preacher, exercising also in private life a powerful influence on all who
came in contact with him, alike from the splendour of his intellect and the
large-hearted purity of his character. His outspoken sermons were by no
means to the liking of his bishop; but some of the leading prelates,
notably Warham of Canterbury and Fox of Winchester, were well disposed to
the new school of learning and exposition and to higher moral standards, as
Cardinal Morton had been. When the young King ascended the throne in 1509,
his accession was hailed by all men of the new school as heralding the
reign of intellectual liberty and enlightenment.

[Sidenote: Colet's sermon, 1512]

Accordingly, when Convocation was summoned in 1512 to discuss the
suppression of heresy, in consequence of some stray reappearances of
Lollardry, the prevalence of a wider spirit was shown by the selection of
Colet to preach the opening sermon, and by the subsequent ignominious
failure of the Bishop of London to have the Dean punished as a heretic. It
is to the sermon preached on this occasion that we must turn to see how
Colet viewed the situation. It was a direct indictment of the manner of
life of the clergy from Wolsey down; a summons to them to amend their ways,
to set a higher example to their flock; an appeal to them to fix their eyes
on apostolic ideals, and so to remove the real incitement which turned
men's minds to heretical speculation. While the positive arguments of the
preacher are evidence not only of the purity of his own aims and his
courage in supporting them, their reception shows that the substantial
justice of the indictment was recognised by the audience at whom it was
personally directed, however little disposed they might be to act
individually on his appeal. On the other hand however, it is a striking
fact that the charges brought are almost exclusively of worldliness,
laxity, indiscipline, unbecoming in pastors and in ministers of the Gospel