in his
appointment as sheriff of Herefordshire and as castellan of Brecknock; and
he was among the leaders who were chosen in later years for service in
France. His warlike renown endeared him to the king, and Prince Henry
counted him among the most illustrious of his servants. The favour of the
royal house was the more noteable that Oldcastle was known as "leader and
captain" of the Lollards. His Kentish castle of Cowling served as the
headquarters of the sect, and their preachers were openly entertained at
his houses in London or on the Welsh border. The Convocation of 1413
charged him with being "the principal receiver, favourer, protector, and
defender of them; and that, especially in the dioceses of London,
Rochester, and Hereford, he hath sent out the said Lollards to preach ...
and hath been present at their wicked sermons, grievously punishing with
threatenings, terror, and the power of the secular sword such as did
withstand them, alleging and affirming among other matters that we, the
bishops, had no power to make any such Constitutions" as the Provincial
Constitutions, in which they had forbidden the preaching of unlicensed
preachers. The bold stand of Lord Cobham drew fresh influence from the
sanctity of his life. Though the clergy charged him with the foulest
heresy, they owned that he shrouded it "under a veil of holiness." What
chiefly moved their wrath was that he "armed the hands of laymen for the
spoil of the Church." The phrase seems to hint that Oldcastle was the
mover in the repeated attempts of the Commons to supply the needs of the
State by a confiscation of Church property. In 1404 they prayed that the
needs of the kingdom might be defrayed by a confiscation of Church lands,
and though this prayer was fiercely met by Archbishop Arundel it was
renewed in 1410. The Commons declared as before that by devoting the
revenues of the prelates to the service of the state maintenance could be
made for fifteen earls, fifteen hundred knights, and six thousand squires,
while a hundred hospitals might be established for the sick and infirm.
Such proposals had been commonly made by the baronial party with which the
house of Lancaster had in former days been connected, and hostile as they
were to the Church as an establishment they had no necessary connexion
with any hostility to its doctrines. But a direct sympathy with Lollardism
was seen in the further proposals of the Commons. They prayed for the
abolition of