ABSTRACT
Thomas Usk had a subtle, vivid, and self-questioning mind, whose besetting fault was an excess of ingenuity. Usk says in similar language that he first believed that Northampton's policy was 'commen profit in cominaltee', from which would proceed 'pees and tranquilitè, with just governaunce'. Then he begins to think that these 'first painted thinges' were 'of tyrannye purposed', not without reason. Northampton was intolerant of opposition, as when in 1382 for opprobrious words against him Nicholas Exton (Mayor of London later) was deprived of his aldermanry. In connection with these last actions, Thomas Walsingham describes Northampton's party as Lollards. R. Bird doubts Northampton's Lollardy, principally because in his will he founded a chantry and made bequests of property to a convent in Cheshunt and to the London Charterhouse to pray for his soul and those of his parents and others.
