LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 Class 
 
COLLEGE 
 
 HISTORIES 
 
 OXFORD 
 
 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 &UFORHVK, 
 
of 
 
 COLLEGE HISTORIES 
 
 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 BY 
 
 DAVID WATSON KANNIE, M.A, 
 
 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 LECTURER ON MODERN HISTORY AT EXETER COLLEGE 
 
 LONDON 
 F. E. ROBINSON & CO. 
 
 20 GREAT RUSSELL STREET, BLOOMSBURY 
 1900 
 
J.FUS 
 
TO 
 
 MISS HAWKINS 
 
 IN THE MODERN HISTORY OF YOUR FATHER'S COLLEGE 
 HARDLY ANY FIGURE OCCUPIES A LARGER SPACE OR 
 STANDS OUT IN STRONGER RELIEF THAN THAT OF 
 YOUR FATHER HIMSELF. FRESH FROM THE SPELL 
 OF HIS POWERFUL PRESENCE, I GLADLY TAKE THE 
 OPPORTUNITY WHICH YOUR KINDNESS AFFORDS ME 
 OF INSCRIBING THIS LITTLE BOOK WITH YOUR NAME. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THIS sketch has been prepared with constant reference 
 to the vrigines of the college history, which include, 
 besides the manuscript archives stored in the muniment- 
 room, the various statutes and ordinances of the college, 
 the u Deans 1 Register,"" which furnishes the authentic 
 record, only too incomplete, of the proceedings of the 
 college from the beginning of the sixteenth century, the 
 series of Treasurers'' books known as " The Style," and 
 others. I have not ventured to carry on the history 
 beyond the death of the late Provost, except in 
 Chapter X., which, consisting of little more than lists, 
 it has seemed desirable to bring as nearly as possible up 
 to date. In a sketch of these dimensions it has been 
 essential to pursue a principle of very careful selection. 
 It may well be that the inevitable process has not 
 always been wisely performed, and that some readers 
 may miss what they had a good right to expect to find. 
 If so, I can but plead the difficulties of the task, and 
 ask forgiveness. 
 
 I have to express my thanks to several members of 
 the college for most valuable help : to the Provost for 
 kindly allowing me to see the correspondence between 
 Provost Hawkins and the three Tutors ; to the Dean, 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 the Rev. F. H. Hall, for information on athletics, with- 
 out which Chapter X. could not have been attempted ; 
 and to Professor F. C. Montague, the present Librarian, 
 for knowledge about the contents of the Library. I 
 am indebted to Mr. W. A. Craigie, one of the most 
 learned of the younger members of Oriel, for the inter- 
 pretation of Bishop Robinson's runes, given on p. 124. 
 
 My obligation to Dr. C. L. Shadwell cannot be dis- 
 missed in so few words. I have, of course, used freely 
 the chapter on Oriel contributed by him to Mr. Andrew 
 Clark's volume on The Colleges of Oxford, and the pub- 
 lished volume of his Registrum Orielense, as well as those 
 invaluable catalogues to the college muniments and to 
 the antiquities of St. Mary's which have been printed, 
 but not published. But that is, after all, to say little. 
 No one can inquire into any corner of the past of Oriel 
 without finding that Dr. Shadwell has been on the 
 quest before him, and has in all likelihood found out 
 the secret. He has kindly allowed me free access to all 
 his laborious and multifarious notes bearing on the 
 college history, and I have constantly resorted to his 
 judgment when in any doubt or difficulty. I may add 
 that he has been good enough to read through my 
 proof-sheets, and has helped me with many most useful 
 suggestions. And though I should be sorry indeed to 
 attempt to make him responsible for any single state- 
 ment or shade of colouring in the book, I may be 
 allowed to express my regret that it is not worthier, I 
 dare not say of my labours, but of his. 
 
 D. W. R. 
 
 OXFORD, 
 
 June, 1900. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE FOUNDERS AND THE FOUNDATION (1326-1332) I 
 
 II. ORIEL GROWING (1332-1385) . . 16 
 
 III. STORMY TIMES (1385-1427) 38 
 
 IV. FOUR FAMOUS PROVOSTSHIPS (1427-1475) . . 53 
 V. THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES 
 
 (1475-1691) . . 68 
 
 VI. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY (1691-1781) . . 119 
 VII. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY (1781-1882) . -153 
 VIII. THE CHAPEL, THE HALL, AND THE COMMON- 
 ROOMS 219 
 
 IX. THE LIBRARY 230 
 
 X. ATHLETICS 234 
 
 APPENDICES 
 
 I. THE COLLEGE ARMS 239 
 
 II. THE COLLEGE PLATE 239 
 
 III. THE CALENDAR OF 1397 240 
 
 INDEX .......... 242 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 VIEW BY LOGO AN (^.1675) Frontispiece 
 
 THE FRONT, WITH TOWER OF ST. MARY'S. . facing p. 6 
 
 THE FRONT QUADRANGLE, WITH TOWER OF 
 
 MERTON CHAPEL 1 6 
 
 THE BACK QUADRANGLE, SHOWING THE LIBRARY 
 
 AND ROBINSON'S AND CARTER'S BUILDINGS 64 
 
 THE CHAPEL IOO 
 
 THE HALL 154 
 
 THE COMMON ROOM ,,198 
 
 THE QUADRANGLE OF ST. MARY HALL . . 2IO 
 
CHAPTER 
 
 THE FOUNDERS AND THE FOUNDATION (1326-1332) 
 
 Adam de Brome, 1326-1332 
 
 THE collegiate foundation, of which the following pages 
 will tell the story, was originally, and is still formally 
 and primarily, called the House or Hall of the Blessed 
 Mary at Oxford ; but before very many years had 
 passed it began to be occasionally known by that 
 familiar name of " Oriel,"* under which all men now 
 recognise it. Like the others of the earliest group of 
 colleges, it illustrates by its beginnings several points 
 of much interest in medieval education. The movement 
 which gave rise to the early Oxford colleges ought to 
 be compared with, and carefully distinguished from, the 
 various monastic movements of the Middle Age. It is 
 one of the chief glories of monasticism, both in its 
 earlier forms and much more as it appeared in the 
 various orders of Friars, that it realized and provided 
 for the needs of education. The intellectual enthusiasm 
 of the regular clergy made itself practically felt in 
 
 * The earliest instance of the use of the word Oriel as a name 
 for the college occurs in 1349. 
 
 1 
 
2 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 Oxford in the thirteenth century. The University 
 itself, it is true, with its apparatus of "schools 11 and 
 " halls," drew its chief support from the secular clergy ; 
 but during the reign of Henry III. the inspiration 
 which made the age educationally fruitful came from 
 the Friars, all the four principal orders of whom settled 
 themselves in Oxford during the thirteenth century, and 
 supplied her schools with some of their chief ornaments. 
 The older orders lagged somewhat behind the Friars ; 
 but the Benedictine foundation of Gloucester College 
 showed that they too were alive to the advantage of 
 applying a common rule and a quasi-corporate organiza- 
 tion to purposes of study within the University ; and 
 that example was followed again and again. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that the 
 group of foundations to which Oriel belongs derived 
 their leading principles from Walter de Merton's institu- 
 tions in 1264 and 1274. Walter de Merton was one of 
 the pioneers of the education of the world. By his 
 foundations at Maiden in 1264 and at Oxford in 1274, 
 he planted in England a new form of brotherhood or 
 college an unprecedented educational agency. In 
 superficial aspect it was as monastic as a Benedictine 
 or Dominican establishment ; it had a common rule 
 and a common life; corporate property; an elected 
 superior; a church and chaplains; its objects were the 
 glory of God and the good of the Church. But in 
 certain important respects the colleges of which Merton 
 was the model were at variance with the monastic, and 
 even with the cathedral, school. It was an essential 
 part of the Merton Statutes that no member of the 
 college should become a monk ; but that was not all. 
 
THE FOUNDERS AND THE FOUNDATION 3 
 
 The primary object of the new type of brotherhood was 
 study study, indeed, as ancillary to the glory of God 
 and the good of the Church, but still primarily study. 
 To the convent or friary^, the school, however indispens- 
 able and however held in honour, was but an adjunct. 
 The cathedral and the convent alike aimed at the 
 salvation of men rather than at their education. But 
 the foundation of the new type of college coincides 
 in some measure with that large national movement 
 whereby the medieval civil service arrived at an 
 organization increasingly independent of purely eccle- 
 siastical associations. Walter de Merton and Bishop 
 Stapledon, the founder of Exeter College, were great 
 Ministers of State, and their educational foundations 
 are to be regarded as nurseries of statesmen quite as 
 much as confraternities dedicated to theology. 
 
 Our college boasts the distinction of being a royal 
 foundation. Of the college of the Blessed Mary, how- 
 ever, it has to be said that, as in other instances, the 
 royal parentage was hardly more than titular. King 
 Edward II. has not left behind him a good record either 
 of personal character or of statesmanlike achievement ; 
 yet he was not without friendliness both to religion 
 and learning, and he was at least capable of adopting 
 a good suggestion. His almoner, Adam de Brome, was a 
 man of considerable prominence in the King's service, and 
 is a good specimen of the medieval ecclesiastic, who was 
 also an educational reformer, and a lover of his country's 
 best interests. Early in the reign he was one of the 
 King's Clerks of Chancery. Twice, while the see of 
 Durham was vacant, he was ordered to go down and 
 take charge of the Bishop's seals until the vacancy was 
 
 12 
 
4 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 filled. In 1313 he was parson of Handesworth in 
 Yorkshire. In 1320 he was presented by the King 
 to the Rectory of St. Mary the Virgin at Oxford.* . 
 
 It would be pleasant if we could think that, as 
 Rector of St. Mary's, Adam de Brome had an oppor- 
 tunity of breathing the air of academic life and 
 realizing its further needs. Then, quite as much as 
 now, his church stood at the centre of that life in 
 Oxford. The Via Scholastica, carrying the tide of 
 University students to and from the Schools, passed 
 its western end. To the southward, across the High 
 Street, at the foot of the short slope leading to the 
 level of the river-meadows, hard by the church of St. 
 John the Baptist, stood the buildings of Walter de 
 Merton's college, while University and Exeter were 
 near, and Balliol was not far off. But there is no 
 evidence that Adam, as Rector, resided at Oxford. 
 When he was not journeying about on the King's busi- 
 ness, his home was no doubt in London, in his house 
 at Newgate. However, the thought came to him of 
 founding another college like Merton, and when it 
 came, was not long in being turned into a deed. On 
 April 28, 1324, Letters Patent were issued by the 
 King giving licence to his " beloved clerk, Adam de 
 Brome," to found a college of Scholars in the University 
 of Oxford. From the King's love for the Blessed Virgin 
 as well as his desire for the increase of God's glory ,f he 
 granted Adam's urgent request. The licence was, in 
 
 * The current accounts of Adam de Brome, even that in the 
 Dictionary of National Biography, are founded on somewhat in- 
 adequate research, and are consequently erroneous in some respects. 
 
 t Divinus Cultns is the Latin. It is not easy to translate it satis- 
 factorily. 
 
THE FOUNDERS AND THE FOUNDATION 5 
 
 the first place, to acquire and hold in mortmain a 
 messuage in the town or suburb of Oxford; and, in 
 the second place, to found in the premises so acquired 
 a college of students of divers sciences in the Virgin^s 
 honour. The college was to be perpetually governed 
 by a Rector elected by the Scholars ; and the details of 
 government were to be settled by Adam de Brome him- 
 self. A sufficient endowment was provided by a licence 
 to the Rector and scholars to hold in mortmain property 
 to the value of 20 a year. 
 
 xThe royal licence obtained, Adam de Brome lost no 
 time in acquiring premises and property. In 1324 he 
 bought two tenements in Oxford, namely, Tackley^s Inn 
 on the south side of the High Street (now No. 106) to 
 the west of St. MaryX and Perilous Hall on the north 
 side of Horsmonger Strete, now Broad Street. For 
 endowment he purchased the advowson of the church of 
 Aberford, in Yorkshire. On December 6 he issued a 
 charter of foundation in accordance with the licence of 
 April ; and a royal charter, confirming that of Adam, 
 was issued by Edward II. on December 20. The 
 college was declared to be for the study of theology 
 and the ars dialectica. John de Laughton was appointed 
 the first Rector ; and Tackley's Inn was assigned as the 
 premises of the college. 
 
 These events of 1324, in which Adam de Brome is 
 the chief mover, were but a rehearsal of the real and 
 permanent foundation of our college. Of what 
 happened to the infant Society in 1325 we know 
 nothing, but it seems likely that a direct refoundation 
 by the King himself presented itself as desirable for its 
 health and strength. On January 1, 1326, Adam de 
 
6 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 Brome surrendered the property of the college into 
 Edward's hands ; and on January 21 the King issued 
 by Letters Patent a charter of foundation in his own 
 name, which is, properly speaking, the original charter 
 of the college. In this document the King connects 
 the foundation with himself and his own high and dis- 
 interested purposes, with his love of the Church and his 
 zeal for sound learning and religious knowledge. The 
 college in its new form was to be governed by a Provost 
 instead of a Rector, and Adam de Brome was appointed 
 the first Provost. All future Provosts were to be chosen 
 by the Scholars from their own number. The college 
 was re-endowed with the premises of Tackley's Inn and 
 Perilous Hall. 
 
 One feature of this charter was of great importance 
 for the future of the college. Adam de Brome, we 
 remember, the Provost of St. Mary's College, was 
 Rector of St. Mary's Church. The King was moved 
 to strengthen the connexion between church and 
 college, between the care of souls and the training of 
 youth, by endowing the new college with the advowson 
 and rectory of the church of St. Mary. The revenues of 
 the church were to be appropriated to the use of the 
 college on condition of the perpetual supply by the 
 latter of four chaplains to celebrate Divine service 
 daily in the church. With a view to the increase of 
 the college, the Provost and Scholars were granted 
 permission to acquire lands, revenues, or ecclesiastical 
 property to the extent of sixty librates of land i.e., 60 
 a year from real estate. 
 
 The original statutes of the college bear the same 
 date (January 21, 1326) as the charter. In these the 
 
From a photograph by the] \Oxford Camera Club 
 
 THE FRONT, WITH TOWER OF ST. MARY'S. 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 C.4UFGK 
 
THE FOUNDERS AND THE FOUNDATION 7 
 
 main objects of the royal founder and of the college 
 are again set forth, and the plan of the foundation is 
 exhibited in full detail. The college is a corporation 
 consisting of a head and ten Scholars. The original 
 ten, for this time chosen by the Provost, are to devote 
 themselves to theology ; those elected afterwards to 
 fill vacancies are to acquire proficiency in the liberal 
 arts and in philosophy until, in the judgment of the 
 Provost and the other members of the college, they 
 are fit to proceed to theology. Five or six of the 
 Scholars are to be chosen by the Provost (whose choice 
 is to be aided by that of some of the senior Scholars) 
 for the study of Canon Law, and these, at the dis- 
 cretion of the Provost, may be permitted to study 
 Civil Law as well. 
 
 The Provost must be a man circumspect both in 
 temporal and spiritual affairs. His rule is to extend 
 not only over the Scholars living with him in the 
 premises of the college, but over the chaplains and 
 all who minister to the sacred or secular interests of 
 the Society. Vacancies in the Provostship are to be 
 filled by the Scholars from their own number within 
 three days of notice of vacancy ; and he who is elected 
 is at once to get confirmation of his election from the 
 King's Chancellor. Failing unanimity of election, the 
 Chancellor is to intervene and decide. 
 
 Under the Provost there is to be a senior student 
 chosen by the college, who is to have the title of Dean. 
 His duties are to exercise a general disciplinary super- 
 vision of the scholars and chaplains, to act for the 
 Provost in the event of his absence, and in his presence 
 to assist him in the discharge of his functions. In his 
 
8 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 duties of supervision the Dean is to be aided by certain 
 of the more discreet Scholars, one of whom is to be at 
 the head of every twenty, or even of every ten. In. each 
 room there is to be an overseer of conduct who can 
 report, if necessary, to the Provost or to the college as 
 a whole. 
 
 The Scholars are to have a common table, and are to 
 be read aloud to during meals, maintaining a careful 
 and attentive silence the while. Only such persons as 
 are of unexceptionable character, needy and apt to 
 learn, are to be chosen as Scholars, and for each a year 
 of probation before final admission is prescribed. Before 
 admission each Scholar must have passed successfully the 
 trial necessary in those days for the Bachelor's degree 
 i.e., determinare probabiliter in arte dialectic a ; and in no 
 case is a Scholar to devote himself to theological study 
 until he has shown proficiency in dialectic or philosophy. 
 
 The number of Scholars is to be accommodated to 
 the amount of the college property, each Scholar re- 
 ceiving 52s. a year i.e., twelve pence a week for commons. 
 The number of Scholars may be increased in proportion 
 to increase of revenue. Once admitted, the Scholars 
 are to receive their allowances regularly during good 
 behaviour. Constant or incurable illness, entrance into 
 a monastic order, receipt of revenue from other sources, 
 as well as neglect of study, are to bring the scholarship 
 to an end. Serious misconduct is to be followed by 
 expulsion after careful inquiry. 
 
 New Scholars are to be elected by the Provost and 
 the Scholars, or, in the event of want of unanimity, by 
 the Provost and six seniors. 
 
 In case of serious discord within the Society, the 
 
THE FOUNDERS AND THE FOUNDATION 9 
 
 matter is to be settled, in the first instance, by the 
 Heads of Twenties and the Subdecani ; if they fail to 
 settle, there is appeal to the Provost, whose judgment 
 is final. 
 
 Three times a year namely, eight days before 
 Christmas, eight days before Easter, and eight days 
 before the Feast of St. Margaret a chapter is to be 
 held, at which a thorough examination is to be made 
 of the intellectual and moral condition of each member 
 of the Society, and at which claims to the benefits of 
 the college may be taken into consideration. At these 
 chapters Divine service is to be celebrated in St. Mary's 
 in commemoration of the founder, the Provost, and 
 benefactors. 
 
 Certain of the more discreet Scholars are to keep the 
 accounts of the college, to receive its revenues and take 
 charge of their distribution, and to receive bailiffs 1 
 reports. Moreover, the Provost is to submit annually 
 to certain persons elected ad hoc by the Scholars an 
 account of his administration, and of the income of the 
 college. 
 
 Very definite rules were made as to the relation 
 between the church and college of St. Mary. The 
 services were to be regulated (under the supervision of 
 the Provost) either by the Dean, or by some other 
 Scholars chosen for the purpose. The four chaplains 
 whom the college was bound to maintain in return for 
 the appropriated revenues of the church were to be pro- 
 vided by the Provost, and subject to the authority of 
 the Dean. On all the Scholars, except regents, it was 
 obligatory to go to church in surplices every Sunday 
 and on special feasts, and to be present at daily mass, 
 
10 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 matins, first and second vespers, and other Hours. 
 Regents were exempted from attending second vespers. 
 
 The duties of the Provost are not exhausted by what 
 has hitherto been recorded. Each autumn after harvest 
 he was to make a circuit of the lands belonging to the 
 college, to value them, and to put his valuation in writing 
 that it might be compared with the results at the audit. 
 He was to dine at the Scholars 1 common table " as one 
 of them"; and to have, in addition to his commons, 
 two marks for clothes and other necessaries, besides a 
 reasonable sum for travelling expenses on behalf of the 
 college. He was removable by the King's Chancellor 
 on account of misuse of property, incontinence, or other 
 reasonable cause, on the explicit accusation of the 
 college, which was understood to be unanimous. A 
 deprived Provost could never be readmitted. 
 
 Such are the main provisions of the original statutes. 
 With very few exceptions they are taken, mutatis 
 mutandis, from the Statutes of Merton of 1274. But 
 neither Merton nor any other Oxford college ever had 
 a Secundarius of quite the same character with that of 
 the Dean of Oriel. Something a good deal more than 
 a deputy or a disciplinarian, with long terms of office 
 and a distinct independent dignity, he was, and is, unique 
 among Oxford college officials holding that title. 
 
 The first premises of the college thus inaugurated as 
 a royal foundation were either at Tackley's Inn, or 
 in the manse or rectory-house of St. Mary's, directly 
 opposite the church on the south side of High Street, 
 afterwards to be St. Mary Hall. There seems, indeed, 
 to be no doubt that the latter was assigned to the 
 Provost and Scholars, an arrangement obviously suggested 
 
THE FOUNDERS AND THE FOUNDATION 11 
 
 by the fact that the Provost and the Rector of St. Mary's 
 were the same person. The statutes contained a distinct 
 permission to the Provost and Scholars to acquire and 
 occupy new premises in the parish if it should seem 
 desirable to do so. 
 
 A few months after the foundation, a constitutional 
 change was made which, slight as it probably seemed 
 at the time, had power, as we shall find, to lash into 
 momentary foam the sleepy waters of eighteenth century 
 life at Oriel. Neither the initiation of Adam de Brome, 
 nor the effective royal patronage with which it was 
 followed up, was deemed enough for the young Society, 
 and in the spring of 1326 the House or Hall of St. Mary 
 was put under the direct patronage of Henry de Burgh- 
 ash, Bishop of Lincoln. The diocese of Lincoln in those 
 days included Oxford, and Henry de Burghash was a 
 very important man. The association between the 
 college and the Bishop of Lincoln was signalized by 
 the issue, in the King's name, of new statutes, dated 
 May 23, 1326. These statutes, which were in force 
 at Oriel down to 1726, differ in some important 
 respects from those of January. For one thing, the 
 name of the college, left uncertain in January, was 
 fixed in May. Again, whereas by the January code 
 five or six scholars might study Canon or Civil Law, 
 by that of May only three were permitted to do so. 
 Provosts on election were to be presented for con- 
 firmation, not to the King's Chancellor, but to the 
 Bishop of Lincoln or to his officiarius in case of 
 vacancy. The Dean was to be appointed by the 
 Provost with the consent of the Scholars, instead of 
 being elected by the college. 
 
12 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 Some careful changes were made as to the course of 
 study. In every case a two or three years' course of 
 Civil Law must precede the study of the Canon. Law. 
 Additional Scholars, admitted in consequence of in- 
 creased funds, were to be made to study dialectic, and 
 then to proceed to theology. 
 
 The Scholars were to co-operate with the Provost and 
 Dean in all matters of importance. In matters " of 
 light and daily business," the officers of the college 
 were to refrain from troubling the Scholars for fear of 
 disturbing their studies. 
 
 For the removal of a Provost, as well as for the con- 
 firmation of his election, the Bishop of Lincoln was 
 substituted for the King's Chancellor. 
 
 In these statutes of May, 1326, a further step towards 
 the complete incorporation of the college was taken by 
 the provision of a common seal. There seems good 
 reason to believe that the seal has never been changed. 
 It represents the Annunciation, with the figure of Adam 
 de Brome kneeling below. The legend is : " Sig. Comune 
 Domus Scholarium Beate Marie Oxon." It was to be 
 kept in a box with three keys one to be kept in the 
 Provost's custody, and the other two entrusted to two 
 of the more discreet and trustworthy Scholars. The 
 seal was in no case to be used without the consent of 
 all its three guardians, and for its use in matters of 
 great moment the consent of the whole Society, person- 
 ally or by deputy, was required. 
 
 The two Scholar-keepers of the seal were to act as 
 treasurers, and with the Provost were to render an 
 account annually about Michaelmas. 
 
 In a clause giving permission to the Provost and 
 
THE FOUNDERS AND THE FOUNDATION 13 
 
 Scholars to frame new statutes, the approval of the 
 Bishop of Lincoln was made essential to their adop- 
 tion. The connexion with Lincoln was also specially 
 emphasized with regard to the services in St. Mary's. 
 Daily exequies were to be said at the altar of St. Anne's 
 Chapel by Scholars of the college for the souls of the 
 father and mother of Henry de Burghash, for the Bishop 
 himself, and for his brothers and sisters, as well as for 
 the King and Adam de Brome. After the death of 
 Henry an anniversary mass of the dead was to be said 
 regularly in his memory. At the scrutiny, three times 
 a year, mass was to be said for Edward I., Edward II., 
 the Bishop of Lincoln, and Adam de Brome. Finally, 
 to the Bishop of Lincoln was given the power of 
 interpreting as well as of reforming the statutes. 
 
 The Bishop confirmed the new statutes on June 11, 
 1326. In the course of the same year he confirmed the 
 appropriation of St. Mary's. Before August 1 Adam 
 de Brome had resigned the rectory into the hands of 
 the college ; and, on that date, the college was inducted 
 by the Prior of St. Frideswide, Adam de Brome con^ 
 tinuing his incumbency as vicar. 
 
 As we shall see in the next chapter, additions were 
 soon made to the endowments of tr-2 college ; and that 
 fact may explain one feature in a group of supplementary 
 statutes issued on December 8, 1329, nearly three years 
 after the accession of Edward III. These additional 
 statutes were made by the Provost and Scholars them- 
 selves ; and they are interesting as showing what, of 
 amendment or expansion, presented itself, after nearly 
 four years' experience, as feasible or desirable to the 
 minds of the Society. 
 
14 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 In the first place it was provided that future Provosts 
 might hold a benefice along with the Provostship. The 
 Provost's yearly stipend was to be increased to ten 
 marks ; and it was permitted to him to have a separate 
 table at his pleasure. 
 
 In the last resort, dissensions were to be settled by 
 the college ; in no case was an outside authority to be 
 called in. 
 
 Weekly during term the Scholars were to hold disputa- 
 tions among themselves ; one in philosophy, if there 
 were seven students of philosophy, another in theology, 
 with a similar condition. 
 
 One interesting clause bears testimony to the existence 
 of a library. Each year, at the Feast of All Souls, in 
 presence of the Provost or his vicegerent and of the 
 whole college, an inspection of the college books was 
 to be held ; each Scholar was to choose a book most 
 appropriate to his studies, which he might keep until 
 the following All Souls'* Day, when the process would 
 be repeated. After the fashion of the Middle Age, it 
 seems to have been assumed that the numbers of books 
 and Scholars should correspond. In the event of there 
 being more books than Scholars, it was provided that 
 the excess should be disposed of in the same way. Books 
 in those days were too precious to be allowed to lie idle 
 on shelves. 
 
 Owing to the high price of corn in 1329, each Scholar 
 was to receive 3d. in addition to his statutory allowance 
 of Is. during the continuance of the high prices i.e., 
 until corn returned to the average price of 10s. per 
 quarter. 
 
 An interesting system of pittances and allowances 
 
THE FOUNDERS AND THE FOUNDATION 15 
 
 was organized. At Christmas and Easter the scholars 
 were to receive 5s. for pittances, and at Whitsuntide 
 40d. Of the servants and officials, the manciple was 
 to receive a mark, the cook half a mark, the barber 10d., 
 the Dean 10s. An allowance of half a mark was set 
 apart for the annual renewal of linen and necessary 
 utensils. The treasurers and the collector of the Little- 
 more* tithe were to have 10s. each. 
 
 One word more will complete the story of the founda- 
 tion of our college. The statutes of 1329 were confirmed 
 by the Bishop on February 26, 1330, and by the King 
 (with those of May, 1324) on March 18, of the same year. 
 In order to give the Society its proper outfit it remained 
 desirable to secure for it Papal approval. Accordingly, 
 we find Edward III. writing to the Pope on December 4, 
 1330, explaining the design of the foundation and asking 
 for Papal confirmation. On June 23, 1331, John XXII. 
 issued four Bulls of confirmation, with some of the 
 contents of which we shall have to deal by -and -by. 
 St. Mary's College was now fully ready for its battle 
 of life. 
 
 Its real founder and first Provost did not live to see 
 much of its behaviour in that battle. On June 16, 
 1332, Adam de Brome passed away. He was laid to 
 rest on the north side of St. Mary's Church, where, in 
 spite of rebuilding, his tomb remains to this day. 
 
 * Littlemore, about two miles south-east of Oxford, on the lower 
 London road, is a township, part of which was, until 1847, an outlying 
 portion of St. Mary's parish. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 OEIEL GROWING (1332-1885) 
 
 William de Leverton, 1332-1348; William de Hawkes- 
 worth, 1348-1349; William de Daventre, 1349-1373; 
 John de Colyntre, 1373-1385. 
 
 ENOUGH has been said to show the outlines of a medieval 
 college, as distinguished from a cathedral school or a 
 monastic establishment, in Oxford. The reader will 
 realize that it was neither an expression of the general 
 beneficence of a diocese nor a company of monks friendly 
 to learning. It was definitely non-monastic; and it was 
 designed primarily it may, indeed, be said exclusively 
 for education, as general and as secular as the ages of 
 faith would admit of. To make the picture complete, 
 it is necessary to contrast the young St. Mary's College, 
 or " King's Hall," as it was often called, with an Oxford 
 or Cambridge college at the present time. In order to 
 do this effectively, it is by no means needful to consider 
 changes in detail, the obvious and inevitable result of 
 changed times and manners. It is enough to realize 
 the one great point of difference, namely that St. Mary's 
 College was a college exclusively of graduates. The 
 
H 
 
 1 
 
 h 
 
 -^ W 
 
ORIEL GROWING 17 
 
 earliest group of colleges knew nothing of any obliga- 
 tion to conduct a young student through all the stages 
 of his education from matriculation to his Bachelor's 
 degree. The Scholars of Merton or Oriel were, as 
 we should now say, " Bachelor Fellows," men who 
 were still in statu pupillarl indeed, but whose early 
 education had been provided for by the University in 
 her Schools, and who were now to pursue their studies 
 towards higher issues and the teaching degree. In 
 short, to adopt the modern Oxford jargon, a college 
 such as Oriel in the fourteenth century consisted (as 
 All Souls 1 College practically still consists) of a 
 "common room" only. The series of changes by 
 which the foundation passed into its modern phase will 
 come before us, each in its due place, as we proceed. 
 
 For about a hundred years after the death of its first 
 Provost, the history of the college is one of modest 
 pretensions and of slow but steady growth in property 
 and influence. Adam de Brome, as we saw reason to 
 think, had established the college of St. Mary, as was 
 natural, in the rectory-house of the church, directly 
 opposite the church, on the south side of High Street. 
 This house we may call by its later name of St. Mary 
 Hall. Not far to the westward of St. Mary Hall 
 stood, as we have seen, Tackley's Inn, which had been 
 acquired for the first phase of the college as early 
 as 1324. Tackley's Inn, however, was outside the 
 region henceforward to be the local habitation of the 
 King's Hall, and fell into rank among the pieces of 
 Oxford property which made up the bulk of the college 
 endowment. The locale of the college was a wedge 
 stretching southward from St. Mary's Church to the 
 
18 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 church of St. John the Baptist, and forming the eastern 
 boundary of Schidyard Street (now Oriel Street). Of 
 this wedge, St. Mary Hall was then, as it is now, at the 
 northern end ; and much of the college history in the 
 fourteenth century consists of the process by which the 
 whole of the wedge passed into the possession of the 
 college. 
 
 The southern end of the wedge became college 
 property before any part of the intermediate region, 
 and its acquisition marks a memorable epoch in the 
 college history. In the angle of Schidyard and St. 
 John Streets (now Oriel and Merton Streets) there 
 stood in 1327 a tenement with a peculiar and illustrious 
 history. Originally known as Senescal Hall, it had at 
 some time and for some reason unknown come to be 
 called " La Oriole." After many changes of owners, it 
 passed into the hands of Eleanor of Provence, the wife 
 of Edward I., and she gave it to her chaplain and kins- 
 man, James of Spain. In December, 1327, the messuage 
 was granted to St. Mary's College. On May 16, 1329, 
 James of Spain surrendered to the college his life- 
 interest in " La Oriole." 
 
 This transaction, which may have appeared slight at 
 the time, was, in fact, momentous. "La Oriole" 
 occupied part of the space of the present chief 
 quadrangle of the college ; and if, as seems likely, 
 the college took up its residence there in 1329, its 
 continuity in space is as marked as its continuity in 
 time. But this is not all. Whatever the expression 
 "La Oriole" may have originally meant, it had an 
 important future before it. In 1349 we find it giving 
 its name to the college ; and from the latter date, first 
 
ORIEL GROWING 19 
 
 at long and then at shorter intervals, then almost con- 
 tinuously, the mysterious nickname became first regularly 
 inwoven in the style and titles of the King's Hall or 
 College of St. Mary, and then the common colloquial 
 name of the Society. It is a unique instance in Oxford 
 of so trivial and etymologically uncertain an origin of a 
 college name. 
 
 We are, then, to think of the actual college premises 
 as fixed at La Oriole at the death of Adam de Brome. 
 By a gradual process, not completed for nearly two 
 centuries, the rest of the wedge of ground, extending 
 northwards to High Street, was absorbed first as 
 property, then for lodgings either by the college itself 
 or by its adjunct St. Mary Hall. 
 
 More important to the growth of the little college 
 than its mere local abode was the gradual acquisition of 
 lands and houses in or near Oxford by which the endow- 
 ments of the Society, none too large at the best, were 
 provided. Much of the early material for the college 
 history is made up of the deeds and other records of 
 purchase or bequest on behalf of the college. To 
 begin with ecclesiastical property, to the advowsons of 
 St. Mary's, in Oxford, and Aberford, in Yorkshire, 
 there was added, in 1327, by Adam de Brome and 
 William de Herlaston that of Coleby, in Lincoln- 
 shire, purchased from the Prior and Convent of St. 
 Barbara. It would be idle and wearisome to enumerate 
 all the instances of acquisition of property in the course 
 of the fourteenth century. Adam de Brome, we re- 
 member, had bought Perilous Hall as early as 1324. 
 By his will he bequeathed two tenements Moyses 
 Hall, in Penyferthyng (now Pembroke) Street, and 
 
 22 
 
20 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 Baner Hall, in St. Mary Magdalene parish to Richard 
 de Overton.* Through a succession of assignments, 
 these pieces of property came into the full ownership 
 of Oriel in 1362 ; and with them came a school in 
 Cat Street, purchased by Richard de Overton in 1333 
 out of moneys provided by Adam de Brome. 
 
 There exists, fortunately, a complete rent-roll of the 
 college, drawn up in 1363-64, perhaps in the handwriting 
 of John de Colyntre, afterwards Provost, from which we 
 can gather a very complete notion of the college property 
 at that date. It falls broadly into two classes that 
 acquired by the college primarily, and that acquired 
 through St. Bartholomew's Hospital, which came to be 
 a dependency of the college in circumstances with which 
 we shall presently deal. Chief in the former class are 
 the St. Mary Hall and Tackley's Inn, and round each 
 are grouped various shops and tenements in the neigh- 
 bourhood. In the latter class are some small rents, 
 shops, houses, and gardens in and near Oxford. Of the 
 holdings at a distance from Oxford, which came to the 
 college through the hospital, the most important re- 
 ferred to in the rent-roll was Stowford, in the parish of 
 Stanton St. John. Equally important, though not 
 appearing in this document, was Oriel Wood, in the 
 parish of Boarstall. 
 
 The connexion between the college and St. Bar- 
 tholomew^ Hospital is full of interest, and has been 
 the source of many lively chapters in the history of 
 Oriel down to the present day. The hospital was 
 originally one of the marks of Henry I.'s connexion 
 with Oxford and its neighbourhood. According to 
 * A brother official in the Chancery, and a trusted friend. 
 
ORIEL GROWING 21 
 
 tradition, it was built out of the overplus of the expense 
 of the King^s palace of Beaumont. It consisted of a 
 chapel and other buildings for lepers, dedicated to 
 St. Bartholomew, and was situated on the southern 
 slope of Headington Hill, about a mile from the east 
 gate of the city. From the Hundred Rolls in the reign 
 of Edward I. we learn that the foundation was a con- 
 vent of twelve brethren and one chaplain, and that 
 Henry I. had provided for its endowment %3 Os. 5d.,* 
 to be paid by the city of Oxford out of the fee- 
 farm rent. The site of the hospital occupied six 
 acres of land taken out of the manor of Headington. 
 Throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries 
 St. Bartholomew^ held its ground. It came to own 
 various pieces of land in Cowley and elsewhere, and its 
 existence was confirmed by one King after another. In 
 the time of Edward I., whether through the misbe- 
 haviour of the Masters or Chaplain, or through unjust 
 diversion of rents, the hospital was in very low water ; 
 and in 1315, early in Edward II.'s reign, an inquisition 
 was held by the Chancellor of the University and others, 
 as a result of which the King reduced the number of 
 brethren from twelve to eight, two hale and six infirm. 
 Each of the eight was to receive 9d. a week salary, to be 
 paid out of the goods of the hospital. On this reduced 
 footing the hospital went on for some time, but in 1321 
 there occurred one of those terrible outbreaks of 
 prejudice and aversion which in all ages have done so 
 
 * This amount is arrived at by estimating the allowance to the 
 thirteen members at id. a day each for the year: is. id. x 365 = 
 ig 155. 5d. ; and the allowance of clothing at 53. : 13 x 53. = 3 55. 
 Total, 23 os. 5d. 
 
22 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 much to retard the progress of the world. The English 
 people turned against the lepers, and St. Bartholomew's 
 suffered accordingly. With the accession of Edward III. 
 better days came. In 1324 Adam de Brome had been 
 made Warden of the hospital. Edward III., Anthony 
 Wood tells us, 
 
 " in the second year of his reign " (the exact date was 
 February 24, 1328), "that he might better consult the 
 administring of government to this house then much 
 decayed therein, and also that he might gratify his scollers 
 of Oriel Hall the use of wholesome air in time of pesti- 
 lential sickness did in liberam puram ac perpetuam elee- 
 mosinam, wholly grant them this hospitall and whatsoever 
 they had belonging to it in houses, lands, meadows, woods, 
 and other rents and titles to them and their successors for 
 ever." 
 
 The Letters Patent recording the grant make mention 
 of the various inconveniences which had resulted from 
 the carelessness and neglect of the Wardens, and of the 
 King^s trust in the fidelity, prudence and circumspection 
 of the Provost and Scholars of the House of the Blessed 
 Mary at Oxford. 
 
 The interest of St. Bartholomew's, or " Bartlemas," 
 as an addendum to Oriel, lies in its double relation 
 to the city of Oxford on the one hand, and to the 
 college on the other. The grant to the college in 
 1328 did not abolish the obligation of the city to con- 
 tribute towards the support of the almsmen out of its 
 fee-farm rent ; and thus a wide door was left open for 
 disputes and recriminations. The obligations of the 
 college under the grant were to provide a chaplain 
 for daily service, and to supply maintenance for eight 
 
ORIEL GROWING 23 
 
 almsmen, viz., 9d. a week each, and 5s. a year each for 
 clothing, the maximum number to be kept continually 
 in the hospital. As we shall see, this obligation was 
 strictly observed by the college, to the extent specified 
 in the grant, while, on the other hand, it was exceed- 
 ingly difficult to tie down the municipal authorities to 
 their share of the burden. The first actual litigation 
 on the subject seems to have occurred in 1390, in con- 
 sequence of which Richard II. ordered the mayor and 
 bailiffs of Oxford to pay 23 Os. 5d. to Oriel College 
 for the hospital. After this, litigation was frequent 
 down to Tudor times and beyond them. 
 
 In 1331 Adam de Brome was formally invested in 
 the Wardenship or Mastership of the hospital by the 
 King. In 1346 we find the King confirming the grant 
 of the hospital, and ordering the tenants to pay their 
 rents to the college. At the same time he ordered the 
 municipal authorities to pay the fee-farm rent to Oriel. 
 More than once in the reign of Edward III. the 
 brethren of the hospital were ordered to obey the 
 college, and in 1367 careful statutes were issued for the 
 governance of the hospital. The two hale brothers 
 were to work under the direction of the Provost and 
 those acting for him, and all the brethren were to con- 
 fess annually to the chaplain or some other priest 
 appointed for that purpose. 
 
 One is tempted to linger on the connexion between 
 St. Bartholomew's and Oriel longer, perhaps, than its 
 importance in the college history strictly requires, 
 because of the picturesque associations which clustered 
 round Bartlemas in medieval times. For some reason 
 the chapel became a centre of peculiar interest, reverence 
 
24 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 and resort. It was blessed by the presence of precious 
 relics : the comb of Edward the Confessor, good against 
 headaches ; a piece of the skin of St. Bartholomew him- 
 self ; crosses of St. Andrew and St. Philip. Less preter- 
 natural blessings were the green fields and the bird- 
 haunted woodlands which stretched around and beyond 
 it, where, as Anthony Wood notes, the overwrought 
 brain of the student could be relaxed, and the limbs of 
 the sick and aged stretched in peace. It was not only 
 the Scholars of Oriel who found strength at Bartlemas. 
 It became a custom for the Scholars and choir of New 
 College, first on the morning of May Day, and after- 
 wards on the morning of Ascension Day, to repair in 
 procession to the chapel, where they said prayers and 
 sang hymns. They then sought a well hard by, known 
 as Strowell or Stockwell (which perhaps survives as a 
 drinking-place for cattle to this day), around which, 
 after the recitation of the Epistle and other religious 
 observances, they relapsed into mere woodland merri- 
 ment of a semi-pagan kind, until it was time to go back 
 to William of Wykeham's cloisters. In those days the 
 surroundings of the hospital, more than a mile from the 
 city gate, were more rural than they now are. Yet 
 even now, as one suddenly emerges from the long, un- 
 lovely brick suburb that straggles Cowley-wards, and 
 turns off the dull highway towards the slope of Head- 
 ington Hill, a good deal of the peace and sweetness of 
 the pure country steals over one as the outline of the 
 chapel comes in sight. Heavily as the Reformation 
 and other visitations of the modern spirit have told on 
 the place, turning the chapel into an open barn, where 
 fowls may peck and pigs burrow by forgotten graves. 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 ORIEL GROWING 
 
 and making cowsheds and stables out of the almsmen's 
 chambers, the buildings are still there to bear witness 
 to the past ; and green fields and great elms, not yet 
 victims of the builder, carry on the tradition of a time 
 when restoration of body and soul was sought and found 
 in so happy a retreat. 
 
 During the period of growth in the fourteenth 
 century the personal history of Oriel is for the most 
 part silent. No difficulty seems to have been found in 
 filling Adam de Brcme^s place. He died on June 16, 
 1332, and on the 27th William de Leverton was 
 unanimously elected by the Scholars, and duly instituted. 
 During his sixteen years 1 tenure of office nothing very 
 noteworthy happened. Yet we are reminded that the 
 college was more than a mere holder of property and 
 recipient of rents by an incident of 1337, the first of 
 several, touching a collection of books with which Oriel 
 had been connected under curious circumstances. 
 Thomas of Cobham, Bishop of Worcester, called par 
 excellence " the good clerk," was one of the most 
 prominent figures in the two very dissimilar reigns of 
 Edward I. and Edward II. Archdeacon of Lewes, 
 Canon of London, and Precentor of York, he was 
 employed by Edward I. as his trusted agent in various 
 important diplomatic missions. In 1313 he was made 
 Archbishop of Canterbury on Winchelsea's death, but 
 was set aside in favour of Reynolds by Edward II. and 
 Pope Clement V. He was compensated by the gift of 
 the see of Worcester, where he was enthroned in 1319, 
 and where he remained until his death in 1327. During 
 his time at Worcester Bishop Cobham conceived and 
 developed the idea of bequeathing his books to the 
 
26 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 University of Oxford. Under his direction a room was 
 built to receive them above the Congregation House 
 on the north side of the chancel of St. Mary's Church.* 
 Adam de Brome was Rector of St. Mary's Church while 
 the building operations were in progress, and he had 
 been a year Provost of St. Mary's College when the 
 good Bishop died. What was to be done about the 
 books ? Cobham's plan was to have certain of them 
 chained in the new premises, that there might be free 
 access to them for all members of the University. But 
 the building was not finished when he died : nee mnt 
 fenestros vitriatce nee tabulis clausas sicut debuerunt 
 fmsse. Moreover, the Bishop's assets turned out in- 
 sufficient to meet even his funeral expenses, and the 
 executors were obliged to pawn the books. At this 
 point a great opportunity came to Adam de Brome. 
 The Bishop's bargain with him as Rector of St. Mary's 
 had been very explicit. The Bishop undertook to 
 purchase certain rents and to appropriate them to the 
 Rector and his successors; they on their part to find 
 two chaplains to say mass daily in the building for the 
 repose of the Bishop's soul and for the souls of his 
 friends and all benefactors of the University. The 
 said chaplains were also to act the part of careful 
 librarians, taking charge of the chained volumes, and 
 seeing that no student came in with wet clothes, or 
 marked or cut the manuscripts. In short, the con- 
 nexion between the library and St. Mary's was very 
 close ; and after the Bishop's death his executors, find- 
 
 * In this version of the story I follow Wood. The architectural 
 history of the building is discussed by Mr. T. G. Jackson, The Church 
 of St. Mary the Virgin, chap. vi. 
 
ORIEL GROWING 27 
 
 ing his estate insufficient to satisfy his engagements, not 
 unnaturally offered the books to Adam de Brome for his 
 college, on condition of his redeeming them, and provided 
 the scholars would say the required prayers for the dead. 
 Adam readily agreed to the proposal ; paid ^50 of silver 
 for the redemption of the books, and had them housed 
 somewhere in the premises of his college, and was thus 
 able to give to the new Society the nucleus of a library 
 within a year of its foundation. All went smoothly 
 during the remainder of Adam's life, and for some 
 years after William de Leverton's election. But the 
 University could not forget its claim, and in the Long 
 Vacation of 1337, when but few of the Scholars were in 
 residence, Master John de Reigham, the Chancellor's 
 Commissary and a Proctor, came with a large number 
 of Regent Masters and carried off the books by force, 
 easily overpowering the small band of defenders in the 
 college. There is no evidence that Oriel ever recovered 
 possession of the volumes ; but it made every possible 
 effort for more than half a century to keep the 
 University out of Bishop Cobham's building at 
 St. Mary's. In or about 1336 William de Daventre, 
 Leverton's successor in the Provostship, who was then 
 procurator redituum, asserted the rights of the college 
 by storing building materials in the chamber ; and even 
 Adam de Brome had provided bars and bolts against 
 the outside world. We shall hear more of the con- 
 troversy by-and-by. 
 
 Besides William de Daventre, William de Hawkes- 
 worth became prominent among the Scholars during 
 Leverton's tenure of office. He was Proctor or agent 
 for the college in 1341, and both he and Daventre 
 
28 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 seem to have had a good deal of business connected 
 with the college livings, Aberford and Coleby. Hawkes- 
 worth and John de Aston, another Fellow, were sent by 
 the college in 1341 to take possession of the church of 
 Aberford ; and in the same year John de Aston was 
 instituted as Vicar. In 1346 William de Daventre was 
 appointed to the Vicarage of Coleby, and soon after 
 a dispute as to the advowson arose between the King 
 and the college. The advowsons both of Aberford and 
 Coleby had been secured by a Bull of John XXII. in 
 1331 ; and on the death of the incumbent of Coleby 
 in 1346, the Bishop of Lincoln lost no time in reciting 
 the Bull and annexing the living to the college. The 
 King, however, seems to have presented a candidate of 
 his own named Richard de Thoresby, and we find the 
 college petitioning the King to revoke his presentation. 
 The controversy was protracted for some months ; the 
 King revoked his presentation in February, 1347, and 
 in April an order was made to supersede the plea 
 between the King and the college. To make all sure, 
 an inquisition concerning the benefice was held in the 
 Church of St. Peter de Arcubus at Lincoln in September. 
 During all this time the college was neglected neither 
 by the King nor by its special patron the Bishop of 
 Lincoln. In January, 1347, the King exempted Oriel 
 from payment of 100s. of the tenth. voted for the King's 
 necessities for two years by the clergy of the province 
 of Canterbury. In September, 1348, two months before 
 the death of Provost Leverton, the Bishop commissioned 
 Geoffrey le Scrop, a Canon of Lincoln, and Robert 
 Trenge, the Warden of Merton, to interpret, if neces- 
 sary, certain ambiguities alleged to exist in the college 
 
ORIEL GROWING 29 
 
 statutes. What those ambiguities may have been there 
 is no evidence to show. It is interesting to notice that 
 the Head of one House was made referee as to the diffi- 
 culties of another. 
 
