A History of England, Period I. Mediæval Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

Signs of slumbering discontent.

The Lollards. 1414.

In the midst of this show of security and peace there were, however, visible signs that his father’s work was not yet completed. The royal favour shown to the Church and to the orthodox party during the last reign, and the persecution which had fallen upon heresy, had not by any means destroyed the Lollards. The same policy had still to be pursued. The religious, it might be called the bigoted, tendency of the house of Lancaster was very strong in the young King. He had been one of the chief petitioners against heresy in 1406, and had shared in and superintended some of the religious executions; especially is mentioned that of John Badby, in 1410. The Prince had interrupted this man’s execution, and attempted the conversion of the half-burnt sufferer; finding him firm, however, he allowed the execution to be completed. This tendency induced him to enter into close alliance with the Church, and throughout his reign to adopt the language of religious enthusiasm, pretending to regard himself as the appointed instrument of God’s vengeance on the sins of the French. He thus became the willing agent of the clergy in completing their persecution of the sectarians, and listened readily to the exaggerated reports for which the conduct of the Lollards afforded some ground. The head of this party was now Sir John Oldcastle, who sat as a Peer in right of his wife under the title of Lord Cobham. His castle of Cowling, in Kent, afforded shelter to their persecuted teachers, while his high character and old friendship with the King made his influence important. The Archbishop determined to attack this man, at first pretending that he desired his conversion only. He placed in Henry’s hands an heretical book which had been found in an illuminator’s shop, and which belonged to Oldcastle. Henry tried first of all to argue with Oldcastle (who, however, denied having read the book), but could not convert him. The duties of friendship being now fulfilled, the Church was allowed to take the matter in hand. The heretic appeared several times before his judges, but firmly refused to depart from his points, that the Pope was Antichrist, and that in the Lord’s Supper, though the body of Christ might be present, yet the bread was bread. This firmness produced the only possible result, and he was condemned to be burnt; but in the interval allowed him before the completion of his sentence, he managed to escape.[86]

The attack upon their chief roused the Lollards, and they are said to have entered into a general conspiracy for surprising and mastering the King and his brothers at Eltham, during the festivities of Christmas. Henry had early news of a meeting which was to be held on the 7th of January 1414, in St. Giles’ Fields. It is quite unproved how far the intentions of the conspirators really reached. Henry, with the Church behind him, was ready to believe anything. He feared, perhaps, an insurrection similar to Wat Tyler’s. Causing, therefore, the gates of the city to be closed, he spread armed men round the place of meeting, and as the Lollards approached, singly or in small bodies, they were seized. The news that the King’s forces were abroad soon spread, and prevented any great number from falling into his hands. A jury was hastily summoned to declare that Oldcastle had treasonable plans, and a price was set on his head. The same jury then proceeded to try the thirty-nine prisoners, all of whom were either hanged or burnt. This event was followed by a still stricter proscription of heretical preachers and books. Chicheley, who succeeded Arundel as Archbishop this year, followed in his predecessor’s steps, and a statute was passed by which all judges and municipal authorities were bidden to apprehend and try Lollards, while conviction of heresy entailed confiscation of goods.

Henry’s reasons for the impolitic French war.

Henry prided himself on having won his first victory in the cause of the Church; but his naturally ambitious character led him to desire triumphs of another kind. It seems indeed as if a strange combination of motives impelled him to take the false step which gave the character to his reign, and plunged the country into a lengthy and ultimately disastrous war with France. His father is said to have urged him, with mistaken worldly wisdom, to withdraw the minds of his subjects from dangerous topics by filling them with thoughts of military glory. The Church, frightened by the suggestions of confiscation in the last reign, urged him to pursue the same course. The natural but mistaken admiration for military glory induced him to listen readily to their advice, while the wickedness and misery exhibited by the French nation at once afforded him an admirable opportunity, and may have suggested to his fanatical mind, that it was his duty to punish such vice, and to reduce such turbulence into order. Experience proved, as it often has proved, the mistake, nay, the wickedness, of averting domestic dangers by the wanton pursuit of warlike success. Meanwhile, at first, and during the whole of this King’s short life, the step seemed perfectly successful. The reign, as a period of English history, is almost devoid of interest. The attention of the nation was centred in a French war.

Expulsion of the Burgundians from Paris.

Attempt at national government.

Since the Duke of Clarence had secured Guienne the state of France had become only more deplorable. The Treaty of Auxerre produced no real union between the factions. There was a certain show of national action under the pressure of a threatened invasion from England; the King and the Great Council of France sat in Paris; the States General were summoned, and under the influence of the University certain reforms introduced. But the death of Henry IV. prevented for the time all danger of invasion; and the cause of union being removed, the factions again separated. The Duke de Guienne, the French King’s eldest son, and representative of the crown during his father’s fits of madness, was devoted to the wildest licentiousness, and disliked his gloomy father-in-law, John of Burgundy. He began to intrigue for the restoration of the Orleanist Princes. The ruffianly populace of Paris, headed by the guild of butchers, and led by Caboche, a skinner, were devotedly attached to the Burgundians. A fierce and murderous uproar arose; but its violence was such, that the better class of citizens were aroused, expelled the Cabochiens, who fled to the Duke of Burgundy, and readmitted the Armagnacs, as the Orleanists were now called. The counter-revolution was complete, the Armagnacs got possession of the government, attacked the Burgundian Duke, and drove him before them, till they were checked at Arras. A temporary truce was then patched up; but the Duke of Guienne soon after contrived for a moment to banish both parties from the capital, and to establish a sort of national government.