CHAPTER XXXII.
the case of john clayton, of george gurmyn, and of william taylor, examined. — results of the investigation. — henry's kindness and liberality to the widows and orphans of convicted heretics. — reflections.
Henry of Monmouth's name seems never to have been associated by our historians with the death of any one condemned to the flames as a heretic, except in the case of those two persons the circumstances of whose last hours have been examined at length in this inquiry,—Badby, whom he endeavoured to save even at the stake, and Oldcastle, whose execution he respited, and for whose death he never issued the warrant. There are, however, three prosecutions for heresy, which, though hitherto unconnected with the question discussed in these chapters, seem to claim a patient consideration before this inquiry is closed, and the final answer be returned to the question, Was Henry a persecutor for religious opinions? The names of the three persecuted for maintaining opinions different from the dogmas of the church of Rome, to whose convictions and deaths our attention is here drawn, are John Clayton, or Claydon, George Gurmyn,[297] and William Taylor.
The case of John Clayton, whether we look to it merely as a well-authenticated fact of history, or seek from it ancillary evidence as to the principles and conduct of Henry in the matter of religious persecution, involves subjects of deep interest. The satisfaction with which it is believed many may view it, as one of the incidents which seem to imply that Henry was an unwilling, reluctant executor of the penal laws of his kingdom, and took the lead of his people in liberality and toleration, must be mingled with pain sincerely felt on witnessing the stewards of the word of life becoming the zealous and relentless exactors of a cruel and iniquitous law, straining to the very utmost its enactments to cover their deeds of blood, and sacrificing their fellow-creatures to the image they had set up. The case of Clayton puts the excessive enormities of the hierarchy of that day in a more striking point of view than many others of the more generally cited instances of persecution. Clayton's was not the case of a powerful man like Cobham, whose very character and station, and rank and influence, made him formidable: Clayton's was not the case of a learned man, or an eloquent preacher, or an active, zealous propagator of those new doctrines from which the see of Rome anticipated so much evil to her cause. His was the case of a tradesman, unable to read himself, and engaging another to read to him out of a book which seemed to give him pleasure; the place of reading being a private room in a private house, the time of reading being the Lord's day, and other festivals of the church; and the witnesses against him being his own servant and his own apprentice. Had the record of this sad persecution been written by an enemy to the priesthood, we should have suspected that the whole case was misrepresented, that a colouring had been unfairly given to the proceedings, to make them more odious in our sight; and though, at the best, such proceedings must be detestable, we should have deemed that in this case the facts had been distorted to meet the prejudiced views of the writer. But the proceedings are registered in the authentic records of the Archbishop of Canterbury,[298] and are minutely detailed in all the circumstances of time, and place, and person.
John Clayton was a currier, or skinner, living in the parish of St. Anne's, "Aldrychgate." In those days few tradesmen could read, and he was not an exception. But he had at an early period formed a very favourable opinion of the new doctrines; the preaching of Wickliffe's followers, or, it may be, of Wickliffe himself, had made so deep an impression on his mind, that nothing could shake the firmness and constancy of his belief to the day of his death. His predilection for "Lollardy," as the profession of the new doctrines was called, became known to the ecclesiastical rulers long before the statute for burning heretics was passed in England; and his religious opinions exposed him to great troubles and hardships, even in the reign of Richard II. He was arrested on suspicion of heresy, and carried before Braybrook, Bishop of London. The consequence of his conviction was imprisonment, first in Conway Castle for two years, and subsequently in the Fleet for the term of three years more. He then renounced the errors alleged against him, and abjured them at the time when "Lord John Searle" was chancellor of England, about the year 1400. Through the reign of Henry IV, and the two first years of Henry V, Clayton seems to have remained unmolested. No sooner, however, had Henry left England on his first expedition to France, than Clayton was seized, tried, and condemned. There seems to have been unusual despatch evinced in every stage of the proceedings. Clayton was not cited by regular process. The Mayor of London arrested him, and brought him before the Archbishop's consistory, on Saturday, August 17th, when he was examined, and remanded till the next Monday, August 19th. On which day he was brought up again, and finally condemned as a wilful relapsed heretic.
