Chapter 6: Persecution
CHAPTER 6
Persecution
“Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” ~Matthew 5:10
THE EMINENT SERVICES THAT WYCLIFFE rendered to his country, and the bold stand that he maintained against the temporal power of the Pope, caused him to be held in the highest esteem by the nation, but brought upon him the vengeance of the Pontiff and the papal party.
On February 3, 1377, at the insistence of Courtenay, Bishop of London, he was cited to appear on the 19th of the same month, in Our Lady’s Chapel in St. Paul’s, to answer for his teaching.
As the day drew near, rumor spread abroad of what was about to take place, and when the time arrived a large crowd had assembled at the door of the cathedral.
Attended by two powerful friends—John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster; and Lord Percy, the Earl Marshall of England—Wycliffe appeared at the outside of the assemblage. The Duke of Lancaster and Wycliffe had met at Bruges, and the Duke held the reformer in high esteem, on political if not on religious grounds. He therefore accompanied him, and resolved to show him countenance before the tribunal of the bishops.
The three friends found it a difficult matter to make way through the crowd, which not only lined the approaches to the church, but also filled its aisles. In forcing a passage, something like an uproar took place. At last, Wycliffe and his supporters entered the Chapel of Our Lady, where the clerical judges were assembled in their robes and insignia of office.
Lechler thus describes the appearance of the reformer: “Here stood Wycliffe in the presence of his judges, a meager form dressed in a long light mantle of black cloth, similar to those worn at this day by doctors, masters, and students in Cambridge and Oxford, with a girdle round the middle; his face, adorned with a long thick beard, showed sharp, bold features, a clear piercing eye, firmly-closed lips, which bespoke decision; his whole appearance full of great earnestness, significance, and character.”
The haughty Courtenay watched the movements of Wycliffe and his friends, and beheld with displeasure the humble Rector of Lutterworth accompanied by the two most powerful men in England. Turning to the Earl Marshall he said, “Percy, if I had known what masteries you would have kept in this church, I would have stopped you from coming in hither.”
“He shall keep such masteries,” John of Gaunt said gruffly, “though you may say nay.”
“Sit down, Wycliffe,” said Percy, having but scant reverence for a court that owed its authority to a foreign power. “Sit down; you have many things to answer to, and have need to repose yourself on a soft seat.”
“He must and shall stand,” said Courtenay, still more irritated. “It is unreasonable that one on his trial before his ordinary should sit.”
“Lord Percy’s proposal is but reasonable,” exclaimed the Duke of Lancaster. “And as for you,” said he, turning to Bishop Courtenay, “who are grown so arrogant and proud, I will bring down the pride not of you alone, but that of all the prelacy in England.”
“Do me all the harm you can,” was the Bishop’s haughty reply.
“You are insolent, my lord,” rejoined the Duke. “You think, no doubt, you can trust on your family, but your relations will have trouble enough to protect themselves.”
To this the Bishop replied, “My confidence is not in my parents, nor in any man, but only in God, in whom I trust, and by whose assistance I will be bold to speak the truth.”
We quote D’Aubigné for what further took place: “Lancaster, who saw hypocrisy only in these words, turned to one of his attendants and whispered in his ear, but so loud as to be heard by the bystanders, ‘I would rather pluck the Bishop by the hair of his head out of his chair, than take this at his hands.’
“Lancaster had hardly uttered these imprudent words before the Bishop’s partisans fell upon him and Percy, and even upon Wycliffe, who alone had remained calm. The two noblemen resisted, their friends and servants defended them, the uproar became extreme, and there was no hope of restoring tranquility. The two lords escaped with difficulty, and the assembly broke up in great confusion.
“On the following day, the Earl Marshal having called upon Parliament to apprehend the disturbers of the public peace, the clerical party uniting with the enemies of Lancaster filled the streets with their clamor; and while the Duke and the Earl escaped by the Thames, the mob collected before Percy’s house, broke down the doors, searched every chamber, and thrust their swords into every dark corner. When they found that he had escaped, the rioters, imagining that he was concealed in Lancaster’s palace, rushed to the Savoy, at that time the most magnificent building in the kingdom. They killed a priest who endeavored to stay them, tore down the ducal arms, and hung them on the gallows like those of a traitor. They would have gone still further if the Bishop had not very opportunely reminded them that they were in Lent.
