexible. As soon as he felt the fire, he cried 'Mercy!' The Prince, supposing he was entreating the mercy of his judges, ordered the fire to be quenched. 'Will you forsake heresy,' said young Henry, 'and will you conform to the faith of the holy church? If you will, you shall have a yearly stipend out of the King's treasury?' The martyr was unmoved, and Henry in a rage declared that he might now look for no favour. Badby gloriously finished his course in the flames."
The Chronicle of London, from which, in all probability, Fox drew the materials for his description, makes one shudder at the reckless, cold-blooded acquiescence of its author in the excruciating tortures of a fellow-creature suffering for his faith's sake. In his eyes, heretics were detestable pests; and an abhorrence of heresy seems to have quenched every feeling of humanity in his heart. It must be observed, that this contemporary document speaks not a word of Henry having been "in a rage," nor of his having commanded the sufferer to be "straight put into the ton," nor of his having used "horrible menaces of vengeance," nor, even in the milder expression of Fox, "threatenings which would have daunted any man's stomach."
"A clerk," (says the Chronicle,) "that believed nought of the sacrament of the altar, that is to say, God's body, was condemned and brought to Smithfield to be burnt. And Henry, Prince of Wales, then the King's eldest son, counselled him to forsake his heresy and hold the right way of holy church. And the Prior of St. Bartholomew's brought the holy sacrament of God's body with twelve torches lighted before, and in this wise came to this cursed heretic; and it was asked him how he believed, and he answered that he believed well that it was hallowed bread, and nought God's body. And then was the tonne put over him, and fire kindled therein; and when the wretch felt the fire he cried mercy, and anon the Prince commanded to take away the ton and to quench the fire. And then the Prince asked him if he would forsake his heresy, and take him to the faith of holy church; which if he would have done, he should have his life, and goods enough to live by; and the cursed shrew would not, but continued forth in his heresy: wherefore he was burnt."[265]
There probably will not be great diversity of opinion as to the conduct of Henry, and the spirit which influenced him on this occasion. He was present at the execution of a fellow-creature, who was condemned to an excruciating death by the blind and cruel, but still by the undoubted law of his country. Acting the "part of the good Samaritan," he earnestly endeavoured to withdraw him from those sentiments the publication of which had made him obnoxious to the law; and he employed the means which his high station afforded him of suspending the King's writ even at the very moment of its execution, promising the offender pardon on his princely word, and a full maintenance for his life. He could do no more: his humanity had carried him even then beyond his authority, and, considering all the circumstances, even beyond the line of discretion; and, when he found that all his efforts were in vain, he left the law to take its own course,—a law which had been passed and put in execution before he had anything whatever to do with legislation and government.
The death of Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, and the circumstances which preceded it, require a more patient and a more impartial examination than they have often met with. But it must be borne in mind throughout that our inquiry has for its object, neither the condemnation of religious persecution, nor the palliation of the spirit of Romanism,—neither the canonization of the Protestant martyr, nor the indiscriminate inculpation of all concerned in the sad tragedy of his condemnation and death,—but the real estimate of Henry's character. The pursuit of this inquiry of necessity leads us through passages in the history of our country, and of our church, which must be of deep and lively interest to every Englishman and every Christian. It is impossible, as we proceed, not to fix our eyes upon objects somewhat removed from the direct road along which we are passing, and, contemplating the state of things as they were in those days, contrast them fairly and thankfully with what is our own lot now.
It were a far easier work to assume that all who were engaged in prosecuting Sir John Oldcastle were men of heartless bigotry, unrelenting enemies to true religion, devoid of every principle of Gospel charity, men of Belial, delighting in deeds of violence and blood; and that the victim of their cruelty, persecuted even to the death solely for his religious sentiments, was a pattern of every Christian excellence, the undaunted champion of Gospel truth, the sainted martyr of the Protestant faith. This were the more easy task, for little further would need to be done in its accomplishment than to select from former writers passages of indiscriminate panegyric on the one hand, and equally indiscriminate vituperation on the other. The investigation of doubtful and disputed facts, to the generality of minds, is irksome and disagreeable; and its results, for the most part removed, as they are, from extreme opinions on either side, are received with a far less keen relish than the glowing eulogy of a partisan, and the unsparing invective of an enemy. Truth, nevertheless, must be our object. Truth is a treasure of intrinsic value, and will retain its worth after the adventitious and forced estimate put upon party views and popular representations shall have passed away.
