churchmen in England were negligent or careless; there were many then, as there have always been, bent on doing their duty to the utmost. Unfortunately it was not for the most part these men who were placed in high positions.

The Friars.

Besides the ordinary clergy there was in England a large number of friars. These were quite different from the monks who stayed in their monasteries, often leading idle lives there. The friars, who mostly belonged either to the Dominican or the Franciscan order, went among the people. St. Dominic, who founded the first order, had sent his friars to preach and to convert those who believed wrongly, or were careless about religion. St. Francis bade his order show by the example of a pure and simple life, and charitable acts, what the followers of Christ should do. Both Black and Grey Friars, as they were called from their dresses, were to copy the poverty of our Lord, and to live and teach amongst the poor. They were not allowed at first to have any

property at all.

These orders began well, and when they first came to England, in the reign of Henry III., they did a great deal of good. But unfortunately they did not keep to their simplicity and their vows of poverty. They grew rich, and they grew learned; and they deserted the habitations of the poor, going instead among the rich, or to the universities, where they became great scholars and teachers, but not teachers of what they had first been sent to teach, namely, the simple message of Christ. And those who remained scattered over the country were disliked because they were obedient only to the pope; they were not obliged to obey English bishops, and they often interfered with the parish priests.

(M 595)

F

The Popes in France;

All these things helped to rouse a feeling of hostility to the clergy, and especially to the pope; and to make things worse, the popes themselves at this time had fallen on evil days. the Schism. First of all, they had been unwise enough to leave Rome (1309) and live at Avignon in France, and so they fell much into the power of the kings of France. Englishmen at this time hated France, with whom they were carrying on a prolonged war, and were consequently disposed to be prejudiced against what they regarded as French popes. Then in 1378 began the Great Schism, when there was one pope at Rome and another at Avignon, each claiming to be Christ's vicar on earth. This division went on for forty years, and while some people obeyed the popes at Avignon and others the popes at Rome, many were inclined to reject both. So that altogether the authority of the popes became for the time much less convincing than it had been.

John Wyclif, who became the leader of the attack on the faults of the clergy, was a Yorkshireman who had gone to Oxford, where he had become Wyclif. master of Balliol College. Being a scholar, he looked at matters from a historical point of view, The faults of the Church, he said, came in the main from its pursuit of wealth and power on earth: if it had remained true to the poverty and simplicity of the apostles none of the abuses would have occurred. Thus he found nothing in the Bible to justify the payments made to the pope, called annates and firstfruits, or to excuse the holding of more than one benefice at once (pluralities), or to defend the easy and careless lives which were led alike by many churchmen and many friars. Wyclif was at first helped by John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, who

wished to drive the clerics out from the council of Thus when Wyclif was sum

King Edward III.

moned to St. Paul's to be tried for what he

1377.

had written, the duke stood beside him to defend him; when Courtenay, Bishop of London, declared that Wyclif was little better than a heretic, the duke threatened to drag Courtenay from the church by the hair of his head. A riot began; the citizens of London rushed in to defend their bishop; and Wyclif nearly lost his life.

His

He founded an

Brawling and abuse was not the way to mend matters. Wyclif himself took no part in it. next steps were more practical. order of poor preachers, "the Simple Priests", to spread his ideas among the people. He also directly appealed to the people himself by his tracts, which he wrote, not in Latin, the language hitherto used for all religious discussion, but in homely, plain, forcible English, which all could understand. We shall find Luther also discarding the priestly Latin in favour of his native German when he too begins his quarrel with the Catholic Church. And finally, Wyclif also anticipated Luther's work by Translation translating the Bible from the Latin into of the Bible. English, so that it should no longer be the property of scholars, but open to all to read for themselves, or aloud to their friends who were too ignorant to read.

For a time Wyclif's followers, the Lollards, increased fast in numbers. It was said that if you saw five men talking together, three were Lollards. But in the later years of Richard II. the Church began to take vigorous measures to root out their heresy. And when Henry IV., who owed his position on the throne partly to the support of the Church, became king, the persecution grew fierce,

1401.

Lollard

Thus the beginning of Henry's reign is marked by a statute "for the burning of Heretics", and directly after a Lollard named William Sawtre was sent to the stake. In Henry V.'s reign the Lollards were still numerous enough to threaten a rebellion. They were protected and encouraged by Sir John Oldcastle, a brave soldier who had fought Rising. well in Henry IV.'s wars against the Welsh. He was arrested and sentenced to be burnt, but he escaped. A plot was formed for a great mass of Lollards to meet in St. Giles's fields, and to seize the king. The plot was discovered, and the king, by closing the gates of London and sending a body of horse to the meeting-place, prevented an outbreak. Oldcastle was at last recaptured and burnt as a heretic. After this we hear little more of the Lollards, although in a few villages Lollardry lingered on till the time of the Reformation.

The movement was on the whole a failure, because the Lollards had nothing definite to propose. They were united in complaining about the wealth and luxury of great churchmen, but in little else. Some followed Wyclif's later opinions, and became actually heretics; that is to say, they denied some of the teachings of the Church, and wanted a reform in doctrine. But the people at large had not the least wish for this; they regarded it as going much too far. In two points, however, Wyclif's life is memorable. He gave us our first Bible in English, and he also taught the right of all, clergy and laity alike, to form their ideas of conduct on what they found in the Bible, without being obliged to follow blindly what they were told to believe.

XV. THE WARS OF THE ROSES.

York.

We have already seen the evils of a dispute over the rightful heir to the throne in Scotland, and in France. We have now to observe Disputes about them in England. Edward III.'s eldest the Succession; son, the Black Prince, died before his Lancaster and father, but he left a son who became Richard II. Richard II. had no children; he made many enemies, and his cousin, Henry of Lancaster, deposed him and became king as Henry IV. Unfortunately there were other cousins descended also from Edward III., and representing the lines of Clarence and York. Since Clarence was of an older line than Lancaster, there was always a doubt if the house of Lancaster had the best right to the crown. And at last a York married a Clarence, and the child of that marriage, Richard of York, began the Wars of the Roses to turn the Lancaster king, Henry VI., off the throne.

Had Henry VI. been as strong a king as his father Henry V., or his grandfather Henry IV., he would have had little to fear. England had chosen him as king; the Parliament had accepted him; and it has always been held that Parliament could make whom it pleased king, without paying attention to the claims of birth. For instance, the house of Hanover, to which our queen belongs, was put on the throne by Parliament. But Henry VI., though very good and pious, was weak; and in his later years he went mad. During all his reign, too, everything went wrong at home and abroad. Many people, therefore, thought that it would be better to have a strong man like Richard of York as king.