Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/196

 to forget any strong prejudices which he may have formed in favour of the Pope or the Orders in his younger days. If it had been possible for the Pope to override his election, he would probably have done so, for Langham had been a Minister of the Crown when the statutes of Provisorsand Praemunire were passed, and Chancellor when Wyclif was called upon to argue against the payment of tribute to Rome.

It is not surprising that the old monk should have shown scant favour to the friars; but his action in regard to Canterbury Hall shows that at any rate he had not ceased to believe in the virtues and merits of the Benedictines. He has been described as a pugnacious prelate. A well-known reference to him by Lord Campbell, in his Lives of the Lord Chancellors, is worth quoting again, if only as an illustration of the perplexities which have beset everyone who ventured too lightly amongst the details of Wyclif's career. Campbell tells us that "among those with whom (Langham) quarrelled at Canterbury was the famous John Wyclif, then a student at the college there erected by Islip, his predecessor. The ardent youth being unjustly expelled, and finding no redress for the wrong he suffered, turned his mind to Church usurpations, and prepared the way for the Reformation which blessed an after age."

Langham made his peace with Rome, and received the cardinal's hat in 1368. He ought to have known that his acceptance of this honour would at once make him a suspect with the English Court, if not with the English Church. At any rate it lost him