REESE LIBRARY 
 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, 
 
 i/( cession hh ) . y^ d / ^ 
 
 . CAlUS No. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 Microsoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/collegesofoxfordOOclarrich 
 
THE COLLEGES OF OXFOED. ■ 
 
THE COLLEGES OF OXFORD 
 
 THEIE HISTORY AND TRADITIONS. 
 
 XXI CHAPTEES 
 
 CONTRIBUTED BY MEMBERS OF THE COLLEGES. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 ANDREW CLARK, M.A., 
 
 FELLOW OF LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD. 
 
 iiaet!}uen & Co., 
 
 18, BURY STREET, LONDON, W.C. 
 1891. 
 
 [All right* retervtd.'\ 
 
C5 
 
 Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, 
 London & Bungay, 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The history of any one of the older Colleges of 
 Oxford extends over a period of time and embraces 
 a variety of interests more than sufficient for a volume. 
 The constitutional changes which it has experienced 
 in the six, or four, or two centuries of its existence 
 have been neither few nor slight. The Society living 
 within its walls has reflected from age to age the 
 social, religious, and intellectual conditions of the 
 nation at large. Its many passing generations of 
 teachers and students have left behind them a wealth 
 of traditions honourable or the reverse. Yet it seems 
 not impossible to combine in one volume a series of 
 College histories. What happened in one College 
 happened to some extent in all ; and if, therefore, 
 certain periods or subjects which are fully dealt with 
 in one College are omitted in others, a single volume 
 ought to be sufficient, not merely to narrate the salient 
 features of the history of each individual College, but 
 also to give an intelligible picture of College life 
 generally at successive periods of time. 
 
 This is what the present volume seeks to do. Brase- 
 nose and Hertford chapters give a hint of the multi- 
 plicity of halls for Seculars out of which the Colleges 
 grew; in Trinity and Worcester chapters we have a 
 glimpse of the houses for Regulars which for a while 
 mated the Colleges, but disappeared at the Reformation. 
 In Queen's College, early social conditions are described ; 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 in New College, early studies. Balliol College gives 
 prominence to the Renaissance movement ; Corpus 
 Christi to the consequent changes in studies. In 
 Magdalen College we see the divisions and fluctuations 
 of opinions which followed the Reformation ; in S. 
 John's, the golden age of the early Stuarts ; in Merton, 
 the dissensions of the Civil War ; in Exeter College, the 
 strong contrast between Commonwealth and Restora- 
 tion. University College naturally enlarges on the 
 Romanist attempt under James II. The bright and 
 dark sides of the eighteenth century are exhibited in 
 Pembroke and Lincoln. To Corpus, which, had described 
 the Renaissance, it belongs almost of right to depict the 
 renewed love of letters which distinguishes the present 
 century. And as with successive phases of social and 
 intellectual life, so with other matters of interest. Oriel 
 College gives a full account of the different books of 
 record of a College, and of the long warfare of contested 
 elections. Lincoln CoUeore sets forth the constitutional 
 arrangements of a pre-Reformation College. Lincoln 
 and Worcester show through what uncertainties pro- 
 jected Colleges have to pass before they are legally 
 settled. Christ Church suggests the architectural and 
 artistic wealth of Oxford. 
 
 It is only fair to the writers of the separate chapters 
 to say that the limits of length imposed on them, and 
 the selection of subjects for special treatment, are not of 
 their own choosing. Space for fuller treatment in each 
 case is of necessity wanting ; but somewhat greater lati- 
 tude has been allowed to those less fortunate Colleges 
 which have no history of their own, extant or in pros- 
 pect. Colleges which have found their historian, will 
 not, it is hoped, grudge their sisters this consolation. 
 
 A. C. 
 
 August 1891. 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 CHAP. 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 University College . 
 
 By F. C; Conybeare, M.A. 
 
 Balliol College 
 
 By Reginald L. Poole, M.A, 
 
 Merton College 
 
 By the Warden of Merton. 
 
 Exeter College 
 
 By the Rev. Charles "W. Boase, M. 
 
 Oriel College 
 
 By C. L. Shad WELL, M.A. 
 
 Queen's College 
 
 By the Provost of Queen's. 
 
 New College. 
 
 By the Rev. Hastings Rashdall, M.A. 
 
 Lincoln College 
 
 By the Rev. Andrew Clark, M.A. 
 
 All Souls College . 
 
 By C. W. C. Oman, M.A. 
 
 Magdalen College . 
 
 By the Rev. H. A. Wilson, M.A. 
 
 Brasenose College . 
 
 By Falconer Madan, M.A. 
 
 Corpus Christi College 
 
 By the Pkesident of C. C. C. 
 
 Christ Church 
 
 By the Rev. R. St. John Tyrwhitt, AJ.A. 
 
 PAOH 
 1 
 
 24 
 
 59 
 
 76 
 
 87 
 
 124 
 
 150 
 
 171 
 
 208 
 
 233 
 
 252 
 
 273 
 
 301 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 XIV. Trixity College .... 
 
 By the Rev. Herbert E. D. Blaklvi-ox, ^l.A. 
 
 XV. S. JoHX Baptist College 
 
 By the Rev. \Y. H. Hutton, M.A. 
 
 XVI. Jesus College .... 
 
 By the Rev. Llewelyn Thomas, M.A. 
 
 XVII. Wadham College .... 
 By J. Wells, M.A. 
 
 XVIII. Pembroke College .... 
 By the Rev. Douglas Macleane, M.A. 
 
 XIX. Worcester College .... 
 By the Rev. C. H. 0. Daniel, M.A. 
 
 XX. Hertford College . . ... 
 
 By the Rev. Hastings Rashdall, M.A. 
 
 XXI. Keble College .... 
 
 By the Rev. Walter Lock, M.A. 
 
 Index ...... 
 
 I'AOB 
 
 323 
 
 347 
 
 364 
 389 
 400 
 425 
 449 
 461 
 471 
 
 ERRATUM. 
 
 Page 427, lines 25 and 26, should read : — ' surmounted by three shields (of which two bear 
 respectively the arms of Ramsey Abbey and St. Alban's).' 
 
I, 
 
 TTNTVET^STTY mTT.ErTF. 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 EEKATA. 
 
 p. 288, line 31, /or 1567 read 1568 
 
 p. 298, line 4, for (perhaps) read (most probably) 
 
 ., line 7, /or Miles Smith, &c., read John Spenser, 
 President of the College, and Miles Smith, Bishop of 
 Gloucester, both amongst the translators of the Bible ; 
 
 lactors, witli others, exhibitors^Eo^lBe same. '■ 
 
 However, Mr. William Smith, Rector of Melsonby, and above 
 twelve years Senior Fellow of our Society, who in the year 
 1728 published his learned Annals of the College, sets it down 
 that King Alfred was not mentioned in the College prayers as 
 chief founder until the reign of Charles I., and he relates how 
 "that Dr. Clayton, after he was chosen Master (in 1665), when 
 he first heard King Alfred named in the collect before William 
 of Durham, openly and aloud cried out in the chapel, ' There is 
 710 King Alfred there' " 
 
 For at an earlier date it had been of custom to pray indeed 
 for the soul of King Alfred, but only in the following order— 
 
 1 From the old printed copy in Bodl. Bibl. MSS. Tanner 338, fol. 216. 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP, IMOE 
 
 XIV. Trinity College ..... 323 
 
 By the Rev. Herbert E. D. BLAKi.vroN, M.A. 
 
 XV. S. JoHx Baptist College .... 347 
 
 By the Rev. W. H. Huttox, M.A. 
 
 XVI. Jesus College ..... 364 
 
 By the Rev. Llewelyn Thomas, M.A. 
 
 xviL Wadham College . . . . .389 
 
 By J. Wells, M.A. 
 
 xviii. Pembroke College ..... 400 
 By the Rev. Douglas Macleane, M.A. 
 
 Page 427, lines 25 and 26, should read: — 'surraouniiea by mux bmbiuB^Tn-Tnucit 
 respectively the arras of Ramsey Abbey and St. Alban's).' 
 
J .UNIVERSITY 
 
 UNIVEKSITY COLLECxE. 
 
 By F. C. Conybeahe, M.A., sometime Fellow op University 
 
 College. 
 
 The popular mind concerning the origin of University College 
 is well exampled in the form of prayer which after the reform 
 of religion was used in chapel on the day of the yearly College 
 Festival, and which begins in these words — 
 
 " Merciful God and loving Father, we give Thee humble and 
 hearty thanks for Thy great Bounty bestow'd upon us of this 
 place by Alfred the Great, the first Founder of this House; 
 William of Durham, the Restorer of it ; Walter Skirlow, Henry 
 Percy, Sir Simon Benet, Charles Greenwood, especial Bene- 
 factors, with others, exhibitors to the same." ^ 
 
 However, Mr. William Smith, Rector of Melsonby, and above 
 twelve years Senior Fellow of our Society, who in the year 
 1728 published his learned Annals of the College, sets it down 
 that King Alfred was not mentioned in the College prayers as 
 chief founder until the reign of Charles I., and he relates how 
 "that Dr. Clayton, after he was chosen Master (in 1665), when 
 he first heard King Alfred named in the collect before William 
 of Durham, openly and aloud cried out in the chapel, ' There is 
 no King Alfred there: " 
 
 For at an earlier date it had been of custom to pray indeed 
 for the soul of King Alfred, but only in the following order— 
 
 1 From the old printed copy in Bodl. Bibl. MSS. Tanner 338, fol. 216. 
 
2 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 
 
 " I commend also unto your devout Prayers, the souls departed 
 out of this world, especially The Soul of William of Durham, 
 our chief Founder. The Soul of Mr. Walter Skirlaw, especial 
 Benefactor. The Soul of King Alfred, Founder of the University. 
 The Soul of King Henry the 5th. The Souls of Henry Percy, 
 first Earl of Northumberland ; Henry the 2nd Earl, and my 
 Ladies their Wives, with all their Issue out of the World 
 departed. . . The Souls of all them that have been Fellows, 
 and all good Doers. And for the Souls of all them that God 
 would have be prayed for." 
 
 The date of this form of prayer is concurrent with Philip and 
 Mary; between whose reign and that of Charles I. it is therefore 
 certain that King Alfred was lifted in our prayers from being 
 Founder only of the University to the being Founder of our 
 College. And in so much as during many generations the belief 
 that this college was founded by King Alfred has, by all who are 
 competent to judge, been condemned for false and erroneous, 
 I will follow the example of the learned antiquarian already 
 mentioned, and recount its true foundation by W^illiam of Dur- 
 ham ; eschewing the scruples of those brave interpreters of the 
 law, who in the year 1727 said in Westminster Hall, "that 
 Kingr Alfred must be confirmed our Founder, for the sake of 
 Religion itself, which w^ould receive a greater scandal by a deter- 
 mination on the other Side, than it had by all the Atheists, 
 Deists, and Apostates, from Julian down to Collins ; that a 
 succession of Clergymen for so many years should return thanks 
 for an Idol, or mere Nothing, in E-idicule and Banter of God and 
 E-elio^ion, must not be suffered in a court of Justice." ^ 
 
 The historical origin of University College dates from the 
 thirteenth century, and was in this wise. There was in the year 
 1220, so Matthew Paris relates, a great falling out between the 
 students and citizens of Paris, and, as was usual for Academicians 
 then to do, all the scholars removed to other places, where they 
 could have civiller usage, and greater privileges allowed them, 
 as the Oxonians had done in King John's time, when three 
 thousand removed to Reading and Maidstone (and as some say 
 
 ^ Annals of University College, p. 339. 
 
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 3 
 
 to Cambridge also). It appears that the English king, Henry 
 III., was not blind to the advantages which would accrue to his 
 country from an influx of scholars, and therefore published 
 Letters Patent on the 14th July, of that very year, to invite 
 the masters and scholars of the University to England ; and 
 foreseeing they would prefer Oxford before any other place, the 
 said king sent several Writs to the Burgers of Oxon, to provide 
 all conveniences, as lodgings, and all other good Entertainment, 
 and good usage to welcome them thither. 1 Among other 
 Englishmen who left Paris in consequence of these dissensions, 
 was Master William of Durham, Avho repaired at first to Anjou 
 only. But we may well suppose that his attention was drawn by 
 the fostering edicts of the English king to Oxford as a centre of 
 schools. It is certain that when he died, at Rouen, on his way 
 home from Rome, twenty years later, in 1249, "abounding in 
 great Revenues, eminently learned, and Rector of that noble 
 Church of Weremouth, not far from the sea," he bequeathed to 
 the University of Oxford the sum of three hundred and ten 
 marks, for purchase of annual rents, unto the use of ten or eleven 
 or twelve, or more Masters, who should be maintained withal. 
 
 The above information is derived from a report drawn up in 
 1280, by certain persons delegated by the University of Oxford 
 to enquire into the Testament of Master William of Durham ; 
 which report is still kept among the muniments of the College, 
 and constitutes our earliest statutes. 
 
 In the thirteenth century there was not the same choice of 
 investments as to-day. The best one could do was to lend out 
 one's money to the nobles and king of the Realm, or to purchase 
 houses therewith. The former security corresponded to, but 
 was not so secure as, the consolidated funds of a later age. 
 Nor was house property entirely safe. For in an age when 
 communication between different parts of the country was slow 
 and insecure, it was not of choice, but of necessity, that one 
 bought house property in one's own city ; since farther afield 
 and in places wide apart one lacked trusty agents to collect 
 one's rents ; but in a single city a plague might in one year lay 
 ' I have used Mr. William Smith's rendering of these passages of Matthew 
 Paris. 
 
4 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 
 
 empty half the houses, and so forfeit to the owners their yearly 
 monies. 
 
 In laying out William of Durham's bequest, the University 
 had recourse to both these kinds of security. As early as tlie 
 year 1253, a house was bought for thirty-six marks from the 
 priors and brethren of the hospital of Brackle ; perhaps for the 
 reception of William of Durham's earliest scholars. This house 
 stood in the angle between School Street and St. Mildred's Lane 
 (which to-day is Brazenose Lane), and corresponded therefore 
 with the north-east corner of the present Brazenose College. 
 Two years later, in 1255, was purchased from the priors of 
 Sherburn, a house in the High Street, standing opposite the 
 lodge of the present college, where now is Mr. Thornton's 
 book-shop. For this piece of property the University paid, out 
 of William of Durham's money, forty-eight marks down. 
 
 This house, the second purchase made out of the founder's 
 bequest, after belonging to the College for upwards of six hundred 
 years, was lately sold to Magdalen College instead of being 
 exchanged as it should have been, if it was to be alienated at 
 all, with a house belonging to Queen's College, numbered 85 
 on the opposite side of the street. And at the same time, all 
 properties and tenements, not already belonging to us, except 
 the aforesaid No. 85, intervening between Logic Lane and the 
 New Examination Schools, were purchased, to give our College 
 the faculty of some day, if need be, extending itself on that side. 
 
 The third house bought out of the same bequest adjoined (to 
 the south) the former of the two already mentioned, and fronting 
 on School Street, was called as early as A.D. 1279, Brazen-Nose 
 Hall. It cost £55 6s. Sd. sterling, and on its site stands to-day 
 Brazen-nose College gate and chapel. The purchase was com- 
 pleted in 1 262. The last of the early purchases made by the 
 University for the College consisted of two houses east of Logic 
 Lane on the south side of the High Street. (The old Saracen's 
 Head Inn on the same side of Logic Lane only came to the 
 College in the last century by the bequest of Dr. John Browne, 
 who became master in 1744.) These two houses paid a Quit 
 Rent of fifteen shillings, for which the University gave, A.D. 
 1270, seven pounds of William of Durham's money, proving, as 
 
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 5 
 
 Mr. Smith notes, that in the thirteenth century houses were 
 purchased in Oxford at ten years' purchase, so that you received 
 eleven per cent, interest on your money. 
 
 The rents of all these houses, so we learn from the Inquisition 
 of the year 1280 already mentioned, amounted to eighteen 
 marks. As to the rest of the money bequeathed, the Masters 
 of Arts appointed by the University in 1280 to enquire found, 
 " That the University needing it for itself, and other great men 
 of the Land that had recourse to the University ; the rest of 
 the money, to wit, one hundred Pounds and ten Marks, had 
 been made use of, partly for its own necessary occasions, and 
 partly lent to other persons, of which money nothing at all is 
 yet restored." 
 
 The barons to whom the University thus lent money had long 
 been at strife with King Henry for his extortions, and in May 
 of 1264 won the Battle of Lewes against him. With them the 
 University took side against the king, so far at least as to 
 advance them money out of William of Durham's chest. It is 
 not certain — though it seems probable — that some few scholars 
 were as early as 1253 invited by the University to live together, 
 as beneficiaries of William of Durham, in the Hall which was 
 in that year purchased out of his bequest. If it be asked how 
 were they supported, it may be answered: with the interest 
 paid by the nobles upon the hundred pounds lent to them; 
 for, since the capital sum was afterwards repaid, it is fair to 
 suppose that the interest was also got in year by year from the 
 first. Although the University drew up no statutes for William 
 of Durham's scholars till the year 1280, yet his very will — which 
 is now lost — may have served as a prescription ruling their way 
 of life, even as it was made the basis of those statutes of 1280. 
 Perhaps, however, his scholars were scattered over the different 
 halls until 1280, when, after the pattern of the nephews and 
 scholars of Walter de Merton, they were gathered under a single 
 roof for the advancement of their learning and improvement of 
 their discipline. Even if they lived apart, the title of college 
 can hardly be denied to them, for— to quote Mr. William Smith 
 — " taking it for granted and beyond dispute, that William of 
 Durham dyed A.D. 1249, and that several purchases were bouglit 
 
6 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 
 
 with his money shortly after his death, as the deeds themselves 
 testifie ; all the doubt that can afterwards follow is, whether 
 William of Durham's Donation to ten, eleven, or twelve masters 
 or scholars, were sufficient to erect them into a society ? and 
 whether that society could properly be called a college ? " And 
 the same writer adds that a college " signifies not a building 
 made of brick or stone, adorned with gates, towers, and quad- 
 rangles; but a company, or society admitted into a body, and 
 enjoying the same or like privileges one with another." Such 
 was a college in the old Roman sense. 
 
 We will then leave it to the reader to decide whether 
 University College is or is not the earliest college in Europe, 
 even though its foundation by King Alfred is mythical, and will 
 pass on to view the statutes made in the year 1280. In tbat 
 year at least the Masters delegated by the University "to 
 enquire and order those things which had relation to the 
 Testament of Master William of Durham," ordained that " The 
 Chancellor with some Masters in Divinity, by their advice, shall 
 call other masters of other Faculties ; and these masters with 
 the Chancellor, bound by the Faith they owe to the University, 
 shall chuse out of all who shall offer themselves to live of the 
 said rents, four Masters, whom in their consciences they shall 
 think most fit to advance, or profit in the Holy Church, who 
 otherwise have not to live handsomely without it in the State 
 of Masters of Arts. . . . The same manner of Election shall be 
 for the future, except only that those four that shall be main- 
 tained out of that charity shall be called to the election, of 
 which four one at least shall be a Priest. 
 
 "These four Masters shall each receive for his salary fifty 
 shillings sterling ^ yearly, out of the Rents bought. . . . 
 
 "The aforesaid four masters, living together, shall study 
 Divinity ; and with this also may hear the Decretum and 
 Decretalls, if they shall think fit ; who, as to their manner of 
 
 1 This, as Mr. William Smith says, to whose printed volume and MS3. 
 preserved in the College archives, my obligations are so profuse that hence- 
 forth I will not mention them in detail, was the sum allowed to the Merton 
 scholars also, and would in an ordinary year purchase twelve and a half 
 quarters of the best wheat. 
 
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 7 
 
 living and learning, shall behave themselves as by some fit and 
 expert persons, deputed by the Chancellor, sliall be ordered. 
 But if it shall so happen, that any ought to be removed from 
 the said allowance, or office, the Chancellor and Masters of 
 Divinity shall have Power to do it." 
 
 By the same Statutes a procurator or Bursar was appointed 
 to take care of rents already bought and procure the buying 
 of other rents. This Bursar was to receive fifty-five shillings 
 instead of fifty. He was to have one key of William of 
 Durham's chest, the Chancellor another, and a person appointed 
 by the University Proctors the third. 
 
 Three points are evident from these statutes,: firstly, that in 
 its inception the College of William of Durham was entirely the 
 care of the University, which thus held the position of Visitor. 
 Secondly, theology was to be the chief, if not sole study of the 
 beneficiaries. Perhaps the founder viewed with jealousy the 
 study of Eoman law, which was beginning to engross some of 
 the best minds of the age. Thirdly, only Masters were admissible 
 as Fellows. It was the custom at the time to have graduated in 
 Arts before proceeding to teach Divinity. 
 
 After a lapse of twelve years, A.D. 1292, at the Procurement 
 of the Executors of the Venerable Mn William of Durham, 
 who were, it seems, still living, the University made new statutes 
 for the College. In these new statutes we hear for the first time 
 of a Master of the College, of commoners, and of a College 
 library. The Senior Fellow was to govern the Juniors, and get 
 half a mark yearly for his diligence therein. Thus the head- 
 ship of the College went at first by succession, and not until 
 1382 by election; after which date the master was required to 
 be caeteris paribus proxime Dunelmiam oriundus, or at least of 
 northern extraction. 
 
 The first alien to the College who was elected Master was Ralph 
 Hamsterley, in 1509. Previously he was a Fellow of Merton 
 College, where in the chapel he was buried. (Brodrick, MemariaU 
 of Merton College, p. 240.) He was "nunquam de gremio nostro 
 neque de comitiva," and was therefore chosen Master condition- 
 ally upon the visitors granting a dispensation to depart from the 
 ordinary rule. (W. Smith's MSS., xi. p. 2.) 
 
8 • UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 
 
 The Master had until lately as much or as little right to 
 marry as any of the Fellows, and in 1692 the Fellows, before 
 electing Dr. Charlet, exacted from him a promise that he would 
 not marry, or, if he did, would resign within a year. It seems 
 that in old days Fellows of Colleges who were obliged to be in 
 Holy Orders were free to marry after King James the I.'s parlia- 
 ment had sanctioned the marriage of clergymen. Already in 
 1422 the Master is called the custos, but he was till 1736, when 
 new statutes made a change, called " the Master or Senior Felloiu, 
 Magister ml senior socius." He had the key of the College, but 
 in time delegated the function of letting people in and out to a 
 statutory porter. The introduction of commoners or scholars 
 not on the foundation is thus referred to in these statutes of 
 1292: "Since the aforesaid scholars have not sufficient to live 
 handsomely alone by themselves, but that it is expedient that 
 other honest persons dwell with them ; it is ordained that every 
 Fellow shall secretly enquire concerning the manners of every 
 one that desires to sojourn with them ; and then, if they please, 
 by common consent, let him be received under this condition. 
 That before them he shall promise whilst he lives with them, 
 that he will honestly observe the customs of the Fellows of the 
 House, pay his Dues, not hurt any of the Things belonging to 
 the House, either by himself, or those that belong to him." 
 
 In the year 1381 we find from the Bursar's roll that the 
 students not on the foundation paid £4 18s. as rents for their 
 chambers, a considerable sum in those days. 
 
 As to the books of the College, it was ordained that there be 
 put one book of every sort that the House has, in some common 
 and secure place ; that the Fellows, and others with the consent 
 of a Fellow, may for the future have the benefit of it. 
 
 For the rest it was ordained that the Fellows should speak 
 Latin often, and at every Act have one Disputation in Philosophy 
 or Theology, and have one Disputation at least in the principal 
 Question of both Faculties in the Vespers, and another in the 
 Inception in their private College. In these disputations it is 
 clear that rival disputants sometimes lost their tempers from 
 the following ordinance — 
 
 "No Fellow shall under-value another Fellow, but shall 
 
UNIVERSITY COLLEaE. 9 
 
 correct his Fault privately, under the Penalty of Twelve-pence 
 to be paid to the common-Purse; nor before one that is no 
 Fellow, under the Penalty of two shillings ; nor pubUckly in the 
 Highway, or Church, or Fields, under the penalty of half a mark ; 
 and in all these cases, he that begins first shall double what the 
 other is to pay, and this in Disputations especially." 
 
 In those days a lesson was read during dinner. In these 
 degenerate days all the above salutary rules are inverted, and 
 it is customary for the senior scholar to sconce in a pot of beer 
 any junior member who quotes Latin during the Hall-dinner. 
 
 In the year 1 311 fresh statutes were ordained by convocation 
 for the College, which, however, add little to the former ones. 
 Of candidates for a Fellowship, otherwise duly qualified, he was to 
 be preferred who comes from near Durham. After seven years 
 a Fellow was to oppose in the Divinity Schools, which was 
 equivalent to nowadays taking the degree of Doctor of Divinity. 
 Each Fellow or past-Fellow was to put up a mass once a year 
 for the Repose of the soul of William of Durham ; and all 
 alike were to cause themselves to be called, so far as lay in 
 their power, the scholars of William of Durham. Lastly, the 
 Senior Fellow was to be in Holy Orders. This, however, must 
 not be taken to mean that the other Fellows were not to be so 
 likewise. They were till recently expected to be ordained within 
 four years of their degree, and the Statutes of 1311 A.D. were 
 reaffirmed in that sense by the visitors under the chancellorship 
 of Dr. Fell, 1666 a.d., when it was sought to remove Mr. Berty, 
 a Bennet Fellow, because he had not taken orders. 
 
 In or about the year 1343 the scholars of William of Durham 
 removed to the present site of the College, where a house called 
 Spicer's Hall, occupying the ground now included <in the large 
 quadrangle, had been bought for them. At the same time 
 White Hall and Rose Hall, two houses facing Kybald Street— 
 which joined the present Logic Lane and Grove Street half-way 
 down each — were bought, and made part of the College. 
 Ludlow Hall, on the site of the present east quadrangle, was 
 bought at the same time, and a tenement, called in 1379 
 Little University Hall, and occupying the site of the Lodgings 
 of the Master (which in 1880, on the completion of the Master's 
 
IP UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 
 
 new house, were turned into men's rooms), was bought in 1404. 
 But Ludlow Hall and Little University Hall were not at once 
 added to the College premises. 
 
 During the first hundred years of the life of the College 
 its members were called simply Umversity Scholars, and the 
 ordinance of A.D. 1311, that they should call themselves the 
 Scholars of William of Durham, proves that that was not tlie 
 name in common vogue. Their old house at the corner of what 
 is to-day Brazen-nose College was called the Aula Universitatis 
 in Vice Scholarum (the Hall of the University in School Street). 
 After 1843, the probable year of their migration, until at least 
 1361, the College was called as before Aula Universitatis, only 
 in Alto Vico, i.e. in High Street. After 1361 they assumed 
 the official title of Master and Fellows of the Hall of William 
 of Durham, commonly called Aula Universitatis. It was not 
 till 1381 that the present title Magna Atcla Universitatis, or 
 Mickle University Hall, was used, in distinction from the Little 
 University/ Hall, which was only separated from it by Ludlow 
 Hall. But the nomenclature was not uniform, and in Elizabeth's 
 reign, as in Richard II.'s, it was called the College of William of 
 Durham. 
 
 The legend of the foundation of the College by King Alfred 
 has been mentioned, and here is a convenient place to conjecture 
 how and when it arose. The first mention of it we meet with 
 in a petition addressed in Freach to King Richard II., A.D. 
 1381, by his " poor Orators, the Master and Scholars of your 
 College, called Mickil University Hall in Oxendford, which 
 College was first founded by your noble Progenitor, King Alfred 
 (whom God assoyle), for the maintenance of twenty-four Divines 
 for ever." Twenty years before, in 1360, Laurence Radeford, a 
 Fellow, had bought for the College various messuages, shops, 
 lands and meadows yielding rents of the yearly value of £15. 
 This purchase was made out of the residuum of William of 
 Durham's money, now all called in. But it turned out that the 
 title to the new property was bad, and, after forging various 
 deeds without success, the College appealed in the above petition 
 to the king, Richard IL, to exercise his prerogative, and take the 
 case out of the common courts, in which — so runs the petition—- 
 
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. H 
 
 the plaintiff, Edmond Frauncis, citizen of London, " has procured 
 all the Pannel of the Inquest to be taken by Gifts and Treats." 
 
 The petition prays the king to see that the College be not 
 "tortiously disinherited," and appeals to the memory of the 
 " noble Saints John of Beverley, Bede, and Richard of Armagh, 
 formerly scholars of the College." A petition so full of fictions 
 hardly deserved to lead to success, and the College was eventually 
 compelled to redeem its right to the estate by payment of a 
 large sum of money to the heirs of Frauncis. The interest of 
 this petition, however, lies in the fact that in 1728, on the 
 occasion of a dispute arising for the mastership between Mr. 
 Denison and Mr. Cockman, it formed the ground upon which, in 
 the King's Bench at Westminster, it was held that the College 
 is a Royal foundation, and the Crown the rightful visitor ; the 
 truth being that the whole body of Regents and non-Regents 
 of the University were and always had been the true and 
 rightful visitor. 
 
 But the French Petition to Richard II. was not the only 
 fabrication to which William of Durham's unworthy beneficiaries 
 had recourse in order to establish a fictitious antiquity and deny 
 their real founder. About the same time they stole the 
 chancellor's seal and affixed its im.press to a forged deed pur- 
 porting to have been executed in A.D. 1220, the 4th of Henry 
 III., May 10th, by Lewis de Chapyrnay, Chancellor. This 
 false deed records the receipt of four hundred marks bequeathed 
 by William, Archdeacon of Durham, for the maintenance of six 
 Masters of Arts, and the conveyance of certain tenements to 
 Master Roger Caldwell, Warden and senior Fellow of the great 
 hall of the University. The reader will the more agree that 
 this forgery was worthier of Shapira than of " honest and holy 
 clerks," when he reads in Antony h. Wood (City of Oxford, 
 ed. Andrew Clark, vol. i. p. 561) — who was not deceived by 
 it — that it was written "on membrane cours, thick, greasy, 
 whereas, in the reign of Henry III. parchment was not so, but 
 fine and clear." There never were such persons as Chapyrnay 
 and Caldwell, and William of Durham did not die till 1249, and 
 then left only three hundred and ten marks. Mr. Twine, the 
 author of the Apology for the Antiquity of Oxford, said of this 
 
12 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 
 
 deed, "mentiri nescit, it cannot lie." " But," says quaintly Mr. 
 William Smith, " if ever there was a lie in the world, that which 
 we find in that Charter is as great a one as ever the Devil told 
 since he deceived our first Parents in Paradise." 
 
 It would oppress the reader to detail all the other fictions 
 which followed on this early one. One lie makes many, and as 
 time went on outward embellishments were added to the College 
 commemorative of its mythical founder. Thus a picture of 
 King Alfred was bought in the year 1662 for £3 — perhaps the 
 same which one now sees in the College library. There was — 
 so Mr, Smith relates — an older picture of him in the Masters' 
 lodo^inofs. 
 
 A statue of Alfred also stood over the chapel door, and was 
 removed by Mr. Obadiah Walker, Master in 1676, to a niche 
 over the hall door to make place for a statue of St. Cuthbert, 
 the patron saint of Durham, on whose day the gaudy used to 
 be celebrated until 1662, at which date it was changed to the 
 day of Saints Simon and Jude, out of respect to the memory of 
 Sir Simon Benet, who had lately bequeathed four Fellowships, 
 four scholarships, and various other benefits. This was the real 
 cause of the 28th of October being chosen for the gaudy, although 
 afterwards the Aluredians absurdly pretended that it was the 
 day of King Alfred's obit. The statue of Alfred above-men- 
 tioned was given by Dr. Robert Plot, the well-known author of 
 The Natural History of Oxfordshire, who was a Fellow-commoner 
 of the College, and it cost £3 Is. bd. to remove it, as related, in 
 the year 1686. A hundred years later a marble image of Alfred 
 was given to the College by Viscount Folkestone, which is now 
 set up over the fireplace in the oak common-room. A relief of 
 him is also set over the fireplace in the college-hall, and was 
 given by Sir Roger Newdigate, a member of the College, and 
 founder of the University annual prize for an English poem. 
 
 A picture of St. John of Beverley, mentioned in the French 
 petition to Richard II., was, we learn from Gutch's edition of 
 Antony Wood's Colleges and Halls (ed. 1786, p. 57), set in the 
 east window of the old chapel in the beginning of the seven- 
 teenth century. The same authority assures us that until Dr. 
 Clayton's time (Master, 1605) there were in a window on the 
 
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 13 
 
 west side of the little old quadrangle pictures of King Alfred 
 kneeling and St. Cuthbert sitting, . . . the king thus bespeak- 
 ing the saiut in a pentauieter, holding the picture of the College 
 in his hand, " Hie in honore tui collegium statui," to whom the 
 saint made answer, in a scroll coming from his mouth — " Qua 
 statuisti in eo pervertentes maledico." 
 
 In a window of the outer chapel were also the arms of William 
 of Durham, which were, " Or, a Fleur de lis azure, each leaf 
 charged with a mullet gules." Round these arms was written 
 on a scroll : " Magistri Willielmi de Dunelm . . . huius col- 
 legii"; the missing word, so Wood had been informed, was 
 " Fundatoris," erased, no doubt, by an Aluredian. The arms 
 of the College to-day are those of Edward the Confessor, to 
 wit — " Azure, a cross patonce between five martlets Or." We 
 would do well to resign our sham royalty, and return to the 
 arms of William of Durham, our true founder. 
 
 The crowning fiction was the celebration in the year 1872 of 
 the millennium of the College, during the mastership of the Rev. 
 G. G. Bradley, afterwards Dean of Westminster. It is said that 
 a distinguished modern historian ironically sent him a number 
 of burned cakes, purporting to have been dug up at Athelney, 
 to entertain King Alfred'.s scholars withal. It is not recorded if 
 they were served up or no to the guests, among whom were 
 Dean Stanley and Mr. Robert Lowe, both past tutors of the 
 College. At the dinner which graced this festal occasion, the 
 late Dean of Westminster is said to have ridiculed the idea of 
 King Alfred having bestowed lands and tenements on scholars 
 in Oxford, which place was in A.D. 872 in possession of Alfred's 
 enemies the Danes; w^hereupon Mr. Lowe made the happy answer, 
 that this latter fact was itself a confirmation of the legend, for 
 King Alfred was a man much before his time, who in the spirit 
 of some modern leaders of the democracy took care to bestow 
 on his followers, not his own lands, but those of his political 
 opponents. 
 
 This legend of King Alfred sprang up in the fourteenth 
 century, when people had forgotten the Norman Conquest and 
 time had long healed all the scars of an alien invasion. Then 
 historians began to feel back to a more remote period for the 
 
14 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 
 
 origin of institutions really subsequent. In so doing they fed 
 patriotic pride by establishing an unbroken continuity of the 
 nation's life. So to-day we see asserting itself, and with better 
 historical warranty, a belief in the antiquity of English ecclesi- 
 astical institutions. The best minds are no longer content with 
 that idol of the Evangelicals, a parliamentary church dating 
 back no more than three centuries. It may be even that a 
 good deal of the Aluredian legend was earlier in its origin than 
 the fourteenth century, and shaped itself at the first out of anti- 
 Norman feeling. In the reign of King Richard, anyhow, all 
 sections of the now united nation accepted it, and not only have 
 we the writ of King Richard II., dated May 4th, 1381 (in 
 answer to the French petition), setting down the College to be 
 " the Foundation of the Progenitors of our Lord the King, and 
 of his Patronage," ^ but in that very reign, if not later, a passage 
 was interpolated in MSS. of Asser's Lif^ of Alfred, identifying 
 the schools — which Alfred undoubtedly maintained — with the 
 schools of Oxford. The Fellows of University only took advan- 
 tage of a feeling which was abroad, and by which they were also 
 duped, when they declared themselves in the French petition to 
 be a royal foundation. Antony Wood was not deceived by the 
 legend, though he credits it in regard to the University. It is 
 strange to find Hearne the antiquary, and Dr. Charlet, Master, 
 1G92 — 1722, both acquaintances of Mr. W. Smith, adhering to 
 the belief. Mr, Smith declares that Dr. Charlet did so from 
 vanity, because he thought that to be head of a royal founda- 
 tion added to his dignity. Obadiah Walker had sided with 
 the Aluredians, because he was a papist, and because Alfred 
 had been a good Catholic king and faithful to the Pope. What 
 is most strange of all is that, although the king's attorney and 
 solicitor-general, being duly commissioned to inquire, had, in 
 October 1724 pronounced that the College was not a royal 
 foundation, nor the sovereign its legitimate visitor, yet the 
 Court of King's Bench three years after decided both points 
 in just the opposite sense. It is an ill wind that blows no 
 
 1 This writ of King Richard is only entered on the back of the ancient 
 roll containing the French Petition, and is not upon Record. (W. Smitli's 
 J.nnaZs, p. 311.) 
 
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 15 
 
 one any good. We then lost the University as our visitor, but 
 have since obtained gratis on all disputed points the opinion 
 of the highest law officer of the realm, the Lord Chancellor. 
 
 Between the years 1307 and 1360 as many as sixteen ludls in 
 the parishes of St. Mary, St. Peter, St. Mildred, and All Hallows 
 were bought for the College. Tiiey were no doubt let out as 
 lodgings to University students, and were in those days, as now, 
 a remunerative form of investment; some of them standing 
 on sites which have since come to be occupied by colleges. 
 
 It was not till the fifteenth century that the College acquired 
 property outside Oxford, and then not by purchase, but by 
 bequest. In those days locomotion was too difficult for a small 
 group of scholars to venture on far-off purchases. But in 1403 
 Walter Skirlaw, Bishop of Durham, left to our College the 
 Manor of Mark's Hall, or Margaret Ruthing, in Essex. The 
 proceeds were to sustain three Fellows " chosen out of students 
 at Oxford or Cambridge, and if possible born in the dioceses of 
 York and Durham." It has already been remarked how closely 
 connected was the "College with the North of England. No 
 other conditions w^ere attached to the benefaction save this, that 
 "all the Fellows shall every year, for ever, celebrate solemn 
 obsequies in their chapel upon the day of the Bishop's death, 
 with a Placebo and Dirige, and a Mass for the dead the day 
 after." Is it altogether for good that we have outgrown those 
 customs of pious gratitude to the past? Bishop Skirlaw's 
 Fellowships, it may be added, figure in the Calendar as of the 
 foundation of Henry IV., because the lands were passed as a 
 matter of legal form through the sovereign's lands in order to 
 avoid certain difficulties connected with mortmains. 
 
 The next great benefactor of the College after Bishop Skirlaw 
 was Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, who in 1442 left 
 property and the advowson of Arncliffe in Craven in Yorkshire. 
 Three Fellows drawn from the dioceses of Durham, Carlisle, and 
 York were to be sustained out of his benefaction. The next chief 
 benefaction was that of John Freyston or Frieston, who in 1592 
 bequeathed property in Pontefract for the support of a Fellow or 
 Exhibitioner, who should be a Yorkshire man, and also by his 
 will made the College trustee to pay certain yearly sums to the 
 
16 ' UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 
 
 grammar schools of Wakefield, Normanton, Pontefract, and 
 Swillington. 
 
 Coming to the seventeenth century, we find a Mr. Charles 
 Greenwood, a past-Fellow, leaving a handsome bequest to the 
 College, out of which, however, only £1500 was secured from his 
 executors, which money paid for the present fabric to be partially 
 raised ; the north side of the quadrangle, the chapel, and hall 
 and old library being first begun A.D. 1634. The present library 
 was partly built out of money given by the executors and trustees 
 of the second Lord Eldon, past-Fellow of the College. It shelters 
 the colossal twin-image of his kinsmen, and was designed by Sir 
 G. G. Scott, and is better suited to be a chapel than a library. 
 Then in 1631, Sir Simon Bennet, a relative and college pupil of 
 Mr. Greenwood's, left lands in Northampton to maintain eight 
 Fellows and eight scholars; though they turned out sufficient 
 to maintain but four of each sort. The last great benefactor of 
 this century was the famous Dr. Radcliffe, formerly senior scholar, 
 of whom the eastern quadrangle, built by his munificence, remains 
 as a monument. Beside completing the fabrics he founded two 
 medical Fellowships, and, dying in 1734, bequeathed in trust to 
 the College for its uses his estate of Linton in Yorkshire. 
 , It is beyond the limits of a short article to narrate all the 
 vicissitudes which during the epochs of the Reformation and 
 Commonwealth the College underwent. In the reign of Eliza- 
 beth it sided with the Roman Catholics, and the Master and 
 several Fellows were ejected on that account. Later on, in 1642, 
 the College lent its plate, consisting of a silver flagon, 8 potts, 
 9 tankards, 18 bowles, one candle-pott, and a salt-sellar to King 
 Charles I., one flagon alone being kept for the use of the 
 Communion. The gross weight as weighed at the mint was 
 738 oz. The Fellows and commoners also contributed on 30th 
 July, 1636, the sum of 191i. 10s. for entertaining the king; and 
 again on 17th Feb., 1636, 41i. I7s. 6d. Subsequently the 
 College sustained for many months 28 soldiers at the rate of 
 221i. 8s. per month. After all this show of loyalty we expect 
 to learn that Cromwell ejected the Master, Thomas Walker, and 
 instituted a Roundhead, Joshua Hoyle, in his place. 
 
 Another member of the College of the same name, but who 
 
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. - 17 
 
 achieved more fame, was Obadiah Walker, who was already a 
 Fellow under Thomas Walker's mastership, and was ejected by 
 the Long Parliament along with him, and also with his old tutor, 
 Mr. Abraham Woodhead. Woodhead and 0. Walker retired 
 abroad and visited Rome and many other places. At the 
 Restoration they both regained their Fellowships, but Woodhead 
 never more conformed to the English Church. O. Walker, how- 
 ever, continued to take the Sacrament in the College chapel, 
 and after that he was elected Master distributed it to the other 
 Fellows, till, on the accession of James II., he "openly declared 
 himself a Romanist, and got a dispensation from his Majesty for 
 himself and two Fellows, his converts, who held their places till 
 the king's flight, notwithstanding the laws to the contrary." 
 William Smith, who was a resident Fellow at the time, has 
 " many good things to say of Obadiah Walker, as that he was 
 neither proud nor covetous, and framed his usual discourse 
 against the Puritans on one side, and the Jesuits on the other, 
 as the chief disturbers of the peace, and hinderers of all 
 concessions and agreement amongst all true members of the 
 Catholic Church." He complains, however, that "as soon as 
 he declared himself a Roman Catholic, he provided him and his 
 party of Jesuits for their Priests ; concerning the first of which 
 (I think he went by the name of Mr. Edwards) there is this 
 remarkable story, that having had mass said for some time in a 
 garret, he afterwards procured a mandate from K. James to 
 seize on the lower half of a side of the quadrangle, next adjoining 
 to the College chapel, by which he deprived us of two low 
 rooms, their studies and their bed-charnbe^'s ; and al'ter all the 
 partitions were removed, it was some\^§,y oi^ other consecrated, 
 as we suppose, to Divine services; for they had mass there 
 every day, and sermons at least in the afternoons on the Lord's 
 Day." 
 
 Smith goes on to relate how the Jesuit chaplain was one day 
 preaching from the text, " So run that you may obtain," when 
 one of many Protestants, who were barkening at the outside of 
 the windows in the quadrangle, discovering that the Jesuit was 
 preaching a sermon of Mr. Henry Smith, which he had at home 
 by him, went and fetched the book, and read at the outside of 
 
 c 
 
18 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 
 
 the window what the Jesuit was preaching within. For this it 
 seems the particular Jesuit got into trouble. Smith complains 
 also that by mandate of the king, Walker sequestred a Fellow- 
 ship towards the maintenance of his priest, and incurred the 
 College much expense in putting up the statue of James II., 
 presented by a Romanist,^ over the inside of a gate-house. 
 He adds that " Mr. Walker that had the king's ear, and enter- 
 tained him at vespers in their chapel, and shewed the king the 
 painted windows in our own, so that the king could not but see 
 his own statue in coming out of it, never had the Prudence nor 
 kindness to the College, as to request the least favour to the 
 society from him." 
 
 That Mr. William Smith, who writes the above, could also 
 make himself a persona grata to the great men of State who 
 came to Oxford to attend on the kinor we see from the folio win 2^ 
 letter written by Lord Conyers, who in 1681 lodged w^ith his 
 son in University College, on the occasion of the Parliament 
 meeting in Oxford. It is dated Easter Thursday, London, 1681, 
 and is as follows (MSS. Smith) : — 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 I cannot satisfy my wife without giving you this trouble 
 of my thanks for your very greate kindnesse to me and my sonn : 
 we gott hither in v. good time on Thursday to waite on y® king 
 before night; who was in a course of physick, but God be praised 
 is V. well & walked yesterday round Hide Parke. My son also 
 desires his humble services to you : And we both of us desire 
 our services & thanks to Mr. Ledgard & Mr. Smith for y'" great 
 civilities to us; & whenever I can serve any of you or the 
 College, be most confident to find me 
 
 " Y"^ most affect, friend & 
 
 " humble Servant 
 
 "Conyers." 
 
 1 Mr. Wm. Eogers of Gloticestersliire, a member of the College. The 
 speech spoken by Mr. Edw. Hales upon ye setting up of it was printed by 
 Dr. Charlett. Mr. Hales was afterwards killed at ye Boynein Ireland most 
 couragiously fighting for his master King James. (Hearne by Doble, II. 
 p. 143.) 
 
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 19 
 
 In 1680, March 30, London, Lord Conyers writes to O.Walker 
 about sending his son to the College, " who is growne too bigge for 
 schoole tho' little I fear in scholarship ... he is very towardly 
 & capable to be made a scholar." He desires [letter of London, 
 April 9, 1682] Mr. Walker to provide a tutor for " his young 
 man." 
 
 Smith's account of Obadiah Walker's doings at the College is 
 fitly completed by the following passage from a letter sent by 
 a Romanist priest at Oxford, Father Henry Pelham, to the 
 Provincial of the Jesuits, Father John Clare (Sir John Warner, 
 Bart.), preserved in the Public Record Office in Brussels, and 
 given in Bloxam's Magdalen College and JameH II. (p. 227) — 
 
 " Oxford, 1690, May 2. — Hon. Sir, You are desirous to know- 
 how things are with us in these troublous times, since trade 
 {religion) is so much decayed. I can only say that in the 
 general decline of trade we have had our share. For before 
 this turn we were in a very hopeful way, for we had three 
 public shops (chapels) open in Oxford. One did wholly belong 
 to us, and good custom we had, viz. the University [University 
 College Chapel) ; but now it is shut up. The Master was taken, 
 and has been ever since in prison, and the rest forced to abscond." 
 
 Thus ended the last attempt to force the Romanist religion 
 upon Oxford. In the following December we find "Obadiah 
 Walker" in the list of prisoners remaining at Faversham under 
 a strong guard until the 30th of December, and then conducted 
 some to the Tower, some to Newgate, and others released. Mr. 
 Obadiah Walker lived for many years afterwards, and added to 
 the literary work he had already accomplished in Oxford a 
 history of the Ejected Clergy. His memory long survived in 
 Oxford, and with the mob was kept alive in a doggrel ballad 
 which bore the refrain, " Old Obadiah sings Ave Maria." 
 
 In University College, under Obadiah Walker, were focussed 
 all the propagandist influences of the time. Dr. John Massey, 
 Dean of Christchurch, 1686, referred to in Pelham's letter, was 
 originally a member of University College, and was converted 
 by Obadiah Walker. There was also a printing press kept going 
 in University to pubhsh books of a Romanist tendency, which 
 the University would not authorize to be printed by its Press. 
 
20 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 
 
 The official College record (in the Register of Election) of the 
 deposition of Mr. Obadiah Walker from the headship of the 
 College is as follows (MSS. of Will. Smith, vol vii. p. 113)— 
 
 "About the middle of Dec, a.d. 1688, Mr. Obadiah Walker 
 attempted to flee abroad, but was taken at Sittingbourne in 
 Kent, and carried to London, and there lodged in the Tower on 
 a charge of high treason. 
 
 "On Jan. 7, 1689, the Fellows of University deputed Master 
 Babman to go to him and ask him if he would resign his 
 post, to whom, after deliberation lasting many days, Walker 
 answered that he would not. 
 
 " On Jan. 22, after this answer had been brought to Oxford 
 and conveyed to the Vice-Chancellor, the latter summoned the 
 Fellows to appear before the Visitors on Jan. 26, in the 
 Apodyterium of the Venerable House of Convocation. 
 
 "Where on Jan. 26, between 9 and 10 a.m., there appeared 
 in person and as representing the College the following Fellows 
 — Mr. Will. Smith, Tho. Babman, Tho. Bennet, Francis Forster, 
 and besought the Vice-Chancellor, Proctors, and Doctors of 
 Divinity representing Convocation to remedy certain grievances 
 in the College, specially concerning the Master and two Fellows. 
 To them a citation was then issued by the Vice-Chancellor, 
 Proctors, Doctors of Divinity, and others, as the ordinary and 
 legitimate patrons and visitors of the College, to appear before 
 them in the College Chapel on Monday, Feb. 4 following 
 between 8 — 9 a.m. 
 
 " On the appointed day there met in the chapel between 
 8—9 a.m. the Vice-Chancellor, Gilbert Ironsyde, S.T.P., Rob. 
 Say, Byron Eaton, Master of Oriel, W. Lovett, Tho. Hyde, 
 Chief Librarian, Tho. Turner, President of C.C.C, Jonath. 
 Edwards, S.T.P., Thom. Dunstan, Pres. of Magdalen College, 
 Will. Christmas, Jun. Proctor, and others. After the Litany 
 had been repeated, the Vice-Chancellor prorogued the meeting 
 to the common-room, where were present the afore-mentioned 
 Fellows, and in addition Edw. Farrar, Jo. Gilve, Jo. Nailor, 
 Jo. H\idson. The Fellows preferred a complaint that the statutes 
 of the Realm, of the University, and of the College had been 
 violated by Obadiah Walker, Master or Senior Fellow of the 
 
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 21 
 
 College. They objected iu particular that he had left the 
 religion of the Anglican Church, established and confirmed by 
 the statutes of this Realm, and betaken himself to the Komaii 
 or papistical religion ; that he had held, fostered, and Irequented 
 illegal conventicles within the aforesaid College; that he had 
 procured to be sequestred unto wrong uses and against the 
 statutes the income and emoluments of the Society; also that 
 he had had printed books against the Reformed religion, and 
 that within the College, and had published the same unto the 
 grave scandal as well of the University as of the College. All 
 these charges were amply proved by trustworthy witnesses, 
 whereupon the visitors decreed that the post of Mr. Obadiah 
 Walker was void and vacant. At the same time, at the instance 
 of the said Fellows, Masters Boyse and Deane, Fellows of the 
 College, who had left the religion of the reformed Anglican 
 Church, were ordered to be proceeded against so soon as a new 
 Master or Senior Fellow was chosen." 
 
 Mr. Obadiah Walker lived for many years after the accession 
 of William and Mary. He was a man of great piety and vast 
 and varied learning, as is shown by his books upon Religion, 
 Logic, History, and Geography. He wrote a book upon Green- 
 land, and made experiments in physics. A near friend of the 
 great benefactor of the College, Dr. John Radcliffe, he sought 
 to convert that famous physician to the Roman faith, but found 
 him as little inclined to believe in transubstantiation as " that 
 the phial in his hand was a wheelbarrow." In spite of their 
 want of religious sympathy, however, the two men liked each 
 other's society, and the great physician, who respected Walker's 
 learning, gave him a competency during the latter years of his 
 life. In the College archives is an elegant letter addressed by 
 O. Walker, then Master, to Radcliffe, thanking him for his gilt 
 of the east window of the College chapel It runs thus : 
 
 " Sir, we return you our humble and hearty thanks for your 
 noble and illustrious benefaction to this ancient foundation; 
 your generosity hath supplyed a defect and covered a blemish 
 in our chapell; the other lesse eminent windows seemed to 
 upbraid the chiefest as being more adorned and regardable than 
 
22 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 
 
 that which ought to be most splendid; till you was pleased 
 to compassionate us and ennoble the best with the best work. 
 Other benefactions are to be sought out in registers and 
 memorialls, yours is conveyed with the light. The rising sun 
 displays the gallantry of your spirit, and withall puts us in 
 mind as often as we enter to our devotions to remember you 
 and your good actions towards us. Nor can we salute the 
 morning light without meditating on y^ Shepherds and y^ 
 Angells adoring the true Sun. And y'' holy praise and pros- 
 tration by your singular favour is continually proposed, as to 
 our sight and consideration, so to our example also. And so we 
 do accept and acknowledge it, not only as an object moving our 
 devotions, but as praise of y^ artificer who hath not only observed 
 much better decorum and proportion in his figures, but hath 
 all so ingeniously contrived that the light shall not be hindred 
 as by y^ daubery of y^ others." — The letter concludes with a 
 prayer that Dr. Radcliffe may prosper in his profession." 
 
 The following quaint " letter sent by the College to begge con- 
 tributions towards the building the East Side of the quadrangle 
 about y^ end of 1674 or beginning of 1675 to the gentlemen in 
 the North Parts " may fitly conclude our notice of this college 
 {vide MSS. W. Smith, x. 239). 
 
 " Gentlemen, 
 
 "Your aged mother, and not yours alone, but of this 
 whole University, if not all other such nurseries of Learning, 
 at least in this nation, craves your assistance in the Time of her 
 Necessity. It is not long since her walls Ruining and her 
 Buildings, almost, after so many years, decayed ; It pleased God 
 to excite two of her sonnes in especiall manner, M"" Charles 
 Greenwood, the tutor, and S"" Simon Benett, his pupill, to com- 
 passionate her decay, Repair her Ruins and Renew with Great 
 Augmentation her former glory. But the late civil warrs and 
 other alterations intervening not only interrupted that progresse 
 which in a small time would have finished the work ; But also 
 disappointed her of the Assistance of Diverse, who were willing 
 to contribute to her repairs. 
 
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 
 
 " And we have very good Hopes that you will not be wanting 
 to us in this our Necessity ; this being a college designed for 
 and most of the preferment in it limittcd to Northern Scholars. 
 A college which hath had the fehcity to be herselfe at this 
 present time DCCC. years old. ... In recompense she may 
 justly expect that as she hath fostered your youths, so you 
 would cherish her age." 
 
 Additional Notes, 
 
 p. 9. On Clerical Fellows. — It should be added that the statutes of 1736 
 provided that the two senior Fellows of the foundation of Sir Simon Bennet 
 might study Medicine or Law. In 1854 the general ordinances of the Com- 
 missioners provided that there should be six {i. e. half of the) Fellows in Holy 
 Orders. More recently clerical Fellowships have been practically abolished 
 in the College. 
 
 p. 14. Anti-Norman feeling. — A spirit of Rivalry with Cambridge may 
 with more reason be alleged in explanation of the acceptance of the 
 Aluredian Legend. 
 
 p. 14. On the Legend of King Alfred. — The Court of King's Bench only 
 decided that the College is a Royal Foundation, not that it was actually 
 founded by King Alfred. Cp. the Preamble of Statutes of 1736: "it 
 manifestly appears by a Judgement lately given in our Court of Kings 
 Bench that the college of the great Hall of the University, commonly 
 called University College, in Oxford, is of the foundation of our Royal 
 Progenitors." 
 
 p. 23. On Northern Scholars.— The College lost its one-sided Northern 
 character in 1736, when new statutes ordained that Sir Simon Bennet's 
 Fellows were to come from the Southern Province of Canterbury (in partibus 
 regni nostri Australibus oriundi). 
 
II- 
 BALLIOL college: 
 
 By Reginald L. Poole, M.A., Balliol College. 
 
 The precedence of Balliol over Merton College depends upon 
 the fact that John Balliol made certain payments not long after 
 1260 for the support of poor students at Oxford, while Walter 
 of Merton's foundation dates from 1264; but it was not until 
 the example had been set by Merton that the House of 
 Balliol assumed a corporate being and became governed by 
 formal statutes. The "pious founder" too was at the outset an 
 involuntary agent, for the obligation to make his endowment 
 
 1 In the earlier part of this chapter I have been under constant obliga- 
 tions to the old College history entitled Balliofergus, or, a Commentary 
 upon the Foundation, Founders, and Affaires of Balliol Colledge, Gathered 
 out of the Records thereof, and other Antiquities. With a brief Description 
 of eminent Persons who have been formerly of the same House. By Henry 
 Savage, Master of the said Colledge (Oxford 1668). 1 am also consider- 
 ably indebted to Mr. Maxwell Lyte's History of the University of Oxford 
 (1886), and to the somewhat perfunctory and ill-informed account of the 
 College muniments given by Mr. H. T. Riley in the appendix to the Fourth 
 Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission (1874). The Statutes of 
 the College are cited from the edition prepared for the University Commis- 
 sion of 1850, and published in 1853. In dealing with later times I have 
 had the advantage of a number of references kindly furnished me by Dr. 
 G. B. Hill of Pembroke College, Mr. C. E. Doble of Worcester College, 
 and Mr. C. H. Firth of Balliol College. Mr. Rashdall, of Hertford College, 
 has been so good as to look over the proof-sheets of this chapter ; and, 
 although he is not to be held chargeable with any errors that may have 
 escaped him, I have to thank him for many corrections and suggestions. 
 
BALLIOL COLLEGE. 25 
 
 was part of a penance imposed on him together with a pubhc 
 scourging at the Abbey door by the Bishop of Durham.^ 
 John Balliol, lord of Galloway, was the father of that John 
 to whom King Edward the First of England adjudged the 
 Scottish crown in 1292. His wife, the heiress, was Dervorguilla, 
 grandniece to King William the Lion. It is to her far more 
 than to her husband that the real foundation of the College 
 bearing his name is due, and husband and wife are rightly coupled 
 together as joint-founders, the lion of Scotland being associated 
 with the orle of Balliol on the College shield. A house was first 
 hired beyond the city ditch on the north side of Oxford, hard by 
 the church of St. Mary Magdalen, and here certain poor scholars 
 were lodged and paid eightpence a-day for their commons.^ It 
 was in the beginning a simple almshouse, founded on the model 
 already existing at Paris, it depended for its maintenance upon 
 the good pleasure of the founder, and possessed (so far as we know) 
 no sort of organization, though customs and rules were certain to 
 shape themselves before long without any positive enactment. 
 
 This state of things lasted until 1282, when Dervorguilla, — her 
 husband had died in 1269, — took steps to place the House of 
 Balliol upon an established footing. By her charter deed ^ she 
 appointed two representatives or " proctors " (one, it seems 
 probable, being always a Franciscan friar, and the other a secular 
 Master of Arts) as the governing body of the House. The 
 Scholars were, it is true, to elect their own Principal, and obey 
 him ''according to the statutes and customs approved among 
 them," but he and they were alike subordinate to the Proctors 
 or (as they came to be distinguished) the Extraneous Masters. 
 The Scholars, whose number is not mentioned, were to attend 
 the prescribed religious services and the exercises at the schools, 
 and were also to engage in disputations among themselves once 
 a fortnight. Three masses in the year were to be celebrated 
 for the founders' welfare, and mention of them was to be made in 
 the blessing before and grace after meat. Rules were laid down 
 
 1 The identification seems certain, though the name is suppressed in the 
 Chronicon de Laiiercost (ed. J. Stevenson, 1839), p. G9. 
 
 2 Chron. de Mailros, s. a. 1269. 
 
 3 Statutes of Balliol College, pp. v.— vii. 
 
26 BALLIOL COLLEGE. 
 
 for the distribution of the common funds ; if they fell short it 
 was ordered that the poorer Scholars were not to sutfer. The 
 use of the Latin language (apparently at the common table) was 
 strictly enjoined upon the Scholars. Whoever broke the rule 
 was to be admonished by the Principal, and if he offended twice 
 or thrice was to be removed from the common table, to eat by 
 himself, and be served last of all. If he remained incorrigible 
 after a week, the Proctors were to expel him. One feature of 
 the Balliol Statutes which deserves particular notice is that none 
 of them, until we reach the endowments of the sixteenth century, 
 placed any sort of local restriction upon those who were capable 
 of being elected to the Foundation. 
 
 This charter was plainly but the giving of a constitution to a 
 society which had already formed for itself rules and usages with 
 respect to discipline and other matters not referred to in it. 
 The " House of the Scholars of Balliol " was placed on a still 
 more assured footing when its charter was confirmed by Bishop 
 Sutton of Lincoln two years later,^ in which year the Scholars 
 removed to a house bought for them by the foundress in Horse- 
 monger-street, a little to the eastward of their previous abode ; ^ 
 and soon afterwards the Bishop permitted them to hold divine 
 service, though they still attended their parish Church of St.^ 
 Mary Magdalen on all great festivals.^ Before the middle of 
 the fourteenth century the society had considerably enlarged its 
 position. It had bought houses on both sides of its existing 
 building, so that it now occupied very nearly the site of the 
 present front-quadrangle.* It received from private benefactors 
 endowment for two Chaplains; and in 1327, with help furnished 
 through the Abbot of Reading,^ the building of a Chapel dedi- 
 
 ^ In this document we have for the first time the mention of the blaster 
 and Scholars of the House: Savage, p. 18. 
 
 2 See extracts from the deeds in Riley, p. 446. 
 
 3 13 July 1293 : ibid., p. 443. 
 
 * See Savage, pp. 29 f ; Wood, Hist, and Antiqq. of the Univ. of Oxford 
 (ed. Gutch), Colleges and Halls, pp. 73, 86 f. 
 
 ^ In this document the head of the College is styled Warden (Hiley, p. 
 443), a title which occurs in 1303 (Wood, Colleges and Halls, p. 81), and 
 which alternates with that of Master for some time later. President occurs 
 in 1559 ; Statutes, p. 25. 
 
BALLIOL COLLEGE. 27 
 
 cated to Saint Catherine — the special patron whom we find 
 first associated with the College in the letter of Bishop Sutton 
 — was carried into effect. But the College remained dependent 
 upon its parish Church for the celebration of the Mass until 
 the Chapel was expressly licensed for the purpose by Pope 
 Urbaa the Fifth in April 1364. As early as 1310 the College 
 had become possessed of a messuage containing four schools 
 on the west side of School-street, which were, according to 
 the usual practice, let out to those who had exercises to perform, 
 and thus added to the resources of the College.^ Some unused 
 land on this property was afterwards conveyed to the University 
 to form part of the site of the Divinity School, and the 
 University still pays the College a quitrent for it.^ 
 
 During this time there seems to Ijave been an active dispute 
 among the Scholars as to the studies which they were permitted 
 to pursue. Bishop Sutton had expressly ordained that they 
 should dwell in the House until they had completed their cozcrse 
 in Arts. It seemed naturally to follow that it was not lawful 
 for them to go on to a further course of study, for instance, in 
 Divinity, without ceasing their connection with the House. At 
 length in 1325 this inference was formally ratified by the two 
 Extraneous Masters iu the presence of all the members as well 
 as four graduates who had formerly been Fellows (a title which 
 now first appears in our muniments as a synonym for Scholars) 
 of the House.3 One of the Extraneous Masters was Nicolas 
 Tingewick, who is otherwise known to us as a benefactor of the 
 Schools of Grammar in the University;* and one of the ex- 
 Fellows was Richard FitzRalph, afterwards Vice-Chancellor of 
 the University and Archbishop of Armagh, the man to whom 
 above all others John Wycliffe, a later member of Balliol, owed 
 the distinguishing elements of his teaching.^ It was thus decided 
 that Balliol should be a home exclusively of secular learning ; 
 and it reads as a curious presage, that thus early in the history 
 of the College the field should be marked out for it in which, in 
 
 1 Wood, Hist mid Antiqq. ii. 731-733. * Ibid., pp. 774 f. 
 
 3 Riley, pp. 442 f. ; Wood, Colleges and Halls, p. 73. 
 
 * Etiglish Historical Review, vi. (1891) 152 f. 
 
 * Diet of Nat Biogr. xix. (1889) 194—198. 
 
28 BALLIOL COLLEGE. 
 
 the fifteenth century and again in our own day, it was peculiarly 
 to excel. 
 
 But the theologians soon had some compensation, for in 1340 
 a new endowment was given to the College by Sir Philip 
 Somerville for their special benefit. From the Statutes which 
 accompanied his gift^ we learn that the existing number of 
 Fellows was sixteen ; this he increased to twenty-two (or more, 
 if the funds would allow), with the provision that six of the 
 Fellows should, after they had attained their regency in Arts, 
 enter upon a course of theology, together with canon law if 
 they pleased, extending in ordinary cases over not more than 
 twelve or thirteen years from their Master's degree in Arts. 
 Such was the rigour of the demands made upon the theological 
 student in the University system of the middle ages; with 
 what results as to solidity and erudition it is not necessary 
 here to say. 
 
 Somerville's Statutes further made several important changes 
 in the constitution of the Hall or House, as it is here called. 
 The Principal still exists, holding precedence among the 
 Fellows, much like that of the President in some of the 
 Colleges at Cambridge ; but he is subordinate to the Master, 
 who is elected by the society subject to the approval of a 
 whole series of Visitors. After election the Master was first to 
 present himself and take oath before the lord of Sir Philip 
 Somerville's manor of Wichnor, and then to be presented 
 by two of the Fellows and the two Extraneous Masters to 
 the Chancellor of the University, or his Deputy, and to the 
 Prior of the Monks of Durham at Oxford. By these his 
 appointment was confirmed. There was thus established a 
 complicated system of a threefold Visitatorial Board. The 
 powers of the lords of Wichnor were indeed probably formal ; but 
 those of the Extraneous Masters subsisted side by side by, and 
 to some extent independently of, the Chancellor and the Prior. 
 The former retained their previous authority over the Fellows 
 of the old foundation ; they were only associated with the 
 Chancellor and Prior with respect to the new theological Fellows. 
 Finally, over all the Bishop of Durham was placed, as a sort of 
 ^ Statutes of BaUiol College, pp. viii — xix. 
 
BALLIOL COLLEGE. 29 
 
 supreme Visitor, to compel the enforcement of tlie provisions 
 affecting Somerville's bequest. One wonders how this elaborate 
 scheme worked, and particularly how the society of Balliol liked 
 the supervision of the Prior of Durham College just beyond 
 their garden-wall. But the curious thing is that the benefactor 
 declares that in making these Statutes he intends not to destroy 
 but to confirm the ancient rules and Statutes of the College, as 
 though some part of his extraordinary arrangements had been 
 already in force.^ 
 
 It is easy to guess that the scheme was impracticable, and in 
 fact so early as 1364 a new code had to be drawn up. Tliis was 
 given, under papal authority, by Simon Sudbury, Bishop of 
 London, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury; but unfortun- 
 ately it is not preserved. We can only gather from later refer- 
 ences that it changed more than it left of the existing Statutes, 
 and that it established Rectors (almost certainly the old Proctors 
 or Extraneous Masters under a new name^) to control the 
 Master and Fellows, and possibly a Visitor over all. But the 
 one thing positive is that a right of ultimate appeal was now 
 reserved to the Bishop of London, who thus came to exercise 
 something more than the power which was in later times 
 committed to the Visitor. It was by his authority that in the 
 course of the fifteenth century the property-limitation affecting 
 the Master was abolished, and he was empowered to hold a 
 benefice of whatever value ; ^ and that Chaplains were made 
 ehgible, equally with the Fellows, for the office of Master.* On 
 the one hand the dignity of the Master was increased ; on the 
 other the ecclesiastical element was brought to the front. 
 
 The latter point becomes more than ever clear in the Statutes 
 which were framed for the College in 1507, and which remained 
 substantially in force until the Universities Commission of 
 1850. The cause of their promulgation is obscurely referred to 
 
 1 It may be remarked that a grant of the year 1343 is noted by Savage, 
 p. 52, as the first among the College muniments in which the name Balliol 
 is spelled with a single /. ^ * T^• • •* 
 
 2 See the extract from a letter of the Rectors, one a Doctor of Divinity 
 and the other a Franciscan, of 1433, given by Riley, p. 443 a. 
 
 » In 1433 : Savage, pp. 64 f. * In U77 : ib.d., p. CG. 
 
30 BALLIOL COLLEGE. 
 
 the violent and high-handed action of a previous — possibly the 
 existing — Visitor. The matter was laid before Pope Julius the 
 Second, and he deputed the Bishops of Winchester and Carlisle, 
 or one of them, to draw up an amended body of Statutes which 
 should preclude the repetition of such misgovernment. The 
 Statutes^ themselves are the work of the Bishop of Winchester, 
 the same Richard Fox who left so enduring a monument of his 
 piety and zeal for learning in his foundation of Corpus Christi 
 College. That foundation how^ever was ten years later, and 
 Fox had not yet, it should seem, formed in his mind the pattern 
 according to which a College in the days of revived and expanded 
 classical study should be modelled. In Baliiol he saw nothing 
 but a small foundation with scanty resources and without the 
 making of an important home of learning. The eleemosynary 
 character of its original Statutes he left as it was, only slightly 
 increasing the commons of the Fellows.^ The Master was to 
 enjoy no greater allowance than Fellows who were Masters of 
 Arts, but he retained the right to hold a benefice. He was no 
 longer necessarily to be chosen from among the Fellows. The 
 unique privilege of the College to elect its own Visitor — how 
 the privilege arose we know not — is expressly declared. But 
 the essential changes introduced in the Statutes of 1507 are 
 those which gave the College a distinctively theological com- 
 plexion, and those which established a class of students in 
 the College subordinate to the Fellows. 
 
 We have seen how the Chaplains had been long rising in 
 dignity, as shown by the fact that, though not Fellows, they had 
 since 1477 ^ been equally eligible with the Fellows for the office 
 of Master. By the new Statutes two of the Fellowships were 
 to be filled up by persons already in Priest's orders to act as 
 Chaplains. This was in part a measure of economy, since 
 
 1 Statutes of Baliiol College, pp. 1 — 22 ; cf. Lyte, pp. 415 ff. 
 
 2 The eightpence a-week assigned them by the Statutes of Dervorguilla 
 bad been raised to twelve pence tio early as 1340, by Sir Wilham Felton's 
 benefactions, which also provided funds for clothes and books (Savage, p. 
 88). It was now ordered that the sum should not exceed Is. M. Besides 
 this Masters were to receive an annual stipend of 20s. Sd. ; Bachelors, of 
 18s. 8d. {Statutes J p. 14). . ^ Compare Savage, p. 74. 
 
BALLIOL COLLEGE. r.,1 
 
 Fellows could be found to act as Chaplains, but the increased 
 importance of the latter is the more signiHcant since these 
 same Statutes reduced the number of Fellows from at least 
 twenty-two to not less than ten. Besides this, every Fellow of 
 the College was henceforth required to receive Priest's orders 
 within four years after his Master's degree. Doubtless from the 
 beginning all the members of the foundation had been— as 
 indeed all University students were— c/ma ; but this did not 
 necessarily imply more than the simple taking of the tonsure. 
 The obligation of Priest's orders was something very different. 
 The Fellows were as a rule to be Bachelors of Arts at the 
 time of election. Their studies were limited to logic, philo- 
 sopliy, and divinity ; but they were free to pursue a course of 
 panon law in the long vacation. The Master's degree was to 
 be taken four years after they had fulfilled the requirements for 
 that of Bachelor. It may be noticed that, instead of their 
 having, according to the modern practice, to pay fees to the 
 College on taking degrees, they received from it on each occasion 
 a gratuity varying according to the dignity of the degree. 
 
 The reduction in the number of Fellowships was evidently 
 made in order to provide for the lower rank of what we should 
 now-a-days call Scholars. In the Statutes indeed this name is 
 not found, for it was not forgotten that Fellow and Scholar 
 meant the same thing; and so the old word scholasticus, which 
 was often used in the general sense of a " student," was now 
 applied to designate those junior members of the College for whom 
 Scholar was too dignified a title. They were to be " scholastics 
 or servitors,'* not above eighteen years of age, sufficiently skilled 
 in plain song and grammar. One was assigned to the Master 
 and one to each graduate Fellow, and was nominated by him ; 
 he was his private servant. The Scholastics were to live of the 
 remnants of the Fellows' table, to apply themselves to the study 
 of logic, and to attend Chapel in surplices. They had also the 
 preference, in case of equality, in election to Fellowships. We 
 may add that, although the position of these Scholars (as they 
 came to be called) unquestionably improved greatly in the course 
 of time, the Statute affecting them was not revised until 1834.i 
 ^ Statutes, pp. 38 f. 
 
32 BALLIOL COLLEGE. 
 
 The Statutes throw a good deal of light on the internal 
 administration of the College at the close of the middle ages. 
 Of the two Deans, the senior had charge of the Library, the 
 junior of the Chapel; they were also to assist the Master 
 generally in matters of discipline. The Master, Fellows, and 
 Scholastics were bound on Sundays and Feast-days to attend 
 matins, with lauds, mass, vespers, and compline ; and any Fellow 
 who absented himself was liable to a fine of twopence, while 
 Scholastics were punished with a flogging or otherwise at the 
 discretion of the Master and Dean. The senior Dean presided 
 at the disputations in Logic, which were held on Saturdays 
 weekly throughout the term, except in Lent, and attended 
 by the Bachelors, Scholastics, and junior Masters. The more 
 important disputations in philosophy were held on Wednesdays, 
 and were not intermitted iu Lent. They were even held during 
 the long vacation until the 7th September. At these all the 
 Fellows were to be present, and the Master or senior Fellow to 
 preside. Theological disputations were also to be held weekly 
 or fortnightly in term so long as there were three Fellows 
 who were theologians to make a quorum. The College was 
 empowered to receive boarders not on the foundation — what we 
 now call commoners or persons who pay for their commons, — 
 on the condition of their following the prescribed course of 
 study (or in special cases reading civil or canon law) ; and the 
 fact of their paying seems to have given them a choice of 
 rooms. 
 
 The Bible or one of the Fathers was to be read in hall 
 during dinner, and all conversation to be in Latin, unless 
 addressed to one — presumably a guest or a servant — ignorant of 
 the language. French was not permitted, as it was at Queen's,'^ 
 but the Master might give leave to speak English on state 
 occasions, — evidently on such a feast as that of Saint Catherine's 
 day, when guests were invited and an extraordinary allowance 
 of 3s. 4c?. was made. The condition of residence was strictly 
 enforced; nevertheless in order that when, as ofttimes comes to 
 pass, a season of pestilence rages, the Muses he not silent nor study 
 
 * Qxieens College Statutes, p. 14. 
 
BALLIOL COLLEGE. 33 
 
 and teaching of none effect hy reason of the strength of fear and 
 peril, it was permitted that the members of the College sliould 
 withdraw into the country, to a more salubrious place not 
 distant more than twelve miles from Oxford, and there dwell 
 together and carry on their life of study and their accustomed 
 disputations so long as the plague should last.i The gates of 
 the College were closed at nine in summer and eight in winter, 
 and the keys deposited with the Master until the morning. 
 Whoever spent the night out of College or entered except 
 by the gate, was punished, a Fellow by a fine of twelve pence, a 
 Scholastic by a flogging. 
 
 Having now sketched the constitutional history of the College 
 to the end of the middle ages, we have now to mention a few 
 facts of interest during that time. These group themselves first 
 round the name of John Wyclifle the reformer of religion, and 
 then round the band of learned men and patrons of learning, 
 the reformers of classical study, in the century after him. 
 
 In 1360 and 1361 John Wyclitfe is mentioned in the College 
 muniments as Master of Balliol. That this was the famous 
 teacher and preacher is not disputed, but there has been much 
 controversy as to his earlier history. That he began his 
 University life at Queen's is indeed known to be a mistake; 
 but the entry of the name in the bursar's rolls at Merton under 
 the date June 1356 has led many to believe that he was a 
 Fellow of that College. It seems nearly certain that there were 
 two John Wycliffes at Oxford at the time ; and since the Master 
 of Balliol could only be elected from among the Fellows, the 
 inference seems clear that the Wycliffe who was Master of 
 BalHol cannot have been Fellow of Merton. Besides, it has been 
 pointed out that Wycliffe the reformer's descent from a family 
 settled hard by Barnard Castle, the home of the Balliols, would 
 naturally lead him to enter the Balliol foundation at Oxford ; 
 
 1 We may remember that *' between the years 1485 and 1607, Oxford 
 was visited by at least six great pestilences" (Lyte, p. 380). In 1486 we 
 find the Fellows of Magdalen sojourning at Witney and Harwell (not far 
 from Wantage) "tempore pestis." Rogers, HiAt of Agric. and Prices, iii. 
 (1882) 680. 
 
34 BALLIOL COLLEGE. 
 
 there was another Wycliffe also at Balliol, and three members 
 of the College — one himself Master — were given the benefice 
 of Wycliffe-upon-Tees between 1363 and 1369. Fellowships 
 were obtained by personal influence, and ties of this kind would 
 easily help his admission. Moreover, it was not common for a 
 northerner to enter a College like Merton, which appears in fact 
 to have formed the head-quarters of the southern party at 
 Oxford.i 
 
 Whatever be the truth in this matter, Wycliffe's connection 
 with Balliol is scarcely a matter of high importance. Men 
 did not in those days receive their education within the 
 College walls. The College was the boarding-house where they 
 dwelt, where they were maintained, and where they attended 
 divine service. It is true that disputations were required to 
 take place within the House; but tins was only to ensure 
 their regularity. It was an affair of discipline, not of tuition, 
 for the College tutor was an officer undreamt of in those 
 days; the duty of the Principal on these occasions was only 
 to announce the subject, to preside over the discussion, and to 
 keep or ler. Nor again was Wycliffe Master for more than a 
 short time. He was elected after 1356, and he resigned his 
 post shortly after accepting the College living of Filling- 
 ham in 1361. When in later years he lived in Oxford he took 
 up his abode elsewhere than in Balliol ; perhaps at Queen's, 
 then, according to many, at Canterbury Hall, finally at Black 
 Hall : Balliol, it should seem, at that time had room only 
 for members of the foundation. The chief interest residing 
 in his connection with the College lies in the fact, to which we 
 have alluded, that his great exemplar, Richard FitzRalph, had 
 been a Fellow of it about the time of Wycliffe's birth, and was 
 probably still resident in Oxford when Wycliffe came up as a 
 freshman. 
 
 The age succeeding Wycliffe's death is the most barren time 
 in the history of the University. Scholastic philosophy had lost 
 its vitality and become over-elaborated into a trivial formalism. 
 
 1 See W. W. Shirley, Fasciculi Zizaniorum (1858), intr., pp. xi — xv, 513 
 — 528 ; P. Lorimer, notes to Lechler's John Wiclif (ed. 1881), pp. 132 — 
 137 ; R. L. Poole. Wycliffe and Movements for Reform (1889), pp: 61—65^ 
 
BALLIOL COLLEGE. 35 
 
 Logic liad ceased to act as a stimulus to the intellectual powers, 
 and had rather become a clog upon their exercise ; and men no 
 longer framed syllogisms to develop their thoughts, but argued 
 first and thought, if at all, afterwards. When, however, towards 
 the middle of the fifteenth century, the revival of learning 
 which we associate with the name of humanism began to 
 influence English students, it was not those who stayed in 
 England who caught its spirit, but those who were able to 
 pursue a second student's course in Italy, and there devote their 
 zeal to the half-forgotten stores of classical Latin literature and 
 the unknown treasure-house of Greek. It was only the ebb of 
 the humanistic movement which in England, as in Germany, 
 turned to refresh and invigorate the study of theology. In the 
 earlier phase, so far as it affected England, Balliol College took 
 a foremost position, though indeed there is less evidence of 
 this activity among the resident members of the House than 
 among those who had passed from it to become the patrons and 
 pioneers of a younger generation of scholars. They were almost 
 all travelled men, who collected manuscripts and had them 
 copied for them, founded libraries and sowed the seed for 
 others to reap the fruit. 
 
 First among these in time and in dignity was Humphrey 
 Duke of Gloucester, the Good Duke Humphrey, by whose 
 munificence the University Library grew from a small number 
 of volumes chained on desks in the upper chamber of the 
 Congregation House at Saint Mary's,^ into a collection of some 
 six hundred manuscripts, of unique value, because, unlike the 
 existing cathedral and monastic libraries, it was formed at the 
 time when attention was being again devoted to classical learn- 
 ing and with the help of the foreign scholars, whose work the 
 Duke loved to encourage, and whom he employed to transcribe 
 and collect for him. His library contained little theology; it 
 was rich in classical Latin literature, in Arabic science (in trans- 
 lations), and in the new literature of Italy, counting at least 
 five volumes of Boccaccio, seven of Petrarch, and two of Dante.^ 
 Unhappily the whole library was wrecked and brought to nothmg 
 
 1 Vict of Nat. Biogr., xi. (1887) 157 f. '• Ljte, p. 321. 
 
36 BALLIOL COLLEGE. 
 
 in the violence of the reign of King Edward the Sixth, and the 
 three volumes which are now preserved in the re-founded 
 University Library of Sir Thomas Bodley were recovered piece- 
 meal from those who had obtained possession of them in the 
 great days of plunder.^ That Duke Humphrey was a member 
 of Balliol College is attested by Leland ^ and Bale,^ but further 
 evidence is wanting. 
 
 Almost at the same time as the University Library was 
 thus enriched, five Englishmen are mentioned as students at 
 Ferrara under the illustrious teacher Guarino : * four of the five 
 are claimed by our College, William Grey, John Tiptoft, John 
 Free, and John Gunthorpe. Of these, two were men of letters 
 and munificent patrons of learning, the third was himself a 
 scholar of high repute, and the last combined, perhaps in a 
 lesser degree, the characteristics of both classes. William Grey 
 stands in a peculiarly close relation with the College. A member 
 of the noble house of Codnor, he resided for a long time at 
 Cologne in princely style, and maintained a magnificent house- 
 hold. Here he studied logic, philosophy, and theology. He was 
 Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1440 to 1442, and 
 then went forth again for a more prolonged course of study in 
 Italy, at Florence, Padua, and Ferrara. Removing in 1449 
 to Eome, as proctor for King Henry the Sixth, he lived 
 there an honoured member of the learned society in the papal 
 city, and continued to collect manuscripts and to have them 
 transcribed and illuminated under his eyes, until he was recalled 
 in 1454 to the Bishopric of Ely. It was his devotion to humanism 
 and his patronage of learned men that naturally found favour 
 with Pope Nicolas the Fifth, and his elevation to the see of Ely 
 was the Pope's act. After his return to England he was not 
 regardless of the affairs of State, — indeed for a time in 1469 and 
 1470 he was Lord Treasurer, — but his paramount interest still 
 lay in his books and his circle of scholars, himself credited with a 
 knowledge not only of Greek but of Hebrew. It was his desire 
 
 1 W. D. Macray, Ann. of the Bodl. Libr. (2nd ed., 1890), pp. 6—11. 
 
 2 Comment de ScHptt. Brit (ed. A. Hall, Oxford 1709), p. 442. 
 
 3 Scriptt Brit Caial. (Basle 1557), viii. 2. 
 * Leland, p. 460. 
 
BALLIOL COLLEGE. 37 
 
 that his library should be preserved within the walls of his old 
 College. One of its members, Robert Abdy, heartily cooperated 
 with him, and the books — some two hundred in number, and 
 including a 2^rinted copy of Josephus, — were safely housed in a 
 new building erected for the purpose, probably just before the 
 Bishop's death in 1478. Many of the codices were unhappily 
 destroyed during the reign of King Edward the Sixth, and by 
 Wood's time few of the miniatures in the remaining volumes had 
 escaped mutilation.^ But it is a good testimony to the loyal 
 spirit in which the College kept the trust committed to them, 
 that no less than a hundred and fifty-two of Grey's manuscripts 
 are still in its possession.^ 
 
 Part of the building in which the library was to find a home 
 was already in existence. Tha ground-floor, and perhaps the 
 dining-hall (now the library reading-room) adjoining, are 
 attributed to Thomas Chase, who had been Master from 1412 
 to 1423, and was Chancellor of the University from 142G to 
 1430. It was the upper part of the library which was expressly 
 built for the purpose of receiving Bishop Grey's books, and it 
 was the work of Abdy, who as Fellow and then, from 1477 to 
 1494, as Master devoted himself to the enlargement and adorn- 
 ment of the College buildings. Grey helping him liberally with 
 money. On more than one of the library windows their joint 
 bounty was commemorated : — 
 
 Hos Deus adiecit, Deus his det gaudia cell : 
 Abdy perfecit opus hocGray presul et Ely. 
 
 And again: — 
 
 Conditor ecce novi structus huius fuit Abdy : 
 Presul et huic Hely Gray libros contulit edi. 
 
 The bishop's coat of arms may still be seen on the panels below 
 the great window of the old solar, now the Master's dining-hall ; 
 and elsewhere in the new buildings might be seen the arms of 
 
 1 Wood, Hist, and Antiqq. of the Univ. of Oxf, CoUeges and Halls, p. 89 ; 
 who notices (vol. ii. 107) that though Balliol Library lost much in 1550, it 
 also gained some of the spoils of Durham College at the time of its 
 dissolution. . 
 
 2 The substance of the foregoing account is borrowed from the writer's 
 article on Grey in the Diet, of Nat. Biogr. xxiii. (1890) 212 f. 
 
38 BALLIOL COLLEGE. 
 
 George Nevill, Archbishop of York, the brother of the King- 
 Maker, who was also a member, and would thus appear to have 
 been a benefactor, of the College.'^ The future Archbishop was 
 made Chancellor of the University in 1453 when he was barely 
 twenty-two years of age.^ His installation banquet, the par- 
 ticulars of which may be read in Savage's Balliofergus^ was of a 
 prodigality to which it would be hard to find a parallel : it con- 
 sisted of nine hundred messes of meat, with twelve hundred 
 hogsheads of beer and four hundred and sixteen of wine ; and 
 if, as it appears, it was held within the College, the resources 
 of the house must have been severely taxed to make provision 
 for the entertainment of the company, which included twenty- 
 two noblemen, seventeen bishops and abbots, a number of noble 
 ladies, and a multitude of other guests, not to speak of more 
 than two thousand servants. 
 
 The other Balhol scholars who followed the instruction of 
 Guarino at Ferrara were a good deal younger than Grey; for 
 Guarino lived on until 1460, when he died at the age of ninety.- 
 Tiptoft, who was created Earl of Worcester in his twenty-second 
 year, in 1449, was an enthusiastic traveller. He set out first to 
 Jerusalem ; returned to Venice, and then spent several years in 
 study at Ferrara, Padua, and Rome.* During this time he 
 collected manuscripts wherever he could lay hands on them, and 
 formed a precious library, with which he afterwards endowed 
 the University of Oxford : its value was reckoned at no less 
 than five hundred marks.^ His later career as Treasurer and 
 High Constable belongs to the public history of England. It is 
 to be lamented that he brought back from the Italian renaissance 
 a spirit of cruelty and recklessness of giving pain, unknown to 
 the humaner middle ages, which made him one of the first 
 victims of the revolution that restored King Henry the Sixth to 
 the throne. But in his death the cause of letters received a 
 
 1 See, on the buildings and inscriptions, Savage, pp. 67 — 72, Wood, Coll. 
 and Halls, pp. 90—98. 
 
 2 Lyte, p. 326. 3 Savage, pp. 105-108. 
 
 * Leland, pp. 475 — 481 ; Lyte, pp. 385 f. ; Briefwechsel des Beatus 
 Bhenanus (ed. A. Horawitz & K. Hartfelder, 1886), p. 72. 
 6 Lyte, p.- 322. 
 
BALLIOL COLLEGE. 39 
 
 blow such as we can only compare with that which it suffered 
 by the execution of the Earl of Surrey in the last days of King 
 Henry the Eighth. It is a strange coincidence that one of the 
 leaders of the restoration movement, one of those chiefly 
 chargeable with Tiptoft's death, was his own Balliol contemporary, 
 Archbishop Nevill, the new Lord Chancellor.^ 
 
 John Free, who graduated in l^oO,^ was a Fellow of Balliol 
 College, and was afterwards a Doctor of Medicine of Padua. 
 During a life spent in Italy he became famous as a poet and a 
 Greek scholar, a civilist and a physician. ^ Pope Paul the Second 
 made him Bishop of Bath and Wells, but he died almost imme- 
 diately, in 1465.^ Gunthorpe was his companion in study at 
 Ferrara, and he too became distinguished as a scholar : but he 
 was still more a collector of books, some of which he gave to 
 Jesus College, Cambridge — at one time he was Warden of the 
 King's Hall in that University, — while others came to several 
 libraries at Oxford. Gunthorpe is best known as a man of 
 affairs, a diplomatist and minister of state. He became Dean 
 of Wells, and is still remembered in that city by the g^cus with 
 which he adorned the Deanery he built.^ He survived all his 
 fellow-scholars we have named, and died in 1498." 
 
 From the end of the middle ages down to the present century 
 Balliol College presents none of those characteristics of distinc- 
 tion which we have remarked in the fifteenth century. During 
 this time, indeed, although in the nature of things a large 
 number of men of note continued to receive their education at 
 Oxford, there was no College or Colleges which could be said to 
 occupy anything like a position of peculiar eminence or dignity. 
 In the general decline of learning, education, and manners, 
 Balliol College appears even to have sunk below most of its 
 
 1 Nevill supplicated for his B.A. degree in 1450 : Anstey, Munim. Acad. 
 Oxon. (1868), p. 730 f. 
 
 2 Beg. of the Univ. of Oxford, I (ed. C. W. Boase, 1885) 1. 
 
 3 Leland, pp. 466—468, 476 ; Lyte, pp. 384 f. 
 
 * Tanner, Bibl. Brit. Hib. (1748), p. 598 ; Le Neve's Fast Ecd. Angl, 
 (ed. T. D. Hardy, Oxford 1854) i. 141. 
 « Leland, p. 462 f. 
 « Diet, of Nat. Biogr., xxiii. 351. 
 
40 BALLIOL COLLEGE. 
 
 rivals, and its annals show little more than a dreary record of 
 lazy torpor and bad living.^ The Statutes of the College received 
 no alterations of importance. Its power to choose its own Visitor 
 was indeed for a time overridden by the Bishop of Lincoln, who 
 was considered ex officio Visitor until Bishop Barlow's death in 
 1691; 2 and the Scholastici became distinguished as ScJiolarcs from 
 an inferior rank of Semtores witii which the Statutes of 1507 had 
 identified them. Another lower class of students, called Batellers, 
 also came into existence. Every Commoner was required by a 
 rule of 1574 to be under the Master or one of the Fellows as 
 his Tutor ; ^ Scholars being apparently ^pso facto subject to the 
 Fellows who nominated them. In 1610 it was ordered, with 
 the Visitor's consent, that Fellow Commoners might be admitted 
 to the College and be free from " public correction," except in the 
 case of scandalous offences; they were not bound to exhibit rever- 
 ence to the Fellows in the quadrangle unless they encountered 
 them face to face, — reverentiam Sociis in quadran^ulo consuetam 
 Tion nisi in occiorsio praestent. Every such Commoner was bound 
 to pay at least five pounds on admission for the purchase of 
 plate or books for the College.* The sum was in 1691 raised to 
 ten pounds.^ As the disputations in hall tended to become less 
 and less of a reality, and the lectures in the schools became a 
 pure matter of routine for the younger Masters, provision had to 
 be made for something in the way of regular lectures, but fixed 
 tuition-fees were not yet invented, and so the richest living in 
 the gift of the College — that of Fillingham in Lincolnshire, 
 which had been usually held by the Master and was now attached 
 to his office — was in 1571 charged with the payment of £8 
 13s. 4d to three Prelectors chosen by the College who should 
 lecture in hall on Greek, dialectic, and rhetoric.^ The lectures, 
 
 1 Already by Anthony Wood's time " the old accoinpts " were lost ; " So 
 A. W. was much put to a push, to find when learned men had been of that 
 coll." Life (ed. Bliss, Eccl. Hist. Soc, Oxford 1848), p. 144. So too Athen. 
 Oxon. (ed. Bliss) iii. 959. 
 
 2 Savage, pp. 74—77; Wood's City of Ocrf(yrd, ed A. Clark, ii. 3; P. 
 Heylin's Cyprianus redivivus (1668), p. 208 ; Wood's Hist, and Antiqq. 
 (ed. Gutch), ii. 677. 3 statutes, p. 30. * P. 33. & P. 35. 
 
 " Savage, p. 56. After 1718 the payment was made out of the College 
 revenues : Statutes, p. 36. 
 
BALLIOL COLLEGE. 41 
 
 it was soon after decided, were to be held at least thrice a week 
 during term, except on Feast Days or when the lecturer was ill. 
 Any one who failed to fulfil his duty — either in person or by a 
 deputy — was to pay twopence to he consumed Inf the oilier Fellmvs 
 at dinner or siq:>per on the Sunday next following^ In 1695 the 
 famous Dr. Busby, who had before shown himself a friend to 
 the Collsge,^ established a Catechetical Lecture to be given 
 on thirty prescribed subjects through the year, at whicli all 
 members of the College were bound to be present.^ This Lecture 
 was maintained until recent years. 
 
 During the two centuries following the reign of King Edward 
 the Third the College had received little or no addition to its 
 corporate endowment^', though, as we have seen, it bad been 
 largely helped by donations towards its buildings, and above all 
 by the foundation of its precious library.* Between the date 
 of the accession of Queen Elizabeth and the year 1677, in the 
 renewed zeal for academical foundations which marked that 
 period, the College received a number of new benefactions; and 
 these introduced a new element into its composition. Hitherto 
 all the Fellowships had been open without restriction of place 
 of birth or education ; and although it is likely that the College 
 in its earlier days drew its recruits mainly from the north of 
 England, yet there was nothing in the Statutes to authorize the 
 connection. The College, it is true, was a very close corporation, 
 for Fellow nominated Scholar, and out of the Scholars the Fellows 
 were generally elected. Still, in contradistinction to the majority 
 of Colleges, there were no local limitations upon eligibility to 
 Scholarships. The new endowments, on the other hand, with 
 the exception of those of the Lady Periam, were all so limited. 
 First, by a bequest of Dr. John Bell, formerly Bishop of 
 Worcester, two Scholarships confined to natives of his diocese 
 
 1 Statutes, p. 31. 
 
 2 Huinplirey Prideaux, Letters to John Ellis (ed. E. M. Thompson, Camden 
 Society, 1875), pp. 12 f., under date 23 August 1674. 
 
 3 Statutes, pp. 61 — 66. 
 
 4 In 1677 the library was increased by the gift of "one of the best private 
 librarys in England" (Prideaux, p. 61), from the bequest of Sir Thomas 
 Wendy of Haselingfield, sometime gentleman commoner of the College. 
 In 1673 these books were valued at £600 : Wood, Colleges aiid Halls, p. UO. 
 
42 BALLIOL COLLEGE. 
 
 were founded in 1559/ and in 1605 Sir William Dunch estab- 
 lished another for the benefit of Abingdon School.^ A little 
 later Balliol nearly became possessed of the much larger endow- 
 ment, of seven Fellowships and six Scholarships, attached to the 
 same school by William Tisdale. Indeed part of the money was 
 paid over, six Scholars were appointed, and Cesar's lodgings — 
 of which more hereafter — were bought for their reception.^ But 
 a subsequent arrangement diverted the endowment, which in 
 1624 helped to change the ancient Broad gates Hall into Pembroke 
 College.^ In the meanwhile a more considerable benefaction, 
 also connected with a local school, accrued to Balliol between 
 1601 and 1615, when in execution of the will of Peter Blundell 
 one Fellowship and one Scholarship were founded to be held by 
 persons educated at Blundell's Grammar School at Tiverton, 
 and nominated by the Trustees of the School.-^ The next 
 endowment in order of time was that of Elizabeth, widow of 
 Chief Baron Periam and sister of Francis Bacon. The nomin- 
 ation to the Fellowship and two Scholarships which she founded 
 in 1620, she reserved to herself for her lifetime ; afterwards they 
 were to be filled up in the same manner as the other Fellowships 
 of the College.^ 
 
 After the Restoration two separate benefactions set up that 
 close connection between the College and Scotland which saved 
 Balliol from sinking into utter obscurity in the century following, 
 and which has since contributed to it a large share of its 
 later fame. Bishop Warner of Rochester, who died in 1666, 
 bequeathed to the College the annual sum of eighty pounds for 
 the support of four scholars from Scotland to be chosen by the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Rochester; and 
 about ten years later certain Exhibitions were founded by Mr. 
 John Snell for persons nominated by Glasgow University. The 
 
 1 Statutes, pp. 25—28. 2 jbid., pp. 45—50. 
 
 3 Savage, pp. 85—87. 
 
 4 See Wood, Colleges and Halls, pp. 616—619. 
 
 ^ Statutes, pp. 40 — 45, 50—56. In 1676 the number was increased to 
 two Fellows and two Scholars. 
 
 ® Ibid., pp. 57 — 61. The endowment provided for the erection of lodgings ' 
 for the Periam Fellow and Scholars, and the foundress's name is still 
 remembered in connection with one of the buildings of the College. 
 
BALLTOL COLLEGE. 43 
 
 latter varied in number according to the proceeds of Mr. Snell s 
 estate ; at one time they were as many as ten and of the yearly 
 value of £116, but their number and value have since been 
 reduced. Both of these foundations were expressly designed to 
 promote the interests of the Episcopal Church in Scotland.^ 
 Their importance in the history of the College cannot be over- 
 estimated, and it is to them that it owes such names among its 
 members as Adam Smith, Sir William Hamilton, and Arch- 
 bishop Tait, to say nothing of a great company of distinguished 
 Scotsmen now living. The Exhibitioners have also as a rule 
 offered an admirable example of frugal habits and hard work ; 
 and perhaps it was in consideration of their national thriftlness 
 that the rooms assigned them are noticed in 1791 as mean and 
 incommodious.^ 
 
 Among more recent benefactions to the College the most 
 important is that of Miss Hannah Brakenbury who, besides 
 the questionable service of contributing towards the rebuilding 
 of the front quadrangle, endowed eight Scholarships for the 
 encouragement of the studies of Law and Modem History. Nor 
 should we omit to mention the two Exhibitions of £100 a-year 
 each, founded under the will of Richard Jenkyns, formerly Master, 
 which are awarded by examination to members of the College, 
 and the list of holders of which is of exceptional brilliancy. 
 But in recent years the number of Scholarships and Exhibitions 
 has been most of all increased not by means of any specific 
 endowment but by savings from the annual internal income of 
 the College. In pursuance of the ordinances of the Universities' 
 Commission of 1877, Balliol became the owner of New Inn Hall 
 on the death of its late Principal ; and the proceeds of the sale 
 of the Hall, when effected, are to be applied to the establishment 
 of Exhibitions for poor students. 
 
 We now resume the history of the College buildings. We 
 have seen that the Chapel was built early in the reign of King 
 
 1 The College benefactors, down to John Warner, are enumerated by 
 Wood, Colleges and Halls, pp. 75—80. 
 
 2 Scotland and Scotsmen in- the Eighteenth Century, from the MSS. of 
 John Ramsay of Ochtertyre (ed. A. Allardyce, 1888), ii. 307 note. 
 
U BALLIOL COLLEGE. 
 
 Edward the Third, and that the hall and library buildings 
 ■were added in the following century.^ A new Chapel was built 
 between 1521 and 1529,^ which lasted until the present century. 
 It contained a muniment-room or treasury, "whicli," says 
 Anthony Wood, "is a kind of vestry, joyning on the S. side of 
 the E. end of the chapiDel ; "^ and there was a window openiug 
 into it, as at Corpus, from the library.* With the present Chapel 
 in one's mind it is hard to estimate the loss which from a pic- 
 turesque point of view the College has suffered by the destruction 
 of its predecessor. In modern times Oxford has ever been a prey 
 to architects. The rebuilding of Queen's is an example of what 
 happily was not carried into effect at Magdalen and Brasenose 
 in the last century; but in the present, Balliol is almost peculiar 
 in the extent to which these depredations have run, and those 
 who remember the line of buildings of the Chapel and library 
 as they looked from the Fellows' garden say that for harmony 
 and quiet charm they were of their kind unsurpassed in Oxford. 
 Among the special features of the old Chapel were the painted 
 windows, particularly the great east window given by Lawrence 
 Stubbs in 1529. The fragments of this are distributed among 
 the side windows of the modern Chapel, and even in their 
 scattered state are highly regarded by lovers of glass-painting.^ 
 Of the later buildings of the College, " Cesar's lodgings " must 
 not pass without notice. It had its name from Henry Caesar, 
 afterwards Dean of Carlisle — the brother of Sir Julius Caesar, 
 Master of the Rolls (1614 — 1636), — and stood opposite to where 
 the " Martyrs' Memorial " now is. Being currently known as 
 Cesar, an opposite stack of buildings to the south of it was 
 naturally called Pompey. The two were pulled down, not before 
 it was necessary, in the second quarter of the present century .^ 
 
 1 See above, pp. 26 f., 37. 
 
 2 Savage, p. 77 ; WoolI, Colleges and Halls, p. 99. 
 
 3 Life, p. 143. * Savage, p. 68. 
 
 5 See an account of them by tlie Rev. C. H. Grinling in the Proceedings 
 of the Oxf Archit. and Hist. Society, new series, iv. 137—140. The windows 
 in their original situation are described by Savage, pp. 77 f., and Wood, 
 Coll. and Halls, pp. 100—102. 
 
 6 Wood's Coll. and Halls, p. 88, and City of Oxford, ed. A. Clark, i. 
 (1889) 634 note 8. 
 
BALLIOL COLLEGE. 4«5 
 
 Hammond's lodgings, which came to the College in Queen 
 Elizabeth's time, and stood on the site of the old Master s little 
 garden and the present Master's house, were occupied by the 
 Blundell and Periam Fellows.^ 
 
 Before the front of the College was a close, planted with trees 
 like that in front of St. John's. 
 
 " Stant Baliolenses maiore cacuniine moles, 
 Et sua frondosis praetexunt atria rami's ; 
 Nee tamen idcirco Trinam sprevere minorem 
 Aut sibi siibiectam comitem sponsamve recusant — " 
 
 ran some verses of 1667.^ But if we may judge from a story to 
 be told hereafter of the respective prosperity of the two Colleges, 
 it was rather Trinity which had the right to look down upon its 
 rival at that time. In the eighteenth century the buildings of 
 Balliol were considerably enlarged by the erection of two stair- 
 cases westward of the Master's house, by Mr. Fisher of Beere, 
 and of three running north of these over against St. Mary 
 Magdalen Church. The fronts of the east side of the quad- 
 rangle, reputed to be the most ancient part of the College, and 
 of part of the south side adjoining it, were rebuilt.^ The direc- 
 tion of the hall was reversed, so that instead of the passage into 
 the garden, the entrance to the hall, and the buttery being 
 beneath the Master's lodgings, they were placed on the northern 
 extremity of the hall.* In the present reign a further addition 
 to the College was made in the place of the dilapidated " Cesar," 
 and with it a back porch with a tower above it. was built. Then 
 followed the rebuilding of the Chapel and, after an interval, of 
 two sides of the front quadrangle and of the Master's house. A 
 little later the garden was gradually enclosed by buildings on 
 the north side, which were completed in 1877 by a hall with 
 common room, buttery, kitchen, and a chemical laboratory 
 beneath it. 
 
 It is very difficult to obtain any accurate knowledge of the 
 
 1 Savage, pp. 61, 79—81 ; cf. Wood's City of Oxford, i. 372. 
 
 2 P. V[ernon], Oxoiiium Poema, 18. 
 
 » Wood, Coll. and Halls, p. 87, with Gutcli's note. 
 
 * See Wood, p. 99, and the plan in W. Willianw' Oxonux DepUta [1732], 
 
46 BALLIOL COLLEGE. 
 
 number of persons ordinarily inhabiting a College in past times. 
 A few lists happen to have been preserved, but their accuracy 
 is not free from suspicion. Thus, a census of 1552 enumerates 
 under the head of Balliol seven Masters, six Bachelors, and 
 seventeen others, these seventeen including the manciple, butler, 
 cook, and scullion.^ In ten years this list of thirty names has 
 grown to sixty-five : six Masters, thirteen Bachelors, and forty- 
 six others, eight of whom were Scholars, five " poor scholars " — 
 presumably batellers, — and four servants.^ By 1612 the number 
 appears to have nearly doubled, and comprises the Master and 
 eleven Fellows, thirteen Scholars, seventy commoners, twenty- 
 two " poor scholars," and ten servants ; in all a hundred and 
 twenty-seven : ^ a total the magnitude of which is the more 
 perplexing since the College matriculations between 1575 and 
 1621 averaged hardly more than fifteen a-year.* No doubt, in 
 the days when several students shared a bedroom, it was possible 
 even for a small College to give house-room to a far larger 
 number than we can imagine at the present time ; but still it 
 is hard to understand how so many as a hundred and twenty 
 persons could be accommodated in the then existing buildings 
 of Balliol. According to the procuratorial cycle of 1629, 
 Balliol ranks with "University, Lincoln, Jesus, and Pembroke, 
 among the smallest Colleges.^ In recent times, taking years by 
 chance, we find the number of Fellows, Scholars, and Commoners 
 in the University Calendar for 1838 to be 102, in that for 1859 
 to be 122, in 1878 about 195, and in 1891 about 187.^ That 
 the College has been able to count so many resident members 
 is partly owing to the extension of the College buildings, but 
 much more to the modern Statute whereby all members of the 
 
 ^ Reg. Univ., i. (ed. Boase), pref., p. xxiii. 
 
 2 Beg. Univ.^ ii. (ed. Clark) pt. ii. pp. 30, 31. 
 
 3 Gutch, Collect, curiosa (Oxford, 1781), i. 200. 
 * Reg. Univ. ii. pt. ii. 412. 
 
 ^ Wood, Hist, and Antiqq. ii. 365. 
 
 ^ In these last two totals Commoners of more than four years' standing 
 have been omitted. The lists in the Calendar are moreover always slightly 
 in excess of the truth, since they take no account of occasional non-resi- 
 dence. An unofficial cejisus taken by the Oxford Magazine of 4 February, 
 1891, gives the number of undergraduates in residence as 168. 
 
BALLIOL COLLEGE. 47 
 
 College are not necessarily required to live within the College 
 walls. 
 
 Notices of the domestic history of Balliol during the sixteenth, 
 seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries are surprisingly scanty. 
 In the following pages we have gathered together such particu- 
 lars as we have thought of sufficient interest to be recorded in a 
 brief sketch like the present. Early in the seventeenth century 
 the life of the College was varied by the presence of two Greek 
 students, sent over by Cyril Lucaris, the Patriarch of Constanti- 
 nople, to whom England owes the gift of the Codex Alexandrinus. 
 One of these, Metrophanes Critopulos, became Patriarch of Alex- 
 andria. The other, Nathaniel Conopios, we are told "spake 
 and wrote the genuine Greek (for which he was had in great 
 Veneration in his Country), others using the vulgar only," and 
 was a proficient in music. He took the degree of B.D., and was 
 made Bishop of Smyrna. Evelyn remarks that he was the first 
 he "ever saw drink coffee, w^*^ custom came not into England 
 until 30 years after." ^ Our next note is of a different character. 
 Soon after the Scholars endowed by Tisdale ^ were established 
 in Cesar's lodgings, a dispute arose between one of them, named 
 Crabtree, and Ferryman Moore, a freshman of three weeks' 
 standing. Crabtree called Moore an " undergraduate " and pulled 
 his hair ; whereupon Moore drew his knife and stabbed him so 
 that he died. In the trial that followed Moore pleaded benefit 
 of clergy and was condemned to burning in the hand, but at 
 the petition of the Vice-Chancellor, Mayor, and other Justices, 
 received the Royal pardon on the 19th November, 1624,— the 
 very year in which the benefaction that had brought his victim 
 to Balliol was settled in its lasting home in Pembroke College.^ 
 A little later, in 1631, we find one Thome, a member of Balliol, 
 preaching at St. Mary's against the King's Declaration on Re- 
 ligion of 1628 : he was expelled the University by Royal order.* 
 
 1 Savage, pp. 119—121 ; Erelyn, Memoirs (ed. W. Bray, 1827), i. 131 
 
 2 See above, p. 42. o • i mo 
 
 3 Sava-e, pp. 85 f. ; Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1623— 
 
 1625 (1859), p. 383. 
 * Heylin, p. 215. 
 
48 BALLIOL COLLEGE. 
 
 The famous JoKn Evelyn, who was admitted a Fellow Commoner 
 of the College in May 1637, being then in his seventeenth year, 
 tells us that " the Fellow Com'uners in Balliol were no more 
 exempt from Exercise than the meanest scholars there, and my 
 Father sent me thither to one Mr. George Bradshaw," who was 
 Master from 1648 to 1651. "I ever," he adds, " thought my 
 Tutor had parts enough, but as his ambition made him much 
 suspected of y® College, so his grudge to Dr. Lawrence, the 
 governor of it (whom he afterwards supplanted), tooke up so 
 much of his tyme, that he seldom or never had the opportunity 
 to discharge his duty to his scholars. This I perceiving, associ- 
 ated myself with one Mr. James Thicknesse, (then a young man 
 of the Foundation, afterwards a Fellow of the House,) by whose 
 learned and friendly conversation I received great advantage. 
 At my first arrival. Dr. Parkhurst was Master; and after his 
 discease. Dr. Lawrence, a chaplaine of his Ma'ties and Margaret 
 Professor, succeeded, an acute and learned person ; nor do I 
 much reproach his severity, considering that the extraordinary 
 remissenesse of discipline had (til his coming) much detracted 
 from the reputation of that Colledg." Later Everlyn mentions 
 that his Tutor managed his expenses during his fiist year. In 
 January 1640 " Came my Bro. Richard from schole to be my 
 chamber-fellow at the University," so that even Fellow Com- 
 moners did not always have rooms to themselves. It is notice- 
 able that the chief studies which Evelyn speaks of engaging in 
 are those of " the dauncing and vaulting Schole " and music ; 
 and one is not surprised to read that when he quitted Oxford in 
 April 1640, without taking a degree, and made his residence in 
 the Middle Temple, he should observe, " My being at the Uni- 
 versity, in regard of these avocations, was of very small benefit 
 to me." 1 
 
 When King Charles was at Oxford, Balliol, with the great 
 majority of Colleges, handed over its plate to him, 20 January 
 164|. The weight of the metal was only 41/5. 4 oz., less than 
 that of any other College recorded.^ When the Parliamentary 
 
 1 Memoirs f i. 12 — 16. 
 
 2 Gutcb, Collect, cur., i. 227 ; Wood's Life, p. 14 note, where the editor 
 observes that the College retained a chalice of 1614. 
 
BALLIOL COLLEGE. 49 
 
 Visitation began in 1647 Thomas Lawrence was Master and also 
 Margaret Professor of Divinity. After a while he submitted to 
 the Visitors' authority and then resigned his offices. In the 
 Mastership he was succeeded by George Bradshaw, Evelyn's 
 tutor.i Apparently about half the members of the College in 
 time made their submission.^ From 1651 the Mastership was 
 held by Henry Savage, a man of cultivation, who had travelled 
 in France, and here at least deserves to be remembered as the 
 author of the first and only history of his College, a work to 
 which we have been constantly indebted for its transcripts and 
 extracts from the muniments.^ On his death in 1672 he was 
 succeeded by Thomas Good, — one of the first of those who sub- 
 mitted to the Parliamentary Visitors^ — whom Wood describes 
 as when resident in College " a frequent preacher, yet always 
 esteemed an honest and harmless puritan." ^ He is best known 
 from the stories which Humphrey Prideaux tells about him. 
 According to him the Master "is a good honest old tost, and 
 understands business well enough, but is very often guilty of ab- 
 surditys, which rendreth him contemptible to the yong men of 
 the town." ^ One of these stories he does " not well beleeve ; but 
 however you shall have it. There is over against Baliol College 
 a dingy, horrid, scandalous alehouse, fit for none but draymen 
 and tinkers and such as by goeing there have made themselves 
 equally scandalous. Here the Baliol men continually ly, and 
 by perpetuall bubbeing ad art to their natural stupidity to 
 make themselves perfect sots. The head, beeing informed of 
 this, called them togeather, and in a grave speech informed 
 
 1 Register of the Visitors (ed. M. Burrows, Camden Society, 1881), pp. 
 167, 188, and introd. pp. cxxv, cxxvi. 
 
 2 See tlie list, ibid., pp. 478 f., and the references there p:iven. 
 
 3 Riley (p. 444) dismisses this bonk as " a vapid and superficial pro- 
 duction"; but there is little doubt that Savnge had the assistance in 
 it of no less an antiquary than Anthony Wood. See his ii/e, pp. 104— 
 108, 143 f., 157. When Wood speaks disparagingly of Savage, it must be 
 remembered that he had himself proposed to write a work on a siuiilar plan ; 
 Athen. Oxmi. (ed. Bliss, 1817), iii. 951). ^-^^^^^^-^^^^^^ 
 
 * Reg. of Visit., p. 4. y^^L b?.''^ 
 s Athen. Oxon., m. 1154. 
 
 • Letters, pp. 12 f. 
 
50 BALLIOL COLLEGE. 
 
 them of the mischiefs of that hellish liquor cald ale, that it 
 destroyed both body and soul, and adviced them by noe means 
 to have anything more to do with it ; but on of them, not willing 
 soe tamely to be preached out of his beloved liquor, made reply 
 that the Vice-Chancelour's men drank ale at the Split Crow,^ 
 and why should not they to ? The old man, being nonplusd 
 with this reply, immediately packeth away to the Vice-Chan- 
 celour,^ and informed him of the ill example his fellows gave the 
 rest of the town by drinkeing ale, and desired him to prohibit 
 them for the future; but Bathurst, not likeing his proposal!, 
 being formerly and [sic] old lover of ale himselfe, answared him 
 roughly, that there was noe hurt in ale, and that as long as his 
 fellows did noe worse he would not disturb them, and soe turned 
 the old man goeing ; who, returneing to his colledge, calld his 
 fellows again and told them he had been with the Vice-Chan- 
 celour, and that he told them there was noe hurt in ale ; truely 
 he thought there was, but now, beeing informed of the contrary, 
 since the Vice-Chancelour gave his men leave to drinke ale, he 
 would give them leave to ; soe that now they may be sots by 
 authority/' ^ 
 
 Another story of the same time connecting Balliol and Trinity 
 Colleges is told of Dr. Bathurst, President of Trinity and the 
 "Vice-Chancelour" named in the foregoing quotation. "A 
 striking instance," says Thomas Warton, " of zeal for his college, 
 in the dotage of old age, is yet remembered. Balliol College 
 had suffered so much in the outrages of the grand rebellion, 
 that it remained almost in a state of desolation for some years 
 after the restoration : a circumstance not to be suspected from 
 its flourishing condition ever since. Dr. Bathurst was perhaps 
 secretly pleased to see a neighbouring, and once rival society, 
 reduced to this condition, while his own flourished beyond all 
 others. Accordingly, one afternoon he was found in his garden, 
 which then ran almost contiguous to the east side of Balliol - 
 college, throwing stones at the windows with much satisfaction, 
 
 1 The sign of the house is understood to liave been a double-headed 
 eagle. 
 
 2 Dr. Bathurst, President of Trinity, Vice-Cliancellor, 1673—1676. 
 2 Letters, pp. 13 f., under date 23 August, 1674. 
 
BALLIOL COLLEGE. 51 
 
 as if happy to contribute his share in completing the appearance 
 of it's ruin." i 
 
 Indeed, that Balliol was by no means in a state of prosperity 
 after tlie Restoration may be gathered from the facts that it is 
 described as possessing but half the income of Exeter, Oriel, and 
 Queen's, and containing but twenty-five commoners ; ^ and that 
 in 1681 the College was taken by the opposition Peers for lodg- 
 ings during the Oxford Parliament.^ In January the Earl of 
 Shaftesbury, together with the Duke of Monmouth, the Earls 
 of Bedford and Essex, and twelve other Peers, subscribed a 
 petition praying that the Parliament should sit not at Oxford 
 but at Westminster ; and when they found they could not move 
 the King, Shaftesbury promptly set about securing rooms at 
 Oxford. John Locke, who conducted negotiations for him, 
 reported on the 6th February that the Rector of Exeter would 
 be happy to place three rooms in his house at his Lordship's 
 disposal, "but that the whole college could by no means be had." 
 Dr. Wallis's house was also inspected, and it was soon discovered 
 that Balliol College was at the Peers' service. From a letter 
 however from Shaftesbury to Locke, of the 22nd February, it 
 seems that he himself and Lord Grey occupied Wallis's house, 
 and *' dieted" elsewhere, no doubt at Balliol.* On their departure 
 Shaftesbury and fourteen other Peers — almost exactly the same 
 list as that of the petitioners of the 25th January — presented to 
 the College " a large bole, with a cover to it, all double guilt, 
 167 oz. 10 dtvtsy ^ which was melted down into tankards many 
 years since. 
 
 The history of the College during the greater part of the 
 eighteenth century coincides with the life of Dr. Theophilus 
 Leigh, who took his Bachelor's degree from Corpus in 1712, was 
 appointed Master of Balliol fifteen years later, and held his oflSce 
 until 1785. Hearne records the circumstances of his election in 
 
 1 Ufe of Ralph Bathnrst (1761), p. 203. 
 
 2 Gutch, Collect, cuu, i. 195. 
 
 3 The Master at this time was Good's successor, John Venn, who nmrried 
 " an ancient maid," niece to the first Earl of Clarendon. 
 
 * W. D. Christie, Life of Shaftesbury (1871), ii. 390—401. 
 
 * lUley, p. 451. 
 
52 BALLIOL COLLEGE. 
 
 a way which implies that he owed his success to an informality, 
 with more than a hint of nepotism on the part of the Visitor.^ 
 Six years after his death Martin K-outh was elected President 
 of Magdalen College. He died in 1855 ; so that the academical 
 lives of these two men overlapping just at the extremities 
 cover a period of not less than a hundred and forty-six years. 
 In Leigh's days Balliol was sunk in the heavy and sluggish 
 decrepitude which characterized Oxford at large. The Terrae 
 Films — doubtless an authority to be received with caution — 
 reviles the Fellows for the perpetual fines and sconces with 
 which they burthened the undergraduates ; ^ and it is stated 
 that Adam Smith, when a member of tlie College, was severely 
 reprimanded for reading Hume.^ It is certain that, at least 
 when Leigh was first a Fellow, the College did not even trust 
 the undergraduates with knives and forks, for these, we are 
 assured, were chained to the table in hall, while the trenchers 
 were made of wood.* There was " a laudable custom " which 
 lasted on to a later generation '' of the Dean's Visiting the 
 Undergraduats Chambers at 9 o' Clock at Night, to see that 
 they kept good Ijours." ^ 
 
 It was before nine o'clock on the 23rd February 1747-8 that 
 a party was gathered there which led to serious consequences. 
 In spite of the failure of the rebellion of 1745 the zealous ardour 
 of some Jacobite members of the College waxed so warm that 
 they and their guests paraded down the Turl shouting G-d 
 
 Ness k — g J s, until they reached Winter's coffee-house near 
 
 the High Street, where Mr. Richard Blacow, a Canon of Wind- 
 sor, was sitting " in company with several Gentlemen of the 
 
 1 Reliqq. Ream, iii. 308. 2 Terrae Fillus, 1733 (2nd ed.), pp. 5 f. 
 
 3 J. R. M'Colloch, Life of Dr. Smith, prefixed to the Wealth of Nations 
 (ed. Edinburgli, 1828), i. p. xvi. 
 
 * Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century, ii. 307 note. 
 
 ° J. Pointer, xoniens is Academia {1749), i. 11. Hearne mentions a cnstoin 
 which had been given up at Merton since Wood's time, but which partially 
 survived "at Brazenose and Balliol coll., and no where else that I know 
 of. I take the original thereof to have been a custom they had formerly for 
 the young men to say something of their founders and benefactors, so 
 that the custom was originally very laudable, however afterwards turned 
 into ridicule : " Beliqq. Hearn, iii. 76. 
 
BALLIOL COLLEGE. 5j 
 
 University and an Officer in his Regimental Habit," about seven 
 o'clock in the evening. Mr. Blacow tells us with righteous 
 indignation how he not only heard treasonable and seditious 
 expressions in favour of the exiled family, but also such cries as 
 
 d — n K — g G e. Being a young Master of Arts and very 
 
 much on his dignity, he went forth into the street to check the 
 outrage, but was only met by a rough handling on the part of 
 the rioters, who stood shouting in St. Mary Hall Lane in front 
 of Oriel College ; so that Mr. Blacow was glad to make good his 
 retreat within the College gate. Reappearing after a while he 
 was on the point of being attacked, when his assailant was 
 carried off by the Proctor. Another, Luxmoore, B.A. of Balliol, 
 took to his heels. After this the loyal Canon sought in vain to 
 induce the Vice-Chancellor to take steps for the trial of the 
 offenders ; but he could by no means be prevailed upon. At 
 length, as the scandal spread abroad, the Secretary of State, the 
 Duke of Newcastle, requested Mr. Blacow to lay an information 
 before him ; and three members of the University were tried 
 for treason in the King's Bench. Of the two who belonged to 
 Balliol one, Luxmoore, was acquitted ; the other Whitmore, with 
 Dawes of St. Mary Hall,— both undergraduates barely twenty 
 years of age, — were sentenced to a fine, to two years' imprison- 
 ment, to find securities for their good behaviour for seven years, 
 "to walk immediately round Westminster Hall with a Hbel 
 affixed to their foreheads denoting their crime and sentence, and 
 to ask pardon of the several courts." i 
 
 The letters of Robert Southey, who entered Balliol as a 
 commoner in 1792, do not give an unfavourable impression of 
 the condition of the College just after Leigh's death. His own 
 peculiarities of taste and temper placed him doubtless in uncon- 
 genial surroundings,— he refused the assistance of the College 
 barber and wore his curly hair long,— but his complaint is not 
 of the College but of the University system in general. The 
 authorities are "men remarkable only for great wigs and little 
 wisdom." " With respect to its superiors, Oxford only exhibits 
 waste of wigs and want of wisdom; with respect to the under- 
 
 1 R. Blacow, LetUr to William King, 1755. The whole story is told by 
 Dr. G. B. Hill, Dr. Johnson, his Friends mid his CntKs (1878), pp. 6»-/^. 
 
54 BALLIOL COLLEGE. 
 
 graduates, every species of abandoned excess." In his second 
 year, with the haughty air of a senior man, he found the fresh- 
 men " not estimable " ; but he made friends in College, and two 
 of his first four comrades in the great Pantisocratic scheme 
 were Balliol men. Even his tutor, Thomas Howe, delighted 
 him by being " half a democrat," and still more by the remark — 
 *• Mr. Southey, you won't learn any thing by my lectures, Sir ; 
 so, if you have any studies of your own, you had better pursue 
 them." Kowmg and swimming, Southey used to say, were all 
 he learned at Oxford ; but with two years' residence, and a term 
 missed in them, with Pantisocracy and Joan of Arc, we may 
 doubt whether it was all Oxford's fault.^ 
 
 The real revival of Balliol College began after the election of 
 John Parsons as Master in 1798. He succeeded to the Vice- 
 Chancellorship in 1807 unexpectedly, on the death of Dr. 
 Richards, Rector of Exeter, after a single year of office. " He 
 was a good scholar," says Bedel Cox, "and an impressive preacher, 
 though he did not preach often ; above all, he was thoroughly 
 conversant with University matters, having been for several 
 years the leading, or rather the working, man in the Hebdomadal 
 Board. Indeed, he had the great merit of elaborating the 
 details of the Public Examination Statute at the end of the 
 last century. His subsequent promotion " to the Bishopric of 
 Peterborough " was considered as the well-earned reward of that 
 his great work. Dr. Parsons had also the credit of laying the 
 foundation of that collegiate and tutorial system which Dr. 
 Jenkyns afterwards so successfully carried out." ^ Those who 
 may think the establishment of the examination system a 
 questionable benefit may be comforted by knowing that for 
 many years it was conducted entirely mm voce, while the 
 requirements for degrees in the time preceding the change were 
 so notoriously perfunctory that the old method could not possibly 
 be maintained. In the Colleges too the tutorial system, in its 
 principle — as still at Cambridge — a disciplinary system, had 
 long outlived its vitality ; and Dr. Parsons deserves credit not 
 
 1 ii/e awl Gorrespoiidence (ed. C. C. Southey, 1849), i. 164, 170, 177, 203, 
 211 f., 215, 176 note. 
 
 2 G. V. Cox, BecoUections of Oxford (1808), p. 191. 
 
BALLIOL COLLEGE. 56 
 
 merely for invigorating it, but for setting on a firm foundation 
 an organization for teaching undergraduates as well as for 
 keeping them in order. 
 
 But it was not to be expected that these reforms should bear 
 full fruit for many years. Sir William Hamilton, who was at 
 Balliol from 1807 to 1810, describes himself as "so. plagued by 
 these foolish lectures of the College tutors that I have little 
 time to do anything else — Aristotle to-day, ditto to-morrow; 
 and I believe that if the ideas furnished by Aristotle to these 
 numbskulls were taken away, it would be doubtful whether 
 there remained a single notion. I am quite tired of such 
 uniformity of study." ^ He was however unfortunately placed 
 under an eccentric tutor named Powell, who lived furtively 
 in rooms over the College gate and was never seen out except at 
 dusk. " For a short time Hamilton and his tutor kept up the 
 formality of an hour's lecture. This however soon ceased, and 
 for the last three years of his College life Hamilton was left to 
 follow his own inclinations." ^ But, as Dr. Parsons said, " he is 
 one of those, and they are rare, who are best left to themselves. 
 He will turn out a great scholar, and we shall get the credit of 
 making him so, though in point of fact we shall have done 
 nothing for him whatever." ^ Yet in later years the philosopher 
 speaks of the " College in which I spent the happiest of the 
 liappy years of youth, which is never recollected but with 
 atfection, and from which, as I gratefully acknowledge, I carried 
 into life a taste for those studies which have contributed the 
 most interesting of my subsequent pursuits." * 
 
 Hamilton's freshman's account of the daily life and manners 
 of the College deserves quotation : its date is 13 May, 1807. 
 " No boots are allowed to be worn here, or trousers or pantaloons. 
 In the morning we wear white cotton stockings, and before 
 dinner regularly dress in silk stockings, &c. After dinner we 
 go to one another's rooms and drink some wine, then go to 
 
 1 Letter of 15 November 1807, in J. Veitch's Memoir of Sir W. Hamiltot^ 
 (1869), p. 30. 
 
 2 Letter of J. Traill, quoted, ibid., p. 44. 
 
 » Letter of G. R. Gleig, quoted, ibid., p. 53. 
 ♦ Discrissions, p. 750, quoted, ibid., p. 52. 
 
56 BALLIOL COLLEGE. 
 
 chapel at half-past five, and walk, or sail on the river, after that. 
 In the morning we go to chapel at seven, breakfast at nine, fag 
 all the forenoon, and dine at half-past three." ^ 
 
 Under Dr. Parsons as Master, and Mr. Jenkyns as Tutor and 
 then Vice-Master on the Head's elevation to the see of Peter- 
 borough, the College continued steadily to improve. Mr. Jenkyns 
 succeeded to the Mastership on the Bishop's death in 1819. But 
 there were still two points in the constitution of the College 
 which were felt to be out of keeping with the spirit of modern 
 education. One was the direct nomination of each Scholar, 
 except those on the Blundell Foundation, by a particular Fellow 
 in turn ; and the other, the obligation under which all the 
 Fellows lay of taking Priest's orders. The former arrangement 
 was revised by a new Statute sanctioned by the Visitor in 1834, 
 which placed all the Scholarships, with the exception named, in 
 the appointment of the Master and Fellows after examination. 
 At the same time the College yielded to the tendency of the 
 time which brought undergraduates to the University older 
 than formerly, and raised *he age below which candidates were 
 admissible to scholarships from eighteen to nineteen.^ The 
 other question was settled by a decision in 1838 that the obliga- 
 tion of Fellows to take holy orders did not debar candidates 
 from election who had no such purpose in mind, provided of 
 course that their tenure of Fellowships terminated at the date 
 by which according to the Statutes they were bound to be 
 ordained.^ 
 
 In the same year that this decision was given Mr. Benjamin 
 Jowett, afterwards Begins Professor of Greek and since 1870 
 Master of the College, was elected to a Fellowship. He has 
 committed to writing in a most interesting letter to the son of 
 William George Ward, famous for his share in the Oxford Move- 
 ment and for his degradation by Convocation in 1845, his recol- 
 lections of the Fellows as they were when he was elected to 
 their membership; but we have only room here for a short 
 extract from his account of Master Jenkyns, " who was very 
 different from any of the Fellows, and was held in considerable 
 
 1 Memoiry p. 33. 2 Statutes, pp. 38 f. 3 jbid., p. 39. 
 
BALLIOL COLLEGE. 57 
 
 awe by them. He was a gentleman of the old school, in whom 
 were represented old manners, old traditions, old prejudices, a 
 Tory and a Churchman, high and dry, without much literature, 
 but having a good deal of character. He filled a great space 
 in the eyes of the undergraduates. * His young men,' as he 
 termed them, speaking in an accent which we all remember, 
 w^ere never tired of mimicking his voice, drawing his portrait, 
 and inventing stories about what he said and did ... He 
 was a considerable actor, and would put on severe looks to 
 terrify Freshmen, but he was really kind-hearted and indulgent 
 to them. He was in a natural state of war with the Fellows 
 and Scholars on the Close Foundation; and many ludicrous 
 stories were told of his behaviour to them, of his dislike to 
 smoking, and of his enmity to dogs. . . . He was much re- 
 spected, and his great services to the College have always been 
 acknowledijed." ^ 
 
 When we consider the progress made by Balliol College 
 during the years between 1813, when Jenkyns became Vice- 
 Master, and 1854, when he died, we may perhaps venture to 
 question whether the balance between " old manners, old tradi- 
 tions, old prejudices," and new manners, new traditions, new 
 prejudices, does not hang very evenly. But into this we are not 
 called upon to enter. The Statutes made by the University 
 Commission of 1850 made fewer changes in the condition of 
 Balliol than of most Colleges, because the most inevitable 
 reforms had been carried into effect already. The Close Fellow- 
 ships were opened, and the majority of the Fellowships were 
 released from clerical obligations. The moment which witnessed 
 the promulgation of the new Statutes witnessed also the death 
 of Dean Jenkyns and the succession of Robert Scott. But here 
 we may well conclude the story of the Balliol of the past. To 
 carry it down further would require much more space than the 
 limits of this chapter permit ; and besides, the Balliol of the 
 present is a new College in a different sense from perhaps any 
 other College in Oxford. No other College has so distinctly 
 parted company with its traditions beyond the lifetime of men 
 
 1 W. Ward, William George Ward and the Oxford Movement (1889), 
 pp. 429—431 ; cf. p. 343, &c. 
 
68 BALLIOL COLLEGE. 
 
 now livinor. The commemoration of founders and benefactors 
 on St. Luke's Day has long been given up, and the Latin grace in 
 hall has not been heard for many years. The College buildings 
 are for the greater part the work of the pres3nt reign. In the new 
 hall the portraits which strike the eye behind the high table are all 
 those of men who were alive when the hall was opened in 1877. 
 Bishop Parsons and Dean Jenkyns are seen above them, while 
 in the obscurity of the roof may be discerned the pictures — un- 
 historical, as in other Colleges, it need not be said — of John 
 Balliol and Dervorguilla his wife. A visitor from the last cen- 
 tury would see little that he could recognize; but when he 
 entered the common room after dinner he would notice one 
 highly conservative custom revived. In 1773 it had been the 
 lament of older men, that 
 
 "Nee Ciunerae Coininnni-! amor, qua rarus ad alta 
 Nunc tubus emittit gratos laquearia fumos ; " ^ 
 
 but in late years the practice of smoking has been regularly 
 admitted even in those sacred precincts. 
 
