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.

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, there 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.[472]

"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 diocess to diocess, and will not appear before the said diocesans;
but the jurisdiction spiritual, the keys of the church, and the censures of
the same, do utterly contemn and despise; and so their wicked preachings
and doctrines they do from day to day continue and exercise, to the
destruction of all order and rule, right and reason."

Something of these violent accusations is perhaps due to the horror with
which false doctrine in matters of faith was looked upon in the Catholic
church, the grace by which alone an honest life was made possible being
held to be dependent upon orthodoxy. But the Lollards had become political
revolutionists as well as religious reformers; the revolt against the
spiritual authority had encouraged and countenanced a revolt against the