s were very feeble....
Gladstone's was very powerful; he said, in the most effective manner,
anything which could be said against the commission. His allusion to
Peel was very touching, and the House responded to it by profound and
sympathetic silence.... Heywood's closing speech was happily drowned in
the roar of "Divide," so that nothing could be heard save the name of
"Cardinal Wolsey" thrice repeated.'[318] The final division was taken on
the question of the adjournment, when the government had a majority of
22. (July 18, 1850.)

II

REPORT OF THE COMMISSION

In Oxford the party of 'organised torpor' did not yield without a
struggle. They were clamorous on the sanctity of property; contemptuous
of the doctrine of the rights of parliament over national domains; and
protestant collegians subsisting on ancient Roman catholic endowments
edified the world on the iniquity of setting aside the pious founder.
They submitted an elaborate case to the most eminent counsel of the day,
and counsel advised that the commission was not constitutional, not
legal, and not such as the members of the university were bound to obey.
The question of duty apart from legal obligation the lawyers did not
answer, but they suggested that a petition might be addressed to the
crown, praying that the instrument might be cancelled. The petition was
duly prepared, and duly made no difference. Many of the academic
authorities were recalcitrant, but this made no difference either, nor
did the Bishop of Exeter's hot declaration that the proceeding had 'no
parallel since the fatal attempt of King James II. to subject the
colleges to his unhallowed control.' The commissioners, of whom Tait and
Jeune seem to have been the leading spirits, with Stanley and Mr.
Goldwin Smith for secretaries, conducted their operations with tact,
good sense, and zeal. At the end of two years (April 1852) the inquiry
was completed and the report made public--one of the high landmarks in
the history of our modern English life and growth. 'When you consider,'
Stanley said to Jowett, 'the den of lions through which the raw material
had to be dragged, much will be excused. In fact the great work was to
finish it at all. There is a harsh, unfriendly tone about the whole
which ought, under better circumstances, to have been avoided, but which
may, perhaps, have the advantage of propitiating the radicals.'[319]

Mr.