The Henrician doctors of law.
[33] The following facts are taken from the Dictionary of National Biography. Cuthbert Tunstall (afterwards bishop of Durham) ‘graduated LL.D. at Padua.’ Stephen Gardiner (afterwards bishop of Winchester) of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, ‘proceeded doctor of the civil law in 1520 and of the canon law in the following year.… In 1524 he was appointed one of Sir Robert Rede’s lecturers in the University.’ Edmund Bonner of Broadgate Hall, Oxford, ‘in 1519 he took on two successive days (12 and 13 June) the degrees of bachelor of civil and of canon law.… On 12 July, 1525, he was admitted doctor of civil law.’ Thomas Thirlby (afterwards bishop of Ely) of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, ‘graduated bachelor of the civil law in 1521 … and proceeded doctor of the civil law in 1528 and doctor of the canon law in 1530.’ Richard Sampson (afterwards bishop of Lichfield) of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, ‘proceeded B.C.L. in 1505. Then he went for six years to Paris and Sens and returning proceeded D.C.L. in 1513.’ John Clerk (afterwards bishop of Bath and Wells, Master of the Rolls), ‘B.A. of Cambridge 1499 and M.A. 1502, studied law and received the doctor’s degree at Bologna.’ Richard Layton (afterwards dean of York) ‘was educated at Cambridge, where he proceeded B.C.L. in 1522 and afterwards LL.D.’ Thomas Legh of King’s College (?), Cambridge, ‘proceeded B.C.L. in 1527 and D.C.L. in 1531.’ Instances of legal degrees obtained in foreign universities are not very uncommon. John Taylor, Master of the Rolls in 1527, ‘graduated doctor of law at some foreign university, being incorporated at Cambridge in 1520 and at Oxford in 1522.’ James Denton, dean of Lichfield, proceeded B.A. in 1489 and M.A. in 1492 at Cambridge. ‘He subsequently studied canon law at Valencia in which faculty he became a doctor of the university there.’ (For an earlier instance, that of Thomas Alcock of Bologna, see Grace Book A, Luard Memorial, p. 209. There are other instances in Boase, Register of the University of Oxford; consult index under Padua, Bologna, Paris, Orleans, Bourges, Louvain.)
‘The king’s great matter.’
That wonderful divorce cause, which shook the world, created a large demand for the sort of knowledge that the university-bred jurist was supposed to possess, especially as a great effort was made to obtain from foreign doctors and universities opinions favourable to the king. The famous Cambridge ‘Grecian’ Richard Croke was employed in ransacking Italian libraries for the works of Greek theologians and in taking council with Hebrew rabbis. In Italy, France and Spain, as well as in England, almost every canonist of distinction, from the celebrated Philip Decius downwards, must have made a little money out of that law suit, for the emperor also wanted opinions.
Papists in the Inns of Court.
[34] See the remarkable paper printed in Calendar of Inner Temple Records, vol. I., p. 470; also Mr Inderwick’s preface pp. 1 ff. In 1570 Lincoln’s Inn had not been exacting the oath of supremacy: Black Book, vol. I., pp. 369-372. See also the lives of Edmund Plowden, William Rastell and Anthony Browne (the judge) in Dict. Nat. Biog.: and for Browne see also Spanish Calendar, 1558-67, pp. 369, 640.
Sir T. Smith’s ‘Commonwealth.’
[35] Smith, Commonwealth of England, ed. 1601, p. 147: ‘I haue declared summarily as it were in a chart or map, or as Aristotle termeth it, ὡς ἐν τύπῳ the forme and maner of gouernment of England, and the policy therof, and set before your eyes the principall points wherin it doth differ from the policy or gouernment at this time vsed in France, Italy, Spaine, Germanie, and all other Countries, which doe follow the ciuill law of the Romaines, compiled by Iustinian into his pandects and code: not in that sort as Plato made his commonwealth, or Xenophon his kingdome of Persia, nor as Sir Thomas More his Vtopia, beeing fained commonwealths, such as neuer was nor neuer shall be, vaine imaginations, phantasies of Philosophers to occupie the time, and to exercise their wits: but so as England standeth, & is gouerned at this day the xxviij. of March. Anno 1565. in the vij. yeare of the raigne and administration thereof by the most vertuous & noble Queene Elizabeth, daughter to King Henry the eight, and in the one and fiftieth yeare of mine age, when I was Ambassadour for her Maiestie, in the Court of Fraunce, the Scepter whereof at that time the noble Prince and of great hope Charles Maximilian did holde, hauing then raigned foure yeares.’
Smith writes without books.