Highways and Byways in Cambridge and ElyConybeare, John William Edward
History
Highways and Byways in Cambridge and Ely
Conybeare, John William Edward
Cambridgeshire (England) -- Description and travel; Isle of Ely (England) -- Description and travel
That rapacious monarch, her father's worthy daughter in ecclesiastical
spoliation, had seized upon it amongst the surrenders which she
exacted from Bishop Cox, the first Protestant to be Bishop of Ely. On
his accession she confiscated a full half of his episcopal property,
and was constantly insisting on further denudations, including Ely
House, Holborn. On this final act of despotism goading him into
remonstrance, she is reported (in Strype's _History of the
Reformation_) to have made the well-known reply, "Proud priest! I made
you. And I will unmake you. Obey my pleasure, or I will forthwith
unfrock you." Only his speedy death (in 1581) prevented her from
actually carrying out this threat. After it she kept the whole
property of the See in her own hands for no less than nineteen years,
when she handed it over to Bishop Heton, shorn of yet another moiety,
which included the Manor of Longstanton with its ancient episcopal
palace.
This palace had a further connection with Elizabeth; for in it she was
entertained by Bishop Cox after that visit to Cambridge in 1564, when
her erudition so thrilled the University.[195] And it was here that
she was disgusted by the blasphemous entertainment got up for her
benefit by the Protestant undergraduates, in which a performing dog
danced with a consecrated Host in his mouth. King's College Chapel was
the scene originally intended for this outrage; but the graver
academic programme there lasted so long that the Queen could not stay
for the afterpiece. The disappointed students begged leave to follow
her and give an evening performance at Long Stanton. Mutual disgust
was the result. As soon as Elizabeth understood what was going on she
indignantly swept from the room, ordering every light to be instantly
extinguished, leaving the wretched boys to grope for their properties
and get back to Cambridge as best they could.
[Footnote 195: When praised for loveliness by the Public Orator she
showed, to the loud admiration of her auditors, that she both
understood and spoke Latin by exclaiming coyly "Non est verum."]
[Illustration: _All Saints' Church, Long Stanton._]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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