Another Roman road, the Via Trinobantica, which began at Southampton and ended at Aldborough, ran through London, crossed the Watling Street at Tyburn, and passed along Oxford Street. In latter times, says Dr. Stukeley, the road was changed to a more southerly direction, and Holborn was formed, leading to Newgate or the Chamberlain’s Gate.
One of the earliest tolls ever imposed in England is said to have had its origin in St. Giles’s.[611] In 1346 Edward III. granted to the Master of the Hospital of St. Giles and to John de Holborne, a commission empowering them to levy tolls for two years (one penny in the pound on their value) on all cattle and merchandise passing along the public highways leading from the old Temple, i.e. Holborn Bars, to the Hospital of St. Giles’s, and also along the Charing Road and another highway called Portpool, now Gray’s Inn Lane. The money was to be used in repairing the roads, which, by the frequent passing of carts, wains, horses, and cattle, had become so miry and deep as to be nearly impassable. The only persons exempted were to be lords, ladies, and persons belonging to religious establishments.[612]
Henry V. ascended the throne in 1413, and astonished his subjects by suddenly casting off his slough of vice, and becoming a self-restrained, virtuous, and high-spirited king. His first care was to forget party distinctions, and to put down the Lollards, or disciples of Wickliffe, whom the clergy denounced as dangerous to the civil power. As a good general secures the rear of his army before he advances, so the young king was probably desirous to guard himself against this growing danger before he invaded Normandy and made a clutch at the French crown.
Arundel, the primate, urged him to indict Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, the head of the Lollard sect. The king was averse to a prosecution, and suggested milder means. At a conference, therefore, appointed before the bishops and doctors in 1414, the following articles were handed Oldcastle as tests, and the unorthodox lord was allowed two days to retract his heresies. He was required to confess that at the sacrament the material bread and wine are turned into Christ’s very body and Christ’s very blood; that every Christian man ought to confess to an ordained priest; that Christ ordained St. Peter and his successors as his vicars on earth; that Christian men ought to obey the priest; and that it is profitable to go on pilgrimages and to worship the relics and images of saints. “This is determination of Holy Church. How feel ye this article?” With these stern words ended every dogma proposed by the primate.
Lord Cobham, who was much esteemed by the king, and had been a good soldier under his father, repeatedly refused to profess his belief in these tenets. The archbishop then delivered the heretic to the secular arm, to be put to death, according to the usage of the times. The night previous to his execution, however, Lord Cobham escaped from the Tower and fled to Wales, where he lay hid for four years while Agincourt was being fought, and where he must have longed to have been present with his true sword.
Soon after his escape, the frightened clergy spread a report that he was in St. Giles’s Fields, at the head of twenty thousand Lollards, who were resolved to seize the king and his two brothers, the Dukes of Bedford and Gloucester. For this imaginary plot thirty-six persons were hanged or burnt; but the names of only three are recorded, and of these Sir Roger Acton is the only person of distinction.
A reward of a thousand marks was offered for Lord Cobham, and other inducements were held out by Chicheley, the Primate Arundel’s successor. Four years, however, elapsed before the premature Protestant was discovered and taken by Lord Powis in Wales.[613] After some blows and blood a country-woman in the fray breaking Cobham’s leg with a stool, he was secured and sent up to London in a horse-litter. He was sentenced to be drawn on a hurdle to the gallows in St. Giles’s Fields, and to be hanged over a fire, in order to inflict on him the utmost pain.
He was brought from the Tower on the 25th of December 1418, and his arms bound behind him. He kept a very cheerful countenance as he was drawn to the field where his assumed treason had been committed. When he reached the gallows, he fell devoutly on his knees and piously prayed God to forgive his enemies. The cruel preparations for his torment struck no terror in him, nor shook the constancy of the martyr. He bore everything bravely as a soldier, and with the resignation of a Christian. Then he was hung by the middle with chains and consumed alive in the fire, praising God’s name as long as his life lasted.
He was accused by his enemies of holding that there was no such thing as free will; that all sin was inevitable; and that God could not have prevented Adam’s sin, nor have pardoned it without the satisfaction of Christ.[614]
Fuller says of him: “Stage-poets have themselves been very bold with, and others very merry at, the memory of Sir John Oldcastle (Lord Cobham), whom they have fancied a boon companion or jovial roysterer, and yet a coward to boot, contrary to the credit of the chronicles, owning him to be a martial man of merit. Sir John Falstaff hath derided the memory of Sir John Oldcastle, and of late is substituted buffoon in his place; but it matters us little what petulant priests or what malicious poets have written against him.”