Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/223

 Parliament of 1377, have been mentioned already. He had made so many enemies by this time that the more ignorant as well as the more unscrupulous amongst them either believed or pretended to believe that he had profited by the embezzlements of men like Lyons, and that, instead of being a legitimate prince, he had been palmed upon Edward III. by Queen Philippa. It is not surprising that, when his eldest brother died, he should have been thought capable of harbouring a design to get rid of his nephew Richard, and to secure the throne for himself. The insult to Courtenay would scarcely have moved the citizens so deeply if their prejudice had not already been raised by such facts and suspicions as these.

Walter Savage Landor, with the insight of genius, has imagined a conversation, occurring on the day of the riot, between John of Gaunt and Joanna of Kent, his cousin in blood, and the widowed mother of Richard. He represents the Princess of Wales as coming to rescue him in the Savoy palace, and standing with him at a window, looking down on the surging mob beneath. "How is this, my cousin," she says, "that you are besieged in your own house, by the citizens of London? I thought you were their idol." To which he answers: "If their idol, madam, I am one which they may tread on as they list when down; but which, by my soul and knighthood! the ten best battle-axes among them shall find it hard work to unshrine." He suspects that she has come with her guard to arrest him; but they are reconciled by a reference to the dead Prince,