dued expression, suggestive of a poet who had married a dowager countess and awakened to the situation, or whether because treacherous confidants divulged his secret, does not appear, but the news of his marriage oozed out, it reached the royal ears, and deeply wounded the father anxious about the education of his son. Wycherley lost the appointment that was so nearly within his grasp, lost indeed the royal favour for ever. He never had an opportunity of regaining it, for the countess seems to have really loved him, and Love in a Wood had proclaimed the writer to be the kind of husband whose virtue prospers best when closely guarded at the domestic hearth. Wherever he went the countess followed him, and when she did allow him to meet his boon companions it was in a tavern in Bow Street opposite to his own house, and even there under certain protective conditions. In summer or in winter he was obliged to sit with the window open and the blinds up, so that his wife might see that the party included no member of a sex for which her husband's plays had advertised his partiality. She died at last, however, and left him the whole of her fortune. But the title to the property was disputed; the costs of the litigation were heavy so heavy that his father was unable (or else he was unwilling) to come to his aid; and the result of his marrying the rich, beautiful, and titled widow was that the poet was thrown into the Fleet prison. There he languished for seven years, being finally released by the liberality of James II., a liberality which, incredible as it seems, is too well authenticated to be challenged. James had been so much gratified by seeing The Plain Dealer acted that, finding a parallel between Manly's "manliness" and his own, such as no spectator had before discovered, he paid off Wycherley's execution creditor. Other debts still troubled Wycherley, however, and he never was released from his embarrassments, not even after succeeding to a life estate in the family property. In coming to Wycherley's death, we come to the worst allegation that has ever been made against him as a man and as a gentleman. At the age of seventy-five he married a young girl, and is said to have done so in order to spite his nephew, the next in succession, knowing that he himself must shortly die and that the jointure would impoverish the estate. No doubt it is true enough that he did marry the girl and did die eleven days afterwards; but, if we consider that the lady he married was young and an heiress (or was supposed to be an heiress), and if we further consider how difficult it was for an old gallant of Wycherley's extraordinary personal vanity to realize his true physical condition, we may well suppose that, even if he talked about "marrying to spite his nephew," he did so as a cloak for other impulses, such as senile desire or senile cupidity, or a blending of these impulses. Wycherley wrote verses, and, when quite an old man, prepared them for the press by the aid of Alexander Pope, then not much more than a boy. But, notwithstanding all Pope's tinkering, they remain contemptible. He died in December 1715, and was buried in the vault of the church in Covent Garden. (T. W.)
WYCLIFFE,[1] or Wyclif, John (c. 1320-1384), was
born, according to Leland,[2] our single authority on
the point, at Ipreswel (evidently the place now called
Hipswell), a mile from Richmond, in Yorkshire. The
date may have been somewhere about 1320. Leland
elsewhere mentions that he "drew his origin" from
Wycliffe-on-Tees (Collectanea, ii. 329), so that his lineage
was of the ancient family which is celebrated by Scott in
Marmion. The Wycliffes had a natural connexion with
the college at Oxford which had been founded in the
latter part of the previous century by their neighbours,
the Balliols of Barnard Castle; and to Balliol College,
then distinctively an "arts" college,[3] John Wycliffe in
due time proceeded. It has been generally believed, and
was in fact believed not many years after his death, that
he was a fellow of Merton College in 1356; but in all
probability this identification rests upon a confusion with
another and contemporary John Wycliffe. That the
future reformer was a fellow of Balliol College is implied
in the fact that some time after 1356, but before the
summer of 1360, he was elected master of the college.
This office he held but a short time. So soon as 1361 he
accepted a college living, that of Fillingham in Lincoln
shire, and probably left Oxford for some time. In 1363,
however, he was back again, this time resident in Queen's
College, where he seems to have rented rooms at various
dates from this year onwards;[4] on the 13th April 1378 he
obtained from his bishop leave of absence "insistendo
literarum studio in universitate Oxon. per biennium,"
and in the following November he exchanged his benefice
for one more conveniently situate, at Ludgarshall, in
Buckinghamshire. A certain amount of residence at
Oxford was necessary if he was now proceeding to a
degree in divinity, and still more if, as is generally under
stood, he is the same person with the John Wycliffe who
was appointed, December 1365, to the wardenship of
Canterbury Hall, a house which Archbishop Islip had lately
founded for a mixed body of monks and secular clergy
men, and then, changing his mind, had filled exclusively
with the latter. His successor Archbishop Langham in
1367 reversed the arrangement, expelled Wycliffe and his
colleagues, and substituted monks. Wycliffe appealed to
Rome and lost his case, 1370. There seems no reason to
dispute the legality of the action either of Archbishop
Langham or of the cardinal who tried the appeal at
Viterbo; but Wycliffe no doubt felt himself hardly used,
and (if he be rightly identified with the reformer) the
experience may have confirmed him in some of the
opinions which are characteristic of his subsequent career,
and which have been attributed, but only on the authority
of a bitter opponent, Thomas Netter of Walden, to disappointment at not receiving the bishopric of Worcester
(perhaps at its voidance in 1368). But the doubt as to
the identification in the one case, and the suspicion attaching to the evidence in the other, may disincline us to
reason about the motives which directed Wycliffe on to
the path of reform.
- ↑ A note is necessary as to the spelling of Wycliffe's name. Out of thirteen contemporary entries in documents, twelve give "y" in the first syllable; the seven entries in the Queen's College accounts show four with "y" to three with "i." but these do not certainly refer to the reformer. In not one of these is there a "ck" (though once a "kc") (see Mr F. D. Matthew, in the Academy, June 7, 1884). The chroniclers, &c., offer every imaginable variety of spelling, and it is possible that our favourite form in more recent times, "Wickliffe," derived its popularity from the old play on the name, "nequam vita," which we find in Gascoigne. Our choice must be decided by usage, and the spelling adopted in the present article is that of the village from which Wycliffe derived his name; it is also preferred by the editors of the Wycliffe Bible, by Milman, and by Bishop Stubbs. Among the rest "Wyclif" has the support of Shirley, of Mr T. Arnold, and of the Wyclif Society; while "Wiclif" is the popular form in Germany.
- ↑ Itinerary, Stow's transcript, Bodleian Library, Tanner MS., p. 464, f. 45 (Leland's original being mutilated at this place). Hearne misprinted the name "Spreswel," and thus set all Wycliffe's biographers on a search after a vox nihili.
- ↑ See a document of 1325 printed in the appendix to the Fourth Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, p. 442 sq. Provision for theological study was made by the benefaction of Sir Philip Somerville in l340 (Lyte, Hist. of the Univ. of Oxford, p. 154, 1886).
- ↑ Hence arose the common mistake, which was repeated so lately as in Milman's Hist, of Latin Christianity, bk. xiii. ch. vi., that Wycliffe began his university career at Queen's College. It is indeed open to question whether this be not yet another John Wycliffe; see Mr H. T. Riley's remarks in the Second Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, appendix, p. 141 sq.
