Foxe the martyrologist wrote lives of Wyclif, Thorpe, and Cobham, with very inadequate materials so far as the first of the three is concerned. Wyclif, he says, "tooke great paines, protesting (as they said) openlie in the schooles that it was his chiefe and principall purpose and intent to revoke and call back the Church from her idolatrie to some better amendment." And he adds: "The whole glut of monks and begging friers were set on a rage or madnesse which (even as hornets with their sharpe stings) did assaile this good man on every side." Even Netter of Walden—one of the adversaries referred to by James—admitted that he was "wonderfully astonished at his [Wyclif's] most strong arguments, with the authorities which he had assembled, and with the vehemence and force of his reasons."
These are but casual testimonies to the repute of Wyclif in the two centuries succeeding his death. William Thorpe, one of the younger contemporaries of the Reformer, paid his master a high tribute in the course of his examination for heresy before Archbishop Arundel. "Master John Wyclif," he said (as quoted by Bale), "was considered by many to be the most holy of all the men in his age. He was of emaciated frame, spare, and wellnigh destitute of strength; and he was absolutely blameless in his conduct. Wherefore very many of the chief men of this kingdom, who frequently held counsel with him, were devotedly attached to him, kept a record of what he said, and guided themselves after his manner of life."
