In 1535 Alesius, having received encouragement from the agents of the English king then negotiating an alliance with the Protestant princes of Germany, came over to England with a letter of recommendation from Melanchthon.[308] He was favourably received by Archbishop Cranmer, by Crumwell the Vicar-General, and by the king himself, who appointed him king's scholar, and instructed Crumwell, as Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, to give him a place as a reader in divinity there. He accordingly went into residence in Queen's College, the same college which shortly before had been the home of Erasmus while lecturing in the university on Greek, and towards the end of the year he began a course of lectures on the Hebrew Psalter. He is supposed to have been the first who delivered lectures in Cambridge on the Hebrew Scriptures, but he was not suffered to do it long in peace. It could not be concealed that he was a favourer of the new opinions and a friend of Melanchthon, and that he had, in fact, been recommended by him to the king and the chancellor of the university. By the time he had entered on the exposition of Psalm viii. he was challenged by one of the champions of the old learning to a public disputation, and courageously accepted the challenge; but when the day appointed for the discussion arrived, his opponent did not venture to meet him in open fight. He preferred to plot against him in secret, and to foment tumult among the scholars, till Alesius, finding that his life was in danger, and that he could not count on the protection of the university authorities, deemed it his duty to leave Cambridge and return to London.[309] [Sidenote: Returns to the Continent.]