So passed by the full days of my boyhood; I living, as I have said,
chiefly at Ashtead in Harry Waldyve's company.
It was not alone in devouring grammar, and such dry bones of
cosmography as Mr. Follet allowed us to pick, that our time was
spent. Sir Fulke was not a man to keep boys wholly to such work.
Although he had managed to acquire some show of skill in theology
when King Henry brought it into fashion at Court, yet even that I
soon saw had fallen into sad confusion in his mind, and in no sense
was he a scholar.
Yet in all such pastimes and pleasant labours as are used in open
places and the daylight, which in respect of peace or war are not
only comely and decent, but also very necessary for a courtly
gentleman to use--in these he still showed the remains of his former
high skill, or at least a happy trick of imparting to us his great
knowledge of their mysteries.
Almost every day he would have us out and exercise us under his own
eye at riding, running at the ring and tilt, and in playing with
weapons, being especially careful of our fence with the sword and
spiked target. Like his master King Henry, he had a great love and
skill for using the bow. This he taught us to use, and less
willingly also the harquebuss.
We had little time for the sea--an element, as my guardian was wont
to say, which sorted less with what pertained to a gentleman than the
land. Yet he did not forbid it, and whenever he went up to the
Court, which was not seldom, we laid aside awhile our courtly
exercises, and were continually amongst the marshes and Saltings with
Mr. Drake's boys, 'Isti dracones horrendi,' as Mr. Follet was wont to
ease his mind by calling them.
After Sir Fulke's returns from Court it was always our scholarship
that had the upper hand. For he was wise enough to see how things
were changing at Court, and came back overflowing with praises of the
young Queen's beauty and learning.
''Slight, lads,' he would say, 'she puts you both to shame, and goes
beyond all young gentlemen of her time in the excellency of her
learning. I tell you it is a sight to make England weep for joy to
see her stand up, so fair and courteous, and make her speech in
Latin, or French, or Spanish, or Italian, to the jabbering foreigners
that come. And as for the Greek; why, Mr. Roger Ascham tells me she
reads more of it with him in a day at Windsor than any prebendary of
the church doth Latin in a week; he should know, seeing he had the
setting forward of all her most excellent gifts of learning.'
'Then must we be double courtiers, sir,' said Harry, 'and court
learning and the Queen as well, if we want to keep the Court, or the
Queen shall have but half-courtiers.'
'Half-courtiers or double courtiers,' said Sir Fulke, 'I know that he
who is out of learning will soon find himself out of Court.'
'Then is he in an evil case,' laughed Harry, 'for he that is out of
Court is out of his suit, and he that is out of his suit shall be
shamed unless he quickly suit himself with another. Come, Jasper,
let us get Mr. Follet to make us breeches to go to Court with.'
And away he would run to his work, while Sir Fulke laughed at his
boy's trick of turning words upside down. For he soon got the ways
of that tripping wit which, it must be said, has since come to make
far better passwords to places at Court than ever a hard-witted
scholar could learn, did he read twice as much Greek as Mr. Ascham
himself.
I say not this in envy, though I was too hard-witted ever to come by
the trick. Harry's gifts were dearer to me than my own, and, God
knows, I loved him for them, and never in my life envied him
anything, except once, but for the present time let that pass.
Some three years after my father's death thus passed away before the
sad day came when Harry and I were forced to separate, since our
paths led diversely. It was high time that I should go to Cambridge,
according to my father's wish. Sir Fulke's faith in scholarship was
not large enough for him to suffer Harry to do the like. For him a
place was found in the household of that most godly and warlike
nobleman, Sir Francis Russell, Earl of Bedford, who was godfather to
Frank Drake, since his renowned father, the first earl, being very
earnest for the Reformation party, had been a good friend of Mr.
Drake's when he lived at Tavistock.
Since my father's death I had known no day so sad as that on which I
took my departure for Cambridge in company with Mr. Follet, who at my
charges was to install me safely in Trinity College.
Harry rode with us as far as Gravesend, where we were to take the
river for London. Mr. Drake, too, joined us at Rochester, and,
riding by my side on his shaggy cob, beguiled the way with much good
advice as to how I should bear myself at the University.
'I am, in a great measure,' said he, 'out of my former opinion
against your becoming a scholar, not only because of the excellent
parts I can see in you, which it were a sin to swathe in a napkin,
but also because you will find that certain stout hearts amongst the
godly, to whom I have written concerning you, are fast getting the
upper hand at Cambridge. So that, I doubt not, you shall find
yourself set amongst many goodly plants, with whom you shall grow to
bear fruit medicinable for the purging away of all the clogging
papistical humours that still be left to fester in the stomach of
Reformation.'
