Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/249

 incited the peasants to revolt, if not indeed to the end of his earthly career, he was the most important religious factor in England. Nevertheless it is clear that his enemies did not give him much rest between their successive attacks.

The English ecclesiastics had made up their minds to push the assault on Wyclif's position to an issue, and even the death of Gregory, with the subsequent schism, only served to interpose a brief delay. The outcome of the Lambeth hearing was naturally unsatisfactory to them, and they doubtless took counsel with the Roman Curia on the earliest possible opportunity, with a view to further and more effectual proceedings. It does not plainly appear whether Pope Urban took any immediate step to bring Wyclif to account, but there are passages in one of the Reformer's most important and well-considered works which read as though he had had something to answer in 1379. He wrote in the De Veritate Sanctae Scripturae in the spring of this year:

"I protested in writing, and it was sent to the papal Curia by the hands of two of the bishops, that I wish to insist upon my declaration, which I have made in the language of Holy Scripture and the sacred doctors; for my salvation in two senses depends upon that language, and my double death would follow upon its contradiction. . . . Surely it is clear from what I have done that I have no fear in consequence of those conclusions, since I circulated them through a great part of England and of Christendom, and even to the Roman Curia, in order that they might be inquired into, at any rate