Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/435

A.D. 1383] the corruptions of the Church, in a transition state, not fully cleared and settled in his mind; yet, with, all the defects arising from his past trammels, he was a great apostle and did a great work. Numbers of his "poor priests," as they were called, traversed the nation, as he had done, in their frieze gowns and with bare feet, everywhere proclaiming the doctrines of the Gospel, and denouncing the impositions and vices of Popery. They held up the monks and priests of the time to deserved scorn, and the people, feeling the sacred truth, flocked round them, deserting those who had so long deluded and fleeced them.



There can be little doubt that John Ball, the preacher of Wat Tyler's army, was one of these "poor priests" of Wycliffe, for it was only three years before Wycliffe's death that this insurrection occurred, and Wycliffe's apostles had been preaching everywhere amongst the people for years. There is as little doubt that this preaching produced this insurrection, as Luther's produced the "Peasants' War" afterwards in Germany. The effect was perfectly natural that men, who for ages had been trodden down as slaves and beasts of burden, hearing all at once that "God had made of one blood all the nations of the earth," that He "was no respecter of persons," and that men were called upon by Him to do to one another as they would be done by, should review their position, and stand astonished at its vast antithesis to the ordinances of Christianity. That the people rebelled was not their fault, but that of the barons and the Church, which, while professing the Gospel, had ignored every precept of it in regard to the people. Now that the great and eternal principles of political justice as well as saving faith contained in the Gospel were once known, they never could be again taken away; they became the heritage of the people. The Wat Tyler insurrection was put down, but that which produced it never could be put down anymore. The powerful eloquence and holy lives of the preachers of Wycliffe were universally confessed. Men of all ranks, from the royal Duke of Lancaster to the peasant, joined them, and acquired the name of Lollards. The inhabitants of London were especially warm adherents of these doctrines. John of Northampton, one of the most opulent and distinguished citizens, was a decided Lollard, and during the time of his being mayor particularly irritated the clergy, who drove a brave trade in pardons and indulgences, by his active reformation of the vices of the people. The Lords Hilton, Latimer, Percy, Berkeley, and Clifton, with many other nobles, knights, and eminent citizens, became the protectors and advocates of Scriptural reform. Of the growth of this reformation we shall speak further in the chapter on the progress of the nation.