IV.

nued all that King's reign. But whether or no the Pope, CHAP. on the accession of his grandson to the crown, thought that a good opportunity to regain this profitable income, it seems that in this his first Parliament it was debated, "whether the kingdom of England, on an imminent neces"sity of its own defence, may lawfully detain the treasure "of the kingdom, that it be not carried out of the land, al"though the Lord Pope required its being carried out on "the pain of censures, and by virtue of the obedience due "to him." The resolution of this doubt was referred by Fox's Acts the King and Parliament to Dr. Wiclif, who answered that it was lawful, and undertook to prove it so by the i. p. 584. principles of the law of Christ. Urging that common maxim of divines, that extra casus necessitatis et superfluitatis eleemosyna non est in præcepto; Alms are not required to be given but to those who are in need, and by such as have more than they want themselves. By which it appears, that Dr. Wiclif's opinion was, that the Peter-pence paid to the Pope were not a just due, but only an alms, or charitable gift.

and Monu

ments, vol.

In this Parliament many petitions were made by the Cotton's Abridgment, Commons to the King, in relation to the Pope's collector, p. 160, 162. the farmers of aliens' benefices, &c. by which they say this kingdom was every year drained of its treasure. They therefore pray the King, that "the Pope's collector be "willed to gather no longer the first-fruits of benefices "within this realm, his doing so being a very novelty, and "that no other person do any longer pay them: that no "man do procure any benefice by provision from Rome,

upon pain to be put out of the King's protection: that "no Englishman do take to farm of any alien, any eccle"siastical benefice or prebend on the like pain: on which "occasion they observe, that the French alone had 6000

66

pounds yearly of such livings in England. They further pray remedy against the Pope's reservations to dignities 66 elective, the same being done against the treaty of the "Pope taken with King Edward III. and that all aliens, as well Religious as others, do by Candlemass next avoid

IV.

CHAP. "the realm, and that all their lands and goods during the "war may be employed thereto, for divers causes declared "in their bill."

Dr. Wiclif, as is very probable, having notice given him by the Heads of the University of his danger, and the tenor of the Pope's Bull, thought himself obliged to provide for his own safety, and accordingly put himself under the protection of John Duke of Lancaster, to whom he had been long known, and who had conceived a very good opinion of him for his learning and integrity. With him he seems to have been, when he was cited to appear before the Fox's Acts, Pope's delegates. It has been said that the Duke, being p. 558, c. 1. apprehensive that Dr. Wiclif being single and alone

&c. vol. i.

of both

would be discouraged by the greatness of the appearance at St. Paul's, ordered a Bachelor of Divinity of every one of the four Orders of Friars to be joined with him for his assistance: but this seems very improbable; Dr. Wiclif, by his detecting their frauds, superstitions, and wickednesses, having made them all his enemies. And it is not therefore very likely that any of the Friars would be engaged in the defence of a man whom they would have been glad to have seen ruined. However this be, it is certain that the Duke himself, together with the Lord Henry Piercy, Earl Marshal, accompanied Dr. Wiclif to St. Paul's on the day The Image fixed for his appearance. This, it is said by an enemy to Churches, Dr. Wiclif's memory, the Duke did for the Doctor's better protection and encouragement, to discountenance the Bishop, and to animate and increase Wiclif's sectaries and followers in their course. However this be, there being a vast concourse of people about the church, Dr. Wiclif could not get through the crowd to the place where the court sat. Upon which the Earl Marshal going first, made use of his authority to disperse the people, and make way for him. But notwithstanding, such was the greatness of the throng, that it was not without great difficulty that the two lords and Dr. Wiclif could pass through it; and this therefore making some stir, Bishop Courtney, not "Archbishop Sudbury seems not to have been so great a zealot in behalf of

p. 253.

с

IV.

being well pleased to see Dr. Wiclif so honourably at- CHAP. tended, told the Earl Marshal, that "if he had known be"forehand what maistries he would have kept in the "church, he would have stopped him out from coming "there." The Duke of Lancaster resenting such threatening language, since they had made no more stir than was necessary to get through the crowd, answered the Bishop, that "he would keep such maistry there though he said "nay." At last, after much struggling, they came to our Lady's chapel, behind the high altar, where the Archbishop and Bishop of London were sitting, together with some other Bishops, and some Dukes and Barons, who were there to hear the trial. Dr. Wiclif, according to custom, stood before the commissioners as one cited to appear there to hear what things they had to lay to his charge. But the Earl Marshal, out of tenderness for Dr. Wiclif, and having but little regard to a court which owed all its authority to a foreign power, bid him sit down, telling him “ he had many things to answer to, and there"fore had need of a soft seat" to rest him upon during so tedious an attendance. The Bishop of London hearing that, answered, "he should not sit there; for," says he, "it is neither according to law or reason, that he who was "cited here to answere before his Ordinary (the Lord Pope) "should sit downe during the time of his answer;" adding, that if he could have guessed, that the Earl Marshal would have played the master there, or been so troublesome, he would not have suffered him to come into the court. On which many angry words passed betwixt the Bishop and the Earl Marshal. The Duke of Lancaster took the Earl Marshal's part, and told the Bishop, that

