Stoics and Saints - College of Stoic Philosophers

282 JOHN WYCLTF.
the King, they would place the whole powers and resources
of the nation at the disposal of the monarch for the defence
of his crown and dignity.
Wyclif, already at this time a celebrated man and a
Koyal Chaplain, struck into the controversy and struck home.
His discussion of the Papal claim is thrown into the -form
of a report of _sjindry ..s^etches., purporting
delivered by certain Lords in a debate, presumably
.
,6* -J*
to have been
in -Par-
liament.^V^ri these speeches were, in substance, actually spoken
in the Council, as is the opinion expressed by Dr. Vaughan
in his most valuable Wyclif publications, 1 the fact would
make Wyclif, among other things, a kind of father of
Parliamentary reporting.^irn
presented as bringing
his tract seven Lords are re
forward seven different reasons for
rejecting the Pope s demand, while Wyclif sums up the
controversy in his own person, deciding that the agreement
made by John was both immoral and without authority.
(^jf^t a subsequent period grave disputes arose between
Edward and the Pope about * grovigprs/ by means of which
thePope secured for his creatures the- rio.hflst p.Tnnlnmp.nts
of J;he_.Anglieftft Giiurch. Wyclif was on the embassy sent
to discuss it with Gregory XL, and at Bruges, where they
met the Papal delegates, he saw with that keen eye of
his something of the inner working of the Papal system.
Again at a yet later date this same question in a some
what different form presented itself for discussion ;
and
there exists among the tracts of Wyclif
of Master John Wyclif to the question given
one headed Answer
lelow : it was
propounded
to him ~by
our lord the King of England,
Richard the Second, and by his great Council, in the first
Life and Opinions of Wycliffe, Lond. 1834 ;
and John de Wydiffe, a Monoyraph,
1
Lond. 1853. [The same opinion is held by Dr. Lechler in his more
recent study of Wyclif, and by his translator Dr. Lorimer. See John Wiclif
and hi* Enylixh Precursors, Lond. 1878. I., p. 247. Ed.]