to the acquirement of theological learning. There might be CHAP. IV. a certain pretence of doing so, they say, in order to satisfy the formal conditions of holding a fellowship; but they predict that each fellow would really bestow his time and labour on the civil law, or physic, or some other vain branch of secular knowledge, al his life long. In fine, they hold such a plan to be 'the very way to overthrow al colleges, cathedral churches, and places of learning;'-'to extinguish the study of divinity, diminish the number of preachers, and breed a great confusion and alteration in the church and commonwealth'.' sion to wtuch Deas would Regarded in the abstract, the view thus expressed by the The conce English bishops of 1584 may appear not a little startling, their o At the very time when theology was the all-absorbing theme seem to post of the scholar's discourse and the mainspring of all learned activity, when men were ready to resign a fellowship rather than wear a surplice, and to minister to humble congregations of schismatics in remote country towns or as exiles in foreign cities rather than submit to the Church's decision on some doubtful, obscure, and much disputed point of doctrine,—it was notwithstanding chimerical to suppose that there existed any honest heartfelt conviction of the importance of theological studies! Self-interest, the love of disputation, the desire for notoriety, these were after all the real incentives; and the forces which set the machinery in motion, whereby cach pulpit was regularly supplied with its wonted flow of exhortation, warning, and denunciation, were really in no way distinguishable from those which imparted the actuating impulse to any ordinary profession or trade! It will how- Permanent ever not be difficult to shew that this mistrust of any real of the e inclination in the English mind, even among fellows of colleges, for abstract study,-for research, that is to say, which failed to bear directly on practical ends,-was not confined to the bishops. On the contrary, it was shared by some of tion of the proper CHAP. IV. the most distinguished leaders of the Puritan party; and of this fact a circumstance connected with the foundation of Emmanuel College, which rose in the same year that the bishops entered the above protest, affords a pertinent illustration. As the first Protestant College of the university had been partly constructed out of materials taken from the subverted. friary of the Franciscans, so the first college reputed Puritan arose on the former site of the house of the Dominicans. Sir Walter Mildmay, the founder, was a diplomatist of approved fidelity and discretion, and especially distinguished in the important negotiations connected with the detention of Mary, queen of Scots, and her confinement as a prisoner in England. He was also treasurer to the royal household and in the year 1566 had succeeded to the chancellorship of the exchequer'. He had been educated at Christ's College, and although he left Cambridge without taking a degree, he appears to have retained throughout his life a love for classical learning and a warm interest in the welfare both of his college and of the university. A gift of stone to aid in the completion of the tower of Great St Mary's, and the foundation of a Greek lectureship and six scholarships at Christ's College had already attested the existence of this sympathy'; and when, in the year 1582, on the death of Hawford, the society at Christ's was anxiously awaiting the appointment of his successor, a brief appeal addressed by the fellows to Sir Walter indicates their belief both in his power and his willingness to protect their interests'. Like Sir Thomas Audley, Sir Walter Mildmay had acquired wealth in the service of the state, and like him, as he found himself approaching the ordinary term of life, he resolved to devote some portion of that wealth to the service of religion and learning. In the month of January, 1584, we accordingly find Elizabeth granting to her trusted adviser, 1 Cooper, Athenae, 11 51–53. Sir Walter's Latin poems were printed after his death, but they are now unknown. * Cooper, Memorials, 11 358, Ad te confugimus; utinam tantum possis quantum velis.....Si_in probi prudentique hominis modern. tionem collegium devenerit, expecta mus florentissimum: quod si nd dis soluti gubernationem devolutum sit, veremur ne omnia ad ruinam praeci. pitent.' State Papers (Dom.) Eliz. CLI, no. 51. 'his heirs, exccutors, and assigns,' a charter empowering them CHAP. IV. 'to erect, found, and establish for all time to endure, a certain college of sacred theology, the sciences, philosophy and good arts, of one master and thirty fellows and scholars, graduate or non-graduate, or more or fewer, according to the ordinances. and statutes of the same college' by Elizabet to found a Puntan But although the royal charter appears to have been obtained without difficulty, and the revenues of the college were even augmented by a royal benefaction', we learn from Fuller, that when,-after the ceremony of foundation had been duly completed,-Sir Walter presented himself at court, Hee Elizabeth's glance rested somewhat sternly on her ancient orga counsellor. She had known and trusted him from her girl- College hood. She might even recall how, on the occasion of her royal visit to the university in 1564, as she had passed through the gateway of Peterhouse, his eldest son (at that time a mere child) had delivered an 'oration' of welcome which she had been pleased graciously to commend for its expression and felicitous delivery'. Of late, however, Sir Walter's sympathies had been evinced in a manner little to her mind. Already, some years before, in the lifetime of Parker, he had, in conjunction with bishop Sandys, Sird Thomas Smith, and Knollys, sought to check the primate's too stringent dealings with the Puritans,—although the influece to which those dealings were attributable was well understood. More recently, from his place in parliament, he had lifted up his voice in defence of the popular cause, complainIng that though subsidies were liberally granted grievances were not redressed'. And again, in this very year, he had 1 Documents, 111 479-482; Cooper, Memorials, 11 358-9. This was a rent-charge of £16. 