Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/184

 during the previous five or six years. They went to the House of Lords to prefer their demand, headed by Peter de la Mare, Speaker of the Commons. Lancaster greeted them in a rather uproarious mood. "What do these base and low-born knights attempt?" he cried. "Do they take themselves for kings and princes of the land?" But though he stormed and raged, threatening all who opposed him with the vengeance of the Crown, the protection of the Prince of Wales was sufficient to maintain the authority of the Commons. Lancaster was discreet enough to keep away from the meetings of the Council, and for a time the representatives of the people had their own way.

De la Mare seems to have had the courage of a Lenthall. When the customary request for a subsidy came before the Commons in the name of the monarch, the Speaker replied that "the King needed not the substance of his poor subjects, if he were well and faithfully governed; which he offered to prove effectually, and promised that if it were found that the King had need, his subjects should be ready most gladly to help him according to their power." This Peter de la Mare was a man of considerable personal influence. He was steward to the Earl of March, who had married the daughter of Lionel of Clarence. Probably also he was a near relative to Thomas de la Mare, the powerful Abbot of St. Alban's. Nothing could be more natural than his nomination as Speaker to a Parliament in which the Prince of Wales and the clericals had the upper hand.