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THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
RIVERSIDE
of
FOUR CENTURIES OF ENGLISH HISTORY
ILLUSTRATED FROM THE COLLEGE ARCHIVES.
MONTAGU BURROWS,
OHICHELE PROFESSOR OP MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
AND
FELLOW OF ALL SOULS.
[ All rights reserved ]
L F 5 2. 5"
OXFOKD:
BY E. FICKARD HALL AND J. H. STACY,
PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.
falI0iahtrj[
PREFACE.
THERE are many reasons for and against exposing to the
public the inner history of an institution like the College
of All Souls. Those against such an attempt can only be
answered by a perusal of the book. Those in its favour
may be briefly summed up thus :
In general, every public institution or even private family
of importance may probably make some valuable contribu-
tions to history. At this moment the Historical Manu-
script Commission is pushing its researches into every
private library in Great Britain. It is now very generally
understood that too much of what has hitherto passed for
history will not bear the close investigation of these scientific
days, and even the smallest rill from a fresh source may
be acceptable.
In particular, All Souls cannot but have something to
say. The greatest statesman and ecclesiastic of his day was
its Founder ; successive Primates of All England have been
its Visitors. Their voluminous correspondence suggests
some fresh material for the Lives of the Archbishops. A
King was the co-Founder of the College. It will be seen
in the following pages how hard a battle All Souls had to
fight in subsequent ages in order to keep the hands of
the ' holy Henry's ' successors many of them anything but
holy off its revenues. Simple, unsuspected facts bring out
many a touch of character in these exalted personages.
Lastly, the College has nourished or sheltered illustrious
PREFACE.
men of whom it may well be proud. Some of them
have been sadly misrepresented, some too little noticed in
history.
These considerations seemed to justify the attempt to lift
the subject above the level of a mere dry record of events,
interesting 1 to none but antiquarians. The conception of
the work was however due to an accident which, though
trivial in itself, it may possibly be worth while to relate
in this place.
The Chapel of the College had fallen into a dilapidated
condition. A thorough repair was necessary; and a thorough,
repair brought the question to a point ; Should the work
of Sir Christopher Wren's school, the elaborate Italian
decorations which had completely concealed and transformed
the ancient Gothic, be repaired, re-painted and re-gilded ?
or should there be a thorough restoration to the condition
in which the Chapel was left by Archbishop Chichele and
his immediate successors ? The discovery of the ruins of
the ancient Reredos, reaching from floor to ceiling, a
discovery as unexpected to compare small things with
great as the sculptures of Nineveh, settled the question.
Lord Bathurst, the Senior Fellow, munificently undertook
the renewal of this great work, and, piece by piece, the
interior of the Chapel is now, under the judicious hands of
Sir Gilbert Scott, undergoing restoration to its original
condition.
The writer of these pages, in the autumn of 1871, hap-
pened to be on the roof-scaffolding at the very moment
when the suspicion that there might be something con-
cealed behind Sir James Thornhill's fresco of the Apotheosis
of Chichele became a certainty. The removal of Mengs'
picture had already afforded a glimpse of the ruins of two
ancient niches for statues. The workmen were now scraping
off the plaster from the eastern collar-beam ; and, letter by
letter, there began to appear on a faded gilt ground the
famous words, Surgite morlui, venite ad judicium. The
character of the letters left no doubt as to their date. It
was that of the Founder !
PREFACE. vii
There was something suggestive, not to say weird-like,
in suddenly finding oneself standing face to face in this
manner with an unsuspected past. It would be too much
to say that the scheme of this little work dated from that
moment ; but it would not be far from the truth. Not
the slightest tradition had survived that the modernized east
end, with its fine fresco, its handsome marble entablature,
and its well-known picture of the Noli me tangere, con-
cealed anything behind it save a bare wall. On the removal
of all this modern work one of the finest achievements,
perhaps the finest, of the fifteenth century stood revealed !
The attempt to unravel the history of these transformations
led to a search of the College Archives, which revealed a
past all but equally unknown and unsuspected by the
present generation.
How to give a faithful sketch of that College history of
more than four centuries without descending to wearisome
details, and at the same time to throw into a form con-
venient to the general reader the illustrations it afforded
of the history of the nation, was the problem which
gradually presented itself. How far it has been solved
others must judge.
With very few exceptions the documents, or rather extracts,
which follow have been hitherto unpublished. Gutch, the
well-known Editor of Anthony Wood (whose edition is used
throughout these pages), was a Chaplain of the College, and
added some notices from its Archives to Wood's account
of All Souls ; he also published some interesting papers
from the Archives in his ' Collectanea Curiosa.' Reference
has been gratefully made to these in their proper place ;
but he merely skimmed the surface, and that of the early
period alone, his object not being to produce anything in
the shape of a history. Nothing of that sort exists, nor are
the materials for a large part of it to be found in the
College. The numerous collections of pamphlets and letters
in the public libraries of Oxford and London, especially in
the Bodleian, have supplied, to some extent, what was
wanting for that portion. It so happens also that the
viii PREFACE.
great antiquarian Hearne was the next best thing to a
zealous lover of All Souls, since he was, for well-known
reasons, a special hater of the College ; and consequently we
can pick out some useful matter from his voluminous Diary,
which fills 145 volumes.
It would be unpardonable in the writer not to notice in this
place the valuable aid which has been generously afforded him
by several friends towards the completion of the following
historical sketch. At the head of these he must name the
Rev. Dr. Leighton, the Warden of All Souls, whose never-
failing kindness, shown in many ways with reference to this
undertaking, has added one more to his numerous claims on
the gratitude of the writer. From the Rev. W. Stubbs, the
Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of
Oxford, he has once more experienced the kindness of a true
friend and judicious critic. To the officers of the Bodleian,
Lambeth, and Christ Church Libraries, he desires to render
his special thanks ; and he would mention Mr. W. H. Turner,
of the former Library, by name, whose suggestions as to
sources of information have been eminently useful. Nor
should Mr. Etheridge, the Sub-Librarian of the Codringtou
Library, be omitted, since he has spared no pains to ransack,
in the writer's service, the treasures committed to his charge.
All Souls, February, 1874.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
PAGE
The state of England and of Oxford when Archbishop Chichele founded
All Souls College ....... i
CHAPTER II.
THE FOUNDER. 1362-1443.
Chichele's Education under William of Wykeham Becomes Primate,
and Prime Minister to Henry the Fifth His share in the War
with France, and Papal Sympathies Bearing on the Foundation
of All Souls of both influences . . . . .11
CHAPTER III.
THE EARLY DAYS OF THE COLLEGE. 1443-1500.
The Bull of Eugenius the Fourth Oriel College The first Warden
The Chapel and its Reredos Pilgrimages The Cardinal Arch-
bishops Wars of the Roses Escape of the College from Edward
the Fourth and Henry the Seventh Prince Arthur The only
letter of his in English now extant found in the Archives of
All Souls ........ 24
CHAPTER IV.
ALL SOULS AND THE RENAISSANCE. 1443-1526.
The Abbess and Nuns of Syon Life and Manners of the early Fellows
Lynacre Latimer Leland Other distinguished Men Civil
Law at All Souls Archbishop Warham Rapid succession to
Fellowships . . . . . . . .41
CHAPTER V.
ALL SOULS AT THE REFORMATION. 1534-1558.
Why the College was spared at the Reformation Renunciation of
Papal Supremacy The chief Wardens of All Souls Cranmer's
Visitation; and letter to the College demanding Soldiers 'Cor-
CONTENTS.
PAGE
i-upt Resignations' Letter from Edward the Sixth The Com-
missioners of 1549 ; tbeir proceedings at All Souls All Souls
the first College in Oxford to possess ' Organs ' and an Organist
Reaction under Mary Papal government by Cardinals Car-
dinal Pole ...... 56
CHAPTER VI.
ALL SOULS UNDER QUEEN ELIZABETH AND ARCHBISHOP PARKER.
1558-1581.
The Anglo-Catholic Settlement Warden Warner, Sir John Mason,
and Sir William Petre Parker and the High Commission Court
Their struggle with the College on ' monuments of superstition '
Parker's letters The Queen and Leicester . . 78
CHAPTER VII.
THE GOLDEN AGE AT ALL SOULS. 1571-1603.
Warden Hoveden Queen Elizabeth and Cecil -Great men of the
College Sir Anthony Sherley The Lawyers Archbishop Grindal
Archbishop Whitgift, the great organiser of All Souls College
luxury College Surplus Its history Grammar Schools Edu-
cation of poor Scholars at All Souls . . . -93
CHAPTER VIII.
ALL SOULS UNDER JAMES THE FIRST AND ARCHBISHOP ABBOT.
1603-1633.
The intimate connection between the College and the Stuart Dynasty
The genesis of the Laudian polity Bancroft's Reforms ; College
Beer Abbot's Letters ; the Mallard-feast The ' roasted Warden '
Abbot on ' Corrupt Resignations ' The College and Cecil Earl
of Salisbury James the First tries to impose a Warden on All
Souls His letter Abbot resists His merits King, Bishop of
London . . . . . . . .117
CHAPTER IX.
ALL SOULS DURING THE LAUDIAN PERIOD. 1633-1642.
Brian Duppa; Steward; Sheldon as Fellow and Warden Laud and
Jeremy Taylor ; criticism of Heber's treatment of the subject
Laud's Letters and Reforms Laudian Revival at All Souls
Duck and Digges College Gaudy Pressure of hard times
Sheldon at Great Tew His politics identical with those of Hyde
and Falkland Comparative place of All Souls among Oxford
Colleges and Halls . . . . . . .141
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER X.
ALL SOULS DURING THE CIVIL WAR. 1642-1648.
PAGE
Sheldon as Charles's chief ecclesiastical adviser Lord Say in Oxford
Insults to All Souls; Alderman Nixon Oxford as a Fortress
and Camp College plate sent to the Mint Charles's letter on
this, and recommendation of a friend for a Fellowship Decay
of College Estates Charles's Vow ; entrusted to Sheldon and
by him buried for thirteen years Surrender of City Sheldon's
forcible expulsion from All Souls and imprisonment Prynne . 162
CHAPTER XI.
ALL SOULS DURING THE COMMONWEALTH. 1648-1660.
Palmer, the Pseudo-Gustos Submissions of the Fellows and servants
Oxford Colleges compared on this point Sydenham, the phy-
sician Sheldon's life at this time; original letter of Jeremy
Taylor's to him The Puritan Visitors Their quarrels with the
new Fellows, and with the Parliamentary Committee All Souls
allowed to elect Fellows in 1653 Sir Christopher Wren College
reported to Cromwell for corrupt elections His reply Collapse
of the Visitors Death of Pseudo-Gustos . . . .187
CHAPTER XII.
ALL SOULS AT THE EESTORATION. 1660-1667.
The Restoration ; how felt at Oxford and All Souls Sheldon as Bishop
of London Duppa's letter to him Recovery of the Vow of
Charles the First Effects on Charles the Second Sheldon as
Primate Death of Duppa ; and of Jeremy Taylor Sheldonian
Theatre Account of Wren First 'restoration' of the College
Chapel ........ 215
CHAPTER XIII.
ALL SOULS UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND AND ARCHBISHOP SHELDON.
1666-1677.
Warden Jeames Sheldon on ' Corrupt Resignations ' Letter of
Charles the Second and the ' Dispensing Power ' Scramble for
All Souls Fellowships The Duke of Ormond Rise of preference
for old families at All Souls Sheldon in his old age Clarendon's
Will Sheldon's Will His munificence Samuel Parker's account
of him Sheldon and Chilling worth Attacks of Burnet, Kennett,
Neal, and Hallam on Sheldon's memory . . . .238
, xii CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN ABCHBISHOP BANCROFT AND THE COLLEGE.
1678-1680.
PAGE
The final struggle on ' Corrupt Resignations ' History of the Tanner
MSS. Sancroft's vigorous Reform Coincidence of struggle with
the national crisis on Exclusion Bill The superior class of Fellows
put in by Bancroft and Jeames Defence made by Fellows
Visitor and Warden fairly embarked against the Fellows . .256
CHAPTER XV.
ARCHBISHOP BANCROFT'S VICTORY. 1680-1686.
The Fellows go to law with the Visitor ' A perfect state of war '
Sancroft's letter to the College The Fellows procure a Mandamus
The King's Bench supports Bancroft A Policy of Conciliation
Boisterous loyalty of certain Fellows Death of Warden Jeames 274
CHAPTER XVI.
JAMES THE SECOND AND WARDEN FINCH. l686-l688.
The Dispensing Power All Souls in dread of a Papist Warden
Dryden the Poet Mandate to Finch Finch as a rioter Lord
Chancellor Finch Finch as a Volunteer His excuses to San-
croft Sancroft's conduct to James and Finch His character . 287
CHAPTER XVII.
ALL SODLS AT THE REVOLUTION. 1 688-1702.
Finch as Warden All Souls accepts the Revolution Finch's conflict
with Proast The better side of Finch's character His account of
Queen Mary's death Dr. George Clarke His influence at All
Souls Creech, the poet Tanner, the antiquarian His connec-
tion with Wood His affection for All Souls The state of Christ
Church and of Oxford generally ..... 305
CHAPTER XVIII.
CODRINGTON. 1690-1710.
Codrington's family His father His Oxford education Campaigns in
Flanders Public oration at Oxford Sent to command in the West
Indies Opinions of contemporaries Career as Captain-General
Learned retirement His Will Bequests to All Souls and the
Society for Propagation of the Gospel His character Addison's
verses ........ 324
CONTENTS. xiii
CHAPTER XIX.
ALL SOULS IN THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE. 1702-1714.
PAGE
The settlement of All Souls a type of that of the nation Character
of Warden Gardiner His effort to revive the Statutes Opposition
of Archbishop Tenison The case of Blencowe Queen Anne's
share in the affair Tenison's Visitation Non-Residence of
Fellows established ' Restoration ' of College Chapel . . 347
CHAPTER XX.
ARCHBISHOP WAKE AND WAEDEN GARDINER. 1714-1726.
Opposition of the Whig Visitor and Tory Warden Gardiner as Vice-
Chancellor Ayliffe Hearne Wake saves the University after
the death of Anne Trelawny, Bishop of Exeter Wake's Visi-
tation of All Souls Appeal to Wake against the College
Dr. Clarke ....... .366
CHAPTER XXI.
ALL SOULS AND JUDGE BLACKSTONE. 1726-1792.
Codrington Library Selection of Worthies History of Orthography
from Archives Hawksmoor on Modern Architecture Young,
the poet Duke of Wharton Judge Blackstone His influence on
All Souls Struggles on question of Founder's Kin . -387
CHAPTER XXII.
CONCLUSION. 1792-1874.
Ancient and modern All Souls The University Commission of 1852
The Eighteenth Century a period of Stagnation The modern
Wardens Distinguished Men of Modern Times Bishops Heber
and Stuart All Souls Burgesses for the University . . 411
APPENDIX I.
Codrington College, Barbadoes ...... 425
APPENDIX II.
The All Souls Mallard ..... -4^9
INDEX . .... 439
Table of Contemporary Sovereigns, Archbishops of Canterbury,
and Wardens of All Souls.
SOVEBEIGNS.
A.D.
1413 Henry V.
1422 Henry VI.
1461 Edward IV.
1483 Edward V.
1483 Richard III.
1485 Henry VII.
1509 Henry VIII.
1547 Edward VI.
1553 Mary.
1558 Elizabeth.
1603 James I.
1625 Charles I.
1649 Commonwealth.
1660 Charles II.
ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY. WARDENS OF ALL SOULS,
A.D.
1414 Henry Chichele.
1443 John Stafford.
1452 John Kemp
(Cardinal).
1454 Thomas Bourchier
(Cardinal).
1486 John Morton
(Cardinal).
1501 Henry Deane.
1503 William Warham.
1533 Thomas Cranmer.
1556 Reginald Pole
(Cardinal).
1559 Matthew Parker.
1576 Edmund Grindal.
1583 John Whitgift.
1604 Richard Bancroft.
1,6 1 1 George Abbot.
1633 William Laud.
(See vacant 16 years.)
1660 William Juxon.
A.D.
1437 Richard Andrewe.
1442 Roger Keyes.
1445 William Kele.
1459 William Poteman.
1466 John Stokys.
1494 Thomas Hobbys.
1503 William Broke.
1525 John Coale.
1526 Robert Woodward.
1533 Roger Stokely.
1536 John Warner.
1555 Seth Holland.
1558 John Pope.
1558 John Warner (again).
1565 Richard Barber.
1571 Robert Hovedeu.
1614 Richard Moket.
1618 Richard Astley.
1635 Gilbert Sheldon.
1648 John Palmer
(or Vaux, pseudo-custos),
1660 Gilbert Sheldon
(restored).
Table of Contemporary Sovereigns, Archbishops of Canterbury,
and Wardens of All Souls.
SOVEREIGNS.
1685 James II.
1689 William and Mary.
1694 William III.
1 702 Anne.
1714 George I.
1727 George II.
1760 George III.
1820 George IV.
1830 William IV.
1837 Victoria.
ARCHBISHOPS OP CANTERBURY. WARDENS OF ALL SOULS
1663 Gilbert Sheldon.
1678 William Sancroft.
1691 John Tillotson.
16 Thomas Tenison.
1 7 if William Wake.
1737 John Potter.
1747 Thomas Herring.
1757 Matthew Hutton.
1758 Thomas Seeker.
1 768 Frederick Cornwallis.
1783 John Moore.
1805 Charles M. Sutton.
1828 William Howley.
1848 John B. Sumner.
1862 Charles T. Longley.
1868 Archibald C. Tait.
A.D.
1660 John Meredith.
1665 Thomas Jeames.
1686 Hon. Leopold W. Finch.
(1698 Finch admitted and
installed afresh).
1702 Bernard Gardiner.
1726- Stephen Niblett.
1 766 John Lord Visct. Tracy.
1 793 Edmund Isham.
1817 Hon. Edward Legge.
1827 Lewis Sneyd.
1858 Francis K. Leighton.
CHAPTER I.
The state of England and of Oxford when Archbishop Chichele
founded All Souls College.
ALL SOULEN, Alsoulne, Alsolne, or, as it has been called
in modern times, All Souls College, was founded by Arch-
bishop Chichele in 1437. In 1443 it was opened with all
pomp by the Founder, assisted by four of his suffragans.
The consecration of the Chapel and delivery of the Statutes
to the Warden were almost the last acts of the aged prelate.
This was the form in which he left his last message to the
country which he had so conspicuously served, to the Uni-
versity which he had so earnestly attempted to raise up from
its prostration and to reform. Reserving for the next chapter
some remarks on this great man, we shall perhaps better
understand what was in his mind if we try to place ourselves
for a moment in his position at the time when he contem-
plated the foundation of All Souls.
England has seldom been in a more depressed condition
than at this period. For the second time she had made an
effort beyond her strength, and was suffering from the
consequent exhaustion. For the second time she had all but
conquered France, and then discovered that there was no one
to continue the work which had been so gloriously begun.
The death of the great Duke of Bedford in 1435, broken-
B
INTRODUCTION. [CHAP.
hearted at the Treaty of Arras, and the final defection of
Burgundy, had at last brought about what the shock of the
death of the mighty victor of Agincourt and the apparition
of the Maid of Orleans had failed to effect ; it aroused the
country from that Imperial dream, premature by many
centuries, in which it had for so long a time delighted to
indulge. The nation was no doubt far more torn to pieces
and perceptibly harassed during the Wars of the Roses or
the struggles of the e Great Rebellion,' but scarcely perhaps
so miserable as now. Those were times of action, of hope, of
conflict of principles, real or supposed ; and no people take
to fighting, when they have once got over the first effort,
so readily as the English. But an air of dull hopelessness
shrouds the early manhood of Henry the Sixth ; there was
no one who imagined a bright future to be in store for him ;
scarcely even at a later date when his marriage seemed to
have secured him a happy home, for the brilliant Margaret
was the child of a faction from the first, and the pre-
sentiment of coming disasters was vivid and overpowering.
England had never before mounted so high ; she had
never before appeared on the way to fall so low. She had
bought at a high price the success which her last monarch's
splendid capacities for war and politics had achieved. That
most gallant and accomplished band of royal brothers,
Henry, Bedford, and Clarence, the noble Salisbury, the peer-
less Talbot, might offer the highest types of soldiers or
statesmen then known to Europe ; a Hallam and an Aben-
don might shew the assembled Doctors of the West what
the home of Duns Scotus and Ockham could produce when
its literary energies were directed into the channels of Church
reform ; a Cardinal Beaufort might astonish the world
with his wealth, his versatile abilities, and the true English
courage which taught him to stand his ground against the
fanatical Bohemians, when the chivalry of the Empire basely
fled, leaving him and his little band deserted on the bloody
i.] ENGLAND UNDER HENRY VI. 3
field 1 . But the penalty was too surely exacted from the next
generation. Few pages of English history are more pain-
ful than those which record the lingering retreat of the
enfeebled conquerors from the country they had so shock-
ingly injured, the growing bitterness and barbarity of the
internecine conflict, the disgraceful desertion of the gallant
men on whom it fell to fight out the battle to the last.
The nation had lost all heart, all sense of political responsi-
bility, and stood still, sullenly gazing at the factions of the
Court; but the ever-increasing murmurs of discontent were
only too plain a prelude to subsequent events. The dynastic
conflict of York and Lancaster was only one out of many
causes of the Wars of the Roses, causes which lay much
deeper. They had their root in the factious struggles of
Beaufort and Gloucester, in the general sense of disgrace and
misery, in the various convulsive effects of the expulsion from
France, in the resolution of English patriotism to submit to
no government which did not support the honour of England
at home and abroad. It did not require much penetration
to see that the sword of conquest was about to be replaced
by the dagger of civil war.
Nor was the ecclesiastical prospect more encouraging.
The dreams of the enthusiastic conqueror had included not
only a new Empire of the West, but a reformed Church
and a recovered Jerusalem. Henry the Fifth had sent his
emissaries to report on the best port in the East for land-
ing his troops. What stain there was on the Lancastrian
escutcheon should be wiped out by the final overthrow of
the Moslem, and the peaceful resettlement of a reformed
Christendom in all her ancient seats. Nor are there want-
ing judicious writers of our own day who believe that such
prospects were not altogether visionary. Never did great
events appear more imminent than when the heroic King,
in the pride of his manhood, and with a promise of success
1 Milman's Latin Christianity, vol. vi. p. 249.
B 2
INTRODUCTION. [CHAP.
not unlike that which beamed on Alexander the Great, was
struck down hy a fatal disease at Paris.
But the reform of the Church had appeared to be far more
than a day-dream. It seemed on the point of being realised.
England had for the first time established an equal place for
herself with other nations in the Councils of Europe, and she
exercised an influence which no other nation had an equal
moral right to claim, not that of might, but that arising
from her unique, persistent, and most ancient resistance to
the tyranny of Rome. Well might she lead the way. Well
might Sigismund, the Emperor so-called, in the period of his
reforming zeal, make use of the great Bishop of Salisbury as
his right-hand man ! But how transient had this bright
prospect been ! Even before Henry was dead, the new Pope saw
a way out of the pit in which the Papacy had been so nearly
engulfed. Playing off one 'nation' against the other, 'escaping
with the skin of their teeth ' he and his successors recovered
not only their old position, but, as far as England was con-
cerned, much more. When the conqueror no longer stood
in the way, a fixed resolution was taken to bring England
under the same yoke as the Continent. She should pay the
penalty of the danger to which she had been one chief means
of exposing Rome. She was now absorbed into the Papal
system ; she now suffered under a ' Papal aggression ' such
as her kings, her clergy, and her nobles had hitherto resisted
with the most persistent resolution. She must be made to
bend like the rest; and she bent accordingly for a time.
It was a humiliation which cut Englishmen to the heart.
It was an infraction of their ancient laws. It was by no
means a remote cause of the Reformation.
The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge presented as
usual no unfaithful picture of the nation. They were the
centres of the intellectual and religious struggles of the day ;
they shared in the rise and fall of the national prosperity,
the action and reaction of Ultramontane Papalism and revo-
i.] OXFORD IN CIIICHELE'S TIME. 5
lutionaiy Lollardisra. The supporters of the last-named move-
ment had been indeed nearly extinguished in Oxford during
the reigns of Richard the Second and Henry the Fourth. Every
possible agency had been brought to bear upon them from
high places, and with success ; but the marks of the storm
were apparent enough. The patrons of English livings looked
less and less to the Universities for incumbents. The Friars
who had repelled their assailants stepped into the place of
prominence ; the law was no longer exclusively in the hands
of University-bred ecclesiastics ; the camp carried off to a
more promising sphere of action the eager youth who had
hitherto made Oxford and Cambridge the stepping-stones to
an honest livelihood ; the disorderly life of the great mass of
the students had become all the more conspicuous by the
light of the Collegiate system which as yet only illumined
a small portion of the University.
We are apt to forget how very different an aspect such
a place as Oxford presented to the eye as well as to the
mind, in the early part of the fifteenth century, from what
we have been accustomed to witness in modern times. We
little measure what a change was effected even as lately as the
time of Charles the Second, when the walls of the city were
levelled to the ground, the encircling fosse filled in, the old
gateways destroyed (except Bocardo, which lingered on for
another century,) the ancient Norman castle finally dis-
mantled, the avenues and gardens planted, the ruined medie-
val structures replaced by modern buildings.
Far more does it demand the aid of imagination to picture
to ourselves the external aspect of the Oxford of more than
two centuries earlier, the Oxford of Chichele's age, to sup-
pose the absence of the Radcliffe Library, the Schools,
the present Divinity School was only commenced in 1426,
the Bodleian, the Theatre, the Museums, and the majority
of the Colleges, and in their stead to see around us a
multitude of closely-packed, squalid habitations in irregular
INTRODUCTION. [CHAP-
streets and lanes, interspersed with those little Halls, the
ancient peculiarity of English Universities, in which the
scholars for the most part resided. In the centre of Ox-
ford, where the University buildings now rise in dignified
grandeur, we have to imagine those thirty-two humble
tenements, in rows facing one another, which then usurped
the title of Vicus Scholarum, or School Street. Some
of the present churches were indeed there at that time, and
some sort of substitute for the modern Colleges was to be
found in the monasteries, the models no doubt on which their
rivals and successors were framed ; but of the magnificent
Collegiate and University buildings which are now the dis-
tinguishing feature of Oxford, one and one only of those
which met the eye of Archbishop Chichele remains in its
completeness. New College was then what its name desig-
nates, and he himself had been enrolled on its first list of
scholars ; but the ancient foundations which had preceded
it in order of time had been conceived on a far humbler scale.
Several portions of the noble work of Walter de Merton and
his immediate successors still indeed exist, but the architec-
ture of the domestic buildings of his College tells for the
most part of later dates. Within the precincts of Univer-
sity, Balliol, Exeter, Oriel, Queen's, and Lincoln, it re-
quires the eye of the experienced archaeologist to discover
any traces of those early erections which were no doubt
too small and inconvenient to claim restoration when the
ruder ages, for which they had done such good service, had
passed away.
It is at least equally difficult to imagine the University life
of the period, for it had very little in common with our own.
When we watch the care with which the experienced Founder
of All Souls framed his Statutes, it will be well to remind
ourselves of the state of society in which his Fellows were to
mix, to remember that the Colleges were but as yet the ex-
ceptional institutions of the place, still on their trial amidst
i.] RISE OF COLLEGES. 7
the far more ancient system of numerous small societies, which
were bound to their common life by very lax ties, and which
exhibited on the one hand all the turbulence and irregularities
of medieval license, while they offered on the other too many
opportunities for the monks and friars to make captives of the
quiet and well-disposed. Multitudes of poor scholars lived
from hand to mouth by borrowing small sums from the public
chests or ' hutches ' provided by benevolent persons, as notably
by Chichele himself, or when that failed, by mendicancy ; and
numerous are the enactments, which even King and Parlia-
ment failed to make effective, against the pseudo-scholars
or ' chambcr-dekyns' who 'sleep by day and at night prowl
about the taverns and brothels for purposes of theft or
homicide V
Amidst a sea of discord and disorder the Colleges rose one
after another like islands of peace, absorbing year by year
the small decaying tenements around them, and supplying
the men who made the name of Oxford famous in the world.
From them came, in the Lancastrian reigns, the chief speci-
mens of the via media, the secular clergy who represented the
old stubborn English antagonism to Papal abuses and Lollard
excesses. In one and all alike of those which have been
mentioned no monk or friar could obtain admission. Their in-
mates were the loyal subjects of Anglican Church and State,
the same in that respect before, as after, the Reformation.
In these temples of learning the Fellows and Scholars
found access to the precious volumes which were worth at
that date more than their weight in gold, volumes to be
found elsewhere only in the ' religious ' houses, or in the
public chests under lock and key, lent from those receptacles
with the most burdensome restrictions and formalities, and
indeed quite beyond the reach of the great majority of
students. When the 'good' Duke Humphrey gave (in
1439) his 129 volumes to the University, it was mentioned
1 Munimenta Academica, Rolls Series, vol. i. p. 320, &c.
INTRODUCTION. [CHAP.
in the Statutes of that body as ' largissima et magnificentissima
donatio / the books are ordered to be deposited within St.
Mary's Church, in a ' chest of five keys/ and the most elabo-
rate provisions are made for their safe custody, provisions
with which ' not even the Congregation of Eegents shall be
able to dispense 1 .' Scarcely were the tokens of University
gratitude more conspicuous in the case of Chichele himself,
for whom it was decreed that ' a solemn anniversary should
be perpetually observed on that day on which God should
be pleased to call him out of the world 2 .' Masses for
the soul of the benefactor are to be celebrated every year
with stated laudations ; two closely printed pages of the
' Munimenta ' are filled with the ample terms which ex-
press the feeling of the University. Nor was this recog-
nition so extravagant as it might appear. This is the
precious library which originated the famous Bodleian, not
far from the first in rank of all European collections.
It is not surprising that the pupil of Wykeham should
refuse to remain satisfied with giving precious books to the
University and money for loans to poor students, with pro-
viding for the renewal of Church patronage to University
men, and procuring Parliamentary statutes for the repression
of disorder. All this Chichele did in his accustomed princely
manner. Wood finds it ' too tedious to enumerate the many
benefits he conferred on the University 3 .' But he must do
something for the future. He must found a College,
' exiguus* perhaps in comparison with that of his great
master, but still more perfect, still more suited to the wants
of the age than New College itself. It was a very deliberate
act ; it was, as we have said, his last conception. For he had
already tried his hand. A portion of the front of St. John's
College is his work. But before he had proceeded far with
the building he handed it over, under the name of ' St. Ber-
1 Munimenta Academica, Rolls Series, vol. i. p. 327.
2 Wood's Annals, sub ann. 1431. 3 Ibid.
i.] TEE IDEA OF ALL SOULS. 9
nard's/ to the Cistercian monks. At the dissolution of the
monasteries it fell with the rest, and became a new founda-
tion, with its present name, in the reign of Queen Mary,
under the auspices of Sir Thomas White. The foundation
at Higham Ferrers, his birthplace, was for a humbler pur-
pose, but equally useful in its way, and very characteristic.
These other institutions are only noticed here to mark
the fact that this aged ecclesiastical statesman was no
ordinary Founder, but one whose mind, as exhibited in
his Statutes, it was the duty of subsequent ages, if in any
case, to study. In his exclusion of the 'regular' clergy,
the monks and friars, he only followed Walter de Mer-
ton, Eglesfield, Adam de Brome, Wykeham, and others of
his illustrious predecessors ; and indeed the case of the
secular clergy had become worse than ever in his time ;
his Charter speaks in the most emphatic manner of the
alarming decrease of their numbers 1 . But in providing
that his College should so plentifully nourish ecclesiastical
lawyers that there must always be as many as sixteen ' Ju-
rists ' among the forty Fellows, he not only differed from
all his predecessors except Wykeham, but far exceeded
the proportion assigned by Wykeham himself to ' Seinte
Marie College of Wynchestre in Oxenford,' which was to
have twenty Students of Law out of its seventy Scholars.
Thus Canon and Civil Law became the speciality of All
Souls.
Still further it was to have a peculiar development as,
if not in name, yet substantially, a Chantry. It was
to be a Chantry of the most perfect kind that had yet
been seen in England, but this only in the second place.
The words ' ad studendum' come first; the words 'ad oran-
dum' afterwards. These prayers are to be offered, says
King Henry the Sixth in his Charter, speaking in Chi-
1 ' Incrementum Cleri regni nostri desiderans qui in prcesenti-
arum noscitur plurimum defecisse.'
10 INTRODUCTION.
ehele's name, ' for our welfare and that of our godfather '
(the Archbishop) 'while alive, and for our souls when we
shall have migrated from this light, as well as for the
souls of the most illustrious Prince Henry, late King of
England, of Thomas, late Duke of Clarence, our uncle, of
the Dukes, Barons, Knights, Esquires, and other noble
subjects of our father and ourself, who in the times and
under the command of our father and ourself, fell in the
wars for the Crown of France, and for the souls of all the
faithful departed.' This last limb of the sentence remained
as the title of the institution; 'Collegium omnium ani-
marum fidelium defunctorum,' or, shortly, ' Coll. Omn.
Anim.,' or 'All Soulen College.'
It was thus a peculiar and distinct foundation. Though
Chantries were abolished at the Reformation, and though
sundry minor changes have taken place since, All Souls
has always remained, rightly or wrongly, peculiar and dis-
tinct. Neither here nor elsewhere in this book shall we
consider the question whether continuity and unchangeable-
ness may or may not have been carried too far, whether
this or that improvement might not have been made with
advantage : we are simply concerned with the reading of
the past.
It is time that we turned our attention in a more special
manner to the great Layer of Foundations whose shadow
has as yet been only dimly projected before us.
CHAPTEK II.
Cjtf Jfxnmtor.
1362-1443.
Chichele's Education under William of Wykeham Becomes Pri-
mate, and Prime Minister to Henry V His share in the War
with France, and Papal Sympathies Bearing on the Founda-
tion of All Souls of both influences.
AECHBISHOP CHICHELE stands almost alone amongst the
numerous founders of Oxford Colleges and Halls. With,
the exception of Wolsey no one of them has so largely in-
fluenced the history of his times. With the exception of
Wolsey and Wykeham there is no one of them with whose
life and character we are so well acquainted. With the
exception of those two and Walter de Merton there is
no one of them who has left so distinct an impression of
himself on his foundation. Of such a man it would be a
duty to attempt a sketch, however imperfect ; but Dr. Hook
has recently performed the task with great success in his
valuable Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury. Using
the materials afforded by Dr. Arthur Duck, a Fellow of All
Souls in the reign of James I, who wrote a concise life
of his Founder in what Fuller 1 justly calls 'most elegant
Latin,' and bringing to bear round this central source of
information every other available document, the Dean of
1 Worthies, Devon.
12 THE FOUNDER. [CHAP.
Chichester has given us a very graphic picture of the Arch-
bishop and his times. All that will be here necessary is
therefore to summarise the events of his life, and to bring
out one or two points in connection with All Souls which
do not find a prominent place in Dr. Hook's pages.
Chichele, Chicheley, or Chichely for all the readings
have authority, and shew that if, as moderns have decided,
the letter 'y' is to be dropped, the pronunciation must
remain the same, was the son of a highly respectable and
prosperous tradesman, born in the year 1362-3, and educated
as a boy at William of Wykeham's noble College at Win-
chester, under the eye of that great man. From thence he
proceeded to Oxford, where he was one of the first to occupy
the rooms of New College. ' His name occurs for the first
time as Scholar of the College in the thirty- seventh week
of the first year of the College, 1386 V To this training
under the eye of Wykeham he mainly owed, in all pro-
bability, his success in life. He was the pre-eminent type
of person ' qualified to serve God in Church and State ' that
Wykeham aimed at producing. His industry, activity,
readiness, piety, munificence may all be traced to his early
education. The Statutes he caused to be framed by the
celebrated Lyndwood for All Souls were largely taken from
those of the College in which he learnt the lessons of life,
the tone of which College he no doubt influenced, at the
first commencement of its beneficent career, as only young
men of goodness and ability can.
The connection between master and pupil has been quaintly
drawn out by Dr. Benjamin Buckler of All Souls, in a
sermon preached before his College in 1 759, under the notion
of Elisha receiving the mantle from Elijah :
' By this Elijah he was made choice of as one of the earliest
ornaments of that school of the prophets which had been
1 Mr. Kiley's Report to the Hist. MSS. Commission, 1871.
ii.] EDUCATION AND RAPID RISE. 13
newly established by him ; and from his example, which he
had the opportunity of contemplating- for some years by
a personal intimacy and correspondence, he caught the same
love of letters and the same ambition of being- their patron
and supporter. When his founder was taken from him he
seems to have succeeded to all his literary and academical
cares; and his speedy advancement in the Church most
plentifully enabled him to support them.'
Certainly the mantle of the master fell upon the pupil
in this latter respect. By the end of Righard the Second's
reign Chichele was not only an Archdeacon and a Doctor
of Laws, but a lawyer of very extensive practice, holding
numerous ecclesiastical preferments,, which in those days
were commonly granted by way of fees for legal services.
His education, abilities, and fortunes had thus placed him
at the prime of life on the best possible vantage-ground
for pursuing his career under the auspices of the Lancastrian
House.
Dr. Hook thinks he was kept back for a time by his con-
nection with the friends of the deposed sovereign, but it must
have been for a very short time. He soon became the trusted
agent and minister of Henry the Fourth, who, like so many
of his house, instinctively understood character ; and soon
afterwards Bishop of St. David's. As bishop he represented
England at the Council of Pisa ; and it was at this Council, so
largely under the management of the French, that he no doubt
learnt to measure the condition of that country, and to con-
template the policy which now became identified with the
House of Lancaster. Scarcely had Henry the Fifth ascended
the throne when he seized the opportunity of placing the Pri-
macy of all England in the hands of his father's ablest servant.
From that day till the death of the young hero Chichele
held the post which we should designate as that of Prime
Minister.
How he crossed and recrossed the Channel in order
to persuade the French to accept the preposterous terms
14 THE FOUNDER. [CHAP.
offered by his master, terms which, however extravagant
they may seem, were devoutly believed by the Lancas-
trian princes to be but the legitimate demand of the
inheritance which had been filched from them, how on
him fell the organisation and support of the magnificent
armaments England now sent forth, how he took the extra-
ordinary step of actually putting the ecclesiastics of the
diocese of Canterbury under arms and distributing them
along the coast fov fear of an invasion in the absence of the
fighting men, how he rose superior to the traditions of his
order, and advised the total suppression of those Alien Priories
which were so much wealth to the national enemy, and
which Edward III had only ventured to appropriate for
a time, how completely the great monarch loved to shew
that he recognised him as his right-hand man up to the day
of his death, how accordingly the Primate represented the
King at the baptism of the child whose birth was fondly
hailed as the pledge of future union between England and
France, taking the honoured post of sponsor at the font, all
this is matter of common history. So also is his share in
the miseries of the subsequent period. We find it difficult
to estimate the exact weight of his influence over the tender
mind of his godchild. Oppressed by the ever-growing weight
of the factions at Court, and harassed by the Popes, he now
confined himself very much to the peculiar cares of the
Primacy, to the task of healing the wounds which had been
occasioned by the convulsions of the times ; but we shall
probably not be far wrong, judging by the respect paid to
the Archbishop by the youthful King, if we attribute some-
thing of the piety and munificence for which Henry was so
conspicuous to the early lessons of his godfather.
With the fortunes of the House of Lancaster those of
Chichele were bound up from beginning to end. He wit-
nessed its rise, its glory, its decadence. He was spared the
last act of the drama. Never were Sovereigns more devotedly
ii.] POLICY AS TO CHURCH AND STATE. 15
served ; never did Minister evince a more honourable free-
dom from the pursuit of selfish ends. No one in the realm
set a finer example of pious munificence. Yet his career is
far from affording unmixed satisfaction, and it is but right
that we should regard both sides.
Two lines of national policy stand out beyond all others
as characteristic of Chichele's personal administration. Both
have been the subject of misapprehension. For the Lan-
castrian war with France he has received more than his due
share of blame ; while it is an open question whether his
decided advocacy of that war deserved blame at all. And,
secondly, the fluctuations of his conduct towards the Papacy,
and his final submission, have been strangely misunderstood.
The foundation of All Souls supplies some points of con-
tact with both lines of policy. If" the consideration of these
points suggests some different shading of the picture from
that given us by Dr. Hook, it must not be taken as any
attempt to disparage his work. There will be no attempt
to dispute facts for they are well ascertained.
The very name of All Souls, the prominence given to the
observance of All Souls Day, the elaborate mention, in the
Charter, of those for whose souls prayer is to be made, and
the traditions of the splendour with which the College
Chapel was originally decorated, have perpetuated the
belief that the Archbishop was materially actuated in this
work by compunction for the share he had taken in ad-
vising the French war. That he entertained any such
feeling whatever is wholly foreign to Dr. Hook's con-
ception of his position. Yet this Chapel or ' Chantry
of peculiar magnificence,' as the University Commissioners
of 1852 styled it, the grandeur of which has only lately
been exposed to the world by the discovery of the ruins of
Chichele's reredos, seems to demand some explanation.
It will not in the present day be disputed that there
are some grounds for the opinion that there was in reality
16 THE FOUNDER. [CHAP.
sufficient reason for renewing- with vigour a war which had
never technically ceased. At any rate the notion of sitting-
down quietly, even after the lapse of many years, under a
grievous wrong, such as the expulsion of the English from
Aquitaine had always been considered, for a moment longer
than was absolutely necessary, was intensely repulsive to the
high-spirited men of that day. The policy of the French
alliance which Richard initiated, and Henry the Sixth re-
newed, was, under such disgraceful circumstances, intolerable.
It is also probable that Dr. Hook is right in combating the
commonly received belief that the war was undertaken at
the instance of the clergy rather than the laity ; and he is
doubtless correct in asserting that the famous speech put
into Chichele's mouth by the chronicler, Halle, in the fol-
lowing century, and from him copied by Shakspeare, and
thus immortalised, has no contemporary authority.
But we all know how often speeches which are in them-
selves without authority embody the truth ; and Dr. Hook
admits, as he could not but admit, that the Archbishop ' was
a decided advocate for the war.' He also describes, with no
more amplitude than the facts warrant, the enormous in-
fluence possessed by Chichele at this period. In short it
is indisputable that he, the Primate, was, whether rightly
or wrongly, as much the cause of the decisive movement
which for more than a generation deluged France with
blood, as any single person in the realm. Nor can we in
common fairness dissociate the prelate, who, like his pre-
decessors, kept down the Lollards with a strong hand, from
the State policy of that day which seized with eagerness
such an opportunity for diverting the minds of the people
from their pertinacious attacks upon Church property.
The Crown also, of which Chichele was the devoted ad-
herent, was firmly allied to the fortunes of the Church, and
the House of Lancaster still felt its tenure insecure. Yet
even at this time there was a party, though more feeble
ii.] FAILURE OF THE FRENCH WAR. 17
than before and after the reign of Henry the Fifth, which
deprecated the war with France. Such voices were unheard
in the clang and shout of victory.
But time passed on. The ahle administrator, the san-
guine statesman of middle life had merged into the pious,
aged, laborious, harassed Archbishop, whom the arrogance
of Popes, the factions of politics, and the disasters of the
French wars were sinking down into the grave , apace.
Where were now his splendid hopes and well-laid plans?
What had become of the magnificent success which seemed
at one time beyond the reach of failure? Where were
those mighty warriors whom he had sent forth to war with
his blessing ? How empty a title had this of ' King of
France ' already become for that child of his old age,
'Whose state so many had the managing,
That they lost France and made his England bleed V
What must have been the later thoughts of the worn-
out Primate whose touching petition to the Pope to be
relieved from his life of intolerable labour reveals the in-
tense weariness of his spirit ! And what so natural as to
follow the example of his hero-master, long silent in the
dust, who had built
'Two chantries where the sad and solemn priests
Sing still for Richard's soul 2 !'
Surely we should be doing violence to that estimate of the
times and the man which a full consideration of their history
forces upon us, if we did not still give credit to the view
which has been supposed to be contemporaneous, and which
has been handed down to us from at least very distant
times! Opinions differ now as much as they ever did on
the arguments for and against that famous French war. If
we are free from any obligation to join in the intemperate
1 Shakepeare, Henry V. 2 Ibid,
c
18 TEE FOUNDER. [CHAP.
abuse which has been heaped on the head of its chief
adviser, it by no means follows that when the bright visions
of manhood had given way to the stern realities of old age,
we may not believe that Chichele found it difficult to stifle
the reproaches of his own conscience.
The next aspect in which we shall regard him leads us
in the same direction. It was the rule, rather than the
exception in this age, since the Popes still exercised a
supervision which it was dangerous to overlook, to procure
Papal Bulls for the foundation of Colleges; but the extra-
ordinary care taken by Chichele to send his first "Warden
of All Souls to Pope Eugenius the Fourth at Florence
for this purpose, and the special privileges and exemptions
contained in this document, which still exists, suggest a
deference to Rome only too strictly in keeping with other
facts. The Primate's relations with the Holy See are at
first sight puzzling and inconsistent. At one time we
find him more Papal than his brethren ; anon he is the
champion of our old English independence of the Papacy ;
again, succumbing to the yoke, he falls so low that Dr.
Hook says, ' through the weakness of the Archbishop the
Court of Rome now gained its point,' 'with Chichele
terminated that long line of independent prelates who
had come down in succession from Augustine 1 .'
This fall may, perhaps, be put a little too strongly;
but there is no real difficulty in understanding Chichele's
course. It is plain that he was never able to extricate
himself from the position in which his close connection with
the Court of Rome in his earlier days had involved him.
The four following undoubted facts relating to that period
speak for themselves. The laws against ' Papal Provisions '
had been enacted long before his time, yet the clergy very
generally evaded them, and he allows himself to be nominated
both to a prebend and a canonry by this very method, the
1 Archbishops of Canterbury, vol. v.
ii.] CONDUCT TOWARDS THE PAPACY. 19
Pope's Provision. Again, he is named by the King for
a bishopric which fell vacant during his absence at the
Papal Court. It would have been at least not unnatural
that he should defer any proceeding in the matter till his
return home ; but on the contrary he requests and obtains
consecration from the Pope himself, not a very common
occurrence with English medieval bishops. Again, he en-
gages in conflict with the Courts of Common Law on his
right to retain the English preferments which he had
received from the Pope ; and he is hopelessly beaten.'
Lastly, when King and Chapter agree in pressing him to
accept the Primacy, he positively refuses to have anything
to do with it without a Papal Dispensation and a Bull of
Provision, from the abominable John XXIII ! and these
precious documents are accordingly obtained l . It cannot be
said that his conduct was unusual in that age ; but it was
sufficiently marked.
Up to mature age therefore, his sixth decade, Chichele
had been a Papal partisan during times when party spirit
ran high on this vexed question of the Pope's jurisdiction
in England. He had taken his side. But he was now called
upon to assume a leading part in those successive Councils of
the West which for a moment turned the tide, and promised
a general settlement of the national claims to ecclesiastical
independence. Soon after his elevation to the Primacy, we
find him catching something of the spirit of the times ; and at
last we see him take up a position worthy of the dignity which
Henry the Fifth had once more claimed for England in the
eyes of Europe. When the precedency of Canterbury is called
in question by the Pope's audacious conduct in the case
of Cardinal Beaufort, he is the true mouthpiece of his country-
men in protesting with all his might against an innovation
hitherto unattempted. Backed by the king and people, he is
for the moment successful ; Pope and Cardinal are forced to
1 Duck's Life and Hook's Archbishops.
C 2
20 THE FOUNDER. [CHAP.
recede. But now a change occurs which tests the strength
of the Primate's power of endurance. The great monarch
dies ; the country is torn to pieces by faction ; the Popes
triumph, by the aid of their consummate Italian artifices,
over the Councils. What will the Primate do ? It is painful
to contemplate the fall. It is not easy for us to estimate
the full amount of the trial. But the fact remains ; Arch-
bishop Chichele signally failed.
We have remarked that a 'Papal aggression 'upon England
was resolved upon at Rome. Pope Martin, and after him
the wily Eugenius, saw that their time was come. It was
their one golden opportunity. They resolved that England
should be their own, now and for ever. On Chichele the blow
fell. They knew their man. They knew how entirely Chi-
chele had been committed to their side till quite of late;
how precedent after precedent on the question of the Pope's
jurisdiction might be quoted against him. Year after year
they pursued their advantage. They scolded, they threatened.
They reduced the aged Primate at last to the humiliating
position of begging for his own degradation, of beseeching
the House of Commons, with tears, to abrogate the Statutes
of Provisors and Prsemunire, those splendid bulwarks of
English liberty, which it had cost the country the arduous
labours of a century to pass and secure ! The prospect of
an Interdict was too terrible to contemplate. (Doubtless this
feeling inspired his anxious care to procure for All Souls the
special exemptions to be found in the Bull from similar
afflictions which might befall St. Mary's Church or the sur-
rounding institutions of Oxford.) Happily, however, the
House of Commons knew its duty too well. If the clergy
gave way the laity must come to the front. Once more
pealed forth from its walls those notes of defiance which were
yet to find an effective echo in more auspicious times.
It was reserved for Chichele to drink the cup of humilia-
tion to the very dregs. If England would not repeal the
ii.] UNDER PAPAL PERSECUTION. 21
obnoxious anti-papal Statutes, he at least, said the Pope,
should feel the papal yoke. He was forced to suffer the still
further degradation of being- obliged to yield the precedence
of the Primate of all England, not as before to a Cardinal
Legate a latere, but to a Cardinal who was not a Legate
at all, a Cardinal merely as a Prince of the Roman Curia,
to Cardinal Kemp, Archbishop of York, over Chichele, Arch-
bishop of Canterbury ! The struggle was over ! ' From this
time,' says Dr. Hook, ' until the resumption of our indepen-
dence under Archbishop Parker, the Church of England was
virtually governed by the Pope.' Certainly, on this point,
the reputation of the good Archbishop, as represented in
the quaint language of Fuller, was cheaply gained :
' He was thoroughpaced in all spiritual Popery, which
made him so cruel against the Wicklevites ' [another mistake
by the by, for his dealings with them were by no means
especially harsh], ' but in secular Popery, as I may term it,
touching the interest of princes, he did not so much as rack,
and was a zealous supporter of English liberties against
Romish usurpation 1 .'
The later period of his career seems to have been entirely
unknown to the witty historian. Even, however, when most
completely in the trammels of the Papacy, as late as 1438,
there was a point beyond which the harassed Primate would
not be driven. He met Eugenius the Fourth with the
most determined opposition when he quietly gave away the
bishopric of Ely to be held in commendam by the Arch-
bishop of Rouen 2 . It is difficult to imagine England having
fallen so low as that such a thing should be conceived even
by the Pope.
Perhaps in attempting to account for this failure on the
part of Chichele in his later life, we should bear in mind not
only the long training in ' spiritual Popery ' which he had
undergone, but also that his mind had been framed on the
1 Worthies, p. 292. ^ Duck's Life.
22 THE FOUNDER. [CHAP.
Canon and Civil Law, the maxims of which had become
a second nature to him ; and we know how the convictions
of early life often re-assert themselves in old age. The inbred
love of national religious liberty, descending through all
vicissitudes from the pure fountains of early English times,
had no real abiding-place in the heart of the lawyer, the
Minister, the skilful diplomatist. And indeed it would have
required no little chivalry of character, no little of that baronial
spirit which has supported so many of our great historical
Englishmen against all odds, to stand out, deserted for the
most part by his own ecclesiastical brethren, against all the
cruel artillery of Home ; and his blood was not, like that of
so many of the Prelates of that century, baronial. Dr. Hook,
by the way, has scarcely proved his point that Chichele
himself did not use swans as Supporters to his arms. It is
true they are not upon his tomb, his missal, or his register ;
but Harris, in his History of Kent (1719), says that Chiehele's
is the only instance of an Archbishop, not of noble blood,
having Supporters to his arms. ' I have seen,' says he, ' a seal
of this Archbishop's to a deed where his arms are borne
with Supporters.' If it were a question of merit it would
not be easy to find many to whom this honour has been
granted for more faithful service.
If we wish to go still further afield for reasons why the
aged Prelate disappoints us so painfully towards the end of
his Primacy, we must fall back on the condition of England
described in the last chapter. The 'time was out of joint;'
there is scarcely a figure during Chiehele's later years on
which the eye can rest with satisfaction.
A fuller consideration of the Archbishop's career may thus
detract in some degree from the indiscriminate laudation of
which he has been at times the subject, this laudation
being a reaction from the superficial view taken by the old
historians ; but, in such an age of confusion and transition,
who has a right to judge harshly of so good and wise a man,
ii.] DEATH AND CHARACTER. 23
called on to play so great a part ? If his noble munificence
bears some marks of the growing- Papalism which had come
over him again in his old age, we may rejoice that it was
overruled for good. And we may place on the other side
that he had courage enough to procure the application of
the suppressed Alien Priories to the maintenance of Oxford
Colleges, the first step of that sort towards the Reformation,
as Wolsey's wholesale suppression of monasteries and nun-
neries, in order to found Cardinal College or Christ Church,
was the second. It is remarkable too that he should have
favoured the monks so much as to hand over to them his first
unfinished College ; while his last, his mature conception, was
formed on the same model as those of his predecessors, and
excluded from All Souls any but the secular clergy.
It is given to few men, as it was to Chichele, to con-
centrate the experience of a long life in one focus as it were,
to complete with the most deliberate accuracy what he de-
signed, to watch every step in its progress, and to die in
peace almost at the moment after the final touch was given,
-just when the Statutes, a very large part of which has
not been swept away even by the Commissioners of 1852,
had been signed with his own trembling hand. He was
in his 8 ist year when he died. A likeness of him, sup-
posed to be contemporary, in a window at All Souls, con-
veys the impression of a wise, benevolent old man. So also
does his recumbent figure in his splendid monument at
Canterbury. From these and other more apocryphal pic-
tures Roubiliac in the last century produced that beautiful
bust which now adorns the College hall, and which, if we
may not accept it as authentic, at least impresses successive
generations with a pleasing and dignified idea of one of the
truest Worthies our country has produced.
CHAPTEK III.
1443-1500.
The Bull of Eugenius the Fourth Oriel College The first
Warden The Chapel and its Eeredos Pilgrimages The
Cardinal Archbishops Wars of the Roses Escape of the
College from Edward the Fourth and Henry the Seventh
Prince Arthur The only letter of his in English now extant
found in the Archives of All Souls.
WE have mentioned the Bull procured by the Founder
for his College. A few words upon it may serve the
double purpose of introducing us to the early years of the
institution, and, it may be hoped, of convincing the reader
that he will not be required to wade through a mass of
dry documents suitable enough for the antiquarian, but self-
condemned to be perused by antiquarians alone.
Among the points worthy of our attention in this in-
teresting document, which is dated from Florence in 1439,
is its citation of the objects of the College, which, by the
by, it states to be for ' pauperes scholar es* whereas the
words of the Charter are f pauper es et indigentes,' and the
permission granted for the burial of its members within
the consecrated precints of the College. But, in its bear-
ing on the last chapter, it is more important to notice
the elaborate provisions, which occupy so much of its space,
for the immunity of the College during an Interdict.
THE POPE'S BULL. 25
Divine Service may be performed in the Chapel with closed
doors, and silent bells, and hushed voice, in spite of any
Interdict to which the city might perchance be subjected,
so long as the College is not itself concerned in the offence,
nor allows interdicted persons to be present. Further
voluminous provisions free the College from all services
which might be claimed at any future time by 'the King's
Hall' (Oriel College), St. Mary's Church, or the Vicar of
St. Mary's.
This last privilege is connected with the fact that a part
of the College was built upon ground over which St. Mary's
(the present University Church) and ' The King's Hall,' as
' Proprietors ' of St. Mary's, had hitherto held ecclesiastical
jurisdiction. Immunity from dues and offerings was not
of course obtained from the King's Hall for nothing. A
deed of the year 1443, still in the Archives of All Souls,
between All Souls College on the one part and Walter
Lyhert, Provost of the King's College or Hall and his
Fellows on the other, recites the Bull, acknowledges that
the Founder of All Souls had given two hundred marks
by way of indemnity to the said College or Hall, and
ratifies the same for ever, only, however, as to the im-
munity of those who live and sleep, or die within the
actual precincts of All Souls.
It may be worth notice that not only does the name
' Oriel ' fail to appear in these documents, which will not
surprise the well-informed, but neither does that occur
which is said by Anthony Wood to be the ancient name
of the College, ' the House of the Scholars of the Blessed
Mary.' In the deed it is called ' Collegium vel Anla Regalis; '
in the Bull, ' aula regalis,' nothing more. But this title is
never mentioned by Wood or other Oxford writers, and
has completely passed out of memory. Brasenose, a com-
paratively modern College, having been known as the
' King's Hall ' for some centuries, has monopolised the title ;
26 THE EARLY DAYS OF THE COLLEGE. [CHAP.
it has been forgotten that, in the early struggles of Colleges
with their numerous jealous neighbours, it was natural to
bring into prominence, by way of protection, the title to
royal patronage, such as Oriel possessed from Edward the
Second. The name ' Oriel ' was from early times a familiar
and unofficial designation, being derived from an ancient
Hall which previously occupied the site of the College,
this Hall itself, as some think, having derived its name
from the oriolus or little window over its eastern gate-
way ; but it did not become the official title of the ' King's
College or Hall' till the reign of James the First.
We shall make still shorter reference to the elaborate
Computus, or account-book, containing the expenses of build-
ing the College, inasmuch as the public have access to its
most interesting passages in Gutch's Notes upon Wood's
History of the Oxford Colleges, and in his Collectanea
Curiosa. It is believed that no College has so complete a
repertory of all that is required for comparing the price of
labour and materials in those times with the prices of our
own day as All Souls. The beauty of the writing and ex-
actness of the accounts betray the care required by the
Founder from his agents. The persons to whom it seems
to be due are the chief architect, Roger Keyes, who be-
came the second Warden, and Robert Druell, the overseer
of the works, and afterwards a Fellow. The names of all
the persons employed and their hours of labour are duly
registered. Perhaps it has not yet been remarked that
we may gather from the above document that the process
of creating surnames was at this period not even yet
completed, at least for the trading and labouring classes.
Thus the joiner is called ' Giles Joyner,' the smith
' Robert Smyth,' the sawyer ' Thomas Sawyere,' the
glazier ' John Glasier ; ' but the sculptor is Richard
Tyllot, Kervere. He it is who carved the angels in the
roof at a cost which, after making the amplest allow-
in.] THE KING MADE CO-FOUNDER. 27
ance for the difference in value of money, is greatly
below what it cost to carve one of these same angels in
1872 in order to replace one that had decayed.
The total cost defrayed by Chichele was about ^10,000,
including site, endowment, books, and chapel furniture.
Of this c^iooo were spent in the purchase from the King
of the non-conventual Alien Priories which have already
been noticed. New College also received some of these
spoils, which even Papal England felt were more fit to be
used at Oxford than in feeding the French enemy. Perhaps,
as authors differ very widely in estimating the comparative
value of money between that day and our own, we may
fairly split the difference between Dr. Hook, who gives us
ten for a multiple, and Mr. Anstey, who, in his Munimenta
Academica, gives twenty. If we take fifteen, which is nearly
what Hallam believed it to be, we shall credit the muni-
ficent Archbishop with having spent ^150,000 of our cur-
rency in founding All Souls !
One of the precautions suggested by the legal training
of the Founder turned out to be singularly unfortunate.
Indeed the fortunes of the College, as we shall see, were
very nearly wrecked through this means during the Wars
of the Roses. He devised the scheme of passing the College
and its revenues over to the King, and receiving them back
from the King as co- Founder with himself. Something
of this sort had been done before. Adam de Brome had sunk
his own personality in that of his Sovereign ; but even
Edward the Second offered a better prospect of security for
Oriel than Henry the Sixth for All Souls. Chichele's
anxious mind read only too plainly the signs of the times;
and in the coming troubles he still leant on the royal au-
thority as the most stable element in society. Well, indeed,
might he trust the saintly youth who joined so heartily in
his plans; and perhaps he could not be expected to foresee
that it was against this very bulwark that the storm would
28 THE EARLY DAYS OF THE COLLEGE. [CHAP.
beat. He shewed more sagacity in providing that the Arch-
bishops of Canterbury should be for all time ex officio Visitors
of the College l . They were to have a specially lofty position
as Visitors. Though the Statutes only speak of the Arch-
bishops as ' Co-Founders with the King for ever,' and though
Henry in his Charter calls it ' our College,' the Archbishop
of the time being was to stand in the place of the Founder,
the sole interpreter of his Statutes, from whom there was
no appeal, the almost- Warden and Father of the College.
So strongly was this worded that Archbishops Stafford and
Whitgift claimed the power of promulgating new Statutes,
and the interpretations of Archbishops Tenison, Wake, and
Cornwallis have been thought to answer very nearly to that
description. Of the special provisions of the Statutes it will
be less tedious to speak when at different periods the history
of the College brings any portion of them before us.
And now, the careful, kindly, generous, and pious Founder
having been taken to his rest, -we must attentively watch
for whatever scanty and fitful light may be cast upon
this history during the remainder of the century. In the
general historical gloom which overshadows most of the
latter half of the fifteenth century All Souls shares the
fate of the rest of the nation. It is one of the ' dark
ages' of English history. The medieval chroniclers are
gone, or are sounding their last notes; the modern author
is waiting for the Renaissance. We experience a sort of
voiceless pause, much shorter but not unlike that dark
age which elapsed between the break-up of the Roman
Empire and the formation of modern nationalities, be-
tween two periods of articulate song and speech. The bar-
barous wars of York and Lancaster hang like a thunder-
cloud over the landscape of history, and, when it rolls
away, we see that a Revolution is in progress. The Eng-
1 See Chap. XIV, end.
in.] THE FIRST WARDEN. 29
land of the Plantagenets is changing into the England of
the Tudors, the reign of force and license into that of
statecraft and order, fraud and foreign diplomacy. The
medieval Church is making a vast effort to rally round it
the new forces of society. It finds itself confronted with
the printing-press, the Bible, the growing middle class,
the new ideas gradually making -their way from abroad.
It throws itself, as a last resource, with redoubled ardour
upon the lower and more ignorant classes, upon the sesthe-
tical developments suited to their tastes, upon pilgrimages
of every species, old and new, on the gaudy decoration
of shrines, and of course on the ready zeal of the Friars,
for they surpassed all others in their keen perception of
the danger. It was too late.
All Souls seems, as might be expected, to have made an
excellent commencement of its career. The Founder himself
selected the first twenty Fellows, who, as he desired, selected
twenty more. Forty Fellows were to partake ^of his bounty.
That number remained unaltered for more than four hundred
years. Chichele seems to have selected almost too great a
man for Warden ; since he is so important a statesman that
he is obliged to resign his office, in order to fulfil his duty to
the Crown, before the College is opened ; but, on the other
hand, he was able in all probability to be even more useful to
his departed master's Foundation during the forty years of his
subsequent career, all which time he was holding great offices,
than if he had remained Warden. We have seen how the Arch-
bishop had trusted Richard Andrewe, his intimate friend,
with the mission of procuring the Bull. No doubt, as Warden,
he kept the Fellows together in the lodgings assigned by
Chichele during the greater part of the five years occupied in
building the College under the Founder's own directions ; and
so laid the foundation of the subsequent success of the College.
This wise arrangement had been pursued by Wykeham in
building New College. Those who were to set the tone of
30 THE EARLY DATS OF THE COLLEGE. [CHAP.
the institution should be prepared by a previous common life
and daily devotions for their future work within the building-,
in whose approaching- completion they could not but take an
active interest. In his subsequent career, Warden Andrewe
may be taken as no inadequate type of the sort of men whom
Chichele designed that his College should provide, and which
it did indeed largely produce. He resigned his Wardenship
to become a Secretary of State, and received preferment as
Dean of York. He was very frequently employed as a Com-
missioner for making treaties of peace, or truces, both with
France and Scotland. In the most important of these Com-
missions he may be reckoned a peculiarly fortunate man.
Though the Duke of Suffolk was the head of the embassy
which concluded the disastrous and disgraceful negotiation
with France as to the cession of Maine and the marriage of
Margaret of Anjou, Andrewe seems to have been the real
chief, and at any rate the principal agent as to all the forms
and details. Along with Suffolk he brings the hapless Mar-
garet to England ; unlike Suffolk he saves his head, and
indeed uses it to the great advantage of his country often
afterwards.
Of the few notices we possess of the condition of the
College during the fifteenth century those connected with
the Chapel are among the most characteristic. It had
been magnificently built by the Founder, but probably much
internal decoration was supplied after his death. The
reredos, now under restoration, is pronounced by the first
of modern authorities, Sir Gilbert Scott, to be the most
elaborate and beautiful work of the age which has come
down to our time; the windows of the Ante-chapel,
once well matched by those of the Chapel, have no supe-
riors of that century ; nor will many roofs be found more
beautiful than the hammer-beam roof which has lately been
exposed to view. The proportions of the Chapel, however,
exhibit, according to the late Professor Cockerell, decided
in.] SPLENDOUR OF CHAPEL. 31
marks of deterioration from those of Chichele's great master,
Wykeham. ' That ruin,' says the Professor, ' of the archi-
tectural schools of our country, which the revival of classical
taste in Italy and throughout Europe finally accomplished,
was now, under Archbishop Chichele and Bishop Wayn-
flete (at Magdalen), rapidly accelerated 1 / He instances
especially the neglect of the rule which requires three
diameters for the length of the choir, and the projection of
the Ante-chapel beyond the space required by Wykeham's
proportions.
Possibly the limited extent of ground procurable for
the Chapel, and the peculiar form of the site, which has
visibly affected the lines of the Ante-chapel, may have
had something to do with the changes introduced by
Chichele's architects ; but when everything was changing,
no one thought of imputing any fault in this instance ;
and the attractions, which from many causes the Chapel
possessed, drew supplies from all quarters. The death of
Chichele was, under the circumstances of the times, a loss
profoundly felt by the nation. As long as he lived he re-
presented the glories of days gone by ; and all knew that
he had done his best to perpetuate those glories at All Souls.
His successor, Archbishop Stafford, thought it his duty to
express this sentiment in a manner suitable to the notions
of that day. Immediately after Chichele's death he makes
it his business to procure a most elaborate and exhaustive
Charter of Privileges, often afterwards of use to the College ;
and soon after that marks his sense of the peculiar esteem in
which the Chapel was held by granting an Indulgence of forty
days to all Christians of his province who shall annually visit it,
and there say a prayer, ' cum salutatione angelica' for the souls
of all the faithful resting in Christ. In 1457 we have per-
haps an evidence of the great resort then made to the Chapel,
in consequence of its being widely known as a place of pil-
1 Proceedings of the Archaeological Institute : "Winchester, 1845.
32 THE EARLY DAYS OF THE COLLEGE. [CHAP.
grimage, by means of a record of the number of wafers 1
consumed when the Obit of Lady Shottesbrooke was cele-
brated. The number was no less than 9400.
It seems that the public attention thus drawn to the
Chapel had a great effect on the progressive development
of its splendour. Chichele had himself supplied it with a
magnificent furniture of plate, vestments, and other orna-
ments, the list of which, in all its profuseness, is still extant.
But it seems probable, as we have said, that much remained
to be done in filling up the niches of the reredos, and in the
adornment of the altar. We have no absolute record in the
original Computus of more than two 'great stone images,'
which were placed over the altar; but we find towards the end
of the fifteenth century that Bishop Gold well of Norwich, a
former Fellow, not only built the cloisters and screen, but left
^50 (^"750 of our money) ' circa adificationem summi altaris ;'
while Robert Este, a Fellow, left 11 18*. 4^. (nearly ^300
of our money) for ' making and setting up certain images
over the high altar.' We also read that ' the high altar was
adorned with the image of the Holy Trinity gilt and painted.'
The ruins, lately exposed, of the Crucifixion, with attendant
figures, alone remain to explain what was meant by these
entries. The statues of the four Latin Fathers of the
Church, SS. Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, and Gregory,
to whom the Chapel was dedicated, no doubt found places
over the central group ; and the ornamentations of a parti-
cular canopy suggest that the figure of the Virgin Mary
filled a particular niche ; while the traces of the strings of a
cardinal's hat, with the initial W, are thought to suggest that
the great Cardinal Beaufort of Winchester was one of those
represented. Marks were also left of the figure of our Lord
seated in Judgment at the summit of the reredos, close under
the gilt collar -beam containing the inscription, f Surgite
1 So in the copy ; but the original has not yet been found, and
perhaps we ought to read 'tapers.'
in.] ESCAPES FROM TWO KINGS. 33
mortui, venite ad judicium,' surrounded by archangels, and
with naked figures on either side trooping to Judgment ;
but all else is left to conjecture. Historical figures connected
with the Lancastrian House and the French wars, like that of
Beaufort, are supposed to have filled many of the lower niches;
while the central and upper portions were reserved for sacred
or semi-sacred ' images.' The zeal of the times was not satis-
fied with one altar, however richly bedizened. No less than
seven additional altars were eventually reared, three along
each side of the Choir, and one in the Ante-chapel.
This somewhat minute description is inserted here not so
much in consequence of the modern discovery, as to illustrate
the times, and to suggest one reason amongst others for
the escape of the College from the dangers to which it
was shortly subjected. The precaution of the Founder in
handing over his institution to Henry the Sixth, and re-
ceiving it back from him, proved a damnosa h&reditas. The
unhappy King, from whom the College continued to receive
benefits to the last, soon began to totter on his throne ; and
his successors were sorely tempted to confuse the distinction
between his nominal and his real possessions, his sacred
obligations and his legal property. The position in which he
had been placed by Chichele gave a ready handle to Edward
the Fourth and Henry the Seventh. Both claimed the en-
dowment of the College as royal property. We can only guess
at the influences which staved off the peril ; but we shall not
be wrong in attributing something to that which was exercised
over their superstitious minds by the fame of the Chapel as
a place of pilgrimage. We find for example that Edward the
Fourth considers it worth while to turn its services to account
in his Deed of Re-grant of the Alien Priories, where, carefully
describing the late King as nujoer de facto non de jure Hex,
he makes it a condition of his gift that the College shall pray
for ' our health and that of Cecilia, our dearest mother,
Duchess of York, as long as we are alive, and for our souls
D
34 THE EARLY DAYS OF THE COLLEGE. [CHAP.
when we shall have migrated from this light.' Right glad
was All Souls to escape with the payment of a not im-
moderate sum to purchase a pardon of the King for inno-
cently taking part with Henry the Sixth !
Much no doubt was also due to the Visitors ; for these
were days when Kings could not afford to affront a loyal
Primate. Their interests were too closely united; the
danger to Church and King from the swelling tide of
middle-class freedom was equally imminent over both. These
Cardinal Archbishops of the fifteenth century, whatever
their services to the College, were not however altogether
above a little venture or two on their own account. Warden
Warner in his short account of the College, in the time of
the later Tudors, says,
' The Archbishop of Canterbury succeeding Henry Chichely,
either next or shortly after, took again from the College the
Parsonage of Teying in the County of Bucks, which King
Henry and Henry Chichely had impropriated to the College,
but that was never again restored. No more was a Lord-
ship in the County of Bucks called Foxcote ; and these evil
chances maketh the College poor and bare, and the Warden's
and Fellows' portions much less than they be in other
Colleges.'
Perhaps it may strike us that the good Warden is hardly
thankful enough for the escape of his College in such perilous
times.
And, besides the fame of the Chapel and the interpo-
sition of the Visitors, we shall surely be correct in ascribing
something to the genius loci. If the College bore its silent
witness to the Lancastrian rule, it told also of glories which
England could not afford to forget. It enshrined the memory
of Agincourt ; it held forth as an aegis ' Henry's holy shade.'
Even the Yorkists felt the spell ; but it must have told
with still greater effect in unloosing the rigid fingers of
the first all -grasping Tudor, when they also closed over
the College property. His efforts and those of his son to
m.] HENRY VII AND WARDEN HOBBYS. 35
procure the canonization of Henry the Sixth are well known.
They proceeded so far that a book of prayers to 'Saint Henry'
may still be seen. In the fourth year of Henry the Seventh's
reign we find the College petitioning him, as his ' continual
orators and true bedesmen,' in the following terms. After
stating that though Edward the Fourth had resumed the
royal grants, 'the Warden and College at all times have
occupied the premises, and thereof taken the profits con-
tinually since the foundation of the same until now right
late they be inquieted by process made of your Exchequer
upon the said resumption/ they beg him to confirm and
establish all that had formerly been done by the ' blessed
mind ' of his c dear uncle of noble memory, Henry the Sixth,
late King of England.' This Petition was allowed by Henry
the Seventh, and ordered to be enrolled, which made it an
Act of Parliament ; and as such it has been pleaded by
Wardens Stokes, Warner, and others.
Some years later, if we may judge by the scanty, but very
curious, evidence of the note made by one of the said King's
Commissioners, who had pressed the Warden for a loan, the
College was so strong that it only required the exercise of
a little sturdy independence on the Warden's part to procure
such an immunity from arbitrary taxation as Henry was the
last man to admit if he could help it. The document, which
is of rare occurrence in the case of an individual, may be
worth a moment's attention. Here, and in some other cases
where the archaic structure of the language employed seems
to make the additional burden of the orthography no real
hindrance, the original spelling is preserved.
The occasion was an invasion of England by the Scots ;
and, though there is no date to the letter, we may safely
place it in the year 1496, when James the Fourth, along with
the so-called ' Perkin Warbeck,' ' harried the Marches.' The
grounds on which the request is based are put with almost
a touching force.
36 TEE EARLY DAYS OF THE COLLEGE. [CHAP.
It is ' for the revenging of the grete cruelty and dis-
honour that the King of Scotts hath done unto us, our
realme and subjects.' The King has been advised 'by our
grete counseill of lords spiritual and temporal, of Judges,
Serjeaunts in our lawe, and of other some hedwisemen of
every citie and good towne of this oure lande,' who have
4 determyned us to make by see and by lande two armies
roiall for a substantial werre to be contynued upon the
Scotts unto such tyme we shall invade the realme of Scotland
in oure owne person, and shall have with Godd's grace re-
venged their grete outrage ... in such wise as we trust
the same our subjects shall lyve in rest and peace for many
yeares to come.' He goes on to say that ' the lords and other
of the same grete counseill considering well that the same
grete substantial! werre cannot be borne but by grete sommes
of redy money, have prested [lent] unto us every of them for
his part grete sommes of redy money ; . . . . and because as
we here ye be a man of good substaunee, we desire and pray
you to mak loon unto us of the somme . . . . ' [amount left
blank]. Then follow exact directions as to the way in which
the loan is to be made, but ending with the following ominous
and characteristic words : ' This is a thyng of so grete weight
and importance as may not be failed. And therefore faile ye
not for y r said part eftsoone we pray you, as ye tendre the
good and honour of this o r realme, and as ye tendre also the
wele and suretie of y r self.'
' Yeven under our signet at o r paleys of Westm. the first
day of Decembre V
The initials at the head of the letter are the King's. It is
inscribed to Warden Hobby s, who governed the College from
1494 to 1503. But the King had come to the wrong man.
Hobbys, or Hobbes, had, like Henry himself, gained a little
experience in the rougher walks of life. He had twice been
'Northern Proctor' for the University, an office for which
men were elected by open vote, and which the stoutest
champion in battle generally obtained. In that capacity
he had been called upon to assert the rights of the University
against the people of Woodstock, who supported Hambden,
High Steward of the University, in levying a tax for the
1 Archives.
in.] COURT CLAIMS ON FELLOWSHIPS. 37
King which was probably, since it was afterwards remitted,
illegal. Hambden no doubt an ancestor of the illustrious
patriot had to yield, after a battle, to Hobbys, and to sur-
render his brother, who was confined in Bocardo, the famous
old prison-gateway which formerly stood at the top of Corn-
market Street.
These experiences seem to throw light on the brief memo-
randum which we find, in the hand of the Commissioner, at
the foot of the King's missive. It was to this effect : ' Hee
hath given an oth that hee nedre may lend x^ ' [ten pounds'],
'nedre XLS, except he should borow hytt to his grete hurte/
What the King said in reply to his baffled Commissioner
we know not ; still less how far the ' wele and suretie ' of the
sturdy Warden were affected by his refusal ; but we find him
a Canon of Windsor before he dies.
Another letter of the same period may conclude this
chapter. It is the first of many indications that if Kings
relinquished the hope of seizing the revenues of All Souls
in the gross, they, and many others besides them, very early
learnt to exhibit a tender interest in the separate emoluments
of its Fellowships. For two centuries there was a general
scramble in high places for these coveted posts, natural
enough if we bear in mind the intimate relations between
our Kings and Primates. Both no doubt considered the
election of their nominees as some sort of return due
for favours received, but it was most prejudicial to the
true interests of the College. The constant infraction of
the Statutes sapped the morality of the Fellows, and, per-
haps, led them gradually, under colour of self-defence, to
adopt a system of corrupt elections, which at least gave
them a better chance of securing their own privileges. But
for this scandal in high places we should, however, have
lost some of the most interesting passages in the history of
All Souls ; and we shall at least observe, from the intensity
of the struggle, which terminated at last in the purification
38 THE EARLY DAYS OF THE COLLEGE. [CHAP.
of the College from an inveterate abuse, how dangerous are
the first steps, however plausible, in the process of inter-
ference with a self-governing institution.
Nothing can be milder than this first attempt, if indeed
it was the first. It has hitherto, like the foregoing letter,
been overlooked and undocketed by any previous examiner
of the College archives, perhaps because it is undated and
unsigned, but scarcely on account of its illegibility. The
letter is written on a very small, insignificant piece of parch-
ment, and merely headed 'By the Prince.' What prince ? The
collation of a few facts enables us to assign both name and
date. It is one of the most interesting documents of the
lesser domain of history, and would make the fortune of many
a collection. It is the only letter or paper, written in English,
known to have emanated from one of the most interesting
young princes our country has possessed, Arthur, Prince of
Wales, son of Henry the Seventh, the first husband of
Catharine of Aragon ! Its object is to make interest with
the College to elect a friend to a Fellowship. Being short,
it may be given verbatim:
' By the Prince.
' Trusty and right well beloved We grete you wel. And
forasmoche as we ben credibly informed that y or late elec-
tion is past and nowe of late devolved into the handes of
the most reverend fadre in God o r right trusty and most
entirely beloved cousin y e Cardinal of Canterbury, we
desire and right affectionately pray you that the rather for
o r sake and at the contemplation of these o r l res ' [letters] ' ye
wol have o r right and wellbeloved William Pickering, scoler
of lawe, inasmoche as he is of alliaunce unto the founder of
y r place, and that his fadre also is in y e right tendre fav r of
o r derrest modre the quene, especially named in y * next
election, as we especially trust you, whereynne be ye acer-
tayned us to be ' [be assured that we will be] ' unto you and
y r said place the more good and gracieux lord in eny y r
reasonable desires hereafter.
' Yeven under or signet at the Manor of Sunninghill the
xvin day of November.'
in.] PRINCE ARTHURS LETTER. 39
That it was one of the two sons of Henry the Seventh who
wrote this letter might be asserted from th,e evidence of the
orthography ; but as it could not have been written later than
1499 or 1500, it cannot be attributed to Prince Henry, who
was then only ten years old, nor would he be designated as
' the Prince.' Archbishop Morton, the last Archbishop of
Canterbury before Pole who was a Cardinal, died in Sep-
tember, 1500, in the life-time of ' the quene our derrest modre,'
Elizabeth of York ; while the fact that the College elections
were always held in November throws the date back nearly
a year at least before Morton's death. The extreme youth
of even the eldest of the sons for Prince Arthur was only
in his fourteenth year might indeed be a difficulty in an
ordinary case, but it is not so in this. The Tudors were
eminently precocious, but Prince Arthur surpassed them all.
His tutor, Bernard Andre, considered his talents almost super-
human. Before he had attained his sixteenth year, 'he had
learnt parts of, or at least turned over with his own hands
and studied with his own eyes, in grammar, Garinus, Perotus,
Pomponius, Sulpicius, Aulus Gellius, Valla ; in poetry, Horace,
Virgil, Lucan, Ovid, Silius, Plautus, Terence; in rhetoric,
Cicero's Offices, Epistles, and Paradoxes, Quintilian ; in his-
tory, Thucydides, Livy, Caesar, Suetonius, Tacitus, Pliny.
Valerius Maximus, Sallust, and even EusebiusV
There are marks of character about the letter which in-
dicate the personal share of the writer in its composition ;
the affectionate manner, for example, in which he mentions
his mother, a woman well capable of inspiring such affection,
the earnestness with which he pleads for a friend, and the
lordly style with which he baits his request. He did not
live long to be the ' good and gracieux lord ' he hoped to
prove.
We have still less difficulty with respect to the Prince's
1 Quoted from Bernard Andre", in Gairdner's Memorials of King
Henry the Seventh.
40 THE EARLY DAYS OF THE COLLEGE.
tender years when we compare this letter with the only two
others of his which are extant. The first of these, of about
the same date as that to All Souls, is a passionate love-
letter to the Princess Katharine, very much indeed beyond
what a boy of his age would think of writing in these
days ; and the last, to Ferdinand and Isabella, upon meet-
ing his bride, written two years later, is equally warm and
affectionate. Both of these are written in Latin, as was
natural *.
And yet, though he lived some two years at least after his
letter of recommendation, it is to be remarked that his suit
to the College entirely failed. The name of Pickering does
not appear on the register. This is the more remarkable
when we remember that Prince Arthur visited Oxford in
1501, and that the celebrated Lynacre, who had been elected a
Fellow of All Souls in 1484, and, after his return from Italy,
had succeeded Bernard Andre as tutor to the Prince, might
be supposed to have exercised his influence with the College.
Perhaps some other advancement was found for Pickering ; or
is it possible that we have here an instance of the resolution
of the College to guard its independence, even against the
insinuating attack of the accomplished boy-Tudor ?
The only reason that can be assigned for the letter being
written from Sunninghill, is t^hat ' Sunninghill Park was
formerly part of the royal demesnes V There was probably
some manor-house on it which was placed at the Prince's
disposal, or he might have lodged in the nunnery there. In
1542 Henry the Eighth held a Council at Sunninghill. In
that year died Sir William Pickering, Knight Marshall to
Henry. This was probably Prince Arthur's friend.
1 Bergenroth's Calendar of Spanish State Papers, vol. i.
pp. 246, 312.
2 Lysons' Berkshire.
CHAPTEE IV.
0ttls aittr %
1443-1526.
The Abbess and Nuns of Syon Life and Manners of the
early Fellows Lynacre Latimer Leland Other dis-
tinguished Men Civil Law at All Souls .Archbishop
Warham Rapid succession to Fellowships.
SAVE and except the above indications of the perils through
which the society had passed, the College, so far as its records
have yet been searched, knows nothing 1 of the Wars of the
Roses. The partial impoverishment which befell it was
shared with the rest of the University and other corporate
bodies of the realm. Those records are generally, during the
first century after the Foundation, of that unimportant char-
acter which, like those of a country happy in ' having no
history,' betoken useful work and progressive development.
Besides the notices of the Chapel already mentioned,
perhaps the most suggestive entries are those made from
time to time of Confratres and Consorores. The successive
Primates, each in his turn, as he draws near the end of
his days, plead their claims as Visitors, and beg, as the
greatest of favours, that they may be admitted to the benefit
of the College prayers, dirges, and repetitions of De Pro-
fundis. Such petitioners of course do not ask in vain ; and
an occasional benefactor is also registered as a recipient of
this highly-prized privilege. One of the latest of these
42 ALL SOULS AND THE RENAISSANCE. [CHAP.
entries is also the most curious. It is the admission of the
Abbess and other members of the Monastery of Syon to the
benefit of the College prayers. The elaborate document con-
veying the boon has been printed in Gutch's Collectanea 1 .
What obligation on the part of Syon the College thus repaid
is not known, nor are we told whether the kind of repay-
ment was entirely satisfactory to the ladies ; but the College
seems to make no doubt that it will be so. ' Others,' say
they, 'may repay in gold, silver, and gems, ... we in pearls
and necklaces of another kind, . . . we make you and your
successors partakers of all our Divine offices, chants, prayers,
masses, studies, alms, fasts, and indulgences.'
The Warden whose name appears in this document is
Woodward, who presided from 1526 to 1533, when he re-
signed. Its date, March 6, 1536, is therefore a difficulty.
It is possible that delay took place in the transmission,
caused perhaps by the suppression of the smaller monas-
teries in 1534. It may have been hoped in 1536 that the
storm had blown over, and that Syon would be saved ; but
the interesting point is that All Souls, as we shall see,
had made its full and complete submission to Henry the
Eighth as early as 1 534 ; thus shewing that as yet there
was no feeling of inconsistency between the acknowledg-
ment of the Supremacy of the Crown, and the Roman
Catholic doctrines involved in such a transmission of spiri-
tual privileges as the above. However this may be, the
document could hardly have been dated and dispatched be-
fore Syon fell. It was one of the first of the larger monastic
institutions to feel the heavy hands of Henry and Cromwell,
for it had given special offence in the matter of 'the Holy
Maid of Kent,' and was formally accused of harbouring the
King's enemies.
How curiously different the career of the two institu-
tions which had both felt Chichele's fostering care at their
1 Vol. ii. p. 268.
iv.] THE NUNS OF SYON. 43
birth, and which thus exchanged good offices when on the
point of final separation ! Syon was founded by Henry the
Fifth in 1414, by Chichele's advice. At its opening Chichele,
as Archbishop, officiated with all ecclesiastical pomp, just
as he did, some thirty years later, at the consecration of
All Souls Chapel. Like All Souls, Syon was endowed by
the Crown from the estates of suppressed Alien Priories ;
like All Souls, as it was one of the latest medieval founda-
tions, so it was the most aristocratic. Its fashionable species
of monastic life under the rule of St. Austin (as then lately
reformed by St. Bridget, Queen of Sweden), its royal patron-
age, great wealth, and beautiful position on the Thames at
Isleworth, as well as its vast staff of eighty-five ' religious '
in honour of the thirteen apostles and seventy-two disciples 1 ,
made it a natural ally of the favoured College at Oxford
so munificently linked by Chichele to the memory of the
Lancastrian princes. No doubt scholars of one became priests
of the other; no doubt many a nun of Syon was to be
found as a pilgrim making her offerings at the glittering
shrines of All Souls.
But now the crash came. While the College was spared,
the Nunnery found its way into the hands of the Dukes
of Northumberland, with whom it has ever since remained ;
and the nuns set forth on their toilsome wanderings. The
stout English spirit in their gentle blood forbade them to
give way without a struggle, one of the most gallant and
prolonged on record. It lasted three hundred years. After
the failure of their fond attempts to settle near their own
land in the Low Countries and in France, they eventually
found a home at Lisbon, still keeping their English na-
tionality through all vicissitudes. In the seventeenth cen-
tury their convent was destroyed by fire. That did not
daunt them. They diligently begged for alms, and rebuilt
1 The number of eighty-five was composed of an abbess, fifty-
nine nuns, thirteen priests, four deacons, and eight lay-brethren.
44 ALL SOULS AND THE RENAISSANCE. [CHAP.
their nest. Again their new abode was levelled to the
ground in the famous earthquake of the eighteenth cen-
tury ; and again it was rebuilt. But what fire and earthquake
had failed to effect was brought about by the 'Peninsular
War.' When Lisbon became the head-quarters of our army
the convent became the English hospital, and the forlorn
relic of the sisterhood, consisting of nine English ladies,
made their way back to their own land once more in 1810.
'In 1825 two or three of them were still alive in the
vicinity of the Staffordshire Potteries 1 .' Probably the last
thing which would occur to any of them in their distress
would be to knock at the gates of the College which had
once exchanged spiritual privileges with their remote pre-
decessors !
As far as the individual members of the College and their
mode of life are concerned, there are no signs of wealth at
All Souls in its early period. Their buildings may be hand-
some, their Chapel magnificent, their endowments, with all
respect to Warden Warner, ample ; but no man has at his
disposal anything whatever beyond his food, his clothing, and
his share of a room. His 'commons' are fixed at one shilling
a week when wheat is cheap, one shilling and fourpence
when dear ; his ' livery ' is of too modest a value to enable
him to make any display in dress; two 'chamber-Fellows'
live together in one room. He must not even walk alone
outside the College, and then only within the distance of a
mile the limits being ' Greenditch Fosse on the North, the
cross upon the bridge going to Bagley on the South, Heading-
ton or Cowley on the East, and Hinksey or Botley on the
West.' The College accounts are presented to the Visitor
every year, and the surplus income of the College lands which
remains after the commons and livery are deducted, is,
should there be any, placed in the tower-chest. It is the
1 Dugdale's Monasticon, ed. Bandinel.
iv.] LIFE IN COLLEGE. 45
Visitor, and he alone, who grants from time to time, not as
a matter of course, but as the greatest of favours, that some
small portion of this treasure may be divided amongst the
Fellows for the ' augmentation of commons.' But even this
does not appear for more than a century. At first there was
very seldom any surplus ; and if any occurred under some
peculiarly favourable circumstance, it was to go towards pro-
viding what was necessary for the improvement of the College
property. Gradually, after the Reformation, some portion
came to be assigned to the purchase of livings for the Fellows;
this being the method, and not a bad one, by which such
learning as the Universities possessed was to be circulated
throughout the country 1 .
At the early period of which we are speaking, we find
notices of the addition to the College property of the vari-
ous little tenements which once occupied its present ample
site, three of which were small ancient Halls. The College
lands are managed by the members of the College appointed
for that purpose, annual ' progresses ' being regularly made
to receive the rents and consult the wood-wards ; for most of
the land is as yet covered with forests, and leases are almost
unknown. Payments are for centuries very frequently made in
trees instead of money. College stables, College grooms, and
College horses are necessary for this purpose. Disputes as to
the respective rights of the Warden and Fellows in the use
of these horses, which came no doubt to be employed largely
for other purposes than those of the ' progress/ occur even
as late as the beginning of the seventeenth century. It need
hardly be said that so agreeable a mode of taking exercise
at the expense of the College ceased long ago to be in the
power of either the Warden or Fellows !
The Statutes, like those of most other Colleges, contain
the minutest regulations as to behaviour and discipline.
1 See Chap. VII, sub finem.
46 ALL SOULS AND THE RENAISSANCE. [CHAP.
The Bible or some other sacred writing is to be read out
by the appointed person at dinner, while the strictest silence
is to be preserved. Severe penalties are imposed for any inter-
ruption. After dinner, which is at eleven o'clock, after supper,
and after the ' potations ' in hall at Curfew-time,
' Grace having been said and the Cup of Charity passed
round, the Fellows are to betake themselves to their studies
or other places within the College, and the seniors are not
to suffer the juniors to linger in the hall. But on the
principal feasts and the greater double feasts, and when
College business, or disputations, or other important College
matters are to be transacted, or when, in winter-time, the
Fellows are allowed a fire in the hall out of reverence to
God and his mother, or any other saint or solemnity, then,
by way of recreation, the Scholars and Fellows may, after
dinner or supper, divert themselves for a reasonable time with
songs and other proper amusements (cantilenis et aliis solatiis
honestis], as well as in the more serious discussion of poemata
Regnorwn, Cronicas, et mundi kujus mirabilia et cetera quae
Clericalem statum condecorant.'
These arrangements for recreation are copied verbatim from
the Statutes of New College, and must have been well tested
in his own youth by the Founder. On the eve of the Renais-
sance the fifteenth century still accepted the manners of the
fourteenth. The words in the text have often excited the
curiosity of the antiquarian. Warton in his History of Poetry 1
says that ' the cantilena which the scholars should sing on
these occasions were a sort of poemata or poetical chronicles
containing general histories of kingdoms.' Hearne collected
some fragments of this kind which were ' supposed to have
been written about the time of Richard the First, but I rather
assign them,' says he, ' to the reign of Edward the First.'
But surely Warton here seems to have attempted to explain
separate and distinct things by the simple process of mixing
them all up with one another. What were the cantilena ?
There is indeed a certain ancient song peculiar to the College
1 PP- 93-4-
iv.] DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS. 47
of which we find mention at a later date than this, and which
will be found discussed in an Appendix. Whether this was
one of the cantilena will ever remain a doubt !
Warton supposes the ( mirablUa mundi ' to be from such
sources as Marco Polo, Mandeville, and other travellers of the
Middle Ages. With his usual penetration he distinguishes
Marco Polo from the herd. What w r ould he have said to
Colonel Yule's late splendid edition of the medieval Hero-
dotus, which vindicates him from the aspersions of centuries !
The College Library, excellent for those times, was en-
riched by successive donations from the Founder and co-
Founder and other distinguished men, among whom we
find, in the next century, the names of Cardinal Pole,
and Pole Bishop of Peterborough, specially mentioned. It has
long been engulfed and superseded by Codrington's magnifi-
cent Foundation ; but it did its work. Few Colleges, if any,
can boast such students as All Souls in its earlier days.
If the mass of them came more prominently before their
contemporaries in the exercise of their function ad orandum,
they certainly laid more stress than most on the injunc-
tion which in their Charter came first in order ad studendum.
Fuller, writing in 1662, describes All Souls as 'the fruitful
nursery of so many learned men 1 .' In the notice of All
Souls at the foot of Loggan's print of the College in the
seventeenth century we find, 'usque ab exordiis viri cele-
lerrimi prodierunt? It will not therefore surprise us to
find that among the earliest entries on the College books
occur notices of permission of absence, given to different
Fellows for stated periods, in order that they may pursue
their studies at foreign Universities. At the particular crisis
of English literature which we associate with the later
portion of the fifteenth century such a fact goes far to
explain Fuller's remark. For after the fall of Constanti-
nople in 1453, ^ was a * Padua, Florence, Rome, and the
1 Worthies, p. 293.
48 ALL SOULS AND THE RENAISSANCE. [CHAP.
other great Italian centres of the Renaissance, that learned
Greeks and precious Greek manuscripts were to be found ;
and we know very fully from Erasmus how successfully the
English bees had gathered the Italian honey, and stored it
up at Oxford. Of the ever-glorious names which have come
down to us in this connection, two out of the six which
Oxford specially boasts are All Souls men, and not the least
distinguished. Dean Colet and Lily were from Magdalen,
Grocyn from New College, he afterwards became ' Header '
at Magdalen, Tunstall from Balliol, Lynacre and Latimer
from All Souls. Leland's catalogue of these luminaries is
well known, but will bear repeating :
' Lumina doctrinse, Grocinus deinde secutus,
Sellingus, Lynacer, Latimarusque plus,
Dunstallus, Phoenix, Stocleius atque Coletus,
Lilius et Paceus, festa corona vivvirn,
Omnes Italiam petierunt sidere fausto,
Et nituit Latiis musa Britanna scholis ;
Omnes inque suam patriam rediere diserti,
Secum thesauros et retulere suos.'
Lynacre has been already mentioned as tutor to Prince
Arthur. He w r as also tutor in Italian to Katharine of
Aragon. His connection with All Souls dates from 1484,
when he was elected Fellow, and Wood in his Athense tells
us that ' by his close retirement at this College he improved
himself very much in literature, and in a few years after,
much more by his travels in Italy.' The study of Greek
and the study of Medicine are the employments with which
his residence in Italy are historically connected ; he became
Professor of Medicine at Padua, and eventually in England
the founder and first President of our College of Physicians :
finally, he established Professorships of Greek at both
Oxford and Cambridge. But his grand position as the father
of English medical science was not attained by any isolated
study of particular subjects. His w r as the true philosophical
mind which assimilated every particle of intellectual nourish-
iv.] LYNACRE AND LATYMER. 49
merit the age could afford, the mind of the truly educated
man, 6 TTCLV Treiraibev^vos. He achieved such various
distinction that it has been questioned whether he was
' a better Latinist or Grecian, a better grammarian or phy-
sician.' In the succeeding age his fame as grammarian
seems to have been the most generally known. 'That
famous grammarian Linacre,' says the great-grandson of
Sir Thomas More in his Life of his ancestor, written about
1 627 *. His eminence as a physician has been more asserted
in modern times. His praises, however, scattered throughout
the pages of Erasmus and Leland, are too well known to
require special notice in this place.
To modern ears the name of Lynacre is not altogether
unfamiliar. The father of a great and distinguished pro-
fession, his name has been justly preserved in the founda-
tion of a modern Professorship at Oxford, and the linea-
ments of his shrewd countenance have come down to us
in a famous contemporary picture by Quintin Matsys,
an excellent copy of which now adorns All Souls. But
in his own age he was scarcely more distinguished than
his All Souls friend and literary colleague, William Latymer,
whose name is forgotten. Of him Wood says that 'he
left a name second to none for generality of learning V
He was elected Fellow of All Souls in 1489, and 'spent
some years there in logicals and philosophical ; ' then
followed Lynacre, his senior by five years, into Italy,
where he ' obtained the name of the most excellent
Grecian and philosopher,' and on his return was associated
with Lynacre and Grocyn in the translation of Aristotle 3 .
His friendship with Erasmus is well known. Erasmus
styles him, 'vere theologus integritate vita conspictius.'
The Roman Catholic author of Sir Thomas More's Life,
1 In the Bodleian Library.
2 Wood's Hist, of Oxford University. Orig. MS. Bodl. Lib.
3 Tanner's Bibl. Biog.
E
50 ALL SOULS AND THE RENAISSANCE. [CHAP.
quoted above, describes him (p. 95) as that wonderful
man's ' verie great acquaintance/ and characteristically tells
us that it is ' William Lattimer ' of whom he is speaking,
'not Hugh the Heretike that was burnt, but another most
famous for vertue and good letters.' Pace also was his
intimate friend, and Cardinal Pole was his pupil. What
can be nobler than Leland's encomium, ' Latimarusque
plus ' /
Yet one more luminary of that age comes forth to complete
the trio, the encomiast himself, the great Leland, the father
of English antiquarians, if not of English history, regarded
in its aspect of strictly accurate research. His name
indeed does not appear, like those of Lynacre and Latymer,
on the register of Fellows ; but he ' spent many years in
study at All Souls 1 / drawn there, it is said, by its proxi-
mity to Humphrey Duke of Gloucester's Library, which
to this day ' forms the central portion of the great Reading
Room ' of the Bodleian 2 , and residing no doubt under the
patronage of one or both of the Fellows just named. Of
him it might seem an insult to the reader to say anything
in detail ; but possibly a couple of short quotations may
be acceptable to some. From Wood we will only take the
following sentence : ' This incomparable worthy, by \vhose
immature death (having been a walking library while
living) Britain hath susteyned an irreparable loss 3 .' Bale
may be quoted at greater length, since he was Leland's
personal friend.
' I was, ' says he, ' as familiarly acquainted with him as
with whom I am best acquainted, and do know certainly
that he from his youth was so earnestly studious and desirous
of our antiquities that always his whole studies were
1 Wood's Athenae ; Burton's Corollarium vitse Lelandi ; Hall's
Preface to Leland's Commentaries.
