consists of three bodies:—1. Of the saints in heaven, who during life renounced Satan, the world, and the flesh. 2. Of the souls in purgatory, abiding the mercy of God, and a full deliverance of pain. 3. Of the Church militant, which Church is divided into three estates:—1. Of the priesthood, which ought to teach the Scripture purely, and give example of good living; 2. Of knighthood, which, having the sword, should compel the priesthood to fulfil its duty, and should seclude all false teachers; and 3. Of the common people, who ought to bear obedience to their king and civil governors, and priests."
It moreover declares that the sacraments are necessary to all believers, and that in the sacrament of the altar is contained very Christ's body and blood, that was born of the Virgin and died on the cross. "If a better faith than this," he continues, "can be taught by the word of God, the subscriber will most reverently at all times subscribe thereunto."
According to this confession, the Lollards themselves still recognised the right of compulsion by the state—to compel, at least, the priests to do their duty, and to "seclude all false teachers." This doctrine of compulsion in religious matters accordingly descended as a heritage to the reformed church, and produced its bitter fruits of persecution in all the future reigns of the reformed sovereigns, till stemmed by William III. through the Act of Toleration.
But Henry would not even receive Cobham's confession. His blood was evidently up, and in that mood he was firm as a rook. He declared that he had nothing to do with confessions of faith; they belonged to bishops: forgetting that he had just before undertaken to expound his own faith in order to convert his heretical friend. Cobham then offered, in the spirit of the times, for he was a brave and experienced soldier, to purge himself from the charge of heresy by doing battle with any adversary, Christian or infidel, who dared to accept his challenge. But Henry simply asked him whether he would submit to the decision of the bishops, which he refused; but still, like a good Catholic, offered to appeal to the Pope. Henry's only answer was to leave him to the tender mercies of Arundel, who summoned him before him, and, in conjunction with his three suffragans, the Bishops of London, Winchester, and St. David's, condemned him to be burnt.
Cobham's story, and the story of the whole case of the Lollards, is, unfortunately, told only by their enemies, and the enemies of the Reformation. We are, therefore, necessarily required to be on our guard against exaggeration on their part, and against false charges, which so readily insinuate themselves during times of heated controversy. We find his conduct described while before his prelatical judges as bold and insolent, and theirs, on the contrary, as mild and dignified. But we are not to forget that Cobham stood thore as the representative of a large, earnest, and cruelly-persecuted body; a body, three of whoso leaders—Sawtre, Thorpe, and Badley—had already been burnt, and who believed that they were suffering for "the faith as delivered to the saints;" that he must, therefore, feel himself bound to maintain a confidence befitting his position as the champion of the truth and the cause of the reformed public. It is not to be forgotten that he well knew that those who sat so mildly and in such calm dignity, sat there not to forgive, but to destroy him and all his fellows in the faith, and to exterminate them by the most terrible of deaths. It is, in this view of the question, then, impossible not to recognise in Lord Cobham, not the insolent demagogue, but the brave and undaunted defender of great principles, and of the popular liberty.
"He maintained," says Lingard, "that the Church had ceased to teach the doctrine of the Gospel from the moment that it became infected with the poison of worldly riches; that the clergy were the Antichrist; that the Pope was the head, the bishops and prelates the limbs, and the religious orders the tail of the beast. That the only true successor of St. Peter was he who most faithfully practised the virtues of St. Peter." And that then, turning to the spectators and extending his arms, he exclaimed, "Beware of the men who sit here as my judges. They will seduce both you and themselves, and will lead you to hell."
But there is that direct discrepancy between this statement and the confession just preceding it, that we must regard the latter representation as exaggerated or distorted. To appeal to the Pope and acknowledge his authority in the one, and describe him as the Antichrist and the beast in the other, is too glaringly absurd to be true of a man like Lord Cobham. The upshot, however, of the trial was, that which had been determined on from the first; after two days' hearing, in which he eloquently and heroically defended his doctrines before the whole synod of prelates and abbots, he was condemned to expiate his heresy at the stake, and meantime was committed to the Tower for safe custody. In the words of the record, he was "sweetly and modestly condemned to be burnt alive on the 10th of October." But Henry still was not prepared to acquiesce in so desperate a doom on one who had spent with him so many mirthful days. He granted the reformer a respite of fifty days; and before that time had expired, Lord Cobham had managed to escape from his prison, probably by the connivance of his lenient sovereign.
But once more at large, and in communication with his friends and confederates, Cobham became all the more active in his plans for the maintenance of the great cause. The Church had now manifested its intentions; it had shown that it was not conversion, but destruction of the whole body of the reformers that it was resolved upon; and the question, therefore, with the persecuted sect naturally was, by what means it was to prevent the fate menacing it. If we are to believe the chroniclers of the times, the Lollards resolved to anticipate their enemies, to take up arms, and to repel force by force. That seeing clearly that war to the death was determined against them by the Church, and that the king had yielded at least a tacit consent to this iniquitous policy, they came to the conclusion to kill not only the bishops, but the king and all his kin.
So atrocious a conspiracy is not readily to be credited against men who contended for a greater purity of gospel truth, nor against men of the practical and military knowledge of Lord Cobham. But over the whole of these transactions there hangs a veil of impenetrable mystery, and we can only say that the Lollards are charged with endeavouring to surprise the king and his brother at
