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The University of Cambridge and the Chantries Act of 1545
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2022
Abstract
This article calls into question a story that has become part of the folklore and indeed the official history of Cambridge University. Supposedly, the passage of the Chantries Act posed a threat to university colleges which was averted by the lobbying of Cambridge academics early in 1546, and this adroit intervention inspired Henry VIII to found new colleges at Oxford and Cambridge. Close reading of the sources, however, indicates that the universities were singled out for special treatment from the start and that Henry's new foundations were in his mind before the Chantries Act was passed.
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Footnotes
I should like to thank the Donnelley Fellow Librarian, Dr Philippa Hoskin, and the staff of the Parker Library at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, for allowing me to consult Parker's papers on the valuation of the colleges. My thanks are also due to Mr C. D. C. Armstrong for many discussions of the foundation of Trinity College, Cambridge, and to the anonymous reader for this Journal, who corrected a particularly egregious blunder and made a number of helpful suggestions, most notably on Sir Edward North.
References
1 37 Henry VIII, c. 4. See Statutes made in the parliament, holden at Westminster in the .xxxvii. yere of the reygne of the moste renowned HENRY the eyght, London 1546 (RSTC 9412), sigs A5r–B5r.
2 C. N. L. Brooke, ‘Prologue: Cambridge saved’, in Victor Morgan, A history of the University of Cambridge, II: 1546–1750, Cambridge 2004, 1–12; Trevelyan, G. M., Trinity College: an historical sketch, Cambridge 1943, 9–10Google Scholar; Dawson, Jane E. A., ‘The foundation of Christ Church, Oxford and Trinity College, Cambridge in 1546’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research lvii (1984), 208–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Loewe, J. Andreas, ‘Cambridge's collegiate crisis: King Henry viii and the suppression of colleges, 1546’, Reformation and Renaissance Review xi (2009), 139–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 See Christopher Haigh, 1546, before and after the making of Christ Church, Oxford 1996, 4–5. I should like to thank Mr C. D. C. Armstrong for bringing this to my attention.
4 See Mullinger, J. B., The University of Cambridge from the royal injunctions of 1535 to the accession of Charles the First, Cambridge 1884, 76–86Google Scholar.
5 See A collection of letters, statutes, and other documents, from the MS. library of Corpus Christ. Coll., ed. J. Lamb, London 1838, 58–60, and Correspondence of Matthew Parker, ed. J. Bruce and T. Thomason Perowne, Cambridge 1853, 34–7.
6 Strype, John, The life and acts of Matthew Parker, London 1711, 15Google Scholar.
7 Thomas Fuller, The church-history of Britain, VI Book: the history of abbeys, London 1656 (Wing F.2417), 350.
8 Idem, The history of the University of Cambridge since the conquest, Cambridge 1655, 121–2.
9 Edward Herbert, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, The life and raigne of King Henry the Eighth, London 1649 (Wing H.1504), 537–8. Herbert's account is based on letters found in the state papers. He cites letters to the king from both Cambridge and Oxford (which he dates respectively 14 and 19 February 1546, apparently misdating the Cambridge letter of 13 February, L&P xxi/1, nos 203, 244), a letter to William Paget from Richard Cox (12 Oct. 1546, L&P xxi/2, no. 260) and a letter of thanks from Oxford (23 Oct. 1546, L&P xxi/2, no. 296). See below for discussion of the letters of February 1546.
10 L&P xxi/1, no. 302, grant 30, for the 24 commissions, each covering several counties.
11 PRO, SP4/1, entries 77, 78 (L&P xxi/1, no. 148, entries 77, 78), record the authorisation by the dry stamp, under the date 16 January 1546, of letters to the vice-chancellors of Oxford and Cambridge. The letter to Cambridge survives as CCCC, ms 108, p. 448, and was ‘yeven under our signet at our honour of Hampton Courte the xvjth of January in the xxvijth yere of our Reigne’: Correspondence of Matthew Parker, 35 n. 1.
12 Francis Van der Delft to Charles v, London, 9 Feb. 1546, L&P xxi/1, no. 37.
13 Stephen Gardiner to Paget, Utrecht, 17 Jan. 1546, in The letters of Stephen Gardiner, ed. J. A. Muller, Cambridge 1933, no. 101, pp. 218–19.
