[695] "Ils n'osoront assentir tant qu'ils eussent conseillez et avysez les Communes de lour pais." They promise to do their best to persuade their constituents. A.D. 1339; "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 104. [696] "Et les nuncia auxi la cause de la longe demore quele il avoit faite es dites parties saunz chivaucher sur ses enemys; et coment il le covendra faire pur defaute d'avoir." "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 103, first Parliament of 1339. [697] 51 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," ii. p. 374. [698] "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 323. This speech created a great stir; another analysis of it exists in the "Chronicon Angliae" (written by a monk of St. Albans, the abbot of which, Thomas de la Mare, sat in Parliament): "Quae omnia ferret aequanimeter [plebs communis] si dominus rex noster sive regnum istud exinde aliquid commodi vel emolumenti sumpsisse videretur; etiam plebi tolerabile, si in expediendis rebus bellicis, quamvis gestis minus prospere, tanta pecunia fuisset expensa. Sed palam est, nec regem commodum, nec regnum ex hac fructum aliquem percepisse.... Non enim est credible regem carere infinita thesauri quantitate si fideles fuerint qui ministrant ei" (p. 73). The drift of the speech is, as may be seen, exactly the same as in the Rolls of Parliament. Another specimen of pithy eloquence will be found in the apostrophe addressed to the Earl of Stafford by John Philpot, a mercer of London, after his naval feat of 1378. _Ibid._, p. 200. [699] "Rotuli Parliamentorum," ii. pp. 337 ff. [700] June 25, 1376. [701] The speech of this year was made "en Engleis," by Simon, bishop of Ely; but the Rolls give only a French version of it: "Le prophet David dit que ..." &c., vol. ii. p. 283. [702] "Sires, I thank God, and yowe Spirituel and Temporal and alle the Astates of the lond; and do yowe to wyte, it es noght my will that no man thynk yt be waye of conquest I wold disherit any man of his heritage, franches, or other ryghtes that hym aght to have, no put hym out of that that he has and has had by the gude lawes and custumes of the Rewme: Except thos persons that has ben agan the gude purpose and the commune profyt of the Rewme." "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. iii. p. 423. In the fifteenth century the Parliamentary documents are written sometimes in French, sometimes in English; French predominates in the first half of the century, and English in the second. [703] On Wyclif's family, see "The Birth and Parentage of Wyclif," by L. Sergeant, _Athenaeum_, March 12 and 26, 1892. This spelling of his name is the one which appears oftenest in contemporary documents. (Note by F. D. Matthew, _Academy_, June 7, 1884.)