Authors: Thomas B. Costain
The crusade, beginning in the scholastic walls of Balliol and being transferred later to the rectory at Lutterworth, a quiet parish on the River Speed near Oxford, where Wycliffe spent his last years, did not come into much notice until the late years of the reign of Edward III. It was not a matter of much state concern until succeeding reigns. If the harvest he was sowing so industriously had produced a sudden crop of general discontent, he would undoubtedly have faced the issue with courage, even if it meant a martyr’s death. As it happened, he died peacefully in his bed at Lutterworth. It was forty-four years after he breathed his last that the hand of ecclesiastical retribution reached out. His bones were exhumed from the grave and burned. The ashes were committed to the waters of the Swift; but by that time the tinder had caught fire and had started flames in many parts of Europe.
It would verge on the absurd to say that John of Gaunt was attracted by the teachings of this eloquent but retiring scholar and priest. But the
duke was a keen politician and he was searching eagerly for issues he could use to bring himself support and to counteract the unpopularity he had achieved among the people by his arrogance and disregard of established rights. He saw possibilities in what Wycliffe was preaching and extended a protecting hand. What a curious combination they made: the unscrupulous son of the once great king, who was always ready to trample opposition under his steel-shod feet, and the gentle little man whose aim at this point was to see the Church become again purified and strengthened by poverty!
By this time the duke and Lord Percy, the marshal of England, were working closely together. They were as one in seeing in Wycliffe a man supremely able in the art of debate. They proceeded to make it easier for him to get the audiences he desired. He began to preach in London, and it is said he found ready listeners among the court nobility. What many laymen and some leaders in the Church had been thinking was now being spoken boldly and publicly.
Bishop Courtenay of London became incensed at these attacks on the Church. His father was the Earl of Devon and he was a great-grandson of Edward I and, with such connections, he did not hesitate to place himself in opposition to the powerful duke. “He would not,” he declared, “hear himself and his order attacked in his own diocese by this unauthorized priest from Oxford!” It was not an easy matter, however, for even as aggressive a churchman as Courtenay to get his fellow bishops to agree on any line of action, particularly Archbishop Sudbury, who was generally assumed to belong to the duke’s party. The bishops, it should be pointed out, were strongly averse to the continuous demands made by the popes on their revenues. This feeling had grown since the papacy had been moved to Avignon, where the influence of France was paramount. A few years before, the bishops had met a demand from the king for a subsidy by declaring themselves no longer able to meet the calls made on them by the crown and the papacy. They had said then that they could help the king only “if the intolerable yoke of the pope were taken from their necks.” Men who had expressed such feelings could not be expected to find too much fault with a churchman who was repeating what they had said and doing it with a high degree of eloquence and persuasive logic.
Courtenay, however, was not an easy man to withstand once his mind was made up. He brushed aside the contentions of Simon of Sudbury and summoned John Wycliffe to appear before the bishops at St. Paul’s.
It was on February 19, 1377, while the Bad Parliament was still in session, that the bishops assembled solemnly in the Lady Chapel of St. Paul’s. The chapel, which was situated behind the high altar, had been chosen because it was not large, there being no desire on their part to have the hearing before a noisy assemblage. They had not reckoned on the curiosity of the citizenry of London. It was a proud claim of the church that the main aisle of the cathedral was the longest in the world; but when the time came for the hearing, every inch of space was filled with eager townspeople. Even that long aisle itself was packed tight. The issue, quite clearly, was too important in the public mind to allow an airing
en camera
.
John Wycliffe came through the main entrance and found his way completely blocked. He was accompanied by four friars, one from each of the main mendicant orders (who over the years had become anathema to the bishops), as volunteers to aid in his defense, if necessary, as well as to demonstrate their belief in him. That was of small consequence compared to the significance of two others who arrived at the same time. The marshal of England, Lord Percy, strode in front and the duke himself walked beside the Oxford divine.
Percy was a man of imperious temper (and of many other faults) and, when he found the main aisle so packed with humanity that there seemed no way of getting through, he plunged vigorously into the mass, shouting loud demands to the people to stand aside, to remove their vulgar carcasses, in fact, no matter how it had to be done. Bishop Courtenay had remained near the entrance to keep an eye on things, and he now cried out angrily that he would not have his people mistreated.
“Like it or not!” retorted Percy. “We’ll allow none of them to stand in our way!”
The assembled multitude seems to have behaved with unusual docility. Ordinarily the touch of the hand of authority on the shoulder of the merest apprentice was enough to set off a riot in the city. The explanation was, perhaps, that the curiosity of the people was great enough to hold their natural combativeness in check. Walking calmly beside the much-execrated duke was the man who had so boldly set the honorable bishops of England by the ears. Some of them had heard him preach, but to most of them he was a stranger.
John Wycliffe walked slowly up the aisle as a path was cleared for him; a small man, and almost emaciated of frame, but with the stamp of greatness on him, the broad brow, the keenness of deep-set eye, the resolute line of mouth, the long white beard of a lifetime of scholarship. To an
observant eye, the fine proportions of his forehead gave an indication of the insight and power needed for what was to be the great labor of his life, the translation he was making of the Bible into the English tongue. It was completed, fortunately, before his death, in such seclusion as was allowed him from the clamor of persecution, in the quiet of his rectory at Lutterworth.
He seemed completely at ease, in spite of the ordeal which lay ahead of him, and a silence fell on the swaying, jostling people as he came within their range. It was a good thing that the men of London did not allow their mounting hatred of the duke to influence their feeling for this frail churchman; for this was their chance to see one of the greatest of Englishmen as he faced what might prove his most severe test.