'He were but a bitter tree,' laughed Harry, 'did he bear but purges.'
'A most wrong conclusion, my malapert Hal,' answered Mr. Drake; 'for
your bitter pill is a sovereign sweetening of the inwards; and you
shall find, moreover, that much fruit which grows at Court, though
sweet in the mouth, is, for the most part, most bitter in the belly.'
'Then,' cried Harry, 'have I learnt a most notable piece of science,
and can henceforth tell why courtiers' tongues are sweet and
scholars' bitter. Still, I will be a courtier with a tongue tuned to
sweet courtesy, and leave bitter railing to scholars.'
'Go, thou madcap,' chuckled Mr. Drake, whom Harry could never offend;
'go cry "Words, come and play with me," for surely thou wast born
their play-fellow.'
Mr. Drake then fell to tell me, as he had a score of times before,
that Trinity was the worthiest college in England, since it was that
which his good friend, the renowned Earl of Bedford, had chosen for
Frank's godfather, Lord Russell.
So largely did he speak of this and of the shining light that the
young Earl had proved himself there, that his talk carried us all the
way to Gravesend, where, most sadly, we bade adieu to him and Harry.
As the strong flowing tide carried us up the beautiful Thames my
spirits grew lighter; for I was not without comfort to soften the
grief of my first parting with my brother.
As I never attained to his wit and skill in courtly exercises, being
in no way apt thereto either by birth or nature, so I may say, since
all men know it, in things pertaining to scholarship he was but a
child beside me. I know not if I was unduly proud of all I had
attained to under Mr. Follet's guidance, yet of a surety I know he
was unduly proud to bring me to Cambridge.
'Were it not unworthy of a scholar, Jasper,' said the worthy man, as
we sat in the tilt-boat that was carrying us to London, 'I could
bring my heart to envy you the many and great delights that await you
whither we are going. Most profitably have you attended to my
precepts, and eschewing the light of experience, by which the vulgar
walk, have trusted to books, which are the only true guide. Such
well-fashioned vessels as I have made you it is now again the delight
of _Alma Mater_ to fill with her choicest nectar.'
'Did she, then, once choose other vessels?' asked I.
'Alas, dear discipulus, yes,' answered Mr. Pellet, with a little
flush on his wan cheek; 'and then it was that I was cast forth. It
was when those Elysian days, whereof the memory is a sweet savour to
me still, were ended--the days when it was my happy fortune to find a
place amongst that unmatched garland of fellows and scholars with
which Dr. Medcalfe crowned St. John's College when he was Master, and
afterwards when I was chosen out to be a most unworthy member of the
new-founded house of Trinity. It was an honour I had little hoped to
win; for (not to speak too much, because of the love I still bear to
my old and dear college) this royal Trinity which our glorious King
Henry founded, that _colonia_ of St. John's, that _matre pulchra
filia pulchrior_, to which you, I hope most humbly and reverently,
are about to belong, I hold, above all foundations, learned or
unlearned, that the world has ever seen, to be the most noble,
princely, and magnificent.'
'What made you, then, leave so honourable a state?' asked I as he
paused, as if lost in musing on the glories of our college.
'That is soon told,' said he sadly. 'The days I speak of ended with
the most precious life of our scholar king. It was there, if I may
make free with the fine figure of my most worthy friend, Mr. Roger
Ascham, that the Hog of Rome passed over the seas into that most fair
garden of Cambridge, and set to to root out the fair plants that were
growing there, and tread them under his cloven feet. Then the
blighting breath of idolatry carried seeds of tares thither, which,
taking root, throve most rankly amidst the pollution that beast had
made, till ignorance choked out scholarship, and I fled.'
'Surely, sir,' said I, for much talk with Mr. Drake had increased the
hot opinions that were born in me; 'surely the breath of the beast of
Rome is no better than the vapours from the mouth of hell.'
'Soft and fair, Jasper,' said the old scholar, 'soft and fair. Such
words sit ill on a scholar's lips. Carry not the rancour of these
present times into the holy shrine whither you go. The memory of the
ruin that befell that fair-built fabric did somewhat carry me beyond
the terms of good manners. Do not you follow me. As you love
learning, help to guard the doors of yonder dear place against the
savage turmoil of these shifting times.'
