Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/225

 veteran King had to be re-directed to his grandson. Gregory himself did not live long enough to see the issue of his attack on the strongest living enemy of Rome; but he must have died in full confidence that the thunders of the Church would eventually strike down this impious English heretic.

Richard II. came to the throne on June 21st. His first Council included Courtenay, with the Bishops of Carlisle and Salisbury, the Earl of March, Lord Stafford, Sir John Stafford, Sir Henry Scrope, Sir John Devereux, and Sir Hugh Segrave. It was a "clerical" ministry, independent of, if not opposed to, John of Gaunt—though Walsingham says that it was selected with his "connivance." Courtenay does not appear to have taken any active part in the government of the country. Indeed we find him flatly declining to obey the Council, having fallen into another desperate quarrel with Lancaster, and publicly excommunicated his friends and instruments for a gross violation of sanctuary—to which Wyclif himself refers as "a horrible crime." His refusal to abstain from the repeated publication of the sentence, when called upon to do so by the Council, was the best thing which he could possibly have done for the Duke. From that time forward Lancaster seems to have steadily regained his influence; and he gradually assumed the lead of the new Court party.

The first Parliament of this reign met at Gloucester on October 13th, and one of its earliest duties was to consider whether payment of Peter's pence should continue to be made to the Pope. The