hopes. A magistrate, having on a certain occasion condemned to merited punishment one of the dissolute associates of the prince, Henry, who was present at the trial, was so incensed as to strike the judge while sitting on the bench of justice. The magistrate, with great dignity, ordered him to be immediately committed to prison. So far from resisting the order, the offender went quietly and submissively to the marshalsea, thus manifesting a deep sense of the impropriety of his conduct, and a due regard for the authority of the laws. When the king was informed of this transaction, he could not forbear to exclaim, Happy the sovereign who is blest with so faithful a "magistrate; but still more happy the royal parent, who "has a son willing to submit to such chastisement!" This is one of the earliest instances of the supremacy of the laws over arbitrary power; and it affords a gratifying proof, that the English constitution was rapidly approaching to that state of excellence, which it has since acquired. Soon after this memorable transaction, the king's health declined rapidly. Influenced by superstitious motives, he felt desirous of taking the cross before he expired; and with this view, summoned his parliament together, and obtained a vote of supply. But the swift progress of the disease frustrated his design. As he drew near his end, he manifested even a childish solicitude about his crown, always requiring that it should be placed on his pillow, when he retired to rest; and that, at other times, it should be kept constantly in sight. But death soon plucked this idol from his grasp. Being seized with a fit when engaged in his accustomed devotions in the chapel of St. Edward at Westminster, he was removed to the adjacent apartments of the abbot, where he expired on the 20th of March, A. D. 1413, in the forty-sixth year of his age, and the fourteenth of his reign. Rymer. Walsing. Otterbourne. Ang. Sac. Act. Pub. REFLECTIONS. The sovereign whose reign has been sketched in the preceding pages, claims our commiseration rather than our hatred. His crown was indeed planted with thorns. So fruitful a source did it prove of anxieties, cares, and sorrows, that it might rather have been expected, that he would gladly have resigned it to a successor, than that it should have become the idol of his affections. Placed through the whole of his public life in circumstances of peculiar difficulty, many of the severest and most sanguinary measures adopted by him were acts of self-defence and political necessity. Urged onward by the favour of the multitude who flocked around his standard, he was tempted to usurp a crown, which, it is probable, at first he had not the most distant thought of obtaining. Goaded by his rebellious subjects to deeds of violence, he perpetrated crimes which, it is probable, at the commencement of his political career, he would have thought himself incapable of committing. But the blackest stain in his character, and one which must ever render his name and memory odious, is, the sanction given by him to the murderous law for the burning of heretics; especially when it is remembered that his father, the celebrated John of Gaunt, had been the great patron and promoter of the sect, against which this statute was levelled, and that he had himself in his youth openly professed their tenets. No time-serving policy, no fear of man, no imaginary expediency can be admitted for a moment as an excuse for so base an abandonment of his former friends. How deceived are fallible men in their calculations and hopes! When this prince ascended the throne, it is more than probable that the followers of Wickliffe, who formed a very considerable part of the nation, cherished the fondest anticipations of peace and prosperity. They esteemed it an interposition of divine Providence in their favour, that one of their own body, the son of their distinguished patron and protector, was so unexpectedly recalled from exile, to sway the sceptre: nor can it be doubted, that they looked forward, not merely to the unrestrained exercise of their religious rights, but to the wide and rapid diffusion of sacred light throughout the land, and the utter fall of papal antichrist. But ah! how cruelly did their expectations deceive them. A few short months had scarcely elapsed before this monarch of their hopes signed an edict, which exposed them indiscriminately to the most agonizing death; an edict more sanguinary and unjust than any which Rome had enacted in all the plenitude of her power. "It is better to trust in the Lord, than to put confidence in princes." How many a parent can fully sympathize with this English monarch, in the grief and mortification occasioned by the youthful profligacy of his once hopeful son! Among all the forms of sorrow which walk to and fro throughout the earth, and especially which haunt the domestic circle, there is none so overwhelming as this to the susceptible mind. Yet even in such a case, there