2 Macray's Annals of the Bodleian, p. 8.
3 Wood's Hist, of Oxf. University. Orig. MS. BodL Lib.
iv.] ISLAND 'ANTIQUARIUS.' 01
directed to this end. And for the true and full attaining
thereunto he not only applied himself to the knowledge of
the Greek and Latin tongues wherein he was, I might say,
excellently learned, but also to the study of the British,
Saxonish and Welsh tongues, and so much profited therein
that he most perfectly understood them. And yet not
herewith all content he did fully and wholly both labour
and travail in his own person through this our realm
and certain of the dominions thereof, because he would
have the perfect and full knowledge of all things that
might be gathered and learned both for things memorable
and the situation of the same. And as for all authors of
Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, British, Saxonish,
Welsh, English, or Scottish, touching- in any wise the
understanding of our antiquities, he had so fully read and
applied them that they were in a manner g-raffed in him
as of nature. So that he might well call himself "Anti-
quariusV '
That this intellectual giant should have died deranged
will surprise no one. It is curious that All Souls should
have supplied in successive ages the two scholars who, with
the exception of Dugdale, have rescued from destruction
the largest antiquarian spoils contained in the records of
monasteries. Leland's Commission from Henry the Eighth
to the monastic houses before their spoliation afforded him an
unrivalled opportunity, and never was an opportunity better
used. Nearly two centuries later Tanner secured what
perishing fragments were still left.
Other Fellows of this period are noted in the pages of con-
temporaries for their learning, several expressly as mathe-
maticians, but the three names already mentioned stand out
supereminent, and are enough for the purpose of this book,
which is to give a general sketch rather than a minute history.
To some extent these men may be taken as representatives of
the rest. Though each resided many years within the College,
we find no special mention of them. Chichele's foundation
1 Preface to the 'Laborious Journey and Search of John
Leland for England's Antiquities.'
E 2
52 ALL SOULS AND THE RENAISSANCE. [CHAP.
supplied them with all they wanted Looks, leisure, daily food
and clothes, learned society, religious Services, an orderly way
of life. By a liberal interpretation of the Founder's intentions
the College encouraged their visits to foreign Universities ;
and whatever merit may be due to King Henry the Seventh
and Warham for their sanction or promotion of these visits,
the enlightened conduct of the College deserves the most
grateful recognition. They pass on the torch of literature for
some forty or fifty years. Can it be doubted that these high-
priests of the Renaissance left their mark on their associates
as well as on the greater world for which they studied,
travelled, wrote, and taught ? The standard they erected was
noble and lofty, and the College acknowledged it in the
best of all ways by the sort of men it sent forth into the
world.
Besides the studies peculiar to that period of abounding
energy, General. Literature, Mathematics, and Medicine,
those of Canon and Civil Law especially nourished at All Souls.
This, as we have seen, was one great object of the far-sighted
and experienced Founder. He evidently contemplated from
the first the direct as well as indirect service of the Crown
by his Fellows, and to that the Law, as it has been ever
since, was the natural avenue. The sixteen Jurists made up
nearly one half- of his foundation of forty Fellows. These
men, like himself, were in succeeding ages largely employed,
as no doubt he intended they should be, in the public service.
We have briefly traced the career of the first Warden, Dean
Andre we. Poteman, the fourth Warden, followed Andrewe
in resigning his office. He too became a Commissioner under
Edward the Fourth for treating with Scotland, and, eventually,
Archdeacon of Cleveland. Broke, the seventh Warden, was
Moderator of the School of Canon Law at Oxford, or as we
should now call him, Professor. Warner, the eleventh Warden,
who was twice Proctor for the University, twice Warden of
All Souls, and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, was also the first
iv.] LAWYERS AND THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 53
Oxford Regius Professor of Medicine. He was at least once
employed as a member of the French Embassy, and died Dean
of Winchester. Weston was Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and
was designated by Queen Elizabeth Chancellor of England,
but died on the way to take up that office. At the end of the
first century after the foundation of the College we find in
the course of twenty years no less than four Fellows who
became in turn the Professors of Civil Law in the University
of Oxford, while in the reigns of Henry the Eighth and
Elizabeth three Fellows figure as successive Deans of Arches,
and others attain the post of Master of Bequests, or become
Chancellors of different dioceses. The precedents and tra-
ditions thus formed, with respect to Law, Medicine, and the
Public Service, assume importance in the later history of the
College. They are noticed in this place by way of illustrating
the history of the times, and especially the wide and varied
uses to which statesmen in those days put the Universities.
It would seem that it was this strong legal element
planted in the College by the Founder which chiefly exer-
cised the patience and temper of the successive Archbishops
of Canterbury, from whose interesting letters, in their capa-
city of Visitors, we are enabled to gather numerous parti-
culars for our purpose during the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. And we may here remark that there is scarcely
an Archbishop since Chichele's time from whom the College
has not in its possession some document formally exercising
statutable rights in the nomination of Fellows or officers
when devolved upon the Visitor, or some letter dealing with
matters which required his interference. Side by side with
the Royal deeds which enrich the Archives (the Great
Seal of England marking the succession of nearly every
Sovereign), containing some Re-grant of lands, or some
Pardon which secured the College from the charge of a
possibly constructive treason, will be found in equally regular
succession the stately seal of Metropolitan Canterbury. The
54 ALL SOULS AND THE RENAISSANCE. [CHAP.
mere juxtaposition of these relics of the past tells its own
story. It is a history in itself of English Church and State.
Yet it would be unfair to the lawyers to omit the fact
that the first of many very sharp missives from Lambeth,
now in possession of the College, relates to the alleged
delinquencies of beneficed clergymen. It is from Warham,
the friend and patron of the great All Souls men, Lynacre
and Latymer, the last of the Archbishops who sought and
obtained the stated prayers of the College for his soul.
This letter is addressed to ' Maister William Broke, Wardeyne
of my College of Alsoules in Oxford.' Like the two previous
letters given above, it is undated, but must be limited by
the tenure of both Warham' s and Broke's offices to the
period between 1504 and 1525. It commences with ' Brother
Wardeyne,' and is directed, in a tone of great indignation,
against a practice, which was creeping into the College, of
persons pretending f to kepe and enjoy their said place in
the said College with their said Benefice, contrary to th'ordi-
nances of your Statutes in that behalve.'
' Lothe wold I be,' says the Visitor, ' to suffer y e mynde
of y r Fundator to be defrauded or broken . . . and if this sh d
be suffered to contynue by such colorable meanes and wayes,
every felowe of that College being beneficed shall pretend
to kepe both his College and also his benefice as long as
it sh d please him, wher in his roome another scholer might
profit and doo good. ... In case that they will fall to the
plee of the Lawe I shall be contented to bere the costs and
charges thereof myselve 1 .'
The vigour with which Warham writes, the resolution he
shewed to put an end to an abuse, and his mode of speak-
ing of ' my College,' which College indeed always styled
itself, in letters to the Visitor, familia vestra, are points
worth observing in the last princely Primate of the un-
reformed Church. His letter seems to have been effective ;
1 Archives.
iv.] ARCHBISHOP WARHAM. 55
for no other instance of the abuse presents itself to our
notice in the subsequent ages. Stagnation is thus pre-
vented. A constant movement is going 1 on, as the Founder
intended it should go on.
This may introduce the remark that for the first two
centuries after the Foundation of the College the succession
to Fellowships is wonderfully uniform, and, in comparison
with aftertimes, very rapid. Down to about 1640 the
average number of vacancies in a year is four and a fraction.
From 1640 to 1780 they are about three in a year. From
1780 to 1850, a little over two and a half in a year. How
is this change to be accounted for ? We shall perhaps receive
fresh light as we proceed with our history; but no doubt
there were many more openings for University men, and
especially All Souls lawyers, at the earlier than at the later
dates. No less than seven Wardens out of the first eleven
resigned their office : none afterwards left their post till
relieved by death or forced by violence. Perhaps also the
increasing comfort and prosperity of the College, which
began in the reign of Elizabeth, may have had the effect
of inducing the Fellows to remain longer in such good
quarters. Certainly the change, in the case of the Wardens,
is synchronous with the provision of superior lodgings for
them. But as these considerations are not of themselves
sufficient to account for the growing increase in the average
length of tenure of Fellowships, we shall have by-and-by
to look further for a cause 1 .
1 This may be the place to mention that the term ' Fellow' is
applied in these pages, for the sake of convenience, from the date
of election, though for the first year the name of ' Scholar' or
' Probationary Fellow' is technically correct. Confusion is sure to
arise unless this course is pursued in the narrative, since Founder's
Kin were allowed the privilege of being 'admitted' at once,
without the year of Probation.
CHAPTER V
gJJ Souls ai %
1534-1558-
Why the College was spared at the Reformation Renunciation
of Papal Supremacy The chief Wardens of All Souls
Cranmer's Visitation; and letter to the College demanding
Soldiers ' Corrupt Resignations ' Letter from Edward the
Sixth The Commissioners of 1549; their proceedings at
All Souls All Souls the first College in Oxford to possess
'Organs' and an Organist Reaction under Mary Papal
government by Cardinals Cardinal Pole.
How did the Reformation affect All Souls? How could
an institution so eminently medieval and Roman Catholic
in its Foundation escape the hand of the spoiler ? The
University Commissioners of 1852 l have attributed it
entirely to the prominent place given in the Statutes to
the ' Collegiate element/ which eclipsed or atoned for the
functions assigned to the College in relation to prayers for
the departed. We must, with all respect, take exception to
this mode of accounting for the fact. Collegiate institutions
existing side by side with the Colleges which were spared,
and equally devoted to purposes of study, fell without grace
or mercy. Even the monasteries and nunneries were the
common schools of the age; for Winchester and Eton
Report, p. 217.
WHY THE COLLEGE WAS SPARED. 57
were but just taking off a few lads to be trained on a
superior system j yet none were spared.
What then made the difference? It was nothing- more
nor less than the fact that while the one set of institutions
were in the hands of monks and friars, these persons had
been from the first expressly excluded from the other.
Public opinion, or at any rate that of its influential classes,
upheld the Crown in abolishing 1 the first; the last were as
necessary as they ever were for the benefit of the parochial
clergy and for the general culture of society. It was only
necessary that they should accept the Reformation like the
rest of the country. This was not attended with much
difficulty, though of course it could not be done without
some opposition. The rivalry between the Colleges where
no Regulars were admitted, and those where they were,
was coeval with the foundation of every one of the former,
and no assistance was likely to be forthcoming on their part
when the doom of their rivals was pronounced. Henry and
his advisers saw plainly enough the advantage they might
thus gain in executing the projects they had at heart.
In the persons of the monks and friars all the defenders of
the Papal system, with its hateful Supremacy and corrupt
Courts, received a death-blow. In the Colleges which were
retained, and in the secular clergy which they supplied to
the parishes of the land, remained the National as opposed
to the Papal spirit, the inheritance of the principles which
had never ceased to work against Rome from the earliest
ages.
But more than this. The Tudor princes of the Reformation,
with their highly cultivated minds, well understood the
importance of retaining and using to the utmost these foci
of intellectual light, through which alone they could hope
to perpetuate the Reformation they were pledged to carry
through. Greedy courtiers might suggest that the Uni-
versities and Colleges should be treated as the monastic
58 ALL SOULS AT THE REFORMATION. [CHAP.
bodies had been treated ; but to this the Tudors, though
sometimes shewing- how severely they were tempted, ever
turned a deaf ear. If the medieval Founders had been alive,
these Sovereigns argued, no doubt, patriots and statesmen as
they were, and having openly expressed in their Statutes
their sentiments with respect to the ' Pope's body-guard'
of monks and friars, they would have agreed with the rest
of the nation in casting away the yoke which had often so
heavily pressed upon themselves. Through the Universities
and Colleges alone could the change be made without a
relapse into barbarism. They were the fly-wheel of the
machinery which kept it going during the dead period
between the loss of one motive power and the establishment
of another. The Tudor Reformation was to be no return
to the dark ages, but rather the intellectual as well as
spiritual elevator of the whole population.
The history of All Souls illustrates these remarks. Not
one word do we find as to the struggles which must have
occurred at the early stages of the Keformation. Perhaps,
however, we must not build too much on such negative in-
ference ; for if a certain Henry Gold, who was hung at
Tyburn for his alleged concern in the affair of 'the Holy
Maid of Kent,' was the same person as a Fellow of the
College of that name and date (which seems more than
probable) , his example might not have been very encouraging
to the rest. It is more to the purpose to observe that Leland
had accepted the Reformation very early ; and we may well
suppose that his strong anti-papal influence was not unfelt
in the College which had sheltered him for so many years.
If the Renaissance had opened the eyes of any society, we
have seen reason to think that it must have operated upon
All Souls. And the connection of the College with Cranmer
as its Visitor must also have had its weight on his ' family.'
How much was due to fear of the King, and how much to
conviction, we shall never know ; but the renunciation of
v.] PA PAL S UP RE MA CY RENO UNO JED. 5 9
the Pope by the College and its acceptance of the King as
' Caput Ecclesite Anglican^,' dated September 28, 1534, is
explicit enough, and is certainly very far from betraying
any struggle or suspicion of compromise.
In this document Warden Stokeley and the Fellows
' with one mouth and voice assent and consent, under
our common seal affixed in our chapter house' [no doubt the
Ante-chapel, which was used for official assemblies of the
College], for ourselves and each and all of our successors for
ever, profess, testify, and faithfully promise that we, the
said Warden and Fellows, and each and all of our successors,
will always keep whole and inviolate a sincere and perpetual
fidelity, deference, and obedience to our King Henry the
Eighth and Queen Anne his wife, and to the legitimate
descendants of him and the said Anne begotten and to be
begotten, and that we will make the same known, preach,
and persuade others wherever place and opportunity permit/
They then, declaring Henry to be ' Head of the English
Church/ pronounce that
'the Bishop of Rome, who in his bulls usurps the title
of Pope, and claims for himself the headship of a Supreme
Pontiff, has no higher jurisdiction granted him by God in
this realm of England than any other foreign Bishop;' and
promise that ' none of us in any private or public discourse
will mention the said Bishop of Rome by the name of Pope or
Supreme Pontiff, but by the name of the Bishop of Rome
and of the Roman Church, and that none of us will pray
for him as Pope, but only as Bishop of Rome ; also that we
will adhere to the said lord the King alone and to his suc-
cessors, and will maintain his laws and decrees, renouncing
for ever the laws, decrees and canons of the Bishop of Rome
which shall be found to be against the Divine law, against
the Holy Scriptures, or against the rights of this realm ; also
that none of us shall presume in any private or public dis-
course to twist anything taken from Holy Scripture to any
other sense, but that each of us will preach Christ, his
words and acts, simply, openly, sincerely, and according to
the original pattern or rule of Holy Scripture and of the
catholic or orthodox Doctors in a catholic and orthodox
manner ; and that each of us in his own prayers and in the
customary common Drovers sha-U commend to God and the
60 ALL SOULS AT THE REFORMATION [CHAP.
people first of all the King- as supreme Head of the English
Church, then Queen Anne with her offspring 1 , then finally
the Archbishops of Canterbury and York with the other
orders of the clergy, as shall seem fit/
Gutch has given this document in its original Latin form
in his Collectanea Curiosa, and the only point worth noticing
in it here is the omission of the famous qualifying words
insisted on at an earlier date by Convocation ; ' quantum per
Christi legem licet.' The College adopted the phrase of Par-
liament, and was satisfied, we may hope, with the King's
explanation that he did not claim the Headship of the Church
in spiritual things, but only in temporal things, 'in those
we be indeed in this realm caput, and because there is no
man above us here, supremum caput 1 .' This after all was
' no new thing/ but only what even the zealot Gardiner,
Bishop of Winchester, declared was ' a power which of Divine
right belonged to the prince 2 .' Though the title was
offensive, and very properly changed by Elizabeth into that
of ' Supreme Governor/ it did in reality only mean what is
expressed in the Bidding Prayer, that the King is 'in all
causes and over all persons, ecclesiastical and civil, within
these his dominions supreme,' and that the English Eccle-
siastical Courts and Councils were independent of the Pope's
jurisdiction. This is the position of the Crown laid down by
all the greatest lawyers as inherent in the Constitution, a
position of which the Crown was deprived for a time, and
which, as the lawyers phrase it, was t restored ' to it at the
Reformation. On this we need not dwell. We might well
expect that All Souls would be less careful in this matter
than the assembled clergy of the realm. Its society was
largely composed of lawyers, and the Universities generally
had been prepared, long before the rest of the nation, for
the great change now taking place.
1 Wilkins' Concilia, iii. 704.
2 De Vera Obedientia (published 1535).
v.] THE CHIEF WARDENS OF ALL SOULS. 61
A little later, July 3, 1544, we find the College obtaining
a small portion of the monastic spoils. It still possesses a
grant of lands which the Crown had confiscated, and which
Warden Warner had bought for ^200 8s. ad. and i obol.
This is sealed with the Great Seal, bearing the legend,
' Henricus Octavus, &c. . . Fidei Defensor et in terra Ecclesie
Anglicane et Hibernie supremum caput.' More interest than
usual attaches to this seal, inasmuch as the year 1544 was
that in which the King's style was set forth for the first time
in the above manner, and when it was made treason to object
to the new form. A remnant of some previous inscription on
the edge of the seal reminds us that the style had only just
been altered, and suggests the anxiety of the College officials
to leave no loophole by which the creatures of the King
might invade the new acquisition of the community.
We have attempted to trace the general causes of the suc-
cessful emergence of the Universities and Colleges from the
dangers in which they were involved by the Reformation.
This is the province of history, even when concerned with so
small a society as a College ; but it would be very unsatis-
factory to neglect the strong personal influence exercised over
its fortunes by the governors whom it possessed at critical
periods. All Souls has been particularly happy in this respect.
Through very nearly the whole period of the Reformation
through a part of the reign of Henry the Eighth, through
that pf Edward the Sixth, through part of Mary's, and most
of Elizabeth's reign the College was steered by helmsmen of
the greatest ability and good sense, by Wardens Warner and
Hoveden ; through the troubles of the Stuarts by Wardens
Sheldon and Jeames; through the difficulties of the reigns
of Queen Anne and George the First by Warden Gardiner.
Each of these men, even the last, with all his faults, seems
to have been specially adapted for dealing with the peculiar
dangers to which the College was exposed, whether they
arose from the changes of religion, the luxury and corruptions
62 ALL SOULS AT THE REFORMATION. [CHAP.
which crept in with the lapse of years, the arbitrary pro-
ceeding's of monarchs and courtiers, the political conflicts of
the nation, or the factions which existed among- the Fellows.
It is from the progress of these various struggles that we
shall reap our best crop of illustrations of English history.
In the case of the two first of these five remarkable War-
dens we have to proceed very much by way of inference.
The records are scanty; but their deeds remain. We must
fill up the spaces as we best can. But before we notice their
individual share in the transactions of the College we must
clear the road by a brief narrative of its more general history.
There have been four solemn ' Visitations ' of the College,
since its Foundation, by the proper Visitor, the Archbishop of
Canterbury of the day. To these must be added two other
National Visitations connected with the Revolutions of the
period, that by King Edward the Sixth at the Reformation,
and by the Parliament during the ' Commonwealth,' both of
which closely affected All Souls. Cranmer, Whitgift, Tenison,
and Wake are the four Visitors who thought it necessary to
adopt this stringent method of proceeding. Others are found
occasionally taking credit to themselves for trying to obtain
reforms by milder and less unpopular means.
Cranmer's Visitation took place in 1541, and was occa-
sioned by a complaint of certain scandals among the Fellows.
His Injunctions, which were the result of his Visitation,
are prefaced by a declaration that he found ' enormous '
abuses going on. These are only hinted at in so formal a
document ; but it is abundantly clear that the Colleges,
like the monasteries, required examination at the hand of
authority, and, if they were to survive, reform. The
religious and social perturbations of the times had no doubt
relaxed many of the old restraints ; but it is observable
that so late as 1541 there is not a word in these Injunctions
relating to any change of religion. Long before this the
Bible had been set up in the parish churches, and we have
v.] CRANMER'S INJUNCTIONS. 63
seen that the College had accepted Holy Scripture as the
supreme standard of faith; but there is nothing about it in
the Injunctions. Attendance at ' High Mass' is enforced.
Every religious observance remains untouched. This was
the early policy of the King and his advisers. The nation
being set free from the uncatholic yoke of Rome, and
everything being referred to the National Courts, the change
was to shape itself by degrees, as the knowledge of the Bible
increased and the teaching of the reformed clergy extended.
Yet in this very year the King and Cranmer began to take
more decided measures.
It would be tedious to quote much from the above body
of Injunctions. Like most of the subsequent missives from
Lambeth, if a little querulous, they breathe a spirit of good
sense and piety. It is here that we find the first of a series
of sumptuary laws, which we must take for granted were
necessary, or at least not unsuitable for the times. The
Warden and Fellows are to wear ' gowns reaching to the
heels, shirts that are plain and not gathered round the
collar or arms, or ornamented with silk.' The Fellows had
evidently begun to receive their 'livery' in money. This
is stopped. They are to receive it in cloth only. Dogs
are to be rigorously excluded from the College. Penalties
are imposed for absence from College, insubordination,
quarrels and intemperance ; for which last there are no less
than four different names, with a saving clause at the end ;
' compotationibus, ingurgUationilius, crapulis, ebrietatibus ac aliis
enormibus et excessivis commessationibus? No private servants
are to be kept, no lads to reside in College. Newly-elected
Fellows are not to be required to entertain the rest. But
above all, there are no less than four clauses devoted to
the practice which had crept in of taking money for the
Resignation of Fellowships. The penalty is nothing less
than the summary forfeiture of the Fellowship, whether
the arrangement is made directly or indirectly ; and as- every
64 ALL SOULS AT THE REFORMATION. [CHAP.
one must swear to obey these Injunctions, or undergo the
penalty attached, the Archbishop no doubt thought he had
extirpated the mischief. How little could he have foreseen
what was to follow ! It took a century and a half to eradicate
the practice of which we have here the first notice !
When the sale of Fellowships, or, more strictly speaking,
of Resignations, began cannot now be ascertained. It is
possible, as before suggested, that it might have been
gradually adopted by way of defence against the intrusion
of nominees by persons in authority. At any rate it had
now become, or soon became, the custom to consider the
Fellowship just what, till the late Abolition of Purchase, a
Commission in the Army was held to be in our own times,
a marketable commodity. So much had been paid, so much
was expected for it. Custom had covered all deficiencies.
The Fellows ceased to consider that the Statutes were to
be taken literally, and looked upon Visitors who interfered
with the rights they conceived they had acquired as so
many unjust judges. The system no doubt, like Army
Purchase (which is not of course open to any charge of
immorality), had some advantages as well as many faults.
No doubt it is one of those causes, of which we were in
search, of the rapid succession of Fellows; for the change
to a more tardy succession commenced just when the abuse
was at last abolished : but whatever else it did, it wholly
defeated the principle of election, sapped the habit of de-
ference to the Statutes, and generally demoralised the
society. The gallant struggle made by successive Wardens
and Visitors, assisted by a portion of the Fellows, to remove
this scandal, and the success at last of Archbishop Sancroft
and Warden Jeames, will occupy our attention by-and-by.
We shall find persons winking at ' corrupt resignations '
whose conduct will astonish us.
A second Visitation by Cranmer took place in the same year,
but as nothing came of it, and as it was in reality only a
v.] CRANMER DEMANDS SOLDIERS. 65
continuation of the first, it has not been reckoned by the
College as a separate instance of this species of supervision.
We pass from these Injunctions to the only other
document of public interest the College possesses from the
hand of Cranmer. It is addressed thus : ' To my loving
friend the Wardeyn ' [Warner] ' of All Souls Colledge in Ox-
ford give this Hast, Hast.' It is the last in the College
archives which is speeded to its destination with this
ancient formula, common enough in the later Middle
Ages. It carries us back from the dress and dogs of the
Fellows to French wars and the methods by which Eng-
lish armies were provided. It seems the Archbishop had
already written to the Warden to furnish the King with
one ' Demy-Launce l and two light geldings against his
Grace's going this summer into ffraunce.' He now says
that
' the King's Majesty's pleasure is ye shall with all dili-
gence send up hither to London the said demy-launce and
geldings if you can by any means possible find the same
so that they may be here by the iiij h or v h day of
May at the furthest, or this at the least, to send up one
demy-launee well furnished, with an able man and all
things thereto apperteyning. And hereof not to fail in any
wise. Thus hertilie fare you well.
' ffrom myne howse at Lambeth the xx b of Aprill.
' T. CANTUAEIENS 2 .'
The year in which the letter was written does not appear,
but it is no doubt 1544, when Henry the Eighth, in July,
invades France and takes Boulogne. The readiness to
accept anything the Warden will be good enough to send,
and the delay which had already occurred, seem to sug-
gest, like Warden Hobbys' answer to Henry the Seventh,
a want of zeal in the service of the Tudors as far re-
moved as possible from the energetic spirit which we
1 A Demy-Launce was the name given at this date to the
ancient ' hobbler,' or Light-horseman. Grose's Military Antiquities.
2 Archives.
66 ALL SOULS AT THE REFORMATION. [CHAP.
shall see the College evince when we come to the
period of the Stuarts. The Society does not yet seem to
have relinquished the idea they expressed in their letter to
the Monastery of Syon, that they were to return tem-
poral favours by spiritual gold and gems. They did not
yet see their way to melting down the splendid gilt and
silver goblets which successive benefactors had already
bestowed on them, and which formed as yet their only
available wealth. Perhaps also they were not quite at
ease about the ecclesiastical proceedings of the Court, nor
admired the late expulsion of private servants and dogs,
still less the interference of the Visitor with their arrange-
ments as to Fellowships. The suddenness of the cessation
of this brief war may account for our hearing nothing
more of the ' demy-launce.'
The same spirit of independence may be traced in the
reply of the College to a letter it received, in 1550, from
Edward the Sixth. The young King, whose greedy courtiers
had set their hearts on some All Souls property, told the
Warden and Fellows that he was informed they had
' a certayne fearme belonging to your Colledge called Wedon
Weston in our countie of Northampton, not being in your own
occupation, which might be very commodious for our trustie
and well beloved servant, Dr. Mendye our physician, and we
have thought good by these our letters to require you that
for our sake and upon the sight of these our letters you will
immediately graunt unto our well-beloved servant a lease
under your common seal for 21 years of the said fearme as
you have done in others heretofore after the term expirithe
of the lease that now is for such rents as ye have graunted
the same in tymes past. In your doinge whereof we shall
not only take that thankfullye, but also have it in remem-
brance when occasion shall serve to render any your
honeste and reasonable sutes. Given under our signet at
our manor of Greenwich the 26 Jan., 4 yere of our
reign.'
The College was however equal to the occasion. Delay
was all-important under such circumstances, and the "Warden
v.] EDWARD VI AND THE COLLEGE. 67,
was absent on the King's affairs. . After an exceedingly
humble preface the Fellows say :
'It may please your Highness to be further advertised
that at this present our Warden (without whose presence
or at least wise consent we cannot by the orders of oure
Foundation and Statutes entreat and commune of any such
matters) is now absent with your Grace's ambassador in
the French Court, and at his departure made a restraynte
that we should do nothinge in any such case till his returne :
for the which consideration and also for that by your Grace's
lawes the consent of the Hedde is specially requir'd to every
effectual grant that passeth from a House incorporated, we
cannot lawfully and without danger of perjurye accomplyshe
your Grace's request herein : we most humbly beseech Al-
mighty God longe to preserve your Majesty in all godliness
and prosperity to the singular wyl and comfort of us all your
Grace's most loving and obedient subjects.'
1 From your Highnesse's Colledge of All Soules in Oxforde
the 13 Feb. 1 '
We are unable to trace this matter any further. The
College having soothed the young King, we may well imagine
that Warden Warner, on his return from France, found
himself able to deal with his brother physician. Greek
met Greek. The letter reminds us of the former one written
by Edward's uncle, Prince Arthur. All Souls seems to
have been a sort of practising ground for the Tudor boy-
princes, not unlike the little cork on which the playful
kitten exercises its nascent powers before it breaks ground
on rats and mice. Perhaps when other Colleges contribute
their history we shall find that All Souls was not without
companions.
The year before this correspondence, however, the College
had been forced to submit, like all other such institutions
at this time, to an authority which could not be gainsaid.
How far they were a consenting party we know not, but
we hear of no resistance to the Royal Commissioners of 1549,
1 Transcribed into MS. book penes custodem.
P 2,
68 ALL SOULS AT THE REFORMATION. [CHAP.
whose proceedings effected the great change which had been
so long impending. The Warden must certainly have been
not unfavourable to their revolutionary acts, or he would
not have been employed by the Crown in the very next
year ; and if there were malcontents, as subsequent events
shewed, probably the majority were glad to see the sword
descend at last, and to breathe freely once more. Cranmer,
as he was not on the Commission, was not responsible for
the acts of these Commissioners or the details of their In-
junctions ; and it is easy to see that they betray the hand
of Protector Somerset and of Cox, Dean of Christ Church,
the leader of the iconoclastic party in Oxford at this time.
Nothing was now left untouched. They made a clean sweep.
All portions of the Statutes which did not suit the Refor-
mation were abrogated. The old Services were abolished,
and the new substituted. All the young men are to learn
the Catechism. There is to be ' but one altar, or rather
Lord's table, in the chapel.' 'All the rest of the altars,
images, statues, tabernacles, the things they call organs,
and all similar monuments of superstition and idolatry, are
to be altogether removed.'
This portion of the Injunctions was most completely, not
to say ruthlessly, executed. The times no doubt required
some sacrifice of medieval art, but there was no discri-
mination. The magnificent reredos, of which mention has
already been made, was now 'defaced.' Every one of its
fifty statues and eighty-six statuettes was thrown down, and
broken to pieces ; while the projecting portions of the struc-
ture were chipped away till the whole was left a ruin.
The altars were destroyed and the 'Lord's table' placed in
the centre of the Chapel. The mass of the Chapel furniture
shared the same fate, though we shall see that a considerable
remnant gave very serious trouble to the authorities of the
State in the reign of Elizabeth. We have no certain know-
ledge whether the stained glass windows of the Chapel were
v.] THE ICONOCLASTS LET LOOSE. 69
destroyed at this time; but it seems probable that there
was at least a partial destruction, as there is no mention of
any such act in the time of the Commonwealth. The four
great windows of the Ante-chapel, however, by some miracle
escaped at this time the hand of the spoiler ; and their great
beauty, now at last visible, since skilful hands have removed
the soil of ages, bears silent witness to the barbarism which
made havoc of the rest.
The ' things called organs ' (' qua vacant organa '} were also
no doubt destroyed at this time ; and never since that date
has ' Cecilia's mingled world of sound ' pealed forth its note
of praise within the precincts of All Souls. Indeed the
memory of there having ever been an organ in the College
Chapel had so faded from men's memories that the question
profoundly exercised the antiquarian mind of Hearne in
the last century. He registers in his Diary 1 the informa-
tion he had received that 'provision had been made for an
organist at All Souls long before the time of Henry the
Eighth,' and again one of the Fellows c confessed they had
formerly a little organ 2 ; ' and he quotes with triumph
a passage in the Statutes of King's College, Cambridge,
where provision is made for an organist. His remark-
able sagacity had set him on the right track, but it would
have relieved his difficulties if he had known that a passage
from the University archives, which has been printed in
Mr. Anstey's Munimenta Academica 3 , and which had escaped
both Wood and himself, proves that All Souls possessed
an organist, at least as early as 1458; for the ' organ-pleyer
of All Souls ' was convicted of a very serious offence, ' wept
bitterly,' and was condoned after three hours' imprison-
ment on the intercession ' of Master Kele, his Warden, who
had a good hope he would behave better in future.' Further,
we have ' unum par organorum ' mentioned in an inventory of
1 108. 61. 2 108. 113.
3 vol. ii. p. 674.
70 ALL SOULS AT THE REFORMATION'. [CHAP.
All Souls property which Gutch 1 believed might be of the date
of the Founder, but was ' certainly taken before the death of
John Druell ' (the ' clerk of the works ' when the College was
built) ; ' for on the back of it a book is mentioned to be in his
hands. He died in 1462.' This 'pair of organs' forms part
of the ' Contenta in Vestibule,' along with the ' tmtinnabula?
the 'Paria candelabrorum de Latyn cum octo nasis,' the 'vascula
pro aqua lenedicta cum 2 spryngilll and sundry missals, legends,
&c. which were kept in the sacristy forming, in all probability,
a portion of the Ante-chapel, or possibly of some chamber lead-
ing out of the east end, all traces of which have disappeared.
Some have thought a ' pair of organs ' to mean a large one for
grand occasions and a small one for ordinary Services ; but this
can hardly have been the case in such institutions as All Souls.
Others say it is an archaic form, like ' pair of stairs.' And
where not called ' a pair,' we find that the plural is always
used, as in the Commissioners' Injunctions, the exact meaning
of which term is still a matter of dispute among the learned in
music. It seems at least safe to say that it meant that there
was ' more than one pipe 2 ; ' for the pipe itself in early times
may perhaps have been called the ' organ.'
From what has been said about the wealth lavished on the
Chapel of All Souls we might expect to find that it took
precedence of all other Oxford Colleges in this matter of
organs. If the ' organ given by William Port in 1458 ' to
New College was the first that College possessed, and no
earlier date is claimed 3 , All Souls must have preceded the
more ancient foundation, or it would not have had an
' organ-pleyer ' in that same year. Nor does any other Col-
lege appear as a competitor ; Magdalen had an organ in
1481 4 . The introduction of organs into Colleges was in
fact a movement of Henry the Sixth's reign.
1 Collectanea, vol. ii. p. 257.
2 Dr. Rimbault's History of the Organ, p. 43. 3 Ib. p. 79.
4 Bloxam's Register of Magdalen College, Introd. p. xcvii.
v.] ORGANS AND BELL-RINGING. 71
Nor does any other College seem to have preceded All Souls
in the possession of a special organist, ' the duty of organist
being probably discharged by some one or other of the Vicars
Choral 1 .' The modern editors of the work here quoted have
to descend as low as 1580, when the first stipendiary organist
is found at Trinity College, Oxford. No mention of an
organist is indeed found in the Statutes of any of the Oxford
medieval Colleges, but the ' organ-pleyer ' of All Souls can
hardly have been anything else. This was his official desig-
nation in 1458.
Though the Injunction as to organs had thus a definite
meaning in the case of All Souls, it is less easy to understand
how that which relates to bell-ringing could apply. There
seems no reason to suppose that the College ever possessed
more than one bell, and that a little one; but the Commis-
sioners indite almost a homily on the subject, possibly the
same as they sent to other Colleges and parishes which really
had the means of offending their susceptibilities, and by way
of warning for the future to one that had not. They declare
that the noise is most injurious to study, that it can give no
pleasure to the living nor help to the dead, especially ' that
rustic sort of ringing which reminds one of people quarrelling
or insane.' This is never to be used on any account, except
in the one case of fire. The summons to Chapel is to be
effected by a gentle tinkling, ' leviore tinnitu' and a ' passing-
bell ' may be rung if the dying person request it.
The regulations as to dress are still more minute than
Cranmer's own. No one is to wear outlandish or c prodigious '
dresses, nor to have his gown sewn up in front, or to go about
without a cap.
But it would be most unjust to omit the observation that
while some of these Injunctions appear trivial enough, others
evince remarkable sagacity. Some indeed there are which,
1 Hawkins's History of the Science and Practice of Music, vol. i.
p. 264.
72 ALL SOULS AT THE REFORMATION. [CHAP.
at a distance of more than three centuries, have a peculiar
significance with reference to reforms that have engaged
the anxious attention of modern times. For example, non-
residence for more than six months, except for illness or
other just cause, or the King's service, is to involve forfeiture
of the Fellowship ; no one is to hold a Fellowship for more
than twenty years unless he is a public Professor; the College
is not to do the duty of a school, but the training of its
inmates is to commence with Mathematics, the knowledge
of Grammar and the Latin language being the condition
of admission ; the condition of poverty, ' since all Colleges
were built for the children of the poor (inopum)' is to be
more strictly guarded in order to prevent rich men from
taking advantage of the Founder's bounty; and examinations
after all lectures are to be enforced. Some notice is even
taken of a ' burning question ' of our own day, the higher
education of Irishmen. One of the Fellowships is always
to be in Hibernian hands.
The Ordinance which excluded scholars in Grammar and
Latin from Colleges had a sweeping effect in Oxford. Up
to this time the Oxford boys had been taught in the Colleges,
as they had been in the monasteries before their suppression ;
and now that this also was denied to the citizens, we find
from Wood 1 that they made a formal remonstrance on
the subject. But the Visitors were quite right. The
Founders had not intended the Colleges to be boys' schools.
We shall see presently that a custom soon obtained of edu-
cating ' poor scholars ' within the walls ; but those were
young men, not boys.
The Commission took a still higher flight. Part of its
object was to rearrange the whole system of Colleges with a
view to the pursuit of different lines of study in each. All
Souls was to be exclusively devoted to Civil Law, New College
transferring thither its ' Jurists,' and All Souls in its turn
1 Annals, 1549.
v.] HA PP 7 FA IL URE OF COMMISSIONERS. 7 3
handing over its ' Artists ' to New College l . Nothing, how-
ever, was effected in this direction. Perhaps the opinion may
be here expressed that it was fortunate the attempt failed.
Not only would it have been an utter defiance of the will of
the Founders, but the Universities would have received at a
critical moment an impulse in the wrong direction. Instead
of clergy and laity being educated together within the same
walls, learning to respect one another as brethren of a common
Foundation, with a common basis on which to found their
subsequent studies, we should have had the foreign religious
' seminary ' and the University-fashioned lawyer. Instead
of the character of the English gentleman we should have
had the foreign 'savant. Instead of a system of professions
gathered round common centres in the Metropolis, and casting
off antiquated theories by the wholesome rivalry of practice, we
should have been bound by chains which would have caused us
to lag behind the ages instead of leading them. Instead of
a Collegiate system which, though often subject to abuses,
has been the salt of English life, we should have had the
Roman monastery under another form, and the class-
separated, narrow communities of less favoured lands, de-
riving but little illumination from the varied nature of the
culture which up to a certain point, and extending well intt)
manhood, our English Universities have hitherto happily
fostered.
With the exception of the anti-Roman changes made by
these Injunctions, very little of them seems to have been
taken by the College for its permanent guidance. The
Visitation was looked upon as exceptional and of a tem-
porary character. The Statutes, as far as they were not
affected by the Act for the Suppression of Chantries, or by
the changes which Church and State had adopted, resumed
their authoritative character, and the reigning Visitor, who-
ever he might be, again asserted his interpreting function.
1 Wood's Annals, 1549.
74 ALL SOULS AT THE REFORMATION. [CHAP.
This result was doubtless very much due to the violent
reaction of Mary's reign. The ultra-Protestantism of Ed-
ward's Commissioners was felt to have made them in-
adequate exponents of the national mind and of its instincts
with regard to the Universities. So also with the effort of
Rome to resume her medieval position under the auspices
of Queen Mary and Cardinal Pole, Gardiner and Bonner.
The moderation of Queen Elizabeth's policy, on the other
hand, its permanent character, after two such brief periods of
violent oscillation, and the Catholicity of its Protestant settle-
ment, commended itself to the ancient institutions which had
been hastily reformed under Henry the Eighth and his son.
It is to her reign that we must look for the steady settling
down of All Souls to its work under the new conditions of
the age, relieved from revolutionary terrors and political
anxieties, and winged with the fresh impulses which that
consummately gifted Sovereign knew so well how to apply.
This last phase of the Reformation will, however, require a
chapter to itself. The present chapter may conclude with
the few words necessary to describe the effect of Mary's
reign upon the College.
Besides the shortness of the time over which the Roman
Catholic revival extended, we must reckon the constant
changes in the Wardenship of All Souls during that period
as a chief reason why we hear so little of any reactionary
movement in the College. At Magdalen, for instance, we
find the restoration of the Chapel to its ancient con-
dition making a remarkable progress before the death of
the Queen. It was indeed Pole's own College, while All
Souls was only his officially; and it is possible that more
changes were made at the latter than we know ; but we do
not hear of any rehabilitation of the old condition of the
Chapel further than we can gather from the obstinate
struggle in the next reign to retain the plate and service-
books which had in the time of Mary been brought out
v.] THE REACTION OF MARY'S REIGN. 75
from the hiding-places where they had been secured from
the eye of Edward's Commissioners. Warner retained his
Wardenship during the first two years of Mary's unhappy
reign. As a reformer he no doubt checked the Romanist
development as far as he could, but when the persecutions
began he thought it time to resign. Cardinal Pole now
seized the opportunity of putting his own chaplain, Seth
Holland, into the Wardenship, and his deed of institution
is the single record of the Cardinal's Visitorship pos-
sessed by the College. The style in which it is set forth
may be interesting to those who are aware of the import-
ance, in the medieval struggles between England and Rome,
of the position assigned at different periods to the Papal
Legates.
The public are indebted to Dean Hook for having ably
popularised this subject. Referring the reader to the fifth
volume of the ' Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury,'
it is enough to repeat here that nothing had so roused
the ire of the English people as the Ultramontane change
effected in this respect by the Popes after the collapse of the
General Councils of the West. We have noticed Arch-
bishop Chichele's failure to make any effective resistance.
Up to his time the Primate of all England was the natural
and official governor of the Anglican Church; although he
had, at least since the time of King John, held an ordinary
legatine Commission from Rome. Legates a latere had only
been sent from Rome on special occasions for very short
periods, retiring when the object for which they were sent
was accomplished. The Metropolitan was the ' Ordinary.'
The conspiracy which revolutionised this ecclesiastical settle-
ment was hatched by Pope Martin the Fifth. That
Pope and his successors claimed to be the ' Universal
Ordinary,' and to govern the English Church through
Legates a latere, permanently settled in England as Cardi-
nals, all other dignitaries being placed under their orders.
76 ALL SOULS AT THE REFORMATION. [CHAP.
Forced from this position for a brief period by the deter-
mined attitude of Henry the Fifth and the English people,
they only retired to make the better leap after the recoil.
The Pope could not have chosen a better agent than the
resolute Beaufort, nor a better reign than that of Henry
the Sixth. The Primate, after the death of Beaufort, is for
half a century a Cardinal, the mere confidential agent of the
Pope. He may regard himself as legatus natus, but he acts
as legatus a latere. Wolsey, Archbishop of York, as Legate
a latere and Cardinal, took precedence of Warham, Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, who was neither. The law of Prse-
munire did indeed still make such a position technically
illegal, as Henry the Eighth, though he had begged the
legatine office for Wolsey, notably pretended to discover;
but precedents had virtually settled the question, till the
nation, under his guidance, once more threw off the yoke.
Cardinal Pole, resuming the office of his Papal prede-
cessors, takes care to call himself, in the document addressed
to All Souls, ( legatus natus et legatus a latere' Perhaps this
was not novel ; but if any one might have given precedence
to the latter title, it would be the man whose special mission
was to ' reconcile' England to Rome. Yet he thinks it wise
to conciliate the well-known stubborn English feeling of
independence by giving the place of honour to the time-
honoured and undisputed title of Canterbury.
Soon after this the College must have been called upon
to witness, within a few yards of their gates, the horrible
torture and martyrdom of the late Archbishop of Canterbury,
their own old, long-familiar Visitor, the sorely-tried Cranmer.
Of their feelings on the subject no record remains. Their
new Warden was not the man to permit any sympathetic
demonstration, even if such a thing had been desired or
possible.
The fate of this Papist Warden, for whom Pole also pro-
cured the Deanery of Worcester, was hard. He resigned his
v.] POLE AND THE PAPIST WARDENS. 77
Wardenship before Mary's death, but, refusing- compliance with
Elizabeth's religious changes, was committed to the Marshalsea,
and died there in 1560. This harshness was perhaps caused
by his intimate relations with the Cardinal. He it was who
took Pole's last message to Mary, exhorting her, as it is
believed, though it will never be known, to stand firm in
the Roman Communion to the end.
Shortly before the death of the Queen, another Papist
Warden, with the appropriate name of Pope, was elected
under Pole's auspices ; but this Warden died before he could
reach Oxford. He was Archdeacon of Bedford. Was it the
consuming excitement of such a furious religious struggle
which carried off so many Church dignitaries at this period ?
Elizabeth, we know, found six bishoprics vacant, and four
more bishops died before she proceeded to fill up the Sees.
The vacancy at All Souls was instantly supplied on her
accession by the return of Warner.
CHAPTER VI.
mtls rnifcer (Quern (^alxeijr anfr
1558-1581.
The Anglo - Catholic Settlement Warden "Warner, Sir John
Mason, and Sir "William Petre Parker and the High Com-
mission Court Their struggle with the College on ' monu-
ments of superstition ' Parker's letters The Queen and
Leicester.
NOTHING can be more interesting than to watch the details
of the process by which three of the ablest persons whom this
country ever saw at the head of affairs set to work to educe
order out of chaos. Queen Elizabeth, Cecil, and Parker do
not receive the homage of the present generation to the
same degree as in times past. The extreme delicacy of their
task has never yet perhaps been duly appreciated. Even the
little sphere of All Souls will throw some light upon it.
One of the very first things to be done was to re-assert the
Anglo-Catholic character of the Universities and Colleges ;
and this with the least possible shock to the still formidable
Romanists, with whom the Queen was by no means anxious
to break. For this purpose no one could be more fitted than
the veteran Warner, who had presided over his College during
portions of the last three reigns, and held the highest ofiices
in the University. He not only resumes his old post as
CHARACTER OF WARDEN WARNER. 79
Warden of All Souls,, but is made one of the Royal Visitors
of the University, along with Bishop Cox and others, for the
purpose of ' removing superstitious offences ' and expelling
the Papists who refused to conform. He is soon afterwards
preferred to the Deanery of Winchester. As Visitor, it must
have been his business to expel from All Souls two of the
Fellows, Dolman and Dorman, young Papists elected in
Mary's reign, who straightway became Romish priests. Yet
the one evidence we have of his ecclesiastical conduct as
Warden in Elizabeth's reign is the retention of the old plate,
vestments, tunicles, &c., which, after his death, it cost Parker
and subsequent Commissioners years of persistent effort to
remove from the possession of the College ! We must infer
either that they had been carefully concealed from his know-
ledge, or that, like Elizabeth, he was in favour of a ceremonial
not very different in itself from the medieval type, and was
content with a Reformation of a more moderate kind than that
of the extreme party. He had paid the debt of nature before
the conduct of the Pope and the foreign Romanists, rallying
round Mary Queen of Scots as their centre of opposition to
Elizabeth, forced the Queen and her advisers into a more
decided course of action.
This then will be the place to sum up the career of
one whose name has frequently come before us. It is a
typical case. Warner must have adopted the principles of
Henry the Eighth's Reformation at an early date ; for
otherwise, though he had been Public Lecturer in Medicine
to the University for twelve years, he would hardly have
been made the first Regius Professor of Medicine in 1535.
The next year we find him elected to the Wardenship of his
College, where his influence must have been felt previously
in the matter of the Supremacy, and where a firm but gentle
hand must have been required in the violent perturbations
which followed his election. In Edward the Sixth's reign
we must infer that he had at least 'given no dissatisfaction
80 ALL SOULS UNDER QUEEN ELIZABETH. [CHAP.
to the authorities who displayed their iconoclastic propen-
sities at All Souls, or he would not have been dispatched on
the French Embassy in 1550; although, indeed, it is possible
that they might have been glad to get him out of the way
for a time. In Mary's reign we find him remaining at
his post for two years, and, in the deed of institution of
his successor, Warner's resignation is said to be 'free and
spontaneous.' No doubt it was. He moderated the change,
we may believe, as far as he could, and gave it up when he
could do so no longer. He resigned his Regius Professor-
ship in 1554. But once more he contrives to be no sufferer
in the transaction. He not only retains his other prefer-
ments, but acquires a fresh Rectory as late as 1557. He
must have conformed to the religion of the State in some
sense. Perhaps his interest at Court secured him from
being asked too many questions. Once more, however, the
Reformation to which he had been so deeply pledged is
patronized from the throne, and promoted on principles
which he could well accept. We have noticed his part in it.
It is clear that we have nothing of the spirit of the
martyr in all this. Whatever else he was, he was not that.
He was a distinguished physician and teacher, a practical
administrator, a capable, trustworthy man for State affairs,
exactly the man whom the Tudor princes liked to select
from the crowd and employ in the public service. A philo-
sopher no doubt, he was disposed to enter less into theo-
logical disputations than the working clergy, or even those
laymen whose sense of the overwhelming importance of the
Unseen (to attribute none but the highest motives) led
them to throw away life itself in the cause which they
espoused. But of those lay-people who suffered under Mary
it has often been remarked that but few are to be found
of the upper and more cultivated classes. The resistance
which saved England came from the bishops and clergy on
the one hand, the middle and lower classes on the other.
vi.] MASON AND PETRE. 81
We have said that Warner's was a typical case, and sug-
gested that he and the College had friends at Court. It was
certainly a case not uncommon among All Souls men; and
two of these were just then so powerful at head-quarters that
their co-operation with the Warden of All Souls may well be
taken for granted. Sir John Mason and Sir William Petre
were elected Fellows of All Souls in 1531 and 1523 respec-
tively, Warner in 1520. Beginning thus their career to-
gether, they pursued it on much the same principles. Each
of these two distinguished ' Jurists' took service under the
Crown, and held the post of Privy Councillor through the
reigns of Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth. It is plain
that they, like so many others, did not think the changes
in religion sufficiently important to place any bar between
them and their official routine of business. They were both
of them devoted to the well-being of their beloved Alma
Mater, and formed no unimportant links in the chain which
bound together the Crown and the Universities. Petre was
Secretary of State as well as Privy Councillor. He was also
virtually the Second Founder of Exeter College, so munificent
was his contribution to its endowments. Mason was Chan-
cellor of the University in Edward the Sixth's reign, and again
in Elizabeth's. Petre was indeed a member of the Royal Uni-
versity Commission of 1549, but the remarkable similarity
on the whole in the lives of three such men must strike
every one. It is easily accounted for when we reflect that
Lynacre had just founded the College of Physicians in London
(1518) when they were elected into the College which he had
adorned at Oxford, that William Latymer's fame was still in
its meridian at that time, and that Leland must have been
their friend and brother student. High cultivation and great
offices may have made them ' men of the world,' but it had
taught them moderation. Their crown is not of the same
refined gold as that of Ridley, Bradford, or Rogers; but
they represent in some degree that marriage of faith and
82 ALL SOULS UNDER QUEEN ELIZABETH. [CHAP.
reason, that via media along which the Reformed Church
of England has moved since their day, which has enabled
her to retain within her fold the greatest intellects as well
as the humblest believers, and which has made her the
centre of light for all other reformed branches of the Church.
To bring this notice of Warden Warner to an end, it may be
remarked that he set the example which Duck so excellently
followed on a larger scale, of writing a brief account of the
Founder of his College and the circumstances of the founda-
tion. From this we have already made the only extract
necessary for the present sketch. It is also what we should
expect from his good sense and enlarged experience, that he
determined to remove one cause of the constant resignations
of Wardens by supplying them with superior accommodation.
Up to this time, though the Statutes of All Souls gave a
very fitting share of the College government to the Warden,
he was in other respects much in the position of a Senior
Fellow. He lodged in the simplest way, in two rooms,
within the south-east corner of the one quadrangle common
to all. It was Warner who built the small but commodious
Warden's lodgings which did excellent service till the days
of Queen Anne, when they in their turn were voted too
small, and gave place, through the munificence of Dr. Clarke,
to those which form the present abode of the Wardens of
All Souls. Warner's rooms, which now occupy the street
front of the eastward quadrangle, were then handed over
to the Fellows ; but the beauty of their chief room and its
handsome Elizabethan ornaments still remain as a monument
of the builder's good taste. At any rate he attained his
object. The Wardens no longer resigned, but were contented
to live and die at their posts.
There is indeed something to be said against this departure
from ancient simplicity, but we are only noting historical facts.
The times were rapidly changing. The celibate idea was no
longer in fashion. Wardens, like their Visitors, might now
vi.] ARCHBISHOP PARKER. 83
be married men. A century and a half later Archbishop Wake,
wearied with the perpetual quarrels between the Warden and
Fellows, some of which grew out of the married state of the
former, remarked that the Founder never contemplated married
Wardens. ' Nor/ replied Warden Gardiner, ' did he contem-
plate married Visitors.' It is unfortunate that there should
be no picture or bust extant to remind us of the personal
appearance of one who did such service in his day as Dr.
Warner.
W r e now come to a more important person still in the
history of .the College at this time the great man through
whose instrumentality the Church of England was started, in
the reign of Elizabeth, on her Anglo-Catholic course ' Pro-
testant,' as he termed it, against Rome l , Catholic against the
Puritans Archbishop Parker. He appears in three distinct
ways before us in connection with All Souls ; by his Injunc-
tions as Visitor, by two letters from him in the same capacity,
which are still in the archives, and by his correspondence
with the College as a Lord High Commissioner.
The first may be summarily dismissed. The only point
in his Injunctions worthy of observation is the careful and
elaborate provision he makes, like Cranmer, for ascertaining
that there was no corruption in the resignations of the
Fellows of the College, and for the expulsion of oifenders.
But his method was as defective as his predecessor's. It fell
short of the personal oath which Whitgift afterwards devised,
Abbot made effective, and Sancroft at last conclusively applied.
His dealings with the College as Lord High Commissioner
are more instructive, and though the whole correspondence
has been printed by Gutch in his Collectanea 2 , a short sum-
mary may be given here.
The first letter is dated from Lambeth, March 5, 1566.
It is written to Warden Barber by Parker himself.
1 Hook's Archbishops, iv. (New Scries), p. 221,
2 Vol. ii. pp. 274-281.
G 2
84 ALL SOULS UNDER QUEEN ELIZABETH. [CHAP.
He has had ' information of certain plate reserved in your
College whereat divers men justly be offended to remain in
such superstitious fashion as it is of/ and says he had
already ' moved ' the Warden ' to declare to the company
of that Fellowship, for avoiding all suspicion of supersti-
tion, that the said plate should be defaced, put into some
masse for your howse, whereof it may have need hereafter,
and so safely to be conserved in your treasury ; ' and ' for
that I have not heard what you have done by these my
letters, I do require you to make a perfect inventory con-
taining- the form and fashion of the said plate, and also
the number and fashion of their vestments and tunicles
which serve not to use at these days.'
This and the former letters (of which we know nothing)
seem to be written as Visitor. It is signed, ' From my
howse at Lambeth, Your friend, MATTHEW CANT.'
The next missives are from the Archbishop as Lord High
Commissioner, along with other members of that Court.
But the question at once presents itself; why should the
Archbishop only have begun to address himself to the
removal of the scandal in the eighth year of his Primacy?
Was Warner so much respected that no one thought of
giving ' information ' till he was dead ? Parker speaks of
letters in which 'I moved you, Mr. Warden,' (Barber) no
one else. Or had the authorities winked hard at these
' monuments of superstition,' and only ' moved ' when the
' Vestiarian controversy ' brought back such matters into pro-
minence? It would at any rate be quite in accordance
with the policy of the early years of the great Queen if
no very minute enquiries were made into the' subject.
Parker would know as well as any man the strength of
the belief, which no doubt prevailed in the College, that
they could not consistently with their Statutes for the
twenty-sixth chapter is profusely explicit on this point
alienate or convert the Chapel ' vestments, chalices and jewels,
books and other ornaments,' to any other use than that for
which they were originally given ; and knowing how more
vi.] 'MONUMENTS OF SUPERSTITION: 85
than thoroughly the Commissioners of 1549 had done their
work on the fabric, he would have no desire to bring the
matter to a point unless obliged. In this very year, how-
ever, the 'Vestiarian controversy reached its climax 1 .'
Puritans on one side and Papists on the other were resolved
no longer to remain quiescent. Strong measures had
become necessary at Oxford and elsewhere against both
extreme parties. Eye-shutting would serve no longer. The
College which men called the Archbishop's ' own ' could no
longer be allowed to retain what seems by the ( Inventory '
sent in obedience to Parker's letter to have been as complete
a list of f Mass-books, Portuasses, Grailes, Antiphoners, Pro-
cessionals, and Pricksong-books/ there is also one ' Manual,'
one 'Invitatorie book,' and one 'Legend,' as the most ardent
Romanist could desire.
These letters had no effect whatever. The College had not
yet measured the difference between Romanism and Catho-
licism, the old Church reformed and the old Church unre-
formed ; nor could the critical condition of the nation permit
the judgment of narrow communities to override the larger
requirements of the State. The Act of Uniformity, faith-
fully executed, could alone secure the Elizabethan Estab-
lishment. A year elapses ; and Parker again speaks, but
now at the head of a portion of the High Commission.
They understand that 'you do retain yet in your College
diverse monuments of superstition which by public orders
and laws of this realm ought to be abolished as derogatory
to the state of religion publicly received.' The Warden is
ordered by his ' loving friends ' to repair to Lambeth and
bring with him a copy of the Statutes and two of the
Fellows who are known to be refractory. A month later
the Warden is ordered, ' divers weighty causes us specially
movyng,' and 'all excuses and delays set apart,' to send
four more refractory Fellows before the Commissioners, who
1 Hook's Archbishops, iv. (New Series), p. 399.
86 ALL SOULS UNDER QUEEN ELIZABETH. [CHAF.
are 'not to depart without our special licence.' This was
followed, in four days, by an order to the Warden from the
Lord High Commissioners, with Parker still at their head, to
' call the whole fellowship then present within the College
together, and upon the common consent of all or the greater
part of the said fellowship so gather'd he shall cause to be
defac'd and broken such church plate as is in their College
or custody appertaining to the use of the church or chaple,
except six silver basons with their ewers or crewetes, one
tabernacle gilt with two leaves set with stones and perles,
two silver bolles, a silver rodd and three Processionals. . . .
Item that they send up to the said Commissioners their two
books of the Epistles and Gospels, reserving unto them-
selves the Images of silver of the same defac'd in manner
aforesaid.'
A certificate of compliance with this order is to be made
within ten days, and all ' discontented ' Fellows are to be
sent up to the Commissioners if at any future time they
' misreport or gainsay the order.'
It will hardly be believed, but all this was just as ineffec-
tual as the foregoing ; or at any rate, if some sort of progress
was made, there were sufficient ' monuments of superstition '
of the same sort left in 1573, six years later, to demand all the
energy of the Puritan Commissioners of that date ! But the
party struggle having become more violent, and being in
this case, no doubt, stimulated by the circumstance that
Parker's own domestic chaplain had been elected Warden in
1571, so affording a suspicion that he favoured the retention
of some of the offensive articles, success crowned the efforts
of the Commissioners at last, who had, indeed, the advantage
of being on the spot to superintend their work.
This final effort curiously illustrates the critical nature of
the duel now being fought out between the Anglo-Catholics,
represented by Parker and the Queen, and the Puritans, as
patronised by Leicester. In May, 15/3, the Oxford Com-
missioners, Laurence Humfrey, President of Magdalen, two
Canons of Christ Church, and Cole, President of Corpus,
vi.] THE PURITAN COMMISSIONERS. 87
' are by credible report inform'd that as yet there are re-
maining- in your College divers monuments of superstition
undefac'd : These be, by virtue of the Queen's Commission
to us directed, to wyll and commande you forthwith upon
the syght hereof utterly to deface, or cause to be defac'd,
so that they may not hereafter serve to any superstitious
purpose, all Copes, Vestments, Albes, Missals, Books, Crosses,
and such other idolatrous and superstitious monuments what-
soever, and within eight days after the receipt hereof to
bringe true certificate of their whole doinge herein to us or
our Colleagues, whereof fayle you not as you will answere
to the contrary at your perill.'
Not only do the eight days pass, but nearly eight months ;
the slippery College is not even yet caught ! These very
Commissioners are on their trial ! Humfrey and Cole are
the leaders of the Oxford Puritans, and that faction is at this
time making head all over the country. The Queen in vain
attempts to suppress their celebrated ' Admonition to Parlia-
ment.' But her Council are as resolutely determined to put a
stop to their proceedings at Oxford as the Puritans to crush
the All Souls ' monuments of superstition.' In a few days after
the missive of the Commissioners to All Souls the Vice-Chan-
cellor of Oxford receives a sharp letter from the Council
requiring him to suppress certain books which are being
briskly circulated in the University by the Commissioners'
own party, the Puritans ! Was this a dexterous parry pro-
cured through Parker by his quondam Chaplain ? We know
not ; but from whatever cause the Commissioners take a long
time to think over the matter before they return to the
charge.
In December, 1573, they are strong enough to take
decisive measures. They complain that the College has
' hitherto neglected ' to make the ' true certificate directed
last sommer;' and they 'will and commande yowe to make
yowre personal appearance before us her Majesty's Commis-
sioners or owr Colleagues in the President's Hawle of Mag-
dalen College in Oxford on Tuesday nexte, which shall be
88 ALL SOULS UNDER QUEEN ELIZABETH. [CHAP.
the xxix of this presente month of December, at one of the
clocke in the afternoone, bringing with yowe a true certificate
of yowre whole doinges in the said defacing of the sayde
Monuments of Superstition, whereof fayle yowe not as yowe
will answere to the contrarye at yowre perill, and retorne
back the former and also this Writ with yowe.'
It was impossible to evade so explicit an order as this.
The College gave up the struggle. Successive Visitors,
some of whom would certainly feel with Laurence Humfrey,
make complaints of different kinds, but we never again
hear of this particular cause of offence. Even the excep-
tions permitted by the High Commissioners are lost to
sight. Of the wreck of Roman Catholic Ritualism to which
the early Wardens of the Reformation so pertinaciously
clung, nothing has come down to the present day except
the shabby little ' silver rodd,' probably used in those times
by a verger !
Thus the third act of the Reformation was at last complete.
The acknowledgment of the Royal Supremacy and Edward's
Act of Uniformity had been followed by the final suppression
of the Roman Ritual. The Massacre of St. Bartholomew
had displayed the gulf into which the Protestants were des-
tined by their enemies to fall. It was Elizabeth and England
against the world ; and the Queen was now at her wit's ends
to rally the anti-Roman element of her realm around her
on the one hand, to preserve the essentially Catholic cha-
racter of the Establishment on the other. How grandly
she succeeded, how this one stedfast resolution was the
secret cause of so many of her apparent vacillations and
inconsistencies was, as we have said, better understood for-
merly than now. The multiplication of our sources of infor-
mation of late years has as yet done little else but dazzle
the eyesight of those who have attempted to make use of
them 1 .
Before we dismiss this subject it should be observed that
1 See the Quarterly Review, April, 1870.
vi.] PARKER'S LETTERS. 89
the complaints of all the Commissioners alike, unless indeed
anything- further is meant by the term 'crosses,' touch nothing
but the portable articles which give offence. Not a word
is said as to altars, reredos, statues, or the like. This is
proof positive that the iconoclastic destruction of the Com-
missioners of 1549 was absolutely complete. By ' crosses '
was probably meant some moveable substitutes for the ancient
magnificence. By those Commissioners we may believe that
' the one altar or rather Lord's Table ' had been set up in
the middle of the Chapel the position insisted upon by Ridley
himself instead of at the east end. We are not able to trace
all the vicissitudes of position the Chapel of All Souls has
seen on this point ; but we shall notice in its place the effect
of the Laudian revival in replacing the 'altar or Lord's Table'
where it originally stood.
The two letters of Archbishop Parker possessed by the
College, and not yet published, are of a more domestic cha-
racter than the foregoing. The first, written in 1564, is
signed ' Your loving friend and patron.' In this he warns
the College to be more careful in its accounts and the general
economy of the house, and that,
' Furder, your exercise of learninge as well in disputacons
as otherwise be more diligentlie observed than they have been
hitherto. And that men be not tolerated to defeat the Statute
providing after a time for entering into ministracon.'
In the other letter, written in Latin, undated, but probably
of the year 1567, he rebukes the members of the College for
their contentions about the domestic offices of the Fellows :
'To my great annoyance who am already distracted by
one kind of business and another in all directions. . . .
"Wherefore I beg you to put an end to your quarrels ; for
I know your dispositions and character far better by these
quarrels than I know yourselves, yes, indeed, far better than
I know any College in Oxford which has come under my
hands.'
'Valete: MATTHAEUS CANTUAR.'
90 ALL SOULS UNDUE QUEEN ELIZABETH. [CHAP.
The irritation betrayed in these letters illustrates not only
the faults of the College, but the extreme severity of the
labours undergone by the heads of Church and State at this
juncture. No trouble was too great, however it might harass
them, no point too small for notice. If the ship was to be
successfully steered between the Scylla of Rome and the
Charybdis of Geneva it should have its decks cleared, its
crew at their posts, its officers properly trained, its code of
discipline strictly observed, every precaution taken that it
should survive the storms which none knew better than
Elizabeth, Cecil, and Parker would beat from every quarter
on the Anglo-Catholic Church. Perhaps in the last letter
we may find some reason to suppose that the action Parker
took in 1567 as to scandals of ritual was promoted by some
' information ' he received in consequence of the quarrels
which he denounces with such grief and pain. When men
outside the College were bitterly contending on this very
point it was not likely that such an apple of discord with-
in the walls could long remain unhandled. The ' conten-
tions ' of the Fellows went deeper no doubt than the mere
contest for ' domestic offices.' It must be remembered also
that Parker's reforms at Oxford were continually thwarted
by Leicester, who, as Chancellor of the University, could
exercise a vast amount of obstructive power. At his own
University, where he was supreme, the influence of the
Archbishop was far more efficient.
It was under Parker's Primacy, however, that the great
measure was taken which stamped the character of the Uni-
versities for succeeding ages. The Act of 13 Elizabeth,
which incorporated those bodies, was the great settlement
under which they have worked down to our own day. The
orderly system of Matriculation, Degrees, and obedience to
Statutes, then introduced and enforced, together with the
cessation of religious disputes produced by the rigorous pro-
ceedings noted above, gave the most extraordinary impetus
vi.] THE QUEEN AND THE UNIVERSITIES. 91
to both Oxford and Cambridge, which were now quite ripe
for such a reform. If made earlier it would have been pre-
mature.
Elizabeth went to work in the most enlightened spirit
to encourage activity among those whom she had thus set
free from the accumulated difficulties of ages. Perhaps a
quaint passage quoted by Wood from Sir William Boswell
will convey a better idea of her system than any modern
account of it.
' Queen Elizabeth,' says this authority, ' gave a strict
charge and command to both the Chancellors of both the
Universities to bring her a just, true, and impartial list of all
the eminent and hopeful students that were Graduates in each
University, to set down punctually their names, their Colleges,
their standings, their Faculties in which they did eminere
or were likely so to do. Therein Her Majesty was exactly
obeyed ; the Chancellor must not do otherwise ; and the
use she made of it was that if she had an ambassador to send
abroad, then she of herself would nominate such a man of
such an House to be his chaplain, and another of another
House to be his secretary, &c. When she had any places
to dispose fit for persons of an academical education, she
would herself consign such persons as she judged to be pares
negotiis. This could not be long concealed from the young
students, and then it is easy to be imagined, or rather it is
not to be imagined, how the consideration that their Sove-
reign's eye was upon them, and so propitious upon the
deserving of them, how this, I say, would switch and spur
on their industries V
A letter of Lord Leicester's to All Souls in 1581, when he
was Chancellor of Oxford, confirms this aspect of the Eliza-
bethan policy, if indeed it were not too well known to re-
quire confirmation. It is addressed ' To my loving friends
the Warden and Officers of All Souls in Oxford,' and proceeds
thus:
' After my right harty commendations, whereas Mr. Madox,
Felow of your Colledge, is presently to be employed in publique
* "Wood's Annals, sub anno 1602.
92 ALL SOULS UNDER QUEEN ELIZABETH.
affayrs into farre parts without this Realme, from whence he is
likelye to return in 3 or 3 years or more, I therefore do hartily
pray and also require you that he may have a cause of 3 years
absens from the Colledge allowed him, and that his absens for
the said tyme be no hynderaunce to his commodytye in the
Colledge, but that he may enjoy all benefytes thereof as yf he
were present ; and so I bid you hartily farewell.
' Your very loving friend, ROB. LEICESTER.' l
The College does not resist this recommendation from their
' very loving friend/ but it shews its good sense and in-
dependence in very carefully limiting its grant. The Warden
and Fellows give Madox the ' required' ' cause of absens,'
reserving to him all such rights, emoluments, &e. which
if present he might have received from the College, ' except
Commons and annual Liveries, which they altogether refuse to
grant 2 ' Now these exceptions included almost the only
assistance a Fellow got from his College at this period, so
that in reality the Warden and Fellows did little but provide
that he should be in the same position when he returned
as he was in when he left. It was one thing to work with
the Queen and her Chancellor to encourage men of talent;
it was another to take the remuneration for public services
off the hands of the Crown, and to announce that non-
residence abroad fulfilled the conditions attached by the
Founder to his bounty.
1 MS. Book penes custodem. 2 Ibid.
CHAPTER VII.
Clje 60Ita ^ at ,11 Souls,
1571-1603.
Warden Hoveden Queen Elizabeth and Cecil Great men of
the College Sir Anthony Sherley The Lawyers Arch-
bishop Grindal Archbishop "Whitgift, the great organiser
of All Souls College luxury College Surplus Its his-
tory Grammar Schools Education of poor Scholars at
All Souls.
ALL SOULS was nearly as fortunate in the Warden who
presided for forty-two years during- the period when it was
experiencing the Elizabethan impulse as it was in the able
man who presided for a similar period during the trying times
of the Reformation. Robert Hoveden was elected at the early
age of twenty-seven; but he had enjoyed the inestimable
advantage of having been chaplain to Archbishop Parker.
From his handsome monument in the College chapel we find
that he was elected ' summo cum consensu,' as also that he was
descended from the ' ancient family of the Hovedens in Kent.'
So young a Warden could hardly be expected to reverse the
decision of the College in the matter of ritual which we have
related in the last Chapter, nor perhaps was he much disposed
to do so ; but we have seen that he was speedily relieved
from that responsibility. His task was to conciliate, to
reorganise, to develop the resources of the College. When
he died it was thought proper to inscribe on the said monu-
ment the words, ' cum hide Musarum domicilio magna cum
sagacitate et prudentia per 42 annos prcefnisset?
94 THE GOLDEN AGE AT ALL SOULS. [CHAP.
We are left to conjecture as to many of the ways in which
this great sagacity and prudence were exhibited; for the
most useful lives are not always the most eventful. But we
know that he had much to do with putting the College estates
into order. It is he also who appears to have been the first
to organise the College official books, prefixing, like Warner,
a short account of the Founder. He refits the library, still,
though now converted into private apartments, beautifully
adorned with Elizabethan devices. Probably the good con-
dition of the College archives in old times was due to him.
Half a century after his death, Wood, at the commencement
of his antiquarian researches, ' began to peruse the evidences
of All Souls College which were brought from the tower over
the gate into the lodgings of Dr. Th. James, Warden of
the said College,' and he found ' they were put in as good
method as Exeter College evidences were, and therefore it
saved him much trouble 1 .' The records of the periodical
inspection of the College plate date from his Wardenship,
and probably the large increase it began to shew was due
to his care. He completes the Warden's -lodgings which
Warner had built. To him the College owes an ancient
joke. To the grounds previously belonging to it he added
the Warden's garden, pulling down the house which occupied
the site, and which was known as ' The Rose/ where there
was also a famous well. He now announced that the Fellows
should henceforth wash in Rose-water. In his days we first
hear of the surplus income which the proper management
of the College property produced, and which so exercised the
minds of successive Visitors. While in these, and other minor
ways too tedious to mention, he benefited his Society, there
is one transaction of his which has come down to us in some
detail, and throws light upon the history of the times.
Queen Elizabeth had held possession for more than thirty
1 Wood's Life, sub anno 1666.
vii.] THE QUEEN AND HOVE DEN. 95
years of the mansion-house and tithes of Stanton Har-
court. This property had belonged to the Abbey of Read-
ing, and on the suppression of the Abbey, fell to the
Crown. Edward the Sixth gave it to Poynet, the Protestant
Bishop of Winchester, in exchange for some lands which
belonged to that See. When Mary came to the throne
she restored Stephen Gardiner to his See; and by agree-
ment with the Crown he resumed the exchanged lands,
while the Crown in its turn resumed Stanton Harcourt.
The properties returned in short to their original owner-
ship under Edward the Sixth. Now comes a further
change. A little later in Mary's reign Cardinal Pole had
permission given him to make grants of all such pro-
perties for ecclesiastical purposes, and he grants Stanton
Harcourt to All Souls. On Elizabeth's accession all such
grants were by Parliament restored to the Crown except
such as were in possession of schools and colleges. All
Souls therefore had a right to retain Stanton Harcourt.
But the Bishop of Winchester chose to deny this right,
and Cecil, in order to settle the dispute, ' procured ' that
the property should be made over to Elizabeth.
What the imperious Queen once got in this way she
had a strong mind to keep. Many an effort had been
made to extract the morsel from the jaws of the lioness, and
the College meanwhile ' went poor and bare.' She held that
' she had a perfect interest to the parsonage ; " she had
made a lease of it for forty years. But time had tamed
her. Leicester, her evil genius, was dead. Whitgift had
long exercised his great influence in favour of the Church.
Burleigh was drawing to the end of his laborious career.
Warden Hoveden watches his time. ' Your poore subjects,
the W n and Fellows of yo r College of All Souls/ make a
very humble petition for their rights. At the foot of the
copy, still preserved in the archives, are these words : ' My
Lord Threasurer's opinion written with his owne hande on
96 THE GOLDEN AGE AT ALL SOULS. [CHAP.
the backside of the College supplication to Her Ma^/
Then follows the ' opinion : '
'I doe knowe that the right of the parsonage within
named was in the B. of Wincester and not in Queen
Marie nor in the Cardinall, and to the intent the Colledge
might enjoy this parsonage according to the Cardinall's
graunt I procured the B. of Wincester to make a graunt
hereof to Her Maj tie and of divers others whereunto he
had in law a title, but not in conscience, because he had
a recompense for the same.'
In the very year of the great Minister's death, 1598, the
Queen at last yielded. Possibly if we knew more of these
complicated transactions we should find that not only was
there more excuse for the Queen than is sometimes supposed,
but that there was more justice done to the Church in the
end than is generally believed. At any rate we have here
a remarkable instance of Elizabeth's often repeated grace in
yielding at last when she found out she was wrong, of Lord
Buiieigh's foresight and honesty, of Hoveden's ' sagacity and
prudence.' The Bishop of Winchester is the person who
comes out of the affair least satisfactorily.
It was under these auspices that All Souls produced
several men who added in their measure to the glories of
the Elizabethan age. Lord Chancellor Weston was already
distinguished before he was advanced by Elizabeth. Sir
Daniel Dunn, Sir William Bird, and Sir Clement Edmonds
all entered the College in her reign, and attained the
high posts of Dean of Arches or Master of Requests, or both.
All three were in turn Burgesses for the University. But
if they and such men as William Aubrey represent ex-
clusively the legal element for which the Founder made
careful provision, while John Williams adorns the Margaret
Professor's Chair at Oxford, the College boasts of one Eliza-
bethan name which combines all the attributes of chivalrous
romance that we associate with the period.
Sir Anthony Sherley was elected from Hart Hall in
vii.] SIS ANTHONY SHE RLE Y. 97
1580. He held when he died the titles of ' Count of
the Holy Roman Empire and Admiral of the Levant
Seas/ and he was a Mirza of Persia. To his name are
appended in the College records the words, 'that noble
ambassador sent by the great King of the Persians, Sha-
Abbas, to the Emperor and Christian Kings.' His history
is very curious, and though once well known, is so far for-
gotten that even when the English knowledge of Persian
affairs was displayed in our newspapers to the uttermost
on the late visit of the Shah to England, no one seems
to have remembered who was the first English Resident
at a Persian Court, the first to open the resources of that
country to the English, the man to whom and to whose
brother the greatest of all the Persian monarchs owed his
chief successes, the provinces of Christendom a partial de-
liverance from the Turk, and the English a successful step
in the career of their Indian grandeur 1 . It may therefore
be justifiable to suspend the thread of our narrative for
a moment while we give a brief account of the last of
the knights-errant. Of all the Elizabethan worthies he
seems to have been the one to
' Chase brave employments with a naked sword
Throughout the world '
1 A short abstract of the adventures of ' The Three Brothers '
was published by Hurst and Robinson in 1825 ; and Mr. Evelyn
Shirley, the representative of the family at Easington, wrote for
the Roxburgh Club, in 1848, a carefully compiled account of 'The
Shirley Brothers ; ' but in neither case is there if one may say
so any sufficient notice taken of the character and opinions of
Sir Anthony as evinced by the ' True History of Sir Anthony
Sherley's Travels into Persia penned by him selfe,' London, 1613.
The original MS. of this ' True History ' is in the Bodleian (Ash-
mole Coll. 829), and has been consulted for the extracts here given.
Of his visit to Persia there is of course a notice in Sir John
Malcolm's History of Persia. Wood, Fuller, and other authors
make mention of the brothers ; but their notices are extremely
meagre, and often inaccurate.
H
98 THE GOLDEN AGE AT ALL SOULS. [CHAP.
on the most extensive scale; and George Herbert may well
have had the three brothers in his eye when he penned those
famous lines. Their names were then in the mouths of all.
Sir Anthony Sherley was the first of the celebrated trio
to earn distinction. Sir Robert was taken out as a youth
by Anthony to Persia; and Sir Thomas, the eldest brother,
the father was also Sir Thomas, of Wiston in Sussex,
was driven by the fame of Anthony and Robert to emu-
late their deeds in a somewhat rash, not to say piratical,
manner.
Anthony must have learnt much at All Souls among so
many able men as the College at that time possessed. He
was elected in his seventeenth year, being already a Bachelor
of Arts ; and remained there though it seems he did not
take his degree of Master till he made his first campaign.
So much may be gathered from the fact that Archbishop
Whitgift would not allow a candidate, in November 1587,
to fill his place as Fellow, leave of absence having been
given Sherley during the previous year, ' de tempore in
tempus' and no vacancy having been officially reported.
This shows the liberal spirit in which both Visitor and
College dealt with such questions. It was a national
cause ; the young Fellow should not be hampered ; he
should make his first campaign, and see how he liked it.
The bird, however, never came back to his cage. Of this
period he himself says, ' My friends bestowed on me those
learnings which were fit for a gentleman's ornament without
directing them to an occupation, and when they were fit
for agible things they bestowed them and me on my prince's
service.'
Queen Elizabeth was now about to wage her momentous con-
flict with the Roman Catholic world in arms ; and the chivalry
of England were pressing round Leicester's standard in Flan-
ders. Sherley is among them; he fights by the side of Sir
Philip Sidney at Zutphen in 1586. He is afterwards found
vii.] SHERLETS FIRST ADVENTURES. 99
serving- as Colonel in that gallant band of four thousand
Englishmen whom Elizabeth sent to the assistance of the
hard-pressed Henry of Navarre. How Sherley performed
his part may be gathered from the fact that Henry insisted
on investing him with the Order of St. Michael and would
take no denial, while Essex became from the time of those
campaigns his unfailing patron and bosom friend. To receive
knighthood from a foreign prince without permission was
however a grave fault, especially if, as Camden tells us, the
young knight, on his return to England, ' shewed himself
openly accoutred with the insignia of his Order in the City
and at Court.' Elizabeth imprisoned him for the offence. He
replied, as so many other gallant men did who fell under her
displeasure, by desperate and romantic expeditions against the
common enemy in the West Indies and North America.
Essex supplied him with money, for he had none of his own.
They were kindred spirits, the children of the strife. It
was a holy war, and they were both men of strong reli-
gious feelings. The Jesuits had invaded England ; the
Spanish and French troops Ireland. The Pope, to these
gallant men, was the incarnation of all that was false and
retrograde, the Spaniard of all that was bigoted, bloody,
selfish, unscrupulous. The war must be carried into that
Western hemisphere in whose future the master spirits of
the age plainly foresaw the mighty issues of the struggle,
and Sherley took his place among the foremost of these sea-
soldiers. We may still linger with delight over the quaint
pages of Hakluyt where the exploits of ' the general ' are
recorded.
It was in these expeditions that he learnt some of the
most valuable of the lessons which led to his success
in Persia. He learnt to know men, to face any odds, to
bear up under failure, desertion, and distress. He had no
resources, like Raleigh, for founding Colonies, nor perhaps
the genius. He made a suceessful descent upon Jamaica,
H 2
100 THE GOLDEN AGE AT ALL SOULS. [CHAP.
but thought it not calculated for a settlement, and gave
it up ! Indeed he more generally failed than succeeded all
through life; but his mind soared higher than to care for
mere success. He thus expresses his idea of a man's duty:
' Men are brought forth uppon the earth for good endes,
the principallest of which is the glory of God, and then to
better the world.' Where shall we find a nobler sentiment
more concisely expressed ! In recounting his Persian ad-
ventures, not for publication, but for the guidance of his
younger brother, he attributes his marvellous escapes to
God's goodness in honouring good intentions.
'Good intentions,' says he, 'have such a simpathie with
God his owne disposition, that he will both assiste them
who have them for their better incouragement and for other's
example, being one of the chiefe means by which he in-
structeth the world.'
We next find him serving under Essex in his ill-fated Irish
command, and receiving knighthood this time unexception-
ably at his hands. From his firm friend he once more
receives the means of equipping himself for foreign expe-
ditions; not now to the West, but to Italy, to help the Duke
of Ferrara against the Pope. Another disappointment ! The
Duke tamely submits before the English can arrive ! Shall
he return to England? No. Italy to a knight-errant was
but on the road to Persia, and Sherley had already com-
municated to Essex how some Italian merchants had told
him that a great blow might be struck at the Turks by
bringing Persia into communication with Europe. Essex
backed up the scheme with all the impetuosity of his nature.
On the one hand he felt that his dubious position with
Elizabeth would not bear the weight of a costly expedition
returning bootless home; on the other his genius at once
grasped the notion that here was the opportunity for ex-
tending the commerce of England to the East, where the
Roman Catholic powers had been already long settled, and
whence they were still earnestly striving to exclude all but
vii. J SHE RLE Y A CRUSADER. 101
themselves. From that side the common foe of Christen-
dom might at last be reached, the foe which was crushing-
Persia on one side, Hungary on the other. It was twenty-
seven years since Lepanto had been won. No blow had
been struck since. On the contrary the Imperialists had
just suffered a tremendous defeat, (1596). Cyprus was
hopelessly lost; Venice in decay. There was no deliverance
in the Empire or in Spain, still less in the Papacy. The
Ottoman seemed about once more to overrun the world.
And so Sherley set forth from Italy, with his young
brother and twenty-four men, to measure himself against
the Ottoman Empire ! Never did enterprise appear more
Quixotic. Elizabeth had already perceived the importance
of Persia, but not being a knight-errant, she had only
thought of the commercial advantages her people might
gain. She had sent Jenkinson, a merchant, with full cre-
dentials, to Shah Tamasp; the bigoted Mahometan refused
even to see him. But she had no idea of embroiling herself
with Turkey, where there was already much English trade
embarked, and at the capital of which a Resident of her
own was established. She frowned on Sherley's adventure
as she well knew how; nor was the patronage of Essex at
this time any recommendation.
The mere valour of the knight-errant would scarcely, how-
ever, have carried Sherley over the extraordinary difficulties
which beset his journey. He was a Crusader, a Crusader,
some centuries after the Crusades. His whole soul was
stirred within him at the disgrace of Christendom. How
he felt as he passed through thinly-inhabited countries,
blighted by the Ottoman breath, must be read in his own
words. A sentence must suffice here. At Cyprus he cries
shame upon Christian princes who do not keep ' a compas-
sionate eie turned uppon the miserable calamitye of a place
so neere them, rent from the Church of God by the usurpa-
tion of God's and the world's great enemie.' And in Syria
102 THE GOLDEN AGE AT ALL SOULS. [CHAP.
' What a shame it is to the verie name of Christianitie to suffer
that greate Sepulchre of our Redemption to bee possessed to
our eternall ignominy by his professed enemies who vouch-
safed to give his dearest blood to buye us from perdition ! '
He arrives at last. In the year 1600 he presents himself
before Shah Abbas, who had just fought his way to the
throne, a man stained with blood and delighting in cruelty,
but of unquestionable ability for the task of raising Persia
to the rank of a great power, and already alive to the diffi-
culties which lay before him on the side of Turkey. With
the quick convictions of genius the keen Asiatic at once saw
that in Sherley he had found the man he wanted. Captivated
by his chivalrous manners he at once admits him to the
closest friendship, makes him his chief adviser, reforms his
army after the European model under his guidance, and
enters with an ardour, which he retained all through his life,
into Sherley's schemes for a combination with the Christian
powers against the Turk. He begs that the young Robert
may be left at his Court, and with the following extra-
ordinary letter sends Sir Anthony, in the course of a few
months, as his ambassador to Europe.
' There is come unto me,' as the contemporary translation
has it, ' in this good time a principall gentleman, Sir Anthony
Shierlie, of his owne freewill out of Europe to these parts :
and al you princes y* beleeve in Jesus Christ know you that
he hath made friendship between you and me ; which desire
we had also heretofore graunted, but there was none that came
to make the way and to remove the vaile that was betwene
us and you, but onely this gentleman ; who as he came with
his owne freewill so also upon his desire I have sent with him
a chiefe man of mine. The entertainment which that princi-
pall man hath had with me is that daylie, whilst he hath bin
in these partes, we have eaten togither of one dyshand drunke
of one cup like two breethren V
Before Sir Anthony's departure he persuaded the Shah to
'give libertie of Christian religion ' in his dominions. Hence-
1 Eeport of Sir A. Sherley.
vii.] RESULTS OF PERSIAN MISSION. 103
forth Christianity was frankly and completely tolerated. He
reports that ' he had opened the Indyes for our merchants in
that sorte that only excepting the outward show of power
they shall have more power than the Portingall.' This was
true. One indirect result of the English influence thus
established was the subsequent destruction of Ormuzd, the
Portuguese emporium in the Persian Gulf, which had existed
in splendour for a century.
Sherley's journey to the Emperor, the Pope, and the King
of Spain on the business of his embassy was fruitless enough,
as fruitless as his journey was eventful and disastrous ; but
the effect of his expedition was most remarkable. In five years
after he left the Shah, his brother had enabled the Persians
to strike such a blow at the Turks that the Ottoman Empire
reeled to its centre. Though the Christian princes declined to
enter into any active alliance with Persia, they soon expe-
rienced the relief afforded by this diversion. Essex and Sherley
were quite right. The Ottoman Empire, in spite of its recent
success in Europe, was rotten at the core. If a combined move-
ment could have been then effected, that Empire must have
collapsed. As it was, the Treaty of Sitvatorok not only freed
Transylvania, but ' marked an era in the diplomatic relations
of Turkey with the rest of Christendom V For the first
time since he had burst upon Europe the haughty Ottoman
treated with the Emperor upon terms of professed equality.
The knight-errant had done something towards changing
the face of both Europe and Asia !
Sherley's subsequent career is not so satisfactory. It
must be dismissed in a few words. On ill terms with
his own Court, which he had served so much better than
it deserved, he threw himself on the Roman Catholic
princes, professed their religion, received their titles and
pensions, commanded a Spanish fleet in the Levant, headed
an Imperial embassy to Morocco, and lived till 1630 (or
1 Creasy's Ottoman Turks, vol. i. p. 384.
104 THE GOLDEN AGE AT ALL SOULS. [CHAP.
1636) a chequered life at the Spanish Court, sometimes
honoured as the next in rank after the Viceroy of Naples,
sometimes impoverished by his own imprudence. James the
First called on him to return to England, but he declined.
The fate of Raleigh was not encouraging. His brother
succeeded to his place in Persia, and, like Sir Anthony,
made bootless visits to European Courts. He was twice in
England as Persian Ambassador, but as Sir Anthony had
offended Elizabeth, so Sir Robert excited the jealousy of the
East India Company, and suffered much from their intrigues.
We may sum up the elder brother's Persian career in the
words of the younger one : ' He made so rare an attempt
as hath seldome bene seene in this or any former age by a
private gentleman to have beene enterprized.' He certainly
performed enough for one life. It was hardly to be expected
that he could persuade the 'princes Christian' to lay aside
their animosities before the battle of the Reformation had
been fairly fought out in the Thirty Years' War.
As All Souls did not even in those times breed knights-
errant every day, we must return to the humbler topics
suggested by the missives of its Visitors, Archbishops Grindal
and Whitgift.
From the second of these the College has a larger number
of Injunctions, Ordinances, and letters than from any other
Visitor except Archbishop Wake; from the first as might be
expected, if we recollect the circumstances of his unfortunate
career as Primate scarcely anything. But the single docu-
ment of public interest from Grindal which the College
possesses connects him with the movement of the age, and
with Whitgift's more various efforts to deal with the diffi-
culties which that movement brought into prominence. The
changes and progress of the legal profession began to test
severely the sufficiency of the Founder's Statutes. The
Reformation had given a vast impulse to the Common Law,
and had all but localised the whole profession in the metro-
polis. How were the All Souls Jurists either to learn or
vii.] STUDY OF L 1 W AT ALL SOULS. 105
practise? As the sphere of the Civil and Canon Law had
become so much more confined, could the Founder have
intended that there should be no elasticity in the future of
his College? Was it merely to subside into an institution
from whence an occasional teacher or professor might emerge?
Were they likely to emerge if the College were to be cut
off from direct contact with the London Courts ? These were
the questions the College was asking. The distinguished
members of the legal profession it had supplied no doubt
excited the emulation of their less successful brethren at All
Souls; but the most important of these men were officially
connected with the Archbishops, and guided their counsels.
For the present the ambition of the College Jurists was
checked ; but it was not for long.
Some of the Fellows had given their theories as to the
Founder's intentions a practical turn. They had begun to
exercise the vocation of Common Lawyers in London while
keeping their Fellowships. Hoveden had been unable to pre-
vent the College from permitting this innovation, which cer-
tainly required authoritative sanction. That sanction Grindal,
as Visitor, sternly refused to grant. He takes the most de-
cisive measures. As one of the Lords High Commissioners
associated with Parker in suppressing the All Souls ' monu-
ments of superstition,' he had had some experience of the
sort of men with whom he had to deal. This will account
for our finding no Visitations or Injunctions concerning the
matter in dispute. He uses his power as Visitor in a manner
which the College would certainly have challenged at a later
date. He writes, in 1582, to insist, with the utmost de-
cision, that the Fellowship of a man who has left the College
and resorted to London in order to study Common Law is
ipso facto vacant; and he there and then appoints another
in his place. However arbitrary, this letter seems to have
settled the question for many a year. After the Restoration
that and a good many other questions were reopened.
Whitgift is fortunate in finding this Common Law question
106 THE GOLDEN AGE AT ALL SOULS. [CHAP.
settled, ana 1 is able to gratify the College by relaxing the
severity of the Statutes in the matter of Civil Law students.
He remedies a grievance, already of long standing, the
obligation of these students to take Holy Orders. At the
same time he attempts a compromise. He will not sanction
continuous non-residence. The Civil Lawyers are to practise
in none other than the Oxford Courts ; and if they spend as
much as two years continuously in London in the pursuit
of their profession, they forfeit their Fellowship. The same
penalty will be incurred if they practise out of Oxford for less
than two years, but at different times, or hold for one year
a Chancellorship, or be an Official or Commissary of a
Bishop ' as though they had withdrawn from the College
itself with the view of abandoning^ their study.'
This attempt to establish a School of Law sufficiently
good to breed up Civil Lawyers without resorting to London
is interesting in reference to the later history of the Univer-
sity ; but the speedy repeal of the provision against London
practice by Whitgift 's successor, Archbishop Bancroft, is still
more so. All useful study and practice was found to be de-
stroyed. Only seven years had elapsed when Bancroft finds
' by conference with some of the principal Doctors of
Arches, being likewise sworn to your Statutes, that the
said restraint is more prejudicial to the students in the
profession of your House than I suppose was ever intended
by my predecessor.' He therefore ' suspends the Injunction.'
It is needless to say that the times were marching too fast
for any change back again. The Civil Lawyers had tri-
umphed, and in their success was bound up the future of
All Souls. As Civil and Canon Law receded, the Jurists
of the College more and more began to practise in the
Courts of Common Law, and more and more loudly to de-
mand the same liberty of non-residence as their brethren.
The voluminous Injunctions and letters of the keen, clear-
sighted Whitgift almost form a new set of Statutes. The
vii.] WHITGIFT S REFORMS. 107
briefest summary must suffice for our purpose. Throughout
we trace the mind of a ' great man,' such as Izaak Walton
represents and Strype loves to call him, resolved not only
to remedy abuses, but to recreate and reform the institution
in accordance with the momentous changes which had taken
place during the last century and a half.
Thus Whitgift found no substitute provided for the ancient
prayers for the departed, which had kept in mind the memory
of Founders and Benefactors, but had been swept away by
the Act for the Suppression of Chantries and the Act of
Uniformity. The beautiful prayers in commemoration of
the men who had benefited All Souls, which are used in the
Chapel to this day, and which have been so used continuously
except during the Interregnum for three centuries, are his
contribution to the Services of the College. The sermon and
administration of Holy Communion four times a year, which
are still the law of the College, were established by his
Ordinance. He brings the question of ' corrupt resignations '
to a point by enjoining the terms of a special oath which
every Fellow is to take, and making deprivation the penalty
of offence in the matter. Even Whitgift, however, failed to
stop up the gaps by which evasion was still possible. He
made a great step in advance of Cranmer and Parker ;
Abbot and Sancroft had only to build on his foundations.
One concession Whitgift was able to make to the wishes
of the College, besides that already mentioned as to Holy
Orders. Slight in itself, it is suggestive. It had long be-
come very disagreeable to receive the Founder's livery in
cloth ; but the Visitors would hear of no commutation. They
had feared to encourage the separate personal possession of
money by the Fellows. Food, clothes, rooms, and a common
life represented the idea of the Founder and the early habits
of the College. Whitgift does not fear to make the change.
He decided that the livery might be given in money; but
the name has always been retained as of old.
108 THE GOLDEN AGE AT ALL SOULS. [CHAP.
The greater part of his Injunctions are, however, directed
in the most vigorous style against the growing luxury and
questionable tastes exhibited by the College. His Visitation
by Sir Daniel Dunn in 1601 discovered many abuses. He
denounces the splendid and costly banquets held by the
Fellows in their chambers, instead of the appointed public
dinners and suppers in hall, the costly furniture of the rooms,
the superabundance of servants, the ' disreputable games '
(ludos inhonestos] played within the precincts of the College,
the practice of keeping hounds or falcons, and of keeping
the College horses in London longer than necessary, the
drinking of double beer (potum quem duplicem dicunt] by the
Fellows or servants at the expense of the College, and the
sufferance of any factious or quarrelsome person among the
Fellows, any whisperer, fomentor of discords, or striker.
The care of the College muniments and books, pursuit of
studies, proceeding to degrees, attendance in Chapel, leave
of absence, and all similar matters touching the well-being
of the institution are touched with a wise hand.
These Injunctions are, however, only supplementary. He
had previously taken an important step. In order to secure
obedience, and provide a lasting remedy for the evils of which
he had become cognisant, he perceived that he must have
some one on the spot armed with authority which could not be
disputed. The hands of the Warden must be strengthened.
The Governor of the little community was losing something
of his ancient status. He had received from his predecessors
the right of Veto upon the election of College officers. This
was the key of his position, and it was now vehemently
attacked by some of the College lawyers. Whitgift resolved
to confirm this right in the most positive and deliberate
manner at any risk. He had in Hoveden a man whom he
could trust, and he began his reforms in strict concert with
him. Here is an extract from his letter to the College in
1597:
vii.] SURPLUS INCOME. 109
' I would have you to understand that in the interpretation
of your Statutes I doe not mean to be carried with the
opinion of rny lawyers, but by the meaning- of the Founder
and the long-continued use and custome of your Colledge,
being- the best interpretation of your Founder's meaning-.
And therefore if any man think to carrie me away otherwise
he doth but deceyve himself.'
His resolution to use his own judgment, and not that of
any lawyers whatever, not even his own, is characteristic
enough. His decision of the question settled it for more
than a century. This bulwark of the Warden's position was
not overthrown till the Visitation of Archbishop Wake in
1719. The above letter ends, like so many other Lambeth
epistles to All Souls, with some stringent sentences on the
' apparell of Schollers : '
' My meaning is that they goe schollerlike, and not lyke
courtiers or laymen, as though they were ashamed of their
degree, place and calling/
These efforts of the good Archbishop to cope with the
increasing luxury and license of the College betray the in-
creasing wealth and prosperity which was affecting the con-
dition of all institutions and classes of society in the reign
of Elizabeth. The extraordinary success of her policy at
home and abroad was producing in the latter portion of her
prolonged government its natural consequence. Every class
was making a move upwards. The full effect of what had
been done by her predecessors had now the opportunity of
developing itself.
The particular measure which affected the material interest
of Colleges, and notably of All Souls, was the Act of the
1 8th year of her reign, the chief passage from which is here
exti'acted. It provided that
'in all future leases made by Colleges, Cathedrals, &c.
one third part at least of the old rent must be reserved and
paid in corn for the said Colleges, &c. or in ready money
110 THE GOLDEN AGE AT ALL SOULS. [CHAP.
... to be expended to the use of the Relief of the
commons and diet of the said Colleges, &c., and by no fraud
or colour let or sold away from the profit of the said Col-
leges, &c. on pain of the deprivation of the Governor or chief
rulers of the said Colleges/ &c.
Here then was a provision for a surplus income made by
the law of the land. The question was settled. The sim-
plicity of the ancient College life could no longer be retained
intact, even in theory. It had doubtless been largely modified
before this important Act was passed ; but when the surplus
income in a single year 'above the sett and ordinary allowance
for the diet and commons of the M r , Fellows and servants l '
reached as high as ^Piooo, perhaps about ^6000 or ^7000
of our currency, we may be sure that a great change had
taken place. It is true that we do not find this statement
as to the Surplus till a little later; but it may serve as
an index of what was taking place in the reign of Queen
Elizabeth. The members of the College were not indeed as
yet allowed to divide any part of the Surplus ; but perhaps
we may assume, without breach of charity, that there were
some recognised methods of waylaying portions of this Col-
lege wealth before it found its way into the tower-chest ; and
certainly no slight portion was required in the lawsuits and
disputes of various kinds which troubled the College in
reference to its property, of which we will take the following
by way of example.
Sir Walter Raleigh, in 1581, 'by the information and
lewd setting on of W m Langherne, late Fellow of All Souls,
then servant to Sir Walter Raleigh, procured letters from the
Queen to the College to demise to her the Manor of Scotney
and farm of Newlands in Romney Marsh 5 at a low rate and
the College, in the absence of the Warden, gave way ; but in
1587 'Sir Walter procured letters from the Queen for all the
1 Case concerning Surplusage Money, Tanner MSS. vol. 340.
vii.] E URLEIGH A ND RA LEIGH. 1 1 1
College woods to be leased tq Lady J. Stafford, relict of
Sir R. Stafford,' 'for ^20 rent and jioo fine.' The College
refused, and gave some excellent reasons; but Lady Stafford
told the Queen ' it was more out of obstinacy than to defend
their rights, their state being so plentiful by Her Majesty's
Statute' [18 Elizabeth] 'as that they rather seemed rich
monks in a rich Abbey than students in a poor College.'
At her request the Queen granted a Commission of enquiry.
The College stoutly stood to its refusal, and applied for help
to Whitgift as Visitor, who interceded with Burleigh. The
Treasurer took it 'in good part and desired them to talk
with Sir Walter Raleigh. They did so ; and he promised
to be indifferent in the matter.' Lady Stafford was now left
to fight her battle with the College, which repelled her
unkind remarks by declaring that ' the fellows' allowance
at noon was but i d , and at night 2 d , a small pittance to make
them fat.' The Lord Treasurer having summoned her and
the Warden before him, now told her ' he disliked her suit,
and would represent it as unreasonable to Her Majesty.' She
would not however give up her point, though she lowered her
demands, and even begged at last that she might ' have some
consideration for her charges.' Even this the College un-
gallantly refused; and ' so the matter rested 1 .'
