The early years of the College were uneventful except for two visitations in the interests of the reformed religion. In 1560 several of the fellows retired; Slythurst was deprived, and died in the Tower. No objection appears to have been offered by the Foundress to the enforced disregard of many explicit regulations in the statutes: the “sacerdotes missas celebrantes” became “capellani preces celebrantes”; but incense was sometimes bought, and the feasts of the Assumption and St. Thomas à Becket kept as gaudys. It is noticeable that an English Bible and two Latin “Common Prayer” books had been sent with the Founder’s service-books. In 1570 Bishop Horne ordered the destruction or secularisation of the Founder’s presents as “monuments tending to idolatrie and popish or devill’s service, crosses, censars, and such lyke fylthie stuffe”; several of the Romanising fellows retired to Gloucester Hall and Hart Hall (one was executed at York as a popish priest in 1600; another was George Blackwell, the “archpriest”). A table took the place of the three altars, but the paintings and glass remained. “In 1642, the Lord Viscount Say and Seale came to visit the College, to see what of new Popery they could discover. My L.^{d} saw that this” (the painting) “was done of old time, and Dr. Kettle told his Lo.^{p}, ‘Truly we regard it no more than a dirty dish-clout,’ so it remained untoucht till Harris’s time, and then was coloured over with green”; much to the disgust of Aubrey. Yeldard, a writer of some academic reputation, became president; but the computus, during his thirty-nine years of office, records nothing more exciting than journeys to the estates, and small repairs to the old buildings. In his time the foundation included Thomas Allen, Henry Cuffe, who was expelled for remarking to his host when dining at another college, “A pox _this_ is a beggarly college indeed--the plate that our Founder stole would build another as good” (he became fellow of Merton and Regius Professor of Greek, and was executed after Essex’s rebellion), Thomas Lodge the dramatist, Richard Blount the Jesuit, Bishops Wright of Lichfield and Coventry, Adams of Limerick, and (according to Wood) Smith of Chalcedon _in partibus_; among commoners were Sir Edward Hoby, John Lord Paulett, and Sir George Calvert, first Lord Baltimore.