The house of Sion in Isleworth, or Mount Sion, as it is called in the Pope's bull of confirmation, was dedicated "to the honour, praise, and glory of the Trinity most High, of the Virgin Mary, of the Disciples and Apostles of God, of all Saints, and especially of the most holy Bridget." This house was suppressed by Henry VIII; when the nuns fled from their native country, and took refuge, first in Zealand, then at Mechlin, whence they removed to Rouen; at last, fifteen reached Lisbon in 1594. The history of this little company of sisters is very remarkable and interesting. In Lisbon they were well received, and were afterwards supported by royal bounty, as well as by the benevolence of individuals. They seem to have settled there peaceably, and to have lived in their own house, and to have had their own church, for more than fifty years. In 1651 their house and church were both burnt to the ground; but, through the beneficence of the pious, they had the happiness of seeing them restored. In 1755 this little community suffered in common with the other unfortunate inhabitants of Lisbon, and seem to have lost their all in the earthquake. In their distress they cast their eyes to the land of their fathers, and applied for the charity of their countrymen. There is something very affecting in the language of the petition by which our countrywomen in their calamity sought to excite the sympathy, and obtain the benevolent aid, of their fellow-Christians at home.

We, the underwritten, and company, having on the 1st of November last suffered such irreparable losses and damage by the dreadful earthquake and fire which destroyed this city and other parts of the kingdom, that we have neither house nor sanctuary left us wherein to retire; nor even the necessaries of life, it being out of the power of our friends and benefactors here to relieve us, they all having undergone the same misfortune and disaster. So that we see no other means of establishing ourselves than by applying to the nobility, ladies, and gentlemen of our dear country, humbly imploring your tender compassion and pious charity; that, so being assisted and succoured from your bountiful hands, we may for the present subsist under our deplorable misfortune, and in time retrieve so much of our losses as to be able to continue always to pray for the prosperity and conservation of our benefactors.
Augustus Sulyard, Eliz. Hodgeskin,
Peter Willcock. Frances Huddleston,
Cath. Baldwin,
Winifred Hill.
Sion House, Lisbon,
May 25, 1756.

Through another fifty years, the little band, still keeping up the succession by novices from England, remained in the land of their refuge; till, in 1810, nine of them, the majority, it is said, of the survivors, fled from the horrors of war to their native island; and their convent, whose founder was Henry, the greatest general of his age, became the barracks of English soldiers under Wellington, the greatest general of the present day. On their first return they lived in a small house in Walworth; and in 1825, the remainder, now advanced in years and reduced to two or three in number, were still living in the vicinity of the Potteries in Staffordshire,—the last remnant of an English convent dissolved in the time of Henry VIII. There are at this time mulberry-trees growing at Sion House, one of the Duke of Northumberland's[29] mansions, which are believed, not only to have been living, but to have borne fruit, in the time of the monastery.[30]

Henry seems to have had much at heart the intellectual, moral, and religious improvement of those who might be admitted to a share of his bounty in these establishments. The Pell Rolls record a payment "of 100l. part only of a larger sum, to the prior and convent of Mount Grace, for books and other things to be supplied by them to his new foundation at Sion."[31] Whether the prior and brethren of Mount Grace had duplicates, or were mere agents, or parted with their own stock to meet the wishes of their King, the record does not tell.

CHAPTER XVIII.

state of the church. — henry a sincere christian, but no bigot. — degraded state of religion. — council of constance. — henry's representatives zealous promoters of reform. — hallam, bishop of salisbury, avowed enemy of the popedom. — richard ulleston: primitive views of clerical duties. — walden, his own chaplain, accuses henry of remissness in the extirpation of heresy. — forester's letter to the king. — henry beaufort's unhappy interference. — petition from oxford. — henry's personal exertions in the business of reform. — reflections on the then apparent dawn of the reformation.
1414-1417.

Some writers, (taking a very narrow and prejudiced view of the affairs of the age to which our thoughts are directed in these Memoirs, and of the agents employed in those transactions,) when they tell us, that Henry was so devotedly attached to the church, and so zealous a friend of her ministers, that he was called the Prince of Priests, would have us believe that he "entirely resigned his understanding to the guidance of the clergy." But his principles and his conduct in ecclesiastical matters have been misunderstood, and very unfairly exaggerated and distorted. That Henry was a sincere believer in the religion of the Cross is unquestionable; and that, in common with the large body of believers through Christendom, he had been bred up in the baneful error of identifying the Catholic church of Christ with the see of Rome, is in some points of view equally evident: but that he was a supporter of the Pope against the rights of the church in England and other his dominions, or was an upholder of the abuses which had then overspread the whole garden of Christ's heritage, so far from being established by evidence, is inconsistent with the testimony of facts. The usurpations of the Romish see called for resistance,[32] and Henry to a certain extent resisted them. The abuses in the church needed reformation, and Henry showed that he possessed the spirit of a real reformer, bent on the correction of what was wrong, but uncompromising in his maintenance of the religion which he embraced in his heart. He gave proof of a spirit more Catholic than Roman, more Apostolic than Papal.

