So long as Lancaster was really powerful, whilst the King was yet capable of personal intervention in public life, and the Prince of Wales held the enemies of his brother in check, Wyclif also was safe under the protection of the Court. But when the Prince was dead, when the King was dying amidst contempt and neglect, and when Lancaster's accumulated failures and overbearing conduct had made the populace actively and openly hostile to him, the animosity of the clerics against Wyclif could no longer be restrained. His persecution by the Church authorities began in 1377; but the machinery of persecution was set in motion early in 1376, at the very time when John of Gaunt had retired from the royal Council, and before it seemed probable that the Duke would speedily regain his power.
A new and striking figure now appears upon the stage. Courtenay was the prominent champion of the orthodoxy of his day; and, in order that we may have a clear perception of the events in which Wyclif and Courtenay enacted the leading parts, it may be well to glance backwards at the internal history of the English Church, and at the character of its principal rulers, since Wyclif began to attract the notice of his contemporaries.
