OXFORD UNIVERSITY COLLEGE HISTORIES CHRIST CHURCH LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Class Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 yvith funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/christchurchOOthomrich COLLEGE HISTORIES OXFORD CHRIST CHURCH ':iBi - I jantberiJtti) of ©xforH COLLEGE HISTORIES CHRIST CHURCH BY THE Rev. henry L. THOMPSON, M.A. VICAR OF ST. MARY THE VIRGIN, OXFORD SOMETIME STUDENT AND TUTOR OF CHRIST CHURCH AUTHOR OF THE " MEMOIR OF H. G. LIDDELL, D.D." LONDON R E. ROBINSON AND CO. 20 GREAT RUSSELL STREET, BLOOMSBURY 1900 -r4- Printed by Ballantvne, Hanson &* Co. At the Ballantyne Press PREFACE If this volume is judged by its omissions, it will receive severe censure. But the writer ventures to plead that it may be accepted not as a complete History of Christ Church, but rather as a slight sketch of some of the chief matters of interest connected with its annals. To keep the work within the necessary limits, he has again and again been compelled to be unduly brief, and to omit incidents which were worth relating, or to pass by doubtful points which were worth discussing. For this reason, no attempt has been made to give an account of the many famous men who have been educated at Christ Church. It has been thought best to connect the sequence of events with the succession of its Deans, summing up from time to time the characteristics of the various periods in its life and growth. The work should therefore be regarded as a small con- tribution to the history of a great Foundation, which may lead to further study of its annals, and to the publication of interesting documents — such as the Chapter records — which have hitherto remained unknown. Indeed, no 7 vi PREFACE history of Christ Church has ever been written, although materials for such a work are by no means lacking. The writer has been courteously allowed to consult the Chapter Registers and Minute books. Copious extracts from them, down to the year 1713, were made by the late Dean Liddell, but they were never published. These have been freely used, and the later Chapter books have been also laid under contribution. The accepted authorities for Oxford history, such as Wood, Hearne, and others, have been constantly consulted, and Mr. C. B. Phillimore's edition of Welch's '' Alumni Westmonastenenses " — a work of quite exceptional merit — has provided continual assistance. Information has indeed been gained from many and various sources, though it has been thought best not to cumber so small a volume with frequent references to authorities. For the chapter on the Athletic records of Christ Church, the writer is indebted to the kindness of Mr. F. J. Haver- field, Student and Tutor of the House. He desires to thank many other friends who have given advice and help ; particularly the Rev. T. Vere Bayne, who has undertaken the troublesome task of reading the proof sheets, and Miss Acland, to whose artistic skill, as a member of the Oxford Camera Club, nine out of the ten photographic illustrations are due. The dates are given, as a rule, according to the New Style. PREFACE vii In apology for the inevitable shortcomings of the book; the writer ventures, in all humility, to adopt the words in which the learned antiquarian, Mr. Browne Willis, excuses himself for the inadequacy of his account of the many great men interred in our Cathedral Church ; — " Neither can it be expected that a person so meanly qualified, who has reason to be ashamed of making no better progress in that part of his education he had the happiness to receive in this College, should attempt what would require a volume from the most able pen, to give an history of this royal and ample Foundation." Oxford, April 1900. CONTENTS CHAP. I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRIST CHURCH THE TUDOR PERIOD THE STUART PERIOD DOWN TO THE CIVIL WAR THE CIVIL WAR AND THE COMMONWEALTH . FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE REVOLUTION FROM THE REVOLUTION TO THE END OF THE STUART PERIOD THE HANOVERIAN PERIOD DOWN TO I783 CHRIST CHURCH UNDER CYRIL JACKSON . CHRIST CHURCH IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY A WALK ROUND THE BUILDINGS THE ATHLETIC RECORDS OF CHRIST CHURCH . PAGE I 16 46 65 79 112 169 185 227 260 APPENDICES APPENDIX A — THE ARMS AND BADGES OF HONOUR AS- SUMED BY CARDINAL WOLSEY . . . . 267 APPENDIX B — THE DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THE FOUNDATION OF CHRIST CHURCH . . . 272 INDEX 281 ILLUSTRATIONS CHRIST CHURCH, FROM LOGGAN's DRAWING, 1675 Frontts^ece THOMAS WOLSEY, FROM THE PICTURE BY HOLBEIN IN CHRIST CHURCH HALL . . Facing page 6 THE CATHEDRAL, AS VIEWED FROM THE LIBRARY „ 64 THE LATIN CHAPEL ..... ,, 98 THE NEW LIBRARY, COMPLETED 1761 . . „ 158 THE OLD LIBRARY BEFORE I775, FROM SKELTON'S ENGRAVING OF A SKETCH BY ARCHDEACON GOOCH „ 163 DOORWAY OF CHAPTER HOUSE ... „ 184 THE GREAT QUADRANGLE, AFTER ITS RES- TORATION UNDER DEAN LIDDELL . . „ 208 WOLSEY'S KITCHEN „ 338 THE ALLESTREE LIBRARY, OVER SOUTH CLOISTER ,, 242 DEANS OF CHRIST CHURCH Richard Cox, 1546 Richard Marshall, 1553 George Carew, 1559 Thomas Sampson, 1561 Thomas Godwin, 1565 Thomas Cooper, 1567 John Piers, 1570 Tobie Matthews, 1576 William James, 1584 Thomas Ravis, 1596 John King, 1605 William Goodwin, 161 1 Richard Corbet, 1620 Brian Duppa, 1629 Samuel Fell, 1638 Edward Reynolds, 1648 ; and 1659 John Owen, 1651 George Morley, 1660 John Fell, 1660 John Massey, 1686 Henry Aldrich, 1689 Francis Atterbury, 171 1 George Smalridge, 1713 Hugh Boulter, 171 9 William Bradshaw, 1724 John Conybeare, 1733 David Gregory, 1756 William Markham, 1767 Lewis Bagot, 1777 Cyril Jackson, 1783 Charles Henry Hall, 1809 Samuel Smith, 1824 Thomas Gaisford, 1831 Henry George Liddell, 1855 Francis Paget, 1892 OF THE UNIVERSITY CHAPTER I THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRIST CHURCH The existing foundation of Christ Church was created under letters patent of King Henry VIII., dated November 4, 1546, with the title of "Ecclesia Christi Cathedralis Oxon : ex fundatione Regis Henrici Octavi."" The word " Cathedralis *" was inserted, because the Episcopal see of Oxford, which had been erected in 1542, was now transferred from Oseney Abbey to Christ Church. It is thus a royal foundation, and King Henry VIII. is its undoubted founder. And yet the visitor to Oxford, as he walks down St. Aldate^s, and gazes at the stately College front which stretches for 400 feet along its eastern side, will look in vain for any indication of its connexion with the great Tudor sovereign. The devices which meet his eye on the corner turrets are the Cardinal's hat, and the pillars set saltire-wise, one of Wolsey's favourite emblems.* In the solitary niche above the main entrance, or " Fair Gate,'"' unoccupied for nearly two centuries, is placed the statue, not of Henry but of Cardinal Wolsey, and the arms at its base are royal arms indeed, but those of Charles II., marking the date of the completion of the Tower. * For the armorial bearings and badges of Cardinal Wolsey, see Appendix A. A 2 CHRIST CHURCH In the vaulted ceiling of the gateway Henry's shield has been placed ; but it is there grouped with the arms of Charles I. and Charles II., and with the heraldic achievements of the various noblemen and others who contributed to the erection of the Tower which rises above more than 120 years after Henry's death. Within the Quadrangle itself there is little to recall Henry's name. The statue on the eastern side of the gate is that of Queen Anne, and her arms are carved below. Henry's shield is there, indeed, but almost obliterated. The magnificent Hall which rises on the south side was completed in 1529, seventeen years before Henry's foundation. The domestic buildings which surround the Quadrangle show the piers con- structed to carry the vaulting of Wolsey's cloister, and in front of the terrace are seen the foundations of the buttresses which were to form its external support. The visitor must enter the Hall, and walk up to its extreme end, and then at last he will see Holbein's portrait of the royal founder of Christ Church in its proper central position ; but next to it, and claiming almost equal honour, is the portrait of the famous Cardinal, painted by the same skilful artist. The reason is well known, but must be briefly told. Thomas Wolsey, when at the height of his greatness, desired to create some splendid and opulent institutions which should be permanently associated with his name, and should also be worthy seats of learning and religion. At Ipswich, his birth-place, and at Oxford, the home of his youth and early manhood, he determined to place these foundations. He gave generously of his own private wealth, but he had not to rely on this alone or chiefly. He was able without difficulty to persuade BEGINNINGS OF CHRIST CHURCH 3 Pope Clement VII. to authorise the suppression of certain religious houses for the purpose of founding a new institution, a home of learning and piety, on collegiate and not on monastic lines ; and the Papal authority for the suppression of twenty-two foundations was given in two Bulls, issued in 1524 and the following year. The chief of these societies was the Priory of St. Frideswide in Oxford, belonging at that time to the Canons Regular of the Augustinian Order, already surrendered to the King, and occupying part of the site designed by Wolsey for his new College. The royal licence for the Oxford foundation was granted in July 1525. It was styled the " Collegium Thomae Wolsey Cardinalis Eboracensis ^ ; in English, " Cardinal College." It was dedicated to the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary, St. Frideswide, and All Saints. It was endowed with lands and other revenues amounting to .^2000 a year, and was projected on a vast and magnificent scale. An elaborate body of statutes was drawn up, describing the constitution and providing for the government of the College in all particulars. In these statutes its members are made to consist of a Dean and 60 Canons primi ordi7iis, who together formed the Corporation proper (qui soli de corpore ejusdem reputentur). Then came 40 Canons secundi ordinis, answering to the Scholars of the College. For the service of the church 42 persons were provided, 13 Chaplains, 12 Lay Clerks, 16 Choristers, and a teacher of music. There were 23 servants of all ranks ; and 6 Public Professors, represent- ing Theology, Canon Law, Philosophy, Civil Law, Medicine, and Literae Humaniores. '^There were also 4 Legal officials. From the Canons ^m/zi ordinis were to be 4 CHRIST CHURCH appointed a Sub-dean, 4 Censors, 3 Bursars, 4 Domestic Professors, and a Seneschall of Hall. The total number was 176 persons.* A Grant of Arms was issued from the Heralds' Office on August 4, 1525, and the foundation stone had been laid a few weeks earlier, on July 15, by Dr. John Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, to which diocese Oxford then belonged. With characteristic energy Wolsey set to work at once to erect the buildings and to direct their progress. Hundreds of workmen were em- ployed ; the local oolite stone was fetched from the best quarries within reach, at Burford, Taynton, Head- ington, and other places ; four limekilns, at Kirtlington, Stanton St. John, Beckley, and Headington, supplied the lime for mortar. In a single year nearly .^'SOOO appears to have been spent, the payments being made every fortnight, f * Wood {Colleges and Halls, p. 423) enumerates the members of the foundation, and gives 184, — though he adds them up wrongly, making the total 186. Fiddes in his life of Wolsey {Collections, p. 115) seems to have copied Wood in substance, but to have taken his total from some one who had consulted the statutes and dis- covered the real number. The main mistake which Wood makes, • and which is repeated by Fiddes, consists in reckoning the Sub- dean, Censors, Domestic Professors, and Bursars as distinct from the Canons primi ordinis, whereas they were really included among them. f Dr. London, Warden of New College, reported to Wolsey, at the end of 1526, on the progress of the work up to that date: — " First all the lodgings in the west side be fully furnished, save only batteling of the stone work ; and the great tower over the gate is as high erect as the said lodgings. Towards the street, the King's grace and my Lord Cardinal's arms in three sundry works most curiously be set over the middle of that gate, and my lord's grace's arms goodly set out with gold and colour. All these lodgings be thoroughly covered with lead. Inwardly the carpenters have done right good diligence to prepare the doors, windows, partitions, and CARDINAL COLLEGE 5 The Monastery of St. Frideswide occupied the eastern side of the selected site, lying close against the ancient city wall. It was treated with scant respect. The three western bays of the nave of the church, together with the whole western cloister and the adjoining tenements, were demolished to make room for the building of the new Quadrangle. The Chapter House and Refectory were allowed to stand, but a new Refect- tory or College Hall was designed ; the ruined city wall was cleared away and the church of St. Michael at south gate was removed, to make room for the present stately Hall and the adjoining buildings on the south side of the Quadrangle, as far as the south-western angle.* The western side was continued up to and beyond the gateway, but not so far as the north-western corner. In close proximity to the Hall was built the Kitchen, a magnificent apartment, with vast open ranges at the sides, and a central fire with louvre above. The com- pletion of this room before anything else gave rise to other necessaries, so that almost nothing shall let but that my lord's scholars shall at his grace's pleasure inhabit the same. At the south end there is a great tower which within four foot is erect as high as the other lodgings. And so upon the south side, the chambers which be towards the hall be almost come to bear the floors of the upper lodging. And the foundation of the hall is in most places five or six foot high. The foundation of the church in the north side is equal with the ground, and in like manner the foundations of lodgings of the east side be upon the utter side erect unto the old church door, and in the inner side nigh as far as is required. Over this, almost all the foundations of the cloister be as high as the ground." — Quoted by Maxwell Lyte, History of the University of Oxford, p. 446. * St. Michael's church stood at the north and south gates ; St. Peter's at the eastern and western extremities of the city. Invigilat portae Australi Boreaeque Michael, Exortum solem Petrus regit atque cadentem. 6 CHRIST CHURCH the sarcastic comment, " Egregium opus ! Cardinalis iste instituit collegium, et absolvit popinam."" A more spiteful utterance of some Oxford scholar, stuck on to the walls of the new buildings, contained a gloomy prophecy : — " Non stabit ilia domus, aliis fundata rapinis ; Aut ruetj aut alter raptor habebit cam." As first occupants of the new College Wolsey ap- pointed for Dean Dr. John Hygden, President of Magdalen College (his old home of earlier days), and placed him in the lodgings of the Prior of St. Frides- wide, now occupied by the canon of the second stall, the Margaret Professor of Divinity, till the new deanery should be built. Eighteen canons were nominated from among Oxford men, and some more from Cambridge. Two famous names are sometimes mentioned among those selected from Cambridge, but probably without sufficient authority. William Tyndale is named by Wood, doubtless on the authority of Foxe, but if the accepted account of his life be accurate, he was at this time on the continent. Foxe, who is followed by other writers, also asserts that Thomas Cranmer had been invited by Wolsey to become a canon, but was persuaded by his friends to decline the post, while he was actually on his journey to Oxford to take up his residence there. Yet it is an unlikely story. His age indeed (he was 41 years old at this time) might not have proved an absolute bar to such an offer, for among the senior canons were men of considerable standing ; but Cranmer had been a Fellow of Jesus College, had married, lost his wife, and become a Fellow a second time ; and he had not entered Holy Orders till T{.K>Aj»s WoLSey, C«»R©iNi*i I^irchbishop of gORH. wi^M^^ "l'lfE^ ' lPgBl'LUr"i" i l! From a photograph by the] \_Ox/ord Camera Club THOMAS WOLSEY FROM THE PICTURE BY HOLBEIN IN CHRIST CHURCH HALL DALABER^S NARRATIVE 7 he was thirty-nine years old. Probably the story arose from his name being confounded with that of Thomas Canner, who was the first canon of the foundation. Cardinal College lasted so short a time that few events are recorded of its history. In Foxe, how- ever, there may be read a pathetic narrative, which affords one vivid picture of its inmates. The Cambridge men whom Wolsey had chosen for members of his College had been selected for their learning and in- tellectual promise, in spite apparently of some disquiet- ing rumours as to their Orthodoxy. Among them were John Clark, Sumner, Betts, and Taverner, the last being the player of the music in the College chapel. Wolsey"'s own position in relation to the new teaching which was spreading secretly throughout Europe was unequivocally hostile ; the " hellish Lutherans," as he terms them in his words to Kingston just before his death, were objects of his bitterest enmity. Unfortunately these Cambridge students were all infected with the new heresy. Clark held private classes in his rooms, and read St. Paul's Epistles with those who assembled there. To them at Christmas 1527 came one Thomas Garrett from London (he had been formerly a Fellow of Magdalen College) on a second private visit, bringing with him books and tracts for secret circulation. He found a home with one of the singing men of Cardinal College named Radley. His arrival was notified to Wolsey, who sent instructions for his arrest to the Dean, Dr. Hygden. Anthony Dalaber, a Scholar of Alban Hall, and one of the members of Clark's little company, has described what followed: Garrett's escape, return, and second escape from imprisonment in the lodgings of the Rector of Lincoln, and the consternation of the authorities 8 CHRIST CHURCH when they learnt that the bird was flown. On February 21, 1528, Dalaber went down to Cardinal College — or Frideswide, as he calls it, using the old name — to confer with Master Clark. He went into the chapel, finding no doubt the approaches encumbered with building operations, and the church itself with its western end dismantled and unfinished. " Evensong was begun ; the Dean and the canons were there in their grey amices ; they were almost at ' Magnifi- cat ' before I came thither. I stood in the choir door, and heard Master Taverner play, and others of the chapel there sing, with and among whom I myself was wont to sing also ; but now my singing and music were turned into sighing and musing. As I there stood, in cometh Dr. Cottisford, the Commissary, as fast as ever he could go, bare-headed, as pale as ashes (I knew his grief well enough) ; and to the Dean he goeth into the choir, where he was sitting in his stall, and talked with him very sorrowfully ; what, I know not ; but whereof, I might and did truly guess. I went aside from the choir door to see and hear more. The Commissary and Dean came out of the choir, wonderfully troubled as it seemed. About the middle of the church met them Dr. London, puffing, blustering, and blowing like a hungry and greedy lion seeking his prey. They talked together awhile ; but the Commissary was much blamed by them, insomuch that he wept for sorrow. The doctors departed, and sent abroad their servants and spies everywhere. Master Clark, about the middle of the Compline, came forth of the choir. I followed him to his chamber, and declared what had hap- pened that afternoon of Master Garrett's escape.'* The sequel of the story does not concern us, except that Clark was soon afterwards imprisoned by the WOLSEY'S FALL 9 Bishop of Lincoln, and died of the treatment before being sent to the stake. He was refused the Communion, and his last recorded words were " Crede et manducasti." He was our first Christ Church martyr. John Frith, another Cambridge man on Wolsey's foundation, the assistant of Tyndale in his translation of the Bible, may claim to be regarded as our second martyr. Frith was burnt at Smithfield in July 1533. In October 1529 came the Cardinal's fall. In that month he was indicted in the King's Bench for receiving Bulls from Rome in violation of the Statute of Provisors. The great seal was taken from him and given to Sir Thomas More. He was ordered to retire to Esher ; and on October 28 judgment of forfeiture of goods and imprisonment was given against him in the King's Bench. His possessions were thus forfeited to the Crown, and his college at Oxford, in spite of many appeals for its preservation, was soon dissolved. We read that within a few weeks after Wolsey's disgrace, the rich vestments and other ornaments of the church were carried up to London that his arms might be removed from them. They were not likely to be returned when once taken away. To an application that he would spare some white copes for the use of the Dean and canons on great festivals, Henry returned the cynical answer — " Alack ! They are all disposed, and not one of them is left." The college at Ipswich was immediately dissolved, and its possessions were appropriated by the King. More delay was allowed in the case of Cardinal College, and Wolsey made piteous appeals for its preservation. Dean Hygden, accompanied by Robert Carter, one of the canons and formerly steward to the Cardinal, went to Court, in 10 CHRIST CHURCH August 1530, to present a petition from the members of the foundation, and met with a reception from Henry which sent him back with some hope that mercy would be shown. The King allowed the college to receive its rents till Michaelmas, and declared his intention of having a college at Oxford "honourably to maintain the service of God and literature." It was expected that through the influence of the Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Wiltshire, Anne Boleyn's father, a writ of " supersedeas " would be obtained, to save the possessions from seizure by the King"'s Commissioners. But Henry was in the end obdurate, and the college was totally suppressed. Its lands were for the most part dispersed, " either sold to, or begged away by, hungry courtiers and others," and there is no indication of any provision being made for the existing members of the foundation. In 1532, by letters patent dated July 18, Henry established a new College on the same site, with the title of " King Henry VIII.'s College in Oxford," the foundation consisting only of a Dean and 12 canons. Thus the institution was purely ecclesiastical, and no mention is made in its statutes of any obligation to found professorships or promote the interests of learn- ing. John Hygden was nominated as Dean, but he survived his appointment only a few months, and was buried in the chapel of his old College of Magdalen, " in medio choro." His successor was John Oliver, and among the members of the chapter were two of the original canons of Cardinal College (Thomas Canner and Edward Leighton), Dr. Cottisford, Rector of Lincoln, who as Commissary had been so busy in Garrett's case, and William Tresham, afterwards canon FOUNDATION OF CHRIST CHURCH 11 at Oseney.. This foundation was surrendered to the King by the Dean and Cliapter on May 20, 1545, and provision was soon afterwards made for granting pen- sions to the members of the obedient Chapter. Seven years before the suiTender, the church had lost its great treasure and famous object of veneration, the shrine of St. Frideswide, which was demolished in 1538. On the same day with the surrender of the foundation of 1532 the Commissioners received also the surrender of the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary at Oseney ; that is to say of the new Cathedi'al body which had been formed at the ancient Abbey, upon the creation of the see and diocese of Oxford in 1542. The ground was thus cleared for a reconstitu- tion of the bishopric and of the splendid foundation which was associated with the still unfinished buildings of Cardinal College. Accordingly, on November 4, 1546, Henry VIII. established by letters patent a third foundation, that of Christ Church, and united the episcopal see with the collegiate corporation. Its style, as has been already stated, was " Ecclesia Christi Cathedralis Oxon: ex fundatione Regis Henrici Octavi."" The King, lustful and hard-hearted, as all the Tudors were hard-hearted, was always an enlightened patron of learning, and the sincerity of his desire to advance its interests was amply shown in this royal foundation.* * It is perhaps a matter for surprise that there should be any reluctance to claim Henry VIII. as our founder. Yet when using the Bidding Prayer before University sermon, members of our House sometimes attempt to escape from this avowal by substituting other words. I have heard the clearly unhistorical statement : " such as was Thomas Wolsey, Cardinal, Lord Archbishop of York, the founder of Christ Church. " Another preacher used to say simply: "such as was the founder of Christ Church," leaving his 12 CHRIST CHURCH Although the Bishop's see was now planted at Christ Church, the episcopal revenues were distinct from those of the Dean and the eight canons who were now consti- tuted a corporation. To this latter body were assigned the buildings of the earlier foundation, together with lands and tenements which produced a revenue of ^£^2200 a year. But this property was to be held subject to the condition that the Dean and Chapter maintained a full staff of persons for the services of the Cathedral Church, three Public Professors, in Theology, Hebrew, and Greek, who were to be appointed by the King, and 100 Students, besides 24 servants and officers, and 24 alms- men. The Students, not yet designated as a body by the special name of " Alumni,*" were divided into classes, viz., 20 Theologi, 40 Philosophi, and 40 Discipuli.* The foundation thus established still exists, and it continued without any essential change till 1858. A certain number of the Studentships were assigned, as will be seen, by Queen Elizabeth to Westminster school ; in 1601 the nomination to one of the Studentships was granted by a private Act of Parliament to the Venables (afterwards Vernon) family, in return for the grant of an estate in Cheshire; and in 1664 an additional Studentship was created in consequence of a bequest of William Thurston, Esq., "a jovial cavalier," who left d^800 to "King's College in Oxford." This bequest audience to supply the name they preferred ; and a third version was : "Among whom I am bound in this place to mention King Henry VIII. as the founder of Christ Church," a phrase which committed the speaker to very little. The most sensitive conscience might be satisfied by an ampler formula : " such as were King Henry VIII., the founder of Christ Church, and Thomas Wolsey, Cardinal, the creator of the original foundation of Cardinal College." * For the documents relating to the foundation of Christ Church, see Appendix B. FIRST LIST OF CANONS 13 was claimed by Oriel and Brasenose Colleges, but the superior claim of Christ Church was allowed. It remains to trace the fortunes of Henry VIII. 's foundation down to the present day, noting at the out- set that it was not only a Collegiate but also a Cathedral establishment, and that it was charged with distinct duties towards the University in providing the endow- ment of three Regius Professorships. It should be mentioned that in the letters patent of November 4, 1546, are given the names of the eight canons nominated by the King to the newly created stalls, who formed with the Dean (also nominated) " unum corpus corporatum " with perpetual succession. They were : (1) William Haynes, S.T.B. ; (2) William Tresham,S.T.P.; (3) Thomas Day, LL.B.; (4) Alexander Belsyre, A.M. ; (5) John Dyar, A.M. ; (6) James Curt- hope, A.M. ; (7) Thomas Barnard, A.M. ; and (8) Robert Banks, A.M. They are described as " primus, secundus, &c., presbyter praebendarius," and ranked in order of nomination. Four of them, Haynes, Day, Belsyre, and Dyar, had been previously canons of Oseney. Haynes was also Provost of Oriel College. Tresham had been canon of Henry VIII. 's College. Curt hope, a Fellow of Corpus, though entitled " presbyter," was not at the time in Holy Orders. He became Dean of Peterborough in 1549. Barnard and Banks were Cambridge graduates. These two last were deprived of their canonries at the beginning of Mary's reign for being married men, and were both restored under Elizabeth. Tresham and Belsyre (the latter the first President of St. John's College, 1555) were deprived at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign; the former, if not both, for denying the royal supremacy. 14 CHRIST CHURCH To each of these canons certain lodgings were assigned at the outset, determined probably by seniority of choice ; and as the succession of tenants has continued, with some inevitable changes, to the present day, it will be well for the sake of clearness to distinguish the several Canonries according to the lodgings. Stall 1 had lodgings originally adjoining the gi*eat gate on its northern side. Upon the completion of the great quadrangle in 1665 the lodgings now occupied by the Archdeacon of Oxford were assigned to this stall. Stall 2 has always had lodgings in the cloisters, in the residence of the Prior of the Monastery. Stall 3 has had a more eventful career. Till 1660 the lodgings were on the eastern side of the great quadrangle, between those of stalls 4 and 5. In that year these lodgings were, by a Chapter order, sacrificed for the enlargement of the two adjoining residences ; and Dr. Gardiner, the holder of the stall (who had been deprived under the Commonwealth and was now restored), was placed in a house near the Chaplains' Buildings, which had been erected in 1638 by Philip King, the Auditor. This house was burnt down in 1669, and a new house was built between Kill-Canon and Peckwater, which has belonged to the stall since that time. Stall 4 has always enjoyed the lodgings now assigned to the Regius Professor of Pastoral Theology. Stall 5 originally had the southernmost portion of the east side of the great quadrangle, but in 1871 the Regius Professor of Divinity (to whom this stall was assigned) moved into the lodgings of the 8th stall, then suppressed. CANONS' LODGINGS 15 Stall 6. The lodgings in the south-west comer of the great quadrangle have always belonged to this stall, which is held by the Regius Professor of Hebrew. Stall 7. The lodgings were originally on the west side of Peckwater Inn, in much the same position as the residence assigned to the stall when the new quadrangle of Peckwater was built, comprising staircase No. 9,' and part of the present lodgings of the Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History. Stall 8. The lodgings were originally in Canterbury College, at the north-east corner, as may be seen in Agas' plan. Thence they were removed to the east side of Peckwater Inn ; thence, on the completion of the great quadrangle, to the lodgings now occupied by the Regius Professor of Divinity. Stalls 7 and 8 were suppressed under the Ordinance of 1858, and the lodgings attached to them became vacant, the first in 1859, on the death of Dr. Barnes, the other in 1871, on the death of Dr. Jelf CHAPTER II THE TUDOR PERIOD Deans : Richard Cox, 1546-53 ; Richard Marshall, 1553-9 ; George Carew, 1559-61 ; Thomas Sampson, 1561-5 ; Thomas Godwin, 1565-7; Thomas Cooper, 1567-70; John Piers, 1570-6; Tobie Matthews, 1576-84; William James, 1584-96; Thomas Ravis, 1596-1605. The history of Christ Church during the Tudor period, as indeed is the case throughout its annals, may be conveniently and naturally connected with the series of its Deans. The Tudor Deans comprise a long line of no fewer than ten persons in the short space of half a century, and the list shows the oscillations from one ecclesiastical party to another, as the nation passed from Henry to Edward, from Edward to Mary, and from Mary to Elizabeth. The first Dean of Christ Church (or Christ's Church)* * These two titles (of which the second has become obsolete) are perfectly legitimate, as English renderings of " Ecclesia Christi." The substitution of " ^des " for "Ecclesia" is found as early as 1561, and in the matriculation registers from 1582; while the familiar abbreviation "Ch: Ch: " occurs in the chapter books for the first time in 1651. The expression " Christ Church College " has no authority, and tends to obliterate the dis- tinction between Christ Church and the other Oxford foun- dations, namely, that it is a Cathedral as well as a Collegiate establishment. But one may quite rightly use such expressions as "College Officers," "College Prayers," or "the College," when referring to the non-cathedral element of the foundation. On the DEAN COX 17 was Richard Cox. He appears to have been educated at Eton and at King's College, Cambridge, and to have been among those Cambridge men who were selected as junior canons of Cardinal College. He had been nominated by the King to the Deanery of Oxford in January 1544, while the see was still at Oseney, in succession to Dr. London, and was now appointed to the Deanery of the new foundation. He was a supporter of the doctrines of the Reformation, and during Edward VI. 