\
COLLEGE
HISTORIES
OXFORD
UNIVEESITY COLLEGE
of
COL
ARE,
u
E. RO GREAT RUSSEL-
of
COLLEGE HISTORIES
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
BY
WILLIAM CARR, M.A.
OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, OXFORD
LONDON
K E. ROBINSON & CO.
20 GREAT RUSSELL STREET, BLOOMSBURY
1902
JACOBO FRANCE BRIGHT, S.T.P.
MAGISTllO
SOCIISQUE MAGN^E AUL.E UNIVERSITATIS OXON,
HUNG QUALEMCUNQUB LIBELLUM
PIO GRATOQUE ANIMO
D.D.D.
GULIELMUS CARE, A.M.
PEEFACE
SOME apology or explanation for the late appearance of this small book is due to all who are interested in the history of the College. The volume, which might well have been expected as the foremost, is nearly the last to be published in Mr. Robinson's Oxford series. The delay has been occasioned through the fact that the series was already well advanced when the privilege of attempting to deal with a not altogether easy task was accorded to the present writer. My first desire, now that my work is finished, is to confess its many shortcomings and to lament that it is so little worthy of the subject. I have, however, some good reason for expressing the hope that in the not distant future a much more com- plete history of the College is likely to be produced, free from the restrictions which are necessary to the volumes of a popular series.
The history of University College as I have read it, except during one short period during its long course, is chiefly confined to an account of the slow growth of an institution and the gradual development of its activities, and I have chosen to stick close to this subject, even, I fear, at the risk of wearying the general reader. I have
viii PREFACE
abstained from attempting to link the history of the College with the history of affairs external to it, for already a skilful use has been made by many of the writers in this series of most of the historical incidents arising out of Oxford academic life. The biographical portion of the book is especially insufficient, and in many cases I have only attempted to call to mind the mere names of distinguished members of the College.
Through the courtesy of the Master and Fellows I have been allowed a very complete access to the College muniment-room. In the muniment-room are eleven thick quarto volumes, containing transcripts of the college documents made by W. Smith. These have proved of the greatest service to 'me, and though in almost all cases when I quote or make use of any document I have referred to the document itself, I have preferred, for the sake of simplicity in the reference, to refer to the volume of transcripts in which it is contained. The documents in the possession of the College, considering its great antiquity, are somewhat disappointing.
The Bursars1 accounts, with the exception of a few years, are complete from 1381 to 1597, and form the main authority for a considerable portion of the earlier history. The register begins in the year 1509, and very useful ledgers containing copies of leases and notes of compositions have been kept from 1588 onwards ; only partially complete lists of Fellows and members of the College are in existence before 1660.
In stating dates, I have in all cases followed the modern method of reckoning, and have avoided giving the alternate years in cases where otherwise it would have been necessary.
PREFACE ix
I am under very especial obligation to the Master for his kindness in reading through my proofs, and for much information on many points that he has been good enough to give me during the progress of the work. All responsibility, however, for the accuracy of state- ments contained in the book lies only with the author and the authorities quoted.
To the Librarian of the Bodleian I am indebted for the permission to publish a drawing by A. Wood, and to Mr. Madan I owe thanks for kind assistance on many occasions. Mr. Farquharson, Dean of the College, has been good enough to help me in composing the short record of College Athletics, which space has obliged me to restrict to little more than a list of distinguished athletes. For the index I am especially beholden to Miss Wickham (of University College), who, amid many other occupations, has taken the trouble and found the time to compile it.
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, OXFORD, May 19, 1902.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE FOUNDATION OF THE COLLEGE ... I
II. THE EARLY STATUTES 2O
III. THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY . . . 31
IV. THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY . . . • 53 V. THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY .... 74
VI. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY TO THE RESTORA- TION, 1660 95
VII. FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE REVOLUTION. 122
VIII. FROM THE REVOLUTION TO 1 745 . . .156
IX. FROM 1745 TO MODERN TIMES. . . . 184
X. THE EXISTING BUILDINGS 205
APPENDICES
A. THE COLLEGE SEAL AND ARMS . . . .223
B. PORTRAITS IN THE HALL AND MASTER'S LODGINGS 225
C. ANCIENT CUSTOMS 226
D. NOTE ON COLLEGE ATHLETICS . . .227
LIST OF ILLUSTKATIONS
VIEW BY LOGGAN (c. 1675) . . . . Frontispiece
PLAN SHOWING THE APPROXIMATE POSITION OF THE ANCIENT HALLS ON THE SITE OF THE PRESENT COLLEGE* ... /. 64
THE OLD CHAPEL AND BUILDINGS. FROM A SKETCH BY A. WOOD IN THE BODLEIAN
LIBRARY facing p. 66
THE OLD LIBRARY, NOW THE KITCHEN STAIR- CASE, FROM THE MASTER'S GARDEN . ,,130
THE LARGE QUADRANGLE .... „ 144
THE RADCLIFFE QUADRANGLE . . . ,,170
A CORNER OF THE HALL . . . . „ 1 88
THE COLLEGE FRONT ,,204
INTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL . . . . ,,214
* The plan which appears on p. 64 should have been placed on P- 34-
CHAPTER I
THE FOUNDATION OF THE COLLEGE
THE ALUREDIAN TRADITION.
IN a petition presented to King Richard II. in the second year of his reign, his poor orators, the Master and scholars of his College called the ' Mickel Uni- verstie Hall in Oxford,1 beseech the assistance of the Sovereign on the ground that their College was in the first place founded by 'his noble progenitour King Alfred ' for the sustenance of twenty-six divines for ever (Rot. Parl., viii. 69). No qualifying words impaired the certainty of this assertion, made in all publicity for the King's ear in open Parliament. In a statement so boldly proclaimed, and by the King and his Council readily accepted and acted upon, there is no appearance of sudden invention. Some semblance of truth was needed even in the contents of a fourteenth- century petition, and it is hardly conceivable that any but the clumsiest of plotters would suddenly originate as a matter of common knowledge such a remarkable figment from his own imagination. Some basis or sup- posed justification for this claim on behalf of the Great Hall of the University, however shadowy, must have
1
2 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
been in existence at the time of its making. Though the declarations contained in the petition were promul- gated in the course of a lawsuit for the all-important purpose of winning the King^s support, they never for a moment appear to have been questioned by the other parties to the suit, whereas an impudent fabrication at the moment of a claim never previously heard of would hardly have escaped detection and denunciation by strenuous opponents.
Tradition crediting King Alfred with the establish- ment of the University of Oxford was certainly in existence about the middle of the fourteenth century. Before the year 1363 Ralph Higden had recounted among the acts of the great King the institution of public schools of the various arts at Oxford.*
Whatever may have been the origin of this tradi- tion, and however long it may have existed before this date, the notice by Higden of the connection between King Alfred and the University is the first mention of such a relation in any English chronicle unsuspected of interpolation. When once the connec- tion between the King and the University was estab- lished, it is not surprising to find the tradition that the c Magna Aula Universitatis ' owed its foundation to the same source. To whom else, it might well be asked, could the ' Collegium antiquius Universitatis/f the ' Senior Filia,' owe its first existence ?
* ' Quamobrem ad consilium Neotis Abbatis quern crebro visita- verat, scholas publicas variarum artium apud Oxoniam primus in- stituit : quam urbem in multis articulis privilegiari procuravit.' — Polychronicon Rolls Ser., vol. vi. 354.
t The University in an epistle to Pope Eugenius IV., written
THE FOUNDATION OF THE COLLEGE 3
From the latter part of the fourteenth century, when we first meet with the definite assertion of the royal foundation of the College, the fable rapidly gained credence, and was fortified by details.
In a grant of the first year of his reign, King Henry IV. followed the example of his predecessor in acknowledging the College to have been ' de fundatione progenitorum nostrorum quondam Regum Angliae,1 and a few years later Richard Wytton, Master of the College, pressed by the exigencies of a suit with the Abbey of Oseney, is emboldened to give further par- ticulars of the foundation, which prior to his time do not appear to have been divulged. In the words of his plea,
' The said Great Hall is a certain ancient College of the Foundation and Patronage of the aforesaid King that now is, and of his progenitors, sometime Kings of England : to wit, of the Lord Alfred, sometime King of England, Pro- genitor of the Lord King that now is, before time and in the whole time to the contrary, of which the memory of man does not exist, for a Master and 78 Scholars, viz., 26 Grammarian Scholars, 26 Philosopher Scholars, and 26 Theological Scholars, to be instructed and taught to sup- port, maintain, and sustain the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ/
At first sight it is wellnigh incredible that, at the very time when these claims to antiquity of foundation were being openly made use of in the courts of law, the society should none the less be practically acknow-
1441, in commendation of Mr. Richard Wytton, thus styles the College (Lib. Epistolarum Universitatis Oxon., F, fol. 58, Ep. 150, printed in Epistolcs Academics, O.H.S., p. 201).
1—2
4 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
ledging their real founder in William of Durham. For at the very moment when they were publicly setting forth their claim to a royal founder, the effigy of William appeared on their seal. His arms were on their spoons in daily use, and to St. Cuthbert, Dur- ham's saint, was their chapel dedicated, while St. Cuthbert's Day was kept by them as their high-day and Gaudy Festival. Even the very name 'William of Durham's scholars,' by which at this time we find them frequently described, seemed to belie the higher claim put forth. But the apparently irreconcilable attributes of the rival founders were ingeniously com- promised by a further elaboration of the original tradi- tion by which William of Durham becomes no more than a restorer of Alfred's foundation. This view is expressed in a memorandum formulated for the pur- pose, and prefixed to the volume entitled 'Founders and Benefactors ' in the College muniment - room.* Here we are told that, after, and from the time of, the foundation by Alfred, the funds granted in support of the society were taken from the Royal Exchequer to the time of the Conquest, but that the Conqueror, desiring to destroy the English tongue, withdrew the money, and the scholars lived solely from the donations of those who loved the English tongue, until subse- quently they received William of Durham's endowment.
* This memorandum is said to have been derived ' Ex veteri scriptura in fine parvi missalis et aliis Archivis Collegii.' It was printed by Brian Twyne (cf. Apologia, p. 249) as taken out of the Statute Book of the College, and William Smith places its date about the beginning of the fifteenth century (Smith's Annals of University College, p. 204). I regret that I have not been able to discover the source of their authority.
THE FOUNDATION OF THE COLLEGE 5
This plausible explanation, which may probably have been devised to reconcile opinions and statements obviously conflicting, and which itself possibly dated from the beginning of the fifteenth century, was in course of time further improved upon by Thomas Caius* and Brian Twyne, the latter of whom contended that the original halls of Alfred's time passed from the scholars to the townsmen, out of whose hands they were redeemed by William of Durham's money.
At a time when controversy, rather keen than critical, was in progress concerning the comparative antiquity of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the fact that the claim of the College and the boast of the University were in harmony, made diligent antiquaries who were eager partisans of Oxford in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries willing enough to accept the pretensions of the College in their desire to establish the priority of their own over the sister University.
All went smoothly with the growing tradition until the beginning of the seventeenth century, when an injudicious and too eager attempt to convert it into a current historical fact proved eventually its ruin. In the fifth edition of Camden's Britannia (published in 1600) fresh particulars of the founding by Alfred, hitherto unheard of, were produced and vouched for by the author ' ut legitur in optimo manuscripto illius Asserii exemplari.1 These direct statements proved
* Tradition with Caius had yielded to positive assurance. He refers to the expression of opinion of Master Hutchinson (1518-46) and certain of the Fellows ' qui in scriptis significarunt delegatis regiis magnam Aulam Universitatis Oxon. fuisse ex fundatione regis Alfredi anno Domini octingentesimo ut patet ex antique scripto.' — Assertio Antiqidtatis Academics Oxoniensis, ed. 1568, p. 337.
6 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
too heavy a superstructure for the slender base of tradition on which the enlarged account of the founda- tion had been erected, and from the first aroused criticism. Grave doubts were expressed as to the very existence of the 'optimum manuscriptum'1 quoted — doubts which have never since been satisfied.
Despite the injury done to the Oxford cause by Camden's extreme advocacy, the seventeenth-century antiquaries — Brian Twyne, Gerard Langbaine, Arch- bishop James Ussher, Sir John Spelman, Anthony Wood, and Thomas Hearne — maintained with more or less confidence the enlarged tradition, though A. Wood attempted to uphold the royal foundation of the University in conjunction with the seniority of his own College. The influence of their writings served to guide public opinion, never too critical in matters of evidence ; and when in 1727 the question of the right of visitation of the College came before the Court of King's Bench, after a lengthy hearing of evidence, it was decided that the College was of the foundation of King Alfred, and that the Sovereign was its Visitor.
To this day the University in its Annual Calendar yearly proclaims that the College ' is said to have been founded in the year 872 by Alfred the Great; and holds to its own fifteenth-century description of the society as 6 Collegium antiquius universitatis Oxon.'
In the windows of the old chapel of the fifteenth century, sketched by Wood before its destruction, were memorials in ancient glass of the Saxon King, which are no longer in existence. The representations of him now in possession of the College owe their origin and appropriation to the antiquarian zeal of the late seven-
THE FOUNDATION OF THE COLLEGE 7
teenth and early eighteenth centuries. The statue once over the hall door, but now, alas ! adorning the rockery in the Master's garden, has lost all royal resemblance owing to the perishable nature of the sandstone from which it was carved. It was presented to the College by Dr. Plot in January, 1683.* The picture of the great King, once in the hall, appears to have been secured in 1662 for the modest sum of £3. In the Master's Lodgings is a much smaller picture on oak panel of earlier date, the history of which is unknown. A white marble bust in the common-room was pre- sented by Viscount Folkestone as late as the middle of the eighteenth century.
Year after year the venerable tradition has been kept alive, and is not likely to pass into oblivion so long as the seventeenth-century bidding prayerf is read, wherein first on the list of the founders and benefactors of the College of the Great Hall of the University is recited the name of King Alfred.}:
On June 12, 1872, the College celebrated with much confidence and ceremony its alleged thousandth anni- versary, and at the commemorative dinner Mr. Lowe, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, in witty terms professed his adherence on principle to the ancient
* The cost of the shifting of the statue appears in the Bursar's account as amounting to £2 i8s. gd.
f In the bidding prayer in use in the time of Queen Mary the King is prayed for as founder of the University, but his name occurs but third among the benefactors of the College, after William of Durham, 'our chief founder,' and Walter Skirlaw, especial bene- factor.
I Of late years their keen sense of historical accuracy has led readers of this prayer to qualify the claim of founder by inserting 'reputed.'
8 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
tradition.* Nor is it likely that in the future the sons of the College will cease to cherish the flattering myth. For lusty traditions, certainly dating from the four- teenth century, are not so common as to be lightly cast aside at the bidding of too exact inquirers, and undergraduates may perchance derive comfort from Mr. Anstey's dictum, 'that as the Society is without doubt the eldest, so it seems in harmony with our general idea of propriety to attribute its origin to the wisest and best of our early Kings.1 f
WILLIAM OF DURHAM, FOUNDER.
From the North of England came the movement to which Oxford is indebted for the establishment of her two most ancient foundations, and to the influence of Durham in particular and its wealthy see both University and Balliol Colleges owe their origin. Had John de Balliol lacked the stimulus to his piety afforded by the penance imposed on him by the Bishop of the Northern diocese in 1260, there seems little reason for supposing that the clerks of Oxford would have secured the benefit of his charity.
The existence at Durham of a great monastery, the Northern headquarters of the Benedictines, at the time distinguished as the most learned of the great religious Orders, and the succession of a series of powerful prelates 'during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and early fifteenth centuries, displaying a rare devotion to learning, serve to account for the early examples of munificence to Oxford scholars which were set by the founders of
* Guardian, June 19, 1872.
t Introduction to Monumenta Academica, p. xxxii.
THE FOUNDATION OF THE COLLEGE 9
University, Balliol, and Durham Colleges and by Bishops Thomas Hatfield and Walter Skirlaw.
Of the early history of William of Durham nothing is known. As his name suggests, he was probably born in or about Durham, but whether, as William Smith sug- gests, he was educated in the Monastery of Wearmouth, and subsequently at Oxford, is a matter of simple guess- work. The first certain reference to him is as one of five distinguished English scholars whose names are given by Matthew Paris as leaving the University of Paris in consequence of the riots between the townsfolk and the University in 1229. He appears in the first instance to have migrated from Paris to Angers, but probably was not long in following his fellow-exiles from Paris to Oxford. Nicholas de Farnham, John Blondus,* Alan of Beccles, and Ralph of Maidstone,t the four other scholars mentioned by Matthew Paris, appear to have accepted the invitation held out on July 14, 1229, by King Henry III. to the Paris Masters, and to have made their way almost immediately to Oxford, where they were gladly welcomed, and their example was probably soon followed by William. Nicholas and Alan were men of experience and recognised position at the time of their migration from Paris — the one a distinguished professor of medicine, the other secretary to the Bishop of Norwich and afterwards Archdeacon of Sudbury — and their fellows were in all likelihood contemporaries of equal standing.
By Matthew Paris we are only informed that the
* John Blondus became Chancellor of the Church of York, and died 1248 (Leland, Antiq. Collect., iii. 339). f Ralph afterwards became Bishop of Hereford
10 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
future College founder was ' eminentissime literatus,' ' vir literatissimus.1* He also held considerable preferments in the Church, from which he had ample emoluments. At all events, at the time of his death he is said to have ' abounded in great revenues.1 As Rector of Wear- mouth ' that noble Church not far from the Sea,1 he had a grant from Richard Poor, Bishop of Durham, with the assent of the Chapter and the approval and confirmation of the King, of certain rights over the town of Sunderland and the Manors of Wearmouth and Sephor. The benefice and the rights in connection therewith constituted so valuable a piece of patronage that on William's death the King hastened to secure the bestowal of it on his half-brother Ethel mar.
The appointment of his old associate, Nicholas de Farnham, to the See of Durham in 1241 led to dissension and litigation between the two former companions. Some attempt on the part of the Bishop to curtail or reduce his privileges was vigorously resisted by William, who carried a complaint to the Papal Court at Lyons. On December 22, 1248, before the Bishop of Albano and the Cardinal of St. Laurence, the dispute was settled, and a judgment favourable to William pronounced.t His success, however, availed William but little, as he died at Rouen on his journey homewards the following year.J In the Cathedral of Rouen are said to lie§ the
* M. Paris, Chron. Maj., ed. Luard, v. 9.
f Calendar Papal Letters, ed. Bliss, i. 251 ; and Register of Pope Innocent IV., ed. Elie Berger, ii. 30.
\ M. Paris, Chron. Ma., v. 91.
§ According to Leland, followed by Skelton, in his Pietas Oxonien- sis. Skelton made inquiries at Rouen so satisfactory to himself that he produces a print of the Chapel of the Virgin in Rouen Cathedral as being the burial-place.
THE FOUNDATION OF THE COLLEGE 11
bones of this but-little-known ' Capellanus,' out of whose money was to spring the earliest beginning of the collegiate system of the English University.
We are told that he ' abounded in great revenues, but was gaping after greater,1 and the suggestion thus made led William Smith, in general a trustworthy guide, to presume that the See of Durham was the goal of his ambition, Farnham's voluntary resignation in 1249 serving to strengthen this view. But the fact that it was litigation, and no agreement or friendly understanding with the Bishop, that carried William to the Papal Court is sufficient to destroy the supposi- tion. Nor, indeed, does there seem to be adequate reason for believing a tradition that the archbishopric of Rouen* was within his reach, though it may well have been an object of his ambition.
Whatever use this wealthy Churchman may have made of his ' great revenues ' during life, his disposition of a portion of them by will has redeemed his memory from obscurity, and has won for him an abiding fame. Great enterprises have no uncommonly small beginnings, and William of Durham's bequest to the University of Oxford of 310 marks wherewith annual rents were to be purchased for the use or benefit of ten, eleven, twelve, or more ' Masters,"* who were to be supported or main- tained from the same, was the first little rill of charitable beneficence which was eventually to swell into the mighty current of collegiate endowment in England.
At a time when the influence of the University of Paris over the sister English University was so pre-
* Odo Clement, Arch. Rouen, obiit May 5, 1247 ; Odo Rigaldi, consecr. March, 1248 (Hierarchia Catholica Med. JEv.t 447).
12 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
dominant that by Papal instruction the order of teach- ing in the faculty of theology in the one was obliged to conform to that in use in the other, and when it was actually demanded that none should teach at Oxford unless previously examined and approved according to Paris rule,* it is not unnatural to look to Paris for a model and example on which the English founder may have based his bequest. Collegiate institutions of the simplest and most primitive character were there in existence before the middle of the thirteenth century. Their object was to enable a very limited number of scholars, specially selected, and drawn mainly from the ranks of the great religious Orders, to live in Paris whilst attending the lectures of ' Masters ' at the University, and it was not until the second half of the century that any collegiate provision was made for the secular student by the establishment of the College of the Sorbonne. In 1245 Pope Innocent IV. sanctioned the foundation of Stephen of Lexington, Abbot of Clair- vaux, by means of which his monks were enabled to live and study in Paris. Himself a 'Master' of Paris, an attendant at the Roman Court, and familiar with the scholars of his day, William of Durham devoted his bequest to the University of Oxford with a mind in all probability influenced by the example of endow- ments already in existence for housing and training scholars in Paris. His will is no longer in existence, and the nature of such instructions and conditions as may have accompanied the bequest can only be inferred from the terms of a certain inquisition f made in the
* Chartularium Universitatis Paris, Denifle, i. 169, 189.
f The document relating the results of the inquisition is in the
THE FOUNDATION OF THE COLLEGE 13
year 1280 by ' Masters deputed by the Regents to inquire into and order those things which had relation to the Testament of Master William of Durham.1 On due inquiry these Masters found that the said Mr. William did bequeath 310 marks to the University under this form, to wit, that with that money they should purchase annual rents for the use or benefit of ten or eleven or twelve Masters, who were to be sup- ported or maintained with the rents arising from that money. They proceed to state that
' rents had been bought to the value of 1 8 marks or there- about, but as for the rest of the money, amounting to £100 and ten marks, the University needing it for itself, and other great men of the land who had recourse to the University, nothing at all was as yet replaced/
We do not know when the original executors of William of Durham's will had paid over his bequest to the University, but, at all events, that body made no long delay in attempting to carry out the founder's wishes, and in 1253 made their first purchase,* laying out 36 marks in the buying of an ' angular ' or corner house standing ' in Vico Scholarum.1 The site of this 6 tenementum angulare,' described as ' versus Aquilonem cum Scholis et omnimodis libertatibus,' is now included in the front of Brasenose College. It was the first property held in possession by the University for
College treasury (pixide AA.) It is 10 inches broad, yf long, in beautiful condition, with the seal of the University attached in fair condition. The translation here followed is William Smith's rendering.
* The purchase deed, 6| inches by 8£ inches, in perfect condition, but seal gone, is in the treasury, also the deeds relating to the subsequent purchases.
14 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
educational purposes, and was granted to the Chancellor, Masters, and scholars of the same by the Prior and Brethren of the Hospital of Brackley, to whom it had been conveyed by Robert de Preston in return for Masses to be said for his soul.*
In this their first purchase the University appears to have made something of a bargain, for the property had been conveyed in 1231 by Robert Oweyn to Preston for 55 marks. After the customary fashion of the day, by which the Halls were generally described by the names of their owners, this ' angle house ' became known as ( Aula Universitatis,1 and is entered as the property of the University in the inquisition held in the seventh year of King Edward I., 1278-79. A second purchase was made in 1255, when the first house in the High Street on the north side was bought from the priory of Shireburne. This tenement bore the name of Drowda Hall, having come into the possession of the priory through the gift of William of Drogheda. It stands almost opposite to the present western gate of the Col- lege, is still known as Drowda or Drawda Hall, and has only recently passed out of the possession of the College. In 1262 Brasenose Hall was secured by purchase from Simon de Balindon, Canon of Lichfield, and in 1270 a quit rent of 15s. charged on two houses in St. Peter's parish. This last transaction was the final purchase made by the University with William of Durham's money.
Thus, at the time of the inquiry held in 1280,
* Alan Basset's bequest, 1243 (referred to in H. Rasdall's Univer- sities of Europe, vol. ii., part 2, p. 469, quoting from B. Twyne, I., f. 169), cannot, in the opinion of the writer, be regarded as an educational endowment. It was primarily the foundation of a chantry for the benefit of the founder's soul.
THE FOUNDATION OF THE COLLEGE 15
out of the 310 marks bequeathed, 177 marks 10s., or ^118 6s. 8d., had then been invested, and 160 marks had been used by the University, partly for its own necessary occasions, ' and partly lent to other persons/ Possibly, as William Smith suggests, by ' the great men of the land who had recourse to the University,' reference is made to the nobles who attended in arms the Parlia- ment held at Oxford in June, 1258, with whose cause the scholars of Oxford were generally in sympathy. But the only request for a loan of the money of which we are certainly informed is one from Adam de Marisco,* about 1256(?), on behalf of Simon de Valences, praying the Chancellor to lend =£40 of the money of Mr. William of Durham. The promptitude with which the University exactly accounted for the expenditure of the money of the benefactor points to the keeping of a separate account or chest for the purpose designed, and proves that during the political turmoil of the second half of the thirteenth century there had been no forgetfulness as to his intentions, which had been already partially carried out.
The method of management is shown by a decree of congregation (probably held between 1256 and 1263) that two ' procurators 't should be chosen by the proctors to see to the repair of the houses in time of vacation, and to render accounts of the rents before Pentecost every year. The figures of expenditure already made (i.e., 177 marks 10s.), and those of moneys still due to be expended (i.e., 160 marks), show a
* Monumenta Franc., i. 251, printed from MS. Cotton. Vitellius cviii. t Ex Statutis Universitatis Ox., Cod. A, fol. 108.
16 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
balance of 27 marks 10s. over and above the original bequest of 310 marks. This excess may possibly repre- sent interest due on one of the loans made from the fund.
The rents from the first purchases after the year 1262 amounted to about 17 marks per annum, and as the sums so received, which in nearly twenty years would have amounted to a total more considerable than the original bequest itself, are not taken into account, or in any way mentioned at the time of the inquisition into the administration of the property, it is only a fair inference that such income was distributed as received to the objects of the testator's beneficence.
There is no evidence to show in what fashion the small society of Masters existed on their founder's bounty before the University thought fit to prescribe for them formal statutes furnishing a rule of living. In the first statutes living together, ' simul habitantes,"* is mentioned incidentally, and rather as a matter of course than as the subject of a new regulation ; and the ordinance appears to have been made in pursuance of directions contained in the founder's testament. How or where the 'Masters' enjoying the proceeds of a portion of the bequest existed before the University laid down for them rules of living in formal statutes is but a subject for pure speculation. Life under a common roof was to their best interest, for thus the income, as yet most slender, would have been the better husbanded ; and it is not unreasonable to assume that living in common as beneficiaries, in conformity with their founder's will, they thus strove to fulfil the object of his endowment for the residence and maintenance of students in the University.
THE FOUNDATION OP THE COLLEGE 17
William of Durham's example as the first Englishman to bequeath funds which might enable the secular clergy to study theology was soon to be imitated. Not a little of the importance attaching to this first foundation consists in the beneficial effect it produced as an example. One of the beadles of the University, William Hoyland, was the first to follow as a bene- factor, leaving by will his estate to the University. In 1255 Walter Gray, Archbishop of York, bequeathed property to the University, and a year or two later similar bequests were made. The foundations of Balliol and Merton may, however, be regarded as by far the most important episodes carrying on the Durham scholar's example and idea.
In the case of Merton, William of Durham's concep- tion of an endowment for the residence and mainten- ance of students was so far enlarged and extended by the wealthy Chancellor that the true origin of collegiate institutions in Oxford has sometimes been obscured. The early wealth of the Merton foundation, the rank and munificence of the founder, have combined to throw into the shade the priority of the scheme and the humbler original surroundings of William of Durham's scholars. Merton, moreover, has been fortu- nate in owning as her son the most laborious of Oxford antiquaries, an ardent partisan, but not an invariably accurate advocate in asserting her claims to priority in date among Oxford Colleges. On the other hand, in times long past members of the Great Hall of the University, not content with an assured priority in antiquity, yearned to establish for themselves the glory of foundation by the first great English King, and
18 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
preferred association with a splendid but shadowy tradition to lesser fame and historical certainty.
English institutions broaden and develop slowly, and the first beginning of the College system must not be sought for in a fully organized body, differing but little in essentials from a College of to-day, but rather in the first endowment, however slender, devoted to enabling needy students to live and learn in common at the University.
Through the diligent cherishing of the tradition of a royal foundation the memory of the true founder has suffered. Despite the facts that in documents of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries ' Aula vel Collegium Willelmi de Dunelm ' is a common form of description, though the College seal bore the inscription ' Sigillum Commune Scholarium Magistri Willelmi de Dunelm Studentium Oxonias,1 though his arms appeared on College plate, and St. Cuthberfs Day was the day of special observance, all certain recollection of the first College benefactor seems to have faded by the end of the sixteenth century. In Queen Elizabeth's charter, wherein the very various titles under which the College was designated are given in detail, the phrase ' scholars of William of Durham ' is wanting, bad it is to relate that antiquaries and historians of this period were absolutely mistaken and in confusion as to the founder's very name and the date of his existence.
Leland describes him as William Sherwood and the restorer of King Alfred's Hall. 'At this time Sher- wood, by his great liberality, freed them from that hard dearth of poverty, bestowing upon them so much gold or money as sufficed to buy their lands.'
THE FOUNDATION OF THE COLLEGE 19
Stow* and Holinshead attribute the honour to William de Caerliph, Bishop of Durham, about the middle of the reign of the Conqueror, and even towards the end of the seventeenth century the College historian informs us that the deed of inquisition relating to William's benefaction, though actually in possession of the College, was unknown to himself and most of the Fellows.
The publication by William Smith in 1729 of his Annals of' University College has been the means of restoring the fame and honour of which the founder's memory had gradually been deprived. That most honest and accurate of workers among past records at a crisis in the College history, feeling himself bound to support a view which he believed to be just, published without reserve all that the close application of half a lifetime had taught him about the early history of the College.
* CJ. Stow's Annals, ed. 1632, p. 1061 : 'Univ. Col., as some have written, was founded in the time of K. Alfred by Sir William, Archdeacon of Duresme, in the year 873 : but in a book intituled " the Acts of the Bishops of Durham," I find that the said Colledge was builded by William, Bishop of Durham, in the i2th year of the raigne of William the Conqueror, to wit in the year 1081.'
CHAPTER II
THE EARLY STATUTES
THE first statutes of University College are distinguished from the earliest statutes of other Colleges by their brevity and remarkable simplicity. While the earliest ordinances devised for the government of the Sorbonne and those of Merton are numerous and abound in minute instructions, the rules laid down by the Masters delegated by the University for the government of William of Durham's scholars are few in number and free from minor details. In them there is no evidence or trace of imitation, and from the terse phraseology it would appear that their framers were only anxious to put into the form of ordinances such of the benefactor's intentions as could be clearly gathered from the wording of his bequest.
In order that the wishes of the founder might be justly carried out, experience had probably shown that some form of government under definite rule was needed, and it was to meet this want that the University dele- gated to some of its members an authority to issue statutes as a kind of corollary to their inquisition into the disposal of William of Durham's money. In the
THE EARLY STATUTES 21
statutes of 1280, owing to lack of income, provision could only be made for four * Masters.' These were to be 'well learned,' of good manners, and such as had ruled in Arts. They were to be elected by the Chancellor along with some Masters in Divinity, and other Masters in the other faculties chosen by their advice. The main qualifications of the four to be chosen out of all who should offer themselves to live upon the said rents were to be their fitness to advance or profit in Holy Church, and that otherwise they were unable to live fittingly (Iwnefste) in the state of Masters. It was further provided that in future elections into the society the four members should be called to the election (in addition to the University delegates), and that one at least should be a priest. Each of the Masters thus chosen was to receive 50s. per annum for his maintenance out of the rents already bought. Though small in comparison with the provision made for students in Paris, a shilling (12 sterlings) a week for commons appears to have been the recognised standard for maintenance in the earliest Oxford Colleges. Owing, however, to the absence of any specified time- limit for the retention of this pittance, a scholar in the Great Hall of the University was better off than a recipient of John de BallioFs benefaction, for the latter, after taking his degree, was at once discharged, and sometimes, sad to relate, was forced to follow some base employment to obtain a livelihood, unless happily he was fortunate enough to find a home among William of Durham's scholars.*
* Cf. J. B. Mullinger, University of Cambridge, p. 265, quoting Papal Bull ; Lewis, Life of Wicliffe, p. 4.
22 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
Control of the trust property was evidently from this time given to the chosen recipients of the founder's bounty, for it was ordained that one of the four, with ' a certain Regent Master assisting him,'' should care for the rents then bought, and should see to the buying of others. He was procurator or bursar to the society, and for his services received 5s. a year more than his fellows. The repairs and custody of the houses were put into his hands, and he was instructed to use what diligence he could to cause the money lent to be paid in ; and on the accomplishment of this probably difficult task it was ordered that the money so recovered should be kept in a chest appointed for the purpose, the three keys of which were to be held by the Chancellor, the Bursar, and another Master whom the Proctors of the University should appoint. The moneys when collected were not to be appropriated to any other purpose than that appointed under the will of the testator, and as quickly as more rents should be bought the numbers and ' exhibitions ' (exhibitiones) of the Masters were to be increased.
The four Masters living together (simtd Jidbitantes) were directed to study theology, but, in deference to the prevailing fashion in learning, they were permitted also, if they thought fit, to hear the Decretum and the Decretals. In their manner of living and learning they were to behave themselves, as should be ordered by some fit and expert persons to be deputed by the Chancellor. Who these fit and expert persons were and what rules they prescribed the statutes do not specify. But the brevity of the first statutes is partly explained owing to these matters being the subject of separate direction.
THE EARLY STATUTES 23
Twelve years later — in 1292 — further statutes were made in a congregation of Regents and non-Regents at the procurement of the executors* of the will, and indented between the University and the scholars, and on both parts mutually sealed.
These new ordinances, twenty-one in number, seem to have been devised owing to a need which had been felt for some more precise regulations to control the members of the society, and to the fact that William of Durham's executors, watching the progress of the infant community, desired to rectify the omission of any reference to William of Durham in the first statutes. They now insisted that, according to the will of the founder, in any case of a sudden need for the election of new Fellows, the choice should fall on Masters not yet promoted nearest to Durham, failing whom Bachelors, or, if need be, Sophisters nearest to Durham were to be favoured.
The direction of the community had been placed by the first statutes in the hands of their senior Fellow, who, in all lawful and proper matters relating to the house, was empowered to rule the juniors. If this embryo Master of the College by diligent care succeeded in enforcing a close observance of the con- stitution by his fellows, and kept them inviolate himself, he was now granted half a mark beyond the allowance of the rest, c ad sua necessaria.' Probably a gathering in by some energetic Bursar of some of the moneys heretofore lent to the ' great men of the land ' justified
* The names of William's executors are given in the forged Chapernay charter as Magistri Willielmus Syrkly, Edmarus de Chewyngham, Radulphus Senowrun (Smith, t. vii. 5). Videp, 42, note.
24 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
this extension of bounty, which was shared by all the members of the society, who now, in addition to their 50s. a year, were given for their servants and chambers half a mark each. The salary of the Bursar was also increased from 5s. to 10s. This he was to receive for his pains in looking after the goods of the house twice a year, but there was a saving condition attached, ' if he performs it well/
The office of Bursar was only held for one year, and on his admission he was required to swear before the assembled society that he would perform the service fully and indifferently to everyone out of the common purse. His duties were now more clearly defined than they had been in the statutes of 1280. All the Fellows every year before Corpus Christi Day were to take of him a rational and full account unanimously, and on this heart-burning occasion all ' hatred, favour, prayer, and price ** were to be laid aside. The account was subsequently to be approved and signed by the Chan- cellor. The Bursars1 rolls and account-books show that this practice was regularly followed until 1722, the only alteration being that the Vice-Chancellor comes to take the place of the Chancellor. There is now clear evidence of improvement in the income of the society, not merely in the increase of stipends, but also in the regulations made for the more careful preservation of the College property. An indented register of all the College goods was ordered to be made, one part of which was to be kept in the common chest, the other to be in the hands of the Bursar, and every year these lists were to be viewed by the Fellows before the passing of the accounts. Special provision was also made for
THE EARLY STATUTES 25
the safe custody of the books belonging to the house, which were only to be lent under formal written agree- ment respecting their action, ' that he who has it may be more fearful lest he lose it.' No book was to be lent out of the College without the consent of all the Fellows, or without a pledge being left better than the book. The first library was now established, it being ordained that 4 one book of every sort which the house has be put in some common and secure place, that the Fellows and others, with their consent, might have the benefit thereof.'
A curious provision contained in the thirteenth statute, that any necessary book in the possession of the house should be lent gratis to every Opponent in Theology, Reader of the Sentences, or Regent that commonly reads, looks as if the members of congregation had sought some small advantage in return for their super- vision.
Statutes xvi., xvii., xix., xx., all deal with the social conduct and discipline of the members of the society. Faults were to be corrected privately, not in presence of one who was no Fellow, under a penalty of 2s. ; nor publicly in the highway, church, or field, under a fine of half a mark. No Fellow was to undervalue another, and in all these cases, doubtless to suppress disputes, 4 he that begins first shall pay double.1 It was found necessary also to fix bounds to the weekly expenditure, and except on the occasion of the three principal festivals, they were strictly forbidden to exceed 12 sterlings a week, and to this statute the 4 manciple was yearly to swear at his admission.1
None of the Fellows were to hinder the honest
26 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
government of the house in reading the lectures at dinner or in holding possession of the chambers of the house. All were to speak Latin often, ' that in their disputations and other Acts they might have a better and readier way of speaking it.1 Finally, by the twentieth statute, the grave members of congregation made an attempt to deal with some common failings of youth, and it was ordained that they should
' all live honestly as clerks, and as becomes holy persons, not fighting, nor speaking anything base and scurrilous, neither relating, singing, or willing hearing Ballads, or Fables about Lovers, luxurious or leading to looseness : nor deriding any, nor moving them to anger, nor making noise or clamour to hinder other men's quiet or study.'
One of the most interesting in this body of College statutes of 1292 is that enabling the Fellows to admit to their collegiate life other persons not members of the society. The admission of these commensales — the commoners of the future, and now the most important element in all but one Oxford College — was in the first instance due to no educational zeal or desire to open the gates of learning to a larger class, but simply to secure such monetary assistance as might be derived from their payment for board and lodging. In the words of the statute No. xviii., ' Since the aforesaid scholars have not sufficient to live handsomely alone by themselves, it is expedient that other honest persons dwell with them.'* Not everyone, however, who applied was to be admitted, but ' every Fellow was secretly to inquire concerning the morals of everyone that desired to sojourn with them.' If by common consent such a
THE EARLY STATUTES 27
person was admitted, he was only received after solemnly promising ' that, while he lived with them, he would honestly observe the customs of the Fellows of the house, pay his dues, nor hurt any of the things belong- ing to the house, either by himself or those that belonged to him.1 This cautious admission of the stranger was to be held 4 every year before Whitsuntide, if convenient, lest the house should be in any way worsted or impaired by them."1
The statute-framers were also prudent enough to safeguard the interest of the house even against the Fellows themselves, and to stop the mouths of ' bablers ' in the society by enacting that ' none should reveal the statutes or secrets of the house to one that is not a Fellow,' an ordinance not unlike one contained in the statutes of the Sorbonne.
No increase in the number of Fellows was made by the statute of 1292, there being 'sufficient scholars answerable to the incomes they have,1 and no great change was enjoined in the course of their study, the only stipulation being that at every act they should have one disputation in philosophy or theology, and also have one disputation at least on the principal question of both faculties.
At the commencement of the fourteenth century a considerable accession of means appears to have accrued, possibly through the repayment of that portion of the founder's money borrowed by the University. Four separate properties, mainly houses, were conveyed for the use of the society between the years 1307 and 1313.
This increase of prosperity was doubtless the cause
28 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
why a fresh body of statutes was promulgated so soon as 1311. But a desire to better commemorate the founder, and carry out his wishes more completely, appears as the influence underlying the new ordinances. There was a more marked tendency to localization. In all new elections the claims of Durham were now not to be denied. While the candidates to be proposed were, as before, to be of good morals, poor, or indigent in estate, and apt to make proficiency in the profession of divinity, ' he who was equal in other matters, and born nearest to the parts of Durham, should be pre- ferred before any other whatsoever.' It is next laid down that the study of theology shall be better pur- sued according to the founders will, ' so that they shall not mix therewith the hearing of any other faculty,' and the option of ' hearing ' the too-fascinating De- cretum and Decretals granted in the first statutes, ' if they shall think fit,' is now reduced to permission to study the same in the Long Vacation ' if they please.'
To avoid the maintenance of but unprofitable students it was further provided that ' every Fellow within seven years of his hearing' shall oppose in the Divinity Schools,* and further ' proceed as is becoming.' A determination to uphold the character of the foundation as existing for the support of theological study is everywhere apparent, and from henceforth the Senior Fellow if not in Priest's
* With this eighth statute, which reads, ' Item quod quilibet socius infra septennium suae auditionis in Scholis opponat et ulterius proficiat quoddecet,' compare the statute of the Sorbonne : ' Taliter est ordinatum quod nisi proficerent in sermonibus disputationibus et lectionibus ut dictum est infra septimum annum a tempore recep- tionis suae similiter privabuntur,' Chart. Univ. Par., ed. Denifle, P- 507-
THE EARLY STATUTES 29
Orders was to ' cause himself to be ordained as soon as possible.1
In case of a Fellow being promoted to a benefice of 5 marks a year, he was no longer to enjoy the benefits of the foundation, but another was to be elected in his place.
