To no purpose did this generous resolution excite the wrath of the partisans of Rome; to no purpose did they assert that, by the canon law, the king ought to be deprived of his fief, and, that England now belonged to the pope: "No," replied Wickliffe, "the canon law has no force when it is opposed to the word of God." Edward III made Wickliffe one of his chaplains, and the papacy has ceased from that hour to lay claim--in explicit terms at least--to the Sovereignty of England.
[Sidenote: WICKLIFFE BEFORE THE CONVOCATION.]
When the pope gave up his temporal he was desirous, at the very least, of keeping up his ecclesiastical pretensions, and to procure the repeal of the statutes of _Præmunire_ and _Provisors_. It was accordingly resolved to hold a conference at Bruges to treat of this question, and Wickliffe, who had been created doctor of theology two years before, proceeded thither with the other commissioners in April 1374. They came to an arrangement in 1375 that the king should bind himself to repeal the penalties denounced against the pontifical agents, and that the pope should confirm the king's ecclesiastical presentations.[165] But the nation was not pleased with this compromise. "The clerks sent from Rome," said the Commons, "are more dangerous for the kingdom than Jews or Saracens: every papal agent resident in England, and every Englishman living at the court of Rome, should be punished with death." Such was the language of the _Good Parliament_. In the fourteenth century the English nation called a parliament _good_ which did not yield to the papacy.
Wickliffe, after his return to England, was presented to the rectory of Lutterworth, and from that time a practical activity was added to his academic influence. At Oxford he spoke as a master to the young theologians; in his parish he addressed the people as a preacher and as a pastor. "The Gospel," said he, "is the only source of religion. The Roman pontiff is a mere cut-purse,[166] and, far from having the right to reprimand the whole world, he may be lawfully reproved by his inferiors, and even by laymen."
[166] The proud worldly priest of Rome, and the most cursed of clippers and purse-kervers. Lewis, History of Wickliffe, p. 37. Oxford, 1820.