Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/208

200 THE GREAT STATUTE OF PRAEMUN1RE April bewailed the abuse of the writ of praemunire in terms almost identical with those which he afterwards used in 1439, 1 and though the record of this convocation contains no mention of the statute, it is almost certain that it furnished the ground of the proceedings to which the primate referred. Chichele, we are told, asserted on this occasion that the use of the writ ' in any matter within the realm ' had been unknown until the last few years. This is of course false, and even if he meant ' any matter originating within the realm ', it would still be inaccurate. 2 Probably the archbishop has been misreported and really said that it was only of late that the writ had been used in restraint of English spiritual courts. In any case, the passage points to the fact that the writ had recently been put to novel uses, and this makes it likely that the statute had attracted particular notice not long before. Now a few years earlier Humphrey duke of Gloucester had been trying hard to compass the ruin of Cardinal Beaufort by charges arising out of the latter 's acceptance of the red hat in 1426. His nearest approach to success was in November 1431, when, Henry VI and the cardinal being absent in France, the king's serjeant and attorney, citing the precedents of Arch- bishops Kilwardby and Langham, urged in the council that Beaufort should be deprived of his see of Winchester, which he had papal dispensation to retain. Gloucester then elicited from the bishop of Worcester that the late bishop of Lichfield 3 had said that he had sued at Rome for the exemption of the cardinal from the jurisdiction of Canterbury and had paid for it. When asked what they thought of these things, the councillors expressed the opinion that nothing should be done until those concerned had been duly summoned, that the ancient records should be searched, and that the justices should state their views on the question. 4 Three weeks later, however, the council agreed that writs of praemunire and attachment against the cardinal should be sealed ' on the statute ', though they were not to be executed until the king returned to England. 5 1 ' lurisdictio ecclesiastica per brevia regia et alias vias exquisitas et imaginata brevia plus solito perturbata extitit et impedita, et praecipue per brevia ilia de Prae- muniri facias ", quae nonnisi infra paucos annos in aliqua materia infra regnum aliquem habebant cursum ' : Wilkins, iii. 523. 2 For the early history of the writ, see Palgrave, pp. 40, 131, and Leadam and Baldwin, Select Cases before the King's Council (Selden Society), pp. 43 seq., 50. 3 John Caterick, who held the see from 1415 to 1419. Martin V had offered to make Beaufort a cardinal in 1418, but Henry V had forbidden him to accept (Letters and Papers illustrative of the Wars of the English in France (Rolls Ser.), ii. 441 ; cf. Duck, Vita Henrici Chichele (1617), pp. 76 seq., 78). 4 Ord. Priv. Council, iv. 100 seq. 5 Ibid. pp. 104 seq. : ' Concordatum fuit quod brevia de premunire facias et attarhiamento super statute contra Cardinalem sigillentur sed quod execucio eorundcm diffeiatur usque adventum Regis in Angliam.'