's reign held a prominent place in Oxford. From 1547 to 1552 he was Chancellor of the University, but resigned that office in order that it " might be conferred on some one who had more influence ' apud regni proceres ' than he himself had."" His ardour in the cause of the reformed religion led him to incur the everlasting disgrace of being " one of the most extreme of those who in their zeal against popery destroyed with ruthless hand the ancient MSS. in the libraries of Oxford. '"^ He also ventured on a step which if Henry had lived might have proved somewhat hazardous, in introducing a wife into the Dean's lodgings. Mrs. Cox and Mrs. Peter Martyr were the first two married ladies to dwell within College walls in Oxford. other hand, to speak of Christ Church as "the House" in con- tradistinction to the Colleges of Oxford, is quite a mistake. All Colleges are "Houses" in relation to their own members, as is indicated by the well-known phrase, "Heads of Houses"; and every College may speak of its own members as belonging to " our House," or " the House." In such a sense the word is correctly used by Christ Church men when referring to members of their House ; but it is wrongly used when — as on the river — our boat is called by outsiders the "House" eight, as though their own Colleges were not "Houses" also. Till quite recently it was called the "Christ Church " eight, and was urged on by the shouting of that title. B 18 CHRIST CHURCH Cox lost his Deanery with Mary's accession, was imprisoned for a time, and then took refuge at Frank- furt. He returned at EHzabeth's accession to the throne, and became Bishop of Ely, the first of the only two Oxford men, both members of Christ Church, who have held that see. The names of Hatton Garden and Ely Place still recall " the encroaching Lord Keeper and the elbowed Bishop." Hatton desired to build his house in the Bishop's garden, and when Cox resisted the spoliation he received from the Queen the famous letter, unhappily of doubtful authenticity : — " Proud Prelate, " You know what you were before I made you ; if you do not immediately comply with my request, by G — d I will unfrock you. "Elizabeth." The name of Peter Martyr is associated with a curious episode in Christ Church history. Peter Mart}^ Vermilius, a Florentine, at one time Abbot of Spoleto and Prior of St. Peter ad aram near Naples, had incurred the suspicion of the Inquisition and had fled to Ziirich, and thence to Strassburg. He adopted the Reformed doctrine, and at Cranmer's invitation came to England in 1547. In the following year he was made Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, and in 1550 was assigned a canonry at Christ Church, succeeding Dr. William Haynes as canon of the 1st stall. The lodgings belonging to this stall at that time, as has been already stated, adjoined the great gate on its north side. To this home he brought a German wife, Katherine Dampmartin, and his arrival at once attracted the hostility of the Catholics, so that the scholars broke KATHERINE MARTYR 19 his windows and disturbed his studies and sleep. He therefore contrived to change his lodgings for those of the canon of the 2nd stall, formerly the Prior's house, where in the seclusion of the cloisters he could rest undisturbed; and in the garden of these lodgings he built a study, a stone building two stories high, which remained till 1684, when Aldrich, who then occupied the stall, pulled it down.* Mary's accession drove Martyr out of England; but he was then a widower, his wife having died in Christ Church in 1552. The remarkable story connected with his wife's remains is told in a small and rare volume published in 1561 by James Calf hill, canon of Christ Christ 1560-70, con- taining various copies of verses in commemoration of the events, which are recorded in detail in a Latin preface addressed to Grindal, Bishop of London. In 1554 Cardinal Pole sent Commissioners to Oxford, to restore the Roman Catholic worship and to inquire for heretics. Information reached them that Martyr's wife had died two years before, and had been buried in the Cathedral near the sacred body of St. Frideswide. But was she a heretic ? Those who had known her in Oxford were asked, and all declared that owing to her foreign speech they were quite ignorant of what her religion had been. The matter was therefore reported to the Cardinal, who made up his mind without hesitation. Cox's place as Dean had now been taken by Richard Marshall (1553-9),f a former Fellow of Corpus and for a while Student of Christ Church, a Romanist for the nonce, and to Marshall, " indignis- * It is figured in Loggan's drawing. f In a letter preserved in the University archives he spells his name thus ; but it is often written as Martial. 20 CHRIST CHURCH simum JEdis Christi Decanum,'*' as Calfhill terms him, came a peremptory order from Pole, " ut quoniam juxta corpus sanctissimse Frideswidae jacebat corpus uxoris Petri Martyris, exhumari et jactari faciat."" No one could have been found, writes Calfhill, fitter for such a task. He declares Marshall to have been a man of drunken habits and fanatical temper, a terror to the dead as well as to the living. At fall of day, resting for a while from his deep potations, he went with boon companions and workmen to the church, and after digging up the corpse, had it conveyed on the shoulders of a labourer to a dung-heap in his own yard, where it was buried amid the filth. There it rested till Eliza- beth's reign. Calfhill, the narrator, was by this time a canon, having taken the place of Dr. Tresham on his deprivation in 1560. To him and others orders were sent for the honourable burial of Katherine Martyr. The place of her orginal sepulture was ascertained, near the tomb of St. Frideswide. Then, in the Dean's stable- yard, the decayed body was found hidden in the dung. The remains were collected and conveyed reverently to the chxu"ch, to be there guarded till a feast day should bring together a multitude. At the same time, in a remote part of the church were discovered some bones, covered in a silk wrapping ; and these were identified as the bones of St. Frideswide, which formerly, before the desecration of her shrine in 1538, it had been customary to exhibit above the High Altar on great occasions. It was resolved to bury these bones and the remains of Katherine Martyr " permixta et confusa " in one common grave at the east end of the church, and this was done with much ceremony, amid a large concourse of people, on January 11, 1562. DEAN MARSHALL 21 A volume of Latin poems celebrated the event ; the best of them being the following epigram written by Calfhill himself:— '^ Ossa Frideswidae sacro decorata triumpho Altari festis mota diebus erant. E tumulo contra Katherinae Martyris ossa Turpiter in foedum jacta fuere locum. Nunc utriusque simul saxo sunt ossa sub uno. Par ambabus honos, et sine lite cubant. Vivite nobiscum Concordes ergo papistse^ Nunc coeunt pietas atque superstitio." This strange narrative connects the reign of Edward VI. with that of Elizabeth, and it was not likely that Marshall, who had been intruded into the Deanery by Mary, and had remained there throughout her reign, would be leniently judged by those who came after him. Leonard Hutten, the Christ Church antiquary, who was canon of the 7th stall 1599-1632, confirms the verdict of Calfhill as to Marshall's general character, and quotes on this point the words of Laurence Humphrey, President of Magdalen College and Regius Professor of Divinity, the friend of Dean Sampson, and biographer of Bishop Jewel. Humphrey's account of Marshall, written in 1573, was perhaps based on personal knowledge, and carries considerable weight, though he was undoubtedly no impartial judge of Marshall's actions. He describes him as '^ homo versipellis, et vere Ecebolus * ; sub Edvardo publice retractans, sub Maria reversus ad vomitum, sub Elizabetha primum vagus et erro, mox captus et Londini examinatus * Hutten in quoting these words uses the more familiar form of the name, Ecebolius. 22 CHRIST CHURCH iterum mutat sententiam, iterura ac tertio aliam canit cantilenam, earn palam in suggestu Paulino contestaturus^ si vita longior superfuisset." He also accuses him of plotting against Jewel in Mary's reign. But whatever may have been Marshall's faults, he at any rate did not prosper through them. There is no doubt that under Elizabeth he suffered deprivation and imprisonment, and died in obscurity. One other famous event is connected with Marshall's tenure of the Deanery — the degradation of Archbishop Cranmer after his excommunication. It is thus described by Dean Hook : "On February 14, 1555, the Archbishop was brought under a guard to Christ Church. Here the Bishop of London [Bonner], the Bishop of Ely [Thirlby], and other persons in the Commission had already taken their places on an elevated platform before the High Altar in the choir, in full pontificals. The commission, which was read, invested its members with full authority to deprive, to degrade, and to excommunicate Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, and on his degradation to deliver him up to the secular power, ' omni appellatione remota.' " With solemn step and slow the procession moved out of the church to a portion of the adjoining yard. Here stood a credence table in the shape of an altar. The candlesticks were upon it, but the candles were not lighted. It was covered with the habiliments of the clergy, and the various utensils made use of in their ministrations. On either side were ^ sedilia ' for the two bishops and other persons included in the Commission ; for the officer appointed by the Government, when to the tender mercies of the State the prisoner should be committed, and for a notary public. There was a faldstool placed, at which the DEGRADATION OF CRANMER 23 Archbishop knelt, while the Bishop of London, in the name of the Blessed Trinity and by the authority of the Church, declared him deposed, degraded and cut off from all the privileges attached to his Clerical Order. This was not enough, however, for Bonner. With unfeeling inso- lence he turned to the assembled multitude, and exclaimed in triumph : " ' This is the man that ever despised the Pope's Holi- ness and now is to be judged by him. This is the man who hath pulled down so many churches, and now is come to be judged in a church. This is the man that con- demned the Blessed Sacrament of the altar, and now is come to be condemned before the Blessed Sacrament hanging over the altar. This is the man that, like Lucifer, sat in the place of Christ upon an altar, to judge others, and now is come before an altar to be judged himself.' " These taunts led to an unseemly altercation, which Thirlby in vain tried to stop, and then the ceremony of degradation proceeded. " All the vestments which he as an Archbishop was privileged to wear lay outstretched on the credence table, though made of canvas and other coarse stuff : the purple cassock, the amice, the rochet, the alb, the stole, the tunicle, the dalmatic, the maniple, the chasuble, the mitre, the gloves, the episcopal ring, the sandals, the buskins, the gremial, the pastoral staff, the crosier, and the pallium. Two or more mocking priests proceeded to vest him. There stood the venerable man, the mitre on his head, in his left hand the pastoral staff. The grace of his manly face, the dignity of his figure, prevented men from noticing the material of which the vestments had been made. From the top step which led to the credence table, standing in imitation of an altar, the Primate of all 24 CHRIST CHURCH England and Metropolitan looked down upon his suffragans, who contrary to all law were sitting in judgment upon him. . . . One by one all the ornaments and distinctions of office were taken off. ... A barber clipped the hair round the Archbishop's head ; and Cranmer was made to kneel ])efore Bonner. Bonner scraped the tips of the Archbishop's fingers to desecrate the hand which, itself anointed, had administered the unction to others. The threadbare gown of a yeoman bedel was thrown over his shoulders, and a townsman's greasy cap was forced upon his head. The Archbishop of Canterbury, or as he was now called, Thomas Cranmer, was handed over to the secular power. In the lowest and most offensive manner the innate vulgarity of Bonner's mind displayed itself. Turning to Cranmer he exclaimed, ' Now you are no longer my Lord,' and he thought it witty ever afterwards to speak of him as ^ this gentleman here.' " The exact locality of this extraordinary scene has not been identified. It might have been in the cloisters, or in the enclosure eastward of the Chapter House. One other incident of Cranmer's life took place at Christ Church. He was removed from the prison at Bocardo to the Deanery, and was there for a time hospitably entertained, playing bowls on the Deanery lawn. This was after his first recantation ; but such liberty was allowed only for a little while. Of George Carew (1559-61), Marshall's successor, little is recorded. He was of noble family, the son of Edward Lord Carew : he had been a member of Broadgates Hall, and had held several preferments in the west of England. He was Archdeacon of Exeter at the time of his appointment to Christ Church ; and on his resignation in 1561 he accepted the Deanery of WESTMINSTER STUDENTSHIPS 25 Bristol, a post of which he had been deprived eight years before, on Mary's accession. But the date 1561, when Carew gave place to Dean Sampson, marks an event which was of signal importance in the history of Christ Church, the assignment by Elizabeth of certain of its Studentships to boys educated at her royal foundation of St. Peter's, Westminster. In that year began the roll of the annual elections from Westminster school to the two Universities, for the Master of Trinity Cambridge received the same mandate as the Dean of Christ Church. At first neither of the Colleges welcomed the new obligation ; they tried to evade it, and to excuse themselves for not discharging it. In the year 1575, two of the Queen's Scholars of Westminster, Carow and Ravis, though duly chosen according to the statute, were refused admission to Christ Church by the Dean and Chapter on the ground that there was no room for them, two other students besides them having presented themselves for admission armed with letters from the Queen. The young men thus excluded did not tamely submit, but wrote Latin epistles to Lord Burghley, stating their hard case, and pointing out the injury that would be done to the school if their rights were ignored : " non mea solum, sed totius Westmonasterii, jam res agitur" pleads Carow. They were both ultimately admitted. But this dis- agreement, due in large measure no doubt to the arbitrary action of Elizabeth in nominating scholars at her own will, led to a stringent order issued by her in the next year (17 Elizabeth) in which the number of students to be elected from Westminster is carefully defined afresh : " ne incertus sit omnino numerus, sex ad minimum, videlicet tres in Ecclesiam Christi Oxon, et 26 CHRIST CHURCH tres in Collegium S. Trinitatis, singulis annis ; " provided that there be room for them, and fitting candidates. Accordingly in 1577 we find three lads elected to each College : and though this number is not always main- tained, the exceptions are rare in subsequent years. In 1660 indeed there appears to have been no formal election, on account of the unsettled state of the Universities, but according to Wood, Wiliam Jane, afterwards Professor of Divinity and Dean of Gloucester, was in that year admitted as a Student. It is difficult to overestimate the advantage to Christ Church of this ancient and honourable con- nexion with Westminster school, a union which has been maintained with rare fidelity, to the great benefit of both School and College. Westminster has always given to Christ Church its most distinguished sons, and Christ Church has warmly appreciated the privilege of enrolling on the list of its Students the foremost boys of so venerable a school. Among the " Alumni West- monasterienses *" will be found a very large proportion of the famous men of Christ Church ; sixteen of its Deans were educated there ; the first of them being Ravis, whose election, when a boy, was so seriously imperilled. Thomas Sampson (1561-5) stands in marked contrast to Marshall, the Dean of Mary's time. He was a strong and obstinate Puritan. He appears to have been educated at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, though without taking a degree. He was a friend of Ridley and of Cranmer, was married to a niece of Ridley's, and on his ordination in company with Bradford (the subsequent martyr) had taken so strong an exception " against the apparel " that he was allowed to be ordained without DEAN SAMPSON 27 assuming the clerical habits. In Mary's reign he had lived in Germany and Switzerland, and his appointment to the Deanery of Christ Church is attributed to a request made to Elizabeth by the whole Society through Lord Robert Dudley. This is strange, as he was not a graduate of Oxford, and indeed never became one, though he obtained leave to preach in a doctor's habit within the precincts of the University. So stiff, how- ever, were his Puritan opinions and so resolute his refusal to conform, that in March 1565 he was summoned, together with Laurence Humphrey and four other Puritan ministers, to appear before the Ecclesiastical Commissioners at Lambeth, and was by special order of the Queen deprived of his Deanery and placed in con- finement. Archbishop Parker appears to have stood his friend at this time, and to have gained his release. It was probably through Parker that he obtained a Prebend at St. Paul's, and the Mastership of Wigston's Hospital at Leicester, where he died at an advanced age in 1589. On his monument there he is described as "Hierarchiae Romanae papaliumque rituum hostis acerrimus, sinceritatis evangelicae assertor constan- tissimus." His Puritan zeal is illustrated by an entry in the Chapter books in September 1561, soon after his becoming Dean of Christ Church : — "Convocatis per Deeanum in domum nostram Capitu- larem omnibus Praebendariis unanimi decreto consensum est ut altaria^ statuae^ imagines^ tabernacula, libri missales caeteraque id genus superstitionis et idololatriae monu- menta, quae tam in temple nostro quam alibi apud nos reliqua erant, prorsus tollerentur; necnon ut jEdes sacra in meliorem et convenientem formam publicis Ecclesiae nostrae impensis redigeretur." 28 CHRIST CHURCH It was shortly after his deprivation that the famous " Advertisements " were issued. Thomas Godwin (1565-7) was Dean for only two years, passing on to the Deanery of Canterbury and then to the Bishopric of Bath and Wells. He was educated at Magdalen College, as were his two successors in the Deanery, and appears to have lost his Fellowship in consequence of his sympathy with the reformed doctrine. In Mary's reign he studied and practised physic as a profession ; Elizabeth for a time took him into great favour ; partly, perhaps, for the reason given by Fuller, that he was " tall and comely in person, qualities which endeared him to Queen Elizabeth, who loved good parts well, but better when in a goodly person"; but a second marriage that he made seems to have alienated her. It was during his tenure of the Deanery of Christ Church that Elizabeth, in 1566, paid her first visit to Oxford. The Queen and Court were lodged in Christ Church, the members of the College, except the Dean and certain of the canons, giving up their rooms for the accommodation of the visitors. The whole of the east side of the quadrangle was used as a palace for the Queen, and no doubt there was then a communication on both floors along its entire length, possibly giving admission to the Hall, in some way, through the door now blocked up, which may be seen in the face of the north wall of the Hall staircase tower. The Queen during her visit attended plays in the Hall, witnessing the two parts of " Palaemon and Arcyte " on two successive nights, and the tragedy of " Progne,'' written by Calfhill, which must have been a dreary performance : DEAN COOPER 29 "in scena exhibetur quomodo Tereus rex comedit filium necatum apparatumque ab uxore Progne ob stupratam sororem suam, omnia certe prout oportebat summo appa- ratu cultuque vere regio." At her departure for Rycote, Mr. Tobie Matthews, a young M.A. Student, soon to be Dean, made a poHshed oration as she mounted her horse, praying her graciously to preserve the College "quod pater inchoavit, frater ornavit, soror auxit.'' * Godwin was succeeded as Dean by our first Christ Church Lexicographer, Thomas Cooper (1567-70), a profound and laborious scholar, whose "Thesaurus Linguae Graecae et Britannicag," published in 1565, had for a long while a well-deserved reputation. Cooper was a native of Oxford, and had risen at Magdalen College from the position of chorister to that of Fellow, and Master of the school. William Camden was among his pupils there. After becoming Dean he was appointed Vice-Chancellor by Lord Leicester, who then first assumed the power of nominating his own deputy without reference to Convocation ; hence the name Vice-Chancellor took the place of the earlier title of Commissary. Cooper's domestic life was embittered by a termagant wife, but this did not interfere with his pre- ferment, for he passed from Christ Church to the Bishopric of Lincoln, and thence to Winchester. He was there buried, and in his epitaph is described as " munificentissimus, doctissimus, vigilantissimus praesul.*" John Piers (1570-6), was originally a member of Magdalen College, but at the time of his appointment * Edward VI. gave endowments amounting to £21 gs. 3^., and Mary endowments amounting to £'j/\ 85. 4^., per annum, in augmentation of Henry's original dotation. 30 CHRIST CHURCH to Christ Church held the Mastership of BalHol, a pre- ferment which he retained for a time together with the Deanery. He became afterwards Bishop of Rochester and of SaHsbury, and finally Archbishop of York. He was a native of South Hinksey, and possibly the " Cross Keys '"* inn there owes its sign to the fact that one of the villagers became Primate of the northern Province. His successor as Dean, ToUe Mattheivs (1576-84), was a remarkable man. He entered Oxford at the age of 13, and from St. John's College went to Christ Church as a Student. If the dates of his various preferments can be trusted, he was Canon of Christ Church at the age of 24, President of St. John's two years later, and Dean of Christ Church at the age of 30. When he became Dean of Durham in 1584, at the age of 38, Elizabeth is said to have " stuck a good deal," in con- senting to the appointment, " because of his youth and marriage.'' Ten years afterwards he became Bishop of Durham, and subsequently Archbishop of York. Matthews was a statesman as well as a prelate ; and the advisers of Elizabeth and James relied upon him to watch the northern shires, and report on any dangers that menaced England on that frontier. To his charge Arabella Stuart was entrusted, but his guardian- ship was somewhat lax, for she escaped from his custody in 1611. As Dean of Christ Church, in spite of his youth, he acquitted himself admirably. Of his Vice- Chancellorship in 1580 Wood writes : " I have heard some of the antients of this University say at my first coming that though Matthews was a most excellent scholar^ yet being too young for the office of Vice-Chancellor showed himself a little too busy and pragmatical." DEAN TOBIE MATTHEWS 81 Certainly he had an unpleasant altercation with the Principal of Brasenose in St. Mary's Church, on the occasion of the Act. The Dean, as Vice- Chancellor, himself " kept the scaffolds "" built theatre- wise at the east end of the nave, and " thrust down *" the Principal of Brasenose (Harris), who was his senior, upon his claiming the right to enter. But when a few days afterwards Matthews laid down his office in St. Mary's chancel, Harris used such opprobrious language to him that the matter was reported to the new Vice-Chancellor, who ordered the Principal to make a public reparation and submission. A feud between Christ Church and Brasenose was the natural conse- quence of this unseemly affair. Matthews was a popular and eloquent preacher. The number of the sermons preached by him after leaving Oxford has been recorded. As Dean of Durham he delivered 721 sermons in 11 years ; as Bishop of Durham, 550 in 12 years ; as Archbishop of York, 721 in 22 years. One of the sermons was preached at Berwick before King James, when on his way to take possession of the throne of England. He was a pleasant and witty man, and was wont to say " he could as well not be as not be merry." But he was scholar and theologian as well as wit ; " Theologus prasstantissimus," as Camden terms him. One curious event is recorded during his tenure of the Deanery of Christ Church, the visit of Albertus a Lasco to Oxford in 1583. This personage was Palatine of Siradia, a duchy in Lower Poland, and Elizabeth, whose guest he was, sent him down to Oxford with instructions to the authorities to entertain him with due honour. 32 CHRIST CHURCH He was first received by the University at St. Mary's church, "and thense he marched to Christ's Church, where he was, whilest he abode in the Universitie, most honourabhe interteined. And the first night being vacant, as in which he sought rather rest in his lodging than recreation in anie academicall pastimes, strange fire-workes were shewed in the great quadrangle, besides rockets and a number such maner of devises." On the second and third evenings of his visit "after sumptuous suppers in his lodging, he personaly was present with his traine in the Hall ; first at the plaieing of a pleasant comedie intituled Rivales : then at the setting out of a verie statelie Tragedie named Dido, wherein the Queen's banket (with Eneas narration of the destruction of Troie) was livelie described in a march- paine patterne ; there was also a goodlie sight of hunters with full crie of a kennell of hounds. Mercuric and Iris descending and ascending from and to a high place, the tempest wherein it hailed small confects, rained rose-water, and snew an artificiall kind of snow, all strange, marvel- lous and abundant."* The actors were mostly Christ Church men, and the MS. of " Dido, Tragoedia, acta in Mde Christi Oxoniae pridie Idus Junii A.D. 1583 '^ is to be found in the Wake archives of the Christ Church Library. William James (1584-96) went from his studentship at Christ Church to be Master of University College, where he is said to have shown his " wisdom and policy in restoring and bringing to happy quietness the late wasted, spoiled and indebted College." He returned to * Holinshed, 2$ Elizabeth. DEAN JAMES SB Christ Church as Dean, and twelve years afterwards became Dean of Durham, and afterwards Bishop, on Matthews' promotion to York. As Bishop he was unpopular, and it is said that a reproof administered by James I. who was his guest in 1617 on his progress to Scotland — a reproof probably caused by the Bishop's contest with the citizens about their privileges and parliamentary representation — broke the old man's heart. He died, aged 75, four days after the royal visit. As Dean, he was a liberal contributor to the re- establishment of the College Library, and Strype has preserved some very interesting letters relating to the " stint " or allowance of bread to the members of the foundation, which were addressed by him to the Lord Keeper Puckeridge. He was evidently a shrewd man of business. In 1592 Elizabeth paid her second visit to Oxford, and was lodged in Christ Church. There were the inevitable plays in the Hall, and a sermon in the Cathedral, preached by the Dean. One point of interest arises with regard to the plays. A committee was appointed to manage them, consisting not only of members of Christ Church, but also of the Vice- Chancellor and Proctors, and these University officials exercised authority within the College walls. They issued an edict forbidding scholars who could not be admitted to the Hall to make outcries or " undecent noyse" about the Hall stairs or in the quadrangle, under the penalty of imprisonment or other penalty, according to the discretion of the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors.* This measure stands in strong contrast to the jealously guarded liberty of the Colleges against * A. Claxk, Register, ii. 230. c 84 CHRIST CHURCH any intrusion of the University authorities within their walls, which has been customary in later times. Thomas Ravis (1596-1605) was the first West- minster Student who rose to be Dean. He was subse- quently Bishop of Gloucester and of London, and was buried in St. PauFs. During his reign as Dean came the re-opening of Duke Humphrey's Library by the munificence of Sir Thomas Bodley (1602), and the first election of Burgesses for the University (1603). In the latter year William Laud was Proctor. Ravis was a learned divine, and was one of the translators of the Bible. Fuller writes that he " left the memory of a grave and good man behind him. Nor must it be forgotten that, as he first had his learning in Westminster school, so he always continued, both by his counsel and countenance, a most special encourager of the studies of all deserving scholars belonging to that foundation." It will be well to pause here, and to give some account of the life of the foundation during the first half-century of its existence. The Dean and eight Canons, all appointed by the Crown, formed the Corporation. They owned and managed the property, and nominated the members of the foundation with the exception of the three Regius Professors and the bedesmen. The College chapel was the Cathedral Church of the Diocese, but the Dean always claimed to be his own Ordinary, the Visitor of the society being the Crown and not the Bishop. The Bishop had his separate estate, and Gloucester College was assigned as his palace.* * " Gloucester, now Worcester, College had been granted as a FIRST ROLL OF MEMBERS 85 The College buttery book shows that the places on the foundation were at once almost filled, and in the earliest Chapter roll (at the beginning of 1548) are found : — 20 Theologi, the oldest being 43, the youngest 20 years of age; 20 Philosophi primi vicenarii, the oldest 40, the youngest 18; 50 Philosophi secundi vicenarii, the oldest 23, the youngest 13 ; of these 10 were Domini, or Bachelors of Arts, and the rest Undergraduates. This section was subsequently sub-divided into 20 Philosophi secundi vicenarii and 40 Discipuli. Thus in the first roll there were included 90 out of a maximum of 100 Students, and persons of very various ages had been appointed to fill the different classes, but as vacancies occurred in later years, the juniors passed up to fill the higher ranks, and new-comers would begin their careers as Discipuli and rise gradually from class to class. The Theologi were intended to be in Priests' Orders, though obviously at the first they were not all so.* palace when the see was at Oseney, and Bishop King had used it as such, but the King dying (Jan. 28, 1547) before the translation under these letters was completed, the Bishop resigned all the endowments of the see into Edward VI. 's hands, who by an inden- ture (Sep. 13, 1547) re-endowed the see, but with the omission of Gloucester College, which therefore remained with the Crown, passing in 1559 into the hands of Sir T. Whyte, founder of St. John's College." — Ogle's Royal Letters addressed to Oxford, p. 160 n. Was it then between 1547 and 1557 that the house in St. Aldate's, still called Bishop King's palace, was inhabited by him ? He died Dec. 4. 