Sir John Oldcastle, who derived the title of Lord Cobham from his wife, was a man of great military talents and prowess, and at the same time a man of piety and zeal for the general good. He was one of the chief benefactors towards the new bridge at Rochester, a work then considered of great public importance; and he founded a chantry for the maintenance of three chaplains. Oldcastle was by no means free from trouble during the reign of Richard II. Indeed, so unsettled was the government, and so violent were the measures adopted against political opponents, and so cheap and vile was human life held, that few could reckon upon security of property or person for an hour. One day a man was seen in a high civil or military station; the next arrested, imprisoned, banished, or put to death. Oldcastle was very nearly made an early victim of these violent proceedings. Among the strong measures to which parliament had recourse about the year 1386, they appointed fourteen lords to conduct the administration, among whom was Lord Cobham. Just ten years afterwards he was arrested, and adjudged to death by the parliament;[266] but his punishment, at the earnest request of certain lords, was commuted for perpetual imprisonment,[267] a sentence from which the lords of parliament revolted,—and he was exiled.[268] From this banishment he returned with Henry of Lancaster, and was restored to all his possessions which had been forfeited. Through the whole reign of Henry IV. we find him in the King's service in Wales and on the Continent. In a summons for a general council of prelates, lords, and knights, dated July 21, 1401, occurs the name of John Lord Cobham.[269] In the Minutes of Council about the end of August 1404, John Oldcastle is appointed to keep the castles and towns of the Hay and Brecknock; and when English auxiliaries were sent to aid the Duke of Burgundy, Oldcastle was among the officers selected for that successful enterprise. Between the Prince of Wales and this gallant brother in arms an intimacy was formed, which existed till the melancholy tissue of events interrupted their friendship, and ultimately separated them for ever.
We have already seen that Lord Cobham had given proof of a pious as well as a liberal mind; and his piety showed itself in acts which the Roman church sanctioned and fostered. He built and endowed a chantry for the maintenance of three chaplains. But he had imbibed a portion of that spirit which Wickliffe's doctrines had diffused far and wide through the land; and he not only boldly professed his principles, but actively engaged in disseminating them. It is very difficult to ascertain the exact truth as to the tenour and extent of the religious opinions of the rising sect, and the degree in which they were political dissenters, aiming at the overthrow of the existing order of things in the state as well as in the church. Their enemies, doubtless, have exaggerated their intentions, and have endeavoured to rob them of all claim to the character of sincere religious reformers; probably misrepresenting their objects, and confounding their designs with the plots of those turbulent spirits[270] who then agitated several countries in Europe; whilst their friends have denied, perhaps injudiciously, any participation on their part in seditious and treasonable practices. By the one they have been condemned as reckless enemies to truth, and order, and peace; by the other they are exalted into self-devoted confessors and martyrs; in soundness of faith, integrity of life, and constancy unto death for the truth's sake, equalling those servants and soldiers of Christ who in the first ages sealed their belief with their blood. The truth lies between these extremes: their enemies were bigoted or self-interested persecutors; but many among themselves, as a body, in their language, their actions, and their professed principles, were very far removed from that quiet, patient, peaceable demeanour which becomes the disciples of the Cross. Doubtless there were numbers at that time in England possessing their souls in patience, bewailing the gloom and superstition and tyranny which through that long night of error overspread their country, and anxiously but resignedly expecting the dawn of a holier and brighter day. It is, however, impossible to read the documents of the time without being convinced, not only that the temporal establishment of the Church was threatened, but that the civil government had good grounds for watching with a jealous eye, and repressing with a strong hand, the violent though ill-digested schemes of change then prevailing in England. Undoubtedly the hierarchy set all the engines in motion for the extirpation of Lollardism, as the principles of the rising sect were called. They felt that their dominion over the minds of men must cease as soon as the right of private judgment was generally acknowledged; and they resolved, at whatever cost of charity and of blood, to maintain the hold over the consciences, the minds, and the property of their fellow-creatures, which the Church had devoted so many years of