For the Faith by Evelyn Everett-Green
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page 9 of 272 (03%)
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communities were treated in like manner, in order to contribute to
the expenses of the great undertaking. Now a fair building stood upon the ancient site of the priory; and two years before, the first canons of Cardinal College (as Christ Church used to be called) were brought thither, and established in their new and most commodious quarters. And amongst the first of these so-called Canons or Senior Fellows of the Foundation was Master John Clarke, a Master of Arts at Cambridge, who was also a student of divinity, and qualifying for the priesthood. Wolsey had made a selection of eight Cambridge students, of good repute for both learning and good conduct, and had brought them to Oxford to number amongst his senior fellows or canons; and so it had come about that Clarke and several intimate associates of his had been translated from Cambridge to Oxford, and were receiving the allowance and benefits which accrued to all who were elected to the fellowships of Cardinal College. But though Wolsey had made all due inquiries as to the scholarship and purity of life and conduct of those graduates selected for the honour done them, he had shown himself somewhat careless perhaps in the matter of their orthodoxy, or else he had taken it too much for granted. For so it was that of the eight Cambridge men thus removed to Oxford, six were distinctly "tainted" by the new opinions so fast gaining ground in the country, and though still deeply attached to the Holy Catholic Church, were beginning to revolt against many of the abuses of the Papacy which had grown up within that church, and were doing much to weaken her authority and bring her into disrepute with thinking laymen--if not, indeed, with her own more independent-minded priests. |
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