1557. * There were certain " faculty" Students, who were not obliged to take Holy Orders, and who ranked next to the Theologi. These are mentioned as early as 1557. They were termed "faculty" Students from the " facultas " or special privilege granted to them by the Dean and Chapter, by which they gained exemption from the obligation to enter Holy Orders. Their numbers varied ; they were sometimes as many as five, but more usually three. The 56 CHRIST CHURCH Below the Students came the complete staff for the services of the Church and College. There were 8 Ministri in Ecclesia (chaplains), 8 Clerici (lay clerks), 8 Pueri Musici, 2 ^ditui, and 2 Vergibajuli. There were also 4 Promi (butlers), 1 Obsonator (manciple), 1 Auditor, 3 Coqui, 1 Lixa (scullion), 2 Janitores and 4 Operarii. Distinct from these were 20 Bedesmen, who appear to have been appointed by the Crown, sometimes on the nomination of the Dean. For the proper government of this large community certain officers were appointed each year. The first list of " Officiarii " occurs in 1552. It consists of a Sub- dean, 3 Praefecti aerarii (subsequently merged in a Treasurer), 2 Censors and Readers of Natural and Moral Philosophy respectively, 2 Readers in Dialectic, 1 Reader in Rhetoric, and 1 Reader in Mathematics.* Such was the College staff, and there is no doubt that from the very first the College opened its doors to non- foundationers, who participated in the advantages of its teaching. In the Dean's entry book for 1547 appear the names of 4 Commoners, and the neighbouring Broadgates Hall afforded lodgings for other young men, who though not actually on the books of Christ Church were under tuition there. Such were Sir Philip Sidney and William Camden, who were pupils of Dr. Thomas Thornton, and when Thornton became a Canon, Camden crossed over to Christ Church — ^having already taken his degree — and shared Thornton's lodgings. holders were apparently intended to graduate in Law or Medicine, but this condition was not always enforced. * The Censor Theologiae is not mentioned in this list ; yet he is found, as an officer distinct from the Sub-dean, as early as 1549. RULES FOR SCHOLARS 87 No statutes having been drawn up by the founder, it was necessary for the Dean and Chapter to make regulations with regard to all matters concerning the government of the College, and occasionally resort was had to the royal Visitor, who acted through the Lord High Chancellor, or Lord Keeper, to enforce authority. The Dean and Chapter met every Sunday afternoon between 3 and 4 o'clock to transact business, and absentees were subject to a fine " duodecim denari- orum." A list was issued of " What everie Scholler ought to have before he enter into the House." It is as follows : " 1 . Inprimis a Tutor, one of the Divines or of the Philo- sophers primi vicenarii. " 2. Honeste apparell and cumblye for a scholler. '^ 3. Psalterium of Leo Juda translation. " 4. His catechisme sett forth e in the Kyng's booke by harte. "5. Grace accustomed to be said at meales by harte. '^ 6. Theie must also tayke an othe to the kyng." And in another list there is added : " Bedding sufficient and meet for one man." The psalter here mentioned, together with the cate- chism and grace, are comprised in the " Liber Precum Ecclesiae Cathedralis Christi Oxon," which was habitu- ally used at College Prayers from these early days till the end of 1861. Leo Juda was one of the authors of the " Versio Tigurina," which was completed by Bib- liander and Pellican, and published by Froschover at Ziirich in 1543. It differs considerably from the 38 CHRIST CHURCH Vulgate, and the choice was possibly due to the puritan sympathies of Dean Sampson, or to the Chapter of Edward VI. 's days. Strict attendance of the scholars was enjoined at disputations and lectures, and at College Prayers, morning prayer being at the early hour of five oHock. Neglect of these duties was punished by fines. Residence was rigorously enforced, except in cases where leave of absence was formally granted, and two Students and no more were allowed to travel abroad. A system of examination of the scholars — answering in some respects to the " collections " of later times — was early established. We read a solemn announce- ment of this ordeal in the Chapter register of 1550 : " In Dei nomine Amen. Per praesens pubUcum instru- mentum cunctis evidenter appareat et sit notum quod anno Domini millesimo quingentesimo quinquagesimo, anno Regis Edvardi Sexti Dei gratia Angliae Franciae et Hiberniae Regis fidei defensoris ac in terris Ecclesiae Angli- canae et Hibernicae supremi capitis quarto, convocati sunt per Subdecanum consentiente Decano Mr Goodman et Mr. Cratforde Censores in Ecclesia Christi Oxon ad exami- nandam juventutem ineadem Ecclesia secundum statu turn* ejusdem domus quod imperat ut ad finem biennii singuli examinentur quantum profecerint tarn litteris quam m^oribus. Sciant igitur omnes ad quos hoc praesens scriptum pervenerit quod his quorum nomina subscribuntur tale habetur Subdecani et Censorum judicium.'* Then follows a list of twelve scholars who are named. The first "nee moribus nee litteris profecit."" Of the others ^^ non profecit," or " mediocriter," or " parum profecit," * This must have been a decree made by the Dean and Chapter, See Gardiner's letter of 1554, quoted below. REGULATIONS AS TO DRESS 39 or simply " profecit " is recorded. In one case alone — that of Westphaling, afterwards Bishop of Hereford, is " bene profecit " allowed. The document is signed by the Sub-dean and Censors. A strict regulation was made as to dress during the time of Tobie Matthews : " That every scholar and student shall wear and go in fytt and decent apparell according to their severall degrees, according to the lawes and statutes of this realme and the ordinances and statutes of this Universitie. And that they shall not weare any whyte and pricked doublets, no galligaskins or cutt hose, no weltyed nor lacyd gownes, upon the severall paynes nexte before rehersyd." The price of " commons " was carefully regulated by a small committee, which met every week on Friday. The recreations of the students were not forgotten, but it was decreed, with due regard for economy, that for "the pastime in Christmas and the plays'" there should be allowed a sum of six pounds ; that is, twenty shillings each for two comedies, and forty shillings each for two tragedies. One tragedy and one comedy were to be in Greek ; the other two in Latin. Discipline among so many students of such different ages does not seem to have been easily maintained ; and as early as 1554, in the second year of Mary's reign, came the following stern letter from the Chan- cellor, Bishop Gardiner : — " To the Students of Christ's Churche in Oxforde. "I commende me to you and beyng credeblie enformed of your willful 1 disobedience towards your Deane and Sub-deane there in refusing to observe their lawfull and honeste injunctions I mervaill not a lytle therof that you 40 CHRIST CHURCH beyng men of knowledge and learninge will practyse such factious stubbernes to the evill example of others and to the empayring of gode and decente ordre in that whole universitie. Wherfore as your Visitor in that I am Chaun- celler of Englande I requyre and charge you and everye of you duly and forthwith to receyve and obey suche lawfull and honest iniunctions as your Deane and in his absence the Sub-deane shall requyre you to observe. Assuring you that if further complaynte of your mys- demeanours hereafter be made and proved the same shal be so punyshed that all others, namely the heads of such confederacies, shall have cause continually to abstayne from lyke presunition and disobedience. Allso other decrees \nade by the Deane and Chappiter there, or hereafter to be made, ye shall duly kepe and observe as statutes untyll suche tyme that it shall please the Kynge and the Quene's hieghnes to sende you statutes indented according to the foundation of that Churche. And these my letters shall remayne with the Deane and Canons there, you having a copye, yf ye will. Fare ye well. From the Courte the ffyrste of Septembre 1 554. "Ste Winton Cancell." Probably Dean Marshall had found a good deal of trouble in dealing with a body of students appointed during his predecessor''s time, when Edward VI. was on the throne ; and the Visitor's warning was repeated two years later by Nicholas Heath, Archbishop of York, who succeeded to the Chancellorship on the death of Gardiner. It is interesting to note that the promised statutes were never given ; until 1858 the foundation was governed absolutely in accordance with the regula- tions of the Dean and Chapter. The Students on the old roll, which continued until that year, in taking the time-honoured oath to obey all the statutes " ad- STATE OF THE BUILDINGS 41 hue sancita vel in posterum sancienda," were consoled when making so large and vague a promise by the explanation always given by the Dean that the words meant nothing, as no statutes had ever been drawn up. The buildings of the College remained almost as Wolsey had left them throughout this period. In addi- tion to what he had erected, and the small remnants of the monastery, there were the ancient buildings of Peckwater Inn and Canterbury College, both as yet in their original condition, though in 1600 some new rooms were added in Peckwater for the reception of gentlemen commoners.* The " Great Quadrant," as it is termed in the Chapter books, was quite unfinished on its north side, and was without any terrace, Probably there was rough grass in it, and it was more or less of a thoroughfare. Among the Chapter orders we read that *' no student, scholar, chaplain nor servant or any belong- ing to the House shall lodge any dogg except the porter to dryve oute cattell and hogges out of the House." And again " that none of what state soever keepe gelding or other beste in the Quadrant or any open space about the House otherwise than in the meade at the tyme appoynted." As late as 1870 an iron staple with ring for fastening horses survived on the wall of the Deanery, a proof that in earlier days horses could be brought thither. From the very beginning of its history Christ Church could boast of distinguished sons, and was in touch with the religious and intellectual life of England. We have * In Wolsey's time, the old lodgings of Peckwater Inn were made " houses for masons to work in," 42 CHRIST CHURCH seen to what high places the Deans of this period were promoted. In the first list of Students appears the name of Bernard Gilpin, the apostle of the north ; and West- minster soon supplied eminent men. Among them was Martin Heton, Bishop of Ely, and his schoolfellow and lifelong friend William Gager. Gager's name connects Christ Church with the Elizabethan stage, and with another Student once famous as a dramatic writer, George Peele. Gager resided for many years on his Studentship, occasionally getting leave of absence for travel, and was eminent as a writer of Latin Poetry in celebration of various events of academic interest. But he also gained a high reputation as a dramatic writer. Wood describes him as the best comedian of his time, and ranks him even above Shakespeare. The Latin plays of " Dido " and of " Rivales,"" which were acted (as has been mentioned) before Albertus a Lasco, were from his pen, and were put upon the stage by George Peele, who received eighteen pounds for his services on the occasion. Gager's controversy with Dr. Rainold of Queen''s College — afterwards President of Corpus — may still be read with interest. It related to the morality of stage plays. Dr. Rainold condemned actors altogether as infamous persons ; and inveighed particularly against men appearing on the stage in women's clothing, quoting at length the book of Deuteronomy and the example of Achilles, kc. Gager is also credited with having maintained at the Oxford Act of 1608 the somewhat stern thesis that husbands might lawfully, if not laudably, beat their wives. George Peele was not only skilled as an arranger of plays for the stage, but he was also a writer of very GAGER AND PEELE 43 considerable power. The " Arraignment of Paris "''' and "David and Bethsabe,'' though repugnant in many ways to modern taste, contain passages of singular beauty and pathos. Peele was a friend of Shakespeare's, and is said to have acted with him at the Blackfriars theatre ; but he was a man of dissolute habits, and died in obscurity at an early age. Yet he deserves to live for ever in the exquisite lines which Thackeray has in part enshrined in " The Newcomes." Sir Henry Lee, the Queen's Champion, had sworn to appear in the tilt- yard yearly, on the day of Her Majesty's accession, till he should be disabled by age. On November 17, 1590, being then in his 60th year, he appeared for the last time, and after the exercises of the day were ^ over, resigned his office to the Earl of Cumberland. It was for this occasion that Peele's "Polyhymnia" was written, closing with the pathetic words of the sonnet, which was sung before the Queen : " His golden locks Time hath to silver turned ; O ! Time too swift, O ! swiftness never ceasing. His youth 'gainst time and age hath ever spurned. But spurned in vain ; youth waxeth by increasing. Beauty, strength, youtli, are flowers but fading seen ; Duty, faith, love, are roots and evergreen. " His helmet now shall make a hive for Jjees, And lover's songs be turned to holy psalms ; A man at arms must now serve on his knees. And feed on prayers, which are old age's alms ; But though from court to cottage he depart. His saint is sure of his unspotted heart. '' And when he saddest sits in homely cell. He'll teach his swains this carol for a song : 44 CHRIST CHURCH Blest be the hearts that wish my sovereign well ; Curst be the souls that think her any wrong. Goddess, allow this aged man his right, To be your bedesman now, that was your knight." Peele came to Oxford from Christ's Hospital, and entered at Broadgates Hall before he was appointed to a Studentship at Christ Church. He was one among many others — including, as we have seen, Sir Philip Sidney — who were members of that society though closely connected with Christ Church. Broadgates Hall, which stood on the site of Pembroke College, was a portion of the estate of Christ Church, and it seems to have afforded a convenient lodging for young men who could not be received within the narrow accommodation of Christ Church as it then existed, or who desired a less strict rule of life than would be there allowed. So it came to pass that the richer men, belonging to the class which a few years later furnished the gentlemen commoners of Christ Church, were matriculated as members of Broadgates Hall, though going for their instruction across the street to their tutors within the College gates. Such was Richard Carew of Antony, a poet and antiquary, Sidney's intimate friend, who matriculated at the age of 11 in 1566, two years before Sidney joined the University at the age of 14. Sidney himself left Oxford in 1571 to escape the plague which was then raging there. Among other literary men of this period, in addition to Camden who has been already mentioned, was another friend of Sidney's, Richard Hakluyt, the famous author of the " Collection of English Voyages, Navigation, Traffics, and Discoveries," who was elected from West- minster in 1570. And in 1571. in the same election as LEONARD HUTTEN 45 William Gager, there came from Westminster the scholar and antiquarian, Leonard Hutten, " vir multi- jugae eruditionis et antiquarius eximius." Hutten was, like Gager, an admirable writer of Latin verse, and his compositions will be found in all the Oxford collections of this period ; but he was also a student of antiquity, to whose quiet and unobtrusive labours, pursued during 33 years of tranquil life spent in his canonry at Christ Church, the compiler of the earlier history of the College must needs owe a deep debt of gratitude. His unpublished MS. (Liber Successi : Dec : Canon : Alumn : ), which is preserved in the Chapter House, gives a full account of the foundation from the time of St. Frides- wide, and a list of the Bishops, Archdeacons, Deans and Canons. The list of Students is not completed. This catalogue has been continued, often with autographic signatures, down to the present day. Hutten also wrote a work on the Antiquities of Oxford, which has lately been edited by Mr. Plummer, from Hearne's text, for the Oxford Historical Society. In the year in which Hutten became canon (1599) Robert Burton, the author of the " Anatomy of Melan- choly," originally a member of Brasenose College, was appointed to a Studentship. From that time till his death in 1639 he resided in Christ Church, holding for many years the living of St. Thomas in Oxford, as well as another benefice. CHAPTER III THE STUART PERIOD, DOWN TO THE CIVIL WAR Deans: John King, 1 605-1 1 ; William Goodwin, 1611-20; Richard Corbet, 1620-29 ; Brian Duppa, 1629-38 ; Samuel Fell, 1638-48. The seventeenth century covers very eventful and very dissimilar epochs in the life of Christ Church, as in the life of Oxford and of England. It includes the distin- tinguished men who held the office of Dean during the reigns of the first two Stuart kings ; all of them, it should be noticed, educated at Westminster School. These are followed by the two Deans appointed under the Commonwealth, men by no means unworthy of their high position : and then comes the brilliant series of rulers of Christ Church in the years after the Restoration, among whom there is intruded for a brief space of time the solitary, obscure, and incongruous figure of James II.'s Roman Catholic Dean, John Massey. To Dean Ravis succeeded John King (1605-11), nephew and heir of Robert King, the first Bishop of Oxford. He seems to have been a man not only of high merit but also of wide popularity. Among the many preferments which he held was that of domestic chaplain to a former Dean, Archbishop Piers ; and it is said that he was appointed to the Deanery in compliance with a petition presented to the King by thirty-two DEAN KING 47 Students of the House, who described him as " clarissi- mum lumen Anglicanae Ecclesiae."" He was a learned divine and a famous preacher ; the " king of preachers," as the dull witticism of James described him. During his short tenure of the Deanery he was Vice-Chancellor for four years. He showed his loyalty to Christ Church by the fact that no fewer than five of his sons were educated there. He was preferred to the Bishopric of London in 1611, and held that see till his death in 1621. He has the unenviable distinction of having been the last Bishop to burn a heretic. One Bartholomew Legate, a sectary, was tried for heresy in the Consistory Court of London before King and three other Bishops (Andrewes, Neile, and Buckeridge) and assessors, and was found guilty. Bishop King thereupon delivered him over to the secular arm, and he was burnt in Smithfield on March 18, 1612. King was buried in St. Paul's with the simple word " Resurgam " on his gravestone. A curious anecdote in connexion with this is told by Granger : " When Sir Christopher Wren was describing the ground plot of the new church of St. Paul he spoke to one of the men who attended him to bring him some- thing to mark a particular spot. The man took up the fragment of a tomb, which lay among the ruins, upon which was inscribed ' Resurgam.' Sir Christopher Wren was struck with the inscription the moment he saw it, and interpreted it as a good omen. The event was answerable, as he lived to see the church finished. I con- jecture that this was part of the stone under which Bishop King was buried ; and my conjecture is more than probable, as this word occurs in no other epitaph in Dugdale's History of St. Paul's'' 48 CHRIST CHURCH William Goodwin (1611-20) was by three years the senior of his schoolfellow, whom he succeeded at the Deanery. Like King, he four times served the office of Vice-Chancellor ; and like him, he was a remarkable preacher. He was called upon to deliver at St. Mary's the funeral sermons on Prince Henry, Sir Thomas Bodley, and Anne of Denmark, Consort of James I. ; and on the first of these occasions " he was not only moved himself, but also moved the whole University and City to shed fountains of tears. "*' In 1611 a visit was paid to Oxford by Frederick, afterwards King of Bohemia, who had been recently married to the Princess Elizabeth. He was entertained in a befitting manner, and " was pleased with his own handwriting to matricu- late himself a member of the University (sub tit : ^Ed : Chr :) with this symbol, ' Rege me, Domine, secundum verbum tuum.' '** Although a distinguished man, Good- win was not promoted to a Bishopric, and was the first of our Deans to die in his office. He was buried in Christ Church, and a monument still existing in its original position (a rare privilege) shows his half-length effigy cut in stone and painted to the life, with this inscription : " Est satis in tumulo nomen constare petenti. Goodwinus jacet hie ; caetera fama dabit." Few Deans of Christ Church have been noted as wits or humorists ; but Richard Corbet (1620-9), the friend of Ben Jonson, who stayed with him while a resident Student, was a brilliant exception to the rule. A more unconventional, unstarched dignitary can scarcely be conceived. Though on the foundation at Westminster, he failed to win his election to Christ Church, and was DEAN CORBET 49 for a time at Broadgates Hall, before obtaining a nomi- nation to a Studentship. King James selected him for the post of chaplain " on account of the quaintness of his preaching and the brightness of his fancy."" He was noted for his conviviality and jollity, and his practical jokes. Wood says that those who knew him intimately often declared "that he loved to the last boyes play very well." Some well known anecdotes are told of him by Aubrey which illustrate this eccentric side of a character of marked individuality. One may be quoted. "After he was Doctor of Divinity, he sang ballads at the Cross at Abingdon. On a market day he and some of his comrades were at the tavern by the Cross. ... A ballad singer complained he had no custom ; he could not put off his ballads. The jolly Doctor puts off his gown, and puts on the ballad singer's leathern jacket, and being a handsome man, and a rare full voice, he presently vended a great many and had a great audience." Other strange stories are told about him, but it would be a mistake to judge Dean Corbet from Aubrey's caricature. He was a man of high character and of brilliant and versatile parts. His " Poetica Stromata " contain some admirable poems ; the lines on " Tom," after the bell had been re-cast, and the " iter boreale," are thoroughly good reading. He ruled over Christ Church during an eventful period of English history. In 1625, owing to the prevalence of the plague in London, the Parliament met in Oxford, and the nobility and Privy Council were lodged at Christ Church ; and in 1629 Charles I. and his Queen paid their first state visit to Oxford, and were lodged, not at Christ Church, but at Merton. Corbet was made Dean at the com- 1 50 CHRIST CHURCH paratively early age of 37. Eight years later he was raised to the see of Oxford, and from Oxford was trans- lated to Norwich, where he died at the age of 55. The life of Brian Duppa (1629-38) connects the reign of Elizabeth with that of Charles II. Born in 1588, he lived to give his dying blessing in 1662 to Charles, who knelt by his bedside to receive it. He was buried in Edward the Confessor's chapel in the ancient Abbey where he had worshipped as a West- minster scholar, when under Lancelot Andrewes, then Dean, he had received his first instruction in Hebrew, and had achieved his first distinction, having " the greatest dignity the school could afford, to be the PcBdonomus at Christmas, lord of his fellow scholars." From his Studentship at Christ Church Duppa passed to a Fellowship at All Souls College, and after travel- ling abroad and making many influential friends he became Dean of Christ Church in 1629. He owed much to the patronage of Laud, who recommended him, in 1638, for the see of Chichester, and as tutor to the Prince of Wales, then 8 years old. Three years after- wards he was promoted to Salisbury. Then came the troubled times of the civil war. He followed the fortunes of Charles till the King's death, and afterwards lived in retirement at Richmond, interesting himself in the preservation of the episcopal succession during the Commonwealth, and even admitting men privately to Holy Orders. Tenison was one of those who were ordained by him. At the Restoration he was made Bishop of Winchester, but he was then an old man, and died two years later. He was very highly esteemed by Charles I., who, when his own liberty was threatened, and it became necessary to provide for the safety of his sons, DEAN DUPPA 51 expressly commanded that their religious instruction should be placed in the hands of the Bishop of Salis- bury. He was a munificent benefactor to Christ Church and All Souls, as well as to the dioceses which he had governed, and at Richmond he founded an almshouse in 1661 in fulfilment of a vow made during the King's exile. Duppa's tenure of the Deanery is noted for the formal acceptance by the University of the Laudian Statutes, and for those extensive alterations made within the Cathedral, which survived with scarcely a change till 1856. A royal visit to Oxford in 1636, while Laud was Chancellor, is described at great length by Wood. The University was overflowing with loyalty, and had just published a volume of fulsome adulation, entitled Coronce Carolince Quadratura, in celebration of the birth of the hapless Princess Elizabeth, Henrietta Maria's fourth child, who had been born on December 28, 1635. All the Academical scholars, from the Vice-Chancellor downwards, contributed verses, chiefly Latin elegiacs, to commemorate the event, and as the birth had occurred just after Christmas, allusions are introduced in many of the compositions which verge on profanity. Even the Regius Professor of Divinity, J. Prideaux, Rector of Exeter, ventured to write : " Dum tibi natalem celebramus, Christe, triumphum, Regia stirps musas ad nova festa vocat. Auspicium felix, ubi juncta Maria Mariae Virgineas epulas jactitet esse suas." But it was reserved to a Fellow of the same College, Nathaniel Terry, to go beyond his Rector, with this astounding couplet : " Aspice, parturiunt Virgo^ Regina, Mariae : Edit Virgo Deum, nupta Maria Deam ! " 52 CHRIST CHURCH The King and Queen came to Oxford on August 29, bringing with them Charles, Prince Elector Palatine, and his brother Prince Rupert, sons of another Elizabeth of unhappy destiny. The King's first act within the walls of Christ Church, after conducting the Queen to the Deanery, was to repair to the Cathedral with his lords, and there, before entering, '^ he knelt down at the large south door^ where lifting up his hands and eyes, with his long left lock (according to the then mode) shelving over his shoulder, he did his private devotions to his Maker." In the evening a comedy called " Passions Calmed, or The Settling of the Floating Island," was performed in the Hall. It is thus described by Wood : "It was acted on a goodly stage reaching from the upper end of the Hall almost to the hearth place, and had on it three or four openings on each side thereof, and partitions between them, much resembling the desks or studies in a library, out of which the actors issued forth. The said partitions they could draw in and out at their pleasure upon a sudden, and thrust out new in their places according to the nature of the screen, whereon were repre- sented churches, dwelling houses, palaces, &c., which for its variety bred very great admiration. Over all was deli- cate painting, resembling the sky, clouds, &c. At the upper end a great fair sheet of two leaves that opened and shut without any visible help. Within which was set forth the emblem of the whole play in a very sumptuous manner. Therein was the perfect resemblance of the billows of the sea rolling, and an artificial island, with churches and houses waving up and down and floating, as also rocks, trees, and hills. Many other fine pieces of work and landscapes did also appear at sundry openings CARTWRIGHrS PLAYS 53 thereof, and a chair also seen to come gliding on the stage without any visible help. All these representations, being the first (as I have been informed) that were used on the English stage, and therefore giving great content, J have been therefore the more punctual in describing them, to the end that posterity might know that what is now seen in the playhouses at London belonging to His Majesty and the Duke of York, is originally due to the invention of Oxford scholars." Next day, after much sight-seeing, and a banquet and play at St. John's with Laud as host, the royal party witnessed the performance of Cartwright's " Royal Slave '' in Christ Church Hall, R. Busby acting Cratander. It seems to have gratified them immensely, for later in the year the Queen sent to Oxford to borrow the actors' dresses and the stage scenery for a performance of the play at Hampton Court. It was there acted under Cartwright's supervision, but with less success than at Oxford. It is difficult for a modern reader to understand why Cart Wright's plays won such wide popularity in their day. The " Royal Slave " is by no means an attractive piece ; Cratander is a prig, and the other captives are coarse ruffians. But Cartwright himself, a Westminster Student and a favourite of Duppa's, was a man of much culture and an eloquent preacher ; so highly esteemed, that when he died of the camp fever at Oxford in 1643, Charles, who was then in Oxford, put on mourning for him on the day of his funeral. He said that since the muses had so much mourned for the loss of such a son, it would be a shame for him not to appear in mourning for the loss of such a subject. Cartwright, who was 54 CHRIST CHURCH buried in the north aisle of the Cathedral, was only 32 years old at his death. Samuel Fell (1638-48) completes the series of Deans down to the time of the Commonwealth. He had been canon of Christ Church, and Margaret Professor of Divinity, and among other preferments held for a short time the Deanery of Lichfield. Fell was very loyal to the King, and suffered much for his loyalty. He was imprisoned for a time in London, was deprived of all his preferments except his rectory of Sunningwell, and at that place he died on hearing of his Sovereign's execu- tion. The date, February 2, 1648 (O.S.), which is inscribed on his gravestone close by the altar in Sun- ningwell church, shows how short the interval was between the King's death and his own. It was during his custody in London in the spring of the previous year that the Chancellor (the Earl of Pembroke), Visitors, and some soldiers '' with a great rabble, went to Christ Church, and entering the Deanery, which had previously been forced open, the Chancellor desired Mrs. Fell to quit ; but she refusing that kind proposal had very ill language given her by him. She was carried into the quadrangle by the soldiers in a chair — as were also certain gentlewomen that were then in the lodgings — the children were carried out on boards. The Chancellor and Visitors then sending for the Buttery book dashed out the names of the Dean and many others, appointing other persons in their place." Mrs. Fell and her family were conducted from their ignominious position in the quadrangle by Morley, Payne, and Hammond, three of the canons, to an apothecary's house opposite All Souls College, where a temporary home was found. DEAN SAMUEL FELL 55 The rough treatment accorded to the Dean and Mrs. Fell was probably due to the attitude of uncompro- mising hostility to the Parliamentary party which was displayed by the Christ Church authorities. Some years previously — in September 1642 — Lord Saye and Sele, the new Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire, had been sent to Oxford with a body of soldiers with instructions, among other things, to search for and secure the College plate. Dean Fell at once had his own plate packed in trunks and conveyed "to Mrs. Weekes"" house at St. Ebbes," where it was unfortunately discovered. It was taken away under a guard to the Star Inn, and Christ Church was at once surrounded by soldiers to prevent more treasure leaving. That night the College was also searched and more plate was found "hid in walles behinde wainscote and in the sellers. It was carried away in the night time in a great cowle betwixt two men to my Lorde's lodging at the Starre," and was afterwards transferred to Broughton Castle. Another episode is recorded in AUestree's Life. AUestree was an intimate friend of the Fell family, and possessed a key of the Deanery. Some of Lord Saye and Sele's men broke into Christ Church Treasury, but on searching a great iron money chest there found nothing inside it but a single groat and a halter. Enraged at their disappointment and the trick played upon them they made for the Deanery, from which the Dean and his family were then withdrawn, ransacked the rooms, and put their spoil together in a chamber which they locked, intending to return next morning to take it away. But when they came they found it had all been removed. On inquiry they found that Mr. AUestree's key had been made use of; he was accordingly seized, 56 CHRIST CHURCH and would have been severely dealt with, had