parliament, 16 Ric. II. cap. 5, is
explicit that the sentence was pronounced.

[459] 16 Ric. II. cap. 5.

[460] Ibid.

[461] Ibid.

[462] LEWIS, _Life of Wycliffe_.

[463] 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.

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

[465] LELAND.

[466] LEWIS, p. 287.

[467] 1 Ric. II. cap. 13.

[468] 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.

[469] WALSINGHAM, p. 275, apud LINGARD.

[470] 5 Ric. II. cap. 5.

[471] WILKINS, _Concilia_, iii. 160-167.

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

[473] STOW, 330, 338.

[474] _Rot. Parl._ iv. 24, 108, apud LINGARD; RYMER, ix. 89, 119, 129, 170,
193; MILMAN, Vol. v. p. 520-535.

[475] 2 Hen. V. stat. 1, cap. 7.

[476] 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_,
when promising to reintroduce Falstaff once more, Shakspeare says, "where
for anything I know he shall die of the sweat, for Oldcastle died a martyr,
and this is not the man." He had, therefore, certainly been supposed to _be
the man_, and Falstaff represented the English conception of the character
of the Lollard hero. I should add, however, that Dean Milman, who has
examined the records which remain to throw light on the character of this
remarkable person with elaborate care and ability, concludes emphat