Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/243

 throughout England, by a moving appeal just circulated far and wide over London and the provinces. It was an anonymous tract, vigorous and eloquent, calling upon all good clerks and Christians to stand together at that important crisis, and rally in defence of the conclusions of Wyclif, and the independence of the English Church. "If these conclusions are heretical," said the pamphleteer, "Holy Scripture itself falls to pieces." The tract has been generally ascribed to Wyclif. Whoever wrote it, it seems to have been very effective, and the Londoners were enthusiastic for the man who was making such a bold stand against the Pope.

At any rate the prelates lost their nerve, and they were compelled to change the venue. Sudbury postponed the hearing until after Christmas, and summoned the accused to his town-house near the Lamb Hithe. The Archbishop was just now on as good terms as ever with the Duke, and perhaps, if the truth were known, he was not sorry to shift his ground almost within earshot of the royal palace at Kennington. The whole thing was more Courtenay's affair than his, and, if Courtenay could not answer for the rabble round his own cathedral, the nearer they drew to the protection of the Court, the better Sudbury would be pleased.

So, on the appointed day, John Wyclif came before his judges at Lambeth, and with his cool collected look he scanned the group of assessors doctors of decretals, professors of theology and of the "sacred page," whether secular clergymen, monks, or friars, who had come up for the occasion from