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forth several bulls against Wickliffe, all dated the twentysecond of May, 1377. One was directed to Simon Sudbury, archbishop of Canterbury, and William Courtney, bishop of London, whom he delegated to examine into the matter of the complaint. Another was dispatched to the king himself and a third to the university of Oxford. In the first bull to the two prelates, he tells them, he was informed that Wickliffe had rashly proceeded to that detestable degree of madness, as not to be afraid to assert, and publicly preach such propositions, as were erroneous and false, contrary to the faith, and threatening to subvert and weaken the estate of the whole church.' He' therefore required them to cause Wickliffe to be apprehended and imprisoned by his authority; and to get his confession concerning his propositions and conclusions (of which they deemed nineteen to be heretical) which they were to transmit to Rome; as also whatever he should say, or write, by way of introduction or proof: But, if Wickliffe could not be apprehended, they were directed to publish a citation for his personal appearance before the pope within three months. The pope requested the king to grant his patronage and assistance to the bishops in the prosecution of Wickliffe, who had promulgated 'opinions full of errors and containing manifest heresy; some of which appeared to be the same with those of Marsilius of Padua, and John de Gandun, condemned by Pope John XXII.' In the bull to the university, he says, the heretical pravity of Wickliffe tended to subvert the state of the whole church, and even the civil government :' And he orders them to deliver Wickliffe up in safe custody to the delegates. King Edward III. died the twenty-first of June 1377, before the bulls arrived in England. The university treated their bull with contempt, or with very little devotion. They favoured and protected Wickliffe, who was powerfully supported by the duke of Lancaster, and the earl-marshal. These noblemen openly declared, they would not suffer him to be imprisoned: And, indeed, there was yet no act of parliament, which empowered the bishops to imprison heretics without the royal consent. But the delegated prelates, on the nineteenth of February 1378, issued out their mandate to the chancellor of the university of Oxford, commanding him to cite Wickliffe to appear before them in the church of St Paul, London, in thirty days.

Before that day came, the first parliament of king Richard II. met at Westminster, where it was debated, whether

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they might lawfully refuse to send the treasure out of the kingdom, after the pope required it on pain of censures, ◄ and by virtue of the obedience due to him?' The resolution of this doubt was referred, by the king and parliament, to doctor Wickliffe, who answered it was lawful; and undertook to prove it so, by the principles of the law of Christ.

Wickliffe appeared to the summons of the delegates at St Paul's, where a vast concourse of people assembled to hear the examination. The doctor was attended by the duke of Lancaster, and the lord-marshal Percy, who had conceived such a very high opinion of his learning and integrity, that they assured him he had nothing to fear, and that he might make his defence with courage against the bishops, who were but mere ignorants in respect to him. When Wickliffe came near the place of the assembly, there was so great a crowd of people attending, that it was with difficulty he and his two patrons got admission into the church. This manner of their appearance, by introducing Wickliffe as to a triumph, rather than a trial, touched the bishop of London, who told the earl-marshal,

if he had known what masteries they would have kept in the church, he would have stopped them from coming < there.'

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The archbishop and the bishop of London, held their court in the chapel, where several other prelates, and some noblemen, attended to hear the trial. Wickliffe stood before the commissioners, according to custom, to hear what was laid to his charge: But the earl-marshal bid him sit down, as he had many things to answer, and had need of • a soft seat to rest him upon, during so tedious an attendance.' The bishop of London objected to this; which was answered by the duke of Lancaster, in such warm terms, that he told the bishop, he would bring down the pride ‹ of all the prelacy in the kingdom.' The bishop made a spirited reply: And the duke said softly, to one who sat by him, that, rather than take such language from the bishop, he would drag him out of the church by the hair of his head.' This was over-heard by some of the byestanders, and the assembly was instantly in a violent comnotion. The Londoners declared they would oppose any insults upon their bishop: The noblemen treated the citi zens with disdain; they carried off Wickliffe in safety; and the court broke up without entering into an examination of the business. But the Londoners plundered the duke of Lancaster's palace in the Savoy, and the duke turned the

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mayor and aldermen out of the magistracy, for not restraining the sedition. Wickliffe had the happiness to find his doctrine embraced by men of letters, and persons of quality. Some would make us believe, that people were frightened into a feigned approbation of his doctrine: But it may be said, with much greater probability, that fear deterred many from being his followers. The truth is, a man ran no risk in continuing to adhere to the old tenets; whereas it might be dangerous to embrace the new ones.

