Failure of
the attempt
to exclude
Beaufort
from council.
Financial
measures.
Second
session,
Jan, 1430.
Lavr of
county
elections.
1x4 Coiistltiilional History. [chap.
stroke told in favour of the cardinal, who seems to have
retained more power in parliament than in the council. The
question of his position had been raised in a new’ form ; was
it law’ful for him, a cardinal, to take his place in the king’s
council ; the lords voted not only that it was lawful, but that
the bishop should be required to attend the councils on all
occasions on which the relations of the king with the court of
Home were not in question. He graciously accepted the
position on the 18th of December’, and used his influence
with the commons to such purpose that on the 20th they voted
a fifteenth and tenth to the king in addition to a like sum
granted on the 12th, with tunnage and poundage until the
next parliament2. The same day parliament was prorogued
to the 14th of January; in the second session the subsidy on
wool was continued to November, 1433; the council had
already been empowered to give security for loans to the
amount of £50,0005, and the payment of the second fifteenth
was hastened4. The nation was awraking to the necessity of
a great effort to save the conquests in France. The most
important statute of this parliament was one which further
regulated the elections of knights of the shire, and fixed the
forty shilling freehold as the qualification for voting5. The
county elections had been a subject of intermittent legislation
since the beginning of the century, but it is difficult to connect
the successive changes which were introduced with any political
or personal influences prevailing at the time : the matter must
be considered in another chapter, and it may be sufficient to
say here that, as the changes in .the law scarcely at all affected
the composition of the House of Commons, the particular steps
of the change were most probably taken as they were in conse-
quence of local instances of undue influence and violence. It
must not, however, be forgotten that the historians under
1 Kot. Parl. iv. 338.
3 lb. iv. 336, 337 ; Amund. i. 44. The clergy, in October 1429, granted
a tenth and a half; Wilk. Cone. iii. 515; and in March 1430, another
tenth ; Wilk. Cone. iii. 517.
3 Rot. Part. iv. 339, 341, 342. Commissions for raising a loan on this
security were issued May 19, 1430 ; Kymer, x. 461.
4 Rot. Parl. iv. 342; Amund. i. 46, 48. 5 Rot. Parl. ɪv. 350.
χvπι.] Gloucester Lieutenant. ɪɪɔ
Richard. II had complained of the exercise of crown influence, and
that the cry was repeated by the malcontents under Henry IV.
It is a wearisome task to trace the continuance of the fatal
quarrel between Beaufort and Gloucester, but it is the main
string of English political history for the time. Lollardy was
smouldering in secret ; the heavy burdens of the nation were
wearily borne: Bedford was wearing out life and hope in a
strmrsle that was now seen’to be desperate. The Maid of ɪiɪe M.ud
<∙ л ? of Orleans.
Orleans was captured on the 26th of May, 1430, and burned
as a witch on the 31 st of May, 1431 ; Bedford might perhaps
have interfered to save her, but such an exercise of magnani-
mity would have been unparalleled in such an age, and the
peculiarly stern religiousness of his character was no more
likely to relax in her favour than it had in Oldcastle’s. On
the 17th of December, 1431, Henry was crowned king of
France at Paris by Beaufort.
336. Henry’s absence in France gave Gloucester a chance Beanfort
in his turn. Long deliberations in council were needed befoιe f⅛n∞ mt:ɪ
the expedition could be arranged; on the 16th of April, 1430,
the cardinal agreed to accompany his grand-nephew1 ; on the Gloucester
21 st Gloucester was appointed lieutenant and custos of the lieutenant
kingdom2. On the 23rd Henry sailed with a large retinue, doɪn, 1430?
and remained abroad for nearly two years. During this time
the duty of maintaining the authority of the council devolved
on archbishop Kemp, who, although he managed to act uith
Gloucester in his new capacity as custos, had on more than
one occasion to oppose him, and, as soon as the court returned,
was made to pay the penalty of his temerity. The year 1431 Jack Sharp’s
witnessed a bold attempt at rebellion made by the political pl°t, ɪ43*'
Lollards under a leader named Jack Sharp, who was captured
and put to death at Oxford in May3. The parliament of 14314
1 Ord. iv. 35-38 ; Rymer, x. 456. 2 Ord. iv. 40 sq. ; Rymer, ɪ. 458.
3 Jack Sharp’s petition for the confiscation and appropriation of the
temporalities of the church, being the same proposition as that put forth in
1410 (above, p. 65), is printed from the MS. Harl. 3775 in Amundeshara
(ed. Riley), i. 453 ; cf. Hall, Chr. p. l66 ; Amund. ɪ. ʤ ; Gregory, p. 17.’ ;
Chron. Lond. p. 119 ; Ellis, Orig. Lett. 2nd Series, i. 103 ; Ordinances, iv.
¾> 99, 107 ; Chron. Giles, p. 18.
4 The parliament, called in pursuance of a resolution of the great council
I 2