At first we see the dawning of that philosophic rationalism, which

gives out a certain degree of brightness, but which can neither

conquer error nor still less establish truth. In the ninth century

there was a learned scholar in Ireland, who afterwards settled at the

court of Charles the Bald. He was a strange mysterious man, of

profound thought, and as much raised above the doctors of his age by

the boldness of his ideas, as Charlemagne above the princes of his day

by the force of his will. John Scot Erigena--that is, a native of

Ireland and not of Ayr, as some have supposed--was a meteor in the

theological heavens. With a great philosophic genius he combined a

cheerful jesting disposition. One day, while seated at table opposite

to Charles the Bald, the latter archly inquired of him: "What is the

distance between a _Scot_ and a _Sot_?" "The width of the table," was

his ready answer, which drew a smile from the king. While the doctrine

of Bede, Boniface, and even Alcuin was traditional, servile, and, in

one word, Romanist, that of Scot was mystical, philosophic, free, and

daring. He sought for the truth not in the word or in the Church, but

in himself:--"The knowledge of ourselves is the true source of

religious wisdom. Every creature is a theophany--a manifestation of

God; since revelation presupposes the existence of truth, it is this

truth, which is above revelation, with which man must set himself in

immediate relation, leaving him at liberty to show afterwards its

harmony with scripture, and the other theophanies. We must first

employ reason, and then authority. Authority proceeds from reason, and

not reason from authority."[119] Yet this bold thinker, when on his

knees, could give way to aspirations full of piety: "O Lord Jesus,"

exclaimed he, "I ask no other happiness of Thee, but to understand,

unmixed with deceitful theories, the word that Thou hast inspired by

thy Holy Spirit! Show thyself to those who ask for Thee alone!" But

while Scot rejected on the one hand certain traditional errors, and in

particular the doctrine of transubstantiation which was creeping into

the church, he was near falling as regards God and the world into

other errors savouring of pantheism.[120] The philosophic rationalism

of the contemporary of Charles the Bald--the strange product of one of

the obscurest periods of history (850)--was destined after the lapse

of many centuries to be taught once more in Great Britain as a modern

invention of the most enlightened age.

[119] Prius ratione utendum ac deinde auctoritate. Auctoritas ex vera

ratione processit, ratio vero nequaquam ex auctoritate. De div.

prædestin.

[120] Deum in omnibus esse. (De divisione naturæ, b. 74.) That God is

in all things.

[Sidenote: ALFRED AND THE BIBLE.]

While Scot was thus plumping the depths of philosophy, others were

examining their Bibles; and if thick darkness had not spread over

these first glimpses of the dawn, perhaps the Church of Great Britain

might even then have begun to labour for the regeneration of

Christendom. A youthful prince, thirsting for intellectual enjoyments,

for domestic happiness, and for the word of God, and who sought, by

frequent prayer, for deliverance from the bondage of sin, had ascended

the throne of Wessex, in the year 871. Alfred being convinced that

Christianity alone could rightly mould a nation, assembled round him

the most learned men from all parts of Europe, and was anxious that

the English, like the Hebrews, Greeks, and Latins, should possess the

holy scripture in their own language. He is the real patron of the

biblical work,--a title far more glorious than that of founder of the

university of Oxford. After having fought more than fifty battles by

land and sea, he died while translating the Psalms of David for his

subjects.[121]

[121] A portion of the law of God translated by Alfred may be found in

Wilkins, Concilia, i. p. 186 et seq.

After this gleam of light thick darkness once more settled upon Great

Britain. Nine Anglo-Saxon kings ended their days in monasteries; there

was a seminary in Rome from which every year fresh scholars bore to

England the new forms of popery; the celibacy of priests, that cement

of the Romish hierarchy, was established by a bull about the close of

the tenth century; convents were multiplied, considerable possessions

were bestowed on the Church, and the tax of _Peter's pence_, laid at

the pontiff's feet, proclaimed the triumph of the papal system. But a

reaction soon took place: England collected her forces for a war

against the papacy, a war at one time secular and at another

spiritual. William of Normandy, Edward III., Wickliffe, and the

Reformation, are the four ascending steps of protestantism in England.

[Sidenote: WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.]

A proud, enterprising, and far-sighted prince, the illegitimate son of

a peasant girl of Falaise and Robert the Devil, duke of Normandy,

began a contest with the papacy which lasted until the Reformation.

William the Conqueror, having defeated the Saxons at Hastings in 1066

A. D., took possession of England, under the benediction of the Roman

pontiff. But the conquered country was destined to conquer its master.

William, who had invaded England in the pope's name, had no sooner

touched the soil of his new kingdom, than he learned to resist Rome,

as if the ancient liberty of the British Church had revived in him.

Being firmly resolved to allow no foreign prince or prelate to possess

in his dominions a jurisdiction independent of his own, he made

preparations for a conquest far more difficult than that of the

Anglo-Saxon kingdom. The papacy itself furnished him with weapons. The

Roman legates prevailed on the king to dispossess the English

episcopacy in a mass, and this was exactly what he wished. To resist

the papacy, William desired to be sure of the submission of the

priests of England. Stigand, archbishop of Canterbury, was removed,

and Lanfranc of Pavia, who had been summoned from Bec in Normandy to

fill his place, was commissioned by the Conqueror to bend the clergy

to obedience. This prelate, who was regular in his life, abundant in

almsgiving, a learned disputant, a prudent politician, and a skilful

mediator, finding that he had to choose between his master King

William and his friend the pontiff Hildebrand, gave the prince the

preference. He refused to go to Rome, notwithstanding the threats of

the pope, and applied himself resolutely to the work the king had

intrusted to him. The Saxons sometimes resisted the Normans, as the

Britons had resisted the Saxons; but the second struggle was less

glorious than the first. A synod at which the king was present having

met in the abbey of Westminster, William commanded Wulston, bishop of

Worcester, to give up his crosier to him. The old man rose, animated

with holy fervour: "O king," he said, "from a better man than you I

received it, and to him only will I return it."[122] Unhappily this

"better man" was not Jesus Christ. Then approaching the tomb of Edward

the Confessor, he continued: "O my master, it was you who compelled me

to assume this office; but now behold a new king and a new primate who

promulgate new laws. Not unto them, O master, but unto you, do I

resign my crosier and the care of my flock." With these words Wulston

laid his pastoral staff on Edward's tomb. On the sepulchre of the

confessor perished the liberty of the Anglo-Saxon hierarchy. The

deprived Saxon bishops were consigned to fortresses or shut up in

convents.

[122] Divino animi ardore repente inflammatus, regi inquit: Melior te

his me ornavit cui et reddam. Wilkins, Concilia, i, 367.

[Sidenote: STRUGGLE BETWEEN WILLIAM AND HILDEBRAND.]

The Conqueror being thus assured of the obedience of the bishops, put

forward the supremacy of the sword in opposition to that of the pope.

He nominated directly to all vacant ecclesiastical offices, filled his

treasury with the riches of the churches, required that all priests

should make oath to him, forbade them to excommunicate his officers

without his consent, not even for incest, and declared that all

synodal decisions must be countersigned by him. "I claim," said he to

the archbishop one day, raising his arms towards heaven, "I claim to

hold in this hand all the pastoral staffs in my kingdom."[123]

Lanfranc was astonished at this daring speech, but prudently kept

silent,[124] for a time at least. Episcopacy connived at the royal

pretensions.

[123] Respondit rex et dixit se velle omnes baculos pastorales Angliæ

in manu sus tenere. Script. Anglic. Lond. 1652, fol. p. 1327.

[124] Lanfranc ad hæc miratus est, sed propter majores ecclesiæ

Christi utilitates, quas sine rege perficere non potuit, ad tempus

_siluit_. Ibid.

Will Hildebrand, the most inflexible of popes, bend before William?

The king was earnest in his desire to enslave the Church to the State;

the pope to enslave the State to the Church: the collision of these

two mighty champions threatened to be terrible. But the haughtiest of

pontiffs was seen to yield as soon as he felt the mail-clad hand of

the Conqueror, and to shrink unresistingly before it. The pope filled

all Christendom with confusion, that he might deprive princes of the

right of investiture to ecclesiastical dignities: William would not

permit him to interfere with that question in England, and Hildebrand

submitted. The king went even farther: the pope, wishing to enslave

the clergy, deprived the priests of their lawful wives; William got a

decree passed by the counsel of Winchester in 1076 to the effect that

the married priests living in castles and towns should not be

compelled to put away their wives.[125] This was too much: Hildebrand

summoned Lanfranc to Rome, but William forbade him to go. "Never did

king, not even a pagan," exclaimed Gregory, "attempt against the holy

see what this man does not fear to carry out!"[126].... To console

himself, he demanded payment of the _Peter's pence_, and an oath of

fidelity. William sent the money, but refused the homage; and when

Hildebrand saw the tribute which the king had paid, he said bitterly:

"What value can I set on money which is contributed with so little

honour!"[127] William forbade his clergy to recognise the pope, or to

publish a bull without the royal approbation, which did not prevent

Hildebrand from styling him "the pearl of princes."[128] "It is

true," said he to his legate, "that the English king does not behave

in certain matters so religiously as we could desire.... Yet beware of

exasperating him.... We shall win him over to God and St. Peter more

surely by mildness and reason than by strictness or severity."[129] In

this manner the pope acted like the archbishop--_siluit_: he was

silent. It is for feeble governments that Rome reserves her energies.

[125] Sacerdotes vero in castellis vel in vicis habitantes habentes

uxores, non cogantur ut dimittant. Wilkins, Concilia, i. p. 367.

[126] Nemo enim omnium regum, etiam paganorum.... Greg. lib vii. Ep.

i. ad Hubert.

[127] Pecunias sine honore tributas, quanti pretii habeam. Ibid.

[128] Gemma principum esse meruisti. Greg. lib. vii. Epp. xxiii. ad

Gulielm.

[129] Facilius lenitatis dulcedine ac rationis ostensione, quam

austeritate vel rigore justitiæ. Ibid. Ep. v. ad Hugonem.

[Sidenote: CÆSAROPAPIA.]

The Norman kings, desirous of strengthening their work, constructed

Gothic cathedrals in the room of wooden churches, in which they

installed their soldier-bishops, as if they were strong fortresses.

Instead of the moral power and the humble crook of the shepherd, they

gave them secular power and a staff. The religious episcopate was

succeeded by a political one. William Rufus went even to greater

lengths than his father. Taking advantage of the schism which divided

the papacy, he did without a pope for ten years, leaving abbeys,

bishoprics, and even Canterbury vacant, and scandalously squandering

their revenues. Cæsaropapia (which transforms a king into a pope)

having thus attained its greatest excess, a sacerdotal reaction could

not fail to take place.

The papacy is about to rise up again in England, and royalty to

decline--two movements which are always found combined in Great

Britain.

CHAPTER V.

Anselm's Firmness--Becket's Austerity--The King

scourged--John becomes the Pope's Vassal--Collision between

Popery and Liberty--The Vassal King ravages his

Kingdom--Religion of the Senses and Superstition.

We are now entering upon a new phase of history. Romanism is on the

point of triumphing by the exertions of learned men, energetic

prelates, and princes in whom extreme imprudence was joined with

extreme servility. This is the era of the dominion of popery, and we

shall see it unscrupulously employing the despotism by which it is

characterized.

[Sidenote: ANSELM.]

A malady having occasioned some degree of remorse in the king, he

consented to fill up the vacancy in the archiepiscopal see. And now

Anselm first appears in England. He was born in an Alpine valley, at

the town of Aosta in Piedmont. Imbibing the instructions of his pious

mother Ermenberga, and believing that God's throne was placed on the

summit of the gigantic mountains he saw rising around him, the child

Anselm climbed them in his dreams, and received the bread of heaven

from the hands of the Lord. Unhappily in after-years he recognised

another throne in the church of Christ, and bowed his head before the

chair of St. Peter. This was the man whom William II. summoned in 1093

to fill the primacy of Canterbury. Anselm, who was then sixty years

old, and engaged in teaching at Bec, refused at first: the character

of Rufus terrified him. "The church of England," said he, "is a plough

that ought to be drawn by two oxen of equal strength. How can you yoke

together an old and timid sheep like me and that wild bull?" At length

he accepted, and concealing a mind of great power under an appearance

of humility, he had hardly arrived in England before he recognised

Pope Urban II., demanded the estates of his see which the treasury had

seized upon, refused to pay the king the sums he demanded, contested

the right of investiture against Henry I., forbade all ecclesiastics

to take the feudal oath, and determined that the priests should

forthwith put away their wives. Scholasticism, of which Anselm was the

first representative, freed the church from the yoke of royalty, but

only to chain it to the papal chair. The fetters were about to be

riveted by a still more energetic hand; and what this great theologian

had begun, a great worldling was to carry on.

