Thus much for the relation which the Chief Magistrate, or rather the supreme legislatorial authority, the High Court

appointed a visitation of both Universities about the same time. Mr. Prynne was one of the visitors for Oxford; and a sincere royalist he most undoubtedly was (as appears from his famous SPEECH in Parliament (Parl. Hist. of England, Dec. 14th, 1648) "Touching the King's Answer to the Propositions of both Houses upon the whole Treaty, in opposition to the Army's Remonstrance." Yet he was a sincere Presbyterian too: and the Solemn League and Covenant was not the casket in which the inestimable jewel of religious liberty could be deposited, any more than James Ist's Three darling Articles. Of neither one nor the other may we say—

That was the casket of Heaven's choicest store.

Millon.

And a home-thrust, made by a certain writer, while defending the arbitrary measures of James II. at Oxford, will have as much force, when applied to the Presbyterian party engaged against the Prelatical, as to the Prelatical, when they engaged against the Puritans; "His Majesty (or some such words, for I quote from memory) has taken care that no such evils shall be inflicted on you, as you have inflicted on your opponents."

Mr. P. says, after Mr. A. Wood, that Oxford was a University at least 300 years before Alfred; which assertion, though a little nearer the truth than what has been said of Cambridge, is yet far enough from it, as not resting on sufficient evidence.

He says, “that no King of England before Hen. VIII. ever visited either University for aught that appears by ancient records." Yet, indeed, I must think, that Ric. II. visited Cambridge. Under him there appears to have been a General Review of the Powers, Defects, and Privileges, of the University; A. 1377. A. Imo Ric. II. as the readers of our Privileges may see," Petitiones Cancellarii et Scholarium in Parliamento exhibitæ pro quibusdam Defectibus in Chartis privilegiorum suorum perficiendis, p. 21. The year after, the Charta Amplissima, confirming all former Charters and Privileges, may be seen, and various other commissions, petitions, &c. relating to the Processus Barnwellensis, the Chancellor's excommunications, and other matters, which intimately concerned the academical body; and this was all followed by a Parliament, summoned by the King at Cambridge, p. 26, "Literæ Regis de Summonitione apud Cantabrigiam, una cum Convocatione Cleri ibidem. A. R. 12. This seems, therefore, to have been a Royal Visitation. And, if I mistake not, Hen. IIId's visit to Cambridge was of the same character; for as that appears to have been a memorable period for settling the academical discipline, and government, so at the end of that reign is found, An Historiola de Adventu Regis

of Parliament, bears to our English Universities, in their present state; and a right apprehension of this relation may

Hen. III. in Villam Cantabrig. et de quibusdam propugnaculis a se positis. Privileges, p. 8.

But to speak truly, it was not merely Hen. VIIIth's presence at Oxford which constituted a royal visitation. Edw the VIth's Breve Citatorium (A. 1549, Priv. Cantab. p. 47, 48) Cancellario et procuratoribus transmissum quod compareant coram visitatoribus Regis, constituted a royal visitation at Cambridge as much as the presence of Hen. VIII. accompanied with Wolsey, his commissioner, could at Oxford.

In reply to the " University of Oxford's Plea," that it was their privilege to be visited only by kings, Mr. P. shews that Chancellors, and Vice-Chancellors, and Archbishops, have made visitations. And there is evidence for this also in the Privileges of Cambridge. They visited in their local, or metropolitical capacities. But does this really affect the question of supreme visitation?

An Oxford writer, (who, if I mistake not, means to speak after Mr. Prynne) says, there was no visitation of our Universities by commission till the time of Hen. VIII. I doubt whether this is speaking quite correctly, no visitation, and there had been several) having been without his permission at least, and two, as we shall presently see, had the royal and parliamentary sanction. By turning to p. 52 of the Privileges, we may see that besides the licences and commissions (heads of which are printed in that volume) there are, in the 3d volume of the Vice-Chancellor's copy of Hare, above 20 more commissions (which seem principally to concern the Chancellor and heads) that are not in the Register's copy: they are, as it is there (p. 52) expressed in the same form as this, Commissio de Pace Conservanda in Villa et Suburbiis Cant. salvâ jurisdictione Cancellarii Universitatis.” What they relate to, I cannot positively say, not having examined them, but it appears they run up to a very early period. With respect to those visitations made by Archbishop Arundel A. 20 Ric. II. and 18 Hen. IV. one was undertaken by the counsel and direction of the King; and with respect to the other, it was confirmed by Parliament, and therefore had the force of an act of Parliament. The patent, too, for the former has these words-Salvis nobis et hæredibus nostris omnibus aliis quibus in Universitate prædicta nos et progenitores nostri uti consuevimus temporibus retroactis; and the latter, the Archbishop's petition, "A le Roy supplie vre Chapleyn Th. A. de Cant. Qe Plese a vous Sr. par Assent de ses Espuels et Temp. et les coëns in ceste pr. Parl. de Grauntier, &c. and the Schedule subjoined, relate to exemptions, by virtue of Popes' Bulls, (particularly that of Boniface the 8th) which therefore that Parliament annulled; so that these matters were thenceforth to proceed regularly here, under the sanction of our own supreme legislative authority, as the Vice

