5г
Cunstitutional Hislory.
[chap.
Anestof tɪie articles demanded. The friendly attitude of the leaders misled
lords, 1405. tjιe jnsul.gent forces . they dispersed, leaving Scrope and Mow-
bray at the mercy of their enemies, and they were immediately
arrested. In spite of the earnest pleading of archbishop Arun-
del 1 and the refusal of the chief-justice, Sir William Gascoigne,
to sanction the proceedings, the king allowed his better judg-
ment to be overruled by the violence of his followers2. On
the advice of Thomas Beaufort and the earl of Arundel, he
Execution of
Scrope and
Mowbray,
June 1405.
Effect of
Scro pe’s
execution.
determined to sacrifice his prisoners : he obtained the assist-
ance of Sir William Fulthorpe, who acted as president of the
tribunal of justices assigned3, and on the 8th of June the
archbishop and the earl-marshal were beheaded. That done,
the king followed the earl of Northumberland and Bardolf to
the north. They fled to Scotland, and Henry, having seized
the castles of the Percies, returned to the task of defence
against the Welsh.
It was no wonder that the body of the murdered archbishop
began at once to work miracles4; he was a most popular pre-
late, a member of a great Yorkshire house, and he had died in
the act of defending his people against oppression. Nor is it
wonderful that in popular belief the illness which clouded
Henry’s later years was regarded as a judgment for his impiety
ɪ Ann. Henr. p. 408 ; Eulog. iii. 407.
2 See his account as given to the pope, in Kaynaldi, Ann. Eccl. viɪi. 143.
3 It seems improbable that Fulthorpe should under any circumstances
have ventured to try Scrope and Mowbray, and it is far more likely that
the annalist is right in saying that they were formally condemned by the
earl of Arundel and Beaufort, although Beaufort was not one of their
peers ; Ann. Henr. p. 409. Mowbray, however, although called earl
Marshall, was never summoned to parliament, and may not have been
regarded as a peer. Sir William Fulthorpe is mentioned in the Rolls of
Parliament as trying the minor offenders ; Rot. Parl. iii. 633. The state-
ment that Gascoigne refused to pass sentence on Scrope, and that Ful-
thorpe did it, is made very circumstantially by Clement Maidstone ; Ang.
Sac. ii. 369 sq. The Chronicle edited by Dr. Giles, p. 45, adds that
Randulf Everis and Fulthorpe passed sentence by special commission.
Hardyng says that Sir John Lamplugh and Sir William Plumpton were
beheaded near York, and that Sir Ralph Hastings, Sir John Fauconberg,
Sir John Colville of the Dale, and Sir John Ruthyn were beheaded at
Durham (p. 363). Cf. Stow, Chr. p. 333 ; Rot. Parl. iii. 604.
4 A list of the offerings at his shrine, and letters from archbishop
Arundel, bishop Longley, the king, and John of Lancaster, urging the
dean and chapter to present pilgrimages, are in the York Fabric Rolls,
PP∙ 193. 235> 3-≈6∙
χγι∏.] Archbithop Scrope beheaded. ɔʒ
in laying hands on the archbishop. English Iiistory recorded
110 parallel event ; the death of Becket, the work of four un-
authorised excited assassins, is thrown into the shade by the
judicial murder of Scrope. Looked at apart from the religious
aι.d legal question—and the latter in the case of Mowbray is
scarcely less significant than the former in the case of Scrope—
these executions mark a distinct change in Henry. Much blood
had been shed formally and informally since he claimed the
throne ; but in no one case had he taken part in direct injustice,»
or allowed peιsonal enmity or jealousy to make him vindictive.
Here he had cast away every scruple; he had set aside his re- imprudence
membrance of the man who had placed him on the throne on
the day of Bichard’s deposition ; he sinned against his convic-
tion of the iniquity of laying hands on a sacred person ; he
disregarded the intercessions of archbishop Arundel, his wisest
fɪiend ; he shut his eyes to the fact that he was giving to his
enemies the honour of a martyr; he would not see that the
victory which he had won had removed all grounds for fear.
He allowed his better nature to be overcome by his more
savage instinct. The act, viewed morally, would seem to be the
sign of a mind and moral power already decaying, rather than
a sin which called don n that decay as a consequence or a judg-
ment.
In August the king went into Wales, where the French were
assisting Glendower, and where he was, as in 1402, prevented
by the floods from doing any work. On his return, at Wor-Newattack
cester, the proposal to plunder the bishops was repeated, as ute% 1405.
it had been in 1403, and sternly repelled by the archbishop.
But continued ill-luck produced its usual effect ; from every
department of the state, from every minister, from every de-
pendency, from Wales, Ireland, Guienne, and Calais, from army
and fleet, came the same cry for money1 ; and in answer the Great want
of money.
1 In the parliament of j404, John OfLancaster is described as being Li
great dishonour and danger for want of money for his soldiers on the
North Marches; Kot. l’arl. iii. 552. The prince of Wales is in great
distress fur the same cause ; Ord. i. 229. Thomas had been crying out f< г
applies for Ireland since 1401 ; Royal Letters of Henr. IV, pp. 73, 85.
The tradesmen of Calais were in despair (Aug. 17, 14044) ; ib. p. 290. La
1405 lord Grey of Codnor the governor of South Wales could get ш