Wicliffe and His Times - James Aitken Wylie

past, and disgorge the wealth which by so many
and so questionable means she had already
devoured, and send forth abbot and monk as poor
as were the apostles and first preachers. This was
not to be borne. For a hundredth part of this, how
many men had ere this done expiation in the fire!
No wonder that Wicliffe was marked out as the
man to be struck down. Three bulls did Gregory
dispatch with this object. The university, the
hierarchy, the king: on all were the Pontifical
commands laid to arrest and imprison the heretic –
the short road to the stake. Wicliffe was as good as
dead; so doubtless was it thought at Avignon.
Death was about to strike, but it was on Gregory
XI. that the blow was destined to fall. Instead of a
stake at Oxford, there was a bier at the Vatican.
The Pope a little while before had returned to
Rome, so terminating the "Babylonish captivity;"
but he had returned only to die (1378). But death
struck a second time: there was a bier at
Westminster as well as at the Vatican. When
Courtenay, Bishop of London, was about to
summon Wicliffe to his bar, Edward III., whose
senility the bishop was likely to take advantage of
154