The period comprised within the present volume, although somewhat less than a hundred years, can hardly but be regarded as the most important in Cambridge university history prior to the present century. It was the time when the code by which, with little modification, the university was governed for nearly three centuries, was, notwithstanding strenuous opposition, first introduced, and the ancient constitution of the academic community thereby almost subverted. It was the time of the foundation of four of the colleges, among them the most considerable of the entire number. And it was the time when those trammels were thrown over our higher national education from which it has but lately been set free.

While such was the internal history of the university, the influence which it exercised on the nation at large was not less notable,—far greater, indeed, than most writers on this period seem to be aware. In a former volume I have attempted to show the extent to which the Reformation in England derived its inspiration from Cambridge; in the following pages it has been no small portion of my task to endeavour to shew the manner in which the great Puritan party was here formed and educated. In dealing with the career and influence of some of the chief leaders of that party,—Thomas Cartwright, Walter Travers, Whitaker, Laurence Chaderton, and Preston,—I have sought to be strictly impartial; a matter of some difficulty where the motives and the actions of the characters under consideration often excite very different sentiments.