But now the people of England became very unwilling to pay so much money to the Pope, especially as at this time he was a Frenchman ruling, not from Rome, but from Avignon.  It was folly, Englishmen said, to pay money into the hands of a Frenchman, the enemy of their country, who would use it against their country.  And while many people were feeling like this, the Pope claimed still more.  He now claimed a tribute which King John had promised long before, but which had not for more than thirty years been paid.

John of Gaunt made up his mind to resist this claim, and John Wyclif, who had already begun to preach against the power of the Pope, helped him.  They were strange companions, and while John of Gaunt fought only for more power, Wyclif fought for freedom both in religion and in life.  God alone was lord of all the world, he said, and to God alone each man must answer for his soul, and to no man beside.  The money belonging to the Church of England belonged to God and to the people of England, and ought to be used for the good of the people, and not be sent abroad to the Pope.  In those days it needed a bold man to use such words, and Wyclif was soon called upon to answer for his boldness before the Archbishop of Canterbury and all his bishops.

The council was held in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.  Wyclif was fearless, and he obeyed the Archbishop’s command.  But as he walked up the long aisle to the chapel where the bishops were gathered, John of Gaunt marched by his side, and Lord Percy, Earl Marshal of England, cleared a way for him through the throng of people that filled the church.  The press was great, and Earl Percy drove a way through the crowd with so much haughtiness and violence that the Bishop of London cried out at him in wrath.

“Had I known what masteries you would use in my church,” he said, “I had kept you from coming there.”

“At which words the Duke, disdaining not a little, answered the Bishop and said that he would keep such mastery there though he said ‘Nay.’"* Thus, after much struggling, Wyclif and his companions arrived at the chapel.  There Wyclif stood humbly enough before his Bishop.  But Earl Percy bade him be seated, for as he had much to answer he had need of a soft seat.

Foxe, Acts and Monuments.

Thereat the Bishop of London was angry again, and cried out saying that it was not the custom for those who had come to answer for their misdeeds to sit.

“Upon these words a fire began to heat and kindle between them; insomuch that they began to rate and revile one the other, that the whole multitude therewith disquieted began to be set on a hurry."*

Foxe, Acts and Monuments.

The Duke, too, joined in, threatening at last to drag the Bishop out of the church by the hair of his head.  But the Londoners, when they heard that, were very wrathful, for they hated the Duke.  They cried out they would not suffer their Bishop to be ill-used, and the uproar became so great that the council broke up without there being any trial at all.