Introduction

Summary

In the archive, in Sidney Sussex College, in Cambridge, among the account books, the records of college business, and the collections of private papers, a letter is kept. It was written in 1633, by a man called John Pocklington, a former member of the college, and it offered a benefaction. Cambridge colleges are usually rather charming to their old members and they become utterly craven when there might be money in the association. Perhaps that accounts for the fact that this extraordinary letter survives. In truth, Pocklington had no intention whatsoever of giving anything to Sidney Sussex except offence. He loathed the place and he had abandoned it as soon as he had had a better offer from Pembroke College. The letter he wrote, to the master and fellows, was an elaborate, academic, practical joke, a tease with no kindness intended. Pocklington claimed to be offering to endow a college lectureship, but in truth he was merely setting out a syllabus of college errors. His lecturer would put the college right, teach the faith that Pocklington believed in, but had not learnt at Sidney Sussex. It was going to be a richer diet than they were used to:

Nowe next to the study of the holy scriptures (as your selfe most truly and ingenously tell me, and therein confirme me) there's nothing that serveth more to settle the iudgment in matter of faith (and so to bring truth to light and peace into the church) then the tradition of the Church …

Scripture was to be interpreted by tradition. With mounting enthusiasm Pocklington set out his curriculum in detail, with fifty-two questions that might be considered in a protestant college engaging with tradition. There were references to altars, bowing, the sign of the cross, prayer for the dead, purgatory and the real presence.

Here was a glimpse of Cambridge University during the Personal Rule. It was a place riven with controversy; an academic community that was at odds with itself. Normal rules of intellectual debate had given way to something more strident and malicious. At issue was the faith and practice of the Church of England and there were multiple heads of disagreement.