accused, by a cotemporary historian, of having served the cause with other weapons than the spiritual. When a preacher arrived at any parti

tum locum vel ecclesiam cum ingenti solicitundine congregare satagebat ad audiendum voces eorum licet invitos, resistere tamen vel contradicere non audentes, acsi cum prophetâ clamaret et diceret, si eum audire nolueritis, et me ad iracundiam provocaveritis, gladius devorabit vos. Nam assistere solent juxta sic inepte prædicantes, gladio et pelta stipati ad eorum defensionem, ne quis contra eos aut eorum doctrinam blasphemam aliquid temptare vel contradicere quandoque auderet. Et sic dejecto humilitatis flore, quos non potuerunt ratione, gladii timore sæpissime acquisierunt. O Christi doctrina mitis, humilis, et mansueta! O repugnans nephandorum disciplina superba, gladiata, invidiæ, et detractionis plena! Christi namque doctrina est, si quis vos non audierit, exeuntes excutite pulverem pedum vestrorum in testimonium illis. Istorum Lollardorum sive Wyclyvianorum disciplina longé aliter se habet. Si quis vos non audiet, vel contra vos aliquid dixerit, eximite gladium et eum percutite, aut linguâ mordaci famam ejus vulnerate. Nam solent isti nephandi hujus sectæ doctores dicere, quod nulli eis contradicunt, nisi solum peccatores et maligni seu vitiati. P. 2661 and 2. See also p. 2664. How many are the ways of self-deception? Every sect proclaims the impiety, injustice, and cruelty of persecution; yet most are too ready to think it proper against all that oppose their particular views; and the author who could write thus was amongst the number. Wickliffe's enemies are abused by protestant writers for defaming him; yet he himself set the example. Knighton tells us, that invective and detraction were the means his sect took to advance their doctrine. See p. 2664. He is alleged to have said-" Nullus sacerdos in aliquam domum intrat, nisi ad male tractandam uxorem, filiam, aut ancillam, et ideo rogabat ut mariti caveant ne sacerdotem aliquem in domum suam intrare permittant." P. 2670. But far more flagitious crimes were imputed to the established clergy, (See Fox's Martyrol. vol. i. p. 662 -book of conclusions exhibited to Parliament;) though the imputations were advanced rather as inferences from their celibacy, than as well known facts. Hence, however, we ought to distrust the stories so industriously circulated against the religious houses at their suppression in the time of Henry VIII. When men are determined to plunder an establishment, they never fail in a pretext to justify their rapacity.

cular place, they assembled the people even against their wills, and obliged them patiently to listen to the doctrine, under the threat of instant execution. The same author tells us, that by the indefatigable industry of the sectaries and their patrons, more than half the kingdom were drawn to their party

England had long been tame in submitting to ecclesiastical tyranny. Livings were presented to foreigners who never entered the kingdom, whence annates, first fruits, &c.; and, by appeals to Rome, justice was obstructed, and the common law threatened with subversion t. To remedy these

* Knighton, p. 2664. The same author tells us, that the nation was convulsed with schism, and all the charities of life destroyed. Fathers were incited against their children; children against their parents, brothers and neighbours against each other, and servants against their masters. Ib. For a particular account of Wickliffe, his followers, and doctrine, See Knighton, p. 2644, et seq.-Walsingham, Hist. p. 191, et seq.-Ypodig. Neust. p. 531, et seq.—Pol. Verg. Ang. Hist. L. 19, p. 399 and 400.-Fox's Martyr. vol. i. p. 554, et seq.-Holinshed, vol. ii. p. 411, et seq.-Speed, p. 588.-Fuller's Church Hist. book 4th.-Daniel's Hist. in White Kennet. p. 232, et seq. This author, who was a courtier under James I., satirically remarks, that Wickliffe's "doctrine was very pleasing to great men, who embrace sects either through ambition to get, or fear of losing, or through hatred, that they may revenge themselves." Ken. Col. reigns of H. 4 and H. 5.

