So ends the story of Westminster Scholars at Trinity College, Cambridge. During the two hundred and ninety-six years from 1561 to 1856 inclusive, one thousand and sixty-four scholars had been elected from Westminster to Trinity (or say 3.6 a year), of whom two hundred and seventy-eight (or say one in four) had become fellows. In conclusion I may add that in 1869 in virtue of the powers given by the Public Schools Act, 1868, the dean and chapter of Westminster, the dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and the master of Trinity College, Cambridge, created a new Governing Body in whom the governance of the school has been since vested. [Footnote 18: See _Life of Whitgift_ by J. Strype, London, 1718, pp. 13, 14 and Appendix, pp. 7, 8.] [Footnote 19: _Life of Whitgift_ by J. Strype, London, 1718, Appendix, p. 9.] [Footnote 20: _State Papers_, Domestic, 1604, p. 185.] [Footnote 21: According to Dean Peacock, royal letters and orders, at variance with college statutes, were binding only if explicitly or tacitly accepted by the Society. That may have been technically correct, but it is very doubtful if Tudor or Stuart sovereigns would have admitted it.] CHAPTER IV. THE SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO UNDERGRADUATES. This is an account of a famous struggle some eighty years ago between the authorities and the undergraduates of Trinity College on the subject of attendance at chapel. The story is not to the credit of the authorities, but, for what it is worth, here it is. There is a prelude to it concerned with a controversy in 1834 between Thirlwall, later the statesman-bishop of St David's, and Wordsworth, then master of the House, which raised the question of the advisability of compelling undergraduates to be present at religious services in College. At that time regular attendance at chapel was required--as for centuries previously it had been--from all students as a matter of discipline, and the rule in force on the subject was embodied in a college order of 22 April 1824, as follows: Agreed by the Master and Seniors that every Undergraduate not having an aegrotat or dormiat do attend Morning Chapel five times at the least in every week, or four times at the least including Sunday; and the same number of times in the Evening, under penalty that the week in which anyone shall not have so attended be not reckoned towards keeping the Term of such Undergraduate--unless such omission be repaired by extra attendance the week following. Absentees were punished, and those who offended frequently were liable to expulsion.