umberland twice pleaded inability, from the efficacy of punishment as a preventive or ravages of the Scottish wars: all the bor- a remedy. Glimpses of a better spirit are, oughs of Lancashire were exempted on the indeed, still discoverable in the earlier emlike ground for nearly a century. At the perors, seemingly influenced more by inaccession of the house of Lancaster, some difference than by impartial justice. All discretion in the selection of towns for re- heretics were early punishable with the présentation continued to be exercised, from utmost severity which was compatible with à species of necessity, though it was con- life. The Manicheans, and all obstinate trary to law. No general principle seems teachers of heresy, were punished with to be methodically adhered to. Inconsid- death. The language of these legal deerable places sent members from the com- nunciations is so inflamed by hatred as to mencement. But, in the ancient history have more of the character of popular inof the constitution, we find no examples of vective than that of the cold-blooded congreat towns unrepresented. The variety trivance of lawyers generally rather merof elective rights, and the various propor-cenary than bigoted. The Roman law, betions of influence over elections arising ing the common law of Europe, was sufthencefrom to different classes of the com- ficient to spread these persecuting princimunity, have been warmly discussed; some ples over Christendom. The peculiar fierceregarding them as unseemly blemishes, and ness of Justinian against the Manicheans others as practical advantages; neither facilitated the application of the imperial party, perhaps, comprehending in its sys- laws to the Albigeois, who were supposed tem all the objects which the irregular and to have among them some remains of these confused institutions of our ancestors had, ancient and obnoxious sectaries, and even in process of time, succeeded in slowly to the Lollards, who seem to have had noblending. thing in common with the followers of Manes but the austerity of their lives, and the war which they waged against the corruptions of the clergy. The most unhappily memorable act of Henry's legislation was the statute against Lollards, which condemns to be burnt all who, being convicted before the diocesan of The spirit of the juridical heresy with falling into heresy, shall either refuse to which the English barons were wont to reabjure their impious errors, or relapse into gard the Roman code, may probably have them after previous abjuration.* This per- rendered it more necessary to introduce secution was formally carried into effect by persecution by an express law than it could a process de heretico comburendo, which be thought in the regions which still renecessarily issued upon a certificate of obtained the whole system of Constantinopostinate or relapsed heresy by the diocesan, litan legislation. It is apparent, through and which commanded the sheriff or other the reigns of Richard and Henry, that the local magistrate to commit the offender disposition of the popular barons, of the against the divine majesty to the flames. people, and of the rising house of commons, Some of our ancient lawyers lay it down was favorable to bold and independent inthat such was the punishment of heresy quiry, though the major part had not by the common law: an assertion easily explicitly adopted the doctrines of the remade, and with difficulty brought to the formers. John of Gaunt was friendly to test of evidence; which, in the lax lan- Wickliffe. Chaucer did not, indeed, assail guage of a rude jurisprudence, imported, the priesthood with the terrific energy of perhaps, nothing more than that before the Dante; but he made monks objects of destatute, heresy would not, or did not, pass rision and scorn to the unlettered multiwith impunity. tude, who could learn nothing but in their Besides-the texts of the canon law, and own language, and on whose minds truth the abused authority of misunderstood could hardly be engraved without so keen scripture, the Roman code retained so great an instrument as the caustic satire of the an ascendant in the west, as everywhere great poet. to furnish a plausible warrant for intoler- The laws against the Lollards were not ance. For whatever the origin of the per- suffered to slumber. Such, indeed, is the secutions, either by pagan or Christian em- inherent malignity of such legislative war perors, may have been, (a question to be numbered among the darkest in history,) the successors of Constantine have left abundant proofs that there was no crime which they deemed it more just to punish than heresy, and that there was none in which they seem less to have doubted the * 11 Hen. 4. c. 15. Stat. of the Realm, ii. 125, &c. † Fitzherbert de Naturâ Brevium. "Hoc moderamine principatus inclaruit (Valenstetit, nec quemquam inquietavit, nec inter dictis tinianus) quod interreligionum diversitates medius minacibus subjectorum cervicem ad id quod ipse coluit inclinabat."-Ammian. Marcel. lib. xxx. c. 9. "Testes sunt leges, a me in exordio imperii mei datæ, quibus unicuique quod animo inbibisset, colendi libera facultas tributa est."