132 Constitutional History. [chap.
provisions of Magna Carta, be tried by the peers, was granted1;
Sir John Cornwall, the baron of Fanhope, was created baron
rieet at sea, of Milbroke. It was also determined that the king’s fleet
should keep the sea from Candlemas to Martinmas ; the force
so ordered included eight great ships of a hundred and fifty
men each ; each ship attended by a barge of eighty men, and
a balynger of forty : also four ‘ spynes ’ of twenty-five men.
The statute of Edward III was ordered to be enforced on
Trade ɪegieɪa- the royal purveyors : there were few general complaints, as
what little legislation was attempted was connected with the
promotion of trade and commerce, which from the beginning of
the Lancastrian period had been so prominent in the statute-
book. A demand was made for the examination of the accounts
of the duchy of Lancaster, which was still in the hands of
the cardinal and his co-feoffees for the execution of the will
of Henry Vz. The young king was busy with his foundations
at Eton and Cambridge.
oomes 'ɜɪɪ' θπ ^le ðtɪ1 θf December, 1442, Henry reached the
age of legal majority, and must then have entered, if he had
not entered before, into a full comprehension of the burden
that lay upon him in the task of governing a noble but
exhausted people, and of setting to right the wrongs of a
⅛arlfthai°' ^unt^re^ years3. He had been very early initiated in the
king. forms of sovereignty. Before he was four years old he had
been brought into the Painted Chamber to preside at the
opening of parliament, and from that time had generally
officiated in person on such occasions. Before he was eight
he was crowned king of England, and as soon as he was ten
king of France. At the age of eleven he had had to make
peace between his uncles of Bedford and Gloucester, and at
thirteen had shed bitter tears over the defection of Burgundy.
Whilst he was still under the discipline of a tutor, liable
ɪ Rot. Part. v. 56.
2 ɪb. v. 56-59. The appropriation of the duchy revenue to the house-
hold, ordered in 1439, was continued for three years; ib. p. 62.
3 A panegyric on Henry VI, written by John Blakman, S. T. B., after-
wards a monk of the Charterhouse, furnishes some of the most distinct
traits of his character ; it is edited by Hearne, at the end of his Otter-
bourne, i. 287 s<∣.
XVIlT.]
ChaTacter of Henri/ J~T.
!S3
to personal chastisement at the will of the council, he had
been made familiar with the great problems of state work.
Under the teaching of Warwick he had learned knightly
accomplishments ; Gloucester had pressed him with book-
learning ; Beaufort had instructed him in government and
diplomacy. He was a somewhat precocious scholar, too early He was over-
r . n p τr -rτ τ, ∙ tasked in his
taught to recognise his work as successor ot Henry V. it is youth,
touching to read the letters written under his eye, in which
he petitions for the canonisation of S. Osmund and king
Alfred, or describes the interest he takes in the council of
Basel, and presses on the potentates of east and west the
great opportunity for ecclesiastical union which is afforded
by the councils of Florence and Ferrara1. Thus at the age
of fifteen he was busy at the work which had overtasked the
greatest kings that had reigned before him, and which is
undone still. In the work of the universities, like duke Hiainterest
, . 1 1 , in education
Hmnfrey himself, he was as early interested; lus foundations
at Eton and Cambridge were begun when he was eighteen,
and watched with the greatest care as long as he lived. The
education of his half-brothers Edmund and Jasper Tudor2
was a matter of serious thought to him whilst he was a child
himself. Weak in health,—for had he been a boy of average Hisweak
. . . e health,
strength he would have been allowed to appear in military
affairs as early as his father and grandfather had appeared,—
and precocious rather than strong in mind, he was overworked
1 Beckingtorfs Letters, ed. Williams, i. 134, &c. ‘ Nonnullis etiaɪn solebat
clericis destinare epistolas exhortatorias, Caelestibus plenas Sacranientis et
Saluberrimis admonitionibus ; ’ Blakman, p. 290.
2 ‘ Quibus pro tunc arctissimam et securissimam providebat custodiam ; ’
Blaknian, p. 293. The same writer records his habit of saying to the Eton
boys t sitis boni pueri, mite?, et docibiles et servi Domini ; ’ ib. p. 296. His
answer to the petition for the restoration of grammar schools is in Rot.
Parl. v. 137. Beckington’s Letters are full of illustrations of his zeal for
the universities. Yet Hardyng describes him a⅛ little better than an idiot
when a child ∙
i The Erie Richard in nιykell worthyhead
Enfourmed hym, but of his symplehead
He could Iitle within his bre⅛t conceyve ;
The good from evill he could uneth perceive;’ p. 394.
Warwick was so tired ‘ of the symplesse and great innocence of King
Henry’ that he resigned his charge and went to France ; p. 396. Henry’s
tendency to insanity may have come from either Charles VI or Henry IV.