 Every College has its own ideal, and that of Balliol has been 
 by a steady policy adapted to the modern spirit of work, employ- 
 ins: the best materials not so much for learninor as an end in 
 itself as a means towards practical success in life. In this field, 
 in the distinctions of the schools, of the courts, and of public life, 
 it has been seldom rivalled by any other College. But it is 
 remarkable that in the long and distinguished list of its men of 
 mark we find, speaking only of the dead, no Statesman and not 
 many scholars of the first rank. The College has excelled rather 
 in its practical men of affairs, diplomatists, judges, members of 
 parliament, civil service officials, college tutors, and school- 
 masters. At the present moment it counts among former 
 members no less than seven of her Majesty's Judges and seven 
 Heads of Oxford Colleges. But to show that another side of 
 culture has been represented at Balliol in the present reign, we 
 must not forget the band of Balliol poets, Arthur Hugh Clough, 
 Matthew Arnold, and Algernon Charles Swinburne. 
 
 I Quoted in Wood's City of Oxford (ed. A. Clark), i. G32. Cf. C. Words- 
 worth, Unicersity Life in the Eighteenth Century (1874), p. 161. 
 
III. 
 
 lERTON COLLEGE.' 
 
 By the Hon. George C. Brodrick, D.C.L., 
 Warden of Mertox College. 
 
 In the year 1274, "the House of the Scholars of Mertoii," since 
 called Merton College, was solemnly founded, and settled upon 
 its present site in Oxford, by Walter de Merton, Chancellor to 
 King Henry III. and King Edward I. Ten years earlier, in the 
 midst of the Civil War, this remarkable man had already estab- 
 lished a collegiate brotherhood, under the same name, at Maiden, 
 in Surrey, but with an educational branch at Oxford, where 
 twenty students were to be maintained out of the corporate 
 revenues. The Statutes of 1264 were very slightly modified in 
 1270; the Statutes of 1274, issued on the conclusion of the peace, 
 and sealed by the King himself, were a mature development of 
 the original design, worked out with a statesman -like foresight. 
 These statutes are justly regarded as the archetype of the 
 College system, not only in the University of Oxford, but in 
 that of Cambridge, where they were adopted as a model by 
 the founder of Peterhouse, the oldest of Cambridge Colleges. 
 In every important sense of the word, Merton, with its elaborate 
 code of statutes and conventual buildings, its chartered rights of 
 
 . 1 The writer of this chapter is, of course, indebted to his own Memorials 
 of MeHon College, published in 1885, in the Oxford Historical Society's 
 series ; but has revised afresh the results of his former researches, with the 
 uid of new materials. 
 
60 MERTON COLLEGE. 
 
 self-government, and its organized \iL\ was the first of English 
 Colleges, and the founder of Merton was indirectly the founder 
 of Collegiate Universities. 
 
 His idea took root and bore fruit, because it was inspired by 
 a true sympathy with the needs of the University, where the 
 subjects of study were then as frivolous as it was the policy of 
 Rome to make them, where religious houses with the Mendicant 
 Friars almost monopolized learning, and where the streets were 
 the scenes of outrageous violence and license. To combine 
 monastic discipline with secular learning, and so to create a 
 great seminary for the secular clergy, was the aim of Walter de 
 Merton. The inmates of the College were to live by a common rule 
 under a common head ; but they were to take no vows, to join no 
 monastic fraternity, on pain of deprivation, and to undertake no 
 ascetic or ceremonial obligations. Their occupation was to be 
 study, not the claiostralis religio of the older religious orders, nor 
 the more practical and popular self-devotion of the Dominicans 
 and Franciscans, " the intrusive and anti-national militia of the 
 Papacy." They were all to read Theology, but not until after 
 completing their full course in Arts ; and they were encouraged 
 to seek employment in the great world. As the value of the 
 endowments should increase, the number of scholars was to be 
 augmented ; and those who might win an ample fortune (uberior 
 fortuna) were enjoined to show their gratitude by advancing 
 the interests of " the house." While their duties ^and privileges 
 were strictly defined by the statutes, they were expressly em- 
 powered to amend the statutes themselves in accordance with 
 the growing requirements of future ages, and even to migrate 
 from Oxford elsewhere in case of necessity. The Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, as Visitor by virtue of his oflfice, was entrusted with 
 the duty of enforcing statutable obligations. 
 
 The Merton Statutes of 1274, as interpreted and supplemented 
 by several Ordinances and Injunctions of Visitors, remained in 
 force within living memory, and the spirit of them never became 
 obsolete. The Ordinances of Archbishop Kilwarby, issued as 
 early as 1276, with the Founder's express sanction, chiefly regu- 
 late the duties of College officers, but are interesting as recog- 
 nizing the existence of out-College students. Those of Archbishop 
 
MERTON COLLEGE. 61 
 
 Peckham, issued in 1284, are directed to check various abuses 
 already springing up, among which is included the encroach- 
 ment of professional and utilitarian studies into the curricuhun 
 of the College ; the admission of medical students on the plea 
 that Medicine is a branch of Physics is rigorously prohibited, 
 and the study of Canon Law is condemned except under strict 
 conditions and with the Warden's leave. The Ordinances of 
 Archbishop Chicheley, issued in 1425, disclose the prevalence of 
 mercenary self-interest in the College, manifested in the neglect 
 to fill up Fellowships, in wasteful management of College 
 property, and so forth. The ordinances of Archbishop Laud, 
 issued in 1640, are specially framed, as might be expected, to 
 revive wholesome rules of discipline, entering minutely into 
 every detail of College life. Chapel-attendance, the use of sur- 
 plices and hoods, the restriction of intercourse between Masters 
 and Bachelors, the etiquette of meals, the strength of the 
 College ale, the custody of the College keys, the costume to be 
 worn by members of the College in the streets, and the careful 
 registration in a note-book of every Fellow's departure and 
 return — such were among the numerous punctilios of College 
 economy which shared the attention of this indefatigable prelate 
 with the gravest affairs of Church and State. A century 
 later, in 1733, very similar Injunctions were issued by Arch- 
 bishop Potter ; and on several other occasions undignified dis- 
 putes between the Wardens and Fellows called for the decisive 
 interference of the Visitor. But the general impression derived 
 from a perusal of the Visitors' Injunctions is, that a reasonable 
 and honest construction of the Statutes would have rendered 
 their interference unnecessary, and that it was a signal proof of 
 the Founder's sagacity to provide such a safeguard against cor- 
 porate selfishness and intestine discord, in days when public 
 spirit was a rare virtue. 
 
 While the University of Oxford has played a greater part in 
 our national history than any other corporation except that of 
 the City of London, the external annals of Merton, as of other 
 Colleges, are comparatively meagre and humble. The corporate 
 life of the College, dating from the Barons' War, flowed on in 
 an equable course during a century of French Wars, followed by 
 
62 MERTON COLLEGE. 
 
 the Wars of the Roses. We know, indeed, that in early times 
 Merton was sometimes represented by its Wardens and Fellows 
 in camps and ecclesiastical synods, as well as in Courts, both at 
 home and abroad. For instance, Bradwardine, afterwards Arch- 
 bishop, rendered service to Edward III. in negotiations with 
 the French King ; Warden Bloxham was employed during; the 
 same reign in missions to Scotland and Ireland ; two successive 
 Wardens, Rudborn and Gylbert, with several Fellows, are said 
 to have followed Henry V. as chaplains into Normandy, and to 
 have been present at Agincourt; Kemp, a Fellow and future 
 Archbishop, attended the Councils of Basle and Florence ; and 
 Abendon, Gylbert's successor in the Wardenship, earned f\ime 
 as delegate of the University at the Council of Constance. But 
 the College, as a body, was unmoved either by continental 
 expeditions, or by the storms which racked English society in 
 the Middle Ages; and its "Register," which commences in 
 1482, is for the most part ominously silent on the great political 
 commotions of later periods. During the reign of Henry YIL, 
 indeed, occasional mention of public affairs is to be found in its 
 pages. Such are the references to extraordinary floods, storms, 
 or frosts ; to the Sweating Sickness ; to the Battle of Bosworth 
 Field ; to Perkin Warbeck's Revolt, and other insurrectionary 
 movements of that age ; to notable executions ; to the birth, 
 marriage, and death of Prince Arthur; to the death of Pope 
 Alexander VI., and to Lady Margaret's endowment of a Theo- 
 logical Professorship. After the reign of Henry VII. the brief 
 entries in this domestic chronicle, like the monotonous series of 
 cases in the Law Reports, almost ignore Civil War and Revolu- 
 tion, betraying no change of style or conscious spirit of innova- 
 tion ; and it is from other sources that we must learn the events 
 which enable us to interpret some passages in the Register 
 itself. 
 
 Whether John Wyclif was actually a Fellow of Merton is 
 still an open question, though no sufficient evidence has been 
 produced to rebut a belief certainly held in the next generation 
 after the great Reformer's death. That his influence was 
 strongly felt at Merton is an undoubted fact, and the liberal 
 school of thought which he represented had there one of its 
 
MERTON COLLEGE. 63 
 
 cliief strongholds until the Renaissance and the Reformation. 
 Being anti-monastic by its very constitution, and having been 
 a consistent opponent of Papal encroachments, Merton College 
 might naturally have been expected to cast in its lot with the 
 Protestant cause at this great crisis. A deed of submission to 
 Henry VIII. as Supreme Head of the Church, purporting to 
 represent the unanimous voice of the College, and professincr 
 absolute allegiance not only to him, but to Anne Boleyn and 
 her offspring, is preserved in the Public Record Office. This 
 deed bears the signatures of the Sub- Warden and fifteen known 
 Fellows, besides those of three other persons who were perhaps 
 Chaplains, but not that of Chamber, the Warden, though his 
 name is expressly included in the body of the deed. Neverthe- 
 less, the sympathies of the leading Fellows appear to have been 
 mainly Catholic. William Tresham, an ex- Fellow, zealous as 
 he was in the promotion of learning, was among the adversaries 
 of the Reformation movement, and was rewarded by Queen 
 Mary with a Canonry of Christ Church. Though he signed 
 the acknowledgment of the Royal Supremacy, Richard Smyth 
 was a still more active promoter of the Catholic re-action. He 
 also received a Canonry of Christ Church, with the Regius 
 Professorship of Divinity, and preached a sermon before the 
 stake when Ridley and Latimer were martyred, on the unhappy 
 text — "Though I give my body to be burned, and have not 
 charity, it profiteth me nothing." Dr. Martiall, another Fellow 
 of Merton, acted as Vice-Chancellor on the same occasion, and 
 his brother Fellow, Robert Ward, appears on the list of Doctors 
 appointed to sit in judgment on the doctrines of the Protestant 
 bishops. Parkhurst, afterwards Bishop of Norwich, is the only 
 Fellow of Merton recorded by Anthony Wood to have sought 
 refuge beyond the seas during the Marian persecution. On the 
 other hand, four only, including Tresham, are mentioned as 
 having suffered the penalty of expulsion for refusing the Oath 
 of Supremacy under Elizabeth, though Smyth was imprisoned 
 in Archbishop Parker's house, and Raynolds, the Warden, on 
 refusing that Oath, was deposed by order of a new Commission. 
 A more important place was reserved for Merton College in 
 ihe great national drama of the following century. Having 
 
64 MERTON COLLEGE. 
 
 been one of the Colleges in which members of the Legislature 
 were lodged during the Oxford Parliament of 1625, and upon 
 which the officers of a Parliamentary force were quartered in 
 1641, it was selected, in July 1643, for the residence of Queen 
 Henrietta Maria, who then joined the King at Oxford, and 
 remained there during the autumn and winter. She occupied 
 the present dining-room and drawing-room of the Warden's 
 house, with the adjoining bedroom, still known as "the Queen's 
 Room." The King, who held his Court at Christ Church, often 
 came to visit her by a private walk opened for the purpose 
 through Corpus and Merton gardens ; and doubtless took part 
 in many pleasant re-unions, of which history is silent, though 
 a graphic picture of them is preserved in the pages of John 
 Inglesant. ^ .: 
 
 It does not follow that E-oyalist opinions preponderated among 
 the Merton Fellows, and there is clear evidence that both sides 
 were strongly represented in the College. Sir Nathaniel Brent, 
 the Warden, being a Presbyterian, and having openly espoused 
 the Parliamentary cause, absented himself, and was deposed in 
 favour of the illustrious Harvey, Charles I.'s own physician, 
 recommended by the King, but duly elected by the College. 
 Ralph Button, too, a leading Fellow and Tutor, quitted Oxford, 
 when it became the Royal head-quarters, lest he should be 
 expected to bear arms for the King. On the other hand, Peter 
 Turner, one of the most eminent Mertonians of his day, accom- 
 panied a troop of Royalist horse as far as Stow in the Wold, 
 was there captured, and was committed to Northampton Gaol. 
 A third Fellow, John Greaves, Savilian Professor of Astronomy, 
 drew up and procured signatures to a petition for v Brent's 
 deposition ; and two more, Fowle and Lovejoy, actually seryed 
 under the Royal standard. But we search the. College Register 
 in vain for any formal resolution on the subject of the Ci^l 
 War. It is certain that Merton gave up the w hole of its plate' 
 for the King's use m 1643, and no silver presented at an earlier 
 date is now in the possession of the College. But it is interest- 
 ing, if not consolatory, to know that in the previous reign a large 
 quantity of old plate had been exchanged for new, so that, from^ 
 an antiquarian point of view, the sacrifice made to loyalty was 
 
MERTON COLLEGE. C5 
 
 not so great as might be imagined. No College order directing 
 the surrender is extant, and two of the Fellows afterwards 
 mutually accused each other of having thus misappropriated the 
 College property. 
 
 Other notices of the great struggle then convulsing the nation 
 are few and far between in the minutes of the College Register. 
 It is remarkable that, so far back as August 1641, the College 
 directed twelve muskets and as many pikes to be purchased, 
 hello ingruente, for the purpose of repelling any roving soldiers 
 who might break in for the sake of plunder. Anthony Wood 
 particularly observes, that during the Queen's stay at Merton 
 there were divers marriages, christenings, and burials in the 
 Chapel, of which all record has been lost, as the private register 
 in which the Chaplain had noted them was stolen out of his 
 room when Oxford was finally surrendered to Fairfax. The 
 confusion that prevailed during the Royahst occupation of 
 Oxford is, however, officially recognized by the College. It is 
 duly chronicled, for instance, that on August 1st, 1645, the 
 College meeting was held in the Library, neither the Hall nor 
 the Warden's Lodgings being then available for the purpose; 
 and several entries attest the pecuniary straits to which the 
 College was reduced. At last it is solemnly recorded, under the 
 date of October 19th, 1646, that by the Divine goodness the war 
 had at last been stayed, and the Warden (Brent) with most of 
 the Fellows had returned, but that as there were no Bachelors, 
 hardly any Scholars, and few Masters, it was decided to elect 
 but one Bursar and one Dean. It is added that, as the Hall 
 still lay situ et minis squalida, the College meeting was held 
 in the Warden's Lodgings. 
 
 When the scenes were shifted, and a solemn Visitation of 
 the University was instituted by "The Lords and Commons 
 assembled in Parliament," Merton College may be said to have 
 set the example of conformity to the new order in Church and 
 State. Sir Nathaniel Brent himself was President of the Com- 
 mission. Among his colleagues were three Fellows of Merton, 
 Reynolds, Cheynell,and Corbet, who had already been appointed 
 with four other preachers to convert the gownsmen through 
 Presbyterian sermons. The earlier sittings of the Commission 
 
66 MERTON COLLEGE. 
 
 were held in the Warden's dining-room, or, during his absence, 
 in Cheynell's apartments. When the members of the College, 
 including servants, were called before the Visitors and required 
 to make their submission, about half of them, according to 
 Anthony Wood, openly complied : most of the others made 
 answers more or less evasive, declaring^ their readiness to obey 
 the Warden, or submitting in so far as the Visitors had authority 
 from the King. French, who, as official guardian of the 
 University Register, had refused to give it up, now made his 
 submission, but justified it on the strange ground that he was 
 bound by the capitulation of Oxford to Fairfax. One Fellow 
 only, Nicholas Howson, boldly refused submission, declaring 
 that he could not reconcile it with his allegiance to the Kinor, 
 the University, and the College. He was of course removed ; 
 and the same fate befell Turner, Greaves, French, and one other 
 i'ellow, with a larger number of Postmasters, of whom, however, 
 some were condemned as improperly elected, and some were 
 afterwards restored through Brent's influence. Even while the 
 Commission was sitting, a Royalist spirit must have lingered in 
 the College, since we read that four of the Fellows, three of 
 whom had submitted, were put out of commons for a week and 
 publicly admonished by the Warden for drinking the King's 
 health with a tertiavit, and uncovered heads. Brent resigned 
 the Wardenship in 1651 ; whereupon the Parliamentary 
 Visitors proceeded to appoint, by their own authority, but on 
 the express nomination of the Protector, Dr. Jonathan Goddard, 
 who had been head physician to Cromwell's army in Ireland 
 and Scotland — thereby improving on Charles I.'s paternal but 
 constitutional recommendation of Harvey. 
 
 With the suspension of this great Visitation, shortly to be 
 followed by the Restoration of Charles II., the short-lived con- 
 nection of Merton College vvith general history may be said to 
 have closed. It had the honour of lodging the Queen and. 
 favourite ladies of Charles II. in the plague-year, 1665; it 
 cashiered a Probationer-Fellow in 1681 for maintaining that 
 Charles I. died justly ; it took part in the enlistment of volun- 
 teers for the suppression of Monmouth's rebellion ; and it joined 
 other Colleges in the half-hearted reception of William III. 
 
MERTON COLLEGE. 67 
 
 But its records are devoid of political interest, except so far as it 
 became a cliief stronghold of Whig principles in the University 
 during the Jacobite re-action which followed the Revolution, 
 was encouraged by the avowed Toryism of Queen Anne, and 
 almost broke out into civil war on the accession of George I. 
 Charles Wesley expressly mentions it with Christ Church, 
 Exeter, and Wadham, as an anti- Jacobite society ; and Meadow- 
 court, a leading member of the College, was the hero of a 
 famous scene at the Whig " Constitution Club," when the 
 Proctor, breaking in, was reluctantly obliged to drink King 
 George's health. Siiortly afterwards tlie following entry appeared 
 in the University " Black Book " : — " Let Mr. Meadowcourt, of 
 Merton College, be kept back from the degree for which he 
 next stands, for the space of two years; nor be admitted to 
 supplicate for his grace, until he confesses his manifold crimes, 
 and asks pardon on his knees " — a penalty, however, which he 
 mana.(ed to evade, being afterwards thanked for his loyalty by 
 the Whioj fi^ovemment. 
 
 In the absence of contemporary letters or biographies, it is 
 only from casual notices in Visitors* Injunctions, Bursars' Rolls, 
 and (after 1482) the College Register, that we can obtain any 
 light on the life and manners of Merton scholars, whether senior 
 or junior, before the Reformation-period. That it was a haven 
 of rest for quiet students, and a model of academical discipline 
 to extra-collegiate inmates of halls and lodgings, during the 
 incessant tumults of the fourteenth century, admits of no doubt 
 whatever. A notable proof of this is the special exemption of 
 Merton '' et aularum consimilium' — probably University, BaUiol, 
 Exeter, Oriel, and Queen's Colleges— from the general rustication 
 of students which followed the sanguinary riot on St. Scholas- 
 tica's day in 1354. But the rules laid down by the Founder, 
 and enforced by successive -Visitors, were expressly directed to 
 secure good order in the Society. By the Statutes of 1274, 
 summary expulsion was to be the penalty of persistence in 
 quarrelsome or disorderly behaviour. By the Ordinances of 
 Archbishop Peckham and several other Visitors, the inmates of 
 the College are strictly prohibited from taking meals in the town 
 or entering it alone, and enjoined always to walk about in a 
 
68 MERTON COLLEGE. 
 
 body, returning before nightfalL Other Regulations, of great 
 antiquity, but of somewhat uncertain date, emphatically warn 
 the Fellows against aiding and abetting, even in jest, the 
 squabbles between the Northern and Southern " Nations," or 
 between rival "Faculties." Tn 1508, the College itself legislated 
 directly against the growing practice of giving out-College 
 parties in the city and coming in late, "even after ten o'clock." 
 By the Injunctions of Archbishop Laud, it was ordered th:it the 
 College gates should be closed at half-past nine and the keys 
 given to the Warden, none being allowed to sleep in Oxford out- 
 side the College walls, or even to breakfast or dine, except in 
 the College Hall, carefully separated according to their degrees. 
 Whether the scholars of Merton, old and young, originally slept 
 in large dormitories, or were grouped together by threes and 
 fours in sets of rooms, like those occupied singly by modern 
 students, is a question which cannot be determined with cer- 
 tainty. The structure of " Mob Quadrangle," however, together 
 with the earliest notices in the Register, justifies the belief that 
 most of them lived in College rooms, and that in those days the 
 College Library, far larger than could be required for the custody 
 of a few hundred or thousand manuscripts, was the one common 
 study of the whole College, perhaps serving also as a covered 
 ambulatory. This building is known to have been constructed, 
 or converted to its present use, about 1376; but the dormer 
 windows in the roof were not thrown out until more than a 
 century later ; and in the meantime readers can scarcely have 
 deciphered manuscripts on winter-days, in so dark a chamber, 
 without the aid of oil lamps. Fires were probably unknown, 
 except in the Hall, whither inmates of the College doubtless 
 resorted to warm themselves at all hours of the day. It is to be 
 hoped that, at such casual gatherings, they were relieved from 
 the obligation to converse in Latin imposed upon them during 
 the regular meals in Hall. But intimacy between juniors and 
 seniors was strictly prohibited ; and though Archbishop Cranmer 
 allowed the College to dispense with the practice of Bachelors 
 " capping" Masters in the Quadrangle, it was thought necessary 
 to revive it. As for manly pastimes, which occupy so large a 
 space in modern University life, they are scarcely to be traced in 
 
MERTOX COLLEGE. 69 
 
 the domestic history of Merton, though a ball-court is known to 
 have existed at the west-end of the Chapel. Football, cudgel- 
 play, and other rough games, were certainly played by the citi- 
 zens in the open fields on the north of Oxford ; but if Merton 
 men took part in them, it was against the spirit of Merton rules, 
 since these playful encounters were a fertile source of town and 
 gown rows. There seem to have been no academical sports 
 whatever ; rowing was never practised, cricket was not invented, 
 archery was cultivated rather as a piece of warlike training ; and 
 it is to be feared that poaching in the great woods then skirting 
 Oxford on the north-east was among the more favourite amuse- 
 ments of athletic students. 
 
 It must not be forgotten, however, that, by the original 
 foundation, all the members of the College were both Scholars 
 and Fellows, of equal dignity, except in standing, the Scholar 
 being nothing but a junior Fellow, and the Fellow nothing but 
 an elder Scholar. There were a few boys of the Founder's kin, 
 for whom a separate provision was made; and "commoners" 
 were admitted from time to time at the discretion of the College, 
 but these were mere supernumeraries, at first of low degree, 
 afterwards of higher rank, and on the footing of fellow-com- 
 moners. It was not until the new order of Postmasters 
 (portiouistae) was founded by Wylliott, about 1380, that a 
 second class of students was recognized by the College; and this 
 institution of College " scholarships," in the modern sense, long 
 remained a characteristic feature of Merton. Unlike the young 
 " Scholares," the Postmasters did not rise by seniority to what 
 are now called Fellowships, and were, in fact, the humble 
 friends of the Master-Fellows who had nominated them. It 
 would appear that at the end of the fifteenth century, if not from 
 the first, each Master-Fellow had this right ; and the number of 
 Postmasters was always to be the same a? that of the Master- 
 Fellows. Until that period they seem to have been lodged in 
 the separate building, opposite the College gate, long known as 
 " Postmasters Hall." It is not clear whether they took meals 
 in the College Hall, or lived on rations served out to them ; but 
 it is perfectly clear that they fared badly enough until their diet 
 was improved in the reign of James I. by special benefactions of 
 
70 MERTON COLLEGE. 
 
 Thomas Jessop and others. In the previous reign, they had 
 been removed into the College itself; and thenceforward for 
 several generations they slept, probably on truckle-beds, in the 
 bedrooms of their respective "Masters." Indeed, a College- 
 order of 1543 leads us to suppose that some of them were 
 expected to wait upon the Bachelor-Fellows in Hall. 
 
 Another institution characteristic of Merton in the olden times 
 is one now obsolete, but formerly known as the "Scrutiny." 
 The Founder had expressly ordained in his statutes that a 
 "Chapter or Scutiny" should be held in the College itself thrice 
 a year — a week before Christmas, a week before Easter, and on 
 July 20 ; and that on these occasions a diligent enquiry should 
 be made into the life, behaviour, morals, and progress in learning 
 of all his scholars, as well as into all matters needing correction 
 or improvement. He also decreed that, once a year, the Warden, 
 bailiffs of manors, and all others concerned in the management 
 of College property, should render a solemn account of their 
 stewardship before the Vice-Warden and all the Scholars, 
 assembled at " one of the manors." The bailiffs and other agents 
 of the College were to resign their keys, without reserve, into the 
 hands of the Warden; but the Warden himself was to undergo a 
 like inquisition into his own conduct, and was apparently to be 
 visited with censure or penalties, in case of delinquency, by the 
 College meeting. It is by no means easy to understand why this 
 annual audit, for such it was, should not have been appointed to 
 be held at one of the stated " Chapters or Scrutinies," or why "one 
 of the manors" should have been designated as the lawful place 
 for it. At all events, the distinction between a Scrutiny and an 
 Audit-meeting seems to have been lost at a very early period. 
 Scrutinies, or Chapters, were held frequently, though «nt irregu- 
 lar intervals ; but at least once a year the Scrutiny assumed the 
 form of an Audit, not only into accounts, but into conduct, being 
 sometimes held in the College Hall, and sometimes at Holywell 
 Manor. The earliest notice of such a Scrutiny in the College 
 Eegister is under the date 1483, when three questions were pro- 
 pounded for discussion : — (1) the conduct of College servants ; 
 (2) the number of Postmasters; and (3) the appointment of 
 College officers. Two years later, however, we find three other 
 
MERTON COLLEGE. 71 
 
 questions laid down as the proper subjects for consideration : — 
 (1) the residence and conduct of the Warden ; (2) the condition 
 of the manors ; and (8) the expediency of increasing the number 
 of Fellows. At a later period, the regular questions were — (1) 
 the expediency of increasing the number of Postmasters ; (2) the 
 conduct of College servants (as before) ; and (3) the appointment 
 of a single College officer, the garden- master. Practically, the 
 Scrutiny often resolved itself into a sort of caucus, at which a 
 free and easy altercation took place among the Fellows upon 
 all the points of difference likely to arise in a cloistered society 
 absorbed in its own petty interests. In Professor Rogers' inter- 
 esting record of a Scrutiny held in 1338-9, long before the 
 College Register commences, every kind of grievance is brought 
 forward, from the Warden's neglect of duty to the slovenly attire 
 of the Chaplain, the excessive charge for horses, and the in- 
 cessant squabbles between three quarrelsome Fellows. The 
 same freedom of complaint shows itself in the briefer notices 
 of later Scrutinies to be found in the Register. Undue indul- 
 gence in games of ball, loitering about the town, the introduction 
 of Fellow-commoners into Hall, the prevalence of noise in the 
 bed-chambers at night, as well as enmities among the Fellows, 
 and abuses in the estate-management, were among the stock 
 topics of discussion at Scrutinies; and in 1585 complaints were 
 made at a Scrutiny against suspected Papists. It is evident 
 that reflections were often cast upon the Warden ; but it was 
 known that he could only be deposed by the Visitor after three 
 admonitions from the Sub- Warden ; and, though in one case 
 these admonitions were given, the Visitor, Archbishop Sancroft, 
 declined to adopt the extreme course. The practice of review- 
 ing the conduct of the Warden at Scrutinies appears, indeed, 
 to°have been finally dropped under Warden Chamber, who. as 
 Court physician to King Henry VIII., had a good excuse for 
 constantly absenting himself; but the prax)tice of mviting 
 personal charges against Fellows survived much longer, and 
 Scrutinies were nominally held in the last century. 
 
 A third institution distinctive of Merton was the system of 
 « Variations," or College disputations, of the same nature as the 
 exercises required for University degrees. This custom is thus 
 
72 MERTON COLLEGE. 
 
 described by John Poynter, in a little work on the curiosities of 
 Oxford, published in 1749. "The Master-Fellows," he says, 
 " are obliged by their Statutes to take their turns every year 
 about the Act time, or at least before the first day of August, 
 to vary, as they call it, that is, to perform some public exercise 
 in the Comtnon Hall, the Variator opposing Aristotle in three 
 Latin speeches, upon three questions in Philosophy, or rather 
 Morality ; the three Deans in their turns answering the Variator 
 in three speeches in opposition to his, and in defence of his 
 Aristotle, and after every speech disputing with him syllogistic- 
 ally upon the same. Which Declamations or Disputations were 
 amicably concluded with a magnificent and expensive supper, the 
 charges of which formerly came to £100, but of late years much 
 retrenched." He adds that the audience was composed of the 
 Vice-Chancellor and Proctors, with several Heads of Houses, 
 besides the Warden and all the members of the College. As 
 Variations were still in force when Poynter wrote, we may 
 accept his description of them as tolerably accurate ; but he is 
 evidently wrong in supposing them to have taken place at one 
 season of the year only, for the College Register clearly proves 
 the actual date of them to have been moveable, so long as they 
 were performed within the two years of " Regency " following 
 Inception. By the old rule of the University, all Regent- 
 Masters were obliged to give " ordinary " lectures during that 
 period. This obligation was enforced at Merton by the oath 
 required of Bachelor-Fellows before their Inception; and by 
 the same oath they bound themselves during the same period, 
 not only to engage in the logical and philosophical disputations 
 of the College, but also to "vary twice." The system was 
 regularly established, and is mentioned as of immemorial 
 antiquity, before the end of the fifteenth century. From that 
 time forward Variations are frequently and fully recorded in the 
 Register; and, whenever dispensations were allowed, the fact 
 is duly noted. In 1673 a Fellow was fined £12 — a large sum 
 in those days — for neglecting his second Variations; and the 
 significant comment is appended : — " we acquitted him, so far 
 as we could, of his perjury." Even the subjects chosen by the 
 Variat jrs are carefully specified, and astonish us by their wide 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
 MERTON COLLEGE. "^"*>Siili2S2i^ 
 
 range of interest. At first, metaphysical and logical questions 
 predominate ; but there is a large admixture of ethical questions, 
 and a few bearing on natural philosophy. At the end of the 
 sixteenth and throughout the seventeenth century, politics enter 
 largely into the field of disputation; while in the eighteenth 
 century a more discursive and literary tone of thought makes 
 itself clearly felt. Upon the whole, we can well believe that, in 
 the age before examinations, these intellectual trials of strength 
 played no mean part in education, quickening the wits of Merton 
 Fellows, if they did not encourage the cultivation of solid 
 knowledge. 
 
 It is to be hoped, no doubt, that they were preceded and 
 supplemented by sound private tuition; but upon this, un- 
 happily, the Merton records throw no light. It seems to be 
 assumed in the oriorinal Statutes that Scholars of Merton, though 
 bound to study within the House, will receive their instruction 
 outside it. The only exception was the statutable institution 
 of a grammar-master, who was to have charge of the students 
 in oframmar, and to whom " the more advanced misfht have 
 recourse without a blush, when doubts should arise in their 
 faculty." This institution was treated by Archbishop Peckham 
 as of primary importance ; and he specially censures the College 
 for practically excluding boys who had still to learn the rudi- 
 ments of grammar. There is good reason to believe that John 
 of Cornwall, who is mentioned as the first to introduce the 
 study of English in schools, and to abandon the practice of 
 construing Latin into French, actually held the office of 
 grammar-master in Merton College. These Merton grammar- 
 masters (who continued to be appointed in the sixteenth 
 century) were probably the earliest type of College tutors — an 
 order which inevitably developed itself at a later period, but of 
 which the history remains to be evolved from very scanty 
 materials. The medical lectures founded by Linacre, and the 
 Divinity lectures founded by Bickley, in the sixteenth century, 
 as well as the lectures delivered by Thomas Bodley on Greek, 
 were essentially College lectures, but seem to have been pro- 
 fessorial rather than tutorial. A College oi-der of June 9th, 
 1586, the first year of Savile s wardenship, requires the Regent- 
 
74 MERTON COLLEGE. 
 
 Masters to deliver twenty public lectures to the Postmasters 
 on the Sphere or on Arithmetic, as the Warden should think 
 fit. Probably this rule was soon neglected ; and it is not until 
 a much later period that we find the modern relation of tutor 
 and pupil a living reality in Colleges. 
 
 We may pass lightly over some other strange, though not 
 unique, customs of Merton which fill a large space in the 
 Register and the pages of Anthony Wood. One of these was 
 the annual election of a Bex Fcibariim, or " Christmas King," on 
 the vigil of St. Edmund (Nov. 19th), under the authority of 
 sealed letters, which " pretended to have been brought from 
 some place beyond sea." This absurd farce, reminding us of 
 the rough burlesques formerly practised on board ship in crossing 
 the Equator, was solemnly enacted year after year, and recorded 
 in the Register with as much gravity as the succession of a 
 Warden. The person chosen was the senior Fellow who had 
 not yet borne the office ; and, according to Wood, his duty was 
 " to punish all misdemeanours done in the time of Christmas, 
 either by imposing exercises on the juniors, or putting into the 
 stocks at the end of the Hall any of the servants, with other 
 punishments that were sometimes very ridiculous." This went 
 on until Candlemas (Feb. 2nd), " or much about the time that the 
 Ignis Begentium was celebrated." The Ignis Begentium seems 
 to have been nothing more than a great College wine-party 
 round the Hall fire, attended with various traditional festivities, 
 and provided at the cost of all the Regent-Masters, or only of 
 the Senior Regent, whose munificent hospitality is sometimes 
 expressly commended. Of a similar nature were the practical 
 jokes and rude horse-play described by Anthony Wood as 
 carried on, by way of initiating freshmen, on All Saints Eve 
 and other Eves and Saints' Days up to Christmas, as well as on 
 Shrove Tuesday, when the poor novices were compelled to 
 declaim in undress from a form placed on the High Table, and 
 rewarded, or punished with some brutality, for their per- 
 formances. It is significant that, under the Commonwealth, 
 these old-world jovialities were disused, and soon afterwards died 
 out. The old custom of singing Catholic hymns in the College 
 Hall, on the Eves and Vigils of Saints' Days between All Saints 
 
MERTON COLLEGE. 75 
 
 and Candlemas Day, had been modified at the Reformation by 
 the substitution of Sternhold and Hopkins' Psalms, which con- 
 tinued to be sung in Anthony Wood's times. Not less curious, 
 and more important, are the detailed regulations made for the 
 health of the College during frequent outbreaks of the plague, 
 when the majority of Fellows and students migrated to Cux- 
 ham, Stow Wood, Islip, Eynsham, or elsewhere, and communi- 
 cation between the College and the town was strictly limited. 
 
 Were it possible for a Merton Fellow of the Plantagenet, 
 Tudor, or Stuart period to revisit his College in our own day, 
 he would find but few survivals of the quaint usages once 
 peculiar to it. The recitation of a thanksgiving prayer for 
 benefits inherited from the Founder at the end of each chapel- 
 service, the time-honoured practice of striking the Hall table 
 with a wooden trencher as a signal for grace, and the ceremonies 
 observed on the induction of a new Warden, are perhaps the 
 only outward and visible relics of its ancient customary which 
 the spirit of innovation has left alive. But he would feel him- 
 self at home in the noble choir of the Chapel, with its stone- 
 work and painted glass almost untouched by the lapse of six 
 centuries ; in the Library, retaining every structural feature of 
 Bishop Rede's original work down to its minutest detail ; in the 
 Treasury, with its massive high-pitched roof, under which the 
 College archives have been preserved entire since the reign of 
 Edward I., together with a coeval inventory of the documents then 
 deposited there; in the College Garden, surrounded on two sides 
 by the town-wall of Henry HI., extended eastward since the close 
 of the Middle Ages by purchases from the City, but curtailed 
 westward by sales of land for the site of Corpus. Perhaps, on re- 
 viewing tlie unbroken continuity of College history through more 
 than twenty generations, crowded with vicissitudes in Church 
 and State, with transformations of ancient institutions, and with 
 revolutions in human thought, he would cease to repine over 
 changes which the Founder himself foresaw as inevitable, and 
 would rather marvel at the vitality of a collegiate society, 
 which can still maintain its corporate identity, with so much 
 of its original structure, in an age beyond that which mediaeval 
 seers had assisfned for the end of the world. 
 
IV. 
 
 EXETER COLLEGE. 
 
 By the Eev. Charles W. Boase, M.A., 
 Fellow of Exeter College. 
 
 In 1314 Walter de Stapeldon, Bishop of Exeter, founded 
 Stapeldon Hall, soon better known as Exeter College, for 
 "Scholars" (i.e. Fellows), born or resident in Devon and 
 Cornwall, eight from the former and four from the latter 
 county; and he also founded a grammar-school at Exeter, to 
 prepare boys for Oxford. He had, at first, bought ground in 
 and near Hart Hall (now Hertford College) ; but this site not 
 proving large enough, he removed the students to St. Stephen's 
 Hall in St. Mildred's parish, and gave them Hart Hall, that 
 by its rent their rooms might be kept in repair and be rent-free. 
 
 The object of the early founders of Colleges was to pass as 
 many men as possible through a course of training that would 
 fit them for the service of Church or State : and so Stapeldon 
 fixed fourteen years as the outside period of holding his 
 scholarships; he had no idea of giving fellowships for life. 
 The twelve scholars were to study Philosophy ; and a thirteenth 
 scholar was to be a priest studying Scripture or Canon Law. 
 Aptness to learn, good character, and poverty were the qualifica- 
 tions required of them ; and they were to be chosen without 
 regard to favour, fear, relationship, or love. They were kept 
 in order by punishments, increasing from a stoppage of commons 
 to expulsion, at the discretion of the Hector, who was chosen 
 annually after the audit in October. The Rector also looked 
 
EXETER COLLEGE. 77 
 
 after the money, and rooms, and servants ; but, if two Fellows 
 demanded the expulsion of a servant he was to appoint another. 
 The Rector must have been always under thirty ; it was the 
 younger Masters of Arts that then directed education in the 
 University. Disputations were held twice a week, and of three 
 disputations, two were in Logic, one in Natural Science. Ten- 
 pence a week was allowed for commons, and each scholar 
 received in addition the sum of ten shillings a year, the Rector 
 and the Priest twenty shillings each. If any scholar was away 
 for more than four weeks his commons were stopped ; and by 
 an absence of five months he forfeited his scliolarship. 
 
 Stapeldon endowed his Hall with the great tithes of Gwinear 
 in Cornwall, and of Long Wittenham in Berks ; and any surplus 
 or legacy was to go to public purposes, such as increasing the 
 number of scholars or buying books. There was a common 
 chest with three keys, kept by the Rector, the senior Scholar, 
 and the Priest; and the audit-rolls (computi) are extant from 
 1324, though with gaps, as for instance during the Black Death 
 (1349). There is something touching in the number of legacies 
 Avhich Stapeldon left to individual poor scholars in his will. 
 
 The scholars were very poor; and to relieve them, Ralph 
 Germeyn (Precentor of Exeter), Richard Greenfield (Rector of 
 Kilkhampton in Cornwall), and Robert Ry gge (Fellow 1362 — 
 1372 ; afterwards Canon and Chancellor of Exeter), at several 
 times founded "chests" for making loans to them without 
 interest, on security of books or plate ; but all such funds have 
 now disappeared, having been, it seems, absorbed in Charles I's 
 war-chest. The College itself sometimes borrowed ; in 1358 the 
 College accounts show a payment of " £3 for a Bible redeemed 
 from Chichester chest"; in 1374, of " four marks to our barber 
 for a Bible pledged to him in the time of Dagenet" (John 
 Dagenet had been Rector in 1371-1372). 
 
 The life was simple. Besides the " commons " (i. e. allowances 
 for food), "liveries" (i.e. clothes) were supplied about once in 
 three years. The scholars were to wear black boots (caligcc); 
 and conform to clerical manners according to their standing as 
 Sophists, Bachelors, or Masters. Meals were taken in the hall 
 (which stood a little north of the present hall), where there was 
 
78 . EXETER COLLEGE. 
 
 always a large bason with hanging towels. A charcoal fire burned 
 in the middle of the hall, under an opening to let out the 
 smoke ; but men were not allowed to linger round the fire, and 
 they went off to bed early because candles were dear, nearly 
 2d. a pound, i. e. 2s. of our money — they lacked therefore the 
 genial inspiration of writing by good candle-light. All had to 
 be in College by nine o'clock in the evening ; and the key of 
 the gate was kept in the Rector's room, which was over the 
 gate. Lectures began at six or seven in the morning ; dinner 
 was at ten; supper at five. Of the servants, the manciple 
 received five shillings a term, the cook two, barber twelvepence, 
 washerwoman fifteen pence. The barber was the newsmonger 
 of that as of other ages. 
 
 The scholars might by common consent make any new 
 statutes, not contrary to the Founder's ordinances ; and were to 
 refer all doubts to the Visitor. 
 
 The Bishops of Exeter were kind Visitors ; and gave books 
 and money several times. Gradually more halls and lodging- 
 houses were obtained, some lying on the lane^ which ran all 
 along inside the city wall, others along St. Mildred's (now 
 Brasenose) lane, and others along the Turl. A tower was built 
 on the site of St. Stephen's Hall, with a gate opening into the 
 lane under the city wall ; two windows of this tower survive in 
 the staircase of the present Rector's house. The present garden 
 is on the site of some of the old buildings, but the ivy-clad 
 buttresses of the Bodleian and the great fig-trees along the 
 College buildings, which make such a show in summer, of course 
 do not date from such early times. 
 
 An aorreement had to be made with the Rector of St. 
 Mildred's parish, who feared lest the College -chapel should 
 interfere with his rights. This early chapel had rooms under 
 it, and a porch. The computus for building a library in 
 1383, shows that the building cost £57 13s. 5Jd, t;he leaded 
 roof costing £13 13s. M ; and it was completed between Easter 
 and Michaelmas, before the beginning of the Academic year. 
 The timber came from Aldermaston in Berks, the stone from 
 
 1 Subsequently called Cornwall Lane, from its proximity to the Western 
 College. It is now inclosed within the site of the College. 
 
EXETER COLLEGE. 79 
 
 Taynton in Gloucestershire and Whatley near Frome — the latter 
 corresponding to our present Bath stone. Carpenters and 
 masons were paid Qd. a day, and the masons had breakfast and 
 dinner {mcrenda and prandiiim). David, the foreman, had Qd. 
 a week for "commons," and he held the place of a modern 
 architect. 
 
 Tlie regard paid to poverty brought forward some distinguished 
 men, such as Walter Libert (Fellow 1420 — 1425), Bishop of 
 Norwich, a miller's son from Lanteglos by Fowey in Corn- 
 wall. This consideration for poor scholars did not often fail. 
 Long afterwards John Prideaux (Fellow 1601, Rector 1612 — 
 1642) used to say, " If I could have been parish clerk of 
 Ubber (Ugborough in Devon), I should never have been Bishop 
 of Worcester." Benjamin Kennicott was master of a charity 
 school at Totnes till friends helped him to come to Oxford, 
 where (in 1747) he obtained a Fellowship in Exeter College, 
 and became a great Hebrew scholar. William Gifford, the 
 critic, was apprentice to a shoemaker at Ashburton, where a 
 surgeon helped him to gain a Bible clerkship at Exeter (1779) ; 
 when he became a leader in the literary world, lie remembered 
 his own rise in life, and founded an Exhibition at Exeter for poor 
 boys from Ashburton school. Thus the Universities had formerly 
 something of the character of popular bodies in which learn- 
 ing and study were recommendations, and tlie avenues of 
 promotion were not closed even to the poorest. 
 
 The Wiclifite movement largely influenced Exeter College, 
 and a number of the Fellows suffered in the cause. But, mixed 
 with this, was a wish to uphold the independence of the 
 University, as against the Archbishop of Canterbury's power of 
 visitation; and perhaps a feeling for the lay government, as 
 against the clergy. A former Fellow, Robert Tresilian, was among 
 Richard II's chief supporters ; and his fate is the first legend 
 in The Mirroi' for Magistrates, written by William Baldwin in 
 1559. Later on several Fellows were connected with the House 
 of Lancaster. Michael de Tregury (Fellow 1422—1427) was 
 in 1431 made Rector of the new University, set up at Caen 
 .by the En.crlish during their rule in France. The physicians 
 of Henry VI. and Margaret were both Fellows. But when 
 
80 EXETER COLLEGE. 
 
 Margaret was at Coventry in 1459, levying an army for the 
 War of the Roses, she took "Queen's gold" from the College, 
 i. e. a tenth of an old fine paid the King for ratifying the grant 
 of a house. 
 
 The College was favourably known in the Revival of Learn- 
 ing. William Grocyn taught Greek in the hall; and Richard 
 Croke and Cornelius Vitelli lodged in rooms in the College. 
 Some of the Fellows too were connected with Wolsey ; but the 
 College on the whole sided with the opposition to Henry VIII's 
 measures, like their friends in the West. John Moreman 
 (Fellow 1510 — 1522) opposed Catherine's divorce, and was 
 imprisoned under Edward VI. The Cornish insurgents in 
 1549 demanded that " Dr. Moreman and Dr. Crispin should be 
 safely sent to them." Moreman was also famous as a school- 
 master; and as Vicar of the College living of Menheniot, he 
 taught the Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Commandments in English, 
 the people having hitherto used only the old Cornish tongue. 
 
 The Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535 states the College revenues 
 at only £83 2s. But Sir William Petre, a statesman trained 
 under Thomas Cromwell, wishing to benefit his old College, 
 gave it some lands and advowsons which he bought of Queen 
 Elizabeth, and added eight Fellowships for the counties in 
 which his family held or should hold land. Elizabeth's Charter 
 of Incorporation is dated 22nd March, 1566. 
 
 New Statutes were then framed by Petre and the Visitor. 
 The Rectorship had already been made perpetual. Petre 
 allowed the Fellows to retire to the Vicarage of Kidlington in 
 time of plague, an oft-recurring trouble. Under a later ordin- 
 ance a Fellow was allowed, with Lord Petre's approval, to travel 
 abroad for four years to study Medicine or Civil Law. 
 
 Petre also gave the College a curious Latin Psalm-book, 
 which had been the family Bible of the Tudors, the most 
 learned royal family in Europe. It is from it that we know 
 the birthday of Henry VII., 28th Jan. 1457. 
 
 Exeter was still in sympathy with the old faith. Ralph 
 Sherwine (Fellow 1568 — 1575) was hanged by the side of 
 Edmund Campian of St. John's, in 1581; and several Fellows. 
 tied abroad, such as Richard Bristowe, the chief of the trans- 
 
EXETER COLLEGE. 81 
 
 lators who put forth the Douai Bible. Eh'zabeth remedied this 
 by getting two loyal men appointed Rectors successively, Thomas 
 Glasier in 1578, and Thomas Holland in 1592— the latter was 
 one of the translators of the Authorised Version. Under them 
 Exeter became remarkable for discipline and learning, tinged 
 by Puritan views. 
 
 John Prideaux was an equally well-known Rector under 
 Charles I., and came into conflict with Laud. There was more 
 intercourse then between English and foreign Protestant Uni- 
 versities than there is now; and Sixtinus Amama, the Dutch 
 Hebraist, speaks in the most grateful terms of the kindness he 
 received from Prideaux and the Fellows. Exeter was now 
 training men like Sir John Eliot, William Strode, William 
 Noye, and John Maynard. Maynard afterwards gave his old 
 College money to found a Catechetical and a Hebrew lecture- 
 ship. In 1612 the members included 134 commoners, 37 poor 
 scholars, and 12 servitors — the number of the whole University 
 was 2920. Western friends, the Aclands, Peryams, and others, 
 now built a new hall ; and John Peryam also built the rooms 
 between the hall and the library, while George Hakewill, a 
 Fellow, gave money to build a new chapel in 1623. 
 
 As to the life of the place, Shaftesbury, the famous statesman, 
 who was a member of the College in 1637, gives an amusing 
 account of ** coursing " (now become a sort of free fight) in the 
 schools ; of how he stopped the evil custom of " tucking " fresh- 
 men (i. e. grating off the skin from the lip to the chin) ; and how 
 he prevented the Fellows " altering the size of" (i. e. weakening) 
 "the College beer." Shaftesbury's future colleague in the 
 Cabal, Clifford, was also at Exeter. 
 
 Charles I., in 1636, gave an endowment out of confiscated 
 lands to found Fellowships for the Channel Islands at Exeter, 
 Jesus, and Pembroke, that men so trained might devote them- 
 selves to work in the Islands. He made John Prideaux (Rector 
 1612—1642) and Thomas Winniff (Fellow 1595—1609), Bishops, 
 the former of Worcester, the latter of Lincoln, when he at last 
 tried to conciliate the gentry, who were almost all opposed to 
 Laud's innovations. 
 
 In the Civil War most of the Fellows took the King's side, 
 
 o 
 
82 EXETER COLLEGE. 
 
 and Archbishop Usher sojourned in some wooden buildings 
 then known as Prideaux Buildings, situated behind the old 
 Eector's house, buildings now partly re-erected in the Turl. 
 The College plate was taken by Charles, although the Fellows 
 had redeemed it by a gift of money ; but the King's needs were 
 overwhelming. 
 
 Under the Commonwealth John Conant became Rector, and 
 increased the fame of the College for learning and discipline. 
 " Once ^ a week he had a catechetical lecture in the Chapel, in 
 which he went over Piscator's Aphorisms and Woollebius' Com- 
 pendium Theologice Christianoe ; and by the way fairly pro- 
 pounded the principal objections made by the Papists, Socinians, 
 and others against the orthodox doctrine, in terms suited to the 
 understanding and capacity of the younger scholars. He took 
 care likewise that the inferior servants of the College should be 
 instructed in the principles of the Christian religion, and would 
 sometimes catechise them in his own lodgings. He looked 
 strictly himself to the keeping up all exercises, and would often 
 slip into the hall in the midst of their lectures and disputations. 
 He would always oblige both opponents and respondents to 
 come well prepared, and to perform their respective parts 
 agreeably to the strict law of disputation. Here he would often 
 interpose, either adding new force to the arguments of an 
 opponent, or more fullness to the answers of the respondent, and 
 supplying where anything seemed defective, or clearing where 
 anything was obscure in what the moderator 2 subjoined. He 
 would often go into the chambers and studies of the young 
 scholars, observe what books they were reading, and reprove 
 them if he found them turning over any modern author, and 
 send them to Tully, that great master of Roman eloquence, to 
 learn the true and genuine propriety of that language. His 
 care in the" election of Fellows was very singular. A true love 
 of learning, and a good share of it in a person of untainted 
 
 1 From the Life of Conant, by his son. 
 
 2 The " moderator " presided over the disputation, seeing that the dis- 
 putants observed the rules of reasoning, and giving his opinion on the 
 discussion, and on the arguments which had been advanced in it, in a 
 concluding speech. ^ 
 
EXETER COLLEGE. 83 
 
 morals and low circumstances, were sure of his patronage and 
 encouragement. He would constantly look over the observator's 
 roll and buttery-book himself, and whoever had been absent 
 from chapel prayers or extravagant in his expenses, or other- 
 wise faulty, was sure he must atone for his fault by some such 
 exercise as the Rector should think fit to set him, for he was no 
 friend to pecuniary mulcts, which too often punish the father 
 instead of the son. The students were many more than could 
 be lodged within the walls : they crowded in here from all parts 
 of the nation, and some from beyond the sea. He opposed 
 Cromwell's plan of giving the College at Durham the privileges 
 of a University, setting forth the advantages of larsfe Universities 
 and the dangers which threaten religion and learning by multi- 
 plying small and petty Academies. He was instrumental in 
 moving Mr. Selden's executors to bestow his prodigious collection 
 of books, more than 8000 volumes, on the University. In his 
 declining age he could scarce be prevailed upon by his physicians 
 to drink now and then a little wine. He slept very little, 
 having been an assiduous and indefatigable student for about 
 threescore years together. Whilst his strength would bear it, 
 he often sat up in his study till late at night, and thither he 
 returned very early in the morning." 
 
 The Restoration put an end alike to learning and to discipline, 
 to the grief of a few good men, such as Ken, though the Royalists 
 in general issued numerous squibs and satires against the 
 Puritans, which still impose on some writers. Anthony Wood, 
 a strong Royalist and constant resident in Oxford, makes fre- 
 quent allusion in his diaries to the disastrous effects of the 
 Restoration. "Some cavaliers that were restored," he says in 
 one place, " were good scholars, but the generality were dunces." 
 " Before the war," he says in another place, " we had scholars 
 that made a thorough search in scholastic and polemical divinity, 
 in humane learning, and natural philosophy : but now scholars 
 study these things not more than what is just necessary to carry 
 them through the exercises of their respective Colleges and the 
 University. Their aim is not to live as students ought to do, 
 viz. temperate, abstemious, and plain and grave in their 
 apparel; but to live like gentry, to keep dogs and horses, to 
 
84 EXETER COLLEGE. 
 
 turn their studies into places to keep bottles, to swagger in gay 
 apparell and long periwigs." The difference between a Puritan 
 and a Restoration Head of a House is strongly set out by the 
 contrast between Conant's government of Exeter and that of 
 Joseph Maynard, who was elected on Conant's ejection for 
 refusing submission to the Act of Conformity (1662). Wood 
 says — "Exeter College is now (1665) much debauched by a 
 drunken governor ; whereas before in Dr. Conant's time it was 
 accounted a civil house, it is now rude and uncivil. The Rector 
 (Maynard) is good-natured, generous, and a good scholar ; but 
 he has forgot the way of a College life, and the decorum of a 
 scholar. He is given much to bibbing; and when there is a 
 music-meeting in one of the Fellows' chambers, he will sit there, 
 smoke, and drink till he is drunk, and has to be led to his 
 lodgings by the junior Fellows." 
 
 In 1666 pressure was put upon Maynard to resign, and he 
 did so on advice of the Visitor and his brother, Sir John 
 Maynard. The resignation was made smooth for him by the 
 understanding that he should be appointed Prebendary of 
 Exeter in room of Dr. Arthur Bury, who was now elected 
 Rector of Exeter. Dr. Bury wrote a book, famous in the Deist 
 controversy, called The Naked Gospel, which had the distinction 
 of being impeached by several Masters of Arts, and formally 
 condemned and burnt by order of the Convocation of the 
 University. About the time of its publication, Bury got into 
 trouble with Trelawney the Visitor, the same whose name 
 became a watchword in the West (" and shall Trelawney die "), 
 over questions of discipline and jurisdiction. The Visitor 
 expelled Bury and his supporters, July 1690 ; the decision 
 was appealed against in the Court of King's Bench, and in the 
 House of Lords, but was finally upheld. 
 
 The evil effects of the Restoration in studies and in morals 
 continued. Later on. Dean Prideaux can still say, "There is 
 nothing but drinking and duncery. Exeter is totally spoiled, 
 and so is Christ Church. There is over against Baliol, a dingy, 
 horrid, scandalous ale-house, fit for none but dragoon ers and 
 tinkers. Here the Baliol men, by perpetual bubbing, add art 
 to their natural stupidity to make themselves perfect sots." 
 
EXETER COLLEGE. 85 
 
 Exeter aad Christ Church were both reformed by John 
 Conybeare,^ a writer famous for his answer to the Christianity 
 as old as the Creation of Matthew Tindal, also an Exeter man. 
 
 Jacobite feeling was strong in Oxford, and at the election of 
 county members in 1755, when the Jacobites guarded the 
 liustings in Broad Street, twenty men deep, the Whigs passed 
 through Exeter and succeeded in voting. The Vice-Chancellor, 
 a strong Jacobite, remarked on " the infamous behaviour of one 
 College " ; and this led to a war of pamphlets. Christ Church, 
 Exeter, Merton, and Wadham were the four Whig Colleges. 
 
 Early in the eighteenth century the front gate and tower 
 and the buildings between this and the Hall were erected by 
 the help of such friends as Narcissus Marsh, Archbishop of 
 Armagh, formerly a Fellow. But in 1709 the library was 
 burnt. The fire began "in the scrape-trencher's room. This 
 adjoining to the library, all the inner part of the library was 
 destroyed, and only one stall of books or thereabouts secured." 
 The wind was west, and the smoke must have reached the 
 nostrils of Hearne as he lay abed at St. Edmund Hall, for " he 
 was strangely disturbed with apprehensions of fire." The 
 library was rebuilt in 1778, and had many gifts of books and 
 manuscripts, and a fund for buying more was established by Dr. 
 Hugh Shortridge. 
 
 When the time of religious revival came, John Wesley 
 influenced some members of the College, such as Thomas 
 Broughton (Fellow 1733—1741). During the present century 
 other Fellows were noted in the Evangelical movement ; and 
 in the Tractarian movement the names of William Sewell, 
 John Brande Morris, and John Dobree Dalgairns (better known 
 as Father Dalgairns), were conspicuous. 
 
 Nor did the College lack among the fellows and scholars 
 names in Science, such as Milman and Rigaud ; or in Oriental 
 Learning, as Kennicott and Weston ; or in Classics and Litera- 
 ture, as Stackhouse and Upton ; or in Law, as Judge Coleridge; 
 or in Theology, as Forshall the editor of Wiclifs Bible, and 
 Milman, Bishop of Calcutta, and Jacobson, Bishop of Chester ; 
 
 1 John Conybeare, Fellow of Exeter, 1710 ; Rector, 1730 ; Dean of Christ 
 Church, 1733 ; Bishop of Bristol, 1750. 
 
86 EXETER COLLEGE. 
 
 while among its other members it counted Sir Gardner Wilkinson 
 and Sir Charles Lyell. Of the living men who uphold the repute 
 of the College, this is not the place to speak. 
 
 In 1854 the Commissioners threw the Fellowships open, and 
 turned eight of them into scholarships, ten open, ten for the 
 diocese of Exeter, and two for the Channel Islands. In the 
 same year new buildings were begun facing Broad Street, and 
 next year a library, and the year after a chapel and a rectory. 
 Since the chapel absorbed the site of the former rector's house 
 (east of the old chapel), the new house was built on the site 
 of St. Helen's quadrangle. The liberality of the members 
 was conspicuous on the occasion of these buildings. Stained- 
 glass and carved oak stalls have been since given to the chapel, 
 and some fine tapestry, representing the Visit of the Magi, 
 executed by Burne Jones and WiUiam Morris, old members of 
 the College. 
 
 Many changes have been made in old arrangements, but the 
 foundation of the new scholarships carried out the real spirit of 
 the Founder's views, in passing men rapidly through a University 
 training. It is hoped that Walter de Stapeldon would, if now 
 living, approve of the care for educating scholars which he had 
 so much at heart. 
 
OEIEL COLLEGE. 
 
 By C. L. Shad well, M.A., Fellow of Oriel College. 
 
 Adam de Brome, the actual, though not the titular, founder 
 of Oriel College, was at the beginning of the fourteenth century 
 a well-endowed ecclesiastic, in the service of King Edward the 
 Second. He held the living of Hanworth, Middlesex ; he was 
 Chancellor of Durham and Archdeacon of Stow; he held the 
 office of almoner to the King; and in 1320 he was presented by 
 the King to the Rectory of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford. 
 
 The College of Walter de Merton had then been in existence 
 nearly half a century ; and the type which he had created, a 
 self-governing, independent society of secular students, well 
 lodo^ed and well endowed, was that to which the aims of the 
 struo^orlingf foundations of William of Durham, Devorguilla of 
 Balliol, and Bishop Stapeldon were directed. The poor mastei-s 
 established out of William of Durham's fund, and now beginning 
 to be known as the scholars of University Hall, were still subject 
 to Statutes issued by the University, and had not yet attained to 
 an independent position. It was not till 1340 that the scholars 
 of the Lady Devorguilla were set free from the authority of 
 extraneous Procuratores, and allowed to be governed by a Master 
 of their own choosing. The office of Rector of Stapeldon Hall 
 was an annual one; he was appointed by the scholars from 
 among themselves, or if they disagreed, by the Chancellor of 
 the University, and his principal duties were bursarial. But for 
 
88 ORIEL COLLEGE. 
 
 the standard set by the completely organised House of Merton, 
 the development of these infant societies might have taken a 
 very different direction. 
 
 Adam de Brome appears to have chosen Merton as his model, 
 and his foundation was from the first intended to be styled a 
 College, a title perhaps till then exclusively enjoyed by Merton.^ 
 
 By Letters Patent, dated at Langley, 20th April, 1324, he ob- 
 tained the royal license to purchase a messuage in Oxford or its 
 suburbs, and therein to establish "quoddam collegium scolarium 
 in diversis scientiis studentium," to be styled the College of St. 
 Mary in Oxford, with power to acquire lands to the annual value 
 of thirty pounds. In the course of the same year he purchased 
 the advowson of the church of Aberford, in Yorkshire ; and, in 
 Oxford, Perilous Hall, in St. Mary Magdalen parish, and Tackley's 
 Inn in the High Street ; and by his charter dated 6th December 
 at Oxford, and confirmed by the King, 20th December, 1324, at 
 Nottingham, he founded his College of scholars " in sacra 
 theologia & arte dialectica studentium," appointing John de 
 Laughton as their Hector, and assigning to them Tackley's Inn 
 as their residence. This Society, if it ever came into actual 
 existence at all, lasted only a little more than a twelvemonth ; 
 and on the first of January, 1325-6, its possessions were surren- 
 dered by Adam de Brome into the King's hands, as a preliminary 
 to its re-establishment under the King's name. Edward the 
 Second had already shown an interest in the maintenance of 
 academical students at the sister University ; and the scholars 
 whom he supported there were the germ of the institution 
 afterwards developed by his son under the name of King's HaR. 
 He also founded the Cistercian house at Oxford. He lent him- 
 self readily to the suggestion of his Almoner ; and by his Letters 
 Patent, dated at Norwich, 21st January, 1325-6, he refounded 
 the Col We, with Adam de Brome as its head with the title of 
 Provost, restoring the old endowments, further augmented by 
 the grant of the advowson of St. Mary's. Leave was given to 
 appropriate the church to the use of the College on condition of 
 
 1 The pre-eminence of Merton, its conspicuous huildinge, and its wealth, 
 seem to have distinguished it as '* the College," until it found a rival in the 
 " New College " of William of W ykeham. 
 
ORIEL COLLEGE. 89 
 
 maintaining four chaplains for the performance of daily service. 
 License was given to take and hold lands in mortmain to the 
 annual value of sixty pounds. The original statutes are dated 
 on the same day as the charter of foundation. By these 
 statutes, nearly all the provisions of which are taken verbatim 
 from the Merton statutes of 1274, the College was to consist of 
 a Provost, and ten scholars to be nominated in the first instance 
 by Adam de Brome, and thereafter to be elected by the whole 
 body. The ten first nominated were to study Theology ; those 
 elected in future were to study Arts and Philosophy, until they 
 were allowed to pass to the study of Theology or (to the number 
 of five or six out of ten) of Civil or Canon Law. The Provost 
 was to be chosen by the whole body of scholars from among 
 themselves and presented to the King's Chancellor for admission. 
 The second officer of the College was the Dean, corresponding 
 to the Sub- Warden at Merton, filling the Provost's place in his 
 absence, and acting with him at all times in the College govern- 
 ment. Provision was made, similar to that at Merton, for the 
 appointment of other subordinate Deans, such as were established 
 elsewhere and in later foundations ; this power has however 
 never been exercised, and the Dean of Oriel, alone of all who 
 bear that title, is in power and dignity second only to the head 
 of the College. The scholars were to be chosen from amon<j 
 Bachelors of Arts, without preference for any locality, place of 
 birth, or kindred. Three chapters were to be held in the year, 
 at the same times as those appointed at Merton, Christmas, 
 Easter, and St. Margaret's day, at which inquiry was to be made 
 into the conduct of the members, and newly elected scholars 
 were to be admitted. 
 
 The foundation was now in contemplation of law, complete. 
 The new Society was a corporate body, having a license to hold 
 land, and with a common seal.^ It probably was at first estab- 
 
 1 The seal at present in use is believed to be the original seal of the 
 College. The upper part represents the Annunciation ; below under an 
 arcade is the kneeling figure of Adam de Broine. Round the edge is the 
 legend " Sy. Comune Domus Scholarium Beate Marie Oxon.*' 
 
 The only other memorial of its foundation which the College possesses 
 is its founder's cup, given to it, according to the College tradition, by King 
 Eilward the Second ; though an entry in the Treasurer's accounts recording 
 
90 ORIEL COLLEGE. 
 
 lished either in St. Mary's Hall, the Manse or Rectory House of 
 St. Mary's Church, or in Tackley's Inn, a large messuage in the 
 High Street, on the site now occupied by the house No. 106. 
 
 But the College had not long been founded before Adam de 
 Brome perceived that the protection afforded by the King's 
 name would be insufficient, unless he could also obtain the 
 support of the Bishop of Lincoln, Henry de Burghash. The 
 Bishop's approbation of the foundation was not. given until a 
 new body of statutes had been drafted, differing in many 
 important particulars from the Foundation Statutes, and placing 
 the College under the control not of the Crown but of the 
 Bishop. The Provost when elected is to be presented to the 
 Bishop for approval or confirmation. Only three of the Fellows 
 may be allowed to study Civil or Canon Law, all the rest being 
 required to betake themselves to Theology. The Bishop is 
 everywhere substituted for the King or his Chancellor; his 
 approval is required for alterations in the statutes ; the power 
 of interpreting them on the occasion of any dispute is vested in 
 him; and he is constituted the sole and final judge in the 
 removal of a Provost or scholar for misconduct. Prayers are to 
 be said for the Bishop's father and mother, Kobert Lord 
 Burghash and Matilda his wife, his brothers Robert and Stephen, 
 as well as for the King and Adam de Brome ; the name of Hugh 
 le Despenser is significantly omitted. These statutes were 
 issued by the College 23rd May, and confirmed b}^ the Bishop 
 11th June, 1326 ; the Bishop's charter approving the foundation 
 was first given on 13th March, but apparently was kept back until 
 the constitution of the College had been settled to his satis- 
 faction, and was only finally granted on 19th May. In the course 
 of the same 5^ear the appropriation of the church of St. Mary 
 was approved by the Bishop and the Dean and Chapter of 
 Lincoln ; and on Adam de Brome's resignation, the College was 
 duly inducted by the Prior of St. Frideswide (August 10). 
 
 By the close of the year the Queen's party, to which Bishop 
 Burghash belonged, had triumphed over the Despensers, the 
 
 the purchase in December 1493 for £4 18s. Id., of a standing gilt cup 
 marked with E and S, and a cover to tlie same, is in favour of its belonging 
 to a later date. 
 
ORIEL COLLEGE. 91 
 
 deposition of the King following in January 1327. The Bishop 
 made use of the favour in which lie stood with the new govern- 
 ment to obtain some substantial benefits for the College which 
 he had taken under his protection. The advowson of Coleby, 
 Lincolnshire, purchased by Adam de Brome, was secured to the 
 College by a Royal grant, with a view to its ultimate appropri- 
 ation. The Hospital of St. Bartholomew, near Oxford, and of 
 Royal foundation, was annexed to the College. The mainten- 
 ance of the almsmen was provided by a charge on the fee farm 
 rent of the city ; but the possessions of the Hospital, consisting 
 principally of tenements and rents in Oxford, went to augment 
 the slender endowments of the College.^ But the most important 
 accession which the institution now received was by the grant of 
 a messuage, called " La Oriole," the nucleus of the site of the 
 present College buildings. This messuage stood in St. John 
 Baptist's parish, fronting Schidyard Street and St. John Street, 
 and occupying nearly the whole of the southern half of the 
 present quadrangle ; the south-east corner, the site of the present 
 chapel, was not acquired till later. It had anciently been known 
 as Senescal Hall, but had since acquired the name of La Oriole. 
 Queen Eleanor, wife of Edward the First, had granted it to her 
 chaplain and kinsman James of Spain, and the reversion was 
 now (Dec. 1327) conferred upon the College. The life interest 
 was surrendered in 1329, and the Society probably removed 
 there in that year.^ 
 
 The increase in the College revenues since its first establish- 
 ment was probably the occasion of issuing some further supple- 
 mentary statutes, 8th December, 1329. The commons or weekly 
 allowance was raised from twelve to fifteen pence a week for 
 each scholar. The stipend of the Provost was increased to ten 
 marks. Ten shillings were allowed to the Dean ; five shiUings 
 apiece to the two Fellows, " collectores reddituum," who collected 
 the income derived from the oblations in St. Mary's Church, and 
 
 1 The Hospital itself was also intended to be a place to whicli members 
 of the Society could remove, in case of sickness or pestilence, into a purer 
 air than that of Oxford. 
 
 2 To enable the College to take these additional endowments, a further 
 license in mortmain to the extent of ten pounds a year was granted, 
 14th March, 1327. 
 
d2 ORIEL COLLEGE. 
 
 the rents of house and other property in Oxford ; five shillings 
 to the collector of the Littlemore tithes ; pittances were allowed 
 to the Fellows at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide. The 
 Provost was allowed to keep a separate table, and to maintain a 
 private servant. By a more important provision, ex-Fellows 
 were made eligible to the office of Provost. These statutes 
 were confirmed by the Visitor 26th Feb. 1330, and with those 
 of May 1326, by Royal Letters Patent, 18th March, 1330. 
 
 The first chapter in the history of the College, recording the 
 birth and establishment of Adam de Brome*s foundation, closes 
 with the Papal Bulls ratifying and confirming the acts of the 
 King and the Bishop, and authorising the appropriation of the 
 three benefices of St. Mary's, Aberford, and Coleby. These were 
 obtained in answer to a letter of the King, dated 4th December, 
 1330, in which the design of the foundation is becomingly set 
 forth. In a postscript to this letter the King calls the Pope's 
 attention to another matter, the inconvenience arising from the 
 frequent occurrence of disturbances in St. Mary's Church and 
 Churchyard, arising from the gatherings that habitually took 
 place there, and which led to " effusiones sanguinis " within the 
 consecrated precincts, calling for the Bishop's sentence of recon- 
 ciliation. This was not always easily to be obtained, the Bishop 
 being engaged elsewhere in his extensive diocese ; and the King 
 suggests that the Pope should authorise the Bishop to give a 
 standing commission to the Abbots of Oseney and Rewley to 
 act for him whenever occasion should rec^uire, and effect the 
 necessary reconciliation. The Pope, having taken six months 
 to consider this application, issued on the 23rd June, 1331, 
 four separate Bulls, three of which provided for the appropri- 
 ation to the College of the three churches, and the fourth dealt 
 with the matter last referred to, the use of St. Mary's Church 
 for secular assemblies, but very differently from the King's 
 expectations. Instead of acceding to the proposal that a simple 
 and expeditious machinery should be provided for the recon- 
 ciliation of the Church, on the not unusual occurrence of a 
 riot within its walls, he proceeded to forbid, under penalty 
 of excommunication, the holding of any meetings whatever, 
 "mercationes aliquas eraendo vel vendendo seu conventiculas 
 
ORIEL COLLEGE. 93 
 
 illicitas," in the church or churchyard. The Bulls authorisinty 
 the appropriations asked for were promptly put into execution, 
 and the benefices secured to the College, though Aberford did 
 not fall vacant till 1341, and Coleby not till 1346. But the 
 fourth Bull was suffered to lie unemployed in the College 
 custody, until an opportunity ^ arose in which it was thought 
 likely to prove serviceable. 
 
 Adam de Brome died 16th June, 1332, on which day his obit, 
 was long observed by the College. By his will, proved in the 
 Mayor of Oxford's Court, certain houses in Oxford — Moses Hall 
 in Penyferthyng Street, and Bauer Hall in St. Mary Magdalen 
 parish — which he had acquired for the further endowment of 
 his College, were devised to Richard Overton, clerk, his executor. 
 Overton may have been one of the Fellows ; at all events he 
 was intimately associated with Adam de Brome in the estab- 
 lishment of the College and in the acquisition of its endowments ; 
 and the property now left to him, and other property afterwards 
 acquired, were all ultimately secured to Oriel. 
 
 Adam de Brome was succeeded in the Provostship by William 
 de Leverton, Fellow and Master of Arts, unanimously elected by 
 the College, and instituted by the Bishop, 27th June. Leverton 
 died 21st Nov. 1348, and William de Hawkesworth, Doctor iu 
 Theology, was elected in his place. The Bishop annulled this 
 election on the ground of informality, and himself appointed 
 Hawkesworth to be Provost by his own authority.^ Hawkes- 
 •worth's tenure of the Provostship was short, and it is chiefly 
 memorable for the part he played in the disputed election to 
 the Chancellorship of the University, which occurred early in 
 1349. Hawkesworth, who had already acted as the Chancellor's 
 Commissary, was the candidate of the Northerners, the party 
 with which the College appears throughout to be connected ; 
 John W^ylliot, Fellow of Mertan, was the candidate of the 
 
 1 See page 94. 
 
 2 Hawkesworth was one of the first Fellows of Queen's, nominated by 
 ithe original Statutes in 1341 ; but as the ground on which his election was 
 annulled is expressly stated to be its informality and not any defect in tlie 
 person chosen, he was probably also connected with the College either as 
 Fellow or ex-Fellow. He appears as acting on the College behalf in 
 1341. 
 
94 ORIEL COLLEGE. 
 
 Southerners. On the 19th of March 1349, Ilawkesworth, as 
 Chancellor, with his Proctors proceeded to St. Mary's for the 
 performance of Divine service, and they were there attacked 
 by Wylliot and his party. It was then that Hawkesworth had 
 recourse to the neglected Bull of Pope John XXII., which had 
 hitherto lain unused in the College Treasury. It was now 
 produced and publicly read in the Church, with what immediate 
 result does not appear, though Wylliot's action was complained 
 of to the King, and a Commission sent to inquire into the 
 matter. Hawkesworth 's death followed soon after, April 8th ; 
 he was buried in St. Mary's, where an inscription still remains 
 to his memory. Before the election of his successor, an order 
 was received from the Bishop, prescribing the procedure to be 
 followed, probably with the object of preventing the irregularities 
 which had vitiated the last election. William de Daventre, 
 who was now chosen, had been an active member of the College 
 for some years ; his name occurs frequently in deeds relating to 
 the Oxford property. In 1361 the College found itself rich 
 enough to obtain the King's license to add to its possessions 
 divers messuages and small pieces of ground in Oxford, which 
 had been accumulating since the foundation, and which were, 
 up to this time, held in the name of members of the society in 
 trust. The earliest roll of College property, the rental for the 
 year 1363-4, was drawn up shortly after the license had been 
 obtained and acted upon ; and as a consequence of this increase 
 in their corporate revenues, a new ordinance or statute was 
 issued in 1364, augmenting the weekly commons, and assigning 
 additional stipends to the Provost, and to certain College 
 servants. 
 
 Daventre died in June 1373, and was succeeded by John de 
 Colyntre, then one of the Fellows, and for some years past one 
 of its leading members. The entry of his election in the 
 Lincoln Register records the names of the electing Fellows, 
 eight besides Colyntre himself, and describes him in eulogistic 
 language, " virum in spiritualibus et temporalibus plurimum 
 circumspectum literarum sciencia vita et moribus merito com- 
 mendandum scientem et valentem jura domus nostrae efficaciter 
 prosequi et tueri quin immo propter vite sue munditiam et 
 
ORIEL COLLEGE. 95 
 
 excellentiam virtu turn apud omnes ad mod u in gratiosum." It 
 was long before the Fellows were again as completely in harmony 
 upon the choice of their head. Colyntre's rule lasted till his 
 death in 13S5 or 1386. 
 
 All through the latter part of the fourteenth century the 
 College was engaged in increasing its scanty endowment, by the 
 purchise, as opportunity offered, of houses, quit-rents, and other 
 property in Oxford, contiguous to or in the neighbourhood of 
 La Oriole. The chantry of St. Mary in the church of St. 
 Michael Southgate, founded by Thomas de la Legh, was annexed 
 to the College in 1357 ; as was also the chantry of St. Thomas 
 in the church of St. Mary the Virgin in 1392. Other acquisi- 
 tions were secured by successive licenses in mortmain, granted 
 in 1376, in 1392, and in 1394. In this way the greater part of 
 the ground lying between La Oriole and St. Mary's Hall was 
 acquired and appropriated to the enlargement of the College 
 buildings and garden. 
 
 The name of St. Mary's College, the legal description of the 
 College, seems to have been little used : the Society is some- 
 times described as the King's Hall, or the King's College, but it 
 was more generally known by the old name of the mansion in 
 which it was lodged. The first instance of the use of the name 
 "Oriel" by the College itself in a formal document is in 1367; 
 but it was no doubt a popular designation at a much earlier 
 date. 
 
 In 1373 license was granted by the Bishop for the celebration 
 of masses and other divine offices in a chapel constructed, or to 
 be constructed, within the College. Previous to this the church 
 of St. Mary had been resorted to for all purposes. The legends 
 on the painted glass windows in this chapel, preserved by Wood, 
 record its erection by Richard Earl of Arundel, and by his son 
 Thomas Arundel, about the year 1379. 
 
 Next in importance for the society of students which Adam 
 de Brome had founded, after providing them with a house to 
 lodge in, a church or chapel to worship in, and means to maintain 
 them, was books for them to study ; and this he had, as he 
 believed, secured in the infancy of the foundation, by acquiring 
 the library which Thomas Cobham, Bishop of Worcester, had 
 
96 ORIEL COLLEGE. 
 
 brought together, and which he had placed in the new building 
 he had erected adjoining St. Mary's Church. The building and 
 the books placed in it were intended by the Bishop to be made 
 over to the University for the use of all its students ; but his 
 intention was frustrated by his premature death; and his 
 executors, finding liis estate unequal to the payment of his debts 
 and funeral expenses, were driven to pawn the books for the sum 
 of fifty pounds. Adam de Brorae, who, as Rector of the church , 
 had allowed the building to be erected on his ground, pressed for 
 the completion of the Bishop's undertaking ; and the executors, 
 unable otherwise to help him, told him to go in God's name, and 
 redeem the books and hold them for the use of his College. 
 Acting upon this permission, he redeemed the books, brought 
 them to Oxford, and gave them, with the building which had 
 been built for their reception, to his newly founded Society. 
 This account of the transaction was not acquiesced in by the 
 University ; and in the Long Vacation of 1337, five years after 
 Adam de Brome's death, the Chancellor's Commissary, at the 
 head of a body of students, made forcible entry into the build- 
 ing, and carried off the books, the few Fellows who were then 
 in residence not daring, as the College plaintively records, to 
 offer any resistance. Thirty years later, proceedings were taken 
 in the Chancellor's Court to recover possession of the building 
 itself; and notwithstanding an urgent petition of the College 
 imploring the Bishop of Lincoln to interfere on its behalf, the 
 University took possession, and established, in the upper story 
 of what is still known as the Old Congregation House, the 
 nucleus of its first library. The College continued for a long 
 time to assert its claim ; and it was not till 1410 that the dispute 
 was finally set at rest. But although disappointed in this 
 quarter, other donors and benefactors rapidly came forward to 
 compensate the College for its loss. Adam de Brome probably 
 gave largely. Master Thomas Cobildik appears in the earliest 
 catalogue as the donor of a considerable part of the then recorded 
 collection. William Bede, Bishop of Chichester, who died in 
 1385, left ten books to Oriel, and made a similar bequest to 
 most of the then existing Colleges. Provost Daventre, who 
 died in 1373, left the residue of his books to the College. Two 
 
ORIEL COLLEGE. 97 
 
 Fellows, Elias de Trykyngham and John de Ingolnieles, whose 
 names occur together in a deed of 1356, gave books which are 
 still in the College library. In 1375 a catalogue was compiled, 
 which is still preserved ; ^ this comprises about one hundred 
 volumes, arranged according to the divisions of academical study, 
 the Arts, the Philosophies, and lastly, the higher departments 
 of Law — Civil and Canon — and Theology. 
 
 The Society for whose use it was intended was still a small 
 one ; the number of Fellows remained, as Adam de Brome had 
 left it, at no more than ten. The average tenure of a Fellow- 
 ship was about ten years. The requirement to proceed to the 
 higher faculties produced little result ; either it was disregarded, 
 or the Fellowship was vacated from other causes before the 
 time came for obeying it. By the statutes a vacancy was caused 
 by entering religion, obtaining a valuable benefice, or ceasing 
 to reside and study in the College. Marriage must always have 
 been reckoned as a variety of the last disqualification ; and it 
 is especially enumerated in a deed of 1395 reciting the various 
 causes which might bring about the avoidance of a Fellowship. 
 
 The Provost, on the other hand, generally held his office till 
 his death. This is the case during the whole of the first 
 century of the College (1326—1425). 
 
 Besides the members of the corporate society, room appears 
 to have been found in the Oriole for a few other members, 
 graduates, scholars, bible-clerks, commensales. Thomas Fitz- 
 alan, or Arundel, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, is the 
 most eminent name recorded in the fourteenth century. 
 
 It is perhaps worth while here to dispose of the claim of the 
 College to be connected with the authorship of Fiers Ploughman. 
 The real name of the author of this remarkable poem was, no 
 doubt, William Langlande; but a misunderstanding of a passage 
 in the opening introduction led Stowe hastily to infer that it 
 was written by one John Malverne ; and a name something like 
 this, John Malleson, or Malvesonere, occurring as that of one 
 of the Fellows of Oriel in deeds of the year 1387 and sub- 
 sequently, was sufficient ground for identification. It is enough 
 
 1 It has been printed in the Oxford Historical Society's Collectanea^ 
 vol. i. p. 59. 
 
^98 ORIEL COLLEGE. 
 
 ■now to say that the poem was not written by any John 
 Malverne, and that no person of that name was ever Fellow of 
 • Oriel; that the only Fellow with a name at all resembling it 
 first appears some time after the date of the poem (c. 1862); and 
 •that the internal evidence makes it highly improbable that the 
 writer was ever at any University. There has been, however, 
 this indirect advantage to the College, that, on the ground of 
 its supposed connexion, a valuable MS. of the poem was pre- 
 sented to its library in the seventeenth century, which ranks 
 among the best authorities for the text. 
 
 On the death of Provost Colyntrein 1386 began the first 
 of a long series of disputes concerning the election of a head. 
 The Fellows were divided in their choice between Dr. John 
 Middleton, Fellow and Canon of Hereford, and Master Thomas 
 Kirkton. Middleton had the support of five, Kirkton of four 
 of the Fellows. An attempt was made, though whether before 
 or after the election does not clearly appear, to deprive Master 
 Ealph Redruth, B.D., of his Fellowship, though on appeal to the 
 King he succeeded in retaining his place. Kirkton presented 
 himself to the Bishop of Lincoln, and was confirmed. From 
 the Bishop appeal was made to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 and to the King. On the 18th of April, 1386, Letters Patent 
 were issued, ordering two of the Fellows, John Landreyn, D.D., 
 and Master Ralph Redruth, to assume the government of the 
 College, pending the termination of the dispute ; and by other 
 letters of May 23rd, the Archbishop, Robert Rugge, Chancellor 
 of the University, and John Bloxham, Warden of Merton, were 
 commissioned to hear the parties and give final judgment and 
 sentence. Under this commission some sentence may have been 
 given in favour of Kirkton, though of this no record has been 
 discovered. At all events the King's Sergeant-at-arms was 
 ordered, October 26th, to put him in peaceable possession of the 
 Provostship. This order was again, January 4th, 1386-7, revoked 
 by Letters Patent, reciting that Kirkton had before Arundel, 
 then Chancellor and Bishop of Ely, renounced all his claims. 
 Meanwhile the Archbishop had proceeded independently and 
 more slowly. On the 4th of May he had commissioned Master 
 John Barnet, official of the Court of Canterbury, and Master 
 
ORIEL COLLEGE. 99 
 
 John Baketon, Dean of Arches, to hear Middleton's appeal ; and 
 a like commission to Barnet alone was issued on the 21st of 
 November. Under the last commission sentence was given in 
 favour of Middleton, and an order was sent, 26th February, 
 1386-7, to the Chancellor of Oxford, and to John Landreyn for 
 his due induction. 
 
 Middleton died at Hereford, 27th June, 1394, and was suc- 
 ceeded by John Maldon, M.A., B.M., and Scholar in Divinity, 
 "nuper & in ultimis diebus consocius et conscolaris juratus." 
 In the record of the election in the Lincoln Register, the names 
 of twelve other Fellows appear as electors. The most important 
 memorial of his period of office now preserved is the Register 
 of College muniments, compiled in 1397, perhaps under the 
 hand of Thomas Leyntwardyn, Fellow, and afterwards Provost. 
 This valuable record consists of a carefully arranged catalogue 
 of all the deeds, charters, and muniments of title then in the 
 College possession. Prefixed to the Register is a Calendar, 
 noting the anniversaries, obits, and other days to be observed 
 in the College in commemoration of its founders and benef\ictors. 
 Maldon died early in 1401-2. By his will, dated January 21st, 
 he made various bequests to the College, and to individual 
 Fellows. One book, at least, belonging to him is still in the 
 library. 
 
 Hitherto the materials for the history of the College have 
 mainly consisted of the title-deeds relating to the property from 
 time to time acquired, the purchases being in the first instance 
 made in the names of a certain number of the Fellows, these 
 again handing it on to some of their successors, until the College 
 felt itself in a position to apply for a license in mortmain to 
 enable it to hold the property in its corporate character. In 
 this way it is possible to make out a tolerably full list of the 
 early members of the College. From about the time of the 
 compilation of the earliest Register, in 1397, this source of 
 information is no longer very productive. Compared with the 
 abundance of deeds of the fourteenth century, which are 
 catalogued in the Register of 1397, the fifteenth century is 
 singularly deficient. Fortunately, however, the want is sup- 
 plied by other sources of information of more interest. The 
 
loo ORIEL COLLEGE. 
 
 earliest book of treasurer's accounts, still preserved, extends 
 from 1409 to 1415. The income of the College was made up 
 of the rents of Oxford houses, about £53; the tithes of its three 
 churches, Aberford, Coleby, and Littlemore, belonging to St. 
 Mary's, about £35 ; and the proceeds of offerings in St. Mary's 
 Church, about £28. The net income, after deducting repairs 
 and other outgoings on property, was between £80 and £90. 
 The principal items of expenses were (1) the commons of the 
 Provost and Fellows, at the rate of Is. Sd. per week per head ; 
 (2) battells, the charge for allowances in meat and drink to 
 other persons employed in and about the College, servants, 
 journeymen, labourers, tilers, and the like, including also the 
 entertainment of College visitors, the clergy of St. Mary's, or 
 the city authorities; (3) exceedings, •' excrescentiae," the cost 
 incurred on any unusual occasion of College festivity, wine 
 drunk on the feasts of Our Lady, pittances distributed among 
 the members of the College on certain prescribed days, and 
 similar extraordinary expenses. The amounts expended are 
 accurately recorded for each week, the week ending, according 
 to the practice which continues at Oriel to the present day, 
 between dinner and supper on Friday. The total of these charges 
 amounted to about £40. The stipends of the Provost and 
 of the College officers, the payments to the Vicar of St. Mary's 
 and the four chaplains, the wages of College servants, and the 
 ordinary cost of the College fabric, are the principal other items 
 of expenditure. 
 
 In 1410, the long-standing dispute with the University as 
 to Cobham's library was set at rest, through the mediation of 
 Archbishop Arundel. Not long afterwards a sum of money 
 was raised by contributions from members of the College, and 
 from parishioners of St. Mary's, for renewing the internal fittings 
 of the church, the University giving £10 pro choro. On the 
 completion of the work, the Chancellor and the whole congrega- 
 tion of regents and non-regents were regaled with wine, at a 
 cost of eight shilUngs, including oysters for the scrutineers. 
 
 It would not be easy to discover in the dry pages of the 
 College accounts, any indication of the domestic quarrels which 
 at this time violently divided the Society. The attempts made 
 
ORIEL COLLEGE. 101 
 
 by the Arclibishop, with the support of the King, to suppress 
 the Lollard doctrines, aroused considerable opposition in the 
 University. In 1395, Pope Boniface IX. had issued a Bull, in 
 answer to a petition from the University, by which the Chan- 
 cellor wr.s confirmed as the sole authority over all its members, 
 to the exclusion of all archbishops and bishops in England. 
 This Bull, though welcome to the majority of the Congre- 
 gation, consisting largely of Masters of Arts, was resisted by 
 the higher faculties, and especially by the Canonists ; and 
 the King, at the instance of the Archbishop, compelled the 
 University, by the threat of withdrawing all its privileges, to 
 renounce the exemption. Another burning question was the 
 condemnation of the heretical doctrines of Wycliffe. Under 
 considerable pressure from Archbishop Arundel, the University 
 appointed twelve examiners to search Wycliffe's writings, and 
 extract from them all the erroneous conclusions which deserved 
 condemnation. This task was performed in 1409 ; but the 
 recalcitrant party among the residents continued to throw con- 
 siderable difficulty in the way of the Archbishop's wishes ; and 
 Oriel seems to have been an active centre of resistance. In 
 1411, the Archbishop visited the University, with the double 
 object of asserting his metropolitical authority, which had been 
 threatened by the Papal Bull of exemption, and of crushing out 
 the Lollard heresies. He was not immediately successful ; but 
 he had behind him the support of the King, and by the end of 
 the year the obnoxious Bull was revoked, and order was restored. 
 It was probably after this settlement that an enquiry was held 
 at Oriel into the conduct of some of the Fellows who had taken 
 an active part in opposition. William Symon, Robert Dykes, 
 and Thomas Wilton, all Northerners, are charged with being 
 stirrers up and fomenters of discord between the nations ; they 
 frequent taverns day and night, they come into College at ten, 
 eleven, or twelve at night, and if they find the gate locked, 
 chmb in over the wall. Wilton wakes up the Provost from his 
 sleep, and challenges him to come out and fight. On St Peter's 
 Eve, 1411, when the College gate was shut by the Provost's 
 order, he went out with his associates, attacked the Chancellor 
 in his lodgings, and slew a scholar who was within. One witness 
 
102 ORIEL COLLEGE. 
 
 deposed to seeing him come armed into St. Mary's Church, and 
 when his sword fell out of his hand, crying out, "There wyl 
 nothing thryve wyt me." In support of the charge that Oriel 
 College suffered in reputation by reason of the misbehaviour of 
 its Fellows, Mr. John Martyll, then Fellow, deposes that many 
 burgesses of Oxford and the neighbourhood are minded to 
 confiscate the College lands, rents, and tenements. Upon these 
 general charges of domestic misconduct, follow others against 
 Symon and against Master John Byrche of more public import- 
 ance. Byrche was Proctor in 1411, and Symon in 1412.^ Both 
 appear to have taken an active part in opposing the attempt of 
 the Chancellor and the Archbishop to correct the ecclesiastical 
 and doctrinal heresies of the University. Byrche as Proctor 
 contrived to carry in the Great Congregation a proposal to 
 suspend the power of the twelve examiners appointed to report 
 on Wycliffe's heresies ; and when the Chancellor met this by 
 dissolving the Congregation, Byrche next day summoned a 
 Small Congregation, and obtained the appointment of judges to 
 pronounce the Chancellor guilty of perjury, and by this means 
 frightened him into resigning his office. When the Archbishop 
 arrived for his visitation, Byrche and Symon held St. Mary's 
 Church against him, and setting his interdict at naught, they 
 opened the doors, rang the bells, and celebrated high mass. 
 When summoned in their place in College to renounce the 
 Papal Bull of Exemption, they declined to follow the example 
 of their elders and betters, and flatly refused to comply. 
 
 Upon these charges a number of witnesses were examined ; 
 some, possibly townsmen, giving evidence as to the disturbances 
 in the streets between the Northern and Southern nations; 
 others, notably John Possell, the Provost, Mr. John Martyll, 
 and Mr. Henry Kayll, Fellows, Mr. Nicholas Pont, and Mr. John 
 Walton, speaking to the occurrences in College and in the 
 Convocation House. It does not seem that any very serious 
 results followed from the inquiry ; Symon, and a young bachelor 
 Fellow, Robert Buckland, against whom no specific charge was 
 made, confessed themselves in fault ; as to the others, nothing 
 
 ^ In Wood's list, both Symon and Byrche are entered as of University 
 College ; but there is little doubt that they both belonged to Oriel. 
 
ORIEL COLLEGE. 103 
 
 more is recorded. A number of further charges were prepared 
 against a still more important member of the College, the Dean, 
 John Rote (or Root), who by his connivance, and by his refusal 
 to support the Provost's authority, made himself partaker in 
 the misconduct of the younger Fellows, and was justly held to 
 be the "root" of all the evil. Such was the weight of his 
 character in Colleoje, that none would venture to s:o ajjainst his 
 opinion ; his refusing to interfere, his sitting still and saying 
 nothing when these enormities were reported to the Provost, 
 was a direct encouragement to the offenders. At other times, 
 in Hall, and in the company of the Fellows, he uttered the 
 rankest LoUardism. " Are we to be puuished with an interdict 
 on our church for other people's misdoings ? Truly it shall be said 
 of the Archbishop, * The devil go with him and break his neck/ 
 The Archbishop would better take care what he is about. He 
 tried once before to visit the University, and was straightway 
 proscribed the realm. I have heard him say, * Do you think 
 that Bishop beyond the sea' — meaning the Pope — 'is to give 
 away my benefices in England ? No, by St. Thomas.' " What 
 was this but the battle-cry of the new sect, " Let us break their 
 bonds asunder, and cast away their cords from us " ? But no 
 evidence was offered on these charges, and Root remained 
 undisturbed in his CoUesfe eminence. 
 
 Possell, who is stated to have been sixty years of age at the 
 time of the commission of enquiry, seems to have died in 
 September 1414; and the proceedings which followed further 
 illustrate the divided condition of the College. A prominent 
 candidate for the Provostship was Rote, already conspicuous for 
 his outspoken LoUardism, and who, by his adversaries' own 
 admissions, was of far more weight and influence in the College 
 than the old and timid Provost. An election was held, seemingly 
 in the following October, at which he was chosen; and he 
 obtained confirmation from the Bishop of Lincoln on November 
 17th. But the validity of the proceedings was at once contested 
 by Mr. John Martyll, one of the Fellows, on the ground of want 
 of notice ; and Rote's claim to the office was kept in suspense, 
 pending an appeal to Rome. From the College accounts, the 
 payments due to the Provost seem to have been made to Rote,. 
 
IM ORIEL COLLEGE. 
 
 under a salvo, pending the appeal. Archbishop Courtena}^ who 
 had lately succeeded Arundel, interfered, and summoned the 
 parties before him at Lambeth, where on 14th February, 1415, 
 Rote renounced his claims. A new election took place, at which 
 Dr. William Corffe was chosen ; and he was confirmed by the 
 Bishop of Lincoln, on the 16th of March following, by John 
 Martyll, his proxy. He appears then to have been absent from 
 England, representing the University at the Council of Constance. 
 From this embassy he perhaps never returned ; the proceedings 
 of the Council record him as present in June 1415; and a note 
 in a MS. in the College library states that he died at Constance. 
 His name occurs as Provost in a deed dated 14th May, 1416 ; and 
 he is mentioned as "in remotis agens" 3rd April, 1417. His 
 death may be presumed to have occurred about September 1417. 
 The period from 1429 to 1476, during which the College was 
 under the rule of its four great provosts — John Carpenter, 
 Walter Lyhert, John Hals, and Henry Sampson — was one of 
 exceptional brilliance and prosperity. Hitherto the College had 
 been one of the most slenderly endowed ; but during this period 
 a stream of benefactions flow^ed in upon it, which materially 
 altered its position. The first and most considerable addition 
 which it received was the legacy of John Frank, Master of the 
 Rolls, who left the sum of £1000 for the support of four 
 additional Fellows. The money was judiciously invested in 
 the purchase of the Manor of Wadley, near Faringdon, once 
 the property of the Abbey of Stanley, Wilts, and which had 
 lately been forfeited to the Crown. This property was acquired 
 in 1440, and the statute providing for the enlargement of the 
 Foundation is dated 13th May, 1441. The adjoining estate of 
 Littleworth was purchased some time later by Hals, then Bishop 
 of Lichfield, and also given to the College. The manors of Dene 
 and Chalford,^ in the parishes of Spelsbury and Enstone, Oxon, 
 were acquired by Carpenter, who had become Bishop of Worces- 
 ter in 1443, and were given by his will to the College, for the 
 
 ^ These two manors adjoin one another, but are entirely independent and 
 in distinct parishes ; they appear, however, r.s held together at the time of 
 the Domesday Survey, and never to have parted company since that 
 date. 
 
ORIEL COLLEGE. 105 
 
 support of a Fellow from the diocese of Worcester. Somewhat 
 later William Smyth, Bishop of Lincoln, and afterwards one of 
 the founders of Brasenose College, founded another Fellowship 
 for his own diocese, and endowed the College with the manor of 
 Shenington, near Banbury. The last considerable addition to 
 the College property was made by Richard Dudley, sometime 
 Fellow, who in 1525 gave the manor of Swainswick, near Bath, 
 to maintain two Fellows. The whole of these new endowments, 
 which exceed many times over the value of the original posses- 
 sions of the College, were acquired in a period of less than a 
 hundred years, and they are the lasting memorial of what until 
 recent times must be considered the most splendid period in the 
 College history. 
 
 By these benefactions the number of Fellows, fixed at ten in 
 the Foundation Statutes, was raised to eighteen, at which it 
 remained down to the changes of recent times. Four of these, 
 founded by John Frank, were to be chosen out of the counties 
 of Wilts, Dorset, Somerset, and Devon ; one, founded by Bishop 
 Carpenter, from the diocese of Worcester ; and one, founded by 
 Bishop Smyth, from, the diocese of Lincoln. The two Fellow- 
 ships founded by Dudley were not mnde subject to any restric- 
 tion ; but the College bound itself, in acknowledgment of 
 Carpenter's benefaction, to assign one of the original Fellow- 
 ships also to the diocese of Worcester. This provision was 
 repealed in 1821. There were therefore from the reign of Henry 
 VIII. onwards seven Fellowships limited in the first instance to 
 certain counties and dioceses, and eleven which were subject 
 to no restriction. And there never grew up at any time any 
 class of junior members of the Foundation, entitled by statute 
 or custom to succeed to Fellowships, or indeed any class what- 
 ever, corresponding to the scholars, postmasters or demies, to 
 be found at most other Colleges. Certain Exhibitions were 
 indeed established by Bishop Carpenter and Bishop Lyhert, 
 and charged upon lands given by them to St. Anthony's Hos- 
 pital in London. Others, again, were founded by Richard 
 Dudley. But neither the Exhibitions of St. Anthony nor the 
 Dudley Exhibitions ever grew to the least importance. The 
 small stipends originally assigned to them were never increased ; 
 
106 ORIEL COLLEGE. 
 
 and with the change in the value of money, they sank into 
 complete insignificance. 
 
 New statutes to regulate these additions to the Foundation 
 were enacted in 1441, 1483, and in 1507. From another statute 
 in 1504 dates the estabhsbment of the College Register, wbich 
 thenceforward becomes the sole authentic record of the history 
 of the College. This Register is directed to be kept not by the 
 Provost, but by the Dean ; and a similar practice was established 
 about the same time in several other Colleges, such as Merton, 
 where the Register begins in 1482, Magdalen, Brasenose, and 
 others. It was probably thought that the duty would be better 
 discharged by a subordinate officer, who could be called to 
 account by his superior, than by the Head himself, whose negli- 
 gence it was no one person's business to correct. The Oriel 
 Register, though first instituted by the statute of 1504, contains 
 also the record of some transactions of earlier date ; and the 
 statute was probably intended to put upon a regular footing a 
 practice which had already begun, and which was found to be of 
 service. If this Register had been employed as the statute 
 directed, in recording " omnia acta et decreta, per Praepositum 
 et Scholares capitulariter facta," it would be invaluable for the 
 history of the College ; but unfortunately the tendency soon 
 showed itself to confine the entries to a limited number of cases, 
 such as the elections and admissions of the Provost and Fellows, 
 and to leave unnoticed many matters belonging to the ordinary 
 daily life of the Society, for the insertion of which no exact 
 precedent was found. When at a later time the character of 
 the College changed from a small Society of graduate students 
 to an educational institution, receiving undergraduate members, 
 scarcely any notice is to be discovered in the Register which 
 betrays the existence of tutors or pupils, or of any other members 
 of the Society besides the Provosts and Fellows. 
 
 Another important source of information is the series of 
 Treasurer's accounts, known as the Style. These begin in 1450, 
 almost immediately after the election of Provost Sampson, and 
 the plan then introduced, of which he may possibly have been 
 the author, has lasted in unbroken continuity to the present 
 time. For some time this account records the whole of the 
 
ORIEL COLLEGE. 107 
 
 pecuniary transactions of the College; but after the act of 
 Elizabeth (18 Eliz. c. 6) came into operation, and the surplus 
 revenue of each year became divisible among the Provost and 
 Fellows, the practice soon established itself of excluding from 
 both sides of the account items of a novel or exceptional 
 character. The rents of the College estates are given in the 
 fullest detail ; but no mention is made of the fines taken on the 
 renewal of leases, although these began very early to form an 
 important part of the College revenue. The whole of the 
 domestic side of the account, the charges upon members outside 
 the Foundation, and the cost of their maintenance, the fees paid 
 by undergraduates to tutors and College officers, servants' wages, 
 and other similar items, are nowhere noticed. When in the 
 seventeenth century the whole fabric of the College was pulled 
 down and rebuilt, it would be difficult to find in the pages of 
 the Style any entry which would give a hint that any unusual 
 outlay was in progress. 
 
 The century which followed the resignation of Provost Samp- 
 son in 1475, presents very little of general interest. # At the 
 visitation of the College by Atwater, Bishop of Lincoln, in 1520, 
 among other matters of minor consequence, occurs the first 
 recorded instance of an abuse which was probably then and for 
 long afterwards not unfrequent. Thomas Stock had resigned 
 his Fellowship in favour of John Throckmorton, keeping back 
 his resignation until he was sure that Throckmorton would be 
 elected. " Hoc potest trahi in exemplum perniciosum. Ita 
 quod in posterum. socii resignabunt loca sua quibus volueriut. 
 vDominus injunxit ne deinceps aliquis talia faceret in electionibus 
 ibidem." The Injunctions of Bishop Longland, following on 
 his visitation in 1531, seem to show a growing laxity of disci- 
 pline. The Provost, then Thomas Ware, is admonished to be 
 personally resident in the College, and to attend more diligently 
 to his duties. The Bachelors are to observe the regular hours 
 of study in the library at night, and not to introduce strangers 
 into their sleeping-rooms. The new classical learning (" recent- 
 iores literae, lingua Latina, et opera poetica") is not to be 
 pursued to the prejudice of the older studies, the "Termini 
 Doctorum antiquorum." The disputations and exercises are to 
 
108 ORIEL COLLEGE. 
 
 be kept up as in former times ; the Provost, Dean, and senior 
 masters are to attend the disputations, and to be ready to solve 
 the doubtful points. No Fellow is to go out of residence with- 
 out the leave of the Provost or the Dean, and then only for a 
 limited time, whether in term or vacation. The vacant Fellow- 
 ships are to be filled up in a month's time, and no Fellowship 
 to remain vacant in future longer than one month. 
 
 Fifteen years later another set of Injunctions was issued by 
 the same Bishop. The Fellows are again enjoined to be diligent 
 in their studies, giving themselves to philosophy for three years 
 following their admission, and then going on to divinity. The 
 unseemly behaviour of Mr. Edmund Crispyne calls for special 
 reprimand ; he is to give up blasphemy and profane swearing ; 
 he is not to let his beard grow, or to wear plaited shirts, or 
 boots of a lay cut ; he is to be respectful and obedient to the 
 Provost and Dean, on pain of excommunication and deprivation 
 of his Fellowship. Mention is made of St. Mary Hall as a 
 place of education under the control of the College, but distinct 
 from it. The door opening from the College into the Hall is to 
 be walled up, and no communication between the two to be 
 allowed henceforth. The College is to appoint a fit person to 
 be Principal of the Hall, who is to provide suitable lectures for 
 the instruction of the students there. 
 
 The Reformation makes but little mark in the recorded 
 history of the College. No difficulty was met with by the 
 King's Commissioner, Dr. Cox, when he came in 1534 to require 
 the acknowledgment of the Royal supremacy. Four years later 
 came the orders for depriving Becket of the honours of saint- 
 ship, and for removing his name from all service-books. The 
 thorouofhness with which these orders were carried out is 
 remarkably illustrated at Oriel, where even in so obscure a 
 place as the Calendar prefixed to the Register of College 
 Muniments, the days marked for the observance of St. Thomas 
 have been carefully obliterated. There was, however, one 
 member of Oriel, Edward Powell, who distinguished himself by 
 his opposition to the King's policy. He had been Fellow of 
 the College from about 1495 to 1505 ; afterwards he became 
 Canon of Salisbury, and also held other ecclesiastical prefer- 
 
ORIEL COLLEGE. 109 
 
 merits. On the first appearance of Luther's writings he was 
 selected by the University as one of the defenders of orthodoxy, 
 and recommended as such to the King. When, however, the 
 question of the King's divorce arose, Powell was retained by 
 Queen Katherine as her ablest advocate ; and from that time 
 he was conspicuous by his resistance to the King. In 1540 he 
 was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Smithfield for denying 
 the Royal supremacy, and for refusing to take the oath of 
 succession. 
 
 In the pages of the College Register the affairs of St. 
 Bartholomew's Hospital play aTmuch more important part than 
 any changes in religion. It was in 1536 that the long-standing 
 dispute between the College an^ the City respecting the pay- 
 ment appropriated to the support of the almsmen was finally 
 settled. The charge, £23 Os. 5d., out of the fee farm rent of the 
 town, had been granted by Henry I. on the first establishment 
 of the Hospital ; but ever since the annexation to the College 
 hy Eilward III., great difficulty had been experienced in obtain- 
 ing punctual payment. Charters confirming the charge had 
 been obtained from nearly every sovereign through the four- 
 teenth and fifteenth centuries ; but the City persevered in 
 disputing its liability. In 1536 both parties agreed to stand 
 to the award of two Barons of the Exchequer, and by their 
 decision the payment was settled at the reduced amount of 
 £19 a year, and the nomination of the almsmen was transferred 
 to the city. 
 
 On the resignation of Provost Haynes in 1550, the King's 
 Council endeavoured to procure the election of Dr. William 
 Turner, a prominent Protestant divine, honourably known as 
 one of the fathers of English Botany. The Fellows, perhaps 
 anticipating interference, held their election on the day of 
 Haynes' resignation, and chose Mr. John Smyth, afterwards 
 Margaret Professor of Divinity. Smyth was promptly de- 
 spatched to the Bishop of Lincoln for confirmation, and on his 
 return to the College was duly installed Provost. Some days 
 afterwards the Dean was summoned to attend the Council and 
 to give an account of the College proceedings. His explanations 
 were apparently accepted, and no further action was taken. 
 
110 ORIEL COLLEGE. 
 
 Smyth retained his place through all the changes of religion 
 under Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth. On his resignation in 
 1565, Ro.ser Marbeck of Christchurch, and Public Orator, was 
 chosen, although not statutably qualified, having never been a 
 Fellow. It is possible, though not hinted at in the account of the 
 election, that he was recommended either by the Queen or by 
 some other powerful personage ; and a dispensation was obtained 
 from the Visitor authorising a departure from the regulations 
 of the Statutes. Marbeck held the office only two years, and 
 was succeeded by John Belly, Provost 1566 to 1574. 
 
 The long reign of the next Provost, Anthony Blencowe, 
 covers the period of transition from the old to the new era. 
 The College of the medieval type consisted of the Fellows only. 
 Already Bachelors of Arts at the time of their election, they 
 carried on their studies under the direction of the Head and 
 seniors, proceeding to the higher degrees, and ultimately passing 
 from Oxford to ecclesiastical employment elsewhere. William 
 of Wykeham had indeed made one important innovation on 
 the type which Walter de Merton had created ; for the younger 
 members of his foundation were admitted direct from school, 
 and only obtained their first University degree after they had 
 been some years at College. The example of New College was 
 followed at Magdalen and Corpus; but in these cases, as at 
 New College, the admission of undergraduates was only intro- 
 duced as part of the regulations for members of the Foundation, 
 and it was not in contemplation to make the College a school 
 for all comers. No doubt a few extranei, graduate or under- 
 graduate, were occasionally admitted to share the Fellows' table, 
 and to profit by their advice and companionship ; but the bulk 
 of the younger students remained outside the Colleges, lodging 
 in the numerous Halls in the town, and subject only to the 
 discipline of the University. Instances of such extranei are 
 Thomas Arundel, already mentioned as a member of Oriel in 
 the fourteenth century; Henry, Prince of Wales, afterwards 
 Henry V., at Queen's College ; Doctor Thomas Gascoigne, who 
 at different times resided at Oriel, at Lincoln, and at New 
 College. This class survived to recent times in the Fellow 
 commoners, or gentlemen commoners, whose connexion with 
 
ORIEL COLLEGE. Ill 
 
 the Colleges is historically older than the more numerous and 
 important class of commoners, which has overshadowed and 
 ultimately extinguished them. It is worth observing that the 
 three Colleges of William of Wykeham's type, New College, 
 Magdalen, and Corpus, although they received gentlemen com- 
 moners, did not admit ordinary commoners until the changes 
 which followed on the University Commission of 1854. All 
 Souls has remained to the present day a College of Fellows 
 alone. 
 
 The religious changes of the sixteenth century were followed 
 by great alterations in the discipline of the University. Acting 
 on pressure from without, a Statute was passed in 1581 
 requiring all matriculated students to reside in a College or 
 Hall. The old Halls had nearly all disappeared; of the few 
 remaining most were connected more or less closely with one 
 of the Colleges. Queen's College claimed, and was successful 
 in retaining, St. Edmund's Hall. Merton had purchased Alban 
 Hall in the earlier part of the century. Magdalen Hall was 
 dependent on Magdalen College. The connexion between 
 Oriel and St. Mary Hall was older and closer than any. The 
 Principal was, invariably, chosen or appointed fjora among the 
 Fellows. The holders of the small Exhibitions founded by 
 Bishop Carpenter and Dr. Dudley were lodged not in the 
 College but in the Hall ; in times of plague the members of 
 the Hall were allowed to remove to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, 
 for a purer air. In the census of the University, taken in 1572, 
 Oriel appears to have numbered forty-two members ; of these 
 the Provost and Fellows account for nineteen; three were 
 servants ; the remaining twenty, one of whom may be perhaps 
 identified with Sir Walter Raleigh, represent the favoured class 
 of extranei, of which we have already spoken. In the same 
 year the members of St. Mary Hall numbered forty-six. The 
 next half century sees this proportion completely reversed. 
 The matriculations at Oriel from 1581 to 1621 average a little 
 over ten a year; those at St. Mary Hall sink to five. The 
 control over the Hall was taken away by the Chancellor, Lord 
 Leicester, though the College might well have made out as 
 good a claim as that successfully asserted by Queen's College 
 
112 ORIEL COLLEGE. 
 
 over St. Edmuud's Hall. But the Principals continued to be 
 chosen from among Fellows of Oriel down to the time of the 
 Commonwealth. 
 
 As has been already stated, the Register contains but few 
 notices from which it could be gathered that any great change 
 in the character of the College took place at this time. In 
 1585 the Provost admonishes the Fellows as to the behaviour 
 of their scholars, and they are ordered to be responsible to the 
 butler for the battels of their scholars or pupils. In 1594 an 
 order was made that no Fellow should have more than one 
 poor scholar under the name of batler. In 1595 the Dean is 
 invested with the power of catechising. In 1606 one of the 
 Fellows is appointed public catechist for the instruction of the 
 youth, as required by University Statute. In 1624 a Mr. Jones, 
 not a Fellow, is appointed, on his own application, Praelector 
 in Greek. A Register of the admission of commensales, that is 
 the members of the higher order only, or Fellow commoners, 
 was begun in 1596, and continued to 1610. It contains eighteen 
 names only, the first being that of Robert Pierrepont, afterwards 
 Earl of Kingston. With this exception the admissions into the 
 College have to be collected from the University Matriculation 
 Register, supplemented from about 1620 by the Caution Book. 
 
 It was this enlargement of its numbers that made it necessary 
 for the College to take in hand the question of rebuilding the 
 fabric in a manner suitable to the new requirements. The 
 buildings then existing had been erected at different times, and 
 had gradually been brought into the form of a quadrangle, 
 occupying the site of the older part of the present College. 
 These are shown in Neale's drawing, made in 1566. The chapel 
 on the south side was that built by Richard, Earl of Arundel, 
 about 1373. The Hall on the north side had been rebuilt 
 about the year 1535, partly by the contributions of former 
 Fellows. Trovost Blencowe died in 1618, and was succeeded by 
 Mr. William Lewis, Chaplain to Lord Bacon, and afterwards 
 Master of St. Cross, and Prebendary of Winchester. Lewis' 
 election was not unanimous, and though he was duly presented 
 to the Bishop of Lincoln and confirmed by him, he thought it 
 necessary to obtain a further ratification of his title from his 
 
ORIEL COLLEGE. Ha 
 
 patron. This proceeding is remarkable, as it is almost the 
 solitary instance in which the original statutes of January 1326, 
 superseded almost immediately after their issue by the Lincoln 
 statutes of May in the same year, were quoted or acted upon. 
 The Chancellor, assuming cognizance of the case as of an 
 election in discord, pronounced in favour of Lewis, and by an 
 order entered in the College Register and authenticated by his 
 own hand, confirmed Lewis in his place. Lewis held the office 
 for three years only, during which time, however, the design 
 of the new building was determined upon, and the first part 
 completed. Blencowe had left the sum of £1300 to be applied 
 in the first instance to the west side — "the primaria pars 
 Collegii." This was undertaken in 1619, and in the following 
 year the south side was also taken down and rebuilt. Besides 
 Blencowe's legacy, £300 was forthcoming from a College fund, 
 and plate was sold to the value of £90. The College groves 
 at Stowford and Bartlemas supplied some of the timber; the 
 stone came from the College quarry at Headington. Timber 
 was also sold from other College estates. But it was in obtain- 
 ing contributions from former members, and from great people 
 connected with Oriel, that Provost Lewis' talent was most 
 remarkable. His skill in writing letters — " elegant, in a winning, 
 persuasive way" — was long quoted as an example to other 
 heads of Colleges. This " art, in which he excelled," had recom- 
 mended him to Lord Bacon, and it was by his patron's advice 
 that he employed it in the service of the College. Among those 
 whom he laid under contribution were the Earl of Kingston 
 and Sir Robert Harley, whose arms are still to be seen in the 
 windows of the Hall. Lewis resigned the Provostship in 1621, 
 and was succeeded by John Tolson. The completion of the 
 new quadrangle was postponed for some years, though the 
 design had probably been determined on from the first. In 
 1636 large sums of money were again raised by contributions 
 from present and former members, and the north and east sides 
 of the quadrangle were erected. 
 
 The plan of the new College is in its main features similar to 
 that of Wadham, erected 1613, and of University, which was 
 built some years after Oriel. In all of these the chapel and 
 
 I 
 
114 ORIEL COLLEGE. 
 
 hall stand together opposite to the gateway, and form one side 
 of a quadrangle. The other three sides are of uniform height, 
 consisting of three stories, containing chambers for the Fellows 
 and other members. In Oriel the library occupied a part of the 
 upper story on the north side. The hall is approached by a 
 flight of steps under a portico on the centre of the east side ; 
 above this portico are the figures of the Virgin and Child, to 
 whom the College is dedicated, and of King Edward II., the 
 founder, and King Charles I. in whose reign it was set up. 
 Round the portico ran the legend in stone — " Regnante Carolo." 
 By an unaccountable blunder, this last figure has been described 
 in all accounts of the College as being that of King Edward 
 III. ; but there can be no doubt, both from the dress and from 
 the features, that it represents King Charles, and no one else. 
 Over the doorways round the quadrangle were stone shields 
 bearing the arms of the four great benefactors — Frank, Carpenter, 
 Smyth, and Dudley, and of the three Provosts — Blencowe, 
 Lewis, and Tolson — under whom the new building was planned 
 and executed. Blencowe's are also to be seen in the treasury 
 in the tower, and upon the College gate. The whole building 
 was completed in 1642, when the chapel was first used for 
 divine service. 
 
 This great work had scarcely been completed when the Civil 
 War broke out. In January 1642-3, the King being at Oxford, 
 the College plate was demanded : 29 lbs. oz. 5 dwt. of gilt, 
 and 52 lbs. 7 oz. 14 dwt. of white plate was given, the College 
 retaining only its founder's cup, and two other small articles — 
 a mazer bowl and a cocoa-nut cup, believed to have been the 
 gift of Bishop Carpenter. A few days afterwards a weekly 
 contribution of £40 was assessed upon the Colleges and Halls 
 for the expenses of fortifying the city ; the charge upon Oriel 
 was fixed at £1. This charge was joyfully acquiesced in by the 
 College, "ita quod faxit Deus Musae una cum Rege suo contra 
 inofrassantes hostium turmas tutius agant ac felicius." But these 
 hopes were not to be realised ; and the hardships of the siege 
 soon came to tell heavily on the College finances. The high 
 price of provisions, the difficulty of getting in rents, the debts 
 incurred for the College building, must have seriously crippled 
 
ORIEL COLLEGE. 115 
 
 their resources ; and grievous complaints of their inability to 
 complete the October audit occur in the years 1643, 1644, and 
 1645. In the last of these years extraordinary expedients had 
 to be resorted to in order to maintain even the common table ; 
 leases were renewed or promised in reversion on almost any terms; 
 the Oxford tenants were solicited to pay their rents in advance, 
 on the promise of considerate treatment at their next renewal ; 
 all the timber at Bartlemas was felled at one stroke and converted 
 into money. Even these heroic remedies were inadequate ; and 
 in March 1645-6 the commons' allowance was reduced to one- 
 half, and the elections to vacant Fellowships suspended. The 
 surrender of the city to the Parliament in the summer of 1646 
 must have been felt as a great relief. From that time, although 
 the times were not altogether prosperous, the distress of the years 
 of siege never reappeared with the same acuteness. The num- 
 bers of the undergraduate members, which had sunk to almost 
 nothing, soon revived; and the College was able to build a Ball 
 Court for their diversion in the back part of their premises. The 
 Hospital of St. Bartholomew was rebuilt in 1651. Although 
 now converted to other uses, this good gray stone house, with its 
 eight chambers for the eight almsmen, still stands and bears its 
 history on its face. On the several doorways, and also on the 
 chapel, which, though not rebuilt, was refitted and beautified, 
 are the date of the work, and the initials of the College,^ the 
 Provost, and the Treasurers. 
 
 The Parliamentary Visitation which descended upon Oxford 
 in the year following the siege dealt on the whole very tenderly 
 with Oriel. It is possible that Prynne, an old Oriel man, who 
 was an active member of the London Committee, may have 
 stood its friend. The answers of the Provost and Fellows to the 
 Visitors' questions were in almost every case such as merited 
 expulsion ; but in the result only five Fellows were removed, 
 
 1 In his account of this building Wood must for once have fallen asleep, 
 or he would not have suggested that the letters 0. C. (Oriel College) were 
 inscribed by " the Saints, in honour of their great Commander." But such 
 is the vitality of error that this absurd blunder is copied without correction 
 into every guide-book for Oxford, and actually reappeais in the note pre- 
 fixed to a very careful account of the Hospital, published by the Oxford 
 Architectural Society, 
 
116 ORIEL COLLEGE. 
 
 and of these two were soon afterwards allowed to return to their 
 place. Two Fellowships were suspended by the Visitors' order, 
 in order to pay off the debts under which the College lay. 
 Others were filled up by the Visitors or the London Committee 
 during the years 1648 and 1652. After the latter year no 
 further interference seems to have taken place, and on the death 
 of Saunders, in 1652-3, Robert Say was elected in the accus- 
 tomed form, and admitted without any confirmation from 
 external authority. He held office till 1691, when he died after 
 a long but uneventful reign of nearly forty years. 
 
 Of the Fellows of the College during the seventeenth century, 
 not many achieved any distinction. Humphrey Lloyd, elected 
 Fellow in 1631, and removed by the Visitors in 1648, became 
 Bishop of Bangor. William Talbot, successively Bishop of 
 Oxford, Salisbury, and Durham ; Sir John Holt, who, after the 
 Revolution, became Lord Chief Justice of England ; and Sir 
 William Scroggs, one of his predecessors, who gained an unen- 
 viable reputation in the political trials which arose out of the 
 Popish Plot, were educated at Oriel, but were not Fellows. The 
 most eminent name among the Fellows is undoubtedly John 
 Robinson, Bishop of Bristol and afterwards of London, Lord 
 Privy Seal, and the chief negotiator of the Peace of Utrecht. 
 Soon after his election in 1675, he obtained leave to reside 
 abroad, as chaplain to the English Minister at Stockholm. His 
 benefactions to the College will be more conveniently mentiDned 
 later. With these exceptions the list of Fellows contains very 
 few eminent names ; and the same remark continues to be true 
 in the main throughout the eighteenth century. The truth 
 probably is that the system of election to Fellowships was tainted 
 with corruption. Buying and selling of places was a common 
 practice in the age of the Restoration, and it has survived to 
 our own time in the army. In many Colleges this evil was to 
 some extent kept in check by the establishment of a regular 
 succession from Scholars to Fellows ; but at Oriel, as has been 
 already observed, the choice of the electors was absolutely free, 
 and, valuable as this freedom may be when honestly exercised, 
 it is capable of leading to corruption of the worst kind. In 
 1673 a complaint was made to the Bishop of Lincoln, the 
 
ORIEL COLLEGE. 117 
 
 Visitor, by James Davenant, Fellow, against the conduct of 
 the Provost at a recent election. The Bishop issued a com- 
 mission to the Vice-Chancellor (Peter Mews, Bishop of Bath 
 and Wells), Dr. Fell (Dean of Christ Church), and Dr. Yates 
 (Principal of Brasenose), to visit the College. The conduct of 
 the business seems to have been chiefly in Fell's hands ; and 
 in his letters to the Bishop he expresses in strong terms his 
 opinion of the state of things he found in Oriel. He writes, 
 1st Aug. 1673 — "When this Devil of buying & selling is once 
 "cast out your Lordship will I hope take care that he return 
 " not again lest he bring seven worse than himself into the 
 *' house after 'tis swept and garnisht." He recommends various 
 regulations for checking the evil ; among them that the election 
 be by the major part of the whole Society, "else 'twill always 
 "be in the Provost's power to watch his opportunity & when 
 " the house is thin strike up an election " ; also that the suc- 
 cessor be immediately admitted, " for there is a cheat in some 
 "houses by keeping the successor out for a good while after 
 "the election." The Bishop on this report issued a decree, 
 24th Jan., 1673-4, prescribing the proceeding in elections. Not 
 to be baffled, the Provost, Say, hit upon the ingenious device 
 of obtaining a Royal letter of recommendation for the can- 
 didate whose election he desired, and a letter was sent in favour 
 of Thomas Twitty for the next vacancy. He was probably 
 elected and admitted upon this recommendation; though the 
 Vice-Chancellor refused to allow him to subscribe as Fellow. 
 The Bishop made his remonstrances at Court, and obtained 
 the withdrawal of the King's letter, and Twitty's election was 
 annulled before it had been entered in the College Register. 
 The Provost seems to have written an insolent letter to the 
 Bishop, such (says Fell) " as in another age a valianter man 
 would not have written to a Visitor." Fell goes on — " Though I 
 " am afraid that with a very little diligence the being a party to 
 " Twitty's proceedings may be made out, yet it will not be safe 
 "to animadvert on that act, however criminal, as a fault, for 
 ''notwithstanding the present concession, the Court will never 
 " endure to have the prerogative of laying laws asleep called in 
 "question. As to the letter I think 'twill be much the best 
 
118 ORIEL COLLEGE. 
 
 "way not to answer it. It is below the dignity of a Visitor 
 " to contest in empty words. If the Provost goes on with his 
 " Hectoring 'tis possible he may run himself so in the briers that 
 "'twill not be easy for him to get out." 
 
 The regulations of Bishop Fuller were more fully established 
 by a statute made by the College with the Visitor's approval in 
 1721, when the day of election was fixed to the Friday in Easter 
 week, and the examination on the Thursday before. But new 
 disputes had already begun which led to unexpected but most 
 important consequences. At the Fellowship election in July 
 1721, Henry Edmunds, of Jesus, the hero of the ensuing struggle, 
 received the votes of nine Fellows against those of three other 
 Fellows and the Provost. The Provost rejected Edmunds and 
 admitted his own candidate. Edmunds appealed to the Visitor, 
 who upheld the Provost. On the Friday after Easter, 1723, 
 Edmunds stood again, and he and four other candidates were 
 chosen by a majority of the electors into the five vacant Fellow- 
 ships. The Provost refused to admit them, and was again 
 upheld by the Visitor, who claimed that the right of filling up 
 the vacancies had devolved upon himself. Three places he 
 proceeded to fill up at once ; as to the other two he seems to 
 have been in consultation with the Provost as to his choice, but 
 not to have made any nomination. At the election in the 
 following April 1724, two candidates received the votes of eight 
 of the Fellows, against the votes of the Provost and of one 
 other Fellow only, Mr. Joseph Bowles. The Provost as before 
 refused to admit them. Edmunds now brought his action in 
 the Common Pleas on behalf of himself and his four com- 
 panions, claiming to have been legally elected. He took his 
 stand on the original Foundation Statutes of January 1326, 
 and claimed that the Crown and not the Bishop of Lincoln 
 was the true and lawful Visitor of the College. These statutes, 
 as has been already mentioned, were superseded within six 
 months of their issue, and although in a few rare instances, 
 questions had been brought before the King or his Chancellor, 
 the Visitatorial authority of the Bishop had never before been 
 disputed, but had been repeatedly exercised and acquiesced in 
 for four hundred years. The case was tried at bar, before Chief 
 
ORIEL COLLEGE. 110 
 
 Justice Eyre, and the three puisne judges, and a special jury; 
 and on the 14th May, 1726, judgment was given in Edmunds' 
 favour. The authority of the statutes of Jan. 1326 was estab- 
 lished, and the Crown declared to be the sole Visitor. Edmunds 
 and liis four co-plaintiffs, as also the two candidates chosen in 
 1724, were admitted to their Fellowships in July 1726 by the 
 Dean, the Provost refusing, on the ingenious plea that if the 
 Crown was Visitor, it was for the Crown and not for the Common 
 Pleas to decide on the validity of the election. 
 
 Dr. Carter died in September 1727, and notwithstanding his 
 disagreement with the Fellows, he showed his affection for the 
 College by leaving to it his whole residuary estate. He had 
 already, by the help of Bishop Robinson, obtained the annexa- 
 tion to his office of a prebend at Rochester, and he provided 
 for its further endowment by leaving £1000 for the purchase of 
 a living to be held by the Provost. With this money the living 
 of Purleigh, in Essex, was bought in 1730. Hitherto the Provost- 
 ship had been but scantily endowed. The Parliamentary Visitors 
 in 1648 had scheduled it as one of the Headships that required 
 augmentation. The fixed stipend and the allowances prescribed 
 by the statutes had, with the change in the value of money, 
 shrunk to small ^^proportions ; the principal part of his income 
 was derived from the dividend and the fines. 
 
 Both these sources of income were of modem growth. By the 
 Act 18 Eliz., leases of College estates were limited to twenty-one 
 years, and one-third of the old rent was to be reserved in corn. 
 House property might be let for not longer than forty years. 
 The beneficial effect of these Acts on the corporate revenue was 
 not immediate; in many cases long terms had been granted 
 shortly before, which did not expire for many years. Notably 
 the College estate at Wadley had been let in 1539 for 208 years; 
 and in 1736, when this long period was approaching its end, the 
 lessees petitioned Parliament to interfere and prevent them 
 being deprived of what they had so long treated as their own 
 property. But few leases were of this extravagant duration; 
 and in the course of the seventeenth century the College income 
 was considerably increased. The Provost, however, received no 
 more than one Fellow's share and a half in the dividend, i. e. 
 
120 ORIEL COLLEGE. 
 
 the surplus income of the year, and one share only of the fines. 
 The ecclesiastical preferment which Provost Carter secured to 
 the Headship resulted in making it one of the best endowed 
 places in Oxford, without imposing any additional charge on the 
 College, 
 
 Bishop Robinson, who obtained the Rochester stall for the 
 Provost, was also a benefactor in other ways. He founded 
 three Exhibitions, to be held by bachelor students ; and he also 
 erected at his own expense an additional building on the east 
 side of the College garden, containing six sets of chambers, three 
 of which w^ere to be occupied by his Exhibitioners. Dr. Carter 
 erected at the same time a similar building on the west side. 
 
 The effect of the decision given in the Court of Common 
 Pleas, was to restore the authority of the Foundation Statutes" 
 of January 1326. Under these Statutes only an actual Fellow 
 could be chosen Provost, and the election must be unanimous. 
 On Dr. Carter's death, Mr. Walter Hodges was chosen by a 
 majority of votes only, but he was confirmed by the Lord 
 Chancellor, Lord King, upon whom, under these circumstances, 
 the election had devolved. Henceforward, the Fellows agreed 
 to make the formal election unanimous in every case, and no 
 further instance of a disputed election occurred. 
 
 The history of the College during the remainder of the 
 eighteenth century was quiet, decorous and uneventful. Its 
 undergraduate members were drawn from all classes, but always 
 included many young men of rank and family. Some of these 
 showed their affection for the College in after life by benefac- 
 tions more or less important. Henry, fourth Duke of Beaufort, 
 founded four exhibitions for the counties of Gloucester, Mon- 
 mouth and Glamorgan. Mrs. Ludwell, a sister of Dr. Carter, 
 gave an estate in Kent for the support of two exhibitioners from 
 that county. Edward, Lord Leigh, who died in 1786, bequeathed 
 to the College the entire collection of books in his house at 
 Stoneleigh. For the reception of this bequest, the new Library 
 was built in the following year at the north end of the College 
 garden. 
 
 Of the few eminent names connected with the College in the 
 last century, that of Bishop Butler is the greatest. He entered 
 
ORIEL COLLEGE. 121 
 
 Oriel in 1715, and his early rise in his profession was in a great 
 
 measure due to the acquaintance he there made with Charles 
 
 Talbot, afterwards Lord Cliancellor, who recommended him to 
 
 the patronage of his father, the Bishop of Durham, also an okl 
 
 member of the College. William Hawkins, elected Fellow in 
 
 1700, was an eminent lawyer, whose treatise of the Pleas of the 
 
 Crown still keeps its place as a standard legal work. William 
 
 Gerrard Hamilton, admitted in 1745, is still remembered as an 
 
 early patron of Burke, and for his speech in the great debate in 
 
 Nov. 1755, by which he gained his nickname. Gilbert White, 
 
 of Selborne, among all the Fellows of Oriel of this period, has 
 
 left the most lasting name. Yet his College history is in curious 
 
 contrast to the reputation which is popularly attached to him. 
 
