settled in the king's face below the nose to the wrath of Heaven smiting him for the sacrilegious crime. The Earl of Northumberland, crossing the Border, appealed to his ancient enemies for aid against his ancient friend, but without avail. The gray-haired outlaw, ever nursing a hope of looking once more from strong castle ramparts over the fair pastures of Northumberland, wandered to Wales, to France, to Flanders, but found none to aid him in his schemes. At last a few Border Scotsmen lent their swords, and followed the old earl to his last field at Bramham, near Tadcaster* in Yorkshire. There he laid down his broken life amid the din of battle (Feb. 28, 1408).

Meanwhile Owen Glendower maintained his hostile attitude

among the mountains of Wales. A treaty which he formed with the King of France showed the importance attached by Continental powers to the movement he headed. All the elements of heroism cluster around his name; misfortune and mystery are not lacking in the story of his life. Clouds began to lower on his enterprise when young Henry the Prince of Wales, now aged seventeen, assumed the command of the English army in Wales. Though he was unable to subdue Glendower, he weakened his position so much that the once popular patriot was driven to take refuge in the caves of his native mountains. His hopes revived when the Admiral of France landed with twelve thousand men at Milford Haven (1407). The allied forces marched to the neighbourhood of Worcester, where many skirmishes took place, but no battle. Harassed and hungry, the French troops fell back, and sailed away in borrowed ships. Owen, left to himself, sank to the position of a guerilla chieftain, swooping from the hills only when lack of food compelled him; and when, in 1415, he followed Henry to the grave, his glory had been shorn by time and disaster of more than half its beams.

1415

*Tadcaster, a market-town in the West Riding of Yorkshire, lies on the Wharfe, nine miles south-west of York.

CHAPTER XVII.

WYCLIF AND LOLLARDIE.

John Wyclif-His doctrines-Persecution-The Remonstrance-The Fiery Statute--Sawtre-Constitutions of 1408-Badby burned-Sir John Oldcastle-A stain-Reaction-Lull in the agony.

A

RAW country lad from Yorkshire, then aged sixteen, enrolled himself at Oxford in the year 1340 as a student of Queen's. Forty-one years later, he turned his back on the city of colleges, driven by the violence of foes to spend, but not to waste, his splendid talents among the hovels of an obscure parish in Leicestershire. Yet a few years, and paralysis struck him down in the chancel of his own church. This man, whose life extended from 1324 to 1384, was the illustrious John Wyclif, earliest champion of English Protestantism and earliest translator of the whole Bible into English. The Mendicant Friars excited his hearty anger, and he did not spare them with his pen. The tribute to Rome, promised by John and demanded by successive popes, was another subject on which he expressed his mind with honest freedom. His plainspeaking drew down on him papal bulls and prosecutions in the Church courts. He was fortunate in having the support of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, who stood by his side at St. Paul's in 1377, and bearded the ferocious Bishop Courtney in his behalf. The Synod of Lambeth, held in the following year, was another peril through which Wyclif passed unscathed. His "poor priests" spread his doctrines far and wide over the

land, while he in his cell and class-room at Oxford, where he lectured as professor of divinity, wrought at high pressure with voice and pen. His lectures against transubstantiation brought matters to a crisis between him and the university. In 1381 the chancellor condemned his teaching and shut his class. That merely gave him the opportunity of producing his greatest work. At Lutterworth he devoted the sunset of his life to the translation of the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into English. This work done, Death came and found him ready.

Before proceeding to trace the chief points in the history of the Lollards,* as the disciples of this remarkable man came to be called in contempt, we may note a few of the doctrines which formed his creed. He held the Crown to be supreme in authority over all persons and possessions in the realm of England-churchmen and laymen being alike amenable to the civil courts, and their property being equally subject to the action of the law. This doctrine aimed at paralyzing all secular power of the Pope in England. But Wyclif would gladly have paralyzed also the spiritual power of Rome: he considered the Pope to have no claim whatever to the headship of the English Church. Baptism and the Lord's Supper he retained as sacraConfirmation, penance, holy orders, extreme unction,

ments.

he rejected as priestly inventions.