 After the death of Provost Leverton on November 21, 
 
 1348, the college passed through a short spasm of dis- 
 quiet. William of Hawkesworth, whom we have already 
 encountered (and who was one of the first " Fellows " of 
 the new foundation of Queers College), was chosen 
 Provost by the Scholars of Oriel ; but something was 
 amiss with the form of the election, and was judged to 
 be so by the Bishop of Lincoln, who may have been 
 an excessive constitutional purist. Anyhow, he annulled 
 the election before the end of the year, and appointed 
 Hawkesworth by his own authority. Hawkesworth 
 died on April 8, 1349 ; but his few months 1 reign 
 coincides with a characteristic page of medieval Oxford 
 history. Those were the days when the University 
 was divided into the two factions of Northerners and 
 Southerners, who were always ready to show the spirit 
 and often the sanguinary deeds of medieval factions 
 everywhere. There was to be a new Chancellor in 
 
 1349. John Wylliot, Scholar of Merton, was candidate 
 of the Southerners, while Provost Hawkesworth was put 
 forward by the North, to which party Oriel consistently 
 adhered. Hawkesworth seems to have been duly ap- 
 pointed ; and on March 19, 1349, he went as Chancellor, 
 accompanied by the two Proctors, to St. Mary's Church 
 to attend a mass for the exequies of a benefactor of the 
 University. While the service was proceeding, a formid- 
 able rabble of Southerners, led by Wylliot, entered the 
 sacred building, pressed into the choir, interrupted the 
 
30 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 mass, and gravely threatened law and order in the persons 
 of Hawkesworth and the Proctors. A good weapon, how- 
 ever, was ready to Hawkes worth's hand. In 1330 there 
 was wont to be much rioting in St. Mary's Church and 
 churchyard ; and in the following year, along with the 
 Bull of confirmation of the college, a Bull was pro- 
 cured from John XXII. designed to remedy that abuse. 
 Edward III., in asking for the Bull, had proposed that 
 in case of disturbance the Abbots of Oseney and Rewley 
 should be empowered to interfere. The Pope, however, 
 furnished a more drastic remedy of his own. His Bull 
 absolutely prohibited the holding of any secular traffic 
 within the precincts of the church or churchyard. 
 This Bull, explicit as it was, had never been put into 
 execution ; but now, in the great riot of 1349, it was 
 brought out from its seclusion, and solemnly read in 
 the desecrated building by the Provost of Oriel. True, 
 there was now no buying and selling ; but the gist of 
 the offence lay not in the traffic but in the concourse 
 of people which resulted from it, in the congregatwnes 
 and conventiculce which the Pope forbade by his apostolic 
 authority. We are not told what was the effect of the 
 recital of the Bull ; but, at any rate, the outrage was in 
 no sense smothered over ; royal authority supplemented 
 Papal, and Edward III. sent letters instituting an inquiry 
 into the matter. 
 
 On Hawkesworth's death, immediately after this his 
 substantial victory, he was buried in St. Mary's. On 
 his grave he was described as 'Magister Willelmus de 
 Hawkesworth sancte pagine quondam Professor et tertius 
 Prcepositus hujus ecclesie? The words in italics show the 
 organic union of church and college. 
 
ORIEL GROWING 31 
 
 During the vacancy of the Headship, Bishop Gynewell, 
 who, we remember, had appointed Hawkesworth by his 
 own authority, sent a letter which was designed to pre- 
 vent any irregularity in a new election. The Bishop 
 directed that, in case of a vacancy, the Provostship 
 should be filled up within a month, or (if the vacancy 
 fell in vacation) within a month from the beginning of 
 the first full term following. But if it should seem 
 desirable to the majority of the Scholars (whom we may 
 now and henceforward call the Fellows) to wait for the 
 presence of absent members, they might do so for three 
 weeks; but the election must take place in the last 
 week of the month. The procedure of the election was 
 prescribed in full detail. After the celebration of mass 
 the Fellows were one and all solemnly to swear impar- 
 tiality, freedom from unworthy motive, and devotion to 
 the interests of the college in their choice of a Head. 
 The oath was to be administered by the Dean, or, in 
 his absence, by the Senior Fellow, and the Dean and the 
 two Senior Fellows were to be scrutineers of the votes. 
 If the Dean was absent the three Senior Fellows were to 
 be scrutineers, the scrutiny being secret; and in that 
 case the vote of each of the three scrutineers was to be 
 taken by a fourth Fellow added for that purpose to the 
 other two, thus keeping up the number three for the 
 scrutiny. 
 
 In the course of the summer William de Daventre, 
 the Vicar of Coleby, was elected Provost. During his 
 tenure of office the college increased perceptibly in 
 strength and prominence. The endowments slowly and 
 steadily grew on the regular medieval principle : so 
 much revenue in lands and goods in return for so much 
 
32 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 spiritual service in prayers and masses. For example, 
 in 1357 Edward III. gave a licence to Thomas de la 
 Leigh to bestow on the college a chantry in St. Michael's 
 at the South Gate. The property of this chantry con- 
 sisted of three messuages in High Street, Schidyard 
 Street, and Grope Lane. In return for this benefac- 
 tion the college was to maintain two priests to celebrate 
 in St. Mary's for the souls of Leigh himself, the King, 
 the Queen, and others. 
 
 The " cash-nexus " between things secular and things 
 sacred is illustrated by another transaction four years 
 later, namely, in February, 1361, when, on the final 
 transfer to the college of the properties bequeathed by 
 Adam de Brome and of others purchased by Richard 
 de Overton (see above, p. 20), an indenture was made 
 between the college and William de Daventre providing 
 for the support of a chaplain to have charge of the chapel 
 on the north side of St. Mary's Church, and to pray daily 
 for the souls of Adam de Brome, Robert de Bardelly, 
 and other benefactors. If the endowment, viz., Baner 
 Hall, Moses Hall, a school in Cat Street, and a garden 
 in Schidyard Street, should fall below the value of 
 5 a year, the college was not to be bound to maintain 
 the chaplain, but only to pray for Adam and Robert 
 among its benefactors. 
 
 In 1364 some new statutes were made by the Provost 
 and Fellows, and duly confirmed by the Bishop of 
 Lincoln, John Bokyngham. These added to the com- 
 mons of the Provost and Fellows, and to the allowances 
 for fuel, kitchen, etc., in accordance with increased 
 resources. 
 
 We must return for a moment to the story of Bishop 
 
ORIEL GROWING 33 
 
 Cobhanrfs library, or rather (for the books were gone) 
 to that of the chamber built to contain it, about the 
 possession of which the University and the college were 
 in dispute. We remember how Adam de Brome and 
 William de Daventre had claimed and fortified the 
 building against the outside world. In May, 1367, a 
 statute declaring the building University property was 
 discovered in a chest of books and re-enacted ; and in 
 accordance with it, William Courtenay, who was ap- 
 pointed Chancellor that year, ordered Oriel to relinquish 
 possession. In November the college petitioned the 
 Bishop of Lincoln to interfere on the ground that the 
 Old Congregation House was essentially an appurtenance 
 of St. Mary's Church. The efforts of the college, how- 
 ever, proved unavailing ; the University got possession 
 of the Old Congregation House, and Oriel had to be 
 content with assertion and reassertion of her claim 
 until, as we shall see, the matter was settled by com- 
 promise in 1410. 
 
 Nevertheless, the college was busy all this time 
 making a library for itself on other lines. Many 
 donations and bequests of books came to it. There 
 is reason to believe that Adam de Brome gave largely. 
 One Thomas Cobildik certainly did. In 1359 one 
 Master Stephen Ketelbergh, in return for an engage- 
 ment to celebrate certain exequies, including his own, 
 yearly for ever, gave to the college a copy of the 
 Corpus Juris Civilis, the Decretals, etc. In 1372 Simon 
 de Bredon, a Canon of Chichester and Rector of 
 Bidyngton, left to Oriel by his will part of a large 
 collection of mathematical and astronomical works, 
 besides other books. Provost Daventre bequeathed his 
 
 3 
 
34 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 own entire collection. In 1385 William Rede, Bishop 
 of Chichester, left ten books to be firmly chained, and 
 so on. 
 
 As early as 1375, ten years after Daventre^s death, 
 the Oriel library was large enough to furnish a lengthy 
 catalogue, which, fortunately, has been preserved to our 
 own day. It seems to have been only one of several 
 such, called collectively in a register of college docu- 
 ments made in 1397, "Rotuli diversi diversorum librorum 
 collatorum Collegio per Adam de Brom, Kylmyngton, 
 Cobildik et alios." It is called " Inventarium librorum 
 domus beate Marie, Oxon," and is a characteristic 
 specimen of a medieval catalogue, reflecting the standard 
 of medieval learning.* The books are classified under 
 the heads of Grammar, Logic, Music, Rhetoric, Arith- 
 metic, Geometry, Astronomy, Philosophy, Civil Law, 
 Canon Law, and Theology. The theological MSS., of 
 course, greatly preponderate. Grammar is represented 
 by Priscian and Petrus Helias, and includes a Hebrew 
 alphabet. Aristotle, of course, supplied the logic and 
 philosophy ; Justinian the Civil Law ; while the 
 theology presented no unusual features. Dr. Shadwell 
 has told us that "it is not certain that any of the 
 volumes mentioned in the list are now in the possession 
 of the college, and dnly a very few can be traced as 
 existing elsewhere." He suggests as reasons for so 
 complete a disappearance that "some of the volumes 
 became damaged or worn out by use, others were pledged 
 and not redeemed, others were sold or exchanged, and 
 
 * This catalogue, edited by Dr. Shadwell, has been printed in 
 vol. v. of the publications of the Oxford Historical Society, Collec- 
 tanea, i. 66-70. 
 
ORIEL GROWING 35 
 
 were replaced by new works which changes in the course 
 of study made necessary." 
 
 Another evidence of growth which falls within 
 Daventre's tenure of office is the inauguration of a 
 chapel for the young Society. Hitherto the parish church 
 of St. Mary the Virgin, the mother church of the college, 
 the other side of the college itself, had served that 
 purpose; but now the life of the college was strong 
 enough to deserve, and even to require, a separate place 
 for its corporate rites. A licence to celebrate mass was 
 granted by the Bishop of Lincoln on March 22, 1373. 
 In the words of the licence the college was commended 
 for the devotion shown in its desire to attend the offices 
 of the Church, and leave was accordingly given to cele- 
 brate mass by fit chaplains in an oratory or chapel, 
 built or to be built within the college. Two con- 
 ditions were attached to the licence : That the chapel 
 should be decent and seemly, and that no other sacra- 
 ments of the Church besides mass should be celebrated 
 in it, or anywhere but in St. MaryX the mother church. 
 
 The phraseology of the licence shows that the chapel 
 was not yet completed in 1373. Richard, Earl of 
 Arundel, one of Edward IIL's chief warrior-ministers, 
 who died in 1376, is believed to have been the original 
 donor of the chapel. According to Wood, he had 
 " begun and pretty well carried on " a chapel, " but 
 being not in a capacity to see the work ended, because 
 taken off by civil affairs, his son, Thomas Arundel, 
 Bishop of Ely (sometime a student in this house), 
 finished it and made it complete for use."* At what- 
 ever date the completion may have taken place, the 
 * Gutch (1786), iv. 133. 
 
36 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 chapel stood on the south side of the quadrangle 
 opposite to where the gate of Corpus Christi was 
 afterwards built. It may be seen, with its two windows 
 and little cross at each end of the roof, in Neale^s 
 drawing made in 1566. On the windows were em- 
 blazoned the arms of Fitzalan, Warren, Lancaster, 
 Buckingham, France and England, Beauchamp, Bohun, 
 Maltravers, Thomas Holland, Earl of Kent, Mortimer 
 and Ferrars. Under the southern windows were the 
 two inscriptions : 
 
 ' Rex Edwardus Fundator Collegii Beatae Mariae Oxoniae/ 
 and 
 
 'Richardus Comes Arundelliae et Thorn. Filius Ejus Epus. 
 Eliens. Istam Capellam Construi Fecerunt.' 
 
 William de Daventre was succeeded by John de 
 Colyntre, whose Headship lasted until his death in 
 1385 or 1386. Colyntre was highly esteemed by his 
 contemporaries, and was described at the time of his 
 election as a man full of gifts spiritual and temporal, 
 and well fitted, both by learning and character, to 
 occupy his responsible post. 
 
 The number of the Fellows up to this point did not 
 exceed the original ten, nor is there any evidence of the 
 prosecution of higher studies. There is, however, un- 
 mistakable evidence that the original plan of the Society, 
 that of a definite number of graduate members, carrying 
 on their studies with the aid of college funds, was during 
 the fourteenth century occasionally modified by the ad- 
 mission of undergraduate members to the benefits of the 
 college without bestowing on them any of its funds. 
 
ORIEL GROWING 37 
 
 Such extraneous members became afterwards, as they 
 grew in numbers and importance, differentiated into 
 commensales (Fellow - commoners), communarii (Com- 
 moners), and servientes (servitors) ; but, so far as Oriel 
 is concerned, that differentiation was yet in the far 
 future. The stray undergraduate members of the 
 fourteenth century were all commensales that is to 
 say, they were, during residence, on a parity of privilege 
 and position with the Scholars or Fellows. Their con- 
 stitutional significance is great ; and, for the sake of one 
 of their number, their personal interest is great also. 
 For that one was no less than Thomas Arundel, after- 
 wards Archbishop of Canterbury, one of England's 
 greatest men in the reign of Richard II. and at the 
 outset of the Lancastrian period the co-founder, as we 
 have just seen, of the first college chapel. The associa- 
 tion with Oriel of Archbishop Arundel, the strenuous 
 defender of orthodoxy, is an instance, thus early in its 
 history, of its reflecting more than one aspect of pre- 
 vailing thought. For, as we shall presently find, the 
 college which owned ArundePs chapel was about to get 
 fame as a home of heterodoxy. 
 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 STORMY TTMES (1385-1427) 
 
 John de Middleton, 1387-1394; John de Maldon, 1394- 
 1402 ; John Possell, 1402-1414 ; William Corffe, 1415- 
 1417; Thomas Leyntwardyn, 1419-1421 ; Henry Kayle, 
 1421-1422; Nicholas Herry, 1426-1427 
 
 AFTER the death of John de Colyntre, Oriel entered on 
 a period of unrest, which lasted, with intermissions, well 
 on into the next century. This unrest was due partly 
 to internal troubles peculiar to the college itself, and 
 partly to the ferment of opinion in the country generally 
 which characterized the reign of Richard II. and the 
 early part of that of Henry IV. In a word, the college 
 suffered from disputed elections, and from troubles 
 arising out of the thoughts and deeds of the Lollards. 
 
 In one difficulty of 1386 we find King Richard II. 
 intervening. A prominent Fellow, Ralph Redruth by 
 name, had been threatened with expulsion on account 
 of his accession to a benefice, although a suit concern- 
 ing the same was then pending in the Roman Court. 
 Redruth seems to have appealed to the King. It was 
 a good time to do so, for the anti-Roman feeling which 
 
STORMY TIMES 39 
 
 found expression in the Statutes of Premunire was strong 
 at Court. On March 25 Richard issued an order to 
 the college forbidding disturbance of Redruth while 
 the plea was pending. 
 
 For the Headship vacant by Provost Colyntre's death 
 there was a stiff fight, in the course of which the King's 
 intervention was again sought and obtained. Five of 
 the Fellows chose Dr. John Middleton, a Canon of 
 Hereford, and four a Master of Arts named Thomas 
 Kirkton. For some reason which does not appear, 
 Kirkton's election, though that of a minority, was con- 
 firmed by the Bishop of Lincoln, and an appeal was 
 made by the supporters of Middleton. Meanwhile, on 
 April 18, 1386, the King issued an order for possession 
 of the college to John Landreyn, a Doctor of Divinity, 
 and Ralph Redruth, pending the settlement of the 
 dispute. The dispute was settled by a double process 
 i.e., partly by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and 
 partly by the Crown. On May 4 the Archbishop 
 commissioned one John Barnet and another to hear 
 Middleton's appeal. On the 23rd the King ordered 
 the Archbishop and others to determine the election. 
 This court decided in favour of Kirkton, and Letters 
 Patent were issued in October to put him in possession 
 of the Provostship. Meanwhile, on November 21, Arch- 
 bishop Arundel again commissioned Barnet to hear 
 Middleton's appeal. This commission at last turned 
 the scales in favour of Middleton. Early in 1387 the 
 King, still pursuing his separate line, revoked the letters 
 of October 21 in favour of Kirkton, on the ground that 
 Kirkton had resigned his claim before the Chancellor; 
 and on February 26, 1387, the choice of Middleton 
 
40 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 was fully confirmed, and an order was sent for his 
 induction. 
 
 Provost Middleton died in 1394 at Hereford, and was 
 buried in the cathedral church there. His successor, 
 John of Maldon, was a Scholar of Divinity, a Bachelor 
 of Medicine, and a Master of Arts. His election was 
 without any kind of dispute. The list of Fellows who 
 made it has been preserved. Leyntwardyn was Dean, 
 and is described as " President " in the vacancy of the 
 Provostship, a title seldom used at Oriel, and never 
 except in absence of the Provost. The names of the 
 other Fellows who (except William Navenby, absent) 
 made a college, are not, with two exceptions, interesting 
 to us. We note only the names of Nicholas Herry, M.A., 
 and John Rote, B.A., both of whom we shall encounter 
 again. 
 
 Maldon died early in 1402, leaving a will which is a 
 document of some interest. The college seems to have 
 been in debt to him for part of his salary. Twenty-five 
 marks'* worth of the debt he released, and the remaining 
 ten marks he also left to buy the advowson of the 
 church of Braddon. If the college should be unwilling 
 to effect this purchase, the ten marks were to be retained 
 by the Society, and distributed according to the follow- 
 ing rule : The senior Fellows were to receive double the 
 portion of the juniors ; two Fellows in particular, Thomas 
 Leyntwardyn (Provost in 1419) and John Freen, the 
 Vicar of St. Mary's, though juniors, were to take as if 
 they were seniors. All his chests of wood which he had 
 in the garden of the college were left to the college, 
 besides two books Placentius on medicine, and a text 
 of Aristotle which had belonged to Filyan. Finally, 
 
STORMY TIMES 41 
 
 his book called Pupilla Oculi he left to Leyntwardyn 
 for his life, and afterwards to the college in perpetuity. 
 
 Another disputed election followed Maiden's death. 
 John Possell, the Vicar of East Meon, and John Paxton, 
 a former Fellow, both claimed the Provostship. There 
 was an appeal to the Bishop of Lincoln, and, on Paxton's 
 part, one to the Archbishop of Canterbury. On March 9, 
 1402, the Archbishop appointed a commission to hear 
 the appeal. We have no record of the proceedings, 
 nor of the final result ; but it is certain that PosselFs 
 election was confirmed, and that he was Provost from 
 1402-1414. Just before the confirmation he was sharply 
 reprimanded by Arundel for molestation of Leyntwardyn, 
 and for an attempt to remove him from his Fellow- 
 ship. Possell was spoken of as merely giving himself 
 out for Provost, and was forbidden to do anything to 
 Leyntwardyn's damage. In the same year Possell was 
 similarly summoned to show cause for the expulsion of 
 another Fellow, Mr. Richard Suedesham. 
 
 It was during PosselFs tenure of the Provostship that 
 Oriel shot into the troubled waters of national controversy. 
 It was the age of Lollardism Lollardism deprived of the 
 early zeal and evangelical enthusiasm of its first English 
 votaries, and made turbid and dangerous by contact 
 with social and political affairs. John Wiclif, the 
 founder of the new teaching, had been an Oxford man, 
 not only by education, but by long residence and the 
 tenure of high place there ; and thus Oxford naturally 
 became and remained a chief centre of Lollardism. 
 After the death of Wiclif the strength of the heresy 
 grew rather than diminished in the University, and the 
 forces of orthodoxy sharpened themselves for conflict 
 
42 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 with it. In the early years of the fifteenth century the 
 conflict became very sharp. Orthodoxy occupied the 
 throne in the person of Henry of Lancaster ; and in 
 Thomas Arundel, whom we have already learned to 
 associate with Oriel, and who had been the King^s 
 Chancellor at intervals since 1386, and Archbishop of 
 Canterbury with an interval since 1396, the King found 
 an able and zealous instrument of his Catholic efforts. 
 The Statute De Hosretico Comburendo was passed in 
 1401, and Sautre, its first victim, was burned soon after. 
 In 1408 Arundel held a Provincial Council, which passed 
 stringent constitutions against the propagation of 
 Wiclifs writings and teachings. A licensing commis- 
 sion was appointed, consisting of members of the 
 Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and the Heads 
 of " Colleges, Halls, and Entries *" were ordered to make 
 a monthly inquisition as to whether the constitutions 
 were observed in the Societies under their supervision. 
 There were heavy penalties for recalcitrancy. 
 
 These constitutions came into force in 1409, and in 
 Oxford they met with much resistance, led, curiously 
 enough, by Richard Fleming, who became Bishop of 
 Lincoln, and founder of Lincoln College as an expressly 
 anti-Lollard institution. Although, at the instigation 
 of the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury, 267 
 erroneous propositions were selected from Wiclifs works 
 for condemnation by a committee of Oxford Masters, 
 and although the writings from which they were taken 
 were burned at Carfax, Fleming, who was one of the 
 examiners, kept the flame of Lollardism alive. Arundel 
 resolved to try to extinguish the flame effectually, and 
 held his famous visitation in 1411. It was held in the 
 
STORMY TIMES 43 
 
 church of St. Mary, and Oriel, the college of St. Mary, 
 was much involved in the proceedings and their sequel. 
 Seventeen years previously a quasi-constitutional stand- 
 ing-ground had been given to the Lollards by the action 
 of Pope Boniface IX. The unrest rife in Oxford at the 
 time found one outlet in a movement for exemption from 
 episcopal jurisdiction ; and in response to a very largely- 
 signed petition from the University, Boniface IX., in 1395, 
 issued a Bull granting such exemption, and recognising 
 the sole authority of the Chancellor within the University. 
 While this measure strengthened Papal control in Oxford 
 on the one hand, it tended to relax the bonds of effective 
 discipline on the other ; and thus it was not without 
 justification that Richard II., through his Chancellor's 
 Court, called on the University to renounce the Bull as 
 a means of encouraging heretics. A formal renuncia- 
 tion was accordingly made ; but the Bull remained on 
 the registers, and the spirit which had called it forth 
 remained as a source of protracted division in the 
 University. The Bull itself was not revoked until after 
 ArundeFs visitation in 1411. 
 
 Of anti-episcopal feeling Oriel was a centre. When 
 Arundel arrived at St. Mary^s to hold his visitation, 
 John Byrche and William Symon, Proctors respectively 
 in 1411 and 1412, and both Fellows of Oriel, locked 
 the church doors against him, and, in spite of his 
 interdict, defiantly celebrated high mass. This, in- 
 deed, may be reckoned part of the general opposition 
 of the University to Arundel. But Oriel played its 
 own very special part, and was full of anarchy and 
 rebellion. A formal inquiry into the behaviour of the 
 Fellows was afterwards held, with regular charges and 
 
44 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 evidence of witnesses, and from the records of this we 
 can form a pretty clear idea of the part played by the 
 college in those stormy times. The ringleaders were 
 the above-mentioned Symon, Robert Dykes, and Thomas 
 Wilton. They were accused of every kind of vulgar 
 brawling in the streets ; of wounding and robbing and 
 (in one instance, at least) of slaying ; of haunting taverns 
 and returning to college sometimes as late as two in the 
 morning, climbing over the walls and bringing in armed 
 outsiders to pass the night in college in clear violation 
 of the statutes. The Provost acknowledged that he 
 had often risen from his bed to let them in just before 
 or just after midnight. 
 
 Wilton was charged with having gone to the Provost's 
 chamber one night, called him a liar to his face, and 
 proposed to fight him. On the eve of St. Peter's Day, 
 Possell, on the order of the Chancellor (Courtenay) 
 exhorted the college, and especially the three chief 
 offenders, against such practices ; but the three only 
 turned their efforts against the Chancellor, on whose 
 house they made a violent and murderous assault. So 
 impossible at last was Courtenay "s position made by 
 such acts that he was forced to resign office. Dykes 
 and Wilton refused to appear before ArundeFs in- 
 quisitory court to answer to the charge of heresy. 
 
 Dykes incited to many acts of violence in the city. 
 
 As for John Byrche, the Proctor, his offences cut 
 deeper into the constitution of the University. He 
 was charged with having insidiously brought forward 
 a motion in the Magna Congregatio to deprive of 
 their power the twelve persons elected to examine 
 into Wiclifs writings, and with having obstructively 
 
STORMY TIMES 45 
 
 continued the session into the following day with the 
 view of overpowering opposition. Byrche and his 
 colleagues had also attempted in a Parva Congregatio 
 to prosecute Courtenay for dissolving the Magna Con- 
 gregatio by means of an extemporized court of judges 
 of doubtful orthodoxy. He had tried, by captious 
 cross-examination, to overbear the orthodox members 
 of the college, and had led a stout resistance against 
 the collegiate renunciation of Pope Boniface's Bull. 
 
 The most interesting Oriel offender was John Rote, 
 the Dean. Alike by the explicit obligation and by the 
 dignity of his office he was bound to be the Provost's 
 right-hand man ; but he had misused his power in the 
 interests of heresy and disorder. Once upon a day, in 
 the hearing of many, he had said openly, with a haughty 
 mien : " Let the Archbishop have a care what he tries 
 to do ; once before he tried to visit the University, and 
 was banished the kingdom for his pains." Such high 
 words could not but work serious mischief among the 
 Fellows. The voice of Leyntwardyn was heard on the 
 other side. " O John, 11 said he, " do you not consider 
 what was the end of those who opposed in that way, 
 and how gloriously he returned ?" 
 
 Again and again the Dean had openly talked flat 
 Lollardy. He tried to poison men's minds against 
 Arundel. " I have heard the Archbishop say : ' Do 
 you think that Bishop overseas (meaning thereby the 
 Pope) can give my benefices in England to whomsoever 
 he will ? No, by St. Thomas f" By this Rote clearly 
 implied that, even as the Archbishop despised Papal 
 authority, so was episcopal and even archiepiscopal 
 authority to be set at nought. And this was the very 
 
46 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 essence of Lollardism, which had for its rallying- cry, 
 " Let us break their bonds asunder and cast away their 
 cords from us? 
 
 Three hours after Arundel's departure from Oxford 
 Rote came into the college, and with a fierce look said, 
 in the hearing of many : " Why should we suffer 
 interdict in our Church for the misdeeds of others? 
 Truly it shall be said of the Archbishop, Let the devil 
 go with him and break his neck? There is a sense of 
 bathos in passing from such heights of rebellion to the 
 two final charges against the Dean that he had 
 embezzled part of the college revenues, and failed to 
 secure for Oriel books bequeathed by Provost Maldon 
 and others. 
 
 The riots tended to stir up every sort of bad blood. 
 An anti-Wicliffite Fellow of Merton, named Nicholas 
 Pont, gave evidence that he had seen Symon incite 
 Irish scholars to rise against the peace of the University, 
 and instigate them against the Southerners. The 
 relations between the Fellows and the burgesses were 
 made difficult. It was said that many burgesses, 
 hearing of the evil repute of the college, were minded 
 to confiscate its property. 
 
 All this was serious indeed ; but apparently the dis- 
 turbances wore themselves out without punishment of 
 any kind to anybody. 
 
 Internal dissension, however, reappeared on the next 
 vacancy in the Headship. Possell died in 1414 ; and 
 the Lollard Dean, John Rote, was one of the candi- 
 dates. He claimed to have been duly elected, and 
 his election was confirmed by the Bishop of Lincoln 
 on November 17, 1414. But it was questioned by 
 
STORMY TIMES 47 
 
 John Martyll, one of the Fellows, on the ground of 
 insufficient notice. It is significant that an appeal on 
 the question was made to the Roman See. By 
 February, 1415, however, Archbishop Chichele, who 
 succeeded Arundel in 1414, had asserted his primacy 
 in the matter. He summoned the parties before him 
 at Lambeth; and in the Archbishop's presence Rote 
 renounced his claim. William Corffe was then chosen, 
 and his election was confirmed by the Bishop of 
 Lincoln. He was admitted Provost by John Martyll, 
 his proxy, and inducted in the college on March 16, 
 1415. 
 
 Corffe belongs to a wider world than that of Oriel 
 or Oxford by virtue of his being the representative of 
 the University at the Council of Constance, where he 
 probably was at the time of his induction. He remained 
 nominal Head until his death in 1417 ; but he died at 
 Constance, and it is quite likely that he was never in 
 Oxford after his election. The practical abeyance of 
 the Provostship led to some anarchy at Oriel. Two 
 men, William Brytby and John Bedmystre, complained 
 to the Visitor that they were kept out of the enjoyment 
 of their Fellowships by the rest of the college, and 
 especially by the Dean, in spite of due election accord- 
 ing to the statutes, and the Bishop ordered their 
 admission without delay. 
 
 During the reigns of the three Provosts who followed 
 Corffe the annals of Oriel are dull. The first was ushered 
 in with one of the now frequent disputes. Two 
 Fellows were candidates, Master Richard Garsdale and 
 Master Thomas Leyntwardyn, with the latter of whom 
 we are now familiar, and the matter was decided by the 
 
48 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 Bishop of Lincoln. Garsdale's election was confirmed 
 October 30, 1417, the Bishop having first summoned 
 before him Leyntwardyn and the Fellows who had 
 supported him, namely, Henry Kayle, the Dean ; John 
 Martyll, John Brygon, John Carpenter, and Reginald 
 Pecock. This decision, however, was not acquiesced in. 
 Leyntwardyn appealed to the King, and though the 
 later proceedings are not now to be traced, he seems to 
 have succeeded in establishing his right to the Provost- 
 ship. Garsdale's name does not appear in the college 
 list of Provosts. 
 
 John Carpenter, as we shall see, was by-and-by to be 
 one of OriePs most memorable Heads. One other name 
 of those involved in the extinct controversy yet more 
 deserves mention. Reginald Pecock, one of the Oriel 
 confraternity in 1417, had a remarkable career before 
 him, and turned out one of the most impressive figures 
 in an age of controversy that was ripe for revolution. 
 It is chiefly to him and his writings and his fate that 
 we must look for original knowledge of the privilege 
 and behaviour of the English Church in his age : its 
 privilege in possessing a son with so much controversial 
 acumen, depth of insight, and breadth of interpretation 
 of events ; its behaviour in the kind of reception it gave 
 to his message, and the kind of gratitude it showed for 
 his help. Alike by his style of argumentation, the lack 
 of complete courage which made him recant under the 
 pressure of persecution, and his resolute attempt to find 
 some soul of the good or at least of the useful in things 
 heretical, Pecock is a characteristic and invaluable sign 
 of his times. Of Welsh birth, he taught for some time 
 in the Oxford Schools, and then received preferment, 
 
STORMY TIMES 49 
 
 under Court patronage, in London. He soon began to 
 concern himself with the issues raised by the great 
 Lollard controversy ; and, after his appointment to the 
 Bishopric of St. Asaph, he preached at St. Paul's Cross 
 in 1447 a sermon in which he defended many charac- 
 teristics of orthodox churchmen against reforming 
 strictures, and particularly the neglect of preaching 
 by bishops. He was made Bishop of Chichester in 
 1450. In 1455 his Represser of Overmuch Blaming of 
 the Clergy appeared. This, his chief work, carries out 
 more fully the defence of the Church. It was his Book 
 of Faith (1456), in which he first suggested an appeal 
 to reason as of supreme authority in many matters, 
 which suggested to the leaders of orthodoxy that much 
 concern with heresy had made him a heretic. He was 
 passed through various processes of prosecution and 
 persecution ; induced to recant as an alternative to 
 being burned alive ; and finally died about 1460 at 
 Thorney Abbey, in a retirement which is indistinguish- 
 able from imprisonment. 
 
 Provost Leyntwardyn died in 1421, when he was 
 succeeded by Henry Kayle, who was Dean, we remember, 
 in 1417. He died in 1422, a few months after his 
 election was confirmed. Between 1422 and 1426 the 
 Headship was in dispute between one Nicholas Kerry 
 and another ; Kerry was confirmed in 1424, but the 
 dispute was not at an end until January, 1426. 
 
 While Kerry was Provost the intervention of Arch- 
 bishop Chichele was invoked to bring about the expulsion 
 from the College of two peccant Fellows, John Bedmyster 
 and Robert Morton. The record of the proceedings 
 brings before us the names of the chief Fellows at the 
 
 4 
 
50 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 time, and the details of the offences show something 
 of what the standard of behaviour in college was. The 
 college is styled " the Hall or College of the Blessed 
 Mary of Oryell at Oxford." The Dean was John 
 Carpenter, the future Provost ; and among the Fellows 
 was Walter Lyhert, afterwards Provost in his turn, 
 and Bishop of Norwich. 
 
 Turning to Bedmyster's misdeeds, we find that he 
 had pawned and alienated books belonging to the college 
 library ; that he was familiar with night-walkers, and 
 had introduced them into the college ; that he had 
 taken his Master's degree without the necessary licence 
 from the college, and, indeed, in defiance of its express 
 prohibition. He had also, it was alleged, frequently 
 violated the dignity of the common meals by the most 
 violent horseplay ; had dragged the tablecloth with the 
 things laid on it down to the floor, snatched the food 
 away from the Dean as he sat, and generally behaved 
 like a wild beast or a demented schoolboy. He had 
 contumaciously detained books belonging to the college 
 beyond the period prescribed for their return. Hardly 
 once in the term was he present at Divine service at 
 St. Mary's, while he often was found in taverns at nine 
 or ten at night in the most undesirable company, and 
 slept out of college without being able to give any 
 satisfactory reason for absence. Though the college 
 gate was shut every night at eight, and no one was 
 allowed to pass in after nine, Bedmyster had purloined 
 the key from the President in whose custody it was, 
 and had three times stuffed the lock with stones and 
 bits of stick, so that the key could not be turned. 
 Worse still, he had drawn a knife in controversy with 
 
STORMY TIMES 51 
 
 one of the Fellows, and had several times struck the 
 Dean. Beside such enormities the other charges against 
 him seem slight, e.g.^ that he had hurried through 
 elections to Fellowships without duly securing the 
 consent of the Society, and had habitually shown a 
 spirit of disobedience to the Provost and the Dean. 
 The upshot of the whole matter was that inasmuch 
 as the said John Bedrnyster was proved to have been 
 notoriously unfaithful to his college and a waster of 
 its goods; inasmuch as he was a notorious evil liver 
 and stirrer up of strife, unless he were quickly removed 
 from the college someone would very likely be killed 
 and the college would be ruined. Wherefore, since 
 there was provision for the removal of such malefactors, 
 the college made formal request under seal for the 
 expulsion of Bedmyster. 
 
 Very similar were the charges against Morton, though, 
 on the whole, he had kept clear of the graver offences. 
 He had appropriated to his own use the farm and 
 revenue of the church of Aberford to the extent of 
 dt J 20, and 10 worth of the college revenues them- 
 selves, and had contumaciously refused to refund. 
 Like Bedmyster, he had borrowed books and failed to 
 restore them, as he was by Statute bound to do at the 
 Feast of All Souls. He had created discord whenever 
 it was possible ; for instance, at the disputed election 
 of Leyntwardyn and again at that of Herry ; while at 
 a certain election of Fellows he had entered the college 
 like an enemy, bringing with him a band of Bachelors, 
 and had made such an onslaught on the table and its 
 viands, that the law-abiding members could get nothing 
 to eat, and the college was put to great expense. In 
 
52 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 spite of all these misdeeds, Morton had the face to ask 
 reimbursement for the expense he had incurred in 
 connexion with the elections of Leyntwardyn and 
 Kerry ; and though Carpenter, the Dean, pointed out 
 the preposterousness of such a request from one who 
 had been already worsted in that cause and made to pay 
 the costs of the other side, Morton persisted in his 
 refusal to make restitution of goods. Carpenter there- 
 upon discommuned him ; but Morton snapped his fingers 
 at the penalty, and continued to assert his membership 
 of the Society and his claim to the enjoyment of all 
 its privileges. He also deliberately swore that if any 
 priest refused him the sacrament, he would take care 
 that he should never celebrate mass again. For such 
 offences the college prayed the Archbishop to cause 
 Morton to suffer the fate of Bedmyster. This was on 
 February 18, 1426. 
 
 To hear and give judgment on these appeals the 
 Archbishop's Commissioners sat in the college chapel 
 with their assessors, and judgment was duly given 
 against the accused persons. They were declared to 
 be deprived, removed, and expelled from the college 
 and all its benefits for all time to come. 
 
 Morton lived long enough to be reconciled to his old 
 college, and is found occupying rooms there in 1454. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 FOUR FAMOUS PROVOSTSHIPS (1427-1475) 
 
 John Carpenter, 1427-1435 ; Walter Lyhert, 1435-1446 ; 
 John Hals, 1446-1449; Henry Sampson, 1449-1476 
 
 THE death of Provost Herry in 1427 coincides with the 
 beginning of a period of further peaceful growth, which 
 greatly added both to the prosperity and educational 
 capacity of Oriel. Between 1427 and 1475 lie the reigns 
 of four Provosts, three of whom were bishops, and one 
 at least was a man of national importance. During 
 those reigns the college received a stream of benefac- 
 tions which materially altered its character and raised 
 its standing. 
 
 John Carpenter, Provost from 1427-1435, was a man 
 of wide experience. He was educated at Oriel, and, as 
 we saw, was Dean in 1425 when the proceedings against 
 Bedmyster were initiated. He was a pluralist, not only 
 in the dubious sense of holding more offices than one, 
 but in the unquestionably good sense of combining with 
 his Oxford experience, experience outside the University. 
 In 1420 he was made Master of St. Anthony^s Hospital 
 
54 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 and School in London, and that appointment he retained 
 throughout the whole of his official career at Oriel. Nor 
 was St. Anthony's his only link with the metropolis. 
 He acquired in succession the rectories of St. Benet 
 Fink and St. Mary Magdalen in Old Fish Street. It 
 may have been the claims of his London duties which 
 led to his resignation of the Oriel Headship ; but he 
 was Chancellor of the University in 1437. In 1443 
 he was appointed to the see of Worcester. 
 
 Carpenter was one of Oriel's most conspicuous bene- 
 factors, though his benefactions did not take effect until 
 after his death. Still more substantial gifts even than 
 his, however, reached the college at an earlier date. 
 John Frank, Archdeacon of Suffolk, was one of the 
 lawyer-ecclesiastics with whom the Middle Age was 
 familiar. He was born in Norfolk, and probably at 
 Norwich ; and we first hear of him as a Master in 
 Chancery in 1414. He was afterwards Clerk of the 
 Parliament under Henry V., and in 1421 was made 
 Archdeacon of Suffolk. In 1423 he was advanced to 
 the Mastership of the Rolls, which he held until 1438 ; 
 and in 1433, during the absence at Calais of the Chan- 
 cellor, Bishop John Stafford, he held the Great Seal for 
 a month. Whatever Franks connexion with Oriel may 
 have been, it was the object of his special interest. By 
 his will he left ^1,000 to the college for the endowment 
 of four Fellowships, on condition of one being supplied 
 from each of the four counties of Dorset, Somerset, Wilts, 
 and Devon. With this money the college, in 1440, 
 bought the manor of Wadley, about two miles north- 
 east of Faringdon in Berkshire, on the Oxford road. 
 This was the first landed estate at a distance from 
 
FOUR FAMOUS PROVOSTSHIPS 55 
 
 Oxford which came into the ownership of Oriel. Half 
 a mile or so short of Wadley, the traveller towards 
 Faringdon passes the village of Littleworth. The manor 
 of that name was bought for the College by Bishop John 
 Hals of Lichfield, Provost of Oriel between 1446 and 
 1449 ; and thus Oriel became owner of an area of about 
 2,240 acres in that neighbourhood. This property, her 
 largest estate, she retains at the present time. 
 
 Bishop and ex-Provost Carpenter died seised of two 
 manors in Oxfordshire Dene, in the parish of Spels- 
 bury, about two miles north of Charlbury, on the high 
 ground which forms the northern boundary of the 
 Evenlode valley; and " Chalkeford," or Chalford, in 
 the parish of Enstone, and between Enstone and 
 Chipping Norton, the two manors being contiguous. 
 He bequeathed both to Oriel for the express purpose 
 of endowing a Fellowship, available for candidates re- 
 stricted to his own diocese of Worcester. 
 
 These donations, adding five to the ten Fellows of 
 the original foundation, necessitated new statutes and 
 confirmations by the Bishop of Lincoln. In January, 
 1441, a license from King Henry VI. was obtained to 
 add Frank's four Fellowships to the statutory number, 
 and also to found a chantry in the Church of Trent in 
 Somersetshire. In May of the same year there followed, 
 first, a college statute limiting the number of Fellow- 
 ships to be held at the same time by natives of the same 
 town, city, county, or diocese, and then a statute regulat- 
 ing Frank's Fellowships. The charter of confirmation of 
 the latter, issued by William Alnwick, Bishop of Lincoln, 
 in February, 1446, is extant in print, and reproduces 
 the statute. The four Frank Fellows were, like other 
 
56 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 members of the foundation, to be Bachelor graduates ; 
 like the others, they were to be admitted after a year 
 of probation. They were to pray for the souls of King 
 Henry VI. and of the benefactor and his parents and 
 executors. The four counties distinguished were to be 
 strictly kept to, unless, indeed, students of the required 
 mental attainments were not thence procurable, in which 
 case the restriction was to be withdrawn ; in no case 
 were the four Fellowships to lapse. 
 
 One or two other points in the charter deserve notice. 
 In all elections of Fellows, in the absence of the Provost, 
 no election was to be made without his consent. Never 
 at any one time were there to be more than two Fellows 
 from the same township, city, county, or diocese. The 
 annual audit of accounts, and the election of Dean and 
 treasurers, were to be held between Michaelmas and 
 St. Luke's Day. It was also provided that, in case of 
 the Dean's absence for any considerable time, one of the 
 more discreet of the Fellows should be appointed to fill 
 his place. In order to guard against the abuses of 
 pluralism, it was expressly provided that no Fellow, 
 except the Provost, should receive from any source 
 beyond his Fellowship anything beyond the limits of 
 ten marks a year without forfeiting his Fellowship. 
 
 One may so far outstep the chronological limits of 
 this chapter as to mention ordinances passed by the 
 college to regulate Bishop Carpenter's benefactions, 
 and confirmed by Bishop William Russell of Lincoln in 
 February, 1483. By these ordinances, in addition to 
 the Fellow from the diocese of Worcester provided by 
 Carpenter, it was directed that one of the original ten 
 should come from the same locality. To emphasize the 
 
FOUR FAMOUS PROVOSTSHIPS 57 
 
 compliment to the memory of the Bishop, a chaplain 
 was appointed to celebrate for all time for the souls of 
 Carpenter, of Provost Henry Sampson, and of their 
 parents. If at any time the manor of Dene should be 
 lost to the college, the Fellowship depending on it was 
 to be suppressed ; but the college was to continue to 
 keep the anniversary at or about the Feast of the Eleven 
 Thousand Virgins, with a " Placebo " and " Dirige " for 
 Carpenter and other benefactors. 
 
 The Worcester Fellowship did not exhaust Carpenter's 
 benevolence to his college. He was the means of ex- 
 tending the educational powers of Oriel by founding 
 six Exhibitions. The endowment of these Exhibitions 
 was a charge on lands which Carpenter held as Master 
 of St. Anthony's Hospital, the charge continuing as an 
 obligation on the Master and Brethren of the Hospital 
 until the estate passed into the hands of the Dean and 
 Chapter of Windsor. The exhibitioners represent a 
 new class of members of the College the servientes or 
 batellarii distinct from the Fellows (scholar es) on the 
 one hand, and the commensales on the other. They 
 combined a certain amount of menial work with the 
 pursuit of their studies, and were supported by battels, 
 or doles, at the expense of the college. In the case of 
 Carpenter's, or, as they were often called, St. Anthony's, 
 Exhibitioners, the connexion with the college was very 
 slight. For a long time they were lodged, not in Oriel 
 itself, but in St. Mary Hall, which, as we saw, was 
 originally the parsonage house of St. Mary's Church. 
 Down to 1592 the Oriel Exhibitioners had to promise 
 obedience to the Principal of St. Mary Hall, as well as 
 to the Provost of Oriel. Each received 8d. a week. 
 
58 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 They were, as Dr. Shadwell has pointed out, variously 
 nominated. 
 
 Bishop Carpenter's successor in the Provostship was 
 a man of very considerable note in his day. Walter 
 Lyhert, or Lyart, was elected on June 1, 1436. He 
 was born either at Norwich or in Cornwall, and became 
 a Fellow of Exeter, which he afterwards quitted for 
 Oriel. Contemporaneously with his Oxford Fellowships, 
 he held livings in Essex. Little record survives of his 
 connexion with Oriel ; it was on his leaving it in 1446 
 for the bishopric of Norwich that he became famous. 
 He was a prominent figure in the Norwich and Norfolk 
 of his day. He was a benefactor of the secular clergy, 
 and a generous restorer of his cathedral church, of 
 which the roof of the nave and the screen remain to 
 bear witness to his munificence, if not wholly to his 
 taste. He died in 1472, and was buried in the cathedral. 
 
 One of his functions was the Mastership of St. 
 Anthony's Hospital ; and he seems to have joined 
 with Bishop Carpenter in founding the St. Anthony's 
 Exhibitions. 
 
 Lyhert resigned on February 28, 1446, the college 
 having more than a month earlier asked the Bishop 
 of Lincoln, still William Alnwick, to make John Hals 
 or Halse, a probationer Fellow who had resided many 
 years in the college, eligible for election as Provost in 
 his room. The Bishop gave permission ; on February 28 
 Lyhert resigned ; and on March 18 the Bishop accepted 
 his resignation. Hals was elected on March 24. Nothing 
 of importance, either in the personnel or constitution of 
 the college, seems to have taken place during his reign 
 of three years. 
 
FOUR FAMOUS PROVOSTSHIPS 59 
 
 In the lists of unimportant names which occupy the 
 annals at this time, one name occurs over which we 
 ought to pause. On February 8, 1449, shortly before 
 the resignation of Provost Hals on his appointment to 
 the see of Lichfield and Coventry, an order was made 
 by the college granting to Dr. Thomas Gascoigne " his 
 chamber in the College rent free." 
 
 Thomas Gascoigne, like his fellow -Orielensis Reginald 
 Pecock, is one of the very few English writers and thinkers 
 who stand out among the aimless and brutal activities of 
 the fifteenth century. Born in 1403 at Hunslet, near 
 Leeds, he came to Oxford ; and as he had a lifelong con- 
 nexion with Oriel, it seems reasonable to suppose that he 
 was educated there. If so, it must have been like Arundel 
 as a commensaUs, for his means were too considerable to 
 allow of his being a Fellow. In any case he made Oriel 
 his place of residence throughout the greater part of 
 a prominent Oxford career, renting his room there until 
 the college, nine years before his death in 1458, fittingly 
 recognised the presence within it of so eminent an inmate 
 by giving quarters gratis. Gascoigne played many parts 
 both ecclesiastical and academic. He had a living in 
 Yorkshire, was for a short time incumbent of St. PeterV 
 in-Cornhill in London, and in 1449 received a prebend 
 at Wells. In Oxford he was in great request ; was often 
 Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor and Cancellarius Natus, or 
 senior Doctor of Divinity acting as Chancellor during 
 vacancies. Naturally, in an age of abuses and tentative 
 reforms, he was an active controversialist. Like Pecock, 
 he took up the cause of orthodoxy against Lollard 
 attacks, but, unlike Pecock to whom, indeed, he went 
 into definite opposition he was a strong advocate of 
 
60 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 preaching, even for bishops. He himself was a noted 
 preacher. In 1436 he preached a famous sermon before 
 the University on the Sacraments, Scripture, and the 
 King^s prerogatives, against Wicliffite errors. Twenty 
 years later he preached at St. Frydeswyde^s on the 
 occasion of the deliverance of Belgrade. His chief 
 literary monument is the Liber Veritatum or Dictionarium 
 Theologicum, a compendium, in alphabetical order, of 
 short deliverances on theological and ecclesiastical 
 subjects, written between 1434 and 1457. Of this 
 the complete manuscript exists in the library of 
 Lincoln College, and a volume of extracts from it, 
 with a long historical introduction, was published in 
 1881 by the late Professor Thorold Rogers. Apart 
 from the historic interest of its argumentation, which, 
 with that of Pecock's Represser, gives a fairly complete 
 sample of the strength of English thought at the time, 
 Gascoigne's Dictionarium abounds in criticism of persons 
 and things both in Oxford and beyond it, which makes 
 it an authority of real value. 
 
 Another notable member of Oriel in the reign of 
 Henry VI. was Richard Praty, Bishop of Chichester, 
 whom Gascoigne praises for his resistance to Papal 
 absolution in a case of ecclesiastical discipline. 
 
