1*78 



THE POPULAR EDUCATOR. 



himself overmuch in such matters, unless the reformers in 

 religion proved themselves to be reformers in the State also ; 

 butto Eichard, his grandson, these exhortations of the Pope 

 appeared in the light of a duty. Eichard agreed to a law which 

 was passed through a Parliament of which the Upper Chamber 

 was at that time far more powerful than the Lower, and was 

 composed of more spiritual than lay peers, by which it was 

 ordered that preachers of heresy should be apprehended and 

 imprisoned " till they will justify them according to the law and 

 reason of Holy Church." No other punishment of a penal 

 nature was permitted during this reign (1377-1399) ; but when 

 Henry IV. in 1399 usurped the throne, and wanted the support 

 of the clergy to back his bad title, he consented, as the price of 

 their assistance, to a law called the Statute of Heresy, which was 

 intended to crush out effectually the troublesome Wycliffltes, 

 who had increased in numbers and audacity during the late 

 king's reign, and were leading many out of the fold of the 

 Catholic Church. The Wycliffitea no more wanted to go 

 out of the Catholic Church than John Wesley wanted to go 

 out of the Church of England; but the Catholic Church said 

 t0 them as the Church of England in effect said to him, 

 " Holding opinions such as these, you are. not of us, and we 

 will have nothing to do with you while you continue to hold 

 them." 



Had the Catholic Church stopped there, no one could have 

 complained. Perfect liberty of conscience requires- that men 

 shall be free to choose what tenets they will embrace and 

 what reject, but it forbids them to go further and say to those 

 \vho differ from them : " Think and believe as we do, for if you 

 will not we will burn and hang you." The Church of the day 

 would not act upon the advice given by Gamaliel to the Jews, 

 who wished to persecute the apostles : it could not bear the 

 idea that any one should presume to differ from what almost all 

 Christendom accepted as true. Believing firmly that acceptance 

 of all that the Church taught, and in the system of government 

 which the Church had established, was the only way to salva- 

 tion, she was grieved beyond measure at the sight of her chil- 

 dren going astray, and deemed any means, however violent, to 

 be more than justified by the laudable end of bringing back tho 

 wanderers. She hoped to make such an example as would 

 deter fresh truants, and she hoped even for the offenders that 

 God would accept the sufferings she inflicted upon them as an 

 atonement for the sins they had committed against Him, sup- 

 posing Him to be represented by the Pope and the Eoman 

 Church. 



How easily does fanaticism of any kind cheat itself into 

 the belief that its cause is God's cause, and that to perse- 

 cute its own opponents is to do God service. The Church 

 accordingly procured from the king in the year 1400 his assent 

 to a law passed by a Parliament constituted as above described, 

 by which persons who refused to renounce their so-called errors, 

 or relapsing after they had so renounced them, were to be given 

 over by thj spiritual authorities to the sheriff, who "the same 

 persons after such sentence promulgate shall receive, and them 

 before the people in an high place see to be burned, that such 

 punishment might strike fear into the minds of others, whereby 

 no such wicked doctrine, and heretical and erroneous opinions, 

 nor their authors, nor fautors (an old English word meaning 

 favourers) in this realm and dominions against the Catholic 

 faith, Christ's law, and determination of Holy Church be sus- 

 tained or in any wise suffered." 



This infamous and dreadful law was the price paid by Henry 

 for the support of the clergy, and the clergy, as has been sug- 

 gested, believed they were only doing a meritorious thing when 

 they procured the king's signature to the act. For awhile the 

 new power remained like a sword in its sheath ; the clergy were 

 almost afraid to handle the now weapon, till taking it out and 

 looking at it with curious and admiring eyes, they perceived 

 that they themselves were not called upon to do any of the 

 dirty work. They were merely to find guilty or not guilty; upon 

 the sheriff devolved tho invidious task of execution. So they 

 grew bolder, and the year following that in which the act was 

 passed, the Convocation of the province of Canterbury an 

 assembly of which all the bishops and abbots were members, 

 and in which the inferior clergy appeared by their representa- 

 tives determined to draw the sword against those who dis- 

 tented from their religious opinions. 