In his very first parliament strong enactments were passed forbidding ecclesiastics to receive bishoprics and benefices from Rome, on pain of forfeiture and exile. And on complaints being made against the ordinaries, Henry's answer is very characteristic of his principles of church reform: "I will direct the bishops to remedy these evils themselves; and, if they fail, then I will myself take the matter into my own hands."

He had been little more than half a year on the throne,[33] when he sent a peremptory mandate to the bishops of Aquitain, that they should on no account obey any provision from the court of Rome, by which preferment would be given to an enemy of England. And in the following month, Dec. 11, 1413, Henry issued a prohibition, forbidding John Bremore, clerk, whom the Pope had recommended to him when Prince of Wales, to return to the court of Rome for the purpose of carrying on mischievous designs against the King and his people, under a penalty of 100l. And among his own bishops, countenanced and confidentially employed by himself, were found men who protested honestly and decidedly against the tyranny and corruption of Rome, and were as zealously bent on restoring the church to the purity of its better days, as were those martyrs to the truth who in the middle of the next century sealed their testimony by their blood. To what extent Henry V. must be regarded as having given a fair promise that, had he lived, he would have devoted the energies of his mind to work out such an effective reformation as would have satisfied the majority of the people in England, and left little in that way for his successors to do, every one must determine for himself. In forming our judgment, however, we must take into account, not only what he actually did, but also whatever the tone, and temper, and turn of his mind (from such intimations as we may be enabled to glean scattered up and down through his life) might seem to have justified persons in anticipating. It would be vain to build any theory on what might have happened had the course of Providence in Henry's destinies been different: and yet we may without presumption express a belief that, had his life been spared, and had he found himself seated in peace and security on the united throne of England and France, instead of exhausting his resources, his powers of body and mind, and his time, in a fruitless crusade to the Holy Land, (by which he certainly once purposed to vindicate the honour of his Redeemer's name,) he might have concentrated all his vast energies on the internal reformation of the church itself. Instead of leaving her then large possessions for the hand of the future spoiler, he might have effectually provided for their full employment in the religious education of the whole people, and in the maintenance of a well-educated, pious, and zealous body of clergy, restored to their pastoral duties and devoted to the ministry. That the church needed a vigorous and thorough, but honest and friendly reform,—not the confiscation of her property to personal aggrandizement and secular purposes, but the re-adjustment of what had degenerated from its original intention,—is proved by evidence most painfully conclusive. Indeed, the enormities which had grown up, and which were defended and cherished by the agents of Rome, far exceed both in number and magnitude the present general opinion with regard to those times. The Conventual system[34] had well nigh destroyed the efficiency of parochial ministrations: what was intended for the support of the pastor, was withdrawn to uphold the dignity and luxury of the monastery; parsonage houses were left to fall to decay, and hirelings of a very inferior class were employed on a miserable pittance to discharge their perfunctory duties as they might. "Provisions" from Rome had exempted so large a proportion of the spirituality from episcopal jurisdiction, that, even had all the bishops been appointed on the principle of professional excellence, their power of restoring discipline would have been lamentably deficient. But in their appointment was evinced the most reckless prostitution of their sacred order. Not only was the selection of bishops made without reference to personal merit and individual fitness, whilst regard was had chiefly to high connexions and the interests of the Papacy; but even children were made bishops, and the richest dignities of the church were heaped upon them: foreigners unacquainted with the language of the people were thrust into offices, for the due discharge of the duties of which a knowledge of the vernacular language was absolutely necessary. The courts ecclesiastical ground down the clergy by shameless extortions; whilst appeals to Rome put a complete bar against any suit for justice. Their luxury and excesses, their pride and overbearing presumption, their devotedness to secular pursuits, the rapacious aggrandizement of themselves and their connexions, and the total abandonment of their spiritual duties in the cure of souls, coupled with an ignorance almost incredible, had brought the large body of the clergy into great disrepute, and had filled sincere Christians (whether lay or clerical, for there were many exceptions among the clergy themselves) with an ardent longing for a thorough and efficient reformation. It is true that their indignation was chiefly roused by the prostitution of the property of the church, and its alienation from the holy purposes for which the church was endowed; and that gross neglect of discipline rather than errors in doctrine called into life the spirit of reformation: but even in points of faith we perceive in many clear signs of a genuine love of Evangelical and Catholic truth; among whom we are not without evidence sufficient to justify us in numbering the subject of these Memoirs. Henry of Monmouth, whilst he adhered constantly to the faith of his fathers, yet manifested a sincere desire to become more perfectly acquainted with the truth of the Gospel; and spared no pains, even during his career of war and victory, in providing himself with the assistance of those teachers who had the reputation of preaching the Gospel most sincerely and efficiently. Henry's, indeed, was not the religion which would substitute in the scale of Christian duties punctuality of attendance on frequent preaching for the higher and nobler exercises of adoration. Many an unobtrusive incident intimates that his soul took chief delight in communing with God by acts of confession, and prayer, and praise. He seems to have imbibed the same spirit which in a brother-monarch once gave utterance to expressions no less valuable in the matter of sound theology, than exquisitely beautiful in their conception:[35] "I had rather pass an hour in conversation with my friend than hear twenty discourses in his praise." And yet Henry delighted also in hearing Heaven's message of reconciliation faithfully expounded, and enforced home.