Great was the indignation of the Romans at the news of this law: "If the statute of _mortmain_ put the pope into a sweat," says Fuller, "this of _præmunire_ gave him a fit of fever." One pope called it an "execrable statute,"--"a horrible crime."[158] Such are the terms applied by the pontiffs to all that thwarts their ambition. [158] Execrabile statutum....fœdum et turpe facinus. Martin V to the Duke of Bedford, Fuller, cent. xiv. p. 148. [Sidenote: THE TWO WARS.] Of the two wars carried on by Edward--the one against the King of France, and the other against popery--the latter was the most righteous and important. The benefits which this prince had hoped to derive from his brilliant victories at Crecy and Poitiers dwindled away almost entirely before his death; while his struggles with the papacy, founded as they were on truth, have exerted even to our own days an indisputable influence on the destinies of Great Britain. Yet the prayers and the conquests of Bradwardine, who proclaimed in that fallen age the doctrine of grace, produced effects still greater, not only for the salvation of many souls, but for the liberty, moral force, and greatness of England. CHAPTER VII. The Mendicant Friars--Their Disorders and Popular Indignation--Wickliffe--His success--Speeches of the Peers against the Papal Tribute--Agreement of Bruges--Courtenay and Lancaster--Wickliffe before the Convocation--Altercation between Lancaster and Courtenay--Riot--Three Briefs against Wickliffe--Wickliffe at Lambeth--Mission of the _Poor Priests_--Their Preachings and Persecutions--Wickliffe and the Four Regents. Thus in the first half of the fourteenth century, nearly two hundred years before the Reformation, England appeared weary of the yoke of Rome. Bradwardine was no more; but a man who had been his disciple was about to succeed him, and without attaining to the highest functions, to exhibit in his person the past and future tendencies of the church of Christ in Great Britain. The English Reformation did not begin with Henry VIII: the revival of the sixteenth century is but a link in the chain commencing with the apostles and reaching to us. [Sidenote: THE BEGGING FRIARS.]