himself was never summoned before the council, but twentyfour conclusions, extracted from his writings, were condemned, search was ordered to be made in Oxford for copies of his works, and he himself was banished from the university. For his followers severer measures were in store. The Lollard chancellor, Rigge, after a bold but short resistance, was compelled to submit; the heads of the party were made to recant, and the whole party in Oxford received a blow from which it seems to have never thoroughly recovered.

Wyclif's enemies, however, were not satisfied. From his retreat at Lutterworth they summoned him before the papal court. The citation did not reach him till 1384. But he was then dying of paralysis. His reply to the pope, excusing himself from attendance, is preserved to us. From its half-enigmatical language we could scarcely guess, what we know from another source, that his failing strength was un

equal to the journey. On the 29th of December, of the same year, as he was hearing mass in his parish church, a fatal stroke deprived him of speech, and on the 31st he breathed his last.

No friendly hand has left us any, even the slightest, me morial of the life and death of the great reformer. A spare, frail, emaciated frame, a quick temper, a conversation "most innocent," the charm of every rank; such are the scanty but significant fragments we glean of the personal portraiture of one who possessed, as few ever did, the qualities which give men power over their fellows. His enemies ascribed it to the magic of an ascetic habit; the fact remains engraven upon every line of his life.

To the memory of one of the greatest of Englishmen his country has been singularly and painfully ungrateful. On most of us the dim image looks down, like the portrait of the first of a long line of kings, without personality or expression -he is the first of the reformers. To some he is the watchword of a theological controversy, invoked most loudly by those whom he would most have condemned. Of his works, the greatest, one of the most thoughtful of the Middle Ages," has twice been printed abroad, in England never. Of his original English works nothing beyond one or two short tracts has seen the light.* If considered only as the father of English prose, the great reformer might claim more reverential treatment at our hands. It is not by his translation of the Bible, remarkable as that work is, that Wyclif can be judged as a writer. It is in his original tracts that the exquisite pathos, the keen, delicate irony, the manly passion of his short, nervous sentences fairly overmasters the weakness of the unformed language, and gives us English which cannot be read without a feeling of its beauty to this hour.

* Since this was written (1858) the English works of Wyclif have been printed, with a very able and interesting introduction by F. D. Matthew (1880).

As it is in the light of subsequent events that we see the greatness of Wyclif as a reformer, so it is from the later growth of the language that we best learn to appreciate the beauty of his writing. But it was less the reformer, or the master of English prose, than the great schoolman, that inspired the respect of his contemporaries; and, next to the deep influence of personal holiness and the attractive greatness of his moral character, it was to his supreme command of the weapons of scholastic discussion that he owed his astonishing influence.

XXV.

DEPOSITION OF RICHARD II.-YORK POWELL.

[During the first twelve years of Richard II.'s reign, the conduct of affairs was largely in the hands of his uncle, the duke of Lancaster, and, after him, of another uncle, the duke of Gloucester. Richard however, was allowed to choose his own ministers. In 1387, through the efforts of Gloucester and four other nobles, called Lords Appellant, the ministers were impeached in Parliament and condemned to death. Two years later the king suddenly assumed sole authority, and for nearly eight years ruled wisely and successfully. In 1389 he entered upon a course of arbitrary government which led to his deposition. His cousin, Henry of Bolingbroke, duke of Hereford, took the vacant throne, with the title of Henry IV.]

THE earl of March had been killed by the "wild Irish" at Kenlys, July 20, 1398, and now, that all was outwardly at peace in England, Richard was minded to go over to Ireland, and stay there till he had established good government once for all. He made his will, leaving all his money to his heir, on condition that he up

RICHARD II.

held the acts of the last two Parliaments, appointed his uncle, the duke of York, Keeper of the Realm, and then sailed, with many of his nobles, May, 1399. As soon as Henry heard that he was gone, he set out from Brittany with Archbishop Arundel and his nephew (the dead earl's son), Sir Thomas Erpingham, and forty men, and landed at Ravenspur, July 4, swearing to the northern lords who joined him that he was come to claim his heritage, and to put an end to the bad rule of the king's friends, but not to touch the crown. The Keeper was won over July 27, Bristol surrendered, and the king's friends there were hanged. Richard sent Salisbury to gather troops at Conway, promising to follow him at once; yet he did not come for three weeks, when he landed at Beaumaris. But there his own men fled from him, and he fell into despair, and cursed the untruth of England, saying, "Alas! what faith is there in this false world?" and, instead of going to Bordeaux, where he would have found help and welcome, left his treasure and fled, in disguise, to Conway. He found no help there; Salisbury's levies had gone home, tired of waiting for him. Ere he could make fresh plans, he was lured, by Northumberland's false oath, out of his stronghold and brought to Flint. "Fool that I was!" he cried, when he found himself betrayed, "to have saved the life of this Henry of Lancaster three times, as I have, yea, when his own father would have had him die for his treason and wickedness! 'Tis a true saying, indeed, 'Your worst foe is him you free from the gallows.'

When he saw Lancaster, he smiled and said, "Welcome, fair cousin!" "I am come home before my time, sir," answered Lancaster, bowing, "for your people complain that you have ruled them harshly for a score of years or more, but now, if it please God, I will help you to rule better." "If it please you, it pleaseth us well," replied Richard. They then started for London.

At Lichfield the king tried to escape, but was retaken,

and henceforth strictly guarded. The Londoners welcomed Henry with joy, but hooted and groaned as the king was led to the Tower. Before the Parliament that had been called could meet, Richard, seeing no present hope, agreed, in writing, to give up the crown. When the Parlia

ment met, the resignation was read in English and Latin, and accepted. Thirty-three charges against Richard were then read, which accused him of having acted wrongfully toward Archbishop Arundel and the appellants; of having packed Parliaments by means of the sheriffs, and got them to give up their lawful rights to him; of having lowered the free crown of England by seeking the pope's approval of acts of Parliament; of having raised unlawful taxes, loans, purveyance, and ransoms; of having broken the laws as to the sheriffs, and royal officers, and judges; of having made an unrighteous will; of having said and held that the laws lay in his own mouth, and that he could change them as he liked, and that the life, lands, and goods of every man were at his mercy without trial.

The Parliament voted these charges true, and sufficient grounds for setting the king aside, and sent seven commissioners to tell him so. Only one man, Thomas Marks, bishop of Carlisle, spoke up for his master, and asked for a fair trial, but he was not listened to. As soon as the throne was declared vacant, the duke of Lancaster rose, and, crossing himself, said, “In the name of God, I, Henry of Lancaster, claim this realm, and the crown thereof, with all the members and appurtenances thereto, as coming of the right blood of King Henry, and through that right which God, of his grace, hath sent me, with the help of my kin and of my friends, to recover it, the which realm was in point to be undone for default of governance and undoing of laws." And with that he showed the signet which Richard had given him at Flint.

Whereon the Three Estates, severally and together, agreed