14 Brooke, ‘Prologue: Cambridge saved’, 7.
15 ‘The evidence is such as to leave little doubt that it was to Smith's exertions that Cambridge, at this juncture, was indebted for its escape from imminent peril’: Mullinger, University of Cambridge from the royal injunctions of 1535, 77. Mary Dewar follows Mullinger, though she notes, without commenting on its implications for Smith's supposed status as a courtier, that the accounts of Queens’ College showed him active there as its vice-president: Sir Thomas Smith: a Tudor intellectual in office, London 1964, 23–5. Dawson in turn follows Dewar in crediting Smith with a decisive role in the story: ‘Foundation of Christ Church’, 213. Loewe has the university lobbying Smith and Cheke, as men now at court: ‘Cambridge's collegiate crisis’, 151–2. Mullinger's error lives on in Smith's ODNB entry: Ian W. Archer, ‘Smith, Sir Thomas (1513–1577)’, <https://doi-org.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/10.1093/ref:odnb/25906.
16 Mullinger refers to ‘Ascham, Epist. 223–4’. This is Rogeri Aschami epistolarum, libri quatuor, Oxford 1703, 223–24, printing under 1546 the letters later dated by Giles, more plausibly, to 1547. See The whole works of Roger Ascham, ed. J. A. Giles, London 1865, i/1, 108–11, letters 56, 57.
17 This sketchy itinerary of Edward's household is based on his letters as calendared in L&P xxi.
18 Grace book Δ, ed. J. Venn, Cambridge 1910, 37–8. One of these tasks was clearly near the start of the year (p. 37), and another two clearly near its end (p. 38). For Smith's commons in 1546 see QCA, Journale III (CUL, ms QCV.3), fo. 128v, for an entry noting payments made ‘per integrum annum et pro absentia tempore pestis’, amounting to 50s. 1½d.
19 QCA, Journale III (CUL ms QCV.3), fo. 138r, has an entry for 10s. 2d. ‘pro expensis magistri D. Smyth & magistri Horne, miss[orum] londinum in negociis academiae’ (the smudged ending of ‘miss[orum]’ is here supplied by conjecture).
20 Ibid. fo. 142v, recording 27s. 4d. for Smith's commons, with the revealing (if ungrammatical) words ‘per eius absentia’ [sic]. His name is no longer found in the records for payments of commons in the following year (fo. 151v). See Dewar, Sir Thomas Smith, 26–7.
21 See Grace book Δ, 37–8. In between these entries, Mr Swynburne (Roland Swynburne, Master of St Catharine's) and Mr Langdale (Alban Langdale of St John's) are authorised to search in the university muniments for papers relating to the foundation that funded the university chaplain, in order to show them to ‘the commissioners’. This confirms that the business in hand here related to Parker's commission.
22 Richard Taverner to Matthew Parker, Hampton Court, 21 Jan. 1546, BL, ms Add. 19,400, fo. 23r (L&P xxi/1, no. 101).
23 CCCC, ms 108, p. 457. The memorandum is entitled ‘The repayre vp of M. parker. W. Maye: after surveye to the kinges majestie’. Parker has squeezed his account into one blank side of paper.
24 Ibid. If this note had been written in 1546, Parker would have described Redman as Warden of King's Hall.
25 For the dry stamp see D. Starkey, ‘Intimacy and innovation: the rise of the Privy Chamber, 1485–1547’, in D. Starkey and others, The English court from the Wars of the Roses to the Civil War, London 1987, 71–118 at p. 100.
26 L&P xxi/1, no. 148, entries 77, 78, record the authorisation by the dry stamp, under the date 16 January 1546, of letters to the vice-chancellors of Oxford and Cambridge.
27 ‘Item pro magno lupo, tenca, Cygno et vino confecto datis magtris north et lee – xvs viijd; Item datum in regardes bartholomeo quando attulit Commissio D. vicecancellario et d. Redmaine et mey – vs.’: CUA U. Ac. 2 (1), University accounts from Michaelmas 1544 onwards, fo. 7v.
