Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/25



CHAPTER I.

THE CHARACTER OF WYCLIF.

OME sixty years ago one of the most graphic of our historical painters, Sir David Wilkie, completed for Sir Robert Peel a magnificent panel, which had occupied his thoughts for more than ten years. It represents John Knox, the Scottish Reformer, preaching before the Lords of Congregation at St. Andrew's, on the 10th of June, 1559. It was a time of strife and violence, when religious reform could only be won or defeated by the sword, and when the preaching of a man like Knox was often followed by speedy and startling results. Wilkie has introduced into his picture not merely the calm and 1