Notwithstanding his frequent illness, as recorded in his journals, his work must have been incessant. In addition to his vast administrative duties, he had, on Sir Thomas Parry’s death, been appointed to the important post of Master of the Court of Wards, which assumed the guardianship of the estates of minors; and Camden speaks of him as “managing this place, as he did all his others, very providentially for the service of his prince and the wards, for his own profit moderately, and for the benefit of his followers and retainers, yet without offence, and with great commendations for his integrity.” His interest, too, in the universities, and particularly that of Cambridge, was constant. He had been appointed Chancellor of the University in the first year of Elizabeth’s reign, and had worked manfully to introduce order and reform into the institution.[189] In June 1562, Cecil endeavoured to resign his Chancellorship, his pretexts being his unfitness for the post, his want of leisure, and the serious contentions which existed in the University; but the real reason was that which he cited last, namely, the tendency to laxity with regard to uniform worship manifested by a large number of the masters and students. “Lastly,” he says, “which most of all I lament, I cannot find such care in the heads of houses there to supply my lack as I hoped for, to the ruling of inordinate youth, to the observation of good order, and increase of learning and knowledge of God. For I see that if the wiser sort that have authority will not join earnestly together to overrule the licentious part of youth in breaking orders, and the stubbornness of others that malign and deprave the ecclesiastical orders established by law in this realm, I shall shortly hear no good or comfortable report from thence. And to keep an office of authority by which these disorders may be remedied, and not to use it, is to betray the safety of the same, whereof I have some conscience.… And so I end, praying you all to accept this, my perplexed writing and complaint, to proceed of a careful mind that I bear to that honourable and dear University; whereof, although I was once but a simple, small, unlearned, low member, I love,” &c., &c. Only on the promise of complete amendment on the part of heads of houses, and at the intercession of Archbishop Parker, Sir William withdrew his resignation and continued his labours in favour of the University.[190]