In England from Wicliffe to Henry VIII - James Aitken Wylie

appears to us too absurd to be entertained. Such
revolutionary and sanguinary schemes were not
more alien to the character and objects of the
Lollards than they were beyond their resources.
They sought, indeed, the sequestration or
redistribution of the ecclesiastical property, but
they employed for this end none but the legitimate
means of petitioning Parliament. Rapine,
bloodshed, revolution, were abhorrent to them. If
the work they now had in hand was indeed the
arduous one of overturning a powerful
Government, how came they to assemble without
weapons? Why, instead of making a display of
their numbers and power, as they would have done
had their object been what their enemies alleged,
did they cover themselves with the darkness of the
night? While so many circumstances throw not
only doubt, but ridicule, upon the idea of
conspiracy, where are the proofs of such a thing?
When searched to the bottom, the matter rests only
on the allegations of the priests. The priests said so
to the king. Thomas Walsingham, monk of St.
Albans, reported it in his Chronicles; and one
historian after another has followed in his wake,
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