Lincoln, that the service of the Parliament is retarded, the enemy
strengthened, the people's souls starved, and their minds diverted from
any care of God's cause, by their idle, ill-affected and scandalous
clergy of the University of Cambridge and the Associated Counties" and
whereas "many that would give evidence against such scandalous ministers
are not able to travel to London," therefore the Earl of Manchester
should be commissioned to take the necessary steps in the University and
the Counties themselves. He was to appoint Committees who were to have
"power to call before them all Provosts, Masters, and Fellows of
Colleges, all students and members of the University, and all ministers
in any county of the Association, and all schoolmasters;" and, after due
inquiry by these Committees, he was to have power "to eject such as he
shall judge unfit from their places, and to sequester their estates,
means and revenues, and to place other fitting persons in their room,
such as shall be approved of by the Assembly of Divines." A very
important ordinance, as we shall see in due time. [Footnote: Commons
Journals, June 10, 1643, and Jan. 20, 1643-4; Lords Journals, Jan. 6 and
Jan. 22, 1643-4; and Neal, III. 105-107.]

The reader need hardly be reminded by what authority all these acts and
changes in the system of England were decreed and carried into effect.
Since the beginning of the war the government of England, except where
the King's troops were in possession, had been in the two Houses of
Parliament sitting at Westminster; but since July 1643 it may be said
rather to have been in these two Houses of Parliament _with_ the
Assembly of Divines. What the reader requires, however, to be reminded of
is the smallness numerically of this governing body. The House of Lords,
in particular, though still retaining all its nominal dignity and keeping
up all its stately forms, was a mere shred of its former self. About 29
or 30 persons, out of the total Peerage of England, as we reckoned (Vol.