As we shall not return to a subject of a somewhat technical
nature, but really of great and wide importance, we may as
well forestall the history of this Surplus during the process
of its gradual settlement into a regular fund for supplying
the annual emoluments of the Warden and Fellows. It may
throw light upon some difficult questions of modern days.
Whitgift's successor, Archbishop Bancroft, was the first
to grant permission that the Surplus might be ' converted
to amendment of diet and other necessary uses of common
charge,' a precedent which the College was naturally most
2 Book of College Estates, F. P. penes custodem, p. 164.
112 THE GOLDEN AGE AT ALL SOULS. [CHAP.
unwilling- to deprive of its full significance. The terms
were certainly large enough to permit even laymen to drive
the proverbial ' coach and six ' through them, much more
lawyers; and so when Bancroft's successor, Archbishop
Abbot, ventures, in the innocency of his simple and some-
what severe disposition, to recur to the ancient idea, he
discovers that he has stirred up a nest of hornets. Several
letters pass between the Visitor and the College on the
subject, the Archbishop so far maintaining his point that
it is very many years yet before the distribution of
the Surplus amongst the Fellows is an acknowledged
right. Abbot utterly refuses to recognise anything of the
nature of right in the transaction. The 'Augmentation
of Commons' having been made as far as was reasonable,
this, after 18 Eliz., could not be gainsaid, the rest of the
Surplus was to be paid without diminution into the College
treasury. Out of it large alms were to be given to charitable
objects, and advowsons should be bought with it; 'for
I much desire to see some of the Founder's bounty con-
verted to so good a public use in my time and by my
direction 1 .' But in 1629 he relents, perhaps we may
trace here the broken spirit of the almost nominal Visitor
who had long lost all influence, and ' for this time ' allows
a c double livery,' with the following recommendation as
to the future :
' I should be glad to hear that when such money cometh
extraordinarily unto you it be employed in buying of books
and furnishing of your studies, and not spent upon vanities
which carry nothing with them but distemper and dis-
order 2 .'
Abbot's successor, Archbishop Laud, declines to make any
rule, but requires a certain sum to be placed in the treasury,
1 Tanner MSS. vol. 340. 2 Ibid.
vii.] HISTORY OF THE SURPLUS. 113
and the rest to be divided 1 . This was no doubt a right
decision under the circumstances, and the good-will of the
College so conspicuously shewn to Laud and his party
if we can imagine it to be influenced by such a concession
was fairly earned ; but we may admire, nevertheless, the
honest resistance of former Visitors who hesitated to coun-
tenance the changes which were so visibly progressing in
the direction of luxurious ease.
The Visitors still kept the power over the disposal of the
Surplus in their own hands, as will be seen by the following
letter of Archbishop Sheldon's, with which our sketch of the
subject may be concluded. He may well be taken as a fair
interpreter and judge of what was right under circumstances
not contemplated by the Founder. He had been himself
Warden for many years, and had bought no little experience
of all sorts and kinds when he wrote as Visitor in 1666.
He had insisted on various improvements in the manner of
keeping the College accounts, and had received in reply some
very humble, not to say obsequious, letters 2 from the Warden
who had just been appointed. He then writes as follows :
' Mr. Warden \ By the last post I did, by my Secretary,
signify unto you (amongst other things) that I gave you
leave to divide the remaining moneys upon your account
for the last year amongst you, which I now also do under
my own hand. And this I assure you, that while the
College continues in that good order amongst themselves
and temper towards me which they ought, I shall ever be
ready to take care of them and indulge them always with
what remains to be divided, so as still there be laid up in
the Treasury a convenient stock of money for the necessary
uses and accidents of the College 3 .'
If one of Sheldon's numerous enemies had caught sight
of this letter he might perhaps have maliciously inter-
preted the last sentence to imply that the harassed Primate
1 Letters in Archives. 2 Sheldon Papers, Bodleian Library.
3 Tanner MSS. vol. 340.
i
114 THE GOLDEN AGE AT ALL SOULS. [CHAP.
was already beginning- to contemplate the possibility of his
incorrigible master being sent abroad once more on his
travels; for no one knew better than Sheldon what service
had already been done by the ' convenient stock of money '
in College treasuries. But there is no need for any such
suspicion. The ' treasury ' in the tower was the ' bank '
of those days, and it was no longer filled with the splendid
plate which had stood formerly instead of a money de-
posit. All that species of treasure had been melted down
in the struggle which was then but just over. We shall
find as we proceed that some very legitimate uses were
found for the new deposit 1 . The present system of annual
money payments out of the College revenues to the War-
den and Fellows was now irrevocably sanctioned after a
contest of nearly a century.
The increasing wealth of the College, shared, as it was, by
its sister institutions, had a most important political effect.
They had become a power in the State, and severe suffer-
ings were consequently impending. All Souls is probably
but a type of the rest. Up to this time the Fellowships
had afforded but little temptation to Kings and Statesmen.
Simplicity and poverty had been an excellent protection.
Even the great Elizabeth had only twice ' recommended ' to
Fellowships, and on one of those occasions had been suc-
cessfully resisted, while in the other she succeeded only
after a very indirect fashion. The Stuart Sovereigns, as
we shall see, put the College to a far severer test.
One more characteristic of the Elizabethan period must
be noticed at All Souls. As the energies of the Fellows
came to be more and more drawn off by the progress of
the Reformation from ecclesiastical offices and religious con-
troversies, the Services in Chapel having probably shrunk
to the dimensions of a very genuine 'Protestant sim-
plicity/ we find the College marching steadily along with
1 See especially Chapter XV.
VIL] POOR SCHOLARS AT ALL SOULS. 115
the national development of middle-class education in the
country and the small towns. Several grammar schools
come under their hands, such as those of Faversham and
Berkhampstead, the College supplying supervision, examina-
tion, and in some cases masters. Other schools came under
the College at a later date.
All Souls, like New College, never educated ' Com-
moners.' These were the only two exceptions to the prac-
tice of all other Colleges and Halls, and for the same
reason. Their buildings were only intended to accommodate
their large establishment of Fellows, and could take in no
more; but during the reign of Queen Elizabeth must have
been introduced, somehow or other, the practice of admitting
' poor scholars ' (' Servientes ') to an education within the walls
of the College ; for early in the next reign (1612) we
find, from a paper giving the number of Fellows, Stu-
dents, servants, and others in different Colleges and Halls,
that All Souls had thirty-one of these Servientes, indepen-
dently of the Famuli, or domestics, who numbered nineteen 1 .
As no clerks or choristers are on the roll, we must suppose
that they had come to be included in the band of Servientes.
That these were not introduced before Elizabeth's reign,
or even very early in the course of it, may be inferred
from Warden Warner's short account of the College. He
mentions no one besides the forty Fellows, two Chaplains,
three clerks, and four or five ' quiristers.' The new
position of these Servientes or ' poor scholars ' as a portion
of the establishment was no doubt, like the grammar schools,
a part of the movement of the age, a means of supplying
the educational vacancy caused by the changes of the Refor-
mation. The Ordinances of Edward the Sixth's Commis-
sioners shew that the Colleges had then already begun to
educate the boys who had been previously provided for in
the monasteries. That provision having been stopped,
1 Gutch's Collectanea, vol. i. p. 196.
I 2
116 TEE GOLDEN AGE AT ALL SOULS.
doubtless for very good reasons, these young men or lads
had been taken into Colleges. It must have been difficult
to find room for them. We hear no more of them at All
Souls after the ' Great Rebellion.'
Perhaps the following may throw some light on this
subject :
' The piece of building containing 4 chambers, two above
and two beneath, where y e Chaplains are now lodg'd,
abutting on the cloister S. and on Cat Street W. was, as
it is said, purposed to build a steeple upon it at the be-
ginning, but it was a storehouse till 1570, when the Abp.
Mat. Parker, meaning to convert the Choristers' [places]
into Scholarships to be elected out of Canty School, caused
Dr. Barber, the then Warden, and the Company to build
that lodging that room might be in y e Quadrangle for the
Scholars. So it was begun 1571; but being left off by
reason of y e Plague was ended 1572 ; and touching y e
Scholarships nothing done at y e writing hereof, 1574,
Jan. 23.' Then follows a later entry ' Nor is like hereafter,
the Abp. being long dead, who departed 18 May, 1575.'
<R. HOVENDEN 1 .'
Thus it seems that Parker meant the College to have
Scholars as well as Fellows, and to connect it in this
manner with his own Cathedral city ; and, perhaps in con-
cert with him, Sir William Petre left the College three
small Exhibitions, as well as a piece of ground adjoining the
College. Though this plan never came into operation, the
' Servientes ' may have been a sort of substitute ; but no
foundation existing for them, nor any proper accommodation
being provided, and the lodgings mentioned by Hoveden
being assigned to the Chaplains, the mass of the Servientes
disappeared as noiselessly as they came. The four Bible
Clerks of All Souls are the sole representatives of the larger
body. The Chaplains' rooms stood on the site of the present
cloisters.
1 Book of Coll. Estates, F. P. penes custodem, p. 58.
CHAPTER VIII.
imfcer fames % Jtrsf anb
1603-1633.
The intimate connection between the College and the Stuart
Dynasty The genesis of the Laudian polity Bancroft's
Reforms ; College Beer Abbot's Letters ; the Mallard-
feast The ' roasted "Warden' Abbot on ' Corrupt Resig-
nations' The College and Cecil Earl of Salisbury
James the First tries to impose a Warden on All Souls
His Letter Abbot resists His merits King, Bishop of
London.
THERE is no violent break, no breach of continuity in the
history of a nation or institution, such as our usual way of
dividing historical periods too much suggests, at the end of
one reign and the beginning of another ; but with this
caution against abuse, the system must be confessed to
have many conveniences. All the influences of the pre-
vious ages, all the under-currents set in motion by the
Tudor Sovereigns, are rolling on in their appointed course ;
but the seventeenth century must for ever stand out in
English history as indelibly marked with the special
characteristics which it received from the four Kings of the
Stuart dynasty who reigned from 1603 to 1688. The reader
must bear with so indisputable a statement, as it is neces-
sary to introduce the remark, that however the foregoing
pages may be thought to justify the fuller title of this
book, there cannot be much doubt as to what is to follow.
118 ALL SOULS UNDER JAMES I. [CHAP.
It is indeed difficult to say when Church policy, religious
partisanship, or whatever else we please to call the agreements
and differences between men on religious questions, has not
been a leading element, mostly the leading- element, in English
history ; but, in the period on which we now enter, there is
no question whatever on this point. The Tudor princes were
strong and able enough to carry the nation over the most
serious religious changes undergone by any people without a
civil war. What was staved off in their time could not but
break out under their feebler successors. The ecclesiastical
position taken up by these successors brought them into a
closer contact with All Souls, through the Archbishops of
Canterbury as Visitors of the College, than at any other
time before or after. But the mutual illustrations afforded
by the great history of England and the little history of the
College go deeper than this.
Side by side with the wealth, luxury, and effeminate habits,
the intemperance and coarse manners of the age, of which
the courtiers of the period are the familiar products and
specimens, were to be found the splendid learning, the pro-
found piety, and the varied gifts of those luminaries of the
Church of whom we speak under the general name of the
Caroline divines, the quiet radiance of the Herberts and
Donnes and Taylors and Izaak Waltons, the stern public
spirit of the Falklands, the Hampdens, the Clarendons, the
Sheldons, and Fells of the century. If the ' Great Re-
bellion' broke somewhat rudely in upon the too luxuriant
progress of English civilisation, we know how, by checking
its unhealthy development, it strengthened, like a season-
able frost, the growth of much that was truly valuable, and
opened new channels for the irrepressible genius of the age.
In strictest correspondence with this peculiar mixture of
good and evil, this exuberant progress, and then the check,
and then the vigorous outgrowth of the new shoots, will
be found the history of most English institutions at this
viii.] GREAT MEN OF STUART TIMES. 119
period, and certainly not least that of the College whose
history we are attempting 1 to trace. Thus the Letters and
Injunctions of the successive Visitors betray too plainly
that corruptions of various kinds had taken a tenacious hold
on the society of All Souls. On the other hand, the pre-
eminent character of some of the Wardens and Fellows raises
them to the highest place among the actors on the tragical
stage of the nation's life. The fierce doctrinal struggle
within the Church which heralded the temporary victory
of its enemies found some of its chief champions within the
College walls. No institution suffered more for a time in
consequence of the Civil War, as none had done more in pro-
portion to its means to support the side of Church and King.
None reflected the national characteristics of the period of
the Restoration and Revolution with more fidelity.
The very names which render the College glorious during
this century tell their own story. Beginning with Brian
Duppa and Sheldon, its Register takes up Steward and
Jeremy Taylor, Sir Christopher Wren and Sydenham the
physician, Christopher Codrington and Bishop Tanner. Its
Visitors, most of whom leave their mark, are Bancroft,
Abbot, Laud, Juxon, Sheldon, Sancroft, and Tillotson.
Four members of the College, Duppa, Sheldon, Steward,
and Jeremy Taylor, were chaplains to Charles the First, and
played no unimportant part in the struggle which cost him
his life ; the first was also tutor to his children. The
name of Arthur Duck, the author of Chichele's Life, is
now only known to scholars, but in Wood's time 1 ' some
of his works of the Civil Law were extant beyond the
seas.' He was of this period ; and Warden Moket's
melancholy history will be familiar to those who are
acquainted with Heylin's Life of Laud. .
We have sketched Warden Hoveden's career in the
last Chapter. He carried on the Elizabethan traditions
1 Original MS. in Bodl. Lib.
120 ALL SOULS UNDER JAMES I. [CHAP.
well into the reign of her successor, dying- in 1614.
As far as we can ascertain, he represented the decided
but moderate churchmanship of the age through which
he had passed in early and middle life, the position taken
up on the whole, though with individual variations, by
Cranmer, Ridley, Parker, Jewel, Hooker, and Whitgift,
and represented in the English Prayer-book of Edward
the Sixth and Elizabeth. With this phase of doctrine
were associated those moderate views of Church government
which, however objectionable to the Puritans, did not go
so far as to assert the exclusive claims of Episcopacy to the
acceptance of all Christian men as such. Calvinism in a
more or less pronounced form had insinuated itself within
this system; and, though the Anglo-Catholic position had
been maintained with violence against Puritans as well as
Romanists, it was this tinge of Calvinism which to some
extent reconciled that faction to the existing order of things.
Whitgift, who administered the penal laws of Elizabeth with
the greatest strictness, was, in comparison with some of his
successors, a favourite with the Puritans after his death.
' He regarded not,' says Neal, ' the intercession of courtiers,
but was steady to the laws 1 .'
But a different school, of which Bancroft was the first
important representative, had been growing up during the
later years of Elizabeth's reign. The men of this school came
comfortably into the inheritance obtained for them by their
struggling predecessors. They proudly looked around and
saw their enemies at their feet. The glories of the English
Church ran in a parallel line with the glories of the English
State. In the very year of the Spanish Armada Bancroft
had publicly asserted the exclusive claims of Episcopacy.
Five years later, premising that ' the Church of England, so
refourmed by her Highnesse, is presently at this day the
most Apostolike and flourishing Church simply that is in
1 History of the Puritans, vol. i. p. 114.
vm.] RISE OF THE SCHOOL OF LAUD. 121
all Christendoms V he attacks the Nonconformists in the
most bitter and trenchant manner. His sycophancy to James
the First, his explicit assertion of the Divine Right of Kings,
and his fame as the chief Church-controversialist of his day,
naturally pointed him out as the successor to Whitgift, who
in the last year of his life somewhat sullied his fair fame
by joining Bancroft in the fashionable adulation of the Sove-
reign. Yet we can hardly in fairness dissociate the great
name of Bishop Andrewes, and others of only inferior reputa-
tion, from a similar charge. Ought we to offer a too rigid
judgment, closely girded round as we are with the semi-
republican garments of the nineteenth century ? How natu-
ral, to say the least, it must have seemed to these divines
to welcome the successor of Elizabeth as the nursing-father
of the Church of England ! How vitally important to the
preservation of that which had been so hardly gained must
have appeared to their eyes the absolute appropriation of the
new Sovereign as their own !
This lofty pedestal for Church and King, this ' hard and
fast line' between the Church and Nonconformity, expressed
in every form of intolerance, suited the heads of both parties
to the alliance. James found his immediate account in it
as well as the Bishops. But such success could only be
temporary. An important element had been left out of their
calculations, the people of England. It was not only the
Puritans as such who began to look upon the Church as
their irreconcilable enemy ; the laity in general indignantly
complained that this was not the Reformation which their
fathers had accepted.
The King had indeed accepted the doctrinal system of the
Church as he had learnt it under Elizabethan auspices, and
with the Calvinistic bias which then prevailed. Bancroft's
1 Dangerous positions and proceedings published and practised
within this Hand of Brytaine under pretence of Reformation and
for the Presbyteriall discipline. 1593.
122 ALL SOULS UNDER JAMES I. [CHAP.
theological zeal precipitated the elements which had hitherto
been held in solution, and divided the Church into two great
hostile camps. Clarendon, while he tells us that ' Bancroft
understood the Church excellently,' informs us in the same
sentence that ' he had almost rescued it out of the hands of
the Calvinian party, and very much subdued the unruly spirit
of the Nonconformists/ The Arminian controversy raged in
the Universities, raged everywhere. Though not perhaps
necessarily involved either in these exclusive views as to
Episcopacy, or in Arminianism as against Calvinism, a
number of doctrines or shades of doctrine gathered round the
Arminian and Calvinist standards which separated the parties
more and more. The terms 'High' and 'Low' Church were
not yet invented, nor would they, as applied in modern times,
convey precisely the same idea of the old distinction as
that with which we of to-day are familiar ; but, roughly
speaking, while the moderate platform from which Bancroft
and Laud departed might be classed with modern ' Angli-
canism' or old-fashioned ' High Church,' the defenders of
the ' Prayer-book as it is,' the system of those leaders repre-
sented, though in a milder form, the so-called ' Tractarianism '
or ' Ritualism ' of our own times ; while that of Abbot and his
party represented, also in a less pronounced form, the position
of the modern ' Evangelicals.' James himself became after
a time a convert to Arminianism. His intolerant adoption of
these views, the growing contempt for his person and
authority, the political errors of his reign and that of his
son, involved in the temporary ruin of his House the Estab-
lished Church, of which he was the chosen protector, and
opened a new chapter in the history of England.
It has been necessary to make this brief survey of affairs
in order to introduce the personages whom All Souls sent
forth during this period. The ecclesiastical polity of the
last reign, though its ablest exponent was the great Hooker
from Oxford, had been mainly worked by Cambridge men.
viii.] THE COLLEGE BEER. 123
The time had now arrived when Oxford was to be the
chief centre of theological controversy, and as such the centre
of movement, the point to which the gaze of the nation
was chiefly drawn for more generations than one. Abbot
and Laud, the one the Master of University College, the
other the President of St. John's, had led their respective
parties at Oxford long before they wrestled with one another
on a more conspicuous stage. But before we notice their
connection with All Souls we must dismiss their predecessor
with an extract from the single letter of his in the archives
of the College which falls within our scope.
This letter of Archbishop Bancroft's hits a blot which is
only too characteristic of the period, the systematic abuse
of hospitality, the custom of continuous entertainments, last-
ing several days, given annually by the College at the time
when the accounts were made up. To these immoveable feasts
strangers were invited ; and they usually cost as much as
^40 ; say, some ^300 of our currency. This was the College
idea as to the disposition of a part of the ' Surplus,' of which
we traced the history in the last Chapter. If they were not
allowed to divide such a growing income, and if the trea-
sury was in danger of being filled to repletion, why should
they not rejoice with their friends ? The Visitor does not
agree with them. We have seen that he relaxed the strict-
ness of Whitgift's rules about the Surplus, and commenced
the modern universal practice of dividing it among the
members of the College. He has a right then to interfere.
An entire reformation is enjoined. The feast is to last
one day only ; no strangers are to be admitted ; it is to be
only a ' moderate refection for the officers and ten seniors.'
But his minute, and we must suppose, experimental en-
quiries led him to touch the College upon a still more
tender point, the strength of the College beer. Being Chan-
cellor of the University as well as Visitor of All Souls, he
announces his intention of generalising upon his experience.
124 ALL SOULS UNDER JAMES I. [CHAP.
' It is astonishing,' he says, ' the kind of beer which here-
tofore t you have had in your College, and hath been some
cause of your decrements; for redress whereof I do strictly
charge you by all the authority I have in that behalf that
from henceforth there be no other received into your Buttery
or spent in commons at your College charge but either small
or middle beer ; drink of higher rates being fitter for tippling-
houses. And what I order herein I mean (God willing) to
see effected very shortly throughout the whole University.'
It is but fair to remark, on the last sentence of this letter,
that as the Archbishop connects the strong beer of his Col-
lege with that of others, so we gather from Wood, who well
understood the manners of the generation just preceding
his own, that this tendency to feasting and drinking strong
beer was making head all over the University. The public
feasting was exhibited at this time in a still more demoralis-
ing way than at All Souls by a custom which had grown
up in the University at the election of Proctors.
c When Queen Elizabeth ruled,' says Wood, 'and long before
when controversies depended between the Southern and
Northern Scholars, Proctors were chosen for their scholarship,
virtue, and undaunted and public spirits ; but now and after
he that could give the greatest entertainment was Proctor
against all the world. Such vanities being suffered to be
used, and especially this year (1607), gave occasion to make
the junior masters idle and given so much to excess that
about the same time the Bachelors imitated them in the
election of their Collector, wherein great entertainments being
given by the candidates of that office, divers mischiefs
followed V
As to the drinking, we find from the same author, a little
later in the reign, that ' the number of ale-houses was greater
than ever before known, so that strong measures were taken
to reduce them.' And Lord Clarendon, in his Life, gives
Oxford a very bad character for this vice during the time he
was at Magdalen Hall, 1621-5. His eldest brother was
ruined by intemperance.
1 Annals.
viii.] LICENTIOUS HABITS OF THE AGE. 125
By way of contrast we find that Bancroft, as Chancellor
in 1607, issues orders that all University students should
attend daily prayers, and, thrice a year, receive Holy Com-
munion ; that four times a year the Articles of the Church
of England are to be read publicly in each College ; and that
the youth of the University are to be catechised once a week.
In short, the two currents of vicious license and jollity
on the one hand, of minute regulations of restraint upon
the other, accompanied with religious reforms, were running
side by side unmixed and irreconcilable. It was the same
in the nation at large, drunk with prosperity, with the
University of Oxford generally perhaps in a less degree
with that of Cambridge and with the College of All Souls in
particular. Wise men could not but foresee the result. The
society for which Shakspeare, Raleigh, and Bacon, filled with
the Elizabethan afflatus, wrote, was too vigorous, too various,
too rough, too opinionated, to be guided by feeble kings
and ecclesiastical pedants. It required better government,
or, as the terrible alternative, blood-letting. The opportunity
soon came for bringing that question to a point.
It was not, however, the school of Bancroft and Laud
which came to be identified with the repression of the kind
of vices which have just been noticed. Though both of these
great party leaders honestly exercised all their influence at
All Souls and elsewhere in discountenancing vicious excess,
the influences of those with whom they were associated told
in the opposite direction. It thus gradually came to pass
that the praise of morality was assigned to their opponents,
and that the middle classes began more and more to recognise
the Puritanic section of the Church as the legitimate repre-
sentatives of true religion.
Archbishop Abbot, who succeeded Bancroft in 1611, and
became the patron of the Puritans, soon made himself con-
spicuous for his opposition to the joviality of the age; and
certainly spared no pains to make his position clear at All
126 ALL SOULS UNDER JAMES I. [CHAP.
Souls on the point of repression and restraint. His letters
make constant reference to the faults of the College. In
1616 he says:
' I do require you, Mr. Warden, and the rest of the officers
severely to punish such of your Society as, neglecting- their
studies, do spend their time abroad in taverns and ale-
houses to the defamation of scholars and scandal of your
House, and not to impart any common favours unto them
unless they thoroughly reform themselves.'
In 1625 he suspends one of the Fellows, for contempt of
his Injunctions and of the Statutes, from his commons, and
from all voice in College affairs for the space of four months ;
and in 1632 we find him pained with the College beyond
all endurance, and writing as follows :
' Salutem in Christo. The Feast of Christmas drawing
now to an end doth put me in mind of the great outrage
which, as I am informed, was the last year committed in
your College, where, although matters had formerly been
carried with distemper, yet men did never break forth into
that intolerable liberty as to tear off the doors and gates
which are the fences of the College, and so to disquiet their
neighbours as if it had been in a camp or town of war, to
the great disgrace of the government of that University.
Civil men should never so far forget themselves under pre-
tence of a foolish Mallard as to do things barbarously un-
becoming, from which I advise men warily to abstain, least
otherwise they make themselves unworthy of any habitation
in the house of the Muses, which I forewarn will be the issue
of those who hereafter transgress that way.
' If there were no other means to restrain these and the
like enormities, yet there is one above the rest, that God
for divers years of late hath taken from you more of your
Society than have died in many the neighbouring Colleges,
wherein, as he best knoweth his own secret counsels, so it
may well cause you to fear that some indignation has gone
out against you which doth produce such fearful effects.
I would move it unto you whether it be not fit that you,
Mr. Warden and the Seniors, should in the fear of God
seriously consult together whether by some prayers or other
courses agreeable to the laws of the Church and Kingdom
VIIL] 'PRETENCE OF A FOOLISH MALLARD: 127
you did not in humiliation expiate those sins either open
or secret which may be thought to provoke the wrath of the
Almighty upon you. Dictum sapientibus sat est. And so
I leave it to yourselves. . . . And so, praying Almighty
God evermore to direct and bless your endeavours, I cease,
but not to be
' Your very loving friend, G. CANT.'
Both this Warden, Astley, here addressed, as well as his
predecessor, Moket, had been Abbot's own chaplains. Pro-
bably, in the then state of party feeling, this did not add much
to the force of the Visitor's influence in repressing disorders.
But it may be observed that the above letter conveys a more
favourable idea of the Archbishop than we gather from the
usual sources of information. His affectionate manner of
pious remonstrance betrays anything but the harsh and bitter
spirit with which he is in general almost exclusively credited.
It is true that it is written towards the close of his troubled
life, when experience may have taught him that an appeal
to the better feelings of men was likely to be the most
effectual method of dealing with them.
We have in this letter the first historical notice of the
famous All Souls Mallard. As the cultus of this ancient and
venerable bird has exercised the minds of the greatest Oxford
antiquarians, Wood, Tanner, and Hearne, he is too important
and solemn a being to be discussed in the text, and will be
found in an Appendix all to himself.
There are further grounds for regarding favourably Abbot's
connection with All Souls. Whatever his faults, he was a
good and honest man, and he would not sanction the continu-
ance of the ' corrupt resignations ' already mentioned. In the
early days of his archiepiscopate he had to deal with a
Warden after his own heart. Moket's name, as we shall
see, was traditionally mixed up with the contest which now
took place, and we may give a shrewd guess as to tbe state
of the College feeling with respect to him from the following
note of Abbot's written on the back of a legal opinion which
128 ALL SOULS UNDER JAMES I. [CHAP.
he and the Warden had been obliged to obtain as to the
meaning of the expression debita reverentia, occurring in the
Statutes. This opinion is all in favour of the Warden ; and
Abbot thus confirms it :
' I do approve the judgment of these learned men, and
further do declare that it is a part of " debita reverentia " unto
the Warden from any of the Fellowes of whatsoever degree,
to bee uncovered in his presence in any publicke or private
place within the precincts of the College.
'Lambeth, May 16, 1615.'
No doubt these offenders formed only a section of the
community, but 'Seniors' and all would be unwilling to
have their cherished customs interfered with by those who
might be regarded as mere partisans. Whether the fatal
arrow which now pierced the object of their dislike was
winged from All Souls must be matter for conjecture, but
it is far from improbable. Deferring for a moment the Arch-
bishop's Injunctions on the main point in dispute, let us put
poor Warden Moket out of his sufferings.
Moket, like Abbot, belonged to the Calvinistic school which
had nourished at Oxford under the influence of a series of
Regius Professors of Divinity who held those views, and who
were placed in that great office during Elizabethan times. The
Visitor had, by the Statutes of All Souls, a choice between
two candidates for the Wardenship presented to him by the
College after free election. For the vacancy caused by Hove-
den's death he naturally preferred his own chaplain. Abbot's
selection for the Primacy three years earlier had given a great
impetus to the strife of theological parties. It was now
thought by his opponents that he might be reached through
his friend, and Warden Moket had given them a favourable
opening. He had written a book, and it was not his first.
He is the only Warden of the College since its foundation
if we may except a certain translator of Cornelius Nepos
(of whom more by-and-by) who has been so indiscreet.
viii.] 'THE ROASTED WARDEN: . 129
He had also been, probably by Abbot's influence, a Royal
Commissioner on ecclesiastical affairs. He was thus in every
respect, as we should say, ' fair game.'
The particular offence charged against the Warden was
that in a somewhat Calvinistic book written with the laudable
object of making the English Church better known on the
Continent De Politia, Ecclesia Anglicana he had made
a curious omission. In recounting the Articles of the Church
he had quietly left out that which speaks of ' the authority
of the Church.' He was thus caught in flagrante dellcto. The
punishment was summary. His unfortunate book was ordered
to be publicly burnt; and it was burnt accordingly. The
Warden was of too sensitive a nature for the times. The
incantations of the Middle Ages, by which an enemy was
supposed to be destroyed if you could procure a waxen image
of him and slowly melt it away, could not have been more
efficacious. Moket was unable to survive the disgrace. He
sickened and died of a broken heart, after a Wardenship of
only four years. He has thus been spoken of, somewhat
unfeelingly, as ' the roasted Warden.' He was buried at the
east end of his Chapel ; and the motto selected for his monu-
ment a handsome structure which Abbot was doubtless in-
strumental in erecting is, it must be confessed, touchingly
appropriate ; labor in via, in patria quies. Wood calls him
' an able divine and good churchman, unhappy in nothing but
the censure of his books to the fire which soon after ended
his life 1 .' This circumstance much affected Abbot. Heylin
says :
'The Archbishop had been off the hooks ever since the
affront (as he conceived) was put upon him of burning Moket's
book, which had given no small reputation to the Church
of England beyond seas, for which severity though many just
reasons were alleged yet it was generally conceived that as
1 History of the University and Colleges of Oxford, original IIS.
in Bodleian Library.
130 ALL SOULS UNDER JAMES I. [CHAP.
the book fared the worse for the author's sake, so the author
did not speed the better for the Archbishop's sake V
Abbot's efforts to remove the abuse as to Fellowships
seem to have been checked by the fate of Moket. At any
rate we do not hear of his Injunctions for some years. In
1625 and 1626 he issues the most precise and positive
directions on the subject. The oath is made more stringent ;
every loophole for evasion by any the astutest of lawyers is
closed up. Nothing was wanting but a Warden on the spot
of sufficient probity and courage to carry through the design,
and break down the obstinate resistance of men who believed
that custom had given them rights not contemplated in the
Statutes. Such a Warden Astley was not ; nor was the
Archbishop in a condition to support him effectually in so
arduous a struggle in such times ; though indeed it may be
questioned whether Sancrofb, who finally succeeded, was in
any better position. By forestalling our history a little and
quoting a letter of the last-mentioned Archbishop, we shall
be able to form some idea as to the causes of Abbot's failure.
This prelate, half a century later than the time of which
we are speaking, indignantly declaims against an idea which
the College in his time professed to entertain that the oath
was a mere invention of Warden Moket's, an illegal stretch
of private authority.
' That Warden was,' he says, writing to Warden Jeames,
' too wise a man ; it was his patron and Visitor, your co-
Founder and Visitor and interpreter of your Statutes, it was
Archbishop Abbot, who by his Injunctions of 1626 did most
piously and wisely, for the restraint of simoniacal pravity and
practice which had broke through all provisions made against
it by his predecessors, impose that oath upon your resigners.
And that you may no longer disgrace it as the weak act of
one of your Wardens, I do hereby let you know that the
wise and good Archbishop framed and wrought it off upon
the model of the law of the land, the Statute of 31 Eliz. c. 6,
which under great penalties and forfeitures is enjoined to be
1 Life of Laud, p. 70.
viii.] ABBOT'S REFORMS. 131
read publicly by you at every election. Had you as well
considered it as you have often heard it, you would have
observed that there are two corrupt practices distinctly men-
tioned and condemned in the preamble of that Act and dis-
tinctly prohibited in the enacting- part ' . . . [the first as to
taking rewards for electing- a candidate, the second as to any
covenant made by the nominee] . . . ' and therefore the Arch-
bishop, I say again, most piously and wisely by his Injunctions
endeavoured to bring- up the practice to the standard of the
above-mentioned Statute, which expressly declares that all
electors should take a corporal oath to make the elections and
nominations freely without any reward, gift, or thing given or
taken for the same. How this excellent and necessary pro-
vision came to be neglected and forgotten, or rather, I fear,
supprest and degraded into the weak attempt of an over-
busy Warden, is easy enough to conjecture ; but it is not
to be done without much sad reflection, which I have now
no leisure for. Only I cannot omit to add my severe censure
of the wicked and profane speech, whoever he was that said
it, that if this oath obtained they must resign to the Devil ;
which I rather express my displeasure against because I have
heard it thrice mentioned by several persons of your College
with seeming approbation, whether as an argument or piece
of wit I know not. God Almighty preserve us from making
a mock of sin, and deliver us from every evil work, and
preserve us unto his Heavenly Kingdom.
' I am, Sir, your affectionate friend,
'Oct. 14, 1680. <W.
The course of our story will shew that Warden Astley
allowed Abbot's Oath to be shelved; so that it came to be
totally forgotten ; and when Sheldon succeeded him the Civil
War was already impending. But it may be remarked here
that such praise as the above of men who were on the side of
the Puritans from Sancroft, the stiffest of High Churchmen
and a Nonjuror, is very expressive. The heat of that particular
phase of controversy had by his time passed away, and such a
man could do justice to those who differed with him. And
it is observable that the merit of courageous energy in deal-
ing with corrupt elections is very evenly divided between
1 Archives of All Souls.
K 3
132 ALL SOULS UNDER JAMES I. [CHAP.
the two parties. The Parliamentary Visitors of the Inter-
regnum, though indeed we can hardly class them with Abbot
and Moket, were as earnest in the affair as these officials ;
while to Sheldon, Sancroft, and Warden Jeames, an old cavalier,
but to Sancroft in particular, must be assigned the final vic-
tory. It should be noticed that this letter makes no mention
of the previous efforts of Cranmer, Parker, and Whitgift.
Probably the writer felt that Abbot's form of oath could
alone be effectually worked.
The College was also indebted to Abbot for the resolution
with which he insisted on the Fellows proceeding to their
Degrees according to Statute, instead of lingering idly in
residence. The University Commissioners of 1852 compare
All Souls with other Colleges most favourably on this
point, and Abbot must have the main credit of it. He also
restrains with characteristic vigour the waste of revenue
which had come to be associated with the annual Progresses.
These had become no longer necessary for large portions of
the College property. The rapid march of civilisation during
the sixteenth century had changed the face of the country.
'Your land,' says the Archbishop, 'should sometimes be
visited, but not to do it with a wanton charge, in sending
too many of your company, and in travelling from town to
town to get acquaintance and to see novelties 1 . 3
The last point which demands our attention in Abbot's
Visitorship is his upright and courageous conduct with
reference to ' recommending ' or forcing Fellows upon the
College. The celebrated Brian Duppa does indeed seem to
have been put in by his special ' recommendation,' and well
he justified the selection; but it must have been done in
a statutable manner, and with the free consent of the
College ; for we find the Archbishop writing thus in 1626 :
' I have been much pressed to write to your Society and
to recommend towardly young men to those rooms, but
1 Tanner MSS. vol. 340.
viii.] ABBOT'S PROBITY. 133
according 1 to a rule which I have put unto myself, I have
given way to no importunity, but have kept me to that
custom and strictly observed it. For I well know that you
must make your elections upon oath according to your
Founder's Statutes, and you are or should be best acquainted
with those persons who stand for those places, whereas I
may recommend to you those who are not so worthy or may
less agree with the ordinances of your Founder.'
And again, writing in 1628 :
' My care hath been such for the public welfare of your
House that I have not taken on me those things which my
predecessors did usually perform. I have not drawn you to
Lambeth ; I have not disturbed your elections ; I have not
sought anything to me or mine ; I have quelled that faction
which was wont to disquiet your College V
It is remarkable that in the one case of Brian Duppa, for
whose election Abbot seems to have statutably interfered, we
find him at a subsequent period in difficulty. Duppa, like
Sheldon at a later date, shewed himself a man of independent
character. He refused to be bound by any combination of
the Fellows to vote for a particular person as Proctor for the
University. To our ideas nothing could be more natural ;
but neither Abbot nor the Fellows would brook such conduct.
Abbot pronounced him guilty of a breach of the Statutes
which provide for the peace and harmony of the College, and
the Warden and Fellows suspended him from the enjoyment
of all College privileges for three months ! This admirable
man, whose whole life seems to have been, if we may say so,
faultless, could not possibly have been one of the c faction'
Abbot here mentions. No doubt the reference is to those
opponents of Moket whom he obliged to pay ' debitam
reverential to their Warden. Abbot's disapproval of Brian
Duppa probably formed a favourable introduction for him to
the notice of Laud, with whom he was to be so intimately
associated at a later date as Dean of Christ Church, Vice-
1 Tanner MSS. vol. 340.
134 ALL SOULS UNDER JAMES /. [CHAP.
Chancellor, and Bishop. He was early known for his
adoption of Arminianism, and was satirised by his opponents
for his action in that respect as Vice-Chancellor in 1632 l .
Abbot, in the above letter, might have stated his claims
to the respect of the College still more strongly; for he
stood in the gap when James was bent on a more glaring
attack on the College privileges than had ever yet been
attempted. We must preface this transaction by a few
words.
We have seen that Queen Elizabeth tried her hand upon
the Warden and Fellows of her day, and was on the
whole successfully resisted. The growing wealth of the
College naturally attracted the attention of James, eagerly
looking around in all directions for means of gratifying
the herd of courtiers who surrounded him. The adulation
of the Bishops, and of Bancroft in particular, set him on
the track of Church preferment ; and of course All Souls,
to the imperious eye of the King, appeared the most natural
prey in the world. With the Crown and the Visitor against
them the College had a hard fight. Not that we can
afford to bestow unlimited sympathy on the College of
that day. Their own proceedings gave a fair handle to
their oppressors. If they had not sinned against the Sta-
tutes notoriously enough to bring down on them a con-
tinuous fire from Lambeth they might have escaped more
easily from the attacks on their liberties which proceeded
from the side of Westminster.
One of the worst cases of this kind is the gross breach
of the Statutes, effected by James and Bancroft between
them, in forcing upon the College Robert Gentilis, a son
of the celebrated civilian, Albericus Gentilis. He was below
the statutable age, and Bancroft at first backed up the
College in its resistance ; but both he and the College
succumbed to the Court. A collusive devolution of the
1 Wood's Annals.
viii.] JAMES'S MANDATES. 135
election to the Visitor took place, and Bancroft put in the
youth. Two other equally distinct invasions of the Statutes
the College succeeded in resisting- ; they were Mandates
from the King- to elect two Scotchmen. But their courage
gave way in the case of an Englishman, in consequence,
it seems, of a letter from a friend at Court assuring them
that the King felt himself ' slighted, since his recommenda-
tion had not been received with the honour due to so
gracious an interference 1 .' The King's Mandamus for a
presentation to an All Souls living was also obeyed. The
following letter seems however to shew that though the
College found it necessary to bend to the storm, and
though their own private methods of election were ' cor-
rupt,' they still contrived to secure that those elected
should come up to a fair standard of attainments ; and
we shall observe in the reign of Charles the Second,
before the reform was effected, great strictness in examina-
tions. The number of distinguished men the College
produced points to the same fact ; and even in the case
of these youths, forced on them from without, there is a
probability that, being sons of men of eminence, their
education had not been neglected. As the letter is charac-
teristic of the times it may be given in full. It has been
supplied for this book by the kindness of the present Lord
Salisbury, a former Fellow of All Souls.
' The Warden and Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford, to
the Earl of Salisbury.
' Bight honorable and our very good Lo. (our dueties most
humbly premised). Whereas it pleased the King's most
excellent Ma tie and yo r Lo. to recomende unto us one S r
Yeo, a Bachelor of Arts, to be chosen at our last election
Probationer of our College. Insomuch as the said Yeo was
not chosen to the said place we thought it our duety to
acquainte yo r Hono r with the true cause and reason which
hindred us to make choice of him, hopeing thereby to
1 Book of Coll. Estates, F. P. penes custodem, p. 180.
136 ALL SOULS UNDER JAMES I. [CHAP.
avoid all sinister opinion that otherwise might perhaps
justly be conceaved against us. May it therefore please
yo r LOP. be advertized that by an Injunction it is ordered
that suche Schollers as expect a place or rome in the said
Colledge shoulde three dayes before the Feast of All Saints
make their apparance in the chapell of the saide Colledge
there to be tried for their sufficiency in learnyng. Con-
trary to which Injunction the said Yeo did not submytt
hymself to any examinacon at all. Also wee had uppon
due examinacon passed our consents to other Schollers
(before the said Yeo delyvered unto us his Ma ts and yo r
Ho rs I/res) not expecting any other Competitor. And
further it pleased his Ma tie very earnestly and with a
clause of derogation to any future lTres to recomende unto
our choice S r Cesar, second sonn to S r Julius Cesar, his
Ma ts M r of Requests, who we elected accordingly. Thus
beseeching yor good LOP. in regard of the premysses to
houlde us excused herein, wee humblie take our leave,
directing our prayers to Almightie God for the contynu-
aunce of yo r health with increase of hono r .
'Yo r Ho. most humblie to be comaunded; The Warden
and Fellowes of All Souls Colledge in Oxford.
' From All Soules Colledge in Oxon this nyneth of No-
vember, 1605. To the Right Honorable o r singuler good
Lo. the Erie of Salisburye V
There is some excuse for the servility of this letter, since
it was written four days after the discovery of Gunpowder
Plot ; but when the College had given up its independence
so far, it is not surprising that the King should think he
could do what he liked with it. He determined to fill up
the vacancy in the Wardenship, caused (in 1618) by the
death of the unfortunate Moket, by imposing on the College
one Dr. Beaumont, a friend of his own. So far from anti-
cipating any difficulty, his Mandate informs the Fellows that
' We intend to continue our favour towards you and the
chosen Warden of your College at the time of your election
notwithstanding he be a married man, which we hold to
be no impediment to bar him, having no children nor ever
likely to have any. And further, we, tendering the good
1 Cecil Papers, 112. 167. Hatfield House.
viii.] ABBOT RESISTS THE KING. 137
of your College, conceive that lie will be fitter governor
among you by reason of his years and long experience in
the state of your House.'
James had gone in this letter one step too far. The
College was now touched upon its tenderest point, the free
election of a Warden ; and they gathered, not without reason,
that the Visitor, whose chaplain they had elected on a former
occasion, would feel the blow as well as themselves. They
throw themselves upon his protection, and beseech him to
intercede for them. In this letter they say that they are
' bound by oath and by general clauses of Statutes, to
elect not for entreaty, fear, or reward, but such an one as
our consciences shall tell us, and we firmly believe, to be
more fit and sufficient than others. And forasmuch as
Dr. Beaumont is a man known but to a very few of our
Society by reason of his long discontinuance from us and
the University, we could not have such certain knowledge
of him as of others, and as our most honourable Founder
strictly requireth of us.'
We are in the dark as to the influences which prevailed
on James to give way. We only know the result. Dr. Beau-
mont did not become Warden of All Souls, and Abbot's
chaplain, Astley, did. It must have cost the Archbishop
a severe struggle ; but want of courage was not one of his
faults. This was the very year in which he refused to allow
the ' Book of Sports ' to be read in churches, the very year
in which James shewed his vindictive disposition by the
execution of Sir Walter Raleigh. Abbot soon fell into dis-
grace. He was persecuted by Laud and Charles the First;
his memory has been bitterly pursued by Collier, Clarendon,
and their followers ; his ' moroseness ' towards all except the
Puritans which, however, Well wood, quoted by Le Neve 1 ,
only calls an ' unseasonable stiffness,' has left him few advo-
cates ; but his fearless resistance to what he thought wrong
1 Lives of the Bishops.
138 ALL SOULS UNDER JAMES I. [CHAP.
has scarcely ever been allowed to weigh sufficiently against
his less amiable qualities. He was certainly as much sinned
against in those violent times as sinning. It should never
be forgotten that he did not quail, as stronger men did,
before James the First at the iniquitous trial of Lady Essex,
nor before Charles the First, when to refuse a licence to
Sibthorp's unworthy sermons was to subject himself to that
ill treatment at the hands of the martyr-King which must
ever form one of the most serious blots on Charles's escutcheon.
The assistance he rendered All Souls at a critical moment,
illustrates the better side of his character.
One of his Injunctions ( 1 626) is sealed with his favourite
device, ' Abba Pater,' the same which is found in the windows
of his munificent foundation, ' Abbot's Hospital/ still usefully
flourishing at his native town of Guildford. He has been
thought open to some ridicule for the vanity or profanity
of this rebus, but in condemning it we must remember the
taste of the age, and at least must acknowledge that he has
some claim to be remembered with filial reverence both at
All Souls and his beautiful birth-place in Surrey, to which
he owed also a quiet retreat during his disgrace.
In weighing the praise and blame which attach to all
parties concerned in these transactions we shall derive some
assistance from observing how great must have been the
influence of the party which supported the King's exagger-
ated notions of his prerogative, and therefore how great
the temptation to himself to exceed Constitutional limits,
when Oxford University, in 1623, could publicly censure
Knight for teaching doctrines on the royal authority which
we should now call most entirely moderate and reasonable l .
A more pleasing aspect of College elections is presented
by the following letter from Dr. King, Bishop of London, in
1620; and it may conclude the notices which come under
the reign of James the First. This worthy Prelate thus
1 Wood's Annals.
vm.] A GRATEFUL BISHOP. 139
expresses his thanks for the election of his son to a
Fellowship :
' Good Mr. Warden ; I heartily commend my love to you.
I shall now commit one of my sons to your care and pro-
tection. I beseech you let him not want such ordinary
favours in your House as you may doe to, him. Amongst
and above the rest I should be glad if any religious, studious,
and stayed man of your House might but have an eye over
him, and help him with direction and advice in his studies.
I should not be unthankful to him. I have for the present
sent unto you by Dr. lies a brace of does to be serv'd out
of Woodstock Park and the fees to be discharg'd by Dr. lies,
tog-ether with .^5 which he shall deliver into your hands for
wine, pepper and flour; likewise a standing- guilt cup for
the College for memorial of my thankfulness, and a lesser
guilt cup to yourself upon the same motive as taking myself
much beholden for your kindness. This I doe not either to
prejudice any local order in your House, or to prevent any
dues either of plate or gawdies usually to be paid, but, without
relation to my son's admission, abstractly and simply to tes-
tify that love which I owe to you all for your love to me and
mine. Elections cannot be made without general concurrence.
I cannot thank you all singly and apart, and therefore desire
that this poore present may be accounted by you all in lieu
thereof. And albeit I drinke not wine, yet in such drinke
as my infirmity will admitt I have out of the College cup
drunk to you all, wishing all happiness and welfare to your
Colledge and every member thereof.
f Your assured loving friend, JOHN LONDON V
The reference in this letter to the ' dues of gawdies usually
to be paid ' shews that the practice of All Souls in that
respect had come to be recognised outside the College. The
custom of the newly-elected Fellows giving a feast to the
rest had been long established, and forms the subject of more
than one complaint from Lambeth. It was not confined to
All Souls, being common enough in English institutions ;
but it passed away from the College practice before the end
of the century ; or, at least, no later traces of it are observable.
1 Book of Coll. Estates, F. P. penes custodem, p. 180.
140 ALL SOULS UNDER JAMES 7.
It fell in with the convivial habits of the age ; but the Bishop
evidently saw no incongruity between such good cheer as his
liberality could provide, and the ' religious, studious, and
stayed ' habits which he desired to find in the tutor for his
son. He could drink no wine himself, but he did not see
why others should not. He represented the true old English
spirit of moderation and liberality; but the age was de-
veloping into one of excess on both sides ; the golden mean
was lost. High-minded reformers ruined their influence by
descending to censoriousness, and then to cant. Their op-
ponents, out of bravado, threw away restraint, and gloried
in wrong. Nothing but a period of suffering could cure the
evils of English society !
Whether such a generous recognition of the ' love ' of the
College for the Bishop and his son may not have been some-
what demoralising to the Society in reference to future
elections, is open to question ; but at any rate an election
of this sort, which evidently was not ' corrupt,' is far more
satisfactory to contemplate than those which had become the
general rule, or than those which were superseded by devo-
lution to the Visitor ; still more than those which were not
elections at all, but improper interferences on the part of
kings and nobles.
CHAPTER IX.
touring %
1633-1642.
Brian Duppa ; Steward ; Sheldon as Fellow and Warden Laud
and Jeremy Taylor ; criticism of Heber's treatment of the
subject Laud's Letters and Reforms Laudian Revival at
All Souls Duck and Digges College Gaudy Pressure
of hard times Sheldon at Great Tew His politics iden-
tical with those of Hyde and Falkland Comparative place
of All Souls among Oxford Colleges and Halls.
WHILE the Calvinistic section of the Church, gradually
becoming' more and more identified with the assertors of
civil liberty politically, and with the Puritans religiously,
had thus, under Abbot as Visitor and his two Chaplains as
Wardens, been the party in high places at All Souls,
the school of Bancroft and Laud was gradually obtaining
a more and more secure footing among the Fellows of the
College. Such men as Duppa, Steward, and Sheldon, during
the many years of their residence, could not but exercise an
enormous influence, all the more no doubt as representatives
of a school of thought which had become fashionable amongst
the upper classes, but which their immediate superiors did
their best to depress. Laud was becoming more powerful
as Abbot became more obnoxious at Court ; and these All
Souls men were his intimate friends. Soon after Duppa,
who had remained seventeen years at the College, became
142 ALL SOULS IN THE L AUDI AN PERIOD. [CHAP.
Dean of Christ Church, Jeremy Taylor became a Fellow.
By the time Sheldon was elected Warden in 1635, Laud
as Archbishop having succeeded to the post of Visitor in
1633, the complexion of the College was entirely fixed.
We hear no more of their opponents till the government of
the sword superseded for a time the free working of all
English institutions.
The history of Gilbert Sheldon, the most distinguished
on the roll of the Wardens of All Souls, is in many respects,
before and after his forcible expulsion from his post, the
history of the College. No man was more influential in
promoting his views of Church and State within his Uni-
versity. No man was more fully in the confidence of Charles
the First during the later years of that monarch's life. No
man had a greater share in keeping his party together
during their adversity. No man exercised more authority
than Sheldon in the re-settlement of affairs at the Restora-
tion. Consequently no man's memory has been more bitterly
attacked by the opponents of his principles. No man has
been so successfully deprived of his just title to respect, if
not to admiration. No man has been so completely de-
serted by modern writers of his own party. It may seem
Quixotic to attempt to rehabilitate such a character, and
to place it on the historic stage in any different light. It
will certainly seem presumptuous. It will be best then to
give merely such unquestionable facts and documents as pre-
sent themselves, and to leave them to tell their own story,
with only such commentary as is absolutely necessary. At
the end of his career the chief authors who have success-
fully conspired to depose him from the place which he
'occupied in the view of the men of his own time, shall give
their statements. It may perhaps open our eyes as to the
way in which the ' history of England ' has in too many cases
come down to modern times.
For the thirteen years of Sheldon's life as Fellow we have
ix.] SHELDON AS FELLOW AND WARDEN. 143
only a few notices, but those are suggestive. We may
gather from the scenes enacting around him, and in which he
was already a conspicuous actor, how he was preparing himself
for the arduous labours which were awaiting him. In the
private struggles of the College to which we have referred
in the last Chapter we are, indeed, left to conjecture how
far his Laudian proclivities interfered with the support which
he was morally bound to contribute towards Abbot's efforts
to reform abuses ; but the following statements seem to in-
dicate that he was from the first a fearless and independent
man; and in the very first year of his Wardenship he re-
fused to be forced to do a wrong even by his friend and
patron, Laud himself. Wood tells us 1 that in the year
1623 a body of Oxford men met to discuss the great Ar-
minian controversy, and that Sheldon opposed the doctrine
which went by that name. This was just when it had be-
come fashionable, when the King had become a convert,
and Laud was rising to power. In the absence of further
evidence on this point we may suppose that his strong good
sense revolted from either extreme of the controversialists,
and adopted the via media which the Articles of the Church
exhibit. Again, in Kennett's Register, we find that Sheldon
was ' the first who publicly denied the Pope to be Anti-
Christ,' to the extreme astonishment of Dr. Prideaux, who
was ' Doctor of the Chair' at the disputation.
His opposition to Laud took place on the well-known
occasion when the Primate, as Visitor, intruded Jeremy
Taylor on the College. That transaction must now come
under our consideration. Those who have followed the
previous notices of All Souls elections to Fellowships will be
in a position to understand the conduct of the Archbishop
better than the biographers of Taylor. Bishop Heber in his
admirable ' Life' of that divine, though a Fellow of the
College, has, from want of acquaintance with its past history,
Annals.
144 ALL SOULS IN THE L AUDI AN PERIOD. [CHAP.
been led into serious errors ; and his excellent Editor, the
Rev. C. P. Eden, not being a Fellow of the College, could
not be expected to correct them. It is an unpleasant task
to reopen the charge against Laud when such a man as
Heber had condoned it ; but we gain nothing by resting
satisfied with anything short of the whole truth.
The matter stands thus. One of the Fellows, named
Osborne, handed over his Fellowship to Laud, who ' recom-
mended ' Taylor to the College for the vacancy. The Fellows
' almost unanimously' elected him; but Warden Sheldon
exercised his Veto. He had good reason ; since Taylor was
a Cambridge man of nine years' standing, of which the last
two had been spent as a Fellow of Caius College. He had
indeed, ten days previous to the election, been entered, under
Laud's orders, by way of colourable pretext, on the books
of University College. Sheldon did not consider that he
thus became an eligible candidate ; for the Statutes of All
Souls require that a candidate must have three years' standing
as an Oxford student. Laud persuaded himself that this
was no difficulty; and on the election devolving to him as
Visitor, in consequence of the disagreement of Warden and
Fellows, he at once appointed Taylor to the vacancy. There
cannot be two opinions on this transaction ; and Wood, who,
however, believed Taylor to be under age as well as a
Cambridge man, in relating it condemned it in the decided
manner which it deserved.
Bishop Heber, anxious to remove a blot from the memory
of the Visitor and his nominee as well as from the College,
thought he discovered in Laud's original letter deposited in
the archives, and in a contemporary statement that the
Fellows were almost unanimous in the election, a sufficient
defence against Wood's censure. He considers that his is
' the true statement of a transaction which Wood has con-
siderably misrepresented, as if Laud 'had by an irregular and
unwarrantable exercise of authority intruded Taylor into a
ix.] LAUD AND JEREMY TAYLOR. 145
College which was neither disposed, nor statutably able, to
receive him ; ' and sums up with observing 1 that ' it is plain
the Archbishop had at least a plausible excuse for his recom-
mendation of a candidate, and a ground, whether tenable
or not, which might justify his recommendation of Taylor.'
It is sufficient to remark upon this unfortunate attempt -to
exculpate Laud, that colourable pretexts and 'plausible ex-
cuses ' in order to evade Statutes leave as bad a stain on those
who make them as absolute violence, if not worse ; and that
the ' disposition ' of the Fellows to receive Laud's nominee,
so far from affording an excuse, is the worst feature of the
affair. Before shewing the true meaning of this 'almost
unanimous' consent, it may be well to print Laud's letter
on which Heber bases the chief part of his defence.
1 To the Warden and Fellows of All Souls Coll., Oxford.
' Salutem in Christo.
' These are on behalf of an honest man and good scholar.
Mr. Osborne being to give over his Fellowship was with
me at Lambeth, and (I thank him) freely proffered me the
nomination of a Scholar to succeed him in that place. Now
having seriously deliberated with myself touching this
business, and being willing to recommend such a one to you
as you might thank me for, I am resolved to pitch upon
Mr. Jeremy Taylor, of whose abilities and sufficiencies every
ways I have received very good assurances; and do hereby
heartily pray you to give him all furtherance by yourself and
your Fellows at your next election, not doubting but that he
will approve himself a worthy and learned member of that
Society. And though he had his breeding for the most
part in the other University, yet I hope that shall be no
prejudice to him in regard he is incorporated into Oxford,
ut sit eodem gradw et online, &c., and admitted into University
College. Neither can I learn that there is anything in your
local Statutes against it. I doubt not but you will use
him with your fair respects as befits a man of his rank and
learning, for which I shall give you thanks. So I leave
him to your kindness, and rest,
' Your very loving friend, W. CANT.'
One might be tempted to make light of such a splendid
146 ALL SOULS IN THE L AUDI AN PERIOD. [CHAP.
wrong as the intrusion into All Souls of a man like Jeremy
Taylor ; but the course of our history will shew what a vital
principle was involved in the purity of elections. The Visitor
had an excellent end in view, but his means were ' unstatut-
able and unwarrantable/ His headlong method of proceeding
in spite of all obstacles was only too characteristic. What
could be the effect on a College which had already received
so many grave admonitions for its ingenious and obstinate
evasions of its Statutes ! The Archbishop's error was twofold.
Besides the incredible blindness which prevented him from
seeing 'anything in your local Statutes against 7 putting a
Cambridge Fellow, who had been incorporated into Oxford
University for only ten days, into a place for which the Statutes
required an Oxford standing of three years, what can we say
to his receiving a vacancy at the hands of a resigning Fellow ?
Bishop Heber is astonished at Osborne's offer of his Fellow-
ship to Laud, and finds it 'not easy to conjecture' what autho-
rity he could have for making it. It is really more difficult
to conjecture how the Bishop could have been unaware that
the practice of filling up vacancies by a nominee of the re-
signing Fellow had long before this time fallen into a regular
system. It is thus described in Warden Jeames' correspon-
dence with his Visitors 1 . He says it is 'a custom which hath
held ever since the time of Dr. Astley, who, as I have heard,
was a very easy Warden, and this custom was for the Warden
to fill up the dead places, and the Fellows to nominate into
their own places on their resignation.' No doubt the 'custom,'
judging from the efforts of so many Visitors to put a stop
to the abuse, dated very much further back, but there is no
doubt about its having been fully established in Laud's time.
The power of filling up his own vacancy had come to be
regarded as an indefeasible right by every Fellow.
1 Tanner MSS. vol. 340. A MS. copy of many of the papers
relating to All Souls, including the above letter, had been deposited
iu the Codrington Library many years before Heber wrote.
ix.] HEBER ON LA UD AND TA TLOR. 147
Thus Osborne made an offer to Laud (not of course for any
money equivalent) which was looked upon as perfectly natural
by his brother Fellows, and which they would not oppose for
fear of their own nominees being opposed when their turn came.
That on this occasion they were only ' almost unanimous ' was
probably due to the ' less pliant or more scrupulous ' attitude,
as the Bishop terms it, assumed by Sheldon. Heber does,
however, a little later in his narrative, give Sheldon the praise
of ' a conduct throughout the affair at once spirited and con-
scientious ; ' but if so, what shall we say of Laud's part in the
matter ? Laud knew all that Sheldon knew. There was no
'reasonable doubt' whatever in this case. It was what we
should nowadays call ' a barefaced job/ all the worse because
it sanctioned a ' custom ' which four at least of Laud's prede-
cessors had done their utmost to destroy, which defeated those
very Statutes of the Founder the Visitor was expressly
appointed to see executed, and accompanied, as it was, by
almost every circumstance which could encourage future
evasion of law, was absolutely demoralising to the College.
We may try in vain to understand how so good a man
could have laid himself open to such a judgment. We can
only imagine he had persuaded himself that as his prede-
cessors had failed to grapple with a custom which had
rendered the Statutes obsolete, and as, under such a system,
it was a mere chance if a superior man found his way into
the College, he was doing his best for the real good of the
institution by putting in, when the opportunity offered itself,
such a man as Taylor. This is not to say much ; but the
influence Laud was now exercising both in Church and State
was so enormous that it would seem he gave little weight to
the finer considerations which under other circumstances would
have guided him.
From Laud's other letters in the archives of All Souls we
may extract a few sentences which tell much more to his
credit, and which may enable us to conclude what has to
L a
148 ALL SOULS IN THE LAUDIAN PERIOD. [CHAP.
be said on the connection of the Archbishop with the College,
before we resume the notices of his friend the Warden.
Soon after he became Visitor he writes (Dec. 20, 1633)
in a manner which shews his considerate regard for the
convenience of the College officers. If the College will
send him its accounts every year 'he will not cause two
of the Fellows to take such a dirty journey as these two
have done.' He has, however, a couple of complaints to
make already; 'one that the scholastic exercises required
by Statute are not duly kept; and the other, that the
Fellows, divers of them, are too chargeable in their clothes
and follow the fashions too much.' But the next year he
writes (Aug. i, 1634): 'I do find that some things are
very much out of order.' He specifies the election of the
younger instead of the senior Fellows to the office of Dean,
inasmuch as they demur to punish offences 'because them-
selves are equally culpable with the offenders, and so might
be thought to punish themselves in others.' And again :
'This charge I require you, Mr. Warden, to deliver to
all the Fellows, but especially the officers, that they use
not long, undecent hair, nor wear large falling bands, nor
boots under their gowns, nor any other like unstatutable
novelty in their apparel.' And he ends with threatening
to use all his power if he is not obeyed, as he will not ' suffer
either the discipline or the thrift of that College to decay
or be impaired, but I hope this fair admonition will amongst
such ingenious men produce all such good effects as are
desired. In which hope I leave you to the grace of God,
and shall ever rest,
' Your very loving friend and Visitor,
< W. CANT.'
Finally, he makes (in March 163!) a special complaint of
the management of a portion of the College property, partly
because it injured the property of his own See, and ' partly
because I am a great hater of depopulations in any kind, as
being one of the greatest mischiefs in this kingdom and
a very ill example from a College or College Tenant;' a
ix.] LAUD'S LETTERS TO ALL SOULS. 149
sentiment which even his bitterest enemies could hardly have
represented as tyrannical.
There would no doubt have been a far larger collection
of letters from which extracts might have been culled, if
Laud had not been involved in such a mass of various
labours at this time, and if the troubles under which he was
so soon to sink had not been gathering up from all sides.
After his magnificent reception of Charles and Henrietta at
St. John's College in 1636, and the promulgation of his
Statutes, he might well cry Nunc Dimittis as far as Oxford
was concerned. He had put an end to the disorders of the
University, procured a new Charter, entirely reformed its
Statutes, established a Cycle of Proctors (which existed until
a few years ago), instead of that debased system we have
already noticed, instituted a new residence for the Bishop of
the diocese, largely encouraged the study of Oriental lan-
guages and other hitherto neglected subjects, and given back
to the place that ecclesiastical tone which the loose habits of
the age had sensibly impaired. For the want of judgment
shewn in particular instances, as well as for the violent par-
tisanship of his rule, he was now to suffer at the hands of
merciless enemies blinded with passion. Against most of the
twenty-three projects of reform some of them gigantic
noted in his Memoranda, he found himself able, at the ex-
piration of only ten years, to write the grateful word
' Done.' Yet even Heylin is obliged to admit the too great
haste with which his master pressed on his measures.
Some entries in the books of All Souls, scanty as they
are, will help us to understand the spirit generated by the
sort of reforms Laud effected. For the first time since the
iconoclastic proceedings of Edward the Sixth's Commissioners
we hear of some attempt to restore the Chapel to decency
and order. We have seen that the statues, the crosses, the
numerous statuettes adorning the reredos (which was left
a mere wreck), and the numerous altars, had been destroyed.
150 ALL SOULS IN THE L AUDI AN PERIOD. [CHAP.
Even the ' Lord's Table,' which was retained, had been
moved away from the east end of the Chapel. We do
indeed find, as early as 1619, that a 'murrey velvet carpet
with gold and silk fringe for the Communion Table ' was
procured; and in 1624, 'This year were our Responsaries
in MS. used on solemn dayes in our Quire, and our Com n
for our Benefactors first fratn'd and plac'd in our 3 Com-
munion Books in y e Chaple;' but in 1629, when Abbot
was suspended from his functions as Metropolitan, and Laud's
influence was supreme, though he was not yet Visitor of the
College, we read that ' the Communion Table was advanced
from y e midle of the Chancell to y e upper end above the
ascending steps.'
It may be here remarked that it is strange this proceeding
should have excited so little attention, while the 'setting
up of the altar' at Magdalen, two years later, caused a
great disturbance at Oxford. Some preachers who de-
nounced the novel ' Ritualism ' which was introduced at
Magdalen along with this alteration of the position of the
' altar,' were expelled the University by Laud. So exclu-
sively was public attention fixed upon that College in con-
sequence of this harsh treatment, that Wood and Calamy
are both quoted by the learned author of the ' Register ' of
Magdalen for the assertion that it was the first to make
the change. All Souls had evidently, under the manage-
ment of the able men who then influenced the Society, been
more cautious in its method of adopting the Laudian model
than its kindred institution.
The history of the two Colleges has many points in common
at this period, arid indeed all through their career. Arch-
bishop Chichele touched Wykeham on one side and
Waynflete on the other. New College and Magdalen are
the elder and younger sisters of All Souls, in many
respects very much alike, but in the plan of their fabrics
eminently so. They are the three Colleges in which the
ix.] THE L AUDI AN REVIVAL. 151
position of the Chapel with regard to the hall necessitated
a lofty reredos instead of an east window. At Magda-
len there seems to have been a more successful effort to
restore the Romish rites in the reign of Queen Mary, and,
in the reign of Charles the First, a further advance than
at All Souls towards the restoration of the Chapel in the
direction patronised by Laud; but the desecration or re-
forms of the Chapel and Services under Henry the Eighth
and Elizabeth, and the general restoration which took
place after the Commonwealth, seem to have been as nearly
as possible of the same character at both Colleges. At
the Restoration, Magdalen, like All Souls, covered the ruins
of its defaced reredos with a fresco of the Resurrection ;
but the previous destruction had probably been more com-
plete ; for when restored in our own day there seems to
have been no such discovery of the magnificence of the
old work if indeed there was such to discover as at All
Souls.
The slight records which remain of this effort to restore
All Souls Chapel in the reign of Charles the First have
some value by way of illustration of the times. A sense
of shame at the condition of the Chapel comes over the
College. In the book containing the 'Acta in Capitulis'
of this period occurs an entry, dated 1633, to the effect
that ' the auntient Fellows should be spoken unto for their
benevolence towards the providing of organs and a quire
for the chapel.' The ' auntient Fellows ' seem to have
been tardy in their response to this appeal. Perhaps they
were waiting for the actual Fellows to begin ; perhaps
they saw that the times were not ripe for this vigorous
ecclesiastical movement ; perhaps they remembered with
misplaced affection the ruined walls and bare services which
had been good enough for them, and which had served for
many generations of their predecessors, men who had done
splendid service in Church and State. At any rate it is
152 ALL SOULS IN THE LAUDIAN PERIOD. [CHAP.
not for five years that we perceive anything like a prac-
tical step in advance. Sheldon had now become Warden,
and he made a beginning.
In 1638 we find another entry in the same College book,
where three Fellows are commissioned c to draw articles,
contract and bargain in the College name with the Joiner
concerning reparation of our Chapel, yet so as these
articles and agreements must also be approved by the major
part of the Fellows.'
Further, a little book is still extant containing 'the
names of such worthy Benefactors who have contributed
to the beautifyinge of the Chapell of All Soulne Colledge
in Oxon, and the reestablishinge the Quire in the same
left by the Founder.' Duck, who having been elected in
1607, was now a senior Fellow, seems to have been the
chief agent in collecting the subscriptions noted in this
book, commencing it with a handsome donation from him-
self of a hundred marks; but the entries cease even
before the year 1638. In that year however, correspond-
ing to the above entry in the College book, occurs a
record in this subscription book by Sheldon, stating that
he had disbursed ^200 of the money collected, and handed
over the remainder to certain Fellows. Some necessary
repairs were no doubt made at this time ; but the funds
were small ; and nothing seems to have been done to
restore the 'organs,' or the 'quire left by the Founder/
or the ruined reredos. We hear no more of the restora-
tion of the Chapel for a whole generation. The blindest
must have perceived that the storm which had so long
been lowering over the land was about to break in all its
fury. To spend money upon Chapels was indeed to throw
it away. We may well imagine with what reluctance
such men as Sheldon, Jeremy Taylor, and Duck, supported
no doubt by Laud, Duppa, and Steward, would give up
their darling scheme.
ix.] COLLEGE IMPROVEMENTS. 153
The name of another junior Fellow besides Taylor may also
be safely associated with the guidance of the College in this
direction, if we may judge by the works he has left behind
him. Dudley Digges, son of the famous patriot, Sir Dudley
Digges, was elected at All Souls in 1633, and died at the
commencement of the Civil War. His books, long forgotten,
and indeed not claiming more than a temporary fame, prove
him to have been an unflinching advocate of Divine Right
and Passive Obedience. As narrow in their scope as those
of his opponents, they at least served to keep alive in their
measure the zeal of the persecuted Royalists, and provided
them with arguments from the Schools not wanting in
ingenuity.
A much humbler restoration had however been previously
effected in the College. We read in the ' Acta' of 1633 that
' This yeare our College gates were repaired and lyned
faceway towards the streete, and lykwise newly adorned with
the Armes of His M tle , of our Prince, and of our Founder;
and also the three statues over our gates, of our Saviour,
of King Henry the Sixt, and our Founder, were at the same
time polished, smothed and renewed with vernishe and guilt
as formerly they had bene.'
This entry is only noticeable as proving that in the age
when most of our present University and College buildings
were erected or restored to the condition in which we now
see them, the grey monotony of the stone fronts was relieved
certainly by gilding, and probably by the free use of colour,
to which the ' varnish ' was in this case applied. Just before
this time the statue of James the First, newly raised aloft
on the tower of the Schools Quadrangle, had been covered
with gilding, but in such bad taste that it blazed with
unmitigated splendour in the western sun, and the whole
effect was spoilt. It is to the credit of James's good sense
a quality he did not often shew that as soon as the
University dignitaries pointed it out to him with pride on
154 ALL SOULS IN THE L AUDI AN PERIOD. [CHAP.
the occasion of his visit to Oxford, he made an earnest re-
quest that the gilding might be removed 1 . It was complied
with, of course. A curious superstition has attended this
historical statue. The decomposition of its parts by age is
said to have coincided with sundry political events. The arm
fell on one date ; the sceptre on another. The Bible is said
to have dropped on the day when the Roman Catholic Eman-
cipation Bill passed into law ! Of the statues mentioned as
being over All Souls gate, that of 'our Saviour' must have
filled the vacant niche inside the quadrangle. Having given
offence to the Puritans, it was never renewed after the
Commonwealth desecration. How the quaint representation
of the Resurrection over the gateway escaped is surprising.
A glance at the sumptuary condition of the College is
afforded us by the official entries in the College books of the
reigns of the first Stuart sovereigns.
The annual Surplus, as we have seen 2 , was large, and
portions of it were spent, as Abbot desired, in building
parsonages for College livings, and in converting the cloister
green (the present inner quadrangle) into a ' garden with
arbours,' in later times called ' the grove.' This was done
in 1611. In 1619 the Founder's tomb in Canterbury Cathe-
dral was restored at a cost of more than a^ioo. The great
Gaudy on All Souls' Day was also made more worthy of
these prosperous times, as we find by the following grateful
entry in 1618 :
' Whereas our Gaudyes on All Soules Day to the Side
Tables in the Hall were but five dishes to every Messe, viz*.
Pigge, Goose, Capon, Rabet, and Bustard, this yeare our
Bursars, viz*. Mr. Aylesworth, now D r of Lawe, and
Mr. Winne, Bachelo r of Divinitye (at the incition of the
Warden, D r Astley), they affecting more the publick honor
of the Colledge that day than the entertainment of their own
private friends, did very readyly and willingly condescend
that their third Messe usually that day for the Bursar's table
1 Wood's Annals. 2 p. no.
ix.] TEE AGE OF IRON. 155
should be conferred in common that day for the augmentation
of Gaudyes throughout the Hall. Soe that whereas that
day they had but formerly five dishes to a Messe, now it
amounteth to eight dishes for every Messe to each Side Table
in the Hall.'
This notice evidently owes its place in the College book
to the strong and general feeling that so excellent a precedent
should never be allowed to slip out of memory. But the
golden age was about to be replaced by one of iron. In 1630
the price of provisions had so seriously increased under the
growing distress of Charles's unfortunate government that
the College ' thought good to abridge y e cost and exceeding
of our All Soules Day Feast, and what by that means wee
spared wee did designe in pws usus ; vizt. to the House of
Correction, newly erected in Oxford, x li , to the Poore of y e
Citie xx 11 .' It is interesting to observe the coincidence of the
date of this notice with others above-mentioned. The Laudian
revival had, as we have seen, just begun to shew itself at
the College in a practical form, and it was too strong to
be openly resisted ; but it might not have commended itself
to the junior Fellows when it touched the vital question of
the great College entertainment. Hence perhaps the break-
out on the part of these gentlemen which Abbot, in 1632,
especially reprehended 1 . Their Gaudy was curtailed; they
would take care there should be no mistake about the
festivities of the Mallard.
But in 1636 matters are even worse. For that year the
Gaudy was altogether omitted, and j^Pio given to the poor of
Oxford instead of it. It was also ' agreed by M r Warden and
Fellows that the Commons for every Monday dinner during
the publique Fast should bee disposed of to the poore of the
Citie, the value thereof in money.' The College charities,
all through this period, flow in many directions. Besides a
weekly payment of four nobles for the relief of the sick and
1 p. 126.
156 ALL SOULS IN THE L AUDI AN PERIOD. [CHAP.
poor, which commenced in 1626, we notice, among other
things, in 1631, a sum of thirty shillings given to John
Baptista Rena, an Italian convert; in 1633, a sum of fifty
shillings hestowed upon ' the reliefe of the Bohemian Minis-
ters ;' and in 1635, eighteen shillings to an Armenian priest.
We hear of no more disturbances. The College is effectually
sobered. Sheldon and his friends are supreme. Perhaps in
the relief of these foreigners we may perceive a trace of
Laud's peculiar influence.
Let us now look round us, and observe what other people
thought of the Warden, who was soon to be called to play
a more important part than we have described from official
sources in his own College. His first patron seems to have
been the Lord Keeper Coventry, through whom, as Lord
Clarendon tells us, he was brought into notice in connection
with public affairs. Henry Coventry, Charles the Second's
Secretary of State, was probably introduced through Sheldon
to All Souls, where he was elected Fellow in 1634, and of
which he proved one of the most distinguished ornaments. It
was while Sheldon was still a Fellow of the College that
Clarendon drew his picture in his happiest manner in a well-
known passage. In that famous description of Lord Falk-
land's life at Great Tew (which has been so often quoted with
admiration and so seldom excited imitation), at that glorious
residence which ' looked like the University itself by the com-
pany that was always found there,' we find the name of ' Dr.
Sheldon ' standing first, along with those of ' Dr. Morley,
Dr. Hammond, Dr. Earles, Mr. Chillingworth, and indeed all
men of eminent parts and faculties in Oxford, besides those
who resorted thither from London/ And in another passage
Clarendon tells us that ' Dr. Sheldon's learning, gravity, and
prudence had in that time, and when he was afterwards
Warden of All Souls College in Oxford, raised him to such a
reputation that he then was looked upon as very equal to any
preferment the Church could yield or hath since yielded tor
ix.] FALKLAND, CLARENDON, SHELDON. 157
him ; and Sir Francis Wenman ' [Lord Falkland's most inti-
mate friend] 'would often say when the Doctor resorted to
the conversation at the Lord Falkland's house, as he fre-
quently did, that Dr. Sheldon was born and bred to be
Archbishop of Canterbury V
These extracts fix Sheldon's position in point of ability and
moral excellence ; and they convey an idea of him perfectly
in keeping 1 with what we have already observed. We have
seen also that he was a wise and moderate man in matters
of religion. He was now to stand forth as one of Charles's
chaplains and chief advisers in his troubles, to take his place
among 1 the most important political personages in England.
At the Restoration we find him holding a position scarcely
second to that of Clarendon. By these two men Church and
State were resettled on the basis which has lasted down to
our own day. What were the political opinions of the man ?
What guidance have we as to the views he held at the out-
break of the mighty struggle between King and Parliament ?
This has never yet been understood; but the intimacy we
have seen to exist between him and the society which
gathered round Lord Falkland might lead us to expect some-
thing different from the mere slavish doctrines of Divine
Right and Passive Obedience which found favour at Court.
The man who could hold his own against Laud in the height
of his power had already learnt independence of thought and
moral courage.
It is satisfactory to be able to point to a letter from Sheldon
himself, which has never yet been published, in confirmation
of what would otherwise be mere conjecture. In the ' Cla-
rendon Papers,' preserved in the Bodleian, is to be found
an original letter of his (No. 1447) to Mr. Hyde, dated from
All Souls, November 6, 1640, in which he says,
' I am sorry matters doe not move hopefully on w th you.
1 Lord Clarendon's Life, p. 25.
158 ALL SOULS IN THE LAUDIAN PERIOD. [CHAP.
The best service my meannes can contribute is my prayers,
w ch I hope will be heard at this distance as well as if I
were w th you. If any good successe happen, next under
God we are to thank men of your prudence and temper for
it. I beseech you present my humble service to my L d
Falkland when you see him, and excuse this hast of
' Your most affectionate friend and servant,
' GILBERT SHELDON.'
The position taken up by Hyde and Falkland at this date
is sufficiently notorious. They were as yet in the full tide
of their resistance to the arbitrary policy of the advisers of
the Crown. In the Long Parliament, which had met three
days before the date of Sheldon's letter, they were foremost
in the impeachment of Strafford. It is to 'men of their
prudence and temper next under God' that Sheldon looks for
' good successe.' This then marks his place in the great
struggle along with Hyde and Falkland against the King,
and with the Parliament. With them he would resist vio-
lence to the Constitution ; with them, as he soon shewed,
he would rally to the side of the unhappy monarch when
constitutional resistance changed its form, and assumed the
colours of the ' Great Rebellion.' Never again was the social
paradise of Great Tew to bloom for its old circle of friends.
The fire was lit which was to try what sort of metal had
been tempered in that literary forge. The crisis had arrived.
Hampden had been condemned ; the Covenant had been
signed; the Scotch had risen; Charles's fourth Parliament
had been dissolved ; the Long Parliament had commenced
its momentous career. How little could any of the three
friends have foreseen at the moment of Sheldon's letter what
issues were to arise out of the 'prudence and temper' they
were each to contribute towards forming the future history of
their country !
As we shall now have to consider Oxford no longer as a
place of learning, but as a strongly fortified camp, a e mili-
tary centre/ with its Colleges devoted to the multifarious
ix.] COMPARATIVE PLACE AT OXFORD. 159
requirements of the chief stronghold of the Royalists, the
military balance against the Metropolis, we may conclude this
chapter by a notice of the relative position of All Souls to
other Colleges as it stood when the gown was relinquished
for the sword. The anomalous position it has held in modern
times, owing to its having remained a College of Fellows
(and four Bible-Clerks), when all its sister institutions have
developed more and more as places of education for Under-
graduates, makes it difficult to recall the past without an
effort. We happen to have some materials for the compari-
son during the half-century preceding the Civil War.
In the number of its ' Servientes,' or Poor Scholars, which,
as we have seen 1 , was put down in 1612 as thirty-one, it was
only exceeded by Magdalen, Christ Church, and Exeter 2 .
But though All Souls, like New College, was even at this
time exceptional in not taking Commoners within its walls,
it was as full as its space would permit. Of its forty Fel-
lows nearly all were resident, permission of absence being as
yet quite the exception; and as vacancies occurred very
rapidly, many of these were quite young men. The usual
age of entering the University was about sixteen ; elec-
tions at All Souls took place at latest at twenty or twenty-
one. So that the educational functions of the College were
at this period a reality. Men entered on their Fellowships
either as Undergraduates, or long before they took the supe-
rior Degree, and men were far longer than at present under-
going the necessary preparation for Degrees. It was as
Fellows of the College that they were trained and chiefly
influenced for after life. Professorial teaching was as yet
but little developed ; and Collegiate tuition was practically
superseding the rougher methods of medieval times. This
large number of forty Fellows was only exceeded by Christ
Church, St. John's, and New College.
1 P- 115-
2 Gutch's Collectanea, from Tanner MSS. vol. 338.
160 ALL SOULS IN THE L AUDI AN PERIOD. [CHAP.
In point of income we find, by the assessment of 1592,
that All Souls (bracketed with Corpus) was only exceeded by
Christ Church, Magdalen, and New College ; in the value of
its Headship by Christ Church, Magdalen, New College, and
Merton 1 .
In the calculation of the Twenty -three year Cycle of
Proctors made by Turner of Merton and established by Laud
in 1629, three Colleges only are to have more turns for that
office than All Souls, viz. Christ Church six, Magdalen five,
New College four. Three turns are assigned respectively to
Merton, All Souls, Exeter, Brasenose, St. John's, and
Wadham ; two turns to Trinity, Queen's, Oriel, and Corpus ;
one to University, Balliol, Lincoln, Jesus, and Pembroke 2 .
Thus the rank of All Souls among the Colleges and Halls
of Oxford seems to be about the fourth ; but in numbers,
all told, it was not higher than fifteenth.
There is one other test which we must be cautious how
we apply. It has been thought to prove that All Souls
contributed to the treasury of Charles the First a sum out
of all proportion to its means because its name stands
second on the list of the Colleges for whose plate a receipt
was given by the King's officers in January, 164!. Mag-
dalen heads the list with 296 Ib. ; All Souls supplies 253 Ib. ;
Exeter follows with 246 Ib., and the rest in smaller sums 3 .
But we shall see, when we come to analyse the various
contributions from Oxford, that we have no certain knowledge
as to the plate sent previously to this particular loan, though
there is strong presumption that the Colleges of Oxford only
sent money, and not plate. But even if its place in this list
afforded a true index of the College wealth and the zeal of its
members, it is after all but little more than its comparative
position in the University required.
1 Gutch's Collectanea, from Tanner MSS. vol. 338.
2 Wood's Annals.
8 Gutch's Collectanea, from Tanner MSS. vol. 338.
ix.] COMPARATIVE PLACE AT OXFORD. 161
Few things are more curious in Oxford history than the
fluctuations in the comparative importance of Colleges. Some
have exercised an influence far beyond what their size would
lead us to expect, in consequence of the success of some re-
markable man or set of men who have brought them into
notice, and then after a time some of these have again decayed.
Some have too frequently belied the imposing appearance
they exhibit. Some of the most ancient have only attained
to much importance in quite modern times. In every period
there has been some one College which has taken a virtual
lead; and this has by no means always been the largest.
Perhaps nothing has more tended to stimulate progress than
the honourable rivalry which has thus been excited. All
Souls cannot fairly be placed as the leader of the Laudian
period, but it is certainly in the first rank.
CHAPTEE X.
bwrimj % Cibtl Mar.
1642 - 1648.
Sheldon as Charles's chief ecclesiastical adviser Lord Say in
Oxford Insults to All Souls ; Alderman Nixon Oxford as a
Fortress and Camp College plate sent to the Mint Charles's
letter on this, and recommendation of a friend for a Fellowship
Decay of College Estates Charles's Vow ; entrusted to
Sheldon and by him buried for thirteen years Surrender of
City Sheldon's forcible expulsion from All Souls and impri-
sonment Prynne.
THE rapidity with which the great struggle began to
develop itself in London in 1642 was rivalled at Oxford.
The University had a very keen presentiment as to the
attention which would soon be bestowed upon it, and at
the first sound of civil war, August 18, four days before the
King set up his standard, its Fellows and Scholars began
to drill. Warden Sheldon, like Hyde and Falkland, had
some months before this discovered that the time had passed
for pressing concessions upon the King. In their belief
the nation had already recovered its true Constitutional
safeguards. It had now the Control of the Public Money,
and the Power of Impeachment, even Triennial Parliaments.
Their opponents being evidently involved in a desperate
x.] SHARE OF CLERGY IN THE WAR. 163
attempt to overthrow Church and Crown, the three friends
had no choice but to throw themselves into the breach.
Their intelligence pierced through all the flimsy disguises
which concealed the real issue; and by the spring of 1642
they had become the unhappy monarch's most trusted
advisers.
Neal, the historian of the Puritans, attributes the mis-
fortunes and violent death of Charles to those divines whom
he took into his counsels during the war, and who would
not allow him to make the concessions with respect to the
Church which might have saved his life. Of these Sheldon
was perhaps on the whole the most prominent. As Chaplain
and Clerk of the Closet he attended the King at Oxford ; he
gave him powerful assistance during the negotiations with
the Parliament at Uxbridge ; when Charles was a prisoner
in the Isle of Wight in 1647 he sent for Sheldon, who with
Hammond, Morley, and Sanderson, advised him how far he
could in conscience comply with the demands of the Parlia-
ment at that time ; he was afterwards closely imprisoned at
Oxford for fear he should again go to the help of his suffering
master, who was now imploring permission for the attend-
ance of his friend. But in truth it was no longer possible
that either Church or King could give way. The blame
must rest with the statesmen and divines of James's and
the earlier part of Charles's reign. It was they who preci-
pitated the conflict with a nation in arms which had too
much cause of complaint. It was for the splendid chivalry
of the next generation and the stedfast clergy of England to
bear the shock as well as they might. It was their glorious
privilege, by suffering awhile, to save in the end those noble
institutions for the peril of which they were but little, if at
all, responsible.
Of the Delegacy of twenty-seven (besides the Vice-
Chancellor and Proctors) appointed by the University to
provide for the defence of the city of Oxford in the King's
M 2
164 ALL SOULS DURING THE WAR. [CHAP.
name, All Souls provided three members, no other College
having more than two ; a proof perhaps as much of the
absence of pressing engagements on the part of the College
as of its loyal zeal. To this ' Council of War ' is due no
small part of the credit of the excellent arrangements
which retained the honour of Oxford inviolate during the
war.
The first sight of hostile troops was exhibited to the
Oxford Royalists after a fashion which insulted their senti-
ment rather than seriously injured them. The citizens were,
as usual, drawn towards the side opposed to that of the
University, and Lord Say easily effected a temporary
occupation of the place, not yet fortified, with a small
body of soldiers in September, 1643. Both the general
and his men behaved with singular moderation; but of
course some outrages were committed. The statue of the
Virgin and Child in the porch of St. Mary's was muti-
lated, and All Souls suffered the indignity of having ' the
image of our Saviour over the gate,' which we have seen
had been beautified not long before, fired at by some of the
iconoclastic or drunken soldiers of the newly-raised force.
Wood tells us that all its sculptured work would have
been destroyed if Alderman Nixon, the leading Puritan of
the city, had not used his influence to prevent it; and it
seems that his intercession was perhaps due to his con-
nection with the College as grocer for the kitchen 1 . As
it was this same Alderman who bore the part of chief
witness against Laud in the matter of the statue of the
Virgin and Child in the porch of St. Mary's Church 2 , and
the reverence paid to it, All Souls has especial reason to
be grateful to his memory for the service he rendered the
College on this occasion. His grim picture is to be seen
in the Town Hall of Oxford, and the School he munifi-
1 Wood's Annals, 1646. 2 Laud's Trial.
x.] LORD SAT: ALDERMAN NIXON. 165
cently founded for the Oxford poor still bears his name,
though the fabric has been allowed to fall into a sad state
of neglect at last, it seems, about to be remedied.
This temporary occupation of Oxford by Lord Say has
furnished Neal with a plausible excuse for attacking the
honour of the University Royalists ; and in order that we
may understand how far he is justified in making the
charge, we must attempt to reduce the subject of the
Oxford contributions to Charles's wants into some sort of
order. Clarendon's confused notices and the meagreness or
errors of Wood and Gutch have obscured a very simple
matter ; and Neal seems to have made a very unjustifiable
use of his materials.
The Colleges of Oxford made two, and only two, stated
contributions to the royal treasury ; the first in answer
to the King's letter from York of July 7, 1642, two
months before Lord Say's arrival in the city just men-
tioned ; the second, when Charles had been some time in
the city after the battle of Edgehill, in answer to his
letter of January, 164!. That to All Souls is dated
January 6. The first letter, requiring loans of money at
8 per cent., is given in Wood 1 , who tells us that the Con-
vocation of Oxford University, on July II, sent <^?86o; 'but
what each College or private person gave I find not.' That
plate was sent from Oxford as well as money is inferred by
Wood 2 from the Ordinance sent to the University by the
Parliament, on the very day after Convocation had given
its money to the King's messenger; but that letter only
speaks of the Vice-Chancellor and others ' endeavouring
against law to take away the plate and treasure of the
University and Colleges, and to send the same to York.'
It is no proof of any plate having been sent by the
Colleges. St. John's College, Cambridge, however made
its chief contribution in plate, if Neal is correct in stating
1 Annals, 1642. 2 Ibid.
166 ALL SOULS DURING THE WAR. [CHAP.
that it sent 2065 oz. of plate as well as ^150 in money.
Clarendon puts the sum total sent from the University of
Oxford,
'when the troubles first broke out,' at 'above ^10,000,
out of the several stocks of the Colleges and the purses of
particular persons, many whereof sent him all they had 1 ;'
and in a previous passage 2 he says: f the messengers re-
turned from the two Universities . . . and brought with
them all, or very nearly all, their plate and a considerable
sum of money which was sent as a present to His Majesty
from several of the Heads of Houses out of their own particular
stores, some scholars coming with it, . . . all of which came
safe to Nottingham. . . . The plate was presently weighed
out and delivered to the several officers.'
The King's letter of thanks is dated from Beverley 3 . It
was, as we know, of the greatest assistance to the King
at a critical moment; and soon afterwards he found him-
self able to set up his standard at Nottingham, (as Clarendon
tells us), 'in the evening of a very stormy and tempestuous
day . . . Melancholy men observed many ill presages about
that time . . . No conflux of men appeared in obedience to
the Proclamation . . . the standard was blown down the
same night it had been set up by a very strong and unruly
wind, and could not be fixed again in a day or two till the
tempest was allayed.'
Among the 'ill presages observed by melancholy men 5
there was nothing that could bode ill from Oxford. The
safe advent of its treasure was but an instalment of its
unceasing exertions in the cause of the King.
Gutch, in his notes to Wood 4 , has referred in this place
to the list of plate, sent to Charles from different Colleges,
and which he had extracted from the Tanner MSS. 5 ; but this
is wholly misleading, if not a mistake, as the list he gives
1 Book vi. p. 88. 2 Ib;d _ p ^
3 Rushworth's Collections, iv. 759. 4 Annals, 1642.
5 Vol. 338. fol. 101 (65 new paging); Gutch's Wood.
x.] COLLEGE CONTRIBUTIONS. 167
has nothing whatever to do with what was sent in July.
We have no evidence of any plate having leen sent from any
of the Oxford Colleges in that July ; and Dr. Bliss, who took
some trouble to enquire into the facts as to the plate re-
tained by different Colleges after the Civil War, has adduced
none. In accounting for the non-appearance of the name
of St. John's College, Oxford, in the above-mentioned list,
he tells us that that College sent ^800 ' to the King in
the first instance ; ' but it is clear, from his quotation, that
it did not send its plate till 'the King sent to demand it
a second time 1 .'
Neither Christ Church nor University College can well
have sent any of their plate, for it was seized by Lord
Say, on his occupation of Oxford, a little later in the year,
on the ground that it was found by his officers hidden
away ; and it is not spoken of as only a portion of their
plate, the remainder of what had been already sent.
All Souls certainly did not send its plate, but a sum of
money : and one of its Fellows, Mr. lanson, was of the party
which guarded the joint Oxford contribution on its journey
to Nottingham. ' He was afterwards,' says Wood, ' made a
baronet, but a poor one, God wot 2 .' The College order on
the subject runs thus :
'July u, 1642, which day and yeare it was agreed by
Mr. Warden and the Fellows that upon a letter from his Ma tie
the Colledge should send all their ready money in their Trea-
sury (w ch is 35 1 11 7 s 3 d , and that they should also borrow as
much as is owing to the said Treasury upon the Colledge
bond, w ch is 300^ (in all 65 1 11 78 3 d ), to His Ma tie 's use, re-
ceiving an acquittance for the summe by His Ma^'s direc-
tion from Dr. Richard Chaworth, Chancellor of Chichester 3 .'
Signed ' MARTIN AYLWORTH.'
1 Dr. Bliss's edition of "Wood's Athense, printed for the Eccle-
siastical History Society, vol. i. p. 15.
2 Fasti, i. 277.
3 This ' acquittance ' from Dr. Chaworth was certainly extant in
168 ALL SOULS DURING THE WAR. [CHAP.
And, speaking- generally, we may infer that at this time
plate was not sent by Oxford Colleges ; for Lord Say spared
the plate of all but Christ Church and University College,
* upon condition it should be forthcoming at the Parliament's
appointment, and not in the least employed against them.'
And in Charles's letter of thanks to Oxford University written
from Beverley, July 18, 1642, to which Neal refers, he
does not mention plate, but only money, which he says shall
be ' employed only upon the defence of Ourself and the true
Protestant Religion, and the laws established in this realm V
The plate mentioned by Clarendon must therefore, it seems,
have come either from Cambridge (which perhaps foresaw this
would be its last chance, and indeed Cromwell completely
stopped that University from sending its contributions to
Oxford in the following January), or from Heads of Houses
and other Oxford men as private persons. It is certain that
the expression ' all or very nearly all their plate' cannot apply
to Oxford Colleges in their corporate capacity. They did
not yet perceive, two months before the standard was set up
at Nottingham, that the time had come when they must
sacrifice their all for Church and King. Their surplus money,
or money raised on loan, was one thing ; their College pro-
perty, which could not be lawfully alienated, was another.
And this brings us to the charge against the honour of
Oxford made with so much righteous indignation by Neal.
When Charles demanded in January 164! the plate which
Lord Say had spared in the previous September, the Colleges,
contrary to their alleged promise, freely gave it him. This
is what remains of the complaint when we come to analyse
recent times (MS. penes custodem, Coll. Estates F. P.) ; and the
sum figures as late as 1666 under the head In obligationibus, since
it is at that date mentioned in a letter of Warden Jeames to Arch-
bishop Sheldon as ' lent to the King before the warres when my
Lord's Grace was Warden.' (Sheldon Papers, Bodl. Lib.)
1 Rushworth, iv. 759.
x.] THE CHARGE AGAINST OXFORD. 169
the series of misstateinents made by the writer. The passage
runs thus :
' The several Colleges sent His Majesty their plate ;
the two houses at Westminster being informed of these
proceedings, published an ordinance declaring this act of the
University " a breach of trust and an alienation of the public
money contrary to the intent of the pious donors, and
therefore not to be justified by the laws of God nor man ; "
that it was also contrary to their engagements, for the Uni-
versity being yet in the hands of the Parliament, the Lord
Say and his deputy lieutenants had been with the several
masters and heads of houses and obtained a solemn promise
from each of them that their plate should be forthcoming and
should not be made use of by them against the Parliament ;
and yet contrary to their engagement they sent it away
privately to York, where it arrived July 18, as appeared by
His Majesty's most gracious letter of thanks.'
The only references are to ' Clarendon, vol. ii. p. 88, and
Rushworth, p. 759,' to which we have already referred.
Now there is only one ' ordinance of the two houses at
Westminster' on this subject 1 , the Ordinance of July 12,
1642, already mentioned. This says no word about 'the
engagements ' and ' solemn promise ' to Lord Say, for the
very good reason that the said lord's visit had not yet taken
place ! It was a visit made two months after Convocation
had sent its money to the King, but when, as it seems, no
College plate was sent. The charge then is simply a set of
blunders. Even the words of the ' ordinance ' given as a
quotation are not in the ordinance at all, but an abstract in
Neal's own language !
There is no complaint then, except in Neal's imagination,
against the University or Colleges for sending money in July
1642. Plate and money were coming in for the Parliament ;
these bodies had a right to send money to the King. The
only charge that can be made against them is that, though
1 Journal of House of Lords, Journal of House of Commons,
"Wood, Kushworth.
170 ALL SOULS DURING THE WAR. [CHAP.
certain conditions were made with Lord Say in September
1642 (of which we have no details), against their sending
their plate to the King, yet they did give it him on his
demand in January 164!.
This is the true gravamen. But here the mistake lies in
treating the College authorities as free agents when Charles
demanded their plate. They have often received a commen-
dation for this which they little deserve. It is a military
question, a question of State, not a question of choice and
honour. If Lord Say could have foreseen in September
that Oxford would become the Royal head-quarters he would
doubtless have carried off all the plate he could lay hands on ;
and from a military point of view he would have been per-
fectly right ; but we must remember that he may have had
excellent reasons for not as yet proceeding to extremities.
His occupation of Oxford was precarious, and in reality
fugitive 1 . Affairs had not yet reached the point when
confiscation of the property of corporations on any such
extensive scale, or even forced loans, such as he might
have levied had he possessed more sagacity or more time,
would have approved themselves to those with whom the Par-
liament was still acting. He did the best he could under
the circumstances. But when Charles was established in
Oxford after a sanguinary battle, a general in his camp, a
King in the midst of his Court, neither could he be expected
to refrain from issuing a request for a loan which is undis-
tinguishable from a command, nor could the Colleges be ex-
pected to resist such a command from their lawful sovereign.
This was their plea, and it must be allowed.
The letter sent by Charles the First to All Souls is as
follows :
< Charles R.
'Trusty and wellbeloved, we grete you well. We are
soo well satisfied with your readynesse and affection to our
1 "Wood's Annals.
x.] CHARLES THE FIRST'S LETTER. 171
service that we cannot doubt but you will take all occasions
to express the same. And as we are ready to sell or engage
any of our land, soo we have melted down our plate for the
payment of our army raysed for our defence and the preser-
vation of the kingdome. And having receyved several! quan-
tityes of plate from diverse of our loving subjects, wee have
removed our Mint hither to our City of Oxford for the
coyning thereof, and we do hereby desire that you will lend
unto us all such Plate of what kynde soever w<* belongs to
y r College, promising you to see the same justly repayd unto
you after the rate of 5 s the ounce for white and 5 s 6 d for
guilt plate as soon as God shall enable us ; for assure your-
selves we shall never lett persons for whom we have so greate
a care to suffer for their affection to us, but shall take speciall
order for the repayment of what you have already lent to us,
according to our promise, and allsoo of this you now lend in
plate, well knowing it to be the goods of your Colledge that
you ought not to alien, though no man will doubt but in
such a case you may lawfully lend to assist your King in
such visible necessity. And we have entrusted our trusty
and wellbeloved S r W m Parkhurst K* and Tho s Bushell,
Esq., officers of our Mint, or either of them, to receive the
same Plate from you, who upon weighing thereof shall give
you a receipt under their or one of their hands for the same.
