184 THE GREAT STATUTE OF PRAEMUNIRE April That this interpretation is correct becomes still more likely when we examine the effect of the statute, whether on contem- porary opinion or on the relations between England and the papacy. No chronicler living at the time gives an accurate account of its contents. Neither the St. Albans chroniclers, 1 nor the Continuator of Knighton, nor the ' Monk of Evesham ' say anything of anti-papal legislation under the year 1393. The Westminster Continuator of the Polychronicon states that the Winchester parliament confirmed the statute of provisors, 2 an assertion which, on any view of its proceedings, is incorrect. In fact, of the annalists with any claim to be regarded as con- temporary" authorities, only the Continuator of the Eulogium Historiarum and the author of the work called by Mr. Kingsford A Southern Chronicle suggest that new and important legislation affecting the papacy was passed at this parliament. Probably, too, these should be regarded as but a single witness, seeing that for the reign of Richard II they used a common source ; and since both confuse the statute of 1393 with the statute of provisors of 1390, in which year they evidently suppose the Winchester parliament to have been held, 3 their testimony is not of much value. There is, it is true, what seems at first sight to be an allu- sion to the statute of 1393 in a manifesto containing a number of charges against Henry IV and probably composed in 1407. 4 Henry is denounced for having ratified and kept in force an anti- papal statute ' promulgated and renewed ' at a parliament at Winchester. But an examination of the evils said to have been wrought by this measure shows that the author was thinking of own chamber, at which proposals and requests might be made to the king's representa- tives by word of mouth. In any event, there is no reason whatever to suppose that the commons did not approve of what was done. Lingard, however, deserves credit for his reluctance to believe that in one and the same parliament the commons virtually sanctioned the abrogation of the statute of provisors and initiated the most drastic of the anti-papal laws passed in medieval England, and for his recognition of the incompatibility between the assent of the prelates to such a measure and their protest against limitations of papal authority four years later. But all the real difficulties that perplexed him can be satisfactorily met if the statute be interpreted in the way I have suggested. 1 Walsingham, it should be remembered, showed great interest in the statute of provisors and in the attempts of the pope to secure its repeal. 2 Cont. Polychron. ix. 279. 3 Eulog. Hist. (Rolls Ser.), iii. 368; Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 11714, fo. IT. On the relation between these two authorities, see Kingsford, English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century, pp. 28 seqq.
- It has generally been held that the document was drawn up by Archbishop
Scrope in justification of his rebellion ; but Dr. J. H. Wylie argued that it was composed after the archbishop's death and circulated in 1407 in preparation for the earl of Northumberland's rising in the following year, and that it was not ' the composition of a practical politician at all, but an elaborate outburst of academical indignation compiled by some disappointed student' (History of England under Henry IV, ii. 214 seq.).
