not improbably, was regarded as a special judgement; and CHAP Stafford, seizing the opportunity, urged upon him the unlawful nature of his studies with such effect, that before he left the conjuring books' had been consigned to the flames. His purpose accomplished, Stafford went home, and was himself attacked by the plague and carried off in a few hours'. With Stafford dead, Bilney discredited, and Barnes in La prison, the Cambridge Reformers might have lacked a leader, had not Latimer at this juncture begun to assume that prominent part whereby he became not only the foremost man of the party in the university but the Apostle of the Reformation' in England. His 'Sermons on the Card,'two celebrated discourses at St. Edward's Church in December, 1529,-are a notable illustration of the freedom of simile and quaintness of fancy that characterise the pulpit oratory of his age. Delivered moreover on the Sunday before Christmas, they had a special relevancy to the approaching season. It was customary in those days for almost every Conta household to indulge in card-playing at Christmas time Even the austere Fisher, while strictly prohibiting such recreation at all other times of the year, conceded per mission to the fellows of Christ's and St. John's thus to divert themselves at this season of general rejoicing. By 1 Fuller-Prickett & Wright, p. 206. Cooper's conjecture (Annals, 1 327 n. 5), that the conjurer was per ps only a mathematician, seeing Careely compatible with what we How of the estimation in which ma thmatical studies were held at this blue; nearly a century before, John Hebrook, master of Peterhouse, Irad Compiled and bequeathed to that xiety a complete set of a-trenomi l tables; while Melanchthon, as we Fate already seen (suj ra, p. 5902), Lad gely commended the study of ns y. For Holbrook's labour», the Ia'da Cantabrigientes,- which be to the Listory of mathematical s in the university, see Mr. H. „vell's Catalogue of 1'e Contents ,, Code♬ Holbros Kiators, 1840. Ile scholars were forbidden to play even at Christmas time. Ad hære nemo sociorum te« cris, altią, CHAP. VI. having recourse to a series of similes drawn from the rules of primero and 'trump',' Latimer accordingly illustrated his subject in a manner that for some weeks after caused his pithy sentences to be recalled at well nigh every social gathering; and his Card Sermons became the talk of both town and university. It need hardly be added that his similes were skilfully converted to enforce the new doctrines he had embraced; more especially, he dwelt with particular emphasis on the far greater obligation imposed on Christians. to perform works of charity and mercy than to go on pilgrimages or make costly offerings to the Church. The novelty of his method of treatment made it a complete success; and it was felt, throughout the university, that his shafts had told with more than ordinary effect. Among those who regarded his preaching with especial disfavour, was Buckenham Buckenham, the prior of the Dominican foundation at Cambridge, who resolved on an endeavour to answer him in like vein. As Latimer had drawn bis illustrations from cards, the prior took his from dice; and as the burden of the former's discourses had been the authority of Scripture and an implied assumption of the people's right to study the Bible for themselves, so the latter proceeded to instruct his audience how to throw cinque and quatre to the confusion of Lutheran doctrines-the quatre being taken to denote the four doctors' of the Church, the cinque five passages in the New Testament, selected by the preacher for the occasion. attempts a reply to Latimer. Spread of the controversy sity. But an imitation is rarely as happy as the original, nor in the univer was Buckenham in any respect a match for the most popular and powerful preacher of the day; and his effort at reply only served to call forth another and eminently effective sermon, by way of retort, from Latimer. Others thereupon CHAP engaged in the controversy. The duel became a battle; and the whole university was divided into two fiercely hostile parties. West again entered the lists against the Reformer, at Barnwell. John Venetus, a learned foreigner, preached against him from the pulpit of St. Mary's'. St. John's College, it was rumored under Fisher's influence, distinguished itself by a peculiarly bitter hostility; and it was not The until the arrival of the following missive from the royal almoner to Dr. Buckmaster, the vice-chancellor, that peace, at least in outward observance, was restored to the university: Mr. Vice-chancellor, I hastily commend me unto you, advertising the same that it hath been greatly complained unto the kinges highnes of the shamefull contentions used now of late in sermons made betweene Mr Latymer and certayne of St. John's College, insomuch his grace intendeth to set some ordre therein, which shulde not be greatly to yours and other the heades of the universities worship. Wherefore I prey you to use all your wisdom and authoritie ye can to appease the same, so that no further complaints be made thereof. It is not unlikely that they of St. John's proceedeth