Towards the end of the fourteenth century began the first grumblings of the great religious storm that was to burst upon the world a hundred years later. The common sort of Londoners, attached to their Church and to its services, were as yet profoundly orthodox and unquestioning. But it is certain that in the year 1393 the Archbishop of York complained formally to the king of the Mayor, Aldermen, and Sheriffs--Whittington was then one of the Sheriffs--that they were _male creduli_, that is, of little faith; upholders of Lollards, detractors of religious persons, detainers of tithes, and defrauders of the poor. When persecutions, however, began in earnest, not a single citizen of position was charged with heresy. Probably the Archbishop's charge was based upon some quarrel over tithes and Church dues. At the same time, no one who has read Chaucer can fail to understand that men's minds were made uneasy by the scandals of religion, the contrast between profession and practice. It required no knowledge of theology to remark that the monk who kept the best of horses in his stable and the best of hounds in his kennel, and rode to the chase as gallantly attired as any young knight, was a strange follower of the Benedictine rule. Nor was it necessary to be a divine in order to compare the lives of the Franciscans with their vows. Yet the authority of the Church seemed undiminished, while its wealth, its estates, its rank, and its privileges gave it enormous power. It is not pretended that the merchants of London were desirous of new doctrines, or of any tampering with the mass, or any lowering of sacerdotal pretensions. Yet there can be no doubt that they desired reform in some shape, and it seems as if they saw the best hope of reform in raising the standard of education. Probably the old monastery schools had fallen into decay. We find, for instance, a simultaneous movement in this direction long before Henry VI. began to found and to endow his schools. Whittington bequeathed a sum of money to create a library for the Grey Friars; his close friend and one of his executors, John Carpenter, Rector of St. Mary Magdalen, founded the City of London School, now more flourishing and of greater use than ever; another friend of Whittington, Sir John Nicol, Master of the College of St. Thomas Acon, petitioned the Parliament for leave to establish four schools; Whittington's own company, the Mercers, founded a school--which still exists--upon his death. The merchants rebuilt churches, bought advowsons and gave them to the corporation, founded charities, and left doctrine to scholars. Yet the century which contains such men as Wycliff, Chaucer, Gower, Occleve, William of Wykeham, Fabian, and others, was not altogether one of blind and unquestioning obedience. And it is worthy of remark that the first Master of Whittington's Hospital was that Reginald Pecock who afterwards, as Bishop of Chichester, was