CH. 6. the wiser and better portion of the people to confound heterodoxy of opinion with sedition, anarchy, and disorder. A.D. 1382. So long as Wycliffe lived, his own lofty character was a guarantee for the conduct of his immediate disciples; and although his favour had far declined, a party in the state remained attached to him, with sufficient influence to prevent the adoption of extreme measures against Measure the 'poor priests.' In the year following the inrepression surrection, an act was passed for their repression of the poor in the House of Lords, and was sent down by the for the priests passed in The House king to the Commons. They were spoken of as of Lords. evil persons,' going from place to place in defiance of the bishops, preaching in the open air to great congregations at markets and fairs, 'exciting the people,' 'engendering discord between the estates of the realm.' The ordinaries had no power to silence them, and had therefore desired that commissions should be issued to the sheriffs of the various counties, to arrest all such persons, and confine them, until they would 'justify themselves' in the ecclesiastical courts.* Wycthe Com- liffe petitioned against the bill, and it was rejected; Wycliffe's not so much perhaps out of tenderness for the reformer, as because the Lower House was excited by the controversy with the pope; and being doubtfully disposed towards the clergy, was reluctant to subject the people to a more stringent spiritual control. Rejected by mons at petition. But Wycliffe himself meanwhile had received * 5 Ric. II. cap. 5. A.D. 1382. a clear intimation of his own declining position. CH. 6. His opposition to the church authorities, and his efforts at re-invigorating the faith of the country, had led him into doubtful statements on the nature of the eucharist; he had entangled himself in dubious metaphysics on a subject on which no middle course is really possible; and being summoned to answer for his language before a synod in London, he had thrown himself again for protection on the Duke of Lancaster. The Wycliffe's duke (not unnaturally under the circumstances) however, declined to encourage what he could neither He makes approve nor understand;* and Wycliffe, by his his subgreat patron's advice, submitted. He read a confession of faith before the bishops, which was held satisfactory; he was forbidden, however, to preach again in Oxford, and retired to his living of Lutterworth, in Leicestershire, where two years And dies later he died. position, declines. mission, Dec. 31, 1384. followers With him departed all which was best and purest in the movement which he had commenced. The zeal of his followers was not extinguished, but the wisdom was extinguished which had directed it; and perhaps the being treated as the enemies of order had itself a tendency to make Wycliffe's them what they were believed to be. They were continue left unmolested for the next twenty years, the feebleness of the government, the angry complexion which had been assumed by the dispute when they with Rome, and the political anarchy in the the ban as closing decade of the century, combining to give of order. * WILKINS, Concilia, iii. 160–167. unmolested till the revolution of 1400; fall under disturbers A,D. 1384. CH. 6. them temporary shelter; but they availed themselves of their opportunity to travel further on the dangerous road on which they had entered; and on the settlement of the country under Henry IV. they fell under the general ban which struck down all parties who had shared in the late disturbances. Act de Heretico comburendo. They had been spared in 1382, only for more sharp denunciation, and a more cruel fate; and Boniface having healed, on his side, the wounds which had been opened, by well-timed concessions, there was no reason left for leniency. The character of the Lollard teaching was thus described (perhaps in somewhat exaggerated 1400-1. language) in the preamble of the act of 1401.* 'Divers false and perverse people,' so runs the act De Heretico comburendo, 'of a certain new sect, damnably thinking of the faith of the sacraments of the church, and of the authority of the same, against the law of God and of the church, usurping the office of preaching, do perversely and maliciously, in divers places within the realm, preach and teach divers new doctrines, and wicked erroneous opinions, contrary to the faith and determination of Holy Church. And of such sect and wicked doctrines they make teaching. unlawful conventicles, they hold and exercise Political character of the schools, they make and write books, they do wickedly instruct and inform people, and excite and stir them to sedition and insurrection, and make great strife and division among the people, *De Heretico comburendo. 2 Hen. IV. cap. 15. A.D. 1400-I and other enormities horrible to be heard, daily Cн. 6. do perpetrate and commit. The diocesans cannot by their jurisdiction spiritual, without aid of the king's majesty, sufficiently correct these said false and perverse people, nor refrain their malice, because they do go from diocess to diocess, and will not appear before the said diocesans; but the jurisdiction spiritual, the keys of the church, and the censures of the same, do utterly contemn and despise; and so their wicked preachings and doctrines they do from day to day continue and exercise, to the destruction of all order and rule, right and reason.' Something of these violent accusations is perhaps due to the horror with which false doctrine in matters of faith was looked upon in the catholic church, the grace by which alone an honest life was made possible being held to be dependent upon orthodoxy. But the Lollards had become political revolutionists as well as religious reformers; the revolt against the spiritual authority had encouraged and countenanced a revolt against the secular; and we cannot be surprised, therefore, that these institutions should have sympathized with each other, and have united to repress a danger which was formidable to both. the bishops ex officio. The bishops, by this act, received arbitrary Power conpower to arrest and imprison on suspicion, with-ferred upon out check or restraint of law, at their will and of arresting pleasure. Prisoners who refused to abjure their errors, who persisted in heresy, or relapsed into it after abjuration, were sentenced to be burnt at the stake-a dreadful punishment, on the true A.D. 1400. I and the CH. 6. character of which the world has long been happily agreed. Yet we must remember that The stake those who condemned teachers of heresy to the orthodox flames, considered that heresy itself involved everlasting perdition; and the spirit of mercy itself might have led them to warn the people against a peril so tremendous by emphatic and marked severity. faith. mons peti tion the crown for a tion of church The tide which was thus setting back in favour of the church did not yet, however, flow freely, and without a check. The Commons consented to sacrifice the heretics, but they still cast wistful The Com looks on the lands of the religious houses. On two several occasions, in 1406, and again 1410, seculariza- spoliation was debated in the Lower House, and representations were made upon the subject to property. the king. The country, too, continued to be Accession agitated with war and treason; and when Henry V. became king, in 1412, the church was still uneasy, and the Lollards were as dangerous as ever. Whether by prudent conduct they might have secured a repeal of the persecuting act is uncertain; it is more likely, from their conduct, that they had made their existence incompatible with the security of any tolerable government. of Henry V. A rumour having gone abroad that the king intended to enforce the laws against heresy, notices were found fixed against the doors of the London churches, that if any such measure was attempted, a hundred thousand men would be in arms to oppose it. These papers were traced to * STOWE, 330, 338. |