CHAPTER XXIX.
was henry of monmouth a persecutor? — just principles of conducting the inquiry, and forming the judgment. — modern charge against henry. — review of the prevalent opinions on religious liberty. — true principles of christian freedom. — duty of the state and of individuals to promote the prevalence of true religion. — charge against henry, as prince of wales, for presenting a petition against the lollards. — the merciful intention of that petition. — his conduct at the death of badby.
WAS HENRY OF MONMOUTH A PERSECUTOR?
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.