irous to hear with incontinent
diligence; and doubt you not we shall regard the demeanour of every one of
the university according to their merits and deserts. And if the youth of
the university will play masteries as they begin to do, we doubt not but
they shall well perceive that non est bonum irritare crabrones.[278]

"Given under our hand and seal, at our Castle of Windsor,

"HENRY R."[279]

It is scarcely necessary to say, that, armed with this letter, the heads of
houses subdued the recalcitrance of the overhasty "youth;" and Oxford duly
answered as she was required to answer.

The proceedings at Cambridge were not very dissimilar; but Cambridge being
distinguished by greater openness and largeness of mind on this as on the
other momentous subjects of the day than the sister university, was able to
preserve a more manly bearing, and escape direct humiliation. Cranmer had
written a book upon the divorce in the preceding year, which, as coming
from a well-known Cambridge man, had occasioned a careful ventilation of
the question there; the resident masters had been divided by it into
factions nearly equal in number, though unharmoniously composed. The heads
of houses, as at Oxford, were inclined to the king, but they were
embarrassed and divided by the presence on the same side of the suspected
liberals, the party of Shaxton, Latimer, and Cranmer himself. The agitation
of many months had rendered all members of the university, young and old,
so well acquainted (as they supposed) with the bearings of the difficulty,
that they naturally resisted, as at the other university, the demand that
their power should be delegated to a committee; and the Cambridge
convocation, as well as that of Oxford, threw out this resolution when it
was first proposed to them. A king's letter having made them more amenable,
a list of the intended committee was drawn out, which, containing Latimer's
name, occasioned a fresh storm. But the number in the senate house being
nearly divided, "the labour of certain friends" turned the scale; the vote
passed, and the committee was allowed, on condition that the question
should be argued publicly in the presence of the whole university. Finally,
judgment was obtained on the king's side, though in a less absolute form
than he had required, and the commissioners did not think it prudent to
press for a more extreme conclusion. They had been desired to pronounce
that the pope had no power to permit a m