the "poor
priests." In the year following the insurrection, an act was passed for
their repression in the House of Lords, and was sent down by the king to
the Commons. They were spoken of as "evil persons," going from place to
place in defiance of the bishops, preaching in the open air to great
congregations at markets and fairs, "exciting the people," "engendering
discord between the estates of the realm." The ordinaries had no power to
silence them, and had therefore desired that commissions should be issued
to the sheriffs of the various counties, to arrest all such persons, and
confine them, until they would "justify themselves" in the ecclesiastical
courts.[470] Wycliffe petitioned against the bill, and it was rejected; not
so much perhaps out of tenderness for the reformer, as because the Lower
House was excited by the controversy with the pope; and being doubtfully
disposed towards the clergy, was reluctant to subject the people to a more
stringent spiritual control.

But Wycliffe himself meanwhile had received a clear intimation of his own
declining position. His opposition to the church authorities, and his
efforts at re-invigorating the faith of the country, had led him into
doubtful statements on the nature of the eucharist; he had entangled
himself in dubious metaphysics on a subject on which no middle course is
really possible; and being summoned to answer for his language before a
synod in London, he had thrown himself again for protection on the Duke of
Lancaster. The duke (not unnaturally under the circumstances) declined to
encourage what he could neither approve nor understand;[471] and Wycliffe,
by his great patron's advice, submitted. He read a confession of faith
before the bishops, which was held satisfactory; he was forbidden, however,
to preach again in Oxford, and retired to his living of Lutterworth, in
Leicestershire, where two years later he died.

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