The Church, in the Yorkist days, had deteriorated. The devil's compact between Archbishop Arundel and Henry of Bolingbroke, by which Bishops were to be allowed to burn heretics on condition that the {118} usurpation was upheld by the Church, had alienated the people. The Act _De heretico comburendo_ was not a dead letter. There were many innocent sufferers. Henry of Monmouth was a fanatic. He argued with heretics and would gladly pardon on recantation, but if his victim did not recant he was actually present at executions and witnessed the cruel tortures. Caxton, some years after Henry's death (1439), saw with horror the burning on Tower Hill of the good Vicar of Deptford, whose love and charity had endeared him to the poor. Such scenes would not endear the Bishops to the people. The prelates were self-seeking politicians for the most part, and occasionally the people made short work of them. When Bishop de Moleyns, then Lord Privy Seal, came down to Portsmouth to pay the sailors and kept back some of their dues, he was seized by the mob and hanged in front of God's House. Bishop Ayscough of Salisbury met a similar fate. Mr. Thorold Rogers formed a very bad opinion of the clergy of the fifteenth century. He says 'the Bishops were on the whole bad men, parochial clergy not much better, monks worst of all. People deserted them for the secret but stirring exhortations of the Bible men.' But there were exceptions. Dr. Russell of Lincoln, King Richard's Chancellor, was a prelate and statesman of the highest integrity, so were Stillington of Bath and Wells, Alcock of Worcester, and Langton of St. David's. The great monasteries still stood, in all their glorious architectural beauty, among the woodlands and by the trout streams; and charity was dispensed by their inmates. Religious foundations like Middleham College by King Richard, and Acaster College by Bishop Stillington, attest the piety of the age; and religious buildings proceeded apace. The beautiful {119} chapel of St. George at Windsor was approaching completion in King Richard's time, and many fine church towers, especially in Suffolk, date from this period.