 Instead of being, as is often supposed, the model clergyman, 
 
 residing on his cure, and interested in all the concerns of the 
 
 parish in which his duty lay, he was, from a College point of 
 
 view, a rich, sinecure, pluralist non-resident. He held his 
 
 Fellowship for fifty years, 1743 — 1793, during which period he 
 
 was out of residence except for the year 1752-3, when the 
 
 Proctorship fell to the College turn, and he came up to claim 
 
 it. In 1757 he similarly asserted his right to take and hold 
 
 with his Fellowship the small College living of Moreton Pinkney, 
 
 Northants, with the avowed intention of not residing. Even at 
 
 that time the conscience of the College was shocked at this 
 
 proposal, and the claim was only reluctantly admitted. White 
 
 continued to enjoy the emoluments of his Fellowship and of his 
 
 College living, while he resided on his patrimonial estate at 
 
 Selborne ; and although it was much doubted whether his 
 
 fortune did not exceed the amount which was allowed by the 
 
 Statutes, he acted on the maxim that anything can be held by 
 
 a man who can hold his tongue, and he continued to enjoy his 
 
 Fellowship and his living till his death. 
 
 It was not till near the close of the century that the College 
 took the decisive step which at once lifted it above its old level 
 of respectable mediocrity, and gave it the first place in Oxford. 
 As has been already shown, the election to Fellowships was 
 singularly free from restriction ; for most of them there was no 
 limitation of birth, locality, or kindred; and no class of junior 
 
122 ORIEL COLLEGE. 
 
 members had any title to succession or preference. When in 
 1795 Edward Copleston was invited from Corpus to stand for 
 the vacant Fellowship, the first precedent was set for making 
 the Oriel Fellowship the highest prize of an Oxford career. The 
 old habit of giving weight to personal recommendations was not 
 at once immediately laid aside. Even when Thomas Arnold was 
 elected in 1815, it was still necessary for the Fellows to be 
 lectured against allowing themselves to be prejudiced by the 
 reports in Oxford that the candidate was a forward and con- 
 ceited young man. But the better principle had the victory : 
 the last election in which the older -motives were allowed to 
 prevail was in 1798, and from that time the College continued 
 year after year to renew itself without fear or favour out of the 
 most brilliant and promising of the younger students. 
 
 It was the head of Oriel, Provost Eveleigh, who, backed by 
 the growing reputation of his College, induced the Hebdomadal 
 Board to institute the new system of examination for honours. 
 Under this system Oriel soon took and long retained the first 
 place. It was an Oriel Fellow who, as Headmaster of the 
 Grammar School at Rugby, succeeded, as was foretold of him, 
 in chanorinor the whole face of Public School Education in this 
 country. It was another Fellow who brought about that 
 religious movement which has worked a still greater change in 
 the Church of England. 
 
 List of Provosts. 
 
 1326. Adam de Brome : first Provost under Charter of 21 Jan. 1325-6: 
 
 died 16 June 1332. 
 1332. William de Leverton : instituted 27 June 1332 : died 21 Nov. 
 
 1348. 
 
 1348. William de Hawkesworth: election confirmed 20 Dec. 1348: died 
 
 8 April 1349. 
 
 1349. William de Daventre : elected 1349 : died June 1373. 
 1373. John de Colyntre : elected 8 July 1373: died c. 1385. 
 
 1385. [Headship in dispute between Thomas Kirkton and John de 
 
 Middleton.] 
 1387. John de Middleton : confirmed 26 Feb. 1386-7 : died 27 June 1394. 
 1394. John de Maldon : elected 3 July 1394 : died Jan. 1401-2. 
 1402. [Headship in dispute between John Paxton and John Possell.] 
 
 1402. John Possell: died Sept. 1414. 
 
ORIEL COLLEGE. 123 
 
 1414. [John Rote : elected and confirmed 17 Nov. 1414, but resigned 
 
 liis claim 14 Feb. 1414-15.] 
 
 1415. William Corffe: confirmed 16 March 1414-15: died about Sept. 
 
 1417. 
 1417. [Headship in dispute between Richard Garsdale and Thomas 
 
 Leyntwardyn.] 
 
 1419. Thomas Leyntwardyn : died 1421. 
 
 1421. Henry Kayle : confirmed 3 Dec. 1421 : died 1422. 
 
 1422. [Headship in dispute between Nicholas Herry and another.] 
 
 1426. Nicholas Herry: first decision in his favour given 30 July 1424: 
 
 final decision given 29 Jan. 1425-6 : died 1427. 
 
 1427. John Carpenter : resigned 1435. 
 
 1435. Walter Lyhert : elected 3 June 1435 : resigned 28 Feb. 1445-6. 
 
 1446. John Hals : elected 24 March 1445-6 : resigned 4 March 1448-9. 
 
 1449. Henry Sampson : resigned 1475. 
 
 1475. Thomas Hawkyns : elected Nov. 1475 : died Feb. 1477-8. 
 
 1478. John Taylor : elected 8 Feb. 1477-8 : died 23 Dec. 1492. 
 
 1493. Thomas Cornysh : elected 5 Feb. 1492-3 : resigned 26 Oct. 1507. 
 
 1507. Edmund Wylsford : elected 30 Oct. 1507: died 3 Oct. 1516. 
 
 1516. James More : elected 14 Oct, 1516 : resigned 12 Nov. 1530. 
 
 1530. Thomas Ware : elected 16 Nov. 1530 : resigned 6 Dec. 1538. 
 
 1538. Henry Mynne: elected 6 Dec. 1538 : died 13 Oct. 1540. 
 
 1540. William Haynes : elected 18 Oct. 1540 : resigned 17 June 1550. 
 
 1550. John Smyth : elected 17 June 1550 : resigned 2 March 1564-5. 
 
 1565. Roger Marbeck : elected 9 March 1564-5: resigned 24 June 1566. 
 
 1566. John Belly : elected 25 June 1566 : resigned 3 Feb. 1573-4. 
 1574. Antony Blencowe: elected 10 Feb. 1573-4: died 25 Jan. 1617-18. 
 1618. William Lewis : elected 28 March 1618 : resigned 29 June 1621. 
 1621. John Tolson : elected 5 July 1621 : died 16 Dec. 1644. 
 
 1644. John Saunders : elected 19 Dec. 1644 : died 20 March 1652-3. 
 
 1653. Robert Say : elected 23 March 1652-3 : died 24 Nov. 1691. 
 
 1691. George Royse : elected 1 Dec. 1691 : died 23 April 1708. 
 
 1708. George Carter: elected 6 May 1708 : died 30 Sept. 1727. 
 
 1727. Walter Hodges : elected 24 Oct. 1727 : died 14 Jan. 1757. 
 
 1757. Chardin Musgrave : elected 27 Jan. 1757 : died 29 Jan. 1768. 
 
 1768. John Clarke : elected 12 Feb. 1768 : died 21 Nov. 1781. 
 
 1781. John Eveleigh : elected 5 Dec. 1781 : died 10 Dec. 1814. 
 
 1814. Edward Copleston : elected 22 Dec. 1814 : resigned 29 Jan. 1828. 
 
 1828. Edward Hawkins: elected 31 Jan. 1828: died 18 Nov. 1882. 
 
 1882. David Binning Monro : elected 20 Dec. 1882. 
 
VI. 
 
 QUEEN'S COLLEGE. 
 
 By J. R. Magrath, D.D., Provost of Queen's. 
 
 It is now just five centuries and a half since Robert of 
 Eglesfield founded " the Hall of the scholars of the Queen " in 
 Oxford. The Royal license for its foundation was sealed in the 
 Tower of London on the eighteenth of January, and the statutes 
 of the founder were corrected, completed and sealed in Oxford 
 on the tenth of February in the year 1340 as men then reckoned, 
 or as we should say 1841. 
 
 Eglesfield was chaplain and confessor to Philippa, Queen of 
 Edward III. He came of gentle blood in Cumberland, and had 
 ten years before received from the King the hamlet and manor of 
 Raven wj^k or Renwick, forfeited through rebellion by Andrew of 
 Harcla. This and the property he had purchased in Oxford as 
 a site for his hall was all that Eglesfield was able of himself to 
 contribute to its maintenance. His relations with the Queen 
 and the King were, however, of priceless service to the new 
 foundation. 
 
 Eglesfield seems to have continued for the remainder of his 
 life to have fostered by his presence and influence the institution 
 he had founded. In the earliest of the " Long Rolls," or yearly 
 accounts of the College, which are preserved, that of 1347-8, his 
 name appears at the head of the list of the members. In that 
 year sixteen pence is paid for the hire of a horse for six days, 
 that he may visit London on the Thursday after the feast of 
 
QUEEN'S COLLEGE. 125 
 
 St. Augustine, bishop of the English ; twenty-three shilHngs 
 is paid for a horse for him to go to Southampton about the 
 time of the festival of St. Peter ad vincula; William of 
 Hawkesworth, Provost of Oriel, a former Fellow, lends him 
 a horse, and a penny is put down for a shoe for the same, and 
 a halfpenny for parchment bought for him for documents 
 executed on the feast of Saints Cosmo and Damian. 
 
 His funeral is celebrated in 1351-2. They made a "great 
 burning for him," as of seventeen and a quarter pounds of wax, 
 costing nine shillings, expended during the year, eleven pounds 
 were used at the funeral of the founder. Fourpence halfpenny 
 only seems to have been spent on wine on the same occasion. 
 
 A casket containing his remains was transferred from the old 
 chapel to the vault under the new chapel when the latter was 
 built. 
 
 His horn is still used on gaudy-days as the loving-cup. It 
 must have been mounted in something like its present condition 
 almost from the beginning, as in the Long E-oll of 1416-7 sixteen 
 pence is paid "pro emendatione aquilae crateris fundatoris.'* 
 Other repairs are mentioned later as in 1584-5, "pro reparatione 
 particulae coronae quae circumdat operculum cornu xii d. ; item, 
 pro reparandis aliis partibus cornu xviii d." 
 
 His name is also kept alive by the "canting*' custom observed 
 in the College on New Year's Day, when after dinner the Bursar 
 presents to each guest a needle threaded with silk of a colour 
 suitable to his faculty {aiguille et fil), and prays for his prosperity 
 in the words " Take this and be thrifty." ^ 
 
 The object with which the College was founded is set forth 
 in the statutes as " the cultivation of Theology to the glory of 
 God, the advance of the Church, and the salvation of souls." 
 It was to be a Collegiate Hall of Masters, Chaplains, Theologians, 
 and other scholars to be advanced to the order of the priesthood. 
 It was founded in the name of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, 
 to the Glory of our Lord and of His Mother and of the whole 
 Court of Heaven, for the benefit of the Universal Church and 
 
 1 /. e. take this, and prosper. To " grow thrifty " in the sense of to 
 thrive seems to have been used in America as late as 1851. (Dr. Smith's 
 Latin Dictionary, preface, p. vii.) 
 
126 QUEEN'S COLLEGE. 
 
 especially of the Church of England, for the prosperity of the 
 King and Queen and their children, and for the salvation of their 
 souls and the souls of their progenitors and successors, and of the 
 souls of the founder's family and his benefactors, especially 
 William of Muskham, Rector of the Church of Dereham, and for 
 the " salutare suffragimn " of all the living and the dead. 
 
 The benefactions of Muskham do not seem to have ceased with 
 the foundation of the College. In 1347 Roger Swynbrok goes to 
 Dereham on behalf of the College to get money from Muskham, 
 and the hire of his horse costs eightpence, and there are entries 
 of money received from Muskham in later years. Other persons 
 besides the members of the College were interested in him, as in 
 1362 the oblations for his soul and the soul of John de Hotham 
 the second Provost amounted to £29 16s. ll^d. 
 
 The statutes lay down with considerable minuteness of detail 
 the course of life which Eglesfield expected the men^bers of his 
 foundation to follow, and, in connection with the early accounts 
 of the College, which have been preserved with tolerable com- 
 pleteness, give us some materials for an account of the social 
 life in the College during the earlier portion of its history. 
 
 It is probable, indeed, that the large and complex establish- 
 ment, whose details are developed in Eglesfield's statutes, rather 
 represent what he wished for and aimed at than the actual 
 condition of the College at any time ; but there seems to have 
 been always in the College a sincere desire to carry out, so far 
 as was possible, the prescriptions of the founder; and, as we 
 shall see, some of his minutest directions have regulated the 
 practice of the College ever since his days. 
 
 The patronage of the Hall, " the advowson" as he calls it, was 
 to be vested in his Royal mistress Philippa, and in the Queens 
 consort of England who shall succeed her. He adds the 
 characteristic detail that, if a king dies before his successor is 
 married, the patronage shall be continued to the widow till a 
 Queen consort comes into being. 
 
 Philippa had already procured from her husband for the infant 
 College the Church of Brough under Staynesmore, and this 
 was to be only an earnest of the benefits the College was to 
 derive from the lofty patronage the founder thus secured to it. 
 
QUEEN'S COLLEGE. 127 
 
 She was the first queen to be distinguished as patroness and 
 foundress of a Collegiate Hall. 
 
 In 1853-4, which seems to have been a year of unusual 
 expense to the College, among the donations received xxvj 
 pounds iiij shillings is credited to " domina Regina." 
 
 It was doubtless through the Queen's influence that the King 
 in 1343 endowed .the College with the advowson of Bletchingdon, 
 and in the following year with the Wardenship of St. Julian's 
 Hospital, commonly called God's House, in Southampton. 
 
 The College seems always to have been careful to secure the 
 patronage of the Queens consort of England. In the muniment 
 room is preserved a letter from Anne, Richard II.'s queen, 
 to her husband, asking him to grant letters patent to the 
 College. 
 
 In 1603, on the 3rd of August, 48s. Qd. is allowed to the 
 Provost for his journey " ad solicitandam dominam reginam pro 
 patronatu collegii." This was another Anne, James I.'s wife. A 
 bible was presented to the Queen which cost 428. 4d. 
 
 It was through Henrietta Maria — Queen Mary, as the 
 College delights to call her — ^that Charles I. was supplicated for 
 the advowsons in Hampshire given by the King to the College 
 in 1626. Caroline, George II.'s queen, gave £1000 towards the 
 rebuilding of the College in the eighteenth century ; and promised 
 another £1000, which, owing to her death, still (as the Bene- 
 factors' Book says) remains "unpaid but not unhoped for.'* 
 Charlotte, George III.'s consort, heads the list of those who 
 subscribed towards the rebuilding of the south-west wing after 
 the fire of 1778. Queen Adelaide was the last queen entertained 
 within the walls of the College. 
 
 The community was to consist of a Provost and twelve 
 Fellows, incorporated under the name of "the Hall of the 
 Queen in Oxford," with a common seal. 
 
 The original body was nominated by the founder, and their 
 names are set forth in his statutes. 
 
 The number thirteen was chosen with reference to the number 
 of our Lord and His Apostles, " sub mysterio decursus Christi et 
 Apostolorum in terris." 
 
 Richard of Retteford, Doctor of Divinity, was the first 
 
128 QUEEN'S COLLEGE. 
 
 Provost, and the thirteen came from ten different dioceses. 
 Several of them were, or had been, Fellows of Merton; one, 
 a Fellow of Exeter. 
 
 It was some years before the revenues of the College allowed 
 of the maintenance of so large a number of Fellows. The first 
 " long roll " preserved mentions only five persons, including 
 Esclesfield himself, as receivinor a Fellow's allowance ; and eiorht 
 is the largest number of Fellows named in any account up to 
 the end of the century. In the early part of the sixteenth 
 century the numbers rose to about ten, but dwindled again in the 
 disturbed periods about the middle of the century. Twelve 
 Fellows first appear in the Long Roll for 1590 ; and soon after 
 the number was increased to fourteen, at which the number of 
 the Fellows on the original foundation seems to have remained 
 till the first of the two University Commissions of the present 
 century. 
 
 By the ordinance of 1858, the number of Fellows of the 
 Consolidated Foundation was fixed at nineteen ; and by the 
 statutes of 1877, the Fellowships are to be not less in number 
 than fourteen and not more than sixteen. The actual number 
 is fourteen. 
 
 From the earliest times down to the legislation of 1858 the 
 body of Fellows seems to have been recruited from the junior 
 members of the foundation, and ordinarily by seniority. 
 
 It seems to have soon become a rule that no one should be 
 admitted to a Fellowship till he had proceeded to his Master's 
 degree. The University was often appealed to to grant dis- 
 pensations to Queen's men to omit some of the conditions 
 generally required for that degree in order to enable them to 
 be elected Fellows. 
 
 In 1579 some Bachelors were elected .Fellows : "electi socii 
 dum Domini fuere; sed irrita facta est electio: postea vero electi." 
 
 The names given to the different orders of foundationers 
 perhaps deserve a passing notice. The Fellows, as we should 
 call them, were the " Scholares," who, with the " Praepositus," or 
 Provost, constituted the Corporation. They are in the original 
 statutes called indifferently " Scholares " and " Socii." The first 
 name under which other recipients of Eglesfield's bounty 
 
QUEEN'S COLLEGE. 129 
 
 appear is that of " Pueri," or *' Pueri eleemosynarii." By the 
 end of the fourteenth century the name " Servientes " came to 
 be applied to an intermediate order, between the " socii " and 
 the " pueri," recruited from the latter. In 1407, for instance, 
 Bell is a "pauper puer " ; in 1413 Ds. Walter Bell is a 
 " serviens " ; and in 1416 Mr. Walter Bell, who was for 
 the previous Michaelmas Term, and for the first term of the 
 year, still *' serviens " and chaplain, becomes a Fellow. A 
 candidate for the foundation seems to have entered the College 
 as a " pauper puer " ; to have become a " serviens " on taking 
 his Bachelor's degree; and to have been eligible to a Fellowship 
 as soon as he had proceeded to the degree of M.A. 
 
 The distinction between the three orders seems to have been 
 maintained, though with some variety in the names given to the 
 orders and some laxity in their application. Chaplains who are 
 Masters are sometimes loosely called "pueri" even as early as 
 the middle of the fifteenth century ; and about 1570 the term 
 "servientes" seems to have gone out of use and the name 
 " pueri " to have been transferred to the Bachelors. 
 
 Soon after this a fourth order appears intermediate between 
 the first and second, of " magistri non-socii," or Masters on the 
 foundation. It might often be convenient for a B.A. to proceed 
 to his M.A. degree before a Fellowship was ready for him. 
 The Chaplains were generally appointed from among these 
 Masters. In the University Calendar of 1828 there appear as 
 many as nine of these expectants. 
 
 Before the end of the fifteenth century we find the lowest 
 order called "pueri domus," and then "pueri de taberta" or 
 ''taberto" or "tabarto." The first appearance of this famous 
 appellation seems to be in the Long Roll for 1472. The tabard 
 from which the Taberdars, as we now call them, derived their 
 name appears early in the accounts of the College. Under the 
 expenses of the boys in 1364-5 occurs : — 'Item, cissori pro cota 
 Ad. de Spersholt cum capic. tabard, et calig. xii d." 
 
 The livery of the boys seems always to have been a special 
 part of the provision made by the College for them : 25s. 4d is 
 expended in 1407 "in vestura pauperum puerorum"; and when 
 Thomas Eglesfield is promoted in 1416 from Leylonde Hall, 
 
 K 
 
130 QUEEN'S COLLEGE. 
 
 where the College had paid Is. M. for a term's schooling for him to 
 Mr. John Leylande and od. for his batells, the first expenditure 
 on his account as a poor boy of the College is " pro factura togae 
 & tabard, ejusd. xii d." Those who are wise in such matters 
 may be able to calculate the size of the tabard from the datum 
 that eight yards of cloth, at a cost of 14s. 8d., were provided in 1437 
 " pro duobus pueris domus, pro tabard, suis." In 1503, 37s. 4<i. is 
 paid "pro liberatura iiij puerorum domus"; and in 1519, 56s. for 
 the same for six boys. 
 
 The College had probably its pattern for the tabard, but no 
 trace of a description of it has yet been discovered. The word 
 seems, from Ducange, to have been used for almost every sort of 
 upper garment, from the long tabard worn by the Priests of the 
 Hospital of Elsingspittal with tunic, supertunic and hood, to the 
 round mantles or tabards of moderate length permitted by the 
 council of Buda to be worn by Prelates, and the " renones," or 
 capes coming down to the reins, which the French call '" tabart." 
 It seems now to be only applied to the herald's coat. 
 
 The four orders in their latest manifestation previous to the 
 legislation of 1858 were — 1, Fellows ; 2, Masters of Arts on th*e 
 Foundation; 3, Taberdars or Bachelors of Arts on the Foun- 
 dation ; 4, Probationary Scholars, who were undergraduates. 
 Under the subsequent arrangements the name Taberdar has been 
 reserved for the eight senior open scholars. 
 
 The Provost was required by Eglesfield to be of mature 
 character, in Holy Orders, a good manager, and he was to be' 
 elected for life. He was to be elected by the Fellows, and admit 
 Fellows who had been elected ; to devote himself to the rule and 
 care of the College, and to the administration of its property. 
 He was to see to the collection of the debts of the College, going 
 to law if necessary on behalf of its rights and privileges, and to 
 study in all respects to promote the advantage and enlargement 
 of the Hall by obtaining such influence over Royal and other 
 persons as he might be able to secure. 
 
 The provision that the Provost should be in Holy Orders 
 seems only once to have been violated. Roger Whelpdale (1404), 
 indeed, seems only to have received priest's orders after his elec- 
 tion ; but in the person of Thomas Francis all precedents were 
 
QUEEN'S COLLEG 
 
 violated. He was a Doctor of Medicine, of Christ Church, 
 a native of Chester, and Regius Professor of Medicine ; and was 
 in 1561, it would seem by Royal influence, intruded into the 
 Provostship. Serious disturbances seem to have taken place at 
 his inauguration,^ and in two years he had had enough of it. 
 The irregularity prevailing at the time is evidenced by his 
 otfering in an extant letter to nominate Bernard Gilpin, the 
 Apostle of the North, as his successor.^ The Tudor sovereigns 
 seem in this, as in other matters, to have found it difficult to set 
 limits to their prerogative. Later in Elizabeth's reign, on 
 Henry Robinson's promotion from the Provostship to the 
 Bishopric of Carlisle, his chancellor had to write to the College, 
 8th Oct., 1598, signifying the Queen's pleasure that the election 
 of a Provost in his room " be respited till her Majesty be in- 
 formed whether it belongs to her by prerogative, or to the 
 Fellows, to chuse a successor." 
 
 No fault can be found with the Provosts of the College, as a 
 rule, for want of care of its interests. The names of six occur in 
 the Thanksgiving for the Founder and Benefactors of the 
 College ; and others could prefer a claim to the same distinction. 
 
 Thomas Langton (1487), the first of the six, who was also 
 Fellow of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, where his "Anathema" 
 cup is still to be seen, died Bishop of Winchester, having been 
 nominated just before his death to the Archbishopric of 
 Canterbury. He left memorial legacies both directly to the 
 College, and indirectly to it through a benefaction to God's 
 House at Southampton. Christopher Bainbridge (1506), the 
 next of the Benefactor Provosts, was Cardinal and Archbishop 
 of York, poisoned at Rome by his steward, and buried under a 
 magnificent renaissance monument which now adorns the Church 
 of St. Thomas a Becket in that city. 
 
 A chantry priest was till the Reformation paid £5 6s. 8c?. for 
 celebrating for the souls of these two benefactors in the Church 
 of St. Michael in Bongate near Appleby, the capital of the 
 county in which they were both bom. 
 
 ^ State Papers, Domestic, Elizabeth xvii. p. 67. Letter of Francis and 
 others to Cecill, 11 May, 1561. 
 2 See Carleton's Life of Gilpin, 
 
132 QUEEN'S COLLEGE. 
 
 Henry Robinson (1581), the third on the list, had been 
 Principal of St. Edmund Hall, and died Bishop of Carlisle. His 
 brass in Carlisle Cathedral, of which the College possesses a 
 duplicate, says of his relations with the College, "invenit de- 
 structum, reliquit exstructum et iustructum." The College spent, 
 15th July, 1615, £23 3s. Sd. in celebrating his obsequies, and 
 provided Chr. Potter with a funeral gown and hood to preach his 
 funeral sermon; £10 was paid in 1617 for engraving his monu- 
 ment on copper, and 31s. Qd. for some impressions from the 
 plate. 
 
 Henry Airay (1598), who succeeds Robinson as Provost and 
 Benefactor, the Elisha to Robinson's Elijah, as his brass with 
 much variety of symbolic illustration describss him, in spite of 
 his being "a zealous Calvinist," commends himself to Wood " for 
 his holiness, integrity, learning, grauity, and indefatigable pains 
 in the discharge of his ministerial functions." The College proved 
 his will at a cost of 41s. 8d., and spent £19 16s. 8d. on his funeral, 
 9th July, 1616. 
 
 Timothy Hal ton (1677), the fifth of the Provosts commemorated 
 in the Thanksgiving, built the present spacious library of the 
 College mainly at his own expense. 
 
 William Lancaster (1704), who is sixth, had the chief hand 
 in building the present College. He incurred Hearne's wrath 
 on private grounds and as a *' Whigg," and is abused by him 
 through many volumes of his Collections; but he commended 
 himself to others of his contemporaries, and the favour in which 
 he was held by the Corporation of Oxford was of great service 
 to the College. In the Mayoralty of Thomas Sellar, Esq., 14th 
 Jan., 1709, it was "agreed that the Provost and Scholars of 
 Queen's College shall have a lease of so much ground in the 
 high street leading to East Gate as shall be requisite for making 
 their intended new building there strait and uniform from 
 Michaelmas last for one thousand years at a pepper corn rent, 
 gratis and without fine, in respect of the many civilities and 
 kindnesses from time to time showed unto and conferred upon 
 this city and the principal members thereof by Dr. Lancaster." 
 
 It was by thus obtaining influence over Royal and other per- 
 sons, in conformity with the injunctions of the founder, that 
 
QUEEN'S COLLEGE. 133 
 
 Provosts and other members of the College were enabled to 
 benefit it. The monument to Joseph Smith (1730) which 
 faces one who comes out of the College chapel, seems to pre- 
 serve the memory of an ideal Provost from Eglesfield's point 
 of view and that which continued to be maintained in the 
 College. " Distinguished for his Learning, Eloquence, Politeness 
 of Manners, Piety and Charity, he with great Prudence and 
 judicious Moderation presided over his College to its general 
 Happiness. Its Interests were the constant Object of his Atten- 
 tion. He was himself a good Benefactor to it, and was blest 
 with the Success of obtaining for it by his respectable Influence, 
 several ample Donations to the very great and perpetual Increase 
 of its Establishment." 
 
 Among the " ample donations " obtained by Provost Smith's 
 " respectable influence," the first place belongs to the Hastings 
 foundation. The Lady Elizabeth Hastings, daughter of Theo- 
 philus, seventh Earl of Huntingdon, of whom Steele says in the 
 Tatler, " To love her is a liberal education," bequeathed to the 
 College in 1739 her Manors, Lands, and Hereditaments in Whel- 
 dale in the West Riding of Yorkshire, to found five Exhibitions 
 for five poor scholars that had been educated for two years at one 
 or other of twelve schools in Cumberland, Westmorland, and 
 Yorkshire. Each school was to send a candidate, and the 
 candidates were first to be examined at Abberforth or Aberford 
 in Yorkshire by seven neighbouring clergymen, and the ten best 
 exercises were to be sent to the Provost and Fellows, who were to 
 " choose out of them eight of the best performances which appear 
 the best, which done, the names subscribed to those eight shall be 
 fairly written, each in a distinct paper, and the papers rolled up 
 and put into an Urn or Vase, ... and after being shaken well 
 tos'ether in the Urn shall be drawn out of the same. . . . And 
 those five whose names are first drawn shall to all Intents and 
 Purposes be held duly elected. . . . And though this Method 
 of choosing by Lot may be called by some Superstition or 
 Enthusiasm, yet . .. theadvice was given me by an Orthodox and 
 Pious Prelate of the Church of England as leaving something to 
 Providence." This method of election was observed as late as 
 1859, the Urn or Vase then employed being the Provost's 
 
134 QUEEN'S COLLEGE. 
 
 man-servant's hat. In 1769 the lot not drawn was that of 
 Edward Tatham of Heversham School, afterwards Eector of 
 Lincoln College, probably the most notable person who was ever 
 a candidate for a place on this foundation. A more reasonable 
 provision, that if of the original schools any should so far come 
 to decay as to have no scholar returned by the examiners at 
 Aberford in four successive elections, the College should appoint 
 another school from the same county in its stead, has been of 
 great benefit to the Foundation and to education in the counties. 
 The estate devised has increased in value, coals having been 
 got, which were supposed in Lady Betty's time to be in the 
 estate. Fourteen schools now enjoy the benefits of the Founda- 
 tion, and nearly thirty Exhibitioners of £90 a year each now take 
 the place of the original five Exhibitioners of £28 a year. 
 
 Elaborate regulations were laid down for the election of the 
 Provost, and on one occasion at least the whole course of pro- 
 ceeding had to be gone through.^ In the oath, which was to 
 precede this as almost all other important ceremonies in the 
 College, the Fellows swear that they will elect the most fit and 
 sufficient of the Fellows to the vacancy. 
 
 Disputes have from time to time taken place as to whether a 
 "promoted^ Fellow" during his year of grace is to be regarded 
 as a Fellow for this purpose. At the time of Wm. Lancaster's 
 election (1704) a pamphlet was published in opposition to his 
 claims, but it would seem without any effect on the election. 
 The pamphleteer has to allow that several earlier Provosts, 
 among them Henry Boost, who was also Provost of Eton, and 
 Bishop Langton, had never been Fellows at all. 
 
 The Provost was to receive five marks in addition to the por- 
 tion assigned to each of the Fellows, and this was to be in- 
 creased gradually to forty pounds in case the augmentation of 
 the revenues of the College allowed the number of Fellows pre- 
 scribed in the statutes to increase. He was to receive this fof 
 his ordinary expenses and necessities. The community was to 
 
 ^ On the election of Joseph Browne, who succeeded Provost Smith in 
 1756. See Letters of Raddiffe and James (Oxford Historical Society, ix.), 
 p. xxiii. 
 
 2 I.e. to an ecclesiastical benefice. 
 
QUEEN'S COLLEGE. 135 
 
 defray any expenses incurred in absence on business, or in the 
 entertainment of visitors who might repair to the College in 
 connection with its affairs. — In 1359-60, Adam, the Provost's 
 servant, has his expenses paid for a visit to Southampton to see 
 the condition of God's House while the foreigners were at 
 Winchester. In 1363-4 Henry Whitfield, the Provost, brings in 
 a bill for his expenses on a voyage to the Court of Rome at 
 Avignon on College business connected with the living of 
 Sparsholt in Berks. A century later the Provost is allowed 
 5s. lOd. for his expenses to London in May 1519 to get money 
 for the building of the chapel. In 1600-1 ISd. is paid for a 
 horse sent to fetch the Provost for the election of a principal at 
 St. Edmund Hall. 
 
 The rights of the College in the matter of the appointment of 
 a Principal of that Hall have always been vigorously asserted 
 against the Chancellor of the University, who nominates the 
 Principals of all other public Halls. In 1636, when the Heads of 
 Colleges and Halls were called upon to give their formal sub- 
 mission to Laud's new statutes, Chr. Potter, Coll. Reginse Prse- 
 positus, adds his name "Salvo jure CoUegii praedicti ad Aulam 
 St. Edmundi." The record of the proceedings on the occasion of 
 each election of a Principal has been preserved with a care not 
 usually extended to any but the most solemn of the proceedings 
 of the College. On the 18th December, 1614, Mr. French is 
 paid os. for writing out the agreement made between the 
 University and the College about the election of a Principal of 
 St. Edmund Hall. The agreement, securing the appointment 
 to the College, was made in 1559. Lord Buckhurst (Chancellor 
 from 1591 to 1608) was advised by Lord Chief Justice Walmsley 
 that it was void, but the law officers of the Crown at the time 
 maintained its validity.^ 
 
 The common seal, the jewels, treasure, bulls, charters, writings, 
 statutes, privileges and muniments of the College were to be 
 kept in a chest with three locks, the keys whereof were to be 
 kept by the Provost, the Treasurer, and the " Camerarius." 
 The two last were the technical names for the senior and junior 
 
 1 See State Papers, Domestic, Elizabeth, vol. 271, 49, March, 1601. 
 
136 QUEEN'S COLLEGE. 
 
 Bursars respectively, and were retained in the Long Rolls to a 
 very recent time. 
 
 The Foundation was to be in theory open. Like the Univer- 
 sity, the College was not to close the bosom of its protection to any 
 race or deserving nation ; and the Fellows at the time of election 
 swore not only to put away all hatred, fear, and partiality, and 
 to listen to no requests, but also to act without accepting person 
 or country. The conditions of eligibility were distinguished 
 character, poverty and fitness for studying theology with profit. 
 A preference, however, was to be given to suitable persons who 
 were natives of Cumberland and Westmorland, to which this 
 preference was given on account of their waste state, their unin- 
 habited condition, and the scarcity of letters in them. Within 
 these limits too there was to be a preference for founders' kin. 
 After these a cceteris parihts preference was given to those places 
 wherein the College derived benefit either from ecclesiastical bene- 
 fices, manors, lands or tenements. These limitations soon prac- 
 tically resulted in confining the Foundation to natives of the two 
 counties. They supplied a steady flow of capable persons ; and 
 curiously enough, though so unequal in size and population, in 
 about equal numbers. 
 
 Pressure was from time to time applied to the College to 
 admit into the society persons not duly qualified. In the reign 
 of James I., Robert Murray, a Scot, was thus recommended by a 
 Royal letter; and, though the College declined to elect him, it 
 was thought politic to pay him £20 " ne in iniquam pecuniarum 
 erogationem traheretur collegium." During the time of the 
 usurpation, as a note in the Entrance Book calls it, four Fellows 
 Avere intruded, who were promptly got rid of at the Restoration 
 of Charles II. Thomas Cartwright, who was afterwards 
 *' Tabiter," and eventually Bishop of Chester, and one of the 
 Commissioners for ejecting the President and Fellow^s of Magda- 
 len College, is said to have been put into the College by the 
 Parliamentary Visitors during the same period. 
 
 The claim to preference as founder's kin does not seem to 
 have been often advanced. The Thomas Eglesfield, to the 
 purchase of whose tabard reference is made above,^ seems to 
 
 1 P. 129. 
 
QUEEN'S COLLEGE. 137 
 
 have been grandson of the founder's brother John. At the time 
 of his admission to the College, his father, also called John, 
 seems to have visited the College and taken away with him a 
 son William, who, like Thomas, had been for a term under the 
 instruction of Mr. John Leylonde. This is probably the William 
 who, Avith his wife, brother, and sister-in-law, receives from the 
 College gloves in 1459 to the value of 12|d Leylonde seems 
 to have continued to act as private tutor to Thomas after he 
 joined the College, as xs. is paid in 1418, " Magistro Joh. Ley- 
 londe pro scolagio Tho. Egylsfelde." A Christopher Eglesfield 
 was on the Foundation about the same time. Thomas went 
 through all the stages of promotion. He was " puer," " serviens," 
 Fellow, and eventually Provost, besides holding the University 
 offices of Proctor and Commissary (or Vice-Chancellor). An 
 Anthony Eglesfield was Fellow of the College in 1577. A 
 James Eglesfield belonged to it in 1615, and a George Eglesfield 
 in 1670. A Gawin Eglesfield, who had been taberdar, and was 
 passed over at an election to Fellows in 1632, claimed election 
 as founder's kin, and was backed by the Archbishop of York as 
 visitor. The College successfully resisted the claim ; but on 
 Gawin's acknowledgment that the claim was unfounded, to please 
 the visitor, presented him to the living of Weston in Oxfordshire. 
 The College, however, in another way, has from the beginning 
 '' opened the bosom of its protection " to students whom it was 
 unwilling out of regard to the preferences of the founder to 
 admit to the pecuniary benefits of the Foundation. Whether it 
 was that the buildings contained more rooms than the slowly 
 growing Foundation was able to fill with its own members, or for 
 some other cause, the receipts of the College have always 
 included "pensiones" for "cameras" occupied by non-founda- 
 tioners. The very first Long Roll which has been preserved, 
 that of 1347-8, contains the names of Roger Swynbrok, John 
 Herte, and John Schipton as thus occupying chambers. The 
 word used for the payment has survived in "pensioners," the 
 name given at Cambridge to those whom we call " commoners." 
 The pensioners of tho fourteenth century probably differed 
 in many respects from the commoners of the nineteenth. 
 The founder was in one sense the first commoner of the College. 
 
138 QUEEN'S COLLEGE. 
 
 The Black Prince was perhaps one of the earliest. Dominus 
 ^Nicholas monachus, the monachus Eboracensis who paid two 
 marks " pro magna camera," the monachus de Evesham, Robertas 
 canonicus. The Prior of Derbich, Magister John WicUff, Canoni- 
 cus Randulphus, the Scriptor Slake, Bewforth, if not Bewforth's 
 more celebrated pupil, afterwards Henry V., Raymund, Rector of 
 Hisley, the treasurer of Chichester, and numerous other Magistri 
 whose names appear in this relation were probably rather re- 
 searchers or advanced students than anything more resembling 
 the modern undergraduate. It was not unusual for those who 
 had been Fellows to return to the College after some period of 
 absence from Oxford and from the Foundation. But it is doubt- 
 less in this element that we find the first traces in the College 
 of those who now occupy so prominent a place in any view of 
 modern Oxford. By the time the first lists occur of residents in 
 the Colleges, and before the regularly-kept register of entrances 
 begins, the present system seems to have been in full swing. In 
 course of time it became profitable for the College even to extend 
 its buildings for the accommodation of this kind of student, and 
 the "musaea" or " studies " in the " novum euhicidum " and in 
 the " novu7n aedificium " became a regular source of revenue. 
 
 It was not only through these and other payments that these 
 "commoners" contributed to the well-being of the College. 
 Among its most liberal benefactors some of the foremost have 
 been non-foundationers. So John Michel, in some sense the 
 second founder of the College, like his father and his uncle, who, 
 as he records, " in saeculo rebellionis nunquam satis deflendae 
 sedem quietam per 14 annos hie invenerunt," a commoner of the 
 College, besides other benefactions, left an endowment for eight 
 Fellows, four scholars, and four exhibitioners, merged by the 
 Commissioners of 1858 with the smaller Foundation of Sir 
 Orlando Bridgmari, another commoner, in the original Foundation 
 of Eglesfield. During the hundred years which this Foundation 
 lasted (the first Fellow was elected in 1764, the last in 1861) 
 more than a hundred Fellows elected to enjoy Michel's liberality 
 contributed an independent element which somewhat modified 
 the monotony of the old north-countiy corporation. The Michel 
 Fellows were not members of the governing body, and some 
 
QUEENS COLLEGE. 139 
 
 amusiDg stories are told of the differences insisted on by some of 
 the less genial of the older order. Yet the "Michels" (mali 
 catnliy as the jesting etymology had it) contributed their full 
 share to the gJories of the College. A Lord Chief Baron of the 
 Exchequer, a Chief Justice of Ceylon, a Bishop of St. David's, 
 three Bampton Lecturers, a Bishop of Newfoundland, a Bishop 
 of Ballarat, a Professor of Arabic,^ were only the most prominent 
 among a large number of distinguished men who owed some- 
 thing to Michel's liberality. The value of the Fellowships was 
 small, and the length of tenure limited, and so richer Foundations 
 carried off some of those who had for a while been on this 
 Foundation. So among others Dornford passed in this way 
 through Queen's from Wadham to Oriel, so Basil Jones from 
 Trinity to University, so Tyler and Garbett back again to Oriel 
 and Brasenose from which they came. The College has not been 
 willing to let Michel's name be altogether forgot, and the four 
 junior Fellows in the list are still called Michel Fellows. 
 
 In quite recent times the College has had to thank a com- 
 moner for its latest considerable benefaction, and five scholars 
 will always have occasion to bless the memory of Sir Edward 
 Eepps Jodrell. 
 
 Some of the most characteristic of Eglesfield's injunctions 
 were concerned with the Common Table. In the midst of the 
 table was to sit the Provost or his locum tenens. No one was 
 to sit on the opposite side in any seat or chair, nor to eat on 
 that side either kneeling or standing. If necessary, room was 
 to be found at a side table. 
 
 They were to meet twice in the day for meals at regular 
 hours. They were to be summoned by a " clarion " blown so 
 as to be heard by all the members of the foundation. Among 
 the charges in the accounts for 1452-3 is 2s. M. for the repair 
 of the trumpet. In 1595-7, either for repair or a new one, 
 
 1 Sir Richard Richards, 1776; Sir WiUiain Carpenter Rowe, 1827 
 William Basil Tickell Jones, 1848; Thomas William Lancaster, 1809 
 James Garbett, 1824; Adam Storey Farrar, 1852; Edward Feild, 1825 
 Samuel Thornton, 1859 ; Robert Gaudell, 1845. The dates are of election 
 to Fellowship. Sir William Wifjhtman, Justice of the Court of Queen's 
 Bench, and Henry John Chitty Harper, Metropolitan of New Zealand, were 
 also on this foundation, but never Fellows. 
 
140 QUEEN'S COLLEGE. 
 
 there was paid 85. "pro tuba"; and in 1604-5 "pro tnba et 
 vectura a Lond. et emendatione," 28s. In 1666 a magnificent 
 silver trumpet was presented by Sir Joseph Williamson, one of 
 the most liberal of the benefactors as he was one of the most 
 loyal of the sons of the College, to which he was never weary 
 of expressing his obligations and his affection. By a curious 
 accident his extensive private correspondence has become in- 
 corporated with the Domestic State Papers of the period, and 
 those who are searching for the more secret springs of the public 
 policy of his age have their attention arrested by the details of 
 his familiar relations with his College friends. So too at an 
 earlier time among the State Papers of the reign of James I. 
 are included the Latin verses and orations, the sermon-notes 
 and other occasional papers of a Queen's undergraduate, who 
 was afterwards to be Mr. Secretary Nicholas. And along with 
 these are letters to him from a sister, promising stockings, and 
 asking sympathy for toothache and the mumps; and this three 
 hundred years ago. 
 
 As they sat at table, before them was to be read the Bible by 
 a Chaplain. They were to pay attention to him, and not prevent 
 his being heard by loquacity or shouting. They were to speak 
 at table " modeste," and in French or Latin unless in obedience 
 to the law of politeness to converse with a visitor in his ow^n 
 language, or for some other reasonable cause. Unseemly talk 
 or jesting was to be avoided, and punished if necessary by the 
 Provost. Up to the beginning of the present century it was the 
 practice for the porter to bring at the beginning of dinner a 
 Greek Testament to the Fellow presiding at the High Table 
 who returned it to him indicating a verse, and saying, " Legat 
 (so and so)," naming the scholar of the week. The porter then 
 took the book to the scholar and gave it him, saying, " Legat," 
 and the book after the verse had been read was carried away by 
 the porter. When this custom was abolished does not appear, 
 but Provost Jackson remembered that it prevailed when he 
 came into residence (1808). 
 
 At both meals, at all times of the year, that their garments 
 might conform to the colour of the blood of the Lord, all the 
 Fellows were to wear purple robes, and if Doctors of Theology 
 
QUEEN'S COLLEGE. 141 
 
 or of Decrees, the robes were to be furred with black budo-e 
 The Chaplains were to wear white robes, and the Provost 
 was to see that those of each grade wore robes of uniform 
 colour. 
 
 The Students in Arts^ among the poor boys were to dispute 
 a sophism among themselves once or twice a week, under the 
 guidance of an " artist," ^ ^ho was to look after them, super- 
 intend their disputations, and otherwise supervise their in- 
 struction. The "grammarians"^ were to have " coUationes " 
 before their instructor every day except Sundays and " double 
 feasts." The Clerks of the Chapel were to instruct the poor 
 boys in singing. All the instructors, artists, grammarians and 
 musicians were to be diligent in watching the progress of the 
 students and in instructing them, and were to swear to be so. 
 
 The Students in Theology* were to hold theological 
 disputations every week on Saturday, Friday, or some other 
 convenient day, which were to be superintended by the Provost 
 or his locum tenens, or the senior present at the disputation ; 
 and at these all the theologians except the Provost, who would 
 be very much busied about the affairs of "the Hall," i.e. of the 
 College, were bound to be present unless prevented by some 
 lawful cause. 
 
 The number of scholars was to be increased as the means of 
 the College allowed. A Provost or anybody else who opposed 
 such increase was to be expelled. 
 
 For the maintenance of each scholar a sum of ten marks 
 annually was to be set aside. Of this, at least Is. 6d., and 
 not more than 2s., was to be appropriated to his weekly commons. 
 Anything saved under this head out of 2s. in the week was to 
 be devoted to alms and no other purpose. The remainder of 
 the ten marks was to go to the scholars to provide them 
 with clothes and other necessaries. The Provost was to look 
 to the character of the clothes. If they went far in country or 
 town, they were not to wear simple or double "hoods," but long 
 
 1 Those readin<^ " Logic," termed " sophistae." 
 
 2 ** Artista," a student (here probably a Master) in the faculty of Arts. 
 
 3 Students not yet advanced to the study of Logic. 
 
 * The study of theology began two years after the attainment of the 
 M.A. degree. 
 
142 QUEEN'S COLLEGE. 
 
 "collobia" (frocks, sleeveless or with short sleeves), or other 
 suitable garments; and they were not to go alone. 
 
 An absent Fellow was to forfeit his commons in the long 
 vacation, and the rest of his allowance also at other times, 
 unless he were absent on the business of the Hall. Additional 
 reasons for the enjoyment of commons in absence were sub- 
 sequently approved. Pestilence in Oxford was a common 
 excuse. In 1400-1, Is. 6d. is allowed for the commons of 
 William Warton and Peter de la Mare in time of pestilence. 
 Similarly in 1625-6, £7 4s. is "allowed to the Fellows dispersed 
 in time of pestilence. Equally urgent reasons commended 
 themselves during the reign of Charles I. In 1642 payments 
 are made to Fellows, Chaplains, boys and servants in place of 
 commons, when the College was for seven ^veeks dissolved 
 owing to the advance of the enemy; and this in the same 
 "computus," with seven payments for bonfires on the occasion of 
 seven Eoyalist victories. A Fellow received for each week os., 
 a Chaplain and a boy 2s. 6d, a servant 2s. Three Fellows 
 away in the North got smaller payments during eleven months. 
 
 In order that there might be plenty to give away, the 
 Scholars and Chaplains were to have two courses at meals on 
 ordinary days, and on the five great feasts — Christmas, Easter, 
 "Whitsuntide, the Assumption, and All Saints Day — an extra 
 course with a suitable quantity of wine. Co'urt manners were 
 to be observed at meals and other times. 
 
 How soon the custom of bringing in a boar's head at 
 Christmas began does not appear, nor is the date of the carol 
 sung on the occasion ascertained. Wynkin de Worde's version, 
 which differs in some particulars from that used in the College, 
 was printed as early as 1521. On the 24th December, 1660, 
 £1 10s. is paid "pictori Hawkins caput apri in festo nativitatis 
 adornanti." This suggests that the head was then, as now, 
 " adorned " with banners bearing coats of arms : Richard 
 Hawkins was a heraldic painter resident in Oxford, an intimate 
 of Anthony Wood. 
 
 The expenses of any Fellows sent out of Oxford on College 
 business were to be defrayed by the Community. They were 
 to bring an account of their expenses at the end of the journey. 
 
QUEEN'S COLLEGE. 143 
 
 which was to be audited by the Provost, Treasurer, and 
 Camerarius, who were to disallow them if in their judgment 
 excessive; and if the three auditors could not agree on this 
 point, the judgment of the Provost was to decide. Thus, in 
 1386-7, Mr. Richard Brown the Camerarius and Senior Fellow 
 is repaid 12s. 4>d., his expenses for a journey to Devonshire to 
 get the books bequeathed to the College by Mr. Henry Whitfield, 
 as well as 20d. for the carriage of the said books. Ten years 
 later two and a half marks are paid for Mr. Thomas Burton's 
 expenses in going to the Archbishop of York. In 1411-12 the 
 same Fellow pays a visit on College business to the Roman court. 
 
 If the revenues of the College allowed, thrice in the year, at 
 the end of each term, a portion beyond the commons was to be 
 divided among the Fellows fairly, according to the amount of 
 their residence. On the day of this division the statutes of the 
 College were to be read among themselves by the Provost and 
 scholars, and a solemn mass of the Holy Trinity to be said in 
 the College Chapel, or Parochial Church, " if they got one," for 
 the King, Queen Philippa, the other benefactors of the Hall, 
 and other persons specified in the statutes, and for all the faithful 
 living and dead. After the solemn mass the Provost was to 
 inquire separately of each of the Fellows as to the behaviour of 
 the rest in the matters of obedience to the statutes, honesty of 
 deportment, and progi-ess in study. Special regulations were 
 laid down for the conduct of this inquiry. These regularly 
 recurring inquiries might be supplemented by special inquiries 
 whenever the Provost thought it necessary ; and at the peril of 
 bis soul he was to see that the boys, the chaplains, and the 
 other " mm^s^r^" conducted themselves properly. All accused 
 persons were to be allowed to purge themselves privately, peace- 
 fully, and honestly, but not scandalously or contentiously. No 
 scholar or poor boy was to be expelled except with consent of 
 a majority of the College. The Provost inflicted other punish- 
 ments after taking counsel with one or two of the scholars. 
 
 The Provost was allowed to keep a servant or clerk, to whose 
 maintenance he was to contribute. The other Masters or 
 scholars were prohibited from burdening the community by the 
 introduction of strangers or relatives, and especially of poor 
 
144 QUEEN'S COLLEGE. 
 
 clerks of their own or private servants. This was not to pre- 
 vent hospitality being shown at the expense of the entertainer, 
 in the hall or in his own chamber, to friends, of any rank, from 
 the city or outside, who might come to see one of the com- 
 munity. A visitor on business of the community was to be 
 properly entertained in the hall or Provost's lodging at the 
 common expense. 
 
 Nor did this in later times prevent such services as were 
 rendered by a "fag" at a public school some fifty years ago 
 from being rendered in College for a salary by the poorer 
 students to the richer. So George Fothergill, in 1723, writes 
 home — " My Tutor has given me a gentleman commoner last 
 night, w'^^ I call'd up this morning. So that for calling up I 
 have about 5 pounds per year, viz. 5s. a quarter of each of the 3 
 comoners w'^^ I had before, w^^ comes to 3 pounds a year, & 
 10s. a quarter for this Gent : Com : w'^^ makes up 5 pounds." 
 
 Harriers, hounds, hawks, and other such animals were not to 
 be kept in the Hall or its precincts by any of the scholars. It 
 was not thought fitting that poor men living mainly on alms 
 should c^ive the bread of the sons of men for the docjs to eat, 
 and woe to those who play among the birds of the air. The 
 " extructio pullo]jhylacii" in 1590 would probably not be regarded 
 as a violation of the statute, nor " le henhouse" probably the same 
 building which is referred to a few years later. A caged eagle 
 also seems from time to time to have been kept in the College, 
 in connection with the founder's name and the arms of the 
 College. In 1661, os. ^d. is paid, '^ operculuin fah^icanti ad 
 conchtdendam aquilam domini praepositiy 
 
 The use of musical instruments was prohibited within the 
 College except during the hours of general refreshment, as 
 likely to produce levity and insolence, and to afford occasion cf 
 distraction from study. This of course did not apply to the 
 musical instruments employed in the chapel service. There 
 was an organ in chapel from very early times. In 1436-7 4fZ. is 
 paid among the expenses of the chapel " pro emendatione orga- 
 norum " ; and in 1490-1 " organareparantur." In 1676-7 £1 12s. 
 is paid " famulis domini episcopi Londinensis organuni musicum 
 afFerentibus." This was Bishop Compton, who crowned William 
 
QUEEN'S COLLEGE. 145 
 
 III., and ^vho had teen a gentleman commoner of the College. 
 The present organ, perhaps the largest in Oxford, is mainly due 
 to the skill and liberajity of Leighton George Hayne, D.Mus., 
 and sometime Coryphaeus of the University, who, with the 
 support of the late Archbishop of York, revived the musical 
 service which had for many years been interrupted. 
 
 All sorts of games of dice, chess, and others giving oppor- 
 tunity of losing money, were prohibited, especially dice and 
 other similar games which give occasion for strife and often 
 beggary to the player. An exception was made for such games 
 occasionally played, not in the hall, for recreation only, when it 
 did not interfere with study or divine service. All Chaplains, 
 poor clerks, servants, and other inhabitants of the Hall were 
 bound by this prohibition, and the Provost or his locum tenens 
 were bound on pain of perjury to inflict the penalties which 
 might be necessary to stop these or other infractions of the 
 statutes. When stage plays came into vogue the College followed 
 the fashion. In the accounts of 1572-3, 3s. 8d. is paid " pro 
 fabricatione scenae in aula ad tragicam comoediam narrandam," 
 and 7s. 5d. " in expensis tragicae comediae in natal. Xti." 
 
 The chambers and studies were to be assigned to the scholars 
 by the Provost, who was to assign, except for special reasons, 
 according to seniority. There were to be at least two in each 
 chamber unless the status or pre-eminence of the quality of any 
 of the scholars should require otherwise. The arrangement of 
 rooms adopted in the front quadrangle when the College was 
 rebuilt seems to retain a trace of the old regulations. A large 
 " chamber " with two " studies " recalls the days when John 
 Boast and Henry Ewbank were chamber-fellows or " chums '* in 
 their youth, before the dark time when the younger man was the 
 cause of the elder being butchered alive for exercising his 
 priestly functions in England.^ Nowadays in the rare case of 
 two brothers or intimate friends living together in a set of 
 rooms, the old disposition is reversed, the chamber becomes the 
 joint study, and the two studies the separate bed-chambers. 
 
 Except for urgent cause, or by leave of the Provost or his 
 
 1 See Tobie Matthew's letter to Lord Biirgliley in State Papers, Addenda^ 
 Elizabeth, xxxii. 89, Oct. 16, 1593, and Boast's life in Did. of Nat. Biog. 
 
 L 
 
146 QUEEN'S COLLEGE. 
 
 locum tenens, the scholars were not to have meals except in the 
 hall, and they were to avoid, in accordance with the laws of 
 temperance, expensive and luxurious meals of all kinds, suppers 
 and other eatings and drinkings. The Provost or his locum 
 tenens was to restrain all such excess. 
 
 The scholars were not to pass the night outside the College 
 in the town or its suburbs unless leave had been previously 
 obtained from the Provost, his locum tenens, or the senior in hall ; 
 and the application for leave must specify the cause for which 
 such leave is asked. 
 
 A Fellow, poor cleric, or Chaplain expelled was not to have 
 any remedy against the College by law or otherwise, and wns to 
 renounce any right to such remedy under the obligation of an 
 oath at the time of his admission to the Hall. The Collesre 
 sometimes showed compassion to former Fellows who fell into 
 misfortune : 28th September, 1625, 50s. is paid to Mr. Lancaster 
 formerly a Fellow, now reduced to the depths of misery, and in 
 following years a similar payment is made, the amount being 
 raised later to £4. 
 
 A scholar was to forfeit his emolument by entering religion, 
 by transferring himself to anybody's obedience, by being absent 
 except on College business or by special leave of the Provost 
 for more than the greater half of a full term, or for wilfully 
 neglecting to take the prescribed steps of advancement in study. 
 
 Offences generally were to be tried by the Provost and two 
 assessors, and punished by the Provost with the consent of the 
 scholars. 
 
 The College was to bake its own bread and brew its own beer 
 within the College, by its own servants acting under the super- 
 vision of the steward of the week and of the treasurer's clerk. 
 Every loaf before it was baked was to weigh 4^Qs. Sd. sterling, 
 from whatever market the corn came, and of whatever kind the 
 bread was; and this weight was not to be changed whatever 
 was the price of corn. 
 
 A sum of £40 specially given for this purpose by the founder 
 was always to remain in hand, to be set apart at the beginning 
 of each year, and accounted for at the end as ready-money or 
 floating balance, to be used for buying stores of victuals and 
 
QUEEN'S COLLEGE. 147 
 
 fuel, and not to be employed in part or whole for any other 
 purpose. 
 
 The Scholars were to have a horse-mill of their own to grind 
 tlieir wheat, barley, and other corn within the College, or at 
 least very near thereto, to save the excessive tolls and payments 
 to millers which might otherwise fall upon them. 
 
 With these and similar injunctions the founder launched the 
 College on its voyage across the centuries. Into the details of 
 that voyage there is no further room to go. Whatever affected 
 the history of the country affected the history of the University, 
 and whatever affected the history of the University affected 
 the history of the College. Wy cliff stayed within the College, 
 and Nicholas of Hereford, who translated for him the Old 
 Testament, was a Fellow. Henry Whitfield, Provost, and three 
 Fellows, one of them John of Trevisa, all four west-countrymen, 
 were expelled for Wycliffism. The phases of the Reformation in 
 England are accurately reflected in the College accounts. A 
 Eoyal Commission visits the College in 1545, and Rudd, one of 
 the Fellows, is expelled. Eightpence is paid, " pro vino & orengis 
 commissionariis." Three years later Qs. 2d. is paid, " dolantibus 
 meremium & diripientibus imagines in sacello." The wheel 
 comes round, and in 1555, 9s. is paid, "pro ligatione et cooper- 
 tura unius portiphorii, duorum processionalium, unius missalis, 
 iinius gradalis, unius antiphonarii & unius hymnarii." But the 
 reaction is only temporary, and in 1560 appears 4s. Sd., "pro 
 destruendo altaria." 
 
 The College contributes others besides the Wycliffites and 
 Rudd as victims to the struggles of the times. John Bost is a 
 martyr for Roman Catholicism ; as Michael Hudson later, for 
 the Kinof aofainst the Parliament. Thomas Smith's case is the 
 hai\lest of all ; as, having been turned out of his Fellowship 
 at ^Magdalen for refusing to elect Bishop Parker as President, 
 he is turned out again later on for refusing to take the oath of 
 allegiance to William III. 
 
 The College shared the fortunes of the University in the days 
 of the Stuarts. His Majesty desires the College, 5th Jan., 
 1642-3, to lend him all plate of what kind soever belonging to 
 the College, and promises to see the same repaid after the rate 
 
148 QUEEN'S COLLEGE. 
 
 of 5s. per ounce for white, and 5s. 6d. for gilt plate ; and nine 
 days later Mr. Stannix, thesaurarius, delivers to Sir William 
 Parkhurst for his Majesty's use such a collection of tankards, 
 two-eared potts, white large bowles and lesser bowles, salts and 
 gilt bowles, and spoones and gobletts, as the College shall never 
 see again, 2319 oz. of both sorts, worth in all £591 Is. dd. And 
 then the Provost and scholars, as things grow worse, petition 
 Sir Thomas Glemham that — whereas parcel of the works on 
 the w^est side of Northgate had been assigned to Magdalen and 
 Queen's College jointly, and Queen's College had already per- 
 formed more than in a due proportion would have come to their 
 share, most of them labouring in their own persons by the space 
 of twelve days at the least, while those of Magdalen assisted, 
 some very slenderly and some not at all — that a proportionable 
 part of the work yet unfinish'd may be set forth to themselves 
 in particular apart from Magdalen; and this is ordered to be 
 done. And then the king goes down, and the parliamentary 
 visitors appear; and "This is the answer of mee, Jo. Fisher 
 (Master of Arts and Chaplaine of Queenes Colledge), and which 
 I shall acknowledge is myne : That I cannot without perjury 
 submitt to this visitation, and therefore I will not submitt. Ita 
 est: Jo. Fisher." And John Fisher and others are reported to 
 the Committee of Lords and Commons and lose their places. 
 And George Phillip and James Bedford and William Barksdale 
 and Moses Foxcraft appear in the Register of Fellows as 
 " Intrusi tempore usurpationis, exclusi ad Restaurationem Caroli 
 Secundi." 
 
 And in all these crises, and those which have followed, " sons 
 of Eglesfield" have been called to play their part. Thomas 
 Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln ; Henry Compton, Bishop of London ; 
 Thomas Cartwright, Bishop of Chester; Thomas Lamplugh, 
 Archbishop of York; Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London; 
 William Nicholson, Archbishop of Cashel; Thomas Tanner, 
 Bishop of St. Asaph ; William Van Mildert, Bishop of Durham ; 
 William Thomson, Archbishop of York, among Prelates : John 
 Owen, Dean of Christ Church ; John Mill and Richard Cecil, 
 among Divines : Sir John Davies, Sir Thomas Overbury, 
 William Wycherly, Joseph Addison, Thomas Tick ell, William 
 
QUEEN'S COLLEGE. 149 
 
 Collins, William Mitford, Jeremy Bentham, Francis Jeffrey, 
 among men of letters: Gerard Langbaine, Thomas Hyde, 
 Thomas Hudson, Edward Thwaites, Christopher Rawlinson, 
 Edward Rowe Mores, Thomas Tyrwhitt, among scholars ; 
 Edmund Halley and Henry Highton, among men of science; 
 Sir Edward Nicholas, Sir John Banks, and Sir Joseph William- 
 son, among lawyers and statesmen — are but a selection of the 
 more distinguished of those to whose equipment the College 
 has contributed in a greater or less degree. May those who 
 now and shall hereafter occupy their places avoid their errors 
 and emulate their virtues. 
 
VII. 
 
 NEW COLLEGE. 
 
 By the Rev. Hastings Eashdall, M.A., late Scholar of Xew 
 College, Fellow op Hertford College. 
 
 [A MS. life of Wykeham ascribed to Warden Chaundler, but probably only 
 corrected by him, remains in the possession of the College. The Historica 
 Descriptio complectens vitam ac res gestas Wicami, Londini 1597, is the 
 work of Martyn. There are two scholarly lives of the Founder by Lowth 
 (edit. 2, London 1759) and G. H. Moberly (Winchester 1887), but they 
 give little information about the College. Walcott's Wiiliam of Wyheham 
 and his Colleges (Winchester 1852) is the fullest College history that we 
 possess, but it leaves something to be desired. I have to thank the Warden 
 of New College, the Rev. W. A. Spoouer, and the Rev. H. B. George for 
 several valuable suggestions or corrections.] 
 
 More has been written about the lives of the Oxford College 
 founders than about the institutions which they founded. In 
 some cases the life of a founder properly belongs to the history 
 of his College ; the life of William of Wykeham is part of the 
 history of England. For our present purpose, therefore, it is 
 unnecessary to trace his public and political career; but we 
 cannot appreciate the aim of such an institution as New 
 College without understanding the kind of man in whose brain 
 the scheme originated. 
 /^ William of Wykeham was an ecclesiastic ; but in the Middle 
 Ages that meant something very different from what it means 
 now. " The Church " was a synonym for " the professions." In 
 Northern Europe the Church supplied almost the only oppor- 
 tunity of a civil career to the cadet of a noble house, the sole 
 
NEW COLLEGE. 151 
 
 opportunity of rising to the ambitious plebeian. The servants of 
 the Crown, the diplomatists, the secretaries, advisers, or "clerks" 
 of great nobles, the host of ecclesiastical judges and lawyers, 
 many even of the secular lawyers, the physicians, the architects, 
 sometimes even the astrologers, were ecclesiastics. William of 
 Wykeham rose to eminence as a civil servant of the Crown, and 
 was rewarded in the usual way by ecclesiastical preferment, cul- 
 minating in a bishopric. Such men had usually taken a degree in 
 Canon or Civil Law at the Universities. William of Wykeham is 
 not known to have been a University man; he rose to eminence 
 in the King's Office of Works, and became surveyor at W^indsor 
 Castle, which was half rebuilt under his direction. He was the 
 greatest architect of his day. Afterwards he held a series of 
 political appointments — eventually the Chancellorship. As a 
 politician, he was the champion of the old order of things rudely 
 shaken by the Wycliffite heresy and the political movements 
 with which it was associated ; the leader of the Church, or Con- 
 servative, party ; a moderate and far-sighted man withal, but still 
 a sturdy opponent of reform ; a pious man in the conventional 
 fourteenth-century way, but still a devoted supporter of all the / 
 abuses against which Wyclif had declaimed, as became one who ( 
 was himself the greatest pluralist of his day. 
 
 New College was intended to be another stronghold of the\ 
 old system in Church and State. It was to increase the supply 
 of clergy, which the statutes declare to have been thinned by 
 " pestilences, wars, and the other miseries of the world." Some 
 have seen in these words a special allusion to the Black Death 
 of 1348; but it was more probably a mere flourish of mediaeval 
 rhetoric, or possibly a fashion which had survived from 1348. 
 The general idea of the College was not fundamentally dififerent 
 from that of its predecessors. William of Wykeham, once 
 raised to the splendid See of Winchester, was anxious to do 
 something for the Church ; and the general opinion of the day 
 was that monks were out of date, that the Church herself was 
 rich enough, and that to send capable men to the Universities 
 was the best way to fight heresy, to strengthen the Church 
 system, and to save the donor's soul. 
 
 Wykeham's ultimate purpose in founding his College was 
 
\ 
 
 152 NEW COLLEGE. 
 
 conventional enough ; in the manner of carrying it out there 
 was much that was original. It was, however, rather the greater 
 scale of the whole design than any one original feature that 
 gives an historical appropriateness to the name " New " which 
 has accidentally cleaved to "St. Marie CoUedge of Wynchester " 
 in Oxford. In the number of the scholars, in the liberality of 
 their allowances, in the architectural splendour of the buildings 
 of his College, Wykeham eclipsed all previous Oxford College- 
 founders. In many respects the founder of Queen's had, indeed, 
 aimed as Ingh as Wykeham ; but he had begun to build and 
 was not able to finish ; his Provost and apostolic twelve never 
 grew to the seventy which he contemplated. What Eglesfield 
 designed, Wykeham accomplished. 
 
 The most original feature of Wykeham's design was the con- 
 nection of his College at Oxford with a grammar-school at a 
 distance. The fundamental vice of mediaeval education was the 
 prevalent neglect of grammatical discipline and the absurdly 
 early age at which boys were plunged into the subtleties of 
 Logic and the mysteries of the Latin Aristotle, the very lan- 
 guage of which, unclassical as it was, they could hardly under- 
 stand. Wykeham had no thought of a Renaissance, or of 
 any fundamental change in the educational system of the day ; 
 he was only anxious to remedy a defect which all practical 
 men acknowledged. Boys were still to be taught Latin chiefly 
 that they might read Aristotle, and Peter the Lombard or the 
 Corpus Juris; but they were to learn to walk before they were 
 encouraged to run. 
 
 Hard by his own cathedral, the Bishop erected a College for 
 a Warden, Sub- Warden, ten Fellows, a Head Master, Usher, and 
 seventy scholars, with a proper staff of chaplains and choristers. 
 From this College exclusively were to be selected the seventy 
 scholars of St. Marie Colledge of Wynchester in Oxford ; and 
 no one could be elected before fifteen or after nineteen, except 
 in the case of " Founder's-kin " scholars, who were eligible up to 
 thirty. This implies that the usual age of Wykehamists upon 
 entering the University would be much above the average, since 
 it was quite common for boys to begin their course in Arts at 
 fourteen or earlier. By the erection of his College at Winchester, 
 
NEW COLLEGE. 153 
 
 Wykeham became the founder of the English public-school 
 system. 
 
 The Oxford College consisted of a Warden and seventy " poor 
 clerical scholars," together with ten "stipendiary priests" or 
 chaplains, three stipendiary clerks, and sixteen boy-choristers for 
 the service of the chapel. It entered on a definite existence not 
 later than 1375, the scholars being temporarily lodged in Hart 
 Hall (now Hertford College) and other adjoining houses while 
 the buildings were being completed. The foundation charters 
 were granted in 1379; the foundation-stone laid at 8 a.m. on 
 March 5th, 1379-80 ; on April 14th, 1387, at 9 a.m. the society, 
 " with cross erect, and singing a solemn litany," marched pro- 
 cessionally into the splendid habitation which their Founder 
 had been preparing for them in an unoccupied corner within 
 the walls of the town. 
 
 New College is the first, and still almost the only, College 
 whose extant buildings substantially represent a complete and 
 harmonious design as it presented itself to the founder's eye. 
 The quadrangle of New College may indeed have been the 
 first completed quadrangle in Oxford. In that case we might 
 attribute to the architect Bishop the origination of the type to 
 which later English Colleges have so tenaciously adhered. At 
 any rate completeness is the characteristic feature of Wykeham's 
 buildings ; every want of his scholars was provided for from 
 their academical birth, if need be to the grave. 
 
 Previous Colleges had for the most part occupied the choir of 
 some existing parish church for the solemn services of Sunday 
 and Holy-day ; at most they had a little " oratory " in which a 
 priest or two said mass. With Wykeham the chapel formed an 
 integral part of the original design. In spite of the ravages of 
 Puritan iconoclasm, the chapel has always retained the perfect 
 proportion which it received from its founder's hands. It is 
 now regaining, under the touch of modern restoration, so much 
 of its ancient beauty as the cold taste of the present day will 
 tolerate ; but we shall never see again the blaze of colour on 
 windows and walls, on groined roof and on sculptured image 
 which it presented to its founders eye. Wykeham's design 
 provided not merely for things needful, but for ornament. Not 
 
154 NEW COLLEGE. 
 
 only was the chapel a choir of cathedral magDitude, with tran- 
 sej^ts, though without a nave — henceforth the typical form of the 
 College chapel; there was outside the wall (nowhere else could 
 it have stood so conveniently), the great Bell-tower. There was 
 an ample hall or refectory, the oldest now remaining in Oxford. 
 There were cloisters, round which every Sunday the whole 
 College, in copes and surplices, were to go in procession, " accord- 
 ing to the use of Sarum," and within which members of the 
 College might be buried, by special papal bull, without leave of 
 parish-priest or bishop. There was a tower specially provided 
 over the hall staircase with massive doors of many locks to 
 serve as a muniment-room and treasury. There was a library, 
 stored with books by the founder; and an audit-room on the 
 north side of the east gate. Just outside the main entrance 
 were the brewery and the bake-house. A spacious garden sup- 
 plied the College with vegetables, and perhaps the scholars with 
 room for such exercise as was permitted by the high standard 
 of "clerical" behaviour demanded of Wykeham's tonsured 
 undergraduates. And all remains now substantially as the 
 founder designed it, marred only by the addition (in 1675) of 
 a third story to the front quadrangle, and by the modernization 
 of the windows. 
 
 The religious aim of College-founders is often exaggerated, or 
 at least misapprehended. It is true that all Oxford Colleges, 
 like the University itself, were intended for ecclesiastics. But 
 in the earlier Colleges not even the Head is required to be in 
 Holy, or even in minor, Orders ; nor are students of any rank 
 required to go to church or chapel except on Sundays and 
 holy-days. As time went on, the ecclesiastical character of 
 Colleges is more and more emphasized ; but even then, more is 
 thought of providing for the repose of the founder's soul than 
 of the moral or religious training of his scholars, or the spiritual 
 wants of those to whom they were to minister. Colleges, like 
 monasteries, were largely endowed out of the " impropriated " 
 tithes properly belonging to the parochial churches. But if 
 College Fellows are required to become priests at a certain stage 
 of their career, it is that they may say masses for the founder. 
 If the chapels are provided with a staff of chaplains, it is with 
 
NEW COLLEGE. 155 
 
 the same object. In William of Wykeham's College the eccle- 
 siastical character is at its maximum : Wykeham aimed in fact 
 at erecting a great Collegiate Church and an Academical College 
 in one. The ecclesiastical duties — the masses and canonical 
 hours — were chiefly performed by the hired chaplains. But 
 even the studious part of the community was required to make 
 some return for the founder's liberality by saying certain 
 prayers for him and his royal " benefactors " immediately after 
 rising and before going to bed. They are further required to 
 go to mass daily — it is the first Oxford College where daily 
 chapel is required — and while there (or at some other time) 
 every scholar is to say sixty Paters and fifty Aves in honour of 
 the Viro^in. 
 
 Wykeham was indeed the first College-founder, at Oxford at all 
 events, who conceived the idea of making his College not a mere 
 eleemosynary institution, but a great ecclesiastical corporation, 
 which should vie both in the splendour of its architecture and ' 
 the dignity of its corporate life with the Cathedral chapters 
 and the monastic houses. The earlier Heads had been raised 
 above the scholars or Fellows by the luxury of a single private 
 room : they dined in the common hall with the rest. The 
 Warden of New College was to live, like an abbot, in a house of 
 his own, within the College walls, but with a separate hall, 
 kitchen, and establishment. His salary of £40 was princely by 
 comparison with the 40s., with commons, assigned to the Master 
 of Balliol, or even the forty marks allotted to the Warden of 
 Merton. Instead of the jealous provisions against burdening the 
 College with the entertainment of guests which we meet with in 
 the Paris College-statutes, ample provision is made for the hos- 
 pitable reception of important strangeis by the Warden in his 
 own Hall, or (in his absence) by the Sub- Warden and Fellows in 
 the Great Hall, as they would have been entertained in a Bene- 
 dictine abbey by the abbot or the prior (the Sub- Warden being 
 evidently intended to hold a position analogous to the latter). 
 The Master of Peterhouse in Cambridge was allowed to have a 
 single horse, on the ground that it would be " indecent for him 
 to go afoot, nor could he, without scandal to the College, hire 
 a hack " (conducere hakenys) : the Warden of New College is to 
 
156 NEW COLLEGE. 
 
 have six horses at his disposal, for himself and the "discreet, apt, 
 and circumspect Fellow," with four servants, who attended upon 
 the annual "progress" over the College estates — more than some 
 provincial canons allowed to a cathedral dean. In chapel the 
 Warden was placed on a level with cathredral canons by the 
 permission to wear an amice de grisio (vair or ermine). 
 
 The " commons," or weekly allowance of a Fellow, was to be 
 a shilling iu times of plenty, which might rise in times of scarcity 
 to 16d, or when the bushel of corn should be at 25., to ISd. 
 But though the College allowances were equal, the money was 
 expended by the officers for the Fellows, and not by the Fellows 
 themselves ; and it was expressly provided that the quality of 
 the victuals supplied should vary with " degree, merit and 
 labour." The Sub- Warden and Doctors of superior Faculties sat 
 at the High Table, to which also might be admitted Bachelors 
 of Theology in defect of sufficient Doctors; their plates or 
 courses [fercula) might not exceed four. But when the Warden 
 dined in Hall (which he was only privileged to do on certain 
 great festivals), he was to sit in the middle of the table and to 
 be "served alone," i.e. to have luxuries provided for him in 
 which his neighbours were not to participate. At the side-tables 
 sat the Graduate-Fellows and chaplains ; in the middle of the 
 Hall, the probationers and other juniors. During meals the 
 Bible was read, and silence required. As to the hours of meals 
 it may be observed (though the statutes are silent on this head) 
 that the usual hour for dinner was 10 a.m., and supper was at 
 5 p.m. There is no trace of breakfast in any mediaeval College 
 till near the beginning of the sixteenth century, when it 
 became usual for men to go to the buttery for a hunk of 
 bread and a pot of beer, which were either consumed at the 
 buttery or taken away — the first meal taken in rooms, and the 
 origin of that tradition of breakfast-parties which is still charac- 
 teristic of University life. But when it is remembered that the 
 day began at five or six, it were a pious opinion that some 
 kind of "hasty snack " at an early hour (such as the jentacidum 
 of a later day) was winked at in the case of weaker brethren. 
 
 Besides the commons every Fellow received an annual " livery," 
 or suit of clothes, suitable to his University rank, but also of 
 
NEW COLLEGE. I57 
 
 uniform cut and colour ; and the rooms were no doubt rudely 
 furnished at the expense of the College. 
 
 A Fellow received no other allowance, unless he was of Foun- 
 der's-kin and poor, or a priest, or an officer, or a tutor, the latter 
 receiving 5s. a year for each pupil. A Fellow in need of such 
 assistance might also have the heavy expenses of graduation, 
 especially of banqueting the Kegents, defrayed by the College. 
 
 In the lower rooms, each of which had four windows and four 
 studies (studiomm loco), four scholars were quartered; in the 
 upper rooms, three. The chaplains and clerks slept in rooms 
 under the Hall, which are now appropriated to the College 
 stores. A senior was placed in each room who was responsible 
 for the diligence and good conduct of the juniors, and was 
 bound to report irregularities to the Warden, Sub- Warden, or 
 Dean, " so that such manner of Fellows and scholars suffering 
 defect in their morals, negligent, or slothful in their studies, 
 may receive competent castigation, correction, and punition." 
 Whether the last terrors of scholastic law are contemplated 
 under the head of " castigation" is not quite clear; but Fellows 
 of all ranks were liable to "subtraction of commons"; and were 
 in that case, perhaps, not able to live upon their neighbours in 
 the convenient manner practised by modern New College men 
 "crossed at the buttery." 
 
 Only a Doctor might have a separate servant ; but all were 
 required to have separate beds, a luxury not altogether a matter 
 of course in the Middle Ages. At Magdalen, for instance, the 
 younger Demies slept two in a bed. 
 
 All kinds of service were to be performed by males ; though a 
 washerwoman might be tolerated (" in defect of a male washer "), 
 provided she were of such " age and condition " as to be above 
 " sinister suspicions." One of the servants was to be specially 
 entrusted with the task of carrying the scholars' books to the 
 public schools. 
 
 The statutes of New College are extraordinarily minute^ 
 and detailed in their disciplinary regulations, being more than 
 three times as long as those of Merton. In their ample pro- 
 hibitory code we may probably see a fair picture of under- 
 graduate life in the Middle Ages, as it was outside the Colleges. 
 
/ 
 
 15S NEW COLLEGE. 
 
 It was the Colleges which gradually broke down the ancient 
 liberty of the boy-undergraduate ; and at last, by the sixteenth 
 century, succeeded in making him a mere school-boy suh virga 
 et ferula. 
 
 One piece of rough mediaeval horse-play which incurs the 
 founder's especial wrath is that '' most vile and horrid sport 
 of shaving beards, which is wont to take place on the night 
 preceding the inception of Masters of Arts." Among the more 
 ordinary pastimes forbidden by the founder are the haunting 
 of taverns and "spectacles," the keeping of dogs, hawks, or 
 ferrets ; the games of chess, hazard, or ball ; and other " noxious, 
 inordinate, or illicit " games, " especially those played for 
 money " ; shooting with " arrows, stones, earth, or other missiles " 
 to the danger of windows and buildings ; the " effusion of wine, 
 beer, or other liquor " (some unpleasant details are added under 
 this head) upon the floor of upper chambers ; " dancing or 
 wrestling or other incautious or inordinate games " in the hall 
 or " perchance in the chapel itself," the reason alleged for this 
 last prohibition being that danger might be done to the 
 sculptured "image of the Holy and Undivided Trinity," and 
 other ornaments on the wall between the chapel and the hall. 
 After this comprehensive list of unlawful amusements, the reader 
 may be inclined to ask, " What recreations did the good bishop 
 allow his scholars ? " Only one seems contemplated by the 
 statutes: the founder's experience of human nature told him that 
 " after bodily refection by the taking of meat and drink, men are 
 made more inclined to scurrilities, base talk, and (what is worse) 
 detraction and strife " ; he accordingly provides that on ordinary 
 days after the loving cup has gone round, there is to be no 
 lingering in hall after dinner or supper (except for the usual 
 "potation" at curfew), but on festivals and other winter- 
 nights, " on which, in honour of God and his Mother, or some 
 other saint," there is a fire in the hall, the Fellows are allowed 
 to indulge in singing or reading " poems, chronicles of the 
 realm, and wonders of the world." 
 
 Such were the modest amusements of the first Wykehamists. 
 How was the bulk of their time passed or meant to be passed ? 
 It must be remembered that Colleges were, in the first instance, 
 
NEW COLLEGE. 159 
 
 not intended for teaching-institutions at all; their members ^ 
 resorted for lectures to the public schools. Wykeham is the\ 
 first Oxford founder who contemplates any instruction being \ 
 given to his scholars in College.^ By his provisions on this 
 head he became the founder of the Oxford tutorial system. 
 Both at Paris and in Oxford, College teaching was destined, in 
 process of time, practically to destroy University teaching in the 
 Faculty of Arts. But the process took place in totally different 
 ways. The form which College-teaching has assumed in Oxford 
 was inaugurated by Wykeham. He, or his academical advisers, 
 saw the unsuitableness of formal lectures in the public schools 
 as a means of teaching mere boys. Hence he provides that for \ 
 the first three years of residence, the scholar was to be placed 
 under the instruction of a tutor (" Iriformator *'), selected from 
 the senior Fellows. By about 1408 the system had so far 
 spread, that the lectures of the public schools were attended \ 
 mainly by Bachelors. 
 
 Let us briefly trace the career of a young Wykehamist 
 newly arrived from Winchester. 
 
 For two years he is a probationary " scholar " ; after that he 
 becomes a full member or " Fellow " of the College. It may 
 be noticed that the New College statutes are the earliest in 
 which the term " Socius," originally applied to the students who 
 live in the same house or hall, begins to be used in a technical 
 way to distinguish the full member of the society (" verus et 
 perpetuus socius") from the mere probationer or chaplain or 
 chorister : it is not till a still later date that the term " scholar " 
 is confined to a Foundation-student who is not a Fellow. 
 
 At the end of the two years, the Fellow, though still an 
 undergraduate, takes his share in the government of the house 
 on such occasions as the election of a Warden. The ordinary 
 administration, however, is in the hands of a certain number of 
 Seniors (varying in different cases). The discipline was mainly 
 in the hands of the Sub- Warden and the five deans — two 
 Artists, a Canonist, a Civilian, and a Theologian — who pre- 
 sided over the disputations of their respective Faculties. But 
 
 1 Except to tlie grammar-boys at Merton, and the "poor boys'' at 
 Queen's. 
 
160 NEW COLLEGE. 
 
 every one was compelled to act as a check upon every one else by 
 means of the three yearly " chapters " or " scrutinies," at which 
 every Fellow was invited and required to reveal anything which 
 he might have observed amiss in the conduct of his brethren 
 since the last " Chapter." Thus, the discipline of the mediaeval 
 Colleo-es, or at least that which their founders 'desired to 
 introduce, was modelled on that of the monastery. 
 y^The lectures which our undergraduate had to attend before 
 his B.A. degree were as follows ^ : — 
 
 loi College : (1) In Grammar, the Barharismus of Donatus ; 
 (2) in Arithmetic, the Computus, i. e. the method of finding 
 Easter, with the Tractahos de ,Sphaera of Joannes de Sacro- 
 bosco; (3) in Logic, the Isagoge of Porphyry, and Aristotle's 
 Sophistici Menchi. 
 
 In the Public Schools : The wdiole Organon of Aristotle, the 
 Sex Frincijna of Gilbert de la Poiree, and the logical writings 
 of Boethius (except Topics, Book lY.). 
 
 Thus during the first four years of his course our undergraduate 
 was occupied mainly with Logic, at first in College, afterwards 
 at the more formal lectures of the Regents in the public 
 schools of the University. This programme would represent a 
 very dry and severe course of study to the modern Honour-man, 
 while it would be simply appalling to the modern Pass-man. 
 The latter will, however, learn wdth relief that in Oxford (unlike 
 other mediaeval Universities) it would appear doubtful whether 
 there was any actual examination for the B.A. degree. Then as 
 now, indeed, the student had to " respond de quaestiooie"; but in 
 the course of his fourth year he would be admitted, as a matter 
 of course, " to lecture upon a book of Aristotle." 
 
 After this he was commonly styled a Bachelor, though he did 
 not become one in strictness till he had gone through a disputa- 
 tion called " Determination." This ordeal had to be passed to 
 the satisfaction of the other Bachelors. How glad would be the 
 modern examinee to throw himself upon the mercy of his fellows ! 
 Before being admitted to determine, the student had indeed to 
 appear before the examiners of Determinants, but it is not cer- 
 
 ^ The following details are from Anstey's Munimenta Academica, pp. 
 241, seqq. 
 
NEW COLLEGE. 161 
 
 tain that these examiners did more than satisfy themselves by 
 the oaths and certificates of the candidates that they had heard 
 the required books : and it is quite clear that when once Deter- 
 mination was passed, no further examination stood between him 
 and the M.A. degree. 
 
 The mediaeval student was not, however, supposed to have 
 completed his education when he had become a Bachelor. To 
 the four years of residence required for a B.A., three more must 
 be added for the Mastership. During this time he attended 
 lectures in "the Seven Arts" and *'the three Philosophies." In 
 tlie Arts his text-books were ^ : — In Grammar, Priscian ; in 
 Rhetoric, Aristotle or Boethius ^ ; in Logic, Aristotle ; in Arith- 
 metic, Boethius ; in Music, Boethius ; in Geometry, Euclid ; and 
 in Astronomy, Ptolemy. Most of the Arts were however very 
 quickly and perfunctorily disposed of. His real work as a Bach- 
 elor lay with the three philosophies, studied exclusively in the 
 Latin translation of Aristotle, the following being the " necessary 
 books " : — In Natural Philosophy, the Physics, or De Anima, or 
 some other of the Physical treatises ; in Moral Philosophy, the 
 Ethics ; and in Metaphysical Philosophy, the Metaphysics. ^ 
 
 Time would fail me to tell of the various disputations in 
 which our student had to figure at various stages of his career ; 
 but disputations, though to the nervous student their terrors must 
 have exceeded those of modern mva, had this advantage, that 
 there was no "plucking" or " ploughing " in the question. A 
 candidate who had done very badly might fail to get the required 
 number of Masters to testify to his competency when he applied 
 for the degree ; and very incapable students, if poor and humbly- 
 born, were probably choked off in this way. It is certain that 
 a large number never took even the B.A. degree. But there 
 is no record of anybody having been formally refused a degree in 
 Arts. And yet the Master's degree in the Middle Ages was in 
 reality what it still is in theory — a license to teach. For a year 
 after admission to his degree, the new M.A. was neccssario regens, 
 and was obliged to give " ordinary lectures " in the public 
 
 1 Anstey's Munimenta Academica, p. 286. 
 
 2 In the fifteenth century Cicero or a classical poet might be substituted. 
 Some otlier alternatives are omitted. 
 
162 NEW COLLEGE. 
 
 schools. After that he was free to enter upon the study of 
 one of the higher Faculties. 
 
 Those who took Theology spent the rest of their academical 
 career in the study of the Bible and " the Sentences " of Peter 
 the Lombard — much more of the Sentences than of the Bible. 
 It took eleven years' study to become a D.D. ; naturally most 
 fifot livinofs and " went down " before that. 
 
 Those who obtained leave to study Law would usually take a 
 degree in Civil Law first, and then proceed to the study of 
 Canon Law, that is to say the Becrdum of Gratian and the 
 Papal Decretals. There were always to be twenty Canonists and 
 Civilians in the House. 
 
 Two scholars alone might take up Medicine, and tw^o Astron- 
 omy or Astrology. Wykeham is the only College-founder who 
 treats Astronomy as a recognized Faculty ; but belief in Astrology 
 was on the increase in fourteenth-century England, and reached 
 its maximum amid the enlightenment of the sixteenth century. 
 
 It is time to allude to the curious *' privilege " which exercised 
 so disastrous an effect upon the New College of two generations 
 ago, the privilege of taking degrees without examination. 
 William of Wykeham is not responsible for this damnosa 
 Tiereditas. Nothing is heard of it till the beginning of the 
 seventeenth century ; and then the University recognized it as 
 having been enjoyed since the earliest days of the College.^ 
 But its origin seems to be as follows. — So far from wishing his 
 scholars to be exempt from the ordinary tests, the Founder 
 peremptorily forbids them to sue for " graces " or dispensations 
 from the residence or other statutable conditions of taking a 
 degree. The grace of congregation was then required only when 
 some of these conditions had not been complied with ; if they 
 had been, the degree was a matter of right. Even in Wyke- 
 ham's time these graces were scandalously common. In course 
 of time the full statutable conditions were so seldom complied 
 with that the grace of congregation came to be asked for as a 
 matter of course : Wykehamists alone, mindful of their founder's 
 injunction, sought no graces. Hence what had been intended as 
 
 1 See Wood's Annals (edit Gutcli), ii. p. 292 ; Ayliffe, ii. p. 316. 
 
NEW COLLEGE. 163 
 
 an exceptional disability came to be regarded as an exceptional 
 privilege ; and when regular examinations were at length intro- 
 duced, it was understood that the mysterious privilege carried 
 with it exemption from this requirement also. Since a fair level 
 of scholarship was secured by the fact that the places in New 
 College were competed for by the boys of a first-rate classical 
 school (although corrupt elections were not unknown), the 
 privilege was not particularly ruinous so long as the examinations 
 continued on the basis of the Laudian statutes. It was only 
 when the Honour Schools were instituted at the beginning of 
 this century that the exclusion of New College men from the 
 Examination-schools shut out the College from the rapid 
 improvement in industry and intellectual vitality which that 
 measure brought with it for the best Oxford Colleges. 
 
 The character of the College during the earlier part of its 
 history was exactly of the kind which the founder designed. 
 In Wykeham's day the Scholastic Philosophy and Theology were 
 already in their decadence. The history of mediaeval thought, 
 so far as Oxford is concerned, ends with that suppression of 
 Wycliffism in 1411, which both Wykeham and his College (though / 
 not quite free from the prevalent Lollardism) had contributed 
 to bring about. New College produced not schoolmen and 
 theologians like Merton, but respectable and successful ecclesi- 
 astics in abundance — foremost among them, Henry Chicheley, 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, the founder of All Souls. It is a 
 characteristic circumstance that a New College man, John 
 Wytenham, was at the head of the Delegacy for condemning 
 Wycliffe's books in 1411, all the other Doctors being monks or 
 friars. 
 
 On the other hand, the one piece of reform which Wykeham ^ 
 did seek to introduce into Oxford bore fruit in due season. New 
 College, the one College which was recruited exclusively from a 
 great classical school, became the home of what may be called 
 the first phase of the Renaissance movement which showed itself 
 in Oxford. It is during the latter part of Thomas Chaundler's 
 Wardenship (1454 — 1475) that traces of this movement become 
 apparent. Chaundler's own style, as is shown by his published 
 letters to Bishop Bekynton of Wells (himself a Wykehamist and 
 
164 NEW COLLEGE. 
 
 benefactor of the College), was more correct than the ordinary 
 "Oxford Latin" of his day; and some time before his death he 
 brouofht into the College as " Prselector " the first Oxford teacher 
 of Greek, the Italian scholar Vitelli, who remained till 1488 or 
 1489.^ The movement made little progress for the next two 
 decades ; but it must have been Vitelli who imparted at least 
 the rudiments of Greek and the desire for further knowledge to 
 William Grocyn, the great Wykehamist with whose name the 
 " Oxford Renaissance " is indissolubly associated. Stanbridge, 
 the Head Master of Magdalen College School, and author of 
 the reformed system of teaching grammar imitated hy Lily 
 at St. Paul's and at other schools, and Archbishop Warham, 
 the patron of Erasmus, deserve mention among New College 
 Humanists. To Warham we owe the panelling which imparts 
 to our Hall much of its peculiar charm. 
 
 But if New College welcomed and fanned the first faint 
 breath of the Renaissance air in Oxford, wherever religion and 
 politics were concerned, she retained that character of rigid and 
 immobile Conservatism which the founder had sought to give it. 
 John London (Warden 1526 — 1542) was foremost in the per- 
 secution of Protestant heretics in Oxford, though afterwards 
 employed in the dirty work of collecting evidence against the 
 Monasteries. One of his victims was Quinley, a Fellow of his 
 own College, whom he starved to death in the College " Steeple." 
 When asked by a friend what he would like to eat, he pathetic- 
 ally exclaimed, " A Warden-pie." His unnatural hunger might 
 have been appeased could he have seen his persecutor doing 
 public penance for adultery, and ending his days a prisoner in 
 the Fleet. The stoutest and most learned opponents of the 
 Reformation were bred in Wykeham's Colleges — the men who 
 were ejected or fled under Edward VI., rose to high preferment 
 under Mary, and became victims again under Elizabeth — men 
 like Harpesfield the ecclesiastical historian, Pits the biblio- 
 grapher, and Nicholas Saunders, the Papal Legate, who 
 organized the Irish Insurrection of 1579. 
 
 Ecclesiastically and politically the Great Rebellion found the 
 
 ^ See Professor Montagu Burrows' deh'ghtful Memoir of Grocyn in the 
 Oxford Historical Society's Collectanea, vol. ii. - 
 
NEW COLLEGE. 165 
 
 College again on the Conservative side. In 1642 the then 
 Warden, Dr. Robert Pincke, as Pro-Yice-Chancellor, took the 
 lead in preparing Oxford to resist the Parliamentary forces. 
 The University train-bands were wont to drill " under his eyes " 
 in the front quadrangle. Dons and undergraduates alike joined 
 the ranks ; among them is especially mentioned the New College 
 D.C.L., Dr. Thomas Read, who trailed a pike. The cloisters 
 were converted into a magazine ; and the New College school- 
 boys, being thus turned out of their usual school, were removed 
 " to the choristers' chamber at the east end of the common hall 
 of the said College : it was then a dark, nasty room, and very 
 unfit for such a purpose, which made the scholars often com- 
 plaine, but in vaine." These are the words of Anthony k Wood, 
 then a little boy of eleven, and a pupil in the school. 
 
 While the school-boys were with difficulty restrained from the 
 novel excitement of watching the drills in the quadrangle, the 
 Warden's severer studies had been no less interrupted. He had 
 been sent by the University to treat with the old New College- 
 man, Lord Say, who was supposed to be in command of the Par- 
 liamentary forces at Aylesbury. Unfortunately for Pincke, Lord 
 Say was not there, and the Parliamentary commander, being 
 without Wykehamical sympathies, sent the Doctor a prisoner 
 to the Gate-house at Westminster. Meanwhile Lord Say had 
 entered Oxford, and immediately proceeded to New College " to 
 search for plate and arms " (no doubt he knew where to look), 
 and even overhauled the papers in the Warden's study. " One 
 of his men broke down the King's picture of alabaster gilt, 
 which stood there ; at which his lordship seemed to be much 
 displeased." It is not very clear how Warden Pincke found his 
 way back to Oxford ; but soon after the Parliamentary triumph, 
 he came to an untimely end by falling down the steps of his 
 own lodo^inors. 
 
 Pincke was evidently a learned as well as an active man, and 
 published a curious collection of Quaestiones in Zogica, Mhica, 
 Physica, et Metaphysica (Oxon. 1640); this is a list of pro- 
 blems with a formidable array of references to authorities, 
 classical, patristic, and scholastic. He found time, even in the 
 busy days of his Vice-Chancellorship, to write a narrative of 
 
166 NEW COLLEGE. 
 
 his proceedings in that office, which was still extant in MS. 
 after the Restoration. The only other Wardens who have left 
 any considerable literary remains are Pincke's predecessor, Lake, 
 afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells, and Shuttleworth (Warden 
 1822 — 1840), afterwards Bishop of Chichester, a sturdy opponent 
 of the Tractarian movement. 
 
 While speaking of New College learning of the early seven- 
 teenth century, we must not pass over Dr. Thomas James, the first 
 Bodley's Librarian, who, besides being a really learned writer 
 on theological subjects, catalogued the MSS. in the libraries of 
 the Colleges of both Universities as well as those under his own 
 charge. 
 
 On the arrival of the Puritan Visitors in 1647, no Colleore 
 gave so much trouble as New College. All but unanimously 
 the members of the foundation declared that it was contrary to 
 their oaths to submit to any Visitor who was an actual (i. e. 
 resident) member of the University, which was the case with 
 the most active Visitors. Only two unconditional, and one 
 qualified submission, are recorded. Forty-nine out of the fifty- 
 three members of the foundation (choir included) then in 
 residence were sentenced to expulsion on March 15th, 1647-8. 
 But it was not till June 6th that four of the worst offenders 
 were ordered to move ; on July 7th the order was extended to 
 seventeen more. On August 1st, 1648, Dr. Stringer, the 
 Warden whom the Fellows had elected in defiance of the 
 Visitors, was removed by Parliament, and in 1649 nineteen 
 more foundationers were " outed." 
 
 It must not be assumed that the Fellows left by the Visitors, 
 or even those put in the place of the ejected Fellows, conformed 
 heartily to the Puritan regime. The bursars appointed by 
 the Commission found the buttery and muniment-room shut 
 against them. George Marshall, the Parliamentarian Warden 
 appointed in 1649, had to complain to the Visitors that the 
 College persisted in remitting the "sconces" imposed by him 
 upon Fellows for absence from the no doubt lengthy Puritan 
 prayers. Moreover, the Visitors, with scrupulous desire to 
 minimize the breach of continuity, elected only Wykehamists 
 into the vacant places, with, indeed, the notable exception of 
 
NEW COLLEGE. 167 
 
 the intruded Warden; and these new Fellows were most of 
 them no doubt either Royalists and Churchmen, or at least men 
 whose Puritan republicanism was of no very bigoted type. 
 Hence we find that Woodward, the Warden freely elected by 
 the College on Marshall's death in 1658, retained his place 
 after the Restoration. Even in 1654 Evelyn found the chapel 
 "in its ancient garb, notwithstanding the scrupulosity of the 
 times." After the Restoration we are not surprised to find that 
 the Royalist majority was strong enough to turn out many of the 
 "godly" minority before the King's Commissioners arrived in 
 Oxford, and to reinstate "the Common Prayer before it was 
 read in other churches." 
 
 Two of "the Seven Bishops" were New College men, the 
 saintly Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, and Turner, Bishop of 
 Ely. One of their Judges, Richard HoUoway, the only one who 
 charged boldly in their favour, had been Fellow of the College 
 till ejected by the Parliamentary Visitors. 
 
 The annals of our University in the eighteenth century are 
 of an inglorious order ; and New College exhibits in an intensified 
 form the characteristic tendencies of Oxford at large. The build- 
 ing of the "new common chamber" (one of the first in Oxford) 
 and of the garden quadrangle, at the end of the seventeenth 
 century (finished 1684), seem to herald the age in which the 
 increase of ease, comfort, and luxury kept pace with the decay 
 of study, education, and learning. The Vimen Quadrifidum 
 of Winchester still indeed kept alive a tradition of classical 
 scholarship which even the possession of an Academic sinecure 
 at eighteen, with total exemption from University examinations 
 and exercises, could not quite extinguish ; but there was a 
 significant proverb about New College men which ran, " golden 
 Scholars, silver Bachelors, , leaden Masters." One of the last 
 men of learning whom New College produced was John Aylitfe, 
 D.C.L., the author of the Past aoid Present State of the University 
 of Oxford (1714), who was expelled the University, deprived of 
 his degree, and compelled to resign his Fellowship for certain 
 " bold and necessary truths " contained in that book, partly of 
 a personal, partly of a political (i. e. Whiggish) character. Per- 
 haps the most respectable and yet characteristic product of New 
 
168 NEW COLLEGE. 
 
 College during the ferrea aetas which succeeded were Robert 
 Lowth, the scholarly antagonist of the slipshod Warburton, and 
 author of the famous lectures On the Poetry of the Hebrews, 
 successively Bishop of St. David's, Oxford and London. 
 
 Towards the close of the century New College harboured a 
 staunch defender of the Church (including some of its abuses), 
 but a staunch assailant of much else in that old regime to 
 which it belonged. Sydney Smith came up from Winchester 
 in 1789, having been Prefect of Hall and third on the roll; 
 but though in the College, he was little of it. It is curious 
 that the most brilliant talker of the century does not seem 
 to have left much reputation behind him in College society. 
 Perhaps his extreme poverty may have something to do 
 with it. 
 
 The other most notable Fellow of New College in the first 
 half of the nineteenth century, Augustus Hare (joint-author of 
 Guesses at Truth), was also an assailant of the abuses among 
 which he was brought up. When acting as "Poser" in the 
 Winchester election of 1829, he had the spirit to resist the 
 claims of certain candidates to^be admitted to one or other of 
 the two Colleges without examination, as "Founder's-kin." At 
 the time there were already twenty-four "Founders" at New 
 College, and fourteen or fifteen at Winchester. His appeal was 
 heard by the Bishop of Winchester as Visitor, with Mr. Justice 
 Patteson and Dr. Lushington as Assessors ; a New College man, 
 Mr. Erie (afterwards Lord Chief Justice), was one of the 
 petitioner's counsel. The case was argued not upon the ground 
 that the claimants' demand was based on fictitious pedigrees 
 (which was probably the fact), but upon the precarious 
 contention that by the Civil and Canon Law the term " con- 
 sanguineus " applies at most only to persons within the tenth 
 generation of descent from a common ancestor, and the appeal 
 was naturally dismissed. 
 
 The era of reform may be said to begin with the voluntary 
 renunciation by New College, in 1834, of its exemption from 
 University examinations. The College still retains, indeed, the 
 right to obtain for its Fellows degrees without " supplication " 
 in congregation; and when a Fellow of New College takes his 
 
NEW COLLEGE. 169 
 
 M.A., the Proctor still says, "Postulat A.B., e Collegio Novo," 
 instead of the ordinary "Supplicat, etc," or (more correctly) 
 omits the name altogether. In spite of the vehement opposi- 
 tion of the College, a more extensive reform was carried out 
 on truly Conservative lines by an Ordinance of the University 
 Commissioners in 1857. The Fellowships were reduced to forty 
 (in 1870 to thirty) ; but the mystic seventy of the original 
 foundation is maintained by the addition in 1866 of ten open 
 scholarships to the thirty which were still reserved for Winchester 
 men. Further, commoners ^ were made eligible for Fellowships 
 as well as scholars. Half the Fellowships are still reserved for 
 Wykehamists, that is, men educated either af Winchester or 
 at New College. The chaplaincies are now reduced to three, 
 and the number of lay choir-men increased. 
 
 Since that beneficent reform, ever since loyally accepted and 
 vigorously carried forward by the Warden and Fellows, the 
 history of the College has been one of continuous material 
 expansion, numerical growth, and academic progress. In 1854 
 the society voluntarily opened its doors to non- Wykehamist 
 commoners, whose increasing numbers soon called for the new 
 buildings, the first block of which was opened in 1873. 
 
 We take our leave of the College with a glance at one or 
 two of the quaint customs which have unfortunately, if inevit- 
 ably, disappeared in the course of the process of modernization. 
 
 Down to 1830, or a little later, the College was summoned to 
 dinner by two choir-boys 2 who, at a stated minute, started from 
 the College gateway, shouting in unison and in lengthened 
 syllables — " Tem-pus est vo-can-di a-manger, O Seigneurs." 
 It was their business to make this sentence last out till they 
 reached with their final note the College kitchen. 
 
 On Ascension Day the College and choir used to go in 
 procession to St. Bartholomew's Hospital (the remains of which 
 may still be seen on the Cowley road a little beyond the 
 new church) where a short service was held, after which they 
 
 ^ A few Gentleman-commoners educated at Winchester had been 
 admitted to the College earlier. Among these, but only for a very short 
 time, was the Sir Henry Wotton who still lives in Izaac Walton's Lives. 
 
 2 G. V. Cox, Recollections of Oxford (1870), p. 60. ^^,,,r^ , - - ■^^..^. 
 
 £ UNIVERSITY I 
 
170 NEW COLLEGE. 
 
 proceeded to the adjoining well (Strowell), heard an Epistle 
 and Gospel, and sang certain songs. 
 
 At the beginning of the present century the College was still 
 waked by the porter striking the door at the bottom of each 
 staircase with a " wakening mallet." Fellows are still summoned 
 to the quarterly College-meetings in this antique fashion. 
 
VIII. 
 
 LINCOLN COLLEGE. 
 
 Br THE Eev. Andrew Clark, M.A., Fellow op Lincoln College. 
 
 Lincoln College, or, in its full and official title, "The 
 College of the Blessed Mary and All Saints, Lincoln, in 
 the University of Oxford," was founded by Richard Fleming, 
 Bishop of Lincoln, in the year 1429, in the eleventh year of his 
 episcopate and one year and one month before his death. 
 
 The founder, a native of Yorkshire, was educated in Oxford, 
 and held the office of Northern (or Junior) Proctor in 1407. He 
 was promoted to a prebendship in York Cathedral in 1415 ; 
 and was raised to the see of Lincoln in 1419. In 1424 Pope 
 Martin V., who held him in great esteem, advanced him to the 
 Archbishopric of York ; but the king (Henry VI.) refused to 
 sanction the nomination ; and Fleming, ejected from York, had 
 some difficulty in getting " translated " back to Lincoln. 
 
 Richard Fleming, as a graduate resident in Oxford, had been 
 noted for his sympathy with the tenets of the Wycliffists ; but 
 in his later years he had come to regard the movement with 
 alarm, foreboding (as his preface to the statutes for his college 
 says) that it was one of those troubles of the latter days which 
 were to vex the Church towards the end of the world. The 
 Wycliffists professed to accept the authority of the Scriptures 
 and to find in them the warrant for their attacks on accepted 
 Church doctrines and institutions. In these same Scriptures, 
 rightly understood and expounded, Fleming believed that the 
 
172 LINCOLN COLLEGE. 
 
 authority of the Church was laid down beyond contradiction. 
 And so, in the bitterness of his repulse from York, which he 
 perhaps attributed to the growing spirit of rebelliousness against 
 the Church, he determined to found (to use his own words) 
 " collegiolum quoddam theologorum " — " a little college of true 
 students in theology who would defend the mysteries of the 
 sacred page against those ignorant laics who profaned with 
 swinish snouts its most holy pearls." 
 
 It is instructive to note the means by which he carried out 
 his purpose. There is a common impression that these pre- 
 Reformation prelates were possessed of great wealth. In some 
 few instances, this was the case, namely, where the prelate had 
 held in plurality several wealthy benefices, or had occupied a 
 rich see for a great number of years, or had inherited a large 
 private fortune ; but in the majority of cases, the bishops were 
 not wealthy men, and from year to year spent the revenues of 
 their sees in works of public munificence or private charity. 
 Every bisbop, however, had partially under his control several 
 of the Church endowments of his diocese, and could divert 
 them, even in perpetuity, to the use of any institution he 
 favoured, so long as they were not alienated from the Church. 
 Accordingly, Fleming proposed, as it seems, to build the College 
 out of his own moneys ; but to provide for its endowment by 
 attaching to it existing ecclesiastical revenues. He therefore 
 obtained the sanction of the king (Henry VI/s charter is dated 
 13th Oct., 1427) and Parliament, the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 the mother-church of Lincoln, the Archdeacon of Oxford, the 
 parishioners of all three parishes, and the Mayor and Corporation 
 of Oxford, to dissolve the three contiguous parish churches of 
 All Saints, St. Mildred, and St. Michael, — all three being in the 
 patronage of the Bishop of Lincoln, — as also the chantry of St. 
 Anne in the church of All Saints, which was in the patronage 
 of the city of Oxford ; and to unite them into a collegiate 
 church or college, which was to be " Lincoln College." 
 
 St. Mildred's was a small parish occupying the present site of 
 Exeter College, and about half of the site of Jesus College; 
 its church was sadly out of repair, and had no funds for its 
 maintenance; and the ordinary parish population had given 
 
LINCOLN COLLEGE. 173 
 
 place to Academical students with their Halls and Schools. 
 Fleming therefore planned to build his college on the site of 
 this church and its churchyard, increasing the area by the 
 purchase, on 4th April, 1430, of Craunford Hall, which stood 
 south of the churchyard, and, on the 20th June, 1430, by the 
 purchase of Little Deep Hall, which stood on the east of the 
 churchyard. The ground-plot so formed is represented by the 
 present outer quadrangle of the College. 
 
 The two churches of All Saints and St. Michael were to 
 provide the endowment of the College. The lands and houses 
 originally belonging to them had already been taken away when 
 they had been reduced from rectories to vicarages, before they 
 came to the patronage of the bishops of Lincoln. Their only 
 revenues now were therefore the offerings in church, the fees at 
 burials, etc., and the petty tithe (called " Sunday pence." being 
 a penny per week from every house of over twenty shillings 
 annual value in the parish, doubled at the four great festivals, 
 viz. Christmas, Easter, Ascension, Whitsuntide).^ These revenues, 
 too^ether with the income of the chantrv of St. Anne, seem to 
 have amounted to about £30 ; and out of them, when the College 
 was founded, £12 was to be paid for the maintenance of divine 
 service in the two churches and the chantry. 
 
 With these revenues Fleming proposed to endow a college 
 consisting of a Warden and seven Fellows, who should, (1) study 
 Theology, the queen and empress of all the faculties (omnium 
 i77iperatrix et domina famdtatum) ; (2) pray for the welfare of 
 the founder during his life and for the health of his soul after 
 his death, as also for the souls of his kindred and of his benefactors 
 and of all faithful deceased. 
 
 Fleming's charter, uniting the churches and erecting the 
 College, is dated 19th Dec, 1429. He did not live to see his 
 
 1 These "Sunday pence" were paid in all Oxford parishes. In 1525 
 payment was disputed ; and in the test case between Lincoln College, as 
 rector of All Saints church, and William Potycarye alias Gierke of All 
 Saints parish, payment was enforced under penalty of " the greater ex- 
 communication." Several tenements in Oxford continue to this day to 
 pay to their parish church quit-rents of 4s. M. representing these old 
 " Sunday pence." Their owners have the satisfaction of knowing that 
 these tenements represent the most ancient holdings in Oxford. 
 
174 LINCOLN COLLEGE. 
 
 project accomplished, for he died suddenly on 25th January, 
 1430-1. 
 
 In what condition was the College when the founder died ? 
 The following points may be noted : — 
 
 (1) The College was founded, and had received its charter of 
 incorporation, together with certain "ordinances" for its govern- 
 ment, which Rotheram says he imitated in framing the 1480 
 statutes ; 
 
 (2) The buildings of the College had been begun, namely, the 
 present tower, with the rooms over the gateway, in which, 
 according to usual custom, the Head of the College was to reside, 
 and control the comings in and goings out of its members ; 
 
 (3) MSS. had been given to the library ; ^ the Catalogue of 
 1474 specifying twenty-five " books " as given by the founder, 
 chiefly theological (among these, Wcdden against Wycliffe), but 
 one or two historical ; 
 
 (4) A small annual revenue had been provided for, but this 
 would probably not become available till the deaths, or cessions, 
 of the vicars of All Saints' and St. Michael's, and the chaplain of 
 St. Anne ; 
 
 (5) A rector (William Chamberleyn) had been named by the 
 founder, but no Fellows ; so that when Chamberleyn died (7th 
 March, 1433-4) Fleming's successor, Bishop William Grey, finding 
 it impossible to supply the vacancy by election, according to 
 Fleming's ordinances, himself nominated (on 7th May, 1434) 
 Dr. John Beke. 
 
 In Beke's rectorship (1434 — 1460) the orphan College found 
 good patrons to carry out the intentions of its deceased founder. 
 
 Before 1437 John Forest, Dean of Wells, built the Hall, the 
 Kitchen, the Library (now the Subrector's room), the Chapel 
 (now the Senior Librar}^), with living rooms above and below 
 the Library and below the Chapel, so that he deservedly was 
 recognized by the College as its " co-founder." 
 
 In 1444 William Finderne, of Childrey, gave a large sum of 
 money towards the buildings, and his estate of Seacourt, a 
 farm at Botley near Oxford ; in return the College was to 
 
 ^ On 13th Dec, 1432, in the time of the first rector, the celebrated Thomas 
 Gascoigne gave twelve MSS. to the library. 
 
LINCOLN COLLEGE. 175 
 
 appoint an additional Fellow (" sacerdos et collega ") to pray for 
 Finderne. 
 
 In 1436, we have evidence of a Rector, seven Fellows, and 
 two Chaplains of Lincoln College. An account-book of 1456 has 
 been preserved, showing the Rector and five Fellows in residence 
 and in receipt of commons. 
 
 Beke resigned in 1460, and was succeeded in Jan. 1460-1 by the 
 third Rector, John Tristrop, who had been resident in College as a 
 Commoner in 1455, and had probably at one time been Fellow. 
 
 In the first year of Tristrop's rectorship the dissolution of the 
 College was threatened. The charter of incorporation had been 
 obtained from Henry VI. ; and now that he had been deposed 
 [on 4th March, 1460-1) by Edward IV., some powerful person 
 seems to have coveted the possessions of the College, and sug- 
 gested that Edward IV. should not grant it a charter, but seize 
 it into his own hands. The College besought the protection of 
 George Nevill, Bishop of Exeter, Lord High Chancellor, himself 
 a graduate of Oxford. By Nevill's influence the College secured 
 from Edward IV., on 23rd Jan., 1461-2, pardon of all offences and 
 release of all amercements incurred by them, and on 9th Feb., 
 1461-2, a charter confirming the College and extending its 
 right to hold lands in mortmain. The reality of the danger and 
 the gratitude of the College for preservation are sufiiciently 
 apparent by the way in which the Rector and Fellows tendered 
 their thanks to Bishop Nevill : although he had given nothing 
 to the College, yet by a solemn instrument, dated 20th Aug., 
 1462, they assigned him the same place in their prayers as the 
 founder himself, " because he had delivered the Collejre from 
 being torn to pieces by dogs and plunderers." 
 
 This danger averted, and confidence in the legal position of the 
 College restored, the stream of benefactions again began to flow. 
 
 In 1463 the College purchased from University College three 
 halls lying next to it in St. Mildred's (now Brasenose) Lane 
 and in Turl Street, thus doubling its original ground-plot. 
 
 In 1464 Bishop Thomas Beckington's executors, out of the 
 monies he had left to be applied by them to charitable uses, 
 gave £200 to build a house for the Rector at the south end of 
 the hall, consisting of a large room on the ground-floor and 
 
176 LIXCOLX COLLEGE. 
 
 another on the first floor (the dining-room and drawing-room of 
 the present Rector's Lodgings), with cellar and attic. On the 
 west front of this building was carved Beckington's rebus ^ — a 
 flomished T, followed by a beacon set in a barrel {i.e. " beacon " 
 — *' tun ") for " T. Beckington " — and his coat of arms, with the 
 rebus, on the east front. 
 
 In 1465 the founder's nephew, Robert Fleming, Dean of 
 Lincoln, gave the library thirty-eight MSS., chiefly of classical 
 Latin authors, comprising Caesar, Cicero, Aulus Gellius, Horace, 
 Juvenal, Livy, Plautus, Quintilian, Sallust, Suetonius, Terence, 
 Virgil. Most of these, along with the old plate of the College, 
 were embezzled by Edward VL's commissioners, under pretence 
 of purging the library of Romanist books. 
 
 Some years afterwards the very existence of the College was 
 a second time brought into danger. The scribe who wrote out 
 the charter of 1461-2 (1 Edward IV.), had done his work in 
 a most slovenly manner, dropping here and there words required 
 by the grammatical structure. Unfortunately for the College, 
 in one important place the words " et successorihus " were 
 omitted ; and some one in authority, fastening on this omission, 
 suggested that the grant was only to the Rector and Fellows for 
 the time being, and on their death or removal would lapse to 
 the Crown. The College appealed, in 1474, for protection to 
 Thomas Rotheram, Bishop of Lincoln and therefore Visitor of 
 the College, and (from May 1474 to April 1475, and again from 
 Sept. 1475) Lord High Chancellor of England. 
 
 The manner of this appeal, as recounted by Subrector Robert 
 Parkinson about 1570, in the College register, is sufficiently 
 dramatic. When Rotheram, in the visitation of his diocese, was 
 at Oxford, the Rector or one of the Fellows of Lincoln College 
 preached before him from the text, Ps. Ixxx. (Ixxxi.), vers. 14, 15, 
 '•' Behold and visit this vine, and complete it which thy right 
 hand hath planted." The preacher described the desolate con- 
 dition of the College, founded by Rotheram's predecessor, 
 
 ^ Mr. Maxwell Lyte, in his History of the University of Oxford, has taken 
 for the original the seventeenth century copy on the soutli side of tlie 
 quadrangle, which was put there by a married Head to cloak his annexation 
 of College rooms. 
 
LINCOLN COLLEGE. 177 
 
 unprotected from the enemies who sought to destroy it ; and his 
 words so moved the bishop that he at once rose up and told the 
 preacher that he would perform his desire.^ 
 
 Rotheram was not slow in fulfilling his promise. To relieve 
 the present necessities of the College he gave, in July 1475, a 
 grant of £4 per annum during his life. Thereafter he com- 
 pleted the front quadrangle by building its southern side ; ^ and 
 he very greatly increased the endowments by impropriating ^ the 
 rectories of Long Combe in Oxfordshire and Twyford in Bucks. 
 He increased the number of Fellowships by five ; but at least 
 three of these had been provided for by earlier benefactors, one 
 by Finderne, one by Forest and Beckington's executors, and one 
 (for the study of Canon Law) by John Crosby, Treasurer of 
 Lincoln Cathedral. 
 
 To secure the legal position of the College, he obtained from 
 Edward IV., 16th June, 1478, a larger charter. In this the 
 king recites his former charter ; mentions the doubt which had 
 arisen by reason of its omitting the words "e^ successorihcs " ; 
 and then sets the position of the College as a perpetua persona for 
 ever at rest. In the same charter the king still further increased 
 the amount of lands which the College might hold in mortmain. 
 
 On 11th Feb., 1479-80, Rotheram provided for the internal 
 government of the College by the giving of a full body of 
 statutes. Rotheram therefore is justly regarded as our restorer 
 and second founder. 
 
 The later years of the fifteenth and the earlier years of the 
 sixteenth centuries increased the estates of the College by four 
 great benefactions. By an agreement with Margaret Parker, 
 widow of William Dagville, a parishioner of AU Saints parish, 
 the College in 1488 (5 Henry VIII.) came into possession of 
 
 1 In memory of this occasion the vine was probably planted which in 
 Loggan's picture (1675) is seen spreading over the west front of the hall ; 
 the successors of which in the chapel quadrangle and the kitchen passage 
 still in sunny years bear plentiful clusters. 
 
 2 Robert Parkinson, ut supra. Rotheram's arms are carved on the north 
 wall of this building. In the herald's certificate of 1674, they are given 
 as "vert, three stags trippant two and one or." They are nowadays 
 generally blazoned wrongly. 
 
 3 The final deed of incorporation is dated 20tli Nov., 1478. 
 
 N 
 
178 LINCOLN COLLEGE. 
 
 considerable property in Oxford,^ which had been bequeathed 
 by Dagville, subject to his widow's Hfe interest, by his will 
 dated 2nd June, 1474, and proved 9th Nov., 1476. In 1508 
 William Smith, Bishop of Lincoln, gave his manors of Senders 
 in Chalgrove in Oxfordshire, and of Elston (or Bushbury) in 
 Staffordshire. In 1518 Edmund Audley, Bishop of Sarum, 
 gave £400, with which lands in Buckinghamshire were bought. 
 And in 1537 Edward Darby, Fellow in 1493, and now Arch- 
 deacon of Stowe, gave a large sum of money, with which lands 
 in Yorkshire were bought. Darby directed that the number of 
 Fellowships should be increased by three, to be nominated by 
 himself in his lifetime (one of the first three whom he nominated 
 as Fellows was Richard Bruarne, afterwards Regius Professor 
 of Hebrew) ; and afterwards, one to be nominated by the Bishop 
 of Lincoln, the other two to be elected by the College. 
 
 In connection with Bishop Smith's benefaction, we may note 
 here the singular fatality which has led the College in succes- 
 sive ages to quarrel with its benefactors. Writing in 1570, Sub- 
 rector Robert Parkinson says, " Bishop Smith would have given 
 to our College all that he afterwards gave to Brasenose (founded 
 by him in 1509) had he agreed with the Rector and Fellows that 
 then were." With Smith's change of plans, part of Darby's 
 benefaction went, for he also founded a Fellowship in Brase- 
 nose. Sir Nathaniel Lloyd was a chief benefactor in the early 
 eighteenth century to All Souls in Oxford, and to Trinity Hall 
 in Cambridge : in three successive drafts of his will he takes the 
 trouble to write, " I gave £500 to Lincoln College, which was 
 not applied as I directed : so no more from me ! " Lord Crewe, 
 our greatest benefactor of modern times, well deserving the title 
 of " our third founder," was almost provoked ^ to recalling his 
 
 1 Among the rest Dagville's Inn (now the Mitre), which was already an 
 ancient inn when Dagville inherited it from his uncle. 
 
 2 The provocation was both wanton and fatuous. On 24th Aug., 1717, 
 Crewe began to execute in his lifetime the provisions of his will, viz. to 
 pay to the Rector £20 per annum, to each of the twelve Fellows and to each 
 of the four Chaplains £10 per annum, to the bible-clerk and eight Scholars 
 together £54 6s. Sd. per annum ; and to each of twelve Exhibitioners 
 founded by him £20 per annum. On the 27th June, 1719, the Rectorship fell 
 vacant ; the Fellows asked Crewe to state who he wished to succeed. He 
 
LINCOLN COLLEGE. 179 
 
 1)enefaction. A quarrel with John Radcliflfe diverted from 
 Lincoln College the munificence which doubled the buildings 
 of University College and provided for the erection of the 
 Radcliffe Library, the Infirmary, and the Observatory. Other 
 instances, both remote and recent, might also be cited. 
 
 Having now brought the history of the endowments of the 
 College to that point where their application within its walls 
 can be conveniently described, it is necessary to leave the annals 
 of the College for a time and consider its organization, as it 
 was arranged for by Rotheram's statutes, modified slightly by 
 subsequent benefactions. 
 
 The College was to consist of (I) the Rector ; (II) Fellows ; 
 (III) Chaplains ; (IV) Commoners ; (V) and Servants. 
 
 (I) To the Rector was, of course, in general terms committed 
 the government of the College and its members. But he was 
 allowed large limits of absence from College ; and he was to be 
 capable of holding any ecclesiastical benefice in conjunction 
 with his rectorship. In the founder's intention, therefore, the 
 headship of the College was to be an office of dignity, and the 
 holder set free from the ordinary routine of college work. It 
 was also to be a reward of past services to the College, because 
 only a Fellow, or ex-Fellow, was eligible for the office. 
 
 (II) The Fellows were to be thirteen in number, counting 
 the Rector as holding a Fellowship; and consequently, when 
 augmented by Darby, sixteen. Provision was made for the 
 increase of their number if the revenues of the College could 
 bear it ; but this provision seems never to have been acted on. 
 The corresponding provision for diminution of the number of 
 Fellowships to eleven, to seven, to five, and even to three, was, 
 however, from time to time had recourse to ; and as a rule, the 
 circumstances of the College have not permitted of the extreme 
 number of Fellowships being filled up.^ 
 
 twice refused ; but on being asked the third time said, *' William Lupton," 
 Fellow since 1698. On 18th July, 1719, the Fellows, by nine votes to three, 
 elected into the Rectorship not Lupton but John Morley 1 
 
 1 In 1537 the full number of Rector, twelve Foundation and three Darby 
 Fellows is found ; again in 1587 ; and again in 1595. In 1606 the Visitor 
 allows the number of Fellows to be twelve only, and thereafter that number 
 is never exceeded. 
 
180 LINCOLN COLLEGE. 
 
 The Fellows were to be elected from graduates of Oxford or 
 Cambridge, born within the counties or dioceses described 
 below; and if not already in priest's orders were to take them 
 immediately they were of age for them. A Bachelor of Arts 
 was not to be elected unless there was no Master of Arts 
 possessed of the proper county or diocese qualification. When, 
 however, Darby in 1537 gave his three additional Fellowships, 
 he recognized the fact that there might be no graduate in the 
 University eligible, and provided that they might be filled up 
 by the election of an undergraduate Fellow ^ either from under- 
 graduates in Oxford, or by taking a boy from some grammar 
 school in Lincoln diocese ; but the person so elected was to 
 have no voice in College business until he had taken his degree. 
 
 Taking the full number of Rector, twelve Foundation Fellows, 
 and three Darby Fellows, the sixteen places on the foundation 
 of Lincoln College were assigned as follows — 
 
 One Fellowship was to be filled up from the diocese of Wells 
 (i. e. county of Somerset), in memory of the benefactions of 
 John Forest, dean, and Thomas Beckington, bishop, of Wells ; 
 but this Fellow was specially excluded from election to the 
 Rectorship or Subrectorship. All the other places were to be 
 apportioned between the dioceses of York and Lincoln. It is 
 not known whether Fleming, himself a native of Yorkshire 
 and bishop of Lincoln, had made any such limitations ; but 
 Rotheram, possessed of the same twofold interest, draws par- 
 ticular attention to the fact that his Colleore is desifjjned to 
 make provision for natives of these two dioceses which had 
 hitherto been neglected by the founders of colleges. Four 
 places were assigned for natives of the county of Lincoln, with 
 a preference to natives of the archdeaconry of Lincoln ; four 
 places were open to natives of the diocese of Lincoln ; two 
 
 ^ Of the three persons nominated by Darby in 1538 as liis first Fellows, 
 two, William Villers (liis kinsman) and Richard Gill, were undergraduates. 
 One nomination of this kind was eminently unsn.ccessful ; Walter Pitts, 
 nominated by the Visitor in 1568 to the Darby Fellowship for Oxfordshire, 
 was removed in 1573 because he had repeatedly failed to get his degree. 
 The Parliamentary Visitors in 1650 put undergraduates into Fellowships in 
 Lincoln College; one of these, John Taverner, in 1652 was fined 13s. 4c?., 
 '* for swearing two oaths, as did appear upon testimony." 
 
LINCOLN COLLEGE. 181 
 
 places were assigned for natives of the county of York, with a 
 preference to natives of the Archdeaconry of York, and within 
 that with a more particular preference to the parish of Rother- 
 hara, in which the second founder was born ; two places were to 
 be open to natives of the diocese of York. Of the Darby Fel- 
 lowships, one was to be for a native of the Archdeaconry of Stowe, 
 one for a native of Leicestershire or Northamptonshire (with 
 a preference to the former), and one for a native of Oxfordshire.^ 
 The next point which we may consider is the duties of the 
 Fellows. These may be classified as follows : — 
 
 (1) They were to be "theologi" (students of theology), with 
 the single exception of the holder of the Fellowship founded by 
 John Crosby for the study of Canon Law. Their orthodoxy was 
 ensured by a very stringent clause directed against heretical 
 opinions : — " if it be proved by two trustworthy witnesses that 
 any Fellow, in public or in private, has favoured heretical tenets, 
 and in particular that pestilent sect, lately sprung up, which 
 assails the sacraments, divers orders and dignities, and property 
 of the Church," the College is to compel him to immediate 
 submission and correction, or else to expel him. 
 
 (2) They were to pray for the souls of founders and benefactors, 
 at the celebration of mass, in bidding-prayers, in the graces in 
 hall, after disputations, and on the anniversaries of their death. 
 This was the chief duty contemplated by all pre-Reformation 
 benefactors. 
 
 (3) They had considerable duties to perform with regard to 
 their four Churches which may be classified thus : — 
 
 (a) As regards spiritualities. Although the ordinary services 
 of the Churches throughout the year were to be discharged by 
 four salaried Chaplains, yet, during Lent, a Fellow of the College 
 was to assist the Chaplain of All Saints in hearing confessions 
 and in other ministerial functions ; another, similarly, to assist 
 
 1 When the number of Fellowships was reduced by treating the three 
 Darby Fellowships not as additional to, but as taking the place of three of, 
 the Foundation Fellowships, the Stowe Fellowship was substituted for one 
 of the Lincoln county Fellowships, the other two for two of the Lincoln 
 diocese Fellowships. With this modification the regulations about counties 
 and dioceses were very faithfully observed in elections to Fellowships, 
 until these limitations were all swept away by the Commission of 1854. 
 
182 LINCOLN CaLLEGE. 
 
 the Chaplain of St. Michael's ; another, to assist the Chaplain 
 at Combe; and the Rector, or a Fellow appointed by him, to 
 assist the Chaplain at Twyford. On all greater festival days, 
 the Eector or his representative (in an amice, if he had one, 
 and if not, in surplice, and the hood of his degree), accompanied 
 by all the Fellows (except one who was to attend as represent- 
 ative of the College at St. Michael's), was to go to service at All 
 Saints.i St. Mildred's Church was to be commemorated on her 
 day (13th July) by a celebration in the College chapel; and the 
 benefaction of John Bucktot by a Fellow going to Ashendon to 
 say mass on St. Matthias day, and that of William Finderne 
 by a similar service in Childrey parish church.^ Sermons in 
 English were to be preached at All Saints on Easter Day and 
 on All Saints Day,^ by the Rector, and on the dedication day of 
 that Church, by one of the Fellows ; and at St. Michael's on 
 Michaelmas Day, by one of the Fellows.* 
 
 (b) As regards temporalities. On the 6th of May a " Rector 
 chori " was to be appointed for All Saints and a " Rector 
 chori" for St. Michael's; their duties were to occupy the 
 Rector's stall in the chancel, and to collect all alms, fees, etc., 
 for the bursar of the College. These duties at Twyford belonged 
 to the Rector of the College, and at Combe were supervised by 
 him. 
 
 (4) As regards the ordinary academical curriculum, the 
 founder's requirements were by no means exacting. 
 
 (a) The College disputations were to be weekly during Term, 
 in Logic and Philosophy on Wednesdays, for those members 
 who had taken B.A. and not yet proceeded to M.A. (there being 
 no undergraduates, according to the founder's scheme) ; and in 
 
 ^ The Visitor (John Williams, who had built the new chapel), in 1631, 
 discontinued this (except the procession on All Saints day). The procession 
 on All Saints day has been discontinued under another Visitor's Order of 
 6th Feb., 1867. 
 
 2 These two services were changed at the Reformation to a sermon ; the 
 appointment of a preacher for this sermon was discontinued about 1750. 
 
 ^ The first of these sermons was assigned to the Rector by statute, the 
 second by custom. 
 
 * The earliest College duty assigned to John Wesley, after his election 
 to a Fellowship at Lincoln, was to preach the St. Michael's sermon on 
 Michaelmas Day 1726. 
 
LINCOLN COLLEGE. 183 
 
 Theology on Fridays, for all members of M.A. standing. Both 
 sets of disputations were to cease during Lent, when the Fellows 
 were engaged in their ministerial duties. 
 
 (b) Fellows, elected as B.A., were to proceed to M.A. as soon 
 as possible ; Fellows were to take B.D. (or B. Can. L. in case of 
 the Canonist Fellow) within nine years from M.A. ; and, unless 
 the College approved of an excuse, to proceed to D.D. (or D. 
 Can. L.) within six years later. The last of these provisions, 
 however, was practically a dead letter, for the College never 
 forced any Fellow to the expensive dignity of the Doctorate. 
 
 (5) Study, however, as distinct from formal academical 
 exercises, was inculcated as a virtue both by persuasions and 
 punishments. The Subrector was charged to rebuke Fellows 
 not merely for offences against morality and decorum, but for 
 being neglectful of books; and unless the Fellows so ad- 
 monished submitted and mended their ways, they were to be 
 expelled. 
 
 The founder and later benefactors, as has been from time to 
 time noted, made gifts of " books " (^. e. MSS.) for the use of the 
 Fellows; and John Forest built a library for their reception. 
 According to Rotheram's statutes, two classes of books were to 
 be recognized — 
 
 (a) Those which were to be chained in the library, and 
 which the reader had therefore to consult there. According to 
 the Catalogue of 1474, this library then contained 135 MSS., 
 arranged on seven desks. 
 