-Cod. Theod. de Maleficis. HENRY V. 1413-1422. against bodies of men for religious belief, of small importance to the moral estimate that they execute themselves by the evil of the contending parties. He was not passions which they beget towards their retaken till 1417, when he was executed unhappy objects. A people speedily un- under the avowed authority of the declalearns compassion, and even justice, to those ration of the archbishop and his provincial who are pronounced by the lawgiver to be synod, that Oldcastle was an incorrigible undeserving of trust. In the reigns of heretic.‡ both the Henries, considerable numbers suffered death. Sir John Oldcastle, lord Cobham, was the most conspicuous of the first heretics, or, in other words, of the first who preferred death to insincerity, FROM the year 1360, when the treaty of under the new law for burning heretics. Bretigny was concluded, it had been the His rank and military reputation enhanced aim of the English government, in moments in some respects his merit, and gave more of strength and prosperity, to obtain the efficacy to the example of his martyrdom. cessions which that treaty stipulated, or at Henry V. labored to soften Cobham's de- least to render it the means of procuring termination, and entreated him to submit advantages from France. During that half his private judgment to that of the univer-century there had been many cessations of sal church. It was only after his cour-arms, and little active warfare. But the ageous refusal that he was abandoned to Plantagenets never relinquished the hope archbishop Arundel, the fiercest persecutor of re-establishing their dominion in the naof the Lollards. The accounts preserved tive land of their race. The disorders of of his trial show him to have possessed France offered a favorable opportunity for a calmness of temper and presence of mind. young prince like Henry to be formidable Far from provoking or defying his judges, abroad. To become so, he rightly thought he treated them with decorum, and even that he must be popular at home. He reseems, with respect to the most important leased his cousin the earl of March from point in dispute, much more desirous of the constraint under which that prince, the dwelling on their agreement than on their undoubted heir of Edward III., had been differences concerning the real presence of held by the jealous temper of Henry IV. Christ's body in the Lord's supper. It was Educated at the court of Richard II., he only when they pressed him with all the brought his body from the place of intersubtleties and stratagems of their schools ment at Langley to the royal repository at that the pious soldier brought out the part Westminster, where he built a monument of his doctrine most displeasing to them. over the remains of that misguided mon"The sacrament of the altar," said he, " is, arch. The Percies, long exiles in Scotafter the consecration, both Christ's body land, he restored to their vast possessions, and bread also."* He was convicted and and even once more intrusted them with condemned, but escaped from his prison. command over their martial vassals. A design of rescuing him was imputed to Nothing, on the other hand, could be the whole Lollard party. He was charged more tempting to his ambition than the miswith preparing a general revolt, and for erable condition of France. The insanity that purpose with having assembled 20,000 or imbecility of Charles left the country insurgents. Henry and his parliament ac- without a ruler, and the nation without lecused him of a levelling conspiracy against gal means of establishing a government. property as much as against government, The institutions of the Teutonic nations and declared that the heretical faction in- were so entirely dependent upon usage, tended to make him regent of the king- that, though they were all governed by dom. But these were accusations which hereditary monarchies, they had made no no man dared to confute, and of which the provision for any suspension of regal powmost complete confutation could not have er, except that which arises from death, and saved him from perishing by the flames as which must soon grow into a custom. No a heretic; a punishment which clearly law of regency, in cases of disability from enough shows the nature of his alleged of disorder of mind, had been established anyfence. Whether some of these unhappy where, though, in our own time, England, men had formed projects of resistance Russia, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, and against laws which, towards them, were Sweden have shown that a mental incapaproscriptive and murderous, is a question city for the most ordinary acts is no infre quent misfortune of sovereigns. In the reign of Charles VI., France was distract "Relinquentes eundem Joannem Oldcastle tamquam hæreticum judicio seculari."