William Sawtrey

[a] He preached and endorsed Lollard beliefs, including the rejection of Catholic saints and the sacrament of Eucharist.

As this would provide a suitable site for the burning of a heretic, lollard scholar Maureen Jurkowski, has suggested that this may have persuaded Sawtrey to secure his release by denouncing Lollardy.

He appeared before le Despenser in St John's Hospital, Lynn, the next day, and swore on the Gospels that he would never again preach Lollardy.

[2] In 1401, Sawtrey moved to London and began working as a parish-priest at St Osyth's, where he continued to preach Lollard beliefs.

It is possible that he moved to London in order to distance himself from le Despenser, but he had not removed himself from the anti-Lollard sentiment of the Catholic Church.

Before convocation, Sawtrey was delivered the following heretical charges: failure to "adore the true cross" (National Biography 869), belief that a priest's time spent in hourly prayers could be better spent preaching and spreading the word of God, his opinion on the temporalities of the church and on how the money could be put to better use, preaching on adoration of mankind over angels, and finally his belief in consubstantiation.

He was condemned and "through seven successive stages he was degraded from priest to doorkeeper, then stripped of every clerical function, attribute, and vestment".

The representatives of the lower class made efforts on two occasions to convince King Henry IV and Parliament to appropriate the Church's money and to use it for the people of England.

Among these orders was the statute De heretico comburendo, which stated that heresy was punishable by means of public burning.