History of the English People, Volume III | Page 7

an end to the danger from the Percies;
for Northumberland and Bardolf alike fell on the field. But Wales
remained as defiant as ever. In 1409 a body of Welshmen poured
ravaging into Shropshire; many of the English towns had fallen into
Glyndwr's hands; and some of the Marcher Lords made private truces
with him.

[Sidenote: Oldcastle]
The weakness which was produced by this ill-success in the West as
well as these constant battlings with disaffection within the realm was
seen in the attitude of the Lollards. Lollardry was far from having been
crushed by the Statute of Heresy. The death of the Earl of Salisbury in
the first of the revolts against Henry's throne, though his gory head was
welcomed into London by a procession of abbots and bishops who
went out singing psalms of thanksgiving to meet it, only transferred the
leadership of the party to one of the foremost warriors of the time, Sir
John Oldcastle. If we believe his opponents, and we have no
information about him save from hostile sources, he was of lowly
origin, and his rise must have been due to his own capacity and services
to the Crown. In his youth he had listened to the preaching of Wyclif,
and his Lollardry--if we may judge from its tone in later years--was a
violent fanaticism. But this formed no obstacle to his rise in Richard's
reign; his marriage with the heiress of that house made him Lord
Cobham; and the accession of Henry of Lancaster, to whose cause he
seems to have clung in these younger days, brought him fairly to the
front. His skill in arms found recognition in his appointment as sheriff
of Herefordshire and as castellan of Brecknock; and he was among the
leaders who were chosen in later years for service in France. His
warlike renown endeared him to the king, and Prince Henry counted
him among the most illustrious of his servants. The favour of the royal
house was the more noteable that Oldcastle was known as "leader and
captain" of the Lollards. His Kentish castle of Cowling served as the
headquarters of the sect, and their preachers were openly entertained at
his houses in London or on the Welsh border. The Convocation of 1413
charged him with being "the principal receiver, favourer, protector, and
defender of them; and that, especially in the dioceses of London,
Rochester, and Hereford, he hath sent out the said Lollards to preach ...
and hath been present at their wicked sermons, grievously punishing
with threatenings, terror, and the power of the secular sword such as
did withstand them, alleging and affirming among other matters that we,
the bishops, had no power to make any such Constitutions" as the
Provincial Constitutions, in which they had forbidden the preaching of
unlicensed preachers. The bold stand of Lord Cobham drew fresh

influence from the sanctity of his life. Though the clergy charged him
with the foulest heresy, they owned that he shrouded it "under a veil of
holiness." What chiefly moved their wrath was that he "armed the
hands of laymen for the spoil of the Church." The phrase seems to hint
that Oldcastle was the mover in the repeated attempts of the Commons
to supply the needs of the State by a confiscation of Church property.
In 1404 they prayed that the needs of the kingdom might be defrayed
by a confiscation of Church lands, and though this prayer was fiercely
met by Archbishop Arundel it was renewed in 1410. The Commons
declared as before that by devoting the revenues of the prelates to the
service of the state maintenance could be made for fifteen earls, fifteen
hundred knights, and six thousand squires, while a hundred hospitals
might be established for the sick and infirm. Such proposals had been
commonly made by the baronial party with which the house of
Lancaster had in former days been connected, and hostile as they were
to the Church as an establishment they had no necessary connexion
with any hostility to its doctrines. But a direct sympathy with
Lollardism was seen in the further proposals of the Commons. They
prayed for the abolition of episcopal jurisdiction over the clergy and for
a mitigation of the Statute of Heresy.
[Sidenote: Action of Prince Henry]
But formidable as the movement seemed it found a formidable
opponent. The steady fighting of Prince Henry had at last met the
danger from Wales, and Glyndwr, though still unconquered, saw
district after district submit again to English rule. From Wales the
Prince returned to bring his will to bear on England itself. It was
through his strenuous opposition that the proposals of the Commons in
1410 were rejected by the Lords. He gave at the same moment a more
terrible proof of his loyalty to the