The account of Henry's own chaplain, who was prejudiced in the extreme against the rising sect, seems undoubtedly to imply that in one stage of the melancholy transaction Henry was more than passive, and encouraged rather than checked the ecclesiastical authorities to proceed; but he at the same time adds, what is of course of equal credit, that the piety of the King deferred the extremity of punishment and his death. He adds, "that Henry had Oldcastle committed to the Tower, influenced by the hope that he might bring (p. 365) him back to the true faith; and that when, towards the end of October, the straitness of his confinement was softened, and he was, under promise of renouncing his errors, released from his bond, he broke prison and escaped." This was written between Oldcastle's escape and his subsequent capture and death. If we take one part of such evidence, we must in fairness take the other; and certainly, in that contemporary's view, Henry was fully determined to do all he could to save Cobham from the extreme penalty of the law. He solicited the hierarchy, as a favour to himself, to suspend their operations for a while; they consented to grant the suspension as a favour to the King, upon his royal word being pledged that, should he fail in his endeavours, he would interfere with their proceedings no further, but on the contrary would assist them. Consistently with his promise, and with his duty as the chief magistrate of the realm, he could scarcely have done otherwise than he appears to have done.