which the expiring self-deceiver clung for comfort when the world was
receding from his sight; but that in his health and strength, and in
the mid-career of his victories, he had actually taken preliminary
measures for facilitating the execution of that very design.

With regard to the first position asserted by Hume, that "the mode of
these enterprises was gone by," the facts of history are so far from
authorizing him to make such an assertion, that they combine to expose
its rashness and unsoundness. When Henry succeeded to the throne, he
found a large naval and military force actually prepared by his father
for the proclaimed purpose of executing such an enterprise, the
undertaking of which was only prevented by his death.[239] And (p. 312)
even a century after, the mode of those enterprises had not yet
passed; for Pope Leo X. successfully negociated a league between the
chief powers of Christendom, engaging them to unite against the
infidel dominion of the Turk. Not only were such crusades subjects of
serious and practical consideration in Europe just before Henry's
accession to the throne, and a full century after it, but, during the
last years of Henry's life, most vigorous and persevering exertions
were made by the Sovereign Pontiff to effect an immediate expedition
of the confederated powers of Christendom to Palestine, with the
avowed purpose of crushing the power of the infidels. The histories of
those times bear varied evidence to the same points: we must here,
however, confine our attention to some facts more immediately
connected with the case before us. In the year 1420,[240] July 12,
Pope Martin V, conceiving that Sigismund would very shortly bring the
war which he was then waging against the Hussites in Bohemia to an
end, in a bull dated Florence calls upon all Kings, Prelates, Lords,
and people, adjuring them most solemnly, by the shedding of Christ's
blood, to join Sigismund, and under his standard to invade the (p. 313)
lands of the Turks, and to exterminate them. He urges the formation of
one grand general army, and for all true men to take the cross; with
his apostolic promise to all who should so assume the cross, and join
the army in their own persons and at their own charges, and also to
all who should take up arms with the _bona fide_ intention of joining
the army, should they die on their journey, a full remission of all
sins of which they should have repented from the heart, and confess