James Endell Tyler

“ These principles must be borne in mind, and acted upon whenever we would examine the spirit and character of any individual on the charge of superstition, bigotry, cruelty, and unchristian persecution. Had not these principles unhappily been laid aside for a time and forgotten, we should scarcely have been pained by so severe a portrait of Henry of Monmouth, as a writer who ought to have known better has drawn, not in the warmth of debate and the hurry of controversy, but in the hour of reflection and quietude. ”

“ Here we cannot but recal the words with which Henry afterwards, it is said, addressed the Cardinal des Ursins, who was sent by the Pope to mediate between him and Charles just before he laid siege to Rouen. "See you not that God hath brought me here as it were by the hand? There is no longer a King in France. I have a legal right over that realm. All is in confusion there; and no one dreams of opposing me. Can I have a more sensible proof that God, who disposes of crowns, has decreed that I should place on my head the crown of France?" ”

“ For no maxim can be more firmly established by the sound deductions of human wisdom, or more unequivocally sanctioned by the express words of revelation, than the principle that to whom much is given, of them will much be required. And on this principle how awfully has our increase of privileges enhanced our responsibility! By the Reformation, Providence has rescued us from those dangers which once attended an honest avowal of a Christian's faith; has freed us from those gross superstitions which once darkened the whole of Christendom ”

“ WAS HENRY OF MONMOUTH A PERSECUTOR?
In estimating the character of an individual, nothing is more calculated to mislead ourselves, or to subject him to injustice at our hands, than a disregard of the time, and country, and circumstances in which he lived. ”

“ If, indeed, Christians are so far forgetful of the spirit of the Gospel as, on the plea of defending and spreading its genuine doctrines, to disturb the peace, and shake the foundations, and threaten the overthrow of society, the civil magistrate, whether Christian or heathen, will interpose. But neither has he, more than the church, any authority whatever for interfering by violence with the faith of any one. It is the duty of a Christian magistrate to provide for his people the means of religious instruction, and worship, and consolation ”

“ The charge of hypocrisy is made to rest "on Henry assuring the French monarch of his moderation and love of peace, whereas he must have been conscious that he was immoderate in his demands, and was not desirous of peace." To prove that his demands were immoderate, is not enough to sustain this accusation; to constitute him a hypocrite, he must himself have been conscious that his demands were (p. 101) immoderate. But how stands the probability? He was fully persuaded that the crown of France was his own; and he first demands the full surrender of his alleged rights. ”

“ This mass of extravagant folly and blind superstition, this presumptuous sharing of God's omnipotence and sovereign might with the power of such poor erring fellow-mortals as the corrupt ministers of a corrupt church had presumptuously ranked among the inhabitants of heaven,—thus daring to forestal the judgment of Christ at the last day, and to pronounce on the glory of a man whose spiritual state Omniscience alone can know,—it is impossible to contemplate without feelings of gratitude that Heaven's mercy has released us from such perverted use of the Gospel of the Saviour ”

“ The moment compulsion interferes with the free choice of the individual, the religion of the heart and the outward observance cease to coincide, and hypocrisy, not faith working by love, is the result. "Persecution [253] either punishes a man for keeping a good conscience, or forces him into a bad conscience; it either punishes sincerity, or persuades hypocrisy; it persecutes a truth, or drives into error; and it teaches a man to dissemble and to be safe, but never to be honest." ”

“ Those who are familiar with the expressions of a contrite soul, will fully understand the sentiments recorded of Henry of Monmouth at this season of his self-humiliation, and the dedication of himself to God, and may yet be far from discovering in them conclusive arguments in proof of his having passed his youth in habits of gross violation of religious and moral principle. We have already quoted the assertions of his biographer, that day and night he sought pardon for the past, and grace for the future, to enable him to bend his heart in faith and obedience to the Sovereign of all. ”

“ For Christians of the present age, and in our country, to pass through life without partaking in any persecution, such as once disgraced our legislature and the executive government, does not necessarily imply a freedom of the conscience from a persecuting spirit. The Christian can now evince the real tone and temper of his mind only in his behaviour towards his fellow-creatures, and by the sentiments to which he gives utterance. ”

“ It is not improbable that the news of his loss gave a turn to Henry's mind, and induced him with sentiments of piety and mourning to leave the splendour of his court for a while, and, laying aside the feelings of the triumphant monarch, to give himself up to exercises of devotion, and to a preparation for the same awful change which had so unexpectedly stopped the career of his younger brother. Leaving his Queen among his friends and faithful lieges of York, he proceeded on a kind of pilgrimage to Bridlington, Beverley, and Lincoln ”