In these later statutes the more frequent mention of the founder's name exhibits a further desire to bring his memory and personality into prominence and honour. The invocation at the beginning reads : ' To the honour of God and the Glorious Virgin, and also especially for the health of the soul of William of Durham.1 Every year in the parish where they lived the scholars or those who have been Fellows were to cause two Masses to be said for his soul, and the society were instructed that ' they shall make themselves, as far as lies in their power, to be called the scholars of William of Durham. '
The close connection between the University and the young community is the most remarkable feature in the early statutes of University College. This unique peculiarity, despite all injunctions to the contrary, has resulted in the present appellation of the College, which has proved a source of constant and not unnatural diffi- culty to the inquiring stranger. The University acting in trust for the founder, and so carrying out his bequest, was in effect the actual creator of the College. By the University, as a kindly mother, its first footsteps in earliest infancy were supported. Though the closer bond of union between the two was soon relaxed, yet the process of complete emancipation was extremely gradual, and was not finally effected until more than four centuries had elapsed after the statutes of 13
30 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
Though surrendering in 1311 to the members of the society the right of election to vacant Fellowships, the University maintained their authority by substituting a power of confirmation or rejection, and although at the same time the closer supervision of the College pro- perty was relaxed, it was not withdrawn. Mention of ' the certain Regent Masters assisting the Bursar ' and representing the University ceases, but ' the Bursar of the house shall still every year give a true account of all his receipts and expenses before the Chancellor and some others he shall call to him.'
In the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries whenever it was found necessary or desirable to go beyond the existing statutes, or in cases to meet which no provi- sions existed, it was to the University that the College looked for permission and advice, and the numerous examples of licenses and dispensations granted by that body during these three centuries prove a constant and often minute supervision.
The University seems from the first to have discharged the singular visitatorial authority which had devolved upon it unsought with strict justice, and at the same time in no spirit of meddlesome interference, a due regard being paid to a growth of independence in pro- portion as the young society gained strength to stand alone.
CHAPTER III
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY : THE EARLY HOME OF THE COLLEGE— FIRST BENEFACTORS- THE GREAT LAWSUIT
Masters: Roger Aswardby, circ. 1332; John Pocklynton, circ. 1362 ; William Kexby, circ. 1378 ; Thomas Foston, circ. 1392; Thomas Duffield, circ. 1396; Edmund Lacy, circ. 1398.
THERE is no historical evidence as to the place where William of Durham's scholars first found a home, but all circumstances point to an establishment of the society in the tenementum angular e^ or corner-house, standing in School Street. It is a fair supposition that they were more likely to live in one of the houses bought for them by the University than in a hired hall, and this view is supported by a special provision contained in their first statutes safeguarding them against an exercise by the University of the existing right under statute to convert any halls into schools if required.
The corner-house was the first purchase made on their behalf, and being of considerably less rental value than either Drowda or Brasenose Hall, was the most likely
82 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
to have served as the first (common) dwelling of the slenderly endowed poor scholars. In the Aula Univer- sltatis it is natural to look for the so-called scholares universitatis.
It is difficult to suggest any reason why they deter- mined to forsake this seemingly well-chosen site which, with Brasenose Hall close at hand, would appear to have offered all facilities for extension in the future. It may be that, noting the large area secured by the founder of Merton, they fixed their eyes on the oblong space bounded by the High Street on the north, by what are now Logic Lane on the east and Grove Street on the west, and by the lane no longer in existence known as Kybald Street on the south, and, looking forward with a true sagacity, marked down the whole of this central and commanding site for gradual purchase when opportunity should offer ; or possibly chance rather than design in their search for suitable investments led them to the spot where it was destined that the University College of the future should stand, a most dignified ornament in the majestic course of the High Street.
Another accession of property, the gift of Philip of Beverley in 1328, probably encouraged the more ambitious among the Fellows to plan an enlarge- ment of their borders. Mr. Philip, whose surname was Ingleberd, was a Doctor of Divinity and Rector of Keyingham in Holderness. Probably enough, being a Northerner who had reaped benefit from William of Durham's foundation, he magnanimously gave in his lifetime a mill, five bovates and a half and three acres of land, and two tofts with their appurtenances in Paghel and Keyingham to the Masters and scholars
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 33
for the choice and maintenance of two scholars or Masters born near Beverley. In the words of his gift was inserted a provision in case ' it should happen that the University of Oxon should be transported to some other place,1 showing that at this time the permanent establishment of the University was not held to be absolutely certain. The worthy Philip did not confine his benefactions to the College, but he also enlarged his church at Keyingham. His piety was so renowned that in after-years miracles were worked at his tomb, and the very elements, when a fearsome storm burst over Keyingham Church, are said by the monastic chronicler to have spared his resting-place.* There must have been some connection or acquaintance between this bene- factor and the Lady Dervorgilla de Balliol, for her soul was amongst those to be prayed for by the grateful College in return for his benefaction.t
The whole of this property did not come to the College immediately on the grant, for it was bestowed subject as to part to a life interest ; but the prospect of certain succession in the near future probably emboldened the Fellows to undertake the enlargement of their house.
In 1331 letters patent were granted by the Crown to enable a purchase of rents to the value of £W for the maintenance of the scholars of the Hall of the University, and in the following year the purchase of Spicer's Hall in the High Street was effected and the
* Chronica de Monast. de Melsa (Rolls Ser., iii. 194).
t The lands he gave, says Smith, were either all or most swal- lowed up by the river Humber (Annals, 169). St. John's College however, purchased from one John Lambert in 22 Henry VIII. 8 acres which he had bought of University College (Poulson, Holder- ness, ii. 482).
34 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
property conveyed to the society. This tenement was the first house in St. Mary's parish, and stood near or about the present Western Gateway, and was probably ' a single house of no greater length than five rooms on a floor, nor backward further than where the present quadrangle extends ' (Annals, 58).
This formerly (1278-79) went by the name of Durham Hall, and then belonged to Andrew of Durham, an Alderman of the city. Afterwards it became known as Selverne or Spicer's Hall, and was purchased by Master William de Nadale and Robert de Patryngton for the College from the three daughters and coheiresses of Adam Feteplace, for some years Mayor of Oxford. In the conveyance it is described as a certain messuage with appurtenances situate between the tenement of the Prioress and Convent of Stodley, or Studley, on the west and Lodelowe Hall on the east.
The resources of the society were still further strengthened in 1332 by a considerable bequest under the will of Robert de Riplingham, Chancellor of York. Like Ingleberd connected with Beverley, and probably also in his time one of William of Durham's scholars, he left ^300 for the perpetual maintenance of scholars and masters studying in theology in the University of Oxford ; but whether the College succeeded in securing this sum appears somewhat doubtful, for we find them in July, 1333, agreeing with one Peter de Langton to present him with £4>0 if he could but gain them the legacy. It is curious that both in the case of Philip Ingleberd's grant and RiplinghanVs bequest provision in almost identical language is made ' if it should happen that the University of Oxon should be transferred to
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 35
some other place.1 One of the reasons for this uncertainty was the acute dissension existing between the Australes and Boreales, which made a migration of the latter likely enough. Indeed, RiplinghanTs executors appear to have excused themselves from payment of the money until the Boreales, to whom it was mainly left, were safely settled.
Even though Peter may have failed to earn his full commission, the administrators of the College funds had funds enough in hand steadily to continue their purchases of small ' halls.** Rose Hall and White Hall 4 lying in Kybald Street,' and with small gardens probably running back to and adjoining the garden of Spicers Hall, were obtained in July, 1336, and Lodelowe Hall* adjoining Spicerns on the east, and facing the High Street, was bought a few days later. The process of acquisition was the same as in the case of Spicer's Hall. Two Masters on this occasion, Robert de Patryngton and John de Pokelyngton, effect the purchase;! and shortly after, under a license for alienation in mort- main, transfer it to the society. Very probably William of Durham's scholars moved into their new home shortly after securing Rose Hall and White Hall. Without the accommodation these provided there would hardly have been room for the ' honourable persons ' whom the statute declares it expedient should dwell with them. As Wood points out, these separate buildings would be well fitted for the housing of those living with them, yet not on the foundation.
* Lodelowe Hall, ' quondam locata Aula Henrici Coci ' (Cartulary St. Frideswide, p. 464).
I Cf. Calendar of Patent Rolls, Edward III., 1334, 1338.
36 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
The scholars carried with them to the new domicile the name of the old, and Spicer's Hall became hence- forth known as Aula Universitatis, with sometimes the additional description at first ' in Alto Vico ' to distinguish it from the old establishment in Vico Scholarum. In the Cartulary of St. Frideswide in 1379, it appears as ' Aula quondam Durham nunc Universitie Hall.1*
The styles by which the society was described in the fourteenth-century deeds varied in curious fashion, and go to prove that it was not in the power of its members, or perhaps in their will, to make themselves be called the scholars of William of Durham. In deeds between 1340 and 1360 they are generally styled 'Magistri et Scholares Aulae Umversitatis.11 After 1361 the desig- nation 'Magistri et Scholares Magistri Willelmi de Dunelm1 appears again more frequently, while subse- quently to 1380 a new appellation, 'Magistri Aulae Magnae1 is of frequent occurrence. In the first of the Bursars1 rolls now in existence (that of 1381) the style is, ' Collegium Willelmi de Dunelm, vulgariter appellati Mickle Universitie Hall.'
During the greater part of the fourteenth century transfers of property are generally to and from the 6 Masters and Scholars," but in a deed as early as 1329 the constitution is described as ' Magister et Socii."* Very frequently in documents of the fifteenth century the expression is ' Magister et Scholares sive Senior Socius et Consocii.1 The Senior Fellow, to whom a qualified authority over the rest was given under the statutes of 1311, only gradually appears to have assumed the title of 'Magister Collegii.' Although * Oxford Historical Society, i. 371,
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 37
the title is made use of, the names of the earliest Masters do not appear to be given in any of the deeds in possession of the College.
Roger de Aswardby is the first whose name is given as Master, and he appears to have held the office from about 1340 to 1360. Under his guidance as head of the society the purchasing of halls and tenements steadily proceeded. Thirteen of these properties in addition to the three original purchases made by the University had been secured to the society before 1360. The annual revenue from houses in Oxford amounted at this time to about £%&. Some of these early possessions were so variously situated that they became subsequently included in the sites of no less than six of the older Colleges. Satisfied with the security of these invest- ments, the College now proceeded to buy on a larger scale, and, in their eagerness to gain for themselves what doubtless looked like a tempting bargain, laid up trouble for many years to come.
On June 5, 1361, Master Laurence Radeford and two other Fellows of the house, conveyed a number of mes- suages and shops in the town, and some arable and meadow land in the suburbs, to the College. This pro- perty had belonged to the Goldsmith family in Oxford, and two years previously had been sold by John Gon- wardby, a citizen of London and husband of the heiress of the Goldsmiths, to the three Fellows. A bond of Laurence Radeford, in 1360, for the payment of £160, appears to represent the purchase price. This money, or a part thereof, seems likely to have been the gift of one Robert Caldwell, for a condition of the conveyance to the College is that they shall provide a chaplain to
38 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
pray for his soul. Probably also Radeford was Cald- welFs executor, besides acting in the purchase on behalf of the College. The citizen of London either inno- cently or wittingly conveyed to the College property in which he had only a life interest, and either ignored or concealed two deeds of 1308 and 1309 by which his father-in-law, John Goldsmith, had settled the whole estate in part on his descendants. The College was first made alive to the nature of the title under which they held by an action commenced against them by Philip Jedewell and Joan his wife, grand-daughter of John Gonwardby, the original vendor, for the recovery of a portion of the property, consisting of a tenement and two shops.* This claim was founded on the deed of settlement made in 1308 by John Goldsmith in favour of his descendants, and seems to have been good — at any rate, the Master, Roger Aswardby, and the Fellows, agreed to pass a fine, and paid £4>0 to the Jedewells for relinquishing their suit. A few weeks after they made a further payment of 100 marks, in return for which the balance of the property was passed to them
* The following short pedigree will help to make clearer the relationship of the parties.
Walter Goldsmith.
John Goldsmith (the settlor of property by deed in 1308-1309).
John Goldsmith, Johanna^=John Gonwardby.
ob. s.p.
Thomas Gonwardby.
Henry Gonwardby, Joanna=FPhilip Jedewell.
ob. s.p.
Idonea= Edmund Francis.
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 39
by Philip and Joan. Doubtless the College hoped that by these additional payments they had finally avoided all further question about the title.
For some years this appeared to be the case, but they little knew how pertinacious an assailant was to rise up against them in the person of Idonea, the only child and heiress of Philip and Joan Jedewell. Married to a ' citizen and grocer' of London, Edmund Francis by name, it soon appeared that she and her husband were unlikely to abate a jot of any interest to which they might find themselves entitled in law. On April 12, 1377, they issued a writ against the society, and based their claim (by which they challenged the whole estate) on the family settlement made by John Goldsmith on July £, 1308. The College, having already paid twice for the property, seem to have attempted no compro- mise by way of settlement, but to have stiffened their back and braced themselves to resist to the utmost a claim which they regarded as unjust and a most cruel hardship. The result was a magnificent piece of litiga- tion lasting for nearly twelve years, and passing in and out of almost every available court in the realm. The lawyers engaged on either side, and especially on that of the College, exhibited an ingenuity and faculty for misrepresentation worthy of the admiration of the pro- fession throughout all time.
The Master and Fellows entered on the fray fairly well versed in the ways of the law. Not only had they been through the preliminary engagement with the Jedewells, but they had also only concluded, in 1379, a troublesome litigation with St. Frideswide's.
The Plaintiffs from the first seem to have desired
40 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
that the trial should be in London, the Defendants on the other hand wanted Oxford. On this initial point the College gained the advantage, for the case was removed to Oxford on the Monday after the Feast of Trinity (1377) on a successful showing that Oxford claimed privilege of London in that no suit of freehold bargain or trespass lying or begun there could be tried out of the Mayor and Bailiffs1 Court. Subse- quently the cause was heard before the Mayor and Bailiffs in the Hustings Court on June 28, 1378, and there judgment was given against Idonea by default. A technical error on the part of the court in taking evidence entitled the plaintiffs by writ of error to recall the case to the Court of King's Bench, and there the verdict given at Oxford was reversed as erroneous, and the whole pro- cess commenced afresh. The action was fought at great length, and, as William Smith says, 'sets forth the fashion of trials in those days, which possibly are not much different in our own.'*
Edmund and Idonea secured judgment on the Octave of Trinity, 3 Richard II., 1380, against the College tenants for three messuages, ten shops, one cellar, 14 acres of land, 15 of meadow, and 8s. rent. Shortly after, whether from effect of the judgment or by consent of the tenants, who may have grown weary with the pros- pect of long litigation, the successful grocer and his wife entered into possession of the disputed tenements and lands.
The College, however, was still far from beaten ; in fact, anticipating that judgment was likely to go against them, and that they had but little to hope from courts * Annals, p. 109.
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 41
of law, they determined to run all the risks attendant on royal patronage, and to throw themselves upon the mercy of the King. To win his favour and support was the urgent object of the moment, and it was clear to them that the best way of bringing this about was, if possible, to prove to the Sovereign that his and their interest were identical. Hence sprung into being that remarkable document already referred to, and generally known as ' the French petition.1*
This was addressed to the King and his Council, probably in the year 1379. In it his ' poor orators," the Masters and scholars, boldly describe themselves as of 'your College called Mickel University Hall, which College was first founded by your noble progenitor King Alfred, whom God assoile, for the maintenance of 24 Divines for ever.1 The iniquitous oppression of Edmund Francis is then dwelt on, and the sad tale told — how the
' tenants by collusion have lost by default the lands and tenements, and how the said Edmund, looking upon the said Masters and Scholars as unable to maintain against him any process or suit in regard of his great power, does from time to time endeavour to destroy and utterly dis- inherit your said College. That the College is unable to withstand him, for though they have sufficient evidence so to do, yet he has procured all the Panel of the Inquest to be taken in the matter by gifts, treats, and other trickeries.'!
The King, since he is the true founder, is petitioned
* In the Record Office, Anc. Pet., file 19, 915. t ' Par douns, mangeries et aultres sotisvoies.' Wra. Smith's translation is here followed.
42 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
to stay the process and to hear the case before his Council, 'so that your said College be not tortuously disinherited.'' This extraordinary document concludes by urging the King to his work of interference by a reminder ' that the noble Saints John of Beverley, Bede, and Richard Armacan, and many other famous Doctors and Clerks, were formerly Scholars in the said College/ It is likely enough that, at a time when success in a lawsuit appears to have greatly depended on the skill of lawyers in originating ancient evidence in support of their respective cases, this ' French petition ' was regarded as a move of great skill in the keenly-contested suit. Up to the present stage the forged deeds* con- cocted on behalf of the College (of which some are still in existence) had failed to win the day, possibly enough on account of the greater skill in fabricating evidence displayed by the wealthy adversary. If the already twice-bought property was to be preserved, it was found necessary to introduce another issue into the case.
By representing the rights and interests of the Crown as threatened through the ' disinheriting ' of an ancient royal foundation, this good object was at once attained, and henceforth the conflict was continued not only between the parties to the suit, but also between the Crown and the courts of justice.
It was not uncommon for litigants in danger to seek
* Possibly among these may be reckoned the Chapernay charter, dated 1220, so called from Master Ludovicus Chapernay, Vice- Chancellor of the University, mentioned therein ; but there is some reason to suppose that this most daring of fabrications was con- trived for the purpose of another lawsuit (Wytton's Assize) in the next century. The Chapernay charter was regarded by Brian Twyne as genuine, but mistrusted by Wood.
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 43
assistance from the Crown by admitting that royal rights or privileges were involved, and in the reign of Richard II. the Crown was especially ready to claim jurisdiction and extend its influence. A petition so much in accordance with royal interests was subjected to no close scrutiny. The fact that the noble saints John of Beverley and Bede were defunct more than a century before the birth of the reputed ' Founder and noble progenitor King Alfred ' would have but little weight with the King's advisers, even if it was com- prehended.
The petition was read and the circumstances of the case considered before the King and his Council in Parliament at Westminster, and the desired result was immediately brought about. It was ordered that both parties be summoned before the King^s Council, and that they have the King's express command to surcease in the meantime in the plea and inquest, until it should be otherwise ordered by the King.* Possibly the instruc- tions came too late to stay judgment against the College tenants in the Court of King's Bench in 1380, or it may have been disregarded by an upright bench. Any- how, it encouraged the College to persist in a most determined resistance. A writ of error with regard to the judgment given against them in the King^s Bench was secured, a hearing before the King and Council obtained, and a writ of supersedeas issued, declaring the decision of the court given in favour of Francis null and void. Such was the immediate effect of the
* Another petition (undated) followed, perhaps in 1380, giving more details as to what had happened in the suit (R.O., Anc. Pet., file 132, 6,590). Abstracts of the three petitions filed are printed in O.H.S. Collectanea, iii. 143-145.
44 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
King's interference, but so doughty an antagonist as the London grocer was not to be checked by any mere royal writ. He and his advisers were well versed in the fourteenth-century forms of procedure, and, though for the moment deprived of all benefit from their judgment in the King's Bench, quickly found other means of harassing the College and pursuing their suit.
The scope of this work makes it impossible here to follow out with exactitude the many moves and counter- moves which followed in this intricate litigation, which would more fitly serve as matter for a special monograph on the ways of the law in the fourteenth century than as incidental matter in a College history.
Some insight into the incidents of fourteenth- century litigation is afforded by the Bursars' rolls for 1381-82, 1382-83, and 1384. Master Richard Gower the Bursar had the matter in hand on behalf of the College, and the details of expenses connected with his various journeys to London on the business of the house are given in full.
In 1382 Master Midylton and Robert Westby the tenant for life of the greater part of the property in dispute, bore him company to London. They were attended by two servants. The party were in all eleven days absent, and the various items of their travelling expenses afford interesting reading. The cost of their united suppers varied from 8d. to lid., their breakfasts from 2d. to 7d., and dinners, which are not recorded every day, from 5d. to 14d. The modest charge of 2d. is made for beds, Id. for fire, and 2d. for candle. The attorney in common bench then as now received the time-honoured fee of 6s. 8d., and the fact is stated
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 45
without shame that, to facilitate the processes of justice, several people had to be treated with wine.
In the rolls for 1382-83 and 1383-84 the expenses of three journeys in each year are entered. One of them was undertaken by John Pokelyngton, the Master of the College. In the last of these years the efforts of the litigants appear to have been redoubled, for we find among the entries mention made of expenditure in gifts, wine, ' jentaculo,* et pluribus aliis,1 to the serious amount of 32s. lid.
The need for these extra gifts and treatings was probably occasioned on the presentation of a further petition-f- to King and Parliament in 1383-84, where it is stated that the implacable Edmund and Idonea had procured a writ of formedon, and to meet this a new supersedeas is asked for.J In the reply to the petition the request is granted, one of the reasons being ' for that it is well known to the King and his Lords that the suppliants are so poor that they are unable to pursue or defend their right,1 and it was further agreed and granted by the King and his Lords in Parliament that the right and claim on the one part and the other should be finally declared and determined before the King's Council.
Not only did the Sovereign give the ' College of his ancestors "* all assistance in his power through his Council, but he actually put them into a better position to help
* ' Cibus quo solvitur jejunium ante prandium ' (Ducange).
t Ancient Petitions, 978, R.O., printed in Rotuli Parliamentornm iii. 1766.
J The presumption is that they obtained this, for a writ of super- sedeas is dated New Sarum, May 22, 1384 (see Turner and Coxe, p. 291).
46 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
themselves, by an alteration of the law specially de- signed for their benefit. Throughout the suit one of the difficulties of the College had been to keep their tenants loyally up to the fighting point, for though the greater interest belonged to the reversioners, yet the actions for recovery of possession of the property in question were brought against the tenants for life.
Now, as the law stood the plaintiffs had won their case against the tenants, and the College, though deeply interested, had no locus standi. This difficulty was, however, removed by an Act of Parliament (9 Hie. II., c. 3.) amending the existing law, and enabling a reversioner to proceed by ' attaint ' or writ of error, in case of a false verdict or erroneous judgment against a particular tenant. The statute was specially extended to the two judgments previously given in the King's Bench, and was just in time to enable the harassed College to resist the writ by which in February, 1385, they were commanded without further delay to yield up to Francis and Idonea the seventeen acres of meadow under the judgment of the King's Bench.
A hearing, possibly ex parte, before the King's Council appears to have followed, and the Council and justices — if the words contained in a later writ from the King may be believed (August 2, 1388) — did what * good faith and a sound conscience required,1 and gave judgment in favour of the Master and scholars, after having seen and examined the evidence ' with great deliberation,1 and a declaration of the right of the Master and scholars seems at that time to have been enrolled in the King's Chancery.
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 47
Despite the royal response to the supplication of the College for assistance, Edmund and Idonea continued to 'implead, weary, disquiet, and openly threaten by writs of fresh Force, and other pleas and processes,' as well in their own name as in the name of other ' their complicers and encouragers.1 But their activity only served to rouse the Crown to a more threatening attitude. Writs of supersedeas, declaring that the original judgment in favour of Francis had been found in the King's Chancery void and erroneous, were issued to the Sheriff of Oxford, to the Justices of the Common Pleas, and to the Mayor and Bailiffs of the city. They all were strictly commanded that if any further pleas were commenced against the Master and scholars an end should be put to them, and Edmund and Idonea were informed that they should 'prosecute before our Council if they think expedient, where we will cause a completion of speedy justice to be made to them/*
All further means of proceeding being thus appa- rently denied them, a graceful disappearance of the plaintiffs might have been expected. Not so, however, with that indomitable pair, who, failing all remedy in the courts of law, now succeeded by some mysterious means in securing the submission of the whole case to arbitration. The result of this arbitration was announced as a final settlement (of the case) in the King's Court at Westminster on January 21 and February 3, 1389. The title of the College was acknowledged hereby, but only in consideration of the payment of a further sum of ^113 6s. 8d.t
* • Ubi eis celeris inde justitiae complementum fieri faciem.'
~m f Cal. Inquis. post mortem, iii. 108.
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It is satisfactory to note that such protracted litiga- tion did not embitter subsequent relations between the parties. An item — ' Pro vino cum Edmundo Franceys et aliis xid1 — in the Bursar's roll of 1390 is sufficient testimony of reconciliation, and for many years the College leased a small tenement from their old adversary, and paid him a small annuity.
It is not easy to understand how the society con- trived to pass through this long period of litigation without incurring serious financial disaster, but the bursarial rolls, except in the reduction of the number of Fellows, exhibit no great monetary strain. The external College rents, as entered in the roll of 1382, amount to £4>3 11s. 7d., but as for a short period three Fellows, if we may trust the account for commons, constituted the society, there would be enough both to afford a livelihood and to bear the costs of litigation.
In the earliest rolls the commons rarely exceeded a shilling a week for each Fellow, while battels averaged only a little more than a penny a week. The wants of the little society of from three to five Fellows, and six or seven others lodging with them, were ministered to by a staff of four servants, comprising cocus^ mancipius, barbitonsor, and lotrex.
The end of the fourteenth century found the College buildings in the High Street in much the same state as when first purchased, a group of the original small houses standing with no architectural arrangement, and converted as best might serve to the purposes of the society. Constructed of clay and wood, and mostly thatched, they doubtless presented a picturesque rather than dignified appearance. The accounts for repairs
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 49
show considerable use made of moss, red earth, and straw, from which we may gather that, while the cost of building of this class would be small, the durability would also be of a limited nature.*
Lodelowe Hall (adjoining Spicer's on the east) was not included within the College until quite the end of the century, and the receipts from its letting for many years formed an important item in the rent-roll. The wall between the pleasure-garden (di#- portum) of Lodelowe and that of the Hall of the University was cleared away in 1392, and from the previous year we may probably date the inclusion of the former Hall. Before this extension there appear to have been only nine cameras in the College, and these are specified in the Bursar's roll of 1312 with their respective rents. The buildings were two- storied, and appear to have been ranged round an inner court in some fashion approaching a quadrangular shape ; for we hear of work being undertaken infra quadratum. The rooms varied in rental value from 20s. per annum for the camera principalis to 6s. 8d. for the camera super erbormm.-^ We hear of the chamber opposite the well, and of the chamber ' together with ' the hall. This hall, or refectory, was originally a por- tion of the Spicer tenement, and served the society till the year 1450. It is strange that a foundation for students in theology should have existed in the first instance without a chapel, but thus it was with the
* Hart Hall, which was let in 1363 to Roger Aswardby on lease then contained ' Unam aulam et sex cameras bene cooportas ' about 100 years later the building is described as ' am non existans nisi una parva domus.'
f Cf. Bursar's roll, 1392
4
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University scholars who at first made use of the Churches of St. Mary and St. Peter in the east, where not a few of the earlier members of the College were buried. This state of things was remedied in 1369, when a license* from the Bishop of Lincoln was pro- cured to celebrate 'in capella seu oratoria infra mansum aulae nostrae constructa ' ; but it was not until thirty years later that Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Lincoln, licensed and consecrated the chapel in honour of St. Cuthbert. In the Bishop^s license the chapel is de- scribed as being new, and recently constructed within the site of the College — 'decentem opere admodum sumptuoso ad laudem Dei.'' It is worthy of notice that, notwithstanding any existing Alfredian tradition and all the bold assertions in the recent ' French petition,' it was to St. Cuthbert, the patron saint of Durham, that William of Durham's scholars chose to dedicate their chapel.
In the statutes of 1311, provision is made for the placing of one book of whatever kind in some common place. At first the number of books was probably so very small that a chest or chests sufficed to contain them. We hear of volumes being bequeathed to the society both in 1336 and 1368, but slow indeed must have been the acquisition of these precious treasures during the infancy of the College. t
* License dated January 10, 1369.
t In 1336 S. Gravesend, Bishop of London, bequeathed books to four different Colleges (Ninth Report, Historical MSS. Commission, 146). In 1368 Simon de Bredon, 'astronomer,' and a former Proctor, bequeathed books to each of the six secular Colleges, including University College (Reg. Archbishop Whittlesey, folio 122, quoted by Maxwell Lyte, p. 181).
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 51
Mention of a library* on the ground-floor is first made in the Bursars roll 1391, which is about the time of the inclusion of Lodelowe Hall. There is some reason for believing that the taking in of that property supplied, among other wants, a storing-place for the few books possessed by the society. Bishop Skirlaw's donation of books at the beginning of the next century (1404) was made by means of indenturet under which three volumes of Doctor de Lyra and three other volumes entitled the Repertorium, etc., were passed to John Appleton the Master under stringent conditions as to their safe keeping. They were to be deposited within the library, to be fastened with iron chains and never lent. So highly was this acquisition valued that on Appleton's retirement the fact that during his mastership such treasures had been secured was duly recognised as constituting a strong claim on his behalf to the gratitude of the College.
The end of the century thus found the society in possession of the usual concomitants of early collegiate life. The chambers named from their situation or after their occupants, the refectory, the chapel, the library — all these essentials to a well-ordered common life had only been gradually secured as benefactions allowed, and the same process of growth by gradual increase, when the donations of the benevolent permitted, con- tinues throughout the next and the following century.
Besides what names have been mentioned in the text,
* A. Wood will not admit the existence of a library at this early date. At first the society kept the books they had, which were but few, in chests (Wood's Colleges of Oxford, p. 51).
t The indenture, now in the College muniment-room, has been printed in Arch. JEliana, vol. ii., p. 99, by W. C. Trevelyan.
4—2
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the following were, or have been reputed in this earliest period to have been, William of Durham^ scholars :
WILLIAM SHIREWOOD : Thesaurarius Liiicolniensis, 1259 (Notitia Oxoniensis).
JOHN BACONTHORPE : the 'Doctor Resolutus'; a Carmelite and friend and teacher of Richard Fitzralph (Ricardus Armacanus) ; migrated to Paris ; returned to England in 1321 ; was preaching in opposition to the Mendicant Orders (Dictionary National Biography).
RICHARD RADEFORD, or de Retford, S.T.P., afterwards Provost of Queen's : originally from Balliol (Ayliff, p. 294) ; obtained from Clement VI. canonry of York, 1343, with expectation of a prebend (Bliss Papal Reg., iii., 127).
WILLIAM KEXBY : Master c. 1378; Archdeacon of Cleve- land, 1379 ; buried in Ecclesia Ebor. (Willis's Survey, 79).
ROBERT WALDEBY : Archbishop of York, February 4>, 1 396. In one of the windows of the old chapel Wood records the inscription : ' Orate pro anima Mag. Rob. Waldeby quondam Arch. Ebor/ (Dictionary National Biography).
HENRY CROMPE, or Crump, Cistercian, c. 1 390 : Theologian ; at first an opponent of Wickliffe, afterwards of the Mendi- cant Orders (Dictionary National Biography).
JOHN CRUM : Vice-Chancellor in 1406 and 1408 ; Arch- deacon of Barnstaple, 1400 ; Chancellor of Exeter Cathedral, February 23, 1429; died 1436 (Dictionary National Biography.
EDMUND LACY : Master c. 1 398 ; afterwards Bishop of Hereford and Bishop of Exeter.
CHAPTER IV
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY : EARLY BENEFACTORS, BUILDINGS, AND FURTHER STATUTES
Masters : Edmund Lacy, c. 1398 ; John de Appleton, 1403 ; John Castle, 1413; Robert Burton, 1420-1426 ; Richard Wytton, 1426-1430; Thomas Benyngwell, 1430-1441 : John Marten, 1441-1474; William Gregforth, 1474- 1488; John Rokysburgh, 1488-1509.
IN the Church crisis at the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries, brought about by WyclifiVs teaching, the general sympathy of the Univer- sity was without doubt on the side of the great reformer. From such scattered fragments of evidence as we now possess, we find that the sentiments prevalent in the Great Hall reflected the general Oxford views in favour of reform. The close association then existing between the University and its Hall makes any expression of opinion by the members of the foundation which had been first established to enable seculars to study theology at Oxford of interest as indicating the current of religious thought in the University.
From the nature of its origin, the traditional inclina-
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tion of the College must have been to the side of the secular clergy in their struggle against the growing power and encroachments of the Mendicant Orders. In the middle of the fourteenth century Richard Fitzralph,* Archbishop of Armagh, once a member of the society, if tradition and direct assertion are to be trusted, was distinguished by a lifelong support of the secular clergy and an outspoken and unsparing denunciation of the friars. At the close of the same period the members of the Great Hall, following boldly in his steps, not only maintained his position with regard to the rights of the seculars, but advanced in doctrine, and when the opportunity offered showed themselves to be on the side of Wycliffe. On the occasion of Archbishop Arundel's attempted visitation in 1397, they braved the serious anger of that arbitrary and unforgiving prelate by a declaration of their views and a resolute maintenance of independence. Imitating the successful resistance of the University to his visitation, they also questioned the Archbishop's right and denied him access as Visitor ; but the real spirit of their opposition appeal's to have sprung from their leanings towards the new doctrines.
Five years before this the zeal for reform of Henry
* The name of Richard ' Armacanus ' appears in the ' French petition ' already referred to. The linking of the Archbishop's name with those of John of Beverley and the Venerable Bede was probably contrived to enable the two eighth-century worthies to pass muster as alumni of the College under cover of the name of one who had been a scholar of William of Durham's house within the memory of living folk. The fact that Balliol justly claims him among her early Fellows in no way prejudices the claim of the Great Hall, for we know that Richard was for some years in Oxford after the lapse of his Fellowship at Balliol.
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 55
Crump, a Carmelite monk who resided in the College, had attracted the attention of the ecclesiastical authorities. Crump, though at first strong in opposition to Wycliffe's doctrines, became subsequently so strong a supporter of them, and so earnest an opponent of the Mendicant Orders, that in May, 1392, he was called upon at Stamford to abjure his opinions. He appears, however, to have appealed successfully against the sentence, and in the same year a commission was appointed to inquire into his alleged offences against orthodoxy.
At the beginning of the next century there were several members of the society who must have fallen within the category of those denounced by Convocation in 1408 as ' degenerate sons and abortives who as well by their words as actions preach disobedience and sow their darnel among good seed.1 Such were John Kexby* and Robert Burton (afterwards elected Master in 1420), who are enumerated among ' the chiefest persons that quarrelled with the Archbishop's constitution.'! Ac- cording to Wood, they so disturbed the University that they were threatened with excommunication, after which ' they acknowledged themselves peccant.'! In fact, how- ever, excommunication was in 1411 pronounced on the whole society, from which an appeal was made to the Pope.
Archbishop Arundel, supported by the King and backed by the clergy in Convocation, proved too strong for the University, and the Provincial Council held at Oxford in 1407 was followed in 1411 by a successful
* John Kexby, Chancellor of York, ' sepult in Eccles., Cath. Ebor., 1432.' See Survey of York Cathedral, p. 79. t Wood, Annals, i. 543. J Ibid., i. 555.
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visitation held in St. Mary's Church, ' quoad haereticum pravitatem.' To make the stringent decrees passed in the Council of 1407 effective, a committee of twelve persons, ' six southerners and six northerners,"1 was appointed to inquire into, examine, and reprove the Wycliffite books and lectures. Among the twelve on the Northern side was Richard Fleming, a student in divinity from the Great Hall of the University. He seems to have been appointed as a representative of the reformer's views, and by his early utterance of ' divers propositions rankly smelling of heresy ' brought himself into prominence. Fleming declared openly for some of the propositions condemned as heretical by the rest of the committee. On this the Archbishop forwarded a mandate to the University warning against the pre- sumption of certain persons, ' qui et puerilia rudimenta non transcendunt, vix adhuc ab cunabulis adolescentiae exeuntes.'* The Archbishop's scorn does not seem to have silenced Fleming, but may have modified his opinions, which subsequently appear to have become sufficiently orthodox to justify his appointment to the bishopric of Lincoln, in which capacity he acted as President of the English Mission at the General Council of Pa via, and at a later period he distinguished himself by the foundation of a college designed to support and maintain the study of accepted theology.
The Fellows of the Great Hall were not, however, unanimous in their Lollard propensities, for we may be certain that Edmund Lacy, Master about 1398, was rigidly orthodox in his views. We find him acting as Commissary to Philip de Repyngdon in his continua-
* See Concilia Magn. Brit., Wilkins, iii., p. 322.
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 57
tion of the Arundel visitation in 1413, and he after- wards became Bishop of Hereford, and subsequently Bishop of Exeter.
The College does not appear to have remained long under the ban of the Archbishop. Whether any formal submission or recantation was made does not appear. But the spirit of the reformer was not dead in the place, for in 1439 we hear of some plaints being made before the Council of Basle against Philip Noreys, Principal of Little University Hall from 1429 to 1431, on account of his lectures in the schools and furious controversy with the Augustinians. This renowned canonist maintained with renewed vigour the general attack on the mendicants, and though through the influence of the Orders his lectures appear at one time to have been condemned in Rome as heretical, a letter from the University and the direct influence of Duke Humphrey of Gloucester saved him from further penal- ties, and he was subsequently appointed Dean of St. Patrick's in 1457.
Despite the losses sustained in their recent great law- suit, and the terrors of impending excommunication, the fifteenth century opened for the society with a gleam of prosperity.
John Appleton, the Master, appointed about 1403, was a shrewd and prudent head, and influential beyond the immediate limits of his place. To him great credit is given for the part he played in persuading Walter Skirlaw, Bishop of Durham, to aid the house to hold its own among the wealthier foundations by which it was now surrounded. Skirlaw, whose abilities had raised him from humbler walks in life to fame as a diplomatist,
58 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
and to the wealthy bishopric of the Northern Palatinate, had at the beginning of his career experienced the benefits of William of Durham's foundation. It was becoming that a donation to his old College should be recorded among his many acts of princely munificence. In 1403 he agreed with the Masters and Fellows to convey to the College his Manor of Rothyng Margaret, now Mark's Hall, in Essex, for the maintenance of three Fellows, who, beyond their commons, rooms, ' servientes et alia necessaria,' were to receive forty shillings per annum ' in pecunia numerata.' Unlike the Founder's Fellows, choice was not confined to Masters, but those not yet graduated, as long as they were good and honest, and 'ad studendum in Theologia verisimiliter apti,' might be elected. The actual donation came in 1404, in which year came also the gift of his books already mentioned.
Walter de Skirlaw died in 1416, and was buried before the altar of St. Blaise in his own cathedral. In the petition for suffrages on his behalf, in answer to which the prayers of 294 societies were secured, he is spoken of as 'in donando largissimus in eleemosinis effusus:*
The society showed their gratitude to Master Appleton for his tact and good offices in calling the attention of the Bishop to the needs of the College by admitting him many years after (in 1438), when infirm and blind, to the benefit of a Fellowship during his life. The spending of the good Bishop's money was begun before it was actually received, for in 1402 we find sums of money expended on the library,
* Durham Obituary Rolls, Surtees Society, p. 56.
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 59
and in the same year a most important purchase was made, whereby the reversion to the remaining High Street frontage between what had been Lodelowe Hall and the present Logic Lane was secured. This com- prised two tenements — Little University Hall and the Cok on the Hoop at the corner adjoining the lane then described as 'quondam venellam vocatam Penkerychese lane alias Horsmyllane/ but now known as Logic Lane. This reversion appears to have fallen in about two years later — in 1404. More building was undertaken in 1405, probably to make room for Bishop Skirlaw's scholars. A small proof of growing prosperity is afforded in the increase of the staff of servants, and by the employment of a pincerna ; but later (in 1440) the further financial straits of the College appear to have compelled the cook to perform the duties of the two offices.
The newly acquired property in Essex was not, more- over, at first a source of profit. The land was, accord- ing to the custom of the day, farmed by aJBrmamu on behalf of the society. A considerable sum was neces- sary to stock it in 1410-11, and farming operations then as now seem to have shown slender and disappointing returns.
Under Masters Lacy, Appleton, and Castle, the College, now aided by Skirlaw^s benefaction, had made distinct forward progress. All three appear to have been men of a standing and capacity superior to that of their predecessors in office, and to have attracted scholars of distinction both on the foundation and as sharers in the student life of the society. Between the years 1406 and 1418 we find the Great Hall providing
60 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
one of the Proctors on seven occasions, and Commissaries to the Chancellor in 1407 and 1409.
Richard Fitzhugh was a member in 1406, and became Bishop of London in 1431.
Edmund Lacy, already referred to, was promoted to the Bishopric of Hereford in 141 7, and to Exeter in 1420.
Richard Fleming, who acted as Proctor in 1407, afterwards proved himself a distinguished Bishop of Lincoln.
Castle held valuable preferment in the Diocese of York with the mastership, and in 1422 became Chan- cellor of the University. Possibly the progress of the society was a little in advance of the means at its dis- posal, for its total income in 1418 amounted only to £56 6s. 10d., and this was found insufficient to meet the bare necessities of existence. A dispensation granted by Archbishop Chichele to Robert Burton, Master in 1420, records in melancholy terms the poverty which hindered and oppressed the growth of the College in the first three centuries of its existence. Burton's earnest endeavours to re-establish the Great Hall, and to restore it from its condition of extreme misery, ' summa miseria sua,' must have proved a difficult task, for the dispensation tells of debts, of property in pledge, of some of the tenements in ruins, and many more downcast and irreparable.
Whatever may have been effected for the society by Burton's zealous advocacy was thrown away by the folly and mismanagement of his successor, Richard Wytton, elected about 1426. Unchecked by experience of past litigation, or by remembrance of the losses sustained in the great suit of the previous century, he entered into
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 61
a lengthy and expensive lawsuit with the Abbey of Oseney, lasting from 1427 to 1432, in which, after conflicting decisions, the abbey seems to have secured the final victory. In the accounts for these years heavy items are to be found under the heads of 'in placitationibus et jurisperitis,' and if the society was poor before the coming into office of Master Wytton, it certainly was poorer when his mastership came to an end.
