| Fox's Translation. | Arundel's Words.. |
| "We sententially and definitively, by this present writing, judge, declare, and condemn him for a most pernicious and detestable heretic, convicted upon the same, and refusing utterly to obey the church: again committing him here from henceforth to the secular jurisdiction, power, and judgment, to do him thereupon to death." | "Him, convicted of and upon such a detestable offence, and unwilling to return penitently to the unity of the church, we sententially and definitively have judged, declared, and condemned for a heretic, and to be in error in those things which the holy church of Rome and the universal church teaches, hath determined, and preacheth, and especially in the Articles above written; leaving the same as a heretic henceforth to the secular power." |
"To do him unto death," may be the horrible implication; but it is not, as Fox unwarrantably represents it to be, part of the sentence.
Another instance occurs in the translation of the passage in which the Archbishop gives his reasons for making this public and authoritative statement of the transaction.
| Fox. | Arundel. |
| "That, upon the fear of this declaration, also the people may fall from their evil opinions conceived now of late by seditious preachers." | "That the erroneous opinions of the people, who perhaps have conceived on this subject otherwise than as the truth of the fact stands, may by this public declaration be reversed." |
The Archbishop declares his object to be the substitution of the true statement of the affair of Lord Cobham's condemnation, in place of the false opinions which were abroad; not a word about "fear," or "evil opinions from seditious preachers."[(back)]
Footnote 283: In the Lambeth account Sautre's condemnation is dated, according to the ecclesiastical reckoning, February 1400; but that, according to our reckoning, is 1401.[(back)]
Footnote 284: The writ is dated March 5, 1410.—Rymer.[(back)]
Footnote 285: His escape must have been, at the furthest, within fifteen days of his sentence; for, on the 10th October, messengers were sent about, forbidding any one to harbour "John Oldcastle, a proved and convicted heretic."—Pell Rolls.[(back)]
Footnote 286: If Cobham's escape was winked at by the King, and he knew of the King's kindness, it is very improbable that he would immediately after have been so basely ungrateful as to imagine the death of his sovereign and benefactor. It is, however, most probable that, had the King favoured his escape, the royal interference would have been kept a profound secret, as well from the prisoner, as from the people at large.[(back)]
Footnote 287: Walsingham (as quoted by Milner) says that the Archbishop applied to the King for a respite for fifty days for Lord Cobham. "If this be so," Milner says, "the motives of Arundel can be no great mystery. It was thought expedient to employ a few weeks in lessening his credit among the people by a variety of scandalous aspersions;" Milner then quotes the forged recantation, of which we speak in a subsequent note. It did not occur to that writer, that the space of fifty days might be required to forward his appeal to Rome, and receive the Pope's judgment upon it.[(back)]