to come for that purpose; and likewise against Dr. Reppes and 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 be 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-chancell 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 cavNË some to depart the house which were against it, it was obtained in such form as the schedule herein enclosed purportheth; wherein 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 d 5culty. The other point is, that your grace's question shall be openly disputed, which we think to be very honor.ble; and it is agreed amongst us that in that disputation shall answer the albet of St. Benet's, Dr. Reppes, and I, Mr. Fox, to a'l such as wil ebject 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, yar secretary, shall be adjoined unto them for answer to be raje therein. In the schedule, which we send unto your grace bere with, containing the names of those who shall determine your grace's question, all marked with the letter (A) be already of year grace's opinion; by which we trust, and with other good means, to induce and obtain a great part of the rest. Thus we besesh 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, (A) Repps, 1 1 (A) Edmunds, 1 Mylsent, de isto bene spe ratur. (A) Shaxton, (A) Latimer, Venetus,de isto bene speratur.(A) Simon (Matthew), Longford, de isto bene spe 1 (A) Heth, Hadway, de isto bene spe ratur. Dey, (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 par tium definitione et determinatione concipienda sigillum commune universitatis apponere: sic quol disputetur questio publice et anten 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 en by an important reservation,-that the marriage was illegal decision of if it could be proved that Catherine's marriage with prince 1 Burnet, Hist. of the Reformation, Records 1 ii 22. Cooper, Annals, 1 337-9. Important by which the the univer Bity is accom. panied Arthur had been consummated'. It was however no slight achievement to have gained thus much from the university; and when Buckmaster presented himself at Windsor as the bearer of this determination, he was received by Henry with every mark of favour, and Cambridge was praised for the 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 world almost cryethe oute of Cambridge for this acte, and specially on me, but I must bear it as well as I maye.' He 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 cryer g even agaynst our colleage that all Cambridge might perceive it was in despite of me.' 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 up a Oxford, it seems impossible on the foregoing evidence to deny, that this end was attained by the nomination of a commission which, if we examine its composition, can only 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. hibitam jare divino a ratura'1⁄2" Lamb, Cambridge Liveuments, p. ¿h, * Cooper, Annals, 1310 2 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 divorce'. Position of 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, 1v3 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.' 1 91. 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 Dubi tantium; 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 ques tions, 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. “It belongs not to us to judge, whether Julius 11 had any suflicient reasons to dispense with Henry and Cathe rine; but we may say, that Henry haring 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. his best reward. The promotion of Metcalfe to the master- CHAP. ship in 1518 had proved eminently favorable to the best interests of the society. Metcalfe was himself indeed no proficient in the new studies; but in Fuller's phrase, though 'with Themistocles, he could not fiddle, he knew how to make a little college a great one';' and before Fisher's death, the overflowing numbers of the students, their conspicuous devotion to learning, and names like those of Ascham and Cheke, had already caused the college to be noted as the most brilliant society in the university. In the year 1524 Fisher had drawn up a new code as the rule of the foundation, modelled to a great extent upon that of Fox at Corpus Christi College, Oxford; and in 1530 he gave a third body of statutes in which he incorporated many of the regulations given by Wolsey for the observance of Cardinal College. Of the minuteness of detail and elaborateness of the provisions that characterise these last statutes some idea may be formed from the fact, that while the original statutes fill forty-six Paber's closely printed quarto pages, and those of 1524, seventy-seven, the statutes of 1530 occupy nearly a hundred and thirty. Alarmed at the signs of the times and timorous with old age, Fisher seems to have sought with almost feverish solicitude to provide for every possible contingency that might arise. Of the new provisions some,-such as the institution of lecturers in Greek and Hebrew, and the obligation imposed upon a fourth part of the fellows to occupy themselves with preaching to the people in English,-are undoubtedly entitled to all praise; but the additions that most served to swell the new statute-book were the lengthy and stringent oaths imposed alike on master, fellows, and scholars, and the introduction of innumerable petty restric tions, which it is difficult to suppose might not safely have been left to the discretion of the acting authorities from time to time. It illustrates the fallacious nature of such elaborate 1 Fuller-Prickett & Wright, p. 227; Baker-Mayor, 107-8. For Cheke's celebrity in the university see Aschiam, Fpistolɛ |