of some private malice towards Mr. Latymer, and that also thei be anymated so to do by their master, Mr Watson, and soche other my Lorde of Rochester's freendes. Which malice also, peradventure, cometh partly for that Mr. Latymer favoureth the king's cause, and I assure you that it is so reported to the kinge. And contrary, peradventure, Mr Latymer being by them exasperated, is more vehemente than becometh the very evangeliste of Christe, and de industria, speaketh in his sermons certen paradoxa to offende and sklaunder the people, which I assure you in my mynde is neither wisely donne vi nunc sunk tempora, neither like a goode evangeliste. Ye shall ther fore, in my opуnyon do well to commaunde both of them to silence, an-1 that neither of them from henceforth preche untyll ye know farther of the kinge's pleasure, or elles by some other waies to reduce them in concordance, the wayes how to ordre the same I remit to your wysdom and Mr. Edmondes, to whom I praye you have me heartily commended, trustinge to see you shortly. At Loudon, the xxiiiith day of January. Your lovinge freende, Edward Foxe'.' Cooper, Athenæ, 1 40. Lamb, Cambridge Documents, p. 14. CHAP. VI. DIVORCE Thomas The allusion in the foregoing letter to 'the king's cause' THE ROYAL refers to another important controversy then dividing the sympathies of the English nation, and in connexion with which the universities played a prominent though little honorable part,-the question of the Royal Divorce. When Wolsey, in the year 1524, was holding out inducements to the ablest scholars in Cambridge to transfer themselves to his new foundation at Oxford, there were some who, doubtless from good and sufficient reasons, declined his tempting offers; and, characteristically enough, among this number was the wary and sagacious Cranmer. Cranmer was at that time in his thirty-fifth year and a fellow of Jesus College. The circumstances under which he had been elected were peculiar, inasmuch as he was a widower and had vacated a former fellowship by marriage. At the Bridge Street end of All Saints' Passage there stood in those days a tavern of good repute known by the sign of the Dolphin. From its proximity to Jesus Lane it was probably especially patronised by Jesus men; and Cranmer in his visits fell in love with the landlady's niece, to whom his enemies in after years were wont to refer under the designation of 'black Joan'. His Cranmer's marriage soon after he had been elected in 1515 a fellow of Jesus College, involved of course the resignation of his fellowship, and for a time Cranmer maintained himself by officiating as 'common reader' at Buckingham College. But within a twelvemonth his wife died; and it may be looked upon as satisfactory proof both of the estimation in which his abilities were held and that no discredit attached to the connexion he had formed, that he was again elected to a fellowship by the authorities at Jesus'. The *Dolphin' marriago death. A second tirne elected fellow of Jesus Col lege. In the long vacation of 1529 the outbreak of the plague a at Cambridge had driven away the members of the university,, and among the number Cranmer had taken refuge with two pupils, also relatives, of the name of Cressy, at their father's house at Waltham. It so happened that during his residence there, the same epidemic had compelled the court to leave London; Waltham had likewise been selected for the royal retreat; and Fox, the writer of the above letter, then provost of King's College, and Gardiner, then master of Trinity Hall, were lodged at Cressy's house. Cranmer was probably already well known to both, and as his reputation as a canonist was almost unrivalled at Cambridge, they naturally adverted to the canonical difficulty that was then alleged to be troubling Henry's mind, the legality of his marriage with his brother's wife. It was then, according to the oft-told story, under the shadow of earl Harold's foundation, that nobly conceived innovation on the monastic monopoly of learning',-that the fellow of Jesus College threw out the suggestion, which, as adopted and carried out by Henry, was in the course of a few years to prove the downfall of the monastic system in England. It is unnecessary that we should here enter upon the merits of a controversy respecting which, amid all the sophistry and ingenuity that have been expended on it, few candil students of the period are probably much at variance; but the morality of the royal divorce and the morality of the universities in relation to the question are distinct subjects, and the latter, though its details are correctly described by Mr. Froude as 'not only wearying but scan-lalous, lics too directly in our path to be passed by without comment. The question propounded to the universities, it is to be observed, was very far from embracing those consi derations of expediency that have been urged by different writers in extenuation of Henry's policy. The loss by death of one after another of the royal children, the possibility of a disputed succession and of the revival of civil war, were not matters of which the pundits of Oxford and Cambridge Soe supra 160-3. |