MIGHT THE LOLLARDS COME AGAIN?
Had I but a grain of historical
scholarship in my bones I would have evolved the theme of the second most used
book on our shelves (the first is the dictionary).
Whenever
there is reference to a king or queen in England ’s
past history, this book, “Kings and Queens ”,
is referred to.
From
William the Conqueror onwards, each monarch is given a short monograph.
The
book’s language is simple and direct. So when a Shakespeare play about our
royal past appears on screen or stage, this splendid volume is invaluable.
It
is not possible for the ordinary punter to verify the accuracy of the text. But
then Shakespeare turned history into entertainment. So there may be some
discrepancies – as there is in much of historical writing.
The
book is a paperback, written by Elizabeth Gundrey in 1977. And when telling us
about the reign of Henry IV and his persecution of the Lollards and how many
were eliminated and burned alive, we wanted to know more about these followers
of Wyclif who operated under a name derived from the Dutch language.
But
there was a slight snag. The text recommended on one page that we turn to page
36 to discover more about these people.
It
was then that we discovered that the recommended page (36) might well have told us
more had the publishers not omitted to number the pages.
Perseverance
paid off, and on an earlier unnumbered page we learned that in Edward III’s
reign, these followers of Wyclif (“in a way the first Protestant”) were critics
of the corruption and pride spreading through the Catholic Church. They
preached sermons against the power of the Pope and urged the people to return
to more spiritual ways with less striving for wealth.
No
wonder they were persecuted and burned alive by those who were then, in the
late 1300s to early 1400s, enjoying the fruits of power and money.
This
paperback has been a great and simple source of information. And from it we
have now learned a little about the Lollards.
It
was a bit of a job to glean this information from the book’s unnumbered pages –
and more difficult, I imagine, for the readers upon publication, as its
recommended readership age group was 9 – 14.
