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Home Wyclif and the Lollards Wyclif and the Lollards; Part 6 |
Wyclif and the Lollards; Part 6Part of Wyclif's work was before its time. The bulk of Englishmen agreed to blame the wealth and neglect of some churchmen, but they had no mind to cast off the Church. A reform in the government of the church was popular: a change in doctrine was not. We shall see even in Henry VIII's day how slowly and unwillingly England changed its belief.Yet as a teacher and a reformer Wyclif found many followers. Everyone that was in distress, and everyone that was in debt, and everyone that was discontented gathered themselves unto him, and in the distress following the Peasant Revolt and King Richard's minority, these were many. It was said that if you saw five men talking together three of them were Lollards. Not all the Lollards held Wyclif's heretical opinions, but they were enough to rouse the Church to action. Richard himself was no friend of the Lollards. He bade his officers help the Bishops: he ordered Wyclif's works to be destroyed: he issued an ordinance against the "Poor Priests": and on the tomb prepared for him he placed the words "he overthrew the heretics and laid their friends low". Still more vigorous was Henry IV. He won the throne by the aid of the Church, and especially of Archbishop Arundel, and he rewarded his Church supporters by a persecution of Lollards. In 1401 Parliament prepared the Statute "De Haeretico Comburendo", but before it was law William Sawtre was burnt. A few others followed. There were not however many martyrs. More Lollards were ready to abjure than to suffer. Yet in spite of the persecution the Lollards were still numerous enough to threaten a rebellion in Henry V's reign. The leader was Sir John Oldcastle, in right of his wife Lord Cobham, a soldier who had fought well in Henry I V's wars against the Welsh. In consequence of his Lollard opinions 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 change 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. To him and his followers we owe our first complete 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. |
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