is no cause for despondency, so long as the blush of conscious guilt is observed sometimes to suffuse the cheek, and the pangs of inward remorse are occasionally inscribed on the countenance. These afford a pleasing presage of better things, and may lead to as remarkable a reformation of character and conduct as that which took place in the prince whose youthful profligacy has been described. This transformation may not, indeed, take place, as in the present instance, till after the languishing head and the lacerated heart of the christian parent are at rest. But he may without presumption cherish, even in his last moments, the cheering hope, that through the tender mercies of the Most High, and by the constraining influence of his grace, the profligate will be reclaimed, and that posterity may record concern. ing him, or rather the angelic hosts announce to him in the celestial world, "This thy son was dead, but is alive again-was lost, but is found." ESSAY II. The Reign of HENRY V. (of Monmouth.) NOTWITHSTANDING the defective title of prince Henry, and the profligacy of his youth, he had given such undoubted proofs of courage, talent, and generosity of character, that the whole nation hailed his accession with the most rapturous joy. The satisfaction with which they contemplated this event, was heightened by the manifest reformation of conduct which immediately followed. Calling together the former associates of his guilt, he informed them of the resolution he had made to break off his vicious habits, exhorted them to imitate his example, and forbade them to enter into his presence, till they had given satisfactory evidence of their total reformation. He afforded distinguished marks of his favour to such of his father's ministers of state as had most faithfully reproved, and even punished, his youthful excesses. In order to compensate, in some degree, for the injustice of his father to the unhappy monarch who preceded him, he caused the body of Richard II. to be interred at Westminster with great pomp; and so far from appear ing jealous of the young earl of March, whose title to the throne was superior to his own, he treated him with great distinction, and manifested towards him the most cordial friendship. This generous conduct secured to him the esteem, and even the admiration, of all parties, who vied with each other in expressions of loyalty and attachment. Yet amiable as this youthful monarch appeared at the commencement of his reign, one forbidding feature soon developed itself in his character; but which is rather to be accounted the fault of the age in which he lived, than an offence with which he was individually chargeable. This was the spirit of intolerance in matters of conscience, which led to greater excesses and more violent persecutions in this, than in the preceding, reign. Arundel, the archbishop of Canterbury, embraced the earliest opportunity after Henry's accession, to stir up the king to execute the laws against heretics, and proved but too successful in his application. He first obtained permission to prosecute sir John Oldcastle, or, as he was otherwise called, lord Cobham, a nobleman of distinguished rank and great reputation, but also a zealous disciple of Wickliffe, and the reputed leader of the sect of the Lollards. The primate, after a summary trial, convicted him of heresy, and delivered him to the secular power to be burnt; but on the day previous to the intended execution of the sentence, lord Cobham effected his escape from the Tower. The spirit of resentment now prompted this unfortunate nobleman to join with others in a conspiracy against the government which had unjustly doomed him to death, and his influence with the Lollards enabled him to detach many of that sect from their allegiance. But the vigilance of the king and his ministers soon detected and disconcerted the plot, if indeed any such plot existed, for the enmity of the historians of that to this persecuted sect, renders their testimony concerning them exceedingly suspicious. Lord Cobham fled, and was not discovered till nearly four years afterwards, when he was apprehended, and sentenced both to be hung as a traitor, and burnt as a heretic. age The fall of so great a man, who had long stood high in public estimation, involved both the king and the higher orders of the clergy in temporary disgrace. To prevent the growth of disaffection, which had in some instances manifested itself strongly, and no less to gratify his personal ambition, the king resolved to commence a war with France. The frenzied state of Charles VI., the sovereign of that empire, the furious factions by which it was rent asunder, the intestine wars which depopulated its cities and provinces, all concurred to strengthen the probability of success. The leaders of the two opposite French factions were, the dukes of Burgundy and Orleans, who were so inveterate against each other, and whose respective parties were so nearly balanced in |