 (b) Those which were to be considered as "in the common 
 choice " of the Rector and Fellows. On each 6th November a 
 list of these was to be made out ; the Rector was to choose one, 
 and after him the Fellows one each, according to their seniority,^ 
 and so on till the books were all taken out; thereafter, the 
 Fellows were to take the books to their own rooms, depositing 
 a bond for their safe custody and return. In 1476 there were 
 35 books in this "lending library," different from the 135 
 above-mentioned. A record is also found of the books (18 in 
 number) thus borrowed by the Fellows in 1595 and (17 in 
 
 1 B.A. Fellows might not have theological works, but only works in 
 philosophy and logic. 
 
184 LINCOLN COLLEGE. 
 
 number) in 1596; among them are two copies of Augustine 
 Be civitate Dei, and one of Servius In Virgilium. 
 
 (6) The Fellows had to take their share in the ordinary 
 routine of College business, especially in the two chief meetings 
 on 6th May and 6th November, called " chapters " (capitula), 
 and to serve when called upon in the College offices. These 
 were three in number, all held for one year only. 
 
 (a) The Subrector was charged with the general management 
 of the College during the Rector's absence, the supervision of 
 the conduct of the Fellows and commoners, the presiding over 
 disputations, and the writing of all letters on College business. 
 The emblem of his office was a whip, which, with his alterna- 
 tive title (Subrector sive Corrector i), is eloquent as to his 
 original duty of correcting faults of conduct by corporal punish- 
 ment. This scourge of four tails, made of plaited cord after the 
 old fashion, is still extant and perfect, is solemnly laid down by 
 the Subrector at the conclusion of his term of office, and 
 restored to him next day on his re-election. It has been 
 coveted for the Pitt-Rivers anthropological museum, as a genuine 
 example of the " flagellum " of mediaeval discipline. 
 
 (b) The Bursar (thesaurarius) was charged with the duties of 
 paying bills, collecting rents, and keeping accounts ; of seeing 
 that commons were duly and sufficiently supplied ; and of 
 governing the College servants (over whom he had the power, 
 with the consent of the Rector, of appointment and dismissal). 
 
 (c) The Key-keeper {claviger) was to keep one of the three 
 keys with which the Treasury was locked, and one of the three 
 keys of the chest in the Treasury which contained the College 
 money, the other keys of these sets being in the charge of the 
 Rector and Subrector. This "chest of three keys" corresponds 
 to the balance to the credit of the College at its bankers and 
 its investments in the public stocks; in it were placed any 
 surplus money or donations to meet sudden calls for payment 
 or to wait investment ; and the idea of appointing a key-keeper 
 was that the chest might never be approached by any person 
 
 ^ Rectors, suffering under the despotism of too efficient Snbrectors, have 
 accused this officer of mis-spelling his alternative title and regarding 
 himself as Co-recUyr^ 
 
LINCOLN COLLEGE. 185 
 
 at random or singly, but always by responsible ofiBcers, protected 
 against themselves by the presence of others. 
 
 (7) The Fellows were strictly required to reside in Oxford 
 and within College. During the Long Vacation they might be 
 absent from College for six weeks ; at other times not for more 
 than two days, without special leave : the Rector and Subrector 
 had, however, general directions given them in the statutes 
 not to be niggardly in granting leave in cases where the presence 
 of the applicant was required by no College duties. 
 
 On several occasions of the visitation of the city by the 
 plague, this requirement of residence was relaxed; and the 
 Fellows were permitted to have all their allowances if they lived 
 in common at some place near Oxford. Thus, in the pestilence 
 of 1535, commons were allowed to the Rector, Subrector, and 
 five Fellows in residence at Launton, for a fortnight in some 
 cases, for a month in others; and in that of 1538, commons 
 were allowed to the Rector, Subrector, and twelve Fellows in 
 residence at Gosford (near Kidlington), during a period of no 
 less than fifteen weeks. 
 
 During Elizabeth's reign, leaves of absence become frequent 
 and continuous, and are practically equivalent to non-residence. 
 The Fellows in this reign, and later, developed a bad habit of 
 asking for leave when their turn for disputing, or other duties, 
 came round ; and several Visitors' Injunctions are directed 
 against granting leaves unless a substitute has been provided 
 to perform all duties. 
 
 From this statement of the duties of the Fellows, we pass on 
 to discuss their emoluments. These can best be understood if 
 we group them together under separate heads. 
 
 (a.) Commons (communice), the weekly allowance for food 
 at the common table in the hall of the College, and at the 
 regular time of meals. Rotheram provided that in each week 
 there should be allowed for each Fellow in residence (counting 
 the Rector as a Fellow), the sum of sixteen-pence ; fixing the 
 allowance at that amount, and not more, because, as he says, 
 " clerks " should avoid luxury. 
 
 Several festivals of the Church's year were to be honoured 
 by an addition to the ordinary table-allowance. In the weeks 
 
186 LINCOLN COLLEGE. 
 
 in whicli the following Holy-days occurred, the allowance for 
 commons for each Fellow was to be increased by the sum 
 named: — Epiphany (6th Jan.), 4<:Z. ; Purification of Mary (Feb. 
 2nd), 2d. ; Garnis lorivium (Septuagesima Sunday), 2d. ; Annun- 
 ciation of Mary (25th Mar.), 2d. ; Easter, 8d ; Ascension, 4f^. ; 
 Whitsun day, M. ; Corpus Christi, M. ; St. Mildred (13th July), 
 2d.', Assumption of Mary (15th Aug.), 2d.\ Nativity of Mary 
 (8th Sept.), 2d. ; Michaelmas (29th Sept.), 2d. ; dedication of St. 
 Michael's Church (in Oct.), 2d. ; All Saints' Day (1st Nov.), U. ; 
 dedication of All Saints' Church (in Nov.), 4c?. ; Conception of 
 Mary (8th Dec), 2d. ; Christmas, M. 
 
 An incidental, and therefore very striking, indication of the 
 plagues which then infected the country is the care the statutes 
 take to provide for cases of leprosy or other noisome disease. 
 The Fellow so afflicted is to live away from the College, and to 
 receive yearly forty shillings in lieu of all allowances. 
 
 (h) Salary (salarium), payments in money. Rotheram 
 made no grants for these, except to the Rector and the College 
 officers ; but he gave liberty to other benefactors to make them. 
 The first distinct mention of such grants is in 1537, when 
 Edmund Darby directs that 3s. 4id. shall be paid annually to 
 each Fellow, and 6s, Sd. to the Rector. The dividends of the 
 College rents, after payment of all charges, known as *' pro- 
 vision," date no doubt from a very early period, but their history 
 cannot now be traced. 
 
 (c.) Livery (vestura), allowance for clothing. For this also 
 Rotheram made no provision, except to permit it if given 
 by later benefactors. Edmund Audley, Bishop of Sarum, in 
 giving his benefaction in 1518, directed that forty shillings 
 per annum should be allowed p7'o robis to the Rector, and to 
 each of the four senior Fellows. 
 
 (d.) The Fellows in common were entitled to the services of 
 the common servants ; for which see below. 
 
 (e.) The Fellows were entitled to have rooms (camerce) 
 rent-free. These were to be chosen, according to seniority, on 
 the May chapter. About 1600 we find that along with his 
 room, the Fellow received also the attic ("loft," or "cock-loft") 
 over it, into which he might put a tenant from whom he might 
 
LINCOLN COLLEGE. 187 
 
 receive rent. How far this custom had come down from 
 antiquity we have no means of saying. 
 
 (/.) Obits (ohihcs), allowances for being present at Mass on 
 the anniversary-day of a benefactor. A considerable bene- 
 factor invariably made a bargain with the College, that his 
 name should be kept in remembrance, and his soul's health 
 prayed for in a special Mass, yearly on the anniversary of his 
 death, or, if that should clash with some very solemn season of 
 the Church's year, on the nearest convenient day. To insure 
 the presence of the Rector and Fellows, he generally ordered that 
 each Fellow present at the Commemoration Service should receive 
 a stipulated sum, which was called by the same name as the 
 day itself, an " obit." 
 
 The following are the dates of the obits in Lincoln College, 
 and the amount paid to each Fellow ; the Rector as celebrant, 
 receiving in each case double the amount which a Fellow 
 received: — Jan. 10th, Edward Darby, Is.; Jan. 16th, Bishop 
 Beckington, Qd. ; Feb. 23rd, Archdeacon Southam, Is. ; March 
 21st, John Crosby, 8d. ; March 26th, Dean Forest, Is. ; April 
 11th, Cardinal Beaufort, 8d.; May 29th, Rotheram, the second 
 founder. Is. ; Aug. 23rd, Bishop Audley, Is. ; Oct. 10th, Bishop 
 William Smith, Is.; Oct. 29th, William Dagvill, Is.; Nov. 16th, 
 William Bate, 6d. — all of them early benefactors. The obit of 
 the first founder, Fleming, was fixed for Jan. 25th ; but no allow- 
 ances made for it, gratitude alone being strong enough to ensure 
 the attendance of all the Fellows. 
 
 At the Reformation, the celebration of Mass and, consequently, 
 the observance of these anniversary services in the form directed 
 by the statutes, became illegal, and the chapel services ceased. 
 The allowances still continued to be paid to each Fellow who 
 was present in College on the particular day, the test of" presence " 
 being now dining in hall at the ordinary hour of dinner. 
 
 (g.) Pittances (pietantia). Besides the sum given to the 
 Rector and each Fellow on a benefactor's anniversary day, it is 
 sometimes directed that a sum shall be paid to them in common 
 for " a pittance," i. e. as I suppose, to provide a better dinner on 
 that day. Thus Cardinal Beaufort gave a pittance of 3s. 4id. ; 
 Rotheram, one of 2s. ; Edward Darby, one of 3s. id. 
 
188 LINCOLN COLLEGE. 
 
 (III) The Chaplains were four in number. Two were to servo 
 the churches of All Saints and St. Michael in Oxford, one of 
 whom must be of the diocese of York, the other of the diocese 
 of Lincoln. They were to be appointed by the Rector, and 
 to be removed by him when he chose ; and each to receive 
 from the College a stipend of £5 per annum. A third Chaplain 
 was to serve the church of Twyford under the same conditions, 
 except that his stipend was to be paid by the Kector ; a fourth 
 was to serve the church of Combe Longa. 
 
 It was clearly no part of the founder's intention that the 
 chaplaincies should be served by the Fellows : and we find, down 
 to the Civil War and the Commonwealth, instances of Chaplains 
 who were not Fellows. But after the Restoration, when £5 
 per annum no longer represented a reasonable year's income, 
 there was a growing feeling that it was for the honour of the 
 College that the duties of Chaplain of All Saints, St. Michael's, 
 and Combe should be undertaken by Fellows. And so long as 
 there were Fellows in orders enough for the duties, this was 
 done. In the last half century, recognizing the changed cir- 
 cumstances of the times, the College has provided a more 
 adequate endowment for each of its four chaplaincies. 
 
 (IV) The Servants. Rotheram's statutes provided that the 
 Rector and each Fellow should have free of charge his share of 
 the services of the " common " servants (i. e, of the College 
 servants). These were (1) the manciple, whose duty it was to 
 buy in provisions and distribute them in College ; (2) the cook ; 
 (3) the barber ; ^ (4) the laundress. From an account-book of 
 1591, it appears that the salary of the manciple and of the 
 cook was £1 6s. 8d. per annum ; of the barber, 10s.; and of the 
 laundress £2. 
 
 1 The barber's duties were at first to supply the clean shave, the tonsure, 
 and the close crop which became " clerks." In later ages more extravagant 
 fashions in hair added to his labour. At the close of the eigliteenth 
 century he had to dress for dinner the heads of all the College in the pomp 
 of powder and the vanity of queue. Beginning about noon with the junior 
 Commoner, he concluded with the senior Fellow on the stroke of three, 
 when the bell rang for dinner. The higher, therefore, you were io College 
 standing, the longer was the time available for your morning walk, and 
 the ampler the gossip of the day wath which you were entertained. 
 
LIKCOLN COLLEGE. 189 
 
 There was also the bible-clerk (bibliotista, contracted 
 hita), who was to be the Rector's servant when he was in 
 residence. At dinner in hall he was to read, from the Bible, 
 or some expositor, or some other instructive book, a portion 
 appointed by the Rector or Subrector ; and at dinner and 
 supper he was to wait at the Fellows' table. For these services 
 he was to receive food and drink ; a room ; and washing and 
 shaving (the latter referring to the tonsure probably, and not 
 suggesting that he was old enough to grow a beard). Different 
 benefactors made additions to his emoluments ; and at last, 
 until divided by the 1855 statutes into two " Rector's Scholar- 
 ships," the Bible-clerkship was the best paid office in College, 
 being worth three times the Subrectorship, twice the Bursarship, 
 or once and a half a Tutorship. 
 
 (V) The Commoners, or Sojourners {commcnsales seu sojor- 
 nantes). Almost from the first there had been graduates 
 resident in College, attracted by its quiet and by its social life, 
 but not on the foundation, and therefore receiving no allowances 
 from the College. Rotheram's statutes provided for their dis- 
 cipline, directing that they must take part in the disputations 
 of the Fellows, and so on. Undergraduates are by implication 
 excluded ; and this presumption is increased to a certainty by 
 the fact that no provision is made in the statutes for tuition. 
 
 In its beginnings, therefore, Lincoln College differs from our 
 modern conceptions of a College alike in its aims and in its 
 constitution. In all external features, and partially also in its 
 domestic arrangements, it resembles a monastic house ; but it 
 differs from a convent in two important, though not obvious, 
 points ; first, that its inmates are not bound by a rule, and are 
 free to depait from the College into the wider service of the 
 Church ; secondly, that the duty of prayer for benefactors 
 and the Christian dead is co-ordinate with two other duties, 
 the duty of serving certain churches, and the duty of studying 
 for study's sake and for the truth. We have next to inquire 
 how the College changed its original character, and was made, 
 like other Oxford Colleges, a place of residence for under- 
 graduates, with a body of Fellows engaged in tuition. This was 
 one of the indirect results of the Reformation. 
 
190 LINCOLN COLLEGE. 
 
 Under Henry YIII., Edward VT., and Elizabeth, the old 
 freedom of the University was taken away, lest, if the im- 
 munities of the place continued, Oxford should become an 
 asylum for disaffected persons.^ No imdergraduate was to be 
 allowed in the University, unless he had the protection of a 
 graduate tutor ; and residence was to be restricted to residence 
 within the walls of a College or Hall. There was thus an 
 external pressure forcing undergraduates to enter Colleges. 
 There was also a readiness from within the College to receive 
 them. The proceedings of the Reformers had been a violent 
 shock to the adherents of the old faith in Lincoln College ; and 
 now that the routine of chapel services, masses, anniversaries, 
 obits, could no longer be pursued, these adherents devoted them- 
 selves to training up young students in opposition to the new 
 movement. And when, under John Underbill (Rector 1577 — 
 1590), the College was purged of the old leaven, the pressure of 
 poverty (which then began to be felt in the University) made 
 the Fellows glad to have undergraduates resident in College to 
 keep up the establishment and pay tuition fees. 
 
 Unfortunately, there are no statistics of the stages of this 
 change : the intervals between the years in which statements of 
 the numbers in College occur being too great. In 1552 there 
 were in College, the Rector, eleven Fellows, one B.A. Commoner, 
 and thirteen persons not graduates, of whom some were certainly 
 servitors, and some probably servants. In 1575 the Rector and 
 the greater part of the Fellows have undergraduate pupils 
 assigned to them in grammar and logic. In 1588 there were in 
 College, the Rector and twelve Fellows, sixteen undergraduate 
 Commoners, and nine servitors. In 1746, there were the Rector 
 and twelve Fellows, eight Gentlemen-commoners, eighteen 
 Commoners, and eight Servitors. 
 
 What provision was made for their instruction ? 
 
 From about 1592 the College appointed annually these 
 instructors for its undergraduates : {a) two " Moderators," to 
 preside over the disputations in " Philosophy " and in " Logic " 
 
 ^ If any one wishes a modern parallel, he may note how Oxford hecame 
 filled with Jacobites ejected from their country cures within two or three 
 years of the imposition of the Oath of Allegiance to William and Mary. 
 
LINCOLN COLLEGE. 19i 
 
 (occasionally when the College was full, an additional " Moder- 
 ator " was appointed in Logic) ; (b) a Catechist, or theological 
 instructor. Also, from 1615, a lecturer in Greek, annually 
 appointed, was added. Of these the catechetical lecture dis- 
 appears after 1642 ; the others continued to be annually filled 
 up till 1856, but for many years these had been merely nominal 
 appointments, the work of tuition devolving on regularly ap- 
 pointed Tutors, as in other Colleges. But at w^hat date these 
 last had been introduced into Lincoln College, is nowhere 
 stated. In some few years, exceptional appointments are made ; 
 as, for example, in 1624 a Fellow is appointed to teach Hebrew ; 
 in 1708, £6 per annum is paid to Philip Levi, the Hebrew 
 master. 
 
 Among these lecturers two may be noted. In 1607, and 
 again in 1609 and 1610, Robert Sanderson was Logic lecturer ; 
 and began that vigorous course of Logic, which was published 
 in 1615, and long dominated the Schools of Oxford : indeed, its 
 indirect influence survived into the present half century, if, as 
 Rector Tatham wrote to Dean Cyril Jackson, '' Aldrich's logic is 
 cribbed from Sanderson's." In 1615 Sanderson was Catechist, 
 and perhaps at that time turned his attention to those questions 
 of casuistry, in which he was to gain enduring fame. John 
 Wesley was appointed to give the Logic and Greek lectures in 
 1727, 1728, 1730 ; and the Philosophy and Greek lectures in 
 1731, 1732, and 1733. 
 
 What provision was made for the maintenance of under- 
 graduates in the College ? 
 
 In 1568, Mrs. Joan Traps, widow of Robert Traps, goldsmith 
 of London, bequeathed to the College lands at Whitstable in 
 Kent for the maintenance of four poor scholars. One scholar 
 was to be nominated from Sandwich School by the Mayor and 
 Jurats of that town, but not to be admitted unless the College 
 thought him fit ; in defect of such nomination, Lincoln College 
 was to fill this place up (as it did the other three) from any 
 grammar school in England. Each of these four scholars was to 
 receive fifty-three shillings and fourpence half-yearly. Mrs. Traps 
 was also, in her husband's name, a benefactor to Caius College, 
 Cambridge, in which College their portraits hang. Descendants 
 
192 LINCOLN COLLEGE. 
 
 of K Traps' brother are still found in Lancashire, Catholics; 
 and one of them has told me his belief that the Traps had 
 bought Church lands at the dissolution of the monasteries, 
 intending to return them to the Church when the nation was 
 again settled on its old lines; but this hope failing, devoted 
 them to education,! as so many other conscientious purchasers 
 of Church lands did. If this be so, it is fitting that the first 
 recorded Traps' Scholar, William Harte (elected 25th May, 
 1571), should have been one of those sufferers for the old faith, 
 whose cruel and barbarous murders are so dark a stain on the 
 " spacious times " of Elizabeth. Mrs. Joyce Frankland, daughter 
 of the Traps, augmented the stipend of these " scholars." She 
 was afterwards a considerable benefactress to Brasenose College, 
 and a most munificent donor to Caius College, Cambridge. Is 
 she also to be numbered among those " offended benefactors " 
 who have been mentioned above ? Or had Lincoln College in 
 her time been " reformed " ? These four Traps' scholars,^ com- 
 monly called the " Scholars of the House " (being distinguished, 
 as I suppose, by that name from the servitors maintained 
 privately by any Fellow), were for a century the only under- 
 graduates in Lincoln College in receipt of any endowment. 
 
 In 1640, Thomas Hayne left £6 per annum in trust to the 
 corporation of Leicester for the maintenance of two scholars in 
 Lincoln College to be elected by the Mayor, Eecorder, and 
 Aldermen of that city. The corporation received this bene- 
 faction, but never sent any scholar to the College. Numerous 
 educational benefactions throughout England were lost, like this, 
 in the anarchy of the Civil War. 
 
 1 Their Catholic S3''mpathies are evident from the Colleges to which they 
 made their benefactions. Neither in Lincoln College under John Bridg- 
 water, nor in Caius College under John Caius, was a young Romanist in any 
 danger of being converted to Protestantism. 
 
 2 Several entries show that their position was inferior to that of a 
 Commoner, and involved menial service in College. In 1661 we have an 
 entry — " Whereas Henry Rose, a scholar, did lately officiate as porter, and 
 had no allowance for his pains," he is to be excused the College fee for 
 taking B.A. In Feb. 1661-2 these Traps' exhibitioners were exempted 
 from some College charges on consideration of their waiting at the Fellows' 
 table. 
 
LINCOLN COLLEGE. 1£3 
 
 In 1655, a Chancery suit was begun against Anthony Fox- 
 crofte, who had destroyed a codicil of Charles Greenwood, 
 Rector of Thomhill and Wakefield, by which two Fellowships 
 (or perhaps Scholarships) were bestowed on Lincoln College. 
 What the issue of the suit was, I cannot say ; nothing, certainly, 
 came to the Collecje. 
 
 About 1670, Edmund Parboe left a rent-charge of £10 per 
 annum issuing out of the Pelican Inn in Sandwich, of which £4 
 was to be paid to the master of the grammar-school there, £1 to 
 the Mayor and Juratts for wine " when they keep their ordinary 
 there,'* £5 to Lincoln College for the increase of the scholarship 
 from Sandwich school ; if no scholar is in College, it is to be 
 funded till one is sent, and the arrears paid to him. From that 
 date the corporation of Sandwich never nominated a scholar. I 
 suspect the Mayor and Juratts treated the £5, like the £1, as 
 a pour hoire. 
 
 May the College still hope that the towns of Leicester and 
 Sandwich, or some one for them, will remember the long arrears 
 of these endowments, thus diverted from education ? Even at 
 simple interest, they would be now a great benefaction ; and at 
 compound interest, how great ! 
 
 Later Scholarships and Exhibitions were founded by Rectors 
 Marshall (four, in 1688), Crewe (twelve, 1717), Hutchins (several, 
 1781), Radford (several, 1851) ; also by Mrs. Tatham, widow of 
 Rector Tatham (one, 1847). In 1857, Henry Usher Matthews, 
 fomierly Commoner of the College, founded a Scholarship in 
 Lincoln College, and an Exhibition in Shrewsburj^ School to be 
 held in Lincoln College : but the Public Schools Commissioners 
 unjustly took the latter from the College. Since that date no 
 Scholarship benefaction has come to the College ; but Scholar- 
 ships and Exhibitions have been created from time to time, 
 under the provisions of the Statutes of 1855, out of suspended 
 Fellowships. 
 
 The consideration of this change in the aims of the College 
 has led us beyond the point to which we had come in its 
 annals ; it is therefore necessary to go back, and pass rapidly in 
 review its post-Reformation history. 
 
 John Cottisford, the eighth Rector of the College (elected in 
 
 o 
 
194 LINCOLN COLLEGE. 
 
 March 1518-19), resigned on 7th Jan., 1538-9, probably i in 
 dismay at the course of events in the nation. His successor, 
 Hugh Weston, elected on 8th Jan., was possibly supposed to be 
 on the reforming side ; for he was undisturbed by Edward VL's 
 Commissioners; but had to resign in 1555 to the Visitors 
 appointed by Cardinal Pole. Christopher Hargreaves, elected 
 on 24th Aug., 1555, and confirmed in his place by Cardinal 
 Pole's Visitors, died on 15th Oct., 1558. His successor, Henry 
 Henshaw or Heronshaw, was hardly elected on 24th Oct., when 
 the hopes of the Romanist party were shattered. The College 
 register, in the greatness of its anxiety, breaks, on this one 
 occasion, the silence it observes as to affairs outside the College.^ 
 *'In the year of our Lord 1558, in November, died the lady 
 of most holy memory, Mary, Queen of England, and Reginald 
 Poole, Cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury ; the body of 
 the former was buried in Westminster, the body of the latter 
 in Ijis cathedral church of Canterbury, both on the same day, 
 namely 14th December. At this date the following were Rector 
 and Fellows of Lincoln College," and then follows a list of 
 them. Clearly the writer of this note did not look forward 
 to remaining long in College. Nor did he; within two years 
 Henshaw had to resign to Queen Elizabeth's Visitors. Francis 
 Babington, who had just been made Master of Balliol by these 
 Visitors, was transferred to the Rectorship of Lincoln. In this 
 appointment we can detect the sinister influence which was to 
 direct elections at Lincoln for some time to come ; Babington 
 was chaplain to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, Chancellor of 
 
 1 As "Commissary," i. e. Vice-chancellor, of the University from 1527 to 
 1532, Cottisford had been 8(3t to several painful pieces of duty, in tlie dis- 
 covery and arrest of Lutheran members of the University. Thus in 1527 
 Thomas Garret was arrested by the Proctors and imprisoned in Cottisford's 
 rooms : but his friends stole into College when Cottisford, with the rest of 
 the College, was in chapel at Evening Prayers, and enabled him to effect 
 liis escape. This " Lollard's " ghost, oddly enough, was at one time supposed 
 to haunt the gateway-tower. -^ 
 
 2 On only two other occasions is this silence broken ; the next is in 1633, 
 when the register notes that the King was at Woodstock, and that the 
 Rector had forbidden undergraduates to go there ; the latest is a notice 
 of the grief of the nation on the death of the Princess Charlotte, and of the 
 services in the College chapel on the day of her funeral. 
 
LINCOLN COLLEGE. lU 
 
 the University after 1564. The election was in flagrant violation 
 of the Statutes which required that the Rector should be chosen 
 from the Fellows or ex-Fellows of the College. But it was the 
 policy of the Court to break College traditions, by thrusting 
 outsiders into the chief government : the same thing was done 
 in other Colleges, the case of Lincoln being peculiar only in the 
 frequency of the intrusion. Doubts began to be cast on Babing- 
 ton's sincerity ; he was accused of secretly favouring Romanism ; 
 and in 1563 he found it advisable to betake himself beyond 
 sea.i Leicester was ready with another of his chaplains, John 
 Bridgwater, who had been Fellow of Brasenose, and_was not 
 statutably eligible for the Rectorship of Lincoln. Again the 
 Court was mistaken in its man. Under Bridgwater the College 
 became a Romanist seminary, and continued so for eleven years ; 
 and then Bridgwater had to follow his predecessor across the 
 seas, retiring to Douay, where. Latinising his name into " Aqua- 
 pontanus," he became famous as a theologian. He is still held 
 in honour among his co-religionists, and I remember several 
 visits paid to the College in recent years by admirers of his, 
 in hopes of seeing a portrait of him (but the College has none) 
 or his handwriting (which we have). Still another of his 
 chaplains was thrust into Lincoln College by the over-powerful 
 Leicester; this time John Tatham, Fellow of Mertdn. But 
 Tatham's Rectorship was destined to be a brief one : elected in 
 July 1574, he was buried in All Saints' Church on 20th 
 Nov., 1576. 
 
 Then there took place a very remarkable contest, six candi- 
 dates seeking the Rectorship. Only one, John Gibson, Fellow 
 since 1571, was statutably quaUfied ; although of only six years' 
 standing as a Fellow he was still senior Fellow, a fact eloquent 
 as to the removal of the older Fellows from the College. Edmund 
 Lilly, of Magd. Coll., another candidate, relied apparently on his 
 popularity in the University. The other four candidates rehed 
 on compulsion from outside, William Wilson, of Mert. Coll., 
 
 1 There is some suspicion that about this time the Government had a 
 paid spy in College. In Sept. 1566 an Anthony Marcham, of Lincoln 
 College, writes to Cecil asking money, otherwise he will be unable to stay 
 on in Oxford (Calendar of State FapzrSy Domedic Series). 
 
196 LINCOLN COLLEGE. 
 
 being recommended by the Archbishop of Canterbury, while the 
 Chancellor (Lord Leicester) and the Bishops of Lincoln and 
 Rochester tried to secure the election of their respective Chap- 
 lains. Leicester's candidate, John XJnderhill, was specially 
 unacceptable to the College, having been removed from his 
 Fellowship at New College by the Bishop of Winchester (the 
 Visitor there), because of some malpractices with the College 
 moneys. The Fellows elected John Gibson; the Bishop of 
 Lincoln refused to admit him. Leicester wrote threateninor 
 letters to the College ; summoned several of the Fellows to Lon- 
 don, and browbeat them there. Then, thinking he had now 
 gained his point, he proceeded to frighten off the other candi- 
 dates, in order to leave a clear field for Underbill. The Fellows 
 again elected Gibson ; and the Bishop of Lincoln again refused 
 to admit him. Then the Fellows elected Wilson; but the 
 Bishop refused to admit him. So that, there being no help for 
 it, they met again on 22nd June, 1577, and elected Underbill. 
 
 These proceedings caused great indignation in the University ; 
 and a petition was drawn up, worded in very strong terms, 
 entreating the Archbishop of Canterbury to undertake the 
 defence of the University against the "iniquity, wrong, and 
 violence " which had been done. This was signed by resident 
 B.D.'s and M.A.'s, and presented to his Grace, who passed it on 
 to Leicester. Leicester thereupon wrote a long letter to Convo- 
 cation, trying to justify his action, and threatening to resign his 
 Chancellorship of the University if further attacked in this 
 matter. 
 
 Underbill's first step after his election was to begin a new 
 register, and to tear out of the old register all records of the 
 proceedings since the death of Tatham ; so that the only entry 
 in the College books concerning this controversy is that Under- 
 bill was *' unanimously elected." Leicester visited the College 
 in 1585, and the Latin congratulatory verses on that occasion 
 are among the earliest printed of Oxford contributions to that 
 particularly dull form of literature. Underbill remained rector 
 till 1590. By that time the see of Oxford had been vacant 
 twenty years ; and, as the leases of the episcopal estates were 
 running out, Sir Francis Walsingham required a bishop who 
 
LINCOLN COLLEGE. 197 
 
 would make new leases and give him a share of the fines. 
 He selected Underhill for this purpose, who was consecrated 
 Bishop of Oxford in December 1589, and resigned the Rector- 
 ship of the College in 1590. His patron, having no further 
 use for him after the renewal of the leases, neglected him ; and 
 Underhill died in poverty and disgrace in May 1592. 
 
 Leicester being now dead, the College at this vacancy was left 
 to choose its own head; and Richard Kiiby, Fellow since 1578, 
 was elected sixteenth rector on 10th December, 1590. Kilby's 
 Rectorship proved one continuous domestic struggle, which has 
 left its mark in the College register in scored-out pages and 
 blotted entries, as plainly as an actual battle leaves its mark in 
 fields of grain trampled down by contending armies. The 
 question was about the number of Fellows. In Underhill's 
 Rectorship the College appears to have been impoverished, and 
 unable to pay the full body of Fellows their allowances. Kilby's 
 policy was to leave the Fellowships vacant, in order to keep up 
 the income of the present holders ; the opposition in College 
 desired to fill up the Fellowships and to submit to a reduction 
 of stipend all round. 
 
 In April 1592 the number of Fellows had fallen to nine. 
 On 24th April three Fellows were elected ; this election was 
 quashed by the Visitor on 8th December of the same year. 
 But the Fellows returned to the charge, and elected three 
 Fellows on 15th December, and five others on 16th December, 
 1592; so that in 1593 the College consists of the Rector and 
 the full number of Fellows (^. e. fifteen). Vacancies occur 
 rapidly, the Fellowships being so small in value. In 1596, and 
 again in 1599, elections of one Fellow are made, are appealed 
 against, bub confirmed by the Visitor. In 1600 the number of 
 Fellows had again fallen as low as ten, and the Fellows wished to 
 proceed to an election ; but the Rector (Kilby) tried to prevent 
 their doing so by retiring to the country. The Subrector, 
 (Edmund Underhill) called a meeting, and on 3rd November, 
 1600, the Fellows, in the Rector's absence, elected into two 
 vacancies. Kilby induced the Visitor to quash these elections ; 
 Edmund Underhill appealed to the Archbishop of Canterbury 
 as primate of the southern province. This was against the 
 
198 LINCOLN COLLEGE. 
 
 statutes, which directed that no Fellow should invoke any other 
 judge than the Visitor ; and on this ground, on 4th May, 1602, 
 Kilby procured Underhill's expulsion. At the end of 1605 
 there were only five Fellows remaining; by 2nd May, 1606, two 
 more had resigned. On the next day the Rector and the three 
 Fellows remaining elected eight new Fellows, the last of the 
 eight being certainly not the least, but the most illustiious 
 Lincoln name of the century, Robert Sanderson, the prince of 
 casuists. 
 
 The years which follow, from this election to the breaking out 
 of the Civil War, present two aspects. Externally tokens of 
 prosperity are not wanting. The buildings were considerably 
 increased. In 1610 Sir Thomas Rotheram, probably the same 
 who had been Fellow from 1586 to 1593 and Bursar^ in 1592, 
 and apparently of kin to the second Founder,^ built the west 
 side of the chapel quadrangle. The chapel itself, with its 
 beautiful glass (said to be the work of an artist Abbott, brother 
 of the Archbishop), was the gift of John Williams, Bishop of 
 Lincoln and Visitor of the College. Bishop Williams at the 
 same time (1628 — 1631) built the east side of the chapel quad- 
 rangle. The work cost more than he had promised to give, and 
 the College had to complete it at its own charges ; £90 being 
 sptjnt on this work in 1629, " as being all the sum that my lord 
 our benefactor did require or the College could spare." It is 
 curious to find^ the same benefactor doing exactly the same 
 thing in the fixed sum he gave (and would not increase) for 
 building the library at St. John's College in Cambridge. If we 
 turn, however, to the domestic annals of the College during 
 this period we find an unlovely picture of turbulence and dis- 
 order. Fellows and Commoners alike are accused of boorish 
 insolence, of swinish intemperance, of quarrelling and fighting. 
 Bursars mismanao^e their trust and fail to render account of the 
 College moneys they have received. Fellows try to defraud the 
 
 ' There is, of course, the usual legend that Rotheram built this addition 
 as "conscience-money" for his defalcations as Bursar. 
 
 2 The Rotherams of Luton in Bedfordshire were descended from the 
 Arciibishop's brother, to whom he had bequeathed that estate. 
 
 2 Baker's History of St. Johns, Cambridge (edit. Mayor), p. 208. 
 
LINCOLN COLLEGE. 199 
 
 College by marrying in secret and retaining their Fellowships. 
 Two or three of the less scandalous scenes will be sufficient to 
 indicate the violence of the times. On 20th November, 1634, 
 Thomas Goldsmith, B.A., had to read a public apology in chapel 
 for ''' a most cruel and barbarous assault " on William Carminow, 
 an undergraduate. In December 1634 Thomas Smith, an 
 M.A. commoner, made "a desperate and barbarous assault" on 
 Nicholas North, another M.A. commoner, in the room of the 
 latter. The same Thomas Smith a month before had been 
 ordered by the Rector '* to take his dogs ^ out of the College," 
 which order he had treated with contempt. In October 1636 
 Richard Kilby and John Webberley, two Fellows, fell out and 
 fought ; and " Mr. Kilbye's face was sore bruised and beaten." 
 The College ordered Webberley "to pay the charge of the 
 surgeon for healing of Mr. Kilbye's face." 
 
 We must pass very hastily over the period from 1641 to the 
 Restoration, not because the annals of Lincoln are lacking in. 
 interest during these years, but because space presses and the 
 chief incidents have been noted in Wood's History of the Uni- 
 versity and in Burrows' Register of the Parliamentary Visitation, 
 Paul Hood, the Rector, being a Puritan, kept his place under the 
 Commonwealth, and having been constitutionally elected before 
 the Civil War, retained it at the Restoration. Ten Fellows were 
 ejected by the Parliamentary Visitors, and ten put into their 
 place, at least six of them being persons of unsatisfactory cha- 
 racter. At the Restoration Hood got the King's Commissioners 
 to eject those of the ten who remained, and seven Fellows were 
 elected in their place, the only name of interest among these 
 being that of Henry Foulis, famous in his own age for his violent 
 and bulky invectives against Presbyterianism and Romanism. 
 
 Lincoln College was singularly fortunate during the latter 
 half of the seventeenth and for the greater part of the eighteenth 
 centuries. Hood, at the Restoration, was in extreme old age, 
 
 1 The intrusive dog occurs several times in College orders. The most 
 noteworthy entry is perhaps that of 30th June, 1726 :— *' No gentleman- 
 commoner, or commoner, whether graduate or undergraduate, shall keep a 
 dog within the College. The Bursar is required to see that all dogs be 
 kept out of the Hall at meal-times." 
 
200 LINCOLN COLLEGE. 
 
 and left the whole management of the College to Nathaniel 
 Crewe (Subrector 1664 — 1668), so that it fairly escaped 
 the break-down in manners, morals, and studies which the 
 Kestoration brought to many Colleges. Crewe, after a short 
 Rectorship of four years (1668 — 1672), was raised to the 
 Episcopal Bench ; and at the close of his long life proved our 
 greatest benefactor. When he resigned Crewe used his influence 
 to get Thomas Marshall elected Rector, a good scholar and a 
 good governor ; who, on his death in 1685, left his estate to the 
 College. His successor, Fitz-herbert Adams, was also a con- 
 siderable benefactor. Of John Morley and Euseby Isham, who 
 followed, John Wesley speaks in the highest terms, Richard 
 Hutchins, twenty-third Rector (1755 — 1781), was a model 
 disciplinarian and an excellent man of business; and, follow- 
 ing Marshall's example, left his estate for the endowment of 
 scholarships. 
 
 During this happy period much was done to improve the 
 College, which can only be touched on in the briefest outline 
 here. In 1662 John Lord Crewe of Steane (father of Nathaniel) 
 converted the old chapel — which since the consecration of the 
 new chapel on 15th September, 1631, had lain empty — into a 
 library, which it still remains, and changed the library into a 
 set of rooms. In 1662 the room under the library westwards 
 was set aside as a room where the Fellows might have their 
 common fires and hold their College meetings ; ^ it is still the 
 Fellows' morning-room. In 1684 the common-room was wains- 
 cotted at a cost of £90, Dr. John Radcliffe subscribing £10, and 
 George Hickes and John Kettlewell each £5. In 1686 Fitz- 
 herbert Adams spent £470 on repairing and beautifying the 
 chapel. In 1697 — 1700 the hall was wainscotted at a cost of 
 £270, to which Lord Crewe gave £100. Rector Hutchins 
 bought from Magdalen College some of the houses between the 
 College and All Saints' Church, and left money to purchase the 
 others, so as to form the present College garden. 
 
 During this period also the roll of the Fellows received some 
 of its more famous names. The two eminent non-jurors, George 
 
 1 Previously, the College meetings had been held in the Rector's 
 lodgings. 
 
LINCOLN COLLEGE. 201 
 
 Hickes and John Kettlewell ; the celebrated physician, John 
 RadclifFe ; John Potter, whose Greek scholarship promoted him 
 to the see of Canterbury ; and John Wesley ,i by and by to win 
 a name only less famous than that of Wycliffe in the history of 
 religion in England, may be cited. 
 
 The long period of prosperity which Lincoln College had 
 enjoyed during the later part of the seventeenth and the 
 earlier part of the eighteenth centuries was followed in the 
 end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth 
 centuries by a period of decline, during which the College had 
 its full share in the general stagnation of the University, 
 and was chiefly notable for the grotesque eccentricities of its 
 rector, Edward Tatham (Rector 1792—1834). Tatham, an 
 M.A. of Queen's College, had been elected into a Yorkshire 
 Fellowship at Lincoln in 1782. Shortly after his election 
 he came into conflict with the Rector (John Horner) over 
 a number of points in the interpretation of the statutes; 
 and after several appeals to the Visitor, was successful in his 
 contention. In 1790 he distinguished himself by the ponderous 
 learning, and the vigorous, if coarse, style of his Bampton 
 Lectures, The Chart and Scale of Truth hy which to fioid the 
 cause of Error (published in 1790 in two volumes ; a copy in 
 the College library has additional MS. notes by the author). 
 In March 1792 he was elected Rector, and one of his first 
 achievements was the use he made of his old practice in con- 
 troversy over the statutes to obtain from the Visitor an un- 
 statutable augmentation of the stipend of the Rector. In the 
 old obits, the Rector, being celebrant, had been as.signed double 
 the allowance of any Fellow ; and in elections, according to an 
 almost universal custom in Oxford Colleges, his vote counted 
 for two. By emphasizing these points and suppressing con- 
 tradictory evidence, Tatham persuaded the Visitor to decree 
 that for the future the Rector's Fellowship should receive 
 double of all the allowances of an ordinary Fellowship. 
 Tatham was known as a forcible but most unconventional 
 
 1 The rooms which Wesley occupied in College are said, by tradition, to 
 be those over the passage from the first quadrangle into the chapel 
 quadrangle. 
 
202 LINCOLN COLLEGE. 
 
 preacher ; and one phrase of his, used in the University pulpit,^ 
 has become almost proverbial, that namely in which he wished 
 that " all the Jarman ^ philosophers were at the bottom of the 
 Jarman ocean," forofettins: in the heat of his rhetoric to make it 
 plain to his audience whether he meant the writers or their 
 writings. In University business Tatham was at war with 
 the Hebdomadal Board, and used to brow-beat its members, 
 accusing them of "intrigues, cabals, and subterfuges." He 
 was therefore well-hated by many of his contemporaries, and a 
 great subject of those pasquils and lampoons which, orally and 
 in writing, circulated freely in the University. In several of 
 these Tatham had been compared in features and disposition to 
 the " devil," who, after the fashion of the similar grotesque at 
 Lincoln Cathedral, " looked over Lincoln" from his niche on the 
 quadrangle-side of the gate-tower. Irritated at this, Tatham 
 ordered the leaden figure to be taken down.^ Then came out a 
 lampoon, longer and more bitter than any before, in which the 
 wit consists in making the word '' devil " occur as often as pos- 
 sible in every quatrain, and the point is to suggest that when 
 Tatham was returning from dining out ("full of politics, learn- 
 ing, and port was his pate ") the devil, tired of standing so long 
 inactive, had flown off with him into space; where leaving him, 
 the devil returned to establish himself in person in the Rector- 
 ship and to govern the College with the help of " two imps, called 
 tutors." During the later years of his life Tatham availed him- 
 self of the large liberty of non-residence allowed the E-ector by the 
 then statutes, and lived chiefly in the rectory-house at Combe. 
 There he enjoyed the pleasures of a rough country life, farming 
 the glebe, and devoting himself with marked success to the rear- 
 ing of his special breed of pigs. He rarely visited Oxford ; and 
 when he did, always brought with him in his dog-cart a pair of 
 
 1 This sermon, esquire-bedell G. V. Cox notes, was " two and a half hours 
 long," and the sitting it out made a vacancy in the headship of a 
 College. 
 
 2 Tatham's broad Yorkshire dialect gave a tone of vigorous rusticity to 
 his speech. 
 
 ^ 1 understand that it was not destroyed, but passed into private posses- 
 sion. The recovery, after so many years, of the Brasenose " brasen nose" 
 forbids Lincoln to despair of yet getting back its overseer. 
 
LINCOLN COLLEGE. 203 
 
 his pigs to be exposed for sale in the pig-market, which was then 
 held in High Street beside AH Saints Church. On these occasions 
 his dress is described by a contemporary to have been so strictly 
 in keeping with his favourite pursuit that he ran no risk of 
 being mistaken for a Doctor of Divinity or the head of a College. 
 There was, however, one occasion on which Tatham came out 
 in his " scarlet," with great effect. The College had some rights 
 in the naming of the master of Skipton Grammar School, 
 Yorkshire. On occasion of a vacancy the local governors were 
 disposed to dispute the claim. Tatham went north, at the 
 previous stage put on his Doctor's robes, drove into Skipton 
 attired in their splendour, and dazzled the opposition into 
 acknowledging the College claim. He died on 24th April, 1834, 
 aged 84. 
 
 As might be expected, Lincoln College did not prosper 
 during Tatham's rectorship. A scholarship was lost. Sir 
 George Wheler, a Commoner of the College, had left in 1719 
 a yearly rent-charge of £10 on a house in St. Margaret's 
 parish, Westminster, to certain trustees " to pay to a poor 
 scholar in Lincoln College that shall have been bred up in 
 the grammar school at Wye." From 1735 to 1759 no payment 
 was made ; and then the Rev. Granville Wheler, in recognition 
 of arrears, increased the rent-charge to £20, and directed that 
 if no boy was sent from Wye, the scholarship should be open 
 to any grammar school in England. In Horner's and Tatham's 
 time the matter was neglected ; and the benefaction is now for 
 ever lost to the College. Again, part of the money received 
 from the city in payment for the grand old College garden, 
 which by Act of Parliament was taken to form the present Market, 
 was invested in Government securities ; but the books were so 
 carelessly kept that the exact details required by the Exchequer 
 could not afterwards be collected from them : so that part of 
 the property of Lincoln College is amongst those " unclaimed " 
 dividends out of which the new Law Courts were built. It 
 is surely unjust that the nation should thus make a College 
 suffer for the nesflio-ence of one oreneration of its officers. There 
 was also great degeneracy in the personnel of the College. Oxford 
 was then passing through that phase of hard-drinking which 
 
201 LINCOLN COLLEGE. 
 
 within living memory still afflicted society in country places; 
 and from this vice Lincoln College was not exempt. Several 
 of the Fellows had curacies or small livings in the neighbour- 
 hood of Oxford, to which they rode out, as represented in a 
 well-known cartoon of the time, on Saturday morning, returning 
 to the College on Monday. On Monday evening, therefore, they 
 were all met together, and preparations were made for a " wet 
 night." When the Fellows entered Common-room after Hall, 
 a bottle of port was standing on the side-board for eich of 
 their number. These finished there would be a second (and as 
 liberal) supply, and very probably after that several of them 
 would slip out to bring an extra bottle from their private 
 stores. Two instances of the corruptio optimi of the times — the 
 degradation of men who had received a University education 
 — may be cited. A Fellow of Lincoln College got into debt, and 
 his Fellowship was sequestrated by his creditors, who allowed 
 hira a small pittance out of its proceeds, and applied the rest 
 to the liquidation of his debts ; he became an ordinary tramp, 
 and died in the casual ward at Northampton, after holding 
 his Fellowship for twenty-five years. An ex-Fellow, incumbent 
 of one of the more distant and valuable College livings, got, 
 by his own extravagance, into the clutches of the money- 
 lenders, who sequestrated his living and confined him in 
 Oxford Debtors' prison, where he remained year after year 
 till his death. When, in 1854», the new incumbent went 
 to the living, he found that the parishioners, unable to get 
 anything out of their Rector, had helped themselves from 
 the Rectory-house ; windows, doors, staircases, floors, slates, 
 stones had been taken away, and the ruins, sold at auction, 
 fetched less than £10. 
 
 The tuition in College became of the meanest and poorest 
 stamp. The public lectures consisted in the lecturer hearing 
 the men translate without comment a few lines of Virgil or 
 Homer in the morninfr; and the informal instruction was 
 equally paltry. One story of a Lincoln tutor of the time may 
 be set down here, though it is probably exceptional and not 
 typicaL The narrator, an Archdeacon, " Venerable " not only 
 by title but by years, said — "I was pupil to Mr. , and 
 
LINCOLN COLLEGE. 205 
 
 I did not altogether approve of his method of tuition. His 
 method, sir, was this : I read through with him the greater 
 part of the second extant decade of Livy, in which, as you are 
 aware, the name of Hannibal not infrequently occurs. There 
 was a bottle of port on the table ; and whenever we came to 
 the name of that Carthaginian general, my tutor would replenish 
 his glass, saying, ' Here's that old fellow again ; we must drink 
 his health,' never failing to suit the action to the word." 
 
 An odd incident has to be told in connection with Tatham's 
 death. An examination previous to an election to a Lincoln 
 county Fellowship had been duly announced, and on 24th 
 April, 1834, the candidates were assembled in Hall waiting for 
 the first paper. The opinion of his contemporaries had singled 
 out Henry Robert Harrison of Lincoln as the favourite candi- 
 date, and it was, therefore, with some satisfaction that the 
 other candidates learned from one of their own number, that 
 the coach coming from Leicester had been overturned the day 
 before, and that Harrison, who was an outside passenger by it, had 
 had his leg broken, and would be unable to appear. The paper 
 was now given out, and they set to it with zest ; but before they 
 had finished it a Fellow came in with a grave face, told them 
 that a messeno^er had brouo^ht word that the Rector had died 
 that morning at Combe, and that, as the College could not 
 proceed to an election till after a new Rector had been elected, 
 the Fellows had decided to postpone the examination. After 
 Radford's election the usual notice was given of the Fellowship 
 examination ; Harrison was now able to come to it ; and on 5th 
 July, 1834, he was elected. 
 
 Mention may also be made of an undergraduate of Lincoln 
 College at this time who was famous beyond any undergraduate 
 of his own or subsequent years. Robert Montgomery, then in 
 the full enjoyment of the reputation of being the great poet of 
 the century, a reputation evinced by the sale of thousands of 
 copies of his poems, and unassailed as yet by any whisper of 
 adverse criticism, entered the College as Commoner on 18th 
 Feb., 1830. Although he put himself down in the Bible-Clerk's 
 book as son of "Robert Montgomery, esquire," he was really of 
 very poor parentage, and was able to come to the University 
 
206 LINCOLN COLLEGE. 
 
 only by the profits of his pen. His undergraduate contempora- 
 ries, whether because they believed it or not, used to assert that 
 he was the son of Gomerie, a well-known clown of the day. He 
 was mercilessly persecuted in College. Some of the forms of 
 this persecution were little creditable to the persecutors, and 
 had best be left unrecorded; but one instance of a practical joke 
 on the victim's egregious vanity may be noted. When about to 
 enter for " Smalls " in his first term, he was persuaded to go to 
 the Vice-Ghancellor and request that a special decree should be 
 proposed putting otf his viva-voce till late in the vacation, "to 
 avoid the inconveniences likely to be caused by the crowds 
 which might be expected to attend the examination of that 
 distinguished poet." Montgomery took a fourth class in 
 "Literse Humaniores" in 1834, and w^as afterwards minister 
 of Percy Chapel in London, which members of the College used 
 occasionally to attend to listen to his florid but not ineffective 
 preaching. 
 
 John Radford, who had succeeded Tatham as Rector in 1834, 
 was succeeded in 1851 by James Thompson, and Thompson by 
 Mark Pattison in 1861. Both these elections were keenly, not 
 to say bitterly, contested, with a partizan spirit which has found 
 its way into several pamphlets and memoirs; but when the 
 present Rector, W. W. Merry, the thirtieth who has ruled over 
 the College, was elected in 1884, the College Register once 
 more recorded an election made " unanimi consensu omnium 
 suffragantium," He had been Fellow and Lecturer since 1859 ; 
 and by his editions of Homer and Aristophanes, had charmed 
 wider circles of pupils than that of the College lecture-room. 
 
 It will be the duty of the future historian of Lincoln College 
 to mention with all honour the persons by whom, in these later 
 Rectorships, the College has reasserted its good name, which in 
 the beginning of the century had been somewhat tarnished ; but 
 for the present the gratitude of members of the Society to these 
 must remain unexpressed in words ; most of them are still alive, 
 and we must not praise them to their face. Of Radford, how- 
 ever, this much may be said, that though not a strong governor, 
 his care for the College, and his munificence to it, well earned 
 his portrait its place among the benefactors in the College hall. 
 
LINCOLN COLLEGE. 207 
 
 and the inscription on his stone in All Saints Church, which says 
 that he " dearly loved his College." 
 
 One efifect of Radford's bounty must, however, be regretted. 
 Under his will the sum of £300 was expended in putting battle- 
 ments on the outer (and the earliest) quadrangle of the College, 
 so destroying its monastic appearance, and giving to it a cas- 
 tellated air foreign to the time of its building and alien to its 
 traditions. This was the last step in a process of injudicious 
 repair, which beginning about 1819 had robbed the buildings of 
 their quaintness and individuality. Recent work has been more 
 reverent for the past. In 1889 the College removed the lath- 
 and-plaster wagon-roof in the hall and restored to view the fine 
 chestnut timbers of the original building. The liberality of 
 resident and non-resident members of the College has in the 
 present year provided a fund to complete this restoration of the 
 hall, and to recover in 1891 something of the grace which it 
 possessed in 1435, but lost in 1699. 
 
IX. 
 
 ALL SOULS COLLEGE/ 
 
 By C. "W. C. Oman, M.A., Fellow of All Souls. 
 
 Henry Chichele, the son of a merchant of Higham Ferrars, 
 was one of the first roll of scholars whom William of Wykeham 
 nominated at the opening of his great foundation of New 
 College. He left Oxford with the degree of Doctor of Laws, 
 and soon found both ecclesiastical preferment and a lucrative 
 legal practice. He attached himself to the House of Lancaster, 
 and served Henry IV. so well that he was made Bishop of St. 
 Davids, and sent to represent England at the Council of Pisa. 
 In such favour did he stand at Court, that when Thomas Arundel, 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, died in the first year of Henry V., 
 the young king appointed Chichele to succeed him. 
 
 For the long term of thirty years Henry Chichele held the 
 Primacy of all England, and played no small part in the 
 governance of the realm. The two main characteristics of his 
 policy, whatever may be urged in his defence, were most 
 unfortunate : he was a stout supporter of the unhappy war with 
 France, and he was a weak defender of the liberties of the 
 Church of England against Papal aggression. History remembers 
 
 ^ Throughout this chapter I must acknowledge my indebtedness to 
 Professor Burrows' invaluable Worthies of All Souls. I must also mention 
 that both the Warden of All Souls and Professor Burrows have been good 
 enough to look through these pages, and have kept me from many pitfalls. 
 The Warden furnished me with much information in the later pages of this 
 chapter which would have been quite inaccessible without his help. 
 
ALL SOULS COLLEGE. 
 
 him as the ambassador who urged so hotly the preposterous 
 claims of Henry V. on the French throne, and as the first 
 Primate who refused to accept the Archbishopric from the King 
 and the Chapter, till he had obtained a dispensation and a Bull 
 of Provision from the Pope. 
 
 However great may have been his faults as a statesman, 
 Chichele (like his successor Laud) was throughout his life a 
 liberal and consistent patron of the University. He presented 
 it with money and books, and, mindful of what he owed to his 
 training at New College, resolved to copy his old master Wyke- 
 ham in erecting one more well-ordered and well-endowed house 
 of learning, among the obscure and ill-managed halls which still 
 harboured the majority of the members of the University. He 
 first began to build a small College in St. Giles' ; but this institu- 
 tion — St. Bernard's as it was called — he handed over unfinished 
 to the Cistercian monks, in whose possession it remained till 
 the Reformation, when it became the nucleus round which Sir 
 Thomas White built up his new foundation of St. John's. 
 
 Chichele's later and more serious scheme for establishing a 
 College was not taken up till 1437, when he had occupied the 
 Archiepiscopal see for twenty-three years, and was already past 
 the age of seventy. It was one of the darkest moments of the 
 wretched French war ; the great Duke of Bedford had died two 
 years before, and Paris had been for twelve months in the 
 hands of the French. The old Archbishop, all whose heart had 
 been in the struggle, and who knew that he himself was more 
 responsible for its commencement than any other subject of the 
 Crown, must have spent his last years in unceasing regrets. 
 Perhaps he may have felt some personal remorse when he 
 reflected on his own part in the furthering of the war, but 
 certainly — whether he felt his responsibility or not — the waste 
 of English lives during the last twenty years lay heavy on his 
 soul. Hence it came that his new college became a chantry 
 as well as a place of education — the inmates were to be devoted 
 as well ad orandum as ad studendum — hence also, we can hardly 
 doubt, came its name. For, as its charter drawn by Henry VI. 
 proceeds to recite — the prayers of the community were to be 
 devoted, " not only for our welfare and that of our godfather the 
 
«10 ALL SOULS COLLEGE. 
 
 Archbishop, while alive, and for our souls when we shall have 
 gone from this light, but also for the souls of the most illustrious 
 Prince Henry, late King of England, of Thomas late Duke of 
 Clarence our uncle, of the Dukes, Earls, Barons, Knights, 
 Esquires, and other noble subjects of our father and ourself who 
 fell in the wars for the Crown of France, as also for the souls of 
 all the faithful departed." Not unwisely therefore has the piety 
 of the present generation filled the niches of Chichele's magnifi- 
 cent reredos with the statues of Clarence and York, Salisbury 
 and Talbot, Sufiblk and Bedford, and others who struck their 
 last stroke on the fatal plains of France. Nor can we doubt 
 that the Archbishop's meaning was well expressed in the name 
 that he gave to his foundation, which, copying the last words 
 in the above-cited foundation-charter, became known as the 
 "Collegium Omnium Animarum Fidelium Defunctorum in 
 Oxonia." 
 
 To found his College, Chichele purchased a large block of 
 small tenements, among them several halls, forming the angle 
 between Catte Street and the High Street. The longer face 
 was toward the former street, the frontage to " the High " being 
 less than half that which lay along the narrower thoroughfare. 
 The ground lay for the most part within the parish of St. 
 Mary's, with a small corner projecting into that of St. Peter in 
 the East. The buildings which Chicliele proceeded to erect 
 were very simple in plan. They consisted of a single quadrangle 
 with a cloister behind it, and did not occupy more than half the 
 ground which had been purchased: the rest, where Hawkes- 
 more's twin towers and Codrington's library now stand, formed, 
 in the founder's time, and for 250 years after, a small orchard 
 and garden. Chichele's main building, the present "front 
 quadrangle," remains more entirely as the founder left it than 
 does any similar quadrangle in Oxford. Except that some 
 seventeenth century hand has cut square the cusped tops of its 
 windows, it still bears its original aspect unchanged. The north 
 side is formed by the chapel ; the south contains the gate-tower 
 with its muniment-room above, and had the Warden's lodgings 
 in its eastern angle; the west side was devoted entirely to 
 the Fellows' rooms, as was also the whole of the east side, save 
 
ALL SOULS COLLEGE. 211 
 
 the central part of its first floor, where the original library was 
 situate. Into space which now furnishes seventeen small sets 
 of rooms, the forty Fellows of the original foundation were 
 packed, together with their two chaplains, their porter, and 
 their small establishment of servants. 
 
 To the north of this quadrangle lay the cloister, a small 
 square, two of whose sides were formed by an arcade with open 
 perpendicular windows, much like New ^College cloister; the 
 third by the chapel; while the fourth was occupied by the 
 College hall, an unpretentious building standing exactly at right 
 angles to the site of the modern hall. The cloister-quadrangle's 
 size may be judged from the fact that the chapel formed one 
 entire side of it. It took up not more than a quarter of the 
 present back-quadrangle, and was surrounded to north and 
 east by the garden and orchard of which we have already 
 spoken. For many generations it formed the burial-ground of 
 the Fellows, and on several occasions of late years, when trenches 
 have been dug across the turf of the new quadrangle, the bones 
 of fifteenth and sixteenth century members of the College have 
 been found lying there undisturbed. To conclude the account 
 of Chichele's buildings, it must be added that on the east side 
 of the hall the kitchen and storehouses of the College made a 
 small irregular excrescence into the garden ; their situation is 
 now occupied by that part of the present hall which lies nearest 
 the door. 
 
 All Chichele's work was on a small scale save his chapel, on 
 which he lavished special care. His reredos, preserved for two 
 centuries behind a coat of plaster, still remains to witness to 
 his good taste ; but its original aspect, blazing with scarlet, gold, 
 and blue, must have been strangely different from that which 
 the nineteenth century knows. Of the figures which adorned it 
 a part only can be identified : at the top was the Last Judgment, 
 of which a considerable fragment was found in situ when 
 the plaster was cleared away, with its inscription, ''Surgite 
 mortui, venite ad judicium " still plainly legible. Immediately 
 above the altar was the Crucifixion ; the cross and the wings of 
 the small ministering angels of the modern reproduction being 
 actually parts of the old sculpture. The carver, Richard Tillott, 
 
212 ALL SOULS COLLEGE. 
 
 who executed the work, mentions, in his account of expenses 
 sent in for payment to Chichele, " two great stone images over 
 the altar " ; these may very probably have been the founder and 
 King Henry VI. ; and the restorers of our own generation 
 ventured to fill the two largest niches with their representations. 
 How the central and side portions of the reredos were occupied 
 is unknown ; but it would seem that the founder did not leave 
 every niche full, as fifty years after his death, Eobert Este, a 
 Fellow of the College, left £21 18s. 4<d. for the completing of the 
 images over the hio^h altar. 
 
 In addition to the high altar,' the chapel contained no less than 
 seven side altars ; where they were placed it is a little difficult 
 to see, as the stalls bear every mark of being contemporary with 
 the founder, and extend all along the sides of the chapel from 
 the altar-steps to the screen. Probably then the smaller altars — 
 of which we know that one was dedicated to the four Latin 
 Fathers — must have been all, or nearly all, placed in the ante- 
 chapel. The windows, both in the chapel and ante-chapel, were 
 filled with excellent glass ; all that of the chapel lias dis- 
 appeared, but in the ante-chapel there is much good work 
 remaining. The most interesting window contains an admir- 
 able set of historical figures; the founder, his masters Henry 
 V. and Henry VI., John of Gaunt, and several more being in 
 excellent preservation; but this was not originally placed in the 
 chapel, and seems to have belonged to the old library. The 
 other windows are filled with saints. 
 
 The total cost of the foundation of the College to Chichele 
 was about £10,000 ; that sum covered not only the erection and 
 fitting up of the buildings, but the purchase of some of the lands 
 for its endowment. The two largest pieces of property which 
 the Archbishop devoted to his new institution were situated 
 respectively in Middlesex and Kent. The first estate lay 
 around Edgeware, of which the College became lord of the 
 manor, and extended in the direction of Hendon and Willesden. 
 It was mainly under wood in the founder's day, and formed part 
 of the tract of forest which covered so much of Middlesex down 
 to the last century. The second property consisted of a large 
 stretch of land in Eomney Marsh, already noted as a great 
 
ALL SOULS COLLEGE. 2l3 
 
 grazing district in the fifteenth century. Many lesser estates 
 lay scattered about the Midlands; they consisted in no small 
 part of land belonging to the alien priories, which Chichele had 
 assisted Henry V. to abolish, and included at least one of the 
 suppressed houses — Black Abbey in Shropshire. For these 
 confiscated estates the Archbishop paid £1000 to the Crown. 
 
 The College as designed by Chichele contained forty Fellows ; ' 
 he nominated twenty himself, and these with their Warden, 
 Richard Andrew, chose twenty more. By the Charter sixteen 
 of the forty were to be jurists — the founder remembered that he 
 himself had taken his degree in Laws — and twenty-four artists. 
 As Wykeham had done before him, Chichele took pains to 
 obtain a Bull from the Pope to sanction and confirm his new 
 foundation: in this document, dated from Florence in 1439, 
 Eugenius IV. grants numerous spiritual privileges to the 
 j)auperes scholares of All Souls. They are excused certain 
 fasts, freed from any parochial control of the Vicar of St. Mary's, 
 permitted to bury their dead in the precincts of the College, 
 and even granted leave to celebrate the Mass in their chapel 
 in time of interdict, " but with hushed bells and closed doors." 
 Chichele was such a confirmed Papalist that he took the 
 unusual step of sending the first Warden to Italy in person, to 
 receive the Bull from the Pope's own hands. 
 
 Nor was it only his spiritual superior that Chichele resolved 
 to interest in the College. When all was complete he went 
 through the form of handing over the foundation to his young 
 god-son Henry VI., and of receiving it back from the King's 
 hands as co-founder. Hence comes the constant juxtaposition of 
 their names in the prayers of the College. 
 
 Chichele lived to see his College completely finished ; in 1442 
 he presided at the solemn entry of the Fellows into their new 
 abode, and formally delivered the statutes to Warden Andrew. 
 Next year he died, at the end of his eightieth year, an age 
 almost unparalleled among the short-lived men of the fifteenth 
 century. His successor, Archbishop Stafford, on taking up the 
 office of Visitor, was pleased to grant an indulgence of forty 
 days to any Christian of the province of Canterbury who should 
 visit the chapel and there say a Fater and an Ave for the souls 
 
21"-f ALL SOULS COLLEGE. 
 
 of the faithful departed. This grant made the College a place 
 of not unfrequent resort for pilgrims. If a passage cited by 
 Professor Burrows ^ is correct, as many as 9000 wafers were 
 consumed in the chapel on one day in 1557. 
 
 For the first century of the College's existence the succession 
 of Wardens and Fellows was very rapid. Richard Andrew, the 
 first head of the foundation, resigned his post in the same year 
 that the new buildings were opened, on receiving ecclesiastical 
 preferment outside Oxford. He became Dean of York, and 
 survived his resignation for many years. His successor, Warden 
 Keyes, had been the architect of the College ; he presided for 
 three years only, and then gave place to William Kele. Alto- 
 gether in the first century of its existence 1437 — 1587 the 
 College knew no less than eleven Wardens, of whom seven 
 resigned and only four died in harness. The Fellows were as 
 rapid in their succession ; not unfrequently seven or eight — a 
 full fifth of the whole number — vacated their Fellowships in a 
 single year ; the average annual election was about five. The 
 shortness of their tenure of office is easily explained ; a Fellow- 
 ship was not a very valuable possession, for beyond food and 
 lodging it only supplied its holder with the " livery " decreed by 
 the founder, an actual provision of cloth for his raiment. A 
 Fellow's commons were fixed on the modest scale of " one shil- 
 ling a week when wheat is cheap, and sixteenpence when it is 
 dear." The annual surplus from the estates was not divided up, 
 but placed in the College strong-box within the entrance-tower, 
 against the day of need. Moreover, as the Fellows were lodged 
 two, or even in some cases three, in each room, the accommoda- 
 tion can hardly have been such as to tempt to long residence. 
 The acceptance of preferment outside Oxford, or even an absence 
 of more than six months without the express leave of the 
 College, sufficed to vacate the Fellowship ; and since every 
 member of the foundation was in orders, it naturally resulted 
 that the "jurists " drifted up to London to practice, while the 
 "artists" accepted country livings. Only those Fellows who 
 were actually studying or teaching in the University held their 
 places for any length of time. 
 
 1 Worthies, p. 32. 
 
ALL SOULS COLLEGE. 215 
 
 There is little to tell about the first fifty years of the history of 
 All Souls ; but it is worthy of notice that its connection — merely 
 nominal though it was — with its co-founder, Henry VI., brought 
 on trouble when the House of York came to the throne. Edward 
 IV. pretended to regard the endowments of the College as 
 wrongly-alienated royal property, and had to be appeased, not 
 only by the insertion of his name and that of his mother Cecily 
 in the prayers of the College, but by payment of a considerable 
 fine. However, the College might congratulate itself on an 
 easy escape, and its pardon was ratified when, some years later, 
 its head, Warden Poteman, was made envoy to Scotland, and 
 afterwards promoted to be Archdeacon of Cleveland. 
 
 In the reign of Henry VII., when the Renaissance began to 
 make itself felt in Oxford, All Souls had the good fortune to 
 produce two of the first English Greek scholars, Linacre and 
 Latimer. The name of the latter is forgotten — the present age 
 remembers no Latimer save the martyr-bishop ; but Linacre's 
 memory is yet green. With Grocyn and Colet he stands at the 
 head of the roll of Oxford scholars, but in his medical fame he is 
 unrivalled. His contemporaries " questioned whether he was a 
 better Latinist or Grecian, a better grammarian or physician " ; 
 but it is in the last capacity that he is now remembered. He 
 was elected to his Fellowship at All Souls in 1484, resided four 
 or five years, and then went to Italy, where he tarried long, 
 taught medicine at Padua, and then returned to England to 
 found and preside over the College of Physicians. The two 
 Linacre professorships were both endowed by him. The ex- 
 ample of his career was not soon forgotten, and for two centuries 
 All Souls continued to produce men of mark in the realm of 
 medicine. To this day it excites the surprise of the visitor to 
 the College library to see the large proportion of books on 
 medical subjects contained in its shelves. Among the manu- 
 scripts there are many such, which Linacre's own hands must 
 have thumbed ; while throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centuries the purchases of medical books are only exceeded by 
 those of works on theology. But with the incoming of the 
 reign of the Founder's-kin Fellows in the early eighteenth 
 Century the physicians ceased out of the land, and at last. 
 
216 .ALL SOULS COLLEGE. 
 
 "holding a physic place " became a convenient fiction by which 
 lay members of the College succeeded in excusing themselves 
 from taking orders, though they might be in reality anything 
 rather than medical men. 
 
 The reign of Henry VII. saw the beginning of two sources of 
 trouble to All Souls, which were not to cease for many genera- 
 tions. The first was the interference of the Archbishop as 
 Visitor, to determine the conditions of the tenure of Fellow- 
 ships. William of Warham is found writing to the College 
 to denounce a growing practice of endeavouring to keep a 
 Fellowship in conjunction with a benefice outside Oxford. He 
 strictly forbade it, and his commands seem to have been more 
 effectual than Visitor's injunctions have usually proved. The 
 other interference with the College from without, was an attempt 
 made by Arthur Prince of Wales to influence the annual elec- 
 tions of Fellows. He writes from Sunninghill in 1500 to 
 recommend the election of a young lawyer named Pickering to 
 a Fellowship, " because that his father is in the right tender 
 favour of our dearest mother the Queen." Pickering's name 
 does not appear in the register of Fellows, so it is evident that 
 the College found some excuse for evading compliance with the 
 Prince's request. 
 
 All Souls seems to have passed through the storms of the 
 Reformation with singularly little friction from within or with- 
 out. One single Warden, John Warner — the first Eegius pro- 
 fessor of Medicine in the University — continued to steer the 
 course of the College from 1536 to 1556, complying with all 
 the various commands of Henry VIII., making himself accept- 
 able both to Somerset and Northumberland, and even holding 
 on for two years into Mary's reactionary time. It is true that 
 he then resigned his post, but he was evidently no less comply- 
 ing under the Papalist Queen than under her Protestant pre- 
 decessor, as no harm came to him though he continued to 
 reside in Oxford. Warden Pope, his successor, having died in 
 the first year of Elizabeth, Warner was immediately restored to 
 his old post, and held it till he was made Dean of Winchester 
 in 1565. 
 
 It was during Warner's wardenship that we have the first 
 
ALL SOULS COLLEGE. 217 
 
 mention of an evil custom in the College, which was to form 
 for a hundred years a subject of dispute between the Fellows 
 and their Visitor the Archbishop. This was the habit of **' cor- 
 rupt resignation." A member of the College, when about to 
 vacate his Fellowship, notunfrequently had some friend or relation 
 whom he wished to succeed him. This candidate he naturally 
 pushed and supported at the annual election on All Souls' Day. 
 It came to be the tacit custom of the College to elect candidates 
 so supported; for each Fellow, when voting for an outgoing 
 colleague's nominee, remembered that he himself would some 
 day wish to recommend a proUg6 for election in a similar 
 manner. This right of nomination being once grown customary, 
 soon grew into a monstrous abuse, for unscrupulous Fellows, 
 when about to vacate their places, began to hawk their nomin- 
 ations about Oxford. Actual payments in hard cash were 
 made by equally unscrupulous Bachelors of Arts or Scholars of 
 Civil Law, to secure one of these all-powerful recommendations. 
 Hence there began to appear in the College not the poor but 
 promising scholars for whom Chichele had designed the founda- 
 tion, but men of some means, who had practically bought 
 their places. Cranmer was the first Visitor who discovered and 
 endeavoured to crush this noxious system. In 1541 we find 
 him declaring that he will impose an oath on every Fellow to 
 obey his injunction against the practice, and that every Fellow- 
 ship obtained by a corrupt resignation shall be summarily 
 forfeited. At the same time we find him touching on other 
 minor offences in the place — misdoings which seem ludicrously 
 small compared to the huge abuse with which he couples 
 them. Fellows have been seen clad not in the plain livery 
 which the pious founder devised, but in gowns gathered round 
 the collar and arms and quilted with silk ; they have been 
 keeping dogs in College; some of them have hired private 
 servants ; others of them have engaged in " compotationibus, 
 ingurgitationibus, crapulis et ebrietatibus." All these customs 
 are to cease at once. It is to be feared that the good Arch- 
 bishop was as unsuccessful in suppressing these smaller sins 
 and vanities, as he most certainly was in dealing with the evil 
 of corrupt resignations. 
 
218 ALL SOULS COLLEGE. 
 
 It was in the reign of the same compliant Warden Warner, 
 under whom Cranraer's visitation took place, that All Souls was 
 robbed of its greatest ornament — the decorations of its chapel. 
 In 1449, by order of the Royal Commissioners appointed by 
 Protector Somerset, havoc was made with the whole interior of 
 the building. The organ was rempved, the windows broken, the 
 high-altar and seven side-altars taken down, and, worst of all, 
 the whole reredos gutted ; its fifty statues and eighty-five statu- 
 ettes were destroyed, and so it remained, vacant but graceful, 
 though much chipped about in the course of ages, till in the 
 reign of Charles II. the Fellows in their wisdom concluded to 
 plane down its projections, stuff its niches with plaster, and paint 
 a sprawling fresco upon it ! The church vestments of the College 
 were probably destroyed at the same time that the chapel was 
 made desolate, but its church plate was not defaced, but merely 
 removed to the muniment-room and put in safe keeping. There 
 it remained till 1554, when it came down again, and was again 
 employed in Queen Mary's time. In 1560 it was once more put 
 into store in the strong-room, and there it remained till in 1570 
 Archbishop Parker had it brought forth and bade it be melted 
 down, " except six silver basons together with their crewets, the 
 gilt tabernacle, two silver bells, and a silver rod." After a stout 
 resistance lasting three years, the College was obliged to comply. 
 Charles I. received nearly all that Parker spared, and of the old 
 communion -plate of All Souls there now survives nought but 
 two of the crewets preserved in 1573. They are splendid pieces 
 of the work of about 1500, eighteen inches high, shaped like pil- 
 grim's bottles, and ornamented with swans' heads. The founder's 
 silver-gilt and crystal salt-cellar, the only other piece of antique 
 silver which All Souls now owns, was most fortunately not in 
 the hands of the Collejre in Charles's time, or it would have 
 shared the fate of the rest of its ancient plate. 
 
 One more incident of Warner s tenure of oflice needs men- 
 tion. He erected with subscriptions raised from all quarters 
 as a residence for himself, the building which faces the High 
 Street in continuation of the front quadrangle to the east. For 
 the future. Wardens had six rooms instead of two to live in, and 
 there is splendour as well as comfort in the magnificent panelled 
 
ALL SOULS COLLEGE. J19 
 
 room on the first floor which forms the chief apartment in the 
 new building. Here dwelt Warner's successors, till in the reign 
 of Anne the present Warden's lodgings were erected still further 
 eastward. 
 
 Warden Hoveden, whose long rule of forty-three years covered 
 most of the reign of Elizabeth and half that of James I. (1571 
 — 1614) was a man of. mark. He adorned the old hbrary, now 
 the "great lecture-room," in the front quadrangle, with the 
 beautiful barrel-roof and panelling which make it the best 
 Elizabethan room in Oxford. He bought and added to the 
 grounds of the College a large house and garden called " the 
 Rose," where the Warden's lodgings now stand. He arranged 
 and codified the College books and muniments. He caused 
 to be constructed a splendid and elaborate set of maps of 
 the College estates, ten years before any other College in the 
 University thought of doing such a thing (1596). These maps 
 are worked out on a most minute scale : every tree and house 
 is inserted ; and as a proof of how English common-fields were 
 still worked in minutely subdivided slips, only a few yards 
 broad, they are invaluable. One map gives a bird's-eye view of 
 All Souls, with its two quadrangles as then existing, and is the 
 first good representation of the College that remains. But 
 Hoveden's greatest achievements were his two victories in 
 struggles with Queen Elizabeth. The first contest concerned 
 the parsonage and tithes of the parish of Stanton Harcourt ; the 
 Crown and the College litigated about them for just forty years, 
 1558-98 ; but Hoveden had his way, and in the latter year 
 they came back into the hands of the College. In the regrant 
 of the disputed property, the Queen's reasons are stated to be 
 the poverty of the College and the want of a convenient house 
 near Oxford to which the Fellows might retire in times of 
 pestilence in the University. Epidemical disorders had been 
 very common at the date: in 1570-1 the plague carried off 
 600 persons, and in 1577 a fearful distemper in consequence 
 of the "Black Assize" was no less fatal. Such a house as 
 Stanton Harcourt parsonage was then of infinite utility, and 
 for more than 200 years the College used to compel its tenants 
 by a covenant in their lease, to "find four chambers in the 
 
220 ALL SOULS COLLEGE. 
 
 house, furnished with bedding linen, and woollen for so many 
 of the fellows as shall be sent to lodge there whenever any 
 pestilence or other contagious disorder shall happen in the 
 University." The second struggle resulted from an attempt 
 of Elizabeth to induce All Souls to grant a lease of all their 
 woods to Lady Stafford, at the ridiculously small rent of 
 twenty pounds per annum. Hoveden resisted stoutly, and 
 his refusal drew down a most disgraceful letter of threats 
 from Sir Walter Raleigh. Sir Walter intimates that the 
 Queen is highly incensed that " subjects of your quality " 
 should presume to chaifer with her, and hints at evils to come 
 if compliance is still refused. The Warden replied that the 
 terms offered were so bad that if they were taken the Fellow^s 
 would be compelled to give up housekeeping and take to the 
 fields. To this it was answered that " their state was so plenti- 
 ful by her Majesty's statute, that they seemed rather as fat 
 monks in a rich abbey than students in a poor College." Hoveden 
 stood his ground and enlisted Whitgift, the Visitor, to work with 
 Lord Burleigh in the defence of the College. Burleigh moved 
 Elizabeth to relax her pressure, and Lady Stafford never obtained 
 her cheap lease. 
 
 By the end of Hoveden's time a new subject of interest comes 
 to the front in the management of the College. The rise in 
 wealth and in prices which characterized the Tudor epoch 
 resulted in the development of the annual surplus from the 
 College estates into unexpected proportions. When all out- 
 goings were paid there were often £500 or £600 left to be trans- 
 ferred to the strong-box in the gate-tower. It naturally occurred 
 to the Fellows that some of this money might reasonably come 
 their way. Archbishop Whitgift allowed them to augment their 
 daily commons from it, and afterwards bade them commute their 
 " livery " in cloth for a reasonable equivalent in cash. This was^ 
 done, but still the annual surplus cash grew. Archbishop Ban- 
 croft directed it " to amendment of diet and other necessary uses 
 of common charge." He soon found that this merely led to luxu- 
 rious living. " It is astonishing," he wrote, '• this kind of beer 
 which heretofore you have had in your College, and I do strictly 
 charge you, that from henceforth there be no other received into 
 
ALL SOULS COLLEGE. 221 
 
 your buttery but small- and middle-beer, beer of higher rates 
 being fitter for tippling-houses." Yet the College strong ale 
 still survives ! Nor was it only in its drinking that the College 
 offended : its eating corresponded : the gaudes, and the annual 
 Bursar's dinner became huge banquets, costing some £40 ; guests 
 were invited in scores, and the festivities prolonged to the third 
 day. Such things were only natural when the Fellows had the 
 disposal of a large revenue, yet were not allowed to draw from it 
 more than food and clothing. At last, Archbishop Abbott, in 
 1629 bethought him of a less demoralizing way of disposing of 
 the surplus : he boldly doubled the livery-money. Then for the 
 first time a Fellowship became worth some definite value in hard 
 cash. The next step was easy enough ; instead of a fixed double 
 livery, there was distributed annually so many times the original 
 livery as the surplus could safely furnish. The seniors drew 
 more than the juniors, and the jurists more then the artists. 
 This arrangement, after working in practice for many years, was 
 sanctioned in theory also by Archbishop Sheldon in 1666. 
 
 It is in a letter of Archbishop Abbott's, dealing with one of 
 the riotous feasts to which the College had grown addicted, that 
 we have our first mention of that celebrated bird, the All Souls 
 Mallard. The Visitor writes — " The feast of Christmas drawing 
 now to an end, doth put me in mind of the great outrage which, 
 as I am informed, was the last year committed in your College, 
 where although matters had formerly been conducted with some 
 distemper, yet men did never before break forth into such intoler- 
 able liberty as to tear down doors and gates, and disquiet their 
 neighbours as if it had been a camp or a town in war. Civil 
 men should never so far forget themselves under pretence of 
 a foolish mallard, as to do things barbarously unbecoming." 
 Evidently the gaude had developed into one of those outbreaks, 
 which a modern Oxford College knows well enough when its 
 boat has gone head of the river. Furniture had been smashed, 
 perhaps a bonfire lighted; certainly the noise had been long and 
 loud. But what of the Mallard ? Pamphlets have been written 
 on him, and College tradition tells that when the first stone of 
 the College was laid a mallard was started out of a drain on the 
 spot. In commemoration of the event, the Fellows annually went 
 
223 ALL SOULS COLLEGE. 
 
 round the College after the gaude, pretending to search for the 
 tutelary bird. The song concerning him was written to be sung 
 by " Lord Mallard," a Fellow chosen as the official songster of the 
 College. It bears every appearance of being of Jacobean date — 
 
 "Griffin, Turkey, Bustard, Ccapon, 
 Let other hungry mortals gape on, 
 And on their bones with stomachs fall hard, 
 But let All Souls' men have their ]\Lallard. 
 
 Chorus — by the blood of King Edward, 
 
 It was a swapping, swapping Mallard 1 
 
 "The Romans once admired a gander 
 More than they did their chief Commander, 
 Because he saved, if some don't fool us, 
 The place that's named from the scull of Tolus.^ 
 
 Chorus, etc. 
 
 " The poets feign Jove turned a swan, 
 But let them prove it if they can, 
 As for our proof it's not at all hard — 
 He was a swapping, swapping Mallard. 
 
 Chorus, etc. 
 
 "Then let us drink and dance aGalliard 
 Unto the memory of the Mallard, 
 And as the Mallard dives in pool, 
 Let's dabble, duck, and dive in bowl." 
 
 Chorus, etc. 
 
 So for three hundred years, if not for four, has Lord Mallard 
 annually chanted. But the last time that we have proof of a 
 procession having gone round the College with torches, j)ursuing 
 the mock search for the bird, is in 1801, when Bishop Heber, 
 then a scholar of Brazenose, mentions in a letter home that he 
 had witnessed the scene from his windows across the Radcliffe 
 Square. 
 
 Professor Burrows in a most ingenious passage of his Worthies 
 makes a plausible suggestion as to the real origin of the Mallard. 
 He found in Alderman Fletcher's copy of Anthony a Wood, now 
 in the Bodleian, the impression of a seal bearing a griffin, in- 
 
 * Capi-tolium. A horrible derivation I 
 
ALL SOULS COLLEGE. 223 
 
 scribed " Sigilho7n Gidlielmi Mallardi Clerici." This seal of one 
 Mallard was actually dug up in making a drain on the site of 
 All Souls, to the east of the Warden's lodgings. Can the 
 exhuming of Mallard's seal have been turned by oral tradition 
 into the finding of an actual mallard ? 
 
 Down to the time of the great Civil War the College, though 
 always more or less tainted wuth the evil of corrupt resignations, 
 continued to produce a great number of able men. Since the 
 Reformation laymen are found among them as well as clerics. 
 We may name Lord Chancellor Weston, Mason and Petre, both 
 Privy Councillors of note, and the Persian traveller Sir Anthony 
 Sherley, under Elizabeth ; while in the early seventeenth century 
 we meet Archbishop Sheldon — long Warden of the College — 
 Bishop Duppa, and Jeremy Taylor. The election of the last- 
 named illustrates in the most striking way the manner in which 
 corrupt resignations had come to be looked upon as matters of 
 routine. Osborne, a Fellow about to vacate his place, instead of 
 putting his nomination up for sale, made a present of it to 
 Archbishop Laud. Laud, taking the procedure as the most 
 natural thing in the world, bade him nominate Taylor, who was 
 therefore elected, but with great murmurs from the College, for 
 he was a Cambridge man, and of nine years standing since his 
 degree. 
 
 Those w^ho know only the modern constitution of All Souls, 
 will find it startling to learn that down to the Great Rebellion the 
 College was not without its fair share of undergraduates. There 
 was no provision for them in the statutes, but a number of 
 " poor scholars " (servientes) were allowed to matriculate. In 1612 
 there were as many as thirty-one of them on the books at once. 
 In going through a list of All Souls men who became Fellows 
 of Wadham between 1615 and 1660, I found that about one in 
 three were servientes, so their number must have been not in- 
 considerable. The College narrowly escaped having a regular 
 provision of scholars, for Archl)ishop Parker had planned the 
 endowment of a considerable number of scholarships from Can- 
 terbury Grammar School when he died. After the Restoration 
 the servientes are no more heard of, or at least the four Bible- 
 clerks then appear as their sole successors. 
 
224 ALL SOULS COLLEGE. 
 
 Few Colleges suffered more from the Civil Wars than All 
 Souls. Its head, Sheldon, was one of the King's chaplains, and 
 all, save a very small minority of the Fellows, were enthusiastic 
 Royalists. One of them, William St. John, was slain in battle in 
 the King's cause, and others of them bore arms for him. It is 
 most pitiful to read the account of the College plate which went 
 to the melting-pot in New Inn Hall, to come forth as the ugly 
 Oxford shillings of Charles I. All Souls contributed 253 lbs. 
 1 oz. 19 dwts. in all, more than any other house save Magdalen, 
 besides a large sum in ready money. Its treasury was swept 
 clean of the founder's gifts, of Warden Keyes' " great cupp 
 double gilt with the image of St. Michael on its cover," of all the 
 church-plate that had escaped Parker, of tankards, flagons, and 
 goblets innumerable. Worse was to follow : the bulk of the Col- 
 lege estates lay in Kent and Middlesex, counties in the hands of 
 the Parliament, and their rents could not be raised. At the end 
 of the first year the tenants were £600 in arrears, and the evil 
 went on growing, while at the same time the demands on the 
 purse of the College were increasing. In June 1643 the College 
 was directed by the King to maintain 102 soldiers for a month, 
 at the rate of four shillings a week per man. It had to con- 
 tribute towards the fortifications, towards stores for the siege, 
 and towards the relief of the poor of the city. Altogether it 
 would seem that the finances of the College went to pieces, and 
 that the greater part of the Fellows dispersed. When the 
 Parliamentary Visitors got to work on the University, as much 
 as two years after the fall of Oxford, they found only eleven 
 members of the College in residence. Warden Sheldon was 
 summoned before them to ask whether he acknowledged their 
 authority, and replied with frankness, " I cannot satisfy myself 
 that I ought to submit to this visitation." Next day a notice of 
 ejectment was served upon him, and the day following the 
 Chancellor Pembroke went with the Visitors to expel him. 
 They found Sheldon walking in his little garden, read their 
 decree to him, and then sent for the College buttery-book, out 
 of which they struck his name, inserting instead of it that of 
 Dr. Palmer, whom they had designated as his successor. Next 
 they bade him giv-e over his keys, and when he refused broke 
 
ALL SOULS COLLEGE. 225 
 
 open his lodgings, installed Palmer in them, and sent the right- 
 ful owner away under a guard of musketeers, " followed as he 
 went by a great company of scholars, and blessed by the people 
 as he passed down the street." 
 
 Of the Fellows, only five made their peace with the Visitors, 
 and avoided expulsion ; even five of the College servants were 
 deprived of their places. The Commissioners proceeded for 
 five years to nominate to the Fellowships, and intruded in all 
 forty-three new members on to the foundation between 1648 
 and 1653. It is only fair to say that if some of them were 
 abnormal personages — such as Jerome Sanchy, who combined 
 the functions of Proctor and Colonel of Horse — others were 
 men of conspicuous merit. The most noteworthy of them was 
 Sydenham, the greatest medical name except Linacre that the 
 College — perhaps that England — can boast. 
 
 In 1653, free elections recommenced, and as the first-fruits 
 of their labours the new Fellows co-opted Christopher Wren. 
 This greatest of all the Fellows of All Souls was in residence 
 for eight years, working from the very first year of his election 
 at architecture, though astronomy and mathematics were also 
 taking up part of his time. Ere he had been many months a 
 Fellow, he erected the large sundial, with the motto pcrcunt 
 et imputantur, which now adorns the Library. In 1661 he 
 resigned his Fellowship on becoming Professor of Astronomy, 
 and shortly after departed for London. Almost the only note 
 of his All Souls life that survives is the fact that he was a 
 great frequenter of the newly-established coffee-house, next 
 door to University College. His famous architectural drawings 
 were left to the College, and are still preserved in the Library. 
 
 The troubles of the Restoration passed over with very little 
 friction at All Souls. Palmer, the intruding Warden, died in 
 the very month of King Charles' return, and Sheldon peaceably 
 took possession of his old place. But within two years he was 
 called off, to become Archbishop of Canterbury, and John 
 Meredith reigned in his stead. This Warden s short tenure of 
 office is marked by the horrible mutilation of the reredos to 
 which we have already alluded. The College must needs have 
 a "restoration" of its chapel, and in the true spirit of the 
 
 Q 
 
220 ALL SOULS COLLEGE. 
 
 "restorer," broke away much of what was characteristic in it, 
 plastered up the rest, and hired Streater, painter to the king, 
 to daub a "Last Judgment" on the flat space thus obtained. 
 Having accomplished this feat Meredith died. 
 
 Meredith's successor, Jeames, prompted and supported by 
 Archbishop Bancroft, succeeded in finally putting down the evil 
 of corrupt resignations, which had survived the Parliamentary 
 Visitation, and blossomed out into all its old luxuriance in the 
 easy times of the Restoration. The fight came to a head in 
 1680-1, when Jeames, for two years running, used his veto to 
 prevent the election of all candidates nominated by resigners. 
 The veto frustrating any election, the Visitor was by the statutes 
 allowed to fill up the vacant places, and did so. The threat 
 that the same procedure should again be carried out in the next 
 year brought the majority of the College to reason, though for 
 the whole twelve months, Nov. 1680 — Nov. 1681, twenty-four 
 discontented Fellows, whom Jeames called " the Faction," were 
 moving heaven and earth to get the Warden's right of veto 
 rescinded. From 1682 onwards, the type of Fellow improved, 
 and some of the most distinguished members of the College 
 date from the years 1680 — 1700. It is in this period, however, 
 that the complaint begins to be heard that All Souls looked 
 to birth quite as much as to learning in choosing its candidates. 
 "They generally," says Hearne — a great enemy of the College — 
 " pick out those that have no need of a Fellowship, persons of 
 great fortunes and good birth, and often of no morals and less 
 learning." For the former part of this statement, the names 
 in the College register give some justification : concerning the 
 latter, we can only say that the average of men who came to 
 great things in the list of Fellows is higher in Hearne's time 
 than at any other. To this period belong Dr. Clarke, Secretary 
 of War under William III., Christopher Codrington — of whom 
 more hereafter — Bishop Tanner the antiquary. Sir Nathaniel 
 Lloyd, and many more. 
 
 The reign of James 11. was fraught with as much danger to 
 All Souls as to the other Colleges of the University. Warden 
 Jeames died in 1686, and every one expected and dreaded an 
 attempt to force a Papist head on the College. What happened 
 
ALL SOULS COLLEGK 227 
 
 was almost as bad. There was in the foundation a very junior 
 Fellow — only elected in 1682 — named Leopold Finch, son of 
 the Earl of Winchelsea, whose riotous outbreaks and habitual 
 fits of inebriety had done much to embitter Jeames' last years 
 of rule. Finch was a hot Tory, and when, on the outbreak of 
 Monmouth's rebellion, the University proposed to raise a 
 regiment of trained-bands for the King, was one of the leaders 
 in the movement. He enlisted a company of musketeers from 
 members of All Souls and Merton, and this company was the 
 only part of the University battalion that actually took the 
 field. Its not very glorious record of service consisted in 
 occupying Islip for ten days, to secure the London road, and 
 stop all transit of suspicious persons. When the news of 
 Sedgmoor came, Lord Abingdon bade the company dine with 
 him at Rycot, and they came home " well fuzzed with his ale," 
 insomuch that their very drum was stove in, and remains so to 
 this day, stored, with one of the muskets borne by the volunteers, 
 in All Souls Bursary. 
 
 Finch had nothing to recommend him save this military 
 exploit, his good birth, and his notorious looseness of life and 
 conscience. He was thought by the King capable of anything 
 in the way of submission — perhaps even of conversion to Papacy 
 — and on the death of Jeames the College, to its hoiTor, learned 
 that Finch had been nominated as Warden. Less couraofeous 
 than the Fellows of Magdalen, the All Souls men, though they 
 refused to elect Finch in due form, refrained from choosing any 
 other head, and allowed the intruder to take possession of the 
 Warden's house and prerogatives. Finch, though a man of some 
 learning, made as disreputable a head of the College as might 
 have been expected : he jobbed, he drank, he ran into debt, and 
 finally he was found to have embezzled College money. But 
 when William of Orange landed, his Toryism disappeared, and 
 he saved his place by suddenly becoming a hot Whig. All the 
 punishment that he ever got for his usurpation, was that he 
 was compelled to acknowledge himself as only '* pseud o-custos," 
 and to submit to be re-appointed to his Wardenship in a more 
 legal way. He presided for sixteen years over the College with 
 much disrepute, and died in 1702 — with the bailiffs in his house. 
 
228 ALL SOULS COLLEGE. 
 
 Finch was succeeded by Bernard Gardiner, a very different 
 character. Gardiner was a good scholar and a good man, but 
 decidedly testy and choleric ; in politics he was that somewhat 
 abnormal creature, a Hanoverian Tory, and succeeded in earning 
 the dislike of both parties. He was the Vice-Chancellor who 
 deprived Hearne of his place in the Bodleian for Jacobitism, yet 
 he also fought a furious battle with Wake, the Whig Archbishop, 
 who was his Visitor. With a large faction of the Fellows he had 
 equally numerous passages of arms, yet still the College flourished 
 under him. It was in his time that the great back quadrangle, 
 the new Hall, and the new Warden's lodgings, were built. 
 
 These spacious buildings were erected not with College 
 money, but by generous and long-continued benefactions from 
 the Fellows. Dr. Clarke, the Secretary of War, was the chief 
 donor : " God send us many such ample benefactors " wrote 
 his grateful Warden in the College book. He built the 
 Warden's lodgings out of his own pocket, besides paying for the 
 " restoration " of the east end of the chapel. This consisted in 
 painting over Streater's bad fresco ^ a much better production 
 by Sir James Thornhill — the somewhat heathenish but spirited 
 Apotheosis of Chichele — which was taken down in our own 
 generation. Below the fresco were placed two marble pillars, 
 supporting an entablature, which framed Raphael Mengs' 
 pleasing " Noli me tangere," the picture which now adorns the 
 ante-chapel. After Clarke the most generous donors were Sir 
 Nathaniel Lloyd, who gave £1350 in all; Mr. Greville, who 
 built the new cloister; and General Stuart. Hawkesmoor, 
 Wren's favourite pupil, was their architect ; it is to him that 
 we owe the strange but not ineffective twin-towers, the classic 
 cloister, the vaulted buttery, and the lofty hall with its bare 
 mullionless windows. 
 
 But there was one Fellow in the reign of Anne who was 
 even a greater benefactor than Clarke and Lloyd. It was to 
 Christopher Codrington that the College owes the magnificent 
 library, which so far surpasses all its rivals in the University, 
 save the Bodleian alone. Codrington was a kind of Admirable 
 Creighton, poet and soldier, bibliophile and statesman. In the 
 
 1 See page 226. 
 
ALL SOULS COLLEGE. 229 
 
 same year he gained military promotion for his gallantry at the 
 siege of Namur, welcomed William III. to Oxford in a speech 
 whose elegant Latinity softened even Jacobite critics, and under- 
 took the government of the English West India Islands. He 
 died at Barbadoes in 1710, and left to his well-loved College 
 12,000 books, valued at £6000, with a legacy of £10,000 to build 
 a fit edifice to hold them, and a fund to maintain it. The 
 Codrington Library, commenced in 1716, took many years to 
 build, but at last stood completed, a far more successful work 
 than the hall which faces it across the quadrangle. It is 200 
 feet long, and holds with ease the 70,000 books to which the 
 College library has now swollen. A public reading-room was 
 added to it in 1867, and it is for students of law and history 
 as much of an institution as the Bodleian itself. 
 
 The eighteenth century gave All Souls many brilliant Fellows, 
 but it destroyed the original purpose of the foundation, and 
 ended by making it an abuse and a byword. It is only necessary 
 to mention the names of a few of its members, to show how 
 large a share of the great men of the time passed through the 
 College. It claims the great Blackstone — for many years an 
 indefatigable bursar — the second name to Wren among the 
 list of Fellows. Two Lord Chancellors came from it, Lord 
 Talbot of HensoU, and Lord Northington ; Young the poet was 
 a resident for many years; one Archbishop, Vernon Harcourt 
 of York, and eight Bishops had been Fellows. With them, 
 though elected in the opening years of the present century, 
 must be mentioned Reginald Heber, the first and greatest of our 
 missionary prelates. 
 
 But in spite of these great names, the College — like the 
 whole University — was in a bad way. Two abuses destroyed its 
 usefulness. The first was the introduction of non-residence. 
 Down to the reiorn of Anne, a Fellow who left Oxford without 
 the animus revertendi, forfeited his Fellowship. Every one 
 quitting the College, even for a few months, had to obtain a 
 temporary leave of absence, and to state his intention to return. 
 Gradually Fellows began to devise ingenious excuses for pro- 
 longed non-residence ; the favourite ones were that they were 
 about to study physic, and must therefore travel; or that they 
 
230 ALL SOULS COLLEGE. 
 
 were in the service of the Crown, and must be excused on public 
 grounds. The test case on Avhich the battle was finally fought 
 out was that of Blencowe, a Fellow who had become " Decypherer 
 to the Queen" (interpreter of the cyphers so much used in 
 despatches at that time). Warden Gardiner strove to make 
 him resign, but Blencowe moved Sunderland, the Secretary of 
 State, to interfere in his behalf with the Visitor, and it was 
 formally ruled that his service with the Crown excused him 
 from residence, as well as from his obligation under the statutes 
 to take orders. For the future the Fellows all found some 
 excuse — taking out a commission in the militia was the favourite 
 one — for saying that they were in the royal service, and thereby 
 excused from residence. From about 1720 the number of 
 residents goes down gradually from twenty or thirty to six or 
 seven. The remainder of the Fellows, like Gibbon's enemies at 
 Magdalen, remembered to draw their emoluments, but forgot 
 their statutory obligations. 
 
 Almost as injurious as the exemption from residence was the 
 introduction of a new theory that Founder's-kin candidates had 
 an absolute preference over all others. Archbishop Wake is 
 responsible for its recognition : a certain Robert Wood, in 1718, 
 claimed to be elected simply on account of his birth, and the 
 Visitor ruled that he must be admitted, in spite of the custom 
 of the College, which had never before taken account of such 
 a right. At first the Founder's-kin appeared in small numbers 
 — there are only twelve between 1700 and 1750 — but about the 
 middle of the century they appear to have suddenly woken up 
 to the advantages of obtaining a Fellowship without condition 
 or examination. Between 1757 and 1777 thirty-nine Fellows 
 out of fifty-eight elected are set down as cons. fuTid. in the 
 College books. Archbishop Cornwallis in 1777 ruled that it 
 was not obligatory upon the College that more than ten of the 
 Fellows should be of Founder's kin, and from this time forth 
 the claim of Founder's kin had no direct influence upon the 
 elections. But the doctrine had done its work. It brought the 
 Fellowships within a charmed circle of county families, outside 
 of which the College rarely looked when the morrow of All 
 Souls Day came round. 
 
ALL SOULS COLLEGE. 231 
 
 The effect of this was to create a society of an abnormal sort 
 in the midst of a group of Colleges which, whatever their short- 
 comings may have been, continued to make a profession of study 
 and teaching. The Fellows were men of good birth, and usually 
 of good private means. Hence came the well-known joke that 
 they were required to be " bene nati, bene vestiti, et moderate 
 docti," a saying formed, as Professor Burrows has pointed out, 
 by ingeniously twisting the three clauses in the statutes which 
 bade them be ''de legitimo matrimonio nati," "vestiti sicut eorum 
 honestati convenit clericali," and " in piano cantu competenter 
 docti." 
 
 The Fellows had no educational duties or emoluments, and 
 consequently no inducement to reside except for purposes of 
 study: and for the most part they were not studious, nor 
 resident. The Fellowships were poor, and so were only attractive 
 to men of means. Hence the manao;ement of the ColWe 
 property was a matter of indifference, and it was neglected. 
 Other Colleges no doubt neglected their duties and mismanaged 
 their properties, but All Souls men took a pride in having no 
 duties and in being indifferent to the income arising from their 
 estates. Gradually the College drew more and more apart from 
 its neighbours, until the Fellows made it a point to know 
 nothing and to care nothing about the teaching, the study, or 
 the business that was going on just outside their walls. 
 
 Yet a period during which Blackstone, Heber, and the present 
 Prime Minister were numbered among the Fellows, cannot be 
 said to be undistinguished in the history of the College ; and 
 this system, indefensible in itself, has handed down some things 
 which the present generation would not be willing to lose. This 
 College, which had become somewhat of a family party, was 
 animated by a peculiarly strong feeling of corporate loyalty. 
 And throughout the change and stir of the last forty years, and 
 in the new and many-sided development of the College, the 
 close tie which binds the Fellow, wherever he may be, to the 
 College has never been weakened. And as the College has 
 come back to an intimate connection with the life of the 
 University, its non-resident element is not without value. The 
 lawyer, the member of Parliament, the diplomatist, and the civil 
 
S3S ALL SOULS COLLEGE. 
 
 servant, no longer disregarding the University and its pursuits, 
 are an element of great value in a society which is too apt to be 
 engrossed in the details of teaching and of examinations. 
 
 The University Commission of 1854 swept away tlie rights 
 of Founder's kin together with many other provisions of the 
 Statutes of Chichele, appropriated ten Fellowships to the 
 endowment of Chaii*s of Modern History and International 
 Law, and threw open the rest to competition in the subjects of 
 Law and Modern History. The Commission of 1877 threatened 
 graver changes, and for a while it was doubtful Avhother All 
 Souls might not become an undergraduate College of the 
 ordinary type. But in the end the College was allowed to 
 retain, by means of non-resident Fellowships, its old connection 
 with the world outside, while in other ways its endowments were 
 utilized for study and teaching. On the whole it cannot be 
 said to have suffered more than others from the want of con- 
 structive genius in the Commissioners. It is and will be a 
 College of many Fellows and several Professors, with liabilities 
 to contribute annual sums to Bodley's Library and to under- 
 graduate education. The Fellowships are terminable in seven 
 years, but may be renewed in limited numbers and on a reduced 
 emolument. 
 
 Under these new conditions All Souls — though still somewhat 
 scantily inhabited — is no longer given over during a great part 
 of each year to the bats and owls. It now plays a useful and 
 important part in the University. Its Hall and lecture-rooms 
 are crowded with undergraduates, its reading-room is full of 
 students of law and history, and its Warden and Fellows have 
 produced in the last ten years about twice as many books as any 
 two other Colleges in the University put together. Last, but 
 not least, it has continued most loyally to fulfil its obligation of 
 providing prize Fellowships; no other foundation can say, though 
 several are far richer than All Souls, that it has regularly ofifered 
 Fellowships for competition for twenty consecutive years. 
 
X. 
 
 MAGDALEN COLLEGE. 
 
 By the Rev. H. A. Wilson, M.A., Fellow of Magdalen 
 College. 
 
 In the cloisters of Magdalen College, over one of the arches 
 of the " Founder's Tower," there is to be seen a heraldic rose 
 surmounting the armorial bearings common to the kings of the 
 rival Houses of York and Lancaster. The rose itself, apparently 
 once red and afterwards painted white, is a curiously significant 
 memorial of the civil strife which affected the early fortunes of 
 the College, and of animosities which were perhaps still too 
 keen, when Waynflete's tower was built, to allow the Red Rose 
 to appear even as a witness to the fact tliat his foundation had 
 its beginning under a Lancastrian king. 
 
 It was in the reign and under the patronage of Henry VI. 
 that the founder himself rose to his greatness. Of his early 
 life little is known with any certainty. His father, Richard 
 Patten or Barbour, was apparently a man of good descent and 
 position.^ His mother Margery was a daughter of Sir William 
 Brereton, a Cheshire gentleman who had received knighthood 
 for his military services in France. His change of surname was 
 
 ^ Tlie effigy on Richard Patten's monument has been described as allow- 
 ing the dreHS of a merchant; but there doen not seem to be anything in the 
 costume whicli would indicate unmistakably the status of the wearer. The 
 monument, formerly in the old Church of All Saints at Wainfleet, wos 
 removed to Oxford by the Society of Magdalen College to preserve it frofn 
 destruction on the demolition of the church, in 1820. It is now placed in 
 the little oratory on the north side of the choir of the College chapel. 
 
234 MAGDALEN COLLEGE. 
 
 probably made at the time of his ordination as sub-deacon in 
 1421. That which he adopted was derived from his birthplace, 
 a town on the coast of Lincolnshire. He is sometimes said to 
 have received his education at one or both of the " two St. 
 Mary Winton Colleges," but of this there is no evidence, and 
 we know nothing of his University career except the fact that 
 he proceeded to the degree of Master of Arts. He must have 
 been still a young man when he was appointed in 1428 to 
 the mastership of the school at Winchester, where he also 
 received, from Cardinal Beaufort, the mastership of a Hospital 
 dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen. To his connection with this 
 foundation we may perhaps trace his especial devotion to 
 its patron Saint, and the consequent dedication of St. Mary 
 Magdalen College. In 1440, Henry VI. visited Winchester to 
 gather hints for his scheme for Eton College, and invited Wayn- 
 flete to become the first master of the scliool which formed part 
 of his new foundation. He also made him one of the orio-inal 
 body of Fellows of Eton, and a few years later promoted him to 
 be Provost. It was most probably at this time, and to com- 
 memorate his connection with Eton, that Waynflete augmented 
 his family arms by the addition of the three lilies which appear, 
 with a difference of arrangement, on the arms of Eton College, 
 and on those which Magdalen College derives from its founder. 
 
 In 1447, the See of Winchester became vacant by the death 
 of Cardinal Beaufort, and the King at once recommended William 
 Waynflete for election. He was elected within a few days, and 
 was consecrated at Eton on the 13th July of the same year. 
 Immediately after his elevation to the Episcopate, he seems to 
 have set himself to promote the interests of learning, and to 
 provide for a need which his experience as a schoolmaster had 
 impressed upon his mind, by a foundation in the University of 
 Oxford. Early in 1448, before his enthronement at Winchester, 
 he obtained from the King a license to found a Hall for a 
 President and fifty scholars, to be called St. Mary Magdalen 
 Hall.^ At the same time he obtained, for a term of years, a site 
 
 1 This Hall is of course to be distinguished from the later society of the 
 same name, which was at first a dependency of Magdalen College, and 
 afterwards became a separate foundation. 
 
MAGDALEN COLLEGE. 235 
 
 and buildings which occupied the ground now covered by the 
 new Examination Schools, and in two or more of the halls 
 included in this property he placed his new society, of which he 
 chose John Hornley to be the first President. In 1456 Wayn- 
 flete became Chancellor, and on his elevation to that position 
 he at once conceived the idea of improving his foundation at 
 Oxford, by converting it from a Hall into a College, and by 
 providing it with a better habitation and more ample endow- 
 ments. For this purpose, having obtained the necessary per- 
 mission from the King, he acquired for the Hall the buildings, 
 site, and property belonging to the a,ncient Hospital of St. John 
 Baptist. The property of the Hospital included the tenements 
 which the members of the Hall had until this time inhabited. 
 The Hospital itself was a non-academical institution, having for 
 its purpose the care of pilgrims and the relief of the poor.^ It 
 had been in existence before the reign of John, from whom, 
 while he was still known as Count of Mortain, its Master and 
 Brethren had received benefactions; and it had been endowed, 
 and perhaps .refounded, by Henry IH. The existing Master 
 and Brethren retired upon pensions, the poor inmates of the 
 Hospital were duly provided for, and the Hospital was united to 
 the College, which Waynflete founded by a charter of June 
 12th, 1458. The members of the Hall, with the exception of 
 Hornley, who retired to make way for William Tybarde, the 
 first President of the College, were transferred to the new 
 foundation, and the Hall ceased to exist. 
 
 The members of the College appear to have continued to 
 occupy the buildings formerly leased to the Hall, which had 
 now become their own property, until the Founder should carry 
 
 1 Another duty incumbent upon the members of tlie Hospital was the 
 preaching of a sermon ad populum on St. John Baptist's Day. Tliis, with 
 certain other duties, was transferred to the College. The sermon was at 
 one time preached as a rule from the stone pulpit in the corner of wliat is 
 now called St. John's Quadrangle ; but the stone pulpit was not always 
 employed even in early times. Thus in 1495 there is a record of a pay- 
 ment of 4d. to " four poor scholars " for bringing a pulpit from New College 
 for St. John Baptist's Day, and taking it back again. In the early part of 
 tiie eighteenth century the sermon was preached in the chapel if the day 
 chanced to be wet ; and what was then the exception has become the rule. 
 
236 MAGDALEN COLLEGE. 
 
 out his intention of providing new buildings on the site of the 
 Hospital, and the land adjoining it. The fulfilment of this 
 intention was long deferred, as were some of the plans upon 
 which Waynflete now entered for the increased endowment of 
 his foundation. The troubles in which the country was now 
 for some years involved, and the change in Waynflete's own 
 position, probably account for the delay. In 1460, a few days 
 before the battle of Northampton, Waynflete resigned the 
 Chancellorship, an act which seems to have brought him into 
 discredit Avith the Lancastrian party, though not with Henry 
 himself. He does not seem to have taken any active part in 
 the events which followed, on either side ; but his sympathies 
 appear to have been with the House of Lancaster. We are 
 told by one authority that he " was in great dedignation with 
 King Edward, and fled for fere of him into secrete corners, but 
 at last was restored to his goodes and the kinges favour." In 
 1469, when Edward's power was fully established, a full pardon 
 for all offences, probable and improbable, was granted to Wayn- 
 flete : but some years earlier Edward had confirmed to him the 
 charters and privileges of his See, from which we may reasonably 
 infer that his period of hiding had not been very long. It was 
 not, however, till after the death of Henry VI. that the College 
 began to resume its prosperity, and the work of building was 
 actually begun. The foundation-stone of the chapel was laid in 
 1474; and in 1480, before the building was actually finished, 
 the President and scholars removed from their temporary 
 quarters, and occupied the College, using the oratory of the 
 Hospital for their place of worship until the chapel was com- 
 pleted. The Vicar of St. Peter's in the East, in which parish 
 the College was situated, gave up all claims to tithes and dues 
 within its precincts in consideration of a fixed annual payment, 
 and the College was transferred by the Bishop of Lincoln, with 
 consent of the Dean and Chapter, to the jurisdiction of the 
 Bishops of Winchester, who were to be also its Visitors. 
 
 The society had until this time possessed no body of statutes. 
 Such a code was now given by the founder, and a new President 
 was also appointed by him as successor to Tybarde, who was old 
 and in failing health. The person chosen for this office was 
 
MAGDALEN COLLEGE. 237 
 
 Richard Mayew, of New College, who took possession on August 
 23rd, 1480, and at once proceeded to administer to the members 
 of the College the oath of obedience to the statutes. Ten of 
 the thirty-six members, it appears, at first refused compUance, 
 and were for a time suspended, by the founder's command, 
 from the benefits of the society. In the following year Wayn- 
 flete himself came to visit the College, and there received the 
 King, who came from Woodstock to Oxford to inspect the new 
 foundation, and passed the night within its walls. Some further 
 statutes, chiefly concerning elections and admissions, were issued 
 by the founder in 1482, in which year a large number of Fellows 
 and Demies 1 were formally admitted, and the society regularly 
 organized, though its numbers were not yet fixed. In 1483, 
 Richard III. visited the College, being received, as Edward had 
 been, by the founder, and disputations were held before him, 
 at his desire, in the College Hall, in one of which William 
 Grocyn took part. At this time the founder delivered to the 
 College the whole body of the statutes which he had framed, 
 reserving to himself, however, the right to add to them or revise 
 them as he should see fit. 
 
 The regulations thus made for the government of the society, 
 provided that it should consist of a President, forty Fellows, 
 thirty Demies, four chaplains, eight clerks, sixteen choristers, 
 a schoolmaster, and an usher. The Fellows were to be chosen 
 from certain counties and dioceses; the Demies, in the first 
 instance, from places where the College had property bestowed by 
 the founder or acquired in his lifetime. The Demies were not 
 to be less than twelve years of age at the time of their election, 
 and were not to retain their places after reaching the age of 
 twenty-five years. The system by which Demies succeeded to 
 vacant Fellowships was the growth of later custom, and was 
 not provided for by the statutes. The schoolmaster and usher 
 were to give instruction in grammar to the junior Demies, and 
 to all others who should resort to them. Provision was made 
 for the teaching of moral and of natural philosophy, and of 
 
 1 This name was given to the scholars who received half the allowance 
 given to Fellows. It appears to have been in current use at the time when 
 the founder's statutes were drawn up. 
 
238 MAGDALEN" COLLEGE. 
 
 theology, by the appointment of readers in these subjects, whose 
 lectures were to be open to all students, whether members of 
 the Colleofe or not. Besides the foundation members of the 
 Colleofe, the statutes allowed the admission of commoners of 
 noble family, whose numbers were not to exceed twenty, and 
 who might be allowed to live in the College at the charge of 
 their relations. The regulations as to the dress, conduct, and 
 discipline of the College were based upon those laid down in 
 the statutes given by William of Wykeham to New College, 
 from which society a Fellow, or former Fellow, might be chosen 
 as President. Save for this exception, no one who had not been 
 a Fellow of Magdalen College was to be accounted eligible for 
 that oflBce. 
 
 The endowments of the College, besides the property which 
 was derived from the Hospital of St. John Baptist, and that 
 which had been originally settled upon the Hall, consisted 
 partly of lands acquired by Waynflete for the purpose, partly 
 of the endowments of other foundations which were united or 
 annexed to the College at different times as the Hospital of 
 St. John had been. These were the Hospital of SS. John and 
 James at Brackley in Northamptonshire, the Priory of Sele in 
 Sussex,^ the Hospital of Aynho, a hospital or chantry at Romney, 
 the Chapel of St. Katharine at Wanborough, and the Priory of 
 Selborne in Hampshire.^ An intended foundation at Caister 
 in Norfolk, for which Sir John Fastolf had provided by his will, 
 was by Waynflete's influence diverted to augment the foundation 
 of the College. The Fellowships to be held by persons born in 
 the dioceses of York and Durham, or in the county of York, 
 were partly provided for by special benefactions from Thomas 
 Ingledew, one of Waynflete's chaplains, and by John Forman, 
 one of the Fellows of St. Mary Magdalen Hall. 
 
 Besides the endowments which Waynflete bestowed on his 
 College during his lifetime, he bequeathed to it by will all his 
 
 1 This priory, originally a dependency of St. Florence at Saumur, was 
 made " denizen '' in 1396, before the alien priories were suppressed. 
 
 ^ An Augustinian Priory, founded by Peter des Roches, Bishop of 
 Winchester, in 1233. It was suppressed by Waynflete, after several 
 attempts had been made to reform it. 
 
MAGDALEN COLLEGE. 239 
 
 manors, lands, and tenements, with one exception; and he 
 further recommended it to the special care of his executors, 
 directing that they should bestow upon it a share of the residue 
 of his estate. 
 
 The royal favour which had been shown towards the College 
 during Waynflete's life was continued after his decease (which 
 took place on August 11th, 1486), by Henry VIL, who visited 
 the College in 1487 or 1488, and is still annually commemorated 
 on May 1st as a benefactor, on account, as it would seem, of his 
 having secured to the College the advowsons of Findon , in 
 Sussex, and Slymbridge in Gloucestershire, and having directed 
 that the latter benefice should be charged with an annual pay- 
 ment for the benefit of the College.^ Henry also extended his 
 patronage to the President, Richard Mayevv, whom he employed 
 in many matters of state business, appointing him to be his 
 almoner, and also to be his Procurator-general at the Court of 
 Rome. Mayew also held during his Presidentship several 
 ecclesiastical offices. In 1501 he was sent to Spain to conduct 
 the Infanta Katharine, about to be married to Arthur, Prince 
 of Wales, to England. This marriage forms one of the subjects 
 
 ^ Neither the benefaction of Henry VII. nor his annual commemoration 
 has any connection with the custom of singing a Latin hymn on the Tower 
 at sunrise on May-day. Two accounts of the origin of this custom, which 
 allege such a connection, have often been repeated and sometimes con- 
 fused : (1) That Mass was formerly said at an early hour on May 1st upon 
 the top of the Tower for Henry VIL, and that the hymn is a survival from 
 this service. (2) That the sum paid by the Rectory of Slymbridge to the 
 College was intended for the maintenance of the custom of singing on the 
 Tower. Of the first of these accounts it may be said that there is no 
 evidence of any celebration of Mass on the Tower (a thing a priori highly 
 improbable) at any time ; and that the hymn, which now forms part of the 
 College "Grace," is probably a composition of the seventeenth century, and 
 is certainly not part of the Requiem Mass according to the rite of Sarum, 
 or any other rite. Of the second account it may be said that the deeds 
 relating to Slymbridge show clearly that the payment was not intended for 
 this purpose, to which it was never applied. The present custom of singing 
 the hymn from the " Grace" originated, it is believed, in the last century 
 on an occasion when the former custom of performing secular music on the 
 Tower was interrupted by bad weather. The hymn was probably chosen 
 as a substitute because the choir were perfectly familiar with its words 
 and music. The details of the ceremony as it is at present performed 
 were arranged about fifty years from the present time. 
 
240 MAGDALEN COLLEGE. 
 
 depicted in some pieces of tapestry still preserved in the 
 President's lodgings, which are believed to have been a gift 
 bestowed upon Mayevv by Prince Arthur, who twice at least 
 took up his abode in the College, and was entertained by the 
 President on his visits. Mayew's non-academical employments 
 must have necessitated his repeated absence from his duties as 
 President ; and at last, after his election to the See of Hereford, 
 a dispute seems to have arisen as to the compatibility of his 
 episcopal and academical functions. A party among the 
 Fellows, headed by Stokesley, afterwards Bishop of London, who 
 was then Vice-President, declared that by the fact of Mayew's 
 consecration the office of President had become vacant, and at 
 last obtained from Bishop Fox of Winchester, the Visitor of 
 the College, a decision in favour of their own view. Mayew, 
 in the meantime, had attempted to assert his authority as 
 President in a manner not altogether in accordance with the 
 statutes, and it became necessary for the Bishop of Winchester 
 to hold a formal visitation of the College. This he did by a 
 Commissary, and the records of the Visitation contain many 
 extraordinary charges made by the partizans on each side. 
 Stokesley himself was accused, among other things, of having 
 taken part in some magical incantations, including the baptizing 
 of a cat, in order to discover hidden treasure. The cat, it may 
 be remarked, is sometimes described as cattus, sometimes with 
 more elegant Latinity as ^nurilegus. These proceedings were 
 alleged to have taken place in Yorkshire ; concerning the more 
 immediate affairs of the College, it appears that the strife 
 between the parties had run so high, that some of the Fellows 
 went about the cloisters with armour offensive and defensive. 
 The general result of the Visitation was the acquittal of 
 Stokesley, who cleared himself from all charges to the satis- 
 faction of the Commissary. Bishop Mayew retired from the 
 Presidentship, and was succeeded early in 1507 by John 
 Claymond, formerly Fellow, one of the many distinguished men 
 who were members of the College during the quarter of a 
 century over which Mayew's term of office had extended. 
 Among other members of the College under Mayew's rule may 
 be mentioned the celebrated Grocyn, who was Praelector in 
 
MAGDALEN COLLEGE. 241 
 
 Divinity, Richard Fox (already referred to as Bishop of 
 Winchester), John Colet, afterwards Dean of St. Paul's, and 
 Thomas Wolsey — the last, perhaps, the most celebrated man 
 whom the College has produced. It was during Mayew's 
 Presidentship that the Tower, sometimes attributed to Wolsey,^ 
 was built, and that the cloister on the south side of the 
 quadrangle was added. 
 
 The rise of Wolsey in the King's favour secured the College 
 a friend at Court whose influence was for a time more powerful 
 than that of either Waynflete or Mayew had been. He was 
 appointed one of the King's chaplains, and employed by Henry 
 VII. in some important missions. Soon after the accession of 
 Henry VIII. he became almoner, and "ruled all under the 
 King." Throughout the time of his prosperity he kept up 
 friendly relations with the College, and frequent exchanges of 
 presents took place between him and its members. The first 
 Dean of his College in Oxford was John Hygden, who had 
 succeeded Claymond as President of Magdalen; and several 
 members of Magdalen College were among the first Canons of 
 Cardinal College. 
 
 Another new foundation closely connected with Magdalen 
 College was the College of Corpus Christi, founded by Richard 
 Fox, Bishop of Winchester, who not only induced Claymond to 
 become the first President of his new society, but closely 
 imitated Waynflete's statutes in those which he gave to Corpus 
 
 1 The Tower was begun in 1492, and finished in 1507. The theory 
 which ascribes to Wolsey the credit of being its designer rests on no 
 secure foundation. At the time when it was begun he was not more than 
 twenty-one years of age. The legend that he left Oxford in consequence 
 of some misappHcation of the College funds in connection with this work, 
 is perhaps still less trustworthy. He was twice bursar during the progress 
 of the building, being third bursar in 1498 and senior bursar in 1499- 
 1500. In the former year he also held the post of Master of the College 
 School, and was for some time absent from Oxford, acting as tutor to the 
 sons of the Marquis of Dorset. The accounts for this year are preserved, 
 and show no sign of any transaction of the kind alleged. The accounts of 
 1499—1500 are now lost ; but it may be remarked that in 1500 Wolsey 
 was appointed to the office of Dean of Divinity, which would hardly have 
 been the case if the College had had reason to complain of his conduct as 
 bursar, 
 
 ft 
 
242 MAGDALEN COLLEGE. 
 
 Christi College. These statutes provided that the students of 
 Theology and Bachelors of Arts of Corpus Christi College 
 should attend lectures at Magdalen — the lectures intended 
 beinof no doubt those of the Praelectors or readers established 
 by Waynflete, who occupied a position not unlike that of the 
 University Professors of a later time. It was perhaps with a 
 view to the advantages afforded by these lectures that a further 
 direction enjoined the members of Corpus Christi College, if 
 compelled by a visitation of the plague to move from Oxford, 
 to take up their quarters near the place where the members 
 of Magdalen Colleoje had settled for the time. The second 
 President of Corpus Christi College, Robert Morwent, had been 
 Vice-President of Magdalen, and had migrated with Claymond 
 to take charge of Fox's infant foundation. These two Presidents 
 of Corpus, with John Hygden, first Dean of Cardinal College 
 and of Christ Church, joined together in a benefaction to their 
 former society. They made provision for the yearly distribution 
 to its members of a sum of money, which was to be, and still is, 
 distributed by the bursar in the chapel during the singing of 
 Benedictus on the first Monday of every Lent. 
 
 The "revolution under the forms of law," effected in the 
 reign of Henry VIII., of which Wolsey's fall was the beginning, 
 had no great direct effect upon the College. Indirectly, how- 
 ever, the suppression of the religious houses was a cause of 
 considerable expense. The College had permitted the Carmelites 
 of Shoreham, whose house was much decayed, to occupy their 
 annexed Priory of Sele ; and it was perhaps only in accordance 
 with the justice of the King's proceedings that the Priory was 
 in consequence treated as a Carmelite house, and the College 
 compelled to buy back its own property from the persons to 
 whom Henry had granted it. A less important expenditure 
 involved by the King's proceedings was incurred by the provision 
 of new painted glass, no doubt to replace portions of the chapel 
 windows which had been defaced by the King's commissioners 
 as containing emblems derogatory of his Majesty's supremacy. 
 The "linen-fold" panelling of the hall appears to have been 
 placed in its present position in the year 1541; it is said to 
 have come from Reading Abbey, but the groups of figures, the 
 
MAGDALEN COLLEGE. 243 
 
 heraldic ornaments, and the not too flattering effigy of Henry 
 VIII., which are now inserted in it, were probably designed for 
 the decoration of the Hall. Except for the acquisition of this 
 wood- work, the College seems to have received nothing from 
 the spoil of the religious orders. 
 
 The accession of Edward VI., and the visitation of the University, 
 brought serious trouble upon the College. The President, Owen 
 Oglethorpe, was apparently prepared to accept the earlier stages 
 of the Reformation movement, but he was not prepared to ga 
 so far as the party in power required. Some members of the 
 College were of the more advanced school of the Reformers ; and 
 much irreverence, with a good deal of wanton destruction, was 
 committed by them, encouraged by letters from the Protector 
 inciting the College to the "redress of religion." Oglethorpe 
 was removed from the office of President, into which Walter 
 Haddon, a person not eligible according to the statutes, was 
 intruded, in spite of a petition from the Fellows, and the 
 work of reformation proceeded according to the desire of the 
 Council. Haddon is said to have sold many of the effects 
 of the chapel, valued at about £1000, for about a twentieth 
 part of that sum, and to have " consumed on alterations " 
 not only the sum so received, but a larger sum of the 
 "public money" of the College. It was fortunate for the 
 society that the scheme of the Council for the total suppression 
 of the choir, and the alienation of a corresponding part of 
 the College revenue, had been promulgated while Oglethorpe 
 was still President. Under his guidance, with considerable 
 difficulty, the College managed to preserve this part of its 
 foundation unimpaired. 
 
 Immediately on the accession of Queen Mary, Walter Haddon 
 received, as appears from the Vice-President's register, leave of 
 absence on urgent private affairs, and his example was soon 
 followed by those of the Fellows who had been especially notable 
 for their zeal in the " redress of religion." Laurence Humphrey, 
 one of this party, obtained leave for the express purpose of 
 conveying himself in trammarmas partes ; and this leave of 
 absence was continued to him at a later time provided that he 
 did not resort, to those towns which were known to be the 
 
244 MAGDALEN COLLEGE. 
 
 refuge of heretics. He took up his abode forthwith at Zurich. 
 As he was absent from the College during the Avhole of Mary's 
 reign, he is perhaps not a sufficient witness of the events of 
 that time. He asserts that the Roman party had great difficulty 
 in re-estabUshing the old order of things in College, and that the 
 younger members of the society suffered many things at their 
 hands. Of all this, however, there is no evidence in the Vice- 
 President's register, where most of the offences and almost all the 
 penalties recorded during this period are of an ordinary kind.^ 
 Oglethorpe was restored to his Presidency, and was succeeded on 
 his elevation to the See of Carlisle, by Arthur Cole, a Canon 
 of Windsor.2 During the tenure of Cole, and of his successor 
 Thomas Coveney (whom the College chose in preference to 
 three persons recommended by the Queen), there appear to 
 have been differences of opinion on religious matters Avithin the 
 College, and some difficulties in enforcing the due attendance 
 of its members at the chapel services ; but there is no sign of 
 what might be called a tendency to persecution on the part of 
 the authorities. The most recalcitrant members of the society 
 seem to have been the Bachelor Demies and Probationer Fellows. 
 Coveney remained President for some time after Queen 
 Elizabeth's coronation by Oglethorpe; and in the interval 
 between that event and the consecration of Archbishop Parker 
 there are some indications in the register of religious strife 
 within the College. The end of Coveney's term of office was 
 marked by a contest between himself and some of the Fellows, 
 concerning matters of College business, in which he seems to 
 have exceeded his power as President. He was deprived by 
 Bishop Horn at a Visitation in 1561, on the ground, it is 
 said, that he was a layman ; but it might be at least doubt- 
 ful whether the founder's statutes strictly required the Presi- 
 dent to be in Holy Orders; and it is probable that the 
 real reason for his deprivation lay in the fact that Horn 
 
 ^ Some members of the College, including apparently several of those who 
 had withdrawn at the accession of Mary, were ejected by Bp. Gardiner at a 
 Visitation in 1553. 
 
 2 There is an interesting brass in the College chapel bearing the efiGgy of 
 President Cole, now concealed by the steps at the lectern. 
 
MAGDALEN COLLEGE. 545 
 
 regarded him as being too much "addicted to the Popish 
 superstition." 
 
 Tliis fault at all events could not be laid to the chart^e of 
 Laurence Humphrey, who succeeded him. Horn himself had 
 reported that the members of ths College, whom he expected 
 to find of the same school as their President, were wilhng to 
 accept the tests he proposed to them— to acknowledge the Queen's 
 supremacy, and to accept the Book of Common Prayer, and the 
 Advertisements. Before Humphrey had been long President 
 the College had ceased to be " conformable," but its non-con- 
 formity was of the Puritan, not of the Romanizing, type. 
 Humphrey himself had a strong objection to wearing a surplice, 
 or using his proper academical dress, and many of his Fellows 
 followed his example in this matter. It required more than 
 one Visitation to induce compliance on such matters. Abuses 
 of another kind, however, were left uncorrected, and even 
 encouraged, by the Visitors. Many Fellowships were filled up 
 by nominations from the Queen, or from the Bishop of 
 Winchester, and it may be added that the persons nominated 
 were not always model members of a College. There were 
 many contentions between the Fellows, and between the 
 President and the Fellows. The general impression given by 
 reading the register of the time of Humphrey and his imme- 
 diate successors is, that the College was becoming a home 
 of disorder rather than of learning. Nicolas Bond, Humphrey's 
 successor, seems, however, in 1589 to have made some rather 
 ineffectual efforts to provide for more regular and systematic 
 study among its members. During his tenure of office the society 
 received a visit from King James I., accompanied by his son 
 Henry, then Prince of Wales, who was matriculated as a member 
 of the College. The King was much impressed by the buildings, 
 and greatly enjoyed his visit. The grotesque figures or '* hiero- 
 glyphics " in the Cloister Quadrangle were painted, as it would 
 seem, in honour of his coming, Moses in particular being adorned 
 toga coeonolca. 
 
 The College, which was Puritan under Humphrey, was even 
 more Puritan under Bond, Harding, and Langton ; with Langton's 
 successor, however, in 1626, the tide set in the contrary 
 
246 MAGDALEN COLLEGE. 
 
 direction. Accepted Frewen, if, as his name suggests, be was 
 of Puritan descent, was himself a supporter of Laud's ecclesi- 
 astical policy, and acted with vigour both as President in his 
 own College and as Yice-Chancellor in the University, for the 
 restoration of discipline and good order. The numbers of the 
 College had been increased during his predecessor's time by 
 the influx of a number of so-called '* poor scholars/' whose 
 connection with the College was very slight, and who seem to 
 have in many cases been entered as members of the society by 
 the mere authority of the person to whom they had attached 
 themselves. Frewen made regulations on this subject, and 
 these seem to have been re-inforced a few years later by a 
 letter from the Visitor. Other matters he also took in hand 
 with good effect, especially the restoration of the chapel, on 
 which he seems to have spent large sums of his own, in addition 
 to the corporate expenditure of the College. The windows of 
 the ante-chapel (except the great west window) were part of 
 Frewen's work, the only part which has been left by the later 
 restoration of 1832. 
 
