[297] The fellows and scholars of St. John's College, to the number of three hundred, threw off their hoods and surplices, in 1565, without any opposition from the master, till Cecil, as chancellor of the university, took up the matter, and insisted on their conformity to the established regulations. This gave much dissatisfaction to the university; not only the more intemperate party, but many heads of colleges and grave men, among whom we are rather surprised to find the name of Whitgift, interceding with their chancellor for some mitigation as to these unpalatable observances. Strype's _Annals_, i. 441; _Life of Parker_, 194. Cambridge had, however, her catholics, as Oxford had her puritans, of whom Dr. Caius, founder of the college that bears his name, was among the most remarkable. _Id._ 200. The Chancellors of Oxford and Cambridge, Leicester and Cecil, kept a very strict hand over them, especially the latter, who seems to have acted as paramount visitor over every college, making them reverse any act which he disapproved. Strype, _passim_. [298] Strype's _Annals_, i. 583; _Life of Parker_, 312, 347; _Life of Whitgift_, 27. [299] Cartwright's _Admonition_, quoted in Neal's _Hist. of Puritans_, i. 88. [300] Madox's _Vindication of Church of England against Neal_, p. 122. This writer quotes several very extravagant passages from Cartwright, which go to prove irresistibly that he would have made no compromise short of the overthrow of the established church. P. 111, etc. "As to you, dear brethren," is said in a puritan tract of 1570, "whom God hath called into the brunt of the battle, the Lord keep you constant, that ye yield neither to toleration, neither to any other subtle persuasions of dispensations and licences, which were to fortify their Romish practices; but, as you fight the Lord's fight, be valiant." Madox, p. 287. [301] These principles had already been broached by those who called Calvin master; he had himself become a sort of prophet-king at Geneva. And Collier quotes passages from Knox's _Second Blast_, inconsistent with any government, except one slavishly subservient to the church. P. 444. The nonjuring historian holds out the hand of fellowship to the puritans he abhors, when they preach up ecclesiastical independence. Collier liked the royal supremacy as little as Cartwright; and in giving an account of Bancroft's attack on the nonconformists for denying it, enters upon a long discussion in favour of an absolute emancipation from the control of laymen. P. 610. He does not even approve the determination of the judges in Cawdrey's case (5 Coke's Reports), though against the nonconformists, as proceeding on a wrong principle of setting up the state above the church. P. 634.