Amasia and Amos

Whitgift and the heads had argued their way into an agreement. They rapidly discovered however that, around them, the argument raged on. The campaign against Barrett, Baro and Overall had resolved nothing. Everyone knew it and some said so. In 1597, Samuel Ward poured out his dismay in his notebook: ‘Think how all things go backward in the University and in our College.’ Ward had graduated from Christ's in 1593. Two years later he took up a fellowship at Emmanuel. It was not a difficult move – a short walk down the road to exchange one godly household for another – and Ward f lourished. In 1610 he became Master of Sidney Sussex and in 1623, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity. He counted such blessings carefully, regarding each promotion not as a measure of his ability but as a mark of divine favour. What happened to him, happened because God willed it. So, in his diary, Ward picked over the details of each day looking for the footsteps of grace. A sermon he had heard, the boisterous party in Hall, the promotion or prosecution of a friend, even the wind and the rain were all analysed and interpreted as Ward struggled to see what he called the ‘strong workings of God’. Although he did this in pious Emmanuel, where surely there were all kinds of reassurance, he was often pessimistic. Like the psalmists, Ward was bewildered that the enemies of true religion seemed to prosper and grow fat. Convinced that protestant reformation was part of the good purposes of God, he could not understand why the preaching of the word had not made greater headway. The blame he decided lay with Whitgift: ‘Think how corrupt the Arch Bishop is, who will meddle in every matter.’

Ward was not being entirely fair. It was true that Whitgift was taking a keen interest in university affairs and was quick to interfere. The Archbishop, though, was not alone. The heads had not acquitted themselves well in the arguments of the 1590s and a vacancy among their number was considered a serious matter not only at Lambeth but also at the royal Court. There was a commonly held assumption that Cambridge could not be trusted to choose wisely.