liberals, and
angered and dismayed the authorities of the powerful corporations thus
impugned, by the announcement of a commission under the crown to inquire
into their discipline, state, and revenues, and to report whether any
action by crown and parliament could further promote the interests of
religion and sound learning in these venerable shrines. This was the
first step in a long journey towards the nationalisation of the
universities, and the disestablishment of the church of England in what
seemed the best fortified of all her strongholds.

After elaborate correspondence with both liberal and tory sections in
Oxford, Mr. Gladstone rose in his place and denounced the proposed
commission as probably against the law, and certainly odious in the eye
of the constitution. He undertook to tear in tatters the various modern
precedents advanced by the government for their purpose; scouted the
alleged visitorial power of the crown; insisted that it would blight
future munificence; argued that defective instruction with freedom and
self-government would, in the choice of evils, be better than the most
perfect mechanism secured by parliamentary interference; admitted that
what the universities had done for learning was perhaps less than it
might have been, but they had done as much as answered the circumstances
and exigencies of the country. When we looked at the lawyers, the
divines, the statesmen of England, even if some might judge them
inferior in mere scholastic and technical acquirements, why need we be
ashamed of the cradles in which they were mainly nurtured? He closed
with a triumphant and moving reference to Peel (dead a fortnight
before), the most distinguished son of Oxford in the present century,
and beyond all other men the high representative and the true type of
the genius of the British House of Commons.[316] In truth no worse case
was ever more strongly argued, and fortunately the speech is to be
recorded as the last manifesto, on a high theme and on a broad scale, of
that toryism from which this wonderful pilgrim had started on his
shining progress. It is just to add that the party in Oxford who
resisted the commission was also the party most opposed to Mr.
Gladstone, and further that the view of the crown having no right to
issue such a commission _in invitos_ was shared with him by Sir Robert
Peel.[317] Of this debate, Arthur Stanley (a strong supporter of the
measure), tells us: 'The ministerial speeche