At that very time, Henry, having dismissed his ships, was first commencing the siege of Harfleur; he had left England only the preceding Sunday. Whether the time selected for Clayton's arrest and trial was merely accidental, or whether the civil and ecclesiastical authorities (for both were equally eager for the blood of their victim) seized upon the opportunity of Henry's first absence from England, is a question which ought not to be decided before all the circumstances attending both Clayton's execution and the proceedings against Taylor (which will be next examined) shall have been carefully weighed. One of the witnesses, who testified to overt acts of heresy (such as those on which he was condemned) having been seen in Clayton's conduct a year before the time of trial, was living in the house of the Mayor of London; and that functionary seems to have hurried on the prosecution with more zeal than considerateness, and to have kept the young man in readiness to give his testimony whenever a favourable opportunity offered. Such circumstances cannot be contemplated without suspicion. At all events, the plain fact is, that, on the very Saturday after Henry sailed from England, Clayton was brought under arrest, not under process of citation, before the ecclesiastical judges by the Mayor of London, who was ready with his witnesses.
The charges brought against Clayton were, that, having renounced heresy, he had again been guilty of the same crime, by associating with persons suspected of heresy, and by having heretical books in his possession. To establish these facts, in addition to his own confession that he "had been imprisoned in the time of Bishop Braybrooke on a charge of heresy, and had subsequently renounced in the time of Chancellor Searle, and had heard read about one quarter of the book then produced," they proceeded to examine two witnesses who had been inmates in Clayton's family.
The first witness swore that he had been, some time past, a servant and apprentice of John Clayton; that he had seen one John Fuller, a fellow-servant of his, reading the book, which he then identified, to his master, in St. Martin's Lane, on certain festival days since Easter; that in the book were the ten commandments in English, but what else it contained he knew not; that John Clayton seemed to be delighted with the book, and to regard it as sound and Catholic.
Another witness, Saunder Philip, a lad fifteen years old, a servant of Clayton's, but living at the time of the trial in the house of the Mayor of London, testified that he saw the book brought into Clayton's house about the middle of the preceding Lent; that he heard Clayton, his master, say that he would rather pay three times the price of the book than be without it; and that, on several occasions, through the year before, he saw and heard persons suspected of heresy conversing with Clayton.
To what miserable, degrading expedients were these persecutors obliged to condescend in compassing their designs! compelling those who ate of the bread of the accused, and drank of his cup, and were his own domestic servants, and confidential inmates of his home, to bear the testimony of death against him: verifying among Christians what the Lord of Christians prophesied as the result of pagan opposition to the Gospel itself, "A man's foes shall be those of his own household."
The poor man himself confessed that he believed he had heard about one-fourth part of the book read. The book produced, and identified by the witnesses, was called "The Lantern of Light;" in which the ecclesiastical judges pronounced many gross and wicked heresies to be contained. Among other articles objected to, some of which were doubtless in a more palpable manner adverse to the favourite doctrines of Romanism, we find the following criterion of the lawfulness and virtue of alms-giving. The author maintained that alms were neither lawful nor virtuous, unless four conditions were observed in the distribution of them.
1.—Unless they be given to the honour of God.
2.—Unless they be given from goods justly gotten.
3.—Unless they be given to one whom the donor believed to be in a state of Christian charity.
4.—Unless they be given to such as in very deed, without dissembling or pretence, are in need.
That the parts of the book which contained the heretical doctrines were ever read to Clayton, does not seem to have been elicited at the examination. The witnesses could only depose to having heard the Decalogue read in English, but nothing more; and the poor man's own confession acknowledged only that he had heard about one quarter of the work read. Still, on this confession and this evidence, and for this offence, John Clayton was convicted of heresy, was condemned as a relapsed heretic, and left without mercy to the secular power. Fox, who quotes no authority, adds only, that he "was by the temporal magistrates not long after had to Smithfield and burnt."
