His attack on this prelate was an attack on the clergy at large, and the attack became significant when the Duke gave his open patronage to the denunciations of Church property which formed the favourite theme of John Wyclif.

To Wyclif such a prelate as Wykeham symbolized the evil which held down the Church.
His administrative ability, his political energy, his wealth and the colleges at Winchester and at Oxford which it enabled him to raise before his death, were all equally hateful.

It was this wealth, this intermeddling with worldly business, which the ascetic reformer looked upon as the curse that robbed prelates and churchmen of that spiritual authority which could alone meet the vice and suffering of the time.

Whatever baser motives might spur Lancaster and his party, their projects of spoliation must have seemed to Wyclif projects of enfranchisement for the Church.

Poor and powerless in worldly matters, he held that she would have the wealth and might of heaven at her command.