Nor did Thomas Benyngwell, who succeeded about 1430, eminent preacher though he may have been, according to the account of Thomas Caius, improve the state of affairs. He also, acting on behalf of the College, yielded to the temptations of litigation, while on his own account he was driven to protect his character against scandalous charges. Sad to relate, the Master, with one Agnes Bablake, were summoned on January 28, 1435, to appear before the Bishop of Worcester in Merton College Chapel. But happily the evil-tongued Agnes publicly withdrew the base rumour, and con- fessed that she alone had been responsible for its promulgation. The parties received 'purgation,' but the scandal can hardly have proved other than injurious to a society consisting mainly of students in divinity, even in the fifteenth century.
Towards the end of BenyngwelPs mastership, in 1439, Drowda Hall and four or five of the chambers in the College were unoccupied, and scanty means were still the pressing evil of the time. Wealthy founders had provided New College (1379) and All Souls (1437), and were about to furnish Magdalen, with magnificent build- ings and ample revenues to maintain them, but the con-
62 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
dition of the fabric of the Great Hall was a century behindhand in the accommodation it was able to afford.
Help from the North was, however, again forthcoming in time to enable the Society to maintain its usefulness, and to continue the conversion of its mean and irregular tenements into the modest but respectable building that served until seventeenth-century benefactors provided funds for the erection of the existing quadrangles. No special bond of connection appears to have existed between Henry, Earl of Northumberland and the College, and his valuable gift of the rectory of Arncliffe in Craven in 1443 seems to have been the result of a letter from the University to the Earl* detailing the poverty of the College and a willingness on the part of the great Northern lord to benefit and assist in removing the difficulties of the old Northern foundation in the University. The conditions of his gift were somewhat similar to those attached to Skirlaw's foundation. Three Fellows were to be chosen from the diocese of Durham, Carlisle or York — such as showed an aptitude for profitable study in theology. A letter from the University to Archbishop Kempe secured the necessary permission for appropriation of the benefice, and the Rector of Arncliffe died in 1451.
In the Archbishop's license the needs of the house are given as the reason for appropriation, and the tale of poverty is again recited.
' The rents and profits (proventus) with which the said College or Hall is at present endowed are in these days so
* Trouble was afterwards experienced with the Earl's grandson, who, disregarding the grant of the rectory, instituted a Rector on a vacancy occurring, and he could only be persuaded to vacate the living on the grant of a pension by the College.
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 63
slender and poor (exiles) that the Master and Scholars or Fellows are unable to be sustained by the same, or to bear the burdens falling upon them/
Either the EaiTs example or the public statement of the necessitous condition of the Great Hall stirred up other benefactors, and the valuable bequest of Dame Alice Bellasis in 1446, and a legacy from Cardinal Beaufort in the following year, furnished sufficient funds to justify a carrying on of the most urgent building operations.
In 1447 Little University Hall was altered and improved at considerable expense to make it suitable for the Master's Lodgings. The entries in the rolls stating the price of labour might indeed be scornfully regarded by the operative of to-day, but they show a wider difference in value between skilled and unskilled labour than exists at the present time.
About 1448-49 a new hall was built, the main room of the ancient Spicer Hall having up to this time served the purpose, but now being outgrown by the society. The new hall needed a butler, and about the time of its completion we find the limited staff of servants increased by a cellarius.
Most of the minor benefactors of the College in the second half of the fifteenth century left their money on condition of obtaining the prayers of the community,*
* The agreement between King Henry VII. and the College, February 20, 1492, for the celebration of Masses for the term of ten years on behalf of the soul of Anne, Countess of Warwick, is an instance of characteristic bargaining for an adequate return. The Master was to sing the Mass if he should be disposed to do so, and 1 every poor scholar (of the ten) of the said College shall say, devoutly kneeling on their knees, between the elevation and recep.
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THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 65
and with no further special injunction so long as this primary obligation was fulfilled. Dame Joanna Danvers, however, who seems to have interested herself in the work of rebuilding, left a 'notable sum of gold and silver" to aid the undertaking, and especially for the erection of a tower as a gateway and principal entrance.* This great work, undertaken probably to complete the improved arrangement of the buildings, must have been soon put in hand. In 1472 it was in existence, for in the accounts of that year considerable expenditure is shown to have been incurred 'in reparationibus circa turrim.1 It, however, fell to Master Ralph Hamsterley, at the commencement of the next century, finally to complete this erection. Bereblock's rough woodcut shows us the completed work — a strong battlemented tower of great breadth in proportion to its height, with a fine oriel window commanding the High Street. About the same time (i.e., after the erection of the tower in 1472) the chapel was enlarged and partially rebuilt, f The Bursars' rolls show considerable sums to have been spent upon it between 1475 and 1478. In April, 1476, it was consecrated to the memory of St. Cuthbert. From A. Wood's account and small sketch here repro- duced, we are, able to define its position approximately, as having been about the middle of the present western quadrangle. The library was on an upper floor in continuation of the chapel westwards — the whole
tion of the most glorious and blessed body of Christ, "Ihu fili David miserere animae famulae tuae Annae nuper Comitissae," ' etc. * ' Pro aedificatione unius turris et principalis introitus. ' t In course of time the chapel was found to be too small for the members of the house, and a lower chamber under the library was added to make the outer chapel larger (Wood, ed. Gutch, 62).
5
66 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
new building of freestone. The rest of the buildings were low, and the windows were not uniform, showing that the quadrangle was constructed at different periods. The west end and front of the old buildings were in Wood's time accounted the most ancient portion then remaining.
The hall, or refectory (with chambers adjoining), stood on the east side of the quadrangle, and was not pulled down till 1669, or completely removed until 1679, to make way for the eastern side of the present large quadrangle.
In many of the chamber windows, says Wood, were divers * inscriptions, arms and rebuses, put up in memory of the benefactors thereunto/ Some of these had been before his time broken or taken away ; among them was a figure of King Alfred kneeling and St. Cuthbert sitting, with this inscription :
' Hie in honore tui Collegium statui Quee statuisti in eo . . . maledico.'
There was also a figure of King Alfred in another chamber window, holding in his hand the picture of the College, and a label with these words issuing from his
mouth :
' All free make I thee, As heart may thinke Or eye may see/
Happily, an account of the windows of the old chapel was preserved by A. Wood. We have also an earlier description of the arms in the College in the visitation of Richard Lee (Portcullis) in 1574, but as his MS., the 'Gatherings of Oxfordshire,'* belonged to Wood, * Printed Harleian Society, v. 99.
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 67
it was probably made use of by him in framing his account.
In the south window, over the side-altar, was a repre- sentation of a man in clerical vestments, with ' Wilhel- mus Dunelm 1 written below.
In the second light, under a Bishop kneeling, was inscribed, ' Sanctus Johannes . . . socius istius.1 The missing words, Wood was informed, had been ' Archiep. Ebor. quondam contuberms.1
In the upper part of the north windows, in the first light, was a figure of St. Jude, with an inscription in honour of Skirlaw.
Under this was a picture of a Bishop, probably St. Cuthbert, and in the second light of the same window was the figure of a Bishop kneeling (probably Skirlaw), looking towards St. Cuthbert, with the inscription, ' Ora pro nobis beate Cuthberte.1*
At the bottom of the next window was, ' Orate pro anima Magistri Roberti Waldby quondam Archiepisc. Ebor.'
In a lower window of the outer chapel, which had formerly been a chamber, were the arms of William of Durham, and an inscription (injured), 'Magistri Wilhelmi de Dunelm . . . hujus collegii/ The missing word here, Wood tells us, had been ' Fundatoris.'
The College documents during the last half of the fifteenth century exhibit no signs of the strain of civil war through which the country was passing. Yearly accounts begin and end with the accustomed regularity, and no material change appears in the accounts either of rents and other receipts, or expenditure. At this time the sympathies of the house were probably Lan-
5—2
68 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
castrian, for successive benefactions had made it a seminary devoted to the service of Northern scholars ; but amongst distinct partisans of the red or white rose the most notable alumnus of the College was John Shirwood, Bishop of Durham, who proved himself a zealous Yorkist, and played a prominent part at the coronation of King Richard III.
Throughout the fifteenth century the tone and character of the Society of the Great Hall, as one instituted primarily for the study of theology, is main- tained on the lines of its original foundation, and new benefactors appear to tread in the footsteps of the old. Of the sixty-eight books presented by a former Fellow, Mr. William Asplyon, in 1473, a majority were com- mentaries on the Scriptures. The only works of a secular kind were Boethius de Consolatione and a Polychronicon.
In spite, however, of all the rules laid down by pious benefactors, some slackness in religious observance had crept in. One main object of the statutes passed in 1476 by the Vice- Chancellor Thomas Chandler, and confirmed by Lionel Wydville as Chancellor, was to inculcate a stricter order in religious ceremony. The Fellows seem to have grown careless in the observance of festivals and manner of keeping holy days, and to correct such omissions and regulate the hours the new statutes were chiefly directed. Provision is also made for the constant attendance both day and night of at least one priest — i.e., a Fellow in priest's orders — and we are told that, through the frequent absence of Fellows in priests1 orders, 'nonnulla scandala, magna pericula sunt sequelae et amplioria sequi videntur.1
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 69
The office of ' Master ' of the College, which in the fourteenth century we have seen growing gradually out of the position of senior Fellow, in the fifteenth becomes more important and assumes a definite shape. This gradual change came about through the need naturally felt for a head as officially representative, and probably also from the examples afforded by other Col- leges of the advantage of possessing a resident authority. Several of the earlier occupants of the post had been men of strong character, and likely to enlarge their position. The title of ' Master ' had at the beginning of the century become recognised, though the boast of Master Wytton (Wytton's Assize), that no other nomenclature had ever been made use of, is hardly correct, as the term ' Custos ' is found in several deeds both of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Until Chandler's statutes of 1478, the Senior Fellow and Master were still one and the same person, the Master of the College only holding his office in virtue of his status as Senior Fellow.
It may well be imagined that the advantages of seniority were discovered to be not always the best qualification for headship, and possibly Master Greg- forth, of whom we know little except that he was the last Senior Fellow who succeeded as of right to the mastership, may have been the example which led the University to enact that henceforth the Master might be chosen from any provided he was Socius et de gremis ac comitiva Collegii. The facts that he was now furnished with a special lodging,* that in legal documents he was
* After the building of the tower the Master lived therein, and from this commanding position ruled the house until, in 1531, Little University Hall was given over to him for a hospitium.
70 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
regarded as formally representing the Society, that under the Chandler statutes it is ordained that special respect be paid to him by the Bachelors, and that he was no longer to be constrained to perform the duties obligatory on other members, all go to show that by the end of the fifteenth century he had definitely established his posi- tion as distinct from, and superior to, that of the rest of the Fellows.
The new ordinance enforcing a show of deference and respect from Bachelors may have been found necessary owing to the levity of those more youthful members who, both under Skirlaw's foundation and under special dispensations from time to time, had been admitted during the century.* Some of the Bachelors had, it seems, exhibited of late disorderly propensities, for by the new statutes of 1478 they were forbidden to wander in the town — ' sine habitu vel collobio "* — in order that the distinction of * Jew from Greek, and of collegiate from non-collegiate,' might be maintained.
It was not only, however, against the laxity of the Juniors that the Chandler statutes were directed. The financial straits through which the College had recently passed were probably as much due to ill-management as to ill -fortune. Bursars had not always been ready or able to pay up arrears of accounts at the end of their terms of office, and it was now provided that each ' Procurator ' (the term ' Bursar "* does not come into general use till after 1480) should be responsible for any arrears at the end of his term of office, and to make this more effective he was further called upon to provide a bond to secure any liabilities. By the middle * Such formal dispensations are found in 1420 and 1433.
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 71
of the sixteenth century it had become so difficult to fill the post that a special ordinance had to be made by Chancellor Coveney (1561) to meet the difficulty, by depriving anyone properly elected who refused to serve of all emoluments until he should come to a better mind.
The admission of Bachelors brought about a change in the character of the Society, which gradually followed the example of more recent collegiate establishments in becoming an educational body rather than one dedicated to one especial kind of learning. So far the commensales appear to have been drawn from the class described in section xviii. of the statutes of 1292, and to have had as yet but little in common with the under- graduate of later times. They were generally ' Masters,' sometimes monks, and on two occasions rooms were rented for some length of time by neighbouring Abbots.* For the first time in 1441-42 we hear in the bursarial roll of a room occupied by * boys/f The cubicuH, which were not introduced till 1519, seem to have afforded a means of enlarging sleeping accommodation by the splitting up of existing chambers; these were let at a lower rate.
So small and poor a College could not be expected to boast a large stock of plate. From an endorsement on a Bursar's roll, 1422-23, the amount is found in detail,^
* Abbot of Eynsham, 1466 ; Abbot of Sulby, 1421-22. f ' De earner^ in gardino pro pueris Mag. Tho. Botteler, 2S. 6d.' J First in the list comes a silver cup and cover ; then fourteen spoons coliaria, nine of which had long handles, five shorter, and twelve the arms of the founder; three cups with three lance- aria, one with two anscs, and a little basin newly made; six ancient candlesticks de auricalco, and three bought by Thomas
72 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
and shows more luxury in living than might have been expected.
In spite of the narrowness of its resources, this small Society, in the fifteenth century, though at times numbering not more than six, and never exceeding eleven Fellows, justified its existence as a school originally devoted to the study of theology, by the number of distinguished Churchmen it sent forth. In this period the College claimed eight English Bishops as her sons, and among the more distinguished of these four were occupants of the See of Durham.
Amongst the 'viri clariores' of the fifteenth century not mentioned in the text should be remembered :
THOMAS LANGLEY : Bishop of Durham, 1406 ; Cardinal.
WALTER HUNGERFORD : Fought at Agincourt, and was installed Knight of the Garter, May 3, 1401.
ROBERT FITZHUGH : Bishop of London, 1431. His name appears as a camerarius in 1406, 1411,1412, 1414. His arms are recorded by Wood as having been on the old gate- way. He was also a member of King's Hall, Cambridge, and became Chancellor of the University of Cambridge.
WILLIAM DUDLEY, Bishop of Durham : Graduated B.A. 1453, M.A. 1456; Archdeacon of Middlesex, November 16, 1475; Dean of Windsor; Bishop of Dur- ham, October, 1476; Chancellor of University of Oxford, 1483; died November 29, 1483; buried in Westminster Abbey.
Benyngwell ; four 'salariade stanno cum coopteriis.1 In the schedule of properties are also mentioned two new tablecloths bought in the time of Richard Wilton, ' pro alba mensa,' one of which is for principal days.
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 73
ROBERT DE HUNGERFORD, Lord Moleyns. A camerarius in 1435 ; a leader on the Lancastrian side, was taken prisoner at Hexham, and executed at Newcastle, 146*4.
JOHN CHEDWORTH : Bishop of Lincoln, 1451 ; Died 1471 ; a camerarius in 15 Henry VI. ; was first a student at University, afterward a Fellow of Merton.
ROBERT FLEMING : Dean of Lincoln, 1470 ; a, camerarius in 1464.
CHAPTER V
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
Masters: Ralph Hamsterley, 1509-1518; Leonard Hutchin- son, 1518-1546; John Crayford, 154-6-1547; Richard Salveyn, 1547-1551; George Ellison, 1551-1557; Anthony Salveyn, 1557-1558; James Dugdale, 1558- 1561; Thomas Caius, 1561-1572; William James, 1572-1584; Anthony Gate, 1584-1597; George Abbot, 1597-1609.
THE first election of Master under the Chandler statutes in 1509 led to much internal disturbance, and caused great dissensions in the Society. Up to this time the Masters, though not always the most distinguished members, had by virtue of the old rule of succession followed one another with seemly regularity. The party in the College who approved of the new rule of selec- tion sought to improve it on the death of Master John Rokysburgh, by choosing one for their Master who not only was no senior socms but was altogether a stranger to the foundation.
The choice of the four Fellows present at the election
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 75
fell on Ralph Hamsterley, formerly a Fellow of Merton ; but he was only chosen subject to a condition that a dispensation could be secured from the Visitors, ' quod fuit nunquam de gremio nostro neque de comitiva.'' The story of his election is told with some exactness in the College Register, and is interesting as exhibiting the formalities of the time. Hamsterley, with becoming modesty, was not in Oxford at the time of the election, but was residing at his rectory of Oddington. Thither one of the Fellows was despatched with news of the appointment. On this the newly-elected Master came to Oxford, and in quite the modern manner informed the Fellows assembled that he would only accept the honour on a unanimous vote. Master Peter Pierson to this replies somewhat ambiguously that if Hamsterley could prove himself a Fellow, or should the Visitors grant a dispensation, all present agreed to the election. Prob- ably Master Peter had friends among the Visitors, and entertained good hopes that the dispensation could not be obtained.
With all solemnity on November 11 the Vice-Chan- cellor, Doctors in Theology, and two Proctors, met in the College chapel, and there granted the dispensation, but not unanimously. To make the matter certain, letters were sent to Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the confirmation of the election was deferred until his answer should be received. The Archbishop replied in favour of the election, and with threats of the prison- house for rebellious Fellows. This letter was read in the Congregation-house, ' in magna congregatione,'* and Hamsterley 's election was confirmed and promulgated. * On November 20, 1509.
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Some concession was made to opponents by agree- ment to a condition that after his death any succeeding Master should be elected de gremio, and that the Fellows for the time being should have powers of free election.
On the same day, however, in the afternoon, the opposition party, consisting of the Proctors, some Regents, and Dr. Aschleby, held a rival congregation in St. Mary's, and strove to annul what had been done, and the fact that some of them worked for Master Barneby shows that this warm contention was by no means merely concerning the abstract principle of election. In con- sequence of the excitement and party spirit shown, Master Ralph was summoned to Lambeth, and there the case was heard on January 15, 1510. It was decided that Barneby had no just title. This unfortunate aspirant for office soon paid the penalty for his ambition. The hand of the new Master at once fell heavily upon him, and in February, 1511, we find a new Fellow elected, and a memorandum is made in the Register* that Barneby shall not have a chamber, commons, battels, nor in any way live with us, ' propter inquietationem studii et brigas et divisiones evitandas.'f
On January 20, 1510, it was determined that in future Fellows on election should take oath that they would never ' accede1 to another College of the University or of Cambridge as Fellows without the license of the Master or a majority of Fellows ; and we find in Novem- ber, 1510, license granted to Master Faulefield to accept
* Reg. p. 8.
t Mr. Peter Pierson appears to have made his peace, if he was ever in active opposition, for he was made Bursar in May, 1510.
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 77
a Fellowship in another College should he chance to be elected.
Although Hamsterley won the day in the matter of his election, he seems never to have won the love of the recalcitrant Fellows, and throughout his term of office continual dissension prevailed between them. So violent grew the discord in 1512 that Dr. Wylford, the Vice- Chancellor, appointed a day (October 4) for a visitation, when he was fortunate enough, says Wood, to order matters so well that the contending parties ' departed in peace/* What the immediate quarrel was about is by no means clear, but it is evident that Hamsterley was of a masterful temper, and certainly he and the Fellows did not long remain at peace. In November of the same year we find the malcontents face to face with the Bishop of London ' in a certain inner Chamber within his Palace, and thereupon,' because of their rebellion against and disobedience to the provident and circumspect Master, 'sentenced to return to their studies and to pay for a whole week's commons out of their own purse.' A salutary hint was further designed by the Bishop to check in future any disposition to litigation, for he ordered the costs of the proceedings to come out of the pockets of the disputants.
The fact that there are no entries in the College Register (inaugurated by Hamsterley on his appoint- ment) between the years 1512 and 1518, the year of the
* That they ' departed in peace ' is rather too hopeful an expres- sion for the facts, for the disputants departed from the Vice- Chancellor's presence ' sub poena excommunicationis ut pendente termino nostrae visitationis prius assignatae inter partes praefatas, nullus eorum, neque Magister contra Socios neque Socii contra Magistrum facerent prosecutionem.'
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Master's death, and that during the. same period we find not a few entries of legal expenses in the College accounts, points to a continuance of hostilities. Still, in death there appears to have been reconciliation, for though his body was consigned to the chapel of his old College, Merton, a brass effigy was placed in his honour in the middle of the chapel of University, and the Society ordered that a solemn mass for his soul should be celebrated there ( in crastino sanctissimae Trinitatis.1
The agreement arrived at after the late Master's election, that the head of the house should in future be freely chosen by the Fellows from amongst those who were ' de gremio societatis ' was duly kept in the case of his successor Leonard Hutchinson. Though at one time a Fellow of Balliol, Hutchinson at the time of his election to the mastership was Senior Fellow of University.
The new Master's unanimous election was followed by a long and peaceful term of office in happy contrast to the stormy state of discord prevailing under his pre- decessor. This period of twenty-eight years is almost devoid of incident ; the Register records little more than the due succession of Fellows, and the bursarial rolls show no unusual expenditure, no fresh accession of wealth.
In 1524 Nicholas Ridley was elected to a Skirlaw exhibition, but the connection of the College with the Protestant martyr is but momentary, for the Register shortly adds, ' sed acceptare noluit.'
The discipline of the house seems at this time to have been enforced with a light and tolerant hand, for when John Wright, a Fellow, was at last ejected in 1530
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 79
(January 13) for continuous absence, this was stated to have lasted ' non solum uno termino sed duobus, tribus quatuor quinque et septem terminis.1 In another case of prolonged absence, the place of Anthony Salveyn (afterwards Master) was only filled up after he had been treated ' speciali benevolentia.' In this period of easy government, it is not surprising to find the Master exhibiting an amiable partiality for members of his own family on the foundation. We find three Hutchinsons elected Fellows (John, George, and Hugh) between 1529 and 1537.
Building operations for the time being seem to have come to an end with the completion of the tower by Hamsterley, and the only important change in the arrangements during this period was the appropriation of that part of the fabric which had been Little University Hall for a ' Hospitium Magistri Collegii "* in 1531.
Of Hutchinson himself little is known. His name occurs in the list of such as were reported to the King, in 1531, 'to be well learned and abiding in the University.1* Later, when the Sovereign's matrimonial difficulties seemed likely to find their only solution in emancipation from Papal jurisdiction, Hutchinson, along with three others, was appointed by Convocation to fortify the King's case by reporting the opinion held by the University on the limits of Papal authority during the WyclifFe controversy. His long term of office came to an end in 1546, when he formally re- signed, and retired to his living of Croughton in Northamptonshire, where he died and was buried. We
* S.P.D., 22 Henry VIII., 6.
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have no clear evidence as to Hutchinson's views in the matter of reform, but probably he followed the tone of thought prevalent in the University, and was in sym- pathy with Calvinistic doctrine.
His successor, John Crayford, on the other hand, was certainly an upholder of the ancient faith. The new Master, who was elected with unanimity, is a solitary example in the long list, of recourse being had to Cambridge for a head. His academic history had a curious commencement, but a distinguished conclusion. Ejected from his Fellowship in Queens'* College, Cam- bridge, he came to Oxford, where he was elected Fellow of University in 1519.* He soon, however, returned to Cambridge, where he was Proctor in 1522, elected Master of Clare Hall in 1530, and Vice-Chancellor for two years running in 1534, 1535. In this office he is said to have exhibited an overbearing temper, and to have been chosen ' of purpose with his rough spirit to bustle through much opposition ' (Fuller, 255). If it be true that on the occasion of a disturbance he cut off one man's hand, and seized and flung another out of the Regent House, there seems no doubt about his rough spirit, and sufficient reason for another author's remark that he was a ' better gladiator than Vice- Chancellor.'t In the Church Crayford was in favour, and held much preferment,^ and it is difficult to under-
* Cf. Register.
f Caius, Antiq. Univ. Camb.
$ Crayford was a Prebend of St. Asaph, St. Paul's, Westminster, and Salisbury, Archdeacon of Bucks, Chancellor of Sarum, and held three rectories. He had been one of the committee appointed in 1540 who drew up ' the necessary doctrine and erudition for any Christian man,' printed May 29, 1543. He was an upholder of
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 81
stand what led him to leave Cambridge and accept the mastership of University College. It was, perhaps, well that so rough-spirited a Master did not long continue in office. After a bare year's tenure, he died at his post in August, 1547 — 'brevi morbo con- sumptus.'
Richard Salveyn, a member of an ancient Durham family, who had been elected a Fellow of the house in June, 1547, succeeded Cray ford. Though no sym- pathizer with Reformation doctrines, he held the mastership till 1557, when his retirement was probably brought about by the Royal Visitors of the University, though we are told 'per liberam resignationem viva voce demisit.'*
Serious controversy now ensued on the election of a successor. The choice of the Society fell on one of their own number, George Ellison, whom they elected on November 30, 1551.
The King's (Edward VI.) Visitors, however, amongst whom Richard Cox, Chancellor of the University, was predominant both from his office and his activity, designed the place for Thomas Caius, ' one that had hitherto conformed to all changes, and was now settled a true Protestant.'")* If this is an accurate description of Caius' mental attitude, it goes far to explain the support he received from the Visitors. He had been a
•the seven sacraments as doctrine meet to be taught,' and held that ' men were bound to confess them of their secret sins ' (Burnet, ed. Pocock, iv., 460).
* Register, p. 9.
t Caius' connection with Catherine Parr, for whom he had translated Erasmus1 paraphrase of the Gospel of St. Mark, bears out the view that at this time he had ' settled a true Protestant.'
6
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Fellow of All Souls, and was at this time Registrar of the University and Public Orator. The Society, how- ever, succeeded in maintaining their choice against the influence of the Crown. This task was the more difficult because Cox, in his capacity as Chancellor, represented the ordinary Visitors of the College. An appeal was made from the decision of the Chancellor to the greater congregation. Here Cox asserted that he had a resignation made out to him in legal form by the late Master, but this proved of no avail, for Ellison's election was confirmed, and Cams'* rights and title — 'if he had any1 — were adjudged to be taken away.
That Ellison's sympathies were not with the Re- formers appears fairly certain from the fact that there was no change in the mastership on the accession of Queen Mary. He died in 1557 — hecticd febre con- sumptus — and was immediately succeeded by a devoted adherent of the Church of Rome in the person of Anthony Salveyn, a brother of the former Master of the same name.
At the time of his election Salveyn was Master of Sherburn Hospital in the county of Durham, and held a stall in Durham Cathedral. His views were far too pronounced to permit him to retain his office under a Protestant Sovereign, and he resigned the mastership almost immediately on the death of Queen Mary. The following year he was deprived of his post at Sherburn, and confined to Kirby Moorside, whence he was for- bidden to pass more than five miles northward.
In 1552 the members in College consisted of the Master, seven Fellows, and seventeen subgraduati
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(servants not being included). If we can judge from the part played by Cray ford, from the rejection of Caius, and the elections of Ellison and Salveyn, we must believe that the general sympathies of the body were with the old order rather than the new. This conclusion is further supported by the deprivation of Master Dugdale, who succeeded Salveyn, when in 1561 he refused to acknowledge the Queen's supremacy. Even after this event the same spirit seems to have prevailed, for when William Hall or Hawle, Sub- Warden of Merton, and the leader of the old Catholic party there, was expelled that society after boxing the ears of the new Warden, he found a refuge, and seems to have been welcomed as a resident, in University.
Both schools of thought were, however, represented in the College, and the Protestants reckoned among their number the very striking personality of William Holcot. Though a layman, he obtained a license to preach at the beginning of the reign of Edward VI., and in the pulpit was wont to appear ' wearing a velvet bonnet and damask gown, and sometimes a chain of gold about his neck.' Holcot's position as a country gentleman possessing considerable estate in Berkshire prevented his regular residence in the College, but he 6 would retire thereto now and then to improve his knowledge in theology.'* His interest in this study got him into trouble on the occasion of the disputa- tion in April, 1554, between Cranmer and the divines representing the Universities. Holcot repaired to Bocardo (the gaol at the north gate) in the evening to supply the Archbishop with a book, wanted during the
* Wood's Annals, ii. 129.
6—2
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day's controversy to verify a quotation, and was straight- way apprehended by the bailiffs. Later, ' treason was laid to his charge for the maintenance of Cranmer in his naughtiness.1* The fact that it was possible for such a man as Holcot to live in the College during the reign of Queen Mary, and to retain such pleasant recollections of his life there, that he made the Society a handsome bequest in money and books, is some evidence of a tolerant spirit and the absence of any violent form of partisan feeling. t
The treatment of the reactionaries in the first two years of the reign of Elizabeth was generally fairly in- dulgent, but in Oxford there were not a few cases of deprivation. Amongst the number deprived was James Dugdale, Master of University. He was not present at the visitation by the Vice-Chancellor's Commissary on November 17, 1561, and as the Senior Fellow made oath that he had been duly cited, the Master for non-
* Foxe, Acts, iii. 839, ed. 1634.
f The phraseology of Holcot's will, under which he made his bequest to the College, is very curious. ' Therefore I now wish well that certayne of my said Hawks and Howndes, my books named within a bill being within my Geneva bible, be in time con- veniente conveyede to the mewes and kennells — I mean the library of the Queen's College and the University College in Oxford, where I ones was to learn soo to Hawke and Hunt.' Then, after giving instruction for the use and preservation of the books, ' to make them more mindful thereof,' he leaves them £40 in gold, £20 to the Master and Fellows of the said University College, ' to bestowe it after this manner — my name to be weekly enterde into their Buttrye book of battells, and the bible clerk or some other is to say daily at the master's tables after the last grace, " Lift up yr Harts, etc. Let us give thanks to ye Lord our God for Wm. Holcot. Resp. — It is meete and right so to do." ' The masters of the College were gran ted toward amendment of their commons threepence each, the addition to be called ' Holcot's commons,' etc. (Smith : Transcripts, vii. 243).
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appearance was pronounced contumacious. The same day, an hour after noon, Thomas Caius was elected in his place. On this occasion no difficulty about the election seems to have been raised, and any question of breach of statutes was met by a dispensation from the Visitors. The new Master no longer held office as Registrar of the University ; on July 20, 1552, he had been dismissed because of neglect of his duties. The proceedings in great congregation on the occasion of his ejection showed that this quick and ready scholar had also a quick and violent temper. Caius refused to answer the articles brought against him, and in disgust at the proceedings prepared to leave before the sentence had been pronounced. He struck in the face a master who attempted to bar his exit. For this reprehensible conduct he was fined, and committed to prison by the Vice-Chan cellor, but very soon released, and his fine was reduced to a nominal penalty on condition that he apologized.* Probably his good scholarship gained him sympathy, for Greek scholars at this time were not plentiful, and the negligent Registrar had proved his ability by translating portions of Euripides and Isocrates.t At the present day Caius is remembered not for his shortcomings as Registrar, nor for his trans- lations, but as the doughty champion of the greater antiquity of his own University, eagerly challenging a rash statement of the Public Orator of Cambridge in his address to Queen Elizabeth, asserting the priority of Cambridge. Within a week Thomas Caius
* Reg. Univ. Oxon. O.H.S., vol. ii., p. 81.
t ' Knowledge of the Greek tongue was then so rare that it was scarce professed in public or private by anybody ' (Wood : Annals, ii- 135)-
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wrote in disproof his Assertio Antiqmtatis Oxoniensis Academics. A copy of this in MS. came curiously enough into the hands of another Caius, of Gonville Hall, Cambridge. He, John by name, published in 1568 the Oxford man^s treatise as an appendix to his own book in support of the antiquity of his Univer- sity, entitled De Antiquitate Cantabrigiensis Academic?.* In his efforts to prove his case, Thomas Caius exhibited unquestioning fidelity to tradition rather than a spirit of critical inquiry. Whilst he omitted no fables, how- ever extravagant, concerning the early history of the University, he appears to have preferred not to avail himself of the less inspiring College documents which were ready to his hand.
On the occasion of Queen Elizabeth's visit in 1566, the Oxford champion's work was presented to her by the Vice- Chancellor, but she appears, prudently enough, to have accepted in silence so controversial a volume. In the entertainment prepared in honour of the visit, the poverty of the College prevented much display, and nothing more seems to have been attempted than covering the buildings facing the High Street with copies of laudatory verses, which the Master was well able to compose, lamenting her departure.^
A very unsatisfactory state of things existed in the house at the time of Caius1 election. The long absence
* Both works were again reprinted in 1579, and Thomas Caius1 book, with annotations on the work of his adversary, was printed at Oxford in 1730 by Thomas Hearne. Some portions of the Oxford champion's work were made use of by a more industrious antiquary, Brian Twyne, for his Antiquitatis Academic Oxoniensis Apologia.
t Mr. Pullyn was appointed ' orator ' to receive the Queen, but his services were not required, as she did not specially visit the College (Nichols: Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, 239).
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of the last Master had brought about further disorder in the slender finances. The office of Bursar, so far from being sought as an honour, was shunned as a peril. To force the unwilling Fellows to their duty, the Vice- Chancellor in 1567 ordained that if any Fellow properly elected to the office of Bursar refused to perform the duties, all emoluments should be withheld till he thought better of it. An attempt to enforce economy was now made by cutting off the commons and stipends of Fellows ' pro mensibus recreationum.'
As might be expected from his conduct as Registrar, Caius did not greatly benefit the College by his administration of its property. His reputation as a scholar, however, served to encourage those under his control and tuition in something more than study of theology. Richard Stanihurst, the Irish historian and poet, matriculated in 1563, and contemporary with him as a commoner was William Addington, the translator of the ' Golden Ass.1 About this time several members of the Society destined to distinction in the Church were following one another in rapid succession. John Best, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester, was elected Fellow in 1558 ; Toby Matthew, a future Archbishop of York, matriculated in 1559 ; twelve years later Giles Tomson, who became Bishop of Gloucester in 1612 ; and in 1595, Henry Ussher, afterwards Archbishop of Armagh.
Thomas Caius died in office — perhaps none too soon for the financial prosperity of the College — and was buried in the Church of St. Peter-in- the-East on May 20, 1572. The choice of the electors fell now on William James. Again the statute requiring the Master to be
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' de gremio ac comitiva Collegii ' was broken, for James was Reader in Divinity in Magdalen College. This election did not, however, take place without a struggle among those most intimately concerned. The election was at first deferred ' ob magnas et graves causas ' signified by the senior, Thomas Cheive, to the Fellows. But James was in favour with Leicester, then Chancellor, and a special dispensation ' ab illustrissimo Comite ' having been obtained, he was declared duly elected on June 20, 1572. The selection was a most happy one, and in every way beneficial to the College, for the new Master immediately set about the task of putting his house in order, and so well succeeded that a few years later the Fellows of the Savoy, anxious to gain the services and to profit by the reputation and experience of such a skilled administrator, wrote to Lord Burleigh, begging for the appointment of James to the mastership of their hospital. ' His wisdom and policy in bringing to happy quietness the late wasted, spoiled, and indebted University College in Oxon, whereof he is now Master, doth not only give us hope of great good,' etc.*
In retrieving the fortunes of his house and attaining the happy results thus described, James was assisted by two small but timely bequests of lands and tenements made to the College by Thomas Gold, of St. Giles and John Huet, in 1568 and 1570. Under the will of the latter the Crown Inn and certain meadows were left to found two readerships in Philosophy and Logic, and this is noteworthy as being the first provision formally made for the maintenance of a teaching staff. Financial pressure probably prevented the immediate * Quoted by A. Wood (Athena).
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application of the money, for it was not till 1583 that the readerships were established.
James not only signalized his mastership by establish- ing the financial position of the College on a sound basis, but he was successful in placing the foundation on a more satisfactory legal footing, by securing from the Queen the first definite charter of incorporation. Though by various royal licenses to alienate in mort- main, dating from the second year of Edward III. onwards, the foundation had been recognised, up to this time such recognition had not been made in formal terms nor had the appellation of the College been clearly fixed. This was now accomplished by the Elizabethan charter, which, after detailing at con- siderable length the various styles and titles by which the Society had hitherto passed, lays down that in future they should be ' Unum Corpus re et nomine incorporatum solummodo per nomen Magistri et So- ciorum Collegii Magnae Aulae Universitatis Oxoniensis.' This somewhat cumbrous title, ' the College of the Great Hall of the University,' is to this day the proper legal designation of the Society, though in ordinary use it has given way to the more convenient expression * University College,' and this it has been found possible to still further abbreviate.
Probably enough the fact that the Master was chaplain to the Earl of Leicester* made the procuring of the charter an easier matter than it otherwise might have been, and this connection was further of benefit in inclining Leicester to leave to the College by will a
* He was present at Leicester's death-bed at Cornbury, in Oxfordshire, September 4, 1588.
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property in Wales (which we may conclude from the terms of the will he had probably never seen) for the maintenance of two scholars.*
Several smaller bequests falling in about this time most opportunely assisted the Master in his uphill task. Among these minor benefactions were those of Simon Perrot, who left land and tenements in 1589, and Thomas Browne, Vicar of Basingstoke (but ' Wake- filiensis'), who left by will dated November 12, 1586, £%50 because of his affection for the study of theology. There was also about this time a bequest under the will of the Earl of Bedford, which was never obtained, as the existence of the bequest does not seem to have been brought to the notice of the Society until the end of the next century.
The establishment by James, towards the close of his mastership, of a regular teaching staff was perhaps the most beneficial of his reforms and improvements. When the royal visitation in 1535 had recommended a system- atic delivery of lectures in the Colleges able to afford the same, University was amongst the few unable ' from
* Extract from Earl of Leicester's will, dated August, 1587 (copy in the Muniment-room) : • And I have a fee farme parcel . . . which I will shall be employed to the mayntenance of two Scholars in the University Coll. in Oxford, allowing each of them by the year £20 apiece. These scholars allwayes to be placed by my wife during her life, and after by hym that shall be left myne heir. This fee farme I have not the name of it, but the present rent is about fyve pounds a year, and worthe 50 or three-score pounds when the yeare be out.'
In 1596 a commission of inquiry into the value of the estate was held by order of the Court of Chancery, and in 1618 the court decreed in favour of the College.
An oil-painting of the Earl, attributed to Zucchero, hangs in the dining-room in the Master's Lodgings.
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scarcity in lands and revenues/ Now by a careful husbanding of resources and the help of new benefactors the College was provided with a regular organization for the purpose of teaching. In 1583 provision was made by special ordinance of the Master and Fellows for the appointment of a Dean and four Praelectors. The Dean was to take care that the scholars were present at prayers in the chapel and at the lectures and disputations in the hall. Of the readers, one, ' the catechista,' was to teach the scholars the ' principia et capita ' of the Christian religion, while the others were to lecture on the Greek tongue, philosophy, and logic.
Too soon for the welfare of the College was this able administrator withdrawn from its service. In 1584 James was made Dean of Christ Church, ' wherein he had received his first breeding,' and on September 14, 1584, he resigned the mastership.* His successor, Anthony Gate, is conspicuous as affording the first and last instance of a layman occupying the office. Though he was a Fellow of the College and had taken his M.A. degree thence, a dispensation was secured before his election because he was ' neque minister neque e gremio.' His election was confirmed on September 15, 1584. The absence of all remarkable incidents befalling in College history in the latter years of the reign of Elizabeth is almost certain evidence of a quiet prosperity. The flow of small but timely benefactions which began under the rule of the late Master continued under his successor, and John Freestones gift in 1592 of
* James's reason for resignation is given thus in the Register: 1 Quia non possum utrique muneri commode inservire. ' He was appointed Bishop of Durham in 1616 in succession to Toby Matthew.
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property in and about Pontefract, to be devoted to the maintenance of one Fellow or two scholars, and his later bequest of ^?100 to be laid out in the purchase of the lease of the house on the west side of the then existing buildings, with a view to ultimate annexation, proved effective means of advancing the prosperity of the College. The year marked by the Freeston benefaction was a fortunate one, for in it two Yorkshire cousins, Charles Greenwood and James Radcliffe, entered their names, both of whom were in the next century to prove themselves noted tutors, and the first a considerable benefactor. The last year of Gate's twelve years of office (1596) was, however, the most famous, for in it Edward Herbert, afterward Lord Herbert of Cherbury, entered as a gentleman commoner at the early age of fourteen. The future diplomatist, historian, duellist, and poet, resided in Oxford for four years, two before and two after his early marriage — perhaps too long a time in his later judgment, for in his autobiography he recommends but a year's reading in philosophy and six months' study of logic ; he further adds, ' I am confident a man may have quickly more than he needs of these arts.1
On the death of Gate in August, 1597, the Fellows without demur accepted and unanimously elected a new Master on the recommendation of Lord Buckhurst, then Chancellor of the University. The choice fell on George Abbot, Fellow of Balliol and chaplain to the Chancellor.
The century had begun with a keen struggle as to the mastership, but by its end the power and influence of successive Chancellors had won the day, and the
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Fellows had come to elect on recommendation rather than at their own free will. This change held good till the middle of the next century, and, though interfering with the independence of the Society, proved on the whole beneficial through the general distinction of the nominees thus secured.
The poverty of the foundation during the sixteenth as in the preceding century had continued to act as a constant check on its growth. As more and more came to be expected in the way of instruction from an educational body, so greater and greater became the need for more considerable endowments. Timely bequests already mentioned came to hand in the last thirty years of the century, but only of such a nature as to enable the Society to meet with difficulty the requirements of the day. The reputation of the College as a place of education was increasing ; a future Archbishop was its Master. New buildings were needed for housing growing numbers ; waiting for the buildings was one of the finest sites in a city of fine sites. All seemed ready for advance and growth provided the stream of benefaction, which had hitherto flowed so slender and so slow, could be increased in volume and in force.
Amongst other alumni of the sixteenth century worthy of mention whose names have not occurred in this chapter were :
OTHO HUNT: Benefactor; Fellow, 1559; Rector of Preston Bisset, Bucks, 1562, and of Methley, Yorks, 1569.
FRANCIS TRIGGE : Theologian; Fellow, 1564; Rector of Welbourne ; author of various theological works, and founder of a library at Grantham.