The ecclesiastical record contains no information after the sentence passed on Monday the 19th of August, and our historians seem not to have made any inquiries as to the fate of this man. Recent researches, however, into original documents have been made by the Author, with the view of facilitating the present inquiry, and rendering it more satisfactory; and the successful result of those researches enables him to throw some additional light on the subject under investigation. The following facts deserve especial attention. Shortly after the above sentence was passed by the ecclesiastical authorities, the Mayor and citizens of London wrote a letter to King Henry, rehearsing the judgment of the ecclesiastical court on John Clayton, and expressing their intention to make an example of the convict by carrying the sentence into execution. But they desired the King to send them his especial directions on the subject, as they were desirous to avoid giving offence in this as well as in all other affairs. The answer of Henry to this request, if it was ever made, is certainly not recorded. The strong probability is that the execution took place before there had been time for the King's answer, if he ever sent one, to reach London. The sheriffs of London state in this same year that "they had expended 20s. about the burning of John Claydon, skinner, and George Gurmyn, baker, Lollards convicted of heresy," though the day of the execution is not recorded.
It must here be remembered, that the Mayor himself arrested Clayton, and produced the witnesses against him; that the King's writ[299] was not necessary to authorize execution after judgment passed by the ecclesiastical authority in convocation; and that, even if it had been necessary to procure the royal sanction, the Duke of Clarence was left in England with full powers, as Henry's representative. Yet, in order to avoid giving offence, though they were determined to make an example of Clayton, they were afraid to proceed to the extreme penalty of the law without first taking the instructions of the King. This would scarcely have been necessary, nor would any hesitation, or scruple, or misgiving have arisen in their minds, had they not been under a strong practical persuasion that the execution of this man would have given their King displeasure. And when we know what employment awaited Henry from the very day of Clayton's conviction till his return home,—the siege of Harfleur, the harassing march through France, the battle of Agincourt,—we cannot wonder at no answer being recorded. Perhaps he made no answer; perhaps the letter never reached him in the midst of his struggles and dangers; probably he did not interfere, but allowed the law to take its course. Whatever took place between the condemnation and the death of Clayton, every stage of the transaction, from the first arrest of the accused on the very Saturday after Henry sailed for France, makes it quite clear that, in the opinion of the magistrates of London, Henry would be no willing abettor of persecution.
A case, however, of no ordinary character as a matter of historical record, and doubly important to those who take an interest in the result of the present investigation, requires to be examined in all its bearings (especially with reference to the dates of its several stages) with greater care than has hitherto been bestowed upon it.
In the July of 1416, whilst the Emperor Sigismund and Henry were both in England, Archbishop Chicheley gave evidence of his zeal by issuing most stringent mandates, directing his suffragan bishops to make diligent search for heretics, to report the names and circumstances of all who were suspected of heresy under seal to the metropolitan, and to institute process against them according to law. On the publication of these injunctions, a most strict and searching inquisition took place through the country. Still no one suffered the extreme penalty of the law as a heretic convict. In the next year, no sooner was Pope Martin V. elected at Constance, than, complaining bitterly of the neglect and apathy of the ecclesiastical and civil authorities, the new Pontiff addressed every argument, both of encouragement and of intimidation, to the laity and the clergy alike, urging them to unite as one man in the work of extirpating heresy. He even applied to the English church, that, in their overflowing zeal for the Apostolic See, they would raise a subsidy in aid of the war then being carried on against the heretics in Bohemia. Among those who had fallen under suspicion of heresy, and who were watched with jealous vigilance by the ecclesiastical authorities, was one William Taylor, who had proceeded to his degree of Master of Arts in one of the Universities, and had been admitted into the order of priest in the church. Taylor was cited to appear before the consistory; and on Monday, February 12, 1420, he confessed before Archbishop Chicheley that in the time of his predecessor (Arundel) he had been suspected of heresy; and for not appearing, or for not answering to the charge brought against him, he had been excommunicated, and had remained under that sentence for fourteen years.[300] Upon his expression of sorrow and repentance, he was commanded to appear on the following Wednesday at Lambeth, where, in the great chapel, he received the pardon of the church on certain stipulated conditions. He was bound by solemn promises, and by an oath on the Gospels (thrice repeated), not to offend again; and he promised to appear in person or by his proctor at the next convocation, there to confess his penitence. He was then set at liberty.
