The last time a Cambridge Vice-Chancellor was deprived of office was on 7 May 1687.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
John Peachell had refused to comply with James II\u2019s order to award an MA degree to the Catholic monk Alban Francis without requiring the customary religious oaths. Cambridge\u2019s Senate resisted the royal demand, maintaining that the University was bound by its statutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Peachell was summoned before the Ecclesiastical Commission, presided over by Lord Chancellor Judge Jeffreys, and formally deprived of the Vice-Chancellorship. Isaac Newton, then a fellow of Trinity College, was among the University\u2019s representatives involved in the dispute and accompanied the delegation to London. He thus found himself among those resisting the King\u2019s attempt to override the University\u2019s requirements. Peachell was also suspended from his Mastership of Magdalene College, although he was restored to that position in October 1688; he never regained the Vice Chancellorship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today Deborah Prentice gives her formal annual Vice-Chancellor\u2019s Address to the University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n