Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/284

 the convictions and courage of the Oxford Reformers, and to guarantee the continuance of the revolt against Rome. For twenty-seven years the rulers of the Western Church fought their daily battle against catholicity and authority. The Schism began, continued, and ended in fatal hostility to the unity of Christendom. Gregory, whose bad choice of time and means for the return to Rome was the immediate cause of the disaster, had inaugurated a persecution which ultimately led up to the secession of the Teutonic Churches. The Council of Constance, summoned in order to bring the Schism to an end, cemented a new union with the blood of Huss and Jerome, and signalised it by the desecration of Wyclif's grave.

Gregory died, as we have seen, within a few months of his ill-timed return to the Holy City. There were sixteen cardinals at Rome, most of them Frenchmen; but under pressure from the turbulent citizens they elected an Italian to the vacant see. Part of the papal Court had remained at Avignon, and in a fatal moment they resolved to choose a French Pontiff, and to ignore the Roman selection. National jealousies, to which the Popes had so often appealed, declared themselves once more. Urban VI. was recognised by England, most of the Empire, Hungary, Bohemia, and Italy; whilst Clement VII. secured the allegiance of France, the Spanish kingdoms, Savoy, and a few of the German states. The