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Updated: May 8, 2025
And now there was silence, for the knights and gentlemen knew little of the complaints of the populace; the Lollards did not dare to expose their oppressed faith, and the squires and franklins were too uneducated to detail the grievances they had felt.
Pope Gregory XI. issued five bulls against him, addressed to the king, the archbishop of Canterbury, and the university of Oxford; but their dictatorial tone offended the national feeling, and no heed was paid to them. Seventeen years after Wyclif's death, the statute for burning heretics was passed, and the persecution of Lollards began. It was feeble and ineffectual, however.
Men dare not openly resist, but they treasure up recollections of a fried grandfather, or a roasted cousin, recollections which have done much damage to the Henries, and will shake Holy Church itself one of these days. The Lollards lie hid, but Lollardism will never die. There is a new class rising amain, where a little learning goes a great way, if mixed with spirit and sense.
"I went not, for the which I now grieve, the more as my good cousin telleth me that Master Sastre is accounted a great one by some but these seem not of the best." "Misconceive me not, fair cousin," said Lord Marnell. "It is only the Lollards that think well of the man, and thou wottest that Holy Church looketh not kindly on their evil doings.
As late as 1521 five hundred Lollards were arrested in London by the bishop. Wiclif's purpose, however, was to reach and help the common people with the simpler, and therefore the most fundamental, truths of religion. Muir, Our Grand Old Bible, p. 14. The other movement which marks Wiclif's name concerns us more; but it was connected with the first.
We see something of its probable character in the supreme contempt of the monkish chroniclers; in the heretical epithet of "pestilent" applied to her; in the Lollard terms of her last will; in her choice of eminent Lollards as executors; in her bosom friendship with the Lollard Queen.
On this side of the stream, upon its brow, is a piece of ruined wall, the last relic of what was of old a stately pile, whilst at its foot is a place called the Lollards' Hole; and with good reason, for many a saint of God has breathed his last beneath that white precipice, bearing witness against popish idolatry, midst flame and pitch; many a grisly procession has advanced along that suburb, across the old bridge, towards the Lollards' Hole: furious priests in front, a calm pale martyr in the midst, a pitying multitude behind.
The Lollards in England, in the time of Henry VII., were a feeble body, but they did more to infuse a religious life than the whole machinery and influence of the Roman Catholic Church. And as soon as the Church of England gained over the state, and became established, it began to degenerate, and had need of successive reforms.
Vainly did Lord Marnell represent how young and inexperienced she was; in vain did he urge that the Act which made the Lollards amenable to capital punishment had been passed since her indictment, and only a few weeks before. Henry was not naturally disposed to hear his pleasure called in question; and Abbot Bilson had had possession of the royal ear already.
The Church had got hold of him already, and prompted him to issue proclamations against the disguised Lollards, which would have lost him at one stroke half his subjects. This Warwick prevented, to the great discontent of the honest prince. The moment required all the prestige that an imposing presence and a splendid court could bestow.
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