Since this note was written, a letter of Gibson has been published in Pepys's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 154, mentioning a catalogue he had found of the clergy in the archdeaconry of Middlesex, a.d. 1563, with their qualifications annexed. Three only are described as docti Latinè et Græcè; twelve are called docti simply; nine, Latinè docti; thirty-one, Latinè mediocriter intelligentes; forty-two, Latinè perperam, utcunque aliquid, pauca verba, etc., intelligentes; seventeen are non docti or indocti. If this was the case in London, what can we think of more remote parts
[296] In the struggle made for popery at the queen's accession, the lower house of convocation sent up to the bishops five articles of faith, all strongly catholic. These had previously been transmitted to the two universities, and returned with the hands of the greater part of the doctors to the first four. The fifth they scrupled, as trenching too much on the queen's temporal power. Burnet, ii. 388, iii. 269.
Strype says, the universities were so addicted to popery that for some years few educated in them were ordained. Life of Grindal, p. 50. And Wood's Antiquities of the University of Oxford contain many proofs of its attachment to the old religion. In Exeter College, as late as 1578, there were not above four protestants out of eighty, "all the rest secret or open Roman affectionaries." These chiefly came from the west, "where popery greatly prevailed, and the gentry were bred up in that religion." Strype's Annals, ii. 539. But afterwards, Wood complains, "through the influence of Humphrey and Reynolds (the latter of whom became divinity lecturer on Secretary Walsingham's foundation in 1586), the disposition of the times, and the long continuance of the Earl of Leicester, the principal patron of the puritanical faction, in the place of Chancellor of Oxford, the face of the university was so much altered that there was little to be seen in it of the church of England, according to the principles and positions upon which it was first reformed." Hist. of Oxford, vol. ii. p. 228. Previously, however, to this change towards puritanism, the university had not been Anglican, but popish; which Wood liked much better than the first, and nearly as well as the second.
A letter from the University of Oxford to Elizabeth on her accession (Hearne's edition of Roper's Life of More, p. 173) shows the accommodating character of these academies. They extol Mary as an excellent queen, but are consoled by the thought of her excellent successor. One sentence is curious: "Cum patri, fratri, sorori, nihil fuerit republicâ carius, religione optatius, verâ gloriâ dulcius; cum in hâc familiâ hæ laudes floruerint, vehementer confidimus, etc., quæ ejusdem stirpis sis, easdem cupidissime prosecuturam." It was a singular strain of complaisance to praise Henry's, Edward's, and Mary's religious sentiments in the same breath; but the queen might at least learn this from it, that whether she fixed on one of their creeds, or devised a new one for herself, she was sure of the acquiescence of this ancient and learned body. A preceding letter to Cardinal Pole, in which the times of Henry and Edward are treated more cavalierly, seems by the style, which is very elegant, to have been the production of the same pen.
[297] The fellows and scholars of St. John's College, to the number of three hundred, threw off their hoods and surplices, in 1565, without any opposition from the master, till Cecil, as chancellor of the university, took up the matter, and insisted on their conformity to the established regulations. This gave much dissatisfaction to the university; not only the more intemperate party, but many heads of colleges and grave men, among whom we are rather surprised to find the name of Whitgift, interceding with their chancellor for some mitigation as to these unpalatable observances. Strype's Annals, i. 441; Life of Parker, 194. Cambridge had, however, her catholics, as Oxford had her puritans, of whom Dr. Caius, founder of the college that bears his name, was among the most remarkable. Id. 200. The Chancellors of Oxford and Cambridge, Leicester and Cecil, kept a very strict hand over them, especially the latter, who seems to have acted as paramount visitor over every college, making them reverse any act which he disapproved. Strype, passim.
[298] Strype's Annals, i. 583; Life of Parker, 312, 347; Life of Whitgift, 27.
[299] Cartwright's Admonition, quoted in Neal's Hist. of Puritans, i. 88.
[300] Madox's Vindication of Church of England against Neal, p. 122. This writer quotes several very extravagant passages from Cartwright, which go to prove irresistibly that he would have made no compromise short of the overthrow of the established church. P. 111, etc. "As to you, dear brethren," is said in a puritan tract of 1570, "whom God hath called into the brunt of the battle, the Lord keep you constant, that ye yield neither to toleration, neither to any other subtle persuasions of dispensations and licences, which were to fortify their Romish practices; but, as you fight the Lord's fight, be valiant." Madox, p. 287.
[301] These principles had already been broached by those who called Calvin master; he had himself become a sort of prophet-king at Geneva. And Collier quotes passages from Knox's Second Blast, inconsistent with any government, except one slavishly subservient to the church. P. 444. The nonjuring historian holds out the hand of fellowship to the puritans he abhors, when they preach up ecclesiastical independence. Collier liked the royal supremacy as little as Cartwright; and in giving an account of Bancroft's attack on the nonconformists for denying it, enters upon a long discussion in favour of an absolute emancipation from the control of laymen. P. 610. He does not even approve the determination of the judges in Cawdrey's case (5 Coke's Reports), though against the nonconformists, as proceeding on a wrong principle of setting up the state above the church. P. 634.
[302] The school of Cartwright were as little disposed as the episcopalians to see the laity fatten on church property. Bancroft, in his famous sermon preached at Paul's Cross in 1588 (p. 24), divides the puritans into the clergy factious, and the lay factious. The former, he says, contend and lay it down in their supplication to parliament in 1585, that things once dedicated to a sacred use ought so to remain for ever, and not to be converted to any private use. The lay, on the contrary, think it enough for the clergy to fare as the apostles did. Cartwright did not spare those who longed to pull down bishoprics for the sake of plundering them, and charged those who held impropriations with sin. Bancroft takes delight in quoting his bitter phrases from the ecclesiastical discipline.