“As for Wycliffe, he was dismissed with an injunction against preaching his doctrines. But the people of England did not ratify this decision of the priests. Public opinion declared in favor of the reformer. ‘If he is guilty,’ said they, ‘why is he not punished? If he is innocent, why is he ordered to be silent? If he is the weakest in power he is the strongest in truth!’”
The issues of this affair were favorable to the Reformation. The cause of Wycliffe began to be more widely discussed and better understood by the nation. The designs of his enemies had been thwarted, but their hostility increased. They sent nineteen articles selected from his writings, from his divinity lectures, and from his private conversations, to Rome, to Pope Gregory XI. These articles consisted of statements opposed to the doctrine of the Pope’s temporal power, and to the worldly possessions of the hierarchy. The also denied the power of the Pope or the Bishop to excommunicate any man, unless by sin he had first made himself obnoxious to God. They likewise declared that every priest truly ordained was competent to administer every sacrament, and asserted that the highest dignitaries, not excepting the Pontiff himself, might be lawfully corrected by their inferiors and even by laymen.
Speedy condemnation followed the receipt of these articles, and five separate bulls were drafted on the same day, May 22, 1377, and dispatched to England. Three of these were addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury and to the Bishop of London, the fourth solicited the aid of the King, and the fifth demanded the prompt obedience of the University of Oxford.
Events happened, however, that caused the publication of these bulls to be delayed. On June 21, 1377, Edward III died and was succeeded by his grandson Richard II, a child eleven years of age. His mother, the dowager Princess of Wales, was a woman of spirit, friendly to the sentiments of Wycliffe.
The first Parliament of the new king assembled in October, two months after his accession to the throne. It was animated by a strong spirit of antagonism to Rome. Wycliffe was summoned to its councils. His influence was growing. The trusted commissioner of princes, the counselor of Parliaments, he was a power in England. A more opportune moment must be waited for before the bulls against him were made public.
The encroachments of the Pontiffs and the lightening of the burdens imposed upon the nation through the long continued war with France formed the chief subjects of attention in the new Parliament. The complaints against the papal provisions and reservations were renewed, and it was proposed that all foreigners, whether monks or seculars, should leave the kingdom, and their lands and property be applied to war purposes.
The question of the right of the country to retain its treasures, in case of necessity, though the same should be demanded by the Pope under pain of his censures, was also discussed.
The Popes at this time dwelt at Avignon, and were Frenchmen. Their sympathies were with their countrymen in the war then waging between France and England, and part of the wealth drained from the latter country went to help its adversary to carry on the war. Not only was the nation drained of its wealth, but that wealth was turned against the country from which it was taken. This was felt to be unendurable.
The following question was submitted to the judgment of Wycliffe by the Parliament: “Whether the kingdom of England might not lawfully, in case of necessity, detain and keep back the treasure of the kingdom for its defense, that it be not carried away to foreign and strange nations, the Pope himself demanding and requiring the same, under pain of censure?”
This question appears, in the light of the nineteenth century, a very simple one; but in the fourteenth century the best and bravest of our forefathers were scared by the threat with which the Pope accompanied his demand; and they dared not refuse it until assured by Wycliffe that it was a matter in which the Pope had no right to command, and one in which they incurred no sin, and no danger, by disobedience.
Wycliffe answered the question in the affirmative. He argued the point on the law of nature and on that of the Bible. God, he said, had given to every society the power of self-preservation; and any power given by God to any society or nation may be used for the end for which it was given. He thence concluded “that our kingdom may justly detain its treasure for the defense of itself, in every case where necessity shall appear to require it.” He also led his countrymen to the same conclusion, by showing that every contribution to the papacy was strictly an alms, and that alms were only properly bestowed upon the really necessitous. The Papal Court was rich while England was poor, therefore the wealth of the country might lawfully be retained.
