on. The duke of Lancaster, who then governed the kingdom,
encouraged the principles of Wickliffe; and he made no scruple, as well
as Lord Piercy, the mareschal, to appear openly in court with him, in
order to give him countenance upon his trial: he even insisted, that
Wickliffe should sit in the bishop's presence while his principles
were examined: Courteney exclaimed against the insult: the Londoners,
thinking their prelate affronted, attacked the duke and mareschal, who
escaped from their hands with some difficulty.[**] And the populace,
soon after, broke into the houses of both these noblemen, threatened
their persons, and plundered their goods. The bishop of London had the
merit of appeasing their fury and resentment.

The duke of Lancaster, however, still continued his protection to
Wickliffe, during the minority of Richard; and the principles of that
reformer had so far propagated themselves, that when the pope sent to
Oxford a new bull against these doctrines, the university deliberated
for some time whether they should receive the bull; and they never took
any vigorous measures in consequence of the papal orders.[***] Even
the populace of London were at length brought to entertain favorable
sentiments of this reformer: when he was cited before a synod at
Lambeth, they broke into the assembly, and so overawed the prelates, who
found both the people and the court against them, that they dismissed
him without any further censure.

* Spel. Concil. vol. ii. p. 621. Walsing. p. 201, 202, 203.

** Harpsfield in Hist. Wickl. p. 683.

*** Wood's Ant. Oxon. lib. i. p. 191, etc. Walsing, p 201.

The clergy, we may well believe, were more wanting in power than in
inclination to punish this new heresy which struck at all their credit,
possessions, and authority. But there was hitherto no law in England
by which the secular arm was authorized to support orthodoxy; and the
ecclesiastics endeavored to supply the defect by an extraordinary and
unwarrantable artifice. In the year 1381, there was an act passed,
requiring sheriffs to apprehend the preachers of heresy and their
abettors; but this statute had been surreptitiously obtained by the
clergy, and had the formality of an enrolment without the consent of the
commons. In the subsequent session, the lower house complained of the
fraud; affirmed, that they had no intention to bind themselves to the
prelates further than their ancestors had done before them; a