ly and sharply
look to your unnatural misdemeanour herein, that it shall not be to your
quietness and ease hereafter."[275] The admonitory clauses were
sufficiently clear; they were scarcely needed, however, by the older
members of the university. An enlarged experience of the world which years,
at Oxford as well as elsewhere, had not failed to bring with them, a just
apprehension of the condition of the kingdom, and a sense of the
obligations of subjects in times of political difficulty, sufficed to
reconcile the heads of the colleges to obedience; and threats were not
required where it is unlikely that a thought of hesitation was entertained.
But there was a class of residents which appears to be perennial in that
university, composed out of the younger masters; a class of men who,
defective alike in age, in wisdom, or in knowledge, were distinguished by a
species of theoretic High Church fanaticism; who, until they received their
natural correction from advancing years, required from time to time to be
protected against their own extravagance by some form of external pressure.
These were the persons whom the king was addressing in his more severe
language, and it was not without reason that he had recourse to it.

In order to avoid difficulty, and to secure a swift and convenient
resolution, it was proposed that both at Oxford and Cambridge the
universities should be represented by a committee composed of the heads of
houses, the proctors, and the graduates in divinity and law: that this
committee should agree upon a form of a reply; and that the university seal
should then be affixed without further discussion. This proposition was
plausible as well as prudent, for it might be supposed reasonably that
young half-educated students were incapable of forming a judgment on an
intricate point of law; and to admit their votes was equivalent to allowing
judgment to be given by party feeling. The masters who were to be thus
excluded refused however to entertain this view of their incapacity. The
question whether the committee should be appointed was referred to
convocation, where, having the advantage of numbers, they coerced the
entire proceedings; and some of them "expressing themselves in a very
forward manner" to the royal commissioners,[276] and the heads of houses
being embarrassed, and not well knowing what to do, the king found it
necessary again to interpose. He was unwilling, as he said, to violate the
constitution