 Hals resigned the Provostship on March 4, 1449. 
 His successor was Henry Sampson. Sampson had been 
 a Fellow of Oriel for many years. He appears as 
 Principal of St. Mary Hall in 1438. He had also, 
 two years before his appointment as Provost of Oriel, 
 been associated with one of those great developments 
 which make the fifteenth century, in spite of its 
 social and political aridity and chaos, a grandly for- 
 
FOUR FAMOUS PROVOSTSHIPS 61 
 
 mative epoch in University life. Not only did the 
 period of which this chapter treats witness at Oxford 
 the great collegiate foundations of Lincoln, All Souls, 
 and Magdalen, but also the final flowering or one 
 should, perhaps, rather say the full fruition of the 
 medieval University system. It was at this time that 
 the congeries of Schools on the way northwards along 
 the Via Scholastica was remodelled and rebuilt ; that 
 enrolment in a college or Hall, except in certain specified 
 cases, became more and more essential to matriculation 
 in the University ; and that the medieval curriculum of 
 study was most fully organized. Above all, it was just 
 beyond the limits of Sampson^ tenure of office that 
 the finishing touch was put to the central part of that 
 great building in which the University rears itself high 
 above all artificial distinctions of medieval and modern, 
 and realizes in stone that unity of thought and of history 
 which belongs to eternity rather than to time. Between 
 1427 and 1480 the Divinity School and Duke Humfrey^s 
 Library above it were designed and built, in accordance 
 with the wishes, and endowed by the generosity, of 
 many benefactors. Conspicuous among these was 
 Cardinal Beaufort, whose executors in 1447 appointed 
 twelve Commissioners to " devise means for the erection 
 of new schools." Of those Commissioners Henry Sampson, 
 Principal of St. Mary Hall and soon to be Provost of 
 Oriel, was one. It was only fitting that he should be ; 
 for it ought never to be forgotten that Oriel was the 
 House or Hall of the Blessed Mary, and the Rector of 
 that Church of St. Mary, which hitherto had been 
 the very pulse of the academic machine, the church 
 which, as it has been expressively put by the Hon. 
 
62 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 G. C. Brodrick, the present Warden of Merton, " con- 
 tained the Old Congregation House, in which the 
 University held all its solemn meetings, and which in 
 the Middle Ages had served at once as the court- 
 house, the legislation chamber, the examination room, 
 the public treasury, the hall of assembly, and the place 
 of worship, for the whole University.'" 
 
 Sampson's reign lasted until his resignation in 1476. 
 As the result of the various benefactions of the 
 century, the college was so firmly settled both as to 
 its premises, its property, and its income that this 
 chapter may well be concluded with a short connected 
 sketch of these as they stood at the conventional close 
 of the Middle Age. 
 
 We remember how the premises of the college were 
 gradually formed by the acquisition lasting over more 
 than a hundred years of the wedge extending north- 
 wards from the very early nucleus of " La Oriole,*" at 
 the angle of St. John and Schidyard Streets to (and 
 including) St. Mary's Hall. The eastern boundary of 
 this wedge was the street called Grope Lane (now called 
 Grove Street). The principal entrance to " La Oriole " 
 was pretty much where the Oriel gate now is ; but there 
 were large gates, forming probably a back entrance, 
 opening on Grope Lane. If, following a topographical 
 rather than a chronological sequence, we go northwards 
 along Schidyard Street (Oriel Street), we find im- 
 mediately to the north of " La Oriole" a "toft 11 and 
 messuage known as " Aungevyn's," because it was in 
 1303 granted to one Ralph Aungevyn, of Holecote, 
 and his wife and heirs. In 1333 this messuage was pur- 
 chased by Richard de Overton, and in 1345 was trans- 
 
FOUR FAMOUS PROVOSTSHIPS 63 
 
 ferred by him to William de Daventre, afterwards 
 Provost. In 1361 William de Daventre made it over 
 to the college under a licence in mortmain. This 
 Aungevyn's toft was described as being in the college 
 garden and adjoining the chapel. 
 
 Next to Aungevyn's came " Wyght's," so called as 
 originally belonging to one Simon Wyght. In 1340 
 this messuage became the property of the Chantry of 
 St. Mary in the Church of St. Michael, Southgate, on 
 the gift of Thomas de Legh and Joan his wife; and 
 in 1357 the advowson of the chantry and Wyght's 
 messuage were appropriated to Oriel. 
 
 Still farther to the north, on the way to High 
 Street, were, in order, " BokbynderX" " Spaldyng's," 
 and " StodeleV 
 
 Bokbynder's was acquired by Middleton, afterwards 
 Provost, and another in 1364, and made over to the 
 college in 1392. Similarly Spaldyng^s was bought in 
 1362 by John de Colyntre and others, and bestowed 
 by them on the college in 1376. Stodele^s, described 
 in 1347 as a tenement with shops, chambers, and 
 appurtenances, came into the hands of Colyntre and 
 others in the same year as Spaldyng^s (1362), and, like 
 Spaldyng's, was granted to the college with its gardens 
 in 1376. 
 
 Three more tenements in Schidyard Street remain to 
 be mentioned before we reach St. Mary's Hall. First, 
 "Magna Scola." This, as well as the adjoining 
 " Stylynton's," seems to have been made over to Oriel 
 by John of Colyntre in 1376. Magna Scola, Stylynton's, 
 SpaldyngX and Stodele's seem at this time to have 
 been reckoned as garden ground. 
 
64 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 Between Stylynton's and St. Mary's Hall lay Bedel 
 Hall. This messuage, with its appurtenances, was in 
 1297 acquired from Richard le Bedel by the poor 
 scholars of the University of Oxford. For more than 
 a century after the foundation of Oriel it remained 
 outside the college premises an alien wedge between 
 Stylynton's and St. Mary Hall. In 1452 it was 
 sold by the University to Bishop Carpenter, and almost 
 immediately after granted by him to Oriel, early in 
 Sampson's reign. 
 
 We must now glance at the tenements to the east of 
 those already mentioned, those, namely, fronting on 
 Grope Lane, of which there were several. 
 
 If we set out from St. Mary Hall to go southward 
 along Grope Lane, we come first to the property of the 
 Chantry of St. Thomas in St. Mary's Church. This 
 consisted of a toft between Bedel Hall and Grope Lane, 
 and was granted by certain brethren of the Chantry to 
 Oriel in 1892. 
 
 Adjoining this toft was the eastern end of Stylynton's, 
 which extended eastward to Grope Lane. Then came 
 a tenement of the Prior and Convent of St. Frydeswyde, 
 and next to it a toft called " Tymberhouse," acquired in 
 1363 by John de Middleton and others, and given by 
 him in 1392 to the college. Behind Tymberhouse and 
 reaching back to the tenements fronting on Schidyard 
 Street was a holding known as "Elias PykardV; and 
 to the southward of Tymberhouse, and between it and 
 the great gate of "La Oriole," was a shop with a 
 solar known as " Here's." Early in the fourteenth 
 century this became the property of the Leigh 
 Chantry in St. Michael's, Southgate, and it passed 
 
^s < 
 
FOUR FAMOUS PROVOSTSHIPS 65 
 
 with the other endowments of that chantry to Oriel 
 in 1357. 
 
 Between the great gate and St. John's Street lay St. 
 Martin's Hall. This messuage was the property of the 
 Convent of St. Frydeswyde. Lying as it did to the 
 east of the college library, and rounding off the college 
 premises, its acquisition by the college was certainly 
 desirable. We find, accordingly, that in 1503 it was 
 granted on perpetual lease to the Provost (then Thomas 
 Cornish) " and the Scholars of the King's College called 
 Oriall " ; and the grant was renewed in the Provostship 
 of Edmund Wylsford in 1510. 
 
 We now have the picture complete of the medieval 
 premises of our college. It is evident that by the 
 beginning of the sixteenth century these premises in- 
 cluded the whole of the site of the present college ; and 
 that, with one or two exceptions, the whole of this 
 property was acquired in the fourteenth century. It 
 will not be supposed, however, that this space was 
 covered by building. The essential college premises 
 had their nucleus in the original "La Oriole "; there were 
 the chapel, hall, and library ; there were the Provost's 
 and Fellows' chambers. The tenements and tofts stretch- 
 ing towards St. Mary Hall were for the most part used 
 as garden-ground buildings standing on it being re- 
 moved when it was necessary. " La Oriole," of course, 
 was but a nucleus and starting-point. In the course 
 of the first two centuries of the college life, buildings, 
 some of wood, some of stone, were added to it, until at 
 last a quadrangle was formed which was the college 
 until the rebuilding in the seventeenth century, and 
 which may be seen in Neale's drawing of 1566. Arundel's 
 
 5 
 
66 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 chapel, on the south side of the quadrangle, opposite 
 the gate of Corpus Christi College, has already been 
 described. A library, to house the growing collection 
 of books which had hitherto been kept in chests, was 
 built on the east side of the quadrangle in 1444, 
 partly, according to Anthony Wood, at the cost of 
 Gascoigne. This erection supplemented the episode 
 of Bishop Cobham's library, which the reader remem- 
 bers in more than one of its phases. In 1410 Arch- 
 bishop Arundel had arbitrated between the college 
 and the University as to the ownership of the Old Con- 
 gregation House, deciding in favour of the University. 
 Oriel had patiently acquiesced and kept its books in 
 chests until may we say ? Gascoigne^s liberality finally 
 relieved its embarrassment and saved its self-respect. 
 The hall of the college stood on the north side of the 
 quadrangle. So housed and equipped dwelt the College 
 of Scholars of the House or Hall of the Blessed Mary 
 at Oxford. 
 
 It is not needful to add much to what has been 
 already said of the college property scattered over 
 Oxford, as that received no very substantial addition 
 since we summed it up in the middle of the fourteenth 
 century. 
 
 The churches belonging to the college were three 
 only : St. MaryX Oxford ; Coleby in Lincolnshire ; and 
 Aberford in Yorkshire. 
 
 The estates at a distance from Oxford have been 
 already mentioned ; they were (in Berkshire) Little- 
 worth and Wadley; in Oxfordshire, Dene and Chal- 
 ford. 
 
 In this century the chronicler of the college begins 
 
FOUR FAMOUS PROVOSTSHIPS 67 
 
 to have the advantage of a continuous series of treasurers' 
 accounts. The first set which has reached us extends 
 from 1409 to 1415 ; the second series in the form con- 
 tinuously followed to the present day, and called " the 
 Style," begins in 1450. From the first we learn that 
 from Oxford property the college had a yearly rental 
 of about 53 ; from its benefices about ^?35 ; from the 
 offertory at St. Mary's about %8. The net income, 
 after necessary deductions, was between 80 and ^90. 
 About half of this sum was spent on the maintenance 
 ("commons") of the Provost and Fellows, as well as 
 that of servants, workmen, and others (" battels "), and 
 on excrescentias or extras of various kinds ; the other half 
 went in stipends, wages, and cost of maintaining the 
 buildings. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES (1475-1691) 
 
 Thomas Hawkyns, 1476-1479; John Taylor, 1479-1492; 
 Thomas Cornysh, 1493-1507; Edmund Wylsford, 
 1507-1516; James More, 1516-1530; Thomas Ware, 
 1530-1538; Henry Mynne, 1538-1540; William 
 Haynes, 1540-1550; John Smyth, 1550-1565; Roger 
 Marbeck, 1565-1566; John Belly, 1566-1574; Anthony 
 Blencowe, 1574-1618; William Lewis, 1618-1621 ; 
 JohnTolson, 1 621-1644 ; John Saunders, 1 644-1 653 ; 
 Robert Say, 1653-1691. 
 
 BETWEEN the resignation of Provost Sampson in 1475 
 and the accession of King Henry VIII., three Provosts 
 ruled over Oriel Thomas Hawkyns, who had been 
 Archdeacon of Worcester (1476-1479); John Taylor 
 (1479-1492) ; and Thomas Cornysh (1493-1507). Only 
 the names of those men have escaped oblivion ; and the 
 period of their rule is typical of that region of calms 
 and uncertain currents which lies between medieval and 
 modern history, a region which extended itself, so far 
 as Oxford was concerned, well into the sixteenth century. 
 It was not, indeed, until Leicester's Chancellorship, in 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 69 
 
 the reign of Elizabeth, that the modern period of 
 University history can be said to have begun at Oxford. 
 Between 1480 and 1571 the intellectual movement of 
 the age was felt in the colleges rather than in the 
 University ; it was the period of the last of the pre- 
 Reformation foundations, Brasenose ; of the distinctively 
 Renaissance foundation of Corpus Christi ; of Trinity 
 and St. John's after the shock of the Reformation had 
 come ; of the Elizabethan Jesus ; and of that august 
 and unique foundation of Christ Church which, more 
 perhaps than any other Oxford institution, embodies 
 that indescribable spirit, neither Catholic, nor Protestant, 
 nor Anglican, which we associate with the name of 
 Henry VIII. 
 
 Other colleges, both old and new, felt the Renaissance 
 more manifestly than Oriel, whose lot it has been, down 
 at least to the present century, to stand somewhat apart 
 from louder changes. Through the beginning of the 
 Tudor period the college went quietly on its way, 
 losing nothing of what it had gained, and gradually 
 accommodating itself to new thoughts and ways. During 
 Cornysh's tenure of office the tale of college endowments 
 and Fellowships was satisfactorily continued by a bene- 
 factor whose chief title to fame has no connexion 
 with Oriel. William Smyth, bishop, first of Lichfield 
 and Coventry, and then, after 1495, of Lincoln, was 
 Chancellor of the University from 1500 to 1503, and 
 one of the two founders of Brasenose. He was a 
 conspicuous benefactor of Lincoln College, and he 
 remembered also his responsibilities to Oriel. In 1504 
 the manor of Shenington, about seven miles north- 
 west of Banbury, near the Warwickshire border, and 
 
70 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 not far from the historic ground of Edge Hill, was 
 bought for the college with funds to which the Bishop 
 was a contributor. This addition to the college 
 endowments was signalized by ordinances which the 
 Bishop, as Visitor, confirmed in November, 1504. In 
 consideration of this additional property the Provost 
 and fifteen Senior Fellows were to have an allowance of 
 five virgates of cloth each* every other year ; the Provost, 
 in consideration of the growth of his labours since the 
 foundation of the college, was, in addition to his stipend 
 of ten marks a year, to have his commons " like one 
 of the Fellows," according to his residence in college ; 
 while the Dean was to have 20s. a year, and each of the 
 treasurers 13s. 4d. instead of the 10s. and 5s. provided 
 for them respectively by the statutes. 
 
 In addition to his increase of stipend the Dean was 
 to be allowed 6s. 8d. for keeping the Register of the 
 College. This Register, which has been kept ever since, 
 and for which and its contents the Dean has always 
 been responsible, dates its beginning from this year. 
 It is, of course, of great value as an authority, but its 
 value would have been greater if its ideal had been 
 more completely realized. It was intended to be a 
 record of all the acts and decrees of the college in its 
 corporate capacity (omnia acta et decreta, per Prcepositum 
 et scalar es capltulariter facto) ; but, as a matter of fact, 
 the entries in the register have been confined to the 
 most formal corporate acts of the Society. 
 
 Bishop Smyth^s contribution towards the purchase of 
 Shenington, a sum of ^300, was treated as the endow- 
 ment of a new Fellowship in addition to the new ones 
 
 * These are regularly supplied to this day. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 71 
 
 / 
 
 founded in the preceding century by Frank and Car- 
 penter. The ordinance establishing this foundation was 
 confirmed in May, 1507. It provides that the Fellow- 
 ship shall be confined to the Lincoln diocese. Four 
 marks a year were to be paid to a chaplain to say 
 mass perpetually for the soul of the Bishop, while, at 
 his annual exequies, the Provost and each Fellow present 
 were to have respectively 20d. and lOd. 
 
 At this point, then, the number of Fellows of Oriel 
 stood at sixteen, instead of the ten of the original 
 foundation. It was not very long before the full 
 number was made up. Dr. Richard Dudley was a 
 Fellow of Oriel and was Principal of St. Mary Hall 
 in 1502. He owned the manor of Swainswick, near 
 Bath ; and in 1525 he made it over, with the advowson 
 attached to it, to Oriel, expressly for the maintenance 
 of two Fellows. In 1529 he followed the example of 
 Carpenter by founding six Exhibitions. These Exhi- 
 bitions were henceforward known as the Dudley Exhi- 
 bitions, Bishop Carpenters being called, generally but 
 by no means invariably, the St. Anthony's Exhibitions, 
 from the source of their endowment. The Dudley 
 Exhibitioners were as slightly connected with the college 
 as Carpenter's beneficiaries ; and, like them, were mostly 
 housed in St. Mary Hall. Between 1544 and 1655, 
 when the Dudley family, belonging to Cumberland 
 and Westmorland, died out, four of the Exhibitioners 
 were appointed by the college and two nominated by 
 the Dudley family. The Dudley nominees were 
 generally members of Queen's College. After 1655 
 the college nominated the whole. Each of the St. 
 Anthony and Dudley Exhibitioners received 8d. a week. 
 
72 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 We shall realize how, as the fifteenth century pro- 
 ceeded, the college numbers were gradually reinforced 
 by the admission of communarii, or commoners, i.e., 
 paying extranei, who might or might not be commen- 
 saleS) and who resorted to the colleges for education 
 and for that connexion with a college, which had been 
 made essential for membership of the University. This 
 reinforcement, which gives to colleges at Oxford and 
 Cambridge their most striking feature at the present 
 time, Oriel shared with its neighbours. What was 
 peculiar to Oriel and needs frequent emphasis was the 
 special line of development followed by the foundation 
 proper, i.e., the Society of Scholares, or Fellows, making 
 up the college and supported by its endowments. In 
 other colleges a tendency was at work from which 
 Oriel was remarkably free. Elsewhere at Oxford, and 
 still more strikingly at Cambridge, the tendency was 
 for the Fellows to train and endow younger members 
 to supply vacancies in their ranks. In other words, 
 the tendency was to introduce a class of Scholastici, or 
 Scholars in the modern sense of the word, who should 
 in time become Scholares, or Fellows. A kindred 
 tendency was that of benefactors to restrict Fellowships 
 to particular dioceses or districts. Both tendencies had 
 the same result : they made the colleges self-involved 
 and exclusive ; they made it possible, if not easy, for 
 the standard of intellectual attainment to be lowered ; 
 they made the colleges less fairly representative of the 
 University than they would otherwise have been. 
 
 At Oriel, on the other hand, both tendencies were 
 remarkably weak. Only for a very brief period in the 
 sixteenth century is there any appearance of Scholastic* 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 73 
 
 under training to be Scholares, of Scholars, as we should 
 now say, for whom Fellowships were waiting. On the 
 whole, it is literally true to say that Scholars, resembling 
 the Scholars of other colleges, the demies of Magdalen 
 and the postmasters of Merton, were unknown at Oriel 
 until the thirties of the nineteenth century ; the Exhibi- 
 tioners, in spite of their stipendiary position, being too 
 insignificant to be classed as such. From the exclusive- 
 ness attendant on close, or in any way restricted, 
 Fellowships, the college was also singularly free. The 
 ten Fellowships of the original foundation were with- 
 out restriction, although one had in the fifteenth century 
 been appropriated to the diocese of Worcester out of 
 compliment to Bishop Carpenter. Franks four Fellow- 
 ships were confined, as we saw, to the counties of Wilts, 
 Somerset, Dorset, and Devon ; Bishop Carpenters and 
 Bishop Smyth's to the dioceses of Worcester and 
 Lincoln respectively. Still, at the most, the restricted 
 Fellowships were never more than seven, while the open 
 ones were eleven. Oriel was thus able to keep on re- 
 inforcing itself from time to time with the best 
 intelligence which the University could furnish ; and 
 it was chiefly this power, enjoyed continuously since its 
 foundation, which enabled it, under the changed con- 
 ditions of the nineteenth century, to become that nursery 
 of eminent men and movements which it was in our 
 grandfathers' days. 
 
 The dangers to Oriel's virginal purity in these 
 respects are illustrated by various incidents in the 
 sixteenth century. Bishop Atwater, of Lincoln, in the 
 course of his Visitation of the college in 1520, had to 
 deal with a serious mischief. Thomas Stock, one of 
 
74 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 the Fellows, had actually resigned in favour of one John 
 Throckmorton, expressly and entirely on condition of 
 Throck morion's election. Had such doings been 
 permitted, there would evidently soon have been an 
 end to open Fellowships at Oriel. The Visitor would 
 have none of it. " Hoc potest trahi in exemplum per- 
 niciosum. Ita quod in posterum socii resignabunt loca 
 sua quibus voluerint. Dominus injunxit ne deinceps 
 aliquis talia faceret in electionibus ibidem. "* 
 
 The brief apparition of Scholars at Oriel spoken of 
 above the exception which proves the rule seems to 
 have been confined to the years between 1534 and 
 1560. During this period we find many entries of 
 Scholastid selected for special privilege and prospect. 
 In 1550 four Scholars were elected on the express 
 terms that after their degree they should be admitted 
 probationer Fellows if it should seem expedient to 
 the Society. In 1554 there were elected three 
 Scholars John Herneman, John Belly (afterwards 
 Provost), and Thomas Sharley who swore not to 
 remove to any other college without the Society's 
 consent. The irregularity of such elections is exem- 
 plified in 1560 by the necessity of getting permission 
 for them from the Visitor. The Bishop of Lincoln in 
 June, 1560, gave dispensation to one Robert Ryng 
 " postea assumendus in perpetuitatem Collegii " and 
 
 * Atwater's injunctions call attention to other abuses. Three 
 Fellows, Schope, Knyghtley, and Slade, had failed servaredisputationes, 
 as by oath they were bound to do. An election had been made un- 
 canonically. Finally, Mr. Walter Maye had practised "judiciary 
 astronomy " contrary to the Statutes, which prescribed that all the 
 Fellows should be theological. Henceforward judiciary astronomy 
 might be studied but not practised. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 75 
 
 the dispensation was extended to two others. Why a 
 practice which so easily took root elsewhere never 
 flourished at Oriel it is difficult to explain. Fellow- 
 ships were, of course, sometimes vacated for various 
 reasons. Sometimes such cases led to negotiation. 
 Take the case of John Knyghtley in 1522. Knyghtley 
 resigned his Fellowship ostensibly on the ground 
 of having taken a living, though indications are 
 not wanting that his behaviour as Fellow had been 
 such as to make his resignation desirable. Nothing 
 could exceed the affection to the Society breathed by 
 the terms of his resignation. The college accepted the 
 resignation, but postponed Knyghtley 's deprivation of 
 commons and rooms, first until after Easter, on con- 
 dition of his not standing in the way of the appoint- 
 ment of any other Fellow to the Proctorship, and then 
 until the end of the year (the resignation having taken 
 place in March). The only other conditions of the ex- 
 Fellow's enjoying this favour were that he should live 
 without scandal, and apply himself to study, and that 
 he should not bring dogs into college. 
 
 O O O 
 
 As for the fee-paying extranei, whether commensales 
 or communarii, the Register shows that it was not until 
 the date of Leicester's Chancellorship that they began 
 to come in with anything like a rush. But it is very 
 interesting to mark their early and occasional and 
 increasingly frequent appearances early in the sixteenth 
 century. In 1513 five commensales are entered in the 
 accounts as receiving at the rate of 16d. a week the 
 same rate as that of the Fellows. In 1518 Richard 
 Maudley, in the same year Archdeacon of Leicester, 
 was allowed to have a chamber in that Martin Hall, 
 
76 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 which, as we saw, was the latest addition to the college 
 premises, and to be 
 
 " Communarius nobiscum et habere libertates quas 
 solebant extranei communarii habere solvendo pro camera 
 et communiis ut decet ; et concessum est eidem quatenus 
 possit audire disputationes nostras in Collegio prestito prius 
 juramento ad secreta domus celanda." 
 
 Maudley was already a Master of Arts, and so was 
 William Parkhouse, Fellow of Exeter and Principal of 
 Hart Hall, who was admitted to the same kind of 
 extraneous membership in the following year. Indeed, 
 undergraduate communarii and cornmensales seem to 
 have been as yet unknown at Oriel. 
 
 Of the Provosts whose names are at the beginning 
 of this chapter, one, Thomas Cornysh, who resigned 
 two years before the accession of Henry VIII., deserves 
 a word of special mention. He seems to have been a 
 Somerset man by birth, and was certainly, save for his 
 connexion with Oriel, a Somerset man by all his other 
 associations. He was a Fellow of Oriel, became Vicar 
 of Ban well in Wells diocese, and in 1483 Master of 
 St. John's House or Hospital in Wells itself. In 1493 
 he was made suffragan to Bishop Fox of Bath and 
 Wells, holding the title of "Episcopus Tynensis" 
 Bishop of Tyne. The same year he was elected Provost 
 of Oriel, holding concurrently not only his office of 
 suffragan, but a living in Wells. In 1507 he resigned 
 the Provostship and dedicated himself to Somerset for 
 the rest of his days, where he died, and was buried in 
 Wells Cathedral. 
 
 Was Alexander Barclay, the author of the English 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 77 
 
 version of the Narrenschiff, ever at Oriel ? If so, the 
 college owns a very important figure in British litera- 
 ture, a figure recalling in some respects that of the 
 author of Piers Plowman, who has been absurdly 
 claimed as a son of Oriel. Research, which has only 
 established the strong probability that Barclay was 
 a Scotsman, has not yet discovered whether he was 
 educated at Oxford or at Cambridge. The reader will 
 accept or reject Anthony Wood in placing him at 
 Oriel according to his prepossessions. But, in any case, 
 the author of the Shyp of Folys falls to be mentioned 
 here because of his undeniable relation to Bishop 
 Corny sh, the Provost of Oriel. When the Shyp appeared 
 in 1509 it bore a dedication to Corny sh, which, if in any 
 way correspondent with facts, is sufficient testimony to 
 the illustrious merits of that particular Head of Oriel. 
 How Barclay came to know Cornysh, unless as Head of 
 his college, the dedication does not inform us. The 
 Shyp was published two years after Cornysh left Oxford. 
 It was to him, apparently, that Barclay owed his 
 subsequent clerical promotion, becoming first a priest 
 in the College of Ottery St. Mary in Devonshire and 
 afterwards the incumbent of several benefices else- 
 where. 
 
 Cornysh^s successor in the Provostship was Edmund 
 Wylsford, who held office from 1507 to 1516. Con- 
 cerning him the college annals are for the most 
 part silent. But he played a leading part in the 
 University, being the first Margaret Professor of 
 Divinity, and several times Vice-Chancellor. In the 
 year of Wylsford's election, and in some years after- 
 wards, the name of Dr. John Roper occurs in con- 
 
78 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 nexion though but a slight and fleeting connexion 
 with Oriel. Roper was one of the Oxford represen- 
 tatives of the Renaissance movement. He was a Fellow 
 of Magdalen, and succeeded Grocyn as Divinity Reader 
 there. Afterwards, in 1502, he was made the second 
 Professor of Divinity in the University, on the founda- 
 tion of Margaret, Countess of Richmond, the mother of 
 Henry VII. He was twice Vice-Chancellor, and Canon 
 of Wolsey's and Henry VIII.'s college, soon to be 
 known as Christ Church, in 1532. But besides having 
 these important ties to Oxford, he was connected with 
 Oriel through St. Mary's, of which he was made 
 Vicar in 1483, and of which he died Vicar in 1534. 
 It was probably as Vicar of St. Mary's, rather than 
 as being a graduate commensalis, that Roper was 
 entered as renting a room at Oriel between 1507 and 
 1512. 
 
 In the first quarter of the sixteenth century the 
 plague raged intermittently in Oxford, and it left 
 many traces in college records. From Oriel there 
 were frequent migrations to purer country air, to the 
 leafy retreat at Bartlemas, to the uplands at Dene, and 
 elsewhere. These migrations necessitated some financial 
 regulations. Thus, in 1513, Fellows driven to Dene by 
 the pestilence were allowed 16d. for their commons at 
 a farm there, and a grant was extended a few days later 
 to those at Bartlemas and Witney. Similar rules were 
 made afterwards from time to time. 
 
 If we reckon the English Reformation proper to have 
 begun in 1529, the first Reformation Provost of Oriel 
 was James More (1516-1530), while the Provost who 
 held office during the actual shock of the change was 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 79 
 
 his successor, Thomas Ware (1530-1538). It was while 
 Ware was Provost that the famous Royal Commission 
 of 1534 did its work in Oxford. In 1531, just after 
 Ware's election, the then Bishop of Lincoln, Longland, 
 visited the college and issued a set of Injunctions which 
 throw a little light on its condition. 
 
 Several matters, the Bishop asserted, needed reforma- 
 tion and correction. The studies of the college were 
 languishing through the absence of the Provost, who 
 was enjoined to stick to his post and look after things 
 diligently. The Bachelors were to observe carefully the 
 rules for the use of the library at night, to refrain from 
 introducing outsiders into their sleeping-places, and to 
 maintain the old-fashioned modesty, reverence, and 
 humility towards those set over them, on pain of 
 forfeiting their commons for three days. No Fellow 
 was to hold any cure of souls during his Fellowship on 
 pain of the loss of a month's commons for every week 
 spent in such work. 
 
 The financial rules of the college were restated and 
 enforced with an emphasis which seems to imply that 
 the Visitor had detected signs of laxity. The two 
 treasurers were always to act together in their dealings 
 with receipts and expenditure ; and the ancient custom 
 of having three pedes at each audit, one to be kept by 
 the Provost or the Dean and the other two by the 
 treasurers, was to be carefully observed. 
 
 The Fellows were to be under strict obligations of 
 residence. Not even the Masters were at liberty to go 
 to see their parents without special leave from the 
 Provost or Dean ; and even in vacation the permitted 
 length of absence to Masters and Bachelors alike was 
 
80 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 not to exceed sixty days, except for reasons recognised 
 as sufficient by the Provost, the Dean, and the two 
 Senior Fellows. 
 
 The title of the college to the estate called Oriel 
 Wood (about twenty acres of woodland over the Bucks 
 border in the parish of Boarstall, and not far to the 
 westward of Brill), which had been carelessly lost, was 
 to be carefully and effectually reasserted. 
 
 As to the college studies, the Bishop had found that 
 the disputations were apt to fail of satisfactory 
 solution through the defect by the Provost, and Dean, 
 and senior Masters. These were accordingly commanded 
 in future to take an active part in the prescribed 
 exercises, so that the disputations might be creditably 
 carried through. The existence of the New Learning 
 was not ignored, though its claims were somewhat 
 grudgingly recognized. The Bachelor Fellows were 
 exhorted to postpone the new learning (recentiores 
 litteras)) the Latin language and works of poetry (opera 
 poetica) in other words, classical study to the prior 
 claims of litterce antiquiores and the termini doctorum 
 antiquorum in other words, the regular medieval 
 curriculum, which was more suited to the necessities of 
 disputation. 
 
 The full number of Fellows was to be carefully kept 
 up, and every vacancy filled within a month. 
 
 The Injunctions are full of the spirit of discipline, 
 exact and unfailing, as that alone by which the college 
 could flourish. Not even " academicals " were left un- 
 noticed. Each of the members of the Society was 
 to wear his proper gown, according to the custom of 
 other honourable colleges in the University, on pain 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 81 
 
 of loss of commons during such time as this duty might 
 be neglected. 
 
 Dr. Cox was the Royal Commissioner sent to Oxford 
 in 1534 to enforce the new doctrine of the Royal 
 Supremacy over the Church. At once, as elsewhere, 
 no difficulty was found in obtaining the written consent 
 of every member of the Society to the form of submission 
 dictated by the King. In 1538 Henry VIII. ordered 
 the discontinuance of honours to St. Thomas of Canter- 
 bury. This order was very carefully observed at Oriel, 
 and the name of the martyred saint disappeared from 
 every calendar. 
 
 As an off-set to the submissive obedience of the 
 college as a body, it is worth while to recall the fact 
 that Edward Powell, Canon of Salisbury, who was the 
 chosen defender of University Catholicism against 
 Lutheran heresy and the advocate of Queen Katharine 
 herself, and who for his zeal was executed in 1540, had 
 been a Fellow of Oriel from about 1495 to 1505. 
 
 During Ware's tenure of the Provostship Oriel rebuilt 
 its hall, which stood on the north side of the quadrangle 
 into which "La Oriole" had grown. In November, 
 3531, an order was made that the college should 
 " proceed to the building of a common hall," and that 
 the Provost and the treasurers should arrange the 
 matter with the workmen so as to annoy the Society 
 as little as possible. Then probably followed the gradual 
 collection of necessary funds ; and in January, 1535, the 
 Provost was authorized to make a contract with the 
 masons and the carpenter, with the advice of Mr. 
 Heritage, who may have been Thomas Heritage, a 
 former Fellow. Apparently, however, sufficient money 
 
 6 
 
82 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 was not yet collected, for we find it ordered in December 
 of this same year (1535) that two of the Fellows, Masters 
 Ryshton and Smith, should draw up begging letters for 
 the building fund to be sent to former Fellows. 
 
 The frequent recurrence of serious sickness at Oxford 
 during the reign of Henry VIII. had greatly increased 
 the prominence of Bartlemas as a sanatorium. In all 
 respects the lapse of time had strengthened the con- 
 nexion between the college and the hospital, though 
 that connexion had by no means ceased to be a cause 
 of friction. The great source of difficulty always was 
 the recalcitrancy of the city of Oxford against the 
 obligation to support the hospital out of its fee-farm 
 rent. Over and over again, ever since Oriel acquired 
 St. Bartholomew's, the obligation had been renewed by 
 % successive Kings ; but the city still made difficulties. 
 When, in 1536, the perennial trouble recurred, it was 
 attempted, with a success which lasted for three 
 centuries, to attain to such a compromise as might 
 satisfy both parties and prevent the recurrence of the 
 dispute. The city and the college agreed to submit 
 the matter to two Barons of the Exchequer, and to 
 accept their decision. The court devised a compromise. 
 The obligation on the city was maintained, but the sum 
 to be paid was reduced from %$ Os. 5d. to d19, and 
 the city was allowed the right to nominate the almsmen. 
 Provost Ware resigned on December 6, 1538. His 
 successor was Henry Mynne, who died in 1540 ; and he 
 in turn was succeeded by William Haynes, who resigned 
 in 1550, three years after the death of Henry VIII. 
 During Haynes's rule, in 1545, Bishop Longland again 
 visited and again issued Injunctions. There was still, 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 83 
 
 it seemed, need of amendment. The secular side of 
 the college studies was brought into prominence. All 
 Fellows who were eventually to study theology were 
 to spend three full years in philosophical study first, 
 unless there was, in the judgment of the Provost or 
 Dean and two of the Fellows, some legitimate impedi- 
 ment to such an arrangement ; moreover, every Fellow 
 was under penalties to be in readiness to engage in 
 philosophical disputation. Three Fellows Edmund 
 Crispyn, Anthony Alboin, and John Gore were selected 
 for special injunction. They were to go through the 
 prescribed philosophical propaedeutic, and then to apply 
 themselves to theology, omnibus nervis et viribus. 
 Crispyn was a lecturer in medicine in the University, 
 and might therefore be exempted to some extent ; but 
 he was not to escape the stated college disputations, 
 philosophical and theological. The said Crispyn seems 
 to have shown some of the scant reverence for con- 
 ventions often attributed to votaries both of science 
 and art. The Bishop enjoined him to be punctual in 
 his attendance at service in St. Mary's, and to abstain 
 from blasphemous speech and profane swearing. More- 
 over, as long as he was Fellow of Oriel, he must not 
 grow a beard, nor wear, either inside or outside the 
 college, plaited shirts or shoes of a lay cut, but go 
 about in honest and decent clerical garb. 
 
 Something may be learned from these injunctions as 
 to the status of St. Mary Hall at this date. The scholars 
 elected to the Hall (by whom we are to understand the 
 St. Anthony and Dudley Exhibitioners) were, if possible, 
 to be such as could sing. The existing door of com- 
 munication between the college and the Hall was to be 
 
 62 
 
84 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 walled up so that there might be no manner of door 
 there for the future. Care was to be taken in the 
 selection of a clever and industrious (solers et dill-gens) 
 man as Principal of the Hall, and it was to be his duty 
 to provide suitable and adequately learned persons to 
 read with the students there. For the rest, the flame 
 of academic energy was to be kept active in the Hall. 
 Disputations were to be carried on there according to 
 the ancient custom. 
 
 The Bishop also enjoined that the college gates were 
 to be locked every night at eight between All Saints 
 and the Purification, and at nine between the Purifica- 
 tion and All Saints. The time for opening was to be 
 five or six in the morning. 
 
 Finally, the Provost, Dean, and Fellows were for the 
 future to conduct the more serious business of the college 
 deliberately and in a less hasty manner (non prcecipl- 
 tanter) than hitherto ; and, indeed, the college was to 
 refrain from making changes unless they were demanded 
 by urgent necessity. 
 
 After the resignation of Provost Haynes the un- 
 eventful annals of the Oriel Headship in those years 
 were lit up by one or two vivid little scenes. Twice 
 the Crown attempted, but only once successfully, to in- 
 trude its nominee into the Provostship. The first case 
 was in 1550 in the appointment of a successor to Haynes, 
 and it brings an interesting man for a fleeting moment 
 on the Oriel stage. William Turner, who died Dean 
 of Wells, is a characteristic figure of his epoch. His real 
 academic nursery and home was Cambridge, where he 
 was Fellow and Treasurer of Pembroke Hall, and at 
 Cambridge the influence of Ridley and Latimer deter- 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 85 
 
 mined him to the side of the Reformers. On leaving 
 Cambridge he went about much as an itinerant preacher, 
 and in that capacity seems first to have visited Oxford 
 in 1540. At Oxford orthodoxy was harder for a Re- 
 former to co-exist with than at Cambridge. Turner was 
 put in gaol for preaching without licence, and afterwards 
 found his best safety on the Continent. There he was 
 able to follow the real bent of his life, for he was essen- 
 tially a man of science rather than a theologian, a 
 physician rather than a divine; and above all, that 
 new thing in England, a botanist. Even at Cambridge 
 he had published a Libellus de re herbaria, and on the 
 Continent, and especially in Holland, he botanized ex- 
 tensively. In 1547 he ventured back to England, when 
 the accession of Edward VI., the Protestant King, made 
 it easier for such a man to flourish. He was made 
 chaplain and physician to the Protector Somerset, and 
 actively pursued his botanical career at Kew. Such favour 
 as Turner now had, however, was not enough to keep 
 him from the supplicating attitude of a poor man. In 
 1550, the year of Provost Haynes's resignation, we find 
 him beseeching Burghley for employment, with much 
 pathos in his tones. Burghley got him a prebend at 
 York, but that was not enough. The Privy Council were 
 really anxious to better poor Turner's condition, and 
 when the Oriel Headship fell vacant, they somewhat 
 imperiously ordered the Fellows to appoint him Provost. 
 The College, however, having probably been warned in 
 time, was not going to suffer so serious an innovation ; 
 and when the order arrived, the Fellows were able to 
 answer that they had already elected one of their own 
 number, John Smyth, and that the place was not vacant. 
 
86 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 Later in the same year we find Turner begging for the 
 Presidentship of Magdalen. What he actually and 
 ultimately got was the Deanery of Wells. Turners 
 after career was chequered ; but in the end of the day 
 he managed to leave to the world that Herbal which 
 fairly launched botanical science in England. 
 
 Smyth held office until 1565, and was thus Provost 
 throughout the violences of Mary^s reign and the open- 
 ing years of Elizabeth^. He was eminent enough as 
 a theologian to be Margaret Professor of Divinity from 
 1554-1561. It was on his resignation that the second 
 and successful attempt was made to bring in an outsider 
 as Provost of Oriel. This time it was a man more 
 prominent in his day than Turner, though his reputa- 
 tion was more ephemeral. Like Turner, Roger Marbeck 
 was a physician, though, like most other men of mark 
 of those days, he had a theological career first. In his 
 case, however, it seems to have stopped short of ordina- 
 tion. In 1552 Marbeck was elected student of the now 
 fully equipped college of Christ Church, and at Christ 
 Church he resided fifteen years. He built up a great 
 reputation for Latinity ; and when the office of Public 
 Orator was instituted in 1564, Marbeck was chosen to 
 be the first holder of it. In 1565 he was made a Canon 
 of Christ Church, and the same year, on March 9, was 
 elected Provost of Oriel. His election was unanimous, 
 so that this blow at the statutes was struck by the 
 college itself and not, as in the case of Turner, by an 
 interfering and imperious Privy Council successfully 
 resisted by an autonomous college. The constitutional 
 irregularity of the proceeding is marked by the grant 
 of a dispensation by the Visitor. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 87 
 
 Queen Elizabeth paid her first state visit to Oxford 
 in 1566, and Marbeck, as Public Orator, was one of the 
 University officials who received her on August 31 at 
 Wolvercote on her way from Woodstock, having pre- 
 pared a speech in his most elegant Latin. By this 
 time, however, he had ceased to be Provost of Oriel, 
 having relinquished that position, for what reason and 
 in what circumstances there is nothing to show, on 
 June 24, 1566. Anthony Wood tells us that the play 
 of Palamon and Arcyte, given with so much eclat before 
 the Queen in Christ Church Hall, was rehearsed in 
 Marbeck's rooms at Christ Church. Marbeck, like 
 Cassio and many another, was ruined by his wife, and 
 by-and-by had to leave Oxford. It was then that his 
 medical career began. In 1578 he was Fellow of the 
 College of Physicians, and became chief medical adviser 
 at Court. Towards the close of his varied life he ac- 
 companied Howard in his expedition against Cadiz in 
 1596, of which expedition he has left an account. 
 
 One of the entertainments provided for Elizabeth was 
 a series of disputations in her presence at St. Mary's on 
 the third, fourth, and fifth days of September. At one 
 of these the "moderator 1 ' was John Belly or Bellay 
 of Oriel, and he it was who succeeded Marbeck as 
 Provost, being elected June 25, 1566. He was thus 
 already Provost when he "moderated" at St. Mary's 
 before the Queen. He belonged to a Somerset family, 
 the Bellays of Haselbury, and had been Fellow of Oriel 
 since 1556. He held office until February, 1574, when 
 he became incorporated at Cambridge, and was made 
 Canon of Lincoln. He was a Doctor of Civil Law and 
 a Master in Chancery when he died in 1608. 
 
88 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 A few more or less eminent names fall to be mentioned 
 in connection with the period we have just been travers- 
 ing. William James, Master of University and Dean 
 of Christ Church, who attended the Earl of Leicester 
 on his deathbed and died Bishop of Durham in 1617, 
 was a Dudley Exhibitioner for a few months in 1561. 
 A St. Anthony Exhibitioner for a brief period was 
 John Lane, who was educated afterwards at Corpus, 
 where he became Fellow. He then joined the Roman 
 Church, and became a Jesuit under the influence of 
 Parsons, with whom he went abroad, dying at last at 
 Complutum in Spain in 1578. 
 
 More complete Orielenses were the two Untons, 
 Edward and Henry. The family rented from the 
 college the Manor of Wadley, near Faringdon, of 
 which we have heard before. They were descended 
 through their mother from the Protector Somerset. 
 Edward Unton was educated at Oriel, and was Member 
 for Berks in 1555 and again in 1586. Henry, the 
 younger brother, interests us more. He took his B.A. 
 from Oriel in 1573, and his M.A. in 1590, and was 
 entered at the Middle Temple and became M.P. for 
 New Woodstock. An important military and diplo- 
 matic career then opened before him. He was present 
 at the Battle of Zutphen in 1586, when his friend, 
 Sir Philip Sidney, lost his life. He was afterwards 
 ambassador to the French court in the reign of 
 Henry IV., being with that King at the siege of 
 Rouen. He died in the same service before La Fere 
 in 1596. 
 
 All men know that tradition gives to our college one 
 of the greatest of the Elizabethans Sir Walter Raleigh. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 89 
 
 The tradition is based on two facts, neither of which, 
 perhaps, nor a combination of the two, is sufficient for 
 perfect certainty. One fact is the appearance of the 
 name " W. Rawley " in the list of members of the college 
 under date 1572 ; and the other is the assertion of 
 Anthony Wood that Sir Walter Raleigh entered Oriel 
 as a commoner in 1568. Anyhow, the tradition is 
 strong, and no Oriel man of proper spirit will readily 
 let it go. In accordance with it, a portrait of the great 
 and luckless man hangs over the gallery at the south 
 end of the Hall. 
 
 Belly's successor in the Provostship was Anthony 
 Blencowe, whose reign lasted until 1618. Blencowe 
 became Fellow in 1563 ; he was M.A. in 1566, and 
 both Bachelor and Doctor of Civil Law in 1586. In 
 1567 he was Praelector of Dialectics. A canonry of 
 Wells was the limit of his ecclesiastical promotion. 
 
 Not from any special eminence in the Provost, but 
 from the importance of the period in University develop- 
 ment, the reign of Blencowe is a memorable one in the 
 history of Oriel. The Chancellorship of the Earl of 
 Leicester, which lasted from 1564 to 1588, falls into 
 rank with the Chancellorship of Laud and the nineteenth 
 century as the first of the three great reforming periods 
 in the modern history of Oxford University. It was 
 not until 1571 that the University was formally and 
 fully incorporated by Act of Parliament. It was under 
 Leicester's influence that the Hebdomadal Council in its 
 first phase was instituted. It was by Leicester that the 
 great Elizabethan principle of Anglican monopoly was 
 applied to the University. But it is by its results on 
 the college system that the Chancellorship of Leicester 
 
90 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 chiefly interests us here. If it was to Elizabeth's 
 favourite that the University owed the unbending 
 Anglicanism which characterized her down to 1871, 
 it was equally to him that the colleges owed that 
 monopoly of admission to the privileges of the University 
 which they enjoyed down to the introduction of non- 
 collegiate matriculation in 1868. Both monopolies 
 were created in 1581, in which year a statute was 
 passed making membership of a college or hall essential 
 to membership of the University. 
 
 The effect of this statute upon Oriel was very great. 
 We have already traced the tentative beginnings of the 
 great change by which paying extranei, whether servitors, 
 battelers, commensales, or communarn were added as 
 members to the original Society of Fellows, for benefits 
 of residence and education. What made those begin- 
 nings tentative was, of course, the possibility and 
 habitual practice of getting degrees without the inter- 
 vention of any college. The statute of 1581, which 
 destroyed that possibility, brought about a change 
 which it is easy both to under-estimate and to miscon- 
 ceive. It is easy to under-estimate it ; for what the 
 statute really did was to lead to a siege of the colleges 
 by those desiring Oxford degrees ; and such a siege 
 makes no sensational figure in history. And it is easy 
 to misconceive it ; for so large and important is the 
 class of commoners in every college at the present 
 time that it needs some effort to realize that the 
 ubiquity of the commoner at Oxford dates from no 
 earlier than the second half of the nineteenth century. 
 From 1581 onwards the noble army of aspiring extranei 
 knocked at the gates of the colleges. Not until 1854? 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 91 
 
 did the last of the strongholds capitulate and let 
 them in. 
 
 As it is one of Oriel's peculiar glories to have kept 
 her Fellowships open to all members of the University, 
 it is another that she welcomed extranei from the first, 
 and in this respect never altered her policy. Inevitably, 
 therefore, the statute of 1581 soon told upon the 
 statistics of her membership. The " Style, 11 as the 
 treasurers 1 accounts at Oriel are called, which begins 
 in 1450, is interrupted by the loss of the volume 
 dealing with the years 1526-1583. When the regular 
 series is recommenced in the latter year, we soon see the 
 apparent effect of the statute. From 1584 onwards 
 communarii, who have hitherto been but stray specimens, 
 are a constant element in the college lists; their 
 numbers are given regularly each year, and from 1600 
 their names also. Thus we find that in 1584-85 fifteen 
 commoners were admitted ; for a year or two they 
 remained at about the same figure, then they diminished 
 until in 1589-90 none were admitted at all. In the 
 following year, however, there were sixteen, and the 
 number went on increasing on the whole, until it 
 touched twenty-six in 1596-97. This was the maximum 
 in Blencowe's time, and it was not again reached until 
 1616-17. As a rule, the number remained in the teens, 
 once or twice only shrinking below or rising above 
 them. 
 
