API preferring the charge of atheism were however too grave to be lightly dealt with, and he deemed it necessary to refer the matter to Cecil: 'I could wish a better in his place to govern the house,' he writes, 'I like not the stones builded by such impiety. The charge of atheism appears eventually to have been quashed by Cecil, who at the same time confirmed. several of the expulsions. He stipulated however that for the future Dr Caius should observe a more regular routine. whenever he might deem it necessary to amend the code of the college. In his letter to Cecil, of the 29th of December, 1565, Parker had spoken somewhat contemptuously of these 'trifles and brabbles,' as he terms them, and suggested that it would be better that the fellows of colleges should not be allowed to acquire a habit of appealing too frequently to the chancellor from the decisions of their heads. I would not,' he writes, have your time so drawn from better doings in the weighty causes of the realin. Scholars' controversies be now many and troublous; and their delight is to come before men of authority to shew their wits. Within two years, however, he found it necessary himself to invoke Cecil's interference in connexion with divers misdemeanours in 'manners and doctrine' in his own college, where, in conjunction with the other ecclesiastical commissioners, he had enjoined that search should be made for certain suspected books. The pertinacity with which the vice-chancellor (John Young, master of Pembroke) sought to baffle this design was a fresh source of lows hath much provoked him... Founders and benefactors be very rare at these days; therefore I do bear the less with such as would (but in a mere triumph) deface him, and repet more that conquest than any et in the house,' State Papers (1) Eliz. xxxvm, no. 26. [Parker to Covil, 29 Dec. 1565]. 1 Parker Corresp., pp. 251-2. 'Prohsv Cains thought the better to cover his former instability in reli gr, by throwing out expressions oceasonally, whereby he would pretend to have had little zeal for any religion; or his aim might be to obscure his secret kindness for the old popish religion. Strype, Le of Parker, bk. iii, e. 5. State Papers (Dom.) Eliz. XXXIX, no. 7. Mihi satis compertum est,' says Baker, 'ex scriptis ejus medītis, Jo. Caium fuisse pium, sociosque ejus ingratos: quod novum non est, neɑ ante hune diem in auditum.' MS. note to copy of Strype's Parker preserved in St John's College Lil rary, p. 200. * Parker Corresp., pp. 248 50. Strype, Life of Parker, bk. iii, c. 20; Cooper, Annals, 11 235–8. houses at this annoyance; while, about the same time, the majority of the CHAP. m colleges gave further trouble by refusing to adopt the new Latin version of the Prayer Book especially compiled for their use'. Not a little discouraging, again, was the small The heads of amount of confidence which Cecil and Parker alike felt could time want g be placed in most of the existing heads of houses. There were careless or incapable administrators, like John Pory at Corpus and Roger Kelke at Magdalene. There were zealous and imprudent Calvinists, like Longworth at St John's and Beaumont at Trinity, tacitly encouraging the younger members to insubordination against the prescribed discipline. There were men of more or less avowed or suspected Romanist sympathies like John Young', Philip Baker, Dr Cains, and Henry Harvey, at Pembroke, King's, Gonville, and Trinity Hall, hopefully expectant that a Catholic marriage might yet change the sentiments of Elizabeth and again restore the ascendancy of their secret faith. John Hawford at Christ's, Chaderton, who had just succeeded to the presidency of Queens', Ithell at Jesus College, and John May at St Catherine's were perhaps the only heads to whom James Pilkington's assertion, that it was difficult to say whether they did more harm by their absence or their presence, was not fairly applicable'. mostly either given to down Equally unsatisfactory, as the concurrence of writers of The students such different habits of thought as Dr Caius, James Pilking- zealously ton, and William Harrison, the historian, clearly proves, was all the general morale of the great body of the students. The patio. frivolous and the more thoughtful alike exulted in manifesting their contempt for discipline: the former by assuming the foppish dress of the day, or by indulging in brutal sports and frequent broils with the townsmen,-the latter by appearing at chapel on Sundays or feast-days without their surplices, 1 Strype, Ibid. This John Young, who was master of Pembroke from 1567 to 1578, must be carefully distinguished from his predecessor of the same name who was master from 1553 to 1559. The latter, who refused to take the oath of supremacy, died a prisoner in Wisbeach Castle in 1580. The former, who succeeded to the mastership 3 See supra, p. 185, and inira, p. 235. 1 1 going out when the first words of the Latin service greeted their ears, and rejecting the square cap as a part of the academic costume. Authority was perpetually vexed; those in subjection were in a state of continual excitement. The quiet, the unruffled temper, the calm and sustained exercise of the mental faculties, all the conditions, in short, which it. is the primary design of a university to secure for the studious, had almost disappeared. The teachers at Zürich and Strassburg, who knew by painful experience the injury that must infallibly result to the cause of the Protestant faith and of Protestant learning, in vain advised that divergence of opinion. with respect to non-essentials should not be permitted to become a source of hopeless divisions'. They failed to realise, -perhaps, owing to the different organization of a German and an English university, could hardly be expected fully to understand, the extent to which personal animosity entered into the feelings of those who, as they met in the college hall, the chapel, and the schools, thought to recognise in cach other the hereditary foe or the dishonourable renegade in relation