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until the next parliament.' As he raised in the course of his reign the pound of silver from twenty to thirty shillings, a debasement of fifty per cent. in the coin, it is probable that the power thus conferred upon him was abused to this extent.

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About the same time a council of prelates and barons was held, at which was made an ordinance that no foreigner should, without the King's special licence, be promoted to any benefice or degree, and the clergy in convocation affirmed it. This proceeding, wholly destitute of legal validity, was a consequence of the act passed at Leicester the spring before, and Henry is said to have seized by these means into his hands 122 alien priories. The Convocation at the same time appointed delegates to represent the English clergy at the Council of Constance, then about to be assembled, for the purpose of terminating the great schism in the Church. But the King also sent a numerous embassy of peers and prelates to represent himself there; and when it was some time after decreed at Constance that, Gregory XII. being required to resign the papacy, and Benedict XIII. being called upon also to renounce, John XXIII., for whom England had declared, should be deposed and excommunicated in case he resisted, occasion was taken by the English Convocation to seize the money collected for him, and deposited at St. Paul's, ready to be remitted. From the excellent terms on which Henry then was with his clergy, there can be no doubt that this sum was Rot. Parl., iv. 34. Hol., iii. 68; T. Wals., 433.

transferred to him as their gift towards the exigencies of the war.1

Advantage was taken of the council assembled at Westminster for ecclesiastical purposes, to obtain the concurrence of the barons in the preparations which were now making for war. To the barbarous passions and turbulent habits of those men nothing could be more congenial. They had not lost the recollection of the great victories which half a century before gave the English arms, first in the north and then still more in the south of France, a renown only equalled by the misery they occasioned to both countries; and, as oftentimes happens, they fondly dwelt on those events, passing over the ruinous defeats by which they had been followed at the close of the Black Prince's life. It might even be said that the civil commotions in which the barons had subsequently engaged under Richard and the usurper bore a meaner character, if they were less inexcusable, than the aggressions of national violence at once cruel and sordid upon an unoffending neighbour. But at all events those halfcivilized chiefs paused not to weigh such motives and such merits in the scales of justice. War was the guilty and disreputable occupation of their rude lives; and a war with France in her present exhausted condition promised both rich plunder and martial fame, the two great objects of their habitual desires.

Accordingly, when the King applied to them for

Rym., ix. 167. T. Wals., Hist., 433. "Pecunia apud Sanctum Paulum, in cistâ deposita, extracta est, melioribus usibus destinata.”

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their support, first by his address at the council, then by his exhortation in Parliament, and soon after by his proclamation summoning all the tenants in chief of the crown to join his standard, he not only received ample promise of assistance, but the great lords hastened to equip their retainers, vying with each other in the numbers and the appointments of the force which they brought to his command. Some, as Northumberland and Westmoreland, raised each as many as forty men at arms, or cavaliers, with a hundred and thirty archers. But a feudal army, never much to be depended on, could now no longer be regarded as any solid provision for a foreign expedition. The King therefore had recourse to the plan of raising men, as had of late years been the practice, partly by compelling the counties to send reinforcements, and partly by the more modern method of recruiting. He further sent persons whose discretion and zeal he could trust to hire vessels in Holland and Zealand, appointing them to rendezvous in London, and in some of the Cinque Ports. strictly prohibited in the maritime towns the exportation of gunpowder; laid an embargo on all vessels of above twenty tons burden; gave leave, in many instances, to impress seamen for manning them; and made all the preparations for carriages, stores, arms,

He

Rym., ix. 218-238. A cavalry soldier's pay was 1s. a-day in money of that time, or 1s. 6d. of our coin, but five times as much in value. (Royal Household Book, published in 1790 by Ant. Soc., p. 9.) The sum of 1s. given therein temp. Ed. III. was 1s. 6d. temp. Hen. VI. Rym., ix. 216.

which the low state of the arts at the time and his narrow pecuniary resources allowed. Yet how inadequate the condition of those resources was to any great and costly undertaking we may perceive from this-that his treasure, the accumulation of his father's avarice and extortions as well as his own financial efforts, only amounted to 200,000l., equal to about a million and a half of our money at the present day; that he was obliged to mortgage the customs of some ports for a trifling sum of 627. (480l. of our money), borrowed from a merchant at Lucca; that he actually pledged to different creditors for further advances, or to secure the pay which might become due to the lords with their followers, his greater pieces of plate, the crown jewels, and even the crown itself. He then held a council of the chief prelates and peers, called by special summons, but sitting in their own chamber of Parliament; and he declared to them his fixed resolution of proceeding to France for the purpose of recovering his dominions, announcing at the same time the appointment of his brother, the Duke of Bedford, his lieutenant during his absence, with a council of ten, whom he also named. But he left the regency of the realm to his stepmother, the dowager Queen, formerly Duchess of Brittany.

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The intelligence of these preparations did not fail to alarm the French court, and they made one more attempt to turn aside the storm which seemed gathering to burst upon their devoted country. It was

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Rym., ix. 257, 284, and 399.

Rym., ix. 223.

already exhausted by civil commotion of long standing, and which had ended in a protracted civil war. Whatever hope could be obtained of assistance from the Duke of Burgundy, even if his loyalty was to be trusted, had been reduced within a narrow compass by the war which had been recently waged against him, ravaging his territories with fire and sword, burning one of his chief towns (Soissons), and nearly destroying another in a protracted siege. The Dauphin had indeed assumed the regency, but with so strong an opposition from the other princes as left little real power in his administration. There is no wonder then that he made a last effort to avert the dreadful extremity which Henry's ambition was bringing on.

Sept. 1414.

An embassy, composed of the Archbishop of Bourges, the Bishop of Lisieux, and other lords, accordingly arrived in London, but after the King and his staff had set out on their progress towards the coast. He turned aside to Winchester, where he gave them a formal audience, receiving them in state, with his brothers and many of the prelates and nobles attending. The Archbishop made a long speech, according to the fashion of the times, in the form of a sermon, taking for his text the verse, "Peace be to thee and thy house." But after he had lectured on the excellence of peace, being pressed to be more particular, he offered, as the price of Henry's disarming, the surrender of the Limousin country, with the cities

1 Sam. xxv. 6.

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