Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/212

162 and that the Duke felt himself safe in overbearing him with a manifestation of physical force. He would naturally have no confidence in the fairness of the tribunal which Courtenay had set up, apparently for the sole purpose of silencing his clerical ally. And what would the people say, his friends as well as his enemies, if he suffered this priest to get the better of him after such a palpable defiance?

Thus, when the Reformer put in an appearance at St. Paul's on the 19th of February, he was accompanied by John of Gaunt and by a posse of armed men under Lord Percy of Alnwick, afterwards first Earl of Northumberland, who had recently been appointed Marshal of England. Lancaster also brought with him, according to one account, four mendicant friars, perhaps by way of a moral counterpoise to the friars who had notoriously been egging on the Bishop and the Pope to take action against the English Doctor. The arrival of this party in the crowded cathedral created a great disturbance, and Courtenay came forward and reproved them, saying grimly that if he had known they would behave in that fashion he would have taken care that the Marshal and his men should not have entered. The Duke was quite ready for his cousin, and declared that he would exercise his authority there whether the Bishop liked it or no. Then they entered the Lady Chapel, and found, according to the account in the Chronicon Angliæ, not only bishops but also a number of barons. It is possible that all except Courtenay were assembled as mere spectators of what promised to be an inter-