-Rymer, ix. 66. Archbp. Chicheley to his Suffragans. ed by contests for the regency, first in his duke of Burgundy was one of the pall-bearminority, and afterwards during his long ers at his cousin's funeral, and he was seen alienation of mind. The death of Philip to shed tears. These princes had partaken the Hardy, duke of Burgundy, in 1404, of the sacrament together, in token of whose power and prudence had hitherto hearty reconciliation, two days before the preserved some tranquillity, removed the assassination. The magistrates were on the last curb from the passions of the competi-point of tracing the assassins to the palace tors for the custody of the distempered king. in which they found refuge, when the duke The contest chiefly lay between the duke of Burgundy, taking two princes to them, of Orleans, the king's brother and presump-owned aside to them that, tempted and surtive heir, on one side, and, on the other, the prised by the devil, he had ordered the young duke of Burgundy, whose rich and murder.* wide possessions rendered him the most potent member of the house of France. On his return to his own dominions, the duke not only avowed his crime, but procured one of the most learned divines of was The situation of the court was embroiled by those glimpses of reason, seldom want- his age, John Petit, to justify it from the ing in mental alienation, which give falla- pulpit, on the general principle that it " cious indications or treacherous hopes of lawful, and even laudable, for any individrecovery; which, if they should, in the case ual to kill a tyrant, or to employ any artiof a king, be either lightly credited or stern- fice or falsehood to lure the tyrant to dely disbelieved, may alike expose a country struction." The council of Constance afto confusion. In one of these almost lucid terwards condemned the proposition, but moments, Charles VI. was persuaded to without daring to name either the murderer summon a great council, to which the duke or the sophist. For the twelve years which of Burgundy, with a strong escort, repaired, followed, France was torn asunder by facand was received by the populace with an tions whose crimes had rendered their muapplause which manifested their abhorrence tual animosity implacable, until the death of Orleans and the queen, who were com- of the duke of Orleans was avenged by the pelled to fly from Paris, and to throw down equally treacherous and barbarous murder the reins of government. He obtained pos- of the duke of Burgundy, at an interview session also of the infant dauphin. The with the dauphin in September, 1419, on Burgundian party, called Bourguignons, the bridge over the Seine at Montereau. and that of Orleans, long known by the Both parties entered into clandestine negoname of Armagnacs, spread dissension and tiations with the king of England, who lay hostility over France. In the fierceness of in wait for the best opportunity of aggrandthe first contest, the king had been so tho-izing himself at the expense of his distractroughly forgotten, that his dress, which had ed neighbors; as if nations were only more not been changed, was eat up by vermin numerous gangs of banditti, instead of beand putrefaction. When they placed meat ing communities formed only for the obserbefore him, he fell upon it with the glutton-vance and enforcement of justice. ous rage of a famished animal. Twelve On the fifteenth day of April, 1415, he well-armed men in masks were necessary assembled a great council at Westminster, to subdue his maniacal resistance to wash- to whom he announced his firm purpose of ing and shaving. On the 23d of Novem- making a 66 voyage in his own proper perber, 1407, after some appearances of a thin son by the grace of God to recover his indisguise of amity between the rival princes, heritance." He appointed his brother the the duke of Orleans, while at supper, re- duke of Bedford lord-lieutenant of the kingceived an invitation to attend the king. dom during his absence, and was about to Dressed only in a gown of black damask, embark for Normandy, when his voyage followed by two equerries mounted on the was for a moment interrupted by a sudden same horse, and by four footmen with torch- and rash conspiracy, of which, if it had any es, he went through the dark streets of source but the vague turbulence of princes Paris singing and playing with his glove. and barons, it is no longer possible to ascerAs they passed gaily by the town-house of tain the motives or objects. The principal the maréchal des Rieux, a small party of conspirator was Richard earl of Cambridge, armed men rushed out, and fell on the duke whose children by his wife would inherit with cries of "Death!" He instantly fell the claims of the house of Clarence, in case under a shower of wounds: On the next of the death without issue of her brother, day the royal family went to the church the earl of March. He and Sir Thomas where the body lay. Never," said the Grey were executed for this plot, in spite duke of Burgundy, looking on the corpse of the confession by which the former had of his murdered relation, "never was a labored to disarm the king's resentment more wicked and treacherous murder con* Barante, Hist. des Ducs de Bourgogne, 80-90. trived or executed in this kingdom." The † Rymer, ix. 222. 