REESE LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA,

i/( cession hh ) . y^ d / ^

. CAlUS No.

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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.'\

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.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

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

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).'

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." ^

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

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,

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

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,

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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,

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

: 16 .

. 14 :

10 :

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.

00 :

95 :

2 :

341

6 :

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

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,

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.

Richard Clay % Som, Limited, London ^ Bungay.

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