under the King's licence (congé d'élire), Henry admitted the prelates so appointed to the temporalities upon their fully renouncing all expressions which the Bulls might contain in any way prejudicial to the rights of the Crown, and submitting themselves to his pleasure.' In Normandy he appears to have excluded all interference with a somewhat higher hand.2 It does not appear that in England Henry made any vigorous exertions against non-residence more than against pluralities. In Normandy he issued several times his rescripts to the Prelates and Chapters, charging them to enforce the law of the Church requiring residence. Upon one occasion, after the Treaty of Troyes, his commands were chiefly directed to prevent clerks from absenting themselves for the purpose of evading the new oath of allegiance; but on other occasions the simple duty of residence was alone contemplated." The state of the religious houses appears to have seriously drawn his attention to the odium, if not the peril, which their irregular lives brought upon the Church. The Benedictines, commonly called Black Friars, were those whose immoralities had given the greatest scandal, and they formed by far the most numerous body of the regular clergy. But to reform such abuses requires rather the enforcement of discipline by lawful superiors than the aid of 1 Rym. ix. 809. 866. 808. 2 3 Note LIV. Rym. ix. 667. new laws; and, aware of this, Henry appears to have pursued a judicious course. Immediately after the Parliament called on his last return from May, 1421. France, he repaired, with a very few attendants, to an assembly of the order held at Winchester, where there were present 60 priors and abbots, and 300 monks; and he made a strong remonstrance to them against the neglect of piety and of moral duty which distinguished their monasteries. He then exhibited articles of reformation, which the Prelates he had consulted entirely approved, and he besought them to adopt these as obligatory for the rules of their conduct. Time, however, was given for discussion and deliberation; nor was it till the next 1422. year that they were fully received at a provincial Chapter held for the purpose. The principal provisions were restraining the extravagance of abbots by a kind of sumptuary laws; requiring their attendance in the convent on the feast days, instead of passing their lives luxuriously in their manorial residences; preventing their alienation of the conventual moveable property; making the monks be paid in provisions, and not in money; excluding the company of women in their monasteries, except mothers and sisters, and those only to be received in the public parlour; and forbidding all resort to the towns on carnival occasions. Nothing can more plainly show the kind of lives which the heads of religious houses then led, than the tenor of these restraining rules; and the feeble pre cautions which they provide against abuses prove the height to which the evil had grown, as well as the powerful influence of the parties concerned. Absence from the convent on all but the festivals of the Church was still allowed, and an abbot might still be attended by a suite of as many as twenty horsemen. HENRY THE SIXTH. THE Prince whose long and unhappy reign now claims our attention was not quite nine months old when the death of his father left him heir to the Crown of England in possession, and that of France as soon as Charles VI.'s nominal sovereignty should cease with his life. This event happened within a few weeks of Henry's accession, and, unim Oct. 21, 1422. portant as was the station which Charles had long filled, his death was attended with serious consequences. For the Dauphin causing himself to be proclaimed was crowned at Poictiers,' as Rheims, the place allotted to that solemnity by the custom of the realm, was in the hands of the English; and the Royal authority being no longer divided as it had been during the fatal dissensions of the family, the national feeling, directed to one Sovereign, heightened the popular favour which attended his arms, and increased sensibly the numbers of his adherents. Meanwhile the infant Henry was proclaimed King of France immediately after Charles's obsequies had been performed with the pomp which so often forms 'Mez. ii. 2. P. Daniel, vii. 10. Monstrelet, tom. ii. fol. 2. Lingard says Chartres erroneously. a contrast at once mournful and ridiculous to the life of its subject. The Duke of Bedford having, in compliance with his brother's dying request, offered the Regency to the Burgundian, assumed it himself on that Prince's refusal, and had now a full opportunity of reflecting upon the difficulties of his situation, as well as the great diversity in point of security between the two Crowns which had devolved upon his infant nephew. The vigorous administration of Henry IV. had consolidated his power, built though it was upon a weak foundation; and the crimes of his usurpation had long been cast into the shade by the dazzling successes of his son. Even the defects in the Lancastrian title, by precluding any attempt to rule without the concurrence of Parliament, had proved so far favourable to the Royal authority that all dissensions between that body and the Crown had ceased; and as considerable supplies had been easily, if not cheerfully, afforded to meet the expenses of the war, as could reasonably be expected from the scanty resources of the country; so that the English dominions were placed in a state of peace and security which left nothing to be desired, at least by their rulers. It was far otherwise with the kingdom of France. Here the Regent found that he had to complete the conquest which his brother had only begun; and though the provinces north of the Loire, including the capital, were in his hands, together with the authority derived from holding the government under the 1 P. Daniel, vi. 567. Monstrel., cclxviii. |