28 L&P xxi/1, no. 1538, p. 771, notes William Lee's resignation from this office on 28 November 1546.
29 Dowling, Maria, Humanism in the age of Henry VIII, London 1986, 62–3Google Scholar, 115, 123 (Denny), 179, 203 (North).
30 The ODNB entry for Sir Edward North observes that the conjecture regarding his studying at Cambridge depends on his later bequest to Peterhouse: P. R. N. Carter, ‘North, Edward, first Baron North (c. 1504–1564)', <https://doi-org.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/10.1093/ref:odnb/20300>. For Denny and St John's see his entry in the ODNB: Narasingha P. Sil, ‘Denny, Sir Anthony (1501–1549)', <https://doi-org.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/10.1093/ref:odnb/7506>. See also Swensen, Patricia C., ‘Patronage from the Privy Chamber: Sir Anthony Denny and religious reform’, Journal of British Studies xxvii (1988), 25–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar at p. 29, and Dowling, Humanism in the age of Henry VIII, 62, 115, 119, 212, 234.
31 John Leland, Principum, ac illustrium aliquot & eruditorum in Anglia virorum, Encomia, trophaea, genethliaca, & epithalamia, ed. T. Newton, London 1589 (RSTC 1544), 92–3, ‘Ad Antonium Denegum, Equitem’, and 96–7, ‘Ad Eadueardum Northaeum, Equitem’. See especially p. 97: ‘Causidici tu iura fori celebrare parabas, Applausit studiis Granta beata meis. Tempore sic longo disiuncta ita corpora nostra: Praesentes animi conualuere tamen.’
32 CUL, ms Mm.2.23, 110 (St John's), 112 (Peterhouse). ‘Mr Northe’ (probably Lord North's second son, Thomas) was listed there among the current pensioners of Peterhouse, which makes it even less likely that his father would have been overlooked had he really been an alumnus of the college.
33 Leland, Encomia, 99–101 (Paget), 103–5 (Wriothesley) notes that Gardiner was Wriothesley's patron at Cambridge (p. 104), that Paget had been there under Gardiner's aegis, and that Paget had gone there from St Paul's (p. 100).
34 Grace book Δ, 37.
35 Gardiner was at Eeklo in West Flanders, heading for Calais, on 11 March: Gardiner to Paget, Eeklo, 11 Mar. 1546, Letters of Stephen Gardiner, no. 109, pp. 241–2. His return was still awaited on 18 March: Cornelius Scepperus to Mary of Hungary, London, 18 Mar. 1546, L&P xxi/1, no. 416. He was definitely back in England by 21 March, when he resumed attendance at the Privy Council at Greenwich: Acts of the Privy Council of England, ed. J. R. Dasent, London 1890– , i. 351.
36 University of Cambridge to Gardiner, Cambridge, n.d. [late Mar. 1546], The whole works of Roger Ascham, i/1, 95–7, esp. p. 95.
37 Dawson, ‘Foundation of Christ Church’, 209 and n. 9.
38 In the dry stamp book, the last day on which business was done at Hampton Court was 24 January, and the next day on which business was done after that, 30 January, was the first day business was done at Westminster: PRO, SP4/1, fo. 72. The letters patent founding Christ Church, which went under the Great Seal only on 4 November 1546, said that they were authorised by a decision of 26 January 1546 taken at Hampton Court (L&P xxi/2, no. 476, grant 9). No trace of that decision is found in the dry stamp book.
39 Thomas Goodrich to Parker, John Redman, and William May, Downham, 1 Feb. 1546, BL, ms Add. 19,400, fo. 24r (L&P xxi/1, no. 152).
40 PRO, E315/440, ‘Status or Declaration of all spiritual or temporal possessions … in the University of Cambridge’, 91 parchment folios. A full transcript is found in Documents relating to the university and colleges of Cambridge, London 1852, i. 105–294. Parker, Redman and May signed personally at the end of each college's financial statement. See, for example, fos 5v (Peterhouse) and 27v (King's Hall). See CCCC, ms 108, 448 for the quotation.
