Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 / Or, Memoirs of the Life and Character of Henry the Fifth, as Prince of Wales and King of England

by James Endell Tyler

These are a few among the many examples upon record of the generous and noble spirit of Henry; whilst history may be challenged to bring forward any instances of cruelty or oppression to neutralize them. Sir Matthew Hale confessed that he could never discover any act of public injustice and tyranny during the Lancastrian sway; and the inquirer into Henry of Monmouth's character may be emboldened to declare, that he can discover no act of wanton severity, or cruelty, or unkindness in his life. The case of the prisoners in the day and on the field of Agincourt, the fate of Lord Cobham, and the wars in France, require each a separate examination; and in our inquiry we must not forget the kind, and gentle, and compassionate spirit which appears to breathe so naturally and uniformly from his heart: on the other hand, we must not suffer ourselves to be betrayed into such a full reliance on his character for mercy, as would lead us to give a blind implicit sanction to all his deeds of arms. In our estimate of his character, moreover, as indicated by his conduct previously to his first invasion of France, and during his struggles and conquests there, it is quite as necessary for us to bear in mind the tone, and temper, and standard of political and moral government which prevailed in his age, as it is essential for us, when we would estimate his religious character, to recollect what were in that age throughout Christendom the acknowledged principles of the church in communion with the see of Rome.

On Monday, April 30, 1414, Henry met his parliament at Leicester.[23] Why it was not held at Westminster, we have no positive reasons assigned in history;[24] and the suggestion of some, that the enactments there made against the Lollards were too hateful to be passed at the metropolis, is scarcely reasonable.[25] The Bishop of Winchester, as Chancellor, set forth in very strong language the treasonable practices lately discovered and discomfited; and the parliament enacted a very severe law against all disturbers of the peace of the realm and of the unity of the church. It is generally said that the reading of the Bible in English was forbidden in this session under very severe penalties; but no such enactment seems to have been recorded. The prelates, however, were the judges of what heresy was; and to study the Holy Scriptures in the vernacular language might well have seemed to them a very dangerous practice; to be checked, therefore, with a strong hand. The judges, and other state officers, were directed to take an oath to exert themselves for the suppression of Lollardism.

Again and again are we reminded, through the few years of Henry's reign, that the cause of liberty was progressive; and any encroachments of the royal prerogative upon the liberties of the Commons were restrained and corrected, with the free consent and full approbation of the King. A petition in English, presented to him in this parliament, in many respects a curious document, with the King's answer, bears testimony to the same point. "Our sovereign lord,—your humble and true lieges that been come for the commons of your land, beseech unto your right righteousness, that so as it hath ever been their liberty and freedom that there should be no statute nor law made otherwise than they gave their assent thereto, considering that the commons of your land (the which is and ever hath been a member of your parliament) been as well assenters as petitioners, that from this time forward, by complaint of the commons of any mischief asking remedy by mouth of their Speaker, or else by petition written, that there never be no law made thereupon, and engrossed as statute and law, neither by addition, neither by diminution, by no manner of term or terms, the which should change the sentence and the intent asked by the Speaker's mouth, or the petitions before said, given up in writing without assent of the aforesaid commons." To this petition the following answer was made: "The King, of his grace especial, granteth, that from henceforth nothing be enacted to the petitions of his commons that be contrary to their asking, whereby they should be bound without their assent; saving alway to our liege lord his real prerogative to grant or deny what him lust of their petitions and askings aforesaid."

This parliament was adjourned from Leicester, and re-assembled at Westminster on the Octaves of St. Martin, 18th November 1414. The most gratifying record of this great council of the realm is that which informs us of the restoration of Henry Percy to his estates and honours. The most important subject to which the thoughts of the peers and commons were drawn was the King's determination to recover his rights in the realm of France.

