Another play, entitled “Albumazar,” followed the successful representation of “Ignoramus;” this, and a Latin pastoral, were the “action or invention of Trinity College, and met with a gracious approval from the King, who, even at his repasts, was now heard loudly to extol Cambridge above Oxford; and yet an awkward incident occurred during the royal visit. During the acts and disputations, in which James delighted, the University orator addressed Prince Charles, who stood beside his father, as Prince Jacobissime Carole;” it was also said that he called him Jacobule, too, which, observed an eye-witness, “neither pleased the King nor anybody else.”[76] Buckingham, who possibly understood no Latin, must have found the dramas, the pastoral, the acts and disputations insufferably tedious; but he was now the tool of a party, and therefore, doubtless, remained to witness all these various exhibitions, little dreaming that one day he was to be installed Chancellor of that very University. Dark and contemptuous looks were discerned on the faces of sundry jealous Oxonians, who had gone to see and to ridicule their rivals, the Cambridge men, who were continually, as a contemporary relates, “applauding themselves, and the Oxford men as fast condemning and detracting all that was done.”[77] The best comment upon the exploits of the boastful collegians was that returned by Mr. Corbet, afterwards Bishop Corbet, who, “being seriously dealt withal by some friends to say what he thought, answered that he had left his malice and judgment at home, and came thither only to commend.”[78]
Nichols’s Progresses. Letter from Mr. Chamberlain to Mr. D. Carleton, State Papers, Domestic, James I.
King James, however, expressed such unqualified admiration of what he saw, that fears were entertained by those who had had to entertain him that he would have repeated his visit privately; apprehensions were felt also lest he should order the performers of the “Ignoramus,” a band chiefly composed of ghostly preachers and learned bachelors of divinity, to repair to London; but the panic was groundless, and neither of these dreaded events took place. Great, indeed, was the expense of the reception and provision considered suitable to the grandeur of the occasion. Nor was it long before events still more ruinous to the Earl of Suffolk and his family than their enormous expenditure to grace the King’s visit at Cambridge scandalized the public mind. The jealousy of the Earl of Somerset was now aroused by the favour shown at Court to his young rival. Slight occurrences warned the sinking favourite of his own unpopularity. An entertainment was given at Baynard’s Castle by three great families—those of Herbert, Hertford, and Bedford; as the company were repairing to the appointed place, they discerned Somerset’s portrait hanging out of a limner’s shop. Sanderson, the historian, who happened to be a bystander, took occasion to inquire “on what score that was done?” The reply was, “that this meeting at Baynard’s Castle was to discover;” for there it appears the scheme to elevate Villiers was concocted by those who viewed with disgust the ascendancy of Somerset.