1. =The First Years of Richard II. 1377--1378.=--"Woe to the land," quoted Langland from Ecclesiastes, in the second edition of _Piers the Plowman_, "when the king is a child." Richard was but ten years of age when he was raised to the throne. The French plundered the coast, and the Scots plundered the Borders. In the presence of such dangers Lancaster and Wykeham forgot their differences, and as Lancaster was too generally distrusted to allow of his acting as regent, the council governed in the name of the young king. Lancaster, however, took the lead, and renewed the war with France with but little result beyond so great a waste of money as to stir up Parliament to claim a control over the expenditure of the Crown. 2. =Wycliffe and the Great Schism. 1378--1381.=--In =1378= began the Great Schism. For nearly half a century from that date there were two Popes, one at Avignon and one at Rome. Wycliffe had been gradually losing his reverence for a single Pope, and he had none left for two. He was now busy with a translation of the Bible into English, and sent forth a band of "poor priests," to preach the simple gospel which he found in it. He was thus brought into collision with the pretensions of the priesthood, and was thereby led to question the doctrines on which their authority was based. In =1381= he declared his disbelief in the doctrine of transubstantiation, and thereby denied to priests that power "of making the body of Christ," which was held to mark them off from their fellow-men. In any case, so momentous an announcement would have cost Wycliffe the hearts of large numbers of his supporters. It was the more fatal to his influence as it was coincident with social disorders, the blame for which was certain, rightly or wrongly, to be laid at his door. [Illustration: Richard II. and his first queen, Anne of Bohemia: from the gilt-latten effigies on their tomb in Westminster Abbey, made by Nicholas Broker and Godfrey Prest, coppersmiths of London, in 1395.] 3. =The Poll-taxes. 1379--1381.=--The disastrous war with France made fresh taxation unavoidable. In =1379= a poll-tax was imposed by Parliament on a graduated scale, reaching from the 6_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._ required of a duke, to the groat or 4_d._, representing in those days at least the value of 4_s._ at the present day, required of the poorest peasant. A second poll-tax in =1380= exacted no less than three groats from every peasant, and from every one of his unmarried children above the age of fifteen. In =1381= a tiler of Dartford in Kent struck dead a collector who attempted to investigate his daughter's age in an indecent fashion. His neighbours took arms to protect him. In an incredibly short time the peasants of the east and south of England rose in insurrection.