The Hussites of Bohemia became a large and formidable armed force. In our country it is likely that a revolt of the people of the eastern counties, led by Wat Tyler, was in some part inspired by the teachings of Wycliffe. Questioning the authority of the head of the Government would easily follow from questioning the authority of the head of the Church. But partly by a very gallant show of courage by the young king, Richard II., and partly by the valour of the citizens of London, under the Mayor, the rebels were overcome and crushed. This spirit, however, in which Wycliffe and his followers, the Lollards, disputed the authority of the Pope, found favour with the Government for a short while only, and then the Lollards were hunted down and burnt as heretics. In Southern Germany, it inspired the Hussites a little later. But it made no way in France. We have to remember that at the very beginning of the fourteenth century the Pope fled from Rome and came to live, with his court, at Avignon, and this fact, that the Pope lived, and lived for many years, in a French city, had the effect of drawing the Pope and the King of France closely together. A further effect of this was that, all through the weary years of almost incessant war between France and England, the favour of the Church was with France rather than with England, and it was a favour which had much value. {197} CHAPTER XXI ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND BURGUNDY After the Hundred Years' War had been in progress less than a quarter of a century, it seemed as if Edward III. had won all that he could possibly claim--peace and sovereignty over all the outlying parts of his dominion at home, and over more than he had set out to gain on the Continent. But the war was renewed by the action of Edward's vassal lords in France, only nine years later, and before his death, which happened in 1377, scarce a possession on the Continent was left to England except the city of Calais and a narrow strip of coast south of Bordeaux, in Guienne. Even at sea the French fleet, now aided by the Spanish since the interference by the Black Prince with the affairs of Spain--see p. 180--was completely victorious and made raids on the south coast of England. At the end of the fourteenth century it was on the terms that England should hold these fragments, and these only, of her once great territory on the Continent, that a treaty was made with France by Richard II., Edward's successor on the English throne. The cost and miseries incurred in England by those unsuccessful wars in France led to serious riots against the Government. It was then that Wat Tyler led his force of Kentish rebels to London, where only the courage of the king, a boy of fourteen, and the resistance of the militia of the town saved the city from the mob. {197}