te 304: The Minutes of Council, 27th May,
1415, record that the King should be advised, as to
issuing a commission to the Archbishops and
Bishops, to take measures, each in his own diocese,
to resist the malice of the Lollards. The King
replied, that he had committed the subject to the
charge of the chancellor.]

* * * * *

The Author, however, is induced to confess that a comparison of the
events of Henry's reign with those which preceded his accession, and
followed his death, has compelled him to form more than a merely
negative opinion on Henry of Monmouth's principles and conduct and
influence. In addition to the circumstances detailed in these
chapters, he would solicit attention to one fact, which no historical
writer seems to have noticed. During the last years of Henry IV. a
greater number of persons appear to have suffered in the fires of
martyrdom than the accounts of our chroniclers would lead us to
suppose.[305] By the cruel operation of the law, the goods and
chattels of convicted heretics were escheated to the crown; and when
Henry came to the throne, several widows and orphans were suffering
severely from the effects of that ruthless enactment. No sooner had he
the power of relieving their distress, than, in the exercise of the
most divine prerogative of the kingly office, he restored to many
their confiscated property. The most correct notion of the motives
which influenced him will be conveyed by the language itself of (p. 413)
the several grants: "We, compassionating the poverty of Isabella,
widow of Richard Turner, who was convicted and put to death for
heresy, of our especial grace have granted to the said Isabella all
the goods and chattels to us forfeited, for the maintenance of herself
and of her children."[306] Similar grants are recorded, and all in the
first year of his reign, to Alice widow of Walter Yonge, Isabella
widow of John Horewood, and Matilda widow of John Fynche; their
several husbands having suffered for maintaining opinions then
pronounced heretical. This fact seems to be not only confirmatory of
the views we have taken of Henry's tender-heartedness and sympathy
with the afflicted and helpless, but indicative also of the absence of
whatever approaches a persecuting and vindictive spirit towards those
who had incurred the extreme penal