WICK WICKLIFF. 



WICK ; the county town of Caithness, in Scot- 

 land, is situated on the sea-coast, or bay of Wick, 

 distant from Edinburgh 27<> miles, by way of Perth 

 and Dunkeld. It takes its name from the Danish 

 word trick, which signifies a bay or inlet. The 

 town, which lies low and it irregularly built, is 

 composed of the royal burgh of Wick, and the 

 suburbs of Louisburgh and Pulteney-town. Of 

 late years it has been considerably improved and 

 extended, but it still retains much of the dirty and 

 slovenly appearance of the smaller Scottish towns. 

 Wick is the principal seat of the northern herring 

 fishery ; and during the fishing season, when the 

 harbour is filled with vessels, and thousands of 

 boats are continually floating across the bay and 

 the surrounding sea, it presents an animating and 

 bustling appearance. Many thousands of fishermen, 

 curers, and women, employed in gutting and pack- 

 ing the herrings, are then congregated from all 

 parts of the sea coast of Scotland, and from the 

 remotest parts of the Highlands. The herrings, 

 when cured, are principally exported to the Baltic 

 ports, and to Ireland. There are no mamifattoi ies, 

 but various distilleries, rope, and shipping compa- 

 nies, &c. have lately been established. Population 

 of the burgh and parish of Wick in 1841, 10,393. 



WICKLIFF, WICLEF, OR DE WYCLIFFE, 

 JOHN, an eminent reformer of Christianity, or, as 

 he is often styled, the Morning Star of the Refor- 

 mation, was born about 1324, in Yorkshire, near 

 the river Tees, in a -parish whence he takes his 

 name. He studied at Queen's college, Oxford, and 

 then at Merton, in the same university, and distin- 

 guished himself by his attention to school divinity 

 and the works of Aristotle, the most abstruse parts 

 of whose writings he is said to have committed to 

 memory. He also became intimately conversant 

 with the civil and canon law, and with the laws of 

 England ; to which he added a diligent perusal of 

 the Scriptures, and the works of the Latin fathers 

 of the church. As early as 1356, he inveighed 

 against the authority of the pope, in a treatise Of 

 the Last Age of the Church ; and, in 1360, he was 

 active in opposing the encroachments and intrigues 

 of the mendicant friars, who took every opportunity 

 to establish their credit and power in the university. 

 In 1361, Wickliff was appointed master of Baliol 

 college, and was presented to a college living ; and, 

 in 1365, Simon Islip, the primate, constituted him 

 warden of Canterbury college, which he had then 

 newly founded at Oxford. An equal number of 

 regular and secular priests having been placed as 

 fellows in this college, by the founder, after his 

 death disputes arose, which led to the expulsion of 

 Wickliff and the other three secular members of the 

 college in 1367. On an appeal to Rome, the mea- 

 sure received the sanction of the papal court a 

 circumstance which naturally exasperated the mind 

 of the ejected warden against the pope. In 1372, 

 he took the degree of D.D., and then delivered 

 lectures on theology with great applause. Dis- 

 putes at this period existed between king Edward 

 III. and the court of Rome, relative to the homage 

 and tribute exacted from king John ; and the Eng- 

 lish parliament had determined to support their 

 sovereign in his refusal to submit to the vassalage, 

 in which his predecessors had been forced to acqui- 

 esce. A monk came forward as the advocate of 

 the church ; and Wickliff wrote a reply, which 

 made him favourably known at court, and procured 

 him the patronage of John of Gaunt, duke of Lan- 

 caster. In 1374, he was sent to Bruges, in Flan- 



ders, to confer with the pope's nuncio on the liber- 

 ties of the English church ; and the same year, the 

 king gave him the valuable rectory of Lutter- worth, 

 in Leicestershire ; and he shortly after obtained a 

 prebend in the collegiate church of Westbury, in 

 Gloucestershire. He had now taken a decided 

 part as to ecclesiastical politics; and having, in his 

 writings, not only charged the bishop of Rome with 

 simony, covetousness, ambition and tyranny, but 

 also styled him antichrist, he was denounced as a 

 heretic. Nineteen articles of alleged false doctrine, 

 taken from bis works, were transmitted to pope 

 Gregory XL, who, in 1377, returned three bulls, 

 addressed to the archbishop of Canterbury and the 

 bishop of London, ordering the seizure and imprison- 

 ment of Wickliff, and requiring the king and go- 

 vernment, if necessary, to assist in extirpating the 

 errors he had propagated. Edward III. died before 

 the bulls arrived, and the duke of Lancaster, who 

 chiefly ruled the kingdom under his nephew, was 

 the avowed protector of the refractory divine 

 Therefore, when he appeared at St Paul s church, 

 on the citation of the two prelates, he was accom- 

 panied by a vast concourse of people, and was sup- 

 ported by the duke of Lancaster and the earl mar- 

 shal ; and an altercation taking place between the 

 noblemen and the bishops, the meeting was dis- 

 solved in a tumultuous manner. Wickliff after- 

 wards attended at Lambeth palace, and delivered 

 to the two prelates a defence or explanation of the 

 propositions objected against him. The populace 

 flocked together in crowds to protect him ; and he 

 was dismissed without any judgment taking place. 

 Pope Gregory XI. dying in March, 1378, the com- 

 mission he had issued expired, and Wickliff escaped 

 further question for the present. In consequence, 

 probably, of anxiety and fatigue, he was seized with 

 a severe fit of illness ; on his recovery from which, 

 he applied himself anew, by writing and preaching, 

 to his task of undermining the papal authority. 

 The disputes then existing in the church, between 

 the rival pontiffs, Urban VI. and Clement VII., 

 furnished him with an opportunity for exposing the 

 exorbitant pretensions of the court of Rome, of 

 which he freely availed himself. Having, in some 

 of his works, advanced some peculiar notions rela- 

 tive to the Eucharist, they attracted the notice and 

 condemnation of the chancellor of the university of 

 Oxford ; on which Wickliff appealed to the king 

 and parliament in 1382 ; but not being supported, 

 as he had anticipated, by his former patron, John 

 of Gaunt, he was compelled to submission ; and he 

 accordingly made a confession of his errors at Ox- 

 ford, before archbishop Courtney, six bishops, and 

 other clergymen, who had already condemned his 

 tenets as heretical. The principal points on which 

 Wickliff was condemned by the synod were, 1st. 

 his deviation from orthodox language, respecting 

 the presence of Christ in the sacrament of the altar ; 

 2d. his doctrine, that a pope, bishop or priest, who 

 is in a state of mortal sin, has no authority over the 

 faithful, and that his acts are null; 3d. his asser- 

 tion, that Scripture prohibits ecclesiastics from hav- 

 ing temporal possessions; and, 4th. the position, 

 that where contrition is sincere, confession to a 

 priest is useless. His opinion respecting the Lord's 

 supper is supposed to have nearly resembled that of 

 Luther and his followers. A royal letter was pro- 

 cured by the primate, addressed to the chancellor 

 and proctors, directing them to expel from the 

 university and town of Oxford all who should har- 

 bour Wickliff or his followers, or hold any com- 