Taylor, however, was not long allowed to remain unmolested. Agreeably to the call of the sovereign Pontiff at Rome, and the peremptory injunctions of his metropolitan, agreeably also (as it too evidently appears by the sequel) to his own views of duty, Philip Morgan, Bishop of Worcester, denounced the same William Taylor in full convocation, May 5, 1421, as a person vehemently suspected of heresy. The King was then in London, but was on the eve of leaving the kingdom; and fully occupied in preparing to proceed forthwith to wipe off the disgrace which had fallen on the English arms, and to restore confidence to his troops, then much depressed by the unexpected discomfiture of their countrymen, and the death of the Duke of Clarence in battle. On Saturday, May 24, Taylor was put upon his trial, being produced before the court as the Bishop of Worcester's prisoner, who had caused him to be arrested. Of the three opinions savouring of heresy, (errorem et hæresin sapientes,) he pleaded guilty to having entertained the two last, but of the first he seems to have had no knowledge; indeed, it is very difficult to say what meaning could have been attached to it.
He was charged with having maintained at Bristol.
First, That whosoever suspends on his neck any writing, by that act takes away the honour due to God only, and renders it to the Devil.[301]
Secondly, That Christ was not to be prayed to in his character of man, but only as God.
Thirdly, That the saints of heaven were not to be addressed in prayer.
On the next Monday, May 26th, he was pronounced guilty of heresy, and condemned to perpetual imprisonment for the term of his life. So dreadful a punishment (to which, whatever it might be, he had on his previous release sworn to submit,) suddenly struck him to the very heart, and caused him to show some signs of a subdued mind. On which the Archbishop mitigated that sentence by adding to it an alternative, "Unless he shall be able to give bail, to the satisfaction of the Chancellor of England."
We have already intimated that Henry's thoughts were at this time fully and anxiously occupied in preparing for an immediate expedition to France; and it is to be observed that, on the very day after Taylor's condemnation, the King issued his writ to the sheriffs, commanding them to publish his proclamation for all persons to hasten with the greatest speed to join the King in his voyage. Taylor left the court in custody, as the prisoner of the Bishop of Worcester, to end his days in a dungeon, unless he should be able to produce the required bail; in which case the Bishop was authorized by the court to release him.
When Henry left London, on the Monday after Taylor's condemnation, he left it never to return. His death, as we have seen, took place on the last day of August 1422. That Henry knew anything of the prosecution of this person, does not appear; and, if he had been made acquainted with the intended proceedings, whether he expressed any opinion upon them in favour of maintaining the faith by the secular arm, or in favour of the gentle and mild means of persuasion,—is a matter lost to history, and all inquiry into any of those points must be fruitless. Nor are we informed whether the poor man could produce the required bail, or whether he remained a prisoner till his death. Some expressions in the record of the subsequent transactions would induce us to infer that he had, after his condemnation, been at large and was again taken into custody (sub custodiâ carcerali iterum arrestatus). The striking fact, however, is this,—that Henry had not been dead six months before this same priest was brought up a prisoner in the custody of a jailor, and tried before the same court for a repetition of the very same offence; or rather, perhaps, for the very same individual act for which, a year and three quarters before, he had been condemned to perpetual imprisonment. The same accuser, the Bishop of Worcester, charged him with having, since his abjuration aforesaid, written, maintained, and communicated with a certain priest, named Thomas Smyth, living at Bristol, on paper in his own hand-writing, the alleged heretical opinions. Here it must be observed, that the charge was made by the same accuser, the Bishop of Worcester, before the same Judge Chicheley; that the place in which he was said to have held these doctrines was in each case the same, Bristol; that in each case the doctrines were said to have been conveyed by writing; and that, as to the time of the offence, the Bishop did not say it was after his previous condemnation, but only after his recantation, which took place in February 1420, just a year and a quarter before his sentence of imprisonment. And if we examine the four heretical opinions which were extracted, in 1423, by the Canonists out of his written communication to Thomas Smyth, we shall find them in substance nothing more or less than two of the opinions on which he was before condemned to imprisonment in 1421.
