[163] Long debating and deliberating with himself, with many secret sighs. Fox, Acts and M, i, p. 485, fol. Lond. 1684.
Wickliffe was forty years old when the papal arrogance stirred England to its depths. Being at once an able politician and a fervent Christian, he vigorously defended the rights of the crown against the Romish aggression, and by his arguments not only enlightened his fellow-countrymen generally, but stirred up the zeal of several members of both houses of parliament.
[Sidenote: THE LORDS AGAINST THE PAPAL TRIBUTE.]
The parliament assembled, and never perhaps had it been summoned on a question which excited to so high a degree the emotions of England, and indeed of Christendom. The debates in the House of Lords were especially remarkable: all the arguments of Wickliffe were reproduced. "Feudal _tribute_ is due," said one, "only to him who can grant feudal _protection_ in return. Now how can the pope wage war to protect his fiefs?"--"Is it as vassal of the crown or as feudal superior," asked another, "that the pope demands part of our property? Urban V will not accept the first of these titles.... Well and good! but the English people will not acknowledge the second." "Why," said a third, "was this tribute originally granted? To pay the pope for absolving John.... His demand, then, is mere simony, a kind of clerical swindling, which the lords spiritual and temporal should indignantly oppose."--"No," said another speaker, "England belongs not to the pope. The pope is but a man, subject to sin; but Christ is the Lord of lords, and this kingdom is held directly and solely of Christ alone."[164] Thus spoke the lords inspired by Wickliffe. Parliament decided unanimously that no prince had the right to alienate the sovereignty of the kingdom without the consent of the other two estates, and that if the pontiff should attempt to proceed against the king of England as his vassal, the nation should rise in a body to maintain the independence of the crown.
[164] These opinions are reported by Wickliffe, in a treatise preserved in the _Selden MSS._ and printed by Mr. J. Lewis, in his History of Wickliffe, App. No. 30, p. 349. He was present during the debate; _quam audivi in quodam concilio a dominis secularibus_. As I heard in a certain consultation among the lords temporal.