At the hunting parties of Henry II. a man attracted the attention of

his sovereign by his air of frankness, agreeable manners, witty

conversation, and exuberant vivacity. This was Thomas Becket, the son

of an Anglo-Saxon and a Syrian woman. Being both priest and soldier,

he was appointed at the same time by the king prebend of Hastings and

governor of the Tower. When nominated chancellor of England, he showed

himself no less expert than Wilfrid in misappropriating the wealth of

the minors in his charge, and of the abbeys and bishoprics, and

indulged in the most extravagant luxury. Henry, the first of the

Plantagenets, a man of undecided character, having noticed Becket's

zeal in upholding the prerogatives of the crown, appointed him

archbishop of Canterbury. "Now, sire," remarked the primate, with a

smile, "when I shall have to choose between God's favour and yours,

remember it is yours that I shall sacrifice."

[Sidenote: BECKET OPPOSES THE KING.]

Becket, who, as keeper of the seals, had been the most magnificent of

courtiers, affected as archbishop to be the most venerable of saints.

He sent back the seals to the king, assumed the robe of a monk, wore

sackcloth filled with vermin, lived on the plainest food, every day

knelt down to wash the feet of the poor, paced the cloisters of his

cathedral with tearful eyes, and spent hours in prayer before the

altar. As champion of the priests, even in their crimes, he took under

his protection one who to the crime of seduction had added the murder

of his victim's father.

The judges having represented to Henry that during the first eight

years of his reign a hundred murders had been committed by

ecclesiastics, the king in 1164 summoned a council at Clarendon, in

which certain regulations or _constitutions_ were drawn up, with the

object of preventing the encroachments of the hierarchy. Becket at

first refused to sign them, but at length consented, and then withdrew

into solitary retirement to mourn over his fault. Pope Alexander III

released him from his oath; and then began a fierce and long struggle

between the king and the primate. Four knights of the court, catching

up a hasty expression of their master's, barbarously murdered the

archbishop at the foot of the altar in his own cathedral church (A. D.

1170). The people looked upon Becket as a saint: immense crowds came

to pray at his tomb, at which many _miracles_ were worked.[130] "Even

from his grave," said Becket's partizans, "he renders his testimony in

behalf of the papacy."

[130] In loco passionis et ubi sepultus est, paralytici curantur, cœci

vident, surdi audiunt. (Johan. Salisb. Epp. 286.) In the place of his

suffering and where he was buried, paralytics are cured, the blind

see, and the deaf hear.

Henry now passed from one extreme to the other. He entered Canterbury

barefooted, and prostrated himself before the martyr's tomb: the

bishops, priests, and monks, to the number of eighty, passed before

him, each bearing a scourge, and struck three or five blows according

to their rank on the naked shoulders of the king. In former ages, so

the priestly fable ran, Saint Peter had scourged an archbishop of

Canterbury: now Rome in sober reality scourges the back of royalty,

and nothing can henceforward check her victorious career. A

Plantagenet surrendered England to the pope, and the pope gave him

authority to subdue Ireland.[131]

[131] Significasti si quidem nobis, fili carissime, te Hiberniæ

insulam ad subdendum illum populum velle intrare, nos itaque gratum et

acceptum habemus ut pro dilatandis ecclesiæ terminis insulam

ingrediaris. (Adrian IV., Bulla 1154 in Rymer, Acta Publica.) If

indeed you have intimated, dear son, that you wish to invade Ireland

to subdue that people, we are accordingly well pleased, that for the

purpose of extending the bounds of the church, you should invade that

island.

[Sidenote: THE GREAT CHARTER.]

Rome, who had set her foot on the neck of a king, was destined under

one of the sons of Henry II to set it on the neck of England. John

being unwilling to acknowledge an archbishop of Canterbury illegally

nominated by Pope Innocent III, the latter, more daring than

Hildebrand, laid the kingdom under an interdict. Upon this John

ordered all the prelates and abbots to leave England, and sent a monk

to Spain as ambassador to Mahomet-el-Nasir, offering to turn Mahometan

and to become his vassal. But as Philip Augustus was preparing to

dethrone him, John made up his mind to become a vassal of Innocent,

and not of Mahomet--which was about the same thing to him. On the 15th

May 1213, he laid his crown at the legate's feet, declared that he

surrendered his kingdom of England to the pope, and made oath to him

as to his lord paramount.[132]

[132] Resignavit coronam suam in manus domini papæ. Matth. Paris, 198

et 207.

A national protest then boldly claimed the ancient liberties of the

people. Forty-five barons armed in complete mail, and mounted on their

noble war-horses, surrounded by their knights and servants and about

two thousand soldiers, met at Brackley during the festival of Easter

in 1215, and sent a deputation to Oxford, where the court then

resided. "Here," said they to the king, "is the charter which

consecrates the liberties confirmed by Henry II, and which you also

have solemnly sworn to observe."... "Why do they not demand my crown

also?" said the king in a furious passion, and then with an oath,[133]

he added: "I will not grant them liberties which will make me a

slave." This is the usual language of weak and absolute kings. Neither

would the nation submit to be enslaved. The barons occupied London,

and on the 15th June 1215, the king signed the famous _Magna Charta_

at Runnymede. The political protestantism of the thirteenth century

would have done but little, however, for the greatness of the nation,

without the religious protestantism of the sixteenth.

[133] Cum juramento furibunds. Ibid. 213.

[Sidenote: POPERY AND LIBERTY IN COLLISION.]

This was the first time that the papacy came into collision with

modern liberty. It shuddered in alarm, and the shock was violent.

Innocent swore (as was his custom), and then declared the Great

Charter null and void, forbade the king under pain of anathema to

respect the liberties which he had confirmed,[134] ascribed the

conduct of the barons to the instigation of Satan, and ordered them to

make apology to the king, and to send a deputation to Rome to learn

from the mouth of the pope himself what should be the government of

England. This was the way in which the papacy welcomed the first

manifestations of liberty among the nations, and made known the model

system under which it claimed to govern the whole world.

[134] Sub intimatione anathematis prohibentes ne dictus rex eam

observare præsumat. Matth. Paris, 224.

The priests of England supported the anathemas pronounced by their

chief. They indulged in a thousand jeers and sarcasms against John

about the charter he had accepted:--"This is the twenty-fifth king of

England--not a king, not even a kingling--but the disgrace of kings--a

king without a kingdom--the fifth wheel of a waggon--the last of

kings, and the disgrace of his people!--I would not give a straw for

him.... _Fuisti rex, nunc fex_ (once a king, but now a clown)." John,

unable to support his disgrace, groaned and gnashed his teeth and

rolled his eyes, tore sticks from the hedges and gnawed them like a

maniac, or dashed them into fragments on the ground.[135]

[135] Arreptos baculos et stipites more furiosi nunc corrodere, nunc

corrosos confringere. Ibid. 222.

The barons, unmoved alike by the insolence of the pope and the despair

of the king, replied that they would maintain the charter. Innocent

excommunicated them. "Is it the pope's business to regulate temporal

matters?" asked they. "By what right do vile usurers and foul

simoniacs domineer over our country and excommunicate the whole

world?"

[Sidenote: RELIGION OF THE SENSES.]

The pope soon triumphed throughout England. His vassal John having

hired some bands of adventurers from the continent, traversed at their

head the whole country from the Channel to the Forth. These

mercenaries carried desolation in their track: they extorted money,

made prisoners, burnt the barons' castles, laid waste their parks, and

dishonoured their wives and daughters.[136] The king would sleep in a

house, and the next morning set fire to it. Blood-stained assassins

scoured the country during the night, the sword in one hand and the

torch in the other, marking their progress by murder and

conflagration.[137] Such was the enthronization of popery in England.

At this sight the barons, overcome by emotion, denounced both the king

and the pope: "Alas! poor country!" they exclaimed. "Wretched

England!... And thou, O pope, a curse light upon thee!"[138]

[136] Uxores et filias suas ludibrio expositas. Ibid. 231.

[137] Discurrebant sicarii cæde humana cruentati, noctivagi,

incendiarii, strictis ensibus. Ibid.

[138] Sic barones lacrymantes et lamentantes regem et papam

maledixerunt. Matth. Paris, 234.

The curse was not long delayed. As the king was returning from some

more than usually successful foray, and as the royal waggons were

crossing the sands of the Wash, the tide rose and all sank in the

abyss.[139] This accident filled John with terror: it seemed to him

that the earth was about to open and swallow him up; he fled to a

convent, where he drank copiously of cider, and died of drunkenness

and fright.[140]

[139] Aperta est in mediis fluctibus terra et voraginis abyssus, quæ

absorbuerunt universa cum hominibus et equis. Ibid. 242.

[140] Novi ciceris potatione nimis repletus. Ibid. ad ann. 1216.

Such was the end of the pope's vassal--of his armed missionary in

Great Britain. Never had so vile a prince been the involuntary

occasion to his people of such great benefits. From his reign England

may date her enthusiasm for liberty and her dread of popery.

During this time a great transformation had been accomplished.

Magnificent churches and the marvels of religious art, with ceremonies

and a multitude of prayers and chantings dazzled the eyes, charmed the

ears, and captivated the senses; but testified also to the absence of

every strong moral and Christian disposition, and the predominance of

worldliness in the church. At the same time the adoration of images

and relics, saints, angels, and Mary the mother of God, the worships

of _latria_, _doulia_, and _hyperdoulia_,[141] the real Mediator

transported from the throne of mercy to the seat of vengeance, at once

indicated and kept up among the people that ignorance of truth and

absence of grace which characterize popery. All these errors tended to

bring about a reaction: and in fact the march of the Reformation may

now be said to begin.

[141] The Romish church distinguishes three kinds of worship:

_latria_, that paid to God; _doulia_, to saints; and _hyperdoulia_, to

the Virgin Mary.

England had been brought low by the papacy: it rose up again by

resisting Rome. Grostête, Bradwardine, and Edward III, prepared the

way for Wickliffe, and Wickliffe for the Reformation.

CHAPTER VI.

Reaction--Grostete--Principles of Reform--Contest with the

Pope--Sewal--Progress of the Nation--Opposition to the

Papacy--Conversion of Bradwardine--Grace is Supreme--Edward

III--Statutes of _Provisors_ and _Præmunire_.

[Sidenote: REACTION.]

In the reign of Henry III, son of John, while the king was conniving

at the usurpations of Rome, and the pope ridiculing the complaints of

the barons, a pious and energetic man, of comprehensive understanding,

was occupied in the study of the Holy Scriptures in their original

languages, and bowing to their sovereign authority. Robert Grostête

(Greathead or _Capito_) was born of poor parents in the county of

Lincolnshire, and being raised to the see of Lincoln in 1235, when he

was sixty years of age, he boldly undertook to reform his diocese, one

of the largest in England. Nor was this all. At the very time when the

Roman pontiff, who had hitherto been content to be called the vicar of

St. Peter, proclaimed himself the vicar of God,[142] and was ordering

the English bishops to find benefices for _three hundred Romans_,[143]

Grostête was declaring that "to follow a pope who rebels against the

will of Christ, is to separate from Christ and his body; and if ever

the time should come when all men follow an erring pontiff, then will

be the great apostasy. Then will true Christians refuse to obey, and

Rome will be the cause of an unprecedented schism."[144] Thus did he

predict the Reformation. Disgusted at the avarice of the monks and

priests, he visited Rome to demand a reform. "Brother," said Innocent

IV to him with some irritation, "_Is thine eye evil, because I am

good?_" The English bishop exclaimed with a sigh: "O money, money! how

great is thy power--especially in this court of Rome!"

[142] Non puri hominis sed veri Dei vicem gerit in terris. (Innocent

III. Epp. lib. vi. i. 335.) He wields on earth the power, not of a

holy man but of the true God.

[143] Ut trecentis Romanis in primis beneficiis vacantibus

providerent. Matth. Paris, ann. 1240.

