Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/165

 and millions of money, and ended by pressing the French King for a truce. After defying and challenging the Papacy for many years, he found himself compelled, as the head of the English Government, to acquiesce in the virtual abandonment of his claims. Naturally a violent and overbearing man, who when he wanted to argue could only browbeat, and who is described by a contemporary as one "whose doings were ever contrary," he descended so far as to truckle and pay court to his father's mistress. Rightly or wrongly, he was accused of profiting by the embezzlement of shameless rogues in the royal household, and, when the Commons showed a disposition to inquire into the financial abuses, he withheld the parliamentary writs during the years 1374 and 1375. Never at any time very acceptable with the people or their representatives, he had now earned a full measure of odium from all classes; and he made the crowning mistake of letting himself drift into a position of rivalry with the popular Prince of Wales.

To understand and appreciate the facts connected with the Conferences at Bruges, and especially with that in which Wyclif was engaged, one must bear in mind the clear distinction between the attack on the property of the English Church and the broader and more significant assault on the papal assumptions. The first movement was a question of domestic discipline, calculated in the eyes of Wyclif and his friends to purify and re-invigorate the national Church, whilst even laymen like the Duke of Lancaster could persuade themselves that