to the cause which each had most at heart. It is melancholy to note the change which had come over St John's College since the days of good old Dr Metcalfe, when the youthful scholar, animated by the approval of his seniors and the congenial spirit of his compeers, had forestalled the dawn in his enthusiastic study of the masterpieces of Roman or Athenian eloquence and philosophy. Under Longworth the seed which his two predecessors had sown began to bear fruit; and William Fulke, one of the junior fellows, whose conspicuous talent was unhappily attracted into the agitation respecting the use of the surplice, was expelled from the college after an uproar which the academic authorities, in a letter to Cecil, described as being 'nearly to the danger of life and to the incredible shame and disgrace of the university' 1 See especially Bullinger's letter to Miles Coverdile, 10 Sept., 1566. Zurich Letters (2), pp. 136-7. * MS. Lansd. xi, art. 81. Baker that Fulke's insubordination is to be referred to Cartwright's inface. Strype quotes a letter from 'several fellows of the graver sort,' written in August, 1569, to Cecil, complaining of the degeneracy of their college, and desiring his assist. ance. And that during Longworth's government their house went more and more into decay of good learn Ascham: 29 the Clerke. of King's College. It was just when these college feuds were at their hottest, CHAP. IIL at the beginning of the year 1569, that the news of Roger Death of Ascham's death reached Cambridge. His loss was sorely Dec. 154 lamented by all true scholars, and not least by his royal mistress to whom he filled the post of Latin secretary. Cecil and Walter Haddon exerted their influence to obtain the appointraent of Bartholomew Clerke, a scholar of King's athle College, to the vacant post, but it had already been promised to another. Clerke, indeed, was not one of those qualified by instinct to catch the breeze of either royal or popular favour. Elizabeth, at this period at least, appears to have been somewhat prejudiced against him; while by contending sects he was more than once accused of unsoundness in religion'. That he should have been unpopular is a fact sufficiently accounted for when we note how, almost alone in the university, he appears to have regarded with the feelings of the true scholar and philosopher that petty but demoralising warfare which now raged so fiercely. In a letter to Cecil, written shortly before this time, he indulges in a pathetic lament over these fanatical contests about the surplice and the cap',' amid which, he avers, the time once bestowed upon the arts and sciences is frittered away in frivolous disputes,' while the baneful example spreads like ing, which once flourished so much among them. And that things were now come to that pass, that they were ashamed of themselves; using those words in their letter, Qua fronte hominum vultus nos intueri possumus Life of Whitgift, bk. i, c. 3; Baker-Mayor, pp. 162, 5-6. for 1 See Cooper, Athenae, 11 70; 'much esteemed,' says Strype, his learning and Latin style'; he appears to have enjoyed the good opinion of both Parker and Whitgift: see Strype, Annals, 11, i, c. 25. He styles the opponents of the square cap and the surplice Galeriani,' and superpelliciani.' 'Illi mehercule homines,' he goes on to say, non ita meo judicio sapientes (quorum ineptias, aut potius pclavTiar, gaudeo tili ab aliis nunciatam) adeo suis cons liis omnia perturba runt, ut quod temporis antehac arti bus et scientiis solet (sic) attribui, id is letter to ting the putes in the Cecil re trivial di contagion among the younger scholars. A certain ludicrous element appears, however, occasionally to have relieved the monotonous contention, and Clerke here takes occasion to tell one story which even to Cecil, toiling perennially through interminable correspondence, he holds too good to be left untold. This is of a certain young sophister, who, thinking to gain credit for the austerity of his principles, had presented himself without his surplice in chapel, audaciously selecting a conspicuous place among his duly-attired fellowstudents. Having thus attracted the attention of the dean and having been summoned to account for his conduct, he had speciously pleaded the violence he should do to his convictions were he to put on the prescribed garment. It finally transpired, however, that 'the pious youth' (religiosus adolescens, as Clerke sarcastically terms him) had pawned his surplice to some purveyor of dainties to the colleges, in order to defray the cost of a more than usually sumptuous entertainment! This singular preference for even the cloak of hypocrisy to the surplice, and the attempt to veil inordinate indulgence of appetite by the profession of more than ordinary tenderness of conscience, appear to have been too much for the gravity of some of the seniors, who could not conceal a smile. Clerke concludes his letter by adjuring Cecil to apply some effectual remedy to these senseless follies, and to exert his influence in order that 'the sound of pure Gospel truth' may again be heard instead of the 'empty paradoxes' which were then being so clamorously propounded from the pulpit and in the schools'. 1.Unum illud (licet honori (sic) tuo in-linum est, tamen quoniam ridieulum) praeterire non possum. Venit forte fortuna in cujusdam Collegii ehorum homunculus quidam, vix adhac sonhista, et eum reliqui superpelices induti essent, is ex omnibus urussi Diis placet) exutus esse vult. Assidet sociis, ingerit se consertis. mis, summa confidentia, summa invereeun lia. Mirati omnes, nona indigenti. Res ad censores delata; habita quaestio est; interrogatur an hasta posita (ut quidam) proscripsisset; respondet modeste, negat demisse. Conscientiam deinde criminatur, quae liberas illi his rebus utendi habenas non concessisset. Comperta demum veritate, explora. tum sit, religiosum adolescentem hune superpollicium suum coco cuidam propter magnum farciminum vim oppignorasse. Ridere tum alii, alii risum dissimulare.' Ibid. |