=Source.=--Capgrave's _Chronicle of England_, pp. 275, 276 (Rolls
Series).
In the second year of this King the earls of Kent, Salisbury and
Huntingdon, unkind to the King, rose against him. Unkind were they, for
the people would have them dead and the King spared them. These men,
thus gathered, purposed to fall on the King suddenly at Windsor, under
the colour of mummeries in Christmas time. The King was warned of this
and fled to London. These men knew not that, but came to Windsor with
four hundred armed men, purposing to kill the King and his progeny,
and restore Richard again unto the crown. When they came to Windsor,
and thus were deceived, they fled to a town where the queen lay, fast
by Reading, and there, before the queen's household, he blessed him
this earl of Kent. "O benedicite," he said, "who may this be that
Harry of Lancaster hath taken the Tower at London, and our very King
Richard hath broken prison, and hath gathered a hundred thousand
fighting men." So gladded he the queen with lies, and rode forth to
Wallingford, and from Wallingford to Abingdon, warning all men by the
way that they should make them ready to help King Richard. Thus came he
to Cirencester, late at even. The men of the town had suspicion that
their tidings were lies, (as it was indeed,) rose and kept the entries
of the inns, that none of them might pass. There fought they in the
town from midnight unto nine of the clock in the morrow. But the town
drove them out of the Abbey and smote off many of their heads. The earl
of Salisbury was dead there; and worthy, for he was a great favourite
of the Lollards, and a despiser of the sacraments, for he would not
confess when he should die.
The earl of Huntingdon heard of this and fled unto Essex. And as often
as he assayed to take the sea, so often was he born off with the wind.
Then was he taken by the Commons and led to Chelmsford and then to
Pleshy, and his head smote off in the same place where he arrested the
Duke of Gloucester.
DE HERETICO COMBURENDO (January, 1401).
=Source.=--_Statutes of the Realm_, 2 Henry IV., c. xv.
Item, Whereas it is shewed to our Sovereign Lord the King on behalf
of the Prelates and Clergy of his realm of England in this present
Parliament, That although the Catholic Faith builded upon Christ and by
his Apostles and the Holy Church sufficiently determined, declared and
approved, hath hitherto by good and holy and most Noble Progenitors of
our Sovereign Lord the King ... [been] most devoutly observed, and the
Church of England most laudably endowed and in her Rights and Liberties
sustained.... Yet divers false and perverse People of a certain New
Sect of the Faith ... do perversely preach and teach these days, openly
and privily, divers new Doctrines, and wicked, heretical and erroneous
Opinions contrary to the same faith.... They make unlawful Conventicles
and Confederacies, they hold and exercise Schools, they make and write
Books, they do wickedly instruct and inform People, and, as much as
they may, incite and stir them to Sedition and Insurrection, and
maketh great Strife and Division among the people, and other Enormities
horrible to be heard daily do perpetrate and commit, in subversion of
the said Catholic Faith and Doctrine of the Holy Church.
_Then follow clauses forbidding the Lollards to preach without license,
or to hold Schools for teaching the new doctrines, and a clause
punishing by fine and imprisonment all offenders who abjure their
heresy; finally_:--
If any Person within the said Realm and Dominions, upon the said wicked
Preachings, Doctrines, Opinions, Schools and heretical and erroneous
Information ... be before the Diocesan, and do refuse duly to abjure,
or by the Diocesan of the same place or his commission, after the
abjuration made by the same person, fall into relapse so that according
to the Holy Canons he ought to be left to the secular Court, whereupon
credence shall be given to the Diocesan of the same place, or to his
Commissionaries in this behalf; then the Sheriff of the County of the
same place, and Mayor and Sheriffs or Sheriff, or Mayor and Bailiffs
of the City, Town and Borough of the same County shall be personally
present in preferring of such sentences; and they, the same persons
and every one of them, after such a sentence promulgate, shall receive
them, and before the People in an high place do them to be burnt; that
such punishment may strike in fear to the minds of others, whereby no
such wicked doctrines and heretical and erroneous opinions ... against
the Catholic Faith, Christian Law and Determination of Holy Church,
which God forbid, be sustained or in any wise suffered.