In the early months of 1382 the king had favored the persecution of heretics. On the petition of the archbishop, he had allowed him and his suffragans " to arrest and imprison, either in their own prisons, or any other if they please, all and every such person and per- sons as shall either privily or openly preach or main- tain" the condemned conclusions. The persons thus ar- rested mii;ht, moreover, be detained "till such time as they shall repent them and amend them of sucii errone- ous and heretical pravities." The officers and subjects of the king were also required to obey and humbly at- tend the archbishop and his suffragans in the execution of their process. But the king declined to interfere. Even this, however.did not satisfy the archbishop. The excommunicated Hereford had escaped from prison, and the prelate, disappointetl of his victim, asked the king to issue letters for his apprehension. On Ashton's trial in London, the citizens Itroke open the doors of the con- clave, forcing the archbisliop to complete his process elsewhere. But popular sympathy was weak to resist the organized efforts of a powerful hierarchy, largely oc-
LOLLARDS
495
LOLLARDS
cupying the most responsible posts of Gjovernraent, and bold enough (Hannay's Rep. Gov.) to forge or interpo- late parliamentary records, of which they had the con- trol. Some of the accused, like Keppyngdon and Here- ford, recanted, and became the most virulent persecu- tors of their former sympathizers. Others, according to Walden, who mentions William Swinderby, Walter Brute, William Thorpe, and others, whose names figure in Fox's '• Martyrs," tied the realm. If Swinderby was one of the refugees, he soon returned. It is doubtful whether he or his associates went farther than to AVales or Scotland. In 1389 he was arraigned before the bish- op of Lincoln, and charged with heresy. Forced to re- cant, he withdrew to the diocese of Hereford. Here he was again arrested as a " truly execrable oftender of the new sect vulgarly called Lollards." The issue, so far as episcopal authority was concerned, could not remain doubtful. Swinderby was found guilty, pronounced a heretic, and to be shunned by all. From this sentence he appealed to the king and council.
W'e have no subsequent record of Swinderby. Foxe supposes him to have been burned in lo'J9. In 1393, Walter Brute, another Lollard, a layman, was arrested, and, after a tedious trial, was forced to recant. In 1395 the alarm of heresy was again sounded. There was an apprehension that Parliament would take some action in behalf of the persecuted Lollards. A bidl of Boni- face IX was issued, inciting the bishop of Hereford against the obnoxious sect, and urging him to stimu- late the orthodox zeal of the king. The king was at the time absent in Ireland, but Tindale states that intel- ligence of what had transpired was sent him, and his immediate return, with a view to repress the boldness of the Lollards, was strenuously urged. Nor was the king backward in responding to the petitions of the archbishop and the exhortations of the pope. Reciting his former commission to the bishops and their suffra- gans, giving them authority to arrest and imprison, he extended this authority, by which the bishop of Hereford was allowed to arrest William Swinderby and Stephen Bell, who had tied to the borders of Wales ; while sev- eral of the leading members of Parliament were direct- ed to have it proclaimed, wherever they thought meet, that no man of any condition within the said diocese should, imder pain of forfeiture of all he had, " make or levy any conventicles, assemblies, or confederacies by any color," and that, if any one shoiUd transgress this rule, he should be seized, imprisoned, and safely kept till surrendered to the order of the king and council.
During this time, while special attention was drawn to the danger apprehended from Parliament, the Lol- lards were spreading their doctrines in other parts of the kingdom. At Leicester and its neighborhood they had made such progress that several of their leaders, eight of whom are mentioned by Foxe by name, were denounced to the archbishop on his visitation as here- tics. They were summoned the next day to appear before him and answer to the charge. But they '' hid themselves away and appeared not." They were there- fore publicly denouiwed as excommunicate in several of the parish churches. Nor was this all. The whole town of Leicester, and all the churches in the same, were interdicted so long as any of the excommunicated shoidd remain within the same, and "till all the Lol- lards of the town should return and amend from such heresies and errors, obtaining at the said archbishop's hands the benefit of absolution."
The compact between the leading representatives of the ecclesiastical and civil power which marked the ac- cession of Henry IV to the throne was soon sealed by parliamentary legislation. To prevent the spread of the L<illards, and to suppress their meetings, which were described as confederacies to stir up sedition and insur- rection (Crabb's History of Kmjlhh Lau; p. 33-1), it was ordained that if persons, sententially convict, refused to abjure their opinions, such persons were to be left to the secular arm. In such cases evidence was to be given