It were a far easier work to assume that all who were engaged in prosecuting Sir John Oldcastle were men of heartless bigotry, unrelenting enemies to true religion, devoid of every principle of Gospel charity, men of Belial, delighting in deeds of violence and blood; and that the victim of their cruelty, persecuted even to the death solely for his religious sentiments, was a pattern of every Christian excellence, the undaunted champion of Gospel truth, the sainted martyr of the Protestant faith. This were the more easy task, for little further would need to be done in its accomplishment than to select from former writers passages of indiscriminate panegyric on the one hand, and equally indiscriminate vituperation on the other. The investigation of doubtful and disputed facts, to the generality of minds, is irksome and disagreeable; and its results, for the most part removed, as they are, from extreme opinions on either side, are received with a far less keen relish than the glowing eulogy of a partisan, and the unsparing invective of an enemy. Truth, (p. 350) nevertheless, must be our object. Truth is a treasure of intrinsic value, and will retain its worth after the adventitious and forced estimate put upon party views and popular representations shall have passed away. Sir John Oldcastle, who derived the title of Lord Cobham from his wife, was a man of great military talents and prowess, and at the same time a man of piety and zeal for the general good. He was one of the chief benefactors towards the new bridge at Rochester, a work then considered of great public importance; and he founded a chantry for the maintenance of three chaplains. Oldcastle was by no means free from trouble during the reign of Richard II. Indeed, so unsettled was the government, and so violent were the measures adopted against political opponents, and so cheap and vile was human life held, that few could reckon upon security of property or person for an hour. One day a man was seen in a high civil or military station; the next arrested, imprisoned, banished, or put to death. Oldcastle was very nearly made an early victim of these violent proceedings. Among the strong measures to which parliament had recourse about the year 1386, they appointed fourteen lords to conduct the administration, among whom was Lord Cobham. Just ten years afterwards he was arrested, and adjudged to death by the parliament;[266] but his punishment, at the earnest request of certain lords, was commuted for perpetual (p. 351) imprisonment,[267] a sentence from which the lords of parliament revolted,--and he was exiled.[268] From this banishment he returned with Henry of Lancaster, and was restored to all his possessions which had been forfeited. Through the whole reign of Henry IV. we find him in the King's service in Wales and on the Continent. In a summons for a general council of prelates, lords, and knights, dated July 21,