Another insurrection took place in the north, which was followed by the execution of Scrope, Archbishop of York. This was the first instance in English history of a clergyman of high rank suffering a public and ignominious death. Yet though Henry punished so severely an archbishop, he was careful to conciliate the Church, by measures of a persecuting character.

His father, John of Gaunt, had been the chief supporter of Wickliffe, and had saved that eminent man and his followers from persecution and death; but Henry, in opposition to his convictions, it is said, and for the security of his power, allowed the clergy to pass several penal statutes against the Lollards, as the Wickliffites began to be designated. The statute passed in the second year of his reign, is the first of that long series of persecuting laws, which, till a very recent period, disgraced our statute book. It was not allowed to become a dead letter; for two martyrs, William Sautre and William Thorpe, were burned in Smithfield for believing in and propagating their doctrines. A strong party in the Commons ineffectually opposed the persecution; and a majority of that House even recommended the king to confiscate the lands of the clergy to the use of the State; as nearly one-third of all the property in the kingdom at this time belonged to the Church.

The severe punishment, inflicted on the corrupt judges of Richard's reign, seems to have purified the bench of justice. The place of the infamous Tresilian was occupied by the virtuous and learned

:

Gascoigne of whose fearless integrity is told the following well-known story:

The Prince of Wales was the companion of dissolute men; and it is said, that on one occasion an unworthy favourite of his was arraigned for a crime before Chief Justice Gascoigne. Prince Henry, thinking to overawe the judge, was present at the trial; and on the prisoner's condemnation, he was so enraged, that he lifted his hand to the judge. Gascoigne immediately ordered the Prince to be arrested and conveyed to prison. Henry, who at once saw the enormity of his offence, and admired the intrepidity of the judge, quietly submitted to the officers of the court. His father was equally pleased with the conduct of the prince and of the chief justice.

Henry the Fourth died in 1413, in the forty-seventh year of his age, and the fourteenth of his reign.

CHAP. XVIII.

HENRY V. 1413-1422.

THE youthful follies of this king, when Prince of Wales, had been the source of great alarm to his father; but the people saw in them the germ of those frank, open-hearted qualities, which so endeared to them the hero of Agincourt. His conduct at the accession dispelled any alarm they might have felt that the follies of his youth would be continued on the throne. He dismissed his wild companions, and selected as his

confidants the wise counsellors of his father, and among them the upright Gascoigne, who had imprisoned him.

Henry's father had only been king of a part of his people, but Henry, by his generous and noble character, reigned in the hearts of all the nation. In one particular, however, he too closely imitated his father's policy; for the statutes against heretics or Lollards were not relaxed, but rather made more stringent. One of the most eminent victims of these persecuting laws, was Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, who had been a most intimate friend of Henry in his youth. From the confession of faith issued by Cobham, it would seem that he and his followers desired simply liberty to read the Scriptures in their native tongue, and that the morals of the clergy might be reformed by Parliament.

But Henry and his counsellors determined to grant no redress, and Lord Cobham was executed, nominally for a conspiracy against the king. Yet while the House of Commons agreed with the king in his desire to extirpate heresy by persecution, they renewed the strange offer they had made to his father, to confiscate the Church revenues to the Crown.

Henry the Fifth has the distinction of being the only early English sovereign in whose reign no complaints were made of misgovernment or the violation of the charters of liberty.

The nation and king were eager to engage in the conquest of France, and to renew with as much glory and greater success the war made illustrious by Cressy and Poictiers.

France at this time offered many opportunities for the attacks of foreign enemies, for her king was 'an imbecile puppet in the hands of the contending factions of Orleanists and Armagnacs, who seemed to have lost all patriotic feeling for their common country.

Taking advantage of these dissensions, Henry demanded the surrender of Normandy, Maine, Anjou, and Provence, which it was alleged the French king had promised to deliver up to Edward the Third, at the peace of Bretigny. This demand was naturally refused by the French monarch; and Henry summoned his army, and obtaining large supplies, with a good-will from Parliament, landed in Normandy in 1415 to enforce his claim by arms.

He was successful in reducing the strong fortress of Harfleur, but a disease broke out in his army and reduced its small numbers to little more than 12,000 men. In this enfeebled state he was met by the French army of 100,000 men, near the village of Agincourt, on the 25th of October, 1415. The English, animated by the dauntless bearing of their king, confidently awaited the attack of the French cavalry; and their archers, remembering the effect of their fathers' weapons at Cressy, showered thick their arrows on the advancing cavalry, and threw them into confusion. The Duke of Alençon, the bravest of the French generals, at the head of his division, cleared his way through the English ranks, to the king; and around the royal standard the battle raged furiously till Alençon was slain, and his knights fled before the English. As the shout of victory rose, the English threw down their bows, and seizing their battle axes, rushed forward with the men at

arms to the charge. The French host was utterly broken, their best generals slain or taken prisoners, with more than three-fourths of their lately magnificent army.

This battle was most disastrous to France, on account of the great number of nobles and distinguished men who were slain or made prisoners; and had Henry been able to follow up his victory, he might have achieved the conquest of the country almost in one campaign. He was, however, compelled to return to England for supplies of men and money. The enthusiasm excited among the people by his victories easily procured him both; and the money was voted with the greater readiness, because Henry submitted all his accounts to the parliament. Next year, in 1416, he resumed the war, and reduced Normandy. During several years he continued to gain ground, till, in 1420, by the peace of Troyes, it was agreed that, to end the war, he should marry Catherine of Valois, the daughter of Charles the Sixth of France, and receive the crown of that country on the death of his father-in-law.

It now seemed probable that the crowns of France and England would be united, and that the capital of the united monarchy would be transferred to Paris.

To prevent this, the House of Commons procured the renewal of the statute passed on a similar occasion in Edward the Third's time, which declared the independence of the English crown, and that no petitions of parliament should be decided beyond the sea.

But the dauphin, or eldest son of the King of France, was now of age, and had never agreed to the treaty by which he was deprived of his inheritance; he therefore asserted his right, and collecting adherents, captured