+ See Blackstone's Com. v. 4. p. 106, et seq. Fox gives us "notes of the parliament holden in the 20th yeere of King Edward III." when alien cardinals, and other strangers who held livings in the English church, were ordered to depart out of the kingdom; and this is a paragraph of these notes-"That such aliens enemies as be advanced to livings heere in England (being in their own countries, shoemakers, tailors, or chamberlains unto cardinals) should depart before Michaelmas, and their livings be disposed of to poor English scholars, vol. i. p. 551; see Halle, p. 11.

evils, several laws had been early enacted; but as they had been always evaded, the statutes of provisors, premunire, &c. were passed in the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II. The latter monarch, however, arrested the current against the church, when it proceeded to overturn the establishment, instead of correcting some of its abuses. Intent on infringing popular rights, he was fully sensible of the utility of the alliance betwixt Church and State; and well knew that, as he had already lost the affections of the people, the hostility of the clergy must prove fatal to him. He assisted the priesthood, therefore, in maintaining their ground; and published in their favour, as an act of the legislature, an ordinance of the lords merely, or rather of the spiritual part of them, against the new sect t. He was greatly enraged, too, at the book of conclusions, as it was called, exhibited to Parliament against the clergy, for a reformation, in the year 1395, during his absence in Ireland; and, on his return, compelled some leading men, by threats, to abjure their tenets 4.

As Henry IV. was raised to the throne by

The first act against papal provisions, and which was the foundation of all future statutes against this abominable usurpation, was 35th Ed. I. See Coke's 2d Inst. Stat. De Asport. Religios. P. 580. The other statutes are likewise commented on under this head. See also 3d Inst. of premunire, and Blacks. Com. Vol. IV. p. 107. et seq. The Pope condemned the statute of premunire as "execrabile,” and called the passing of it "fœdum et turpe facinus." Ful. Ch. Hist. p. 148. Wh. Ken. vol. i. p. 270.

+ Burnet's Hist. of Ref. Vol. I. p. 44. Edn. 1816. See Commission against the Lollards in Holinshed, p. 483.

Hol. p. 483. Wh. Ken. p. 272.

the popular voice, people were flattered with the hope of greater compliance with their wishes; and, besides that the conspicuous part which his father had taken in regard to Wickliffe, induced them to expect a similar predilection from him, he had been formerly heard to say, that princes had too little, and the clergy too much*. On that ground alone, an insurrection, instigated by a favourite ecclesiastic of the late king, who circulated that Henry meant to attack the temporalities of the church, was raised against him at the beginning of his reign. But he had now, as monarch, a different interest, while his precarious tenure of the throne, and the state of parties, appear to have forced him into fluctuating policy. He had been greatly indebted to some eminent ecclesiastics for raising him to the throne t; and their active ascendancy at first seems to have operated strongly in the elections of

* Grafton, p. 409. Halle, fol. 11th. Holinshed, Vol. ii. p. 514. Hayward's Life of Henry IV. p. 254. Ken. p. 277.

+ Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had been banished by Richard, was one of the principal conspirators for deposing that monarch and substituting Henry. Scroop, Archbishop of York too, and other ecclesiastics of great note, were very instrumental. See Hayward's Henry IV. Wals. p. 358. and 360. Fabian, 7th part, P. 153. Holinshed, p. 495. et seq. Ken. p. 282. et seq. Grafton, p. 398. Fuller's Church Hist. B. iv. p. 153. This writer is, however, a little satirical against the clergy, for he does not scruple to use these words: “Thus, in all state alterations, the pulpit will be of the same wood with the council board." All the prelates, &c. embraced the side of the victorious Henry at the outset, except the Bishop of Carlisle, who was attached of treason for his speech against the deposing of Richard. See Ful. as to the cause of Henry's persecution of the Lollards, p、 155.

the Commons. Before the government had acquired some stability, and while the deposed Richard was still alive, or believed to be so, they only would chuse to stand forward as legislators who had decidedly taken a part in the transactions, and union with the prelates was necessary for their safety. This accounts for the law which was passed in the 2d of Henry IV. against the Lollards, being the first that authorized the burning of heretics*. But in the sixth of the same reign, the Lower House, in a parliament held at Coventry, shewed itself composed of such opposite materials, that it boldly projected the transference of the Church property to the crown. The kingdom was at this time threatened with war by the Scots and Welsh at home, and by the French, Flemings, and Britains from abroad; and though at a parliament which had been held this very year at Westminster, so unusual a tax had been imposed that the two houses thought it expedient to destroy the record of it, that it might not exist as a precedent against them t, a great supply was still required for the public exigencies; and the Commons seized

+ Wals. Hist. P. 369. "In hoc parliamento concessa fuit regi, taxa insolita, et incolis tricabilis et valde gravis. Cujus modum presentibus inseruissem, nisi concessores ipsi, et authores dicti tallagii, in perpetuum latere posteros maluissent: nempe sub eâ tantum conditione concedebatur, ne traheretur posterius in exemplum, nec servarentur ejus evidentia in thesauria regia, nec in scaccario, sed scripturæ vel recordationes ejusdem protinus post datum compotum cremarentur. Nec emitterentur brevia seu commissiones contra collectores vel inquisitores hujus negotii de melius inquirendo." See also Ypod. Neus. p. 561.