And we assure ourselfe of your very greate willingnesse to
gratify us herein, since besides the more publique consider-
ations you cannot but knowe how much yo r selves are con-
cerned in our sufferings. And we shall remember this
particular service to your advantage. Given at our Court
at Oxford this 6th day of January, 1642.'
Addressed ' Warden and Fellowes of All Soules Colledge.'
This letter of itself proves that no plate had yet been
sent from All Souls, and it would seem that the letters sent
to all other Colleges were similar l .
It must be admitted that there is no appearance of any
compunction, not even of any sentiment, in the following
brief notice of the course pursued by the College, as it ap-
pears in the Acta :
'Jan. 12, 1642, which day and yeare it was agreed by
1 "Wood's Annals, Jan. 10, 164! .
172 ALL SOULS DURING THE WAR. [CHAP.
Mr. Warden and the Fellows that upon the letter received
from the King's Ma tie the Colledge should send their plate
to be employed for His Ma tie ' 8 . use according to the tenor
of the said letter.'
But it will require no stretch of imagination to conceive
the feelings with which the inventory was taken for the
last time, and the treasures of art, chiefly the gift of mem-
bers of the College, which had been collecting for two
centuries, sent off to the melting-pot. This time the
' treasury in the tower ' was clean swept. Of all the
'faire basons/ 'faire flagons,' 'faire goblets,' and 'faire
salts double guilt,' the ' cupp double guilt with a cover
which hath a piece of St. Michael upon it, given by
Warden Keyes (1442), and the neste of twelve boles silver,
the first having a foote and a gilliflower in the bottom/
and many other equally precious and no doubt beautiful
things, of these not one has survived the sacrifice of
January 19, 164!. In almost every other College some
articles of value were retained among the general wreck,
and concealed till the Restoration ; but at All Souls some
half dozen fragments, the very purpose of which can hardly
now be guessed, alone represent the ancient part of that
property of which two Fellows are still annually appointed,
according to ancient usage, Custodes Jocalium. Amongst
them are the ' silver rodd ' excepted by the Lords High
Commissioners in their destruction of ' monuments of super-
stition/ and some 'mazers' of no value except to anti-
quarians. It is fortunate that 'The Founder's Salt/ a well-
known remarkable and very valuable work of the fifteenth
century, was not then in the possession of the College. It
was a generous gift, in the last century, from a collateral
descendant of the Founder.
One point remains to be noticed about this loan of 253 Ib.
of plate from All Souls. The weight is nearly double that
noted in the inventory taken in July, 1642, which was much
x.] THE COLLEGE SENDS ITS PLATE. 173
the same as it had been in former years. At that date, an
inspection having been made just after the money loan was
granted, the total weight of the College plate amounts only
to 1590 oz., or 132 Ib. 6 oz. The difference between this
total and the 253 Ib., for which there is a receipt still extant l ,
signed on Jan. 19, 164!, by Parkhurst and Bushell, must
have been contributed by the Warden and Fellows out of
their private stocks of plate. Without counting any further
gifts of money, which no doubt they made at the same time,
this contribution of plate represented about ^800, in addition
to the sum of ^651 sent in July, or a total at both times of
something like <^P 10,000 of our currency ; and this from one
College ! How great an assistance must the whole contribu-
tion have been in the absence of those general compulsory
assessments of town and country which supplied the coffers
of the Parliament ! Lord Clarendon, no doubt truly, tells us
that ' the King now found himself in good ease at Oxford,'
and ' in a short time his army was recruited ' after the battle
of Edgehill. ' Several Colleges,' he says, ' presented His
Majesty with all the money they had in their treasuries,
which amounted to a good sum 2 ; ' and this must also be the
'new present' he mentions in p. 88; for no one could give
more than ' all their money/ Both passages refer to the
contribution of January 164!.
As to other Colleges and Halls, Wood tells us they ' all
sent [their plate] except New Inn, [where the Mint was
established] ; and soon after most householders and private
persons.' It was a general movement. The Colleges omitted
in the list given from the Tanner MSS. 3 , some of which were
strongholds of the Royalists, have dropped out by acci-
dent, probably because they did not send in their plate
on the same day as the rest; but the sums are otherwise
accurate, if that set down to All Souls may be taken as a
* Archives. 2 Book vi. p. 70.
3 An abstract of the plate presented to the King's Majesty by
174 ALL SOULS DURING THE WAR. [CHAP.
test. Wadham is known to have contributed 123 Ib. 5 oz.
and 15 dwt. of plate 1 . Christ Church and University had
been already mulcted by Lord Say, so the sums sent from
thence must have been from private members of those
Houses.
The King's letter on the subject of College plate is not
the only one received from him at this time by All Souls.
Charles the First was not above issuing a Mandamus for the
election to a Fellowship of one who begged his patronage.
In the early part of his reign he had issued several ; and
some were obeyed, but not all. The tone of the letter he
now sent is far less imperious than that of his father, or
than those of either of his two sons. It will be observed that
he inserts the proviso, if he be ' found fit ;' and it must be
noticed that the war is at its height ; he is reduced to
extremities ; and the vacancy is made by one ' slain in our
service.' The letter is as follows :
the several Colleges of Oxford and the gentry of the County, the
2oth of January, 1642 :
Ib. oz. d.
1. The Cathedral Church of Christ . 172 3 14
2. Jesus Coll 86 ii 5
3. Oriel Coll 82 o 19
4. Queen's Coll. . , . . 193 3 I
5. Lincoln Coll 47 2 5
6. University Coll 61 6 5
7. Brazen Nose Coll. . . . 121 2 15
8. St. Mary Magdalen Coll. . . 296 6 15
9. All Souls Coll. .... 253 i 19
10. Baliol Coll. . . . . 41 4 o
n. Merton Coll. . . . . 79 n 10
12. Trinity Coll. .... 174 7 10
Then follows a list of six gentry and clergy whose joint
contributions amount to nearly half the aggregate of the above
Colleges.
1 Dr. Bliss's edition of Wood's Athense, printed for the Ecclesias-
tical History Society, vol. i. p. 14.
x.] ANOTHER LETTER FROM CHARLES. 175
' Charles E.
' Trusty and wellbeloved, "Wee greete you well. By
former letters [date unknown] We recommended unto you
Thomas Standard to be elected Fellow of yo r Colledge in the
place of M r S* Johns slain in our service. Wee be since
informed that there be two other Fellowships in yo r said
Colledge voide and that you are to hold an election speedily.
Therefore, at the very earnest request of the said Standard's
friends Wee have been graciously pleased to reiterate our
Recomendation on his behalfe, to the end that being found
a fit competitor he may receave the benefit of Our favour
at yo r said election. W cfe Wee shall very well accept.
And soe we bid you farewell.
' Given at our Court at Oxford the 2nd day of November,
in y e Nineteenth yeare of our Reigne, 1643.
' By His Ma*' 8 Command, EDW. NICHOLAS.
' Warden and Fellowes of All Soules, Oxford.' *
Standard, however, did not become a Fellow. We know
not the reason. Perhaps, being dated on All Souls' Day,
the Mandate did not arrive till the election was over.
Perhaps he was not ' found a fit competitor.' But if so, it
says something for the spirit of the College that it should
thus on a point of duty slight the will of a Sovereign
residing within a few yards of them, for whom they had
just given their property, and many of them the venture
of their lives in the open field. Perhaps Sheldon, whose
influence was now very great, interposed, as he did against
Laud. It was under Astley that the College had given
way earlier in Charles's days. But soon after the Restoration
we find a certain Henry Standard is elected a Fellow ;
was this a relative of Thomas? Was it in his favour that
a vicarious satisfaction is made for any want of loyalty to
the martyred King which the College may, at that moment
of exuberant zeal, have accused itself of shewing in past
times ?
The College book of Acta in Capitulis betrays the disorder
1 Archives.
176 ALL SOULS DURING THE WAR. [CHAP.
into which its estates were falling in consequence of the war,
and the efforts which the Warden and resident Fellows were
making to do all that was still left in their power for the
cause they held sacred. We may quote as examples the fol-
lowing extracts :
'June i, 1643; which day and yeare it was agred by
M r Warden and the Fellows upon a letter directed unto us
from His Ma tie , that our Colledge should undergoe y charge
of maintaining 102 souldiours for the space of a month after
the rate of 4 s a week to each souldiour.'
In the same year the tenants of the College were ^600
behindhand in their rents ; and, as this brought matters to a
point, we find in 1644 the following entry :
' It was unanimously agreed by M r Warden and the
Fellows that by reason we could neyther receive money from
our tenants nor borrow money to provide necessaries, and
because of the troublesomnes and danger of these times and
this place, the Warden, Fellows, Probationers, Chapleyns and
servants of the College abiding within the Kingdom should
be co-ex-co' [the College phrase for receiving allowance for
commons without being present] ' from April 26 to Michael-
mas, and have liberty to be absent from the Colledge as their
occasions and the exigencie of the times require.'
This permission is periodically renewed during the war.
The College next agrees to pay '25 s a week for 5 weeks
towards the Bulwarks.' In 1645 ^ P avs <^ 1 5 f r f necessaries
against the siege ; ' but the money was restored, not however
permanently, as the following somewhat querulous passage
indicates. The ^15 was ' restored to the College by reason
the siege was plainly raised before the money was employed,
but presently thereupon the Lords demanded the sum of \$
(we know not for what use), and 'twas delivered unto them.'
The ' Lords ' had by this time become sufficiently unpopular in
Oxford. The King was one thing; his Court was another.
Wood indignantly remarks that the city was only ordered to
be surrendered, when it might well have stood out, in order
to save the great people shut up in it. The loss of ^15 was
x.] DECAY OF COLLEGE ESTATES. 177
now of consequence to the College. The poor of the city had
a claim which was allowed more readily. On September 24,
1646, we find the College resolving ' that there should be
only one meal a day between this and next Christmas, and so
longer if we shall see occasion,' and the Sub- Warden and
Bursars are granted power to disburse College money to the
poor upon occasion ' to the amount of 5 s at a time.'
A sum of money had previously been divided between such
of the Fellows and servants as ' endured the siege.' They were
living, as all other Royalists were at this moment, 'from
hand to mouth/ but the numbers actually in College were
probably few. Lectures and exercises had for the most part
ceased, the Schools being employed as granaries for the
garrison. Nearly all the members of the University capable
of taking arms were serving the King either in or out of
Oxford, ' having exchanged the gown for the military coat,
the square cap for the helmet.' Wood 1 gives as instances
the case of Christ Church, where twenty out of the hundred
Students (or Fellows), and Pembroke, of which College fifty
members altogether, were regular officers in the Royal army 2 .
( Whenever Charles was called out of Oxford he held himself
bound to summon a council of the University troops, and
entrusted to their peculiar care the whole command and the
dearest pledges he left behind 3 .' There were two exceptions
to this almost universal loyalty to the Sovereign. Magdalen
Hall and New Inn Hall consistently remained throughout
the strongholds of Puritanism and disaffection to Charles.
Their turn of prosperity was now to come. The surrender of
the city took place on June 24, 1646, on condition that the
University should be free from ' sequestrations, fines, taxes,
and all other molestations whatever .... provided that this
1 Annals, 1644.
2 ' If Pemb. Coll., which is the least Coll. in Oxon., did yield so
many officers to serve his Majesty, what did then the other Colleges
do?' Ibid. 1646. Gutch's note from Wood's MS. 3 Ibid.
N
178 ALL SOULS DURING THE WAR. [CHAP.
shall not extend to retard any reformation there intended by
the Parliament, or give them any liberty to intermeddle in
the government V One can scarcely wonder at the insertion of
this proviso, or that it should have been acted upon. Wood
tells us what might well be guessed, that at this time ' there
was scarce the face of an University left, all things being out
of order and disturbed.' The surviving Royalists described
the change after the blunt fashion of those days, ' Hell was
broke loose upon them .'
But before we notice the condition of Oxford after its
surrender, we must describe a remarkable event which took
place within its walls two months previously. Of the four
All Souls men who, as we have seen, had become Chaplains to
Charles the First, Sheldon was the one who most enjoyed his
confidence. Duppa remained at his post as Bishop of Salis-
bury till the Parliament suppressed Episcopacy, then joined
his Sovereign, attended Prince Charles, whose religious train-
ing was committed to him by Charles the First, and was with
the King in the Isle of Wight during a portion of his im-
prisonment. f The distressed King used to say that his
confinement was much relieved by the good Bishop's con-
versation 3 ,' and he is said by Walker 4 to have assisted in the
composition of two chapters of the Eikon Basilike. Steward,
who was Dean of Chester, Dean of St. Paul's, and Dean of
Westminster successively, Provost of Eton, and Chaplain and
Clerk of the Closet to Charles the First, was also a Com-
missioner for ecclesiastical affairs at the Treaty of Uxbridge.
We find him sent with a message of gratitude from the
King to the University for its services 5 . He alone of the
1 Annals, 1646 ; and Rushworth's Collections, vi. 283.
2 Annals, 1646.
3 Biographia Britannica, note from Dart's History of the Church
of Westminster.
4 True Account of the Author of Eikon Basilike.
6 Wood's Annals, 1642.
x.] CHARLES' FOUR CHAPLAINS. 179
four did not live to see the Restoration, dying in 1652.
Jeremy Taylor had only remained a Fellow of All Souls for
three or four years, during which time Wood tells us that
' he gained much of his learning ' there. In 1639 or 1640 he
married; but, when the war broke out, returned to Oxford,
and preached much before the King and Court, living pro-
bably in his old College. He soon, however, undertook the
more active labours of a Chaplain to the Royal forces, and
underwent many hardships and vicissitudes in that capacity.
But Sheldon, as principal coadjutor in Oxford to the brave
Dr. Samuel Fell, Dean of Christ Church and Vice-Chancellor
of the University, was no doubt, judging by Charles's sub-
sequent reliance upon him, and by the remarkable transaction
we are now about to relate, his chief adviser and friend.
The Vow made by Charles the First shortly before he bade
his last farewell to Oxford, and which he entrusted to
Sheldon for preservation, has strangely enough been lost
to history. It is not to be found, as far as the present writer
is aware, in any History of England written during the last
150 years. His attention was drawn to it by the mention
of certain 'buried papers' in a MS. letter of Bishop Duppa's
(of 1660) which he found in the Bodleian Library. A re-
ference to Le Neve's Lives of the Bishops supplied the clue.
This book, written in the early part of the eighteenth century,
gave in full the paper which follows as having been just
then published for the first time in the Appendix to Echard's
History of England ; and in the Clarendon State Papers 1
the authentic copy quoted by Echard is still to be seen.
The existence of the Vow was found afterwards to be men-
tioned in the Biographical Dictionary in the notice of Shel-
don. Perhaps, if not wholly forgotten, it has been thought
an unimportant fact. And yet we shall see that there is
a very great probability that the disclosure of this paper
to Charles the Second had a considerable effect on his course
1 2176 Bodl. Lib.
N 2
180 ALL SOULS DURING THE WAR. [CHAP.
of conduct at one of the most critical periods of our national
life. And certainly it throws light on the character and
conduct of one over whose memory the battle of eager com-
batants has by no means even yet ceased to rage. Charles
the First is by no means a faultless prince. There are trans-
actions of which we can only say that a high-minded man
seems to have been misled by the mischievous casuistry of
the times ; but if one who preferred to run any risk rather
than sacrifice his Churchand with all deductions it comes
to that at last deserves the name of a martyr, that sacred
name ought scarcely to be denied him, as it so often is by
modern writers ; nor will the impression of his just right
to the title be weakened by discovering that he had bound
himself in the most solemn manner before a competent witness
to perform, if he survived, an act of justice to the Church
which no one else, it need hardly be said, has shewn any
signs of even meditating.
THE Vow.
' I doe here promise and solemnly vow, in the presence and
for the service of Almighty God, that if it shall please his
Divine Ma tie of his infinite goodness to restore me to my
just kingly rights, and to re-establish mee in my throne,
I will wholly give back to his Church all those Impro-
priations wh ch are now held by the Crowne ; and what lands
soever I now doe or should enjoy which have been taken
away either from any Episcopall See or any Cathedrall or
Collegiate Church, from any Abbey or other Religious House.
I likewise promise for hereafter to hold them from the
Church under such reasonable Fines and Rents as shall be
set downe by some conscientious persons, whome I promise
to choose w th all uprightnes of Heart to direct me in this
particular. And I most humbly beseech God to accept of
this my Vow, and to blesse me in the designes I have now
in hand, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
'Oxford, the 13 th Aprill, 1646. CHARLES R. 3
x.] CHARLES' VOW BURIED BY SHELDON. 181
' This is a true copye of the King's Vow w* was preserved
thirteene yeares under ground by mee,
'Aug. 21 st , 1660. 'GILBERT SHELDON.'
We must defer any notice of the consequences of this dis-
covery of the Vow till we come to speak of the Restoration,
as also the letter of Bishop Duppa's which gives such signi-
ficant interest to it. It will be enough here to remark that
the Vow is dated just a fortnight before Charles, ' early in
the morning went out of Oxford, attended only by John
Ashburnham and a Divine (one Hudson) who understood
the by-ways as well as the common, and was indeed a very
skilful guide 1 ,' on his fatal journey to join the Scottish army.
It requires no stretch of imagination to bring the picture
of the unhappy monarch before us, almost hunted to the
death, as he penned that Vow. Three weeks after its date
he was a prisoner in the Scottish camp, within the toils from
which he was not to escape !
All Souls now becomes the College where, alternately with
Christ Church, the meetings took place of the Delegates who
were appointed by the University to assist Dr. Fell in re-'
sisting or evading submission to the victorious Parliament 2 .
Sheldon is of course one of these Delegates, along with three
of his Fellows, Christ Church alone having an equally large
representation ; but he is now frequently absent on the
King's affairs. On November 2ist of this year (1646) he
obtains from his College ' ten months' cause of absence, either
within any of the King's dominions or abroad in any forraign
country according to his own will and pleasure V And several
letters will be found in the Clarendon State Papers addressed
to him' by Hyde, and proving how deeply he was concerned
in the politics of the year 1647.
1 Clarendon's History of the Kebellion, vol. in. p. 22.
2 "Wood's Annals.
3 Acta in capitulis.
182 ALL SOULS DURING THE WAR. [CHAP.
The time was now approaching when the good faith of the
victors and the courage of the vanquished was to be put
to the test. After vainly endeavouring to preach the Uni-
versity into submission, the Parliament determined to hold
a Visitation, and to insist on the ' reformation ' of the
University. The University answered by a shout of defiance ;
and for a time the Vice-Chancellor and his friends were more
than a match for the Visitors, the Parliament being un-
willing, in view of the conditions of surrender, to proceed
to force. Dr. Fell was, however, soon sent prisoner to
London, and several Heads of Houses were ordered to be
deprived ; but still with no effect. The University persisted
in refusing to obey anything short of force. Their Sovereign
was a prisoner, and they waited for his commands.
Parliament had now gone too far to recede, and resolved
that the condition of ' no molestation ' was cancelled by the
proviso inserted in the Treaty. At the beginning of April,
1648, the Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, the Parlia-
mentary Chancellor, was brought on the stage with a strong
guard of soldiers. This was the younger brother of the good
Earl of Pembroke, Chancellor of the University in happier
times, when the Bodleian and the Schools were erected, and
the College which bears his name was founded by King
James with his assistance. Of the present Earl, Hallam
speaks as ' the basest among the base,' famed for his ' pro-
verbial meanness and stupidity 1 .' Sheldon had been with
the King at Carisbrooke when the Visitors began their
operations, but was at his post when the final measures
were adopted. But just returned, fresh from the side of his
doomed master, it was not likely that he should flinch from
the struggle all the more incumbent on him as Fell was
already carried off. He is summoned before the Visitors and
asked ' Do you acknowledge our authority ?' He replied, 'I
1 Constitutional History, ii. 235.
x.] FELL AND SHELDON EXPELLED. 183
cannot yet satisfy myself that I ought to submit to this Visi-
tation.' He was not kept long in suspense. On April i2th
an order was made out to the following effect :
' The souldiers of this garrison are desired by strength to
remove the family of Dr. Fell and all other Heads of Houses
and Prebendaries of X* Church, together with all their
ffamilies that are ordered by authority of Parliament to
remove from their respective places 1 .'
The notice of ejectment was now affixed to the door of
his lodgings in College, and on April 13 the Chancellor and
his troops proceeded to act. One little difficulty gave great
annoyance to the Chancellor and Visitors. The bedells had
concealed the famous University staves, and no power on
earth could induce them to give any clue to the hiding-
place. They were not in fact found for two years after-
wards 2 . What was a Chancellor or Vice-Chancellor without
his gold and silver staves carried in time-honoured pomp
before him ? For that matter, what is he now ? For the
nonce, however, the soldiers had to do duty instead of bedells,
halberds instead of staves. In the forenoon Mrs. Fell had
to experience the rough hand of these academical reformers.
She was carried out of Christ Church on a chair by soldiers
and set down in the middle of the great quadrangle, not
yet dignified by the familiar name derived from the big
Osney bell. What followed in the afternoon must be tran-
scribed from Wood's Annals :
'April 13, 1648. In the afternoon they go to All Souls
College, and finding none of the Fellows in the Hall there,
were much troubled. At length they send for Dr. Sheldon
the Warden (there walking in his garden), who appearing
before them, did with great moderation of mind ask them
by what authority they summoned him? Upon which the
1 MS. e MUSJBO 77; or Visitors' Kegister.
2 Wood's Annals, 1648.
184 ALL SOULS DURING THE WAR. [CHAP.
authority was shewn, and read. Dr. Sheldon told them that
it concerned not him at all, for it was dated March the 8th,
and gave the Chancellor and Visitors power to give possession
to those which were then voted into the places of such that
had been removed by them. Also that he was not so much
as there questioned, nor voted out of his place till March
3oth, etc. This puzzled the Chancellor and Visitors very
much, nor was there any answer for the present given. At
length the Chancellor asks Mr. Prynne, who stood by him,
what he could say to the matter ; Mr. Prynne answers
nothing ; whereupon the Doctor leaves them, and goes into
his garden again, into which he could enter without going
through his lodgings. They consult almost an hour, and
Mr. Prynne confessed that they had no power by their
commission to do it, but the Parliament must not be baffled,
and that they might do many things ex officlo agreeable to
the mind of the Parliament, though not in their commission.
Well to it again they go, send for the buttery book, dash
out Dr. Sheldon's name, and enter that of Dr. Palmer in its
place. Which done, they send to Dr. Sheldon to deliver
up the keys of his lodgings ; he refuses ; they break them
open, and give Dr. Palmer possession, with an order (directed
to the Provost Marshall of the garrison of Oxford or his
deputy) for Dr. Sheldon's commitment to prison for refusing
to submit to the authority of the Visitors, or as they worded
it, for his contempt. The Doctor read it, and finding therein
base and aggravative language against him, desired the Chan-
cellor to read it, telling him that his lordship was pleased
two or three times to say that his answer and carriage was
very civil, and desired to know whether that language was
fit to be given to one that had so demeaned himself. The
Chancellor said, " they were hard words ; " and when 'twas
told him that the lawyers drew it (Prynne and Cheynell were
the men) the Chancellor answered "Whosoever drew it, it
had very hard language in it." In the carriage and debate
x.] SHELDON AND PRYNNE. 185
of the business the Chancellor asked the Doctor pardon, three
or four times, and told him openly that " what he had done
in breaking- open doors, he knew not, let the lawyers look to
that." Dr. Sheldon was sent forthwith to James Chester-
man's house against the Cross Inn, with a guard of mus-
queteers followed by a great company of scholars, and blessed
by the people as he passed the streets, and there was kept in
safe custody till further pleasure.'
Wood has not given us the document drawn up by the
famous Prynne in such a hurry, and at which Sheldon
was, or pretended to be, so offended; for we cannot but
suspect he a little enjoyed the perplexity of his persecutors.
On the other hand, it must have called up all his forti-
tude to find himself confronted with the notorious lawyer,
the barbarous ' cropping ' of whose ears by Laud and the
High Commission Court had done almost as much to
bring on the Civil War as the trial of Hampden. Nor
can we refuse to speculate on the effect which the scene
may have produced on Prynne himself, the relentless foe
of Church and King, who before long was to find himself
equally offended by the tyranny of the Sects. It should
never be forgotten that to his laborious search of English
records for proofs of the Constitutional privileges he had
learnt to value, we owe the commencement of the great
work which is only at this day approaching completion
under the hands of Sir Thomas Hardy, Professor Brewer,
and their compeers. We extract the paper from the in-
teresting MS. in the Bodleian 1 from which Wood drew his
materials, and which in the next chapter will be our chief
1 The Register of the Parliamentary Visitors (known by the
name MS. e Musaeo 77), p. 15. Its title in full is, 'The Acts of
the Visitation of Oxford Universitie ; by Commissioners authorized
by y 6 Long Parliament. Drawn up by Mr. Aubyn, Registrar.'
Surely it ought to be published. It will be quoted here as ' Vis.
Reg.'
186 ALL SOULS DURING THE WAR.
guide. The historian of the University was not bound to
register the details which only affected All Souls, and so
has left something behind for humbler gleaners.
' An order for commitment of Dr. Sheldon for refusing
to submitt to the authority of the Visitors of the Univer-
sitie of Oxon.
' Whereas Dr. Gilbert Sheldon, late Warden of All Souls
Coll. in the University of Oxford, being several tymes sum-
moned to appeare before us appoynted Visitors of the said
Universitie by several Ordinances of Parliament and a Com-
mission under the Great Seale of England, hath contemptu-
ously refused to submitt to the authority conferred upon us
by the said Ordinances and Commission, and obstinately
denyed to deliver up the Statutes and Register Book as also
the Warden's Lodgings of the said College, according to
the contents of an order of the Committee of Lords and
Commons for regulating the said University, being dated
the 3<Dth of March last, for the establishing of Mr. Jo. Palmer,
Bach, of Physicke, Warden of the said College, to enjoy and
have all the power, rights, emoluments, roomes, and lodg-
ings, by any Statute, Custome or Eight belonging to the
Warden thereof: These are therefore to will and require
you by vertue of the said Ordinances and Commission to
take into yo r custodie the bodie of the said Dr. Gilbert
Sheldon for his said contempt, and him saffely to keepe till
hee shall be delivered by order of law. Whereof you are
not to faile as you shall answere the contrary, and for yo r soe
doing this shall be yo r Warrant/
Is it an indication of the haste with which Prynne drew
up the warrant that Palmer, described as Bachelor of Physic,
had been admitted to the degree of Doctor that very
morning ; or had some formalities not been completed ? On
April 2 ist the Report of the above proceedings was read
in the House of Lords. It contains these words: 'Dr.
Sheldon, the former Warden of All Souls, was committed
for his contemptuous carriage 1 .'
1 Journal of the House of Lords, vol. x. p. 216.
CHAPTER XI.
ouls toittij %
1648-1660.
Palmer, the Pseudo-Gustos Submissions of the Fellows and
servants Oxford Colleges compared on this point Sydenham,
the physician Sheldon's life at this time; original letter of
Jeremy Taylor's to him The Puritan Visitors Their quarrels
with the new Fellows, and with the Parliamentary Committee
All Souls allowed to elect Fellows in 1653 Sir Christopher
Wren College reported to Cromwell for corrupt elections
His reply Collapse of the Visitors Death of Pseudo-Gustos.
THE event with which the last chapter concluded is thus
described in the College Records at the Restoration :
'1648; Pulso per vim Doctore Sheldon, Joannes Palmer,
Med. Dr. a Parliamento Pseudo-Gustos constituitur.' This
was technically correct as to tbe title of Palmer or Vaux, for
he has an alias; he was neither a member of the College,
nor elected by the Fellows, nor approved by a lawful Visitor;
nor did he take any oath to govern by the College Statutes.
Leaving then the true Warden in the prison to which we
have seen him condemned, let us watch the history of All
Souls under the ' Pseudo-Custos/ The title of ' Med. Doctor '
held by this functionary hangs by as feeble a thread as that
of his Wardenship. He obtained his Degree when none of
188 ' PERIOD OF THE COMMONWEALTH. [CHAP.
his Faculty were present, and by the mere will of the
Chancellor and Visitors. But he appears to have been a man
of some merit, and the circumstances of his appointment
are only a usual feature in the violence of the times. He
shared the political opinions of Taunton, his native town
(where his father was an apothecary), was a member of the
Rump Parliament, and a personal friend of Cromwell's. Hence
the honour or dishonour, as different people may regard it,
done to All Souls by Cromwell's taking up his quarters in
the Warden's lodgings during Palmer's absence in Parliament,
when 'the General' and Fairfax visited Oxford in 1649. On
that occasion ' Colonel ' Zanchy was his host, he having been
intruded on the College as Senior Fellow of the new Parlia-
mentary batch, and created Proctor to carry out the Visitors'
reforms. In this latter capacity the Colonel-Proctor presented
the two victorious chiefs for the Degree of Doctor in Civil
Law. Neal tells us 1 that Palmer was a learned man, on
what authority does not appear ; but he had been a Fellow
of Queen's, and we shall see that he was at least a man
of ability and moderation. All Souls might hare been
worse off.
Shortly after their Warden's expulsion the Fellows of the
College were summoned before the Visitors at their head-
quarters in Merton College, ' to answer to such questions as
shall be propounded to you. ' Their answers are to be found,
along with numerous others, in the Visitors' Register, and
afford a fair specimen of the painful ingenuity with which
the art of composing evasive answers had been studied. Out
of the mass of those given in scarcely two are alike ; the
efforts to escape from the consequences of direct disobedience,
and yet to satisfy the conscience of the respondent, being as
varied as the composition of the human mind. No doubt this
variety also represents the different shades of opinion regard-
ing the fundamental constitution of legal authority, a delicate
1 ii. 320.
XL] EVASIVE REPLIES OF FELLOWS. 189
question with which we have not troubled ourselves much
in modern times, but which, before the Revolution of 1688,
and for some time after, was a matter of life and death.
Let us hope then that we shall escape the charge of
tediousness if we give the answers of the ten Fellows of All
Souls who remained in the College to bear the brunt of the
first attack. It seems they were asked whether they would
submit to the authority of Parliament in the Visitation.
' Dr. Aylworth, Fellow of All Souls Coll., cannot upon the
sudden give soe certaine an answer as happily may be
expected, and as I could wish, to the question at this time
proposed unto mee, but shall doe my best endeavor by
advisinge with learned friends to give such satisfaction as
that I will by no means appeare guilty of denyinge
obedience where I shall learne it may be performed salva
conscientia.'
Henry Barker ' I answere : if by this noe more be
ment but whether I submitt to this Visitation I referre you
as a Master of Arts to the answere of the Universitie given
in by the Delegates ; as fFellow of All Soules to the answere
of the Colledge delivered before Christmas : if anything
more be in the question I conceive I am not bound to
answere to it till I have submitted to this Visitation/
John Middleton ' My answere to this question is that
for what concernes the Universitie I refer to the answere
of the Universitie, and for what concerns the house to the
answere of the house/
Thomas Dayrell ' To this question whether I will submitt
to the authentic of Parliament in this Visitation I give this
answere : that I am not satisfied concerning the meaninge
of the question ; but if the meaninge be to submitt to this
Visitation I doe referre to the answeres given in the name
of the Universitie and the Colledge/
George Stradling (This answer is almost identical with
that of Middleton.)
Hugh Boham ' To this question, whether or not you will
submitt to the authoritie of Parliament in this Visitation,
I cannot in common prudence give an answere to a question
before I understand the terms wherein it is proposed, and
of this I professe I doe not/
John Prestwich ' To this question whether you submitt
190 PERIOD OF THE COMMONWEALTH. [CHAP.
to the authoritie of Parliament in this present Visitation, my
answere is I doe : but with this limitation, noe further than I
may with a saffe conscience : my hart shall not reproach me
soe long- as I live.'
Thomas Smith ' My answere to this question is the
same with those several! answers formerly given in the names
of the Universitie and the Colledge.'
L. Smith ' I ever thought the High Court of Parliament
the supream power of England, and shall always submitt to
that power and authoritie soe far as I lawfully may.'
Henry Birkhead 'I doe submitt to the authoritie of
Parliament in the Visitation 1 .'
The Visitors had long- found out what was meant by an-
swers of this sort. With unsparing severity, perfectly justi-
fiable from their point of view (when they had once pro-
ceeded so far), they accepted one only of the respondents, the
last. Three were expelled, and two 'removed from their places ;'
but five seem to have made their peace at a later date. One
of these last we find, as we might expect from the round-
about style of his reply, was Martin Aylworth, who was
the chief man of business of the College from soon after the
date of his election, in 1611, to 1657, when his signatures
to leases and other official papers cease. He was already an
elderly man, and to tear himself away from the walls where
he had spent his life must have been, even had he not dis-
covered ' learned friends ' to give him good advice, a harder
matter than in ordinary cases. Birkhead's submission be-
comes intelligible when we remember that he had gone
through such violent fluctuations that one more change could
not have seemed extraordinary. He had been perverted
from the English Church by the Jesuits, and reclaimed by
Laud, who procured him his Fellowship at All Souls 2 . After
the Restoration he becomes known by the publication of Latin
verses, and deserves the gratitude of posterity for founding
the Professorship of Poetry at Oxford. The places of those
1 Vis. Reg. p. 26. 2 "Wood's Annals, an. 1641.
XL] CONDUCT OF COLLEGE SERVANTS. 191
expelled at this time and afterwards were filled up by the
Visitors, in some cases no doubt, as Wood says, ' from among
the candidates who came trooping in from Cambridge,
and by poor curates and schoolmasters from the country, of
whom some had been married and had buried their wives;'
but, from whatever source, many were men of merit. Before
however we notice these substituted Fellows, let us pay our
tribute of honest admiration to a humbler class of persons
at All Souls who were not to be found among the
trucklers.
Five of the College servants were summoned like their
masters before the Visitors. Their names are Harding,
William Griffin the cook. Gibs the under-cook, Davis the
under-butler, and Thomas Griffin the page. Their answer
ran thus :
'Wee whose names are underwritten, being desirouse not
to be misunderstood in a matter wee understand not, shall
submitt to the authoritie of Parliament in this Visitation soe
far forth as our former oathes will permit.'
The inherent vice of the Cavaliers was however not only
discovered in this ingenious reply, but Wood 1 tells us the
Visitors voted it a ' saucy ' answer, and expelled the poor
fellows without further ceremony. It must be said indeed
that the Visitors had no choice. They had been ordered by
the Committee of Parliament, on the I5th of May, to accept
nothing short of an unconditional answer. But might they
not have excused the cooks and butlers? Were the new
Fellows afraid that their intrusion might be paid off upon
them in some unsavoury manner? In the case of Holling-
worth, the butler, we find his expulsion decreed without any
examination whatever. He had no doubt compromised him-
self on the side of his Sovereign long before, as we may
gather from the following grateful inscription placed over
1 Anuals, an. 1648.
192 PERIOD OF THE COMMONWEALTH. [CHAP.
his grave in the cloisters, and still to be seen. When he
died such memories were precious, and the College did itself
honour hy recording them :
' H. S. E. Johannes Hollingworth hujus Coll. promus et
obsonator, quae officia et juste et generose executus est ; Col-
legio simul et Regi (ultra vulgus famulorum) fidus : quo
exulante munere utroque caruit haud ante ipsius reditum
restitutus : ita se demum in omni fortuna gessit ut palam
fuerit vel ad maxima non illi animum defuisse. Ob. prid.
Oct. A.D. 1671, setatis suse 63.'
Whatever our opinions, we must admit that these were
heroes. They gave up all for conscience' sake.
While on this subject of submission to Parliament in
1648, it may be interesting to notice the different propor-
tions of Submitters to Non-submitters in the Colleges
of Oxford, as it may be found in the index of the MS.
already mentioned. It has not yet been published. Only
fourteen Colleges are registered. Fellows, Chaplains and
Servants are here given in the aggregate.
Submitters. Non-submitters.
Magdalen College . . 21 . . 55
Christ Church . . 35 . . 70
Trinity College . . 20 . . 16
Brasenose . . . 12 . . 1 1
St. John's ... 7 . . 36
Wadham ... 4 . . 10
University ... 6 4
Merton 37 *
Exeter . . . . 1 1 . . 2 1
Oriel . 3 it
Corpus .... 3 . . 32
Queen's . . . . 18 . . 33
All Souls ... 5 . . 1 3
New . 5 . 63
Total . . 187 382
XL] 'SUBMITTERS' IN OTHER COLLEGES. 193
Hence it appears that New College, St. John's, and Corpus
were the most zealously united on the side of the King ;
and that Merton, Trinity, and University alone had a
majority of men who could bring themselves to submit
to the Parliament. Merton of course, under its Warden,
Sir Nathaniel Brent, and as the head-quarters of the Visitors,
was likely to take the latter line. Of the Non-submitters
about five-sixths were Fellows.
There had been no election of Fellows at All Souls on the
proper day in 1647. If the Gaudy was kept it must have
been a sad one. The attitude of defiance was but a
bravado. The terrible gloom of the storm overclouded Ox-
ford. The King was suffering the most rigorous imprison-
ment ; the "Warden of the College was attending upon him ;
the Society was practically broken up ; the rents uncollected ;
' divers Fellowships void ' says the ' Acta.' ' The Parlia-
ment prohibited any election.' ' No schollers appeared.' No
wonder !
By the time All Souls' Day had broken on the College
in 1648, the cloud had burst. The Warden and most of
the Fellows were now expelled, and the Visitors had filled
up their places. The use of the Prayer-book had been
inhibited, and the Directory established in its stead. The
College could hardly have known itself. We may gather
the sort of feeling with which the intrusion was regarded by
the scattered flock from the silent and expressive evidence of
the entry made in the College Records at the Restoration.
The books were then re-organised, and the old names care-
fully copied into a new book. Down to the time of the ex-
pulsion of the College authorities every name from the date of
the Foundation is placed in its proper year, and accompanied
with the name of the county to which the Fellow belonged,
and with some remark as to his subsequent career if, as is
frequently the case, there is anything to distinguish him from
the rest. But the list of the forty-three Fellows intruded
194 PERIOD OF THE COMMONWEALTH. [CHAP.
by command of the Parliament without election, stands by
itself, distinguished from the previous and subsequent entries
by the absence of year of admission, birth-place, or remark
of any description. It is given in the lump, simply headed
'Per Parliament! Commissarios,' and left to tell its own
tale!
Yet, whatever the statutable position of these Fellows,
the College has long recognised with pride and gratitude
that it owes one of the greatest names on its glorious roll
to the Parliamentary Visitors. The name of Thomas Syden-
ham spelt ' Siddenham' in the Visitors' Register stands
second on the list above-mentioned, immediately after that
of the Colonel-Proctor ' Hieron. Sanchy.' It is possible that
the new Warden, being a medical man, may have used some
influence for his admission ; but he is said to have been
nominated through the interest of a cousin. He was as yet
little known as we now know him ; but it would seem that
his political principles might well have entitled him to the
favour of the Visitors without any ' interest ' from without.
They must have been thankful to find such a candidate. He
had been bred at Magdalen Hall, at that time the strong-
hold of Puritanism, had retired from Oxford when it became
a Royalist fortress, returned when it fell into the hands of
the Parliament, and retired finally just before the Restora-
tion. His sympathies were no doubt during his academical
life entirely with the party of the Rebellion, and it has been
said, though without proof, that he served against the King.
All Souls may well be proud of having for several years
afforded a home to one who will always rank among the
very greatest of physicians, and whose independence and
originality were probably strengthened, if not gained, during
his residence within its walls, before he became the instructor
of England and of Europe for many more generations than
his own.
The name of one who attained eminence of a humbler
XL] SYDENHAM, PETT, WREN. 195
kind is also enrolled in this list. Joseph Keeble, or Keble,
ranks among- the most industrious reporters of law cases and
sermons ever known. Several names of course suggest re-
lationship to prominent persons on the victorious side. Thus
we have a Rouse and a Brent, and Whitelock was certainly
the son of the famous Parliamentarian. The name of Kenelm
Digby reminds us of the family which was so distinguished
at this period, but he does not seem to be claimed as a
member of it : Wood mentions him as a violinist, and that
he died in 1688. Peter Pett's name will be held in honour
by those who remember that he was one of the founders,
or at least one of the first Fellows elected by, the Royal
Society. He became Advocate- General to Charles the Second,
a knight, and a considerable author. Millington also lived
to become a knight and the Sedleian Professor of Natural
Philosophy. And we must in fairness connect with these
men, especially perhaps with the two last-named, the
election of the immortal Christopher Wren. When, from
causes which we shall presently trace, the College was
again allowed, in 1653, its ancient privilege of free elec-
tion, Wren was its first choice; and in 1658 we find it
electing a man whose career was also in its way an
ornament to his College, William, afterwards Sir William
Trumbull. He became Ambassador to France and Turkey
under James the Second, Secretary of State to William the
Third, and a Burgess for Oxford University. He is also
known as the friend and correspondent of Pope.
The change of Government seems to have been specially
favourable to the progress of Physical Science. Before the
Civil War began the great leaders of that branch of
Science had commenced their meetings in London ; and
the meetings at Oxford during the Commonwealth were
but a continuation and development of the former; but
they were so great a development that Bishop Sprat 1
1 History of the Eoyal Society.
O 2
196 PERIOD OF THE COMMONWEALTH. [CHAP.
considered that the Royal Society took its rise from them.
All Souls was the main home and centre of this move-
ment, as will appear from the following passage in Wood :
' In this yeare, 1655, Arth, Tillyard, apothecary and great
royallist, sold coffey publicly in his house against All Soules
Coll. He was encouraged so to do by some royallists, now
living in Oxon, and by others, who esteem'd themselves either
virtuosi or wits ; of which the chiefest number were of Alls.
Coll., as Peter Pett, Thorn. Millington (afterwards an eminent
physitian and a knight), Tim. Baldwin, Christop. Wren,
George Castle, Will. Bull, &c. There were others also, as
Job.. Lamphire, a physician lately ejected from New Coll.,
who was sometimes the natural droll of the company, the
two Wrens, sojournors in Oxon, Matthew and Thomas, sons
of Dr. Wren, bishop of Ely, &C. 1 '
In order that we may be able to pursue without inter-
ruption the history of the relations between All Souls and
the new Visitors, which forms the main thread of this
chapter, let us glance for a moment at the condition in
which Sheldon found himself during the Commonwealth ;
and this will lead us to a further notice of Jeremy Taylor.
After an imprisonment of several months, during which
an attempt was made to remove him to Wallingford Castle
('since the continuance of Dr. Sheldon in prison might be
of dangerous consequence in regard to the great resort of
persons to him 2 '), but which failed from the Governor re-
fusing to receive him, we find that on September 28, 1648,
he was asked by the Visitors ' where hee intended to reside.
And having signified his humble desire contained in this
enclosed paper under his hand ' (which is not given), ... it is
officially noted that ' Dr. Sheldon having divers business
committed to his trust, may follow those businesses in any
place except within five miles of the Universitie of Oxford
or in the Isle of Wight ' (where the King was at that time
1 Life, sub aim. 1655, 1663.
2 Wood's Annals, p. 589.
xr.] SHELDON SET FREE. 197
imprisoned, and begging that Sheldon might be sent to him),
Mr. Richard Newdigate of Gray's Inn ' undertaking for his
appearance ' if sent for. He is now ' released of his confine-
ment, and all restraint by any order or warrant of the
Visitors is hereby taken off.'
But he was not left long in suspense as to his position ;
for immediately following the above entry is an order to
' Lieutenant-Colonel Kelsay, Governor of Oxon,' to this
effect :
' Whereas Dr. Sheldon, since his removeall from All Soules
Colledg, hath taken some houses which belong to the said
Colledg without the consent of the Bursar or leave from
Dr. Palmer, the Warden of the Colledg aforesaid, these are
to desire you to send some of your officers to seize the houses
and returne them to the present Bursars for the service of
the Colledg.' Yet immediately under this order, in a different
hand, two months later, we find the following : ' 1 8 Dec r ,
1648 ; ordered that the order for seizing the houses from
Dr. Sheldon is hereby reversed and discharged by and with
the consent of Dr. Palmer, Warden of All Soules Colledge. 5
There is no clue to the manner in which this change was
effected. It is a matter of very slight consequence, but it
looks like a creditable circumstance in the history of the
College that even an ejected Warden should have interest
made in his favour to prevent his being disturbed in the
occupation of College property now in the undisputed pos-
session of his enemies 1 .
We find but few details as to the life of Sheldon from
this time till the Restoration. It were to be wished we
knew more. Like Taylor, he became a central figure round
which the persecuted Royalists rallied, but with his usual
good sense he contrived to escape observation when to be
observed was to ruin his chances of usefulness In his
' retirement to his friends in Staffordshire, Nottingham-
1 Vis. Reg. pp. 204, 218.
198 PERIOD OF THE COMMONWEALTH. [CHAP.
shire and Derbyshire he was constantly transmitting moneys
to the exiled King from his own purse and from others
which he made use of 1 / In Gary's 'Memorials of the
Civil War 2 ' will be found many indications of the assistance
he rendered to the distressed members of his party, such
as Bishop Wren, and of the respect paid to his opinion
by the chief dignitaries of the Church, many of whom
beg him to resolve their doubts on matters affecting
politics and religion. By the following letters to him from
Jeremy Taylor, in return for pecuniary help and literary
assistance, we may trace his generous hand and judicious
spirit.
Between these two good men there had been, it is sup-
posed, some coolness at All Souls, occasioned, as Bishop
Heber conjectures, by Sheldon's opposition to Laud's ap-
pointment of Taylor to the Fellowship 3 ; and he gives as
the reason for his suppositions, some expressions in a letter
from Taylor which he published 4 . This may be so ; but
the discovery of another letter from Taylor to Sheldon, of
a date earlier by some years 5 , seems to remove the cause
of disagreement, whatever it was, to a later period ; and on
the whole it seems probable that Heber's guess is wrong.
We give this second letter, which has not yet been printed,
first.
' Sir, I received your most affectionate and charitable letter
and acquittance, and am satisfied because you are pleased to be
so, resolving to take up the remaining portion of the debt at
the great Audit and accounts of charity ; but, Sir, though (as
I have reason for it) I am highly sensible of this great
favour, yet I do more value it that you are pleased to give
me a portion in your prayers. Sir, I have now sent to
the press, but first to my Lord Bishop of Salisbury ' [Brian
Duppa] ' to be perused, a discourse of the Real Presence
1 Wood. 2 e. g. vol. i. pp. 332, 4, 5, 6.
3 Heber's Life of Taylor, p. xix. 4 Ibid. p. xlix.
6 Tanner MSS. vol. 52. fol. 7.
XL] SHELDON AND JEREMY TAYLOR. 199
occasioned by my conference with a Jesuit in these parts.
It hath passed all the Welch censure I could well obtain for
it, and I have put so much care and industry upon the
question as I could. Its greatest infelicity is it cannot find
your leisure and opportunity to peruse, but when it is out
I am confident it will find your charity, because I know
your charity to me hath a great part in your censures con-
cerning- me and mine. Dear Sir, I am with the deepest
resentments of the world and for the greatest reasons, your
most obliged and most affectionate friend and hearty servant
JEREMY TAYLOR. April n, 1653.
' To my worthiest friend Dr. Gilbert Sheldon present these
with speed/
The other letter, printed by Heber, is of the end of the
year 1655, and is as follows;
' Dear Sir, I received yours dated November 5, in which
I find a continued and enlarged expression of that kindness
with w r hich you have always assisted my condition and pro-
moted my interest. Two debts you are pleased to forgive me;
one of money, the other of unkindness. I thank you for
both ; but this latter debt was contracted when I understood
not you, and less understood myself ; but I dare say there was
nothing in it but folly and imprudence. But I will not do it
so much favour as to excuse it. If it was displeasing to you
then, it is much more to mee now that I know of it.' He goes
on to thank him ' for the prudent and friendly advice you were
pleased to give me in your other letter relating to my great
undertaking in " Cases of Conscience." ... I will strictly
observe your caution. Sir, though it hath always been my
fortune to be an obliged person to you, and I now have less
hope than ever of being free from the great variety of your
endearments, yet I beg of you to add this favour ; to think
that I am all that to you which you can wish, save only
that I cannot express how much I love and how much I
honour you.'
Putting these two letters together it would certainly
appear that the ' unkindness ' for which Taylor reproaches
himself in the second letter must have occurred since the
first was written. Such a ' debt ' could hardly have been
running on after the ' affectionate and charitable letter and
200 PERIOD OF THE COMMONWEALTH. [CHAP.
acquittance ' received from Sheldon long before. There must
have been some temporary estrangement between 1653 and
1655? occasioned perhaps by pecuniary difficulties. The
first letter does indeed refer to ' charitable censures of me
and mine ; ' but this does not look like the days of All
Souls so long passed away, the period of Taylor's bachelor
life.
One further notice of Sheldon will conclude what we have
to say of him before the Restoration. It is in connection with
the return of Charles the Second, in which he was taking, as
might be expected, an active part. In a letter to a nobleman,
preserved by Clarendon, he begs his friend to convey to Lord
Clarendon the concern he feels at the reports which reach him
from Charles's Court. It is within a few days of the happy
event which had all but come at last, yet so suddenly and
unexpectedly. He hears that ' the King doth give places to
every one almost that is recommended to him, whether they
deserve it or no, some of which places, they say, were given
to others before 1 .' It would have been well for England had
this friendly warning received attention.
A distinguished Fellow of All Souls must here be men-
tioned who had done what he could to stem the tide of
revolution in his own way, was expelled in 1648 without any
ceremony, and lived to become a knight and Master of
Requests in the days of the Restoration. Sir John Birken-
head, who had been Reader in Moral Philosophy at Oxford,
must be considered one of the earliest newspaper writers, or
at any rate a precursor of such. He wrote with great wit
and spirit Mercurius Aulicus as early as 1642, a paper which
appeared from time to time in the Royalist cause : Heylin
conducted the paper at a later date, but in inferior style.
After the Restoration ' the Loyal Poet ' was well known as
an active pamphleteer. The College sent forth also another
1 Clarendon State Papers, iii. 736.
XL] BIRKENHEAD AND NEEDHAM. 201
notorious writer in this age, but his character, making all
allowance for Wood's prejudices, does not stand high. March-
mont Needham was an All Souls Master of Arts, having been
a Chorister, but not a Fellow. He developed great talent in
ephemeral literature, changing sides however with the most
unblushing readiness. This was not held to be pardonable
by his contemporaries ; for opinions were matters of life and
death in that age, and secrets fell into the possession of men
who in changing sides too often became traitors. Wood
calls him ' that most seditious, mutable and railing author.'
Aubrey *, however, in a letter to Wood pronounces Mercurius
Pragmaticus to be ' full of wit and good remarques of those
days ; ' and Thorpe 2 tells Wood that Needham ' obtained a
pardon after the Restoration, and practised physic in London
the last years of his life with some reputation/
We now return to the government of the University, and
especially of All Souls, by the new Visitors. They set out
with all the zeal of root-and-branch reformers, and they
effected much, if not all they intended. They had a very
serious task before them, even with the example of Cambridge
for their guidance, that University having long been reduced
to the new model ; but their difficulties were increased by the
dissensions which rapidly sprang up between themselves and
the London ' Committee for Reformation of the University.'
Both claimed, amongst other things, the appointment to
Fellowships ; and All Souls, us usual, seems to have supplied
the main bone of contention. The London Committee in-
cluded certain Independents within its body, and these of
course hated the Presbyterian Visitors as much as they did
the Church. Long before the -end, affairs had been almost
brought to a dead lock.
We must by no means follow Wood in his bitter deprecia-
tion of the work done by these authorities. He of course gives
1 Wood's MS. Letters, Bodl. Lib. 2 Ibid.
202 PERIOD OF THE COMMONWEALTH. [CHAP.
them no quarter. He scoffs at their efforts to introduce order
among the motley group of new Fellows, which he calls a
' reform of reformation,' and at their plan, when they began
to allow elections, of requiring a testimonial of ' godliness and
integrity' to be submitted to themselves beforehand. But
the records of All Souls enable us to say a good deal in their
favour ; and at this distance of time we can make allowance
for a line of general disciplinary conduct which was and is
foreign to the ancient customs of the Church and the Uni-
versity. The Puritan authorities were forced to use such
weapons as were familiar to them ; and, as to the practical
result, there is something in Neal's remark that Clarendon has
himself supplied an answer to detractors when he dilates on
the fund of recuperative power possessed by the Universities,
as shewn by the way in which religion and learning still per-
tinaciously flourished there in spite of the ejection of all the
best elements of their life. It is also true that many who
afterwards became the most distinguished ornaments of the
Church received their first training during this period. We
will give a specimen or two of the methods of the Visitors
before we trace the gradual process of their failure and the
dissolution of their authority.
As far as the general Orders addressed to the University are
concerned it is scarcely possible to conceive anything more
stringent than the following :
' July 20, 1649. Wee hereby require the severall Heads
and Governors of Colledges and Halls in this Universitie of
Oxon that they cause either the Greeke or Latine to be
strictly and constantly exercised and spoken in their familiar
discourse within the said severall Colledges and Halls respec-
tively ; and that no other language be spoken by any fellow,
scholar or student whatsoever, and to cause this order to be
performed and executed from time to time.'
The reason for this order is then given as follows :
' The complaint made by divers learned men of the defect
XL] THE PARLIAMENTARY VISITORS. 203
that English scholars labor under both in their primale and
home exercises and in their publique discourses with fforagners
by their speaking English in their several Colledges and
Halls 1 .'
This order, as might be expected, has to be repeated
more than once. Again, stringent orders are to be found
in the Register requiring ' all Masters of Arts and Bachelors
to be present at all religious exercises, and in particular
the Prayers Morning and Evening in them ' [i. e. the
Directory] ' observed and appointed 2 .' Also at the weekly
catechizing in every College and Hall on Saturdays between
five and six in the afternoon, to be performed by the Head
of the House, ' all Undergraduates are to attend, in the
place appointed, to be instructed 3 / These gentlemen are
also to give an account of the sermons they had heard 4 ;
an order which Wood says ' was obeyed by all Colleges
except one or two ; Oriel, I think, did not obey this order 5 .'
' The whirligig of time has brought about its revenges ; '
Oriel alone of all Oxford Colleges was distinguished by the
observance of this custom in modern times.
To come to the communications especially addressed to
All Souls; the letters of the Visitors in 1650 and 1651
may be abstracted thus. On June 15 of the former year
the Visitors are informed that there is a 'great neglect of
repairing unto and attending the Worship of God in the
Chapel of All Souls;' and they order the Subwarden, the
Warden being absent on attendance in Parliament, to look
to it. They also complain that the proper scholastic exer-
cises are not performed, and that neglect is excused on the
ground of the Warden's absence. Therefore, the College
being so much out of order they decide that the Fellows
are not fit to elect in the statutable way, and announce
1 Vis. Keg. p. 265. 2 Ibid. p. 442. 3 Ibid. p. 462.
* Ibid. pp. 395, 437. 5 Annals, p. 654.
204 PERIOD OF THE COMMONWEALTH. [CHAP.
that they shall put in all the Fellows themselves as vacan-
cies arise and assign them their College offices. This they
accordingly proceed to do on several occasions ; a method
of government not promising for the future. With a
non-resident Warden and a new body of Fellows it may
have seemed necessary; but it was not wise. The tradi-
tions of self-government spoke from the very walls. Old
Martin Aylworth and his colleagues of the old regime did
not mean exactly this when they brought their consciences
into a fit frame for submitting to the Parliamentary Visi-
tation.
Hence an opposition on the part of the College which
found various channels for expression. The Warden him-
self did not admire being reckoned as nobody. His sym-
pathies were with the London Committee for Reformation,
and not with the Visitors ; and he was a friend of Oliver
Cromwell. When released from his Parliamentary duties,
and able to attend to his Oxford office, he becomes the
spokesman of a sub-delegacy which was appointed by the
malcontent portion of the reformed University for the
purpose of limiting the power of the Visitors. This was in
1654. Wood tells us that he 'laid open the matter ex-
cellently well ;' and the remonstrance had a considerable
effect ; for the Visitors were already divided among them-
selves as well as opposed from London.
As early as 1650 the London Committee express their own
particular dissatisfaction with the proceedings of the Fellows
of the College. When requiring an account of the circum-
stances under which ' Mr. Coventrie,' the future Secretary of
State, retained his Fellowship though a ' delinquent' (and a
'delinquent' of the blackest hue, for he had been absent
on the King's service nine years), the College replied that it
'can give no account thereof in regard the Colledge books
wherein leave for absence is entered cannot be found.'
Here we may note that the regular ' Colledge book ' for
XL] QUARRELS BETWEEN REFORMERS. 205
such entries was very conveniently absent at this moment,
inasmuch as there are entries in it all through the period
of the Commonwealth; but perhaps the reference is to
some other book then existing-. The Visitors make short
work of this matter, and the name of the delinquent is
forthwith erased 1 . One extract from this book, of 1650,
may find a place here in reference to the state of the
College affairs. A tenant, Dr. Steed, has ' an easy fine by
reason of his extraordinary respect shewed to the College
these troublous times in paying all his rents fully and
well without any deduction for taxes, and some rents
twice both to the Parliament and also to the Collee-e/
O
One can hardly imagine that such model tenants were
numerous.
So far both Parliamentary authorities were agreed as
against the College. But soon afterwards most unpleasant
letters pass between them with reference to the question
of filling up Dr. Wainwright's vacancy, when his name,
like Coventry's, is erased from the College books. The
Committee, not choosing that all the patronage should be
dispensed from Oxford, put in their own man, Brice ;
while the Visitors, who did not take the same view of
the case, asserting that the London body was only a Com-
mittee of Appeal-, put in a certain Osbourne. The Visitors,
however, soon discover where might lay, if not right, and
propose a happy expedient. They are ' credibly informed
by some members ' of the College that Mr. Germy, a
Fellow of their own appointment, is married, ' and the
gentleman is so ingeniouse as that hee will not deny it;'
and for his place they propose Mr. Brice, an arrangement
which produces harmony at last. The London Committee
did not care much how it was d6ne so long as their
nominee got a place. Wood has not shewn here quite all
1 Vis. Keg. pp. 313, 329. 2 Ibid. p. 340.
206 PERIOD OF THE COMMONWEALTH. [CHAP.
his usual care in placing the name of 'Taylor' in brackets
after that of the above ' Germy.' He misread the word
for ' Jeremy,' and concluded it was the celebrated divine ;
whereas Taylor had vacated his Fellowship many years
previously to the Visitatorial sera, and Germy's appointment
had occurred not long before this domestic struggle between
the reformers.
Once more we find the history of Oxford, and of All Souls
as one of its Colleges, faithfully reflecting that of England
in the change which took place as to the election of Fellows
in 1653. The Bump Parliament had been at last dissolved,
and with it expired the Commission of the Visitors. Their
Register ceases for several weeks. It opens again with a
fresh Commission from ' Lord General Cromwell ; ' and one
important change is now observable, which we may certainly
connect with the rapid elevation of the extraordinary man
who was about immediately to become ' Protector,' and who
would, so soon after that, have gladly accepted the title of
King if he could have found any support amongst his friends.
He had now triumphed over all his enemies, domestic and
foreign. The victory of his arms over the Dutch had raised
his fame to the highest pitch. As Chancellor of the Uni-
versity, guided in all probability by his friend Palmer, he
would now trust those bodies as Kings had trusted them.
The Colleges should elect their own Fellows under certain
conditions which might afford a sufficient protection against
abuse.
Wadham receives the first permission of this sort. All
Souls' Day is close at hand ; on that day a free election takes
place once more after an interval of seven years, and amongst
the first batch elected at All Souls was, as we have seen,
Christopher Wren. On that very day an order is issued that
' no scholar be eligible or admittible into any place of a Pro-
bationer, Fellow or Chaplain, without a Testimonial from
four persons known to the Visitors of approved godliness and
xi.] WREN'S ELECTION. 207
integrity, provided they be not electors/ The candidate is
himself to be certified as c truly godly, studious, and for his
standing in the University of good proficiency in learning.'
On the same day appears an order granting permission to
Wren and three other candidates to stand, and it must
have been drawn up with haste to save the election on All
Souls' Day ; for some informality in this the first use of the
new form has occurred which is condoned with alacrity by
the Visitors. Against the name of Wren are marked, in
the All Souls book, the words, ' Professor of Astronomy/
'Wilts/ the post he soon came to occupy, the county of
his birth. The exclusive reign of the intruders, unmarked
(in the Records of the College) by any distinction, is at
an end.
A point of some slight interest occurs in this election of
Wren, which is only worth notice because everything con-
cerning so great a man is important, and because it finds
no place in his biographies, which do indeed, as a matter
of fact, scarcely bestow any attention whatever on that
eight years' intimate connection with All Souls, as Fellow,
of which the College is justly proud. As we cannot supply
much, let us make the most of that little. As regards the
interior history of the College the point was by no means
of small importance.
In a letter from Warden Jeames to Archbishop Sancroffc
in 1 68 1 l occurs the following passage :
' I am told by Dr. Wallis that in the times of usurpation
whilst I was turned out and banished from the College there
was one Mr. Heron of Wadham College chose by a majority
into Dr. Greaves his place, but Sir Christopher Wren was chose
by Dr. Palmer, the then Warden, and confirmed by the
power that then was, there being no Archbishop ; J and he
goes on to state that ' Heron by a surprisal got a Mandamus
and forced the Warden with it, but there being an error in
1 Tanner MSS. vol. 340.
208 PERIOD OF THE COMMONWEALTH. [CHAP.
it ... it was nulled, and he could never get out another
Mandamus.'
He died soon afterwards. This exercise of the Warden's
power of Veto in refusing- the nominee of the Fellows and
obtaining the Fellowship for his own nominee by means of
a devolution to the Visitors, was much quoted in the subse-
quent College controversies, and a Case founded upon it
was laid before the celebrated Maynard. This was his
Opinion :
' (i) I conceive that there can be no election without the
Warden's assent to the elected, as appears by the words "per
ipsum et majorem partem Sociorum," &c. So y* he must be
assenting, and after y 6 scrutiny of y e major part of the
Fellows, " ipse assumat," &c. (2) I conceive the Statutes
work nothing in the case.' . . .
' MAYNARD.'
What was the cause of Heron's being preferred to Wren ?
It could hardly be that ' corrupt elections' had already begun,
though we shall see that in two or three years the Fellows
of the Puritan school had learnt the old lesson with sur-
prising quickness. Perhaps the name of such a Royalist
family as Wren's was anything but popular with the Fellows.
It is much to Palmer's credit that he should have perceived
the extraordinary merit of the rising genius, and, if the in-
fluences which rejected him were ' corrupt/ to the credit of
the Visitors that they should have confirmed his choice.
Wren in his old age (in 1710) was requested to give infor-
mation on this subject. Sixty-seven years had passed since
his election, and he had quite forgotten that he came in by
the exercise of the Warden's Veto. Against conclusive evi-
dence from numerous other quarters he asserted his belief
that ' the Warden never claimed a negative vote in elections,
but that they were always concluded and determined by a
majority of Fellows.'
The struggle between the College and the Visitors soon
XL] PURITAN FELLOWS CORRUPT. 209
recommences. Even in August, 1654, the latter body
exercise a power which was justifiable under the old Statutes,
but which it would have been discreet, so very soon after
liberty of election had been granted, to have waived. They
discover that the place of Colonel Zanchy was ' voyd at the
time of the last election,' and that it was ' not filled up within
the time limited in the Statutes.' Accordingly, instead of
waiting till next All Souls' Day, they appoint one Robert
King into his place. This was of itself enough to set the
College on the track of opposition. It was not trusted.
In 1657 we find the Visitors exercising the ancient function
of the regular Visitor of the College in appointing to offices
which had not been filled up. The storm now burst ; and a
regular war begins. As far as we can judge by hearing only
one side, the College had given just cause of complaint.
The old system of corruption is alleged to have reappeared
under the new regime as soon as ever the old privileges were
regranted. As the Visitors remark, there was no want of
tutors, even though there was but a little of the old leaven
left. The Puritans in short are accused of exactly the same
offence as the Cavaliers ; nor will this surprise us when we
reflect on the state of affairs in 1657, and observe how much
reason there was why the intruded Fellows should scent the
possibility of a change of wind. They might naturally prefer
some equivalent for a voluntary resignation to no equivalent
at all for one which they saw might very soon be compulsory.
All Souls is not the only, though apparently the chief
offender. It was determined to put a stop to the whole thing
in a summary manner.
On April 23, 1657, was published a most stringent code
of regulations for elections in all Colleges ; and at the same
time a special set for the benefit of New College and All
Souls. These last were as minute and apparently as difficult
to evade as those of any former Visitor : they seem to have
been just as resolutely and successfully evaded. At the very
210 PERIOD OF THE COMMONWEALTH. [CHAP.
next election the Visitors are informed of the infraction of
their code, ' forbid the Warden and Fellows from any further
procedure whatsoever in reference to the said election/ and
enter the following statement of the case J , which we must
give in spite of its length:
' (i) The Colledg of Alsoules in Oxon hath for a long
season to the dishonor of the University suffered under a
common reputation of corruption in the buying and selling
of ffellowships. (2) Besides the notoriety of sundry particular
instances, the constant custome and practice of resignations
so ordered that ordinarily none so much as standeth for a
ffellowship (unlesse there happen to be a dead place) who
hath not the benefit of a resignation from some that leave
the society ; and the perpetual choice of them who have
such Resignations doth confirme that reputation, the Resigna-
tion being not made before the evening next before the
Election, whereby none know what places will be voyd. (3)
The major part of if ell owes having an intrest in keeping
up this corruption agreeing together still to chuse him or
them who have obtayned Resignations, expecting the same
compliance from others when they come by any means to
leave the Colledge, it is not possible for the Warden and
the rest of the ffellows that desire reformation to prevent
this corrupt practice ; things being carried amongst them
by a plurality of suffrages. (4) Some of the leaders in and
chief contenders for this way of procedure are some ffellows
that were for the non-submission to the Reformation formerly
divested of all power of giving their suffrage in any Colledg
affairs. (5) Wee shall not neede to say what unmeete persons
are brought in to that society by this means ; the maine dore
of their entrance being only the obtayning the assistance
of the Resigners. (6) To prevent this abuse, Orders and
Injunctions have been made by the Visitors, locall and
extraordinary in severall seasons, with the prescription of
oaths to that purpose, which yet have had no other effect
(because of the severall meanes of bargaining invented to
evade them) than, as wee feare, to add perjury to the other
abuse and corruptions. (7) Not long after the election in
the year 1656 it pleased God to load and trouble the
conscience of one Mr. Egerton who was then chosen into the
Colledg ; among other things this added to his perplexity
1 Vis. Reg. p. 456.
XL] VISITORS REPORT TO CROMWELL. 211
that according to the custom hee had given here 150" for
the Resignation whereby he obtayned his ^fellowship. The
Lord persuing his worke of grace upon his heart, he makes
acknowledgment of that corruption, and resigns his ffellow-
ship unto the Colledg, as that which he could not hould
upon that {foundation after hee had borne an open testimony
against that wicked practice, and other abuses against some
of the ffellows of that society. (8) Notwithstanding this
testimony from heaven against that corrupt practice and
bringing to light by the hand of God, the ffellowes this
present yeare proceed to a new Election in the same way
as formerly ; and in all probability with the same corruption.
And whereas the Warden with some of the godly and honest
ffellowes agreed that they would chuse Mr. Egerton now
againe that he might come in on a cleare accompt, seeing he
was likely to be an eminently useful member of that society,
not only the major part did refuse him, but also the Sub-
warden of the Colledg made a speech publiquely at the
Election against him, desiring the Warden to take some
course to proceed against him to convict him as one that
had brought a scandall on the Colledg. (9) Whereas there
were Injunctions and Orders sent unto them by the Visitors
drawn up with the advise of most of the Heades of Houses
and others in the University, and afterwards confirmed by
the Visitors for the preventing this scandalous corruption,
they wholly laid them aside, not once taking them into
consideration.'
Next follows a formal avoidance of the election, and then,
on November 16, the following letter to Cromwell :
' Wee your Highnesse Visitors of the University of Oxon
having had occasion to consider and determine a businesse of
great importance to the Reformation of this place in reference
to a late Election of ffellows at AllSouls College, have made
bould humbly to represent unto your Highnesse in these
papers the whole affaire with our procedure thereon, and the
reasons thereof; humbly craving your Highnesse further con-
firmation of our Orders if in your wisdome you shall judg it
meete so to doe.
' Your Highnesse humble and faithful servants,
Jo. CONANT. THO. GOODWIN.
CHRISTOPH. ROGERS. ROB. HARRIS.
HEN. WILKINSON. TH. OWEN.
FRAN. HOWELL. JA. BARON.'
212 PERIOD OF THE COMMONWEALTH. [CHAP.
One remark may interrupt our narrative. Egerton's name
does not appear on the list of Fellows. It must have been,
cancelled by the College on his resignation.
To the above letter Cromwell and his Council replied on
November 27, 1657 :
' Gentlemen, His Highnesse and the Councill have taken
consideration of the papers presented from you with your
letter to his Highnesse, wherein you give an account of some
proceedings of yours as Visitors of that Universitie, and doe
take notice of your great care and diligence therein, and like-
wise recommend unto you the prosecution of that businesse in
discharge of your trust according to the powers given by the
ordinance of his Highnesse and the Councell, and since con-
firmed by Parliament, to doe therein as may most conduce to
the Reformation of the said Universitie in generall, and in
particular of AlSoules colledg ; wherein you may be well
assured of all due encouragement and countenance from his
Highnesse and the Councell.
' Signed in the name and by order of his Highnesse and
the Councell.
' HEN. LAWRENCE, Preset.'
Other Orders of the Visitors follow, confirming the pre-
vious avoidance of the election, after a summons to the
rejected Fellows to appear, which they ignore. An Appeal is
then made by these gentlemen to Cromwell himself, who
refers it to ' the Lord Richard Cromwell, Chancellor of the
said University, and to the Lord Fiennes, Lord Commissioner
of the Great Seale, to be reported to his Highnesse ; ' and the
Visitors fire their last shot in the following words :
' Whereas the Statutes of your Colledg are to be produced
in the said businesse, wee doe therefore hereby require you to
deliver the same to our messenger to be carried up to London
on the occasion. Feb. ai, 165!-.'
Here the Register most significantly comes to a dead stop.
With the exception of two merely formal orders concerning
another College, these are the last words of the Visitors.
It was high time. The end was at hand. At the be-
XL] CROMWELL AND ALL SOULS. 213
ginning of this very month ' his Highnesse ' had dissolved his
fourth Parliament in blind, hopeless wrath. An invasion was
impending ; his troops were without pay ; Ormond was in
London organising a revolt. The tough spirit of the great
Protector was breaking under the dread of assassination with
which he was now openly threatened. In a few months more
he had passed away. It is not surprising that the Visitors
of Oxford University pass away also a little before him,
leaving ' the Reform of the Reformation ' to other hands.
It may be a question whether the alleged obstinate adherence
of All Souls to its custom of corrupt elections, which thus,
as far as we know, flitted across the soul of Cromwell as
his last trouble from Oxford, forms any great matter for
complacent reflection; but it is at least a curious fact,
worth stating. It is scarcely necessary to add that we hear
no more of the Appeal. In justice to the members of the
College we must again repeat that we ought to remember
that we have not heard their case.
Before the next scene opens at All Souls we find the stage
cleared in a very complete manner. The Pseudo-Gustos sur-
vives the mighty Protector but a short time. We are left to
our imagination as to the hopes and fears, the struggles and
precautions which no doubt agitated him and his Society
during the anxious interval which preceded the Restoration ;
but he, like so many actors in convulsive periods, was pre-
maturely worn out. He lived just long enough to experience
the vicissitudes of fortune. On February 15, i6|-, affairs had
advanced very far towards a solution of the difficulties which
beset the nation. On that day there was ' great rejoycing in
Oxford for the news that then was brought that there should
be a free Parliament. The bells rang and bonfiers were made,
and some rumps and tayles of sheep were flung into a bonfier
at Queen's College gate.' Palmer lay a-dying in his lodgings
at All Souls hard by. He had been a member of the Rump
Parliament, and was therefore specially obnoxious to the
214 PERIOD OF THE COMMONWEALTH.
heedless mob. They did not forbear to throw into his win-
dows the vulgar symbols of the Government under which
they had so long groaned 1 . A very few days later he
breathed his last (March 4). With him we close the troubled
period of the Commonwealth.
1 Wood's Life.
CHAPTER XII.
^11 Souls at % $Ustoraii0tt.
1660- 1667.
The Kestoration ; how felt at Oxford and All Souls Sheldon
as Bishop of London Duppa's letter to him Recovery of
the Vow of Charles the First Effects on Charles the Second
Sheldon as Primate Death of Duppa ; and of Jeremy
Taylor Sheldonian Theatre Account of Wren First
' restoration ' of the College Chapel.
THE graphic account given by Clarendon of the circum-
stances attending the Restoration forms the chief basis of
our general knowledge respecting the exuberant rejoicings of
the people of England on that occasion. Historians do little
more than quote the eloquent passages of the narrative of one
who was also a chief actor in that famous scene. With him
we accompany the long-exiled Prince to Dover ; with him we
join the joyous Thanksgiving Service at Canterbury Cathedral,
with him we find the road from Rochester to London ' so full
of people and acclamations as if the whole people had been
gathered there ; ' with him we join the procession from the
Tower, so long that it extends into Cheapside, and witness the
two Houses of Parliament on their knees, ' casting themselves
at the King's feet with all vows of affection and fidelity to the
world's end : ' with him we hear the witty monarch ' say
216 ALL SOULS AT THE RESTORATION. [CHAP.
smilingly to those about him " he doubted it had been his
own fault he had been absent so long- ; for he saw nobody who
did not protest he had ever wished for his return." ' But the
quaint notice given by Wood of the change of affairs at
Oxford, of which he was an enthusiastic eye-witness, is not
so generally known, and it may introduce us to the new
state of affairs at All Souls :
"The scene of all things is now changed, and alteration
made in the countenances, actions, manners, and words of
all men. Those that for these twelve years last past had
governed and carried all things in a manner at their pleasure
looked discontented, plucked their hats over their eyes, and
were much perplexed, foreseeing that their being here must
inevitably vanish. Those that had laid under a cloud for
several years behind appear with cheerful looks, while others
that had then flourished drooped away or withdrew them-
selves privately. . . . The common people hugged themselves
up with the thoughts of a King, and of renewing their good
old cause, enjoy their sports, especially May games, more this
year than hath been since, chiefly in opposition to Presby-
terians and Fanatics, who had shewed great anger before
towards them. . . . The Common Prayer-book and Surplice
were restored in every Church and Chapel, and the Service
that had been lately practised, viz., a Psalm or two, two
Chapters, and a Prayer of the priest's own making, with a
little more, laid aside. All tokens of monarchy that were
lately defaced or obscured in the University were also re-
stored or new furbished over, and whatsoever was as yet fit
to be introduced many did not spare to effect, and some to
outrun and overdo the law before the King and Parliament
had commanded or put it in force V
That greater moderation was shewn in the resettlement
of the University than is sometimes supposed may be gathered
from the fact that eight at least of the new Commissioners
were men who had submitted to the Parliamentary Visitation,
and held places of authority during the Commonwealth. Of
these Baldwin, a Fellow of All Souls, was one. Of those
1 Wood's Annals, vol. ii. Part ii. sub an. 1660.
xii.] EFFECTS OF THE CHANGE. 217
members of the University who had been put into Fellow-
ships and other places by the late Visitors, none were
expelled beyond that small proportion whose room was re-
quired for those that remained of the old ejected Royalists.
'These that they restored, whether Fellows, Scholars,
servants, &c., did not amount to the sixth part of those
ejected [in] 1648 and after; they being either dead, or
married, or had changed their religion 1 .'
Of those ejected in their turn at the Restoration some, who
were not ' factious and unfit to make Collegiates/ had pro-
vision made for them, if they would accept it, as Chaplains
and Clerks. At All Souls a large proportion kept their
places ; to which a reference is made in a letter from Charles
the Second to the College, as will be hereafter noticed 2 .
Such violent flux and reflux could not, however, but be
most prejudicial for a time to the real work of the University.
It was a year at least before it settled down.
' The Scholars were not only like them that dream, but like
them who are out of their wits, mad, stark staring mad. To
study was fanaticism ; to be moderate was downright rebellion.
And thus it continued for a twelvemonth ; and thus it would
have continued till this time if it had not pleased God to raise
up some Vice-Chancellors who stemmed the torrent ; . . and
from that time the University became sober, modest, and
studious as perhaps any University in Europe 3 .'
This is on the whole a correct statement. The fountains
of thought had been set free ; and though we do not observe
the full fruits of the changes which were taking place till
the period of the Revolution, there are many indications of
the excellent work done at the Universities during the reign
of Charles the Second. While Theology was earnestly
1 Wood's Annals, sub an. 1660. 2 See p. 243.
3 The Guardian's Instructor, 1688; by Stephen Penton, Prin-
cipal of St. Edmund Hall ; quoted by Wood, sub an. 1660.
218 ALL SO ULS A T THE RESTORA TION. [CHAP.
studied, Literature and the Arts were already advancing
side by side with the progress of the French under Louis
Quatorze. In Physical Science under the Royal Society, in
Architecture under Wren, and, soon after, in Mathematics
under Newton, England was about to take the foremost place
in the civilised world. Oxford as usual palpitates with the
political and religious struggles which ended in the Revo-
lution ; but able and industrious men gradually raised the
standard of education to as high a pitch as perhaps it has
ever attained. A religious spirit still pervaded the Uni-
versities; and those men who were raised up to leaven the
sceptical society of a later date were under training at both
of them. No doubt a broad vein of license ran through the
University stratum at this period. The manners of the age
could not but infect Oxford ; but it may be doubted whether
there was more to complain of than in the generations pre-
ceding and succeeding it. At any rate, when Neal 1 makes
the sweeping statement that ' there was a general licentious-
ness of manners among the students,' he adduces no other
proof than the speeches of the ' orators and terrae filii } which
were always much the same as at this time, and the ' sermons
and satires against the Nonconformists/ All Souls certainly
had its fair share of dissipated youths, as we shall see.
If the University of Oxford was happy in its Vice-Chan-
cellors, and, we ought to add, its Chancellors, Clarendon,
Sheldon, and Ormond, All Souls was fortunate in its Wardens.
Sheldon himself only resumed his rightful position in name.
Palmer's vacancy was kept open during the few weeks of
suspense before the return of Charles, and immediately on
that event it was filled as a matter of course by the old
Warden ; but he did not reside, as he was called on at once
to assist Clarendon and Charles in the resettlement of the
nation. Kennett, in his ' Register 2 ,' is wrong in supposing
1 ii. 669. 2 Sub anno 1660.
XIL] SHELDON'S TASK. 219
that Sheldon was not repossessed of his old place till the
death of Dr. Meredith. On the contrary, having resumed,
as we have said, he resigned to Meredith in the following-
January ; Meredith was succeeded by Jeames, not by Sheldon.
We shall speak of Meredith's short wardenship in its place.
It was distinguished in its way ; but we shall find reasons
for placing Warden Jeames in one of the very first places
among those who have governed the College since its
foundation.
We must turn aside from the College for a moment to
follow the career of its restored Warden. Of those three
friends of the days of Great Tew, whose identity of political
conduct we traced in 1640 and 1642, Falkland had long gone
to his account, early wearied of the strife, and longing for
the death which he speedily found. Hyde and Sheldon had
been reserved for the thankless but glorious task of re-
organising the government of Church and State. No
Ministers in the whole course of English history have ever
had a more difficult or delicate task to perform, whether we
regard the Sovereign they served, the courtiers with whom
they had to contend, the variety and balance of the interests
they had to reconcile, the changes with which the new gene-
ration found itself confronted, or the promises and conditions
with which the crisis of the Restoration had hampered the
facile Prince. Obscured by party spirit, now nearly as much
as ever, few parts of our history are less understood. Every
ray of light may be of use.
If this language is thought too strong, let us confirm it
by a remark made by Speaker Onslow, endorsing the opinion
of Bishop Gibson no mean judges as to one particular
incident in this reorganisation, the official relations of the
clergy with the State, both as regards Convocation, and as
to the franchise. After stating that the suppression of the
Convocation of the clergy as a self-taxing body, and the
vote given them, by way of compensation, for Members of
220 ALL SOULS AT THE RESTORATION. [CHAP.
Parliament, were both simply settled by the tacit agreement
of Hyde and Sheldon, Onslow tells us that ' Gibson, Bishop
of London, said to me that this was the greatest alteration
in the Constitution ever made without an express law 1 .'
We may have our own opinions on the policy of the Savoy
Conference and of St. Bartholomew's Day, with both which
measures Sheldon was so deeply concerned; these are
matters bristling with complicated details into which we
cannot now enter ; but we are at least bound to remember
that Sheldon and his friend represented the will of the vast
majority of the nation ; that they understood at that time
the character of the slippery monarch as the people generally
only came to understand it many years afterwards ; that the
most ' liberal ' statesmen found it necessary to support their
policy of Religious Disabilities for many generations ; and
above all that it is the first requisite for historical judgment
that we fully measure the difference of view produced by
the lapse of ages.
After the restoration of Charles to the throne of his ances-
tors we are struck by the length of time which elapsed before
he took the affairs of the Church in hand, the Church which
had been smitten in his cause, and for which his father suf-
fered what some at least consider martyrdom. One would
have thought his very first measure would be to fill the vacant
Sees. Surrounded by men who were indifferent or secretly hos-
tile to the Church, and by representatives of the sects which
had so lately triumphed over it, and which yet had borne a
part far less than they claimed ! in the Restoration, Charles
put off the evil day, and turned a deaf ear to the counsellors
whom nevertheless he knew very well he must follow in the
end. What brought him to act at last ?
There seems good reason to believe that the following letter
from Bishop Duppa, to which we have already referred 2 , sup-
1 Note in Burnet's Own Time, i. 321, and iv. 508.
2 See p. 1 80.
xii.] DUPPA'S LETTER ON THE VOW. 221
plies the clue. We noticed it in speaking of the late King's
Vow, and will now explain its significance. It is dated
August ii (1660), and is addressed 'For the Dean of His
Majesty's Chapel.' This appointment was conferred on Shel-
don by Charles the Second when they met at Canterbury,
no doubt at the instigation of Hyde, who knew the im-
portance of having him near at hand. The aged Bishop
of Salisbury, after lamenting his own inability to do much
service at the crisis, and expressing his profound anxiety as
to the state of affairs, tells Sheldon :
' You are the only person about His Majesty that I have
confidence in, and I persuade myself that as none hath his
ear more, so none is likely to prevail on his heart more, and
there was never more need of it ; for all the professed enemies
of our Church look upon this as the critical time to use their
dernier resort to shake His Majesty's constancy. But I hope
by this time you have recovered those buried papers which
can't but have a powerful influence upon so dutiful a soul as
his. I shall wait upon you so soon as I hear that my coming
may be any way useful. In the mean time I am the more at
ease because I know you stand ready upon the place to lay
hold upon all opportunities, and are diligently upon your
watch ne ecclesia aliquid detriment* capiat. For which and for
all your kindness to me in particular I am your most affec-
tionate friend, BR. SARUM V
There cannot be much doubt that the Vow which has been
already given is the buried paper to which Duppa refers.
Ten days after the date of the above letter, on ' August 2ist,
1660,' Sheldon witnesses the copy of the Vow 'preserv'd
thirteene years under ground by mee.' He had just recovered
it at Duppa's suggestion. What took place between the King
and the Dean of the Chapel Royal we know not ; but within
a fortnight after Sheldon had affixed his signature to the
recovered paper Charles at last commences the process of
filling up the vacant bishoprics. On September 3 the conge
1 Tanner MSS. vol. 49. fol. 17.
222 ALL SOULS AT THE RESTORATION. [CHAP,
d'elire is issued for the venerable Juxon, whose age and
infirmities prevented his being practically useful, but who
could not be passed over for the Primacy ; on September 10
Duppa is translated to Winchester ; and on September 28
Sheldon himself is ' recommended ' by the King- for the
bishopric of London. The others soon follow 1 . We can
hardly refuse to connect these events with one another in
the way of cause and eifect; nor can we exaggerate their
importance.
Sheldon, as Bishop of London, now became virtually the
Primate. The Savoy Conference took place in his official
apartments, for he retained the Mastership of the Savoy
along with the bishopric ; and on the death of the good
Archbishop in 1663, he became Primate in fact. His splendid
administrative capacity in this great office has been univer-
sally admitted even by his enemies. We know how success-
fully he healed by his vigilance, his tact, and his generosity
the sores which the Church could not but exhibit after such
convulsions. We know also how his influence at Court gradu-
ally withered along with that of his devoted friend, under
the scorching breath of profligate courtiers, and the distaste
of a prince sinking into the mire of debauchery. We know
how he rebuked his Sovereign for his gross adultery, and so
lost his favour even according to Burnet, Sheldon's detractor,
or, as Swift tells us, how ' he refused the Sacrament to the
King ' on this account 2 . We know how in the time of the
great plague
' he firmly continued all the time of the greatest danger,
and with his diffusive charity preserved great numbers- alive
that would have perished in their necessities, and by his
affecting letters to all the Bishops procured great sums to be
returned out of all parts of his Province 3 .'
1 See Kennett's Register for the dates.
2 Burnet's Own Time, vol. i. p. 438; and note.
3 Echard's Hist, of Eng. iii. 142.
XIL] SHELDON IN OFFICE. 223
We know from Wood's Athense (passim) how generous and
unwearied a patron he was of good men and learned authors.
We know how the University of Oxford, on Clarendon's
banishment in 1667, elected him as Chancellor, with only one
dissentient voice. A letter from the Archbishop declining
the office on account of his ' crazy head and infirm health ' is
among the Sheldon Papers in the British Museum 1 ; but if
sent, it must have been recalled, for he would not give way
even to disease, and served the office two years. When
obliged by increasing infirmities to resign it, the choice of the
Duke of Ormond as his successor was made at his own urgent
recommendation 2 .
At Oxford his munificence can never be forgotten ; and as
the Theatre which bears his name brings us back to All Souls,
both in relation to donor and architect, we will reserve our
concluding remarks on this great man till we have followed
the College history a little farther, first saying a word on the
careers of Duppa and Taylor, his old All Souls friends, which
came to an end before that of their leader.
Each of these admirable men was employed like Sheldon in
the resettlement of affairs at the Restoration, Duppa as Visitor
of Oxford University, where he had once been Vice-Chancellor
and Laud's chief agent in procuring the remodelling of the
Oxford Statutes at the hands of Bryan Twyne 3 ; and Taylor
at Dublin. The Bishop of Winchester soon sank under age
and infirmities. Looked up to and respected, like Juxon, by
all parties, his venerable presence carried no little weight
in the settlement of the Church during the first year or
two of the Restoration. If he could not do much himself, he
could at least, as we have seen, encourage those who had the
power. And no doubt he exercised a considerable influence
on the unsteady mind of the King who had once been his
1 Harleian MSS., cod. 3783 T W-
2 Carte's Ormond, Appendix, Letter xc. 3 Wood's Annals.
224 ALL SOULS AT THE RESTORATION. [CHAP.
pupil, but had been ruined by the French society he had kept
in his exile. Great allowance must always be made for
Charles on this ground. How few would have stood the test
of such an education as a camp, a French capital, and the
position of a prince were likely to afford! How few would
have withstood the evil influences of prosperity after a life of
adversity and exile !
It is to the credit of the King that he still reverenced his
old tutor sufficiently to repair to his sick room when he was
dying, to kneel at his bedside, and receive his last blessing.
' He died,' says Wood, ' as he had lived, honoured and
beloved by all that knew him, being a person of such exem-
plary piety, eminent candour, humility and meekness, and of
so clear a character, that he left not the least spot upon his
life or function. He was a man of excellent parts, a very
good preacher, and an ornament to his profession '.'
This verdict is confirmed by all contemporaries. Evelyn
did indeed, in 1660, find him a ' cold preacher,' but he was
now old, and fashions had changed. The Commonwealth
divines had established a taste for a much more highly-spiced
pulpit oratory than that of the laborious and scholarly period
in which Duppa was bred.
The extraordinary estimation in which he was held by
Charles the First is shewn by the well-known letters from
the King given in Clarendon 2 . The first, dated August 5,
1645, commencing, ' Charles, It is very fit for me now to
prepare for the worst,' orders the Prince to put himself under
the care of his mother,
' who is to have the absolute full power of your
education in all things except religion; and in that not to
meddle at all, but to leave it entirely to the care of your
Tutor, the Bishop of Salisbury, or to whom he shall appoint
to supply his place, in time of his necessitated absence.'
1 Wood's Athenae. See also King's Sermon.
2 Vol. ii. pp. 683, 698.
XIL] BRIAN DUPPA. 225
And again to Colepepper :
' His mother is to have the sole care of him in all things
but one, which is his religion, and that must still be under the
care of the Bishop of Salisbury.'
This peculiar and entire confidence cannot of course be attri-
buted to any one particular cause. Charles must have had
ample opportunity of judging what sort of man the Bishop
was ; but we may well believe it was as the representative
of Laud after his execution that the King came to love and
trust Duppa to such a degree.
He was no doubt personally well fitted for a Court. Wood
tells us l of his ' comeliness of person and gracefulness of
deportment.' Perhaps he early gained favour or notice at
Court through his travels in Spain at a period when James
the First was bent on the Spanish alliance, and not long before
the events which so nearly ended in Charles's Spanish mar-
riage. It is possible there might even have been some direct
connection between those events and his visit. There was
much ecclesiastical intrigue behind the scenes throughout the
whole of that matter. In the'Leiger' of All Souls of 1617
Brian Duppa, then a Fellow of six years' standing from his
election, is allowed by the College ' as much as his Livery
came to in respect he went into Spaine a fortnight before it
was due V There is not the slightest clue to the cause of
this journey. Why should he go to Spain, of all places in
the world, except for some matter in which the Court was
concerned? If it had been in any recognised position as
regards the Embassy we should have heard of it.
Of Jeremy Taylor's life and character so much has been
recovered by Heber, and is to be found in so accessible a
form, that it is quite unnecessary to say anything here as to
his sufferings during the Commonwealth, his share in the
Restoration, he was one who joined in the invitation to
1 Athense. 2 Extract in MS. penes custodem, F. P. p. 137.
226 ALL SOULS AT THE RESTORATION. [CHAP.
Charles to return, or the position he held after that event.
The reconstruction of the Episcopacy was delayed still longer
in Ireland than in England, but when it took place at last,
he found himself, like Sheldon and Duppa, called upon as the
natural person to assist in the restoration of the Irish Church
and University. Under Bramhall he performed no small
service in the first ; as Vice-Chancellor of Dublin University
he did much to place that institution once more on a worthy
footing. He did not long survive Duppa, dying at fifty-five
with a reputation which has gone on increasing with the
lapse of time. 'Even in that age of gigantic talent/ says
Heber, ' he stands on an eminence superior to any of his
immediate contemporaries ; ' and among all English divines of
any age has been placed ' by the almost unanimous voice of
posterity on the same lofty elevation with Hooker and with
Barrow. Hooker is the object of our reverence, Barrow of
our admiration, Jeremy Taylor of our love 1 .'
His connection with All Souls was not of long duration,
but it has supplied us with points of historical importance,
and is full of interest. The names of Laud and Sheldon gather
round his in this connection, and the College owes its finest
picture to a descendant of Jeremy Taylor, who happily thought
that there was no other institution which had more right to
it. In that picture we can fairly trace the ( comely person ' and
expressive features for which he also, like Brian Duppa, was
celebrated ; and it is a satisfaction to know that so good a
judge as Heber believed its ' originality to be undoubted V
If Sheldon could not return to his beloved Oxford by reason
of a higher call than that of the Wardenship of his old
College, he at once took the most effectual means of proving
his affection and gratitude to Alma Mater. Evelyn tells us
that he was induced to build the famous Theatre which bears
his name in consequence of the strong feeling he entertained
1 Heber's Life of Taylor, p. ccl. 2 Ibid. p. cxxii.
xu.l THE SHELDONIAN THEATRE. 227
.
against the profanation of St. Mary's church by the annual
' Acts ' (now popularly called ' Commemorations ') which had
always been held there. Churches, both before and for long
after the Reformation, were, as we know, used for many
other purposes than Divine Service. But the University
' Act ' had come to be a very secular affair indeed, and it is
only wonderful that it could have gone on in a church so
long. There was, however, as yet no other building of
sufficient size.
The abuse of the satirical address made by the Terra? Filius
on these occasions was scandalous. Evelyn was present at
the first ' Act ' in the Sheldonian Theatre in 1669, and bitterly
complains of 'that tedious, abusive, sarcastical rhapsodieV He
spoke to the Vice-Chancellor and several Heads of Houses,
who were ' quite ashamed of it, and resolved to take care of
it in future.' He calls it ' mere licentious lying and railing;'
and so it was. Yet the custom continued, with occasional
intermissions, for more than sixty years later. Wood calls it a
' very great and splendid Act Y an( i was no doubt present ;
but makes no comment on the ' satirical address ' ! So great
was the force of habit ! Nevertheless when a Terrse Filius
reflected on his book, in 1673, he * s extremely shocked at the
performance s . We shall refer once more to the custom at a
later date. It will be enough here to say that this outlet
for academical discontents was a regular institution of
long standing, that the 'Terrae Filii' a sort of medieval
Jesters, the origin of whose name is quite unknown were
elected for their humour or impudence, and that their licen-
tious satires were virtually privileged, though often the
subject of complaint. When they passed all bounds the
offenders were not unfrequently expelled. The language of
the oration was Latin.
1 Journal, i. 420. See also Dr. Wallis's Letter to Boyle, Neal's
Puritans, ii. 669.
2 Life, sub ann. 1669. 3 Ibid. 1673.
Q 2
228 ALL SOULS AT THE RESTORATION. [CHAP.
As soon as Sheldon had disposed of the mass of business
attendant on the resettlement of the Church he sent for
Wren, and entrusted the erection of the Theatre to his skill.
It was his first work, and laid a secure foundation for his
future fame. The Warden, of All Souls, though exiled from
Oxford, had been evidently well acquainted with the merits of
this junior Fellow, and proved his penetration in the selection
of the untried architect as well as his munificence in allowing
him to spend so large a sum. This is said to have been
^fi 6,000, besides ^2000 for endowment; but Wren told
Evelyn it cost a^ 3 25,ooo 1 , which we must multiply by four
or five for the present currency. It is said to be the finest
room for public purposes possessed even now by any public
body in Europe. Sheldon himself never saw it 2 . As to the
architectural merits of the building, but especially the roof,
which was in those times thought a wonderful achievement,
abundant information may be obtained in ' Parentalia,' that
most interesting monument of family affection.
But the numerous frequenters of Oxford Commemorations
may find it interesting to observe the changes in the
apportionment of seats which have taken place since Wren
and Dr. John Fell, Dean of Christ Church, first assigned
them.
' The Semicircle is for Doctors. Noblemen, and Inceptors
in the several Faculties. The enclosure under it within the
rail (which rail is set up only in Act times) is the place for
the Inceptors in Arts. The Gallery behind the Doctors'
Semicircle, which is in the circular part of the Theatre, is
the place for Regents and Non- Regents (Masters of Arts).
The Side -gallery towards the West is for Cambridge
Scholars : that towards the East for strangers. The two
Galleries in the front, opposite the Semicircle, for ladies and
gentlewomen. The Upper Galleries above the Masters for
Gentlemen Commoners and Bachelors of Arts. Those above
the Cambridge men and strangers for Commoners and
1 Journal, i. 419. 2 Ibid.
xii.] SIB CHRISTOPHER WREN. 229
Scholars of Houses. That above the ladies for performance
of music. The Area for persons of promiscuous quality V
The changes of time and manners have driven the Masters
of Arts (including the Professors), the ' Cambridge Scholars,'
and the ' strangers ' from their reserved seats, and forced
them to stand in the Area with persons of 'promiscuous
quality.' The ' ladies and gentlewomen ' have swarmed over
from their own two galleries in front into every part of
the building except the Area and the Upper Gallery ! The
former of these is indeed no longer entirely sacred to
the male sex. How long the Undergraduates may be able
to withstand invasion remains for some future Wood to
tell.
The period of Wren's sojourn at All Souls was short in
comparison with the length of his life eight years out of 9 1 ;
but it was just the time of which we should like to have more
knowledge. By the time he becomes a Professor, builds the
Sheldonian Theatre, is patronised by Charles, is made Sur-
veyor to the Crown, and by the force of his sole, unas-
sisted genius, whatever we may now think of it, begins to
change the whole face of English architecture, he had
already lived several ordinary lives in one. He was then
only 29, but he was already looked upon as a 'miracle.'
Men cannot find words to express their sense of his ability.
He came up to Wadham with a scientific reputation at 16,
and owed much to the famous Warden, Dr. Wilkins, one
of the most eminent founders of the Royal Society. Even
during that early period at Wadham, a mere boy, Evelyn
speaks of Wren as ' that miracle of a youth,' ' that rare and
early prodigy of universal science,' ' that incomparable ge-
nius 2 .' Few even of scientific students know how much the
world is indebted to him for inventions of all sorts and
kinds, some of which he perfected, but the greater part of
1 Wood, vol. ii. Part ii. p. 796. 2 Journal, i. p. 276, &c.
230 ALL SOULS AT THE RESTOEATION. [CHAP.
which have connected themselves with other names, the
names of men who have carried further the hints thrown out
by his boundless inventive fertility 1 . His attention seems
chiefly to have been turned to astronomy and anatomy while
he was at All Souls, where he was elected at the age of 21.
For this College he was no doubt early destined while he
assisted at the meetings of the future Royal Society, at ' an
apothecary's house against All Souls V along with his friends
Peter Pett and Thomas Millington, who were already Fellows,
Through them we may well suppose the young philosopher
was brought so opportunely before the notice of the Warden,
Dr. Palmer.
Wren's tract upon the Laws of Motion came out, after
he had left All Souls, at the same moment with those of
Huygens and Dr. Wallis. ' These three great men, without
knowing anything of one another's thoughts, agreed
exactly in the same Propositions 3 .' Newton himself mentions
these three together as ' kujus cstatis Geometrarum facile
principes 4 ; ' and Hooke, the mathematician, says : ' I must
affirm that since the time of Archimedes there scarcely ever
has met in one man in so great a perfection, such a
mechanical hand and so philosophical a mind 5 .' This view
of Wren's surpassing genius in other lines besides that of
architecture is confirmed by a passage in Hearne's Diary
' Some years since I heard an eminent mathematician, since
deceased, say that he could mention another person then
living every way equal in mathematics to Sir Isaac Newton,
though he had not published. We asked him who this
should be. He answered, Sir Christopher Wren, who was
indeed a very extraordinary man, being an admirable
1 Parentalia ; Chalmers' Biographical Dictionary.
2 Wood, vol. ii. Pt. ii. p. 63.
8 Mist's Journal in Hearne's Diary, vol. 96. p. 7 ; Parentalia.
4 Principia.
5 Quoted in Biographical Dictionary.
xii.] WREN'S SURPASSING GENIUS. 231
architect, a profound mathematician, and well versed, what
Sir Isaac was not, in classical learning- V
This was a common complaint against Wren ' he never
could be prevailed upon to publish anything 2 .' How was
it possible after he became the one architect of the whole
country ?
