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.[1]
'Given under our hand and seal, at our Castle of Windsor.
'Henry R.'[2]
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
