The first censorship in England appears to have been made as a matter of Church discipline; the bishops assumed in these earlier cases the sole jurisdiction and the punishments were ecclesiastical--penance and excommunication. In 1382, the State began to take action in matters of censorship. The occasion arose from the circulation of the doctrines of Wyclif, which, together with the teachings of the Lollards, were assumed to have had influence in bringing about the insurrection of Wat Tyler. The authorities decided that the bishops did not have the power required to suppress the inflammatory doctrines, because the preachers kept moving from one diocese to another and denied at the same time the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts. In 1382, therefore, the Parliament passed an act directing the civil authorities to arrest all such preachers and to “hold them in arrest and strong prison until they will justify themselves to the law and reason of Holy Church.” The mischief, however, continued and, in 1401, the more severe act known as “_de haeretico comburendo_” was passed. Dr. Shirley says that the first victim of this statute was W. Sawtree, preacher at St. Osyth’s in the City of London. Sawtree was convicted of denying transubstantiation. Milman points out that the writ for the execution of Sawtree appears on the Rolls of Parliament before the act itself. It is possible, therefore, says Milman, that Sawtree suffered under a special act which had perhaps been proposed for the purpose of ascertaining, in advance of the consideration of the larger measure, the feeling of Parliament. The last instances of execution for heresy in England occurred in 1612, in which year Bartholomew Legate was burned at Smithfield for holding Unitarian opinions, and Edward Wightman was burned at Litchfield for holding no less than nine “damnable heresies.” The papal Bull issued on June 19, 1520, for the destruction of the publications of Luther, Wolsey declined to enforce in England. It is probable that if the Cardinal had been left to himself, the cruel proceedings which characterised the reign of Henry VIII would not have been instituted. It is the opinion of Froude that with Wolsey, heresy was an error, while with More it was a crime.