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HENRY USSHER: Archbishop of Armagh (August, 1595); incorporated from Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 1572; B.A. and M.A. from University; died 1613.
Sir GEORGE CROKE : Justice of the King's Bench ; M.A. from the College in 1575.
THOMAS WENTWORTH : Author of the Office and Duty of Executors; entered in 1584 a commoner; Recorder of Oxford and Burgess for the city in various Parliaments.
DUDLEY DIGGES : Master of the Rolls in 1 636 ; entered the College in 1598 ; was Ambassador to Russia in 1618, and to Holland in 1620 ; Author of the Defence of Trade, l6l5, and A Discourse concerning the Rights and Liberties of the Subject, 1642.
HENRY TTLSON : Bishop of Elphin, 1639 ; Fellow, 1599 ; epitaph in parish church, Dewsbury, York.
CHAPTER VI
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY TO THE RESTORATION, 1660
Masters : George Abbot, John Bancroft, Thomas Walker, Joshua Hoyle, and Francis Johnson.
ABBOT, says Clarendon, was a man of 'very morose manners and very sour aspect, which in that time was called gravity.' Though Clarendon was prejudiced, the two portraits of Abbot in possession of the College bear out his description. Yet there is sufficient evidence that a kindly character lay beneath this rugged exterior. Sir Dudley Digges, who had proved himself a 'very towardly pupil,' kept on terms of affectionate intimacy* with him until his death. Influenced by like affection and confidence, Sir George Savile, who had married Wentworth's sister, on his death, left his son under his old Master's guardianship. Abbot was accounted a strict disciplinarian, but the College Register only gives details of reasonable exercise of authority.
On October 17, 1608, we find the Master formally
* 'He calleth me father,' wrote Abbot in 1627, 'and I term his wife my daughter. His eldest son is my godson, and their children are in love accounted my grandchildren.'
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convening the Fellows in chapel assembled for the purpose of examining into the misdeeds of James Harrison, the Bursar. Harrison was solemnly warned that the debts of the house owing at Michaelmas must be paid before Christmas, and was threatened with expulsion if he continued his visits to the King's Head and wanderings 'abroad at night."1 About the same time also a Freeston exhibitioner is warned that his exhibition will be forfeited unless he can give satis- faction for ' delictis quibusdam et scandalis turpiter et contumeliose commissis.' On the other hand, the Fellows could not complain of any strict interpretation of the statutes with regard to residence, for leave of absence for periods varying from one to three years seems to have been freely granted, and these licenses are entered without any record of the reason. Despite the sneer of the Royalist historian, that Abbot as ' Master of one of the poorest Colleges in Oxford had learning sufficient for that province,' the Master was one of the most prominent men of his day in Oxford. The deanery of Winchester, to which he was appointed in 1599, made up for the slender emoluments of his Oxford office, and enabled him to discharge the duties of the vice- chancellorship in 1603 and 1605, the year of King James I.'s visit, with befitting dignity. He was the recognised leader in Oxford of the Calvinistic school of theology, and in growing favour at Court. The College could not fail to benefit indirectly under the headship of a Master of so strong a character and such increasing influence.
In 1609, for the first time for nearly 100 years, University again supplied a Proctor in the person of
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Charles Greenwood.* Elected a Fellow on the Percy foundation, November 18, 1587, he acted as tutor from 1598 to 1604, and from the happy influence which he exercised over his pupils, and the munificence which he later displayed, Greenwood proved himself a true bene- factor to his house. Some light is thrown on his character by a letter (dated December 29, 1633) from Lord Strafford to his nephew Sir William Savile, of Thornhill, in which he writes :
' Consult Mr. Greenwood, who hath seen much and is well able to judge. He was the man your father loved and trusted above all men. His advice will always be upright, and you may safely pour your secrets into him. And I protest to God were I in your place I would think him the greatest and best riches I could or would possess.'
Under Greenwood's care came in October, 1602, Simon Bennet, the second son of Sir Thomas Bennet, Lord Mayor of London, and the benevolent inclinations of the pupil, to whom the College was eventually to owe much, were undoubtedly fostered, and in some part directed, by the character and example of his tutor.
On December 3, 1609, Abbot was created Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, and two months later was translated to London. He did not surrender the headship until March 2, 1610, when his resignation was
* Charles Greenwood was son of James Greenwood, of Hepton- stall and Greenwood Lea, by Cecilia, daughter of Charles Radcliffe, of Todmorden. Greenwood was presented to the rectory of Thorn- hill in Yorkshire by Sir George Savile, the father of one of his pupils, in 1612, but he did not resign his Fellowship until July, 1614. He is said to have preached often in St. Mary's, though ' a modest undervaluing of his own abilities, which, indeed, were very sufficient, did make him more unwilling to show himself in public ' (George Radcliffe' s Letters, p. 81).
7
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made with much formality before a public notary. Richard Bancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, was at the time Chancellor of the University, and the appoint- ment of Master was practically in his hands. His choice fell on a nephew, John Bancroft, late student of Christ Church, and a dispensation from the statute having been obtained on his behalf, he was unanimously elected on March 7, 1609.
The new Master was a capable administrator and effectively maintained the credit of the house. To him it is indebted for the commencement of the useful register of all leases and other deeds, and the keeping and entering up of which was provided for by a grant of 5s. remuneration per annum ' to one of the Fellows.
Up to the beginning of the seventeenth century the College accounts had been kept much in the same fashion as in the fourteenth. For accuracy they depended on the honour and industry of the individual Bursar. As the number of members and amount of property in- creased, some further safeguard was thought necessary to prevent constantly recurring losses. A Bursar was in monetary difficulties in 1608. A like trouble is found a few years later, and we hear from a letter dated May 11, 1613,* the news of Dr. Browne, who was Bursar in 1611 and 1612, having died ' miserably and fearfully in a dead palsy,1 and 'being found to be worth 15s. 2d., and £600 indebted to University College.'
One of the main difficulties of the Bursars up to this time had been the gathering in of the sums due for battels, for which they were held personally respon- sible. To avoid this difficulty and enable their officer
* See George Radcliffe's letter to his mother from Gray's Inn, May ii, 1613 (Radcli/e's Letters, p. 94).
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to secure payment a College ordinance was passed in March, 1612, making the unfortunate tutors respon- sible for the battels of those under their charge, out of their own commons and other emoluments, until the claim should be satisfied. This regulation had some good effect, but at a later period it was found necessary for the Bursars to provide ' sponsors ' for themselves to guarntee the accuracy of accounts and secure the balances due.
A. Wood (A thence) speaks of Bancroft as being ' at great pains and expense during his mastership to recover and settle the ancient funds belonging to that foundation.1 Existing College documents only give details of the Master's reforms in internal administra- tion, unless an entry in a Bursar's book of 1616 for 'A payre of gloves for the Lord Chancellor and a box to carry them in ' implies some business or threat of proceedings in the law-courts.
Tutorial duties were at this time multifarious. After the passing of the ordinance just referred to, the tutors signed a formal declaration of liability for the discharge of the battels of those whose names they subscribed. Every detail of expense in the pupil's collegiate life was under the inspection and direct control of his tutor. The almost motherly care displayed in some of the accounts remaining in the College treasury is perhaps explained by the comparative youth of the ordinary undergraduate at matriculation.* So it is usual to find
* The average age of entry at University in the first half of the seventeenth century is about fifteen. During the mastership of Anthony Gate three of his name, and presumably of his family, matriculated together at the very early age, respectively, of eleven, twelve, and thirteen. Edward Herbert (Lord Herbert of Cherbury) matriculated at the age of fourteen.
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details of outlay on his behalf which imply the status of a schoolboy : ' vamping his boots,' ' ribbon for his hat,1 ' mending his suit,' ' making his gown.'* Medicine f is provided and pocket-money is doled out ; even his con- tributions in the College chapel seem to have been handed to him for the purpose by his tutor. Very close intimacy arose, owing to the performance of these parental duties during a period of three or four years, and lifelong attachments resulted. Jonas Radcliffe, whose virtues as tutor are described at length on a tablet to his memory in the antechapel,^ seems to have been especially well fitted for the post, which he filled from the beginning of the century to the time of his death in Oxford in 1626.
The amusements of the undergraduate at this period, though not carried to excess, were sufficiently varied. Shooting with the long-bow was in high favour at University, the exercise being patronized both by Abbot and Bancroft. ' Our Master,' wrote George Radcliffe, May 28, 1610, ' loves shooting, and we must follow.' Bowls and ' prickes ' (a game like bowls) were frequently played, and maintained their popularity
* Brilliana, Lady Harley, writes to her son in 1638: 'I like it well that your tutor has made you handsome clothes,' etc. (Camden Society, Letters of Brilliana Harley, p. 22) ; and May 7, 1639 : ' If yr tutor does not intend to bye you silke stockens, etc., I will bestow a peare on you.'
t Charles Greenwood (tutor) ' caused a pomander to be made for me by his direction (i.e., as a disinfectant against plague), and another preservative to lay to my harte ' (George Radcli/e's Letters, p. 41).
J ' . . . fructum et usum eruditionis . . . quern ille nobilium juvenum animis moribusque informandis impendit, solertissimus morum architectus, et bonse mentis faber.'
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throughout the century ; and in 1673 Obadiah Walker recommends the exercise for young men as ' good for the reins, stone, and gravel.1*
Most Colleges possessed a 'ball-court1 in the seven- teenth century. University from a very early period possessed an attraction of this kind ; mention is made of the ' sphaeristerium 1 before the middle of the fifteenth century. In 1616 it is noticed as the tennis-court.
Fees for lessons in dancing and fencing frequently occur in the accounts of the more wealthy students who were preparing themselves for the role of men of fashion. Of the general regard for exercise as necessary to health there is abundant evidence, but anything approaching the violence of modern athletics seems to have been unknown. ' If you use to swinge,1 says Bril liana, Lady Harley, to her son Ned, at Magdalen Hall in 1638, 'let it be not violently, for exercise should be rather to refresh than tyer nature.1^
In 1610 George Radcliffe, writing from the College, J tells his mother that ' the University is much reformed about drinking, long hair, and other vices, especially our house, out of which two have lately gone to avoid expulsion for drunkenness.1 Smoking seems to have been regarded as an almost equally serious offence. On April 22, 1619, the Fellows met in solemn conclave, and warned Samuel Wilson, one of Lord Leicester's scholars and a bachelor, that he should not enter any house in the town ' ad potandum vel ad fumigandum cerebrum,1 vulgariter vocatum, ' to take tobacco,1 and that
* O. Walker on Education, p. 70.
f See Letters of Brilliana Harley, Camden Society, p. 13. J Letter, December 14, 1610, from University College (see Life and Correspondence of (Sir] George Radcliffe , p. 64).
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he should neither drink nor smoke in his room, or in other parts of the College, on pain of expulsion. Although under Abbot and during the early years of Bancroft's mastership some check may have been put on drinking, the reform does not seem to have been permanent, for a very few years later John Elmhirst, Fellow, Tutor, and Bursar, was in difficulties from the accumulation of ' beer scores,1 for which he was liable. We find the first items in Alderman Smith's ' note for beer due from Mr. Elmhirst ' to have been large enough, and as time passed on they rapidly increased in amount : for four scores ending Lady day, 1629, the amount is ^115 Is. 2d., but for four scores for the year 1635 we reach the alarming amount of ^211 6s. 3d. The example and general laxity of this easy-going tutor can hardly have been beneficial to those in his charge.
From a buttery-book of 1615 to 1631 we find the number of undergraduates to have been twenty-nine to thirty, with hardly any variation in this interval. The College servants are described as pmcerna, promus, biblwtliista, coquus, subcoquus, janitor, bakers and brewers. No growth in numbers, but the fact that the existing buildings were in need of repair, brought about a determination in 1620 to rebuild the front of the College.
Bancroft had a love of building which later, when he became Bishop of Oxford, he was able to indulge in the erection of Cuddesdon Palace. He seems to have much desired to commence the rebuilding of the house during his mastership. Possibly he was encouraged to actually embark in this great undertaking by Robert
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Gunsle/s bequest, in 1618, of the rectory of Flamstead in Hertfordshire, for the maintenance at the College of four scholars, from Rochester and Maidstone schools. On November 12, 1620, an agreement was entered into with John Acroyde and John Bentley, the Halifax free- masons, for rebuilding the north side of the College from the east end of the Master's Lodgings, excepting the tower. This particular plan was, however, never to be carried out. It seems probable that about this time the intention of Charles Greenwood and Simon Bennet to benefit the College so materially as to render rebuild- ing possible on a larger scale, had been divulged, and in the matter of reconstruction their pleasure was now awaited.
On August 23, 1632, Bancroft resigned the master- ship on his appointment as Bishop of Oxford. During the twenty years of his tenure any impression left on the College by the marked theological views of his predecessor had disappeared. Throughout his own term of office Bancroft had shown himself a moderate High Churchman, and when Laud became Chancellor in 1630, the Society was well prepared to fall in with the prevalent Arminianism, and does not seem to have been influenced by any traditional sympathy with the doctrinal teaching of its old Master, or with his deep- seated antagonism to the Laudian theories of Church government. This spirit had been shown in 1628, when they despatched a lengthy Latin letter of congratulation to Laud, the rising power in the Church, on his appointment as Bishop of London ; and, again, when the Chancellor was translated to Canterbury, the College, as ' Filia natu maxima, Collegium Universitatis,1
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expresses satisfaction, and offers humble congratula- tions.*
A new Master, Thomas Walker, was elected on August 31, 1632. The appointment seems again to have been made on the Chancellor's dictation ; a dis- pensation was granted by him and he duly ratified the election. Walker was intimately connected with Laud ; not only was he a member of St. John's College, but he married Jane Robinson, a niece of the future Arch- bishop. In spite of a savour of personal interest about the appointment, it was fully justified in the result, for, in the words of William Smith, in general a distributor of but scant praise, ' He was a person never to be named by the Fellows of that College without his due commendations'' (Annals, pref., xviii).
In the first year of Walker's mastership occurred the death of Sir Simon Bennet, who had been advanced to the degree of Baronet in 1631. He married the daughter of Sir Arthur Ingram, but, fortunately for University College, had no family. His life was passed at Beach- ampton, Bucks,f an estate purchased by his father in 1600, where he had made a great reputation for 'maintaining a lavish hospitality.1 In 1629 he had purchased from the King for £6,000 the estate of Hanley Park, originally within the precinct of Whittle- bury Forest, and containing 863 acres of old enclosure. This property^ he now left by will to University
* The College did not, however, confine itself to empty compli- ment, as in 1632 there is an entry in the accounts of ' a paire of gloves for the Lord Bishop of London, £3 6s. 8d.'
t See Lipscomb's Buckinghamshire, ii. 528.
} The application of the bulk of the property, after the death of Lady Bennet, was settled by a decree in Chancery in 1640, enforcing
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College, reserving power to his executors to grant the profits of the estate for a time to the Master and Fellows for the purpose of rebuilding. Bennet's inten- tion had probably been for some time known to some of, if not all, the Fellows, but his death at so early an age could hardly have been anticipated.
Charles Greenwood was not to be outdone in generosity by his former pupil, and, pending the time when the first returns from the Hanley estate could be secured, provided in his lifetime ^1,500 for the commencement of the great work of rebuilding. On April 14, 1634, the work was begun, but the short account of its character and progress is reserved for a future chapter dealing with the existing build- ings.
The numbers in College steadily increased after Walker's accession and the Bennet benefaction, and it is difficult to understand how increased accommodation was provided during the process of down-pulling and up-raising. These pending alterations must have made any entertainment impossible on the great occasion of the King's visit in 1639. The only outlay by way of preparation for a chance visit is of 10s. spent ' in whitening the old hall against the King^s coming,' and of c^lO for 'blew searge cushions and silke for the Chappel,1 which latter expense was probably incurred rather out of respect for the Chancellor than in welcome
a recommendation by Laud for the establishment of four Fellowships and four scholarships. This arrangement was reversed in 1649, on the application of the relations, and a special reservation was made in favour of founder's kin. On the Restoration, however, the scheme of 1649 was revoked, and the original Laudian proposals reverted to.
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to the King. Probably enough the Fellows were not in sufficient funds to make much more display on the occasion, for we know that about this time or soon after the College finances were in sore confusion.
In 1637 serious deficits owing to Bursar Elmhirst's irregularities caused the passing of a College ordinance insisting on the nomination of two sponsors for each Bursar, taken ' from among the Masters,1 to guarantee the College against possible losses.
The defaulting Bursar, whose letters prove his easy, careless good nature, pleads his ' ill-husbandry, careless- ness, oversight, kind-heartedness, or whatever you may please to call it.' All his creditors were not so long- suffering as his own College, and a threat of one indignant creditor c to make him see the Parliament ' frightened him considerably, and he writes to the Master in 1641, * for I had loath there be sifted where they winnow with a whirlwind,' and expresses his wonder that ' the man should be so transported as to wish both against discre- tion and charity.' The stress of the times and the rapid succession of events of absorbing interest possibly saved Elmhirst from his importunate creditors, and it is not until 1657 that we find a note of ' the pricing of his goods, his books, and bedding.' Even under this drastic treatment the habits of the jovial but imprudent Bursar are unchanged, and ' given him a bottle of sack, 2s. 6d.,' is the last entry regarding him.
During the eight critical years preceding the struggle in arms between King and Parliament, the attention and energies of the Society were concentrated rather on their building operations than political concernments. But the work was still uncompleted when the rapid course
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of events in 1642 turned men's thoughts from all minor business to the dreadful realities of civil war.
The political bias of the great majority of the house, from the Master downwards, during the great struggle was never doubtful. The King's appeal to the University for assistance in money, dated from York, July 7, 1642, was promptly enough met by Walker, in whose hands the control of the College finance seems now to have been unreservedly placed.
For lack of other available means, the bulk of the College plate was pawned, on July 21, to one Thomas Saunders, for an advance of ^150, and that sum, the first from any Oxford College, was immediately despatched to the King.* From a schedule of plate dated 1634, there seems then to have been some 1,200 ounces in all, about 400 ounces of which were in use in the Master's Lodgings. Probably a considerable portion of this was packed in the ' large wainscot box with lock and key "* which appears in Walker's private account to have been bought for the purpose, and now handed over as security for the loan.
The balance of the plate, for the moment retained, comprised the Communion vessels, the Fellows' bason and ewer presented by Thomas Radcliffe, and the ' Parlia- ment ' bowl. This seems to have been hidden in a pri- vate house on the approach of Lord Say. It was there
* The form of the royal receipt is worth noting :
1 July the 3oth 1642.
1 Received the day and year above-said of the Master and Fellows of University College the sum of One Hundred and Fifty Pounds for his Majesty's use according to his letters directed to the University of Oxford — I say so much received
4 per me RICH. CHAWORTH.
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discovered, confiscated (along with the plate of Christ Church)* on the ground of concealment, and sent up to London. It would appear that the pledged plate was subsequently redeemed and handed over to the King^s receivers at the beginning of the following year, for there is a mint receipt dated January 17, 1643, acknow- ledging 61 lb. 6 oz. 5 dwt., of an estimated value of £190 4s. 2d.
Thomas Walker, the Master, and Obadiah Walker, who had been Bursar during the years 1641 and 1642, were among the delegates appointed by Convocation, September 1, 1642, to consult and provide for the safety of the University. This body was known among the undergraduates as the Council of War. The fact that so small and poorf a College supplied two of the dele- gates exhibits plainly the prevailing spirit, which was undoubtedly in favour of the Crown.
From the date of the King^s arrival in Oxford, on October 29, 1642, six days after the Battle of Edgehill, to the surrender of the city, there are but few facts to record specially bearing on the history of the College.
The Register gives little or no information on the events of the time. Continually recurring leaves of absence to Fellows are the main entries in 1642, 1643, 1644, but it is to be noted that the keeping of the Register was never abandoned, and that during this period five new elections were made to Fellowships and
* A note by B. Twyne, quoted by A. Wood, speaks of it being found in the house of one Thomas Smith in St. Aldate's.
f When it was agreed in Convocation, on September 6, that £1,000 should be raised out of the several Colleges in such propor- tions as had been used on the occasion of public days, University College was rated with the lowest in amount.
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scholarships. There is no evidence of any interruption in the life of the society, even of a temporary kind. Numbers in the years dating from March, 1644, to March, 1645, and from May, 1645, to May, 1646, ran down to a very low ebb, and in those years the redditus cubiculorum is returned as ' Nil.1
Though the Bursar's account shows the income from land to have diminished between 1636 and 1640, the Parliamentary order* that rents shall no longer be paid to the Colleges seems, in the case of University, to have been practically disregarded, for the ordinary rents between 1642 and 1647 were paid without any remark- able variation, but receipts from extraordinary sources nearly disappeared in 1646. It has been often re- marked that the war did not materially affect business relations, but, all the same, it seems surprising to find the College in the middle of the disastrous year 1646 calmly distraining for a portion of the Arncliffe tithe and securing the money in safety.
The Master's private account -book for the period gives some idea of the part which even a small Oxford College was expected to take in the work of defence. Here we find items of expenditure ' for the raising of the bulwarks,' the < maintenance of soldiers,' and ' laid out in ammunition.' All between the age of sixteen and sixty were called upon to take up pick and spade and work on the earthworks or pay for substitutes, and the first of the above items probably relates to the cost of substituted labour. Private persons were invited to receive soldiers into their houses according to their means, and University appears to have responded to
* April, 1643.
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the best of its power by the maintenance of twenty- eight troopers for several months.* Considerable sums were spent in ' provisions against the two sieges ' — that is, for the unsuccessful fifteen days1 siege by Fairfax and Cromwell in the summer of 1645, and for that which resulted in the final surrender.
Besides taking a part as a contributory in the contest, the College was well represented in the field. In the muniment-room is a list of the members who took up arms for the King. Among the more distinguished of these may be named Sir Philip Monckton (of Cavil 1 and Holroyd in Yorkshire), Sir Thomas Lunsford, Sir Henry Chicheley, James Washington, Conyers D'Arcy, Francis Goring, Richard Thornhill, all Colonels of regiments in the royal service. Armigeri and plebeii occur indis- criminately in the list, most of them holding commis- sions, but some few serving as ordinary troopers. Among these was Thomas Henshawe, who in after-life proved himself a skilled diplomatist in the service of the Crown-
The College chroniclers have not thought fit to pre- serve the names of those who may have served the Parlia- ment. There were some, but probably a small minority compared with the Royalist partisans. Of these the most notorious were Henry Martin, and William Say,f
* A letter similar to that sent to other Colleges was received from the King inviting the undertaking of the maintenance of foot-soldiers at 43. a week for one month, and assuring the Society, upon the word of a King, that ' this charge shall lye on you but one month. ' The King in his letter says: 'We expect this supply from "par- ticulars, not from the public stock, which we believe to be exhausted already for our ayde." '
f Martin entered the College as a gentleman commoner, October 31, 1617, and took his B.A. degree in 1619. He was excepted from the Act of Indemnity, and imprisoned for life, first at
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regicides. Martin was a Colonel in the Parliamen- tary forces and Governor of Reading. He was a well- known and popular character in the Long Parliament, where he sat as M.P. for Berkshire, the fact that he was ' an incomparable wit for repartees ' perhaps making up for his shortcomings in being as ' far from a Puritan as light is from darknesse.1
The surrender of the city took place on July 25, 1646, and on the face of them the conditions were highly honourable both to the garrison and the Univer- sity. The former were to march out with all accoutre- ments and with banners flying, and the rights and possessions of both the University and the Colleges were saved under a special article in the terms. The concessions made to Oxford as a seat of learning were probably due to the kindly sympathy of Fairfax. Other members of his party had but small intention of suffering either Colleges or University to enjoy their so-called rights.
The years immediately following the surrender con- stitute a period of hopeless unsettlement in Oxford life. In the town Cavaliers and courtiers were exchanged for Parliamentarian soldiers and Presbyterian preachers com- missioned to complete the work of conquest by the art of persuasion. In Latin doggerel verse* a Royalist poet
Windsor, then in Chepstow Castle, where he died, September 9, 1680. Say matriculated in 1619.
* ' Calcavi atrium quadratum Quo juvenum examen Confluxit olim : video pratum Quod densum tegit gramen.'
Ruslica Academic Oxon nnper Reformats Descriptio, by John Allibond, 1648 (Somers Tracts, v. 502).
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sings of grass-grown courts and empty quadrangles.* Most of the Fellows were absent, and such as remained sullenly awaited the Parliamentary visitation. The process of visitation, under Order dated May 1, 1647, was met with strenuous resistance and thwarted by every ingenious device calculated to gain time. On June 1, 1647, Convocation appointed delegates, of whom Obadiah Walker was one, who were empowered to answer the Visitors on their behalf, and who drew up reasons for refusing to take the tests to be imposed, i.e., the Solemn League and Covenant, the Negative Oath, and the Ordinances of Discipline and Worship. The Committee for Reformation of the University sitting at Westminster was, however, of a temper not to be trifled with, and in November cited before it the leading ' malignants ' in the University. Thomas Walker was among those cited to appear, but excused himself by a physician's certificate ' by reason of his infirmity. 'f As to the gravity of his ailment we have no evidence, but his name did not appear in the list of those delegated by Convocation in June, where, considering his previous activity as a Royalist, it is natural to look for it.
Tiring of the resistance to their Commission, the Parliamentary Committee accelerated proceedings by ordering the sending down more troops in order to enforce obedience to the visitation. This rude form of
* The average number annually entering the College on matricula- tion had been about ten; but during the years of the war these numbers are gradually reduced till they vanish altogether. In 1642 there were five entries, in 1643 one, in the next three years none. In 1647 the recovery commences, and we find two newcomers.
t A. Wood, Annals, iii. 533.
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pressure was sufficient to bring the various Colleges before the Visitors as they were summoned.
On May 18, 1648, the date also fixed for the appearance of the members of Balliol and Jesus, eight Fellows only appeared to represent University. These were equally divided in their answers to the searching interrogatories, four expressing in various terms their inability to submit, and the remaining four making unqualified submission. Obadiah Walker expressed himself as ' being not yet satisfied that he might submit to this visitation.*1 Richard Washington was the leader of the Parliamentarian party in the College ; he had been elected Fellow in 1626, but left Oxford for Dublin, where he became Provost of Trinity in 1640. On the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion he withdrew from his post, and was readmitted to his Fellowship at University. Although his political opinions were well known, he was made Bursar in March, 1646. His answer reads thus :
' I do freely and conscientiously submit myself to this visitation authorized by Parliament, as I think I ought to do, and as I have done formerly in another kingdom to a like visitation sent from the Parliament there to the College where I then lived.'
The Master does not appear to have entered an appearance before the Visitors, but there is little doubt as to the answer he would have given. On July 8, 1648, Obadiah Walker, Henry Watkins, and Thomas Silvester were expelled the University, and two days later the Master was removed from his office. There is a note in his handwriting inserted in the Register at the Restoration in which he gives vent to his indigna-
8
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tion : ' Mense Julii die x, 1648, amotus est Doctor Walker hujus Collegii magister legitimus per visitatores illegitimos.1 Joshua Hoyle, a friend of Washington, and lately Professor of Divinity in Dublin, was put in Walkers place on the day of his ejectment.
Hoyle, who had been a Fellow of Trinity (Dublin), seems to have returned to Oxford from Dublin about the same time as Washington, and was among those who rendered active assistance to the Visitors. By them he had been appointed (July 5) a member of the committee for the examination of candidates for Fellowships. He was made Regius Professor of Divinity in September, 1648, and was a member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines. The new Master soon discovered that there was more of honour than profit in his office. The value of the headship was returned to the Visitors as being but £30 per annum for 'dyett and stipend.' They reported the insufficiency of this amount to the Committee of Lords and Commons, and recommended that some order should be made to ' save the Doctor aforesaid from those debts which are cast upon University College.1 An attempt was made by the Visitors to grapple with the financial strain in this particular case by an Order of October 19, 1649, that in consideration of the debts of the College 'three Fellowships should continue void for the payment thereof.1 But they seem to have found it difficult to adhere to this prudent resolution, owing to the pressure put upon them to oblige their friends and supporters in Parliament in the matter of Fellowships.
The main feature of the Parliamentary period in the administration of the Colleges is the absolute depriva-
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 115
tion of self-government, and subjection to the control of an external body, in its turn governed by the Parliamentary Committee in London.
In University, the Master, five Fellows, seven scholars, the Butler, and two others, probably commoners, were expelled between July 8 and October 17, 1648, most of them not appearing to answer the Visitors1 interroga- tories. Most of these places were now filled without any pretence of formal election, on the strength of the Parliamentary Order of July 2, 1646, inhibiting elec- tions to places of preferment ' till the pleasure of Parlia- ment be made known therein.1
The formula usually inserted in. the Register runs as follows : ' Whereas the Committee hath not yet declared the said College to be in a capacity of making their election in a statutable way, and being informed of the
piety and sufficiency of learning of ,"* etc. ; and
this is repeated till 1655, when, in November, the first free election by Master and Fellows was again made. In this interval on several occasions the Society appears to have made a struggle for independence. Thus in June, 1651, the Visitors declared the election of Matthew Bee by the Fellows to be void, but never- theless elected him themselves. In November, a letter having been received from Cromwell, then Chancellor of the University, in favour of John White, the Master and Fellows elected him, but the Visitors annulled the election on the ground that Cromwell had been deceived 4 by untruths contained in a Petition.1 The absolute control of the Committee was extended to the appointment of servants, for when in January, 1652, the College ventured to choose a manciple, the
8—2
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appointment was immediately declared void, but never- theless formally remade.
The Master, Joshua Hoyle, died on December 6, 1654. and was buried in the old chapel, which was still standing. He filled the office at a very difficult time not unworthily.
The zealots of the Restoration might well have left untouched the entry in the Register, ' Domino spiritum reddidit,1 but this seems to have been regarded as open to question, and was altered to ' Fatis cessit.' There is evidence to show that Hoyle was of a tolerant temper unusual in his party. The fact that the learned Abraham Woodhead, though ejected from his Fellowship, was permitted to retain chambers in the College, and was consulted by the Visitors in conjunction with the Master and Fellows on more than one matter of difficulty, implies an absence of the bitter party feeling which prevailed in many Colleges.
Hoyle^s death gave rise to an interesting struggle for the mastership, and colour is added to the records by the intrigues of Ezreel Tonge as shown in his letters. Tonge had entered the College in May, 1639. He had a considerable number of friends in Parliament, and was the first Fellow put in by the Visitors, July 14, 1648. He had served as Bursar in the year 1650-51, but vacated his Fellowship in 1651.* Throughout he seems to have entertained an ambition for the mastership.
* The reason for Tonge's practical expulsion is not clear. It may have been on account of his marriage, which took place in 1649, to Jane Simpson, daughter of Dr. Simpson, Rector of Pluckley in Kent, to which rectory he succeeded ; or perhaps it was owing to his unwillingness to assent to the Independent engagement in 1651.
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Some weeks before Hoyle's death Tonge obtained a letter to the Vice-Chancellor from his Parliamentary patrons, who, amongst others, included Thomas Wid- drington, John Lilburne, Thomas Harrison, and Robert Kilburn, with the intention, apparently, of confining the choice of Master to the Chancellor, and of checking any claim on the part of either the Visitors or the Fellows to elect to the post. Tonge appears to have followed this course, 4 knowing ye little respect the Fellows of the College did bear him ' (Rawlinson, D. 107) ; but if he put his trust, as seems likely, in the Protector, he was disappointed in the result.
Some correspondence between Ezreel and the Master and Fellows in 1652 shows that, as W. Smith puts it, 6 there was no great love or amity among these new intruders.1 The ex-Bursar repeatedly demands a sum of money for items due to him during his term of office, most of which he says he might have recovered long since had he not been desirous to know ' whether love and Christianity would prevail with such as understand right and wrong.1 One particular, ( my sword and belt which cost me 17s. Gd.,' and which seem to have been left behind, is made much of, and an offer on the part of the College to settle the claim for 4s. is indignantly repudiated. Later episodes in the life of this worthy, who figured as a witness at the trial of the Regicides and ended his chequered career as the dupe of Titus Gates,* exhibit him as a character * so active in his own
* In 1679 Tonge introduced the narrative of the alleged Popish plot to Danby, and about this time had several interviews with the King. Weak and credulous, he probably at first seriously believed in Gates, from whom, however, he soon attempted to dissociate himself.
118 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
concernments ' as to have been altogether unsuited for the headship of a college.
When they became aware of Tonge's manoeuvres, the Fellows, roused to action by the dreadful possibility of so undesirable a head being foisted upon them, met hurriedly, and, disregarding alike Chancellor and Visitors, elected Thomas Thornton (a Fellow put in by the Visitors on May 29, 1651). The election was approved by the Vice-Chancellor and Doctors, but on the motion of George Gale, the Senior Fellow, and another, an appeal to Convocation was allowed. . Sub- sequent events show the authority by which the affair was brought to a conclusion. A letter dated Decem- ber 18, 1654, from Vice-Chancellor Owen to the Protector, explains and excuses his conduct, and concludes, fi expecting your Highness1 further direction for our future proceeding.'* The direction was not long in coming. The recent election was ' nulled by power then in being,' but the deprived Master was treated with consideration, and granted by Cromwell the rectory of Wheathampstead.t
Francis Johnson, Fellow of All Souls, one of Cromwell's chaplains, was his nominee for the post, and consequently became the new Master.
Under the date April 5, 1655, we find in the Register the beginning of an entry by George Gale, Senior Fellow, as to the election ; but the writing stops abruptly and the rest of the page remains blank, as if the Society had suddenly recognised the fact that they
* Ex Reg. Convoc., p. 259, quoted in W. Smith's Transcripts, xi. 222.
t 5. P. Dom., August, 1660.
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had but little voice in the matter. Another recom- mendation was now also made by ' His Highness ' in favour of Richard Griffiths, who thus stepped into Tonge's Fellowship, which had been ordered to be left void toward payment of the debts of the College till March 27, 1655.
Difficulties naturally consequent on the almost entire change in the governing body had, in the case of University, been aggravated by a recurrence of law- suits. Litigation, indeed, seems to have been an almost invariable consequence of benefactions. Mention has already been made of the reversal of the decree in Chancery dealing with the Bennet foundation, and the settlement of this somewhat complicated matter was the source of constant trouble and endeavour to the Visitors during the Commonwealth period.
So great was the financial embarrassment, that both Master and Fellows, as appears from an order of Visitors in 1649, were temporarily out of residence from an insufficiency of means. The College further engaged in an unsuccessful struggle with Anthony Foxcroft, the acting executor under Charles Greenwood^s will. Besides the benefaction made in his lifetime, Greenwood had left provision by will for the endowment of two Fellowships and two scholarships. A lengthy and expensive litigation with the Yorkshire executor, the details of which are obscure, led to an unsatisfactory result, and the further intended benefaction was lost.
Of the Fellows and scholars put in by the Parlia- mentarian Visitors, none attained great distinction. Tonge was perhaps the most notorious ; among the rest, Rowland Stedman, appointed scholar in 1649, and
120 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
Richard Griffiths, became Nonconformist divines of some note. William Squire, the first Fellow to be again formally elected by the College in 1655, became well known as a polemical theologian.
The newcomers were, however, by no means such mere predatory interlopers as they have been represented.* They fell in easily enough with the spirit of collegiate life, and did what lay in their power for the benefit of their house. From the year 1651 onwards, efforts were made by individual contributions to replenish the empty plate-chest. Tonge set the example by his gift of a 20-ounce tankard. In 1655 and 1656 a determined and successful attempt was made to raise by voluntary subscription the amount necessary to complete the building of the Hall. The money was got together in nearly sixty different contributions, varying from £1 to £50, and the work was accomplished in 1657.
The reappearance in the accounts for 1656 of the item ' pro solatiis,' on the occasion of the annual gaudies on Trinity and St. Cuthberfs Day, is a small indication of the revulsion of feeling in men's minds in favour of re-establishing immemorial customs which had been suppressed as superstitious in the early days of the Commonwealth. It is quite possible that by the time of the Restoration Master Francis Johnson and his Fellows would have been quite
* Wood sneers at the intruders generally (Athena, vol. iv., p. 300), contrasting the liberality of the President of Magdalen College, displaced in 1648, restored in 1660, with that of those ' who had been thrust into his office by the Parliament and Oliver for their saintship and zeal to the blessed cause, and gave not a farthing, but raked and scraped all they could get thence, as the rest of the saints did in the University.'
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prepared to accept the new order of things, but such an opportunity was not given them.
In July, 1660, there was another, but this time a royal visitation. The process of re-establishment of the old officers seems, in the case of University, to have been effected with dignity and deliberation. On July 31 the allegation that Thomas Walker had been unduly ejected in 1648 was formally made before the Bishop of Oxford, sitting as royal Visitor in the House of Congregation. The next day the same allegation was repeated (by Hirst, acting as procurator for Thomas Walker) in the presence of Francis Johnson, who was interrogated 4 by what right or title he possesseth the Master's place.' The poor Master,* who, according to Calamy, was ' not gifted in elocution,' declared that ' he was put in there by Oliver, Lord Protector, and the Lords and Commons, which was then the supreame power.' This was enough for the Commissioners, who pronounced him unduly and illegally admitted, and restored Thomas Walker to his old place.t
* Francis Johnson died in London on October 9, 1677 : a eulogistic sermon entitled • The death of God's Moses's considered ' was preached on the occasion of his funeral by J. LI. In this the preacher describes the late Master as 'in his last winter stormy night, of trouble and persecution being indeed inveloped in the cloud, as if quite set ... yet in fairer times as giving as great a light in his lesser sphere as did Moses in his greater.'
t A full account of the proceeding is entered in the Register in the handwriting of Walker.
CHAPTER VII
FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE REVOLUTION
Masters : Thomas Walker, Richard Clayton, and Obadiah Walker.
4 THE scene of all things is now changed, and altera- tions made in the countenances, actions, manners, and words of all men,' wrote Anthony Wood of the effect in Oxford of the Restoration (Annals, iii. 697). The changes brought about at University were not, how- ever, so considerable as might have been expected. A few weeks after the reinstatement of the Master, three of the ejected Fellows — Abraham Woodhead, Obadiah Walker, and Thomas Radcliffe — were restored. Of the ejected scholars none appear to have demanded again their former places, nor does there seem to have been any 4 casting out ' of those chosen in the interregnum 4 as factious, and not fit to make collegiates.' Possibly some of the ejected scholars may in a period of twelve years have married, or have lost their taste for a collegiate life. In other Colleges but a small minority returned, for Wood calculates that the restored did not amount to a sixth part of the ejected.
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It is clear that throughout Oxford many of the Independent nominees to Fellowships and scholarships had for some time before the Restoration modified the tone of their Puritanism, and that, in externals at any rate, the fervour of their religious zeal was less promi- nent. Some of them were even looking forwards to a re-establishment of Church government based on the old model as a likely and not altogether undesirable event. Among those who had been appointed in University by the Visitors, none seem to have openly professed extreme fanatical opinions, or if held, such views were at the Restoration studiously concealed. In the College documents there is no evidence of anything but a hearty concurrence in the return to the old con- ditions of Oxford life.
Fairer, who had been appointed Fellow in 1653, sub- sequently became Master, and others, such as Squire,* followed the current opinions of the times, and reaped their reward in holding ample preferments in a re- established Church. The Puritan idea was never in harmony with Oxford College life. Before the end of the Commonwealth a return to old customs seems to have come about in many Colleges, with the tacit approval of those who had been specially chosen to uphold a stricter regime. With the Restoration all the familiar items in the bursarial accounts, marking the old times of rejoicing in the College year, make their reappearance. ' Faggots for the 5th of November,' 6 Greenery for Christmas,' charges pro festls on Trinity and St. Cuthberfs Bay, show plainly enough that a dismal piety was no longer in fashion. Richard Griffiths,
* Rector of Rolleston, Derby ; Canon of Lichfield, 1675.
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Cromwell's own nominee, was Bursar in the year of the Restoration, and what his feelings may have been when he entered ' 8s. 3d. for a bone-fire at the King's Coronation ' we can only surmise. The performance of stage-plays in the Colleges for the entertainment of notable visitors, and especially about Christmas time, was now again revived. A casual note by Wood shows ' Wit in a Constable,1 by Glapthorne, to have been played in University on January 7, 1665, and ' The Wedding,' January 13, 1666 (Wood's Life and Times, O.H.S., ii. 2).
The first serious business undertaken by the restored Master, Thomas Walker, was with regard to the adminis- tration of the Bennet benefaction. All the alterations made on the recommendation of the Parliamentarian Visitors, and in consequence of the suit of the next-of-kin, were now swept away by a decree of Chancellor Hyde, October 25, 1662, annulling the additional decree made in 1649, and confirming the settlement as ordained by Laud and approved by Lord Keeper Finch in 1640. The securing of this settlement, by which the old and new foundations were incorporated, was an absolute necessity for the prosperity of the College, still far too small and feeble in resources to maintain the dual financial control attempted in the Commonwealth period, which had resulted in endless confusion and disputes.
Another difficulty which the Master had to face (one which in the case of his society was only too familiar) was the settlement of the College debts. Most of the Oxford Colleges found themselves in financial straits on the Restoration, but the slender income of University
FROM THE RESTORATION 125
was, in addition to the ordinary difficulties of the time, overburdened by law charges consequent on the Bennet appeal and settlement, and the fruitless action against Foxcroft. A business-like investigation of the liabili- ties made by the Master in 1664 disclosed debts amounting to nearly ^400, made up chiefly of law charges, but also comprising 'certain old debts to brewers.1 An old bond to the University for £50 is treated somewhat lightly in the list, a memorandum being attached ' that, in consideration it was a desperate debt, the University should in equity con- sider the College.'
