e to the English; and divided the
duty and affections of the French between them and the dauphin. This
prince was proclaimed and crowned king of France at Poictiers, by the
name of Charles VII. Rheims, the place where this ceremony is usually
performed, was at that time in the hands of his enemies.

Catharine of France, Henry's widow, married, soon after his death, a
Welsh gentleman, Sir Owen Tudor, said to be descended from the ancient
princes of that country: she bore him two sons, Edmund and Jasper,
of whom the eldest was created earl of Richmond; the second earl of
Pembroke The family of Tudor, first raised to distinction by this
alliance, mounted afterwards the throne of England.

The long schism, which had divided the Latin church for near forty
years, was finally terminated in this reign by the council of Constance;
which deposed the pope, John XXIII., for his crimes, and elected Martin
V. in his place, who was acknowledged by almost all the kingdoms of
Europe. This great and unusual act of authority in the council, gave the
Roman pontiffs ever after a mortal antipathy to those assemblies. The
same jealousy which had long prevailed in most European countries,
between the civil aristocracy and monarchy, now also took place between
these powers in the ecclesiastical body. But the great separation of the
bishops in the several states, and the difficulty of assembling them,
gave the pope a mighty advantage, and made it more easy for him to
centre all the powers of the hierarchy in his own person. The cruelty
and treachery which attended the punishment of John Huss and Jerome
of Prague, the unhappy disciples of Wickliffe, who, in violation of
a safe-conduct were burned alive for their errors by the council of
Constance prove this melancholy truth, that toleration is none of the
virtues of priests in any form of ecclesiastical government But as the
English nation had little or no concern in these great transactions, we
are here the more concise in relating them.

The first commission of array which we meet with, was issued in this
reign.[*] The military part of the feudal system, which was the most
essential circumstance of it, was entirely dissolved, and could no
longer serve for the defence of the kingdom. Henry, therefore, when he
went to France, in 1415, empowered certain commissioners to take in each
county a review of all the freemen able to bear arms, to divide them
into companies, and to keep them in readines