not the Parliamentary forces been suddenly called away from Oxford by the Earl of Essex. Dean Samuel FelPs name will always be associated with the slender shaft and exquisite fan tracery of the Hall staircase, a remarkable survival of thoroughly good Tudor architecture at so late a date. He also com- pleted Duppa's work within the Cathedral, and made some progress in the erection of the north side of the great quadrangle. The anxieties of the civil war were felt in Oxford during his reign as Dean ; and Charles I. was twice received at the Deanery. On the first occasion he came with his two sons Charles and James, together with Princes Rupert and Maurice, after the battle of Edgehill. In the following year he came again to Oxford, the Queen joining him there in July. He was lodged at the Deanery, and she at Merton College. To enable him to visit hier without going through the public streets a door was opened in the wall of the garden of the lodgings now occupied by the Regius Professor of Pastoral Theology, so that the King might pass to the south of the old buildings of Corpus, and then by the chapel at Merton, to the Queen's apartments in the Warden's lodgings. This doorway may still be seen in the eastern wall of the canon's garden, though on the other side it has been blocked up, and no tradition has survived to show its purpose. It was during this second visit that the Parliament met at Oxford in January 1644, the session being opened by the King in Christ Chjiirch Hall. The two Houses met subsequently for business in the Public Schools, the Lords occupying some of the Schools on the first floor, the Commons sitting in the Convocation ROYAL VISriJStvoHN^ ^ 57 House. The Chapter House served for the King's Council Chamber. During the Stuart period, down to the outbreak of the civil war, the condition of Christ Church was in all ways prosperous. Its numbers were well kept up. The roll of Students was filled each year at the December audit, and in addition to the nominations by the Dean and Chapter, and the elections from Westminster school, there came frequent royal man- dates, which must have caused some inconvenience, naming persons for admission to Studentships or Scholar- ships, as they are indifferently called. Moreover the number of independent members was now large, and in Peckwater Inn there had been erected, at the beginning of the century, a block of rooms at the north side, specially intended for the reception of gentlemen commoners. These rooms appear to have been added to gradually during the next half-century, either by the renovation or by the complete rebuilding of old Peck- water, so that the quadrangle became such as it is represented in Loggan"'s drawing, and must have pro- vided accommodation for a good many undergraduates, in addition to the lodgings for the canons of the 7th and 8th stalls. The overflow of independent members occupied rooms belonging to the Dean and canons " as to the Dean and Chapter shall seem fit, with the consent of the Dean or prebendary whose lodging it is." The Students had their own rooms, assigned to them severally as members of the foundation, and might let them, if not themselves in residence. The members not on the foundation included the following classes : (1 ) Noblemen, and " Commensales ad mensam Doctorum," 58 CHRIST CHURCH sometimes called Canon Commoners, or Doctors' Com- moners. They comprised the eldest sons of peers and other specially privileged persons. This group of under- graduates, some of whom were of very tender age — they were occasionally admitted at the age of 12 — dined on the dais with the canons. (2) Commensales superioris ordinis, called also Gentlemen Commoners, or High Commoners, or Upper Commoners. (3) Commoners, sometimes called under, in contrast with the upper. Commoners. (4) Pauperes scholares, of different grades, such as Battlers and Servitors, a somewhat indefinite class. The attendants on the richer undergraduates had a tendency to increase unduly, and strict rules were necessary to limit their number. Four only were allowed them at the High Table, and quarrels occasionally arose between these attendants and the servants of the canons with whom they dined ; quarrels relating, it would appear, to the appropriation of the food left at the conclusion of the meal. A definite sum (two shillings and fourpence a week) was paid for the maintenance of each servitor, and their food consisted of what remained when their master's meal was over. These servitors were not identical with the " pauperes scholares," for a Chapter Order of 1601 enjoins that no inferior person " whether commoner, attendant or poor scholar " shall be permitted to lodge in any room without formal permission. Probably there were many attendants on the richer undergraduates who were living in the College without any proper authority, and from time to time this encroachment had to be dealt with. Thus in 1636 (possibly owing to Laud's vigilance) the Dean and Chapter issued a strict code of regulations on the subject : — CLASSES OF UNDERGRADUATES 59 1. That there shall be no servant belonging unto any man of any condition within this Church, but he shall be approved by the Dean or Sub-dean. 2. That there shall be but 30 servitors which shall wait upon the students, chaplains and under commoners of this Church, allowed by the Dean or Sub-dean. 3. That the names of the servants or servitors allowed be given up to the butler, and that the butler suffer no other but those whose names are or shall be from time to time given to him by the aforesaid authority, to receive any bread or beer out of the buttery ; and the cook shall not deliver any meat out of the kitchen to any but such as are allowed as aforesaid. 4. That the said servitors, so allowed, shall always go in gowns, and lie within the precincts of this Church. 5. That the said servitors attend at the public prayers, and the exercises of lectures and disputations according to their standings. 6. That all servitors which are not allowed as before, which do not go in gowns, that lie not within the precincts of this Church, within 14 days be dismissed from this Church, and those that entertain any not so allowed, after the said dissmission, be punished by the Dean or Sub- dean. The connexion between Christ Church and West- minster was well maintained, a brilliant succession of young men being elected yearly from the one royal foundation to the other. But some trouble seems to have arisen from the excessive hospitality accorded every year to the new arrivals from the school by their brother Students already in residence, hospitality which has sur- vived till within present memory, in spite of severe edicts against it. As early as 1611 the Dean and Chapter* formally decreed " that the entertainment of the new 60 CHRIST CHURCH Westminster Scholars be utterly taken away for ever, because it has grown to an intolerable excess."" This order was repeated in 1627, but with so little effect that the royal Visitor, at the instigation, it is said, of Laud, sent, in December 1638, the following stem epistle to the Dean and Chapter : " We are informed that you have for some years suffered a very ill custom to continue in our Collegiate Church, for whereas there are divers scholars chosen to be Students of that House and clivers others that live there as com- moners, but the greatest part of the scholars are chosen from the school at Westminster, there is a supper main- tained yearly called a Westminster supper, at which all (and only) Westminster scholars do meet. This supper we hold to be a very ill custom, and no way fit to be con- tinued ; for first it is a thing not allowable in government that any party of men should have a several meeting, which is a direct way to faction and combination, and it teaches the rest of the students in such a society to bandy themselves together against the other, that they may not be thought to be neglected. Secondly, such a meeting must needs cause more expences than many students are able to bear, especially in such chargeable times as these are. Thirdly, it gives occasion of much drinking and riot, and consequently of all the bad effects which follow such excesses, besides no small disorder in leaving or keeping open the gates of the College for ingress and egress for resort to that disorderly meeting at later hours than are fit ; and most usually (to add to this disorder) this supper must be kept on a Friday night, against both the Canons of the Church and the laws of this our Realm, and to the great scandal of all sober men that hear of it. These are therefore to will and require you, the Dean and Chapter, to suppress that supper, or meeting, by what name soever THE WESTMINSTER SUPPER 61 it be called, and to call the students together and com- mand them in our name that they presume not at any time hereafter to resort together to any such meeting either in the College or out of it. And you are to register these our letters among the orders and decrees for the government of that Church, as you and every one of you will answer it at your uttermost peril. And these our letters we will shall be binding not only upon yourselves, but upon your successors, that this ill and dangerous custom may never rise up into practice again." The Laudian statutes, which introduced such funda- mental changes in the University, were formally accepted in 1636. It was through Laud''s influence that one of the canonries of Christ Church was annexed to the Regius Professorship of Hebrew. He had also intended to encourage the study of rhetoric by annexing another canonry to the Public Oratorship, but this project was not confirmed by Parliament. In 1630, on becoming Chancellor, Laud sent a letter to Frewen the Vice- Chancellor in which he lamented the decay of " formalities," " the outward and visible face of the University," and bade his deputy call together the Heads of College and Halls, and urge them to strictness in exacting the use of the proper academic dress by all members of the University. It was probably this in- junction that led to a Chapter order enjoining the use of "caps" instead of "hats" at chapel, at exercises, and at meals, under a penalty of sixpence for the first default and one shilling for the second. The Chapter {ilso was roused — perhaps under the stimulus of the same strong personality — to improve the music of the church, ordering 62 CHRIST CHURCH "the singing with the organ the Ve7iite exultemus, the Te Deum, the Benedictus, or some such hke hymn every Sunday and Holy day morning throughout the year/' and "that the old and laudable custom of singing Grace in the Hall shall presently after dinners and suppers be still continued by the chaplain, and for the more solemn per- formance thereof that some new songs be made by the organist." The choirmen also were to be assembled once at least every month, " to see who have been careful and who negligent, and so to encourage and correct them as there shall be cause." The custom of bowing to the Lord's Table on leaving the choir, a custom still observed by the Dean and canons, was probably introduced by Laud's injunction. The existing mode of administering the Holy Communion in the Cathedral, where the elements are brought round to the communicants kneeling in their places, is more doubtfully ascribed to him One may conjecture that it was rather due to puritan influences. A similar custom, however, obtained at Pembroke College as late as 1864, and at St. Mary's it still survives, together with the use of the "houseling" cloths, which are placed on the desks of the stalls round the chancel. Probably the " houselings " cc itinue a pre-reformation tradition. Whether the arrang -ment of the communi- cants there is based on monastic custom, or represents a puritan innovation is very doubtful. It is sometimes even ascribed to Laud, who certainly, in December 1636, forbade the celebration of the Eucharist in the body of the church of St. Mary's. He might then have CHANGES IN THE CATHEDRAL 63 allowed this use, which is reverent and edifying, and singularly tranquil. Keble describes it : " Sweet, awful hour ! The only sound One gentle footstep gliding round. Offering by turns on Jesus' part The Cross to every hand and heart." The influence of Laud's friendship with Duppa may . assuredly be clearly traced in the very great changes in the interior of the Cathedral which Duppa carried out while Dean. The Church had been little touched since Wolsey''s time. Duppa removed from the choir the • ancient stalls, probably those which are now in the Latin chapel, one of which bears a cardinaFs hat on its finial, and clothed the choir with a heavy wooden panelling of oak which shut out all view of the adjacent aisles. The space thus screened off* was fitted with new stalls and seats, and the organ closed its western end. Many monuments were shifted from the pillars to make room for the new wood work ; more were removed from the floors, where they marked the graves of former times, the choir being new paved with black and white marble squares, and the rest of the church with a hard white stone. Many of the old tombstones were carried away altogether, and put to vile uses. The ancient glass, containing stories of St. Frideswide's life and the arms of benefactors, was removed, and the Gothic tracery was cut away — the north windows of the Latin chapel alone were spared — and mean two-light windows were inserted in their places, filled with new Dutch glass by Abraham van Linge, representing Scripture subjects, and each with the name of the donor at the bottom. One of these windows still survives at the west end of the north aisle of 64 CHRIST CHURCH the nave. It represents Jonah sitting under the gourd, with a beautiful picture of the city and harbour of Nineveh in the background. The donor's name can be partly traced: Carolus Sunhanke Proehendar. Windsor, S.T.P. hujus Eccl. olim Alumn. D.D. The chapels to the north of the choir were shut oi from the transepts by heavy stone screens of very curious] design, shaped as inverted arches, so as to form, with] the Norman arches above them, complete circles, with] solid masonry only partly pierced below. The church remained almost as Duppa left it until Dean LiddelPs time ; and the stalls of the Dean and canons, as well as two handsome brass chandeliers of the same date, may now be seen in Cassington church. CHAPTER IV THE CIVIL WAR AND THE COMMONWEALTH Deans : Edward Reynolds, 1648-51, and 1659-60 ; John Owen, 1651-9. Of the excitement and misery of the civil war Christ Church had its full experience. It was persistently loyal to the King, and when Whistler, the Burgess for the city of Oxford, was arrested for discouraging the citizens from the support of the royalist cause, no better gaoler could be found than Dean Fell, and no better prison than the deanery. In the deanery garden, tradition says, Mrs. Fell buried the silver and gilt maces of the University Bedels, which have never been recovered. The Chapter subscribed what money they could to the King's support and gave up such plate as had escaped Lord Saye and Sele, to be coined into money at the mint set up at New Inn Hall. The King's presence within the walls of the College made it naturally a centre of royalist activity from the date of his arrival after Edgehill. Before that time the Parlia- mentary troops had passed and re-passed, and we read of troopers' horses quartered for the night in Christ Church meadow — in September 1642 — and of the troopers wandering in through the unguarded gates to 66 CHRIST CHURCH see the Cathedral and its painted windows, the new windows of van Lingers workmanship. " They much admired at the idolatry of them," writes Wood, "and a certain Scot among the rest said ^I mar- vayle how the schoolars can go to their bukes for those painted idolatrous windows,' and such like scoffing words, but offered no violence to them." There was a solemn thanksgiving in the Cathedral at evensong on February 3, 1643, for the taking of Ciren- cester by Prince Rupert on the day before, at which the University authorities attended, and the doings of the troops and the preparations for the defence of the city absorbed the attention of the whole University. " Most of the Academicians," wrote Dean John Fell in the Latin copy of Wood's Annals, "had now exchanged the gown for the military coat, and square caps for the helmet ; and with the exception only of those who by old age were rendered unfit for the service of war, or of those who retained their sacred habit as a cloak for their sloth or timidity, all the rest were trained and went to the field of battle, or were on guard night and day, ready for any attack, and became intrepid and well -disciplined soldiers for the defence of the city. . . . Out of the one hundred Students of Christ Church (and if the commoners were to be added the number would be proportionably increased) twenty were officers in the King's army, and the rest almost to a man were indefatigable in protecting the dwellings of the inhabitants of this place ; and the same may be said of the other Colleges." The great quadrangle was a drilling ground, and 400 scholars were reviewed in the meadow. John Fell himself, then a young Student of 19, held the commis- THE PARLIAMENTARY VISITORS 67 sion of an Ensign. His two bosom friends, AUestree and Dolben, also served. Dolben had the same rank at the same age, and rose to the higher rank of Major, and after receiving a dangerous wound in the shoulder from a musket ball at Marston Moor, he encountered further hardships in the siege of York, over which see he was destined in happier times to rule as Archbishop of the northern Province. In 1647 came the Parliamentary Visitors, and Christ Church fared badly at their hands. Reynolds, soon to be Dean, was one of them, and Samuel Fell, who was Vice-Chancellor as well as Dean, did not show much dignity in his behaviour towards them. Indeed almost the first incident after their arrival reminds one of the conduct of a class of unruly schoolboys towards an un- punctual master. The University authorities had been cited to appear before the Visitors in the Convocation House on a certain morning between the hours of 9 and 11. But the Visitors, as a preliminary to this interview, went to St. Mary's to hear a sermon, and Mr. Harris, one of their number (soon to be appointed President of Trinity College), delivered so lengthy a discourse that the hour of eleven, carefully watched for by the Academicians, struck without the Visitors making their appearance. At the last stroke of the clock out went Vice-Chancellor, Doctors, and Proctors, preceded by the Bedels, and in the Pro-Scholium, just by the door of the Divinity School, they encountered the procession of the Visitors on their way to the Convocation House. " Room for Mr. Vice-Chancellor,*" shouted a Bedel, and room was courteously made. The Vice-Chancellor bowed and said, " Good-morrow, gentlemen ; 'tis past eleven o'clock," and so went on his way. 68 CHRIST CHURCH The attitude of the University authorities was one of stubborn resistance to the Visitors, their Commission being altogether questioned. Dean Samuel Fell rather scorned them. All, with one exception, " were far inferior to him in standing or in degree ; and Mills being one of the Students of Christ Church and so consequently under his lash and went bare to him, he did not think fit, as Dean of that House, and especially as being Vice-Chancellor, to stand bare to his scholar." One result of this uncompromising attitude was that Fell, as has been already mentioned, was summoned to London, and after a short imprisonment was deprived of his Deanery. lies, Gardiner, and Morley were re- moved from their canonries, and soon afterwards the same punishment was inflicted on Hammond, Payne, and Sanderson. Then came the expulsion of Mrs. Fell from the Deanery, already described, and the rule of the puritan Deans began. They were two in number : Edward Reynolds the Presbyterian, and John Owen the Independent. Both were men of no ordinary stamp. Edward Reynolds (1648-51 and 1659-60) had been Postmaster and Fellow of Merton College, and held a high position in the Presbyterian party. He was nominated to the office of Vice-Chancellor shortly before succeeding Fell as Dean of Christ Church, but on his refusal to take the Independent engagement in 1650 he was deprived of his preferments, and John Owen took his place. In 1659 the Parliament gave him back the Deanery, but at the Restoration, though he was made one of the King's chaplains, he was obliged to retire from Christ Church, and became Warden of Merton, his old College. A year later he was made DEAN OWEN 69 Bishop of Norwich, and on his death in 1676 was buried in the chapel which he had built there, adjoining the Bishop's palace. John Owen (1651-9) was a native of Oxfordshire, son of a country clergyman, and graduate of Queen''s College. He was a man of real learning and piety, and had adopted Independency on thoroughly conscientious grounds. It would be most unfair to estimate his character by the accounts given of him by partisan writers. Wood, who wrote from personal knowledge, but under the bias of bitter prejudice, is always very severe upon him ; and Browne Willis, writing in George I.'s reign, describes him as " that noted, canting, Independent, time-serving hypocrite." By another writer he is spoken of as " a man of courtly manners, of undaunted courage, and of high attainments, whose works, numerous as they are are considered worthy to be reproduced in their full extent (21 volumes)." Probably this estimate comes nearest to the truth. Owen was highly esteemed by Oliver Cromwell, and acted as his Vice-Chancellor for several years. Wood spitefully describes him in this office as somewhat of a dandy. " Dr. John Owen, when Vice-Chancellor, had always his hair powdered, cambric band with large costly band- strings, velvet jacket, his breeches set round at knee with ribbons pointed, Spanish leather boots with cambric tops, &c. ; and all this was in opposition to a prelatical cut." Yet in the picture, said to be of contemporary date, which hangs in Christ Church Common Room, Owen is 70 CHRIST CHURCH represented as Vice-Chancellor, dressed in the most formal academical robes, preceded by seven bedels, all in gowns and carrying their proper maces. His personal courage was shown by his mounting the stage at St. Mary's on the occasion of the Act, and turning " Terrae filius ''' by main force out of the rostrum, when he was speaking disrespectfully of the University authorities, and the Vice-Chancellor's men were too timid to interfere in obedience to his orders. In 1654, on the alarm of a royalist insurrection in Wiltshire, Owen, being then Vice-Chancellor, raised a troop of scholars, " and at their head did often appear mounted, with a sword by his side, and a case of pistols before him.*" He was a man of fine presence and high authority, and was actually elected as sole Burgess for the University, though his claim was unfavourably regarded by the Committee of Privileges. He was a learned man, and a patron of learning, and showed wise tolerance in his government of Oxford. Without his tacit connivance it would not have been possible for John Fell, Dolben, and Allestree to maintain the Church of England services throughout the time of the Commonwealth, at Beam Hall, opposite Merton Chapel; and when Pocock, the famous Orientalist, after losing his canonry at Christ Church for refusing to take the engagement, was in danger of being deprived of his living of Childrey, Owen interposed promptly and effectually on his behalf. In 1659 the Parliament took away his Deanery, and he retired for a time to his native village of Stadhampton. But he was too great a man to remain long in obscurity, and he afterwards lived and preached in London till his death in 1683, when he was buried, amid profound demonstrations of respect EDWARD POCOCK 71 from the whole body of non-conformists, in the grave- yard at Bunhill Fields. The period of the Commonwealth was by no means an inactive time at Christ Church. The Deans were able men, and there was much to be done in re-establishing the tranquillity and re-organising the studies of the College, after the turmoil of the civil war. It is a remarkable fact that the entries of undergraduates were numerous throughout these years ; there seems to have been little falling off in numbers, though the character and behaviour of the men must have undergone consider- able change. The canons indeed, who had taken the place of the ejected royalists, were men of no distinction; Edward Pocock, who was himself not an intruder, was the one learned member of the Chapter ; and his case furnishes a good example of the uncertainties and difficulties of the time. Pocock, the first Oriental scholar of his day, was Laudian Professor of Arabic, when the death of Dr. Morris, Regius Professor of Hebrew, and canon of the 6th stall, occurred on March 27, 1648. The King had already annexed that stall to the Hebrew chair, and now, on the recommendation of Dr. Sheldon and Dr. Hammond, he nominated Pocock as Morris's successor ; though, as he was at the time a prisoner in the Isle of Wight, he could not issue letters patent. The Parliamentary Committee, however, knowing Pocock*'s merits, adopted the royal nomination. But it happened that just at this time Dr. Payne, canon of the 4th stall, was ejected from his canonry, and his lodgings were assigned to Pocock ; Dr. Morris's lodgings, to which Pocock thought he had an undoubted right, being given to Mills, a civilian and layman, who stepped into Payne's place. Pocock complained of the 72 CHRIST CHURCH injustice of the arrangement, but to no purpose; and after all it was no great matter, for in 1651 both Pocock and Mills were ejected from their canonries for refusing to take the Independent engagement; and it was not till June 1660 that he received his letters patent and his proper canonical stall from Charles II. There is a tradition in Christ Church that the ancient ig tree in the garden of the Regius Professor of Hebrew — the " Arbor Pocockiana," as it used to be called — was brought by Pocock from Aleppo. But he was not at Aleppo later than 1634. It is therefore more probable that the venerable fig trees which are found in this and several other Christ Church gardens were procured, rather than brought, by him from Syria, and date from his first occupancy of the Hebrew Professor's lodgings, that is, from the Restoration, and not earlier. The buildings of the College, in spite of the efforts of Samuel Fell, were still in a quite unfinished state. Fell had made considerable progress towards the completion of the north side of the great quadrangle, and the timbers of the roof and floors had been set up. But these we read were removed by the puritan canons, and converted to their private use, chopped up for firewood and such purposes. No building operations are con- nected with this epoch of Christ Church history, and probably the funds of the College were at a low ebb. The frequent allusions in the Chapter books to the question of arrears show how severe the financial pressure had been during the civil war, and how great had been the difficulty of collecting rents when the war was over. In the Cathedral inevitable changes took place. One of the earliest Chapter Orders enjoins " that the PURITAN REFORMS 73 Orgaines in the Quire of this Church be taken downe."" But it does not appear that much injury was done to the fabric, or that Duppa^s work was seriously injured. Wood indeed declares that the stained windows, " as anti-Christian, diabolical and popish," were at once broken, and he credits Wilkinson, who had been in- truded into the first stall, with a chief part in the work of destruction ; stating that he, when the windows " were taken down, was so far from having them laid up and preserved that he furiously stamped upon many parts of, and utterly defaced them." But a good deal of van Linge's glass was undoubtedly preserved, though it was probably taken down and stored away. Several of his windows survived till Dean LiddelPs time, besides the Jonah window, and considerable fragments of old glass are still to be found in the College stores. The Bishop King window with its unique picture of Oseney Abbey was removed for safety by a member of the family and brought back in 1660. Much attention was paid to the religious services of the College. Daily prayers on weekdays were to be between 5 and 6 in the morning, and at 5 in the even- ing, instead of the former Cathedral prayers at 10 and 3 o'clock. On the Lord's Day there were prayers morn- ing and evening, but the hour is not given. The Directory had taken the place of the Prayer Book, but the Church of England chaplains do not appear to have been dismissed, and some consideration was shown for them. They were ordered to do their turns, or if they desired to be excused from the service they might find proper deputies. They seem to have been somewhat inclined to resent the rule of their new masters, in spite of this leniency, for in another Order they are instructed 74 CHRIST CHURCH to " show all due respect and reverence for the Governors of the House, as the Students of their respective degrees do, or ought to do, by the customs of the College." The Censors received special payments for their help in the services ; the Censor of Moral Philosophy, Mr. Segary, a member of Magdalen Hall, who had been intruded into a Student's place, was paid .£'14 15*. 4d. for two quarters " for his paines in prayinge in the Chappell in the morning,"and another sum was added soon afterwards " for his further encouragement in prayinge" after the death of his brother Censor, Mr. Godfrey. There were sermons in Christ Church for the Univer- sity every Thursday at 4 p.m., closely following upon some religious exercises which were performed in the lodgings of the President of Corpus. Great care was taken to ensure the attendance of all members of the House at prayers on the Lord's Day and on weekdays ; and the Tutors, who were to be approved by the Dean, and " such as are not excluded by the Order of the Visitors," were enjoined to " reade constantly to their scholars in approved classicall authors, and cause them to come together and pray with them privately everie night ; and also exemplary to them in observing the publique ordinances, and call them to an accompt everie Lord's day concerning what they have learned from the word prayed." Discipline was carefully maintained ; and we find records of the flogging of undergraduate scholars for grave offences. In Wood's life of Henry Stubbe, a Westminster Student and a man of considerable dis- tinction in after life, it is recorded that Stubbe FLOGGING OF UNDERGRADUATES 75 " after abusing the Censor morum, Will : Segary, that noted disciplinarian, in a speech that he uttered, was for so doing, and his impudence in other respects, whipped by him in the Public Refectory." Stubbe was 19 years old at that time. In the same year (1650) we find this entry in the Chapter book : — " It is ordered by the Dean and Chapter that Devoye for divers gross and scandalous acts shall be publicly whipped in the House, and afterwards sent home to his Father for a twelve months, and not to return then without a testimonial of his civil and orderly carriage during the time of his absence." This " Devoye " was probably W. Devaux, a West- minster Student one year senior to Stubbe. It is a curious coincidence that both these men perished by drowning ; Devaux on the Goodwin sands in 1657, and Stubbe in the Avon near Bath in 1676. In illustration of this practice of flogging,* the reader will perhaps recall that Warton in his life of Bathurst, President of Trinity College, who died in 1704 at the age of 84, writes of him that '^he delighted to surprise the scholars, when walking in the grove at unseasonable hours, on which occasion he frequently carried a whip in his hand, an instrument of academical correction then not entirely laid aside. But this he practised on account of the pleasure he took in giving so odd an alarm, rather than from any principle of approving, or intention of applying, an illiberal punish- ment." * Mr. Rashdall {Universittes of Europe in the Middle Ages, ii. p. 623) states that " the sixteenth century was the flogging age par excellence in the English Universities." He points out that Wolsey's statutes for Cardinal College order it as a punishment for scholars under the age of 20. 