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Updated: May 8, 2025
The tradition is, that at various times these Lollards were imprisoned here. In order to get to the tower we had to go through a great many apartments, passages, and corridors, and terminate all by climbing a winding staircase, steeper and narrower than was at all desirable for any but wicked heretics, who ought to be made as uncomfortable as possible.
For the extreme Lollards, of whom he was one, looked upon the two political acts which we have learned to call disestablishment and disendowment, as not only permissible, but desirable. In so saying, I speak of the political Lollards. All political Lollards, however, were not religious ones, nor were all religious Lollards sharers in these political views.
These Lollards, perhaps you will remember, were the followers of John Wickliffe, called Lollards as Christ was called a "Nazarene," simply because the word was a term of reproach. Wickliffe himself was summoned here to Lambeth to give an account of his teachings, and in 1382, William Courtnay, Archbishop of Canterbury, called a council, which condemned his doctrines.
Thirty of these unfortunate Lollards were hanged and drawn immediately, and were then burnt, gallows and all; and the various prisons in and around London were crammed full of others. Some of these unfortunate men made various confessions of treasonable designs; but, such confessions were easily got, under torture and the fear of fire, and are very little to be trusted.
"Seest thou not that it is the translation of Scripture whereof the Lord Marnell spake, by Master John Wycliffe, the Lollard priest? Mindest thou not that which he said about Lollards?" "An what if it be?" said the confessor, yawning. "I pin not my faith on my Lord Marnell's sleeve, though it were made of slashed velvet. And I trow Madge hath been too well bred up to draw evil from the book.
"You mean," said Margery, simply, "of the discovering of a book in my chamber by my Lord my husband, the which did anger him?" "I rejoice that you take my meaning," answered the Prioress, in an even voice. "I meant that verily. I grieve much, fair sister, to hear from my fair brother that you have allied yourself unto those evil men which be known by the name of Lollards."
"I give you to wit also, good mistress, that in this country be some men who call themselves Jacobites, to wit, disciples of Saint James, and they be right Lollards, holding that a man should make confession to God and no wise unto the priest; and also read they God's Word in their own tongue, and not in Latin, the which giveth me much marvel how they came in this place, for they do wit nothing of us and of our country.
He issued his rigid "constitution" against the Lollards in 1409; and he was the principal agent in the persecution of Lord Cobham. He died February 20th, 1414, lingering for a few days after a paralytic stroke, as stated in the story. His age was 61. The mantle of this cleverest man of his day clever for evil descended, a hundred years later, upon Stephen Gardiner.
John Wicliff proposed a solution of the problem which, in the course of the following two hundred years, acquired wide popularity and vast historical importance: Lollards, Hussites, Lutherans, Calvinists, Zwinglians, Socinians, and Anabaptists, whatever their disagreements, concurred in the proposal to reduce the Supernaturalism of Christianity within the limits sanctioned by the Scriptures.
At the west end of the chapel, high on the wall, projects a Gothic confessional, erected by Archbishop Chicheley. It was formerly approached by seven steps. The beautiful western door of the chapel opens into the curious Post Room, which takes its name from the central wooden pillar, supposed to have been used as a whipping-post for the Lollards.
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