The original, and perhaps the chief, purpose of the College in the eyes of those who founded it was practically that it should form a training ground for the clergy. The statutes of King Henry VIII. distinctly lay down that theology is the goal to which philosophy and all other studies lead, and that none were to be elected Fellows who did not propose to study theology. The statutes of Elizabeth provided a certain elasticity by prescribing that those Fellows who did not enter priests' orders within six years should vacate their fellowships; but that two Fellows might be allowed, by the Master and a majority of the Senior Fellows, to devote themselves to the study of medicine. King Charles I. in 1635 allowed a like privilege to be granted from thenceforth to two Fellows who were to study law. These privileges were not always popular, and we occasionally find the clerical Fellows complaining that while the duties of teaching and catechising were laid on them, a man who had held one of the law or medical fellowships sometimes took orders late in life and then claimed presentation to a College benefice in virtue of his seniority as a Fellow, having in the meantime escaped the drudgery to which the Fellow in orders had been subject. The emoluments of members of the Society in early times were very modest, and as prices rose became quite inadequate; the amounts being named in the College statutes were incapable of alteration, and indirect means were taken to provide relief. In Bishop Fisher's time it was considered that an endowment of L6 a year sufficed to found a fellowship, and L3 a year to found a scholarship. The statutable stipend of the Master was only L12 a year, though he had some other allowances, the total amount of which was equally trivial. James Pilkington, Master from 1559 to 1561, when he became Bishop of Durham, wrote to Lord Burghley on the subject of his successor, stating that whoever became Master must have some benefice besides to enable him to live. Richard Longworth, Master from 1564 to 1569, made a similar complaint, putting the weekly expenses of his office at L3. We accordingly find that many of the Masters held country benefices, prebends, or deaneries with their College office. Lord Keeper Williams, who gave to the College the advowsons of Soulderne in Oxfordshire, Freshwater in the Isle of Wight, and the sinecure rectories of St. Florence and Aberdaron in Wales, made it part of the conditions of his gift that the Master should always be entitled to take one of these livings if a vacancy occurred. Many of the Fellows also held benefices or curacies near Cambridge. In the eighteenth century the business of holding ecclesiastical preferment in plurality became almost a fine art; thus Sir Isaac Pennington, who was President of the College and Regius Professor of Physic, left to the College by his will a fund to provide the sum of L200 a year for the Master "if he be rector of Freshwater and not otherwise," a direct and