steady, unwearied, undeviating policy to secure. The real question, the point on which every other question between the Protestant communions and the Church of Rome must depend, is this: "Have individual Christians a right to test the doctrines of the Church by the written word of God; or must they receive with implicit credence whatever the church in communion with the See of Rome, the only authorized and infallible guardian and propagator of Gospel truth, decrees and propounds?" All the other differences, however important in themselves, and practically essential, must follow the fate of this question. The Romanists are still aware of this, and are as much alive to it as ever were the most uncompromising vindicators of their church in the days of Lollardism. They took their resolution, and it was this: "Come what will come, this heresy must be put down; the very existence of the Church is incompatible with this rivalry: either Lollardism must be extinguished, or it will shake the very foundations of Rome." And, having taken this resolution, they lost no favourable opportunity of carrying it into full effect.
Some writers seem to have fixed their thoughts so much on the bold and ruthless measures adopted, or compassed, by the Church under the house of Lancaster, as to have left unnoticed their proceedings previously to Henry IV.'s accession. In 1394, when Richard II. made his first expedition to Ireland, though he had been absent a very short time, so alarmed were the heads of the Church at the progress of the new opinions, that the Archbishop of York[271] and the Bishop of London went over in person to implore him to return forthwith and put down the Lollards,[272] his own and the Church's formidable enemies. Many strong measures were resorted to on that King's return, but all short of those deeds of guilt and blood which disgraced our country through the next reigns. The Pope, the King, and the hierarchy put forth their united exertions, and for a season the growing danger seemed to be repressed; but it was still silently and widely spreading. In the year 1400, before Henry IV. was settled in his throne, and whilst he was naturally alive to every report of danger, the several estates of the realm "pray the King to pass such a law as may effectually rid the kingdom of those plotters against all rule and right and liberty, (for so are the Lollards described,) whose aim is to dispossess the clergy of their benefices, the King of his throne, and the whole realm of tranquillity and order, exciting to the utmost of their power sedition and insurrection." And in that year was passed the statute De hæretico comburendo, which enacted that a suspected heretic should be cited by his diocesan, be fined, and imprisoned; and, if pronounced a relapsed or obstinate heretic, be given over by the Church to the secular power, to be burnt, in an elevated spot, before the people, to strike terror the more. It was under this statute that Sir John Oldcastle was summoned, tried, adjudged, and delivered to the secular power.
How long he had entertained the new opinions, or, by openly encouraging their propagators, had incurred the anger, and drawn down upon himself the concentrated violence of the hierarchy, does not appear. From one circumstance we may fairly infer, that, whilst he was aiding the Prince in the war against Owyn Glyndowr, he had not been silent or idle in the dissemination of these principles. In the synod held in St. Paul's, his offence of sending emissaries and preachers is said to have been especially committed (beside the dioceses of London and Rochester) in the diocese of Hereford; and, as we have seen, in 1404 he was especially charged with the safeguard of the town and castle of Hay, in Herefordshire: he was also sheriff of that county in 1407. Whether he had ever communicated his sentiments to the Prince, or not, must remain a matter only of conjecture: be this as it may, no sooner was the first parliament of Henry V. assembled,—and they met soon after Easter,—than Arundel convened a full assembly[273] of prelates and clergy in St. Paul's Cathedral.[274] It was there speedily determined that the breaches in the Church could not be repaired, nor peace and security restored, unless certain noblemen and gentry, favourers of Lollardism, were removed, or effectually silenced, and brought back to their allegiance. Especially, and by name, was this decree passed against Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham; and a resolution was taken to proceed against him forthwith. But he was then in high favour with the King; and the Archbishop thought it discreet to endeavour first to withdraw from him the royal favour, before proceeding openly to put the law in force against him. And at this point our interest in the transactions, and our desire to ascertain the accuracy of the accounts in every particular begin to increase; for our estimate of the tone and temper of Henry's mind, and the real nature of his conduct, will be affected by a very slight change of expression and turn of thought. Was Henry V. a persecutor for religious opinions?