seem to render all further observations on the subject unne cessary. But let us proceed. Let us view this matter in

Chancellor's court itself could, by charter, take cognizance of certain causes, which in ordinary cases fell under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Archbishop: which is the principle on which the Letter from the ViceChancellor to the Lords Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Affairs proceeds, Oct. 4, 1562, as well as, Literæ Academiæ ad Archiepiscopum aliosq. judices in causis Ecclesiasticis, &c. MSS. C. C. C. 106. 228—Ibid. 338.

These cases, therefore, I humbly think, do not much assist Mr. Prynne's argument; of this too he must have been aware himself; for he makes his authority as visitor to the University of Oxford to depend on the broad seal of England; and in his Book, from which I have quoted, he calls the Parliament "the supreme visitors and reformers of all corruptions and abuses both in church and state;" and we see, that this very authority of Archbishop Arundel, just mentioned, rested on the same authority: and that Rich. II. paid no deference to any absolute archiepiscopal rights is evident; for he deprived this very prelate of his archbishopric; and, though Hen. IV. restored him, Rich. II. was inexorable, notwithstanding he was strongly solicited by the Pope himself. Parker, Archiep. De Antiq. Eccles. Brit. p. 407.

Archbishop Parker is the great authority for this archiepiscopal right of visiting the Universities, which he reckons among the Cantuariensis Sedis Privilegia & Prerogativa; ut sup. p. 37, and it is remarkable enough, that the only authorities appealed to by him are those just referred to A. 20, Ric. II. and 13 Hen. IV. (though several other visitations had been made) which shew, indeed, that the Pope's Bulls of Exemptions were annulled, and that the Universities were not thereby exempt from metropolitical visitations, (and according to Archbishop Parker's own account, Arundel's visitation was no more; In eadem Synodo Doctores Oxonienses quasdem Johannis Wiclyffi opiniones exposuerunt, quas Synodus condemnavit-deinde tolam pene Provinciam visitando lustravit, ibid. p. 407. Nor was Archbishop Kilwardy's noticed by Bishop Godwin; Paulo postea Universam Provinciam visitavit et Academiam utramque. De Præsul. Angl. p. 97. Richardsoni Edit. So that Archbishop Arundel's case, strong as it may seem, does, by no means, reach that of the supreme visitatorial power, nor does it prove that the Archbishop possessed any absolute rights, as he expresses it elsewhere, in regard to this matter;-quæ legibus non sunt expressabut rather the contrary; and, indeed, that instead of absolute rights, he acted even then under the counsel and direction of the King, and the authority of the supreme power.

Again. As to these metropolitical rights themselves-Archbishop Parker's PRIVILEGIA et PREROGATIVA (including his Right of Visitation of the

its true point of sight, by contemplating the exercise of such authority in the act of Reformation, on the supposition that

Universities of Oxford and Cambridge) they are either such as are held in common with other bishops, or, as Parker expresses it, rather strongly, are "absoluta, sibiq. peculiaria, quæ legibus expressa non sunt." They were, indeed, bestowed by popes, or conceded by princes: but by whomsoever, they are now held in dependence, submission, and responsibility. If given by popes, it may be seen by the Act of Supremacy, and other acts passed in Hen. VIIIth's reign, 24 Hen. VIII. c. 12. 25 Hen. VIII. c. 25. 26 Hen. VIII. and others (some of which did but restore to the crown rights, which by other acts, of Rich. II. Hen. IVth and Vth, it possessed before) that the supremacy over all ecclesiastical causes and persons having been recovered by the Crown from the Pope, together with all the clerical privileges and prerogatives whatsoever, no portion of the power which the Pope had over the Archbishop, or which might have been supposed to have been his absolute prerogatives, were left invested in the Archbishop. It was further provided that in the case of monasteries, colleges, &c. exempt from episcopal power, and immediately subject to the Pope, the visitation "shall not be by the Archbishop, but by Commissioners to be nominated by the Crown," and whether Universities were then considered as exempt or non-exempt, they all alike fell under its jurisdiction, and were visited by Commissioners nominated by the Crown.