[144] Absit et quod.....hæc sedes et in ea præsidentes causa sint

schismatis apparentis. Ortinnus Gratius, ed. Brown, fol. 251.

[Sidenote: CONTEST WITH THE POPE.]

A year had scarcely elapsed before Innocent commanded the bishop to

give a canonry in Lincoln cathedral to his infant nephew. Grostête

replied: "After the sin of Lucifer there is none more opposed to the

Gospel than that which ruins souls by giving them a faithless

minister. Bad pastors are the cause of unbelief, heresy, and

disorder. Those who introduce them into the church are little better

than antichrists, and their culpability is in proportion to their

dignity. Although the chief of the angels should order me to commit

such a sin, I would refuse. My obedience forbids me to obey; and

therefore I rebel."[145]

[145] Obedienter non obedio sed contradico et rebello. Matth. Paris,

ad. ann. 1252.

Thus spoke a bishop to his pontiff: his obedience to the word of God

forbade him to obey the pope. This was the principle of the

Reformation. "Who is this old driveller that in his dotage dares to

judge of my conduct?" exclaimed Innocent, whose wrath was appeased by

the intervention of certain cardinals. Grostête on his dying bed

professed still more clearly the principles of the reformers; he

declared that a heresy was "an opinion conceived by carnal motives,

_contrary to Scripture_, openly taught and obstinately defended," thus

asserting the authority of Scripture instead of the authority of the

church. He died in peace, and the public voice proclaimed him "a

searcher of the Scriptures, an adversary of the pope, and despiser of

the Romans."[146] Innocent, desiring to take vengeance on his bones,

meditated the exhumation of his body, when one night (says Matthew of

Paris) the bishop appeared before him. Drawing near the pontiff's bed,

he struck him with his crosier, and thus addressed him with terrible

voice and threatening look:[147] "Wretch! the Lord doth not permit

thee to have any power over me. Woe be to thee!" The vision

disappeared, and the pope, uttering a cry as if he had been struck by

some sharp weapon, lay senseless on his couch. Never after did he pass

a quiet night, and pursued by the phantoms of his troubled

imagination, he expired while the palace re-echoed with his lamentable

groans.

[146] Scripturarum sedulus perscrutator diversarum, Romanorum malleus

et contemptor. (Matth. Paris, vol. ii, p. 876, fol. Lond. 1640.) A

thorough searcher of the various Scriptures, a hammer to and a

despiser of the Romans. Sixteen of his writings (Sermones et epistolæ)

will be found in _Brown_, _app. ad Fasciculum_.

[147] Nocte apparuit ei episcopos vultu severo, intuitu austero, ac

voce terribili. Ibid. 883.

[Sidenote: OPPOSITION TO THE POPE.]

Grostête was not single in his opposition to the pope. Sewal,

archbishop of York, did the same, and "the more the pope cursed him,

the more the people blessed him."[148]--"Moderate your tyranny," said

the archbishop to the pontiff, "for the Lord said to Peter, _Feed_ my

sheep, and not _shear them_, _flay them_, or _devour them_."[149] The

pope smiled and let the bishop speak, because the king allowed the

pope to act. The power of England, which was constantly increasing,

was soon able to give more force to these protests.

[148] Quanto magis a papa maledicebatur, tanto plus a populo

benedicebatur. Ibid. ad ann. 1257.

[149] _Pasce_ oves meas, non _tonde_, non _excoria_, non _eviscera_,

vel devorando _consume_. Ibid. ad ann. 1258.

The nation was indeed growing in greatness. The madness of John, which

had caused the English people to lose their continental possessions,

had given them more unity and power. The Norman kings, being compelled

to renounce entirely the country which had been their cradle, had at

length made up their minds to look upon England as their home. The two

races, so long hostile, had melted one into the other. Free

institutions were formed; the laws were studied; and colleges were

founded. The language began to assume a regular form, and the ships of

England were already formidable at sea. For more than a century the

most brilliant victories attended the British armies. A king of France

was brought captive to London: an English king was crowned at Paris.

Even Spain and Italy felt the valour of these proud islanders. The

English people took their station in the foremost rank. Now the

character of a nation is never raised by halves. When the mighty ones

of the earth were seen to fall before her, England could no longer

crawl at the feet of an Italian priest.

At no period did her laws attack the papacy with so much energy. At

the beginning of the fourteenth century an Englishman having brought

to London one of the pope's bulls--a bull of an entirely spiritual

character, it was an excommunication--was prosecuted as a traitor to

the crown, and would have been hanged, had not the sentence, at the

chancellor's intercession, been changed to perpetual banishment.[150]

The _common law_ was the weapon the government then opposed to the

papal bulls. Shortly afterwards, in 1307, king Edward ordered the

sheriffs to resist the arrogant pretensions of the Romish agents. But

it is to two great men in the fourteenth century equally illustrious,

the one in the state, and the other in the church, that England is

indebted for the development of the protestant element in England.

[150] Fuller's Church History, cent. xiv, p. 90, fol. Lond. 1655.

[Sidenote: BRADWARDINE'S CONVERSION.]

In 1346, an English army, 34,000 strong, met face to face at Crecy a

French army of 100,000 fighting men. Two individuals of very different

characters were in the English host. One of them was King Edward III,

a brave and ambitious prince, who, being resolved to recover for the

royal authority all its power, and for England all her glory, had

undertaken the conquest of France. The other was his chaplain

Bradwardine, a man of so humble a character that his meekness was

often taken for stupidity. And thus it was that on his receiving the

pallium at Avignon from the hands of the pope on his elevation to the

see of Canterbury, a jester mounted on an ass rode into the hall and

petitioned the pontiff to make him _primate_ instead of that imbecile

priest.

Bradwardine was one of the most pious men of the age, and to his

prayers his sovereign's victories were ascribed. He was also one of

the greatest geniuses of his time, and occupied the first rank among

astronomers, philosophers, and mathematicians.[151] The pride of

science had at first alienated him from the doctrine of the cross. But

one day while in the house of God and listening to the reading of the

Holy Scriptures, these words struck his ear: _It is not of him that

willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy_. His

ungrateful heart, he tells us, at first rejected this humiliating

doctrine with aversion. Yet the word of God had laid its powerful hold

upon him; he was converted to the truths he had despised, and

immediately began to set forth the doctrines of eternal grace at

Merton College, Oxford. He had drunk so deep at the fountain of

Scripture that the traditions of men concerned him but little, and he

was so absorbed in adoration in spirit and in truth, that he remarked

not outward superstitions. His lectures were eagerly listened to and

circulated through all Europe. The grace of God was their very

essence, as it was of the Reformation. With sorrow Bradwardine beheld

Pelagianism every where substituting a mere religion of externals for

inward Christianity, and on his knees he struggled for the salvation

of the church. "As in the times of old four hundred and fifty prophets

of Baal strove against a single prophet of God; so now, O Lord," he

exclaimed, "the number of those who strive with Pelagius against thy

free grace cannot be counted.[152] They pretend not to receive grace

freely, but to buy it.[153] The will of men (they say) should precede,

and thine should follow: theirs is the mistress, and thine the

servant.[154]... Alas! nearly the whole world is walking in error in

the steps of Pelagius.[155] Arise, O Lord, and judge thy cause." And

the Lord did arise, but not until after the death of this pious

archbishop, in the days of Wickliffe, who, when a youth, listened to

the lectures at Merton College, and especially in the days of Luther

and of Calvin. His contemporaries gave him the name of the _profound

doctor_.

[151] His Arithmetic and Geometry have been published; but I am not

aware if that is the case with his Astronomical Tables.

[152] Quot, Domine, hodie cum Pelagio pro libero arbitrio contra

gratuitam gratiam tuam pugnant? De causa Dei adversus Pelagium, libri

tres, Lond. 1618.

[153] Nequaquam gratuita sed vendita. Ibid.

[154] Suam voluntatem præire ut dominam, tuam subsequi ut ancillam.

Ibid.

[155] Totus pæne mundus post Pelagium abiit in errorem. Ibid.

[Sidenote: STATUTES OF PROVISORS AND PRÆMUNIRE.]

If Bradwardine walked truthfully in the path of faith, his illustrious

patron Edward advanced triumphantly in the field of policy. Pope

Clement IV having decreed that the first two vacancies in the Anglican

church should be conferred on two of his cardinals: "France is

becoming _English_," said the courtiers to the king; "and by way of

compensation, England is becoming _Italian_." Edward, desirous of

guaranteeing the religious liberties of England, passed with the

consent of parliament in 1350 the statute of _provisors_, which made

void every ecclesiastical appointment contrary to the rights of the

king, the chapters, or the patrons. Thus the privileges of the

chapters and the liberty of the English Catholics, as well as the

independence of the crown, were protected against the invasion of

foreigners; and imprisonment or banishment for life was denounced upon

all offenders against the law.

This bold step alarmed the pontiff. Accordingly, three years after,

the king having nominated one of his secretaries to the see of

Durham--a man without any of the qualities becoming a bishop--the pope

readily confirmed the appointment. When some one expressed his

astonishment at this, the pope made answer: "If the king of England

had nominated _an ass_, I would have accepted him." This may remind us

of the _ass_ of Avignon; and it would seem that this humble animal at

that time played a significant part in the elections to the papacy.

But be that as it may, the pope withdrew his pretensions. "Empires

have their term," observes an historian at this place; "when once they

have reached it, they halt, they retrograde, they fall."[156]

[156] Habent imperia suos terminos; huc cum venerint, sistunt,

retrocedunt, ruunt. Fuller's Hist. cent. xiv, p. 116.

The term seemed to be drawing nearer every day. In the reign of Edward

III, between 1343 and 1353, again in 1364, and finally under Richard

II, in 1393, those stringent laws were passed which interdicted all

appeal to the court of Rome, all bulls from the Roman bishop, all

excommunications, etc., in a word, every act infringing on the rights

of the crown; and declared that whoever should bring such documents

into England, or receive, publish, or execute them, should be put out

of the king's protection, deprived of their property, attached in

their persons, and brought before the king in council to undergo their

trial according to the terms of the act. Such was the statute of

_Præmunire_.[157]

[157] The most natural meaning of the word _præmunire_ (given more

particularly to the act of 1393) seems to be that suggested by Fuller,

cent. xiv, (p. 148): to fence and fortify the regal power from foreign

assault. See the whole bill, _Ibid._ p. 145-147.

Great was the indignation of the Romans at the news of this law: "If

the statute of _mortmain_ put the pope into a sweat," says Fuller,

"this of _præmunire_ gave him a fit of fever." One pope called it an

"execrable statute,"--"a horrible crime."[158] Such are the terms

applied by the pontiffs to all that thwarts their ambition.

[158] Execrabile statutum....fœdum et turpe facinus. Martin V to the

Duke of Bedford, Fuller, cent. xiv. p. 148.

[Sidenote: THE TWO WARS.]

Of the two wars carried on by Edward--the one against the King of

France, and the other against popery--the latter was the most

righteous and important. The benefits which this prince had hoped to

derive from his brilliant victories at Crecy and Poitiers dwindled

away almost entirely before his death; while his struggles with the

papacy, founded as they were on truth, have exerted even to our own

days an indisputable influence on the destinies of Great Britain. Yet

the prayers and the conquests of Bradwardine, who proclaimed in that

fallen age the doctrine of grace, produced effects still greater, not

only for the salvation of many souls, but for the liberty, moral

force, and greatness of England.

CHAPTER VII.

The Mendicant Friars--Their Disorders and Popular

Indignation--Wickliffe--His success--Speeches of the Peers

against the Papal Tribute--Agreement of Bruges--Courtenay

and Lancaster--Wickliffe before the Convocation--Altercation

between Lancaster and Courtenay--Riot--Three Briefs against

Wickliffe--Wickliffe at Lambeth--Mission of the _Poor

Priests_--Their Preachings and Persecutions--Wickliffe and

the Four Regents.

Thus in the first half of the fourteenth century, nearly two hundred

years before the Reformation, England appeared weary of the yoke of

Rome. Bradwardine was no more; but a man who had been his disciple was

about to succeed him, and without attaining to the highest functions,

to exhibit in his person the past and future tendencies of the church

of Christ in Great Britain. The English Reformation did not begin with

Henry VIII: the revival of the sixteenth century is but a link in the

chain commencing with the apostles and reaching to us.

