HENRY AND THE LOLLARDS
It might have been supposed that Henry’s family associations would
have led him to a certain sympathy with the aims of the party which
looked up to Wickliffe as its principal leader; nor is it unlikely that
something of a sense of ingratitude was aroused by the adverse course
of action which was followed by his father and himself. John of Gaunt
had been at one time the strong supporter of Wickliffe. On the famous
day when the reformer was arraigned before the princes and prelates of
England, the Duke of Lancaster had stood by his side and had virtually
saved him.
Whatever may have been the Duke’s motive in taking up this attitude,
it was one which he was not able nor perhaps willing to maintain. It
certainly did not make him popular; indeed it is possible that the
Lollards themselves were not generally popular. Anyhow he was one of
the most hated men in England when Wat Tyler’s insurrection broke
out. His palace in the Savoy was burned, and he himself narrowly
escaped with his life. During his latter years we find no traces of
championship of the Lollards.
The discontent of this party with the established order of things
was probably one of the causes which led to the establishment of the
house of Lancaster on the English throne. If so, any services that were
rendered by the party were ill repaid. When Henry the Fourth came to
the throne he found himself under considerable obligations to Thomas
Arundel, who had been expelled from the see of Canterbury, and who
now received it again. Arundel was vehemently opposed to the new ways
of thinking, and took an active part in the measures--measures of a
severity unprecedented in England--which were taken to suppress them.
It has been suggested that among the faults of which Henry made
confession after he succeeded to the throne was a favourable reception
which his conscience accused him of giving to heretical opinions. The
suggestion cannot be said to be founded on anything like evidence.
Theological errors are not the usual temptation of a young prince, and
there is nothing in Henry’s after-life to make us fancy that in his
youth he was inclined to freedom of thought. All that we know of him
would rather incline us to a contrary belief. There is, however, the
fact that there was some relation, perhaps we may say, of personal
friendship between Henry and the Lollard leader, Oldcastle.
Sir John Oldcastle, sometimes styled Lord Cobham, as having married the
heiress of that peerage, was a distinguished soldier who had served in
the campaigns of the reign of Henry the Fourth. It is probable, though
we do not know for certain, that he was associated with the young
Prince during a part at least of his operations on the Welsh borders.
Henry must have appreciated his qualities as a soldier; at any rate,
the action that he took with respect to him indicates, as we shall
see, some amount of personal interest. Walsingham, indeed, expressly
says that he was Henry’s _familiaris_, or, we may say, intimate friend.
In Henry’s first year, Convocation requested the Archbishop of
Canterbury to proceed against Sir John Oldcastle for offences against
ecclesiastical law and for heresy. The Archbishop was willing enough to
act, but did not care to do so without permission of the King, of whose
friendship for the accused he was aware. He represented the matter to
the King, and the King, sending for Oldcastle, bade him attend at court
to recant his heretical opinions. His arguments and remonstrances were
of no avail; Oldcastle was willing to render him all obedience and
service in temporal things, but to the Pope and his commands he owed
no allegiance. The King, finding him immovable, remitted him to the
judgment of the Ecclesiastical Court.
It is needless to relate in detail the proceedings which followed.
Oldcastle, still dissatisfied with the tribunal before which he was
to appear, again appealed to the King. First he presented to him a
statement of the articles of his belief. Henry refused to receive it.
He then offered to bring a hundred knights and esquires who would
clear him, it is to be presumed, by challenge of battle. This proposal
was rejected, but Henry admitted him to a private interview. He again
pleaded to have his cause tried by the King in person. The King
repeated his refusal, this time with some irritation: the accused, he
said, could not have all things ordered after his own pleasure: the
Archbishop ought to be, and should be, his judge. Meanwhile, till the
time came for him to stand his trial, he must be kept a prisoner in the
Tower.
The trial, of which a complete account has been preserved, was held
on September 23rd. Oldcastle was of course condemned, and delivered
over to punishment by the secular arm. Time, however, was given him to
reconsider his opinions, and he was again committed to the Tower.
What followed, it is impossible to say with any certainty. Oldcastle,
we know, escaped from the Tower, but the insurrection which is said
to have been made by some of his friends and followers is a matter
involved in great mystery. That the King apprehended some danger
is manifest. On December 4th we find him sending orders to certain
magistrates enjoining them to arrest various persons whom he had
otherwise named to them. There is also record of a pardon granted to
a person who had given intimation of the conspiracy, and of a pension
settled upon him for life in reward of his services. Early in the next
month a proclamation was sent out, offering large rewards for the
arrest of Sir John Oldcastle, who had escaped from the Tower.
So much we know from documents of State. To what overt acts the
conspirators proceeded, if conspirators there were, is not so clear.
Walsingham gives a circumstantial account of the affair, which,
omitting his reflections, is as follows:
“The King kept Christmas duly at Eltham, and there the Lollards,
making a conspiracy, resolved to take or slay the King unawares
with his brothers. But certain of the conspirators warned the
King of his danger, so that the King quietly removed himself
to Westminster, that place being safer and more populous. The
Lollards met at nightfall in the fields that are called St. Giles’,
near to London, where it was reported that Sir John Oldcastle was
waiting for his followers. You might see crowds of men hurrying
throughout the streets, who had been drawn from all the counties
of the realm by great promises of reward. All these, being asked
why they made such haste, declared that they were going to meet the
Lord Cobham, who had hired them at his own costs. But the King,
knowing what had been done, bade his followers arm themselves.