1.—All prayer which is a petition for any supernatural or gratuitous gift, is to be offered to God alone.
2.—Prayer is to be addressed only to God.[302]
3.—To pray to any creature is to commit idolatry.
4.—The faithful ought to address their prayers to God, not in reference to his humanity, but only with regard to his Deity.
This was the sum of his offence, involving precisely the identical opinions of which he had been pronounced guilty in 1421, after his recantation in 1420.[303]
After Lynewood had given his opinion that a relapsed heretic was to be left to the secular court, without hope of pardon, and without being heard as to the corporal punishment, his judges proceeded to the extreme execution of the law. Taylor was degraded on Monday the 1st of March, 1423, in the first year of Henry VI; and, the writ for his burning being issued on the same day, he suffered death in Smithfield.
How far these circumstances may be pronounced to bear on the subject, and to conspire in acquitting Henry of Monmouth of the charge with which his name has been unsparingly assailed, of having been in spirit and conduct a persecutor for religious opinions, deserves serious consideration. When it is borne in mind that the Lollards were certainly represented to Henry as the enemies of his throne and of the peace of the realm; that the Pope and the hierarchy of England were loud and incessant in their appeals to the authorities to extirpate such poisonous weeds from the garden of the Lord's heritage; that the Emperor Sigismund was most zealous in obeying such calls of the church, and caused his own land to flow with blood; that Henry's prelates made a direct personal appeal to him to prosecute heretics; that his council deemed it necessary to remind him of his duty in that point;[304] that his own chaplain openly charged him with want of zeal and with apathy in that good cause; that no single warrant for the execution of any one condemned for heresy alone was ever signed, or, as far as we can ascertain, was ever sanctioned, by him; that the only victims of the priesthood actually burnt for heresy alone during his reign were condemned and executed in Henry's absence from the kingdom; and that one person sentenced to imprisonment during Henry's life was, within a few months after his death, condemned to the flames, and actually burnt for the same offence; when all these points are fairly weighed, probably few will not feel satisfied that the judgment passed upon Henry, on the charge of persecution, is inconsistent with the soundest principles of historical investigation.
The Author, however, is induced to confess that a comparison of the events of Henry's reign with those which preceded his accession, and followed his death, has compelled him to form more than a merely negative opinion on Henry of Monmouth's principles and conduct and influence. In addition to the circumstances detailed in these chapters, he would solicit attention to one fact, which no historical writer seems to have noticed. During the last years of Henry IV. a greater number of persons appear to have suffered in the fires of martyrdom than the accounts of our chroniclers would lead us to suppose.[305] By the cruel operation of the law, the goods and chattels of convicted heretics were escheated to the crown; and when Henry came to the throne, several widows and orphans were suffering severely from the effects of that ruthless enactment. No sooner had he the power of relieving their distress, than, in the exercise of the most divine prerogative of the kingly office, he restored to many their confiscated property. The most correct notion of the motives which influenced him will be conveyed by the language itself of the several grants: "We, compassionating the poverty of Isabella, widow of Richard Turner, who was convicted and put to death for heresy, of our especial grace have granted to the said Isabella all the goods and chattels to us forfeited, for the maintenance of herself and of her children."[306] Similar grants are recorded, and all in the first year of his reign, to Alice widow of Walter Yonge, Isabella widow of John Horewood, and Matilda widow of John Fynche; their several husbands having suffered for maintaining opinions then pronounced heretical. This fact seems to be not only confirmatory of the views we have taken of Henry's tender-heartedness and sympathy with the afflicted and helpless, but indicative also of the absence of whatever approaches a persecuting and vindictive spirit towards those who had incurred the extreme penalty of the law for conscience-sake. The Author cannot but infer that Henry's dislike of persecution placed a considerable check on the fierceness with which it raged, both before and after his reign; that the sanguinary intentions of the priesthood were, to a very considerable degree, frustrated by his known love of gentler means; and that in England a greater portion of religious liberty was enjoyed during the years through which he sat on the throne, than had been tolerated under the government of his father, or was afterwards allowed through the minority of his son.