76 CHRIST CHURCH Severe edicts were issued with regard to dress and behaviour. It was ordered " that the Dean and Sub-dean and Censors do take special care to reform all scandalous fashions of long and pow- dered hair, and habits contrary to the statutes of the University and that decency and modesty which is neces- sary for young students." Also '' that some order be taken to punish the abuse of swearing, viz., that for the first and second time he that sweareth be fined 1 2d. for every oath ; and when convicted the third time shall be proceeded against as a scandalous person." There was also an attempt made to enforce a strict sumptuary law. It was ordered in 1653, '' for the repressing the immoderate expences of youth in the College, that no gentleman commoner shall battel in the buttery above 5 shillings weekly ; no under commoner above 4 shillings weekly ; no scholar of the House above 3 shillings weekly ; and the butler is hereby required to give notice to the Dean or Sub-dean at the end of the week of such as shall exceed this allowance." In 1656, the use of the Latin tongue was strictly enjoined. '^ Whereas by several orders both of the Committee of Parliament and the Visitors of this University all scholars and students are commanded to use the Latin tongue whensoever they discourse and speak together in the Hall at dinner and supper and all other meetings there ; it is this day ordered by the said Dean and Chapter that the said Orders be (and are hereby) revived and re-inforced, with strict injunction that they be observed accordingly by REPETITION OF SERMONS 77 all of this College herein concerned, giving them further notice that whosoever shall be found faulty herein shall be proceeded against by them as contemners of wholesome discipline and public authority." In 1653 the Visitors made very strict orders relating to Tutors and their pupils, requiring from the Head of each College the names of all the Tutors, and of the pupils under them, as well as a list of the undergraduates who had no Tutors. They deprived of their office such Tutors as they esteemed not godly men, and nominated others in their room. They also at this time issued an interesting order as to " Repetition " of sermons. All Bachelors of Arts and undergraduates in Colleges and Halls were required every Lord's Day ^' to give an account to some person- of known ability and piety (to be appointed by the Heads of the said Houses some time between the hours of 6 and 9 in the evening) of the sermons they had heard and their attendance on other religious exercises that day." The Heads also, or deputies, of the said societies were ordered to be personally present at the performance of these exercises, and to take care that it be attended with prayer, and such other duties of religion as are proper to such a meeting. This was a dreary prospect for Sunday evenings, for dons and undergraduates alike, and one is not surprised to read the following Chapter Order of September 17, 1653, relating to a certain Westminster Student and recent Master of Arts, who was so little of a puritan that he had just before incurred the censure of the Chapter for being " at a tippling house in this city of Oxon on the Lord's Day,*" and for " traducing the k 78 CHRIST CHURCH government of the House publicly in the Hall." The Dean and Chapter went into the Hall to give formal notice of "their intention of the Repetition of the sermons every Lord's Day in the evening in the chapel,'' on which occasion Mr. A " did publicly affront the Dean and Chapter in the Hall and at their coming out.*" He was therefore " again admonished the second time. And it is also further ordered, that if the said Mr. A do not within one month next acknowledge his miscarriages to the Dean of Christ Church at their audit house, they will further pro- ceed against him." Mr. A , who was a son of an Irish peer, probably did not care much for the Christ Church authorities. He soon entered the army and became a Major, and strangely enough met his death by drowning, like the two other Westminster Students who had incurred the wrath of the Chapter. CHAPTER V FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE REVOLUTION Deans : George Morley, 1660 ; John Fell, 1660-86 ; John Massey, 1686-8. With the Restoration Christ Church threw off the depressing burden of the puritan rule, and once more assumed its proper position in Oxford as a centre of loyalty and devotion to the Stuart dynasty and the Anglican church. An epoch of splendour and prosperity followed, checked only by the short interlude of Massey's intrusion. The first Dean appointed by Charles II. was George Morley (1660), but he held the office only for a few months, from July to November. Morley was a learned and a generous man, whose memory is deservedly venerated in Christ Church. He was a Westminster Student, and for many years resided on his studentship, till he accepted the post of chaplain to Robert, Earl of Carnarvon. He enjoyed the intimacy of Lord Falkland, and was among the famous men who were Falkland's friends and visitors at Great Tew. In 1641 he was made canon of Christ Church, "the only appointment he ever desired," writes Wood. In the civil war he accompanied the King as chaplain, and 80 CHRIST CHURCH devoted the income of his first year as canon to the expenses of the war. Deprived of his canonry in 1648, he went away with many other royalists into exile. He was at Antwerp and at Breda with Sir Edward Hyde, and for two years with the Queen of Bohemia at the Hague. Wherever he was "he daily read the Church service, established a weekly catechism, and administered the sacrament of the Lord's Supper every month." His reward came with the King's return, for which he had prepared the way by a secret mission to England, being selected, it is said, from his being inclined to the opinions of the Calvinist party. He was at once replaced in his canonry (the 8th stall) at Christ Church, to be transferred on July 27 to the Deanery; and in the following October he was made Bishop of Worcester. From Worcester he passed in 1662 to the more splendid see of Winchester. He was then a man of 65, but he held his preferment for 22 years, dying at Famham castle in 1684, at the age of 87. The epitaph on his tomb was written by himself. An unmarried man, he was a liberal benefactor of Winchester, New College, and Christ Church ; and his arms may be seen on the vaulting of our great gate. He was noted as a wit, and one saying of his is well known. " What do the Arminians hold ? " asked a country gentleman : " All the best bishoprics and deaneries in England," was his reply. Morley was a man of very abstemious habits ; his custom was to rise at five o'clock, go to bed at eleven, and eat but once a day. A letter from him, preserved among the Chapter records, gives a charming impression of his character. It was written in answer to a letter of thanks for one of his generous gifts : — DEAN MORLEY 81 " Reverend and well beloved Bretheren, " I have received the letter you sent me by your reverend brother the Dean of Westminster, and in it too great an acknowledgment and too many thanks for the little and few services I have hitherto been able to do you, which I do assure you would have been more and greater if I had been as able as willing to serve you. For although many transplanted from your royal seminary have been every one of them a far greater ornament to it than I am, yet never any that was planted in it had or could have a greater kindness for it than I have. And truly when I consider who I am, and what I have arrived to, and that as well without my seeking as without my deserving of it, I think myself obliged to do all I can for those that are worthy of it, as being the best amends I can make for mine own unworthiness : there being nothing I can see in my- self, why it hath pleased the Divine Providence to make me what I am and to give me what I have, unless perhaps it be this, that He had formerly given me a heart to scatter rather than to heap, and to lay out upon others rather than to lay up for myself, which yet I have found by my own experience the surest way never to be in want. The same sum therefore I sent you by the Dean of Westminster, I do hereby once more and in a more solemn manner promise to send you yearly, as long as I live and am in no worse a condition than I now am, which I add because there is no certainty of anything here in this world. That which I desire on your parts to be done for me is only to pray to God that when I have done all the good I can for others I may not be myself a castaway. And this I shall expect as the best requital you can make for anything that hath been or can be done for you by " Your ever affectionate friend, brother, and servant, " GeOR : WiNTON. "LoND. Bee. 10, 1662." " P 82 CHRIST CHURCH Dean Morley's reign at Christ Church was so short that before deahng with the changes which the Restora- tion brought to the foundation, it will be best to give some account of his famous successor, perhaps the most prominent of all the Deans of Christ Church. John Fell (1660-86) was the son of Dean Samuel Fell. He was not, like his father, at Westminster school, but was nominated to a Studentship at the exceptionally early age of eleven, in 1636, and took his Master of Arts degree at the age of eighteen. He served, as has been narrated, in the civil war, as an ensign in the royalist forces, together with his friends Dolben and AUestree. All three were deprived of their studentships by the Parliamentary Visitors, but they remained in Oxford during the Commonwealth, except that AUestree, who was a good traveller, was sent away from time to time on secret missions to the royalists on the continent; and the house of FelFs brother-in-law. Dr. Willis, at Beam Hall, afforded a convenient place for the maintenance in private of the Church of England services throughout the period of the usurpation.* The room which was used for this purpose can still be identified ; its high windows, facing away from the street, would hide its inmates from inquisitive eyes. At the Restoration, the three friends became canons of their House, Fell succeeding Ralph Button in the second stall, the prebend which his father had enjoyed for 20 years. Dolben was placed in the 4th stall, AUestree in the 8th ; their admission taking place on one and the same day, July 27, the date of Morley's * These services appear to have been held first in Dr. Willis' rooms in Canterbury College. DEAN JOHN FELL 83 installation as Dean. But Fell remained as canon for a very short time. On November 30 he was installed as Dean, on Morley's promotion to Worcester. He was then 35 years of age. Fifteen years afterwards he became Bishop of Oxford, and held both dignities till his death on July 10, 1686. He was also Master of St. Oswald's Hospital at Worcester. John Fell was a bom leader of men. He stands out with undisputed pre-eminence among the Oxonians of the Restoration, with a strong, masterful personality ; a man of large views and high ideals; a scholar and divine, and of deep personal piety ; a consistent and enlightened patron of learning; generous and even lavish in money matters ; not quite a pleasant man to have to deal with, unless one agreed with him, but possessing the utmost capacity for rule ; abounding in energy and versatility ; of inflexible will, and exercising a strong and all-pervading influence over the whole life of the University and of Christ Church. Wood, who had his own reasons for disliking him, declares that *' he left behind him the character of a valde vult person, who by his grasping at and undertaking too many affairs relating to the public (few of which he thoroughly effected) brought him untimely to his end." This is a grossly unfair estimate, but probably Fell's death at the age of 61 was due in part to his unsparing labours and unrestful temperament.* A breach between Wood and Fell had been caused by the Latin translation of Wood's great work, which * It is to John and not to Samuel Fell that the well known adap- tation of Martial's epigram, "I do not like thee, Dr. Fell," applies. See Professor Mayor in Notes and Queries, 4th Series, 4, 313. 84 CHRIST CHURCH had been published under Fell's superintendence, with the insertion of many passages contrary to Wood's wishes. Nor was he the only person aggrieved ; the philosopher Hobbes objected to some changes which Fell had inserted, and published a remonstrance, on which Fell denounced " irritabile illud et vanissimum Malmesburiense animal,"" and took credit to himself for his forbearance " ut viro pessime de Deo, hominibus, literisque merito locum inter literates relinqueret.'"* Such were the manners of the time. Fell's own chief literary work — the edition of St. Cyprian, in which he was assisted by Bishop Pearson — was not published till 1682. He also wrote memoirs of his old friends Hammond and Allestree, and published valuable editions of ancient authors, among them Aratus and Eratosthenes. Much had to be done within the College to remedy the evils, and redress the injuries, which had been wrought under the Commonwealth. The canons who had been intruded by the Visitors were at once ejected, and the Chapter as reconstituted in July 1660 under Morley as Dean, consisted of the following members : 1st stall. Jasper Mayne, in the room of H. Wilkin- son, ejected. 2nd stall. John Fell (and then Sebastian Smith), in the room of Ralph Button, ejected. 3rd stall. Richard Gardiner, restored, in the room of Chr. Rogers, ejected. 4th stall. John Dolben, in the room of Jo. Poynter, ejected. 5th stall. William Creed, in the room of Henry Cornish, ejected. CANONS OF THE RESTORATION 85 6th stall. Edward Pocock, restored, in the room of John Mills, ejected. 7th stall. John Wall, who had held his canonry continuously since 1632.* 8th stall. Richard Allestree, in the room of H. Langley, ejected. (Morley held this stall for a few weeks after the Restoration, before becoming Dean.) Here, then, was a united body, many of whom had suffered much loss under the Commonwealth, and who were now animated by a common purpose to restore the good fame and ancient traditions of their House. The services of the Church were at once renewed. The organ was replaced, and soon a new organ, of Father Smith's workmanship, some of which still re- mains, was set up on the choir screen. Surplices were again worn, though some rough protests were raised against their use. A monthly celebration of Holy Communion was established, preceded by a collation, to be performed by the Dean and canons in their turn. Latin Prayers were continued morning and evening, in addition to the Canons' Prayers. The numbers of the undergraduates, which had not fallen seriously ,f were quickly augmented, and there was a large accession of members of the noble and wealthy families of England. The Students' places were again filled by loyal church- men, and Wood's estimate does not seem excessive when he states that there were some 35 or 36 gentlemen com- moners, and 8 or 10 noblemen, besides the Students, commoners, and others. In 1669 the Dean's entrance * Wood states that Cornish was put in Wall's place in 1648 ; but this seems to be an error. f In December 1658, chambers and commons were paid to the Treasurer for 66 independent members of the House. To these all members of the foundation must be added. 86 CHRIST CHURCH book gives 2 noblemen, 9 gentlemen commoners, 22 commoners, and 15 battlers and servitors for the ad- missions of that year. The numbers vary considerably in different years, and probably many, coming at an early age, resided for a lengthened period. In the Chapter books many minute regulations are recorded which illustrate the arrangements of the College. At the Christmas of 1660, by which time Fell was Dean, his two chief friends Dolben and AUes- tree appear in the College roll, the one as Sub-dean and Censor Theologiae, the other as Treasurer, and the three, immortalised by their picture which hangs over the north fireplace in the Hall, worked together with one will.* It is interesting to notice that in the same list Mr. Locke appears as Greek Reader. The Canons' table was again set up in the Hall " as hath been accustomed heretofore in this House." It had dwindled to a single meal. The proper fasting and gaudy days were ordered to be observed. The number of servitors, who seem to have again unduly multiplied, was rigidly restricted. The chamber-women or bed- makers were to be 12 and no more, and none of them to be under 40 years of age, " and whosoever shall bring in an assistant upon what pretence soever shall be immediately expelled and made incapable of ever serving in the House." No laundress was to enter College, but the servitors were to bring the clothes to the gates between 8 and 10 on Monday morning, and the clean linen was to be delivered at the gates between 2 and 4 * At the Act of 1664, " Terras filius " insolently spoke of them as the jack, the chub, and the red herring. Fell was a long lean man ; Dolben, fat and round ; Allestree lean, with a red face and a very faiall head. COMPLETION OF GREAT QUADRANGLE 87 on Saturday afternoon. The porters were to see that these orders were obeyed, and also that "no seamstress, stocking menders, and applewomen, or any suspicious persons of any kind be admitted into the College, or any carts, horses, or burthens, be carried through it." Fell determined to proceed vigorously with the work towards which his father had done so much before the troubles of the civil war, the completion of the chief buildings of the College. He asked for subscriptions far and wide. The plate money from noblemen and gentlemen commoners was devoted to the building und, the King gave a patent for an earldom worth about d£*1000, towards the Tower over the great gate, and the result of this energy was soon seen in the com- pletion of the north side of the great quadrangle, a work accomplished in 1665. Lodgings for two canons were made there, and the lodgings nearest the Deanery were assigned to FelFs bosom friend AUestree. The buildings all round the quadrangle were now surmounted by an Italian balustrade, a portion of which may still be seen on the western front. A broad gravelled terrace was raised with stately flights of steps in the middle of each of the three sides, and in the centre of the quadrangle was constructed the circular basin of water with the globe and fountain, as shown in Loggan's drawing, which served as a reservoir for College uses. A Chapter Order of July 22, 1670, records the fact and mentions the donor : "Whereas Richard Gardiner, Doctor in Divinity, and Senior Prebend of this Church, hath at his own cost and charges in the Great Quadrangle belonging to this Church 88 CHRIST CHURCH made one large bason 40 foot in the diameter of stone work and lead well soldered, and in the midst thereof a rock of stone with a large globe covered with lead and gilt, and a fountain of water conveyed through the centre of the said rock and globe by a pipe running through the mouth of a serpent into the said bason, expending in the same work the sum of £250 and upwards, to the great beautifying and adorning of the said Quadrangle ; in con- sideration whereof it is this day ordered by the said Dean and Chapter, and they do for themselves and their successors promise and grant that the said bason, rock, globe and fountain shall from time to time be ever here- after repaired, maintained and kept by the said Dean and Chapter and their successors." But alas for human promises ! Twenty-five years later a statue of Mercury, the body of lead, the head and neck of bronze, supplanted the globe. It was the gift of canon Anthony RadclifFe, whose name is inscribed on the northern side of Peck water, and the time- honoured name of Mercury was attached henceforth to the bason itself, and was destined to have a longer life than even the statue of the god. The earth excavated from the centre of the quadrangle when the terrace was formed went with the building debris to furnish part of the materials for the Broad Walk, which was completed about the same time, with its row of 72 elm-trees on either side. In 1669 a disastrous fire occurred which destroyed Dr. Gardiner's lodgings adjoining the chaplains'* build- ings, and gravely imperilled the Library and Chapter House. This accident led to the reconstruction of that portion of the College, and to the erection of a some- what mean block of buildings eastward of the passage «TOM'' TOWER 89 from the cloister to the meadow, which survived, under the name of FelPs Buildings, till 1863. New lodgings for a canon were built between Kill- Canon and Peck- water, to take the place of those which the fire had destroyed, and they were allotted to the third stall, the " praebenda vivax,"" as it was afterwards called from the remarkable longevity of its occupants. Sir Christopher Wren's design for a Gateway Tower was next proceeded with, and it was completed in 1682. It will be noticed that in Loggan's drawing, dated 1675, this Tower is still unfinished, while the quadrangle and the new lodgings for the canon are both completed. As soon as the Tower was ready for its tenant, great " Tom "" was hoisted up and hung in its new home, and from thence it rang out for the first time on the anniversary of the Restoration, May 29, 1684. Such were the chief architectural works carried out by John Fell. But his strong personality impressed itself in all sorts of ways, not only upon Christ Church, but upon the whole University and diocese. Alone of all the Deans, he held the Bishopric of Oxford together with the Deanery ; and this he did for more than ten years, being consecrated in the chapel of Winchester House at Chelsea on February 6, 1676. As Bishop he spent a large sum in repairing the palace at Cuddesdon, which had been erected by John Bancroft in Charles I.'s reign, and had suffered in the civil war. Fell was Vice-Chancellor from 1666 to 1669, and presided at the opening of the Sheldonian theatre at the Act in the latter year. Up to this time the Act had always been performed in St. Mary's church ; but Fell was largely instrumental in encouraging Archbishop Sheldon to build the theatre, and so avoid the inconvenience and 90 CHRIST CHURCH irreverence attending the performance of the Act, and other academical ceremonies, in a consecrated building. The development of the University Press was also largely due to FelPs energy and practical intelligence.* The Sheldonian theatre provided for the first time an official home for the work of the press, and Fell exercised close supervision over all the details of the printing, being assisted in his efforts by Sir Joseph Williamson, Sir Leoline Jenkins, Principal of Jesus, and Dr. Yates, Principal of Brasenose. We find him securing the services of a Dutch founder, Herman Hermansen of Amsterdam, and writing urgent letters to Williamson when secretary to Lord * It is a curious fact that up to this time the University Press possessed no settled home. Books had been printed in Oxford as early as the 15th century, and Lord Leicester when Chancellor had erected a press and appointed a printer to the University, one Joseph Barnes, who was succeeded in 161 7 by the first of the Lichfields, whose names appear as ofi&cial printers till 1658. In that year Samuel Clarke, M.A., was appointed Architypographus, and he was succeeded by Martin Bold in 1669. But the work of printing was carried on in private premises ; Leonard Lichfield's press was, during the civil war, in what is now called Queen Street. The Sheldonian theatre provided the first permanent and ofi&cial home for the Press. When the theatre was not needed for Academical ceremonials, the work of printing was conducted on the main floor of the building ; but when the Act or some other function was held, the presses were removed to the basement, and the papers to the large space above the ceiling. The books were issued "e Theatro Sheldoniano," with an engraving of the building on the title- page. But the double use of the theatre caused much inconvenience, and in 1 714 the present Clarendon building was erected for a printing house, from the profits of the sale of the History of the Rebellion, the copyright of which work had been presented to the University. In this building, with two annexes (the one, a house standing on the site of the Indian Institute, the other, that portion of Wadham College which adjoins the King's Arms Hotel), the Press had its home till 1830. For much of this information I am indebted to the courtesy of the Controller of the University Press, Mr. Horace Hart. SHELDONIAN THEATRE 91 Arlington and the Duke of Buckingham, ambassadors to the States General, entreating his help to expedite the forwarding of cases of type from Dordrecht, which had been detained at Antwerp in consequence of the war. In 1677 a Malay translation of the Gospels and Acts was issued, under his supervision, from the press ; and this was published as part of a scheme in which Fell took a singularly deep interest, for the evangelisation of the natives of India and the far east. He pressed this duty upon the East India Company, and invited their co- operation to form a fund for the education of students at the English Universities to be specially trained for work in India. He offered to train four scholars at Oxford at his own expense, and a definite agreement was made with the Company in 1682. Robert Boyle helped with money and sympathy ; but this early evangelistic movement, for which Fell deserves the chief credit, was arrested in its development, partly or chiefly in consequence of Fell's death. A set of Arabic types was presented by him to the University Press, together with many other handsome founts, which are still in use. As Vice-Chancellor, Fell was a strong ruler and a severe disciplinarian : " continually hauling taverns or alehouses," writes Wood, " ])ut finding mostly his own men, whom he would favour, but punish others. . . . He endeavoured to carry all things with a high hand ; scorned in the least to court the Masters when he had a mind to have anything passed the Convoca- tion. Severe to other Colleges, blind as to his own." He was very strict in enforcing the use of academical dress, and attempted to make a reality of the examina- tions for degrees, which he personally attended, inter- 92 CHRIST CHURCH posing with questions if he were not satisfied. He also insisted on the attendance of students on the lectures given by the Inceptors in Arts, which had degenerated into a mere form. He was not only strict in enforcing rules, but he was very tenacious of privileges. Mr. Nichols, who was his chaplain for many years, declares that the only occasion when he saw him in a passion was when Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln, held an ordination in Lincoln College chapel without asking permission from Fell, as Bishop of the diocese. Of the privileges of his House, too, he was a stout asserter, and fought in 1674 for the right of the canons whenever they preached before the University to deliver their sermons in the Cathedral, and not at St. Mary's. This controversy is narrated in the Chapter records. Early in 1674 the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors and all the Heads of Houses presented what they called their " case " against Christ Church. While admitting that the sermons on Christmas Day, Good Friday, Easter Day, and Ascension Day are ordered to be at Christ Church, and that morning sermons preached by the Dean and canons may be there delivered, they insist that all sermons which fall to D.D.s, B.D.s and others m their turn must, according to statute, take place at St. Mary's. They suggest that the Dean and Chapter are guilty of perjury in not conforming to the statutes. Then they add various arguments based on convenience : the Cathedral is a bad place for hearing, especially on the north side of the tower; it is more distant than St. Mary's from most of the Colleges ; the bell cannot be heard; and there is ill accommodation in the seats. They urge that the Dean and Chapter should not, for a mere " punctilio of grandeur," insist on their claim. DISPUTE ABOUT UNIVERSITY SERMONS 93 The Dean and Chapter send an angry reply. They claim to settle the matter by the power granted under their foundation charter to the Dean and, in his absence, the Sub-dean, " to exempt the members of this Society from appearing at the public conventions of the University, whether sacred or civil."* But, evidently feeling the weakness of their position, they urge an argument which is interesting if really based on fact : " Also the Dean and prebends according to the manner of all other Cathedrals preaching on Sundays and other solemnities in their own churchy the students repaired con- stantly thither, who were generally accompanied by the members of other Colleges in great numbers. But the University finding the inconvenience thereof, made this agreement with our predecessors, that when any of them preached the whole University should come to their sermons at Christ Church, provided they would desist from their constant course of preaching, and come themselves to St. Mary's when the sermon was there, and encourage the members of their Society to come thither ; which agree- ment was accordingly put in practice, and gave occasion to the frequency of the Dean and canons' turns in Term time and on other solemn days, which remains unto this day, a third part of those courses in the whole year falling upon us." The Dean and Chapter reply at great length and with * The words of the Charter (letters patent of November 4, 1546) here referred to are : " concedimus . . . quod idem Decanus et eo absente vice decanus ejusdem ecclesiae pro tempore existens habeat facultatem et auctoritatem dandi et concedendi studentibus infra eandem ecclesiam ex causis rationalibus dictum Decanum et eo absente vice decanum moventibus ut sese a congregationibus exequiis et missis Academiae et universitatis praedictae absentent quocumque statute vel ordinatione universitatis edito non obstante." 