[24] Courtney said it was a symbol of the need there was of purifying the church from the pestiferous vapours that hung over it; Wiclif, that the earth trembled because they were about to put a heresy upon Christ, as it before trembled when they put his body to death.
[25] Dr. Lingard is hard to please: he sneers at Wiclif for not seeking the martyr's crown, yet when one of his followers, a few years later, obtains it, he coolly says, "The enthusiast aspired to the crown of martyrdom, and had the satisfaction to fall a victim to his own folly!"—'Hist. of England,' iv. 188 and 332.
[26] Chaucer, perhaps to avoid letting the poems appear to the public too strict a narration of actual facts, calls them here, and in various other places, the king and queen.
[27] Pleased.
[28] That which.
[29] Blanche. (See previous note.)
[30] Trust.
[31] War.
[32] Little.
[33] Little.