Perhaps the more satisfactory course will be, first to give the statements of Fox, and one or two others, who have taken the view of the case least favourable to Henry, and then to add the account of the transaction as it is recorded by the Archbishop, on whose record Fox informs us that the ground and certainty of his own history of Lord Cobham depended. Almost all subsequent writers copy the martyrologist exclusively and implicitly, though often with much additional colouring.
Fox, who certainly follows the original statement in Archbishop Arundel's register much more faithfully, than those who have taken their facts from him, and heightened them by their own exaggerated colouring, gives an unfavourable and an unfair turn to the whole proceeding by one or two strokes of his pencil. His version of the affair is this: "The King gently heard those bloodthirsty prelates, and far otherwise than became his princely dignity; notwithstanding requiring, and instantly desiring them, that in respect of his noble stock and knighthood, they would deal favourably with him, and that they would, if possible, without all rigour or extreme handling, reduce him to the Church's unity. He promised them also, that, in case they were content to take some deliberation, himself would seriously commune the matter with him. Anon after, the King sent for Lord Cobham, and, as he was come, he called him, secretly admonishing him, betwixt him and him, to submit himself to his mother the holy Church, and as an obedient child to acknowledge himself culpable. Unto whom the Christian knight made this answer: 'You, most worthy prince, I am always most ready to obey. Unto you, next my eternal God, I owe whole obedience, and submit thereto, as I have ever done. But as touching the Pope and his spirituality, I owe them neither suit nor service; forasmuch as I know him by the Scriptures to be the great Antichrist, the son of perdition, the open adversary of God, and the abomination standing in the holy place!' When the King had heard this, and such like sentences more, he would talk no longer with him, but left him so utterly. And as the Archbishop resorted again unto him for an answer, he gave him his full authority to cite him, examine him, and punish him according to their devilish decrees, which they called the laws of holy church."
In his comment on the answer said to have been made by Lord Cobham to the King, Milner's zeal in favour of the accused, betrays him into expressions against Henry which cannot be justified: "The extreme ignorance of Henry in matters of religion by no means disposed him to relish such an answer as this; he immediately turned away from him in visible displeasure, and gave up the disciple of Wickliff to the malice of his enemies."
Hall's version is this: "The King, first having compassion on the nobleman, required the prelates, if he were a strayed sheep,[275] rather by gentleness than by rigour to bring him back again to his old flock: after that, he, sending for him, godly exhorted and lovingly admonished him to reconcile himself to God and his laws. The Lord Cobham thanked the King for his most favourable clemency, affirming his grace to be his supreme head and competent judge, and no other."
The record, as it is found in the Archbishop's Memoirs, is as follows. Having stated that, of the tracts which had been condemned to the flames for their heretical contents, one consisting of many smaller tracts full of more dangerous doctrine, tending to the subversion of the faith and the church, was found at an illuminator's in Paternoster Row, who confessed that it was Lord Cobham's, and another was brought from Coventry, full of poison against the Church of God, the Archbishop's record thus proceeds: "The day on which the said tracts were condemned and burnt, certain tracts, containing more important and more dangerous errors of the said Lord John Oldcastle, were read before the King, and almost all the prelates and nobles of England, in the closet of the King at Kennington; the said Lord John Oldcastle being present and hearing it, having been especially summoned for this purpose. Then our King himself expressed his abhorrence of those conclusions, as the worst against the faith and the church he had ever heard. And the said Lord John Oldcastle, being asked by the King whether he thought the said tract was justly and deservedly condemned, said that it was so. On being asked how he could use or possess a tract of this sort, he said that he had never read more than two leaves.