Some counselled delay, but the King would not listen to them,
having heard that the rebels purposed, if they should prevail, to
destroy straightway the monasteries of Westminster, of St. Albans,
and St. Paul, and all the Friars’ houses in London. Hereupon a
proclamation was issued, offering a general pardon to all persons
that had preached heretical doctrines and had plotted against the
King’s life. But Sir John Oldcastle and eight others, these eight
being prisoners in the Tower, were exempted by name. For this cause
the King proceeding to the said Fields, against the advice of his
people, some time after midnight, waited for what the next day
might bring forth. Many who sought the camp of the Lord Cobham came
unawares into the King’s camp, and were so taken prisoners. The
chief of the rebels heard how that the King had come with a strong
army, and had taken many of their men. They were much troubled also
that no one came to join them out of the city, from which they had
looked for many thousands. For the King had given orders that the
gates should be shut and be kept close, that none save such as
were known to be of his party might go forth. And indeed ’tis said
that had he not so done, there would have gone forth of servants
and apprentices as many as fifty thousand. Thereupon the Lollards
took to flight. As for their leader, none knew to what place he had
betaken himself, for though the King offered a thousand marks to
any who should give him up, yet no one was found who for so great a
reward would give him up.”
That this is the account of an unfriendly historian need not be said.
It is more to the point to remark that for most of his narrative
Walsingham relies upon hearsay. And even so, there is not a syllable
said about armed resistance. That there was a great concourse of people
may be taken as certain, as also that they were called together by
sympathy for their leader. That they meditated any designs against the
King is not by any means so clear. Henry had all a soldier’s impatience
of such gatherings; nor was he yet so assured of his throne as he
shortly became. He may have been justified in apprehending a danger
which yet, after all, may not have really existed.
Walsingham was a monk, and wrote from a monk’s point of view.
Titus Livius, who, though not a contemporary, must have heard many
contemporaries discuss the matter, says simply that the King, having
learnt on Twelfth-day that certain persons had assembled in a field
at the back of St. Giles’ Church, led some soldiers against them, who
easily dispersed them, killing some and taking others prisoners.
His words read like the account of an attack upon a body of unarmed
men. It is noticeable that the punishment which followed was punishment
for heresy, not for treason; and it is expressly stated that priests
as well as laymen suffered. The rest of the story may be briefly told.
Oldcastle remained at large for nearly four years. Walsingham reports
him to have attempted a rising on the occasion of Henry’s departure
on his French expedition, and mentions rumour of a plot which he
had formed against the King’s person in the beginning of 1417, and
of negotiations with the Scots later on in the same year. The monk
clearly saw the hand of the arch-Lollard and his followers whenever
there was any mischief going on. The end came not many weeks after.
He was captured in Wales after what would seem to have been a fierce
resistance, for several of his captors as well as the prisoner himself
were wounded. Taken to London, he was brought before Parliament, the
session being specially prolonged in order that his case might be
heard. The proceedings that followed cannot be described as a trial.
He was asked what he had to say on his behalf why he should not be
condemned. His answer seemed to be irrelevant to his judges, and the
Duke of Bedford, who was acting as Regent, bade him keep to the point.
His doom was sealed, if indeed it had not been fixed before, when he
denied the jurisdiction of his judges, and declared that he would
answer only to his liege-lord Richard, then alive in Scotland. He
suffered death by burning, being hung on a chain fastened to a gallows,
while a fire was lighted beneath. Of the special barbarity of this
punishment Henry may be acquitted. He was absent in France; nor is it
likely that the execution was delayed till he could be consulted. We
may even believe that it would not have been allowed had he been in
England. Indifferent as he was to suffering, and relentless where any
military necessity was concerned, he was not cruel, and would hardly
have ordered the torture of a brave soldier for whom he had once had
some personal regard. But there is no reason to suppose that he would
have spared Oldcastle’s life. There was a growing severity in the
treatment of heresy, and he was quite in accord with it. Shocking as
such severity seems to us now, it was one of the ways in which the
religious earnestness of the age expressed itself. The Council of
Constance, while active to cleanse the Church of abuses, saw, we
cannot doubt, a cognate duty in sternly repressing what it considered
the vagaries of heresy. The safe-conduct of Sigismund had not protected
John Hus from this orthodox zeal; nor is there any reason to suppose
that this postponement of good faith to a pious duty called forth
anything more than a transient feeling of self-reproach. The “blush of
Sigismund” has become historical; but this Prince seems to have soon
recovered his self-satisfaction; nor did the perjury committed in the
interests of the true faith make him a less honoured guest or less
trusted adviser of the English king. Henry, in fact, though he may be
acquitted of any personal barbarity, was in full accord with the spirit
which sent Sir John Oldcastle to the stake.