Sec. 247. Falstaff's commitment to prison.

"Ch. Jus. Go carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet. Take all his company along with him."

This is the Chief Justice's sentence against the "Fat Knight," that he be taken and incarcerated in the Fleet street prison, which takes its name from the river Fleet, that flows by it, and upon which a gate of the prison opened. The Fleet Prison was first used by those who were condemned by the Star Chamber, but it was used before its destruction, as a prison for all kinds of offenders.3

12' Henry IV, Act V, Scene V.

'Rolfe's 2' Henry IV, pp. 254, 255,

'Ante idem.

Sec. 248.

249.

CHAPTER XX.

"KING HENRY THE FIFTH."

Seditious and insurrectionary bills.

Bills against Ecclesiastics.

250. Henry the Fifth's favor toward Ecclesiastics.

251. Salic Law and Henry the Fifth's Claim to France. Lex terra salica explained.

252.

255. Departments of Government working harmoniously. 256. Adultery.

257. Capital crimes.

258. Motive for crime.

259. Money paid in earnest.

260.

261.

Divesting property rights.

Respondeat superior not applicable to King and subject. 262. Bearing testimony.

263. Martial Law.

Sec. 248. Seditious and insurrectionary bills.—

"Cant.

My lord, I'll tell you, that self bill is urg'd,
Which, in the eleventh year o' the last king's reign,
Was like, and had indeed against us passed,
But that the scrambling and unquiet time
Did push it out of further question."1

This has reference to the attempt, on the part of those called heretics or Lollards, to stir up an insurrection against the established church, by laws forbidding the holding of lands and property by the church. Certain secretaries, during the reign of Henry IV, held language of the most extreme character and "described an established church as unlawful and told the people not to pay their tithes. The lords and commons presented a petition to the king, stating that the secretaries excited the

people to take away the possessions of the church, of which the clergy were as assuredly endowed, as the temporal lords were of their inheritances and that if these evil purposes were not resisted, they would move the people to take away the property of the latter and have all things in common, to the open commotion of the people and the subversion of the realm.1

Sec. 249. Bills against ecclesiastics.—

"Cant.

If it pass against us,

We lose the better half of our possession;
For all the temporal lands, which men devout
By testament have given to the church,

Would they strip from us; being valued thus,-
As much as would maintain, to the king's honour,
Full fifteen earls, and fifteen hundred knights;
Six thousand and two hundred good esquires;
And, to relief of lazars, and weak age,

Of indigent faint souls, past corporal toil,
A hundred alms houses, right well supplied;
And to the coffers of the king beside,

A thousand pound by the year; thus runs the bill."

The growing devices practiced by ecclesiastics for the enlargement of the domains of the church, which originally led to the enactment of the statute of mortmain and the later statute (15 Richard II, c. V)3 preventing the purchase of lands, for the use of the church, by lay cor

'III Rot. Parl. fol. 583; III Reeve's History Eng. Law, p. 427.

The bill referred to, led to the passage of an act, of which Mr. Reeves said: "The meeting of heretics in their conventicles and schools are stigmatized in this act with the name of confederacies to stir up sedition and insurrection; the very pretence that had been made use of by the Romans against the primitive Christians, and which had been adopted by the Romish church ever since, to suppress all opposition to inquiry into its errors." III Reeve's History English Law, p. 426.

2 Henry V, Act I. Scene I.

III Reeve's History Eng. Law, 365.

porations, or others, for its benefit, led to the agitation and attempt to enact into statutory law, other edicts to limit the growing covetousness of the church, during the reign of Henry V. During this period parliament was apprehensive not only of heresy, but of communism, revolution and spoilation.

An open revolt was threatened, about the time to which the Archbishop addresses himself, and the commons, in their address to the king, stated that "the insurgents attempted to destroy the faith, the king, the temporal and spiritual power and all manner of policy and law;" to which the king replied, that "they meant to destroy him, and the lords, to confiscate the possessions of the church, to secularize the religious orders, to divide the realm into confederate districts and to appoint a president of the commonwealth."1

Sec. 250. Henry V's favor toward ecclesiastics.—
"Ely. But what prevention?

Cant. The king is full of grace and fair regard.
Ely. And a true lover of the holy church.'

These lines indicate an accurate knowledge, by the Poet, of the history of the legislation favorable to the ecclesiastics, during the early period of the reign of Henry V, as detailed by the histories of the statutes of this reign. Speaking of these acts, Reeves said: "The whole secular power seems, at the beginning of this reign, to have been made subservient to the ends of the prelates in suppressing

1 Wols, 385; Rot. Parl. iv, 24; Rym, ix, 89, 193; III Reeve's History Eng. Law, p. 427.

It was the belief of this age that revolution was threatened and the statutes passed at this period, against the Lollards and heretics, were not the result of the agitation of the clergy alone, but also of the nobility and commonalty of the realm. (See, 2' Henry V, st. 1, c. vii.)

Henry V, Act I, Scene I.

the Lollards." In the preamble of the statute against the Lollards, they were treated as state criminals and people confederated to destroy the king; the justices and other peace officers, on taking their offices, were required to take an oath to use the power of their various offices to destroy such heresies; they were made to suffer forfeiture of their goods, as in the case of felons, and heresy being a spiritual offense, within ten days after their arrest they were delivered to the holy church to be tried in accordance with its rules, and thus the intolerance and persecution of the church was given full sway.2

Sec. 251. Salic law and Henry V's claim to France.—
My learned lord, we pray you to pro-

"K. Hen.

ceed,

And justly and religiously unfold,

Why the law Salique, that they have in France,
Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim."s

The code of laws known as the salic law is a collection of the popular laws of the Salic or Salian Franks, committed to writing in barbarous Latin, in the 5' century. Several texts of this code are in existence, but because of the dark ages in which it had its origin, more or less mystery surrounds it. The code relates principally to the definition and punishment of crimes, but there is a chapter or portion of the code relating to the succession of salic lands, which was probably inserted in the law, at a later date. Salic lands, or terra salica, came to mean inherited land as distinguished from property otherwise acquired, but even in the 15' century, as the verse quoted indicates, there was but little known as to the origin or exact meaning of this law. It was by a very doubtful construction that the salic law in the 14' century was held to exclude the suc