The duke of Lancaster was made president of the council; and the bishops were afraid to offend the avowed protector of Wickliffe. However, the two prelates summoned the doctor a second time before them, at Lambeth. He appeared; when the Londoners forced themselves into the chapel, to encourage the doctor, and intimidate the delegates. Wickliffe seemed willing to give the prelates some sort of satisfaction, and delivered them a paper, wherein he explained the several conclusions with which he was charged. In all appearance, the delegates would not have been contented with so general an explanation; if the king's mother had not obliged them to desist, by sending Sir Lewis Clifford to forbid their proceeding to any definitive sentence against Wickliffe. The delegates were confounded with this message; and, as their own historian says, at the wind of a reed shaken, their speech became as soft as oil, to the public loss of their own dignity, and the damage of the whole church.' They dropped the thoughts of all censures against Wickliffe, and dismissed him, after enjoining him silence; to which injunction he paid no regard, and maintained his opinions in the utmost latitude. This steadiness ill agrees with the explanation of his opinions, which it is pretended he made before the bishops, and is represented as full of equivocations and evasions. The disguising his sentiments is little conformable to his natural temper, which was far enough from being fearful: Though a modern writer takes upon him to say, that Wickliffe appears to have been a man of slender resolution.' He also calls Wickliffe's explanations aukward apologies: But he should have remembered they are only such as are given us by Walsingham, whom he calls a prejudiced writer.

The duke of Lancaster flattered himself with the hopes of being sole regent during the minority of the king his nephew, who was crowned on the thirteenth of July 1377; but the parliament joined some bishops and noblemen with him in the regency. This was a damp upon the Wickliffites,

liffites, or Lollards, who were become so numerous, that two men could not be found together, and one not a Lollard. But pope Gregory XI. died the twenty-seventh of March 1378, which was a great advantage to Wickliffe; for, by his death, an end was put to the commission of the delegates. Here the historian seems to be mistaken, when he says, the demise of the pope occasioned grief to the faithful. Because Wickliffe did not make his appearance before the delegates of Lambeth, till almost three months after the death of Gregory. A schism ensued, by a double election of two popes; which was a real advantage to the Wickliffites; since Urban VI. was not acknowledged by the kingdom to be lawful pope till the end of the next year. On this occasion, Wickliffe wrote a tract, " Of the Schism "of the Roman Pontiffs:" And soon after published his book" Of the Truth of the Scripture." In the latter he contended for the necessity of translating the scriptures into the English language, and affirmed, that the will of God was evidently revealed in two Testaments; that the law of Christ was sufficient to rule the church; and that any disputation, not originally produced from thence, must be accounted profane.

The fatigues which Wickliffe underwent by attending the delegates, threw him into a dangerous fit of illness, on his return to Oxford. The mendicant friars took this advantage, and sent a deputation to him, to inform him of the great injuries he had done them, by his sermons and writings. The deputies told him he was at the point of death, and exhorted him to revoke whatever he had advanced to their prejudice. Wickliffe immediately recovered his spirits, raised himself on his pillow, and replied: "I

shall not die, but live to declare the evil deeds of the "friars" The unexpected force of his expression, together with the sternness of his manner, drove away the friars in confusion.

The parliament, which assembled in 1380, was famous for a statute made against the blood-suckers that had long devoured the land; viz. the foreign ecclesiastics, who, by this statute, were rendered incapable of holding any benefices in England. At the same time, the parliament petitioned the king to expel all foreign monks, for fear they should instil notions into the people of England, repugnant to the good of the state. While Wickliffe, in his lectures, sermons, and writings, embraced every opportunity of exposing the Romish court, and detecting the vices of the clergy both religious and secular.

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The festivals of Wickliffe, which are extant, and his sermons on the Commune Sanctorum, gave great offence to the monks, who kindled a seditious spirit among the people on account of the poll-tax, which soon broke out into those insurrections headed by Wat Tyler, Ball, and Littstar. These rebels beheaded Simon Sudbury, archbishop of Canterbury, the lord high-treasurer, and put many others to death. Their design was to murder the king, root out the nobility, and destroy all the clergy except the mendicant friars. Some historians accuse the Wickliffites with causing this rebellion; but without any foundation. It is certain, that religion had no hand in these commotions; since the duke of Lancaster, the avowed protector of Wickliffe, was the principal object of the rebels' fury: Besides, Wickliffe then resided on his living of Lutterworth, and was never charged with any thing on that account. Nor can

we hardly find an instance of insurrections, caused by a religious zeal, appeased in so short a time as this was, which continued only about a month, from the beginning to the end.

The holy Scriptures had never been translated into English; except by Richard Fitz-Ralph, archbishop of Armagh, and John de Trevise, a Cornish-man, who both lived in the reign of Edward III. That task was now undertaken by Wickliffe, and other learned associates; which made it necessary for Wickliffe to apologize for their undertaking, by shewing that Bede translated the Bible, and king Alfred the psalms, into the Saxon tongue. It had long given Wickliffe great offence (says Mr Gilpin,) and indeed he always considered it as one of the capital errors of popery, that the Bible should be locked up from the people. He resolved, therefore, to free it from bondage. The Bible, le affirmed, contained the whole of God's will, which, he said, was sufficient to guide his church. These, and other arguments, paved the way for the publication of this great work, and satisfied the minds of all sober men.

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This work, it may easily be imagined, raised the clamours of the clergy. Knighton, a canon of Leicester, and contemporary with Wickliffe, affords a sample of the language of his brethren. Christ entrusted his gospel (says he) to the < clergy, and doctors of the church, to minister it to the laity and weaker sort, according to their exigencies and several occasions. But this master John Wickliffe, by 6 translating it, has made it vulgar, and laid it more open to the laity, and even to women who can read, than it used to be to the most learned of the clergy and those of

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