Furthermore, he challenged the Pope, as the Vicar of St. Peter, to prove his right to temporal supremacy. “It may indeed be claimed by you,” said he, “in virtue of some other plea, but assuredly by no right or title derived from the apostles. For how could an apostle give unto you that which he did not himself possess?”
In this manner the reformer led his countrymen step by step to deny the temporal power of the Pope, and in doing so to question his right to spiritual authority. Guided by his counsel, the Parliament marched onwards, adopting one bold measure after another. His penetrating genius, his sterling uprightness, his cool, cautious, yet fearless courage, made the humble Rector of Lutterworth a most formidable antagonist, and one whom the Romish hierarchy saw must not be overlooked.
Meanwhile the papal bulls had reached England. That addressed to the King found Edward III in his grave. That sent to the University received but a cold welcome, Oxford having too great a regard for its own fame to extinguish the brightest luminary it contained. The bull sent to the bishops was, however, hailed with delight, for the adherents of Rome could not but foresee that Wycliffe’s teaching, and the acts to which it led, tended to the overthrow of the whole fabric of the Roman power in England.
In these bulls the Pope declared that “information had been received from persons truly worthy of credit, from which it appeared that John Wycliffe, Rector of Lutterworth, in the diocese of Lincoln, and professor of divinity, with a fearlessness the offspring of a detestable insanity, had ventured to dogmatise and preach in favor of opinions wholly subversive of the Church. For this cause the parties addressed are required to seize the person of the offender, in the name of the Pope; to commit him to prison; to obtain complete information as to his tenets; and transmitting such information to Rome by a trusty messenger, they are to retain the arch-heretic as their prisoner until further instructions should be received concerning him.”
Sudbury, who had been advanced to the primacy, summoned Wycliffe to appear before him in April 1378 to answer for his teaching. The court was to sit in the Archbishop’s chapel at Lambeth. The papal commissioners were the Primate and the Bishop of London.
On the day appointed, Wycliffe, unaccompanied by either the Duke of Lancaster or Percy, proceeded to the archiepiscopal palace, situated on the right bank of the Thames, opposite Westminster. A crowd, quite as large, and more friendly to the reformer, than that which besieged the doors of St. Paul’s on the occasion of his first appearance, surrounded the palace, and many forced their way into the chapel, proclaiming their attachment to the person and opinions of the Rector of Lutterworth. “Men expected he should be devoured, being brought into the lions’ den,” remarked Fuller in his “Church History.” “The Pope’s briefs,” said the citizens, “ought to have no effect in the realm without the King’s consent. Every man is master in his own house.”
While the Primate and his peers were consulting how they might eject or silence the intruders, a messenger entered. It was Sir Lewis Clifford, who had been sent by the queen mother to forbid the bishops passing sentence upon the reformer.
The threatening aspect of the multitude had produced a feeling of consternation among the bishops; the message brought from the queen mother caused their dismay to be complete. The proceedings were instantly stopped. “At the wind of a reed shaken,” says Walsingham, the historian, describing the scene, “their speech became as soft as oil, to the public loss of their own dignity and the damage of the whole Church. They were struck with such fear that you would think them to be as a man who hears not, or one in whose mouth are no reproofs.”
Wycliffe stood the only calm and self-possessed man in all the assembly. A formidable list of charges had been handed to him along with his citation. He handed in a written defense of the tenets imputed to him, introducing his remarks as follows: “In the first place, I protest publicly, as I have often done, that I resolve with my whole heart, and by the grace of God, to be a sincere Christian; and, while life shall last, to profess and to defend the law of Christ as far as I have power. If through ignorance, or from any other cause, I shall fail in this determination, I ask forgiveness of God, and, retracting the errors, submit with humility to the correction of the Church. And since the notions of children, and of weak persons, concerning what I have taught, are conveyed by others, who are more than children, beyond the seas, even to the Court of Rome, I am willing to commit my opinions to writing. These also I am ready to defend even unto death. In my conclusions I have followed the sacred Scriptures and the holy doctors, both in their meaning and in their modes of expression: this I am willing to show; but should it be proved that such conclusions are opposed to the faith, I am prepared very willingly to retract them.”