The Author entered upon the subject of the three last chapters with the view of ascertaining, on the best original evidence, the validity or the unsoundness of the charge of persecution for religion brought against Henry of Monmouth. Independently of the result of that investigation, he confesses himself to have risen from the inquiry impressed with mingled feelings of apprehension and of gratitude:—gratitude for the blessings of the Reformation; and apprehension lest, in our use of those blessings, and in the return made to their Almighty Donor, we may be found wanting. For no maxim can be more firmly established by the sound deductions of human wisdom, or more unequivocally sanctioned by the express words of revelation, than the principle that to whom much is given, of them will much be required. And on this principle how awfully has our increase of privileges enhanced our responsibility! By the Reformation, Providence has rescued us from those dangers which once attended an honest avowal of a Christian's faith; has freed us from those gross superstitions which once darkened the whole of Christendom; and has released us from that galling yoke under which the disciples of the Cross were long held in bondage. The bestowal of these blessings exacts at our hands many duties of indispensable obligation. The Author hopes he may be pardoned, if, in closing this subject, he refers to some of those points which press upon his own mind most seriously.
Those who are intrusted with a brighter and a more pure light of spiritual truth, are, first of all, bound to prove by their lives that religion is not in them a dead and inoperative letter; but a vivifying principle, productive of practical holiness and virtue. Enlightened Christians are bound to show forth their principles by the exercise of every Christian excellence, and so to prove to the world that God is with them of a truth.
Another indispensable duty is, that those who possess the truth should individually and by combined exertions labour to spread its heavenly influence throughout the whole mass of their fellow-creatures, not only in every corner of their own land, but to the utmost coasts of the civilized world, and through the still numberless regions of barbarism and idolatry. "Freely ye have received, freely give."
Again, it were a narrow view of our duty were we to feel an anxiety for the preservation, through the period only of our own existence upon earth, of the benefits which we now enjoy. To be satisfied with the assurance that provision is made for our own times, is a principle altogether unworthy a philanthropic and a Christian mind: and the more valuable and essential the blessing, the more steady and vigorous should be our labour in providing for its permanency and its future increase. If we are honest in our own choice, we believe that by delivering down to posterity, in its integrity and pureness, the blessing which has been committed to us in especial trust, we are transmitting not a state-device (as its enemies delight to call it), but an institution founded on the surest principles of true philosophy and of revelation, with a view to the best interests of the whole human race. If, aided by the Divine Founder of the church, we resign to those who come after us the fostering and mild, but firm and well-grounded establishment of the Protestant faith, removed equally from latitudinarian indifference and from the intolerance of bigotry, with an ungrudging spirit sharing with others the liberty of conscience we claim for ourselves, we shall transmit an inheritance which may be to future ages what it has proved itself to be towards many among ourselves, and of those who have gone before us,—the instructor and guide of their youth, the strength and stay of their manhood, the support and comfort of their declining years;—an institution which is the faithful depository of Christian truth; the surest guardian of civil and religious liberty; the parent of whatever is just, and generous, and charitable, and holy. Esto perpetua!