Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

ARCHBISHOP.
311
dynasty, and made the long regency of his infant son
possible, to the undoing of England. The warning
words of the Pope, whether addressed to the king,
whose heart was set upon a "chimerical conquest, or
to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry's trusted
counsellor, fell upon cfeaf ears. " Labour therefore
with all your might," he wrote to Chicheley, " that
the execrable statute against the liberty of the
Church be repealed, and neither observe it yourself
nor let it be observed by others. . . . This, if you
neglect to do, no declaration of your good will to us
and the Holy Bee will be of avail." 1
Chicheley temporised. The favourable opportunity
passed away. Henry V., who was in France, and
heart and soul in its conquest, put off the Pope by
saving * O he would consider the matter on his return
to England. He never did return. He left his
sceptre in the hands of a baby, and its responsibilities
in a Council of Regency. It was not till
1428 that Chicheley at last obeyed the Pope's injunctions,
and publicly invited a deputation from the
Commons to abrogate the Prccmunirc Statutes. He
pointed out the Pope's right to make "provisions,"
but nothing seems to have come of his tardy protest.
Half-hearted as it was, there is some appearance
that it was prompted by a human motive. Henry
Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, was a natural son
of John of Gaunt, and therefore uncle to Henry Y.
In 1418 Martin V'. nominated him a cardinal, and it
1 Hook, Live* of Archbishop, p. 92.