[Sidenote: THE BEGGING FRIARS.]

The resistance of Edward III to the papacy _without_ had not

suppressed the papacy _within_. The mendicant friars, and particularly

the Franciscans, those fanatical soldiers of the pope, were

endeavouring by pious frauds to monopolize the wealth of the country.

"Every year," said they, "Saint Francis descends from heaven to

purgatory, and delivers the souls of all those who were buried in the

dress of his order." These friars used to kidnap children from their

parents and shut them up in monasteries. They affected to be poor, and

with a wallet on their back, begged with a piteous air from both high

and low; but at the same time they dwelt in palaces, heaped up

treasures, dressed in costly garments, and wasted their time in

luxurious entertainments.[159] The least of them looked upon

themselves as _lords_, and those who wore the doctor's cap considered

themselves _kings_. While they diverted themselves, eating and

drinking at their well-spread tables, they used to send ignorant

uneducated persons in their place to preach fables and legends to

amuse and plunder the people.[160] If any rich man talked of giving

alms to the poor and not to the monks, they exclaimed loudly against

such impiety, and declared with threatening voices: "If you do so we

will leave the country, and return accompanied by a legion of

glittering helmets."[161] Public indignation was at its height. "The

monks and priests of Rome," was the cry, "are eating us away like a

cancer. God must deliver us or the people will perish.... Woe be to

them! the cup of wrath will run over. Men of holy church shall be

despised as carrion, as dogs shall they be cast out in open

places."[162]

[159] When they have overmuch riches, both in great waste houses and

precious clothes, in great feasts and many jewels and treasures.

Wickliffe's Tracts and Treatises, edited by the Wickliffe Society, p.

224.

[160] Ibid, 240.

[161] Come again with bright heads. Ibid.

[162] Wickliffe, The Last Age of the Church.

The arrogance of Rome made the cup run over. Pope Urban V, heedless of

the laurels won by the conqueror at Crecy and Poitiers, summoned

Edward III to recognize him as legitimate sovereign of England, and to

pay as feudal tribute the annual rent of one thousand marcs. In case

of refusal the king was to appear before him at Rome. For thirty-three

years the popes had never mentioned the tribute accorded by John to

Innocent III, and which had always been paid very irregularly. The

conqueror of the Valois was irritated by this insolence on the part of

an Italian bishop, and called on God to avenge England. From Oxford

came forth the avenger.

[Sidenote: JOHN WICKLIFFE.]

John Wickliffe, born in 1324, in a little village in Yorkshire, was

one of the students who attended the lectures of the pious Bradwardine

at Merton College. He was in the flower of his age, and produced a

great sensation in the university. In 1348, a terrible pestilence,

which is said to have carried off half the human race, appeared in

England after successively devastating Asia and the continent of

Europe. This visitation of the Almighty sounded like the trumpet of

the judgment-day in the heart of Wickliffe. Alarmed at the thoughts of

eternity, the young man--for he was then only twenty-four years

old--passed days and nights in his cell groaning and sighing, and

calling upon God to show him the path he ought to follow.[163] He

found it in the Holy Scriptures, and resolved to make it known to

others. He commenced with prudence; but being elected in 1361 warden

of Balliol, and in 1365 warden of Canterbury College also, he began to

set forth the doctrine of faith in a more energetic manner. His

biblical and philosophical studies, his knowledge of theology, his

penetrating mind, the purity of his manners, and his unbending

courage, rendered him the object of general admiration. A profound

teacher, like his master, and an eloquent preacher, he demonstrated to

the learned during the course of the week what he intended to preach,

and on Sunday he preached to the people what he had previously

demonstrated. His disputations gave strength to his sermons, and his

sermons shed light upon his disputations. He accused the clergy of

having banished the Holy Scriptures, and required that the authority

of the word of God should be re-established in the church. Loud

acclamations crowned these discussions, and the crowd of vulgar minds

trembled with indignation when they heard these shouts of applause.

[163] Long debating and deliberating with himself, with many secret

sighs. Fox, Acts and M, i, p. 485, fol. Lond. 1684.

Wickliffe was forty years old when the papal arrogance stirred England

to its depths. Being at once an able politician and a fervent

Christian, he vigorously defended the rights of the crown against the

Romish aggression, and by his arguments not only enlightened his

fellow-countrymen generally, but stirred up the zeal of several

members of both houses of parliament.

[Sidenote: THE LORDS AGAINST THE PAPAL TRIBUTE.]

The parliament assembled, and never perhaps had it been summoned on a

question which excited to so high a degree the emotions of England,

and indeed of Christendom. The debates in the House of Lords were

especially remarkable: all the arguments of Wickliffe were reproduced.

"Feudal _tribute_ is due," said one, "only to him who can grant

feudal _protection_ in return. Now how can the pope wage war to

protect his fiefs?"--"Is it as vassal of the crown or as feudal

superior," asked another, "that the pope demands part of our property?

Urban V will not accept the first of these titles.... Well and good!

but the English people will not acknowledge the second." "Why," said a

third, "was this tribute originally granted? To pay the pope for

absolving John.... His demand, then, is mere simony, a kind of

clerical swindling, which the lords spiritual and temporal should

indignantly oppose."--"No," said another speaker, "England belongs not

to the pope. The pope is but a man, subject to sin; but Christ is the

Lord of lords, and this kingdom is held directly and solely of Christ

alone."[164] Thus spoke the lords inspired by Wickliffe. Parliament

decided unanimously that no prince had the right to alienate the

sovereignty of the kingdom without the consent of the other two

estates, and that if the pontiff should attempt to proceed against the

king of England as his vassal, the nation should rise in a body to

maintain the independence of the crown.

[164] These opinions are reported by Wickliffe, in a treatise

preserved in the _Selden MSS._ and printed by Mr. J. Lewis, in his

History of Wickliffe, App. No. 30, p. 349. He was present during the

debate; _quam audivi in quodam concilio a dominis secularibus_. As I

heard in a certain consultation among the lords temporal.

To no purpose did this generous resolution excite the wrath of the

partisans of Rome; to no purpose did they assert that, by the canon

law, the king ought to be deprived of his fief, and, that England now

belonged to the pope: "No," replied Wickliffe, "the canon law has no

force when it is opposed to the word of God." Edward III made

Wickliffe one of his chaplains, and the papacy has ceased from that

hour to lay claim--in explicit terms at least--to the Sovereignty of

England.

[Sidenote: WICKLIFFE BEFORE THE CONVOCATION.]

When the pope gave up his temporal he was desirous, at the very least,

of keeping up his ecclesiastical pretensions, and to procure the

repeal of the statutes of _Præmunire_ and _Provisors_. It was

accordingly resolved to hold a conference at Bruges to treat of this

question, and Wickliffe, who had been created doctor of theology two

years before, proceeded thither with the other commissioners in April

1374. They came to an arrangement in 1375 that the king should bind

himself to repeal the penalties denounced against the pontifical

agents, and that the pope should confirm the king's ecclesiastical

presentations.[165] But the nation was not pleased with this

compromise. "The clerks sent from Rome," said the Commons, "are more

dangerous for the kingdom than Jews or Saracens: every papal agent

resident in England, and every Englishman living at the court of Rome,

should be punished with death." Such was the language of the _Good

Parliament_. In the fourteenth century the English nation called a

parliament _good_ which did not yield to the papacy.

[165] Rymer, vii, p. 33, 83-88.

Wickliffe, after his return to England, was presented to the rectory

of Lutterworth, and from that time a practical activity was added to

his academic influence. At Oxford he spoke as a master to the young

theologians; in his parish he addressed the people as a preacher and

as a pastor. "The Gospel," said he, "is the only source of religion.

The Roman pontiff is a mere cut-purse,[166] and, far from having the

right to reprimand the whole world, he may be lawfully reproved by his

inferiors, and even by laymen."

[166] The proud worldly priest of Rome, and the most cursed of

clippers and purse-kervers. Lewis, History of Wickliffe, p. 37.

Oxford, 1820.

The papacy grew alarmed. Courtenay, son of the Earl of Devonshire, an

imperious but grave priest, and full of zeal for what he believed to

be the truth, had recently been appointed to the see of London. In

parliament he had resisted Wickliffe's patron, John of Gaunt, duke of

Lancaster, third son of Edward III., and head of the house of that

name. The bishop, observing that the doctrines of the reformer were

spreading among the people, both high and low, charged him with

heresy, and summoned him to appear before the convocation assembled in

St Paul's Cathedral.

[Sidenote: COURTENAY AND LANCASTER.]

On the 19th February, 1377, an immense crowd, heated with fanaticism,

thronged the approaches to the church and filled its aisles, while the

citizens favourable to the reform remained concealed in their houses.

Wickliffe moved forward, preceded by Lord Percy, marshal of England,

and supported by the Duke of Lancaster, who defended him from purely

political motives. He was followed by four bachelors of divinity, his

counsel, and passed through the hostile multitude who looked upon

Lancaster as the enemy of their liberties, and upon himself as the

enemy of the church. "Let not the sight of these bishops make you

shrink a hair's-breadth in your profession of faith," said the prince

to the doctor. "They are unlearned; and as for this concourse of

people, fear nothing, we are here to defend you."[167] When the

reformer had crossed the threshold of the cathedral, the crowd within

appeared like a solid wall; and, notwithstanding the efforts of the

earl-marshal, Wickliffe and Lancaster could not advance. The people

swayed to and fro, hands were raised in violence, and loud hootings

re-echoed through the building. At length Percy made an opening in the

dense multitude, and Wickliffe passed on.

[167] Fox, Acts, i, p. 437. fol. Lond. 1684.

The haughty Courtenay, who had been commissioned by the archbishop to

preside over the assembly, watched these strange movements with

anxiety, and beheld with displeasure the learned doctor accompanied by

the two most powerful men in England. He said nothing to the Duke of

Lancaster, who at that time administered the kingdom, but turning

towards Percy observed sharply: "If I had known, my lord, that you

claimed to be master in this church, I would have taken measures to

prevent your entrance." Lancaster coldly rejoined: "He shall keep such

mastery here, though you say nay." Percy now turned to Wickliffe, who

had remained standing and said: "Sit down and rest yourself." At this

Courtenay gave way to his anger, and exclaimed in a loud tone: "He

must not sit down; criminals stand before their judges." Lancaster,

indignant that a learned doctor of England should be refused a favour

to which his age alone entitled him (for he was between fifty and

sixty) made answer to the bishop: "My lord, you are very arrogant;

take care ... or I may bring down your pride, and not yours only, but

that of all the prelacy in England."[168]--"Do me all the harm you

can," was Courtenay's haughty reply. The prince rejoined with some

emotion: "You are insolent, my lord. You think, no doubt, you can

trust on your family ... but your relations will have trouble enough

to protect themselves." To this the bishop nobly replied: "My

confidence is not in my parents nor in any man; but only in God, in

whom I trust, and by whose assistance I will be bold to speak the

truth." Lancaster, who saw hypocrisy only in these words, turned to

one of his attendants, and whispered in his ear, but so loud as to be

heard by the bystanders: "I would rather pluck the bishop by the hair

of his head out of his chair, than take this at his hands." Every

impartial reader must confess that the prelate spoke with greater

dignity than the prince. Lancaster had hardly uttered these imprudent

words before the bishop's partizans fell upon him and Percy, and even

upon Wickliffe, who alone had remained calm.[169] The two noblemen

resisted, their friends and servants defended them, the uproar became

extreme, and there was no hope of restoring tranquillity. The two

lords escaped with difficulty, and the assembly broke up in great

confusion.

[168] Fuller, Church Hist. cent. xiv. p. 135.

[169] Fell furiously on the lords. Ibid. 136.

[Sidenote: RIOT.]

On the following day the earl-marshal having called upon parliament to

apprehend the disturbers of the public peace, the clerical party

uniting with the enemies of Lancaster, filled the streets with their

clamour; and while the duke and the earl escaped by the Thames, the

mob collected before Percy's house, broke down the doors, searched

every chamber, and thrust their swords into every dark corner. When

they found that he had escaped, the rioters, imagining that he was

concealed in Lancaster's palace, rushed to the Savoy, at that time the

most magnificent building in the kingdom. They killed a priest who

endeavoured to stay them, tore down the ducal arms, and hung them on

the gallows like those of a traitor. They would have gone still

farther if the bishop had not very opportunely reminded them that they

were _in Lent_. As for Wickliffe, he was dismissed with an injunction

against preaching his doctrines.

