Brittany, Charles King of France, and Pope John
XXIII.]

The first parliament of Henry V. met in the Painted Chamber (p. 006)
at Westminster, on Monday, 15th of May. The King was on his throne;
but the Bishop of Winchester, his uncle, then Chancellor of England,
opened the business of the session. On this, as on many similar
occasions, the chancellor, generally a prelate, addressed the
assembled states in an oration, half speech and half sermon, upon a
passage of Scripture selected as a text. On the opening of this
parliament, the chancellor informed the peers and the commons that the
King's purpose in calling them together as the Great Council of the
nation was threefold:--First, he was desirous of supporting the
throne,--"his high and royal estate;" secondly, he was bent on
maintaining the law and good government within his realm; and thirdly,
he desired to cherish the friends and to resist the enemies of his
kingdom. It is remarkable that no mention is made in this parliament
at all on the part of the King, or his chancellor, of either heresy or
Lollardism. The speaker refers to some tumults, especially at
Cirencester, where the populace appear to have attacked the abbey;
complaints also were made against the conduct of ordinaries, and some
strong enactments were passed against the usurpations of Rome, (p. 007)
to which reference will again be made: but not a word in answer
to these complaints would lead to the inference that the spirit of
persecution was then in the ascendant. It was not till the last day of
April 1414, after the affair of St. Giles' Field, that the statute
against the Lollards was passed at Leicester.[8] The chancellor at
that subsequent period speaks of their treasonable designs to destroy
the King having been lately discovered and discomfited; and the record
expressly declares that the ordinance was made with the consent and at
the prayer of the commons.

[Footnote 8: Sir Edward Coke, in his 4th Inst. ch.
i. declares that this act was disavowed in the next
parliament by the Commons, for that they never
assented. The Author has searched the Parliament
Rolls in vain for the authority on which that
assertion was founded.]

But though neither the King nor his council gave any indication, in
his first parliament, of a desire to interfere wit