on
of 1400 when they fall under the ban as disturbers of order.]

With him departed all which was best and purest in the movement which he
had commenced. The zeal of his followers was not extinguished, but the
wisdom was extinguished which had directed it; and perhaps the being
treated as the enemies of order had itself a tendency to make them what
they were believed to be. They were left unmolested for the next twenty
years, the feebleness of the government, the angry complexion which had
been assumed by the dispute with Rome, and the political anarchy in the
closing decade of the century, combining to give them temporary shelter;
but they availed themselves of their opportunity to travel further on
the dangerous road on which they had entered; and on the settlement of
the country under Henry IV. they fell under the general ban which struck
down all parties who had shared in the late disturbances.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1400-1.]

They had been spared in 1382, only for more sharp denunciation, and a
more cruel fate; and Boniface having healed, on his side, the wounds
which had been opened, by well-timed concessions, then, was no reason
left for leniency. The character of the Lollard teaching was thus
described (perhaps in somewhat exaggerated language) in the preamble of
the act of 1401.[24]

[Sidenote: Act _de Heretico comburendo_.]

[Sidenote: Political character of the teaching.]

"Divers false and perverse people," so runs the act _De Heretico
comburendo_, "of a certain new sect, damnably thinking of the faith of
the sacraments of the church, and of the authority of the same, against
the law of God and of the church, usurping the office of preaching, do
perversely and maliciously, in divers places within the realm, preach
and teach divers new doctrines, and wicked erroneous opinions, contrary
to the faith and determination of Holy Church. And of such sect and
wicked doctrines they make unlawful conventicles, they hold and exercise
schools, they make and write books, they do wickedly instruct and inform
people, and excite and stir them to sedition and insurrection, and make
great strife and division among the people, and other enormities
horrible to be heard, daily do perpetrate and commit. The diocesans
cannot by their jurisdiction spiritual, without aid of the King's
Majesty, sufficiently correct these said false and perverse people, nor
refrain their malice, because they do go from diocese to diocese, and
will no