'Must a scholar, then,' said I, 'forget his religion and what he owes
to his God?'
'No, not that, lad,' answered Mr. Follet, looking a little pained.
'Your most glorious college was, under the king's grace, as its
charter recites, divinely appointed for the purpose of bringing the
pure truth of Christianity into the realm, and repelling the
nefarious and enormous abuses of the Roman papacy.'
'Then will I strive,' said I, 'with my college to do what King Henry
said.'
'That is well, lad,' answered my poor tutor, without losing his
troubled look. 'Still there is no need to forget your scholarship in
doing parson's work. By learning shall you withstand Rome more than
by controversy and railing. Love a scholar when you meet him, though
he hate not Rome. Love him for his learning's sake, and forget Rome.
Such was the way in the old days, when good Dr. Medcalfe was Master
of St. John's.'
I saw how pained he was to think that the cargo he had laden with
such care might be wrecked on the stormy seas which he could perceive
ahead. So I said no more then, but contented myself with watching
the multitudes of swans that came about us and the shipping which we
passed, and with asking a hundred questions about the towns and
villages on the banks, as well as of the great city which lay before,
till by dark our sturdy rowers ceased their work at Paul's Chain, and
we landed.
We lay but one night in London, and came to Cambridge on the fourth
day. There Mr. Follet at once carried me to Dr. Beaumont, that I
might be entered at Trinity.
The Doctor, as I must call him, though at that time he was only
admitted B.D., was a man of about forty years of age, of good
breeding and presence. In my eyes he seemed a very great person
indeed, and my respect for good Mr. Follet was never so great as when
I saw with what honour and affection the Master of Trinity received
him.
'I have brought you a scholar, Beaumont,' said Mr. Follet, after very
hearty commendations had passed between them, 'after my own heart;
one who has imbibed the true principles of Aristotle, and is
untainted with any new empiric heresy. I have taught him well in our
own faith--to love learning, and despise experience as the common
school-house of fools.'
'Ah, Follet,' said Dr. Beaumont, laying his hand on my tutor's
shoulder fondly, and speaking to him smilingly, as though he had been
a child, 'happy are you to have kept your scholarship so pure. Let
us hope your scholar will do no worse, though, God knows, these are
tainting times, and Cambridge grows so full of railing that ere long,
I think, there will be no room left for the gentle disputations of
scholars.'
With that he dismissed us to his brother, Mr. John Beaumont, the
Vice-Master; who showed me where my lodging was to be in King's Hall,
not far from the great gateway of King Edward.
How proud I felt as I sat that afternoon looking out upon the little
court, for that was before Dr. Neville had pulled down the old
buildings to make the present great court, which is now the envy of
every college in Europe!
Cambridge seemed to me a hall of Paradise, and Trinity its daïs. In
spite of what Dr. Beaumont had said, I looked forward to dwelling in
it as in a realm where the pure quintessence of learning should reign
over a quiet band of brothers, who in the impassive contemplation of
wisdom should have lost all hate, and fear, and sorrow.
Suddenly my meditation was disturbed by a loud shout, and I saw a
number of students surge tumultuously out of an archway into the
court. In their midst was an effigy with an ox's skull for a head,
clearly made to counterfeit the devil. This they had clothed in a
surplice, and crowned with a square cap.
It seemed to delight them beyond measure; for while one held the
thing the rest danced round it, laughing and shouting, and singing
ribald verselets against it. Gradually they drew near the window of
one of the fellows, named Saunderson, who was University Reader in
Logic, and fell to crying, 'Fasting Johnnie, Fasting Johnnie, come
and welcome your master, who is here to speak with you.'
Therewith Mr. Saunderson ran at them with a cudgel, but they drove
him back, so that he could not come at the devil in the surplice.
By this time the uproar had brought a number of students to the gate,
and Mr. Saunderson, seeing amongst them a number of King's College
men, cried out, 'To me, to me, all lovers of the old faith, and stay
this sacrilege.'
There was a rush from the gate at the effigy in answer to his call,
and in a few moments I could see my college was being worsted. That
was enough for me in the first blush of my pride, and, without
thinking, I rushed down and out into the court, just in time to seize
the effigy as it was being carried out of the gate.
What followed beyond a wild turmoil, in which I was fighting like the
Drake boys themselves, I cannot say, but soon I knew I was standing
in the midst of the court with the tattered effigy in my hands and my
fellow-students shouting round me as if their lungs must burst.
