We may perhaps see in this letter the desire of the City Fathers to clear themselves from any suspicion of Lollardy. The worthy citizens did not desire a reform in church doctrine so much as a return to simple measures and holy living. [Illustration: SHIPS AT LA ROCHELLE, 1372 From Froissart’s _Chronicles_.] For two years Oldcastle led a wandering life with a few companions. He was once nearly taken at St. Albans, where the Abbot’s servants heard of him and went out to arrest him. He got away, but some of his servants were caught: and they found books of devotion upon them in which the painted heads of the Saints had been scraped off: the names of the Virgin and of the saints had been blotted: and divers writings had been made up and down the page in derogation of honour paid to the Virgin and to the Saints. These books were displayed at Paul’s Cross to illustrate the extreme wickedness of Lollardy. At length Sir John Oldcastle was taken by Sir Edward Charlton, Lord of Powis. So much importance was attached to the capture that Charlton received a reward of 1000 marks. There does not appear to have been the slightest grounds for representing this great and noble man, a hundred and fifty years in advance of his age, as a traitor, a conspirator, or in any sense hostile to the King. He was free for two years to work his conspiracies and he refrained. But he was always active in disseminating Lollard teaching. In 1417 he was hung on a gallows by chains, and was, it is said, slowly burned to death, at St. Giles, close to the south end of the present Tottenham Court Road. Like so many martyrs, like Latimer, like Cranmer, like Ridley, he was sustained through the fiery torment by the steadfast faith which burned in his soul more fiercely than the crackling flame without. Before he suffered he prayed forgiveness for his enemies: he exhorted the people to obey the Scripture in all things: he refused the ministrations of a priest. “To God only, now as ever present, he would confess.” It seems afterwards, amid the wars and strifes and bloodshed of the century, as if Lollardy was dead. It was not. The memory of Sir John survived; the teaching of the simple life, the pure life, the chaste life, remained in men’s hearts and bore fruit when they found time and opportunity to compare once more the Church of the present with the Church of the past.