But this decision of the priests was not ratified by the people of

England. Public opinion declared in favour of Wickliffe. "If he is

guilty," said they, "why is he not punished? If he is innocent, why is

he ordered to be silent? If he is the weakest in power, he is the

strongest in truth!" And so indeed he was, and never had he spoken

with such energy. He openly attacked the pretended apostolical chair,

and declared that the _two_ antipopes who sat at Rome and Avignon

together made _one_ antichrist. Being now in opposition to the pope,

Wickliffe was soon to confess that Christ alone was king of the

church; and that it is not possible for a man to be excommunicated,

unless first and principally he be excommunicated by himself.[170]

[170] Vaughan's Wickliffe, Appendix, vol. i, p. 434.

Rome could not close her ears. Wickliffe's enemies sent thither

nineteen propositions which they ascribed to him, and in the month of

June 1377, just as Richard II, son of the Black Prince, a child eleven

years old, was ascending the throne, three letters from Gregory XI,

addressed to the king, the archbishop of Canterbury, and the

university of Oxford, denounced Wickliffe as a heretic, and called

upon them to proceed against him as against a common thief. The

archbishop issued the citation: the crown and the university were

silent.

[Sidenote: WICKLIFFE AT LAMBETH.]

On the appointed day, Wickliffe, unaccompanied by either Lancaster or

Percy, proceeded to the archiepiscopal chapel at Lambeth. "Men

expected he should be devoured," says an historian; "being brought

into the lion's den."[171] But the burgesses had taken the prince's

place. The assault of Rome had aroused the friends of liberty and

truth in England. "The pope's briefs," said they, "ought to have no

effect in the realm without the king's consent. Every man is master in

his own house."

[171] Fuller's Church Hist. cent. xiv, p. 137.

The archbishop had scarcely opened the sitting, when Sir Louis

Clifford entered the chapel, and forbade the court, on the part of the

queen-mother, to proceed against the reformer. The bishops were struck

with a panic-fear: "they bent their heads," says a Roman-catholic

historian, "like a reed before the wind."[172] Wickliffe retired after

handing in a protest. "In the first place," said he, "I resolve with

my whole heart, and by the grace of God, to be a sincere Christian;

and, while my life shall last, to profess and defend the law of Christ

so far as I have power."[173] Wickliffe's enemies attacked this

protest, and one of them eagerly maintained that whatever the pope

ordered should be looked upon as right. "What!" answered the reformer;

"the pope may then exclude from the canon of the scriptures any book

that displeases him, and alter the Bible at pleasure?" Wickliffe

thought that Rome, unsettling the grounds of infallibility, had

transferred it from the Scriptures to the pope, and was desirous of

restoring it to its true place, and re-establishing authority in the

church on a truly divine foundation.

[172] Walsingham, Hist. Angliæ Major, p. 203.

[173] Propono et volo esse ex integro Christianus, et quamdiu manserit

in me halitus, profitens verbo et opere legem Christi. Vaughan's

Wickliffe, i. p. 426.

A great change was now taking place in the reformer. Busying himself

less about the kingdom of England, he occupied himself more about the

kingdom of Christ. In him the political phasis was followed by the

religious. To carry the glad tidings of the Gospel into the remotest

hamlets, was now the great idea which possessed Wickliffe. If begging

friars (said he) stroll over the country, preaching the legends of

saints and the history of the Trojan war, we must do for God's glory

what they do to fill their wallets, and form a vast itinerant

evangelization to convert souls to Jesus Christ. Turning to the most

pious of his disciples, he said to them: "Go and preach, it is the

sublimest work; but imitate not the priests whom we see after the

sermon sitting in the ale-houses, or at the gaming-table, or wasting

their time in hunting. After your sermon is ended, do you visit the

sick, the aged, the poor, the blind, and the lame, and succour them

according to your ability." Such was the new practical theology which

Wickliffe inaugurated--it was that of Christ himself.

[Sidenote: PREACHING AND PERSECUTION.]

The "poor priests," as they were called, set off barefoot, a staff in

their hands, clothed in a coarse robe, living on alms, and satisfied

with the plainest food. They stopped in the fields near some village,

in the churchyards, in the market-places of the towns, and sometimes

in the churches even.[174] The people, among whom they were

favourites, thronged around them, as the men of Northumbria had done

at Aidan's preaching. They spoke with a popular eloquence that

entirely won over those who listened to them. Of these missionaries

none was more beloved than John Ashton. He might be seen wandering

over the country in every direction, or seated at some cottage hearth,

or alone in some retired crossway, preaching to an attentive crowd.

Missions of this kind have constantly revived in England at the great

epochs of the church.

[174] A private statute made by the clergy. Fox, Acts, i, 503.

The "poor priests" were not content with mere polemics: they preached

the great mystery of godliness. "An angel could have made no

propitiation for man," one day exclaimed their master Wickliffe; "for

the nature which has sinned is not that of the angels. The mediator

must needs be a man; but every man being indebted to God for every

thing that he is able to do, this man must needs have infinite merit,

and be at the same time God."[175]

[175] Exposition of the Decalogue.

The clergy became alarmed, and a law was passed commanding every

king's officer to commit the preachers and their followers to

prison.[176] In consequence of this, as soon as the humble missionary

began to preach, the monks set themselves in motion. They watched him

from the windows of their cells, at the street-corners, or from behind

a hedge, and then hastened off to procure assistance. But when the

constables approached, a body of stout bold men stood forth, with arms

in their hands, who surrounded the preacher, and zealously protected

him against the attacks of the clergy. Carnal weapons were thus

mingled with the preachings of the word of peace. The poor priests

returned to their master: Wickliffe comforted them, advised with them,

and then they departed once more. Every day this evangelization

reached some new spot, and the light was thus penetrating into every

quarter of England, when the reformer was suddenly stopped in his

work.

[176] Fox, Acts, i. p. 503.

[Sidenote: WICKLIFFE'S PROPHECY.]

Wickliffe was at Oxford in the year 1379, busied in the discharge of

his duties as professor of divinity, when he fell dangerously ill. His

was not a strong constitution; and work, age, and above all

persecution had weakened him. Great was the joy in the monasteries;

but for that joy to be complete, the _heretic_ must recant. Every

effort was made to bring this about in his last moments.

The four regents, who represented the four religious orders,

accompanied by four aldermen, hastened to the bedside of the dying

man, hoping to frighten him by threatening him with the vengeance of

Heaven. They found him calm and serene. "You have death on your lips,"

said they; "be touched by your faults, and retract in our presence all

that you have said to our injury." Wickliffe remained silent, and the

monks flattered themselves with an easy victory. But the nearer the

reformer approached eternity, the greater was his horror of monkery.

The consolation he had found in Jesus Christ had given him fresh

energy. He begged his servant to raise him on his couch. Then feeble

and pale, and scarcely able to support himself, he turned towards the

friars, who were waiting for his recantation, and opening his livid

lips, and fixing on them a piercing look, he said with emphasis: "I

shall not die but live; and again declare the evil deeds of the

friars." We might almost picture to ourselves the spirit of Elijah

threatening the priests of Baal. The regents and their companions

looked at each other with astonishment. They left the room in

confusion, and the reformer recovered to put the finishing touch to

the most important of his works against the monks and against the

pope.[177]

[177] Petrie's Church History, i. p. 504.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Bible--Wickliffe's Translation--Effects of its

Publication--Opposition of the Clergy--Wickliffe's Fourth

Phasis--Transubstantiation--Excommunication--Wickliffe's

Firmness--Wat Tyler--The Synod--The condemned

Propositions--Wickliffe's Petition--Wickliffe before the

Primate at Oxford--Wickliffe summoned to Rome--His

Answer--The Trialogue--His Death--And Character--His

teaching--His Ecclesiastical Views--A Prophecy.

[Sidenote: THE BIBLE.]

Wickliffe's ministry had followed a progressive course. At first he

had attacked the papacy; next he preached the gospel to the poor; he

could take one more step and put the people in permanent possession

of the word of God. This was the third phase of his activity.

Scholasticism had banished the Scriptures into a mysterious obscurity.

It is true that Bede had translated the Gospel of St. John; that the

learned men at Alfred's court had translated the four evangelists;

that Elfric in the reign of Ethelred had translated some books of the

Old Testament; that an Anglo-Norman priest had paraphrased the Gospels

and the acts; that Richard Rolle, "the hermit of Hampole," and some

pious clerks in the fourteenth century, had produced a version of the

Psalms, the Gospels, and Epistles:--but these rare volumes were

hidden, like theological curiosities, in the libraries of a few

convents. It was then a maxim that the reading of the Bible was

injurious to the laity; and accordingly the priests forbade it, just

as the Brahmins forbid the Shasters to the Hindoos. Oral tradition

alone preserved among the people the histories of the Holy Scriptures,

mingled with legends of the saints. The time appeared ripe for the

publication of a Bible. The increase of population, the attention the

English were beginning to devote to their own language, the

development which the system of representative government had

received, the awakening of the human mind:--all these circumstances

favoured the reformer's design.

Wickliffe was ignorant indeed of Greek and Hebrew; but was it nothing

to shake off the dust which for ages had covered the Latin Bible, and

to translate it into English? He was a good Latin scholar, of sound

understanding and great penetration; but above all he loved the Bible,

he understood it, and desired to communicate this treasure to others.

Let us imagine him in his quiet study: on his table is the Vulgate

text, corrected after the best manuscripts; and lying open around him

are the commentaries of the doctors of the church, especially those of

St. Jerome and Nicholas Lyrensis. Between ten and fifteen years he

steadily prosecuted his task; learned men aided him with their advice,

and one of them, Nicholas Hereford, appears to have translated a few

chapters for him. At last in 1380 it was completed. This was a great

event in the religious history of England, who, outstripping the

nations on the continent, took her station in the foremost rank in the

great work of disseminating the Scriptures.

[Sidenote: OPPOSITION OF THE CLERGY.]

As soon as the translation was finished, the labour of the copyists

began, and the Bible was erelong widely circulated either wholly or in

portions. The reception of the work surpassed Wickliffe's

expectations. The Holy Scriptures exercised a reviving influence over

men's hearts; minds were enlightened; souls were converted; the voices

of the "poor priests" had done little in comparison with this voice;

something new had entered into the world. Citizens, soldiers, and the

lower classes welcomed this new era with acclamations; the high-born

curiously examined the unknown book; and even Anne of Luxemburg, wife

of Richard II, having learnt English, began to read the Gospels

diligently. She did more than this: she made them known to Arundel,

archbishop of York and chancellor, and afterwards a persecutor, but

who now, struck at the sight of a foreign lady--of a queen, humbly

devoting her leisure to the study of _such virtuous books_,[178]

commenced reading them himself, and rebuked the prelates who neglected

this holy pursuit. "You could not meet two persons on the highway,"

says a contemporary writer, "but one of them was Wickliffe's

disciple."

[178] Fox, Acts, i. p. 578.

Yet all in England did not equally rejoice: the lower clergy opposed

this enthusiasm with complaints and maledictions. "Master John

Wickliffe, by translating the Gospel into English," said the monks,

"has rendered it more acceptable and more intelligible to laymen and

even to women, than it had hitherto been to learned and intelligent

clerks!... The Gospel pearl is every where cast out and trodden under

foot of swine."[179] New contests arose for the reformer. Wherever he

bent his steps, he was violently attacked. "It is heresy," cried the

monks, "to speak of Holy Scripture in English."[180]--"Since the

church has approved of the four Gospels, she would have been just as

able to reject them and admit others! The church sanctions and

condemns what she pleases.... Learn to believe in the church rather

than in the Gospel." These clamours did not alarm Wickliffe. "Many

nations have had the Bible in their own language. The Bible is the

faith of the church. Though the pope and all his clerks should

disappear from the face of the earth," said he, "our faith would not

fail, for it is founded on Jesus alone, our Master and our God." But

Wickliffe did not stand alone: in the palace as in the cottage, and

even in parliament, the rights of Holy Scripture found defenders. A

motion having been made in the Upper House (1390) to seize all the

copies of the Bible, the Duke of Lancaster exclaimed: "Are we then the

very dregs of humanity, that we cannot possess the laws of our religion

in our own tongue?"[181]

[179] Evangelica margarita spargitur et a porcis conculcatur.