94 CHRIST CHURCH much minuteness to every argument advanced by the University. The topic of inconvenience is thus treated : '* which topic, though seldom considered when rights are contested, yet had it been only insisted on might probably have superseded the use of so many words, and made both an easy and desired issue of this debate. But since this now comes in not as a friendly desire, but an aggravation of our guilt of perjury imputed to us, that to maintain a mere ' punctilio of grandeur ' we break our oaths and give the whole University trouble, it becomes necessary that we advert a little particularly to it. " 1. And first, as to the length of the way hither, we sup- pose the distance of any part of the town to Christ Church not to be so vast as to prove a wearisome journey; nor when the courses confessedly to be preached at Christ Church are so many and constantly recurring as they are, can we think our share in the surplusage of the long course, which comes about scarce once in two or three years, is in any degree considerable. " 2. The like may be said of the inconveniences of our seats, and the low voice of our bell, only we wonder at nine of the clock at night he should be heard under severe penalties all about the town, when he only tolls, but at nine in the morning, when he rings out and tolls both, he should not be audible ; and it is equally strange that our preachers should have the same mishap with our bell." No agreement seems to have been arrived at, and the matter went at last before the King. It was then ordered that when a canon preached in his turn as canon the University should attend at christ Church ; but that if he preached in another capacity, the sermon should be at St. Mary's. This decision determined the ACTING IN THE HALL 95 practice which prevailed as late as 1869,* when Christ Church voluntarily abandoned the privilege, having placed Morning Prayer at ten o'clock on Sunday, an hour necessarily conflicting with the University sermon. The University authorities, however, still attend at Christ Church four times a year; on Good Friday, Easter Day, Ascension Day, and Christmas Day; on which occa- sions the sermon is preached by the Dean or some one nominated by him. FelFs activity was ubiquitous. Nothing escaped his vigilance, and few duties, however trivial, were allowed to be discharged by deputy. Wood describes a curious scene which occurred in January 1666, when a play called " Flora''s Vagaries,"" the work of a young Westminster Student, Richard Rhodes, was acted by the undergraduates in the Hall during the holiday time which Christmas always brought. *^ The Dean encouraged it . . . let nobody in but whom he thought fit, especially at the Hall or Refectory door. . . . The Dean being firm, windows were broken in the Hall and in Canterbury College. The Dean was laughed at for his pains and forwardness, being set on by the students." Then when the play was over " the Dean gave them a supper. Dr. Allestree gave each of them a book of seven shilUngs' price. They give them upon this to drunkenness and wantonness, especially among themselves. Dr. Mayne spoke before them a speech com- * Dr. Pusey's two famous sermons, immediately before and after his suspension, were both preached at Christ Church, in his turn as canon ; and so was Dr. Stanley's farewell sermon in November 1863, when he left Oxford for Westminster. But for a crowded audience the Cathedral was, and is, somewhat inconvenient. The present Dean, when preaching recently, not in his official capacity, but as a D.D., delivered his sermon at St. Mary's. 96 CHRIST CHURCH mending them for their ingenuity, and told them he liked well an acting student." To the end of his life FelPs abounding energy never flagged, but was exercised throughout the University. In the year before his death, upon the news of Mon- mouth's rebellion, he summoned the undergraduates to take up arms for James, as he himself had borne them for Charles. Lord Norreys, eldest son of the Lord Lieutenant of the county, acted as captain of a com- pany consisting chiefly of Christ Church men, which drilled in Peckwater. The battle of Sedgemoor came before they could be of any real service, but a huge bonfire in the great quadrangle to celebrate the victory, and the joyous ringing out of " Great Tom,*" provided a delightful recompense for their martial efforts. Fell was not, perhaps, a courtier, but his loyalty to the Crown was conspicuous, and it was his duty as Dean to receive royal visitors on several occasions. In 1663 the King and Queen came in state to Christ Church and were lodged at the Deanery; the Countess of Castle- maine came also ; she was not served, however, as Ken, at Winchester, had served Nell Gwynne, but became the guest of Dr. Gardiner in his lodgings near the meadow. The King, during his visit, touched for the evil in the choir of the Church. Two years later Charles came again, travelling to Oxford from Salisbury to avoid the plague. He was lodged at Christ Church as before, but the Queen was received at Merton. With them came the Duke and Duchess of York, who were the guests of Dr. AUestree, in his new lodgings adjoining the Deanery; and Mon- mouth was also of the royal party. CHARLES II. AT OXFORD 97 In 1674 the Duchess of Cleveland (the former Lady Castlemaine) brought her eldest son to be placed under FelFs charge. She lodged in Oxford, and sent for the Dean to attend her at her lodgings, and, before leaving, she sat in her carriage for an hour, pleased to be gazed at by the people in the streets. In 1681 came an order from the King that all pre- parations should be made at Oxford for the meeting of Parliament. It was necessary in consequence to send the bulk of the undergraduates away to their homes, and the tranquillity of the whole University was dis- turbed. Christ Church, Corpus, and Merton were appropriated to the Court, other colleges to Privy Councillors and Members of Parliament ; the House of Lords sat in Christ Church Hall. Wood waxes eloquent over the King's arrival : ' " At the King's coming into the most spacious Quadrangle of Christ Church, what by the shouts and the melodious ringing of the ten stately bells there, the College sounded, and the buildings did learn from its scholars to echo forth his Majesty's welcome. You might have heard it ring again and again, ' Welcome ! Welcome ! ! Thrice wel- come ! ! ! Charles the Great \* " In May 1683 the Duke and Duchess of York and the Lady Anne paid a visit of several days to Oxford, and were entertained at the Deanery. A full account of their proceedings is given in Wood's Life and Times, vol. iii. p. 47 (O. H. S. vol. xxvi.). Much more might be told about John Fell, and the events in which he played a leading part, but enough perhaps has been told to show how deep was the impression which he made upon Oxford, and how 98 CHRIST CHURCH splendid the work that he accomphshed in Christ Church. He was a man of very simple habits, and totally regardless of money. An unmarried man, he lived for more than ten years alone at the Deanery, and then gave a home to his widowed sister Philippa, wife of Dr. Walter James, Prebendary of Westminster and Rector of Sunningwell. She managed his household till the end of 1683, when she died suddenly at High Wycombe, on a journey to Oxford. He does not seem to have lived much at Cuddesdon, or at St. Oswald's Hospital at Worcester, though he built a chapel there. Christ Church always claimed his heart, and when his death occurred in the early morning of the Saturday before the Act, July 10, 1686, he was buried in the Cathedral " on the right hand side just within the entrance of the Divinity chapel, under the seat where he used to hear Latin prayers every morning betimes and after nine at night." He wished for no monument, but his relatives erected one, and Aldrich wrote the epitaph. It was a large monu- ment of white marble, standing originally by Sir George Nowers' tomb under the first arch on the north side of the Latin chapel, hard by the Dean's accustomed seat. It had a long inscription on both sides, and over it was placed the Bishop's mitre which may still be seen above the arch. But the monument has been moved from its interesting and appropriate position. It was transferred first, it is not known when, to the western wall of the nave, and when the additional western bay was con- structed in 1872 it was placed in its present position, just on the right of the western entrance. The in- JOHN FELKS MONUMENT 99 scription which was originally on the southern face of the monument is now at the base, divided into two parts, and surrounded by the same moulding that formed its border when it was on the other side. FelPs arms impaling on the dexter side the arms of the see, and on the sinister side those of Christ Church, ensigned by a mitre, surmount the monument. The epitaph is very long and somewhat fulsome ; he was too great a man for so many words of praise. A more appropriate memorial was established through a benefaction made by one of John FelFs executors, Mr. John Cross, which was to provide for a Latin speech in his praise, to be delivered every year, in the public refectory, before dinner time, on his obital day. The first oration under this benefaction was spoken by Edward Wells, an M.A. Student, on July 10, 1694, and from that time till 1866 the " Fellii Laudes " have been repeated by Student after Student, though the date was transferred to the All Saints Gaudy. The present writer was the deliverer of the last speech in 1866. With the establish- ment of the new Governing Body the function ceased ; why, it is hard to say. The reader will perhaps have wondered why no men- tion has been made of what has been sometimes regarded as the chief blot on Fell's good fame, his treatment of the famous philosopher, John Locke. It has been thought best to reserve this episode for separate treatment. John Locke, or Lock (the name is written in both ways in the Christ Church books), had been elected to a Studentship from Westminster in 1652, at the age of 19. He was junior by one year to Robert South. He passed through his undergraduate course with credit. 100 CHRIST CHURCH and we find him in strange conjunction with the future staunch royalists, Ralph Bathurst and South, among the contributors to the eXaiofopla, a volume of elaborate eulogy on Oliver Cromwell at the conclusion of the peace with the Dutch in 1654. The book contains copies of verses not only in Greek and Latin, but also in Hebrew, Welsh, Dutch, French, and English. All the principal residents of the University were laid under contribution for it, and it begins with a Latin preface by Dean Owen, then Vice-Chancellor, and a copy of Latin elegiacs by the same solemn dignitary. Locke's elegiacs are better than Owen's, and are very creditable for an undergraduate. After the Restoration, the Oxford poets were in demand again, and another volume was published, called Domidiica Oxoniensi^, to celebrate the arrival in England of Catharine of Braganza. Both Locke and South were among the contributors, and Locke, writing this time in English, composed some pretty verses, ending with lines which, viewed in the light of subsequent events, were singularly unfortunate as a description of the royal lover : — He searched the world, and view'd it every part. But found all these too little for his heart ; Two things alone remained hid from his view. Could make him fully happy. Heaven and you : Like Heaven you come with ravishments of blisse, Desir'd unknown, at once seen, and made his ! Locke was now a graduate of M.A. standing ; he had taken some share in the tuition of the College, and in the roll of Christmas 1660 he appears as Greek Reader, two years later as Rhetoric Reader, and in 1663, LOCKE AT CHRIST CHURCH 101 at the age of 31, he was Censor of Moral Philosophy. While holding this dignified position he was summoned before the Dean and chapter " to answer for the sconcing of one of the servants of the House." But upon examination of the whole matter "it was found and declared that Mr. Locke was not guilty of the fact charged against him." More strange than such treat- ment of the senior Censor is the fact that although Locke was a layman, his name occurs from 1665 to 1674 among the first twenty Students of the foundation, the " Theologi," who were certainly as a rule in priest's orders. It is difficult to account for such an anomaly. Possibly at this period the rule was not so strict as it afterwards became, or a special exemption was permitted in favour of a Student who had served as senior Censor; but at Christmas 1675 we find him lower on the list, transferred from the " Theologi " to a place among the next twenty, the " Philosophi primi vicenarii ;" and this apparent degradation is explained in a letter from Prideaux to Ellis, dated February 7, 1675, in which he tells his correspondent that " Locke hath wriggled into Ireland's faculty place, and intendeth this Act to proceed doctor in physic, which will be a great kindness to us, we not being above four to bear the whole charges of the Act supper." His appointment as a faculty Student freed him from any necessity of taking Holy Orders as a condition of retaining his Studentship, and placed him next after the " Theologi " on the College roll. But Locke was not dependent on his Studentship for his livelihood. His father's death in 1661 had given him a small property in Somersetshire, and at Oxford he 102 CHRIST CHURCH enjoyed more or less of private practice as a physician. He had moreover other occupations. Just after ceasing to be Censor, if indeed he did not resign the Censorship on this account, he became secretary to Sir Walter Vane, British envoy to the Court at Brandenburg. It was through his medical knowledge that he soon after- wards became acquainted with Lord Ashley, who desired his opinion on the merit of the Astrop waters. This acquaintance quickly ripened into friendship ; he became Lord Ashley's secretary, and superintended his son's education, and when Ashley became Lord Chancellor and Earl of Shaftesbury, Locke was made secretary of the Presentations. He now came to be engaged in public affairs, and was not unnaturally suspected of complicity with Shaftesbury's designs against the suc- cession, and intrigues on behalf of Monmouth. He was often travelling on the continent; and when he returned to Oxford the Christ Church men, who had been warned of his disaffection, used to try to entrap him in unguarded moments by compromising questions over their wine. But his caution and reticence saved him, as Fell seems to admit with some regret, from having anything proved against him ; and at last, after the failure of Shaftesbury's plans and his death in Holland, came the famous royal mandate for Locke's removal from his Student's place. The original letter may be seen in the Christ Church library. It runs as follows : " Charles R. " Right Reverend Father in God, and trusty and well-beloved, we greet you well. Whereas we have received information of the factious and disloyall behaviour of — Lock, one of the Students of that our CoUedge, we have LOCKE DEPRIVED OF STUDENTSHIP 103 thought fit hereby to signify our will and pleasure to you, that you forthwith remove him from his said Student's place and deprive him of all the rights and advantages thereunto be- longing ; for which this shall be your warrant. And so we bid you heartily farewell. Given at our Court at Whitehall the 11th day of November 1684, in the six and thirtieth yeare of our reigne. " By his Maj^*^^ command, " Sunderland. "To the Right Reverend Father in God, John Lord Bishop of Oxford, Dean of Christ Church, and to our trusty and well beloved Chapter there." Without any delay, the obedient Chapter carried into execution the royal command. The following entry occurs in the Chapter book. " By the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral Church of Christ in Oxon, 15 November 1684. The day and year above written his Majesty's mandate for the removal of Mr. Lock from his Student's place and deprivation of him from all the rights and advantages thereto belonging was read in Chapter and ordered to be put in execution, there being present Jo : Oxon, Dean, Dr. Ed: Pocock, Dr. Henry Smyth, Dr. Jo: Hammond, Dr. Henry Aldrich." How far the royal mandate could have been disputed, or its execution delayed, is very doubtful. But it was obeyed with alacrity, and there is no doubt that Fell had shown little generosity towards Locke; he had given him no warnings ; he had allowed him to be secretly watched as a suspicious person ; and was pro- bably not sorry to be well rid of a Student suspected of disloyal intrigues. In his defence it should be remembered that Fell 104 CHRIST CHURCH was a man of devoted loyalty to Charles; that the royal foundation over which he presided had shared the fortunes of the Stuarts through clouds as well as sunshine ; that the question of the succession was at the moment of supreme importance ; while the loss of the Studentship could be of little matter to Locke, who was constantly abroad, and possessed comfortable private means. If Fell could have foreseen what would happen at his own death in the government of his beloved College he might have been a less ready tool in the hands of Sunderland and Charles. Locke was absent from England at the time of his expulsion, and did not return to his country till 1689, when he crossed in the fleet which conveyed the Princess of Orange. The rest of his life was mostly spent in retirement, at Oates in Essex, the country seat of Sir Thomas Masham. All his writings are of a date later than that of his expulsion from Christ Church. He died in 1704, and his body lies in the church of High Lavers in Essex. His portrait by Kneller hangs in Christ Church Hall ; his statue by Roubillac, the gift of his great nephew, William Lock, was accepted by the Chapter in 1754, and was soon afterwards placed in an honourable position on the stately staircase of the newly completed library in Peck water; the Chapter minute atones in a measure for the wrongs of the past by speaking of "John Lock, Esq., formerly Student of Christ Church and an ornament of this society." An interval of nearly six months elapsed between the death of Dean Fell and the appointment of his successor. The only matter of interest recorded during the inter- APPOINTMENT OF DEAN MASSEY 105 regnum was the election of Samuel Parker, soon to acquire notoriety at Magdalen College, to the Bishopric of Oxford. Some doubts were entertained as to the capacity of a headless Chapter to transact the election with due formalities, but Aldrich, as Sub-dean, summoned the other canons, and on September 18 Parker was elected. On November 4 he was duly installed by proxy, Pocock acting as his represen- tative. It was an anxious interval. Less than three weeks before Fell's death the judges had formally decided, in the case of Sir E. Hales, that the King had authority to dispense with penal laws in particular cases, and there was little doubt that he would soon exercise that power in relation to the Universities, as he had already exercised it in making appointments in the army. It was natural therefore that grave forebodings should be entertained with regard to the important vacancy at Christ Church, and the delay in making the selection intensified the anxiety. In August 1686 Obadiah Walker, the Roman Catholic Master of University College, was granted a dispensation, and fitted up a chapel within his College for his own use "in a low chamber on the east side of the quadrangle, in the entry leading from the quadrangle to his lodgings, on the right hand."" Then in October came the rumour that a certain John Massey, a Fellow of Merton, and a former servitor of Walker's at University College, was to be thrust as chief upon the magnificent foundation of Christ Church. Wood declares that Massey went up to London on October 11 to kiss hands on his appoint- ment and was closeted with the King for a quarter or half an hour. " 'Tis supposed the King obliged him to 106 CHRIST CHURCH be constant for the cause."' He adds that Walker procured him this Deanery, " first, to the affront of the ancient Canons there, because he pins his quondam servitor upon them^ of eleven years standing Master and no more, and secondly to the envy of his contemporaries and juniors, nay to all except his inti- mate friends, who pity him in that he is made Walker's tool, and that he will be obnoxious to all affronts and abuses." The letters of appointment were received in the middle of December, and on December 29 the installa- tion took place in the Cathedral church. It is a matter of astonishment that no word of remonstrance was uttered by any member of the Chapter at so scandalous an outrage on their College. A severer test of their loyalty to the Crown could scarcely have been devised. Massey was not yet indeed an avowed Roman Catholic ; but he had declined to receive the Holy Communion in Merton College chapel on Christmas Day ; he was the creature of Walker; and he came to the installation with the royal dispensation in his hands. Wood describes the scene ; and the Chapter books contain a full transcript of the letters patent of the appointment, and of the dispensation, together with a minute account of the ceremony, the first formal record, in detail, of the installation of a Dean. It was evidently recognised as a very serious matter. " Mr. John Massey," writes Wood under the date of December 29, " installed in his Dean's place in the Cathe- dral by Dr. H. Aldrich, Sub-dean. He was in his surpHce and hood, and when the first lesson was reading he was conveyed from the Divinity chapel by the vergerer and MASSEY'S INSTALLATION 107 other officers to the door of his seat, where first his patent was read ; then his dispensation from coming to prayers, receiving the Sacrament, taking of all oaths, and other duties belonging to him as Dean ; and then he was lifted up. Many young scholars and townsmen were there, laughing and girning, and making a May-game of the matter. They said what they pleased, but the Canons looked grave." The "dispensation and pardon" — dated December 16, one day later than the letters of appointment — granted to Massey the royal licence '' to absent himself from Church, Chapel, or usual place of Common Prayer as the same is now used in England, and to abstam from and forbear receiving and administering the sacrament of the Lord's Supper according to the liturgy and usage of the said Church of England, and from taking the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and from reading and subscribing the articles of religion commonly called the nine-and-thirty articles, and from making subscribing or repeating any declaration acknowledgment or recogni- tion or doing any other act or thing required by or men- tioned or contained m the Act of Parliament made in the thirteenth and fourteenth year of the reign of our late royal brother, entitled an Act for the Uniformity of Public Prayer and administration of the Sacraments and other rites and ceremonies and for establishing a form of making ordaining and consecrating Bishops Priests and Deacons in the Church of England, or mentioned or contained in one other Act of Parliament made in the five-and-twentieth year of our said late brother entitled an Act for the pre- venting danger which may happen from Popish recusants, and from doing declaring or subscribing all and every such other acts and things in conformity to the doctrine, discipline and 108 CHRIST CHURCH liturgy of the Church of England as he, the said John Massey, by reason of his being Dean of Christ Church aforesaid by the laws and statutes of this our realm of England or by any statute, constitution, or custom of the University of Oxford or of the College called Christ Church aforesaid or either of them he is or shall be obliged to per- form make or subscribe." The document then goes on to free him from all penalties which might otherwise attach to him under the law of England. The formal account of the installation, given in the Chapter Register, is in Latin, and is certified by a notary public. It appears that Massey did take the oath of allegiance and the oath concerning simony ; and then, as the Sub-dean proceeded to tender the oath of supremacy, he produced the dispensation, " alias litteras ut apparuit patentes dicti domini Regis sub eodem magno sigillo in cera flava iisdem similiter ap- penso." The humiliating ceremony ended as follows : ''quas quidem litteras patentes praedictus Henricus Aid- rich cum ea qua decuit reverentia etiam admisit et accep- tavit." They were handed to the Registrar to be read aloud, and then the Sub-dean duly admitted Massey : '' ut mos est admisit et installavit, ac eidem Johanni Massey stallum in choro et locum ac vocem in capitulo assig- navit." Massey 's tenure of the Deanery lasted till November 30, 1688, less than two years. He was a very insignificant person, and the government of the College was probably MASSEY'S PRIVATE CHAPEL 109 largely controlled by Aldrich. We seldom trace the Dean within the walls of his Cathedral. He doubtless was in attendance on James when the King touched for the evil in the church in September 1687 ; and he seems to have been present at the election of Timothy Hall to the Bishopric of Oxford on August 18, 1688. If Wood may be trusted, Massey did not openly " declare " as a Romanist till two months had elapsed after his installation ; and in March 1687 the old Refectory of Canterbury College, a building running north and south along the western side of its little quadrangle — as may be seen in Loggan''s drawing — was fitted up as a private chapel for the Dean's use. Here the offices were performed by his chaplain, a Jesuit priest named Ward. James attended service there on his visit in 1687, and at the assizes of that summer, while the Judges went to St. Mary's, the High Sheriff, Sir Henry Browne of Kidlington, by what seems a strange breach of etiquette, forsook the Judges and attended sermon in the Dean's chapel. Wood records one curious scene there, of which perhaps he was witness : '^ November 20, Sunday at Vespers in Dean Massey's chapel was a riot occasioned by a Master of Arts laughing and girning at the priest. Thomas^ the Dean's man^ put him out, and a townsman struck him, he struck him again, others fell upon him. The man that struck is bound over to the sessions." The eflPect of Massey's appointment, and of the whole policy of James towards Oxford, was disastrous to the University and the city. Wood writes that the traders 110 CHRIST CHURCH " much complain for want of trade because of the paucity of scholars frightened away for fear of popery endeavoured to be spread throughout the University by the endeavours of Walker, who endeavours to make Heads of Houses and officers of his own persuasion. They threaten him ; he hath the curses of all, both great and small." At Christ Church the effect of the appointment was at once felt. At no other time do the Dean's entry- books show so well marked a decline in the number of admissions. In 1687 no noblemen were admitted, only 2 gentlemen commoners, 11 commoners, and 2 servitors; a total of 15, as against 45 in 1685. Oxford was in a very sullen and suspicious temper. When a thanksgiving was ordered for the Queen being with child no bells were rung except at Christ Church and Magdalen ; at the birth of the prince the bells were again rung and the Te Devm was chanted at those two Colleges, but nowhere else was the event noticed. Then came the landing of William, and Walker and Massey knew that it was time for flight. On- the last day of November they both vanished. " Mr. Massey, Dean of Christ Church, removed all things from his chapel, and had packed up his goods before. Mr. Dean of University College and Mr. Wakeman the chaplain, a Jesuit, did take away all from their chapel, and locked up Mr. O. Walker's lodgings. St. Andrew's day in the morning, Mr. Dean and Mr. Massey left Oxford before day ; waited for the hackney coach out of town to go to London — all blown off.*' News came that Walker had been seized in Kent and was locked up in Maidstone Gaol, and that Massey, MASSEY^S FLIGHT 111 though disguised in the red cloak of a trooper, had been taken with him. Massey, however, escaped safely to France, and remained there till his death in 1716, becoming confessor to the convent of Blue Nuns at Paris. CHAPTER VI FROM THE REVOLUTION TO THE END OF THE STUART PERIOD Deans: Henry Aldrich, 1689-1710 ; Francis Atterbury, 1711-13 ; George Smalridge, 1 713-19. Happier times now came to Christ Church. Henry Aldrich (1689-1710) was appointed Dean on April 4, 1689, and was installed on June 7. In the letters patent of his appointment no mention whatever is made of Massey. Aldrich is nominated to the post " per mortem naturalem Johannis Fell . . . jam vacantem." The canonry which he vacated was at the same time filled by the appointment of William Wake, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury; and a grand banquet was given by the two dignitaries in the College Hall, the Heads of Houses and all Doctors being invited to attend. James, on hearing of Massey''s flight, at once made a last exercise of his royal prerogative by nominating Benjamin Woodroffe, canon of the 1st stall, to the vacant Deanery. The nomination was made on December 8, three days before the King''s flight from Whitehall ; but no notice appears to have been taken of it at Oxford. No appointment could have been more popular than DEAN ALDRICH 113 that of Aldrich. He was an old Westminster Student, and was familiar with all the traditions of his House. He had been Tutor of the College during Fell's most active years, and since 1681 had held the canonry of the 2nd stall. He was now forty-two years of age, and possessed not only high and varied attainments, but a singular charm of character. He was a good theologian, and was much respected in the Convocation of Canter- bury, where for a time he was Prolocutor of the lower house. He was also appointed, in 1689, as a member of the royal Commission for a revision of the Prayer Book, but with Jane, the Regius Professor of Divinity, he discontinued his attendance after the third session. His skill in architecture — on which subject he wrote a treatise — is shown by the existing buildings of Peck- water and by All Saints Church in High Street. His Artis Log'icce Compendium, originally written for Charles Boyle, has scarcely yet gone out of use. It laid no claim to originality, but has been the foundation of many a subsequent work on logic, and it possesses the invaluable characteristics of a good elementary manual that it is well arranged, concise, and easily committed to memory. A manual of heraldry which he drew up for the use of pupils was pronounced by Dr. Thwaites to be " done very well, and the best of its nature ever made." He was also skilled in chemistry ; and it was to him, in conjunction with Dr. Sprat, that Lord Rochester entrusted the publication of Lord Clarendon's History/ of the Rebellion ; the preface to the first volume, as well as the dedication to the Queen prefixed to the second and third volumes, are from his pen. But perhaps it is as a musician that Aldrich's name is most widely known through the familiar round " Hark the H 114 CHRIST CHURCH bonny Christ Church bells,'' of which Sir John Stainer writes that it is "still the joy of school children and the admiration of musicians, on account of the sweetness of its melody and the excellence of its construction. No better example of this class of composition has ever been produced." In Flay ford's Musical Companion will be found ten catches composed by him ; the " Catch on Tobacco " ' being perhaps the most amusing. Aldrich wrote 2 cathedral services and also 20 anthems, and adapted several more, having a peculiar liking for the expansion of earlier themes into movements of greater dimensions. Without adopting the excessive praise sometimes accorded to him, it may be asserted without fear of contradiction that he was a highly trained and gifted musician, and that he had a wide knowledge of the literature, history and science of music* To these varied accomplishments Aldrich added a very kindly and sociable disposition, without affectation or pride. " He was humble and modest to a fault,*" writes Hearne, " a most affable, complaisant gentleman." It is pleasant to think of a Dean of Christ Church who was not too austere to enjoy his pipe and his glass of wine. He was an inveterate smoker, and has summed up in three happy lines five excellent reasons against total abstinence : " Si bene commemini, causae sunt quinque bibendi : Hospitis adventus, praesens sitis atque futura, Aut vini bonitas, aut quaelibet altera causa." Aldrich held the Deanery for 91 years. The numbers * I am indebted to Sir John Stainer for this estimate of Aldrich' s musical merits. ALBRIGHTS CHARACTER 115 of the College quickly rose under his wise and genial sway, and Massey's time was soon forgotten. In 1692 he took the office of Vice-Chancellor, which he held for two years, an office not again accepted by a Dean of Christ Church till 1870. He told the Doctors and Masters on his admission that he intended to look severely after the discipline of the University and all the exercises for degrees, and to Wood's great joy he revived the solemnities of the Act, after six years of non- observance. The two principal events connected with his time, relating to Christ Church, are (1) the building of the present Quadrangle of Peck water, with the exception of the Library, (2) the famous dispute about the Epistles of Phalaris. 1. It is not easy to describe the exact condition of Peck water at the beginning of the 18th century, though Loggan's drawing shows, no doubt with his usual accuracy, the elevation of the buildings and the arch- way through which the quadrangle was entered at the south-western and south-eastern corners. In 1600, as has been mentioned, some new sets of rooms had been erected there, but probably not a little of the ancient buildings of Vine Hall or Peckwater Inn survived ; the whole area having been brought into uniformity as a quadrangle in the time of Charles I., and the inner walls, both here and in the adjoining quadrangle of Canterbury College, having been faced with rough cast. The rooms, however, were irregular and of mean eleva- tion ; those on the east side were of two stories only, the rest had a third or garret story. The older portion of the buildings was probably in a bad state of repair, and the spacious area would obviously provide excellent 116 CHRIST CHURCH accommodation for a large number of undergraduates, if loftier blocks of rooms were erected on it. An opportune bequest of .