Some persons who were brought before them were so terrified 



at the danger of standing 'firm that they recanted and renounced 

 their belief rather than go to the stake. Let no man mock 

 them for their weakness, but rather pity them, as men who 

 might excusably fear lest they should be doing wrong in depart- 

 ing from the faith as delivered to them and as taught by the 

 existing Church, which was presumed to have the Holy Ghost 

 for its guide, and as men many of them fathers and husbands 

 who feared to wrench asunder the ties which bound them to 

 this world, who looked in their children's faces, and who listened 

 to the entreaty of their wives, and then failed to pronounce the 

 words which would make the children fatherless and the wives 

 widows. Others there were, cast in another mould, who by. 

 their nature could not accept life as the price of their creed, 

 who looked upon the offer with scorn, and asked if that were 

 all they were to have in exchange for their souls. Equally 

 enthusiastic with their persecutors, though in another direction, 

 they made this matter " very stuff o' the conscience," and reso- 

 lutely refused to abjure. Not among the physically strong only 

 were these men found ; indeed, the delicate and sensitive, and 

 the men with highly strung nerves, were the boldest and most 

 courageous professors of their faith. Such esteemed the claim* 

 of wife and child, of kindred and friends, as merely so many 

 temptations, strong temptations no doubt, which must be over- 

 come, and they pointed for their justification to the words of 

 the Saviour, where He declared that the man who loved wife and 

 children and friends more than Him, was not worthy of Him, 

 and they clung exultingly to the assurance, " There is no man 

 that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, 

 for the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive manifold 

 more in this present time, and in the world to come life ever- 

 lasting." 



Of this class was William Sautre, priest of St. Osith's. It ia- 

 not told us if he was a married man (the rule by which celibacy 

 was the appointed lot of the clergy was not yet of universal 

 application) indeed, the chroniclers of the time speak very little 

 about him and his case, one of them, Thomas Walsingham, 

 monk of St. Alban's, merely mentioning that " a certain false 

 priest was burnt in Smithfield in the sight of many people." 

 But married or not, he seems to have been a very good and 

 honest man, bold to speak and preach the truth, according to 

 his vision of it, in his parish church of St. Osith, Wood Street, 

 in the City of London. His character, as far as we know it, or 

 can judge of it from his behaviour before his judges and at hia 

 execution, would seem to have been not unlike that of the " poor 

 parson of a town," of whom Chaucer wrote in 1380. 

 " To draw folk to heaven by faimesse, 



By good ensample was Ms business. 

 ****** 



A better priest I trow there nowhere none is. 



He waited after no pomp lie reverence, 



Ne mated him a spiced conscience, 



But Christ's lore and His apostles twelve 



Ho taught, and first he followed it himself." 



His opinions, however, openly expressed, were in direct oppo- 

 sition to what the Church authorities permitted, and were in 

 strict accordance with the teaching of Wycliffe. He was cited, 

 to appear before his bishop, the Bishop of London, and was 

 ordered to renounce his error ; but this proceeding proving 

 ineffectual, and his preaching continuing to attract many, he 

 was summoned before the Convocation of the province of Can- 

 terbury, and put upon his trial for heresy, as in a court of 

 justice. 



Earnestly the charge was pressed, and boldly was it met, till- 

 argument for the defence was answered with invective by the 

 prosecution, and the prisoner stood loaded with obloquy. This, 

 however, was not hard for a man like Sautre to bear ; the most 

 difficult and trying part for him, the real temptation, lay in the 

 entreaties of his friends and they were many and the friendly 

 prayers even of his judges, that he would be converted and live. 

 But even against such mighty levers the man's mind was proof. 

 " Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you 

 more than unto God, judge ye," was the answer he gave back, 

 and nothing could persuade him but that he spoke by the inspi- 

 ration of God. 



Faithful as his friends called him, obstinate heretic as his 

 enemies called him, William Sautre was ready to die, if need 

 were, for his religion. Horrible to relate, that sacrifice was 

 required of him. The men who were supposed to represent to 