 One of the most interesting of the extranei in 
 Elizabeth's reign, besides those we have already 
 mentioned, is Sir Robert Harley, who entered Oriel as 
 a commensaUs in 1597. He was four years a resident 
 in the college, and, as we shall find, formed so strong 
 
92 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 a tie to it as to contribute to its building fund after- 
 wards. Harley's own fame, however, was not academic. 
 He became a typical Englishman of his stormy time, 
 a Herefordshire magistrate and member of Parliament 
 (Herefordshire being his native county), Master of the 
 Mint in 1626, and one of the supports of Puritanism in 
 the Long Parliament. It was Harley who, in January, 
 1641, presented a petition from a thousand ministers 
 praying for reforms in the episcopate ; and in April, 
 1643, he headed a committee entrusted with the task 
 of destroying " idolatrous monuments," a committee 
 which by no means shirked its duties. A more 
 romantic display of his principles was the gallant 
 defence of his country seat, Brampton Bryan, against 
 the Royalist forces in 1643 by his wife, appropriately 
 named " Brilliana." 
 
 Harley's instructor while he was at Oriel was a 
 Welshman called Cadwallader Owen, who deserves a 
 passing word as one of the few college teachers of that 
 time concerning whom any tidings have come down. 
 The tidings in Owen's case are, after all, a mere shred. 
 We are told that he was reputed a great disputant, and 
 that his nickname, expressive of his controversial and 
 dogmatic attitude, was " Sic doceo." Anthony Wood, 
 who is our informant, speaks of writings of Owen's 
 of which he had heard but knew nothing. He died in 
 1617, leaving a son, Richard, who in due time became 
 a Fellow of Oriel. 
 
 A St. Anthony exhibitioner between 1604 and 1606 
 was Giles Sweit or Sweet. He had matriculated from 
 St. John's, but took his B.A. degree from Oriel in 1605. 
 He was afterwards a Fellow of All Souls ; but it was 
 
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 93 
 
 not till after the Restoration that he began to bring 
 home his best sheaves. He was Principal of St. Alban's 
 Hall, at Oxford, from 1661-1664, and Regius Professor 
 of Civil Law in 1661. He was one of Charles IL's 
 knights. 
 
 A more important exhibitioner of St. Anthony was 
 Roger Mannering, or Manwaring, though he had no 
 further connection with Oriel, having taken his degree 
 from All Souls. He became Dean of Worcester and 
 Bishop of St. David's, and students of the reign of 
 Charles I. remember the effect produced early in the 
 reign by his sermons in favour of the royal prerogative, 
 his impeachment, and the struggle he had to maintain 
 against the growing antipathy of the Puritans. 
 
 The vicissitudes of Oriel during Blencowe's term of 
 office are not particularly striking. One constitutional 
 change there was which touched at least the outworks 
 of the college. One of the acts of Leicester's Chancellor- 
 ship was to abolish the control which Oriel had hitherto 
 exercised over its dependance, St. Mary Hall. In spite 
 of this severance, however, the Principals of St. Mary 
 Hall were invariably Fellows of Oriel for nearly a 
 hundred years. 
 
 We have, as has just been remarked, little to guide 
 us as to tuition in those days. In 1585 a certain Mr. 
 Wharton agreed to instruct juniors in the rudiments of 
 the Christian religion. In 1591 Dr. Parkinson was con- 
 firmed as praelector and logic moderator. In 1595 the 
 power of catechizing was conferred on Mr. Griffith, the 
 Dean. In 1606 we find Wharton, the college instructor 
 in " rudiments, 11 made a public catechist in obedience to 
 the University statutes. In 1585 the Provost reminds 
 
94 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 the Fellows of their educational responsibilities by 
 admonishing them as to the behaviour of their scholars; 
 and in the following year they are made answerable to 
 the butler for the battels of their scholars or pupils. 
 By rules made in 1594, no commoner was to be admitted 
 without the consent of the Provost, the Dean, and others ; 
 and security for battels was to be given to the butler. 
 Also no Fellow was to have more than one poor scholar 
 under the name of " battler." Such battlers, or servitors, 
 were occasionally styled " paupercuti nostril 
 
 The change in the condition of the college caused by 
 the influx of commoners soon made the old quadrangle, 
 with its chapel and hall the college as we see 
 it in Neale^s drawing inadequate to an institution 
 which had become educational in a new sense. A 
 regular pressure of from ten to twenty-six new members 
 a year on space originally designed for from ten to 
 eighteen persons inevitably caused an uncomfortable 
 pressure. Accordingly, in the course of Blencowe's 
 reign, the Register begins to indicate a design of 
 rebuilding. As early as 1606 the design was present, 
 for we read that timber belonging to the college was 
 to be sold, and the price set apart for the college 
 building. Blencowe had the design very near his 
 heart, and in his will he left ^1,300 to the fund for 
 the purpose. The actual operations were begun in 
 1619, the year after Blencowe^s death, and from that 
 year they proceeded steadily until the whole college 
 premises were completely renewed, and the new building 
 was put fully in use in 1642. 
 
 It was the new Provost, William Lewis, who saw the 
 first demolition ; and during his short tenure of office 
 
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 95 
 
 he superintended and helped the first stage of the 
 building operations. For more reasons than one, 
 Lewis is one of the most interesting of the Oriel 
 Provosts, though his fame is principally that of a 
 satellite. He was, as his name indicates, a Welshman 
 a native of Merionethshire. Coming up to Oxford, 
 he was educated at Hart Hall, and became Fellow of 
 Oriel in 1608. He took Orders, and threw himself into 
 the High Church movement which was growing against 
 the dominant Calvinism. He soon became prominent 
 or lucky enough to win the notice of Francis Bacon, 
 the Lord Chancellor, who made him his chaplain. 
 When Provost Blencowe died in January, 1618, 
 Bacon^s protege was only twenty -six, and there were 
 many senior Fellows with prior claims to the Head- 
 ship. Yet, through the powerful patronage which he 
 could command, Lewis obtained the place. The 
 college was not unanimous. "Many Bishops" those, 
 we are to suppose, whom the Lord Chancellor had 
 consulted were against him ; but the great man^s will 
 carried the position. Anthony Wood reports that 
 Bacon was aided by Welsh influence at Oriel. 
 
 Lewis was appointed in February, 1618, and he 
 resigned on June 29, 1621, having held office only a 
 few months over three years. His career was, however, 
 far from being closed. Immediately on leaving Oxford 
 he went to Paris on some diplomatic business; was 
 afterwards secretary to Buckingham ; and in 1628 
 chaplain to Charles I. himself. He was at Rochelle 
 with Buckingham ; and he wrote what he called a 
 General Relation of a Voyage to Rhe, which Anthony 
 Wood tells us he saw in manuscript, but which seems 
 
96 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 never to have been published. Owing to his strenuous 
 Anglicanism and royalism, Lewis was one of the 
 sufferers under the Commonwealth, and had to go 
 into exile. A quiet evening to his life, however, began 
 with the Restoration. He was made a Canon of 
 Winchester and then Master of the Hospital of St. 
 Cross in that neighbourhood. There he died and was 
 buried in 1667. 
 
 We must return for a moment from Lewis's life-story 
 to mark the constitutional bearings of his election to 
 the Oriel Provostship. Bacon's influence in the matter 
 was not confined to recommendation of, or insistence 
 on, Lewis's claims to the Fellows. The want of unanimity 
 gave a pretext for the interference of outside authority 
 to solve the discordia. According to the statutes of 
 May, 1326, the second set of statutes which, we re- 
 member, was substituted for the original statutes of 
 January in that year, the proper authority for that 
 purpose was that of the Visitor, the Bishop of Lincoln. 
 In this case, in spite of the discordia^ the Bishop of 
 Lincoln had duly confirmed Lewis's appointment. But 
 the discordia was still held to stand in need of formal 
 removal ; and, all things considered, it was thought well 
 to bring forward the superseded original statutes, which 
 made the confirmation of the King's Chancellor neces- 
 sary to such an appointment. This was accordingly 
 done, and Lord Chancellor Bacon restored harmony by 
 declaring Provost Lewis duly elected. To the declara- 
 tion, as it appears in the Register, is appended Bacon's 
 autograph signature. No disapproving comment seems 
 to have been made on this proceeding, which was hardly 
 ever repeated, until, a century later, as we shall find, 
 
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 97 
 
 the question of the two sets of statutes re-emerged in 
 an acute form, and then was set at rest for ever. 
 
 In 1619 the building operations were begun by the 
 pulling down of the primaria pars cottegii, that is to 
 say, the west front facing Schidyard Street, probably 
 either an actual wall of the original " La Oriole," or at 
 least of the quadrangle built on the site of " La Oriole." 
 In 1620 the south front, facing St. John Street (now 
 Merton Street), was similarly demolished, and both 
 parts were immediately rebuilt. These two exterior 
 sides of the proposed quadrangle having been thus 
 protected, its completion was allowed to stand over for 
 some years, until a further appeal to the liberality of 
 old members of the college could be made with success. 
 Provost Lewis was an ardent friend of the undertaking. 
 He had, we are told, a great gift of letter-writing, could 
 write letters which were "elegant, in a winning, per- 
 suasive way " ; indeed, it was this gift which originally 
 brought him under Bacon's notice. Bacon now advised 
 him to dedicate it to the service of the Oriel building 
 fund, which he accordingly did, with excellent results. 
 He applied to Sir Robert Harley ; he applied to Robert 
 Pierrepont of Holme Pierrepont in Nottinghamshire, 
 who was a commensalis of Oriel in 1596. This Robert 
 Pierrepont was created Baron Pierrepont of Holme 
 Pierrepont and Viscount Newark in 1627, and the fol- 
 lowing year Earl of Kingston-upon-Hull. He was 
 shot in a pinnace off Hull in 1643. Pierreponfs 
 donation was ^100; Sir Robert Harley's was %0. 
 Both these distinguished benefactors are commemorated 
 by the presence of their arms in the windows of the 
 hall. Lewis himself gave ^100 towards the fund, 
 
 7 
 
98 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 which grew by other means. Thus, in October, 1621, 
 it is recorded in the Register that I%3 6s. 8d. was 
 raised by sale of timber at Wadley, and 90 by the 
 sale of gold and silver plate. 
 
 The college got its stone the crumbling, quickly 
 weathering oolitic limestone which lends itself so well 
 to the general air of antiquity at Oxford from a quarry 
 belonging to it at Headington. In 1610 Oriel seems to 
 have joined with other colleges in renting Shotover and 
 Stow Wood from the Crown. The rights over Stow 
 Wood, if they were ever really enjoyed, would add 
 greatly to the opportunities for acquiring timber which 
 Oriel already enjoyed through Bartlemas. On April 10, 
 1619, an order was made to cut down nine oaks at 
 Bartlemas, and to bring them with stone from the 
 college quarry for the building of the west front. In 
 the following year twenty-two oaks were cut down at 
 Stowford. 
 
 The work was not resumed till 1636, many years after 
 Lewis had ceased to be Provost. The new Provost was 
 John Tolson, who held office from July 5, 1621, till his 
 death on December 16, 1644. Tolson was a Cumberland 
 man who matriculated at Oriel in 1590, and was elected 
 to one of the Dudley Exhibitions. He was elected Fellow 
 in 1595, and seems to have been in residence ever since 
 up to the time of his election to the Provostship. He 
 had been Dean as far back as 1605. 
 
 At the October audit in 1636 the college again took 
 in hand the rebuilding project, and made certain resolu- 
 tions on the subject. From that time there seems to 
 have been no slackening ; present and former members 
 contributed largely, and the new quadrangle grew to 
 
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 99 
 
 completion. The completion consisted of the rebuild- 
 ing of the north and east sides of the square, to 
 match the south and west sides which had been rebuilt 
 in 1619 and 1620. The moment of formal comple- 
 tion was the opening of the new chapel for Divine 
 service in 1642, the year of the outbreak of the Great 
 Civil War. 
 
 The building thus solemnly inaugurated was the 
 present front quadrangle of the college, which stands on 
 the ground formerly occupied by " La Oriole," St. Martin's 
 Hall, and other tenements. The sightseer who passes 
 southward down King Edward Street, an extremely 
 modern thoroughfare, finds himself at the end of 
 it in a wide, open space which stretches along the 
 eastern side of the Peckwater quadrangle of Christ 
 Church to Canterbury Gate and the beginning of 
 Corpus Christi. This airy and sunny space, formerly 
 covered by stables and other outbuildings belonging to 
 the Provosts "of Oriel, was first thrown open not many 
 years ago when King Edward Street was completed. 
 The eastern side of this space is bounded by the front 
 of Oriel. Our sightseer, when he passes in under the 
 tower over the gate, sees, in all essentials, the very 
 same architectural effect which broke first on young 
 scholars in the year when King Charles raised his 
 standard at Nottingham. He stands, looking eastward, 
 in a perfectly regular quadrangle, of which the southern 
 and northern sides are formed by three-story buildings 
 with square casements, each containing two narrow 
 windows side by side. These buildings consist of 
 chambers allotted to the members of the college, 
 graduate and undergraduate, a large part of the build- 
 
 72 
 
100 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 ing on the north side being devoted to the hospitium 
 or lodgings of the Provost. More chambers occupy the 
 western building behind him, on both sides of the gate- 
 way and its tower. Access to the chambers was then, 
 and still is, afforded by six doorways surmounted now, 
 through the liberality of one of the living Fellows, by 
 replicas of shields which originally stood there, the arms 
 of the great benefactors, Frank, Carpenter, Smyth, and 
 Dudley, and of the three Provosts in office while the 
 rebuilding was in design or progress, Blencowe, Lewis, 
 and Tolson. Our sightseer notices that the farther 
 doorway in the northern building has no door, and is, 
 in fact, but an archway leading through a short tunnel 
 into what is now the "back quad," and was once the 
 college garden ground occupying the site of Aungevyn^s, 
 Bore's, Pykard's, and other messuages belonging to the 
 college. Above the south-eastern angle of the "' quad " 
 he sees the top and pinnacles of St. John\Baptist"s tower, 
 the tower of Merton College Chapel, which carries the 
 eye upwards from the rather low-pitched line of the 
 buildings, and seems, especially in the vagueness of 
 moonshine, to belong to Oriel. Opposite, the entire 
 eastern side of the quadrangle is occupied by the hall 
 and chapel, the chapel being at the southern end on the 
 site of the former St. Martinis Hall. The hall and 
 chapel are of uniform height with the other buildings, 
 and each has a projecting bay-window of large size. 
 The hall is lighted by traceried large windows of three 
 lights with small-headed panes of glass. Round all the 
 buildings runs a series of string courses. Between the 
 hall and chapel there is a large open portico with 
 pillars, led up to by a flight of broad steps. On the 
 
From a photograph by the] 
 
 THE CHAPEL 
 
 [Oxford Camera Club 
 
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 101 
 
 parapet of this portico runs the legend, Regnante 
 Carolo, thus dating the building. So it ran at the 
 first, but for many a day until a very few years ago 
 no sightseer could have seen it. Like the shields of 
 the benefactors and Provosts, it was restored, and by 
 the same generous hand. 
 
 Directly above the portico two statues stand side by 
 side in companion niches, surmounted by a considerably 
 taller niche containing the figure of the Virgin and 
 Child, and over all a canopy breaks the even line of 
 roofing and pediments. One of the lower figures is 
 Edward II., the founder ; the other, there seems no 
 doubt, is Charles I., in whose reign the buildings were 
 completed. 
 
 There is nothing interesting to the architectural 
 enthusiast in any of this building ; there is, it may 
 be, nothing conspicuously beautiful in it, except the 
 weather-stained and crumbling stone. Yet our sight- 
 seer is sure to keep his first impression of the Oriel 
 buildings in a more cherished group than those of con- 
 temporary buildings in the same type, and with sub- 
 stantially the same features. We will let him go for 
 the present, and see how Oriel fared during the Civil 
 War and the Commonwealth. 
 
 The immediate result of the battle of Edgehill in 
 October, 1642, was the choice of Oxford as the Royalist 
 headquarters, and the proximity of the King to the 
 University and colleges naturally led him to look to 
 the latter not only for loyalty, but for the sinews of 
 war. Oriel did not escape the general obligation. In 
 January, 1643, the King called for the college plate, 
 and almost the whole of it was given, amounting in 
 
102 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 weight to 29 lb. oz. 5 dwt. of gilt, and 52 Ib. 7 oz. 
 14 dwt. of " white " plate. In the same year Oriel was 
 assessed at ] for the weekly sum of ^640 charged on 
 the colleges and halls for the fortification of the city. 
 It is recorded that the college made this contribution 
 with joy, considering that God and the Muses were 
 helping the King to turn the hosts of the enemy. As 
 early as October, 1643, however, the seamy side of 
 events begins to be shown. 
 
 There were two postponements of the autumnal audit 
 that year, because, pros miseria temporum^ it was not 
 convenient to strike the annual balance. The same 
 thing happened in 1644, ingravescente temporum iniqui- 
 tate. In May, 1645, when the New Model was in full 
 operation, and Fairfax's movements became more and 
 more threatening to Oxford, the college felt serious 
 alarm. The city was on the point of being besieged, 
 and the language of the register becomes rhetorical. 
 " Confluentibus undique militum turmis necnon (bac- 
 chante Martis impetu) miseria temporum ingravescente 
 ut ubique scelus impune grassetur atque Rapina sancitae 
 legis rationem induat " : in such transcendent circum- 
 stances the college must do something special and 
 unusual in order to keep its head above water. Its 
 revenues were chiefly derived from rents, and very 
 largely from rents in Oxford ; and the tenants naturally 
 became irregular in their payments. It was, therefore, 
 proposed to try to get the Oxford tenants to pay the 
 next year's rent in advance, and to ask a certain George 
 Prince to pay ^20 or 30 for the mere promise of the 
 next lease of Bartlemas. The October audit was again 
 postponed, ostensibly because of the unexpected death 
 
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 103 
 
 of the butler (pincerna\ but chiefly, no doubt, for the 
 same reasons as before. 
 
 In November, 1645, fines for non-payment of rent 
 were applied to the support of the common table, and 
 all the timber at Bartlemas was felled, that the proceeds 
 might help the ebbing Treasury. The amount realized 
 by this particular transaction was '279 10s. 6d. 
 
 The pressure of the times told on the Fellowships 
 also in this year, 1645. No attempt was made to fill 
 up vacancies, partly because in such times there would 
 be no large enough choice of candidates, partly because 
 of the impecuniousness of the college on account of the 
 siege. It was held that, as the number of Fellows 
 increased with increased revenues, so it should decrease 
 with decrease of income. In March, 1646, the commons 
 of members were reduced to one half, and in that year 
 the audit was postponed once more. 
 
 Oxford having capitulated, and the Royalist cause 
 being completely shattered, a new epoch began for the 
 Oxford colleges. The Visitation of 1647-48 was the 
 chief outward sign of the triumph of the Parliamentary 
 and military forces, and it was a trying ordeal for 
 a loyal University. Oriel had an ordinary and by no 
 means specially conspicuous fate. She had changed 
 Heads in the course of the troubles. On December 16, 
 1644, Provost Tolson died, and was buried in St. Mary's 
 without pomp, but not without the genuine tears of 
 the Fellows. His successor was John Saunders, Doctor 
 of Medicine, who was educated entirely at Oriel, and 
 had been Fellow since 1602. When, on October 5, 
 1647, the first summons from William Newhouse and 
 the other Parliamentary Commissioners arrived, the 
 
104 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 college put off answering on account of the absence of 
 the Provost. When, about a month later, the Provost 
 had returned, the answer to the Commissioners was a 
 quiet but firm refusal to comply, based on the obligation 
 of the statutes. 
 
 On May 8, 1648, the " buttlers " received an order 
 from the Delegates to furnish a roll of names of 
 members of the college, and on the following day the 
 answers of ten of the Fellows were forthcoming. They 
 were decidedly lukewarm. Robert Say, the Dean, was 
 not yet satisfied how he could perform what was required 
 of him without violation of his conscience. John Rouse 
 did not refuse absolutely to submit to the ordinance, 
 but desired to postpone his submission until he was 
 more fully informed as to some particulars. Nicholas 
 Brookes thought he could not submit without violating 
 his oaths to the University. William Washbourne was 
 ready to submit if he could be persuaded that he might 
 do so salva conscientia. Sharington, Sheldon, and 
 Philip Bowch unequivocally declared their inability to 
 submit ; Arthur Acland and Richard Sanders post- 
 poned decision pending fuller information ; while 
 Henry Chamberlaine and John Duncombe sheltered 
 themselves behind the University. The latter had no 
 doubt that the University had given " noe unsatisfyinge 
 Answere," and to that he subscribed. It was of these 
 members that Anthony Wood reported : " Though 
 they did not directly submit, yet the greater part of 
 them kept their places by the same means that others 
 did." 
 
 The attitude of Provost Saunders himself was corre- 
 spondingly ambiguous. When at first called upon, as 
 
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 105 
 
 we have seen, he was " not at home." When at last 
 he was made to speak out on May 29, 1648, he made 
 what must be construed as a refusal to submit : 
 
 "I ... referre my selfe to the Answere presented by 
 me (October last) in the name of the Colledge, the grounds 
 thereof being the stronge obligation of severall oathes by 
 me in publique and solemn manner taken, which I have 
 not since that tyme beene, nor doe yet understand how I 
 cann be released. ... I do not well see how I can recede 
 from or alter my former resolution without violence to my 
 conscience, the preservation whereof hath hitherto beene, 
 and still is, the unfained and sole end of that and this my 
 Answere." 
 
 Nevertheless, as Anthony Wood says, " Dr. Saunders 
 kept his place till the time of his death." 
 
 The final result of the Visitation was that five of the 
 eighteen Fellows were removed, though two of these 
 were soon after restored. Two Fellowships, indeed, 
 were suspended ; but that was on financial grounds, 
 that something might be done towards bringing the 
 college balance to the right side. In 1648 we find the 
 Visitors appointing a Fellow, one William Brage, on 
 their own authority, and this authority seems to have 
 lasted until 1652. In November, 1651, Henry Hawley 
 was elected by the college itself, but, as we are dis- 
 tinctly told, on authority granted by the Commis- 
 sioners. In April, 1652, Charles Perrott was elected, after 
 application to the Commissioners for lease ; but in 
 October of that year John Washbourne was chosen with- 
 out reference to the Commissioners, and from that time 
 onwards the autonomy of the college in this respect 
 seems to have been fully restored. 
 
106 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 The restored autonomy was emphasized in the elec- 
 tion of Robert Say to the Provostship on the death of 
 Saunders in March, 1653, which was carried out with- 
 out any interference. 
 
 The storms of the Civil War and its consequences 
 being at an end, we are to think of our college as 
 entering on a period of " tranquil restoration."" One 
 notorious outward sign of this was the rebuilding of 
 St. Bartholomew's Hospital, on which Provost Saunders 
 lived long enough to set his seal. It took place in 
 1651, when the structure which the visitor now sees as 
 a picturesque farmstead was built for the eight alms- 
 men. The chapel was restored and embellished, though 
 not rebuilt, at the same time. This chapel, which 
 preserves the memory of the original purpose of the 
 hospital, is a beautiful little church of rather uncer- 
 tain date. The better architectural opinion is that the 
 main part of it is fifteenth-century, with at least two 
 fourteenth-century windows. The chief sign of the 
 presence of the seventeenth- century restorers is the 
 wooden screen, on which is inscribed : " O. C., 1651." 
 This stands, of course, for Oriel College, and gives the 
 date of the erection of the screen. Or shall we follow the 
 multitude who believe in the plenary and verbal inspira- 
 tion of Anthony Wood, and maintain that O. C. stands 
 for Oliver Cromwell, and was inscribed by " the saints 
 in honour of their great commander "? 
 
 The almsmen's chambers, each with its neat fireplace 
 and locker, are still worth looking at, though they no 
 longer serve their original purpose. Over the doors are 
 the initials of Provost Saunders and the treasurers. 
 
 During Say's long reign, which lasted till 1691, 
 
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 107 
 
 the flow of life at Oriel was for the most part quiet and 
 unbroken. None of the great political vicissitudes, 
 neither the Protectorate nor the Restoration, told 
 specially on the college. That it was in no sense retro- 
 grading may be gathered from its building a ball-court, 
 and making rules for its library. The ball-court was 
 built at the outset of Say's term of office, in 1653. It 
 was to cost ^27, and the cost was to be defrayed by a 
 charge of 5s. on the admission of each commoner until 
 the debt was paid off. 
 
 The rules for the library are dated April 4, 1655. 
 There was to be a regular librarian, chosen yearly at 
 the Easter Commemoration, and all the Fellow Com- 
 moners 1 fees on admission were thenceforward to be 
 spent on the library. The librarian's salary was to be 
 furnished by a charge of 2s. 6d. in the pound on all 
 moneys paid for the use of the library. The members 
 of the college were not to be admitted indiscriminately 
 to the use of the books ; but those of the standing of 
 B.A., or Fellow Commoners of seventeen who had 
 taken the oath, might, on payment of 5s. to the 
 librarian, be admitted " to those Seates where the 
 Humanity and Philosophy books were placed." Every 
 Bachelor or undergraduate outsider found intruding 
 into the library was to pay a 5s. fine, unless properly 
 introduced. The librarian was not on any account to 
 disburse the funds in his possession without the consent 
 of the Provost or the Dean. The chamber in which 
 the books were stored was on the northern side of the 
 quadrangle. 
 
 The rippling flow of the college annals began to be 
 disturbed in the early seventies of the century by some 
 
108 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 internal dissension. Bribery was then an active element 
 in all departments of English life, and appointments to 
 Fellowships, especially in a college like Oriel, where 
 there was little restriction on choice, were often open 
 to censure. A very considerable event happened in 
 1673. One James Davenant, a Fellow since 1661, 
 complained to the Bishop of Lincoln, as Visitor, of 
 the Provost's conduct in the election of a certain 
 Thomas Twitty to a Fellowship at Oriel. Such was 
 the gravity of the complaint that Bishop Fuller 
 appointed a Commission to inquire into the matter. 
 The Commissioners were the Vice-Chancellor, Peter 
 Mews, who was about to resign the Presidentship of 
 St. John's on his appointment to the Bishopric of Bath 
 and Wells ; Fell, the Dean of Christ Church ; and Dr. 
 Yates, Principal of Brasenose. Fell reported to the 
 Bishop on August 1 in a manner which shows clearly 
 the kind of offence of which Say had been guilty. The 
 Dean's words are : 
 
 " When this Devil of buying and selling is once cast out, 
 your Lordship will, 1 hope, take care that he return not 
 again, lest he bring seven worse than himself into the 
 house after 'tis swept and garnisht." 
 
 The Commissioners made some definite proposals for 
 reform. One was that a majority of all the Fellows 
 should always be insisted on, that the Provost might 
 not be able to push an election in a thin meeting. 
 Another was that the Fellows should be admitted 
 immediately after their election. " There is a cheat in 
 some houses by keeping the successor out for a good 
 while after the election." 
 
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 On January 24, 1674, Bishop Fuller issued a decree 
 dealing with the recommendations of the Commis- 
 sioners. 
 
 In the proceedings which followed, Provost Say got 
 himself into a very awkward position, in which hard 
 knocks were inevitable. He was bent on making Twitty 
 a Fellow in defiance of the Visitors' new regulations; 
 and on January 28 he got the King to recommend 
 Twitty for election. Here was a constitutional crisis 
 indeed ! The fabric of the college constitution, however, 
 stood even this shock. Whether or not the election and 
 admission of Twitty really took place on the royal 
 recommendation, the Vice-Chancellor refused to swear 
 him. The Bishop also protested at Court, and on 
 February 13 the royal recommendation was withdrawn, 
 and the Provost's imperious will was conquered. Not 
 without unseemly writhings on his part, however ; he 
 wrote a letter to the Bishop "such as," according to 
 Fell, " in another age a valianter man would not have 
 written to a Visitor." Fell proceeds to hint that the 
 Provost's complicity might be clearly demonstrated, 
 but that no liberties could be secure against the 
 possibility of overtures by royal interference. 
 
 " 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, how- 
 ever criminal, as a fault ; for, notwithstanding the present 
 concession, the Court will never endure to have the preroga- 
 tive of laying laws asleep called in question. As to the 
 letter, I think 'twill be much the best 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 
 
110 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 possible he may run himself so in the briers that 'twill not 
 be easy for him to get out." 
 
 The Bishop, therefore, came out winner, and his 
 regulations remained in force until that renewal of the 
 struggle in the following century of which we shall read 
 in the next chapter. 
 
 The membership of the college during the part of 
 the seventeenth century with which we have just been 
 concerned presents some points of interest, though the 
 roll is not, perhaps, specially or brilliantly distinguished. 
 Perhaps the most historic name is that of William 
 Prynne, the Puritan propagandist and martyr, who, 
 born on the college estate at Swainswick, near Bath, in 
 1600, was admitted to Oriel as a commoner early in 
 1616, matriculated there in 1618, and took his B.A. 
 degree from the college in January, 1621. Prynne's 
 father was lessee of the Manor Farm at Swainswick 
 under the college, and Prynne himself succeeded to that 
 position. His career is too well known and too widely 
 interesting to be rehearsed here. We need only remind 
 ourselves that his Histriomastlx^ demonstrating the sin- 
 fulness of stage-plays, which was the source of his many 
 afflictions, was published in 1632; that he was prose- 
 cuted, imprisoned, and degraded from his Oxford degree 
 in 1634, and soon after lost both his ears in the pillory. 
 Prynne's release, in 1640, was one of the early successes 
 of the Long Parliament. During the Civil War, Prynne, 
 who was by profession a lawyer, distinguished himself 
 as an active pamphleteer, and leading advocate of 
 Erastian Presbyterianism. He was one of the Visitors 
 of the University of Oxford in 1647-48. After 
 the execution of Charles I. he retired to his farm at 
 
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 111 
 
 Swainswick, and engaged in a polemic against the 
 Commonwealth, which involved him in fresh difficulties 
 and imprisonments. When the Restoration came, Prynne 
 distinguished himself as a representative of that Presby- 
 terian Royalism which was so potent a factor in the 
 settlement, and he died in 1669 with a great reputation 
 as a constitutional authority and adviser of the Govern- 
 ment. Through all the chances and changes of his 
 career, Prynne held the love and memory of his college ; 
 for in his will, dated the year of his death, the following 
 sentence is found : 
 
 " Item, I giue to the Library of Oriel Colledge, in Oxford, 
 whereof I was both a member and tennant, my Ocham 
 upon the Sentences, Saint Briget's Revellacions, Laurentius 
 Surius his Councils in four tomes, and one of each sort of 
 my owne printed bookes which they yet want." 
 
 Humphry Lloyd, Bishop of Bangor, born in 1610, 
 migrated from the natural academic home of his 
 nationality, Jesus College, to Oriel, whence he took his 
 B.A. degree in 1630, and where he was elected to a 
 Fellowship in 1631. He was, according to Wood, "a 
 great tutor " at Oriel " for many years.' 1 He was a 
 sturdy Royalist throughout the troubles, and was one 
 of the Fellows deprived by the Visitors. It was not till 
 1674 that his loyalty was rewarded with the bishopric 
 of Bangor. 
 
 On Sir William Scroggs, the brutal Lord Chief Justice 
 of England in the dark days of the Popish Plot and 
 the Exclusion Bill, Oriel had a slighter hold. He 
 matriculated at the college in 1639 as a servitor, and 
 immediately after was elected a Dudley Exhibitioner. 
 
ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 Pembroke, however, has the credit, or discredit, of 
 Scroggs' chief education. He took his degree from 
 thence, and while there, Wood tells us, was " master of 
 a good Latin stile, and a considerable disputant."" 
 
 Another Chief Justice of far higher worth and 
 reputation was Sir John Holt, son of the Recorder 
 of Reading and Abingdon, who was admitted commoner 
 of Oriel in 1658, coming up from Abingdon Grammar 
 School and Winchester. He left Oxford without taking 
 a degree, and there are some idle tales of his dissi- 
 pation while at the University. It is Holt who is 
 said to have visited in gaol an old University friend 
 whom he had tried for felony. He asked the prisoner 
 about the members of their old set, and was answered : 
 " Ah, my lord, they are all hanged but myself and your 
 lordship." If these stories are true, Holt must have 
 turned over a new leaf when he passed from Oriel to 
 Gray's Inn. He became essentially one of the great 
 reforming lawyers of England, one of whom Steele could 
 say (Tatler, xiv.) that " he always sat in triumph over, 
 and contempt of, vice," and yet one actuated always by 
 a real sense of the dignity of the accused. He was 
 also a great civil lawyer. Holt declined the Woolsack 
 in 1700, and lived until 1710. 
 
 Some other Orielenses of this period may be briefly 
 noticed. Francis Kynaston was admitted in 1602, and 
 put under the tuition of John Rouse. He took his B.A. 
 degree from St. Mary Hall, and afterwards completed 
 his education at Cambridge, returning to Oxford to take 
 his Master's degree in 1611. Kynaston was knighted by 
 James I. in 1618, and became Esquire of the Body to 
 Charles I. He founded the Musoeum Minerva? in 1635, 
 
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 113 
 
 a kind of academy of learning or literary club which 
 had great reputation, and of which Kynaston drew up 
 the constitution. He is a good representative of that 
 dainty literary aestheticism of his age which coexisted 
 with the more serious intellectual activities of the 
 Puritan age. Thomas Sutton (1585-1623), member and 
 Fellow of Queen's, founder of a free school in South wark, 
 " much followed and beloved of all for his smooth and 
 edifying way of preaching, and for his exemplary life 
 and conversation," and drowned in the sea between 
 Newcastle and London, held a Dudley Exhibition for 
 a few years (1602-1605). Francis Sandford, related to 
 the Kynaston family, and in March, 1642, appointed 
 chief engineer of the royal forces in the West of England 
 under Arthur, Lord Capel, was a commoner of the 
 college from 1602-1605. Another commoner who was 
 at Oriel with him was Richard Brathwaite, the poet 
 (1588 P-1673), the author of Spiritual Spicerie, many 
 pastoral poems and prose romances, and, above all, of 
 Barnabas Itinerarium, afterwards translated as Drunken 
 Barnabas Four Journeys. This appeared in 1638. As 
 we might guess, Brathwaite was no Puritan. His is the 
 verse : 
 
 " To Banbury came I, O profane one ! 
 Where I saw a Puritane one 
 Hanging of his cat on Monday 
 For killing of a mouse on Sunday." 
 
 James Lamb (1599-1664), the Semitic scholar, who 
 wrote an Arabic grammar, a Syriac version of the 
 Prophecies of Daniel, and materials for an Arabic 
 Lexicon, " all with his own hand," was a St. Anthony 
 
 8 
 
114 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 Exhibitioner, though he took his degree from Brasenose. 
 Another Orientalist was Samuel Yaroth (spelt by Wood 
 Yerworth or Jeruvorthus), who was at Oriel until he 
 took his degree in 1612. He wrote an Introditctio ad 
 Lmguam Ebraicam brevissima, published in 1 650. Robert 
 Vaughan, Commoner in 1611, author of British Anti- 
 quities Revived (1662), did a good deal for the study of 
 Welsh archaeology. Ferriman Rutter, Commoner in 
 1619, was a minor poet of the day, and contributed 
 to a volume of verse published in 1636, called Annalia 
 Dubrensia. Hannibal Baskerville, the eccentric anti- 
 quary, who died Lord of Sunningwell, near Abingdon, 
 in 1668, was admitted a Commoner in 1623, though he 
 seems to have migrated to Brasenose. He lived a 
 strange solitary life in his house called Bay worth, and 
 was visited there by Anthony Wood in 1659. 
 
 "He was so great a cherisher of wandring beggars, that 
 he built for them a large place like a barne to receive 
 them, and hung up a little bell at his back-dore for them 
 to ring when they wanted anything. He had been 
 several times indicted at Abendon Sessions for harbouring 
 beggars/'* 
 
 Another commoner who took his B.A. from Oriel was 
 Calibut Downing, a competitor for the Wardenship of 
 All Souls when Gilbert Sheldon was elected in 1635. 
 After this failure he tried (according to Anthony Wood) 
 to become Secretary to Wentworth in Ireland, thinking 
 that would be a good stepping-stone to a Bishopric; 
 but " being a reputed weathercock," and finding after a 
 time that the parsonage of Hackney was likely to be 
 
 * Wood's Life and Times (Clark), O.H.S., xix. 270. 
 
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 115 
 
 the limit of his ecclesiastical preferment, he became a 
 Puritan and a member of the Westminster Assembly of 
 Divines. He died in 1644. Gerard Langbaine, the 
 famous Provost of Queen^s in 1645, held a Dudley 
 Exhibition from 1629 to 1630. Henry Bridgeman, 
 Bishop of Sodor and Man in 1671, who became Fellow 
 of Brasenose, was at Oriel up to the time of his B.A. 
 degree, and gave 10 to the rebuilding fund in 1637. 
 Daubeney Turberville, the Royalist soldier and physician 
 of Salisbury, whom Queen Anne and Pepys both con- 
 sulted about their eyes, was an Oriel commoner. A 
 Servitor, who took his M.A. degree from the college in 
 1639, was John Birkenhead, the amanuensis and protege 
 of Laud, to whom he seems to have owed his M.A. 
 degree and a Fellowship at All Souls. He was the 
 author of Mercurius Aulicus, the organ of the Court at 
 Oxford between 1642 and 1645, and was rewarded for 
 his excellence in this capacity by Whyte's Professorship 
 of Moral Philosophy in 1643. Christopher Merritt, 
 Commoner in 1634, was a leading physician in his day, 
 and, like Birkenhead, a Fellow of the Royal Society. 
 
 Many names were placed on the college books while 
 the King was at Oxford during the Civil War. Among 
 them were Francis, Lord Cottington; Sir Robert 
 Stapylton, the translator of Juvenal ; and Richard 
 Steward, Dean of St. Paul's in 1641. Even the name 
 of "Lady Gardiner" appears among the Commensales 
 in 1643, and she seems to have batteled from August, 
 1643, to September, 1644. William Smith, Warden 
 of Wadham 1617-35, was deprived of his preferments 
 under the Commonwealth, and afterwards took refuge 
 at Oriel. While there he had a famulus called Richard 
 
 82 
 
116 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 Mathew, who left to the college in 1668 5 to be laid 
 out on books, " Venerabili viro Gulielmo Smith famulus 
 fidelissimus." David Lloyd, author of Statesmen and 
 Favourites, schoolmaster at Northop, in Flint, and 
 Canon of St. Asaph, perhaps deserves mention as a 
 Dudley Exhibitioner, servitor, B.A. and M.A. of the 
 college in the Commonwealth time. Sir John Blencowe, 
 descended from Provost Blencowe, Baron of the Ex- 
 chequer and Judge of the Common Pleas in the reigns 
 of William III., Anne, and George I., was an Oriel 
 commoner, admitted in 1661. 
 
 All the foregoing were at Oriel from beginning to 
 end of their academic career. One or two Fellows 
 elected from other colleges may be added to the list. 
 John Rouse, or Russe, Bodley^s Librarian 1620-52, was 
 elected from Balliol in 1600, and his body was the first 
 to be buried in the new college chapel in April, 1652. 
 Rouse was an excellent librarian, but his chief title to 
 fame is derived from his friendship with Milton. Milton 
 probably made his acquaintance when he was incor- 
 porated M.A. at Oxford in 1635, and they had many 
 cordial relationships afterwards. In 1647 Rouse in- 
 duced Milton to send to the Bodleian a copy of his 
 works in two volumes ; but the smaller volume con- 
 taining the poetry somehow failed to arrive, and Milton 
 sending a second copy wrote in it the ode, " Ad Joannem 
 Rousium," which appears in every edition of his poems. 
 Rouse so advantageously breathed the catholic spirit of 
 a great library as to be but a lukewarm partisan, though 
 he was definitely associated with the Parliament. There 
 is a portrait of him in the college hall, a copy of one in 
 Bodley's Library. 
 
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 117 
 
 Nicolas Brookes was elected from Magdalen in 1612, 
 and held his Fellowship till 1653. He was three times 
 Dean (in 1621, 1631, and 1641), and Principal of St. 
 Mary Hall from 1644 to 1656. He helped to carry on 
 the negotiations for the University with the Commis- 
 sioners in 1647-48. 
 
 George Barbour, of Merton, elected in 1669, has a 
 somewhat unenviable notoriety, for he contrived to get 
 the college <230 in debt (gossip said ^500), and had 
 his Fellowship taken away in consequence in 1679. 
 The Fellowship was kept vacant until the debt was 
 paid. Barbour was Dean of Oriel in 1677, and Pro- 
 Proctor the same year. 
 
 "The 4 th of August" (1677), Anthony Wood relates/ 
 "George Barber of Oriel College, proproctor, met in his 
 walk about 11 o'clock at night one Philip Dodwell, a 
 chandler about the Chequer ; ask'd him ' What he did 
 there'; bid him 'go home.' He gave him insolent lan- 
 guage and would not obey him. He put him in the Vice- 
 Chancellor's court. The City uphold Dodwell; they go 
 to law about it (Jan. 1678) with the cause about the 
 night watch which the city desires." 
 
 Wood has preserved Barbour^s full narrative of the 
 occurrence. It happened during the Duke of Ormond's 
 visit to Oxford as Chancellor of the University, when 
 of course the peace of the streets needed special guarding. 
 Dodwell, it seemed, was a notorious disturber, and 
 Barbour had good reason for " looking upon him as a 
 person abetted by the city in affronting the government 
 of the University." He seems, indeed, to have been a 
 
 * Life (Clark), O.H.S., xxi. 381. 
 
118 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 constable. That night Barbour took no further steps ; 
 but shortly after there were two more instances of 
 Dod well's insolence, and by-and-by Barbour felt bound 
 to take proceedings. While the case was in progress, 
 two leajling citizens, Tisdale and Cornish, came to 
 Barbour proposing "a submission." Barbour eagerly 
 repudiated the proposal, resolved to " walk by the 
 authority of the Vice-Chancellor." Dod well denied the 
 authority of the Court, and the city seems to have 
 gained its point. 
 
 John Haslewood, of Corpus, was elected Fellow of 
 Oriel in 1668, and resigned in 1694. He preached 
 before Ormond at St. Mary's in August, 1677, and 
 became his chaplain. Samuel Desmaistres, elected from 
 Magdalen Hall in 1676, was a noted benefactor of the 
 college. He left ^500 for the purchase of livings, and 
 all his books to the library. He died of small-pox in 
 1686, and was buried in the chapel. 
 
 No very conspicuous additions were made to the 
 property of the college during this period. In 1559 
 the Rectory and advowson of Moreton Pinckney, in 
 Northamptonshire, about eight miles west of Towcester, 
 were bought. In 1683 the Rev. Dudley Hudson, 
 B.A. of Oriel, left to his college by will the advowson 
 of Saltfleetby St. Peters, in the parts of Lindsey, 
 Lincolnshire, of which he was Rector. 
 
 Provost Say died in 1691, having paved the chapel at 
 his own expense. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY (1691-1781) 
 
 George Royse, 1691-1708 ; George Carter, 1708-1727 ; 
 Walter Hodges, 1727-1757; Chardin Musgrave, 1757- 
 1768 ; John Clarke, 1768-1781 
 
 THE eighteenth century has a bad reputation in the 
 history of the University of Oxford a reputation 
 derived partly from passages in Gibbon^s auto - 
 biography, partly from such pasquinades as Terras- 
 Filius, which reflect personal feeling and the low ideals 
 of an age of satire, often as discreditable to the satirist 
 as to the things and persons satirized. There is, no 
 doubt, another side to the picture : Oxford, in the reigns 
 of Anne and of the first two Georges, was not without 
 scholars and scholarly enthusiasms not without per- 
 manent results for good on the intelligence of England 
 and of the world. Yet, after full justice has been done, 
 it remains true that the Universities, like other institu- 
 tions in that age, passed through a period of relaxed 
 tension ; that they suffered from pluralist endowment 
 and incompetent tuition ; that scholarship was neither 
 abundant nor profound ; and that there was a miserably 
 
120 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 low standard of qualification for degrees the standard 
 of a time of transition, which had left both the Middle 
 Age and the Renaissance far behind, and had not yet 
 learned either the message or the needs of the new 
 epoch. 
 
 OriePs eighteenth century may be said to lie between 
 1691, when her first eighteenth-century Provost was 
 elected, and 1781, when the election of John Eveleigh 
 to the Headship ushered in for the college a new era 
 of educational activity which lasted far into the next 
 century. As will soon become evident, the hundred 
 years thus limited were by no means uneventful in the 
 college annals. 
 
 Say's successor in the Provostship was Dr. George 
 Royse, who was not without some considerable reputa- 
 tion in his day. Born in Somersetshire, he came to 
 Oxford as a servitor at St. Edmund Hall under Principal 
 Tully, and was afterwards elected Fellow of Oriel about 
 1675. He took Orders, and, according to Hearne, was 
 " reckoned a good florid Preacher." In this capacity 
 he attracted the attention of Lord Berkeley, who made 
 him his chaplain. He afterwards became chaplain to 
 King William III., whom he accompanied to Ireland 
 in 1690, having taken his D.D. at Oxford in the same 
 year. He then became domestic chaplain to Arch- 
 bishop Tillotson, who, in 1691, gave him the Rectory 
 of Newington in Oxfordshire. On December 1 of that 
 year he was chosen Provost of Oriel. In 1694, on the 
 death of W. Levett, he was given the Deanery of 
 Bristol. 
 
 A good deal that Hearne has to say about Royse is 
 worth noticing, when due deductions have been made 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 for nonjuring prejudice against a loyal servant of the 
 new dynasty. Royse's election, it seems, was a surprise 
 and a disappointment. James Davenant had been 
 regarded as the obvious candidate. But " some of y e 
 Fellows with whom Royse us'd to drink got a majority 
 together at Mother Shepherd's at Heddington, where 
 they agreed to choose Dr. Royse." Hearne admits that 
 he was a man of good parts and " some Learning," and 
 " well read in Pamphletts." But he was " of great 
 Cunning and Design " ; ashamed of Edmund Hall, where 
 he had been educated ; neglectful of his relations ; a 
 " smooth Preacher and rank Whigg " ; a heavy drinker, 
 and a man of loose life generally. There is little worthy 
 of note to be recorded during his tenure of the Provost- 
 ship. He died in 1708, leaving a large number of books 
 to the college library. 
 
 Royse's successor was George Carter, and during his 
 reign of nineteen years both the personnel and the con- 
 stitutional history of Oriel are of considerable interest. 
 Carter was of University College, having taken his B.A. 
 degree there in 1693. He was elected Fellow of Oriel 
 in the following year. In 1709, the year after he 
 became Provost, the college presented him to the living 
 of Cholderton in Wilts, the advowson of which had 
 been left to Oriel in 1693 by the will of Thomas 
 Cholwell of Kimpton, Hants, a graduate of the college. 
 He was made Canon of St. Paul's in 1714, and of Peter- 
 borough in 1719. 
 
 Carter's election was unanimous, and he seems to 
 have been held in general respect. Hearne calls him 
 "a worthy, ingenious, sober Gentleman, and a good 
 Scholar." With him were associated in the member- 
 
ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 ship of Oriel one or two great names, and some others 
 which ought not to be allowed to die. First of all, 
 perhaps, there ought to be mentioned (though the days 
 of his Fellowship were long past) one of the busiest 
 and most prominent men of his age, John Robinson. 
 The mere recital of the parts played by this man in 
 the drama of life is sufficient testimony to his im- 
 portance : Chaplain to the Swedish Embassy, and Envoy 
 Extraordinary to the Swedish Court ; an eminent diplo- 
 matist ; an eminent divine ; Prebendary of Canterbury ; 
 Dean of Windsor ; Bishop of Bristol ; Bishop of 
 London ; a Privy Councillor and Lord Privy Seal ; 
 with Charles XII. at Narva ; the chief negotiator of 
 the Peace of Utrecht. He began his career as a trades- 
 man^ apprentice near Darlington. He was sent to 
 Oxford by his master, and educated at Brasenose, where 
 he took his B.A. degree in 1673. Two years later he 
 was elected Fellow of Oriel, and held his Fellowship 
 until 1686, during the rule of Provost Say. In spite 
 of his busy and varied life in the wide fields of the 
 Church and the world, Robinson never forgot Oriel and 
 its needs. In 1719, when he was Bishop of London, he 
 made himself one of the most conspicuous and memorable 
 benefactors of the college. An indenture was drawn up 
 between the Bishop on the one hand and the Provost 
 and Fellows on the other, which set forth that the 
 Bishop had been frequently moved by his late wife, as 
 well as by his own affection, to make a charitable settle- 
 ment on the college. He learned that its revenues at 
 that time were small, though likely to be increased on 
 the determination of the leases of Wadley and Wicken- 
 ham ; and he therefore gave a sum of %,5QO, secured 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 123 
 
 on the Orphans 1 Fund Charge on the revenues of the 
 City of London (and either to remain so invested or to 
 be invested otherwise according to the judgment of the 
 college), the income of which was to be expended for 
 the benefit of the college under certain specified con- 
 ditions. Prior to the determination of the Berkshire 
 leases, seven-tenths of the free income were to be divided 
 among the Provost and Fellows every November 14. 
 At the same date each year a B.A., duly qualified and 
 specially proficient in Logic and Moral Philosophy, was 
 to be elected, and, under the name of Bishop Robinson's 
 Exhibitioner, to enjoy the other three-tenths for three 
 years. In the event of no qualified candidate present- 
 ing himself from Oriel, preference was to be given to 
 candidates from Brasenose ; and, at every third election, 
 candidates who had come up to Oriel from Charterhouse 
 were to be preferred. At all times the Bishop's own 
 relatives, even if Cambridge men, were to be preferred. 
 As soon as the leases fell in, the three-tenths were to 
 be taken from the Provost and Fellows, and three 
 Exhibitioners were to be elected to enjoy the benefits 
 of that endowment. 
 