Knyghton, De eventibus Angliæ, p. 264.

[180] It is heresy to speak of the Holy Scripture in English.

Wickliffe's Wicket, p. 4. Oxford, 1612, quarto.

[181] Weber, Akatholische Kirchen, i, p. 81.

[Sidenote: TRANSUBSTANTIATION.]

Having given his fellow-countrymen the Bible, Wickliffe began to

reflect on its contents. This was a new step in his onward path. There

comes a moment when the Christian, saved by a lively faith, feels the

need of giving an account to himself of this faith, and this

originates the science of theology. This is a natural movement: if the

child, who at first possesses sensations and affections only, feels

the want, as he grows up, of reflection and knowledge, why should it

not be the same with the Christian? Politics--home missions--Holy

Scripture--had engaged Wickliffe in succession; theology had its turn,

and this was the fourth phase of his life. Yet he did not penetrate to

the same degree as the men of the sixteenth century into the depths of

the Christian doctrine; and he attached himself in a more especial

manner to those ecclesiastical dogmas which were more closely

connected with the presumptuous hierarchy and the simoniacal gains of

Rome,--such as transubstantiation. The Anglo-Saxon church had not

professed this doctrine. "The host is the body of Christ, not bodily

but spiritually," said Elfric in the tenth century in a letter

addressed to the archbishop of York; but Lanfranc, the opponent of

Berengarius, had taught England that at the word of a priest God

quitted heaven and descended on the altar. Wickliffe undertook to

overthrow the pedestal on which the pride of the priesthood was

founded. "The eucharist is naturally bread and wine," he taught at

Oxford in 1381; "but by virtue of the sacramental words it contains in

every part the real body and blood of Christ." He did not stop here.

"The consecrated wafer which we see on the altar," said he, "is not

Christ, nor any part of him, but his efficient sign."[182] He

oscillated between these two shades of doctrine; but to the first he

more habitually attached himself. He denied the sacrifice of the mass

offered by the priest, because it was substituted for the sacrifice of

the cross offered up by Jesus Christ; and rejected transubstantiation,

because it nullified the spiritual and living presence of the Lord.

[182] Efficax ejus signum. Conclusio 1^{ma.} Vaughan, ii, p. 436, App.

[Sidenote: WICKLIFFE'S FIRMNESS.]

When Wickliffe's enemies heard these propositions, they appeared

horror-stricken, and yet in secret they were delighted at the prospect

of destroying him. They met together, examined twelve theses he had

published, and pronounced against him suspension from all teaching,

imprisonment, and the greater excommunication. At the same time his

friends became alarmed, their zeal cooled, and many of them forsook

him. The Duke of Lancaster, in particular, could not follow him into

this new sphere. That prince had no objection to an ecclesiastical

opposition which might aid the political power, and for that purpose

he had tried to enlist the reformer's talents and courage; but he

feared a dogmatic opposition that might compromise him. The sky was

heavy with clouds; Wickliffe was alone.

The storm soon burst upon him. One day, while seated in his doctoral

chair in the Augustine school, and calmly explaining the nature of the

eucharist, an officer entered the hall, and read the sentence of

condemnation. It was the design of his enemies to humble the professor

in the eyes of his disciples. Lancaster immediately became alarmed,

and hastening to his old friend begged him--ordered him even--to

trouble himself no more about this matter. Attacked on every side,

Wickliffe for a time remained silent. Shall he sacrifice the truth to

save his reputation--his repose--perhaps his life? Shall expediency

get the better of faith,--Lancaster prevail over Wickliffe? No: his

courage was invincible. "Since the year of our Lord 1000," said he,

"all the doctors have been in error about the sacrament of the

altar--except, perhaps, it may be Berengarius. How canst thou, O

priest, who art but a man, make thy Maker? What! the thing that

groweth in the fields--that ear which thou pluckest to-day, shall be

God to-morrow!... As you cannot make the works which he made, how

shall ye make Him who made the works?[183] Woe to the adulterous

generation that believeth the testimony of Innocent rather than of the

Gospel."[184] Wickliffe called upon his adversaries to refute the

opinions they had condemned, and finding that they threatened him with

a civil penalty (imprisonment), he appealed to the king.

[183] Wycleff's Wyckett, Tracts, pp. 276, 279.

[184] Væ generationi adulteræ quæ plus credit testimonio Innocentii

quam sensui Evangelii. Confessio, Vaughan, ii, 453, App.

The time was not favourable for such an appeal. A fatal circumstance

increased Wickliffe's danger. Wat Tyler and a dissolute priest named

Ball, taking advantage of the ill-will excited by the rapacity and

brutality of the royal tax-gatherers, had occupied London with 100,000

men. John Ball kept up the spirits of the insurgents, not by

expositions of the gospel, like Wickliffe's _poor priests_, but by

fiery comments on the distich they had chosen for their device:--

When Adam delved and Eve span,

Who was then the gentleman?

[Sidenote: THE CONDEMNED PROPOSITIONS.]

There were many who felt no scruple in ascribing these disorders to

the reformer, who was quite innocent of them; and Courtenay, bishop of

London, having been translated to the see of Canterbury, lost no time

in convoking a synod to pronounce on this matter of Wickliffe's. They

met in the middle of May, about two o'clock in the afternoon, and were

proceeding to pronounce sentence when an earthquake, which shook the

city of London and all Britain, so alarmed the members of the council

that they unanimously demanded the adjournment of a decision which

appeared so manifestly rebuked by God. But the archbishop skilfully

turned this strange phenomenon to his own purposes: "Know you not,"

said he, "that the noxious vapours which catch fire in the bosom of

the earth, and give rise to these phenomena which alarm you, loose all

their force when they burst forth? Well, in like manner, by rejecting

the wicked from our community, we shall put an end to the convulsions

of the church." The bishops regained their courage; and one of the

primate's officers read ten propositions, said to be Wickliffe's, but

ascribing to him certain errors of which he was quite innocent. The

following most excited the anger of the priests: "God must obey the

devil.[185] After Urban VI we must receive no one as pope, but live

according to the manner of the _Greeks_." The ten propositions were

condemned as heretical, and the archbishop enjoined all persons to

shun, as they would a venomous serpent, all who should preach the

aforesaid errors. "If we permit this heretic to appeal continually to

the passions of the people," said the primate to the king, "our

destruction is inevitable. We must silence these _lollards_--these

psalm-singers."[186] The king gave authority "to confine in the

prisons of the state any who should maintain the condemned

propositions."

[185] Quod Deus debet obedire diabolo. Mansi, xxvi. p. 695. Wickliffe

denied having written or spoken the sentiment here ascribed to him.

[186] From _lollen_, to sing; as _beggards_ (beggars) from _beggen_.

Day by day the circle contracted around Wickliffe. The prudent

Repingdon, the learned Hereford, and even the eloquent Ashton, the

firmest of the three, departed from him. The veteran champion of the

truth which had once gathered a whole nation round it, had reached the

days when "strong men shall bow themselves," and now, when harassed by

persecution, he found himself alone. But boldly he uplifted his hoary

head and exclaimed: "The doctrine of the gospel shall never perish;

and if the earth once quaked, it was because they condemned Jesus

Christ."

[Sidenote: WICKLIFFE BEFORE THE PRIMATE.]

He did not stop here. In proportion as his physical strength

decreased, his moral strength increased. Instead of parrying the

blows aimed at him, he resolved on dealing more terrible ones still.

He knew that if the king and the nobility were for the priests, the

lower house and the citizens were for liberty and truth. He therefore

presented a bold petition to the Commons in the month of November

1382. "Since Jesus Christ shed his blood to free his church, I demand

its freedom. I demand that every one may leave those gloomy walls [the

convents], within which a tyrannical law prevails, and embrace a

simple and peaceful life under the open vault of heaven. I demand that

the poor inhabitants of our towns and villages be not constrained to

furnish a worldly priest, often a vicious man and a heretic, with the

means of satisfying his ostentation, his gluttony, and his

licentiousness--of buying a showy horse, costly saddles, bridles with

tinkling bells, rich garments, and soft furs, while they see their

wives, children, and neighbours, dying of hunger."[187] The House of

Commons, recollecting that they had not given their consent to the

persecuting statute drawn up by the clergy and approved by the king

and the lords, demanded its repeal. Was the Reformation about to begin

by the will of the people?

[187] A Complaint of John Wycleff. Tracts and Treaties edited by the

Wickliffe Society, p. 268.

Courtenay, indignant at this intervention of the Commons, and ever

stimulated by a zeal for his church, which would have been better

directed towards the word of God, visited Oxford in November 1382, and

having gathered round him a number of bishops, doctors, priests,

students, and laymen, summoned Wickliffe before him. Forty years ago

the reformer had come up to the university: Oxford had become his home

... and now it was turning against him! Weakened by labours, by

trials, by that ardent soul which preyed upon his feeble body, he

might have refused to appear. But Wickliffe, who never feared the face

of man, came before them with a good conscience. We may conjecture

that there were among the crowd some disciples who felt their hearts

burn at the sight of their master; but no outward sign indicated their

emotion. The solemn silence of a court of justice had succeeded the

shouts of enthusiastic youths. Yet Wickliffe did not despair: he

raised his venerable head, and turned to Courtenay with that confident

look which had made the regents of Oxford shrink away. Growing wroth

against the _priests of Baal_, he reproached them with disseminating

error in order to sell their masses. Then he stopped, and uttered

these simple and energetic words: "The truth shall prevail!"[188]

Having thus spoken he prepared to leave the court: his enemies dared

not say a word; and, like his divine master at Nazareth, he passed

through the midst of them, and no man ventured to stop him. He then

withdrew to his cure at Lutterworth.

[188] Finaliter veritas vincet eos. Vaughan, Appendix, ii. p. 453.

[Sidenote: WICKLIFFE SUMMONED TO ROME.]

He had not yet reached the harbour. He was living peacefully among his

books and his parishioners, and the priests seemed inclined to leave

him alone, when another blow was aimed at him. A papal brief summoned

him to Rome, to appear before that tribunal which had so often shed

the blood of its adversaries. His bodily infirmities convinced him

that he could not obey this summons. But if Wickliffe refused to hear

Urban, Urban could not choose but hear Wickliffe. The church was at

that time divided between two chiefs: France, Scotland, Savoy,

Lorraine, Castile, and Aragon acknowledged Clement VII; while Italy,

England, Germany, Sweden, Poland, and Hungary acknowledged Urban VI.

Wickliffe shall tell us who is the true head of the church universal.

And while the two popes were excommunicating and abusing each other,

and selling heaven and earth for their own gain, the reformer was

confessing that incorruptible Word, which establishes real unity in

the church. "I believe," said he, "that the Gospel of Christ is the

whole body of God's law. I believe that Christ, who gave it to us, is

very God and very man, and that this Gospel revelation is,

accordingly, superior to all other parts of Holy Scripture.[189] I

believe that the bishop of Rome is bound more than all other men to

submit to it, for the greatness among Christ's disciples did not

consist in worldly dignity or honours, but in the exact following of

Christ in his life and manners. No faithful man ought to follow the

pope, but in such points as he hath followed Jesus Christ. The pope

ought to leave unto the secular power all temporal dominion and rule;

and thereunto effectually more and more exhort his whole clergy.... If

I could labour according to my desire in mine own person, I would

surely present myself before the bishop of Rome, but the Lord hath

otherwise visited me to the contrary, and hath taught me rather to

obey God than men."[190]

[189] This is the reading of the Bodleian manuscript--"and be [by]

this it passes all other laws." In Fox, Wickliffe appears to ascribe

to Christ himself this superiority over all Scripture,--a distinction

hardly in the mind of the reformer or of his age.

[190] An Epistle of J. Wickliffe to Pope Urban VI. Fox, Acts, i. p.

507, fol. Lond. 1684; also Lewis, Wickliffe, p. 333, Append.

Urban, who at that moment chanced to be very busied in his contest

with Clement, did not think it prudent to begin another with

Wickliffe, and so let the matter rest there. From this time the

doctor passed the remainder of his days in peace in the company of

three personages, two of whom were his particular friends, and the

third his constant adversary: these were _Aletheia_, _Phronesis_, and

_Pseudes_. _Aletheia_ (truth) proposed questions; _Pseudes_

(falsehood) urged objections; and _Phronesis_ (understanding) laid

down the sound doctrine. These three characters carried on a

conversation (_trialogue_) in which great truths were boldly

professed. The opposition between the pope and Christ--between the

canons of Romanism and the Bible--was painted in striking colours.