At every pause in their shouting I could hear the voices of the
Vice-Master and Mr. Saunderson railing at each other in a corner of
the court with such good will, that every moment I thought it would
come to blows.
I was feeling very proud of what I had done, though scarcely knew in
the din what to do next, when all at once I saw a grave-looking young
man standing in the gateway, which was now shut, and by his side my
poor tutor looking at me as though his heart would break.
Then at last it burst upon me what I had done. At one blow the fair
fabric I had raised in my day-dreams, the oft-repeated resolution to
lead the life of pure scholarship, to soar impassive on the wings of
science above the little turmoils of the world--at one blow it was
all gone. Ere one sun had set upon my new life I was the hero of a
vulgar broil.
In an agony of shame I cast down the detested cause of my grief, and,
breaking passionately through the excited throng, fled to my rooms
from the reproachful, heart-rending gaze of poor Mr. Follet.
With my head buried in my arms I sat for some minutes sobbing in
black despair at my table, when, as I thought, I heard him open my
door and come towards me; but the step was young, firm, and resolute,
as unlike as it could be to my dear old tutor's shuffle. A strong
hand was laid gently on my shoulder, and I heard a deep, full-toned
voice speaking to me.
'Be of good heart, Mr. Festing,' it said; 'I know why you weep, and
had I not long ago hardened my heart to the battle, I could weep with
you.'
I looked up, and saw the same gentleman who had been standing with my
tutor in the gateway. He was a somewhat ungainly, ill-favoured young
man of some eight and twenty summers, but yet I felt drawn to him, as
much by reason of his kindly words as of a look there was in his face
of fearless resolution, and pure-strained intellect, which a certain
aspect of weary melancholy softened into what was to me a most sweet
and lovable expression.
'I am Mr. Thomas Cartwright,' he went on, still looking sorrowfully
upon me, 'new-made major-fellow of Trinity, with whom you are to
share this lodging. I have brought this about by the kindness of the
Master, because Mr. Drake had written to me concerning you, with very
hearty commendations.'
'Are you a friend of Mr. Drake's, then?' asked I, feeling greatly
comforted.
'Yes, Mr. Festing,' answered he; 'and also of that most high-wrought
scholar, Mr. Follet. I know more of you than you know of me, and I
know why you grieve. It is not hidden from me that you were minded
to make sacrifice to the Lord of the good parts He has given you, and
by long hours of patient study to make them worthy His acceptance.
Yet rejoice that He has shown you at your very going forth what His
will is with you. Rejoice that we can say this day, as surely as
Samuel did to Saul, that He has appointed you to go up with us
against the Amalekites and destroy them utterly. Such is His will;
and while men hearkened to Him the strong tide of Reformation flowed
on in full flood under His mighty breath, till its living waters bid
fair to fill the length and breadth of Christendom with their
cleansing sweetness. But men wearied of the work, and spared the
best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and of the
lambs, and destroyed them not. And now the Lord's ears are vexed
with the bleating of the sheep and the lowing of the oxen amongst the
people. He turns His face from them, and the tide is fast running
back. Rise up, then, and do the work of the Lord. Think not of the
treasure you have been laying up for Him; for, behold, to obey is
better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams!'
'Must I then abandon all scholarship,' I asked, when he had finished,
'to join in the din of these bitter controversies?'
'What could the son of Nicholas Festing wish for better?' Mr.
Cartwright replied. 'For what you call bitter controversy is battle
under the banner of the Lord of Hosts against the Amalekite.
Moreover, you need not lay aside scholarship, but you must labour
thereat, even as I have done, to make of it a weapon wherewith at
last you shall hew Agag in pieces before the Lord.'
With such words he encouraged me not only then, but daily, till ere a
term was half over I was as hot a young Puritan as any in Cambridge.
I cannot blame myself that I so quickly made surrender to that
remarkable young man, whom St. John's and my college were bidding
against each other to possess, and who has since made so great a stir
in England, becoming the very head and heart of the Puritan party.
I had not even good Mr. Follet's influence to help me, for he left
Cambridge a few days after to take up his place as tutor to Harry and
one or two other young gentlemen about the Court, to whom he had been
commended by his good friend Mr. Ascham, a man who at that time was
the very oracle of the nobility on all such matters.
I was glad enough my tutor was spared any further sight of the
ill-conditioned state of his university, and, above all, the hornets'
nest which I soon found my unhappy exploit had stirred up.