The aforesaid act of Hen. VIII. was further confirmed by the Clergy's "ACT OF SUBMISSION," agreed to in the Clergy's own Convocation. Nor does the Visitation afterwards, in Mary's reign, of Cardinal Pole, whether as archbishop or as legate from the Holy See, affect this question at all; the whole powers of Henry's supremacy being fully and firmly resettled in the Crown by the famous act, 1 Eliz. which restored to it the ancient jurisdiction over the state ecclesiastical and spiritual. So that all the privileges and prerogatives of the archbishops, with the clergy's in general, were thus by Act of Parliament held Trinodâ necessitate.

Our priuces and clergy well understood and felt the import of these several acts. Henry the VIIIth even appointed a layman (Lord Cromwell) as his vicegerent for ecclesiastical affairs, who, in that capacity, visited the Universities. Archbishop Cranmer's Metropolitical Visitation for reforming the Religious Orders had the King's licence *; and the Clergy, in their Address to Queen Elizabeth, disclaiming all self-will, acknowledged in comparison with her, "they were dead dogs + and fleas." And notwith

*Burnet's Hist. B. I.

+ Canes mortui et pulices. The Clergy's Address to the Queen, against the Use of Images.

a Reformation should ever be required in our Universities-which is our second point to be considered.

standing Archbishop Parker's claim on paper of Privilegia absoluta, sibi peculiaria, et legibus non expressa, had he ventured to have acted in a metropolitical character without her licence, and still more, as Supreme Visitor, without her commission, she would undoubtedly (as she once threatened with an oath one of her bishops) have "unfrocked" him.

These expressions are, however, not alluded to here, for their ludicrousness and coarseness, but to shew, that ludicrous expressions may conceal serious acknowledgments, and that very coarse language may speak plain truths; and the fact is, the supremacy in all ecclesiastical causes, persons, and prerogatives, is now, by Act of Parliament, secured to the Crown: the Conge d'Elire, and the very pallium, ring, and pastoral staff, that is to say, all the spiritualities and temporalities of bishops are derived from the Crown; and Ordination-Confirmation-Spiritual Jurisdiction, and Rights of Visitation, are all commissions, from the legislature, and all performed, vice, nomine, et authoritate regali; and the Act of Homage, formerly paid to the Pope, now only to the King, at the consecration of archbishops and bishops, is a formal acknowledgment of such delegated authority. Visitations, by whomsoever made in our Universities, were, I apprehend, always by commission, either expressed or implied. Thus, when Lord Cromwell, the Chancellor, visited A. 27 Regni Hen. VIII. it was Injunctionibus Regiis (Priv. Cantab. p. 45), where he is called Visitator Ge neralis et Vice-gerens, et Universitatis Cancellarius. So when Dr. Parker, the Vice-Chancellor, and others, visited A. 37 Hen. VIII. it was by commission: MS. Bene't Col. CVI. 80. We find, too, by the Privileges of Camb. p. 136, that in those colleges which were not provided with a special visitor, the Chancellor, or, in his absence, the Vice-Chancellor, was appointed visitor; but this was settled by charta Jac. 1mi A. 1604. All which acts imply a supreme visitatorial power in the king, given by him in commission to others. And even with respect to legantine visitations, in ancient times, under authority from the Pope, it was either by connivance, or permission, or licence, from the King, subject to his regulations and control, and, if they interfered with his prerogatives, or opposed his pleasure, they were interrupted and forbidden by the royal power. Several exam ples of the visitations of legates may be seen in Hare's Priv. of Oxford and Wood's Antiq. Oxon; and, with the explanatory circumstances, which bring them within the above theory, in Dr. Johnstone's Visitatorial Power Asserted, ch. iv. sect. 1. Aud, in short, with respect to what are called, the ordinary visitors, the conclusion drawn by the latter writer seems correct, with respect to Cambridge, as well as Oxford, "that when. ever the visitations were made by the ordinary visitors, viz. the archbishop