or charitable gift”[16] The action of the English Parliament referring this question to the judgment of Wycliffe, is all the more interesting and significant if respect be had to the time and circumstances in which Wycliffe’s opinion was required by Parliament. It was not only after the death of Edward III., which occurred on the 21st of June 1377, but also after the almost tragical though picturesque incident in Wycliffe’s life, when, accompanied and protected by the Duke of Lancaster and Lord Henry Percy, he appeared in the Ladye Chapel of St. Paul’s Cathedral on the 19th of February in the same year, to answer for himself and his doctrines before a convention of ecclesiastics, presided over by Simon Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by Courtenay, the Bishop of London. It was, also, after no fewer than five papal bulls, dated at Rome on the 22d of May, had been sent forth against Wycliffe. These things give great significancy to the action of Richard II.‘s first Parliament, when for its guidance it desired to have the opinion of Wycliffe respecting the lawfulness of refusing to comply with certain papal exactions. The position and influence of Wycliffe, his standing in the University and among the representatives and leaders of the people, may be judged of by the elaborate and complicated measures taken against him. One of the Pope‘s missives was addressed to the King, another to the University of Oxford and no fewer than three to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London. These documents were accompanied by a schedule or syllabus of nineteen articles which had been reported to the Pontiff, “erroneous, false, contrary to the faith, and threatening to subvert and weaken the estate of the whole Church,” said to be held and taught by Wycliffe. Acting on these instructions, and proceeding in the business with the greatest wariness, the Archbishop summoned Wycliffe to appear before a synod to be held in the chapel at Lambeth early in the year 1378.[17] On this occasion the Duke of Lancaster and Lord Percy were not with him to protect him, but he received effective though tumultuous and boisterous help from the citizens, who might be heard by the bishops shouting such sentences as, “The Pope‘s briefs ought to have no effect in the realm without the King‘s consent;” “Every man is master in his own house.” But even more effective help than that of the angry citizens was at hand. “In comes a gentleman and courtier, one Lewis Clifford, on the very day of examination, commanding them not to proceed to any definitive sentence against the said Wycliffe.” “Never before were the bishops served with such a _prohibition_; all agreed the messenger durst not be so stout with such a _mandamus_ in his mouth, but because backed with the power of the prince that employed him. The bishops, struck with a panic-fear, proceeded no further”[18]—or as a contemporary historian (Walsingham)