The Dominicans at Cambridge

Extract

It is seventeen years since Blackfriars, then in its infancy, welcomed the return of the Dominicans to Oxford, and it now has the added joy of welcoming the return of the Friar- Preachers to the sister University. It is an interesting coincidence that the original foundation at Cambridge, in 1238, also took place seventeen years after the first foundation at Oxford. Both were suppressed by Henry VIII in 1538, so that Cambridge has been just four centuries without resident Dominicans, though many well-known friars have worked there individually as preachers and lecturers in the last few years. Not a few Cambridge men, moreover, have entered the Order since the suppression in 1538, the most famous being Thomas Heskins who ruled the English Friars as Vicar-Provincial during Elizabeth’s reign. He was one of the foremost champions of the Catholic cause and his well- known book, The Parliament of Christ, written in defence of the Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament, brought on him the unwelcome attention of the government. About 1566 the authorities were seeking him in Cambridge. One of the succeeding Vicars-General, Cardinal Philip Howard, who did so much for the Province in penal times, was as a youth entered by his parents at St. John’s College, Cambridge, but the outbreak of the Civil War between Charles I and the Parliament brought his stay to an abrupt end, his parents sending him for safety into Flanders.