"He who would be in truth a king," ran a poem which embodies their teaching at this time in pungent verse--"he is a 'free king' indeed if he rightly rule himself and his realm.

All things are lawful to him for the government of his realm, but nothing is lawful to him for its destruction.

It is one thing to rule according to a king's duty, another to destroy a kingdom by resisting the law." "Let the community of the realm advise, and let it be known what the generality, to whom their laws are best known, think on the matter.

They who are ruled by the laws know those laws best; they who make daily trial of them are best acquainted with them; and since it is their own affairs which are at stake they will take the more care and will act with an eye to their own peace." "It concerns the community to see what sort of men ought justly to be chosen for the weal of the realm." The constitutional restrictions on the royal authority, the right of the whole nation to deliberate and decide on its own affairs and to have a voice in the selection of the administrators of government, had never been so clearly stated before.

But the importance of the Friar's work lay in this, that the work of the scholar was supplemented by that of the popular preacher.