A Papal bull which was procured by the bishops, directing the University to condemn and arrest him, extorted from him a bold defiance.

In a defence circulated widely through the kingdom and laid before Parliament, Wyclif broadly asserted that no man could be excommunicated by the Pope "unless he were first excommunicated by himself." He denied the right of the Church to exact or defend temporal privileges by spiritual censures, declared that a Church might justly be deprived by the king or lay lords of its property for defect of duty, and defended the subjection of ecclesiastics to civil tribunals.

It marks the temper of the time and the growing severance between the Church and the nation that, bold as the defiance was, it won the support of the people as of the Crown.

When Wyclif appeared at the close of the year in Lambeth Chapel to answer the Archbishop's summons a message from the Court forbade the primate to proceed and the Londoners broke in and dissolved the session.
[Sidenote: Death of Edward the Third] Meanwhile the Duke's unscrupulous tampering with elections had packed the Parliament of 1377 with his adherents.

The work of the Good Parliament was undone, and the Commons petitioned for the restoration of all who had been impeached by their predecessors.