regulations point to an increase of luxury consequent on the development of colleges, originally designed for the poor but now frequented by a wealthier class. Polemical divinity, stimulated by Peter Martyr's discourses on the Eucharist, continued to flourish; but, with this exception, University studies were languishing, and while foreign divines were being imported into England, Oxford professors of civil law were emigrating to Louvain. The non-collegiate students became fewer and fewer; the most experienced teachers gradually disappeared; the impulse of the Renaissance died away; the new spirit of inquiry failed to supply the place of the old ecclesiastical order; the attractions of trade began to compete with those of learning, and the Universities no longer monopolised the most promising youths in the country who declined the profession of arms. Reaction Martyrdom of Ridley, The accession of Mary, in 1553, ushered in a shortlived reaction. As the leading Romanist divines had quitted Oxford on the proclamation of Edward under Mary. VI., so now the leading Protestants, headed Latimer, and by Peter Martyr, were fain to make their Cranmer escape, though not till after Jewell had been employed to draw up a congratulatory epistle to the Queen, whose policy was not fully revealed at the outset of her reign. Heads and fellows of colleges were released from their obligation to renounce the authority of the Pope, the Mass superseded the Common Prayerbook, and Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, instituted a Visitation of the three colleges under his own personal jurisdiction. After the execution of Lady Jane Grey and the Queen's marriage with Philip II. the spirit of persecution rapidly developed itself, all statutes passed against the Papacy since the twentieth year of Henry VIII. were repealed, the statutes passed against heretics in the reigns of Henry IV. and Henry V. were revived, and Oxford became the scene of those Protestant martyrdoms which have left an indelible impression of horror and sympathy in the English mind. Several victims of Catholic intolerance had already perished at the stake, when Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer were brought to Oxford for the purpose of undergoing the solemn farce of an academical trial, and thus implicating the University in the guilt of their intended condemnation. At a convocation held in St. Mary's Church a body of Oxford doctors was commissioned to dispute against the Protestant bishops on the Eucharist, in concert with a body of Cambridge doctors similarly commissioned. The so-called 'disputation' took place in the Divinity School. A day was assigned to each prisoner, the academical judgment was of course given against them, the judicial sentence soon followed, and on October 15, 1555, Ridley and Latimer were led out to be burned in Canditch, opposite Balliol College, where a sermon was preached before the stake by Dr. Richard Smyth on the text, 'Though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.' Cranmer's execution was delayed for months, since it required the sanction of Rome, and his courage, as is well known, gave way under the fear of death. His recantation came too late to save his life, yet he was called upon to repeat it in St. Mary's Church on his way to his doom. Instead of doing so, he publicly retracted it before the assembled University, with earnest professions of remorse. He was not allowed to conclude his address, but hurried off with brutal eagerness, to give at the stake that marvellous example of heroic constancy which has atoned for all his past errors in the eyes of Protestants, and crowned the martyrdoms of the English Reformation. From that moment the cause of the Catholic reaction was desperate in the University, no less than in the nation. Queen Mary conferred upon it many benefits and favours, and won the servile homage of its official representatives, but she never won the hearts of the students, and the news of her death was received with no less rejoicing in Oxford than in other parts of England. Visitation of Cardinal In the meantime, however, a fresh Visitation of the University was set on foot, in 1556, by Cardinal Pole, who, having succeeded Gardiner as chancellor and reforms of Cambridge in the previous year, now sucPole ceeded Sir John Mason, the first lay chancellor of Oxford. He was the last in that line of cardinals, beginning with Beaufort, who, armed with the title of Legatus à latere, assumed to govern the English Church, as it had never been governed before, under the direct orders of the Pope. The Visitors deputed by him proceeded to hunt out certain obnoxious persons who had not withdrawn from Oxford, to burn all the English Bibles which they could find in the common market-place, and to purge the libraries of Protestant books. The Cardinal soon afterwards caused the University and college statutes to be revised, chiefly for the purpose of correcting recent innovations. For instance, while Edward VI.'s commissioners had authorised the use of English in college halls, Cardinal Pole restored the old rule against speaking any language but Latin. It was also an avowed object of the revision to restore the supremacy of Aristotle and the study of scholastic philosophy. These changes, having scarcely been effected before they were reversed, fill less space in University annals than an incident of comparatively trivial importance, which must have outraged the Protestant sympathies of the Oxford townspeople. The wife of Peter Martyr had been interred in Christchurch Cathedral, near the relics of St. Frideswide. Pole now directed the dean, no unwilling agent, to exhume the body and cast it into unconsecrated ground. The Dean improved upon his instructions by having it buried under a dunghill, whence it was again disinterred, mingled with the relics of St. Frideswide, and finally committed to the grave in the year 1561. No wonder that Queen Mary's patronage proved a poor substitute for academical freedom, that learning continued to decline, that even sermons were rare and illattended, that lectures were almost suspended, that few 'proceeded' in any of the faculties, and that it was thought necessary to reduce the qualification of standing for the M.A. degree in order to reinforce the University with Masters. of Trinity and St. Two colleges, it is true, Trinity and St. John's, owe their origin to Mary's reign, and both were founded Foundation by Roman Catholics, but upon the ruins of monastic institutions, and before the Marian Colleges persecutions had borne fruit in the University. These colleges, as semi-Catholic foundations of the Reformation era, may fitly be regarded as forming landmarks between medieval and modern Oxford. John's CHAPTER VIII. REIGN OF ELIZABETH AND CHANCELLORSHIP OF Visitation under E.izabeth and policy of Archbishop Parker WITH the accession of Elizabeth, in November 1558, the scenes were rapidly shifted, and the parts of the chief actors strangely reversed. For a while, in the quaint language of Anthony Wood, 'two religions being now as 'twere on foot, divers of the chiefest of the University retired and absented themselves till they saw how affairs would proceed.' They had not long to wait. Though she received graciously a deputation from the University, headed by Dr. Tresham, canon of Christchurch, and Dr. Raynolds, Warden of Merton, the Queen lost no time in announcing that she intended to visit it, and made a suspensory order in regard to all academical elections. In June she nominated a body of Visitors to 'make a mild and gentle, not rigorous, reformation.' One of these Visitors was Bishop Cox, of Ely, who had acted in a similar capacity under Edward VI., and the Visitation was conducted on much the same principles, except that it was less destructive. Still, compliance with the Act of Supremacy just passed was strictly enforced, and nine Heads of colleges, as well as the Dean and two canons of Christchurch, proving recusants, were ejected or forced to resign. Among these were Raynolds and Tresham, the former of whom died in prison. A considerable number of fellows are mentioned as having been expelled for refusing the oath, |