home
and abroad, he might be able to devote his concentrated exertions to
an object of such paramount importance. Perhaps the ambition of his
uncle Henry Beaufort, who evidently was looking for personal
aggrandizement in wealth and dignity, and who had given so decided and
unhappy a turn in the council of Constance in favour of the Pope's
party, might have devised some means for seducing his nephew's ardent
thoughts into another channel. To whatever cause we may be disposed to
attribute it, the reality is, that Henry V, when he died, had not
effected reform on any comprehensive scale in his own realm; nor had
he given any decided blow to the dominion and the corruptions of the
church of Rome. His short life was a career of wars and victories.

It pleased the Almighty, in his inscrutable wisdom, to bring (p. 069)
about the reformation of the church in his own way, by his own means,
and at his own appointed time. We recognise his hand in the blessing
which we have inherited, and are thankful.

CHAPTER XIX. (p. 070)

WARS WITH FRANCE. -- CAUSES WHICH INFLUENCED HENRY. -- SUMMARY OF THE
AFFAIRS OF FRANCE FROM THE TIME OF EDWARD III. -- REFLECTIONS ON
HENRY'S TITLE. -- AFFAIRS OF FRANCE FROM HENRY'S RESOLUTION TO CLAIM
HIS "DORMANT RIGHTS," AND "RIGHTFUL HERITAGE," TO HIS INVASION OF
NORMANDY. -- NEGOCIATIONS. -- HIS RIGHT DENIED BY THE FRENCH. --
PARLIAMENT VOTES HIM SUPPLIES.

1414.

WARS WITH FRANCE.

It falls not within the province of these Memoirs to justify the
proceedings of Henry of Monmouth with regard to France, by an
examination into the soundness of his claims, and the abstract
principles on which he and his subjects and advisers rested them. But
it is incumbent on any one who would estimate his character uprightly,
to weigh the considerations by which he was influenced in the
undertaking, neither according to our present standard, nor
independently of all the circumstances of the age in which he lived,
and the sentiments then generally prevalent among men of education and
reputed probity.

Historians have generally represented it as an established fact (p. 071)
that the clergy, especially the Archbishop of Canterbury, alarmed
at the bold and urgent call of the Commons upon the King to seize the
church patrimony, and from its proceeds apply whatever was required by
the exigencies of the state, hit upon the expedient of stimulating hi