 The outbreak of the Great Rebellion found the College con- 
 verted from a nest of Puritans into a nest of Royalists and High 
 Churchmen. The King's demand for loans of money and plate was 
 met with some difficulty, but without hesitation, by a loan of £1000 
 in money and by the delivery of plate to the value of about 
 £1000 more. When the Parliamentary forces entered Oxford in 
 September 1642 they found at Magdalen " certain Cavaliers in 
 scholars' habits," who had " feathers and buff-coats " in their 
 chambers. Some of the scholars, being malignant persons, 
 "scoffed" at the invaders and "at the honourable Houses of Par- 
 liament," and were accordingly made prisoners. Other members 
 of the College had left Oxford a few days before with Byron's 
 horse, to join the King : among them was John Nourse, Fellow 
 and Doctor of Civil Law, who fell at Edgehill. After that 
 action the King entered Oxford, and Prince Rupert took up his 
 quarters at Magdalen. The King's artillery was placed in Mag- 
 dalen College Grove, which served as a drill-ground for the 
 regiment of scholars and strangers which was raised in 1644; 
 batteries were erected in the Walks, and gunners exercised in 
 
MAGDALEN COLLEGE. 247 
 
 the College meadows. The timber in the Grove was probably 
 felled for use in the defensive works.^ A curious contrast to 
 this military preparation was furnished by the imposing ceremo- 
 nial of Frewen's consecration as Bishop of Lichfield, which took 
 place in the chapel of the College in April 1644.^ 
 
 Some members of the College were as active on the side of 
 the Parliament as those who remained in Oxford were on the 
 side of the King. A Demy named Lidcott was deprived of his 
 place for having been in arms against the King, serving in 
 Essex's array as an " antient " of a foot company. A far more 
 celebrated member of the Parliamentary party, John Hampden, 
 had formerly been a member of the College which was the 
 head-quarters of the commander of the troops against whom he 
 fought at Chalgrove. 
 
 After the surrender of Oxford, considerable havoc was wrought 
 in the chapel of the College by the Parliamentary troops, who 
 destroyed, among other things, the glass of many of the windows. 
 The organ was appropriated by Cromwell to his own use, and 
 removed by him to Hampton Court, whence it was brought 
 again after the Restoration.^ The Parliamentary Visitors of the 
 University found few members of the College willing to submit 
 to their authority. The President, Dr. John Oliver, and the 
 greater part of the members were ejected, and the bursar, who 
 obstinately refused to give up keys or papers, was imprisoned. 
 The tenants of the College, however, persisted in paying their 
 rents to him, and special injunctions had to be given to prevent 
 them from doing so. The places in College rendered vacant by 
 expulsions were filled up by the importation of Independents 
 and Presbyterians, Dr. John Wilkinson, a former Fellow, being 
 
 1 The elms now in the grove were planted soon after the Restoration, in 
 1661 or 1662. The walks round the meadow were laid out in their present 
 shape rather later. 
 
 2 Frewen was one of the few bishops who outlived the Commonwealth 
 period. He was afterwards Archbishop of York. Warner, Bishop of 
 Rochester, another of the bishops who returned from exile, was also a 
 member of Magdalen College, and a considerable benefactor to its library. 
 
 3 This organ is now, or was till quite lately, in the Abbey Church at 
 Tewkesbury. Cromwell has left a curious memorial of his presence in a 
 note written on the fly-leaf of a copy of Bp. Hall's Treatises, still in the 
 College Library. 
 
24d MAGDALEN COLLEGE. 
 
 made President. He was succeeded two years later by Goodwin, 
 a gloomy person, whose examination of a candidate for a Demy- 
 ship has been recounted by Addison in the Spectator} The records 
 of the events in College during the Commonwealth are very 
 scanty. One of the most remarkable proceedings of the in- 
 truders was the appropriation and division among themselves of 
 a sum of money which they found in the muniment-room ; this 
 was the fund provided by the Founder for special necessities, 
 which had remained untouched since 1585, and the existence of 
 which had perhaps been forgotten. It was for the most part in 
 ancient coinage, the pieces being of the kind known as " spur 
 royals." Of these a hundred fell to the share of Wilkinson, who 
 seems to have been the instigator of the division ; nine hundred 
 more were divided among the thirty Fellow^s, and the Demies 
 and others, including the servants, received portions of the spoil. 
 Before the Restoration, however, some of the recipients restored 
 the pieces they had obtained, and the greater part of the money 
 was actually repaid in course of time. The fund, under more 
 modern financial arrangements, no longer remains in the muni- 
 ment-room, but some of the old coins are still preserved there. 
 On the Restoration the ejected members of the College, or 
 those who were left, were restored to their home. They in- 
 cluded the President, seventeen FelloAvs and eight Demies.^ 
 Dr. Oliver, however, did not long survive his return ; and upon 
 his death began a time of trouble. Charles IL recommended as 
 his successor Dr. Thomas Pierce, a divine who had done much 
 service in the defence of the Church against her assailants, but 
 whom the Fellows, who perhaps knew him better than the King 
 were unwilling, as it seems, to elect. Charles however enforced 
 obedience by a letter as peremptory as any communication 
 which the College afterwards received from his brother, and 
 Dr. Pierce became President. The result was a long warfare 
 
 1 Spectator, No. 494. 
 
 2 The names of those who returned are engraved on a cup known as the 
 " Restoration Cup," which is used as a '* Grace-cup " in the Hall on the 29tli 
 of May. The same cup is used on the 25th of October to commemorate 
 the Restoration of the President and Fellows, who were ejected in 1687, 
 and restored just before tlie Revolution, on Oct. 25th, 1688. The same 
 "toast" is employed on both occasions — Jus suum cuiqiie. 
 
MAGDALEN" COLLEGE. 24^ 
 
 between Pierce, the Fellows, and the Visitor, Bishop Morley, 
 whose intentions seem to have been better than his judfyment. 
 At last the King interfered, and the difficulty was solved by the 
 promotion of Dr. Pierce to the Deanery of Salisbury, where he 
 found scope for his energies in a controversy with his Bshop. 
 Dr. Henry Clerk was now recommended by the King, and elected 
 by the Fellows, and the society was at peace for some years. 
 That peace was again disturbed, on Dr. Clerk's death, by the 
 action of James IL, who attempted to force upon the Colle<^e as 
 its President a man unqualified by statute and disqualified by 
 notorious immorality. The history of the struggle which fol- 
 lowed is too well known to need repetition here.i The Fellows 
 almost unanimously chose one of their own number, and sup- 
 ported him, when duly elected, against the King's second 
 nominee. In the end, after a year's exile, they were restored to 
 their College, under Dr. John Hough, the President of their own 
 choice, by the Bishop of Winchester, acting on instructions from 
 the King. 
 
 The Revolution brought with it new causes of disquiet, and 
 some members of the College were again ejected as Nonjurors. 
 The great majority, however, of those who had contended 
 against the usurpation of James were content to submit them- 
 selves to the new Sovereigns, and retained their places. The 
 most notable member who was thus lost to the College was Dr. 
 Thomas Smith, a man of much learning and ability, and a steady 
 and uncompromising Royalist. In 1689 occurred what was 
 afterwards known as the " Golden Election " of Demies, which 
 included, besides others less known, Hugh Boulter, afterwards 
 Archbishop of Armagh, Smallbrook, afterwards Bishop of St. 
 David's and later of Lichfield, the notorious Henry Sacheverell, 
 and Joseph Addison, the most celebrated member of the College 
 since the Revolution. The residence of Addison in College was 
 not prolonged beyond his year of probation as Fellow ; but he 
 has left a memory of himself in the fact that his name has been 
 attached to a portion of the Walks. These it would seem in his 
 
 ^ It has been related with some picturesque detail, but with substantial 
 accuracy, by Macaulay ; and it is more completely treated in the sixth 
 volume of the publications of the Oxford Historical Society. 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
250 MAGDALEN COLLEGE. 
 
 time did not extend beyond what is now called Addison's Walk, 
 but was formerly known as " Dover Pier." 
 
 The members of the College who remained seem to have 
 maintained friendly relations v/ith those who had withdrawn 
 from it as Nonjurors, and even at this time, and certainly after 
 the accession of George I., the sympathy of many among the 
 Fellows was with the exiled rather than with the reionina branch 
 of the Royal House. During the first half of the eighteenth 
 century, indeed, politics flourished in the society more than 
 learning ; and although Gibbon's picture of the condition of the 
 College during his brief residence is rather highly coloured, it 
 cannot be doubted that the general decline of academic activity 
 which affected many of the Colleges in Oxford during the last 
 century, affected Magdalen in no slight degree. A large part of 
 the attention of the society seems to have been given to plans 
 for the rearrangement or the destruction of the College build- 
 ings, and for the re-construction of the College on the pattern 
 adopted in what are known as the " New Buildings," erected 
 in 1735. Some amazing designs for "College improvements" 
 remain in the library, as a memorial of the architectural ambi- 
 tions of this period. Among the Presidents of the eighteenth 
 century, if we except Dr. Routh, whose lengthened tenure 
 extended over the last years of that century and the first half of 
 the nineteenth, there is but one name of mark — that of George 
 Home, afterwards Bishop of Norwich, once widely-known by his 
 Commentary on the Psalms. Nor are there many names of 
 mark among the other members of the College in the same 
 century. The learning of Dr. Routh does not seem to have been 
 shared in any conspicuous degree by more than a small pro- 
 portion of those who passed through the College in his long 
 Presidentship — though towards the end of that period Magdalen 
 numbered among its members several men of note in different 
 ways — James Mozley and William Palmer among theologians, 
 Ferrier among philosophers, Roundell Palmer, now Lord Sel- 
 borne, among lawyers, Conington among scholars, Charles Reade 
 among novelists, Goldwin Smith among essayists, Charles Dau- 
 beny among those who laboured to advance the study of natural 
 science. 
 
MAGDALEN COLLEGE. 251 
 
 Of the changes which have been brought about in the College 
 since the days of Routh, of its transformation from a small 
 society of Fellows and Demies into one of the larger among the 
 Colleges in Oxford, it is hardly possible to speak as of history. 
 They are changes of the present day. But it is a matter of 
 history, which ought not to be forgotten, that the College, which 
 has owed much to its Presidents in the past, owes much in 
 this matter to its last President, who governed it during the 
 trying times of two University Commissions, and of the changes 
 which resulted from them. By his own example of the loyal 
 acceptance of what was necessary, even when it was uncongenial 
 to his tastes, and by the kindly sympathy which enabled him to 
 reconcile conflicting interests, he did more to preserve the peace 
 of his College, and to promote its progress, than he would him- 
 self have thought possible, or than those to whom he was less 
 well known than to the members of his own College would 
 have been inclined to imagine. 
 
XL 
 
 BRASENOSE COLLEGE. 
 
 (Aula Begia et Collegium de Braseiiose, Collegium Aenei Nasi.) 
 Br Falconer Madan, M.A., Fellow of Brasenose. 
 
 I. THE king's hall OF BRAZEN-NOSE. 
 
 {Aula Begia de Brasinnose) 
 
 Professor Holland has given a clear account ^ of the three 
 stages through which a University passes, first as scholae, where 
 there is "a more or less fortuitous gathering of teachers and 
 students " ; next as a studiuui generale, when the teachers 
 become "a sort of guild of masters or doctors," with control 
 over the admission by a degree to their own body ; and lastly 
 as a Universitas, when the society " acquires a corporate exist- 
 ence," with a well-defined constitution and privileges. The first 
 and second of these stages were attained by Oxford in the 
 twelfth century, and the third early in the thirteenth century. 
 It is early in this latter century that we also find the earliest 
 associations of students among themselves. The system of Halls 
 was due to the desire of the poorer class of students to live for 
 economy's sake in a common house with common meals, under 
 the charge of a Principal whose duty was quite as much to 
 
 1 Oxf. Hist. Soc. Collectanea, II. (1890), pp. 147-8 ; see the JEnglish 
 Historical Beview, Apr. 1891. 
 
BRASENOSE COLLEGE. 253 
 
 manage household affairs as to superintend the studies of his 
 scholars.! 
 
 The existence of the house which became Brasenose Hall 
 may be carried back with certainty to the second quarter of 
 the thirteenth century, the earliest facts at present known 
 being that it belonged, in or before A.D. 1239,^ to one Jeffry 
 Jussell, and that it passed into the hands of Simon de Balindon, 
 who sold it in about 1261 to the Chancellor and Masters of the 
 University, for the use of the scholars enjoying the benefaction 
 of William of Durham. Soon after this purchase the occupier, 
 Andrew the son of Andrew of Durham, was forcibly ejected by 
 Adam Bilet and his scholars, and no doubt at this time, if not 
 earlier, the tenement acquired the name of Brasenose, and was 
 used as schools, for in 1278 an Inquisition ^ says, "Item eadem 
 Universitas [Oxon.] habet quandam aliam domum que vocatur 
 Brasenose cum quatuor Scholis . . . et taxantur ad octo marcas, 
 et fuit ilia domus aliquo tempore Galfridi Jussell." The transi- 
 tion from these Scholae or lecture-rooms to a Hall cannot now 
 be traced, but no doubt took place within the same century. 
 
 In the early part of 1334 a striking incident occurred in the 
 history of the Hall. Under stress of internal faction, and not 
 on this occasion, it would seem, from excesses on the part of the 
 citizens, there was a migration of a large number of the students 
 of the University from Oxford to Stamford, fulfilling the (later!) 
 prophecy of Merlin — 
 
 " Doctrinae studium quae nunc viget ad Vada Boum 
 Tempore venture celebiabitur ad Vada Saxi." 
 
 But of all the emigrants the only men who kept together 
 were the students of Brasenose Hall, as is evidenced by the 
 * existence at Stamford to this day of a fourteenth century arch- 
 way, belonging to an ancient hall called for centuries "Brasenose 
 Hall in Stamford," the refectory of which was standing till A.D. 
 
 1 In like manner the position of the head of the earliest College (Merton) 
 was rather that of a Bursar than a Master, a gardianm bonornm more than 
 scholarium. 
 
 2 Wood's Histonj of the University of Oxford^ ii. 755-7. The name of 
 Brasenose occurs in the well-known forged charter which professes to be 
 of the date 1219. ^ Wood's Historyy ii. 756. 
 
254 BRASENOSE COLLEGE. 
 
 1688,^ and still more by a brass knocker which is assigned by 
 antiquaries to the early part of the twelfth century, and which 
 from time immemorial hung on the doors of the Stamford gate- 
 way. It is reasonable to suppose that the knocker had origin- 
 ally given a name to the Oxford Hall, and had been carried as 
 a visible sign of unity to the distant Lincolnshire town.^ The 
 King used all his power to force the students to return to 
 Oxford, and in a final commission in July, 1335, the name of 
 "Philippus obsonator Eneanasensis " occurs among the thirty- 
 seven who resisted to the last the mandates of the King.^ 
 
 The list of Principals of Brasenose is preserved from 1435 
 onwards (see p. 271), but little or nothing is recorded of the life 
 of the Hall. Its flourishing state may be inferred from its 
 vigorous annexation of the surrounding buildings, as Little St. 
 Edmund Hall, Little University Hall, and St. Thomas Hall. 
 An inventory of the furniture belonging to Master Thomas 
 Cooper of Brasenose Hall, who died in 1438, is printed in 
 Anstey's Munimenta Academica, ii. 515. The Vice-Chancellor 
 in 1480-82 was William Sutton, Principal of Brasenose Hall, 
 and Proctors in 1458 (John Molineux) and 1502 (Hugh 
 Hawarden) were Brasenose men. 
 
 The new College, founded in 1509, was in several special 
 ways a continuation of, and not merely a substitute for, the old 
 Hall. The site of the Hall was exactly at the principal gateway 
 of the College; it had already annexed many of the adjacent 
 buildings required for the new erection, and the last Principal 
 of the Hall was the first Principal of the College. It may 
 fairly be claimed therefore that there is a real succession, both of 
 name and fame, from the one to the other. 
 
 ^ See Peck's History of Stamford, which contains an engraving of the 
 gateway and knocker. The latter is perhaps more accurately described as 
 a door handle. 
 
 2 See the Proceedings of the Oxford Architectural and Historical Society 
 for November 18th, 1890. The site of the Hall with the gateway and 
 knocker was purchased by Brasenose College in 1890, and the eponymoua 
 Brazen Nose itself is now fixed in a place of honour in the College hall. 
 
 ^ Until 1827 every candidate for a degree at Oxford took an oath " Tu 
 jurabis, quod non leges nee audies [deliver or attend lectures] Stanfordiee, 
 tanquam in Universitate, Studio vel Collegio generali." 
 
BRASENOSE COLLEGE. 255 
 
 IL THE FOUNDERS OF BRASENOSE COLLEGE. 
 
 William Smyth, the chief founder of Brasenose, was the 
 fourth sou of Robert Smyth, of Peel House, in Widnes 
 (Lancashire), and belonged to a Cuerdley family. Of the date of 
 his birth, early education, and career at Oxford nothing what- 
 ever is certainly known. In 1492 when he was instituted to 
 the Rectory of Cheshunt, he was a Bachelor of Law. Throuo-h 
 the influence of the Stanley family, and of Margaret, Countess 
 of Richmond, Smyth obtained promotion both in civil and 
 ecclesiastical lines, until in 1491 he was elected Bishop of 
 Coventry and Lichfield. In the closing years of the fifteenth 
 century he presided over the Prince of Wales's Council in the 
 Marches of Wales, and was President of Wales in 1501 or 1502. 
 In Lichfield he founded, in 1495, a Hospital of St. John, which 
 has preserved a portrait of him almost identical with the one 
 owned by the College. In the same year he was translated to 
 Lincoln. The Bishop's connection with Oxford was renewed in 
 1500, at the end of which year he was elected Chancellor, retain- 
 ing the office till August, 1503. This link with the University had 
 great results, for in 1507 the Bishop established a new Fellow- 
 ship in Oriel, endowed Lincoln College with two estates, and 
 formed his plans with a view to the foundation of Brasenose. 
 After that event there is little of importance to notice in his 
 public life before his death on 2nd January, 151 J. 
 
 Sir Richard Sutton, Knight, the co-Founder of Brasenose, 
 and the first lay founder of any College, was of the family of 
 Sutton, of Sutton near Macclesfield, and probably a kinsman of 
 William Sutton, Principal of Brasenose Hall in and after 1469 ; 
 but no connection can be traced between this family and the' 
 wealthy Thomas Sutton who founded the Charterhouse a cen- 
 tury later. Of his birth and education there is no record, but 
 he was a Barrister of the Inner Temple and was made a Privy 
 Councillor in 1497. In 1513 he was Steward of the Monastery 
 of Sion at Isleworth, a house of Brigittine nuns. At his 
 expense Pynson printed the Orcharde of Syon, a devotional book, 
 in 1519. In 1522 or 1523 he received the honour of knighthood, 
 and died in 1524. 
 
25e 
 
 BRASENOSE COLLEGE. 
 
 III. THE FOUNDATION AND EAKLY STATUTES OF THE COLLEGE. 
 
 The first record of the proposal to found Brasenose is con- 
 tained in the will of Edmund Croston, dated (four days before his 
 death) on Jan. 23, 150|, where are bequeathed £6 13s. 4id. to 
 " the building of Brasynnose in Oxford, if such works as the 
 Bishop of Lyncoln and Master Sotton intended there went on 
 during their life or within twelve years after." It is probable 
 that the Bishop at one time intended that Lincoln College 
 should enjoy his benefactions, for Robert Parkinson, Sub-rector 
 of Lincoln, wrote about 1566-69, " Proposuerat enim [episcopus], 
 ut ferunt, omnia nostro collegio praestitisse quae postea in 
 Brasinnos egit, si voluissent R[ector] et S[cholares] qui turn 
 fuerunt ab eo propositas conditiones recipere." 
 
 The actual foundation can be best shown in the form of 
 annals, it being understood that the disposition of the halls 
 mentioned was nearly as follows — 
 
 __j a 
 
 
 
 ST. 
 
 mary's 
 
 ENTRY 
 
 (Oriel) 
 
 Garden 
 
 SALIS- 
 BURY 
 HAIX 
 
 (Oriel) 
 
 BRAZE- 
 NOSE 
 HALL 
 
 (Univ 
 
 J 
 ST. 
 THOMAS 
 HALL 
 
 HABER- 
 DASHER 
 HALL 
 
 (Oseney) 
 
 LITTLE 
 ST. ED- 
 MUND 
 HALL 
 
 (Oseney) 
 
 LITTLE 
 
 UNI- 
 VERSITY 
 HALL 
 
 Coll.) 
 
 Garden 
 
 SCHOOL STREET. 
 
 EXETER 
 COLLEGE 
 GARDEN 
 
 1 ! 
 
 ST. mary's 
 CHURCH 
 
 
 <- 58 ft. -> 
 
 
 
 GLASS 
 
 STAPLE 
 
 BT.ACK 
 
 DEEP 
 
 HALL 
 
 HALL 
 
 HALL 
 
 HALL 
 
 Dseney) 
 
 (Lincoln Coll.) 
 
 (Oseney) 
 
 
 1508, Oct. 20, Brazen Nose and Little University Halls are 
 leased by University College to Richard Sutton, Esq., and eight 
 others (four of whom were among the first Fellows) for ninety- 
 two years at an annual rent of £3, on condition that the lessees 
 should spend £40 on the tenements within a year. The College 
 agreed to renew the lease and to give over all their rights, as 
 soon as property of the annual value of £3 should be given 
 
BRASENOSE COLLEGE. 267 
 
 them. In 1514 Sutton assigned this lease to trustees to carry 
 out his purposes. 
 
 1509, summer. Edward Moseley's stone quarry at Heading- 
 ton is let to the founders and Roland Messenger for their lives. 
 
 1509, June 1. The foundation stone of the College is laid, 
 as recorded on a modern copy of the original inscription, now 
 and probably always placed over the doorway of Staircase No. 1, 
 which used to lead to the first chapel of the College : — 
 
 "Anno Christi 1509 et Regis Henrici octavi primo | Nomine 
 diuino lincoln | presul quoque sutton . Hanc posu | ere petram 
 regis ad imperium | primo die lunii." 
 
 15ff, Feb. 20. Oriel College lets Salisbury Hall and St. 
 Mary's Entry (Introitus S. Mariae) to Sutton and others for ever 
 in consideration of an annual rent of 13s. 4<^. 
 
 151^, Jan. 15. A Charter of Foundation granted to Smyth 
 and Sutton. 
 
 1523, May 6. Sutton transfers the property acquired from Uni- 
 versity College in 1508, to the Principal and Fellows of Brazenose. 
 
 1530, May 12. Haberdasher, Little St. Edmund, Glass and 
 Black Halls are granted to the College on a lease of ninety-six 
 years by Oseney Abbey, the first being at once converted by 
 payment into the property of the College, but the others not 
 till March 6, 165^. 
 
 1556, Nov. 2. Staple Hall, which had once belonged to the 
 Abbey of Eynsham, is leased by Lincoln College to Brasenose 
 for ever at a rent of 20s. per annum. 
 
 " Rome was not built in a day," and it is curious to note how 
 the old and new foundations overlap each other. The College 
 building clearly began at the south-west comer of the present 
 front quadrangle, and Brasenose Hall was no doubt left until 
 the building naturally reached it. Thus John Formby was 
 Principal of the Hall till Aug. 24, 1510, when Matthew Smyth 
 succeeded him, and in Smyth's name on Sept. 9, 1511 Roland 
 Messenger still became surety for the dues payable by the Hall 
 to the University, for the ensuing year ; and even on Sept. 9, 
 1512, Smyth himself " cautioned," as it was called, for the 
 moribund hall. Moreover, a scholar of the Hall was locked up 
 
 s 
 
258 BRASENOSE COLLEGE. 
 
 in August 1512 for interfering with the workmen who were 
 building Corpus. The first occasion on which the College 
 appears in the University Registers is in Sept. 1514, when 
 Matthew Smyth, " Principal of the College or Hall of Brasen 
 Nose " is mentioned ; but there is evidence that the corporate 
 action of the College dates from at least as early as Nov. 1512. 
 We thus have before us the successive steps by which a College 
 gradually grew, and literally piece by piece took the place of 
 the precedent Halls. 
 
 It is now time to turn to the statutes, the buildings being 
 reserved for a later section. 
 
 The Charter of Foundation is dated Jan. 15, 151J, and the 
 original statutes were no doubt shortly after drawn up and 
 ratified by the two founders, but no copy of them remains. 
 Bifihop Smyth's executors in about 1514 revised and signed a 
 modification of the code, which still exists, and finally at the 
 request of the College Sir Richard Sutton once more revised 
 them, on Feb. 1, 152J. 
 
 As in conception and in form of buildings, so in respect of 
 their statutes also, Merton and New College are the two cardinal 
 foundations. From the latter were derived the statutes of 
 Magdalen, founded in 1458, and from these latter the earliest 
 statutes of Brasenose. The general sense of the Code of 1514 
 with Sutton's changes in 1522, can be well gathered from the 
 Churton's abstract in his Lives of , . . (the) Founders of Brazen 
 Nose College (Oxf 1800), pp. 315-40. The preamble is as 
 follows, the orio^inal beincr in Latin — 
 
 " In the name of the Holy and undivided Trinity, Father, Son, 
 and Holy Spirit, and of the most blessed Mother of God, Mary 
 the glorious Virgin, and of Saints Hugh and Chad confessors, 
 and also of St. Michael the archangel: We, William Smyth, 
 bishop of Lincoln, and Richard Sutton, esquire, confiding in the 
 aid of the supreme Creator, who knows, directs and disposes the 
 wills of all that trust in him, do out of the goods which in this 
 life, not by our merits, but by the grace of His fulness, we have 
 received abundantly, by royal authority and charter found, insti- 
 tute and establish in the University of Oxford, a perpetual 
 College of poor and indigent scholars, who shall study and make 
 
BRASENOSE COLLEGE. §59 
 
 progress in philosophy and sacred theology ; commonly called 
 The King's Haule and Golledge of Brasennose in Oxford ; to the 
 praise, glory, and honour of Almighty God, of the glorious 
 Virgin Mary, Saints Hugh and Chad confessors, St. Michael the 
 Archangel and All Saints ; for the support and exaltation of the 
 Christian Faith, for the advancement of holy church, and for 
 the furtherance of divine worship." 
 
 The College is to consist of a Principal and twelve Fellows, 
 all of them born within the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield ; 
 with preference to the natives of the counties of Lancaster and 
 Chester ; and especially to the natives of the parish of Prescot 
 in Lancashire, and of Prestbury in Cheshire. One of the senior 
 Fellows is annually to be elected Vice-Principal ; and two others 
 Bursars. The only language tolerated for public use, unless when 
 strangers are present, is Latin. The Bishop of Lincoln has 
 always been the Visitor. 
 
 Thus Brasenose started fairly on its course, equipped with 
 statutes, with property from its founders and benefactors, and 
 with students drawn, as ever since until recently, chiefly from 
 good families of Cheshire and Lancashire, Leighs and Watsons, 
 Lathams and Brookes and Egertons. But the history of a 
 College which has not been at any time predominant in the 
 University is both difficult and unnecessary to trace ; difficult 
 from the paucity of records of its internal social life, and un- 
 necessary from the lack of general interest in the domestic 
 affairs of one particular College among so many. It will be the 
 task of one who deals with the social life of Oxford to seize on 
 those features of College history which from time to time best 
 represent the character of successive periods : in this place it 
 will suffice to give a few scenes or facts which being themselves 
 of interest have also sufficient illustration from existing records, 
 
 IV. FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE RESTORATION. 
 
 In the Bodleian (MS. Rawl. D. 985) there is a volume of 
 copies of Latin letters written by Robert Batt of Brasenose, 
 chiefly to a brother, in which among much of the usual rhetoric 
 there is also curious information about the life of the College. 
 They range from 1581 to 1585, and we read of his complaints 
 
260 BRASEXOSE COLLEGE. 
 
 to the Principal because a junior man is put into his study 
 {muscewni), of an archery meeting at Oxford, which much dis- 
 tracts the young Batt, and of the visit of the Prince Alaskie to 
 Oxford. He asks his Cambridge brother to come up for Com- 
 mem, and with Yorkshire bluntness writes letters to the Master 
 and a Fellow of University College, asking for a Fellowship ! 
 
 So too in 1609-11 we find ten letters from Richard Taylor as 
 tutor to Sir Peter Legb's son (Hist. Manuscripts Commission, 
 Be;port 3, 1872, p. 268), which throw light on College affairs and 
 expenses of that time. 
 
 In the Register of the Parliamentary Visitors of the University 
 from 1647 to 1658 we obtain an insight into the condition of 
 the College, which shows it to have been in a creditable state. 
 At first the College is as Royalist as any, the proportion of 
 submitters to those who were willing to endure actual expulsion 
 rather than acknowledge the Visitors' rights, being probably only 
 twelve to twenty-three, in May 1648. Their Principal, Dr. 
 Samuel Radcliffe, had already, on Jan. 6, been deprived of his 
 office, and Daniel Greenwood, a submitter, had been on April 
 13, put in his place. But the spirit of the College is abundantly 
 shown by the proceedings which ensued on Dr. Radcliffe's death. 
 Three days after that event, on June 29, the Society, to use 
 Wood's words, " (taking no notice that the Visitors had entred 
 Mr. Greenwood Principal) put up a citation on the Chappel door 
 (as by Statute they were required) to summon the Fellows to 
 election. The Visitors thereupon send for Mr. Thom. Sixsmith 
 and two more Fellows of that House to command them to sur- 
 cease and submit to their new Principal Mr. Greenwood ; but 
 they gave them fair words, went home, and within four days 
 after [July 13] chose among themselves, in a Fellow's Chamber, 
 at the West end of the old Library, Mr. Thom. Yate, one of their 
 Society." The Visitors immediately deposed him, in favour of 
 Greenwood ; but at the Restoration Dr. Yate's claims were at 
 once recognized, and he long enjoyed the headship. This 
 resistance by the Fellows was proved to be not lawlessness but 
 loyalty, for when resistance was of no avail, they " speedily ^ 
 
 '^Register of the Visitors, ed. Burrows (Caind. Soc. N.S. sxix.), 1881, p. 
 cxxi. 
 
BRASENOSE COLLEGE. 261 
 
 recovered their workiDg order, and gave but little trouble to the 
 Visitors," a contrast to the general example of other Colleges. 
 
 The more eminent Brasenose men who belong to this 
 period are : Alexander Nowell, Fellow and Principal, Dean 
 of St. Paul's (matr. 1521) ; John Foxe, the Martyrologist 
 (c. 1533) ; Sampson Erdeswick, the historian of Staffordshire 
 (1553) ; Thomas Egerton, afterwards Lord Chancellor Ellesmere 
 (c. 1556) ; Sir Henry Savile, afterwards Warden of Merton 
 (1561) ; John Guillim, the herald (c. 1585) ; Robert Burton, the 
 author of the Anatomy of Melancholy {lo^'^)'. Sir John Spelman, 
 the antiquary (1642) ; Elias Ashmole, the herald, founder of the 
 Ashmolean Museum (1644); and Sir William Petty (1649). 
 
 V. BRASENOSE IN MODERN TIMES. 
 
 The period from the Restoration to 1800 was in Oxford as 
 elsewhere marked rather by the excellence of individuals than 
 by a high standard of general culture. In the first part of the 
 period Brasenose is not especially distinguished, except by an 
 undue prominence in the records of the Vice-Chancellor's Court ; 
 but as we approach the close of the eighteenth century there 
 are signs of a period of great prosperity, which distinguished 
 the headships of Cleaver, Hodson and Gilbert, the first and last 
 of whom were Bishops of Chester (then of Bangor, and finally 
 of St. Asaph) and Chichester respectively. The signs of this 
 are unmistakable. The numbers show an unusual increase, and 
 the College is in the front both in the class-lists and in out- 
 door sports. The high-water mark was perhaps reached when 
 the story could be told of Dr. Hodson (in about 1808), which 
 is related in Mark Pattison's Memoirs. " Returning to College, 
 after one Long Vacation, Hodson drove the last stage into 
 Oxford, with post-horses. The reason he gave for this piece 
 of ostentation was, 'That it should not be said that the first 
 tutor of the first College of the first University of the world 
 entered it with a pair.' . . The story is symbolical of the high 
 place B. N. C. held in the University at the time, in which 
 however, intellectual eminence entered far less than the fact 
 that it numbered among its members many gentlemen 
 commoners of wealthy and noble families." 
 
262 BRASENOSE COLLEGE, 
 
 But intellectual eminence there certainly was at this time, 
 for in the class-lists of Mich. 1808 to Mich. 1810, out of thirty- 
 seven first-classes Brasenose claimed seven, monopolizing one 
 list altogether; and out of seventy-five second-classes it held 
 twelve. This was the period of what has been called the 
 "famous Brasenose breakfast." Reginald Heber won the 
 Newdigate in 1803 with a poem which will never be forgotten 
 — his Palestine, His rooms were on Staircase 6, one pair left, 
 under the great chestnut in Exeter Garden called Heber's Tree. 
 In 1803 Sir Walter Scott went to Oxford with Richard Heber, 
 Reginald's brother. The story may be told in Lockhart's^ 
 words: Heber "had just been declared the successful com- 
 petitor for that year's poetical prize, and read to Scott at 
 breakfast in Brazen Nose College the MS. of his Falestine. 
 Scott observed that in the verses on Solomon's Temple one 
 striking circumstance had escaped him, namely that no tools 
 were used in its erection. Reginald retired for a few minutes 
 to the comer of the room, and returned with the beautiful lines — 
 
 *'No hammer fell, no ponderous axes rung ; 
 Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung, 
 Majestic silence I " ^ 
 
 In connection with this literary and social side of the College 
 may be mentioned the Phoenix Common-room or Club, the only 
 social Club in the University which is more than a century old. It 
 was started in 1781 or 1782 by Joseph Alderson, an undergraduate 
 of Brasenose, afterwards Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, 
 and received a full constitution with officers and rules in 1786. 
 It has always nominally consisted of twelve members, generally 
 dining together once a week. The records of the Club are 
 singularly complete, even to the caricatures on the blotting-paper 
 of the dinner-books. Of the twelve original members five were 
 soon elected to Fellowships, and such names as Frodsham 
 Hodson (afterwards Principal), Viscount Valentia (d. 1844), Earl 
 Fortescue (d, 1861), Reginald Heber (Bishop of Calcutta), Lord 
 
 1 Life of Scott, 1837, i. 374. 
 * The printed editions run — 
 
 "No workman steel, no ponderous axes rungj 
 Like some tall palm the noiseless fabric sprung." 
 
BRASENOSE COLLEGE. 26$ 
 
 George Grenville {d. 1850), the Earl of Delawarr, the friend 
 of Byron, Richard Harington (afterwards Principal), Lord 
 Sidney Godolphin Osborne (" S. G. O."), and the present Deans 
 of Rochester and Worcester, have raised it to no ordinary level. 
 Its contemporary from 1828 to 1834, the Hell-fire Club, was 
 of a very different character; but from one or two dubious 
 incidents in its career has found its way into literature.^ The 
 incident which produced from the pen of Reginald Heber the 
 humorous poem entitled the Whippiad,^ was connected with 
 members of the Phoenix, though not with a meeting of the Club. 
 The Senior Tutor had incautiously endeavoured to wrest a 
 whip from Bernard Port, who had been loudly cracking it in 
 the quadrangle ; but alas, the representative of constitutional 
 authority soon measured his length on the grass, being, not for 
 the first time (as Heber maliciously notes) " floored by Port." 
 
 The Ale Verses were an ancient social custom, probably at 
 least as old as the Restoration. On Shrove Tuesday the butler 
 presented a copy of English verses on Brasenose Ale to the 
 Principal, written by some undergraduate, and received there- 
 upon a certain sum of money. The earliest extant poem is of 
 about the year 1700 ; but there is a long gap from that year 
 till 1806, and they are not continuously preserved till from 
 1826, having been printed first in about 1811. They supply 
 all kinds of contemporary information, collegiate, academical 
 and political, chiefly of course by way of allusion. At last in 
 1886 the College Brew-house was removed to make room for 
 new buildings, and with it went the Ale Verses, except that in 
 1889 one more set was issued. In 1888 a Fellow of the College 
 
 1 Odds and Ends, 1872, p. 108 : F. G. Lee's Glimpses of the Supernatural^ 
 1872, vol. ii. p. 207. The story there told of a sudden death at a club 
 meeting, and a simultaneous appearance in Brasenose of a fiend dragging 
 a man out of the window through the bars, is probably a mixture of two 
 incidents, the death of a woman who had been given brandy out of a 
 Brasenose window on Dec. 5, 1827, and the death of the President of 
 the H. F. Club in 1834, which closed the career of that society, between 
 which and the Phoenix there was no connection whatever. The story has 
 now become a commonplace of fiction, to judge by the way in which it 
 occurs dressed up in Maltese surroundings in Blackwood's Magazine^ 
 Feb. 1891. 
 
 2 Printed incorrectly in Blackwood's Magazine^ vol. liv. (1843). 
 
264 
 
 BRASENOSE COLLEGE. 
 
 printed a Latin dirge over the sad surcease; but soon the 
 Verses will be forgotten, and the Brew-house. 
 
 On the river Brasenose has always been prominent : never 
 once in the Eights or Torpids has it sunk below the ninth 
 place. In the first inter-collegiate races, in 1815, Brasenose is 
 at the head, and when the records begin again, in 1822, again 
 takes the lead. At the present time (June 1891) B. N. C. 
 has started head in the Eights on 110 days.^ 
 
 1 The Eights. 
 Brasenose has started head boat since 1837, when the Eights records 
 become complete : — 
 
 *1839 (1 day) 
 *1840 (9) 
 1841 (4) 
 
 *1865 (2) 
 *1866 (7) 
 *1867 (8) 
 
 1868 (2) 
 *1876 (7) 
 
 1877 (2) 
 *1889 (5) 
 *1890 (6) 
 n891 (6) 
 
 *1845 (6) 
 *1846 (8) 
 
 1847 (7) 
 *1852 (7) 
 *1853 (8) 
 *1854 (8) 
 
 1855 (7) 
 
 * In these years it left ofif Head of the River. 
 
 In all 110 days; the next highest number being 63 (University). The 
 boat has never held a lower position than ninth. Of the earlier years between 
 1815 and 1836, B. N. C. left off head at least in 1815, 1822, 1826, 1827. 
 
 The Torpids. 
 Brasenose has started head boat since 1852, when the Torpids were first 
 rowed in the Lent Term : — 
 
 *1852 (3 days) *1875 (6) 
 
 1853 (5) 1876 (1) 
 
 1854(4) • 1882(2) 
 
 1859 (2) 1883 (3) 
 
 *1861 (5) *1886 (4) 
 
 *1862 (6) *1887 (6) 
 
 1863 (5) *1888 (6) 
 
 *1866 (5) *1889 (6) 
 
 1867 (2) *1890 (6) 
 
 *1874 (2) *1891 (6) 
 
 * In these years it left off Head of the River. 
 
 In all 85 days ; the next highest number being 59 (Exeter). The boat 
 has never fallen lower than the eighth place. Between 1839 and 1851, 
 when the Torpids were rowed after the Eights, B. N. C. left off head at 
 least in 1842, 1845, 1850 and 1851. 
 
BRASENOSE COLLEGE. • 265 
 
 The only clubs which had cricket grounds of their own in 
 about 1835 were the Brasenose and the BuUingdon (Ch. Ch.), 
 and even in 1847 the Magdalen, i. e. the University Club, was 
 the only additional one. Early cricketing records are difficult 
 to find ; but in recent times no College has been able to show 
 such a record as B. N. C. in 1871, when it had eight men in 
 the University eleven, and when sixteen of the College beat 
 an All-England eleven. In 1873 sixteen of B. N. C. also beat 
 the United North of England eleven. The Inter-University 
 high-jump of 1876, when M. J. Brooks of B. N. C. cleared 6 feet 
 2| inches, was an extraordinary performance. 
 
 The characteristics of the College at all times have been 
 remarkably similar and persistent, if the present writer can 
 trust his judgment. They may be described as, first and fore- 
 most, a marked but not exclusive predilection for the exercises 
 and amusements of out-door life, the result of sound bodies and 
 minds, and in part, no doubt, of a long connection with old 
 county families of a high type. And next a certain pertinacity, 
 perseverance, power of endurance, doggedness, patriotism, solid- 
 arity, or by whatever other name the spirit may be called which 
 leads men to do what they are doing with all their might, to 
 undergo training and discipline for the sake of the College, 
 and hang together like a cluster of bees in view of a common 
 object. The Headship of the River for any length of time 
 cannot possibly be obtained by fitful effort, or the unsustained 
 enthusiasm of a single leader; but rather (and herein consists 
 its value) by a continuous, often unconsciously continuous, effort 
 of several years, backed up by the general support of the 
 College. Lastly, Brasenose seems to be singularly central, 
 intermediate, and in a good sense average and mediocre. Its 
 position and buildings, its history, its achievements, the roll 
 of Brasenose authors, all give evidence that the College is a 
 good sample of the best sort of academical foundation. A 
 writer who might wish to select a single College for study as 
 a specimen of the kind, would find the history of Brasenose 
 neither startling nor commonplace, neither eccentric nor un- 
 interesting, neither full of strong contrasts nor deficient in the 
 signs of healthy corporate life. 
 
2C6 BRASENOSE COLLEGE. 
 
 Among the alumni of Brasenose in this period, to omit the 
 names of living persons, are the following: Thomas Carte the 
 historian (1699) ; John Napleton (matr. 1755), an academical re- 
 former ; Dr. John Latham, president of the College of Physicians 
 (1778); Bishop Reginald Heber (1800); Richard Harris Bar- 
 ham, author of the Ingoldsby Legends, after whom a College 
 club is named the Ingoldsby (1807) ; Henry Hart Milman, Dean 
 of St. Paul's (1810) ; and the Rev. Frederick William Robertson, 
 of Brighton, the preacher (1837). Mr. Buckley has compiled a 
 list of more than four hundred Brasenose authors, and twenty- 
 seven bishops or archbishops. 
 
 VI. THE BUILDINGS, PROPEBTY, ETC., OF THE COLLEGE. 
 
 The front quadrangle of the College is as it stood when the 
 College was first built, except that as usual an extra story was 
 added in about the time of James I., and that for the old 
 mullioned windows have been unhappily substituted in a few 
 places modern square ones. The Principal's lodgings were at 
 first, as always in Colleges, above and about the gateway. 
 
 The Chapel was originally the room now used for the Common 
 Room, namely, on the first floor of No. 1 staircase, and the 
 foundation stone was no doubt placed there as leading to the 
 chapel. The shape of the old chapel windows may still be 
 seen on the outside of the south side of the room. The present 
 chapel was built between 26th June, 1656, and the day of con- 
 secration (to St. Hugh and St. Chad) I7th Nov., 1666. There 
 is a persistent tradition that the design of the chapel was due 
 to Sir Christopher Wren, and that the roof at least came from 
 the chapel of St. Mary's College (now Frewen Hall). In support 
 of this latter belief are the two facts that the roof does not 
 appear precisely to fit the window spaces of the building, and 
 that the principal rafters of the chapel and of the western part 
 of the hall are numbered consecutively, as if they once belonged 
 to a single building. The architecture of the chapel is interest- 
 ing as a genuine effort to combine classical and Gothic styles. 
 The ceiling, with its beautiful and ingeniously constructed fan- 
 tracery, and the windows are Gothic, but the internal buttresses 
 
BRASENOSE COLLEGE. 207 
 
 and altar decoration are Grecian. The East window^ is by 
 Hardinan (1855), the West (by Pearson) was given by Principal 
 Cawley in 1776. Among the other painted glass is one on the 
 north side to F. W. Robertson. The brass eagle was given in 
 1731 by T. L. Dummer ; the two candelabra were replaced within 
 the last few years, having been formerly presented to Coleshill 
 Church, in Buckinghamshire, by the College. The pair of pre- 
 Reformation chalices with pattens form a unique possession. 
 
 The first Library was the room now known as No. 4 one pair 
 right, and still retains a fine panelled ceiling with red and gold 
 colouring. The present library is of the same date as the 
 chapel, having been finished in 1663, and is no doubt by the 
 same architect. The internal fittings date from 1780, and not 
 till then were the chains removed from the books. Amons: the 
 few MSS. are a tenth century Terence (once in the possession 
 of Cardinal Bembo, and therefore periodically raising unfulfilled 
 hopes in foreign students that it might exhibit the unique 
 recension of the other " Bembine Terence ") and the only MS. of 
 Bishop Pearson s minor works. A large folio printed Missal of 
 1520 bears a miniature of Sir Richard Sutton, with other fine 
 illuminations. Among the printed books are several given by 
 the founder. Bishop Smith, and by John Longland, Bishop of 
 Lincoln. There is a copy on vellum of Alexander de Ales's 
 commentary on the De Animd of Aristotle, printed at Oxford 
 in 1481 ; a copy of Cranmer's Litany (1544), and of Day's 
 Psalter (1563) for four-part singing. In general the library has 
 a large number of controversial theological pieces and pamphlets, 
 both of the latter part of Elizabeth's reign and of the period 
 succeeding the Restoration. For the former the College is 
 indebted to a large and (at the time) extremely valuable donation 
 from Dr. Henry Mason, who died in 1647. There is also a very 
 large quantity of the theological literature of the eighteenth 
 century, partly bequeathed by Principal Yarborough, who also 
 presented the library of Christopher Wasse; many county 
 
 ^ In Parker's Handbook to Oxford is noticed the singularly beautiful 
 effect of the sun shining on summer evenings through both the west and 
 east windows, when viewed from Radcliffe Square, 
 
263 BRASENOSE COLLEGE. 
 
 histories; and many pamphlets on Oxford Reform up to and 
 includinof the time of the first Commission. In all there are 
 about 15,000 volumes, and there is an adequate endowment 
 from the legacy of Dr. Grimbaldson. Mr. Willis Clark has 
 remarked in his Architectural History of Cambridge that College 
 libraries before the sixteenth century usually, in both Universities, 
 had their sides facing east and west, the early morning light 
 being so important ; that from that time to the Restoration, when 
 more luxurious habits had come in, they face north and south, 
 and afterwards again east and west. It is singular that of each 
 change Brasenose Library is the earliest example. 
 
 The Hall has remained almost untouched from the first. The 
 open fireplace in the centre under a louvre was retained until 
 1760 (when the Hon. Ashton Curzon gave the present chimney- 
 piece), and the louvre itself is still intact but hidden above the 
 ceiling. 
 
 The north-west corner of the quadrangle affords a striking 
 view of the dome of the Radcliffe and the spire of St. Mary's, 
 which has been often painted and engraved. The present grass- 
 plot was once a formal maze or Italian garden, which is to be 
 seen in Loggan's view, and was removed in October 1727, much 
 to Hearne's disgust, to allow of a " silly statue " of Cain and 
 Abel, the gift of Dr. George Clarke, who bought it in London, 
 being erected in the centre. This well-known statue was for a 
 long time believed to be an original by Giovanni da Bologna ; 
 and its removal in 1881 and subsequent destruction excited the 
 wrath of the writer of the article on " Sculpture " in the ninth 
 edition of the Encyclopcedia Britannica. But the external 
 evidence points to it being only a copy of the valuable original 
 presented to Charles I. at Madrid, and by George III. to the 
 great-grandfather of the present possessor, Sir William Worsley, 
 of Hovingham Hall, Yorkshire. 
 
 The Kitchen, which forms the western part of the second 
 quadrangle is (as at Christ Church) as old as any part of the 
 College. The eastern side was till about 1840 an open cloister 
 beneath the library, and in it and in front of it many former 
 members of the College were buried. 
 
 Early in the last century the College purchased the houses 
 
BRASENOSE COLLEGE. 269 
 
 between St. Mary's and All Saints, and the idea of a front to 
 the High Street soon forced itself on the mind. Some very 
 heavy classical designs are preserved, by Nicholas Hawksmoor 
 (about 1720), who erected the High Street front of Queen's 
 College; by Sir John Soane (1807); and by Philip Hardwick 
 (1810) ; until at last a pure Gothic design by Mr. T. G. Jackson 
 was accepted; and by the end of 1887 a gateway and tower, a 
 Principal's house, and some undergraduates' rooms were erected, 
 forming on the inside a large third quadrangle, and by its front 
 a notable addition to the glories of the High Street. A drawing 
 of a more ambitious design by the same architect is framed and 
 hung in the College library. 
 
 The chief benefactors and property of the College are the following — 
 Bp. William Smitli, founder, gave Basset's Fee near Oxford, and the entire 
 property of the suppressed Priory of Cold Norton, lying chiefly in Oxford- 
 shire. Sir Richard Sutton gave hinds in Burgh or Erdborowe in Leicester- 
 shire ; the White Hart in the Strand, London ; and lands in Cropredy, 
 North Ockington, Garsington, and Cowley. The earliest gift of all was 
 from Mrs. Elizabeth Morley, who in 1515 gave the manor of Pinchpoll, in 
 Faringdon, coupled with conditions of undertaking certain services in St. 
 Margaret's, Westminster. Joyce Frankland in 1586 gave the Red Lion in 
 Kensington, &c., and money. Queen Elizabeth, 1572 and 1579, founds 
 Middleton School in Lancashire, and connects it with the College by 
 scholarships, and by giving the manor of Upberry and rectory of Gilling-' 
 ham. Sarah Duchess of Somerset in 1679 gave Somerset Iver and Somer- 
 set Thornhill scholarships, and alternate presentation to Wootton Rivers. 
 William Hulme, 1691, land producing £40 a year for four exhibitions, 
 tenable at Brasenose, from Lancashire ; the property increased enormously 
 in value, being in the Hulme district of Manchester, and now provides, 
 besides High Schools for boys and girls at Manchester, and a Hulme Hall 
 connected with the Victoria University, eight Senior and twelve Junior 
 Exhibitions, of the value of £120 and £80 respectively. Sir Francis 
 Bridgeman in 1701 gave money for an annual speech, originally in praise of 
 James II. 
 
 Pictures, hcsts, &c. 
 
 In the Hall are pictures of King Alfred i (modern), Bp. William Smith 
 (founder). Sir Richard Sutton (founder), Joyce Frankland (benefactress, 
 with a sixteenth century watch in her hand), Alexander Nowell (Principal), 
 
 1 The reputed founder of Little University Hall : it is believed that the 
 " King's Hall " in the formal title of B. N. C. is a reference to Alfred ; but he, 
 Henry VIIL, and Victoria may be regarded as equally claiming the Royal 
 Arms which face the High Street. 
 
270 BRASENOSE COLLEGE. 
 
 Bp. Frodsliam Hodson (Principal), William Cleaver (Principal), Thomas 
 baron Ellesinere, Dr. John Latham, John Lord Mordaunt (benefactor) 
 Samuel Radcliffe (Principal, two), Sarah Duchess of Somerset (benefactress) 
 Robert Burton, Thomas Yate (Principal), Francis Yarborough (Principal), 
 Bp. Ashurst Turner Gilbert (Principal), Edward Hartopp Cradock (Princi- 
 pal). The Brazen Nose is fixed in a frame beneath the picture of Kin^ 
 Alfred. A picture of the first Marquis of Buckingham once here is now in 
 the possession of the representatives of the family. 
 
 In the north window at the east end of the Hall are portraits of the two 
 founders, and a face with a grotesque nose, in painted glass. The glass of 
 the south window is modern. 
 
 In the Library are busts of Lord Grenville by Nollekens, and of Pitt. 
 
 In the Bursary is a second picture of Joyce Frankland. 
 
 In the Chapel are an old copy of Spagnoletto's Entombment of Christ, a 
 copy of Poussin's Assumption of St. Paul, and busts of the two founders, 
 formerly in niches in the middle of the north side of the Hall outside 
 and engraved in Spelman's jElfredi Magni Vita (Oxon. 1678). 
 
 On the gateway outside is a metal gilt Nose of a grotesque type, pro- 
 bably derived from the painted glass in the hall. 
 
 On the entrance to the hall are two worn busts of Johannes Scotus 
 Erigena and King Alfred, 
 
 In the Buttery are pictures of the Child of Hale (John Middleton, d. 1623, 
 a Lancashire man distinguished for size and strength, after whom the 
 Brasenose boat is always named), of Joyce Frankland, and of the Brasenose 
 Boat in about ] 825. 
 
 In the Principal's lodgings are pictures of Lord Mordaunt, Bp. Cleaver, 
 and Joyce Frankland. 
 
 The title of the College is *' the King's Hall and College of Brasenose in 
 Oxford" (Aula Regia et Collegium de Brasenose in Oxonia), the spelling of 
 the chief word being in chronological sequence, omitting minor variations, 
 Brasinnose, Brazen Nose (eighteenth century), Brasenose ; but the latest 
 spelling is also found early in the seventeenth century, probably showing 
 that it was at all times pronounced as a disyllabic. The phrases King's 
 College and Collegium Regale are also found at an early date, the latter 
 occurring on the College seal, which consists of three Gothic niches or com- 
 partments, with St. Hugh and St. Chad on either side and the Trinity in 
 the centre : underneath is a small shield with Smyth's arms, and round is 
 the legend, " Sigillum commune colegii regalis de brasinnose in oxonia." 
 
 The Arms of the College are : The escutcheon divided into three parts 
 paleways, the centre or, thereon an escutcheon charged with the arms of 
 the See of Lincoln (gules, two lions passant gardant in pale or, on a chief 
 azure Our Lady crowned, sitting on a tombstone issuant from the chief, 
 in her dexter arm the Infant Jesus, in her sinister a sceptre, all or), ensigned 
 with a mitre, all proper : the dexter side argent, a chevron sable between 
 three roses gules seeded or barbed vert, being the arms of the founder 
 William Smyth : on the sinister side the arms of Sir Richard Sutton of 
 Prestbury, knight, viz. quarterly first and fourth, argent a chevron between 
 
BRASENOSE COLLEGE. ?71 
 
 three bugle-liorns stringed sable, for Sutton, second and third, argent a 
 chevron between three crosses crosslet sable, for Southworth. 
 
 A coat of arms tripartite paleways is a very rare phenomenon, but is 
 found among Oxford Colleges at Lincoln and Corpus. The cause at Brase- 
 nose was no doubt an attempt to combine symmetrically on one shield 
 the arms of the founders, the see of Lincoln being given a disproportionate 
 amount and a central position, from the honour brought by connection with 
 it as both the Founder's and the Visitor's see. For the sake of appearance 
 also the arms of Lincoln are placed within the field, the mitre with which 
 they are ensigned being included in the pale. The only variations are that 
 (1) in some old examples the arms of Lincoln cover the whole central pale, 
 the entire College arms being ensigned with a mitre or stringed, and some- 
 times with a crosier and key in saltire ; (2) the crosses crosslet are found 
 as crosses crosslet fitchy or crosses patonce. The nearest approach to an 
 early official declaration of the arms is to be found in Richard Lee's report 
 from the best evidence he could obtain, made at the same time as his 
 Visitation in 1574, and to be found in MS. H 6 of the College of Arms. 
 
 The College seems never to have had a motto, but Bishop William 
 Smyth's (" Dominus exaltatio mea ") has been occasionally and unofficially 
 used, as in the new Principal's house. 
 
 VII. STATISTICS. 
 
 1. Principals of Brasenose Hall, 
 
 MENTIONED IN 
 
 1435 William Long, B.A. 
 
 1436 R. Marcham or Markham, M.A, 
 1438 Roger Grey. 
 
 1444 R. Marcham, again. 
 
 1451 William Curth or Church, M.A., d. 1461. 
 
 1461 William Braggys, M.A. 
 
 1461 WilHam Wryxham, M.A. 
 
 1462 William Braggys, again. 
 1462 John Molineux, again. 
 
 In 1468 the Hall was repaired by 
 
 1469 William Sutton, M.A., who occurs also as late as 1483. 
 
 1501 1 Edmund Croston, M.A., who died 27th Jan., 150|- ; his brass in 
 
 1503 j St. Mary's church is engraved in Churton's Lives of the Fomiders, 
 
 1502 ^ 
 
 1605 i John Formby, M.A., resigned 24th Aug., 1510. 
 1508-10 ) 
 1510-12 Matthew Smyth, B.D. 
 
 2. Principals of the College, 
 
 ELECTED 
 
 1512 Matthew Smyth. 
 
 {Original Fellows: John Haster, probably first Vice- 
 Principal, John Formby, Roland Messenger, John 
 
272 BRASENOSE COLLEGE. 
 
 Legh. Shortly after: Richard Shirwood, Richard 
 
 Gunston, Simon Starkey, Richard Ridge, Hugh 
 
 Charnock, Ralph Bostock). 
 John Hawarden. 
 Thomas Blanchard. 
 Ricliard Harrys. 
 Alexander Xowell (Head-master of Westminster School 
 
 1543-55, Dean of St. Paul's 1560—1602). 
 Thomas Singleton. 
 Samuel Radcliffe (ejected by the Oxford Commissioners 
 
 6th Jan., 1647. Died 26 June, 1648). 
 Thomas Yate (ejected, but reinstated 10th Aug., 1660). 
 Daniel Greenwood (ejected Aug. 1660). 
 John Meare. 
 Robert Shippen (Professor of Music in Greshara College, 
 
 London, 1705-11 ?). 
 Francis Yarborough. 
 William Gwyn. 
 Ralph Cawley. 
 Thomas Barker. 
 William Cleaver (Bishop of Chester 1788, Bangor 1800, 
 
 St. Asaph 1806-15). 
 Frodsham Hodson. 
 
 Ashurst Turner Gilbert (Bishop of Chichester, 1842-70). 
 Ricliard Harington. 
 Edward Hartopp Cradock. 
 Albert Watson. 
 1889 Oct. 1 Charles Buller Heberden. 
 
 VIII. NOTANDA. 
 
 Proverb : Testons are gone to Oxford to study in Brazen Nose, when 
 Henry VIII. debased the coinage. 
 
 Census in Aug. 1552: Principal, 8 M.A.'s, 12 B.A.'s, 49 who had not 
 taken a degree, including the steward and cook ; in all 70 in residence. 
 
 Census in 156f : Principal, 31 graduates, 57 undergraduate scholars and 
 commoners, 8 poor scholars, 5 matriculated servants. : in all 102 names on 
 the books. 
 
 Census in 1612 : Principal, 21 Fellows, 29 scholars, 145 commoners, 17 
 poor scholars, 14 batellers and matriculated servants : in all 227 members 
 in residence. Revenue £600 a year. (Principalship £80.) 
 
 Plate presented to the King, January 164f , by the College, 12H6. 2oz. \bd. 
 
 A scheme of amalgamation with Lincoln College Avas proposed in Oct- 
 1877, and on March 22, 1878, there was a meeting of both governing bodies 
 in Brasenose Common Room ; but by the end of that year the plan had 
 come to nothing, partly owing to a vigorous pamphlet by H. E. P. Piatt, 
 Fellow of Lincoln. 
 
 154f 
 
 Feb. 27 
 
 156A 
 
 Feb. 
 
 157| 
 
 Feb. 16 
 
 1595 
 
 Sept. 6 
 
 1595 
 
 Dec. 29 
 
 1614 
 
 Dec. 14 
 
 1648 
 
 July 13 
 
 (1648 
 
 April 13 
 
 1681 
 
 May 7 
 
 1710 
 
 June 2 
 
 1745 
 
 Dec. 10 
 
 1770 
 
 May 10 
 
 1770 
 
 Sept. 4 
 
 1777 
 
 Sept. 14 
 
 1785 
 
 Sept. 10 
 
 1809 
 
 June 21 
 
 1822 
 
 Feb. 2 
 
 1842 
 
 June 9 
 
 1853 
 
 Dec. 27 
 
 1886 
 
 Feb. 26 
 
XII. 
 
 COEPUS CHEISTI COLLEGE. 
 
 By T. Fowler, D.D., F.S.A., President op Corpus. 
 
 This College was founded by Richard Foxe, Bishop of 
 Winchester and Lord Privy Seal to Kings Henry VII. and 
 VIJI., in the year 1516. For the life of Foxe, which is full of 
 interest, and thoroughly typical of the career of a statesman- 
 ecclesiastic of those times, I must refer the reader to my article 
 on Kichard Foxe in the Dictionary of National Biography} 
 Foxe had, in early life, linked his fortunes with those of Henry 
 VII., then Earl of Richmond, while in exile in France ; and, 
 after the battle of Bosworth Field (22nd August, 1485), he 
 became, in rapid succession, Principal Secretary of State, Lord 
 Privy Seal, and Bishop of Exeter. He was subsequently trans- 
 lated to Bath and Wells (1491-2), Durham (1494), and 
 Winchester (1501), then the wealthiest See in England. The 
 principal event in his life (at least in its far-reaching con- 
 sequences) was his negotiation, while Bishop of Durham, of 
 the marriage between James IV. of Scotland and the Princess 
 Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VIL, which resulted, a 
 century later, in the permanent union of the English and 
 Scottish crowns under James VI. 
 
 1 A Life of Foxe, prefixed to his episcopal register at Wells, by Mr. 
 Chisholm Batten, passed through the press simultaneously with my article. 
 The two lives are perfectly independent of one another, and neither had 
 been seen by the author of the otlier, though Mr. Batten and I had inter- 
 clianged information on certain points. I am glad to say that I believe 
 there is no material fact in Foxe's Life in regard to which we differ. 
 
 T 
 
274 COKPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. 
 
 It is probable that Foxe, who, as we learn from his wood- 
 work in the banqueting-hall of Durham Castle, had, so early 
 as 1499, adopted, as his device, the pelican feeding her young, 
 / was early inspired with the idea of founding some important 
 educational institution for the benefit of the Church. This 
 idea, shortly before the foundation of his present College, had 
 taken the shape of a house in Oxford for the reception of young 
 monks from St. Swithin's Priory in Winchester while attending 
 academical lectures and disputations in Oxford. There were 
 other such houses in Oxford, such as Canterbury College, 
 Durham College,^ and the picturesque staircases, connected with 
 various Benedictine monasteries, still standing in Worcester 
 College. But his friend, Hugh Oldham, Bishop of Exeter, 
 more prescient than himself, already foresaw the fall of the 
 monasteries and, with them, of their academical dependencies 
 in Oxford. " What, my Lord," Oldham is represented as saying 
 by John Hooker, alias Vowel 1 (see HolinshecCs Chronicles) ^ 
 " shall we build houses and provide livelihoods for a company 
 of bussing ^ monks, whose end and fall we ourselves may live 
 to see ; no, no, it is more meet a great deal that we should have 
 care to provide for the increase of learning, and for such as who 
 by their learning shall do good in the Church and common- 
 wealth." Thus Foxe's benefaction (to which Oldham himself 
 liberally contributed, as did also the founder's steward, William 
 Frost, and other of his friends) took the more common form of 
 a College for the education of the secular clergy. A site was 
 purchased between Merton and St. Frideswide's (the monastery 
 subsequently converted into, first. Cardinal College, and then 
 Christ Church), the land being acquired mainly from Merton 
 and St. Frideswide's, though a small portion was also bought 
 from the nuns of Godstow. It has been suggested that the 
 sale by Merton (comprising about two-thirds of the site on 
 which Corpus now stands) was a forced one, a supposition 
 which derives some plausibility from the fact that the aliena- 
 tion effectually prevented the extension of the ante-chapel 
 
 1 See the chapter on Trinity College. 
 
 - This word = " kissing," alluding to the amatory propensities of some 
 of the monks of the time. It is often wrongly printed " buzzing." 
 
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. 275 
 
 of Merton College as well as from Foxe's powerful position at 
 Court. But against this theory we may place the fact that the 
 then Warden of Merton (Richard Rawlyns), when subsequently 
 accused, amongst other charges, before the Visitor, of havino- 
 alienated part of the homestead of the College, does not appear 
 to have pleaded, in extenuation, any external pressure from high 
 quarters. 
 
 Foxe induced his friend John Claymond, who, like himself, 
 was a Lincolnshire man, to transfer himself from the President- 
 ship of Magdalen to that of the newly-founded College, the 
 difference in income being made up by his presentation to 
 the valuable Rectory of Cleeve in Gloucestershire. Robert 
 Morwent, another Magdalen man, was made perpetual Vice- 
 President, to which exceptional privilege was subsequently 
 (1527-8) added that of the right of succession to the Presidency. 
 Several of the original Fellows and scholars were also brought 
 from Magdalen, so that Corpus was, in a certain sense, a colony 
 from what has usually been supposed, and on strong grounds of 
 probability, to have been Foxe's own College. 
 
 The statutes were given by the founder in the year 1517, and 
 supplemented in 1527, the revised version being signed by him, 
 in an extremely trembling hand, on the 13th of February, 
 1527-8, within eight months of his death, which occurred 
 on the 5th of October, 1528, probably at his Castle of Wolvesey 
 in Winchester. *These statutes are of peculiar interest, both on 
 account of the vivid picture which they bring before us of the 
 domestic life of a mediaeval college, and the provision made for 
 instruction in the new learning introduced by the Renaissance. 
 
 The greatest novelty of the Corpus statutes is the institution \ 
 of a public lecturer in Greek, who was to lecture to the entire 
 University, and was evidently designed to be one of the principal 
 officers of the College. This readership appears to have been 
 the first permanent office created in either University for the 
 purpose of giving instruction in the Greek language ; though, 
 for some years before the close of the fifteenth century, Grocyn, 
 Linacre, and others, had taught Greek at Oxford, in a private 
 or serai-official capacity. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and 
 Fridays, throughout the year, the Greek reader was to give 
 
276 CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. 
 
 instruction in some portion of the Grammar of Theodorus or 
 other approved Greek grammarian, together with some part of 
 Lucian, Philostratus, or the orations of Isocrates. On Tuesdays, 
 Thursdays, and Saturdays, throughout the year, he was to lecture 
 in Aristophanes, Theocritus, Euripides, Sophocles, Pindar, or 
 Hesiod, or some other of the more ancient Greek poets, with 
 some part of Demosthenes, Thucydides, Aristotle, Theophrastus, 
 or Plutarch. It will be noticed that there is no express mention 
 in this list of Homer, Aeschylus, Herodotus, or Plato. Thrice 
 a week, moreover, in vacations, he was to give private instruction 
 in Greek grammar or rhetoric, or some Greek author, to all 
 members of the College below the degree of Master of Arts. 
 Lastly, all Fellows and scholars below the degree of Bachelor 
 in Divinity, including even Masters of Arts, were bound, on 
 pain of loss of commons, to attend the public lectures of both 
 the Greek and Latin reader; and not only so, but to pass a 
 satisfactory examination in them to be conducted three evenings 
 in the week. 
 
 Similar regulations as to teaching are laid down with regard 
 to the Professor of Humanity or Latin, whose special province 
 it is carefully to extirpate all " barbarism " from our " bee-hive," 
 the name by which, throughout these statutes, Foxe fondly calls 
 his College.-^ The lectures were to begin at eight in the 
 morning, and to be given all through the year, either in the 
 Hall of the College, or in some public place within the 
 University. The authors specified are Cicero, Sallust, Valerius 
 Maximus, Suetonius, Pliny's Natiiral History^ Livy, Quintilian, 
 Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, Juvenal, Terence, and Plautus. It will be 
 noticed that Horace and Tacitus are absent from the list.^ 
 Moreover, in vacations, the Professor is to lecture, three times 
 
 ^ Thus, in speaking of the three readers of Theology, Greek, and Latin, 
 he says: — '' Decernimus igitur intra nostrum alvearium tres herbarios 
 peritissimos in omne aevum constituere, qui stirpes, herbas, turn fruutu 
 turn usu praestantissimas, in eo plantent et conserunt, ut apes ingeniosae e 
 toto gyninasio Oxoniensi convolantes ex eo exugere atque excerpere 
 poterunt." 
 
 2 And yet there are, in the College Library, two copies of Horace, and 
 one each of Homer, Herodotus, and Plato (see above), all given by the 
 Founder himself. 
 
COKPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. 277 
 
 a week, to all inmates of the College below the degree of 
 Master of Arts, on the Elegantiae of Laurentius Valla, the 
 Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius, the Miscellanea of Politian, or 
 something of the like kind according to the discretion of the 
 President and Seniors. ^ 
 
 The third reader was to be a Lecturer in Theology, "the 
 science which we have always so highly esteemed, that tliis 
 our bee-hive has been constructed solely or mainly for its sake." 
 But, even here, the spirit of the Renaissance is predominant. 
 The Professor is to lecture every working-day throughout the 
 year (excepting ten weeks), year by year in turn, on some 
 portion of the Old or New Testament. The authorities for 
 their interpretation, however, are no longer to be such mediaeval 
 authors as Nicolas de Lyra or Hugh of Vienne (more commonly 
 called Hugo de Sane to Charo or Hugh of St. Cher), far posterior 
 in time and inferior in learning,^ but the holy and ancient 
 Greek and Latin doctors, especially Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose, 
 Origen, Hilary, Chrysostom, John of Damascus, and others of 
 that kind. These theological lectures were to be attended by 
 all Fellows of the College who had been assigned to the study 
 of theology, except Doctors. No special provision seems to be 
 made in the statutes for the theological instruction of the 
 junior members of the College, such as the scholars, clerks, 
 etc.; but the services in chapel would furnish a constant 
 reminder of the principal events in Christian history and the 
 essential doctrines of the Christian Church. The Doctors, 
 though exempt .from attendance at lectures, were, like all the 
 other "theologians," bound to take part in the weekly theo- 
 logical disputations. Absence, in their case as in that of the 
 others, was punishable by deprivation of commons, and, if 
 persisted in, it is curious to find that the ultimate penalty was 
 an injunction to preach a sermon, during the next Lent, at St. 
 Peter's in the East. 
 
 In addition to attendance at the theological lectures of the 
 
 public reader of their own College, "theologians," not being 
 
 Doctors, were required to attend two other lectures daily : one, 
 
 beginning at seven in the morning, in the School of Divinity ; 
 
 ^ Ac caeteros, ut tempore, ita doctrina, longe posteriores. 
 
278 COKPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. 
 
 the other, at Magdalen, at nine. Bachelors of Arts, so far as 
 was consistent with attendance at the public lectures in their 
 own College, were to attend two lectures a day " in philosophy " 
 (meaning probably, metaphysics, morals, and natural philosophy), 
 at Magdalen, going and returning in a body; one of these 
 courses of lectures, it may be noticed, appears from the 
 Mao-dalen statutes to have been delivered at six in the 
 morning. Undergraduates (described as " sophistae et logici ") 
 were to be lectured in logic, and assiduously practised in argu- 
 ments and the solution of sophisms by one or two of the 
 Fellows or probationers assigned for that purpose. These 
 lecturers in logic were diligently to explain Porphyry and 
 Aristotle, at first in Latin, afterwards in Greek. Moreover, all 
 undergraduates, who had devoted at least six 'months and not 
 more than thirty to the study of logic, were to frequent the 
 argumentative contest in the schools (" illud gloriosum in 
 Parviso certamen"), as often as it seemed good to the President. 
 Even on festivals and during holiday times, they were not to be 
 idle, but to compose verses and letters on literary subjects, to 
 be shown up to the Professor of Humanity. They were, how- 
 ever, to be permitted occasional recreation in the afternoon 
 hours, both on festival and work days, provided they had the 
 consent of the Lecturer and Dean, and the President (or, in 
 his absence, the Vice-President) raised no objection. Equal 
 care was taken to prevent the Bachelors from falling into 
 slothful habits during the vacations. Three times a week at 
 least, during the Long Vacation, they were, each of them, to 
 expound some astronomical or mathematical work to be assigned, 
 from time to time, by the Dean of Philosophy, in the hall or 
 chapel, and all Fellows and probationers of the College, not 
 being graduates in theology, were bound to be present at the 
 exercises. In the shorter vacations, one of them, selected by 
 the Dean of Arts as often as he chose to enjoin the task, was 
 to explain some poet, orator, or historian, to his fellow-bachelors 
 and undergraduates. 
 
 Nor was attendance at the University and College lectures, 
 together with the private instruction, examinations, and ex- 
 ercises connected with them, the only occupation of these 
 
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. 279 
 
 hard-worked students. They were also bound, according to 
 their various standings and faculties, to take part in or be 
 present at frequent disputations in logic, natural philosophy, 
 metaphysics, morals, and theology. The theological disputations, 
 with the penalties attached to failure to take -part in them, 
 have already been noticed. The Bachelors of Arts, and, in 
 certain cases, the " necessary regents " among the Masters (that 
 is, those Masters of Arts who had not yet completed two years 
 from the date of that degree), were also bound to dispute in 
 the subjects of their faculty, namely, logic, natural philosophy, 
 metaphysics, and morals, for at least two hours twice a week. 
 Nor could any Fellow or scholar take his Bachelor's degree, 
 till he had read and explained some work or portion of a work 
 of some Latin poet, orator, or historian ; or his Master's degree, 
 till he had explained some book, or at least volume, of Greek 
 logic or philosophy. When we add to these requirements of 
 the College the disputations also imposed by the University, 
 and the numerous religious offices in the chapel, we may easily 
 perceive that, in this busy hive of literary industry, there was 
 little leisure for the amusements which now absorb so large a 
 portion of the student's time and thoughts. Though, when 
 absent from the University, they were not forbidden to spend a 
 moderate amount of time in hunting or fowling, yet, when actu- 
 ally in Oxford, they were restricted to games of ball in the 
 College garden. Nor had they, like the modern student, pro- 
 longed vacations. Vacation to them was mainly a respite 
 from University exercises; the College work, though varied in 
 subject-matter, going on, in point of quantity, much as usual. 
 They were allowed indeed, for a reasonable cause, to spend a 
 portion of the vacation away from Oxford, but the whole time 
 of absence, in the case of a Fellow, was not, in the aggregate," to 
 exceed forty days in the year, nor in the case of a probationer 
 or scholar, twenty days; nor were more than six members of 
 the foundation ever to be absent at a time, except at certain 
 periods, which we might call the depths of the vacations, when 
 the number miffht reach ten. The liberal ideas of the founder 
 are, however, shown in the provision that one Fellow or scholar 
 at a time might have leave of absence. for three years, in order 
 
280 CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. 
 
 to settle in Italy, or some other country, for the purposes of 
 study. He was to retain his full allowance during absence, 
 and, when he returned, he was to be available for the office of a 
 E-eader, when next vacant. 
 
 This society of students :would consist of between fifty and 
 sixty persons, all of whom, we must recollect, were normally 
 bound to residence, and to take their part, each in his several 
 degree, in the literary activity of the College, or, according to 
 the language of the founder, "to make honey." Besides the 
 President, there were twenty Fellows, twenty scholars (called 
 "disciples"), two chaplains, and two clerks, who might be 
 called the constant elements of the College. In addition to 
 these, there might be some or even all of the three Readers, in 
 case they were not included among the Fellows ; four, or at the 
 most six, sons of nobles or lawyers (Juris-consulti), a kind of 
 boarder afterwards called " gentlemen-commoners " ; and some 
 even of the servants. The last class consisted of two servants 
 for the President (one a groom, the other a body-servant), the 
 manciple, the butler, two cooks, the porter (who was also barber), 
 and the clerk of accompt. It would appear from the statutes 
 that these servants, or rather servitors, might or might not^ 
 pursue the studies of the College, according to their discretion ; 
 if they chose to do so, they probably proceeded to their 
 degrees.^ Lastly, there were two inmates of the College, 
 who were too young to attend the lectures and disputations, 
 but who were to be taught grammar and instructed in good 
 authors, either within the College or at Magdalen School. 
 These were the choristers, who were to dine and sup with 
 the servants, and to minister in the hall and chapel ; but, as 
 
 ^ "Ut intus operentur mellifici nee evocentur ad vilia, decernimus ut sint 
 quidam ab opere mellifico liberi et aliis obsequiis dediti. Verumtamen, si 
 quispiam eorum mellifico voluerit imitari, duplicem merebitur coronam " ; 
 Statut cap. 17. In cap. 37 the lecturers are required to admit the 
 " ministri Sacelli " and *' famuli Collegii " to their lectures, without charge. 
 
 ^ There can be no doubt that, at this period and subsequently, the 
 College servants were of^en matriculated and proceeded to their degrees. 
 And, as they were entered in the College books not by their names but by 
 their offices, this is one reason why it is often so difficult to trace a student 
 of those times to his College. 
 
• ^^ OF THR ' r 
 
 CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. =^ J 881 
 
 they grew older, were to have a preference m 'the election to 
 scholarships. 
 
 Passing to the domestic arrangements, the Fellows and scholars 
 — there are curiously no directions with regard to the other 
 members of the College — were to sleep two and two in a room, 
 a Fellow and scholar together, the Fellow in a high bed, and 
 the scholar in a truckle-bed. The Fellow was to have the 
 supervision of the scholar who shared his room, to set him a 
 good example, to instruct him, to admonish or punish him if he 
 did wrong, and (if need were) to report him to the disciplinal 
 officers of the College. The limitation of two to a room was a 
 distinct advance on the existing practice. At the most recently 
 founded Colleges, Magdalen and Brasenose, the number pre- 
 scribed in the statutes was three or four. As no provision is 
 made in the statutes for bed-makers, or attendants on the 
 rooms, there can be little doubt that the beds were made and 
 the rooms kept in order by the junior occupant, an office which, 
 in those days when the sons of men of quality served as pages 
 in great houses, implied no degradation. 
 
 In the hall there were two meals in the day, dinner and 
 supper, the former probably about eleven a.m. or noon, the latter 
 probably about five or six p.m. At what we should now call the 
 High Table, there were to sit the President, Vice-President, and 
 Reader in Theology, together with the Doctors and Bachelors in 
 that faculty ; but even amongst them there was a distinction, as 
 there was an extra allowance for the dish of which the three 
 persons highest in dignity partook, providing one of the above 
 three officers were present. The Vice-President and Reader in 
 Theology, one or both of them, might be displaced, at the 
 President's discretion, by distinguished strangers. At the upper 
 side-table, on the right, were to sit the Masters of Arts and 
 Readers in Greek and Latin, in no prescribed order ; at that 
 on the left, the remaining Fellows, the probationers, and the 
 chaplains. The scholars and the two clerks were to occupy the 
 remaining tables, except the table nearest the buttery, which 
 was to be occupied by the two bursars, the steward, and the 
 clerk of accompt, for the purpose, probably, of superintending 
 the service. The steward was one of the graduate-fellows 
 
282 CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. 
 
 appointed, from week to week, to assist the bursars in the 
 commissariat and internal expenditure of the College. It was 
 also his duty to superintend the waiting at the upper tables, 
 and, indeed, it would seem as if he himself took part in it. 
 The ordinary waiters at these tables were the President's and 
 other College servants, the choristers, and, if necessary, the 
 clerks; but the steward had also the power of supplementing 
 their service from amongst the scholars. At the scholars' tables, 
 the waiters were to be taken from amongst the scholars and 
 clerks themselves, two a week in turn. What has been said 
 above with regard to the absence, at that time, of any idea of 
 degradation in rendering services in the chambers would equally 
 apply here. Such services would then be no mare regarded as 
 degrading than is fagging in a public school now.^ During 
 dinner, a portion of the Bible was to be read by 'one of the 
 Fellows or Scholars under the degree of Master of Arts ; and, 
 when dinner was finished, it was to be expounded by the 
 President or by one of the Fellows (being a theologian) who 
 was to be selected for the purpose by the President or Vice- 
 President, under pain of a month's deprivation of commons, if 
 he refused. While the Bible was not being read, the students 
 were to be allowed to converse at dinner, but only in Greek or 
 Latin, which languages were also to be employed exclusively, 
 except to those ignorant of them or for the purposes of the 
 College accounts, not only in the chapel and hall but in the 
 chambers and all other places of the College. As soon as 
 dinner or supper was over, at least after grace and the loving- 
 cup, all the students, senior and junior, were to leave the hall. 
 The same rule was to apply to the hibesia, or hiheria, then 
 customary in the University; which were slight refections of 
 bread and beer,^ in addition to the two regular meals. Excep- 
 tion, however, was made in favour of those festivals of Our 
 
 1 In the years 1649-52, there are several entries in the " Register of 
 Punishments " to the effect that scholars or clerks are " put out of 
 commons '' for refusing to wait in hall. At that time, therefore, there 
 must have been a feeling that the practice was irksome or degrading. 
 
 ^ See the Statutes of Jesus College, Cambridge, chap, xx., where they 
 are limited to two in a day, and, on each occasion, to a pint of beer and a 
 piece of bread. 
 
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. 283 
 
 Lord, the Blessed Virgin, and the Saints, on which it was 
 customary to keep up the hall fire. For, on the latter occasions, 
 after refection and potation, the Fellows and probationers might 
 remain in the hall to sing or employ themselves in any other 
 innocent recreations such as became clerics, or to recite and 
 discuss poems, histories, the marvels of the world, and other 
 such like subjects. 
 
 The services in the chapel, especially on Sundays and festivals, 
 it need hardly be said, were numerous, and the penalties for 
 absence severe. On non-festival days the first mass was at five in 
 the morning, and all scholars of the College and bachelor Fellows 
 were bound to be present from the beginning to the end, under 
 pain of heavy punishments for absence, lateness, or inattention. 
 There were other masses which were not equally obligatory, 
 but the inmates of the College were, of course, obliged to keep 
 the canonical hours. They were also charged, in conscience, to 
 say certain private prayers on getting up in the morning or 
 going to bed at night ; as well as, once during the day, to pray 
 for the founder and other his or their benefactors. 
 
 I have already spoken of the lectures, disputations, examina- 
 tions, and private instruction, as well as of the scanty amuse- 
 ments, as compared with those of our own day, which were then 
 permitted. Something, however, still remains to be said of the 
 mode of life prescribed by the founder, and of the punishments 
 inflicted for breach of rules. We have seen that, when the 
 Bachelors of Arts attended the lectures at Magdalen, they were 
 obliged to go and return in a body. Even on ordinary occasions, 
 the Fellows, scholars, chaplains and clerks were forbidden to 
 go outside the College, unless it were to the schools, the library, 
 or some other College or hall, unaccompanied by some other 
 member of the College as a "witness of their honest con- 
 versation." Undergraduates required, moreover, special leave 
 from the Dean or Reader of Logic, the only exemption in their 
 case being the schools. If they went into the country, for a 
 walk or other relaxation, they must go in a company of not less 
 than three, keep together all the time, and return together. 
 The only weapons they were allowed to carry, except when 
 away for their short vacations, were the bow and arrow. 
 
284 CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. 
 
 Whether within the University or away from it, they were 
 strictly prohibited from wearing any but the clerical dress. 
 Once a year, they were all to be provided, at the expense of the 
 College, with gowns (to be worn outside their other habits) of 
 the same colour, though of different sizes and prices according 
 to their position in College. It may be noticed that these 
 gowns were to be provided for the famuli or servants no less 
 than for the other members of the foundation ; and that, for 
 this purpose, the servants are divided into two classes, one 
 corresponding with the chaplains and probationary Fellows, 
 the other with the scholars, clerks, and choristers. 
 
 Besides being subjected to the supervision of the various 
 officers of the College, each scholar was to be assigned by the 
 President to a tutor, namely, the same Fellow whose chamber 
 he shared. The tutor was to have the general charge of him • 
 expend, on his behalf, the pension which he received from the 
 College, or any sums which came to him from other sources ; 
 watch his progress, and correct his defects. If he were neither 
 a graduate nor above twenty years of age, he was to be 
 punished with stripes; otherwise, in some other manner. 
 Corporal punishment might also be inflicted, in the case of the 
 juniors, for various other offences, such as absence from chapel, 
 inattention at lectures, speaking English instead of Latin or 
 Greek ; and it was probably, for the ordinary faults of under- 
 graduates, the most common form of punishment. Other 
 punishments — short of expulsion, which was the last resort — 
 were confinement to the library with the task of writing out 
 or composing something in the way of an imposition; sitting 
 alone in the middle of hall, while the rest were dining, at a meal 
 of dry bread and beer, or even bread and water ; and lastly, the 
 punishment, so frequently mentioned in the statutes, depriva- 
 tion of commons. This punishment operated practically as a 
 pecuniary fine, the offender having to pay for his own commons 
 instead of receiving them free from the College. The payment 
 had to be made to the bursars immediately, or, at latest, at the 
 end of term. All members of the College, except the President 
 and probably the Vice-President, were subject to this penalty, 
 though, in case of the seniors, it was simply a fine, whereas 
 
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. 285 
 
 undergraduates and Bachelors of Arts were obliged to take 
 their commons either alone or with others similarly punished. 
 The offenders, moreover, were compelled to write their names 
 in a register, stating their offence and the number of days for 
 which they were " put out of commons." Such registers still 
 exist ; but, as the names are almost exclusively those of Bachelors 
 and undergraduates, it is probable that the seniors, by im- 
 mediate payment or otherwise, escaped this more ignominious 
 part of the punishment. It will be noticed that rustication and 
 gating, words so familiar to the undergraduates of the present 
 generation, do not occur in this enumeration. Rustication, in 
 those days, when many of the students came from such distant 
 homes and the exercises in College were so severe, would 
 generally have been either too heavy or too light a penalty. 
 Gating, in our sense, could hardly exist, as the undergraduates, 
 at least, were not free to go outside the walls, except for 
 scholastic purposes, without special leave, and that would, doubt- 
 less, have been refused in case of any recent misconduct. Here 
 it may be noticed that the College gates were closed in the 
 winter months at eight, and in the summer months at nine, 
 the keys being taken to the President to prevent further ingress 
 or e stress. 
 
 Such were the studies, and such was the discipline, of an \ 
 Oxford College at the beginning of the sixteenth century ; nor 
 is there any reason to suppose that, till the troubled times of 
 the Reformation, these stringent rules were not 'rigorously 
 enforced. They admirably served the purpose to which they 
 were adapted, the education of a learned dergy, trained to 
 habits of study, regularity, and piety, apt at dialectical fence, 
 and competent to press all the secular learning of the time into 
 the service of the Church. Never since that time probably 
 have the Universities or the Colleges so completely secured the 
 objects at which they aimed.^But first, the Reformation; then, 
 the Civil Wars ; then, the Restoration of Charles II. ; then, the 
 Revolution of 1688 ; and lastl}^ the silent changes gradually 
 brought about by the increasing age of the students, the 
 increasing proportion of those destined for secular pursuits, and 
 the growth of luxurious habits in the country at large, have 
 
286 CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. 
 
 left little surviving of this cunningly devised system. The aims 
 of modern times, and the materials with which we have to 
 deal, have necessarily become different ; but we may well 
 envy the zeal for religion and learning which animated the 
 ancient founders, the skill with which they adapted their 
 means to their end, and the system of instruction and dis- 
 cipline which converted a body of raw youths, gathered pro- 
 bably, to a large extent, from the College estates, into studious 
 and accomplished ecclesiastics, combining the new learning with 
 the ancient traditions of the ecclesiastical life. 
 
 The first President and Fellows were settled in their buildings, 
 and put in possession of the College and its appurtenances, by 
 the Warden of New College and the President of Magdalen, 
 acting on behalf of the Founder, on the 4th of March, 1516-17. 
 There were as many witnesses as filled two tables in the hall ; 
 among them being Reginald Pole (afterwards Cardinal and 
 Archbishop of Canterbury), then a B.A. of Magdalen, and sub- 
 sequently (February 14th, 1523-4) admitted, by special appoint- 
 ment of the Founder, Fellow of Corpus. Of the first President 
 and Vice-President, and the large proportion of Magdalen men 
 in the original society, mention has already been made. The 
 first Professor of Humanity was Ludovicus Yives, the celebrated 
 Spanish humanist, who had previously been lecturing in the 
 South of Italy ; the first Professor of Greek expressly mentioned 
 in the Register (not definitely appointed, however, till Jan. 2nd, 
 1520-21), was Edward Wotton, then a young Magdalen man, 
 subsequently Physician to Henry YIII., and author of a once 
 well-known book, De Differentiis Animalium?- The Professor- 
 ship of Theology does not seem to have been filled up either 
 on the original constitution of the College or at any subsequent 
 time. It is possible that the functions of the Professor may 
 have been performed by the Vice-President, who was ex officio 
 Dean of Theology. In the very first list of admissions, how- 
 ever, to the new society, we find the names of Nicholas Crutcher 
 
 ^ In a list of Greek Readers given by Fulman (Fulman MSS., Vol. X.), 
 David Edwards is mentioned as preceding Wotton, but, possibly, he held 
 the appointment only temporarily, or there may be some confusion in the 
 matter. 
 
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. 287 
 
 (i.e. Kratzer) a Bavarian, a native of Munich, who was pro- 
 bably introduced into the College for the purpose of teaching 
 Mathematics. He was astronomer to Henry VIII. ; left memo- 
 rials of himself in Oxford, in the shape of dials, in St. Mary's 
 churchyard and in Corpus Garden ;i and still survives in the 
 fine portraits of him by Holbein. The sagacity of Foxe is 
 singularly exemplified by his free admission of foreigners to his 
 Readerships. While the Fellowships and scholarships were 
 confined to certain dioceses and counties, and the only regular 
 access to a Fellowship was through a Scholarship, the Readers 
 might be natives of any part of England, or of Greece or Italy 
 beyond the Po. It would seem, however, as if even this speci- 
 fication of countries was rather by way of exemplification than 
 restriction, as the two first appointments, made by the founder 
 himself, were of a Spaniard and a Bavarian. 
 
 Erasmus, writing, shortly after the settlement of the society, 
 to John Claymond, the first President, in 1519, speaks {Epist., 
 lib. 4) of the great interest which had been taken in Foxe's 
 foundation by Wolsey, Campeggio, and Henry VIII. himself, 
 and predicts that the College will be ranked " inter praecipua 
 decora Britanniae," and that its " trilinguis bibliotheca " will 
 attract more scholars to Oxford than were formerly attracted to 
 Rome. This language, though somewhat exaggerated, shows 
 the great expectations formed by the promoters of the new 
 learning of this new departure in academical institutions. 
 
 Of the subsequent history of the College, the space at my 
 command only allows me to afford very brief glimpses. 
 
 In 1539, John Jewel (subsequently the celebrated Bishop of 
 Salisbury) was elected from a Postmastership at Merton to a 
 scholarship at Corpus. From the interesting life of Jewel by 
 Laurence Humfrey (published in 1573), we gather that at the 
 time when Jewel entered it, and for some years subsequently, 
 Corpus was still the " bee-hive " which its founder had designed 
 it to be. His Merton tutors, we learn, were very anxious to 
 place him at Corpus, not only for his pecuniary, but also for his 
 
 ^ Both these dials have now disappeared. The large and very curious 
 dial now in Corpus quadrangle was constructed by Charles Turnbull, a 
 native of Lincolnshire, in 1605. 
 
288 CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. 
 
 educational, advancement. The lectures, disputations, exercises, 
 and examinations prescribed by the founder seem still to have 
 been retained in their full vigour, though it is curious to find 
 that the author with whom young Jewel was most familiar w^as 
 Horace, whose works, as we have seen, were strangely omitted 
 from the list of Latin books recommended in the original 
 statutes. But that the College shared in the general decay 
 of learninof, which accompanied the religious troubles of Edward 
 VI.'s reign, is apparent from two orations delivered by Jewel : one 
 in 1552, in commemoration of the founder; the other probably 
 a little earlier, a sort of declamation against Rhetoric, in his 
 capacity of Praelector of Latin. In the latter oration, he con- 
 trasts unfavourably the present with the former state of the 
 University, referring its degeneracy, its diminished influence, 
 and its waning numbers, to the excessive cultivation of rhetoric, 
 and especially of the works of Cicero, " who has extinguished 
 the light and glory of the whole University." In the former, 
 and apparently later, oration, he deals more specifically with the 
 College, and admonishes its members to wash out, by their 
 industry and application to study, the stain on their once fair 
 name, to throw off their lethargy, to recover their ancient 
 dignity, and to take for their watchword " Studeamus." 
 
 Jewel's words of warning and incentive to study would seem 
 to have borne good fruit in the days of Elizabeth, though they 
 were speedily followed by his flight, during the Marian perse- 
 cution, first to Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke College), and 
 subsequently to Germany and Switzerland, never more to return 
 to Oxford, except in the capacity of a visitor. But, at the time 
 of his death (1571), he was represented at his old College by 
 one who was to be a still greater ornament of the Church of 
 England even than himself. In the year 1567, in the fifteenth 
 year of his age, according to Izaac Walton's account, Richard 
 Hooker, through Jewel's kindness and with some assistance 
 from his uncle, John Hooker of Exeter, was enabled to go up to 
 Oxford, there to receive, on the good bishop's recommendation, a 
 clerk's place in the gift of the President of Corpus.i It would 
 
 ^ In addition to the assistance he received from his College (as an 
 academical clerk), from his uncle, and (in the earlier part of his career) from 
 
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. 289 
 
 be futile to extract, and presumptuous to recast, the graphic 
 account of young Hooker's College life as delineated by his 
 quaint and venerable biographer. From his clerkship he was 
 elected to a scholarship, when nearly twenty years of age, and 
 from that he passed in due course to a Fellowship, which he 
 vacated on marriage and presentation to a living in 1584. Thus 
 Hooker resided in Corpus about seventeen years, and must there 
 have laid in that varied and extensive stock of knowledge and 
 formed that sound judgment and stately style which raised him 
 to the highest rank, not only amongst English divines, but 
 amongst English writers. "From that garden of piety, of 
 pleasure, of peace, and a sweet conversation," he passed " into 
 the thorny wilderness of a busy world, into those corroding 
 cares that attend a married priest and a country parsonage " ; 
 and, most bitter and least tolerable of all the elements in his 
 lot, into the exacting and uncongenial society of his termagant 
 wife. Corpus, at that time, is described by Walton as "noted 
 for an eminent library, strict students, and remarkable scholars." 
 Indeed, a College which, within a period of sixty years, admitted 
 and educated John Jewel, John Reynolds, Richard Hooker, and 
 Thomas Jackson, four of the greatest divines and most dis- 
 tinguished writers who have ever adorned the Church of 
 England, might, especially in an age when theology was the 
 most absorbing interest of the day, vie, small as it was in 
 numbers, with the largest and most illustrious Colleges in either 
 University. 
 
 There is another picture of college life at Corpus, during the 
 
 Bishop Jewel, who died in 1571, we find that Hooker, on no less than five 
 occasions, was assisted out of the benefaction of Robert Nowell, who had 
 left to trustees a sum of money to be distributed amongst poor scholars in 
 Oxford. One of these entries is peculiarly touching : — " To Richard hooker 
 of Corpus Christie college the xiith of februarye Anno 1571 to brings him 
 to Oxforde iis vid." This date is probably that of his return to Oxford 
 after a visit to his parents at Exeter on recovering from a serious illness, 
 the circumstances of which, including his affecting interview with Jewel 
 at Salisbury, are so feelingly told in Walton's Life. The Spetiding of the 
 Money of Robert Nowell (brother of Alexander Nowell, Dean of St. Paul's), 
 which contains some most curious and interesting entries, is one of the 
 Towneley Hall MSS., and was edited, for private circulation only, by the 
 Rev. A. B. Grosart in 1877. 
 
 U 
 
290 COHPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. 
 
 reign of Elizabeth, less pleasing than that on which we have 
 just been dwelling. It seems that during the reign of Edward 
 VI. and the early part of Elizabeth's reign, possibly even to a 
 much later period, several members of the foundation were 
 secretly inclined to the Roman Catholic religion, or, to speak 
 with more precision of the earlier cases, had not yet embraced 
 the doctrines of Protestantism. It was probably with a view to 
 accelerate the reception of the reformed faith, that, on the 
 vacancy of the Presidentship in 1567 or 1568, Elizabeth was 
 advised to recommend William Cole, a former Fellow of the 
 society, who had been a refugee in Switzerland, and had there 
 suffered considerable hardships, which do not seem to have 
 improved his temper. The Fellows, notwithstanding the royal 
 recommendation, elected one Robert Harrison, who had been 
 recently removed from the College by the Visitor on account of 
 his Romanist proclivities, " not at all taking notice," says 
 Anthony Wood, "of the said Cole; being very unwilling to 
 have him, his wife and children, and his Zurichian discipline 
 introduced among them." The Queen annulled the election, 
 but the Fellows still would not yield. Hereupon the aid of the 
 Visitor was invoked ; but, when the Bishop of Winchester came 
 down with his retinue, he found the gate closed against him. 
 "At length, after he had made his way in, he repaired to the 
 chapel," where, after expelling those Fellows who were recalci- 
 trant, he obtained the consent of the remainder. A Royal Com- 
 mission was also sent down to the College the same year, which, 
 " after a strict inquiry and examination of several persons, 
 expelled some as Roman Catholics, curbed those that were 
 suspected to incline that way, and gave encouragement to the 
 Protestants. Mr. Cole," Wood^ proceeds, "who w^as the first 
 married President that Corp. Chr. Coll. ever had, being settled 
 in his place, acted so foully by defrauding the College and 
 bringing it into debt, that divers complaints were put up against 
 him to the Bishop of Winchester, Visitor of that College. At 
 length the said Bishop, in one of his quinquennial visitations, 
 took Mr. Cole to task, and, after long discourses on both sides, 
 the Bishop plainly told him, * Well, well, Mr. President, seeing 
 
 ^ Wood's Annals, sub anno 1668. 
 
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. 291 
 
 it is so, you and the College must part without any more ado, 
 and therefore see that you provide for yourself/ Mr. Cole 
 therefore, being not able to say any more, fetcht a deep sigh and 
 said, ' What, my good Lord, must I then eat mice at Zurich 
 again ? ' At which words the Bishop, being much terrified, for 
 they worked with him more than all his former oratory had 
 done, said no more, but bid him be at rest and deal honestly 
 with the College." The sensible advice of the Bishop, however, 
 was not acted on ; and, whether the fault lay with the President 
 or with the Fellows, or, as is most likely, with both, the bicker- 
 ings, dissensions, and mutual recriminations between the Presi- 
 dent, and, at least, one section of the Fellows, continued during 
 the whole of Cole's presidency, which lasted thirty years. There 
 are some MS. letters in the British Museum, by one Simon 
 Tripp, which give a painful idea of the bitterness of the quarrel. 
 And Mrs. Cole seems to have added to the embroilment: 
 " nimirum Paris cum nescio qua Italica Helena perdite omnia 
 perturbavit " (Tripp's letter to Jewel). In 1580 there appear 
 to have been hopes of Cole's resigning ; but his Presidency did 
 not come to an end, nor peace return to the College, till 1598, 
 when an arrangement, much to the advantage of the College, 
 was made, by which Dr. John Reynolds, who had been recently 
 appointed to the Deanery of Lincoln, resigned that office, on 
 the understanding that Cole would be appointed his successor, 
 and that, on Cole's resignation of the Presidency, he would 
 himself be elected by the Fellows. Cole died two years after- 
 wards, and is buried in Lincoln cathedral. Reynolds, the most 
 learned and distinguished President the College ever had, famous 
 for his share in the translation of the Bible and in the Hampton 
 Court controversy, rests in Corpus chapel. 
 
 I will now shift the scene to the year 1648, the second year 
 of the Parliamentary Visitation. On the 22nd of May, in this 
 year, two orders were issued by the " Committee of Lords and 
 Commons for the Reformation of the University of Oxford," 
 one depriving Dr. Robert Newlyn of the Presidentship of 
 Corpus as "guilty of high contempt and denyall of authority 
 of parliament," the other constituting Dr. Edmund Staunton 
 President in his stead. On the 27th of May, we read, in 
 
292 CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. 
 
 Anthony Wood's Annals, that the Visitors (who sat in Oxford, 
 and must be distinguished from the Committee mentioned 
 above, who sat in London) " caused a paper to be stuck on Corp. 
 Ch. College gate to depose Dr. Newlin from being President, 
 but the paper was soon after torn down with indignation and 
 scorn." And again, on the 11th of July, they "went to C. C. 
 Coll., dashed out Dr. Newlin's name from the Buttery-book, and 
 put in that of Dr. Stanton formerly voted into the place ; but 
 their backs w^ere no sooner turned but his name was blotted out 
 with a pen by Will. Fulman and then torn out by Tim. Parker, 
 scholars of that House. At the same time (if I mistake not) 
 they 1 brake open the Treasury, but found nothing." After this 
 audacious feat we can hardly wonder that Will. Fulman and 
 Tim Parker were expelled by the Visitors on the 22nd of July. 
 Fulman (the famous and industrious antiquary, many volumes 
 of whose researches are still preserved in the Corpus library) 
 was restored in 1660. Corpus being one of the specially 
 Royalist Colleges, it is not surprising to find that almost a clean 
 sweep was made of the existing foundation, including the five 
 principal servants.^ Dr. Staunton, who was himself one of the 
 Visitors, seems to have ruled the College vigorously and wisely, 
 though, very early in his Presidentship, there are signs of 
 dissensions among the Fellows, due, possibly, to differences 
 between the rival factions of Presbyterians and Independents. 
 Any way, he knew how to maintain his authority. In the record 
 of punishments, made in the handwriting of the culprits them- 
 selves, we find that, in 1651, four of the scholars were put out 
 of commons " usque ad dignam emendationem," " till they had 
 learnt to mend their ways," for sitting in the President's presence 
 with their caps on. The discipline appears to have been almost 
 exceptionally stringent at this time. Amongst other curious 
 entries, we find that Edward Fowler, one of the clerks (sub- 
 sequently Bishop of Gloucester), was similarly deprived of his 
 commons for throwing bread at the opposite windows of the 
 
 1 The Visitors. 
 
 ^ From a table in Burrows' Register of the Visitors (Camden Society), 
 pp. 494-6, it may be calculated that the proportion of those who were 
 expelled to those who remained was probably about four to one. 
 
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. 293 
 
 students of Ch. Ch. ("eo quod alumnos Aedis Christi pane 
 projecto in tumultum provocavit "). Two scholars who had been 
 found walking in the town, without their gowns, about ten 
 o'clock at night, were put out of commons for a week, and 
 ordered one to write out, in Greek, all the more notable parts of 
 Aristotle's Ethics, the other to write out, and commit to memory, 
 all the definitions and divisions of Burgersdyk's Logic. Another 
 scholar, for having in his room some out-college men without 
 leave and then joining with them in creating a disturbance, was 
 sentenced to be kept hard at work in the library, from morning 
 to evening prayers, for a month, a severe form of punishment 
 which seems not to have been uncommon at this time. Under 
 the Puritan regime there was certainly no danger of the 
 retrogression of discipline. 
 
 Dr. Newlyn, with some of the ejected Fellows and scholars, 
 returned to the College, after the Restoration, in 1660. The 
 old President lived to be over 90, dying within a few months of 
 the Revolution of 1688, and having been President, including 
 the years of his expulsion, over 47 years. He is finely described 
 in the monument to his memory, which still exists in the College 
 Chapel, as "ob fidem regi, ecclesiae, coUegio servatam annis 
 fere XII. expulsus." But the College does not seem to have 
 gained in learning, discipline, or quiet, by the change of govern- 
 ment. The constant appeals to, or intervention of, the Visitor 
 (George Morley) revealing to us, as they do, the internal dissen- 
 sions of the Society itself, recall the troubled days of Cole's 
 presidency. Nor does Newlyn himself seem to have been free 
 from blame. His government appears to have been lax, and his 
 nepotism, even for those days, was remarkable. During the 
 first fourteen years after his return, no less than four Newlyns 
 are found in the list of scholars, while, in the list of clerks and 
 choristers (places exclusively in the gift of the President), the 
 name Newlyn, for many years after his return, occurs more fre- 
 quently than all other names taken together. It would appear 
 as if there had been a perennial supply of sons, nephews, or 
 grandsons, to stop the avenues of preferment to less favoured 
 students. 
 
 It is pleasing to turn from these unsatisfactory relations 
 
294 CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. 
 
 among the seniors to a contemporary account^ of his studies and 
 his intercourse with his tutor, left by one of the scholars of this 
 period, John Potenger, elected to a Hampshire Scholarship in 
 1664. From the account of his candidature, it appears that, even 
 then, there was an effective examination for the scholarships, 
 though it only lasted a day and seems to have been entirely viva 
 voce. It is curious to find Potenger largely attributing his 
 success to his age, " being some years younger " than his rivals,^ 
 "a circumstance much considered by the electors." Can the 
 well-known preference of the Corpus electors for boyish candi- 
 dates in the days of Arnold and Keble, and even to a date within 
 the memory of living members of the College, have been a 
 tradition from the seventeenth century ? It appears that the 
 tutor was then selected by the student's friends. *' I had the 
 good fortune," says Potenger, " to be put to Mr. John Roswell " 
 (afterwards Head Master of Eton and a great benefactor of the 
 Corpus library), " a man eminent for learning and piety, whose 
 care and diligence ought gratefully to be remembered by me as 
 long as I live. I think he preserved me from ruin at my first 
 setting out into the world. He did not only endeavour to make 
 his pupils good scholars, but good men. He narrowly watched 
 my conversation " (^. e. behaviour), " knowing I had too many 
 acquaintance in the University that I was fond of, though they 
 were not fit for me. Those he disHked he would not let me 
 converse with, which I regretted much, thinking that, now I 
 was come from school, I was to manage myself as I pleased, 
 
 1 My attention was directed to the rare book, whicli contains this 
 account, by Mr. C. H. Firth of Balliol College. It is entitled The Private 
 Memoirs of John Potenger, Esq., edited by C. W. Bingham, and was 
 published by Hamilton, Adams & Co. in 1841. 
 
 ^ And yet, at the date of his admission, he was more than 16 years old. 
 Even in the early part of the present century, there were many admissions 
 of scholars younger than Potenger. John Keble, when admitted, was only 
 14 years 7 months old ; his brother, Thomas Keble, 14 years 5 months ; 
 Thomas Arnold, 15 years 8 months ; and R. G. Macmullen, who was 
 admitted in 1828, was actually under 14, his age being 13 years 11 months. 
 During the first thirty or forty years of this century, 15 and 16 were not 
 uncommon ages for the admission of scholars at Corpus ; and, in addition 
 to the cases cited above, there were occasional instances of admission at 
 14. Even then, however, the age was most, frequently 17 or 18. 
 
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. 295 
 
 which occasioned many differences between us for the first two 
 years, which ended in an entire friendship on both sides." 
 / Potenger " did not immediately enter upon logick and philosophy, 
 but was kept for a full year to the reading of classical authors, 
 and making of theams in prose and verse." The students still 
 spoke Latin at dinner and supper ; and consequently, at first, 
 his " words were few." There were still disputations in the hall, 
 requiring a knowledge of logic and philosophy ; but Potenger's 
 taste was mainly for the composition of Latin and English verse 
 and for declamations. His poetical efforts were so successful, 
 that his tutor gave him several books " for an encouragement." 
 For his Bachelor's degree he had to perform not only public 
 exercises in the schools, but private exercises in the College, a 
 custom which survived long after this time. One of these was a 
 reading in the College Hall upon Horace. " I opened my lec- 
 tures with a speech which I thought pleased the auditors as well 
 as myself." After taking his degree he fell into vicious habits 
 which, though commenced in Oxford, were completed by his 
 frequent visits to London. " Though I was so highly criminal, 
 yet I was not so notorious as to incur the censure of the Gov- 
 ernors of the College or the University, but for sleeping out 
 morning prayer, for which I was frequently punished." " The 
 two last years I stayed in the University, I was Bachelour of 
 Arts, and I spent most of my time in reading books which were 
 not very common, as Milton's works, Hobbs his Leviathan ; but 
 they never had the power to subvert the principles which I had 
 received of a good Christian and a good subject." The exercises 
 for his Master of Arts' degree he speaks of as if they were difficult 
 and laborious. 
 
 The century which elapsed from the Restoration to the acces- 
 sion of George III. was, perhaps, the least distinguished and 
 the least profitable in the history of the University. In this 
 lack of life and distinction Corpus seems fully to have shared. 
 With the exceptions of General Oglethorpe, the friend of Dr. 
 Johnson, and the founder of Georgia (who matriculated as a 
 gentleman-commoner, in 1714), and John Whitaker (the author 
 of a History of Manchester, &c.), not a single entry of any 
 person who subsequently attained to distinction occurs in the 
 
296 CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. 
 
 registers from the Kestoration down to the election, as a scholar, 
 of William Scott (afterwards Lord Stowell, the celebrated 
 Admiralty Judge) in 1761. It may be noted too, as illustrating 
 the moral level of these times, that the punishments, of which 
 a record is still preserved, are no longer inflicted for the faults 
 of boys, but for the vices of men. 
 
 At the period, however, which we have now reached, the 
 College seems to have been recovering its pristine efficiency and 
 reputation. Richard Lovell Edge worth, the father of Miss 
 Edgeworth, entered Corpus as a gentleman-commoner in 1761, 
 his father having "prudently removed him from Dublin." 
 " Having entered C. C, C, Oxford," he says,^ " I applied assidu- 
 ously not only to my studies under my excellent tutor, Mr. 
 Russell" (father of Dr. Russell, the Head-master of Charter- 
 house), " both in prose and verse. Scarcely a day passed without 
 my having added to my stock of knowledge some new fact or idea ; 
 and I remember with satisfaction the pleasure I then felt from 
 the consciousness of intellectual improvement." " I had the good 
 fortune to make acquaintance with the young men, the most 
 distinguished at C. C. for application, abilities, and good con- 
 duct. ... I remember with gratitude that I was liked by my 
 fellow-students, and I recollect with pleasure the delightful and 
 profitable hours I passed at that University during three years 
 of my life." He tells some characteristic stories of Dr. Ran- 
 dolph, the " indulgent president " of that time, whose " good 
 humour made more salutary impression on the young men he 
 governed than has ever been effected by the morose manners of 
 any unrelenting disciplinarian." It is curious to contrast the 
 account of Mr. Edgeworth's Corpus experiences with that given 
 by Gibbon of his Magdalen experiences some nine or ten years 
 before this time, or with Benthara's account of his under- 
 graduate life at Queen's, which almost coincided with that of 
 Mr. Edgeworth at Corpus. Something, however, may, perhaps, 
 be set down to the difference of character and temper in the 
 men themselves. 
 
 ^ Memoirs of B. L. Edgeworth^ Esq., in two vols., 1820. My attention 
 was kindly directed to this book by the Rev. R. G. Livingstone of 
 Pembroke College. 
 
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. 297 
 
 From Edgeworth's time to this, the College has maintained its 
 educational efficiency and reputation ; and, though with occa- 
 sional changes of fortune, it has, notwithstanding its smallness, 
 invariably taken a high rank among the educational institutions 
 of the University. Considering the extreme smallness of its 
 numbers at that time, the number of undergraduates varying 
 from about sixteen to twenty, it is truly remarkable to observe 
 the large proportion of distinguished names which occur in the 
 lists between 1761 and 1811. They comprise, taking them in 
 chronological order, William Scott (Lord Stowell), Richard 
 Lovell Edge worth, Walker King (Bishop of Rochester), Thomas 
 Burgess (Bishop of Salisbury), Richard Laurence (Archbishop 
 of Cashel, author of a famous course of Bampton Lectures), 
 Charles Abbott (Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench and 
 Lord Tenterden), Edward Copleston (Provost of Oriel, Dean of 
 St. Paul's, and Bishop of Llandaff), Henr}' Phillpotts (Bishop of 
 Exeter), Charles James Stewart (Bishop of Quebec), Thomas 
 Grimstone Estcourt (Burgess for the University from 1826 to 
 1847), William Buckland (Dean of Westminster, the famous 
 geologist), John Keble, John Taylor Coleridge (better known as 
 " Mr. Justice Coleridge"), and Thomas Arnold. These names, 
 together with those previously mentioned, namely, John Clay- 
 mond, Ludovicus Vives, Edward Wotton, Nicholas Kratzer, 
 Cardinal Pole, Bishop Jewel, John Reynolds, Richard Hooker, 
 Thomas Jackson, William Fulman, General Oglethorpe, John 
 Whitaker, and some others which I will immediately subjoin, 
 may be taken as the list of distinguished men connected 
 with or produced by Corpus, down to the time of Dr. Arnold. 
 More recent names I refrain from adding, partly owing to 
 the invidious nature of such a selection, partly because they 
 can easily be supplied by those acquainted with the recent 
 history of the University. The names already mentioned, 
 belonging to the period from 1516 to 1811, may be supple- 
 mented by those of Nicholas Heath, Archbishop of York 
 and Lord Chancellor to Queen Mary ; William Cheadsey, third 
 President (1558), who disputed with Peter Martyr in 1549, and 
 with Cranmer in 1554 ; Robert Pursglove, last Prior of Guis- 
 borough, and subsequently Archdeacon of Nottingham and 
 
298 CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. 
 
 Suffragan Bishop of Hull; Nicholas XJdall (or Owdall), Head- 
 master of Eton ; Richard Pates, Bishop of Worcester ; James 
 Brookes, Bishop of Gloucester ; Richard Pate, founder of the 
 Cheltenham Grammar School ; (perhaps) Nicholas Wadham, the 
 founder of Wadham College ; Miles Windsor and Brian Twyne, 
 who, like Fulman, were famous Oxford antiquaries; Henry- 
 Parry, Bishop successively of Gloucester and Worcester ; Miles 
 Smith, Bishop of Gloucester, and one of the translators of the 
 Bible ; Sir Edwin Sandys, the pupil of Hooker, and author of 
 the Ettrojjce SiMCulum ; the " ever-memorable " John Hales of 
 Eton ; Edward Pococke, the celebrated Oriental scholar ; Daniel 
 Fertlough, Featley, or Fairclough, a famous theological con- 
 troversialist, and one of the translators of the Bible; Robert 
 Frampton, and his successor, Edward Fowler, Bishops of 
 Gloucester ; Edward Rainbow, Bishop of Carlisle ; Basil 
 Kennett ; Richard Fiddes ; and John Hume, Bishop of Oxford. 
 To these names must be added one which is, perhaps, rather 
 notorious than distinguished, that of the unhappy James, Duke 
 of Monmouth, the eldest natural son of Charles II. Wood tells 
 us, in the Fasti, that in the plague year, 1665, when the King 
 and Queen were in Oxford, the Duke's name was entered on 
 the books of C. C. College. But his name does not occur in 
 the buttery-books till the week beginning May 11, 1666, 
 when it is inserted between the names of the President and 
 Vice-President. Whether, after this time,i he ever resided 
 in the College, or indeed in Oxford, is uncertain ; but the name 
 remains on the books till July 12th, 1683, when it was erased 
 after the discovery of Monmouth's conspiracy and flight. The 
 erasures are carried back as far as the week beo^inninor June 1. 
 
 The charming account of Corpus, its studies, and its youthful 
 society, contributed by Mr. Justice Coleridge to Stanley's Life 
 of Arnold, is so well known that it hardly requires more than a 
 
 1 That, in 1665, Monmouth resided in Corpus is distinctly stated by 
 Wood [MS. D. 19 (3)] : " Sept. 25, 1665, the king and duke of Monmouth 
 came from Salisbury to Oxon .... The king lodged himself in Xt Ch. 
 . . . and the duke of Monmouth and his dutchess at C. C. Coll." They 
 probably continued in Corpus till Jan. 27 following, when " the king with 
 his retinue went from Oxon to Hampton." I am indebted to the Rev. A. 
 Clark for this reference to Wood's MS. 
 
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. 29d 
 
 passing reference ; but, to complete my series of glimpses of the 
 College at different periods of its history, it may be well to 
 revive the recollections of the reader by a few brief extracts. 
 "Arnold and I, as you know" (and, as we may add, the two 
 Kebles, John and Thomas), " were undergraduates of Corpus 
 Christi, a College very small in its numbers and humble in its 
 buildings, but to which we and our fellow-students formed an 
 attachment never weakened in the after course of our lives. . . . 
 We were then a small society, the members rather under the 
 usual age, and with more than the ordinary proportion of ability 
 and scliolarship : our mode of tuition was in harmony with these 
 circumstances ; not by private lectures, but in classes of such a 
 size as excited emulation and made us careful in the exact 
 and neat rendering of the original, yet not so numerous as to 
 prevent individual attention on the tutor's part, and familiar 
 knowledge of each pupil's turn and talents. . . . We were not 
 entirely set free from the leading-strings of the school ; accuracy 
 was cared for ; we were accustomed to viva voce rendering and 
 viva voce question and answer in our lecture-room, before an 
 audience of fellow-students whom we sufficiently respected. At 
 the same time the additional reading, trusted to ourselves alone, 
 prepared us for accurate private study and for our final exhi- 
 bition in the schools. One result of all these circumstances was 
 that we lived on the most familiar terms with each other ; we 
 might be — indeed we were — somewhat boyish in manner and 
 in the liberties we took with each other : but our interest in 
 literature — ancient and modern — and in all the stirring matters 
 of that stirring time, was not boyish; we debated the classic 
 and romantic question ; we discussed poetry and history, logic 
 and philosophy ; or we fought over the Peninsular battles and 
 Continental campaigns with the energy of disputants personally 
 concerned in them. Our habits were inexpensive and temper- 
 ate : one break-up party was held in the junior common-room 
 at the end of each term, in which we indulged our genius more 
 freely, and our merriment, to say the truth, was somewhat 
 exuberant and noisy; but the authorities wisely forbore too 
 strict an inquiry into this." 
 
 Soon after Arnold was elected Fellow of Oriel, in the autumn 
 
300 CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. 
 
 of 1815 a scholar was elected at Corpus, William Phelps, after- 
 wards Archdeacon of Carlisle, whose published letters ^ contain 
 abundant information about the social condition and studies of 
 the College. Phelps did not, like Arnold, possess those intel- 
 lectual and social charms which captivate undergraduate society, 
 and it is plain that he was in restricted circumstances. But he 
 speaks enthusiastically of the friendliness, tolerance, and good 
 humour which pervaded the small society of undergraduates 
 (only nine members of the foundation at that time, namely, six 
 undergraduate scholars, the remaining scholars being then B.A.'s 
 or M.A/s, and three exhibitioners ; besides the six gentlemen- 
 commoners, who dined at a separate table, and shared with the 
 Bachelors a separate common-room), and he is constantly recur- 
 ring in terms of respect and appreciation, which bear evident 
 marks of sincerity, to the friendliness, helpfulness, and compe- 
 tence of the two tutors, as well as to the kindly interest shown 
 in their juniors by the other senior members of the College. 
 The relations were those of a large and harmonious family. 
 " There are no parties or divisions here as at other Colleges ; 
 each desires to oblige his neighbour. The Fellows are not super- 
 cilious, the scholars are respectful. There is only one establish- 
 ment that rivals ours in literature, which is our neighbour Oriel." 
 Through the combined action of the Parliamentary Com- 
 missions of 1852 and 1877, the constitution of the College has 
 been largely altered. By the reception of commoners, though 
 it still remains a small College, the number of its undergraduate 
 members has risen from about twenty to about seventy. The 
 county restrictions have been removed from the Fellowships and 
 scholarships, all of which are now entirely open. The number 
 of Fellowships (from which the obligation to Holy Orders has 
 been now removed) has been diminished, while that of the scholar- 
 ships has been increased. And, in the spirit of the original in- 
 tentions of the founder, a considerable proportion of the revenues 
 has been devoted to the creation or augmentation of University 
 Professorships. If, by the operation of these changes, the College 
 has lost something of its unique character, it may be hoped that 
 it has proportionately extended its sphere of usefulness. 
 1 Life of ArchcUacon Fhelps, Hatchards, 1871. 
 
XIII. 
 
 CHEIST CHTOCH. 
 
 By the Rev. R. St. John Tyrwhitt, M.A., formerly Rhetoric 
 Reader of Christ Church. 
 
 For the purposes of this volume we apprehend that the 
 history of Christ Church, Oxford, means chiefly its academical 
 history, which begins in 1524 with the foundation of Cardinal 
 College by Wolsey, in the ancient Priory of St. Frideswide's. 
 All his buildings and other works were stopped by his 
 fall in 1529; and three years afterwards "bluff Harry broke 
 into the spence " with his usual vigour, and refounded Cardinal 
 College, to which he gave his own name, calling it "King 
 Henry the Eighth his College." Then he suppressed it, and 
 re-constituted the whole foundation, November 4th, 1546 ; re- 
 moving the new see of Oxford (erected at Oseney in 1542) to St. 
 Frideswide's, the then church, with the style of "The Cathedral 
 Church of Christ in Oxford." This foundation comprised a 
 Dean and Canons, with other capitular or diocesan officers, 
 besides an academic staff, and probably numerous scholars of 
 different ages. The ancient church has had a twofold character 
 ever since. It is the Cathedral of the diocese, but it is also the 
 College chapel ; and as the Dean of Christ Church is always 
 present, and the Bishop of Oxford very seldom, academic uses 
 and appearances rather prevail over the ecclesiastical, in a way 
 which may have been the reverse of satisfactory to more than 
 one occupant of the see of Oxford, 
 
302 CHRIST CHURCH. 
 
 But the connection between the Chapter and the College can- 
 not be severed ; and as Christ Church certainly would not be 
 itself without its most ancient buildings, some account of its 
 ecclesiastical foundations (of almost pre-historic antiquity) seems 
 highly advisable before we attempt to chronicle it as a seat of 
 learning. 
 
 St. Frideswide's College certainly existed from of old in 
 Wolsey's time. Her story has passed through the hands of 
 Philip, her third Norman prior; through William of Malmesbury's 
 and John of Tynemouth's ; and is found in Leland's Collectanea. 
 It runs as follows.^ About A.D. 727 an alderman, or suh- 
 regidus, of the name of Didan is discovered ruling in all honour 
 over the populous city of Mercian Oxford. He and his wife 
 Saffrida have a daughter called Frideswide. She embraces 
 the monastic life with twelve other maidens. Her father, at 
 her mother's death, builds a conventual church in honour of 
 St. Mary and All Saints, and thereof makes her prioress. The 
 munificent kings of Mercia also build inns or halls in the 
 vicinity.2 This seems to anticipate even Alfred's imagined 
 foundation of University College ; and is therefore to be adhered 
 to as dogma for the present by all members of the larger 
 House. But Mr. Boase's remarks on the probabilities of the 
 the story are strongly in its favour. 
 
 Many days and troubles passed over St. Frideswide's Church, 
 or its site. It was wholly or partially burnt in the massacre of 
 Danes in 1002; also in 1015. It was rebuilt and made a 
 " cell " or dependency of the great monastery of Abingdon. It 
 became a house of Secular Canons, who were dispossessed after 
 the Conquest ; when a Norman church was constructed by 
 restoration of the old Saxon one, whose foundations, however, 
 exist and form part of the actual structure still. The present 
 chapter-house, or rather its doorway, may have belonged to this 
 period. It is justly celebrated as a fair specimen of Norman 
 architecture, and is considered by several authorities to be 
 
 ^ The story of St. Frideswide and of the convent built in lier honour is 
 very fully and quaintly told by Anthony k Wood. See Wood's City of Oxford 
 (edit. Clark), vol. ii. p. 122. 
 
 2 See Boase, Oxford, p. 3. 
 
CHRIST CHU-RCH. 303 
 
 more ancient, not only than the chapter-hause itself (which, 
 however, Sir Gilbert Scott places about the middle of the 
 thirteenth century ; see Report, p. 7), but than the old nave 
 and transept walls, which are generally taken as twelfth 
 century, if Ave must reject Dr. Ingram's belief in them as 
 Ethelred's,! grateful as it must be to all members of the 
 foundation. The doorway certainly bears marks of fire, which 
 may be referred to the conflagration of 1190, when a great part 
 of Oxford was destroyed.^ 
 
 Ten years before, the body of St. Frideswide had been trans- 
 lated from its resting place to the north choir aisle, to be again 
 (but not till one hundred and ten years after, on 10th September, 
 1289) removed to a new and more costly shrine in the Lady 
 Chapel, which had been added to that aisle early in the thirteenth 
 century, or between that aiid the north choir aisle. 
 
 Her first regular prior, Guimond, had been employed till his 
 death in 1141, in the re-arrangements of monastic buildings 
 which would be necessary on the change, at the Conquest, from 
 Secular Canons to Regular Augustinians. Both he and his suc- 
 cessor, Robert of Cricklade, seem to have been wise and well- 
 meaning ecclesiastics ; and a school was connected with the 
 convent which really may be considered as the original germ of 
 the historical University. 
 
 Robert of Cricklade spent much labour upon the present 
 structure, tower, nave, transepts, and choir; and the works 
 were far enough advanced in 1180, under prior Philip, for St. 
 Frideswide's first translation. Then, we presume, the fire of 
 1190 gave occasion to some re-constructions, and let in Tran- 
 sitional Architecture, of which something has to be said here. 
 The term " transitional" seems to mean change or progress in a 
 style (as from the round to the pointed arch in Gothic-Roman- 
 esque), where principles and rules are adhered to ; not attempts 
 to combine incongruous styles. England is full of transitions, 
 through Norman to Early English, to Decorated, and so on ; and 
 they seem natural, and not lawless or contradictory. But the 
 Roman way of encrusting their own great vaults and arches with 
 
 1 See, however, the note at the end of this chapter, 
 * Boase, p. 48, 
 
304 CHRIST CHURCH. 
 
 Greek lintels and pediments, constructively useless, is a different 
 and worse thing — just as bad as the Baroque or Fancy Renais- 
 sance. Still, a mixture of pure elements is at all events a pure 
 mixture ; and in Christ Church the Romanesque, Norman, and 
 Decorated features are all of the best. The north-east walls 
 and turrets might remind one of the Cathedral of Mainz or of 
 Trier ; while the Chapter-house door is fine Norman, and the 
 Early-Decorated windows excellent in their way. It was just at 
 this time of the later twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, when 
 Northern builders were eliminating all traces of the Greek or 
 trabeated structure, that the new or pointed arch began to 
 present itself, and be welcomed here and there, just for its 
 beauty's sake. In Christ Church the arches of the nave, and 
 other principal ones, are round, but two of the four which carry 
 the tower are pointed ; the greater supporting power of the 
 latter form may have been already observed. 
 
 The ancient interior must have been one of considerable 
 beauty from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, when Wolsey 
 destroyed three bays of the west end of the nave, reducing it to 
 one-half its original length ; and probably his name must also be 
 associated with the lowering of all the roofs. If he executed 
 the beautiful choir-vaulting, that is no small merit to balance 
 these destructions ; but it is questioned. The curious treatment 
 of the side arcades should be noticed ; the solid pillars of the 
 twelfth century have been ingeniously divided in their thick- 
 ness ; the halves facing the aisle have been left in their natural 
 proportions, while those which face the central nave have been 
 raised so as to embrace the triforium stage.^ 
 
 The upper stage of the Cathedral tower with its spire, twice 
 since rebuilt, belongs to the thirteenth century, like the chapter- 
 house ; and just within that century (1289) is a second northern 
 aisle, built as a Lady Chapel, and containing a new shrine of 
 St. Frideswide. The curious wooden structure at present exist- 
 
 ^ Sir Gilbert Scott is convinced that this is the original design, and no 
 alteration. However, Dr. Ingram should be read (at p. 18 of his Memorials 
 of Oxford), where he asserts a Norman superposition of the upper arches, 
 and the Saxon construction of the lower shafts up to the half-capitals. 
 His writings, are founded on careful personal study of the structure in his 
 time. 
 
CHRIST CHURCH. 305 
 
 ing is really the watchiag-chamber of the shrine erected in 
 the next century, and is placed on the donor's tomb in all 
 probability, instead of the saint's. 
 
 The large chapel, now called the Latin, and formerly the 
 Divinity Chapel, was added in the next (fourteenth) century, to 
 the north of the northern choir aisle, by building two more bays 
 eastward to the north-east chapel of the thirteenth century just 
 mentioned. This is called " the dormitory," being the burial- 
 place of several deans and canons ; the word is a simple 
 translation of the Greek ccemcterium, or sleeping-place, applied 
 to the catacombs of Rome from the second century. Windows 
 were now altered from Norman to Decorated ; three of which at 
 the East end of the choir are again restored to their original 
 style. In 1340 the Lady Elizabeth de Alontacute gave the 
 convent the present Christ Church meadow in order to maintain 
 a chantry in the Lady Chapel. Her tomb is between that 
 chapel and the other on the north-east, near a prior's (Robert 
 de Ewelme's or Alexander de Sutton's), and near also to that 
 of Sir George Nowers, a companion of the Black Prince. 
 
 Important alterations began towards the end of the fifteenth 
 century : the choir clerestory was remodelled, the rich vaulting 
 (probably) added, and various side windows altered to the Per- 
 pendicular style, which was then extending its rigid rule over 
 England. 
 
 The great north transept window and the wooden roof of the 
 transepts and tower (that of the nave is later) are early sixteenth- 
 century. But at the end of the first quarter of that century 
 (1524) came Wolsey's great scheme for Cardinal College, with 
 its good and evil. The latter may be soon disposed of; he 
 certainly spoilt St. Frideswide's Church by cutting off its three 
 western bays for his great quadrangle. His intended Perpen- 
 dicular Church on the north side of that quadrangle would 
 hardly have atoned, with all its magnificence, for the destruction 
 of the nave, which (even now, when partially restored) is an 
 affliction to the spectator as he enters the double doors. 
 
 But from Wolsey's time the whole society became academic, 
 as he had intended, rather than monastic, and its new archi- 
 tecture is henceforth secular. Unfortunately, it is not quite in 
 
 X 
 
306 CHRIST CHURCH. 
 
 that truest collegiate style, or rather scale, which is best repre- 
 sented by the quadrangles of Brasenose and Merton, St. John's 
 and Wadham Colleges ; but its hall, gate-tower, and library 
 have been chief sights of Oxford from their foundation. The 
 principal quadrangles are too extensive and public-looking to 
 wear the old Oxford air of slight seclusion and great comfort, 
 of a life just as monastic as you please and no more. 
 
 Wolsey's HalP and Tower, 2 then, the stone kitchen, and the 
 east, south and west sides of the great quadrangle belong to 
 the same sixteenth century group of buildings as Magdalen 
 Tower (1505), the Tower of St. Mary Magdalene Church at 
 the end of Broad Street, and Brasenose Gate. 
 
 John Hygden w^as appointed by Wolsey the first Dean of 
 his College. Already before the foundation of his College, and 
 in preparation for it, Wolsey had instituted lectureships and 
 appointed lecturers — the earliest of them in 1518, others at 
 later dates. A few names of these may be added here. Thomas 
 Brynknell, of Lincoln College, presided over Divinity ; over Law% 
 probably Ludovicus Vives, a Spaniard ; and over Medicine, 
 Thomas Musgrave of Merton College. Philosophy was com- 
 mitted to " one L. B.," apparently Laurence Barber, M.A., Fellow 
 of All Souls. In Mathematics the Lecturer was Kraske, or 
 Kratcher, in fact, the well-known Kratzer, maker of the Corpus 
 sun-dial and of that on the south side of St. Mary's. The Greek 
 lecture was held by Matthew Calphurne, a Greek. "Whether," 
 says Wood, " William Gi'ocyn then taught it also I know not ; 
 sure it is that he, after he had been instructed in Italy by those 
 exquisite masters, Demetrius Chalcondila, and Angelus Politi- 
 anus, read the Greek tongue several years to the Oxonians." 
 The Rhetoric and Humanity Lecturer was John Clements of 
 C. C. C, called "Clemens mens" by Sir Thomas More; his 
 successor in the lecture was Thomas Lupset. 
 
 When King Henry VIII. reconstituted Wolsey's College 
 
 1 The hall staircase, with its palm-shaped column (which is, in fact, 
 more like a banyan-tree, as it is virtually a pendant from the vaulted roof), 
 is the principal architectural addition of the seventeenth century ; and, 
 with Wadham College, is its most beautiful work in Oxford. 
 