This is one of the primary truths which the church must never forget.

"The church has fallen," said one of the interlocutors in the work in

question, "because she has abandoned the Gospel, and preferred the

laws of the pope. Although there should be a hundred popes in the

world at once, and all the friars living should be transformed into

cardinals, we must withhold our confidence unless so far as they are

founded in Holy Scripture."[191]

[191] Ideo si essent centum papæ, et omnes fratres essent versi in

cardinales, non deberet concedi sententiæ suæ in materia fidei, nisi

de quanto se fundaverint in Scriptura. Trialogus, lib. iv. cap. vii.

[Sidenote: DEATH OF WICKLIFFE.]

These words were the last flicker of the torch. Wickliffe looked upon

his end as near, and entertained no idea that it would come in peace.

A dungeon on one of the seven hills, or a burning pile in London, was

all he expected. "Why do you talk of seeking the crown of martyrdom

afar?" asked he. "Preach the Gospel of Christ to haughty prelates, and

martyrdom will not fail you. What! I should live and be silent? ...

never! Let the blow fall, I await its coming."[192]

[192] Vaughan's Life of Wickliffe, ii, p. 215, 257.

The stroke was spared him. The war between two wicked priests, Urban

and Clement, left the disciples of our Lord in peace. And besides, was

it worth while cutting short a life that was drawing to a close?

Wickliffe, therefore, continued tranquilly to preach Jesus Christ; and

on the 29th December 1384, as he was in his church at Lutterworth, in

the midst of his flock, at the very moment that he stood before the

altar, and was elevating the host with trembling hands, he fell upon

the pavement struck with paralysis. He was carried to his house by the

affectionate friends around him, and after lingering forty-eight hours

resigned his soul to God on the last day of the year.

[Sidenote: WICKLIFFE'S CHARACTER.]

Thus was removed from the church one of the boldest witnesses to the

truth. The seriousness of his language, the holiness of his life, and

the energy of his faith, had intimidated the popedom. Travellers

relate that if a lion is met in the desert, it is sufficient to look

steadily at him, and the beast turns away roaring from the eye of man.

Wickliffe had fixed the eye of a Christian on the papacy, and the

affrighted papacy had left him in peace. Hunted down unceasingly while

living, he died in quiet, at the very moment when by faith he was

eating the flesh and drinking the blood which give eternal life. A

glorious end to a glorious life.

The Reformation of England had begun.

Wickliffe is the greatest English Reformer: he was in truth the first

reformer of Christendom, and to him, under God, Britain is indebted

for the honour of being the foremost in the attack upon the theocratic

system of Gregory VII. The work of the Waldenses, excellent as it was,

cannot be compared to his. If Luther and Calvin are the fathers of the

Reformation, Wickliffe is its grandfather.

Wickliffe, like most great men, possessed qualities which are not

generally found together. While his understanding was eminently

speculative--his treatise on the _Reality of universal Ideas_[193]

made a sensation in philosophy--he possessed that practical and active

mind which characterizes the Anglo-Saxon race. As a divine, he was at

once scriptural and spiritual, soundly orthodox, and possessed of an

inward and lively faith. With a boldness that impelled him to rush

into the midst of danger, he combined a logical and consistent mind,

which constantly led him forward in knowledge, and caused him to

maintain with perseverance the truths he had once proclaimed. First of

all, as a Christian, he had devoted his strength to the cause of the

church; but he was at the same time a citizen, and the realm, his

nation, and his king, had also a great share in his unwearied

activity. He was a man complete.

[193] De universalibus realibus.

[Sidenote: WICKLIFFE'S ECCLESIASTICAL VIEWS.]

If the man is admirable, his teaching is no less so. Scripture, which

is the rule of truth, should be (according to his views) the rule of

Reformation, and we must reject every doctrine and every precept which

does not rest on that foundation.[194] To believe in the power of man

in the work of regeneration is the great heresy of Rome, and from that

error has come the ruin of the church. Conversion proceeds from the

grace of God alone, and the system which ascribes it partly to man and

partly to God is worse than Pelagianism.[195] Christ is every thing

in Christianity; whosoever abandons that fountain which is ever ready

to impart life, and turns to muddy and stagnant waters, is a

madman.[196] Faith is a gift of God; it puts aside all merit, and

should banish all fear from the mind.[197] The one thing needful in

the Christian life and in the Lord's Supper is not a vain formalism

and superstitious rites, but communion with Christ according to the

power of the spiritual life.[198] Let Christians submit not to the

word of a priest but to the word of God. In the primitive church there

were but two orders, the deacon and the priest: the presbyter and the

bishop were one.[199] The sublimest calling which man can attain on

earth is that of preaching the word of God. The true church is the

assembly of the righteous for whom Christ shed his blood. So long as

Christ is in heaven, in Him the church possesses the best pope. It is

possible for a pope to be condemned at the last day because of his

sins. Would men compel us to recognise as our head "a devil of

hell?"[200] Such were the essential points of Wickliffe's doctrine. It

was the echo of the doctrine of the apostles--the prelude to that of

the reformers.

[194] Auctoritas Scripturæ sacræ, quæ est lex Christi, infinitum

excedit quam libet scripturam aliam. Dialog. [Trialogus] lib. iii.

cap. xxx; see in particular chap. xxxi. The authority of Holy

Scripture, which is the law of Christ, infinitely surpasses all other

writings whatever.

[195] Ibid. de prædestinatione, de peccato, de gratia, etc.

[196] Dialog. [Trialogus] lib. iii, cap. xxx.

[197] Fidem a Deo infusam sine aliqua trepidatione fidei contraria.

Ibid. lib. iii, cap. ii.

[198] Secundum rationem spiritualis et virtualis existentiæ. Ibid.

lib. iv, cap. viii.

[199] Fuit idem presbyter atque episcopus. Ibid. lib. iv, cap. xv.

[200] Vaughan's Life of Wickliffe, ii, 307. The Christian public is

much indebted to Dr. Vaughan for his biography of this reformer.

[Sidenote: PROPHECY.]

In many respects Wickliffe is the Luther of England; but the times of

revival had not yet come, and the English reformer could not gain such

striking victories over Rome as the German reformer. While Luther was

surrounded by an ever-increasing number of scholars and princes, who

confessed the same faith as himself, Wickliffe shone almost alone in

the firmament of the church. The boldness with which he substituted a

living spirituality for a superstitious formalism, caused those to

shrink back in affright who had gone with him against friars, priests,

and popes. Erelong the Roman pontiff ordered him to be thrown into

prison, and the monks threatened his life;[201] but God protected him,

and he remained calm amidst the machinations of his adversaries.

"Antichrist," said he, "can only kill the body." Having one foot in

the grave already, he foretold that, from the very bosom of monkery,

would some day proceed the regeneration of the church. "If the friars,

whom God condescends to teach, shall be converted to the primitive

religion of Christ," said he, "we shall see them abandoning their

unbelief, returning freely, with or without the permission of

Antichrist, to the primitive religion of the Lord, and building up the

church, as did St. Paul."[202]

[201] Multitudo fratrum mortem tuam multipliciter machinantur. Ibid.

lib. iv, cap. iv.

[202] Aliqui fratres quos Deus docere dignatur....relicta sua

perfidia.....redibunt libere ad religionem Christi primævam, et tunc

ædificabunt ecclesiam, sicut Paulus. Dialog. [Trialogus] lib. iv, cap.

xxx.

Thus did Wickliffe's piercing glance discover, at the distance of

nearly a century and a half, the young monk Luther in the Augustine

convent at Erfurth, converted by the Epistle to the Romans, and

returning to the spirit of St. Paul and the religion of Jesus Christ.

Time was hastening on to the fulfilment of this prophecy. "The rising

sun of the Reformation," for so has Wickliffe been called, had

appeared above the horizon, and its beams were no more to be

extinguished. In vain will thick clouds veil it at times; the distant

hill-tops of Eastern Europe will soon reflect its rays;[203] and its

piercing light, increasing in brightness, will pour over all the

world, at the hour of the church's renovation, floods of knowledge and

of life.

[203] John Huss in Bohemia.

CHAPTER IX.

The Wickliffites--Call for Reform--Richard II--The first

Martyr--Lord Cobham--Appears before Henry V--Before the

Archbishop--His Confession and Death--The Lollards.

[Sidenote: CALL FOR REFORM.]

Wickliffe's death manifested the power of his teaching. The master

being removed, his disciples set their hands to the plough, and

England was almost won over to the reformer's doctrines. The

Wickliffites recognized a ministry independent of Rome, and deriving

authority from the word of God alone. "Every minister," said they,

"can administer the sacraments and confer the cure of souls as well as

the pope." To the licentious wealth of the clergy they opposed a

Christian poverty, and to the degenerate asceticism of the mendicant

orders, a spiritual and free life. The townsfolk crowded around these

humble preachers; the soldiers listened to them, armed with sword and

buckler to defend them;[204] the nobility took down the images from

their baronial chapels;[205] and even the royal family was partly won

over to the Reformation. England was like a tree cut down to the

ground, from whose roots fresh buds are shooting out on every side,

erelong to cover all the earth beneath their shade.[206]

[204] Assistere solent gladio et pelta stipati ad eorum defensionem.

Knyghton, lib. v, p. 2660.

[205] Milites cum ducibus et comitibus erant præcipue eis adhærentes.

Ibid.

[206] Quasi germinantes multiplicati sunt nimis et impleverunt ubique

orbem regni. Kuyguton. lib. v, p. 2660. These "_Conclusiones_" are

reprinted by Lewis (Wickliffe) p. 337.

This augmented the courage of Wickliffe's disciples, and in many

places the people took the initiative in the reform. The walls of St.

Paul's and other cathedrals were hung with placards aimed at the

priests and friars, and the abuses of which they were the defenders;

and in 1395 the friends of the Gospel petitioned parliament for a

general reform. "The essence of the worship which comes from Rome,"

said they, "consists in signs and ceremonies, and not in the

efficacity of the Holy Ghost: and therefore it is not that which

Christ has ordained. Temporal things are distinct from spiritual

things: a king and a bishop ought not to be one and the same

person."[207] And then, from not clearly understanding the principle

of the separation of the functions which they proclaimed, they called

upon parliament to "abolish celibacy, transubstantiation, prayers for

the dead, offerings to images, auricular confession, war, the arts

unnecessary to life, the practice of blessing oil, salt, wax, incense,

stones, mitres, and pilgrims' staffs. All these pertain to necromancy

and not to theology." Emboldened by the absence of the king in

Ireland, they fixed their _Twelve Conclusions_ on the gates of St.

Paul's and Westminster Abbey. This became the signal for persecution.

[207] Rex et episcopus in una persona, etc. Ibid.

[Sidenote: THE FIRST MARTYR.]

As soon as Arundel, archbishop of York, and Braybrooke, bishop of

London, had read these propositions, they hastily crossed St. George's

channel, and conjured the king to return to England. The prince

hesitated not to comply, for his wife, the pious Anne of Luxemburg,

was dead. Richard, during childhood and youth, had been committed in

succession to the charge of several guardians, and like children (says

an historian), whose nurses have been often changed, he thrived none

the better for it. He did good or evil, according to the influence of

those around him, and had no decided inclinations except for

ostentation and licentiousness. The clergy were not mistaken in

calculating on such a prince. On his return to London he forbade the

parliament to take the Wickliffite petition into consideration; and

having summoned before him the most distinguished of its supporters,

such as Story, Clifford, Latimer, and Montacute, he threatened them

with death if they continued to defend their abominable opinions.

Thus was the work of the reformer about to be destroyed.

But Richard had hardly withdrawn his hand from the Gospel, when God

(says the annalist) withdrew his hand from him.[208] His cousin, Henry

of Hereford, son of the famous duke of Lancaster, and who had been

banished from England, suddenly sailed from the continent, landed in

Yorkshire, gathered all the malcontents around him, and was

acknowledged king. The unhappy Richard, after being formally deposed,

was confined in Pontefract castle, where he soon terminated his

earthly career.