An adjustment of difficulties was made by borrowing among the Fellows and also outside the College. To secure a permanent settlement, a decree was obtained from the Vice-Chancellor ' that no new Fellows should be elected (not more than four Fellowships being vacant at the same time) until the debts were paid.1
More than mere relief from pressing liabilities was wanted. Great efforts were being made by the Master to complete the building of the new chapel, which was still only partially covered on his return. Though Thomas Walker must have lived to see this work nearly finished, he was not spared to witness the con- secration, which took place early in 1666. He died on December 5, 1665, and was buried in the north aisle adjoining the chancel in St. PeterVin-the-East. Despite his services and sufferings for the Royalist cause, Walker does not seem to have received Church preferment after the fashion of so many of his pre- decessors in aid of his slenderly-endowed headship, and was in consequence, if we may credit a matter-of-fact
126 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
statement of Anthony Wood, obliged to take a second wife, ' whom he married for livelyhood only.'
His successor, Richard Clayton, was more fortunate, being a Canon of Salisbury and the incumbent of various livings. In the election of the new Master the College appears to have again asserted the right to choose their head uninfluenced by external suggestion. Clayton was a Yorkshireman, and had been elected on the Percy foundation in 1629. He had acted as Bursar in the years from March, 1631, to 1634, and again in 1636 and 1637, but had escaped the troubles of the Civil War by resigning his Fellowship in September, 1639. There is reason for believing that, had he wished it, Obadiah Walker might on this occasion have become Master, but for some unexplained cause he preferred to let the occasion pass.
' Good for nothing but eating and drinking ' is the harsh, and perhaps hasty, judgment passed by Wood on the new Master. Whatever may have been his private character, the governance of the house during his term of office was distinguished by energy and independence. The effect of the Civil War had not been conducive to the maintenance of good order and discipline in the various Colleges. An energetic effort appears to have been made under Clayton to restore more decorous habits. To correct the lax fashion in which the statute as to taking Orders had come to be regarded, the Visitors decreed in January, 1667, that Orders should be taken sine ter giver satione aut mora ' after the fourth year from inception "* in Arts. Ordinances were also passed by the Master and Fellows for the preservation of decency and order within the
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house. Among not a few other things that the students were ' to forbeare ' was the making of any noise or disturbance in the quadrangle, ' particularly the tolling of the bell,' except for meals and exercises, under a penalty of sixpence. New, and probably very necessary, regulations were made at the same time as to the cellar, into which ' none under the degree of Master or Gentleman Commoner were to be admitted, except when they entertain some of their friends out of the country.'*
In the maintenance of discipline, servitors, com- moners, and gentlemen commoners were treated with widely varying degrees of severity. If a servitor 'broke open a wood-house, or went upon the flats,' expulsion was the penalty, but a fine met the offence in the case of a commoner or tabler. Gentlemen commoners seem at this time to have been granted most of the privileges and advantages possessed by the Fellows themselves. Occasionally, however, even these favoured members were firmly but suavely dealt with. A letter from Obadiah Walker, acting as College tutor, to Lady Russell explaining the dis- missal of Mr. John Russell, gentleman commoner, shows that the process of 'sending down' was in the seven- teenth not unlike what it is in the twentieth century. He writes :
'There was fear of other young gentlemen probably receiving great damage by Mr. Russell's conversation, so it was resolved to remove him in the fairest and least oppro- brious manner that could be ... therefore the Master sent for him at a meeting of the Society, and told him
* Charlett papers, Ballard MS. 49, 24.
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with all gentleness what information he had lately re- ceived against him. . . . that it was not convenient he should live longer in the College.'*
Excepting in the Commonwealth period, when the College was formally deprived of the power of election to its own Fellowships, at no time in its history were there so many attempts on the part of those in high places to influence Fellowship elections as during the first few years succeeding the Restoration.
Both determination and diplomacy were needed in order to maintain a vestige of independence. The election of a Mr. Lawrence, a kinsman of the Bennet family, was successfully opposed as long as his candi- dature in 1665 was only pressed by Sir Harbottle Grimston, but when in the following year Lord Chan- cellor Clarendon insisted on his claim, the College was obliged to give way. Clarendon, as Chancellor of the University, secured his object by threatening in a letter to the College a visitation, when, he writes, ' any factious or obstinate persons will not be able to sup- port themselves.1 1
The same kind of resistance was shown in the case of John Savile, B.A. of the College, and a kinsman of Lord Halifax ; but a mandamus from the King in his favour, dated October 28, 1668, followed by a con- ciliatory letter from Halifax, who professes 'that he would be far from pursuing the Mandamus when he rests secure in their promise,' settled the matter. Warned, however, by experience, in the following year the College contrived to frustrate an attempt on the
* Smith's Transcripts, x. 202.
f C/. Clarendon's letter, dated July 5, 1666, in the muniment-room
FROM THE RESTORATION 129
part of Lord Arlington to force on them the election of a Mr. Thompson. Timely information having been received, the election was hurried forward, and the indignant Thompson arrived a day too late, armed with his mandamus from the Crown.* The society attempted to appease the wrath of the Minister by deferential epistles, but spoke plainly enough as to the unsuitability of the candidate. t
From 1670 to the end of Clayton's mastership the work of rebuilding was the main and absorbing interest in College life. It was with considerable difficulty that the necessary funds were raised to carry on the work piece by piece, but by great energy and untiring begging the result was achieved.
We have seen how the intruding Commonwealth Fellows did not shirk the unpleasant task of pleading for contributions, and how manfully Master Thomas Walker carried on the work ; but by far the most skilful and prolific writer of begging letters was Obadiah Walker. This seems to have been well under- stood by all concerned, and correspondence which the Master might have been expected to have conducted
* Smith's Transcripts, x. 227.
f Clayton wrote to Williamson, Lord Arlington's secretary, October (9), 1669 : ' I have received a letter from Lord Arlington, which is so tender of the welfare of the University in general, and so sensible of the unsettled condition of this poor old College, that it is a great perplexity to us that we cannot at present comply with it. The election of Savile and Pindar took place on October 10, and the mandamus in favour of Thompson was dated October 1 1 . ' On October 14 the Master again wrote to Williamson regretting that the society could not comply with his lordship's desires, ' but the young man must thank himself for failing, as the Society can make appear' (S. P. Dom., 1669).
9
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appears to have fallen naturally under the direction of his indefatigable subordinate.
In 1670 subscriptions were called for to complete the library. From 1670 to 1674 funds for the greater task of completing the quadrangle were solicited from all connected with the College in an elegant circular letter.* Thoroughly, indeed, must the canvass have been con- ducted, for contributions were received from such different personages as the late tonsor of the College (but now pincernd) and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Some gave graciously, others but moderately so. Among the former was the Bishop of Oxford, who ' presumed to send ' his £\0 ' because a friend of yours and mine says you are pleased to take farthings.1 Great formality was observed in the acknowledgment of various bene- factions, gilt-edged paper being specially purchased for the purpose !
The success which attended the endeavour to raise money outside the College was undoubtedly due mainly to the energy and influence of Obadiah Walker. For the first few years after the Restoration, up to the death of Thomas Walker, he had travelled and only been for short periods resident in the College, but after that
* This letter concludes : ' But there still remains almost the 4th side of the Quadrangle unfinished, for which the Master and Fellows are forced to apply themselves to all such noblemen and gentlemen as are sensible of the honour of learning in this nation ; intreating the aid of their Charity for the compleating of this, the MOTHER OF ALL COLLEGES, the nurse of so many men — Reverend Bishops, Honorable Noblemen and other persons eminent both in Church and State : and is still ready to continue the same service and pay the same observance as she hath always hitherto done in advancing good literature, educating the children, etc.' (Ballard MSS. 49, 21).
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event, as tutor and Senior Fellow in residence, he took a most active part in the government of the house.
On the death of Richard Clayton, which took place at Salisbury on June 10, 1676, there was no doubt as to his successor, and Walker was elected by the unanimous choice of the Fellows twelve days later.
The new Master* was sixty- two years of age, and not in the best of health at the time of his election. Writing to his friend John Wolveridge, in November, 1675, he describes his own situation :
' Myself a great part of ye troublous times, and some years also since his Majesty's return, have been a stranger even in our own country : but being heaved out of my place, and wand'red a long time up and down, I am at last by the good providence of God set down just as I was. Old age, with its infirmities having already seized me, renders me incapable of any other than a reposed sedentary employment. Had not riding been so very troublesome to me I had visited your country/
Had he but known it, the unfortunate Obadiah was yet far from his haven, and destined in the many years still before him to encounter still more stormy passages in life.
There is no absolute evidence that at this period the new Master was in secret a member of the Roman Catholic communion, or even that he was predisposed thereto. Of his conduct and place of residence when abroad we know but little. A letter from Abraham Woodhead to Dr. Sheldon proves that he was in Paris in 1658, and he is said to have been in Rome in 1662. The Register shows his almost continuous absence
* O. Walker was the son of William Walker of Worsborodale, and was born at Darfield, near Barnsley, in 1616.
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between August, 1661, and January, 1665. We know that at Evelyn's recommendation he acted as tutor in 1651, travelling with two sons of Mr. Hildyard of Horsley, and that subsequently these pupils became Roman Catholics.* It is also a matter of common knowledge that he was on terms of the closest intimacy with Abraham Woodhead,t his old tutor, who, it is almost certain, had accepted the Roman doctrines at or before the time when he was restored to his Fellowship.^ On the other hand, the fact that Walker received the Sacrament according to the Anglican forms at the hands of the Master of the College until he himself became Master, and continued to administer it to others after the accession of James II., proves that, at all events in outward profession, he continued up to that date a member of the English Church.
Another Fellow besides Woodhead had, before the accession of Walker to the mastership, transferred his allegiance to the Church of Rome. Timothy Nourse (elected Fellow in 1658) wrote to Master Clayton in September, 1672, alluding to ' the many stories in the University concerning his changing religion,1 yet not absolutely denying the fact, though leaving an implica- tion that the charge was false. § After more corre-
* Evelyn's Diary, ed. Bray, iii. 22.
t Abraham Woodhead's conversion probably dated from about the time of his travelling abroad with pupils in 1643. Some time before this he felt ' inclinations towards the old Catholic religion, to which he was first moved by reading the Saints' Lives and then St. Augustine' (Letter from Woodbead to Dr. Wilby among the Woodhead MSS. in the possession of Sir Thomas Brooke, Bart., to which free access was kindly granted the author).
} Smith's Annals, p. 257.
§ Smith's Transcripts, x. 158.
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spondence the Master wrote advising him as a friend to come before the commencement of Michaelmas Term, 1673, and take the Sacrament at St. Mary's. On Nourse refusing to do this, and further failing to appear in the College chapel when cited on January 3, 1674, his place was declared void two days later.* Woodhead, though by this time well known to be an admitted member of the Roman communion, seems to have escaped any similar censure, and to have remained in possession of his Fellowship to April 23, 1678, a few days before his death. f This exceptional treatment, which Wood regarded as due to the influence of Walker, was more probably owing to respect for Woodhead's great learning, and to the fact that he was living in absolute seclusion with a few select friends at Hoxton.
As a controversial writer Woodhead has been termed 4 the most ingenious and solid of the whole Roman party,1 and he certainly was at this time the most learned exponent of its doctrine in England. To the influence of his character and writings I incline to attribute Walker's gradual change of religion.
The energies of the new Master were at first directed to the completion of the College buildings ; but his
* It must be noted that Obadiah Walker did not use any influence to save Nourse from expulsion. Timothy Nourse died July 21, 1699. Expulsion failed to alienate his affection for the College, for in his will we read : ' Item, the small remainder of my bookes I give to University College, of which I was an unworthy member.1
+ In November, 1675, Walker wrote to John Wolveridge : ' Mr. Woodhead is alive, but infirm and so enamoured of retirement that he corresponds not at all, or very little, with any of us.1 O. Walker was left executor under A. Woodhead's will, by which property at Methley was left for the benefit of Methley Church, a proof of the testator's freedom from the usual bigotry of perverts.
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aspirations were by no means confined to a mere advancement of the material interests of the Society. To make good the grandiloquent phrases of the letter issued for the purpose of securing contributions, and * that the world should know that these bene- factions are not bestowed on mere drones ' (as Walker wrote to a friend in 1677),* the Society edited in that year a Latin translation of Sir John Spelman's Life of Alfred. This work was printed at the Theatre,")* and was an imposing volume in folio, adorned with prints of coins and of all the existing relics of the Saxon King. Numerous notes were added to Spel man's text by the editors, who doubtless regarded their labours as constituting a monument of seventeenth-century historical research. The nature of the notes in which their learning was paraded nearly got the authors into trouble. The year (1678) following the publication of the work was remarkable for the wild outburst of ultra-Protestant fanaticism occasioned by Titus Gates' discovery of the alleged Popish plot. At such a moment but slight evidence was needed whereon to base a charge of ' Papistry.1 Some of the notes of the translated life contained such sympathetic reference to the Pope, to canonization, J and generally to Romish observances, that the watchful Archdeacon of Middlesex took upon him to give in 'several things against Obadiah,'§ and in the latter end of the month 'the Master was accused openly in the Parliament House for
* Smith's MS. Transcripts, x. 192.
f Walker had been chosen a Delegate of the Press in 1667.
I Vita Alfredi, p. 171.
§ Hist. MSS. Commission, 12 Rep., App. vii., 150.
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a Papist,'* and we are informed that ' had he not had a friend in the House who stood up for him, he would have had a messenger sent for him.1! In the initial stages of discovery of the plot, our old acquaintance Ezreel Tonge was very forward in rendering assistance to Oates, and thereby for the moment gained no little credit and notoriety. Lapse of years had not lessened his ambition for the mastership, and if Wood may be trusted, 'he and Mr. Shippen now [in November and December, 1678] made friends in the Parliament House to have Mr. Walker turned out, because a Papist, that either of them might succeed.1]: The intrigue, if it really existed, was not successful, and at the beginning of the next year Walker met the Vice-Chancellor's inquiry as to the ' names of any Popish recusants, or so reputed,' with a bold denial of the existence of any such in University College. §
Suspicions aroused ' in the Parliament House ' were not so easily allayed, and the question of the notes to the Life of Alfred again arose in April, 1679, when Sir Harbottle Grimston called attention to the printing
* Wood's Life and Times, ii. 421. f Ibid.
J Wood adds : ' Base ingratitude. False Tonge was his friend and formerly his servitor." Tonge was certainly writing to Walker in friendly terms, July 27, 1670, begging for his assistance ' in providing a competency for him nearer to Oxford/ for ' I esteem the distance from yourself and the University a kind of banishment • (Smith's Transcripts, x. 143). § Certificate given by Walker :
' Feby. 17, 1678/9.
4 These are to certify that I know not of any one in University College in Oxon. to be either Papists or Popishly inclined.
' Witness my hand OBAD. WALKER, Mr."
(Wood's Life and Times, ii. 440.)
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of Popish books in Oxford.* Nothing seems to have happened on this occasion, but it is clear that the Master's disclaimers were not regarded with much confidence, and there appears now to have been good reason for distrusting him. It was well known that he had been left an executor and trustee by Abraham Woodhead, on his death in 1678, and that the house at Hoxton where Woodhead had lived, and which was popularly (though in error) supposed to be a seminary for the education of young Catholics, was now in his hands.
On June 20, 1679, Francis Nicholson, M.A.t of University College, preached at St. Mary's on behalf of the Master, and used his text, ' Surely there is a reward for the righteous,1 in such fashion as to call for the interference of the Vice-Chancellor. The main passages attracting criticism seem openly to have upheld the Roman doctrines of purgatory and penance. Later in July the preacher was compelled to acknowledge his unfeigned grief for the same, and to crave pardon for this great indiscretion.':):
This same year Walker published his book The Benefits of our Saviour Jesus Christ to Mankind.^ This little work appears at first to have escaped public
* Wood's Life, ii. 498.
t Francis Nicholson, a servitor of the College in 1666, was an avowed Catholic in 1685, and ultimately joined the Carthusians.
J Wood's Life, ii. 491.
§ The copy of The Benefits of our Saviour Jesus Christ to Mankind, 1680, in the British Museum (press-mark 4226 e), belonged to Jo Seyhard, of University College, 1683, who made a note therein : ' This book was reputed to be written by Mr. Obadiah Walker, who was Master of Univ. Coll. in my time, I being a commoner. He was reputed a great scholar, orator,' etc.
FROM THE RESTORATION 137
attention, but in 1685, on certain alterations suggested in the text by the Regius Professor of Divinity not being carried out by the author, the Vice-Chancellor ' proclaimed ' the book, and the bedels forbade its sale in Oxford.*
When in 1681 the Protestant agitation had become less violent, and its promoters began to be discredited, for a time public attention ceased to be attracted to the College, and the Master was left to his devices in peace. Whatever his inmost sympathies at this time may have been, and it is impossible to doubt what they really were, he still remained in outward com- munion with the Church of England, and administered and received the Sacrament according to the Anglican rite in the College chapel.
His influence in the College was as yet insufficient to secure the election of his nominees to Fellowships or scholarships. In October, 1678, he had attempted to secure the election of William Johnson, B.A., but after a somewhat exciting struggle and several prorogations of the election, the Fellows rejected the candidate on account of his 'mores parum laudabiles,' and chose Hugh Todd,t a staunch Churchman, in his place. Not until another five years had passed did the Master again try his strength with the Fellows. In January, 1684, he attempted to secure the election of Thomas Deane, instead of Thomas Bennet, but again failed — his action being just frustrated by a single vote — by the un-
* Wood's Life and Times, iii. 164.
f Hugh Todd afterwards became Rector of Penrith and Pre- bendary of Carlisle, and was notable for his protracted litigation with Nicolson, Bishop of Carlisle, as to the extent of episcopal authority.
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expected return of John Nailor, 'fere fortuito ad mediam noctem ante diem electionis.'*
As the accession of the Duke of York to the throne in the early future became more certain, the Master's personal influence seems to have waxed stronger, and he secured the election of Deane in December, 1684, in place of Michael Bingley, who, according to William Smith, was ' circumvented into resignation.1 In Deane, who entered the College as a servitor in 1669, and who had for some time acted as tutor, Walker secured ' a creature and convert,'! and one who proved a useful assistant as a controversial writer. His other principal supporter among the Fellows was Nathaniel Boyse, who was appointed Bursar in 1685. At this time Boyse ' was suspected of being a Roman Catholic,' and later in the year was compelled to recant before the Vice-Chancellor ' several passages savouring of Popery,' in a sermon preached by him at St. Mary's on July 26. 1
On February 11, 1685, proclamation of King James's accession was made in Oxford with all due solemnities. As might be expected, University distinguished itself in the general rejoicing. 'Beare' on such occasions flowed freely, a barrel ' being set without the gate for any to drink,' and another within the gate in the Gate House, and, says Wood,§ speaking of his own College, ' the gravest and greatest seniors of the house were mellow that night as at other Colleges.'
* See note in the register by William Smith.
f Wood's Athena, iv. 450.
J On October 12 Boyse was received by the new King, who told him he had seen and read his sermon, and thought it was ' an ingenious discourse and well-framed ' (Wood's Life and Times vol. iii., p. 156). § Wood's Life and Times, iii. 131.
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After the country's acceptance of a Sovereign attached to the Roman Church, there does not seem to have been much further concealment of the Masters religious opinions. His refusal in this year to accept the corrections to his book proposed by the Regius Professor of Divinity, and approved by the Bishop of Oxford, displayed a growth of independence ; but his general behaviour was still guided by great caution, and it was not until after he had been summoned to attend the King in January, 1686, that on his return he altogether ceased to attend prayers in the College chapel.
It was generally reported that he was sent for to be consulted as to intended changes in the University, and Massey's* subsequent appointment as Dean of Christ Church was probably due to his advice.
The first public announcement of Walker's con- version, ' which made a great noise throughout the nation ' (Wood, iii. 182), was contained in the French Gazette of March 8, where it was also said that ' he was about to build a Chapel in which to sing mass.'' An attempt was made to free the new converts from their disabilities under the law by means of a royal dispensa- tion, dated May 3, 1686, which permitted Obadiah Walker, Nathaniel Boyse, Thomas Deane, and John Bernard, of Brasenose College, to absent themselves 'from Church, Chapel, and in all places of Common Prayer as the same is now used in the Church of England,1 and relieved them from taking the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. Under the same dispensa-
* Massey is said by Wood to have been O. Walker's servitor (Life and Times, iii. 176).
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tion all courts of judges, as well ecclesiastical as civil, were to ' supersede and forbear at all time hereafter, all prosecutions and proceedings against the said parties.1* Thus protected, Walker set to work to forward the Roman Catholic cause in Oxford with all the energy and enthusiasm of a pervert. Mass was now openly said in the Master's Lodging, but at first the general inclination was to ridicule and make light of him and his congregation. The Bishop of Carlisle, writing on June 3, 1686, quotes a letter from Oxford, describing, about a month before, the congregation in the lodging as consisting of
' no less than four, he [Walker] himself making one of the number, two poor sorry Fellows of his own College and a shatterheaded Fellow of B.N.C., one Bernard . . . they are become extremely despicable and ridiculous to that degree that some young wags of Ch. Ch. the other day sent old Job, a poor natural who looks after their College dishes and trenchers, with this catch, that he sung at Walker's door :
' Oh, old Obadiah, Sing Ave Maria ; But so will not I a.
For why a ? I had rather be a fool than a knave a.'f
Popular feeling was shown during the Play in Act term by the King's players, when the interpolation of
* A copy of this so-called ' docket ' for Obadiah Walker and others is contained in the Tanner MSS. (cccclx., p. 54; Gutch Collection, vol. i., p. 287). It was entered in the College Register, pp. in, 112.
t 12 Rep. Hist. MSS. Com., pp. 17, 150.
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the dictum ' He that changes his religion ought to be hanged '* delighted the audience.
But when the perfect seriousness of his purpose was more fully comprehended, angry resentment, both in town and country, took the place of ridicule. He appears to have imitated the King in the art of * closetting ' persons of importance with whom he came in contact. Dr. Clarke, member for the University, after leaving London to avoid the King, was in turn obliged to go to Peterborough ' that he might be out of O. Walker's way.'t
In the College itself, however, there seems to have been no spirit of resistance remaining. Neither the taking College rooms for a Chapel under Roman ritual, nor the subsequent appropriation of the stipend of a Fellowship to provide for its ministrations, appear to have excited opposition.]: Probably the alarmed Fellows were only too thankful that their own chapel should escape. The Master read to the society a letter from Lord Sunderland, stating that it was the King's desire that rooms should be set apart for the service of God, and followed the reading by remarking :
* Anthony Ley, the author of this, lost his place a few weeks after in consequence.
f Hist. MSS. Com., MS. of F. Leyburne Popham, 264.
} On January 8, 1686-87, the King addressed a letter to the College with respect to the Fellowship vacant by the death of Edward Hinchliffe : ' We have thought fit hereby to signify our will and pleasure to you that you forbear to elect any person into his place till further order from us, and that in the meantime the revenue of the said vacant Fellowship, viz., the Chamber diett and salary, be sequestered into the hands of the Master of our said College to be applied to such uses as we shall appoint ' (copied in College Register, p. no).
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' Gentlemen, you perceive I may take any room : your common-room is the largest, but, out of respect to the Society, I will take only that which is in the side of the College next to my lodging ' (Ballard MSS. 70, p. 72).
The new chapel, ' made by removal of the partitions from two low rooms, their studies and bedchambers '* (Smith's Annals, p. 286), was opened for the public celebration of Mass on August 15, 1686. This brought the rabble together opposite the College gate at service- time, and on September 12 the soldiers attending the Mass were forced to come out and quiet them. To all the Master had now become a byword, ' Obadiah Avemaria.1 At the beginning of the next year the traders threatened him, ' complaining because of the scarceness of scholars, frighted away for fear of popery,1 and on his head fell the ' curses of all, both great and small ' (A. Wood's Life and Times, iii. 209). Members, however, of Catholic families, who before had been debarred the University, began to enter, and in some small degree took the place of those thus ' frighted " away, t
Backed by the sovereign power, the Master seems to have cared but little for hostile demonstrations. In May, 1686, he had obtained a license^ from the King to
* The rooms actually taken and made use of were the ground-floor rooms on the east side of the large quadrangle, extending from the chapel wall to the entry connecting the large with the Radcliffe quadrangle.
t In 1687 a Dormer of Peterley, a Scarisbrick of Scarisbrick, and a Cuffield of Cuffield, were entered as gentlemen commoners.
| The license is granted to O. Walker and his assignees, May, 1686. The sanguine state of mind of the King at this time is shown
FROM THE RESTORATION 143
print and sell for twenty-one years a list of thirty-six works, mostly of a controversial nature, maintaining Romish doctrines. In October he returned from London, ' a great deal of paper with him ' prepared and determined to make full use of the new power with which he was intrusted. From this time forward his action became distinctly and openly aggressive. As Woodhead's executor he was in possession of all his works, published and unpublished, and he now proceeded to republish the Two Discourses concern- ing the Adoration of our blessed Saviour in the Holy Eucharist. This appeared in January, 1687, the work being executed for Walker by the printer Lichfield. In consequence, however, according to Wood, of the sheets having been improperly supplied to those intending to answer the work, the Master determined to erect a press under his own eye in the stabling at the back of the College. The work turned out from this short-lived press was well executed, in a clear type and on a good paper.* In 1688 the title-pages came to be distinguished by a vignette woodcut of Kino* Alfred in crown and ermine collar.
o
The University, though unable to prevent the publica- tion, afforded the champions of the National Church all facilities for answering the intruders. It was seen with alarm, increased by the sense of helplessness to arrest the mischief, that in their midst, from within the very walls of their oldest foundation, a stream of
by a condition that the number of any one of the said books printed in any one year exceed not 20,000. The list is given in Gutch Coll. Curiosa, vol. i., p. 289 (taken from Tanner MS. cccclx.).
* The most important work produced was A Compendious Discourse on the Eucharist, with two appendices, 217 pp., 4to.
144 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
controversial writings was being poured forth with the deliberate intention of sapping the foundations of the National Church.
A pamphlet war ensued, and when the King, during his visit to Oxford in September, 1687, complained to the Vice- Chancellor of the tone of the controversial works then being printed, the latter replied that he thought the best way to remedy the existing state of things was to suppress Walker's press, for the Univer- sity ' did not begin, and would be quiet if not provoked.1 To this the King is said to have expressed assent, but his acceptance the same afternoon of two or three copies of works from the intruding press showed no inclination to censure.
On the occasion of the royal visit it is natural to expect to find the College receiving special favour, as the pioneer in the way which the King desired the University to follow.
Earlier in the year the King's statue* had been set up with great ceremony over the gate within the (present larger) quadrangle, and doubtless it was hoped that benefit might accrue to all concerned when the
* The setting up of the statue took place on Monday, February 7, 1687 (the anniversary of the King's accession falling on a Sunday). The ceremony took place between ten and eleven in the morn- ing. ' A partie of horse standing in the Street opposite to the Common Gate did, upon notice given that it was up, discharge each his Pistoll, which being done the spectators in the quadrangle and those in the street gave a great shout." This was followed by an eloquent English speech, delivered by Edward Hales, in the hall. Afterward was a ' most noble feast, all sorts of wine — Sack, Claret, Smyrna, and in the evening the College was illuminated by candles being set up in the windows, three in every light, that is, 6 candles in every window, which continued burning till 9 at night ' (Creech to Charlett, Letters oj Eminent Persons, p. 46).
FROM THE RESTORATION 145
attention of the Sovereign was drawn to this work of flattery. The King visited the College in the afternoon of Sunday, September 4, 1687, and was received by the Master and Fellows at the gateway. He afterwards attended vespers in. the new chapel with many of his guard. Edward Hales, gentleman commoner, a recent convert, and son of Sir Edward Hales, made a speech { thanking His Majesty for the toleration they enjoyed, and that the Reformation of heresy had first begun in that house,1 and declaring that ' though the winds and waves beat, yet their Church was secure, being built upon a double rock — infallibility and the King.'
The King's favour on this occasion seems, however, to have been confined to his visit, and William Smith, in spite of his strong anti-Romanist sentiment, is disposed to blame the Master for losing his opportunity — he 'that had the King's ear, for never having had the prudence nor kindness to the College as to request the least favour to the Society from him ' (Annals, 261).
The King, no doubt, before his visit to Oxford had consulted Walker as to the condition of Magdalen College, and Anthony Farmer, the ill-chosen royal nominee for the presidentship, appears to have made the Master's acquaintance in order to win his interest.* After his unsuccessful personal attempt to coerce the Fellows of Magdalen, James committed the considera- tion of their case to the Bishop of Oxford, the Dean of Christ Church, and Obadiah Walker. The views of the latter as to the King's claim of powers of dispensation accorded well with the royal pretension, for in February,
* Bloxam, Magdalen College and James, ii., p. 71.
10
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1 688, he wrote : { Methinks nothing can be more plain than that he who makes us Corporations hath power also to unmake us if we deserve it, as certainly the Magdalen men have done.1 His opinions and advice with regard to the affairs of Magdalen exhibited none of the caution and tact that he displayed in the case of his own College. Subsequent events showed that his estimate of the force of public opinion was completely inaccurate. Blinded with bigotry, the King was unable to discern the invincible nature of the nation's feeling, and it was not till the rejoicings of the country at his humiliation in the acquittal of the seven Bishops were so loud as to be unmistakable that he began to waver in his obstinate course. Still, force was needed before the Sovereign could be made to comprehend his folly in alienating the tried loyalty of the University of Oxford, his most steadfast adherent. It was only the threatened invasion that caused the King to attempt too late to conciliate the outraged University by a hurried resto- ration of the Magdalen Fellows, who had then been ejected for twelve months.
On November 1 rumours were current that Walker was ' going to resigne up his Headship.' The attempt to Romanize the University had failed, and the main instrument in the endeavour, perceiving that the cause was lost, made hasty preparations for departure. On November 9 the Master went to London after ' barring his door next to the street,' and arranging that part of his books should be conveyed to the College library and another part to the Public library ' should the rebels come to Oxford in his absence.' Not quite three weeks later ' the printers made all cleare in
FROM THE RESTORATION 147
his printing house and quitted,1* and at the same time Thomas Deane and Wakeman,t all hope for them now being at an end, ' did take away all from their Chapel " and locked up Mr. Walker's lodging.1 So rapidly came to an end, after the landing of the Prince of Orange, the most hopeful of the various attempts to secure a College in the Universities in the interests of the Roman Church.
One of the most remarkable features of this peculiar chapter of the College history had been the absence of all violence or bitterness between the parties within the College itself. Outside, the Master and his following were exposed to savage enough criticism, but within the walls of his own society Romanists and Anglicans seem to have lived in fair comfort together. Services in the ' New Masshouse ' and in the College chapel appear to have been carried on simultaneously, and such disturbances as took place in the conduct of the former seem always to have been due to outside instigation. J
Amicable existence under such difficult circumstances was probably due in great measure to Wai kerns personal character, and to the fact that he had been long a member of the Society and understood well its institu- tions and traditions. William Smith admits that he has ' many good things to say of him ; as that he was neither proud nor covetous.1 His academic character and literary gifts were in harmony with his office. The
* Wood's Life and Times, iii. 282.
f Wakeman was a Jesuit who had acted as chaplain in the College (Wood, p. 285).
J It is noted that on August 4, 1688, a great disturbance was made by a boy from the town bringing in a cat under his coat into the new Masshouse.
10—2
148 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
bent of inquiring minds in the Society at this time inclined towards antiquarianism and in this study ' four members* of the College attained to some degree of celebrity. The Master and his Fellows were here on ground of common interest, and this, combined with mutual respect and a scholarlike distaste for extreme courses, prevented Walker's religious zeal from inter- fering with his personal friendships. Beyond this there must have been something peculiarly attractive and lovable in the man who won the complete confidence and friendship of so retiring and learned a student as Abraham Woodhead, and who retained till death, alike during good and evil fortune, the sturdy attachment of his old pupil John Radcliffe.
In consequence of this sympathy existing between Master and Fellows, the College probably did not suffer during the period of Romanist control to the same extent as Magdalen and Christ Church. The number of entries fell, from an annual average of eleven or twelve, to five in 1687 and four in 1688,
* Hugh Todd, elected Fellow of University from Queen's, 1678; M.A. July, 1679; D.D. December, 1692; author of various anti- quarian works.
Robert Plot, migrated to University College from Magdalen Hall, 1676. He was at the expense of placing the statue of King Alfred (the remains of which now stand in the Master's garden) over the portal in High Street. Secretary to Royal Society, 1682; first Keeper of Ashmole's Museum, May, 1683 ; Professor of Chemistry, 1683 ; Mowbray Herald, 1695 ; author of History oj Staffordshire, 1686; died April 30, 1696.
Richard Richardson, matriculated at University College June 20, 1681 ; botanist ; correspondent of Sloane, Dillenius, Gronovius, Sherard, etc. ; F.R.S. 1712; died April 21, 1741.
John Hudson, elected Fellow of University from Queen's, 1686 ; afterwards Bodley Librarian.
FROM THE RESTORATION 149
but speedily recovered to more than the average in 1689.
Any full account of the subsequent fortunes of the unhappy Master does not lie within the scope of the present work. He left London probably on the same day as the King, in the company of John Massey, Dean of Christ Church, Pullen, a Jesuit Master of the Savoy, and Dr. Leyburne. Finding ' the rabble up ' at Faversham, they attempted to return to town, but were captured by the mob somewhere near Sittingbourne, and committed to the gaol at Faver- sham, from whence Walker was transmitted to London,* and confined in the Tower, charged with high treason. To him thus situate the Register records that one of the Fellows, Bateman, was sent on January 7, 1689, to ask whether he would resign the mastership ; after a day's deliberation ' responsum dedit se nolle resignare.1 This reply being conveyed to the Vice-Chancellor, the Fellows were summoned to appear before the Visitors in the Apodyterium of the House of Convocation on January 26. There the hearing of the complaint of the Fellows against the Master (which they were making by the advice of the Vice-Chan cell or) was deferred to February 4. On this day the Visitors and Fellows solemnly met in the chapel between the hours of 8 and 9 a.m., and after the hearing of the Litany adjourned to the common- room. Here the Fellows formally moved a complaint
* A sheet was at this time circulated in Oxford, entitled A Dialogue between Father Gifford, the late Popish President of Maudlin, and Obadiah Walker, Master of University, upon their new College Prefer- ment in Newgate.
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against the Master, in that he had violated the statutes of the College —
1. By his defection from the Church of England, ' ad Romanam sive Papisticam religionem.1
2. By holding, cherishing, and frequenting unlawful conventicles within the College.
3. By procuring the sequestration of the revenue and emoluments of a Fellowship to sinister uses.
4. By causing to be printed and published books against the Reformed religion, to the grave scandal of the University as well as of the College.
On these charges being proved ' on good testimony,1 the Master's office was declared vacant by the Visitors and his name struck off' the Buttery Book by the Vice-Chancellor.
Edward Farrer, who had been elected Fellow more than thirty years before, was chosen in his place.
It is useless to speculate on the possibility of success of the schemes for the conversion of the University, had more time been given to pave the way, had more fitting instruments been employed, or had the King's temper inclined to politic and conciliatory courses. In the event, all the schemes and hopes, all the plottings and intrigues, of four years proved merely a waste of labour as soon as a rallying-point was found and the news reached Oxford of the landing at Torbay.
Among the members of the Society of Jesus the University of Oxford had been regarded as the very citadel of heresy. 'Oxford being the fountain head whence flowed the poisonous streams of heretical doctrine, and where the Anglican divines and polemics were usually trained, if only this stronghold of heresy
FROM THE RESTORATION 151
could be occupied it would open an easy way to all the rest/* Three important points of vantage in this University! had for a time been carried, but on their forced abandonment, within a few weeks not a trace remained of the occupation.
Sadly writes Father Henry Pel ham, one of the priests resident in Oxford, to his Superior :
' I can only say that in the general decline of trade (i.e., religion) we have had our share. For before this turn we were in a very hopeful way, for we had three public shops (Chapels) open in Oxford. One did wholly belong to us, and good custom we had, viz., the University (Univ. Coll. Chapel), but now it is shut up. The Master was taken, and has been ever since in prison, and the rest forced to abscond . . . but now all is blown over.'J
As in other Colleges, the Roman Catholic society in University College vanished out of Oxford history. The gentlemen commoners of Catholic birth withdrew to their own homes or abroad. Edward Hales the younger held to his new religion, and died for his King at the Battle of the Boyne ; Robert Whyte§ met his death in the same cause before the walls of London- derry. Nicholson became a Carthusian, and was living in Lisbon in 1725, still treasuring the literary remains of his old tutor, Abraham Woodhead. Nathaniel Boyse at first went abroad, but was resident in London
* See Foley, Records of the English Province S.J., vol. v., p. 955.
f University, Christ Church, and Magdalen.
J Foley 's Records, vol. v.f 956.
§ Hales and Whyte were almost exact contemporaries, the one being admitted June 24, 1684, the other August 26, 1684. Hales was the eldest son of Sir Edward Hales.
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in the house of Sir John Hales in 1707.* Thomas Deane, the least worthy of the band, is to be met with standing in the pillory at Charing Cross, is heard of as abusing the confidence placed in him as a trustee, and eventually is found a miserable denizen of the Fleet, t
As for the Master, his fate was again ' to wander a long time up and down,' to strive to maintain himself by his pen, and at last to find in old age and poverty a haven of rest under the hospitable roof and loving care of the pupil whom he had tried in vain to convert,! his loyal friend in all vicissitudes of fortune, who provided for his burial in St. Pancras Churchyard, and placed over his remains the simple and pathetic epitaph
<O.W.
' Per bonam famarn et infamiam.'
(which his co-religionists have forgotten to restore).
In addition to the names mentioned in the text in Chapters VI. and VII., the following should be remem-
* Hearne, Collections, ii. 76, note.
f Woodhead MS. in possession of Sir Thomas Brooke.
J Two letters from the correspondence between O. Walker and Dr. Radcliffe are preserved by Pittis in his Life of Raddiffe, pp. 15, 16, and show that very little progress was made towards conversion. Radcliffe at first seems to have tried to check the correspondence, but, failing, writes bluntly enough on May 25, 1688: 'Fathers, Councils, and antique authorities may have their influence in their proper places ; but should any of them, although covered with dust 1,400 years old, tell me that the bottle I am now drinking with some of your acquaintances is a wheelbarrow, and the glass in my hand a salamander, I should ask leave to dissent from them. . . . You may be given to understand from hence that, having been bred up a Protestant at Wakefield, and sent from thence in that persuasion to Oxford, where during my continuance I had no relish for absurdities, I intend not to change principles and turn papist in London.'
FROM THE RESTORATION 153
bered as among the viri clariores of the seventeenth century :
LEONARD DIGGES : Younger brother of Dudley Digges ; matriculated 1603 ; spent many years in foreign Univer- sities ; a translator of Spanish literature ; his lines to the memory of Shakespere prefixed to the first edition of the collected plays.
Sir GEORGE RADCLIFFE : Born at Overthorpe, Thornhill, Yorks, April 21, 1593 ; matriculated 1609; a Bencher of Gray's Inn in 1632 ; was a member of the Council in Ireland under Wentworth in 1633 ; acted as Treasurer in 1634; was impeached with Wentworth in 1640; D.C.L., Oxford, 1643; died in exile at Flushing, after suffering great hardships, December 11, 1657.
HUMPHREY CHAMBERS : Matriculated 1674 ; Rector of Claverton, Somersetshire, and of Pewsey ; became a Presbyterian, and was made assistant to the Commissioners appointed by Oliver Cromwell for the ejection of scan- dalous ministers, and wrote a defence of their proceedings ; died September 8, 1662.
JOHN TWYSDEN, M.D. : Matriculated 1623 ; writer on medicine and mathematics ; died September 13, 1688.
THOMAS HENSHAW : Matriculated 1634; travelled, and after Restoration became Under-Secretary of the French Tongue to Charles II., James II., and William III. ; Diplomatist-Envoy to Denmark in 1672 ; died January 2, 1700.
THOMAS RADCLIFFE : Son of Sir George ; entered as gentleman commoner ; became Privy Councillor in Ireland after the Restoration; buried at Thornhill, December 11, 1679-
DUDLEY LOFTUS : M.A. from University, 1640 ; a grand- son of Adam Loftus, Archbishop of Dublin ; became
154 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
Vicar-General to Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh ; Loftus was fortunate in holding lucrative offices in Ireland, both under the Parliamentarian rule and after the Restoration. His main distinction was as an Orientalist, and he was the author of numerous translations ; he died in June, 1695.
Sir THOMAS CULPEPPER : Matriculated 1640 ; B.A. 164-3 ; afterward Fellow of All Souls ; writer on usury.
THOMAS STRODE : Matriculated 1642 ; a pupil of Abraham Woodhead ; became eminent as a mathematician ; pub- lished a treatise on Permutations in 1678. He died February 4, 1699-
THOMAS JONES : Appointed Fellow in 1646 by the Com- missioners ; involved in a controversy with Morley, Bishop of Winchester ; died October, 1682.
JOHN FLAVEL : Entered the College, 1646; Puritan divine ; author of many theological works ; was a famous preacher, and, according to Wood, 'an impudent plagiary, and one who became rich by marrying wives'; died June 26, 1691.
ROWLAND STEDMAN : Scholar 1649 ; Nonconformist di- vine ; ejected from Wokingham 1662 ; Chaplain to Philip, Lord Wharton ; author of theological works ; died Sep- tember 14, 1673.
WILLIAM ANNAND : Matriculated 1652 ; Vicar of Leighton Buzzard 1662 ; Chaplain to Lord Middleton when High Commissioner of Scotland ; Bishop of Dunblane.
WILLIAM SQUIRE: Fellow 1655 ; Rector of Rolleston, Derbyshire ; polemical theologian and author of anti- Romanist works; died September, 1677.
