Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/145

 talis qualis." The last two words might almost imply that he was an occasional preacher before the Court by invitation rather than by formal appointment, though they would equally well indicate a modest self-depreciation, quite in keeping with his ordinary style. If we did not know that Wyclif actually discharged some of the functions of a royal chaplain, in his character as a secular priest, we might be content to take the regis clericus in what would perhaps be its most natural signification—that of a cleric learned in the canon and civil law, and consulted by the Crown as a lawyer rather than as a clergyman. Wyclifs reports to Parliament, however, carefully avoid any claim to speak with authority on legal points. It seems most natural to conclude that he had a regular appointment as chaplain, and that he spent some of his time every year in the train of the monarch, and in association with members of his Court. Perhaps it was in this way that he first made the acquaintance of John of Gaunt; but on the other hand his good connections in the North may have procured for him an introduction to the King's son, who had married Blanche of Lancaster in 1360. In any case Wyclif was soon in high favour; and he exercised an influence, amongst others, on the unhappy and doubtless scandalous Alice Perrers, who seems to have been an able manager of men, and who was certainly susceptible to the charms of his fiery and pungent eloquence.

However this may have been, it cannot be doubted that, when Wyclif came into touch with the political forces of the time, he would aim at the promotion of