the Papal power and superstitions as this Bishop. The monkish writer of his life tells us, that this Archbishop going to Canterbury overtook some going thither in pilgrimage to Thomas Becket's shrine, and told them that the plenary indulgence they expected at Canterbury was of no use nor value. On which a Kentish knight in the company, being very angry at the Archbishop's being so very injurious to the glorious martyr, told him he should for this crime of his die an unnatural death, as he did, being beheaded in the insurrection of the Boors. Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 49, 50.

IV.

CHAP. "the Earl Marshal's motion was but reasonable, and that "as for him who was grown so proud and arrogant, he "would bring down the pride not only of him, but of all "the Prelacy of England: that he depended upon the "greatness of his d family, but that they should have "enough to do to support themselves." To which haughty and imperious threat, the Bishop is said to have returned this mild answer; "That he placed no confidence ei❝ther in his relations or in any man else, but depended on “God alone, who, he trusted, would give him the boldness "to speak the truth." But this soft reply did not, it seems, cool the Duke's passion, who highly resented the Bishop's telling the Earl Marshal, that if he had been aware of his behaviour in opposing the authority and orders of the Court, he would not have suffered him to come into it with Dr. Wiclif. To one therefore who sat just by him, the Duke said softly, that "rather than take what the Bi"shop said at his hands, he would pluck him by the hair "of his head out of the church." These last words were not, it seems, whispered so closely, but that some of the standers-by overheard them, who being enraged to see the Bishop thus roughly treated in his own Cathedral, declared aloud, they would rather lose their lives than suffer the Bishop to be thus threatened and contemptuously used. This occasioned the assembly to grow very tumultuous and disorderly, so that the Court was forced to break up without doing any thing.

A. D. 1378.

certain.

In April following the Delegates sat again for the ex*This is un-ecution of their commission, in the Archbishop's chapel at Walsing- Lambeth, where, it is said, Dr. Wiclif appeared again, beham, Hist. Angliæ, p. ing, I suppose, a second time cited: but that not only the

205.

e London citizens, but the mob presumed to force them

He was fourth son of Hugh Courtney, Earl of Devonshire, by Margaret, daughter to Humphrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of King Edward I. Barnes's History of King Edward III. p. 904. e Favore et diligencia Londinensium delusit suos examinatores, Episcopos derisit, et pro tunc evasit, amplius non compariturus coram dictis Episcopis, citra mortem Gregorii Pape. Walsingham, Hist. Ang.

IV.

selves into the chapel, and to speak in Dr. Wiclif's behalf, CHAP. to the great terror of the Delegates: and that the Queen Mother sent Sir fLewis Clifford to them, to forbid them to proceed to any definitive sentence against him. With which message the Delegates are said to have been very much confounded. "At the wind of a reed shaken," says the historian," their speech became as soft as oil, to the public "loss of their own dignity, and the damage of the whole "Church. They were struck with such a dread, that you "would think them to be as a man that heareth not, and in "whose mouth are no reproofs."

At this second meeting of the Pope's Delegates Dr. Wiclif is said to have delivered a & paper, in which he hexplained the several conclusions with which he was charged; but that it was no way satisfactory to the Delegates, who therefore i commanded him no more to repeat such propositions, either in the schools or in his sermons, on account of their giving offence to the laity. The paper is to the purpose following.

Angliæ,

208.

"First of all, I publicly protest, as I have often done at Walsing“other times, that I will and purpose from the bottom of ham, Hist. "my heart, by the grace of God, to be a sincere Christian, p. 206, 207, " and as long as I have breath, to profess and defend the "law of Christ so far as I am able. And if, through igno"rance, or any other cause, I shall fail herein, I ask pardon " of God, and do now from henceforth revoke and retract it, humbly submitting myself to the correction of holy "mother Church. And as for the opinion of children or

66

f Knight of the Garter.

Bishop Bale calls this paper, Answers to Objections.

Habita declaratione super ipsis, quamvis fictè. Murimuth. Contin. 137. i Dominus Archiepiscopus sibi et omnibus aliis super illa materia, præsente Domino Duce Lancastriæ, indixit silentium, prohibens quod de cetero illam materiam nullatenus tangeret aut tractaret, neque illam permitteret alios ventilare. Qui tam ipse, quam alii aliquamdiu siluerunt; tandem, contemplatione temporalium dominorum, easdem opiniones, immo illis pejores, post modum reassumentes, diutius in eorum malitiis perstiterunt. Nec ab inceptis persuasionibus destiterunt, quamvis a multis pro hujusmodi ut desisterent, fuerant sæpius requisiti. Murimuth. Contin. p. 137.