[208] Fox, Acts, i. p. 584, fol. Lond. 1684.

The son of Wickliffe's old defender was now king: a reform of the

church seemed imminent; but the primate Arundel had foreseen the

danger. This cunning priest and skilful politician had observed which

way the wind blew, and deserted Richard in good time. Taking Lancaster

by the hand, he put the crown on his head, saying to him: "To

consolidate your throne, conciliate the clergy, and sacrifice the

Lollards."--"I will be the protector of the church," replied Henry IV,

and from that hour the power of the priests was greater than the power

of the nobility. Rome has ever been adroit in profiting by

revolutions.

Lancaster, in his eagerness to show his gratitude to the priests,

ordered that every incorrigible heretic should be burnt alive, to

terrify his companions.[209] Practice followed close upon the theory.

A pious priest named William Sawtre had presumed to say: "Instead of

adoring the cross on which Christ suffered, I adore Christ who

suffered on it."[210] He was dragged to St. Paul's; his hair was

shaved off; a layman's cap was placed on his head; and the primate

handed him over to the _mercy_ of the earl-marshal of England. This

mercy was shown him--he was burnt alive at Smithfield in the beginning

of March, 1401. Sawtre was the first martyr to protestantism.

[209] Ibid. p. 586. This is the statute known as 2 Henry IV. c. 15,

the first actual law in England against heresy.

[210] Ibid. p. 589.

[Sidenote: LORD COBHAM.]

Encouraged by this act of faith--this _auto da fé_--the clergy drew up

the articles known as the "Constitutions of Arundel," which forbade

the reading of the Bible, and styled the pope, "not a mere man, but a

true God."[211] The Lollards' tower, in the archiepiscopal palace of

Lambeth, was soon filled with pretended heretics, many of whom carved

on the walls of their dungeons the expression of their sorrow and

their hopes: _Jesus amor meus_, wrote one of them.[212]

[211] Not of pure man but of true God, here in earth. Ibid. p. 596.

[212] "Jesus is my love." These words are still to be read in the

tower.

To crush the lowly was not enough: the Gospel must be driven from the

more exalted stations. The priests, who were sincere in their belief,

regarded those noblemen as misleaders, who set the word of God above

the laws of Rome; and accordingly they girded themselves for the work.

A few miles from Rochester stood Cowling Castle, in the midst of the

fertile pastures watered by the Medway,

The fair Medwaya that with wanton pride

Forms silver mazes with her crooked tide.[213]

[213] Blackmore.

In the beginning of the fifteenth century it was inhabited by Sir John

Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, a man in high favour with the king. The "poor

priests" thronged to Cowling in quest of Wickliffe's writings, of

which Cobham had caused numerous copies to be made, and whence they

were circulated through the dioceses of Canterbury, Rochester, London,

and Hertford. Cobham attended their preaching, and if any enemies

ventured to interrupt them, he threatened them with his sword.[214] "I

would sooner risk my life," said he, "than submit to such unjust

decrees as dishonour the everlasting Testament." The king would not

permit the clergy to lay hands on his favourite.

[214] Eorum prædicationibus nefariis interfuit, et contradictores, si

quos repererat, minis et terroribus et gladii secularis potentia

compescuit. (Rymer, Fœdera. tom. iv. pars 2, p. 50.) He attended their

interdicted preaching, and if he found any interrupting them, he kept

them in check by threats and terrors and by the power of the secular

sword.

[Sidenote: COBHAM BEFORE THE ARCHBISHOP.]

But Henry V having succeeded his father in 1413, and passed from the

houses of ill-fame he had hitherto frequented, to the foot of the

altars and the head of the armies, the archbishop immediately

denounced Cobham to him, and he was summoned to appear before the

king. Sir John had understood Wickliffe's doctrine, and experienced in

his own person the might of the divine Word. "As touching the pope and

his spirituality," he said to the king, "I owe them neither suit nor

service, forasmuch as I know him by the Scriptures to be the great

antichrist."[215] Henry thrust aside Cobham's hand as he presented his

confession of faith: "I will not receive this paper, lay it before

your judges." When he saw his profession refused, Cobham had recourse

to the only arm which he knew of out of the Gospel. The differences

which we now settle by pamphlets were then very commonly settled by

the sword:--"I offer in defence of my faith to fight for life or death

with any man living, Christian or pagan, always excepting your

majesty."[216] Cobham was led to the Tower.

[215] Fox, vol. i. p. 636, fol.

[216] Fox, Acts, i. p. 637.

On the 23rd September, 1413, he was taken before the ecclesiastical

tribunal then sitting at St. Paul's. "We must believe," said the

primate to him, "what the holy church of Rome teaches, without

demanding Christ's authority."--"Believe!" shouted the priests,

"believe!"--"I am willing to believe all that God desires," said Sir

John; "but that the pope should have authority to teach what is

contrary to Scripture--that I can never believe." He was led back to

the Tower. The word of God was to have its martyr.

On Monday, 25th September, a crowd of priests, canons, friars, clerks,

and indulgence-sellers, thronged the large hall of the Dominican

convent, and attacked Lord Cobham with abusive language. These

insults, the importance of the moment for the Reformation of England,

the catastrophe that must needs close the scene: all agitated his soul

to its very depths. When the archbishop called upon him to confess his

offence, he fell on his knees, and lifting up his hands to heaven,

exclaimed: "I confess to Thee, O God! and acknowledge that in my frail

youth I seriously offended Thee by my pride, anger, intemperance, and

impurity: for these offences I implore thy mercy!" Then standing up,

his face still wet with tears, he said: "I ask not your absolution: it

is God's only that I need."[217] The clergy did not despair, however,

of reducing this high-spirited gentleman: they knew that spiritual

strength is not always conjoined with bodily vigour, and they hoped to

vanquish by priestly sophisms the man who dared challenge the papal

champions to single combat. "Sir John," said the primate at last, "You

have said some very strange things; we have spent much time in

endeavours to convince you, but all to no effect. The day passeth

away: you must either submit yourself to the ordinance of the most

holy church...." "I will none otherwise believe than what I have told

you. Do with me what you will."--"Well then, we must needs do the

law," the archbishop made answer.

[217] Quod nullam absolutionem in hac parte peteret a nobis, sed a

solo Deo. Rymer, Fœdera, p. 51.

[Sidenote: THE LOLLARDS.]

Arundel stood up; all the priests and people rose with him and

uncovered their heads. Then holding the sentence of death in his

hand, he read it with a loud clear voice. "It is well," said Sir John;

"though you condemn my body, you can do no harm to my soul, by the

grace of my eternal God." He was again led back to the Tower, whence

he escaped one night, and took refuge in Wales. He was retaken in

December, 1417, carried to London, dragged on a hurdle to Saint

Giles's fields, and there suspended by chains over a slow fire, and

cruelly burned to death. Thus died a Christian, illustrious after the

fashion of his age--a champion of the Word of God. The London prisons

were filled with Wickliffites, and it was decreed that they should be

hung on the king's account, and burnt for God's.[218]

[218] Incendio propter Deum, suspendio propter regem. Thom. Waldensis

in proemio. Raynald, ann. 1414. No. 16.

The intimidated Lollards were compelled to hide themselves in the

humblest ranks of the people, and to hold their meetings in secret.

The work of redemption was proceeding noiselessly among the elect of

God. Of these Lollards, there were many who had been redeemed by Jesus

Christ; but in general they knew not, to the same extent as the

evangelical Christians of the sixteenth century, the quickening and

justifying power of faith. They were plain, meek, and often timid

folks, attracted by the word of God, affected at the condemnation it

pronounces against the errors of Rome, and desirous of living

according to its commandments. God had assigned them a part--and an

important part too--in the great transformation of Christianity. Their

humble piety, their passive resistance, the shameful treatment which

they bore with resignation, the penitent's robes with which they were

covered, the tapers they were compelled to hold at the church

door--all these things betrayed the pride of the priests, and filled

the most generous minds with doubts and vague desires. By a baptism of

suffering, God was then preparing the way to a glorious reformation.

CHAPTER X.

Learning at Florence--The Tudors--Erasmus visits

England--Sir Thomas More--Dean Colet--Erasmus and young

Henry--Prince Arthur and Catherine--Marriage and

Death--Catherine betrothed to Henry--Accession of Henry

VIII--Enthusiasm of the Learned--Erasmus recalled to

England--Cromwell before the Pope--Catherine proposed to

Henry--Their Marriage and Court--Tournaments--Henry's

Danger.

[Sidenote: LEARNING AT FLORENCE.]

This reformation was to be the result of two distinct forces--the

revival of learning and the resurrection of the word of God. The

latter was the principal cause, but the former was necessary as a

means. Without it the living waters of the Gospel would probably have

traversed the age, like summer streams which soon dry up, such as

those which had burst forth here and there during the middle ages; it

would not have become that majestic river, which, by its inundations,

fertilized all the earth. It was necessary to discover and examine the

original fountains, and for this end the study of Greek and Hebrew was

indispensable. Lollardism and humanism (the study of the classics)

were the two laboratories of the reform. We have seen the preparations

of the one, we must now trace the commencement of the other; and as we

have discovered the light in the lowly valleys, we shall discern it

also on the lofty mountain tops.

[Sidenote: THE TUDORS.]

About the end of the fifteenth century, several young Englishmen

chanced to be at Florence, attracted thither by the literary glory

which environed the city of the Medici. Cosmo had collected together a

great number of works of antiquity, and his palace was thronged with

learned men. William Selling, a young English ecclesiastic, afterwards

distinguished at Canterbury by his zeal in collecting valuable

manuscripts; his fellow-countrymen, Grocyn, Lilly, and Latimer "more

bashful than a maiden;"[219] and, above all, Linacre, whom Erasmus

ranked before all the scholars of Italy,--used to meet in the

delicious villa of the Medici with Politian, Chalcondyles, and other

men of learning; and there, in the calm evenings of summer, under that

glorious Tuscan sky, they dreamt romantic visions of the Platonic

philosophy. When they returned to England, these learned men laid

before the youth of Oxford the marvellous treasures of the Greek

language. Some Italians even, attracted by the desire to enlighten the

barbarians, and a little, it may be, by the brilliant offers made

them, quitted their beloved country for the distant Britain. Cornelius

Vitelli taught at Oxford, and Caius Amberino at Cambridge. Caxton

imported the art of printing from Germany, and the nation hailed with

enthusiasm the brilliant dawn which was breaking at last in their

cloudy sky.

[219] Pudorem plus quam virgineum. Erasm. Ep. i. p. 525.

While learning was reviving in England, a new dynasty succeeded to the

throne, bringing with it that energy of character which of itself is

able to effect great revolutions; the Tudors succeeded the

Plantagenets. That inflexible intrepidity by which the reformers of

Germany, Switzerland, France, and Scotland were distinguished, did not

exist so generally in those of England; but it was found in the

character of her kings, who often stretched it even to violence. It

may be that to this preponderance of energy in its rulers, the church

owes the preponderance of the state in its affairs.

Henry Tudor, the Louis XI of England, was a clever prince, of decided

but suspicious character, avaricious and narrow-minded. Being

descended from a Welsh family, he belonged to that ancient race of

Celts, who had so long contended against the papacy. Henry had

extinguished faction at home, and taught foreign nations to respect

his power. A good genius seemed to exercise a salutary influence over

his court as well as over himself: this was his mother, the Countess

of Richmond. From her closet, where she consecrated the first five

hours of the day to reading, meditation, and prayer, she moved to

another part of the palace to dress the wounds of some of the lowest

mendicants; thence she passed into the gay saloons, where she would

converse with the scholars, whom she encouraged by her munificence.

This noble lady's passion for study, of which her son inherited but

little, was not without its influence in her family. Arthur and Henry,

the king's eldest sons, trembled in their father's presence; but,

captivated by the affection of their pious grandmother, they began to

find a pleasure in the society of learned men. An important

circumstance gave a new impulse to one of them.

[Sidenote: ERASMUS IN ENGLAND.]

Among the countess's friends was Montjoy, who had known Erasmus at

Paris, and heard his cutting sarcasms upon the schoolmen and friars.

He invited the illustrious Dutchman to England, and Erasmus, who was

fearful of catching the plague, gladly accepted the invitation, and

set out for what he believed to be the kingdom of darkness. But he had

not been long in England before he discovered unexpected light.