of God. That smile was registered as a sign of derision and contempt.*

During nine years following the Prelates did not venture to burn another Lollard. Even Arundel, first in murderous zeal, as well as in worldly dignity, found it necessary to repress his passion, and impose no other penalty than imprisonment on those who could not be moved by intimidation, or by promises, to swear unlimited submission to the authority of the Church. The poor Priests of Wycliffe still prosecuted their labours, welcomed by the common people, and often concealed by them from the knowledge of persecutors. But many persons, both Priests and laymen, without favour shown to age or sex, were wearied into recantation by the dread or the suffering of incarceration in loathsome dungeons; and many others perished in such places. This state of things continued until the year 1409, when the Primate and his Clergy renewed their efforts. A set of Constitutions of his, then issued, conveyed through the province of Canterbury his command, that no person unlicensed should preach, under penalty of excommunication and confiscation of all his goods; that no Clergyman or other person should admit an unlicensed Preacher into church, church-yard, or any other place, under penalty of interdict on the place. The Preacher who scandalized his hearers by too great freedom of speech, was to be sharply punished by the Ordinary, who might use unlimited discretion. A breath of dissent from authorized doctrine respecting the sacraments, brought down excommunication; a second utterance of the kind was to be visited with confiscation of goods, but might be atoned for by penance and open recantation. Schoolmasters were to refrain from teaching anything contrary to what was called "catholic faith,” and to prevent their pupils from expounding or disputing about the words of Scripture; every negligent Schoolmaster should be "grievously punished" by the Ordinary of the place, as a favourer of errors and schisms. Wycliffe's books were to be excluded from schools, halls, hospitals, until expurgated by twelve censors then appointed; and transgressors were to be dealt with as sowers of heresy. Under the same penalty, no man should dare to translate the text of holy Scripture into English or any other tongue, or read any such book, libel, or treatise, set forth in the time of Wycliffe, or since. Formal propositions, even if but apparently repugnant to authorized doctrine, and sayings unfavourable to image-worship, pilgrimages, crossings, holywater, and other like superstitions, were marked as criminal, and were to be avenged according to the laws against heresy. No Chaplain should be admitted to say mass in any diocess, of whom it should not be duly certified that he was untainted by any suspicion of having favoured the new doctrines; otherwise both he and he that suffered him should be "sharply punished." Because Oxford was defiled with "the new and damnable name of Lollardy," and the students' teeth were set on edge by eating the sour grapes left there by their predecessors, those sour grapes, the writings of Wycliffe; the heads of houses were instructed how to make inquisition of heresy, or, failing

* Foxe, Acts and Monuments.

obedience, to be deprived and excommunicated. On that Constitution Foxe pithily notes in the margin: "I would the like were used now, for the banishment of Papistry." Suspected Clerks were to be made incapable of preferment for three years. And, finally, for the easier punishment of offenders, all persons not appearing on citation before the Ordinary, or other superior, should be presumed guilty, and dealt with accordingly.* The zeal of the Clergy was necessarily quickened, and the Church appeared more terrible than ever, domineering over all speech and all thought, except where the spirit of Christ had set men free from the fear of man. There were a few thus emancipated; and, among them, John Badby, a tailor of Evesham, in the diocess of Worcester, was found ready to surrender his life for Christ's sake. We find him first at Worcester, in the chapel of the charnel-house of St. Thomas (à Becket) the Martyr, in the cathedral. The Bishop of Worcester sat as his chief Judge, attended by the Prior and SubPrior of the Church, and a full company of "Parsons," Friars, Knights, and Esquires, chosen for their learning and rank, to give a shadow of credit to the prosecution. The Evesham tailor stood manfully before them, and, in the course of a "diligent" examination conducted by the Bishop, answered without hesitation, that it was impossible for any Priest to make the body of Christ, and that he would never believe it until " he saw manifestly the like body of Christ to be handled in the hands of the Priest upon the altar, in his corporal form;" but if that body could so be made, any good man might do it as well as a Priest. And he argued against the mass with a severity so unsparing, that the Friars exclaimed that his words were horrible and out of order. The "reverend father" admonished him to abjure utterly that heresy, and to believe all other things, as the holy mother the Church believed; but the good man was nothing moved, and said expressly, that "he would never believe otherwise than before he had said, taught, and answered." That was enough. The company were not troubled with discussion of any more articles. Thomas of Worcester subscribed an accusation of him as a heretic, two Notaries set their hands and seals to the document, and it was forwarded, forthwith, to the Primate. The Commons of England were not insensible to the condition of the tailor of Evesham. The abbey of that town, alone, endowed so richly, that it was in itself a principality, might have suggested the measure that they resolved on taking. The country was impoverished by the diversion of its wealth from the State to the Church, and they renewed the complaint, already so often, but so ineffectually, made. The Parliament, therefore, sent up a petition to the King, containing, by way of preamble, a calculation of the value of property wasted by Ecclesiastics, to the amount of 322,000 marks annually for the Priests, and 105,000 for the Friars, and asking for the impropriation of that wealth to secular use.† The