It was some days after his departure that I was sitting at the window
of my lodging pretending to read, but in truth listening to the
Vice-Master and Mr. Cartwright, who were talking over Mr.
Saunderson's recent expulsion from his fellowship.
'And how think you the Vice-Chancellor will take it?' said Mr.
Cartwright thoughtfully.
'Who cares how?' said Mr. Beaumont hotly. 'Who cares what a Romish
mule like Baker thinks? If he cannot stomach it, so much the worse
for his Cretan belly.'
'And yet I think he is like to take some order in the matter,' said
Mr. Cartwright, 'seeing how sturdy a papist Saunderson was.'
'Doubt not he will talk big enough,' answered the Vice-Master. 'He
thinks because he is Provost of King's he can lift up his head over
Trinity men. Yet let him beware, or he shall find that Pharaoh will
lift up the head of the King's Baker from off his shoulders, and good
Protestant fowls shall eat the flesh from off him. And besides, what
order can he take? For if we cannot expel a fellow for observing
fasts and particular days, not to speak of using allegory and citing
Plato when publicly discoursing on the Scriptures, we may just as
well write ourselves heathen idolaters and Italian atheists at once.'
At this moment I heard the tramp of armed men below the window, and,
looking out, I perceived the Proctor with the beadles and his watch
in the court below halting at our staircase. At that time the
Proctor's watch always went at night harnessed with good morions and
corselets, for fear of the Mayor's constable and his men, but it was
not common to see them so by day.
Mr. Proctor demanded admittance in the Vice-Chancellor's name, and
therewith entered the room with the beadles and two halberdiers,
whose bright armour seemed strangely out of place in our dim and
dusty lodging.
'I arrest you, John Beaumont,' said the Proctor, 'for brawling and
other offences against the peace and dignity of our Lady the Queen
and this University.'
'At whose suit?' asked the Vice-Master.
'At Mr. Saunderson's,' he answered. 'Here is the warrant; I pray you
come peaceably.'
'Oh, I will come gladly enough!' said Mr. Beaumont, 'if it were only
to enjoy the discomfiture it will bring the King's Baker when Sir
William Cecil hears of it. Thank God, we have a Chancellor who knows
my brother and me for true men, and can make a traitor's ears
tingle--ay, and his back too. Let my brother know all, Mr.
Cartwright, and pray him write without delay to Sir William.'
The Proctor looked a little troubled at the mention of the great
Secretary of State, but still he performed his task, and our
Vice-Master was conducted to prison. And there indeed he lay till an
answer came down from Sir William, with such a stinging reprimand for
Dr. Baker that he was glad enough to release Mr. Beaumont and eat his
humble pie, thanking God it was no worse.
Were I to speak at greater length of Cambridge as it was at that
time, I should have little else to tell save ringing the changes on
what happened to me in the first week of residence. Factions and
contentions were our only occupation; and while the seniors
quarrelled the students brawled, and grew daily more inordinate and
contemptuous of rules for their orderly governance, as well in
behaviour as in religion.
As for learning, it was only part and parcel with our manners. Our
only philosophy was controversy concerning the ordinances of the
English Church; while in grammar we studied nothing so much as how to
rail in Ciceronian Latin,--and cunning professors we had, at least
for the railing.
Sharing Mr. Cartwright's lodging, I was more fortunate than most.
Though very earnest in the controversies, he would not neglect his
scholarship nor mine. Every morning he rose between three and four,
not allowing himself more than five hours' sleep, whatever happened.
I rose with him, out of my love of him and learning; and pushing my
trundle-bed under his standing bedstead, to make room for my stool
beside him, read with him out of the books we loved so well till nigh
ten o'clock, when dinner was served in the Hall.
After that the disputations in the schools began, which I always
attended with him, being proud to carry the books of the most
brilliant scholar and popular orator in Cambridge.
Between that and supper-time I exercised my body, as I had promised
Sir Fulke, chiefly in the fencing-school. For there was newly come
to Cambridge at that time an Italian master of fence, to whom all the
best gentlemen in the University resorted to learn the new foining
rapier play, to the great discomfiture of the teachers of sword and
buckler. Moreover, I rode out continually to the artillery butts or
the Gog-Magog hills, till Mr. Cartwright persuaded me to abandon the
evil company that gathered there daily for pastime.
So things went with me and the University, till in the summer of the
year of grace 1564 a great and notable thing for us came to pass.