ROBERT PARSONS : Matriculated in December, 1663 ; Rector of Waddesdon, Bucks, and Oddington, Gloucester- shire ; Archdeacon of Gloucester ; credited with having brought about John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester's, repent- ance. Parsons was in constant attendance on the Earl for
FROM THE RESTORATION 155
the three months before his death, and preached his funeral sermon ; died 1714.
JOHN INETT: Matriculated 1663; Church historian and author of Origines Anglicance, published 1710. Inett was appointed Chaplain-in-Ordinary to William III. in 1700.
ROBERT MORISON : Incorporated Doctor of Medicine from University College after his election as the first Professor of Botany in Oxford, appointed December 16, 1669. 'In September, 1670, he translated himself to the Physic Garden, and there read in the middle of it (with a table before him) on herbs and plants 3 days a week for 5 weeks ' (Wood, Annals, iii. 898). He was also physician to Charles II. ; died 1683.
HUGH TODD: Fellow 1677 ; Rector of Penrith and Prebend of Carlisle ; notable for his long litigation with W. Nicolson, Bishop of Carlisle, as to the extent of episcopal authority.
WILLIAM READING: Matriculated 1693; classical scholar and editor of Eusebius ; Librarian of Sion College ; died December 10, 1744.
WILLIAM ELSTOB : Fellow 1697 ; Anglo Saxon scholar; died March 3, 1715.
THOMAS CARTE: Matriculated July 8, 1698; B.A. 1702, afterwards incorporated at Cambridge ; Historian; published his Life of James, Duke of Ormonde, in 1736; died April 2, 1754.
JOHN THORPE: Matriculated 1698 ; antiquary; F.R.S. 1705; he collected material for a history of Kent, which was published by his son in 1769, under the title Registnun Roffense.
CHAPTER VIII
FROM THE EEYOLUTION TO 1745
Masters : Edward Farrer, Thomas Benet, Arthur Charlett, and Thomas Cockman.
EDWARD FARRER* had been elected Fellow, on the death of Richard Washington, under the Parliamentary Visitors in 1651. His experience of Universities was considerable. Originally of St. Andrews, he migrated to Trinity College, Cambridge, in December, 1647, but took his B.A. degree from Magdalen Hall in January, 1651. Time and twenty- five years of clerical duty as curate of Flamstead had somewhat moderated his Puritan fervour ; but the election of a Master of still such undoubted Pro- testantism probably arose from a desire of the Fellows to clear the College from all suspicion of a lurking sympathy with the Church of Rome.
The new Master held office for only two years, dying on February 18, 1691, ' vir humanissimus et desidera- tissimus.' Though for some years in ill-health, his death was sudden : ' hora decima matutina apoplexia inopinate
* See College Register. Edward Farrer was second son of John Farrer, of Ewood, in the parish of Halifax, by his second wife, Susan, daughter of Anthony Waterhouse (Watson's Halifax, pp. 144, 145).
FROM THE REVOLUTION TO 1745 157
percussus."* His experience as Bursar in 1653 probably led him to make the kindly bequest of £50* (' ex facul- tatibus valde modicis' — Coll. Reg.), to be handed by each Bursar to his successor to enable them to balance their annual account.
Into Farcer's place the Society elected on March 3, 1691, Thomas Benet, a kinsman of the College bene- factor, Simon Bennet, and a Fellow on the new founda- tion. To meet the doubt as to whether the Master must needs be a Fellow on the old foundation, a dis- pensation was granted by the Vice-Chancel lor, Doctors, and Proctors to the aspirant to office a few days before his election. Benet was Rector of Winwick in Lanca- shire, and, from a letter written by him immediately on the death of Farrer, appears to have been an eager applicant for the vacancy. His tenure, too, of office was brief, lasting only fourteen months, when, says the Register, 'Tussi vehemente familiari sibi et inveterato morbo correptus est.'
Considerable debate followed as to a fitting successor in the headship. William Smith, who will be spoken of at greater length hereafter, could without doubt have now secured the post had he so desired. The expenses attaching to the office and the smallness of the stipend deterred the Fellows from undertaking it, and led them to look outside their own number for a Head.f Their
* This idea of affording some support and assistance in balancing his account to the Bursar was not wholly Farrer's, for in 1680 William Hopkins, ' Seneschallus sive Attornatus hujus Collegii,' had done the same thing, leaving £50 to the College for a stock for the Bursar, to be called ' Steward Hopkins his stock.'
t The whole income of the Master was in 1699, £110 IOS- 4^-, not reckoning his lodging, a load of hay, and some other perquisites (Hearne, Collections, O.H.S., i. 300).
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hope was to find a man likely from his private fortune and position to maintain the dignity of the office and ultimately perhaps to enlarge the revenue of the College by a benefaction.
Such a one the society trusted to secure in Arthur Charlett, Fellow of Trinity. For twelve years he had been a Fellow of his College, and had served as Proctor in 1683. He was well known as a man in touch with learned society, engaged in wide correspondence with men of letters, and fond of hospitality.* ' We chose him,** says William Smith, 'in expectancy of his being a great benefactor ; but I think he lived to be his own heir, and left us nothing of his library which he had so long promised. ""t
The choice was made with most careful deliberation, and the election was conducted with great ceremony and strict regard for precedent under the supervision of W. Smith himself. Twice, on June 1 and 16, was the day of election postponed. It was determined to exact compliance with certain conditions from the incoming Master. First, that he should vacate the office in the event of marriage within a year (this was, however, afterwards abandoned) ; secondly, that he should reform the statutes with the help of the Fellows ; and, thirdly, that ' in recessu suo ab officio magistratus ' he should in no way promote ' a stranger to governance.1 After an attempt had thus been made to safeguard the interests of the society, the new Master
* His letters from eminent correspondents he carefully preserved. They used to be known as ' Dr. Charlett's Albums,' and are now in the Bodleian in the Ballard Collection.
t W. Smith, Annals of University College, p. 260.
FROM THE REVOLUTION TO 1745 159
was elected on July 7, 1692.* At first he maintained his reputation as a freehanded man of means, for he is said to have spent of his own money c£?200 or ^300 in improving the Master's Lodgings before he had been Master a year. He also encouraged the Society in more lavish expenditure than had hitherto been customary, and inaugurated his mastership by a formal and somewhat extravagant visitation of the College property in 1693, for there stands in the accounts an item of ^46 13s. ' expended by the Master and seven Fellows in ye progress to Marks Hall/ Charlett^s inclinations were somewhat too mag- nificent for the Head of but a poor College. His correspondence with people of distinction and literary eminence increased, and his main ambition was to be regarded as a patron of letters. Had he possessed the necessary means, Charlett was well qualified to have played the part of a Maecenas. In his actual situation, however, ' his spirit went beyond his income, and could not be restrained within prudent bounds.'t
At first he laboured with a fair measure of success to improve the literary reputation of the College. As a Delegate of the Press he exercised considerable influence on Oxford printing, and encouraged his Fellows to edit classical works.J He further imitated Dr. Fell in pre-
* If anything, Charlett was already too fond of entertaining. Hicks, Dean of Worcester, wrote him a friendly letter when he was chosen as tutor to Lord Guildford in 1688, with advice to • keep the College constantly, and make fewer invitations to your chambers, for you must understand that all the family are lovers of frugality and sobriety, and care not for compotability,' etc. (BallardMSS.,xii. 25).
t Cf. Rawlinson MSS.
% Hudson edited Vellenis Paterculus ; Reading, Eusebius; Thomas Cockman, Cicero, De Officiis; Francis Rogers, Orationes expoetis Latinis,
160 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
senting copies of those new publications as New Year's gifts in the College.
Through his influence and friendship William Elstob, the Anglo-Saxon scholar, was elected Fellow in 1699. Humphrey Wanley, probably the best living decipherer of ancient documents, afterwards library - keeper to Harley and to his son, the second Earl of Oxford, was patronized by him and lived under his roof for some six years. Dr. Plot also continued to use the College as a place of residence, from which he pursued his investi- gations into ' natural rarities ' in all directions.*
While the Master managed the advertising, so to speak, of the College, it was fortunate in possessing so learned a tutor as Joseph Bingham, not the least notable of whose pupils was John Potter, well known as a scholar and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. In the closing years of the century such names in the Admission Book as William Reading (matriculated 1693), Thomas Carte, the historian (matriculated 1695), and John Thorpe, the antiquary (matriculated 1695), testify to the character and reputation of the house.
Such benefits as the College might have derived from the influence of a Master so widely known were much diminished by the arrogance of his temper. This seems
* Plot, writing August 18, 1693, to his 'good Master' from Rochester, reports the ' greatest rarity ' he has met with there — viz., 'a medicine for the bite of a mad dog, which was applied to Dr. de Langley, Prebend of Canterbury, his wife, and fair daughter, who were all three dipt in salt water a little below the bridge, without fig-leaves, last Friday morning, by two lewd fellows of the town, the spectators, as you may imagine, being very numerous ' (Bodleian Letters, p. 58).
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to have increased as he became more firmly settled in office, and caused embittered feeling, and eventually permanent estrangement from a section of the Fellows. According to Smith, he ( proved of another temper to Obadiah Walker, and being bred in another College and under different statutes could not well be inured to govern himself nor the Fellows by our own statutes/* At first he seems to have restricted himself to enforcing a stricter discipline on the undergraduate members of the College, and made himself a reputation for ' sconcing, crossing, and imposing."^ The old rule for dining and supping in Hall, which seems to have fallen into abeyance, was now made compulsory on all under- graduates and Bachelors ; and regular attendance at the chapel services, which under the late regime had for obvious reasons not been insisted on, was now enforced with severity. Punishment was inflicted for non-attend- ance at the Sacrament, and, by way of combining instruc- tion with penalty, offenders were obliged to translate into Latin, Tillotson's discourse concerning frequent Communion. In all matters concerning his own dignity the Master was a stickler for formality, and appears to have succeeded in training his scholars to habits of due deference, for we hear : ' 'Tis a custom the scholars observe in our chapel to rise out of respect when the
* Though affecting strict discipline in the control of the youth entrusted to his charge, Charlett was, after the manner of the time, something of a free liver and fond of good company. Oxford society in 1704 was amused by a story of the Master being lit home from a supper with the Warden of New by his boy ' Davus," who, instead of carrying the lantern, took in its place a silver tankard, which was not perceived till the pair arrived at home (Observator, 1705 ; Hearne, Collections, i. 215).
t See C. Usher, A Letter to a Member of the Convocation.
11
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Master comes in, and to continue standing till the Reader begins/*
Unlike Obadiah Walker, who, when Master, left all actual instruction in the hands of the tutors, Charlett seems to have personally superintended the education of some of the gentlemen commoners. Letters from Sir Simon Harcourt to the Master in 1697, concerning his son's progress, give some interesting glimpses of undergraduate life in the College at the end of the seventeenth century. Sir Simon directs his son to be sure to spend three or four hours a day ' in his studies or in conversing,1 and watches his progress so closely that he desires to see ' all his compositions.' When the youth comes to develop a somewhat idle character, the father expresses his regret to the Master that he had entered him as a gentleman commoner, threatens to take him away at Christmas, and 'then instead of a liberal education he shall have a servile one, for he shall be an attorney's clerk, and owe that misfortune to himself.'
Some of the natural inclinations of a gentleman commoner of the time may be inferred from the character of Sir Stephen Fox's advice to his grandson, John Cornwallis,t following some complaints made by the Master. This advice was to be written out by the young man and kept 'as in a manner articled between them.'J It was comprised under twelve heads as follows :
1. He should apply himself to his studies with great diligence.
* See C. Usher, A Letter to a Member of the Convocation, p. 18. f Younger son of Lord Cornwallis, of Eye, Suffolk. I From a letter from Dr. Green to Charlett, March 7, 1695 (Ballard, ix. 101).
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2. That he be very attentive when with his Tutors.
3. That he punctually perform whatever they require of him and at their hours.
4. That he never dine or supp out of the College hall.
5. That for the most part he goes along with the Fellows to their Common-room.
6. That he never fails of writing once a week to Sir Stephen.
7. That he sends a sum in arithmetic once a fortnight.
8. That he never misses the public Church, and goes there at the beginning always.
9- That he never goes out of the College without his servant.
10. That he goes seldom to the Tennis Courts, and never in the forenoon.
11. That he never goes to the Tavern.
12. That once a month he sends Sir Stephen some translation out of English into French or the contrary, or out of Latin into English.
Much in need of such a Mentor was Richard Graham, who died in the College in 1697 from the effects of a fall from his window into the street. His sad history, told in letters to his tutor, repeats the old story of trouble through bad company.* Still, the offences for which the poor undergraduate on his death-bed was so deeply penitent were, according to modern standards, not of a very heinous nature.
Charlett's methods of government may have proved successful with the undergraduates, but soon destroyed amicable relations with the Fellows. The state of feeling
* Richard Graham was a son of the well-known Jacobite Colonel Graham, of Levens. His letters, and those of his tutor, Hugh Todd, were edited, with an alteration of names, by F. E. Paget, under the title of A Student Penitent oj 1695.
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was shown by the election of Charles Usher to a Fellow- ship December 16, 1697, in defiance of the Master's wishes.
There is no doubt that Usher was not well affected to the head of his house, and he appears in time past to have given vent to his feelings in Hall by injudicious if not actually slanderous remarks concerning those in authority. These were now brought up against him in evidence before the Vice-Chancellor and Doctors assembled in the Master's Lodging on December 17 and 18. Here the election was quashed and the reckless- tongued scholar censured — ' utpote moribus indignus.'*
William Dennison, who later was to play a prominent part in another College dissension, was elected in his place, but not without great opposition. On one side we hear of ' cabals in the cellar ' between Wanley, Dennison, and Prickett the butler, and on the other four of the Fellows — J. Hinckley, Albemarle Bertie, John Nevile, and Robert Clavering — appealed from the decision against Usher to Convocation ; and on the Vice- Chancellor refusing the appeal, the ousted Fellow suc- cessfully moved for a mandamus against him in the King's Bench.t He also published a letter, directed to a member of Convocation, in pamphlet form, containing a statement of his grievances. :£
* In the course of the hearing, evidence was given as to Usher's scandalous utterances, and samples of the evil-tongued scholar's fertility of expression were given. Prickett, the butler, swore that he (Prickett) had been called ' Pimpmaster-General to the Lodgings.' Prickett was a great ally of the Master, and was quite an important person. Elstob and Hudson wrote a mock heroic poem in his honour. Hearne calls him ' the pragmatical butler of the College.'
t Ban. Reg., 2, 103, Mich. Term.
J A Letter to a Member of the Convocation of the University of Oxford, containing the Case of a late Fellow-elect of University College in that University ; London, 1699.
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Grave scandals and violent discussions followed. Things were brought to such a pass that the dissenting Fellows ' would neither eat nor drink with us,' and talked extravagantly about dissolving the common- room and not coming to Hall.*
The spirit prevalent in the College at this time is well illustrated in a letter from John Hinckley to Albemarle Bertie, written in February, 1700. Herein Hinckley promises to advance some money towards (Usher's) costs, ' not only while I am Fellow, but as long as I live.' He proceeds : ' I shall always be glad to have a finger in every suit commenced against the Master and his Doctors, as hating the tyranny of the one and the usurpation of the others.' Bertie, who was a son of the Earl of Lindsey and had been elected on the Bennet foundation in 1689, seems to have led the opposition to the Master, with whom he also had a personal difference. t He was disinclined to take orders, and was now publicly admonished in chapel to proceed at the next ordination. No regard being paid to the Master's order, his name was struck off the list of Fellows by Charlett without consultation with the rest of the Society, on July 10, 1701.
This high-handed proceeding was immediately objected to by a majority of the Fellows, headed by William Smith, and the matter ended in a rebuff for the Master ; for on the advice of the Vice-Chancellor and Doctors being taken, a middle course was ordered, and Bertie was
* Charlett to Tanner, Ballard MS., June 25, 1698.
f Bertie's contention was that the statutory obligation to take Orders did not apply to the Fellows on the new founda- tion.
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granted a dispensation for two years in which to make up his mind.*
Politics do not seem to have entered into these disputes, for as a whole the College was Tory to the core. Hearne's praise of the veneration that ' this excellent Society had for the memory of King Charles and other good men friends to the Church of England ' sufficiently indicates the opinions which prevailed, t
A coolness, however, arose between the antiquary and Charlett in 1709, and after this date suspicions of Charlett's leanings to Whiggism for the sake of pro- motion are constantly breathed in the Collections •, and the erection of Queen Anne's statue over the main entrance is jibed at as a piece of flattery with a personal object.^ Rumours of Charlett's 'trimming' were cer- tainly current in London in February, 1710, but he was able to explain his position when accused of shift- ing sides. On the Tory Ministry coming into office in November, 1710, the Master's claim to preferment was strongly urged, and Lord Wey mouth recommended him for the deanery of Ripon, but without avail, and he was obliged to content himself with a prebendal stall at Worcester, which was given him in 1713. As to his
* At the end of this period of grace Bertie left the Society, and was elected to a Fellowship at All Souls in 1704.
f Hearne, Collections, ed. Dobell, ii. 13.
The political tone of the Society was quite to Hearne's taste ; ' for three or four years he conversed every day in the College, and ate and drank generally each day with them.'
} The statue was the gift of a brother of Ward, the Senior Fellow. The following verses were current on the event :
1 O Arthur, O in vain thou tryes (sic) By merit of this statue for to rise ; Thou'lt nere an exaltation have But that on Prickett's shoulders to the grave.'
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subsequent politics he certainly was not regarded as a supporter when Pro- Vice- Chancellor by the Ministers of George I. He was taken sharply to task for the rioting following the keeping of the King's birthday by the Constitution Club on May 28, 1715,* and received from Lord Townshend, Secretary of State, < rattling letters ' (Hearne, 53, 172), in which it was stated that Charlett, so far from discountenancing the riots, had not endeavoured in the least to suppress them. Although he was present at the coronation as a royal chaplain, his name was struck out of the list in March, 1717.t
Though in the earlier years of his rule it seemed likely that Charlett would secure distinction for the College by gathering round him men of letters and industry, his overbearing temper eventually quite undid such benefits as at first followed from his connection with the outside world. His indefatigable epistolary attentions to men of letters, noblemen, and Church dignitaries degenerated into idle interference with other people's concerns, and won for the letter-writer the reputation of a busybody and the nickname of the 6 Oxford Gazetteer.' In the Spectator he was ridiculed as Abraham Froth, and in his later years his influence in the University seems to have declined, though his pompous pretensions were never diminished.
* On this occasion the members of the club had to escape by the back-door; their club-room at the King's Head was wrecked. Throughout the town the windows of known Whigs were smashed. Next day, Sunday, the streets were full of people with oak-leaves in their hats, and cries of ' King James our true King !' 'No usurper !' ' The good Duke of Ormond !' were the order of the day.
t Charlett had been appointed one of the chaplains to William III. in 1697 through the influence of Archbishop Tenison.
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The improvement in the general internal condition of the College, which was noticeable at the end of the seventeenth century, did not continue into the eighteenth. Good tutors of marked ability were lacking, and in the early years of the century the entries in the books offer no names of men who attained to distinction in after- life.
The loss of Bingham as tutor in 1696 proved a serious misfortune for the Society and happened in the following fashion : Preaching at St. Peter's-in-the-East on St. Simon and St. Jude's Day, 1695, some of his utterances on the doctrine of the Trinity were pitched upon by a Mr. Beauchamp of Trinity, commonly called ' ye heretic-hunter,' and reported to the Vice-Chancellor. Bingham was persuaded to resign his Fellowship to save the College from the scandal of a possible expulsion. Thus it came about that the most learned Church historian of his time was driven to write his monu- mental work in the seclusion of the remote country rectory of Headbourne Worthy, which he only enjoyed through the generosity of Dr. Radcliffe.
The connection between the College and the cele- brated doctor, maintained throughout his busy and successful professional life, and not to be terminated by death, forms one of the most pleasant pages in our history. Born at Wakefield of humble parentage in 1650, and educated in the Grammar School there, a Freeston exhibition at University gave John Radcliffe the chance in life of which he made so full a use. Though he had to seek a Fellowship at Lincoln, it was his old College, his first means of introduction to academic life, that he bore in mind in the days of his prosperity. Few
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physicians have risen more surely and rapidly to the top of their profession. He could lay claim to no scientific medical knowledge, but he was endowed with quick perception, a keen wit, great knowledge of character, and had acquired much insight into the causes and progress of ordinary ailments. He became fashionable and popular, and his readiness and entire self-reliance enabled him to gain a reputation for cures regarded at the time as extraordinary. His rough independence of character, unusual in a Court physician, was all the more piquant, and his fame was rather in- creased than lessened by the loss of the King as a patient through the exercise of his too candid wit.*
Throughout life he kept up his acquaintance with successive Masters and Fellows, and his constant acts of liberality to the Society seem always to have been prompted by a sense of gratitude for the benefits he had in time past received. We find him assisting in the completion of the buildings under Obadiah Walker, and giving the painted glass for the east window of the chapel, and mention has already been made of his generous friendship extended to the Master when old and poor, out of place and home.
As time proceeded RadclifiVs benefactions increased. He was a friend of Charlett, who ' omitted no oppor- tunity of putting him in mind of the engagements he lay under,'! and he certainly responded handsomely, for in his lifetime he presented the College with the
* Radcliffe is said to have remarked to the suffering dropsical King (William III.) that he would not have his two legs for his three kingdoms.
t Pittis' Life of Radcliffe ; p. 25.
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advowson of Headbourne Worthy, and contributed more than ^1,1 00 for the increase of exhibitions. Well might the Society, as appears from the accounts of 1697, expend £9 4s. 8d. 'in an entertainment of Dr. RadclifFe.' His intention to permanently benefit the College had probably long taken shape in his own mind, for Pittis records his answer to a man of fashion who asked him why he did not marry some young gentlewoman to get heirs by, ' that truly he had an old one (University College) to take care of, which he intended should be his executrix.'*
Radcliffe died November 1, 1714. The bulk of his considerable fortune was devoted to specific purposes benefiting the University ; but he left ^5,000 ' for the building the front of University College down to Logic Lane answerable to the front already built, and for building the Master's lodging therein, and chambers for his two travelling Fellows ;' and the overplus of his Yorkshire estates, after providing for the maintenance of his two travelling Fellows studying medicine, was bequeathed to the College, a resource from which the Society has been enabled to meet the main cost of the buildings of modern times.
A public funeral of a magnificence which in Oxford had never been exceeded testified to the gratitude of the University. The first intention of the executors had been that RadclifiVs body should find a resting- place in the chapel of his own College, and their request to this effect had gladly been conceded. This choice of burial-place was changed at the last moment to St. Mary's, in deference to some alleged expression of his * Pittis' Life of Radcliffe, p. 30.
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wishes, and on December 3 he was interred in the nave, the oration over his grave being pronounced by S. Lindsey, Fellow of University.*
In the latter years of his mastership, from 1713 onwards, Charlett was much crippled by gout, and spent long periods at Bath for the benefit of his health. So easy seem to have been the duties of his office that visits of ten or twelve weeks'1 duration 'to the Bath1 were ordinary occurrences with him irrespective of term. General relaxation of discipline followed. Gentlemen commoners were under no greater obligation in the matter of residence than their Master, and by his own account were sometimes so little at Oxford as to be rarely seen by him.t The Master was, however, quite satisfied with the condition of his College, which, he wrote in January, 1715, was 'never more happy in a sober, modest, and studious youth than at present.1
* A full account of Radcliffe's lying-in-state and funeral is given in Hearne, 53, pp. 1-9 : ' He was buried at the entrance of the door that goes into the Organ-loft, and the said door is now to be stopt up that a monument may be erected where the former passage was.' No public monument was erected to mark the resting-place of so great a benefactor. His only memorial is the short inscription on one of the marble squares of the pavement of the nave :
JOHN RADCLIFFE, M.D.,
DIED NOVEMBER I, 1714, IN THE 65TH YEAR OF HIS AGE.
See Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, T. G. Jackson, p. 198.
| Of Mr. Tempest, a gentleman commoner, Charlett wrote to Richardson in January, 1719 : ' I hear Mr. Tempest is in earnest leaving the College. He has been so little there that I seldom saw him ; but when I could speak with him, which was rare, he gave me so good a countenance, such good words, and such desirable promises, that he disarmed both prejudice and anger ' (Nicholl's Illustrations of Literature, i. 297).
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The sobriety and modesty of these studious youths was not, however, to be rewarded by distinction in after- life. Throughout the University the period in which they lived was (with a few brilliant exceptions) a time of intellectual stagnation, which, despite all the Master's albums of correspondence and his encouragement of classical editions, he was quite unable to dissipate.
In the first thirty years of the eighteenth century among the entries in the College books is to be found no name of subsequent note, and in the whole history, extending over more than six centuries, there is no period of a similar length so entirely blank in its record of fame. This period of inglorious barrenness was still further darkened in its concluding years by the occurrence of most disastrous dissensions within the Society.
Small jealousies between members of the old Northern foundations and that of Sir Simon Bennet had up to this time been of frequent occurrence, and had been by no means entirely removed by the final union of the several foundations under the Lord Chancellor's decree. Differences hitherto trivial were now to be exchanged for internal dissensions graver than any through which the College has ever passed ; and a contest for the mastership of seven years' duration was to result in a radical change of constitution and the establishment by law of the Crown as visitorial authority in place of the University.
On the death of Master Charlett on November 4, 1722, there were rival candidates for the succession in the persons of Thomas Cockman, formerly a Bennet Fellow, and William Dennison, a Percy Fellow, of whom mention
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has already been made. Cockman had been a fairly successful tutor, but had resigned his Fellowship, was married, and held two livings in Kent. Dennison had for long been an aspirant to the office, but was only now supported by four of the Northern Fellows. On the occasion of the election, December 4, 1722, Cock- man gained the day by a bare majority. A formal complaint being lodged with the Vice-Chancellor and Doctors that the election was contrary to statute, another was ordered, at which Dennison, in the absence of the Senior Fellow, presided. Here he was elected Master on December 17, 1722. But Cockman had already been formally admitted, and his name as Master had been entered in the Buttery. Thus it came about that the College was embarrassed by the possession of two Masters at one and the same time.
Both parties protested to the Vice-Chancellor and Doctors, whose decision was given in favour of Dennison, and a decree was issued, dated March 1, 1723, command- ing the Fellows'* in possession to deliver up the master's lodgings. This the supporters of Cockman answered by an appeal, not to Convocation according to pre- cedent, but by petition to the Crown as ' Visitor of the College ' to determine the right of election. This course was followed because the Vice-Chancellor had shown clearly his partiality for Dennison, and his opponents, in order to gain the day, were forced to appeal to a superior authority outside the University.
The petition came before the Attorney-General on
* Cavendish Nevill and Francis Taylor were the two Fellows holding the Master's lodgings for Cockman. See Dr. Stratford, letter, February 26, 1723 (Portland MSS., vii. 346).
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behalf of the Crown, and by his advice the petitioners moved for a ' prohibition ' in the Court of King's Bench to determine the right of visitation. After long delays on the part of the law, the following issues were joined and tried before a jury in the Court of King's Bench :
1. Whether King Alfred was founder of the said College.
2. Whether the Vice - Chancellor, Masters and scholars of the University by themselves or delegates had used to exercise a visitorial authority.
The hearing took place on May 10, 1727, before 'a full bench of excellent Judges and a Jury of impartial gentlemen,' and after
' a solemn tryal of above eight hours, it was found that King Alfred was Founder, and secondly that from time to time immemorial to ye time of making ye constitution of delegates beforementioned, ye Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of ye sd University by themselves or yr delegates from time to time as often as occasion required did not exercise a visitorial authority over the sd College/
The result of this judgment was that the law officers the following year advised a royal visitation of the College, ' considering the state of the College and the necessity of having the present controversy deter- mined.'
There was, indeed, good reason for considering the state of the College, which had been in a condition bordering on anarchy for five years. The rival parties were of such equal strength as to make any settled form of government an impossibility. Cockman was
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supported by the Bursar and the Librarian, and so had the advantage of holding the keys of the treasury and library. On the other hand, the Dean and G. Ward, the Lecturer in Greek, backed Dennison, and ' Jolly Ward ' was in himself a most boisterous and dauntless ally. When Cockman, trusting to the judgment in his favour, attempted to play the part of Master in June, 1727, he found Ward in his chair in chapel, heard him read prayers, was struck off the Buttery Book by him as Senior Fellow, and suffered numberless other indignities from the same source. In the University Church he was flouted as in his own chapel, the Pro - Vice- Chancellor sending him a message by his beadle that 4 he desired him to sit in his proper place unless he were Master of Univy Coll., and then he might sit where he pleased.'
It is not surprising to find that the number of entries most seriously decreased during this uncertain regime.* Fellowships and scholarships had not been filled up, rents were being withheld, and leases were not being renewed.
It was fully time to make an end of such a state of disorder, and however much opposed some members of the College were to see the right of visitation pass from the University to the Crown, the first sure means of securing a return of peace must have been welcomed as a relief, by all.
Visitors of the College on behalf of the Crown were
* In 1725 to 1727 they sank to five in each year. After the visita- tion settlement they ran up to twenty. The bursarial accounts, however, which were kept throughout the period by Browne, are quite in order, and show careful maintenance.
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appointed in a Commission* under the Great Seal, and the first visitation was held in the Lottery Office adjoin- ing the Banqueting -hall, Whitehall, April 19, 1729. By way of clearing the air, a lengthy series of interro- gatories relating to the recent disputes was administered to both parties, and after an elaborate investigation the election of Cockman as Master was duly confirmed, and the places of four Fellows, two from each camp, were declared vacant.
Since the decision of the Court of King's Bench, which, no doubt, was mainly based on the conclusions of the Courts and Parliament in the reign of Richard II. , University College has obeyed, and is likely to obey, the Crown as Visitor without any desire to revert to the former order of things.
One, at all events, unexpected and lasting benefit came about from the long dispute. The question as to whom belonged of right the power of visitation so stirred the spirit of William Smith that, in spite of age, infirmity, and the remoteness of his Yorkshire rectory, he set himself in his seventy-seventh year to write the Annals of University College, with the main object of proving that William of Durham was the founder, and the University in Convocation the Visitor.t
* The Visitors named in the Commission, dated March 28, 1729, were: The Bishops of Oxford, Bristol, and Peterborough; George Paul, D.C.L., Advocate-General; William Chappie, Serjeant-at- Law; Rev. Thomas Tanner, Canon of Christ Church; Exton Sayer, D.C.L.
f ' It may seem a wonder both to those that know me, and to those that know me not, that a person who has lived in privacy and obscurity to the seventy-seventh year of his age, and is so bowed down by infirmities as not to have feet to walk on or hardly a hand to write, should begin now at this age ' (preface to Annals oj University College).
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Though Smith had not attached himself to either of the contending parties, and was, indeed, a common friend to both the rival claimants, yet his book proved to be strongly in favour of Dennison, for he attacked without scruple the tradition of royal foundation, and maintained the rights of the University in Convocation as Visitor.
The Annals were published in 1728, too late to influence the trial in the King's Bench, but with an idea of promoting an appeal on a further hearing of the case, which, however, never took place. Though limited in scope as a history, owing to the object of the author, and sometimes written in a style both involved and obscure, Smith's work was the first Oxford College history of real historical value, and still maintains its position as an authority to which many writers on early Oxford have since been beholden.
The author was very well qualified for the peculiar task to which he set himself so late in life. For over thirty years he had resided in his college, and during the greater portion of this time he had devoted himself to unravelling the tangled thread of the history of his house. At first unable to decipher ancient MSS., he acquired the art by application and practice, and made such thorough use of it that at the end of his residence in Oxford he was able to boast that he had either copied at large or made extracts of all deeds, charters and other papers in the College treasury, and that not the least scrap of parchment or paper had been omitted. The eleven thick quarto volumes of tran- scripts closely written in Smith's crabbed autograph now in the treasury bear ample testimony to his un- flagging industry and careful accuracy.
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Nor did he confine his labours to the documents in his own College. Seventeen similar volumes of tran- scripts and excerpts from the University documents and registers, now in the library of the Society of Anti- quaries, bear witness of still greater application. Yet all the toil of this indefatigable worker was spent in a simple labour of love. But for the dispute as to the rightful Visitor, Smith's extraordinary knowledge of the early history of his College and the University would never have found its way into print. Armed with his twenty-eight volumes of transcripts,* the Rector of Melsonby was well enough able, from his pleasant study looking towards the distant Hambledon hills, to teach their own history to the College body, and to lay down facts concerning the foundation to the very courts of Law. The new history excited considerable attention. Though at first regarded by Hearne as ' a mere juggle,' closer inspection revealed so vigorous and profane a
* The various volumes of transcripts were in the possession 01 W. Smith's nephew in November, 1743. He was then in difficulties, and trying to dispose of them. Cockman had hoped to obtain as a free gift such of them as related to University College, and the Society were ' unwilling to purchase what they had expected to obtain gratuitously ' (letter from F. Robinson to Cuthbert Constable, prefixed to vol. i. of Smith's MSS. in the Library of the Society of Antiquaries) .
Smith was inducted as Rector of Melsonby in 1704. He died and was buried there, at the age of eighty-five, in 1733. The advowson of Melsonby was bought by the College in 1672, probably with a view to Smith (who was born at Easby, near Richmond) accepting the living when vacant. The east front and the north end of the rectory house were built by the new Rector in 1706. An oval portrait of Smith hangs in the hall at the rectory. This picture was given in 1796 by the Rev. Thomas Zouch, who had married one of Smith's great-nieces, with a request that it might remain at Melsonby as an heirloom in the rectorial house.
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treatment of the venerable Aluredian tradition that bad enough names could hardly be found for so daring an iconoclast, and he was termed 4 scriptor ille ferreus atque mendax.1* Smith's laborious proof, happily enough for the subsequent history of the College, had no influence on the course of events.
The first important question to be settled by the new visitorial authority was a much-needed revision of the statutes. The ancient statutes, drawn up by many persons at very different times, were in many respects imperfect and obscure, and for the Society's benefit a rearrangement of the very various existing orders into a complete body of statutes was a most desirable object. This was effected in 1735, the text (in Latin) being prepared by the Master and Fellows, and ratified by the Sovereign after some amendments at the advice of the Privy Council. These statutes served the College until recent times, but in their turn were reconstructed in 1853 after the visitation of the University by a Royal Commission.
Master Cockman was a good scholar, and had brought himself into notice when a tutor by his edition and translations of Cicero de Officiis. He was a man of tact and strength of character, for, after one short struggle in October, 1729, when the places of three
* This appears to have been the description of a rival antiquary, designed for print rather than an expression of Hearne's real feeling, which is found in a private letter to Cuthbert Constable in April, 1734 : ' The venerable old gentleman of Melsonby was always, even when young, very rambling and confused in his discourse. . . . He was always a very industrious man, and hath collected abundance of things relating to the University and City of Oxford which ought to be preserved ' (letter among Woodhead MSS. in Sir Thomas Brooke's collection).
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scholars were declared vacant, ' non obedientes magistro et sociis,1 all traces of the recent dissensions soon dis- appeared, and, what is more remarkable, his old opponent, George Ward, continued in the College for many years as Senior Fellow and tutor. According to an unsparing contemporary critic,* the Master, was a pleasing contrast to the average head of a house in the eighteenth century, in being never absent from his charge, and in that he ' was revered as a father and loved as a brother/ This bears out the laudatory account prefixed to his 'Theological Discourses "* (edited 1780), in which we are informed that
' his faithful discharge of his trust to his younger students with regard to their manners and literature gave weight and spirit to his instruction and a grace to his reproof.' He further ' attended upon these younger members fre- quently at their chambers, giving his private instruction and directing them in their studies, and his care was especially distinguished with regard to their spiritual concerns.'
Certainly this tender solicitude does not appear to have been thrown away, for under Cockman's rule the College again began to turn out men of some distinc- tion. Charles Lyttleton, afterwards Bishop of Carlisle (1762), and President of the Society of Antiquaries, and Richard Jagot the poet, entered in 1732. Four years later came Roger Newdigate, antiquary and benefactor, and another antiquary, Bryan Fausset, in 1737. Shen-
* A Letter to the Heads of the University of Oxford on a Late very Re- markable A/air, by Terras Filius, 1747 (Bodleian, Godwin Pamphlets, No. 1859.)
•f- Author of Edgehill, was admitted as ' serviens ' July 2, 1732.
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stone was a friend of Jago, but is said to have been obliged to pay his visits after nightfall, as it was not considered befitting for a gentleman commoner to be seen in the company of a servitor. The year in which befell Master Cockman^s death was especially notable for its entries. In it on the same day were admitted George Home, afterwards Bishop of Norwich, and Charles Jenkinson, who proved himself a statesman and gained a peerage as the first Earl of Liverpool, and a few months later there came William Jones (of Nay- land), who established himself as a leader of thought in the English Church, and helped to forge the link of union between the Non-jurors and the later Oxford School.
Cocknian, described in the Register as Magister Dignissimus, died from a paralytic seizure in his Lodging on February 1, 1745. As if to make sure that after death none should disturb his rest or oust him out of place, his remains were deposited * in sacello subter niensam dominicam.'*
The following should be remembered in addition to the more famous names of which mention has been made in the text up to the end of the eighteenth century :
ROBERT CLAVERING : Fellow and tutor 1701 ; appointed Dean of Hereford and Bishop of Llandaff June 2, 1725; translated to Peterborough 1729 ; died July 21, 1747.
HENRY SOMERSET : Third Duke of Beaufort ; matriculated October 29, 1720; D.C.L. April, 1725; died February 24, 1745.
CHARLES NOEL SOMERSET : Fourth Duke of Beaufort ; matriculated June 19, 1725; M.P. for co. Monmouth 1731-32; died October 28, 1756.
CHARLES LYTTLETOX : Matriculated 1732; appointed
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Bishop of Carlisle March 21, 1761 ; F.R.S. and President of the Society of Antiquaries ; died December 22, 1768.
BRYAN FAUSSET : Matriculated December 8, 1738 ; Fellow of All Souls 1745 ; F.S.A. ; was a discoverer of prehistoric remains and Anglo-Saxon antiquities ; his collection is now in the museum at Liverpool ; died 1775.
GEORGE WATSON: Matriculated 1739; Fellow 1746; theological writer ; died April 8, 1773.
FRANCIS STONE: Matriculated 1755; scholar; Unitarian Rector of Cold Norton in Essex ; adjudged a heretic by Lord Stowell, and deprived of his living May 13, 1808; died November 1, 1813.
EDMUND CARTWRIGHT, D.D. : Matriculated 1758; elected Fellow of Magdalen 1766; Perpetual Curate of Brampton and Rector of Goadby Marwood, Leicestershire ; the reputed inventor of the power loom ; after unsuccessfully attempting to dispose of his patent, set up a factory for weaving at Doncaster about 1788 ; made numerous other inventions, amongst which the wool-combing machine ; died October 30, 1823.
GEORGE CROFT: Matriculated 1762, as servitor in Uni- versity College ; won the Chancellor's Prize English Essay in the first year of its institution ; Fellow 1779; Vicar of Arncliffe 1779; Bampton Lecturer 1786.
JOHN EARDLY WILMOT : Matriculated 1766; Master in Chancery 1781-1804 ; M.P. for Tiverton 1776-84, Coventry 1784-96 ; died June 23, 1815.
THOMAS MAURICE : Matriculated 1774 ; Orientalist ; Keeper of MSS. in British Museum 1798 ; author of Indian Anti- quities in seven volumes, published 1793-1800.
ROBERT BREE : Matriculated April 6, 1775; M.D. 1791 ; writer on medicine and disease ; his Inquiry into Disordered Respiration passed into many editions ; died October 6, 1839.
FROM THE REVOLUTION TO 1745 183
SIR HERBERT CROFT: Matriculated 1781; B.A. 1788; Vicar of Prittlewell in Essex ; a correspondent of Dr. Johnson ; wrote the life of Young in Johnson's Lives of the Poets.
G. STANLEY FABER : Matriculated 1789 ; Bampton Lecturer 1801 ; Prebendary of Salisbury ; Master of Sherborne Hospital ; writer from an Evangelical point of view ; a voluminous controversialist ; died January 27, 1854.
EDWARD ELLERTON : Matriculated 1789; afterwards Fellow of Magdalen ; the founder of prizes and scholar- ships bearing his name ; died 1851.
SIR JOHN RICHARDSON : Matriculated 1789 ; Puisne Judge of the Court of Common Pleas ; died March 19, 1841.
WILLIAM LIDDIARD : Matriculated 1792 ; Captain in army, subsequently Rector of Knockmarch, Meath ; author of miscellaneous works, poems, travels, etc.
CHARLES THORPE : Matriculated 1 799 ; Fellow and tutor 1803 ; First Warden of Durham University.
CHAPTER IX
FROM 1745 TO MODERN TIMES
Masters: Browne, Wetherell, Griffith, Rowley, Plumptre, Bradley, Bright.
THE eighteenth century in Oxford has been compared to a valley between the intellectual eminences of the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries.* Certainly the well-known expressions of opinion by Lord Chester- field, who was not going to send his son to the Uni- versity 'because he had been at Oxford himself *;t of Gibbon, who 'never once heard there the voice of admonition ' or ' felt the hand of control,' whose ' time there was lost, expenses multiplied, and behaviour abroad unknown ' ;J and of Dr. V. Knox,§ who vouches for the fact that ' the greatest dunce usually gets his testamur signed with as much ease and credit as the finest genius, are gloomy enough evidence as to the condition of the nation's most ancient seat of learning at this epoch. Such generalizations, however true of most of the Colleges and of the University at large, must be materially modified in the case of University College.
* Lord Mahon's History of England, vol. vii., p. 315. t Lord Chesterfield's essay in the World, May 3, 1753. t Gibbon's Autobiography (ed. 1869), p. 29. § Works of Dr. V. Knox, vol. i.f p. 317.
