Four hundred years ago, the fellows of Pembroke College in Cambridge elected a new master. Their choice fell upon their treasurer, Lancelot Andrewes, only thirty-one years old but already highly regarded as a scholar and theologian. Newly elected, the master took off from Cambridge to pursue a highly successful career in the church, obtaining several livings in London and becoming dean of Westminster, a real plum and a very influential position. Only when, in 1606, he made it to the bench of bishops (his first see was that of Chichester) did he resign the mastership. Not that absentee masters were a new thing at Pembroke. From 1507 to 1519, the office had been held by Richard Foxe, bishop of Winchester and till 1516 keeper of the privy seal – one of the really active ministers of both Henry VII and Henry VIII. That quintessential Oxford man, founder of Corpus Christi College there, was presumably picked by the fellows of Pembroke as the right man to carry weight in high quarters, and it may be suspected that the unlikelihood of his turning up at the College added to his attractiveness. So far as we know, he never showed his face in Cambridge. In this respect, Andrewes did better – or, depending on what the fellowship had had in mind, worse. It would seem that he made a point during his mastership of regularly putting in at least one annual appearance, to attend the audit and to keep an eye on new admissions.