Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/177

 made of other concessions on Gregory's part, though there was no formal document to show for them, and nothing which could be held to bind future popes. These alleged concessions were to the effect that the Pope would not take action with regard to vacant sees until a free election had been made; that he would abate his demands in the matter of first-fruits; and that he would use moderation in respect of provisions and the nomination of aliens. Granting the genuineness of these concessions, it is clear that matters were not much mended by them.

It may well occur to a man of plain ideas and common sense at the present time that the despatch of the mission to Bruges was something of a mistake. What was expected of it? Surely not the voluntary consent of Rome to forgo the advantages which she had usurped and enjoyed for many years. The journey to Bruges was a sign of weakness, or at any rate a mark of concession in a matter which, logically considered, left no room for concession.

There was one course which the English Government might have adopted—which, in fact, it had begun to adopt, and which only called for steady resolution and persistence. If the King, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Lancaster, with the Chancellor and Treasurer, supported by the barons, knights, and burgesses—if, that is to say, the Royal Council and the Parliament had been determined to put an end to papal provisions in England, they might have done so by enforcing the laws already on the statute book, leaving the "French popes" to say what they liked, and never going back upon their word. That