The persecution of the Lollards began under Richard the Second. Wrongly, the outbreak under Tyler has been ascribed to the influence of Wyclif's preaching. It suited the persecutors of the Lollards to connect their preachings with the crimes of the country rebels. The crusade began, and raged fiercest in four counties, three of which lay around Lutterworth, out of whose humble parsonage the English Bible had come. Leices

* Walter Lolhard, burned at Cologne in 1322, is thought to have originated the name of this sect. He held opinions not unlike those of Wyclif. Other suggested sources of the name are lolium, Latin for a “tare,” and lollen, Old German for "to sing." The former would represent them as weeds in the wheat-field of the Church; while the latter refers to their practice of singing hymns.

tershire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, and Herefordshire felt the heaviest blows of the opening war.

1395

It was not long before the Lollard voice spoke boldly out. Wyclif had been in his grave eleven years, when an address to the people and Parliament of England, known as the Lollard Remonstrance, was presented to the House of Commons. This outspoken document-the cry of an awakening people against the corruptions of the Church-found an echo in the hearts of many men who sat on the benches of the Lower House. In vain King Richard and Pope Boniface frowned and censured. The English people applauded not noisily but with deep heartiness. Crowds might be often seen around the doors of Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's listening eagerly to the papers which some Lollard hand had posted in the dark of the previous night. This was a common way of acquainting the public with facts and opinions, in days when the Newspaper was a thing unknown, and the Book took years to write and print.

The accession of Henry the Fourth, although he was the son of Wyclif's protector, only made matters worse for the Lollards. His insecure throne needed priestly propping; so he tried to buy the aid of the Church by taking vengeance on her foes. The fires of Smithfield began to cast their red glare upwards on the London sky. A powerful prelate who had been instrumental in bringing Henry over to England, bent all the force of his mind to the task of uprooting the heresy which had sent its fibres through all the lower and part of the middle strata of society. It seemed to the government that fire alone could remedy the evil. It must be burned away. A terrible statute was therefore added to the roll of English laws, enacting that persons preaching without license, possessing heretical books, convening unlawful assemblies, or in

1401

*

* Statute." The Statute of Heretics," or De Heretico Comburendo (Concerning the burning of the heretic).

any way spreading the hated doctrines, should be thrown for three months into a bishop's prison, and then, if still obstinate, should be burned.

Within a month or two after the passing of this terrible statute, William Sawtrë was publicly burned in Smithfield as a relapsed heretic. While Rector of Lynn in Norfolk, his loose opinions had attracted the jealous eye of the Church, and in 1399 he lost his living on a charge of heresy. This frightened him, or friendly persuaders bent him, into a recantation. of his errors; and he was again received into the bosom of the Church as priest of St. Osith's in London. But the truth would not be repressed. He preached heresy, as it was called, again, and was condemned to be burned. Solemn and pro

longed was the ceremony of unfrocking which preceded the horrors of the stake. It took place in St. Paul's, and Archbishop Arundel presided. His robes and vest- Feb. 12. ments and all the emblems of his office were taken

from the victim one by one; and with a layman's cap on his head he was handed over to the High Constable to be burned at the stake.

The English clergy, in full convocation assembled, agreed in 1408 to a set of Constitutions, in the composition of which the hand of Arundel displays itself. These must be regarded as a sign that the Fiery Statute of seven years ago, with all its horrors, needed a stern and positive supplement to enforce obedience to the Papacy upon the English mind. The books of John Wyclif, "the heresies known under the new and damnable name of Lollardie," and the University of Oxford, "once so famous for its orthodoxy, but of late so poisoned with false doctrines," were strongly condemned. In the face of this resolute opposition, Lollardie took stronger root and flourished. In London, in Lincolnshire, in Norfolk, in Herefordshire, in Shrewsbury, and even in Calais the disciples of Wyclif multiplied daily.