“ Love conquers all things; ah! it has wrought in me not to fear, though in an uncultivated and unpolished style, to offer to so wise and glorious a Prince what I reflected upon in my mind, and to open to your serene Highness as I best may what I have conceived in my heart for your royal safety. Hence it is that I have endeavoured to draw up a brief table of events from the commencement of the conquest of Neustria [Normandy] by the Normans down to their conquest of England ”

“ To Henry, indeed, mementos presented themselves on every side of the frailty of all sublunary possessions, the precarious tenure by which king or peasant alike holds any earthly thing; whilst he was himself destined, in the revolution of the next year, to become in his own person a marked example of the same uncertainty. His spirit might seem to address us from the grave, in the words of a reflecting man. [224] "A day, an hour, a moment is sufficient for the overthrow of dominions which are thought to be grounded on foundations of adamant." ”

“ Henry: "We, from reverence to HIM who hath suddenly granted to us protection and victory against many of our said enemies, and in his own holy and good time desires to give pardon and peace to all who offend against himself, lest he destroy them in their iniquities and sins,—we, for the tranquillity, security, and peace of our lieges and subjects, decree this pardon." ”

“ We may be as honest as those who write most bitterly, in our abhorrence of persecution; and yet think the individual who put its most rigid laws into effect, deserving of compassion and pity that his lot had fallen in such days of bigotry and ignorance, rather than of reprobation for not having discovered for himself a more enlightened path of duty.
It is not because we are obliged to confess that even the outward acts of Henry V. have been those of a persecutor, that these preliminary remarks are offered ”

“ But Henry's ardent and commanding mind soon saw how powerful an engine, both of defence and of conquest, would be found in a permanent royal navy, and how indispensable such an establishment was to any insular sovereign who desired to provide for his country the means of offering a bold front against aggression, protecting herself from insult, maintaining her rights, and taking a lead among the surrounding powers. ”

“ Our abhorrence of the crime may well make us hesitate before we pronounce judgment against one to whose mercy and chivalrous honour his contemporaries bore willing and abundant testimony; the enormity of so dreadful an example compels us, in the name of humanity and of justice, not to screen the guilty. ”

“ A similar feeling of love for the holy men of God, whether he could testify that love to the living, or merely record it for the memory of the dead, might have led him to the installation of the Bishop of Lincoln, and to the tomb of John of Bridlington and John of Beverley. Henry was not a Protestant by profession; but, compared with the hierarchy by whom he was surrounded, he approached almost, if not altogether, this fundamental point of difference between the two churches, the rejection of the adoration of any being, save the one only God. ”

“ But it must be borne in mind throughout that our inquiry has for its object, neither the condemnation of religious persecution, nor the palliation of the spirit of Romanism,—neither the canonization of the Protestant martyr, nor the indiscriminate inculpation of all concerned in the sad tragedy of his condemnation and death,—but the real estimate of Henry's character. The pursuit of this inquiry of necessity (p. 349) leads us through passages in the history of our country, and of our church, which must be of deep and lively interest to every Englishman and every Christian. ”

“ What portion of admiration for bravery, and what of blame for rashness, an unprejudiced mind would mingle together, when endeavouring to assign the just reward to Henry for his decision to make his way through the very heart of his enemy's country, himself so weak in resources, his enemy both so strong already, and gathering in overwhelming numbers from every side, is a problem of no easy solution. ”

“ If we are honest in our own choice, we believe that by delivering down to posterity, in its integrity and pureness, the blessing which has been committed to us in especial trust, we are transmitting not a state-device (as its enemies delight to call it) , but an institution founded on the surest principles of true philosophy and of revelation, with a view to the best interests of the whole human race. ”

“ That this was a state of things to be deplored by every friend of liberty and lover of truth, is not questioned; that domination over the consciences of men has ever been the object of the church of Rome, and that the spirit of persecution will ever be characteristic of her principles, is not here denied; nor are these observations made for the purpose of softening the feelings of abhorrence with which any persons may be disposed to view the proceedings of a persecuting spirit in those things which concern our most momentous interests so awfully. ”

