ence of a prevailing anti-clerical sentiment, the representatives of the nation had brought forward and carried into effect a proposition that the highest offices of the State should be entrusted to the hands of laymen, instead of the bishops and prelates. But in the course of years there had spread a marked discontent with the Government, as it was from that time conducted. King Edward III. had become almost worn out with old age. Since the death of his queen Philippa (1369), one of her ladies, Alice Perrers, had obtained his favour in an extraordinary degree, and had not only taken a conspicuous position in the Court, but had also unduly meddled in many affairs of State. The influence of this lady the Duke of Lancaster had now turned to his own account, in order to acquire for himself a preponderating weight with his royal father in the business of Government. He was credited, indeed, with designs of a much wider reach. The Prince of Wales, diseased and near his end as he was, was still able to perceive the danger, and, in spite of his forced retirement from the business of State, took into his hand the threads of an intrigue by which the succession to the Crown should be assured to his son Richard, a boy only nine years of age, and the party of his younger brother, John of Gaunt, should be thwarted in their designs. He found means to induce the House of Commons and the clergy to form a coalition against the dominant party of the Duke of Lancaster.

Foremost in the management of the affair was Peter de la Mere, chamberlain of the Earl of March, a nobleman who, in virtue of the hereditary right of his Countess, had the nearest presumptive claim to the Throne. This officer of the Court was, at the same time, Speaker of the House of Commons. Upon occasion of the voting of subsidies, the

representatives of the counties complained, through their Speaker, of the evil condition of the financial administration, and even of dishonest under- and over-charges which were practised. The persons who were accused and convicted of these mal-practices were the Treasurer, Lord Latimer, a confidant of the Duke of Lancaster, and Alice Perrers herself. The former was put in prison, the latter banished from the Court. The Duke himself, who was the party really aimed at, no man was bold enough expressly to name; on the other hand, it was proposed, evidently with the view of making the Camarilla incapable of mischief, to strengthen the Privy Council by the addition of from ten to twelve lords and prelates, who should always be about the King, so that without the assent of six, or at least four of their number, no royal ordinance could be carried into effect. This decisive action of Parliament against the Court party of the Duke of Lancaster was so much after the nation's own heart, that it was principally for this service that the Parliament received the honourable epithet of The Good.'51 While this movement was in progress, Edward the Black Prince died 8th June 1376-held in equally high esteem as a warrior, and as a man of upright and amiable character. The last care of the deceased prince had been to secure the right of his son and heir, and the House of Commons, sharing the same solicitude, presented an urgent petition to the aged King that he would now be pleased to present to the Parliament his grandson Richard of Bourdeaux, as heir-apparent to the Throne; which was also done on the 25th of June.

But scarcely was Parliament prorogued at the beginning of July, when all the measures which it had originated were again brought to nothing; the Duke of Lancaster once

more seized the rudder; Lord Latimer recovered again his share in public affairs; and another friend of the Duke, Lord Percy, was named Lord Marschall. Even Alice Perrers came back again to Court. The Camarilla completely surrounded the aged King. The leaders of the party of the deceased Prince of Wales were compelled to feel the revenge of the small but powerful Court party. Peter de la Mere, Speaker of the House of Commons, was sent to prison, where he remained in durance for nearly two years. The Bishop of Winchester was impeached and banished twenty miles from the Court, and the temporalities of his see were sequestrated.

The question arises, what share Wiclif had in the efforts of the Good Parliament to secure the rightful succession to the throne, and to purge the court as well as the administration of unworthy elements. Assuming that he was a member of that Parliament, and co-operated influentially in its ecclesiastico-political proceedings, he could not have remained entirely without a share in its endeavours to secure the succession to the throne, and to reform the Court and the Government.. He must have taken his place either on one side or the other. It is true that we hear nothing definite from himself upon the subject, nor very express testimony concerning it from any other quarter. But we may be sure at least of as much as this, that in no case can he have played a prominent part in the effort to drive the favourites of the Duke of Lancaster from the court, and from all influence in state affairs, for otherwise the Duke would certainly not have lent him his powerful protection only half-a-year later (on 19th February 1377). But on the other hand, it scarcely admits of being supposed that Wiclif would join the party of Lord Latimer and his colleagues,

especially as in this business the interests at stake were of that moral and legal character for which, in accord with his whole tone of thought, he must always cherish a warm sympathy. These considerations taken together lead me to the opinion that Wielif did not indeed oppose himself to the majority of the Parliament who laboured to effect a purification of the Court and Government, but neither did he take any prominent part in the discussion of this subject; and this all the less, that, as a general rule, he was accustomed and called upon to take a personally active share only in matters of a mixed ecclesiastical and political character.

NOTES TO CHAPTER IV.

1. De Civili Dominio, II., c. 5, MS. In Magna Carta, cui rex et magnates Angliæ ex juramento obligantur, cap. 15, sic habetur: Nulla ecclesiastica persona-censum. This wording and numbering of the passage do not exactly correspond to those of the document now regarded as the original authority. Wiclif has a second reference to Magna Charta in the same chapter.

2. De Civili Dominio, I., c. 34.

3. Life and Opinions of Wycliffe, I., 262.

4. John de Wycliffe, a Monograph, 1853; p. 64, especially p. 87. Comp. also Brit. Quart. Rev., 1858, October.

5. Woodford, 72 Questiones de Sacramt. Altaris; see above. Prof. Shirley is quite correct in maintaining, in his edition of the Fascic. Zizan. XIII. that the view hitherto held upon this point of Wiclif's biography is an unfounded one.

6. A considerable portion of this tract, which is of the highest interest, was included by Lewis in the Appendix to his Hist. of Wiclif, No. 30. The text is unfortunately in a very imperfect condition, owing, in part at least, to the state of the MS. from which it was derived. But that the tract may have been written very soon after the May Parliament of 1366, and perhaps still earlier in that year rather than in 1367, is the impression which it leaves upon me as strongly as upon the editors of the Wiclif Bible, vol. I., p. vii., note 10, and Prof. Shirley, Fasc. Ziz. XVII., note 3.

7. As it has been used by Vaughan, John de Wycliffe, a Monograph, 1853, p.

105.

8. The latter fact had been already remarked upon by Vaughan in his earlier work, Life and Opinions, etc., I., p. 283.

9. The tribute amounted to 700 marks for England, and 300 for Ireland, making together the sum of 1000 marks usually given.

10. In quodam concilio. The Parliament is no doubt intended, but Wiclif designedly makes use of a general expression.

11. We would not say, with Boehringer, in his Vorreformatoren, I., Wycliffe p. 63, that the standpoint taken up by this lord was that of natural right, for there is certainly a distinction to be taken between natural right and the right of the strongest.

12. De Ruever Gronemann. Diatribe in Joh. Wiclifi Vitam. Traj. ad Rhen., 1837, p. 93.

13. We entirely agree with Vaughan on this point, who, both in his earliest and latest works on Wiclif, considers the speeches of the lords to have been actually spoken in Parliament.

14. Vaughan, Life and Opinions, etc., I. 291, drew this conclusion from the