to defend themselves” (for hys parents, that ys to say hys father and hys mother, were of nobylitye, the Earle and the Countes of Devonshire). The bishopp on the other syde sayed, “In defendynge the trueth I trust not in my parents, nor in the lyfe of any man [rather ‘in thee nor in any man’], but in God, in whom I ought to trust” [rather ‘my God who him who trusts in him …’ unfinished]. Then the duke whysperynge in his eare sayed he had rather draw hym furth of the churche by the heare than suffer such thynges. The Londoners hearynge these words angerlye with a lowd voyce cried out, swearynge they wolde not suffer there Bishopp to be injured, and that they wold soner loose there lyfe then there bishopp sholde be dishonered in the churche, or pulled out with such vyolence.’
The duke's unpopularity among the citizens (who had to pay more for their wine in consequence of Lyons's monopoly) had been increased by his threat to abolish the mayoralty and place London under the government of a ‘captain,’ nominated by the crown. The citizens were also indignant at a rumour that the marshal was keeping a prisoner in his house within the city jurisdiction, and the fury of the citizens reached a climax when it was reported that their mayor had been arrested—of course, by order of the duke. The court broke up in confusion, no sentence was passed, and no official record of its proceedings has been preserved. The next day the citizens met in their guildhall to take counsel as to how they were to defend their threatened privileges. The affair ended in a riotous attack, first upon the marshal's house, where the prisoner was released, and then upon the duke's palace in the Savoy, which was plundered by the mob, the duke himself escaping by river to Kennington. The disturbance was with difficulty quelled by the exertions of the bishop.
Intimidated by the result of their first assault on the anti-clerical doctor, Wycliffe's enemies—among whom the monks were probably the most active—determined to adopt a different method of procedure. Shortly before Christmas a batch of bulls arrived from Rome directed against Wycliffe and his teaching. A bull addressed to the chancellor and university of Oxford accuses Wycliffe of teaching the condemned doctrines of Marsilius of Padua and John of Jandun, and orders the university to arrest the heresiarch and hand him over to the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of London. Other bulls direct those prelates to cite Wycliffe to appear before Gregory XI in person within three months; while yet another, issued on the same day, authorised them to conduct his examination themselves, and to transmit his confession to the papal court. These inconsistent directions were apparently intended to allow the English prelates to use whichever mode of procedure circumstances might render expedient. The king was also urged to support the proceedings against Wycliffe, and a schedule of the errors attributed to him was annexed (Chron. Angl. App. p. 396; bulls in Chron. Angl. pp. 174 sq.; Lewis, pp. 305 sq.; Wilkins, iii. 116 sq.).
The difficulty that was experienced in executing these bulls testifies to the immense influence and importance which Wycliffe had by this time acquired—an influence, it will be observed, which was quite independent of Wycliffe's connection with the Lancastrian faction, since the chronicles testify to his especial popularity among the anti-Lancastrian citizens of London. The bulls were issued at Rome on 22 May. They must have arrived in England before August, yet Wycliffe was formally consulted by the new king's advisers and the parliament which met in October 1377 as to whether they might lawfully take measures to prevent money going out of the kingdom to foreign and absentee holders of English benefices. His very bold paper on the subject is preserved by Walden (Fasc. Zizan. pp. 258 sq.), as also a defence of his views on dominion, which he presented apparently to the same parliament (ib. p. 245). According to that writer (ib. p. 271) the king and council imposed silence upon Wycliffe on the matters discussed in this tractate. It was only after the dissolution of parliament that the bull was sent down to Oxford, and then the proctors hesitated to act upon it (Chron. Angl. p. 173; Fasc. Zizan. pp. 300–1). Wycliffe's friends protested in congregation against the imprisonment of an English subject ‘at the command of the pope, lest they should seem to give the pope dominion and royal power in England,’ and the commissary or vice-chancellor, though a monk, was obliged to content himself with requiring him to confine himself to Black Hall (Eulog. Histor. iii. 348). Even this qualified imprisonment, or some earlier imprisonment which had taken place before the interposition of congregation, was subsequently made matter of accusation against the vice-chancellor, who was imprisoned and deprived of his office by the king, as also was the chancellor, though he pretended to resign voluntarily (ib. p. 349); but the condemnation in his case was unconnected with Wycliffe's affair, and was
