and blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven, and
not here, it being against the truth of Christ's natural body to be at one
time in more places than one." The argument and the words in which it is
expressed were Frith's.--See FOXE, vol. v. p. 6.

[449] The origin of the word Lollards has been always a disputed question.
I conceive it to be from Lolium. They were the "tares" in the corn of
Catholicism.

[450] 35 Ed. I.; Statutes of Carlisle, cap. 1-4.

[451] Ibid.

[452] 25 Ed. III. stat. 4. A clause in the preamble of this act bears a
significantly Erastian complexion: _come seinte Eglise estoit founde en
estat de prelacie deins le royaulme Dengleterre par le dit Roi et ses
progenitours, et countes, barons, et nobles de ce Royaulme et lours
ancestres, pour eux et le poeple enfourmer de la lei Dieu._ If the Church
of England was held to have been, founded not by the successors of the
Apostles, but by the king and the nobles, the claim of Henry VIII. to the
supremacy was precisely in the spirit of the constitution.

[453] 38 Ed. III. stat. 2; 3 Ric. II. cap. 3; 12 Ric. II. cap. 15; 13 Ric.
II. stat. 2. The first of these acts contains a paragraph which shifts the
blame from the popes themselves to the officials of the Roman courts. The
statute is said to have been enacted en eide et confort du pape qui moult
sovent a estee trublez par tieles et semblables clamours et impetracions,
et qui y meist voluntiers covenable remedie, si sa seyntetee estoit sur ces
choses enfournee. I had regarded this passage as a fiction of courtesy like
that of the Long Parliament who levied troops in the name of Charles I. The
suspicious omission of the clause, however, in the translation of the
statutes which was made in the later years of Henry VIII. justifies an
interpretation more favourable to the intentions of the popes.

[454] The abbots and bishops decently protested. Their protest was read in
parliament, and entered on the Rolls. _Rot. Parl._ iii. [264] quoted by
Lingard, who has given a full account of these transactions.

[455] 13 Ric. II. stat. 2.

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

[457] 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.

[458] 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