[Sidenote: John Wickliffe, 1324-1384.]

Then, too, John Wickliffe had been telling some very plain truths to
the people about the Church of Rome, and there was developing a
sentiment which made Pope and Clergy tremble. There was a spirit of
inquiry, having its centre at Oxford, looking into the title-deeds of
the great ecclesiastical despotism. Wickliffe heretically claimed that
the Bible was the one ground of faith, and he added to his heresy by
translating that Book into simple Saxon English, that men might learn
for themselves what was Christ's message to man.

Luther's protest in the 16th Century was but the echo of Wickliffe's in
the 14th,--against the tyranny of a Church from which all spiritual
life had departed, and which in its decay tightened its grasp upon the
very things which its founder put "behind Him" in the temptation on the
mountain, and aimed at becoming a temporal despotism.

Closely intermingled with these struggles was going on another,
unobserved at the time. Three languages held sway in England--Latin in
the Church, French in polite society, and English among the people.
Chaucer's genius selected the language of the people for its
expression, as also of course, did Wickliffe in his translation of the
Bible. French and Latin were dethroned, and the "King's English" became
the language of the literature and speech of the English nation.

[Sidenote: 1399 Deposition of Richard II. House of Plantagenet ends 1399.]

He would have been a wise and great King who could have comprehended
and controlled all the various forces at work at this time. Richard II.