 Nor did Bishop Robinson's munificence stop here. 
 Within two years from the date of the indenture a 
 building was to be erected on the ground of the college, 
 and again alike by his wife's request and his own 
 affection the Bishop was moved to give 750 towards 
 the cost of the said building. In it the new Exhibi- 
 tioners were to have chambers, bed, plate, and study 
 rent free ; while the rest of the building was to be 
 college premises, the college getting also the remaining 
 one-tenth of the free income. In due course the build- 
 
ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 ing came into existence, and is now a prominent part 
 of the college. It forms the eastern boundary of the 
 back quadrangle, and is continuous with, and at right 
 angles to, the building on the north of the front quad- 
 rangle which contains the Provosts lodgings. In the 
 middle over the doorway is the following inscription : 
 
 Dei Gloriam 
 
 Et bonarum literarum profectum 
 Johannes Robinson S.T.P. Episc. Lond. 
 
 Hortante Maria 
 
 Nuper Conjuge ejus amantissima 
 Et proprio erga Orielenses affectu motus 
 
 Hoc ^dificium F.F. 
 
 Et tres Exhibitiones fundavit 
 
 A.D. MDCCXIX.* 
 
 The most famous name connected with Oriel in the 
 teens of the eighteenth century is that of one who was 
 no Fellow, but a commoner who trod, with but small 
 appreciation of the guidance lent to him, the ordinary 
 path to a degree. Joseph Butler, Bishop of Durham, 
 author of the Sermons on Human Nature and the 
 Analogy, one of the most original philosophic thinkers 
 of England, came from Wantage, his birthplace, and 
 from Nonconformist schools at Gloucester and Tewkes- 
 bury, to Oriel in March, 1715, having resolved to shake 
 off the Presbyterian tradition into which he was born, 
 and take Orders in the Church of England. He took 
 
 * At the bottom of the tablet there is a Runic line which may be 
 rendered thus: " Maftr er moldar auki," meaning, "Man is the 
 increase of the mould," or " Man is but dust." This inscription 
 also occurs at Cleasby, Yorks, commemorating a benefaction of the 
 Bishop to that place. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 125 
 
 his B.A. from the college in 1718. One wishes that 
 Butler could have left behind him a testimony to 
 Oxford education which might be contrasted with that 
 of Gibbon. But he, like Gibbon, was profoundly dis- 
 satisfied with the methods of teaching in the University, 
 and was, indeed, haunted by a restless desire to migrate 
 to Cambridge in search of something better. He 
 brings, it is fair to add, no specific charge against his 
 college ; but he writes from Oriel to Dr. Samuel Clarke 
 in September, 1717 : 
 
 "We are obliged to misspend so much time here in 
 attending frivolous lectures and unintelligible disputations, 
 that I am quite tired out with such a disagreeable way of 
 trifling ; so that if I can't be excused from these things at 
 Cambridge, I shall only just keep term there." 
 
 It saves the blushes of an Oxonian to reflect that the 
 migration was never carried out. 
 
 In one way, we can be sure that Butler's connexion 
 with Oriel was of service to him. The Analogy, when 
 it appeared in 1736, was dedicated to Lord Chancellor 
 Talbot, and it was at college that Butler had made 
 the acquaintance of the future keeper of the Great Seal. 
 The connexion of the Talbots with Oriel was a family 
 one. William Talbot, Dean of Worcester, and after- 
 wards Bishop successively of Oxford (1699-1715), Salis- 
 bury (1715-21), and Durham on the death of Nathaniel 
 Crewe (1722-30), was educated at Oriel, where he took 
 his B.A. degree in 1677. During his tenure of the see 
 of Oxford, Talbot encountered a good deal of criticism 
 from Hearne, of which the character may be surmised 
 from the fact that the Bishop succeeded in the Deanery 
 
126 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 of Worcester the nonjuring George Hickes, who 
 remained in nonjuring circles " y e Dean of Wor- 
 cester " until his death. According to Hearne, Bishop 
 Talbot 
 
 " was a very great Rake all the Time he liv'd in y e Uni- 
 versity, and afterwards, when in orders, was very much 
 addicted to Gaming. . . . He, when Dean of Worcester, 
 plaid very much at y e Royal Oke Lottery, to y e great 
 Scandal of his Gown and Dignity. He . . . has been 
 twice married, w ch rarely or never us'd to be practis'd by 
 the B? s of y e Church of England or any other Church." 
 
 He had "but a very little smattering of Learning." 
 He made a speech in the House of Lords during the 
 Sacheverell trial, which Hearne characterizes as " a 
 most childish, pitifull, illiterate, and indeed malicious 
 and Republican Whiggish Libell." He also preached 
 the coronation sermon of George I. in 1714, and that 
 was " a very poor, silly, flattering stuff, unbecoming 
 a Christian, and a Scholar, and shows him to be a 
 cringing, time-serving Man, and a great Rebell and a 
 Rogue." 
 
 Two of Bishop Talbot^s sons followed their father to 
 Oriel. The younger, Edward, joined as commensalis in 
 1709, and was elected Fellow in 1712. He became 
 Rector of East Hendred, in Berks, where Butler, after 
 taking Orders, acted as curate for a time, but he attained 
 no greater eminence than that of Archdeacon of Berks 
 and Treasurer of Salisbury. It was otherwise with his 
 elder brother Charles, the friend and patron of Butler. 
 He came up to Oriel, also as a commensalis ', in 1702, 
 and in 1704 was elected Fellow of All Souls at the age 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 127 
 
 of eighteen. All Souls had not then its present fault- 
 less decorum. It is related that on January 30, 1707, 
 " an abominable riot " was committed there. Talbot 
 and another Fellow 
 
 "had a Dinner drest, at 12 Clock, part of which was 
 woodcocks, whose Heads they cut off, in contempt of the 
 memory of the B. Martyr. At this Dinner were present 
 two of the Pro-Proctors of Oriel Coll., Mr. Ibbetson and 
 Mr. Rogers, to their shame be it spoken, both low Church 
 Men." 
 
 As to Ibbetson, Hearne adds that he had expressed his 
 sorrow for being involved in such an outrage, asserting 
 that it was at unawares, " w ch perhaps may be true, he 
 being a man of very good sense, tho 1 it must be allowed 
 that he is a Whig." 
 
 Charles Talbofs progress towards the Woolsack was 
 normal and steady. In 1720 he was Solicit or- General, 
 and in the same year entered Parliament. He suc- 
 ceeded King as Lord Chancellor in 1733, with the title 
 Baron Talbot of Hensol, and remained on the wool- 
 sack until 1737. 
 
 It was through his brother Edward, who, as we have 
 seen, was Fellow of Oriel during Butler's undergraduate 
 time there, that Butler was introduced to Charles, who, 
 on his appointment to the Woolsack, made Butler his 
 chaplain. 
 
 Richard Ibbetson (whom we have just seen unwill- 
 ingly mixed up in the political profanities of 1707 at 
 All Souls) deserves a word of further notice. He was 
 elected Fellow of Oriel from University College in 1700, 
 became Rector of Lambeth and Archdeacon of Exeter, 
 
128 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 and died at Canterbury in 1731. He holds a distinct, 
 if humble, place in the scholarship of the time, having 
 helped Hudson in his edition of Jofcpkus, and in 1704 
 published, on his own account, an edition of Marcus 
 Aurelius with notes, which he dedicated to Provost 
 Royse. It was he who was chosen to speak at Royse^s 
 funeral in the chapel. 
 
 A man of considerable mark in his day was William 
 Berriman, one of those Oxford alumni of the early 
 eighteenth century on whom the love of linguistic 
 scholarship laid hold. He took his B.A. degree at 
 Oriel in 1708. Though he never was a Fellow, the 
 college may, perhaps, take some of the credit of his 
 early scholarly enthusiasms. Gloucester Ridley, who 
 preached a laudatory funeral sermon after Berriman's 
 death in 1750, caught his distinguishing note. 
 
 " Aware of the ridiculousness of that dangerous and 
 troublesome acquisition, a little learning, he did not quit 
 the University when yet a novice there, and rush into the 
 world to be a teacher of it, till he had formed his judg- 
 ment by the complete circle of academical sciences, and 
 the exercise of the Schools." 
 
 With that object in view, and being specially attracted 
 towards the history of the Jews, he studied not only 
 Greek, but Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic. He 
 left Oxford in 1712, was for a time chaplain to Bishop 
 Robinson, held more than one London benefice, and 
 became Fellow of Eton in 1727. He was a learned and 
 influential writer, and Boyle Lecturer (The Gradual 
 Revelation of the .Gospel from the Time of Man's 
 Apostasy set forth and Explained) 1730-32. He also 
 

 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 129 
 
 wrote on Primitive Doxologies. Berriman experienced 
 a strange and unexpected revival within the last twenty 
 years. 
 
 " In July, 1734, Dr. Berriman was consulted upon the case 
 of marrying two sisters, and his resolution of it had the 
 good effect of saving the person who consulted him from 
 engaging in that unlawful connexion." 
 
 Among Marriage Law Defence Union tracts (1884) Dr. 
 Berriman's " resolution " has been reproduced, and has 
 received the imprimatur of the most recent upholders 
 of the orthodox view of that matter. 
 
 One of the Fellows prominent during Butler's resi- 
 dence, and for some years after it, represents the specifi- 
 cally poetic element in the college, and his performance 
 illustrates the low standard for minor poetry of the age 
 in which Pope was supreme. Samuel Catherall was 
 elected Fellow in 1715 (having been a commoner of 
 the college, and taken his degree there), and he re- 
 mained a long time in residence, taking a prominent 
 part in the governing body of the college. His ten- 
 dency to versification was lamentably strong. The 
 death of Bishop Crewe, of Durham, in 1721 inspired 
 him to write " in imitation of Waller's style ": 
 
 " Like the brave Eagle who his Nest forsakes, 
 And tow'rds the Sun his Flight undaunted takes, . . . 
 Just so it far'd with our immortal Crew, 
 Thro' Honour's Stages with wing'd Speed he flew ; 
 Well poiz'd with Vertue and Nobility, 
 He stopp'd not, till he grac'd an Ample See." 
 
 More ambitious efforts were " ELKCDV ^wKpajuctf, or a 
 Portraiture of Socrates extracted out of Plato in blank 
 
 9 
 
130 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 verse" (1717); and " Cato Major, a Poem upon the 
 Model of Tully's Essay of Old Age," in four books 
 (1725). Catherall held a Canonry at Wells, and was 
 Vicar of Inglishcourt, in Somersetshire, from 1722 to 
 1764. 
 
 Mention should be made of William Hawkins, the 
 lawyer, who was elected Fellow in 1700. He was the 
 author of Pleas of the Crown, a work of lasting im- 
 portance, a copy of which he presented to the college 
 library. 
 
 As Oriel had been something of a nest of Lollardism 
 in the fifteenth century, so was it a stronghold of 
 Hanoverian Whiggism in the days when the University 
 was most Jacobite. To the Constitution Club, which 
 was founded to represent Hanoverian principles soon 
 after the accession of George I., Oriel contributed eight 
 members. It was at Oriel that the memorable club supper 
 was held on a Sunday evening in May, 1715, when 
 the Jacobite mob besieged the college, and a Brasenose 
 man was wounded in the affray. We know Kearneys 
 opinion of Provost Carter. There were many other 
 members of the college who incurred similar disappro- 
 bation on the like grounds. One pillar of the Whigs 
 was the Rev. Peter Randall, who was elected Fellow in 
 Say's time in 1686, and was Vicar of St. Mary's from 
 1700 till his death in 1720. According to a newspaper 
 of the time, Randall was witty and satirical in conversa- 
 tion, and conservative and peace-loving in ecclesiastical 
 politics. But, says Hearne : 
 
 " As for Peter's being an enemy to faction, it must be 
 understood that he was a mighty friend of K. George's, 
 and an utter enemy of the nonjurors, whom he got silenced 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 131 
 
 some years ago when they met in St. Mary's parish privately 
 for their devotion. He was indeed facetious, and had some 
 learning, but his head was confused, and he never preached 
 to his text." 
 
 Randall was one of the benefactors of Oriel, leaving to 
 it %5 a year. After his death, an Oxford epigram- 
 matist wrote the following for an epitaph : 
 
 " Here lies Randal Peter, 
 Of Oriel, the eater, 
 Whom death at last has eaten ; 
 Thus is the biter bitten. 
 Of him nothing is memorial, 
 But that he was Fellow of Oriel." 
 
 Another leading Oriel Whig was Joseph Bowles. 
 He was educated at St. Mary Hall as a servitor of 
 Dr. Hudson, the Principal, and Bodley's Librarian. He 
 was elected Fellow of Oriel in 1718, and subsequently 
 took Orders, becoming the curate of Thomas Wicksey, 
 who was Randall's successor at St. Mary's. Bowles seems 
 to have quickly become the Provost's right-hand man 
 in college. In 1719 he succeeded Hudson as Bodley's 
 Librarian. Partly as a representative of Whiggism, 
 partly as the most prominent figure in the beloved 
 " Bodley," from which Hearne was now an exile, Bowles 
 came in for double doses of the diarist's ever-ready spleen. 
 Of the election to the Librarianship, Hearne wrote that 
 it was the most scandalous he had yet heard of in Oxford. 
 Bowles was " a pert, conceited coxcomb," and, as it were, 
 " illiterate." Hearne proceeds : 
 
 " Alas ! underhand Dealing had been used long for 
 Bowles (who had the impudence to intrude into my place, 
 
 92 
 
132 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 and hath still got those new keys that Dr. Hudson got 
 made for him, whereas I have still the old ones.) ... As 
 for my own part, I was desired by several to appear . . . 
 but this I declined absolutely." 
 
 Bowles had broken his word to another Oriel Fellow 
 to whom he had promised the under-Librarianship, " for 
 which he is strangely scouted and despised at Oriel as 
 a breaker of his word, and a whiffling, silly, unfaithful 
 coxcomb.'" 
 
 Of the Fellows in residence at this time, Kearneys 
 only favourite, and the chief purveyor of college gossip 
 to him, seems to have been Richard Dyer, who had been 
 admitted as commoner in 1669, and elected Fellow in 
 1673. Dyer was both learned and modest : he published 
 nothing with his name ; but he was so good a botanist 
 that he was given the refusal of the Chair of Botany. 
 He contributed anonymously to the third volume of the 
 Oxford Historia Plantarum, and wrote also a life of 
 Morison. As early as 1685 Dyer showed his devotion 
 to plants by giving eight Virginian cedars to Oriel, 
 which were planted " in the Grove " on March 5. He 
 retained his Fellowship until 1729, the year before his 
 death. The Virginian cedars were not his only benefac- 
 tion to his college. In 1720 he contributed ^300 to- 
 wards the purchase of the advowson of Ufton Nervet 
 in Berkshire, in the valley of the Kennet to the south- 
 west of Reading ; and he gave =85 17s. for laying out 
 the gardens of the college, and 109 13s. 6d. towards 
 the improvement of the college fabric. Nor was even 
 this all, as we shall find. Dyer's withdrawal from 
 Oxford to Devonshire was a trial to Hearne, and his 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 133 
 
 death speedily followed it. Hearne laments over his 
 old friend : 
 
 " A very healthful man, a great walker, and had not he 
 married in his old age, but lived in Oxford after his old 
 way, he might have lived much longer, and been a very 
 great benefactor to his college ; but the broils in the college 
 forced him to retire." 
 
 To these broils, which disturbed the last half-dozen 
 years of Carter's tenure of the Provostship, we must 
 presently turn. 
 
 In the summer of 1717 the peace of the college was 
 shaken by a murder, one commoner named Bull having 
 stabbed another. " The gentleman that committed this 
 barbarous murder," reports Hearne ominously, "is a 
 Whig " ; and he probably believed that it was because 
 the Government of England was Hanoverian that the 
 crime was treated as mere manslaughter at the assizes. 
 
 At any rate, the murder had nothing to do with 
 college politics ; but the next disagreeable sensation, a 
 suicide in 1721, was a shadow of troubles and broils 
 within the Society. Let Hearne again report (Novem- 
 ber 9, 1721) : 
 
 " Yesterday morning a Bedmaker, going to make the 
 Bed of Thomas Ward, A.M., and one of the Senior Fellows 
 of Oriel, found him dead upon the Floor, and his Head shot 
 through." 
 
 It was evidently suicide ; but why ? Ward was a 
 cheerful man of about forty, with an excellent character, 
 though he had shown signs of melancholy of late. 
 
 " What affected him I know not, unless some Dis- 
 turbances in the late election of Fellows, when he espous'd 
 
134 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 the interest of those that were against the Provost's 
 Party." 
 
 Nay, two months later. Dyer brought a serious charge 
 against Joseph Bowles : 
 
 "He" (Bowles) "was the chief Incendiary in our college, 
 and was the occasion of Tom Ward's shooting himself. For 
 being great with Ward, Mr. Ward intrusted him with his 
 secrets, all which Bowles betrayed, particularly what related 
 to the late Business of the election." 
 
 What was all this pother about ? What constitu- 
 tional difficulties could possibly lead to such tragic 
 results ? 
 
 Silent as he might be, Provost Carter could act to 
 practical purpose. We remember Provost Say and the 
 trouble he gave over elections to Fellowships, and the 
 decree of Bishop Fuller in 1674. In 1722 Fuller's 
 decree was embodied in a statute which strictly regu- 
 lated all proceedings at elections. But Carter was bent 
 on walking in Say's footsteps. In July, 1721, there 
 were elections to two Fellowships, vacant by the death 
 of Peter Randall and the resignation of one Edward 
 Beckham (who in the previous year had been a candidate 
 for the Camden Professorship of Ancient History, but 
 had "desisted 11 before the election, when Harrison of 
 All Souls was appointed). The Fellowships were both 
 restricted to candidates born in the diocese of Worcester. 
 There were three candidates William Makepeace, of 
 Merton ; Robert Bernard, of Merton ; and Henry 
 Edmunds, of Jesus and there was a college of twelve. 
 As to the eligibility of Makepeace there was no doubt ; 
 he was born at Warwick, undeniably in the Worcester 
 diocese. Bernard, however, was born at Tormarton, 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 135 
 
 which had been in the diocese of Gloucester since the 
 creation of that see by Henry VIII. ; and the question 
 arose whether that creation rendered him ineligible under 
 a statute made previous to it. Edmunds was born in 
 the diocese of Bangor ; but the college was strongly in 
 his favour. When the vote for filling BeckhanVs place 
 was taken, nine of the twelve Fellows nominated 
 Edmunds, and three Bernard ; but, in spite of the 
 majority, the Provost declared Bernard elected, as 
 being, at all events, nearer statutory requirements 
 than Edmunds. For the other vacancy, nine supported 
 Bernard, and three Makepeace ; but in this case the 
 Provost acted similarly, and insisted on the election of 
 the latter. 
 
 Edmunds promptly appealed to Bishop Gibson of 
 Lincoln as Visitor, who, on November 24, decided in 
 favour of the Provost, on the ground that, so far as 
 the college was concerned, the diocese of Worcester 
 must be held to have the limits attached to it before 
 Henry Villas creation of the Gloucester bishopric. 
 
 Two years later the difficulty recurred in an aggravated 
 form. At Easter, 1723, there were five vacant Fellow- 
 ships. Five candidates, of whom Edmunds was one, 
 were chosen by a clear majority of the college, and 
 again the Provost refused to admit. The five (Henry 
 Edmunds, Philip Pipon, James Parker, Samuel Martin, 
 and Robert Fysher) appealed to the Visitor, now Bishop 
 Richard Reynolds. On this incident Hearne comments 
 with something more than his ordinary causticity : 
 
 "Dr. Carter" (he writes, under date August 8, 1723) 
 "... is justly look'd upon as a vile man and a sneaking 
 Hypocrite, which last name Mr. Dyer called him to his 
 
136 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 face lately, upon account of his most scandalous behaviour 
 in an election of Fellows, when there were 6 electors to 4. 
 Yet the Provost would not allow that 6 were more than 4, 
 but insisted upon a strangely unheard of negative voice, so 
 as to make 4 carry the point ag st 6, and the matter is now 
 before the Visitor, to the great injury of the College ; and 
 'tis observable that that pitiful silly Rascal Bowles is one of 
 those that stuck in, and keeps now pace with the Provost, 
 who, however, cares for Bowles no more than as a tool." 
 
 On October 2 the Bishop decided that the assent of 
 the Provost was essential to a valid election ; and, along 
 with the formal decision, Reynolds sent a letter to the 
 Provost and Fellows, dated October 4, 1723, in which 
 he explained his attitude. 
 
 " My very good Friends " (he wrote), " they were no 
 very pleasing reflections I made on y e extent and circum- 
 stances of my new Dioces, upon my being called, at my 
 first enterance into it, to settle a controverted election in 
 y r College." 
 
 The Bishop had taken the advice of three learned 
 Canonists, and of " divers others learned in y e laws and 
 of high rank,*" etc., before giving his decision. He 
 reminded the college of one unexpected consequence of 
 the decision viz., that of common right the collation 
 of the vacant Fellowships devolved on him. But he 
 professed himself content, for peace's sake, to waive his, 
 right, and leave the nomination to the Provost and the 
 majority of the Fellows. 
 
 Commenting on this decision, Hearne writes (Novem- 
 ber 28, 1723) : 
 
 " Reynolds, a Cambridge man who does not understand 
 Latin . . sent down his mandamus to admit three of his 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 137 
 
 own nomination, and two more kept in reserve for another 
 time. Accordingly his mandamus was read in Chappel on 
 Tuesday morning the 19 th of this month, but protested 
 against by the former electors, the Protest being read by 
 Mr. Dyer, after which the Protesters all went out, and so 
 none remained in Chappel but the Provost and his vile 
 assistant Bowles. The Provost called to one of the Pro- 
 testers to bring in the Bachelors, but they having protested, 
 everyone declined. Upon which Bowles said he would 
 fetch them in, and thereupon went out of y e Chappel, 
 leaving the Provost by himself; and bringing them in they 
 were admitted by only these two, the Provost and Bowles, 
 and the legally elected men were ejected. The three 
 intruders are one Lane of Merton Coll., one Copping of 
 Oriel, and one Dewy (who never stood nor ever was 
 examined) of Oriel. After this was over, Bowles, like 
 a poor, sorry Rascal as he is, made great Rejoicings, 
 and took y e three Intruders into the Common Room at 
 night, where, however, nobody else was with them a 
 thing against Custom and Practice for Bachelor Fellows 
 to come there." 
 
 Hearne does not exaggerate the resistant feeling of 
 the Fellows against these proceedings of the Provost and 
 the Visitor. A formal protest was issued in November, 
 in which the subscribers asserted that their object was 
 " to conserve and keep the rights, liberties, and privi- 
 leges which our predecessors . . . have immemorially, 
 peaceably, and quietly enjoyed till on or about the 
 27 th day of July, 1721, and the 19 th day of April, 1723." 
 They protested against the admission of any nominees 
 of the Bishop 
 
 "on Pretence that the Collating to or disposing of 
 vacant fellowships in the said College devolves to him in 
 
138 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 case that the Provost and fellows disagree at the time of 
 election, and particularly against the admission of Copping, 
 Dewy, and Lane ... by virtue of such pretended power 
 of Collation." 
 
 This protest was signed by six of the Fellows, and they 
 associated with themselves Dyer, of whom we now know 
 a good deal, and Walter Hodges, Carter's successor in 
 the Provostship. 
 
 Such were the kind of troubles at Oriel which were 
 supposed to make a Fellow shoot himself; and, indeed, 
 they meant schism and mischief. But the critical 
 struggle was yet to come. At the Easter election in 
 1724 the painful situation was repeated. There were 
 two vacancies, and two appointments by a majority of 
 eight to two of the Fellows ; and again the Provost 
 exercised his " negative voice." Bowles and Makepeace 
 were the two consentients with the Provost. This time 
 the opposition took a more vigorous, and, as it turned 
 out, an ultimately more successful line. Edmunds, for 
 the third time a disappointed candidate, at once brought 
 an action against the college in the Court of Common 
 Pleas. His object was to establish the authority of the 
 original statutes of January, 1326, according to which 
 the King, through his Chancellor, was the Visitor. When 
 the case came into Court it was almost immediately 
 determined that the Bishop of Lincoln was not the 
 local but only the diocesan Visitor. "In this affair,' 1 
 says Hearne, " Serjeant Skinner," the Recorder of Oxford, 
 " did the college very great service." 
 
 The case was tried before Eyre, C. J., three puisne 
 judges one of them, Tracy, being an old Oriel man 
 and a special jury ; and the final judgment was given on 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 139 
 
 May 14, 1726. It was a complete victory for Edmunds 
 and the majority of the Fellows. 
 
 Hearne's gossip is abundant at this stage : 
 
 "The hearing" of the case "lasted 12 hours. The two 
 Appellants, viz., Mr. Henry Edmunds and Mr. Parkhurst" 
 (sic for Parker) " of Brasenose, were declared Fellows, and 
 a shilling damage was assigned, so that now they may sue 
 for costs. . . . This is a great confusion to the Provost, 
 who hath not only lost his negative by this (a thing he 
 much insisted upon, what was never done before in the 
 college), but hath likewise made the Bishop of Lincoln 
 lose his dictatorial Power of that college. ... Had Carter 
 succeeded, other Heads would have also insisted upon a 
 negative, and then there would have been an end of all 
 Elections. . . . Mr. Dyer hath been so great a Friend in 
 this business, that some time since I heard several of the 
 Fellows say that if they had carried their point against the 
 Provost, they ought to reckon Mr. Dyer a Restorer of their 
 college." 
 
 Thus was the controversy between the two sets of 
 statutes set at rest in favour of the earlier of the two ; 
 and thus did the Bishop of Lincoln cease to be Visitor 
 of Oriel. The decision took effect in July, 1726, 
 when seven rejected candidates were admitted namely, 
 Edmunds and the four who were associated with him, 
 and the two rejected in 1724. A curious incident 
 occurred at the admission. Let us hear Hearne's 
 version of it first : 
 
 "July 19, 1 726. Yesterday the ejected Fellows of 
 Oriel were restored upon their petition in the Chappel, 
 but the Provost declined doing it, and went out of the 
 Chappel with one other Fellow, Bowles, I think, upon 
 
140 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 which the Senior Fellow, Dr. Woodward, did it, the rest 
 of the Fellows being present, and approving what was 
 done. I hear the Provost declined it unless the ejected 
 Fellows would show an Instrument for doing it from the 
 Crown and the Visitor, as he calls the Bishop of Lincoln." 
 
 In other words, the Provost stood to his guns to the 
 last. In refusing to take any part himself in the 
 admission, he did not, indeed, dispute the decision of 
 the Court of Common Pleas, but he drew a subtle 
 distinction between His Majesty and His Majesty's 
 judges, maintaining that if the Crown was the Visitor, 
 he was bound to obey only the Crown. 
 
 Carter did not survive his defeat much more than a year. 
 He died on September 30, and was buried on October 4 
 in the chapel, where there is a tablet to his memory, 
 erected many years after by Provost Eveleigh. Wicksey, 
 the Vicar of St. Mary's, told Hearne that the judicial 
 decision against the "negative voice " had broken Provost 
 Carter's heart. Wicksey admitted, however, that he 
 was charitable and of respectable learning. Dyer, 
 with his long experience, was heard to say that he 
 had taken part in the election of Fellows since 1675, 
 and that these were the first occasions on which the 
 Provost had voted. 
 
 Hearne's own estimate of Carter wavers. Writing 
 after his death, he says : 
 
 " When he was elected Provost, he bore a tolerably good 
 character, but afterwards he acted very knavishly in the 
 college. He was a single man, and had much preferment, 
 tho' his Places were not very high, w ch , however, brought 
 in a great sum yearly, w ch occasioned one to say that 
 Dr. Carter built long but his building spread. He mightily 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 141 
 
 desired a Bishoprick, and would have done (as plainly 
 appeared) anything whatsoever for one. He was rich 
 when he was elected Provost, which was indeed one 
 considerable reason of their electing him, thinking he 
 might prove a Benefactor ; and, indeed, I hear that he 
 hath left them very considerably/' 
 
 Whatever might be said about Carter's principles or 
 practice, there could be no doubt about his affection 
 for the college. His benefactions were considerable. 
 In the first place, he and Bishop Robinson between 
 them procured the attachment to the Provostship of 
 a prebend at Rochester. Secondly, he left dl,000 
 towards the better endowment of the Headship, which 
 sum was spent in the purchase in 1730 of the advowson 
 of Purleigh in Essex. Thirdly, he followed Bishop 
 Robinson's example in adding to the college premises, 
 leaving directions and funds for the erection of a build- 
 ing on the west side of the back quadrangle opposite 
 and corresponding to Robinson's building, the founda- 
 tion - stone of which was laid on March 31, 1729. 
 Lastly, he made the college his residuary legatee. 
 
 The next election to the Provostship was a disputed 
 one the last instance of the kind in the college history. 
 The two candidates were Walter Hodges and Thomas 
 Wicksey, the Vicar of St. Mary's. Wicksey had been 
 Hodges' pupil. According to Hearne, he had been 
 aiming at the Headship for some years ; but there was 
 a majority for Hodges. Bowles, Hearne says, who was 
 Wicksey's curate at St. Mary's, worked hard for his 
 Vicar, but he was too closely identified with Carter's 
 party to succeed. By the original statutes, whose 
 authority had been restored by the recent decision of 
 
142 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 the Court of Common Pleas, unanimity was necessary 
 to the election of a Provost, and, therefore, Hodges' 
 majority did not end the matter. The confirmation 
 of the Lord Chancellor had to be sought and obtained 
 in order that the election might take effect, or rather, 
 when there was a divided college, the confirmation con- 
 stituted the election. Lord King, the Chancellor, when 
 the matter was referred to him, decided in favour of 
 Hodges. 
 
 Hodges was well off and a good scholar. But Wicksey 
 chafed under the first of these qualifications, " which 
 reason," says Hearne, " is much laughed at." Wicksey 
 did not behave magnanimously as a disappointed candi- 
 date, but proved himself a thorn in the side of the 
 college. For one thing, he held a living worth =19, 
 which brought him under the penalties of uberius bene- 
 fldum. For another, he kept the Dean's Register in his 
 possession, and contumaciously refused to restore it, 
 though three times ordered to do so. Yet again he 
 failed to do his duty as Provost Carter's executor. 
 These things happened in the summer and autumn 
 of 1728. Accordingly, on October 22, the Register 
 records that Wicksey was expelled from the Society, 
 ostensibly because of uberius beneficium, though the 
 other offences were undeniably in the background. The 
 culprit, however, refused to be thus extinguished. He 
 straightway appealed to Lord Chancellor King, the 
 Visitor, who in June, 1729, replied in his favour so 
 far as the Fellowship was concerned. He found, 
 indeed, that Wicksey's chief complaint was the substitu- 
 tion of the Crown for the Bishop of Lincoln as Visitor, 
 which was, of course, baseless ; but he contented himself 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 143 
 
 with advising Wicksey to obey Provost Hodges in 
 future, while he declared the college to have been over- 
 harsh with him, and expressed his desire that he should 
 be restored to his Fellowship. Hearne attributes this 
 action of the Lord Chancellor's to his "having never 
 been of any University," and knowing "nothing of 
 college affairs." Anyhow, he cut the various knots, 
 and tried to satisfy everybody all round, on the one 
 hand, by declaring that when Wicksey was ejected 
 there was no " warden," and therefore the ejectment 
 was illegal; and, on the other, by making Hodges 
 "warden" and restoring Wicksey to his Fellowship. 
 Notwithstanding all this, the college in December 
 ejected Wicksey again on the ground of uberius bene- 
 fitium, which no Visitor could override, and thus secured 
 the last word. 
 
 In this same month of December, 1729, Hearne's 
 enemy, Joseph Bowles, died ; and Oriel furnished his 
 successor in Bodley^s Librarianship. The three candi- 
 dates were Kearneys successor in the sub-librarianship, 
 Francis Wise, Fellow of Trinity, Keeper of the 
 Archives ; Bilstone, of All Souls, the janitor, " who 
 hath got the new keys made in opposition to the old 
 ones I have by me " ; and Robert Fysher, B.M., Fellow 
 of Oriel. Bilstone withdrew, and the struggle lay 
 between Wise and Fysher. Wise got all the Whig 
 support, but Fysher was elected by a majority of 100 
 to 85. The Canons of Christ Church supported the 
 Whig candidate. Fy sherds political opinions secured 
 him mild approbation from Hearne. 
 
 The troublesome Wicksey being got rid of, and 
 Hodges being well settled in the Provostship, the 
 
144 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 college settled down into its normal eighteenth century 
 tranquillity, a tranquillity which lasted throughout 
 the reigns of Hodges and his two successors, Chardin 
 Musgrave and John Clarke. During those reigns there 
 were no constitutional developments or crises of any 
 kind; and the interest of the college centres in the 
 reputation of some of its members, and in certain 
 additions to its property and educational resources. 
 
 During the first half of Hodges 1 reign few specially 
 eminent names appear, either among the under- 
 graduate members or among the Fellows, whether 
 educated at Oriel or elsewhere. In January, 1740, 
 Joseph Warton was admitted commoner, and in March, 
 1744, he took his Bachelor's degree. Joseph Warton 
 is a very interesting man on his own account, and he 
 was a member of a very interesting family. His father, 
 Thomas Warton, who died in 1745, the year after 
 Joseph took his degree, was Vicar of Basingstoke and 
 Professor of Poetry at Oxford from 1718 to 1728. 
 His younger brother, Thomas, became a Fellow of 
 Trinity, Professor of Poetry in 1757, and Camden 
 Professor of Ancient History in 1777. He won a 
 permanent and honourable place in English literature 
 by his Observations on the Faerie Queene of Spenser 
 (1754), and his History of English Poetry (1774-1781). 
 Even with such a brother, Warton of Oriel maintained 
 a distinct literary individuality. He associated him- 
 self with that deliberate revolt against the supremacy 
 of Pope which quickly followed his death in 1745. 
 Two years after his degree he published Odes de- 
 signed to exemplify better poetic methods than those 
 hitherto dominant ; and, in 1756, the first volume of 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 145 
 
 his Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope, which 
 was, for its age, a daring reassertion of the supremacy 
 of Spenser and Milton in English poetry, and which 
 made a distinct epoch in literary criticism. Joseph 
 Warton, unlike his brother Thomas, did not enter on 
 tutorial work at Oxford, nor did he hold a Fellowship. 
 He became Rector of Winslade, near Basingstoke, and 
 was Headmaster of Winchester from 1766 to 1793. He 
 died in 1800. 
 
 With Warton was associated, both at school and 
 college, a man of wider fame. His father, the Vicar 
 of Basingstoke, had also a school there, at which Gilbert 
 White, of Selbome, was the companion of his two sons. 
 White, like Joseph Warton, went to Oriel, where he 
 entered as commoner a month earlier on December 
 17, 1739. White's life, in spite of its great and clear 
 fame, is curiously wanting in unity. In so far, however, 
 as its centre was not Selborne, it may be said to have 
 been Oriel. White did not come into residence in 
 college until November, 1740. He took his B.A. in 
 1743, and was elected Fellow with Chardin Musgrave, 
 of Edenhall in Cumberland, in March, 1744. From 
 1740 to 1760, White, while moving about in all direc- 
 tions, was closely, though intermittently, associated with 
 Oriel. He was ordained in 1747, and from that date 
 until 1752 the college saw nothing of him. In 1752 he 
 was back in Oxford as Proctor, and became Dean of 
 Oriel. His first entry as Dean in the Register is dated 
 November 14, 1752, and his last, April 27, 1753. 
 Although he disappears again at this point. White's 
 identification with and his reputation in the college 
 was very marked. It was put to the test when Provost 
 
 10 
 
146 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 Hodges died in 1757. White and Chardin Musgrave 
 were the most prominent Fellows. White had a great 
 college friend and close correspondent in John Mulso, 
 who afterwards held prebendal stalls both at Salisbury 
 and Winchester. A large number of Mulso^s letters to 
 White have been preserved, and from them we can 
 learn something, though not much, as to the currents 
 of feeling in the Oriel common-room at that time. As 
 early as February, 1755, Mulso had referred to a " per- 
 verse party " in college, i.e., a party opposed to White 
 and his claims. He had been told, he writes to his 
 friend, " that Dr. Hodges was dead, and you was going 
 to be Provost in his room " ; and two months later 
 he writes : " You give me pleasure, hearing of the stand 
 against the perverse party at Oriel." 
 
 When Hodges really did die, Chardin Musgrave was 
 elected Provost with the necessary formal unanimity, 
 though there was a party who would have preferred 
 White. Mulso wrote to White after the election : " As 
 you have not been the man on this occasion, I am not 
 sorry for Chardin^s success." White, it seems, had been 
 somewhat backward in preferring his claim. " With 
 regard to the affair at Oriel, I heartily wish you had put 
 yourself up from the beginning, if anything that we 
 could have done could have given you success." 
 
 That particular door being closed to White, he 
 accepted from the college the small living of Moreton 
 Pinkney in 1757, tenable with his Fellowship. This 
 he took with the avowed intention of not residing, and 
 the new Provost did not like it, though he behaved 
 with great magnanimity. Under date December 15, 
 1757, he wrote in his memorandum-book : 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 147 
 
 "Moreton Pinkney given to Mr. White . . . though 
 without his intention of serving it, and not choosing to 
 waive his claim, though Mr. Land could have accepted it 
 upon the other more agreeable terms to the society. I 
 agreed to this to avoid any possibility of a misconstruction 
 of partiality." 
 
 So much for the scandal of non-residence. As to that 
 of ulerius beneficium, Musgrave was equally doubtful 
 and equally magnanimous. To quote again from his 
 memorandum-book under date November 1, 1758 : 
 
 " I hinted to Mr. White's friends that I was ignorant 
 what his circumstance really was, but suppose his estate 
 incompatible, and beg'd he might be informed that if a 
 year of grace was not applied for in the regular time it 
 would not be granted." 
 
 It is evident, however, that the Provost's active scruples 
 were afterwards set at rest. 
 
 The truth is that White at this time seems to have 
 been really poor, and his friends were anxious for more 
 adequate provision for him. In February, 1759, we 
 find Mulso asking the Provost what the college in- 
 tended to do for White. The answer was such that 
 Mulso could report to his friend : " It was in your own 
 breast to keep or leave your Fellowship, for nobody 
 meant to turn you out if you did not choose it yourself.' 1 
 The upshot, as we have seen, was that White did keep 
 his Fellowship all the time he was building himself his 
 everlasting name in the woods and fields at Selborne, 
 but Oriel did nothing more for him. Soreness of feel- 
 ing between him and the Provost seems gradually to 
 
 102 
 
148 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 have disappeared. In January, 1761, we find Mulso 
 writing : 
 
 " The Provost and you begin to have your own feels for 
 one another, such as you had before competition divided 
 you . . . and as I know you have the good of the founda- 
 tion at heart, it will make you forget what was disagreeable 
 in his election." 
 
 When Musgrave suddenly died in January, 1768, there 
 was some faint expectation that White might be made 
 Provost, but it came " to nothing." 
 
 Among members contemporary with White, Mus- 
 grave and Joseph Warton, hardly any, perhaps, deserve 
 special mention except William Gerard Hamilton, the 
 early patron of Edmund Burke. Hamilton was ad- 
 mitted commensalis in March, 1745, but he took no 
 degree. Even before his admission and matriculation 
 he had entered at Lincoln^ Inn, and his career was 
 essentially Parliamentary. He entered Parliament in 
 1754, and in the following year, on November 13, he 
 made the " single speech "* by which he is most widely 
 known, and was Member successively for Petersfield, 
 Pontefract, Wareham, and Wilton. He was Chancellor 
 of the Irish Exchequer from 1763 to 1784. "Single 
 Speech Hamilton*" gave some practical proof of his 
 regard for Oriel by presenting the college with \% in 
 1749. John Egerton, afterwards Bishop of Hereford, 
 and still more renowned as Bishop of Durham, matricu- 
 lated at Oriel in 1740. In Durham Bishop Egerton 
 won fame not only by reconstructing the bridge between 
 
 * So says tradition. For the correct version of the facts see the 
 
 Dictionary of National Biography. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 149 
 
 Newcastle and Gateshead, and by reclaiming fen- 
 country, but by renewing the charter of the city. 
 
 The college continued to represent very fairly the 
 clergy and the landed gentry. One aristocratic con- 
 nexion, charged with important consequences, was that 
 with the ducal family of Beaufort. Henry, the third 
 Duke, died in February, 1745, and early in March Provost 
 Hodges received the following letter from his brother 
 and successor in the Dukedom : 
 
 DR gR 
 
 " The great Concern I have suffered from the late 
 unhappy Event in my Family, and the Multiplicity of 
 Business it has necessarily caused me, have prevented my 
 acquainting you sooner with a Benefaction my poor Brother 
 has given to your College. . . . He has left one Hundred 
 Pound and charged upon his Estate at Sapworth in Wilts 
 to be paid Quarterly for the support of Four Scholars, who 
 are to enjoy it 7 years, and to be nominated out of the 
 Counties of Gloucester, Monmouth and Glamorgan by the 
 Lords of the Manor of Badminton for ever. I shall do 
 every thing that lies in my Power to promote this laudable 
 Encouragement of Learning, and am particularly glad he 
 has thought of a Foundation, for which no one can have a 
 greater Regard than D r S r 
 
 "Y r most obedient 
 
 " humble Serv* 
 
 " Brook Street, " BEAUFORT. 
 
 "Mar. 5. 1744/5." 
 
 The Provost's answer is not forthcoming, but on 
 March 21 the Duke wrote again : 
 
 " If I had no other reason for showing myself a Friend to 
 >riel College, I can't forbear it on account of the hand- 
 
150 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 some manner in which you and the residing Fellows have 
 received the Benefaction my poor Brother left to it. But 
 as many others may be join'd to it, I shall ever be ready 
 to do what lyes in my Power to promote its welfare and 
 Prosperity. I send you enclosed a Transcript of my 
 Brother's Will." 
 
 The details of the bequest do not add much to the 
 summary in the Duke's letter. The nomination of the 
 four beneficiaries was to be subject to the approval of 
 the Provost and Fellows, otherwise the Lords of the 
 Manor of Badminton were to have the sole right of 
 appointment ; and only in default of such appointment 
 was the college to nominate. The " scholars " were to 
 obey the college in all respects, and " untill they have 
 taken some Degree in the University constantly wear 
 such Gowns as Schollars in Colleges usually wear " ; and 
 they were, of course, to be liable to expulsion by the 
 college in case of gross misbehaviour. 
 
 " Nevertheless " (the Will proceeds) " in Case any or either 
 of the said four Schollars for the time being shall at any 
 time hereafter be Expelled or removed from the said 
 College by the s d Provost and Fellows . . . and such 
 Schollar or Schollars shall afterwards within one Month 
 after they shall be so removed and Expelled procure him 
 or themselves to be duly Admitted a Member or Members 
 of any other College in the University of Oxford, and the 
 Lord or Lords of the said Manor of Badminton for the time 
 being shall think such Schollar or Schollars . . . deserving 
 of having his or their Share or Shares of the said yearly 
 Sum of One Hundred Pounds continued and be paid to 
 him or them for the Remainder of the Seven Years for 
 which he or they would have continued to be Schollar or 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 151 
 
 Schollars of the said College if he or they had not been so 
 removed or Expelled, that then no other Person or Persons 
 shall be Elected or Nominated in the Room of such 
 Schollar or Schollars, but such Schollar and Schollars shall 
 receive and be paid his and their Share and Shares of the 
 said One Hundred Pounds for the Remainder of the said 
 Seven Years, Provided he and they continue to be a 
 Member or Members of such other College or Colleges/' 
 
 The Beaufort Exhibitioners, as the four "Scholars" 
 have always been called, continue exactly as they were 
 constituted by the bequest. The bequest itself is 
 remarkable, inasmuch as the testator was a member of 
 University, and not of Oriel. 
 
 In 1765 came another bequest, which resulted in the 
 foundation of two more Exhibitions. Mistress Elizabeth 
 Ludwell, sister of Provost Carter, who had an estate in 
 Kent, and whose will was proved in January, 1765, left 
 a sum for two Exhibitioners from that county, and two 
 were elected in June of that year. 
 
 The rule of Provost John Clark, who was elected in 
 1768 on the death of Musgrave, and who held office 
 until 1781, was a period of dignity and repose for the 
 college ; of repose because there were no sensational 
 events, of dignity, because, in the eighteenth century at 
 Oxford, dull annals were an almost infallible indication 
 of creditable behaviour. Throughout those years Oriel 
 pursued a level path of steady usefulness, avoiding 
 scandal, escaping internal dissension, sending forth 
 into the English world, chiefly of the Church and the 
 squirearchy, good specimens of undistinguished English 
 manhood. 
 
 Clark, who, besides, presumably, a patient continu- 
 
152 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 ance in well-doing, has left no memorial behind him, 
 was a Pembroke man, who was elected to a Fellowship 
 at Oriel in 1755. We remember that when Musgrave 
 died there was some hope among Gilbert White's 
 friends that he might be his successor. However, at the 
 election of Clark on February 8, 1768, we find White 
 taking part in the unanimous act, and all goes smoothly 
 to the end of his reign. 
 
 Among the names of Fellows elected while Clark was 
 Provost there is only one which carries with it any- 
 thing of historic significance, and that is the name of 
 John Eveleigh. As his chief repute belongs to the 
 coming age, it will be well to deal continuously with his 
 career in the next chapter, the great chapter of Oriel's 
 recent fame. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY (1781-1882) 
 
 John Eveleigh, 1781-1814; Edward Copleston, 1814-28; 
 Edward Hawkins, 1 828-82 
 
 ON the threshold of the nineteenth century every college 
 historian must needs pause to gird up his loins for a 
 somewhat laborious task. For that century ^has been as 
 fruitful, or at least as revolutionary, at Oxford and 
 Cambridge as it has been in the history of England 
 and of the world. For the Universities it has been a 
 period of momentous organic change, culminating in 
 the great events of 1850-57, in which the reforms of 
 the early years of the century and those between 1871 
 and 1877 take a hardly inferior place. For the Uni- 
 versities, the century, as a whole, is the third of three 
 great epochs, of which the other two are the Chancellor- 
 ship of Leicester and the Chancellorship of Laud. 
 
 So much is evident. But the historians of the 
 colleges, while they can by no means ignore move- 
 ments and changes in the University, while they must 
 never fail to take stock of them and estimate them 
 aright, are primarily concerned with institutions distinct 
 
154 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 from the University in which they exist. It is the 
 constitutional independence of the University and the 
 colleges, combined with their constant mutual influence, 
 which furnishes to the historian the chief difficulty with 
 which he has to contend. To take one instance. Such 
 a change in the system of examinations for degrees as 
 was made in the early years of the nineteenth century 
 could not fail, sooner or later, to lead to important 
 changes in the spirit and methods of the colleges. On the 
 other hand, the success of the honours system depended 
 almost entirely upon the teaching which the colleges were 
 able to supply, each from its own resources. Again, 
 the duplex character of so many academic phenomena 
 at Oxford and Cambridge, which so incurably puzzles 
 the foreigner, has even for those who are natives this 
 constant difficulty, that in the University and the 
 colleges the personal element is of such unequal strength. 
 The personnel of the University and of the colleges is 
 the same. Yet the same man may be an autocrat in 
 his college and a cipher in convocation ; he may be the 
 most influential of college tutors, and, as a University 
 professor, may lecture to empty benches ; yet more, he 
 may be a supreme authority in common-room, and un- 
 known by sight both to the undergraduates of his own 
 college and his fellows in the University legislature. 
 The foreigner will never fully understand such things ; 
 the historian, educated among them, may be pardoned 
 if he fails to explain them perfectly. 
 