 ^ The lower portion only; the upper part, containing the ^reat bell 
 ("Great Tom"), is Wren's. 
 
CHRIST CHURCH. 307 
 
 under his own name, he reconstituted also some of these lectures 
 of Wolsey's foundation, calling them "the King's Lectures." 
 The King's Lecturer in Divinity in 1535 was Richard Smyth of 
 Merton College, who seems to have retired before the prospect 
 of holding a disputation with Peter Martyr, who was made 
 Canon of Christ Church in 1550. He lived to be restored to his 
 chair in 1554; but was soon succeeded by Friar John de Villa 
 Garcina, a young Spanish friar greatly regarded, who seems to 
 have been the friar who tried to convert Cranmer at the last, 
 and disappeared in 1558. Dr. Hygden was reappointed Dean 
 by the King, but died within a few months, and was, succeeded 
 by Dr. Richard Oliver. Among the canons secular of the 
 second foundation were Robert Wakefield, a famous Hebraist; 
 John Leland, the learned antiquary; and Sir John Cheke» 
 afterwards tutor to Edward VI. 
 
 The new see of Oxford remained at Oseney from 1542 to 
 1546; and the King transferred it to his College in Oxford by 
 letters patent of November 4th in the latter year. He styles it 
 in his foundation charter, "Ecclesia Christi Cathedralis Oxon 
 ex fundatione Regis Henrici octavi ; " combining the form of a 
 Cathedral with that of an academic College. This foundation 
 consisted of a bishop, a dean, eight canons, eight petty canons 
 or chaplains, a gospeller and a postiller (Bible-clerk), eight 
 singing-clerks, eight choristers and their master, a schoolmaster 
 and usher, an organist, sixty scholars or students, and forty 
 " children," corresponding we presume to the junior students of 
 later days. Perhaps the children, as in later days occasionally, 
 proved too childish; at all events the whole scholastic part of 
 the establishment, usher and all, was soon replaced by one 
 hundred students, who, with the one '* outcomer " of the 
 Thurston foundation,^ are still nightly told (or tolled) by a 
 corresponding number of strokes on "the mighty Tom," or 
 great bell. Gates are closed all over Oxford five minutes after 
 it is concluded. 
 
 A royal foundation by King or minister, " whose hand searches 
 out all the land," is more likely to come in contact with history 
 
 * Late in Elizabeth's reign; confirmed by private Act of Parliament, 
 A.D. 160L 
 
308 CHRIST CHURCH. 
 
 than a private one ; and Christ Church was soon involved in 
 the early troubles of the Keformation. Wolsey had done more 
 and other things than he knew of in inviting his Cambridge 
 scholars to Cardinal College. One may say that the first Christ 
 Church men had true martyrs among them ; certainly that they 
 were early made to face danger and death for the faith that 
 was in them. Anthony Dalaber's description of the scene in 
 " Frideswide," on the arrest of Garrett and discovery of his 
 books, as given in Froude's history, vol. ii. p. 48, sqq., is not to 
 be omitted. He had just sent forth poor Garrett from his Glou- 
 cester Hall rooms, in such lay-clothes as he possessed, only to 
 be taken at Bristol ; and went himself to Frideswide or Cardinal 
 College (he uses both terms), " to speak with that worthy martyr 
 of God, Master Clark," soon to perish in the hands of the 
 Bishop of Lincoln ; with the words " Crede et manducasti," when 
 Communion was refused him at the last. Dalaber takes Corpus 
 on his way, having " faithful brethren " there, as might have 
 been expected in Fox's new foundation. He passes through 
 Peckwater Inn, we presume, and through the half-finished 
 buildings of the new quadrangle, and reaches the half-ruined 
 Church, not yet Cathedral. " Evensong was begun," he saj^s ; 
 " the Dean (Hygden) and the Canons were there, in their gray 
 amices ; they were almost at Magnificat before I came thither. 
 I stood in the choir door,^ and heard Master Taverner play, and 
 others of the chapel there sing, with and among whom I myself 
 was wont to sing also; but now my singing and music were 
 turned into siojhinfj and musinof. As I there stood, in cometh 
 Dr. Cottisford,^ the commissary, as fast as ever he could go, 
 bareheaded, as pale as ashes (I knew his grief well enough) ; 
 and to the dean he goeth into the choir, where he was sitting in 
 his stall, and talked with him very sorrowfully ; what, I know 
 not, but whereof I might and did truly guess. I went aside 
 from the choir door to see and hear more. The commissary and 
 
 ^ The organ must have been placed between the nave and choir, in the 
 old order 80 well remembered and regretted by old Christ Church men, who 
 must still acknowledge the great improvement of these latter days. 
 
 2 John Cottisford, Rector of Lincoln College ; not the Bishop of Lincoln 
 ordinary of the University, and executioner of Clark. 
 
CHRIST CHURCH. 309 
 
 dean came out of the choir, wonderfully troubled as it seemed. 
 About the middle of the church met them Dr. London, ^ 
 puffing, blustering, and blowing, like a hungry and greedy 
 lion seeking his prey. They talked together awhile; but the 
 commissary was much blamed by them, insomuch that he wept 
 for sorrow." 
 
 Many men and women were to do the same for similar 
 troubles in the years that were to follow ; and the failure, as it 
 seemed, of Wolsey's best intentions as to his College must have 
 been one of the griefs which were now beginning to accumulate 
 round him ; acting also, as it must have acted, on the perturbed 
 spirit of his dread master. 
 
 Christ Church was founded in suffering and danger suited to 
 the name it bears ; though as yet, to do them justice, most of 
 the persecutors seemed to have been heartily distressed at their 
 new duties. A generation so wofully afraid of death and priva- 
 tion as our own should not think too harshly of the severities of 
 men who feared neither. The sufferings of those times have 
 certainly left their traces on the features of many of Holbein's 
 sitters. I remember observing this particularl}^ in the lay por- 
 traits of his school at the late " Tudor Exhibition " in London. 
 His faces of soldiers and country gentlemen are rather medita- 
 tive than fierce ; though almost always with a turn of reckless- 
 ness, in reserve, as it were. They frequently express rather 
 dubiety than doubt; as of men of conscience whom conscience 
 might endanger. 
 
 Before passing to another crisis of history, it seems best to 
 bring our account of the College buildings to the middle of 
 the present century — for the later nineteenth century has done 
 more than any other period in judicious repair and effective 
 restoration. 
 
 In 1630, Brian Duppa being Dean, the choir suffered a 
 sweeping restoration, when many gravestones and monuments 
 were destroyed, and others removed to the aisles, having been 
 duly deprived of their brasses. Some of them bore "Saxon" 
 inscriptions (Gutch's Wood's Colleges and Halls, p. 462). There 
 
 1 John London, Warden of New College ; who, liowever, behaved with 
 sense and kindness during the later proceedings of Wolsey's persecution. 
 
310 CHRIST CHURCH. 
 
 certainly were chapters in those days, with the average disre- 
 gard for earlier dates than their own, and for the interesting 
 heraldry of the cathedral, which extended, as Dr. Ingram says, 
 " from the blazonry of Montacute, Monthermer, Mountfort, and 
 Courtenay, to the pencase and inkhorn of Zouch in the north 
 aisle of the transept." However, the Parliament would have 
 done it if the capitular body had refrained. They might also 
 have cut away all the tracery of the windows north and south ; 
 but they would not have filled the two-light holes thus 
 obtained with Van Linge's queer Dutch glass, some of which 
 was extant in our undergraduate days. Dean Duppa must 
 have been a cultured and well-meaning man of taste in the 
 lower English Renaissance, and he wrote a life of Michael 
 Angelo; but we shall for life retain the impression of an im- 
 mense yellow pumpkin in one of the north-west windows, 
 illustrative of the history of Jonah, which always caught our 
 eyes in going out of chapel, and while it lasts will preserve 
 Duppa's name from oblivion. 
 
 The ruins of Wolsey's unfinished church seem to have 
 been for a while something of an encumbrance to the path 
 from Peckwater to the Cathedral ; and the present way under 
 the deanery arch is due to Dean Samuel Fell, father of Bishop 
 (and Dean; John Fell, who made it through his garden. The 
 way up to the Hall was then very incomplete, and he '• made 
 it as it is now, by the help of one Smith, an artificer of 
 London ; " and built the arch as it now is, besides re-edifying 
 the cloister. 
 
 The north side of the great quadrangle was completed by 
 Bishop Fell ; and a balustrade was substituted on the roof for 
 the original battlements, possibly for the purpose of lecturing 
 from the housetop, a course which, however, has not been 
 pursued in recent times. Tom Tower was finished by Wren 
 in 1682 ; Tom himself (the bell) having been recast by Chris- 
 topher Hodson in 1680. He, or his original metal, was once the 
 old clock bell of Oseney Abbey.^ 
 
 1 See Wood's City of Oxford (edit. Clark), vol. ii. p. 220. Twenty 
 shillings was paid for its conveyance from Oseney to Christ Cliurch in 
 Sept. 1545, with the rest of the peal {ibid. p. 228). Their names are 
 
CHRIST CHURCH. 311 
 
 The original grant of Peck water Inn to St. Frideswide's is as 
 early as Henry lli.'s time. Dean Aldrich and Dr. Anthony 
 RadclifFe are answerable for the present structure, which con- 
 tains seventy-two sets of rooms and a canon's lodgings. Dr. 
 RadclifFe also gave a statue " Mercury " to adorn the central 
 fountain in the great quadrangle, which had originally issued 
 from a sphere, as seen in old prints. Long ago, before the 
 Reformation, there is said to have been a cross in the place 
 now occupied by the fountain, with a pulpit, from which 
 Wycliffe may have frequently preached. The base of this cross 
 is preserved in the gallery at the end of the S. Transept. 
 
 The common-room under the hall, was fitted up by Dr. 
 Busby, whose bust in marble long adorned it, but is now 
 transferred to the library. This bust is a work of merit, with 
 a countenance unlikely to spare for anybody's crying. The 
 room is panelled with oak, and contains a Nineveh tablet 
 presented by Hormuzd Rassam, Esq. 
 
 What is called the Old Library was once the Refectory of 
 St. Frideswide's convent. A few books remain in charge of the 
 Margaret Professor. The large Library in Peckwafcer was begun 
 in 1716, but not finally completed till 1761. The original 
 intention was to leave an open piazza beneath it, but the space 
 was required for its books and collections, and its massive 
 columns were accordingly connected by a wall. Its gallery of 
 pictures (or the bulk of the collection) was the gift of Brigadier- 
 General Guise in 1765, and of the Hon. W. F. Fox-Strangeways 
 in 1828. 
 
 Canterbury Gate was built by Wyatt in 1778 ; and we 
 presume that the laws of gravity and attraction will continue 
 to apply to it as to other objects, so that it may reasonably be 
 expected to remain there till it is taken away. QVOD BENE 
 VORTAT, as the Bodleian motto, with pantheistic piety, 
 observes. 
 
 It only remains to say, that the present Meadow buildings 
 occupy the position of the Chaplains* quadrangle and Fell's 
 
 contained in the following hexameter; and many Latin verses of equal 
 melody have been composed in their immediate vicinity — 
 
 " Hautclere, Douce, Clement, Austin, Marie, Gabriel et John." 
 
312 CHRIST CHURCH. 
 
 buildings, or "the garden staircase" of other days, up to 1863. 
 Their gate-tower is not admired ; otherwise they are a 
 solid and beautiful building in quasi-Italian Gothic. Their 
 quadrangle is bounded on the north by the old library, on the 
 south by the meadow, on the east by the Margaret Professor's 
 garden, and on the west by the vast and venerable kitchen, 
 with its time-honoured gridiron, happily employed in culinary 
 labours only, and never (so far as we know) for purposes of 
 persecution. The kitchen was said to be the first -completed 
 of all Wolsey's buildings, greatly to the amusement of the outer 
 world of Oxford. This recognition of the dependence of the 
 spirit on the body was ingeniously defended by the Rev. M. 
 Creighton ^ in a well-remembered University sermon. 
 
 Christ Church has naturally had from the first its share of 
 pageant and festivity. • Henry VIII. took his pastime therein in 
 1533 with grandeur and jollity. There were public declamations 
 of the whole University here under Edward VI. ; and plays were 
 acted in the hall before Queen Elizabeth in 1566 and 1592, 
 and before James I. in 1605 and 1621 ; and again before 
 Charles I. in 1636. It is a question whether scenery and 
 stage-mechanism were used for the first time in England, says 
 Anthony a Wood, on this occasion, or as early as the festivity of 
 1605. All are gone by this time who could remember the visit 
 of the allied sovereigns in 1814, and their entertainment in 
 the Hall by the Prince Regent, on whom the title of " the first 
 gentleman in Europe " then sat very gracefully. Old General 
 Bliicher, as best regarded of all foreign soldiers present, had to 
 acknowledge his honours in German, and the Prince translated 
 him with freedom and elegance, only omitting his own praises. 
 
 Four years after Charles I.'s entertainment, were to develop 
 the full bitterness of evil days already begun. On August 
 18th, 1642, came the first Cavalier muster ; three hundred 
 and fifty and more of " privileged " University men and their 
 servants, and also many scholars. They met at the Schools and 
 marched by High Street to Christ Church, "where in the 
 great quadrangle they were reasonably instructed in the word 
 of command and their postures ; " and this mustering and 
 ^ Now Bishop of Peterborough. 
 
CHRIST CHURCH. 31^ 
 
 drilling continued more or less till the end of all things by 
 surrender on St. John's Day, 1646. Some considerable part 
 of the corps were bowmen volunteers (about 1200, it is said 
 further on), duly armed with " barbed arrows." By that time, 
 out of the one hundred and one students of Christ Church 
 twenty were officers in the King's army ; the rest, almost to a 
 man, were either there, or formed part of the Oxford garrison. 
 And so of commoners in full proportion. All plate and available 
 money were gone, and the House as much damaged, not to say 
 demoralized, as the rest of the University. 
 
 Lord Say had at first occupied Oxford with a Parliamentary 
 force for a few days, and carried .away much plate from Christ 
 Church, particularly all Dr. Samuel Fell's (the Dean's). Icono- 
 clasm began with his zealous followers, not quite to his 
 satisfaction, as it included a precious statue of the King at New 
 College. This was September 19th. On October 29th, just 
 after Edgeliill, the King occupied Oxford, keeping his Court in 
 Christ Church with Prince Charles as long as he remained. 
 
 Another ominous vespers in Christ Church Cathedral, besides 
 Anthony Dalaber's, is on record. On Friday, February 3rd, 
 1643-4, his Majesty appointed a thanksgiving to be made at 
 Evening Prayer at Christ Church for the taking of Cirencester 
 by Prince Rupert the day before. The doctors were in their 
 red robes ; and polished breast-plates and laced buff-coats must 
 have had a brilliant effect under the massive white arches. 
 " But there Avas no new Form of Thanksgiving said, save only 
 that Form for the victory of Edgehill, and a very solemn anthem, 
 with this several times repeated therein — 'Thou shalt set a 
 Crown of pure gold upon his Head, and upon his Head shall 
 his Crown flourish.' " 
 
 The scarlet gowns appeared again to welcome the Queen at 
 Tom Gate on July 13th, 1644. There was a lair show of state 
 in the way of trumpets, heralds, and the like ; and " Garter, 
 coming last, was accompanied by the Mayor of Oxon in his 
 scarlet and mace on his shoulder." But Naseby field ended all 
 pageant and hope alike in July 1645, just after Fairfax's siege 
 of fifteen days on the Headington Hill side without result. 
 The next two years must have been a miserable time. 
 
314 CHRIST CHURCH. 
 
 In April 1648, at the "visitation" by the ParHamentary 
 Visitors, the Dean of Christ Church (Dr. Samuel Fell) beino- 
 in custody in London, Mrs. Fell and her children, with certain 
 ladies, elected to be carried out of the Deanery rather than 
 walk out, and were deposited in the quadrangle in feminine 
 protest against extrusion. Her husband's name was scored out 
 of the Buttery-Book, with those of seven Canons, the eighth 
 (Dr. Robert Sanderson) being respited during absence ; and Dr. 
 Edward Reynolds 'was substituted, with a new set of Canons. 
 A clean sweep was at the same time made of all " malignant " 
 members, hardly any taking the Parliamentary Oath or the 
 Solemn League and Covenant. In January 1647-8 the Latin 
 version of the Common Prayer, and the Common Prayer itself, 
 ceased in Christ Church. It was maintained by three Christ 
 Church men — John Fell, Richard Allestree, and John Dolben — 
 till the Restoration, in a house in Merton Street, and seems to 
 have escaped interference. 
 
 A less dire debate than the Parliamentary War was the 
 celebrated controversy with Bentley on The Epistles of Fhalaris 
 in 1695. It deserves notice in a chapter on Christ Church. 
 
 The Hon. Charles Boyle, afterwards second Earl of Orrery, is 
 wickedly described by Bentley as "the young gentleman of 
 great hopes, whose name is set to the new edition " of Fhalaris ; 
 and, as Boyle was but nineteen years of age at the time of 
 publication, it may be considered certain that he received very 
 material assistance from Dr. Atterbury, Dr. Friend, and from 
 the admired Dean Aid rich. Perhaps all four had a very 
 different idea of accurate criticism from that style of it which 
 Bentley initiated in England, and which now seems somewhat 
 overpowered by the burden of its research. The celebrated 
 answer to Bentley's Dissertation, published under Boyle's name 
 in 1689, was really a joint production of the leading Christ 
 Church men, and Atterbury claimed a principal share. Between 
 them they made a good fight for it ; but it is difficult for any 
 set of men, however learned, ingenious, and petulantly witty, to 
 maintain a long controversy at the stress of being wholly wrong. 
 Unquestionably it was premature in Aldrich to set young 
 noblemen in their teens to publish editions of writers believed 
 
CHRIST CHURCH. 315 
 
 to have been contemporary with Pythagoras or thereabouts. 
 Nevertheless such critical work as they could do would probably 
 teach them something more than a dilletante knowledge of 
 language : and this the Dean evidently understood to be a chief 
 want of his time. Boyle was no match for Bentley ; but he 
 came to be an accomplished and gallant gentleman who never 
 through a stirring life forsook the love of learning, or of his 
 old abode of learning — perhaps rather, of literature. He could 
 see the vast shapes of the natural sciences advancing with new 
 wonders; and w:.s the benefactor of George Graham, who named 
 his great planetary instrument after his title. His gifts to the 
 Christ Church Library should be commemorated ; and he is one 
 instance out of a great number of men who have made Christ 
 Church to themselves a home of friends, and so from their Alma 
 Mater forward have faced the world together. 
 
 Aldrich could not work miracles of discipline or reform the 
 manners of the Restoration. He has been blamed for alio win <; 
 too much license to pupils of high degree, and because he 
 failed to correct the habits of intemperance in which many of 
 them had been educated. It may have been so ; and he must 
 suffer with all tutors. The very name connotes a false position, 
 and a most difficult duty ; to find means to persuade without 
 any power to control, and to reduce untamed lads to order 
 who have never seen it before. Military service was the only 
 alternative method in that day, where they regulated each 
 other's folly by the duello, or at all events might be referred 
 to the provost-marshal. But Aldrich had to do what he could 
 by the way of letters and culture ; to try to awaken the higher 
 instincts, the better ambitions, and natural virtues ; since every 
 religious restraint was scouted as Puritanism and every devout 
 aspiration as Popery. He had to contend with a most dissi- 
 pated and drunken age, whose coarse and direct temptations 
 had already a hold on his charge ; nor is it easy to see how he 
 could cure what St. John, Pulteney, Carteret, and the rest had 
 learned in evil homes and schools. The morale of the aris- 
 tocracy was still that of a beaten army ; nor was the public's 
 much better. 
 
 Aldrich's many accomplishments have left varied traces behind 
 
316 CHRIST CHURCH. 
 
 them. " The merry Christ Church Bells," the celebrated catch, 
 is a living remembrance of him, happier than most men leave ; 
 Peckwater Quadrangle would be stately and handsome enough, 
 bat for the leprous Headington stone; he must have had the 
 Themistoclean power of doing just what was wanted at the 
 time. But his achievement was after all the Oxford Locric. 
 Till twenty years ago, most tutors found that all its short- 
 comings led straight to explanations. It was like the noble and 
 kindly conservatism of Mansel, to spend his great learning on 
 the notes and prolegomena which have developed the good old 
 manual into a valuable treatise on Logic and Psychology. 
 
 The name of Cyril Jackson marks a period of twenty-six years 
 from 1783 — 1809, which may be compared to Aldrich's best 
 days with better discipline. His life marks a restoration of 
 order and efficiency in Christ Church which has never been lost, 
 and he chose to have no other monument. He was wedded to 
 his House, and it was enough for one lifetime to make her love 
 and obey him as he did. His statue and picture give the idea 
 of clearness, courage, and benevolence. The straightforward 
 face is unconsciously commanding, and seems made to judge of 
 a man. There is a dignity of presence; but Christ Church 
 never was yet governed by deportment only, and there must 
 have been much more than that about the great Dean who 
 would be nothing more than Dean. Spartam nacius est, hanc 
 exornabat: and Jackson's discipline, if not Spartan, was perfectly 
 real. He did not invent new rules ; but worked the old ones 
 with a just and determined spirit, using "all the advantages 
 which a capacious mind, an enlarged knowledge of the world, 
 a spirit of command or guidance, and an unconquerable per- 
 severance, could confer." I have heard old country gentlemen 
 speak of Jackson, still seeming to delight in him as a beloved 
 person whom it was natural to obey, and as a leader of men 
 sure to lead right. 
 
 Jackson's daily system of work has only of late been changed 
 to suit the needs of continual examinations. The terminal 
 "Collections" or Examinations from his time to the end of 
 Dean Gaisford's, were intended to supply the want of general 
 University Examinations before their regular institution ; and 
 
CHRIST CHURCH. 317 
 
 many have thought that the pass-work for a Degree had better 
 be done in College, since the College presents the candidate. 
 The weekly themes and Latin verses in the Hall are gone ; but 
 the Bachelors' prizes for Latin prose ; the Undergraduates' for 
 hexameters ; the public lectures in logic, grammar, and mathe- 
 matics ; the Censor's annual address to the whole House, were 
 in full force thirty years ago. 
 
 One more curious tradition remains of his subtle influence — 
 that all the handwriting of the leading Christ Church Dons of 
 the last generation is imitated from their chiefs; with great 
 difference of character, but strong relation to his thoroughly- 
 formed letters, to the graceful unhurried hand that everybody 
 can read easily. This has been said of Dean Gaisford and 
 many Censors of earlier days ; Osborne Gordon's writing, though, 
 has a freedom of its own. 
 
 Perhaps the chief secret of Cyril Jackson's success was that 
 he did his work so much himself; and yet was always Dean. 
 He would have order in College ; and he had a regular police 
 to enforce it, and attended to it himself. He entertained his 
 undergraduates daily, seven or eight at a time, all round. He 
 lectured and taught personally in Greek, logic, and composition, 
 sometimes in mathematics. He tried to understand and make 
 the acquaintance of every youth in the House ; and like St. 
 Paul, he was all desire to impart any excellent gift. When.he 
 felt his strength failing in his work, he gave it up. He had 
 refused bishoprics and an archbishopric ; he bade farewell to 
 Christ Church and the world in love unfeigned, and turned his 
 spirit wholly to God whom he desired, and so died full of years 
 and honours ; nor can we anywhere find a word about him that 
 is not in his praise. Dr. Parr, who professed a not ill-natured 
 hostility to " the ^Ede-Christians," forgets it heartily and with 
 handsome language when he speaks of the Dean (see Notes to 
 Spital Sermon, published 1800) — " Long have I thought and 
 often have I said that the highest station in an ecclesiastical 
 establishment would not be more than an adequate recompense 
 for the person who presides over this College." It is worthily 
 said ; but if the notes are as sonorous as this, what must be the 
 rumble of the text ? 
 
318 CHRIST CHURCH. 
 
 Dean Gaisford, as we have said, continued Jackson's educa- 
 tional method ably and faithfully ; and his view that pass-work 
 should be done entirely in College, and Colleges be made 
 responsible for it, may well find advocates now. All men 
 respected the stout old scholar, and had in most things to own 
 the shrewdness, and particularly the justice, of his judgment. 
 ' The piquancy of many anecdotes and sketches of him has 
 departed with the generation who honoured him as the first 
 Greek scholar of Enorland in his time. He too felt his hio-h 
 position sufficient, and had real happiness in efficient discharge 
 of its duties, which were thoroughly well suited to him ; and 
 he had perhaps a better understanding of the nature and ways 
 of his undergraduates than many younger and less outwardly 
 formidable seniors. 
 
 Two more great names, as of a father and son, so faithfully 
 did the younger reflect the mind and second the purposes of the 
 elder, must of right find mention here ; — not due honour, since 
 that would involve the whole history of the Oxford Movement, 
 both earlier and later. It is hoped that the late Dr. Liddon's 
 Life of Dr. Pusey is so far advanced, or its material is so well 
 ordered and prepared, that it may soon appear — as a monu- 
 ment to two great English Doctors. The elder entered at 
 Christ Church in 1819, and returned as Canon in 1828, after 
 having been Fellow of Oriel College ; the younger matriculated 
 at the House in 1846. Dr. Barnes, then Sub-Dean, made 
 Henry Parry Liddon Student in 1846. From thenceforth Pusey 
 had one near him like-minded : not in the obsequious mimicry 
 of imitation which has produced so many pseudo-Newmans, but 
 in true following of one Master, in intelligent apprehension of 
 and devotion to the principles of the Catholic Church of England, 
 and in self-denying holiness of life. Many friendships for life 
 date from Christ Church, but this has excelled them all : and 
 these two rest from their labours. 
 
 Some brief account of the latest buildings and restorations, on 
 which the fine taste of Dean Liddell has left its mark, seems 
 desirable here. The new buildings, before-mentioned (p. 809), 
 are by Mr. Thomas Deane, son of Sir T. N. Deane. They 
 consist of six staircases, containing forty-three sets of students' 
 
CHRIST CHURCH. 319 
 
 chambers of three rooms each, and ten chaplains' or tutors' 
 rooms of four apartments and upwards. The front towards the 
 Meadow is partly masked by the trees of the old Broad Walk 
 (planted by Dean Fell in Feb. 1670) and the other avenue to 
 the river. The roof is continuous on the meadow front, but 
 there are gables towards the quadrangle. The roof-supports 
 rest on corbels, and the beam-ends are free. The whole is 331 
 feet long and 37 deep. The stone walls are carried through to 
 the roof between the staircases and lined with brickwork. The 
 style is a variety of Italian Gothic, massively built, story upon 
 story, with good pointed arches, but not in any Northern or 
 regularly " arcuated " style. But the ornament is all beautiful 
 flower-work, and by the artist- work men whom Messrs. Wood- 
 ward and Dean gathered round them, whom Prof. Ruskin 
 himself educated in the then Working- Man's College. In as 
 far as that teaching has succeeded, a share of the honour is due 
 to Christ Church, through that son of hers who has done her 
 highest and most honour in the literature of the century, and 
 whose name will for ever be a call to all artists who love honour 
 and their work.^ 
 
 A recent Oxford Almanac represents the Interior of the 
 Cathedral as it appeared in 1876, before the new woodwork of 
 the Choir and the Reredos. Both were needed, and both are 
 beautiful in their way ; but the reredos has the fault or mis- 
 fortune of the new one in St. Paul's, London — nothing can make 
 it look like part of the structure. The rich depth of tint and 
 carven gloom are fine. Still the general effect of the Cathedral, 
 with its bright windows and warm stone-tints, is rather one of 
 lightness and pleasant colour, like pages of a Missal, as Ruskin 
 says of St. Mark's. The new glass by Morris and Faulkner, 
 after Burne Jones, is decidedly beyond any praise we have room 
 to give it here : the great North Transept window glows with 
 all the fires which a fervid fancy can bestow on the inwards of 
 the Dragon. Clayton and Bell's windows are beautiful in crimson 
 
 1 His mind on the matter is fully given in Stones of Venice, vol. ii. p. 
 168 sqq. A new volume by Mr. Cooke, New Colle«j;e, on Professor Ruskin's 
 work in Oxford, is said to contain an excellent account of his later University 
 work. See also his many published lectures. 
 
320 CHRIST CHURCH. 
 
 and white ; and all we can say of Jonah's dear old gourd is that 
 we hope its shadow may now never be less. 
 
 There are some works of art of considerable interest in the 
 Library, amidst a number of no particular value. On the right 
 of the door, the Nativity of Titian was certainly a part of 
 Charles I.'s collection, and is probably an original, though it 
 reminds one of Bonifazio. There is a portrait of A. Vezale by 
 Tintoret ; and a small head attributed to Holbein, of the greatest 
 beauty. We cannot feel sure about the John Bellini Madonna ; 
 but the Piero della Francesca Madonna with Angels is beautiful 
 and interesting. There are four very authentic Mantegnas, one 
 of which (No. 59, Christ bearing the Cross) certainly belonged 
 to Charles T. The possible Giorgione of Diana and her Nymphs 
 is worth attention ; and there is a genuine-looking Veronese, 
 with his beautiful striped silk drapery, of the Marriage of St. 
 Catherine. Two good portraits and the unfinished man-at-arms 
 by Vandyke, with the admirable brush-work in white on the 
 horse, are in the east room on the other side of the great door, 
 and complete our list of the more modern pictures. 
 
 The more ancient Italian schools, from the semi-Byzantine 
 Margheritone to Taddeo Gaddi and the Giotteschi, are w^ell 
 represented at the western end of the lower floor of the Library. 
 Marofheritone is said, in the notes to Mrs. Brownino^'s Casa 
 Giddi Windoivs, to have died of disgust ('' infastidito ") at the 
 successes of the new, Italian or Cimabue, school ; and she remarks 
 that 
 
 '• Strong Cimabue bore up well 
 Against Giotto." 
 
 It is most satisfactory to have original works by all these 
 three. The Margheritone is a thoroughly Byzantine saint, with 
 a gold background and an expression certainly best characterized 
 by the word "infastidito." Next comes the Cimabue triptych : 
 its central Madonna has some resemblance to the Borgo 
 Allegri picture on a small scale. The Giottos show some such 
 advance of art in his hands as Dante described. There is an 
 apparently genuine Filippo Lippi, which must be of no small 
 value. 
 
 The drawings are most beautiful. The small Lionardo head 
 
CHRIST CHURCH. 321 
 
 and the large Madonna are unmistakable and beyond praise, 
 and may be contrasted with a singularly beautiful head which 
 displays his taste for " monsters," and the portrait of Ludovico 
 Sforza is excellent. There are two drawings by Masaccio, and 
 the Titian Landscapes are capital. The visitor should not miss 
 the red chalk head attributed to Gentile Bellini, we suppose 
 rightly : it is hard to say who else, except his son, could have 
 done it. 
 
 To give an account of the portraits in the Hall would set us 
 adrift on general history. Locke and the Marquis of Wellesley, 
 the two Sir Joshua bishops, Cyril Jackson looking forth at a 
 world he knew the worth of, Wolsey and Henry VIII. — founders, 
 crowned heads, members of the foundation — survey the College 
 dinner like guests departed. They are forgotten, or their 
 remembrance is like his that tarrieth but a day. 
 
 Note on the Date of the Cathedral. 
 
 Ml*. J. Park Harrison has most kindly enabled me to give his 
 conclusions on the dates of the cathedral in his own words. 
 Having inspected the building with him, I entirely adhere to 
 them. I think they are fully borne out by the remains of the 
 old building, and scarcely to be got over when one has seen 
 the joints and ornamentation inside, and the foundations 
 without. 
 
 1. " The commonly-assigned date of the cathedral, 1160 — 1180, 
 is absolutely incorrect. 
 
 2. " The late Norman work, attributed with much probability 
 to Prior Robert of Cricklade, is an addition to the old church 
 restored by Guimond in the earlier part of the twelfth 
 century. 
 
 3. " There is no document, or anything tending to show that 
 the original fabric, as restored by Ethelred, was ever rebuilt on 
 a new plan. 
 
 4. "Several of the choir capitals differ essentially in their 
 ornamentation from any others in the cathedral ; but resemble 
 very closely the ornamental work in illuminated MSS. of 
 
 Y 
 
322 CHRIST CHURCH. 
 
 Ethelred's time. They^ should consequently belong to the 
 church as enlarged by him in 1004. 
 
 5. " The east wall of the ' ecclesiola * built by Didanus in the 
 eighth century still exists, with two arches once communicating 
 with apses, whose foundations have been discovered about two 
 feet below the ground, with a third midway between them." 
 
 The junction of the eleventh century, or Ethelred's, work 
 with the twelfth century, or Norman, is clearly visible at the 
 north and south-west corners of the choir, and the abaci though 
 resembling each other are of different thickness. The ashlar 
 work is different, and the courses are not continuous. 
 
 ^ Note by Professor Westwood. " The age of a particular MS. being 
 ascertained, we are able approximately to determine also the age of the 
 stone or ivory carvings or metal chasings whose art is completely identical 
 with the designs in the MS." See Pentateuch of ^Ifric, full of archi- 
 tectural detail ; and the Benedictional of Bp. ^thelwulf, reproduced by 
 the Society of Antiquaries, vol. xxiv. See also The Pre-Norman Date of the 
 Design and some of the Stone-work of Oxford Cathedral, by J. Park Harrison 
 (H. Frowde, 1891). 
 
 I have to thank my friend the Rev. T. Vere Bayne, Senior Student of 
 Christ Church, for some valuable corrections of this paper, — R. St. J. T. 
 
XIV. 
 
 TRINITY COLLEGE. 
 
 By the Rev. Herbert E. D. Blakiston, M.A., Fellow op Trinity. 
 
 " The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity in the Uni- 
 versity of Oxford of the Foundation of Sir Thomas Pope, Knt., 
 commonly called Trinity College," is one of the first instances 
 of the attempt to endow learning out of the funds thrown into 
 private hands by the suppression of the monasteries. It was 
 founded during the period of reaction, and its statutes may be 
 characterised as transitional. Its numbers and endowments 
 have never entitled it to rank with the larger foundations, but 
 the vigorous character of various members of the College has 
 saved it from obscurity. It has some mediaeval associations, 
 through its informal connexion with the older Durham College, 
 on the va^cant site of which it was established : for some years 
 Trinity drew on the same counties, still preserves in part the 
 old buildings, and has lately supplied several officers to the 
 modern University of Durham. A short sketch of the history 
 of Durham College should properly precede that of Trinity. 
 
 Durham College was originally a hall for the accom- 
 modation of students from Durham Abbey who had come to 
 Oxford to obtain better teaching than they could find in the 
 cloister, even before the Benedictine Constitutions of 1337, 
 which provided that each convent should maintain at some 
 place of higher study one in twenty of their numbers. Monastic 
 authorities did not like the young monks to live in lodgings 
 
324 TRINITY COLLEGE. 
 
 with the secular students, and they were originally sent in the 
 case of Cistercians to Rewley, and of Augustinians to St. Fride- 
 swide's. The Benedictines had houses at Reading and Abingdon, 
 but none at Oxford ; and when Walter of Merton invented the 
 collegiate system, the Benedictines of Gloucester imitated him 
 by the foundation of Gloucester College in 1283, which was 
 enlarged by hostels, built after a general chapter at Abingdon, 
 for such influential abbeys as Norwich, Glastonbury, and St. 
 Alban's ; but the rich society at Durham, probably from the 
 traditional hostility between North and South, stood aloof; while 
 Canterbury established a separate "nursery" in 1363, and 
 Croyland and others sent their students to Cambridge, and 
 eventually founded Buckingham College, now Magdalene. 
 
 The Durham chronicler says that Hugh of Darlington (Prior 
 of Durham 1258-72 and 1285-89) hated" Richard of Houghton, 
 who was a young man of grace, and therefore sent the monks to 
 study at Oxford, "et eis satis laute impensas ministrabat." 
 Richard, sometime Prior of Lytham, may have been the " master 
 of the novices " ; he became Prior in 1289, and obtained leave to 
 build on a site between Horsemonger Street or Canditch (Broad 
 St.) and the King's Highway of Beaumont (Park St.), already 
 acquired from St. Frideswide's, Godstow, and other grantors. Of 
 the original buildings, presumably unmethodical in plan, some 
 remains may survive in the lower part of the hall, and the 
 adjoining buttery and bursary. A chapel was contemplated in 
 1326, but not erected till a century later ; the present common- 
 room may have been used as an oratory meanwhile. 
 
 There was no endowment at first, but the Convent maintained 
 six to ten monks as early as 1300 ; in 1309 they sent the second 
 of two gifts or loans of books ; a John of Beverley is called " Prior 
 Oxoniae" in 1333. In a deed of 1338, Edward III. announces 
 that, in fulfilment of a vow made at Halidon Hill to God and 
 St. Margaret, he surrenders to Richard of Bury, Bishop of Dur- 
 ham, the valuable rectory of Symondburne (the title to which 
 they were then disputing) to endow a prior and twelve monks 
 from Durham on the site in the suburbs of Oxford, with a 
 church and lodgings to be erected at his expense ; but this plan 
 of endowment was never carried out. 
 
TRINITY COLLEGE. 325 
 
 The Bishop, however, did not forget his project, and left to 
 the College at his death the library, immense for the time, which 
 his position as courtier, prelate, ambassador, and Chancellor 
 had enabled him to amass, till he had more books, in his bed- 
 room and elsewhere, " than all the bishops in England had then 
 in their keeping." His intention is recorded in the famous 
 PhilobihloTh. It has been stated that the collection was sold by 
 the Bishop's executors to pay his debts ; but besides indirect 
 evidence, there is the statement of Dr. T. Cay (Master of Uni- 
 versity 1561) that he saw in hibliotheca Aungervillianci a MS. of 
 the treatise, supposed to be the autograph. The Library retains 
 in its windows the arms of the older society and its benefactors, 
 and effigies of the saints of the Order, etc. ; but the books, with 
 Bishop Langley's Augustine on the Psalms in three vols., and 
 other additions, disappeared at the Reformation. They can- 
 not be traced to Balliol or Duke Humphrey's library ; so per- 
 haps they were among the purchases made by Archbishop 
 Parker from Dr. G. Owen, or they may have been secured 
 for the Durham Chapter by the first Dean and the first senior 
 Canon, previously Prior of Durham and Warden of the College 
 in Oxford respectively. 
 
 The next Bishop, Thomas of Hatfield, a secular clerk of good 
 family, great military capacity (he was one of the commanders 
 at Nevill's Cross) and architectural taste, and tutor to the 
 Black Prince, was stimulated by the examples of Islip (Canter- 
 bury College) and Wykeham to endow the Durham Hall perma- 
 nently ; his charter still exists in the form of a contract with 
 the prior and convent, executei in 1380. Four trustees (in- 
 cluding William Walworth Lord Mayor, and Master Uthred a 
 monk of Durham, who was soon afterwards tried for heresy) will 
 furnish money to purchase property worth two hundred marks 
 a year, to maintain a warden and seven other student monks, 
 under rules closely resembling those of a Benedictine cell, and 
 also (which is a new departure) eight secular students in Gram- 
 mar and Philosophy at five marks each, from Durham and North 
 Yorkshire, on the nomination of the prior, who are to dine and 
 sleep apart from the monks, and perform any Jionesta ministeria 
 that do not interfere with their studies. These are under no 
 
326 TRINITY COLLEGE. 
 
 obligation to take orders or vows; but must take an oath to 
 further the interests of the Church of Durham. 
 
 No buildings are mentioned, but probably the north and east 
 sides of the original quadrangle containing library, warden's 
 lodging, and rooms, had been built c. 1350. Hatfield died in 
 1381 ; the convent purchased from John Lord Nevill of Raby 
 and appropriated the churches of Frampton (Line), Fishlake and 
 Bossall (Yorks), and Roddington (Notts), giving for them £1080 
 and two other churches. The revenue was two hundred and 
 sixty marks. Many of the bursarial rolls sent to Durham be- 
 tween 1399 and 1496 are preserved there. But the income soon 
 declined ; and even after the convent had added the church of 
 Brantingham, there was generally a deficit. 
 
 Little further is known : Bishops Skirlaw and Langley left 
 legacies, as did probably members of the families of Mortimer, 
 Nevill, Kemp, Grey, Arundell, and Vernon. Several Wardens 
 became Priors of Durham : Gilbert Kymer, physician to Duke 
 Humphrey, and ten years Chancellor of the University, lived 
 in the College. The Priors regulated the College from time to 
 time ; in a letter of 1467 some strong language is addressed to 
 a fellow who had indulged in riotous living till "vix superest 
 operimentum corporis et grabati." 
 
 The College, though in part a secular foundation, fell with the 
 Abbey, surrendered by Hugh Whitehead in 1540. In Henry 
 VIII.'s valuation its income was £115 4s. 4<f. (warden £22, fellows 
 £8, scholars 4 marks, each), and it owned a sanatorium at Hand- 
 borough. Out of the estates confiscated a school was endowed, 
 as well as the Durham Chapter ; a larger scheme which pro- 
 vided for branches at Oxford and Cambridge fell through. In 
 1545 the site of the College reverted to the Crown; the part 
 occupied by the Cistercian Bernard College passed to Christ 
 Church, and is now part of St. John's College garden. In 1553, 
 W. Martyn and George Owen, physician to Henry VIII. and his 
 successors, and the grantee of Godstow nunnery, received the 
 rest of the " backside " with the buildings, which were by that 
 time mere canilia lustra (dog-kennels), though they had been 
 used by Dr. W. Wright, Archdeacon of Oxford, Vice-Chancellor 
 .1547-9, as a private hall. The site was then sold to Sir T. Pope, 
 
TRINITY COLLEGE. 327 
 
 Owen transferring to his own estates a quit-rent of 26s. 2d. 
 due to the Crown. In 1622, Trinity had to pay some arrears 
 of this, which they recovered from Owen's heirs, and settled the 
 matter by the aid of Sir George Calvert, a Trinity man, then 
 Secretary of State. 
 
 I Sir Thomas Pope appears to have belonged to the class of 
 Tudor statesmen of which More, Fisher, and Wolsey are repre- 
 sentative, who, while personally attached to the traditional ideas 
 in religious matters, did not oppose all reform ; and were anxious 
 that the revival of learning should be assisted by part at least 
 of the funds justly taken from the monasteries, according to the 
 precedent set by Wykeham, Chichele, and Waynflete. He was 
 born c. 1508, at Deddington, and was the eldest son of a small 
 landowner. After being educated at Banbury and Eton, he 
 studied law with success. He held various offices in the Star- 
 Chamber, Chancery, and the Mint, from 1533 to 1536, in which 
 year he became Treasurer of the new and important Court of 
 Augmentations, which dealt with monastic property. After 
 five years he was succeeded by Sir Edward North, in whose 
 family his own was merged in the next century. He obtained 
 a grant of the arms still borne by his College ; and was knighted 
 in 1536 with the poet-Earl of Surrey. In 1546 he became 
 Master of the Woods, etc. South of Trent, and was a privy 
 councillor. He did not personally receive the surrender of any 
 religious house except St. Alban's, where he saved the abbey 
 church; but he probably had exceptional opportunities of 
 acquiring abbey lands. The Abbess of Godstow, where his 
 sister was a nun, claims his protection in some letters still 
 extant. Among his intimate friends were Sir Thomas More, 
 Lord Chancellor Audley, Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir Thomas 
 Whyte, Lord Williams of Thame, Bishop Whyte of Winchester, 
 and many of the moderate party of the Humanists. 
 
 Under Edward VI. he withdrew from public life ; but Mary 
 recalled him to the Privy Council, and employed him on com- 
 missions connected with the Tower, Wyat's rebellion, Gresham's 
 accounts, the suppression of heresy, etc. In 1555 he had to 
 take charge of the Princess Elizabeth at Hatfield, and managed 
 to treat her kindly without incurring* suspicion. Elizabeth took 
 
328 TRINITY COLLEGE. 
 
 an interest in his project ; he writes that " the princess Elizabeth 
 her grace, whom I serve here, often askyth me about the course 
 I have devysed for my scoUers : and that part of mine estatutes 
 respectinge studies I have shown to her, which she likes well." 
 Again, when two of the junior fellows had broken the statute 
 " de muris noctu non scandendis," he says " they must openly in 
 the hall before all the felowes and scolers of the colleorgfe, 
 confesse their faulte : and besides paye such fyne, as you shall 
 thynke meete, whiche being done, I will the same be recorded 
 yn some boke; wherein I will have mencion mayde that for 
 this faulte they were clene expelled the Coll. and at my ladye 
 Elizabeth her graces desier and at my wiffes request they were 
 receyved into the house agayne." He soon retired from public 
 life, and died probably of a pestilence then epidemic, on January 
 29th, 155f , in the Priory of Clerkenwell, his favourite residence. 
 He was buried at St. Stephen's Walbrook, with his second wife, 
 Margaret (widow of Sir Ralph Dodmer, Lord Mayor 1529) and 
 his only child; in 1567 his third wife Elizabeth Blount (of 
 Blount's Hall, Staffs.), widow of Anthony Beresford, removed 
 the bodies to a vault beneath the fine tomb with alabaster 
 effigies of her husband and herself, which she erected in 
 Trinity chapel. A contemporary writer records the magnificence 
 of the funeral, " and aftyr to the playse to drynke with spyse- 
 brede and wyne. And the morow masse iii songes, with ii pryke 
 songes, and the iii of Requiem, with the clarkes of London. 
 And after, he was beried : and that done, to the playse to 
 dener; for ther was a grett dener, and plenty of all thynges, 
 and a grett doll of money." In a will, dated 1556, besides 
 large sums to the poor, prisoners, and churches, he bequeaths 
 money for specified purposes to Trinity with a quantity of 
 plate, rings and various articles to his friends, e. g. his *' dragon- 
 whistle," and his " black satten gowne with luserne-spots " (both 
 seen in his portraits) to Sir N. Bacon and " Master Croke, my 
 old master's son," considerable legacies to his relations, and the 
 residue of his goods to his wife. His estates had been already 
 settled ; Tyttenhanger (Herts.), the country house of the abbots 
 of St. Alban's, went to the widow for life, afterwards to her 
 nephew Sir Thomas Pope-Blount (whose mother was Frances 
 
TRINITY COLLEGE. 329 
 
 Love, daughter of Alice Pope), and eventually through an heiress 
 to the Earls of Hardwicke; his brother John Pope received 
 estates in north-west Oxfordshire, but preferred to settle at 
 Wroxton Abbey, which he and liis descendants, the Earls of 
 Downe, and their representatives, the Lords North and Earls of 
 Guildford, have since held on long leases from the College ; 
 other estates passed to his widow, his uncle John Edmondes, 
 and his nephew Edmund Hutchins. Dame Elizabeth Pope 
 married Sir Hugh Paulet, K.G., of Hinton St. George, a states- 
 man and soldier of some eminence. Lady Paulet usually 
 nominated to the fellowships, "Scholarships, and advowsons (in 
 one instance after an appeal to the Visitor) till her death in 
 1593, when she was buried in Trinity chapel with funeral 
 honours from the University. 
 
 It is particularly noticeable that Sir Thomas Pope, having 
 been able to provide handsomely for his family as well as for 
 his College, did not saddle the latter with any of the preferences 
 for founder's-kin which proved fertile in litigation elsewhere. 
 Indeed he appears to contemplate that his heirs will resort to 
 the College as Commoners, and sets apart the best room for 
 such uses if required. Accordingly we find the College con- 
 stantly receiving besides presents of game, etc. substantial assist- 
 ance from the Popes, Norths, and others, and sending them in 
 return not only the traditional gloves, but money in time of 
 need ; while the college books record as undergraduates many 
 generations of the Popes and Pope-Blounts and Norths, and 
 members of families connected with them by descent or marriage, 
 such as Brockett, Perrot, Danvers, Sacheverell, Combe, Green- 
 hill, Poole, Lee (Lichfield), Bertie (Lindsay), Wentworth (Cleve- 
 land), Tyrrell, Legge (Dartmouth), Stuart (Bute), and Paulet 
 (Poulett). 
 
 On March 1st, 155^, Sir Thomas Pope obtained Royal 
 Letters Patent to found Trinity" College for a president (a 
 priest), twelve fellows (four priests), and eight scholars, and a 
 free school (Jesus Scolehouse), at Hooknorton; and to endow 
 them from his estates enumerated, viz. eighteen manors in 
 north and west Oxfordshire, and eleven elsewhere (including 
 Bermondsey and Deptford), and fifteen advawsons. On March 
 
330 TRINITY COLLEGE. 
 
 28th he gave a "charter of erection," and admitted in the 
 presence of the University authorities fourteen or fifteen 
 members of the foundation. In May, and subsequently, he 
 furnished them with large quantities of plate, MSS. and printed 
 books, and "churche stuffe and playte," inventories of which 
 are printed by Warton. Besides the silver-gilt chalice and paten, 
 once belonging to St. Albans, we find crosses, censers, missals, 
 antiphoners, copes, chasubles, hangings, corporas-cases, cano- 
 pies, tunicles, paxes, banners, a rood and other images for the 
 Easter sepulchre, etc., bells, and a pair of organs, which it cost 
 £10 to bring from London. By 1556 he had made a selection 
 from his estates, and gave the College the manors, etc., of 
 Wroxton and Balscot near Banbury, the rectorial tithe of 
 Great Waltham and Navestock in Essex, with some farms and 
 rent-charges, all formerly the property of religious houses. 
 
 Most of these estates had been already let on lease for long 
 periods ; and the income from them, minutely apportioned to 
 various purposes by the statutes, proved sufficient for the 
 requirements of a sixteenth century college, except as regards 
 the buildings, which were in bad repair from the first. 
 
 The statutes, dated May 1st, 1556, were drawn up by the 
 Founder and the first president, Thomas Slythurst, in very fair 
 Latin, for which Arthur Yeldard, one of the fellows, was 
 responsible. They provide very detailed rules for the position 
 and conduct of the members of the foundation. The president's 
 duties are mainly disciplinary and bursarial. The twelve 
 fellows are to study philosophy and theology; they are to 
 furnish a vice-president, a dean, two bursars, four chaplains, a 
 logic or philosophy reader, and a rhetoric or grammar reader. 
 The eight (afterwards twelve) scholars are to study polite letters 
 and elementary logic and philosophy; they are to be elected 
 by the five College officers after examination in letter- writing, 
 heroic verse and plain song, being natives of the counties in 
 which College property is situated (Oxford, Essex, Gloucester, 
 and Bedford), or of the Founder's manors, or scholars of Eton 
 or Banbury, or at least Brackley and Reading ; and they must 
 be really in need of assistance. They have a prior claim on 
 vacant fellowships. There may be twenty commoners of good 
 
TRINITY COLLEGE. 331 
 
 family, under the care of the fellows. The salaried servants 
 are the Obsonator, Promus (a poor scholar who is also to act as 
 Janitor), Archimagirus, Hypomagirus, Barbaetonsor, and Lotrix ; 
 the last-named is to be above suspicion, but may not enter the 
 quadrangle. A scholar or fellow is to act as organist, with a 
 small extra stipend. There is to be high mass with full services 
 on Sundays and feasts ; on week-days mass before six a.m. accord- 
 ing to the received forms of the " Ecclesia Anglicana," and the 
 use of Sarum ; public and private prayers for the Founder and 
 his family are prescribed. The Bible is to be read aloud in 
 hall during the prandium and coena, and afterwards expounded ; 
 after dinner, when the "mantilia longa, et lavacra, cum gut- 
 turniis et aqua" have been used, and the loving cup passed 
 round, silence is to be observed while the scholars "qui in 
 refectionibus ministrant " have their meal, and a declamation is 
 made. ^11 public conversation, especially among the scholars, 
 is to be in a learned language. Then follow minute regulations 
 about degrees and disputations. Lectures are to be given from 
 six to eight a.m. in arithmetic (from " Gemmephriseus " and 
 Tunstall), geometry (from Euclid), logic (from Porphyr}^, 
 Aristotle, Rodolphus Agricola, and Johannes Csesarius), and 
 philosophy (Aristotle and Plato); from three to five p.m. on 
 Latin authors, prose and verse alternately, such as Virgil, 
 Horace, Lucan, Juvenal, Terence, and Plautus, Cicero de Officiis, 
 Valerius Maximus, Suetonius, and Florus ; and for the more 
 advanced, Pliny's Natural History, Livy, Cicero's oratorical 
 works, Quintilian, " vel aliud hujusmodi excelsum." It is notice- 
 able that Latin has a distinct preference ; though Greek is to be 
 taught as far as possible. ^ 
 
 In a letter to Slythurst, Pope writes, " My Lord Cardinall's 
 Grace [Pole] has had the overseeinge of my statutes. He 
 much lykes well that I have therein ordered the Latin tongue 
 to be redde to my schoUers. But he advyses mee to order the 
 Greeke to be more taught there than I have provyded. This 
 purpose I well lyke; but I feare the tymes will not bear it 
 now. I remember when I was a yonge scholler at Eton, the 
 Greeke tongue was growinge apace ; the studie of whiche is 
 now alate much decaid." ^Lectures in the Long Vacation may 
 
3^ TRINITY COLLEGE. 
 
 be on solid geometry and astronomy, Laurentius VaJlensis, 
 Aulus Gellius, Politian, or versification ; for the shorter vaca- 
 tions declamations and verse exercises are prescribed. The 
 scholars may not leave the college precincts without permission, 
 nor take country walks in parties of less than three ; they may 
 not indulge in "illicitis et noxiis ludis aleanim, cartarum 
 pictarum (chardes vocant), pilarum ad aedes, muros, tegulas, 
 vel ultra funes jactitainim " ; but they may play at " pilse 
 palmariae" in the grove, and cards in the hall during "the xii 
 dales "at Christmastide for"ligulis, lucernis, carta, et hujusmodi 
 vilioris pretii rebus, at pro nummis nullo modo." No member 
 of the foundation may wear fine clothes, or any suit but a " toga 
 talaris usque ad terram demissa," and the hood of his degree ; 
 they are to sleep two or three in a room, some in " trochle- 
 beddes " ; and they may not carry arms, though they are after- 
 wards enjoined to keep in their rooms a " fustis vel aliquod aliud 
 armorum genus bonum et firmum," to defend the College and 
 University. Gaudys with extra commons are allowed on twelve 
 festivals ; and at Christmas they may make merry with the six 
 good capons and the boar " bene saginatus," provided by two 
 tenants, together with the " cartlode of fewel," " wheate and 
 maulte," due from the president as ex-offido rector of Grarsing- 
 ton. Founder's-kin are to be preferred as tenants. Three 
 times a year the statutes are to be read, and once the president 
 and one fellow are to hold a scrutiny of the conduct and progress 
 of the rest, during which delation appears to be encouraged. 
 The chief penalties to enforce these rules are impositions and 
 loss of commons, witb expulsion on the third repetition of a 
 minor offence ; the violation of some statutes involves summary 
 deprivation ; scholars under twenty may be birched or caned 
 by the dean. The statutes conclude, and are pervaded with, 
 exhortations to unity and fidelity. When we take into account 
 the fact that except in special cases the limit of absence was 
 forty days in the year for a fellow and twenty for a scholar, it 
 is clear that the life contemplated was one of almost monastic 
 strictness in matters of detail. 
 
 A postscript dated 1557 adds to the revenues to increase 
 certain allowances, and provides five obits, one on Jesusniay 
 
TRINITY CX)LLEGE. 333 
 
 (Aug. 7th) for the Founder, with doles for the poor and the 
 prisonere in the Castle and Bocardo. A design for building a 
 house at Garsington, as a place of retreat for the College in times 
 of the pestilences then common, is mentioned ; a quadran<nilar 
 building built with five hundred marks left by the Founder, and 
 help from his widow, was finished about 1570. The Collet^e 
 removed there bodily in 1577; we find payments for "black 
 by lies " for protection there, food at Abingdon, Woodstock, etc, 
 antidotes for those left behind, carts for the carriage of kitchen 
 utensils, books, and surplices, and the clock. In 156} they had 
 retired to lodgings in Woodstock. 
 
 The annual computus commences on Lady Day, 1556. On 
 Trinity Sunday the Founder formally admitted the president, 
 twelve fellows, and seven scholars in the chapeL In July he 
 came again with Bishops Whyte (Winchester) and Thirlby (Ely), 
 and others. The president held his stirrup, the vice-president 
 made an oration " satis longam et oflScii plenam," and the bursars 
 offered " chirothecas aurifrigiatas," The banquet in the hall and 
 the twelve minstrels cost £12 35. dd. The president celebrated 
 " missam vespertinam" in the best cope, and Sir Thomas " obtulit 
 unam bui-sam plenam angelorum." After service he gave the 
 bursai-s the whole of their expenses and a silver-gilt cup from 
 which he had drunk to the company in " hypocrasse," and a mark 
 each to the scholars. The accounts record many other visits 
 from him and his wife and their influential friends, gifts of 
 timber and game, and presents of gloves in return. 
 
 Dr. Thos. Slythurst was a canon of Windsor, and held several 
 benefices, chiefly by court favour; the original fellows came 
 from other foundations, especially Queen's and Exeter. Yeldard 
 was a fellow of Pembroke, Cambridge, and had been educated 
 in Durham Convent. The scholars were mainly from the Mid- 
 lands, and afterwards usually natives of the preferred counties, 
 with Bucks and Herts ; two or three were elected annually, 
 with one or two fellows; till 1600 the tenure of a fellowship 
 rarely exceeds ten years. In 1561 there were already seven- 
 teen commonei*s, and from the caution-books it seems that from 
 fifteen to thirty were admitted annually, and resided for two or 
 three yeai-s. There were two or three grades, and some instances 
 
334 TRINITY COLLEGE. 
 
 axe found of private servants or tutors ; and of the residence for 
 short periods of persons not in statu pupillari. At first several 
 Durham and Yorkshire names occur, as Claxton, Conyers, Las- 
 celles, Blakiston, Shafton, Trentham; and Edward Hindmer 
 (sch. 1561) was probably son of the last warden of Durham 
 College ; afterwards the families of the southern Midlands are 
 largely represented, and Fettiplaces, Lenthalls, Chamberlains, 
 Newdigates, Annesleys, Bagots, Fleetwoods, Lucys, Chetwoods, 
 Hobys, etc. abound. 
 
 The early years of the College were uneventful except for two 
 visitations in the interests of the reformed religion. In 1560 
 several of the fellows retired ; Slythurst was deprived, and died 
 in the Tower. No objection appears to have been offered by 
 the Foundress to the enforced disregard of many explicit regu- 
 lations in the statutes : the " sacerdotes missas celebrantes " be- 
 came " capellani preces celebrantes "; but incense was sometimes 
 bought, and the feasts of the Assumption and St. Thomas a Becket 
 kept as gaudy s. It is noticeable that an English Bible and two 
 Latin " Common Prayer " books had been sent with the Founder's 
 service-books. In 1570 Bishop Home ordered the destruction or 
 secularisation of the Founder's presents as " monuments tending 
 to idolatrie and popish or devill's service, crosses, censars, and 
 such lyke fylthie stuflfe " ; several of the Romanising fellows 
 retired to Gloucester Hall and Hart Hall (one was executed at 
 York as a popish priest in 1600 ; another was George Black well, 
 the " archpriest "). A table took the place of the three altars, 
 but the paintings and glass remained. " In 1642, the Lord 
 Viscount Say and Seale came to visit the College, to see what of 
 new Popery they could discover. My L4 saw that this " (the 
 painting) " was done of old time, and Dr. Kettle told his Lo?, 
 * Truly we regard it no more than a dirty dish-clout,' so it 
 remained untoucht till Harris's time, and then was coloured 
 over with green " ; much to the disgust of Aubrey. 
 
 Yeldard, a writer of some academic reputation, became 
 president; but the computus, during his thirty-nine years of 
 office, records nothing more exciting than journeys to the estates, 
 and small repairs to the old buildings. In his time the founda- 
 tion included Thomas Allen, Henry Cuffe, who was expelled for 
 
TRINITY COLLEGE. 836 
 
 remarking to his host when dining at another college, " A pox 
 this is a beggarly college indeed — the plate that our Founder 
 stole would build another as good " (he became fellow of Merton 
 and Regius Professor of Greek, and was executed after Essex's 
 rebellion), Thomas Lodge the dramatist, Richard Blount the 
 Jesuit, Bishops Wright of Lichfield and Coventry, Adams of 
 Limerick, and (according to Wood) Smith of Chalcedon in 
 partihus ; among commoners were Sir Edward Hoby, John 
 Lord Paulett, and Sir George Calvert, first Lord Baltimore. 
 
 Yeldard was succeeded in 159f by Dr. Ralph Kettell, of 
 Kings-Langley, scholar on the nomination of the Foundress in 
 1579. Though not a man of mark outside Oxford, he seems to 
 have initiated the development of the College in the seventeenth 
 century. He personally supervised every department of college 
 life, and left in his curious sloping handwriting full memoranda 
 of lawsuits and special expenses, lists of members, and copies of 
 deeds. By husbanding the resources of the College, he restored 
 extensively the old Durham quadrangle, superimposing attics or 
 "cock-lofts," rebuilding the hall, and erecting on the site of 
 " Perilous Hall," then leased from Oriel, the handsome house 
 which bears his name. He was a " right Church of England 
 man," and disliked Laud's despotic reforms. When an old man 
 he became very eccentric, if we may believe John Aubrey 
 (commoner 1642), who saw him as he is painted with "a fresh 
 ruddie complexion — a very tall well-grown man. His gowne and 
 surplice and hood being on, he had a terrible gigantique aspect, 
 with his sharp gray eies. The ordinary gowne he wore was a 
 russet cloth gowne — He spake with a squeaking voice — He 
 dragged with his right foot a little, by which he gave warning 
 (like the rattle-snake) of his comeing. Will. Egerton would 
 go so like him that sometimes he would make the whole chapel 
 rise up." " When he observed the scholars' haire longer than 
 ordinary, he would bring a paire of cizers in his muffe (which 
 he commonly wore), and woe be to them that sate on the outside 
 of the table. I remember he cutt Mr. Radford's haire with the 
 knife that chipps the bread on the buttery-hatch, and then he 
 sang, * And was not Grim the Collier finely trimmed ? ' " The 
 whole of Aubrey's remarks on him and other Trinity men is good 
 
336 TRINITY COLLEGE. 
 
 reading, and we may conclude with an anecdote which is at 
 once suggestive of, and a contrast with, a chapter in John 
 Inglesant. 
 
 "*Tis probable this venerable Dr. might have lived some 
 yeares longer, and finish't his century, had not the civill warres 
 come on; w^^ much grieved him, that was absolute in the 
 Colledge, to be affronted and disrespected by rude soldiers. I 
 remember, being at the Rhetorique lecture in the hall, a foot- 
 soldier came in and brake his hower-glasse. The Dr. indeed 
 was just stept out, but Jack Dowch pointed at it. Our grove 
 was the Daphne for the ladies and their gallants to walk in, 
 and many times my Lady Isabella Thynne would make her 
 entrys with a theorbo or lute played before her. . . . She was 
 most beautiful, humble, charitable, &c., but she could not subdue 
 one thing. I remember one time this Lady and fine W^^ Fen- 
 shawe (she Avas wont, and my Lady Thynne, to come to our 
 chapell, mornings, halfe dressed like angells) would have a 
 frolick to make a visit to the President. The old Dr. quickly 
 perceived that they came to abuse him ; he addressed his dis- 
 course to M"^ Fenshawe, saying, ' Madam, your husband and 
 father I bred up here, & I knew your grandfather ; I know 
 you to be a gentlewoman, I will not say you are a whore, but 
 gett you gonne for a very woman.' The dissoluteness of the 
 times, as I have sayd, grieving the good old Dr., his days 
 were shortned, & dyed " in July 1643. 
 
 About this time Trinity produced among Bishops, Glemham 
 of St. Asaph's, Lucy of St. David's, Ironside of Bristol, Skinner 
 of Bristol, Oxford, and Worcester, Gore of Waterford, Parker of 
 Oxford, Stratford of Chester, and Sheldon of Canterbury; 
 among authors. Sir John Denham, William Chillingworth, 
 Ant. Faringdon, Arthur Wilson, Daniel Whitby, Sir Edw. 
 Byshe, Francis Potter, Henry Gellibrand, George Roberts, M.D., 
 and James Harrington ; among Cavalier leaders, Thomas Lord 
 Wentworth, created Earl of Cleveland, Sir Philip Musgrave of 
 Edenhall, and Sir Hervey Bagot ; on the other side, Henry Ireton 
 and Edmund Ludlow ; besides the chivalrous William Earl of 
 Craven, and John Lord Craven of Ryton, founder of the Craven 
 scholarships, Cecil Calvert second Lord Baltimore, Sir Henry 
 
TRINITY COLLEGE. 337 
 
 Blount the traveller, Milton's friend Charles Deodate, Dr. 
 Nathaniel Highmore, and Chief Justice Newdigate. 
 
 The next president, Hannibal Potter, was elected during the 
 disorders of the Civil War. The college buildings were occu- 
 pied during the siege of Oxford by the courtiers and officers ; 
 many of the undergraduates enlisted ; the register and accounts 
 are defective ; the elections were irregular, and the number of 
 commoners admitted dropped from thirty- two in 1633 to four in 
 1643, none in 1644, and one in 1645, reviving to twenty-one in 
 1646. The tenants fell behind with their rents, and in 1647 
 the arrears from estates and battels amounted to £1385 ; in 
 November 1642 the King " borrowed " £200, and in the follow- 
 ing March Sir Wm. Parkhurst gave the College a receipt for 
 173 pounds of plate, which included everything given by the 
 Founder and others, except the chalice, paten, and two flagons. 
 In 1647 and 1648 the College sent £145 13s. ^d. and £45 to the 
 Earl of Downe and his uncle Sir Thomas Pope. In 1647 a 
 lessee of College property. Sir Robert Napier of Luton-Hoo, 
 deposited £160 for emergencies. 
 
 In 1648 the members of the College were cited before the 
 Puritan Visitors of the University ; eventually twenty-six sub- 
 mitted and nineteen were ejected; some of them never appeared, 
 e. g. the bursar Josias Howe, who had carried off many of the 
 College documents into the country. Nine persons were intruded 
 by the Visitors at different times. Potter, who, as acting Vice- 
 Chancellor, had for some time baffled the commissioners, was 
 turned out of his house by Lord Pembroke in person, to make 
 room for one of the Visitors, Dr. Robert Harris, of Magdalen 
 Hall. He was an old man, but still vigorous, a good scholar, an 
 orthodox though popular preacher ; and was fairly well received 
 by the fellows, some of whom remained without having sub- 
 mitted. Under him things settled down, and the numbers rose 
 again ; some scandalous stories were afterwards current of the 
 appropriation of a large sum left behind by Potter, and of the 
 exaction from one of the tenants of an exorbitant fine ; but on 
 the whole Harris probably tolerated much of the old rdgimCy 
 e. g. he allowed payments to absent fellows and the Founder's 
 kinsmen, and the old saints'-days were still observed as gaudys. 
 
338 TEINITY COLLEGE. 
 
 On his death in 1658, William Hawes was elected, and con- 
 firmed by a mandate from the Protector. In 1659 he resigned 
 on his death-bed in order that no time might be lost in electing 
 (illegally, since he was not a member of the College), Dr. Seth 
 Ward, a deprived fellow of Sydney Sussex, Cambridge, who 
 had settled at Wadham, where he became Savilian Professor of 
 Astronomy, and one of the founders of the Royal Society. He 
 was *' very well acquainted and beloved in the College," and less 
 likely to be objected to by the Government than Dr. Bathurst, 
 who was really the mainstay of the society. In 1660 Ward had 
 to retire on the restoration of Potter (with Howe and perhaps 
 a married fellow, Matthew Skinner), was made Dean and subse- 
 quently Bishop of Exeter, on the recommendation of the West 
 country gentlemen in the Restoration Parliament, and died 
 Bishop of Salisbury in 1689. 
 
 On Potter's death in 1664 Ralph Bathurst naturally became 
 president. Shortly afterwards " A. Wood and his mother and 
 his eldest brother and his wife went to the lodgings of Dr. 
 R. B., to welcome him to Oxon, who had then very lately 
 brought to Oxon his new-married wife, Mary, the widdow of Dr. 
 Jo. Palmer, late Warden of Alls. Coll. which Mary was of kin 
 to the mother of A. Wood. They had before sent in sack, 
 claret, cake, and sugar. Dr. Bathurst was then about forty-six 
 years of age, so there was need of a wife." He was the fifth son 
 of George Bathurst (commoner 1605) and Elizabeth Villiers, 
 Kettell's step-daughter ; many of his family before and after him 
 were at Trinity, and six of his brothers are said to have died in 
 the King's service. He was ordained priest in 1644; but sub- 
 mitted to the Visitors, " neither owning their authority nor con- 
 curring in his principles with them, but rather acting separately 
 from them," as he said afterwards ; studied medicine (M.D. 1654), 
 and practised in Oxford and as a navy surgeon. During the 
 persecution of the Church he assisted Bishop Skinner as arch- 
 deacon at the secret ordinations at Launton and in Trinity 
 chapel. Skinner was the only prelate who ordained regularly, 
 and claimed to have conferred orders on 400 to 500 persons. 
 Bathurst was an original F.R.S., and P.R.S. in 1688; and also a 
 classical scholar of some ability, as his remains show. In 1670 
 
TKINITY COLLEGE. 339 
 
 he became Dean of Wells, but refused the bishopric of Bristol, 
 for which Lord Somers recommended him in 1691. 
 
 Bathurst was well known in the best society of his day ; and 
 his reputation, together with the traditions of the families men- 
 tioned above, attracted to Trinity in his time a large number of 
 gentlemen-commoners of high rank. John Evelyn, for instance, 
 whose elder brother George was a commoner in 1633, took pains 
 to place his eldest son under his care. The University was 
 sinking into the intellectual torpor of the eighteenth century, 
 and we find few men of learning educated at Trinity for 100 
 years ; the best known were Arthur Charlett the antiquarian, 
 and William Derham, an ingenious writer on natural religion. 
 Among the commoners were Lord Chancellor Somers, Wm. 
 Pierrepoint Earl of Kingston, the second Earl of Shaftesbury, 
 Sir Chas. O'Hara Lord Tyrawley, Commander-in-chief in Ire- 
 land, Spencer Compton Earl of Wilmington (the Prime Minister 
 faxbU de mieux), Allen Earl Bathurst, Cobbe Archbishop of 
 Dublin, and the heads of the families of Abdy, Broughton, 
 Wallop, Reade, Gresley, TroUope, Shelley, Knollys, Hall, Clop- 
 ton, Topham, Lennard, Dormer, Napier (of Luton- Hoo), Curzon, 
 Shirley (Ferrers), Herbert (Herbert of Cherbury), Cobb, Bridge- 
 man, Jodrell, Boothby, Jenkinson, and Shaw of Eltham, and 
 many others long connected with Trinity. 
 
 In 1685, some undergraduates, under the command of Philip 
 Bertie, volunteered against Monmouth ; they drilled in the Grove, 
 and the College paid for the keep of some horses (" Pro avenis 
 in usu Coll. pro equo Mri. Praesidis ad militia mutuato, 12s." 
 Comp. 1685). In Bathurst's time there appears to have been 
 some connection with the West of England, Guernsey, Wales, 
 and South Ireland, and in the next century a large number 
 pf entries from the West Indies are found; but on the 
 whole Trinity continued to draw mainly on the southern 
 Midlands, especially Oxfordshire and Warwickshire. 
 
 To receive the increased numbers Bathurst almost rebuilt the 
 college, partly from the revenues increased by the rise in the 
 value of land, partly from contributions skilfully extracted from 
 liis old pupils and friends, and partly from his private means, on 
 which he drew with great liberality. His chief works were the 
 
340 TKINITY COLLEGE. 
 
 north wing of the garden quadrangle (nearly the first Palladian 
 work in Oxford) in 1665 ; the west side in 1682, both from 
 Wren's designs; the Bathurst building, now replaced by the 
 new president's house ; the new kitchens, &c. ; and the present 
 chapel, with the tower and gateway, from Aldrich's plans corrected 
 by Wren, in 1691-4. He spent £2000 on the shell, and the 
 fittings with the carving by Gibbons were supplied by subscrip- 
 tions. In his time a Fellows' Common-room, one of the earliest, 
 was instituted, in the room now the Bursary. Anthony a 
 Wood used to visit it, till his passion for gossip made him 
 objectionable to the fellows. 
 
 Bathurst, whose portrait by Kneller represents him as a clever 
 and vigorous-looking man, with an oval face and singularly 
 large eyelids, became in his old age " stark blind, deaf, and 
 memory lost." ("This is a serious alarm to me," Evelyn con- 
 tinues after recording his death ; " God grant that I may profit 
 by it.") At last, when walking in his front garden, from which 
 in his dotnge he used to throw stones at Balliol chapel windows, 
 he fell and broke his thiojh, and refusinf!^ to have it set on the 
 ground that " an old man's bones had no marrow in them," died 
 June 14th, 1704, and was buried in the chapel. His will 
 mentions a large number of legacies to Trinity, Wells, the Royal 
 Society, &c. 
 
 During the seventeenth century, besides the benefactions by 
 way of subscriptions already mentioned, and small gifts of books 
 and plate, the College received an endowment for the library 
 from Ric. Rands, rector of Hartfield, Sussex ; a small farm in 
 Oakley and Brill, purchased with money left by John Whetstone ; 
 lands at Thorpe Mandeville from Edward Bathurst, rector of 
 Chipping- Warden ; the moiety of the manor lands of Abbot's 
 Langley, Herts, from Francis Combe, great-nephew of the 
 Founder ; and a rent-charge from Thomas Unton, all three for 
 exhibitions; the livings of Rotherfield-Greys from Thomas 
 Rowney of Oxford, and Oddington-on-Otmoor from Bathurst; 
 and a reading-desk in the form of the College crest, a two- 
 headed griffin, from Beckford " promus." In the eighteenth cen- 
 tury several legacies occur, the most noticeable being the livings 
 of Famham (Essex), Hill-Farrance, and Barton-on-the-Heath ; 
 
TRINITY COLLEGE. ,341 
 
 the Tylney exhibition ; several large donations towards various 
 schemes connected with the buildings and grounds; the iron 
 gates on Broad Street from Francis North, lirst Earl of Guild- 
 ford; the clock from Henry Marquis of Worcester and his brother; 
 and a quantity of plate from fellows and gentlemen-commoners, 
 including a very fine ewer and basin from Frederick Lord 
 North and his step-brother Lord Lewisham. Unfortunately the 
 general revenues of the College never received any augmenta- 
 tion, and though they rose with the value of agricultural 
 produce, are not likely to develop further. 
 
 The next president was Thos. Sykes, Lady Margaret Professor; 
 but he had waited so long for the vacancy that he died in the 
 following year, and was succeeded by Wm. Dobson, after whose 
 death in 1731 George Huddesford governed the College for 
 nearly half a century. He was followed by Jos. Chapman 
 (1776—1808) and Thos. Lee (1808—1824). They all took 
 their doctor's degree, and were all buried in the chapel; but 
 they were not men of any particular distinction, and it is 
 difficult to individualise them. Huddesford, however, had some 
 reputation as a wit and antiquarian, and his brother William, 
 also at Trinity, is known as the editor of some important works. 
 In the eighteenth century the foundation of Trinity did no 
 better in producing learned men than other Colleges. There 
 were, however, at various dates, a few fairly well-known men — 
 Rev. Thomas Warton, M.D., and his better known son and 
 namesake, the Professor of Poetry and Laureate ; John Gilbert, 
 Archbishop of York ; Mant, Bishop of Down and Connor ; Wise, 
 Lethieullier, Dallaway, and Ford, antiquarians ; James Merrick 
 and Wm. Lisle Bowles, authors. Among commoners were 
 Frederick Lord North, the Prime Minister, as well as his father 
 and son, his brother Brownlow Bishop of Winchester, and step- 
 brother William Earl of Dartmouth ; the heads of the Beaufort, 
 Doneoral, Umberslade, Hereford, De Clifford, Ashbrook, and 
 Winterton families ; William Pitt, the great Earl of Chatham ; 
 Johnson's friends, Bennet Langton and Topham Beauclerk ; the 
 usual number of country baronets, e. g. a Northcote, a Cope, a 
 Car-ew, and several Shaws, together with members of families 
 long connected with Trinity, such as Eacott, Borlase, Whorwood, 
 
342 TRINITY COLLEGE. 
 
 Wheeler, Lingen, Woodgate, Guille, Sheldon, Norris; and Walter 
 Savage Landor, who had to be rusticated for firing a gun into 
 the rooms of another man, whom he hated for his Toryism, 
 when he was entertaining what Landor called a party of 
 " servitors and other raffs of every description." 
 
 Trinity seems to have been considered a quieter college than 
 others, if we may believe one G. B., who writes to the Gentlemaris 
 Magazine in 1798, that ''at the small excellent College of 
 Trinity were Lord Lewisham, Lord North, Mr. Edwin Stan- 
 hope [?] &c., all as regular as great Tom. Of Lord Lewisham 
 and Lord North it was said that they never missed early prayers 
 in their College chapel one morning, nor any evening when not 
 actually out of Oxford, either dining out of town, or on a water- 
 party." In 1728 the south side of the new quadrangle was built 
 on the site of the north side of the Durham buildings ; the Lime 
 Walk was planted in 1713, at a cost of £8 19s. 3d; the hall 
 was cheaply refitted ; but on the whole the College must have 
 presented the same homely appearance that it bore up to 1883. 
 The old houses on Broad Street, formerly academic halls, were 
 bought from Oriel, and the ground recently the President's 
 kitchen-garden from Magdalen; but no use was made of the 
 site till late in the present century. 
 
 The best known Trinity man in the eighteenth century was 
 Thomas Warton, who was intimate with Dr. Johnson and the 
 chief literary men of the time. Personally he was a man of 
 retiring character, and undignified appearance and manners, 
 though he has a pleasant expression in the portrait by Reynolds. 
 In the Bachelors' Common-room at Trinity he founded the 
 custom of electing annually a Lady-Patroness, and a Poet- 
 Laureate to celebrate her charms. His poetry has considerable 
 merit ; he was an indefatigable researcher into English history 
 and literature ; his History of English Poetry is still reprinted ; 
 and Trinity owes him a heavy debt for the Lives of Sir Thomas 
 Pope and Dr. Bathurst. Dr. Johnson often visited him and stayed 
 at Kettell Hall, where he made the acquaintance of his lively 
 friend, Beauclerk, and received the adoration of Langton. " If 
 I come to live at Oxford," he said, " I shall take up my abode 
 at Trinity," and he gave the library in which he preferred to 
 
TRINITY COLLEGE. 343 
 
 read — (" Sir, if a man has a mind to prance, he must study at 
 Christchurch and All Souls ") — a copy of the Baskerville Virgil. 
 
 Some poetical letters, as . yet unpublished, by John Skinner, 
 great-great-grandson of the Bishop, contain some particulars of 
 life in Trinity. He matriculated with a friend from home, one 
 Dawson Warren, on November 16th, 1790 ; dined with Kett, who 
 gave them wine left to him that year by Warton. They lived 
 in Bathurst buildings, had chapel at 8.0 ; breakfasted together 
 on tea, rolls, and toast at 8.30 ; read Demosthenes for Rett's 
 lectures, &c., till 1.0. After riding or sailing in a " yacht " called 
 their Hobby-Horse, they had a hasty shaving and powdering 
 from the College barber for dinner at 3.0 in " messes " or '* sets.'* 
 This concluded with a " narrare " declaimed in hall from the 
 Griffin. Then they talked till 5.30, when they had a concert 
 with professionals (e. g. Dr. Crotch) from the town, concluding 
 with a " tray " of negus, &c. at 9.30. The less virtuous had a 
 wine; their tray was meat and beer; and eventually those of 
 the party who could helped the rest to bed. President Chap- 
 man was considered good-natured ; " Horse " Kett (who wrote 
 several treatises used as text-books, and some poems and novels 
 which the undergraduates did not appreciate), was respected 
 but not liked. Rett's equine features and pompous bearing 
 figure in a good caricature of 1807, "A view from Trinity." 
 
 But if the fellows of Trinity as a rule contented themselves 
 with the routine well satirised by Warton in the Bambler, the 
 ability and energy of some of the tutors, particularly Rett, 
 Ingram, Wilson, and Short, enabled the College to take a lead- 
 ing place in the revival of Oxford as a place of education at the 
 opening of the nineteenth century. The fellow-commoners 
 gradually drop off; among the last were Ar. French first Lord 
 De Freyne, and the late Earl of Erne. But the scholarships, 
 always virtually open owing to the latitude as to counties allowed 
 by the Founder, began to be held by really able men, and the 
 elections to them became an honour keenly competed for. The 
 number of fellowships was small, and the choice subject to 
 some limitations, so that Trinity could not retain all its ablest 
 scholars ; but it succeeded in retaining their affection. Cardinal 
 Newman for instance (admitted as a commoner, 1816 ; scholar, 
 
344 TRINITY COLLEGE. 
 
 1818 [?]), had time to remember his first college at a critical 
 moment of his life ; of his leaving Oxford in 1 846 he writes, 
 " I called on Dr. Ogle [the Regius Professor of Medicine], one 
 of my very oldest friends, for he was my private tutor when I 
 was an undergraduate. In him I took leave of my first College, 
 Trinity, which was dear to me, and which held on its foun- 
 dation so many who had been kind to me both when I was a 
 boy, and all through my Oxford life. Trinity had never been 
 unkind to me. There used to be much snapdragon growing on 
 the walls opposite my freshman's room there, and I had for 
 years taken it as the emblem of my own perpetual residence 
 even unto death in my University." Newman was made an 
 Honorary Fellow in 1878; and in 1885, on sending to the 
 library a set of his works, wrote, " This May the 18th is the 
 anniversary of the Monday on which in 1818 I was elected a 
 member of your foundation. May your yearly festival ever be 
 as happy a day to you all as in 1818 it was to me.'* 
 
 At one time it seemed as if Trinity might take a lead in 
 the Tractarian movement ; but the influence possibly of Ingram 
 and Haddan directed the attention of their pupils to historical 
 studies, at first ecclesiastical, but afterwards of a more general 
 character. It is too early at present to estimate the exact 
 place of individuals in the literature of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury; but among those who will be said to have "flourished" 
 since 1800, and by whose work the influence of Trinity on the 
 period may be judged, may be mentioned the late Archdeacon 
 Randall, Rev. Isaac Williams the poet and theologian. Rev. W. 
 J. Copeland, J. W. Bowden, Rev. W. H. Guillemard, Sir G. K. 
 Rickards, Rev. A. W. Haddan, the elder Herman Merivale, 
 Mountague Bernard the international jurist, Bishops Claughton 
 of St. Alban's, Stubbs of Oxford, Basil Jones of St. David*s, and 
 Davidson of Rochester, Vera (Lord) Hobart Governor of Madras, 
 Roundell Palmer Earl of Selbome, Ralph (Lord) Lingen, Pro- 
 fessors Rawlinson, Freeman, Dicey, Sanday, Bryce, Pelham, Ram- 
 say, Rev. Sir G. Cox, Rev. North Pinder, Rev. Isaac Gregory 
 Smith, Bosworth Smith, the travellers William Gifford Palgrave 
 and Sir Richard Burton, to omit more junior present and recent 
 members of the foundation and commoners. Some of those 
 
VIsiV£.HSlTY 
 TRINITY nOTJ.Ea^SiLgALlFORH}^ 345 
 
 mentioned when scholars were famed for the " Trinity rjOos," 
 which denoted "considerable classical attainments and certain 
 theological susceptibilities." 
 
 The annals of the College during this period can only be 
 glanced at. Dr. James Ingram, president 1824 — 1850, was 
 well known as one of the first authorities on EDglish antiquities 
 and Anglo-Saxon literature : by the undergraduates he was 
 looked upon as what an old pupil has called a " physical force 
 man." He left to the College a large and valuable collection 
 of topographical and antiquarian books. The next president. 
 Dr. John Wilson, of whose great care for the College estates 
 and archives many striking proofs remain, was one of those 
 Heads of Houses who adopted a non possumits attitude towards 
 the first University Commission ; he resigned in 1866, and 
 retired to Woodperry House, where he died in 1873. His 
 successor, the Eev. Samuel William Wayte, had been one of the 
 secretaries to the Commissioners; he conferred great benefits on 
 the College by his careful management of the property, and 
 exercised considerable influence in the University. In 1878 he 
 retired to Clifton, where he still lives. In electing in his place 
 the Rev. John Percival, head master of Clifton College, who 
 had never been on the books of Trinity, the fellows took a step 
 unusual but not unprecedented in College history ; in 1887 he 
 resigned, on accepting the headmastership of Rugby School. 
 Under Dr. Percival the new statutes of the Commission of 
 1877-81 came into force; to them is due a slight increase 
 which has taken place in the number of Scholars. The number 
 of commoners had already exceeded the traditional limit of 
 " forty men and forty horses," and partly in consequence of this, 
 it was determined to build; between 1883 and 1887 the large 
 block of rooms and the new president's lodgings in the front 
 quadrangle, both by Mr. T. G. Jackson, were constructed ; Kettell 
 Hall was bought from Oriel, and the picturesque cottages on 
 Broad Street and the old president's house converted into 
 college rooms. A large portion of the money necessary for 
 these purposes was contributed by present and past members of 
 the foundation, and other graduates of the College. 
 
 We may conclude by mentioning some other important 
 
346 TRINITY COLLEGE. 
 
 benefactions of the present century. James Ford, B.D., 
 rector of Navestock, left funds for the purchase of advowsons, 
 and for exhibitions appropriated to certain schools ; the Millard 
 bequest provides an endowment for "natural science. A present 
 of money from a " Member of the College " has been spent on 
 portraits for the hall; an organ for the chapel was given by 
 President Wayte ; and seven windows of stained-glass represent- 
 ing Durham College saints, have recently been given by the 
 Rev. Henry George Woods, M.A., the present President, to 
 whom this account of Trinity College may be appropriately 
 inscribed. 
 
 Note. — It is impossible to form a complete list of the persons 
 educated at Trinity College, since the first general Register of 
 Admissions commences only in 1646, and the entries are not 
 autograph till 1664. But an approximate estimate may be 
 made from various records, such as (1) the Admission Registers 
 A, B, and C, 1646 — 1891, (2) the formal admissions before a 
 notary public of the Scholars or Fellows from 1555, contained 
 in the College Registers, (3) the Bursars' annual account from 
 1579 — 1646 of Caution-money paid by Commoners, (4) the 
 University Registers, which give some names not contained in 
 the preceding, principally of the " poor scholars " who did not 
 pay Caution-money. The total numbers seem to be not much 
 under 6000, and of this nearly 1000 persons have been members 
 of the foundation. — H. E. D. B. 
 
XV. 
 
 S. JOHN BAPTIST COLLEGE. 
 
 By the Eev. W. H. Hutton, M.A., Fellow of S. John's. 
 
 After the dissolution of the religious houses there were in 
 Oxford numbers of deserted buildings, little suited for private 
 residences, but useful only, as they were designed, for corporate 
 life. Some fell into decay, and have now utterly disappeared ; 
 others, by the wisdom of men interested in the intellectual 
 revival of the age, were refounded as places of religion, learning, 
 and education. To this latter class beloncrs the Collesje of 
 S. John Baptist. It occupies the site and some of the buildings 
 of a Bernardine House founded by Archbishop Chichele in 1437, 
 as a place where the Cistercian scholars studying at Oxford 
 " might obtain humane and heavenly knowledge." By Letters 
 Patent of Henry VI. the Archbishop received leave to " erect a 
 College to the honour of the most glorious Virgin Mary and 
 S. Bernard, in the street commonly called North Gate street, in 
 the parish of S. Mary Magdalene, without the North Gate." ^ 
 The buildings consisted only of a single block facing westwards, 
 with one wing behind.^ The hall was built about 1502, and the 
 chapel consecrated in 1530. All of these remain in use. The 
 monks had also a garden, leased at first part from University 
 College and part from Durham College. 
 
 At the dissolution in 1539, the lands, buildings, and revenues 
 of S. Bernard's College were given by Henry VIII. to his newly 
 
 1 /S. John's College MSS. 
 
 2 The statue of S. Bernard over the great gate still remains. 
 
348 S. JOHN BAPTIST COLLEGE. 
 
 founded College and Cathedral of Christ Church, in whose 
 possession they remained some sixteen years. In 1555, the 
 deserted buildings were restored to use, and the College re- 
 founded under Letters Patent of Philip and Mary, granted at 
 the request of a rich and munificent London trader. Sir Thomas 
 White. He was a Merchant Taylor of renown, who had been 
 Sheriff of London in 1547, and Lord Mayor in the year of Sir 
 Thomas Wyatt's rebellion, when he had rallied the citizens to 
 the cause of Queen Mary. He had, says a College chronicler,^ 
 poured over England a torrent of munilicence, and now among 
 the many things in which he deserved well of the State, this 
 was the worthiest. There is a legend that he was directed in 
 a dream to found a College hard by where three trunks grew 
 from the root of a single elm,^ and the tree which was said to 
 have decided him to purchase the buildings of S. Bernard's 
 was pointed out as still standing in the garden of Dr. Levinz, 
 President of S. John's College from 1673 to 1697. Beyond the 
 buildings, there was no link between the old Society and the 
 new. The Cistercian tradition had left no trace ; Sir Thoma,s 
 White's foundation was a new creation. 
 
 The College thus founded in 1555, was to be set apart ^ for 
 study of the sciences of Sacred Theology, Philosophy, and good 
 Arts ; it was dedicated to the praise and honour of God, of the 
 Blessed Virgin Mary His Mother, and S. John Baptist, and the 
 Society was to consist of a President and thirty graduate or non- 
 graduate scholars. In 1557,^ both the scope and numbers of the 
 original Foundation were enlarged ; Theology, Philosophy, Civil 
 and Canon Law were now declared to be the subjects of study, 
 and the number of Fellows and scholars was raised to fifty, of 
 whom ^ six were to be founder's kin, two from Coventry, Bristol, 
 and Reading schools, one from Tunbridge and the rest from the 
 Merchant Taylors' school in London. Twelve were to study Civil 
 and Canon Law, one Medicine, and the rest Theology. There 
 
 • Joseph Taylor, D.C.L., Hist, of College, dated 1666. College MSS, 
 
 2 Ibid. It is mentioned also in Terrae Filius. 
 
 3 Royal Patent of Foundation, 1 and 2 Phil. & Mar. 
 
 * 5th March, 4th and 5th Phil, and Mar. . 
 
 ^ Statutes as revised under Dr. Willis ; Jos. Taylor's MS. Hist. . 
 
S. JOHN BAPTIST COLLEGE. 349- 
 
 were also added three priests as chaplains, six clerks not priests 
 yet not married, and six choristers. From the first the College 
 was intimately connected with the country round Oxford, for the 
 founder endowed it with the manors of Long Wittenham, Fyfield, 
 Cumnor, Eaton, Kingston-Bagpuze, Frilford and Garford, in the 
 counties of Berks and Oxon, and with sundry advowsons in the 
 neighbourhood. It was at Handborough that the first President, 
 Alexander Belsire, B.D., who was appointed by the Founder, 
 died. He had been Rector for several years, and had retired 
 there when removed from the headship on account of his 
 maintenance of the papal supremacy. Several of the earlier 
 Presidents held the living of Kingston-Bagpuze. In the manor- 
 house at Fyfield the kinsfolk of the founder continued to live 
 on for many generations, paying a nominal rent to the College, 
 which from its piety thus suffered a considerable pecuniary loss 
 at a time when its finances were at a very low ebb.^ Nearer 
 home, the manor of Walton, which had formerly belonged to 
 the nunnery of Godstow, gave the College a share in the 
 interests of the citizens of Oxford, which has continued to our 
 own time. 
 
 During its earlier years Sir Thomas White watched over the 
 institution which he had founded. The statutes which he gave 
 were substantially those of New College, and this return to the 
 scheme of William of W^ykeham, which had been so largely 
 adopted at Cambridge, shows that the alterations made by the 
 founders of Magdalen, Corpus Christi, and Trinity, were not felt 
 to be improvements. He had nominated the first President, 
 his own kinsman John James as Vice-President for life, and the 
 earlier Fellows. By his advice probably the second and third 
 Presidents, and certainly the fourth, were appointed. He. drew 
 up also the most minute directions for the election and for the 
 binding of the President to the performance of his duties, and 
 for the government of the College. In all he set himself on 
 behalf of the Society to seek peace and ensue it. If any strife 
 should arise which could not within five days be appeased by 
 
 1 The lease had been made during the last years of the founder's life, at 
 his request, and was especially excepted from the Acts 18 Eliz. cap. 6 and 
 18 Eliz. cap. 11 against long leases of corporate property. 
 
350 S. JOHN BAPTIST COLLEGE. 
 
 tlie President and Deans, it must — so he ruled — be referred to 
 the Warden of New College, the President of Magdalen, and 
 the Dean of Christ Church, and by their decision all must 
 abide. As he drew towards his end he wrote a touching letter 
 of farewell to the Society which lay so near his heart. It runs 
 thus — " Mr. President, with the fellows and scholars, I have me 
 recommended unto you from the bottom of my heart, desiring 
 the Holy Ghost may be among you until the end of the world, 
 and desiring Almighty God that every one of you may love one 
 another as brethren, and I shall desire you all to apply your 
 learning, and so doing God shall give you His blessing, both in 
 this world and in the world to come. And furthermore if any 
 strife or variance do arise among you I shall desire you for 
 God's love to pacify it as much as you may, and so doing I put 
 no doubt but God shall bless every one of you. And this shall 
 be the last letter that ever I shall send unto you, and therefore 
 I shall desire every one of you to take a copy of it for my sake.^ 
 No more to you at this time, but the Lord have you in His 
 keeping until the end of the world. Written the 27th of Jan., 
 1566. I desire you all to pray to God for me that I may end 
 my life with patience, and that He may take me to His mercies. 
 By me. Sir Thomas White, Knight, Alderman of London, and 
 founder of S. John Baptist College in Oxford." 
 
 Within a fortnight from the writing of this letter the founder 
 died. He was buried with solemn ceremonial in the College 
 chapel, where his coffin was found intact when that of Laud was 
 laid beside it nearly a century later. A funeral oration was 
 preached by one of the most brilliant of the junior Fellows, 
 Edmund Campion, soon to win wider notoriety, and eventually 
 to die a shameful death. 
 
 The loss of the founder made more evident the weaknesses 
 with which the College had had to struggle from the first. It 
 was wretchedly poor. The munificence of Sir Thomas White 
 himself had more than exhausted his purse. He died a poor 
 man ; much of what he had intended for the College never 
 reached it, — it would have been less still but for the scarcely 
 
 ^ This letter was soon printed, and every Fellow and scholar may still 
 receive a copy of it. 
 
S. JOHN BAPTIST COLLEGE. 351: 
 
 judicial assistance, " partly by pious persuasions and partly by 
 judicious delays/' of his executor Sir William Cordell, who 
 was Master of the Rolls, — and some of the estates, like Fyfield, 
 were burdened with encumbrances which he had left behind. 
 Nor was this all. Before the end of the century one of the 
 Bursars seems to have embezzled the College money and fled, 
 becoming a Papist, and getting employment where his ante- 
 cedents were not known, as paymaster to an Archduke of 
 Austria. As early as 1577 the expenses had to be cut down; 
 the chapel foundation was reduced if not altogether suspended. 
 But the College not only suffered from pecuniary troubles ; it 
 seems to have been peculiarly affected by the religious changes 
 of the time. So long as the founder had lived, his tact had 
 smoothed the difficulties of the transition from the Marian to 
 the Elizabethan rule. Two at least of the earlier Presidents 
 were deprived for asserting the Pope's supremacy, yet the 
 change was managed without disturbance. But when the wise 
 counsels of the founder could no longer be heard, and when the 
 Papal Court had declared itself the bitter foe of Elizabeth, 
 Fellow after Fellow retired, or was deprived, and joined the 
 Roman party. For this cause no less than six members of the 
 foundation are recorded within a few years to have been im- 
 prisoned. Some, like Gregory Martin, who had been tutor to 
 the Duke of Norfolk's children, and was afterwards the trans- 
 lator of the " Rheims Bible," fled over sea ; some died in hiding, 
 some in English gaols. One, Edmund Campion, a brilliant 
 orator and a bold defender of the Papal jurisdiction, became a 
 Jesuit, was mixed up in several political intrigues, and eventu- 
 ally was hanged at Tyburn. It might seem as though the 
 little College, poor and divided, would never weather the storm. 
 That it did so was no doubt due to the patience and devotion 
 of its members. During its darkest years, at the end of the 
 sixteenth century, there were found philosophers and theologians, 
 such as Dr. John Case,^ and skilful administrators such as Dr. 
 
 1 "A.M. 1572. M.D. 1590. Cujiis scripta extant logica,ethica,oeconomica, 
 in 8*. libb : physicoruni encomium, musicae encomium, apologia Academi- 
 arnm, rebellionia vindiciae, quae tamen nondum in luce prodierunt." Coll. 
 MSS, 
 
352 S. JOHN BAPTIST COLLEGE. 
 
 Francis Willis (President, 1577—1590), poets and rhetoricians, 
 and London merchants, who gave their talents and their money 
 to support the fame of the struggling Society. 
 
 By the beginning of the sixteenth century the College was on 
 its feet again ; before a quarter of the century had passed its 
 influence was the most important in the University. Great men 
 had begun to send their sons there. In 1564 came two sons of 
 the Earl of Shrewsbury ; in 1572 two Stanleys and young Lord 
 Strange. At the accession of James I. few Colleges had among 
 their members so many men already distinguished or soon to 
 win distinction. Tobie Matthew, a former President, had risen 
 to be Dean, and then Bishop, of Durham, and died Archbishop 
 of York. Sir William Paddy, a Fellow and notable benefactor, 
 was the King's physician. John Buckeridge (President, 1605 — 
 1611) became Bishop first of Rochester and then of Ely. A 
 Fellow of the College had been the Maiden Queen's ambassador 
 to Russia ; many others were famous in the law courts. But 
 two men especially were destined to play a part on a wider 
 scene. In 1602 William Juxon, a lad of gentle birth, from 
 Sussex, matriculated at S. John's. William Laud, born at 
 Reading on October 7th, 1573, elected a Fellow of S. John's 
 College at the early age of twenty, was Proctor in the year of 
 the King's accession. From this year the history of the College 
 may be considered to be inseparable from that of the little 
 energetic personage who left so great a mark upon the history 
 of the English Church. 
 
 On the 18th of January, 1605, Dr. John Buckeridge was 
 elected President on the death of Ralph Hutchinson. In 
 August of the same year, King James visited the University. 
 At the gate of S. John's "three young youths ^ in habit and 
 attire like nymphs, confronted him, representing England, Scot- 
 land, and Ireland, and talking dialogue-wise each to other of 
 their state, at last concluding yielding up themselves to his 
 gracious government. The Scholars stood all on one side of the 
 street ; and the strangers of all sorts on the other. The Scholars 
 stood first, then the Bachelors, and last the Masters of Arts." 
 Two days afterwards, at the end of a long day, the King saw a 
 1 Oxonianayi. 133. 
 
S. JOHN BAPTIST COLLEGE. 353 
 
 comedy, called Vertumnuus, written by Dr. Gvvynne, a Fellow 
 of S. John's. " It was acted much better than either of the 
 other that he had seen before, yet the King was so over- wearied 
 that after a while he distasted it and fell asleep. When he 
 awaked he would have been gone, saying, ' I marvel what they 
 think me to be,' with such other like speeches, showing his 
 dislike thereof. Yet he did tarry till they had ended it, which 
 was after one of the clock." 
 
 At this time the University was greatly influenced by 
 Calvinist doctrines. It was from S. John's that the first 
 opposition to the prevalent opinions came, and it was thus that 
 William Laud first became famous. Laud was ordained deacon 
 and priest by Dr. Young, Bishop of Rochester, who, "finding 
 his study raised above the systems and opinions of the age, 
 upon the noble foundations of the fathers, councils, and the 
 ecclesiastical historians, early presaged that if he lived he would 
 be an instrument of restoring the Church from the narrow and 
 private principles of modern times to the more enlarged, liberal, 
 and public sentiments of the apostolic and primitive ages." 
 Dr. Young was right in his prophecy, for Laud was soon the 
 leader of the reaction against Calvinism in the University, as he 
 was afterwards successful in asserting more liberal and Catholic 
 sentiments in the Anglican Church at large. By maintain- 
 ing in theological lectures and sermons before the University 
 the doctrine of baptismal regeneration and the divine insti- 
 tution of Episcopacy, he made himself prominent in opposition 
 to the chief authorities of the day, who were all imbued with 
 Calvinistic views. It was reckoned, so in later years he told 
 Heylin, a heresy to speak to him, and a suspicion of heresy to 
 salute him as he walked in the street. Yet he had no lack of 
 friends ; the most eminent members of his own College seem 
 always to have stood by him, — we have Sir William Paddy's 
 approval of an University sermon that had caused much offence, 
 — and before long he found the whole University converted to 
 his views. There were sermons and pamphlets and answers 
 and counterblasts, inquiries by Vice-Chancellor and Doctors, 
 threats of suspension, murmurs of disloyalty to the Church, as 
 there have often been since in Oxford theological tempests ; but 
 
 A A 
 
354 S. JOHN BAPTIST COLLEGE. 
 
 the misconception and bitter feeling were gradually overcome 
 by the steadfast conscientiousness of Laud. He received a 
 number of preferments outside the University, was especially 
 honoured by Bishop Neile of Rochester, and resigned his 
 Fellowship in 1610 to devote himself entirely to parochial 
 work. At the end of that year, however, Dr. Buckeridge, 
 President of S. John's, was elected Bishop of Rochester in 
 succession to Dr. Neile, and by his advice and support Laud 
 was proposed for the vacant headship of the College. Calvinist 
 influence in the University was set to work to induce the King 
 to prevent the appointment, but without success, and Laud was 
 elected on May 10th, 1611. The election was marked by keen 
 and violent party feeling. When the nomination papers had 
 been laid on the altar (as was the custom in College elections 
 down to within living memory), and the Vice-President was 
 about to announce the result, one of the Fellows, Richard 
 Baylie, snatched the papers from his hands and tore them in 
 pieces. It is characteristic of Laud's freedom from personal 
 animosity, that he passed over this act of irritable partisanship 
 and showed special favour to the culprit. He procured the choice 
 of Baylie as Proctor in 1615, afterwards made him his chaplain, 
 married him to his niece, supported his election in 1632 to the 
 Presidency itself, and in 1636 appointed him Vice-Chancellor of 
 the University. In the same year, 1611, Laud became one of 
 the King's chaplains, and from this time was not without royal 
 influence to assist him in his University contests. 
 
 He had still great difficulties to contend with. Dr. Abbot, 
 Regius Professor of Divinity and brother of the Primate, 
 preached against him in S. Mary's, his assertion of anti- 
 Calvinistic doctrine, or Arminianism as it was now called, 
 being the cause of complaint. "Might not Christ say, what 
 art thou ? Romish or English, Papist or Protestant ? — or what 
 art thou ? A mongrel compound of both ; a Protestant by 
 ordination, a Papist in point of free will, inherent righteousness, 
 and the like. A Protestant in receiving the Sacrament, a Papist 
 in the doctrine of the Sacrament. What, do you think there be 
 two heavens? If there be, get you to the other and place 
 yourself there, for into this where I am ye shall not come." 
 
S. JOHN BAPTIST COLLEGE. 355 
 
 To such coarse stuff as this was Laud compelled to listen ; he 
 '•was fain to sit patiently" among the heads of houses, and 
 " hear himself abused almost an hour together, being pointed 
 at." But this was merely the vindictive retort of a vanquished 
 party. 
 
 In 1616 the King sent some instructions to the Vice- 
 Chancellor which exercised a powerful effect on the theology 
 and discipline of the University. Care was to be taken that 
 the selected preachers throughout the city should conform to 
 the doctrine of the Church, and that students in Divinity 
 should be *' excited to bestow their time on the Fathers and 
 Councils, schoolmen, histories and controversies, . . . making 
 them the grounds of their studies in divinity." In the same 
 year Laud was made Dean of Gloucester. In 1621 he became 
 Bishop of S. David's, and resigned the headship of the College. 
 During the following years he does not seem to have been 
 much in Oxford, and it was not till 1630, when he was 
 made Chancellor, that he exercised effective control over the 
 University. While he was busied in the affairs of the Church 
 at large, and was rising step by step to the highest ecclesiastical 
 preferment, his College, under the government of Dr. William 
 Juxon, grew in prosperity. Sir William Paddy, always a bene- 
 factor, gave a "pneumatick organ of great cost," and by his 
 will endowed an organist with singing men, and left books and 
 money to the Society of which he was, says a College chronicler, 
 a member as munificent as learned. The organ, though its 
 erection was made by Prynne one of the accusations against 
 Laud, escaped destruction during the Rebellion, and was in use 
 till 1768. Bishop Buckeridge left more money to the College, 
 and altar furniture for the chapel. Within the years 1616 — 1636 
 large sums of money came in, and gifts of land and advowsons of 
 livings were made by persons more or less connected with the 
 College ; the buildings were added to, and by the time when 
 Laud, as Bishop of London and Chancellor of the University, 
 had set himself to " build at S. John's in Oxford, where I was 
 bred up, for the good and safety of that College," the College, 
 still much less than a century old, was freed from the pecuniary 
 troubles which so much crippled it in its earlier years. 
 
356 S. JOHN BAPTIST COLLEGE. 
 
 The new quadrangle, which was begun in July 1631, when 
 the King gave two hundred tons of wood from the royal forests 
 of Stow and Shotover to aid in the building, was a magnificent 
 expression of the donor's generosity and love for the College. 
 It was completed in 1636, and Laud, now Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, having assigned by special direction the new rooms to the 
 library, to the President, and for the use of commoners, made 
 elaborate preparations to receive the King and Queen when they 
 " invited themselves " to him. They brought with them the 
 King's nephew, the Elector Palatine and Prince Rupert, who 
 were entered on the books of S. John's. Laud's College and his 
 new library were the centre of the entertainments that marked 
 their stay in Oxford. The Archbishop's own words ^ give the 
 best account of the festivities. On the 30th of August, 1636, he 
 says, " When they were come to S. John's they first viewed the 
 new building, and that done I attended them up to the Library 
 stairs, where as soon as I began to ascend the music began and 
 they had a fine short song fitted for them as they ascended the 
 stairs. In the Library they were welcomed to the College with 
 a short speech made by one of the Fellows (Abraham Wright). 
 And dinner being ready they passed from the old into the new 
 library, built by myself, where the King, the Queen and the 
 Prince Elector dined at one table which stood cross at the 
 upper end. And Prince Rupert with all the lords and ladies 
 present, which were very many, dined at a long table in the 
 same room. When dinner was ended I attended the King 
 and the Queen together with the nobles into several with- 
 drawing chambers, where they entertained themselves for the 
 space of an hour. And in the meantime I caused the windows 
 of the hall to be shut, the candles lighted, and all things made 
 ready for the play to begin. When these things were fitted, I 
 gave notice to the King and Queen and attended them into the 
 halL . . . The play^ was very good and the action. It was merry 
 and without offence, and so gave a great deal of content. In 
 the middle of the play I ordered a short banquet for the King, 
 
 1 Laud's Works, vol. v. p. 152 sqq. 
 
 2 It was called " Love's Hospital," and was written by George Wilde, 
 who in 1661 became Bishop of Deny. 
 
S. JOHN BAPTIST COLLEGE. 857 
 
 the Queen, and the lords. And the College was at that 
 time so well furnished as that they did not borrow any one 
 actor from any College in town. The play ended, the King 
 and Queen went to Christ Church. ' A contemporary notes 
 among the quaintnesses of the entertainment that " the baked 
 meats were so contrived by the cook, that there was first the 
 forms of archbishops, then bishops, doctors, etc., seen in order, 
 wherein the King and courtiers took much content." " No man," 
 says Laud, "went out at the gates, courtier or other, but content; 
 which Avas a happiness quite beyond expectation." The next 
 day, when the royal party had left, the Chancellor entertained 
 the University authorities, '* which gave the University a great 
 deal of content, being that which had never been done by any 
 Chancellor before." " I sat with them," he says, " at table ; we 
 were merry, and very glad that all things had so passed to the 
 great satisfaction of the King and the honour of that place." 
 
 By this time Laud had not only given to his own College a 
 notable position in the University, but had reformed and 
 legislated for the University itself. The statutes had long 
 been in confusion ; Convocation in any case of difficulty passed 
 a new rule which frequently conflicted with the old statutes, 
 and the government of the undergraduates seems to have been 
 very lax. The University submitted its laws to the Chancellor, 
 who, with the aid of a learned lawyer of Merton College, revised 
 and codified them. How he desired that the students should be 
 ruled may be seen by his careful direction to the heads of 
 Colleges,^ that " the youths should confirm themselves to the 
 public discipline of the University. . . And particularly see that 
 none, youth or other, be suffered to go in boots or spurs, or to wear 
 their hair undecently long, or with a lock in the present fashion, 
 or with slashed doublets, or in any light or garish colours ; and 
 that noblemen's sons may conform in everything, as others do, 
 during the time of their abode there, which will teach them 
 to know the difference of places and order betimes ; and when 
 they grow up to be men it will make them look back upon 
 that place with honour to it and reputation to you." So success- 
 ful was he in impressing the spirit of discipline and self-restraint, 
 
 1 Laud's Worksy vol. v. pp. 82, 83. 
 
358 S. JOHN BAPTIST COLLEGE. 
 
 that Sir John Coke was able to congratulate the University in 
 1636 that "scholars are no more found in taverns, nor seen 
 loitering in the streets or other places of idleness or ill-example, 
 but all contain themselves within the walls of their Colleges, 
 and in the schools or public libraries, wherein I confess you 
 have at length gotten the start, and by your virtue and merit 
 have made this University, which before had no paragon in any 
 foreign country, now to go beyond itself and give a glorious 
 example to others not to go behind." In the Register of S. 
 John's College there are curious examples of the discipline 
 maintained. To take an instance from a somewhat later time, 
 under the date of April 4th, 1668, we have " Memorandum, that 
 I, Thomas Tuer, being convented and convicted, secunda vice, 
 before the Vice-President and Seniors of the breach of the 
 statutes de morum hooiestate by injuriously striking Sir Waple, 
 was for this my fault according to the statutes on that behalf put 
 out of commons for 15 days. Thomas Tuer." 
 
 By his example of conscientious perseverance, by his devotion 
 to learning, and by his munificent building and endowment, 
 Laud had brought both his College and the University to a 
 high standard of culture and research. These were indeed the 
 halcyon days of S. John's, when Laud, its " second founder," was 
 Chancellor of the University and Primate of all England ; 
 Juxon his pious and sagacious successor as President was 
 Bishop of London and Lord Treasurer ; and Dr. Richard Baylie 
 governed the College, whose annalist says that never was there 
 more diligent scholar, more learned Fellow, or more prudent 
 Head.^ But the University soon fell on evil days ; discipline was 
 dissolved, teaching and learning were alike suspended, and the 
 streets rang with the summons to arms. The city bore for 
 several years the aspect at once of a camp, and of an exiled 
 Court. In these troubles S. John's had its full share. Scholars 
 joined the King's troops, Fellows were driven from their country 
 livings, the College gave up its treasures to the Royal cause. In 
 the College Register of 1642 is inserted the following letter — 
 " Charles R. Trusty and well beloved, we greet you well. We 
 are so well satisfied with your readiness and Affection to our 
 1 Jos. Taylor, Coll. MS. 
 
S. JOHN BAPTIST COLLEGE. 359 
 
 service that we cannot doubt but you will take all occasions to 
 express the same. And as we are ready to sell or engage any 
 of our lands, so we have melted down our Plate for the payment 
 of our Army raised for our defence and the preservation of the 
 Kingdom. And having received several quantities of Plate 
 from divers of our loving subjects we have removed our Mint 
 hither to our City of Oxford for the coining thereof. And we 
 do hereby desire you that you will send unto us all such plate 
 of what kind soever which belongs to your College, promising 
 you to see the same justly repaid unto you after the rate of 
 5s. the ounce for white, and 5s. 6d. for gilt plate as soon as 
 God shall enable us. For assure yourselves we shall never let 
 persons of whom we have so great a care to suffer for their 
 affection unto us, but shall take special order for the repayment 
 of what you have already lent to us according to our promise. 
 . . . And we assure ourselves of the very great willingness to 
 gratify us herein, since besides the more public considerations 
 you cannot but know how much yourselves are concerned in 
 our sufferings. And we shall always remember this particular 
 service to your advantage. Given at our Court at Oxford this 
 Gthdayof Jan. 1642 (1643)." 
 
 " In answer to his Majesty's letters," says the Register, ** it 
 was consented and unanimously agreed by the President and 
 Fellows of the College that the plate of the College should be 
 delivered unto his Majesty's use." It was melted down, and the 
 coin so struck was stamped with the initials of the President, 
 Dr. Richard Baylie. 
 
 In June 1643 the King wrote again to the College, asking 
 that some of its members should subscribe 4s. a week for a 
 month for the support of soldiers : " we do assure you on the 
 word of a king that this charge shall lie on you but one month." 
 Soon after this Laud resigned his Chancellorship in a touching 
 letter from his prison, and in making his will showed the deepest 
 attachment to the College where he " was bred." Baylie, who 
 was his executor, was not long suffered to remain in his post. 
 The Parliamentary Commission which visited the University in 
 January 1648 ordered that the President of S. John's College, 
 " being adjudged guilty of high contempt by denial of the 
 
360 a JOHN BAPTIST COLLEGE. 
 
 authority of Parliament, be removed from" his office, "and 
 accordingly the said Dr. Baylie is required forthwith to yield 
 obedience hereunto, and to remove from the said College and 
 quit the said place, and all emoluments, rights and appoint- 
 ments thereunto belonging." They abolished the choral service, 
 appropriating Sir William Paddy's endowment to the increase 
 of the President's salary. These Commissioners, says Dr. Joseph 
 Taylor, were men "in whom there was nothing lacking save 
 religion, virtue, and learning," and the oath which they required 
 of the Fellows, for the sake of ejecting them when they refused 
 it, was " as ridiculous as it was detestable." In the place of the 
 existing foundation they put as President Francis Cheynell, the 
 zealot who had anathematized Chillingworth as he lay dying 
 (a man, says Taylor, "non tan turn fanaticus sed et furiosus"), 
 and they filled the Fellowships with men collected anywhere 
 and than the majority of whom " there could be nothing more 
 ignorant or more abject." Cheynell held the Presidency only 
 two years, when he was obliged to make choice between it and 
 a valuable living in Sussex. He was succeeded by one Thankful 
 or Gracious Owen, a Fellow of Lincoln College, under whose 
 rule the College languished in poverty and neglect until the 
 Restoration, its property dissipated and its learning in decay. 
 
 The return of the King brought back Head and Fellows. A 
 blank page in the College Register is followed by a lease signed 
 by " R. Baylie," without note or comment on his deprivation or 
 j'eturn. The first results of the Restoration were works of piety. 
 Before long the body of the aged Juxon was laid near the founder 
 beneath the altar in the chapel. It was now possible to carry out 
 the last wish of Laud himself, who in his will had desired " to 
 be buried in the chapel of S, John Baptist College, under the 
 altar or communion table there." All was done privately, as he 
 had himself directed. Yet the stillness of night, the torches 
 and the flickering candles, the reverence of the restored founda- 
 tion to the greatest and most loyal of its sons, must have given 
 a unique solemnity to the scene. " The day then, or rather the 
 night," says Anthony Wood, "being appointed wherein he 
 should come to Oxon, most of the Fellows, about sixteen or 
 twenty in number, went to meet him towards Wheatley, and 
 
S. JOHN BAPTIST COLLEGE. 361 
 
 after they had met him, about seven of the clock on Friday, 
 July 24th, 1663, they came to Oxon at ten at night, with the 
 said number before him, and his corpse lying on a horse litter 
 on four wheels drawn by four horses, following, and a coach after 
 tbat. In the same way they went up to S. Mary's Church, 
 then up Cat's Street, then to the back-door of S. John's Grove ; 
 where, taking his coffin out, they conveyed [it] to the chapel ; 
 when Mr. Gisbey, Fellow of that house and Vice-President, had 
 spoke a speech, they laid him inclosed in a wooden coffin in a 
 little vault at the upper end of the chancel between the founder's 
 and Archbishop Juxon's." 
 
 The most interesting period of the College history was during 
 the reigns of the Stuarts. The same spirit of devotion to the 
 Church and loyalty to the throne which had animated Laud and 
 Juxon still breathed in their successors. Tobias Rustat, Esquire, 
 Yeoman of the Robes to Charles II., and Under Housekeeper 
 of Hampton Court, left a large sum to endow loyal lectures — two 
 on " the day of the horrid and most execrable murder of that 
 most glorious Prince and Martyr " ; oue to be read by the Dean 
 of Divinity, and the other by " some one of the most iugenious 
 Scholars or Fellows whom the President shall appoint," setting 
 forth the "barbarous cruelty of that unparalleled parricide"; one 
 by the Dean of Law on October 23rd, "which was the day wherein 
 Rebellion did appear solemnly armed against Majesty " ; and a 
 fourth on the 29th of May, "setting forth the glory and happi- 
 ness of that day," which saw the birth of Charles II. and his 
 " triumphant return." There is in the College library a curious 
 portrait of Charles I., over which in a minute hand several 
 Psalms are written. Tradition has it that when the " merry 
 monarch " visited Oxford he asked for this eccentric piece of 
 work, and that when, on leaving, in recognition of his loyal wel- 
 come he offered to give the Fellows anything they should ask, 
 they declared that no gift could be so precious as the restoration 
 to them of the portrait of his father. The story, true or not, 
 could only be told of a College which was famous as the home 
 of devoted loyalty to the Stuarts. It was Dr. Peter Mews (or 
 Meaux), Baylie's successor as President, who lent his carriage 
 .horses to draw the royal cannon to Sedgmoor. When Nicholas 
 
362 S. JOHN BAPTIST COLLEGE. 
 
 Amherst (the author of a collection of scurrilous essays which 
 he called after the name of the licensed buffoon at the Encaenia, 
 Terrae Filius) was expelled the College for his irregularities, he 
 made up a plausible tale that the reason for his expulsion was 
 that he was the only man loyal to the Hanoverian line in a nest 
 of Jacobites. He lost no opportunity of attacking the College, 
 with no regard for truth or consistency. Dr. Delaune (President 
 1698 — 1728) was his most prominent victim. Once, says he, 
 that learned President was affronted in the theatre by Terrae 
 Filius, who called out to him by name as he came in, shaking a 
 box and dice, and crying '' Jada est aha, doctor, seven's the 
 main," in allusion to " a scandalous report handed about by the 
 doctor's enemies, that he had lost great sums of other people's 
 money at dice." But Jacobitism was an accusation much more 
 plausible, and we are inclined not altogether to disbelieve him 
 when he says that the Latitudinarian Hoadly was abused in a 
 Latin oration in chapel as " iste malus logicus, pejor politicus, 
 pessimus theologus ; a bad logician, a worse statesman, and the 
 worst of all divines." Dr. Richard Rawlinson, who had been a 
 gentleman commoner of the College, and left to it on his death 
 in 1755 the bulk of his estate, was a typical antiquary and wor- 
 shipper of the exiled House. His collection of letters and 
 MSS., the researches which he made into the early history of 
 the Foundation, are among the most cherished possessions of the 
 College. "Ubi thesaurus ibi cor" is the motto of the urn in 
 chapel which contains his heart. His " treasure " was divided 
 between S. John's and the Bodleian ; his heart, which had 
 beaten with an equal affection for the Stuarts and for the 
 College, remained among those who shared his semi-senti- 
 mental attachment. It was said of Dr. Holmes (President 
 1728-48) that he was probably the first Fellow, and certainly 
 the first Head, of the College who was loyal to the Hanoverian 
 Succession. Almost within living memory the Fellows of S. 
 John's in their Common Room, "a large handsome room, the scene 
 of a great deal of learning and a great many puns," ^ toasted the 
 king "over the water." Up till the middle of the present century, 
 
 ^ Terrae Flliiis^ p. 181. The room was built in Charles II. *s reign, and was 
 the first room built in an Oxford College for use by the Fellows in common. 
 
S. JOHN BAPTIST COLLEGE. 363 
 
 indeed, it was a college of survivals. The old loyal lectures 
 were read, the old " gaudies " held, the old rules maintained. 
 Throughout the eighteenth century the founder's order against 
 absence from College was strictly observed : all permissions to 
 be away from Oxford were carefully recorded in the Register. 
 Leave was at first only granted on the business of the College, 
 or the king, or a bishop ; and it is said of one Dr. Sherard 
 that he had to give up his Fellowship when he had exhausted 
 the list of the Episcopal bench. Even Doctors of Divinity were 
 obliged to get license to " go down." Dr. Smith, though Master 
 of Merchant Taylors' School (died 1730), could not teach his 
 boys without the College leave to be absent from Oxford. 
 Only in recent years has iconoclastic modernism destroyed the 
 old progresses round the College estates, formal fishing of 
 the College waters, and festive commemoration of days of 
 ecclesiastical or royalist note. The history of the last and of 
 the present century lies outside the scope of this sketch, and 
 the share that S. John's has had in the important movements of 
 the last seventy years is left untold. Much has undergone 
 chajge, at the hands of Time and of Parliamentary Com- 
 missions; but there still lingers one feature of the old life of 
 the University which elsewhere has passed away. S. John's 
 alone of all the Colleges has (1891) no married Fellows ; thus 
 here as it can scarcely be elsewhere, the College life is most 
 closely centered within the College walls. 
 
XVI. 
 
 JESUS COLLEGE. 
 
 By the Rev. Ll. Thomas, M.A., Vice-Principal of Jesus College. 
 
 Jesus College was the first Protestant Society established in 
 Oxford, and its appearance marks an epoch in the history of the 
 University; for "if Christ Church was the last and grandest 
 effort of expiring Mediaevalism, if Trinity and St. John's com- 
 memorated the re-action under Philip and Mary, Jesus, by its 
 very name, took its stand as the first Protestant College." ^ 
 
 It may seem at first sight that there ought to be little 
 difficulty in tracing the origin and settlement of a College which 
 thus came into being in the latter half of the sixteenth century ; 
 but, partly because much is obscure in the history of the 
 institution out of which it was erected, and partly because there 
 are practically no College records for the first sixty years of its 
 own existence, the historian of Jesus College has very scanty 
 materials for his account of its foundation and early annals, and 
 has to put down much which rests rather on inference than on 
 documentary evidence. 
 
 About the year 14!60, John Rowse, the Warwick antiquary, 
 wrote down a list ^ of Halls and other places of study in Oxford. 
 In this four Halls are mentioned, all for "legists," that is, 
 students of Canon and of Civil Law, viz. White, Hawk, Laurence, 
 and Elm Halls, which stood on the site now occupied by Jesus 
 
 1 J. R. Green in The Druid (College Magazine), 1862. 
 » Printed in Wood's CUy of Oxford (edit. Clark), i. 640. 
 
JESUS COLLEGE. 365 
 
 College. These represented a once greater number of Halls, 
 for Laurence Hall had absorbed Plomer (or Plummer) Hall ; and 
 in White Hall had been merged another White Hall/ which 
 stood back to back with it, and apparently (but the evidence is 
 hardly tangible) other Halls. In the next century the number 
 of Halls was still further reduced, and by 1552 we find White 
 Hall alone left,^ having possibly drawn into its own precincts 
 the buildings of its old neighbours. This White Hall stood on 
 the north side of Cheyney Lane (now called Market Street), a 
 short distance from the corner where it enters the Turl. It was 
 a very old place of study, being mentioned as early as 1262, and 
 having a well-marked succession of Principals from 1436 to 
 1552. 
 
 The point of capital importance in view of its relation to 
 Jesus College is whether, about the time of the Reformation, 
 White Hall became distinctly a Hall for Welsh students; but 
 that point cannot be determined. The occasional and imperfect 
 lists of members of White Hall found up to 1552 exhibit only 
 a few Welsh names, from which it may perhaps be inferred that 
 Welshmen were then in a distinct minority in this Hall. The 
 two graduates of White Hall who are mentioned in 1562^ are 
 both Welsh, as also are their pupils; but these notices are a 
 mere accident. If, however, Jesus College took over the inmates 
 of White Hall, they must have been mostly Welshmen, because 
 the first College list ^ (1572-3, two years after the foundation) 
 exhibits almost exclusively Welsh names. On the whole, it is 
 best to say that the evidence does not justify the belief that 
 White Hall, which Jesus College superseded, was distinctly a 
 Hall of Welsh students. 
 
 At the petition of Hugo Price, or Ap Rice, Doctor of Laws, 
 Treasurer of St. Davids, Queen Elizabeth granted the first 
 Letters Patent, dated the 27th of June, 1571, establishing 
 '* quoddam Collegium eruditionis scientiarum, philosophiae, 
 bonarum artium, linguarum cognitionis, Hebraicae, Graecae, et 
 
 1 See Wood's City of Oxford, i. 586, 587. 
 
 2 In that year its members were three graduates and eighteen under- 
 graduates, with a manciple and cook. 
 
 3 Clark's Eegiater of the University of Oxford^ II. ii. 7. * Ihid. p. 36. 
 
366 JESUS COLLEGE. 
 
 Latinae, ad finalem sacrae Theologiae professionem," and confer- 
 ring on the new foundation all the lands, buildings, and per- 
 sonalty of White Hall. From these words of the Foundation 
 Charter it appears that the College was primarily intended to 
 be a place of training for theologians ; a secondary object is thus 
 summed up, "denique ad Ecclesiae Christi, regni nostri, ac 
 subditorum nostrorum communem utilitatem et felicitatem." 
 
 Soon after the issue of the Letters Patent, but it is not known 
 exactly when, the building of the College began, the first portion 
 erected being two stories of the east front and two staircases ^ 
 of the southern side of the outer quadrangle. For many years, 
 probably till 1618, the work was not extended, and the following 
 story is handed down. A stone was inserted in the wall on the 
 south side of the gateway, bearing this inscription — 
 
 " Struxit Hugo Prisius tibi clara palatia, lesu, 
 Ut Doctor Legum pectora docta daret." 
 
 "Nondum," laughed a University wit, one Christopher 
 Rainald, 
 
 " Nondum struxit Hugo, vix fundamenta locavit : 
 Det Deus ut possis dicere ' struxit Hugo ' ! " 
 
 Of the first founder, Hugo Price, very little is known, " He 
 was born," Wood says, " at Brecknock,^ bred up as 'tis generally 
 thought, in Oseney Abbey, under an uncle of his that was a 
 Canon there ; " he did not long survive the foundation of the 
 College, and was buried (August 1574) in the Priory Church at 
 Brecon. 
 
 The Letters Patent provide for the constitution of the College 
 to consist of a Principal, eight Fellows, and eight Scholars, 
 nominate persons to fill all these places, and arrange for future 
 appointments. 
 
 The Principal nominated was David Powell, Doctor of Laws. 
 
 1 Thus, it would seem, leaving the buildings of White Hall untouched 
 for the present. 
 
 2 On the north side of the gateway the following distich was carved — 
 
 " Breconiae natus patriae monumenta reliquit, 
 BreconiaD populo signa sequenda pio." 
 
JESUS COLLEGE. 367 
 
 Among the Fellows may be noticed Kobert Johnson, B.D.,^ 
 afterwards Archdeacon of Leicester, the founder of Uppingham 
 and Oakham Schools. Among the scholars Thomas Dove, after- 
 wards Bishop of Peterborough, and Lancelot Andrews, Bishop 
 successively of Chichester, Ely, and Winchester. The College is 
 then incorporated, invested with corporate legal powers and a 
 common seal, and united with the University " ut pars, parcella, et 
 membrum." Concession is granted to Hugo Price to endow the 
 College with lands and revenues to the amount of a clear £60 
 per annum, and to the College to receive further endowments 
 to the extent of £100 a year ; and finally an important body of 
 Commissioners is appointed (including Lord Burghley and other 
 maofnates, and the Chancellor or Vice-Chancellor of the Uni- 
 versity, together with the Principal and two Fellows), to draw 
 up all the necessary statutes for the government of the College. 
 There is also a tradition that leave was given to the College to 
 receive a supply of timber from the royal forests of Stow and 
 Shotover towards the erection of the fabric. 
 
 The second Letters Patent of Queen Elizabeth were issued on 
 the 7th day of July, 1589, eighteen years after the first patent. 
 Their object appears to have been to appoint Francis Bevans to 
 the Principalship, to authorize the College to receive further 
 benefactions to the amount of £200 a year, and to nominate a 
 still more important body of Commissioners to draw up the 
 College statutes. These second Commissioners included several 
 ecclesiastical and legal dignitaries, the Chancellor and Vice- 
 Chancellor of the University, the Principal, and apparently 
 three Fellows of the College, and Kichard Harrys, Principal of 
 Brasenose College. The presence of the last-mentioned Com- 
 missioner probably accounts for the fact that the new statutes 
 were framed upon the model of the Brasenose statutes. There 
 seems to have been some delay in drawing up these statutes, 
 but they were finally completed and ordered to be written " fayre 
 in a Booke." This " Booke " seems to have been sent from one 
 
 1 His father was Maurice Johnson of Stamford, M.P. for Stamford in 
 1523 ; but his mother was a Welsh heiress and had property in Clun. This 
 was perhaps the connection with "Wales that made him be chosen on the 
 Foundation. He had been of Clare Hall and Trinity College, Cambridge, 
 
368 JESUS COLLEGE. 
 
 Commissioner to another for approval and correction, and at least 
 once was reported to be lost; but was eventually recovered and 
 deposited in the College. 
 
 The third Letters Patent concerning the College are those of 
 King James I., dated June 1st, 1621, in the fiftieth year of the 
 College. After reciting both the Letters Patent of Queen Eliza- 
 beth, the King confirms the establishment of the College ; 
 arranges for the addition and co-optation of eight additional 
 Fellows and eight additional scholars ; and incorporates the 
 College anew to consist of sixteen Fellows and sixteen scholars. 
 Further, Sir Eubule Thelwall, one of the Masters of the Court 
 of Chancery, is nominated to the Principal ship ; and vacancies 
 in the Fellowships and scholarships are filled up. It is worthy 
 of notice that two of the original Fellows, Robert Johnson and 
 John Higgenson, and two of the original scholars, Lancelot 
 Andrews and Thomas Dove, are still retaining their places. 
 