The motives which influenced Henry to undertake this extraordinary step can be known only to the Searcher of hearts. Some writers, in their excessive zeal for Protestantism, anxiously bent on stamping upon Henry the character of an ambitious tyrant and a religious persecutor, employ no measured language in their condemnation of his designs against France. Milner thus gives his summary of the proceedings of this reign at home and abroad. "Henry Chicheley, now Archbishop of Canterbury, continued at the head of that see from February 1414, to April 1443. This man deserves to be called the firebrand of the age in which he lived. To subserve the purposes of his own pride and tyranny, he engaged King Henry in his famous contest with France, by which a prodigious carnage was made of the human race, and the most dreadful miseries were brought upon both kingdoms. But Henry was a soldier, and understood the art of war, though perfectly ignorant of religion; and that ardour of spirit, which in youth[26] had spent itself in vicious indulgences, was now employed under the management of Chicheley in desolating France by one of the most unjust wars ever waged by ambition, and in furnishing for vulgar minds matter of declamation on the valour of the English nation. While this scene was carrying on in France, the Archbishop at home, partly by exile, partly by forced abjurations, and partly by the flames, domineered over the Lollards, and almost effaced the vestiges of godliness in the kingdom."

These are very hard words, much more readily written than justified. Such sentences of condemnation require a much clearer insight into the workings of the human heart than falls to the lot of any human being to possess, when he would examine into the motives of a fellow-mortal. It is very easy by one sweeping clause to denounce the war as unjust, and to ascribe it to the ambition of Henry, reckless of human suffering. But truth requires us to weigh the whole matter far more patiently, and to substitute evidence in the place of assumptions, and argument instead of declamation. And it is impossible for the biographer of Henry V. to carry his reader with him through the scenes of his preparation for the struggle with France, and his conduct in the several campaigns which chiefly engaged from this time till his death all the energies of his mind and body, without recalling somewhat in detail the circumstances of Henry's position at this time. This, however, will require also a brief review of the state of France through some previous years of her internal discords and misery. Reserving them for another chapter, there are some circumstances of a more private and domestic character which it might be well for us first to mention in this place.

That Henry was habitually under the influence of strong religious feelings, though his views of Christian doctrine partook much of the general superstition of the age, is evident; and one of the first acts of his government was to satisfy his own conscience, and to give full testimony to the church of his piety, and zeal, and devotedness, by founding three religious houses. When, exactly a century later, Richard Fox, Bishop of Winchester, communicated to his friend, Hugh Oldham, Bishop of Exeter, his intention of founding a monastery, his friend, instead of giving him encouragement to proceed with his plan, remonstrated with him on the folly of building houses, and providing a maintenance for monks, who would live in idleness, unprofitable to themselves and to society;[27] urging him at the same time rather to found a college for the encouragement of sound learning: and the College of Corpus Christi in Oxford owes its existence, humanly speaking, to that sound admonition. Perhaps, had Henry V. been fortunate enough to meet with so able and honest an adviser, Oxford might have had within its walls now another nursery of religion and learning,—a monument of his piety and of his love for whatever was commendable and of good report. Our Oxford chronicles record his expressed intention both to reform the statutes of the University, and also to found an establishment within the castle walls, annexing to it all the alien priories in England for its endowment, in which efficient provision should be made for the instruction of youth in all the best literature of the age.[28] Had he first resolved to found his college, and reserved his religious houses for later years, his work might still have been flourishing at this day, and might have yet continued to flourish till the hand of spoliation and refined barbarism shall be strong and bold enough (should ever such a calamity visit our native land) to wrest these seminaries of Christian principles and sound learning from the friends of religion, and order, and peace. As it is, Henry's establishments survived him little more than a century; and the lands which he had destined to support them passed away into other hands, and were alienated from religious purposes altogether.

The sites which Henry selected for his establishments were, one at Shene, in Surrey; the other at Sion, in the manor of Isleworth, on the Thames.

The terms of the foundation-charters of these religious houses, their rules, and circumstances, and possessions, it does not fall within the plan of this work to specify in detail. The brothers and sisters admitted into these asylums appear to have been bound by very strict rules of self-denial and poverty.

The monastery at Shene, built on the site of Richard II.'s palace, which he never would enter after the loss of his wife Anne, who died there, and which on that account he utterly destroyed, was called "The House of Jesus of Bethlehem," and was dedicated "to the honour, and glory, and exaltation of the name of Jesus most dear;" Henry expressing in the foundation-charter, among sentiments less worthy of an enlightened Christian, and savouring of the superstition of those days, that he founded the institution in pious gratitude for the blessings of time and of eternity, which flow only from Him.