In this latter capacity it is already less difficult than
it was a year or two ago to measure his position. The
attention which has just been called, in consequence of the
attempt to restore its interior, to his great masterpiece,
St. Paul's Cathedral, has once more impressed the public
with the merits of a man whose name has not of late years
been held in the highest honour. The last half-century
has witnessed such a wonderful revival of the Gothic, or,
as he called it, Saracenic, style of architecture, the reign
of which he with almost supernatural force completely for
a time destroyed, that Wren had come to be looked upon
among 1 us as some evil genius whose wings had too long 1
shamefully overshadowed the land, and whom the splendid
Gothic artists of our own day had at last overcome.
We need not value the merits of our latest school the less
if we learn to look back with a little more respect upon the
work of Wren. This is not the place to enter upon a re-
view of that work. Let us content ourselves with the briefest
notice of it at the hands of his biographer :
' The man from whose comprehensive mind arose the
majestic Cathedral of St. Paul's and the fifty [one] paro-
chial churches of London, the royal and magnificent
Hospital of Greenwich, the no less appropriate and useful
one at Chelsea, the most splendid ornaments of our metro-
polis' [such as the Monument and the two Theatres], ' the
most useful structures of our two Universities . . . at
once our greatest architect, mathematician and philosopher,
the most learned man of his day, who may be justly
1 Diary 116. 31. 2 Ibid. 42. 140.
232 ALL SOULS AT THE RESTORATION. [CHAP.
termed the British Archimedes, . . . died [in 1723] an un-
noticed death. He was old, the victim of political intrigue,
and had no longer the countenance of Royalty which had
smiled on him for nearly three quarters of a century 1 .'
This last statement refers to the well-known fact that
he was ' Surveyor to the Crown in the reigns of Charles the
Second, James the Second, William and Mary, William
the Third, Queen Anne, and George the First,' by all but
the last of whom he was honoured and trusted; or, as
Horace Walpole neatly put it, 'the length of whose life
enriched the reigns of several princes, and disgraced the
last of them.'
Becoming, one might say by acclamation, Professor of
Astronomy in 1661, the direct connection between this
great man and his College ceased. Fellowships at All Souls
could not then be held with Professorships, a useful pro-
vision in his case, for even his greatest detractors can hardly
wish that he had been tempted to confine himself to the
narrow sphere of Oxford. But we can hardly suppose that
such enthusiasm, such activity, such success read no lesson to
his Society. We cannot refuse to associate his name with
the gradual rise of a superior class of Fellows, with the fine
burst of cultivated taste and enlightened munificence which
displayed itself in the College before he died. On the two
actual 'restorations ' of the Chapel which took place during
the earlier and later portions of his career we can only
trace the indirect influence of his hand. In neither case
was there any, even the slightest, attempt at restoration in
the true sense, recovered in our own day. They were
both of them Italianising efforts to obliterate the old
Gothic features of the building ; but in those days anything
else was impossible. Wren was but the exponent, original
1 Memoir of the Life and "Works of Sir Christopher Wren, by
James Elmes : 1823.
XIL] WREN AT ALL SOULS. 233
in a great measure, but still the exponent of the European
movement which had been creeping forward surely and
steadily ever since the Renaissance.
The only points on which he directly touches All Souls
in a manner which we can, or but lately could, appreciate
with our eyes, are, curiously enough, connected with the
first year of his election and the last act of his life. In
1653 we find in the College 'Acta' that the just-elected
Fellow erected the great sun-dial over the chapel, at a cost
to the College of ^32 us. 6d. It was so large and so
carefully constructed that the Oxford watchmakers continued
to regulate their time-pieces by it up to a few years ago \
Its admirably- chosen motto from Martial ' Pereunt et im-
putantur ' instructed many a generation. It at last fell out
of repair, and being also out of harmony with the present
restoration of the Chapel, has lately been removed. By his
Will he left his celebrated architectural drawings to his old
College. They have been bound and catalogued with due
veneration for his memory, and have lately been much used
in connection with St. Paul's. His picture and his bust still
bring his expressive features before each generation of his
successors 2 .
1 Information from Mr. Kowell, the well-known Oxford watch-
maker.
2 Men of genius were content to work in those days on a very
small scale of remuneration, or else Wren was peculiarly dis-
interested. The famous inscription on his tomb says
' Qui vixit annos ultra nonaginta
Non sibi sed bono publico.'
We hear of no portion of Sheldon's 25,000 reaching the architect,
though that is no positive proof it did not. We do hear of the Arch-
bishop presenting him with a gold cup when his work was completed.
' The Surveyor's salary for building St. Paul's from the foundation
to the finishing thereof as appears from the public accounts
was no more than 200 per annum. His allowance for building
all the [51] parochial churches of the City of London was about
100 per annum, and the same for the repairs of Westminster
234 ALL SOULS AT THE RESTORATION. [CHAP.
Why was he not allowed to have a hand in restoring 1 the
College Chapel in which he so often worshipped? He was
no longer Fellow, it is true, when Warden Meredith's re-
storation was effected in 1663-4, and which is thus described
on that Warden's monument : ' Hoc in sacello quod a situ
vindicavit et marmorenm effeceraf (sic) ; but he was building
the Sheldonian Theatre, and chiefly residing at Oxford then,
and for many years afterwards. At the time of the general
reconstruction of the College in Queen Anne's reign he was
no doubt too old for such a work; Thornhill and Hawks-
moor might very naturally be accepted as his representatives ;
but we are left with less guidance for our conjectures in the
first case. One thing we certainly know, that he designed
a handsome screen for the Chapel, for it is amongst his
drawings ; not so labelled, indeed, but with Chichele's arms
in the centre. It was never adopted by the College.
The probability is that the College affairs were only slowly
recovering from the confusion of the Commonwealth period,
and yet that the Warden and Fellows were impatient to do
something to repair the ruins in which they found themselves.
Their reredos was probably not in a much worse condition
than when the ruthless Commissioners of 1549 tore down
its distinctive ornaments ; nor do we know how much of their
Abbey.' (Parentalia, p. 344.) Perhaps the reader may not object
to one sentence from his own vigorous pen on a subject much
discussed in our day. ' It were to be wished,' says he, ' there were
no pews but benches [in churches] ; but there is no stemming the
tide of profit and the advantage of pew-keepers, especially too since
by pews in the Chapels of Ease the Minister is chiefly supported.'
(Ibid. p. 321.) The following bit of gossip from Hearne may also
be acceptable. Sir Christopher, in his eighty-fifth year, told a
friend of Hearne's ' that there were no masons in London when
he was a young man,' and that ' the way of making mortar with
haire came into fashion in Q. Eliz.'s time.' (Diary, 59 ; 140, 141.) We
have seen what Evelyn and others said of him in his earlier life.
The famous Isaac Barrow thus speaks of him at a later date : ' Pro-
digium olimpueri, nunc miraculum viri, immo dcemonium hominis.'
XIL] CHAPEL NOT 'RESTORED' B7 WREN. 235
splendid painted glass was destroyed at that date, nor how
much had been knocked out by the soldiers of the Common-
wealth ; but the College pays ^18 at this time for the
repair of its windows. How the Ante-chapel windows in
the east wall came to survive both iconoclastic periods, and
to remain, as good judges declare, the best specimens of
fifteenth-century glass now in England, is a mystery. Be-
yond the above small sum we hear of no more contributions,
collegiate or other. The rest came out of private purses,
chiefly no doubt from that of Warden Meredith, whose
monument claims all the credit for him. Sheldon seems
to have contributed nothing. As Primate he wished to pay
his grateful recognition of the splendid services performed by
Oxford rather to the whole University than to his own
College, to which, however, he left ^300 in his Will.
Wren may not have found the College prepared to enter on
the work in a sufficiently energetic spirit, though to its credit
we find an entry in 1663 that the Founder's tomb at Canter-
bury is to be repaired, ' whatever it cost ;' for we shall see
that it was a very mean ' restoration ;' or the Fellows may not
altogether have forgotten the circumstances of the young phi-
losopher's election. Perhaps the Warden was not quite sympa-
thetic. We find by his monument that he was a very clever
man, for he contrived to do that very rare thing, perform
two duties in different places at once, as Provost of Eton
and Warden of All Souls JEtona ut viros efficeret, Oxonia
ut viros regeret V He was doubtless a representative of the
' old school ' of his day, an old-fashioned Cavalier who
had suffered much in the ' good old cause ' ' blandis moribus
quanquam et antiquis*.' Possibly he did not appreciate
Wren's young, impulsive, soaring, innovating, and, to
patrons, expensive genius.
From the discoveries lately made we may certainly be
thankful that, whatever the cause, we cannot connect the
1 Monument in Ante-chapel. 2 Ibid.
236 ALL SOULS AT THE RESTORATION. [CHAP.
great name of Wren with this first ' restoration ' of All Souls
College chapel. We need not bestow much space upon it
here. The most interesting point about it is the contrast
presented between the treatment at that time of the magni-
ficent ruins, with which many generations of the College had
been familiar, and their treatment at the present time, when
the discovery of the same ruins has broken upon the College
as an unsuspected revelation. The resolution then taken was
to chip off all projecting fragments of the reredos till it was
reduced to a flat level, filling in the niches with mortar and
rubbish, to cover it with lath and plaster, and paint upon it a
fresco of the Last Judgment. The resolution of to-day has been
to get rid of the two frescoes (for another had been placed
above it in the ' restoration' of Queen Anne's reign), to pick
out the mortar and rubbish, during which process so large
a number of the projecting fragments which had been
chipped off were found embedded, that complete authority
has been obtained for every part of the restoration, and to
bring back each portion of the work to the state in which
it was left by the munificence of Chichele and his immediate
successors.
The painting of the fresco was entrusted to Streater,
Serjeant-Painter to Charles the Second. The beautiful ham-
mer-beam roof was also concealed by a panelled ceiling, the
figures rudely painted on which corresponded with the subject
of the fresco. Evelyn noticed the latter in his Journal -, and
says : ' It is the largest piece of fresco painting, or rather
imitation of it, for it is in oil of turpentine, in England/ but
it is ' too full of nakeds for a Chapel.' When exposed, or
rather as much of it as could be seen on removing the last
fresco, it appeared not only to be 'too full of nakeds,' but of
very inferior execution ; and the ceiling was, if possible, worse.
Their discovery is almost as curious as that of the ruined
1 i. 368.
xii.] MUSIC AT ALL SOULS. 237
reredos itself. It had been supposed that each previous work
had been destroyed to make way for its successor ; and all
tradition to the contrary had passed away with the lapse of
two centuries. It appeared that they had only been covered
up, waiting 1 , like other records of antiquity, for the advent
of a discoverer.
This chapter may conclude with the remark that we may
gather both from Wood l and Evelyn 2 that a taste for music
had become characteristic of the College. Wood finds Pett,
Digby, and Bull, all Fellows of All Souls, his most constant
associates in performances on the violin ; and in 1 656 and
1658 he notices no less than six Fellows of All Souls who
were distinguished for their skill upon the violin, viol, or
lute. In the musical society of the latter year four out
of its sixteen members were All Souls men ; one of the
sixteen was Ken, of New College, the future saintly Bishop.
Oxford had become the great musical centre of England
during the Commonwealth, in consequence of the abolition
of musical Services in Cathedrals and other churches, and
the resort thither of many musicians who had thus lost
their employment. Pernaps it has not even yet lost its
distinction as a musical centre. Evelyn, in 1664, goes
' to All Souls, where we heard music, voices, and theorbos
performed by some ingenious Scholars.' The theorbo was
a kind of lute introduced into England not very long before
this date.
1 Life. 2 Journal, i. 276.
CHAPTEE XIII.
CJrarUs % Stconfo mifc
1666-1677.
Warden Jeames Sheldon on ' corrupt resignations ' Letter of
Charles the Second and the ' Dispensing Power' Scramble for
All Souls Fellowships The Duke of Ormond Rise of prefer-
ence for old families at All Souls Sheldon in his old age
Clarendon's Will Sheldon's Will His munificence Samuel
Parker's account of him Sheldon and Chillingworth Attacks
of Burnet, Kennett, Neal, and Hallam on Sheldon's memory.
OUR notices of Sheldon are now drawing to an end.
His letters to the College on the old subject of elections
will supply us with an opportunity for summing up his
career and dealing with his detractors ; but we must first
introduce the new Warden, who has the arduous task before
him of putting an .end to the corruptions of past generations.
He and his Visitor, Charles the Second, and the Duke of
Ormond form the dramatis persona of this chapter.
Former attempts on the part of Visitors to purify
the College on the above - mentioned point had failed
from different causes, but chiefly from want of a Warden
who would or could give sufficient support to the
Visitatorial authority. The right man had come at last.
Warden Jeames was, like Meredith, a hearty Cavalier,
but the war having broken out soon after his election,
he had no preferments to lose like the older Fellow.
Thus, very naturally, we find from a letter of his that
SCRAMBLE FOR FELLOWSHIPS. 239
he 'bore arms for the good King 1 .' He was in so doing
preparing for the labour he was now to undergo. The
steady energy proper to a man who has learnt to resist
even to death was now to be taxed. From 1665, when
he was elected Warden, to 1686, when he died, he was
engaged in a perpetual struggle with the Court on the
one hand, the Fellows of the College on the other, to
preserve from the first, to recover from the last, that
freedom of elections which the Founder had ordained.
After his death we hear no more of this abuse. The battle
was won. Hence we may assign him a place after Warner,
Hoveden, and Sheldon, as the fourth of those who, since
the foundation of the College, have governed it with high
distinction. But he could never have succeeded without
the Visitors. Indeed, as we have said, if every one is to have
his due in the long history of the matter, the name of
Archbishop Bancroft must stand at the head of the list.
The position held by Sheldon as Visitor of All Souls
was more delicate in its relations to the Sovereign than
perhaps at any former period. Charles, with his easy
disposition, his loose ideas of right and wrong, surrounded
by innumerable petitioners for place, many of whom had
the strongest possible claims upon him, was perpetually
attempting to make use of the Fellowships of All Souls
and other Colleges as mere sops which he might throw to
stop the mouths of hungry dogs. Some gallant Cavalier
who had perhaps lost his all for the ' good King' had a
son or a nephew, or a creditor, or a creditor's son, for whom
provision might thus be cheaply and conveniently made.
He had waylaid or overtaken the rapid steps of the active
monarch in spite of every effort on his part to escape.
Sometimes the King's vices or necessities may have engaged
him in such attempts more heartily than any claim of
service. At any rate when a vacancy occurred he was sure
1 Tanner MSS. vol. 340.
240 ALL SOULS UNDER CHARLES II. [CHAP.
to be reminded of it. He then had recourse to the Visitor of
the College or the Chancellor of the University, or would
write direct to the College, and persevere till he succeeded.
To an Archbishop whose popularity at Court had declined
with Clarendon's power, and who found himself and his
government of the Church confronted by the most unprinci-
pled of all Ministries, the Cabal, the refusal to gratify
Charles, must have been more difficult than we can imagine.
What made the matter worse was that Sheldon, as a former
Warden, knew well how the old. system of defeating
any real election by means of stipulated payments on
resignation had successfully defied repression, and even
reasserted itself while he was in exile. To judge by his
conduct in the case of Laud and Taylor, he would cer-
tainly have tried his own hand had he not found the
Civil War upon him almost as soon as he succeeded to
the Wardenship. But the opportunity was past. The
times were hard. Why should not the King be served
before a private man? Who could blame him for allowing
what even the ' sainted Laud ' had actually used for the
promotion of a good object ? Was this a time to be so very
particular ?
Happily for the future of the University, Sheldon declined
to listen to such sophistries. He resolved to stand in the
gap before Charles in the full flush of his prosperity, as
he had stood before the soldiers of the Parliament in the
deepest adversity of Charles's father. He would see right
done on all sides. If the College would not give up its old
evil practices he would not protect it from the King, whose
nominees might be as good or better than mere purchasers
of the place. If he followed the custom of his predecessors
in occasionally recommending for a Fellowship he would
take care that his candidate should only have fair play,
along with others, after a strict examination. His letters
tell their own story.
XIIL] SHELDON AS VISITOR. 241
The first is dated Oct. 9, 1666 :
Mr. Warden ; I understand there is a Fellowship void in
the College by the death of one of your Society ; an account
thereof, though I thought I might rather expect from your-
self or some of the College, yet I heard it first hy those that
are now in Town and suitors for it and petitioners for His
Majesty's letters. This I thought good to give you notice of,
and to take this occasion not only for this time but in all your
elections to mind you of your duties and give you my. advice
and charge. I would therefore have you to admit all com-
petitors that will stand, keeping off none. But then I do
conjure you by the duty you owe to God, the King, and the
Church, by the obedience you ought to preserve to me your
Visitor, as you regard the oath you have taken and tender
your own souls, that laying aside all interest and partiality
you still make choice of such persons as in your consciences
you shall think the most fit and best qualified for the place,
such as may be most likely to be of reputation to the College
and of use hereafter to the public. His Majesty will not
be over-pressing with you for any but with respect to the good
of the College. And therefore if you amongst yourselves out
of self-ends and affections shall go about to bring in any that
is not the best, I for my part shall never beg His Majesty to
hold his hand, but shall rather desire His Majesty may be
gratified than any of you. This I desire you will impart
to the officers and the rest of the Fellows, and that you
preserve it by you as a continual remembrancer in all such
cases. And so I bid you heartily farewell.
'Your very loving friend, GILB. CANTERBURY 1 .'
The second, dated Lambeth House, Feb. 2, i66f, com-
mences with his decision on the question of the Surplus
which has been given above a . He continues :
' Having done my part for you in this point I must now
remind you of your duties for the future in the business of the
election, that you be careful ever to choose the best, wherein
if you fail, it will not be reasonable for me to go about and
desire the King to withhold his letters of command from you,
from which hitherto I have kept you free. And if any of you
shall do contrary to this out of any private interest or affection,
1 Archives. 2 p. 113.
242 ALL SOULS UNDER CHARLES II. [CHAP.
I cannot but think it much more reasonable that the King
should be gratified than any of you. And so I bid you
heartily farewell, and am
' Your very loving friend, GILB. CANTERBURY V
Somewhat later than this Sheldon finds that the College
has made an unstatutable election, and demands in the most
peremptory language that the intruder shall be either at once
expelled, or else make his appearance at Lambeth. The
College is at the same time to send him the name of
( the person whom you thought the best and did design
for.'
This vigilant method of proceeding no doubt produced an
excellent effect. We shall see in the next chapter that the
system of examinations was at this time strict and real.
Still the system of resigning in favour of a particular person
was left untouched. The only difference was that under a
good Visitor and Warden care was taken that the nominee
was, as we should say, ' up to the mark.' Sheldon's letters
applied only to elections into ' dead places ' (death vacancies)
and to grossly unstatutable proceedings 2 . It was left for
Sancroft to cut the canker out at the core.
In a very few years we perceive the inability of the Visitor
to ' hold ' Charles's hand, whether from his own loss of power,
or the persistence of the College in practices which under-
mined his defence. The letters from the King are still extant
in which he imposes his nominee on the College in the most
imperious manner of which we have any record. On February
35, 1670, he 'wills and requires the College to elect to a
Fellowship, ' any Canon, Statute, Custom or Constitution of
the College notwithstanding/ (all of which he 'graciously dis-
penses with/) Peter Prydiaulx, on account of the services done
1 Archives.
2 See letter from "Warden Jeames to Sancroft, Nov. 20, 1680.
Tanner MSS. vol. 340.
xiii.] THE KING'S MANDATE. 243
by his father ' to us and the Church,' and the good promise of
the youth. On March 13 he writes again, spelling the name
right this time, ' Prideaux ' (he is of the family which will
ever be distinguished by the authorship of ' The Connexion '),
announcing his pleasure that he be admitted ( without dif-
ficulty or delay.' Then follows in April a third letter, in
which the King is still more astonished that ' the Fellows
forget the duty they owe to us.'
' We can by no means allow of this contempt for our
authority in interpositions of this kind. . . . We are offended
at the undutiful proceedings of the Fellows in this matter,
especially of such of them as having been intruders with
notorious violence and injustice into the places of honest and
loyal persons during the late usurpations, forget with how
little right they live there to oppose our letters.'
These letters l are signed ' Arlington,' and superscribed
< Charles ft.'
We have here a clear indication of the fatal course openly
adopted at this period, which was so soon to cost James the
Second his Crown. The ' dispensing power ' had indeed been
claimed by James the First in the ease of All Souls, but he
was too much surrounded by the traditions of freedom to
venture on such an open avowal as the above, or to push
matters against a vigorous opposition. He gives way before
one Visitor, and only succeeds by the collusion of another.
Charles the First, we have seen, puts his request in the
mildest form. But the reign of violence had intervened.
One wrong led to another. The thunder-storms had cleared
the atmosphere, but they had left their mark. The suspension
of all Canons, Statutes, Customs, or Constitutions for so many
years by the Long Parliament and Cromwell had suggested
strong measures and strong language to the restored Govern-
ment. It is indeed remarkable that, under the circumstances,
so little invasion of the liberties of the subject took place;
1 Archives.
244 ALL SOULS UNDER CHARLES II. [CHAP.
a moderation attributable to Clarendon and Sheldon in the
first instance, as well as to Charles himself, and still more
exclusively to Charles's own credit when their influence was
gone. Perhaps even the above letters were the work of his
unscrupulous Secretary, and scarcely received a thought
from the careless monarch. For though he carried his
point in the case of Prideaux, there is evidence that he
listened to reason, and acted differently afterwards. On a
subsequent occasion, when hard pressed to repeat his Mandate
to the College, he pleaded a promise he had made never to
interfere again. And the archive-chests of All Souls have
somehow obtained possession of a letter addressed by the
King to Oriel College in favour of a Mr. Twitty, and couched
in much the same terms as the above ; but there is also a
second letter, handsomely withdrawing the Mandate on a
representation of the unfitness of the candidate, and even
apologising for his interference. The King dispensed with
Dr. Browne's ' never yet having been a member of the
foundation ' when he ' recommended ' him for the Provost-
ship of Eton in December, 1661 ; but on ' further informa-
tion' in February, 1662, revokes the request, and substi-
tutes the name of Dr. Meredith (who was already Warden
of All Souls), and he is elected accordingly in the following
May 1 .
The College did not elect Prideaux without a struggle,
which is best described in the following extract from the
'Acta':
' Agreed by the Warden and all the Fellows present that
Dr. Millington be desired to draw up a petition to the
King's Majesty in the College name therein setting forth
that free election is granted to the College by their Charter
and confirmed unto them by a Private Act of Parliament,
and that by it the Warden and Fellows are bound by their
oaths to maintain the rights and privileges of the College,
1 Calendar of State Papers.
xiii.] DUKE OF ORMOND'S CONDUCT. 245
that thereby the King's Majesty may be satisfied in the
cause why the College had not put his letters in favour of
Mr. Prideaux into execution.'
These sentiments were worthy of Hampden, but unfortu-
nately, as subsequent events proved, they were hollow. The
ground for maintaining the ' rights and privileges of the
College' was cut from under the Fellows by their own
customary gloss upon the Statutes, which was in reality an
habitual disregard of right. The petition came to nothing,
except so far as it checked the King in the future.
Prideaux was elected. It must be said there was no allega-
tion of unfitness.
The Duke of Ormond's letter, in 1676, gives us a further
indication of the low position into which the College had
fallen. He would protect them from the King, but he
makes them understand that he will not do it for nothing :
he puts it very clearly to them that they must pay him
something by way of black-mail.
His letter is dated from Euston, Sept. 25, 1676, and
after requiring the College to take notice of the efforts he
has made to prevent the King from forcing their Fellow-
ships, he says :
' While I do this on my part, you must look to be troubled
sometimes with my recommendations upon extraordinary
occasions, and that I expect you must comply with them
if you look I should still stand in the gap for you ; and of
this nature I present one to you now. Mr. Gervais Scroope,
son of Sir Adrian Scroope and grandson of Sir Gervais
Scroope, who both so eminently served the Crown in the
late unhappy times, and suffered so much for their loyalty
therein, is now a candidate to be chosen Fellow of your
College. Now being so qualified for that election, and
besides a young man of great hopes in his studies, and as
I am informed, virtuously inclined, I could not refuse the
giving him this my recommendatory letter to you, as well
for his sake as to prevent the interposition of His Majesty's
positive command in his favour, not doubting but you will
246 ALL SOULS UNDER CHARLES II. [CHAP.
gratify me in the choice of him, wherein you will both en-
courage and oblige me to serve you in all your concerns,
which I desire you to communicate to the Fellows of your
Society, and am always
' Your very affectionate servant, ORJIOND ' .'
How the Duke, and the Sovereign in the background,
were resisted on this occasion we do not find, but the name
of the youth in question does not appear on the' Register.
Perhaps the College found on examination that the ' hopes '
entertained by his patron ' in his studies' were of an un-
substantial character. Perhaps their aged Visitor carried
more weight for the candidates he himself recommends,
inasmuch as we shall now see that he at last departs from
his former course, wearied out with failures on all sides,
perceiving that the King and Court were now openly
attacking the Constitution, and apparently thinking he had
as good a right to recommend as they, or the Chancellor, or
a ' corruptly-resigning' Fellow.
There are no letters extant from Sheldon to the College
on this subject for several years after 1666 ; but he resumes
in 1675, when he 'recommends' certain persons to the
Warden, of whom he says:
' Their characters are better understood amongst you than
at this distance, and experience will make the truest discovery
of their abilities, and how far they are qualified for such an
encouragement. I leave them therefore to their trial, and in-
tercede no further for either your's or the College's favour and
kindness towards any of them than as they shall approve
themselves by their real deserts most worthy of the Society
and place for which they are suitors.'
This tone of recommendation is not of itself objection-
able if there were to be any interference at all; but in
a later letter of the same year he begs that f if the can-
didate's learning be in any degree answerable to his be-
1 Archives.
XIIL] SHELDON GIVES WAY. 247
haviour in College, all possible favour and kindness be
shewed to him.' He seems also to have stretched a point
in directing that a particular Fellow's ' Faculty ' might be
' commuted,' since commutation of Faculties was a mode
of evading Chichele's provision as to the Fellows who
must take Holy Orders. At any rate the College only
complied under protest 1 .
Whether these proofs of weakness in extreme old age
ought to cancel Sheldon's previous commendable action in the
matter of College elections must be left to the judgment
of the reader. They at least afford a proof, if any were
needed, that if a system of self-renewal by free elections
is a valuable one in any institution it must be kept pure
at the fountain-head. If tendencies to abuse can make
such way and spread so widely as to sweep away at last
those who had most earnestly resisted them, the first
declension from consistency must be watched with extreme
jealousy.
It has been said that, in spite of all, the College standard
of examination was reasonably high. Some clever recruits
were at any rate enlisted at this very period. In 1668
Godolphin, afterwards Provost of Eton, was elected; and
in 1673 William Guise, an Oriental scholar of the very
highest reputation, whose early death ten years later was
deplored by the learned society of all Europe. In 1678 the
famous deist, Matthew Tindal, began his long career at
All Souls. The number of distinguished men who appear
upon the Ilegister immediately after a real freedom of election
is secured, is however much greater than before, and can
scarcely be the result of accident.
Another aspect of these efforts to impose Fellows on the
College from without may also be regarded in this place. The
University Commissioners of 1852 tell us in their Report 2
1 Tanner MSS. vol. 340. 2 p. 1-81.
248 ALL SOULS UNDER CHARLES II. [CHAP.
that in All Souls ' birth and general social qualifications
seem to have given preference as far back as 1686 to
Wardens, and to Fellows at least as far as the commence-
ment of the present century.' They might have ascended
far higher in the latter case. The origin of the preference
mentioned may really be attributed to the Stuart period,
to the Mandates and Recommendations of Kings, Chancellors,
and Visitors, to the intimate connection between Kings
and Primates all through this period, to the replacing of
the Parliamentary Fellows by members of Cavalier families.
The respect for old families and their ancient merits in
the cause of Church and Crown gradually took root and
reproduced itself. The freedom of elections which Sancroft
carried, and which the principles of the Revolution per-
petuated, only gave the more scope to this feeling, till the
preference for noble birth came, by the commencement of
the present century, to be recognised as the one prominent
feature of the College, and so to occasion the remark of
the Commissioners. No doubt the privileges of Founder's
Kin were a powerful element in producing collegiate exclu-
siveness in modern times ; but this had been in operation
long before. In 1714 'the preference for birth and general
social qualifications ' seems to have been as notorious as a
century and a half later, if we may believe only a portion
of the acrid criticism of Hearne, who hated All Souls for
reasons of his own. 'They generally/ he says, 'pick out
those that have no need of a Fellowship, persons of great
fortunes and high birth and little morals and less learning ;
and those that are remarkable for their industry and learning
and probity, and would prove ornaments both to the College
and University, are very rarely regarded by them 1 .' Thus,
on the point of preference for birth, we connect once more the
specialty of the College with the political exigencies of the
1 Diary; 49. 188 (Ap. 24, 1714).
xiii.] PREFERENCE FOR BIRTH. 249
seventeenth century, and so far with the general history of
England.
The venerable Archbishop whose life has been touched
upon in so many of the past Chapters died in 1677, in his
eightieth year. One of the later glimpses we obtain of him
is reflected through the last Will of Lord Clarendon, dated
from 'Rouen, Dec. u, 1674.' The fastest of friendships,
maintained in prosperity and adversity for half a century, in
the classic society of Lord Falkland's open mansion, the
martial excitement of the University fortress, the vicissitudes
of exile, the guidance of two kings, the reorganisation of a
shattered nation, the struggle with high-placed vice, the
common loss of Court favour, the second exile, and the
quiet preparation for death, finds its last expression in these
directions to his sons. Bequeathing to them ' all his papers
and writings of what kind soever,' he leaves these ' entirely
to their disposal as they shall be advised, either by sup-
pressing or publishing, by the advice and approbation of my
Lord Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Win-
chester, whom I do intreat to be the overseers of this my
Will ; and that they would be both suitors to His Majesty
on my children's behalf, who have all possible need of His
Majesty's charity, being children of a father who never com-
mitted fault against His Majesty V The resolution taken
by his sons not to publish the one great classical history
in our language for so many years was no doubt due to
these ' overseers of the Will.' It was probably judicious.
Too many persons were implicated. The effect which the
publication produced in the reign of Queen Anne was
enormous 2 .
From Anthony Wood we obtain a momentary view of the
Archbishop, where the eccentric antiquarian describes how he
saw him in London, received his encouragement in his great
1 Clarendon State Papers, iii. 736.
2 Lord Stanhope's Hist, of England, vol. ii. p. 50.
250 ALL SOULS UNDER CHARLES II. [CHAP.
literary work, and knelt for his blessing l . Few letters are
more creditable to any writer than one of the last Sheldon
wrote, but which was sent by Sancroft, after Sheldon's death,
to an obstinately non-resident Bishop, with whom he most
touchingly remonstrates on his neglect of duty 2 . But we
shall perhaps obtain a clearer notion of the mind of one who
has left little or nothing behind him but his actions, by
quoting his Will, which has not yet been printed 3 . We
cannot always judge of men even by this class of documents,
but the present seems an exceptional case. It is as follows :
( I, Gilbert Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury, being in
good health of body and sound and perfect in memory and
understanding (God be praised for it) doe make and ordaine
this my last Will and Testament in manner and forme fol-
lowing. First I recommend my soule into the mercifull hands
of my gracious Redeemer, my only Lord, Saviour and Master
Jesus Christ, relying wholly upon his goodness and mercy
for my salvation, giving him most humble thanks for calling
mee by his Gospel and grace to his knowledge and obedi-
ence, abhorring all sects, sidings and tyranny in religion,
holding fast the true orthodox profession of the Catholique
faith of Christ, foretold by the prophets and preached to the
world by Christ himself, his blessed Apostles and their suc-
cessors, being a true member of his Catholique Church within
the Communion of a living part thereof, the present Church
of England, desiring God to confirme mee in this fiaith and in
all Christian charity and his holy feare to my lives end.
My body I desire may be devoutly buried, but very privately
and speedily, that my funerall may not wast much of what I
leave behind me for better uses.'
These last words may be illustrated by the remark that we
have scarcely any record of such munificence towards good
and charitable objects as he shewed all through his life.
We have no record of the sums he spent in the relief of
two Kings, and of their friends in exile ; but his gifts to
'public, pious and charitable uses' are usually reckoned at
1 Life, p. Ixv. 2 Tanner MSS. vol. 86. fol. 190.
'* Collection of MSS. in Codrington's Library, All Souls College.
xiii.] SHELDON'S WILL AND EPITAPH. 251
.^66,000. His treasurer, who ought to know, put them at
j^7 2,000 1 , a sum representing in material value some three
or four hundred thousand pounds of our money ! He came
of an old Staffordshire family, and no doubt some of these
funds came out of fortunes which he shared. Unmarried,
he lived for the public. ' He was buried, the 16 Nov. 1677,
at Croydon with little solemnity, for soe he desired 2 .' His
appropriate motto was ' Fortiter et suaviter? His epitaph
contains the following words :
' Omnibus negotiis par, omnibus titulis superior, in rebus ad-
versis magnus, in prosperis bonus, utriusque fortune Dominus,
pauperum parens, literatorum patronus, ecclesite stator : De
tanto viro pauca dicere non expedit, multa non opus est : nomnt
prcesentes, posteri viao credent: Octogenarius animam piam et
ccelo maturam Leo reddidit V. Id. ioP 1677.'
There is but one contemporaneous evidence, at all in full,
of the manner in which the life and character of the
Archbishop struck competent observers in his later days.
It has already been translated from the Latin and printed,
but cannot be omitted in this place. Samuel Parker, James
the Second's Bishop of Oxford and pseudo-President of
Magdalen College, does not come down to us with the
best of characters ; but he was an able man, with the best
opportunities of judging concerning Sheldon ; and his
Commentarii de rebus sui temporis, which contain much
valuable information, were only published long after his
death. Let the passage be taken for what it is worth.
' Archbishop Sheldon/ says he, ' was a man of undoubted
piety, but though he was very assiduous at prayers, yet he
did not set so great a value on them as others did, nor
regarded so much worship as the use of worship, placing
the chief point of religion in the practice of a good life.
In his daily discourse he cautioned those about him not to
deceive themselves with an half religion, nor to think that
1 Le Neve's Lives of the Bishops.
2 Ashmole MSS., Bodleian Library, 860. 400.
252 ALL SOULS UNDER CHARLES II. [CHAP.
Divine Worship was confined within the walls of the church,
the principal part of it being- without doors, and consisting
in being- conversant with mankind. If men led an upright,
sober, chaste life, then and not till then, they might look
upon themselves as religious; otherwise it would signify
nothing what form of religion bad men followed, or to
what Church they belonged. Then having spoken to this
effect he added with a kind of exultation and joy : " Do
well and rejoice."
' His advice to young noblemen and gentlemen who by
their parents' commands resorted daily to him was always
this: "Let it be your principal care to become honest
men, and afterwards be as devout and religious as you
will. No piety will be of any advantage to yourselves
or anybody else unless you are honest and moral men."
He had a great aversion to all pretences to extraordinary
piety which covered real dishonesty ; but had a sincere
affection for those whose religion was attended with
integrity of manners. His worthy notions of religion
meeting with an excellent temper in him gave him that
even tranquillity of mind by which he was ever himself and
always the same in adversity and prosperity, neither over-
valued nor despised life, nor feared nor wished for death ;
but lived agreeably to himself and others.'
It is easy to see how the species of exhortation here
ascribed to Sheldon might be misinterpreted and perverted ;
but there is nothing even in this extract (which is, after
all, only Parker's statement) to justify the opinion that he
encouraged carelessness about religion. What he had learnt
by sad experience, acquired in times when religious pro-
fessions had been full surely brought to the test, was to
discourage unreality and cant. Parker's account of the pre-
eminent affection borne by Charles the First to Sheldon is
entirely consistent with all we may gather from the indi-
cations given in these pages.
One other ray of light has been thrown on Sheldon's
religious opinions, but at a much earlier date. It is in
connection with the celebrated Chillingworth, one of the
circle which frequented Great Tew. The question of signa-
ture to the Articles of the Church of England was in those
xiii.] SHELDON'S M ALIGNERS. 253
days, as in modern times, hotly debated. Chillingworth went
over for a time to the Roman Communion ; Sheldon was the
means of bringing him back to our own, and of persuading
him to sign the Articles in a sense which Chillingworth
has explained as follows, and which Laud also held.
' For the Church of England I am persuaded that the
constant doctrine of it is so pure and orthodox that whosoever
believes it and lives according to it undoubtedly he shall be
saved ; and that there is no error in it which may necessitate
or warrant any man to disturb the peace or renounce the
Communion of it V
If Sheldon had not been so grossly misrepresented by
Burnet and Neal, these latter remarks and quotations would
not have been inserted; since a mere reference would have
better suited the plan of this book. The reader has now
before him in a very condensed form, indeed the career
and character of an eminent man. He will judge how far
any differences of view which might fairly be entertained
as to his political conduct or religious opinions justify what
follows.
. ' Sheldon,' says Burnet, ' was accounted a learned man
before the wars, but he was now engaged so deep in politics
that scarce any prints of what he had been remained. He
was a very dextrous man in business, had a great quickness
of apprehension, and a very true judgment. He was a
generous and charitable man. He had a great pleasant-
ness in conversation, perhaps too great. He had an art
that was peculiar to him of treating all that came to him
in a most obliging manner; but few depended much on his
professions of friendship. He seemed not to have a deep
sense of religion, if any at all, and spoke of it most commonly
as of an engine oT government and a matter of policy. By
this means the King came to look on him as a wise and
"honest clergyman 2 .'
So far alone appeared in the editions of Burnet published
before Dr. Routh's Oxford Edition, when various suppressed
1 Preface to ' Eeligion of Protestants a Safe Way to Salvation.'
2 Burnet's History of his Own Time, vol. i. p. 303.
254 ALL SOULS UNDER CHARLES II. [CHAP.
passages, which the former editors had cautiously omitted,
were inserted in brackets. The following appendage to the
above statement was one of these : ' though he had
little virtue and less religion.' This paragraph was so
outrageously malicious that the editors no doubt refused
to insert it for fear it should invalidate other statements
in the book; but this was, and always is, a mistake. We
see plainly by the light of the whole passage, what we
might have suspected before, that Burnet drew his informa-
tion from untrustworthy sources, from Sheldon's political
enemies, even if he had not ' evolved it,' as we now
say, ' out of his own consciousness.' Some echoes of the
Royalist dissatisfaction at the measures of the Restoration
in which Sheldon was concerned perhaps reached his ears,
and supplied part of this veracious ' character ;' but one would
have thought, to charge with ' little virtue and less religion '
the intimate friend and constant associate of Clarendon, Falk-
land, Sanderson, Hammond and Morley, the fellow-w r orker
with Laud, the adviser of Jeremy Taylor, the chosen spiritual
counsellor of Charles the First, the rebuker of Charles the
Second, the man whose actions we have traced (and which
must have been well known to Burnet, for he w r as born in
1643), an( ^ f wnom such words have been written as we
have quoted, would have been a little too much even for
one whose ' characters' of his opponents are proverbially
untrustworthy.
Yet this statement as far as the early editors gave it
was copied verbatim into Kenneths ' Register,' from
whence (if not from Burnet) those who have written our
' English Histories ' have unenquiringly taken it ! And the
Nonconformist, Neal, has made a little improvement on it
in these words : ' He made a jest of religion any further
than it was a political engine of State 1 !' For this Neal
1 Hist, of the Puritans, ii. 708.
xiii.] GENESIS OF THE SLANDER. 255
had no shadow of authority beyond Burnet's statement as
originally published. The art of blackening an opponent's
memory could hardly reach a higher perfection. But even
Hallam so little remembered his professed wish to be fair,
as to say without further comment 'Sheldon is represented
as a man who considered religion chiefly as an engine of
policy 1 .' Yes ; he is ' represented ' so by Burnet and Neal,
authors whom Hallam quotes with marked approbation
throughout !
Some, and at least All Souls men, will recognise the few
words placed against Sheldon's name at the foot of Loggan's
print of All Souls a contemporary document, be it observed
as more correctly expressing the facts : : Divino animo
mac/ni Chichley e KTV TIOS.'
1 Const. Hist. ii. 351.
CHAPTER XIV.
,rrMs0 Smttrofi
attir %
1678-1680.
The final struggle on ' Corrupt Resignations ' History of the Tan-
ner MSS. Sancroft's vigorous Reform Coincidence of struggle
with the national crisis on Exclusion Bill The superior class of
Fellows put in by Bancroft and Jeames Defence made by
Fellows Visitor and Warden fairly embarked against the
Fellows.
THE battle with the dragon of corruption now begins in
earnest. It is short, sharp, and decisive. For the previous
struggles have been mere skirmishes ; the monster has reared
his head with all the more vigour after each wound ; and yet
those wounds were given by men who were no unsuccessful
combatants in the battle of life. A St. George at last appeared
on the scene. Who would have thought that conquest was
reserved for one whom Bishop Burnet tells us was preferred
by the Court as 'a man who might be entirely gained to
serve all their ends ... an unactive, speculative man 1 ?'
Perhaps the line of conduct which we shall find Bancroft
pursuing at All Souls may lead us to suspect once more the
burly Prelate's impartiality.
As this and the next chapter will be occupied in bringing
the question of corrupt Resignations to a conclusion, some
apology is necessary for an attention to details which has been
1 History of his Own Time, vol. ii. p. 90.
THE TANNER MANUSCRIPTS. 257
elsewhere avoided. Independently of the light thrown from
such an unexpected quarter on Sancroft's character, and the
curious coincidence between this and the great struggle of the
nation now raging, more than a coincidence, since they inter-
penetrate one another, those who are interested in observing
the painful process by which a great moral victory is obtained,
will not, it is hoped, object to have a picture presented to them
which time never fails to reproduce in one sphere or another.
It so happens that the whole, or nearly the whole, of the cor-
respondence bearing on the subject is available for our pur-
pose, let not the reader be alarmed; we shall present him
with the briefest abstracts of it ; these papers may plead for
themselves that they have gone through one of the most
remarkable histories on record.
Archbishop Sancroft was not only an antiquarian who
made collections of important documents, but a methodical
man, who carefully preserved every letter he received, as well
as, in all important cases, copies of those he sent. This, we
may hope, is not uncommon ; nor is it uncommon that the
most precious collections should come to the hammer. San-
croft's nephew sold the Archbishop's MSS. to a bookseller 1 ,
from whom, most fortunately, Bishop Tanner purchased them.
His connection with All Souls as one of its most loyal Fellows
led him to collect in one volume all Sancroft's papers relating
to the College, and to send it, along with the rest of his price-
less collection of books and manuscripts, to Oxford. They
were the result of the labour of forty years, such labour as
only two or three other persons have perhaps ever bestowed
on antiquarian research. He sent them from Norwich to
Oxford in a barge, as, it must be supposed, the safest method
of carriage. The barge upset in the Thames.
The cases of books and papers lay ' twenty hours below
water ; and there were as many of them when opened as
loaded seven waggons, among which were between two and
1 Hearne's Diary, 134. 165.
s
258 VISITOR AND FELLOWS AT WAR. [CHAP.
three hundred volumes of MSS. which his Lordship hath
been collecting 1 near these forty years. They are so much
damaged they are obliged to take them to pieces and dry
them on lines. Several of them are lost, and many of them
so much damaged as to be useless V
1 The revenues of Canterbury,' says Hearne, ' would not make
him [Bishop Tanner] or the world amends for the loss of part
of Archbishop Sancroft's MSS. which are irreparable 2 .'
At Tanner's death the whole collection was, in obedience to
his Will of 1733, sent to the Bodleian Library, (1736). The
restoration by a chemical process of some of these damaged
treasures is at this moment in progress at the Bodleian ; but
the volume containing the All Souls papers was only dis-
coloured, and was copied in part by a chaplain of the
College, more than a hundred years ago, and lodged in the
Codrington Library.
The series of letters now introduced opens with some cautious
approaches to the new Visitor on the part of the Warden.
They evidently express the feeling, ' What sort of a man
have we now at our head? Will he look into our affairs?
Will he interfere to protect us, as Sheldon was once able
to do, from the degradation to which we are now becoming
almost callous?' In this spirit the earliest opportunity is
embraced to thank the Archbishop for not having 'recom-
mended ' any candidates at the election, and at the same time
to offer him a choice among the candidates whose ' themes '
are transmitted, a species of bribery which, under the cir-
cumstances, we must not perhaps be too hasty to condemn.
We shall soon see the Warden taking a higher tone.
Then follow letters from various persons pursuing the
old trade of begging and praying the Visitor to grant
them Fellowships at All Souls ; in one of which letters
we find mention of some female who is about to 'dispose
1 Northampton Mercury, January 10, 1731, quoted by Hearne
(and probably written by himself), Diary, 134. 132.
2 Diary, 134. 165.
xiv.] FIRST SIGNS OF THE STORM. 259
of this as she has done of other Fellowships ' ! Well might
good men long for some change 1 ! The College on its
part makes a great merit of having contributed 100
towards the rebuilding of St. Paul's Cathedral, an object
well known to be very near the heart of the man whom
Wren found (along with Evelyn) his earliest and most
constant friend in that grand undertaking. There is evi-
dently a shrewd suspicion that a storm is brewing.
Sancroft had, indeed, already expressed his mind in some
letter which neither appea'rs in the Tanner MSS. nor in the
Archives; for just before the election on All Souls' Day,
1679, the Warden informs the Visitor of the difficulty he
is in with regard to one Mr. Morley's vacancy, and the
election of Mr. Morley's nominee, Mr. Stanley. He thanks
the Archbishop for his
' fatherly care in preserving the College in its just liberties
in our free elections and in due obedience to the Statutes of
our pious Founder ; and we should very much forget our
duty if we did not thankfully submit and hearken to your
admonitions and readily obey your commands. The sense
I have of this duty obligeth me not to consent to the elec-
tion of the person recommended to us by Mr. Morley. . .
The young man whom Mr. Morley proposeth to us is one
Mr. Stanley, a Demy of Magdalene College, one who hath
performed at the Examination as well as any of the nine
that stood, considering his standing and years. Mr. Morley,
as I am certainly informed, came down to Oxford with a
resolution of resigning to one Mr. Coney of that House,
and pitched upon this young man but the night before he
was to appear to be examined, so that he had little time or
opportunity to make any contract with him ; and to free him-
self from that suspicion offers to take the usual oath which we
administer to Resigners, which is full enough for that purpose.
... I must say something for my own clearing, and that is
that I never promised my vote beforehand to any man, nor
ever shall do it. ...
' Your Grace's most obedient servant, THO. JEAMES V
1 Tanner MSS. vol. 340.
2 This and the following letters, to the end of Chap. xv.,are from
the Tanner MSS. vol. 340.
s 2
260 VISITOR AND FELLOWS AT WAR. [CHAP.
But immediately after the election the poor Warden
finds himself in a scrape. He thus reports :
' We have finished our election, and have chosen very hope-
ful young men into the void places, and among the rest
Stanley of Magdalene College, not as a person commended
to us by Mr. Morley, but as one who deserved as well as any
of the candidates ; but, my lord, I had not presumed to con-
sent to his election but that I had grounds to believe he was
not the person your Grace meant when you forbid me to
accept Mr. Morley's man, and was withal assured that your
Grace was well satisfied that there was no trucking in the case
and accordingly had declared yourself.'
It is evident from these earlier letters that Warden
Jeames, however much he had tried to make the exa-
minations strict, and resist unfit nominees either from
within or without, had been too long mixed up with the
proceedings of the College to strike a decisive blow at the
root of the evil. It could not be done from within. If
the nominee had passed a good examination, and there was
no absolute proof of corrupt dealing, the Warden was not
yet prepared to bring the College about his ears by re-
fusing a man because he was a nominee. But this was the
point ; and Sancroft saw it. With characteristic resolution
he prepares to deal with it ; with characteristic pertinacity
he perseveres till he succeeds. There is always at least
in England some one to follow when a gallant leader is
found. The Warden soon discovers he has a Visitor whom
he can trust. He rises to the occasion ; at once, to his
great credit, he casts aside the half-measures with which he
had been hitherto contented, and throws himself into the
breach. On one occasion when even Sancroft was for a
moment staggered, the old Cavalier, who had ' borne arms
for the good King/ tells him pretty plainly they had gone
too far to retreat, and that they must now conquer or die.
The struggle does indeed, as a matter of fact, bring him
prematurely to the grave.
xiv.] SOME USEFUL DISCOVERIES. 261
Some correspondence, which we have not before us, has
followed the above letters; for on May 9, 1680, the Warden
sends the Visitor a full account of the existing- state of
things as regards oaths and elections. A scientific inves-
tigation is commenced ; and the Warden suggests that the
Archbishop should make his own chaplain's case the first
example, since this functionary, one Mr. Trumbull, a
Fellow of the College, was at this very time intriguing,
under the Primate's very nose, for a nominee. No doubt
the gentleman saw the necessity of speed in the matter.
If this were made 'the leading case ... no one will have
cause to complain in future.' He then supplies the forms
of Oath taken by Petitioners, Fellows on admission, and Re-
signers. The two first of these are Whitgiffc's Oaths \ but
the third is not. Nor is it Abbot's, of which it turns out
that the College is absolutely ignorant. It had been evi-
dently substituted for Abbot's Oath. As more lax than his,
it was not likely to excite unpleasant enquiries. It seems
to have admitted of easy evasion; and yet it appears at
first sight strict enough. Here it is :
f l, A. B., do swear that neither I, or any other for me,
by my consent or knowledge, have contracted to receive
money or money-worth for that my departure or resigning
whereby any other should be chosen or elected into my place.'
It will be seen, however, that this only speaks in the
past tense. An ' understanding ' might still take place by
which, when the resignation was completed and the nominee
elected, the quid pro quo might find its way to the right
quarter. There is no clue to the date of this substitution.
The gap caused by the Civil War in the continuity of
College arrangements makes itself felt in such ways as this.
Warden Jeames at any rate knew nothing about this
oath. It was fortunate that the Archiepiscopal Archives of
1 See p. 107.
262 VISITOR AND FELLOWS AT WAR. [CHAP.
Lambeth were more available than those of All Souls. The
Warden had only 'heard' of some better provision against
corruption.
' I have heard that Dr. Moket, who was Warden in King-
James's reign, would have imposed an oath upon the
designers whereby they should have been obliged never to
have received any gratuity from their successors or their
friends in case it should be offered ; but that the Fellows
refused to take any such oath, saying that if they were
obliged to resign to nobody that might be grateful they
must then resign to the Devil.'
He also suggests that collusion would be made more
difficult by obliging Resigners to declare themselves ten
days before the election, and thus to give time for 'looking
out fit persons to succeed, and to examine them three days
before the election.'
It was this passage about Moket and the ' resignation
to the Devil ' which produced the Archbishop's indignant
letter, given in Chapter VIII, and introduced out of its
place for the purpose of its illustration of Abbot's position.
But the date of that letter is a few months later than the
above. The Visitor had in the mean time ordered a search
to be made in his Registry, had lighted upon Abbot's
Injunctions, and concluded, quite rightly, that the oaths,
as Abbot had enjoined them, being sufficient for his purpose,
it would be best to recur to them rather than to any new
expedient. Those oaths dealt with the future reception of
an equivalent for a Fellowship as well as with any past
transaction ; and so could not be evaded without absolute
perjury. He now therefore incorporates these oaths into
his ' Injunction, 1 adding the Warden's suggestion, and
severely rebuking the College for having ' for many years
supinely neglected, or openly and obstinately broken,
Injunctions so piously provided and firmly fortified, and
substituted for those prescribed and stricter forms others
xiv.] THE NEW ORDINANCES. 263
much more loose and long obsolete, and so having introduced
into your College as by an open gate sordid and illegal
bargainings and simoniacal covenants and promises, or,
which is the same thing, rewards and payments 1 .' He
follows up this Injunction by an Ordinance 2 , from which
a few words may be quoted :
' Since those Resignations which pass by the name of
" in favor em " or " ad gratiam " j they had obtained a regular
name] ' are very properly considered suspicious and odious
. . . and at least imply the iniquitous stain of Simony, we
therefore by virtue of your oath, and so under the penalty
of perjury which you must pay either in this world or at
the tremendous tribunal of the Supreme Judge, enjoin that
you admit of no Resignation in any way unless it is pure
and simple, but reject it as wholly null and void. If any
of you, contrary to the tenour of this ordinance, presume
to interfere, or offer, or designate any one as a successor
for election or admission to his own place which he is
vacating, or about to vacate, by word, writing, nod, token,
or any other way, we expressly forbid you to pay any
attention in your elections to such Resigner or his nominee ;
and we will and pronounce by this ordinance that such person
shall be altogether incapable of holding the place in the
College for which he stands.'
Several letters from the Warden, dated before and after
the public reading of these documents in the Chapel of All
Souls, shew him fully prepared to do his part.
He trusts the Visitor will ' obtain a blessing as well from
God as a good report among all honest men in preventing
any further abuses and corruptions in our elections, and in
taking away that scandal which hath hitherto too justly lain
upon us. ... I promise myself your Grace's patronage, being
otherwise unable to bear up against the opposition I foresee
I shall certainly meet with/
And after the Primate's artillery has arrived he still fears
the escape of the enemy :
' They have been so long accustomed to favour him whom
1 From the Latin copy in the Archives. 2 Ibid.
264 VISITOR AND FELLOWS AT WAR. [CHAP.
the Resigner commends that they will hardly deny him though
they may have much better choice.' Yet ' several Parliament
men have resolved and threatened to complain of our selling
our Fellowships.' As for Abbot's Injunctions, he had ' never
heard a syllable of them before, nor have we any record in
our College extant that I ever saw.'
Amongst the letters of this date appears one from a certain
Emanuel Thorowgood, who tells the Archbishop that
' all honest men do commend your good endeavours to
suppress that horrible impiety of selling Resignations which
is now practised in All Souls College, which is the occasion
of horrid perjuries, and will injime, if not redressed, make
Parliament employ College revenues to honester purposes
than they are now used.'
He then informs the Archbishop that his Grace's own
chaplain was bargaining to push a nominee into the College
for 250 guineas.
This most eventful of All Souls' Days is now drawing near.
The Warden writes that the Fellows desire time for advice
before taking the new Oaths. He wishes to know whether
he shall refuse their votes if they have not taken the Oaths
on the day of election.
' With your Grace's encouragement I will run through all
opposition in assisting to break off' those sinful and shameful
customs which have made us so scandalous. . . All the arts
are used imaginable to discourage all candidates appearing
besides the four recommended by the Decessors, and yet I
think we never had so good a choice as now. . . I doubt
not but in all our future elections we shall still have as good
choice as the University affords when it shall at last appear
that the Fellowships of All Souls be conferred on the most
worthy.'
These extracts reveal the fact that the approaching election
was exciting attention in other places besides the College.
Political partisanship was running higher at this time than
ever before or since, short of civil war. This was the year,
xiv,] THE NATIONAL CRISIS. 265
and almost the very instant of the Exclusion Bill, which
was introduced on November 1 1 . Lord Stafford's iniquitous
execution for his supposed concern in the ' Popish Plot ' took
place a few days later. The allusions in the correspondence
to the Primate's harassed condition, and the regret felt at
this additional burden being- imposed on him, are frequent.
In such a convulsion even the affairs of All Souls might yield
a triumph to the patrons of Titus Gates and Turberville.
Writing on November 20, soon after the election, the Warden
excuses his past apprehensions by saying that the election
took place just ' when the House of Commons went on
without the least control to unsettle and overturn all things/
for the Exclusion Bill passed in that House tumultuously,
without a division, 'till upon the very day of the date of
my letter your Lordships gave them a check by throwing out
their Bill.' The difficulties of the position were still further
increased by the doubtful character of the Law Courts.
From the letter last quoted we find that the Warden's courage
was tried not only by fears of Parliament, but according
to what was threatened by some, ' that I should have been
called in question before such judges, who are against all
prerogatives and privileges except their own ; ' and the Fel-
lows, with all this on their side, ' did here beforehand pro-
claim their victory.'
We may judge from all this what was the state of the
atmosphere at and around All Souls when the 3rd of
November, 1680, arrived. It seems no doubt a mere 'storm
in a puddle ' when we think of the magnitude and fierceness
of the hurricane at this time ravaging Church and State,
the mighty questions depending on the issue at Westminster.
The succession to the Crown, the future position of Romanism
in England, the limits of the royal prerogative, the relations
of the two Houses, were only the most prominent out of
those which the King's own conduct had brought to a
point. The Great Rebellion was still fresh in men's minds,
266 VISITOR AND FELLOWS AT WAR. [CHAP.
and the Revolution looming- in the distance. But the pool
reflects the same heavens as the ocean. The trial to which
the stout Warden was exposed proved no less severe than
that which Charles himself was at that time undergoing,
when he performed one of the few noble acts of his life in
standing- firm against his foes on the Exclusion Bill 1 . The
part Sancroft played in these transactions marks the man
who headed the Seven Bishops in saving the English Con-
stitution, nay, more, it doubtless aided materially in steeling
his mind for that greater conflict.
When All Souls' Day came it soon appeared that the re-
fractory Fellows had taken counsel's advice on the legality of
the Oaths, and were prepared to proceed to extremities. The
struggle lasted three days. No one but the Sub-Warden and
Senior Fellow would follow the Warden's example and take
the Oaths. The rest declared that nothing short of an Act of
Parliament should force them. On the second day they deter-
mined to resist the Warden's power of stopping an election,
the Veto which he had hitherto exercised.
( They threw their votes/ says the Warden, ' in several
scraps of paper on the table, which I would not so much as
look upon, and forbade the Dean to receive them.' They pro-
ceeded thus, ' on purpose, as I suppose, to stagger and fright
me. I had nobody to advise with. The Common Lawyers
were gone to town, and the Civilians being for the most part
of New College and our own College, I thought them persons
concerned to uphold the practice used in both Houses of
recommending their successor.'
The election had now by Statute ' devolved' on the Visitor,
and the Warden says :
' I doubt not but your Grace will make the best choice for
us. The three first-named are I think as good scholars as the
University affords for their standing-. This trouble will, I
fear, return every year upon your Grace till they are out
of hopes of reviving the ill custom of naming their successors
i See Quarterly Review, July 1872 ; ' The Stuarts.'
xiv.] THE MUTINY AT ALL SOULS. 267
which your Injunction takes away. As long as I continue
Warden I will faithfully assist your Grace in the confounding
of it. God long preserve your Grace an instrument of his
glory and our reformation.'
Next day he writes to warn the Archbishop that he may
expect a visit from the malcontents :
'But I make no question but your Grace will make choice
of those whose worth will justify your proceedings, and give
me some support and comfort amongst the strivings and
oppositions against me. However, I shall have peace in my
own heart, since what I do in obedience to your Grace is
likewise that which I am persuaded in my conscience is my
duty both to God and to that charge and place wherewith I
am entrusted. The several exercises of the candidates under
their own hands, together with a most impartial account of
their other performances in Disputations and rendering of
authors, will be brought to your Grace on Tuesday.'
The reports thus transmitted to Sancroft are missing in the
Tanner Collection, but accidentally turned up in searching
the Rawlinson Collection l in the Bodleian Library.
Of one of the candidates the Warden reports that he is ' a
good scholar, a hard student, and a very honest poor youth of
our College.' Of another (Norris), ' a very excellent scholar
who spoke verses in the Theater with very greate applause, a
very good Grecian and philosopher, and a young Bachelor of
Arts ; he had his education at Winchester School, and is a
Wiltshire man and a clergyman's second son.' Of another
(Miles Stapylton of University College), ' a very excellent
scholar in all the learning in which he was tried, and one
of the " pauperiores." ' Of another, ' a very good scholar as
to philosophy and classic authors.' Of another (George Clarke),
that he was ' a young man who had shown brisk parts in the
examination.'
The Visitor selected three of those above mentioned out of
the four which it had become his duty to name. Norris
became an ornament to the College. He is known as a
1 Misc. 1390.
268 VISITOR AND FELLOWS AT WAR. [CHAP.
' writer of great repute in his day, who published several
treatises in Divinity and Philosophy. His " Miscellanies "
are still read and applauded 1 ,' says one who writes in
1813; but they are now forgotten. Though they can
scarcely be said to deserve any other fate when compared
with the writings of that day which have survived, his
' Miscellanies ' shew an admirable tone of mind and amiable
character. The spirit of George Herbert still seems to inspire
his pious successor at Bemerton. To mention one point;
for a writer in 1687 to denounce duelling with the same
energy and by the same arguments 2 which have only just
subdued the practice in our own day a practice still flourish-
ing abroad is no common merit. Another of those selected
by the Visitor, Stapylton, was also a man of some distinction
in after life ; but the third, George Clarke, will occupy much
of our attention in a subsequent chapter. He lived to fill
high offices under the Crown, to represent the University in
five Parliaments, and to become, next to Codrington, the
most liberal benefactor All Souls ever had since its foundation.
Certainly at this period it might seem that the only way to
get the best men into the College was to leave the matter to
the Warden and Visitor.
We next have before us a very long and very able letter
from twenty-four Fellows of the College in defence of their
conduct. It is drawn with great legal skill, as might be
expected, since some of the best lawyers of the day e. g.
Dr. Littleton, who was afterwards Attorney- General were
amongst the number. They approach the Visitor with a
humility which appears sarcastic. They applaud his
' pious zeal in endeavouring to prevent corruption in elec-
tions,' and 'we acknowledge ourselves obliged to promote
so good a design with our utmost endeavours. Your Grace
cannot propose any lawful expedient for freeing us even
from the suspicion of it but we are with all cheerfulness
1 Letters from the Bodleian. 2 Miscellanies, p. 169.
xiv.] DEFENCE OF THE FELLOWS. 269
ready to comply.' They 'abhor' corruption. They are
bound to obey the Visitor's Injunctions if not repugnant
to their Statutes ; ' but if they are, we are sworn to resist
them,' nor are they to obey anything- ' contrary to the law
of the land.' They had been legally advised that the ' im-
position of the oath now enjoined' was illegal; the Warden's
refusal to proceed unless they took it was therefore a breach
of the Statute which requires ' all Fellows Resident " crastlno
Animarum" to give their votes, and deprives no man of his
vote upon any account, no, not for any crime whatsoever.'
Therefore they persisted in giving their votes ; they at any
rate would not infringe their Statutes. They always under-
stood those Statutes to mean that they ' should not choose
an unfit person at the request or recommendation of another,
nor for any recompense or reward.' ' That any body ever
came in by corruption has not yet been made appear to us. . .
We think it unreasonable to suppose any man guilty of so
great a crime upon a bare report, and for ought we know,
groundless.' They will gladly help the Visitor to prevent
any ground of suspicion if it is but a legal way ; for it is a
' noble design which tends to the reputation of our College
and the honour of our founder.' ' In the mean time we hope
your Grace will not endeavour to debar us of our hitherto
undoubted right in a free election which the Founder has
given us, the King by his Charter has confirmed to us, and in
which we shall always proceed as near as possibly we can
according to his Statutes and your Grace's Injunctions.'
There are only two points of importance in this letter.
The question of imposing oaths was one for the Courts,
to which it soon came. The assertion that it had never
been ' made appear that any one ever came in by corruption,'
can only be taken as true in its bare and naked sense. No
doubt it had not been made to ' appear,' but its notoriety
was beyond dispute ; and these twenty-four Fellows must
have been perfectly well aware of what Warden upon Warden,
Visitor upon Visitor, writer upon writer, in public papers
as well as in letters which have remained all this time
unpublished, have agreed in exposing and condemning. It
is enough to say that this method of excuse reminds us
of the general character of the age, the age of plots and
270 VISITOR AND FELLOWS AT WAR. [CHAP.
intrigues, of hard swearing and corrupt Courts of Law, the
age when Louis Quatorze kept Members of Parliament, of
all politics alike, in his pay as well as the King, and when,
as a modern historian of the period has said, the affairs
of Europe hung suspended on the love-knots of that King's
worthless mistresses.
For a moment, however, Sancroft is staggered. So we
gather from the next letter we have of the Warden's. Two
of the Fellows have seen the Visitor, and he questions whether
the Warden has not gone too far all at once, whether it is
not true that he has broken the Statutes in refusing the votes
of the Fellows. This doubt the Warden meets with the
greatest decision. His Veto has been reckoned absolute
from the beginning. There can be no election without his
concurrence. He was bound to obey the Visitor's In-
junction, which had required the oath previous to election.
He could not therefore take the votes from men who had
not taken the oaths.
But ' as to that which your Grace tells me of the Fellows
wondering at the scandal fastened on the College of making
bargains for their Fellowships, I am afraid they have as little
reason as any to make strange of it, for Mr. A.' [it is not
worth while to print the names] ' one of the candidates
this year, when I informed him at his first application to
me, before your Injunctions came, that both he and Dr. C.'
[the Kesigner] ' must swear that there was no bargain made
between them for money or money's worth, he presently told
me that his mother had sent him word that there was to be
no dealing between the Dr. and him, but that the whole
management of it was referred to his guardian and Mr. W.,
Dr. C.'s intimate friend. ... As for Dr. L., when he was in
hopes of being Chancellor of Lichfield, I have been told, and
have greater reason to believe it, that he employed his
chamber-fellow, Mr. S., to find out a chapman at 300
prize, since which time I am afraid he did the same good
turn for Mr. S. at his going off, in proportion to the differ-
ence between a Law and an Artist's place. . . . My Lord, it
is too evident that there hath been most abominable prac-
tices in buying and selling the Founder's bounty and charity,
xiv.] FORTITUDE OF THE WARDEN. 271
enough to justify against us the Patrons' selling their livings ;
and though I have been long grieved at it, yet I was never
in hopes of a remedy against it but from your Grace's in-
tegrity, piety and justice.
And soon afterwards :
' My Lord, I am sorry that to obtain a remedy from your
Grace I am thus forced to lay open our corruptions, and that
their stubbornness should betray themselves and divulge their
faults at this time when men will be glad of an occasion to
ruin us. For my own part I have been once already turned
out of the College, and I thank God have learnt and am pre-
pared to suffer a second time ; and whatever happens 'twill
be some comfort to me that before I am forced to forsake the
College I have, under your Grace's conduct and auspices,
endeavoured heartily to reform it . . . . My Lord, if I did not
do my duty in the election, I have however done it in signi-
fying to your Grace that there was no election.'
Just about the same date there appears a very opportune
letter to the Primate, which may have contributed to remove
his doubts. It is not signed, but Tanner identifies it as the
production of the famous Humphrey Prideaux, then Student
of Christ Church. It takes the large view of the matter which
might be expected from a man of his stamp. He tells San-
croft of the intense interest which the struggle at All Souls is
exciting.
' The whole body of the University bears a share in the
scandal which doth hence arise, and if your Grace's good de-
signs take such effect as to remove it for the future, a general
benefit will be derived on this place thereby, not only in
diverting from us the reproaches and slanders of such as are
glad of any opportunity of casting them upon us, but likewise
in encouraging virtue and learning, in again restoring those
so considerable Fellowships to be the reward of it. That
which hath chiefly encouraged the Fellows to oppose your
Grace herein is a character they have received of you that
you are of a temper which will soon yield when brisk opposi-
tion is made. . . . But we hope your Grace will not so easily
give up so good a cause.'
He then recommends his own plan, which is to oblige every
272 VISITOR AND FELLOWS AT WAR. [CHAP.
Fellow, before admission, to enter into a bond of ^"500 that
on resigning he will not 'recommend' a successor directly or
indirectly ; ' and then you may be assured nothing will be
given for Resignations.' He hopes the Archbishop will not
try to find out who he is. He is ' One who heartily desires
the success of every good work.'
A hot fire of legal opinions now takes place. Mr. Roger
North, brother of the Lord Keeper, and ' Steward of the Archi-
episcopal Courts/ gives a directly opposite opinion to those of
the learned Serjeants-at-law who had been consulted by the
Fellows, and who, it came out, never had the whole case before
them. An elaborate answer to the twenty-four Fellows is sent,
drawn up, in the name of the Visitor, by a legal hand, skil-
fully taking advantage of their admissions, and exposing their
self-contradictions. It accuses the Fellows of ' writing publicly
to His Grace in a Praemuuire for imposing the oath/ But
' though private persons may not impose an oath, the Visitor
of a Corporation may.' Archbishops of Canterbury impose
oaths on Notaries Public : Cranmer and Whitgift imposed
oaths on All Souls. The Visitor holds by Statute the veiy
place of the Founder, who gave special directions against
simony. As to the Fellows declaring that the late Resigners
' forbore to recommend any of the candidates to them, they
must excuse me if I give no credit thereto ; it being notorious
that a great part of the University some time before the elec-
tion knew distinctly what candidates each Resigner did recom-
mend, and accordingly these 24 gave their voices.'
The Warden's letters now assume a more cheerful tone.
He is by this time assured of his Visitor's persistence at
whatever cost, and will do his part. There is much more
to be done. The success of the ' Abhorrers ' the party
opposed to the Exclusion Bill in the House of Lords had
given fresh spirit to the Archbishop and his lieutenant.
' Your last letter,' says the Warden, ' hath put new life and
spirit into me, so that I hope to see the good work begun
xiv.] SAN CROFT STANDS HIS GROUND. 273
among- us happily perfected, and as they call me your Grace's
tool so they shall find that I have edge, mettle and temper
sufficient never to be blunted nor to fail in your hand.'
In this letter he describes how ' elections were continued
without any choice of candidates presenting themselves to the
electors, till your Grace's predecessor, my Lord Archbishop
Sheldon, when he was our Visitor and I newly come to be
Warden, found the inconveniency of this course, and upon
every place void by death commanded us to open our doors
and admit all that would be suitors for it and always to choose
the best : which command, to the best of my judgment, I
always endeavoured to obey, and when I was not complied
with, devolved the election. . . But as to the resigned places
they have been disposed of to the Resigners till the cry of our
corruptions came to your Grace's ears/
We have already observed Sheldon's failure to grapple
with more than a portion of the evil here exposed by
Warden Jeames. Both he and Jeames, as past and present
Wardens, had been so imbued with the usages of genera-
tions that it was thought a great matter to resign all that
interest in death vacancies which the Wardens had so long
been suffered to usurp, and for which others vehemently
struggled with them. The institution of ex officio Visitors
of exalted position thus signally proved its usefulness.
They were sure sooner or later to acknowledge their
responsibility, and they would possess official documents for
reference extending from age to age. Here were Sheldon
and Jeames, two men of courage and public spirit, wish-
ing to do their duty, yet stopping short at a part of
that duty ! At last arises an equally conscientious man,
unbiassed by usages. He intervenes with all the force he
can command, and cuts the poison-tree down at the root.
CHAPTER XV.
Iftdcrrg.
16801686.
The College goes to law with the Visitor ' A perfect state of war '
Sancroft's letter to the College The Fellows procure a
Mandamus The King's Bench supports Sancroft A Policy
of Conciliation Boisterous loyalty of certain Fellows Death
of Warden Jeames.
At the end of the letter given in the preceding chapter
the Warden says :
' Just now, while I was writing this, three of the candidates
interrupted me by coming with a Public Notary with them to
demand admission upon their pretence of being elected by a
majority, but receiving a peremptory denial from me they pre-
sently departed, and left me to make. an end of this long
letter.'
He next asks (Nov. 28, 1680) for an order
' that the Bursars and officers shall deliver the money
which you allot for the Tower this year, to be intrusted in
my hands for the defraying of the charges of the suit, in
case I am forced to defend our Statutes, it being one of
the ends specified in the Statutes why the money is to be
laid up, and this I think will somewhat discourage the
Fellows who set on the three Pretenders to see me, when
they see I have the College money to make good the
Founder's Statutes. My Lord, on Wednesday night the
Fellows were much dismayed at the news that your Grace
LEGAL PROCEEDINGS. 275
had named four into the vacant places, but now they talk
of a Prohibition, which they are in hopes to obtain for the
hindering of your election.'
This was soon put beyond doubt. A letter from Mr.
Roger North now reports that
c a Mandamus was moved for at the Court of King's Bench
to admit a Fellow to his place in All Souls College at the
late election ; the Court deliberated about granting it, because
the College hath a Visitor ; but at last, in regard that the
Court could not take knowledge of that fact officially, did
grant it, with this opinion, that to return upon the Mandamus
that there is a Visitor will be sufficient.'
The next letter (Dec. 2), as might be expected, discloses
a 'perfect state of war,' which the Warden, an old soldier,
carries into the camp of his enemies by pinching their
stomachs. He finds an excuse with much ingenuity, and
certainly had no right to be surprised at 'the retort
courteous.'
' To countenance the Probationers [the four Fellows put in
by the Archbishop on the devolution to him] at their first
entrance into Commons I dined in the hall myself yesterday,
and shall again to-day, and have reduced the Fellows to their
ordinary Commons in messes and chops, whereas I have for
some years allowed them to be served up in whole joints, but
because they abused this liberty into excess, and brought a
great charge upon the poorer Fellows, I now thought fit to re-
trench it. After dinner, when I was returned to my lodgings,
the two Bursars and the two Deans came, with the Library-
Statute-Book in their hand, and admonished me (in obedience
to an Injunction of Archbishop Whitgift's) to expel the Head
Cook, who that day chopped out their Commons, and the
groom of the stable, for being married men, that, and their
relation to me (one having been my servant and the other
having married my wife's maid), being the only crimes they
could lay to their charge.'
He then begs the Visitor to dispense with that Injunc-
tion, which had been practically dispensed with for forty
T 2,
276 BANCROFT'S VICTORT. [CHAP.
years, both in the College, and throughout the University, and
proceeds :
' We are now here in a perfect state of war. All the affronts
they can with any security they put upon me, and Dr. D. [the
Senior Fellow] dare never, since he obeyed your Injunctions,
either be with them at the Common fire or dine with them in
the Hall but when I am there. As for the Subwarden, who is
bound to the Hall, he only sits out meals with them, and then
retires to his chamber. Hitherto to avoid contention I have
allowed every one in his turn according to seniority to come to
offices in the College ; but now, as well for the better discipline
of the College as my own peace, I must, by interposing my
negative, choose such as are the most deserving and of the
most quiet temper, whom I hope your Grace upon a Devolu-
tion will be pleased to confirm, for without the assistance of
the Deans I cannot punish any man, nor without the concur-
rence of the rest of the officers do anything of moment in the
House.'
This request he repeats two days afterwards, and reports
that
' The Dean of Arts who came in the head of the rest of the
officers of the College to admonish me to expel the two mar-
ried servants and then behaved himself most insolently, hath
publicly abused the Subwarden in gross language, calling
him " rogue," for which I convened him before his Fellow
Officers, and by the testimony of three of the Probationers
(for none of the Fellows or College servants would witness
anything) I proved the crime, and we have put him out of
Commons for a week, and ordered him publicly to acknow-
ledge his fault before the whole Society before he be restored.
This I hope will something humble them.'
He then recurs to the legal proceedings now in hand, and
says :
' My Lord, I hope our case will be made good at West-
minster Hall as well as it is in the Court of conscience;
however I should be glad to hear what the lawyers say of
it. I am heartily sorry the concerns of your College here
should give your Grace such trouble in so busy a time as
xv.] STATE OF WAR. 277
this is, but in all these difficulties I have no other refuge
here upon earth but to your Grace/
The Sub- Warden above mentioned, Dr. Wynne, lived to
support a later Warden in another College struggle, and
no doubt deserved the praise of upright conduct pursued
under great difficulties; but he is reported by Hearne as
taking to himself the credit of stopping the sale of Fellow-
ships, a credit which this correspondence shews was really
due to his old Warden and Visitor. One more act of war
we must relate. George Clarke has been already mentioned
as one of the Probationary Fellows put in by Bancroft, and
destined to be a chief ornament of his College and Univer-
sity. But the Visitor had accidentally prefixed a wrong
Christian name in the official document. In war all weapons
are permissible. The Fellows, when the admission took place,
1 clamoured/ says the Warden, ' at the misnomer,' but having
publicly proved Clarke's identity, ' I presently borrowed their
Public Notary's pen and ink, and with it, and before them
all rectified the mistake in the Instrument.'
But the Visitor now intervened with effect. The annual
College letter, full as usual of profuse compliments, gave him
an opportunity ; and as this characteristic epistle of Sancroft's
is the last which we shall quote at any length on the present
subject, a longer extract than usual may be excusable. It is
addressed to the Warden officially.
' Sir, When I look upon the letter you lately sent me I
am not so vain or so overweening of myself as to have any
temptation to think that the one half you say to me there is
in any construction due to me. But when I reflect upon the
late actions and proceedings of a greater part of you I cannot
consider the fine things you write any otherwise than as so
many protestations directly contrary to fact. In almost three
years that I have had relation to you, I never asked but one
thing of you' [it is not known to what this refers] ' and it
was not so great but that it had been often readily granted
those who (it may be) had no more reason to expect it from
you than I had, and yet you denied me downright. And
278 SANCROFT'S VICTORY. [CHAP.
though you thought fit upon wiser thought to do the thing,
yet [I am well assured] that it was not for my sake, and, how-
ever, din noluistis. But then the brisk opposition which you
have lately given me in my attempt to do you the greatest
good which, for ought I can see, is ever likely to fall within
my power, and the daily despite you throw upon those few of
your number who pay me better respect, have convinced me
that you were not in earnest when you penned that letter nor
believed the contents of it. Notwithstanding be assured that
I shall not take the measure of my dealing with you from
what you say or write or do to me, but from the rules of my
duty and the suggestions of my true affection to you, which
is as sincere and shall be as invariable as if you were really
what in the courtly mode of the world you subscribe your-
selves, my own Family. For there is a sort of men who will,
if they can, beat the physician that visits them and the guar-
dian that keeps them, and yet we must do them all the good
we can, even whether they will or no.' [He then orders the
disposition of the College revenues for the year, taking care to
set aside ^ J ioo] ' to be left in the greater and outward chest
"pro litibus et placitis defendendis," &c. [as the Statute
directs] to defray the charge of suits which seem to threaten
us. ... And now I have named your under-officers I can-
not but take notice, though with grief of mind, of a new dif-
ference started among you concerning your Head Cook and the
Groom of your Stable being married men. And here truly I
should highly commend the complainants' zeal for the obser-
vation of the College Rules if it were uniform and universal.
But when I observe that, where vile gain and interest beckon
to you, you swallow camels, and mountainous breaches of so
many Statutes pass glibly down, and in the mean time you
strain at this gnat, .... I cannot but advise and admonish
you to let this matter remain as it is till our great difference
be decided, and then all those lesser things will soon be
accorded, and in the mean time not to multiply controversies,
to do nothing for strife or ill will, or out of affectation of oppo-
sition, but to stay for that calm and blessed hour when you
may attempt that or any other piece of reformation upon more
clear and honourable grounds. If you will allow me to be
one of those by-standers who may possibly see more than the
gamesters, you will, I hope, hearken to this advice which I
give you all on both sides ; not to study to provoke or affront
one another, not to raise every day new quarrels and debates,
but calmly and without animosity to expect from your supe-
riors the determination of the great controversy, and in the
xv.] A POLICY OF STARVATION. 279
mean time in all other things to live in peace that the GOD of
peace may be with you. I affect not to use the power I have
to multiply Injunctions ; but if you will compel me I must
let you know that I have the same authority to interpret or
suspend Archbishop Whitgift's which his immediate successors
had to do the same with the aist [concerning College dis-
putes] ; but I had much rather owe it to your own good
nature that you would let the dispute fall and sleep awhile
till a fitter season. GOD Almighty incline all your hearts to
follow after the things which make for peace, but withal
things wherewith one may edify another.
' I am, Sirs, your loving friend
< Lambeth, Dec. 7, 1680. ' W. C.'
This letter produced a good effect. The Warden, a few
days later, writes hopefully :
'I should be glad to turn my complaints into praises
of them. The Dean who abused the Sub warden hath
undergone his punishment and made a public acknowledg-
ment of his fault. . . . Your Grace's putting up ^"300
this year pincheth us all ... and now I believe they are
all content to be stinted [in their Commons] since their
Liveries fall so short. I hope I shall have no more trouble
now till after New Year's tide, when we are to choose officers,
when I must be forced to take some of the civillest of mine
enemies to be sharers in the government with me.'
The Mandamus is now served ; but action upon it is
suspended till the Case can be argued before the Court of
King's Bench. A fee of forty shillings is paid Serjeant
Holloway for Counsel's opinion. The Visitor uses all his
efforts to support his coadjutor while the cause is pending.
He engages to confirm the Warden's choice of officers, and
the Warden replies :
1 God in his mercy assist and prosper your endeavours
to settle and establish the distracted state of the Church.
For without the continuance of your Grace's authority over
us I shall have little comfort of my place here, and shall
never desire to continue Warden any longer than you are
our Visitor. However the iniquity of the times may hinder
280 BANCROFT'S VICTORY. [CHAP.
your further progress in the reformation of us, yet I bless
God that you have proceeded so far where your predecessors
for many years have scarce moved a foot.
" Est (iliqitid prodire tenus si non datur ultra? !
And a little later :
( I might still have enjoyed an ill-bought quiet if I would
have disobeyed your Injunctions and betrayed my trust ; and
I doubt not but your Grace will uphold me against a faction
that hath no regard of the duty they owe to the Statutes
or the lawful interpreter of them, nor any quarrel against
me but that I do not join in with them in opposing you,
which they shall never obtain from me by their frowardness.'
Another letter of this date shews how maliciously the
majority of the Fellows persecuted the Senior Fellow for
his alliance with the Warden and Visitor, by bringing up
against him an accidental omission to sign the Renunciation
of the Covenant sixteen years previously. He had been in
France at the time, and an Act had been passed dispensing
with the signature of persons who were abroad! In short,
the state of things at All Souls was anything but pleasant
during this professed truce ; nor apparently did they mend
much till nearly a year later, when the great lawsuit was
disposed of.
The election of November, 1681, took place under much
the same circumstances as the last. Again the Warden
puts his veto on the nominees of the Fellows, though in
only one of the cases is there the same sort of accusation
of corruption ; but they decline to elect the Founder's
kinsman, for whom the Warden claims a right ; and they
insist on the election of Mr. Leopold William Finch, a dis-
reputable youth of whom we shall hear more. The Warden's
present objection to him may be quoted here :
' I cannot have a good account of his sobriety, the Bishop
of Oxford [Dr. John Fell, Dean of Christ Church] having
several times, as I am informed, threatened to expel him
Christ Church, though he seems willing now to have
xv.] FELLOWS LOSE THEIR SUIT. 281
him preferred to us, where he hath got friends by drinking
and swaggering with them till four o'clock in the morning.'
King Charles had also c recommended ' this youth, who
was the son of one of his most trusted friends, the Earl of
Winchelsea.
' The very tavern over the way was afraid of his coming
to be so near a neighbour to them, and the poor woman
expressed her trouble at it, who had suffered from his rude-
ness. And your Grace hath done me the greatest kindness
I could have desired by staving off from me one whom the
Faction pitched upon as the fittest person to strengthen them
and to break the discipline of the College, of which the sober
men were as sensible as myself.'
The Visitor, it will be thus seen, had once more accepted
the devolution ; and he soon after appointed those whom
the Warden recommended.
Light at last breaks in upon the darkness. On November
19, 1 68 1, Mr. Roger North writes that
1 Even now the cause of the Mandamus to the Warden
of All Souls came on to be heard, and upon a full debate of
it the Court hath adjudged the Return to be good, and dis-
missed the complainants. And the Judges took notice of
the corrupt custom that hath obtained there to buy and sell
Fellowships, not without honourable reflections upon his
Grace's pious endeavours to abolish it.'
And now the Warden (November 2,2,, 1681) sings his
psean :
' I most heartily thank God that he hath been pleased to
make you a blessing to us, even against our own will, in
giving you not only a heart, courage, and ability to manage
your pious enterprise of reforming us in so corrupt an age
as this is, but hath likewise crowned it with success and
victory both at Westminster and Whitehall in the midst of
the greatest opposition; so that I now trust in God you have
done that great work in the attempt whereof so many of
your predecessors have hitherto failed and left to you the
honour and praise of perfecting it,'
282 SAN CROFT'S VICTORY. [CHAP.
This allusion to Whitehall is explained in the same letter.
The 'faction' had been 'endeavouring to raise up friends at
Court.'
The immediate result of the legal decision was that the
Probationers were admitted 'with a full consent of the
Fellows. I hope your Grace hath now restored to us
righteousness and peace together.'
' The sentence given at the King's Bench and your Grace's
prevailing to stop the Mandamuses at Court hath so subdued
the unruly spirits, that I think there is no fear of the raising
of new storms. I am heartily glad that both my Lord
Chancellor and my Lord Chief Justice are so well satisfied
with your Grace's just and pious proceedings. I am sure
that not only all good men, but the whole University in
general do bless God and you for the reformation you have
wrought among us ; yea, those very persons who struggled
so much against it do now seem to me to be satisfied and
rejoice in it. . . My Lord, it is your great humility and piety
together that makes you condescend to consider us among
the multitude of your greater biisinesses, . . .' &c. &c. 3 with
more apologies for having so often intruded on him.
The good Warden's letter here, as in some other instances,
strikes the reader as somewhat obsequious; but everything
in that age was more pronounced than in modern times,
the respect for superiors more demonstrative, the contempt
for an opponent more openly expressed ; politics and partisan-
ship were but one remove as yet from civil war. But it was
impossible to exaggerate the importance of what was now
done not only to the College, but as regards other institu-
tions which were in much the same condition. At last quirks
and quibbles had come to an end, and things were called by
their right names. A fresh start had been given to a grand
foundation which had sadly fallen below what the Founder
intended. A weight was removed from the consciences of
many a man who had succumbed to what he could not singly
oppose. And this result had been achieved by the action
of the very machinery which the Founder had provided for
xv.] BANCROFT'S MODERATION. 283
such emergencies ! The Courts of Law had also stood to
their duty, which was too often not the case in this age,
and the King himself had allowed the battle to he fought
out without taking advantage of the opportunity, as his suc-
cessor would certainly have done. It was just in time. If the
struggle had been delayed till Charles was dead, the College
would no doubt have been a grievous sufferer at James's
hands, and no one can say how long the abuse would have
continued. The four years which intervened broke the neck
of ' corrupt Resignations ; ' and though we shall see that con-
stant vigilance was required, we shall also find conclusive
evidence that the victory was complete. It was only neces-
sary to get enough fresh blood into the College to provide
a mutual support amongst the new-comers ; and it was not
likely that the old evil, after such an exposure, should recur.
Bancroft's letter, written at the end of this year (December
29, 1681), in full contemplation of the importance of the
victory just won, is creditable to his good sense. He has
been asked to interpret the Statute on the election of Bursars,
and says :
' I require you to consider well beforehand and make a just
and impartial estimate what reception 'tis like to meet with
from the greater part of your Society. For since we gained
the port I find myself so much at ease that I would be very
unwilling without great necessity to hazard the raising of
new storms and broils, or give the most froward amongst
you any cause of just complaint or plausible pretence for it.
So long as we are tolerably well, let us sit down and be
quiet; and not run a risk of making things much worse
by endeavouring to make them a little better 1 .'
The policy of conciliation is now apparent throughout.
The Fellows even hope to regain some of their power by
means of seduction. Boreas has failed ; they will try Apollo.
The Warden is getting old; his son is i6, just below the
statutable age ; they offer to elect him a Fellow, and quote
1 Archives.
284 SANCROFT'S VICTORY. [CHAP.
the evil precedent of James the First's reign, when the son
of Albericus Gentilis was forced upon the College, though
below the required age. But the Warden is firm, and refuses
to cause such a scandal. Next year, his son being old
enough, he consents. We are not told whether the youth
approved himself worthy after examination, but we may
charitably hope so. A merciful view is also this year ad-
mitted of the resignation of Fellows, which one might think
would have been more in place during the struggle ; but
possibly it would not then have been appreciated. The
Warden reports that it is voted and approved that <^?2O is
to be given to each Fellow on resigning, by way of starting
him on his new career, and to make him easy for the loss
of the ' <^ J 2oo ' he had hitherto had ' on resignation.' By
the light of this letter the former one from the twenty-four
Fellows receives a painful illustration. The new state of
things is also made more tolerable by an arrangement,
entered into with the consent of the Visitor, that all Mem-
bers of the College shall in future have a rateable propor-
tion of their salary and allowances up to the time of their
departure ' .
To judge by an entry in the Life of Wood, the loyalty
of the College was conspicuous at this period. The abolition
of corrupt Resignations had no effect whatever in checking
it; though it might have been demonstrated in a more
seemly fashion. Writing on November 27, 1682, Wood
tells us :
' Bonfires [were] made in several parishes in Oxford by
the Tory party after supper, for joy that the lord Norris was
made earl of Abingdon, with the ringing of bells ; several
Colleges had bonfires, All Souls especially; about n at
night they brought out a barrel of beer out of the cellar,
and drank it in healths on their knees to the duke of
York and earl of Abingdon, out of the buckets that hung
1 Archives.
xv.] LOYALTY AT ALL SOULS. 285
up in the hall. They got about twenty of the trained
bands of Oxford who discharged at the drinking of every
health ; they had wine in great plenty from the tavern over
the way, guarded by a file of musqueteers ; they had a
drummer that beat round the College quadrangle and at
the gate : Dr. Clotterbuck the captain that ordered these
matters.'
A little later in the same year these uproarious habits
shewed themselves in a far more objectionable way; three
of the Fellows violently insisting upon admission into the
Mitre at an untimely hour so frightened the landlady that
she ' fell into fits and died at three in the morning V The
Warden had evidently a difficult crew to manage.
Letters of later dates, thanking the Visitor from time
to time for interfering to protect the College from the
King's Mandamus, continue to shew the consistency of
Warden Jeames ; though there seems to be one occasion,
in the year before his death, when even he faltered. In
a letter to Bancroft, in 1685, he says that he means to
favour the Earl of Lindsey's son, as he believes- the College
also will, in honour of his uncle, 'that brave general who
lost his life in so good a cause ; ' it would be unbeseeming
in him to oppose it, ' since I myself was in arms for the
same good King.' This is, it must be allowed, a sad falling-
off, after such a struggle for purity of elections, and such
a victory. But his foot is in the grave. Soon afterwards
he tells his friend, the Visitor, that he is so feeble that
' even his horse-litter is useless to him ; he can only stir out
to Chapel and St. Mary's/ The memory of the 'good King
and his brave general' appears to survive all College struggles
and all victories of later days ; it seems a sufficient excuse
for anything.
The last letter he wrote betrays also the extreme pressure
that was put upon the College once more in the last days
1 Life of Wood.
286 BANCROFT'S VICTORY.
of Charles and the first of James. If internal evils had
been suppressed, external tyranny seemed about to be equally
fatal. Bancroft's power was now gone, as Sheldon's had
departed years before his death. He had refused to be
made the tool of the King and had been forbidden the
Court. Warden Jeames deplores the loss of his assistance.
He had left the College ' forlorn/ The Warden is grateful
that he does not act ' as some in greater places do. The
King, I fear, has granted a Mandamus for one.' He fears
the College must give way. It is a melancholy letter, and
leaves the reflection that the old man was ' mercifully taken
away from the evil to come.' He was now too old and
ill to commence a fresh struggle, and the College required
a firm hand. Nor if he had survived the short term of years
which were sufficient to enable James to rush upon his
destruction, would he have been much consoled by a
Revolution which ejected the son, however erring, of the
' good King ' for whom he had, in early manhood, suffered
so much.
Warden Jeames died in 1686, having earned the grateful
memory of all reformers. He had had a rough task to
perform, and on the whole he performed it well. We
connect him with another good man, Dolben, Archbishop
of York, whose sister he married. On his monument in
All Souls Chapel are the well-deserved words : ' Fere cmtos
. . . vivus amicos Jiabuit homines, moriens conscientiam, mortmis
Deum.'
CHAPTEE XVL
Jfatms % Stconb' anfo Wtvabtn Jfhwjr,
16861688.
The Dispensing Power All Souls in dread of a Papist Warden
Dryden the Poet Mandate to Finch Finch as a rioter
Lord Chancellor Finch Finch as a Volunteer His excuses to
Bancroft Sancroft's conduct to James and Finch His cha-
racter.
THE anxiety felt at All Souls by the better class of Fellows
as to the appointment of a new Warden was intense. Warden
Jeames had died at a most critical moment. James the
Second had just been long enough on the throne to mature
his schemes. He had triumphed over his enemies at Sedge-
moor ; he now felt himself secure, and had already cast away
the restraints of prudence. For many years he had been pro-
foundly studying the question how to bring the three king-
doms under the Papal yoke. The secret was found in the
' Dispensing Power.' No Constitutional changes could be
made to effect his purpose ; but the Dispensing Power, though
sufficiently condemned by Parliament in 1662 and 1672, had
never been definitely abolished. Lawyers had still asserted
its efficacy ; and the infatuated monarch could not perceive
the difference between a theoretical power which the nation,
by a tacit understanding, had left unrepealed because unused,
and a practical use of that power which stultified the whole
Constitution. By opening this floodgate, inch by inch, the
288 JAMES II AND WARDEN FINCH. [CHAP.
barrier of British freedom would be undermined, and every
-obstacle to his despotic will would be swept away.
Thus the King seized every opportunity he could find for
the exercise of this power, and, where opening's could not be
found naturally, he made them. All Souls was only in the
same condition as all other institutions, only a small part of a
great machine. Oxford itself was, of all places, exactly that
which it seemed most desirable to imbue as speedily as pos-
sible with the idea that the Crown was the absolute disposer of
all appointments great and small, that all independent autho-
rities subordinate to itself were temporary and irregular, and
that the time had come for the true lawful Governor of the
Realm to step in and exercise at last his just rights. Oxford
had been the one ever-faithful centre of loyalty towards his
father ; why should it not be so to him ? Why should he not
from Oxford send forth his officers in all directions and gradu-
ally influence the whole country? His father might have
done much more with his resources if he had only gone far
enough. No such timidity should impede his proceedings.
There was too much excuse for these self-deceiving schemes.
We have seen at All Souls a specimen of truly ' besotted
loyalty ; ' it was only a coarse type of what was common
enough elsewhere. That loyalty did not in reality express
so much the devotion to a person or a family as something
deeper and more pungent. It was a vehement party cry, the
expression of hatred for the principles which flourished in the
Commonwealth, a defiance of those who would, it was be-
lieved, once more, in overthrowing Church and King, drown
England in blood, and destroy all that was truly national.
James was the last person to understand this. One may
be as far as possible from sympathy with Jacobitism, and yet
unable to repress a feeling of pity for the short-sighted prince
who found out too late how completely he had mistaken the
true state of affairs. To him the conduct of the Church and
the Universities, and then, after they had led the way, of
xvi.] THE KING'S SCHEMES. 289
the aristocracy and the Tory party at large, seemed the mosjb
amazing inconsistency, the vilest treachery. Here were
people upholding his Divine Bight at one place, drinking his
health on their knees at another, fighting for him against
Monmouth, and yet when he asked them to give a practical
turn to their theories, they turned round and proved them-
selves as bad as all the rest ! In the almost-insanity which
marked some of James's proceedings we are now learning to
trace the distraction caused by such heart-rending disappoint-
ments.
The time, however, had not yet come for even the faint-
est perception of the true state of affairs. The Church had
indeed, as represented by Sancroft and others, begun to de-
clare itself; but there was nothing as yet to shew that the
nation would go with the official leaders of the Establishment;
while, on the other hand, men like Hcyden, Edward Hales,
Obadiah Walker, and scores of less known persons, among
others Matthew Tindal of All Souls, were suddenly discover-
ing that the religion of the Sovereign was the true one, and
attempting to atone, in every fashion suitable to the accom-
plishments of each, for their previous blindness and stupidity.
Every encouragement was given to the ingenuous persons who
were undergoing this process of enlightenment. One obtains
the Deanery of Christ Church, others receive ' dispensations '
for establishing Romanist Services in College, or for holding
offices hitherto denied to Papists. At the same time monks
and friars are openly established in London, Romanist chapels
built, Jesuit schools opened. England was to be converted
at a leap.
It was then no wonder that at All Souls, where the
Stuart mandates were only too familiar, no one seems to
have thought it worth while to attempt to evade inevitable
fate. No such infraction of the College liberties had indeed
yet taken place, except under the Long Parliament, when
Sheldon was expelled by Pembroke and his ' band of mus-
u
290 JAMES II AND WARDEN FINCH. [CHAP.
oueteers,' Palmer, the friend of Cromwell, being- substi-
tuted in bis place by violence. When James the First
attempted to dispense with the Statutes and force his
nominee upon the College, Abbot, the Visitor, had con-
trived to shake his resolution and save the rights of All
Souls. But who could expect anything from Sancroft now ?
He was in disgrace, and the King's confidence was given
to Petre, Talbot, Castlemaine, and the rest of his secret
Council of Papists. The utmost that could be hoped for was
that the Mandate might be bestowed upon some member
of the Church of England, and not upon a Papist ! Those
who have followed the history of the College thus far,
and traced with satisfaction its faithful reflection of Eng-
lish spirit, even in its worst times, will admit that no
condemnation of James's demoralising policy could be
more eloquent than the conduct of All Souls on this
occasion.
We do indeed distinguish one faint note of a better
kind in a letter from George Clarke to Dr. Paman, San-
croft's official, in which he begs him to lose not a mo-
ment in informing the Visitor that Dr. Jeames is dying,
since
'we fear that our over- the- way friend Mr. Walker'
[Obadiah Walker, Master of University College] ' will make
him a successor, and by all that we can guess Mr. Stapleton
of our House is the person for whom he designs to get a
Mandate. P.S. On Sunday Mr. Bernard of Brasenose had
a Mandate to be Moral Philosophy Lecturer, which he
shewed the Vice-Chancellor V
We have mentioned this ' Milo Stapylton ' (as he appears
in the Register) before 2 , and as we shall not recur to
his name, it may be remarked that though he at this
time probably gave grounds for suspicion that he was a
concealed, or intending Papist, Finch vindicates him from
1 Tanner MSS. vol. 30. fol. 171. 2 p. 268.
xvi.] DANGER OF A PAPIST WARDEN. 291
the charge l , and a notice of him in his old age by Hearne,
prejudiced in his favour no doubt, as his Jacobite opinions
fell in with the writer's, shews that he was an ornament
to his College : ' He is a very worthy, learned Divine,'
and speaking of some translations of his made from the
Latin in 1684, he says, ' I wish he had published other
things, considering his abilities.' He is ' strangely concerned
at the woful decay of discipline in our University 2 .' When
was it otherwise with ancient Oxonians? And yet their
querulous remonstrances ,pass on wholesome traditions, and
do real service!
But even the above expression of Clarke's desire for the
interposition of the Visitor must not be taken for more
than it is worth, if Finch is to be believed and in this
case it seems he may be when he tells Archbishop Teni-
son, some years later (1695), that Clarke was one of those
who begged him to obtain a Mandate in order to keep out
the Papists 3 . In that letter Finch informs Tenison that
Dr. Tindal of All Souls, and Dr. Watson (afterwards, in 1687,
made Bishop of St. David's), were applicants as well as him-
self to the King for a Mandate to become Warden of All
Souls ; and in his letter to Sancrofb published by Gutch
from the Archives of the College 4 , he says 'the College
feared a man of Dryden's sort, since he so lately stood
so fair to preside over them.' Dry den, we know, was at this
time closely besieging the King, whose cause he had long
supported, for pecuniary assistance ; and All Souls would
have suited him well. His biographers have not yet noticed
that he ' stood so fair ' for this post. Hearne also tells us
that Dr. Plot, the antiquarian, who was also a Papist, was
a suitor to James for a Mandate to be Warden, but that
' Finch got the start of him V
1 Tanner MSS. vol. 29. fol. 36. 2 Diary; 127. 27, sub ann. 1730.
3 Cod. 688. art. 50 : Lambeth Library.
* Collectanea Curiosa, vol. ii. p. 49. 6 Reliq. Hearn. i. 65.
