joins Cecil to reject the to the expediency. As however it was looked upon with disap- CHAP. III, proval, he could only express his contrition and promise that for the future he would do his best to maintain the prescribed discipline'. The matter appeared to Cecil of sufficient importance to induce him to consult Parker. The primate does not, certainly, on this occasion, write like one inclined to concession. He advises Cecil to be jealous of his dignity and Parker enauthority and not to permit them to be overborne by a be firm. bragging brainless Head or two. That he underrated the The Johnians strength of the growing movement is proved by the fact that surplice. the next intelligence received by Cecil from Cambridge was to the effect that the fellows and scholars of St John's, some three hundred in number, had appeared in the college chapel without their surplices. This it was suspected had taken place with the connivance of Longworth, the newly-elected master, who was absent on the occasion, and whose absence was believed to have been intentional. To St John's, Cecil Cecil's letter now addressed fresh remonstrances couched in sterner lan- Master. guage, 'vainglory,' 'affectation of popularity,' 'contempt of laws,' 'desire of innovating' were among the expressions which fell from his pen. He enjoined strict compliance; lamented in pathetic terms the condition of his own college; but endeavoured to find some comfort in the thought, that this 'lewd leprosy of libertines,' as he termed it, was mainly confined to one society and to the younger members of the university, and that, according to his information, the elders and fathers,'' with others of approved learning and godliness,' remained uninfected. Longworth was summoned to London and there required to subscribe a lengthy and solemn recantation of his errors. The reflection from which Cecil sought Like demonto derive some consolation was soon dispelled by the occur- Trinity Colrence of a similar demonstration at Trinity, of which Cart- Cartwright wright was reported to have been the prime mover. Cartwright appears to have deemed it prudent to withdraw from 1 Strype, Annals, 1, ii, c. 44. 5 Strype, Life of Parker, Append. no. XLI. 6 Strype, Annals, 1, ii, c. 44. stration at lege. suspected. CHAP. III. the university for a time, and the ensuing year was spent by him in quiet obscurity in Ireland'. Romanist the univer sity. Dr Philip lege. In the mean while, Cecil's anxiety was in no way dimitendencies in nished by finding that in the society chiefly distinguished by its freedom from the Calvinistic spirit the opposite infection of Romanism was lurking. At King's College, Dr Philip Baker, the provost, was reported by some of the fellows to be harbouring a hidden store of mass-books, vestments, and other 'Popish stuff,' while his disregard for the welfare of the society and undisguised sympathy with the Catholic party were notorious. It may be looked upon as evidence of the comparative leniency with which Catholics were treated during the earlier part of Elizabeth's reign that Baker after receiving certain injunctions from the visitor of the college, the bishop of Lincoln', was suffered to remain in his post. Four years later, fresh articles were preferred against him which involved not simply his Protestant orthodoxy but also his general fitness and even his honesty as an administrator. Unable to repel the statements of his accusers, he fled from the university and was succeeded in the provostship by Roger Goad, whose long prefecture offered in every respect a marked contrast to the rule of his predecessor3. Feuds at master and At Caius College, notwithstanding the excellent intenbetween the tions of its head, the state of affairs was eminently unsatisthe fellows. factory. Dr Caius, who lay under the suspicion of harbouring Catholic sympathies, was an object of dislike to the majority of the fellows and could with difficulty maintain his authority. He viewed with undisguised contempt the indifference of the younger members of the university to learning. 1 Cooper, Athenae, 11 360. 2 Nicholas Bullingham, formerly a fellow of All Souls, Oxford; described by Parker as an honest truemeaning man,' but wanting in refinement and in merit of any high order. See Cooper, Athenae, 1 350; Parker Corresp., p. 378. 3 Strype, Life of Grindal, bk. i, c. 14. Goad, at the time of his preferment, was master of the grammar school at Guildford in Surrey: a pleasant sight,' observes Fuller, 'to behold preferment seeking to find out desert.' Fuller-Prickett and Wright, p. 271. 4 Cooper, Athenae, 1 313-14. 