es a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily, I say to you, he shall in no wise lose his reward." “Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them ye shall scourge your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That

you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the bod of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar." "Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, a be were cast into the sea." In the whole bearing and deportheat of Anne there was an unaffected yet dignified benignity, a wasing grace and suavity, the power of which none could resist; And on the mind of Richard, who adored her, and to whom everything she said or did had an indescribable charm, her persuasions, backed by an appeal to her favourite gospels, though, intrinsically

ered, they might make little impression on his mind, yet, as ng from her, had a fascinating power, and they swayed him to the side of moderation.

Aue found her hands strengthened in this good work by Joan, be mother-in-law, who was a great admirer of Wickliffe, and a evert to his doctrines. Joan, who was more impassioned and Pre than her daughter-in-law, interfered in his behalf with all the ardour of a sincere and generous admiration, and with a courage atly to be overawed and defeated. When he appeared before texastical Synod at Lambeth, early in the year 1378, four

before Anne came to England, Joan's zeal combined with that of the people in thwarting the plans of the ecclesiastics to pesh him, and to suppress the tenets he had been teaching. His Actrines had by this time gained upon the convictions and hearts

Mat. x 41, 42, and xxiii. 34, 35. Mark ix. 42.

1 Strickland, in her Queens of England, vol. ii., p. 372, incorrectly says 1382, matake which affects the accuracy of some of her statements respecting Anne.

1

of the people, and, to protect him from danger, many of them su rounded the church of St. Paul's, the place of meeting, forced the way into the midst of the assembled conclave, and proclaimed the determination to stand between him and harm. Whilst this uproa filled the judges with alarm for their personal safety, Sir Lew Clifford to their increased dismay, entered the court, and in the nam of the queen-mother, boldly forbade their proceeding to pronounce condemnatory sentence upon the doctrines and conduct of the grea Reformer. Thus was the courage of the judges "shaken as a ree with the wind," as Walsingham observes, and they were afraid t proceed. The mandate of Joan, at the time when it was given was a proof of no ordinary fortitude and energy. It was setting herself in opposition to the Pope, who had just sent letters to the King of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and the University of Oxford, requiring the immediate suppression of Wickliffe's opinions, and the arrest of his person, and of all who were tainted with his heresies. The Pope said, "This arch heretic has gone to such a pitch of detestable folly, that he fears not to teach and publicly preach, or rather to vomit out of the filthy dungeon of his breast, erroneous and false propositions and conclusions, savouring of heretical pravity. We therefore strictly charge and command you, the King of England, and you the Archbishop of Canterbury, and you the Bishop of London, and you the University of Oxford, to cause the said John Wickliffe, and all who may be infected with these errors, if they obstinately persist in them, to be apprehended and cast into prison." In the face of this high authority, thus repeatedly and emphatically expressed, the queenmother said, "No, John Wickliffe is not the detestable heretic which the Pope represents him to be, and if I can prevent it, he shall not be arrested and imprisoned." And what were the doctrines with which the man over whom she thus threw the shield of her protection stood charged? Some of them were these that the holy

echarist, after consecration, is not the very body of Christ, but is so yaratively; that the Church of Rome is no more the head of all other churches, than any other church is, and that Peter had no re power given him by Christ, than any other apostle had; that the Pope of Rome has no more the keys of the church, than any her individual within the order of the priesthood has; that lords

al may lawfully and meritoriously deprive churchmen Bang habitually of their temporalities; that the gospel is of itda rule sufficient to govern the life of every Christian, without any other rule; and that neither the Pope, nor any other prelate of the church, ought to have prisons wherein to punish transgressors.' Such were some of Wickliffe's doctrines, which the Pope in his conastry, assisted by the advice of twenty-three cardinals, condemned heretical, and for which he commanded that Wickliffe should be arrested and consigned to a dungeon, but in maintaining and propaug which the Reformer was defended and encouraged by the yen-m her.

Jhn of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, one of Richard's uncles, "the patial father of the Lollards," as he has been styled, and other

of rank, co-operated with Anne and Joan in protecting W... The circumstances of the times rendered their protection there effectual. The antagonistic popes, from their mutual conbetaal no time to look after heretics; and the factions by which I was distracted, so engrossed the attention of the parties, that the clergy could not obtain the support they desired in proceedinst the rector of Lutterworth. Whether these protectors woud or would not have been able, had Providence spared him for ger period, to have preserved his liberty and life, it is imposto determine. We know that in his closing years he was ag in the anticipation of martyrdom. "To live," says he, "and be sent is, with me, impossible; the guilt of such treason against the Lord of heaven is more to be dreaded than many deaths. Let

1 Foxe's Acts and Monuments, vol. iii., pp. 3-3.

the blow therefore fall. Enough I know of the men whom I oppos of the times on which I am thrown, and of the mysterious prov dence which relates to our sinful race, to expect that the stroke w ere long descend. But my purpose is unalterable. I wait i coming!" 1 The malice of his enemies was implacable, and might fear that Richard, as he needed the support of the clerg might by their influence be swayed, notwithstanding the interce sions of his mother and his queen, to kindle against him the fire persecution. He was not, however, called upon to undergo the fier trial. While administering the bread of the eucharist in the cha cel of his church of Lutterworth, on the 29th of December, 1384, 1 was suddenly seized with paralysis, which threw him on the pav

ment, and on the 31st he peacefully resigned his pious spirit to God. He was interred in the chancel. His church is still standing. Had Anne lived some years longer, there is reason to believe 1 Vaughan's Life of Wickliffe, vol. ii., p. 257.

that by her influence much of the severe persecution which befell the Lollards would have been prevented. Richard was stayed from actual violence so long as she lived; and, even after her death, though be let himself by the solicitations of the clergy to persecute in rar as forms, none of the Lollards were put to death during his reign. Anne continued to retain the affections of Richard undiminished the last, and he never dishonoured her by giving his heart to a

Yet from the time of her coming to England to her death, the bad, from the confusion of the times, her own distresses, caused partly by the folly of Richard in the government of the kingdom, and partly by the cabals formed by his uncle, the Duke of Gloucester

st him. That nobleman, who was ambitious of engrossing the ble authority of the state, finding that the sovereign, as he grew Ader, was not to be retained in that subjection in which he had been

herto held by his uncles, and that he yielded himself to the ascendency of strangers, rather than to his advice, formed a strong party against him, and having both the House of Commons and the Hse of Peers at his devotion, wrested the government from his hands, and transferred it to a commission composed entirely of his own fact Richard's great weaknesses lay in mistaking flatterers reads; in associating with unworthy favourites, by whom he red himself to be almost wholly governed; in an extreme irritay of temper over which he had no control; and in an unbounded a for show and extravagance, which injured his popularity by ang the public burdens. These defects gave great advantage Gocester, and, during the time of his triumph, several of Enard's counsellors and favourites were put to death, among whom

Sir Simon Burley, a gentleman who, for his personal merits, had been appointed governor to Richard by Richard's father and pazifather, and by whom the prince, from his tender infancy, had to the present time been attended and served with devoted atiment. These executions took place in the year 1388.

1 Rymer's Fœdera, tom. iii., pars iii., pp. 135--144.

D