red on the Rolls. _Rot. Parl._ III. [264] quoted by
Lingard, who has given a full account of these transactions.

[7] 13 Ric. II. stat. 2.

[8] See 16 Ric. II. cap. 5.

[9] This it will be remembered was the course which was afterwards
followed by the parliament under Henry VIII. before abolishing the
payment of first-fruits.

[10] Lingard says, that "there were rumours that if the prelates
executed the decree of the king's courts, they would be
excommunicated."--Vol. III. p. 172. The language of the act of
parliament, 16 Ric. II. cap. 5, is explicit that the sentence was
pronounced.

[11] 16 Ric. II. cap. 5.

[12] Ibid.

[13] 16 Ric. II. cap. 5.

[14] Lewis, _Life of Wycliffe_.

[15] If such _scientia media_ might be allowed to man, which is beneath
certainty and above conjecture, such should I call our persuasion that
he was born in Durham.--Fuller's _Worthies_, Vol. I. p. 479.

[16] _The Last Age of the Church_ was written in 1356. See Lewis, p. 3.

[17] Leland.

[18] Lewis, p. 287.

[19] 1 Ric. II. cap. 13.

[20] Walsingham, 206-7, apud Lingard. It is to be observed, however,
that Wycliffe himself limited his arguments strictly to the property of
the clergy. See Milman's _History of Latin Christianity_, Vol. V. p.
508.

[21] Walsingham, p. 275, apud Lingard.

[22] 5 Ric. II. cap. 5

[23] Wilkins, _Concilia_, III. 160-167.

[24] _De Heretico comburendo._ 2 Hen. IV. cap. 15.

[25] Stow, 330, 338.

[26] _Rot. Parl._ IV. 24, 108, apud Lingard; Rymer, IX. 89, 119, 129,
170, 193; Milman, Vol. V. p. 520-535.

[27] 2 Hen. V. stat. 1, cap. 7.

[28] There is no better test of the popular opinion of a man than the
character assigned to him on the stage; and till the close of the
sixteenth century Sir John Oldcastle remained the profligate buffoon of
English comedy. Whether in life he bore the character so assigned to
him, I am unable to say. The popularity of Henry V., and the splendour
of his French wars served no doubt to colour all who had opposed him
with a blacker shade than they deserved: but it is almost certain that
Shakspeare, though not intending Falstaff as a portrait of Oldcastle,
thought of him as he was designing the character; and it is altogether
certain that by the London public Falstaff was supposed to represent
Oldcastle. We can hardly suppose that such an expression as "my old lad
of the castle" should be accidental; and in the epilogue to the Second
Part of _Henry the Fourth