He then proceeded to deny that the Popes have any political dominion; that their spiritual power is absolute, so as to be judged of none but God; that the Pope has any supremacy over the temporal possessions of the clergy and the religious houses; that the priest has liberty to enforce temporal demands by spiritual censures; and he maintained that the power of the priest in absolving or condemning is purely ministerial; and that absolution will profit no one, unless along with it there comes the pardon of God; nor will excommunication hurt any one unless by sin he has exposed himself to the anger of the Almighty. Wycliffe labored hard to show the fallacy of the Pope’s binding and loosing powers. It was the belief in his authority to admit to heaven or to consign to the intolerable flames of purgatory that enchained the conscience of the nation. Let this be dispelled, and the emancipation of England will have been achieved.
A second time the reformer returned unhurt and uncondemned from the tribunal of his powerful enemies. A second time he was victorious. The court issued a prohibition against the future teaching of the tenets charged against him, but, as he had given no formal promise to obey it, he continued to declare and spread his doctrines as heretofore.
The subject of the property of the Church engaged much of Wycliffe’s attention. About this time we find him proposing to the King and Parliament that there should be a reform of the whole ecclesiastical estate.
The Church was enormously rich. She had, moreover, proclaimed a dogma against that wealth ever being reduced. What was given to the Church was given to God; whoever withdrew any part of the property of the Church robbed God, and committed the awful sin of sacrilege. A curse rested over the man who subtracted a single acre from her domains or a penny from her coffers. Such was the doctrine propounded.
The grievance occasioned was aggravated by the fact that the large possessions of the clergy were exempt from taxes and public burdens. The clergy might, of their own good pleasure, with the sanction of the Pope, grant a voluntary subsidy if the necessities of the State were great; but no taxes might be exacted from them, or contributions laid upon them or their churches.
These riches were the source of innumerable evils. The lands of the Church grew wider, while the area that supported the burdens of the State and furnished the revenues of the Crown grew narrower. The ecclesiastical body became corrupt; pride, luxury, indolence, resulted from this enormous wealth.
To Wycliffe’s far-seeing mind the very root of the evil was laid bare. The “goods” of the Church—her broad acres, her cathedrals and conventual buildings, her tithes and revenues—were not, he affirmed, in any legal or strict sense the Church’s property. She neither bought them, nor won them by service in the field, nor did she receive them as an unconditional gift. The Church was but the administrator of this property, the nation was the real proprietor; and the nation was bound, through its representatives the King and Parliament, to see that the Church devoted this wealth to the objects for which it was given to her, otherwise it might be recalled. The ecclesiastic who became immoral and failed to fulfill the duties of his office, forfeited that office with all its emoluments; and the law that applied to the individual applied also to the whole corporation of the Church.
Such in brief was the teaching of Wycliffe as set forth in his writings.
He not only proposed, but he earnestly pleaded with the King and Parliament that the whole estate of the Church should be reformed in accordance with the principles he had enunciated. Let the Church surrender all her possessions and return to the simplicity of her early days, and let her depend upon the free will offerings of the people.
This change was to be brought about gradually. He proposed that as benefices fell vacant the new appointments should convey no right to the temporalities, and thus in a short time the whole face of England would be changed.
In making these proposals in the age in which he lived, we see the courageous independence that actuated the reformer, and his fidelity to what he held to be the truth. The Bible, he believed, was with him, and, supported by it, he bravely held and avowed his opinions. His peril was great, for the Pope and all his followers were against him; but his faith was in Him who is invisible, and in whose hands are the issues of life.
The wealth of the Church, however, remained untouched. Wycliffe was in advance of his age; and it remained for succeeding generations to recognize the soundness of his views, and to act upon his plan.
Sow when the tempest lowers,
For calmer days may break;
And the seed in darkness nourished,
A goodly plant may make.
Watch not the clouds above thee,
Let the wild winds round thee sweep;
God may the seed-time give thee,
But another hand may reap.