Taxes and
statutes of
1413∙
Arundel
attacks the
Lollards.
So ConstUutional Histonj. [chap.
successor; but it was not called on lor dispatch of business
until after the coronation, which took place on the 9th of
April, 1413. On the 15th of May the session opened with
a speech from Beaufort, and the assembly sat until the 9th
of June1. Ample provision was made for. the maintenance
of the government ; the subsidy on wool was granted for four
years for the defence of the realm, tunnage and poundage for
a year, and a fifteenth and a tenth for the keeping of the sea :
and the king was allowed a ‘ preferential ’ claim on the public
revenue, to the amount of .£10,000, for the expenses of his
household, chamber, and wardrobe2. The commons spoke their
minds plainly as to the weakness of the late reign and the
incompleteness of national defence, the want of good governance
and the lack of due obedience to the laws, which prevailed
within the realm3. The law of 1406 on elections of knights
was confirmed and amended with a clause ordering that resi-
dents only should be chosen4 ; the measures taken against
the aliens were enforced, the king granted a general pardon,
and the usual anti-papal petitions were presented and accorded.
Another significant event of the year was the translation of
the body of Richard II from Langley to Westminster ; an act
by which Henry no doubt intended to symbolise the burial of
all the old causes of enmity5.
324. Archbishop Arundel had lost no time in proceeding
against the Lollards. The convocation which had met on
March 6 had sat by prorogation until the end of June, and
1 Rot. Parl. iv. 3- 14. The members had their wages from Feb. 3 to
June 9 ; ib. p. 9.
2 Rot. Parl. iv. 5, 6 ; Dep. K. Rep. ii. App. ii. ρ. 185.
3 i Reherçant qu’en temps notre seigneur Ie roy son pier, qui Dieux
assoile, y feust pluseurs foitz requis par les ditz Communes de bon govern-
ance et Iour requeste grauntee. Mes cornent y feust tenuz et perfourne en
apres mesme notre seigneur le roy en ad bone conisance Rot. Pari. iv.
4. i Bon governance ’ is defined as t due obéissance a les lois deins le
roialme ; ’ ib.
4 Rot. Pari. iv. 8 ; Statutes, ii. 170.
5 December ; Chr. Lond. p. 96 : i Non sine Inaxirnis expensis regis nunc,
qui fatebatur se sibi tantum Venerationis debere quantum patri suo carnali
Wals. ii. 297 ; Otterbourne, p. 274. He had been knighted by Richard.
Hardyng says also that he gave licence for offerings to be made at the
tomb of archbishop Scrope ; p. 372.
χvljl.] Jo7nι Oldcastle. 8ι
had voted a tenth to the king. Before this body Arundel had
laid a proposition to attack Lollardy in the high places of
the court. It was resolved that there was no chance of pre-
venting the schism imminent in the English church unless
those magnates who protected the heretics were recalled to
due obedience1. Of these the chief was Sir John Oldcastle, s⅛ John
tιu .ι∙ι ιιι ∙ 1 i c Oldcastle,
a Herefordshire knight, who had sat in the house oɪ commons lord Cob-
in 1404, and who by a subsequent marriage with the heiress
of the barony of Cobham had, in 1409, obtained summons to
the house of lords. Oldcastle was a personal friend of the
king, and had been joined with the earls of Arundel and
Kyme in command of the force sent at Henry’s instigation to
France in 14n. He was an intelligent and earnest Lollard,
and had taken pains to spread the influence of the sect, by the
preaching of unlicenced itinerants, in his Herefordshire and
Kentish estates. Against him a formal presentment was made H⅛ trial
by the convocation, and after consultation with the king, who ve∏mce.
tried by personal argument to bring him over, he was sum-
moned to appear before the archbishop and the bishops of
London, Winchester, and Bangor2. Having refused to receive
the first citation he received a second summons to appear at
Leeds on the nth of September ; not presenting himself there,
he was called once more by name and declared contumacious.
In consequence of this he was arrested by the king’s order, and
appeared before the archbishop in custody of the keeper of the
Tower on the 23rd of September. A long discussion ensued,
during which Oldcastle proffered an orthodox confession ; but,
being pressed by the archbishop with distinct questions on the
main points of Lollard doctrine, he refused to renounce them.
He was therefore condemned as a heretic on the 25th and Hiscon-
. demnation
returned to the Tower, a respite of forty days being allowed and escape,
him in hopes of a recantation. Almost immediately, however,
he effected his escape, and the country, which had been already
alarmed by the declaration that a hundred thousand Lollards
1 Wilkins, Cone. iii. 353.
a On Oldcastle1S trial see Walsingham, ii. 291-297; Otterb. p. 274;
⅛scic. Zizan., pp. 433-450 ; Capgr. 111. Henr. p. 113 ; Wilkins, Cone. iii.
3^1—357 ; Bymer, ix. 61-66, 89, 90 ; Hall, Chr. pp. 48 sq.; Foxe, iii. 320 sq.
Vol. ш. G