In England from Wicliffe to Henry VIII - James Aitken Wylie

the very men who would have sowed the seeds of
order in his dominions, and been a bulwark around
his throne, they professed to adduce a specific
instance in support of their general allegations of
disloyalty and treason against the Lollards. In
January, 1414, they repaired to Eltham, where the
king was then residing, and startled him with the
intelligence of a formidable insurrection of the
Wicliffites, with Lord Cobham at their head, just
ready to break out. The Lollards, they declared,
proposed to dethrone the king, murder the royal
household, pull down Westminster Abbey, and all
the cathedrals in the reahn, and to wind up by
confiscating all the possessions of the Church. To
give a coloring of truth to the story, they specified
the time and place fixed upon for the outbreak of
the diabolical plot. The conspirators were to meet
on a certain midnight "in Ficket Field beside
London, on the back side of St. Giles," and then
and there begin their terrible work. The king on
receiving the alarming news quitted Eltham, and
repaired, with a body of armed men, to his Palace
of Westminster, to be on the spot and ready to quell
the expected rebellion. The night came when this
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