LITMIR.BIZ

      KING RICHARD II. AND HIS COUNCIL GO DOWN THE THAMES IN A BARGE TO CONFER WITH THE REBELS

       From Froissart’s Chronicles.

      Therefore our Lord the King returned into the City of London with the greatest of glory and honour, and the whole of this profane multitude in confusion fled forthwith for concealment in their affright.

      For this same deed our Lord the King, beneath his standard, in the said field with his own hands decorated with the order of knighthood the said Mayor, and Sir Nicholas Brembre, and Sir John Phelipot, who had already been Mayors of the said City; as also Sir Robert Launde.”

      “Jack Straw” before his execution made a full confession. It has been doubted whether this confession is genuine, but it seems possible and even probable. They promised to have masses said for his soul (which assured him that it was purgatory to which he would be sent) and on this promise he declared that they had intended to seize the King, to carry him about in order to reassure the people, and in the end to kill him and all who were set in authority. They were going to spare the mendicant friars alone. And they were going to set up separate kingdoms all over the country.

      The doctrines of Wyclyf’s preachers and “simple priests” certainly made this rebellion possible: they filled the minds of the rustics with new ideas of equality and right; they made them question authority; they made it possible for them to unite. As regards London, on inquiry after the rebellion, it was proved that two hundred persons had left the City in consequence, which does not seem to show that Lollardy was advanced by the rebels, or that there was any sympathy extended to them from the Lollards of the City. Now London at this time, Walsingham says, was full of Lollards—they were all Lollards. A little later than this even Whittington was accused of being male credulus. As regards the word Lollard its true meaning has been ascertained by Professor Skeat (Piers the Plowman, Early Eng. Text Soc., vol. iv. p. 86). There was a sect in Brabant before Wyclyf was born who were called Lollards.... “Sive Deum laudantes,” says one writer. “Mussitatores,” i.e. mumblers of prayers, says another. The name of Lollard, a term of reproach in Brabant, was borrowed from that country and applied to the followers of Wyclyf in order to render them unpopular. The word lollere or loller—one who lolls, an indolent person—had nothing to do with the word Lollard: nor with the Latin lolium, tares, which was also pressed into the service in order to make the new opinions unpopular.

      After the murder of Archbishop Sudbury, William Courtenay became Archbishop of Canterbury: he was a man of high birth, a scholar, one of a temper which would not bear opposition, and one who held the strongest views as to authority and the power of the Church. He naturally saw in the late dangerous rising of the people a blow against authority, which he also ascribed, quite reasonably, to the teaching and the influence of Wyclyf. The doctrines of the rebel leaders were, however, an exaggeration and perversion of those taught by Wyclyf. And we must remember that Jack Straw looked forward to a time when the Franciscans should inherit the whole earth, an aspiration certainly not shared by Wyclyf. Twice had Wyclyf been summoned to appear before an ecclesiastical court. Courtenay called a Court and again summoned Wyclyf to appear. He was probably prevented by a stroke of paralysis, for he did not come. The Court was held in his absence in the Great Hall of the Black Friars. There were assembled (see Milman’s Latin Christianity, v. 509) eight Bishops, fourteen Doctors in Civil and Canon Law, six Bachelors of Divinity, four monks, fifteen Mendicant Friars, not one being a Franciscan, which is significant. Twenty-four articles were gathered out of the writings of Wyclyf, all to be condemned. In order to give these scenes great solemnity, a procession of clergy and laity walked barefoot to St. Paul’s to hear a sermon on the subject. (See Appendix I.).