ed
with the mouth; and, "in the retribution of the just, we promise them
(says the Pontiff) an increase of eternal salvation."[241]

[Footnote 239: Fabyan, 388.]

[Footnote 240: Annales Ecclesiastici, vol. xii.
Ann. 1517. See much interesting matter relating to
the whole of this subject in these Annales
Ecclesiastici of Baronius, continued by Raynaldus.]

[Footnote 241: Florentiae, iv. idus Julii, anno 3.
Annales Eccles. v. viii.]

In the following year the Pope wrote a most urgent letter to
Sigismund, pressing upon him, before and above all things, the duty of
extirpating the heresy in Bohemia; assuring him that, however
brilliant might be his career in other respects, yet by no means could
he so well secure the favour of God, renown among men, and the
stability of his throne. The Pontiff, in the same year, wrote
repeatedly to Henry, King of England, urging him to consent to terms
of peace between his country and France. We should have been glad had
we been able to contemplate the Pontiff of Rome, in the character of a
Christian mediator, urging two contending nations to be reconciled,
solely with the Christian desire of stopping the dominion of war and
blood, reconciling those who were at variance, checking the (p. 314)
violent passions of mankind, and restoring to Europe the blessing of
peace. But his desire was to reconcile France and England, in order
that the concentrated powers of the faithful in Europe might be turned
against the heretics in the north; and, when they were exterminated,
then that the same forces might proceed to crush the infidel, and
rescue the lands of the faithful from his grasp. The ecclesiastical
historian,[242] who records the letters of the Sovereign Pontiff,
assures us that Henry, King of England, had been repeatedly admonished
by "the vicar of Christ to make peace with the French, and to dedicate
to Christ his skill in war against the Turks, those savage enemies of
the Gospel; adding (what the facts of the case did not justify him in
saying,) that, in the agonies of his last illness, Henry confessed
that he was dreadfully tormented with remorse because he had not
consecrated his martial powers by waging war against the
Mahometans."[243] Surely this testimony is of itself sufficient to
rescue Henry's memory from having vowed that he had resolved t