Fire and Faggot Parliament

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Fire and Faggot Parliament was an English Parliament held in May 1414 during King Henry V’s reign. It met at Greyfriars in Leicester, and the Speaker was Walter Hungerford. The main law passed was the Suppression of Heresy Act 1414, which ordered the Lollards to be burned with bundles of sticks. It stated that anyone who read the Scriptures in English (then called Wicliffe’s Learning) would forfeit land, goods, and life, be condemned as heretics, enemies to the crown, and traitors to the kingdom, and would not receive sanctuary. If they persisted after pardon, they could be hanged for treason and then burned for heresy. The act drew on a papal ruling from 1199 (Vergentis in senium).

The Parliament also confirmed Archbishop Arundel’s policy of licensing books: no book could be read in Canterbury unless it was examined by the University of Oxford or Cambridge and expressly approved by the king, and then copied out by stationers. The King also gained the right to collect tonnage and poundage for life, a privilege that continued for all later monarchs until 1625, when Charles I was granted it for only one year.