“ The French reinforcement, advancing from the quarter where the baggage was stationed, no sooner felt a shower of arrows, and saw a body of men ready to give them battle, than they turned to flight; and instantly Henry, on seeing them run, stopped the slaughter of the prisoners, and made it known to all that he had had recourse to the measure only in self-defence. ”

“ If, in these days, we are tempted to brand with the mark of ignorance, and superstition, and cruelty, those among our predecessors who enacted laws against witchcraft, and condemned to death those who were found guilty of dealings with the spirit of wickedness, we must at the same time remember that persons who are examples of every Christian excellence, of reverence for God's law, of justice and charity, are now engaged in occupations which those men held in abhorrence. ”

“ The citizen of the world may avoid one whom he cannot meet with satisfaction and pleasure; the inmate of a college comes in contact with his brethren every day. The place of prayer, the refectory, the social board of kindly intercourse, all well calculated to cherish and ripen feelings of friendship, yet if unkind sentiments are lurking in the breast, only provoke their expression, and cherish the heartburnings, and fan the embers of discord into a flame. ”

“ The right of private judgment in matters of religion had been resigned by the vast majority of the people of Christendom, and the duty and responsibility in each individual of searching for the truth himself had been laid aside long before Henry V. was called to take a part in the affairs of this world. Bold and noble spirits, indeed, were found in successive periods to assert their own rights and to declare the privileges and the duties of their fellow-creatures, and to think for themselves in a matter which so deeply involved their own individual and eternal welfare ”

“ It is very easy for any one to charge a fellow-creature with immoral and unchristian motives; and it may carry with it the appearance of honest indignation, and of an heroic love of virtue, religion, and truth, when one can tear off the veil of conquest and martial glory from the individual, and expose his naked faults to pity, or contempt, or hatred. ”

“ For it is better for us, cousin, thus to decide this war for ever between our two persons, than to suffer the misbelievers, by occasion of our wars, to destroy Christianity, our holy mother the church to remain in divisions, and the people of God to destroy one another. ”

“ But, in the midst of this, there arises in my mind a kind of cloud, which throws a shade on the glad thought of my heart, whilst I am compelled to fear the general habits of a nation which very often has trifled with the publicly plighted vows and their oath solemnly pledged. And whilst I meditate on past days,—recalling the frauds, crimes, factions, and enormities committed by your enemies,—my soul is made anxious, and my heart is disquieted within me, and my life has well-nigh failed from grief, knowing that to-morrow base deeds may be done as well as yesterday. ”

“ During the dreadful devastations caused by Owyn Glyndowr, great numbers left their mansions and estates a prey to his fury, and saved themselves from personal violence by taking refuge in England, or beyond the seas. Many, too, of those who had made themselves notorious as Owyn's partisans, fled from Wales when his cause began to falter, and avoided the penalty of perseverance in their rebellion, or the humiliating alternative of submission to one whom they deemed a tyrant and usurper. ”

“ Whatever rights, moreover, the Earl of March possessed as lineal heir to the crown, he had, as far as his own personal interest was concerned, over and over again, not merely by a passive acquiescence, but by repeated voluntary acts, virtually resigned, and made over to Henry as actual King; and, lastly, it is clear that Henry's claim was always by himself and by the nation rested on the ground of his being King of England, and, ipso facto, as such, heir of all his predecessors Kings of England. ”

“ He felt not only that he had embarked in an enterprise the result of which was doubtful, in which at all events he must expose his life to numberless unforeseen perils; but that the thread of his mortal existence might at a moment be cut asunder by the hands of the very men to whom he looked for protection and victory. Compared with the wills of other princes (p. 111) and nobles of that day, there is nothing very remarkable in Henry's. From first to last it is tinctured with the superstitions of the corrupt form of our holy religion, then over-spreading England. ”

“ Henry instantly, without a moment's interval, by sound of trumpet ordered his men to form themselves, and attack the body who were advancing upon his rear, and to put the prisoners to death, "lest they should rush upon his men during the fight." ”

“ To subserve the purposes of his own pride and tyranny, he engaged King Henry in his famous contest with France, by which a prodigious carnage was made of the human race, and the most dreadful miseries were brought upon both kingdoms. ”

“ Henry's answer, in Latin, assures them, "If the people of Flanders will behave towards England as they are said to have done in times past, we shall rejoice to give no less valuable indications of our favour than did our father or grandfather; and we have instructed our brother, the Duke of Bedford, and our council, to send ambassadors with full powers to Calais, to negociate a peace between England and you." ”