CHAP. VI. for and against the divorce by the appearance of Cranmer's treatise on the lawfulness of marriage with a brother's wife', and its judgement, so far as that might be supposed to be amenable to the influence of abstract reasons, had thereby undoubtedly been biased in favour of 'the king's cause.' It is evident indeed, on a comparison of the above letter with the first of those that Henry addressed to the university of Oxford, that he had grounds at the outset for anticipating a far more ready assent to his wishes at Cambridge. Under these circumstances it is therefore of special interest to note the following report made to him by Gardiner and Fox of the proceedings that followed upon the arrival of his letter:

Gardiner and
Fox report
on the course
of events
consequent
upon the

receipt of the
royal letter
at Cam-

bridge.

'TO THE KING'S HIGHNESS,

Pleaseth it your highness to be advertised, that arriving here at Cambridge upon Saturday last past at noon, that same night and Sunday in the morning we devised with the vicechancellor and such other as favoureth your grace's cause, how and in what sort to compass and attain your grace's purpose and intent; wherein we assure your grace we found much towardness, good will, and diligence, in the vice-chancellor and Dr. Edmunds, being as studious to serve your grace as we could wish and desire nevertheless there was not so much care, labour, study, and diligence employed on our party, by them, ourself, and other, for attaining your grace's purpose, but there was as much done by others for the lett and empeachment of the same; and as we assembled they assembled; as we made friends they made friends, to lett that nothing should pass as in the universities name; wherein the first day they were superiors, for they had put in the ears of them by whose voices such things do pass, multas fabulas, too tedious to write unto your grace. Upon Sunday at afternoon were assembled after the manner of the university, all the doctors, batchelors of divinity, and masters of arts, being in number almost two hundred in that congregation we delivered your grace's letters, which were read openly by the vice-chancellor. And for answer to be made unto them, first the vice-chancellor, calling apart the doctors, asked their advice and opinion; whereunto they answered severally, as their affections led them, et res erat in multa confusione. Tandem they were content answer should be made to the questions by indifferent men; but then they came to exceptions against the abbot of St. Benet's, who seemed

1 It is remarkable that not a single copy of this treatise is known to be in existence, and even its exact title

is a matter of doubt. See Cooper, Athena, 1 146.

to come for that purpose; and likewise against Dr. Reppes and CHAP. VI.
Dr. Crome; and also generally against all such as had allowed
Dr. Cranmer's book, inasmuch as they had already declared their
opinion. We said thereunto, that by that reason they might
except against all, for it was lightly, that in a question so notable
as this is, every man learned hath said to his friend as he thinketh
in it for the time; but we ought not to judge of any man that he
setteth more to defend that which he hath once said, than truth
afterward known. Finally, the vice-chancellor, because the day
was much spent in those altercations, commanding every man to
resort to his seat apart, as the manner is in those assemblies,
willed every man's mind to be known secretly, whether they would
be content with such an order as he had conceived, for answer to
be made by the university to your grace's letters; whereunto that
night they would in no wise agree.
And forasmuch as it was then
dark night, the vice-chancellor continued the congregation till the
next day at one of the clock; at which time the vice-chancellor
proposed a grace after the form herein enclosed; and it was first
denied; when it was asked again it was even on both parties to be
denied or granted; and at the last, by labour of friends to cause
some to depart the house which were against it, it was obtained in
such form as the schedule herein enclosed purportheth; where-
in be two points which we would have left out; but considering
by putting in of them we allured many, and that indeed they
shall not hurt the determination for your grace's part, we were
finally content therewith. The one point is, that where it was
first that quicquid major pars of them that be named decreverit
should be taken for the determination of the university, now it
referred ad duas partes,-wherein we suppose shall be no diffi-
culty. The other point is, that your grace's question shall be
openly disputed, which we think to be very honorable; and it is
agreed amongst us that in that disputation shall answer the abbot
of St. Benet's, Dr. Reppes, and I, Mr. Fox, to all such as will
object anything, or reason against the conclusion to be sustained
for your grace's part. And because Mr. Dr. Clyff hath said, that
he hath somewhat to say concerning the canon law; I, your
secretary, shall be adjoined unto them for answer to be made
therein. In the schedule, which we send unto your grace here-
with, containing the names of those who shall determine your
grace's question, all marked with the letter (A) be already of your
grace's opinion; by which we trust, and with other good means,
to induce and obtain a great part of the rest. Thus we beseech
Almighty God to preserve your most noble and royal estate.
From Cambridge, the......day of February.

Your Highness's most humble subjects and servants,
STEPHEN GARDINER,
EDWARD Fox.'

Venetus,de isto bene speratur. (A) Simon (Matthew),

Benets,

Watson,

(A) Repps,

Tomson,

(A) Edmunds,

Downes,

(A) Crome,

(A) Wygan,
(A) Boston,

(A) (A) Duo Procuratores,

habeant plenam facultatem et authoritatem, nomine totius universitatis respondendi litteris Regiæ Majestatis in hac congregatione lectis, ac nomine totius universitatis definiendi et determinandi quæstionem in dictis litteris propositam. Ita quod quicquid duæ partes eorum præsentium inter se decreverint respondendi dictis litteris, et definierint ac determinaverint super quæstione præposita, in iisdem habeatur et reputetur pro responsione definitione et determinatione totius universitatis, et quod liceat vicecancellario procuratoribus et scrutatoribus litteris super dictarum duarum partium definitione et determinatione concipienda sigillum commune universitatis apponere: sic quod disputetur quæstio publice et antea legantur coram universitate absque ulteriori gratia desuper petenda aut obtinenda.

