Canterbury gave the weight of his high position and great authority to those who in Oxford were the resolute and strenuous opponents of the mendicant friars. Consequences that could not have been foreseen by any concerned in this action flowed from it. For not long after Wycliffe’s appointment to the Wardenship of Canterbury Hall, Archbishop Islip died on the 26th April 1366, and was succeeded in November by Simon Langham, who had been monk, prior, and abbot of Westminster. By this Archbishop, Wycliffe and the three secular priests who had been so recently appointed to govern Canterbury Hall were removed. Woodhull and his associates were reinstated in the position from which they had been expelled by Islip, and, in violation of the founder’s will, the eight secular scholars were ejected. The hall thus became virtually a monastic institution. Wycliffe’s appeal to the papal court at Avignon was of no avail. After a protracted process and long delay, the Pope gave judgment against him in 1370. We cannot better conclude this chapter in Wycliffe’s life than by quoting the words of Godwin. They will prepare us for what comes next in the order of events:— “From Canterbury College, which his predecessor had founded, he (Langham) sequestered the fruits of the benefice of Pageham, and otherwise molested the scholars there, intending to displace them all and to put in monks, which in the end he brought to pass. John Wycliffe was one of them that were so displaced, and had withstood the Archbishop in this business with might and main. By the Pope’s favor and the Archbishop’s power, the monks overbore Wycliffe and his fellows. If, then, Wycliffe were angry with Pope, Archbishop, monks, and all, you cannot marvel.”[13] Nothwithstanding the very reasonable remark of Godwin that we need not wonder much if Wycliffe, considering the treatment which he had received at the hands of the Pope, the Archbishop, and the monks, should be angry against them all, there is no proof or evidence whatever in support of the allegation of his adversaries, that his antagonism to the friars and his attitude towards the Pope proceeded from irritated feeling, discontent, and disappointed ambition. On the contrary, the absence of all such feelings is one of the most remarkable and characteristic distinctions of his numerous writings.