of
piety which habitually influenced Henry.

His confessor had died, and he had applied to the Archbishop of
Canterbury to select another for him. That primate's answer is full of
interest. The Archbishop gives the King all the authority which he
himself possessed; and yet Henry is obliged to seek permission at the
court of Rome to have a confessor of his own, and to celebrate divine
service at convenient times and in convenient places. He had sent for
a chapel, with altars, vestments, and ministers, from England; and the
warrant is in existence to press carriages and horses to carry them to
the sea, to be transported to him in Normandy. This instrument is
dated February 5th, 1418, and it should seem that all these (p. 246)
preparations were insufficient till he could obtain the Pope's licence
and dispensation in the following August.[185]

[Footnote 185: Archbishop Chicheley's letter to
Henry is preserved among the manuscripts of the
British Museum. MS. Cotton, Vesp. F. xiii. fol.
29.]

The Pope then gives Henry permission to have a confessor of his own
choice, who should once a year during his life, and once also at the
hour of death, give him full pardon for all the sins of which he
repented from the heart, and which he confessed with the mouth;
provided that the confessor take care to have satisfaction given to
those to whom it is due. The Pope adds an earnest hope that this
indulgence would not tempt Henry to commit unlawful acts at all more
freely than before.[186]

[Footnote 186: Gebennis, xv. kal. Sept. Pontif.
nost. ann. I. (August 18, 1418.) Rymer.]

By another act of grace, dated only ten days after the former, King
Henry is permitted to have one or more portable altars, and to have
mass at uncanonical times, and even in prohibited places, provided he
were not himself the cause of the interdict. This grant has also some
curious stipulations annexed: among others it is directed that the
doors shall be shut at such masses, the excommunicated excluded, the
service being conducted without sound of bell and with a low voice.
Especially is it enjoined that liberty to have mass before day (p. 247)
should be used very sparingly, because since our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, is offered as a sacrifice on that altar,--and he is
the brightness of eternal light,--it is right for that t