But the character behind the countenance is not difficult to sum up. In his own day he was reckoned to be a man of shrewd judgment and wide experience; we have noted the far-travelled uses that were made of him by the Convent and by the Crown, and we can conclude that his judgment increased in shrewdness as his experience extended in width. Indeed, he retained this quality to the last. We have seen that there is still extant an account of his official disbursements in behalf of the General Chapter of the Benedictines at Northampton for the last year of his life, 1420.[107] It includes payments made, for special services rendered, to two Westminster monks, who had been bidden to attend the conference. They were Richard Harwden and Edmund Kirton, and each was appointed Abbot of Westminster in his turn. It is not every man of eighty-two who is shrewd enough to pick out his successors for the next forty years, and at the same time large-hearted enough to give them every encouragement to fit themselves for the office which he holds. Indeed, his was the kind of character to which justice can only be done after a lapse of time. It is necessary to look back at the men who, noting his shrewdness, came to a conviction that he was also just and trustworthy--Richard II., who opposed his election as Abbot, but lived to prove his friendship; Henry IV., who knew his friendship for Richard, and at first treated him accordingly, but afterwards found no reason to regret the clemency shown to him; Henry V., who appreciated his devotion to Richard, and did not honour him the less because of Henry IV.'s early suspicions; and the Cardinals and others who met him in the tortuous paths by which ecclesiastical diplomacy was trying to make its way towards the peace of the distracted Church. We may leave on William Colchester's memorial an inscription taken from a letter addressed to him by Thomas Merke, Bishop of Carlisle, who was conveying to the Abbot a request that he would use his influence at the Roman Court on behalf of Merton Hall, Oxford. We shall admit that Merke was his intimate friend, and shall remember that Colchester showed his own affection for Merke by arranging that the Bishop should be commemorated at Hurley Priory along with the Abbot's parents.[108] Merke's witness, however, may still be true. "Men like," he wrote, "to know your Paternity's views on these matters, for they observe your solidity, which is a rare virtue in these days, and they give you their confidence all the more."[109] No other Abbot ruled our House as long as he; nor could any man of his line desire a more satisfying verdict on his character. INDEX