far these acts had really effected their professed purpose may be judged from a petition of the Good Parliament (so called) in 1376, in which they affirm ' that the taxes paid to the Church of Rome amounted to five times as much as those levied for the King; that the Pope disposed of the same bishoprics by reservation four or five times, and received each time the firstfruits; that the brokers of the sinful city of Rome promoted for money unlearned and unworthy caitiffs to benefices of the value of a thousand marks, while the poor and learned hardly obtain one of twenty … that the Pope's revenue from England alone is larger than that of any prince in Christendom … that his collector remits yearly to the Pope 20,000 marks, sometimes more.'[1]
The clergy at the same period complain that ' the tax paid to the Pope of Rome for ecclesiastical dignities doth amount to fourfold as much as the tax of all the profits as appertain to the King by the year of the whole realm.' [2]
The above may serve to represent the condition of the papal power in England in the end of the reign of Edward III. In the intrigues with which its closing years and the whole reign of his successor were filled we find a constant recurrence of change of parties and of alliances between parties. Archbishop Sudbury is attached on the one hand to John of Gaunt, but is also loyal to the Pope, and John of Gaunt himself belongs mostly to the antipapal, but sometimes to the papal party, yet generally has a leaning towards Wycliffe, against whom the Pope is furious.
As in other matters so also in ecclesiastical affairs,
