ground, and so great a commotion now prevailed amongst the clergy, that the king perceiving the state in danger, and being willing to support the clerical interest, suffered the archbishop of Canterbury to summon Wickliff to appear before him, whose interest after this arraignment very much decayed.[2] The king who was devoted to his pleasures, resigned himself, to some young courtiers who hated the duke of Lancaster, and caused a fryar to accuse him of an attempt to kill the king; but before he had an opportunity of making out the charge against him, the fryar was murdered in a cruel and barbarous manner by lord John Holland, to whose care he had been committed.  This lord John Holland, called lord Huntingdon, and duke of Exeter, was half brother to the King, and had married Elizabeth, daughter of the duke of Lancaster.  He was a great patron of Chaucer, and much respected by him.  With the duke of Lancaster’s interest Chaucer’s also sunk.  His patron being unable to support him, he could no longer struggle against opposite parties, or maintain his posts of honour.  The duke passing over sea, his friends felt all the malice of an enraged court; which induced them to call in a number of the populace to assist them, of which our poet was a zealous promoter.  One John of Northampton, a late lord mayor of London was at the head of these disturbances; which did not long continue; for upon beheading one of the rioters, and Northampton’s being taken into custody, the commotion subsided.  Strict search was made after Chaucer, who escaped into Hainault; afterwards he went to France, and finding the king resolute to get him into his hands, he fled from thence to Zealand.  Several accomplices in this affair were with him, whom he supported in their exile, while the chief ringleaders, (except Northampton who was condemned at Reading upon the evidence of his clerk) had restored themselves to court favour by acknowledging their crime, and now forgot the integrity and resolution of Chaucer, who suffered exile to secure their secrets; and so monstrously ungrateful were they, that they wished his death, and by keeping supplies of money from him, endeavoured to effect it;—­While he expended his fortune in removing from place to place, and in supporting his fellow exiles, so far from receiving any assistance from England, his apartments were let, and the money received for rent was never acccounted for to him; nor could he recover any from those who owed it him, they being of opinion it was impossible for him ever to return to his own country.  The government still pursuing their resentment against him and his friends, they were obliged to leave Zealand, and Chaucer being unable to bear longer the calamities of poverty and exile, and finding no security wherever he fled, chose rather to throw himself upon the laws of his country, than perish abroad by hunger and oppression.  He had not long returned till he was arrested by order of the king, and confined in the tower of London.