John Cottisford, the eighth Rector of the College (elected in March 1518-19), resigned on 7th Jan., 1538-9, probably[180] in dismay at the course of events in the nation. His successor, Hugh Weston, elected on 8th Jan., was possibly supposed to be on the reforming side; for he was undisturbed by Edward VI.’s Commissioners; but had to resign in 1555 to the Visitors appointed by Cardinal Pole. Christopher Hargreaves, elected on 24th Aug., 1555, and confirmed in his place by Cardinal Pole’s Visitors, died on 15th Oct., 1558. His successor, Henry Henshaw or Heronshaw, was hardly elected on 24th Oct., when the hopes of the Romanist party were shattered. The College register, in the greatness of its anxiety, breaks, on this one occasion, the silence it observes as to affairs outside the College.[181] “In the year of our Lord 1558, in November, died the lady of most holy memory, Mary, Queen of England, and Reginald Poole, Cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury; the body of the former was buried in Westminster, the body of the latter in his cathedral church of Canterbury, both on the same day, namely 14th December. At this date the following were Rector and Fellows of Lincoln College,” and then follows a list of them. Clearly the writer of this note did not look forward to remaining long in College. Nor did he; within two years Henshaw had to resign to Queen Elizabeth’s Visitors. Francis Babington, who had just been made Master of Balliol by these Visitors, was transferred to the Rectorship of Lincoln. In this appointment we can detect the sinister influence which was to direct elections at Lincoln for some time to come; Babington was chaplain to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, Chancellor of the University after 1564. The election was in flagrant violation of the Statutes which required that the Rector should be chosen from the Fellows or ex-Fellows of the College. But it was the policy of the Court to break College traditions, by thrusting outsiders into the chief government: the same thing was done in other Colleges, the case of Lincoln being peculiar only in the frequency of the intrusion. Doubts began to be cast on Babington’s sincerity; he was accused of secretly favouring Romanism; and in 1563 he found it advisable to betake himself beyond sea.[182] Leicester was ready with another of his chaplains, John Bridgwater, who had been Fellow of Brasenose, and was not statutably eligible for the Rectorship of Lincoln. Again the Court was mistaken in its man. Under Bridgwater the College became a Romanist seminary, and continued so for eleven years; and then Bridgwater had to follow his predecessor across the seas, retiring to Douay, where, Latinising his name into “Aquapontanus,” he became famous as a theologian. He is still held in honour among his co-religionists, and I remember several visits paid to the College in recent years by admirers of his, in hopes of seeing a portrait of him (but the College has none) or his handwriting (which we have).