U 2
292 JAMES II AND WARDEN FINCH. [CHAP.
' Finch got the start of him ! ' It was a race, a most
disreputable race ; and a most disreputable man ' got the
start.' We must now give some account of him. It is not
the fact that several persons made interest with, or made
themselves known to, the giver of an office, which excites
indignation in the present case, for this every one who
stands for an office must do, either through himself or
through others, by ' testimonials ' or letters, but that an
elective office should be sought at the hands of a non-elector
who set aside the electors, that an office which by the laws
of the land belonged only to a member of the Church of
England should be applied for by Papists avowed or supposed.
Clarke no doubt discovered, as soon as his Warden was dead,
that it was no time to appeal to Visitors ; the one thing
to do was to save the College from a Papist ; and the rest
of the Fellows shared his feeling. We read of no opposition
to Finch, no appeal to Bancroft, no request to the King to
hold his hand !
There were reasons for Finch's success with James, and
for his popularity with a certain portion of the Fellows.
We have already seen that Warden Jeames had been
indignant with the Dean of Christ Church for recommending
him to favourable consideration for a Fellowship, that the
Fellows had given their votes for him, the Warden his Veto,
and that Sancroft had not only confirmed the Warden's act,
but prevailed on Charles to withhold a Mandate in his favour.
There was something to be said for Leopold William Finch.
The son of a personal friend of Charles the Second, and
born while his father was Ambassador at the Porte, an
Emperor and a King had been his sponsors at the font ;
his uncle was Lord Chancellor; no young man entered life
under higher auspices. He was sent to Christ Church,
already, as we say, a ' spoilt child.' While there he was the
ready leader of every frolic ; and yet his education and
abilities were above the average. He publishes books. A
xvi.] FINCH AS A RIOTER. 293
Latin poem of his is to be found along with those of the
most distinguished persons of the age in Musarum Anglica-
narum Analecta ; he wrote a Life of Hannibal, and trans-
lated Cornelius Nepos. Perhaps the public did not much
recognise the value of his books ; but he is at least the
only Warden of All Souls, if we except the unfortunate
Moket, who has been so rash as to become an author. His
letters are clever, and always plausible ; many of them are
to be found scattered about in different collections of the
day; and we shall see that he had many warm literary
friends. Soon after his election to his All Souls Fellowship,
his old opponent, Warden Jeames, tells Sancroft what a
capital speech he had made in the name of the College when
the Duke and Duchess of York and the Princess Anne paid
a visit to All Souls. His manners were no doubt courtly
and agreeable. He was undeniably a ' good fellow,' a ' good
companion.' We read on his monument the words, con-
sidering the history of his whole connection with the College
they read like a satire, ' custos dilectissimus.'
His zeal for the Tory party was excessive. He was no
doubt sincere. His manner of shewing it was various. He
proved it when drunk and sober, in literary and military
exploits. It is in the first of these conditions that he becomes
an historical character. The occasion was in 1681, when
party feeling was at its utmost height all over England,
and especially at Oxford, where the Parliament had just
been held, attended by Shaftesbury and his friends with
armed followers, and where Charles had thrown himself
on the loyalty of England to his House by rejecting the
petition of the Exclusionists, and promptly dissolving the
Parliament. Some faint excuse then must be made for the
rioters, especially as they were very young ; but they might
have chosen a more manly mode of shewing their loyalty,
even in their cups. Anthony Wood reports the matter
thus :
294 JAMES II AND WARDEN FINCH. [CHAP.
' The outrage committed on the old Lady Lovelace at
Hunt's door against the Crown Tavern between 8 and 9
at night by Mr. Leopold Finch, son of the Earl of Winchel-
sea, Lord Buckeley, and 2 gentlemen commoners, Luttrell
one, and 4 scholars, all of Christ Church : they plucked
her out of her coach, and called her old protesting
broke windows that night, and did many other misde-
meanours. . . . The Bishop [Fell, Dean of Christ Church]
extremely troubled at it. They had been drinking at the
Crown Tavern V
Warden Jeames gives precisely the same account of the
matter to Bancroft, and adds,
' that Mr. Finch, the ringleader, was sent to the Lady's
house at Water Eaton, to beg her pardon : he hath been
revelling all nights here in the College (whilst I was in the
country) to the great disturbance of the soberer party; and
on All Souls Day he was ranting with the faction both day
and night till morning at the Tavern over against my lodg-
ings, where, on purpose to affront me, they made such rude,
triumphant shouts that (till I sent them word I would fetch
the Vice-Chancellor to pull them out) I could have no rest
in my house. All this I can certainly prove. ... It is
apparent enough that he expected to be brought in with a
high hand V
Finch's election was, however, only delayed for a year, and
the process by which the Archbishop and the Warden came
to a better feeling about the loyal rioter is interesting. . The
correspondence between the former and the Dean of Christ
Church has been preserved ; but is not worth reproducing.
From it we simply gather that the penitent youth had found
the soft place in the Dean's heart, and was forgiven. ' Mr.
Finch,' says he, ' is liable to many and no small failings, yet
I do not despair of him, nor take him to be that flagitious
man which he is represented to be.' Warden Jeames is also
propitiated. ' Before I would consent to choose him,' he tells
Bancroft, ' he did solemnly promise to live studiously and
1 Life, sub. arm. 1681. 2 Tanner MSS. vol. 340.
xvi.] A PENITENT YOUTH. 295
regularly in the College, and professed that he did wholly
devote himself to the clergy 1 .' But we might still have
been surprised at the Archbishop's accepting this new-born
devotion to the ' clergy' as a guarantee of sobriety if we
did not possess a very characteristic letter and reply which
passed upon the subject between Sancroft and the Earl of
Nottingham. From the first may be taken the following
extract :
' Upon the whole matter, my lord, 'tis evident to me that
I have very little share in your affection or esteem. Most
certainly you must perfectly despise the man whom you could
think fit to use at this rate. I will only desire you to turn
the tables, and to take the Golden Rule into your hands
quod tibi non vis fyc,, and then for once give me leave to put
the case. If there be a place in your Chancery within your
donation into which I should desire to bring a kinsman of
mine really as unfit for it as I really believe and I cannot
help it your kinsman to be for what he pretended to from
me, and if I were as great and as high and as powerful as
you are now, and should make use of those advantages to
force you first to make it void and then to confer it upon a
person unqualified which I am assured I should no more
have attempted than to break into an house or rob upon a
highway I will not ask you, ask your own heart if you
please, how you would have taken it. Not so calmly, I
doubt, nor so patiently as, I thank God, I do. For I have
always, and have still that honour and esteem, and if you
will allow me to use a word I never throw away that love
for your person which keeps me still in preparation to do you
all that service which may fall justly and decently within the
poor powers of, my Lord,
' Your Lordship's affectionate friend and servant,
' W. C. 2 '
' Dec. 2, 1681.'
On the same day the Lord Chancellor replied as follows :
' My Lord, I was never in my life more surprised than
with your Grace's letter ; and when I call myself to the
1 Tanner MSS. vol. 340.
2 Rough draught in Tanner MSS. vol. 36. fol. 182.
296 JAMES II AND WARDEN FINCH. [CHAP.
strictest account I cannot charge myself with anything- that
deserves so severe a reprehension as to be told that I want
either affection or esteem for your person and place, or that I
have hehaved myself like one that perfectly despises you.
' My Lord, this is a high crime, and such a crime as I
would not forgive my own son if he were guilty of it. I
thank God I never treated any man so, much less should I do
it to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Let us examine the
grounds of this misapprehension. It seems I did importune
your Grace in conjunction with my Lord Halifax, and in
presence of the King, for a Fellowship in All Souls, and
your Grace, for the most allowable reasons in the world,
refused it. Hath the King ever been moved in it again?
Have any inconveniences happened to your Grace by this re-
fusal ? Do not all men acquiesce under it ? For my part I do
so much that if the place were in my donation I would not
give it him. Where then is the disrespect ? My Lord, there
is no living at Court if we may not be allowed to be im-
portunate for a relation, even then when upon better reasons
given we are content to be denied. And yet after all this,
if your Grace think I have offended you I ask you pardon
with all my heart. For no man alive is more devoted to
your person and order than I am, and I beg your Grace's
blessing so and no otherwise than as I am, my Lord,
' Your Grace's most affectionate, humble servant,
' NOTTINGHAM, C. 1 '
Bancroft's heart must have been made of stone if he had
not, after this eloquent and generous letter, been disposed
to take a favourable view of the recommendations from
Christ Church and All Souls which have been noticed. On
the view taken at Court as to the method by which All
Souls Fellowships might be obtained we need not further
enlarge, as previous chapters have sufficiently prepared us
for it. Enough that Finch obtained twenty-five votes out
of the thirty-five available at the election of 1682, and
that no further obstruction occurred.
The young Fellow lost no portion of his loyalty as yet.
We have seen how well he made his oration on the occasion
1 Tanner MSS. vol. 36. fol. 184.
xvi.] FINCH AS A VOLUNTEER. 297
of the royal visit to his new College. In the Dedication
of his Cornelius Nepos in 1683, he asserts the strongest
attachment to the reigning family, rejoices that it 'comes
to the Fanatics' turn to hang,' laments the 'plague of Re-
publican principles,' and glories in the gownsmen's ' assertion
of one of the most essential principles of the government,
the lineal succession, which could neither by the dispensa-
tion of the Pope or the power of the Parliament be
altered '.'
Before long he had an opportunity of proving his loyalty
in a more practical form.
MonmoutVs Rebellion, in 1685, electrified Oxford as it
did the rest of England. Once more there was ' mustering
in hot haste ' and enthusiastic exchanging of the gown for
the sword. The University lost not a moment in raising
a Troop of Horse and Regiment of Foot under command
of Lord Abingdon, the Tory Lord- Lieutenant. Finch
instantly stepped to the front, and became Captain
of a Company of Scholars, chiefly from All Souls and
Merton. These he drilled privately in the quadrangle of
the former College for four or five days, after which they
were drilled with the rest in Christ Church Meadow. They
were probably more forward than the rest, or Finch may
have been thought the best officer, or it may have been
accident, but Wood, from whom we get this account, tells
us that this ' seems to have been the only Company em-
ployed 2 .' As it happened, the employment was not very
arduous ; but that was not their fault.
On July 8, Captain Finch sent his drum at 1 2 at night to
summon his men to All Souls ; and, soon after, they marched,
by the command of Lord Abingdon, to Islip to secure the
road to London, and to stop all suspicious persons going
thither. They returned on the tenth day, after the news of
1 Birch's Life of Tillotson, p. 222. 2 Life ; sub ann. 1685.
298 JAMES II AND WARDEN FINCH. [CHAP.
Monmouth's defeat had arrived. The troops were at once
disbanded. Rejoicing 1 and jollity succeeded to the fatigues of
their short labours. Lord Abingdon invited the University
troop to dine with him at Ricot, . . . and they ' came home
well fuz'd.' This charge against the gallant ' scholars ' is,
it must be feared, only too probably just, but certainly we
need not assume that the Captain of the All Souls Company
failed to set them the example of inebriation. Perhaps we
may go out of our way to remark that the City was as loyal
as the University; for,
' Having received certainty of the rebell's defeat, the Mayor
and his brethren met at Penny less Bench about 8 at night,
went to prayers in their scarlet at Carfax church, afterwards
retired to Pennyless Bench, where there was a bonfire and
entertainment for the E. of Abendon and the officers of the
militia ! .'
The drum used by Captain Finch is still in the Bursary of
All Souls. That and another cost ^3. The two drummers
received d^i igs.
With such claims and such advocates Finch presented him-
self, on the death of his Warden, a year and a half later, before
King James. His letter, excusing himself to Sancroft, gives
some account of his proceedings ; but it has been printed by
Gutch 2 , and would be out of place here. It is impossible to
read it without a smile. Nothing can be so plausible. It
was with the greatest pain and grief that he put such violence
on himself as to ask for a Mandate. If he had not obtained it
a Papist would. His sole object was ' the good service of the
Church and College.' He would not first appear before his
College Visitor, for fear of compromising him, but having
heard from a friend that ' your Grace was pleased to wink at
my proceedings,' he had ' at last possessed himself of that
Mandate for which so many particular greate interests had so
1 Life, sub ann. 1685. 2 Coll. Cur. ii. 49.
xvi.] FINCH BECOMES WARDEN. 299
fiercely contested/ He then dilates on the delicacy of feeling
he had displayed towards the College after he had obtained
his 'preferment.' He has done no 'mean, dishonourable
thing,' and he hopes the Primate will ' vouchsafe his good
opinion and approbation.'
Nor is the Mandate itself worth giving in detail, since
that also was printed from the Archives by Gutch. It is
dated January 15, i68f, just a month later than the still more
audacious document infringing English liberties, the Dispen-
sation granted to Massey as Dean of Christ Church l ; but as
Finch was not a Papist, it was only necessary to follow the
too well accustomed form, ' any statute, custom or constitu-
tion of Our College notwithstanding ; with all which we are
graciously pleased to dispense in his behalf/ No doubt it
must have required all Finch's interest to induce James to
forego his cherished scheme of appointing Papists to these
posts ; but it was much the same thing to accustom Oxford
to receive Mandates.
The King was quite safe in assuming the ' ready compli-
ance ' of the Fellows. We have seen that there were many
reasons why they should make no objection. But it was
quite another thing to enable the Warden to assume
a legal position. This was a difficulty, fatal, as it turned
out, to the fortunate place-man's peace of mind in the end ;
for the Fellows plainly saw they could not go through the
form of election. That, after the Mandate, would be to
violate the College Statutes by their own act, make them-
selves liable to perjury, and imperil their Fellowships. So
they resolve, as the best present solution of the difficulty,
to admit their youthful Warden without election, and to
trust to the chapter of accidents for the rfest. This was
accordingly done. With the rashness of his nature Finch,
no doubt, anticipated little difficulty in obtaining help from
1 Gutch's Coll. Cur. i. 294.
300 JAMES II AND WARDEN FINCH. [CHAP.
the Visitor to rectify a mere trifling informality. If Arch-
bishop Sancroft would but confirm the appointment all
would be easily set right. He had taken no active step
against it. He ought to be satisfied that a Papist had
been excluded, and a Warden presented to the College of
whom it did not disapprove.
This leads us to consider what Archbishop Bancroft's
part in the affair was. Eveiy possible effort was made
to obtain his Confirmation. A ' Case' is extant in which
it is assumed that the very fact of there having been
no 'election' lays an obligation on the Visitor to supply
the College with a Warden ; and a legal document, pur-
porting to be a Confirmation of Finch by Sancroft, is to
be found in the copy of All Souls papers from the Tanner
MSS. lodged in the College. But the original has been
endorsed by Bishop Tanner himself, ' A proposal of Sir Thomas
Clarges ] .' And when the whole matter came, as it did sub-
sequently, before various Courts of Law, we find in the
Tenison correspondence 2 that Finch himself does not claim
any Confirmation or overt act of any kind from the Arch-
bishop. This very Sir Thomas Clarges, a person of some
importance, writes to Finch that the Visitor ' considered it
a cams omissus, and could do nothing in it 3 / which Finch,
in his plausible manner, quotes as proving that His Grace's
non- Confirmation did not proceed from an unwillingness, but,
as he thought, an incapacity of giving it, as 'supposing he
had no jurisdiction in the case.' And he declares he
could prove that the Archbishop ' much wished the Fellows
had chose another man with me' [according to Statute],
'that he might have had an opportunity of complimenting
the King in the confirmation of the man he was pleased to
name.' Finally, he infers from the fact that he had received
1 Tanner MSS. vol. 340.
2 Bibl. Lamb. cod. 688. 3 Ibid.
xvi.] BANCROFT'S CONDUCT. 301
Bancroft's dispensation to be ordained both deacon and priest
per saltum that the Visitor had virtually ratified and con-
firmed his official position.
On the other hand, his opponent, Proast, dwells on the
resistance of the Visitor to Lord Weymouth's solicitations
that he would confirm Finch, and accounts for his taking
no further step in the matter by its having been f dangerous
to question him in King James's time, and at the Revolution
he was not capable of doing it 1 .'
Both sides thus agree that Sancroft ' did nothing in it.'
It would be contrary to all we know of him if he had suffered
himself to be persuaded or pressed into confirming an illegal
act of James the Second's. The only question is what
were his motives for taking no further steps in the matter ?
As he so soon afterwards shewed himself insensible to danger
when he headed the resistance to James, it could hardly be
from fear, as Proast suggests. At the same time we may
dismiss the glosses of the pseudo- Warden himself. They
are not entitled to much respect.
The Visitor was no doubt resolved to ' wink at it,' to do
' nothing in it.' He was at this time in disgrace, and thus
powerless with James, who had but just commenced his
overt policy of Dispensations. No one knew how far he
would go. The safety of the whole Church was trembling
in the balance. There was a worse thing than using the
Dispensing Power to force a Protestant into a place. Sup-
pose the King went on to fill up every place with Papists !
as he subsequently did. Was it wise to exasperate him at
this moment ? Perhaps the best thing would be to leave it
quite alone. The time had not yet come. The country
would not yet have backed him up in resisting such an
appointment as that of Finch. He could not undertake to
enter on a fresh struggle with the College without a faithful
1 Bibl. Lamb. cod. 688.
302 JAMES II AND WARDEN FINCH. [CHAP.
Warden, like Jeames, to support him. This time the battle
would be with the King as well ; whereas Charles had stood
aside on the last occasion. Nor could he now expect any help
from the Law Courts as before. Jeffries had but just been
appointed Lord Chancellor as a reward for the ' Bloody
Assizes.' What hope was there now for justice ?
Such, judging by Bancroft's past transactions with the Col-
lege as well as by his subsequent conduct, was in all proba-
bility his line of reasoning. His forbearance to act was
dictated by his characteristic caution and moderation, not by
fear. We may believe it would have been nobler, as well as
more useful in the end, both to James and the College, if
he had at least sent in his protest as Visitor against the
infatuated King's high-handed act. To do right at any cost
generally turns out well. But those who are not called upon
to face the
'Vultus instantis tyranni'
have not much right to condemn one who soon found himself
imprisoned by the furious King for leading the resistance
to his unconstitutional proceedings at a moment when loud-
voiced patriots shrank from the uncomfortable lot of mar-
tyrdom. It may be hoped that Englishmen have not even
yet ceased to remember what they owe to the Church of
England, to Sancroft and his six Suffragans who saved the
liberties of their fellow-countrymen.
We shall obtain in the next Chapter one slight passing
glance at the Archbishop as he endeavours to save the reckless
Warden from the consequences of his erratic conduct, but
his connection with his College is now practically at an end.
The last link between him and All Souls is the Latin letter
from his ' family' addressed to him in prison. Its abundant
expressions of profound sympathy are so eloquently rendered
that it seems hardly fair to the College to omit it, but space
compels. If enthusiastic admiration for a pastor who could
brave ' the insults of enemies, the reproaches of courtiers, and
xvi.] SAN CROFT'S CHARACTER. 303
the fierce anger of a King ' in defence of his flock, could
encourage the Primate, if quotations from Scripture could
nerve him for the conflict, he is supplied to overflowing.
He was no doubt better pleased with this letter than he was
with a former one 1 ; and we may well believe it was some-
what more genuine.
As we now part with Archbishop Sancroft, we may remark
that his behaviour in reference to All Souls, hitherto unknown
to the public, may fairly be held to bear out the character
given of him by his biographer, who himself knew next to
nothing of these circumstances. D'Oyly tells us 2 , in oppo-
sition to the disparaging judgment of Burnet already quoted,
that Sancroft owed his selection for the Primacy
' entirely to his character, which pointed him out as the
person best qualified to adorn the station. ... It was after-
wards sufficiently proved that the government of the Church
could not have been entrusted to one more firm and temperate
in the exercise of his authority, more watchful over its general
interests, or more intrepid in the defence of its rights and
privileges.'
We are not concerned here to discuss the Archbishop's line
of conduct at the Revolution. Of any unworthy action in the
matter his character has long been cleared. As to the Non-
juring Schism, for which perilous step he, from his position,
was mainly responsible, the adhesion of Bishop Ken will
always check too harsh a judgment. We can scarcely form
a notion in this day of the difficulties under which con-
scientious men then laboured. Resistance was one thing,
resistance at any cost. . The transfer of sovereignty may well
have seemed to them quite another, and a different thing.
Happily for England there were men who took a more
statesmanlike view of the question than Sancroft and Ken !
But we must not on that account refuse his just meed of
approbation to one who was certainly no unworthy successor
1 pp. 269, 272. 2 Life of Sancroft, p. 158.
304 JAMES II AND WARDEN FINCH.
of St. Augustine and St. .ZElphege, of St. Anselm and
Stephen Langton.
Bancroft's is the last case in English history of a Primate
whose tenure of office was prematurely or temporarily ter-
minated in consequence of the exigencies of the State, the
caprice of Sovereigns, or the violence of Revolutions. He
makes the balance even between the Reformed Church of
England and the Unreformed Church, as established by the
Concordat of William the Conqueror and Lanfranc. Over
against Anselm, Becket, Edmund Rich, Winchelsey, and
Sudbury, to mention only the cases \vhere persecution
for principles, or mob-violence took place, stand Cranmer,
Grindal, Abbot, Laud, and Sancroft. ' Such indignities,
painful as they are to contemplate, and shameful as the
pages of English history too often are which chronicle
them, are the price paid by Englishmen for the preserva-
tion of the spiritual inheritance received from primitive
times, for the happy Constitution of Church and State
which they now enjoy !
CHAPTER XVII.
at %
1688-1702.
Finch as "Warden All Souls accepts the Revolution Finch's
conflict with Proast The better side of Finch's character
His account of Queen Mary's death Dr. George Clarke
His influence at All Souls Creech, the poet Tanner, the
antiquarian His connection with Wood His affection for All
Souls The state of Christ Church and of Oxford generally.
THE relation of the College to the general history of the
country during the reign of James the Second has not been
a very satisfactory object of contemplation. Retribution
followed all the actors alike in the matter of Finch's
Mandate. As far as one small success could encourage the
King to press forward, and we know how anxiously he
watched even the smallest indications of the success of his
policy, he found himself just so far on his way towards
the gulf of disappointment and distress into which he was
about to plunge. The clever Warden had not long to
wait before he found himself engaged by his own act in
a struggle with one whom he entirely despised, but who,
in consequence of this very success of his in obtaining
a Mandate from James, brought him, after a bitter conflict
of ten years, on his knees. Not long before he died he
306 ALL SOULS AT THE REVOLUTION. [CHAP.
was forced to undergo the humiliation of an absolute re-
signation of his ill- got Wardenship in order to procure
a legal title to it. The Fellows who had promoted his
success either from fear of the alternative of a Papist, or
from sympathy with a boon companion, found themselves
disgraced by a superior officer who, besides other scandals,
forgot to pay his debts to the College ! Even Sancroft's
reputation would have stood higher if he had made some
resistance in the case instead of leaving it alone.
In point of fact the three years which preceded the
Revolution are the real Revolution. Panic had seized the
good ; violence and shameless cupidity revelled in their
opportunity. But men's eyes were soon opened as they could
scarcely have been opened by any other process. The panic
was momentary ; the gathering cloud of indignation swept
all before it, and the eifect of the struggle was permanent.
It was well for the College of All Souls as for the nation
that the ill-treatment which they both received occurred
just when and how it did. James's despotic invasion of the
rights of the College was the last. Since the Revolution
there has been no attempt to interfere with the College
elections. Internal freedom from corruption was followed
by freedom from external tyranny.
All Souls had experienced the national change of feeling
with respect to James in a very decided manner. Jacobitism,
however tenaciously rooted in Oxford generally, kept but
little hold on the College where some of the noisiest demon-
strations in favour of James had taken place. The close
connections which had been established for generations
between it and the Court exposed it to exactly the same
fluctuations as the society of the metropolis ; and the Warden
whom James had created was not the man to support a falling
cause. "We cannot indeed blame him any more than multi-
tudes of greater persons at that crisis, but his position
exposed him to many bitter observations. Not only had
xvii.] FINCH DESERTS JAMES. 307
he owed his place to James, hut he had taken a prominent
part in the King's reception at Oxford, only a year before
the Revolution. We find him, hy the side of the Vice-
Chancellor, preceding all the rest of the University, in the
cavalcade which rode forth to meet the King on his way
from Woodstock 1 . Yet we have no reason to doubt the
truth of Hearne's remark :
' This said Finch, who had so great obligations to King
James, was one of those heads of Colleges in Oxford who
signed an association to stand by the Prince of Orange;
and 'tis moreover credibly reported that he was one of the
three or four heads who intended, if they could have prevailed
with Colleges, to deliver up all the College plate to the said
Prince, in order to be employed against their undoubted
lord and sovereign King James, who had not then left
England V
Whether this last 'report' was more correct than many
which reached Hearne, we cannot say ; but it is likely
enough; and at any rate Finch was rewarded in 1689 for
his conduct at the Revolution by a Prebendal Stall at
Canterbury, and speedily became a favourite at Court. At
the risk of censure for dwelling so long on the career of
Warden Finch we must pursue his history a little further,
for the sake of the illustration it throws upon the times;
and so bring it to an end.
The habits of the Warden were expensive, and he cast
about in various directions for means of gratifying them.
He had not long been admitted to the Wardenship of
All Souls when the Camden Professorship of Ancient His-
tory fell vacant, and he determined to stand for it against
the celebrated Dodwell; who however obtained it by a
narrow majority. So narrow was the majority that the
Warden could put his hand on the very man who had
1 Wood's Life, sub ann. 1687.
2 Diary, 5. 262; Beliq. Hearn. i. 65.
x 2,
308 ALL SOULS AT THE REVOLUTION. [CHAP.
robbed him of his prize. He had made sure of his own
College at least; but one Jonas Proast, a Chaplain of All
Souls, had actually voted against him, and persuaded, as
Finch asserted, two of the Fellows to do the same ! This
last accusation Proast denied, but surely one would suppose
that even in James's reign a man's l vote and interest '
were his own. Not so. With a promptitude more be-
fitting the camp than the cloister, Finch, on the very-
evening of his defeat, then and there summarily dismissed
the Chaplain from his office for having taken part against
his Warden. He declared afterwards, by way of excuse,
that he was instigated to this act by some of the Fellows ;
and no doubt he had a majority with him in the affair;
but what did that matter?
He had however acted unwisely as well as unjustly.
Proast was a man of high character and resolute spirit,
a far superior man to his Warden, though poor. He
appeals to Sancroft, who requests two Bishops then in
Oxford to investigate the matter. These are Lloyd, of St.
Asaph, one of the ablest of the ' Seven Bishops/ just then
about to be put to the test; the other, the Bishop
of Sodor and Man. Both report against Finch, having
failed to make the slightest impression on him. The last-
named Prelate says, ' I carried your Grace's message to
the Warden,' but in vain. The Bishop of St. Asaph re-
marks that the case of the Chaplains of All Souls is
indeed wretched if they are nothing but ' conductitii' hired
men of the Warden's, and that it would be especially
hard, in the instance of the present Warden, if they are
to be turned out into the wide world whenever they vote
against him on his standing for a Professorship, ' as he
must stand for all, to supply the necessities into which he
has brought himself, not altogether by buying books 1 .'
The Warden himself on his part tells Sancroft that he
1 Tanner MSS. vol. 340.
xvii.] THE WARDEN AND CHAPLAIN. 309
cannot reinstate a man who has heen so unmannerly as to
call him pratensum custodem, nor put such an affront upon
the College as to look over his taking part against his
Warden. 'If he is our Chaplaine I cannot be his Warden 1 .'
It was an irreconcilable quarrel.
Sancroft was soon afterwards sent to the Tower; and in
the vicissitudes of the times the poor Chaplain found it
an extremely hard matter to obtain justice.
We should feel less interest in the case if we did not
discover from every quarter but his own College (though he
had friends there) the highest testimony to Proast's worth.
Bishop Lloyd speaks of him as ' a most exemplary man, a
learned man and industrious, an ornament to his College 2 .' 1
Tanner speaks of him affectionately 3 . Hearne calls him
' a worthy, learned, and conscientious man,' ' a truly honest,
wise man and a good scholar 4 .' He wrote a good ' Defence '
of the Fellows of Magdalen in their resistance to James ;
he afterwards became Archdeacon of Berks, and was one
of the first promoters of the Society for the Propagation
of the Gospel. Bishop Burnet recommended him for
Deputy of that Society in the Sarum diocese 5 .
The Dean and Chapter of Canterbury are the Visitors
of All Souls in a vacancy of the Primacy. To them
Proast appealed in vain. As soon as Tillotson succeeds to
the Metropolitan See the Chaplain lays his case before
him ; but the new Primate is most dilatory in the mat-
ter. It is not till 1694 that he decides; and then in
Proast's favour. He is to be reinstated. Hearne justly
makes this delay a charge against the Archbishop. In one
of the last entries made by Wood in his ' Life ' he men-
tions the restoration of the Chaplain 'to his chamber and
commons, from which, for some years before, he had been
1 Tanner MSS. vol. 340. 2 Ibid.
3 Ballard MSS. 4. 55. 4 Diary, 5. 265; 24. 97.
5 Minutes of S. P. G.
310 ALL SOULS AT THE REVOLUTION. [CHAP.
unjustly deprived by the new Warden 1 .' Tillotson how-
ever would make no order for payment of arrears; and
this, together with his delay, leads us to suspect that there
was some political partisanship in the case. Probably
Proast laboured under suspicion of being a Nonjuror in
sentiment; and Finch's interest was undoubtedly great.
The undaunted Chaplain now took his case before the
Civil tribunals, but could obtain no redress either from the
Privy Council or at Westminster. At last, on Tenison's
succeeding Tillotson, a fresh appeal to his Visitor was suc-
cessful. It had taken him ten years to get the most
obvious justice! But by this time (1698) Finch was well
understood. From the ' Case of Proast,' and from the cor-
respondence at Lambeth 2 , we perceive that the strong
point for the Chaplain was not so much the injustice of
the expulsion itself, on which he had at first very natur-
ally insisted, nor the Warden's power to expel him, which
he disputed; but that Finch was no Warden at all. He
was simply pseudo-custos, and, instead of expelling his Chap-
lain, should be himself turned out of doors for accepting
James's Mandate !
Times have changed indeed ! Finch can no longer hold out.
The affair is now no longer scandalous only, but dangerous.
He is at last willing to accept a compromise. Proast is to
receive 100, and his rights are to remain unquestioned : on
the other hand the Warden's false position is to be remedied.
It is effected as follows. The office of Warden is declared
vacant, and the Fellows proceed to election, but by previous
arrangement do not elect. Thereupon the appointment de-
volves upon the Visitor, who nominates Finch 3 . The foul
stain of the Mandate is at length wiped out ! The memory
of Archdeacon Proast ought surely to be held sacred by
the College !
1 Life, sub ann. 1694. 2 Cod. 688.
3 College Records.
xvn.] ' GUSTOS DILECTISSIMUS! 311
The Warden has reached a port of safety, but his troubles
increase. The very next year the Visitor is obliged to take
notice of the serious fact that the Warden of All Souls is
hopelessly in debt to the College ; and finds it necessary to
interfere in a manner not usual, we may charitably hope, in
the case of Heads of Houses. He subjects him to the igno-
miny of a forced limitation of his Battels to a very moderate
amount until his debts are paid 1 !
He survives the disgrace three years, dying in 1702, while
as yet scarcely in the prime of life, worn out, it would
seem, with complaints brought on by his way of living. A
well-authenticated tradition reports that bailiffs were in the
Lodgings at the time of his decease. A subscription was
promptly raised among his friends to bury him, but his
family intervened 2 . The College had, it is plain, pecuniary
as well as other reasons for remembering their { Gustos dilec-
tissimus.' Thus ended the career of one whose case is as
exceptional among the Wardens of All Souls as that of
certain soldier-prelates who might be named in the august
lists of English Diocesans.
And yet though these facts stand out against Leopold
Finch, and though letters may be seen which speak of his
intemperance and excesses while Warden 3 , it is but right to
remark that he did not appear in this light to many of his
contemporaries. The exceptionally high respectability of
his family, the position he held at Court (he was named as a
probable Chaplain to Queen Anne 4 ), the friendship of some of
the most distinguished men of the day, his agreeable manners
and decided abilities procured forgiveness for what passed no
doubt in that convivial age for little more than weak irregu-
larity. Past Fellows of the College like Norris dedicate books
to him with praise of his ' personal worth.' He prides him-
self on withstanding in the matter of elections the ' highest
1 College Records. 2 Ballard MSS. 32. 170.
3 Tanner MSS. vol. 21. * Ballard MSS. 7. 54.
312 ALL SOULS AT THE REVOLUTION. [CHAP.
temptations to be corrupted/ and we may believe him. He
is indeed accused to Tenison of ' overawing and packing the
Fellows Y but he maintains that he only tried to prevent
the Seniors ' awing ' the Juniors. At any rate he makes
every exertion for the election of the famous Tanner 2 from
a Chaplaincy to a Fellowship, a case of pure merit, and
a favour Tanner always most gratefully acknowledged 3 .
His letters to the celebrated Dr. Charlett, Master of Uni-
sity, the centre of the antiquarian correspondence of the day,
are most creditable to his activity and intelligence. At one
time he is assisting Sir Henry Sheers, ' who is about to prove
the rotation of the earth round its axis and the gravitation
of bodies proceeding from that hypothesis 4 ;' at another taking
the lead in procuring a splendid edition of Euclid. A Mr.
Worseley speaks of him as a ' worthy gentleman whose loss
would be felt by the whole nation V since he is a ' man of
courage, integrity, learning and religion ; ' and a Mr. Moore
laments his death in much the same terms 6 .
We may conclude our notice of Finch by transcribing his
interesting letter on the death of Queen Mary. He had
apparently only taken Holy Orders because he was obliged
by the Statutes, having put it off till he had been Warden
very nearly the whole of the year of grace permitted by
Statute, and then persuading Sancroft, as we have seen, to
ordain him deacon and priest at once. But he was none
the less acceptable as a Court clergyman, and he seems to
have been a Proctor in Convocation during one or other of
its Sessions in William's reign. He was selected to preach
the University Sermon on the King's visit to Oxford, and
was so much in his confidence as to be present at the scene
which Macauiay has graphically reproduced for us in modern
times.
1 Lamb. Lib., cod. 939. 20. 2 Ballard MSS. 5. 60.
3 Ballard MSS. 4. 73. * Ibid. 20. i.
5 Ibid. 39. 15. 6 Ibid. 33. 170.
xvn.] QUEEN MARTS DEATHBED. 313
' I am a very unfortunate man in giving you the worst news
in the world, for I can tell you that before this can come to
you the best Queen England ever had will be dead. The
King's concern for her condition is so great that it is near
distraction. Our friend' [Dr. Radcliffe no doubt] f has done
all that man can do, and I believe His Majesty is well satis-
fied with his skill and diligence, though his concern for the
great loss disturbs him to the last degree. In fine, never was
so universal a melancholy known. The Queen has behaved
herself with all the courage and calmness imaginable, never
being in any concern but when she found the King in his
great passions of grief, as she often told him, being herself as
easy and contented as ever anybody was. She received the
Sacrament this afternoon, and had done so yesterday while I
was there, all things being prepared by the Archbishop, but
she was a little light-headed, and it was judged impracticable.
I shall soon see you, and shall be able to add more melancholy
circumstances. God preserve the King, and under him us !
1 Yours, affectionately, L. G. FINCH V
His heart, as we should now say, was evidently 'in the
right place,' when he could write so good a letter as this ;
and it quite enables us to understand how it was he had so
many friends. His two-sided character neither was indeed,
nor is, any isolated phenomenon ; and it at least helps us
to understand how difficult it is to get at the truth in dealing
with the past. But the original mistake of thrusting a
young man of this sort into the Headship of a College could
not but produce effects which were beyond the cure of a mere
rectification of his legal position. A brilliant man of convivial
habits, impulsive disposition, and a ' tendency to indebtedness, 3
could not be expected either to reform abuses, or to infuse
a high tone into a Society which was still heaving with many
a struggle, and naturally on the watch for inconsistencies on
the part of its superior. It was exactly the occasion for the
formation of a regular party of men of loose habits, and in
which the doctrines of a man like Matthew Tindal, who soon
exchanged his short and suspicious adherence to Romanism
1 Ballard MSS. 20. 2.
314 ALL SOULS AT THE REVOLUTION. [CHAP.
for the peculiar tenets with which his name is connected,
would find supporters. A severe task was left to his successor
by the custos dilectlssimus.
And yet, as the College has a very distinguished history
during the reigns of William and Mary and of Anne, we
shall naturally look about for the men who supplied the
steadying balance, the influences which kept the superior
class of Fellows together. We have seen that the College
made a bound the moment it was set free from the self-
imposed fetters of corrupt elections, and how in the very pro-
cess of the struggle with Bancroft it was fortunate enough
to enrol George Clarke, John Norris, and Miles Stapylton
among its members. It soon afterwards elected Thomas
Creech, Bernard Gardiner, Nathaniel Lloyd, Christopher Cod-
rington, Thomas Tanner, and Dodington G revile. These all
became men of distinction ; no other period of twenty years
in the College history, except perhaps at the Renaissance
and in the reign of Elizabeth, has anything to compare with
it. Scions of well-known families Digges, Bertie, Powys,
Rivers, Luttrell, Mews, Vernon, Norreys, Chicheley, Adder-
ley, Kinaston crowd in during the age of the Revolution.
We cannot assign the place of each of these in the College
divisions, which we shall have to trace in two distinct streams
hereafter; but it was no doubt among some of the Fellows
whose names have been mentioned that the beneficent influence
of George Clarke chiefly prevailed. It is to him, during his
long tenure of his Fellowship fifty-six years that we turn
for an opinion, wherever we can find it, on College difficulties.
His benefactions have still kept his memory green and fresh
in the minds of his successors. This will be therefore the
place to say something about so good and wise a man.
We connect George Clarke, the All Souls ' Jurist ' and
D.C.L., commonly known as ' Dr. Clarke,' with a more
various experience of public official life than any member of
the College in the whole of its history, except perhaps the
xvii.] DOCTOR GEORGE CLARKE. 315
first Warden, Andre we, who contrived to be equally useful
to monarchs whose families were not only at variance, but in
deadly conflict, and Sir John Mason and Sir William Petre,
who served four Tudor Sovereigns continuously through every
fluctuation of the Reformation. George Clarke was the
Minister of the two Kings who preceded the Revolution, and
of all the rest of the Stuart family who were placed by that
Revolution on the English throne. He was Judge-Advocate-
General to Charles the Second, James the Second, and William
and Mary, Secretary of War to William the Third, Secretary
to Prince George of Denmark, and a Lord of the Admiralty
in Queen Anne's reign. Nor have we any ground for accusing
him of want of principle in this continuity of public service
in such times. Party government had commenced, and a
statesman could hold office without sacrifice of principle under
Sovereigns the most opposed.
George Clarke was the son of Sir William Clarke, of
whom we only know that he was buried at Harwich. The
Fellow of All Souls entered public life very soon after his
admission to the College, and sat in Parliament for more
places than one before he became Member for the University.
To the latter office he was elected no less than five different
times, once at least, if not oftener, unanimously. He was no
doubt recommended to both Charles and James by his courtly
manners, moribus elegantissimus, as we read on his monu-
ment, as well as by the opinion entertained of his abilities
and high character. He was all through his life devoted
to the cause of ' Church and King/ but he was nevertheless
an ardent well-wisher to the Revolution. James's conduct
settled the question with all lovers of the Constitution who
were not blinded by invincible prejudices or over-scrupulous-
ness of conscience; and that King must himself have felt
that he had no chance of support from Clarke in his attempt
to Romanise England, if we may judge by his selecting him
for a sorry joke about his connection with All Souls. It
316 ALL SOULS AT THE REVOLUTION. [CHAP.
happened on the occasion of James's visit to Oxford in 1687,
for the purpose of supporting his Papist friends, and is thus
related by Wood ] :
'Sunday morn, when the K. was in dressing, in came
Clark (the same who was parliament man) of Alls. Coll.
in his square cap the King asked him of what Coll. he
was ? He said of Alls. Coll. Are not you, said the King,
bound by statute to pray for the dead ? No, Sir, said Clark ;
not that I know of. Why, said another that stood by,
Chichley was your founder and founded your Coll. for such
that were slain in the battle at Agincourt.'
We are not told of any further explanation given by
Clarke. Probably it would not have been of much use in
the present temper of James's mind to have reminded him
of the Act for the Suppression of Chantries. He was just
then at the very crisis of his frantic effort to turn back
the whole tide of English history, and no doubt enjoyed
his momentary triumph. It might have been well if he
had been led to ponder over Clarke's curt answer. Whatever
else Clarke was, he was always, as he said on the occasion
of Finch's appointment to be Warden of All Souls, a decided
anti-Papist.
All through the subsequent reigns we find evidence that
he was also a consistent and ardent anti-Jacobite ; and he
is followed by Hearne's displeasure in consequence, especially
as he beat Hearne's friend, Dr. King, the famous Jacobite,
in the contest of 1721 for Oxford University 2 . We have
not so many records of his political life as we could wish ;
for he was evidently rather the dexterous and necessary
man of business than a politician in the usual sense. But
we find him, in the early years of Anne's reign, taking a
leading part both at Court and in Parliament against the
Occasional Conformity Bill. This connected him with the
Whigs ; and later in the reign we find him in agreement
with the Tories on the subject of the Peace of Utrecht.
1 Life, sub ann. 1687. 2 Hearne's Diary, 93. 203.
xvii.] CLARKE'S POLITICS. 317
His immense public experience led him to form judgments
superior to those of the mere partisan, and friendships which
embraced men of the most opposite opinions. We have to
search the unpublished correspondence of the times if we
would discover the place he held among his contemporaries.
He is full of zeal and good taste in his patronage of
literature. A quiet good sense and thorough knowledge of
the world pervade his letters; and his friends write to him
as to a man of whom they feel sure as to his friendship,
his disinterested judgment, and his generous philanthropy.
Perhaps, though forestalling our history a little, an extract
or two from Clarke's letters to the indefatigable Dr. Charlett,
on the Peace of Utrecht, may not be unacceptable even now,
when, after the lapse of so many years, party politics still
appear to obscure the opinions of some modern writers on the
Subject. The means by which that famous Treaty was pro-
cured were bad ; the Treaty itself, though far from perfect,
good. This was Clarke's opinion, and no one could be a
better judge. His letters also confirm the statement, not
thought unworthy of mention by grave historians, that one
among the influences which weighed with the upper classes
of society was the longing for the taste once more of those
French wines which the wars of Maryborough had so long
prevented from appearing at table. We have a glimpse too
of a Member for Oxford City from the pen of the Member
for the University.
' I have all my life/ says Clarke, ' hated a trick, and think
nothing can be worth playing one. ... I wish the peace of
Europe, the peace of my country, and of the University in
particular, and can never bring myself to be fond of those
who would disturb any of them. Sir John Walter (M.P. for
the City of Oxford) is sanguine enough to hope that the Par-
liament will come in, so allowing us some French wine di-
rectly from France : you are sure of his wishes and endeavour
to bring it about.'
And on October 2, 1711, he writes thus :
318 ALL SOULS AT THE REVOLUTION. [CHAP.
' I can tell you nothing 1 from here which will be so accept-
able to you, as I am sure it is to me, as that all the world
talks of the great probability there is of peace. The City of
London most certainly believes it, for all the stocks rise ex-
tremely upon that supposition, and interest, you know, will
not lie. There are a parcel of people who industriously run
down public credit, and yet at the same time are for carrying
on the war, which requires credit as well as money. It would
make you laugh to hear the several reports of the King of
France's Ministers being in England. Mr. Pryor was walking
t'other day in Gray's Inn Walks, and the mob fancied M.
Polignac was with him, and gathered round him as they
used to do about Dr. SacheverellV
'He retired from official life at the end of Queen Anne's
reign, but continued to represent his University for some
time longer. Oxford is the home of his middle and old age.
Surrounded by friends, he makes the good of his College and
University the main employment of his time and of his wealth.
When we come to the history of All Souls in the reign of
Anne and George the First we shall see how much is due to
him, and also how much more All Souls lost of what he
would probably have left to that foundation had he not taken
an alarm, and found another channel for his munificence in
the endowment of Worcester College.
Thomas Creech will require a shorter notice, but his name
ought not to be forgotten. He had a considerable reputation
in his day, but not great enough to preserve his name. Even
the well-informed University resident will stop at his picture
in the 'Poet's Corner' of the Bodleian Galleries, and wonder
who it was that bore the name of ' Thomas Creech, Poet.'
This clever and industrious man was one of the first to
benefit by Bancroft's reform of the All Souls elections. He
had nothing to recommend him but his talents ; and it was
creditable to the Fellows who had just elected Finch that they
accepted the poor student perhaps by way of atonement.
1 Ballard MSS. 20. 40, 43, 47.
xvii.] CREECH THE POET. 319
Hearne l speaks of him as c one of the most applauded wits
we had, and one who for several curious pieces deserved well
of the commonwealth of learning.' He finds a prominent
place in Gibber's 'Lives of the Poets.' His translation of
Manilius had not much circulation, but he is chiefly known
by his edition of Lucretius, which ran through six editions
in twenty -eight years 2 . His devotion to this particular
author was no doubt the origin of the report, which is
mentioned more than once in contemporary letters, that he
deliberately committed suicide out of sympathy with the
principles of his author. But happily an entry in Hearne's
Diary refutes the slander : ' By the Coroner's Inquest he
was found non compos mentis ; the evidence for it was very
good V Creech was assisted in some of his literary under-
takings by friends, and chiefly by Codrington, who shews, in
almost the only letter we have of his 4 , that he was much
pained at the treatment he had received from his client, whose
mind was already giving way. Creech was employed on an
edition of Justin the historian, a task which Codrington
himself appears to have contemplated, but in the end it was
left to the all-editing Hearne.
Tanner's name is so much more known than any of the
three which have been noticed in this chapter that scarcely
anything need be said about him except as far as he
touches the College which honoured itself in electing him.
Few great men in the literary world have emerged into
deserved celebrity at an earlier age than Tanner. While
an Undergraduate at Queen's College he had amassed the
materials for his gigantic work, the Notitia Monastica, and
even before he was appointed Chaplain to All Souls in 1693,
had attracted the attention of all learned men. Amongst these
was Wood. In the two last years of the great antiquarian's
1 Diary, 114. 13. 2 Ibid. 130. 81. 3 Ibid. 114. 13.
4 Ballurd MSS. 20. 33 ; Letters from the Bodleian Library.
320 ALL SOULS AT THE REVOLUTION. [CHAP.
Life we find notices of the young man who was to follow
in his steps. A month before his death he says :
' With S r . Tanner of All Souls, at Binsey Chapel, where,
in the porch, I read and told him the whole history of
St. Frideswide and the antiquity of that chapel ; thence to
Godstow, where I told him the . antiquities of that place and
all matter of Lady Edyve and Rosamond ; so eat a dish of
fish, and went through part of Wolvercote home 1 .'
How vividly does this entry reproduce the scene ! It
would be spoilt by another word. Old Anthony Wood was
no doubt sounding his young friend, with some presentiment
of that illness which soon came on him so suddenly and
distressingly. It prepares us for what then took place. Of
the circumstances of his death Tanner himself 2 , as well as
Dr. Charlett 3 , has given an excellent account. The latter,
who was the person most respected of all his friends by the
eccentric author, pressed him to settle who should be the
Editor of his papers.
'I advised him,' says Charlett, 'to Mr. Tanner of All
Souls, for whose fidelity I could be responsible. His answer
was, he thought so too, and that he would in this and in
all other particulars follow my advice.'
This is of course authentic ; but Hearne adds some touches
which had reached him, and are too characteristic not to
be true. When Tanner was recommended by Charlett,
' Wood vehemently asked " Hath he courage ? will he be
honest?" repeating the words over and over. And when he
was assured he had both qualifications he committed the
papers to him 4 .' Hearne, Tanner's rival and political opponent,
1 Life, subann. 1695. 2 Ballard MSS. 4. 13.
3 Hearne's Johannis Glastoniensis Chronica, vol. ii. p. 455.
(Both this letter and Tanner's are given in Dr. Bliss's edition of
"Wood's Athense printed for the Eccl. Hist. Society.)
4 Diary, 92. 191.
xvii.] BISHOP TANNER. 321
loudly condemned Tanner for having ' betrayed his trust '
in editing Wood ; but this may well be disputed. It was
a matter requiring extreme delicacy, and he at any rate
acted in strict accord with Dr. Charlett. In later years
Hearne found he had much to learn from Tanner ' . It is
difficult to imagine three greater monuments of research
than the Notitia Monastica, the edition of Wood's Athene,
and the Bibliotheca Britannica. His collection of papers
and books, now in the Bodleian, has been already men-
tioned. His industry and ability were only exceeded by the
generosity and charity of his life and character; the in-
scription on his monument at Christ Church, of which he
was a Canon, is no mere sepulchral commonplace. The
friend of Bishop Gibson, Archbishop Wake, and Bishop
Moore, he became in due time himself the Bishop of St.
Asaph ; but his place among English Worthies is due to
the literary labours of which as a youth Queen's College
was the scene, and subsequently, for eight years as Chaplain
and Fellow, All Souls.
His affection for the Society which had thus nurtured him
is well exhibited in the following characteristic letter to
Dr. Charlett from Norwich, of which diocese he was Arch-
deacon, dated October 38, 1719 :
' It would be scarce pardonable in one that had lived eleven
or twelve years in Oxford, and been a little observer of days
and times, not to remember, upon St. Simon and St. Jude,
University College and the flourishing state of it. This I
believe I have scarce ever omitted, though I have not always
been so happy as to have an hour to spare to send dutiful
respects and good wishes to my worthy friend who has so long
happily presided over that Society. The following six days
are usually very busy ones among your neighbours at All Souls.
Since I left them [in 1701] I have never sent one letter upon
an Election account, nor think ever to do it. The use I ought
to make at the return of this season is to thank the Almighty
Disposer of all events for giving so happy an issue to the
election 1696, and for turning the hearts of the then Warden
1 Diary passim.
Y
322 ALL SOULS AT THE REVOLUTION. [CHAP.
and a majority of the Fellows in favour of a poor, friendless
Chaplain. Pray God reward all those who were instrumental
thereunto, and this year and ever direct for the best the filling
up the vacant places in that excellent Foundation. I shall be
a little interested on Monday in my usual celebration of All
Souls' Day, it being 1 unluckily appointed for a Session Day upon
a Commission we have down for Charitable Uses, of which
we have too much occasion in this County. ... I hope we
shall be able to do much good. . . . However I hope to
dispatch by four of the clock, and then to fill my table with
such as wish well to the University, though I never yet could
do it here with Oxford men.'
He then goes on to mention that the Caius College men
Caius being a great Norfolk College had met and publicly
dined on Caius Day, August 26, to the number of ninety-two.
c This was the first year of their keeping their Founder's
Day here in this City 1 ."
It is hoped that these personal touches will not be out of
place, where so little is personally known of a truly good
man. They help to prove that the College was recognised as
doing useful work by one capable of judging. It was bringing
into a focus, and so intensifying, the better influences of the
time, the literary activity, the religious principles, the social
graces of that stirring period. All through Oxford there was
a great movement in progress. Anthony Wood had imbued
a large number of men with his enthusiastic zeal for anti-
quarian research in the records of their own country and
University. Dr. Charlett was nursing a thousand schemes
for literary enterprise. We have seen that even Warden Finch
had caught the infection. Dr. RadcliflVs immense London
practice was made to contribute to the advancement of men
of learning, and especially of Oxford students. The researches
of the great Dutch scholars were exciting eager emulation
at both Universities. At Cambridge Bentley was grandly
elevating the standard of Classical scholarship, Newton of
1 Ballard MSS. 4. 73.
XVIL] CONDITION OF OXFORD. 323
Mathematical eminence. At Oxford, Christ Church, under
Dr. Fell, had made a wonderful progress since the Eestoration.
The example of the great Boyle and the saintly Hammond
had not been lost. Locke, indeed, owing to Fell's subser-
viency to Charles the Second, had been expelled the Univer-
sity, but not till he had planted there seed which was to bear
abundant fruit, good for those who knew how to use it, bad
for the bad. Wake and Atterbury were maturing, under
the influence of that kindly temperature, their great powers
for the coming struggle upon ecclesiastical politics. South
had learnt there to give a better tone to the pungent wit of
the Terrse Filius. The all-accomplished Aldrich was com-
posing glees and catches, building quadrangles and churches,
and publishing manuals of logic, editions of the Classics, and
sermons against Rome, though apparently he had not made
as much effort as even the Fellows of All Souls to keep
out a Papist from the Headship of his House. Many other
divines of only less eminence gathered round the giants of
Christ Church in those palmy days ; nor will other Colleges
be found to have been altogether behindhand in the race
when the history of Oxford during those times comes to be
written. It was under the influences of Christ Church and
All Souls at this period that a remarkable man was educated,
who must have a chapter to himself. Christopher Cod-
rington is sometimes called the Second Founder of All
Souls, on account of his splendid benefaction. He was but
the most distinguished of many superior men formed in
this age who gave the College almost a fresh existence.
We must attempt to understand the process by which he
became what he was.
CHAPTEE XVIII.
1690-1710.
Codrington's family His father His Oxford education
Campaigns in Flanders Public oration at Oxford Sent
to command in the West Indies Opinions of contemporaries
Career as Captain-General Learned retirement His Will
-Bequests to All Souls and the Society for Propagation
of the Gospel His character Addison's verses.
SINCE Great Britain has become the basis of an Empire
embracing India, Canada, Australia, and a multitude of other
dependencies, it requires an effort to imagine the importance
of the West Indian Islands in the seventeenth century. Be-
sides the North American colonies, several of which afforded in
their early days but a barren return for the labour and danger
undergone by emigrants, there was no other field open to
British enterprise. To the beautiful Antilles the brightest
jewel in the British Crown were attracted many of the best
families in the land. Negroes imported from Africa were
already largely employed in cultivating the sugar cane, and
wealth rapidly rewarded energy and ability. All the Western
nations of Europe competed for a share in the growing profits
of the trade, and the struggles of the Continent were repro-
duced in the Tropics. The state of society in the islands was
unsettled, not to say, too often lawless. The Buccaneers
HIS FAMILY HISTORY. 325
flourished and were put down, rose again more than once,
and were again put down. There was too much sympathy
with them in many a West Indian society.
Of one of the best of the Colonial families the subject of
this chapter was the representative. They were the de-
scendants of no unimportant members of those knightly races
which have been the glory and strength of England. An
ancestor had been standard-bearer to Henry the Fifth in
battle; and they had been settled for many generations at
Dodington in Gloucestershire. After a lapse of nearly three
centuries, the descendant of the brave Lancastrian knight
came from the Antilles to be a Fellow and Benefactor of
the Lancastrian Foundation.
The father of this Christopher Codrington was also a
Christopher Codrington, also a British Colonel, also Captain-
General of the Caribbean, or more properly speaking,
Leeward, Islands, also a man of mark.
' To the enterprising spirit and extensive views of Colonel
Codrington of Barbadoes,' says Bryan Edwards, the historian
of the West Indies, ' Antigua was indebted for its growing
prosperity and subsequent opulence. Deriving from his ap-
pointment as Captain-General the power of giving greater
energy to his benevolent purposes, he had soon the happiness
of beholding the good effects of his humanity and wisdom in
the flourishing condition of the several islands under his
government.'
He commanded with success an important expedition
against the French in the West Indies, and was concerned
in extinguishing a revival of Buccaneer license. So much
it seems as well to state, as it accounts for the resolution he
formed of sending his son to England that he might receive
the best education the old country could afford. So able and
prosperous a man would be satisfied with nothing short of
this. The property he left was so considerable that, with
the additions made by his son, it was spoken of by that sou
326 CODRINGTON. [CHAP.
as 'the greatest estate of any man in the West Indies 1 .'
The highest praise Bryan Edwards can give the younger
Christopher is that he ' trod the same paths as his illustrious
father 2 .' He evidently owed much to that father.
The youth of whom we are now to speak was sent to school
at Enfield, and then to Christ Church ; from whence he was
elected to All Souls, somewhat later than the usual age, in
1690. He followed King William to Flanders, still keeping
his Fellowship, in 1694. Even by this time he had achieved
a high reputation. We come across him in various contem-
porary recolds as a sort of Admirable Crichton. Yet he has
left next to nothing behind him, and the printed accounts
of him are meagre in the extreme ; nor have his family
at the present day anything further to tell us. His Will,
dated 1702, was so remarkable in all respects that his name
will be handed down to remote posterity. It is little more
than a name to this generation. An attempt will be made
here to restore such life to that name as is still possible.
Would that it had been done when his memory was more
fresh !
At Christ Church Codrington must have found himself
under the full influences of the remarkable men we have
noticed in the last chapter, and been witness to the most
exciting scenes presented within the House since the Com-
monwealth. Massey, the Romanist Dean, must have been
both intruded and superseded during his residence, and all the
great questions of Religion and the Constitution been prac-
tically dealt with before his eyes. We can only guess at
the immediate effect upon him of the struggle ; but it is
certain that we find him in after life a devoted adherent
to the principles of the Revolution, and a true son of the
Church of England. Of his residence at All Souls we have,
1 Copy of Petition against Colonel Christopher Codrington, 1)02.
2 History of the West Indies, vol. i. 438, 439.
xviii.] HIS REPUTATION AS A WIT. 327
on the other hand, a direct and distinct trace in the report
of a friend with whom he had much intercourse before his
death.
' At All Souls/ says Gordon, e he was convinced of the
true value of learning- and piety ; and that he had his
education there, among- so many learned and pious men as
that Royal Colledge abounds in, whose names he frequently
mention'd with peculiar esteem and veneration, he ever
accounted one of the greatest blessings of his life. The
happy opportunity which Providence indulg'd him of being
bred up in that fruitful seminary of good literature, he in-
dustriously improved to the storing of his understanding
with all sorts of learning, with logick, history, the learned
and modern languages, poetry, physick and divinity. . . .
Nor was he less careful of those politer exercises and accom-
plishments which might qualifie him to appear in the world
and at the nicest Courts with reputation and advantage,
insomuch that he soon acquir'd the deserv'd character
of an accomplished, well-bred gentleman, and .an universal
scholar V
This very high praise comes from a suspicious quarter
a funeral sermon. We are bound then to examine the
matter a little further. What further light have we as to
the opinion of his contemporaries?
We turn to Gibber's ' Lives of the Poets ' the standard
work of that kind in its day and we find he says of
Codrington, ' this gentleman was of the first rank of wit ;'
to Tindal's History of England, and we see him called
' a man of learning and wit as well as gallantry.' We
examine the Analecta, in which indeed we found some verses
of Finch's, but into which collection all the best Latin poets
of the day were glad to find admission. Some of Codrington's
verses are there. We find Addison, the accepted critic of
his time, exhausting the vocabulary of poetical eulogy in
singing the praises of his friend. We find Edward Young,
the poet, in his funeral oration, describing the ardour with
1 Gordon's Funeral Sermon.
328 CODRINGTON. [CHAP.
which he pursued his studies, as he did in war his enemies,
' vehementer doctus? Digby Cotes, the Public Orator, on
the same occasion dilates on his heroic appearance, his
personal accomplishments, his Christian death-bed. But
perhaps his greatest praise is that Hearne l , who never has
a good word for any who were not more or less of his own
Jacobite principles, can say no worse thing of him than
that ( this gentleman had many good qualities, though they
were all slurred over by his complying with the rebels in
opposition to King James.'
There must have been something more than the mere
promise of excellence to excite this general opinion of Cod-
rington's abilities. He must have been a hard student, a
good scholar, and gifted with a vein of poetry which
distinguished him among his fellows. Very little of the
latter has come down to our times. His verses to Sir Samuel
Garth, on that author's 'Dispensary,' alone find a place in
modern or quasi-modern collections. A few lines have been
often quoted, and may be quoted once again :
' Ask me not, friend, what I approve or blame,
Perhaps I know not why I like or damn ;
I can be pleased and I dare own I am.
I read thee over with a lover's eye,
Thou hast no faults or I no faults can spy,
Thou art all beauty or all blindness I.'
Such fragments do not of themselves entitle a man to
' the first rank of wit,' but we may remember, if he appears
to us a somewhat obscure luminary in that galaxy of
excellence which we recognise in ' the age of Queen Anne,'
that the constellation had not yet reached its zenith, and
that a reputation is sometimes made, and justly made,
without much to shew for it in. print.
He was while at All Souls an enthusiastic collector of
1 Diary, 58. 200.
xvni.] HIS ZEAL FOR LITERATURE. 329
books, as might be expected from the companion of Creech,
Tanner, and the able men who at this time flourished at
the College. A few years after he left Oxford he wrote
to Dr. Charlett as follows :
' As to the latter part of your letter I shall only say
I had once some public designs; they were good, I think,
but I am sure I was in earnest. Whatever they were they
are at an end, and I shall never reassume them. However,
I shall proceed in my collection, and though it will not be
so large as I at first intended, I hope to make it as curious as
any private one in Europe, particularly in some sort of books
which I believe are not known in Oxford. Mr. Cunningham
is going into France, and from thence into Italy, and will
miss nothing that is curious. If ever I return from the
Indies I shall make that tour myself, and nothing shall
escape me that is valuable in any way, though it is possible,
considering my circumstances, that I may make very little
use of them myself, and am not yet resolved what to do with
them at my death, though I am very fully determined I will
not dispose of them as I at first intended V
These words may refer to Codrington's supposed idea of
leaving his books to the Bodleian Library, which Hearne,
writing in I7o6 3 , believed to be their destination. He
reckoned them at 12,000 in number, and they were valued
at ^6,000. Or, as the date is only a few months before that
of his Will, Codrington may have been in doubt whether
to apply them for the benefit of his West Indian College.
At any rate the books here mentioned formed a part, and
a very valuable part, of his legacy to All Souls. The
imminence of the war in which he was about to engage
accounts for the rest of the letter. He could hardly have
foreseen that he should yet spend six years, free from the
cares of Government, in the midst of his beloved pursuits.
Some years before this date he had however exchanged
1 Ballard MSS. 20. 33 ; Letters from the Bodleian Library.
- Hearne's Letters ; in Bodleian Library.
330 CODRINGTON'. [CHAP.
the society of Clarke and RadclifFe and Addison and Garth
for the camp of Kinjg William in Flanders. As in the case
of Sir Anthony Sherley 1 , the College was unwilling to with-
draw its assistance from one who carried with him all its
sympathies in the great .struggle. It is hardly necessary
to look far for a reason why a man of Codrington's spirit
and opinions should rush to the assistance of his Sovereign
in his gallant effort to humble the imperious enemy of
England and religious liberty ; but war with France must
almost have seemed an hereditary duty to the son of the
Captain-General of the Caribbean Islands. Among the
chief causes assigned for that war was the cruel and trea-
cherous conduct of the French planters at St. Christopher's,
which it was the fortune of Codrington's father to avenge 2 .
His was no undistinguished service. At the sieges of
Huy and of Namur he behaved with such gallantry that
he attracted the attention of King William no mean
judge. It were to be wished there were some details of this
service, but at any rate we know that the King then and
there made him Captain of the First Regiment of Foot
Guards. Almost immediately after the close of the war
the elder Codrington died. The King now still further
marked his approval of the services of this young man
little more than thirty years old by giving him the suc-
cession to his father's great office in the West Indies.
A characteristic point of connection between Codrington's
military and literary life occurs at this period. Returning
to England with the King he attended him on his visit
to Oxford. The Public Orator was indisposed 3 , and the
University paid Codrington the compliment of selecting
him to deliver the University Oration instead of their own
officer. This production is, again, unfortunately lost ; but
1 p. 98. 2 Edwards' History of the "West Indies, i. 427.
3 Tindal's History of England, iii. 301.
xvm.] A SOLDIER AND ORATOR. 331
the famous Dr. Gibson, afterwards Bishop of London, calls
it, in a contemporary letter, ' a very elegant oration J ; ' and
it is referred to as follows by Dr. Hudson, Bodley's Libra-
rian, who dedicated (in Latin) to Codrington, then in the
West Indies, the second volume of his edition of Dionysius
of Halicarnassus.
In the high-flown rhetoric, not altogether peculiar to the
dedications of those days, he remarks that
' people might wonder why he sought the patronage of
a general engaged in war, but their surprise would cease if
they knew that the Muses were the comrades of that general,
if they had witnessed the incredible avidity and vigour with
which he had made literature his own^ how he had left nothing
unattempted which might aid the cultivation of his mind,
how he had carried off the laurel from all in the gentler con-
tests of poetry, as well as in the subtleties of philosophy and
mathematics, how profoundly the assembled University ad-
mired his manly eloquence when he made his magnificent
oration before the King, and narrated the noble deeds of the
war with the same courage as he had shown in their perform-
ance. He might well receive the dedication of the author's
1 Some extracts from this letter may find their place in a
note.
' The King received the University in state at the Theatre,
where a large banquet was provided with variety of musick during
His Majesty's stay. Mr. Codrington of All Souls, in a very
elegant oration, expressed the publick joy of the University to
see His Majesty. The Chancellor [Duke of Ormond] on his knees
presented His Majesty with a large English Bible, a large Common
Prayerbook, and the cutts of y e University, all richly bound and
printed in folio at the Theatre, with a pair of gold-fringed gloves.'
The King was however, we know, coldly received, and left hastily.
The Chancellor, who staid behind, lodged at All Souls, and on
Sunday morning heard at St. Mary's ' an excellent sermon preached
by Dr. Finch, Warden of All Souls.' After the afternoon sermon
' the Chancellor and such of y e nobility and gentry as staid in
town were entertained by the University at a dinner in the publick
Hall of All Souls College, the Noblemen, Heads of Houses, Pro-
fessors and Proctors present.' Ballard MSS. 5. 53.
332 CODRINGTON. [CHAP.
works, as he of all men could best understand them. So
formed was he by the hand of a superior nature that under
the guidance of a master like Dionysius he might well become
in eloquence the rival of Pericles, as he had already sur-
passed him in the science of war and the greatness of his
exploits.'
As the mouth-piece of Britannia the learned Editor im-
plores the return of his patron to England, ' not only that
the loss of those whom the dire struggle for the liberties of
Europe had carried off might be the better borne, but because
some hope might then be entertained of terminating the war
raging in the vitals of Germany.'
It is evident from this, and other indications which present
themselves, that Oxford was not a little proud of the versatile
talents of her hero, and that Marlborough himself was as yet,
in her partial eyes, held cheap in comparison. Creech,
dedicating to Codrington, at an earlier date, his Lucre-
tius, dwells even more than Hudson on the loss sustained
by learning in the abstraction of his friend from Oxford to
military pursuits ; war had sacrilegiously carried off a genuine
child of the Muses.
We follow him then to the West Indies, to Barbadoes,
where his chief estates lay, to Antigua, where he had pro-
perty, and which was the seat of the Governor or Captain-
General of the Leeward Islands, to Nevis, St. Kitt's, and
the rest of that group of the Antilles which were included
in his government.
Some mention has been made of the unsettled state of
society in the Leeward Islands ; and some striking details
of their condition in this respect both before and after
Codrington's term of office may be found in works upon
the West Indies. But we gain further insight into the
subject by means of an Appeal which was made by some
inhabitants of Antigua in 1702 against Codrington's pro-
ceedings. It was first carried to the Commissioners of Trade
xviii.] THE CAPTAIN-GENERAL. 333
and Plantations, then to the King in Council, and finally
(the promoters being- impatient of delays unjustly imposed,
as they alleged) to the House of Commons. To the ' articles
exhibited ' against him before this latter tribunal Codrington
replied by publishing them himself with his own comments
attached; and they are still to be seen 1 . At the end are
appended some very honourable testimonies to his character
as Governor, from the authorities of the Island of Nevis.
The charges against the General are concocted with legal
skill, but are evidently frivolous enough ; and so the House
must have thought, since it summarily 'dismissed' them.
Nevertheless the impression remains, on a study of the
document, that he ruled his islands after a somewhat
military fashion, salutary no doubt under the circumstances,
but not altogether agreeable. War with France was again
at hand, and the Commander-in-Chief had to prepare for
it. The first requisite for success was the establishment of
a firm rule over the people themselves.
In the Calendar of Treasury Papers may be seen an
official report from Codrington, a short time previous to
this affair, in which he says, speaking of Colonel Norton's
regiment, that he 'had reason to believe there was a vast
difference between the rolls he sent home and the true
state of his company. He had been forced to suspend
Colonel Norton from his government for the many great
crimes he had been guilty of. He would give a more parti-
cular account of 's friends/ ' If any knavery or quirks
of law, they may expect to find them in this island,' says
a very competent witness, of Barbadoes, writing in 1711 -.
It was fortunate that he had had three or four years of
peace in which to establish his position. With the com-
mencement of Queen Anne's reign the war broke out with
1 Codrington Library at All Souls.
2 MS. Letters, 67, Office of the Society for the Propagation of
the Gospel.
334 CODRINGTON. [CHAP.
fury ; and the West Indian islands were among- the earliest
to feel its ravages. The General's first operations were
successful. It was at this time that the famous Benbow
commanded the naval forces in those seas, and died more
of a broken heart at the conduct of his captains than
of his wounds. With him Codrington might well have
succeeded in sweeping the French from the islands ; but
Benbow's successor was incompetent ; and the grand expe-
dition against Guadaloupe, planned by the General and
Admiral, failed for want of proper support from the latter,
partly also from the sickness of the troops, who were at
first successful. This was in 1703. There were as many
as 6000 soldiers embarked under Codrington's personal com-
mand ; and his gallantry was as usual conspicuous ; but in
vain 1 .
To a man of his disposition such a check was no doubt
more than ordinarily distressing. Next year he resigned his
appointment, ' was superseded,' as Mr. Edwards tells us 2 ;
but he seems to have resigned 3 . At any rate he retired
to his estates in Barbadoes, where he lived for the rest
of his life in great seclusion, and ' spent most of his time
in contemplation and study.' It is for this period that we
are obliged to rely upon the testimony of Mr. Gordon, and
can only quote his words ; words, however, which the writer
tells us he has carefully weighed :
' I shall be particularly careful that what I shall say of
him shall be, to the best of my information and knowledge,
strictly true.
' Nature had blessed him with vast capacious parts exceed-
ingly above the common level of mankind. He had a great
soul of a fiery genius, happily united to a body of a subtle and
flexible composition, in which the blood and animal spirits
1 Diary of Narcissus Luttrell ; Soutliey's History of the West
Indies.
a Vol. i. p. 439.
3 Gordon's Sermon, p. 2 1 ; ' Letters from the Bodleian.'
xviii.] GORDON'S ACCOUNT OF HIM. 335
moved with vigour and rapidity and rendered it rather a spur
than a hindrance to the operations of his mind. He had a
quick and piercing apprehension, a strong, solid, distinguish-
ing judgment, a retentive memory, a warm imagination, a
fruitful, sagacious invention, a bold, pregnant wit, a sublime
way of thinking, a methodical, persuasive way of reasoning,
and a voluble, distinct utterance upon the most unexpected
occasions. These wonderful perfections which nature had
adorned him with were enlarged and cultivated with all the
art and care that this polite age is master of.
' Of late he chiefly applied himself to Church History and
Metaphysics. If in anything he excelled it was in Meta-
physical learning, of which he was perhaps the greatest
master in the world. He w r as a great admirer of the Fathers,
particularly of St. Basil, whom he seems not a little to have
resembled in the universality of his genius, the warmth and
activity of his temper, and an affection for a monastic life, but
chiefly in his sublime way of speaking and writing.
' He was particularly careful to form his style upon the
great models of antiquity ; some of them he equalled, most of
them he excelled. His style was plain and easy, yet powerful
and lofty, fluent but not turgid, florid yet natural and
unaffected, elegant but not overwrought or forced. In his
studied and elaborate composures there was an inimitable
beauty and efficacy, whereby he would at once charm the
affections, move the passions, and convince the understanding
with such surprising turns, such impetuous force, such solid
reasons that (as was said of his forementioned pattern) he
spoke nothing but life and breathed a soul into the dullest
argument he treated of. And yet his care of his style did
not at all cramp the exactness or interrupt the chain of his
most refined and abstracted enquiries ; for every thought was
placed in the most advantageous light, as well as dressed in
the gayest manner, and every period was just, and had a
natural cadence. In the same discourse he would display the
orator and th'e philosopher to so great perfection that it was
hard to determine in which he most excelled, so much did
he excel in both.
' In a word, he had in this West India retirement made
so wonderful a progress in his studies, that had Providence
spared him to have returned to his beloved University, he
would have been as much the object of their admiration as he
deserved to be the object of their delight. Great part of his
estate he designed for the advancement of learning and piety ;
and indeed he was so great a lover of learning and learned
336 CODRINGTON. [CHAP.
men, that wherever he met with an ingenious person he
courted his acquaintance, and readily received him into his
friendship.'
So long a quotation would be perfectly inexcusable if,
on the one hand, there were any remains of this ' master-
piece of nature ' to present by way of specimen, or if, on the
other, there were not grounds for believing that, after making
ample allowance for the partiality of his friend, the account
he gives is substantially correct. It is scarcely conceivable
that not one of these ' discourses ' or { composures ' which
so impressed Mr. Gordon, no fragment of this ' perfect style,'
should have survived, but so it is. Beyond the trifling
contributions to literature above noticed, no research has
yielded any fruit. Private enquiries among his descendants
reveal no store such as one would suppose might have been
preserved. But Addison's lines, in his Pax Gulielmi auspiciis
Europe reddita, three of which are inscribed on Codrington's
monument, take quite as high a line of praise ; and the
funeral orations spoken at his grave, when his body was
brought over the Atlantic for burial at All Souls, rise even
higher in their somewhat fulsome eulogy. Of these orations
that by Cotes at the interment, that by Young on laying
the first stone of the Library much cannot indeed be said
that is favourable in point of taste. Hearne : denounced
them as ' most wretched stuff, being neither Latin nor sense ; '
but though they ought scarcely to have been printed, we have
seen that Hearne was not an impartial judge of Codrington.
He is more just in his protest against the body being
interred without any species of religious service 2 .
The Public Orator's reference in his oration to the unique
glory of Codrington in diffusing his munificence to the
farthest bounds of East and West, uniting both hemispheres
in his praises, barbarian and polished student alike, intro-
duces us to the Will which has been already mentioned.
1 Diary, 62. 83. 2 Ib. 58. 201.
xvm.] BEQUEST TO ALL SOULS. 337
The noble use to which Codrington put so large a portion
of his estate serves to throw a further light on the character
of the man. Indeed, except for this it would have been
scarcely worth our while to have tracked his course so fully.
Two institutions of to-day date, if not their origin, their
chief development from his far-sighted wisdom. Of his gift
to All Souls enough has been said to shew that it was a
natural one for him to make. Ten thousand pounds, which
by good husbandry was raised to ^12,000, along with
^6000 worth of valuable books, a sum worth perhaps
j^OjOOO of our currency, not only sufficed to erect,
furnish, and endow a magnificent Library for the College
he loved so well, but tended greatly to assist that process
of enlargement and improvement which will be presently
traced.
The College shewed every mark of gratitude for this
bequest; as well it might. The feeling of others may be
measured by the Visitor's letter to the Warden, of September
i, 1710:
'The news/ says Archbishop Tenison, f of Colonel Cod-
rington's noble bounty to the College is very agreeable to
me. If all other matters shall be well and amicably settled
at the Visitation it will be one of the most glorious luminaries
in the world. Such is the hearty wish, and in some degree
expectation, of your loving brother,'
' T. CANTERBUKY V
Some details relating to the progress of this Library will
be found in a subsequent chapter.
We here close the connection of Codrington with All
Souls. His wishes were faithfully executed with respect to
his tomb. It was to be plain to cost only ^20 ; while
for a monument to his father in Westminster Abbey he
left ^1500. On the stone which covers his remains was
inscribed, with honourable simplicity, the single word
1 Archives.
z
338 CODRINGTON. [CHAP.
'Codrington.' The statue which adorns his Library is by
Sir Henry Cheere. The picture in the Hall is not supposed
to be an authentic likeness.
But this notice would be very far from complete if we
did not devote a few pages to the other institution which
has carried down his name as a ' propagator of the Gospel '
through many grateful generations.
Codrington seems to have been in England, in the matter
of his Appeal, almost at the very moment of the foundation
of the venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.
The first efforts of the noble-hearted men who conceived the
scheme made a profound impression on his mind, for they
were directed to the West Indies. It would be interesting
if we could discover how far he himself had been a fellow-
worker with them; but there is no record. However that
may be, it was not only that the benevolent objects of the
new Society fell in with his own ; it had been ' erected and
established by my late good master, King William the
Third V It had also at once received the hearty support of
Queen Anne. ' I shall always be ready,' said that Sovereign,
when addressed by the Society on her Accession, ' to do my
part towards promoting and encouraging so good a work ; '
and she had ' beforehand declared her approbation of what
they are now doing by her princely munificence when the
affair was in private hands 2 .' Thus satisfied that a sound
foundation had been laid, Codrington made up his mind. He
kept his secret. No one in his lifetime guessed what he had
done. In less than two years after the Society was incor-
porated he made the munificent bequest which has placed
him in the front rank of contributors to such objects. ' The
Plantations have been computed to upwards of ^2000 a year
clear of all charges,' says the Report of the Society. Mr.
Gordon calls it an estate of ^30,000 value. It was at least
worth ^100,000 of our money.
1 Codrington's Will. 2 First Eeport of S.P.G., 1703.
xviii.] BEQUEST TO THE S.P.G. 339
Here are the words of the testator, which have never yet
been given in their complete form :
'Item, I give and bequeath my two plantations in the
Island of Barbadoes to the Society for the Propagation of
the Christian Religion in Forraigne Parts, erected and estab-
lished by my late good master, William the Third ; and my
desire is to leave the plantations contained therein entire, and
three hundred negroes at least always kept thereon : and a
convenient number of Professors and Scholars maintained
there, all of them to be under the vowes of poverty, chastity,
and obedience, who shall be obliged to study and practise
physick and chirurgery, as well as divinity, that by the
apparent usefulness of the former to all mankind they may
both endear themselves to the people, and have the better
opportunities of doing good to men's souls whilst they are
taking care of their bodies ; but the particulars of the Consti-
tution I leave to the Society composed of good and wise men.'
He also leaves to the Society an estate in Barbuda.
The above words are copied from the original Will in
Doctors' Commons j but the words, ' all of them to be under
the vowes of poverty, chastity, and obedience,' do not occur
in any printed copy whatever belonging to the Society for
the Propagation of the Gospel ; and no wonder, for in their
Report of the very year when they received the bequest, a
copy of this portion of the Will is given, but without the
above words ! All subsequent books and papers copy the
first Report, and consequently it had been wholly and com-
pletely lost to memory that Codrington intended his Professors
and Scholars to be a monastic body under the government
of the Archbishops, Bishops, and others of the English
Church incorporated by his 'good master, William the
Third'!
A letter of Bishop Tanner's, which the writer of these
pages accidentally came across in searching the Bodleian
MSS., led to this curious discovery. It is addressed to
Dr. Charlett, dated July 21, 1710, and runs as follows:
' As no one has nearer at heart the peace and prosperity of
z 2
340 CODRINGTON. [CHAP.
All Souls than myself, so your confirmation of what the public
prints mentioned of Colonel Codrington's benefaction was
most welcome. I have since seen the clause in his Will re-
lating- to the Propagation of the Gospel, where his ordering
all his Professors and Scholars [at Barbadoes] to be under
vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, is very monastic.'
As it seemed important to trace the matter further, with
a view to a full comprehension of the character and opinions
of the All Souls benefactor, enquiry was made of the
officers of the Society, to whom the writer would here
render his thanks for kind assistance, but in vain. Not
even an echo of the story had been prolonged down to the
present day. No particular meaning had been supposed to
attach to the only passage which might have led to investiga-
tion, and which has been quoted above from Mr. Gordon's
sermon. The ' affection for a monastic life,' if any one ever
thought of it, passed for a dream. But it was only necessary
to go to Doctors' Commons, there was the passage in the
Will ; only necessary to examine the original conveyance of
the property in the Archives of the Society, and there it was
again ! Perhaps the date of that conveyance may throw
some light on the history of the matter. It is 1742. It had
taken thirty-two years to get rid of the difficulties attending
the peaceable possession of the legacy ! An entire generation
had passed away. The deed was deposited in the Archives
of the S. P. G., and no one but the lawyer of the Society by
that time cared to examine it very narrowly ; and why should
any one examine it again when the disputes were settled ?
But how did the passage come to be erased so promptly and
conclusively ? This is a curious question, and no examination
of the ancient records of the Society throws the least light
upon it. No debate, no motion, no legal opinion, no state-
ment, appears either in the Reports, the Journal of the Board
Meetings, or the Journal of the Committee Meetings. And
yet this remarkable condition in the Will was notorious. The
executor, Colonel William Codrington, first cousin and heir of
xviii.] THE MISSING CLAUSE. 341
Christopher, was advised that he might dispute the Will on
this very ground that it was ' Popish ] ; ' and the fact that
so large an estate was left away from the family, though the
elder line died out in Christopher Codrington, gave a very
natural excuse for any amount of legal obstruction. Even
the bequest to All Souls afforded matter for litigation.
We are left to conjecture. The Archbishops of those days
were autocratic in the affairs of the Society. Tenison, advised
no doubt by the Lord Chancellor, or some great legal autho-
rity, simply scratched his pen through the clause, and took
his chance as to the future. He chose to consider this as one
of the ' particulars of the Constitution ' left to the ' wise and
good men of which the Society is composed.' And yet, as
the condition precedes the clause in which option is permitted,
it might apparently be argued that the condition was para-
mount, and not by any means open to any such interference.
If technically that opinion might be held, a larger view of
the case would certainly justify the course of the Society. It
was a ' particular of the Constitution ' which, if retained,
would have vitiated the whole bequest ; and that the testator
could not have desired. Whatever might have been possible
in other times and places, any attempt to put the condition
into execution at that time, and in the West Indies, would
have been fatal ; or, at any rate, the Society may well have
thought so. The difficulties they met with from all quarters
were enormous as it was ; but there was not the slightest
element of sympathy with the ' monastic design/ either at
home or abroad, which could have saved the infant institu-
tion from shipwreck. Some of the English Nonjurors,
indeed, might have accepted the notion ; but that was all
the more reason in the eyes of the Bench of Bishops why
it should not be thought of for a moment. As the point
seems never to have been pressed in a Court of Law it
would appear that they were legally as well as morally
right.
1 See Mr. Gordon's letter, infra.
342 CODEINGTON. [CHAP.
The question remains what could have influenced Cod-
rington to insert the condition? It forms an authentic
portion of the opinions of the man, and so deserves respect.
It was deliberate. Formed eight years before his death, it
was never rescinded. This ' affection for a monastic life ' was
not bred of solitary, studious habits in the learned retirement
of his later days ; but here it finds expression in the very
midst of the cares of government, the public defence of his
character, and the preparation for a very serious war. Happily
the search for documents at the Society's office led to the dis-
covery of a letter which conveys some information from the
same Mr. Gordon whose Funeral Sermon has been quoted. It
is addressed to the Society on July 25, 1710, very shortly
after the General's death :
Mr. Gordon ' makes bold to write some account of the
Plantations and the Testator's design for the information
of the Society. . . . The design of the bequest was the
maintenance of monks and missionaries, to be employed in
the conversion of negroes and Indians, which design he took
from the conversation of a learned Jesuit of St. Christopher's,
between whom and him there passed several letters upon the
antiquity, usefulness and excellence of a monastic life ; but
these, with some other rules and directions of his which he
communicated to me whilst alive, are not now to be found. Of
the missionaries, he proposed that there should be constantly
kept abroad three Visitors, who would be obliged to travel
from colony to colony and from country to country, to
transmit to the Society a large historical account of the
state of Christianity in such country, of the genius of the
people, and what means were most probable to advance re-
ligion and piety, but these, with a great many other directions,
I shall forbear enlarging upon as being superfluous.
1 Colonel William Codrington, the residuary legatee and
heir-at-law, has been at Antigua ever since the Will was
found, and by some letters I have received from him I find
lhat his advisers there have been buzzing in his ear that the
Society are not legally qualified to take the estates, that the
conditions of the bequest are Popish, and consequently tne
bequest void.' [Then follows a notice of sundry other claims
on the property.] ' Whether Col. W. Codrington will insist
xvin.] MONASTIC IDEAS. 343
upon all these fancied advantages, and thereby give the So-
ciety trouble, I know not.'
It were much to be wished that Mr. Gordon, ' the happy
companion of the General's studies and retirements for the
two last years of his life,' had added to the services he has
rendered an account of those ' other directions' which he
considered ' superfluous' ! Would if the ' monastic design'
was impracticable, and, as many of us will think, unwise
that some of the other large conceptions entertained by this
remarkable man, and here mentioned by Mr. Gordon, had
been put in execution ! For it is abundantly evident that
we have in the present case a great mind brought to bear
on a subject which has been too much 'passed by on the
other side' at the hands of really great men. A peculiar
Providence had brought back a man, whose early youth
had been spent among colonists, negroes, and Indians,
in the full vigour of manhood, to his old haunts. Once
more he finds himself among colonists, negroes and Indians,
now no longer the eager, wondering boy, but endowed with
European learning and refinement pitched at the highest
standard of that exuberant age, and placed by the discerning
eye of his Sovereign in a lofty situation from whence he
could take extended views of men and things. His heart
was touched with the degradation of his fellow-creatures,
and his mind filled with the idea of benefiting them in a
way which had never yet been attempted. He would strike
out a new path. He would not merely send out Mission-
aries from England, he would have young men collected
in a College on the spot, on an estate of his own an estate
worked by negroes ; and thus, surrounded by those whom
not even he, or the Society to whom he entrusted the work,
as yet thought of emancipating, his trained Missionaries,
carefully providing for the spiritual good of the slaves,
should gradually learn the task before them. Nor should
they be only divines ; they should also, as we have seen,
344 CODRINGTON. [CHAP.
be, for the best of reasons, trained in medicine and physical
science.
They should also be monks. He was ' a great admirer
of the Fathers, particularly of St. Basil 1 .' He had himself
embraced a celibate life. He was perhaps dissatisfied with
the ministerial standard of the West Indian clergy. Mr.
Gordon was a friend of only his last two years. His lot
had cast him on shores distant by some thousand miles from
his beloved College. He recurred with the partial eye of the
banished student, now immersed in business, and tortured
with the coarse ways of the world, to the happy, celibate
life of classic Oxford. Unmindful of the sad experience of
the Middle Ages, the corruptions of the monks and friars
of the unreformed Church, he flung himself on the early,
fresh, ideal of primitive enthusiasm. A skilful Jesuit had
persuaded him that Protestant prejudice alone distorted the
facts and rejected the theory. He would give it a fresh
trial in a new world, and yet under the Reformed Church,
which no Jesuit had persuaded him to forsake. The man
who, with all his faculties at full stretch, had contrasted
King James with King William, Massey with Aldrich,
Dryden and Obadiah Walker with Addison and Wake,
Jeffries and Tyrconnel with Holt and Maryborough, could
not listen to the voice of the Pope; but he would extract
from the early Church some portion of its primitive wisdom,
and see if it could not be made to bear a purer fruit than
that of Rome. So no doubt he argued. So others have
argued. It remains yet to be seen whether they have not
disregarded the conclusive commentary of centuries on an
experiment which was once doubtful, but is really no longer
a matter of speculation.
One more extract from Mr. Gordon's writings may be
inserted here :
' I am upon good grounds persuaded,' says he, ' that had he
1 Gordon's Sermon.
xviii.] HIS LOSS TO LITERATURE. 345
been sooner apprehensive of his death he had done yet greater
things for the advancement of learning- and piety. He hath
set a noble pattern to all those whom Providence hath blessed
with plentiful fortunes arising- from their commerce w r ith the
yet dark and unbelieving- parts of the world. May it excite
them to make a grateful return to Heaven, by consecrating
some part of their great estates to the conversion and instruc-
tion of those infidels to whose labour under Providence they
owe their wealth and affluence l ! '
We cannot doubt that much more yet would have come
forth from the mind of such a man, cut off at the age of forty-
four. Religion and philanthropy mourned his early loss ;
literature might well believe that she was deprived of some
great classical work which would have matched the pages
of antiquity some history of the Revolution and William's
wars perhaps, free from the modern exigencies of brilliant
composition, graced with the style of Thucydides or
Clarendon, and commanding the admiration and assent of
ages, since it would have been the relation of an actor and
eye-witness.
It was not to be. He died as he had lived, the death
of faith and courage. The West Indian climate and severe
study wore him out, just when some men begin to live.
But his institutions have continued the life thus cut short.
We shall now watch the progress of All Souls, henceforth
inseparably connected with his benefaction. The history of
Codrington College, Barbadoes, would interrupt too much
the process of our narrative. A brief sketch of it will be
found in an Appendix.
The following lines from the pen of Addison 2 are not to
be found in all editions of his works. They have already
been noticed, but may perhaps not be unacceptable in con-
cluding this necessarily most imperfect sketch of a true
Worthy of All Souls. They contain a prophecy, towards
the further fulfilment of which it may be hoped that even
this feeble effort may contribute.
1 Dedication of Gordon's Sermon. 2 Works, vol. i. p. 399.
346 CODRINGTON.
' Te tamen e mediis, Ductor fortissime, turmis
Exere : Tu vitam (si quid mea carmina possunt)
Accipies, populique encomia sera futuri :
Quern varias edoctum artes studiisque Minervse
Omnibus ornatum, Marti Rhedicyna furenti
Credidit invita, et tanto se jactat alumno.
Hunc nempe ardorem atque immensos pectoris sestus
Non jubar Arctoum, aut nostri penuria cceli,
Sed plaga torridior, qua sol intentius omnes
Effundit radios, totique obnoxia Phoabo
India progenuit, tenerisque incoxit ab annis
Virtutem immodicam et generosse incendia mentis.'
The family has occupied a distinguished position in modern
times. A baronetcy was in some sort a recognition of the
West Indian services of the two Christophers. Another
branch of the family has produced one of the best of modern
naval heroes, the famous Sir Edward Codrington, who
(if a retired naval officer may be allowed an opinion)
certainly ought to have been made a peer, who has lately
found an able biographer in his daughter, and whose sons
are covered with distinctions gained in the military and naval
Services. The descendant of another branch, a Fellow, like
Christopher, of an Oxford College 1 , is even now pursuing
his collateral ancestor's great example in developing a
Melanesian College in the Pacific. But, not excepting from
the comparison even the knightly standard-bearer of Henry
the Fifth, Christopher of All Souls must fairly take his place
as the chief of the race.
1 Wadham.
CHAPTEE XIX.
in % UIQU 0f
1702-1714.
The settlement of All Souls a type of that of the nation
Character of Warden Gardiner His effort to revive the
Statutes Opposition of Archbishop Tenison The case of
Blencowe Queen Anne's share in the affair Tenison's Visi-
tation Non-Residence of Fellows established 'Restoration' of
College Chapel. ^
FKOM the very commencement of Queen Anne's reign,
which was also the commencement of Bernard Gardiner's
Wardenship, we observe a gradual change in the material
condition of All Souls. One portion of the College after
another is taken in hand ; first the Chapel, then the Warden's
Lodgings, then the Codrington Library, then the Hall, and
finally the new Quadrangle. The old buildings are almost
lost in the new. An air of magnificence arid elegance
pervades the institution. Before the middle of the century
it was placed in the condition in which we now see it.
Side by side with this change we find in the history of
the College a gradual settlement of questions which bad
long been waiting for solution, a gradual adjustment of
many old subjects of contention ; till at last that complexion
was given to the general condition and objects of the
College which it has retained ever since. The Whig Arch-
bishops, Tenison and Wake, the influential Senior Fellows
like Clarke, the energetic Tory Warden, and the ' faction '
348 ALL SOULS IN THE REIGN OF ANNE. [CHAP.
of refractory Fellows, between them, but not till after many a
storm, shaped out the modern All Souls. The storms indeed
are so furious that we might imagine there was nothing
else going on ; but this is far from being the case. There
seem to be two distinct atmospheres. On one side we see
Warden Gardiner and Dr. Clarke, assisted by many Fellows
and friends, successfully engaged on the improvement of the
College in its material aspect. On the other we see the
same Warden engaged in furious conflict with the ' faction,'
struggling with one Visitor after another, and meeting
their efforts to obtain a victory by means of Court influence
with similar tactics. He realises the idea of the Jewish
builders of the ruined Jerusalem ; his sword is in one hand,
his trowel in the other; nor could those Jewish builders
have been a whit more thoroughly convinced of the sacredness
of their cause. The College seems to live in the Courts
of the Visitors. Irregular young Fellows take advantage
of their opportunity. They remind us of their contem-
poraries, the London ' Mohocks,' who figure in the pages
of Addison ; and they are led by the men who have imbibed
the principles of Tindal. Religion and irreligion, Whiggery
and Toryism, faction and public spirit, refinement and
coarseness, seem to be thrown together into the caldron in
a confused way which has no parallel in any previous or
subsequent period of the College history. Yet order is
gradually educed ; and these struggles are the last. They
were not only the consequence of the accidental meeting
of ' stern opposites,' but the natural result of what had
taken place previously, the example of Warden Finch, the
long abeyance of efficient government, the seething elements
of discord which had been the legacy of the Restoration and
Revolution, the changes of life and manners.
In all this we find once more a faithful picture on a
small scale of the state of the nation. The reigns of William
and Mary and of Anne were periods of great perturbation,
xix.] WARDEN GARDINER. 349
social, religious, and political ; yet they gave free scope to
the energies of good, high-minded men who felt that the
time had come at last when they might hope for a permanent
result of their labours. On all sides men were sounding the
depths and shallows of the Constitution, and testing the
limits within which the law forced them to confine them-
selves ; but no one any longer seriously thought of setting
law at defiance. The problem of Constitutional government
had been solved, not only for England but the world.
Instances enough of the litigious character of the times
might be quoted if necessary ; but as far as Oxford is
concerned, the bitterness of the struggle which took place
in 1702 between the University and City on a question of
precedence, at the reception of Queen Anne, is suggestive l .
On the other hand, this was, as we have seen, a period of
great mental activity, of the foundation of the noble religious
Societies which exist to our own day, of the revival of
ecclesiastical principles and practice. Political and religious
questions intersect one another in every direction.
Bernard Gardiner is more than a Warden of All Souls.
He is a public character of whom a good deal is to be
said, in his capacity of Vice -Chancellor and Pro-Vice-
Chancellor, at the most critical period of Oxford history in
modern times. On him it fell to guide the University
through the furious conflicts which took place during the
end of Queen Anne's reign and the commencement of that
of her successor. Oxford, as the very centre of Jacobitism,
required a firm hand and a stout heart. If the Vice-
Chancellor had been either a Jacobite or a vehement Whig
the most serious consequences might have ensued. He was
of the party which in reality represented the nation. A
decided adherent of the principles of the Revolution, he
belonged to the Tory section of that party, the party of
Church and Queen, the party of order before all things,
1 Smith's Oxford Collections, Bibl. Soc. Ant., vol. xi. pp. 293-368.
350 ALL SOULS IN THE REIGN OF ANNE. [CHAP.
and Constitutional government. He was the enemy of any
further changes than were absolutely necessary, and yet the
steady supporter of the Hanoverian Succession, an ardent
champion of the rights of the clergy, but by no means
disposed to recur to the dangerous principles with which
the clergy had too long identified the University. He had
been early led to form his opinions ; having been one of the
members of Magdalen who ' suffered by King James's
attempt to force his Dispensations' on that College 1 . As
Sub -Warden of All Souls he had done his best to keep
the College together in the days of Finch, and to work
along with the distinguished men whose names have been
already mentioned. He was Keeper of the Archives, an
office of importance in the University, and Curator of the
Sheldonian Theatre, which gave him a chief voice in the
delicate affairs of the University Press. There are several
traces of his interest in antiquarian pursuits to be found in
Hearne's Diary, almost up to the time of his quarrel with
the writer, when he begins to be recorded as 'illiterate.'
His family connections 2 gave him considerable influence both
in and. out of Oxford, and no doubt formed an element in
the success of his Vice-Chancellorship.
To that Vice-Chancellorship we shall recur presently. It
will be proper to remark here that however vigorous and
firm his conduct appears both in and out of his College,
he was certainly deficient in the suaviter in modo. He made
1 Letter to Archbishop Wake ; Wake MSS., Ch. Ch. Lib., vol. ii.
Univ.
2 He is mentioned in College books as a member of 'an ancient
family in Hants.' He was the brother of Sir William Gardiner, of
Roche Court, near Fareham, Hants, third Baronet of the First
Creation, but the family, though settled in Hants for some genera-
tions, was from Lancashire. He married, just before he became
Vice-Chancellor, the daughter of Sir Sebastian Smythe of Cud-
desdon and Oxford, a cousin of Dr. Clarke of All Souls. Hearne's
Diary; 32. 179.
xix.] GARDINER A REFORMER. 351
many enemies, and is lampooned in several contemporary
letters and pamphlets; though, as might be expected from
his pursuit of a middle course in such violent times, the
abuse comes from heated partisans on opposite sides, and
one species may be held to neutralise the other. He appears
to have been as conscientious as he was able, persevering
and indomitable ; but stern and uncompromising to a degree
which kept his public life in one continual state of efferves-
cence. With the ' faction ' at All Souls he was in perpetual
war. To all whom he believed to be doing injury to the
cause of order in the University outside All Souls he was
no less hostile. The best proof that he was not far wrong
is to be found in the fact that in University matters he
was supported by such men as Delaune, President of St.
John's, Baron, Master of Balliol, and Charlett, Master of
University ; while in All Souls he gathered round him in
the improvement of the College all the best names of that
date. While this last fact is indisputable, it must, however,
be suspected that Clarke, Dodington Grevile, and others of
the superior class of Fellows by no means gave him their
support in the leading struggle of his Wardenship; and
for a very good reason ; they themselves were benefiting by
the encroachments on the ancient Statutes of the College
which had crept in of late years; and they gave at least
a tacit, perhaps a pronounced, assistance to the Visitors,
who in the end virtually bestowed on some of these en-
croachments the force of law.
Gardiner early announced himself a reformer. ' I have
reduced the number' [of ' Physic places '] as I promised to
do before the whole College in 1 703,' says he, in a letter to
Tenison of 1709. ' I find the College,' says he, at a later
date, ' reduced to a very ill state.' He holds it to be ' his
duty to retrieve what he judges amiss by the most probable
and gentle methods he can use 1 .' He had witnessed the
1 Letter to Wake, in Wake MSS., Cli. Ch. Lib., vol. ii. Univ.
352 ALL SOULS IN THE REIGN OF ANNE. [CHAP.
changes in the College with distress. He knew the history
of All Souls ; no one better. He had observed, and indeed
had been himself an instance of, the good effect of the fresh
impulse which had been given by the purification of the
elections ; but no sooner had the reform been effected than
he found another abuse, that of Non-residence, gradually
carrying off' these superior men one after another, and de-
priving Oxford and All Souls of their services. The younger
residents betrayed the want of a constant steadying power ;
and the learning of the Society was suffering in consequence.
