THE P RTAL
January 2015
Page 7
The Popes and the Ordinariate
Dr Harry Schnitker continues his series
The final
century of the English Catholic Church before the Reformation was an extraordinary
period. The great victory of English arms at Agincourt in 1415 had coincided with the election of Pope
Martin V and the end of the Great Western Schism.
There had been no fewer than
three Popes, one in Rome, one in
Avignon and one in Spain. The
English Church, true to form,
had remained loyal to Rome.
In the Ecumenical Council that
ended the schism, at Constance
(1414-18), the English Church
had played a very important role.
resolving the crisis in
the Latin Church
Largely because the Holy
Roman Emperor, Sigismund,
had changed the electoral rules,
the English had been constituted
as one of four ‘nations’, thus
significantly increasing their
votes. With the eclipse of France,
and the relative weakness of the Emperor, Henry V
was one of Europe’s most powerful kings, and this, too,
helped in raising the influence of the English delegates
at the council.
In spite of the fact that there were only three
English bishops and 17 other delegates, making it
one of the smaller groups at the council, there was a
general consensus that the English Church had been
instrumental in resolving the greatest crisis the Latin
Church faced prior to the Reformation.
death of Henry V at only 36
were nominally headed by
John, Duke of Somerset, but
the real power in the family lay
with Henry, and Henry was a
bishop.
Henry Beaufort had been
made Bishop of Lincoln in
1398, and was Lord Chancellor,
the most important political
post in England, between
1403 and 1404, when his halfbrother became King Henry
IV. He would claim the post
again in 1413-17 and once
more between 1424 and 1426.
Moved to the see of
Winchester, Henry was always
close to the centre of power. He backed the Prince of
Wales against his father, and when Henry V assumed
the crown, Henry Beaufort profited. Later in life, he
was to become an international figure.
Pope Martin V had offered to make him a Cardinal,
which Henry V had blocked. However, as one of the
main figures of the regency, he became a Cardinal
in 1426. The next year, he was made Papal Legate
in Germany and Hungary, in which capacity he led
the fourth crusade against the heretical Hussites in
Bohemia.
The brief ascendency of England lasted but a few
years. In 1422, seven years after his stunning victory at
Agincourt, and in possession of both the French crown
and two-thirds of France, Henry V died, aged only 36.
He left behind an infant heir, and had delegated the
regency to his two surviving brothers. The Duke of
Bedford was to become regent in France, the Duke of
Gloucester, in England.
Even in later life, he was still strongly involved in
the affairs of state, and he gained notoriety as the
president of the tribunal that condemned St Joan
of Arc to be burnt at the stake as a witch. Cardinal
Beaufort’s role together with that of the wider English
Church, at the Council of Constance, are high-water
marks of the involvement of English Catholics in the
pre-Reformation Church.
Bishop of Lincoln and Lord Chancellor
Whilst it is true that the English Church had become
increasingly national, this clearly did not excuse it
from playing its part in the wider Catholic community.
In both cases, the fifteenth-century English Church
proved itself a bulwark of orthodoxy.
The Church went on to play a very significant role
in this period, for the baby king was placed in the
care of the Beaufort family, This formidable bunch
of descendants from Edward III and John of Gaunt
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