"And be it remembered that in the said convocation the said Lord John Oldcastle was convicted by the whole clergy of the province of Canterbury, upon his ill-fame for errors and heretical wickedness, and how in various dioceses he had held, assumed, and defended erroneous and heretical conclusions; and that he had received to his house, favoured, refreshed, and defended, chaplains suspected and even convicted of such errors and heresies, and had sent them off to different parts of the province to preach and sow this evil seed, to the subversion of the faith and the state of the church.[276] And supplication was made on the part of the same clergy to the Lord Archbishop and the prelates, that the said John Oldcastle should be summoned to answer in person to these points. And because it seemed right to the Lord Archbishop and the prelates, that the King ought first to be consulted on this point, because he had been his intimate friend, they waited upon the King at Kennington, and with all due reverence consulted with him upon the matter. And the King returned thanks for their obliging kindness, and prayed them, [regratiabatur benevolentiis eorundem, et eis supplicabat,] for respect to the King himself, because he had been his intimate friend, and also from respect to the military order, they would defer process and execution of every kind against him; promising them that he would labour, with regard to him, to bring him back with all mildness and lenity from the error of his way to the right path of truth. And if he could not succeed in this endeavour, he would deliver him to them according to the canonical obligations to be punished, and would assist them in this with all his aid and with the secular arm. And the said Archbishop and prelates acquiesced in the King's desire, but not without the dissatisfaction and murmurs of the clergy. Then, after the lapse of some time, when our said Lord the King had laboured long and in various ways in the endeavour to bring back the said knight to the sheepfold of Christ, and had reaped no fruit of his toil, but the knight continually relapsed into a worse state than before, at length the King, in the following month of August, being at Windsor, without further lenity sharply chided the said Lord John for his obstinacy. And the said Lord, full of the Devil, not enduring such chiding, withdrew without leave to his castle of Cowling in Kent; and there fortified himself in the castle, as was publicly reported. After that, the King sent for the Lord Archbishop, who was then at Chichester, celebrating the Assumption of the blessed Virgin; and, on his coming to the King at his house in Windsor Park, the King, after rehearsing the pains he had taken, enjoined on the Archbishop, and required him on the part of God and the Church, to proceed with all expedition against the said Lord John Oldcastle according to the canonical rules; and then the Archbishop proceeded against him as the law required."[277]
After attentively perusing this authentic statement, comparing it with subsequent representations, and recollecting that the utmost which Henry did was to direct the ecclesiastical authorities to proceed according to the laws of the land, where he had interrupted their proceedings with a view of averting the extremities on which those authorities seemed bent—and when we learn that even that temporary delay had called forth the decided disapprobation and remonstrance of the clergy,—few probably among unprejudiced minds will be disposed to view this incident in any other light than as a proof that Henry, who was a sincere believer, was yet anxious to bring all to unity in faith and discipline by reason and gentle means, by the force of argument and persuasion only; and that he earnestly endeavoured to blunt the edge of the sword with which the law had supplied the hierarchy, and to avert the horrors of persecution. Undoubtedly, when he failed, he directed the authorities to proceed according to law, and assisted them in securing Cobham's person when he set them at defiance. But it is necessary to take a comprehensive view of all the circumstances before we pronounce judgment as to his principles or motives.