66 The eve of a foreign war was a favorable | showers of their strong arrows of three feet opportunity for reviving the claims of the long, that the French knights bent down house of Mortimer, and Cambridge might their heads to avoid them. That proud and have had sufficient reason to be assured gallant army, having almost rejected all that his reversionary interest in the succes- plebeian aid, had no archers to oppose to sion was less uncertain than it appeared. the sturdy yeomen of England. The noble Cambridge* charges March, probably at cavalry tried to break the English line by most his creature, with being the ringlead- a charge. The ground was slippery. They er in a plot by which he was most to profit. were received with pikes: they fell back He could hardly have been believed, for on their vanguard. The French were diMarch sat among his judges. vided into small parties, who defended themselves with their wonted valor. But the defeat was not the less complete, nor the slaughter less tremendous. As soon as Henry landed at Normandy and took possession of Harfleur, he challenged the dauphin to meet him in single combat, in order to decide the contest for A deplorable incident sullied the victory. the crown of France. Another form of The English soldiers had made many pristhe same species of trial for a time deter- oners, the noblest of the French barons, mined this momentous suit. Henry V. was whose ransoms were to enrich the fortunate now in circumstances very similar to those adventurers. In the mean time a troop of of Edward III. before the battle of Crecy. peasants began to plunder the baggage; Both princes were to march from Lower rumors of the advance of French reinforceNormandy to Calais. The French, who in ments were spread, and Henry in an evil both cases fought in their own country with hour too hastily believed that the safety of an immense superiority of numbers, had his small army required the slaughter of only to defend the line of the river Somme, his numerous prisoners. He commanded and, being masters of the time and place every man to put his prisoners to death. for action, were at liberty to adopt either a Seeing that the victors were indisposed to decisive or dilatory system. Seized with a renounce the rich ransoms, he directed an passion more chivalrous than soldierly, they officer at the head of two hundred men to thought fit to desire the king to choose his execute the terrible command. The greater position and to name his day. Great num- part of the noble prisoners were slain, mubers are formidable only in the hands of a tilated, disfigured, mortally or painfully general accustomed to wield them, and they wounded, before it was discovered that the require perfect habits of simultaneous move- whole was a false alarm, to which Henry ment and prompt obedience in soldiers. The had lent too credulous an ear. He stopped French generals allowed their army to be the massacre, but too late for the purity of cooped up in a ground so narrow as to pre- his name. It is hard to say whether it vent their vast numbers from conducing to was a palliation or an aggravation of his victory, and to render them the means of barbarous credulity that the number of converting a defeat into confusion and dis- prisoners, if we may believe Juvenal des persion. "The condition of the English," Ursins, amounted to 14,000, which was not says a celebrated writer," was melancholy. much less than that of Henry's army. In front was an army of three or four times The consequences of the victory were their number: they were worn out by hard decisive. The Burgundian_party, threw march: no retreat was open behind them, themselves into the arms of England. Isaand victory seemed impossible." Nothing bella of Bavaria, the wife of the imbecile was favorable to Henry but his own calm- king, dissolute, vindictive, and ambitious, ness; perhaps the coolness of his nation, declared against her son the dauphin, and and the inconsiderate impetuosity which lent herself to every expedient for renderhas_sometimes marred the brilliant valor ing her wretched husband the tool of forof France. It is scarcely possible to doubt eign conquerors. that the result of this famous battle must She delivered Paris and Tours to the inhave been different if the two nations could vaders, forced the dauphin to retire to Poihave exchanged generals. It was fought tiers, and assumed the quality of regent of near a village called by the French Azin- the kingdom. For two or three years Henry court, and by the English Agincourt, on the might seem to have lost the opportunity for 28th day of October, 1415. The English availing himself of the victory of Agincourt. bowmen, as usual, by the strength of their He employed a time which seemed irrearms and the stoutness of their hearts, did much to insure victory. As soon as they were within bow-shot, they discharged such *Confessio Comitis Cantabrig. Rymer, ix. 300. † Harfleur, Sept. 16, 1415. Rymer, ix. 313. Barante, Hist. des Ducs de Bourgogne, 239. coverable in a complicated game of negotiation and intrigue with the French court and all its opponents, which produced no visible result. He probably, however, obtained