 To the historian of nineteenth century Oriel these 
 difficulties present a peculiarly formidable aspect. To 
 the desultory inquirer into the life of Oxford in that 
 century no name is more familiar than that of Oriel 
 
Front a photograph by tJie\ 
 
 [Oxford Camera Club 
 
 THE HALL 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 155 
 
 no name, perhaps, carries with it such an aroma, has 
 such an echo. It is the historian's business to analyze 
 that aroma and account for that echo. If the popular 
 belief in the importance of Oriel in the present century 
 can be justified, in what did the importance consist? 
 Rumour makes Oriel the nursery and early home of 
 what it is pleased to call " the Oxford Movement. 1 '' 
 If the rumour is true, what was "the Oxford Move- 
 ment," and how did it come to be associated with 
 Oriel? Was it more than a theological and eccle- 
 siastical movement accidentally associated with a 
 particular rendezvous of kindred spirits? or was it in 
 any sense an academic and tutorial movement, de- 
 pendent for at least some of its inspiration on sources 
 inherent in one particular college system ? May there 
 not have been more " Oxford Movements " than one, 
 coincident in time, perhaps, but diverse in nature, of 
 which Oriel, either by inherent fitness or by happy 
 accident, became the nursing-mother ? 
 
 From none of these questions can the historian of 
 Oriel wholly turn away ; with none of them can he 
 deal adequately within the limits of such a sketch as 
 the present. Something will be gained at the outset, 
 and the subsequent task will be made easier, if writer 
 and readers begin by realizing firmly that one of the 
 great academic phenomena of the century at Oxford 
 has been a remarkable development of the tutorial 
 system, and that with one of the phases of that de- 
 velopment Oriel was conspicuously associated. For 
 the sake of those who have little or no personal 
 experience of the English Universities it may be desir- 
 able here to explain that the tutorial system is that 
 
156 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 system by which the student is subjected, so far as his 
 studies are concerned, and also, to some extent, so far 
 as his general behaviour and welfare are concerned, to 
 the supervision and direction of one teacher, who lives 
 at least, in theory within the same building with 
 his pupils, and to whom they have regular and frequent, 
 if not practically unlimited, freedom of access. This 
 system, wholly distinct from that of the University 
 professorships, is the distinguishing English academic 
 feature ; and it is an essential part of the college 
 system, by which small independent societies, each 
 possessing complete avrdptceia, undertook to receive 
 students within their walls, and to fit them for Uni- 
 versity degrees. It is evident that such a system, in 
 which the personal element counts for so much, must 
 be peculiarly sensitive to changes in the intellectual, 
 moral, and social atmosphere. In a sluggish and self- 
 pleasing age it is hardly likely to develop asceticism or 
 altruism ; in an age of revolution and of controversy it 
 is certain, sooner or later, to lend itself to the propaga- 
 tion of serious change. A succession of dignified pro- 
 fessors may have an air of detachment from the flux of 
 things; but the tutor, who makes his applications of 
 Plato or Hegel over a pipe at a cosy fireside or in the 
 easy conversational atmosphere of a college lecture- 
 room or of a reading-party in some pastoral solitude, 
 has special opportunities of turning eternal truths into 
 current coin bearing many devices, some of them most 
 individual and unexpected. 
 
 If one could have foreseen the character of the 
 nineteenth century, it would have been easy to predict 
 that the century would either, in some pet of reform, 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 157 
 
 abolish the tutorial system, as too indeterminate for an 
 age tending more and more towards rigidity and uni- 
 formity of method, or would witness a great revival and 
 development of it. It may be said broadly that the 
 revival and development which actually took place had 
 two great phases : one in the early part of the century, 
 which is specially associated with Oriel ; and one in the 
 latter half of the century, which is primarily associated 
 with Balliol. 
 
 This tutorial movement at Oriel was the real Oxford 
 movement connected with the college on which its 
 historian has most reason to dwell. The succession 
 of eminent tutors in the college from the days of 
 Eveleigh to the days of Hawkins was the direct result 
 of that openness of the Fellowships to which we have 
 so often had reason to allude an openness which 
 made Oriel, beyond any other college, sensitive to, 
 and representative of, the most eminent and various 
 talent which the University had to offer, and the 
 benefits of which, as we shall see, were greatly extended 
 by the way in which elections to Fellowships were con- 
 ducted. The eminent tutors attracted promising under- 
 graduates and helped their promise to issue in per- 
 formance; and thus the college built up a solid and 
 lasting intellectual reputation. That reputation was 
 at its height long before there was any thought of 
 Tractarianism or even any premonition of a High 
 Church revival. Its material was of a wholly different 
 quality. There ran in the common-room, when the 
 century was in its teens, a spirit of inquiry an almost 
 sceptical leaven. When the High Church revival began 
 to stir and to move the minds of able men at Oxford, it 
 
158 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 could not but visit Oriel, where so many able men were 
 congregated ; it could not but pass into the common- 
 room and enter partly into antagonism, partly into 
 strange union, with the restless dialectic prevalent there. 
 But for one circumstance, however, it might be argued 
 that the High Church movement, in so far as it led to 
 the Tractarian propaganda, stifled Oriel's pre-eminence 
 rather than fostered it. For "the movement,''' which 
 involved so many eminent Oriel men, failed at a critical 
 moment to take possession of the college as a whole. 
 The election to the Provostship in 1828 of Edward 
 Hawkins rather than John Keble was significant of 
 the fact that when the combustibles, all over the 
 University, were nearly ready for the match, Oriel as 
 a whole would have no hand in applying it. When 
 the blaze was ready to spring up, there came, first, an 
 enfeebling schism in the college, and then a decline in 
 vogue and power. The intellectual pre-eminence of the 
 college was gone. 
 
 It has been said there was one thing which prevented all 
 this from wholly happening ; there was one prerogative 
 of Oriel which almost justifies the popular view that she 
 owes her fame to Tractarianism ; and that prerogative 
 was her long possession of John Henry Newman. 
 Though he passed his undergraduate days elsewhere, 
 Newman came to Oriel on the wings of his first 
 academic success ; at Oriel he pieced together his early 
 creed; at Oriel he acquired and used, long before he 
 knew, his vast personal power over the minds of men ; 
 from the pulpit of St. Mary's, Oriel's own church, he 
 revolutionized English religious thought; to Oriel he 
 returned from his Italian tour with its weird experiences, 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 159 
 
 its delirious forebodings ; at Oriel he composed his 
 "Tracts for the Times"; Oriel held him until every 
 mooring was loosened, and he set sail for strange seas. 
 No man more earnestly than Newman himself repudiated 
 his parentage of the Tractarian movement. Yet it is 
 impossible not to feel that, however the movement 
 might have fared without Newman, it is to him that 
 it owes its chief power and charm for the observer who 
 is not a partisan. If any one ghost more than another 
 haunts the precincts of St. Mary^s College it must be 
 the ghost of Newman ; and while that presence is there, 
 the popular feeling about Oriel will never be wholly 
 changed. 
 
 So much it may have been well to say by way of 
 anticipation and introduction. We must now proceed 
 with our story, from which the reader will draw his own 
 conclusions. 
 
 The reign of John Eveleigh (1781-1814) represents 
 two centuries, and falls naturally into two divisions 
 the period before the organization of honours examina- 
 tions, and the period after it. The Statute of 1801 
 was that " by which the studies of the University were 
 first raised from their abject state.' 1 Its chief, or, at 
 least, its most striking, provision was the institution of 
 class-lists, of which the first appeared at Easter, 1802 ; 
 and, by universal consent, the chief author of this 
 change was Provost Eveleigh. Or perhaps a more 
 striking dividing-line would be 1795, the year of Edward 
 Copleston's election as Fellow. Before Copleston's 
 election Oriel was under the old regime. It was by the 
 influence of Copleston, first as tutor and then as Provost, 
 that the college entered on her inheritance of renown. 
 
160 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 We realize the scope of Eveleigh's period when we 
 reflect that among the Fellows who elected him was 
 Gilbert White, and that among those who elected his 
 successor were Richard Whately and John Keble. As 
 to Eveleigh's personality and career there is a disap- 
 pointing scantiness of evidence in detail ; there only 
 hangs about his name a tradition of sweet and whole- 
 some savour. The undoubted facts of his life are 
 simple. He was of Winkley, in Devonshire, and was 
 born in or about 1748. He matriculated at Wadham, 
 and took his B.A. degree from there in 1770. The 
 same year he was elected to a Fellowship at Oriel. He 
 became Dean of his college in 1775, and Vicar of St. 
 Mary's in 1778. In 1792 he was Bampton Lecturer. 
 His Bampton Lectures may, of course, still be read ; 
 and there are other published sermons, from which one 
 gathers an impression of dignified and conventional, 
 rather uninspired and uninspiring composition. His 
 face, as it appears in the fine portrait in the Oriel 
 common room, is intelligent, gentle, and handsome. 
 Thomas Mozley " that amusing rattle, 1 ' as Matthew 
 Arnold called him reported that the neighbourhood 
 of his living at Plymtree was full of Eveleighs ; that 
 they were all like the Provost's portrait ; had fair com- 
 plexions and light hair, and were "mild, inoffensive, 
 and unambitious." He also implies that they were for 
 the most part of humble station. One may transcribe 
 a little more of Mozley's gossip in default of more solid 
 testimony : 
 
 "They (the Eveleighs) are all strangely fond of light 
 blue. The school-children of the name boys and girls 
 were sure to have blue about them, and I could not pass 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 161 
 
 their cottages without seeing a blue rag on the road. 
 Meeting a carpenter of the name in a neighbouring village, 
 a jolly fellow of near seventy, I asked him about his rela- 
 tives, and observed how fond they all were of light blue. 
 He replied he had never heard that said before, and had 
 never noticed it. I replied : ( Why, you've got a light-blue 
 neckcloth on yourself !' " 
 
 Mozley asked Henry Thomas Ellacombe (author of a 
 work on the bells of Devonshire, and an undergraduate 
 at Oriel in Eveleigh's time) what he remembered of his 
 first Provost. 
 
 " It was immediately clear that Eveleigh had left no 
 strong or distinct impression on his memory. . . . All he 
 could mention was a line in some humorous verses by an 
 undergraduate, describing the heads of houses : 
 
 " ' Here comes fair Eveleigh with his blue hose.' "* 
 
 Keble wrote of Eveleigh in 1855 : " I had known 
 him as long as I can remember anyone. He was, I 
 verily believe, a man to bring down a blessing on any 
 society of which he was a member ."f A man of 
 whom Keble would write thus must have found a 
 good deal of material for reform in the Oriel of his 
 early rule, in the days when the college lived loosely 
 and luxuriously ; when the Fellows dined early and 
 drank pretty hard afterwards, and over their cards in 
 the evening.]: 
 
 The first important event in the college history when 
 Eveleigh had taken the reins was the bequest of Lord 
 
 * Mozley, Reminiscences, i. 80. 
 
 t Quoted in Burgon, Twelve Good Men, i. 383. 
 
 j Mozley, i. 69, 70. 
 
 11 
 
162 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 Leigh, with its consequence, the erection of the new 
 library in the garden, with the common-rooms on the 
 ground-floor. Edward, the Lord Leigh who had been 
 an Oriel man, and High Steward of the University in 
 1767, died in 1786, and left to the college all his books 
 at Stoneleigh Abbey in Warwickshire. Such an addi- 
 tion made the library on the north side of the front 
 quadrangle inadequate, and the foundations of a new 
 building were laid in 1787. This is the somewhat grim 
 and gaunt structure which faces us as we pass from the 
 front into the back quadrangle, and forms the most 
 northerly part of the college premises. The building 
 is quite isolated. To the north of it are the premises 
 of St. Mary Hall, and on either side Bishop Robinson's 
 and Provost Carter's buildings. The upper story is 
 occupied by the library, contained in one large chamber, 
 with one or two small supplementary rooms ; and below 
 it are two common rooms, with a vestibule at the east 
 end, and a passage with the staircase leading to the 
 library at the other. 
 
 Henry Beeke had a good deal to do with the arrange- 
 ment of the Library, and a word is due to him. He 
 was elected Fellow in 1775, and was a man of some 
 eminence. In the Church he became Dean of Bristol ; 
 in the University he was Professor of Modern History 
 from 1801 to 1813. He had many accomplishments, 
 but his real bent was financial, and in this subject he 
 stands out as an original thinker. Those were the days 
 when Pitt had startled England with the income-tax, 
 and tradition credited Beeke with the suggestion. If 
 this cannot be made good, it is at least certain that Beeke 
 theorized in an able manner on the problems connected 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 163 
 
 with the income-tax ;* and so excellent was his reputa- 
 tion that he became a frequent adviser and referee of 
 Vansittart during his long tenure of the Chancellorship 
 of the Exchequer. 
 
 In the early days of Eveleigtfs reign, John Ireland, 
 afterwards Dean of Westminster, was at Oriel, first as 
 Bible-clerk, and afterwards as B.A. in 1783. He 
 became a conspicuous benefactor of the college, though 
 his good deeds belong to a later stage of its history. 
 
 The most important force at work in the college in 
 the closing years of the eighteenth century was the 
 acceleration of what had all along been the most 
 characteristic tendency of the institution, namely, that 
 towards fully open Fellowships Fellowships, that is 
 to say, confined neither to members of the college 
 nor to candidates from certain places. The first kind 
 of restriction, we clearly realize, had never existed at 
 Oriel at all. Membership of the college never was 
 necessary before election to a Fellowship. The other 
 kind of restriction, we also realize, did exist, though 
 only in connexion with some, and those a minority, of 
 the Fellowships. What directly led to the pre-eminence 
 of Oriel in the first thirty years of the nineteenth century, 
 and to its tutorial ability and fame, was the use it made 
 of this exceptional freedom, so that the best ability of 
 the University might flow Oriel wards by a kind of 
 natural law. 
 
 A momentous step was taken, as has already been 
 hinted, in the election of Edward Copleston of Corpus 
 
 * Beeke's work on this subject was called, Observations on the 
 Produce of the Income Tax and on its Proportion to the whole Income 
 of Great Britain. McCulloch said it was the best application of 
 statistical reasoning to finance that had yet appeared. 
 
164 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 in 1795. The importance lay not, of course, in the 
 fact that Copleston was a Corpus and not an Oriel 
 man ; in that, as we have seen, there was no novelty. 
 It lay in the fact that Copleston, having been born in 
 Devonshire, was invited to stand for a Fellowship 
 which, by the terms of its foundation, was restricted to 
 candidates born in Wiltshire ; in other words, it was 
 one of the Frank Fellowships. The entry in the 
 Register is explicit on this point : " Eodem tempore 
 Edvardus Copleston de Offwell in Com. Devoniae 
 propter defectum habilis Candidati e com. Wilton, 
 electus est unanimi consensu Societatis." The circum- 
 stances of the election make a picturesque incident in 
 Copleston's biography. Copleston was in no sense a 
 competitor for the Fellowship. He had just taken his 
 degree. In those days there were no Honours Lists or 
 First Classes. Copleston was only a promising Corpus 
 scholar who had won the Chancellors Latin Verse 
 Prize. It was a most pregnant incident, for Copleston 
 was not only the involuntary agent of the supersession 
 of a rule, but, by his own force and talent, the chief 
 instrument of Oriel's success in after days. 
 
 Copleston was appointed tutor in October, 1797, 
 and from that time we may date the beginning of 
 the great tutorial period at Oriel. The faults of the 
 eighteenth century were at last about to be mended. 
 Eveleigh had long been advocating the Honours 
 system ; the energy of Cyril Jackson, Dean of Christ 
 Church, and of Parsons, the Master of Balliol, soon 
 carried it into effect. The Honours system demanded 
 increased energy in tuition; it introduced a keenly 
 competitive spirit into all college work. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 165 
 
 The tutorial reputation of Oriel was built up by 
 more than one man, but probably Copleston had more 
 to do with it than any other. Copleston had definite 
 ideals of education and of tuition. He was, by nature 
 and by circumstances, a pioneer and a controversialist. 
 More than that, he had an ideal of Fellowships and the 
 qualification for them, an ideal to which the constitu- 
 tion of Oriel peculiarly lent itself. Copleston was, in 
 fact, a man quick with the spirit of his age. He was 
 no petrifaction or pedant, making classical erudition 
 hideous, and believing in the finality of Oxford con- 
 ventions, but a man of letters, nimble, critical, and 
 many-sided. Two facts of his career may serve for 
 sufficient illustration of this. He was Professor of 
 Poetry at Oxford from 1802 to 1812, and acquitted 
 himself with distinction in that capacity. He showed 
 himself capable of repelling the shafts of the less 
 instructed of the new critics of the nineteenth century, 
 and carrying the war into the enemy's camp. Thus, 
 when there appeared in the British Critic a scathing 
 review of the poems of Copleston's colleague at Oriel, 
 Richard Mant, Copleston brought out an Advice to a 
 Young Reviewer, which is a piece of quite brilliant 
 irony. He follows up a series of satirical maxims to a 
 budding critic with a review of Milton's L? Allegro as a 
 specimen. The last paragraph will give some idea of 
 the quality of this jeu cT esprit : 
 
 " Upon the whole, Mr. Milton seems to be possessed of 
 some fancy and talent for rhyming, two most dangerous 
 endowments, which often unfit men for acting a useful 
 part in life, without qualifying them for that which is 
 great and brilliant. If it be true, as we have heard, that 
 
166 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 he has declined advantageous prospects in business for the 
 sake of indulging his poetical humour, we hope it is not 
 yet too late to prevail upon him to retract his resolution. 
 With the help of Cocker and common industry he may 
 become a respectable scrivener ; but it is not all the 
 Zephyrs, and Auroras, and Corydons, and Thyrsises, aye, 
 nor his junketing Queen Mab, and drudging Goblins that 
 will ever make him a poet." 
 
 Copleston's duel with the anonymous traducer of 
 Oxford education in the Edinburgh Revieiv is perhaps 
 better known, and lets us see into the nature and ideals 
 of the man. In 1809 the Edinburgh attack on Oxford 
 had appeared, and in 1810 and 1811 Copleston, being 
 at the time tutor and Dean of Oriel, published a series 
 of replies. These are written with the utmost vivacity 
 and acumen, and show the literary sensitiveness and 
 capacity characteristic of the man. His primary aim 
 was to defend against the critic the devotion to 
 Aristotle and the classical basis of Oxford education 
 generally ; but it was less Oxford as it was than Oxford 
 as it might be, not the University conceived as eternally 
 droning out dead learning in dead languages, but as 
 possessing in the classical languages and literatures an 
 invaluable instrument for training the minds of men 
 for the tasks of their day and generation, for which he 
 took up his plea. 
 
 A reformer, indeed, Copleston was from the first. 
 He was in hearty sympathy with Eveleigh's promotion 
 of the Honours system ; nay, he went a step further 
 than Eveleigh, and advocated the publication of the 
 names of all pass-men, a change which has never yet 
 been made. " He was," says Whately, " for considering 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 167 
 
 all as having obtained some honour, who, on examina- 
 tion, had been pronounced worthy of an academical 
 degree. 11 * He believed in the system of college lectures, 
 which was one side of the tutorial system the side of 
 it which dealt with men in classes. He thought that a 
 small class, varying from three or four to ten or twelve, 
 was the golden mean between the " ambitious display " 
 of a public lecture, with its dubious benefits to the 
 average man, and the uncompetitive and often wearisome 
 tete-a-tete instruction. 
 
 There was one difficulty, however, inherent in the 
 tutorial system as Copleston and his followers under- 
 stood it which even his ability was not quite able to 
 solve. In the tutorial idea there lurked the potentiality 
 of closer intercourse between tutor and pupil, of more 
 exclusive attention to the individual needs, than could 
 be attained by the daily college lecture. How acute 
 this difficulty became at Oriel, and what pain and 
 difficulty it wrought, we shall see by-and-by. It was 
 practically solved in Copleston's days by what he and 
 his school in theory condemned the taking of private 
 pupils by the college tutors. Under this plan an under- 
 graduate might be both the official and the private 
 pupil of his tutor. One of Coplestoifs pupils has left 
 a vivid picture of Copleston (and the other eminent 
 Oriel tutors followed his example closely) in both 
 capacities. To his classes he gave only one lecture a 
 day ; but so thorough was it, so well digested, so 
 soundly practical, so unflinchingly accurate, that it 
 did away with the need for all coaching and cramming 
 
 * See Copleston's Remains, with Introduction by Archbishop 
 Whately (1854). 
 
168 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 whatever. Yet the pupils did coach, though it was 
 with their own tutors, and though, in Copleston^s case, 
 it was greater quantity rather than superior quality 
 that was to be got by doing so. In the private lectures 
 he did not scruple to be a little desultory at times, and 
 to improve small occasions. Once a note was brought 
 in during a coaching hour, and Copleston, being in- 
 dignant at seeing his name spelt with two p's thereon, 
 delivered himself as follows : 
 
 " I cannot recommend a better habit to a young man, 
 like yourself, entering the world in good society, than to 
 ascertain the exact prefix, spelling, and pronunciation of 
 every man's name with whom you have intercourse ; such, 
 1 mean, as he and his family choose habitually to adopt. 
 Depend upon it, that people in general infer a sort of 
 oAtyco/ota from such lapses ; as if you took so little interest 
 in their identity as to forget the minor characteristics 
 of it."* 
 
 Copleston ceased to be tutor in 1813; but he was 
 appointed Provost on Eveleigh's death in 1814, and 
 held office until his translation to the See of Llandaff* 
 in 1828. During the whole of that time his influence 
 the influence of a man modern, practical, literary, 
 rather rationalistic, as well as sufficiently scholarly 
 was very strong in the college, and told powerfully 
 upon the elections to the Fellowships, by which, quite 
 as much as by the quality of the tuition, Oriel won 
 great fame. The principle to which Copleston owed 
 his own election as Fellow, the strict principle of detur 
 digniori, came to be the recognised rule of the college ; 
 and the special gift practised by Copleston and com- 
 
 * Memoirs of Edward Copleston, by W. J. Copleston, i. 27-36. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 169 
 
 municated by him to his juniors and colleagues was the 
 intuition of dignitas among the candidates. The in- 
 tuition was not independent of a special examination 
 such as, in Coplestons own case, had been dispensed 
 with. The art lay in the nature and conduct of the 
 examination, which were at once the glory and the 
 stumbling-stone of the college. Perhaps the essential 
 principle, the end aimed at, cannot be better stated 
 than in Copleston's own words written in 1843. He is 
 speaking of the qualifications of a Fellow, and he says : 
 
 "That defect which I always saw and lamented in 
 examiners, and in vain endeavoured to remedy, still seems 
 not only to exist but increase the quackery of the schools. 
 Every election to a Fellowship which tends to discourage 
 the narrow and almost the technical routine of public 
 examinations I consider as an important triumph."* 
 
 In other words, according to the Coplestonian 
 tradition, Oriel Fellowships were given in conscious 
 independence of academic conventions, and in disbelief 
 in the finality of the verdict of the schools. 
 
 The best extant account both of the spirit and 
 procedure of an Oriel Fellowship examination is 
 furnished by a long letter written by Richard William 
 Church, the late Dean of St. Paul's, to H. P. Liddon, 
 as material for the Life of Pusey. Church was elected 
 Fellow of Oriel in 1838; but the Coplestonian ideal 
 was not forgotten, though Copleston was gone and 
 things were rather decadent. Vacancies, Dean Church 
 tells us, were never advertised : if a man wanted to 
 stand at Oriel he had to find out whether there was 
 
 * Letters and Correspondence of J. H. Newman, i. 73, 74. 
 
170 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 a vacancy or not. He was then interviewed by the 
 Provost, and if the Provost was satisfied that he was 
 generally desirable and was sufficiently poor, the 
 candidate's next step was to write a Latin letter to 
 each of the Fellows, giving his reasons for standing, 
 and belief as to his qualifications. There was then 
 some personal intercourse before the examination began. 
 One had better go on to Dean Church's own words : 
 
 "The examination was always in Easter week, and 
 lasted four days, from Monday to Thursday. I received a 
 card from the Dean . . . telling me to be in hall at ten 
 on Monday, and bring with me a certain volume of the 
 Spectator. We were told that we might have as long as 
 we liked for our papers, till it got too dark to see, but we 
 should not have candles . . . that we should remain in the 
 hall till we had done them. . . . We had a longish passage 
 from our Spectators to turn into Latin, and an English 
 essay to write on a passage of Bacon. . . . On Tuesday it 
 was the same thing, the papers being a Latin essay and (I 
 think) a bit of English to be translated into Greek. . . . 
 The work was mainly composition and translation. The 
 questions were very general, not involving directly much 
 knowledge, but trying how a man could treat ordinary 
 questions which interest cultivated men. It was altogether 
 a trial, not of how much men knew, but of how they knew, 
 and what they could do. The last two days were varied 
 by excursions to the ' Tower ' for viva voce, which was made 
 a good deal of. . . ." 
 
 More valuable than even Dean Church's narrative 
 are his comments : 
 
 " The idea of the examination was an old-fashioned one, 
 rather pointedly contrasted with the newer modes then 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 171 
 
 coming in of setting questions implying a good deal of 
 modern or of somewhat pretentious reading, in history, 
 philology, and modern books of philosophy and political 
 science. The Oriel common-room was rather proud of its 
 seemingly easy and commonplace and unpretending tests 
 of a man's skill in languages and habits and power of 
 thinking for himself. They did not care if he had read 
 much so that he came up to their standard of good Latin, 
 good Greek, good English, and good sense. ... It created 
 a prejudice against a man if he seemed to be trying to be 
 flash, or to show off his reading. . . . The two papers 
 which were almost invariably the guide to the first decision 
 were the English into Latin and the English essay. It 
 was very seldom that men who were clearly first in these 
 did not maintain their superiority throughout the rest of 
 the examination, and no man who failed in these had 
 much chance of retrieving himself. Next to these papers 
 the Latin essay and the translations into English told." 
 
 The Fellows examined together each candidate^ set 
 of papers. 
 
 "We met in common-room and sat round the table, 
 each of us having one man's essay or translation. If a 
 translation, one of us read a sentence of the English, etc., 
 and the corresponding sentence of each translation went 
 round the table in turn, till the paper had been gone 
 through sentence by sentence, and each sentence had 
 been discussed and criticised. . . . The English and Latin 
 essays were also read aloud, so that at the end we got a 
 very distinct notion of the strength or weakness of each 
 candidate. This way of doing things was, I think, given 
 up in the later part of my residence. We inherited it 
 from the days when Copleston was Provost, and the older 
 men set much value on it. ... The style of examination 
 
172 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 was objected to as narrow and minute, as it certainly was 
 troublesome. But it was certainly searching. ... A good 
 deal of weight was attached to viva voce. ... It was thought 
 to be a good test of the way in which a man met difficulties, 
 and whether he faced them fairly or tried to evade them."* 
 
 How this method might prove a rock of offence is 
 shown by an incident of 1821. In the Fellowship 
 election of that year (the year before Newman's 
 election) Charles J. Plumer, of Balliol, who had taken 
 a second class in the schools, was preferred to Daniel 
 K. Sandford, of Christ Church, who had taken a first. 
 Sandford was exceedingly indignant, and relieved his feel- 
 ings by attacking the Oriel method in the July number 
 of the Edinburgh Review. A sentence or two will show 
 what might plausibly be said by a victim of the method. 
 
 " Let a young man only abdicate the privilege of think- 
 ing . . . and devote his whole body and soul to the sordid 
 ambition of success, and the way to win with such electors 
 is no formidable problem. . . . After a dull examination in 
 the schools if a failure so much the better he may begin 
 to be the butt of common-rooms, circulate tutors' wit and 
 prose against the Edinburgh Review. . . . Guiltless of fame, 
 of originality or humour, our tyro may then approach the 
 scene of action, secure that the judges will take good care 
 that 'the race shall not be to the swift nor the battle to 
 the strong.' Hardy professions of impartiality are indeed 
 held forth, to attract unwary merit ; and selfish mediocrity 
 finds the most exquisite of all its gratifications in the 
 momentary chance of harassing the talent it would tremble 
 to confront. The candidates are locked up to write themes, 
 solve a sorites, discover the Latin for an earthquake, and 
 
 * Life ofE. B. Pusey. D.D., i. 66-69. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 173 
 
 perform other equally edifying tasks ; and the close of this 
 solemn farce is the annunciation of a choice that had been 
 long before determined, in proportion to the scrapings, 
 grins, and genuflections of the several competitors. Who 
 can be surprised if, under a system like this, genius and 
 knowledge should so seldom strike a lasting root ? or that 
 maturity, which succeeds to a youth so prostituted, should 
 produce, by its most vigorous efforts, nothing better than 
 learned drivelling and marrowless inflation ?"* 
 
 Certainly neither drivelling pedantry nor marrowless 
 inflation was what characterized either Copleston him- 
 self or the long series of his best colleagues at Oriel. 
 On the contrary (and it is necessary to emphasize this 
 in face of the tendency to associate modern Oriel chiefly 
 with ecclesiasticism), the tone of the college in its 
 greatest days was distinctively critical, rational, and 
 sceptical. The chief aim of the Fellowship examina- 
 tion was to test dialectical power; a chief occupation 
 of the common-room was to practise it. An attempt 
 to name this tone was made in the application of the 
 phrase "Noetic School " to Whately and other dis- 
 tinguished colleagues of Copleston at Oriel. Newman 
 himself, who did more than any other man to divert 
 the college from criticism to submission, has left a vivid 
 picture, not only of the direct influence on him of so 
 characteristic a " Noetic " as Whately, but of his own 
 argumentative brusqwrie in the congenial atmosphere 
 of the Oriel common-room. And it is noticeable, both 
 in his case and in that of Richard Hurrell Froude, his 
 
 * Quoted in Newman's Letters and Correspondence, i. 65, 66. It is 
 fair to Sir D.'K. Sandford to add that he was afterwards heartily 
 ashamed of both the taste and the truthfulness of this criticism. 
 
174 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 chief coadjutor in sowing the seed of the coming Trac- 
 tarianism in college, that their method was essentially 
 dialectical and modern, even though its effect, on 
 themselves and others, was to lead them into " fierce 
 thoughts" against the modern spirit and the modern 
 trend of things. Pusey might bury himself in theology, 
 and Keble might be the saint and sweet singer of a 
 revived devotion ; but Newman and Froude, even when 
 the gates of authority seemed about to close on them 
 for ever, were questioners and controversialists and 
 gladiators, striving to rationalize reason out of its own 
 supremacy. 
 
 The moral and religious side of Oriel tuition in those 
 days is well represented by James Davison, who came 
 from Christ Church to Oriel in 1800, and was tutor 
 from 1810 to 1817. He gained high respect both 
 among his colleagues and the undergraduates, and was 
 honourably known in the world of authorship by his 
 Warburtonian Lectures on Prophecy and his Inquiry 
 into Primitive Sacrifice, as well as by various contribu- 
 tions to the Quarterly Review. He also was something 
 of a political economist, having written both against 
 relief to the able-bodied poor and on the silk trade. 
 
 Another of the graver tutors was William James, 
 elected in 1809, who was still in residence when Newman 
 joined the college, and of whom he speaks with respect 
 as having, " about the year 1823," taught him the 
 doctrine of Apostolical Succession in the course of a 
 walk he thought round Christ Church meadow. "I 
 recollect," he adds, " being somewhat impatient of the 
 subject at the time." 
 
 The Honours system in the University soon began to 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 175 
 
 tell on the vogue of Oriel. Copleston was one of the 
 first examiners, and his college began to take a dis- 
 tinguished place in the class lists. In those days there 
 were few University prizes, and only one University 
 Scholarship the Craven. The prizes were the Chan- 
 cellor's two one for Latin verse, and one for an English 
 essay, to which was added, in 1810, one for a Latin 
 essay. Besides these there was that bonne bouche, the 
 Newdigate prize for English verse ; and that was all. 
 These prizes again and again fell to the share of Oriel. 
 
 The three years 1810-1813 have a special importance 
 in the college history. Copleston was still tutor, and 
 in 1810 he became Dean. In 1811 an epoch was made 
 by the election of John Keble and Richard Whately 
 as Fellows. Keble was to be, what all the world knows 
 he was, the true saint and poet of a movement which 
 may without offence be called reactionary, as well as 
 the herald of Tractarianism ; Whately was a Noetic of 
 Noetics, a shrewd man of the world, an astute logician 
 and controversialist, a believer in progress, a corrector 
 of enthusiasms on every side. When he took his place 
 at Oriel, Keble was a brilliant young scholar of Cople- 
 ston's college, Corpus, who had taken his degree with 
 double first-class honours in 1810. In 1812 he won 
 both the Latin and English essays ; so that, although 
 he did not become a tutor until 1818, he was examining 
 for the schools in 1813, and was much in college, securing 
 respect by his attainments, and love by his sweet and 
 lofty character. Whately had been at Oriel through- 
 out, and had done something towards redeeming 
 the comparative failure of a double second in 1808 
 (the year of Robert PeePs double first) by winning 
 
176 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 the English essay in 1810. From the first, however, 
 Whately's passport must have been less any definite 
 academic success than the manifestation of a strong 
 personality and a rich and versatile intelligence. No 
 one exemplified better than he the ideal of the Oriel 
 Fellow as a man whose mind was an instrument rather 
 than a receptacle. 
 
 Two other notable elections were made during Eve- 
 leigh's lifetime that of James Endell Tyler in 1812, 
 and that of Edward Hawkins in 1813. Tyler was an 
 Oriel man, who took a first in classics and a second in 
 mathematics in 1809. He was at Oriel almost con- 
 tinuously, until he was appointed by Lord Liverpool to 
 St. Giles-in-the-Fields in 1826, his only previous eccle- 
 siastical preferment having been to the college living of 
 Moreton Pinckney, which he served from Oxford. Tyler 
 was not, perhaps, a man of genius ; but he had the kind 
 of harmonious and well-endowed nature which fills, 
 actively and acceptably, every niche in which it finds 
 itself. He was a famous tutor, with excellent powers 
 of imparting what he knew, and warm personal interest 
 in his pupils; a popular, beneficent, and reforming 
 parish clergyman ; in all directions an asserting and 
 attaching personality. Always he magnified his office ; 
 it was he (so the story goes) who, when he was Dean, 
 sent a formal note to Gaisford : " The Dean of Oriel 
 presents his compliments to the Dean of Christ Church," 
 on reading which Gaisford remarked : " Alexander the 
 coppersmith sendeth greeting to Alexander the Great." 
 When Tyler migrated to London, and lost his chance of 
 being Provost after Copleston, he passed to new success. 
 He shone like a light in the dark region where he 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 177 
 
 laboured ; and all who have occasion to traverse Endcll 
 Street, as they thread their way through London, would 
 do well to remember whose memory is enshrined there. 
 
 Edward Hawkins came from Merchant Taylor's and 
 St. John's with a double first behind him, won in 1811, 
 and a future of strong, strange, and indeterminate in- 
 fluence before him. What the nature of that influence 
 was must be guessed at from much of the subsequent 
 history of the college. 
 
 On April 23, 1813, the college decreed that if no 
 candidate for a Frank Fellowship from the proper 
 county was of sufficient merit, a native of any other 
 county might be elected on the Frank foundation, even 
 though there were already two other Fellows natives of 
 such other county. The Fellow so elected was to be 
 reckoned as of the Frank county so long as his own 
 county continued to be represented by two other 
 Fellows, but he was to be transferred to his own county 
 as soon as that became free ; and if at that time there 
 were a Fellow of the proper Frank county holding an 
 open Fellowship, such Fellow was to be reckoned as on 
 the Frank foundation. 
 
 On December 10, 1814, Provost Eveleigh died, leaving 
 behind him a great, if somewhat vague, reputation. 
 Copleston, who was Dean, formally announced the event 
 to his colleagues, and eulogized the Provost with dis- 
 crimination. 
 
 "We have lost" (he said) "not only a bright example 
 of piety, worth, and benevolence, but each one of us has 
 lost a friend, while the college has lost an experienced and 
 conscientious Governor one who conducted its concerns 
 for three-and-thirty years with singular uprightness and 
 
178 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 fidelity, and who preserved its harmony uninterrupted, 
 even among differences of opinion, by his own candour 
 and invariable mildness of temper. In every question that 
 divided the Society, it was evident to all that his sole 
 endeavour was to discharge his conscience. There was no 
 mixture of pride, of obstinacy, of love of power ; no im- 
 patience of opposition ; no separate interest or selfish motive 
 ever intruded into his dealings with us. He displayed at 
 all times a respect for the judgment of others, a readiness 
 to compare opinions, and a liberal disposition to concede 
 whenever he thought his conscience not involved in the 
 support of his own judgment." 
 
 After referring to Eveleigh^s promotion of the Honours 
 scheme, Copleston proceeded to reveal a secret : 
 
 "After having seen many attempts at succeeding by 
 mere argument and remonstrance quite fruitless, and when 
 he almost despaired of effecting anything by that method, 
 he had drawn the outline of a new plan, which he meant 
 to submit to some leading persons in this place, and which 
 he communicated to me in private. It contained an offer, 
 on his own part, of a benefaction, larger even than that 
 which he has since conferred on this college, for the purpose 
 of providing rewards and honours for the most distinguished 
 candidates, if the University would consent to a reform of 
 the whole system of examinations. The offer was declined ; 
 but from that moment the work was taken zealously in 
 hand. . . ."* 
 
 One other tribute to the famous Provost may be 
 quoted. It appeared in the Proctor's valedictory oration 
 in 1815, and was from the pen of Martin Joseph Routh, 
 the long-lived President of Magdalen : 
 
 * Memoirs of Copleston, i. 63. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 179 
 
 " Dein paucis mensibus interjectis e medio nobis ereptus 
 est vir gravis et sanctus, Orielensis Collegii prsepositus, 
 qui juncta doctrina turn sacra quam externa cum literis 
 Hebraicis, in scriptis suis non tantum divinas Scripturas 
 feliciter exposuit, sed etiam fidem orthodoxam invictissime 
 defendit. Religionis praemia, quae innocentia vitse atque 
 inculpatis moribus Deo adjuvante meruerat, virtutibus et 
 annis plenus, jam melius nosse incepit." 
 
 It was in keeping with such a lofty strain of com- 
 pliment that Eveleigh^s successor in the Provostship 
 was referred to : 
 
 " Huic egregio viro, quern diu lugebunt cum ecclesia et 
 academia, turn vero praecipue celebre musarum domicilium 
 in quo habitabat, successit grande decus atque tutamen 
 rerum nostrarum, is, qui omnium tulit suffragia, nee meo 
 vel cujusquam alius egens praeconio." 
 
 Eveleigh's benefactions to Oriel were worthy of the 
 man. In 1789 he gave ^1,000, invested in the 3 per 
 cent. Old S.S. Annuities, on trust that ^18 of the 
 income should be spent in books to be given to de- 
 serving undergraduates, according to the judgment of 
 the Provost and Fellows. The rest of the <30 was to 
 be spent for the benefit of the parish school at Purleigh. 
 The Eveleigh Books have been a prominent feature 
 of Oriel ever since. In 1845 it was settled that the 
 books were to be given at collections for work done 
 or good conduct shown during the preceding year ; and 
 more recently prizes have been instituted for the 
 work done in collections themselves, in harmony with 
 Eveleigh's purpose. The year before his death Eve- 
 leigh devoted the interest of ^?1,500 to the remunera- 
 tion of a Fellow for examining reports of the University 
 
180 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 sermons written by undergraduate members of the 
 college. This was the beginning of the Censor Theo- 
 logians, whose office existed until 1869. By an Order 
 of the Court of Chancery, dated December 6, 1873, 
 the income of the fund was directed to be applied to 
 the maintenance of a lectureship in theology. 
 
 The change of Heads, which put so energetic and 
 reforming a spirit as Copleston's in the highest place in 
 the college, did but increase its power and fame. Two 
 elections in 1815 developed the Noetic side of the 
 common-room those of Renn Dickson Hampden, after- 
 wards Principal of St. Mary Hall and Bishop of Here- 
 ford ; and Thomas Arnold, who, as " Arnold of Rugby," 
 has left his mark on our system of public school education. 
 The former became, in course of time, the sign and symbol 
 of that theological Liberalism which Tractarianism arose 
 to overthrow ; the latter, by his frank adoption of a 
 critical attitude towards historical records, and his bold 
 and novel Erastianism, was the founder of the Broad 
 Church school of the nineteenth century, as well as the 
 assured and uncompromising opponent of Tractarianism. 
 Hampden's connection both with Oriel and Oxford was 
 much closer than Arnold's. Hampden was educated at 
 Oriel, where he won his double first in 1813. He was 
 long in residence, first as Fellow and then as tutor ; he 
 was recalled to the tuition in 1831 ; he became Professor, 
 first of Moral Philosophy and then of Divinity, in the 
 University. Arnold, on the other hand, was one of the 
 little band of able Corpus Scholars; from Corpus he 
 took his first in liter w Jiumanwres in 1814 ; Oriel may 
 claim, if she chooses, part of the credit of the English 
 and Latin essays which he won respectively in 1815 and 
 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 181 
 
 1817. But Arnold did not reside at Oriel beyond his 
 probationary year ; he never was a college tutor ; his 
 bent was towards school mastering, matrimony, and extra- 
 academic life ; and he was little in Oxford between his 
 taking Orders in 1818 and his recall in 1841 to enter 
 on his too brief tenure of the Chair of Modern History. 
 Still, so forceful was his personality that he has his 
 definite niche at Oriel ; and it is well that his keen and 
 trenchant face, with its curling dark hair, should look 
 down, next neighbour to Keble's, on the generations of 
 diners in the Hall. 
 
 If, even in Eveleigh's earlier days, the Oriel common- 
 room was ever in any sense a place of topers, it soon 
 ceased to be so in the great Coplestonian regime. No 
 goblet or flagon, rosy with sensuous content, but " the 
 Oriel teapot," wakeful, austere, astringent, became the 
 recognised symbol of a Society dedicated to dialectic, 
 to the destruction of abuses, to the clarification and 
 purification of thought. Something of unpopularity, a 
 soupfon of superiority, a possibility of priggishness, 
 something too formidable to be wholly genial, mingled 
 with the great attractiveness of the college in those 
 days. It was well, perhaps ; for, on its undergraduate 
 side, Oriel remained, through all vicissitudes, a natural 
 resort of the rank and file of the gentry and clergy; 
 and its staff might have been too much at ease in Zion, 
 and taken their part with the lazy and the conforming. 
 From such a fate the college was saved by the Noetics. 
 
 Henry Jenkyns, brother of the Master of Balliol, and 
 afterwards Canon of Durham, who was elected from 
 Corpus in 1818, set a mark on the college ; and so did 
 Joseph Dornford and Samuel Kickards, elected in the 
 
182 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 following year. It was Jenkyns who, when Pusey, at 
 the Oriel Fellowship examination, tore up his work in 
 a fit of diffident despair, reunited the fragments which 
 helped to win the Fellowship. Dornford came from 
 Wadham and Queers, and became an important tutor 
 in the twenties ; of him we shall hear more again. 
 Rickards was an Oriel man, winner of the Newdigate 
 in 1815, and of the English essay in 1819. He did not 
 remain long in college, but exercised much influence 
 while there, especially over Newman; and when he 
 retired to a living in the country, he and his charming 
 wife made their home a centre of attraction to the 
 best of the sons of Oriel. 
 
 In that same year, 1820, a less satisfactory election 
 was made. The poet Coleridge's eldest son Hartley 
 had taken a second class at Merton in 1818.* The 
 charming childhood to which Wordsworth's lovely lines 
 are dedicated had passed into a youth with gleams of 
 promise, but nothing more. There was genius indeed, 
 but no character. It is said that three successive failures 
 to win the Newdigate so depressed him that he went 
 to the bottle for consolation. However, bottle or no 
 bottle, he won an Oriel Fellowship, and the warm- 
 hearted Tyler took him under his wing with high hopes. 
 Alas ! the year of probation ran on, and Coleridge set 
 every convention at defiance. In a non -smoking period 
 of history, he reeked of tobacco ; among punctilious 
 colleagues he neglected to dress for dinner, and appeared 
 
 * This fact makes mincemeat of Mozley's remarkable statement 
 that Coleridge " took his degree with high honours in 1811, and it 
 was possibly a mutual resilience between him and people of more 
 orderly ways that prevented him from standing at Oriel till some 
 years after." 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 183 
 
 with a face unshaven for days. Worst of all, the wine 
 he drank unquestionably went to his head. Whatever 
 truth may be in the painful story that he was found 
 one night lying in the gutter in Oriel Street, his ways 
 were too lax for Oriel, and he had to be cast out. On 
 October 17, 1820, the register briefly recorded that the 
 college could be no party to the degradation threatened 
 by the behaviour of Mr. Coleridge, to whom it had 
 lately been intimated that, in spite of frequent admoni- 
 tions to better behaviour by the Provost and Dean, he 
 had not conducted himself during his year of probation 
 in such a way as to prove himself worthy of admission 
 into the Society. Wherefore the college thought well 
 to vacate his place. This entry was signed by Whately 
 as Dean. 
 
 With Copleston as Provost and Whately as Dean, 
 Oriel was on the crest of its highest wave. Keble had 
 come back to college as tutor in 1818. It is from this 
 period that we must date Keble's most decisive influence 
 at Oriel, an influence which is one of the most brilliant 
 phases of tutorial success there. At this point we must 
 again fix our attention on the contrast (already indicated 
 in connection with their simultaneous election in 1811) 
 between Keble and Whately as centres of influence at 
 Oriel. Whately, I have said, was "a Noetic of Noetics"; 
 his eccentric ways, his social instincts partly towards 
 camaraderie, partly towards domineering, were all used 
 for sharpening the logical faculties with a view to pro- 
 ducing a manly, reasonable, moderate, not too other- 
 worldly faith and practice. His strong intellectual face 
 and handsome figure, his daily gambols with many dogs 
 in Christ Church Meadow, his vast appetite, his lack 
 
 
184 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 of ceremony (he sometimes lectured lying on a sofa 
 with his leg hanging over the back of it) all these 
 things were symbolic of the effort of a strenuous, not 
 deeply spiritual nature to make reason, religion, and 
 learning at home with each other, and with the world 
 in which they found themselves. Now let us turn to 
 Keble. He was a much more brilliant scholar than 
 Whately ; he was, in the reputation of his slightly 
 junior contemporaries, by intellectual achievement alone 
 the first man in Oxford. Yet, in spite of that, and 
 quite independently of it, the passion of other-worldli- 
 ness, religious and poetic, laid hold of him when he 
 was little more than a boy, and held him through life. 
 The moral side of things was for him not rational, but 
 religious ; the salvation of the soul was more practically 
 urgent than the education of the intelligence ; the con- 
 temporary drift of things was to be opposed rather than 
 sympathetically guided ; a worldly-minded Christian was 
 a worse foe than one who was no Christian at all. His 
 refined, rather plain face, the quaint air of the old- 
 fashioned clergyman, the modest, unassuming manners, 
 suggested not the academical reformer, nor the intel- 
 lectual athlete, but the parish priest, whose truly con- 
 genial sphere was the country living, where Nature is 
 parabolic, and men and women appeal dumbly for help 
 from on high. From our present point of view, the 
 importance of this contrast lies in its effect on the 
 history of Oriel tuition. Keble brought to Oriel from 
 his Fairford curacy something which the ablest and 
 most influential tutors hitherto had fallen short of 
 the idea of something pastoral in the relation of a tutor 
 to his pupils. On January 29, 1818, just before going 
 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 185 
 
 to Oriel, Keble wrote to his future biographer, Sir J. T. 
 Coleridge : 
 
 "I thought at first it would be a very uncomfortable 
 thing to me to give up my Cure, and become an Academic 
 again; but I get more and more reconciled to it every day. 
 You consider Tuition as a species of pastoral care, do you 
 not ? Otherwise it might seem questionable whether a 
 clergyman ought to leave a cure of souls for it. And yet 
 there are some people at Oxford who seem to imagine that 
 College Tutors have nothing to do with the morale. If I 
 thought so, I would never undertake the office." 
 
