Winchester had been created a cardinal, and the Pope’s legate-a-latere, but he was fated to attain no honour by arms.
Again invaded by a cruel and presumptuous enemy, both Catholics and Hussites united to defend Bohemia.
In the June of 1427, the crusaders crossed the borders, and encamped before Meiss. Although greatly inferior in numbers, the Bohemians advanced and offered battle. The martial appearance of these iron veterans, the knowledge of their dreadful reputation, curiously effected the crusaders. Instead of pushing on to cross the river and open the attack, they stood at gaze. Awed and daunted by the ominous spectacle before them, their ranks shook with a sudden panic, weapons clashed wildly, standards went down. Horse and foot were inextricably mixed as the first of the panic-stricken wretches broke and fled. A dreadful scene followed. Almost in a moment the huge army was transformed into a confused rout of fugitives. As quickly were the waters of the Meiss darkened by the iron ranks of the Hussites as they pressed forward, to fall upon the panic-stricken crusaders with axe and iron-flail, sword and spear, while bullets and arrows were poured incessantly into the flying masses, and the fugitives fell as thick and fast as sere leaves in an autumnal gale.
The crusading army had committed many outrages during the course of its triumphant march, and as the guilty and licentious wretches, losing all order and cohesion, rushed madly before the flashing steel of the pursuers, the peasantry rose against them on every side, pitiless avengers, whose wrath could be alone satiated by blood. The whole of Bohemia was enriched by the enormous spoil of the vanquished.
The Pope, in condoling with Beaufort, spoke hopefully of the success of a new crusade, but the Englishman was satisfied with the extent, if not the character, of his experience.
Richard Scrope had a brief and most unfortunate experience of military operations. His appearance in arms was purely the result of the complications that followed the deposition of Richard II. and the enthronement of Bolingbroke. Lord Scrope, High Chancellor of England, had devotedly served Edward III. and his grandson, Richard of Bordeaux, and after that dark tragedy at Pontefract, that secured, for the time being, the throne of Lancaster, he endowed a chantry in his castle of Bolton, where daily service was performed for the repose of the dead king’s soul. The old man was spared, but the king’s hand fell heavily upon his sons. First to fall was the Earl of Wiltshire, who was captured in Bristol Castle, and dragged to the block with indecent haste, and on no sufficient cause, by Bolingbroke’s command. This alone might have pre-disposed the Archbishop to ally himself with the King’s enemies, when many of the nobles repented that they had set up the son of John of Gaunt in the place of the son of the heroic Black Prince. The avenging of his brother’s blood could scarcely fail to influence the Archbishop, but no doubt he was wrought upon by the King’s enemies, and felt called upon, if not to avenge the slaying of the King, at least to endeavour to correct his government, and arrest the shedding of blood which so deeply stained the early years of Henry’s reign.
The princely power of the Archbishops in Northumbria, and the personal esteem in which Scrope was held, made his appearance in arms peculiarly dangerous to the King. Lord Mowbray associated himself with Scrope, and no sooner was the standard of revolt uplifted than the hardy Yorkshiremen flocked to support their Archbishop. Scrope published a terrible and undeniable indictment against the blood-stained Henry. He was accused of treason, usurpation, regicide, the withholding of the crown from the Earl of March, the lineal heir, with other charges not to be refuted.
Ralph, Earl of Westmoreland, and Prince John, were despatched against Scrope and Mowbray, but they found the northern army so formidable that they dared not strike. On approaching the Archbishop they found him ready to enter into negotiations for the correcting of the King’s government, and the Earl of Westmoreland, with a treachery that was infamous at a time when treachery and perjury were common, pretended to grant all Scrope’s demands, and, as a ratification of the terms of pacification, proposed the disbanding of the two armies. This was unsuspiciously acceded to, and the northern army was immediately disbanded, although the royal army maintained its formation. Danger of rescue past, the Earl of Westmoreland, with infamous treachery, arrested Scrope, Mowbray, and several of their captains. “The King was then at Pontefract, and when the Archbishop and the other captives were brought thither to him, they were ordered to be carried from thence to York, where they were condemned to death by the judges, Fulford and Gascoign. Judgment was no sooner passed, but the Archbishop was set upon a lean deformed horse, with his face backward; and that Bishop, whose grave age commanded every man’s respect, having been always accompanied with holiness of life, incomparable learning, and a lovely person, was now loaded with all sorts of disgrace and reproaches, and so conducted to the place of execution, where his head was cut off, June 8th, 1405, by an unskilful executioner, who scarcely effected it at five strokes. He was buried on the eastern part of the new works, where certain miracles were said to have been done by the merits of this martyr, and the King to be smitten with an incurable leprosy. It is certain he was the first archbishop that was condemned to death by a legal trial. The Pope excommunicated the authors of this archbishop’s death, but was easily intreated to absolve them a little time after.” To augment the bitterness of death, Scrope was removed to his palace of Bishopthorpe for execution, and his head was piked and exposed on the walls of York.
Mowbray, Sir Robert Plumpton, Sir John Lamplugh, and other unfortunates, also suffered decollation.
During the great rebellion that cost Charles Stuart his crown and head, another Archbishop of York took up arms, to figure obscurely during a struggle in which he certainly was not called upon to assume the soldier’s painful and difficult part. A changeful and troublous history is that of John Williams. In 1621 he was elevated to the Bishopric of Lincoln, and Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, but his fortunes waned as Laud rose to power; he lost the Seals, and at the coronation of Charles I. it was his duty, as Dean of Westminster, to read divine service, but Laud took his place. He was further affronted by being forbidden to sit in the House, and Laud brought him into the Star Chamber for having written the “Holy Table.” He was suspended, fined £10,000, and imprisoned in the Tower during the King’s pleasure. He obtained his release November 16th, 1640.