Page:The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe Volume 3.djvu/27



king Edward III., succeeded his grandson, Richard II. being yet but young, of the age of eleven years: who, in the same year of his father's decease, with great pomp and solemnity was crowned at Westminster, 1377, and following his father's steps, was no great disfavourer of the way and doctrine of Wickliff: albeit, at the first beginning, partly through the iniquity of the times, and partly through the pope's letters, he could not do what he would. Notwithstanding, something he did in that behalf; more perhaps than in the end he had thanks for from the papists, as more, by the grace of Christ, shall appear. But as times do change, so changeth commonly the cause and state of man. The bishops now seeing the aged king to be taken away, during the time of whose old age all the government of the realm depended upon the duke of Lancaster; and now the said bishops again seeing the said duke, with the lord Percy, the lord marshal, to give over their offices, and to remain in their private houses without intermeddling, thought now the time to serve them, to have some advantage, against John Wickliff; who hitherto, under the protection of the aforesaid duke and lord marshal, had some rest and quiet. Concerning the story of this Wickliff, I trust, gentle reader, it is not out of thy memory what went before,, how he being brought before the bishops, by the means of the duke and of lord Henry Percy, the council was interrupted, and broke up before nine of the clock, by reason whereof Wickliff at that time escaped, without any further trouble; who, notwithstanding his being by the bishops forbidden to deal in that doctrine any more, continued