Ashes of Wycliffe

On the last Sunday of 1384, whilst presiding over the Lord's Supper, John Wycliffe was struck with paralysis and fell to the ground. His friends carried him to his bed, where he died on December 31, 1384.

Forty-one years later, still hated by his enemies, his bones were exhumed, burned and thrown into the river.

As an ancient biographer wrote: "They burnt his bones to ashes and cast them into the Swift, a neighbouring brook running hard by. Thus the brook conveyed his ashes to the Avon, the Avon into the Severn, the Severn into the narrow seas and they into the main ocean. And the ashes of Wycliffe are sybolic of his doctrine, which is now spread throughout the world."