ing sank to an almost lifeless tradition, while the fetters placed upon such discussion provoked from time to time a more or less stubborn resistance and bitter controversies. To silence these controversies, deprivation and expulsion were the ordinary expedients, the victims of which, betaking themselves to distant towns or to the Continent, became the founders of organisations whose whole spirit was conceived in opposition to the creed and teaching of the two English universities. It afforded but a slight counterbalancing influence to these unfriendly communities, that Trinity College, Dublin, founded in 1591, was, as Fuller terms it, colonia deducta from Cambridge, its statutes being modelled on those of the parent university, while its first five provosts were all Cambridge men. Sir Thomas Smith's Act for the maintenance of colleges. From such a retrospect, it is a relief to turn to one ably devised measure which, by its operation, so materially improved the condition of the colleges, that the struggling communities whose condition Latimer and Lever had depicted with so much pathos appeared to Peter Baro and other writers towards the close of the century as already in the possession of abundant revenues. For this change the university was mainly indebted to the foresight and ingenuity of Sir Thomas Smith, who, by the Act for The Maintenance of the Colleges in the Universities,' made it lawful that in all new leases issued by the colleges it should be made obligatory on the lessee to pay 'one-third part at least' of the old rent in corn or in malt.' At the same time, the wheat was never to be reckoned as equivalent in value to more than 6s. 8d. per quarter, nor the barley at more than 5s. The subsequent depreciation in the value of the precious metals, and the rapid rise in the price of corn,-changes which Smith, who was a sagacious economist, had probably to some extent foreseen,-combined to render this proviso an important means of revenue,-the one-third rental payable in corn (which, in conformity with the Act, could only be assessed at a fixed value) rising in time to be a much more fruitful source of income than the remaining two-thirds. Foundation of The foundation of Sidney Sussex College in 1596, by Frances, countess of Sussex, the aunt of Sir Philip Sidney, afforded another outward sign of Sidney Sussex the great revolution of the century, the College, 1596. college having been built on the site of the ancient friary of the Franciscans. In the year 1599 the buildings were completed, and eleven fellows, chosen from different colleges, were appointed. The original statutes were little more than a transcript of those of Emmanuel; but it must not be left unnoted that Sidney was the first Cambridge college which opened its fellowships to students of Scottish or Irish birth,-requiring only that such candidates should previously have studied six years in the university, and should not be below the standing of bachelor of arts. Relations between the The death of Burghley in the year 1599 deprived the university of its best protector; and university and though neither Essex nor Robert Cecil the townsmen. was wanting in solicitous care for its interests, the loss remained irreparable. The promul gation of the Lambeth Articles of 1595 had been followed by a brief lull in theological controversy, succeeded, however, by a long and bitter contention between the academic and the town authorities. The vice-chancellor, Dr. John Jegon, and the Mayor became involved in a singularly undignified dispute concerning precedence. The ill feeling thus excited found notable expression on the part of the students in a college play, entitled Club Law, lampooning the Mayor and the burgesses. If the formal plaint of the latter to the Privy Council is to be trusted, they were not only ridiculed on the stage, but also singled out by the graver members of the community as objects of sarcasm and innuendo in the pulpit,-in publick sermons.' But from these and similar manifestations of feeling, which reflected but little credit on either party, the attention of both the university and the town was now called away by the accession and arrival of the new monarch, and the fresh hopes and expectations to which that event gave rise. CHAPTER VIII. FROM THE DEATH OF ELIZABETH TO THE THE lively expectations formed alike by the Catholic and the Puritan on James' assumption of the royal authority in England were equally doomed to disappointment; but for a few weeks Expectations of parties at the accession of James. the feelings of the Anglican party at Cambridge were those of considerable anxiety. Dr. Neville, the master of Trinity College, who bore the congratulations of the archbishops and bishops to the king in Scotland, was outstripped by the Puritan deputation; and although James' answer was reassuring, there was no little misgiving as to how far other influences might not prevail when he had crossed the Tweed. If the 750 ministers who signed the so-called Millenary Petition could have gained their object, the policy which Whitgift and Burghley had striven to carry into effect would have been reversed, and the colleges at both universities would have suffered a serious diminution in their resources by the restoration of the impropriate tithes to their original use. It was not until after the Hampton Court Conference that the Church party at Oxford and at Cambridge felt that the danger they apprehended was at an end. Archbishop Cambridge. existed. The death of Whitgift, in February 1603-4, was a signal loss to Cambridge, but his place was in a Influence of great measure supplied by Bancroft, between whom and James a perfect understanding appears at this time to have The appearance, in August, of a series of new canons ecclesiastical, imposing uniform compliance in the wearing of the surplice on all colleges and halls, was among the earliest indications of the ascendency of Bancroft's influence. Both Emmanuel and Sidney, sorely against the will alike of their Heads and of the majority of their members, were constrained to give way. 'God grant,' wrote Samuel Ward, the Puritan master of Sidney, in his Diary, that other worse things do not follow the so strict urging of this indifferent ceremony !' In the following year, a further step in the requirement of strict theological conformity was made by the demand of a solemn declaration of adherence to the episcopal form of government, and to the liturgies of the Church of England, from all proceeding to any university degree; while, in 1613, a royal mandate made subscription to the Three Articles peremptory on the part of all admitted to the degree of B.D., or to that of doctor in any faculty. The primary design of these several measures was undoubtedly to strengthen the connection between the Crown and the universities, and to constitute the latter the special guardians of the theory of the royal supremacy in matters of religious belief. In harmony with this aim was the |