Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/382

 Bedenham is not mentioned as having appeared before the Synod, but the other three who had been suspended now thought it prudent, or were constrained, to answer the citation of the Primate.

The third sitting had been fixed for June 14th. Hereford, Aston, and Repyngdon put in an appearance, but refused to make the recantation which Courtenay demanded. He gave them a short respite, and appointed a fourth meeting for June 20th. In the interval Aston—himself one of the Poor Priests against whom the tide had turned so strongly—drew up a manifesto for his friends outside, in which he boldly re-stated his conclusions. The result was that when the Synod met again he was formally condemned as a heretic. But once more the haughty prelate—four years after the memorable trial at Lambeth was interrupted by an incursion of Londoners, who had been moved by Aston's appeal, and could not restrain themselves when they heard that he had been condemned. They might indeed have been headed by the same worthy draper, John of Northampton, who came to the help of Wyclif in the Archbishop's chapel, for he was still a warm sympathiser with the Lollards, and had not yet risen to the dignity of the mayoralty. Courtenay gave Hereford and Repyngdon another eight days in which to make submission, afterwards postponing the date to the 1st of July; and, as he had no mind to be interfered with in the discharge of his duty by the obstreperous citizens, he changed the place of meeting on this occasion to Canterbury. There were six new doctors at the