Cambridge Papers. W. W. Rouse Ball
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of their property was openly advocated by politicians at court, and naturally great alarm was felt when in 1544 an Act3 was passed empowering the king to dissolve any college at either university, and appropriate its possessions.
The universities were right in thinking that the danger was pressing, for Parker, who played a leading part in the affair, has put on record4 the fact that after the passing of the Act certain courtiers importunately sued the king to have the possessions of both bodies surveyed, meaning afterwards to obtain the same on easy terms. In these circumstances the Cambridge authorities, says Strype, “looked about them and made all the friends they could at court to save themselves.” In particular they urgently begged the aid of two of their professors, John Cheke, then acting as tutor to the prince of Wales, and Thomas Smith, then clerk to the queen’s council. Here is the letter5 of the senate to Smith on the subject:
Si tu is es, Clarissime Smithe, in quem Academia haec Cantabrigiensis universas vires suas, universa pietatis jura [5] exercuerit, si tibi uni omnia doctrinae suae genera, omnia reipub. ornamenta libentissime contulerit, si fructum gloriae suae in te uno jactaverit, si spem salutis suae in te potissimum reposuerit: age ergo, et mente ac cogitatione tua complectere, quid tu vicissim illi debes, quid illa, quid literae, quid respublica, quid Deus ipse pro tantis pietatis officiis, quibus sic dignitas tua efflorescit, justissime requirit: Academia nil debet tibi, imo omnia sua in te transfudit. Et propterea abs te non simpliciter petit beneficium, sed merito repetit officium: nec unam aliquam causam tibi proponit, sed sua omnia, et seipsam tibi committit. Nec sua necesse habet aperire tibi consilia, quorum recessus et diverticula nosti universa. Age igitur quod scis, et velis quod potes, et perfice quod debes. Sic literis, academiae, reipublicae, et religioni; sic Christo et Principi rem debitam et expectatam efficies. Jesus te diutissime servet incolumem.
Parker tells us that the London friends of the University, among whom Smith and Cheke were doubtless conspicuous, wisely took the line of welcoming an enquiry, but begged the king to avoid the expense of a costly investigation. Their representations were successful, and he issued a commission6 dated 16 January 1546 to Matthew Parker (then vice-chancellor, and later archbishop of Canterbury), John Redman (warden of King’s Hall, chaplain to the king, and later master of Trinity), and William Mey (president of Queens’, and later archbishop-elect of York) to report to him on the [6] revenues of the colleges and the numbers of students sustained therewith. The commissioners were capable and friendly.
The king must have been impatient to know the facts, for in less than a week, on 21 January, he ordered Parker to come to Hampton Court with the report. Immediate compliance was impossible, but the command may well have stimulated the commissioners to act as rapidly as possible. In fact they obtained the services of eleven clerks from the Court of Augmentations in London, and at once set to work to collect information.
The University was keenly alive to the risks it was incurring. To placate the king, the senate, on 13 February, put all its belongings at his service, and when forwarding a copy of the grace to Secretary Sir William Paget it reminded him of the value of the University to the state, and begged his protection. At the same time it addressed the queen, Katharine Parr, through Thomas Smith, imploring her advocacy.7
The queen replied8 on 26 February. After complaining that he had written to her in Latin, though he could equally well have expressed himself in the vulgar tongue, she discoursed at length on the duties of members of the University, and, saying that [7] she was confident that her wishes in these respects would be fulfilled, she concluded her letter as follows:
I (according to your desires) have attempted my lord the King’s Majesty, for the establishment of your livelihood and possessions: in which, notwithstanding his Majesty’s property and interest, through the consent of the high court of parliament, his Highness being such a patron to good learning, doth tender you so much, that he will rather advance learning and erect new occasion thereof than [to] confound those your ancient and godly institutions, so that learning may hereafter justly ascribe her very original whole conservation and sure stay to our Sovereign Lord.
This was good news, and things now moved rapidly. By the end of February the commissioners had drawn up a detailed report giving the information required. It is printed9 at length in the Cambridge Documents, 1852, and occupies nearly 200 pages.
The commissioners in person presented to the king at Hampton Court a brief summary of this report. We do not know the date of this interview, but conjecturally it may be put as being early in March. Parker has left10 in his own handwriting a full account of their reception as follows:
In the end, the said commissioners resorted up to Hampton Court to present to the King a brief summary written in a fair sheet of vellum (which very book is yet [8] reserved in the college of Corpus Christi) describing the revenues, the reprises, the allowances, and number and stipend of every College. Which book the King diligently perused; and in a certain admiration said to certain of his lords which stood by, that he thought he had not in his realm so many persons so honestly maintained in living by so little land and rent: and where he asked of us what it meant that the most part of Colleges should seem to expend yearly more than their revenues amounted to; we answered that it rose partly of fines for leases and indentures of the farmers renewing their leases, partly of wood sales: whereupon he said to the lords, that pity it were these lands should be altered to make them worse; (at which words some were grieved, for that they disappointed lupos quosdam hiantes). In fine, we sued to the King’s Majesty to be so gracious lord, that he would favour us in the continuance of our possessions such as they were, and that no man by his grace’s letters should require to permute with us to give us worse. He made answer and smiled, that he could not but write for his servants and others, doing the service for the realm in wars and other affairs, but he said he would put us to our choice whether we should gratify them or no, and bade us hold our own, for after his writing he would force us no further. With which words we were well armed, and so departed.
This important interview was followed by a rumour that it was Henry’s intention to found at Cambridge a new and magnificent college to serve as an enduring record of his interest in learning, and perhaps the University may have taken the queen’s letter as indicating what was coming. It is believed that Henry had long entertained vague [9] ideas of the kind, but that the definite suggestion, which was encouraged by the queen, originated with Redman, who, as royal chaplain, had constant access to the king and considerable influence with him.
The preparations for Henry’s proposed foundation were made with extreme speed: a wise course in view of his failing health and variable temper. It was decided to take advantage of the Act of 1544 and suppress King’s Hall and Michael-House, using their grounds and adjoining property as the site of the new college. We have no reference to the appointment of commissioners for the business, though there is an allusion, quoted later, to receivers: perhaps the matter was left in the hands of the officials of the Court of Augmentations. Redman was the chief authority at Cambridge in the arrangements that had to be made there, and it was intended that he should be the first master of the new college when it was founded.
The two Societies above mentioned were (save for Peterhouse) the oldest in the University. To Trinity men their history has, naturally, great interest, and I interpolate a few remarks on this and their position in 1546.
The King’s Scholars, normally thirty-two in number and of all ages from fourteen upwards, were established by Edward II under a warden in 1317 and incorporated in 1337. They had for their [10] original home a large house (King’s Hall) situated on the grass plot and walk in front of the present chapel, and rapidly acquired all the adjacent land between the High Street (now known as Trinity Street) and the river, extending their buildings in various