The following morning Thomas Goldynge, Bishop of Ely, lay in bed
awaiting those to whom he had promised audience. It was with
considerable curiosity that he awaited the young poor priest whom he
had summoned. He sighed with relief as he realized that the hard fight
which he had waged against Rome was ended. It was a contest over the
best method of suppressing the poor priests, and it had taken many
secret embassies to Rome, and many letters in cipher sent to trusted
friends at the Papal Court. Indeed, it had looked at one time as if
the Bishop himself, aged as he was, would have to undertake the long
and tedious journey to the Holy City, for the Bishop looked upon
this matter as one of vital importance to the Church. He agreed with
the Papal Legate that the incendiary preaching of the poor priests
must be stamped out, but he had some theories of his own as to this
stamping-out process, and persecution bore no part in them. He, more
than any other Churchman, realized that the English people needed
careful handling. How was the Italian Legate to understand anything
of the rage and indignation that were growing up in the hearts of the
English against foreign subjection, against a Church that gave the best
sees in the land to Italians who scarce deigned to make acquaintance
with the very outsides of their churches? The substance of the people
was being wrung from them to help the cause of their bitter enemies.
The King of England had little or nothing left for his needs because
the Church refused to give up one tittle of its moneys for the good of
the realm. Goldynge was an Englishman, and he had struggled all his
life to place Englishmen in English churches. He was against the new
spirit of Nationalism, however, when it asserted itself against the
most sacred prerogatives of the Church, for he could look far ahead and
see that this spirit might become powerful enough to wreck the Church
Universal and give birth in England to a Church that would forswear all
allegiance to Rome. He was for doing all in his power to redress the
wrongs of the people and keep the breach from widening, for Holy Church
had about all the schisms it could well take care of for some time to
come.
When Robert Annys was ushered in with head flung well back and every
line in the lithe young body eloquent of a proud defiance, the Bishop
raised himself on the pillow and looked long and eagerly into his face.
Therein he read all that he had counted to find. In the deep-set eyes,
the high, narrow brow, the sensitive mouth, the delicately chiselled
chin, there were revealed to the shrewd old prelate the enthusiastic
temperament of a reformer, the idealism of a poet, the puissant desire
to work, to change, to remake. And also, and therein lay his secret
satisfaction, he read the fine acumen of a critic. A dangerous quality
that, which was certain to make war upon the other qualities that
struggled in his breast. Here was before him no blunt fanatic like John
Ball, flying as unswervingly to his goal as the arrow shot from the
bow, but one with the discerning mind that weighs, discriminates, and
looks far enough ahead to see its own heart-break at the end.
"You sent for me?" although the tone was defiant, it was less so than
Annys had intended it. Somehow he found it hard to be arrogant to this
gentle old man whose flowing locks looked whiter than ever against the
deep red of the bed-curtains. Only a beautiful old man upon his couch,
looking at him with dim kindly eyes and a mouth that smiled. Far
rather would he have faced a haughty prelate in rustling robes--that
would have roused him and strengthened him in his hatred of all for
which a Bishop stood.
"Yes," replied the old man, very gently, "I have sent for thee, for I
have heard much of this russet priest who sways great bodies of men as
they hearken to him, even as row upon row of corn is swayed by the wind
that blows across the fields. I wished to see him and hold converse
with him."
"Why should I come here before you that you may look upon me? I owe
no allegiance to the Bishop of Ely. I serve him not, I serve only my
master, John Wyclif."
"And our Master, Jesus Christ?" mildly interposed the Bishop.
"Yea, I serve _my_ Master, Jesus Christ," asserted the poor priest,
"but"--he was annoyed to find that the words in his heart did not rise
so easily to his tongue as he would have them do. He felt the old man's
eyes gravely fixed upon him.
"But?" he suggested with sedate politeness--"but?"
The young man reddened with discomfiture, but remained silent.
"I beg of you to go on," said the Bishop, suavely; "we are quite
alone. I have sent for you to understand what is in your heart, and I
would that you open it to me without fear."
The word stung the poor priest as the older man knew it would.
"Fear? I have no fear. What should I fear? I would say that one cannot
serve two masters at one time, the one Christ, the other Antichrist.
I do not see that one can bear at one and the same time the pectoral
cross and the cross of Christ Jesus."
It was now the Bishop's turn to redden, but he only bit his lip for an
instant and then smiled frankly. "I understand," he said, "I have heard
somewhat of this kind of thing before. You poor priests claim that
Christ founded no cathedrals, and that He worked with fishermen instead
of Bishops. I know ye would like to see the palaces of Bishops razed to
the ground that bread might be placed between the lips of the hungry,
the gold of the altars melted that it might run into the purse of the
poor. As your poet hath it,
"'Let Bishops' horses become beggars' chambers.