Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/301

 Each of the four prominent Orders, Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, and Augustinians, nominated a friar, being also a regent or doctor in divinity, to take part in a deputation to the dying heretic; and they took with them, not the viaticum, or any other of the consolations of religion, or even a skilled leech, but simply four aldermen of the city of Oxford. It is certainly not easy to understand the presence of those aldermen, unless they came with a genuine message of condolence, and the coincidence of their visit with that of the friars was merely accidental.

They began by wishing the sick man good health and a speedy recovery—and then told him that he was on the point of death, and asked him for a retractation of the hard things which he had said against them in his lifetime. It is impossible to fill in the details of what must have been a highly dramatic interview. If we even knew the names of the friars, it might assist us to a better understanding of the real object of their visit. It is doubtful if Wyclif was in a condition to answer them in the first instance, for he was too weak to raise himself in his bed. His visitors were thus able, without let or hindrance, to remind him of the heavy blows which he had dealt them, by word and writing; and they entreated him in his last moments, in presence of these worthy aldermen who might attest what he said, to display his penitence by formally withdrawing his charges against the Orders.

It was a bold thing to ask, even of a dying man; but it seemed to be just the stimulus which Wyclif