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much at liberty to play or to work on the seventh as on any other day of the week.

The usurpation of Henry of Lancaster had to struggle with the hatred which ever attends on the most popular rebel after the government he shall have subverted has ceased to exist; and these feelings broke out immediately in an attempt to restore the dethroned prince. The quelling of this insurrection begun by Kent and Mortimer, as well as watching the commencement of Owen Glendower's rebellion in Wales, the cruel act of putting Richard to death in his prison, the constant reports of his escape and threatened return, with which the new King was harassed; the expedition which he undertook into Scotland, that he might occupy men's minds, and divert them from dwelling on the infirmity of his title all afforded him so much employment during the first year of his reign, that he could give no heed to the disputes between the Church and the Reformers. But the progress which those sectaries were making, and the uncontrolled vehemence of their attacks on the clergy, his wish to fortify himself in the opinion of that powerful body-possibly, too, the circumstance of Salisbury, a leader in Kent's conspiracy, having belonged to the new sect, drew his attention to the controversy, as soon as he could rest in comparative quiet, after the first troubles of his reign. In the speech delivered at the opening of parliament, commonly by the chancellor, it was usual for the sovereign to make a general promise that he

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would maintain the church in all its liberties and franchises, as they had previously been enjoyed. A like promise was given to the other orders of the state. But on the assembling of his second parliament, Henry added these words, in making mention of the church-" as approved by the Fathers, the Doctors of the Church, and the Scriptures." The prelates and clergy, perceiving that this expression indicated a favourable disposition towards them, and a leaning against the Lollards; marking, too, that the Commons had immediately thanked the King for his care of the faith-petitioned for a law which might effectually prevent the practice of preaching without episcopal licence, authorize the seizure and detention of persons propagating the new doctrines, and require the delivering up of their heretical writings. Any further punishment was not asked, or indeed referred to by the petitioners; but the King or the temporal Peers immediately passed an act in accordance with their prayer, adding the penalty of death. Whoever refuses to abjure the heresy of which he is either convicted or vehemently suspected, or, having abjured, relapses, is to be seized; and the magistrates, says the statute, "shall forthwith in some high place, before the people, do him to be burnt." The purpose of the savage punishment is plainly set forth; it is, "in order to strike in fear to the minds of others, whereby no such

1 These words are not in the statute 2 Henry IV., c. 1, but in the Rot. Parl., 2 Hen. IV., 1 (vol. iii. 454).

wicked doctrines and heretical and erroneous opinions, nor their authors and fautors against the Catholic faith and detriment of the holy church, which God prohibit, be sustained or in any way suffered."1 It must be observed that no trial in any temporal court is required by this statute before the party accused shall be burnt. The mere certificate of the bishop, or his commissary, is made imperative on the sheriff or other executive officer, who may or may not have been present at the trial in the spiritual court, according as its judges chose to direct.

About the same time, certainly during the same session, an unfortunate man, named William Sawtré, was actually burnt for heresy. He had been a priest, and held a living in Norfolk; but was deprived for heretical opinions, and afterwards, on recanting, readmitted into the church. He now petitioned parliament that he might be allowed to dispute before them on points of doctrine. The Primate summoned him, as suspected of relapse from the tenor of his petition: he proved contumacious when interrogated; sentence was pronounced against him as a relapsed heretic; and he was delivered over to the constable and marshal. The King, by the advice of the Lords spiritual and temporal, ordered him to be publicly burnt, "in abhorrence of his crime, and as an example to all other Christians." It is distinctly stated in this writ that the burning of heretics is en

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joined by the law of God as well as of man, and by the canons.

It must be added that during the same session, probably before the writ in Sawtre's case was issued, the Commons had petitioned that all persons imprisoned for Lollardy "should be put to answer forthwith, and punished as they deserved, in order to deter others of that wicked sect, to prevent such wicked preaching, and to maintain the holy religion."1 There seems, then, independent of the thanks given to the King, as we have already seen, no doubt that at this period the zeal of the upper classes set in strongly against the Reformers. Indeed, we can trace the orthodoxy of the Commons in the language of their addresses. In one they compare the constitution to the Trinity, "consisting of three persons which ought to act in unison;" and in their address at the close of the Parliament, they compare the session to the mass, showing how the Primate, the King, and the two Houses, had performed the several parts of that holy office, and couching their thanks to the Crown in the words of the Romish Liturgy-" Deo Gratias."3

It should, indeed, seem, that persons in the upper ranks of society had, ever since the tumults early in Richard's reign, become alienated from the Reformers. The natural leaning of those classes is commonly found to be, for obvious reasons, in favour

Rot. Parl., iii. 474.

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Ibid., 466. Note XVIII.

Ibid., iii. 459.

of the established church: this natural bent of their opinions, together with the alarms which the riots occasioned, counteracted the accidental inclination of many among them to Wycliffe's party; and these alarms derived additional force from the sense of the insecurity in which the revolutions that vexed and finally terminated the reign placed all property and all privileges. In such circumstances, it is little to be wondered at that Henry should take the side most likely to promote his popularity with the more important members of the community. The infirm title of the Lancastrian princes to the crown, from which the commons derived so much advantage in the assertion of their civil rights, operated in the contrary direction upon their struggle for religious liberty, because it was for the most part the middle and lower orders that engaged in the conflict with the church, and the sovereign had not the same cause to dread their opposition, or the same motives to court their favour, as he had in his contests with the upper orders composing the parliament.

But though the displeasure of the King, the strongly expressed sense of the Parliament, and the rigorous law actually passed against them gave serious annoyance to the Lollards, they were not to be put down. They persevered, it should seem, in defiance of the enactment made to restrain them; and it does not appear to have been strictly enforced. Gathering courage from impunity, they began, after a few years had passed away, to preach more openly than they

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