The storm broke when John Wycliffe and his guard of honor reached the Lady Chapel. The bishops were seated about the archbishop in a suitable gravity. The duke and Lord Percy promptly took chairs and the latter motioned to the defendant to seat himself.
“You have much to reply,” he said. “You will need the softer seat.”
This aroused the Bishop of London, whose stormy temperament stemmed perhaps from his share of Plantagenet blood, to an emphatic protest.
“This is impertinence!” he charged. “The accused must stand to give his answers!”
It was the right of the archbishop to settle the point, but Courtenay did not wait for the complaisant Sudbury to speak. He refused point-blank to permit Wycliffe to be seated during the hearing. The examination might conceivably take several days and it was clear to all, except perhaps to my lord Courtenay, that the frail scholar lacked the strength to remain on his feet for such an extended time. Accordingly the duke declared loudly his intention not to accept the dictation of the Bishop of London. He even hinted in an undertone that if necessary he would drag the bishop out of the cathedral by the hair of his head.
The loud voices from the Lady Chapel had reached the crowds assembled in the cathedral. The Londoners tried to break into the inner room, uttering loud threats. They were held back by the pikes of the duke’s guards, and for a time it seemed certain that there would be much bloodshed before peace could be restored.
Throughout the confusion Wycliffe remained standing and did not lose any of his composure. Perhaps he was regretting that he had agreed to an escort. Perhaps, on the other hand, he was realizing for the first time the depth of the feeling he was stirring up in the country.
The final outcome was that the defendant was permitted to leave by another door and the cathedral was cleared as rapidly as possible. No effort was made at the time to hold a delayed hearing, which may
have meant that Courtenay had lost some of his influence over his fellow bishops.
The old king, living in his castle of Shene, was entering his final stage of life while this furious controversy shook the capital. In the few months left to him, there was too much else in the way of state problems to be done for the bishops to continue in their determination to try Wycliffe. Probably he returned to Oxford, to the council of his friends and followers. It may have been that he sought instead the quiet of Lutterworth, realizing that little time might be allowed him for the great work which lay ahead. John Wycliffe was no longer content to deal only with the wealth of the Church. Other questions, some of them treading over the borders of heresy, were occupying his mind and in time would command the services of his pen. And there was the translation of the Bible to be completed, the labor which, perhaps, lay closest to his heart.
T
HE old king liked his palace at Shene (which later became Richmond) so well that he spent his last days there. It must have been a pleasant spot, for his successor, Richard II, used it as a summer palace. The young king made many additions and alterations and is said to have entertained thousands of people there. The life of Richard’s court was so elaborate that a combined staff of six hundred people had been needed by his queen and himself.
The views were enticing and the air soft. Edward found it ideal for the weak condition into which he had lapsed. He dozed a great deal and made no pretense of attending to business, although his mistress, who was with him continuously now, kept calling certain matters to his attention, always having to do with favors for someone or other. There was, for instance, the bishop who had been so much disliked by his son John, that busybody who had built some parts of Windsor. She kept talking about him and urging that he be restored to his posts. Well, he might as well sign the paper she kept shoving before him and have done with the fellow.
Alice Perrers had not taken the action of the Good Parliament seriously, for she had come back in spite of all of them. Edward had been pleased to see her because she went to the pains of maintaining a fiction for his benefit. He was getting better, she assured him, and would soon be able to resume all his old activities. He was tired of seeing the doctors shake their heads over him, and what she told him relieved his mind mightily. He did not want to die yet.
He depended entirely on his son John now and, if he had lived long enough, it is certain that many changes would have been made in the interests of the duke. The course of history might have been changed.
It is not likely that Edward gave much time to memories of his long reign. He talked continuously about hunting and hawking and his mind did not wander much from these engrossing interests. When he did think of the past, it was unquestionably with a sense of satisfaction. His had
been a remarkable reign. England had become the most powerful nation in Europe, the most feared certainly. If it had not been for the Black Death which had cut the population in half and so reduced the fighting strength of the nation, the leopards might still be waving over the fairest provinces of France and flying in the breeze on a conquered sea. Chivalry had been brilliantly revived and the English court had been talked about as far away as the lands where the Mongols were supreme.
There had been other things that the dull fellows at the chancellery and in the universities had considered important. He did not remember much about such matters. There were the looms which his Philippa had persuaded him to bring over from Hainaut. Now they were making cloth in the country and did not have to buy so much from abroad. Then there had been the change made about the use of English in the law courts and the schools. He recalled that he had been interested in this at the time.
The end came suddenly. His sight had not been good for a long time and then, on June 21, his voice deserted him entirely. He was too weak to do more than raise a feeble hand to indicate his wants. Soon even that effort proved too much and he sank into a condition almost of coma. None of his children were with him, not even the duke who had made a point of attending him closely. The household officials, having been convinced long before of the imminence of death and seeing nothing to be gained now, were paying small attention. Alice Perrers remained in the room and a small knot of household servants and courtiers kept watchful eyes on her. She had never thought it necessary to win the favor of the staff and had been repaid by a general suspicion and dislike.
The king’s confessor was in the room, hovering tensely over the royal couch. When the dying monarch recovered enough strength to mutter the words
Jesu miserere
, the priest placed a crucifix in his hands. The royal lips were pressed to the cross. The breathing became less and less perceptible and finally ceased.
Thus died the most brilliant and colorful of English kings. He had lived to the ripe age of sixty-five years and had been king for fifty of them.
The last scene, before the curtain fell finally on that long and spectacular reign, concerns the disreputable favorite of the deceased monarch. Alice Perrers remained in the room until everyone else had left, even the saddened confessor. Then she moved stealthily to the royal couch.