The Wolves--Richard Hun--A murder--Verdict of the Jury--Hun condemned, and his Character vindicated--The Gravesend Passage-boat--A festival disturbed--Brown tortured--Visit from his Wife--A Martyr--Character of Erasmus--1516 and 1517--Erasmus goes to Basle.
It is occasionally necessary to soften down the somewhat exaggerated colours in which contemporary writers describe the Romish clergy; but there are certain appellations which history is bound to accept. The _wolves_, for so the priests were called, by attacking the Lords and Commons had attempted a work beyond their reach. They turned their wrath on others. There were many shepherds endeavouring to gather together the sheep of the Lord beside the peaceful waters: these must be frightened, and the sheep driven into the howling wilderness. "The wolves" determined to fall upon the Lollards.
There lived in London an honest tradesman named Richard Hun, one of those witnesses of the truth who, sincere though unenlightened, have often been found in the bosom of Catholicism. It was his practice to retire to his closet and spend a portion of each day in the study of the Bible. At the death of one of his children, the priest required of him an exorbitant fee, which Hun refused to pay, and for which he was summoned before the legate's court. Animated by that public spirit, which characterizes the people of England, he felt indignant that an Englishman should be cited before a foreign tribunal, and laid an information against the priest and his counsel under the act of _præmunire_. Such boldness--most extraordinary at that time-- exasperated the clergy beyond all bounds. "If these proud citizens are allowed to have their way," exclaimed the monks, "every layman will dare to resist a priest."
Exertions were accordingly made to snare the pretended rebel in the trap of heresy;[257] he was thrown into the Lollards' tower at St. Paul's, and an iron collar was fastened round his neck, attached to which was a chain so heavy that neither man nor beast (says Foxe) would have been able to bear it long. When taken before his judges, they could not convict him of heresy, and it was observed with astonishment "that he had his beads in prison with him."[258] They would have set him at liberty, after inflicting on him perhaps some trifling penance--but then, what a bad example it would be, and who could stop the reformers, if it was so easy to resist the papacy? Unable to triumph by justice, certain fanatics resolved to triumph by crime.