 It is remarkable that in the three documents above-mentioned 
 there is no word or expression which implies any local limitation 
 of the College. There is no direct or indirect allusion to place 
 of birth or education in the Letters Patent or in the statutes. 
 And yet the founder was a Welshman, and probably intended 
 his new foundation to be a Welsh College. The Tudors were 
 always ready to acknowledge their Welsh origin; hence the 
 readiness of Queen Elizabeth to accede to the request of Dr. 
 Hugo Price, and even to contribute something of her royal 
 bounty. Yet no formal means were adopted to secure and con- 
 tinue the connection of the College with Wales. If we review 
 the lists of the Fellows nominated in the two Letters Patent 
 of Elizabeth, we know by the names only (even apart from 
 our actual knowledge from other sources) that they are not all 
 Welshmen. But it is otherwise with the Principals. Every 
 one of these, from the foundation to the end of the eighteenth 
 century, shows by his name^ his connection with Wales. 
 The times in which Dr. Hugo Price lived were times of some- 
 what despotic government ; the Principal appointed the Found- 
 ationers ; and it may have seemed a sufficient safeguard to the 
 
 1 PriDcipal Hoare (1768—1802) may seem to be an exception, but the 
 College books record that he was born in Cardiff. 
 
JESUS COLLEGE. 369 
 
 first founder if it should become a tradition that the Principal 
 must be a Welshman. At any rate, if it was not his intention 
 to secure the connection with Wales by such means, it does not 
 seem possible that he could have selected any which would have 
 been more successful. From the time of the Restoration it is 
 exceedingly rare to find the admission of any one to a Scholar- 
 ship or Fellowship who was not qualified for the preferment by 
 birth in Wales. It is only important to notice that this exclus- 
 iveness grew up by custom and tradition, but was not ordained 
 by statute or authority. In the time of Sir Leoline Jenkins a 
 fixed system was adopted,^ and certain Fellowships and Scholar- 
 ships were assigned respectively to North and South Wales ; but 
 it was not so at the first. 
 
 Of the first six Principals, five were Fellows of All Souls, and 
 only two in Holy Orders. The diversity in the authority by which 
 they were appointed is to be remarked. The first and third were 
 nominated by the Crown in the Letters Patent ; of the appoint- 
 ment of the second there is no record ; the fourth was " elected 
 Principal, 17th May, 1602, by three Fellows that were then 
 in the College " ; the fifth was nominated by the Chancellor of 
 the University, and admitted, under his mandate, by the Vice- 
 Chancellor, 8th September, 1613, no Fellows appearing or 
 claiming the right of election ; the sixth Principal was nomin- 
 ated by the Chancellor, and admitted by the Vice-Chancellor, 
 after a contest with the Fellows, which brought about the final 
 settlement of the dispute in favour of the College by the third 
 Letters Patent. 
 
 The cause of this uncertainty is not difficult to discover. Had 
 the College been definitely constituted, the statutes would have 
 provided for the filling up of vacancies in the ordinary way of 
 election by the Fellows. But the Royal Commissioners had neg- 
 lected to settle the College by statutes, and the Chancellor of the 
 University claimed to appoint the Principal of the College as he 
 had enjoyed the right of appointing the Principal of White Hall. 
 
 The question between the claims of the Fellows and of the 
 Chancellor was brought to an issue in 1620. On 29th June in 
 
 1 The Indenture by which Sir Leoline Jenkins assigned definite Fellow- 
 ships and Scholarships to North or South Wales is dated 1685. 
 
 B B 
 
370 JESUS COLLEGE. 
 
 that year the Chancellor (Lord Pembroke) nominated Francis 
 Mansell (his kinsman and chaplain) Principal on the death 
 of Griffith Powell ; and on 3rd July the Vice-Chancellor (Dr. 
 John Prideaux, Rector of Exeter) admitted him in spite of the 
 protests of the Fellows who claimed the election. On 13th 
 July, Mansell expelled from their Fellowships three of his chief 
 opponents ; and on 17th July the Vice-Chancellor interposed in 
 Mansell's favour the authority of his office against a fourth. ^ 
 
 The subsequent stages in the dispute are not upon record; but 
 that Mansell felt his position insecure is obvious from his resig- 
 nation of the Principalship and his retura to his All Souls 
 Fellowship before his year of grace at that College had expired. 
 His successor, Eubule Thelwall, by what authority appointed is 
 not known, obtained within a year the third Letters Patent under 
 which the constitution of the College was finally determined, 
 and the right of election secured to the Fellows. 
 
 Griffith Powell, the fifth Principal, had been a considerable 
 benefactor, and was the first to extend the buildings of the College 
 since the foundation. He began to enlarge it by the addition of 
 the battery, kitchen, and hall ; but dying before they could be 
 completed, he left them, together with the south side of the outer 
 quadrangle, to be completed by Sir Eubule Thelwall, " that most 
 bountiful person, who left nothing undone that might conduce 
 to the good of the College." Francis ^lansell, his successor, was 
 a Fellow of All Souls, but had been a commoner of the College. 
 He was third son of Sir Francis Mansell, of Muddlescomb, in the 
 county of Carmarthen. Of him we have very full information 
 from the Life^ by Sir Leoline Jenkins, which presents a most 
 interesting and vivid picture of the troublous times in which he 
 lived. Dr. Francis Mansell performed the unprecedented feat of 
 holding the Principalship three times, being twice appointed, 
 and once restored, to the office. He watched the growth of the 
 buildinsfs under the two great benefactors — Sir Eubule Thelwall 
 and Sir Leoline Jenkins ; and he himself aided the work by his 
 advice, gifts, and diligence in collecting contributions. 
 
 1 See Clark's Begister of the University of Oxford, XL i. 291—293. 
 
 2 Printed (but not published) in 1854. This contemporary Memoir has 
 therefore been largely used in the present sketch. 
 
JESUS COLLEGE. 371 
 
 On Mansell's resignation of the Principalship in 1621 his 
 place was filled by Sir Eubule ThelwalL He was the fifth son 
 of John Thelwall of Bathavarn Park in the county of Denbigh, 
 bred in Trinity College in Cambridge till he was Bachelor of 
 Arts, then corning to Oxford, was incorporated here in the same 
 degree in 1570. Afterwards Master of Arts of this University, 
 Counsellor at Law, Master of the Alienation Office, and one of the 
 Masters in Chancery, he was admitted Principal in the month 
 of May 1621. He procured from King James a new charter 
 (mentioned above), and greatly increased the buildings of the 
 College, not only completing the kitchen, buttery, and hall, but 
 adding a house for the Principal, and the chapel — which, how- 
 ever, was afterwards enlarged by the addition (in 1636) of 
 a sacrarium. He also built a library, " with a walk under," 
 probably a colonnade, to the north of the Hall and west of hig 
 new house ; but it is doubtful whether he meant this to 
 be a permanent building. He enlarged the foundation, aug- 
 mented the endowments of the College, and enriched the 
 library with books. He died October 8th, 1630, and was buried 
 in the chapel. 
 
 On the death of Sir Eubule Thelwall, Dr. Francis Mansell 
 was again appointed to the Headship. Encouraged, perhaps, by 
 the example of his predecessor, he, in his second tenure of the 
 office, greatly enlarged the buildings of the College, "for 
 though our Principall had no fonds but that of his owne Zeale, 
 such was the Interest, which his Relation in Blood to the many 
 noble Families and (which was more prevailing) his public and 
 pious Spirit, had procured him, that he had Contributions 
 sufficient in view to finish and perfect his new Qua^lrangle ; S' 
 George Vaughan of Ffoulkston in Wiltshire having declared 
 that himselfe would be at the whole charge of the west end, 
 which was designed to be the Library; but all these pious 
 designes and contributions were lost by the dispersions and 
 Ruines that by the Warr befell those who intended to be our 
 Benefactors." ^ Notwithstanding, Dr. Mansell was able to efifect 
 
 ^ The Life of FrcmcU ManseU^ D.D., by Sir Leoline Jenkins, p. 46. Sir 
 George Vaughan is said to have been of Falle8ley,WiIt«. — ^notof Ffoulkston 
 — his family was a branch of the Breconshire Vaughans. 
 
372 JESUS COLLEGE. 
 
 much, for he pulled down Thelwall's library, which does not 
 seem to have been a satisfactory building, and erected the north 
 and south sides of the inner quadrangle. He also enriched the 
 College with revenues and benefices, some of which appear to 
 have been since alienated. 
 
 Dr. Mansell was obliged to leave Oxford in 1643, owing to "the 
 sad newes of his Brother S"" Anthony's decease, who fell with all 
 the circumstances of signall Piety and Vallor in the first Newbury 
 fight; where he commanded as field-Officer under Lord Herbert 
 of Ragland." He had to remain in Wales to settle his brother's 
 affairs, and look after his orphan children for some time; but "the 
 Garrison of Oxon being surrendered in 1646, and the Visitation 
 upon the University coming on, in July 1647, he hastened away 
 from Wales to his station there ; and though the Earle of Pem- 
 broke (who was chiefe in the Action) owned our Principall as his 
 near Kinsman and had a Favour to the College as the naturall 
 Visitor thereof by Charter, and though the Earles Two younger 
 Sons who had lived severall years Commoners in the College 
 under our Principall's charge, offered him their Service with all 
 Affection possible, yet neither the Propensions of the Earle, nor 
 the Kind offices of his Sons could bring our Principall to fframe 
 himself to any the least evasion, much less to the direct owneing 
 of that Power. Being ejected out of the Headship, which was 
 not actually done by order of the Visitors till the one and 
 twentieth day of May 1648, he Applyed himself to state all 
 Accompts between him and the College ; And having delivered 
 the muniments and Goods that belong to it to the hands of the 
 Intruders, he withdrew into Wales and took up his Residence 
 att Llantrythyd, a House of his Kinsman's, Sir John Auberey's 
 K°* and Baronett, which house Sequestration having made deso- 
 late, while Sir John was in prison for his Adherence to the King, 
 afforded him the Conveniency of a more private retirement and 
 of having severall young Gentlemen of Quality, his Kindred 
 under his eye, while they were taught and Bread up by a young 
 man ^ of his College that he had chosen for that employment." 
 
 Here he suffered many persecutions and indignities, " for the 
 Doctor s very Grave and Pious aspect, which should have been a 
 . 1 Presumably Leoline Jenkins. 
 
JESUS COLLEGE. 373 
 
 protection to him among Salvages, was no other than a Tempta- 
 tion to those (who reputed themselves Saints) to Act their 
 Insolencies upon him." At last, driven from his retirement, he 
 returned to Oxford, where, " when our Principall came first to 
 Towne, he took up at Mr. Newmans,^ a Baker in Holy-well ; but 
 the good Offices he dayly rendered to the College disposed the 
 then Society so farr to comply with his Inclinations (which had 
 been allway to live and dye in the College) as to invite him to 
 accept of one Chamber for accommodating himself, where he 
 built severall faire ones for the Benefitt of the College. This 
 motioji was accepted, and he Lived in the College, near the 
 stoney staires near the Gate, for eight years where he had Leisure 
 to observe many Changes and Revolutions within those Walls, as 
 without them till that happy one of his majestie's Restauration 
 by God's infinite Mercy to the College as well as to the Nation 
 happily came on." 
 
 He was restored to his Headship on the 1st of August 1660, 
 but owing to '* the decayes of Age, especially dimness of Sight," 
 he resolved to resign once more. His first wish was that Dr. 
 William Bassett, Fellow of All Souls, should succeed him, " who 
 would have added to the Reputation of the College by his 
 Government, and to the Revenew of it in all Probability, by his 
 generous minde and ample Fortune ; But Dr. Basse tt's want of 
 health not allowing him to accept of the Burthen, it was (by 
 the Unanimous Consent of all the Fellowes at a ffree-election 
 the first of March, 1660,^ and with the good Liking of Our Com- 
 mon Father) devolved upon Dr. Jenkins,^ This being done he 
 had no other thought but for Heaven, nor Leasure but for 
 Prayer ; he came by degrees to be confined to his chamber and 
 
 1 Tlie house and business still remain, No. 66 Holywell. 
 
 2 1661, as we now reckon the year. 
 
 « The letter of thanks to Mansell, in which Jenkins acknowledges that 
 he owed his election entirely to Mansell's influence, came into the hands of 
 Anthony Wood, who had tlie art of " acquiring " stray papers, and the habit 
 of preserving them ; and it is now in Wood MS. F. 31. It may be noted 
 that Jenkins' good services to his College, and many personal kindnesses to 
 Wood himself, compel the Oxford antiquary for once to give the lie to his 
 reputation that he " never spake well of any man " ; the terms in which he 
 speaks of Sir Leoline are always handsome. 
 
03 
 
 : 16 . 
 
 6 
 
 03 
 
 . 14 : 
 
 3 
 
 00 
 
 10 : 
 
 00 
 
 374 JESUS COLLEGE. 
 
 at last to his Bed and upon the first day of May 1665 he 
 changed this Life for a better of Blisse and Immortality." 
 
 The following items from the Book of Beceipts and Disburse- 
 ments, in Dr. Mansell's own handwriting, are of interest as 
 showing some of the charges to which a College was put during 
 the Civil War— 
 
 "Other various and Extraordinary Expenfes, moft of them 
 pecuHar to the time. 
 
 Put uppon Domus by M"^ Evans for Bread and 
 
 Beere to the Kinges Souldiers at their 
 
 firft Cominge to Oxon from Edgehill . 01 : 02 : 6 
 Payd by him the Taxe layd uppon the Coll : 
 
 towards the works from the beginninge of 
 
 itto the 28*^of JixT^; '43 
 More by him for Mufquets, Pikes and the like 
 Given by him to the Prince his Trumpetters . 
 Payd by Pole after 12*^ a head every weeke 
 
 for all of the Coll. towards the fortifica- 
 tions in Xft Church Meade from the 17*^^ 
 
 of June to the end of July , . . 02 : 11 : 00 
 More towards the fame in Aug. & Sept. . . 02 : 7 : 00 
 For a little Peece of Plate of another man's, 
 
 which was in my Study, and by miftake 
 
 taken out with the Coll. Plate,^ and lent 
 
 to his Ma"^, which weighed fome what 
 
 more than 8 ounces . . . . 02 : 00 : 00 
 
 Pay'd uppon his Maj*'®^ Motion towards the 
 
 Maintenance of his Foote Souldiers for 
 
 one Monthe after fewer Pounds by the 
 
 Weeke 
 
 The Totall of Receipts .... 
 
 The Totall of Difburfments . 
 
 And fo the Difburfments doe exceede the 
 
 Receipts by the Summe of . . . 246 : 3:10 
 Which I the Principall have lay'd out of the 
 
 1 The plate " lent " by Jesus College to the King is stated by Bishop 
 Tanner to have weighed 86 lb. 11 oz. 5 dwt. 
 
 16 
 
 00 : 
 
 00 
 
 95 : 
 
 2 : 
 
 5 
 
 341 
 
 6 : 
 
 3 
 
JESUS COLLEGE. 375 
 
 ColL Money remayninge in my hands, 
 
 mine owne, or what I borrowed of others. 
 
 And I difburfed the money lent by Common 
 
 Confent to his Ma"« 100 : 00 : 00" 
 
 In the interval between Dr. Mansell's ejection in 1648 by the 
 Parliamentary Visitors and his restoration in 1660 by Charles 
 II.'s Commissioners, two Principals ruled the College. Of the 
 first of these, Michael Roberts, Sir Leoline Jenkins uses the 
 words " infamous and corrupt." Perhaps the words are not to 
 be taken literally; but nothing of the kind is said of his 
 successor, Francis Howell, though he also was a Puritan. It is 
 also on record that in 1656 the Fellows deposed Roberts on 
 charges of embezzling the College funds and corrupt dealing 
 in elections ; and that although for the time the Parliamentary 
 Visitors refused to endorse the action of the Fellows, he did 
 vacate his Principalship that year or the next, presumably to 
 avoid expulsion. Afterwards he " lived obscurely " in Oxford, 
 dying on 3rd May, 1670, "with a girdle^ lined with broad gold 
 pieces about him (100£ they say)," and was buried in St. 
 Peter's in the East churchyard. The appointment in his place 
 of Francis Howell, Fellow of Exeter, on 24th October, 1657, 
 marks the ascendancy of the Independents over the Presby- 
 terians in Puritan Oxford. The Fellows of the College had 
 elected Seth Ward (afterwards Bishop of Salisbury), but the 
 Independents persuaded Oliverus Protector to appoint Howell, 
 after the fashion already set in Oxford by Elizabetha Regina, 
 and afterwards followed by Jacobus Rex. 
 
 In the Familiar Letters of James Howell are some interesting 
 notices of Oxford and of Jesus College during the times of 
 Mansell, Thelwall, and Jenkins. The writer, James Howell, 
 son of Thomas Howell, minister of Abernant in Carmarthen7 
 shire, was born about 1594 ; and entered Jesus College, where 
 he took his B.A. degree, in 1613. During his absence abroad in 
 the diplomatic service he was chosen on the Foundation of his 
 College by Sir Eubule Thelwall ; but whether he was actually 
 admitted is not recorded. Space forbids extracting from his 
 
 1 Wood's (MS.) Diary, under that date. 
 
376 JESUS COLLEGE. 
 
 letters the entertaining passages about Oxford ; but this is the 
 less to be regretted since the letters are found in many editions, 
 the last being issued in 1890. 
 
 Some years after Howell had left College, viz. in 1638, Henry 
 Yaughan, " The Silurist," entered. In early life he does not 
 seem to have written much; it was owing to illness and trouble 
 that he was led to imitate and often to excel the devotional 
 poetry of George Herbert. This is not the place to dwell upon 
 his merits. His works have been little read, but have gradu- 
 ally asserted their claim to an enduring place in English 
 literature. 
 
 Soon afterwards his twin brother, Thomas Yaughan (Eugenius 
 Philalethes), an eminent writer, philosopher, and chemist, was 
 educated in the College. In 1644, James Usher, Archbishop of 
 Armagh, was resident in and a member of the College. At a 
 still earlier period (1602), Rees Prichard was a member of the 
 College. He was afterwards Yicar of Llandovery, and became 
 an eminent poet. His book Canwyll y Gymrit, is the best 
 known and most highly valued collection of devotional and 
 religious poetry in the Welsh language. 
 
 The above were all Anglican Churchmen and Royalists, but 
 there was at this period some Puritanism in the College. " The 
 growth of Puritan feeling in the city of Oxford is shown by the 
 formation of the first Baptist Society under Yavasour Powell of 
 Jesus College, in 1618. He made many converts in Wales, and 
 in 1657 we hear of John Bunyan accompanying him to Oxford. 
 Powell died at last in the Fleet Prison." ^ 
 
 Among other distinguished members of the College during 
 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries may be briefly mentioned 
 Dr. John Davies (1573), a Welsh scholar and grammarian; John 
 Ellis (1628), author of Glavis Fidei ; Edward Lhwyd (1682), a 
 celebrated antiquary, and keeper of the Ashmolean Museum ; 
 Henry Maurice (1664), a learned divine and Margaret Professor 
 of Divinity ; David Powel (1571), a learned divine and eminent 
 antiquary ; his son Gabriel Powel (1592), considered " a prodigy 
 of learning " ; John White, M.P. (1607), a well-known character 
 during the Commonwealth; John Williams (1569), Margaret 
 ^ Boase's Ox/m-d, p. 140. 
 
2. John Rider 
 
 3. Lewis Bay ley 
 
 4. Edmund Griffith ... 
 
 5. Morgan Owen 
 
 6. Thomas Howell 
 
 7. Hugli Lloyd 
 
 8. Francis Da vies 
 
 9. Humphrey Lloyd ... 
 
 10. William Thomas ... 
 
 11. William Lloyd ... 
 
 12. Humphrey Humphreys 
 
 13. John Parry 
 
 14. John Lloyd 
 
 15. John Evans ... 
 
 16. John Wynne 1 
 
 JESUS COLLEGE. 377 
 
 Professor of Divinity, Dean of Bangor, and author ; Sir William 
 Williams, a very eminent lawyer and statesman, Speaker of the 
 House of Commons, Solicitor- and Attorney-General (1688) ; 
 Owen Wood (1584), Dean of Armagh, a considerable benefactor 
 to the College ; with many Bishops, a list of whom is here 
 
 given : — 
 
 Bishops ediicated in Jesus College. 
 1. Richard Meredith ... ... Leighlin and Ferns (1589) 
 
 Killaloe (1612) 
 
 Bangor (1616) 
 
 Bangor (1633) 
 
 Llandaff (1639) 
 
 Bristol (1644) 
 
 Llandaff (1660) 
 
 Llandafe (1667) 
 
 Bangor (1673) 
 
 St. Davids (1677), Worcester (1683) 
 
 St. Asaph (1680), Lichfield (1698), 
 
 Worcester (1699) 
 Bangor (1689) 
 Ossory (1689) 
 St. Davids (1686) 
 Bangor (1701), Meath (1715) 
 St. Asaph (1714), Bath and Wells 
 (1729) 
 
 Bishops not educated in Jesus College, but who have been members of the 
 
 Society.^ 
 Lancelot Andrews ... Chichester, Ely, Winchester 
 
 Thomas Dove ... ... Peterborough. 
 
 Leoline Jenkins, who succeeded Dr. Mansell in 1661, has been 
 well termed the second founder of the College. He almost 
 completed the buildings, restored discipline, fostered study, 
 augmented the revenues, and at his death left his whole estate 
 to the College. He therefore deserves a somewhat fuller record 
 of his life than any of his predecessors or successors. His 
 charges as a Judge and Commissary of the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, and his correspondence as an Ambassador were 
 published by William Wynne, Esq., of the Middle Temple, in 
 1734, in two large folio volumes ; to this is prefixed a memoir 
 from which we gather the following facts — 
 
 " He was born in the year 1625, in the parish of Llanblithian, 
 
 1 Principal, 1712. His portrait is in the College Hall. 
 
 2 To this list may be added : — 
 
 Francis John Jayne, Chester (1889). 
 See also p. 383, note. 
 
378 JESUS COLLEGE. 
 
 in the county of Glamorgan, and was the son of Leoline Jenkins, 
 or Jenkins Llewelyn, of the same place, a man of about £40 
 a year, and who left behind him in that neighbourhood the 
 character of a very honest, prudent, and industrious man. The 
 first Essays and Foundation of his son's future Learning were laid 
 at Cowbridge School, very near the place of his birth and even 
 then no inconsiderable School, which, as a grateful Acknowledge- 
 ment of benefits there received, he afterwards liberally endowed. 
 "He was admitted into Jesus College in the year 1641, 
 not quite 16 years of age. Mr. Jenkins' behaviour from his 
 first appearance in College was so regular and exact that a 
 good Opinion was soon taken of him. But the Troubles of the 
 Nation soon after coming on, Mr. Jenkins took Arms for the 
 Royal Cause. Thus were his tender years seasoned and exer- 
 cised not only with Learning and Diligence, but also with an equal 
 Mixture of Adversities, the best Preparatives for the succeeding 
 Varieties of his Life. For the Society into which Mr. Jenkins 
 had been admitted, was not only obliged to give way to Strangers, 
 but also the College itself was dismantled, and became Part of 
 a Garrison by Order from Court ; and for some time continued 
 to be the Quarters of the Lord Herbert afterwards Marquiss of 
 Worcester, and of other persons of Quality, that came out of 
 Wales on the King's Service. The Garrison of Oxford being 
 surrendred in the year 1646, and the Visitation of the Uni- 
 versity by the two Houses coming on in the following year, this 
 College, among others, soon felt the fatal Effects of it, for of 
 16 Fellows and as many Scholars, there remained but one 
 Fellow and one Scholar that was not ousted of their Subsistance. 
 Mr. Jenkins retired to Wales and settled not far from Llantry- 
 thyd where Dr. Mansell was living at the House of Sir John 
 Auberey who was an adherent of the Royal Cause. The first 
 employment found for Mr. Jenkins was the tuition of Sir John's 
 eldest son. Being indicted for keeping a Seminary of Rebellion 
 and Sedition, he was forced to leave that Countrey and removed 
 with his Charge to Oxford in May 1651, and settled there in a 
 Town-house belonging to Mr. Alderman White ^ in the High- 
 
 ^ Afterwards Mayor, and knighted. Sir Sampson White's house was 
 opposite University College. 
 
JESUS COLLEGE. 379 
 
 street, which from him was then commonly called and known by 
 the Name of the Little Welsh-Hall. Mr. Jenkins's regular and 
 orthodox Behaviour at Oxford was not quite so close and 
 reserved, as to escape all Observation, but he began to give 
 Offence to some of the inquisitive schismatical Members of the 
 University and was obliged to retire from thence, with his Pupils 
 as it were in his Arms, and go beyond Sea, for fear of Imprison- 
 ment, or of some worse Disaster. Even this was no unlucky 
 Accident, for it helped to add to his former Acquirements the 
 Knowledge of Men as well as Letters. It gave him an Acquaint- 
 ance with some eminent and learned Men, particularly Messieurs 
 Spanheim and Courtin ; it was the Means of acquiring a great 
 Accuracy in the French and other Languages. It appears by 
 a little Diary that he made a Tour over a great part of France, 
 Holland and Germany, and resided at their famous Seats of 
 Learning, especially at Leyden. He returned to England in 
 1658, and was invited by Sir William Whitmore, a great Patron 
 of the distressed Cavaliers, to live with him at Appley in 
 Shropshire, where he continued till the year 1660 enjoying the 
 Opportunities of Study, and a well-furnished Library. As soon 
 as the King was restored to his Kingdom and the University to 
 its just rights, Mr. Jenkins returned to Jesus College, about the 
 35th Year of his Age, and his Reputation among his Countrymen 
 was so considerable that upon his first Appearance and Settle- 
 ment of the Society, he was chose one of the Fellows, and his 
 Behaviour gained so fast upon them that he was very soon 
 after, upon the Resignation of Dr. Mansell, unanimously chose 
 Principal of the College, and thereupon commenced Doctor of 
 the Civil Law. 
 
 " And indeed the College had never more Occasion of such 
 a Ruler than at this Time, when the former Discipline of it 
 had been so long interrupted by the late distracted and licentious 
 Times, and had suffered so much by the Management of his 
 ' infamous and corrupt ' Predecessor.^ Dr. Jenkins did abun- 
 dantly satisfie the Hopes conceived of him ; he made it his first 
 Concern to restore the Exercises, Disputations and Habits, and 
 to review and consider the Body of Statutes. By these prudent 
 
 1 Michael Roberts. 
 
380 JESUS COLLEGE. 
 
 Methods he retrieved the Reputation and advanced the Disci- 
 pline of the College. He busied himself in adding to the 
 Buildings of the College, and completed the Library and part 
 of the western side of the Inner Quadrangle. He was made 
 Assessor to the Chancellor and Deputy Professor of Civil Law. 
 He was also of singular use to' the University in maintaining 
 their Foreign Correspondences by his skill in the French and 
 other Languages. He was also very instrumental to his Friend 
 and Patron Archbishop Sheldon in the Settlement of his Theatre 
 and Printing- House. He not only framed the Draught of that 
 Grant with his own Hand, but also the Statute * de Vesperiis and 
 Comitiis a B. Virginis Marise templo transferendis ad Theatrum,' 
 that the House of God might be kept free for its own proper and 
 pious Uses. 
 
 " The University now became too narrow a Field for such an 
 active Mind and too scanty an Employment for those high and 
 encreasing Abilities which exerted themselves in him. He was 
 therefore encouraged by his Friend the Archbishop to remove 
 to London in Order to apply himself to the publick Practice of 
 the Civil Law. So he resigned his Principality in 1673, and 
 was succeeded by Mr. (afterwards Dr.) John Lloyd. The after 
 career of the great Lawyer was successful and distinguished, 
 but it does not lie within the scope of the present work, so it 
 must be very briefly described. He rose to be Judge of the 
 High Court of Admiralty and Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 
 Ambassador and Plenipotentiary for the General Peace at 
 Cologne and Nimeguen, and Secretary of State to King Charles 
 II. He was also made a Knight, and became Member of Parlia- 
 ment for Hythe, one of the Cinque Ports, and afterw^ards Burgess 
 for his own University, It may, however, be excusable to give 
 the description of his last return to the College he loved so 
 much, when his body was brought to be buried by the side of 
 * his dear Friend Dr. Mansell in Jesus College Chappel.' 
 
 " The Pomp and Manner of his Reception there and of his 
 Interment is thus described by one that was an Eye- 
 witness. When the Corps came near the City, several Doctors, 
 and the principal Members and Officers of the University, the 
 Mayor, Aldermen and Citizens, some in Coaches, some on Horse- 
 
JESUS COLLEGE. 381 
 
 back, went out to meet it and conducted it to the Publick 
 Schools, where the Vice-Chancellor, Bishop of the Diocese and 
 the whole Body of the University were ready to receive it and 
 placed it in the Divinity-School, which was fitted and prepared 
 for that Purpose, with all convenient Ornaments and Decora- 
 tions. Two Days after, the Vice-Chancellor, several Bishops, 
 Noblemen, Doctors, Proctors and Masters met there again in 
 their Formalities, as well as many others that came to pay their 
 last Respects to him ; and the memory of the Deceased being 
 solemnized in a Latin Oration by the University Orator, the 
 Corps was removed to the Chappel of Jesus College. Where the 
 Vice-Chancellor (who happened to be the Principal thereof) 
 read the Offices of Burial ; and another Latin Oration was made 
 by one of the Fellows of the College, which was accompanied 
 with Musick, Anthems and other Performances suitable to the 
 occasion. After which it was interr d in the area of the said 
 Chappel, with a Marble Stone over his Grave and a Latin 
 Inscription on it, supposed to be made by his old Friend Dr. 
 Fell Lord Bishop of Oxford and Dean of Christ Church." 
 
 Among other benefactions Sir Leoline left his valuable library 
 to the College, only reserving forty law-books to begin the 
 library at Doctors' Commons in London. 
 
 His portrait, painted by Tuer, at Nimeguen, hangs in the 
 College Hall ; of this painting there are two replicas, one in 
 the Principal's Lodgings, the other in the Bursary, both so well 
 executed as hardly to be distinguished from the original. He is 
 represented sitting by the council-table in a chair ^ covered 
 with red velvet and holding a memorial in his hand. His dress 
 is plain, but decorated with rich lace at the neck and wrists ; 
 his hair is long and flowing; his features strongly marked and 
 melancholy in expression. 
 
 The last Principal of the seventeenth century was Jonathan 
 Edwards, who seems to have been an able man, and was a 
 benefactor to the College. He contributed £1000 to the 
 improvement and decoration of the chapel. 
 
 A long list of benefactions might be written down for the 
 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ; but space allows individual 
 1 This chair was made the pattern of the chairs in the Bursary. 
 
382 JESUS COLLEGE. 
 
 mention of one only. King Charles I. gave (1686) divers lands 
 and tenements in trust to the University, that they with the 
 profits of them maintain a Fellow in Jesus College (as also in 
 Exeter and Pembroke Colleges) born in the Isle of Jersey or 
 Guernsey. To these benefactions conditions were generally 
 annexed, the profits to be paid to Fellows or scholars, frequently 
 with preference for the kindred of the donor, or for natives of 
 particular places and counties, or for certain schools in Wales. 
 
 The eighteenth century presents a great contrast in interest 
 to its predecessor. In Jesus College it was exceptionally un- 
 eventful. The buildings of the College were complete, the 
 north-west corner of the inner quadrangle being finished in 
 1713. Since then the College has not been altered in form nor 
 enlarged. Several valuable benefactions were received, but there 
 was none of the vigour or enthusiasm of the sixteenth century. 
 The most considerable endowment was what is now called the 
 Meyricke Fund, left in trust to the College by the Rev. Edmund 
 Meyricke. Meyricke was, like the original founder of the 
 College, treasurer of the cathedral church of St. Davids. He 
 was one of the Ucheldre family, a branch of that of Bodorgan, in 
 Anglesey. He declares in his Will — *' as for my worldly estate, 
 which God Almighty hath blessed me with above my merits or 
 expectation, I dispose of in manner following : Imprimis, whereas 
 I always intended to bestow a good part of what God should 
 please to bless me withall for the encouragement of learning in 
 Jesus College, in Oxford, and for the better maintenance of six 
 of the junior scholars of the foundation of the said College out 
 of the six counties of North Wales ; I doe give devise and 
 bequeath all my real and personal estate," &c. The property 
 thus left became very valuable, and a number of Exhibitions 
 were established, strictly confined to Welshmen, with a prefer- 
 ence for natives of North Wales. It has been questioned by 
 some whether this fund has been beneficial to the Colleofe. 
 There is no doubt it made a University education possible to 
 many Welshmen who would otherwise not have thought of an 
 Oxford Degree. These new students, drawn from the middle 
 and lower classes in Wales, soon formed a majority of the 
 undergraduates. It therefore became customary for the sons of 
 
JESUS COLLEGE. 383 
 
 Welsh gentry to resort to other Colleges in Oxford, and to some 
 extent the old connection was broken. This was a decided loss 
 to the social status and prestige of the College ; but it is prob- 
 able that the compensating gain was greater. The young squires 
 who resorted to the University in the eighteenth century were 
 not as a rule students, and formed an element in a College 
 requiring much discipline and toleration. On the other hand, 
 the students, encouraged by the new endowment, if not intel- 
 lectually very distinguished, owing to lack of early advantages, 
 generally made good use of the privileges afforded by the 
 University, and did solid work for the Principality in after life. 
 When the endowments of the College were strictly and by 
 statute confined to Welshmen^ it is in Wales that we must look 
 for educational results. And it must be confessed that when we 
 do look, we are not disappointed. In every department of civil 
 life, but especially in the Church, we find sons of the College 
 occupying posts of usefulness and dignity. Even for the 
 highest posts in the Church there was no deficiency of native 
 talent, but it was the mistaken policy of the Government under 
 the Georges to make use of the Welsh Bishoprics as rewards 
 for English ecclesiastics, who were ignorant of the language and 
 characteristics of the people whom they were supposed to guide 
 — a policy which is now admitted to have inflicted serious, and 
 it is to be feared permanent, injury on the Church in Wales. 
 Thus in the eighteenth century the College was debarred from 
 furnishing occupants of the four Welsh sees, though many of 
 her sons may be pointed out as worthy of the mitre. Soon 
 after the mistaken policy was discontinued we have seen half 
 the Welsh sees occupied by ex-scholars of the College.^ 
 
 Among the distinguished men of this period may be men- 
 tioned Thomas Charles, B.A., 1779, commonly called Charles of 
 Bala, founder of the sect of Calvinistic Methodists, and author of 
 the Geiriadur, a book still much used. He was a man of great 
 piety and learning, and did not secede, but was driven out of 
 the Church by the injudicious treatment of his ecclesiastical 
 superiors. His name is still a "household word" in Wales. 
 
 1 Alfred George Edwards, Bishop of St. Asaph, 1889. 
 Daniel Lewis Lloyd, Bishop of Bangor, 1890. 
 
384 JESUS COLLEGE. 
 
 David Richards (Dafydd lonawr), an eminent Welsh poet, author 
 of Cyivydd y Drindod ; Thomas Jones, 1760, a painter of con- 
 siderable merit, a favourite pupil of Wilson ; Evan Lloyd, 1755, 
 a poet, and friend of Churchill, Garrick, Wilkes, &c. ; Goronwy 
 Owen, a celebrated Welsh poet and scholar, one of the great 
 names in Welsh literature; John Walters, Master of Ruthin 
 School, 1750 ; James Bandinel, the first Bampton Lecturer 
 (1780) ; and William Wynne, 1704, a Welsh poet. We may 
 also mention as a contrast to the above, who are chiefly ecclesi- 
 astics, Richard Nash, best known as " Beau Nash," for fifty years 
 the celebrated Master of the Ceremonies at Bath, whose smile 
 or frown proclaimed social success or ostracism in fashionable life. 
 
 Towards the middle of the eighteenth century the College 
 became in a peculiar degree connected with the Bodleian 
 Library. In 1747 Humphrey Owen, Fellow and afterwards 
 Principal, was elected Librarian. After some years he made 
 John Price, a Fellow of the College, Janitor, and in 1758 
 Adam Thomas, M.A., Sub-Librarian ; when Thomas quitted the 
 Library in 1761 his place was taken by Price, John Jones 
 becoming Janitor. In 1768, on Owen's death, Price was made 
 Librarian, and held office for forty-five years. From 1758 to 
 1788 all the Sub-Librarians in succession were members of 
 Jesus College, and nearly all the persons who are found other- 
 wise employed in the Library — no full or official list exists — 
 bear Welsh names. 
 
 Dr. Johnson in one of his frequent trips to Oxford made 
 Jesus College his head-quarters. This fact has been recently 
 ascertained by Dr. G. Birkbeck Hill, the well-known authority 
 on Johnson and his times, in preparing for publication the 
 great lexicographer's letters. His host was his *' convivial 
 friend," Dr. Edwards the Vice-Principal of the College, the 
 editor of Xenophon's Memorahilia, who gave up his rooms to his 
 guest. These were, probably, situated in the south-western 
 corner of the outer Quadrangle on the first-floor. It was early 
 in June 1782 that Johnson came into residence in the College, 
 at a time when he was broken in health. Nevertheless, as we 
 learn from Miss Hannah More, who was at the time the guest of 
 the Master of Pembroke College, he did what he could to spread 
 
JESUS COLLEGE. 385 
 
 cheerfulness around him. The Fellows of Jesus College were to 
 give a banquet in his honour and hers, to which " they invited 
 Thomas Warton and all that was famous in Oxford." Unfor- 
 tunately she does not give us any account of the banquet. 
 Doubtless it was held and the old Hall rang with the sound of 
 Johnson's deep voice, but not an echo has been caught. The 
 fact of his residence is curiously confirmed by the Battel-books, 
 which show that at the time when he was in Oxford the Battels 
 of Dr. Edwards and other members of the Collesfe were un- 
 usually high. In fact, everybody in the College seems to have 
 indulged in hospitality, no doubt being anxious to let his friends 
 see the great man whose sun was now supposed to be so rapidly 
 setting. 
 
 Perhaps the first half of the nineteenth century is remote 
 enough from our times to warrant the mention of a few names of 
 distinguished men who have been removed by death. Here, as 
 in the preceding century, we must look chiefly to Wales, where we 
 find among Welsh poets, Daniel Evans (Daniel Ddu) ; John Jones 
 (loan Tegid), a well-known writer and editor of Welsh books ; 
 John Blackwell (Alun), one of the most pleasing and attractive 
 of Welsh poets ; Morris Williams (Nicander), well known as 
 poet, preacher, and writer in Welsh ; and last, but not least, 
 John Richard Green, the brilliant historian. We must not omit 
 to mention the late Principal, Charles Williams, D.D., who was 
 well known in the University for his love of his country, his 
 hospitable social qualities, and his acute and elegant scholarship. 
 
 In 1857 the University Commission, which made such 
 changes in Oxford, dealt with Jesus College, but forbore from 
 adopting the sweeping measures at one time threatened. The 
 chief change made was that half the Fellowships were declared 
 for the future to be open to general competition. This declara- 
 tion did not excite much opposition or remark in Wales, though 
 great indignation was expressed when more than twenty years 
 later another Commission dealt in the same way with the 
 scholarships. It should be remembered that the principle was 
 sacrificed in 1857, and that the opposers of the last Commission 
 could only advance arguments of expediency, on which Com- 
 missioners are apt to have their own opinions. Whether the 
 
 c c 
 
 ^ OF THB '^ 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
386 JESUS COLLEGE. 
 
 change is likely to be for the good of the College and of Wales 
 is a point much disputed, and this is not a place where it can 
 be discussed. 
 
 We have seen that the buildings of the College have not been 
 enlarged in extent since 1713; many structural alterations have, 
 however, taken place. The upper story throughout the College, 
 except on its extreme western side, consisted of attics with 
 dormer windows, which in old pictures gives the College a 
 picturesque appearance. The roof has, however, been raised, 
 and in the outer quadrangle battlements surmount the walls ; 
 in the inner quadrangle gables mark the points where the 
 dormer windows formerly existed. The dining-hall, which once 
 had a fine open oak roof, was, in the time of Principal Hoare, 
 fitted with a plaster ceiling, in order that the space above might 
 form attics to increase the accommodation of the Lodgings. 
 Since the enlargement of the Principal's house in 1886 the 
 accommodation is no longer needed, and it is to be hoped that 
 the hall may soon regain its original proportions. 
 
 The chapel, which was consecrated in 1621, has been frequently 
 altered, and at least once (in 1636) enlarged. The doorway, with 
 its picturesque porch, bearing the scroll, "Ascendat Oratio, 
 Descendat Gratia," is not the original entrance. When the 
 south wall was being re-faced some years ago, another doorway of 
 older workmanship than the present one, was discovered. The 
 change was probably made when the massive Jacobean screen 
 was put up, which now separates the chapel from the ante- 
 chapel. In 1864 the whole interior was restored. Of the success 
 of the restoration there may be two opinions ; but there is no 
 doubt that the widening of the chancel-arch was a mistake, as it 
 has permanently dwarfed the proportions of the building. The 
 woodwork substituted for what existed previously, though good 
 of its kind, presents too violent a contrast with the screen 
 already mentioned. The east window is a painted one of some 
 interest, though not of high artistic merit. In the ante- chapel 
 is an excellent copy of Guide's picture of "St. Michael triumph- 
 ing over the Fallen Angel." The original is in the Capucini 
 Church at Rome. The picture was presented by Lord Bulkeley 
 of Baron Hill in Anglesey. 
 
JESUS COLLEGE. isi 
 
 In 1856 the whole eastern front of the College was re-faced, 
 and a tower built. The work was carried out under the super- 
 intendence of Mr. Buckler, architect, Oxford, and is admitted 
 to be very well done. There are, however, some who think that 
 the old Jacobean gateway was more in harmony with the 
 domestic architecture of the College, and more suitable to its 
 position in a narrow street. 
 
 The library contains a considerable number of volumes which 
 are not of great interest to the student of the present day, 
 but is exceptionally rich in pamphlets of the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries, and in works on Canon Law. A valuable 
 and numerous collection of manuscripts has been removed to 
 the Bodleian Library for safety. The best known of these is 
 the Zb/fr Goch, the famous Red Book of Hergest, containing a 
 collection of Welsh legends and poetry, which is gradually being 
 edited by Professor Rhys and Mr. Evans. 
 
 The College is not exceptionally rich in portraits, but possesses 
 two of great merit — a portrait of Charles I. by Vandyke, and 
 of Queen Elizabeth by F. Zucchero. 
 
 Like many other Colleges, Jesus College sacrificed its original 
 plate, of which a goodly inventory exists, to the needs of the 
 Royalist cause in 1641 ; but has since been presented with a fair 
 collection, of which the most remarkable piece is a very large 
 silver-gilt bowl,^ given by Sir Watkin Williams Wynn in 1732. 
 
 Nothing has been said above of the Church patronage of the 
 College, which is considerable, advowsons being a favourite form 
 of bequest with the donors already mentioned, and with others. 
 Unfortunately, few of the livings are situated in Wales. Thus 
 many able Welshmen have been withdrawn from the service of 
 their national Church to their own loss and that of their country. 
 
 It is to be remarked that no considerable benefaction has been 
 given to the College during the present century. The history 
 
 I There is a trivial but well-known story that the College is to present 
 this piece of plate to whoever first fairly encircles it at its widest with his 
 arms, but that from the shape and actual girth (5 ft. 2 in.) this feat has rarely 
 been accomplished. A second task has, however, been kept in reserve ; 
 that the winner should drain it filled with the strong punch for which it 
 was designed, and then be able himself to remove it ; it holds ten gallons. 
 
388 JESUS COLLEGE. 
 
 of Jesus College has thus been brought down to living memory, 
 which is the limit of this work. Perhaps more space has been 
 taken up than an existence of little over three hundred years 
 deserves. But the College holds a unique position in Oxford as 
 having a strong connection, notwithstanding much alienation, 
 with a Principality which is not yet English in language or 
 feeling. Such a connection has many advantages, and perhaps 
 some drawbacks. It is to be hoped that the College will be left 
 undisturbed long enough to prove that the latter are altogether 
 outweighed by the former. 
 
xvir. 
 WADHAl COLLEGE. 
 
 By J. Wells, M.A., Fellow op Wadham. 
 
 Wadham College occupies an interesting position in the history 
 of the University, as having been the last College founded until 
 quite recent times, for both Pembroke and Worcester were but 
 expansions of older foundations. Though actually dating from 
 the reign of James I., it may be said to share with Jesus College 
 the honour of belonging to the days of Elizabeth, as its founder 
 and foundress were well advanced in years at the time when 
 they carried out their long meditated plans, and both in the 
 spirit which animates its statutes and in the architecture of its 
 fabric, Wadham College belongs rather to the sixteenth than to 
 the seventeenth century. 
 
 The founder of the College, Nicholas Wadham, of Merifeild, 
 in the county of Somerset, belonged to one of the oldest and 
 wealthiest of the untitled families of the West of England. He 
 married Dorothy, daughter of Sir William Petre, the well known 
 benefactor of Exeter College, but having no children, he resolved 
 to devote his great wealth to some pious use. Antony k Wood 
 tells us that his original intention had been to found a College 
 at Venice for English Homanists, but that he was persuaded to 
 change his plans; the story ^ seems doubtful, and Nicholas 
 
 ^ Wood quotes no authority, and his story of the founder's intentions is 
 inconsistent in one or two points with the curious old (though not con- 
 temporary) MS. account of the last wishes of the founder, which is among 
 the papers of Wadham College. Dorothy Wadham, however, was certainly 
 
390 WADHAM COLLEGE. 
 
 Wadham at all events died ia the Anglican communion. All 
 his patrimonial estates went to his three sisters, who had married 
 into some of the chief families of the West of England ; but he 
 had for some time past been accumulating money for his new 
 foundation; and in two conversations held with his nephew 
 and executor, Sir John Wyndham, very shortly before his death , 
 he had given full directions as to many points in the College. 
 Of these two were especially notable: he desired that the 
 Warden as well as the Fellows should be unmarried ; and also 
 that each of them should be " left free to profess what he listed, 
 as it should please God to direct him ; " he did not wish them 
 to "live thro' all their time like idle drones, but put them- 
 selves into the world, whereby others may grow up under them." 
 He also arranged that the College should be called after his own 
 name, and that the Bishop of Bath and Wells should be perpetual 
 Visitor. 
 
 His widow and executors set to work at once to carry out his 
 wishes, and the present site of the College was purchased from 
 the city of Oxford for £600. It had formerly been occupied by 
 the Augustinian Friars, whose name survived in the old phrase 
 for degree exercises,^ " doing Austins," down to the beginning of 
 this century. The foundation stone was laid with great 
 ceremony on July 31st, 1610, and two years later the foundress, 
 having some time previously obtained a charter from James I., 
 put forth her statutes (August 16th, 1612). In these her 
 husband's wish was carried out by the provision that Fellows 
 should resign their posts eighteen years after they had ceased 
 to be regent masters : this provision remained in force down to 
 
 a Recusant not long before her death (cf. Calendar of State Papers, 1619 — 
 1623, p. 330) ; it may perhaps be conjectured that the atrocity of the 
 Gunpowder Plot alienated her husband from his co-religionists, and induced 
 him to conform to the National Church. 
 
 ^ A statute of 1268 directed that every B.A. should dispute against the 
 Austin Friars once a year in the interval between his taking that degree 
 and proceeding M.A. Although these disputations were removed to St. 
 Mary's Church, and afterwards to the Natural Philosophy School, they 
 retained the name " Austin Disputations." See Wood's City of Oxford (edit. 
 Clark), ii. p. 465. From Oxoniana we learn that the name and some shadow 
 of the disputations remained as late as 1812 among the exercises for M.A. 
 
WADHAM COLLEGE. ^91 
 
 the commission of 1854. Originally the Warden was not 
 required to be in orders, but was allowed to proceed to his 
 Doctorate in Law or Medicine as well as in Divinity ; but the 
 foundress was persuaded to alter her arrangements on this 
 point, and the two former alternatives were struck out. 
 
 There were to be fifteen Fellows and fifteen scholars, the 
 former being elected from among the latter; of these three 
 scholars were to be from Somerset, and three from Essex, while 
 three Fellowships and three scholarships were restricted to 
 " founder's kin." These were originally intended for the children 
 and descendants of the sisters above-mentioned, but in course 
 of time it became frequent to trace kinship with the founder 
 through collateral branches of the Wadham family. The build- 
 ings erected by the foundress are remarkable in more ways than 
 one. Their architect, who is supposed to have been Holt^ of 
 York, the architect of the New Schools, was employed at 
 several other Colleges in Oxford, e. g. at Merton, Exeter, Jesus, 
 University, and Oriel. The resemblance between the inner 
 quadrangle at the first of these and that of Wadham is very 
 marked. Owing to the extent of the original design and the 
 excellence of the building material employed, Wadham has the 
 unique honour among the Colleges of Oxford of having remained 
 practically unaltered since it left its foundress' hands. 
 
 Of the various parts of the building the hall and the chapel 
 are the most remarkable ; the latter in the shape of its ante- 
 chapel is a combination of the short nave found at New College 
 and of transepts such as are found at Merton; while in the 
 tracery of the windows of its choir it furnishes a continual 
 puzzle to architectural theorists ; for though undoubtedly every 
 stone of it was built at the beginning of the seventeenth 
 century, and though the wood-work is pure Jacobean, the 
 windows both in their tracery and in their mouldings belong to 
 a period one hundred and fifty years earlier. In fact the chapel 
 
 * Of this man an excellent account is given in the Portfolio for 1888. 
 But there is some difficulty in attributing the buildings to Holt, for in the 
 very full MSS. accounts for the buildings possessed by the College, his 
 name only occurs as that of a working carpenter, receiving ordinary wages. 
 Perhaps the founder's servant Arnold may have been the real architect. 
 
392 WADHAM COLLEGE. 
 
 is exactly one of the magnificent choirs with -which the churches 
 of Somerset abound, and it is difficult to believe that the 
 resemblance is not more than accidental: for in the buildinsf 
 documents of the College we have clear evidence of both 
 materials and workmen coming from the county of the founder. 
 The cost of the whole building was £11,360. 
 
 Even before it was finished, the new Foundation received a 
 munificent present in the shape of the library of Dr. Philip 
 Bisse, Archdeacon of Taunton, who dying about 1612 left some 
 two thousand books (valued at £1700?); these books are all 
 distinguished by having their titles carefully inscribed in black 
 letter characters on the sides of their pages, near the top, and 
 may be not unworthily compared to the famous library, the 
 cataloguing of which made Dominie Sampson so happy a man. 
 The foundress made Dr. Bisse's nephew an original Fellow 
 of her College, though he had not yet taken a degree, " Ob 
 singularem amorem avunculi ejus," and also had painted the 
 portrait of the Archdeacon in full doctor's robes, which still 
 adorns the library. 
 
 On April 20th, 1613, the first Warden, Robert Wright, 
 formerly Fellow of Trinity College and Canon of Wells, was 
 admitted at St. Mary's, and in the afternoon of the same day 
 he in turn admitted the Fellows and scholars nominated by the 
 foundress. Wright, however, very shortly resigned his position, 
 because (says Wood) he was not allowed to marry. 
 
 The foundation of the College seems to have attracted con- 
 siderable attention elsewhere than in Oxford. Among the State 
 Papers in the year 1613 is calendared (somewhat incongruously) 
 a parody of the statutes of Gotam College, founded by Sir 
 Thomas a Cuniculis,^ with a license from the Emperor of Morea; 
 and from the first the number of men matriculated was very 
 large, and the class from which they were drawn a wealthy one. 
 This is most clearly proved by the fact that although the 
 College had been in existence less than thirty years when the 
 Civil War broke out, the amount of plate surrendered by it to 
 the King was only surpassed by one other Foundation. The 
 College still possesses an inventory of articles given, which 
 1 Vol. 1611—1618, p. 217. 
 
WADHAM COLLEGE. 393 
 
 make up "100 lbs. of white plate and 23 lbs. of gilt plate." 
 As might have been expected, a large proportion of the 
 members of the College at this period, and for long after, 
 came from the West country ; two-thirds, probably, were from 
 Dors jt, Somerset, or Devon ; and this connection has happily 
 never been entirely brokeu. Among these West countrymen 
 was the famous Admiral, Robert Blake, who graduated from 
 Wadham in 1617 at the age of twenty, and was still in 
 residence six years later. His portrait now hangs in the hall. 
 
 During this first period of College life, down to the outbreak 
 of the rebellion, two events deserve a passing notice. The 
 first of these was the fierce controversy ^ waged between James 
 Harrington, one of the original Fellows, and the rest of the 
 Foundation, as to his right to retain his place, although he 
 possessed an annual pension of £40 a year. There are 
 numerous references to this in the Calendar of State Papers ; 
 and Laud, as Bishop of Bath and Wells, was put to no small 
 trouble to decide it. In the end Harrington apologized for 
 " having behaved himself in gesture and speeches very un- 
 civilly"; but the quarrel only ended with the expiration of his 
 Fellowship in 1631. Much more important was the attempt 
 of King James, in 1618, to obtain a Fellowship for William 
 Durham of St. Andrews, " notwithstanding anie thing in your 
 statutes to the contrarie." Unfortunately we know very little 
 about this early parallel to James II.'s attempt at Magdalen ; 
 but the College clearly was successful in upliolding its rights. 
 
 It is perhaps not altogether fanciful to trace the feelings of 
 the College as to James I. in the register next year (1619), 
 when its usual dry formality is given up, and Carew Ralegh 
 the son of the King's late victim, is entered as " fortissimi 
 doctissimique equitis Gualteri Ralegh filius." 
 
 Wadham, during this same period, completed its material 
 
 1 A full account of this controversy may be read on pp. 6 — 8 of the Rev, 
 R. B. Gardiner's Registers of Wadham College^ Oxford, to which most valu- 
 able and interesting book I wish to acknowledge my constant obligations 
 througliout this chapter. At present only the first volume is out (down to 
 1719) ; it is the earnest desire of all interested in the history of the College 
 that Mr. Gardiner may soon be able to complete his work. 
 
394 WADHAM COLLEGE. 
 
 fabric by receiving the gift of the large east window of the 
 chapel from Sir John Strangways, the founder s nephew ; it was 
 made on the premises by Bernard van Ling, and the total cost 
 was £113 17s. hd. (including the maker's battels for ten months 
 and a week — £2 17s. 8c?.). 
 
 The Civil War affected Wadham as it did the rest of the 
 University. Its plate disappeared as has been said, only the 
 Communion plate (" donum fundatricis ") being spared ; its 
 students were largely displaced to make room for the King's 
 supporters, among whom the Attorney-General, Sir Edward 
 Herbert, seems to have made Wadham a kind of family residence. 
 After the final defeat of the King, the Warden, Py tt, and the great 
 majority of the Foundation were deprived by the Parliamentary 
 Commissioners. But it may be fairly said that the changes 
 made did far more good than harm to the College. The man 
 appointed to the vacant Wardenship was the famous John 
 Wilkins, divine, philosopher, and mathematician, who enjoyed 
 the almost unique honour of being promoted by the Parliament, 
 by Richard Cromwell, and by Charles II., and to whom the 
 College owes the honour of being the cradle of the Royal 
 Society. Evelyn records in his Diary (July 13th, 1654), how 
 " we all dined at that most obliging and universally-curious Dr. 
 Wilkins's, at Wadham Coll." — and speaks of the wonderful con- 
 trivances and curiosities, scientific and mechanical, which he 
 saw there. Round Wilkins gathered the society of learned men 
 who had previously begun to meet in London, and who were 
 afterwards incorporated as the Royal Society. The historian of 
 that famous body. Dr. Sprat, afterwards Bishop of Rochester 
 and himself a member of the Foundation of Wadham College, 
 records^ how "the first meetings were made in Dr. Wilkins 
 his lodgings, in Wadham College, which was then the place of 
 resort for virtuous and learned men,'* and that from their 
 meetings came the great advantage, that "there was a race 
 of young men provided against the next age, whose minds 
 receiving their first impressions of sober and generous know- 
 ledge were invincibly armed against all the encroachments of 
 enthusiasm." The traditional place of these meetings is the 
 
 1 P. 53. 
 
WADHAM COLLEGE. 395, 
 
 great room over the gateway, though this is more than doubtful. 
 Of the original members, there belonged to Wadliam College, 
 besides Wilkins — Kichard Napier, Seth Ward, afterwards Bishop 
 of Salisbury, the famous mathematician ; and last but not least, 
 that "prodigious young scholar, Mr. Christopher Wren," who 
 after being a Fellow Commoner at Wadham College, was elected 
 Fellow of All Souls, and who showed his affection for his original 
 College by the present of the College clock and a beautiful 
 sugar-castor, of which the latter is still in daily use, while the 
 face, at any rate, of the former remains in its old place. The 
 works of the clock are preserved in the ante-chapel as a 
 curiosity. 
 
 Warden Wilkins had for two hundred years the distinction 
 of being the only married Warden of Wadham. His wife was 
 a sister of the Lord Protector, with whom he had great in- 
 fluence, which he used for the benefit of the University as a whole, 
 and of individual Royalists. Anthony Wood seems mistaken 
 in saying that Wilkins owed his dispensation to marry to his 
 connection with Cromwell. The original MS. in the possession 
 of the College bears date January 20th, 1652 (four years before 
 Wilkins actually married), and comes from the Visitors of the 
 University of Oxford. Of both Wren and Wilkins there are 
 portraits in the Hall. 
 
 The most distinguished undergraduates of this period were 
 John, Lord Lovelace, who took a prominent part in the Revolu- 
 tion (a fine portrait of him by Laroon hangs in the College 
 hall), William Lloyd, afterwards Bishop of St. Asaph, and one 
 of the famous " Seven Bishops," and the notorious Mr. Charles 
 Sedley, a donor of plate to the College, all of whom matriculated 
 in 1655. An even better known member of Wadham was John 
 Wilmot, the wicked Earl of Rochester, who matriculated in 
 1659, immediately after Warden Wilkins had been promoted 
 to the Mastership of Trinity College, Cambridge ; but as he pro- 
 ceeded to his M.A. in September 1661, being then well under 
 fourteen, he probably did not give much trouble to the disci- 
 plinary authorities. John Mayow too, the distinguished phy- 
 sician and chemist, who became scholar in 1659, continued the 
 scientific traditions of the College. 
 
396 WADHAM COLLEGE. 
 
 Wilkins and three of his four successors all became Bishops ; 
 of these the most famous was Ironside, who, as Vice-Chancellor 
 in 1688, ventured to oppose James 11. in his arbitrary proceed- 
 ino-s ao-ainst Macrdalen. The fall of James saved Ironside, who 
 was made Bishop of Bristol (and afterwards of Hereford) by- 
 William III., and was succeeded by Warden Dunster, the object 
 of Thomas Hearne's hatred and contempt. He accuses him^ 
 of being "one of the violentest Whigs and most rascally Low 
 Churchmen" of the time, and of various other defects, physical 
 and moral, which may perhaps be conjectured to be in Hearne's 
 mind convertible terras with the above. 
 
 Wadham as a whole during this period was strongly Whig 
 and Low Church ; not improbably this was due to its close 
 connection with the West country, w^here the suppression of 
 Monmouth's rebellion had taught men to hate the Stuarts ; but 
 whatever the reason, the fact is undoubted. Probably there is 
 no other College hall in England which boasts of portraits both 
 of the " Glorious Deliverer " and of George I. 
 
 As might be expected, Hearne's account of the College is 
 extremely black. He dwells on the blasphemies ^ for which a 
 certain Mr. Bear of Wadham was refused his deo^ree ; and even 
 the distinguished scholar. Dr. Hody, the Regius Professor of 
 Greek and Archdeacon of Oxford, is continually attacked by 
 him, though he admits "he was very useful." ^ Hody, both in his 
 life and by his will, showed himself a loyal son of his College. 
 Dying at the early age of forty-six, he bequeathed the reversion 
 of his property to Wadham, for the encouragement of Hebrew 
 and Greek studies; and the ten exhibitions he founded (now 
 made into four scholarships) have been especially successful in 
 developing the study of the former language. A far greater 
 scholar than Hody belongs in part to Wadham at the same 
 period. In 1687 Richard Bentley was incorporated M.A. of 
 Oxford from St. John's College, Cambridge, and put his name 
 on the books of Wadham. He was in Oxford as tutor to the 
 son of Bishop Stillingfleet. 
 
 Almost to the same period belong the buildings erected on 
 the south side of the College (No. IX. staircase), which were 
 1 I. 291. 2 n. 106. 3 I, 318. 
 
WADHAM COLLEGK 397 
 
 begun in 1693, and finished next year ; it was intended to build 
 a similar block on the north side, beyond the Warden's lodgings, 
 as is shown in some old prints, but this was never carried out. 
 I am unable to assign a date to No. X. staircase. It certainly 
 belonged to the College before the final purchase of the staircase 
 next the King's Arms (No. XI.), which was made early in the 
 present century : there exists a drawing of it in a much earlier 
 style of architecture than the present, or than that of No. IX. 
 
 The only other person worthy of special mention connected 
 with the College at this period, was Arthur Onslow, Speaker of 
 the House of Commons throughout the reign of George II., 
 who matriculated in 1708; his affection for Wadham is illus- 
 trated by the splendid service-books presented by him to the 
 chapel, while two excellent portraits show the pride which the 
 College felt in him. 
 
 The fifty years which follow the promotion of Warden Baker 
 to the see of Norwich in 1727 were an undistinguished period 
 in the history of Wadham, as in that of the University generally. 
 Of the four Wardens, only one. Lisle, became a bishop, and there 
 is reason to think the College was in a bad state ; very few of 
 its members rose to distinction, though James Harris of Salis- 
 bury, the author of Hermes ^ (whose portrait by Reynolds hangs 
 in the hall), Creech, the translator of Lucretius, and Kennicott, 
 the Hebrew scholar, might be mentioned. 
 
 But in Warden Wills, who was appointed in 1783, the Col- 
 lege found its most liberal benefactor since the death of the 
 foundress. It was in his time that the present beautiful garden 
 was laid out on the site of the old formal walks, with a mound 
 in the centre, which appear in the prints of the last century. It 
 has befeh conjectured with some probability that " Capability " 
 Brown had a hand in the laying out of the garden as it now is. 
 Whoever was the gardener, it may be confidently asserted that 
 a finer result was never produced in so small a space. Warden 
 Wills in another way increased the beauty of the College, by 
 buying for the use of the Warden the lease of a large piece of 
 land to the north of the College property ; of this the College 
 
 i'*A philosophical inquiry concerning Universal Grammar." Johnson 
 disputes his title to be an " eminent Grecian," 
 
398 WADHAM COLLEGE. 
 
 afterwards bought the freehold from Merton, and it was incor- 
 porated with the Warden's garden. 
 
 Earl}^ in this century too the College received its final exten- 
 sion in the way of rooms, by purchasing from the University 
 the buildings between itself and the King's Arms, which had 
 formerly been used by the Clarendon Press ; the old name of 
 No. XI. staircase, "Bible warehouse," long preserved in the 
 books of the College the memory of the old use of the buildings: 
 probably the site had belonged to the College from the first, 
 and it was only the remainder of a lease that was now bought. 
 This purchase was made in the Wardenship of Dr. Tournay, 
 who presided over the College with dignity and success for 
 twenty-five years till 1831, when he resigned. The most dis- 
 tinguished member of Wadham during his time was undoubtedly 
 Richard Bethell, afterwards Lord Westbury, who was elected 
 scholar in 1815, before he had completed his fifteenth year. 
 This fact is duly recorded, at his own especial wish, on his 
 monument in the ante-chapel, as having been the foundation 
 of his subsequent success. 
 
 Shortly after the resignation of Warden Tournay, the chapel 
 was taken in hand by the " Gothic Renovators," a new ceiling 
 was put on, and the whole of the east end was recast by the 
 introduction of some elaborate tabernacle work, which, if not 
 entirely appropriate in design, is yet interesting as displaying a 
 careful study of mediaeval models most unusual so early as 
 1834. 
 
 Of the history of the College since 1831 there is not space 
 to say much. Under Warden Symons it became recognized as 
 the stronghold of Evangelicalism in the University; so much 
 was this the case that on his nomination to the Vice- Chancellor- 
 ship in 1844, he was opposed by the Tractarian party ; but this 
 unprecedented step met with no success, as the Chancellor's 
 nomination was confirmed by 883 votes to 183. It was during 
 his tenure of the Vice-Chancellorship (1844-8) that proceedings 
 were taken against Mr. Ward, and against Tract No. XC. 
 But if on the one hand the College produced leading lights of 
 the Evangelical school, like Mr. Fox and Mr. Vores, it also 
 lays claim to Dr. Church, the late Dean of St. Paul's, and Father 
 
WADHAM COLLEGE. 399 
 
 Mackonochie. It may well be doubted whether there ever was a 
 more brilliant period in the history of Wadham than about the 
 middle of the century, when Dr. Congreve was Tutor and one of 
 the leaders in the University of the " Intellectual Reaction " 
 against the Tractarian movement. With him as Tutor was 
 associated the late Warden, Dr. Griffiths, whose name will be 
 always remembered as that of one whose true interest through- 
 out life was in his College, and who ranks among its benefactors 
 by his bequests, especially that of his collection of prints and 
 drawings illustrative of the history of the College and of those 
 who had been educated at it. 
 
 Under them within less than ten years there were in residence 
 as undergraduates the present Bishop of Wakefield, the late 
 Professor Shirley, Dr. Johnson the Bishop of Calcutta, Mr. 
 B. B. Rogers the scholarly translator of Aristophanes, Mr. 
 Frederic Harrison, the present Warden, Professor Beesly, Dr. 
 Bridges afterwards Fellow of Oriel, Dr. Codrington the mission- 
 ary and philologer, and others who might be mentioned, who 
 have won distinction in ways most various. Wadham carried 
 off three Brasenose Fellowships in succession within a very 
 short space of time, just as in 1849 its Boat Club had " swept 
 the board "at Henley; these were but the outward signs of 
 the intellectual and physical activity of the College. And 
 here its story must be left, for we are already among con- 
 temporaries, while the action of the Commission of 1854-5 
 has drawn a gulf for good or ill between old and modern 
 Oxford. Enoucjh has been said to show that the sons of Wad- 
 ham have not been altogether unworthy of a College of which 
 other than her own sons have said that to know her and " to 
 love her was a liberal education." 
 
XVIII. 
 
 PEMBEOKE COLLEGE. 
 
 By the Rev. Douglas Maclbane, M.A., Fellow of Pembroke. 
 
 Pembroke College has its name from William Herbert, Earl 
 of Pembroke, Shakespeare's friend and patron, tliought to be 
 "Mr. W. H.," the " onhe begetter " of the Sonnets. Clarendon 
 calls him ** the most universally loved and esteemed of any man 
 of that age." This Society, constituted as a College in 1624, is 
 one of the younger Oxford foundations. But there had been a 
 considerable place of religion and learning here from the earliest 
 times, Pembroke College having for centuries previously existed 
 as Broadgates, or, more anciently still, SegrywJs Hall. 
 
 Wood calls this Hall " that venerable piece of antiquity." He 
 believes that St. Frideswyde's Priory had here a distinguished 
 mansion, from which the canons received an immemorial quit 
 rent, and that here their novices were instructed. In Domesday 
 it is called Segrim's Mansions, a family of that name then and 
 for generations afterward holding it from the priory in demesne, 
 with obligation to repair the city wall. But in the 88th of 
 Henry III. Richard Segrym, by a charter of quit claim, sur- 
 renders for ever to God and the Church of St. Frideswyde, " that 
 great messuage which is situated in the corner of the churchyard 
 of St. Aldate's," the canons agreeing to receive him into their 
 family fraternity, and after his death to find a chaplain canon to 
 celebrate service yearly for his soul, the souls of his father and 
 mother, and the soul of Christiana Pady. 
 
PEMBROKE COLLEGE. 401 
 
 From a very early date this house was occupied by clerks, 
 studying the Civil and Canon Law. It is described as a "nursery 
 of learning," and " the most ancient of all Halls." It retained 
 the name Segrym (sometimes Segreve) Hall till the accession of 
 Henry VI., when, a large entrance being made,i it came thence- 
 forth to be called Broadgates Hall, though there were in Oxford 
 several other houses of this name. It was the most distin- 
 guished of a number of hostels occupied by legists, and clustered 
 round St. Aldate's Church, then a centre of the study of Civil 
 Law, which had come into vogue in the twelfth century. A 
 chamber built over the south aisle (Docklington's aisle) of that 
 church was used as a Civil Law School and also as a law library, 
 the books being kept in chests, but afterwards chained. Such a 
 library of chained books still exists over one of the aisles of Wim- 
 borne Minster. The aisle below was used by the students before 
 and after the Reformation. The " Chapel in St. Eldad's" (Hutten ^ 
 tells us) "is peculier and propper to Broadgates, where they 
 daily meete for the celebration of Divine Service." The fine 
 monument of John Noble, LL.B., Principal of Broadgates, was 
 formerly in this aisle. 
 
 The importance of the Halls dates from 1420, when unat- 
 tached students were abolished, and every scholar or scholar's 
 servant was obliged to dwell in a hall governed by a responsible 
 principal. After the great fire of 1190 they were built of stone. 
 They contained a common room for meals, a kitchen, and a few 
 bedrooms, each scholar paying 7s. Qd. or 13s. 4fZ. a year for rent. 
 Every undergraduate was bound to attend lectures. Discipline 
 however was not very strict. One summer's night in 1520, an 
 ever-recurring dispute happening between the University and 
 the city respecting the authority to patrol the streets, certain 
 scholars of Broadgates had an encounter with the town watch, 
 in which one watchman was killed and one severely hurt. The 
 
 ^ Fuller gives us a proverb ctirrent in Oxfordshire, " Send farthingales to 
 Broadgates Hall in Oxford," adding that the gowns not only of the gadding 
 Dinahs but of most sober Sarahs of a former age were so penthoused out 
 far beyond their bodies with bucklers of pasteboard, that their wearers 
 could not enter at any ordinary door, except sidelong. 
 
 2 Leonard Hutten's AntiqiUHes of Oxford (1625), Oxf. Hist. Society's 
 reprint, p. 88. 
 
 D D 
 
402 PEMBROKE COLLEGE. 
 
 delinquents fleeing were banished by the University, but allowed 
 after a few months to return on condition of paying a fine of 
 6s. 8fZ., contributing Is. 8d. to repair the staff of the inferior 
 bedell of Arts, and having three masses said for the good estate 
 of the Regent Masters and the soul of the slain man. 
 
 Broadgates Hall becoming a place of importance, and being 
 obliged to extend its limits, acquired a tenement to the east 
 belonging to Abingdon Abbey, the monks of which owned also 
 a moiety of St. Aldate's Church, the other moiety having passed 
 to St. Frideswyde's, according to a curious story related by Wood.^ 
 A little further east still was a tenement which the Principal of 
 Broadgates rented from New College (temj). Henry VII.) for 
 6s. 8d. In 1566 Nicholas Robinson 2 mentions Broadgates among 
 the eight leading Halls, and as especially given up to the study 
 of Civil Law. In 1609 Nicholas Fitzherbert ^ says it was a resort 
 of young men of rank and wealth. In 1612 it had 46 graduate 
 members, 62 scholars and commoners, 22 servitors and domestics, 
 in all 131 members, being exceeded in numbers by only five 
 Colleges and one Hall, viz. Christ Church, 240 ; Magdalen, 246 ; 
 Brasenose, 227 ; Queen's, 267 ; Exeter, 206 ; Magdalen Hall, 
 161. A century later Pembroke had only between .50 and 60 
 residents, and in the preceding century, when Oxford had been 
 for a while almost empty, the numbers must have been few. The 
 zeal of the reforming Visitors in 1-550 had left the chamber 
 above Docklingtons aisle four naked walls. "The ancient 
 libraries were by their appointment rifled. Many MSS., guilty 
 of no other superstition than red letters in the front or titles 
 were condemned to the fire . . . such books wherein appeared 
 angles [angels] were thought sufficient to be destroyed because 
 accounted Papish, or diabolical, or both." We read of two noble 
 libraries being sold for 40s. for waste paper. 
 
 1 Wood's City of Oxford (edit. Clark), ii. 35. 
 ^ Queen Elizabeth in Oxford, 1566 — 
 
 " Candida, Lata, Nova, studiis civilibus apta, 
 Porta patet Musis, Justiniane, tuis." 
 
 3 Nicolai Fierberti Oxoniensis Academiae Descriptio, Roraae, 1602 : — 
 "Divitura nobiliiimque plerumque filiis, qui propriis vivunt sumptibus, 
 assignata Broadgates" (Oxford Hist. Society's reprint, 1887, p. 16.) 
 
PEMBROKE COLLEGE. 403 
 
 Henry VIIL, in 1546, annexed Broadgates, together with the 
 housing of Abingdon to the new College established by Wolsey 
 under a Papal bull on the site and out of the revenues of St. 
 Frideswyde's — successively Cardinal College, King Henry VIII.'s 
 College, and Christ Church. 
 
 Broadgates Hall then had filled no inconsiderable part as a 
 place of learning when it became Pembroke College. The 
 history of the foundation of Pembroke is interesting. Thomas 
 Tesdale, or Tisdall (descended from the Tisdalls of Tisdall 
 in the north of England), was a clothier to Queen Elizabeth's 
 army, and afterwards attended the Court. Having settled at 
 Abingdon as a maltster he there filled the posts of Bailiff, prin- 
 cipal Burgess and Mayor. Finally he removed to Glympton, 
 Oxon, where trading in wool, tillage, and grazing he attained to 
 a very great estate, of which he made charitable and pious use, 
 his house never being shut against the poor. He maintained a 
 weekly lecture at Glympton, and endowed Christ's Hospital in 
 Abingdon. The tablet placed in Glympton Church to his wife 
 Maud records the many parishes where " she lovingly annointed 
 Christ Jesus in his poore members." A fortnight before Tesdale's 
 decease in 1610, he made a will bequeathing the large sum of 
 £5000 to purchase lands, etc., for maintaining seven Fellows and 
 six Scholars to be elected from the free Grammar School in 
 Abingdon into any College in Oxford. This foundation Abbot, 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, sometime Fellow of Balliol (his 
 brother Eobert at this time being Master), was anxious to secure 
 for that Society; and the Mayor and burgesses of Abingdon fall- 
 ing in with the plan a provisional agreement was signed, on the 
 strength of which Balliol College bought, with £300 of Tesdale's 
 money, the building called Ca3sar's Lodgings, for the reception of 
 Tesdale's new Fellows and scholars, and they for a time were 
 housed there. 
 
 Meanwhile, however, a second benefaction to Abingdon 
 turned the thoughts of the citizens in a more ambitious direc- 
 tion. Richard Wightwick, B.D. — descended from a Staffordshire 
 family, formerly of Balliol, and afterward Rector of East Ilsley, 
 Berks, where he rebuilt the church tower and gave the clock 
 and tenor bell — agreed, twelve or thirteen years after Tesdale's 
 
<f 
 
 404 PEMBROKE COLLEGE. 
 
 death, to augment the Tesdale foundation so as to support in all 
 ten Fellows and ten Scholars. For this purpose he gave lands, 
 bearing however a 499 years' lease (not yet expired), the rents 
 of which amounted at that time to £100 a year. Thereupon, 
 the Mayor, bailiffs, and burgesses of Abingdon, abandoning the 
 previous scheme, desired the foundation of a separate and inde- 
 pendent College, for which purpose no place seemed more suit- 
 able than Broadgates Hall. An Act of Parliament having been 
 obtained, they presented a petition to the Crown, in reply to 
 which King James I. by Letters Patents dated June 29th, 1624, 
 constituted the said Hall of Broadgates to be "one perpetual 
 College of divinity, civil and canon law, arts, medicine and 
 other sciences ; to consist of one master or governour, ten fellows, 
 ten scholars, or more or fewer, to be known by the name of * the 
 Master, Fellows, and Scholars of the College of Pembroke in 
 the University of Oxford, of the foundation of King James, at 
 the cost and charges of Thomas Tesdale and Richard Wight- 
 wicke.' " The better, we are told, to strengthen the new found- 
 ation and make it immovable, they had made the Earl of 
 Pembroke, then Chancellor of the University, the Godfather, 
 and King James the Founder of it, " allowing Tesdale and 
 Wightwick only the privileges of foster-fathers." James liked 
 to play the part of founder to learned institutions, and the Earl 
 of Pembroke was a poet and patron of letters — " Maecenas 
 nobilissimus" Sir T. Browne calls him. In his honour the 
 Chancellor was always to be, and is still, the Visitor of the 
 College. Moreover, as a Hall Broadgates had had the 
 Chancellor for Visitor. Wood says that "had not that noble 
 lord died suddenly soon after, this College might have received 
 more than a bare name from him." 
 
 I On August 5th, 1624, Browne, as senior commoner of Broad- 
 gates, now Pembroke, delivered one of four Latin orations in the 
 common hall. The new foundation was described as a Phoenix 
 springing out of the rubble of an ancient Hall, and the right 
 noble Visitor, it was foreseen, would create a truly marble struc- 
 ture out of an edifice of brick. 1 Dr. Clayton, Regius Professor of 
 Medicine, last Principal of Broadgates and first Master of Pem- 
 broke, spoke the concluding oration of the four. The Letters 
 
PEMBROKE COLLEGE. 405 
 
 Patents were then read, as well as a license of mortmain, enabling 
 the Society to hold revenues to the amount of £700 a year. The 
 ceremony was witnessed by a distinguished assembly, including 
 the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors, many Masters of Arts, a large 
 company of the nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood, and the 
 Mayor, Kecorder, and burgesses of Abingdon. Indeed, great and 
 wide interest seems to have been taken in this youngest founda- 
 tion, carrying on as it did the life of a very ancient and not un- 
 famous place of academic learning. The students of Broadgates 
 were now the members of Pembroke, and the speeches on the day 
 of the inauguration of the College still affectionately style them 
 " Lateportenses." A commission issued from the Crown to the 
 Lord Primate, the Visitor, the Vice-Chancellor, the Master, the 
 Recorder of Abingdon, Richard Wightwick, and Sir Eubule 
 Thelwall, to make statutes for the good government of the 
 House. The statutes provided that all the Fellows and scholars 
 should proceed to the degree of B.D. and seek Holy Orders. 
 Some were to be of founders' kin, but, with this reservation, the 
 double foundation was to be entirely for the benefit of Abing- 
 don. These provisions have been for the most part repealed by 
 later statutes. But the tutorial Fellows are still bound to celibacy. 
 
 Further additions were soon made to the original foundation. 
 In 1636 King Charles I., who in that year visited Oxford "with 
 no applause," gave the College the patronage ^ of St. Aldate's, 
 which had been seized by the Crown on the dissolution of the 
 religious houses. With a view to raising the state of ecclesiastical 
 learning in the Channel Islands, King Charles further founded a 
 Fellowship, as also at Jesus College and Exeter, to be held by a 
 native of Guernsey or Jersey. Bishop Morley, in the next reign, 
 bestowed five exhibitions for Channel islanders. A principal 
 benefactor to this College was Sir J. Benet, Lord Ossulstone. 
 In 1714 Queen Anne annexed a prebend at Gloucester to the 
 Mastership. The Master, under the latest statutes, must be a 
 person capable in law of holding this stall. Other considerable 
 benefactions have from time to time been bestowed. 
 
 The new foundation, however, was not disposed to forego any 
 
 ^ The patronage of this rectory, usually held by a Fellow, was alienated 
 rather more than thirty years ago. 
 
406 PEMBROKE COLLEGE. 
 
 portion of what it could claim. Savage, Master of Balliol, whose 
 " Balliofergus " (1668) contains the account of the opening cere- 
 mony called "Natalitia CoUegii Pembrochiani," 1624, complains 
 with pardonable resentment : " This rejeton had no sooner taken 
 root than the Master and his company called the Master and 
 Society of our CoUedge into Chancery for the restitution of the 
 aforesaid £300 " (the £300, viz. of Tesdale's money with which 
 Ciesar's Lodgings had been purchased). Wood says : " The 
 matter came before George [Abbot] Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 sometime of Balliol College, who, knowing very well that the 
 Society was not able at that time to repay the said sum, bade 
 the fellows go home, be obedient to their Governour, and 
 Jehovah Jireh, i. e. God shall provide for them. Where- 
 upon he paid £50 of the said £300 presently, and for the other 
 £250 the College gave bond to be paid yearly by several suras 
 till the full was satisfied. The which sums as they grew due 
 did the Lord Archbishop pay." Abbot seems to have allowed 
 the agreement between the Mayor and burgesses of Abingdon 
 and Balliol. Yet his attitude towards Pembroke, in whose founda- 
 tion he was concerned, was one of marked benevolence. It is to 
 be noted that Tesdale's brass in Glympton Church, put up between 
 his death and the new turn of affairs brought about by Wight- 
 wick's benefaction, describes him as "liberally beneficial to 
 Balliol Colledge in Oxford." He is represented standing on an 
 ale-cask, in allusion to his trade as maltster. The alabaster 
 monument to Tesdale and Maud his wife was repaired in 1704, as 
 a Latin inscription shows, by the Master and Fellows of Pembroke. 
 Part of the founders' money was laid out in building. Few 
 Colleges stand within a more natural boundary of their own 
 than Pembroke, and yet that boundary has only been completed 
 within the last two years, and the College itself is an almost 
 accidental agglomeration of ancient tenements. The south side 
 stands directly on the city wall from South Gate to Little Gate, 
 looking down on a lane for a long time past called Brewer's 
 Street, but formerly Slaughter Lane, or Slaying Well Lane, King 
 Street, and also Lumbard ^ Lane. The western boundary of the 
 
 ^ The slaughter-houses were replaced by a brew-house, to the use of 
 which the old well beneath the wall was in 1672 diverted. Lumbard was 
 
PEMBROKE COLLEGE. 407 
 
 College is Littlegate Street, the eastern St. Aldate's Street 
 (formerly Fish Street), the northern Beef Lane and S. Aldate's 
 Church, though the College owns some interesting old houses 
 on the south side of Pembroke Street, formerly Crow Street 
 and Pennyfarthing ^ Street. At the time of the transforma- 
 tion of Broadgates Hall into Pembroke College, the "Alms- 
 houses " opposite Christ Church Gate were an appendage to 
 Christ Church. Then came the vacant strip of ground called 
 "Hamel," running north and south. Next on the west stood 
 New College Chambers and Abingdon Buildings, which passed 
 with Broadgates into Pembroke. Beckyngton, Bishop of Bath 
 and Wells, was once Principal here. Further west still stood 
 Broadgates Hall, the sole part of which still remaining is the 
 refectory, now the library. As depicted in the large Agas 
 (1578) it seems to have been an irregular cluster of buildings 
 (mostly rented), of which the largest was a double block 
 called Cambye's, afterwards Summaster's, Lodgings (vulgarly 
 Veale Hall). This in 1626 was altered for the new Master's 
 Lodgings, but in 1695 it was replaced by a six-gabled freestone 
 pile, the outside of which was remodelled with the rest of the 
 frontage in 1829, a storey being added later by Dr. Jeune, after- 
 wards Bishop of Peterborough. Loggan's print shows the old 
 building in 1675, and Bnrghersh gives its appearance in 1700, 
 as rebuilt by Bishop Hall. 
 
 Broadgates Hall (except the refectory), together with Abing- 
 don Buildings and New College Chambers, gave place, when 
 Pembroke College had been founded, to the present Old 
 Quadrangle, of which the south and west sides and a portion of 
 the east side were erected in 1624, the remainder of the east 
 side in 1670. Three years later the original north frontage, 
 which had been merely repaired in 1624, was half pulled down 
 and replaced by " a fair fabrick of freestone." The rest of the 
 
 a Jew who lived here. It is odd that the only shop in this lane still exhibits 
 the arms of Lombardy, and perhaps carries on the business of this mediaeval 
 Jew : tlie Jewry was elsewhere. 
 
 ^ From a family named Penyverthing. A physician named Ireland who 
 lived here in this century, and whose patients made believe to think his fee 
 was l|c?., got the name changed to Pembroke Street. 
 
408 PEMBROKE COLLEGE. 
 
 north front as far as the Common Gate was rebuilt by Michael- 
 mas 1691, the Gate Tower in 1694, Sir John Benet supplying 
 most of the cost. This tower of 1'694, the last part of the 
 frontage to be built, was more classical than the remainder. 
 The tower shown in Loggan's print (1675) in the centre of the 
 front can never have existed. Probably it was projected only. 
 A storey was added in 1829, when the exterior of the College 
 was remodelled in the Gothic revival manner of George lY. 
 The interior of the quadrangle, though less altered than the 
 outside, has lost much of its character by being refaced with 
 inferior stone, and by the substitution of sashes for the quarried 
 lisfhts. Some chancres were made in the battlements and chim- 
 neys, and in the upper face of the tower by Mr. Bodley in 1879. 
 The history of the present New Quadrangle is as follows : 
 West of the present Master's lodging stood a number of ancient 
 halls for legists, viz. Mi note, Durham (later St. Michael's) and 
 St. James' (these two in one) and Beef Halls. The last gives 
 its name to Beef Lane. Dunstan Hall, on the town wall, was 
 {temp. Charles I.) pulled down, and the whole space between 
 the city wall and the " Bach Lodgings" as the halls fringing Beef 
 Lane were called, was divided into three enclosures. That 
 furthest to the west became a garden for the Fellows, having a 
 bowling alley, dipt walks and arbours,^ and a curious dial. The 
 middle enclosure was the Master's garden, and here were shady 
 bowers and a ball court. That nearest the College was a 
 common garden; but when the chapel was built in 1728 the 
 pleasant borders probably got trampled, and grass and trees 
 were replaced by gravel. Such was, with little alteration, the 
 aspect of the College till 1844. Two woodcuts in Ingram (1837) 
 show the picturesque old gabled Back Lodgings still standing. 
 But in 1844 Dr. Jeune took in hand the erection of new build- 
 ings. The new hall and kitchens occupy the western side, and 
 the Fellows' and undergraduates' rooms the entire north side of 
 the Inner Quadrangle thus formed, a large plat of grass filling the 
 central space, while the chapel and a tiny strip of private garden 
 upon the town wall form the south side. With the irregular 
 
 ^ Between 1675 and 1700 a new stj'Ie of gardening seems to have come 
 into vogue. Compare Loggan and Burghersh. 
 
PEMBROKE COLLEGE. 409 
 
 range of old buildings on the east, and especially when the 
 luxuriant creepers dress the walls with green and crimson, this 
 is a very pleasing court, though a visitor looking in casually 
 through the outer gateway of the College might hardly suspect 
 its existence. Mr. Hay ward of Exeter, nephew and pupil of 
 Sir C. Barry, was the architect. The Hall, built in 1848, is a 
 much better example of the Gothic revival than a good many 
 other Oxford edifices, and the dark timbered roof is exceedingly 
 handsome. There is the usual large oriel on the dais, a minstrels* 
 gallery, and a great baronial fireplace, where huge blocks of fuel 
 burn. As in the ancient halls, the twin doors are faced by the 
 battery hatches, and the kitchen is below. 
 
 The time-honoured hall, much the oldest part of the College, 
 and once the refectory of Broadgates (the kitchen was in the 
 S.W. corner of the Old Quadrangle) was now made the College 
 Library. The long room over Docklington's aisle in St. Aldate's 
 was on the foundation of Pembroke repaired at Dr. Clayton's 
 expense, and used once more for the reception of books pre- 
 sented by various donors, though Wood says that for some years 
 before the Great Rebellion it was partly employed for chambers. 
 The books certainly were at first few. Francis Rous, one of 
 Cromwell's " lords " and Speaker of the Little Parliament, who 
 founded an Exhibition, " did intend to give his whole Study, 
 but being dissuaded to the contrary gave only his own works 
 and some few others." But in 1709 Bishop Hall, Master of 
 Pembroke, bequeathed his collection of books to the College, 
 and a room was built over the hall to be the College library. 
 When the hall became the library in 1848 this room, Gothicized, 
 was converted to a lecture-room. From 1709 the " chamber in St. 
 Aldate's " was used no more, and this extremely ancient Civil Law 
 School and picturesque feature of the church has now unhappily 
 been demolished. A Nuremburg Chronicle among Dr. Hall's books 
 is inscribed by Whitgift's hand, and a volume of scholia on Aris- 
 totle has the autograph, " Is. Casaubonus." Here also are John- 
 son's deeply pathetic Prayers and Meditations^ in his own writing. 
 
 The Pembroke library has recently been fortunate enough to 
 acquire by gift from a lady to whom they were bequeathed ^ the 
 1 Mrs. Evans, wife of the Rev. Dr. Evans, Master of the College. 
 
410 PEMBROKE COLLEGE. 
 
 unique collection of Aristotelian and other works made by the 
 late Professor Chandler, Fellow of the College, and galleries were 
 added last year (1890). The transverse portion of the room, 
 which is shaped like the letter T, was built in 1620 by Dr. 
 Clayton, four years before Broadgates Hall became Pembroke 
 College. A book of contributors (headed " Auspice Christo ") 
 is extant, and has the signatures of Pym and of " Margaret 
 Washington of Northants," kinswoman of the famous Virginian. 
 In 1824, on the occasion of the " Bicentenary " of the College, 
 when Latin speeches were delivered, the windows were enlarged 
 and filled with glass by Eginton, and the blazoned cornice added 
 at a cost of £2000. But the room is the same one in which 
 Johnson (whose bust by Bacon is here) dined and abused the 
 " coll," or small beer, which he found muddy and uninspiring 
 to Latin themes — 
 
 " Carmina vis nostri scribant meliora poetae ? 
 Ingeniiim jnbeas purior haustus alat." 
 
 Whitfield carried about the liquor in leathern jacks here as he 
 had done in his mother's inn at Gloucester. In this room they 
 attended lectures. Every Nov. 5th there were speeches in 
 the hall. " Johnson told me that when he made his first declam- 
 ation he ^vrote over but one copy and that coarsely ; and having 
 given it into the hand of the tutor who stood to receive it as 
 he passed was obliged to begin by chance and continue on how 
 he could, for he had got but little of it by heart ; so fairly trust- 
 ing to his present powers for immediate supply he finished by 
 adding astonishment to the applause of all who knew how 
 little was owing to study" (Piozzi). We read of "a great 
 Gaudy in the College, when the Master dined in public and the 
 juniors (by an ancient custom they were obliged to observe) 
 went round the fire in the hall." Johnson told Warton, "In 
 these halls the fireplace was anciently always in the middle of 
 the room till the Whigs removed it on one side." At dinner 
 till lately the signal for grace was given by three blows with 
 two wooden trenchers, such as were used for bread and cheese 
 till 1848. Hearne laments, *' when laudable old customs 
 alter, 'tis a sign learning dwindles." There were four " College 
 
PEMBROKE COLLEGE. 411 
 
 dinners" annually, one of which was an Oyster Feast. ^ The 
 Manciple's slate still hangs in this room. An undergraduates' 
 library has lately been established " between quads." Where, 
 by the bye, is Lobo's Voyage to Abyssinia (the original of 
 Basselas) which Johnson borrowed from the Pembroke library ? 
 
 It has already been said that the students of Broadgates used 
 Docklington's aisle for divine service, and the aisle was rented 
 for this purpose by Pembroke College. The pulpit and Master's 
 pew are now at Stanton St. John's. The present College chapel 
 dates from 1728, the year of Johnson's matriculation. It was con- 
 secrated July 10th, 1732, by Bishop Potter of Oxford, a sermon 
 on religious vows and dedications being preached by " that fine 
 Jacobite fellow " (as Johnson calls him). Dr. Matthew Panting, 
 then Master, from Gen. xxviii. 20 — 22. Hearne styles him ** an 
 honest gent," and says : " He had to preach the sermon at St. 
 Mary's on the day on which George Duke and Elector of 
 Brunswick usurped the English throne ; but his sermon took 
 no notice, at most very little, of the Duke of Brunswick." 
 Bartholomew Tipping, Esq., whose arms are on the screen, 
 contributed very largely towards building the chapel. It was 
 then " a neat Ionic structure," plain and unpretending, but well 
 proportioned and pleasing enough. The picture in the altar- 
 piece was given at a later date by the Ven. Joseph Pl^^mley 
 (or Corbett), a gentleman commoner. It is a copy of our Lord's 
 figure in Rubens' painting at Antwerp, "Christ urging St. 
 Theresa to succour a soul in Purgatory." In 1884 the chapel was 
 elaborately embellished and enriched at an expense of nearly 
 £3000, so as to present one of the most beautiful interiors in 
 Oxford. The work was executed by Mr. C. E. Kempe, M.A., 
 a member of the College. The windows, in the Renaissance 
 manner, are particularly fine. A quantity of silver and silver- 
 gilt altar plate was presented at the same time. The work is 
 not yet finished, and a design for an organ remains on paper. 
 It is worth recording that until twenty-seven years since 
 the Eucharist was administered here, as at the Cathedral and 
 St. Mary's, to the communicants kneeling in their places. 
 Johnson must, as an undergraduate, have attended St. Aldate's 
 
 ^ This is the meaning of the entry '*pro ostreis " in the Bursar's accounts. 
 
412 PEMBROKE COLLEGE. 
 
 (where the College worshipped once again for several terms 
 during the recent decoration of the chapel) ; but when in later 
 years he visited Oxford, people flocked to Pembroke chapel ^ to 
 gaze at the "great Cham of literature," humblest of worshippers, 
 tenderest and most loyal of Pembroke's sons. 
 
 Dean Burgon connects a bit of old Pembroke with Johnson. 
 The summer common room behind the present hall was, before 
 its demolition, the only one left in Oxford, except that at Mer- 
 ton. He writes (1855) : "This agreeable and picturesque apart- 
 ment was in constant use within the memory of the present 
 Master; but, while I write, it is in a state of considerable 
 decadence. The old chairs are drawn up against the panelled 
 walls ; on the small circular tables the stains produced by hot 
 beverages are very plainly to be distinguished : only the guests 
 are wanting, with their pipes and ale — their wigs and buckles — 
 their byegone manners and forgotten topics of discourse. It 
 must have been hither that Dr. Adams, Master of Pembroke 
 conducted Dr. Johnson and his biographer in 1776, when the 
 former after a reverie of meditation exclaimed : * Ay, here I 
 used to play at draughts with Phil Jones and Fludyer. 
 Jones loved beer, and did not get very forward in the Church. 
 Fludyer turned out a scoundrel, a Whig, and said he was 
 ashamed of having been bred at Oxford.'" The old brazier, 
 which Mr. Lang surmises Whitfield may have blacked, is, I 
 believe, in existence. 
 
 The most important modern addition to the College is the 
 Wolsey Almshouse, purchased in 1888 from Christ Church for 
 £10,000, by the help of money bequeathed by the Rev. C. 
 Cleoburey. This is part of " Segrym's houses," held of St. 
 Frideswyde's Priory, and converted after the Conquest into 
 hostels " for people of a religious and scholastick conversation." 
 " With the decay of learning they came to be the possession of 
 servants and retainers to the said priory." They were occupied 
 by Jas. Proctor when Wolsey converted them into a hospital ; 
 later, Henry VIII. settled in them twenty-four almsmen, old 
 soldiers, with a yearly allowance of £6 each. Not long ago 
 
 ^ The late Bishop Jeune told Mr. Burgon that aged persons in his time 
 remembered this. 
 
PEMBROKE COLLEGE. 413 
 
 the bedesmen were sent to their homes with a pension, and the 
 building became the Christ Church Treasurer's lodging till it 
 was heroically purchased by Pembroke, which thus completed 
 her "scientific frontier." There is a fine timber roof here, said 
 to have been brought from Osney Abbey. The building has 
 been a good deal altered. Skelton (1823) shows the south part 
 of it in ruins. 
 
 The external history of Pembroke since its foundation in 
 1624 has been comparatively uneventful. When King Charles 
 was besieged in Oxford in 1642, like other Colleges it armed a 
 company to defend the city. Twice the loyal Colleges had 
 given their cups and flagons for their Sovereign's necessities. 
 Pembroke keeps the King's letter of acknowledgment, with 
 his sif^nature. When the Parliamentary Commissioners visited 
 Oxford in 1647, they ejected the then Master of Pembroke, 
 who had received them with these words : " I have seen 
 your commission and examined it. ... I cannot with a safe 
 conscience submit to it, nor without breach of oath made 
 to my Sovereign, and breach of oaths made to the University, 
 and breach of oaths made to my Collesfe : et sic habetis animi 
 mei sententiam, — Henry Wightwicke." Henry Lang^ley, an 
 intruded Canon of Christ Church, and "one of six Ministers 
 appointed by Parliament to preach at St. Mary's and else- 
 where in Oxon to draw off the Scholars from their orthodox 
 principles," was put in Wight wick's room, but removed in 
 1660. In 1650 "Honest Will Collier," a Pembrokian, heads 
 a plot to seize the Cromwellian garrison, and is "strangely 
 tortured," but his life spared. 
 
 The College pictures include a splendid Reynolds of Johnson,^ 
 given by Mr. A. Spottiswoode. Two interesting relics of 
 Johnson are to be seen — the small deal desk on which he wrote 
 the Dictionary, and his china teapot. It holds two quarts, for 
 Johnson once drank five-and-twenty cups at a sitting. He called 
 himself " a hardened and shameless tea-drinker," who " with tea 
 amuses the evenings, with tea solaces the midnights, and with 
 
 1 "Johnson could not bear to be painted with his defects . . . *He 
 [Rejmolds] may paint himself as deaf as he pleases, but I will not be 
 Blinking Sam''' (Piozzi).. 
 
414 PEMBROKE COLLEGE. 
 
 tea welcomes the mornings." Peg Woffington made it for him 
 "as red as blood." 
 
 Pembroke since the seventeenth century has been a small 
 College, though it has a large foundation of scholars. It has 
 not been specially noted as either a " rich man's " or a " poor 
 man's" College, and while winning at least its fair share of 
 distinction in the schools, it has been known perhaps chiefly 
 as a compact, pleasant, and not uncomfortable Society, whose 
 Promus no longer serves " muddy " beer, and whose Coquus no 
 Latin verses satirize. There is a handsome show of plate. It 
 includes several silver " tumblers " or " tuns," which when 
 placed on their side tumble upright again, and a large hammered 
 tankard (lately presented) with the " Britannia " mark, and 
 made after the ancient manner with pegs between its thirteen 
 pints to measure the draught to be taken. The oldest inscribed 
 piece of plate is dated 1653. Pembroke has been usually a 
 rowing College. The Eight was Head of the River in 1872 ; the 
 Torpid in 1877, 1878, and 1879, the Eight then being second. 
 The "Christ Church Fours" are rowed every year for a challenge 
 goblet given by the Christ Church Club in gratitude for an eight 
 lent by Pembroke in a time of need. The racing colours are 
 cherry and white, with the red rose for badge of the Eight and 
 the thistle of the Torpid.^ The "Junior Common Room" is the 
 oldest of undergraduate wine clubs. There is a flourishing and 
 old-established literary club called the " Johnson," and there is 
 of course a Debating and a Musical Society. The Master, 
 Fellows, and Scholars of Pembroke are patrons of eight 
 benefices. Colleo^e meetino^s are called Conventions. 
 
 A few names may be cited from the roll of (Broadgates and) 
 Pembroke worthies — 
 
 Edmund Bonner, " Scholar enough and tyrant too much " 
 (Fuller), entered Broadgates in 1512. In 1519 he became 
 Bachelor of Canon and Civil Law; D.C.L. 1535. He was 
 successively Bishop of Hereford and of London, but was 
 deprived and imprisoned under Edward VI. Having been 
 
 ^ It is curious that the College arms have almost from the first been 
 blazoned wrongly, the argent and or fields of the chief having changed 
 places. The argent should be on the dexter side. 
 
PEMBROKE COLLEGE. 416 
 
 restored by Mary, on Elizabeth's accession he refused the oath 
 of the Supremacy, and was committed to the Marshalsea, where 
 he died September 5th, 1569. Thomas Yonge, Archbishop of 
 York, 1560. John Moore, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1783, began 
 as a servitor at Pembroke. The Duke of Marlborough had 
 then a house in Oxford, and walking with Dr. Adams one day in 
 the street, asked him to recommend a governor for his son, Lord 
 Blandford. Dr. Adams in reply pointed to the slight figure of a 
 lad walking just in front, and said, " That is the person I recom- 
 mend." The Duke afterwards brought Moore's merits under the 
 notice of the King, who placed the Prince of Wales under his 
 care, which led to his ecclesiastical elevation. William Newcome, 
 Archbishop of Armagh, 1795. The primatial sees of Canter- 
 bury, York, and Armagh have thus each been filled from Broad- 
 gates or Pembroke. John Heywoode, " the Epigrammatist," one 
 of the earliest English dramatic writers. While attached to the 
 Court of Henry VIII. he wrote those six comedies which are 
 among the first innovations upon the mysteries and miracle- 
 plays of the middle age, and which laid the foundation of the 
 secular comedy in this country. H\%- Interludes, in which the 
 clergy are satirized, are earlier than 1521. Yet he was favoured 
 by Mary Tudor, and was also the friend of Sir Thomas More. 
 G^eor^e PeeZe, dramatist. Charles Fitzjeffrey, 1572, "the poet of 
 Broadgates Hall" (Wood). David Baker, entered 1590, a 
 Benedictine monk, historian, and mystical writer, author of the 
 Chronicle. Francis Beaumont, the poet, entered February 4th, 
 1596, as "Baronis filius set. 12." His father dying April 21st, 
 1598, he left without a degree. His elder brother, Sir John 
 Beaumont, entered Broadgates the same day. He was a Puritan 
 in religion, but fought on the Cavalier side. William Camden, 
 the antiquary, called "the Strabo of England," entered 1567, aged 
 sixteen; Clarencieux King of Arms; Head-master of Westminster. 
 He died 1623. The Latin grace composed by Camden to be said 
 after meat in Broadgates Hall is still in use at Pembroke. In 
 1599 entered John Pym, the politician, aged fifteen. Among the 
 contributors to the enlargement of the Hall in 1620 his signature 
 appears, " Johannes pym de Brimont in com. Somerset quondam 
 Aulae Lateportensis Commensalis. 44/. Jo. Pym." Sir Thomas 
 
416 PEMBROKE COLLEGE. 
 
 Broione, author of that delightful book Religio Medici, the quaint 
 thought of which inspired Elia. He entered as Fellow Com- 
 moner in 1623. His body lies in St. Peter Mancroft, Norwich. 
 When it was disentombed in 1840 the fine auburn hair had not 
 lost its freshness. Matthew Turner, one of the first Fellows, 
 who wrote all his sermons in Greek. It will be remembered 
 that, not many years before, Queen Elizabeth had received an 
 address in Oxford, and replied to it, in this learned tongue, and 
 that in the period of Puritan ascendancy (1648 — 1659) the 
 disputations in the schools for M.A. were often in Greek. Other 
 worthies of this House are Cardinal Repyngdon, the Wycliflfist ; 
 John Storie, whose career closed at Tyburn ; Thomas Randolph, 
 constantly employed by Elizabeth on important embassies; 
 Timothy Hall, one of the few London clergy who read James 
 II.'s Declaration. He was made Bishop of Oxford, but in his 
 palace found himself alone, hated, and shunned ; Garew, Earl of 
 Totnes; Peter Smart, Puritan poet, Cosin's assailant; Chief 
 Justice Dyer; Lord Chancellor Harcoitrt ; Collier, the meta- 
 physician; Southern, the Restoration dramatist; Burel, the 
 Biblical critic ; Henderson, " the Irish Creichton " ; Davies 
 Gilbert, President of the Royal Society; Richard Valpy ; John 
 Lempri^re ; Thomas Stock, co-founder of the Sunday School 
 system. 
 
 In 1694, Prideaux (whom Aldrich sets down as "muddy- 
 headed ") calls Pembroke " the fittest colledge in the town for 
 brutes." But a Mr. Lapthorne, twenty years later, gives a 
 different picture of it. "I have placed my son in Pembroke 
 Colledge. The house, though it bee but a little one, yet is 
 reputed to be one of the best for sobriety and order." It is not 
 till the Georgian time, however, that we get a distinct view of 
 the inner life of Pembroke — the time when Shenstone, Black- 
 stone, Graves, Hawkins, Whitfield, and — towering above all — 
 Johnson, were contemporary or nearly contemporary here. 
 
 Samuel Johnson entered as a Commoner October 81st, 1728, 
 aged nineteen. Old Michael Johnson anxiously introduced him 
 to Mr. Jorden, his tutor. " He seemed very full of the merits of 
 his son, and told the company he was a good scholar and a 
 poet, and wrote Latin verses. His figure and manner appeared 
 
J^ \y OF THB ' r ^ 
 
 I university! 
 
 PEMBROKE COLLEGeNs^4^^2^>^17 
 
 strange to them ; but he behaved modestly, and sate silent, till, 
 upon something which occurred in the course of conversation, 
 he struck in and quoted Macrobius." Johnson told Boswell that 
 Jorden was " a very worthy man, but a heavy man." He told 
 Mrs. Thrale that " when he was first entered at the University 
 he passed a morning, in compliance Avith the customs of the 
 place, at his tutor's chamber ; but, finding him no scholar, went 
 no more. In about ten days after, meeting Mr. Jorden in the 
 street, he offered to pass without saluting him ; but the tutor 
 stopped and enquired, not roughly neither, what he had been 
 doing ? * Sliding on the ice,' was the reply; and so turned away 
 with disdain. He laughed very heartily at the recollection of 
 his own insolence, and said they endured it from him with a 
 gentleness that whenever he thought of it astonished himself." 
 Once, being fined for non-attendance, he rudely retorted, " Sir, 
 you have sconced me twopence for a lecture not worth a penny." 
 Dr. Adams, however, told Boswell that Johnson attended his 
 tutor's lectures and those given in the Hall very regularly. 
 Jorden quite won his heart. " That creature would defend his 
 pupils to the last ; no young lad under his care should suffer for 
 committing slight irregularities, while he had breath to defend 
 or power to protect them. If I had sons to send to College, 
 Jorden should have been their tutor " (Piczzi). Again, " When- 
 ever a young man becomes Jorden s pupil he becomes his son." 
 Stil], when Johnson's intimate, Taylor, was about to join him at 
 Pembroke, he persuaded him to go to Christ Church, where the 
 lectures were excellent. In going to get Taylor's lecture notes 
 at second-hand, Johnson saw that his ragged shoes were noticed 
 by the Christ Church men, and came no more. He was too 
 proud to accept money, and, some kind hand having placed a 
 pair of new shoes at his door, Johnson, when his short-sighted 
 vision spied them, flung them passionately away. His room 
 was a very small one in the second storey over the gateway ; it 
 is practically unaltered. 
 
 " I have heard," wrote Bishop Percy, " from some of his con- 
 temporaries, that he was generally to be seen lounging at the 
 College gate with a circle of young students round him, whom 
 he was entertaining with wit and keeping from their studies, if 
 
 E E 
 
418 PEMBROKE COLLEGE. 
 
 not spiriting them up to rebellion against the College discipline, 
 which in his maturer years he so much extolled. He would not 
 let these idlers say ' prodigious/ or otherwise misuse the English 
 tongue." " Even then, Sir, he was delicate in language, and we 
 all feared him." So Edwards, an old fellow-collegian of Johnson's, 
 told Boswell half a century later. Johnson, hearing from 
 Edwards that a gentleman had left his whole fortune to Pem- 
 broke, discussed the ethics of legacies to Colleges. Edwards 
 has given us a saying we would not willingly lose : " You are 
 a philosopher, Dr. Johnson. I have tried too in my time to be 
 a philosopher; but, I don't know how, cheerfulness was always 
 breaking in." Johnson remembered drinking with Edwards at 
 an alehouse near Pembroke-gate. Their meeting again, after 
 fifty years spent by both in London, Johnson accounted one of 
 the most curious incidents of his life. 
 
 Dr. Adams told Boswell that Johnson while at Pembroke was 
 caressed and loved by all about him, was a gay and frolicsome 
 fellow, and passed there the happiest part of his life. " When I 
 mentioned to him this account he said, ' Ah, sir, I was mad and 
 violent. It was bitterness w^hich they mistook for frolick. I 
 was miserably poor, and I thought to fight my way by my 
 literature and my wit; so I disregarded all power and all 
 authority.' " Bishop Percy told Boswell, " The pleasure he took 
 in vexing the tutors and fellows has been often mentioned. But 
 I have heard him say that the mild but judicious expostulations 
 of this worthy man [Dr. Adams, then a junior Fellow] whose 
 virtue awed him and whose learning he revered, made him 
 really ashamed of himself: 'though I fear,' nsdd he, *I was too 
 proud to own it.' " Johnson was transferred from Jorden to 
 Adams, who said to Boswell, " I was his nominal tutor, but he 
 was above my mark." When Johnson heard this remark, his 
 eyes flashed with satisfaction. " That was liberal and noble," he 
 exclaimed. Jorden once gave him for a Christmas exercise 
 Pope's " Messiah " to turn into Latin verse, which the veteran 
 saw and was pleased to commend highly. 
 
 Carlyle has drawn a fancy picture of the rough, seamy-faced, 
 rawboned servitor starving in view of the empty or locked 
 buttery. Dr. Birkbeck Hill has shown that though Johnson 
 
PEMBROKE COLLEGE. 410 
 
 was poor, he lived like other men. His batells came to about 
 eight shillings a week. Even Mr. Leslie Stephen introduces the 
 usual talk about "servitors and sizars." Johnson was not a 
 servitor. "It was the practice for a servitor, by order of the 
 Master, to go round to the rooms of the young men, and, knock- 
 ing ^ at the door, to enquire if they were within, and if no 
 answer was returned to report them absent. Johnson could not 
 endure this intrusion, and would frequently be silent when the 
 utterance of a word would have ensured him from censure, and 
 . . . would join with others of the young men in hunting, as 
 they called it, the servitor who was thus diligent in his duty ; 
 and this they did with the noise of pots and candlesticks, singing 
 to the tune of ' Chevy Chase ' the words of that old ballad — 
 
 ' To drive the deer with hound and horn.' " 
 
 Any one who has occupied the narrow tower staircase can 
 imagine the noise of Johnson's ponderous form tumbling down 
 it in hot pursuit. The present balusters must be the same 
 as those he clutched in his headlong descents one hundred 
 and sixty years ago. Amid this boisterousness he read with 
 deep attention Law's racy and masculine book, the Serious 
 Gall. 
 
 Dr. Hill has examined exhaustively the difficult question of 
 the length of Johnson's residence, and proved that the fourteen 
 months, to which the batell books testify, was the whole of his 
 Oxford career. He was absent for but one week in the Long 
 Vacation of 1729. He ceased to reside in December, 1729, and 
 removed his name from the books October 8th, 1731, without 
 taking his degree, his caution money (£7) cancelling his 
 undischarged batells. But, his contemporaries assure us, "he 
 had contracted a love and regard for Pembroke College, which 
 he retained to the last." It has been thought that the College 
 helped him pecuniarily. He loved it none the less that it was 
 reputed a Jacobitical place. In his Life of Sir T, Browne he 
 speaks of " the zeal and gratitude of those that love it." When- 
 ever he visited Oxford in after days he would go and see his 
 
 1 As it seems with a key; possibly a relic of the " wakening-mallet" of 
 reliffious houses. 
 
420 PEMBROKE COLLEGE. 
 
 College before doing anything else. Warton was his companion 
 in 1754. Johnson was highly pleased to find all the College 
 servants of his time still remaining, particularly a very old 
 manciple, and to be recognized by them. But he was coldly 
 received when he waited on the Master, Dr. Radcliffe, who did 
 not ask him to dinner, and did not care to talk about the forth- 
 coming Dictionary. However, there was a cordial meeting with 
 his old rival Meeke, now a Fellow. At the classical lecture in 
 hall Johnson had fretted under Meeke's superiority, he told 
 Warton, and tried to sit out of earshot of his construinof. 
 
 ' to 
 
 Besides Meeke, it seems, there was at this time only one other 
 resident Fellow. Bos well describes other visits, when Dr. 
 Adams, Johnson's lifelong friend, was Master. He prided him- 
 self on being accurately academic, and wore his gown ostenta- 
 tiously. The following letter from Hannah More to her sister 
 is dated Oxford, June 13th, 1782 :— 
 
 " Who do you think is my principal cicerone in Oxford ? 
 Only Dr. Johnson ! And we do so gallant it about ! You 
 cannot imagine with what delight he showed me every part 
 of his own College (Pembroke), nor how rejoiced Henderson 
 looked to make one of the party. Dr. Adams had contrived a 
 very pretty piece of gallantry. We spent the day and evening 
 at his house. After dinner Johnson begged to conduct me to 
 see the College ; he would let no one show it me but himself. 
 
 * This was my room ; this Shenstone's.' Then, after pointing 
 out all the rooms of the poets who had been of his College, 
 
 * In short,' said he, ' we were a nest of singing birds. Here we 
 walked, there we played at cricket.' He ran over with pleasure 
 the history of the juvenile days he passed there. When we 
 came into the common room we spied a fine large print of 
 Johnson, framed and hung up that very morning, with this 
 motto, * And is not Johnson ours, himself a host ? ' under which 
 stared you in the face, 'From Miss More's Sensibility.' This 
 little incident amused us ; but alas ! Johnson looked very ill 
 indeed ; spiritless and wan. However he made an effort to be 
 cheerful, and I exerted myself to make him so." 
 
 A few months before his death, his ebbing strength beginning 
 to return, he had a wistful desire to see Oxford and Pembroke 
 
PEMBROKE COLLEGE. 421 
 
 once again, and, weary as he was with the journey, revived ^ in 
 spirit as the coach drew near the ancient city. He presented 
 all his works to the College library, and had thoughts of 
 bequeathing his house at Lichfield to the College, but he was 
 reminded of the claims of some poor relatives. "He took a 
 pleasure/' Boswell says, " in boasting of the many eminent men 
 who had been educated at Pembroke." 
 
 Shenstone, the poet, entered Pembroke in 1732, after Johnson 
 had left. Burns says : " His divine Elegies do honour to our 
 language, our nation, and our species." Johnson writes : " Here 
 it appears he found delight and advantage ; for he continued his 
 name in the book ten years, though he took no degree. After 
 the first four years he put on the civilian's gown." Havjkins, 
 Professor of Poetry, Bev, Bicliard Graves, junior, admitted 
 scholar, November, 1732 — poet and novelist. He was the 
 author of the Spiritual Quixote, a satire on the Methodists. 
 He tells us: "Having brought with me the character of a 
 tolerably good Grecian, I was invited to a very sober little party, 
 who amused themselves in the evening with reading Greek and 
 drinking water. Here I continued six months, and we read 
 over Theophrastus, Epictetus, Phalaris' Epistles, and such other 
 Greek authors as are seldom read at school. But I was at 
 length seduced from this mortified symposium to a very different 
 party, a set of jolly, sprightly young fellows, most of them West 
 country lads, who drank ale, smoked tobacco, punned, and sang 
 bacchanalian catches the whole evening. . . I own with shame 
 that, being then not seventeen, I was so far captivated with the 
 social disposition of these young people (many of whom were 
 ingenuous lads and good scholars), that I began to think them 
 the only wise men. Some gentlemen commoners, however, who 
 considered the above-mentioned a very lovj company (chiefly on 
 account of the liquor they drank), good-naturedly invited me to 
 their party ; they treated me with port wine and arrack punch ; 
 and now and then, when they had drunk so much as hardly to 
 distinguish wine from water, they would conclude with a bottle 
 
 1 Contrast Gibbon's spiteful words : "To the University of Oxford I 
 acknowledge no obligations ; and she will as cheerfully renounce me for a 
 son as I am willing to disclaim her for a mother." 
 
422 PEMBROKE COLLEGE. 
 
 or two of claret. They kept late hours, drank their favourite 
 toasts on their knees, and in short were what were then called 
 * bucks of the first head/ . . . There was, besides, a sort of 
 flying squadron of plain, sensible, matter-of-fact men, confined 
 to no club, but associating with each party. They anxiously 
 inquired after the news of the day and the politics of the times. 
 They had come to the University on' their way to the Temple, 
 or to get a slight smattering of the sciences before they settled 
 in the country," Graves breakfasts with Shenstone (who wore his 
 own hair), a Mr. Whistler being of the company. This was " a 
 young man of great delicacy of sentiment, but with such a dislike 
 to languages that he is unable to read the classics in the 
 original, yet no one formed a better judgment of them. He 
 wrote, moreover, a great part of a tragedy on the story of Dido." 
 In a later day we may surmise this young gentleman of 
 delicacy of sentiment would have written a Newdigate. The 
 three friends often met and discussed plays and poetry, Spectators 
 or Tatlers. 
 
 George Whitfield entered as a servitor, November, 1732. An 
 old schoolfellow, himself a Pembroke servitor, happened to visit 
 Whitfield's mother, who kept a hostelry in Gloucester, and told 
 her how he had not only discharged his College expenses for 
 the term, but had received a penny. At this the good ale-wife 
 cried out, " That will do for my son. Will you go to Oxford, 
 George ? " " With all my heart," he replied. He tells us that 
 at College he was solicited to join in excess of riot with several 
 who lay in the same room ; but God gave him grace to with- 
 stand them. His tutor was kind, but when he joined Wesley's 
 small set he met with harshness from the Master, who frequently 
 chid hira and even threatened to expel him. " I had no sooner 
 received the Sacrament publickly on a week-day at St. Mary's, 
 but I was set up as a mark for all the polite students that knew 
 me to shoot at. . . I daily underwent some contempt from the 
 collegians. Some have thrown dirt at me, and others took away 
 their pay from me." Johnson told Boswell that he was at 
 Pembroke with Whitfield, and "knew him before he began 
 to be better than other people" (smihng). But they cannot 
 have been in residence together, nor can Whitfield have been 
 
PEMBROKE COLLEGE. 423 
 
 " chevied " by Johnson to the accompaniment of candlestick 
 and pan. 
 
 To the pictures of Pembroke life supplied by Graves and 
 Whitfield, Dr. Birkbeck Hill adds a sketch of a gentleman 
 commoner of this time. Mr. Erasmus Philipps, of Picton Castle, 
 (afterwards fifth baronet), entered in 1720. He is a youth of 
 fashion, but not, as he would probably be in the present day, a 
 dunce and a fool. He attends the races on Port Mead, where the 
 running of Lord Tracey's mare Whimsey, the swiftest galloper in 
 England, brings to his mind the description in Job. He goes to 
 see a foot-race between tailors for geese, and another day to see 
 a great cock- match in Holywell between the Earl of Plymouth 
 and the town cocks, which beat his lordship. He attends the 
 ball at the " Angel " — a guinea touch — and gives a private ball 
 in honour of the fair Miss Brigandine. He writes an Essay on 
 Friendship set him by his tutor, who the same evening goes 
 with the young *man to Godstow by water with some others, 
 taking music and wine. Or he attends a poetical club at the 
 " Tuns," with Mr. Tristram,^ another of the Fellows, drinks 
 Gallician wine there, and is entertained with two masterly fables 
 of Dr. Evans' composition. Pembrokians meet at the' " Tuns " 
 to motto, epigrammatize, etc. Mr. Philipps has literary tastes 
 and attends the Encaenia, not to make a poor noise, but to 
 criticize the Proctor's oration. He presents a curious book to 
 the Bodleian, and Mr. Prior's works in folio to the Pembroke 
 library. He cultivates the society of men of learning and taste, 
 among them an Arabic scholar from Damascus. " On leaving 
 Pembroke he presented one of the scholars with his key of the 
 garden, for which he had on entrance paid ten shillings, treated 
 the whole College in the Common Room, and then took up his 
 Caution money (£10) from the bursar and lodged it with the 
 Master for the use of Pembroke College." 
 
 When Graves went to All Souls as Fellow (which many 
 Pembroke students of law did), his friend Blackstone went with 
 him. Sir William Blackstone, the great jurist, entered in 1738, 
 aged fifteen. He is buried at Wallingford. 
 
 1 This Mr. Tristram is abused by Hearne. He had caricatured some of 
 Hearne's plates. 
 
424 PEMBROKE COLLEGE. 
 
 Westmicster Abbey has received the ashes of at least four 
 members of this House, viz. Francis Beaumont and his brother 
 Sir John, Pym the parhamentarian, and Johnson the champion 
 of authority. Pym's body was cast out at the Restoration. 
 
 Nisi Dominus aedificaverit Domum in vanum laboraverunt 
 qui aedificant earn. 
 
XIX. 
 
 WOECESTEE COLLEGE. 
 
 By the Rev. C. H. O. Daniel, M.A., Fellow of Worcester 
 
 College. 
 
 Gl(Mcester College, 1283—1539. 
 
 The beginnings of the history of Gloucester College anticipate 
 by nine years the establishment of Merton College upon its 
 present site and under statutes which had assumed their final 
 shape, by three years the code of rules drawn up by the 
 University for the University Hall, and by one year the date 
 of the statutes of Balliol College, statutes which preceded 
 the establishment of students upon the present site of that 
 College. It was in 1283 that John Giffarde, Baron of Brimsfield, 
 on St. John the Evangelist's day, being present in St. Peter's 
 Abbey at Gloucester, founded Gloucester College, " extra nmros 
 Oxoniae," as a house of study for thirteen monks of that abbey, 
 appropriating for their support the revenues of the church of 
 Chipping Norton. This was the first monastic College estab- 
 lished in Oxford. It differed from the Hall which not long 
 after was built for the Benedictines of Durham, in that, while 
 Durham College admitted secular students, Gloucester College 
 was limited to monks of the Benedictine Order. It was not 
 long before the other great English Benedictine Houses, whose 
 students when sent to Oxford had hitherto been placed in 
 scattered lodgings, recognized the advantage of bringing them 
 together under common discipline and instruction and a common 
 
426 WORCESTER COLLEGE. 
 
 Head. They obtained permission therefore of the Abbey of 
 Gloucester to share with them their house at Oxford, and to 
 add to the existing buildings several lodgings, each appropriated 
 to the use of one or more of the Benedictine Houses. The 
 building made over in the first place by Giffarde had been 
 originally the mansion of Gilbert Clare earl of Gloucester, for 
 whom it had the advantage of being close to the Royal palace 
 of Beaumont, in Magdalen Parish. His arms were in Antony 
 Wood's day still to be seen " fairly depicted in the window of 
 the Common Hall." It subsequently passed into the hands of 
 the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, and was exempt from 
 Episcopal and archidiaconal jurisdiction " a tempore cujus 
 memoria non existit." It was from the Hospitallers that 
 Giffarde bought the house which he made over to Gloucester 
 Abbey. In 1290 or 1291, upon the agreement to admit other 
 Benedictine Houses to a joint use of the College, the founder 
 purchased four other tenements, and, obtaining a license in 
 mortmain from Edward I., conveyed the whole to the Prior and 
 monks. Thereupon was held at Abingdon a General Chapter of 
 the Abbots and Priors of the Order, at which provisions were 
 made for regulating the new buildings to be erected and for 
 providing contributions towards the expenses, while rules were 
 drawn up for the conduct of the College. All Benedictines of 
 the Province of Canterbury were to have right of admission to 
 *' our common House in Stockwell Street," and all the students 
 were to have an equal vote in the election of the Prior. The 
 strife and canvassing which took place over these popular 
 elections in time arose to such a head as to create a scandal in 
 the order, to remedy which it was decreed by a General Chapter 
 that the author of any such disturbance should be punished 
 by degradation and perpetual excommunication. The monks 
 themselves, differing in this respect from the subsequent 
 foundation of Durham College, were not permitted to study or 
 be conversant with secular students ; they were bound to attend 
 divine service on solemn and festival days ; to observe disput- 
 ations constantly in term-time; to have divinity disputations 
 once a week, and the presiding moderator was endowed with a 
 salary of £10 per annum out of the common stock of the 
 
WORCESTER COLLEGE. 427 
 
 Order, which provided also for the expenses of their Exercises 
 and Degrees in the matter of fees and entertainments. It was 
 the duty of the Prior to enforce all regulations and to see 
 that the monks preached often, as well in the Latin as in the 
 vulgar tongue. It was further jealously stipulated that in their 
 exercises they should ** answer " under one of their own Order, a 
 trace of the struggle between the religious orders and the 
 University which arose to such a height in the case of the 
 various orders of Friars. 
 
 Few structures carry their history and their purpose upon their 
 face in a more obvious or more picturesque manner than do the 
 still surviving remains of the old Benedictine colony. Each 
 settlement possessed a lodging of its own " divided (though all 
 for the most part adjoining to each other) by particular roofs, 
 partitions, and various forms of structure, and known from each 
 other, like so many colonies and tribes, (though one at once 
 inhabited by several abbies,) by arms and rebuses that are 
 depicted and cut in stone over each door." These words of 
 Antony a Wood are a perfect description of the cottage-like row 
 of tenements which still form the south side of the present 
 quadrangle, and partially apply to the small southern quad- 
 rangle, though many of the features have been in this case 
 obliterated. But on the north side all that now remains of what 
 is represented in Loggan's well-known print is the ancient door- 
 way of the College, surmounted by two shields, (there used to be 
 three, bearing respectively the arms of Gloucester, Glastonbury 
 and St. Alban's,) and the adjoining buildings, which are of the 
 same character as the tenements on the south side. The first 
 lodgings on the north side were allotted, we are told, to the 
 monks of Abingdon : the next were built for the monks of 
 Gloucester. These in later days became the lodgings of the 
 Principal of Gloucester Hall, an arrangement followed in the 
 position of the present lodgings of the Provost of the College. 
 On the five lodgings of the south side one may see still in place 
 the shields described by A. Wood. Over the door at the S.W. 
 corner is a shield bearing a mitre over a comb and a tun, with 
 the letter W (interpreted as the rebus of Walter Compton, or 
 else in reference to Winchcombe Abbey). Another shield bears 
 
428 WORCESTER COLLEGE. 
 
 three cups surmounted by a ducal coronet. Between these is a 
 small niche. The chambers next in order were assigned by 
 tradition to Westminster Abbey ; and the central lodgings 
 of the five were "partly for Ramsey and Winchcombe Abbies." 
 Over the doors of the easternmost lodgings again are shielJs, 
 the first bearing a "griffin sergreant," the other a plain cross. 
 Another plain shield remains in sitto in the small quadrangle ; 
 one has been removed and built into the garden wall of the 
 present kitchen. 
 
 A. Wood gives a list of the abbies which sent their monks 
 to Gloucester College. These were Gloucester, Glastonbury, 
 St. Alban's, Tavistock, Buiton, Chertsey, Coventry, Evesham, 
 Eynsham, St. Edmondsbury, Winchcombe, Abbotsbury, Michel- 
 ney, Malmesbury, Rochester, Norwich. It may be presumed 
 that other Houses of the Order made use of the place, among 
 those whose representatives were present at the Chapter held at 
 Salisbury the day after the interment of Queen Eleanor, 1291, 
 when the Prior for the time being, Henry de Helm, was invested 
 with the government of the College, and provision was made 
 for the election of his successor. 
 
 We do not at this early date find any mention of Refectory 
 or Chapel. The parish church was, no doubt, as in other cases, 
 frequented by the student-monks for divine services, but they 
 also had licence to have a portable altar. It was not till 1420, 
 in the prioralty of Thomas de Ledbury, that John Whethamstcd, 
 Abbot of St. Alban's, formerly Prior, contributed largely to 
 the erection of a chapel, which stood upon the site of the 
 present chapel. Its ruins are figured in Loggan's sketch. He 
 built also a Library on the south side of the chapel, at right 
 angles to it, the five windows of which, giving upon Stockwell 
 Street, are also depicted in Loggan's sketch. Upon this Library 
 he bestowed many books both of his own collection and of his 
 own writing ; and at his instance Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, 
 besides other benefactions, gave many books to the Library. 
 The benefits conferred by Whethamsted were such that a 
 Convocation of the Order styled him "chief benefactor and 
 second founder of the College." One other name, a name of 
 local interest, we find associated with the place as its benefactor 
 
WORCESTER COLLEGE. 429 
 
 — that of Sir Peter Besils, of Abingdon. Thus a century of 
 dignified prosperity was assured to the College, during which 
 period it nunabered among its alumni John Langden, Bishop of 
 Rochester ; Thomas ^lylling, Abbot of Westminster and after- 
 wards Bishop of Hereford ; Antony Richer, Abbot of Eynsham, 
 afterwards Bishop of Llandatf; Thomas Walsingham the 
 chronicler. 
 
 The dissohition of the monasteries of course involved the 
 suppression of the Benedictine College; Whethamsted's Chapel 
 and Library were reduced to a ruin; and the books "were partly 
 lost and purchased, and partly conveyed to some of the other 
 College Libraries," where Wood professes to have seen them 
 " still bearing their donor's name." 
 
 Bishop of Oxfoi'd's Palace, 1542—1557 (?). 
 
 The College, its buildings and grounds, remained in the 
 hands of the Crown till the thirty -fourth year of Henry's reign, 
 when, upon his founding the Bishoprick of Oxford, the seat of 
 which was at Osney, it was allotted to the Bishop for his palace, 
 and was for a certain time occupied by Bishop King, who had 
 been the last Abbot of Osney. On the transfer of the See 
 within three years to the church of St. Frideswyde, the endow- 
 ments which had been attached to the Bishoprick and 
 temporarily resigned to the Crown were conveyed to the new 
 foundation, the intention of Henry VIIL, who had died in the 
 meantime, being carried out by Edward VI. But there is no 
 mention among the endowments thus re-conveyed of Gloucester 
 College, which remained in the possession of the Crown until 
 it was granted by Elizabeth, in the second year of her reign, to 
 William Doddington. He at once made it over to the newly- 
 founded College of St. John Baptist, for whom it was purchased 
 by the founder. The legend runs that Sir Thomas Whyte was 
 inclined for a while to Gloucester Hall as the site of his new 
 College, but that a dream directed him to the selection of 
 St. Bernard's College. 
 
 The Bishop of Oxford in 1604 revived his claim to the 
 Hall, maintaining that the surrender to the Crown had not 
 been acknowledged by Bishop King, nor duly enrolled in 
 
430 WORCESTER COLLEGE. 
 
 Chancery, and to try his rights he " did make an entry by night 
 and by water, and did drive away the horses depasturing on 
 the land belonorinor to the said Hall." He failed however to 
 make good his claim against St. John's College. 
 
 Gloucester Hall, 1559 — 1714. 
 
 Sir Thomas Whyte effected considerable repairs in his 
 new purchase, and converted it into a Hall with the name of 
 the Principal and Scholars of St. John Baptist's Hall : the 
 Principal was to be a Fellow of St. John's College, elected by 
 that Society and admitted by the Chancellor of the University. 
 On St. John Baptist's day, 1560, the first Principal, William 
 Stock, and one hundred Scholars took their first commons in 
 the old monks' Kefectory. It was in the September of this 
 same year that the body of Amy Robsart, Robert Dudley's ill- 
 fated wife, was secretly brought from Camnor to Gloucester 
 College, and lay there till the burial at St. Mary's, "the great 
 chamber where the mourners did dine, and that where the 
 gentlewomen did dine, and beneath the stairs a great hall being 
 all hung with black cloth, and garnished with scutcheons." ^ 
 Before long the patronage of this Hall passed with that of 
 others into the hands of the Chancellor, this same Robert 
 Dudley, then become Earl of Leicester, so that the restriction 
 to Fellows of St. John's College was no longer observed. 
 
 There are but few notices of the Hall to be found in the 
 Register of St. John's College. Under date 1567 there is entry 
 of the lease of a chamber, formerly the Library, to William 
 Stocke, Principal of the Hall. In 1573 it was ordered that at 
 the election of a Principal to succeed Mr. Stocke it be 
 covenanted that Sir Geo. Peckham may quietly enjoy his 
 lodging there. And again in 1608 there is entered a grant of 
 six timber trees out of Bagley Wood towards building a chapel. 
 This was in the principalship of Dr. Hawley, in whose time it 
 was that the old Hall for a second time, if the legend of Sir 
 Thomas Whyte be credited, won the regard of an intending 
 Founder ; Nicholas Wadham selected it as the site of his pro- 
 jected College, and his widow, Dorothy, sought to carry out his 
 
 1 Dugdale MSS. 
 
WOKCESTER COLLEGE. 431 
 
 intention, and purchase it. But the scheme went off; for the 
 Principal, Dr. Hawley, refused to resign his interest in the Hall, 
 except upon the Foundress naming him as the first Warden of 
 her College. 
 