^£^2000 from Dr. Anthony Radcliffe, canon of the 8th stall, who died in 1705, gave Aldrich the wished for opportunity of forming an entirely new quadrangle in this part of the College. He pulled down three sides of the old Peckwater, leaving the low buildings on the south side, some of which had been assigned as Students'" rooms, till the new • Library should take their place in due course. He was himself the architect of the new block, which formed three sides of a square ; and many generous gifts of money were added by the Chapter and wealthy members of the House, to supplement Dr. RadclifFe''s benefaction. On the northern side, beneath the cornice, may still be seen the Latin inscription which perpetuates the memory of Dr. RadchfFe. The foundation stones, three in number, were laid on January 26, 1706 ; the statue of Queen Anne, the gift of Robert Harley, afterwards Earl of Oxford, having been placed on the previous day in its niche on the eastern side of " Tom " Tower. One of the three stones was^ laid by James Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, with the following inscription upon it : *^ Jacobus Comes Sarisburiensis hunc lapidem locavit, gratitudinis suae et gaudii test em, quod ipse dum haec surgerent moenia sub auspiciis Decani eorundem architecti optime de se meriti feliciter adolesceret; praeceptoribus usus Antonio Alsop et Joanne Savage, A.M.M., quorum dulcem memoriam tam conservari voluit quam suam." The second stone particularly commemorated Dr. NEW PECKWATER 117 Radcliffe ; the third contained the names of all the members of the Chapter, "perennem hisce moenibus felicitatem auguratos."" The exact position of these three stones is unfortunately unknown. It is of interest to note that Alsop and Savage, whom Lord Salisbury specially included in the inscrip- tion upon the stone which he laid, were both West- minster men, though only the first was a Student. Alsop had been elected from Westminster in 1690, and had served as Tutor and Censor under Aldrich, Lord Salisbury having been among his pupils. So admirably had he discharged his College duties that he won from Bishop Trelawny a stall at Winchester and the living of Brightwell. He was an elegant scholar, and took part in the Phalaris controversy. A volume of his Odes^ consisting chiefly of polished Sapphic verses addressed to Christ Church dignitaries, was published by Sir Francis Bernard in 1752. He was also the author of many of the Carmina Quadragesimalia. Savage had gone from Westminster to Emmanuel College, Cam- bridge, and it may seem strange that he should have been selected for special mention in the inscription on the foundation stone of Peckwater. But after he had taken his degree at Cambridge his name had been placed on the books of Christ Church, and he had been travelling tutor to Lord Salisbury and was now his chaplain. He was a good classical scholar and a great traveller, and was so loyal to his old school that in later life, when he was Lecturer at St. George^s, Hanover Square, he constantly attended the Plays and other gatherings at the school. So fond of him did the boys become, that at his death they subscribed together to place a tablet to his memory in the cloisters, bearing I 118 CHRIST CHURCH these pretty Elegiac lines, a creditable specimen of Westminster Latinity : ^'Tu nostrae memor usque scholae, dum vita manebat, Musa nee immemores nos sinit esse tui. Ipse loci genius te maeret, amicus amicum, Et luctu pietas nos propiore ferit. Nobiscum assueras docto puerascere lusu, Fudit et ingenitos cruda senecta sales. Care senex, puer hoc te saltem carmine donat, Ingratum pueri nee tibi carmen erat." Dr. Savage was killed by a fall from the stairs of the scaffold erected for the trial of Lord Lovat in 1746. The new buildings of Peckwater, so auspiciously begun, were not quite finished in Aldrich's lifetime. The bill for completing the east side was not paid till Christmas 1711. The handsome oak wainscoting of the rooms, which cost from £37 to ^45 a set, was to be paid for, according to a Chapter order of December 9, 1710, on the well known "thirding" system. It is amusing to find that Aldrich, an amateur architect, had made one omission of which even professional architects are sometimes guilty. He had contrived no way by which workmen might get on to the roof of Peckwater when repairs were needed. Not till 1728, when no doubt the want was discovered, was the necessary access made, as is revealed by a formal Chapter order. 2. It had been the practice of Dean Aldrich, following the example of John Fell,* to encourage learning among * Hearne gives a curious account of the origin of one of the volumes published in Fell's time. " The English translation of Scheffer's History of Lapland, printed at the Theatre in a thin folio, was made by Mr. Acton Cremer, who was then B.A. of Christ EPISTLES OF PHALARIS 119 the younger members of Christ Church by assigning to one or other of them the task of editing some classical work, which he would then issue, in handsome binding, as a New Year's gift to all the members of the House. The Odyssey^ the Rhetoric of Aristotle, the Characters of Theophrastus, and the Enchiridion of Epictetus were published in this way under his auspices. It happened that in 1692 Sir William Temple, then living in retire- ment at Moor Park, published his Essay on Ancient and Moderri Learning; as a contribution to the controversy as to their relative merits which was then being waged among the literary men of France and England. Temple espoused the cause of the ancients, and gave special and emphatic praise to the Epistles of Phalaris and the Fables of jEsop. He declared the Epistles " to have more race, more spirit, more force of wit and genius than any others I have ever seen, either ancient or modem." It was natural that the emphatic verdict of so high an authority (though indeed Temple knew not a word of Greek) should attract the attention of scholars to an almost forgotten work ; and Dean Aldrich accordingly requested Mr. Charles Boyle, brother of the Earl of Orrery, a young gentleman commoner only seventeen years of age, to edit the Epistles of Phalaris, as a Christ Church gift book. Phalaris, it need scarcely be added, was the half mythical tyrant of Agrigentum, Church, being an imposition set him by Bishop Fell for courting a mistress at that age, which the Bishop disliked, yet for all that he married. The Bishop was, however, pleased with the translation." This Mr. Cremer was a Westminster Student elected in 1670, a member of an ancient Worcestershire family. The lady was his cousin, Miss Elizabeth Penell. He married her in 1676, while he was still B.A., and afterwards took Holy Orders. 120 CHRIST CHURCH belonging to the sixth century b.c, whose brazen bull is referred to in the first Pythian Ode of Pindar : '^ TOP be ravpw ;^aX/ceG) Kavr^pa vrfKea voov e;^0|Oa ^aXapiv Kare^ei iravTO. (f)dTis." Boyle's edition of the Epistles attributed to this despot of antiquity was published at the beginning of 1695, and in the preface he complained of a lack of courtesy on the part of Dr. Richard Bentley in having refused him, except for too short a time to be of real use, the loan of a manuscript of the Epistles belonging to the King's Library at St. James's, which he had com- missioned a representative to collate : " Collatas etiam curavi usque ad Ep : 40 cum MS° in Bibliotheea Regia, cujus mihi copiam ulteriorem Bibliothe- carius pro singulari sua humanitate negavit." Bentley was not informed of the charge made against him ; but he chanced soon afterwards to read these words, and at once sent an ample explanation of his apparent discourtesy; an explanation which certainly ought to have met with ready acceptance. However, Boyle thought otherwise. He did not withdraw his charge, although he might have done so. The result was that Bentley was made an enemy, and a very formidable enemy he proved to be. In 1697 a second edition of Wotton's Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learnifig' was published, and it contained an appendix by Bentley, in which he proved the entire spuriousness of the Letters of Phalaris, and assigned them to a date eight centuries later than the epoch of their supposed author. After this crushing attack he proceeeded to deal with the origin and probable date of jEsop''s Fables, the second subject of Temple's panegyric, and ended by BOYLE AND BENTLEY 121 a full discussion of the question relating to his own treatment of Boyle in the matter of the manuscript in the King's Library, showing how bitterly he resented the unfortunate phrase " pro singular! sua humanitate."" Early in 1698 came the Christ Church reply to this assault. Boyle had not originally asserted the genuine- ness of the Epistles qfPhala?is,hut now he was committed to their defence. The answer bore Boyle's name, but owed much to the assistance of Atterbury, Smalridge, Alsop, and probably other members of their House. It was a brilliant performance if regarded simply from a polemical point of view, full of clever hits and strong invective, but it was in no way a refutation of Bentley's arguments. The most amusing part — attributed to Smalridge — was an application of Bentley's methods to prove that he could not have been the author of his own essay. A charming episode in the quarrel was the publication by Alsop in 1698 of an edition of jEsop^s Fables at Dean Aldrich's request. For the very last fable in the book he printed a Latin translation of the " dog in the manger," with a delightful hit at Bentley. To the complaint of the ox the dog answers : ^^ Exteri si quid sciant Humanitate supero quemlibet canem. Hunc intumentem rursus ita bos ineipit : Haec singularis an tua est humanitas, Mihi id roganti denegare pabulum, Gustare tu quod ipse nee vis, nee potes } " This was not calculated to smooth matters, and in the preface Alsop scornfully alluded to the great Cambridge scholar as "Ricardum quendam Bentleium, virum in volvendis lexicis satis diligentem."" 122 CHRIST CHURCH The reply which came forth from Christ Church was exceedingly effective at the moment. It went quickly through three editions, and the general verdict was for the time in favour of Boyle. Even in Cambridge Bentley found himself laughed at ; a caricature appeared in which he was depicted in the hands of the guards of Phalaris, who were putting him into their master's bull, and out of his mouth came a label with the words " I had rather be roasted than Boyled.'^ But Bentley waited patiently for his revenge, and in 1699 published a more elaborate dissertation, in which he completely proved his case, with greater detail, and absolutely demonstrated the spuriousness of the Epistles. It was a monumental work, and has been repeatedly republished; it made a new departure in classical criticism ; but he did not at once convince the world of letters, and many gave the victory to Oxford. Garth in his Dispensary^* published in 1699, wrote : " Still censures will on dull pretenders fall ; A Codrus should expect a Juvenal. Ill lines, but like ill paintings, are allowed To set off, and to recomniend the good. So diamonds take a lustre from their foil. And to a Bentley 'tis we owe a Boyle." * Samuel, afterwards Sir Samuel, Garth, was a well known member of the College of Physicians, and the poem so named (a poem famous for half a century) was on the subject of providing dispensaries, or out-patient departments, at the hospitals; he describes a mock Homeric battle between the apothecaries, whose interests were endangered, and those Fellows of the College who were in favour of the reform. The poem went through many editions. The first set of complimentary verses at the beginning of the volume is from the pen of Charles Boyle. Garth was a friend of Swift and Pope, and spoke the funeral oration over Dryden in 1700 at the College of Physicians, where the body lay in state for ten days. GARTH AND SWIFT 123 A far greater man than Garth took the same side in the conflict. Swift, in the Battle of the Books, a satire composed in 1699, though not pubhshed till 1704, heaped contempt upon Bentley and gave all the glory to Boyle. In the Homeric battle with which it concludes Boyle is described as " clad in a suit of armour given him by all the gods," and in the last encounter with Bentley and Wotton he ^' observing well his time took up a lance of wondrous strength and sharpness ; and as this pair of friends com- pacted stood close side to side, he wheeled him to the right, and with unusual force darted the weapon. Bentley saw his fate approach, and flanking down his arms close to his ribs, hoping to save his body ; in went the point, pass- ing through arm and side, nor stopped till it had also pierced the valiant Wotton, who, going to sustain his dying friend, shared his fate. As when a skilful cook has trussed a brace of woodcocks he with iron skewer pierces the tender sides of both, their legs and wings close pinioned to the ribs : so was this pair of friends transfixed, till down they fell, joined in their lives, joined in their deaths ; so closely joined that Charon would mistake them both for one, and waft them over Styx for half his fare." This is excellent fooling, and Swift would not have so written if the popular judgment of the time had been in Bentley 's favour ; yet even the most loyal member of Christ Church as he reviews the ancient controversy must admit that Boyle's cause was hopeless from the first, and that the Cambridge scholar was incomparably superior to his Oxford antagonists, not only in learning but in dignity and even in humour. But the wide interest excited by the dispute and the momentary victory gained show how conspicuous and honourable 124 CHRIST CHURCH was the position then occupied by Christ Church in the world of letters. Dean Aldrich died in London on December 14, 1710, in the 63rd year of his age. He was buried in his Cathedral in the dormitory north of the choir, close by his father's grave, as he had directed. R. Frewin,* a Westminster Student and eminent physician, who had attended the Dean in his last illness, made a fitting speech at the grave. In his will he left his books and prints to the College, and expressly commanded that no monument should be placed on his grave, nor any men- tion of his name be made. This injunction was observed at the time, but in 1732 the medallion with his portrait, together with an inscription, which may now be seen on the south wall of the nave, was placed to his memory by Dr. George Clarke, and an inscribed stone was laid over his resting place in the dormitory. His books were carefully sorted by Thomas Hearne, and all duplicates were consigned to the Dean''s nephew. A room was fitted up " at the thither end of the Library "" to receive the valuable bequest, and a catalogue was ordered to be made. Hearne notices among the books the " noble Louvre edition of Thomas a Kempis,*" but it is not now to be found. A fine bust of Aldrich, formerly in the Chapter House, has lately been cleaned, and now stands in the Library. His portrait is in the Hall and Chapter House, and elsewhere in the College. Aldrich's successor, Francis Atterbury (1711-13), had a very short tenure of the Deanery. He was not in- * Frewin was afterwards Camden Professor of Ancient History. He was a great benefactor to Christ Church. His portrait is in the Hall and Common Room, and his bust, by Roubillac, is in the Library. DEAN ATTERBURY 125 stalled till September 28, 1711, more than nine months after Aldrich's death, and he was tmnsferred to the Deanery of Westminster on June 12, 1713, being con- secrated Bishop of Rochester on July 5 in the same year. After ten years, owing to political intrigues, he was deprived of his preferments, and was banished from England in 1723. He died in Paris in February 1732. Atterbury was a man of very remarkable attainments. Elected head from Westminster to Christ Church in 1680, he in due course made his mark as Tutor and Censor. His aggressive and imperious temper exercised itself in controversy, not only with Bentley, but also with Wake and Hoadley. They were three redoubt- able antagonists. Preferments came quickly to him ; lectureships in London, a royal chaplaincy, a canonry at Exeter, the deanery of Carlisle. Before reaching middle life he had come to be ranked with the foremost preachers and most persuasive orators of the time. But he seems to have been a violent, self-assertive, and unamiable personage. At Carlisle and at Christ Church he "had a rare talent for fomenting discord.'' His oldest school friend, Smalridge, who succeeded him in both these preferments, used to say, " Atterbury comes first, and sets everything on fire, and I follow with a bucket of water."" Very little is recorded of Atterbury's work as Dean, though he is said to have been zealous in promoting the studies of the undergraduates (as might be expected from one who had been tutor in earlier years), and to have taken a special interest in the Westminster Students. He was, however, frequently absent from Oxford, and the canons complained of this as of other grievances which they endured under his rule. Hearne's 126 CHRIST CHURCH pages supply some indications of the strained relations which existed between him and his Chapter, and Stack- house, who wrote during his lifetime, thus describes his conduct while Dean : " No sooner was he settled there, than all ran into dis- order and confusion. The canons had long been accus- tomed to the mild and gentle government of a Dean who had everything in him that was endearing to mankind, and could not therefore brook the wide difference that they perceived in Dr. Atterbury. That imperious and despotic manner in which he seemed resolved to carry everything made them more tenacious of their rights, and inclinable to make fewer concessions, the more he endeavoured to grasp at power, and tyrannise. This opposition raised the ferment, and in a short time there ensued such strife and contention, such bitter words and scandalous quarrels among them, that 'twas thought advisable to remove him, on purpose to restore peace and tranquillity to the learned body, and that other Colleges might not take the infection. A new method of obtaining preferment, by indulging such a temper and pursuing such practices as least of all deserve it." Hearne has preserved for us a full account of Atter- bury's installation at Christ Church. It was a function of quite unusual ceremony, and its description by an eye-witness has an interest of its own. At the 10 a.m. service the formal admission and installation took place. Smalridge was at the same time admitted to the canonry of the 1st stall, vacated by the death of Benjamin Woodroffe, and the new Dean and canon were afterwards conducted to their lodgings by the Sub-dean and other members of the Chapter with the observance of the customary forms. Then the Dean received at his lodgings ATTERBURY'S INSTALLATION 127 the Heads of Houses and noblemen. He next proceeded to the College Hall. At the foot of the staircase a Latin speech was addressed to him by an undergraduate Student ; at the top of the staircase another Latin speech by the senior Bachelor Student ; in the middle of the Hall a third Latin speech by the Rhetoric Reader, Dr. Frewin. The Dean then advanced to the steps of the dais and turning round made a speech also, pre- sumably, in Latin, which lasted for a quarter of an hour. Then he sat down in the Dean^s chair, ^^ and after some time a noble dinner was brought in, at which was a great number of persons. Dr. Aldrich treated very splendidly when he was Dean, but in this point Dr. Atterbury much exceeded him. 'Tis said that this treat could not have cost less than between two and three hundred pounds." Heame himself was among the guests, greatly pleased at having been invited. The dinner lasted till about half-past three. Then all went to their respective lodgings, but only for a short respite. At four o'clock came Evensong in the Cathedral, with an admirable anthem. "At eight o'clock, as is usual upon these occasions, ^ Little Tom,' for so they call the biggest of the ten bells in the Cathedral, rang out till nine. The great bell (com- monly called ' Great Tom ') over the great gate should have rung, if the motion of it were not very dangerous (as certain it is as they have experienced in former times) to the fabric in which it hangs." Atterbury's life after leaving Christ Church need not be described or criticised here. It belongs to English history. But one characteristic incident, which took 128 CHRIST CHURCH place not long after he became Bishop, and may perhaps be mentioned as an illustration of his temperament, is narrated in Spence'^s anecdotes and in a somewhat softened form by Lord Stanhope. On the death of Queen Anne, Atterbury proposed to Bolingbroke to attempt to proclaim James at Charing Cross, ojBPering to head the procession in his lawn sleeves : and when Bolingbroke shrank from so desperate an enterprise the Bishop exclaimed with an oath, " There is the best cause in Europe lost for want of spirit."" The Jacobites were indeed taken by surprise, and their designs were com- pletely foiled. George Smalridge (1713-19) whom the College had desired in preference to Atterbury two years before, was at once, to the general satisfaction, appointed as his successor. He was installed on July 18, 1713, and in the following year was consecrated Bishop of Bristol, which see he held, as did several of his successors, together with the Deanery, the latter preferment pro- viding an adequate income for the poorly endowed Bishopric. Smalridge was the son of a dyer at Lichfield, and his education is said to have been largely helped by the bounty of Elias Ashmole, himself the son of a Lichfield saddler. He was a life-long and intimate friend of Atterbury's, though very unlike him in dis- position. He had for a short time held the Deanery of Carlisle with his canonry. His death occurred at Oxford from an apoplectic seizure, at the early age of 56, and he was buried in the Cathedral. Smalridge brought back to Christ Church a season of repose and peacefulness. He had a singularly attractive and delightful disposition, while possessing brilliant parts and wide learning. The Sapphic lines which may DEAN SMALRIDGE 129 still be read beneath his portrait by Kneller which hangs in the College Hall describe his character : — ^' In tuo vultu, venerande Pastor, Fraudis ille expers animus renidet, Vividus spirat placidusque, qualis Aura Favoni." He was the Favonius of Steele and Addison in the Tatler, and Addison, in a letter addressed to Swift from Bristol less than a year before the Bishop's death, thus writes of him : — " The greatest pleasure I have met with for some months is in the conversation of my old friend Bishop Smalridge, who, since the death of the excellent man you mention, is to me the most candid and agreeable of all Bishops, I would say Clergymen, were not Deans comprehended under that title. We have often talked of you, and when I assure you he has an exquisite taste of writing, I need not tell you how he talks on such a subject." Smalridge owed much to his friendship with Atterbury, and though he had none of his friend's passionate vehemence, he was inclined to side with him to a certain extent in his political views. We find him joining with Atterbury in refusing to sign the address to George I. which was drawn up by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and this refusal cost him his post of Lord Almoner, to which he had been appointed by Queen Anne. He was, however, afterwards favourably regarded by Caroline, Princess of Wales, the future Queen, and on his death she took pains to save his family from poverty. Christ Church prospered greatly under his popular rule, and in spite of the large additional space provided by the new buildings of Peckwater, there seems to have I 130 CHRIST CHURCH been a lack of accommodation for the undergraduates, for a committee of the Chapter was appointed to consider what chambers could be made into double sets. The removal of the block of rooms on the south side of Peck water 5 to make space for the erection of the new Library, contributed to this difficulty; and out- houses and various offices belonging to the Deanery had to be cleared away and erected elsewhere. Preparations for beginning the Library were made in 1716, a noble design having been furnished by Dr. George Clarke, of All Souls College. But many years were spent upon the work, the upper portion not being completed till 1761. It was in Smalridge's time that the "Dead Man's Walk,*" along the city wall outside Merton College, was raised, the Broad Walk was widened, and the eastern wall belonging to the garden of the second stall was pulled down and rebuilt. The passage from Kill-Canon to Peckwater was also brought into its present state by re-constructing the wall of the Canon'^s garden, so as to make it match the wall of the Dean's premises on the opposite side of the passage. \ The close of the Stuart period marks a break and a new point of departure in the annals of Christ Church. The College had by now reached a high, if not its highest, level of distinction. Its position in the University, and in the wider world of letters, was of unchallenged eminence ; in all the professions its former " Alumni " occupied prominent and influential positions. Its buildings were almost as extensive as they are at the present day ; its rooms were well filled ; it was by far the largest and most conspicuous of all the Colleges of CLOSE OF STUART PERIOD 131 Oxford ; and it possessed also the unique distinction of being a Cathedral Church as well as a College. The Deans who ruled during this period were all, or almost all, men of learning and authority. Christ Church profited then, as always, from the arrangement which obtained from its earliest days, that the appointment of the Dean and all the members of the Chapter rested with the Crown, and not with the College itself. It was thus saved from the calamity of falling into a narrow groove, and from the disgrace of favouritism and jobbery. The Crown, as a rule, promoted good men ; and was careful to leaven the Chapter with a fair number of those who had already been Students, and who were thus familiar with the usages and traditions of their House, and anxious to maintain all that was good in them. And its walls were open — as a great place of education — to all England. There was no restriction of its advantages to members of the foundation ; no grudging acceptance of just a few outsiders to share their privileges on the payment of considerable fees. The large number of independent members, noblemen, gentlemen commoners, and commoners, shows the generous welcome accorded to the higher classes of English society, in their various grades; its poorer scholars united with these, on the one broad basis of study and learning, men of lower rank or of more slender estate. The young nobleman or squire brought up with him from his ancestral home the son of his parson or of his tenant, in the capacity of servitor. The lad was matriculated, gained all the advantages of the same education, though at a trifling expense, and was provided with a thorough equipment for an honourable career. And the Students of the foundation, nominated by the Dean and canons accord- 132 CHRIST CHURCH ing to their several turns, were gathered from all classes, and from all parts of England. They were not drawn from one school or from one county. Westminster indeed always contributed its annual contingent, but it was a source of strength, not of weakness, to the College. Busby's extraordinarily long tenure of office as Headmaster (1638-95), joined with his remarkable influence as a teacher and his clear discrimination of character, provided a constant supply of good material, of which Christ Church showed its hearty appreciation. Among the distinguished men whom Busby sent up to Christ Church were Dolben, Philip Henry, South, Locke, Jane, Aldrich, Trelawny, Humphrey Prideaux, Atterbury, Gastrell, Welbore Ellis, Smalridge, Sir Edward Hannes, R. Freind and J. Freind. From so brilliant a body of Students was selected the brilliant staff of College officers and Tutors, by whom, especially in the years following the Restoration, the young men were very effectively guided in their studies and encouraged to do their best. And the Deans themselves were no mere figureheads. Brought up in the College from freshmen's days, familiar with every phase of its life, and proud of its noble traditions. Fell and Aldrich took a keen personal interest in the studies of their undergraduates. Fell, we are told by Wood, " was a most excellent disciplinarian, kept up the exercise of his House severely, was admirable in training up youth of noble extraction, had a faculty in it peculiar to him, and was much delighted in it. He would constantly on several mornings of the week take his rounds in his College, go to the chambers of noblemen and gentlemen commoners, and examine and see what progress they made in their studies." COLLEGE DISCIPLINE 133 And Aldrich, as we have seen, was most careful in encouraging the abler of the young men to undertake independent work and sharpen their wits in the editing of classical authors. It is interesting to step from time to time behind the scenes, and discover how the daily life of a great institu- tion is going on, and gain some insight into the methods, not only of instruction, but of discipline. Young men are much the same in every generation ; but the character of the offences against order varies with the times, and reflects the character of the age ; and so with the methods of discipline enforced by the College authorities. In the Puritan times we have found instances of corporal punishment inflicted on young men of 19 or 20. This is not traced again in the Christ Church records subsequently to the Restoration ; but the Chapter books, which mention the graver offences committed by the Students, disclose some very curious breaches of discipline and show how they were dealt with. The Censors were the ordinary officers for maintaining order ; but for grave offences the Students were brought by them before the Dean and Chapter, and warned and punished by that body. The warnings were given " prima vice,*" and " secunda vice "" ; but if a third serious offence were committed, the penalty was usually the forfeiture of the Studentship. Independent members of the House were mostly under the jurisdiction of the Dean and Censors, and were not taken before the Chapter. But the Dean himself dealt with noblemen and gentlemen commoners, and the Sub- dean with bachelors of arts. The letters of Prideaux and other contemporary literature show the prevalence of dissolute and in- temperate habits in the University at this time, among 134 CHRIST CHURCH the seniors as well as juniors; and the offences brought under the cognisance of the authorities at Christ Church chiefly relate to drunken and turbulent excesses ; such as the frequenting of alehouses, riotous behaviour in the streets, quarrelling and violent language. Such misdeeds are frequently recorded in the Chapter minutes, and were committed by graduates as well as undergraduates. Thus in 1664 a Bachelor Student was charged with having climbed over the College walls after the gates were shut, and with having been concerned with another Student in the killing a sow belonging to a poor woman, "which they left in the public way in the College to the disgrace of the College and the government of it," and his companion soon afterwards, " a person of notorious and incorrigible debauchery, who had heretofore been found drunk and fighting at Merton College gate, and was by the Warden complained of to the Dean of this Church ; one who, to the public disgrace of this House for a long time made it his practice to disturb passengers through the College by raising at them, as they went, from his window, loud and uncivil clamours and hootings ; likewise to keep scandalous drinking in his chamber, and was found by the Dean debauching with a gentleman commoner late at night in the said gentleman's chamber ; was likewise proved to have been an accomplice in robbing the Dean of Westminster's hen roost."