5 Writing to Parker in 1567, on the occasion of sending him the manuscript of his book de Antiquitate Cantabrigiensis Academiae (see supra, p. 192), he regrets he can get no help in the university in preparing it for the press,-'yong men His temper too had not improved with advancing years, and CHAP. III. he retaliated on his persecutors in a fashion which, when compared with the modern discipline of such societies, appears somewhat extraordinary. He not only involved them in law-suits which emptied their slender purses, but visited them with personal castigations and even incarcerated them in the stocks'! Expulsions were frequent, no less than twenty of the fellows, according to the statement of two of their number, having at different times suffered this extreme penalty. The statutes were openly defied; and one 'Mr Dorington,' although holding 'two cured livings,' still stoutly refused to vacate his fellowship, and his resistance to the pressure brought to bear upon him in consequence appears to have been productive of more than one sanguinary encounter3. In their resentment at the master's severity, his Dr Caius victims trumped up articles accusing him of atheism. Parker, atheism. on being called upon to intervene, was at first not a little perplexed by his sense, on the one hand, of Dr Caius' distinguished services to learning and to the university,—services, he takes occasion to observe, now becoming rare,—and a consciousness, on the other, that some of the expulsions had been carried out with undue precipitancy. The articles now a days be so negligent that they care for nothing.' Strype, Life of Parker, Append. no. Lv. 1That no man hereafter be stocked or beaten for keping his rights until the matter be decyded.' Petition of Stephen Warner and Robert Spencer, fellowes of the college, to Cecil; State Papers (Dom.) Eliz. XXXIX, no. 5. This remarkable illustration of college life appears, judging from the tremulous character of the writing, to have emanated from two of the older fellows, who represent themselves (probably with perfect truth) as reduced to the utmost distress and perplexity by their expulsion. That Mr Vicechancellor, Dr Perne, [or] other in the universitie whom it shall please your honour, may see your orders made put in execution, and that our Master may be ruled by some good man's counsel hereafter and not to drive the fel- 3 4 Although I see overmuch rashness in the master for expelling fellows so sodenly, etc. he hath been well told of it, as well of my lord of London as by myself; and surely the contemptuous behaviour of these accused of Cecil's de CHAP. III. 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'. cision as arbitrator. Parker at first makes disputes. In his letter to Cecil, of the 29th of December, 1565, light of these 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 realm. 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 Most of the should be made for certain suspected books. The pertinacity with which the vice-chancellor (John Young, master of PemPrayer Book. broke) sought to baffle this design was a fresh source of Search for suspected books at Corpus College. colleges re fuse to use the new Latin fellows hath much provoked him... 1 Parker Corresp., pp. 251-2. 'Pro- or his aim might be to obscure his secret kindness for the old popish religion.' Strype, Life of Parker, bk. iii, c. 5. 2 State Papers (Dom.) Eliz. xXXIX, no. 7. 'Mihi satis compertum est,' says Baker, 'ex scriptis ejus ineditis, Jo. Caium fuisse pium, sociosque ejus ingratos: quod novum non est, nec ante hunc diem inauditum.' MS. note to copy of Strype's Parker preserved in St John's College Library, p. 200. 3 Parker Corresp., pp. 248–50. 4 Strype, Life of Parker, bk. iii, c. 20; Cooper, Annals, 11 235-8. houses at this as a body in ability and loyalty. annoyance; while, about the same time, the majority of the CHAP. III. colleges gave further trouble by refusing to adopt the new Latin version of the Prayer Book especially compiled for their use1. Not a little discouraging, again, was the small The heads of amount of confidence which Cecil and Parker alike felt could time wanting 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 Caius, 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 applicable3. mostly either Calvinistic or given to dissi 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 generally the general morale of the great body of the students. The pation. 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. 2 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 infra, p. 235. |