Above all, the clerical element was gradually disappearing;
and under various pretexts the College was becoming a sort
of thinly-inhabited Club, the occasional resort of non-resi-
dent laymen. There were no Undergraduates to afford edu-
cational employment to the Fellows; nor did he, it would
seem, ever think of introducing them ; how could the
College be considered as fulfilling the intentions of the
Founder who contemplated forty resident Fellows, all pur-
suing their studies in College, with an occasional exception
perhaps for the Service of the Crown, under the idea of the
Fellowship being resigned if that Service became perpetual ?
' My Lord,' says Gardiner to Wake, ' I apprehend the
Statutes of a College to be the Founder's Will, and may
not be distinguished away by every man's arbitrary opinion
for his own advantage upon a pretence of alteration of times
or such fallacious arguments. 5
In I / 1 6 he writes again to Wake :
' Out of the twenty-four Artists ' [designed by the Founder
for Holy Orders] ' ten are not arrived to the time when the
Founder requires them to be priests ; one is lately dead ;
thirteen are arrived to the time of being priests ; of which
number nine are dispensed with from Holy Orders, viz. four
perpetually and five annually, and only four are in Holy
Orders, as required by the Statutes 1 .'
1 Wake MSS., Ch. Ch. Lib., vol. ii. Univ.
xix.] THE SYSTEM OF DISPENSATIONS. 353
The change of the All Souls Jurists from Oxford Civil and
Canon Lawyers to London Common Lawyers has been already
noticed 1 . Their freedom from the obligation to take Orders
had become by long custom legitimate (though even this
Gardiner disputed), and the system of Dispensations which
had crept in everywhere before the Revolution, under the
example of the Stuart Sovereigns, enabled them to pursue
their profession tolerably undisturbed. Physicians, Members
of Parliament, Public Servants, such as Commissioners of
various kinds, were numerous both among the Artists and
Jurists. All wanted to retain their Fellowships while they
performed their respective functions as non-residents ; each
Dispensation diminished the number of clergymen, and
strengthened the growing dislike to take Holy Orders.
It was certainly high time that there should be some clear
understanding as to the future. Could a Warden, sworn to
observe the Statutes, wink at their entire subversion ? As we
take leave of the subject in this chapter we may put the
case still more in detail. By the Statutes the whole forty
Fellows were to be ' clericales,' to have the 'prima tonsura?
and be ' ad sacerdotium Tiabiles et dispositi ; ' the twenty-four
Artists were to take Holy Orders in two years ; and as many
of the sixteen Jurists as did not publicly give proof of their
embracing the study of Civil Law and take degrees in that
Faculty, were under the same obligation. Could the gloss
which interpreted ' clericales ' as synonymous with ' the whole
learned part of the nation,' be admitted ? Gardiner thought
not. Could the College altogether cease to be a nursery of
the clergy, that ' inermis militia* for whose especial 'increase'
and improvement the very terms of the Charter declared it
to be founded ? He resolved to try the issue.
Whether the Warden could have obtained any amicable
settlement by the help of the Visitor, no one can say.
There does not appear any trace of such effort on his part
1 p. 1 06.
A a
354 ALL SOULS IN THE REIGN OF ANNE. [CHAP.
in the early stage of his proceedings. At any rate his
method was characteristic. It was not exactly ' gentle.'
He resolved to engage in conflict with the whole College
single-handed. He entered upon it, not with the sorrowful
resolution of Warden Jeames, who in the matter of elections
had indeed Bancroft at his back, but with the true joy
of battle ; *it was a combat all the more glorious because
he had no support from the Visitor. He relied upon the
trusty weapon which Whitgift had secured to Warden
Hoveden the Veto. This he flourished with all the zeal
of a Crusader. He applied it on every occasion when a
Dispensation was requested. But unfortunately for his object,
he used it too freely. The Fellows challenged his right.
He wounded himself instead of his foes. The sword was
at last wrenched from his hands by the officer who had
bestowed it. It may be well questioned whether the Visitor
was right in the matter, but Gardiner, as a matter of fact,
left the Wardenship to his successors bereft of a power
which the Visitors would no longer entrust to them !
A certain amount of success in his struggle against
unlimited evasion of the Statutes did indeed reward the
Warden's efforts. The commonest and easiest mode of
escaping from the obligation to resjde upon a Fellowship
and take Holy Orders was to obtain a ' Physic place.'
Successive Visitors had encouraged the study of medicine,
and the College already boasted of some distinguished orna-
ments of that profession. But it looked rather like a joke
when a ' Physic place ' became a mere synonym for a non-
resident Member of Parliament or Commissioner. Gardiner,
however, was willing to admit that there might be four
of these places. An elaborate and very able argument is
still extant under his hand to prove that there could not
be more than four. In sending this paper to Tenison he
makes the remark already quoted, 'I have reduced the
number as I promised to do before the whole College in
xix.] GARDINER'S PARTIAL SUCCESS. 355
1703.' The Visitor was convinced by his arguments, and
accepted this compromise in the Injunctions which we shall
presently notice. The following letter l to Gardiner, however,
was prior in date, July 23, 1709 :
'Sir,
' Though I have had two letters . . . upon the whole
it is my opinion that it was never intended by the Founder
that you should have so many physicians as you have already.
The provision he made was for the encouragement of students
in Divinity and Law. Therefore although I have a great
respect for Lord Brook and his family, yet I cannot, because
I think I cannot justly, advise the shewing favour to Mr.
Grevile by approving his having a Physic Fellowship.'
While Archbishop Tenison was thus prepared to meet
the Warden halfway as to the Physic places (and to stop
the non-residence of the lawyers, as his Injunctions shewed),
he entirely disapproved of Gardiner's rigid method of putting
his Veto upon all other Dispensations. He would leave
matters as to the Service of the Crown where they were.
The College should exercise its own discretion as to
Non-residence. Indeed his predecessor, Tillotson, had already
shown a desire to relax the strictness of the Statutes, or
rather to confirm a practice which had frequently obtained,
and his letter 2 of November 17,1 694, may be quoted here :
' Whereas there are several clauses in your Statutes and
Injunctions which deprive those of your Fellows-who are out
of the kingdom, or absent from the College, of divers emolu-
ments of their Fellowships, it is my opinion that such clauses
shall be construed with a tacit exception for those which are
abroad in His Majesty's immediate service, whose attendance
on his Majesty ought not to be to their prejudice, but they
ought to be esteemed as present in the said College.'
It was in accordance with this recommendation that
Codrington had retained his Fellowship ; and some Fellows
had been similarly treated when absent as Chaplains in the
1 Archives. 2 Ibid.
A a 2,
356 ALL SOULS IN THE REIGN OF ANNE. [CHAP.
Royal Navy ; one also when attending Sir William Trumbull
on an embassy l . The door had been opened by these prece-
dents ; but it was now flung wide open indeed. Whether
Tenison would not have been eventually disposed to assist
Gardiner in shutting it to some extent, may be questioned
when we see his decision on the ' Physic places/ But now a
case occurred which does not set him before us in the best
.possible light, and which seems to have settled his course
on the subject. As it involved exalted personages, and
brought the matter of Non-residence into public notice, we
must give the proceeding somewhat in detail. It affords
another illustration also of the way in which politics came
to be mixed up with the affairs of Colleges, or at least of
All Souls.
A son of Judge Blencowe ' a very great Whig 2 ' had
obtained an All Souls Fellowship through the interposition
of Archbishop Tenison 3 . He was the grandson of the famous
Dr. Wallis, the acknowledged chief of the then very im-
portant art of Decyphering, and from his grandfather had no
doubt inherited many of the secrets which made him useful
as a servant to the Crown in the capacity of Decypherer. For
that service he had no less a salary than ,200 a year, a large
sum in those days. The Warden considered this one of the
cases which afforded ground for scandal. Blencowe held a
good and permanent situation, not abroad, but at Court ;
why should he not make way for some other deserving person
in the College ? Was this the kind of Service of the Crown
for which exceptions had sometimes been made ? He thought
not. Blencowe was an ' Artist/ and should be made to take
Orders, according to the Statutes, or resign. When he de-
clined to take either course, the Warden interposed his Veto
on the Dispensation which the Fellows were anxious to
grant him.
1 Letter from Warden Jeames to Sancroft, Tanner MSS. vol. 340.
2 Hearne's Diary, 53. 205. 3 Bibl. Lamb., cod. 930. 52.
xix.] THE BLENCOWE CASE. 357
Blencowe took the step of bringing the Crown into action
on the subject, not without the collusion of his patron, the
Archbishop, as we must infer from what followed. He ob-
tains a letter from Lord Sunderland, Secretary of State,
addressed not to the College, but to the Visitor. On No-
vember 19, 1709, Sunderland informs Tenison that it is
' Her Majesty's pleasure that his Grace should restrain
the Warden of All Souls, by such means as he should find
effectual and proper, from any further vexation of Mr.
Blencowe ; so that during his attendance in her Service
he might quietly enjoy his Fellowship as fully as if he
were in Orders and resident in the College.'
The Visitor was certainly bound to deal with this com-
munication in an official manner. It was his duty to commu-
nicate with the Warden, to require a statement of his reasons
in the case, to examine the power of Veto which he claimed,
and to decide as Visitor in the end upon the whole matter.
From what we have seen of their transactions with the
College we may certainly infer that Abbot, Sheldon, or San-
croft would have done so. But Tenison takes no further step
than simply to write off to the Warden with all dispatch,
declaring and pronouncing Blencowe's service under the
Crown a good and lawful impediment to his taking Holy
Orders, and commanding the College to permit him to enjoy
his Fellowship fully and freely. His own letter and Lord
Sunderland's are to be entered on the College books.
This was a very tyrannical proceeding, worthy of the days
of James the Second. Nor did it come with any the more
recommendation to Bernard Gardiner because Sunderland
was a Whig, Tenison a Whig, and the Blencowes, father and
son, Whigs. The collusion between the parties made it
worse. Blencowe had also told Gardiner 'to his face that
they' [the Fellows] 'had made a common purse against
him 1 / His indignation reached boiling-point.
1 Letter to Wake : Wake MSS., Ch. Ch, Lib., vol. ii. Univ.
358 ALL SOULS IN THE REIGN OF ANNE. [CHAP.
Tenison, however, was soon led by the force of circum-
stances to take. a more Constitutional step. When he acted
in the manner just described his political party was so
triumphant that they might well think their lease of power
perpetual. Nothing could be further from the thoughts of
the Whigs in November, 1709, than that the imposing
fabric of their power, built on the magnificent success of
Marlboroughj should be shaken to pieces by an obscure,
fanatical preacher in the course of one month from that
date. In December of that year Sacheverell's sermon had
sold to the number of forty thousand 1 ; and Sunderland
himself, as a main agent in procuring his trial, became the
author of his own political death-blow.! In June of the
next year the seals of his office were transferred to Lord
Dartmouth.
Gardiner now saw his opportunity. He had good reason
to suspect that the Queen had allowed her name to be
used in the matter of Blencowe without much consideration.
She had been told that an obstinate Head of an Oxford
College had interfered with one of her servants; and she
gave her consent to Sunderland's action accordingly. But
the turn of events had pretty well exhibited her real
sentiments. ' God bless the Queen and Dr. Sacheverell '
had resounded through the streets of London. She had
been led to identify the Church with a man whom she,
with her natural good sense, instinctively disliked ; for she
found that the whole clergy of the realm, except the Whig
Bishops, stood by him when it once became a party matter 2 .
She had especial cause to turn her attention to Oxford,
for the Vice -Chancellor of that University stood surety
for the audacious priest 3 ; Atterbury defended him with
all his ability, and Sir Simon Harcourt was his consum-
mately-able counsel. Some of the most moderate men in
1 Lord Stanhope's Queen Anne, p. 405.
2 Ibid. p. 413. 3 Ibid. p. 409.
xix.] QUEEN ANNE'S CONDUCT. 359
Church and State, Shrewsbury, Sharp, Compton, had in fact
rallied to the side of Sacheverell, though none had taken a
more decided part in the Revolution 1 . It seemed a great
national crisis, mixed up with a thousand other issues ; the
Queen had decisively taken- her side, and, as events shewed,
the nation was with her. The Warden of All Souls, as soon
as the Whigs had been dismissed from office, resolved to
see whether he could move Her Majesty by way of Petition.
In this Petition Gardiner states the bearing of the All
Souls Statutes on the subject of Fellowships, and prays
that ' he may execute them without incurring Her Majesty's
displeasure. He trusts she will not allow the pretensions
of Mr. Blencowe to be the occasion of suspending the
authority of Statutes to the observance of which both he
and Mr. Blencowe are equally bound by oath V He had not
miscalculated. The matter comes before the Queen in quite
a new light, but she will not act hastily. She ' graciously
receives ' the Petition, and hands it over to the Law Officers
of the Crown for an opinion. In December of that year
they return that the Queen should be advised to leave the
whole matter to the Visitor. In the following March, how-
ever, she takes a more decided step. She will follow the
advice of her Lawyers; but she will express her opinion
that the error into which she had been formerly led by
Sunderland should not prejudice the case ; she would do all
in her power to remedy the mischief. Lord Dartmouth, the
Secretary, is instructed to tell the Visitor ' that she did
not approve Mr. Blencowe 's insisting on his being in her
service to excuse him from conforming to the Statutes of
his College, nor that the letter of Lord Sunderland should
be used for that purpose. As the said letter of the late
Secretary was transmitted to the said College by you, your
Grace will be pleased likewise to transmit Her Majesty's
1 Lord Stanhope's Queen Anne, p. 415.
2 Gardiner Papers, penes custodem.
360 ALL SOULS IN THE REIGN OF ANNE. [CHAP.
Declaration herein to the said College with all convenient
speed, to the end that all persons may know and take
notice of Her Majesty's intentions and pleasure in this
behalf.' We may be safe in conjecturing that however much
or little the Queen may have been personally concerned in
the former letter of Sunderland's, she conveyed her own
decided sentiments in this letter of Lord Dartmouth's.
If Gardiner's authority may be accepted on this point
we have it in the following letter written to Wake a
few years afterwards, (Dec. 4, 1719):
' My Lord ; As to any favour procured by Mr. Blencowe
from the Queen relating to a Dispensation from Holy Orders
it was not granted by advice of Her Majesty's Privy Council,
but it was formally revoked by Her in open Council, after a
public hearing before Her Attorney and Solicitor General. It
cost me sixty pounds to have the trial ; but I who had suffered
by King James's attempting to force his Dispensations on
Magdalen College, thought it my duty to hinder such a pre-
cedent here V
Archbishop Tenison, however, treated the last letter in a
very different manner from the first. That first letter had
been ordered by him to be entered on the College books. This
one he is indeed obliged to transmit ; but no such order
accompanies it. It is formally sent to the College by his
Secretary, without note or comment. That Her Majesty's
gracious communications should be treated with such respect
when they told against the Warden, and with such neglect
when they were in his favour, was more than Gardiner could
bear. He determined to write out the letter himself in the
same ' Chained Statute Book ' where the previous letters
had been formally inserted. The Fellows took their revenge.
Underneath the letter, which may still be seen written in
Gardiner's beautiful hand, the two Deans of the College,
Littleton and Willes, the last of whom became Attorney
General, registered the statement that the Warden had
1 Wake MSS., ut supra.
xix.] TEN ISDN'S VISITATION. 361
entered the letter ' without any order from the Visitor, and
against the opinion of the Fellows and Officers.' A distorted
account of this affair reached Hearne 1 , who makes it the
subject of a bitter charge against Gardiner.
This particular act of the Fellows was never forgiven or
forgotten by the Warden. It is one of his formal complaints,
in 1719, at Wake's Visitation. Dr. Bettesworth, the Visitor's
Commissary, replies on that occasion : ' You can write again
under them.' Gardiner rejoins with dignity : ' I was not
up to such proceedings.'
This was at the second Visitation of Gardiner's era ; we
have not yet come to the first. That there have been only
four regular Visitations in more than four centuries has been
noticed above 2 , but that two of these should take place in
the course of one, not very long, Wardenship, is remarkable.
The mere fact is a sufficient commentary on the condition
of the College, and a justification, it may be hoped, for the
length of these details. This was one of the critical periods
of the College. Cranmer's Visitation was no doubt necessary
on all grounds, moral and religious. Whitgift's shewed that
Elizabeth's beneficent reign, while it had quieted religious
differences, had added to the social irregularities which called
for the Visitor's interference. Teni son's and Wake's betrayed
the necessity for fresh interpretations of the ancient Statutes.
Law and custom were vehemently invoked on either side by
the disputants. Neither would be satisfied without a settle-
ment. Yet nothing could be so unpopular with those whose
presumed fault called down upon the College such an
expensive operation. The Visitor's Commissary was the
Dean of Arches, or some other legal magnate, whose enquiry
involved many days' time, the hearing of many witnesses,
expensive entertainments, and various accessory items. Even
though Tenison's Visitation was avowedly in the interest of
the Fellows, Hearne describes the excitement it caused, and
1 Diary, 29. 119. 2 p. 62.
362 ALL SOULS IN THE REIGN OF ANNE. [CHAP.
tells us that the Citation was torn down off the gate of
the College l !
The date of the Visitation affords a clue to this otherwise
unaccountable excitement, as also to Tenison's reasons for
making it at all. It is in September, i/io, not long after the
change of Ministry had been completed, Sunderland dismissed
from office, and a fair field opened for the indomitable Warden
to make his interest with Anne and her new Ministers,
as we have seen he did, for the abrogation of the Whig
decisions. Whatever Gardiner may do, the Visitor will settle
this question of the Veto upon College Dispensations sum-
marily. The Citation may be torn down by the party, which
no doubt was strong on the side of politics all the time,
though equally strong against the Warden's interference with
their customs ; but he will proceed. The strife had produced
of course a crop of minor complaints, and he had quite suffi-
cient excuse.
To make a long story short, the result was that the
Warden's Veto upon Dispensations was abolished, and the
College was left to do what it liked. The arguments on
both sides may be consulted in the Lambeth Library 2 . It
is clear that the Warden's Veto or Negative had never been
seriously questioned till now. Even as late as 1699, when
the Fellows disputed Warden Finch's power to exercise the
office of Scrutator at elections, they say that ' no prejudice
is hereby designed to the Warden, whose negative is still left
entire.' The Veto on elections to Fellowships had been held to
cover the Veto upon Dispensations as well as that which had
been specially guarded by Whitgift, the Veto on the election
of officers. This was no longer to be so. The Visitor acts
officially upon a foregone conclusion. On the other hand, as
we have seen, he limits the number of ' Physic places ' to four ;
they must be all bona fide ' students of Physic ; ' and if, after
having obtained Dispensation from Holy Orders on this
1 Diary, 26. 125. 2 Cod. 939. 21.
xix.] NON-RESIDENCE ESTABLISHED. 363
ground, they take to practice at the bar, they forfeit their
Fellowships. The principle of Non-residence had thus been
in reality carried. The Blencowe case had been settled under
the general formula. It did not much signify what the Queen
might write, or Gardiner insert in the e Chained Statute
Book/ He might record his dissent to Dispensations, as
he constantly did year after year ; but the College could
always override that dissent. Nor, when the Public Service
was thus so widely thrown open to non-resident Fellows,
could the non-residence of the Common Lawyers, which was
forbidden by implication in the Injunctions of the Visitor,
be long retained. The Veto on Dispensations was gone.
From that day forward the Non-residence of the Fellows
of All Souls has been one leading characteristic of the
College.
Only one more Dispensation was necessary for Mr. Blen-
cowe, and to that the Warden of course registered his
dissent. The Decypherer to the Queen committed suicide
soon afterwards 1 . Perhaps, however, the resistance of the
Warden was not altogether without effect during his life-
time, and for some years subsequently. Some sort of check
was given to indiscriminate evasion of the Statutes. The
Dispensations were still granted only from year to year ;
and many of them were simply to enable a Fellow to hold
a temporary office, as ' because Mr. is Parliament Man.'
The College is at least delivered from the anomaly of having
any number of its Fellows without limitation reckoned as
quasi-Physicians.
This chapter may conclude with a notice of the material
improvements of the College in which Warden "Gardiner was
perfectly successful. From the first year of his appointment
he began to collect funds for the restoration of the Chapel,
and he registers with becoming pride the contributions which
1 Hearne's Diary, 38. 246 ; Gardiner to "Wake, Wake MSS.,
ut supra.
364 ALL SOULS IN THE REIGN OF ANNE. [CHAP.
annually come in. But Dr. Clarke was the first to complete
any portion of the new work of Queen Anne's reign. ' God
send us more such noble benefactors ! ' is the Warden's entry
in 1703, when Clarke makes his offer to build new Lodgings
for the Warden, on the sole condition that he might himself
inhabit them till his death. The offer was accepted, and the
present house completed by 1706. It is not the least in-
teresting circumstance of its erection that the greater part of
the site was purchased with a sum of ^200, the gift of
Mr. Snow, an ancient servant of Sheldon's at All Souls
before the Civil War, and who, after the Kestoration,
became Treasurer of the Household to his old master at
Lambeth, continuing in the same capacity with Sancroft,
Tillotson, and Tenison. In his extreme old age his memory
reverted to the inconvenient abode of the Wardens of early
days, and, long accustomed to the conveniences of Lambeth,
he would shew his gratitude for the past by assisting the
future successors of his beloved patron.
Dr. Clarke also bears an important part in the affairs of
the new Chapel. He, like so many other cultivated men of
that age, was an able amateur architect. Every part of the
plan was submitted to him, and we shall see that he had a
great share, along with Hawksmoor, in all the rest of the
new work. His particular contribution to the Chapel was
the costly marble entablature, ' that noble ornament of
marble,' as Warden Gardiner calls it, which, nearly sixty
years later, was filled in with Mengs' picture of the ' Noli
me tangere,' painted for the College at Rome. The interior
of the Chapel under these auspices assumed quite a new
form. We have seen that it had been made decent in one
sense, but according to Evelyn, not in another, at the Restora-
tion ; but to men of taste and liberality its mean con-
dition must have been painful. With Wren, still even in
his old age the architectural monarch of the time, nothing
else could be done with it but to entrust it to Thornhill,
xix.] SECOND 'RESTORATION* OF CHAPEL. 365
the great painter and decorator of the day; and in 1715
Gardiner obtains leave from the College to complete the
work according to the scheme which the contributors had
agreed upon. Grevile undertakes the expense of transforming
the body of the Chapel on the Italian model, and it ac-
cordingly dons its mantle of gold and green, with a canvas
ceiling of the same colour to hide Streater's wooden panels.
Mr. Palmer pays for Thornhill's fresco of the Assumption
of Chichele, which covers Streater's painting of the Last
Judgment, and which even Hearne admits to be ' very
fine V Sir William Portman, Mr. Portman, Mr. Webb., and
others provide the new screen, or rather for its ' alteration
both in respect to beauty and convenience ; ' and the College
makes grants of its own, especially from the ' College savings
in Gaudyes ' and from sconces (or fines), for other parts of the
work.
Such an Italianisation of a beautiful Gothic Chapel seems
scarcely comprehensible in the present day ; but the result was
greatly admired at the time; and even as late as the com-
mencement of the present century, Chalmers 2 speaks of All
Souls Chapel as one of which the visitor carries away a more
agreeable impression than of any other in the University.
This, to be sure, was written long before the modern re-
storations were made which have now affected nearly every
College Chapel, and before the increasing dimness of the
decorations at All Souls had produced that dreary ap-
pearance with which our own times became familiar. Hap-
pily, a spirit equal to that of the Warden and Fellows of
Queen Anne's reign in munificence, and superior in taste, is
already engaged in a true restoration worthy of the reign
of Queen Victoria.
1 Diary, 77. 15. 2 History of Oxford Colleges.
CHAPTER XX.
$Eake mtfr Mmftm
1714-1726.
Opposition of the Whig Visitor and Tory Warden Gardiner as
Vice-Chancellor Ayliffe Hearne Wake saves the Uni-
versity after the death of Anne Trelawny, Bishop of Exeter
"Wake's Visitation of All Souls Appeal to Wake against the
College Dr. Clarke.
IT is remarkable that no one should yet have thought it
worth while to give the world a detailed Life of Archbishop
Wake. It will be difficult to find a Primate of the Reformed
Church, if we except Parker, who more deserves our respect
for his learning and industry, his government of the Church
at home in a time of extreme difficulty, or his extended views
of the duty incumbent on the Primate of all England in
reference to the Christian world. The mere inspection of
his voluminous MSS. in the Wake Library at Christ Church
cannot but leave a vivid impression of the greatness of the
man. The many volumes of letters addressed to him on eccle-
siastical matters from the various Continental Churches of
the West, the Oriental Churches, and the British Colonies,
suggest the title of Papa alterius orlis given by ancient
Popes of Rome to English Primates. The masses of anno-
tations in his own hand betray the process by which Wake
became the acknowledged chief of all writers on the Consti-
tutional position of the Church of England.
GREATNESS OF WAKE. 367
It is not- so easy to arrive at a correct estimate of the
character of his relation to All Souls in the capacity
of Visitor. We find Warden Gardiner at war with him
pretty much as he was with Tenison. He, like Tenison,
holds a Visitation of the College, and carries still further
the process of reducing- the influence of the Warden in pro-
tecting the observance of the Statutes. In his second conflict
with Gardiner he is apparently in the wrong, and that too
in a matter in which his own interests are promoted by
the cause which he adopts. The Warden must, however,
have been a very difficult person to deal with, and it may
be questioned whether the Visitor could, in the first case
at least, have pursued any different course. Both knew one
another too well before their All Souls struggles. They
had each been intimately concerned in the delicate task of
governing Oxford during the critical years of the Hanoverian
Succession. Wake was. a decided Whig; Gardiner an equally
decided Tory. The last had been more mixed up with Uni-
versity affairs ; the first was far more conversant with the
world at large.
Perhaps as the danger which the liberties of Oxford
University incurred, and the narrow escape it effected, under
the guidance of Wake, Gardiner, Delaune, Smalridge, Baron,
and others, have never yet been presented to the public, a few
extracts from letters of the period may not be unacceptable.
By watching Gardiner's and Wake's parts respectively in the
politics of Oxford we shall understand better their more do-
mestic broils. And first we may briefly dismiss the Warden's
Vice-Chancellorship by a notice of a few salient points.
Gardiner was Vice-Chancellor from 1712 to 1715, the
years when the Tories were in the ascendant, when the
Peace of Utrecht brought both parties out into the keenest
conflict known since the time of the Exclusion Bill, when
the death of Queen Anne brought forward once again the
Whigs, and when the question of the succession was peace-
368 ARCHBP. WAKE & WARDEN GARDINER. [CHAP.
fully settled by the patriotic sacrifice of Tory prejudice to the
felt necessity for resisting the return of the Roman Catholic
Stuarts. The Jacobite sentiment, which had been more
or less suppressed for upwards of twenty years, now flamed
in Oxford to its highest. Every Oxford man was obliged
to take a side. The opposition of the anti-Jacobites very
naturally expressed itself in accents as wild as those of their
opponents. Moderation was an unheard-of word. Nor can
any one wonder at this when he remembers the bitterness
and ability of the pamphlet writers in the Metropolis, the
coarse vehemence of the Swifts and Priors, the Arbuthnots
and Defoes.
It was Gardiner's fortune to distinguish his term of office
by three distinct acts of the most irritating kind to either
set of combatants. He was chiefly instrumental in the
expulsion of Ayliffe, the author of the ' Ancient and Present
State of the University of Oxford,' for matter contained in
that book. In the course of the narrative advantage had
been taken of the numerous abuses which had crept into the
University and Colleges for the purpose of reflecting upon
the authorities, and, amongst other things, on the Stuarts
and their government. In the present day we should not
have thought of dealing harshly with the author; and even
under the delicate circumstances of the year 1714, the treat-
ment of Ayliffe must be allowed to be harsh. But the Convo-
cation of Oxford supported the Vice-Chancellor, and must share
such blame as attaches to him. The book was in their eyes
libellous and dangerous. The war of pamphlets which ensued
is suggestive as to the state of the University.
Before this, however, the part which Gardiner had taken
in putting a stop to the annual oration of the Terrte Filius,
had rendered him sufficiently unpopular, chiefly perhaps with
the Jacobites, for this oration afforded the grand opportunity
for a party triumph, and their party was strong. The
scurrility and grossness of these orations have been previously
xx.] GARDINER AS VICE-CHANCELLOR. 369
noticed \ We have seen that the Heads of Houses were as
shocked at it as Evelyn himself in 1669, but no one had
been found during the subsequent half-century of sufficient
spirit to deal with the monstrous abuse. When political
virulence was at its height we may conceive what these
orations had become. Gardiner understood the crisis, and
resolutely prohibited the speech. We may judge of the
sensation produced by this act from the entry of Hearne
in his Diary 2 , where he describes with exultation how the
undelivered speech had been circulated in print, and how it
had annoyed the Vice-Chancellor and Heads of Houses so
much that it was publicly burnt by the vote of Convocation ;
but he had heard that some foul play had taken place ! If
the votes of Convocation had only been properly taken, it
would have gone the other way! Sensible men, however,
as devoted as Hearne to the preservation of all that was old
and venerable, looked on in a different spirit. Tanner 3
rejoices at the cessation of a flagrant scandal, and even
Carte 4 approves of the act of the Vice-Chancellor and his
friends. It was many years before an ' Act ' was held again,
as the omission of the ceremony was thought the best way
of suppressing the inveterate abuse which had clung to it.
The check given by Gardiner was decisive; the custom de-
cayed, and soon disappeared.
Hearne was still further offended at Gardiner's conduct
at this time as Curator of the Theatre, for in the exercise
of his office he transferred the University Press from the
Theatre to the newly-erected Clarendon Buildings, and, being
also Vice-Chancellor, was responsible for substituting the
name of Clarendon for that of Sheldon, e the true benefactor
of Oxford printing 5 .' No one, we may be sure, would have
rejoiced more than Sheldon that the name of Clarendon should
1 p. 227. 2 Oct. 3, 1713.
3 Ballard MSS., 4. 60. * Letters from the Bodleian.
6 Diary, Oct. 28, 1713.
Bb
370 ARCHBP. WAKE $ WARDEN GARDINER. [CHAP.
be perpetuated in the stately buildings erected out of the
profits of the ' History of the Great Rebellion,' and that his
own undoubted claim to be the father of the Oxford Press
should be forgotten in favour of his dearest friend.
The cup of the poor antiquarian's wrath was soon, however,
to be filled to overflowing 1 . Both as Vice -Chancellor and
Pro- Vice -Chancellor Gardiner had much to do with Hearne's
expulsion from his offices in the Bodleian Library. They
were inferior offices, but suitable for his antiquarian pur-
suits. A very full and particular account of this affair
has been given by himself in his Autobiography and Diary,
and to those sources of information, as the subject is much
too minute for our present purpose, the reader must refer.
We only hear one side in Hearne's pages, but enough comes
out to shew that the fiery Jacobite was far from sufficiently
cautious in the use of his public office at such an excitable
period. The crisis of the Hanoverian Succession was at its
height, and Oxford, as we know, required the presence of
the famous ' troop of horse,' which figures in the well-known
epigram, to keep it straight.
If the incendiarism of any Jacobite might be overlooked,
it ought to have been in the case of one of the most learned
and industrious men England has produced ; but a very little
knowledge of his numerous prefaces, as well as unprinted
papers, will shew that the governors of the University may
have had reasonable ground for their proceedings. In his
Diary he generally calls the Pretender ' James the Third.'
The Hanoverian family are never mentioned except with
bitter contempt ; and he inserts anonymous verses upon
them of the most indecent character, which may or may
not have been his own. Dr. Charlett reports to Wake l that
Hearne was used ' with all the lenity and gentleness imagi-
nable,' and Charlett was himself accused to the Archbishop
by David Wilkins of being a Jacobite falsely no doubt ;
1 Wake MSS., ut supra.
xx.] HEARNE THE ANTIQUARIAN. 371
but the mere fact that he was open to the charge shews
he was not a mere partisan. Few people are more abused
by Hearne. Dr. Clarke again calls Hearne 'that perverse
Editor/ and says,
' I think it very right to forbid him the use of the Univer-
sity Press if he will not subject what he puts out to the
inspection of his superiors, who have already suffered enough
for his follies 1 .'
This was no doubt the official view. At the same time
literature owes much to Hearne's independence and courage.
His faults were very much the product of the times. The
studious child of a parish clerk, he had been patronised by
the most vehement and eminent Nonjurors, and he con-
scientiously adhered to his principles. He declined various
offices, among others a Chaplaincy at All Souls which
Gardiner offered him, and refused to stand for Professor-
ships because he would not, in the days of the new dynasty,
take the necessary oaths.
Against All Souls he had cherished a special grudge from
the first ; and now, the Warden having, as he conceived,
become his persecutor, he had no mercy upon that College
in his Diary. One of his earliest charges against it is in
1706, when he tells with a profound gravity, most amusing
under the circumstances, how some members of the College
shewed their anti-Jacobite principles.
On the sacred 3oth of January two of the Fellows of
All Souls were joined at dinner in the College by two of
the Pro-Proctors and two Fellows of Oriel. ' An abominable
riot' took place. On the table were some woodcocks, the
heads of which were cut off ' in contempt of the memory of
the blessed martyr.' They had been 'for having calves'
heads, but the cook refused to dress them 2 1 ' Again :
' The matter is kept as secret as possible, and I cannot learn
whether the Warden inflicted any punishment, or what repri-
3 Ballard MSS. 20.- 60. 2 Beliq. Hearn. i. 121.
B b 2
372 ARCHBP. WAKE WARDEN GARDINER. [CHAP.
mand the two Pro-Proctors had from the Vice-Chancellor ] .'
It does not seem likely that, if iihe tables had been turned
and Hearne in power, much mercy would have been shewn
to these audacious offenders. And on another occasion he
remarks of the Fellows of All Souls : ' 'Tis stuff for men
to pretend oaths that have no respect to them in matters
of a higher nature, their duty to Rightful Soveraigns V
To this disgust with All Souls we owe many a useful
notice ; but it is evident that we must take his depreciation
of the College with some allowance. The evil spell seems
to have been on him to the last; for towards the end of
Hearne's career he had apparently very real reason to com-
plain of the usage he received from Bilstone, a Chaplain
of All Souls, assisted by persons of more importance in other
Colleges 3 .
This is not the only occasion when the persecuted anti-
quarian demands our sympathy. The following case, and
even here, though All Souls is not said to be concerned,
the name of one of its Fellows occupies a suspicious place,
occurs in a letter written to Archbishop Wake by the
famous David Wilkins, the author of the ' Concilia.' Wilkins
does not come out well in his Oxford character of a sort
of spy for Archbishop Wake ; and indeed he soon made the
place too hot for him, as we might guess from the following,
dated January 17, 171^ :
' Mr. Chicheley, of All Souls, is reckoned a very ingenious
man, an honest, steddy and hearty Whig. That sorry wretch,
Hearne, has lately struck his name out of the buttery in
Edmund Hall and battels there without it, on purpose that
the oaths might not be tendered to him ; but I have made
interest by Mr. Bradshaw to have him called before a Justice
of Peace for to make him a Papist convict, or to burthen his
conscience, if he have any at all, with perjury 4 .'
1 Letters from the Bodleian. 2 Diary, 120. 41.
3 IIS. Autobiography, pp. 73-76.
* Wake MSS., Ch. Ch. Lib., Miscellaneous Letters, vol. iv.
xx.] DANGER OF THE UNIVERSITIES. 373
This brings us to Wake's share in Oxford affairs. The
employment of his learned and low-minded agent in the
office of a delator we have no reason indeed to connect the
Primate's name with the act just mentioned does not seem
creditable ; but we must now shew how profoundly the whole
University was indebted to him for the preservation of its
rights and privileges at a time when its affairs were in such a
state that expedients of this kind seemed necessary. Amongst
his MSS. may be found a letter from an irate Whig 1 , of this
date, asserting that ' rebellion is avowedly owned and en-
couraged' (at Oxford), ' and that the principles of rebellion
are diffused from hence through the whole nation. There
are several Houses where there is not so much as one (what
they please to call a) Whig.' In the same place the Draught
of a Bill may be read by which the King in Parliament was
to suspend the whole constitution of both Universities, and
' to nominate and appoint all and every the Chancellor, Vice-
Chancellor, Proctors, and other officers of the said Univer-
sities, and all Heads of Houses, Fellows, Students, Chaplains,
Scholars and Exhibitioners, and all members of and in all
and every the College and Colleges, Hall and Halls in the
said Universities, or either of them, upon all and every
vacancy and vacancies,' &c. No less than fifteen Bishops
had supported this proposition, which they desired should
hold good for seven years 2 .
Side by side with these violent proposals, the product of
alarm and despair, appear letters from old Jonathan Trelawny,
Bishop of Winchester, who as Visitor of several Colleges
uses his very utmost efforts to dissuade Wake from listening
to his brother Bishops. As one of the famous Seven he re-
membered well the days when ' Shall Trelawny die ? ' had
well nigh brought ' thirty thousand Cornishmen ' to London.
1 Ibid. vol. ii. Univ.
2 Letter from the Bishop of Ely to Archbishop "Wake ; Ibid.
374 ARCHBP. WAKE $ WARDEN GARDINER. [CHAP.
He was well aware how very little more was required to
bring on a civil war more formidable than the Pretender's
ill-starred enterprise.
' I doe stil agre,' says he, ' that both Universityes ought
to be scourged into perfect duty and better manners to the
King and his family, in whose hands I pray God the sceptre
of these kingdoms may continue for ever, but I must be ex-
cused from giving my vote for altering the methods of elec-
tions into Westminster School and thence into Christ Church,
in which College I had my bread for more than twenty years.
... I would rather see my son Edward a link-boy than a
Student of Christ Church in such a manner as tears up by the
roots that Constitution.'
And again :
' I don't doubt but the Government will find this' [the
power of the several Visitors] ( of itself effectual for the sub-
duing the University to their duty to the King and with-
drawing their affections from the snivel of a Pretender/
And again :
' I shall humbly hope that your Grace by your great influ-
ence, I am sure of your strongest inclination, will prevent
destructive violence to the University by a new law, or a
forced interpretation, and make yourself a greater founder
than Wickham or Chicheley by keeping your Colleges firm on
the foot they left 'em. Each of them gave but one College,
but your Grace by preserving gives all to both Universities.
... I beg, I beg, I beseech your Grace to have no hand in
the Bill 1 . 5
Of the conduct of the Archbishop referred to in the first
of these three extracts it would be well if we had some
explanation, as it has a suspicious appearance ; but, speaking
generally, the correspondence shews that he held the rod in
terrorem over the peccant Universities with much skill; he
rebukes, he threatens, he encourages and persuades.
' I have not been wanting,' he tells Gardiner, after the riot
which took place on the Prince's birthday, ' in my endeavours
to prevent that storm which has lately seemed to threaten
1 Wake MSS., ut supra.
xx.] BISHOP TRELAWNY. 375
you. . . Nothing shall be wanting that I can do to testify my
respect to the University that is consistent with that higher
duty which I am sure you will always esteem me obliged to
pay to the security of our present happy establishment in
Church and State 1 .'
Even in 1717 the danger was not past. Trelawny begs
for only
' one year longer to try whether they will make their
promise good. The unfruitful tree can but be cut down
then, and the defence of every College at our Bar and that
cannot be denied will take up at least that time. ... If
your Grace can get this proposed execution reprieved for a
year I will venture all I am worth and my head that the
University shall strictly behave themselves with that duty
they ought, and I hope my word may be taken since I went
so early into the interest of King George, and will, by God's
blessing, even do my utmost to continue him and his family
on the throne for ever V
The importance of such a Primate as Wake at this crisis
cannot be exaggerated. Atterbury was now a Bishop, but
his influence at Oxford was immense ; and Wake knew that
only too well. It was perfectly understood that the Arch-
bishop's advice would be considered decisive in all matters
relating to the Universities. He weathered the storm by
keeping up the alarm of Trelawny, Gardiner, Baron, and the
rest till the danger was over. They alone could influence
the mass of the Tory party, and prevent the old-fashioned
Churchmen, who hated the new Government, from desperately
throwing in their lot with the Pretender. They might them-
selves regret the days of Queen Anne, but they loved the
Church of England and their Alma Mater too well to hesitate
at the crisis. They could be trusted to do their utmost ; they
acted with decision and ability. Wake was able to prevent
the Bill from going further.
Gardiner incurred the wrath of Hearne once more when
he publicly notified, as Vice- Chancellor, that the first anni-
\ Wake MSS, ut supra. 2 Ibid.
376 ARC HBP. WAKE $ WARDEN GARDINER. [CHAP.
versary of King George's reign was ' a just occasion of re-
joycing.' ' Dr. Gardiner, our present pharisaical Vice-Chan-
cellor 1 ,' is the scornful epithet bestowed upon him hy the stern
Nonjuror for such flagrant disloyalty to 'James the Third.'
But the University was with Gardiner on the whole, in
spite of his enemies. On his relinquishment of office he
received the grateful thanks of the new Vice-Chancellor and
Proctors. The approbation of such men as Dr. Charlett and
Tanner followed him. He and his friends, under Wake,
saved the University. The same thing was going on all
over the land. Out of these complicated hopes and fears
arose the England of to-day!
The experience Gardiner obtained as Vice-Chancellor did
not improve his position as Warden. So many University
conflicts of various kinds must have brought out in one form
or other the party-action of the Fellows, and we left the
Warden after Tenison's Visitation in a sufficiently painful
relation to them, without any additional fuel added to the
fire. From Gardiner's letters it would appear that the Visitor
had listened to ex parte statements of his opponents.
' A College must be destroyed if the chief Governor of it
is by ill arts kept at a distance from the Visitor, and none
admitted to him but those who are liable to punishment
below, as was our case 2 .'
' Your Grace is the father of our family, and 'tis not fit that
what is so obvious to every one else should be concealed from
yourself only V
A scandal had occurred among the Fellows. It seems to
have been a gross case, and that the Warden was justified in
insisting on its punishment : the offenders found support in
the College. The Warden resorts to his old weapon, the
Veto, in order to secure support on his side. This was the
1 Diary, 53. 202.
2 Wake MSS., ut supra; Letter to Wake, June 8, 1716.
3 Ibid. Dec. 22, i*ji6.
xx.] WAKE'S VISITATION. 377
branch of his prerogative which Whitgift had specially con-
firmed, and even Tenison had not abolished the Veto upon
the annual election of ' officers/ bursars, deans, and the like.
Gardiner had never, he says, used it till now l ; but, as in the
former case, his trenchant method proves too violent. The
College is brought to a dead-lock. The war between "Warden
and Fellows is internecine. It becomes notorious and avowed.
Both sides found it absolutely necessary to call in the Visitor
once more. Indeed on the very day preceding the Visita-
tion the Visitor has to send down a special message to put a
summary stop to the Sub- Warden's proceedings, as he was
insisting on the employment of certain workmen whom the
Warden was ordering to desist. The College is in rank
mutiny 2 !
The Commissary, Dr. Bettes worth, now finds it necessary
to lose no time, and the mutual complaints of the combatants
may still be read. The Fellows have much to say against the
Warden's provoking and litigious ways, but the Warden's
own account of the 'faction' is enough to explain his troubles,
if only half of it were true ; and after all deductions more
than half remains. One of them has absconded with the
College chest ; three have neglected to take Holy Orders
without any Dispensation ; Chapel is ill attended ; the Ser-
vices ill performed ; the Sub- Warden himself scarcely ever
present. One Fellow ' alleges that he cannot agree with our
Service. He follows Mr. Howell's book 3 .' The Divinity
disputations are ill kept. Some of the Fellows insist on
standing covered in his presence; but this they deny, de-
claring that they only stand covered in his presence when
on the step outside the College gate, a nice distinction !
Some ' lie constantly outside the College ;' some lounge about
1 Wake MSS., ut supra; Letter to "Wake, Dec. 21, 1716.
2 Gardiner Papers penes custodem.
3 A book on Schism was published by Lawrence Howell, the
Nonjuror, for which he was degraded and imprisoned in 1717.
Hearne notices hia case.
378 ARCHBP. WAKE $ WARDEN GARDINER. [CHAP.
in College half-dressed ; some ' keep dogs to the great dis-
turbance of the Society, or beat the College servants, or
sconce them unreasonably, or when the Warden or Sub-
Warden is in Town, punish them.'
The Commissary evidently found it hard to keep his
countenance in hearing the evidence on both sides in this
domestic lawsuit ; but it was no laughing matter to the
College. The expense of the process cured the propensity
to litigation ; and the judgment, by some sort of rough justice,
certainly brought peace. But it does appear at this distance
of time to go somewhat harder against the Warden than the
evidence warrants. Either there were aggravating circum-
stances in his conduct which we do not get at through the
accounts he has transmitted, or the feud between him and
the Visitor found some sort of expression through the
Visitor's Commissary. None of his opponents appear to
receive any punishment, except indeed that the gentleman
who ran off with the College money is expelled, and the
Warden's power in granting rooms to Fellows is confirmed
as against the Sub- Warden ; but the Warden is deprived
of the Veto with which he had fought his battle. A great
effort was made to deprive him also of the Veto upon elec-
tion of Fellows ; but whether from the overwhelming evi-
dence in favour of its retention, or fear of the return of
( corrupt resignations,' this last and most important part of
the prerogative survived intact. The little Monarchy was
changed by the two Whig Visitors into a Republican form of
society ; but the President still continued in possession of a
very strictly limited sovereignty. On a small scale Gardiner
had acted the part of the Stuarts ; and All Souls, like the
nation, passed, through a revolutionary period, into a free,
self-governing corporation under monarchical forms. Enough
was retained of the old regime to become effective, if neces-
sary, for checking anarchy.
At any rate the Commissary believed he had settled the
xx.] LAWLESS STATE OF THE COLLEGE. 379
new constitution on a most perfect basis. He reports to
the Archbishop that he had told the Fellows it would be
' their fault, if under your protection, considering- how much
their great Founder had distinguished them from other
Colleges, they were not the most flourishing society in the
world l . ' But Dr. Clarke, who was now living in the
house he had built for the future Wardens, and whose judg-
ment we have seen reason to respect, gives a more qualified
praise to Wake's settlement.
' I cannot,' he writes from London to Charlett, ' but be glad
to hear that his Grace of Canterbury has sent his Injunctions
to our College, though I cannot say that I wish them exactly
as they are ; however in the great points they are undoubtedly
right, and if the authority of the College is supported in the
execution of them, will tend to the restoring of some sort of
discipline, and put an end to many unwarrantable evils V
' It is unlucky that his Grace was of opinion that the Warden
should not be allowed to inspect the Scrutiny' [of votes], 'as
was ever the custom since the Foundation of the College for
ought that is known to the contrary 3 .'
One of the first results of the settlement is that the Warden
fails to prevent Harrison, a Fellow of the College, from
holding his Fellowship along with an Oxford Professorship
to which he is elected. But he now gives up the struggle.
He becomes afflicted with the gout, which perhaps is some
excuse for his testiness ; and obtains leave from the College
given no doubt with hearty good-will 'to goe to y e
Bath V From that place many of the later letters of the
wearied valetudinarian are directed. He thus (on October
30, 1719) pours his griefs into the ears of the Visitor, who
was not, it must be feared, likely to pay much attention to
them.
' I believe there is hardly such another instance of trouble
given to any Head of a House in either University as has
1 Wake MSS., ut supra. 2 Letters from the Bodleian.
3 Ballard MSS. 20. 103. 4 College Order Book.
380 ARCHBP. WAKE $ WARDEN GARDINER. [CHAP.
been given me for these many years ; and for no immorality,
I thank God, no neglect of duty, as non-residence, or the like,
with any of which I have ever defy'd my most inveterate
enemies to charge me ; but to speak plainly, my Lord, 'tis for
pursuing the violatours of the Statutes of Holy Orders and
the Common Lawyers V
He even contemplated resignation, but thought better
of it.
' Now that I have stood the test of two Visitations without
any accusations, as I verily believe, of neglect of my duty or
of any conduct but what becomes an uncorrupt governor and
a good Christian, I am not without hopes that your Grace
will bestow some marks of your favour upon me. If anything
offers itself to make my family some amends for parting with
my Headship I purpose to make room for some one who may
do that good here which I have attempted to do but have
failed of it. The truth is the expense I have been put to
several times has been so very burthensome as to make the
place hardly worth my keeping for some years past, if I could
with reputation have quitted it till these trials were over V
Another letter in the Wake correspondence of this period
proves that the trials of the Warden were not only from
within the College. There was still something of the same
pressure on the part of great people which we have witnessed
in Stuart times. Lord Abingdon complains to the Arch-
bishop 3 of the ' usual obstinacy of the Warden of All Souls
in denying the scrutiny of votes ' (on an election to a Fellow-
ship) in the case of a person in whom the Earl was interested,
and who would otherwise have been elected. It turns out
that this favoured candidate was ' grossly ignorant.'
On a review of the Warden's whole conduct, we cannot but
give him credit for trying to do his best. It is impossible to
imagine a greater variety of impediments in the way of a
reformer. Visitors, hostile from political causes ; Senior Fel-
lows of the highest character interested in the success of the
1 Wake MSS., ut supra. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid.
xx.] REVIEW OF GARDINER'S CONDUCT. 381
effort to secure non-residence ; and a ' faction ' of whom a
large proportion evidently consisted of the same sort of dis-
sipated young 1 men of family and fortune whom we meet with
in the London society of that period. The influence of Tindal
was all against the Warden, as we gather from many inci-
dental hints. He had several followers in the College, though
his habits were as disagreeable as his character was tainted.
The contemporary pamphlets, making all allowance for po-
lemical bitterness, are conclusive on this point, and he was
certainly once subjected to a public ' admonition ' from the
College for immoral conduct. The Warden's ' failure ' under
all the circumstances was by no means so great as might
have been expected.
At any rate, at the expense of his own purse and his own
ease Gardiner brought the affairs of the College to a settle-
ment ; and succeeding Wardens find nothing left for them to
do. He is the last who has stamped his mark on the history
of All Souls. Perhaps a greater compliment could not be paid
him, the greater because undesigned, than one that occurs
in a letter from one of his chief opponents who had occasion
to mention Warden Hoveden. That excellent Warden is
spoken of as the { Gardiner of his day 1 .' The likeness consisted
in their common resistance to the license of certain of the
Fellows in the reigns of Elizabeth and Anne respectively !
Another point comes out clearly from a review of these
intestine struggles. If there had been the slightest relic or
revival of ' corrupt resignations ' we may be absolutely sure
that the lynx-eyed Warden would have brought it to light.
But not only does he bear witness by his silence ; he says in
reply to Wake's official question, ' I know of no corruptions
either in resignations or elections 2 ;' and Dr. Kinaston, a
Fellow 'statutably absent,' makes the same answer 3 . The
1 Mr. Stead to Archbishop Wake. "Wake MSS., vol. i. Univ.
2 Gardiner Papers penes custodem, 3 Archives.
382 ARCHBP. WAKE $ WARDEN GARDINER. [CHAP.
work of Bancroft and Jeames had stood the test of forty years,
and was now secure. Gardiner's jealous care that the abuse
should not be revived under his Wardenship, and, indeed,
many other instances of his public spirit, may be traced in
letters of his now at Lambeth *. How much longer the said
abuse lingered on in at least one other College may be
gathered from the pages of Hearne ; and even long after the
death of that caustic observer, as late as 1759, Bishop
Lowth speaks of it in a tone of utter despair :
' The laws of the realm have since endeavoured to remedy
all abuses of this kind, but in vain. ... It behoves all such '
[as are concerned] ( to exert their utmost diligence and resolu-
tion in putting an effectual stop to so scandalous a practice if
they have any regard for the honour of their Society or for
their own reputation V
His eloquent exposure had, no doubt, some effect in pro-
ducing the cure which followed !
We must not on any account omit the one last notice
of stout old Warden Gardiner which we have before his
death in 1726. In his last struggle he must have been
surprised to find himself supported by somebody. He could
hardly have known himself in the Archbishop's Court repre-
senting the whole College against the Visitor. It was in
the case of an Appeal by a Mr. Wood who claimed to be
elected as- Founder's kin. The College would not accept
the claim, but the Visitor supported Wood and forced him
on the College ; thus ruling the case in favour of an anti-
quated Statute, the abuse of which soon afterwards called for
redress and resettlement. Wake was technically right, but,
as Blackstone afterwards shewed 3 , in reality wrong ; and as
he made use of the expression more than once that his
wife was of Founder's kin, and placed his own son in the
College on that account, he has been accused of partiality.
1 Bibl. Lamb., cod. 931. 2 Life of Wykeham, 2nd Edition.
8 Preface to Essay on Collateral Consanguinity.
xx.] A SCENE AT LAMBETH. 383
Certainly he proceeded on opposite principles from those
which had guided him in the recent Visitation.
The best counsel were retained on either side at the
Visitor's Court in Lambeth Palace; but the College could
hardly have been well advised to make so strong a point
against the Visitor's jurisdiction where it was the Visitor
who had himself to decide the case. Gardiner has left a
full, able, and very racy account of the proceedings ; and a
pamphlet by a ( Senior Fellow of All Souls V believed to
be Dr. Brooke, tells much the same story. Both of these
are ex parte statements, and through such a medium it is
hard to see what grounds the Visitor had for his decision.
But the chief trial for the poor gouty Warden was that he
was kept so long waiting in an ante-room while the Visitor
decided in favour of his own jurisdiction, and was condemned
to hear the household of the Archbishop, when his decision
was known, shouting along the passages, ' My Lord hath
it, My Lord hath it ; ' or, as the pamphlet bitterly tells
us :
8 No sooner was the import of this sapient Decree, that
the Visitor pronounces for his own jurisdiction, communi-
cated to a crowd of purple slaves attending in the Ante-
chamber but mutual and cordial congratulations ensued,
because, as they rightly observed, " My Lord hath got his
cause" '
And we may suspect a little sly satisfaction in the tone
of the "Warden's remark that, ' here his Grace had a fit of
the gravel, and was obliged to leave the Court for a while.'
The above caustic pamphlet gives us a portion of the
conversation which took place on this occasion between the
two ancient champions ; and as it puts the case on both sides
with much force it may conclude the subject.
8 " I am your Visitor, I am in the place of your Founder/'
once I heard one of these local monarchs say, "and if I
should think it proper to send you an Injunction or new
Statute directly repugnant to any of your Statutes now in
1 Gough, Oxford, 60.
384 ARC HBP. WAKE $ WARDEN GARDINER. [CHAP.
force, you would be obliged sub pcena perjurii to obey it."
" My Lord," said the Head of this College, with a manly,
becoming spirit, " that is a case we will not dread while your
Lordship's justice is our security; but should we ever be so
unfortunate as to receive from our Visitor such an Injunction
as your Lordship is pleased to suppose, we should think our-
selves obliged sub pcena perjurii peremptorily to disobey it, and
by the grace of God, so we would." '
This Appeal cost the College joo, a large sum consider-
ing the value of money in that age ; and it excited the keenest
displeasure in the minds of every member of the Society. One
of its effects was a gain to another College, if it was a loss
to All Souls. Dr. Clarke was so annoyed at the lawsuit, that
in the disposition of his munificent bequest to Worcester
College he put in a special clause against any Appeal from
the election of a Fellow, ' to Visitors or any one else, to
avoid the shameful and unnecessary expenses which I have
seen some Visitors put some Colleges to upon such occasions,
and prevent their arbitrary and partial proceedings.' The
bequest itself was one of the effects. The previous Visitations,
added to the odium of this last suit, decided him against
leaving his fortune to All Souls. Instead of so doing, he
left the bulk of it to assist Worcester in raising itself from
the poor condition of an old Hall into that of a flourishing
College, and in so doing, like his predecessor, Petre, so many
years before, in the case of Exeter College, made himself
a sort of second Founder. He added by his Will nine sets
of rooms to that institution, founded six Fellowships and
three Scholarships, and completed the new Library and
Chapel. To his own College he left 1000 to restore the
front of it ; to Stone's Hospital in Oxford 1000 for six
poor widows.
This may be the place to conclude Clarke's history. His
influence was used for good all through his career, and when
he came to live altogether at Oxford, more than ever. He
was of course consulted on every matter concerning the
xx.] LAST DA TS OF DR. CLARKE. 385
interest of the University in Parliament, and was the universal
referee in all that concerned its architectural and literary im-
provement ] . He generously assists impoverished Nonjurors
like the famous Dr. Hickes, whose letters are full of gratitude
and respect 2 . We find him adorning his old College, Brase-
nose, with the statues which still figure in its quadrangle,
and (at an earlier period) assisting his friend Charlett in
placing the statues of Queens Mary and Anne in the front
of University College 3 . He takes in hand, after the Chapel
is completed, the new works of his own College, the Hall,
the Library, the new Quadrangle ; and as he survived
Gardiner by ten years, carried forward among fresh genera-
tions of Fellows the impulse which he had himself, along
with the Warden and Codrington, been, from the beginning
of the century, so instrumental in affording. Sarah, Duchess
of Marlborough, and Sir Simon Harcourt were, we are told,
amongst the assiduous friends of his old age ; Badcliffe and
Charlett had passed away with Aldrich and Gardiner, and
many another of the friends of his long life. The ' cheerful
countenance ' which was attributed to him by his admirers
may be traced in the picture which adorns the Hall he
assisted to build ; and his handsome monument in the
Ante-chapel of the College bestows no more than due praise
on one whose proudest boast was that he had been a Fellow"
of his College for fifty-six years, and five times Burgess
for his University.
When he marked out the place of his burial and assigned
in his Will an annual sum for the repair of his tomb, we may
well imagine that his thoughts reverted to the imposing
scene he had witnessed in that Chapel immediately after his
election to a Fellowship. It was there that Archbishop
Sancroft, by whose courage and public spirit he had him-
self benefited, consecrated Frampton, Bishop of Gloucester,
afterwards the Nonjuror. It was on the occasion of the
1 Ballard MSS., passim. 2 Ibid. 12. 3 Ibid. 20. 79.
c c
386 ARCHEP. WAKE & WARDEN GARDINER.
Primate's residence at All Souls during Charles the Second's
brief Oxford Parliament, in March, 1681. What a history
had England made for itself in the interval which separated
that event from the tenth year of George the Second ! Who
had been more mixed up with that history than he in his
own not obscure sphere! He had left no children to carry
down his name : would that name soon be a mere unmeaning
thing?
It ought not to be so. These ' childless men,' these Sheldons
and Codringtons and Clarkes, are among the greatest orna-
ments of the University. No inadequate representatives of
the Wykehams and Chicheles of an earlier age, they passed on
to our times in forms eloquent of their own contemporary
influences, the traditions of industry, probity, far-sighted-
ness, and munificence. We are reminded of their labours
whenever we walk through the streets of Oxford. Nor,
if we benefit so greatly by their abhorrence of matrimony,
can we grudge them their jokes at the expense of their
married friends. Clarke, the most agreeable and virtuous
of men, never has a word to say in favour of marriage,
especially when speaking of Oxford dignitaries.
' I don't know,' says he, ' how to be answerable for the
follies of women, and 'twas one of the reasons of my con-
tinuing a Bachelor that I might not be obliged to do it. . .
I have no great joy in hearing of your conjugal pro-
ceedings, for I think Colleges were not designed for women. . .
If all my friends marry, I shall have little encouragement
to come to Oxford.'
CHAPTEE XXI.
HJI j^0uls anir
1726-1792.
Codrington Library Selection of Worthies History of Ortho-
graphy from Archives Hawksmoor on Modern Architecture
Young, the poet Duke of Wharton Judge Blackstone
His influence on All Souls Struggles on question of Founder's
Kin.
THE completion of the College buildings will bring us into
contact with the few remaining names of importance which
we connect with the earlier reigns of the House of Brunswick.
The vessel has now drifted out of the stormy waves of the
Jacobite struggle into the tranquil waters of the Hanoverian
age. The College has no longer a history, in any sense of that
word which includes exciting or even interesting matter for the
public. The days of corrupt elections and Royal interferences,
of Archiepiscopal Visitations and faction-fights, have passed
away. A notice of one or two comparatively amicable con-
troversies will alone break the even flow of the century and
a half which have elapsed since the days of Warden Gardiner.
If a sense of weariness steals over us in the contemplation
of such a change to dulness and monotony, we cannot but
experience a certain feeling of shame in treating with so
much ingratitude the blessings of internal peace, order and
prosperity, which are in a College history the mere reflec-
tion of the happy state of the nation. But however this
c c 2,
388 ALL SOULS AND JUDGE BLACKSTONE. [CHAP.
may strike us, it is clearly desirable in such a sketch as the
present to pass lightly over modern times.
And first a few words must be bestowed on the Codrington
Library, since, from its commencement in 1716, when Edward
Young delivered an oration on the occasion of laying the
first stone, to its completion in 1756, under the fostering care
of Blackstone, it is the chief subject of interest in the College,
and that by which the importance of the institution has been
chiefly sustained to our own day.
The old library had been superior to those of most other
Colleges, but excelled by some ; Codrington's benefaction
placed All Souls in the next rank after the Bodleian. In
1724 Hearne visited the ancient rooms before their treasures
were transferred to the new building. He thought it { a very
pretty place and venerable for its antiquity, being as old as
the College V With his accustomed care he noted down all
the ancient glass in the windows, the figures from which
were afterwards placed (in questionable style) in the windows
of the Ante-Chapel and Ante-Library, remarking that
Archbishop Stratford's name is probably a mistake for
Stafford's, and Edward the Martyr's (as he could not have
had a long beard) for Edward the Confessor's. He was
much struck with the richness of the College in MSS.
Such a scholar could well appreciate the gifts of Chichele
and Henry the Sixth, of Goldwell, Pole, and the numerous
learned men who had adorned the College in old times.
But Codrington's lavish expenditure on books from all
parts of Europe made his legacy a splendid accretion round
this nucleus ; and with such men as Tanner to give advice,
and Clarke and Sir Nathaniel Lloyd bringing to . bear on
its progress the wealth of their great literary acquaintance,
the Library soon acquired celebrity. It was they who under-
took the responsibility of superintending the erection of the
fabric. There was a stoppage for some years before its actual
t Diary, 103. 135-158.
xxi.] BLACKSTONE AND THE LIBRARY. 389
completion, owing partly to the death of these men. The
Library was waiting- for the advent of a man of genius and
energy, worthy to complete the work of such a benefactor.
Blackstone was precisely the person. His enormous capacity
for work, his accurate judgment, his great learning, and his
devotion to his College, pointed him out as preeminently fit
for the business, and he devoted many years of assiduous
labour to it. To him the Library owes the excellent
arrangements which distinguish it to the present day. By
judicious management Codrington's ^i 0,000 was increased
to <^ J i2,ooo, and an endowment formed for the future in-
crease and care of the books out of the surplus left when
the building was completed. Many valuable additions have
accrued by benefactions since that date, besides the accu-
mulating treasures procured by the handsome endowment ;
and to make a leap of 150 years a very successful move-
ment has lately been made to extend the advantages of the
Library to the whole University by building a large Reading-
room and Law Library in connection with it, with a Sub-
Librarian in constant attendance. Thus the literary treasures
provided by the benefactors of All Souls are no longer con-
fined to members of the College and the few scholars who
might occasionally obtain formal permission to inspect some
precious document.
It may be interesting to those who have followed the course
of this history to observe who of all the Worthies of All Souls
were thought most deserving of commemoration when the
Codrington Library was approaching completion. The selec-
tion must have been chiefly due to Blackstone, and was evi-
dently made with the greatest care ; yet there are some
curious omissions. The chief sculptor of the day, Sir Henry
Cheere, had already been engaged to supply the statue of
Codrington, which stands in the centre of the building, and
the College placed a graceful crown upon the whole work
by employing him on the busts of twenty-four of the former
390 ALL SOULS AND JUDGE BLACKSTONE. [CHAP.
Fellows. All but one of these, Lord Talbot, have found
their places already in the preceding pages of this work.
The list may be given here in the original order and spell-
ing, as it appears in the College books, defiant of chrono-
logical sequence :
Sir Daniel Dunn. Archbishop Sheldon.
Sir William Byrde. Bishop Duppa.
Sir William Petre. Bishop Pole.
Dr. George Clarke. Bishop Jeremy Taylor.
Secretary Coventry. Mr. Norris.
Sir William Trumbull. Dr. Lynaker.
Lord Chancellor Weston. Dr. Sydenham.
Lord Chancellor Talbot. Dr. Godolphin.
Dr. Steward. Sir Nathaniel Lloyd.
Sir Christopher Wren. Sir Clement Edmonds.
Bishop Tanner. Warden Hoveden.
Bishop Goldwell. Sir John Mason.
There is some reason to think that, however well selected,
the list was a good deal influenced by the feasibility of ob-
taining likenesses for the sculptor's guidance, since we find
that Dr. Godolphin's place was afterwards taken by Sir
Anthony Sherley, no picture of the first being discoverable.
This will perhaps account for the omission of some Wardens
who certainly deserved to be commemorated, as well as of
William Latymer, Arthur Duck, Sir Richard Napier (Doctor
of Medicine, admitted 1628), Sir Charles Caesar (Master of
the Rolls, admitted 1 606), Bishop Hanmer, Sir Richard Lloyd
(Advocate- General and Judge of the Admiralty Court, admitted
1 655), and the Hon. Dodington Greville. Lord Northington
was still alive, as also was Young. Blackstone himself, whom
the College ' empowered to order these bustoes,' finds his
place in the Library in a still more worthy manner, though
only within the last few years. His noble statue by Bacon
was at first placed by his admiring contemporaries in the Hall
where he delivered his immortal ' Commentaries/ but after-
XXL] SELECTION OF WORTHIES. 391
wards, as it took up too much space, it was moved to the
Ante-chapel, where however it was still more out of place. It
has at last become one of the chief ornaments of the building
in which he took almost a paternal interest. The delay may
be fancifully accepted as a sort of ' poetical justice ' upon
him for having hoisted up the ' bustoes' of former Worthies
to such a height that no one can distinguish their features,
or scarcely even read their gilt-letter names. It may be
worth notice that the said ' bustoes J cost .^200, the statue
of Codrington about j^i^o, and Blackstone's own (without
the pedestal) 450 guineas.
This may be the place to make a remark upon the
documents which have formed our chief guide in estimating
the title of these and other "Worthies of All Souls to our
respect or admiration. The study of the Archives of a
medieval institution affords some interesting experience both
as to the history of English orthography and the connection
which so often, though not universally, obtains between
hand -writing and personal character. This is much too
common a subject to justify more than a sentence or two ;
but it may be observed that in the All Souls documents a
special study of the letter -forms used is necessary before
the writing of the Plantagenet and Tudor times can be
read with anything like ease, and that the difficulty con-
tinues throughout the reign of James the First, though an
occasional ' hand ' is intelligible enough to ordinary readers.
This is the case, as early as 1606, with, for example, Arthur
Duck. He was a scholar and an able man, and had caught
the first glimpses of orthographical improvement. By 1640
hand-writing in general is easy to read without any special
study ; and by 1680 it is like our own of the present day ;
though, even as late as 1700, lawyers and others sometimes
use archaic letter-forms which are provoking enough. The
seventeenth century in short just spans the change from
old to modern English ; and this is much the same as to
392 ALL SOULS AND JUDGE BLACKSTONE. [CHAP.
spelling. Very little change has taken place in this latter
respect since the reign of Queen Anne.
As to deeds and strictly legal documents, it is observable
that those of the Tudor reigns are far harder to decypher
than those of a much earlier date, indeed they are clearer
still in earlier centuries than the fifteenth. The legal fashions
in this respect had come by degrees to be an insupportable
burden. Fortunately the general growth of an improved
orthography which took place in the seventeenth century
produced some slight effect upon the lawyers at last.
There is no doubt that we must attribute the improve-
ment of the English language mainly to the great men
who translated the Bible under James the First's patronage,
to Shakspeare, and to Bacon. These and their minor con-
temporaries made the English language what it is ; the
swarm of pamphlets and newspapers which the conflicts of
Charles the First's reign brought into existence, an effect
like that of early summer heat and damp on insect-life,
fixed it for ever. The Continental influences of the Stuart
period were thrown in just before the last effervescence
subsided. The men of Queen Anne's age write as we write
now, only much better, with far more elegance, force, and
propriety.
In point of handwriting the Primates bear away the palm.
They nearly all write good ' hands.' Sancroft's is remarkable
for its formal and cramped, but very clear, style; it can
hardly be called, as the Steward of his Courts, Roger North,
designates it, ' exquisite orthography V Many of these are
known by fac-similes. Warden Hoveden, Warden Jeames, and
Codrington write good readable hands ; but those of Finch,
Gardiner, Clarke, Tanner, Young, and Blackstone are excellent.
These were all men of high cultivation, to say the least,
and nearly all of them men of accurate habits and superior
character.
1 Gutch's Coll. Cur., Preface.
xxi.] THE NEW QUADRANGLE. 393
The progressive architectural improvement of the College
now began to excite emulation among the Fellows, past
and present, and their friends. The Library, succeeding
the Warden's Lodgings and the ' restoration } of the Chapel,
was laid out on a plan which involved the future junction
of the buildings by the sides of an immense quadrangle,
four times the size of the original one built by Chichele.
The new Hall was to take its place in continuation of the
line of the Chapel, and Gardiner provided for it and the
sides of the new quadrangle as he best could. Some of the
answers to his numerous letters are preserved *, and are
not a little diverting. There are many refusals ; some of
his correspondents have 'teeming wives,' others 'ruined
fortunes ; ' but the response, on the whole, is noble. Up-
wards of ^SOOQ some ^20,000 or ^30,000 of our currency
was spent upon the sides of the quadrangle. Sir Nathaniel
Lloyd, a very useful member of the College, who afterwards
became Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and Vice-
Chancellor of that University, gave .3^1350 for one portion,
the Duke of Wharton ^1183 for another; the Hon. General
Stuart built one of the towers for ^786 ; Mr. Dodington
Greville gave ^750 for the gateway in the cloisters ; Lord
Carnarvon gave 2,00, Bishop Tanner $o, the Warden and
Fellows 400. Hawksmoor is responsible for the general
plan of the whole of the new buildings, but Dr. Clarke perhaps
almost as much. Hawksmoor submits his plans to him ; he
marks on the margin what part of them he hopes the College
will adopt; and his suggestions are for the most part fol-
lowed. Thus, for example, Hawksmoor designed a turret
over the centre of the Library, and a corresponding one be-
tween the Chapel and the Hall ; but Clarke ' hopes the Col-
lege will not build this oblong turret, which will be expensive,
and I fear, look very heavy 2 ;' and some other parts of Hawks-
1 Gardiner Papers, penes custodem.
2 Explanation of the Designes for All Souls : Archives.
394 ALL SOULS AND JUDGE BLACKSTONE. [CHAP.
moor's plans are, like these, omitted. There is nothing said
in Hawksmoor's ' Designes ' about the conspicuous central
towers of the east side of the quadrangle, which have been so
criticised, and for which the architect is probably directly
responsible ; but as every one admits the good general
effect of this noble square, it is possible that moderns
have sometimes shown themselves hypercritical. At any
rate, the following extracts from the above paper may not
only prove that the College was much indebted to Hawks-
moor, but be useful to the public even now. If his hints
had reached some of our architects a few years ago we
might not now be mourning the loss of many an ancient
monument designed in better taste than our own.
It appears there had been some proposals let us hope not
from Dr. Clarke for a modern renovation of the old quad-
rangle. Hawksmoor Wren's favourite pupil, be it observed
can hardly contain his indignation; though, indeed, it
must have required some courage to speak so plainly to his
employers.
'I must ask leave,' says he, in a letter dated February 17,
1 7 1 , ' to say something in favour of y 6 old Quadrangle,
built by your most Rev d . Founder, for although it may have
some faults yet it is not without its virtues. This building
is strong and durable, much more firm than any of your new
buildings because they have not y e substance nor workman-
ship, and I am confident that much convenience and beauty
may be added to it, whereas utterly destroying or barbarously
altering or mangling it would be useing y e Founder cruelly
and a loss to y e present possessours. Whatever is good in its
kind ought to be preserved in respect to antiquity as well
as our present advantage, for destruction can be profitable to
none but such as live by it.
* Never suffer y 6 outward moldings on y e Jaumbs of y e
windows and S unite to be cut away, for that takes off all y 6
ornament and strength of y 6 Designe. You may see the
scandalous effect that Chap Windows have by putting them
flush (as workmen call it) to the outside of the wall, in y e
Quadrangle of New College and most other places in Oxford,
and at Trinity College, in Cambridge, most shamefully. What
XXL] TRUE WAY OF RESTORATION. 395
I am offering at in this article is for the preservation of an-
tient durable Public Buildings, that are strong and usefull,
instead of erecting new fantasticall perishable trash, or alter-
ing and wounding y e old by unskilfull knavish workmen ;
and this leads me to say something further by way of en-
couragement towards generall Designes and proper forcast
in this affair architectonicall that may regard both old and
new erections.
' When London was burnt in 1666, out of that fatall ac-
cidentall mischief one might have expected some good when
y e Phenix was to rise again, viz*, a convenient, regular, well-
built City, excellent, skillful, honest artificers, made by y e
greatness and quantity of y e worke in rebuilding such a
Capital. But instead of these we have noe City, nor streets,
nor houses, but a Chaos of dirty, rotten sheds, always tumbling
or takeing fire, with winding crooked passages, scarce prac-
ticable, lakes of mud and rills of stinking mire running
through them.
' The workmen soe far from skill or honesty that y e generall
part of 'em are more brutall and stupid than in y e remotest
part of Britain, and the longer they worke the worse they
grow, as you may see in all the additionall scoundrell streets
they are continually cobling up, to sell by wholesale, and
this is not all in London, for this sort of vermin has run and
spread all over y e country, and as they have ruin'd y e Capitall
soe have they all the other Citys and Townes in England
more or less, together with working y e destruction of many
a good old Mansion house and durable castle, &c. Soe that
it is a question which was y e worst calamity, y e burning, or
rebuilding by these villains, for y e first was quick and soon
over, the later slow but perpetual/
He then lays the blame upon the Government, who ought
' for ye Publick good to have guided the rebuilding into a
regular and commodious form, and not to have suffered it to
run into an ugly, inconvenient, self-destroying, unwieldy
monster,' and hopes the University may take warning :
' It cannot be improper to lay downe such Draughts and
Designes for repairing the old and erecting new fabricks for
y e embellishment and use of y e University as may in time
come to perfection, altho' not soe quickly as we might wish ;
for when we survey what we have done beyond expectation,
and if we consider our noble Benefactions given, and y e
396 ALL SOULS AND JUDGE BLACKSTONE. [CHAP.
genius that now seems to govern, we need not despair of
accomplishing anything that may render this Seat of y e Muses
admired at home and renowned abroad : but running on with-
out any rule and well-digested Designes will produce nothing
but chaos and tumult.'
The question may have already occurred to some reader,
Why should the famous libertine, the Duke of Wharton,
have given a large contribution to the buildings of All
Souls ? He had nothing to do with the College, was not
the man to spend money in such a work, and was hopelessly
in debt. The answer is supposed to be found in the following
passage from Dr. Johnson's Lives of the Poets :
( His Grace the Duke of Wharton's regard for Young, added
to his lust of praise, procured to All Souls College a donation
which is not forgotten in the Dedication of " The Revenge." '
This Dedication was so quickly and thoroughly suppressed
by Young that, except for the passage in Johnson's popular
book, it would have been forgotten. The words referred to
are these :
' But there are still superior qualities which I am obliged to
remember, as is the Society to which I belong, and to return
him our thanks for his late donation to it, which is so noble
that it had laid us under the greatest obligation though it
had been from another, though it had been from one whose
quality and character would have made a far less addition to
it, and who had not by the most grateful and engaging
manner of conferring it, more than doubled its value.'
Further on he says, ' My present fortune is his bounty ; '
so that this brilliant, versatile, and profligate nobleman did
for the world at least something which outlived his own
reputation. Young has been blamed for stooping to be
patronised by such a man, but the extraordinary character
of this most curious of all human compounds must be
remembered. He deceived friends and foes alike ; and led
every one to expect that his character would develop in the
direction they desired. Bishop Tanner writes :
XXL] THE DUKE OF WHARTON. 397
' The Lord Duke of Wharton's benefaction to ours, or indeed
any other, was not expected. It gives promising- hopes of a
new turn in which that young- nobleman of excellent parts
as I have heard may outshine his ancestors 1 .'
It is needless to enquire how long this c new turn ' lasted,
since no brilliant youth ever made more turns, or more
terribly disappointed his friends :
' Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days V
As for patronage, the system was almost universal in those
days; and the families of the Duke and the poet had been
friends. There is nothing dishonourable in Young's short
period of clientship ; indeed he probably did some good to
his young patron while it lasted ; but no one who knows
Wharton's career can wonder at the rising poet's anxiety to
suppress the evidence of his too great facility in crediting the
Duke with so much virtue.
It seems probable, however, that Young's remarks in the
Dedication on the gift to All Souls have been made to bear
more weight than they can carry. The date is 1721. There
is nothing in the words to shew that the gift was made
through Young. Perhaps the following letter, dated August
4, 1720, from Hawarden, of which place Warden Gardiner
was Rector, may throw some light on the subject. It will
be observed that it is earlier in date than Young's Dedica-
tion. It is addressed to Dr. Charlett :
< Good Sir,
' Being in your debt at Harden I hope to satisfy you for all
at once by telling you that the Duke of Wharton did me the
honour to call upon me there on Saturday was sennight ; and
in his discourse about our Benefactions his Grace was pleased
to promise to All Souls 600 or if necessary 800 towards a
pile to join Codrington's Library and Stewart's Tower. By
his order I sent off Mr. Townsend to his Grace on Monday,
and yesterday he returned with a contract under his hand and
seal to pay 1 1 83 for finishing the pile by Midsummer next.
1 Letters from the Bodleian.
2 Pope's Knowledge and Character of Man.
398 ALL SOULS AND JUDGE BLACKSTONE. [CHAP.
This great bounty was given with all the civility and readiness
imaginable, and with the kindest expressions of his regard to
the University, of whom his Grace intends shortly to receive a
Doctor's Degree 1 .'
There would, one would suppose, have been some mention
of Young in connection with the gift, in either Gardiner's
or Tanner's letter, if the Duke had really given it at Young's
request or out of special regard for him. However, it is quite
possible that it was through Young that he was induced to
think of the benefaction ; and the desire to obtain a Doctor's
degree and to stand well with the University may have
been to him, at the moment of his visit to Gardiner, a matter
of importance. His affairs soon fell into extreme disorder,
and whether he ever intended to pay the money or not is
a matter of little consequence. It was not paid during
his lifetime ; and the tradition has consequently obtained in
the College that it was never paid. But this is a mistake.
Thanks to Gardiner's wise precautions and Blackstone's per-
severance, the sum was recovered from the Duke's Executors ;
so that his name stands with perfect justice inscribed on his
' Pile.' It might have been well if more of his estate had
been secured for equally good objects !
The College has a right to be proud of Edward Young,
whose name appears in its records accompanied with the
words Poeta celehemmus. He lived much at All Souls, and
was in a great degree its true and legitimate product. We
have seen that he was selected to make the Latin oration
when the foundation of the Codrington Library was laid.
He had not then been long a Fellow. Towards the close
of his long life he presented the last edition of his works
to that Library, containing, as the Preface says, his 'most
excusable ' poems. Between the two periods he had passed
many an hour in the performance of a task not so showy
as writing poetry, but perhaps as useful. All Souls was
the arena for constant argument on the great and vital
1 Ballard MSS. 20. 17.
XXL] EDWARD YOUNG. 399
questions of human belief. The disreputable Matthew Tindal,
the chief champion of the Deists, or, as his opponents
violently called them, Atheists, after having gone through
various changes, had settled down into the opinions expressed
in his ' Christianity as Old as the Creation/ and volume after
volume came forth from All Souls in rapid succession. Young
was the champion of Christianity.
' The other boys,' said the Atheist, ' I can always answer,
because I always know whence they have their arguments,
which I have read a hundred times ; but that fellow, Young,
is continually pestering me with something of his own 1 .'
It were to be wished we had these ' somethings of his own'
before us ; but we have only his poems, which were no doubt
his way of answering his opponents ; while he left to Butler
the task of scattering them in prose. It would be out of
place to say anything here of these poems. They have long
ceased to form a portion of the stock of poetry commonly
read in our day. Yet Young was to his generation what
Tennyson is to ours, always sending out some new poem
or new edition, which it was absolutely necessary that every
one should have read if he were to keep his place in society.
Succeeding the poets of the age of Anne, and preceding the
burst of modern poetry which Cowper heralded, he filled the
vacuum as no one else did ; and Dr. Johnson's testimony
to his genius must take the place of authority with those
who have never studied the ' Night Thoughts.' Some of the
portraits which find a place in those immortal lines are no
doubt pictures from All Souls.
The traditions of Young's connection with his College have
not, however, been kept up by his relations with Wharton
and Tindal, still less by his picture in the Hall, which is any-
thing but flattering, (it was said he would never sit for one ;
this, however, was presented by a relative after his death,)
but by the ever-green memory which he left behind him at
1 Johnson's Lives of the Poets.
400 ALL SOULS AND JUDGE BLACKSTONE. [CHAP.
Welwyn, the All Souls living where he passed the evening
of his days. Successive Rectors from the College still rejoice
in the beautiful shades he planted, and read on the monu-
ment erected under his avenue the words in which one of
his early successors embodied his character while it was yet
known to living men : Yitia insectabatur non homines, erran-
tes emendabat non castlgabat. It was here that Dr. Johnson
paid his tribute to the memory of his old friend, and Boswell
took down from the lips of his master the words which told
how one of these great men appreciated the other 1 .
Judge Blackstone's name has come across our path already.
Of all the Worthies of All Souls whose fame connects the
history of England with that of his College, there is no one,
except perhaps Sheldon, who more identified himself with its
interests. For a great part of eighteen years during all his
middle life he made All Souls the object of his laborious
care. For ten years he was Steward of the College, applying
his legal mind to the examination of all the documents
bearing on the College property, rearranging its Archives,
and leaving at the close of that period a characteristic record
of the labour he had bestowed on its accounts in a special
MS. book for the benefit of his successors. In this he tells
us he had been, thanks to his ' good fortune,' ' Accomptant,
Assistant, and Auditor' of these accounts ; and he had served
his turn as Bursar. No name appears in the College order-
book more frequently than his as writing out, in the capacity
of Senior Jurist, the Resolutions of the College Meetings.
He was the ' willing horse ' whom the College worked hard,
but most gratefully thanked. A sentence or two of the
little College book above mentioned may be quoted as
characteristic of the man. It is written out by himself in
1753, an( ^ addressed to his friend and successor in office,
Dr. Benjamin Buckler. It commences thus :
1 Boswell's Life of Johnson, sub anno 1781. See also other
passages in the ' Life/ and the ' Lives of the Poets.'
xxi.] BLACKSTONE AS BURSAR. 401
' I cannot but think that you will enjoy some pleasure in
contemplating a structure the rudiments and foundation of
which are at least of as high antiquity as the invention of
the Mallard itself. You may here frame a complete idea
of that old English system of hospitable ceconomy for which
our ancestors were so justly famous.'
And it ends with the following :
' And thus, good Mr. Bursar, having accompanied you
from your entrance on this important office to your final dis-
mission, through all the intricacies of our domestic ceconomy,
a sort of maze, I confess, yet not without a plan, I must
refer to your own sagacity to supply the deficiencies of my
experience, and shall now take my leave of you till I am in
my turn a petitioner for your kind assistance, when you may
depend upon my paying you my respects in person. And
meanwhile, my hearty wishes, and I dare answer, those of the
whole Society, are that your year may be rich and peaceable,
attended with a moderate Expense Boll, with good, though
not extravagant Price-days, large fines and cheerfully paid,
pleasant Progresses and many alienations, a comfortable share
of underwood, and abundance of timber that will not improve
by standing. And for your own particular I wish you large
Rags and small Tres Billse, many leases and few letters, a
prodigious increase of bread and a mighty consumption of
ale, and, to crown all, a clear exoneration without fear of
drawbacks, and a sociable evening to celebrate the End of
All Things.'
The enthusiasm which could thus extract the notion of
enjoyment out of the driest and most complicated mass of
details conceivable, is as pleasant as the humour with which
the great Judge concludes his homily, and well illustrates
what we gather from many Collegiate sources, that he was
an excellent companion. This is the more worth noticing
since he was thought by some to be ill-natured. No one was
in reality less open to the charge, which gathered perhaps
some plausibility from the appearance of his contracted
eyebrows ; but that appearance was the result of extreme
near-sightedness. It is true that he became in his old
D d
402 ALL SOULS AND JUDGE BLACKSTONE. [CHAP.
age somewhat irritable ; but we are told that the only
occasions when this was allowed to be perceptible were when
people tried his patience beyond bearing- by unpunctuality.
No portion of his time was ever wasted, and he resented the
carelessness of those who did not understand the value
of minutes.
Besides the services he performed with respect to the Cod-
rington Library, and the recovery of the Duke of Wharton's
gift, the College, and indeed all English institutions which
gave preference to Founder's Kin, received the greatest benefit
from Blackstone's legal ability. His famous Treatise on
Consanguinity, prompted by College experiences, was the
means of procuring, what had long become necessary, an
authoritative settlement of the number of Fellows to whom
the College should be obliged to give the coveted preference.
Finally, as we have said, the College has reason to remem-
ber with pride and pleasure the famous Lectures which
he honoured the College by giving in its new Hall as first
Vinerian Professor, and which, under the form and title
of ( Blackstone's Commentaries,' have been designated as
' perhaps the most correct and beautiful outline that ever was
exhibited of any human science 1 .' Lord Campbell pro-
nounces that ' Bracton had been rivalled by no English
juridical writer till Blackstone arose, five centuries after-
wards ' 2 ; ' and that ' after Bacon, Blackstone was the first
practising lawyer at the English bar who in writing paid
the slightest attention to the selection or collocation of
words 3 .'
It would not have been needful even a few years ago
to fortify any eulogy of this great man by the quotation
of authorities ; but reputations die quickly in our day. Per-
haps it has not generally attracted observation that King
1 Life by Archbold in his edition of the Commentaries, 1811.
2 Lives of the Chief Justices, i. 62.
3 Ibid. ii. 566.
xxi.] GEORGE THE THIRD. 403
George the Third must in all probability have owed an im-
portant part of his education to Blackstone 1 . Many problems
in relation to the personal part taken by that Sovereign in the
first half of his reign are still unsolved, and none but the
prejudiced will think them unworthy of attention. The
influences which are chiefly supposed to have been exerted
on his eager and enthusiastic temperament as a youth are
for the most part attributed to Bolingbroke ; but one may
well believe that much was also due to the wise and moderate
writer who has framed the picture of our Constitutional Law
as only a genius, here and there in successive ages, can.
Blackstone indeed declined to read his Lectures to the young
Prince of Wales on the ground that he could not leave his
pupils ; but he sent copies of them to the Prince, and, famous
as they immediately became, they could not but bear fruit
in the mind of one who possessed a far larger fund of
common sense than he obtains credit for in modern days.
Is it not true that he is still viewed almost exclusively
through party spectacles, and chiefly in relation to times
when his intellect had given way as much perhaps from
over-work and responsibility as from any other cause ? We
listen to literary caricatures and jokes bred from the struggles
of recent times ; we forget what Great Britain owed, at
a critical period, to one who reigned in the hearts of his
people.
It may not be amiss here also to follow in the briefest
form Lord Campbell's explanation of the connection between
Blackstone's prolonged Oxford life and his career in the
great world 2 . That residence at Oxford was the happy
1 Blackstone retired to Oxford in 1753, and soon commenced
his lectures, which were largely attended from the first. The first
volume of the Commentaries was published in 1755; the re-
mainder in 1756-1759. In 1758 they were 'read in the form
they now bear.' (Life by Archbold.)
2 Lives of the Chief Justices, ii. 378.
D d 2
404 ALL SOULS AND JUDGE BLACKSTONE. [CHAP.
result of his early failure at the Bar. We read of no difficulties
made by his College as to non-residence while he was
determining his future life in London practice ; but it seems
that his practice was not promising-. His language and
delivery were faulty ; but his merits as a scientific lawyer
did not escape the acute observation of that prince of lawyers,
Murray, afterwards Lord Mansfield. Though Blackstone was
as yet quite unknown to the world, Murray determined to
bring him forward, and persuaded the Duke of Newcastle to
put him into the then vacant office of Regius Professor of
Civil Law at Oxford. The Duke, however, when he found
that the upright young lawyer would make no political en-
gagements, characteristically forgot to fulfil his promise. On
this Murray advised Blackstone to settle in Oxford, and read
law-lectures on his own account. This was the foundation
of his splendid success. This success led Mr. Viner to
establish the Professorship of Common Law for the express
purpose of providing a Chair for Blackstone. On such
trivial circumstances depended a great issue ! Whatever this
great man might have done had he been an ordinary Pro-
fessor of Civil Law, the feeble Duke's unblushing partisan-
ship gave the world Blackstone's Commentaries, and Oxford
a new Professorship !
We ought not to part with Sir William Blackstone with-
out observing that during his Oxford career he by no means
confined his energies within the limits of his College. He
was the ' reformer of the Clarendon Press.' As a Visitor of
the Michel Foundation at Queen's College he organised that
important portion of the institution ; and the street front of
the College, which had long lain in a neglected state, was
mainly by his means brought to its present condition 1 . He
was also Assessor of the Vice-Chancellor's Court, and before
1 Life of Blackstone by Clitherow ; prefixed to Blackstone's
Reports.
XXL] BLACKSTONE' S DEBT TO ALL SOULS. 405
he finally left Oxford for the Judicial Bench, became Principal
of New Inn Hall. How excellently he fulfilled his duties
as a Judge, how the world discovered him to be as wise and
religious a man in office as he had been in private life, may
be gathered from various quarters. We have only space here
to characterise the culture of his mind in the words of his
biographer, who tells us, without exaggeration, that ' there
was hardly any branch of literature with which he was not
acquainted/ and to quote the opinion of a great Judge, Lord
Ellenborough, who was not one of his warmest admirers, but
who admits that Blackstone made the law of England to be
studied in other countries, and thus threw a dignity round
the wisdom of his own 1 .
We can hardly refuse to connect this excellence with Cod-
rington's gift to All Souls. What distinguished this great
man from all his predecessors at the famous English bar?
His philosophical treatment of legal subjects, his splendid
style, the breadth and cultivation of the powers he brought
to bear on his work. Who ever had a finer opportunity
for obtaining these qualities as far as study can assist
great natural capacity than Blackstone possessed in the
course of his preparation of the Codrington Library for
future use?
Two other All Souls lawyers of the same period attained
higher distinction in their profession, but occupy a place very
far below that of Blackstone, Lord Chancellor Talbot and
Lord Chancellor Northington. The first, however, if he had
lived longer, might have attained the highest fame. Lord
Campbell calls him ' a consummate judge V and Lord Stan-
hope speaks of him as ' a man of the highest legal talents, of
unimpeachable character, and of most winning gentleness of
manners 3 / He was Bishop Butler's fast friend and power-
1 Townsend's Lives of Twelve Eminent Judges, i. 383.
2 Lives of the Chancellors, p. 659.
3 Hist, of England, ii. 257.
406 ALL SOULS AND JUDGE BLACKSTONE. [CHAP.
ful patron. The last only requires a word in this place in
connection with Lord Campbell's sweeping- condemnation of
All Souls. The lively imagination of the noble biographer has
attributed young Henley's election at All Souls ' solely to his
convivial talents.' This can hardly be so. Two years after
Gardiner's death there was no doubt a strong convivial
element still left in the College, but we have seen already
that merit tested by examination was by no means dispensed
with. Elections in later times came to be less carefully made ;
but scarcely yet. The Warden's Veto was still a reality on
this point, in spite of the changes made by Tenison and
Wake. Whether, as we are further told, his lordship owed
his ' habitual addiction to conviviality' in later life to the
encouragement he received at his College, may or may not
be true. It can be little more than a guess.
Richard Trevor, who became Bishop of Winchester,
entered the College along with Henley ; and later on the
Register appears the name of Spencer, who followed Duck
in writing a history of Chichele, but in English. The con-
nection of the College with its Founder was still further
illustrated by Dr. Benjamin Buckler, whose name has al-
ready come before us, in the ' Stemmata Chichleiana,' which
has long been known as an important genealogical work.
This was continued (in MS.) in the present century by the
Rev. C. Annesley.
The mention of Buckler's genealogical labours brings us
to the vexed and tedious question of Founder's Kin, the
struggles on which at All Souls may be grouped together
in one short notice in this place. The great Anstiss law-
suit leads the way. Mr. Anstiss was Garter Principal King
of Arms. His son, though of Founder's Kin, failed of
election to All Souls in 1728. This, it will be remembered,
was five years after Archbishop Wake had decided against
the College in favour of Wood, on the ground that the
Statutes which gave preference to Founder's Kin must be
xxi.] FOUNDERS KIN. 407
literally obeyed. But the College had long ceased to con-
sider the Statute obligatory. The theory that the privileges
of Founder's Kin did not extend beyond ten degrees and
a majority of the College once even considered that they
ceased at five degrees had been very commonly held.
During the period of corrupt elections and Royal Mandates
it is obvious that such claims would not be likely to receive
much attention; Warden Jeames on one occasion thought
it his duty to veto an election by the Fellows which excluded
a candidate who claimed on this ground. When the reform
of Sancroft took effect the College would therefore have had
to retrace its steps if it elected Founder's Kin whenever they
presented themselves, and this it was naturally most un-
willing to do.
Hence, partly, the exasperation with Archbishop Wake when
he insisted on Wood's election ; and the College now alleged
a special reason for refusing Anstiss which the father would
by no means tolerate. It was that the son was already in
possession of a patent place and pension under Government,
which incapacitated him by Statute. By means of the War-
den's Veto the election devolved on the Visitor, to whom Mr.
Anstiss appealed, and from whom he claimed the nomination
of his son. In order to meet the argument of incapacity,
having failed to prove that the pension in question was not
of the sort contemplated in the Statutes, he took ground
which had not been heard of since the days of York and
Lancaster. He maintained that there had been all along a
mistake as to the real Founder of the College. It was not
Archbishop Chichele, but Henry the Sixth, as the grantor
of the Alien Priories, and as having been formally invested
with the College property by the Archbishop. A place under
the Crown would not invalidate a candidate for a Royal
Fellowship. The Visitor easily disposed of this flimsy argu-
ment ; but the College was so thoroughly offended that, when
another son stood for a Fellowship in 1/32, he also was
408 ALL SOULS AND JUDGE BLAGKSTONE. [CHAP.
rejected. Anstiss, now furious, charged the Visitor and the
College with direct perjury, and printed so many elaborate
books and papers on the subject as to suggest the idea of
a vast amount of leisure in his official situation. He was
an intimate friend of Hearne's, and found sympathy in the
breast of that hater of All Souls. ' Oaths,' says Hearne,
speaking of this case, and not forgetting the Revolution, ' are
become too feeble to bind, and the notion of Judgment is
a scarecrow 1 / It certainly does not appear why, if Wood
was to be forced on the College because he was of Founder's
Kin, the younger Anstiss should not have been forced
likewise.
No immediate effect was produced by this explosion ; but
public attention was called to the matter, and it led
to the scientific consideration of the question at large. For
the present the College, being left to itself, pursued its usual
plan of only occasionally electing one who claimed as Founder's
Kin. For the first half of the eighteenth century there are
but twelve such elected out of 130 Fellows, and two of these
are of the Bathurst family, which appears more frequently on
the roll than any other in the history of the College. No
doubt the principle had practically been long established that
'the Founder could never have intended to fill the College
with one blood to the exclusion of all other learned and
deserving candidates ; ' and as yet candidates came freely in
for election. In 1724 there were sixteen candidates for five
vacancies, which were all filled up by the unanimous vote
of the Fellows, and in 1725 there were, as always, a great
many candidates 2 .
The experience of other Colleges was brought to bear
upon All Souls. New College had been harassed by the
same difficulties. The decision long before arrived at by
1 Diary, 135. 116; cf. 55. 24.
2 Hearne's Diary, 105. 29 ; no. 34.
XXL] THE CORNWALLIS SETTLEMENT. 409
the Visitor of that institution justified All Souls in its
conduct. In that case it had been decided that out of the
whole number of seventy Fellows the number of eighteen
Founder's Kin should be the limit. Blackstone's conclusive
Treatise, shewing how the blood became worn out after a
certain number of generations, was soon established as a
standard authority on the side of restriction ; while at the
same time the rush made by Founder's Kin for All Souls
Fellowships from and after the year 1762 rendered the
Visitor's interference necessary. A great change came over
the College. For many years after that date the elections
are made wholly, or all but wholly, out of candidates who
claim on this ground. Out of the fifty-eight Fellows elected
in twenty years, thirty-nine are of Founder's Kin. But
Archbishop Cornwallis now rules (in 1777), under Black-
stone's advice, that the number of ten Fellows of Founder's
Kin should be the limit, which the College might indeed, if it
pleased, exceed, but more than which it was not obliged to
elect. The proof of kinship was also no longer to be neces-
sarily strictly legal, but such as to satisfy the electors in their
consciences, a proviso which seems to have chiefly grown
out of a sense of the injustice done to two grandsons of
Warden Gardiner, named Whalley, whose case was admitted
to be clear after they had lost their election.
This authoritative interpretation of the Statutes checked
the almost exclusive election of these candidates in a very
marked manner for a time ; but early in the present century
the preference came again to be shown almost as decidedly as
in the twenty years which resulted in Cornwallis' decision. It
had now become the fixed desire of the College itself to elect
Founder's Kin, and the practice fell in with some of its old
traditions. The fact is that since the number of families
which could claim from the Founder kept on multiplying
in geometrical progression, there came to be by this time a
considerable choice among candidates from these families
410 ALL SOULS AND JUDGE BLACKSTONE.
alone, a large proportion of which had been placed in the
ranks of the peerage in the eighteenth century.
Lastly, there was a very vigorous attempt made to set
aside Cornwallis' decision, in 1793, by Mr. John Whalley
Master, of Brasenose. The two Scotts, afterwards Lords
Eldon and Stowell, and other eminent counsel, were retained
on either side ; but the Visitor confirmed his predecessor's
judgment, and we hear no more of the subject. That,
perhaps, will not be matter of regret on the part of the
reader of these pages.
CHAPTER XXII.
1792-1874.
Ancient and modern All Souls The University Commission of
1852 The Eighteenth Century a period of Stagnation The
modern Wardens Distinguished Men of Modern Times
Bishops Heber and Stuart All Souls Burgesses for the Uni-
versity.
IT may be some excuse for the presumption involved in
undertaking- to sketch the history of All Souls that, without
some such narrative as the above, it is not easy to give
an intelligible answer to the question so often asked,
Why does the College present such an entire contrast to
every other Collegiate institution, not only in Oxford or
Cambridge, but in the world? Even the members of the
College are often fain to be content with the reply, ' It has
always been so.' And yet the early history of the Foundation
is well enough known to suggest some doubts on the subject.
But then, again, the mere fact of transition from medieval
manners and ecclesiastical functions so as to become an
institution suited to modern wants, affords no explanation,
since scores of similar institutions have done the same, and
yet are wholly different from All Souls.
