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“I will make you bend, you and all the rest of the bishops,” growled Lancaster. The crowd moved and shouted in menace, Lancaster threatened to arrest the disturbers, Courtenay told him if he did so in the cathedral he would be excommunicated. “A little more of this,” the Duke was heard to mutter, “and I will have you dragged out of the church by the hair of your head.” The crowd’s rage exploded, the Duke and Marshal judged it wise to withdraw, Wyclif had not even spoken. Lancaster had succeeded in breaking up the proceedings, which was his object, but at a cost of turning popular sentiment ever more against himself, not against the bishops.

London seethed, and on news that Percy had arrested a citizen for slandering the Duke, boiled over. A mob gathered in a lynching mood to rush the Savoy Palace, and on its way fell upon a priest who spoke insultingly of Peter de la Mare and beat him to death, as Marcel’s mob had murdered a hapless victim of its rage twenty years before. Warned while dining on oysters at the Savoy, Lancaster and Percy escaped by boat down the Thames to take refuge in the honored halls of the Princess of Wales and her son, where none would venture to assault them. Meanwhile Bishop Courtenay, also warned and fearing a catastrophe for which he might be blamed, had hastened to the Savoy Palace and succeeded in quieting the mob.

After flight and humiliation, Lancaster required that his authority be restored by a formal apology from the city. The Princess pleaded with the citizens to be reconciled with the Duke for her sake; the King’s sovereignty was invoked; the authorities of London exacted the release of Peter de la Mare as the price of their apology; the clergy regained the offices of Chancellor and Treasurer. Factions were deepened and the state further torn by the affair.

In the excitement at St. Paul’s, the matter of Wyclif had not been tested. The English prelates, caught between clerical interest and national sentiment, might have been content to let the matter drop, but the papacy was not. In May, Gregory XI issued five Bulls addressed to the English episcopacy and to the King and the University of Oxford, condemning Wyclif’s errors and demanding his arrest. All discussion of his heretical doctrines was to be suppressed and all who supported them removed from office. An issue full of danger was added to all the other sources of strife. The new Parliament was strongly anti-papal; the King, babbling of hawks and hunting instead of attending to the urgent needs of his soul, was dying. For the moment, while England waited uneasily for the change of reign, the bishops held the proceedings against Wyclif in abeyance.

In France the negotiators held a final meeting in May at Montreuil in the ancient walled castle whose western ramparts faced the sea. The Chancellors of both countries took part, Pierre d’Orgement for France and the Bishop of St. David’s for England. Terms were discussed at length in open session, which Charles wanted so that his final offer should be formally submitted and receive a firm answer. He did not get it. While generous in what it left in English hands, his offer withheld sovereignty over any part of France and insisted on Calais. Concealing rejection in evasion, the English said they lacked final authority and would have to submit the terms to their King. As the event shortly proved, the French must at this point have started preparing for belligerent action. While the talks petered out, the little Princess Marie died in Paris, eliminating the proposed marriage. The parley broke up with no place or date agreed upon for another meeting and no prolongation of the truce.

By the time the English envoys reached home, King Edward too had died, on June 23, the penultimate day of the truce. The jubilee year of his reign had passed virtually unnoticed and his death excited hardly more attention. He died deserted by the minions of power, including Alice Perrers, who was said to have stripped the rings from the King’s fingers as she departed. A ten-year-old child mounted