SAMUEL HARSNETT, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK. 289
Harsnett was admitted as a sizar, or servitor, to King's College,
Cambridge, on the nomination of Richard Bridgwater, of Bovill's
Hall, Ardleigh, and of Dedham, who became a notable man in
the academic world and a likely patron for a lad of merit. As
Public Orator of the University he made a Latin oration to
Queen Bess on her visit to Audley End.
The University reflected strongly the discords of the nation.
The glorious King's College Chapel had only recently been
purged of its "popish trash" by that iconoclastic prelate, Bishop
Cox, of Ely, when its learned and benevolent Provost, Dr. Philip
Baker, had fled, heart-broken, to Louvain, while Dr. Caius,
the munificent founder of the College which bears his name, had
also been forced to abandon his academic shelter. Dr. Bridg-
water played a moderating part, but probably from dislike
of the stern puritanism of Provost Roger Goade, of King's,
Harsnett migrated to Pembroke Hall, where the future poets,
Edmund Spenser and Gabriel Harvey (an Essex worthy), were
then students. He may also have found a friend in the wife
of Dr. Young, the Master of Pembroke, who had married a
Mistress Cocke, from Colchester. In 1581 he proceeded B.A.,
and was elected Fellow of Pembroke in November 1583, receiving
Holy Orders and taking his degree of Master of Arts in the
following year.
When only 24 years of age he had the high honour of being
selected as a preacher at St. Paul's Cross, a pulpit usually
filled by the most powerful dignitaries of the Church.
Here Latimer's stern warnings had turned Court, City and people
towards the Reformation—here Bancroft four years later re-
asserted the doctrine of the Apostolic succession. With the ardent
enthusiasm of youth, and a courage which never failed him,
Harsnett took the bold course of challenging, in the face of all
England, the dominant Calvinism of the day, preaching an
eloquent sermon on the text from Ezekiel xxxiii. II, "As I
live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the
wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live ; turn
ye, turn ye from your evil ways, for why will ye die ; O house
of Israel ?" Keble's Assize sermon started the Catholic movement
of the 19th century as did Harsnett's that of the late 16th
and 17th centuries.
So bold a challenge to the stern logical theology which the
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