Meanwhile the attack of the nobles upon the Church went on, and Wiclif, in his zeal for reform, was working side by side with John of Gaunt. He was beginning to be regarded with suspicion and animosity by the Pope, and in 1377 was summoned to appear before Bishop Courtenay, of London, to answer the charges of heresy made against him. John of Gaunt was present to defend him, and spoke such insulting words to Courtenay that the Londoners, who loved their bishop, rushed to his rescue. They showed their hatred of Lancaster by sacking his palace of the Savoy; but they only objected to Wiclif in so far as he was Lancaster's friend. In his desires for reform they cordially sympathised; and when at the end of the same year he was again summoned to appear before the Archbishop at Lambeth, the Londoners broke in and dissolved the sittings of the court. Wiclif also found a friend in the Princess of Wales, the fair maid of Kent, who wrote to the Bishop, telling him to desist from the proceedings against him. In the University of Oxford he was allowed to teach and lecture as he liked, and his schemes for Church reform were listened to with approval on all sides.
From his living of Lutterworth he sent forth itinerant preachers, who went, as the disciples of St. Francis had done before, to labour among the poor and the neglected. One of his great desires was to reform preaching, and these men were taught to preach the word of God in simplicity and purity, "where, when and to whom they could." They were called "the Simple Priests," and spoke to the people in simple homely language, spreading Wiclif's doctrines far and wide. For them Wiclif wrote many small tracts, which he published in large numbers, and in which he appealed to the people in their own language, and from their own point of view. He had set on foot a great spiritual revival, and if he had stopped short in his reforming tendencies, and had not gone on to deny the doctrine of transubstantiation, he might have come down to us canonised as St. John de Wiclif, the founder of a new order of preaching friars. But hopes of reform in the English Church were destined to be crushed for a time.
Wiclif published in Oxford twelve theses on the subject of transubstantiation. The Chancellor felt himself bound to interfere, and forbid heretical teaching in the university. Wiclif appealed to the King to have the question settled.
At this moment all England was disturbed by the outbreak of the Peasants' Revolt. We have seen in speaking of the Black Death many of the causes of discontent amongst the peasantry. The wages of the labourers were fixed by law. Rigorous attempts were made to bind the peasant to the soil, and to restore the old conditions of serfdom. But since the days of serfdom there had been a great advance in the intelligence of the peasantry, who eagerly listened to the new views which the wandering preachers sent out by Wiclif were spreading over the country. It was said that all men were equal, and had equal rights. The popular rhyme:
"When Adam delved and Eve span,
Where was then the gentleman?"
ran from mouth to mouth. The iniquity of serfdom was becoming more and more clearly seen, and at the same time its oppressive character was making itself more and more harshly felt. The men who had served with courage and distinction in the French wars could not be expected to submit to their former serfage. A simultaneous rising of the peasantry in different parts of the country shows that the revolt had been long planned and carefully arranged. It was the result not of any one special act of tyranny, but of a long course of oppression, and above all of the attempt to return to the old system of exacting personal labour as payment for rent, instead of a money commutation.
The insurgents of Essex, under a leader who went by the name of Jack Straw, joined with the insurgents of Kent, under Wat the Tyler, and marched on London, striking terror by the way. The young King took refuge in the Tower. The insurgents entered London, and began their work of destruction. Their rage was especially directed against the lawyers. They destroyed the Temple, with all its books and records. The foreign merchants in the city were also treated with great cruelty. Then the insurgents swarmed round the Tower, and demanded that the King should come out and hear their grievances. Richard II. was only a boy; but he knew no fear. Accompanied only by one or two attendants, he rode to Mile End, and listened to the grievances of the peasantry. He granted all they asked, and promised a general pardon to all concerned in the revolt.
But whilst this conference was going on, the remainder of the rebels had broken into the Tower, seized the Archbishop Simon Sudbury, and murdered him on Tower Hill. Their fury was directed against him, not as Archbishop, but as Chancellor. After this it was hardly to be hoped that there could be a peaceful end to the revolt. The next day, when quite by chance Richard met Wat the Tyler and his followers face to face, the peasant leader spoke so insolently that the Lord Mayor, Sir Richard Walworth, struck him to the ground with his dagger; and when the insurgents cried, "Kill, kill! they have killed our captain," Richard rode boldly to the front, saying, "What need ye, my masters? I am your captain and your King." The peasantry were easily touched. They gathered round Richard, kneeling, and asking his pardon.
The panic caused by the revolt was over. For a week the insurgents had kept the country in terror. Now Richard made a progress through the counties with forty thousand men at his back, and the rebels suffered stern and terrible justice for their revolt. The charters granted to the peasantry in the first moment of terror were revoked, and they seemed to have gained nothing by their rising. But they had shown the landholders their strength; and though no immediate change was made, it became more and more clear that the old conditions of serfdom could not be enforced.