Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 10.djvu/236

 them of instigating the king to embark on it in order to serve their own purposes. The archbishop paid over the money collected as Peter's pence to the crown, ani the clergy of his province voted two-tenths. Moreover, during the king's absence in France he ordered the clercy of nis diocese to arm themselves for the aefence of the country. He was appointed by the king a member of the council to assist the Duke of Bedford in the administration of the kingdom. Before Henry set sail Chichele went down to Southampton to bid him farewell on 10 Aug., and on his return after the campaign of Amncourt he met him at Canterbury. He officiated at St. Paul's on the occasion of the king's entrance into London, and arranged a special service of thanksgiving to be used throughout his province. To commemorate the heavenly aid granted to the army he ordered in convocation that the feast of St. George should be observed as 'a greater double,' and made changes in the observ-ance of certain other festivals. Himself a lawyer of no mean repute, and having the famous canonist William Lyndwood for his vicar-general, Chichele was active in all the legislative and judicial duties of his office, and, indeed, in the general administration of his province. Church synods were frequently called, and though they were often held concurrently with the sessions of parliament, a large number of them are not to be reckoned as meetings of convocation, for they were not called by lay authority (, State of the Church, 359, 860). Among the enactments of the early years of Chichele's rule are that no one except graduates might be presented to a benefice, that no married clerK might exercise jurisdiction, and that barbers should abstain from work on Sundays. Explicit directions were also published in 1416 for the searching out of heretics and such as had 'suspected books written in English,' who were to be proceeded against (, Concilia, iii. 208, 378). A long notice of one of these processes held the year before presents the archbishop presiding in St. Paul's at the trial of John Claydon, a skinner, who had caused a certain book, entitled 'The Lanterne of Light,' to be copied. Claydon was condemned as a relapsed heretic, handed over to the secular arm, and burnt at Smithfield (ib. 374; Gregory, 108). Again on 11 Feb. 1422 Chichele presided in person at the trial of William Taillour. He in person degraded him from the priesthood in the presence of the Duke of Gloucester and a vast assembly of people gathered in St. Paul's, and delivered nim over to be burned. While, however, he kept Lollardism down with a firm hand, he pursued a far more moderate policy than had been carried out by his predecessor Arundel.

When Sigismund, king of the Romans, visited England in May 141 6, Chichele ordered special prayers and processions to be performed. Before the King left on 16 Aug. he concluded a strict alliance with Henry at Canterbury, and it may safely be held that Chichele thoroughly approved the policy pursued by the English and Germans at the council of Constance. In this, and indeed generally throughout the reign of Henry V, he seems to have been in perfect accord with the king. During the month of September he was engaged in arranging a truce with France. In the spring of 1418 Chichele heard that Martin V puiposed to make Henry Beaufort, bishop of Winchester [q. v.], a cardinal, and appomt him legate a latere for life. Accordingly on 6 March he wrote a vigorous letter to the king, who was then in Runce, representing the wrong that would be done the realm by such a legation. Henry refused to allow the bishop to accept the pope's offer. Towards the end of the year Chichele joined the king in France, and in January 1419 interceded with him to allow the besieged citizens of Rouen to reopen negotiations ; he spent four days in arranging the terms on which the citizens finally agreed to open their gates to the king. He returned to England in August. On 10 June of the next year he again crossed over to France to congratulate the king on his marriage, and while there took steps to restore the national system of spiritual jurisdiction, rendering the Gallican church wholly independent as far as the authority of his own see was concerned. On his return to England he officiated at the coronation of the queen, which took place at Westminster on 26 Feb. 1421. On the following 6 Dec. he baptised the king's son Henry. By the death of the king, which happened in August 1422, Chichele lost not only a master he loved, but a support he greatlv needed. As long as Henry V lived, the archbishop successfully carried out a national church policy. The national energy that was aroused oy the personal influence of the king and by the French war found expression in ecclesiastical as well as in civil anairs, and the rights of the church of England were triumphantly vindicated by the king's refusal to allow the legatine authority of the see of Canterbury to be overridden. When Henry V was no longer at hand to strengthen him, the arch-bishop found himself unable to withstand the assaults made upon him as the representative of the national church. The disorganisation of the reign of Henry VI left