Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 40.djvu/238

 abilities soon attracted attention and won him the patronage of Stephen Patrington [q. v.], then provincial prior of the Carmelites. In 1409 he attended the council of Pisa, where he is said to have been a strenuous supporter of the rights of the council; Bale speaks of him as replying to the arguments of Peter de Candia, afterwards Pope Alexander V (ib. f. 36).

On his return to England Netter took a prominent part in the prosecution of the Wiclifites. According to Thevet (Pourtraits et Vies, pp. 154–7), he was at this time appointed inquisitor in England. He was present in 1410 at the first trial of William Tailor before Archbishop Arundel at St. Paul's (Doct. Fidei, ii. 33–4, 386–7). Netter had engaged in a controversy at Oxford with Peter Payne [q. v.], who, he says, withdrew before they had come to close quarters (ib. i. 7–8), and also, it is said, with John Luck, an Oxford doctor, who had been a great friend of his, but who in 1412 was accused of heresy. On 25 Sept. 1413 he was present at the examination of Sir John Oldcastle [q. v.] before Archbishop Arundel (, Acts and Monuments, iii. 329, 332; Fasciculi Zizaniorum, p. 443; Doct. Fidei, i. 21). Shortly after the accession of Henry V, Netter is said to have preached a sermon against the lollards at Paul's Cross, in which he openly reproved the king for his slackness. Henry, probably through the influence of Patrington, chose Netter for his confessor, and his championship of orthodoxy was perhaps strengthened by Netter's advice. On the promotion of Patrington to the bishopric of St. David's in 1414 Netter was elected twenty-third provincial prior of the English Carmelites in a council held at Yarmouth (Harl. MS. 3838, f. 35).

Next year he was sent as one of the English representatives to the council of Constance (, Concilium Constantiense, i. 501), but his name does not occur among the royal envoys mentioned in Rymer's ‘Fœdera,’ vol. ix., and from the slight reference to him in Von der Hardt's collection it does not appear that he can have played a very prominent part in the deliberations. Moreover he was in England in 1416, when he was present at the jubilee of Robert Mascall [q. v.] at Ludlow. After the close of the council on 11 May 1419 Netter was sent by Henry on a mission to Wladislaw, king of Poland, and Michael, the grand master of the Teutonic knights, in order to support the Emperor Sigismund in arranging terms of peace between them, and to prevent the failure of the papal army against the Hussites (44th Rep. Deputy Keeper of Public Records, p. 611;, Bibl. Carm. ii. 833; Doct. Fidei, ii. 798–9). He was at Grudentz on 19 July 1419, when an agreement was made between the Teutonic knights and Wladislaw (, Codex Diplomaticus Regni Poloniæ, iv. 104). There is, however, no record of the mission in the ‘Fœdera.’ During this mission Netter is said to have introduced the Carmelite order into the east of Europe, and to have converted to the catholic faith Vitovt, duke of Lithuania, from which circumstance he has been styled the Apostle of Lithuania. Vitovt is said to have secured his coronation as king through Netter's influence with the emperor and pope; as a matter of fact, however, Vitovt was not converted to the catholic faith; neither was he crowned king, but died of chagrin on 27 Oct. 1430 (, Histoire de la Lithuanie, pp. 153–5;, History of Russia, i. 182–3; Author:William Richard Morfill, Poland, pp. 53–4); and, moreover, the scheme for his coronation was not on foot until 1429.

Netter was probably back in England by Michaelmas 1420, when payment of his expenses is recorded in the Pell Rolls (, Memorials of Henry V, ii. 56, note q). On 1 April 1421 he was present at an assembly of his order at Norwich (Harl. MS. 1819, f. 197 b). On 30 March 1422 10l. was paid to him as the king's confessor for his expenses (Proc. Privy Council, ii. 331). Netter was with Henry at the time of his death, and the king is said to have died in his arms. He preached his funeral sermon at Westminster on 6 Nov. The remainder of Netter's life seems to have been occupied with the compilation of his ‘Doctrinale Fidei Ecclesiæ.’ In 1425 he interfered against the Carmelite fanatic Thomas Bradly or Scrope. On 13 Sept. 1428 he was present at the trial of the lollard William White at Norwich (Fasciculi Zizaniorum, p. 417). Netter was confessor to the young king Henry VI, and in this capacity was paid 40l. for the expenses of his journey to France on 26 Feb. 1430 (Proc. Privy Council, iv. 30). He went over with the king in April, and apparently accompanied him to Rouen, where he died on 2 Nov., and was buried in the church of the Carmelites in that city.

Netter was a man of great and varied learning, and enjoyed after his death, if not in his lifetime, the reputation of being one of the chief doctors of his order. It was above all as a defender of the catholic faith against the doctrines of Wiclif and Huss that he was pre-eminent, and his skill in this direction earned him the title of ‘Princeps controversistarum.’ Henry Kalteisen cited his authority at the council at Basle (,