vague reports current that the murdered Richard was still alive, found eager and ready credence among the enemies of the Church. The diffusion of those incentives to further rebellions and the heretical doctrines of the adherents of Wiclif were, however, now speedily condemned in one and the same statute; and the more closely the anti-Catholic tendencies became identified with political conspiracy, the more energetic and complete were the measures taken by the government. Even during the reign of Henry IV. the Crown had been able to keep in check the religious opposition at home, without reference to the continent, and had successfully erected the standard of orthodoxy in its former high place. One of the first declarations of that prince had been, that he would uphold not only the ancient constitutional privileges of the Church, but also the doctrines established by the fathers of the Church and by the doctors of the schools. By such stringent measures as these he effected an union between the different parts of the legislature and state, which could not have been attained under Richard, for now the crown, with the clergy and barons conjoined, passed a fundamental law against heresy, by which ecclesiastics who had relapsed after their recantation, could be punished, and their heretical writings judged by the episcopal tribunals, which, in case they were committed, were to give them over to the secular authorities for further punishment and final judgment. On the 26th of February, 1400, the first fires were lighted at Smithfield, when William Sawtree, a Wiclifite pastor, was burnt. This was the beginning of a whole century of bloody persecution, the extent of which we cannot fully realize,

although many individual cases are well known to us. The object aimed at was, however, manifestly not attained, as the reformation of the sixteenth century amply proves. Although the strength of the English nation was long doomed to strive against such severity on the part of the inquisitorial authorities, the unbending spirit of the German character was shown in their firm rejection of opinions of which they did not approve. The Lollards even did not for a long time regard their cause as wholly lost. The more severe the oppression with which they were threatened, the more earnest grew their preachers, and the more excited and zealous were their adherents. One is also surprised to find how long the old spirit of reformation which had been transmitted through so many national channels to the University of Oxford, survived the repressive measures adopted for its annihilation; but the influence of Wiclif continued even after his death to exert a powerful and beneficent effect on the hearts of his countrymen. Courtnay's successor, Archbishop Arundel, "that tower of the orthodox faith," as his friends called him, directed his attention from an early period to this university, which seemed to him in a pitiable condition, and which, as he expressed it, "had once been a full and juicy vine, but now produced only sour grapes." Here Wiclif's memory had recently been exalted to the skies in a university decree, and here some few of his adherents might be found as late as the middle of the century. At Arundel's instigation, the Inquisition was converted into a permanent court in the year 1409, when the university authorities were enjoined, under the threat of excommunication, to visit every month each

individual college and hall, and to expel all the teachers or scholars whose opinions had laid them open to the suspicions of heresy. Three years later, however, the academical authorities entreated the primate to make a personal visitation of the colleges and halls; while they met his zeal half way by extracting hundreds of passages from the writings of the reformer, which they characterized as unorthodox. These measures were quite in harmony with the ecclesiastical censure that was now levelled at all Wiclifite works generally. It was

decreed that only such works as had been approved of by the proper authorities, were to be transmitted to booksellers for copying and distribution; while all translations into English, either of the Biblical text or of the writings of the Fathers, were strictly prohibited. Thus, the bar which had once been removed was again applied; but we see how stringent were the measures required to meet the enemy with vigorous opposition at this single point.

Almost more important, however, was the position which was still maintained by the Commons, who were entrusted with the principal participation in the enactment of the laws. The penal statute against the Lollards had not passed into a law of the land without a strong protest on their part. An important section of the representatives both of the civic and rural population, still maintained certain dangerous principles, which they looked upon as perfectly practical, and which had already, many years before, been promulgated by the sectarians. According to these views, nothing could be more expedient, since all worldly corruption appeared to have taken root among the over

wealthy clergy, than to incorporate the property of the Church with that of the State, by which means the inadequate resources of the financial and administrative departments would be relieved of some of their excessive pressure, and the purses of the taxpayers less heavily drained. In the year 1404, to the intense indignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, some of the knights of the shires seemed disposed to lay hands on the property of the clergy; and in 1410, the members of the Lower House, when irritated by the exactions of the Crown, surprised the other portions of the legislative body by a remarkable motion, which aimed at nothing less than a secularization on a large scale, which was conceived very much in the same spirit as that of the succeeding century. They proposed, in real earnestness, to take a sufficient sum from the revenues of the prelates and the monastic institutions to bring into the field fifteen earls, fifteen hundred knights, and six thousand squires, in addition to which the Church was to supply the funds necessary to erect a hundred hospitals for the poor-propositions which were so nearly communistic in their nature, that they lead us to suspect some connexion between the doctrines of Wiclif and the tendencies of the year 1381. The extreme sympathy evinced by this parliament towards the views of the Lollards, is clearly manifested by the series of motions and petitions brought under notice during the session. The Commons demanded that all persons suspected of a relapse to heresy should be brought before the secular judges, and not be subjected to the ecclesiastical courts; and that the penal statute of the year 1401 should be modified. This gave rise to a violent conflict with the King and the Upper

House, in which the Commons were finally compelled to submit by withdrawing their petition. This appears, moreover, to have been the turning point of the affair in parliament, for, from henceforth, the impression evidently gained ground among other classes as well as among the clergy and nobility, that theological reform was connected with tendencies inimical to the possession of property; while, moreover, the Commons began to perceive that the spoliation of the Church would only be the prelude to an overthrow of the other estates of the realm. Thus, therefore, a rupture was avoided between the different sections of the legislature, and Henry IV. had the satisfaction of finding that he could govern his kingdom strictly in harmony with the wishes of parliament, while, at the same time, he redeemed his pledge to the Church of upholding the cause of orthodoxy. Thus supported, his son entered upon the prosecution of his acknowledged purpose of thoroughly eradicating heresy, against the adherents of which an act of outlawry had been passed.

Even when still Prince of Wales, he had manifested in the midst of his mad pranks an almost fanatical hatred against heretics. He appears in the year 1406 to have brought about a combination of the Lords and Prelates, who, in their turn, took upon themselves the task of gaining over the Commons, with the view of their proceeding conjointly against the adherents of the perfidious Richard and the Lollards. When, in the year 1410, a miserable wretch, named Badby, a smith by trade, was to be burnt at Smithfield, and had just been secured within the tun, the Prince of Wales stepped forth from the crowd. It is difficult to understand