138. 4d. I ara indebted to the present Master, the Rev. 8. G. Phear, D.D., for the information that this repro sented an annuity (which is still recognised as chargeable on the exchequer) formerly granted by one of Elizabeth is predecessors to the Dominican house, a fact which serves perlips to explain the seeming inconsistency between Elizabeth's prac tical encouragement and her avowed Anthony Mil Imay was the inhe Hallam, Const. Host, it's 197. Which words,' ways Fuller, being represented with his disad. vantage to the queen, made her to disaffect him, setting in a court clou-l, stances that Just.fy the возрасив CHAP. IV. summed up, to the manifest satisfaction of the same assembly, the arguments for and against a policy of active support to the struggling populations of the United Provinces, in a manner which could not but seem to reflect with some severity on the vacillating insincerity of his royal mistress'. 'I hear, Sir Walter,' said Elizabeth, 'you have been erecting a Puritan foundation.' 'No, Madam,' he replied, 'far be it from me to countenance any thing contrary to your established laws, but I have set an acorn, which when it becomes an oak, God alone knows what will be the fruit thereof".' The original statutes of It cannot, certainly, be said that the statutes given to the college in the following year afford much warrant for the royal imputation. Many of them appear to be little more Preference than a transcript of the code of Trinity College. A preference, indeed, is given to natives of the eminently Puritan counties ramp of Essex and Northampton', but the more obvious reason for such a preference is that the former county was that of the founder's birthplace,—the latter, that which he had represented in parliament since the accession of Elizabeth'. The clause Emer and that after the publication of Travers' Disciplina (of which another edition appeared about 1587), its principles were most friendly entertained amongst the ministers of Northamp tonshire,' and also in Warwickshire, Norfolke, Suffolke, Esser.' Daungerous Positions, etc. p. 77. In the statute 'de Sociorum qualitate' we find comitatus Essexiae et Northamptoniae caeteris omnibus praeponcudos esse decrevimus: ita tamen ut non sint plures ex uno comitatu antedictorum praeter unum: quod de singulis aliis comitatibus totius regni observari volumus.' Documents, 111 199. In the statuto de Scholarium Discipulorum qualitate et electione' we read ‘Ob quod et illos praecipue qui de comitatu Ex. sexine et Northamptoniae oriundi sunt, pracponi volumus; de quibus duos scholares semper esse volumus in ipso collegio: ita tamen ut non plures tribus ex aliquo praedictorum sive ex ullo alio comitatu totius Angliae pro discipulis uno tempore ha beantur. Documents, i11 513. The preference accordingly could in nei which requires that no one county shall be represented by CHAP.IV more than one fellowship at a time must be looked upon as an equitable provision against the strongly local feelings which then prevailed, although its operation would tend to the depression of the northern and more Catholic element'. Generally General speaking, the conception of the whole design is exclusively co that of a training-school for the ministry, not a single fellowship being set apart for the civil law or for medicine. desurn of t character. Puritans the cou That the prevailing tone of the college was intensely Puri- Its Paritar tan admits however of no question. The first master, Lawrence Chaderton (one of the translators of the Bible), who filled the office for thirty-six years, gave on more than one occasion ample proof of his sympathies with the Puritan party'. Thomas Hooker, John Cotton, Thomas Shepard, and not a Eminent few other names which occupy a conspicuous place in the dated 1 pages of Cotton Mather's New England,-among them the founder of Harvard College,-were some of the earliest who received their education within its walls'. The tombs of earnest preachers, silenced for nonconformity while living and now resting in calmer silence in Moorfields, record in not a few instances the permanence of these traditions. At the Habil commencement of the seventeenth century, the practical exemplification which the college gave of the principles laid d down in the Disciplina was so marked as to evoke a formal Church protest. The chancel of its unconsecrated chapel looked north, the college kitchen east. The society used its own form of religious service, discarded surplices and hoods", was careless even of the cap and gown, and had suppers ther case have resulted in a preponderance. 1 See Appendix (1). Heywood and Wright, University Transactions, &c. 11 13-16. Baker MSS VI 81 85. If New England hath been in some respect Immanuel's Land, it is well; but this I am sure of, Immanuel College contributed more than a little to make it so.'Cotton Mather, Ecclesiastical His. tory of New England, bk, 111, p. 217. The publick disordersas touching Church causes in Emmanuel College in Cambridge. Baket MSS, vING-86. All other colledges in Cambridge do strictly observe, according to the laws and ordinances of the Church of Englande, the form of public prayer prescribed in the Communion Booke In Ein. Colledge they do follow a private cont«e of pethlick prayer, after their own fashion, both Sondaics, Holy daies and workie days.' Ibid. They of Em. Collelge have not worn that attier, either at the ordinary divine service, or eclebration of the Lord's Supper, since it was first erected.' Ibid. |