The account of Henry's own chaplain, who was prejudiced in the extreme against the rising sect, seems undoubtedly to imply that in one stage of the melancholy transaction Henry was more than passive, and encouraged rather than checked the ecclesiastical authorities to proceed; but he at the same time adds, what is of course of equal credit, that the piety of the King deferred the extremity of punishment and his death. He adds, "that Henry had Oldcastle committed to the Tower, influenced by the hope that he might bring him back to the true faith; and that when, towards the end of October, the straitness of his confinement was softened, and he was, under promise of renouncing his errors, released from his bond, he broke prison and escaped." This was written between Oldcastle's escape and his subsequent capture and death. If we take one part of such evidence, we must in fairness take the other; and certainly, in that contemporary's view, Henry was fully determined to do all he could to save Cobham from the extreme penalty of the law.
He solicited the hierarchy, as a favour to himself, to suspend their operations for a while; they consented to grant the suspension as a favour to the King, upon his royal word being pledged that, should he fail in his endeavours, he would interfere with their proceedings no further, but on the contrary would assist them. Consistently with his promise, and with his duty as the chief magistrate of the realm, he could scarcely have done otherwise than he appears to have done.
After he had put forth his very utmost endeavours to rescue his subject and friend from the ruin to which the hierarchy had destined him, he made up his mind that the law should take its course, and that the accused should be tried as the statute directed. Lord Cobham wrote a confession of his faith, and, carrying it with him to the court, presented it to the King; who, having resolved to interpose no further between the accused and the process of the law, directed him to present it to his judges: and probably few will be disposed to think that Henry could act otherwise, consistently with his high station. The case was now most materially altered; Lord Cobham was in a very different position, and so was the King. As long as his kind offices could prevent a public prosecution, Henry spared no personal labour or time, but zealously devoted himself to this object, though unsuccessfully. But now the proceedings had advanced almost to their consummation, and interference at this point could scarcely have been consistent with the royal duty; especially when we consider what those proceedings were. Lord Cobham had been summoned to appear before the spiritual court, had disobeyed the citation, had been pronounced "guilty of most deep contumacy," and had been excommunicated. Henry could not interfere in this stage of the business with any show of regard to the laws, agreeably to which (blind, and cruel, and bloodthirsty, and wicked, as we may deem them,) the proceedings undoubtedly had been conducted; he therefore, as it should seem, could not do otherwise than direct the schedule, then presented to him by Lord Cobham, to be referred to the tribunal which the law had appointed to hear and determine the charges. On this turn of his affairs, the valiant knight and sincere Christian had recourse to various pleas and measures, for which were we to condemn him, as he has been condemned, we should act most unjustly. We must not judge him by the standard of our own times, nor with reference to principles on which we might justly be arraigned ourselves. But let the same measure of justice be dealt to all alike; and whilst the eulogist of Lord Cobham pleads in excuse the "wretched state of society" then existing,[278] let all the circumstances of time and society and law be taken into calm consideration before we condemn Henry, or rather before we withhold from him the praise of moderation, liberality, and true Christian kindness. The result of this visit to the King (to which the Archbishop's record does not allude) is thus stated by Fox. "Then desired Lord Cobham in the King's presence that a hundred knights and esquires might be suffered to come in upon his purgation, which he knew would clear him of all heresies. Moreover, he offered himself after the law of arms to fight for life or death with any man living, Christian or heathen, in the quarrel of his faith; the King and the Lords of his council excepted. Finally, with all gentleness he protested before all that were present, that he would refuse no manner of correction that should, after the laws of God, be ministered unto him; but that he would at all times with all meekness obey it. Notwithstanding all this, the King suffered him to be summoned personally in his own privy chamber." There is one circumstance of very great importance, omitted by Milner, Turner, and others; but which cannot be neglected if we would deal fairly by Henry. Fox gives a circumstantial statement of it; and it is of itself sufficient to account for whatever of "strait handling" may have been shown by the King to his unhappy friend at that hour. Lord Cobham, though he had repeatedly professed