m
to claim France as his inheritance; thus withdrawing his mind from a
measure so fatal to their interests. Though the evidence on which such
a tradition rests is by no means satisfactory, we may perhaps receive
it as probable. That the Commons were clamorous for the confiscation
of the ecclesiastical revenues, and that the clergy voluntarily voted
a very large subsidy to aid the King in prosecuting his alleged rights
on the Continent, are matters of historical certainty. That the
ecclesiastics, moreover, originally suggested to him the design of
reviving his dormant claim to an inheritance in the fair realm of
France, and then fostered the thought, and justified the undertaking
by argument, and pledged their priestly word for the righteousness of
his cause, is doubtless no unreasonable supposition. Still the clergy
do not appear to have been in the least more eager in the scheme, or
more anxious to protect themselves and their revenues from spoliation
by such a scheme, than were the laity enthusiastically bent on a
harvest of national glory and aggrandizement from its success.[64] In
a word, the King himself, the nobles, and the people, all seem (p. 072)
to have been equally determined to engage in the enterprise, and
to support each other in the resolution that it was not only
practicable, but most fully justifiable by the laws of God and man.

[Footnote 64: The people of England gave frequent
proofs of their desire to seize every opportunity
of reaping glory from conquests in France. When the
Duke of Burgundy and the confederated princes, in
the struggle to which we have before referred,
applied in the first instance for assistance to
Henry IV, Laboureur tells us that Henry replied to
the latter that he was compelled to accept the
offer of the Duke of Burgundy, to avoid the
irritation and discontent of his subjects, which
would be raised if he neglected so favourable an
opportunity of forwarding the national interests.]

That Henry's high spirit predisposed him to listen with readiness and
satisfaction to the suggestions of his subjects in this behalf, we may
well believe; but that he would have been driven by a dominant
ambition to engage in a war of conquest against the acknowledged
pr