The course of our narrative has shewn that the germ of
this peculiar and distinct modern character is to be found
4 1 2 CONCL USION. [CHAP.
in the provision made by the Founder, an experienced
statesman, for the service of the State by a portion of his
Fellows. His body of 'Jurists' were intended to be a
nursery of apt officers for purposes both of Church and
State. Even the ' Artists/ the larger portion of the Fel-
lows, were intended not only to study at Oxford or re-
plenish the ranks of the parochial clergy, but also to be
professional men, such as physicians. At least so it was
ruled in very early times. Thus while All Souls, before the
Reformation, was more remarkable than others for its con-
nection with the functions of a quasi-chantry, it was also
peculiarly devoted to pursuits which soon grew to be exclu-
sively secular. After the Reformation we have observed a
strong development of the educational element, extending,
beyond the limits of the body of Fellows, to poor scholars
within, and to grammar scholars without the College. All
other Colleges except New College and All Souls felt this
educational movement so strongly that they became at once,
some more, some less, what they are now ; but from various
circumstances it took no abiding hold of All Souls. Even
the earnest religious revival of the early Stuart period failed
to effect more than to strike a fairly even balance between
the secular and strictly clerical portions of the College Society.
During the period of the later Stuarts the secular element
prevails. The Public Service and the Bar draw off so large
and influential a portion of the Fellows, and Non-residence be-
comes so common under the system of Dispensations, that it
becomes necessary to refer the whole question to the Visitors,
Archbishops Tenison and Wake. It is to their decision that
we turn for an answer to the question as to the condition
of All Souls since the Accession of the House of Hanover.
As they left the College, so it has, on all substantial points,
remained. They were called upon to deal with every portion
of the constitution of All Souls. Its prevailing lay character,
the Non-residence of the Fellows, and the neglect to under-
XXIL] SETTLEMENT OF ANNE'S REIGN. 413
take, or rather resume, educational functions, must be laid
at their doors.
To say this is not necessarily to blame those Visitors. They
found a prolonged history and numerous precedents placed
before them, and the question argued by consummate lawyers.
The peace of the College seemed to require that it should
be left to deal with these matters as it pleased. Nor did
they perhaps contemplate the full effect of their decisions,
the full consequence of their making it impossible for any
Warden to interfere effectively in the future.
Nor, again, could subsequent changes have been easily in-
troduced, had they been ever so desirable. Successive gene-
rations of Fellows found an ever-increasing, compact body
of custom and precedent raised as a barrier against any
organic change after such a settlement as Tenison's and
Wake's. Still more, they found themselves part of a system
provided for them in a very marked and elaborate manner
by Clarke and the other public-spirited men of Queen Anne's
reign, a system which took a wholly different direction
from that of the education of youth. The restoration, im-
provement, and enlargement of the College due to those
men never included rooms for Undergraduates, or even
any revival of the limited educational function developed
in Elizabethan and early Stuart times. Such a thing seems
never to have been thought of. We meet with no single
trace of the idea either in their correspondence or in their
bequests. Dr. Clarke, by providing for the educational de-
velopment of Worcester College, but not for his own, which
he yet loved so well, spoke with practical eloquence on the
other side. Blackstone's influential career gave permanence
and solidity to the plans of his predecessors.
The notion of these men was to elevate and improve what
was already existing ; to make All Souls a real ' Temple of
the Muses,' as they loved to call it ; to provide for the
pursuit of learning, the cultivation of professional excellence,
414 CONCLUSION. [CHAP,
the material comfort and elegance of the College life, the
occasional enjoyment, at the stated College gatherings, of
the Non-resident Fellows. They looked to that future con-
nection between Oxford and London which had so long ob-
tained, to the continued employment of the Fellows in the
Public Service and the Bar, as well as in Holy Orders. They
looked, in short, to National or Professional usefulness rather
than the training of young men. They made no allow-
ance for the change which had deprived the early years of
the Fellows of that educational character which was origin-
ally a part of the system, and did not care to revive the
idea by the adoption of ' Scholars' or other Undergraduates
into the Society. That might be very well for other Col-
leges. All Souls should treat its Fellows after the modern
system. At the same time it should make no attempt to fill
up the educational void !
Hence it came to pass that All Souls remained in statu
quo when even New College, which, from its great body of
Fellows, had up to our own times excused itself from adopting
the general customs of the University, at last threw open
its splendid courts for the general education of Under-
graduates.
This then is the history of the subject. It was this history
with which the University Commissioners of 1852 found
themselves confronted. Their Report, and the Evidence they
took, have been long before the public. From an inspection
of those authoritative sources of information it will be seen
that the College had come to be comparatively poor, that
its Fellows were receiving considerably less than j^ioo a
year, and that no great improvement could be expected till
the system of Fines and Renewals, then pursued in the
University, could be gradually superseded by the more
profitable system of letting landed property, already general
elsewhere. The Warden of that day, it will be observed,
reported strongly against any change whatever, however
XXIL] THE UNIVERSITY COMMISSION. 415
slight, in the educational direction. The Commissioners
viewed the case much as he did. They decided against any
organic change, any further alteration than the suppression
of a portion of the Fellowships for the foundation of new
Professorships ; and the Ordinances which followed upon
their Report confirmed their recommendation. Ten Fellow-
ships were suppressed to found two ' Chichele Professorships/
one of International Law, and the other of Modern History ;
the election being placed in the hands of a Board consisting
of the Visitor, the Lord Chancellor, the Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs, the Judge of the Admiralty Court, and
the Warden of the College. No limitation of time was
imposed upon the tenure of Fellowships ; but the Fellows
were to be elected only from among candidates who had
either taken a First Class in one of the Public Examina-
tions, or obtained a University Prize or Scholarship. The
functions of the College as a place of ' religion and learning '
were to be recognised in their selection, and all other re-
strictions implied or expressed, snch as those relating to age,
place of birth, possession of income, obligation to take Holy
Orders, or Founder's Kin, were abolished. The Examina-
tions for these Fellowships were to be in 'subjects recog-
nised in the School of Law and Modern History.'
It will therefore be seen that the reform of the Com-
missioners, rightly or wrongly, proceeded strictly on the lines
of Queen Anne's time. The encouragement of a new School
in the University which seemed to represent as nearly as
possible the ancient direction given to the pursuits of the
Fellows, was made the most prominent feature of their
scheme. Such eminence in legal and historical acquirements
as could be expected from young men, tested both in the
University and in the College Examinations, was to be
recognised by the prize of a Fellowship ; such pursuit of
these subjects in after life was to be stimulated as mutual
assistance and rivalry, the resources of a great library, and
416 CONCLUSION. [CHAP.
the unexpressed obligation due to the connection with a
great historical institution, could promote. Once more it
must be remarked that no opinion is offered here on the
question whether all was done to increase the usefulness of
the College that might have been done by the Commis-
sioners, or as to any further reforms, whether of the same
or a different kind, which may have become desirable since
the improvement of the College property has commenced.
That would be improper. The object of these pages is to
illustrate four centuries of English History by a sketch of
the history of one of the numerous factors of English national
life. Towards the reform or improvement of that noble
inheritance of national life to which the men of to-day have
succeeded nothing can be effectually done without a thorough
knowledge of the past, and a calm, judicial consideration
of the whole of the facts of every case as they bear upon
the present and future.
Having thus noticed from the historical point of view
the general settlement of the position of All Souls, a very
few words will be sufficient as to its history in modern
times. It cannot be said, that the modes of election described
in the last chapter produced many men of genius or great
distinction; but it is only fair to remember that the age
itself was not fertile in such till towards the close of the
last century. Nor have other Colleges very much tq boast
of during the eighteenth century. The general stagnation
of all such institutions, till the influences of the French
Revolution and the prolonged wars which followed it affected
every class of society, is notorious enough.
But there can be no doubt that such a period of stagnation
was peculiarly unfavourable to the growth of those habits of
intellectual earnestness and activity which the re-founders of
Queen Anne's time fondly anticipated. They did not, they
could not, foresee that so many years were to elapse before
the old impulses of the seventeenth century were to be revived
xxii.] STAGNATION OF LAST CENTURY. 417
in the nation. Men like Blackstone or Young might fulfil
their idea, but as a rule it remained unfulfilled. Without
educational duties on the one hand, and without on the other
producing a crop of men of high distinction who might
justify the use made of the Founder's bounty, it was natural
that it should come to be regarded from without as a
mere Club, open to envy and detraction by the fact of
its exclusiveness. Thus whatever ground it afforded for
these attacks, it did not obtain even its fair share of credit
for such good work as it did in a quiet and unobtrusive way,
for the excellent Members of Parliament, county magistrates,
clergy, Public Servants, and lawyers it sent forth, or for the
high standard of social cultivation and good manners which
it presented during an age of coarse and boisterous habits
not very far removed from those of the previous century,
while they were less relieved by wit and brilliancy.
It is thus that we may account for the extraordinary
circulation of that gross libel on Chichele's wisdom which
represented the qualification for All Souls Fellowships as
simply that candidates should be ' bene nati, lene vestiti, et
mediocriter docti. ' It is a remarkable instance of the vitality
of a good joke that this clever juxtaposition of certain
words separated from their context, and the invention of
others, should have come to be generally accepted by people
not altogether ill-informed in other matters 1 . The only
authority for ' dene nati 'is ' de legitimo matrimonio nati,'
a common provision in College Statutes ! The words ' bene
vestiti ' are not found at all, but seem to be taken from
the Statute that the Fellows should dress as becomes the
i Lord Campbell, writing of All Souls even as late as 1846, makes
the following remark : ' By the Statutes of this College those to be
elected Fellows are required to be " bene nati, bene vestiti, et medio-
criter docti," but in modern times the Fellows have often been dis-
tinguished for their learning as well as their social qualities.'
Lives of the Lord Chancellors, vol. iv. p. 650.
e
418 CONCLUSION. [CHAP.
Clerical Order, ' sicut eorum honestati convenit clerical^ and
that when in Oxford or its suburbs they should wear the
customary Academical dress. The ' mediocriter docfi,' which
was the unkindest cut of all, as conveying the idea of an
unlearned body of Fellows, was simply obtained by leaving
out the remainder of the original sentence, and even for the
words themselves there is no authority. The expression is
' grammatica svfficienter, et in piano cantu competenler eruditi* \
Whether the prevalence of this witticism did really exercise
in any degree the influence of the old proverb, and the
College, seeing it had obtained a bad name in this respect,
grew to be careless as to examinations during the last half
of the last century and beginning of the present, can only
be matter of conjecture ; but, certainly, several years be-
fore the Commission of 1852, many men of literary merit
or promise were elected, and the writer has been informed
on the best living authority that no instance is known of
any candidate being rejected who had obtained a First Class
in the Public Examinations of the University.
It was at least something that good order and tranquillity
were obtained. As far as can be gathered from the College
records or contemporary literature, the influence of the College
' Mohocks ' of Gardiner's time seems to have died out soon
after his death. When political excitement had subsided and
the game of baiting the Warden was played out, when Non-
residence had become less difficult, and the men who had
kept up the agitation were dead, the better influences of the
College began to prevail. Hearne remarks in 1726 of one of
the Fellows, Sedgwick Harrison, Camden Professor of Ancient
History, a great opponent of Gardiner's, and a follower of
TindaFs, that his ' interest is wholly sunk in the College, as
well as in most other places 1 .' We hear of no disturbances, no
appeals (other than those as to Founder's Kin above-mentioned),
no interferences of any kind. In 1 740 and 1 744 respectively,
1 Diary, 114. 20.
xxii.] THE MODERN WARDENS. 419
the two great friends, Buckler and Blackstone, appeared on
the scene, and gave an excellent tone to the College. The
former was, in his own way, one of the most useful of its
members. The harsh discords of the earlier portion of
the century were completely overpowered. Perhaps it was
discovered that the ' factions ' of past times were not alto-
gether 'gentlemanlike.'
The Wardens who succeeded Gardiner were eminently cal-
culated to preserve the College in a state of tranquillity.
Warden Niblett was the first. In accordance with the then ex-
isting requirements of the Statutes two names were presented
by the College to the Visitor, one of whom he was bound to
select. Custom had almost confined that selection to the
candidate whom the College really preferred, the other being
merely sent up pro forma. The Hon. Dr. Bertie was the
selection of the Fellows, but Wake appointed Niblett on the
ground, it is said, that his competitor, being a man of family,
was sure to obtain preferment, while Niblett was destitute of
a patron. We may believe that Wake had some better reason
than this ; it may have been that Bertie was already Sedleian
Professor of Natural Philosophy ; perhaps some may have
suspected a worse one, some political bias; at any rate the
result justified his selection, for Warden Niblett governed
the College successfully for forty years. His successors, Lord
Tracy, Dr. Isham, the Hon. Edward Leg'ge, who held the
Bishopric of Oxford along with his office, and Warden Sneyd,
faithfully followed in his footsteps.
Once indeed, in 1763, we hear of a complaint against a
Fellow by the Proctor of that year for harbouring some
fugitives from his jurisdiction 1 , and this complaint having
found its way into print, has formed a precedent in Proctorial
law ; but it is not of the slightest historical importance. In
that year Brownlow North entered the College, the future
Bishop of Winchester, and in the next the Hon. Dr. Wenman,
1 Ashmole Tracts, G. 2253.
E e a
420 CONCL USTON. [CHAP.
Regius Professor of Civil Law and Keeper of the Archives,
who makes the eighth Professor of Civil Law from All Souls
out of the first fifteen on the University rolls ; and not
long afterwards Vernon, afterwards Vernon Harcourt, the
future Archbishop of York. In 1799 Sir Charles Vaughan
was admitted, the future Minister Plenipotentiary to the
United States ; and in 1 802 an ornament to the College,
who has left quite lately, even in extreme old age, a sen-
sible gap in the public life of the nation, the Right Honour-
able Stephen Lushington. Two names of this period may be
mentioned together with peculiar reverence, as they bore forth
from All Souls the high cultivation for which it was dis-
tinguished to the farthest borders of the earth as Missionary
Bishops, the Hon. Charles James Stewart and Reginald Heber.
The first was admitted in 1795, and became Bishop of Quebec
in 1826; the last in 1804, becoming Bishop of Calcutta in
1823.
Heber, the delight of his generation, will always take rank
among the best Worthies of All Souls. His brilliant career
is too recent, his excellent Life, by his widow, too well
known, his memory even yet too fresh among living men,
to make this the place for any detailed mention of him.
All that need be quoted here from his Life is the passage
in which he speaks of All Souls. He at least did not
find its atmosphere unfavourable to the highest pursuits. In
1806 he writes :
' With regard to my studies I am now post varios casus set
down to them again in good earnest, and I am delightfully
situated in All Souls ; the very air of the place breathes study.
While I write I am enjoying the luxuries of a bright coal
fire, a green desk, and a tea-kettle bubbling. What should
we have thought of such a situation at Tcherkask or at
Taganrog ? I have just had a long conversation with Bishop
Cleaver about Orders and the course of study and preparation
of mind necessary for them V
1 Life, i. 324.
xxii.] THE TWO MISSIONARY BISHOPS. 421
As a witness from Brasenose of the festivities of the College
at the centenary Mallard Feast we shall summon him in the
Appendix. Traditions of his genial disposition and fund of
elegant and playful humour are still handed down from his
contemporaries. In him they were compatible with the
earnestness of a martyr and the enthusiasm of the scholar.
His excellent edition of Jeremy Taylor was dedicated to
Bishop Legge, his Warden, with ' the sincerest wishes for
the prosperity of the College of Linacre, of Sheldon, of Cod-
rington, of Wren, of Young, and of Jeremy Taylor.'
The fame of Bishop Stewart is of a different kind. He is
only known as one of the most devoted of missionaries who gave
up a life of comfort and elegance at home to labour in Canada.
With unexampled zeal and devotion he worked for many
years in the midst of a poor, scattered population, and then
gradually became the means of exciting the lagging interest
of England in the work of effectually planting the Church
throughout that great colony. In 1826 he was consecrated
Bishop of Quebec. He spent his life and whole fortune in
attempting to overtake the neglect of past years, to work, in
concert with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel,
for the evangelization of the crowds of emigrants who poured
forth from England at that date. In some phases of his
work he seems to have fulfilled Codrington's idea of a visiting
missionary, reporting home the results of his inspection, and
pushing the work of the Church on a careful, well-conceived
system. He died, quite worn out with his labours, in 1837.
Few have left behind a more grateful memory, as several
memoirs of him testify. It is unfortunate that the only
picture the College possesses of so good a man is an un-
finished portrait. It is more happy in the possession of
Heber's well-known picture, which is an excellent likeness,
and of Chantrey's bust of that admirable man.
One more link which connects All Souls with the literary
world at this period must conclude our list. Gutch, the anti-
422 CONCLUSION. [CHAP.
quarian, was Chaplain to the College during a prolonged life,
and made excellent use of his opportunities both in that
capacity and as Registrar of the University. His edition of
Wood is a monument of his industry, and his Collectanea
Curiosa has done good service for the history of All Souls as
well as for other fields of literature. Like Tanner, and, in his
degree, Proast, he has added lustre to an honourable office.
It may be in connection with some of the names we have
mentioned, or it may not, but an interesting fact is ob-
servable from an inspection of the College books at the
beginning of the present century. From that date the
College gifts and charities begin to flow in a most remarkable
manner, considering the resources of the institution. Not
a call seems to have been disregarded. ^ J 2OO are granted
to equip the Oxford Volunteers, ^50 for relief of French
prisoners, j^ioo for the National Society, J^oo for the
Oxford Lunatic Asylum, large sums for the building and
restoring of Oxford churches, for the families of the heroes
slain at Waterloo, for ' distressed Irish,' 'distressed manu-
facturers,' ' promotion of study of mathematics in the Uni-
versity, 1 and larger gifts still to the great Church Societies
at later dates.
But to say even as much as this is to draw somewhat
near our own times ! It reminds us that the task is completed !
It is agreeable to leave off with a record of the generous
habits of the College in generations not very remote. They
are in full accordance with all else that is known of the
College in those times, and with the official remark of
Sir John Taylor Coleridge and his colleagues the Assessors
in 1 86 1 to the Visitor on an Appeal, who notices 'the
harmony for which this distinguished College has been
remarkable.' That upright Judge is not the man to use
words without a meaning.
The connection of the College with the Public Service
and the Bar has been retained to our own days very much
xxn.] SUMMARY OF COLLEGE HISTORY. 423
in the same degree as in previous times, while the clerical
element has somewhat diminished. Quite recently All Souls
afforded at the same moment to the University a Chancellor
and a Vice-Chancellor ; while if one of the two University
Burgesses had not been obliged to relinquish his post from
ill-health just before that date, the College would have had
the unprecedented honour of contributing three of the chief
public officers to whom the interests of the University are
consigned. That burgess, the Bight Honourable Sir
William Heathcote, was the last of the long list of
Members of Parliament for the University who had been
Fellows of All Souls, and certainly not the least respected and
beloved. With the exception of Christ Church, no other Col-
lege has contributed so many in the course of its history.
This sketch of the Worthies of All Souls cannot end with
a better name than Sir William Heathcote's, of whom to
say more, while he is still alive, would be in bad taste. If it
is thought that the list here produced should have been
still longer, if success has not ^ always been commensurate
with the costliness of the machinery, let us not commit
the folly of expecting any human invention to be perfect.
No doubt, as the College through most of its existence
has not professed to be an educational institution for Under-
graduates, it will be judged by the men it has enrolled
on its lists, and cannot complain of criticism on this head.
At the same time it is fair to remember that every one
cannot be distinguished ; and that eminent persons in a
community are to be taken as in some sort typical of the
rest, unless, indeed, they appear only very occasionally, and
as it were accidentally, among their contemporaries. Run-
ning down our narrative and judging by this test, we have
seen All Souls doing as good or better work than other
Colleges during its early days, marching in the van of
the Renaissance, and rising with the Reformation to the
new wants of the age. We have seen it suffering under
424 CONCLUSION.
king's and nobles as well as under its own corruptions, but
gradually emerging 1 , after many a struggle, from those depths.
Meanwhile we watched it as second to none in the Laudian
revival, and under the banners of Charles the First ; then
anon the centre of the nascent Royal Society, the chief
Oxford home of music, the nursery of the legal studies
of its age, and no unworthy partner in the leadership of
the literary race ushered in by the Revolution and ending
with the reign of Queen Anne. It shares the general
somnolence arid exhaustion of the succeeding age, which
oppressed it at the very time when its modern position had
just been definitely established, and when life and vigour
were most needed. We have suggested that its good in-
fluences may even then have been underrated, and noticed
some indications of an increased vitality corresponding to
that which the nation itself experienced in the present
century. This has been happily quickened at least in one
direction by the hand of authority in 1853.
Let us not make too much of what has been done, neither
too little. The best machinery will sometimes run down,
and require winding up or repair. If it is thought that
sufficient time has been given for the last reform to de-
velop itself, and that further measures are required, these
pages may well conclude with the expression of an earnest
hope that such measures of reform may not be unworthy
of the past history of the College, not such as its great
Founder would disapprove if he were still here to adapt his
institution to modern wants, not such as to be inconsistent
with old Sir Anthony Sherley's notion of the ' endes for which
men are brought forth uppon the earth, the principallest
of which is the glory of GOD, and then to better the
world 1 '!
1 p. 100.
APPENDIX I.
(PP- 33 8 ~345)-
CODRINGTON'S bequest reached the Society for the Propa-
gation of the Gospel at the right moment. In 1710 they
were casting about for some means of training missionaries
for the Colonies, and the Bishop of Man had proposed a
plan for ' breeding up young persons ' for this purpose in
his own island ; but the expense deterred the Society. Just
at this moment the death of their benefactor occurred ; and
the very thing they wanted was found to be provided for
in his Will. It was the first donation of importance they
had received, and absolutely the first in land ; great were
the rejoicings of the ' wise and good men ' who directed
their affairs.
But the difficulties, as might be supposed, in utilising
the bequest were also great. The negro slaves were an
essential part of the gift ; but what was to be done with
them ? No time was lost by the Society in sending out
orders that ' their slaves should be used with greater huma-
nity and tenderness than is commonly practised by planters 1 ;'
and a Catechist goes forth at once for their instruction. ' If
all the slaves in America/ said Bishop Fleetwood, ' were to
continue infidels for ever, yet ours alone must needs be
Christians.' Disputes arose also on the part of Codrington's
heir, and in consequence of the unwise conduct of the agents
1 Journal of S. P. G., Feb. 16, 171$.
426 APPENDIX I.
of the S. P. G. l ; and the colonists were suspicious into the
bargain. On the other hand, Queen Anne helped the Society
to the utmost ; she gave them a ' Royal licence for the
foundation/ and the services of Her Majesty's ships were
actively rendered in felling and transporting timber from
the adjacent islands for building the College 2 . The Crown
in those days threw in its lot with a great scheme of
missionary enterprise !
By 1714 the Society is able to state that a 'perpetual
seminary is erecting on those estates which General Cod-
rington like Araunah, as a king, gave to the Society for the
sake of the King his master, and of God, the King of Kings.'
A scheme of Professors and Teachers of the future College
was drawn out in 1717. The inhabitants of the Islands were
to form a native Ministry. The income of the Headship
of the College was to form part of the provision for one
of two West Indian Bishoprics, and two more Bishoprics
were to be formed for the American Continent. To effect
this arrangement as to Bishops, a Petition was drawn up
to George the First; but the effects of the Queen's death
were now apparent enough; no attention could be obtained
for such a request at the new Court.
If the effort could but have been made three years earlier,
how different might have been the course of events both in
East and West ! Could Bishops have been planted along
with the rise of the American Colonies the people of that
Continent, organised ecclesiastically as in England, might
have grown up too much in union with the mother country
to have desired separation, even after abundant provocation
from home ; and, if separation came, it might have been of
a very different kind from that which took place. But as
we cannot know all, such speculations are useless. It remains
that the Society in their proposed application of Codrington's
bequest were just a century in advance of their age !
1 Wake MSS., Ch. Ch. Lib., vol. xv. 2 Ibid.
CODRINGTON COLLEGE. 427
Checked and chilled by the growing coldness of the
nation in religious matters, and opposed in many directions,
it was not till 1742 that the Society had 'the long-wished-
for satisfaction to acquaint the public that they have actually
begun to settle the College in Barbados/ The Chapel was
now opened, and a considerable work was done in the
education of West Indian boys, many of whom became the
clergy of the Islands, and a good example was set in the
care of the little Christian colony of negroes. But hurri-
canes on two different occasions almost destroyed the original
building ; and various misfortunes prevented the establish-
ment of a Training College for Missionaries, till our own
day.
At length a movement took place. Just as Codrington's
age witnessed a reaction from the carelessness of the pre-
ceding period, a reaction which showed itself in an
awakened zeal for the welfare of the West Indian colonists
and heathen, so the movement of our own century, suc-
ceeding an equally unsatisfactory period, found almost its
earliest expression in the revival of religious activity in
the West Indies. It was mainly due to the genius and
energy of Bishop Coleridge. Under his fostering care, and
that of Bishop Parry, and under the guidance of Principals
Pinder and Rawle, the Training College of Christopher Cod-
rington was at last instituted. The College assumed, as
he and they desired, something of ' the character of a Univer-
sity/ After 1830 it gradually began to attain the position of
the Alma Mater of the West India Clergy ; more than ninety
of whom were trained there between that date and 1851.
Not long ago the Christian world was astonished by the
vigour with which an independent mission was planted
from Codrington College on the West Coast of Africa.
The story of the Pongas forms one of the romances of
missionary chivalry. The school for boys is also flourishing,
though no longer the one object of the institution.
428 APPENDIX I.
Even this brief sketch cannot be concluded without calling
attention once more to the remarkable sagacity of the
Founder of Codrington College. Success attends the in-
stitution as soon as it is worked in the form, or nearly in
the form 1 , which he contemplated from the first. The ex-
perience of a whole century in using his bequest only for a
school of boys, which he did not contemplate, since by itself
it would never be made successful, justifies on the other
side the foresight with which he acted. If the age which
succeeded that of Queen Anne, by failing to take up the work
committed to it, has much to answer for, it at least proved
that the previous period produced a man capable of laying
great foundations for the future.
1 See p. 339.
APPENDIX II.
As nothing has been admitted into the preceding pages
which is not either historical or already public, Murray's
' Handbook for Oxford ' must be taken as an authority that
the ceremony of singing the ancient song of ' the Mallard '
at the All Souls Gaudy had not yet died out when the last
edition was printed. The local guide-books also mention the
custom ; and thus a few words on its origin seem necessary.
The reader will have observed a notice of it as far back
as 1632. Nearly two centuries and a half ago Archbishop
Abbot reproves the College for an outrageous riot ' under
pretence of a foolish Mallard.' This is the first mention we
have of it. Fifty years later Finch, the future Warden,
was an enthusiastic actor in a debauch to which the cere-
mony led. Thus far history. Tradition refers it to the
foundation of the College, to the story of an overgrown
Mallard being found in a drain when the foundations were
laid. There is of course no reason why a ceremony of
which we only first hear by an accidental letter in the early
part of the seventeenth century may not date from a much
earlier period. But be this as it may, the actual ' Song of the
Mallard ' does not seem to be of any greater antiquity than
the historical notices above mentioned. This may be gathered
partly from internal and partly from external evidence.
430 APPENDIX II.
In the Tanner MSS. 1 will be found the old copy of the song
which follows, from which have been omitted in this place two
verses, sung no doubt in early times, but not found in modern
copies. The important point is that at the back of the copy
is a note in Anthony Wood's hand, execrably written, but
doubtless his, and found among his papers by Tanner, his
executor. As Tanner enters the copy of the song in his
book with this note, and makes no comment of his own,
though he, as a Fellow of the College, must have frequently
assisted at the ceremony, and would be sure to have an
opinion as to the antiquity of it, he may reasonably be held
to endorse what follows. It may be added that Dr. Buckler,
in his coarse but humorous ' Vindication of the Mallard,'
reproachfully refers to Tanner as one who might have thrown
light on the subject, but omitted to do so. ' He was fre-
quently heard to express great veneration for the Mallard.'
He amusingly makes it a touchstone of orthodoxy. ' The
first marks of infidelity which shewed themselves in the
famous Dr. Tindal were his speaking disrespectfully of the
Mallard.'
THE MALLAKD SONG.
' The Griffin, Bustard, Turkey and Capon
Lett other hungry mortals gape on,
And on their bones with stomach fall hard,
But lett All Souls men have their Mallard.
The Romans once admired a gander
More than they did their best Comander,
Because bee saved, if some don't fooll us,
The place named from the scull of Tolus.
The poets faind Jove turnd a Swan,
But lett them prove it if they can ;
To mak't appeare it's not att all hard,
Hee was a swapping, swapping Mallard.
1 Vol. 306. fol. 378.
THE ALL SOULS MALLARD. 431
Then lett us drink and dance a Galliard
In the rememhrance of the Mallard,
And as the Mallard doth in poole
Lett's dabble, dive, and duck in bowle.
The refrain is absent from this copy, but in all others
which are known the following words occur at the end of
each verse :
'0 by the blood of King Edward,
O by the blood of King Edward,
It was a swapping, swapping Mallard ! '
The third line of the third verse was also much improved
quite a century and a half ago, as follows :
' As for our proof it's not at all hard.'
Wood's note is as follows :
' 14 Jan. at night, used formerly to be called All Souls
Mallard night, that is, I suppose, no other than the Feast
night. For that day those candidates they had chosen on
All Souls day going before were admitted, and that day or
soon after the Probationers for the year before going were
admitted Fellows. Those that were thus to be admitted
Fellows were brought from their chambers in the middle of
the night (having neither gown or band on) sometimes on
a bent staff, and so led in the Hall and about the College,
before whom some of the Junior Fellows (sometimes dis-
guised) would sing a song in praise of the Mallard. This
following I take to be made much about the restauration
of Ch. 2.'
The handwriting and spelling of the song is doubtless
about the period assigned to it by Wood in this note, though
the note itself was written later. It will be seen l that
among the dishes served up in the College Hall in 1618
two of those considered worthy of a Feast were Capon and
Bustard, dishes which find a place, along with the fabulous
1 P- 154-
432 APPENDIX II.
Griffin, in the first line of the song ; but the Bustard did
not disappear from table till later than this, so that it does
not afford us much clue. The structure of the song- would
certainly suggest a date quite as early as the ' Restau ration,'
if not as early as the jovial days of Elizabeth or James the
First.
But though the existing song may not be older than the
historical notice of the ceremony, it is quite possible that
there was ' a song in praise of the Mallard ' much, earlier ;
and it is possible that the custom of singing ' canti-
lena?,' which the Statutes, as we have seen, encouraged on
Feast Days, and which, after the Reformation, doubtless
fell into disuse in their ancient form, may have led the way
for a modernised drinking-song in honour of an ancient
tradition.
The most mysterious part of the song points to antiquity.
How came ' the blood of King Edward ' to be introduced
into its refrain ? No one has yet ventured to interpret
this mock-solemn oath. Pointer, in the first draught of his
Oxoniensis Academia (now in the Bodleian Library), wrote
' Edward IV, who refounded the College,' against the word ;
but he subsequently erased it. It is just possible that King
might be intended. His name comes down to us in popular
ballads, but it is scarcely likely that the King who deposed
and perhaps murdered the Co-founder and godson of the
Founder, and the Founder was always held in the highest
reverence by the College, should be thus noticed only because
he restored, in return for a sum of money, what he had unjustly
seized. The murder of his son, Edward the Fifth, might
seem to afford a more likely clue, and the Lancastrian College
might recognise in this manner the retribution which had at
last overtaken the enemies of their Founder's dynasty. But
this seems almost too ingenious. Either Henry the Sixth
or Edward the Confessor might well have been introduced as
a popular King or Saint, but it is neither ' Saint Edward '
THE ALL SOULS MALLARD. 433
nor ' King Henry.' Edward the Sixth was the last person
likely to be intended. We can see no particular reason for
Edward the Second or Edward the Third, except that the
former was, like Edward the Eifth, murdered ; but why
should the College commemorate him ? We come, by a
process of exhaustion, to Edward the First, whose exploits
and death form the subject of several historical ' eantilenae,'
one of which is given by Warton in his History of Poetry.
The 'good King Edward' was to Englishmen of the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries the embodiment of all that was kingly,
knightly, noble, and national. Scotch historians had not
as yet blasted his fame, nor Humes and Hallams echoed
their slanders. His name, introduced into some early form
of the song, when it may well have been the natural one
in the common oaths and asseverations of the day, may
have been perpetuated in the modern form without any one
exactly knowing why.
However, this can be only conjecture. No such oath is
found on record in medieval times, and there may be no real
foundation for any very great antiquity in the song.
Hearne also gives a copy of the song, slightly modernised,
and the refrain differing from the usual form by the omission
of the form of an oath : ' O the bloude of King Edward.'
This much distressed the antiquarian. He remarks in a note :
' It should be " O' by the Bloude, &c." 'Twas changed
by the ffanaticks in the late Rebellion, who forsooth were
enemies to oaths 1 .' But tempting as the subject must have
been to Hearne, he makes no attempt at solving any of
the problems connected with the ceremony.
It is more to our purpose to remark that the ancient
tradition about the discovery of the Mallard is thought to
be so far borne out by the nature of the ceremony at an
early date, that it consisted of a pretended search for the
1 Rawlinson MSS. C. 876. 59.
v f
434 APPENDIX II.
creature in different parts of the College, even on the leads,
by a torch-bearing procession, headed by an elected ' Lord
Mallard,' and six officers appointed by him ' with white
staves in their hands and medals banging upon their
breasts, tied with large blue ribband. Upon the medals is
cut on the one side the Lord Mallard with his officers,
and on the other the Mallard as he is carried upon a long
pole.' The Senior Fellows had to pay a crown by way of
forfeiture for not assisting at the ceremony, and the orgies
lasted ' till daybreak.' This is from ' an ancient MS.,' which
describes the orgies with great minuteness, and will be
found in Alderman Fletcher's handwriting in that anti-
quarian's illustrated copy of Gutch's Wood, in the Bod-
leian. So gross an abuse of what may have been an
innocent old ceremony smacks strongly of the Stuart period.
It probably, like ' corrupt resignations/ defied the hand of
Visitors and Wardens till the improvement of manners
reduced it to the mere ceremonious singing of the song,
by way of not parting altogether with antiquity, at the
Gaudy on All Souls' Day.
The question of the day on which the ceremony took place
is itself a curious one. Wood, it will be observed, speaks
of January 14, and gives a good reason for the selection,
but the 'ancient MS.' says 'the time is always within a night
or two of All Souls/ Hearne, on the other hand, agrees
with Wood. Writing on January 1 8, 1722, he says:
' Last Monday the I4th inst. (the T4th being always the
day) was All Souls College Mallard, at which time 'tis usual
with the Fellows and their friends to have a supper and to sit
up all night drinking and singing. Their song is the Mallard,
and formerly they used to ramble about the College with sticks
and poles, &c., in quest of the Mallard, and they had a Lord of
the Mallard, but this hath been left off many years. They
tell you the custom arose from a swinging old Mallard that
had been lost at the foundation of the College and found many
years after in the sink V
1 Diary, 95. 98.
THE ALL SOULS MALLARD. 435
Elsewhere he describes the legend thus :
f The Mallard was found in the sink when the workmen
were repairing- it. It had continued there for several years, I
think almost from the first foundation of the College for about
2O years current or more V
Bishop Heber, who was soon afterwards to become a Fellow
of All Souls, and so to assist at subsequent Gaudies, witnessed
the following scene in his second term of residence at Brase-
uose, and thus graphically describes it :
'Oxford, Jan. 15, 1801.
I write under the bondage of a very severe cold which I
caught by getting out of bed at four in the morning to see
the celebration of the famous All Souls mallard feast. All
Souls is on the opposite side of Ratcliffe Square to Brazen
Nose, so that their battlements are in some degree commanded
by my garret. I had thus a full view of the Lord Mallard and
about forty fellows in a kind of procession on the' library roof,
with immense lighted torches, which had a singular effect. I
know not if their orgies were overlooked by any uninitiated
eyes except my own ; but I am sure that all who had the gift
of hearing within half a mile, must have been awakened by
the manner in which they thundered their chorus, " O, by the
blood of King Edward." I know not whether you have any
similar strange customs in Cambridge, so that perhaps such
ceremonies as the All Souls' mallard, the Queen's boar's head,
&c. will strike you as more absurd than they do an Oxford
man; but I own I am of opinion that these remnants of
Gothicism tend very much to keep us in a sound consistent
track ; and that one cause of the declension of the foreign
universities was their compliance in such points as these with
the variation of manners V
The tradition of the College is that the elaborate ceremonial
Heber witnessed in 1801, and which Hearne reports in 1722
as having been 'formerly used/ has, in modern times, only
taken place once in the first year of each century. Thus
January 14, 1801, would be the proper day according to the
old style; and the totally independent authority of Wood,
1 Rawlinson MSB. C. 876. 59.
2 Life of Heber, by his Widow, p. 25.
F f 2
436 APPENDIX TI.
Hearne, and Heber, to which Tanner by silence gives con-
sent, must be taken as superior to that of the anonymous
'ancient MS.' of Alderman Fletcher. The medal struck upon
the occasion of the ceremonial in 1801 exactly answers to the
description given above. The Lord Mallard and his six officers
are represented in gowns and full-bottomed wigs, with staves
in their hands ; while on the obverse is seen the Mallard-
bearer with a staff, on the flat head of which the Mallard
stands in pomp. Why the beginning of a century should
be the year chosen to commemorate an event supposed to
have taken place when the College was founded in 1437,
has never yet been explained.
Indeed there are so many mysteries about this Mallard
that, even at the risk of being classed by some future Buckler
with Matthew Tindal, the writer of these pages cannot
forbear to offer a rationalistic interpretation of his own,
or rather a joint one of his own and a learned officer of
the Bodleian, both being simultaneously struck with the
idea. There is an impression of a seal given in the said
Alderman Fletcher's copy of Anthony Wood which was
the cause of the temptation. This seal represents a griffin,
a creature with four legs, outstretched wings, a long curly tail,
and vulture-beak, half-beast, half-bird. The legend is this :
S. Guil. Malardi clici or (when expanded), Sigillum Guil-
lielmi Malardi Clerici. The character of the letters is of the
thirteenth century. Underneath this seal Alderman Fletcher
has written : ( Impression of a seal found by some workmen
in digging a drain on the site of All Souls College east-
ward of the Warden's lodgings.' There is no hint that
it could be supposed to have anything to do with the
legendary Mallard ; nor perhaps has it. But in the entire
absence of all authority for the discovery of a Mallard in
a drain when the College was founded, may we not imagine
it possible that this seal, found in a drain, of a certain
Malard, clerk, with a nondescript animal for a device, may
THE ALL SOULS MALLARD. 437
have prompted some wit of the College to invent a real
Mallard found in a drain, and make a song upon it in
which a griffin is the first word? The antiquity of the
letters may have suggested the name of Edward the First,
the great king of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, as
said above. Thus we could account for our hearing nothing
of the legend till the seventeenth century a somewhat sus-
picious fact in itself. In the beginning of that, or end of the
preceding age, Warden Hoveden was digging about plentifully,
' eastward of the Warden's lodgings.' The structure of the
song would fit in with that late Elizabethan or Jacobean
period.
At any rate, if any one can give a better guess let him
try his hand !
INDEX.
Abbas (Shab of Persia), p. 102, 103.
Abendon (William of), 2.
Abingdon (Earls of), 284, 297, 298, 380.
Adam de Broine (co-Founder of Oriel),
9. 27-
Addison (the poet), 327, 336, 344, 345,
348.
Agincourt (Battle of), 2, 34, 316.
Aldrich (Dean of Ch. Ch.), 323, 344,
385-
Alien Priories, 14, 23, 33.
All Souls College, founded, i, 8. 9, 10;
idea and objects of the Foundation,
9 ; Charter, 9, 15, 24, 28 ; Jurists at,
(see 'Lawyers'); Title of, 10 ; a
peculiar and distinct Foundation, 10,
411, 423; Statutes of, I, 12, 23,
45, 46, 68, 73, 106, 109, 128, 132, 135,
144, 146, 148, 171, 187, 242, 243,
259, 269, 270, 278, 280, 290, 300,
312, 351, 352, 354, 355, 359, 360,
383, 407, 417 ; light thrown by its
foundation on Chichele's career and
character, 15-23 ; Chapel, 15, 30,
68, 69, 151, 152, 153, 234, 235, 236,
364, 365 ; Reredos in Chapel, 32, 89,
150, 234; 'Altar or Lord's Table,"
?2, 89, 150; monks and friars excluded
from, 23, 57, 58; Computus, 26 ; cost
of foundation, 27; King made co-
Founder of, 27 ; first Fellows of, 29 ;
first Warden of, 30 ; Charter of Privi-
leges, 31 ; a place of pilgrimage, 31 ;
' pardoned ' by Edward IV, 33 ;
robbed by Archbishops, 34 ; a me-
morial of Agincourt, 34 ; petitions
Henry VII, 35 ; refuses loan to
Henry VII, 36 ; royal attempts on
Fellowships of, 37 ; letter from Prince
Arthur to, 38 ; Archives, 38, 53,
94 ; confratres and consorores, e.g.
Nuns of Syon, 42; condition of
Fellows in, and management of Col-
lege property, 44, 45, 46 ; old Library,
47 ; distinguished men at Renaissance,
48-53 ; Livings not to be held with
All Souls College :
Fellowships, 54 ; rapid succession to
Fellowships, and to office of Warden,
55 ; why spared at Reformation, 56-
58 ; renounces Papal Supremacy, 59,
60; the five chief Wardens, 61 ;
Cranmer's Visitation, 62; Corrupt
" v Elections at, 62, 83, 107, 130, 131,
132, 147, 209-213, Chaps, xiv, xv,
311, 3i4,-38i,407, 424 ; in the hands
of Edward VI's Commissioners, 68-
73 ; organs and organist, 69, 70, 71 ;
bells, 71 ; dress of Fellows, 63, 71,
109, 148, 417; improvements under
Warner, 82 ; struggle on 'monu-
ments of superstition,' 83-88 ; settle-
ment by Queen Elizabeth, Parker,
and Hoveden, 83-96; great men at,
96-104; increasing luxury at, 109;
Whitgift's Visitation at, 108-110;
surplus income, its history, 110-114 '>
Poor Scholars at, 115, 116, 159; the
Warden's Veto, 108, 266, 354, 362,
378, 413; lawsuits, no, 274, 276,
279,282,382,383, 406-410; grammar-
schools, 115; close contact with Kings
and Primates in seventeenth century,
118; feasting at, 63, 108, 123, 155,
431-435; 'pretence of a mallard,'
1 26 ; relations of, with James I and
Abbot, 126-139; school of Laud
triumphant in, 141, 142 ; under Shel-
don, 142-255 ; the four Chaplains
to Charles I at, 119, 178 ; the 'Age
of Iron' at, 155, 156 ; charities, 156,
1 66, 422; comparison with other
Colleges, 159, 160, 161 ; income of
College, 1 60, 414; income of Head-
ship, 160; insult to All Souls, 164;
Nixon's aid in the case, 164; plate
and money sent to Charles I, 165-
174; letters from Charles I, 165,
I 7> I 75! Treasury clean swept,
172; Custodes Jocalium, 172; the
Founder's Salt, 172; during the siege
of Oxford, 176, 177, 178; after the
440
INDEX.
All Souls College :
surrender, 181-186; Sheldon's expul-
sion, 183-186; Cromwell at, 188;
'Submitters' among Fellows and
servants, 188-192 ; gloomy state of,
193 ; superior Fellows put in by
Visitors, 194, 195; Physical Science
flourishes at, 195: Royal Society
chiefly formed at, 196; RoyalistFellow
of, 201; struggle of, with Visitors, 20 1 -
213 ; reported to Cromwell, 210, 21 1,
212; allowed free elections, 207;
last Oxford trouble to Cromwell
from, 213; royalist mob at, 214;
at the Restoration, 217; Wren's
connection with, 229-236; a centre
of music, 237 ; suffers under Charles
II and Duke of Orrnond, 243, 244,
245 ; origin of preference for birth,
248 ; struggle of Fellows with San-
croft, Chaps, xiv and xv; examina-
tions for Fellowships, 267, 268 ;
effects of Bancroft's victory, 283 ;
boisterous loyalty of, 284 ; Finch
and the Wardenship, 289-292; the
Volunteers at, against Monmouth,
299, 300, 301 ; accepts James IPs
Mandate, 299 ; favours the Revo-
lution, 306 ; superior set of Fellows at,
314; Clarke's useful career at, 314-
318 ; Tanner's useful career at, 319-
322 ; Codrington's connection with,
326-337 ; miniature picture of nation,
348, 349 ; Gardiner's efforts to reform,
351-382 ; its lay character, and non-
residence at, 353, 354, 355, 356, 363,
412; Public Servants at, 315, 356,
357. 3 62 ' 363. 4 12 > 422, 423; Teni-
son's Visitation of, 361, 362 ; second
'restoration ' of Chapel, 363, 364, 365 ;
Hearne's hatred of, 248, 371, 372 ;
Wake's Visitation of, 377-382; ap-
peal against, re Founder's Kin, 382,
383 ; consecration of a Bishop at,
385; Codrington Library at, 388-391 ;
busts of College Worthies, 390 ; new
buildings at, 393-398 ; an arena for
religious controversy, 399, 400;
Blackstone's identification with, 400-
406 ; settlement of Founder's Kin
controversies, 407-410; idea of
modern College fixed in Anne's reign,
411-414; reform of Commissioners of
1852, 414, 415; stagnation in eight-
eenth century, 416-420; Missionary
Bishops from, 420, 421 ; review of
history, 423, 424.
Ambrose (St.), one of the ' four Latin
Fathers,' 32.
America, 99, 425.
Andre (Bernard), 39, 40.
Andrewes (Bp.), 121.
Annesley (Fellow of All Souls), 406.
Anstiss (Garter King of Arms), 406,
407, 408.
Antigua (Island of), 325, 332.
Archbishops of Canterbury : -
Abbot, follows Whitgift as to govern-
ment of All Souls, 107 ; in relation
to Surplus, 112; position as to
doctrine, 122 ; patron of Puritans,
125; general government of All
Souls, 127-134; high character, and
ill-treatment by Charles I, 137, 138;
fall of power led to rise of Laud, 141;
encourages College to buy livings,
112, 154; unpopular with junior
Fellows, 155 ; imposition of oath,
127-131, 261, 264 ; resistance to
James I, 137, 290; a persecuted
Primate, 304 ; connection with Song
of Mallard, 1 26, 429.
^Elphege (St.), 304.
Anselm, a persecuted Primate, 304.
Augustine (St.), 18, 304.
Bancroft, repeals prohibition against
lawyers going to London for prac-
tice, 106 ; on the Surplus, in ;
school of, 1 20; sycophancy of,
121, 134; reforms in University
and All Souls, 123, 124, 125.
Becket, a persecuted Primate, 304.
Bowrchier, suspected of having taken
property from All Souls, 34.
Chichele, Founder of All Souls, I ;
University benefactor, 8 ; founds
St. Bernard's and Higham Ferrers,
8; his education, 12; career, 13,
14; policy as to French war, 15-
18 ; policy as to Papacy, 18-21 ;
Supporters to arms of, 22 ; sum-
mary of character, 22, 23; bust,
pictures, monument, 23; his archi-
tects, 31.
Cornu-allif, gives judgment on Foun-
der's Kin, 409.
Cranmer, his influence at All Souls,
58 ; his Visitation, 62-64; tenta-
tive reforms, 63 ; sends to College
for a Demy-Launce, 65 ; not one
of Edward VI's Commissioners, 68 ;
martyrdom, 76 ; a persecuted Pri-
mate, 304.
Grindal, his decisive action as to
lawyers at All Souls, 105, 106; a
persecuted Primate, 304.
Juxon, becomes Primate, and dies,
INDEX.
441
Archbishops of Canterbury :
Kemp, takes precedence when Car-
dinal-Archbishop of York over
Archbishop of Canterbury, 21 ; sus-
pected of having taken property
from All Souls, 34.
Lanfranc, 304.
Langton, 304.
Laud, on the College Surplus, 112,
113; his school, 1 20; leader of
opposition to Abbot, 123; genesis
of Laudian polity, 120, 121, 122;
unpopularity with middle classes,
125 ; influence at All Souls and at
Court, 141, 142, 156; intrudes
Jeremy Taylor on All Souls, 143-
148; refi.rms at All Souls and of
the Church generally, 148, 149,
150, 151 ; Sheldon's opposition to,
147, 175; cropping of Prynne's
ears, 1 85 ; Birkhead reclaimed from
Rome by, 190; Duppa his chief
agent at Oxford, 223; sense in
which he signed the Articles, 253 ;
a persecuted Primate, 304.
Moore, confirms his predecessor's
judgment on Founder's Kin, 409.
Morton, noticed in Prince Arthur's
letter, 39.
Parker, resumes independence of
English Church, 21 ; settles the
Elizabethan Establishment, 78, 88,
90 ; struggle with All Souls on
'monuments of superstition,' 83-
88 ; Injunctions and letters to All
Souls, 83, 89, 90; his Chaplain
Warden of All Souls, 93 ; effort
to establish Scholars at All Souls,
n 6 ; his doctrines, 120; his great-
ness, 366.
Pole, donor to All Souls Library, 47 ;
pupil of Latymer, 50; commences
Papist reaction, 74; his Chaplain
Warden of All Souls, 75 ; his
official style, 76; gives Stanton
Harcourt to All Souls, 95 ; death, 77.
Rich, a persecuted Primate, 304.
Sancroft, success in abolishing cor-
rupt elections at All Souls, 83, 107,
130, 131, 132, 242; his struggle
with Fellows, 256-286; his modera-
tion, 283 ; an antiquarian, 257 ;
history of his MSS., 257, 258; in
relation to Warden Finch, 291-
302 ; at head of the Seven Bishops,
302 ; College letter to him in pri-
son, 302, 303 ; as a Nonjuror, 303;
a persecuted Primate, 304 ; in the
affair of Proast, 308 ; one effect of
Archbishops of Canterbury :
his reform, 318; his work stood
the test of time, 382 ; consecration
of a Bishop at All Souls, 385.
Sheldon, one of five chief Wardens of
All Souls, 6 1 ; settles question of
Surplus at All Souls, 113; share in
suppressing corrupt elections at
All Souls, 132, 240, 241, 242, 273;
as Fellow and Warden, 141-145;
resistance to Laud re Jeremy Tay-
lor, 147 ; attempt to restore College
Chapel, 152,153; influence supreme
at All Souls, 156; Clarendon on,
156, 157; politics identical with
those of Hyde and Falkland, 158 ;
chief adviser to Charles I, 162, 163,
178, 179, 181, 252 ; witness to
Charles I's Vow, 1 8 1 ; delegate after
the surrender of Oxford, 181 ; with
Charles I at Carisbrooke, 182 ; ex-
pelled from All Souls and im-
prisoned, 183-187; released from
prison, 196 ; life during Common-
wealth, 197-200; correspondence
with Jeremy Taylor, 198, 199, 200;
restored as Warden, 218, 219; im-
portance at Restoration, 219, 220 ;
use of Charles I's Vow, 221, 222 ;
as Bishop of London and Primate,
222; rebukes Charles II, 222; in
the plague, as patron of learning, as
Chancellor of Oxford University,
222, 223; munificence of, 223,
251 ; builds Sheldonian Theatre,
223, 227, 228, 229; as Visitor of
All Souls, 238-247; resists Charles
II, 241, 242 ; gives way at last on
elections, 247 ; place in Clarendon's
Will, 249 ; his own Will, 250 ; epi-
taph, 251 ; Samuel Parker's ac-
count of him, 251, 252 ; burial, 251 ;
in relation to Laud and Chilling-
worth, 253 ; summary of character,
254; attacks on his memory by
Burnet, Kennett, Neal, and Hal-
lam, 255 ; father of University
Press, 369 ; benefactor, 385 ; bust,
390 ; he and Blackstone most of
all Worthies identified with All
Souls, 400.
Stafford, claims to promulgate new-
Statutes for All Souls, 28 ; pro-
claims Indulgences for pilgrimages
to All Souls, 31 ; suspected of taking
property of College, 34; his por-
trait in College Library, 388.
Sudbury, a persecuted Primate, 304.
Tenison, as to Statutes of All Souls,
442
INDEX.
Archbishops of Canterbury :
28 ; one of the four Primates to
visit the College, 62 ; Finch's
letters to, 291, 300; Pmast's appeal
to, 310 ; stops Finch's battels, 311 ;
on Codrington's bequest, 337; as to
clause in Codrington's Will, 341 ;
share in eliciting the modern All
Souls, 347, 41 2, 41 3 ; Gardiner's let-
ter to, 351 ; on ' Physic places,' 355,
356; puts Blenclowe into a Fellow-
ship, 356 ; proceedings as to Blen-
cowe's Fellowship, 357, 358; re-
sisted by Gardiner, 358 ; treatment
of Queen Anne's letter, 360 ; his
Visitation, 361, 362 ; annuls War-
den's Veto on Dispensations, 362,
363-
Tillotson, his delay in the case of
Proast's Appeal, 310; relaxes strict-
ness of Statutes in the matter of
residence, 355.
Wake, as to Statutes of All Souls, 28 ;
one of the four Primates to visit the
College, 62 ; large number of docu-
ments from, 104; as to Warden's
Veto, 109; friend of Tanner, 321 ;
education at Christ Church, 323;
share in eliciting the modern All
Souls, 347 ; letters to, 352, 360,
370 ; an incident at his Visitation,
361 ; his great place as Primate,
366 ; his line of conduct at All
Souls, 367 ; uses David Wilkins
against the Oxford Tories, 372, 373;
his clever treatment of the Univer-
sities, 3 75 ; conflict with Warden
of All Souls, 376 ; his Visitation,
377. 37 8 . 379; its results, 381,382,
406, 412, 413;' conduct in Appeal
on Founder's Kin, 383, 415 ; choice
of Warden, 419.
Warham, promotes resort to foreign
Universities, 52; letter to All
Souls, 54 ; last Visitor to be ' Con-
frater ' to All Souls, 54.
Whitgift, as to Statutes of All Souls,
28; one of four Visitors to ' visit,'
62 ; oath imposed by, 83, 261, 272 ;
influence with Elizabeth, 95 ; in
relation to Sherley, 98 ; Visitation
and reorganization of All Souls,
104-110, 361 ; moderate doctrines,
1 20; adulation of James I, 121;
his example quoted, 275, 279; the
Warden's Veto secured by him,
354. 362, 377-
Winclielney, a persecuted Primate,
34-
Archbishops of York :
Dolben, 286.
Kemp (Cardinal), 21, 34.
Sharp, 359.
Vernon Harcourt, 420.
Wolsey (Cardinal), n, 23, 76.
Arlington (Earl of), 243.
Arminianism, 122, 134, 143.
Arras (Treaty of), 2.
Arthur, Prince of Wales, 38, 39, 40,
4 S, 6 7 .
Asaph, St. (Bishops of), 308, 321.
Ashburnham, 181.
Atterbury (Bp.), 323. 35 8 . 375-
Augustine (St.), one of the ' four Latin
Fathers," 32.
Ayliffe, a writer on the University of
Oxford, 368.
Aylworth (Fellow), 155, 189, 190, 204.
Bacon (Lord), 125, 402.
Bacon (the sculptor), 390.
Bagley Wood, Oxford, 44.
Baldwin (Fellow of All Souls), 196,
216.
Balliol College, 6, 48, 160.
Barbadoes (Island of), 325, 332, 333,
339. 345. 425. 427-
Barker (Fellow of All Souls), 189.
Baron (Master of Balliol), 351, 367,
375-
Barrow (Dr. Isaac), 226, 234.
Bartholomew's Day (St.), 88, 220.
Basil (St.), 335, 344.
Battmrst (family of), most numerous on
Register, 408.
Beaufort (Cardinal), 2, 3, 19, 32.
Beaumont (Dr., Fellow of All Souls),
136, 137-
Bedford (John Duke of), I, 2, 3.
Benbow (Admiral), 334.
Bentley (Master of Trinity, Cambridge),
322.
Berkhampstead, Grammar School, 115.
Bernard's (St.) College, 8.
Bertie (the Hon. Dr., Fellow of All
Souls), 314, 419.
Bettesworth (Dr., Wake's Commissary),
36i,377.379-
Beverley, contributions sent to, 166,
167.
Bilstone (Chaplain of All Souls), 372.
Binsey, Wood and Tanner at, 3 20.
Birkenhead (Sir John, Fellow of All
Souls), 200.
Birkhead (Fellow of All Souls), founds
Professorship of Poetry, 190.
Blackstone (Sir William, Fellow of All
Souls), 382, 388-409, 413, 417, 419.
INDEX.
443
Blencowe (Fellow of All Souls), 356-
36o, 363.
Bliss (Dr.), 167.
Bocardo (prison-gateway), 37. '
Bodleian Library, 8, 50, 258, 388.
Boham (Hugh, Fellow of All Souls),
189.
Bohemian Ministers, 406.
Bolingbioke (Lord), 403.
Botley (near Oxford), 44.
Boulogne, Henry VIII's expedition to,
65-
Boyle (the philosopher), 323.
Bracton (Judge), 402.
Bradford (the martyr), 81.
Bramhall (Archbishop), 226.
Brasenose College, 25, 174, 192, 385,
410, 421,435-
Brent (Sir Nathanael), 193.
Brewer (Professor), 185.
Buckler (Dr. Benjamin, Fellow of All
Souls), 12, 400, 406, 419, 430, 436.
Burleigh (Cecil, Lord), 78, 96, ill.
Butler (Bishop), 399, 405.
Byrde (Sir William), 96, 390.
Cassar (Sir Julius), 136.
(Sir Charles), 390.
Caius College, Cambridge, 322.
Calvinism, 120, 121, 122.
Cambridge University, a picture of
nation, 4 ; Parker's influence at, 90 ;
Elizabeth's patronage of, 91 ; her
ecclesiastical polity worked by men
from, 122 ; prosperity of, 125; plate
and money sent to Charles I from,
166, 168 ; intruders into Oxford from,
191 ; reduced to new model, 201 ;
scholars in Sheldonian Theatre, 229 ;
literary eminence of, 322 ; Lloyd,
Vice-Chancellor of, 393.
Campbell (Lord), 402, 403, 417.
Canterbury, 23, 1 16, 154, 215, 221, 235,
258.
precedency of the See, 19.
(Archbishops of), see ' Archbishops.'
Dean and Chapter of, 309.
Cardinal (see ' Beaufort,' ' Bourchier,'
' Kemp,' ' Morton,' ' Pole,' ' Wolsey ').
Cardinals, Papal government by, 75,
76.
Caribbean Islands, 325, 330.
Carisbrooke Castle, 182.
Carnarvon (Lord), 393.
Caroline Divines, 118.
Carte (the historian), 370.
Castle (George, Fellow of All Souls),
196.
Castlemaine (Lord), 290.
Cat Street, Oxford, 116.
Catharine of Aragon, 38, 48.
Chamberdekyns (or pseudo-scholars),
7-
Charlett (Dr., Master of University
College), 312, 317, 320, 321, 322,
339- 35L 370. 376, 379. 385, 397-
Chaworth (Dr. R.), 167.
Cheere (Sir Henry), 338, 389.
Chelsea Hospital, 232.
Chillingworth (the author), 156.
Christ Church, Oxford, 23, 159, 160,
177, 181, 183, 228, 280, 323, 326,
366, 374, 423.
Christendom, a reformed, 3 ; the pro-
vinces of, 97 ; Turks in relation to,
103.
Christopher's (St., Island of), 330, 332.
Church (reform of), 2, 3.
Church of England, Colleges loyal to,
7 ; three successive stages in reform-
ing, 88 ; as reformed by Henry VIII
and Edward VI, Chap, v ; settled by
Elizabeth, Chap, vi ; position taken
up by James I, Chap, vii ; Bancroft
on the, 107 ; Articles of, to be read
publicly in Colleges, 125 ; School of
Bancroft and Laud in, 120-125;
Moket on the, 129; 'Church and
King,' 1 68; Charles I a martyr to,
1 80, 220; delay in settling affairs
of, 2 20 ; Sheldon's government of,
222 ; Chillingworth on the, 253 ;
subscription to Articles of, 253 ;
declares against James II, 291 ;
persecuted Primates in, 304 ; monas-
tic bodies in, 339, 344 ; Queen Anne,
Sacheverel and the, 358 ; affection of
Tories for, 375.
Clarence (Thomas Duke of), 2, 9.
Clarendon (Edward Hyde, Earl of),
121, 124, 138, 156, 158, 162, 166,
168, 169, 173, 182, 218, 219, 220,
221, 223, 240, 244, 249, 254, 369.
Clarges (Sir Thomas), 300.
Clarke (Dr. G., Fellow of All Souls),
82, 267, 268, 277, 290, 291, 292, 314-
3i8, 33, 34 8 . 35, 35L 3H 37i.
384, 385, 386, 388, 390, 392, 393,
394. 4i3-
Cleaver (Bishop), 420.
Clotterbuck (Dr.), 285.
Cockerel (Professor), 30.
Codrington (Christopher, Fellow of All
Souls), 119, 268, 314, 319, 323, 325-
347. 355, 388, 389, 391, 392, 405,
421, 425-428.
(the elder Christopher, of Barba-
does), 325, 326, 337.
444
INDEX.
Codrington (Sir Edward), 346.
(the Standard-bearer to Heniy V),
325. 347-
(R. H., Fellow of Wadham), 347.
College, Barbadoes, 338-345, 425-
428.
Cole (Dr., President of Corpus), 87.
Colepepper (Secretary of State to
Charles I), 225.
Coleridge (Sir J. Taylor), 422.
(Bishop), 427.
Colet (Dean), 48.
Collegiate system, on its trial, 6, 7;
effect on Chichele, 12 ; details of,
44, 45, 46 ; preservation of, from ruin,
73-
Compton (Bishop), 359.
Conant (John, Parliamentary Visitor),
an.
Constitution (the English), provided
for national independence of Papacy,
60; temporary overthrow of, 162,
163, 243; true defenders of, 162,
163; greatest alteration of, without
express law, 2 20 : saved by Seven
Bishops, 265 ; sapped by Caroline
Dispensations, 287, 288 ; happily pre-
served, 304 ; Anne's reign a time of
testing the, 349 ; settled by struggles
at the accession of House of Bruns-
wick, 376 ; expounded by Black-
stone, 403.
Cornmarket Street, Oxford, 37.
Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 192,
193-
Cotes (Digby, Fellow of All Souls and
Public Orator), 328, 336.
Councils of the West, 19, 75.
Cowley, Oxford, 44.
Cox (Dean of Christ Church), 68, 79.
Cromwell (Oliver, Protector), 1 68, 188,
206, 212, 213.
Cromwell (Richard), 213.
Cromwell (Thomas, Earl of Essex), 42.
Cunningham (agent to Codrington),
329-
Cyprus (Island of), lor.
Dartmouth (Lord, Secretary of State to
Queen Anne), 359, 360.
Davis (servant at All Souls), 191.
Dayrell (Fellow of All Souls), 189.
Decyphering, art of, 356.
Delaune (President of St. John's Col-
lege, Oxford), 351.
Digby (Kenelm, 'Fellow of All Souls),
195, 237-
Digges (Dudley, Fellow of AH Souls),
153-
Dispensing Power, acted upon by
James I, 137; and by Charles II,
243 ; principle of, the same as that of
Commonwealth, 243 ; ostentatiously
used by James II, 288-292 ; fatal
example set by, in matter of Fellow-
ships, 353-
Dodwell (the Nonjuror), 307.
Dolman (Fellow of All Souls), 79.
Dorman (Fellow of All Souls), 79.
D'Oyly (the biographer of Sancroft),
303-
Druel (John, overseer of the works at
the foundation of the College), 26, 70.
Dryden (the poet), -289, 291, 344.
Dublin University, reformed by Bishop
Jeremy Taylor, 226.
Duck (Dr. Arthur, Fellow of All Souls),
n, 82, 119, 152, 390, 391.
Dugdale (the author of the Monasti-
con), 51.
Dunn (Sir Daniel, Fellow of All Souls),
96, 108, 390.
Duns Scotus, 2.
Duppa (Brian, Bishop of Salisbury,
afterwards of Winton, Fellow of All
Souls), 119, 133, 134, 141, 152, 179,
198, 220, 236, 390.
Earles (Dr.), at Great Tew, 156.
Eaton (Water, Lady Lovelace's re-
sidence), 294.
Edgehill (Charles I's army after the
battle of), 173.
Edmonds (Sir Clement, Fellow of All
Souls), 96, 390.
Egertoii, (Mr.), at All Souls, 211, 212.
Eglesfield (Founder of Queen's College),
9-
Eikon Basilike, 178.
Eldon (Lord), 410.
Ely (Bishopric of), 21.
Enfield School, 326.
England, depressed condition of, I ;
temporary greatness, -2 ; feeling of,
under Papal aggression, 4 ; degrada-
tion of, 20, 2 r ; change in, during Wars
of Roses, 28 ; history of, illustrated
from All Souls, passim; laity of, 121 ;
new chapter in history of, 122;
vigorous society of, 125 ; middle
classes of, 1 2 5 ; history of , ho w too often
written, 142 ; chivalry and clergy of,
163 ; at the Restoration, 215 ; rapid
progress, 218; during Monmouth's
rebellion, 297 ; growth of, out of civil
conflict, 376 ; stagnation of, in last
century, 416 ; lagging interest of, in
its Colonies, 421.
INDEX.
445
English, people take readily to fighting,
2 ; painful pages of history, 3 ; pa-
triotism, 3; liberties, 21; inde-
pendence, 76; civilisation, 118, 132 ;
music, 237 ; people only require a
good leader, 260; language, 392.
Erasmus, 49.
Essex (Earl of, reign of Elizabeth), 95,
99, 100, 101, 103.
Este (Eobert, Fellow of All Souls), 32.
Eton College, 178, 235, 244.
Eugenius IV (Pope), 18, 20, 21, 24.
Evelyn (John), 224, 227, 228, 229, 236,
2 37. 259' 3 6 6, 369-
Exeter College, 6, 81, 94, 160, 192,
384-
Fairfax (General Sir Thomas), 188.
Falkland (Lord), 118, 156, 157, 158,
162, 219, 249.
Fareham (Roche Court, near), 350.
Faversham School, 115.
Fell (Dr. John, Dean of Christ Church
and Bishop of Oxford), 228, 280, 294,
323.
Fell (Dr. Samuel, Dean of Christ
Church), 179, 182.
Fell (Mrs.), 183.
Ferdinand and Isabella (the ' Catholic
Kings'), 40.
Ferrara (Duke of), 100.
Fiennes (Lord), 212.
Flanders, 98, 326, 330.
Fleetwood (Bishop), 425.
Fletcher (Alderman of Oxford), 434,
435. 436.
Florence, 24.
Founder's Kin, at New College, 408 ;
at All Souls, see ' All Souls.'
Foxcote, 34.
France, expulsion of English from, 3 ;
failure of war with, 17; Henry VIII
invades, 65 ; Sherley fights in, 99 ;
effect of exile in, on Charles II, 224;
Louis XIV, King of, 2 70 ; wine from,
317 ; Codrington sends to, for books,
329 ; Codrington engaged in war
with, 330, 333 ; influences of Revolu-
tion in, 416.
Frideswide (St.), Wood tells history of,
322.
Gardiner (Stephen, Bishop of Winches-
ter), 60, 74, 95.
Garth (Sir Samuel), 328, 330.
Gentilis (Albericus), 135, 285.
Gentilis (Robert, Fellow of All Souls),
135-
George (Prince of Denmark), 315.
Germy (Fellow of All Souls), 205, 206.
Gibs (servant at All Souls), 191.
Gibson (Bishop of London), 220, 321,
331-
Gloucester (Humphrey Duke of), 3 ;
his Library, 7, 8, 50.
Godolphin (Provost of Eton), 247, 390.
Godstowe, near Oxford, 322.
Gold (Henry), 58.
Goldwell (Bishop, Fellow of All Souls),
22, 388, 390.
Goodwin (Thomas, Parliamentary Visi-
tor of Oxford), 212.
Gordon (the Rev. W. of Barbadoes),
327. 334. 335. 336, 342, 343. 344.
345-
Greaves (Fellow of All Souls), 207.
Gregory (St.), one of the ' four Latin
Fathers,' 32.
Greenditch Fosse, Oxford, 44.
Greenwich Hospital, 232.
Grevile (the Hon. Dodington), 314,
351, 355. 365. 39. 393-
Grocyn (of New College and Magdalen),
48, 49-
Guadaloupe (the Island of), 334.
Guise (Fellow of All Souls), 247.
Gutch (the Antiquarian), 421, 422.
Hales (Sir Edward), 289.
Hallam (Bishop of Salisbury), 2, 4.
Hallam (the historian), 27, 255, 433.
Hambden (High Steward of the Uni-
versity), 36.
Hammond (Dr., of Christ Church), 156,
163, 254, 323.
Hampden (the Patriot), 158, 185.
Hanmer (Bishop, Fellow of All Souls),
39-
Harcourt (Sir Simon), 358, 385.
Harden, or Hawarden, 397.
Harding (servant at All Souls), 191.
Hardy (Sir Thomas Duffus), 185.
Harris (Parliamentary Visitor), 212.
Harrison (Professor, and Fellow of All
Souls), 379, 418.
Hawksmoor (the architect), 234, 364,
393. 394. 395-
Headington (Oxford), 44.
Hearne (the antiquarian), 69, 127, 230,
234, 248, 258, 291, 309, 316, 319,
320, 328, 329, 336, 350, 361, 365,
369, 376, 382, 388, 408, 418, 433,
434, 435-
Heathcote (Sir William), 423.
Heber (Bishop, Fellow of All Souls),
143, 144, 147, 198, 199, 226, 420,
421, 435.43 6 -
Henley (Lord Northington), 406.
446
INDEX.
Henry (of Navarre), 99.
Herbert (George), 97, 118, 268.
Heron (Fellow of All Souls) 207, 208.
Heylin (Peter), 129, 140, 200.
Hickes (Dr., the Nonjuror), 385.
Higham Ferrars, Chichele'a Founda-
tion at, 9.
Hinksey (Oxford"), 44.
Hollingworth (servant at All Souls),
191, 192.
Holloway (Serjeant), 279.
Holt (Judge), 344.
Hook (Dr., Dean of Chichester), II,
12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 21, 22, 27,
75-
Hooke (the mathematician), 230.
Hooker (the judicious), 120, 122,
226.
Howell (Parliamentary Visitor), 212.
Ho well (the Nonjuror), 377.
Hudson (guide to Charles I), 181.
Hudson (Dr., Bodley's Librarian), 332,
333-
Humfrey (Lawrence, Oxford Com-
missioner). 87, 88.
Hungary, Turks in, 100.
Huy, Codrington at, 330.
Huygens (the philosopher), 230.
lanson (Fellow of All Souls), 167.
Iconoclasm, indiscriminate at All Souls,
68, 69, 70 ; proved to be complete,
89.
lies (Dr.), 139.
Imperialist army, IOI.
Indyes, f^herley opens up the, 103.
Ireland, invasion of, 99.
Irish, higher education of, 72.
Isle of Wight, Charles I in the, 178.
Isleworth, Monastery of Syon at, 43.
Islip (near Oxford), 297.
Italy, 31, 100, 101.
Jacobitism, 288, 306, 368, 370.
Jamaica, 99.
'James III' (the Pretender), 370,
376.
James IV (of Scotland), 35.
Jeffries (Judge), 302, 344.
Jenkinson (Envoy to Persia), 107.
Jerome (St.), one of the ' four Latin
Fathers,' 32.
Jerusalem, Henry V's intention to
march to, 3.
Jesus College, Oxford, 160, 174.
Jesuits, 99, 190, 342, 344.
Jewel (Bishop), 120.
John XXIII (Pope), 9.
John's (St., College, Cambridge), 165.
John's (St., College, Oxford), 8, 149,
160, 167, 192.
Johnson (Dr. Samuel), 399, 400.
Justin (the historian), 319.
Keeble, or Keble (Joseph), 195.
Kelsey (Governor of Oxford), 197.
Ken (Bishop), 237, 303.
Kent (Holy Maid of), 42, 58.
Kinaston (Dr., Fellow of All Souls),
3I4> 3 8 '-
King (Dr., Bishop of London), 139.
Kings and Queens of England :
William the Conqueror, his Concordat,
3<M-
Edward I, 433.
Edward II, 433.
Edward III, 14, 433.
Richard II, Lollards in reign of. 5 ;
Chichele in reign of, 13 ; his French
alliance, 16.
Henry IV, Chichele as bis Minister,
13-
Henry V, conqueror and reformer, 3,
4; Chichele his Prime Minister,
13 ; death, 19.
Henry VI, early manhood, 2 ; Chi-
chele his godfather, 14; his policy
of French alliance, 16 ; co-founder
of All Souls with Chichele, 27; all
but canonised, 34 ; not the Sove-
reign of Mallard Song, 433.
Margaret of Anjou, Queen of Henry
vi, 2, 30.
Edward IV, pardons All Souls, 33,
432.
Edward V, 432, 433.
Henry VII, grants College Petition,
35 ; demands a loan, 36 ; en-
courages resort to foreign Univer-
sities, 52.
Elizabeth, wife of Henry VII, 39.
Henry VIII, early steps of Reforma-
tion, 42, 51, 63; preserves the
Universities, 57, 58 ; ' Head of the
Church,' 60 ; his war with France,
65 ; conduct as to clergy and the
Act of Prsemunire, 76.
Anne Boleyn (wife of Henry VIII),
60.
Edward VI, his Visitation of All
Souls, 62 ; is resisted by All Souls,
67 ; his ultra-Protestant Commis-
sioners, 73, 74 ; their iconoclastic
proceedings, 68, 160.
Mary, reaction of her reign, 72 ; last
message from Cardinal Pole to,
77-
Elizabeth, moderation of her eccle-
INDEX.
447
Kings and Queens of England :
siastical policy, 74 ; episcopal va-
cancies at accession of, 77 ; her
position as to ceremonial, 79, 83,
85, 87 ; as to Anglo-Catholic via
media, 83, 88, 90 ; her war with
Romanist powers, 88, 98 ; patron-
age of Universities, 91 ; gives up
some All Souls property, 95, 96 ;
in relation to Sir A. Sherley, 99,
100, TO i ; success of her general
policy, 109 ; prosperity of reign
and luxury of times, 109 ; in rela-
tion to Sir W. Raleigh and All
Souls, no, in; recommends to
Fellowships, 114, 134; healthy
state of University elections under
her, 124; educational movement
of reign, 114, 115; which affects
All Souls, 115.
James I, recalls Sherley, 104 ; Di-
vine Right, 121 ; Calvinist, then
Arminian, 122; commences Stuart
policy of Dispensations as to Fel-
lowships and Wardens, 134-138,
243 ; his statue in Schools Quad-
rangle, 153 ; greatly responsible
for Civil War, 163 ; founder of
Pembroke College, 182; Spanish
alliance, 225 ; patron of transla-
tors of Bible, 393.
Charles I, has four All Souls men
for Chaplains, 119; ill treats
Abbot, 138- at St. John's Col-
lege, 149 ; at the commencement
of the Great Rebellion, 158 ; Shel-
don his chief adviser, 163, 178,
2 53> 2 54 > receives contributions
from Oxford, 165-174; writes to
All Souls, 1 70, 1 75 ; his confidence
in University troops, 1/7 ; his Vow,
179, 1 80, 221 ; his confidence in
Duppa, 225 ; place of All Souls in
the service of, 423.
Henrietta, wife of Charles I, 149,
225.
Charles II, Oxford in days of, 5 ;
attended by Duppa, 178 ; effect
of his father's Vow upon, 1 80, 2 20,
221, 222; Restoration, 215, 216;
rebuked by Sheldon, 222 ; attends
Duppa's death-bed, 224; treat-
ment of All Souls, 239, 240, 241,
242, 243, 244 ; conduct on Exclu-
sion Bill, 266 ; recommends Finch,
281 ; Finch's zeal for, 294 ; Fell's
subserviency to, 323.
James II, his political short-sighted-
ness, 288 ; his tyrannical Mandate
Kings and Queens of England :
to All Souls, 291, 292, 299, 300,
301, 302 ; and the Revolution, 305,
306 ; his interview with Dr. Clarke,
316 ; Gardiner a sufferer from, 350,
360.
William and Mary, King's distress
at death of Queen, 313 ; Codring-
ton serves under William, 330,
331 ; William's visit to Oxford,
331 ; Codrington's affection for,
338, 339 ; his reign a period of
great perturbation, 348, 349.
Queen Mary, account of her death,
313 ; her statue, 385.
Anne, improvements of College in
reign of, 82, 234, 236, 348, 413 ;
effect of publication of Clarendon's
History in her reign, 249 ; as Prin-
cess, visits All Souls, 293 ; Finch
named as her Chaplain, 31 2 ; Clarke
serves under, 315; the 'age of,'
328; French war of, 333; her
patronage of S. P. G., 338 ; her
reign a period of perturbation,
348 ; reception in Oxford at ac-
cession, 349 ; her conduct to All
Souls, 357, 358, 359, 360 ; state
of Oxford at death of, 367, 368-
3?6.
George I, ill-treatment of Wren in
his reign, 232 ; Bishop Trelawny
and, 375 ; first anniversary of
reign, 375, 376; in the matter of
S. P. G., 426.
George III, probable influence of
Blackstone on, 403.
Victoria, restoration of All Souls
Chapel worthy of her reign, 365.
Lambeth, 54, 63, 85, 133, 135, 242,
262, 310, 364.
Lamphire (John), 190.
Lancaster (House of), 3, 13, 14, 16, 43.
Langherne (Fellow of All Souls), no.
Latymer (Fellow of All Souls), 48, 49,
50.
Law (Canon and Civil), a speciality of
All Souls, 9 ; Chichele's mind influ-
enced by, 21 ; flourishes at All Souls,
53. 42-
Law (Common), Courts, 19, 283, 302 ;
impulse given to, by the Reformation,
104; All Souls a nursery of legal
students, 424.
Lawyers (Canon and Civil), Whitgift
stops London practice of, 106 ; Ban-
croft permits it, 1 06 ; great names of,
from All Souls, 96.
448
INDEX.
Lawyers (Common), All Souls men be-
come, 105 ; practice stopped by Grin-
dal, 105; 'gone to Town,' 267 ; reform
demanded as to position, 353 ; non-
residence of, the rule, 363 ; great
names of, from All Souls, 405, 406.
Lawrence (President of Cromwell's
Council), 212.
Legge (Bishop of Oxford), 419, 421.
Leicester (Earl of), 86, 90, 91, 95, 98.
Leland (the antiquarian), 48, 49, 50, 51,
58.
Lily (the grammarian), 48.
Lincoln College, 160, 174.
Lindsey (Earl of), 287.
Lisbon, 43, 44.
Littleton (Fellow of All Souls), 268.
Livery, provided by Founder, 44 ; not
to be commuted for money, 63 ;
Whitgift allows to be commuted for
money, 107.
Lloyd (Bishop of St. Asaph), 308, 309.
Lloyd (Sir Nathaniel, Fellow of All
Souls), 314, 388, 390, 393.
Lloyd (Sir Richard, Fellow of All
Souls), 390.
Locke (the philosopher), 323.
Lollards, 5, 16.
London, 106, 108, 156, 162, 201, 215,
234. 2 97. 395-
Lovelace (Lady), 294.
Lowth (Bishop), 382.
Lushington (Right Hon. Dr., Fellow
of All Souls), 420.
Lyhert, Walter, Provost of King's
College or Hall (Oriel), 25.
Lynacre (Fellow of All Souls), 40, 48,
49, 50, 54, 81, 390.
Lyndwood (the civilian), 12.
Madox (Fellow of All Souls), 93.
Magdalen College, 48, 70, 74, 150, 151,
159, 160, 192, 259, 260, 309, 350, 360.
Magdalen Hall, 124, 177, 194.
Mallard (the All Souls), 126, 127,
429-437-
Man (see ' Sodor and Man ').
Mansfield (Lord), 404.
Marco Polo, 47.
Marlborough (John, Duke of), 317, 332,
344. 358.
Martin V (Pope), 20, 75.
Mary (Queen of Scots), 79.
Mary's, St., Church (Oxford), 2O, 25,
164, 227, 285.
Mason (Sir John, Fellow of All Souls),
81, 315. 390.
Massey (Dean of Christ Church), 299,
326, 344-
Master (Mr. John "Whalley, of Brase-
nose), 410.
Maynard (Sir John), 208.
Mendye (Dr.), 66.
Mengs (Raffael, the painter), 364.
Mercurius Aulicus, 200.
Merton College, 6, 160, 174, 192, 193.
Middleton (Fellow of All Souls), 189.
Millington (Sir Thomas, Fellow of All
Souls), 196, 244.
Monks and Friars, prominence at Ox-
ford in fifteenth century, 5 ; excluded
from most medieval Colleges at the
Universities, 7 ; excluded from All
Souls, 9 ; Pope's body-guard, 57, 58;
why suppressed, 57; question as to
Anglican monks, 344.
Monmouth (Duke of), his rebellion,
297, 298.
More (Sir Thomas), 49.
Morley (Bishop), 156, 163, 254.
Morocco, 103.
Namur, 330.
Napier (Sir Richard, Fellow of All
Souls), 390.
Naples, 104.
Neal (the historian), 165, 169, 188, 218,
253, 255.
Needham (Marchmont), 201.
Nevis (Island of), 332, 333.
Newcastle (Duke of), 404.
New College, 6, 8, 12, 27, 48, 70, 72,
115, 159, 160, 192, 193, 196, 209,
266, 394,412, 414.
Newdigate (Richard), 197, 412, 414.
New Inn Hall, 173, 177.
Newlands (in Romney Marsh), no.
Newton (Sir Isaac), 218, 230, 231,
322.
Nicholas (Edward, Secretary of State
to Charles I), 175.
Nixon (Alderman), 164.
Nonjurors, 303, 341, 371, 385.
Norfolk (County of), in relation to
Caius College, 322.
Norris (John, Fellow of All Souls), 267,
268,311, 314, 390.
(Lord), 284.
North (Roger), 272, 275, 281, 392.
Northington (Lord), ( see ' Henley').
Norton (Colonel), 333.
Norwich (city of), 257, 321.
Nottingham, 166.
(Earl of), 295, 297.
Ockham (William of), 2.
Onslow (Mr. Speaker), 219, 220.
Orange (William, Prince of), 307.
INDEX.
449
Oriel College, 6, 25, 26, 160, 174, 192,
203, 244, 371.
Orleans (Maid of), 2.
Orinond (Duke of), 213, 218, 238, 245,
246.
Orthography, 391, 392.
Osborne (Fellow of All Souls), 144-
147.
Ottoman Empire, 101, 103.
Owen (Parliamentary Visitor), 24.
Oxford (City of), aspect of, in fifteenth
and seventeenth centuries, 5, 6 ;
Prince Arthur visits, 40 ; limits of
Fellows' walks in, 44; boys of, taught
in Monasteries and Colleges, 72 ; edu-
cation of boys in Colleges stopped,
72, 116; Cranmer burnt at, 76; its
handsome buildings, 153; James I
visits, 154; House of Correction at,
155; a 'military centre,' 159, 162-
178; the poor of Oxford, 155, 156,
177; occupied by Lord Say, 164;
Alderman Nixon during Lord Says
occupation, 164; his school at, 165;
King Charles I at, 170, 173, 175,
177, 179, 180, 181 ; 'Bulwarks' at,
1 76 ; the ' Lords ' at, 1 7 7 ; surrender,
178; soldiers at, 183, 370; Crom-
well at, 1 88; bonfires at Restoration
in, 214; a musical centre, 237 ; train-
bands of, 286; Parliament at, 295;
loyalty during Monmouth's Rebel-
lion, 298 ; James II visits, 316; M.P.
for the City, 317; William III visits,
331 ; Queen Anne visits, 349 ; pre-
cedency of University, 349 ; streets
of, 385-
Oxford University, picture of nation, 4 ;
rise of Collegiate system at, 5 ; con-
dition of, in fifteenth and seventeenth
centuries, 5, 6, 7 ; Fellows and Scholars
at. 7, 8; Chicheli as benefactor to,
8 ; impoverishment, 41 ; why saved by
Tudors, 58, 61 ; Collegiate system at,
73 ; re-assertion of Anglo-Catholic
character, 78 ; men who befriended
it at Court, 8l ; election of Proc-
tors at, 124, 149, 160 ; intemper-
ance at, 124; prosperity of, 125;
servility of, in 1623, 139 ; Laudian
reform at, 149, 150; buildings erected
or restored, 153; dignitaries, 153;
age of entering the, 159 ; changes of
educational methods at, 160 ; be-
gins to drill, 162; impeachment of
Royalists in, 165 ; and defence, 168,
169, 170 ; sends money to Charles I,
165; a mere camp, 177, 178; mes-
sage from King to, 1 79 ; surren-
Oxford University :
der and conditions, 177, 178, 182;
defiance of Parliament, 182; be-
dells' staves, 183 ; historians of, 185 ;
government of, by new Visitors,
200 ; work of Visitors unduly de-
preciated, 202 ; Richard Cromwell,
Chancellor, 213; Visitors pass away,
213 ; effects of Restoration, 216, 217,
218; moderate re-settlement of, 216 ;
Sheldon and Duppa in relation with,
at Restoration, 222, 223 ; Act in
St. Mary's and Sheldonian Theatre,
227, 228, 229; Terrse Filius, 227,
, 228, 368, 369; a musical centre,
237 ; share in scandal of All Souls
elections, 247, 291 ; James II's de-
signs on, 288 ; during Monmouth's
Rebellion, 297, 298 ; representation
of, 315, 316, 423; pictures in Bodleian,
318 ; modern history of, not yet writ-
ten, 323 ; appoints Codrington to de-
liver oration, 330 ; William Ill's
reception by, 331 ; precedence of, as
against the City, on visit of Queen
Anne, 349 ; centre of Jacobitism,
349 ; condition and danger of, in last
years of Anne and first of George I,
349-351, 366-376; Vice-Chancellor
of, and Sacheverel, 358 ; abuses of,
368 ; greatest ornaments of, 385 ;
Codrington Library thrown open to,
389-
Padua (University of), 47, 48.
Palmer (Mr., benefactor to All Souls),
365-
Paman (Dr.), 290.
Papacy (the), 4 ; Chichele a champion
of, 1 8 ; policy of, towards England,
20. 75-
Papal, system, 4 ; aggression, 4 ; Bulls,
18, 24, 59; partisan of, Chichele a,
19 ; Dispensations and Provisions, 19 ;
Court, 1 8, 19; Supremacy renounced,
and Renunciation defended, 57, 59,
60 ; reaction in Mary's reign, 73-77 ;
effort of James II to reimpose yoke,
289-293 ; religious services, 291 ; ex-
cuse of Finch that he was to keep
out a Papal Warden, 293, 300, 301.
Parkhurst (Sir William), 171, 173.
Parry (Bishop), 427.
Paul's, St., Cathedral, 259.
Pembroke (Earl of), 182.
Pembroke and Montgomery (Earl of),
182-185.
Pembroke College, 160, 177, 182.
Persia, 97-104.
Gg
450
INDEX.
Petre (Sir William, Fellow of All Souls),
81, 116, 315, 390.
(the Jesuit), 292.
Pett (Sir Peter, Fellow of All Souls),
195, 196, 230, 237.
' Physic places ' at All Souls, 354, 356,
362, 363-
Physicians, College of, founded, 48, 81.
at All Souls, 48, 53, 79, 187, 194,
3*3. 355.412.
Pickering (Sir William), 38, 40.
Pinder (Canon, Principal of Codrington
College), 427.
Pisa, Council of, 13.
Plot (Dr.), 291.
Pointer (a writer on Oxford), 432.
Pole (Bishop of Peterborough), 47,
388, 390.
Pongas (mission to the), 427.
Pope (the poet), 195.
Popes, (see 'Gregory (St.),' 'John
XXIII,' 'Martin V,' ' Eugenius IV.')
Portman (Sir William, benefactor to
All Souls), 365.
Portman (Mr., benefactor to All Souls),
365-
Poynet (Bishop), 95.
Prayers for the Departed, established,
9; suppressed, 68, 73; Whitgift's sub-
stitute as to Benefactors, 107; James
II and Clarke on the subject, 318.
Prestwych (Fellow of All Souls), 190.
Pretender (the), (see ' James III.')
Prideaux (Fellow of All Souls), 243,
244, 245.
Prideaux (Humphrey), 143, 271.
Primates (see ' Archbishops ').
Prior (Matthew), 369.
Proast (Archdeacon), 303, 310, 311,
312, 421.
Professorships Greek, 48 ; Canon Law,
52 ; Civil Law, 53, 404, 420 ; Medi-
cine, 53, 79 j Natural Philosophy,
195, 419 ; Astronomy, 207 ; Ancient
History, 307, 379 ; Vinerian, of Com-
mon Law, 404; Hearne refuses to
stand for any, 371 ; tenure of a,
with All Souls Fellowship, 232, 379;
Chichele, of International Law and
Modern History, 415.
' Protestant,' word used by Parker, 83 ;
and by Charles I, 168.
Prynne, 184, 185.
Puritans (the), in Oxford, 86, 87 ;
Anglo-Catholicism as against, 83,
1 20 ; favoured by middle classes,
125; the historian of, 163; Calvin-
ists identified with, 141 ; Puritan
government of Universities, 187-212.
Queen's College, 6, 174, 192, 405,
435-
Eadcliffe (Dr., the physician), 322,
33, 3 8 5-
Raleigh (Sir Walter), 99, 104, no,
in, 125, 137.
Rawle (Bishop, Principal of Codring-
ton College), 427.
Reformation (the), (see ' All Souls Col-
lege,' ' Henry VIII,' ' Edward VI,'
'Cranmer').
Ricot (the seat of Lord Abingdon),
300.
Ridley (Bishop and martyr), 81, 89,
120.
Rogers (the martyr), 81.
Rogers (the Parliamentary Visitor),
212.
Rome (see 'Papacy,' 'Papal').
Roses (Wars of the), England harassed
by, 2 ; causes of, 3 ; affect All Souls,
27.
Royal Society, 196, 230, 421.
Sacheverell, 358, 359.
Salisbury (Thomas Montacute, Earl
of), 2.
(Robert Cecil, Earl of), 136, 137.
Robert, Marquis of, Fellow of All
Souls, 1 36 ; Chancellor of Oxford
University, 422.
Sanchy (or Zanchy, Hieron., the Colo-
nel-Proctor), 194.
Sanderson (Bishop), 163, 254.
Savoy Conference (the), 220, 222.
Say (Lord), 164, 165, 168, 170, 174.
School Street (Oxford), 6.
Scotland, 30, 35, 36, 52.
Scrope (Gervais), 245, 246.
Shaftesbury (Earl of, at Oxford), 293.
Shakspeare, 16, 17, 125, 392.
Sheers (Sir Henry), 312.
Sherley (Sir Anthony, Fellow of All
Souls), 97, 98, 100-104, 330, 390,
424.
Shottesbrooke (Lady Isabella), 31.
Shrewsbury (Duke of), 359.
Sidney (Sir Philip), 98.
Sigismund (Emperor, so-called), 4.
Sitvatorok (Treaty of), 103.
Smalridge (Bishop, and Dean of Christ
Church), 367.
Smith (L., Fellow of All Souls),
190.
Smith (Thomas, Fellow of All Souls),
190.
Snow (Mr., benefactor to All Souls),
364-
INDEX.
451
Society for Propagation of the Gospel,
338, 342, 421, App. I.
Sodor and Man (Bishops of), 310, 425.
Somerset (Protector), 68.
South (Bishop), 323.
Spain, IOT, 103, 225.
Spencer (Fellow of All Souls), 405.
Sprat (Bishop), 195.
Stafford (Lady), in.
Stafford's (Lord) iniquitous execution,
265.
Staffordshire, 44, 197, 251.
Standard (Thomas), 175.
Stanton Harcourt, 95.
Stapylton (Fellow of All Souls), 267,
290,314.
States (United), 410.
Statutes (Parliamentary) :
Provisors, &c., 20.
Suppression of Chantries, 73.
Acts of Uniformity, 85, 88.
Incorporation of Universities, 90.
Augmentation of Commons, 109.
Steed (Dr.), 205.
Steward (Dean, Fellow of All Souls),
119, 141, 152, 390.
Stowell (Lord), 410.
Stradling (Fellow of All Souls), 189.
Streater (Serjeant-Painter), 236, 365.
Suffolk (Duke of), 30.
Sunderland (Earl of), 357-360.
Sunninghill, 38, 40.
Surnames, creation of, 26.
Sydenham (the physician, Fellow of
All Souls), 119, 194, 390.
Syon (Monastery of), 42, 43, 66.
Syria, 101.
Talbot (Earl), 2.
(Earl of Tyrconnel), 290, 345.
(Lord Chancellor), 390, 405.
Tamasp (Shah of Persia), 101.
Tanner (Bishop, Fellow of All Souls),
119, 127, 257, 258, 271, 300, 309,
312, 314, 319, 322, 339, 369, 388,
39. 39 2 . 39 6 > 39 8 . 43-
Taunton, 188.
Taylor (Bishop Jeremy), 118, 119, 142-
147, 153, 179, 196-200, 206, 223,
226, 254, 390, 421.
Tew (Great, Lord Falkland's seat),
156, 158, 219, 252.
Teying (Parsonage, Bucks), 34.
Theatre (Sheldonian), 5, 226-229, 2 34>
331, 350, 369-
Thornhill (Sir James, the artist), 234,
364, 365.
Thorowgood (Mr.), 264.
Tillyard (apothecary), 196.
Tindal (Matthew, Fellow of All Souls),
247, 289, 291, 313, 348, 381, 399,
418, 430, 436.
Transylvania, 103.
Trelawny (Bishop), 373, 374, 375.
Trevor (Bishop, Fellow of All Souls),
406.
Trinity College, Oxford, 71, 174, 192.
Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 393.
Trumbull (Rev. C.), 364.
Trumbull (Sir W., Fellow of All Souls),
195. 356, 39-
Tunstall, 48.
Turkey (see ' Ottoman Empire').
Twitty (Mr., of Oriel), 244.
Twyne (Bryan), 223.
University College, 6, 123, 174, 192,
193. 321.
University Commissioners of 1852,
15. 56, 132, 4*4-
Utrecht (Peace of), 317, 367.
Uxbridge (Treaty of), 163, 178.
Value of money (comparative), 2 7.
Vaughan (Sir Charles, Fellow of All
Souls), 420.
Venice, 101.
Vestiarian controversy,- 84, 85.
Viner (founder of Vinerian Professor-
ship), 405.
Visitations of All Souls, four regular,
two irregular, 62 ; Cranmer's, 62, 63,
64 ; Edward VI's Commissioners, 68-
73; Whitgift's, 108-110; the Com-
monwealth, 182-214; Tenison's, 361,
362 ; Wake's, 377, 378, 379, 384.
Visitors (see 'Archbishops of Canter-
bury ').
Wadham College, 160, 192, 206, 207,
229, 346.
Wainwright (Dr., Fellow of All Souls),
205.
Walker (Obadiah), 291, 344.
Wallingford Castle, 196.
Wallis (Dr.), 230, 356.
Walter (Sir John, M.P. for Oxford
ty), 3 1 7.
Walter de Merton, 9, n.
Walton (Tzaak), 106, 1 1 8.
Warbeck (Perkin), 35.
Wardens of All Souls :
Richard Andrewe, 29, 30, 52, 315.
Roger Keyes, 26, 172.
William Kele, 69.
William Poteman, 52.
John Stokys, 35.
Thomas Hobbys, 36, 37, 65.
452
INDEX.
Wardens of All Souls :
William Broke, 54.
John Coale, 115 (see Errata).
Robert Woodward, 42.
Roger StoTcely, 59.
John Warner, 34, 35, 44, 52, 61, 65,
67, 78-83, 94. 115,239-
Seth Holland, 75.
John Pope, 77.
Richard Barber, 83, 116.
Robert Hoveden, 61, 93, 95, 96, 105,
108, 116, 119, 128, 239, 354, 381,
390, 392, 436.
Richard Moket, 119, 127-130, 132,
133, 136, 262.
Richard Astley, 130, 146, 175.
Gilbert Sheldon, (see ' Archbishops of
Canterbury').
John Palmer (or Vaux), 184, 186,
187, 188, 197, 206, 207, 211, 213,
214, 218, 230, 290.
John Meredith, 219, 234, 235, 238,
244.
Thomas Jeam.es, 6 1, 64, 94, 132, 146,
168, 207, 219, 238, 260-287, 289,
290-295, 302, 354, 382, 392, 407.
Hon. Leopold William Finch, 280,
29!-3i4, 34 8 , 350, 362, 392, 429.
Bernard Gardiner, 61, 314, 347-385,
39 2 - 393, 397, 39 8 , 46, 49. 4 l8 -
Stephen Niblett, 419.
Hon. John, afterwards Viscount,
Tracy, 419.
Edmund Isham, 419.
If on. Edward Leyge, Bishop of Ox-
ford, 419, 421.
Lewis Sneyd, 414, 419.
Francis Knyvett Leighton, 423.
Warton (Thomas), 46, 433.
Watson (Bishop), 291.
Waynflete (Bishop), 31, 150.
Webb (Mr., benefactor to All Souls),
365-
Wedon-Weston, 66.
Welwyn, 400.
Wenman (the Hon. Dr., Fellow of All
Souls), 419.
West Indies, 99, 324, 325, 332-335,
338-345.426, 427.
Weston (Lord Chancellor, Fellow of
All Souls), 53, 96, 390.
Weymouth (Lord), 301.
Whalley (Founder's Kin of All Souls),
409.
Wharton (Duke of), 393, 396, 397,
398.
White (Sir Thomas), 9.
Wilkins (David), 370, 372, 373.
Wilkins (Dr., Warden of Wadham),
229.
Wilkinson (the Parliamentary Com-
missioner), 311.
Willes (Sir John, Fellow of All Souls),
360.
Winchelsea (E.vrl of), 294.
Winchester (Bishops of), 95, 96, 222,
224, 249, 373, 374, 375, 406, 419.
(College of), 9, 56.
(Dean of ), 53, 79.
Wood (Anthony), 94, 127, 165, '185,
206, 216, 227, 237, 249, 284, 294,
298, 309, 316, 320, 322, 430, 431,
434-
Wood' (Eobert, Fellow of All Souls),382.
Woodstock, 36, 139, 307.
Worcester College, 318, 384, 413.
Worcester (Dean of), 76.
Wren (Sir Christopher, Fellow of All
Souls), 119, 195, 196, 207, 208, 218,
228-236, 364, 390, 394, 421.
Wykeham (William of, Bishop of Win-
chester), 8, 9, n, 12, 29, 30, 31, 150,
374, 385-
Wynne (Fellow of All Souls), 277.
York (Anne Duchess of), 293.
(Archbishops of), see 'Archbishops.'
(Cecilia Duchess of), 33.
(city of), 169.
(Dean of), 30.
(House of), 3, 28, 33, 34, 407,
432-
(James Duke of), 293.
Young (Edward, the poet, Fellow of
All Souls), 327, 336, 390, 392, 396-
400, 417, 421.
Yule (Colonel, his edition of Marco
Polo), 47.
'.'': I
i I . ''''" -''.\'.