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honest man.41 This paper, however, such as it CHAP. might be, was admitted by the bishops as orthodox and its author was dismissed with an order to abstain from the use of language so calculated to perplex and mislead the ignorant. By some, it is said, that the two bishops were intimidated by a message from the princess of Wales: by Wycliffe himself his escape was considered and celebrated as a triumph.42

London.

From this period, till the insurrection of the (Synod in commons, the rector of Lutterworth employed himself in directing the operations of the poor priests; and gradually turned his attacks from the possessions to the doctrines of the church. As soon as tranquillity was restored, the bishop of London succeeded the primate, who had been

41 Thus, for example, he had taught that "charters of perpetual " inheritance were impossible, that God himself could not give to "man civil possessions for ever." He now declared that by the words "for ever," he meant after the day of judgment. His opinions were therefore consonant to the first principles of religion, and did not affect civil possessions at present. Again he had taught that "if there were a God, temporal lords might lawfully and "meritoriously take away worldly goods from a delinquent church." He protested that by this doctrine it was not his meaning that temporal lords might take away such goods of their own authority: but that if there were a God, he was almighty: if he was almighty, he had the power to command temporal lords to take away the goods of the church; and if he should command them, then they might do it lawfully and meritoriously. There are many other explanations of a similar nature. Wals. 206, 207.

42 These three papers may be found in Walsingham (ibid.) and in Lewis, who transcribed them from Selden's MSS. (p. 318. 329.) There is no date to any of them: but their contents seem to point out the order in which they succeeded each other.

VOL. IV.

1382.

66

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CHAP. murdered: and one of his first measures was to III. call a synod of divines, in which four-and-twenty May 17. opinions, zealously inculcated by the new preachers, were censured; ten as heretical, fourteen as erroneous, and of dangerous tendency.43 It chanced that, while the synod was sitting, an earthquake shook the metropolis: a circumstance, which the policy, or the fanaticism, of Wycliffe converted into a proof of his doctrine. "The erth tremblide," he writes, "for they put an heresie upon Crist and the seyntes in hevyne. Fay (faith), land, mannus voice an"sweryde for God, als it did in tyme of his pas❝sione, whan he was dampnyde to bodely deth."" From this condemnation he appealed to the protection of the duke of Lancaster, by his disciples Hereford and Rapyngdon: but that prince rejected the application; the messengers themJune 20. selves were compelled, after some tergiversation, to recant;45 and a royal mandate was sent to Oxford, suspending Wycliffe from the office of teaching, and ordering all his works to July 13. be seized and forwarded to the archbishop in their existing state, without erasure or alteration.46 Unwilling, however, to bend to the storm, he sought to shelter himself under the protec

45 The whole process, with the evasions, the excommunication and recantation of Hereford and Rapyngdon, may be seen in Wilkins, Con. iii. 160-166, 167, and Knyght. 2655,

46 Rym. vii. 3634

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tion of the parliament: and presented a petition CHAP. "for the maintenance of the christian faith," by which he artfully endeavoured to array in favour of his tenets, the passions and prejudices of the nation. He prayed, that the error of those, who had condemned the doctrine of the itinerant preachers, might be amended and published: that Christ's own doctrine respecting the eucharist might be openly taught in the churches: that the members of the religious orders might have full liberty to secularize themselves: that tithes might be applied to those purposes only, for which they were ordained by God's law, and the pope's law; and that no more taxes should be laid upon the people; but that the wants of the nation should be supplied from the incomes of delinquent clergymen, and the superfluous revenues of the church, which were in reality the patrimony of the poor.47

In this petition he was partially successful. Immediately after the synod, the bishops had procured an act of parliament, which stated that, whereas several persons under the mask of extraordinary sanctity, went from place to place, preached without authority in churches, churchyards, fairs and markets, inculcated false doctrines, excited dissensions between the different estates, prevailed on the people to support them

47 Wals. 283. MS. C. C. C. apud Lewis, p. 83.

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CHAP. by open force; and refused to obey the citations of their ordinaries; the sheriffs should be bound, on the certification of the prelates, into the chancery, to arrest such offenders and their abettors, and to confine them till they were willing to plead in the ecclesiastical courts. On the representation of the commons, that this act had been passed without their consent, and that they did not mean to subject themselves to the jurisdiction of the prelates in any other manner than their ancestors had been, it was repealed with the approbation of the king and the lords.48 But Wycliffe's success ended here. His appeal on doctrinal matters, from a spiritual to a lay tribunal, scandalized some of his most powerful partisans: and the duke of Lancaster, hastening to Oxford, advised him to submit to the judgment of his ordinary. He reluctantly assented, read a confession of faith in presence of the primate and the bishops of Lincoln, Norwich, Worcester, London, Salisbury, and Hereford, and retiring to the rectory of Lutterworth, was suffered to remain there without farther molestation. Two years afterwards, as he was assisting at the mass of his curate on the feast of the innocents, at the moment of the elevation of the His death. host, a stroke of apoplexy deprived him of the use of his tongue, and of most of his limbs. He

1384.

Dec, 30.

48 Rot. Parl. iii. 124 141. Gascoigne apud Lewis, 286. Lel. Coll. iii. 409.

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trines.

lingered two days, and expired at the close of CHAP. the year 1384:49: Before I proceed, I may be allowed to add a His docfew particulars respecting the character and sentiments of this extraordinary man. Exemplary in his morals, he declaimed against vice with the freedom and severity of an apostle: but, whether it were policy or prejudice, he directed his bitterest invectives almost exclusively against the clergy. His itinerant priests formed indeed an honourable exception: they were true evangelical preachers: but the rest, the pope, bishops, dignitaries, and the whole body of " clerks possessioners," were no better than liars and fiends, hypocrites and traitors, heretics and antichrists. That many among them, as must always happen in old and wealthy establishments, may have deserved some of these appellations, is probably true but the zeal of the new apostle could make no discrimination; and he determined to lay the axe to what he deemed the root of the evil, their worldly possessions. He contended that they were bound to lead a life of poverty in imitation of their master :50 that their temporalties were given to them to be employed to the honour of God; and therefore, might be

49 Wood, Ant. Oxon. 189.

50 Apud Lewis, p. 292. He maintained that the man, who taught it to be lawful to endow churchmen, was the greatest of heretics and antichrists. Trialog. iv. 15. His seven arguments in favour of this doctrine were answered by Woodford, Fascicul. rer. expe tend. i. 221-230,