 In the two last sentences thus quoted there lies the 
 germ of a pretty controversy, of which we shall hear 
 more presently. It is sufficient now, more than ten 
 years before the controversy burst into flame, to connect 
 the beginnings with Keble and his great tutorial fame. 
 
 In 1821 the last restrictions on the Fellowships were 
 got rid of. On October 17, the Ordinance of 1482, which 
 made it necessary that one of the ten Fellows of the 
 original foundation should always be a native of the 
 diocese of Worcester, was abrogated. In making this 
 reform the Provost and Fellows rightly maintained 
 that they were returning to the force and spirit of the 
 founders of the College, whose desire plainly was that 
 Fellows should be chosen from the kingdom at large, 
 recommended by no accident of birth, but purely 
 doctrind et moribus. Therefore the Ordinance was 
 wholly abrogated. 
 
 At Easter, 1821, there had been, besides that election 
 of C. J. Plumer which we have seen drawing forth curses 
 from D. K. Sandford in the Edinburgh, the election of 
 yet another of the great series of Oriel tutors, Richard 
 
186 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 William Jelf of Christ Church, who had taken a second 
 there in 1820. From 1821 to 1826, Jelf was very 
 prominent in the college, and his prominence was all 
 for good. He was an excellent scholar, a conscientious 
 and pleasant lecturer, and a most kindly man. His 
 subsequent history has two outstanding features, the 
 first of which involved his removal from Oxford. In 
 1826 he went to Germany as tutor to Prince George of 
 Cumberland, the future King of Hanover. In 1844 he 
 was made Principal of King's College, London, in which 
 capacity he led the attack on F. D. Maurice for the sins 
 against orthodoxy of his Theological Essays. 
 
 In 1822 came the historical entry of John Henry 
 Newman within the walls of Oriel. The circumstances 
 of the election need not be told at any length ; they are 
 matter of fairly common knowledge. Newman had 
 been hopelessly " gulfed " in the final schools in 1820, 
 as the class-list was then arranged ; that is to say, he 
 had won honours which, under the present reckoning, 
 could not be ranked higher than third class. It was a 
 bitter disappointment, but no very great mystery. 
 Newman was known to be, quite as much after the 
 class-list came out as before it, a man of the rarest 
 ability ; but he had overworked himself, and during the 
 examination his nerve wholly forsook him. There 
 remained the best prize Oxford had to offer an Oriel 
 Fellowship for his salvation. With much modesty and 
 diffidence he entered the lists, and the prize was his. 
 He has told us how he was playing the violin in his 
 Broad Street lodgings (he was a Trinity man), when 
 Provost Copleston's butler arrived from Oriel to announce 
 his election ; how he went on playing as if it didn't 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 187 
 
 matter ; and of the bolt he made for Oriel as soon as 
 the messenger had gone. An even prettier picture is 
 that of Newman sent for to the Tower over the gate- 
 way after his election to shake hands with the Provost 
 and Fellows. " How is that hour," he writes, " fixed in 
 my memory after the changes of forty-two years forty- 
 two this very day on which I write ! I have lately had 
 a letter in my hands, which I sent at the time to my 
 great friend, John William Bowden, with whom I passed 
 almost exclusively my undergraduate years. * I had to 
 hasten to the Tower,"* I say to him, * to receive the con- 
 gratulations of all the Fellows. I bore it till Keble 
 took my hand, and then felt so abashed and unworthy 
 of the honour done me, that I seemed desirous of quite 
 sinking into the ground.'"' 1 And in a letter to his 
 brother, apropos of his introduction at Oriel, he says : 
 " I took my seat in chapel, and dined with a large 
 party in the common-room. I sat next to Keble, and, 
 as I had heard him represented, he is more like an 
 undergraduate than the first man in Oxford, so per- 
 fectly unassuming and unaffected is his manner."" 
 
 These tributes to the Keble of those days are impor- 
 tant and significant, but it would be a mistake to inter- 
 pret them as indicating that Keble's type was that 
 which was most actively influential on Newman at the 
 time. Newman was Evangelical and Protestant ; Keble 
 was always a High Churchman ; and the time had not 
 come for Newman to be changed. In the early Oriel 
 years, Newman was in no sense a disciple of Keble. 
 When he could look back from the standpoint of the 
 Apologia, and see things in their true spiritual propor- 
 tions, he was conscious of a want of sympathy. " He 
 
188 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 was shy of me for years," he writes, " in consequence of 
 the marks I bore upon me of the Evangelical and 
 liberal schools." The rapprochement took place later, 
 when the colours in the kaleidoscope were all changing. 
 
 "Hurrell Froude brought us together about 1828. It 
 is one of the sayings preserved in his Remains : ' Do you 
 know the story of the murderer who had done one good 
 thing in his life ? Well, if I was ever asked what good 
 deed I had ever done, I should say that 1 had brought 
 Keble and Newman to understand each other/ ' 
 
 The strongest power which Oriel brought to bear on 
 Newman at this time was an unexpected one that of 
 Edward Hawkins, who was then one of the tutors, and 
 became Vicar of St. Mary^s in October, 1823. Hawkins 
 lived to be superannuated in many respects, and there 
 were in him always veins of pedantry, officialism, and 
 obstinacy, which, in days of greater age and power, 
 became uncomfortably prominent, and marred his use- 
 fulness. But as an Oriel tutor he was making a very 
 considerable mark in that air to which Whately had 
 given so bracing a quality. On this head the testimony 
 of a man like Newman is conclusive. In certain respects 
 he was of Whately^s school, though by no means in 
 all. He had Whately^s robust orthodoxy without his 
 liberalism ; he was devoted to conventions, while 
 Whately transcended, and even despised them. No 
 pictures could stand out to the imagination in sharper 
 contrast than that of Whately lecturing with his leg 
 over the back of the sofa, and Hawkins putting on his 
 cap, gown, and bands before he came out of his lodgings 
 to look upon the dead body of an unfortunate under- 
 

 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 189 
 
 graduate who had fallen on the stones of the quadrangle 
 from an upper window. Yet in one comprehensive 
 respect they agreed in a belief in moderation, and a 
 desire to found sound learning and religious knowledge 
 on a legitimate use of the rational intelligence, rather 
 than on strong enthusiasms and hero-worship. Both 
 were devoted to logic. 
 
 Newman tells us that Hawkins was of great service 
 to his mind. Hawkins, as Vicar of St. Mary's, and 
 Newman, as curate of St. Clement's after 1824, had to 
 stay up in vacations, and were often alone together 
 in college. During such opportunities of intimacy, 
 Hawkins did his work on Newman. 
 
 " He was the first who taught me to weigh my words, 
 and to be cautious in my statements. He led me to that 
 mode of limiting and clearing my sense in discussion and 
 in controversy, and of distinguishing between cognate 
 ideas, and of obviating mistakes by anticipation, which to 
 my surprise has been since considered, even in quarters 
 friendly to me, to savour of the polemics of Rome. He is 
 a man of most exact mind himself, and he used to snub 
 me severely, on reading, as he was kind enough to do, the 
 first sermons that I wrote, and other compositions which I 
 was engaged upon/'* 
 
 Nor was Hawkins's influence confined to mere im- 
 provements in mental method. Newman traced to him 
 definite additions to the sum total of his positive 
 beliefs. He taught him baptismal regeneration, the 
 value of tradition, and such a view of the subordinate 
 position of the Bible to the formularies of the Church 
 
 * Apologia (1882 edition), p. 8. 
 
190 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 as led Newman to give up subscribing to the Bible 
 Society. 
 
 Whately had married in 1821, and he went off to 
 his Suffolk living in the autumn of 1822, so his decisive 
 influence on Newman was deferred until his return to 
 Oxford in 1825 as Principal of St. Alban Hall, when it 
 became very great. Even during the few months at 
 Oriel, however, something was done. 
 
 " While I was still awkward and timid ... he took me 
 by the hand, and acted towards me the part of a gentle 
 and encouraging instructor. He emphatically opened 
 my mind, and taught me to think and to use my 
 reason." 
 
 To Copleston Newman felt affectionately from the 
 first, but, on the whole, he was rather in awe of the 
 Oriel common-room when first introduced into it. In 
 1823 Edward Bouverie Pusey was elected Fellow from 
 Christ Church, and at once attracted interest and com- 
 manded respect. Newman and he soon made friends. 
 But Pusey, though he was much in college between the 
 date of his election and the summer of 1825, never 
 really identified himself much with Oriel in any way. 
 He was essentially the Hebraist and theologian, and 
 not in any sense or from any point of view one of the 
 Noetics. 
 
 From 1825 onwards regular lists of college officials 
 begin to appear annually in the Register at the be- 
 ginning of Michaelmas term. Let us glance at the 
 first list, that we may realize the personnel of the 
 common-room. Tyler was Dean, Dornford Senior 
 Treasurer, William Ralph Churton (elected Fellow 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 191 
 
 along with Pusey, who had won a first class and the 
 Latin verse prize at Queen's, and who was to win the 
 English essay in 1824, when Pusey won the Latin 
 one) was Junior Treasurer, Hawkins was Sub-Dean 
 (i.e., it was his duty to present candidates for degrees), 
 while Jelf was Censor Theologicus, the mysterious 
 official invented by Provost Eveleigh, whose duty was 
 to help the undergraduate assimilation of the University 
 sermons. 
 
 1826 was a great year at Oriel. In the first place, it 
 was the five-hundredth anniversary of the foundation of 
 the college. The occasion was celebrated by a great 
 dinner in the library on June 15, to which 140 guests 
 sat down, the Provost presiding. Previous to the 
 dinner, a commemoration service was held at St. 
 Mary's, at which Copleston preached. Everything 
 went off successfully. 
 
 In February of that same year Copleston had entered 
 in his diary : " The Society in a very flourishing state, 
 and in excellent discipline. The Fellows united, and 
 the most cordial harmony subsisting." The words, and 
 the date to which they belong, should be noted, for all 
 that was coming to an end. The Government had its 
 eye on the Provost for Church preferment. In 1826 he 
 was offered, and he accepted, the Deanery of Chester ; 
 in the following year he was offered, and he accepted, 
 the Bishopric of LlandafF, through which Oriel lost him 
 for ever. Other seeds of change were planted deep in 
 1826. The Fellows elected at Easter were Robert 
 Isaac Wilberforce and Richard Hurrell Froude. Most 
 significant of all, that was the year when Jelf went to 
 Germany, and Newman was appointed tutor in his place. 
 
192 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 When Whately came back to Oxford in 1825 as 
 Principal of Alban Hall, he made Newman his Vice- 
 Principal, and, during the year they were together, 
 Newman " served him," as he himself says, " with all his 
 heart as his factotum as tutor, chaplain, bursar, and 
 dean "; but Newman was recalled to Oriel, as soon as 
 Jelf left, to fill his place. When Newman entered on 
 his duties as an Oriel tutor, things were entering 
 on a period of change. There is much significance in 
 the words : " As to theology, Mr. Newman was under 
 the influence of Dr. Whately for four years from 
 1822 to 1826 when, coincidently with his leaving 
 Alban Hall, he began to know Mr. Hun-ell Froude." 
 The days of the Noetics, in fact, were for Oriel pass- 
 ing away, and the days of the Reactionaries were 
 beginning. 
 
 One singular figure was well known in common-room 
 in those intermediate times. Joseph Blanco White, 
 Irish by descent, and Spanish by the residence of his 
 family in Spain for some generations, became a member 
 of Oriel in October, 1826, at the age of fifty-one. Born 
 a Roman Catholic, he had set himself to learn Angli- 
 canism, and had taken Orders in the Church of Eng- 
 land. He had much religious conviction and aspira- 
 tion, but a questioning mind, and orthodoxy was a 
 difficulty to him. He had already written a good 
 many books, and was regarded with respect by Cole- 
 ridge, Southey, and other lights of the literary world at 
 that time. At Oriel, with his sensitive, kindly ways, 
 his musical gifts, and his stores of out-of-the-way know- 
 ledge and talk, he was much liked, and there was a 
 kind of struggle for him between the Noetics and the 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 193 
 
 Reactionaries. Newman was much interested in him, 
 but Whately gained the day, and when he went to Ire- 
 land as Archbishop of Dublin, took Blanco White with 
 him as a member of his household, in which capacity he 
 stayed until his heterodoxy made the continuance of 
 the arrangement impossible. 
 
 Copleston was consecrated as Bishop of Llandaff in 
 the end of 1827, and on January 30, 1828, he wrote his 
 valedictory letter to the Dean and Fellows of Oriel. 
 This document contains every sentiment conventionally 
 appropriate to the situation, but nothing which throws 
 special light on the special features of the college. The 
 retiring Provost said there were " no marks of degene- 
 racy visible, no symptoms of decrepitude or decay ," and 
 he concluded with an aspiration that the college might 
 " long continue to realize the beneficial and pious design 
 of its founder ; that it might ever be found a firm pillar 
 of our Apostolical Church, and a nurse of all that is 
 lovely and of good report. 1 '' 
 
 The election to fill the vacant Headship was obviously 
 critical, for the times were changing, and the currents 
 in college were uncertain. Now that Whately had 
 gone, the obvious candidate of the Coplestonian school 
 was Hawkins ; the obvious candidate on whom all 
 schools might have been expected to unite was Keble. 
 Keble had been connected with the college since 1811 ; 
 he had brilliant scholarship, tutorial experience, the 
 highest character, universal respect. Newman was in 
 college to work for him, Pusey was back from Germany, 
 forced by contact with Rationalism there into an atti- 
 tude of vigilant conservatism, and dread of the regions 
 towards which the reason might lead. The Christian 
 
 13 
 
194 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 Year was published in 1827, and men felt that it was 
 the work both of a new poet and a new saint, a safer 
 and more creditable fusion of intellect and faith than 
 any essays of Liberalism either in theology or politics. 
 Keble, much as he loved his quiet pastoral life at Fair- 
 ford, would have been by no means averse from return- 
 ing to Oxford as Provost of Oriel if he had been invited 
 with a unanimous voice. But from an early stage he 
 made up his mind that unanimity was essential ; with 
 the slightest breath of opposition he refused to contend 
 in any way. And he soon found that unanimity was 
 impossible. At this particular time the influence of 
 Hawkins was strong and uninjured. He represented 
 the Coplestonian tradition without the Whatelyan 
 Liberalism. If he had taught Newman an unsparing 
 mental exactitude, he had also grounded and settled 
 him in the Anglican faith. He was closely and con- 
 tinuously identified with Oxford; he had the college 
 discipline at heart. Keble had been much in the 
 country, and his bent was pastoral. Was he not, in 
 spite of his great and varied gifts, a little too gentle, 
 a little too mystical, for the Headship of a college 
 where disciplinary and practical instincts are so 
 essential ? 
 
 Such were the arguments and questionings of the 
 Oriel Fellows. It must be remembered that there was 
 yet no definite ecclesiastical controversy in the Church 
 of England, arid that Keble was not yet either a herald 
 or a champion. Newman and Pusey were the two 
 Fellows who might have been expected to push Keble's 
 claim at all costs. Yet, as early as December 19, 1827, 
 Newman made no secret, even to Keble himself, of his 
 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 195 
 
 resolve to prefer Hawkins. His words make a model 
 of candour. 
 
 " I have lived more with Hawkins than with any other 
 Fellow," he wrote, "and have thus had opportunities of 
 understanding him more than others. His general views 
 so agree with my own . . . that I feel vividly and power- 
 fully the advantages the college would gain when governed 
 by one who, pursuing ends which I cordially approve, 
 would bring to the work powers of mind to which I have 
 long looked up with great admiration. Whereas I have 
 had but few opportunities of the pleasure and advantage 
 of your society ; and I rather suspect, though I may be 
 mistaken, that, did I know you better, I should find you 
 did not approve opinions, objects, and measures to which 
 my own turn of mind has led me to assent. I allude, for 
 instance, to the mode of governing a college, the desirable- 
 ness of certain reforms in the University at large, their 
 practicability, the measures to be adopted with reference 
 to them, etc." 
 
 Pusey agreed with Newman, and was equally decided 
 and equally candid. He wrote a long letter to Jenkyns 
 on the subject, in which he said he was sure Hawkins 
 was the fittest man for the post. Keble had, indeed, 
 " personal excellence, high talents, a pure and beautiful 
 mind," but he was deficient " in the very points which 
 are here perhaps of primary importance, and that in 
 these same points Hawkins peculiarly excels." The 
 very beauty of Keble's mind made him, Pusey thought, 
 unpractical ; and he was constitutionally unsystematic 
 too unsystematic for a Head. Hawkins, on the other 
 hand, had every appropriate gift : practical sagacity, 
 insight into character, moderation, leisure for theo- 
 
 132 
 
196 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 logical study. To Keble himself Pusey wrote with 
 entire openness, but without entering on his reasons. 
 
 The new Fellows, Wilberforce and Hurrell Froude, 
 were the only ones inclined to Keble, so his game was 
 up, and with an admirable mixture of dignity and good- 
 nature, he refused to stand before the end of the year, 
 and when the office became vacant, Hawkins was 
 elected by a unanimous common-room on February 2, 
 1828. 
 
 No explanation can deprive this election of historic 
 importance. Long afterwards, both Newman and Pusey 
 regretted strongly, and Pusey bitterly, the choice they 
 had made ; but, in truth, they had no reason to blame 
 themselves. When they chose Hawkins rather than 
 Keble they fancied they were preferring a practical man 
 to an unpractical ; when they saw reason to regret their 
 action, it was not because they found their opinions 
 wrong on that issue, but because the issue had changed. 
 The Church controversy, unforeseen as a controversy, 
 had arisen. Keble was to come forward as in many 
 senses the protagonist on the side they thought right ; 
 Hawkins was to oppose that side. The choice of 1828 
 was made in an inevitable blindness. 
 
 In hurrying on the birth of the new issue, both at 
 Oriel and beyond it, the influence of Richard Hurrell 
 Froude was very great. We have seen that he was 
 elected a Fellow of Oriel in 1826. He was an Oriel 
 man throughout, and had taken a double second in 
 1824. He was the eldest son of the Archdeacon of 
 Totnes, and the eldest of three eminent brothers, all 
 Oriel men William, the engineer, born in 1810 ; and 
 James Anthony, the historian, born in 1818. Hurrell 
 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 197 
 
 was born in 1803. Always delicate, he fell into con- 
 sumption early in the thirties, and died in 1836. But, 
 though his career was short and enfeebled, and though 
 there is little of him in print but what the affectionate 
 appreciation of his friends put there, it is certain that 
 Hurrell Froude had in his college an influence, both 
 intense and peculiar, which radiated widely, and was 
 answerable for some of the most marked phenomena of 
 Tractarianism. Froude was perhaps the most con- 
 vinced, the most outspoken, the most thoroughgoing, 
 medievalist among the young men who thought the 
 Church of England in an unsatisfactory condition ; and 
 he had the incommunicable and inexplicable gift of 
 great personal influence, which in his case took the 
 most irresistible of all its forms, that of impressing 
 others with his equal pre-eminence in intellect and 
 character. While the other Tractarian propagandists 
 of the immediate future were recoiling in fear and 
 
 o 
 
 anxiety from the advance of the Liberal and Erastian 
 tide, Froude was ardently counselling reaction, loudly 
 and scornfully proclaiming the loveliness and rightness 
 of at least a large number of Roman opinions and prac- 
 tices, and laying a zealous axe at the root of the Pro- 
 testantism of the Church of England. Let us recall a 
 little of what Newman has said of him : 
 
 " He delighted in the notion of an hierarchical system, 
 of sacerdotal power, and of full ecclesiastical liberty. . . . 
 He had a high severe idea of the intrinsic excellence of 
 Virginity, and he considered the Blessed Virgin its great 
 Pattern. ... He was more than inclined to believe a 
 large amount of miraculous interference as occurring in 
 the early and Middle Ages. . . . He was a high Tory of 
 
198 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 the Cavalier stamp, and was disgusted with the Toryism of 
 the opponents of the Reform Bill. ... He taught me to 
 look with admiration towards the Church of Rome, and in 
 the same degree to dislike the Reformation." 
 
 Hurrell Froude was a pupil of Keble, and as Newman 
 said, he reacted on him. With his place in the history 
 of Tractarianism we have here nothing to do ; we are 
 concerned only with his influence on Oriel, and that 
 was not solely confined to a conversational propaganda 
 among his colleagues. 
 
 When Jelf went to Germany, he was succeeded in 
 the tutorship by Newman ; and two years later, in the 
 first year of Hawkins's reign, Robert Wilberforce and 
 Hurrell Froude were made tutors. Froude and Wilber- 
 force were products of Keble's influence ; they were in 
 no sense inheritors of the Coplestonian tradition. As 
 we have seen, it was a strong principle of Keble\s that 
 the tutorial office was a pastoral one. With this view, 
 Froude and Wilberforce entered on their tutorial 
 functions. Hitherto Newman had been trained, not 
 by Keble, but by Whately and Hawkins ; but by 1828 
 the time had come when he, too, was to become a kind 
 of belated pupil of Keble, and when his sensitive nature 
 was to be impressed by the ardent and aggressive 
 Froude. Newman was learning his powers of personal 
 influence ; the idea of a national and ecclesiastical crisis, 
 for which young men must be trained, was fast growing 
 on his mind. Even Dornford, now the senior tutor, 
 shared in the new tutorial ideal of his younger col- 
 leagues. 
 
 Although the tutorial system had been an essential 
 part of the collegiate system ever since the colleges had 
 

 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 199 
 
 undertaken to educate undergraduates, there was still 
 a good deal of uncertainty as to the precise status and 
 functions of tutors. The Laudian statutes had definitely 
 recognised their existence by requiring that each under- 
 graduate should be committed to the care of one, but 
 there were no definite rules as to how responsibility was 
 to be shared among several tutors, or as to the nature 
 and limits of that responsibility. At the best of times, 
 there was something dubious, indeterminate, and inade- 
 quate about the system. Thus, in the great Cople- 
 stonian days, as we have seen, official tuition had to be, 
 or at least was, largely supplemented by private tuition. 
 Again, as early as 1823, we find Newman discussing, 
 with Hawkins and others, the compatibility of Holy 
 Orders with tutorial office. On a lower ground of 
 theory, but with exceedingly important practical bear- 
 ings, was the question how far a tutor, whether a clergy- 
 man or not, was responsible to the Head of his college, 
 as well as to the University, his pupils, and his own 
 conscience. 
 
 To the three new tutors, more or less carrying Dorn- 
 ford with them, these questions became urgent after 
 1828. According to the tradition in force at Oriel, 
 tutorial responsibility was chiefly intellectual, and was 
 discharged by lecturing and securing attendance at lec- 
 tures. The instruction followed a fixed routine, and 
 was always subject to the authority of the Provost, 
 used, no doubt, as sparingly as possible. Personal 
 influence, such as so many of the great Oriel tutors had 
 wielded, was an accident. The new tutors started from 
 Keble's position that the office was pastoral ; they went 
 on to feel that it was moral quite as much as intel- 
 
200 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 lectual. To them, personal influence, such as of course 
 no formal rule can limit, was essential. Above all, they 
 conceived that the responsibility of each was delegated 
 by the Provost when the office was conferred, and 
 involved complete freedom as to the details of instruc- 
 tion. 
 
 The election of Hawkins to the Provostship made it 
 very difficult for the new tutors to carry out their views. 
 He was eminently conservative, eminently official. 
 What had answered under Eveleigh and Copleston 
 must be made to answer under him ; he intended to 
 rule as well as reign at Oriel. It is more than likely, 
 also, that even as early as 1829 and 1830 he may have 
 felt that the unlimited educational influence of Newman 
 and Froude might lead their pupils in directions which 
 he thought mischievous. However that may have been, 
 a dispute arose between the Provost and the three 
 tutors in 1829. Up till then the Provost had abetted 
 Newman in his more rigid discipline, sterner equality, 
 etc. ; but, as Newman always felt, a real difference of 
 principle existed between them. The immediate occa- 
 sion of the dispute was the claim of Newman and his 
 colleagues to arrange their lecture-lists as they pleased. 
 To this the Provost objected, whereupon the tutors 
 asserted their leading principle, namely, that each tutor 
 had, by the University rules, a relation to his pupils of 
 a more intimate nature than that which exists between 
 the deliverer of, and the regular listeners to, a college 
 lecture. 
 
 Newman was the chief fighter, and he wrote decidedly, 
 insistently, and sometimes brusquely. Hawkins wrote 
 with great respect and affection towards the tutors, was 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 201 
 
 eager for discussion and compromise, but was at last 
 stiffened into an unyielding attitude. An interesting 
 episode was the consultation of Copleston, which took 
 place in the spring of 1830. Hawkins had sent one of 
 Newman's letters ; the Bishop replied very carefully. 
 His sympathies were decidedly with Hawkins. He dis- 
 liked the tone of Newman's letter. He had just seen 
 Dornford, and was sure that he was made unhappy by 
 the action of the other tutors. After giving instances 
 of similar tutorial claims in Eveleigh's time, Cople- 
 ston drew a distinction, grounded on the " reformation 
 of the schools " ; in other words, the changes of the 
 beginning of the century. That event, he held, had 
 increased the educational responsibility of the Heads 
 towards the University, and made the present action of 
 the Oriel tutors the more dangerous. The Bishop 
 maintained that the Provost ought to interfere with 
 the system of lecturing, " by way of counsel and advice," 
 and that he might boycott obstinate tutors who differed 
 from him " by assigning pupils," as they entered, " to 
 those tutors who agreed with him." He certainly had 
 no desire that the tutors should confine themselves 
 entirely to lecturing. 
 
 et As to religious instruction," he wrote, " and private 
 help to keep some backward ones up to their college lec- 
 tures, it was what I always wished and desired the tutors 
 to regard as more especially their own province. . . . My 
 beau-ideal was that a tutor should see all his own pupil's 
 exercises, and remark upon them ; that he should talk to 
 him about the lectures he was attending, whether in his 
 own classes or not ; be ready to assist his difficulties, 
 observe his conduct, and see more especially that his 
 
202 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 religious instruction went on. With the class, he was to 
 attend to all alike, but not with that individual attention 
 which is due to his own pupils in private." 
 
 Newman had brought forward, as evidence of the 
 inadequacy of the old system, the large use made of 
 private tuition. 
 
 Copleston said he had always discouraged it, except 
 for specially backward men and in vacation : 
 
 " I always held/' he wrote, " that a tutor ought to give 
 sufficient advice in aid of the college lectures, to enable a 
 diligent and clever young man to obtain honours ; and I 
 never ceased to lament the cramming system, of which 
 Oriel had really less than any other college, even when it 
 gained most honours." 
 
 Had nothing more been in issue than a question of 
 tutorial method, there seems no reason why a com- 
 promise should not have been arrived at without any 
 wounded feeling or loss of valuable services to the 
 college. But both parties seem to have been dimly 
 conscious throughout that there was more at stake. 
 On this point also some words of Copleston throw 
 light: 
 
 " From what you say," he writes to Hawkins, " of 
 Newman's religious views, I fear he is impracticable. His 
 notion of dangers to Church and State I cannot under- 
 stand. For even under the system we wish to continue 
 religious instruction is part of the class lectures, and in 
 private it is part of each tutor's business with his own 
 pupils." 
 
 In fact, one can plainly see that the religious revival 
 which was coming to the English Church was the real 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 203 
 
 cause of the tutorial quarrel at Oriel in 1830. The 
 tutors had the new wine of it in their veins ; they were 
 the subjects of an enthusiasm which they were impelled 
 to communicate, and which was intolerant of restraint ; 
 whilst the Provost was, and was to remain, outside the 
 range of the new ideas. In such a situation compromise 
 was impracticable. 
 
 The dispute, though it caused much soreness of 
 feeling both during its progress and afterwards, came 
 quickly to an end. The tutors unanimously refused to 
 consider their relations to their pupils confined to 
 lecturing arranged according to the Provost's ideas 
 and intercourse bearing on the lectures, and the Provost 
 accordingly intimated that he would send them no more 
 pupils, though they were at liberty to see through the 
 Schools the men already committed to them. In a 
 short time, therefore, Newman, Wilberforce, and Froude 
 ceased to be tutors of Oriel. 
 
 This change had certain important and well-marked 
 results on the college. In the first place, it riveted the 
 authority of Provost Hawkins, and made him for the 
 rest of his life the dominant force in Oriel. In the 
 second place, as the deprived tutors remained Fellows 
 and attached members of the college, it did nothing to 
 reduce the spread of their influence in common-room 
 and indirectly in college generally, but rather tended to 
 increase it by opposition. Lastly, and most important 
 of all, it dealt a blow to the intellectual prestige of the 
 college, from which it never recovered during Hawkins's 
 long reign. Whether the Provost had acted rightly or 
 wrongly in the quarrel with the tutors, he had won a 
 place in the college which it needed different or more 
 
204 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 happily mingled qualities than his to fill satisfactorily 
 through the changing years. He had cut himself off, 
 and to a large extent his college too, from the strongest 
 force then at work in Oxford; and, eminent and im- 
 pressive as he always was, he and the Fates behind him 
 somehow failed to keep Oriel in the place where Cople- 
 ston, Whately, and the rest had put her. From this 
 time onwards we have to trace something of a decline. 
 But having admitted this, let us briefly note the positive 
 features of college history during the remainder of 
 Hawkinses reign. 
 
 After 1830 the most critical years were 1835 and 
 1836, in the course of which Keble and Dornford 
 resigned their Fellowships and Hurrell Froude died. 
 Hawkins had supplied the tutorial vacancies by George 
 Anthony Denison, of Christ Church, elected Fellow in 
 1828, and W. J. Copleston, of Corpus, nephew of the late 
 Provost, who had been elected in 1827. Denison was a 
 good scholar and an accomplished man, but of an inferior 
 calibre to that of Newman and Froude. Copleston had 
 little but his name to recommend him. R. D. Hampden 
 was brought back to give a certain amount of instruction ; 
 but, on the whole, the Provost had hard work to keep 
 the teaching level up to mediocrity. 
 
 It was at this period that the association of the 
 common-room with Tractarianism was strongest. New- 
 man and Hurrell Froude were still there ; Keble was in 
 frequent consultation. But it would be a great mistake 
 to regard the association as very strong after all : Pusey 
 had nothing to do with Oriel after 1829 ; Isaac Williams, 
 Rose, Ward, all belonged elsewhere. Hurrell Froude 
 was falling into serious ill-health ; he and Newman were 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 205 
 
 abroad together from December, 1832, to June, 1833. 
 Newman dated the start of the movement proper from 
 Keble's assize sermon in July, 1833. For many years 
 before and after that event Keble was only intermittently 
 in Oxford at all. The Tractarianism of Oriel, in fact, 
 was identified with Newman and what converts he made 
 there. 
 
 One of the most distinguished of these was Charles 
 Marriott, who was elected Fellow in 1833. Marriott 
 was a Balliol man, who had taken a first in Classics and 
 a second in Mathematics in 1 832. He was soon put on 
 the tutorial staff at Oriel, and remained a long time 
 a centre of great influence in college. In 1839 he went 
 to be Principal of the Diocesan Theological College at 
 Chichester, but returned to Oriel in 1841. He was a 
 man of philosophic mind, high conscientiousness, and 
 great veneration, and at an early stage he became a 
 thorough disciple of Newman and supporter of the 
 movement. He had great influence in college, for he 
 was given to hospitality and always ready to help. He 
 took over Newman's establishment at Littlemore when 
 Newman himself forsook it. In 1850 he succeeded 
 Charles Page Eden as Vicar of St. Mary's. He was 
 the real working editor of the Library of Christian 
 Fathers. 
 
 Eden was a man of a different stamp. He had been 
 a Bible Clerk at Oriel, and was elected to a Fellowship, 
 after two unsuccessful attempts, in 1832. He was a 
 contributor to the Tracts, but will live in literature 
 by his great edition of Jeremy Taylor. He was New- 
 man's immediate successor at St. Mary's, holding the 
 vicarage from 1843 to 1850, when he took the college 
 
206 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 living of Aberford, in Yorkshire. His power was 
 pastoral and literary rather than academic or collegiate. 
 
 The Mozleys and the Wilberforces were striking 
 figures associated with Oriel in those days. There were 
 two Mozleys : James, who took his degree (only a third 
 class) at Oriel in 1834, won the English essay in 1835, 
 became Fellow of Magdalen and one of the most distin- 
 guished theologians of the century, author of the 
 Bampton Lectures on Miracles, and Professor of 
 Divinity in 1871. Then there was his brother Thomas, 
 who married Newman^s sister Harriet ; he also achieved 
 a third class at Oriel in 1828, but was elected to the 
 Fellowship vacated by Pusey in 1829. He was a man 
 of much liveliness and even brilliancy, as we may gather 
 from his Reminiscences, but of no great depth either of 
 character or learning. Yet to him in 1835 Hawkins 
 was forced to resort to ask him to take tutorial work. 
 Mozley had the good feeling to refuse. 
 
 The Wilberforces of Oriel were three: Robert, 
 Samuel, and Henry, all sons of William Wilberforce, 
 of Clapham, the great philanthropist. Robert Isaac, 
 who took a double first in 1823, was the only one of 
 the three to become Fellow. We remember that he 
 was elected in 1826, and was one of the tutors who 
 gave trouble afterwards ; he was afterwards made Arch- 
 deacon of the East Riding of Yorkshire, and after lend- 
 ing much support to the Tractarian party, joined the 
 Church of Rome. Samuel, the next brother, took a 
 second in Classics and a first in Mathematics in 1826 ; 
 he became the well-known Bishop of Oxford. Henry, 
 the youngest, took a first in Classics and a second in 
 Mathematics in 1830, and the Denyer and Ellerton 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 207 
 
 prizes ; like his brother Robert, he was a convert to 
 Rome. 
 
 Mark Pattison came up to Oriel in 1832. He has 
 told us in his tart way quite enough in his Memoirs of 
 the impression the college made upon him, of its great 
 reputation, of the tutorial decline and incompetence, 
 and of his gradual subjection to Newman's influence. 
 To his great chagrin, Pattison got only a second class 
 in 1836. 
 
 In 1836, as has been indicated, Keble resigned his 
 Fellowship, being about to marry and settle down for 
 the rest of his life at Hursley, in Hampshire. That 
 same year Dornford, who had been Keble^s successor in 
 the tutorship, and had borne himself with some ambi- 
 guity in the quarrel of 1830, also resigned. Dornford 
 was in many respects one of the most singular of the 
 Oriel celebrities. Before he entered at Wadham he 
 had served as a rifleman in the Peninsular War, and 
 when he became prominent at Oriel his first-hand 
 military experiences made a pleasant ingredient in the 
 common-room talk. Mozley rattles amusingly about 
 him : 
 
 " Wherever he was, indoors or out of doors, walking or 
 riding, he was unmistakably the soldier. Cantering for 
 that was his usual pace on a long-legged horse, with his 
 martial cloak flying from his shoulders, beggars, the veriest 
 strangers, addressed him ' Noble captain.' There was a 
 sort of defiance in his air which even the creatures ap- 
 peared to be sensible of. One hot summer's day a swarm 
 of bees flew at him in Nuneham Courtney, and though he 
 galloped all the way to Oxford, he had hardly got rid of 
 them when he reached Oriel." 
 
208 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 By 1836 he had grown tired of college life, which was 
 no longer what he had known it, and he retired to the 
 college living of Plymtree, in Devonshire. 
 
 Henceforward the critical events in Oriel history, 
 whether personal or constitutional, are not very 
 numerous. The college gradually fell from its great 
 temporary prominence into the position which has 
 always perhaps seemed most adapted to it in modern 
 times, that of a respected and even beloved training 
 school of ordinary English gentlemen. Newman re- 
 mained Fellow until 1845, the last year of his member- 
 ship of the Church of England. From 1828 to 1843 
 he was Vicar of St. Mary's, dividing his time chiefly 
 between his parish in Oxford and the outlying part of 
 it at Littlemore, where he built a church and organized 
 a Brotherhood, to which he retired between 1843 
 and 1846, when he could no longer conscientiously 
 continue to serve St. Mary's. Nor was he without 
 official duty in college. He was Dean from October, 
 1833, to October, 1834, and Junior Treasurer from 
 October, 1838, to February, 1840. Through the painful 
 years of transition and indecision Newman carried his 
 burdened heart again and again into the old collegiate 
 haunts, but nothing was the same. He writes to his 
 sister in August, 1844 : 
 
 " I do fancy I am getting changed. I go into Oxford, 
 and find myself out of place. Everything seems to say to 
 me, 'This is not your home.' The college seems strange 
 to me, and even the college servants seem to look as if I 
 were getting strange to them." 
 
 On October 6, 1845, that sister wrote : 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 209 
 
 " I have had a letter, which I have been expecting and 
 half dreading to receive, this week from J. H. N. to say 
 he has written to the Provost to resign his Fellow- 
 ship. He adds that now anything may be expected any 
 day." 
 
 The resignation was made on October 3 ; it was literally 
 the snapping of the last cord. It was on October 8 
 that Newman wrote from Littlemore to his sister the 
 decisive words : 
 
 " This night Father Dominic, the Passionist, sleeps here. 
 ... I shall ask him to receive me into what I believe to 
 be the One Fold of the Redeemer." 
 
 In the middle of the century Oriel had many good 
 tutors and many eminent Fellows. In 1836 was elected 
 Charles Daman, of Magdalen, and in 1838 Richard 
 William Church, of Wadham. Both did much to keep 
 up the tutorial tradition in the college ; the personality 
 and work of Church, Englishmen of all schools will 
 admit, were such as any college might well be proud to 
 have a share in. 
 
 James Fraser came from Lincoln in 1840, having 
 taken a first class and the Ireland in 1839. He was 
 soon made tutor, and resided in college till 1847, when 
 he went first to Cholderton and then to Ufton Nervet. 
 He was made Bishop of Manchester in 1870. 
 
 The years during which Fraser was leading tutor at Oriel 
 were the forties, when Newman was beginning to feel the 
 college more and more strange, and when, in fact, the 
 common-room was falling a good deal under the control 
 of the Broad Church influences of the time. Arthur 
 Hugh Clough was elected Fellow from Balliol in 1842, his 
 
 14 
 
210 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 colleague being Drummond Percy Chase, who is happily 
 still among us, the last Principal of St. Mary Hall. In 
 1845 Matthew Arnold was elected, also from Balliol. 
 James Anthony Froude came up to Oriel from West- 
 minster in 1835, and took his second in 1840, adding 
 to it the English essay in 1842, in which year he was 
 elected Fellow of Exeter. As Hurrell Froude's brother, 
 he might have been expected to let himself fall under 
 the influence of Newman, whom he was so well able to 
 appreciate intellectually. But it was not so. He was 
 indeed put on to work at the A eta Sanctorum, but with 
 serious results to his orthodoxy. Indeed, during the 
 whole of his undergraduate career, Anthony Froude 
 seems to have maintained a conspicuous reserve, as of one 
 hardly at home in the element in which he found himself. 
 
 Clough became a tutor of his college, and with him 
 was associated as tutor George Buckle, afterwards 
 Canon of Wells, who took his degree at Corpus in 
 1842, and was elected Fellow of Oriel in the following 
 year ; he was Provost Hawkins's brother-in-law. Charles 
 Peter Chretien, of Brasenose, was elected Fellow with 
 Buckle, and remained a prominent figure in the college 
 for a long time. 
 
 When in 1846 the vacancy made by Newman's resigna- 
 tion was filled by John William Burgon instead of 
 Gold win Smith, it was felt that the Oriel intuition as 
 to the dignitas of candidates had evidently failed. As a 
 matter of fact, however, Burgon was not chosen against 
 Gold win Smith. The latter was admittedly first 
 in the judgment of the electors ; but he was held in- 
 eligible on the ground of means, being the only child 
 of a wealthy man. It was not till after this preliminary 
 
I 
 
 ( 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 question had been decided that Burgon's claims were 
 even considered. No perplexity could be caused by the 
 election of 1848, which introduced John Earle and 
 William Young Sellar, the late gifted Professor of 
 Latin at Edinburgh, into the common-room. 
 
 In 1849 Clough resigned his Fellowship in order to 
 become Warden of University Hall in London. In the 
 fifties new names appeared, some of which were destined 
 to play an important part in the future of the college. 
 Henry E. Tweed, of Trinity, and Francis Harrison, of 
 Queen's, were both elected in 1852. In 1856 Arthur 
 Gray Butler came from University College, having 
 taken the Ireland in 1853, and, with other honours, 
 a place in the School of Law and Modern History in 
 1854, the second year of its existence. In 1859 David 
 Binning Monro came from Balliol laden with honours, 
 * classical and mathematical. In 1861 Robert S. Wright 
 (the present Mr. Justice Wright) was elected from Balliol 
 with an admirable record, and in the following year 
 James Bryce came from Trinity with a still more won- 
 derful one.* In 1864 Charles Lancelot Shad well was 
 elected from Christ Church, and in 1865 succeeded 
 Neate as Lecturer in Law and Modern History. In 
 1865 William Michael Collett came from Trinity. In 
 1869 William James Lewis came from Jesus ; now 
 Professor of Mineralogy at Cambridge, and still Fellow. 
 In 1873 Francis Henry Hall came from Corpus, and in 
 1874 John Cook Wilson from Balliol. 
 
 * First Cl. Mod., 1859; Gaisford Prize (Prose), 1860; First Cl. 
 L. and H., 1861 ; Vinerian Scholar, 1861 ; Gaisford Prize (Verse), 
 1861 ; Latin Essay, 1862 ; Craven Scholar, 1862 ; to which was 
 added in 1863, that ever memorable " Arnold," the Holy Roman 
 Empire. 
 
 142 
 
212 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 Provost Hawkins was now nearly eighty-six, and he 
 desired to resign his active functions into younger 
 hands. It was certainly desirable for the college that 
 he should do so. He petitioned the Lord Chancellor 
 as Visitor that a Vice-Provost might be appointed, and 
 Lord Cairns, who was on the Woolsack at the time, 
 granted his petition with a graceful reluctance. D. B. 
 Monro, the Dean, was appointed Vice-Provost, and 
 A. G. Butler became Dean in his stead. On Decem- 
 ber 17, 1874, Provost Hawkins left Oriel and Oxford 
 for ever. He went to Rochester, where he held a 
 Canonry along with his Provostship, and there he lived 
 in an honourable retirement for eight years more. In 
 1876 John Richard King, of Merton, was elected Fellow 
 in Collett's place ; in 1877 Lancelot Ridley Phelps, who 
 had taken his degree from the college, was elected ; and 
 in 1881 Francis Charles Montague came from Balliol. 
 
 Provost Hawkins died on November 18, 1882, when 
 he was within a few months of completing his ninety- 
 fourth year, and was buried in the precincts of Rochester 
 Cathedral. D. B. Monro, who had been Vice-Provost 
 since 1874, was unanimously elected to the Provostship 
 on December 20, 1882. 
 
 In Edward Hawkins there passed away one who, 
 however opinions about him may differ, and however 
 true it may be that he was misplaced during a large 
 part of his active life, will always remain a figure of 
 historic dimensions in Oxford college history. He was 
 not versatile or mobile enough to act with equal wisdom 
 and success in all parts of his long life ; his will was 
 probably at all times stronger than his intelligence, and 
 often perhaps his strength of will was indistinguishable 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 from obstinacy. He was too inflexibly conservative to 
 be a really successful head of a house in an age in 
 which resistance to organic change was unreasonable. 
 Yet the respect which he commanded in the early 
 stages of his career from men superior to himself, and 
 the respect which, in spite of all drawbacks, he succeeded 
 in winning from many members of his college to the 
 close of his active life, combine with the picturesqueness 
 of his longevity and the wide range of his experience to 
 make the phrase, "the Great Provost," not inappro- 
 priate. He walked up to his lights, though these may 
 not always have been kindled at the highest sources ; 
 his very formalism was a kind of devotion to the ideal. 
 
 The events bearing on the constitutional history of 
 Oriel during Hawkins's reign may be briefly rehearsed. 
 On March 28, 1837, the college petitioned through 
 Bishop Copleston against Lord Radnor's Bill for a 
 Commission of Inquiry into the Colleges and Halls at 
 Oxford and Cambridge. The petition set forth that 
 Oriel was a royal Foundation, with the King as Visitor, 
 and therefore deprecated Parliamentary inquiry, unless 
 it could be shown that abuses existed for which the 
 Founder provided no remedy, or upon other just and 
 reasonable grounds. The college was not aware that, 
 as the Bill asserted of divers colleges, it "habitually 
 disregarded any recent statutes," though it had felt free 
 to innovate in order to carry out the spirit of the 
 Founder's intentions ; nor would it admit that the 
 endowments were in any way diverted from the pur- 
 poses of the Founder. Whatever was to be done, let it 
 be done by the Visitor, and not by Parliament. 
 
 The time had now arrived when Oriel was to follow 
 
ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 the lead of other colleges^ and add Scholars to the 
 various classes of her membership. The change in the 
 value of money had seriously hindered the fulfilment of 
 Richard Dudley^s intentions, and the conscience of the 
 Society was troubled. Accordingly on October 17, 
 1838, six Exhibitions or Scholarships were founded, 
 with the express object of satisfying the supposed 
 obligation ; and at the same time a Scholarship to be 
 held by an undergraduate of the college was created 
 out of a bequest of =700 left for that purpose to the 
 college by Richard Twopeny, Fellow from 1779 to 
 1787. The Scholarship was to be called the Rutland 
 Exhibition, and was to be tenable for four years. 
 
 In 1843 Dean Ireland died, and when his will was 
 read it was found to contain the following clause : 
 
 " upon trust to pay or transfer the sum of two thousand 
 pounds Three Per Cent. Consols to the Provost and Fellows 
 of Oriel College . . . that they may apply the interest, 
 dividends, and annual produce thereof in equal portions 
 yearly as Exhibitions to two or three deserving under- 
 graduates of the said college, to be held by them until 
 they are of sufficient standing to take the degree of 
 Bachelor of Arts." 
 
 The college gratefully accepted the bequest. 
 
 In October, 1853, two more Exhibitions, additional 
 to those of 1838, were founded. 
 
 In July, 1855, a college lectureship was founded in 
 Law and Modern History to meet the need created by 
 the new school in those subjects. The stipend was to 
 be 1%0, and the lecturer was to be allowed to receive 
 members of other colleges into his classes, provided each 
 class did not exceed twenty in number. The appoint- 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 215 
 
 ment was to be triennial. Charles Neate was the first 
 lecturer, and he was regularly re-elected until 1865, 
 when he was succeeded by C. L. Shadwell. 
 
 So far as Oriel was concerned, the results of the work 
 of the Commissioners during the great reforming period 
 of the fifties were embodied in an Ordinance issued and 
 confirmed by the Queen in Council in March, 1857. It 
 is a document of fifty-four clauses, of which the chief 
 points are as follows : 
 
 The Provost need not have been a Fellow of the 
 college. A majority might elect him, and in case of 
 equality of votes, the Dean, or in his absence the Senior 
 Fellow present, should have a casting-vote. It was to 
 be open to the college to commute the emoluments, 
 wholly or partially, of the Provostship for a fixed sum, 
 provided the Provost did not object. 
 
 In case the Provost became at any time incapacitated 
 for his duties, a Vice-Provost might be appointed. This 
 was to be done by the Lord Chancellor on petition to 
 him either by the Provost himself or by a majority of 
 the Fellows. In such a case the Lord Chancellor might 
 
 "nominate one of such three Fellows as, by the vote of 
 the greatest number of the Fellows present at a meeting 
 convened by the Dean, shall be presented to him, to be 
 Vice-Provost of the college, and to assign to him for his 
 maintenance, in addition to his Fellowship, so much (not 
 exceeding one-third) of the Provost's emoluments as the 
 Lord Chancellor shall think fit, provided that the Provost 
 shall be at liberty to retain his lodgings." 
 
 A Vice-Provost so appointed was to have the Pro- 
 vost's powers and authorities (except as to emolu- 
 
216 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 ments), and to be liable to deprivation in the same 
 manner. 
 
 Fellowships were to be all perfectly open, and were to 
 be given, with certain exceptions, to the best candidates 
 ascertained by examination. 
 
 Power was given to elect distinguished persons to 
 honorary Fellowships. 
 
 The eighteenth clause ran as follows : 
 
 " No present or future Fellow shall be bound, as a con- 
 dition of retaining his Fellowship, to enter into Holy 
 Orders. But if at the time of holding an election to a 
 Fellowship there shall not be five Fellows in Holy Orders, 
 no person shall be eligible to such vacant Fellowship who 
 shall not then be a priest or deacon of the United Church 
 of England and Ireland. A person, being such priest or 
 deacon, may in that case be elected, notwithstanding 
 his having attained or exceeded the age of twenty-six 
 years." 
 
