“Jack Straw” before his execution made a full confession. It has been doubted whether this confession is genuine, but it seems possible and even probable. They promised to have masses said for his soul (which assured him that it was purgatory to which he would be sent) and on this promise he declared that they had intended to seize the King, to carry him about in order to reassure the people, and in the end to kill him and all who were set in authority. They were going to spare the mendicant friars alone. And they were going to set up separate kingdoms all over the country. The doctrines of Wyclyf’s preachers and “simple priests” certainly made this rebellion possible: they filled the minds of the rustics with new ideas of equality and right; they made them question authority; they made it possible for them to unite. As regards London, on inquiry after the rebellion, it was proved that two hundred persons had left the City in consequence, which does not seem to show that Lollardy was advanced by the rebels, or that there was any sympathy extended to them from the Lollards of the City. Now London at this time, Walsingham says, was full of Lollards—they were all Lollards. A little later than this even Whittington was accused of being _male credulus_. As regards the word Lollard its true meaning has been ascertained by Professor Skeat (_Piers the Plowman_, Early Eng. Text Soc., vol. iv. p. 86). There was a sect in Brabant before Wyclyf was born who were called Lollards.... “Sive Deum laudantes,” says one writer. “Mussitatores,” _i.e._ mumblers of prayers, says another. The name of Lollard, a term of reproach in Brabant, was borrowed from that country and applied to the followers of Wyclyf in order to render them unpopular. The word _lollere_ or _loller_—one who lolls, an indolent person—had nothing to do with the word Lollard: nor with the Latin _lolium_, tares, which was also pressed into the service in order to make the new opinions unpopular.