that the King was his supreme head, and liege Lord, and competent judge, and no other; and that he owed neither suit nor service to the Pope, whom he denounced as Antichrist; yet now appealed in the presence of the King peremptorily to the Pope, not on the heat of the moment, but by a written document which he showed to the King. The King overruled this appeal;[279] at least, he informed the accused that he should remain in custody until it was allowed by the Pope, and that at all events the Archbishop should be his judge. He was then arrested again at the King's command, and taken to the Tower of London, "to keep his day," the time appointed for his trial. But the reader will judge more satisfactorily of the proceeding after reading the statement of Fox himself. "Then said the Lord Cobham to the King that he had appealed from the Archbishop to the Pope of Rome, and therefore he ought, he said, in no cause to be his judge; and, having his appeal there at hand ready written, he showed it with all reverence to the King. Wherewith the King was then much more displeased than afore, and said angerly unto him that he should not pursue his appeal; but rather he should tarry in hold till such time as it were of the Pope allowed, and then, would he or nild he, the Archbishop should be his judge."[280]
How far at this juncture the King was competent to take upon himself the responsibility of forbidding any further proceedings against the individual on whose head the church had resolved to pour the full vial of its wrath and vengeance; and, if he had by law the power, how far he could consistently with the safety of his throne and the peace of his kingdom have done so, are questions not hastily to be determined. Certain it is, that, not two years after Lord Cobham's first citation, Henry seems to have been thought by the council[281] to be so far from forward in the work of persecution, as to need from them a memorial to be more vigilant and energetic in his measures "against the malice of the Lollards;" and to require the Archbishops and Bishops to do their duty in that respect. Henry, though sincerely attached to the religion of Rome, yet, whether at the stake in Smithfield, or in his own palace at Kennington, appears to have endeavoured "to do the work of the good Samaritan," and to the very verge of prudence to interpose between the execution of a cruel law, and the sufferings of a fellow-creature for conscience sake; not by setting himself up against the law of the kingdom over which he reigned, but by gentleness and persuasion, and promises and threats, to induce his subjects not to defy the law. Our inquiry does not require or allow us to follow the steps of the devoted Lord Cobham through his examinations before the ecclesiastical judges, nor to pronounce upon the conduct and language either of Arundel[282] or his prisoner. Henry seems to have taken no part in the proceedings whatever. But after the definitive sentence had been passed, and he had been left to the secular power, and remanded in custody of Sir Robert Morley to the Tower, we must observe that though according to Fox himself, the Archbishop had compelled the lay power by most terrible menacings of cursings and interdictions to assist him against that seditious apostate, schismatic, and heretic, and troubler of the public peace, that enemy of the realm and great adversary of holy church, (for all these hateful names did he give him,") yet the King's writ for his execution was not forthcoming, and, as far as we have any means of knowing, never was it issued. In the case of Sautre, the sentence of his degradation and delivery to the secular power was passed, and the King's writ for execution is tested on the very same day, February 26th, 1401.[283] In the case of Badby, the sentence, the King's writ, and the execution of the persecuted victim, followed in one and the same day hard upon each other.[284] But though Lord Cobham was sentenced on Monday, September 25, 1413, yet he remained in the Tower some time,—Fox says, "a certain space;" Milner says, "some weeks,"—and no warrant of execution was forthcoming. Indeed, as far as the record speaks, no such writ was ever issued by the King. The Tower was no ordinary prison, and yet Lord Cobham escaped[285] by night, no one knew how. Whether by connivance or not, and, if by connivance, whether from any intimation of the King's wishes or not, was never stated.[286] Many conjectures and surmises were afloat, but no satisfactory account of his escape was ever made known to the public. Certain it is that, had the King been a "cruel persecutor," had he been as ready to meet the desires of the hierarchy as his father was in the case of Sautre or Badby, a few hours only after the ecclesiastical sentence was passed would have borne Lord Cobham from the power of his persecutors to the place where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest. Walsingham says that both Henry and the Archbishop were desirous of saving Oldcastle's life, and that the Archbishop requested the King to give him a respite of forty days.[287] But, adds Walsingham, he escaped, and spent the time in preparing soldiers for revenge.