Your highness may perceive by the notes that we be already sure of as many as be requisite, wanting only three; and we have good hope of four; of which four if we get two and obtain of another to be absent, it is sufficient for our purpose'.'

Such were the means by which, on the ninth of the following March, a decision was eventually obtained favorable to the divorce; but even then the decision was coupled reservation by an important reservation,-that the marriage was illegal if it could be proved that Catherine's marriage with prince sity is accom- 1 Burnet, Hist. of the Reformation, Records 1 ii 22. Cooper, Annals, 1 337-9.

Important

by which the decision of

the univer

panied.

Arthur had been consummated1.

It was however no slight CHAP. VI.

master's

his reception

indications of

achievement to have gained thus much from the university; and when Buckmaster presented himself at Windsor as the Buckbearer of this determination, he was received by Henry with account of every mark of favour, and Cambridge was praised for the at court, wisdom and good conveyance' she had shewn. The only point indeed with respect to which the king intimated any dissatisfaction was the omission of any opinion concerning the legality of pope Julius's dispensation. Having received a present of twenty nobles the vice-chancellor took his leave, but ill at ease in mind. 'I was glad,' he says in a letter to Dr. Edmunds, giving an account of the whole business, 'I was glad that I was out of the courte, wheare many men, as I did both hear and perceive, did wonder on me...... All the and of the world almost cryethe oute of Cambridge for this acte, specially on me, but I must bear it as well as I maye.' then goes on to narrate how on his return he found the university scarcely in a more pleasant mood. Fox's servant had been beaten in the street by one Dakers, a member of St. Nicholas's Hostel; and Dakers on being summoned before him (the writer), had demurred to his authority, 'because I was famylyer, he said, with Mr. Secretary [Fox] and Mr. Dr. Thirleby.' Thereupon he had ordered Dakers into custody, who on his way to close quarters effected his escape from the bedell; 'and that night there was such a jettyng in Cambridge as ye never harde of, with such boyng and cryeng even agaynst our colleage that all Cambridge might perceave it was in despite of me.'

ing at the

and popular feelHe university.

Whatever accordingly may be our opinion of the expediency of the course whereby Cambridge escaped, in Mr. Froude's words, 'the direct humiliation' that waited upon Oxford, it seems impossible on the foregoing evidence to Facts which deny, that this end was attained by the nomination of a qualify Mr. commission which, if we examine its composition, can only eulogium. be regarded in the light of a packed jury,-that the nomina

1 'Quod ducere uxorem fratris mortui sine liberis cognitam a priori viro per carnalem copulam....est pro.

hibitum jure divino ac naturali.'
Lamb, Cambridge Documents, p. 21.
Cooper, Annals, 1 340-2.

tend to

Froude's

CHAP. VI. tion of this commission was at the outset opposed by the senate, being on the first division non-placeted, on the second, obtaining only an equality of votes, on the third carried only by the stratagem of inducing hostile voters to stay away,-that even of this commission, thus composed and thus appointed, it was found necessary to persuade at least one member to absent himself, and that finally its decision was qualified by an important reservation, which, if the testimony of queen Catherine herself, independently of other evidence, was entitled to belief, involved a conclusion unfavorable to the divorce1.

Position of
Fisher.

It is almost unnecessary to say that from these proceedings Fisher stood altogether aloof. He was throughout a firm and consistent opponent of the divorce; and the troubles which beclouded the last year of his life now began to gather thickly round his path. But neither increasing anxieties, the affairs of his bishopric, nor the infirmities of old age, could render him forgetful of Cambridge. Over St. John's College, more particularly, he watched to the last with untiring solicitude, and in its growing utility and reputation found

1 The statement of Lingard in the matter appears undeniable :-that both Clement and Henry were sensible that, independently of other considerations,' the decisions of the universities did not reach the real merits of the question; for all of them were founded on the supposition that the marriage between Arthur and Catherine had actually been consummated, a disputed point which the king was unable to prove and which the queen most solemnly denied.' Hist. of England, Iv3 551. The general feeling of the two universities is worthy of note in connexion with Mr. Froude's assertion that "in the sixteenth century, queen Catherine was an obstacle to the establishment of the kingdom, an incentive to treasonable hopes. In the nineteenth, she is an outraged and injured wife, the victim of a false husband's fickle appetite.' I 94. Perhaps side by side with this representation we may be permitted to place a seventeenth century and eighteenth century view: the first,

For

that of the author of the Ductor Dubitantium; the second, that of Dodd, the Catholic historian.- Who [i.e. the learned men of the time] upon that occasion, gave too great testimony, with how great weakness men that have a bias to determine questions, and with how great force, a king that is rich and powerful, can make his own determinations. though Christendom was then much divided, yet before that time there was almost general consent upon this proposition that the Levitical degrees do not, by any law of God, bind Christians to their observance.' Ductor Dubitantium, p. 222. belongs not to us to judge, whether Julius II had any sufficient reasons to dispense with Henry and Catherine; but we may say, that Henry having married Catherine by virtue of that dispensation, and lived near twenty-five years with her as his wife, could not lawfully and in conscience be parted from her, that he might marry another.' (written 1737). DoddTierney, 1 231.

"It