FROM 1745 TO MODERN TIMES 185
There the last half of the eighteenth century proved a golden period, during which the staff of teachers was distinguished for learning and ability, and their pupils in after-life attained the highest positions in the service of the State and in the learned professions.
John Browne,* Archdeacon of Northampton, followed Cockman as Master. He took the oaths before the Lord Chancellor (representing the Crown) on March 3, 1745. Browne had entered the College in 1704, and was elected Fellow in 1710. He relinquished his Fellow- ship on March 12, 1739, having obtained valuable preferment in the Church, which now enabled him to fill the post of Master with less difficulty than some of his predecessors.
But it was not to the new Master, though he dis- charged the duties of his office conscientiously, that the College owed the remarkable uprising of distinguished sons which made the name of University most honour- able among Oxford Colleges from the middle to the close of the century. By either some happy fortune or the most commendable exercise of judgment on the part of the Fellows, Robert Chambers was elected from Lincoln College to a Percy Fellowship on June 23, 1761. Early the following year the new Fellow was appointed Vinerian Professor of Law in succession to Blackstone, and almost immediately engaged in tutorial work in the College, and so continued until his appointment as a Judge of the Supreme Court in Bengal in 1773.f
* J. Browne was son of Richard Browne, of Marton in Yorkshire. He was Vicar of Aldborough, Yorkshire ; Vicar of Long Compton, Warwickshire ; and Archdeacon of Northampton.
t Chambers became Chief Justice in 1789, and was President of the Asiatic Society in 1797.
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During this period he exercised a wide influence. A lawyer of deep learning, yet endowed with high social qualities, intimately acquainted with Dr. Johnson and the most eminent men of letters of the day, his presence in the College tended to attract men of ability, and his tuition helped to mould the minds and stimulate the ambition of a school of lawyers.
To such a tutor came in 1764, in the person of William Jones, one of the most remarkable pupils that has ever entered this or any other College. At Harrow Jones had won with ease every prize within the reach of school-boy ambition, and at the age of seventeen arrived in Oxford a prodigy of learning.* From lectures in Hall he was excused because of his extraordinary abilities as a classical scholar and linguist, and two years after his entry, and eighteen months before he was of standing to take his B.A. degree, the Society showed their foresight in electing him to a Fellowship. Jones was no example of early promise ending in failure and disappointment. His linguistic talents were marvellous. He had mastered Arabic and Persian by the time he was twenty. In 1768 he translated the life of Nadir Shah into French, and his Persian Grammar was published in 1771. Learned publications and criticisms on Oriental literature followed in rapid succession, and before he was thirty he was renowned throughout Europe as an Orientalist. He was called to the Bar in 1779, and soon proved the versatility of his genius by the publication of his Essay on the Law of Bailments in 1781. Appointed Judge of the High Court of Calcutta in 1783, he was fired * Lord Teignmouth's Life of Sir W. Jones.
FROM 1745 TO MODERN TIMES 187
with ambition to codify the existing systems of law, Hindu and Mohammedan, and (in his own words) 6 purposed to be the Justinian of India.'* While still engaged on this colossal enterprise, a portion of which he actually brought to completion, he died at Calcutta on April 27, 1794, at the early age of forty-seven. In the noble monument in the antechapel he is portrayed in Flaxman's bas-relief as engaged in his stupendous self- imposed task.f
The year of Joneses entry, 1764, was indeed c annus mirabilis"1 in the College history, for William Scott, afterwards Lord S to well, of whose great legal fame it is unnecessary here to speak, was elected one of William of Durham's Fellows on December 14. The same year saw also a change of Master, for on August 7 Browne died at Long Compton Vicarage in Warwickshire, which he had held for fifty years. The late Master showed his good disposition to the College by a bequest of considerable property.^ By his generosity the tenement in the High Street, now called University College Hall, was given for the foundation of two scholarships and the augmentation of others.
Nathan Wetherell, who, like Chambers, had been elected from Lincoln to a Fellowship in 1750, and who at this time was Dean of the College, after a close contest with the Senior Fellow, Betts, was elected on August 28, 1764. § The new Master was destined to
* Lord Teignmouth's Life of Sir W.Jones, ii. 88.
f His monument in the chapel was presented to the College by his wife; that in St. Paul's was erected by the directors of the East India Company.
J He also bequeathed his books as a foundation for a Master's library.
§ Betts resigned his Fellowship in November, 1764.
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hold office for the lengthy period of forty-three years, a longer term than any of his predecessors or successors have up to the present time enjoyed. A man of consider- able personal dignity, with a wide circle of acquaintance, and latterly possessed of very ample means, owing to his preferments in the Church, Wetherell proved worthy of the time in which he lived, and a befitting Master for the now flourishing Society.
The College was also fortunate in possessing at the time a very useful supporter in Sir Roger Newdi- gate,* who sat for the University from 1750 to 1780 — a 'half -converted Jacobite,' according to Horace Walpole. He never failed to do his old College a service on any occasion in his power, and it was mainly through his assistance that Wetherell was enabled to inaugurate his mastership by carrying out in 1765 a so-called improvement of the hall.
William Scott became tutor and the Reader in Greek in the year following his election as Fellow. The power he soon gained in the Society may have brought about the election of his brother Johnf to a Percy Fellowship on July 11, 1767. The elder Scott, who was elected Camden Professor of Ancient History in 1773J continued to follow an academic life for some
* Newdigate matriculated from the College in 1736.
t John Scott had entered the College at the age of fifteen, and attended the Grammar School at Newcastle during his long vacation. Lord Stowell used to say in after-life : ' I was quite ashamed of his appearance, he looked such a mere boy.' In 1771 he secured the Chancellor's Essay, which in the first five years of its institution had been won on four occasions by members of the College (Twiss, LifeofEldon}.
$ There was a spirited contest in this election, Scott securing 140 votes, Bandinel 115, and Napleton 99.
From a photograph by the\
A CORNER OF THE HALL
{Oxford Camei a Club
FROM 1745 TO MODERN TIMES 189
years longer than his brother, and held various College offices from 1763 till 1775, when he was Dean. John Scott, on the other hand, resigned his Fellowship in February, 1774, and only appears to have held a College office in 1765, when he also was Dean.
The future Lord Stowell as a tutor was a great support to Chambers, and seldom, if ever, has so small a College possessed two men of such ability engaged in tutorial work at the same time. Under these auspices the books present a long roll of distinguished alumni. William Windham, the future orator and statesman, was admitted in 1767 ; Francis Raw don Hastings, afterwards Governor-General of India, and Thomas Plumer, a future Master of the Rolls, in 1770 ; and a number of minor lights, such as James Bland Burges, one of the Antislavery Committee and Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs ; Thomas Menzies, Orien- talist ; John Ingram Lockhart, who won Oxford City from the Marlborough interest, and represented it from 1807 to 1818;* Samuel Wilson Warneford, philanthropist ; Arthur Leary Pigott, Attorney-General 1806 ; John Sibthorpe,f the botanist, are sprinkled among the greater luminaries. The great majority of the commoners at this period were of good social status, entered as armigeri, and bearing the names of well-known families.
These were the halcyon days when the company in the common-room J was so learned and so witty that
* Afterwards M.P. for Steyning, and subsequently for Arundel.
f Author of Flora Oxoniensis and Flora Graca in ten folio volumes ; elected Radcliffe travelling Fellow on June 26, 1781 ; original member of Linnaean Society in 1788 ; died at Bath, February 8, 1796.
J Cf. Birkbeck Hill's edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. ii., p. 268, note 2.
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Dr. Johnson was there encouraged to drink three bottles of port at a sitting ' without being the worse for it.1 Johnson was no unfrequent visitor,* as he was acquainted with the Master and on terms of warm friendship with both Chambers and Scott ; here he distinguished himself by crushing a wearisome pedant with one of his rudest and most characteristic retorts.t To commemorate this glorious period a University College Club was proposed by the Earl of Radnor in 1791, and successfully established in the following year. It comprised contemporary members of the College between the years 1764 and 177&, and the meetings were held at the Crown and Anchor Tavern in the Strand on the first Saturdays of February, March, April, and May in each year. Dinner was served at half-past five. There were but thirty-three members, and of these eleven were or had been Members of Par- liament. Amongst the number were four Ministers, two Lord Lieutenants, the Commander-in-Chief in Scotland, and thirteen Judges ; minor legal writers and Church dignitaries went to complete the list. Their names were engraved in March, 1801, as a memorial of their friendship.
* A mezzotint portrait of Johnson, after the picture by Opie, given by William Scott, is in the common-room. On the back is inscribed : ' Samuel Johnson, LL.D., in hac camera communi frequens con viva.1
f In November, 1773, in the common-room, Dr. Mortimer, described as a 'shallow, underbred man,' repeatedly interrupting and contradicting him, 'Sir, sir,' said Johnson, 'you must have forgot that an author has said: "Plus negabit unus asinus in un§, hora quam centum philosophi probaverint in centum annis " (Birkbeck Hill's edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. ii., p. 268, note ; see also ibid., the anecdote of Johnson and Chambers).
FROM 1745 TO MODERN TIMES 191
Possibly it was deemed that such heroic performances with the wine-cup as those recorded by Johnson were not good for the eyes of youth, for an order was made in June, 1777, that 'henceforth no gentleman com- moner should be admitted to the high table or as a member of the Fellows^ common-room until he has worn the gown of that order for three years.' A little later, in December, 1795, a further restriction was imposed ' that they be not admitted till they have taken their degree.' Very probably the being debarred the company of their seniors was no great grievance in the eyes of the gentlemen commoners. A junior common-room was certainly in existence in the second half of the century, and its attractions were likely to outweigh any attaching to the privilege of using the senior common-room. The inscription ' Univ. Coll. Junr. C. Room, 1760,' moulded on a port bottle now in the common-room, probably refers to the year of its establishment, but there does not appear to be any notice of its existence in the bursarial books before 1767.*
Distinctions in the rank and position of commoners were multiplied in the eighteenth century. Com- mencing from the lowest grade, there is at least one example of a ' sub-corn mensalis ' or ' tabellarius,' who ranked between a servitor and an ordinary commoner. Then comes the ' com mensalis,' or ordinary commoner ; then < commensales primi ordinis,' ' commensales superioris ordinis,' and (in but a few cases) ' commensales supremi ordinis.'
* In a rough account-book of that year • Junr. Common Room ' appears in a printed list of rooms as No. 12, opposite to Freeston 1 Scholars' Room.'
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The last gentleman commoner* entered in 1838, but the order had been practically extinct for some years before that time.
Under Wetherell discipline was enforced with a judicious moderation. There seems to have been need for only one expulsion ' propter contumaciam et incor- rigibilitatem ' during his long term of office.f He introduced one trying form of penalty for minor offences, which had for some time been in use at Cambridge. It consisted in a public confession by the delinquent in Hall. The following form is found more than once :
' Ego A.B. confiteor me graviter deliquisse contra bonos mores et consuetum regimen, quippe qui aliquot ante noctibus vino immodico perfusus publicam quietem tumul- tuosis clamoribus conturbaverim, Hujus delicti me vehe- menter et ex animo pudet/ etc.
At a later period rustication, generally for two terms, became a not unfrequent punishment, especially in the case of gentlemen commoners. Exercises under the title of ' pensa literaria1 were imposed even on Bachelors! at the end of the eighteenth century, and continued to be inflicted on undergraduates in the nineteenth, until
* George W. J. Repton : he was not, however, described as gent, commoner in the books. The last entry of Sup. ordinis commens. occurs in 1813.
f The language in which some of the offences in the eighteenth- century Register are described adds to their enormity. A scholar was expelled in 1754 ' post varias et graves animadversiones causa effrenatae licentiae speciatim vero pro intemperata luxurie quam in cibo tarn in potu a Collegio expulsus.'
J In 1782 a Bachelor was admonished ' propter negligentiam cultus Divine paene uniformem,1 and ' pensum literarium a Magistro impositum est.'
FROM 1745 TO MODERN TIMES 193
the punishment became a farce owing to the work being done by deputy.
The high-water mark of prosperity of the College was reached between 1770 and 1780. Chambers had been appointed Judge in Bengal in 1773. William Scott ceased to act as tutor after 1775, and resigned his Fellowship in 1782. Sir William Jones's resigna- tion came in the following year. With the retirement of men of such mark a period of decadence set in — at first gradually, but later the numbers became affected, perhaps as much owing to the war as to the diminished reputation of the College, and in 1800 such was ' the extraordinary thinness of the College ' that it was found necessary to supplement the cook's stipend by a gratuity ! George Stanley Faber, author of Horce Mosaicos; Edward Ellerton, founder of University prizes ; and John Richard- son, afterwards Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, were all admitted in 1789 ; but between this date and the advent of Edward West (July 20, 1800), the political economist and Indian Judge, it is difficult to find a name of distinction.
Master Wetherell, who had been appointed Dean of Hereford in 1800, in addition to his prebend at West- minster, died on December 29, 1807, at the age of eighty-two. He is perhaps the solitary example of a Master of the College dying rich. Of his six sons, three matriculated from University College, and a fourth became a Fellow. The eldest. Sir Charles Wetherell, attained distinction as Attorney -General in 1826, but is chiefly interesting as having from his unpopularity proved the initial cause of the Bristol riots.
The Fellows chose as their new Master James Griffith,
13
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who had been elected a Fellow from Corpus in 1784. Griffith was a man of retiring disposition and artistic tastes. He had proved himself a competent architect in the alterations to chapel and hall in 1802, and was devoted to music and painting. As a draughtsman he will be remembered from the sepia illustrations to Whitaker's History of Craven, the best of which are from his hand. Later in life he applied himself to the peculiar work known as ' poker painting/ One of his masterpieces in this art was so much esteemed as to be placed over the altar in the chapel, and examples of his skill still remain both in the common-room and the Master's Lodgings.
An interesting description of the Master's habit of life is given in the Memoirs of Elizabeth Grant of Rothie- murchus. The authoress was niece (by marriage) of the Master, and, as a girl of fifteen, lived for a year (1810-11) with her uncle in Oxford. Three old servants, a man and two maids, did the work of the Lodgings, some of the upper rooms of which on the side looking to the street were let to men in. the College. The Master spent much of his time in a little room furnished with branding-irons and other appliances for his curious art. Undergraduates were kept at the greatest possible distance, ' conversed with never, invited never, spoke of or thought of never.1 The Master's niece, however, did not appreciate such dignified seclusion, and an amusing tale is recorded of early flirtation carried on from under the mulberry-tree (still standing) in the Master's garden with a young gentleman with a curly head who played the French horn ! (cf. Memoirs of a Highland Lady).
The headship of so innocent a recluse could hardly
FROM 1745 TO MODERN TIMES 195
have been to the interest of the College. All govern- ment and control seem to have been in the hands of George Rowley the Dean, who was unpopular, and, according to Mrs. Grant, responsible for the nightly fox-hunting which took place in the quadrangle, ' having interfered with such sport outside.1 Penalties and rusti- cations multiplied between 1807 and 1811, the usual offence being leaving the College without permission.
Such was the general condition of things when Percy Bysshe Shelley entered his name ' sub tutamine Magistri Rowley et Domini Davison1 on April 10, 1810, at the age of seventeen. His father, Sir Timothy Shelley, had also been a member of the College, having been admitted as one of Lord Leicester's scholars in the year 1779. The future poet came into residence in October of the same year, and was allotted the rooms on the first-floor in the corner of the quadrangle next the hall. The fashion in which he kept them is described by Hogg :
'Books, boots, papers, shoes, philosophical instruments, clothes, pistols, linen, crockery, ammunition, phials in- numerable, with money, stockings, prints, crucibles, bags and boxes, were scattered on the floor and in every place : as if the young chemist, in order to analyse the mystery of creation, had endeavoured first to reconstruct the primaeval chaos. The tables and especially the carpet were already stained with large spots of various I ues, which frequently proclaimed the agency of fire. An electrical machine, an air-pump, the galvanic trough, a solar microscope, and large glass jars and receivers, were conspicuous amid the mass of matter' (Life of Shelley, by Hogg).
Shelley's career at the University was limited to some eighteen months. In College he preferred seclusion
13—2
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and a close intimacy with Hogg to the ordinary habits of an undergraduate. Few among the inmates were not afraid of his ' strange and fantastic pranks," says C. J. Ridley,* a contemporary, and afterwards Fellow; but his good-humour and kindness of disposition were generally acknowledged. Hogg, however, was most unpopular. The climax to the 4 fantastic pranks ' came in March, 1811, when Shelley circulated in Oxford a small tract entitled The Necessity of Atheism. This tiny pamphletf in 12mo., containing only seven pages of letterpress, with some twenty-one lines in a page, was no jeu (T esprit, but a serious though most crude and immature attempt to deal with the subject. With boyish self- satisfaction the author concludes : ' Every reflecting mind must allow there is no proof of the existence of a Deity/— Q.E.D.
When it is remembered that at this time regular attendance in chapel and subscription to the Thirty- nine Articles were essential conditions in Oxford life, it is not difficult to understand that such extravagance in opinion and conduct was regarded as an unpardon- able offence. Shelley was summoned before a College meeting on March 25, 1811, and appears to have given indirect answers when asked if he could or would dis- avow the obnoxious production. Hogg made a volun- tary appearance and stated that, if Shelley had anything to do with it, he (Hogg) was equally implicated, and desired his share of the penalty. Towards the after-
* C. J. Ridley entered the College in 1809; was elected Fellow in 1813. His letter, undated, describing this affair from his later recollection, is now pasted into the College Register.
f Printed by Phillips, Worthing.
FROM 1745 TO MODERN TIMES 197
noon a large paper bearing the College seal was affixed to the hall door, declaring that the two offenders were publicly expelled from the College for contumacy in refusing to answer certain questions put to them. Before the publication of the sentence the two friends are said to have passed the time walking up and down the centre of the quadrangle, conspicuous for the singularity of their dress. In the Register the entry simply appears :
'March 25, 1811. — At a meeting of the Master and Fellows held this day it was determined that Thomas Jefferson Hogg and Percy Bisshe (sic) Shelley, commoners, be publicly expelled for contumaciously refusing to answer questions proposed to them, and for also repeatedly declining to disavow a publication entitled " The Necessity of Atheism." '
The action of the College authorities has been criticised as harsh and indiscriminating, but bearing in mind the entire intolerance with which any deviation from the lines of the strictest and most narrow ortho- doxy was then regarded in the University, it is difficult to see what other course was open to meet a defiant assertion of atheism. The detection of early genius is a matter of no small difficulty, and in the simple words of Mr. Andrew Lang : ' People who have to do with hundreds of young men at a time are unavoidably compelled to generalize.'*
The only other event of importance during Griffith's mastership was the close contest for the chancellorship of the University in 1809. Strenuous efforts were
* Oxford, A. Lang, p. 219.
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made on behalf of Lord Eldon by his old Society, but in vain, for Lord Grenville as a patron of letters won the sympathy and support of the younger members of the University, and secured the election against the great Tory lawyer.
As might be expected from the prominent part he had taken in the government of the College, George Rowley, the Dean, was elected to fill the mastership when death overtook the amiable Griffith in his Lodging on May 11, 1821. The new Master was a Yorkshire- man, born at Richmond, and had matriculated from the College in 1799.
Master Rowley^s term of office, which extended over a period of fifteen years, is in no way remarkable in the history of the College.
The undergraduate members apart from the founda- tion were at this period mainly drawn from a well- to-do and well-connected class, most of them able to afford to hunt, and with little taste or leisure for literary pursuits. Socially, the name of the Col- lege ranked high, but any educational advantages it may have offered are difficult to discover. Still, under conditions not altogether favourable to the acquirement of distinction in after-life, some well- known names may at this period be found in the Admission Book. Edmund Hammond, for long Per- manent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, entered in 1820 ; Ashton Oxenden, afterwards Bishop of Montreal, and Travers Twiss, in 1826 ; Robert Gray, remembered for his action, when Bishop of Cape Town, against Colenso for heresy, matriculated in 1827. Two years after came Robert Lowe, afterwards Chancellor of the
FROM 1745 TO MODERN TIMES 199
Exchequer ; and amongst others, a little later, William Mask ell, ecclesiastical antiquary (in 1832) ; William Fishburn Donkin, the astronomer ; F. W. Faber, poet, friend of Newman, and convert to Catholicism ; and George Mellish, Lord Justice of Appeal (all entered in 1839).
The main event of Rowley's mastership occurred on the occasion of the Duke of Wellington's installation as Chancellor of the University on June 9, 1834. Popular affection for the Duke was nearly re-established, and on his coming to Oxford he was greeted with immense enthusiasm. The Master (who was Vice- Chancellor from 1832 to 1836), to celebrate the event, entertained in the College hall a most distinguished company, including the Duke of Cumberland, the Arch- bishops of Canterbury, York, and Armagh, together with thirty peers, Bishops, and a host of minor notabilities.
Rowley died at the age of fifty-five, October 5, 1836, and was followed by Frederick Plumptre, who was destined to preside over the fortunes of the College for twenty-four years. His distinguished presence and stately manners are still within the recollection of many.
In the first years of Plumptre's mastership the foundation was strengthened by the addition of another Fellowship, founded in memory of her father, Lord Stowell, through the generosity of the Viscountess Sidmouth. Though at first offered only as a by- Fellowship, it was later, on the recommendation of the Commissioners, attached to the governing body, making the number of Fellows thirteen, at which it still remains.
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Subsequent benefactions whereby the foundation has benefited, and is likely to secure further advantage, have been made under the wills of Dr. Shepherd, Dr. Plumptre, and Robert Myers.
A landmark in the College history of the nineteenth century is afforded by the election in July, 1838, of Arthur Penrhyn Stanley as a probationer Fellow, and from this event may be dated the introduction of the spirit of modern education into University College. By one of the late Dean Stanley's most intimate friends, and his successor in the deanery of West- minster, this single election was regarded ' of far greater importance to the welfare of that ancient society than any that had befallen it for at least a century.'* It is difficult to overestimate the services which tutors who combine the highest ability with real aptitude for tutorial work may render to a College. Truly Stanley proved himself a worthy successor to Chambers and William Scott, and one whose influence may have brought about even more lasting results. He acted as Reader in Latin from 1842, and Dean from 1846, to his resignation in 1851. The standard both of teaching and learning found by him was low, and reading men were in a small minority. Most of the undergraduate members were in easy circumstances, and the College was renowned for the number of men ' in pink ' it could turn out. Though less than half its present size, it maintained a high social position in the University, being commonly held to rank along with or next to Christ Church, f The alteration and reform of
* Cf. Dean Bradley 's Recollections of Arthur Stanley, p. 45. f Cf. Pycroft's Oxford Memories, i. 119.
FROM 1745 TO MODERN TIMES 201
such an establishment in its educational character was, under these circumstances, a work requiring the greatest tact and skill if the better traditions of the house were to be maintained, and at the same time some improved form of education imparted.
Stanley's work in the College was by no means con- fined to improvement in the methods of teaching ; he sought by all means in his power to extend the general educational advantages which life in a College may be made to afford, and did what he could to facilitate social intercourse among those under his charge, both rich and poor, hard-working and otherwise. His efforts proved remarkably successful, and the friendly social tone which for many years has been, and still is, charac- teristic of University as a College may be traced in great measure to the work and influence of this popular tutor.
Among the innovations introduced by him was the occasional delivery of a short sermon in the chapel service. A new influence was thus brought to bear on those under his charge, and the first sermon in the chapel was preached by Stanley himself. But it was in the common-room and among the scholars that the charm of Stanley's personality and manners made itself most strongly felt; here his intense belief in literary and intellectual excellence served to stimulate a higher tone of thought and nobler aims. The presence in the College of the favourite pupil and biographer of Arnold soon proved an attraction to men of the same school of thought, and his election was shortly followed by the choice of other Fellows whose scholarly ability and wide range of attainments was to
202 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
gain them distinction not confined to their own College or University. The late Master and present Dean of Westminster was elected in 1844, William Bright, late Canon of Christ Church, and John Conington, in 1847. In 1850 Mr. Goldwin Smith joined the number, a few years later the present Lord Davey.
Under such auspices the College faced the first University Commission of 1850, to which body on its creation, August 31, 1850, Stanley was appointed secretary. As in most other Colleges, there was in University a majority viewing the objects and pro- ceedings of the Commission with suspicion, while the younger and more energetic Fellows were in favour of reform. The Commissioners were at first refused a copy of the statutes or a statement of revenue, but appear to have secured all the evidence required from the senior tutor. Their recommendations were brief and clear, and reflected the known opinions of their secretary.*
The alterations required were :
That the oath to observe the statutes should be prohibited as unlawful.
That the Master and Fellows should be released from the obligation of attending disputations and other obsolete practices.
That all the foundations should be open.
That the property qualification should be altered.
That the obligation to take Orders should be repealed by law, as it had for the most part been virtually re- pealed by the College itself.
As in the case of all other Colleges the recommenda- * Cf. Report of Commission.
FROM 1745 TO MODERN TIMES 203
tions of the Commissioners were adopted by University, and new statutes framed. These have been altered and amended more than once since that time. The statutes now governing the College were made under direction of the second. University Commission in 1877, and became effective from 1882. They incorporate, for the most part, the changes introduced by the first Commissioners. The repeal of the obligation on the Fellows to take orders and the diminution by statute of the necessary number of clerical Fellows has probably made less difference than might have been imagined in the character of the Society, for the original restrictions had for long been relaxed, permission being granted to the Fellows to retain their emoluments whilst continuing laymen. The opening of the foundation to all comers by the removal of local restrictions has, on the other hand, produced more marked effect, and has probably weakened the connection of the College with the North of England. Though the Southerners had secured an almost equal footing through the Bennet endowment, yet up to the date of the modern statutes the character of the College remained mainly Northern. The condi- tions as to birthplace had always been strictly enforced on the candidates for founders Fellowships and for those established by Walter Skirlaw. Out of the long list of Masters the great majority had sprung from the counties of Yorkshire and Durham, and the influence they had exercised had drawn to the College a con- tinuous succession of sons of Northern houses. Now in one case only is the old connection maintained — the exhibitioners of John Freeston must still be drawn primarily from certain Yorkshire schools.
204 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
Master Plumptre died on November 21, 1870, and was succeeded in office by the Rev. George Granville Bradley, the Headmaster of Marlborough College. When eleven years later he was chosen to succeed his friend Stanley as Dean of Westminster, the present Master (the Rev. J. F. Bright, D.D.) was chosen to fill the office and guide the destinies of the College which had owned him as an undergraduate. The history of these later years must be narrated by another pen ; all that the present writer dare venture to say is that, when the tale is told, this latter period will be found worthy of comparison with any of similar length in the varied history extending over seven centuries.
Especially has the reputation which the College established in the second half of the eighteenth century for a close connection with public and political life been of late years well upheld. Between 1875 and 1885 it may be said that the sons of prominent leaders of almost every shade of politics* in this country sought and received their education at University College ; of these, not a few have followed in the foot- steps of their parents, and four old members of the College are to be found among the present Ministers of the Crown (1902).
* Mr. Gladstone, Lord Cross, Mr. Forster, Lord Selborne, Lord Salisbury, and Sir Stafford Northcote (afterwards Lord Iddesleigh).
*^pnr
CHAPTER X
THE EXISTING BUILDINGS
FROM- its unique length of 360 feet of frontage abutting on the much-coveted High Street, University College is able to boast possession of, perhaps, the finest site in Oxford. The present building, like not a few of the most imposing edifices in the city, stands an excellent example of the effect to be produced by a happy mingling of architectural ideas. Two massive towers link together the long range of weather-worn Jacobean stonework, and the whole presents to the eye a picture of dignified solidity, dark in the shadow, in pleasing contrast to the delicate cupola, the central feature in Hawksmoor's classical facade on the opposite and sunny side of the street.
The appearance of the street face of the two quad- rangles is so exactly similar, owing to the friable nature of the Oxford oolite, that it needs a shrewd observer to detect a difference of some eighty years1 date between the eastern and western portions. It was on April 17, 1634, that the foundation-stone of the large quad- rangle was laid with all befitting pomp by the late Master, then Bishop of Oxford. A full account of the
206 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
initial ceremony is contained in the Register. We are told how on this solemn occasion the right reverend prelate, raising his hands to heaven, commended the place to God's service with a prayer ; the Vice- Chan- cellor and Doctors praying beside him with ' many others of the better sort," while the Master and Fellows stood near clad in their surplices (in albis ad stantibas). After this an eloquent panegyric on the two benefactors, Charles Greenwood and Sir Simon Bennet, with whose money the building was to be raised, was delivered in Latin by Abraham Woodhead.
The new quadrangle was designed to be 100 feet square, and the western side, the first portion to be undertaken, was in itself a work of extension, being built upon land which had been acquired by exchange from Christ Church in 1559.
Preparation for the great building operations had been made in the previous year (1633) by the erection of a boundary- wall on the west 16 £ perches long and 15 J feet high, between which and the line of the new building a roadway was laid out, with access by gates from the High Street. There was no hurry in the commencement of the work, which had been in con- templation for nearly ten years, and as early as April, 1625, ' a reckoning ' had been come to with Richard Maud, freemason of Oxford, for the mason work of the western side. Various plans for the new quadrangle different from that finally adopted (some of which still remain in the muniment room) had for several years past been under careful consideration. That finally adopted, though prepared by a skilled draughtsman, is said to have been devised by C. Greenwood himself. No
THE EXISTING BUILDINGS 207
architect appears to have been employed. An over- seer was, however, engaged to superintend the work, and one Bernard Rawlings was appointed to the post, and was entertained at the survey of the building on April 22, 1634.
Building operations were carried on with as much or more expedition in the seventeenth than is often the case in the twentieth century, for in five months'* time we hear of the ' roof-rearing,1 on which occasion there was a dinner and a presentation of gloves to the chief carpenter, mason, and surveyor.
The first portion to be completed comprised the whole western side, with the return on the north side, 41 feet in length. The total expense amounted to XJ1,405 8s. 3d. The front facing the street and the return on the east side was continued in the following spring (1635). This portion of the work occupied about the same length of time, for we find that the roof-rearing dinner took place on September 29, 1635. The bargain for the slating was made on July 10, 1635, with Robert Perry, of Burford, ' slatter,1 who, as in the case of the western side, found slates and all material and labour for sixteen shillings a hundred, and a penny a foot for the crests. This side of the quad- rangle cost in building ^1,651 19s., and, considering that it contains the gateway-tower, the increased cost is less than might have been expected. The general type of the old tower was evidently followed in the construction of the new in a ' very singular fashion of the pseudo-Gothic of the time.1*
Two sides of the projected square being thus com- * Willis and Clark, iii. 288.
208 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
pleted, the Society took breathing-space for a year before engaging on the more important southern side, which was to include chapel and hall.* The old chapel and hall were purposely left standing during the process of replacement, so there was no positive urgency to complete the work. This was fortunate, as expensive litigation was on foot with regard to the Bennet pro- perty, and money could not be raised from the estate by triennial timber-cutting as fast as it was required for the work of construction. f
When the treasury was again replenished with the proceeds of the good oaks of Hanley Park, the building of the chapel and hall was commenced, in the spring (March 29) of 1637, but proceeded but slowly. In March, 1641, ^1,943 had been spent, but the buildings were only partially roofed in. A little further progress was made in 1641, and then all work was at a standstill till 16574
Adjoining one another under a continuous roof, and opposite to the main entrance, the position of chapel and hall follows the usual plan of seventeenth-century construction in Oxford. The hall was the first portion to be finished, the money necessary for the purpose being raised under the Parliamentarian regime in 1657. The roof was at first in open timber- work, § with a louvre to carry off* the smoke from the fireplace in the
* Interments were made in the old chapel as late as January,
f ^"2,554 was received from the sale of timber from 1634 to 1637.
| See Wood's Life and Times, vol. i., p. 219.
§ A section of the roof, engraved from a drawing by J. Smith, shows it to have been of the ordinary style of the time, and to have borne a strong resemblance to the fine roof of the Hall of Wadham College.
THE EXISTING BUILDINGS 209
centre of the chamber. When, however, chimneys came into fashion for Oxford halls in the second half of the eighteenth century, the whole hall was refitted (in 1766), the cost being defrayed by subscription from old members of the College.* The open roof was then covered in by the present coved ceiling, with its fan- tracery in plaster panel ; the two windows on the north side, one of which had contained glass painted and pre- sented by Giles of York, were walled up ; and the present fireplace, the gift of Sir Roger Newdigate, was inserted. t The floor of Danish and Swedish marble was laid at the same time.
The plans for this reconstruction were prepared by H. Keene, of Golden Square, and the work is a curious instance of early Gothic revival. The result ot the alteration was to conceal a sound and handsome timber roof, and substitute for it a plaster construc- tion, in some respects elegant, but impossible and artificial as a piece of architecture. Though one of the smaller halls in Oxford, up to late years it has proved large enough for the needs of the College, but if space is to be provided for an increased number of undergraduate members, this can only be secured by extension westwards of the present building. I
* The subscribers are still kept in memory, their respective arms being given in their proper tinctures on the small shields attached to the panelling round the hall.
f This fireplace is said to have been modelled from a monument in Ely Cathedral.
J A plan for the extension of the hall, by the addition of another bay towards the Fellows' garden, is in existence, and in it provision is made for the reopening of the old timber roof.
14
210 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
The exact date of the institution of a common-room in the College I have been unable to discover. But, as in the case of other Oxford Colleges, this innovation appears to have followed close on the Restoration, possibly the object being to provide such comforts for the Fellows as might rival the attractions of the coffee- houses, then newly sprung into existence. The present common-room appears to have been adapted for the purpose in 1679 under the bursarship of Boyse, and took the place of another room which it is impossible to locate, but which is referred to in the accounts of 1682 : ' for mending and whiting ye old common- room.'' In 1697 the handsome wainscotting was erected by Barker, about half the cost of which was provided by gifts from the Fellows. In 1865 the addition of another room was made, and a passage arranged leading into the hall.
For the chapel Oriel furnished a model, which was somewhat closely followed, and there is an item in the accounts for an inspection of the work there, then recently completed. The building stood partly un- covered during the Civil War and throughout the intervening period to the Restoration. The seven fine windows by Abraham von Ling, whose glass was much in favour in Oxford at this period, seem, from a curious agreement* with the artist, to have been nearly finished
* ' May 26, 1642. Agree* with Ab. Van Ling: Recd then of Mr. Obad. Walker the sum of £70 in part payment for glasse work done for University Coll., and likewise then agreed that if the College did not go forward with their work according to their former agree- ment that then Mr. Van Ling shall receive five pounds now at Michaelmas next if he leave the kingdom or otherwise before Easter next,' etc.
THE EXISTING BUILDINGS
at the outbreak of the war, but were not erected until after the Restoration.*
Directly the restored Master had succeeded in bringing the College finances into some order, he proceeded to complete the chapel, which was con- secrated by Walter Blandford, Bishop of Oxford, on March 25, 1665. In the first instance, there was a wainscot roof with some ornamentation,f the gift of a Mrs. Reed, who presented ^200 for this purpose ; but the interior was not finished until nearly the end of the century.
Little by little, as gifts were secured or funds accrued, the work of decoration was gradually carried out. In 1692 most of the marble pavement was laid. In 1694 the fine panelling and rich carving, still the most distinguishing feature, was completed. This work is so fine and bold in design that it has not unfrequently been attributed to the hand of Grinling Gibbons. It was, however, really carried out in 1694 by Thomas Barker, of St. Giles-in-the-Fields. The carving around and above the altar was most elaborate in design and execution.
The cost of the screen was mainly provided by sub- scriptions from the Master and Fellows, who on All
* Above the Scriptural subjects of the windows are inserted the arms of the chief founders and benefactors. On the south side the lion rampant of Dudley ; the six batons of Skirlaw ; the fleur-de-lys, each leaf charged with a mullet gules, of William of Durham ; the cross patence between five martlets of the Saxon Kings. On the north side the chevron erm. between three sal tires arg. of Green- wood ; the bezant between three demi-lions rampant of Bennet ; and the arms of Percy and Lucy impaled.
f For instance, we find an item : ' Carving 14 angells in the roof at 81 apiece.'
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Saints' Day, 1693, after dinner, subscribed their names in the common-room for various sums, John Hinckley's promise of £%0 within the space of a year being accom- panied by the condition < provided there be no altera- tion in our church before that time.'
Thus completed, the chapel remained unaltered till 1802, when the decay of the wainscot roof is said to have made its removal necessary. It was then replaced by a groined Gothic ceiling in plaster. Externally still more important alterations were carried out at the same date.
In the original design of external ornament of the southern side facing the main entrance, the examples of Wadham and Oriel were partly followed. The ogee battlement was carried along hall and chapel, and the space below the windows was but blank wall.* In the centre the ornamentation consisted of a semicircular pediment with Doric pilasters and square - headed windows, and on either side were niches, in which were afterwards placed the statues of St. Cuthbert and King Alfred. All this was altered in 1802, according to a plan designed by Griffith, then Dean. According to this, the present buttresses, pinnacles, and oriel window were constructed. Although it was the effort of an amateur to meet the architectural fashion of his day, the result is not unsatisfactory, and considerable credit is due to the author.
In 1862 a not altogether fortunate attempt, under the direction of Sir Gilbert Scott, to give the building internally a Gothic character wrought a complete change in the chapel. The plaster ceiling of 1802 was
* See Ingram 's Memorials of Oxford, vol. i., 2.
THE EXISTING BUILDINGS
replaced by an open timber roof. Dr. RadclifiVs window,* the colouring and design of which had become quite indistinct, owing to its not being stained but painted glass, gave way to a new east window, pre- sented by Master Plumptre, to receive which the eastern wall was pulled down and rebuilt. The elaborate carvings were displaced in favour of the present stone reredos.f Scott had been anxious to add another bay, but this part of the plan was rejected because of the increased expense. The smaller window on the north side was, however, inserted in order to secure more light at the east end.
The changes thus brought about were, happily, not sufficiently complete to destroy the curious but de- lightful effect produced by the lavish use of woodwork for internal decoration following classical designs.
Dimly illumined with the soft candlelight on a winter's evening, the chapel looks its best ; shadows and reflections are produced by the flickering wax-lights interspersed amid the crowd of youth, and then but little imagination is needed to fill the benches with the occupants of other centuries, and the worthy names of those whom in the past the College has trained for good service, both in Church and State, come quick to memory.
Music is not at present, and never has been, a main feature in the conduct of the chapel services ; until of late years it was practically unknown, as may be
* The tracery for Dr. Radcliffe's window was ill-designed and later in date than that of the other windows.
f These carvings were carefully preserved and erected in the Bursary, and the old Communion-table was presented to Huber- holme Church (Yorks, W.R.).
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
gathered from a resolution of the Fellows in 1863, ' That it was desirable to introduce some amount of music into the services/ The present organ was pur- chased in 1865, and was cleverly designed to fit into the fourth blind window on the north side.*
In the antechapel is the bas-relief by Flaxman, in memory of Sir William Jones, beautifully executed in statuary marble, representing the great lawyer, assisted by Brahmins, engaged in translating the Hindoo law. By the same sculptor is the smaller mural monument to Master Wetherell. Amongst other monuments, that erected to Sir Robert Chambers is most noticeable, and the black marble tablet to Jonas Radcliffe is most interesting, as being one of the few relics of the old chapel.
Of the Masters, Farrer, Charlett, Cockman, Browne, Wetherell, Griffith, Rowley, and Plumptre, were all interred in the chapel, most of them within the Com- munion-rails, their resting-places being marked by simple initials with dates.
The antechapel is associated with a curious custom which prevailed till recent times : here, after every celebration of the Holy Communion in the chapel, on the conclusion of the service, the Master and Fellows, standing in a circle, consumed the portions remaining of the consecrated elements.
The erection of the old library and kitchen was begun in 1668, and finished two years afterwards. Facing east, and directly overlooking the Master's garden, the creeper-covered walls of the library, with the long line
* This was from the design of Mr. P. G. Medd, a Fellow of the College.
THE EXISTING BUILDINGS 215
of windows at right angles to the chapel, and the peculiarly high-pitched roof, present the most pic- turesque feature of the existing buildings. The room was 60 feet in length, 23 feet in breadth, and 10 feet in height to the wall -plate, and had a wainscot ceiling. As in other Colleges, at first the library was reserved for the use of graduate members only, and in 1805 entrance was still denied to all but those of sufficient standing for their B.A. degree. The undergraduates seem to have had a library of their own — at all events, in the second half of the eighteenth century, when mention is made of the present bursary being used for the purpose.*
Though the position of the old library staircase was twice altered — first in the time of Obadiah Walker, and again at a later date — the room itself continued in use without alteration till the completion of the present library, when it was converted into the present sets of rooms now familiarly known as the 6 Kitchen-stair.1 In 1809, what up to that date had been but a single chamber in the roof over the library was turned into rooms.
The College owes the present library, designed by Sir Gilbert Scott, to the executors of Lord Eldon, grand- son of the Chancellor, who, after presenting the colossal statues of Lord Eldon and Lord Stowell to the Society, solved the problem of housing these Gargantuan creations by providing a large sum of money for the construction of a library in which they might be sheltered. Many sculptors had a share in the pro- duction of this massive work. Sir Francis Chantry
* Gentleman's Magazine, 1786, part ii., p. 6.
216 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
designed it ; after his death his assistant Cunningham was entrusted with it in 1812. Both Cunningham and Watson, who succeeded him, died before its completion, which was eventually brought about by Nelson, who was aided in his task by both Musgrave and Lewth- waite. The mass of marble weighs altogether over sixteen tons, and its journey from London and eventual erection was attended with considerable engineering difficulties.
