[14] Descended
[15] Lose, ruin.
[16] When besieged in Hennebon by Charles of Blois, "the Countess herself," says Froissart, "ware harness on her body, and rode on a great courser fro street to street, desiring her people to make good defence; and she caused damozelles and other women to cut short their kirtles, and to carry stones, and pots full of chalk, to the walls, to be cast down to their enemies. This lady did there an hardy enterprise; she mounted up to the height of a tower to see how the Frenchmen were ordered without; she saw how that all the lords and other people of the host were all gone out of their field to the assault; then she took again her courser, armed as she was, and caused three hundred men a horseback to be ready, and she went with them to another gate, whereas there was not assault; she issued out, and her company, and dashed into the French lodgings, and cut down tents and set fire in their lodgings; she found no defence there, but a certain of varlets and boys, who ran away." On another occasion, in a sea-fight, we are told, "the Countess that day was worth a man; she had the heart of a lion, and had in her hand a sharp glaive, wherewith she fought fiercely."
[17] Duty.
[18] Honourable.
[19] Request.
[20] There are about twenty variations of the mode of spelling the name. Wiclif, Wicliffe, and Wycliffe are the most common modes. In strict propriety we ought to write De Wiclif.
[21] In the Gentleman's Mag. 1841, an attempt was made to show that the warden of Canterbury Hall was another John Wiclif (or Wiclive). The writer proves that there was another of that name, then rector of Mayfield in Sussex, for which living he was indebted to the friendship of Islip, but he does not succeed in identifying him with the warden of Canterbury; if the wardens of Canterbury and Baliol could be shown to be different persons, it would, however, remove some difficulties that had been pointed out long before this curious discovery was made (see Vaughan's 'Life of Wycliffe,' i. 272, note). Wiclif nowhere mentions his connexion with Canterbury Hall himself, but it seems to be referred to by his contemporaries.
[22] It is said, on the authority of Sir Thomas More, who asserts that he had seen Bibles of an earlier date than Wiclif's, that the Scriptures had been translated long before his time, but although parts had been at different times translated, there is good reason to doubt whether any complete translation had been made. See an excellent summary of the information on the subject in the Introduction to Bagster's 'Hexapla,' p. 5 et seq.
[23] Milton's tracts on 'Church Government,' 'Removing Hirelings from the Church,' &c., might have been written by Wiclif if he had lived in that day. Their views were very similar in these matters, and there is an approximation in Wiclif to Milton's opinions on Divorce. The men were greatly alike in character—stern, uncompromising, each gave himself up with his whole heart to the promotion of the objects he had in view, and both measuring other men by their own lofty standard, dealt out the harshest censure on such as fell short of it.—Milton, by the way, obliquely defends the violence of his own language by the example of Wiclif. The genius of the two was so different as obviously to prohibit comparison—it is in their inflexibility of purpose, their moral and religious severity of character, that the resemblance consists.