Hall's version is this: "The King, first having compassion on the (p. 360) nobleman, required the prelates, if he were a strayed sheep,[275] rather by gentleness than by rigour to bring him back again to his old flock: after that, he, sending for him, godly exhorted and lovingly admonished him to reconcile himself to God and his laws. The Lord Cobham thanked the King for his most favourable clemency, affirming his grace to be his supreme head and competent judge, and no other." [Footnote 275: Carte suggests that Lord Cobham might have been one of Henry's [supposed] rakish companions. But such a supposition as would stain his memory with debauchery, is altogether at variance with his character. Carte has no doubt of the reality of Cobham's conspiracy in St. Giles' Field.] The record, as it is found in the Archbishop's Memoirs, is as follows. Having stated that, of the tracts which had been condemned to the flames for their heretical contents, one consisting of many smaller tracts full of more dangerous doctrine, tending to the subversion of the faith and the church, was found at an illuminator's in Paternoster Row, who confessed that it was Lord Cobham's, and another was brought from Coventry, full of poison against the Church of God, the Archbishop's record thus proceeds: "The day on which the said tracts were condemned and burnt, certain tracts, containing more important and more dangerous errors of the said Lord John Oldcastle, were read before the King, and almost all the prelates and nobles of England, in the closet of the King at Kennington; the said Lord John Oldcastle (p. 361) being present and hearing it, having been especially summoned for this purpose. Then our King himself expressed his abhorrence of those conclusions, as the worst against the faith and the church he had ever heard. And the said Lord John Oldcastle, being asked by the King whether he thought the said tract was justly and deservedly condemned, said that it was so. On being asked how he could use or possess a tract of this sort, he said that he had never read more than two leaves.