 This was modified in January, 1871, to the extent that 
 the candidate elected to keep up the minimum of five 
 clerical Fellows might take Deacon^s Orders within 
 three years from his election. 
 
 The first Fellowship to become vacant after the 
 approval of the Ordinance was to be suspended for ten 
 years, and the emoluments to be applied to " maintain- 
 ing, augmenting, or establishing Scholarships." 
 
 The third Fellowship to become vacant was also to be 
 suspended, and the emoluments were to be paid to the 
 Regius Professor of Modern History for the time being, 
 subject to certain conditions. The emoluments might 
 be commuted for a fixed annual sum of dt J 250. This 
 , if such commutation were made, was to be a 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 217 
 
 regular charge on the college ; but the Fellowship 
 might at any time be restored if the Provost and 
 Fellows should think fit. It was also to be open to 
 the college to elect the Professor to be a Fellow " with- 
 out notice, examination, or probation." The first and 
 only Regius Professor elected under this clause was 
 William Stubbs, the present Bishop of Oxford, in 
 October, 1867. His three successors in the chair 
 Edward Augustus Freeman, James Anthony Froude, 
 and Frederick York Powell have been also Fellows, 
 but ex officio under the statutes of 1883. 
 
 *JU 
 
 The fifth Fellowship to become vacant was to be 
 suspended, and the emoluments devoted to establishing 
 and maintaining Exhibitions. Four of these, called 
 Exhibitions of Adam de Brome, were to be established 
 at once, each Exhibitioner receiving ^60 a year at least, 
 and the Exhibitions being tenable for twenty terms after 
 matriculation. 
 
 The number of Fellowships was never to be less than 
 seventeen (inclusive of suspended Fellowships, but ex- 
 clusive of a Modern History Professor Fellowship), but 
 it need not be greater. The Lord Chancellor, however, 
 had power to diminish the number on receiving a peti- 
 tion to that effect from the college. The Lord Chan- 
 cellor had power also to increase the number of Fellows 
 if the revenues of the college were such as to allow to 
 each Fellow an average income of more than ^300 a 
 year. 
 
 There were always to be ten Scholarships at least, 
 each Scholar receiving 60 a year and rooms rent free, 
 and each Scholarship was to be tenable for five years. 
 
 In the eighties the depression in the value of land 
 
218 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 began to tell on the revenues of the college, and early 
 in January, 1882, a largely-signed petition was sent to 
 the Lord Chancellor, Lord Selborne, calling attention 
 to the power of the Visitor to diminish temporarily the 
 regular minimum of seventeen Fellows for the sake of 
 the emoluments of the Society. The petitioners pointed 
 out that, owing to the depressed state of agriculture, it 
 was impossible to maintain the Adam de Brome Exhi- 
 hibitioners " without diminishing the dividends of the 
 Provost and Fellows, which have already been consider- 
 ably reduced." Two Fellowships had been vacated by 
 the deaths of Charles Neate and H. H. Crucknell, and 
 the petitioners proposed that these should be suspended 
 from December 31, 1881, to March 29, 1883, "and 
 that the emoluments thereof during such suspension be 
 applied to the increase of the Exhibition Fund of the 
 college." The petition was granted on January 14, 
 1882. 
 
 In this year (1882), when the death of Provost 
 Hawkins closed an epoch, and the government of the 
 college passed completely into the hands which still 
 carry it on, our history must come to an end. 
 

 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE CHAPEL, THE HALL, AND THE COMMON-ROOMS 
 
 NOT much has been said of the college buildings at 
 Oriel since we noticed the completion of the chief part 
 of them in 1642. It will be well at this point to bring 
 back our sightseer, and invite him to fix in his memory 
 the most interesting features of the buildings and their 
 contents as they now are. 
 
 First let us enter the doorway opening from the lodge 
 on the south side. It opens on a staircase, and the 
 staircase leads to the tower over the gate. On the first 
 story of the tower is a room, now disused for any 
 regular purpose, but which used to be the capitular 
 meeting-place of the college. It was here that Fellowship 
 examinations were conducted, and that new Fellows were 
 brought to greet their colleagues ; here that Newman 
 felt himself sinking into the ground at the touch of 
 Keble's hand ; here, too, it was that collections used to 
 be held, those awe-inspiring termly trials where Hawkins 
 was wont to ask for a definition of parallels, and to 
 point his moral with two quills picked off the table. 
 On the floor above is the chamber containing the college 
 
220 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 archives, according to the arrangement usual in monastic 
 and collegiate buildings. 
 
 Returning to the gateway and the front quadrangle, 
 we naturally, perhaps, make first for Newman's rooms. 
 They were on the first floor of the southern building, 
 and were reached from the easternmost door next the 
 chapel. They themselves adjoined the chapel, and com- 
 municated with what was in those days a kind of large 
 closet or lumber-room, lighted by the bay-window over 
 the chapel door. This room Newman used as an 
 oratory, and when the days of excitement and trial 
 began, his voice in prayer, and even the words he used, 
 might be heard by those in the quadrangle, so that he 
 had to abandon so public a retreat. The rooms were 
 of the most unpretending sort, and furnished with 
 extreme simplicity. Before Newman's time they had 
 been occupied by Whately, and simplicity of a different 
 complexion from Newman's characterized them under 
 his regime. 
 
 Keble's rooms were also in the south building, on the 
 first floor on the staircase to the west of Newman's. 
 
 The chapel, originally opened for Divine service in 
 1642, was restored in 1860. The restoration, which 
 enlarged the organ-loft and altered the position of the 
 organ, necessitated the disappearance of Newman's 
 oratory. As it stands, the chapel is a small and un- 
 pretending structure, lighted almost entirely by stained 
 glass. Of the windows, the only ones that specially 
 deserve mention are : one at the western end of the 
 south wall representing Christ in the arms of St. Simeon, 
 put in in 1767 in memory of Henry, Duke of Beaufort ; 
 the large one at the west end in memory of Provost 
 
 

 CHAPEL, HALL, AND COMMON-ROOMS 221 
 
 Hawkins, put in in 1882; and one in the north wall 
 in memory of John Frank, the great benefactor of 
 the college. Within the altar-rails are the initials and 
 dates of death marking the graves of the three Provosts, 
 Robert Say, George Royse, and George Carter. 
 
 The chapel boasts only three monuments, all of which 
 are in the ante-chapel. Side by side on the north wall 
 are commemorated the two protagonists of the great law- 
 suit, Henry Edmunds and Provost Carter. Edmunds'* 
 tablet is the more artistic of the two, and the inscrip- 
 tion on it makes no attempt to ignore the storms with 
 which Edmunds was associated. He was admitted 
 "non sine gravi litigationis discrimine, cujus decursus 
 memorabilis hominis sagacissimi ingenium illustravit, 
 cujus felix exitus collegii jura stabilivit." 
 
 The tablet to Carter was constructed by Eveleigh in 
 1811, and its inscription records in plain Latin his good 
 deeds and well-known benefactions. At right angles 
 to it there is a small tablet to the memory of William 
 Henry Stowe, who was elected Fellow in 1852, and went 
 to the Crimea, where he died at Balaclava in 1855. 
 
 Now let us glance at the portraits in the hall. At 
 the east end, over the high table, are large full-length 
 portraits of Edward II., in the middle, with Queen 
 Anne* and Bishop Butler on either side of him. At the 
 west end, in the Musicians' Gallery, are Sir Walter 
 Raleigh ; Charles, Duke of Beaufort ; John Rouse, 
 Bodley's librarian and Milton's friend ; and Richard 
 Mant, the commentator, and Bishop of Dromore, elected 
 Fellow of Oriel in 1798. Returning towards the high 
 table, we find, on the right-hand wall, first John Keble 
 
 * The portrait of Queen Anne was a gift from Bishop Robinson. 
 
ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 in old age, then Whately, then Arnold of Rugby. On 
 the opposite wall, in the same order, are Eraser, the 
 late Bishop of Manchester; John Endell Tyler; and 
 Bishop Robinson. 
 
 So far as portraits are concerned, the glory of Oriel 
 is its common-rooms, and especially the smaller of the 
 two, the walls of which are crowded with engravings of 
 the most eminent members of the college. Let us walk 
 through the rooms, and refresh our memories as to the 
 personnel of the Society, and do tardy justice to some 
 names which pressure on space has forced us to leave 
 out hitherto. 
 
 In the first and principal common-room the portraits 
 are nearly all in oil. According to the most recent 
 arrangement, Bishop Copleston, who will always, more 
 than any other single man, be identified with the 
 greatest days of the college, hangs over the fireplace. 
 He is flanked by Eveleigh, on the spectator's right ; on 
 the left by Edward Hawkins. On the opposite wall 
 are, on the spectator's right, Renn Dickson Hampden, 
 the cause of so many theological and ecclesiastical wars ; 
 and, on the left, William Seymour, who matriculated 
 at Oriel in 1809, and became Chief Justice of Bombay, 
 where he died in 1829. He is in his judicial robes. 
 On the wall opposite the outer door the only portrait 
 is one of Newman in Cardinal's robes and scarlet skull- 
 cap, by Ouliss. On the opposite wall is Orchardson's 
 portrait of the present Provost, flanked by not very 
 satisfactory likenesses of Matthew Arnold and James 
 Anthony Froude. 
 
 But it is the walls of the inner room which have most 
 to tell us. Most of the pictures are named, and speak 
 
\ 
 
 CHAPEL, HALL, AND COMMON-ROOMS 223 
 
 for themselves. From over the two principal doors 
 Dean Burgon and Dean Church look at one another. 
 Over the third door hangs the thoughtful and expres- 
 sive, but by no means especially poetic, head of Arthur 
 Hugh Clough. It is in crayon, and by Lawrence. 
 Specially noteworthy, on the eastern wall of the room, 
 are Bishop Butler ; Newman, in early middle age, from 
 a picture by Sir W. C. Ross ; Joseph Warton, the poet 
 and critic of Pope, whom, from dress and attitude, one 
 is inclined at first sight to take for Dr. Johnson. Then 
 there is an engraving of Romney's picture of James 
 Brudenell, fifth Lord Cardigan, who matriculated at 
 Oriel in 1743, and died in 1811. Above him hangs 
 Bishop Talbot, the father of Butler's friends and 
 patrons ; and adjoining him is his son, the Lord Chan- 
 cellor. Higher still, in the same line with the Bishop, 
 and above an engraving from the portrait of Eveleigh, 
 is Sidney, Lord Herbert of Lea, who matriculated at 
 Oriel in 1828, and, under his better-known name of 
 Sidney Herbert won the fame of a true reformer and 
 eminent administrator under Peel, Lord Aberdeen, and 
 Lord Palmerston. The late Professor W. G. Sellar ; 
 the present Bishop of Lincoln, Dr. Edward King, who 
 took his degree from Oriel ; Lord Malmesbury, who 
 matriculated in 1825, and attacked Newman's tutorial 
 methods in his Memoirs of an Ex-Minister ; Dean 
 Ireland, with his rough, sensible face, represented as 
 carrying the crown at the coronation of George II. ; 
 Sir John Holt, the Chief Justice, with long black locks ; 
 Charles Wood, first Lord Halifax, who entered at Oriel 
 in 1818 ; Edward Willes, Bishop of Bath and Wells, 
 who entered in 1709 ; Thomas Francis Fremantle, 
 
224 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 Lord Cottesloe, who entered in 1816, are on the 
 same wall. 
 
 On the northern wall, where the fireplace is, are to 
 be seen a profile of Bishop Egerton, of Durham ; the 
 present Lord Balfour of Burleigh, a distinguished living 
 member of the college ; the handsome Sir Charles 
 Augustus Murray, who matriculated at Oriel in 1824, 
 and became Fellow of All Souls and Danish Minister. 
 On the space directly over the fireplace there is an 
 interesting group. At the top hangs the royal founder, 
 King Edward II., a half-length portrait ; the King, with 
 sceptre and ball, looking from a window, with a repre- 
 sentation of his murder below, and on a scroll above the 
 legend : " Occidere nolite timere bonum est." Below 
 the King, Sir John Holt appears again ; and below him 
 Sir Robert Harley of Brampton Bryan, the benefactor 
 of the college, and husband of the brave " Brilliana." 
 Edward II. is flanked on his right and left respectively 
 by Sir Walter Raleigh and Bishop Smyth, the bene- 
 factor of Oriel, and one of the founders of Brasenose. 
 Archbishop Arundel, Bishop Robinson, Bishop Lloyd, 
 and William Cardinal Allen, who became Archbishop 
 of Mechlin, and was Fellow of Oriel from 1550-61, 
 complete this little group. Allen was a man of very 
 considerable importance, both in Oxford and in the 
 theological world of his time. Besides being Fellow of 
 Oriel, he was Principal of St. Mary Hall from 1556 to 
 1560. In 1561, when Elizabeth was well settled on the 
 throne, his zealous Catholicism forced him to leave 
 England, and from 1565 onward he led the life of an 
 exile, and spent his great energies wholly on the 
 Continent. His face, as it appears in the Oriel 
 portrait, is grave, intellectual, and resolute. 
 
CHAPEL, HALL, AND COMMON-ROOMS 225 
 
 On the reach of wall beyond the fireplace hangs an 
 oval woodcut of William Prynne, from The Prelate's 
 Tyranny. Then come Robert Pierrepont, Earl of 
 Kingston, with the fatal pinnace in the distance ; and 
 Sir Henry Unton of Wadley, who died in 1595. The 
 rest are more modern. There is Thomas Pennant, of 
 the Tour in Scotland (1726-98), from a Gainsborough 
 portrait, looking handsome and picturesque, with a 
 background of rural scenery. Pennant can only just 
 be claimed for Oriel. There are William Stubbs, the 
 present Bishop of Oxford, who was a Fellow of Oriel as 
 Professor of Modern History ; Goldwin Smith, made an 
 Honorary Fellow of the college in 1867 ; and Sir Edmund 
 Walker Head, who matriculated at Oriel in 1823, and 
 took his B.A. degree, with first-class honours, in 1828. 
 He was Governor-General of Canada from 1854 to 1861, 
 and died in 1868. Head was one of the most accom- 
 plished and scholarly men of his time. Samuel Wilber- 
 force is there, and John Keble, and Renn Dickson 
 Hampden ; Sir John Somerset Pakington, Lord Hamp- 
 ton, who entered at Oriel in 1818, and had a place in 
 each of Lord Derby's three Cabinets in 1852, 1859, and 
 1866-68; and John Winston Spencer Churchill, the 
 seventh Duke of Marlborough, who matriculated at 
 Oriel in 1840, and died in 1883. 
 
 On the western wall hang, among others, William 
 Bemman ; Arnold of Rugby ; Sir John Dodson, Dean 
 of The Arches 1849-57, who entered at Oriel in 1797; 
 George Richards, Fellow from 1790 to 1797; Harry 
 George Vane, fourth Duke of Cleveland (entered 1821 
 and died 1891) ; John Richard Magrath, the present 
 Provost of Queen's, who matriculated as a Scholar of 
 
 15 
 
226 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 Oriel in 1856 ; John Yarde Buller, first Lord Churston 
 (entered 1816 ; died 1871) ; Sir George Grey (entered 
 1817 ; died 1882), one of the most estimable of the Whig 
 statesmen of the nineteenth century, and Home Secretary, 
 with few intermissions, from 1846 to 1868; Gathorne 
 Hardy, first Viscount and Earl Cranbrook (entered 
 1832), M.P. for Oxford University, 1865-78 ; Edward 
 Denison, Bishop of Salisbury 1837-54 (entered at Oriel 
 1818) ; John William Ward, fourth Viscount and first 
 Earl of Dudley, and ninth Lord Ward (entered 1799), 
 who was Foreign Secretary in Canning^ short-lived 
 Ministry in 1827-28, and died in 1833. Ward migrated 
 from Oriel to Corpus, whence he took his degree. His 
 curious blend of scholarship, statesmanship, and eccen- 
 tricity made him a notable figure during his life of 
 fifty-two years. The Oriel portrait (which the college 
 owes to the gift of Miss Hawkins) is a lithographed 
 profile, after a drawing by Edward Berens, Fellow of 
 Oriel. It represents Ward as he was when he matricu- 
 lated in 1799, and under the signature and date is the 
 following postscript : ' The Verses go on miserably, yet 
 I neither drink, hunt, shoot, or fish." The only other 
 portrait on this wall which needs to be mentioned is 
 that of R. W. Jelf. 
 
 Low down on the southern wall, in an obscure place, 
 hangs a pert face, surmounting a vast Regency neck- 
 cloth, which, on inspection, our sightseer finds to 
 belong to Beau Brummell. George Bryan Brummell 
 (1778-1840), the dandy of the Regency and the 
 twenties, whose disapprobation of the cut of his coat 
 made the Prince Regent cry, was entered at Oriel for 
 a few months in 1794, but soon left the University for 
 
CHAPEL, HALL, AND COMMON-ROOMS 227 
 
 regions where his talents found more congenial exercise. 
 Above him hangs Lord Blachford, who, as Frederick 
 Rogers, won an honourable fame both at Oriel and 
 beyond it. Born in 1811, he matriculated from Oriel 
 in 1828, coming up from Eton and passing at once 
 under the influence of Hurrell Froude and Newman, 
 who were entering on their brief tutorial supremacy. 
 Rogers had a brilliant career. He was Craven Scholar 
 in 1829, and took a double first in 1832. In 1833 he 
 was elected Fellow of Oriel, along with Charles Marriott, 
 and held his Fellowship until 1845, the year of New- 
 man's departure from Oxford and Anglicanism. Keble 
 was one of the examiners for the Fellowship, and was 
 greatly struck by Rogers's performance. Rogers devoted 
 himself to Law (becoming Vinerian Scholar in 1834 and 
 Vinerian Fellow in 1840), and was called to the Bar ; 
 but while he held his Fellowship he was much at 
 Oxford, and was one of the best elements of the 
 Tractarian party. He was one of the founders of the 
 Guardian, in 1846, and, after he left Oxford, he acquitted 
 himself with great credit in public life. He was Per- 
 manent Under-Secretary for the Colonies from 1860 to 
 1871. He died in 1889. 
 
 Above Blachford hangs Henry Jenkyns, brother of 
 the Master of Balliol, Canon of Durham, and Fellow of 
 the college from 1818 to 1835. 
 
 On the wall between the two windows a few portraits 
 need a word of notice. Charles Neate, whom we re- 
 member in 1856 as the first college lecturer in Law and 
 Modern History, is there, and he deserves to be. He was 
 elected Fellow of Oriel in 1828, coming from Lincoln, 
 where he had taken a first class. In every sphere which 
 
 152 
 
228 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 he entered Neate was a brilliant and striking figure. 
 He took a keen interest in economic subjects, and was 
 Drummond Professor of Political Economy at Oxford 
 from 1857 to 1862. In 1857 he entered Parliament as 
 Liberal member for the city of Oxford, but was soon 
 afterwards unseated on petition. He was again elected 
 without a contest in 1863, and sat till the dissolution 
 of 1868. During the last ten years of his life Neate 
 lived much in Oxford, and was Senior Fellow of Oriel 
 when he died in 1879. He was Senior Treasurer from 
 1845 to 1849, and in that capacity was one of the first 
 to recognise the duties of the colleges as owners of 
 property, and to set on foot the movement for the 
 abolition of the old system of beneficial leases. With 
 him began that attitude of sympathy and friendliness 
 towards the college tenants of which Oriel is still 
 proud. He was an accomplished classic, and had a 
 remarkable knowledge of French. A list of his 
 numerous and useful writings will be found in the 
 life of Neate in the Dictionary of National Biography, 
 which is from the pen of Mr. W. R. Morfill, the Pro- 
 fessor of Russian at Oxford, himself a distinguished 
 member of Oriel. 
 
 Near Neate hangs Thomas Hughes, the author of 
 Tom Brown, who matriculated at Oriel in 1841, and 
 took his B.A. degree in 1845. Hughes did not remain 
 at Oxford, but went to London to follow the legal 
 profession, and to sow broadcast the tradition of 
 Arnold's Rugby. Here also are Blanco White, and Sir 
 John Awdry, the Chief Justice of Bombay, who was a 
 Fellow from 1819 to 1832. Here is to be seen the 
 spiritual face of Charles Marriott, with its wonderful 
 
CHAPEL, HALL, AND COMMON-ROOMS 229 
 
 forehead ; here are George Anthony Denison, Keble 
 and Newman, again from Richmond's paintings ; Sir 
 William Heathcote (entered 1819, died 1881), who 
 became Fellow of All Souls, and represented the 
 University of Oxford in Parliament from 1854 to 1868 ; 
 and James Wentworth Buller (entered 1815, B. A. 1819, 
 died 1865), who was M.P. for Exeter 1830-35, and for 
 North Devon 1857-65. 
 
 Among the furnishings of the larger common-room 
 there is a table which belonged to White of Selborne, 
 and at which he is understood to have written his 
 Natural History. 
 
 There is still room on the walls for distinguished 
 members of the college still living, whose names it would 
 be impertinent to suggest. It seems probable that 
 among those there will one day be found the likenesses 
 of George Joachim Goschen, who matriculated in 1850, 
 and of Cecil John Rhodes, who matriculated in October, 
 1873, and took his Bachelor's and Master's degrees 
 together in 1881. It was at Oriel that Mr. Rhodes 
 saw visions of Empire, many of which seem likely to be 
 realized. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 FROM the common-rooms we mount to the library, 
 which, as we remember, occupies the floor above, and 
 was the original raison d'etre of the whole building. 
 Some of the chief events in the development of the 
 Oriel library have been noticed as they occurred. It 
 may be well very briefly to summarize the salient 
 features of the institution as it now is. 
 
 The chamber in which the books are housed pre- 
 sents no great attractions to spectators or readers. It 
 is a plain, unadorned room, with a lofty ceiling, and a 
 semicircular east end, the principal bookcases being flat 
 to the walls, the upper ones reached from a gallery. A 
 few cases stand on the floor. There are large terrestrial 
 and celestial globes, and some desks, with graceful but 
 austere stools for readers. The room is lighted by five 
 large square windows. Over the doorway at the west end 
 there is a small bust of King Edward II. At the east 
 end there is a pleasant-looking bust of Copleston on a 
 pedestal. Besides a chair which belonged to White of 
 Selborne, there is nothing of special interest in the 
 furniture or fittings. 
 
THE LIBRARY 231 
 
 The library, if not rich in manuscripts, at least con- 
 tains some which are well worthy of note. For a com- 
 plete list the reader must be referred to Coxe^s Cata- 
 logue. Amongst those who have given or bequeathed 
 manuscripts are to be found the names of Provosts 
 Leyntwardyn, Sampson, Hawkyns, Taylor, and Tolson, 
 Thomas Gascoigne, the Earl of Kingston, Lord Leigh, and 
 many others. There are an Aurelius Prudentius, dating 
 probably from the tenth century, the gift of Provost 
 Taylor, and twelfth-century manuscripts of Eusebius, 
 the gift of Provost Sampson, and of the Etymologice of 
 Isidore of Seville. There is a twelfth-century Canones 
 Ecclesiastic^ the gift of Andrew Mankyswell, a Fellow of 
 the college about 1450. The Earl of Kingston in 1599 
 gave a thirteenth-century Vulgate. In 1692 Henry 
 Gandy, on ceasing to be a Fellow in consequence of his 
 being a nonjuror, gave to the library a beautiful 
 fourteenth-century Sarum Missal. To the same century 
 belongs a manuscript of the Leges Anglorum. Of high 
 value and interest is the manuscript numbered XXXII. 
 in Coxe^s Catalogue, which is John Capgrave's Postitta, 
 or Commentary on Genesis, "anno scilicet 1438 manu 
 Johannis Capgrave ad usum Humfredi ducis de 
 Glocestria bene exaratus." There is prefixed to it the 
 following autograph : " Cest livre est a moy Homfrey 
 due de Gloucestre du don frere Jehan Capgrave quy le 
 me fist presenter a mon manoir de Pensherst le jour de 
 Ian Ian cccc.xxxviij." 
 
 The supposed residence of the author at Oriel led 
 to the presentation to the library of a good manu- 
 script of Piers Plowman, numbered LXXIX. in Coxe^s 
 Catalogue. A Greek manuscript of the Gospels, quarto, 
 
ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 on vellum, presented to the college in 1883 by Daniel 
 Parsons, M.A., of Oriel, and a copy of the second 
 version of Wiclif's Gospels are, perhaps, the only other 
 manuscripts which need be mentioned here. All that 
 have been described are on view in a case. 
 
 Of early printed books, the most interesting in the 
 possession of the college are a copy of Cicero's De 
 Officiisy printed at Mainz, and a volume of early printed 
 tracts, one of these being the Oxford Jerome, with the 
 date of 1468, and another the still rarer ^Egidius, De 
 Peccato Origmali^ of which only two other copies are 
 known to exist : one in the Bodleian, and another 
 (imperfect) in the John Rylands (Spencer) Library at 
 Manchester. 
 
 Lord Leigh's large bequest included a copy of the 
 First Folio of Shakespeare, and was in other respects a 
 most creditable nobleman's library. An important 
 part of it consists in handsomely-illustrated volumes 
 on the contents of the principal and most celebrated 
 foreign picture galleries. 
 
 About the rest of the library there is not very much 
 to be said. Various bequests have been made in the 
 present century. Provost Hawkins left to the college 
 about 800 or 900 volumes, such as one might expect to 
 find in the library of the cultured head of an Oxford 
 college. Dean Church left about 300 well - selected 
 volumes, chiefly historical. Professor Froude left a 
 copy of the Rolls Series, not quite complete, and 
 Mr. Poste gave during his lifetime about fifty or sixty 
 volumes of Civil Law. 
 
 Some years ago a number of colleges came to an 
 understanding that they would respectively try to make 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 
 their libraries complete, each in one field of learning. 
 According to this scheme Oriel was to undertake 
 Philology, and the result is that the library contains 
 a large proportion of philological publications. The 
 scheme, however, was not followed out, and no recent 
 attempt has been made to keep up with the progress of 
 philological research and theory. But the College has 
 been careful to stock its shelves with the chief modern 
 works in all departments, except fiction, which have 
 seemed worth buying. These are kept by themselves in 
 the old tennis-court of the college opening from the 
 west side of Oriel Street, in a place freely accessible to 
 undergraduate members. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 ATHLETICS 
 
 No college history in these days, on however small a 
 scale it may be, is complete without a word on athletics, 
 and the athletic fame of Oriel in recent years has been 
 by no means small. 
 
 For the sake of chronological accuracy we must begin 
 with boating, though it is hardly of the river that one 
 thinks when one speaks of the recent athletic fame of 
 the college. Eight-oared racing made its appearance 
 in Oxford in the teens of the present century, but in a 
 tentative manner, and it was long until inter-collegiate 
 racing reached important dimensions. During the 
 twenties and thirties, however, the Eights were steadily 
 gaining ground ; boat-clubs were being formed in some 
 colleges. Between 1829 and 1839 three races were rowed 
 between Oxford and Cambridge ; and in the latter 
 year the Oxford University Boat Club was formed to 
 organize and encourage rowing in the University. From 
 that date onwards full energy on the river may be said 
 to have set in. 
 
 Oriel seems to have put an Eight on the river in 1828 
 for the first time. In that vear there were six boats, 
 
ATHLETICS 235 
 
 and Oriel mounted from the sixth to the fifth place by 
 bumping Trinity. In 1836 Oriel, starting sixth, finished 
 second ; 1839-1845 were good years for the college ; 
 from sixth in 1839 the boat mounted steadily to the 
 proud position of head of the river in 1842, by bumping 
 Trinity. This race for the headship, Mr. Sherwood 
 reminds us, is described in Tom Brown at Oxford, 
 " St. Ambrose " being Oriel, and " Oriel " Trinity. In 
 1843 Oriel lost its primacy, but it finished second in 
 that year, and did not begin to sink until 1844. The 
 crew of the head boat were as follows : 
 
 O. Williams (bow). 
 
 2. F. Darling. 
 
 3. W. Wilberforce. 
 
 4. W. IE. Seys. 
 
 5. G. D. Bourne. 
 
 6. J. M'Kie. 
 
 7. T. D. Belfield. 
 
 G. E. Hughes (stroke). 
 F. H. G. Nicolls (cox). 
 
 James M'Kie, of Bargaly, Kirkcudbrightshire, was a 
 scholar of Oriel and M.P. for Kirkcudbrightshire 1857- 
 1867. Never again did Oriel stand very high in the 
 Eights. In 1852 the college put no boat on the river ; 
 in 1855 it reappeared as fifteenth. In 1858 and 1859 
 Oriel were third ; after that they sank again, and the 
 highest place reached afterwards was fifth, in 1876. 
 
 An Oriel Torpid appeared in 1839, and at the end 
 of that year and in the following was head. The college 
 boat repeated its triumph in 1844 and 1845. Third in 
 1853, the Torpid thenceforward fell into an obscurity 
 similar to that of the Eight. 
 
 To the Oxford and Cambridge Boatrace Oriel con- 
 tributed, in 1842, G. D. Bourne and G. E. Hughes ; in 
 1845, W. Buckle ; in both the races of 1849 C. H. 
 
236 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 Steward ; in 1865 and 1866, E. F. Henley ; in 1874, 
 J. S. Sinclair ; and, it is now possible to add, in 1900 
 T. B. Etherington Smith. 
 
 G. E. Hughes and J. M'Kie rowed at Henley for the 
 Grand Challenge Cup in 1841 and 1843 ; H. M. Walter 
 and T. D. Belfield in 1842 ; and W. Buckle in 1844 
 and 1845. W. King helped to win the Cup in 1847- 
 In 1849 Oriel lost to Wadham. C. H. Steward was in 
 the winning boat for the Stewards' Cup in 1850. 
 
 Cricket and football came into the field later than 
 rowing, and it is in connection with them that Oriel 
 has won her chief athletic laurels. As for cricket, 
 taking as the best test of proficiency the number of 
 Blues in the college, we note that from 1873 onwards 
 Oriel has been well represented in the Oxford and 
 Cambridge contest. Thus, W. H. Game played in the 
 matches of 1873-76 inclusive; E. W. Wellington in 
 1877 ; A. H. Evans from 1878-79 inclusive ; C. W. M. 
 Kemp in 1878 ; F. L. Evelyn in 1880 ; C. G. Harrison 
 in 1881 and 1882; E. Peake in 1881 and 1882; 
 E. D. Shaw in 1882 ; J. H. Brain and K. J. Key from 
 1884-1887 inclusive; F. H. Gresson in 1887, 1888, 
 and 1889; G. W. Ricketts in 1887; G. Fowler 
 in 1888 ; L. C. H. Palairet from 1890-93 inclusive ; 
 W. H. Brain in 1891, 1892, and 1893 ; R. C. N. Palairet 
 in 1893 and 1894 ; G. R. Bardswell in 1894, 1896, and 
 1897 ; P. F. Warner in 1895 and 1896 ; B. D. Bannon 
 in 1898 ; and B. J. T. Bosanquet in 1898 and 1899. 
 A. H. Evans was captain both of the University Cricket 
 Eleven and the University Association Football Eleven ; 
 K. J. Key was for many years captain of the Surrey 
 eleven, and L. C. H. Palairet of the Somerset eleven, 
 
ATHLETICS 
 
 237 
 
 as well as of the O.U.C.C., whilst P. R Warner 
 played for the O.U.C.C. and Middlesex. In one year 
 Oriel contributed five men to the University cricket 
 eleven. 
 
 During the same period the college has been even 
 more distinguished in Association football. The follow- 
 ing is the list of Blues, with dates, since 1875 : 
 
 J. H. Bridges, 1875. 
 
 W. A. S. Merewether, 1875. 
 
 A. G. Williams, 1875. 
 
 T. E. B. Guy, 1876. 
 
 F. D. Simpson, 1876. 
 
 E. Waddington, 1877, 1878. 
 
 F. D. Crowdy, 1880. 
 
 E. H. Hill, 1880, 1881. 
 P. M. Walters, 1885-89- 
 C. W. Waddington, 1888. 
 C. Wreford-Brown, 1888-89- 
 E. Jackson, 1890-91. 
 H. Hansard, 1890-91. 
 
 R. C. N. Palairet, 1891. 
 
 E. C. Bliss, 1893-95. 
 
 F. C. Robinson, 1893. 
 
 G. C, Vassall, 1896-1899- 
 C. H. Wilson, 1897-98. 
 
 E. M. Jameson, 1897-1900. 
 
 B. O. Corbett, 1896-97. 
 
 M. Morgan - Owen, 1897, 
 
 1899, 1900. 
 W. Blackburn, 1899, 1900. 
 
 C. Wild, 1900. 
 
 R. Stormonth-Darling, 1900. 
 
 For Rugby Football the following is the list since 
 1873 : A. T. Michell, 1873-75 ; W. H. Game, 1873-75; 
 T. C. Lloyd, 1873 and 1875 ; J. H. Bainbrigge, 1875, 
 1877, 1878 ; J. Forman, 1876-77 ; A. Law, 1876 ; A. 
 H. Evans, 1878-79 ; G. O. Jacob, 1879-80 ; C. F. H. 
 Leslie, 1881-82; K. J. Key, 1886-87; E. A. Surtees, 
 1886; P. Cochran, 1890; A. R. Kay, 1890-91. It 
 may be mentioned that the last three captains of the 
 O.U.A.F.C. have been Oriel men. 
 
 Lastly, the Blues in athletic sports who have repre- 
 sented Oxford against Cambridge are : A. C. Tosswill, 
 long jump (won), 1868. C. W. M. Kemp, long jump, 
 
238 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 1877 (won), 1878 (won), 1879 ; hurdles, 1877-79. H. W. 
 Macaulay, weight, 1878-79 ; high jump, 1879. E. J. 
 Beaumont, high jump, 1881. E. Money- Wigram, weight, 
 1885. E. H. R Bradby, quarter, 1887 ; 100 yards, 1888. 
 D. Grossman, 100 yards, 1891 ; quarter, 1891. L. C. H. 
 Palairet, three miles, 1891. E. T. Garnier, hurdles, 1896 
 (won), 1897 (won), 1898 (won) ; G. C. Vassall, long 
 jump, 1896, 1897 (won), 1898 (won), 1899 (won). H. F. 
 Deakin, three miles, 1896 ; mile, 1897-98. H. S. Adair, 
 high jump, 1897, 1898 (won), 1899 (won). B. D. Bannon, 
 hammer, 1898. J. D. Greenshields, hammer, 1899 (won), 
 1900 (won); weight, 1899, 1900. B. J. T. Bosanquet, 
 hammer, 1899, 1900; E. E. B. May, weight, 1900 (won) : 
 G. R. Garnier, hurdles, 1900. 
 
 In one respect there is, perhaps, nothing inappropriate 
 in closing this history with a record of athletic achieve- 
 ment. For better or for worse, eminence in muscle has 
 come to stand at the English Universities on something 
 very like an equality with eminence in intellect. Such 
 equality the typical Englishman never finds difficulty in 
 explaining and justifying on the highest grounds, and 
 the story of our college has been badly told indeed if 
 the reader does not realize that it has been on the whole 
 essentially a training school of typical Englishmen. 
 Nothing morbid, fantastic or one-sided, it is to be 
 believed and hoped, has found, or ever will find, a con- 
 genial atmosphere within its precincts. Floreat Oriel. 
 
APPENDICES 
 
 i 
 
 THE COLLEGE ARMS. The proper heraldic description 
 of the Oriel coat-of-arms is : Within a bordure, engrailed, 
 argent, three lions of England, i.e., three lions or leopards 
 passant regardant or, on a field gules. 
 
 II 
 
 THE COLLEGE PLATE. It is desirable to view the Oriel 
 plate with no illusions on the subject. In the first place, 
 where an article bears the name of a particular person, it 
 does not follow that that person was the donor in the 
 proper sense of the word. In Dr. Shadwell's words : " Part 
 of the fees (of Fellow Commoners) was applied to the pur- 
 chase of College plate ; and the earliest notice of their 
 names is in the form of a register recording the several 
 articles of which they were the accredited donors, though 
 it is tolerably clear that they had little choice in the 
 matter, and that the pieces of plate to which their names 
 were affixed were paid for out of the tax to which they 
 were required to contribute." Secondly, the bulk of the 
 Oriel plate, like that of other colleges, went to help 
 Charles I.'s Exchequer during the Civil War. Lastly, "it 
 
240 ORIEL COLLEGE 
 
 was " (again to quote Dr. Shadwell) " the frequent practice 
 to sell or exchange pieces of plate which had become worn 
 out, or were no longer in fashion ; and, even if there had 
 been no Civil War, it is probable that very few of the 
 ancient gifts would have been handed down to modern 
 times." 
 
 The only pieces remaining of pre- Reformation plate 
 are : 
 
 1. The Founder's Cup, silver-gilt, ornamented with the 
 letter E (the initial of the founder's name) and with 
 entwined chaplets, after the design of the well-known 
 collar of SS. 
 
 2. Bishop Carpenter's cocoa-nut, enclosed in a rich 
 silver-gilt frame, with stem and foot of the same. 
 
 3. The same Bishop's mazer bowl, the print of delicate 
 enamel, and with legend on the rim : 
 
 " Vir racione bibas, non quod petit atra voluptas 
 Sic caro casta datur lis lingue suppeditatur. " 
 
 Other fine pieces of later date are the Lion Tankard, the 
 gift in 1679 of Richard Wenman, afterwards fourth Viscount 
 Wenman ; the Wenman Cup, bequeathed to the college 
 by his grandson Richard, sixth Viscount ; the punch bowl, 
 presented by the Corporation of Bristol to Henry Edmunds, 
 and bequeathed by him to the college ; Bishop Butler's 
 claret-jug, now used as a coffee-pot ; and a small tankard 
 of Spanish workmanship, with a view of the town of 
 Bilbao and other subjects in raised relief, the gift in 1883 
 of Mr. Daniel Parsons. 
 
 Ill 
 
 THE CALENDAR OF 1397. This calendar, which was 
 privately printed by Dr. Shadwell in 1899, sheds some 
 gleams on the medieval condition of the College. It is 
 
APPENDICES 241 
 
 prefixed to the " Register of College Muniments/' com- 
 piled in 1397. The reckoning of the weeks was then 
 as now from supper on one Friday to dinner on the fol- 
 lowing Friday, so that a feast-day falling on Friday might 
 give its name either to the week which then ended or to 
 the week which then began. In his Introduction to the 
 Calendar Dr. Shadwell gives a list of the Gaudies observed 
 in the college in the eighteenth century. They were 
 these : 
 
 Nov. 1. All Saints. 
 
 Dec. 8. Conception B.V.M. 
 
 25. Christmas Day. 
 Jan. 1. Circumcision. 
 
 6. Epiphany. 
 Feb. 2. Purification B.V.M. 
 
 Shrove Monday. 
 Mar. 25. Annunciation B.V.M. 
 Easter Day. 
 Ascension Day. 
 Whitsunday. 
 
 Aug. 15. Assumption B.V.M. 
 Sept. 8. Nativity B.V.M. 
 
 Of these, only the Conception and the Purification, on 
 December 8 and February 2, are still observed. 
 
 16 
 
INDEX 
 
 ABERFORD, advowson of, 5 
 
 Arms of Oriel College, 239 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, 210 ; Thomas, 180, 181 
 
 Arundel,' Thomas, 37 
 
 Athletic Sports, 237, 238 
 
 BALL-COURT, 107 
 
 Barbour, George, 117 
 
 Barclay, Alexander, 76, 77 
 
 Baskerville, Hannibal, 114 
 
 Beaufort, Henry, Duke of, 149-151 
 
 Bedmystre, John, 49-51 
 
 Beeke, Henry, 162, 163 
 
 Belly, John, 87 
 
 Berriman, William, 128, 129 
 
 Birkenhead, John, 115 
 
 Blencowe, Anthony, 89 ; Sir John, 116 
 
 Boating, 234-236 
 
 Books, gifts of, in fourteenth century, 33 
 
 Bowles, Joseph, 131-143 
 
 Brathwaite, Richard, 113 
 
 Bribery, 1673-74, 108-110 
 
 Bridgeman, Henry, 115 
 
 Brome, Adam de, 6, 15 
 
 Brookes, Nicolas, 117 
 
 Bryce, James, 211 
 
 Buckle, George, 210 
 
 Buildings, 3-6, 18, 19, 62-66, 191 
 
 Burgon, John William, 210 
 
 Butler, Arthur Gray, 211 ; Joseph, 124- 
 
 127 
 Byrche, John, 43-45 
 
 CADWALLADER, Owen, 92 
 Capitular meeting-place, 219 
 Carpenter, John, 53, 55 
 Carter, George, 121, 141 
 Catherall, Samuel, 129 
 
 Chapel, the, 35, 36, 220, 221 
 
 Charles I., gifts to, 101, 102 
 
 Chase, Drummond Percy, 210 
 
 Chretien, Charles Peter, 210 
 
 Church, Richard William, 209 
 
 Clark, John, 151 
 
 Clough, Arthur Hugh, 209 
 
 Cobham, Thomas of, 26, 27 
 
 Coleby, advowson of, 28 
 
 Coleridge, Hartley, 182, 183 
 
 College arms, 239 ; plate, 239, 240 
 
 Collett, William Michael, 211 
 
 Colyntre, John de, 36 
 
 Commensales, advent of, 36, 87 
 
 Commoners, 72-76 
 
 Copleston, Edward, 163, 164, 167-169, 173 
 
 Corffe, William, 47 
 
 Cornysh, Thomas, 76 
 
 Cottington, Francis, Lord, 115 
 
 Cricket, 236, 237 
 
 DAMAN, Charles, 209 
 
 Daventre, William de, 31 
 
 Davison, James, 174 
 
 Denison, George Anthony, 204 
 
 Desmaistres, Samuel, 118 
 
 Dispute as to provostship, 39, 46-49, 141- 
 
 143 
 
 Dornford, Joseph, 181, 182, 207 
 Downing, Calibut, 114, 115 
 Dudley Exhibitioners, the, 71 
 Dyer, Richard, 132-139 
 Dykes, Robert, 44 
 
 EDEN, Charles Page, 205, 206 
 Egerton, John, 148 
 Eveleigh, John, 159, 177, 179 
 Exhibitions, 214 
 
INDEX 
 
 243 
 
 FELLOWSHIPS, 54, 163, 169-173, 177 
 Football, 237 
 Fraser, James, 209 
 
 Froude, James Anthony, 210 ; Richard 
 Hurrell, 191, 197 
 
 GARDINER, Lady, 115 
 Gascoigne, Thomas, 59, 60 
 
 HALL, Francis Henry, 211 
 
 Hall, rebuilding of the, 81, 82 
 
 Hals, John, 55, 58 
 
 Hamilton, William Gerard, 148 
 
 Hampden, Renn Dickson, 180 
 
 Harley, Sir Robert, 91, 92 
 
 Harrison, Francis, 211 
 
 Haslewood, John, 118 
 
 Hawkesworth, William de, 29 
 
 Hawkins, Edward, 176, 196, 200-203, 212 ; 
 
 William, 130 
 Haynes, William, 82 
 Kerry, Nicholas, 49 
 Hodges, Walter, 142 
 Holt, Sir John, 112 
 
 IBBETSON, Richard, 127, 128 
 Injunctions of 1531, 79-81 ; 1545, 82-84 
 Ireland, Dean, bequest of, 214 
 
 JAMES, William, 88, 174 
 Jelf, Richard William, 186 
 Jenkyns, Henry, 181 
 
 KEBLE, John, 175, 183, 207 
 King, John Richard, 212 
 Knyghtley, John, 75 
 Kynaston, Francis, 112, 113 
 
 LAMB, James, 113 
 
 Lane, John, 88 
 
 Langbaine, Gerard, 115 
 
 La Oriole, 18, 19 
 
 Lectureship in Law and Modern History 
 
 founded, 214, 215 
 Leigh, Lord, bequest of, 162 ; Thomas 
 
 de la, 32 
 
 Leverton, William de, 25 
 Lewis, William, 94-96 ; William James, 
 
 211 
 
 Leyntwardyn, Thomas, 48 
 Library, the, 26, 34, 66, 107, 162, 230-233 
 Lloyd, David, 116 ; Humphrey, 111 
 Lollardism at Oxford, 41-46 
 Ludwell, Mistress Elizabeth, bequest of, 
 
 151 
 Lyhert, Walter, 58 
 
 MALDON, John of, bequest of, 40, 41 
 
 Mannering, Roger, 93 
 
 Marbeck, Roger, 86 
 
 Mariott, Charles, 205 
 
 Mathew, Richard, bequest of, 115, 116 
 
 Merritt, Christopher, 115 
 
 Middleton, John de, 39 
 
 Monro, David Binning, 211 
 
 Montague, Francis Charles, 212 
 
 More, James, 78 
 
 Moreton Pinckney, acquisition of rectory 
 
 and advowson of, 118 
 Morton, Robert, 51, 52 
 Mozley, James, 206 ; Thomas, 206 
 Musgrave, Chardin, 146 
 
 NEWMAN, John Henry, 186, 191, 220 
 
 ORDINANCES, 57, 70, 71, 215-217 
 Oriel College, rebuilding of, 94-101 
 
 PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONERS, visita- 
 tion of, 103-105 
 
 Pattison, Mark, 207 
 
 Pecock, Reginald, 48, 49 
 
 Petition for suspension of two fellow- 
 ships, 1882, 217, 218 
 
 Phelps, Lancelot Ridley, 212 
 
 Plate, 239, 240 
 
 Portraits, 221-229 
 
 Possell, John, 41 
 
 Poverty of Oriel during Civil War, the, 
 102, 103 
 
 Powell, Edward, 81 
 
 Praty, Richard, 60 
 
 Property, acquisition of, during four- 
 teenth century, 19, 20 
 
 Provosts, directions for election of, 31 
 
 Prynne, William, 110, 111 
 
 RADNOR'S BILL, petition against, 213 
 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 88, 89 
 
 Randall, Rev. Peter, 130, 131 
 
 Redruth, Ralph, 38, 39 
 
 Rickards, Samuel, 181, 182 
 
 Riots, 29, 30, 44-46 
 
 Robinson, John, 122-124 
 
 Roper, Dr. John, 77, 78 
 
 Rote, John, 45-47 
 
 Rouse, John, 116 
 
 Royse, Dr. George, 120 
 
 Rutland Exhibition, 214 
 
 Rutter, Ferriman, 114 
 
 ST. ANTHONY'S Exhibitions, 57 
 
 St. Bartholomew's Hospital, 20-25, 106 
 
244 
 
 INDEX 
 
 St. Mary's Hall, 93 
 
 Saltfleetby St. Peter's, 118 
 
 Sampson, Henry, 60 
 
 Sandford, Francis, 113 
 
 Saunders, John, 103-105 
 
 Say, Robert, 106 
 
 Scroggs, Sir William, 111, 112 
 
 Shadwell, Charles Lancelot, 211 
 
 Shenington Manor, acquisition of, 69, 
 
 70 
 Smyth, John, 85-87; William, gift of, 70, 
 
 71 
 
 Stapylton, Sir Robert, 115 
 Statutes, 6, 11-15, 32, 55, 56, 90, 134-139, 
 
 159 
 
 Steward, Richard, 115 
 Sutton, Thomas, 113 
 Sweet, Giles, 92, 93 
 Symon, William, 43, 44 
 
 TALBOT, Charles, 126, 127 ; Edward, 126 ; 
 
 William, 125, 126 
 Tolson, John, 98 
 Tuition during Blencowe's provostship, 
 
 93,94 
 
 Turberville, Daubeney, 115 
 Turner, William, 84-86 
 Tweed, Henry E., 211 
 Tyler, James Endell, 176 
 
 UNIVERSITY Prizes, early nineteenth cen- 
 tury, 175 
 Unton, Edward, 88 ; Henry, 88 
 
 VAUGHAN, Robert, 114 
 
 WARE, Thomas, 79 
 
 Warton, Joseph, 144, 145 
 
 Whately, Richard, 175 
 
 White, Gilbert, 145 ; Joseph Blanco, 192, 
 
 193 
 
 Wicksey, Thomas, 141-146 
 Wilberforce, Henry, 206, 207; Robert 
 
 Isaac, 206 ; Samuel, 206 
 Wilson, John Cook, 211 
 Wilton, Thomas, 44 
 Wright, Robert T., 211 
 Wylsford, Edmund, 77 
 
 YAROTH, Samuel, 114 
 
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