n that
much-questioned subject. Never, however, at any period, were the
labouring classes in England more generously protected than in the reign
of Henry VIII.; never did any government strain the power of legislation
more resolutely in their favour; and, I suppose, they would not
themselves object to the reenactment of Henry's penalties against
dishonesty, if they might have with them the shelter of Henry's laws.

[Sidenote: Payment of firstfruits remitted to the Universities.]

The session was drawing to an end. At the close of it, the government
gave one more proof of their goodwill toward any portion of the church
establishment which showed signs of being alive. Duns Scotus being
disposed of in Bocardo, the idle residents being driven away, or
compelled to employ themselves, and the professors' lectures having
recovered their energy, there were hopes of good from Oxford and
Cambridge; and the king conceded for them what the pope had never
conceded, when the power rested with the See of Rome: he remitted
formally by statute the tenths and firstfruits, which the colleges had
paid in common with all other church corporations. "His Majesty is
conscious," says the act which was passed on this occasion,[535] that
the enforcing of the payment of firstfruits against the universities,
"may prejudice learning, and cause the students to give their minds to
other things, which might not be acceptable to God;" and "he has
conceived such hearty love and tender affection to the continuance of
honest and virtuous living, and of the arts and sciences (wherewith it
hath pleased Almighty God abundantly to endow his Highness), as that his
Grace cannot compare the same to any law, constitution, or statute; nor
tolerate any such ordinance, though the commodity and benefit thereof
should never so much redound to his own profit or pleasure, if it may
hinder the advancement and setting forth of the lively word of God,
wherewith his people must be fed; or if it may imperil the knowledge of
such other good letters as in Christian realms is expedient to be
learned. He has therefore,--(for that the students should the more
gladly bend their wits to the attaining of learning, and, before all
things, the learning of the wholesome doctrines of Almighty God, and the
three tongues, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, which be requisite for the
understanding of Scripture,)--thought it convenient" to exonerate the
universities from the payment of firstfruits f