These Constitutions, published by Foxe, may be found in the appendix to Lyndwood's Provincial, at the year 1408.

The comparative value of these 427,000 marks may be conjectured from the fair income of a Knight being 100, of an Esquire 40, and of a Priest 7 marks per annum, according to the same preamble.

more.

King answered, that he would consider of the matter, but did no But they also petitioned that such persons as might be arrested by force of the statute made against the Lollards nine years before, might be bailed, and freely clear themselves; and that none but the civil authority might be allowed to arrest them, nor any havoc be made of their goods. This would have delivered Badby out of the hands of the Bishop of Worcester; but the King gave no answer; and in a few weeks the confessor was taken up to London, and presented to Arundel, not at St. Paul's nor Lambeth, but in a monastery of the preaching Friars; and, as before, and like Sautre in the Bishop's Manor-House, not in open court. Their failure in the case of Wycliffe, for want of the like precaution, could not have been forgotten. There (March 1st, 1410) the inexorable Archbishop, assisted by the Archbishop of York, eight Bishops, the Duke of York, the Chancellor of England, the Clerk of the Rolls, and a great number of other Lords, heard the record of the meeting at Worcester, received the accusation of the Bishop, who, however, was not present, and asked Badby whether he would renounce and forsake those conclusions. It was a question of life or death. The humble tailor stood alone before the rulers of the kingdom; men who held the Sovereign himself in their hands. No John of Gaunt protected him. No Earl Marshal bade him sit down. No shout from a sympathizing multitude, nor any message from royalty, demanded justice, or interposed authority. To remonstrate, to argue, to implore, would have been vain. He might have denied the truth: yet by seeking to save his life he would have lost it; therefore, mindful of his Master's command and promise, he calmly accepted the alternative, and said, in few words, that to his life's end he would never retract the same. That answer sealed his doom; but "his countenance was stout and his heart confirmed:" Canterbury pronounced him an incorrigible heretic, and, as usual, very instantly desired the temporal Lords there present, that they would not put John Badby to death, nor deliver him to be put to death. Nor did they. The Archbishop and the Bishop of London agreed together that he should be kept safe, and sent him to a cell in the same monastery; the Archbishop took the key into his own charge; and on the following Wednesday,* arrangements being complete, re-assembled the Prelates and nobles in St. Paul's, brought up Badby again, read over the proceedings, repeated the demand for retractation, heard his determination never to retract repeated, reiterated the anathema, and sent him back in custody to the Black Friars. In the afternoon the King issued a writ for burning the heretic, and he was instantly taken to Smithfield, where preparations were made for executing the sentence. He was chained to a stake, with dry wood underneath a sort of grating at the foot, and a large barrel, open at both ends, put over him, to hide the burning sacrifice from the eyes of Englishmen, not yet accustomed to look on such objects. The fire was not yet kindled, and while the executioners waited for the Priests, whose presence was deemed necessary at so religious and important a solemnity, the Prince of Wales, a young man of twenty, capable of * The trial, if it may be so called, took place on a Saturday.