* This offender was also a B.A. Student, and strangely enough he was not expelled for these enormities. * The Dean of Westminster was Dolben, canon of the fourth stall. He was appointed to Westminster in 1662, and retained his canonry till he was made Bishop of Rochester in 1666. Dry den alludes to him as dean in Absalom and Ahitophel : " Him of the western dome, whose weighty sense Flows in fit words, and heavenly eloquence." MR. HAMMOND'S CASE 135 Some years later a Westminster Student, an M.A. of 14 years standing, high up in the list of " Philosophi,'" behaved so atrociously in all sorts of ways, that he was formally expelled. Among other matters recorded against him was that " being confined by the Dean to his chamber he had hung a bag out of his window as the prisoners do at Bocardo.'' It is interesting to note that the Dean could then exercise the power of confining an M.A. Student to his rooms. Other Students for various riotous acts were set heavy impositions ; one, for assaulting the porter, and forcing his way through the gate, was confined to the Library and ordered to read Suarez's Metaphysics^ — another, . for drink and disorder at a tavern, was also kept in the Library, and was condemned to read Grotius de jure pads et belli, and other books appointed by the Sub-dean. One other instance, which occurred in Dean Smal- ridge's time (it will be remembered that he was Bishop of Bristol as well as Dean), affords a very curious illustration of the customs of the House at that period. It is the case of Mr. Hammond, an M.A. Student of some years standing, who was cited before the Dean and Chapter, and required to sign the following "submission,'' on November 16, 1716 : " To the Right Reverend the Dean and the Reverend the Chapter. " I acknowledge that on Sunday last I had company at my chambers, who staying with me till eleven o'clock at night and not then moving to go home, I sent the servant of the Common Room for more liquor, that which I had provided being spent. The servant returning said that he could not go out of College, the keys being carried to the 136 CHRIST CHURCH Dean's house. Receiving this answer I went myself, and being likewise denied the keys returned and acquainted my company that I was obliged to desire them to leave me, there bemg no possibility of having more liquor, and there being danger also, if they stayed longer, of not being able to get out of College. At a quarter after eleven I attended them to the gate, and sent the servant of the Common Room to knock at the Dean's door for the keys, and per- ceiving by his story there was some difficulty of obtaining them, I went to the Dean's, and knocked myself at the door, and desired of the Dean's servant the favour of the keys to let some friends out of the College. The servant answered that his Lord had the keys, and had given orders that no person should disturb him. I apprehending this answer to be rather an excuse of the servant to save him- self trouble than that his Lord the Dean had really given such order, expressed myself to this purpose, that I had been at College almost nine years, and had never been denied the privilege of letting out friends at that time of night before. Upon my importunity the servant opened the gate for the gentlemen, and I returned to my chamber. " I have laid before your Lordship and the Chapter the true state of this matter, by which 1 am very sorry that I have incurred your Lordship's displeasure. I ask pardon that I have not acted with that regard to the good order and discipline of this House, nor with that duty and rever- ence to your Lordship which became me. I hope from the goodness of your Lordship and the Chapter that you will be inclined to put the utmost favourable construction upon the imprudence I may have been guilty of either in my words or actions. I also beg you to do me the justice to believe that I did not say, as your Lordship hath been informed, ' knock down the door,' nor any such words so indecent and disrespectful to your Lordship. I submit myself to your BURYING THE CENSOR 137 Lordship and the Chapter. And as I hope this will leave no impression upon you to my disadvantage, so I shall endeavour for the future by a behaviour full of duty and respect to approve myself not unworthy of your favour and forgiveness. "Ed: Hammond." One other strange entry appears for the first time during Dean Atterbury's reign, similar entries occur- ring not unfrequently in later years : "1711, December 24. D^ Roberts having neglected to appear and do his duty of burying the Censor ... is ordered to appear . . . next Term to answer for his neglect." What was this mysterious function of " burying the Censor,'' so formally mentioned, and the neglect of which constituted so grave an offence ? It seems to have occurred each year on or about Christmas Eve, and to have consisted of a Latin speech made in the Hall in the presence of the Dean and Chapter, and the whole society. The new roll of College Officers was made up each year at the December audit, so that this event would coincide with the con- clusion of the Censors' year of office, and probably the speech consisted of a recapitulation of the occuri'ences of the past year, with an appreciation of the Censors' exertions. The speech was written and spoken by some B.A. Student appointed by the Sub-dean, as may be gathered from the Chapter books, and the person selected sometimes shirked the duty altogether (as did Mr. Roberts), or, as in a later case, performed it in so " indecent and improper " a manner as to bring upon himself rustication for a whole year and other severe penalties. 138 ' CHRIST CHURCH The survival of this institution may perhaps be traced in the "Censors' speeches," which continued to be delivered down to December 1864, though by that date they had dwindled to a single speech. These speeches, as the custom existed in the early years of the present century, were Latin orations spoken in the College Hall at 7 P.M. on the last Wednesday and Saturday before collections in Michaelmas Term ; they thus came at the end of the Censors' year of office. On the Wednesday the Dean and Chapter gave a dinner in the Chapter House, to which the College staff were invited, and at its close the company adjourned to the Hall, where all the members of the House were assembled, " pricked in " by the proper official. The Senior Censor, or, as he is officially designated, the Censor of Moral Philo- sophy, then delivered a Latin oration, summing up and commenting on the principal events of his year of office. On the Saturday afterwards the Junior Censor (or Censor of Natural Philosophy) made a similar oration before the same audience, and his speech was followed by a supper in the Common Room to which the noblemen were invited, as well as any B.A.s whom the Censors chose to ask. The M.A.s who were members of the Common Room attended of right, and the cost of the supper, toward which, at an earlier time, each M. A. paid his share, had come to be defrayed by the Censors.. Then, as time went on, the two speeches became one, and the duty of delivering it fell on each Censor in turn. From 1857-61 the Senior Censor alone made the speech ; but he was Mr. Osborne Gordon, to whom Latin came as easily as English, and it was a high intellectual enjoymep^- to listen to his Ciceronian periods, as he described in felicitous phrases and with refined humour CHAPITER DINNERS 139 the incidents of the year then drawing to its close. The institution was abolished after 1864. The attendance of the Chapter — few of whom were old Christ Church men — had come to be so small at a function at which they, above all, should have been present, that the Censor, not unreasonably, objected to the performance of a task in which so languid an interest was taken by the rulers of the College. The Chapter dinners, to which the tutorial staff were invited, continued to be given yearly till 1867, when the new Governing Body came into existence. They were interesting ceremonies. The Dean and Canons, the hosts, sat together at the top of the table ; their guests, the Censors and Tutors, sat together at the bottom. All were in academical dress ; the beautiful pewter service, as lustrous as silver, was always used, and the custom of " taking wine "' with the guests was carefully observed. The Censors' supper was changed in 1865 into a dinner, which took place at the close of the December Collections, when the undergraduates had departed for the vacation. It still exists, as the pleasantest, as well as the least formal, of all College gatherings. Two volumes of Latin elegiac verses, published during the first half of the eighteenth century, remind us of an ancient itsage, certainly observed as far back as the Stuart times, in which the members of Christ Church bore a distinguished part. They are entitled " Carmina Quadragesimalia, ab ^dis Christi Oxon : alumnis com- posita, et ab ejusdem ^dis Baccalaureis determinanti- bus in Schola Naturalis Philosophia? publice recitata." 140 CHRIST CHURCH The first volume was published in 1723, and dedicated to the Students of Christ Church by one of their number, Charles Este, then a young graduate, after- wards chaplain to Archbishop Boulter, and Bishop of Waterford. The second volume, published in 1748, was edited by Anthony Parsons, also a Student and, like Este, a Westminster man. The copies of Latin elegiacs contained in these volumes were written for the purpose of being prefixed, as a kind of humorous prologue, to the serious disputations on arid theses, which were delivered by the newly made Bachelors of Arts, on the completion of their academical exercises, in the season of Lent following the taking of the degree. This concluding ceremony was called " deter- mining.'' Theses were announced, suggested by the Natural Philosophy teaching of the Schools; and the disputations upon them were preceded by a "lectio versuum " cognate to the theses, which was recited publicly in the School of Natural Philosophy, on the first day of Lent. " Hinc illud efficitur," writes the editor of the second volume, " ut leviora haec (uti nonnullis forsan videantur) duplicem afferant fructum : dumque adolescentium studia incitantur, disputationum severitas amaenitate carminum temperetur." Certainly they were " leviora," and " potius ad delec- tandum quam ad docendum comparata." They were of the character of epigrams, such as are still composed and recited by the Queen's Scholars of Westminster school — upon subjects announced by the Head Master — before the annual election to the Universities. And they were as a rule far removed from any serious CARMINA QUADRAGESIMALIA 141 discussion of the thesis which formed their basis and justification. They were composed by the best scholars of Christ Church, such as P. Foulkes, Smalridge, Alsop, R. Freind, and, at a somewhat later date, Markham. A few may be quoted, as illustrations of their mode of treatment of the solemn theses. The thesis " An idem semper agat idem ? "" suggests a quaint sketch of the Senior Fellow of a College, from the pen of a Westminster Student, James Bramston, the author of the Jrt of Politics and the Man of Taste. It was written in 1716. " Isis qua lambit mures, ibi cernere possis Cum veteri Socium consenuisse lare. Huic idem vitae rerumque revertitur ordo, Normaque stat rigido non violanda seni. Nam constans sibi, sole torum surgente relinquit, Et redit ad notum, sole cadente, torum. Huic eadem multos felis servata per annos, Huic eadem lectum parvula sternit anus. Conviva assiduus, lumbo venerandus ovino Pascitur ; et totos credo vorasse greges. Mox numerat passus sub aprici moenibus horti ; Mox terit assueta scripta diuma manu. Communem historias repetitas narrat ad ignem, Dum tria sumuntur pocula, tresque tubi. Quoque die hoc fecit Carolorum tempore, idemque Temporibus faciet fors, Frederice,* tuis.'' Another Westminster Student, Thomas Sutton, thus treats the question " An sonus sit luce velocior ? " : " Xantippe tacitas sub pectore concipit iras. Si vir forte redit potus ab urbe domum. * Frederick Lewis, grandson of George I., and afterwards Prince of Wales, was a boy at this time. 142 CHRIST CHURCH Ille videt tetricae nebulosum frontis amictum, Et tempestatis signa futura timet. Fulgur ab ignitis pernix scintillat ocellis ; Sero, sed certo fulmine lingua tonat." The thesis — "an elementa sint gravia et levia?" suggests a charming description of the barometer by Temple Stanyan, another Westminster man. " An ars sit perfectior natura ? " leads to some singularly graceful lines on the Nautilus : and " An mixtio sit alteratorum miscibilium unio ? " is illustrated in some happy verses by P. Foulkes, describing the meeting of the Thame and Isis : " Nympha Isis medios agros dum laeta pererrat, Incaluit madidae Tamus amore Deae. Serpit amans tacit us, sinuosaque brachia circum Funditj et aeterno foedere jungit aquas. Jam torrens idem, et limes datur unus utrique ; Nee doluere vices ille vel ilia suas. Tamus amat quicquid sua dulcis amaverat Isis, Et quod Tamus amat, Tamus et Isis amant. Agnoscas nullam Tami, nullam Isidis undam ; Commune imperium Tamisis unus habet." The exercises, of which these are specimens, are perhaps sometimes disfigured by the disregard of certain metrical rules which nowadays are more strictly observed ; but this is their chief, or only, fault. No similar collection seems to have been preserved in other Colleges, and no doubt the Westminster traditions encouraged the pro- duction of such " nugae "'' at Christ Church. Indeed, they long survived within the College walls. They probably ceased to be publicly recited soon after the middle of the eighteenth century : but they were kept MR. GLADSTONE'S VERSES 143 up as a College exercise till Dean Gaisford's time. A large collection of them is to be found in the Senior Censor's box, beginning with 1776, when Randolph, afterwards Bishop of London, was Censor under Dean Bagot. The same ancient theses recur continually, and the exercises are of the same kind, though the writers rarely venture on a humorous treatment of the subjects. The custom as described by Bishop Vowler Short, when Censor in 1826, was that the Dean in the first week after Christmas gave notice in writing in Hall, that all undergi'aduates who had been educated at public schools were required to send in three copies of Latin verse by the Saturday before or after Ash Wednesday, according as Easter fell early or late. The verses were sent in to the Senior Censor, and the best of them were selected for recitation on the Saturday before Collections in the Lent Term. Those undergraduates who wrote these exercises were excused their weekly themes till after the day on which the verses were sent up. But the whole custom was then moribund. The discipline of the College was lax, and no strictness was observed in enforcing the Dean's order. Men sent up old copies of verses, and were not ambitious of being chosen to read their compositions. In 1826 sixteen copies were selected for recitation ; in 1829 only twelve : and in 1832 the new Dean (Gaisford) set no subjects, and the institution died a natural death. But in 1829 and 1830 W. E. Gladstone was among the selected writers, and his copies of verses, though perhaps they do not rise above mediocrity, have a special interest for their writer's sake. In 1829 he \<^rote on the thesis "An aliquid sit imrautabile ? " 144 CHRIST CHURCH " Vivimus incertum ? Fortunse lusus habemur ? Singula praeteriens det rapiatve dies ? En nemus exanimum, qua se modo germina^ verno Tempore, purpureis explicuere comis. Respice pacatum Neptuni numine pontum : Territa mox tumido verberat astra salo. Sed brevior brevibus, quas unda supervenit, undis, Sed gelida, quam mox dissipat aura, nive ; Sed foliis sylvarum, et amiei veris odore, Quisquis honos placeat, quisquis alatur amor. Jamne joci lususque sonant ? Viget alma Juventas ? Funerese forsan eras cecinere tubae. Nee Pietas, nee casta Fides, nee libera Virtus Nigrantes vetuit mortis inire domos. Certa tamen lex ipsa manet, labentibus annis. Quae jubet assiduas quaeque subire vices." Several of these later " Carmina " were selected from the Censor's stores by Linwood for publication in his Anthologia Oxoniensis^ 1846. CHAPTER VII THE HANOVERIAN PERIOD TO 1783 Deans : Hugh Boulter, 1719-24 ; William Bradshaw, 1724-33 ; John Conybeare, 1733-55 ; David Gregory, 1756-67 ; William Mark- ham, 1767-77 ; Lewis Bagot, 1777-83. The transition from the Stuart Deans to those of the early Hanoverian period is not altogether a pleasant one. There is a lack of interest about the successors of the eminent men whose labours have been just re- corded ; they do not impress themselves upon the imagination ; nor did they leave their mark upon the fortunes of Christ Church. And, indeed, though they were appointed to rule over it, some of them were almost strangers to its history and traditions ; they cherished none of that cordial affection, the outgrowth of long and intimate knowledge, which had belonged to all the Deans from the time of the Restoration, with the one exception of Massey. The unexpected news of the death of Smalridge reached George I. while on his journey to Hanover. He must have been entirely ignorant of the august traditions of Christ Church, or of the qualities needed for its Head ; but a rich piece of preferment naturally interested him. Among the members of his suite on this occasion was Hugh Boulter, Rector of St. Olave's, Southwark, and Archdeacon of Surrey, who was attend- 146 CHRIST CHURCH ing him in the capacity of chaplain. To Boulter the King at once, of his " spontaneous act," offered the rich deanery and the poor bishopric which had fallen to his patronage by Smalridge's death. Hugh Boulter (1719-24), was at this time 47 years of age. His sole connexion with Christ Church con- sisted in the fact that he had been a commoner there for a short time, more than a quarter of a century before ; but he had passed quickly from Christ Church to Magdalen College, where he obtained a Demyship, leading in due course to a Fellowship. Hough was then President of the College ; and with Boulter were elected Joseph Addison, and Joseph Wilcocks (after- wards Dean of Westminster, and Bishop of Gloucester and subsequently of Rochester) : the " golden election," as Hough is said to have described them. Boulter resided but a very short time at Magdalen College. He had in early life become chaplain to Sir Charles Hedges, and afterwards to Archbishop Tenison, and he gained his London preferment through the patronage of Lord Sunderland. He had no claim whatever to the Deanery of Christ Church, and after five years' tenure of the office, he passed on to the Primacy of All Ireland, at the express command of the King, it is said, after having definitely declined the preferment. His fame — and it is no mean fame — rests upon his noble work as Primate. During the famines of 1728 and 1740, his charity to the poor Irish was inexhaustible. He distributed corn most lavishly at his own expense ; and it is stated that in the latter year 2500 needy persons were fed daily at the Poor House in Dublin, almost wholly at the charges of the Archbishop. He was greatly trusted by the Crown in DEAN BOULTER 147 the government of Ireland, and ten times held the office of Lord Justice. He incurred indeed the ridicule of Swift, and Hallam writes in somewhat contemptuous terms of him as "a worthy but narrow-minded man, who showed his egregious ignorance of policy in endeavouring to promote the wealth and happiness of the people, whom he at the same time studied to repress and discourage in respect of political freedom." But he was undoubtedly a prelate of unbounded generosity and of unselfish aims. He left large sums of money in charity, and contributed largely to the new buildings at his old College of Magdalen, while Christ Church commemorates his name in a Boulter exhibition which he founded. He died in London in 1742, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. The only event of importance connected with Dean Boulter's reign at Christ Church was a disastrous fire in the Hall, in 1720. Some choristers, it is said, had been burning in the open fireplace in the centre the green boughs with which the Hall had been decorated at Christmas ; some of these were caught in the louvre of the roof, the dry timber was set alight, and almost the whole of the ceiling was quickly destroyed. The present timber roof, probably modelled after the former one, though without the louvre, was then erected at a considerable cost. George I. contributed ^1000 towards the expense, and the balance of the King's " Bounty money," as it was called, was paid over to the Fund for the new Library then slowly rising in Peckwater. A Chapter minute of April 10, 1720, orders, " That the Common Dining Hall of this House be arched, and so far as is necessary I 148 CHRIST CHURCH paved with stone." By the "arching"" is meant the vaulting under the Hall, to be seen still in the Treasury and adjoining rooms, and till lately extending over the Common Room. The damage done to the floor by the fire, and the removal of the central brazier, afforded the opportunity for this costly work. The side fire- places, with their stately mantelpieces, were also con- structed at this time.* William Bradshaw (1724-32) succeeded Boulter in both Deanery and Bishopric. He was 53 years of age, and had been made a canon of Christ Church in the previous year. But he knew little of the place, having been educated at New College. During his tenure of the Deanery the date of election of the Westminster Students was changed (in 1726) from the second Monday in Easter Term to the sixth Monday after Easter Day, that is, to the Monday in Rogation week. This change was eff^ected by the royal authority, in accordance with a joint petition of the Deans of Westminster and Christ Church and the Master of Trinity (Bentley). The Library in Peck- water grew gradually; its design was slightly altered, the projected Venetian window in the front being changed into a window of the same form as the others. The Treasurer''s office under the Hall was in 1731 strengthened and secured, so as to be made a fit place for the custody of the "Church's cash;" and an iron chest was provided to hold the money. The manners of the age are illustrated by a case of duelling which had to be dealt with by the Dean and Chapter. Two Westminster Students of undergraduate * See a letter from Mr. Terry to Dr. Charlett, printed in Oxoniana, vol. ii. p. 214-16. THE BROTHERS WESLEY 149 standing, Ferrebee and Arbuthnot — the latter a son of Dr. Arbuthnot, the friend of Pope — fought a duel with swords over a love affair, and were both wounded. They were not expelled for this grave offence, but were re- quired to ask pardon publicly in the Hall, and were admonished not to commit an offence of the kind again under pain of expulsion. Ferrebee, the elder of the two, was suspended from taking his degree for two years, and had to translate the whole of Cicero's De Oratore. Arbuthnot received a smaller punishment ; he had been more severely wounded, and his adversary was said to have been the aggressor. One other name, of a very different kind, should be mentioned in contrast with these two quarrelsome youths. In the same year, 1726, Charles Wesley was elected Head from Westminster. His eldest brother, Samuel, had gained a Westminster Studentship fifteen years before, and was now an usher at his old school. His more famous brother, John, had matriculated at Christ Church as a commoner from Charterhouse in 1720, had been ordained deacon in the Cathedral in 1725, and was now just going into residence at Lincoln College, where he had gained a Fellowship. Charles, " the sweet singer of Methodism," united with a few other undergraduates for the purpose of devotion and charity, and received the Sacrament weekly. It is pleasant to know that at this time there was a weekly celebration at Christ Church instead of the monthly celebration which had been established at the Restora- tion. And we learn, incidentally, that it was open to other than Christ Church men, for George Whitefield. the poor servitor at Pembroke College, has recorded the fact that he used to cross over from his College every 150 CHRIST CHURCH Sunday morning to receive the Sacrament in the Cathedral, there being no weekly Communion at Pem- broke. One other indication of the state of Christ Church under Bradshaw is found in BoswelPs Life of Johnson, Johnson was informed that his friend Taylor was intending to enter Pembroke College in 1730. But, in spite of Johnson's loyalty to his own College, he dis- suaded Taylor from thus acting, on the ground that he would find no able Tutor there; and, after making inquiries, he recommended him to enter at Christ Church, where he would be under the instruction of the ablest Tutor in Oxford, Mr. Bateman. Dean Bradshaw died in December 1732, and was buried in Bristol Cathedral. He left a legacy of d^300 towards the completion of the new Library in Peckwater. To Bradshaw succeeded a Dean who had not even the slender connexion with Christ Church which was enjoyed by his two predecessors. John Conybeare (1733-55) was a complete stranger to the House over which he was called to preside, and at the time of his appointment was Rector of Exeter College. He was a west country man, son of the Vicar of Pinhoe in Devon, between which county and Exeter College there was then, as now, a close alliance ; and he had been educated at Exeter Free School. He resided for long in Oxford, and held the living of St. Clement's for many years, even after he became Dean, and was elected Rector of his College in 1730. Three years afterwards he was pre- ferred to Christ Church. Why the selection of a perfect stranger was made is a matter of conjecture. It is sometimes asserted that Christ Church was then in a bad DEAN CONYBEARE 151 state of discipline, and needed the strong hand of an out- sider " to cleanse out that Augean stable," as Mr. Boase* quotes the words from some unnamed authority. But there is no evidence to show that Christ Church was in this desperate condition. On the contrary, the College seems to have been full and prosperous, and by no means in need of drastic treatment. Terras filius in 1733, whose words may be accepted as an indication, at any rate, of the current opinion of Oxford, was evidently rather jealous of this great Society. Christ Church, he declared,t " was unpopular in the University. The place was indeed at its zenith^ had its fill of rich aristocrats, its tutors were intelligent, and appreciated the value of their connexion with Westminster; the men gave themselves airs ; with wonderful ignorance and conceit they claimed to belong to a House, not to a College ; those of other Colleges were ^ Squils ' and ^ Hodmen ' ; they were accustomed, with suppressed blushes, to style their foundation ^ royal and ample.' Gibbon was wrong in saying that Locke was ex- pelled on speculative grounds, but they understood him as little as they saw why such a fuss should be made about Handel. Accordingly this Terrce filius sneers at the establishment, and brands the new Dean as a courtier." This curious production of Oxford wit, if wit it may be called, was written just at the time when the contro- versy between the partisans and depredators of Handel was at its height. The phrase " Squils and Hodmen " needs some explanation. The first word is now happily forgotten, but was in use within the last twenty years, * Registrum Collegii Exoniensis (Oxf. Hist. Soc. 1894), p. cxxxvii. f See Wordsworth's Social Life at the Universities in the Eighteenth Century, p. 304. 152 CHRIST CHURCH as a colloquial designation of members of other colleges. It was supposed to be a corruption of " Ex-Collegees,'" or " Esquilini.'' The word " Hodmen " has an interest- ing literary history. In Littleton's dictionary (1677) it is explained as " advena,'' " alienigena," as opposed to the Westminster Students at Christ Church, who con- sidered themselves " indigenae." From this usage it might easily come to be identified with " Squils." But in 1706 the compiler of another dictionary, who must have read Littleton carelessly, explains it as a name for a young Westminster scholar ; and this mistake is repeated in all the later dictionaries that mention the word. The climax is reached in HalliwelFs dictionary, 1855, where the word is explained as a nickname for a Canon of Christ Church ! Conybeare remained at Christ Church till his death in 1755. In 1751 he was appointed to the Bishopric of Bristol, on the promotion of Joseph Butler to Durham ; and he held the Deanery, as his two predecessors had done, in commendam with the Bishopric. He was a man of considerable attainments, a learned theologian, and an active ruler. Hearne, indeed, whose Jacobite pre- judices always warped his judgment, rather sneers at him. The new Dean, he writes, " makes a great stir in the College, at present pretending to great matters, such as locking up the gates at nine o'clock cat night, having the keys brought up to* him, turn- ing out young women from being bed-makers, having the kitchen (which he visits) cleansed, and I know not what, aiming at a wonderful character, even to exceed that truly great man Bishop Fell, to whom he is not in the least to be compared ; as neither is he to Dean Aldrich, nor Dean Atterbury, nor even Dean Smalridge," JACOBITE STUDENTS 153 But the sneer seems to have been ill-deserved. In the government of his House, indeed, Conybeare had the valuable assistance of David Gregory, who was made canon in 1736, and succeeded him as Dean ; a man who was familiar with all the customs and traditions of the place. But Conybeare was by no means an insignificant personage. The records of the Chapter imply that life in College passed quietly and happily under his rule, and that he was careful in looking after all matters that concerned its welfare. Large sums were spent upon the fabric. The Hall was repaired and beautified at con- siderable cost, under the guidance of Dr. Gregory's taste. The great quadrangle was much improved, and the building of the new Library vigorously pushed forward. Very few breaches of discipline came before the Chapter, but the strong undercurrent of Jacobitism, which survived in Oxford to a much later date, was shown in the hearty sympathy which the Pretender's attempt evoked; and in June 1750, five years after that event, we find the following entry relating to a Westminster undergraduate Student, afterwards Vicar of Broad Hinton, Wilts : "Whereas James, a student of this House, hath for a long time behaved very irregularly, and not been reformed, either by the admonitions of his Tutor or the censures of the College Officers ; and whereas he did on the 10th of this instant June provide entertainment both of dinner and supper for several persons to celebrate that day as the birthday of the Pretender (as appears by some healths by him proposed as well as several other scandalous circum- stances) in violation of his duty to his Majesty and to the great scandal of this House ; after which he did force him- self out of the College Gate at a very late hour by threatening to kill the porter ; and being cited by a paper set up in the 154 CHRIST CHURCH Hall to make his appearance before the Dean and Chapter on Monday the 1 8th of this instant June he did not appear ; and as the foregoing particulars are sufficiently evident, partly by his own examination by the Dean, and partly by other credible proof: it is ordered by the Dean and Chapter that the said James be immediately expelled this House, and he is hereby declared to be expelled this House." Two other Westminster Students, Sealey and Barnes, were also severely punished for complicity in James'*s " enormity." Barnes was the father of Frederick Barnes (clarum et venerabile nomen) who died in 1859, after serving Christ Church as Student and Canon for nearly 70 years. It is probably not generally known that under the original statutes of St. John Baptist College, the founder, Sir Thomas White, had enjoined that the Fellows, after electing their President, should present the person chosen to the Dean and Chapter of Christ Church, and request that he might be admitted to his office by that body. This rather humiliating condition seems to have been forced on the founder somewhat against his will. The site and buildings of St. Bernard's College, originally founded by Archbishop Chichele, and made over by him to the Cistercian monks, had been granted by Henry VIII. to Christ Church, and in conveying this property to the new foundation, for which a licence had been granted on May 1, 1555, at a yearly rent of twenty shillings, it was stipulated by the Dean and Chapter, that Sir Thomas White should select the first President from among the Canons or Students of Christ Church, and that his successors, if not members of St. John''s, should be chosen from the foundation of Christ Church; and that the PRESIDENTS OF ST. JOHN'S 155 Head should be admitted by the Dean and Chapter, within seven days after his nomination. Accordingly the ceremony of admission was always performed, till the original statutes gave place to the new Ordinance framed under the University Commission ; and a full description occurs in the Chapter books of the admission of William Derham, who was nominated as President in 1748. On April 22 in that year, *' William Derham Doctor in Divinity and President of St. John Baptist College in the University of Oxford elect, Edward Berdmore, Doctor of Laws and Vice-President of St. John Baptist College aforesaid, and a great number of the Fellows and other members of the said College came in a public procession to the Chapter House." The Dean and Canons were there assembled, and the Vice-President presented four Latin instruments, showing that all the steps of the election had been duly observed. These were read by the Registrar : " Whereupon the said Edward Berdmore the Vice-President aforesaid presented the said William Derham unto the said Dean and Chapter, and requested the said Dean and Chapter in a short Latin oration for that purpose made to admit the said William Derham selected as aforesaid to be President of St. John Baptist College aforesaid, and the said William Derham having first publicly read and taken the oath entitled ^juramentum Praesidentis,' the said John Conybeare did admit the said William Derham President of St. John Baptist College aforesaid, as the custom is." Such was the scene, and it was a tradition in Christ Church that the large folding doors which existed in the Chapter Room before its restoration were never opened 156 CHRIST CHURCH except at the occurrence of this remarkable ceremony. Dr. Wynter was the last President so admitted. In one other interesting academical incident Dean Conybeare acted a leading part. In 1753 Richard Newton, the aged Principal of Hertford College, died. Newton was a man of considerable force of character, and possessed good private means in his manor of Lavendon. More than 40 years previously, in 1710, he had been appointed on Aldrich'^s recommendation to the post of Principal of Hart Hall. The chapel, dedicated to St. Catharine, and the adjoining block of chambers, which may still be seen on the south side of Hertford College quadrangle, were built by him at a cost of