Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/532

518 to the poor of eleven and eightpence weekly, and twenty pounds a year on the anniversary of his death.

This proceeding has been attributed to policy rather than generosity in Henry, as trusting to convince the public by it, that Richard was actually dead; but the whole of Henry's character shows that he was far above any such miserable policy; that he was as open and straightforward in following his honest convictions as he was intrepid in despising mere state tricks; and the very next fact that we have to record proves this strikingly. Henry could afford to pay respect to a dead monarch, but a living claimant to the throne was a more formidable thing. The Earl of Marche, the true heir to the throne, was not only living, but still a young man, and had been brought up much in Henry's society. So far, however, from entertaining any jealous fear of him, like his father, he at once received him with the utmost courtesy and kindness, gave him the most unlimited freedom, and full enjoyment of all his honours and estates. He displayed the same generous disposition in reversing the attainder of the Percies, and in recalling the young Lord Percy from Scotland to the full restoration of all his titles and demesnes. Still further; all those who during his father's time had sought to recommend themselves by a ruthless zeal for the Lancastrian interests, he removed from their offices, and supplied their places by men of more honourable and independent minds, without regard to party. No conduct could have been more just and noble, and, therefore, more wise, than that of the young king; and the consequence was, that he won all hearts to him, and fixed himself as firmly on the throne as if he had been descended in the strictest course from its true kings. Amongst the very first to support him in his royal position was the Earl of Marche himself, who continued to the last his most faithful subject and attached friend.

Cradle of Henry V.—Preserved at Monmouth Castle.

But no mortal character is without its defective side, and that in Henry showed itself in regard to ecclesiastical reform. The followers of Wycliffe had now increased into a numerous body, under the name of Lollards. These followers, however, appear to have consisted chiefly of the commonalty, and to include few of the upper ranks. But amongst them was Sir John Oldcastle, as we have mentioned, a bold and able man, Sir Thomas Talbot, Sir Roger Acton, and others. Sir John Oldcastle was more commonly known as Lord Cobham, having married the heiress of that nobleman, and being called to the House of Lords in right of his wife. Lord Cobham, it appears, had, while the companion of Henry, as Prince of Wales, been so distinguished for his gaiety and giving in to all the prince's whims and wildnesses, that his enemies called him "the ruffian knight, commonly brought in by the commediants on their stage." For a century after his time he is represented as walking the boards of the theatre in the character which Shakespeare has now transferred, for the reasons we have mentioned, to Sir John Falstaff. Nay, even Shakespeare himself calls him Sir John Oldcastle in his first edition. But as the prince had reformed, so it appears had Lord Cobham also. He had embraced the principles of the Lollards, and the ability and high character of the man inspired the Church with the greatest alarm.

The Church had for ages enjoyed a profound and unquestioned sway over men's minds. Since it had established its own supremacy through much persecution and many horrors under the great pagan nations of Greece and Eome, it had held on its way with a wonderful tranquillity. But this tranquillity was based on the absence of all religious inquiry and speculation. Occasionally there had been a burst of fanaticism, as that of the Pastoureaux of Flanders, that of the Flagellants and the Bianchi of Italy; but no steady attempt to introduce the religion of the Bible. So long as the great body of the people was satisfied to leave the teaching of Christian doctrine entirely in the hands of the clergy, and to bow implicitly to the dictum of the Church, all was peace. But as the Church had, unhappily, deemed it best to retain the Bible in its own hands, and to keep the multitude practically ignorant of its contents, it was clear that whenever the time arrived, as arrive it must, that education issued from the cloister, and entered into the secular dwelling, there would arise a war of opinion which would shake the very foundations of society, and never cease till freedom of opinion had triumphed, or till mind had sunk for ever beneath the sway of ceremony and despotism. That war had now commenced. The publication of the Bible in the vernacular tongue by Wycliffe, the preaching of his doctrines by his numerous bands of poor priests, and the reflections of the people on these doctrines and their sequences, had done their work. There was a fermentation of opinion in the public mind which never could cease, if the idea of a universal and impartial Providence, the Author of all knowledge, as of all worlds, was true, till the whole mass was leavened by the exciting principle.

The commotion now produced by the recalled Lollards was the commencement of this great war, though our historians do not seem to have perceived it, which was destined to go on, through wonderful and terrible burnings, hangings, beheadings, imprisonings, scourgings, torturings; through the groans from the thumbscrew and the wedge of the iron boot; through inquisitions and star chambers, till in some countries, as Bohemia and Italy, Protestantism was exterminated: but in our country