 In Principal Hawley's time it may be inferred that the Hall 
 was at a low ebb in point of numbers ; but among its students 
 was one whose quaint, adventurous career had its fit com- 
 mencement in those picturesque ruins. Thomas Coryate the 
 Odcombian — that strange amalgam of shrewdness, buffoonery, 
 learning, and adventure — became a member of the Hall in 
 1596. He passed his life in wandering afoot — a pauper 
 pilgrim — through the East. He was so apt a linguist as 
 to silence " a laundry woman, a famous scold," in her own 
 Hindustani. From the Court of the Great Mogul he dated 
 epistles, which were the amusement of the wits, and are now 
 the treasures of the collector of literary curiosities. These, 
 and the "Crudities hastily gobbled up," a record of his 
 earlier wanderings in Europe, will preserve his memory, 
 when men of more serious consequence have passed into 
 oblivion. 
 
 At this low ebb of the Hall's chequered existence, it seems 
 to have been a common practice to let lodgings to persons not 
 necessarily connected with the Hall. We have already seen 
 how Sir George Peckham occupied a lodging in Principal 
 Stocke's time ; the famous Thomas Allen again in the reign of 
 Elizabeth and James found a refuge here for many years ; and 
 now Degory Whear, who had been, with Camden, a member of 
 Broadgates Hall, and then Fellow of Exeter, retiring with his 
 wife to Oxford upon his patron's death, had rooms allotted to 
 him in Gloucester Hall. In 1622 he was, through Allen's 
 interest, appointed by Camden the first Professor on his History 
 Foundation, and retained this chair, together with the Princi- 
 pals!) ip of the Hall to which he was nominated in 1626, until 
 his death in 1647. Degory Whear, though the friend and 
 proUg^ of so good antiquaries as Allen and Camden, finds 
 amusingly scant favour in the eyes of Antony Wood, who 
 bestows upon him the faint praise that " he was esteemed by 
 some a learned and genteel man, and by others a Calvinist. 
 
432 WORCESTER COLLEGE. 
 
 He left behind him a widow and children, who soon after 
 became poor, and whether the Females lived honestly, 'tis not 
 for me to dispute it." 
 
 The fame or vigour of Degory Whear, with the reputation 
 of Thomas Allen, revived the decaying fortunes of the Hall; 
 for we are told that "in his time there were 100 students: 
 and some being persons of quality, ten or twelve met in their 
 doublets of cloth of gold and silver." Among other noticeable 
 names Christopher Merritt, Fellow of the Koyal Society, was 
 admitted in 1632, and Richard Lovelace in 1634. At that date 
 there were ninety -two students in the Hall (Wood's Life,, ii. 
 246). Degory Whear not only filled his Hall with students, but 
 carried out many much-needed repairs of the buildings. The 
 cliapel, for instance, to the erection of which we have seen that 
 St. John s contributed six timber trees from Bagley Wood, was 
 now by his exertions completed ; the Hall and other buildings 
 were repaired ; books were purchased for the Library, plate for 
 the Buttery. In a MS. book preserved in the College Library 
 are set forth the names of donors to these objects between the 
 years 1630 and 1640. Among the entries are the following — 
 " Kenehmis Bighy Eques auratus 2 li. Johannes Fym armiger 
 20s. Bogerus Griffin civis Oxon. e Collegio pistorum donavit 
 2 millia scandularum ad valorem 22 solid. Johannes Eousceus 
 publicse Bibliothecse prsefectus 1 li. 2s. Samuel Fell S. Th. 
 Doctor 5 li. Thomas Clayton Regius in Medicina Professor 2 li. 
 Guil. Burton LL. Baccalaureatus gradum suscepturus 2 li. 10s." 
 This last was at first a student at Queen's, where he was 
 the contemporary and friend of Gerard Langbaine, but, his 
 means failing him, Mr. Allen brought him to Gloucester Hall, 
 and conferred on him the Greek Lecture there. As the friend 
 of Langbaine it may be supposed he would have a friendly 
 leaning to the plays which at this time. Wood says, were acted 
 by stealth "in Kettle Hall, or at Holywell Mill, or in the 
 Refectory at Gloucester Hall " {Life, ii. 148). He subsequently 
 became the Usher to the famous Thomas Farnaby, and at last 
 Master of the School of Kingston-on-Thames. His " GraecsB 
 Linguae Historia ; sive oratio habita olim Oxoniis in Aula 
 Glevocestrensi ante XX & VI annos," was published in 1657 
 
WORCESTER COLLEGE. 433 
 
 with a laudatory letter of Langbairie's, and a dedication to his 
 pupil Thomas Thynne. 
 
 We next have an account of the expenditure upon the chapel 
 — " Imprimis fabro murario sive csementario 25 li 10s. Materiario 
 sive fabro tignario 38 li 10s. Gypsatori et scandulario 10 li. 
 lis. Vitriario 4 li 6s. fabro ferrario 7 li 10s. pictori 1 li 4s. 
 storealatori 00 9s." 
 
 The Hall too -was put into repair; for this Thomas Allen's 
 legacy of £10 was employed, as also for the purchase of an 
 armarmm or bookcase, " parieti inferioris sacelli affixum." But 
 in spite of this safeguard, the books. Wood says, with pathetic 
 simplicity, "though kept in a large press, have been thieved 
 away for the most part, and are now dwindled to an inconsider- 
 able nothing." Under the date 1637 there is an entry of a 
 contribution of 40 shillings to the expenses of the University 
 in the reception of the King and Queen. It may be noted that 
 these disbursements seem to have required the assent of the 
 Masters of the Hall as well as of the Principal. 
 
 There are two papers in the University Archives bearing the 
 signature of Dfigory Whear as Principal, which give some 
 information as to fees and customary observances of the Hall. 
 Commoners upon admission paid to the House 4s., to the 
 College officers (Manciple, Butler and Cook) 4s. Semi-com- 
 moners or Battlers, to the House 2s., to the officers Is. Qd. A 
 " Poor Scholar " paid nothing. Every Commoner paid weekly 
 to the Butler Id, towards the Servitors of the Hall a half- 
 penny. He also paid quarterly Is. for wages to the Manciple 
 and Cook, besides a varying sum for Decrements, a term which 
 covered kitchen fuel, table-cloths, utensils, &c. This item some- 
 times amounted to 5s. a quarter, never more. On taking 
 any Degree 10s. was paid to the Principal, and another 10s. 
 to the House, or else there was given a presentation Dinner. 
 The Principal further received only the chamber rents, out of 
 which he kept the chambers in repair, and paid quarterly to 
 two Moderators or Readers the sum of £1 Qs. 8d. It appears 
 that it was the custom for every Commoner to take his turn as 
 Steward, go to market with the Manciple and Cook, see the 
 provisions bought for ready money, apportion the amount for 
 
 F F 
 
434 WORCESTER COLLEGE. 
 
 each meal, attend to oversee the divisions at Dinner and Supper, 
 and be accountable for any Commons sent to private chambers. 
 At the end of every quarter the accounts were inspected by the 
 Principal and such of the Masters as he pleased to send for. 
 On Act Monday it had been customary for the proceeding 
 Masters to keep a common supper in the Hall, but this 
 charge had of late years been turned to the building of an 
 Oratory, the flooring of the Hall, the purchase" of plate and of 
 books. 
 
 In Whear's time then the Hall must be regarded as having 
 attained its highest prosperity, due no doubt partly to the 
 energy and distinction of the Principal, but due also in great 
 measure to the influence and reputation of Mr. Thomas Allen, 
 to whom the Principal himself had owed his promotion. This 
 distinguished mathematician and antiquary, "being much in- 
 clined to a retired life, and averse from taking Holy Orders," ^ 
 about 1570 resigned his Fellowship at Trinity College, and took 
 up his residence in Gloucester Hall, where he remained until 
 his death in 1632. His intimate relations with the Chancellor, 
 the Earl of Leicester, at once marked and increased his distinc- 
 tion, while it exposed him to the attacks of Leicester's enemies. 
 Leicester would have nominated him to a Bishoprick, and the 
 malignant author of ''Leycester's Commonwealth" stigmatizes 
 him as one of Leicester's spies and intelligencers in the Uni- 
 versity, and couples him with his friend John Dee as an atheist 
 and Leicester's agent " for figuring and conjuring." Indeed his 
 reputation as a mathematician (" he was," says his pupil Burton, 
 " the very soul and sun of all the Mathematicians of his time ") 
 caused him to be regarded by the vulgar as a magician. Fuller 
 says of him that " he succeeded to the skill and scandal of Friar 
 Bacon," and that his servitor would tell the gaping enquirer that 
 " he met the spirits coming up the stairs like bees." Indeed in 
 those days when horoscopes were in fashion the mathematician 
 merged into the astrologer ; the friend of John Dee not un- 
 naturally was supposed to have dealings in magical arts, and 
 Leicester's patronage of both would give countenance to the 
 reputation. But the friendship of the most learned men of the 
 
 1 Wood. 
 
WORCESTER COLLEGE. 435 
 
 time — of Bodley, Saville, Camden, Cotton, Spelman, Selden — 
 is an indication of Allen's genuine attainments. Bodley by his 
 will bequeaths to Mr. Wm. Gent of Gloucester Hall " my best 
 gown and my best cloak, and the next gown and cloak to my 
 best I do bequeath to Mr. Thomas Allen of the same Hall." 
 Camden also leaves him in his will the sum of £16.^ Allen's 
 valuable collection of MSS. passed into the hands of his eccen- 
 tric pupil, Sir Kenelm Digby, by whom they were placed in Sir 
 Thomas Bodley's newly-founded library. 
 
 On Whear's decease in 1647 Tobias Garbrand, of Dutch 
 descent, was made Principal by the Earl of Pembroke as 
 Chancellor. He was ejected at the Restoration in 1660. From 
 this date the fortunes of the Hall seemed to have reached their 
 lowest depth.2 If a stray gleam of fortune lit upon the place, 
 it was only to suffer immediate eclipse. Thus, when John 
 Warner, Bishop of Rochester, left a foundation in 1666 for the 
 maintenance of four Scotch scholars to be trained as ministers, 
 and the Masters and Fellows of Balliol College were unwill- 
 ing to receive them, as being not in any way advantageous 
 to the House, they were for a time placed in Gloucester 
 Hall. But when Dr. Good became Master of Balliol in 
 1672, Gutch remarks with quiet humour, " he took order 
 that they should be translated thither, and there they yet 
 continue." 
 
 The fortunes of the Hall sank lower and lower, till a time 
 came when it remained for several years entirely untenanted by 
 students. It shared in the general depression of the University, 
 to which Wood bears evidence. " Not one Scholar matric. in 
 1675, 1676, 1677, 1678, not one Scholar in Gloucester Hall, 
 only the Principal and his family, and two or three more 
 families that live there in some part to keep it from ruin, the 
 paths are grown over with grass, the way into the Hall and 
 Chapel made up with boards." 
 
 ^ Whear, in his funeral oration over Camden, bears testimony to the life- 
 long intimacy of the two. — Camden's Insignia. 
 
 2 It had fared roughly in the Civil Wars " in gladiorum Bombardarum- 
 que fabricas mutata, quasi Vulcano magis quam Palladi imposterum 
 sacranda prorsua desolata jacuit." — Patent of 1698, 
 
436 WORCESTER COLLEGE. 
 
 Prideaux, writing to Ellis (Sept. 18, 1676), says — " Gloucester 
 Hall is like to be demolished, the charge of Chimney money 
 being so great that Byrom Eaton will scarce live there any 
 longer. There hath been no scholars there these three or four 
 years : for all which time the hall being in arrears for this tax 
 the collectors ha.ve at last fallen upon the principal, who being 
 by the Act liable to the payment, hath made great complaints 
 about the town and created us very good sport ; but the old 
 fool hath been forced to pay the money, which hath amounted 
 to a considerable sum." 
 
 Loggan's picturesque view, taken in 1675, suggests a mournful 
 desolation, and the pathetic motto which it bears — "Quare 
 fecit Dominus sic domui huic ? " — is eloquent of decay. Dr. 
 Byrom Eaton, Archdeacon of Stow, and then of Leicester, had 
 held the Principality for thirty years, when in 1692 he resigned 
 it to make way for a younger and more vigorous man. Such 
 was found in Dr. Woodroffe, one of the Canons of Christ Church, 
 whose nomination to the Deanery by James II. in 1688 had 
 been cancelled at the Revolution in favour of Dean Aldrich. 
 Woodroffe is described by Wood as "a man of a generous and 
 public spirit, who bestowed several hundred pounds in repairing 
 (the place) and making it a fit habitation for the Muses, which 
 being done he by his great interest among the gentry made it 
 flourish with hopeful sprouts." The hopeful sprouts, however, 
 do not seem to have been so very numerous after all, since we 
 find the entry in Wood's Life under date Jan. 1694 — *' I was 
 with Dr. Woodroffe, and he told me he had six in Commons at 
 Gloucester Hall, his 2 sons two." Prideaux's letters to Ellis 
 contain several references to Dr. Woodroffe, the reverse of com- 
 plimentary — ludicrous accounts of sermons, which he confesses 
 to be hearsay accounts, accusations of heiress hunting, of whim- 
 sical ill-temper, of want of dignity. " Last night he had Madam 
 Walcup at his lodgings, and stood with her in a great window 
 next the quadrangle, where he was seen by Mr. Dean himself 
 and almost all the house toying with her most ridiculously and 
 fanning himself with her fan for almost all the afternoon." 
 But Prideaux's gossip was probably inspired by personal anti- 
 pathies and College jealousies. Woodroffe was no doubt a 
 
WORCESTER COLLEGE. 437 
 
 keen, bustling, pushing man.^ He was shrewd enough, at any 
 rate, to marry a good fortune ; but became involved in diffi- 
 culties, which led to the sequestration of his canonry. He 
 seems to have lost no opportunity of advertising himself and 
 combining " public spirit " with private advantage. Such was 
 the man who became associated with one of the most interesting 
 though short-lived experiments in the history of the University 
 — the establishment of a Greek College. Some seventy years 
 had passed since Cyril Lucar, Patriarch first of Alexandria and 
 then of Constantinople, had sent to England a Greek youth, 
 Metrophanes Critopylos, whom Abp. Abbott placed at Balliol 
 College, of which his brother had not long before been Master. 
 Here Critopylos remained as a student till about 1622, when he 
 returned to the East, and subsequently became Patriarch of 
 Alexandria in the room of Cyril Lucar. Nothing more seems 
 to have come of this particular overture, but the English 
 Chaplains of Constantinople, Smyrna, and Aleppo, kept open to 
 some extent the communications with the Eastern Church. At 
 last, upon the representations of Joseph Georgirenes, Metro- 
 politan of Samos (a man who subsequently took refuge in 
 London, and had built for him as a Greek church what is now 
 St. Mary's, Crown St. Soho), Archbishop Sancroft and others 
 who favoured the hope of reunion with the Eastern Church pro- 
 moted a scheme for the education of a body of Greek youths at 
 Oxford, and the establishment of a Greek College there. Fore- 
 most amongst Oxford sympathizers was Dr. Woodroffe, the 
 newly appointed Principal of Gloucester Hall. In a letter to 
 Callinicos, the Patriarch of Constantinople, he suggests that 
 twenty students, five from each of the four patriarchates, should 
 be sent over to the Greek College now founded at Oxford 
 (Gloucester Hall), which had been placed " on the same rank 
 footing and privilege which the other Colleges enjoy there." 
 He explains the course of study to be pursued, and suggests the 
 advantage of a reciprocity of students, as also of books and 
 manuscripts. He designates the three English chaplains named 
 
 * Tljough Hearne calls him *' a man of whimsical and shallow under- 
 standing" — "of a strange, unsettled, whimsical temper, which brought 
 him into debt." 
 
438 WORCESTER COLLEGE. 
 
 above as convenient channels of communication. The scheme 
 contemplated an annual succession of students, who were to be 
 of two classes. For two years they were to converse in Ancient 
 Greek, and then to learn Latin and Hebrew. They were to 
 study Aristotle, Plato, the Greek Fathers, and Controversial 
 Divinity. The services were to be in Greek, and public exer- 
 cises were to be performed in Greek, as directed by the Vice- 
 Chancellor. Their habit was to be " the gravest worn in their 
 country," and finally they were to be returned to their respective 
 Patriarchs with a report of the progress made. Trustees were 
 to manage the funds of the College, which was to be supported 
 by voluntary contributions. This bold scheme was but par- 
 tially attempted; and before long came to a disastrous end. 
 Mr. Ffoulkes, who first claimed attention in the " Union Review " 
 for the Greek College, which, as he observes, had been strangely 
 ignored by Wood's continuators, quotes from Mr. E. Stevens, a 
 nonjuror, and enthusiastic advocate of " Reunion," his account 
 of the experiment and its breakdown. Five young Grecians 
 were in 1698 brought from Smyrna and placed in Gloucester 
 Hall. Three of them were, according to Mr. Stephens, lured 
 away by Roman emissaries : two of these, brothers, after various 
 adventures, took refuge with Mr. Stephens, and were at last 
 sent home " with their faith unscathed." The third was decoyed 
 to Paris, to the Greek College lately established there, presum- 
 ably in rivalry of the Oxford scheme. There appears too to 
 have been another establishment set up in friendly rivalry at 
 Halle in Saxony. But the most fatal blow w^as the mismanage- 
 ment of the College itself. " Though they who came first were 
 well enough ordered for some time ; yet afterwards they and 
 those who came after them were so ill-accommodated both for 
 their studies and other necessaries, that some of them staid not 
 many months, and others would have been gone if they had 
 known how ; and there are now but two left there." ^ Add to 
 these drawbacks the temptations of London, and it is not sur- 
 prising that the Oxford College received its quietus in a missive 
 
 1 V. also " the case of Gloucester Hall, rectifying the fcilse stating 
 thereof by Dr. Woodroffe," p. 40. " The poor Greek boys, whom he used 
 in such a manner that they all or most of them ran away from him." 
 
WORCESTER COLLEGE. 439 
 
 from Constantinople. " The irregular life of certain priests and 
 laymen of the Eastern Church, living in London, is a matter of 
 great concern to the Church. Wherefore the Church forbids 
 any to go and study at Oxford, be they ever so willing." This 
 was in 1705. From that moment, as Mr. Ffoulkes picturesquely 
 says, the Greek College " disappears like a dream." Of its 
 students one name only is preserved to us. We find in 
 Hearne (March 15th, 1707) — " Francis Prasalendius, a Grsecian 
 of the Isle of Corey ra, lately a student in the Public Library, and 
 of Gloucester Hall, has printed a book in the Greek language 
 (writ very well as I am informed by one of the Grsecians of 
 Glouc. Hall) against Traditions, in which he falls upon Dr. 
 Woodroffe very smartly." 
 
 Worcester College, founded 1714. 
 
 But while the Greek College was still perishing of inanition, 
 its principal was engaged in a scheme of a more ambitious 
 though less interesting nature. A Worcestershire Baronet, Sir 
 Thomas Cookes, had made known his desire through the Bishop 
 of Worcester of founding a College at Oxford ; £10,000 was the 
 sum he proposed for an endowment. There was competition 
 for the prize. Dr. Woodroffe wanted to secure it for Gloucester 
 Hall, Dr. Mill for St. Edmund Hall, Dr. Lancaster for Magdalen 
 Hall ; Balliol College was at one time the favourite object, at 
 another a workhouse for his county. The choice inclined 
 to Gloucester Hall, but was well-nigh lost; for Woodroffe 
 had inserted in the charter a clause providing that the King 
 should have liberty to put in and turn out the Fellows at 
 his pleasure. With the recent experience of Magdalen fresh 
 in men's minds, such intervention of the crown was not likely 
 to find favour, and Bishop Stillingfleet drily observed that 
 " kings have already had enough to do with our Colleges." The 
 hopes of Edmund Hall rose high ; for indeed the Bishop had, 
 according to Hearne, nominated that Hall in the first place. 
 However Dr. Woodroffe prudently withdrew his clause, and in 
 1698 a charter passed the great seal for the incorporation of the 
 Hall under the title of the Provost^ Fellows, and Scholars of 
 
440 WORCESTER COLLEGE. 
 
 Worcester College, with Dr. WoodrofFe for the first Provost.^ 
 This was followed by a Ratification dated November 18th, 
 naming the Bishop of Worcester as Visitor, and the Bishop of 
 Oxford as his assessor in difficult cases, and making elaborate 
 provision for the orgaoization, conduct, and educational system 
 of the College. There were to be twelve Fellows, six Senior 
 Tutors, six Junior Sub-Tutors, and eight Scholars, chosen from 
 the Founder's schools of Bromsgrove and Feckenham, or, failing 
 them, from Worcester and Hartlebury. Each Fellow and Scholar 
 was to have £14 per annum, the Provost double that amount. 
 There were to be Lectureships, two "solemnes" in Theology 
 and History, three ordinary in Mathematics, Philosophy, and 
 Philology ; the Lecture in Theology to be catechetical, on the 
 model of that at Balliol, and to be given in the chapel. The 
 Praelector of History was to lecture from seven to nine on 
 Sundays on Biblical history. The others were to lecture at the 
 discretion of the Provost five or at least four times a week. An 
 elaborate scheme of medical and other studies was prescribed. 
 There was a carefully-graduated scale of payments "obeuntibus 
 cursus et acta," ending with 13s. M. for the speech in com- 
 memoration of tlie Founder. The Provost was to allot a 
 cubiculum to one or at the most to two occupants. In winter 
 the afternoon chapel service was to be at three, the morning 
 service at seven, but in summer at six. This was to consist of 
 a shorter Latin form " ad usum Ecclesiae Xti," with a chapter of 
 the Bible in Greek. Private prayers and Bible-reading were 
 enjoined for each day, and two hours specified for Sunday. A 
 chapter in Greek or Latin was to be read at meal-times in 
 Hall. Offenders against rules were to be " gated " or sent into 
 seclusion, "quasi minor qusedam excommunicatio," or else to 
 be exiled to the ante-chapeh As regards the cook, butler, &c. 
 the Aularian Statutes were to be observed. 
 
 After all the Charter remained a dead letter. Sir Thomas 
 Cookes, anxious to find excuses for putting off Dr. Woodroffe's 
 
 ^ " The Doctor's precipitation was so violent that he forgot all the Cor- 
 poration which should have been incorporated but himself— as if he intended 
 by the power of this charter to turn Lis Body Natural into a Body Politick." 
 —Case of Oloucester Hallf p. 24. 
 
WORCESTER COLLEGE. 441 
 
 importunities, claimed for bis heirs the nomination to the 
 Headship; and after two years the Chancellor conceded this 
 point. It was objected that the Chancellor had not the power 
 to make this concession without the consent of Convocation : 
 which was never asked; and if it had, would not have been 
 given. Sir Thomas found fresh reasons for hanging back. The 
 fact that Gloucester Hall was a leasehold and that St. John's 
 were supposed to have been forbidden by their Founder to part 
 with the fee simple was one of these difficulties. Then there 
 were the Statutes, which Sir Thomas Cookes persistently 
 refused to sign, " nor would he pay one farthing for passing the 
 Chaiter." In 1701 he died, leaving his £10,000 in the hands of 
 certain Bishops, with the V ice-Chancellor and the Heads of 
 Houses, for the carrying out his intentions. The money was 
 left to accumulate for some years till it amounted to £15,000. 
 In the meantime Dr. WoodrofFe tries to obtain an Act in 1702 
 for settling the money on Gloucester Hall, the lease of which he 
 proposed St. John's College should make perpetual at the then 
 rent of £5 10s. The Bill, however, was thrown out on the 
 second reading. At Oxford, it is clear, there was a powerful 
 opposition to Dr. Woodroffe and his claim for Gloucester Hall. 
 On Nov. 22, 1707, nineteen out of the thirty Trustees met in 
 the Convocation House, and on the ground that " the erecting 
 of Buildings would make the charity of less use than endowing 
 some Hall in Oxford already built," determined "to fix the 
 Charity at Magdalen Hall, and to endow Fellows and Scholars 
 there." On the other hand the Archbishop of Canterbury, the 
 Bishop of Worcester, the Bishop of Oxford and others were in 
 favour of carrying out what they believed to be in spite of all 
 his vacillation the final determination of Sir Thomas Cookes in 
 favour of Gloucester Hall. They deposed moreover ^ that " the 
 ground Plats of Gloucester Hall and the Gloucester Hall build- 
 ings Quadrangles and Gardens are 3 times as much as Magdalen 
 Hall, and the ground on which the buildings of Gloucester Hall 
 stand is twice as much as that of Magdalen Hall, and there are 
 large and capacious chambers in Gloucester Hall to receive 20 
 scholars, and 9 are inhabited, and the principal's lodgings are in 
 ^ Vide Case for the Attomey-Getieral (College MS.). 
 
442 WORCESTER COLLEGE. 
 
 good repair and fit for a faaiily of 12 persons, and there is a 
 large Hall, Chapel, Buttery and Kitchen, and a large common 
 room lately wainscoted and sash windows, and in laying out 
 about £500 in repairs there will be good conveniency for 60 
 scholars, and the place is pleasantly situated and in a good 
 air/' Dr. Woodroffe dies in 1711, his ambition still unful- 
 filled, and a Fellow of St. John's, Dr. Richard Blechynden, 
 succeeds to the Principalship of an empty Hall. There was, 
 according to Hearne, hardly one Scholar in the place. At last 
 the trustees saw their way to carrying out the will of Sir 
 Thomas Cookes. St. John's College in 1713 agrees to alienate 
 Gloucester Hall for the sum of £200, and a quit-rent of 20^. 
 per annum. In the following year, two days onl}'^ before 
 the Queen's death, a Charter of Incorporation, for the second 
 time, passes the great seal, and Gloucester Hall or College is 
 finally merged in Worcester College. The foundation was now 
 to consist of a Provost, six Fellows, and six Scholars, whose 
 emoluments were to be on a somewhat more liberal scale than 
 that of the original statutes. Fellows and Scholars were to be 
 allowed sixpence a day for commons, the Fellows to have £30 
 per annum, the Scholars 13s. 8d. a quarter, the Provost £80 per 
 annum, but no allowance for commons. Among the other 
 "ministri" was to be a Tonsor, receiving an annual salary of 
 20s. Tills important official lingered on in diminished import- 
 ance till the present generation. The Bishops of Worcester 
 and Oxford and the Vice-Chancellor were appointed Visitors. 
 In other respects the provisions of the new Statutes were much 
 simplified. The scheme of Lectureships was omitted ; so were 
 the elaborate directions as to studies, private devotions, &c., as 
 well as the scale of payments on the performance of exercises. 
 Latin was to be the ordinary speech, " so far as might be con- 
 venient," except at College meetings. Undergraduates were to 
 " dispute " every day, and write weekly Themes ; Bachelors to 
 " dispute " twice a week, and make a Terminal " Declamation." 
 Candidates for Degrees were to oppose or respond on a problem 
 set by the Provost in the College Hall, while candidates for the 
 M.A. Degree had the option of commenting on a passage of 
 Aristotle. On the Degree Day a Bachelor was to give a supper. 
 
WORCESTER COLLEGE. 443 
 
 or pay 20s. for the College uses. The supper given by an M.A. 
 was not to exceed 40s. 
 
 Of the new College Principal Blechynden was named as the 
 first Provost; of the six Fellows, one, Roger Bouchier, was 
 already a member of the Hall — '*a man of great reading in 
 various sorts of learning, the greatest man in England for 
 Divinity."^ The others were Thomas Clymer of All Souls', 
 Robert Burd of St. John's, William Bradley of New Inn Hall, 
 Joseph Penn of Wadham, and Samuel Creswick of Pembroke, 
 who was afterwards Dean of Wells. 
 
 It was not till 1720, that with the modest sum of £798 Os. Sd., 
 the remnant of a disputed bequest of Mrs. Margaret Alcorne, 
 the newly-founded College was enabled to commence the 
 " restoration " of its buildings. Had the designs of Dr. Clarke, 
 illustrated by the Oxford Almanack of 1741, which were similar 
 in character to those of Hawkesmoor and other architects for 
 the reconstruction of Brasenose, All Souls', and Magdalen, been 
 earned out, the picturesque history of the place would have 
 been entirely effaced, and a quadrangle of " correct " and 
 "elegant" monotony would have satisfied the taste of Dean 
 Aldrich and the amateurs of the day. Fortunately the means 
 were wanting ; all that was put in hand at first were the Chapel, 
 Hall, and Library. By the liberahty of Dr. Clarke the interior 
 of the Library was completed in 1736, its exterior in 1746. 
 The Hall was at last finished in 17S4, while the Chapel still 
 remained incompleted in 1786, the date of Gutch's account — 
 nor does the College Register give any indication on the point. 
 But in the meantime two considerable benefactors arose, who 
 contributed new Foundations to the corporation. Dr. Clarke, 
 Fellow of All Souls' and Member for the University, left an 
 endowment for six Fellowships and three Scholarships, together 
 with his valuable library, while Mrs. Sarah Eaton, daughter of 
 the former principal, bequeathed an endowment for seven Fellow- 
 ships and five Scholarships to be held by the sons of clergymen. 
 These new Foundations were incorporated by Charter in 1744. 
 For lodging Dr. Clarke's Foundation the demolition of the old 
 buildings on the north side of the quadrangle was begun, and 
 
444 WORCESTER COLLEGE. 
 
 nine sets of rooms erected by his trustees, 1753-9, while in 
 1773 the remainder of the old north side was swept away, and 
 twelve sets of rooms built for Mrs. Eaton's Foundation, together 
 with the present Provost's lodgings. Meanwhile the College 
 was providently with such resources as it possessed enlarging its 
 borders. In 1741 it purchased of St. John's College for £850 
 the garden ground on the south side of the College, and in 
 1744 the gardens and meadows to the north and west, "together 
 with the house called the Cock and Bottle." In 1801 it 
 bought for £1330 the "King's Head," opposite to the front of 
 the College, and in 1813 enfranchised the premises on the east 
 front held under lease of the City; w^hile in 1806 it cleared 
 away " WoodrofFe's Folly," a building erected by that Principal 
 opposite the front of the College, for which St. John's received a 
 valuation of £401 16s. The College thus became surrounded 
 with an open belt, destined to be an incalculable boon in the 
 modern days of building extension. The garden ground on the 
 south side was in 1813 ordered to be kept in hand for the use 
 of the Fellows, and it was about the year 1827 that the late 
 Mr. Greswell signalized his Bursarship by laying out the 
 ornamental grounds, as they now exist. These gardens, falling 
 to a piece of water, together with the fortunate preservation of 
 an open quadrangle, a mode of construction for the merits of 
 which Sir Christopher Wren contended at Trinity,^ secured to 
 the College the sanitary as well as the picturesque advantages 
 of a rus in urhe — a "o^us" so rural that, the tradition runs, a tutor 
 of the last generation would take his gun, and slip down between 
 his lectures to the pool for a shot at a stray snipe. 
 
 William Gower, upon Dr. Blechynden's death, was nominated 
 Provost in 1736. He had been admitted Scholar in 1715, the 
 year after the incorporation of the College. He rivalled Thomas 
 Allen in the length of his connection with the College. For 
 62 years he was borne upon its foundations, as Scholar, Fellow, 
 or Provost. Longevity has been a characteristic of the Provosts 
 of this College. One only, Dr. Sheffield, held his office for 
 so short a period as 18 years. The other three, Gower, Landon, 
 and Cotton, were Provosts respectively for 41, 44, and 41 
 1 Willis and Clark's Cambridge, iii. 279. 
 
WORCESTER COLLEGE. 445 
 
 years — collectively 126 years, and Dr. Cotton kept 70 years 
 of unbroken residence. Dr. Gower was a man of great literary 
 attainments. He left many valuable books to the College 
 Library. Dr. King ^ says that he was " ac(]uainted with three 
 persons only who spoke English with that eloquence and pro- 
 priety that if all they said had been immediately committed to 
 writing, any judge of the English language would have pro- 
 nounced it an excellent and very beautiful style." The other 
 two were Atterbury and Johnson. It was in his second year's 
 Provostship that Samuel Foote of Worcester School claimed 
 and established a right to a Scholarship as Founder's kin. His 
 student life was brief and stormy. In 1740 the College passes 
 sentence that "Samuel Foote having by a long-continued course 
 of ill-behaviour rendered himself obnoxious to frequent censure 
 of the Society public and private, and having while he was 
 under censure for lying out of College insolently and pre- 
 sumptuously withdrawn himself and refused to answer to 
 several heinous crimes objected to him, though duly cited by 
 the Provost by an instrument in form, in not appearing to the 
 said citation, for the above reasons his Scholarship is declared 
 void, and he is hereby deprived of all benefit and advantage 
 of the said Scholarship." This entry gives an interest to the 
 opening of Gower's Provostship ; another of a different character 
 occurs near its close. In 1775 is recorded an injunction of the 
 Visitors of the College "as to the use of napkins in the Common 
 Hall." 
 
 The Provostship of Dr. Landon, 1795 — 1835, witnessed the 
 commencement of that growth of Oxford, of which our own 
 generation has seen so remarkable a development. The open- 
 ing up of Beaumont St., as to which the College was in treaty 
 with the city in 1820, materially assisted in drawing Worcester 
 within the comity of Colleges.^ It was still — and for many years 
 to come — unrecognized upon the Proctorial rota. The first 
 
 1 " Anecdotes of his Own Times," p. 174. 
 
 2 Matthew Griffith of Gloucester Hall, absent from St. Marj^'s when his 
 grace was asked, was excused because " ob distantiam loci et contrarios 
 ventos campanae sonitum audire non potuit ! " — Reg. Univ. Oxon. (edit. 
 Clark), II. i. 33. 
 
446 WORCESTER COLLEGE. 
 
 Proctor it nominated in its own right held office in 1863. The 
 College could only be approached either by George St. and 
 Stockwell St., or more directly by the narrow alley called 
 Friar's Entry ; and an amusing picture is given of the stately 
 Vice-Chancellor — "Old Glory" was his soubriquet — preceded 
 by his Bedels, with their gold and silver maces, ducking beneath 
 the fluttering household linen suspended across the alley on 
 washing day. This must have been a trying test of the dignified 
 deportment which had distinguished Dr. Landon as host of the 
 Allied Sovereigns, and gained for him — so it is said — from the 
 Prince Regent the Deanery of Exeter. 
 
 The College, thus drawn more directly within the influences 
 of University life, began to feel the impulse given to academical 
 resort by times of peace. New rooms were added ; sets long 
 vacant were fitted up for occupants. In 1821 three additional 
 sets were constructed " in the space afforded by the old College 
 chapel." In 1822 it was ordered that all such apartments 
 not at present inhabited, as shall be found capable of accom- 
 modating undergraduates, be immediately prepared for their 
 reception. In 1824 the roof of part of the old building was 
 raised, so as to give six additional sets of rooms. Finally in 
 1844 a new and handsome kitchen was built and seven additional 
 sets constructed.^ 
 
 The most distinguished inmate of the College in Landon's 
 time was Thomas de Quincey, of whom his old servant on No. 
 10 staircase — Common Room man till 1865 — retained many 
 memories. He lived a somewhat recluse life. He was always 
 buying fresh books, and was sometimes at a loss how to find 
 money for them. In those days men dressed for Hall : and De 
 Quincey having one day parted with his one waistcoat for the 
 purchase of a book went into Hall hiding his loss of clothing 
 as best he could. But concealment was in vain, and he was 
 promptly sconced for the deficiency. De Quincey crowned the 
 peculiarities of his College career by suddenly leaving Oxford 
 before the close of a brilliant examination. 
 
 In 1826 another member of the College — Francis William 
 Newman — received the unique distinction of a present of books 
 1 College Register. 
 
WORCESTER COLLEGE. 447 
 
 (now in the College Library) from his mathematical examiners. 
 Bonamy Price, Arnold's favourite pupil, shed a lustre upon the 
 next generation of undergraduates. Both of them were sub- 
 sequently Honorary Fellows of the College, and were present at 
 the celebration of its six hundredth annivei'sary. Dr. Bloxam, 
 a contemporary of the two, preserves some interesting recol- 
 lections of the customs of the day. The Bachelors who resided 
 for their M.A. Degree used to appear in Hall in full evening 
 dress, breeches and silk stockings. Undergraduates had left off 
 attending dinner in white neckcloths and evening costume. The 
 table on the right was occupied by the gay men of the College, 
 and was called the " Sinners' Table." These formed a class by 
 themselves. The table on the left was called the " Smilers' 
 Table," who also formed a distinct set between the "Sinners" and 
 the ** Saints," the latter being the more quiet men, who occupied 
 the table nearest the High Table, on the left. The Fellow Com- 
 moners, an institution retained at the present day for the conveni- 
 ence of older men resorting to the University, were at that time 
 young men of fortune, who desired an exemption from the stricter 
 discipline of undergraduate life. They dined at the High Table, 
 and were members of the Common Room. But their affinities 
 lay rather with the occupants of the " Sinners' Table," and their 
 existence must have been a perpetual difficulty to a sorely-tried 
 Dean. " Bodley " Coxe, a member of the College in those days, 
 subsequently one of its Honorary Fellows, would tell of the for- 
 midable muster of " pinks " in Beaumont St. after a cliampagne 
 breakfast, and of the excuse which satisfied a simple-minded 
 tutor that the delinquent would not offend again during the 
 whole of the summer. 
 
 There has been a great change too in the habits of the 
 Seniors. The tutors, as elsewhere, gave their lectures or rather 
 lessons, consisting of translations by the class, with questions 
 and answers, without form or ceremony in their own rooms. 
 After an early dinner they would retire to an uncarpeted 
 Common Room. There after wine long clay pipes were a 
 regular indulgence. An evening walk or other interlude was 
 succeeded by a hot supper at nine, and the evening finished 
 with a rubber. Dr. Cotton in his time was singular in retiring 
 
448 WORCESTER COLLEGE. 
 
 to his rooms after Coramon Room without joining the whist 
 and supper party. All these customs have dropped away with 
 the barbers and knee-breeche3 of our fathers. The Latin form 
 of Morning Prayers was abolished by an excess of reforming 
 zeal, and the Statutes of the College are no longer recited in 
 annual conclave. Ordinances have succeeded statutes, and 
 statutes succeeded ordinances. One ancient custom lingers 
 on — the Porter still makes his morning rounds, and hammers 
 upon the door of each staircase with a wooden mallet. This 
 is a Benedictine usage, an echo of the thirteenth century 
 continuing to haunt the old Benedictine walls. 
 
XX. 
 
 HERTFORD COLLEGE/ 
 
 By the Rev. H. Rashdall, M.A., Fellow of Hertford. 
 
 Although Hertford is the youngest College of the Uni- 
 versity, it stands close to the very centre of the University's 
 most ancient home, on a site which has been the scene of 
 Academical life from the earliest times. What the Oxford Local 
 Board has chosen to call S. Catherine's Street, has been known 
 from the earliest times onwards as " Catte-Street " (Vicus Muri- 
 legorum). Lying just outside School Street, the scene of the 
 Arts lectures. Cat Street was in the twelfth century the especial 
 home of the Writers, Bookbinders, Parchment-makers, and 
 Illuminers, for whose wares the growth of the University had 
 created a demand. In the following century, it was partly 
 occupied by University Halls or Hospices. At least four were 
 comprised within the limits of the present College : Cat Hall, 
 near the present Principal's Lodgings ; Black Hall, at the corner 
 of New College Lane ; Hart Hall, and Arthur Hall, the two 
 latter occupying the Library corner of the Quadrangle. Hart 
 Hall eventually swallowed up all its neighbours as well as the 
 ground between them. The history of this process want of 
 space forbids me to trace. I must confine myself to the Hall 
 which has given its name to the present College. 
 
 ^ I have to acknowledge the great kindness of our present Principal and 
 Vice-Chancellor, the Rev. Henry Boyd, D.D., in placing at my disposal the 
 materials collected by him for a History of the College which, I hope, may 
 yet see the light. 
 
450 HERTFORD COLLEGE. 
 
 Hart Hall, 1280 (?)— 1740. 
 
 The house is first known to have been a residence for scholars 
 when it had passed into the possession of one Elias de Hertford, 
 from whom it got its name of Hert Hall {Aula Ccrvina). This 
 was between 1261 and ]284. A Hall was then simply a board- 
 ing-house, hired by a party of students as a residence. One of 
 them, called a Principal, paid the rent and collected the amount 
 from the rest. From the first the Principal possessed a certain 
 authority, but it was not necessary that he should be a Master 
 or even a Graduate. Eventually the University required that 
 he should be a Graduate, and a new Principal had to be 
 admitted by the Chancellor. When, after the Reformation, the 
 Colleges absorbed the greater part of the now greatly reduced 
 Academic population, most of the old Halls disappeared and no 
 new ones were created. Hence the few that remained divided 
 the monopoly of University education with the Colleges, and 
 their Principalships became not unimportant pieces of patron- 
 age, which after a long struggle the Chancellor succeeded in 
 appropriating to himself, except in the case of S. Edmund Hall. 
 To a very late period, however, there remained traces of the old 
 democratic regime, under which the students claimed the right 
 to elect their own Principal, that is to say, to consent to the 
 transfer of the house by the landlord from one Principal to 
 another. Since, prior to the Laudian statutes, there was nothing 
 to prevent a scholar freely transferring himself from one Prin- 
 cipal to another, the necessity of their acceptance of the land- 
 lord's new tenant is obvious. Even after the right of the 
 Chancellor to nominate was fairly acknowledged, it was con- 
 sidered necessary that the students (graduate and undergradu- 
 ate) should be solemnly assembled in the Hall and required to 
 elect the Chancellor's nominee, a formality which at Hart Hall 
 lasted as long as the Hall itself. The present Fellows of Hert- 
 ford enjoy less autonomy than the ancient students, and the 
 Chancellor still enjoys an absolute right to appoint the 
 Principal. 
 
 In 1312 the Hall, after some intermediate transfers, passed 
 
HERTFORD COLLEGE. 451 
 
 to Walter de Stapeldon, Bishop of Exeter. For some years 
 before the acquisition of their present site, it was the habitation 
 of the Rector and Scholars of Stapeldon Hall, now known as 
 Exeter College. After this, Hart Hall continued to belong to 
 them and was let to a Principal, usually one of their own Fellows. 
 The rent varied from time to time till 1665, after which a fixed 
 sum of £1 13s. 4fd. continued to be paid, and it became a 
 question whether prescription had not extinguished any further 
 rights on the part of the College. 
 
 Among the " Principals *' appear the first three Wardens of 
 New College, Richard de Tonworthe (1378), Nicolas de Wykeham 
 (1381), and Thomas de Cranleigh, afterwards Archbishop of 
 Dublin (1384).! During these years (probably 1375—1385) Hart 
 and Black Halls were occupied by William of Wykeham's New 
 College, while their own buildings were in course of erection. 
 There is, indeed, in the New College book of " Evidences " what 
 purports to be a conveyance (dated 1379) of Hart Hall to William 
 of Wykeham, under a quit-rent, by the Prioress and Convent of 
 Studley. But from the documents of Exeter College it is 
 clear that the "capital lords" in actual possession were the 
 Prior and Convent of S. Frideswyde's.^ Hence it would seem 
 that the astute Bishop of Winchester was outwitted for once 
 by the Nuns of Studley (who were really proprietors of the 
 adjoining Scheld Hall), and bought land with a bad title.^ 
 Nuns had a great reputation as women of business. 
 
 Later on the Hall was tenanted by a body of scholars 
 supported by Glastonbury Abbey. At the dissolution a pension 
 of £16 13.S. M. was paid for the support of five scholars to Hart 
 Hall, or rather to the University on its behalf. The amount was 
 at first a rent-charge payable, but not always paid, by the 
 grantee of certain Abbey lands. At the Restoration these lauds 
 were resumed by the Crown. The pension was still paid at the 
 end of the last century, but has now disappeared. 
 
 * Gilbert Kymer, M.D., afterwards well known as Chancellor of the Uni- 
 versity, became Principal in 1412. 
 
 2 A quit-rent continued to be paid by Exeter to S. Frideswyde's and 
 afterwards to Christ Church as long as Hart Hall existed. 
 
 3 Unless the name Hart Hall covered some adjoining tenement. 
 
452 HERTFOKD COLLEGE. 
 
 The most distinguished man who can be fairly claimed as an 
 alumnus of Hart Hall is the learned Selden (1600 — 1603), then 
 " a long scabby-pol'd boy but a good student." Ken, the saintly 
 Bishop of Bath and Wells, was apparently a member of the Hall 
 for a few months while waiting for a vacancy at New College. 
 Sir Henry Wotton, one of the seventeenth century worthies 
 immortalized by Izaac Walton, resided here, though it would 
 seem that he was not a member of the Hall but a Gentleman- 
 Commoner of New College. 
 
 Richard Newton was born in the year 1675 or 1676, being a 
 son of the squire of Laundon, Bucks, a moderate estate to which 
 he eventually succeeded. He came up to Christ Church as a 
 Westminster Student in 1694. After being for a time a Tutor 
 of that House, he became tutor to the two Pelhams, the future 
 Duke of Newcastle and his brother. In 1704 he was presented 
 to the Rectory of Sudbury, Northants, by Bp. Compton. He 
 was admitted Principal of Hart Hall, and took his D.D. in 1710, 
 continuing to hold Sudbury. He made his mark as a preacher ; 
 and a number of pamphlets testify to his zeal as a University 
 Reformer. In 1726 he wrote against an undoubted abuse, the 
 evasion of the statute against unauthorized migration, though it 
 must be admitted that his zeal on that occasion was stimulated 
 by a recent desertion from his own Hall. Another of his 
 pamphlets is on the perennial subject of University expensive- 
 ness. It is clear that in his own Hall he attempted to practise 
 what he preached. In the pamphlets against him there are 
 sneers against " a regimen of small-beer and apple-dumplings " 
 — which (it is possible) had something to do with the frequent 
 migrations of which the Doctor had to complain, though we are 
 told that in one case the attraction was a Balliol Scholarship, 
 and in another the *' fine garden" of Trinity which the deserter 
 "hoped would be to the advantage of his health." Eventually 
 he even stopped the small-beer, holding that (as he explains) 
 more beer was drunk when it was got both in the Hall and out 
 of it than when it could only be obtained outside. Newton was 
 the "active" Head of his day, the "Monarch of Hart Hall" as the 
 scoffers put it. He had pupils to travel or stay with him in "the 
 Long," usually "young gentlemen of fortune" in his College. He 
 
HERTFORD COLLEGE. 453 
 
 lamented the indolence and inactivity, and was pained to observe 
 " the secular views and ambitious schemes" of other Heads. He 
 held what was then accounted the eccentric opinion that " a 
 gentleman-Commoner has a soul to be saved as well as a servitor, 
 and is under the same obligations to religion and virtue/' In 
 confidential moments he would declare himself in favour of 
 ** Common-sense and Reason in matters of Religion " ; and he 
 appears to have practised a somewhat latitudinarian mode of 
 meditation. " He ^ would, a little before bed-time, desire his 
 young friends to indulge him in a short vacation of about half- 
 an-hour for his own private recollections. During that little inter- 
 val they were silent, and he would smoke his pipe with great 
 composure, and then chat with them again in a useful manner 
 for a short space, and, bidding them good night, go to his rest." 
 When resident on his living, he had daily service at seven p.m. He 
 was a Church Reformer as well as a University Reformer, and 
 wrote on " Pluralities Indefensible." After his call to Oxford, 
 he held his living as an absentee, but " never pocketed a farthing 
 of the profits thereof " ; and eventually succeeded in resigning 
 in favour of his curate. Altogether the life of Dr. Newton 
 exhibits an example of independence, honesty, and disinterested- 
 ness, rare indeed among the Churchmen of his time. Pelham 
 gave it as Lis only reason for not preferring his old tutor, that 
 he could not do it " because he never asked me." A man whom 
 Pelham actually employed to write King's Speeches for him 
 might certainly have been a Bishop for the asking. It was only 
 in the year before his death (1752) that he got a Canonry at 
 Christ Church. 
 
 Eertfm^d College, 1740—1816. 
 
 Newton had one ambition, and that was a disinterested one. 
 " Dr. Newton is commonly said to be Founder-mad," wrote the 
 malicious Hearne ; " Dr. Newton is very fond of founding a 
 College," wrote another, in 1721. The patronage which he 
 would not stoop to ask for himself, he sought to use for his 
 College. But his grand friends did little for him ; nearly all 
 
 1 NichoUs, Literai-y Anecdotes, v. 708, 
 
454 HERTFORD COLLEGE. 
 
 that lie spent came out of his own pocket. He spent about 
 £1500 on building a Chapel for the Hall (consecrated in 1716) 
 and the adjoining corner of the present Quadrangle. He pub- 
 lished an edition of Theophrastus by subscription for the benefit 
 of his College, but it did not appear till after his. death. His 
 proposals for the foundation of a College were made public 
 in 1734 in a Letter to the Vice-Chancellor, though he had 
 already " made a noise " about it " many years." Considering 
 the slenderness of the means at his disposal, it is not surprising 
 that the project encountered some ridicule. Hearne had at first 
 been much impressed by the Doctor's sermons, and styled him 
 " an ingenious honest man," but on the appearance of his 
 pamphlet on migration pronounced him " quite mad with pride 
 and conceit," and the book a '* very weak, silly performance." Now 
 he laments that " 'tis pitty Charities and Benefactions should be 
 discountenanced and obstructed ; but it sometimes happens 
 when the persons that make them are supposed to be mente 
 capti and aim at things in the settlement which are ridiculous, 
 which seems to be the case at Hart Hall, as 'tis represented to 
 me. However, after all," the charitable critic concludes, "'tis 
 better not to publish the failings of persons, especially of clergy- 
 men, on such occasions, least mischief follow, the enemy being 
 ahvays ready to take advantage." The grant of the charter was 
 long opposed by Exeter College : but the opinion of the Attorney- 
 General was unfavourable to the claim on the part of tl;at 
 College to anything but the accustomed rent. In 1740 Dr. 
 Newton got his Charter of Incorporation, and his Statutes 
 approved by George II. 
 
 Dr. Newton was not at all disposed to lose by his elevation to 
 the Headship of a College the autocracy which he had so long 
 enjoyed as Head of a Hall. Hence, although he styles the four 
 Tutors of the new Foundation " Senior Fellows " and their eight 
 "Assistants" "Junior Fellows," the whole government of the 
 College s.eems to be ultimately vested in the Principal, who 
 was to be a Westminster student and Tutor of Christ Church 
 nominated by the Dean of that House. There were to be no 
 "idle fellowships" on Newton's foundation: all were "official," 
 and lasted, the Senior Fellowships till the completion of eighteen 
 
HERTFORD COLLEGE. 455 
 
 years from Matriculation, the Junior only from B.A. to M.A. 
 The College was designed for thirty-two " Students," who 
 enjoyed a modest endowment of £6 13s. M. for the first year and 
 £13 Qs. M. for four years more, with commons. There were 
 also four " Scholars " who were to act as Servitors to the four 
 Tutors, and to perform such functions as ringing the bell and 
 keeping the gate. Commoners and Gentleman-Commoners were 
 expressly excluded : but wealthier men might become honorary 
 Scholars, with leave to wear a '' tuft " as well as the Scholar's 
 gown. Each Tutor was to take charge of the freshmen of one 
 year, who remained his pupils throughout their course. This 
 division of the College into four classes must have been sug- 
 gested by the Scotch University system, or by the arrangement 
 of the French Colleges on which the Scotch system was based. 
 It was, at all events, vastly superior to the old " Tutorial 
 system," under which every Tutor played the polymathic 
 Professor to Undergraduates of every year simultaneously. 
 
 Dr. Newton's Statutes are very curious reading. He aimed 
 at perpetuating the " system of education " which he had him- 
 self introduced. They are full of wise provisions, some of them 
 rather crotchety, and others excellent in themselves but perhaps 
 hardly practicable even then. Each Tutor lived in a different 
 " Angle " of the Quadrangle, and was responsible for its disci- 
 pline. His post must have been no sinecure, if he was really 
 to keep men out of each others' rooms during the hours of 
 work, from Chapel (6.30 or 7-30 a.m. according to season) till 
 the 12 o'clock dinner, and from 2 to 6 p.m. Supper was at 
 7 instead of the usual 6 p.m., to limit the time available for 
 compotations. The gate was shut at 9 p.m., and after 10 
 the key was to be taken to the Principal's bed-room and no 
 egress or ingress permitted. As an "educationist," the Founder 
 apparently believed in Disputations and insisted much on 
 English composition, but disbelieved in verse-making except 
 for " Undergraduates having a genius for Poetry." The 
 sumptuary regulations are somewhat severe, including the 
 requirement that no bills shall be "contracted without their 
 Tutor's knowledge and consent." Allowances from parents 
 were to be sent to the Tutor, who was to pay his pupils' debts 
 
456 HERTFOED COLLEGE. 
 
 before transmitting the remainder to their destination. "Dis- 
 mission " was the penalty for contracting a debt of more than 
 OS. " with any person keeping a Coffee-house or Cook's-shop or 
 any other Public House whatsoever." 
 
 Newton's first two successors were men of mark in their day. 
 William Sharp (1753 — 1757) was Regius Professor of Greek. 
 David Durell (1757 — 1775) was eminent as a Hebraist. But 
 the Principalship depended for its endowments entirely upon 
 room-rent, and the Studentships could never have been really 
 paid out of Newton's slender endowment of less than £60 jper 
 annum. The existence of the College depended upon the 
 reputation of its Tutors. During the Tutorship ^ of Newcome, 
 afterwards Archbishop of Armagh, the College was still prosper- 
 ous. His " pupils were for the most part men of family," says Sir 
 George Trevelyan; among them, Charles James Fox (1764 — 
 1765). For a Gentleman-Commoner (Dr. Newton's Statutes 
 were defied) Fox read hard, and found Mathematics " entertain- 
 ing." " Application like yours," the Tutor found it necessary to 
 write to him, " requires some intermission, and you are the only 
 person with whom I have ever had any connexion, in whom I 
 could say this." He read so hard in fact, that his father, Lord 
 Holland, sent him abroad without taking his degree, to the no 
 small injury of his mind and character. It appears, however, 
 that Fox's life had a lighter side even while at Oxford. In 
 Lockhart's story of Reginald Dalton, we read : " Although Hart 
 Hall has disappeared, we trust the authorities have preserved 
 the window from whence the illustrious C. J. Fox made the 
 memorable leap when determined to join his companions in a 
 Town and Gown row." Alas ! the window has disappeared not 
 only from the world of reality but (what does not always follow) 
 from that of tradition I 
 
 It was in the time of the fourth Principal, Dr. Bernard 
 Hodgson, that the CpUege collapsed. On his death in 1805 no 
 one would accept the almost honorary headship ; but at last in 
 1814 the one surviving Fellow,^ who was (we are told) considered 
 " half-cracked," announced that he had " nominated, constituted, 
 
 1 Newcome became Tutor about 1750. 
 
 2 G. V. Cox's Recollections of Oxford^ p. 190. 
 
HERTFOKD COLLEGE. 457 
 
 and admitted himself Principal " ! At this time the place was 
 all but deserted. It became a sort of no man's land in which a 
 score of "strange characters" ("as if being * half-cracked ' were 
 a qualification for admission ") squatted rent free. Eventually 
 the University took upon itself to close the building. In 1820 
 the building adjoining Cat Street actually fell down " with a 
 great crash and a dense cloud of dust." 
 
 Magdalen Mall (on this site), 1820—1874. 
 
 On January 9th, 1820, a fire deprived Magdalen Hall of its 
 local habitation.^ The old Hall stood upon the site of the exist- 
 ing S. Swithin's buildings, and belonged to the College from 
 which it took its name. In 1816 the President and Fellows 
 had procured an Act of Parliament transferring the site and 
 buildings of Hertford Society to Magdalen Hall, i. e. technically, 
 to the University in trust for the Hall. With part of the small 
 property of the College, the Hertford Scholarship was founded : 
 the rest passed to the Society of Magdalen Hall, which in 1822 
 took possession of its new home. A word must be said as to 
 the traditions of which Hertford College thus became the 
 inheritor. 
 
 About the year 1480 the Founder of Magdalen College built 
 some rooms near the gate of his College for the accommodation 
 of the officers of his Grammar School. To these other rooms 
 were added, and the building occupied by students and called 
 S. Mary Magdalen Hall. This Society had at first the closest 
 connection with the College, the Principal being always a 
 Fellow. It was not till 1694 that the Chancellor of the 
 University finally established his right to nominate the 
 Principal of Magdalen Hall. 
 
 It was in this Hall that the Ultra-Protestant traditions of 
 Magdalen lingered after they had died out jn the College itself. 
 It had been within the walls of Magdalen Hall that the English 
 Reformation had its true beginning in certain meetings for 
 Bible-reading started by William Tyndale, afterwards the 
 translator of the Bible ; and in the seventeenth century, when 
 
 1 Except the picturesque building now remaining. 
 
458 HERTFORD COLLEGE. 
 
 the Laudian movement had got the upper hand in the Colleges 
 at large, it became a refuge for the oppressed Puritans. At one 
 time it boasted three hundred members. In 1631 its Principal 
 John Wilkinson, and Prideaux, Rector of Exeter, were sum- 
 moned before the King in Council at Woodstock and received 
 " a publick and sharp reprehension for their misgoverning and 
 countenancing the factious partie ! " Soon after, Oxenbridge, 
 one of its Tutors,^ was convicted of a " strange, singular, and 
 superstitious Avay of deal'.ng with his Scholars by perswading 
 and causing some of them to subscribe as votaries to several 
 articles framed by himself (as he pretends, for their better 
 government)/' for which presumption he was "distutored." In 
 1640 Henry Wilkinson (also of the Hall) was suspended for 
 preaching in a very bitter way against some of the ceremonies 
 of the Church.2 But the day of vengeance came. When 
 the Parliamentary Visitors came to Oxford the suspended 
 Tutor, Henry Wilkinson, senior, commonly known as " Long 
 Harry," was the most prominent and zealous of the Visitors. 
 The students of Magdalen Hall and New Inn submitted to 
 a man, and the places of the ejected Fellows and Scholars 
 were largely recruited from their numbers. A very large pro- 
 portion of the eminent Puritans of the seventeenth century 
 came from these two Halls. A few of the distinguished 
 Masfdalen Hall men, whom Hertford Colleoje now claims as a 
 sort of step-mother, may be added. John L'Isle, President of 
 the High Court of Justice ; John Glynne, Lord Chief Justice of 
 England under Cromwell ; William Waller, the Cromwellian 
 Poet (afterwards at Hart Hall) ; Sir Matthew Hale, the most 
 famous of English Judges ; Sydenham, " the English Hippo- 
 crates ''; Sir Henry Vane; Pococke, the Orientalist; and Dr. 
 John Wilkins, the Mathematician, afterwards Warden of 
 Wadham, then Master of Trin. Coll. Cambr., and later Bishop of 
 Chester. Few Colleges in the University ever sent out so many 
 distinguished men within so short a time. But the greatest 
 name that Magdalen Hall can boast figures oddly in this list of 
 Puritan Worthies. Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury entered 
 
 1 Laud's History of his Chancellor ship ^ ed. Wharton, 1700, p. 70. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 209. 
 
HERTFORD COLLEGE. 459 
 
 when not quite fifteen in 1603, and went down in 1607 with 
 the B.A. degree. It is curious that it should have been by the 
 Puritan Principal, John Wilkinson, that the Philosopher of 
 Erastian Absolutism was introduced as tutor or companion into 
 the Devonshire family with which he remained connected for the 
 rest of his Ufe. In spite of the Puritan r^gvtne, which was, how- 
 ever, hardly established in his day, Hobbes describes the place 
 of his education as one " where the young were addicted to 
 drunkenness, wantonness, gaming, and other vices." Clarendon 
 was also a member of the Hall for a short time while waiting for 
 a Demyship at Magdalen College. Swift, whose Undergraduate 
 life was passed at Dublin, took his Oxford B.A. from Magdalen 
 Hall in 1692, and proceeded, M. A. a few weeks later, during 
 which interval we may perhaps assume that he resided in the 
 Hall. 
 
 Hertford College, founded 1874. 
 
 The last of the many vicissitudes which this venerable site 
 has experienced remains to be recorded. In 1874 the defunct 
 Hertford .College was recalled to life by the munificence of Mr. 
 T. C. Baring, M.P., who endowed it with seventeen Fellow- 
 ships, and thirty Scholarships of £100 per annum, limited to 
 members of the Church of England.^ An Act of Parliament 
 gave the new foundation " all such rights and privileges as are 
 possessed or enjoyed or can be exercised by other Colleges in 
 the University of Oxford;" and Dr. Richard Michell, the last 
 Principal of Magdalen Hall, became the first Principal of the 
 present Hertford College. 
 
 While future ages will feel towards the name of Baring all 
 the loyalty that is a Founder's due, it is a fortunate circumstance 
 that the accidents which have been related enabled him to give 
 to his new foundation the only thing which money could not buy 
 — a slight flavour of antiquity. The existing foundation is substan- 
 tially the creation of Mr. Baring, but enough remains of its pre- 
 decessors — the Elizabethan hall now transformed into a Librar}^ 
 the Jacobean Common-rooms which represent the pre-Newtonian 
 
 * With the exception of the five original Fellowships created by the 
 Act. 
 
460 HERTFORD COLLEGE. 
 
 Hart Hall, Newton's Chapel with the adjoining "angle," the 
 plate and pictures of Magdalen Hall and its ten Scholarships^ 
 — to give us a link with the past, a not uninteresting past, 
 of which, however glorious its future, the College need never 
 be ashamed. In one sense, notwithstanding the newness of its 
 foundation, the College belongs to the past more than its more 
 venerable sisters. It is untouched by recent legislation, its 
 Statutes are constructed upon the old model, and it still 
 rejoices in Fellowships which are tenable during life and 
 celibacy. 
 
 1 The Founder of one of these, Dr. William Lucy (1744), provides that 
 his scholars " whilst Under-Graduates shall wear open-sleeved Purple 
 Gowns, with Square Capps, black Silk and white Silver Tuffs equally mixt, 
 as a Mark of Distinction, to dispose others to the like or greater Charity.'' 
 The Court of Chancery ordered that every Scholar should express in writing 
 his willingness to wear the prescribed garb if it were permitted by the 
 University Statutes. Of the remaining Scholarships four were founded by 
 the Rev. John Meeke in 1665, three by Mr. Henry Lusby (who divided his 
 estate between this Hall and Emmanuel College, Cambridge) about 1832, 
 and one in memory of Dr. Macbride, Principal 1813 — 1868. There are also 
 benefactions, now paid to three Bible-clerks, by Dr. Thomas Wh3'te (founder 
 of the Moral Philosophy Professorship) in 1621, and Dr. Brunsel. 
 
XXI. 
 
 KEBLE COLLEGE. 
 
 By Rev. "Walter Lock, M.A., Sub- Warden of Keblb College. 
 
 This, the most recent of the Oxford colleges, was opened in 
 1870, the foundation of it being due to a combination of three 
 different but cognate causes : the first was a widespread desire 
 to make University education more widely accessible to the 
 nation, and especially to those who were anxious to take Holy 
 Orders in the Church of England ; the second, the desire to 
 ensure that this education should be in the hands of Church- 
 men ; and the third, the desire to perpetuate the memory of the 
 Eev. John Keble, formerly Fellow and Tutor of Oriel College, 
 Professor of Poetry in the University (1832—1841), Vicar of 
 Hursley (1836 — 1866), and author of The Christian Year, Lyra 
 Innoccntiiim, A Treatise on Eucharistical Adoration^ &c. 
 
 Of these motives the first had been stirring in Oxford for 
 many years. In 1845 the following address was presented to 
 the Hebdomadal Board — 
 
 " Considerable efforts have lately been made in this country 
 for the diffusion of civil and spiritual knowledge, whether at 
 home or abroad. Schools have been instituted for the lower 
 and middle classes, churches built and endowed, missionary 
 societies established, further Schools founded, as at Marlborough 
 and Fleetwood, for the sons of poor clergy and others; and, 
 again, associations for the provision of additional Ministers. But 
 between these schools on the one hand, and on the other the 
 
462 KEBLE COLLEGE. 
 
 ministry which requires to be augmented, there is a chasm 
 which needs to be filled. Our Universities take up education 
 where our schools leave it; yet no one can say that they have 
 been strengthened or extended, whether for Clergy or Laity, 
 in proportion to the growing population of the country, its 
 increasing empire, or deepening responsibilities. 
 
 " We are anxious to suggest, that the link which we find thus 
 missing in the chain of improvement should be supplied by 
 rendering Academical education accessible to the sons of parents 
 whose incomes are too narrow for the scale of expenditure at 
 present prevailing among the junior members of the University 
 of Oxford, and that this should be done through the addition of 
 new departments to existing Colleges, or, if necessary, by the 
 foundation of new Collegiate bodies. We have learned, on 
 what we consider unquestionable information, that in such 
 institutions, if the furniture were provided by the College, and 
 public meals alone were permitted, to the entire exclusion of 
 private entertainments in the rooms of the Students, the annual 
 College payments for board, lodging, and tuition might be 
 reduced to £60 at most ; and that if frugality were enforced as 
 the condition of membership, the Student's entire expenditure 
 might be brought within the compass of £80 yearly. 
 
 '' If such a plan of improvement be entertained by the 
 authorities of Oxford, the details of its execution would remain 
 to be considered. On these we do not venture to enter; but 
 desire to record our readiness, w^henever the matter may proceed 
 further, to aid, by personal exertions or pecuniary contributions, 
 in the promotion of a design which the exigencies of the country 
 so clearly seem to require. 
 
 " Sandon, Ashley, E. Grosvenor, W. Gladstone, T. D. Acland, 
 Philip Pusey, T. Sothron, Westminster, Carnarvon, T. Acland, 
 Bart,, W. Bramston, Lincoln, Sidney Herbert, Canning, Mabon, 
 W. B. Baring, J. Nicholl (Judge Advocate), W. T. James, S. R. 
 Glynne, J. E. Denison, Wilson Patten, B. Vernon Smith, S. 
 Wilberforce, K Jelf, W. W. Hall, W. Heathcote, Edward 
 Berens, J. Wooley, Hon. Horace Powys, W. Herbert (Dean of 
 Manchester), G. Moberley, A. C. Tait." ^ 
 1 Oxford University Herald^ Nov. 8, 1845. Eeprinted in an anonymous 
 
KEBLE COLLEGE. 463 
 
 In spite of this influential list of signatures no action 
 was taken by the Board, but the subject gave rise to 
 many pamphlets, one of which, by the Rev. C. Marriott, 
 deserves a special notice. In it he propounded a definite 
 scheme for the foundation of a college either in or out of 
 Oxford, which should contain about one hundred students living 
 "a somewhat domestic kind of life," which should be shared 
 in close intercourse by their tutors. Mr. Marriott received con- 
 siderable promises of help towards the endowment of such a 
 college, but his early death cut short the scheme.^ The Uni- 
 versity Commission of 1854 tended to stimulate the desire to 
 make University education more national ; but it was not until 
 1865 that any definite step was taken. On Nov. 16 of that 
 year a meeting of graduates was held at Oriel College, " to con- 
 sider the question of University Extension with a view especially 
 to the education of persons needing assistance and desirous of 
 admission into the Christian ministry." The conveners of this 
 meeting were chiefly influenced by the belief that the education 
 of the national clergy was the unquestionable duty of the Uni- 
 versities, but that it was to a large extent passing out of their 
 hands. They recognized, however, that this was far from the 
 sole ground of University Extension, and especially urged that 
 the system of Local Examinations required as its natural com- 
 plement some further movement which should enable the 
 successful candidates to follow out their studies at the University 
 itself. At this meeting six sub-committees were formed to con- 
 sider various methods of such extension. The history of Keble 
 College is concerned only with the first of these, of which Dr. 
 Shirley, the Professor of Ecclesiastical History, was Chairman, the 
 other members being Professors Bernard, Burrows, Mansel. Pusey, 
 and the Revs. W. Burgon, R. Greswell, W. Ince, and J. Riddell. 
 
 pamphlet entitled "Six Letters addressed to the Editor of the Oxford 
 Herald on the subject of an address presented to the Heads of Colleges, 
 &c. Oxford, 1846." 
 
 1 University Extension and the Poor Scholar Question. A Letter to the 
 Rev. E. C. Woollcombe by C. Marriott. Oxford, 1848. Esp. pp. 10—14. 
 Compare also University Extension, by C. P. Eden, M.A., Oxford, 1846; 
 and University Extension and the Poor Scholar Qiiestion, a letter by 
 E. C. Woollcombe, M.A. Oxford, 1848. 
 
464 KEBLE COLLEGE. 
 
 The instructions given to them were to consider the suggestion 
 of extending the University " by founding a college or hall on a 
 large scale, with a view not exclusively but especially to the 
 education of persons needing assistance and desirous of admis- 
 sion into the Christian ministry." The substance of the report 
 was to the effect that, without interfering with either the moral 
 and religious discipline or the social advantages of an academical 
 life, it would be possible very considerably to reduce the average 
 of expenditure. With this purpose they suggest the building of 
 a new Hall, by private subscription, large enough to hold one 
 hundred undergraduates; for the sake of economy the rooms 
 should be smaller than in most colleges, they should be arranged 
 along corridors instead of by staircases, and be furnished by the 
 College ; breakfast as w^ell as dinner should be taken in common, 
 caution-money and entrance fees abolished, and all necessary 
 expenditure included in one terminal payment. By this means 
 it was hoped that the University would be opened to a class of 
 men who cannot now enter, but without placing them apart from 
 the classes who now avail themselves of it. The Hall was not 
 to be " such an eleemosynary establishment as would be sought 
 only by persons of inferior social position, less cultivated manners, 
 or of attainments and intellect below the ordinary level of the 
 University, but rather one which is adapted to the natural tastes 
 and habits of gentlemen wishing to live economically." ^ 
 
 In the following year (on March 16, 1866) the Rev. John 
 Keble died, and on the day of his funeral it seemed to his 
 friends that the most fitting memorial to him would be to build 
 such a college as had been contemplated by this committee. 
 Mr. Keble had himself joined in the movement which led to the 
 appointment of the committee ; he had seen and approved the 
 Report. This report was accordingly taken as the basis of* 
 action. The details were, in the main, arranged upon its lines ; 
 perhaps the chief difference was that from the first the prepara- 
 tion of candidates for Holy Orders was less insisted upon, and 
 more emphasis was laid upon the duty of providing a suitable 
 education for all Churchmen, whatever their vocation miofht be. 
 To quote the words of the appeal which was issued, " The Col- 
 
 1 Oxford University Extension. Reports, pp. 1—20. London, 1866. 
 
KEBLE COLLEGE. 465 
 
 lege was intended first to be a heartfelt and national tribute of 
 affection and admiration to the memory of one of the most 
 eminent and religious writers whom the Church of England has 
 ever produced, one whose holy example was perhaps even a 
 greater power for good than his Christian Year ; secondly, to meet 
 the great need now so generally felt of some form of University 
 Extension, which may include a large portion of persons at 
 present debarred through want of means from its full benefits ; 
 while, thirdly, it is hoped that it will prove, by God's blessing, 
 the loyal handmaid of our mother Church, to train up men 
 who, not in the ministry only but in the manifold callings of 
 the Christian life, shall be steadfast in the faith." ^ The aims 
 of the promoters of Keble College were, in a word, exactly the 
 same as those of the munificent founders of the earlier colleges, 
 viz. to extend University education to those who could not 
 otherwise enjoy it, to extend it in the form of collegiate life, and 
 in loyalty to the English Church. 
 
 A public appeal for subscriptions was at once made, and these 
 amounted in a very short time to more than £50,0C0. The 
 building of the College was intrusted to Mr. Butterfield. On 
 St. Mark's Day (the anniversary of Mr. Keble's birthday), 1868, 
 the first stone was laid by the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. 
 Longley) ; and rooms for one hundred undergraduates and six 
 tutors were ready for occupation in 1870, and at Commemoration 
 the first Warden, the Rev. E. S. Talbot, senior student of Christ 
 Church, was formally installed by the Chancellor of the Uni- 
 versity. A council had already been elected by the subscribers : 
 this constitutes the Governing Body of the College, and per- 
 petuates itself by co-optation as vacancies arise. The Council 
 elect the Warden, who nominates the Tutors. On June 6th a 
 Royal Charter of Incorporation was granted. This, after reciting 
 that the subscribers had joined together to give public and per- 
 manent expression to their feeling of deep gratitude for the long 
 and devoted services of the Rev. John Keble to the Church of 
 Christ, and with that intent had resolved to establish a college 
 or institution in which young men now debarred from University 
 
 ' Proceedings at the laying of ths First Stone of Keble College, pp. 2, 3. 
 London, 1868. 
 
 H H 
 
466 KEBLE COLLEGE. 
 
 education might be trained in simple and religious habits, accord- 
 ino- to the principles of the Church of England, created the 
 Warden, Council, and scholars into a corporate body with power 
 to hold lands not exceeding the value of five thousand pounds 
 (A subsequent amendment of the Mortmain Act, passed by 
 Parliament in August 1888, extended to Keble College the 
 exemption of the Mortmain Act, by which persons are enabled 
 to bequeath property to it.) This Royal Charter carried with it 
 no academical privileges. It left the Council free to move the 
 College elsewhere, or even to wind up the Corporation ; at 
 the same time it authorized them, if they saw fit, to obtain 
 the incorporation of the College within the University of 
 Oxford. 
 
 This was not, however, the course actually adopted ; the 
 question of formal incorporation was not free from difficulties, as 
 in previous cases such incorporation had been generally effected 
 either by Royal Charter or by an Act of Parliament, and so it 
 has never been raised. What^actually happened w^as as follows. 
 On June 16th, 1870, a decree was passed by Convocation, 
 authorizing the Vice-Chancellor to matriculate students from 
 Keble College pending further legislation. On March 9th, 1871, 
 a new statute dealing with New Foundations for Academical 
 Study and Education was passed, and on April 8th Keble 
 College was admitted to the privileges granted by it. By this 
 statute all its members have in relation to the University the 
 same privileges and obligations as if they had been admitted to 
 one of the previously existing Colleges or Halls, and the Warden 
 has with regard to the members of his society the same obliga- 
 tions, rights, and powers as are assigned to the heads of existing 
 Colleges or Halls, though' the statute does not impose upon 
 him any other obligations or confer any other right, privilege, 
 or distinction. Any other statutes in which Colleges are men- 
 tioned by name, such as those respecting the University sermons 
 or the election of Proctors, would not apply to any such new 
 foundations, unless so amended as to include them expressly. 
 The statute affecting the Proctorial cycle was so amended in 
 1887, and Keble College was for that purpose placed on a level 
 %vith other colleges. The further question whether the head of 
 
KEBLE COLLEGE. 467 
 
 such a society possesses the rights possessed by the heads of the 
 earlier colleges has never been decided.^ 
 
 Meanwhile the College had been opened successfully in 
 Michaelmas Term 1870. At that time the north, east, and 
 west blocks were completed, with a temporary chapel and hall on 
 the south. The rooms were arranged in corridors, but subsequent 
 experience has since partly modified this arrangement. The 
 quadrangle south of the gateway was commenced in 1873, and 
 finished on the eastern side in 1875, on the western in 1882. 
 In 1873 W. Gibbs, Esq., of Tynterfield, laid the foundation of 
 the permanent Chapel, of which he was the sole and munificent 
 (ion or. This was formally opened on St. Mark's Day, 1876, and 
 on the same day the foundation-stone of the Hall and Library 
 was laid, these being the scarcely less munificent gifts of his 
 sons, Messrs. Antony and Martin Gibbs. The architect of these 
 buildings also was Mr. Butterfield. In the Chapel, the general 
 aim of the decoration is to set forth the Christ as the sum and 
 centre of all history, to whom all previous ages pointed, from 
 whom all subsequent ages have drawn their inspiration. In the 
 main body of the Chapel the mosaics represent typical scenes 
 from the lives of Noah, Abraham, Joseph, and Moses, while the 
 great prophets and kings of the Old Testament are portrayed in 
 the windows. Around the Sanctuary the ornament is richer as 
 it attempts to do honour to the fact of the Incarnation — alabaster 
 and marble take the place of stone. On either side in the 
 mosaics are seen the Annunciation, the Birth, the Baptism, the 
 Crucifixion, the Resurrection of the Lord ; in the windows the 
 leading Apostles and Doctors of the Christian Church. The 
 Ascension is given in the east window ; while in the quatre-foil 
 mosaic, the centre of the whole decoration, appears a vision of 
 the Lord Himself as described by St. John in the Apocalypse, 
 seated in the midst of the candlesticks, with the stars in His 
 hand, and the sword coming out of His mouth. Around tlie 
 Living Lord are grouped saints of all the Christian centuries and 
 of every vocation in life. The western mosaic closes the series 
 with the Last Judgment. 
 
 In one respect the arrangement differs from that of all the 
 1 Vide Oxford University Gazette^ Nov. 29tl), 1870. 
 
4G8 KEBLE COLLEGE. 
 
 other College chapels — all the seats are ranged eastwards, not 
 north and south. This results from the change which has 
 passed over college life in Oxford. The earlier chapels were 
 built for colleges in which every one was in theory a life- 
 member on the foundation, and had his permanent seat as 
 in a cathedral body ; but a modern college chapel, containing 
 almost exclusively a large passing congregation of undergradu- 
 ates, presents conditions much more like that of an ordinary 
 church, and alike for purposes of worship and of preaching it 
 seemed better that the whole body should face eastward in the 
 usual manner. It should also be mentioned that the chapel 
 has not been formally consecrated, it being a question whether 
 such consecration might not limit the powders conferred upon 
 the Council by the Charter. 
 
 The Hall and Library were formally opened in 1878, Mr. 
 Gladstone being among the speakers on the occasion. Since 
 then the Hall has been enriched with a beautiful oil painting of 
 the Kev. J. Keble, painted by G. Eichmond after Mr. Keble's 
 death from a crayon drawing which he had made in his life- 
 time ; by portraits of Archbishop Longley, who laid the founda- 
 tion stone of the College ; of Dr. Shirley, Chairman of the 
 Committee on whose report the College ^vas based ; of Earl Beau- 
 champ, the senior member of the Council, from the first one 
 of the most strenuous and munificent friends of the College ; of 
 the Rev. E. S. Talbot, the first Warden (1870—1888) ; of W. 
 Gibbs, Esq., the donor of the Chapel ; and of J. A. Shaw Stewart, 
 Esq., the treasurer of the original Memorial Fund and resident 
 Bursar of the College (1876—1880). To these is to be added 
 soon a portrait of Dr. Liddon, member of the Council (1870 — 
 1890), and of the Rev. Aubrey L. Moore, Tutor (1881—1890). 
 In addition to these, all of which are connected wdth the 
 College history, Earl Beauchamp has presented a portrait of 
 Archbishop Laud. 
 
 In the Library the nucleus of the collection was formed by 
 the gift of the majority of Mr. Keble's own books and many of 
 his MSS., presented mainly by his brother, partly also by his 
 nephew. Among these are the original drafts of the Lyra 
 Innoccntium and many of the Miscellaneous Poems (written 
 
KEBLE COLLEGE. 469, 
 
 on stray scraps of paper or on backs of envelopes), of the 
 JSucharistical Adoration, the sermons on Baptism, and the trans- 
 lation of St. Irenseus; and, most interesting of all, a fair copy 
 made by himself of the greater part of the Christian Year, 
 written in an exquisitely clear and delicate hand in seven 
 small note-books. Other relics of Mr. Keble, including his 
 study-table and the candelabrum presented to him by his pupils 
 on leaving Oxford, are preserved in the common room. The 
 Library has also received large donations or legacies of books 
 from Cardinal Newman, Archbishop Trench, Lord Richard 
 Cavendish, Miss Yonge, &c. Quite recently there has been 
 added to it Dr. Liddon's library, rich especially in historical, 
 liturgical, and theological books, and containing also an excellent 
 collection of Dante literature. Mr. Holman Hunt's picture. 
 The Light of the World, presented by Mrs. Combe of the Uni- 
 versity Press, at present hangs in the Library, though it will 
 probably be ultimately transferred to the chapel. 
 
 Of the history of the internal working of the College there is 
 little to say. From the opening till the present its rooms have 
 always been full ; and clear proof has thus been given of the 
 reality of the dem.and for University extension on such a plan. 
 The annual chai'ge to each undergraduate is £82 a year, which 
 includes tuition, board, and rent of furnished rooms ; groceries, 
 wines, &c. have been supplied from the College stores ; and a 
 special common room is open to undergraduates, serving both for 
 entertainment and as a reading-room. Two of those who have 
 w^orked as tutors in the College have already been raised to the 
 Episcopate — Dr. Mylne, the Senior Tutor in the first years of 
 the College, now Bishop of Bombay, and Dr. Jayne, now Bishop 
 of Chester. 
 
 In academical distinction the College has quite held its own 
 with many of the older Colleges, and has specially gained dis- 
 tinction in the Honour Schools of Theology, Modern History, 
 and Natural Science. Several private benefactions, notably those 
 of Miss Wilbraham (1872), Mrs. William Gibbs (1875), A. J. 
 Balfour, Esq., M.P. (1875), Lady Gomm (1878), Miss Chafyn 
 Grove (1879), H. 0. Wakeman, Esq. (1882), and a subscription 
 raised to found a "Caroline Talbot" Scholarship in memory of 
 
470 KEBLE COLLEGE. 
 
 the first Warden's mother, have enabled the College to offer 
 several scholarships for open competition to members of the 
 Church of England, or to aid those who are already members of 
 the College to complete their career. There are also special 
 prizes to encourage the study of theology, such as the Wills and 
 Phillpott's prizes for undergraduates, the Liddon prize, and the 
 "Edward Talbot" studentship, founded to commemorate the 
 services of the first Warden, for graduates ; but these are all the 
 endowments that the College has, and they are not sufficient to 
 enable it to compete on equal terms with the other colleges in 
 the offer of scholarships. 
 
 The College has also received many advowsons, and is likely 
 to do useful service to the Church of England as patron of 
 livings. 
 
INDEX, 
 
 Abbot, Geo., 403, 406, 437 ; Rob., 
 
 354, 406 
 Abdy, Rob., 37 
 Abingdon school, 42, 403 
 Account-books, College, 40, 77, 100, 
 
 106, 124, 175, 326, 333 
 Addison, Joseph, 148, 249 
 'Addison's walk,' 250 
 age of undergraduates, 56, 152, 294, 
 
 398 
 Airay, Hen., 132 
 S. Aldate's church, 401 
 Aldrich, Hen., 191, 311, 314, 315 
 ale verses (Bras.), 263 
 Alfred, king, 1, 2, 10—14, 269, 270 
 Allen, Thos., 334, 431—434 
 All Saints' church, 172, 173, 181, 182, 
 
 188 
 All Souls' Coll., Ill, 208, 369, 423 
 Almshouse, Ch. Ch., 407, 412 
 altars, 147, 212, 218, 334 
 Amherst, Nich., 362 
 amice, 156, 182 
 
 amusements, 69, 158, 279, 283, 332 
 Andrewe, Rich., 213, 214 
 arms, coats of. Ball, 25 ; Bras., 270 ; 
 
 Corp., 271; Line, 177, 271 ; Magd., 
 
 234 ; Pemb., 414 ; Trin., 327 ; Univ., 
 
 13 
 Arnold, Matt., 58; Thos., 122, 294, 
 
 297, 299 
 Arthur, Prince of "Wales, 62, 216, 239, 
 
 240 
 'artist,* 141, 213 
 Arts, the Seven, 161 
 Arundel, archbp., 95, 97, 101, 110 
 Ashmole, Elias, 261 
 astronomy, 162, 278, 332 
 Aubrey, John, 335 
 Audley, Kdm., 178, 186, 187 
 Aula Univcrsitalis, 10 
 Austins, doing, 390 
 Aylitte, John, 167 
 
 B.A., course for, 160 
 
 Babington, Fran., 194 
 
 Bainbridge, Clir., 131 
 
 bakehouse, College, 147, 154 
 
 Baker, David, 415 
 
 ball-court, 69, 115, 279, 408 
 
 Balliol Coll., 24, 84, 87, 340, 406, 435, 
 
 437, 439 
 Balliol, Devorguilla, 25 ; John, 24, 25. 
 barber. College, 78, 188, 280, 343, 442 
 Baring, T. C, 459 
 S. Bartholomew's hospital, 91, 109, 
 
 111, 115, 169 
 Bathurst, Ralph, 50, 338—340, 342 
 batler (battelar), 40, 46, 112, 272, 433 
 Batt, Rob., 259 
 Bay He, Rich., 354, 358—360 
 Beaumont, Fran., 415, 424 ; Sir John, 
 
 415, 424 
 Becket, Thomas h, 108 
 Beckington, bp., 163, 175, 407 
 beer. College, 81, 146, 220, 410, 452 
 Bell, bp. John, 41 
 Belsire, Alex., 349 
 Benet, Sir John, 405, 408 ; Sir Simon, 
 
 1, 12, 16 
 Bentham, Jeremy, 149, 296 
 Bentley, Rich., 314, 396 
 S. Bernard's Coll., 209, 326, 347 
 Beverley, S. John of, 11, 12 
 bibesia, 282 
 bible, read at meals, 9, 32, 140, 156, 
 
 189, 282, 381, 440 ; Authorized, 81, 
 
 291 ; Douai, 81 ; Rheims, 351 ; 
 
 Wycliffe's, 85, 147 
 bible-clerk (bibliotista), 188, 189 
 Bisse, Philip, 392 
 Black Prince, 138 
 Blackstone, Sir Will., 229, 423 
 Blackwell, Geo., 334; John, 385 
 Blacow, Rich., 52 
 Blake, admiral, 393 
 Blencowe, Ant., 110, 113, 114 
 
472 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Blundell, Peter, 42 
 boar's head (Queen's), 142 
 Bodleian ; see library 
 Bodley, Sir Thos., 73, 435 
 Bonner, Edm,, 414 
 Boyle, Hon. Charles, 314 
 Bradshaw, Geo., 48, 49 
 Brakenbury, Hannah, 43 
 'Brasenose Ale Verses,' 263 
 Brasenose Coll., 178, 192, 252, 306, 
 
 367 ; principals of, 271 
 Brasenose Hall, 4, 253 ; principals of, 
 
 271 
 brazen nose, the, 254, 270 
 breakfast, 156, 343, 422, 464 
 Brent, Sir Nath. , 64, 65 
 brew-house. College, 146, 154, 263, 264 
 Bridgman, Sir Orlando, 138 
 Bridgwater, John, 195 
 Broadgates Hall, 288, 400 
 ' Broad Walk' (Ch.Ch.), 319 
 Brome, Adam, 87, 93, 96 
 Browne, Sir Thos., 404, 416 
 Bruarne, Rich., 178 
 Buckeridge, bp., 352—355 
 Buckland, Will., 297 
 Burgash, Hen,, 90 
 burial-place, College, 154, 211, 268 
 Burton, Rob., 261, 270 ; Will., 432 
 Bury, Arth., 84 ; Richard of, 324, 325 
 Busby, Dr., 41, 311 
 Butler, bp., 120 
 
 'Caesar's lodgings,' 42, 44, 47, 403, 406 
 
 * Cain and Abel' (Bras.), 268 
 
 Calendar, a College, 99, 108 
 
 Cambridge, 3, 23, 28, 308, 349 ; Buck- 
 ingham Coll., 324 ; Caius Coll., 191, 
 192; Emman., 460; Jes., 39, 282; 
 S. John's, 198; King's Hall, 88; 
 Pembr., 333 ; Peterhouse, 59, 155 
 
 Camden, Will., 415, 431 
 
 camerariics, 135 
 
 Campion, Edm., 80, 350, 351 
 
 Canon Law, 31, 61, 76, 89, 90, 162, 
 177, 181, 348, 387 
 
 Canterbury Coll., 34, 274, 325 
 
 'capping,' 40, 68 
 
 Cardinal Coll., 241, 301, 305, 308 
 
 Caroline, queen, 127 
 
 Carpenter, John, 104, 105, 111, 114 
 
 Carter, Geo., 119, 123 
 
 cartulary, a College, 99, 451 
 
 Cartwright, Thos., 136 
 
 Case, John, 351 
 
 catechetical lecturer, 41, 81, 82, 112, 
 191 
 
 caution-book. College, 112, 333, 346 
 
 Chace, Thos., 37 
 
 chained books, 35, 183, 267, 401 
 
 ' Chamber, John, 63, 71 
 
 Channel Islands, 81, 86, 339, 382, 405 
 
 chantry, 131, 173, 305 
 
 chapels. College, All S., 210, 211, 218, 
 
 225, 228 ; Ball., 26, 44 ; Bras., 257, 
 
 266; Corp., 282, 283; Durham Coll., 
 
 324; Exet, 78,81,86; Gloucester 
 
 Coll., 428 ; Gloucester Hall, 430, 432 
 
 —434 ; Hertf., 454, 460 ; Jes., 371, 
 
 381, 386 ; S. John's, 347, 355, 360 ; 
 
 Kebl., 467 ; Line, 174, 182, 188, 
 
 200; Magd., 236, 243, 246, 247; 
 
 Mert., 75 ; New Coll., 153, 167 ; 
 
 Oriel, 95, 113; Pemb., 411; Queen's, 
 
 125 ; Trin., 328, 329, 334, 338, 340 ; 
 
 Univ., 12, 16; Wadh.,391, 397, 398 ; 
 
 Wore, 442, 443 
 
 chaplains, College, All S., 211 ; Ball., 
 
 26, 29; Ch. Cli., 307; Corp., 280; 
 
 St. John's, 349, 350; Line, 181, 
 
 188; Magd., 237; New Coll., 153, 
 
 155, 169 ; Queen's, 125, 129 ; Trin., 
 
 330 
 
 'chapters,' College, 70, 89, 143, 160, 
 
 184 
 Charles of Bala, 383 
 Charles L, 64, 81, 114, 127, 268, 312, 
 
 356, 361, 382, 387, 405 
 Charlett, Arth., 8, 14, 339 
 Chaundler, Thos., 163 
 'chest of three keys,' 7, 77, 135, 184 
 chest, loan, 77 
 Chicheley, Hen., 61, 163, 208, 213, 
 
 347 
 choristers, 153, 237, 280, 282, 349 
 Christ Church, 84, 85, 293, 301, 348, 
 
 364, 403, 407, 412, 417 
 churches, jjarish, relation of Colleges 
 to, 26, 27, 78, 89, 91, 153, 172, 173, 
 181, 213, 236 
 Civil Law, 89, 90, 162, 348, 401, 402 
 Civil War, 64, 81, 114, 142, 165, 246, 
 312, 313, 337; Colleges subsidized 
 troops for the king, 16, 224, 359, 
 374 
 Clarendon, Edw., earl of, 459 
 Clarke, Geo., 226, 228, 268, 443 
 Classical authors, 35, 107, 161, 176, 
 267, 276, 277, 288, 295, 331, 33i, 
 343, 421, 438 
 Claymond, John, 240, 242, 275 
 Clayton, Rich., 1 ; Thos., 404, 410, 432 
 clerici, 35, 150, 151 
 
 cloisters. College, All S., 211, 228 ; 
 Bras., 268 ; Magd., 241 ; New Coll., 
 154 
 Clough, A. H., 58 
 Cobham, Thos., 95 
 cock-fighting, 423 
 ' cock-loft,' 186, 335 
 
INDEX. 
 
 473 
 
 Codrington, Clir., 226, 228 
 cott'ee, 47, 225 
 
 Cole, Arth., 244 ; Will., 290 
 Colet, John, 215, 241 
 'collections,' 316 
 
 Colleges, origin of, 25, 59, 87 ; priority 
 of the, 5, 6, 24, 88 ; names of, vary- 
 ing, 10, 95, 270 
 collobia, 142 
 coinmcnsales, 112, 189 
 commoners, 7, 8, 32, 40, 69, 111, 137, 
 169, 189, 190, 238, 272, 300, 330, 
 333, 455 
 Common Eoom, 58, 167, 200, 266, 311, 
 324, 340, 362, 447 ; Bachelors' C. 
 K., 300, 342 ; Junior C. K, 299, 
 414, 469 ; Summer C. R., 412 
 'commons,' 25, 30, 69, 77, 91, 94, 
 100, 141, 156, 185, 214, 220, 442, 
 455 ; sec punishments 
 Compton, bp. Hen,, 144, 148 
 Conant, John, 82, 84 
 Conopius, Natli., 47 
 Conybeare, John, 85 
 cook. College, 78, 188, 433 
 Cookes, Sir T., 439—441 
 Copleston, Edw., 122, 123, 297 
 Cornish language, 80 
 Cornwall, John of, 73 
 Corpus Christi Coll., 30, 110, 111, 241, 
 
 258, 273, 306, 349 
 corrupt resignation ; see fellowships 
 Coryate, Thos., 431 
 Cottisford, John, 193, 194, 308 
 Court, the, at Oxford, 64, m, 313 
 Coveney, Thos., 244 
 Crewe, John Id., 200; Nath. Id., 178, 
 
 193, 200 
 cricket, 265, 420 
 Critopulos, Metr., 47, 437 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 247, 395 
 Cuffe, Hen., 334 
 
 ciistojns, old, Ascension day (New Coll. ), 
 169; boar's head (Queen's), 142; call 
 to dinner (New Coll.), 169 ; call for 
 grace in hall, 75, 410 ; Christmas 
 king (Mert. ), 74 ; circling fire(Pemb. ), 
 410 ; ignis llegentiitm (Mert.), 74 ; 
 initiating freshmen (Mert.), 74 ; Lady 
 patroness (Trin,), 342 ; mallird (All 
 S.), 221 ; Mayday hymn (Magd.), 
 239 ; needle (Queen's), 125 ; Restor- 
 ation toast (Magd.), 248 ; rex faha- 
 ruiii (Mert.), 74; sermon in ©pen 
 air (Magd.), 235; sermon and pro- 
 cession (Line), 182 ; shaving beards, 
 158 ; trumpet (Queen's), 139, 140 ; 
 tnckiug, 81 ; wakening mallet (New 
 ColK, Wore), 170, 419, 448 
 
 Dagville, Will, 177, 187 
 
 Dalaber, Ant., 308 
 
 dancing, 48, 423 
 
 Darby, Edw., 178, 180, 187 
 
 Dean, the, of Oriel, 89 
 
 declamations, 295, 343, 410, 442 
 
 decrements, 433 
 
 degree expenses, 31, 157, 427 ; degree 
 
 supper, 433, 434, 442, 443 
 demies (Magd. ), 237 
 de Quincey, Thos., 446 
 determination, 160 
 'devil,' the, of Line. Coll., 202 
 dial, College, 225, 287, 408 
 Digby, Sir Kenelm, 432, 435 
 dinner, hour of, 56, 78, 156, 343 
 disputations, 25, 82, 108, 161, 279, 
 
 295, 426, 442 ; in logic, 32, 77, 141, 
 
 182, 190, 279 ; in philosophy, 8, 32, 
 
 182, 190, 279 ; in theol9gy, 8, 32, 
 
 141, 183, 277, 279, 426 
 dogs, 57, 83, 144, 158, 199, 217 
 'dormitory' (Ch. Ch.), 305 
 dress, rules of, 79, 141, 217, 238, 332, 
 
 357 ; see hall 
 drinking, 49, 84, 203, 217, 227, 315, 
 
 343, 421, 459 
 Dudley, Rich., 105, 111 
 Durham Coll., 28, 29, 37, 274, 323, 
 
 425, 426 
 Durham, Will, of, 1—3, 13 
 
 Eagle (Queen's), 144 
 
 Eaton, Byrom, 436 ; Sarah, 443 
 
 Edgeworth, R. L., 296 
 
 S. Edmund Hall, 111, 135, 439 
 
 Edmunds, Hen., 118 
 
 Edward IL, 88, 114; Edward IIL, 
 
 324; Edward IV., 175—177, 215, 
 
 236, 237 
 Edwards, Jonathan, 381 
 Eglesfield, Rob. de, 124—128 ; Thos. 
 
 de, 129, 136 
 Eights, the, 264, 414 
 Eliot, Sir John, 81 
 Elizabeth, queen, 131, 220, 244, 269, 
 
 312, 327, 328, 368, 387 
 elms, S. John's, 348 ; Magd., 247 
 Ethelred, king, 303, 321 
 Evelyn, John, 48, 167, 339 
 examinations, 54, 122, 160, 162, 163, 
 
 262 
 cxcrescentiae, 100 
 Exeter Coll., 76, 87, 333, 391, 451, 
 
 454 
 Exeter school, 76 
 exhibitions ; see scholarships 
 'Extraneous Masters' (Ball.), 25, 28, 
 
 29 
 
474 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Fell, Dr. John, 117, 310, 311, 314, 
 319 ; Sara., 310, 31-3, 432 
 
 fellowships, open, 26, 41, 57, 86, 89, 
 105, 121, 128, 136, 300, 385; limited 
 to counties or dioceses, 15, 76, 80, 
 105, 136, 180, 237, 238, 259, 287, 
 369, 382, 391 ; limited to certain 
 schools, 42, 152, 405 ; celibate, 8, 
 97, 199, 363, 390, 405, 460; cleri- 
 cal, 6, 9, 23, 31, 56, 57, 76, 180, 
 214, 300, 329, 405 ; founder's kin, 
 136, 137, 152, 168, 215, 230, 232, 
 
 348, 391, 405; undergraduate, 69, 
 110, 159, 180 ; of later foundation 
 not on governing body, 138 ; filled 
 up by scholars succeeding by seni- 
 ority, 116, 128, 237; filled up by 
 election from scholars, 391 ; tilled 
 up by preference by election from 
 scholars, 31, 41, 330 ; obtained by 
 purchase, 116, 117, 217, 223 ; cor- 
 rupt resignations, 107, 116, 217, 223, 
 226 ; mandate from sovereign for 
 election to, 117, 136, 245, 393; al- 
 lowances of, 185-^187, see commons, 
 livery ; fixed money payment to, 30, 
 77, 143, 186, 442 ; yearly dividend 
 to, 107, 119, 143, 186, 220, 221 ; 
 see residence, visitor 
 
 fellow- (or gentleman) commoner, 40, 
 48, 69, 71, 110, 112, 144, 169, 190, 
 280, 296, 300, 339, 343, 421, 447, 455 
 
 Finch, Leop. Will., 227 
 
 tines on renewing leases, 107, 119, 337 
 
 fires in centre of hall, 78, 268, 410 ; 
 fire in hall only, 68, 158, 283 ; fire 
 in common r jom, 200 
 
 Fitz-ralph, Rich., 11, 27, 34 
 
 Fleming, Rich., 171—174, 187 ; Rob., 
 176 
 
 foot-ball, 69 
 
 Foote, Sam,, 445 
 
 Forest, John, 174, 187 
 
 Foulis, Hen., 199 
 
 founder's pictures, 12, 58, 269, 321 ; 
 founder's cup, 89, 114, 125 ; founder's 
 kin (Mert.) 69, (Jes.) 382, (S. John's) 
 
 349, (Trim) 329, 332; see fellow- 
 ships, plate, scholarships 
 
 Fowler, Edw., 292, 299 
 
 Fox (Foxe), Chas. Jas., 456 ; John, 
 
 261 ; Rich., 30, 241, 273 
 Francis, Thos., 130 
 Frankland, Joyce, 192, 269, 270 
 Free, John, 36, 39 
 French language, 32, 73, 140 
 Frewen, Accepted, 246, 247 
 S. Frideswide, 302 
 Frideswide Coll., 302, 308 
 Fulman, Will., 286, 292, 297, 298 
 
 Gaisford, dean, 317 
 
 gambling, 145, 158, 332, 362, 459 
 
 garden. College (Exet.) 78, (S. Jo.) 326, 
 
 347, (Line.) 200, 203, (Mert.) 75, 
 
 (Pemb.) 408, 423, (Wadh.) 397, 
 
 (Wore.) 444 
 Gardiner, Bern., 228 
 Garret, Thos., 194, 308 
 Gascoigne, Thos., 110, 174 
 gates, hour of closing, 33, 68, 78, 285, 
 
 307, 455 ; keys of ; see head 
 gentleman-commoner ; see fellow-com- 
 moner 
 Georgirenes, Jos., 437 
 ghost. Line. Coll., 194 
 Gibbon, Edm., 250, 296, 421 
 Gibbs, Ant., Mart., W., 467, 468 
 Gibson, John, 195 
 Giffarde, John, 425 
 Gifford, Walt.," 79 
 Gilpin, Bern., 131 
 glass, painted, 21, 44,75, 86, 198,212, 
 
 246, 267, 270, 310, 319, 346, 386, 
 
 394, 410, 411, 467 
 Gloucester Coll., 324, 334, 425 
 Gloucester Hall, 308, 430 
 Goddard, Jon., QQ 
 God's house (Southamj)ton), 127, 131, 
 
 135 
 Good, Thos., 49, 435 
 Gower, Will., 444 
 grace in hall, 25, 58, 75, 181 
 grammar, 31, 73, 280, 325 
 'grammarians,' 141, 190 
 grammar-master, 73 
 Graves, Rich., 421, 423 
 'Great Tom' (Ch. Ch.), 306, 307, 310 
 Greaves, John, 64, 6Q 
 Greek, 35, 36, 39, 40, 47, 73, 80, 112, 
 
 140, 164, 191, 215, 275, 282, 284, 
 
 293, 306, 317, 331, 366, 396, 416, 
 
 432, 437, 438 
 Greek CoJlege, at Oxford, 437, 438 ; at 
 
 Paris, 438 
 Greek students at Oxford, 47, 437 — 
 
 439 
 Green, J. R., 364, 385 
 Greenwood, Chas., 1, 16, 193; Dan., 
 
 260 
 Grey, bp. WHl., 36, 37 
 gridiron (Ch. Ch.), 312 
 'griffin,' the, in Trin. Coll. hall, 340, 
 
 343 
 Griffiths, John, 399 
 Grocyn, Will., 80, 164, 215, 237, 240, 
 
 275, 306 
 Gunthorpe, John, 36, 39 
 
 Hale, Sir Matt., 458 
 
 halls. College, All S., 211, 22S ; Ball, 
 
INDEX. 
 
 475 
 
 37, 44, 45 ; Bras., 268 ; Broadg. H., 
 407, 409 ; Ch. Ch., 306 ; Glouc. H., 
 432, 433, 442, 443 ; Jes., 370, 371, 
 386; S. John's, 347; Kebl., 468; 
 Line, 174. 207 ; Magd., 242 ; Mert., 
 65, 74; New Coll., 154, 164; Or., 
 112, 114 ; Pemb., 409 ; Trin., 335, 
 342 ; Univ., 16 ; meals taken only 
 in hall, 68, 78, 146, 281 ; arrange- 
 ments in hall, 156, 139, 140, 281, 
 447 ; dressing for, 55, 140, 188, 343, 
 447 ; see dinner-hour, fire 
 
 ' Halls,' old Oxford, 9, 15, 110, 111, 
 173, 175, 252, 254, 256, 257, 364, 
 401, 408, 449, 450 
 
 Hamilton, 'Single- speech,' 121; Sir 
 Will., 43, 55 
 
 Hammond's lodgings, 45 
 
 Hampden, John, 247 
 
 Hamsterley, Ralph, 7 
 
 Ha'-e, Aug., 168 
 
 Harpesfield, Nich., 164 
 
 Harris, Rob., 337 
 
 Hart Hall, 76, 153, 334, 449—453 
 
 Harte, Will., 192 
 
 Harvey, Will., 64 
 
 Hastings, lady Eliz., 133 
 
 Hawkesworth Will, de, 93 
 
 Hawksmoor, Nich., 228, 269 
 
 Hayne, Thos., 192 
 
 head of college, chosen only from fel- 
 lows, 7, 29, 89, 134, 338 ; or from 
 fellows and ex-fellows, 92, 179, 238 ; 
 breach of this rule, 7, 30, 110, 134, 
 195, 243 ; celibate, 8, 390, 395 ; 
 lodgings of, 155, 174, 175, 218, 228, 
 266, 371, 407, 444 ; title of, changed, 
 8, 26 ; kept keys of gate at night, 
 33, 68, 78, 285, 455 ; mandate from 
 sovereign to elect, 131, 227, 244, 248, 
 249 ; nominated in some cases by the 
 Chancellor of the University, 369, 
 370, 450 ; nominated the founda- 
 tioners (at Jes. Coll.), 368, 375 ; see 
 Visitor 
 
 Hearne, Tho8., 14, 85, 132, 228, 396 
 
 Heber, Reg., 222, 229, 262, 263 
 
 * Heber's tree,' 262 
 
 Hebrew, 36, 81, 191, 366, 396, 438 
 
 ' Hell-fire club' (Bras.), 263 
 
 ben-house, College, 144 
 
 Henry III., 3 ; Hen. V., 110, 138, 212 ; 
 Hen. VI., 212, 213, 234 ; Hen. VII., 
 80, 239 ; Hen. VIII., 243, 287, 306, 
 312, 321 ; Henry, Prince of Wales, 
 245 
 
 Henshaw, Hen., 194 
 
 heresy, 181 
 
 Hertford Coll., 449, 459 
 
 Heywoode, John, 415 
 
 Hickes, Geo., 200, 201 
 
 Hobbes, Thos., 458 
 
 Hodson, Frodsham, 261, 262, 270 
 
 Hody, Hum., 396 
 
 HoUoway, Sir Rich., 167 
 
 Holt, Thos., 391 
 
 Hood, Paul, 199 
 
 Hooker, Rich., 288 
 
 Hooknorton school, 329 
 
 Home, bp., 244, 334 
 
 hospitality, College, 32, 135, 144, 155, 
 
 281 
 Hough, John, 249 
 Hoveden, Rob., 219 
 Howell, Jas., 375 ; Fran., 375 
 Huddesford, Geo., 341 ; Will., 341 
 Htilme, Will, 269 
 'Humanity,' professor of, 276, 278, 
 
 286, 306 
 Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, 35, 
 
 243, 245, 428 
 hunting, 447 
 
 Hutchins, Rich., 193, 200 
 Hygden, John, 241, 242, 306, 308 
 
 Ignis regentmm, 74 
 informator, 159 
 ' Ingoldsby,' 266 
 Ingram, Jas., 304, 343—345 
 
 Jackson, Cyril, 316, 321 
 
 Jacobites, 52, 67, 85, 190, 228, 250, 
 
 362 
 James I., 312, 352, 404; James II., 
 
 17, 18, 226, 249 
 James, Thos., 166 
 Jeames, Thos., 226 
 Jenkyns, Sir Leoline, 369, 373, 377— 
 
 381 ; Dr. Rich., 43, 56—58 
 Jesus Coll., 46, 364, 391 
 Jewel, John, 287 
 Jodrell, Sir Edw., 139 
 S. John Baptist Coll., 209, 347, 429, 
 
 430, 441, 444 
 S. John Baptist hospital, 235 
 Johnson, Rob., 367, 368 
 Johnson, Dr., 342, 384, 409, 410—413, 
 
 416—421, 424 
 'jurists,' 213 
 Juxon, Will., 352, 355 
 
 Keble, John, 294, 297, 299, 461, 464, 
 
 468, 469 
 Keble Coll., 461 
 Ken, bp., 83, 167, 452 
 Kennicott, Ben., 79, 397 
 Kettell, Ralph, 334—336, 432 
 Kettell Hall, 335, 342, 345 
 Kettlewell, John, 200, 201 
 'key-keeper,' College, 184 
 
476 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Kilby, Dr. Kich., 197 ; Mr. Eieh., 199 
 King's College (or Hall); i.e., Bras., 
 
 270 ; ic, Oriel, 95 
 kitcheu-gardcn, College, 154 
 knives and forks, 52 
 Kratzer, Nich., 287, 306 
 Kymer, Gilb., 326, 451 
 
 Lancaster, Will., 132 
 
 Landon, Whitiington, 445 
 
 Landor, W. S., 342 
 
 Langbaine, Gerard, 149, 432 
 
 Langlande, Will., 97 
 
 Langton, Thos., 131 
 
 Latin, 73, 82, 140, 152, 164, 229, 276, 
 295, 316, 317, 330, 331, 366, 427, 
 438, 448 ; Latin to be spoken in 
 College, 8,' 26, 32, 68, 140, 259, 282, 
 284, 295, 331, 442 
 
 ' Latin chapel ' (Ch. Ch.). 305 
 
 Laud, Will., 61, 468, 352—360 
 
 laundress {lotrix), 78, 157, 188, 331 
 
 law, course for, 162 ; see Canon Law, 
 Civil Law 
 
 Lawrence, Thos., 48, 49 
 
 leases, long, 119, 330, 404. See fines 
 
 lectures. College, 40, 55, 73, 160, 161, 
 204, 238, 275—279, 295, 299, 306, 
 317, 331, 417, 440, 447 ; University 
 ('ordinary'), 40, 72, 159, 160, 161 
 
 'legists,' 364 
 
 Leicester, 192, 193 
 
 Leicester, earl of. 111, 194—196, 430, 
 
 ^ 434 
 
 Leigh, Theoph., 51 
 
 Leland, John, 307 
 
 Levi, Philip, 191 
 
 Lewis, Will., 112, 114 
 
 Leylande, John, 130, 131 
 
 Leyndwardyn, Thos., 99 
 
 Lhwyd, £dw., 376 
 
 library, — University, 35, 38, 96, 209 ; 
 Bodleian, 36, 78, 83, 166, 228, 232, 
 362, 384, 387, 423, 435 ; Codrington, 
 228 ; Durham Cathedral, 325 ; Wim- 
 borne Minster, 401; of Rich, of Bury, 
 326 ; of bp. Cobham, 95, 96 ; of duke 
 Humphrey, 35; a College 'lending 
 library,' 183; Undergraduates', 411 
 
 library. College, All S., 211, 215, 219, 
 225, 228, 343 ; Ball, 32, 37, 41 ; 
 Bras., 260, 267 ; Broadg, H., 401, 
 402, 409 ; Ch. Ch., 306, 311, 343 ; 
 Corp., 284, 287, 293, 294 ; Durham 
 Coll., 37, 325, 326 ; Exet., 78, 85 ; 
 Gloucester Coll., 428—430; Glouc. 
 H., 433, 434; Heitf., 459; Jes., 
 371, 372, 381, 387 ; S. John's, 356, 
 361; Kebl, 468; Line, 174, 176, 
 183, 200; Magd., 247; Mert, 68, 
 
 75 ; New Coll., 154 ; Oriel, 96, 98, 
 107, 114, 120 ; Pembr., 407, 409, 
 421 ; Queen's, 132 ; Trin., 340, 342, 
 345 ; Univ., 7, 8, 16 ; Wadh., 392 ; 
 Wore, 443, 445 
 
 Liddon, H. P., 318, 468, 469 
 
 lime-walk (Trin.), 342 
 
 Linacre, Thos., 73, 273, 275 
 
 Lincoln Coll., 46, 171, 272 
 
 'livery' (clothing), 30, 77, 129, 141 
 156, 186, 214, 220, 284 
 
 Lloyd, Sir N., 178, 226, 228 
 
 'llyfrcoch,'387 
 
 Locke, John, 51, 321 
 
 Lodge, Thos., 335 
 
 logic, 31, 40, 160, 190, 278, 295, 316, 
 317, 330, 331 
 
 Lollards, 101, 103, 147 
 
 London, John, 164, 309 
 
 lot, election by, 133 
 
 Lovelace, John Id., 395 ; Piich., 432 
 
 loving-cup, 125, 158, 331 
 
 Lowe, Rob., 13 
 
 Lowth, Rob., 168 
 
 Lucar, Cyril, 47, 437 
 
 Lucy, Will., 460 
 
 Lusby, Hen., 460 
 
 Lyhert, Walt., 79, 104, 105 
 
 M.A., course for, 161, 295 
 
 Magdalen Coll., 33, 44, 110, 111, 148, 
 233, 275, 278, 286, 296, 457 
 
 Magd. Coll. school, 164, 237, 241, 280 
 457 
 
 Magdalen Hall, 234, 439, 441, 457— 
 459 
 
 mallard, the (All S.), 221 ; "lord Mal- 
 lard," 222 
 
 manciple, 78, 188, 411, 433 
 
 mandates. Royal ; see fellowship, head 
 
 Mansell, Dr. Franc, 370—372 
 
 maps of College estates, 219 
 
 Marbeck, Rog., 109 
 
 Marsh, Narcissus, 85 
 
 Marshall, Geo., 166; Thos., 193, 200 
 
 Marty 11, John, 102—104 
 
 S. Mary's Church, 87, 88, 90, 92, 94, 
 95, 100, 102 
 
 S. Mary's College, i. e., Benedictines, 
 266 ; New Coll., 152 ; Oriel, 88, 95 
 
 Marv Hall, S., 108, 111 
 
 Massey, John, 19 
 
 Matthews, Hen. U., 193 
 
 May-day hymn (Magd. Coll.), 239 
 
 Mayew, Rich., 237, 239, 240 
 
 Maynard, Sir John, 81, 84; Jos., 84 
 
 Meadowcourt, Rich., 67 
 
 medicine, 16, 61, 73, 80, 162, 215, 348 
 
 Meeke, Hen., 460 
 
INDEX. 
 
 477 
 
 menial service hy students, 31, 70, 144, 
 
 192, 281, 282, 331, 455 
 Merchaut Taylors' school, 348, 363 
 'Mercurv' (Ch. Ch.), 311 
 Mertou Coll., 5, 24, 33, 59, 85, 87, 88, 
 
 110, 111, 128, 163, 274, 287, 391, 
 
 412 
 Merton, Walter de, 59 
 Mews, Peter, 361 
 Meyricke, Edm., 382 
 S. Michael's church, 172, 173, 182, 
 
 188 
 Michel, John, 138 
 Middleton, John, 98 
 S. Mildred's church, 172, 182 
 Millard, Thos., 346 
 mill, College, 147 
 Mitre Inn, 178 
 
 *Mob Quadrangle' (Mert.), 68 
 ' moderators,' 82, 190, 433 
 Monmouth, duke of, 51, QQ, 227, 298, 
 
 339, 396 
 Montgomery, Rob., 205 
 Moore, Ferryman, 47 ; John, 415 
 More, Hannah, 384, 420 
 Moreman, John, 80 
 Morwent, Rob., 242, 275 
 muniment-room, College, 44, 75, 154, 
 
 210, 248 
 Muskham, Will, of, 126 
 
 Nash, beau, 384 
 
 Nevill, Geo., 38, 39, 175 
 
 'New foundations,' statute as to, 466 
 
 New Coll., 88, 110, 111, 150, 196, 238, 
 
 349, 451 
 New Inn Hall, 43, 443, 458 
 Newcome, Will., 415, 456 
 Newlyn, Rob., 291—293 
 Newman, cardinal, 343, 469 
 Newton, Rich., 452—454 
 Nicholas, Sir Edw., 140, 149 
 non-residence, 185, 229 
 North and South, 23, 34, 68, 93, 101, 
 
 102, 324 
 numbers in colleges, 46, 111, 190, 272, 
 
 280, 297, 300, 337, 346, 402, 432, 
 
 435 
 
 obits, 15, 187, 332 
 
 Oglethorpe, gen., 295; Owen, 243, 
 
 244 
 Oldham, Hugh, 274 
 Oliver, John, 247, 248 
 orfran, 144, 145, 218, 247, 308, 330, 
 
 346, 355, 411 
 organist, 307, 331, 355 
 Oriel Coll., 87, 300, 391 ; i>rovosts of, 
 
 122 
 Oriole, la, 91 
 
 Owen, Goronwy, 384 
 
 Paddy, Sir Will., 352, 353, 355 
 
 Panting, Matt, 411 
 
 Paris, 2, 25, 155, 438 
 
 Parkinson, Rob., 176, 178, 256 
 
 Parsons, John, 54, 58 
 
 patroness of a college (Queen's), 126 
 
 Patten, Rich., Will., 233 
 
 Peckwater's Inri, 311 
 
 Peele, Geo., 415 
 
 Pembroke Coll., 42, 46, 400 
 
 ' pensioners,' 137 
 
 Peny farthing street, 407 
 
 Percy, Hen. (earl of Northumberland), 
 1, 2, 15 
 
 Periam, lady Eliz., 42 ; John, 81 
 
 pestilence in Oxford, 32, 33, 75, 80, 91, 
 111, 142, 185, 219, 242, 326, 333 
 
 Petre, Sir Will, 80 
 
 Phalaris, Epistles of, 314, 421 
 
 Phelps, Will., 300 
 
 Philipps, Erasm., 423 
 
 Philosophies, the Three, 161, 278 
 
 philosophy, 31, 76, 191, 237, 259, 295 
 325, 330, 348 ; see disputations 
 
 Phoenix club (Bras.), 262 
 
 picture-gallery (Ch. Ch.), 311, 320 
 
 Pierce, Thos., 248 
 
 Piers Plowman, 97 
 
 pilgrimage to All Souls, 213, 214 
 
 l^incke, Rob., 165 
 
 Pits, John, 164 
 
 Pitt, AVilliam, 341 
 
 'pittances,' 92, 100, 187 
 
 plague ; sec pestilence 
 
 plate, College, given by founders, 89, 
 114, 125, 218, 328, 330, 337, 394 ; 
 entrance, 40 ; communion, 16, 48, 
 218, 267, 330, 337, 394, 411 ; 'bor- 
 rowed' by Charles I., 16, 48, 64, 
 82. 114, 147, 218, 224, 272, 337, 
 359, 374, 392, 413 ; extant, 89, 114, 
 125, 218, 248, 341, 387, 395, 414, 
 460 
 
 plays, 145, 312, 353, 356, 432 
 
 Plot, Rob., 12 
 
 Pococke, Edw., 298, 458 
 
 poet-laureate (Trin. ), 342 
 
 Pole, cardinal, 194, 286, 331 
 
 'Pompey' (Ball.), 44 
 
 'poor scholars,' 46, 112, 144, 223, 
 235, 246, 272, 433, 461—463 
 
 Pope, Sir Thos., 323, 327—333, 342 
 
 port, 204, 205, 263, 421 
 
 'poser' (New Coll.), 168 
 
 postmaster {portion ista), 69 
 
 Potenger, John, 294 
 
 Potter, Hannibal, 337 ; John, 61, 201, 
 411 
 
478 
 
 IXDEX. 
 
 Powell, Edw., 108 ; Griff., 370 ; Vav., 
 376 
 
 Prasalendius, F., 439 
 
 prayers for founders and benefactors, 
 1, 2, 9, 15, 25, 75, 154, 155, 173, 
 181, 283, 331 
 
 Price, Hugo, 365, 366 
 
 Prideaux, John, 79, 81, 458 
 
 'privilege' of New Coll., 162, 168 
 
 processions, All S., 221, 222 ; Line, 
 182; New Coll., 154 
 
 'proctors,' of Uuiv., 7; of Ball,, 25, 
 26 
 
 proverb referring to All S., 231 ; Bras., 
 272 ; Broadg. H., 401 ; Line, 202 ; 
 New Coll., 167 
 
 jnceri eleemosynarii, 129 
 
 punishments, 76, 284, 285, 296, 440 ; 
 viz., taking off commons, 76, 157, 
 276, 277, 282, 284, 292, 293, 332, 
 358 ; eating alone, 26, 284 ; fine, 9, 
 32, 33, 41, 52, 328 ; flogging, 32, 33, 
 157, 184, 284, 332 ; impositions, 83, 
 284, 293, 332; sconcing, 9, 446; 
 register of, 282, 285, 292, 296 
 
 Pusey, E. B., 318 
 
 Pym, John, 410, 415, 424, 432 
 
 Quadrangle, open, 444 ; typical College, 
 
 153, 306 
 Queen's Coll., 32—34, 44, 111, 124, 
 
 152, 296, 333 
 •Queen's gold,' 80 
 ' Queen's room ' (Mert. ), 64 
 
 Radcliffe, Ant., 311 ; John, 16, 21, 
 
 179, 200, 201 
 Eadford, John, 193, 206 
 Raleigh, Sir Walt., Ill, 220, 393 
 Eawlinson, Rich., 362 
 rebus, 39, 176, 427 
 Red Book of Hergest, 387 
 -Reformation, 16, 63, 80, 108, 147, 164, 
 
 190, 194, 216, 242—245, 290, 351 
 regency, regent masters, 72, 161, 279 
 register. College, 62, 106, 194, 196, 
 
 358, 430, 443 
 Renaissance, 35, 80, 163, 215, 275, 277 
 reredos, All S., 210, 211, 218, 225, 
 
 228 ; Ch. Ch., 319 
 residence, conditions of, 32, 77, 108, 
 
 142, 185, 214, 229, 279, 332, 363 
 'Restoration cup' (Magd.), 248 
 Revival of Learning ; see Renaissance 
 Reynolds, John, 289, 291 
 Richard IIL, 237 
 Roberts, Mich., 375 
 Robertson, F. W., 266, 267 
 Robinson, Hen., 131, 132 ; John, 116, 
 
 119 
 
 Robsart, Amy, 430 
 Rochester, John, earl of, 395 
 room-rents, 8, 137, 186, 433, 456 
 rooms. College, arrangement of, 46, 
 
 48, 68, 145, 157, 186, 214, 281, 440 
 Roswell, John, 294 
 Rote, John, 103 
 Rotheram, archbp., 176, 180, 187 ; Sir 
 
 T., 198 
 Rous, Fran., 409 
 Routh, Mart. J., 52, 250 
 rowing, 54, 264, 414 
 Royal Society, 340, 394 
 Rupert, prince, 246, 356 
 Ruskin, John, 319 
 Rustat, Toby, 361 
 %gge, Rob., 77 
 
 Sachevcrell, Hen., 249 
 sailing, 56, 343 
 
 saints, patron, of Colleges, Ball., 27 ; 
 Bras., 266, 270 ; Ch. Ch., 302 ; 
 Magd., 234 ; Oriel, 114 ; Univ., 12 
 Sampson, Hen., 104, 106, 123 
 Sanderson, Rob., 191, 198, 314 
 Sandwich, 191, 193 
 Saunders, Nich., 164 
 Savage, Hen., 24, 49, 406 
 Say, Rob., 116, 117 
 scholars, i. e., fellows, 27, 31, 77, 89, 
 
 128, 153 
 scholarships (including exhibitions), as 
 distinct from fellowships, 16, 31, 40 
 —42, 69, 105, 159, 169, 191, 203, 237, 
 269, 280, 329, 333, 366, 440 ; to be 
 chosen by preference from choristers 
 281 ; nominated by individual fel 
 lows, 56, 69 ; founder's kin, 391 
 445 ; limited to dioceses and conn 
 ties, 41, 86, 120, 237, 330, 369, 382 
 391 ; limited to particular schools, 
 42, 133, 191, 330, 348, 382, 403 
 405, 440 ; see fellowship 
 seholastici, 31, 40 
 ' sconcing ; ' see punishments 
 Scotland, Scots, 42, 43, 136, 393, 435 
 Scroggs, Sir Will, 116 
 'scrutiny,' College, 70, 89, 143, 160, 
 
 332 
 seal. College, 89, 135, 270 
 Selden, John, 83, 452 
 servants, College, 188, 280, 331, 443 
 serviens (at Queen's), 129 
 servitors, 40, 190, 455 
 Shaftesbury, Ant., earl of, 51, 81 
 Sheldon, Gilb., 223—225, 380 
 Shenstone, Will., 420, 421 
 Sherwine, Ralph, 80 
 Shirley, W. W., 463, 468 
 Shuttleworth, bp., 166 
 
INDEX. 
 
 479 
 
 singincr, 31, 74, 141, 158, 231, 283 
 
 Skii-law, bp. Walt., 1, 2, 15, 326 
 
 Slythurst, Thos., 330, 333, 334 
 
 Smith (Smyth), Adam, 43, 52 ; John, 
 109 ; Jos., 133 ; Matt, 257, 258, 
 271 ; Rich., 63, 307 ; Sydney, 168 ; 
 Thos., 147, 249 ; bp. Will., 105, 178, 
 187, 255, 267—271 ; Mr. Will., 1, 
 6, 12, 14, 20 
 
 smoking, 57, 58, 421, 447 
 
 Snell, John, 42 
 
 soc i us =.feUo\y, 128, 159 
 
 * sojourners,' 189 
 
 Somerville, Sir Phil., 28 
 
 sophista, 141, 278 
 
 South ; see North 
 
 Southey, Eobert, 53 
 
 Stamford, 253, 254 
 
 Stanley, A. P., 13 
 
 Stanton-Harcourt, 219 
 
 Stapeldon Hall, 76, 87, 451 
 
 Stapeldon, Walt, de, 76, 451 
 
 Statutes, to be read in College meeting, 
 143, 332, 448 
 
 Staunton, Edm., 291, 292 
 
 S. Stephen's Hall, 76, 78 
 
 steward, Colle<,'e, 246, 281, 433 
 
 Sunday pence, 173 
 
 Sutton, Rich., 255, 267—270 
 
 Swift, Jon., 459 
 
 swimming, 54 
 
 Sydenham, Thos., 225, 458 
 
 Symons, Ben., 398 
 
 tabard, 129, 130 
 
 taberdar (Queen's^, 129 
 
 Tackley's Inn, 83, 90 
 
 Tait, archbp., 43 
 
 Talbot, E. S., 465, 468, 470 
 
 Tanner, Thos., 148, 226 
 
 tapestry, 86, 240 
 
 Tatham, Edw., 134, 193, 201 
 
 Taylor, Jeremy, 223 ; Jos., 348 
 
 tertiavit, 66 
 
 Tesdale, Thos. ; see Tisdall 
 
 Thelwall, Sir Eub., 368—371 
 
 theology, 7, 27, 28, 60, 89, 90, 125, 
 
 141, 160, 172, 173, 181, 238, 259, 
 
 277, 330, 348, 355, 366 
 
 ITiptoft, John, 36, 38 
 Tisdall, Thos., 42, 403, 406 
 Tolson, John, 113, 114 
 Tom, great, Ch. Ch., 307, 310 
 tonsor ; see barber 
 Torpids, the, 264, 414 
 Tractarian movement, 85, 122, 166, 
 344 
 Ti-aps, Joan, 191 
 Tregury, Mich, de, 79 
 Trelawney, Jon., 84 
 
 Tresham, Will., 63 
 
 Tresilian, Rob., 79 
 
 Trinity Coll., 45, 323, 349 
 
 Tristrop, John, 175 
 
 truckle-bed, 70, 281 
 
 trumpet (Queen's), 139, 140 
 
 'tucking,' 81 
 
 Tudors, 80, 368 
 
 ' tumblers,' 414 
 
 Turner, Fran., 167; Pet., 64, 66 ; Will., 
 
 109 
 tutors, College, 54, 73, 141, 157, 159, 
 
 191, 300, 440, 455 ; undergraduates 
 
 assigned to, 34, 284 ; private, 19, 
 
 137, 260, 334, 396 
 Twyne, Brian, 298 
 Tyndall, Will., 457 
 
 Underhill, Edm., 197; John, 190, 
 
 196 
 Univcrsitas, 252 
 
 University Coll., 1, 46, 87, 113, 391 
 Usher, archbp., 82, 376 
 
 * variations ' (Mert. ), 71 
 
 Vaughan, Hen., 376 ; Tho., 376 
 
 vestura, 129, 186 
 
 vine, the, of Line. Coll., 176, 177 
 
 Visitations by archbp. of Cant., 79, 
 101 
 
 Visitation of University and Colleges 
 by Royal Commissioners : Henry 
 VIII.'s, 108, 147, 242 ; Edward VI.'.s, 
 36, 37, 176, 194, 218, 243, 402; 
 queen Mary's (cardinal Pole's), 194 ; 
 queen Elizabeth's, 110, 194, 290, 
 334 ; Commonwealth (Pari. Vis.), 
 49, 65, 115, 148, 166, 180, 199, 224, 
 247, 260, 291, 313, 337, 359, 394; 
 Charles II. 's, 136, 148, 167, 199 
 
 visiting undergraduates' rooms, 52, 82, 
 419 
 
 Visitor of a college named by founder, 
 60, 78, 236, 390, 404 ; or by bene- 
 factor, 28 ; changed, cp. 11 with 14, 
 28 with 30 and 40, 90 with 119 ; at 
 Ball, elected by College itself, 30 ; at 
 Line, is patron of a fellowship, 178 ; 
 sanctions changes of statutes, 56 ; 
 issues ordinances which have force of 
 statutes, 60, 67, 216 ; in case of lapse 
 nominates head, 93 ; or fellow.s, 118, 
 126 ; decides appeals, 137, 168, 201 ; 
 expels head, 21, 84 ; or fellows, 290 ; 
 record of formal visitations, 107, 
 240, 244 {bis) 
 
 Vitelli, Com., 80, 164 
 
 Vives, Ludov., 286, 306 
 
 Wadham Coll., 85, 113, 306, 389, 430 
 
480 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Wadham, Dorothy, 389, 430 ; Nicli., 
 
 298, 389, 430 
 Walker, Obad., 12, 14, 17—21 
 AValler, Will., 458 
 Wallis, John, 51 
 WaHugham, Sir Fran., 196 ; Tho., 
 
 429 
 Ward, RoK, 63 ; Seth, 338, 375, 395 ; 
 
 W. G., 57, 398 
 Warham, Will, 164 
 Warner, Dr. John, 216 ; bp. John, 42, 
 
 247, 435 
 Warton, Tho., 341, 342 
 Waynfiete, Will, of, 233—239 
 Welsh students, 339, 365; Welsh 
 
 writers, 376, 384, 385 
 Wesley, John, 182, 191, 201 
 Westbury, Rich. Id., 398 
 'wet night,' a, 204. 
 Whear, Deg., 431 
 Whethamstead, John, 428 
 Whigs, 67, 85, 132, 167, 362, 396 
 whip. Line. Coll., 184 
 White Hall, 364, 365 
 White, 'Century,' 376; Gilb., 121; 
 
 Sir Thos., 327, 348—350, 429, 430 
 Whitfield, Geo., 410, 422 ; Hen., 143 
 AVightwick, Rich., 403 
 
 Wilkins, John, 394, 395, 458 
 Wilkinson, Hen., 458; John, 247, 
 
 458 
 Williams, archbp., 182, 198 
 Williamson, Sir Jos., 140, 149 
 Wills, John, 397 
 Winchester Coll., 152 ; S. Swithin's 
 
 priory, 274 
 Windsor, Miles, 298 
 Wolsey, cardinal, 241, 287, 304, 305, 
 
 321, 412 
 Wood, Ant., 11, 14, 165, 340, 373 
 Woodhead, Abr., 17 
 Woodroffe, Ben., 436—438 
 Worcester Coll., 274, 425, 442 
 Wotton, Edw., 286; Sir Hen., 169, 
 
 452 
 Wren, Sir Chr., 225, 266, 310, 340, 
 
 395, 444 
 Wright, Walt, 326 
 Wycliffe, John, 27, 33, 62, 101, 102, 
 
 138, 147, 163 
 Wykeham, Will, of, 150—152 
 Wylliot, John, 69, 93 
 Wytenham, John, 163 
 
 Yate, Thos., 260, 270, 272 
 Yeldard, Arth., 330, 333, 334 
 
 THE END. 
 
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