"We will and command you," he said, "that ye, not leaning to wilful and sinister opinions of your own several minds, considering that we be your sovereign liege lord [and] totally giving your time, mind, and affections to the true overtures of divine learning in this behalf, do show and declare your true and just learning in the said cause, like as ye will abide by: wherein ye shall not only please Almighty God, but also us your liege lord. And we, for your so doing, shall be to you and to our university there so good and gracious a lord for the same, as ye shall perceive it well done in your well fortune to come. And in case you do not uprightly, according to divine learning, handle yourselves herein, ye may be assured that we, not without great cause, shall so quickly and sharply look to your unnatural misdemeanour herein, that it shall not be to your quietness and ease hereafter."[275] The admonitory clauses were sufficiently clear; they were scarcely needed, however, by the older members of the university. An enlarged experience of the world which years, at Oxford as well as elsewhere, had not failed to bring with them, a just apprehension of the condition of the kingdom, and a sense of the obligations of subjects in times of political difficulty, sufficed to reconcile the heads of the colleges to obedience; and threats were not required where it is unlikely that a thought of hesitation was entertained. But there was a class of residents which appears to be perennial in that university, composed out of the younger masters; a class of men who, defective alike in age, in wisdom, or in knowledge, were distinguished by a species of theoretic High Church fanaticism; who, until they received their natural correction from advancing years, required from time to time to be protected against their own extravagance by some form of external pressure. These were the persons whom the king was addressing in his more severe language, and it was not without reason that he had recourse to it.
In order to avoid difficulty, and to secure a swift and convenient resolution, it was proposed that both at Oxford and Cambridge the universities should be represented by a committee composed of the heads of houses, the proctors, and the
graduates in divinity and law: that this committee should agree upon a form of a reply; and that the university seal should then be affixed without further discussion. This proposition was plausible as well as prudent, for it might be supposed reasonably that young half-educated students were incapable of forming a judgment on an intricate point of law; and to admit their votes was equivalent to allowing judgment to be given by party feeling. The masters who were to be thus excluded refused however to entertain this view of their incapacity. The question whether the committee should be appointed was referred to convocation, where, having the advantage of numbers, they coerced the entire proceedings; and some of them "expressing themselves in a very forward manner" to the royal commissioners,[276] and the heads of houses being embarrassed, and not well knowing what to do, the king found it necessary again to interpose. He was unwilling, as he said, to violate the constitution of the university by open interference, "considering it to exist under grant and charter from the crown as a body politic, in the ruling whereof in things to be done in the name of the whole, the number of private suffrages doth prevail." "He was loth, too," he added, "to show his displeasure, whereof he had so great cause ministered unto him, unto the whole in general, whereas the fault perchance consisted and remained in light and wilful heads," and he trusted that it might suffice if the masters of the colleges used their private influence and authority[277] in overcoming the opposition. For the effecting of this purpose, however, and in order to lend weight to their persuasion, he assisted the convocation towards a conclusion with the following characteristic missive:—
"To our trusty and well-beloved the heads of houses, doctors, and proctors of our University of Oxford:
"Trusty and well-beloved, we greet you well; and of late being informed, to our no little marvel and discontentation, that a great part of the youth of that our university, with contentious and factious manner daily combining together, neither regarding their duty to us their sovereign lord, nor yet conforming themselves to the opinions and orders of the virtuous, wise, sage, and profound learned men of that university, wilfully do stick upon the opinion to have a great number of regents and non-regents to be associate unto the doctors, proctors, and bachelors of divinity for the determination of our question; which we
believe hath not been often seen, that such a number of right small learning in regard to the other should be joined with so famous a sort, or in a manner stay their seniors in so weighty a cause. And forasmuch as this, we think, should be no small dishonour to our university there, but most especially to you the seniors and rulers of the same; and as also, we assure you, this their unnatural and unkind demeanour is not only right much to our displeasure, but much to be marvelled of, upon what ground and occasion, they being our mere subjects, should show themselves more unkind and wilful in this matter than all other universities, both in this and all other regions do: we, trusting in the dexterity and wisdom of you and other the said discreet and substantial learned men of that university, be in perfect hope that ye will conduce and frame the said young persons unto order and conformity as it becometh you to do. Whereof we be desirous to hear with incontinent diligence; and doubt you not we shall regard the demeanour of every one of the university according to their merits and deserts. And if the youth of the university will play masteries as they begin to do, we doubt not but they shall well perceive that non est bonum irritare crabrones.[278]
"Given under our hand and seal, at our Castle of Windsor,
"HENRY R."[279]
It is scarcely necessary to say, that, armed with this letter, the heads of houses subdued the recalcitrance of the overhasty "youth;" and Oxford duly answered as she was required to answer.
The proceedings at Cambridge were not very dissimilar; but Cambridge being distinguished by greater openness and largeness of mind on this as on the other momentous subjects of the day than the sister university, was able to preserve a more manly bearing, and escape direct humiliation. Cranmer had written a book upon the divorce in the preceding year, which, as coming from a well-known Cambridge man, had occasioned a careful ventilation of the question there; the resident masters had been divided by it into factions nearly equal in number, though unharmoniously composed. The heads of houses, as at Oxford, were inclined to the king, but they were embarrassed and divided by the presence on the same side of the suspected liberals, the party of Shaxton, Latimer, and Cranmer himself.