by this delay his real ends. Had he immediately pursued his victory, all French parties might have joined against a con- The dauphin, who had succeeded to that queror. By a show of moderation, by an ill-omened dignity on the death of two affectation of inactivity, by varying con- elder brothers, poisoned in two successive ditions of peace, all founded on the basis of years by the depraved factions who contendthe treaty of Bretigny, by secretly dealing ed for the spoils of an unhappy kingdom, with the chiefs of all factions, he kept up became, at the age of eighteen, the only the general confusion which might make chief of a national party; and his name his intervention necessary. He fomented (for he had neither civil nor military talthe animosity of the French leaders against ents) became the sole rallying point of the each other; and he gradually inured the discomfited and disheartened lovers of their French nation to regard him as a prince country. When the hopes of independence who sought no more than an honorable were at their lowest ebb, there arrived in peace, and who was insensibly led by for- France a small body of Scotchmen, amounttunate accidents, or provoked by obstinate ing to about 7000, under John Stewart earl adversaries, to the more daring project of of Buchan,* the son of the regent of Scotconquest. It may be justly added, that no land, who enabled the maréchal de la Fayconqueror so youthful as Henry was ever ette to defeat an English army, commanded less intoxicated by victory; boldness and by the duke of Clarence, in person at Baugé caution were well balanced in his temper. in Anjou, on the 22d March, 1422. Sir At length, on the 21st of May, 1420, a John Swinton, a Scottish knight of distintreaty was concluded at Troyes, which guished prowess, gave a severe wound in promised to crown with final success the the face to the English prince. Buchan long-cherished pretensions of the house of beat him from his horse with a club, and Plantagenet to the throne of France. The was rewarded by the dignity of constable principal articles stipulated for the marriage of France. Clarence was trampled to death. of the king of England to the princess Buchan prevailed on his father-in-law, the Catharine of Valois; for the possession of earl of Douglas, to lead a band of followers the crown of France by Charles VI. during into France, where that puissant lord was his life; for the administration of the gov-soon after made duke of Touraine; but ernment however (he being incapacited by where, also, both he and Buchan were killed infirmity) by his beloved son, Henry king in 1424.* The advantage obtained over of England, to whom and to whose heirs the English troops at Baugé recalled Henry for ever, after the demise of Charles, the from England, where his young queen was crown and kingdom of France were to ap- delivered at Windsor of her sole and unpertain.* All acts of authority were after- fortunate child of royal lineage. After her wards thus drawn: "By the king on the recovery she followed her husband to Paris, relation of the king of England, heir and where she was not to see him long. Findregent of France." In speaking of Henry, ing himself seized by a perilous malady in the phantom king was made to call that the end of August, 1422, he caused himself monarch "our well-beloved son the heir to be transported to the castle of Vincennes, and regent of the kingdom;" while Charles where he commanded the dukes of Bedford his own son is spoken of as "Charles call- and Exeter, with other great English lords ing himself dauphin," and was declared then in France, to attend his deathbed. He guilty of high treason, by which his right declared to them (he had, perhaps, persuaded of succession was forfeited; though he was himself) that he looked back with calmness not explicitly named by a sentence against on the bloodshed of wars forced on him by unall the perpetrators and abettors of the reasonable antagonists. Seeing his friends murder of the duke of Burgundy on the touched by a spectacle which brought tribridge of Montereau; a description which umph and death so near to each other, he comprehended him as certainly as if he had comforted them, says an ancient writer, been named. with grave, courteous, and pithy words; As soon as the treaty was concluded, the exhorting them to be trusty and faithful to espousals of Henry and Catharine were his son, and to keep peace and amity among solemnized at Troyes with more than the themselves during the minority. He adwonted magnificence. They soon after vised them to make no peace with Charles made their triumphant entry into Paris, and calling himself dauphin of Vienne, which occupied the Louvre; while the shadowking, who followed in their train, was dismissed to an inferior palace. Henry assembled the states-general, who took the oaths to him, and swore to the observance of the treaty of Troyes. * Treaty of Troyes, Rymer, ix. 895. VOL. I. 14 Buchan. Rer. Scotic. lib. x. This seasonable succor, under Buchan, originally perhaps gave occasion to the boast of the same great man "Tu licet ex illâ numeres ætate triumphos, |