heaped upon them: foreigners unacquainted with the language of the people were thrust into offices, for the due discharge of the duties of which a knowledge of the vernacular language was absolutely necessary. The courts ecclesiastical ground down the clergy by shameless extortions; whilst appeals to Rome put a complete bar against any suit for justice. Their luxury and excesses, their pride and overbearing presumption, their devotedness to secular pursuits, the rapacious aggrandizement of themselves and their connexions, and the total abandonment of their spiritual duties in the cure of souls, coupled with an ignorance almost incredible, had brought the large body of the clergy into great disrepute, and had filled sincere Christians (whether lay or clerical, for there were many exceptions among the clergy themselves) with an ardent longing for a thorough and efficient reformation. It is true that their indignation was chiefly roused by the prostitution of the property of the church, and its alienation from the holy purposes for which the church was endowed; and that gross neglect of discipline rather than errors in doctrine called into life the spirit of reformation: but even in points of faith we perceive in many clear signs of a genuine love of Evangelical and Catholic truth; among whom we are not without evidence sufficient to justify us in numbering the subject of these Memoirs. Henry of Monmouth, whilst he adhered constantly to the faith of his fathers, yet manifested a sincere desire to become more perfectly acquainted with the truth of the Gospel; and spared no pains, even during his career of war and victory, in providing himself with the assistance of those teachers who had the reputation of preaching the Gospel most sincerely and efficiently. Henry's, indeed, was not the religion which would substitute in the scale of Christian duties punctuality of attendance on frequent preaching for the higher and nobler exercises of adoration. Many an unobtrusive incident intimates that his soul took chief delight in communing with God by acts of confession, and prayer, and praise. He seems to have imbibed the same spirit which in a brother-monarch once gave utterance to expressions no less valuable in the matter of sound theology, than exquisitely beautiful in their conception:[35] "I had rather pass an hour in conversation with my friend than hear twenty discourses in his praise." And yet Henry delighted also in hearing Heaven's message of reconciliation faithfully expounded, and enforced home.

Whilst, for example, he was pursuing his conquests in Normandy, the report no sooner reached him of a preacher named Vincentius, (who was labouring zealously in the cause of Christ in various parts of Brittany, and who was said by his earnest and affectionate preaching to have converted many to the Lord their God,) than Henry sent for him, and took great delight in hearing his faithful expositions of the word of truth and life. And we have good reason for believing that the consolations of the pure doctrines of the Gospel, as a guardian angel ministering the cup of Heaven, attended him through life and in death.

There is no intimation dropped by historians, nor is it intended in these Memoirs to intimate, that Henry's eyes were opened to the doctrinal errors of the church of Rome. But there are circumstances well worthy of consideration before we pronounce definitively on that point. When we bear in mind that, in those days, prayers and vows were habitually made to the Virgin for success, and, after any prosperous issue of the supplicants' exertions in war or peace, offerings of thanksgiving were addressed to her as the giver of victory and of every blessing; and whilst, at the same time, we find in Henry of Monmouth's letters and words no acknowledgment of any help but God's only; the question may be fairly entertained, whether he had not imbibed some portion of the pure light of Gospel truth on this very important article of Christian faith. The Author is well aware of the words at the close of his Will, referred to hereafter; and is very far from saying that he should be surprised to find other instances of a similar character. Still Henry's silence as to the power and assistance of the Virgin, the absence of prayer to her in his devotions, many of which are especially recorded; the absence of praise to her after victory and success, though he was very far from taking praise to himself, always ascribing it to God Almighty only, may seem to justify the suggestion of an inquiry into this point.

For a knowledge of the degraded state to which the church had sunk, and her inefficiency as the guardian and dispenser of religious truth, we are not left to the vague representations of declaimers, or the heated exaggerations of those by whom everything savouring of Rome is held in abomination. The preambles of the laws which were intended to cure the evils, bear the most direct and full evidence of their existence and extent. One parliamentary document, after prefacing that "Benefices were founded for the honour of God, the good of the founders, the government and relief of the parishioners, and the advancement of the clergy," then states "that the spiritual patrons, the regular clergy throughout the whole realm, mischievously appropriate to themselves the said benefices, and lamentably cast to the ground the houses and buildings, and cruelly take away and destroy divine service, hospitality, and other works of charity, which used to be performed in the said benefices to the poor and distressed; that they exclude and ever debar the clergymen from promotion, and privately convey the treasure of the realm in great sums to the court of Rome,—to the confusion of their own souls, the grievous desolation of the parishioners[36] and the whole country, the ultimate ruin of the clergy, the great impoverishment of the realm, and the irrecoverable ruin of the holy church of England."[37]

A case argued before the judges in the time of Henry IV, very interesting in itself, and closely connected in many points with the subject of this chapter, is recorded in the Year Books. The argument arose on a writ of Quare impedit, directed against Halomm (Hallam) Bishop of Salisbury and Chichel (Chicheley) Bishop of St. David's, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. The question at issue regarded the voidance of a prebend in the church of Salisbury, caused by Chicheley being created Bishop of St. David's, who held that prebend, to which he had been presented by Richard Medford, a former Bishop of Sarum. Against the King's claim of right of presentation to the void prebend, the defendants answered that the Pope had granted to Chicheley licence to enjoy all the preferments which he held before, together with his bishopric. For the King's right it was pleaded, that the creation of Chicheley took place whilst the temporalities of Sarum were in the hands of the King, on the translation of Hallam from York to Sarum;[38] but the question at length turned virtually upon the power of the see of Rome to dispense with the laws of England.

In the first sitting (Mich. 11 Henry