pists and puritans: whether they were, at the time, or may now be the best expedients, to allay dissensions in the university, and to produce harmony in the state, I shall not in this place inquire; though it cannot be out of place to observe, that a writer of some authority in our public schools thinks not. By his royal letters, dated 1604, we find James prohibiting unprofitable and idle games, public plays, or exercises within five miles of Cambridge; and yet in 1614 and 1615 the comedy of Ignoramus was performed by his own order, in his own presence, and by universitymen; and he himself made a riot in the house, by his excessive laughter, because, forsooth, the design of it was to turn into ridicule a lawyer of Cambridge, and, indirectly, the common law of the land; not to say that he himself also sanctioned, the book of SPORTS. So much for his majesty's consistency. His injunctions, &c. sent to the University, were of the same character with his rules and subscriptions, and designed, besides the matter of discipline in the colleges, to prevent Catholics, and more particularly puritans, from becoming members. b What sense James put on these articles, is clearly a matter of but little moment. While he was in Scotland he was Calvinistical.---This appears from his Commentary on the Revelations, and his Psalms, and the disputes which he was fond of settling with divines; and so he continued till towards the close of his reign, when he favoured the a Dr. Paley's Moral Philosophy. b There is a MS. of this in Mareschal College, Aberdeen, partly written by his majesty himself. a Arminians, if not Arminianism. In the famous dispute on the meaning of the thirty-nine articles, (those I mean called the doctrinal articles) stress is wont to be made on the religious sentiments of Queen Elizabeth, and James, with their favourites, the imposers. James was a changeling, not remarkable for his sincerity, and, at all times, an habitual swearer. What signifies it to ascertain the sense such a person put on articles of religious faith? Elizabeth herself, as every body knows, occasionally, used the name of God very irreverently, not to say, blasphemously. • It is Hume who says, though with proper caution, that James I. was insensibly engaged towards the end of his reign to favour the milder theology of Arminius, Hist. Eng. vol. V. p. 572. The evidence however, brought by Mr. Toplady, in his Historic Proof of the Doctrinal Calvinism of the Church of England, vol. 2, sect. xix. shews that James never positively renounced his doctrinal Calvinism. But what matters this? He distinguished his Arminian clergy, because they, at the time, were more favourable to his prerogative. He made Arminian bishops, because they aided him in relieving the Catholics, and preached the divine right of kings: James, therefore, must have sanctioned, whatever might be the original sense of the Articles, an Arminian interpretation of them, to give his clergy a ready access to their preferments. Accordingly, in his directions concerning preachers, the third article is, "that no preacher, of what title soever, under the degree of a bishop, or dean, at the least, do from henceforth, presume to preach, in any popular auditory, the deep points of predestination, &c. See Rushworth's Historical Collections, vol. I, p. 64. James when in Scotland, abused Episcopacy, to humour the Presbyterians; and when in England he avowed, in the Hampton Court Conference, that his humour ing the Presbyterians, when in Scotland, was mere hypocrisy. In short, James was a politician, and would be king in the kirk, or king in church-it was all one-king in the courts, and king in the schools; wherever he was, he would be king. Dr. Laud was one of his favourite bishops; and he, when Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by Charles I. so favoured Arminianism, that it became the public religion of England. b That he was so, when writing godly books in Scotland, hear one of his countrymen, his contemporary and admirer. "He wold make a grate deall too bold with God in his passion, both in cursing and swearing, and one straine higher, verging one blasphemie: bot wold in his better temper say, he hopped God would not impute them as sins, and lay them to his charge, seeing they proceeded from passione." Fragments of Scottish History, p. 87. That he abated not the practice when in this country, his countryman Hume bears testimony, in his History of England, In addition to this royal proceeding, the University, from time to time, had passed various senatus consulta, or graces, tending towards the same point, and, also, relating to the office and appointment of a public orator, the election of scrutators, the time and order for disputations in the public schools, together with the duties of proctors and moderators, and that no graces for any alienations were to pass before they had been read in three congregations, (1612.) Fees for examination to order and rules agreed upon by the Syndics for securing the public library (this was in 1684) and other matters too numerous to be specified here: but one, as more particularly comporting with the object of Queen Elizabeth's statutes, and James's Regiæ Literæ, should not be passed by, namely, the grace de oppugnatoribus ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, concerning oppugners of the church. Another passed July 16, 1603,a and a third, relating to subscription, passed A. 1613, in confirmation of James's orders, &c. Such powers the chancellor has cum consensu totius academia. (Stat. Eliz. cap. 42. sub fin.) * As Hare's dates are often a good guide to me, as far as they go, so from that period down to 1735, are Dr. Parris's, being taken from the vice-chancellors' and proctors' books, and from the grace-books, and other records of the University, and revised and corrected by him with care. Our readers have heard, in the progress of our little history, of the various disputes between the University and town, as also of the memorable award made, at the instance of Lady Margaret. After mentioning the many regulations in the University under Henry the VIIIth. to James the Ist.'s reign, it may not be amiss to make a summary of sundry articles, and the manner in which they were settled, between the University and town. For in 1524 articles of complaint had been made by the town against the University. The vice-chancellor's deputy had punished the mayor, by enjoining him to hold a taper of wax in his hand, while kneeling openly before an image of our Lady as a penitent. His offence was, maintaining the jurisdiction of his mayoralty against the liberties of the University. In 1534 it was decreed by the Lord Chancellor, Archbishop of Canterbury, and other lords commissioners, who met at Lambeth for the purpose, that Sturbridge fair was in the precincts of the university, and that the vice-chancellor might hold a civil court there, for pleas, where a member of the university, or a privileged person, was one of the parties, and that the university should have the inspection of weights and measures, &c. together with the right of punishing forestallers, &c. In the year 1547 a letter was sent from the privy council, ordering, that the mayor and sheriff should acknowledge their offences committed against the proctors in Sturbridge fair, in consequence of not suffering malefactors to be taken to prison, who had been committed by the vice-chancellor. The precedency of the vice-chancellor before the mayor, in all commissions of the peace, and other cases where public shew of degrees was to be made, was also determined, according to the judgment of the Earl Marshal of England; and in James the First's reign there were the king's letters patent, and an order of the lords of the privy council, settling and confirming that precedency, with other matters, that were deemed of importance*. James, having in his own judgment done so much for the University, thought, probably, he should not have done justice to himself, had he not left them a memento of his literature. Among the curious books of the public library is a copy of the Latin Edition of King James's Works; it is bound in velvet and gold, with the king's arms; and was presented by the king himself to the university. On the binding James has written, Jacobus R. D. D. This Latin edition was published in 1616 by Henry Montague, Bishop of Winchester, as before observed. Both the English and Latin Editions have portraits of the monarch, from the same painting, but the inscriptions are different. * Hare, vol. 2, p. 149. Vice-chancellor's copy. The precedency of the vice-chancellor, after some other disturbances, was, at length determined, in the highest court of Appeal, the House of Lords, May 12, 1647. |