41 PRO, E315/440, for example fos 33r (St John's) and 46r (Corpus Christi).
42 ‘Memorandum quod desunt quatuor socij sed mox eligendi’: PRO, E315/440, fo. 37v (Documents relating to … Cambridge, i. 178). In the event, there were no Fellowship elections at St John's in 1546. SJCA, D106.17, fos 247r–248v show that four new Fellows were elected in March 1545; but fos 288r–289v show that no new Fellows joined the college in 1546. SJCA, D106.18, fos 24r–25v show that a bumper ten new Fellows were elected in March 1547, compensating for the fallow year before. For the date of Fellowship elections see Early statutes of St John's College, Cambridge, ed. J. E. B. Mayor, Cambridge 1859, 53.
43 PRO, SP4/1, 3 Jan. 1546, entry 15 (LP xxi/1, no. 148, entry 15). Rudd had gained his MA in 1542. See Grace book Γ, ed. W. G. Searle, Cambridge 1908, 363.
44 John Twigg, A history of Queens’ College, Cambridge, 1448–1986, Woodbridge 1987, 65–6.
45 CCCC, ms 108, 489–511, 517–32, 537–58, appear to be working papers for the report, though this inference might bear further investigation.
46 Grace book Δ, 38.
47 University of Cambridge to Henry viii and to Paget, Cambridge, 13 Feb. [1546], PRO, SP1/214, fos 53r, 54r–v (L&P xxi/1, nos 203, 204). Both letters are endorsed ‘1545’ in a contemporary hand, by someone evidently following the ‘old style’ calendar.
48 Queen Katherine to the University of Cambridge, Greenwich, 26 Feb. 1546, CCCC ms 106, 508–9 at p. 509. See also Correspondence of Matthew Parker, 36–7 n. 1.
49 Parker's memorandum, CCCC, ms 108, 457.
50 See PRO, SP4/1, entry 134, 30 Jan. 1546 (L&P xxi/1, no. 148, entry 134), which refers to a warrant authorising the Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations to appropriate to the Dean and Chapter of St Paul's benefices to the value of £60 a year in compensation for the manor of West Drayton (Middlesex), which they had granted to Paget. PRO SP4/1, 8 Apr. 1546, entry 55 (L&P xxi/1, no. 650, entry 55), is another dry stamp record relating to the ‘exchange of Poules with Sir William Pagett for Drayton’: LP xxi/1, no. 716, grant 16, summarises the letters patent (delivered 15 Apr. 1546) by which Henry bestowed the manor of West Drayton upon him.
51 CCCC, ms 106, 509 (Correspondence of Matthew Parker, 37).
52 Haigh, Christ Church, 3–5.
53 L&P xxi/2, no. 476, grant 9; xxi/2, no. 648, grant 25.
54 PRO, SP4/1, Oct. 1546, entries 29 and 30 (L&P xxi/2, no. 331, entries 29, 30), respectively authorise the foundation and endowment of Trinity College. The letters patent themselves are calendared at L&P xxi/2, no. 648, grants 43, 51, on 19, 24 Dec. 1546.
55 University of Oxford to Henry viii, Oxford, 19 Feb. 1546, SP1/214, fo. 110r–v (L&P xxi/1, no. 244).
56 PRO, SP4/1, Dec. 1546, fo. 107, entries 25, 26 (L&P xxi/2, no. 647, entries 25, 26). Given their immediate proximity in the register, they were presumably issued on the same day.
57 See Logan, F. D., ‘The first royal visitation of the English universities, 1535’, English Historical Review cvi (1991), 861–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar at p. 870 for the lobbying of both universities against these levies in 1535; and 887 for the act of 1536 (27 Henry VIII, c. 42) which granted them the desired exemption and the introduction of the king's readers.
58 Haigh, Christ Church, 4–5, 6.
59 PRO, E315/254, fo. 118, records payments of £231 13s. 4d. to William Heynes (118r) and of £208 to John Redman (118v), on warrants dated respectively 28 November and 11 December 1545. These payments are calendared at L&P xxi/1, no. 643. Further payments (from E 315/255) are calendared at L&P xxi/2, no. 775 for May 1546 (p. 446), Sept. 1546 (p. 448), Dec. 1546 (p. 450) and the early months of 1547 (pp. 450–1).