The MSS. belonging to the Society, 193 in number, were deposited during the pleasure of the owners in the Bodleian Library in 1874, simply for the purpose of affording facilities for inspection to students desirous of making use of them. Masters Bancroft and Thomas Walker were the most liberal donors of the existing MSS., and the most noteworthy among them are an octoteuch written in 1116, once belonging to Thomas Caius, and presented by Bancroft, now No. LII. in the Bodleian catalogue ; Prisc'iam Grammatical Commen- tarii, probably of the eleventh century ; St. Augustine's works, written in the twelfth or thirteenth century, No. CLXV. ; The Life and Miracles of St. Cuthbert, by the Venerable Bede, written in the twelfth century ; a York Missal of the fourteenth century ; and two chartularies of Fountains Abbey, one of the thirteenth, the other of the fifteenth, century, No. CLXVII. Though the collection of books in the library does not comprise any great rarities, there are many both uncommon and valuable. The considerable number of early theological works forms the chief feature. The earliest printed book is a copy of St. Augustine's De Civitate Dei, Mogunt, 1473. A fine Sarum Missal,
THE EXISTING BUILDINGS 217
printed by Regnault in 1534, and presented to the Society by Obadiah Walker, is noticeable from its beautiful condition. There is also a copy of John Eliot's Bible of the second edition (1685), printed in the dialect of the Massachusett Indians at Cambridge (Mass.) and presented by the author to Obadiah Walker in 1686. Several service - books and works containing instruction in the Roman ritual, with a number of other Roman Catholic controversial pro- ductions of the seventeenth century, silently point to the brief period of Roman Catholic control in the College history.
The eastern side of the larger quadrangle was the last to be completed. The foundation of the inner wall was laid in 1669, but the work was not finished till eight years later. The cost of building, as in the case of the library and chapel and hall, was in great part met by subscriptions, on the gathering in of which the progress of erection seems to have depended. From a letter begging assistance in 1676, we find the Master vehemently desiring to ' cover what we begin this year,' and this desire must have been gratified, for the next year we hear of 'the chambers being made habitable.'* This eastern side of the quadrangle went in the eighteenth century by the name of the Treasury Buildings, probably because of the College treasury being at that time there situate.
Accounts were kept by Master Thomas Walker for the greater portion of the earlier part of the work, and still remain in the muniment-room. Interesting details are thus given of the thickness of the walls and the depth of
* Smith's Transcripts, x. 201.
218 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
the foundation, which furnish a guide to the strength of the fabric. The outward walls above the ground-level were 2 £ feet thick till they came to the ( cockloft ' floor, when they tapered to 1J feet. The external founda- tions on the western side were carried to a depth of 8J feet, but towards the street this was reduced to 7 feet 2 inches. The levels were in the first instance very different to what they are now : the ground-floor of the old building had been throughout below the street-level, and in consequence subject to floods. Although a considerable raising of surface was effected on the erection of the present buildings, still, when these were finished, the level of the quadrangle was only 2 inches above the street-level. In Loggan's print it will be seen that there were then but two steps approaching the gateway from the street. From the gatehouse - floor into the quadrangle was a drop of 12 inches, and the level of the quadrangle then appears to have been the same as that of the present kitchen- floor.* The constant gravelling of the surface in the eighteenth century, numerous entries for which appear in the accounts, helps to explain how the quadrangle has been raised, but the present condition of the street- level is more difficult to understand.
Loggan's print (reproduced in the frontispiece) shows the finished work at this stage, and not till nearly forty years later did the ancient building there represented as abutting on the High Street, and used as the Master's Lodgings, make way for Dr. RadclifiVs extension. For this preparations were being made in 1716, when the Master, in a letter dated March 25 from Hambledon,
* Smith's Transcripts, ix. 43.
THE EXISTING BUILDINGS
speaks of having ' left all the houses next my Lodgings and in Logic Lane pulling down.'*
It was finished in 1719, and took the form of an 80-foot square in almost exact imitation of the larger quadrangle, excepting that there were buildings on three sides only, the fourth consisting of a wall as at present, but at first with a gate in the centre. In a niche over the gateway, looking over his quadrangle, stands a statue of the worthy doctor, holding in his hand the symbolic staff of ^Esculapius; the inscription in his honour beneath was composed by Chaiiett. On the other side, facing the street, is a statue of Queen Mary, corresponding with that of her sister over the other gateway.
Radcliffe's buildings were designed for the Master's Lodgings and as rooms for his two travelling Fellows. To the first of these purposes the main portion was devoted until the erection of the new Lodgings for the Master from the plans of Bodley in 1879. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century many faults had been found with the inconvenience of the Radcliffe Lodging, and in 1809 a plan was prepared and nearly entered upon for building a new Master's house, facing the High Street, on the site of the new (Barry's) building.
A portion of the present Master's garden was originally the Fellows' garden, and on it numerous small sums of money were laid out after the Restoration, Bursar Boyse being responsible for the contrivance of an arbour in 1697. The Fellows appear to have surrendered pos-
* Charlett to Richardson (NichoH's Illustrations of Literature, vol. i., p. 292).
220 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
session of it, and to have laid out their present garden, which conveniently adjoins the common-room, at the beginning of the last century (about 1809), when Deep Hall was pulled down. Of the grove of walnut- trees, which was cut down about the beginning of the eighteenth century, nothing survives but the name and tradition ; they probably grew on or about the site of the present tutor's house adjoining Grove Place.
No further extension of the College was attempted until more than 120 years after the completion of the smaller quadrangle, when a steady tendency to increase in the entries of commoners made more rooms a necessity. Since the down-pulling of Deep Hall, or ' the Principality,1 in 1809, nothing had been erected in its place. The two sites of Deep and Staunton Halls, facing the High Street and adjoining the western side of the College, were now chosen for the new buildings, the designing of which was entrusted to Sir Charles Barry. This work was finished in 1842, and by it considerable additional accommodation was afforded. The passage connecting the large quad- rangle and the new building was practically rebuilt in 1894, in connection with a chamber for the reception of Onslow Ford's pathetic marble statue of the drowned Shelley. This work, exquisite in execution, but in con- ception almost too true to life for the medium of the sculptor's art, was presented by Lady Shelley. The gift and its acceptance have gracefully marked the restoration of peace between a poet never fitted to endure the discipline of a College and authorities not perhaps altogether qualified to undertake the education of poets.
In 1867 more room was still required, and to supply
THE EXISTING BUILDINGS 221
the need it was determined to make use of No. 85, High Street (Master Browne's bequest to the College), to serve as an additional building. The house now known as University College Hall was at the beginning of the nineteenth century, though not for a long period, an inn called the Alfred Head.* At the time of its being taken over by the College, it was occupied by Miss Du Prey, a milliner, and was a favourite lodging used by undergraduates. In still later years the Hall has been enlarged, and still further alterations, compelling its demolition, are at the present time (1902) in progress. It appears probable that in the not very distant future more important additions may be called for, and that generations of future alumni may look out upon the High Street from a third quadrangle not inferior in grace or magnitude to those whose story has here been briefly told.
For six and a half centuries the growth of the collegiate body, the history of which has been here so slightly sketched, has steadily proceeded. From a beginning, almost pitifully small, its advance has been certain. Century after century has marked the increase of its borders, its fame, and its utility ; nor is there any sign that the period of growth has reached, or is about to reach, its limit.
No great statesman prelate, no sole and munificent founder, can claim University College as a monument of his piety and zeal for learning. Here, indeed, lethargy has never been induced by overgrown endowments, or usefulness fettered by too minute regulations ; and
* So called in a lease dated 1809
222 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
probably disadvantages occasioned by the lack of means in the past have been more than balanced by a freedom from the inertia following on too great wealth. Built up and sustained by opportune benefactions, for the most part offered by those grateful for a training received within its walls, the College, in later times, has been fully enabled to keep pace with the public demands upon its resources.
The future of University may be regarded by her sons with equanimity. The Great Hall remains now as always the Senior Filia Universitatis natu maxima, and still stands ' The mother of all colleges, the nurse of so many men — reverend Bishops, honourable noblemen, and other persons, eminent in Church and State — ready to continue the same service and to pay the same observance as she hath hitherto always done in advancing good literature and promoting the higher education/
APPENDICES
A.— THE COLLEGE SEAL AND ARMS
THE seal is a pointed oval, and represents St. Cuthbert as Bishop seated on a throne with two lions statant guardant, with mitre, lifting the right hand in the act of benediction, in the left hand holding the head of St. Oswald, King and martyr, and a pastoral staff held obliquely. In the lower part, under two round-headed cinquefoil arches, with three counter-sunk trefoils in the spandrils, is the founder, William of Durham, turned to the right in three-quarter length, a book in his right hand, the left hand raised, in converse with a group of four scholars on the right. The inscription round the seal is :
«H> S. COMMUNE SCOLARIV MAGRT WILL* DE DUNELMIA STUDENCIUM OXON.
It is difficult to arrive at the exact date when the Society was first in possession of a corporate seal. In William Smith's opinion a seal was certainly in existence before 1320. A grant of a certain tenement by the Master and scholars of University Hall to the founder of Queen's College, dated May 19, 1340, has been exhibited to the writer through the courtesy of the Provost of Queen's College, and to it is attached a good impression of the seal as above described. The most ancient deed bearing
224 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
the seal now among the College papers is a deed of release between John Norton 'le Major* and the Master and scholars, dated 1356.
The borrowing of a seal for some of the earlier deeds is no evidence of the College not possessing one of its own, as we find this borrowing in later years ; thus, in a deed dated January 10, 1369, we find : ' Sigillum nostrum com- mune ad manus non habentes sigillum decani Chris- tianitatis Oxon. affixi praesentibus procuravimus.'
The original brass seal of the society, though now broken in half, remains in the College Treasury.
The arms borne by University are : Azure a cross patence between four or five martlets or.
The early royal emblem borne by the Anglo-Saxon Kings seems to have been a cross (not necessarily patence) surrounded by as many birds (four or five martlets) as the field would conveniently permit (Notes on the Heraldry oj Oxford Colleges, P. Landon, p. 149).
In the Gatherings of Oxfordshire of Richard Lee (Port- cullis), 1579, among the arms mentioned as then in the College hall, they are described as : ' Azure a cross fleurie between four martlets or, ensigned with a crown,' over it written ' Alphered kynge of Saxons founded this College 879-' A print of them appears in the little volume entitled Ilium in Italiam, 1608, which gives the arms of the various Colleges, together with laudatory verses in honour of James I.
The arms of the founder, William of Durham — or a fleur- de-lis azure, each leaf charged with a mullet gules — were in its earliest years almost certainly borne by the College, and at the time of Richard Lee's visitation were to be found in prominent places. It appears probable that these Durham bearings were abandoned for the Saxon royal arms about the beginning of the fifteenth century.
APPENDICES 225
B.—PORTRAITS.
The portraits in the College Hall are at present hung as follows :
Over the entrance doorway a full-length portrait of Sir Roger Newdigate, by Kirkby.
On the left side 011 entrance, Sir William Jones, a copy by J. Linnell of the portrait by Sir J. Reynolds ; Charles Jenkinson, Earl of Liverpool, a copy of the portrait by Romney; Chauncy Maples, Bishop of Likoma ; the Earl of Radnor ; the Marquis of Hastings, by Hoppner ; Sir John Richardson, by Phillips ; Dean Stanley, by Eddis ; John Scott, Earl of Eldon, by Owen ; William Scott, Lord Stowell, by Hoppner ; Sir Robert Chambers ; and George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury.
On the right side on entrance, Sir Simon Bennet ; Dr. John Radcliffe ; Sir Edward Hales, by Lely ; John Potter, Archbishop of Canterbury ; George Home, Bishop of Norwich ; William Windham, by Lawrence ; Master F. G. Plumptre, by Eddis ; Sir Thomas Plumer ; and John Bancroft, Bishop of Oxford, and Master in 1609-
In the Master's Lodgings are the following portraits :
The first Earl of Leicester, the gift of Philip, Earl of Leicester, in 1 693, attributed to Zucchero ; George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury; John Bancroft, Bishop of Oxford; Sir Simon Bennet; and King Alfred and his Queen on small oak panels. Here is also a second portrait of the Saxon King very curiously painted on glass. There are engraved portraits of the following : Charles, Earl of Liverpool ; John Potter, Archbishop of Canterbury ; Sir Robert Chambers ; Lord Stowell ; Lord Eldon ; William Windham ; Francis, Marquis of Hastings ; Charles Thorpe, Archdeacon of Durham ; Samuel Warneford ; Robert Gray,
15
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
Bishop of Capetown ; George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury; George Shepherd, D.D. ; John Hudson, D.D. ; Robert Clavering, Bishop of Peterborough ; Lord Herbert of Cherbury ; the Rev. William Jones ; Sir William Jones ; Sir Thomas Plumer, Master of the Rolls ; George Home, Bishop of Norwich ; and John Radcliffe, M.D.
C.— ANCIENT CUSTOMS.
A curious custom called ' chopping the block ' took place annually on Easter Sunday until 1864, when it was decided in College meeting ' that chopping the block on Easter Sunday be discontinued.' This odd ceremony took place after dinner. The cook and his assistants, with their block decorated with flowers, stood in the Hall passage in wait for the members of the foundation as they left the Hall. Each in turn was presented with a dull cleaver, with which he aimed one blow at the block, and returning the cleaver to the cook, presented him with a dole. Whatever had been the origin of the custom, it had degenerated into a ceremonial feeing of the cook.
The wakening of the occupants every morning by beat- ing at the foot of each staircase with a heavy stick is a habit still maintained in the College.
APPENDICES 227
D.— NOTE ON COLLEGE ATHLETICS.
During the early years of Oxford rowing and cricket, University played a leading part, and, considering the smallness of the College, won more than its due share of distinction in these pursuits. Unfortunately, the records for the first half of the century, if any were ever kept, are no longer in existence, and those dealing with more recent times are both scanty and disjointed. The history of the boat club from 1864 to 1890 is contained in a small note- book (with the title Univ. Coll. Boat Club printed on the back), which deals with the period between 1864 and 1890. From 1890 up to present times the record has been preserved in a more imposing quarto volume.
The College first put a boat in the river for the Eights in 1827, and rowed head of the river for the first time in 1841. This early success was greatly due to the presence in the College of Calverley Bewicke, stroke of the Oxford boat and first president of the O.U.B.C.
University was among the first of the Colleges to establish their boating headquarters in a barge on the river, and in 1854 purchased from the O.U.B.C. the Merchant Taylor's barge, which the Club had bought for the Company in 1846. In 1879 the present barge was built, a loan for the purpose being made by kindly friends, and the old barge handed on to another College.
The most famous period in the history of our boat club is the decade following and including 1869. In seven of these ten years University College rowed head of the river. On the occasion of one of these triumphs, when the College had rowed head the third time in succession, words fail the boat club chronicler, whose spirited account of the races wildly ends, ' Hooroo ! Hooroo ! Well rowed everybody ! Splice the main brace !'
15—2
/ofu
if
/8-J-4'..
ISSO.
IBS* /8S6
;iii
'367.
/S68
'869.
870
/8ZO. /8B/.
««
/S&9 /S90. /89 /.
/S94-.
/S9S.
;I!I
/QoS
CHART SHOWING THE POSITION OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE ON THE RIVER FROM 1827 TO 1902.
APPENDICES 229
The accompanying chart shows the position of the Eight on the river from the earliest days. The descent from its position of great estate was painfully steady and complete, but the chart seems to show that the Eight is again moving with almost equal certainty to its old position of superiority.*
A goodly number of members of the College have in their time rowed for the University ; their names are as follows :
Calverley Bewicke (stroke) 1839
Sir R. Menzies 1842-3
F. N. Menzies 1842-3
H. Denne 1852
R. H. Denne 1853-5
T. H. Craster 1855
P. Gurdon 1856
W. H. Wood 1857-8
C. T. Strong I860
J. N. Macqueen I860
F. H. Kelly 1863-4
A.E.Seymour 1864
W. W. Wood 1866-7
J. C. Tinn6 1867-9
W, P. Bowman 1867
S. H. Woodhouse 1869-71
R. W. B. Mirehouse 1870
A. V. P. Lewis 1870
J. E. Bankes 1875
J. M. Boustead 1875-7
G. D. Rowe 1879-80
W. H. Hewett 1892
L. Portman (cox. ) 1893-4
E. R. Balfour 1896-7
F. O. J. Huiitley 1901-2
H.W.Adams ... , 1902
* Since this was written the College boat has again become the head of the river, bumping New College on the second night of the Eights, May 23
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
The following are the names of the University College crews who have rowed head of the river :
1841. H. E. C. Stapylton (bow).
2. F. Watt.
3. H. Gray.
4. R. Menzies.
5. C. E. Tilney.
1843. E. H. H. Vernon (bow). | 6.
2. H. E. C. Stapylton.
3. R. B. Mansfield.
4. H. A. Wake.
5. A. Gray.
S. R. Osborne (bow).
2. Hon. J. C. Gordon.
3. F. H. Wilson.
4. A. W. Edwards.
5. J. C. Tinne.
S. R. Osborne (bow).
2. Hon. J. C. Gordon.
3. F. H. Wilson.
4. A. W. Edwards.
5. J. C. Tinne.
S. R. Osborne (bow).
2. H. M. Evans.
3. S. le Blanc-Smith.
4. A. W. Edwards.
5. G. A. Holme.
1869. 6.
7.
1870. 6.
1871. 6.
H. J. Torre.
W. Bolland.
F. N. Menzies (stroke).
A. W. Mackintosh (cox.).
J. T. Lea.
R. Menzies.
F. N. Menzies (stroke).
A. W. Mackintosh (cox.).
R. W. B. Mirehouse.
A. G. P. Lewis.
S. H. Woodhouse
(stroke). A. Hill (cox.).
A. G. P. Lewis.
R. W. B. Mirehouse.
S. H. Woodhouse
(stroke). A. Hill (cox.).
H. G. P. Lewis. S. H. Woodhouse. H. S. Daniell (stroke). H. W. Claughton (cox.).
APPENDICES
231
1874.
H, S. Daniell (bow).
2. A. R. H. Saunders.
3. T. H. Hall.
4. J. M. Boustead.
5. E. H. Burrows.
W. Fell (bow).
2. W. A. Ellison.
3. T. H. Hall.
4. A, R. H. Saunders.
5. H. J. Preston.
W. Fell (bow).
2. C. C. Mills.
3. M. Power.
4. F. H. Capron.
5. W. H. Cross.
C. C. Mills (bow).
2. L. H. Jenkins.
3. S. Sandbach.
4. M. Power.
5. F. H. Capron.
6. J. E. Bankes.
7. H. J. Preston.
W. P. Johnson (stroke). P. S. Smith (cox.).
1875.
6. J. M. Boustead.
7. J. E. Bankes.
W. P. Johnson (stroke). P. S. Smith (cox.).
1877.
6. G. D. Rowe.
7. S. Sandbach.
W. A. Ellison (stroke). V. H. Veley (cox.).
1878.
6. G. D. Rowe.
7. W. H. Cross.
W. A. Ellison (stroke). P. S. Smith (cox.).
The Fours have been won by the College in the following years: 1841, 1842, 1844, 1859, 1862, 1864, 1865, 1866, 1867, 1868, 1873, 1875. The Pairs in 1839, 1841, 1872. And the Sculls in 1863.
At Henley the Ladies' Plate was won in 1862, 1863, 1901; the Grand Challenge Cup, 1863; the Stewards'
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
Cup, 1863, 1866, 1867; the Visitors' Cup, 1864, 1866, 1867, 1868, 1869, 1875, 1876; the Diamond Sculls in 1901 by E. G. Hemmerde ; the Goblets in 1897 by E. R. Balfour, University, with G. Nickalls, Magdalen.
CRICKET.
Though perhaps not quite so distinguished in cricket as on the river, the College can claim in the past some notable cricketers, and contributed two members to the first Oxford eleven which played Cambridge in 1827.
The following members of University College have played for the University against Cambridge :
D. H. Denne, 1827 ; J. Papillon, 1827 ; F. L. Popham, 1829; H. J. Torre, 1839-40; C. R. F. Lock, 1846, 1848; M. Jones, 1849-50 ; R. A. Clement, 1853 ; E. P. Bateman, 1854-5; B. W. Waud, 1857-60; H. D. Reade, 1861-2; W. H. Lipscomb, 1868 ; C. W. Boyle, 1873 ; E. S. Gamier, 1873; A. H. Pearson, 1876-7; A. Hasket-Smith, 1879; E. A. Nepean, 1887-8; E. Smith, 1890-1; G. J. Mor- daunt, 1893-6 (Captain in 1895); R. P. Lewis, 1894-6; R. E. Foster, 1897-1900 (Captain in 1900); E. C. Lee, 1898 ; R. A. Williams, 1901 ; E. W. Dillon, 1901.
FOOTBALL.
The names of those members of the College who have represented the University in the Rugby and Association games follow :
G. E. Vecqueray, Rug., 1873 ; H. E. B. Harrison, Rug., 1874-5; F. H. Birley, Assoc., 1874; C. F. Harrison, Rug., 1874-5; F. F. Johnson, Rug., 1875; C. H. T. Metcalfe, Assoc., 1875-6; A. F. Hill, Assoc., 1877; J. T. Twist, Assoc., 1877; A. H. Vecqueray, Rug., 1879; E. B. Vin- cent, Assoc., 1879; C. P. Allen, Rug., 1881-3; E. F.
APPENDICES 233
Hardman, Assoc., 1883; R. E. Inglis, Rug., 1884 P. Coles, Rug., 1884-6; P. Christopherson, Rug., 1886-8; E. R. Balfour, Rug., 1893-4 (Assoc., 1895); A. G. Gibson, Rug., 1894-5; F. T. Reid, Rug., 1896-7; T. A. Nelson, Rug., 1898 ; R. E. Foster, Assoc., 1898-9; J. E. Crabbie, Rug., 1898-1901 ; G. E. Wilkinson, Assoc., 1900-2 ; H. F. Terry, Rug., 1900-1 ; N. Kennedy, Rug., 1901 ; A. J. Swanzy, Rug., 1901.
In athletic sports the following have represented the University against Cambridge :
C. Bill, 1864 ; W. P. Bowman, 1866, 1868 ; W. Hedley, 1867; E. S. Garnier, 1870-3; E. M. Prothero, 1870-2; R. O. Surtees, 1875-6; C. G. Steel, 1876; C. H. S. Metcalfe, 1876-7; A. F. Hills, 1877-9; C. M. Hawker, 1881-2 ; J. H. A. Marshall, 1884-6 ; W. Gordon, 1889-90 ; A. A. Allen, 1890; E. D. Swanwick, 1891-4; E. G. Hemmerde, 1893-4; G. Jordan, 1894-7 (President, 1896) ; G. M. T. Hildyard, 1894-7 ; W. H. Hallowes, 1895 ; G. J. Mordaunt, 1896; H. G, Robertson, 1898; F. H. K. Dashwood, 1899; C. F. Struben, 1899-1900; G. R. Fothergill, 1900-1.
In other sports the University has been represented by the following members of the College :
RACQUETS.
C. H. Kennard, 1861-3; C. L. Kennaway, 1868-9; F. A. Jones, 1880 ; F. O. H. Clayton, 1895 ; R. E. Foster,* 1897-8; R. A. Williams/ 1899; L. F. Andrews,- 1900.
TENNIS.
Lord R. E. A. Cecil, 1885-6; E. A. Biederman, 1898- 1900; A. M. Roberts, 1901.
* Also played in singles.
234 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
LAWN TENNIS.
J. G. Horn, 1881-3; C. B. Russel, 1882-3; H. J. Rash- leigh, 1882-3.
GOLF.
C. K. Mackenzie, 1878; F. M. Hunter, 1897-8; R. E. Foster, 1897-8: E. C. Lee, 1898-1900.
CROSS-COUNTRY RUNNING.
F. Edwards, 1880; G. P. S. Payne, 1880; G. Atten- borough, 1896; P. M. Baines, 1897; G. R. Fothergill, 1899.
HOCKEY.
H. M. Lewis, 1890; H. Davies, 1890-1 ; C. H. Finch, 1890-1 ; F. B. Hicks, 1891 ; R. Unsworth, 1892-3; C. Q. Causton, 1893.
CHESS.
Hon. H. C. Plunkett, 1874-7 ; G. E. Wainwright, 1881-4- ; C. D. Locock, 1882-6.
INDEX
ABBOT, George, Master : his election, 92 ; character, 95 and note ; Bishop of Lich- field and of London, 97; resigns his mastership, 98 ; his approval of sports, 100 ; his discipline, 102 ; his portrait in the hall and in the Master's Lodgings, 225
Abraham von Ling : his windows in the chapel, 210 and note, 211
Adam de Marisco, 15
Addington, William, 87
Alfred : reputed founder of the College, 1-8, 41, 43, 50, 174; his figure in an old window, 6, 66 ; notes to Spelman's Life of Alfred, by Obadiah Walker, 134, 135 ; his arms in the old College hall, 224; his statue, 7, 148 note, 212 ; his portrait on oak panel, 7, 225
Alice Bellasis, benefactress, 63
Annand, William, 154
Anne, Queen : her statue, 166 note, 219
Anne of Warwick, Masses to be sung for, 63 note
Appleton, John, Master, 53 ; connection with the library, 51 ; character, 57 ; gratitude of the College to him in his old age, 58
Arms of the College, 224
Arms of William of Durham, 224
Arncliffe, rectory of, given by the Earl of Northumberland, 62, 109
Arundel, Archbishop, 54, 55, 56
Aspylon, William : gift to the library, 68
Aswardby, Roger, the first Master, 31, 37,38
Athletics, 100, 101, Appendix B, 227-2
Aula Univcrsitatis, 14, 32, 86
BACHELORS : first admitted, 70, 71; under discipline, 70, 192
Baconthorpe, John, 52
Bancroft, John, Master, 95 ; appointed by Archbishop Bancroft, 98 ; his re- forms, 99 ; his approval of shooting, 101 ; his love of building, 102 ; mado Bishop of Oxford, resigns the master- ship, 103 ; lays the foundation of the west quadrangle, 205, 206 ; presented MSS. to the library, 216 ; his portrait in the hall and in the Master's Lodg- ings, 225
Bancroft, Richard, Archbishop, 98
Barker, Thomas, 210, 211
Barneby, disputed election, expelled, 76
Basset, Alan, 14
Beaufort, Cardinal : consecrates the chapel, 50 ; his legacy, 63
Bede, mentioned in the 'French peti- tion,' 42, 43
Bedford, Earl of : his bequest, 90
Bee, Matthew : elected Fellow, 115
Benefactors : William of Durham, 8-15 ; Philip Ingleberd of Beverley, 32, 33 ; Robert de Riplingham, 34, 35 ; Robert Caldwell, 37, 38, 47 ; Walter Skirlaw, 51, 57, 58 ; Earl of Northumberland, 62 ; Alice Bellasis, 63 ; Cardinal Beau- fort, 63 ; Henry VII., 63 note; Joanna Danvers, 65 ; Thomas Gold and John Huet, 88, 89 ; Simon Perrot, 90 ; Earl of Leicester, 89, 90 and note ; Thomas Browne, 90 ; John Freeston, 91, 92; Robert Gunsley, 102, 103 ; Sir Simon Bennet, 104, 105 ; Charles Greenwood, 105, 119 ; Edward Farrer, 157 ; William Hopkins, 157 note; John Radcliffe,
236
INDEX
169, 170 ; John Browne, 187 and note ; Roger Newdigate, 188 ; Viscountess Sidmouth, 199
Benet, Thomas : elected Fellow, 137 ; Master, 156 ; death, 157
Bennet, Sir Simon : matriculates, 97 ; his benefactions, 103-105 and note, 124, 172, 203, 206; his arms in the chapel window, 211 note ; his portrait in the hall and in the Master's Lodg- ings, 225
Benyngwell, Thomas, Master, 53, 61
Bernard, John, 139, 140 note
Bertie, Albemarle, 164-166 note
Best, John, 87
Betts, Senior Fellow, 187 and note
Beverley, Philip of, 32, 33
Bingham, Joseph, 160, 168
Bingley, Michael, 138
Blandford, Bishop of Oxford : conse- crates the chapel, 211
Boat : its position on the river, 227-232
Boyse, Nathaniel: his sermon, 138 and note; a royal dispensation granted him, 139 ; goes abroad, 151 ; his work as Bursar, 210
Bradley, Dean of Westminster: quoted, 200; elected Fellow, 202; Master, 204
Brasenose Hall purchased, 18, 14
Bredon, Simon : his legacy, 50 note
Bree, Robert, 182
Bright, James Franck, Master, 204
Bright, William : elected Fellow, 202
Browne, John, Master, 184, 185; his benefaction, 187, 221 ; his books, 187 note ; buried In the chapel, 214
Browne, Thomas, 90
Browne, Dr., Bursar, 98
Buildings. See University
Burgee, James, 189
Bursar, payment to, 22, 24 ; work of, 24, 30, 36, 70, 71, 87 ; money difficulties of, 96, 98, 99, 102, 106
Burton, Robert, Master, 53 ; threatened with excommunication, 55
CAIUS, John, of Cambridge, 86
Caius, Thomas, Master, 74 ; asserts the royal foundation, 5 and note; a true Protestant, 81 and note; his various offices, 82 ; elected Master, his charac- ter and scholarship, 85 ; upholds the antiquity of Oxford, 85, 86 ; receives Queen Elizabeth, 86 ; death, 87 ; his MSS. in tho Bodleian, 216
Caldwell, Robert, 37, 38
Carte, Thomas, 155, 160
Cartwright, Edmund, 182
Castle, John, Master, 53 ; character, 59 ; Chancellor of the University, 60
Catherine Parr, 81 note
Chambers, Humphrey, 153
Chambers, Sir Robert : elected Fellow, 185 and note ; his character, 186 ; friend of Dr. Johnson, 190 ; becomes a Judge, 193 ; his monument, 214 ; his portrait in tho hall and in the Master's Lodgings, 225
Chandler, Thomas, 68-70
Chantry, Sir Francis, 215
Chapel, the old : dedicated to St. Cuth- bert, 4 ; windows, 6, 66, 67 ; conse- crated by Cardinal Beaufort, 50 ; en- larged, 65 ; daily prayers in, 91 ; the Fellows met in, 96, 149 ; collections in, 100 ; cushions in, 105 ; burials in, 116 ; services in, 137, 141, 147, 149
Chapel, the Roman Catholic : plan for building, 139 ; rooms taken for, 141, 142 and note; King James attends vespers in, 145 ; disturbance in, 147 and note; shut up, 147, 151
Chapel, the present : begun and conse- crated, 125 ; customs in, 161 ; first east window, 169 ; monuments in, 187 and note ; attendance in compulsory, 196 ; sermons in introduced, 201 ; the win- dows, 210 ; the carving, 211 ; the plaster roof, 212 ; the timber roof, 213 ; burials in, 214
Chapernay Charter, 42 note
Charles I. : preparations for his visit, 105 ; College plate given him, 107, 108 ; loyalty to, 109, 110
Charlett, Arthur, Master, 156 ; reasons for his election, 158 and note; his lavish expenditure, 159 and note ; his literary reputation, 160 ; his strict discipline, 161, 162 ; his relations with the Fellows, 163-165; his politics and character, 166, 167 ; obtains bene- faction from Dr. Radcliffe, 1(39 ; his illness, 171 ; death, 172 ; buried in the chapel, 214 ; his inscription for Dr. Radcliffe's statue, 218, 219
Charters : Queen Elizabeth's, 18, 89 ; Chapernay, 42 note
Chedworth, John, 73
Cheive, Thomas, 88
Chichele, Archbishop, 60
Chicheley, Sir Henry, 110
INDEX
237
Clarendon, Lord, quoted, 95, 96, 124, 128 and note
Clarke, Dr., 141
Clavering, Robert, 164, 181, 233
Clayton, Richard, Master, 122; Canon of Salisbury, Bursar, his energy as Master, 126, 127 ; his letter to Lord Arlington's secretary, 129 note; death, 131
Cockman, Thomas, Master, 156 ; his dis- puted election, 172, 173 ; consequent anarchy, 174, 175; his election con- firmed by Royal Commission, 176 ; his character, 179, 180; his death, 181; buried in the chapel, 214
Conniugton, John, 202
Cornwallis, John, 162
Cox, Richard, 81, 82
Cranmer, Archbishop : Holcot's visit to him, 83, 84
Crayford, John, Master : his strange life, 80 ; his character and death, 81
Cricket, 232
Croft, George, 182
Croft, Herbert, 183
Croke, Sir George, 94
Cromwell, Oliver, 110, 115, 118, 121
Cross, Lord, 204 note
Crum, John, 52
Crump, Henry, 52, 55
Culpepper, Sir Thomas, 154
Cuthbert, St. : patron saint of Durham and of the College, 4, 18 ; chapel dedi- cated to, 50 ; his figure in the windows, 66, 67 ; his statue, 212 ; on the Col- lege seal, 223
DANVERS, Joanna : her benefaction, 65
D'Arcy, Conyers, 110
Davey, Lord, 202
Dean, office of, 91
Deane, Thomas, 137, 138, 147, 152
Decretum, 22, 28
Dennison, William, 164, 172, 173, 175,
177
Digges, Sir Dudley, 94, 95 and note Digges, Leonard, 153 Donkin, William, 199 Drowda Hall, 14, 61 Dudley, Robert. See Leicester Dudley, William, 72 Duffield, Thomas, Master, 31 Dugdale, James, Master, 74 ; deprived
for not acknowledging the Queen's
supremacy, 83, 84 Durham Hall, 34
EDUCATION : the College becomes an edu- cational body, 71 ; provision made for a teaching staff, 88 ; lectures organized, 90, 91 ; reputation as a place of educa- tion, 98 ; the work of a tutor, 99, 100 ; celebrated tutors, 160, 162, 168, 180, 185, 186, 188, 189, 200, 201 ; subjects studied besides theology, 87 ; Latin, 26, 161, 163 ; Greek, 85, 91, 188 ; philo- sophy and logic, 88, 91, 92 ; French, 163; law, 186, 189, 190; Obadiah Walker's work on education, 101 and note
Eldon. See Scott
Elizabeth, Queen : grants a charter, 18, 89 ; her visit to Oxford, 86
Elizabeth Grant's Memoirs, 194
Ellerton, Edward, 183, 193
Ellison, George, Master, 74 ; his election, 81 ; his death, 82 ; his religious views, 82, 83
Elmhirst, John, 102, 106
Elstob, William, 155, 160, 164 note
FABER, George Stanley, 183, 193
Faber, F. W., 199
Farmer, Anthony, 145
Farrer, Edward, Master : his character as Fellow, 123; his election as Master, 150 ; his experience, 156 ; his benefac- tion, 157 and note; buried in the chapel, 214
Fausset, Bryan, ISO, 182
Fellows : early statutes for, 20-30 ; various titles, 36, 37 ; small number of, 48, 72, 75, 82 ; leave of absence granted, 96, 108 ; suspension of fel- lowships, 114, 125
Fitzhugh, Richard, 60
Fitzhugh, Robert, 72
Fitzralph, Richard, 42, 54 and note
Flamstead, 103, 156
Flavel, John, 154
Flaxman, 214
Fleming, Richard, 56, 60
Fleming, Robert, 73
Football, 232
Forster, William Edward, 204 note
Foston, Thomas, Master, 31
Fox, Sir Stephen, 162
Francis, Edmund and Idonea : lawsuit with, 38-48
1 French petition,' the, 41, 42
Freeston, John : his benefaction, 91, 92 96, 203
238
INDEX
GALE, George, 118
Gate, Anthony, Master, 74 ; a layman, 91 ; death, 92 ; his young relations,
99 note
Gladstone, William Ewart, 204 note Gold, Thomas, 88 Goldsmith, 37, 38 and note, 39 Gonwardby, John, 38 and note Goring, Francis, 110 Graham, Richard, 163 and note Gray, Archbishop, 17 Gray, Bishop of Cape Town, 198, 225 Greek, 85 and note, 91, 188 Greenwood, Charles, 92 ; Fellow and tutor, 96 ; his character, 97 and note ,
100 note; his benefactions, 103, 105, 119, 206 ; arms on the chapel window, 211
Gregforth, William, Master 53; suc- ceeded as Senior Fellow, 69 ; lived in the tower, 69 note; treated with respect, 70
Griffith, James, Master, 184 ; his elec- tion, 193 ; character, 194 ; death, 198 ; designs and a plan for hall and chapel, 212 ; buried in the chapel, 214
Griffiths, Richard, 119, 123, 124
Grimston, Sir Harbottle, 128, 135
Gunsley, Robert, 102, 103
HALES, Sir Edward : his speech, 144 note; Roman Catholic, 145 ; at the Battle of the Boyne, 151 and note ; his portrait in the hall, 225
Halifax, Lord, 128
Hall : the old refectory, 49 ; a new hall built, 63 ; its position, 66 ; white- washed, 105 ; the present hall, 120 ; rule for dining in hall, 161, 163, 165 ; alterations in, 194 ; its building, 208, 209 ; plan for enlarging, 209 note ; portraits in, 225
Hammond, Edmund, 198
Hamsterley, Ralph, Master, 74 ; his elec- tion 75 ; summoned to Lambeth, 76 ; dissensions, 77 ; inaugurates the Register, 77 ; buried in Morton, 78 ; completes the tower, 79 ; lived in Little University Hall, 79
Hanley Park, 104, 208
Harcourt, Sir Simon, 162
Harley, Lady : letters to her son, 100 and note, 101
Hastings, Francis Rawdon, 189 ; his portrait in the hall and in the Master's Lodgings, 225
Hatfield, Bishop, 9
Hawle, William, 83
Headbourne- Worthy, 168, 170
Hearne, Thomas: quoted, 6, 86, 164, 166 and note, 178, 179 note
Henry III. : invites scholars from Paris, 9
Henry IV. : acknowledges the College, 3, 55
Henry VII. : orders Masses to bo said for Anne of Warwick, 63 note
Henshawe, Thomas, 110
Herbert, Lord, 92, 99 note, 226
Hinchliffe, Edward, 141 note
Hinckley, John, 164, 165, 212
Hogg, Thomas Jefferson : quoted, 195 ; expelled with Shelley, 196, 197
Holcot, William, 83, 84 and note
Hopkins, William : his benefaction, 157 note
Home, George, 181, 233
Hoyland, William, 17
Hoyle, Joshua, 114, 116
Hudson, John, 148 note, 164 note, 226
Huet, John : his benefaction, 88
Humphrey, Duke : supports Noreys, 57
Hungerford, Robert de, 73
Hungerford, Walter, 72
Hunt, Otho : his benefaction, 93
Hutchiuson, Leonard, Master, 74 ; had been Fellow of Balliol, 78 ; his learn- ing, 79 ; three Hutchinsous as Fel- lows, 79 ; resigns, 79 ; his religious views, 80
Hyde. See Clarendon
INETT, John, 155 Ingleberd, Philip, 32-34
JAGO, Richard, 180
James I. : his visit to Oxford, 96
James II. : approves Boyse's sermon, 138 note; rejoicings at his accession, 138 ; his letter to the College, 141 note; his opinion on Obadiah Walker's press, 144 ; erection of his statue, 144 note; his visits to the College, 145
James, William, Master, 74 ; Reader of Divinity at Magdalen, 88 ; his char- acter, 88 ; secures a charter, 89 ; or- ganizes the teaching, 90, 91; made Dean of Christ Church, 91 ; resigns the mastership, 91
Jedewell, Idonea : her pedigree, 38 note ; lawsuit with, 39-47
INDEX
239
Jenkinson, Charles, Lord Liverpool, 181, 225
John of Beverley, 42, 43, 54 note
Johnson, Francis, Master, 95 ; had been Fellow of All Souls, 118 ; nominated by Cromwell, 118 ; his poverty, 119 ; do- posed, 121
Johnson, Dr. Samuel : friend of Cham- bers, 186 ; frequents the common- room, 190 and note
Johnson, William, 137
Jones, Thomas, 154
Jones, William, 181, 233
Jones, Sir William : his marvellous genius, 186 ; death, 187 ; his monu- ment in the aute-chapel, 187 and note, 214 ; resigns his fellowship, 193 ; his portrait in the hall and in the Master's Lodgings, 225, 226
KEXBY, John, 55
Kexby, William, Master, 31, 52
LACY, Edmund, Master, 31, 52, 53;
orthodox, 56 ; his character, 59, 60 Langbaine, Gerard, 6 Langley, Thomas, 72 Latin, 26, 161, 163, 206 Laud, Chancellor : congratulated on his
Archbishopric, 103 ; appoints Thomas
Walker, 104 ; arranges the Bonnet
benefaction, 105, 124 Lawsuits, 2, 6, 39-47, 61, 124 Leicester, Earl of : supports the election
of his chaplain, William James, 88, 89 ;
his bequest, 90 and note ; his portrait
in the Master's Lodgings, 90 note, 225 ;
his arms in the chapel window, 211
note
Leland, quoted, 18 Ley, Anthony, 140, 141 note Library, the : first books, 25, 50 ; Skir-
law's legacy, 51, 58 ; Aspylon's legacy,
68 ; Holcot's legacy, 84 and note ;
Nourse's legacy, 133 ; the first library,
51, 65 ; the old library, 130, 214, 215 ; ' the present library, 215-217; MSS.
sent to the Bodleian, 216 Liddiard, William, 183 Lindsey, 171
Little University Hall, 57, 59, 63, 69 Lockhart, John Ingram, 189 Lodelowe Hall, 35, 49, 51 Loftus, Dudley, 153 Lowe, Robert, 7, 8, 198
Lunsford, Sir Thomas, 110 Lyttleton, Charles, 180-182
MAIDSTONE SCHOOL, 103
Maples, Bishop of Likoma, 225
Mark's Hall, 58, 59, 159
Marten, John, Master, 53
Martin, Henry, 110 and note, 111
Mary, Queen : her statue, 219
Maskell, William, 199
Massey, John, 139 and note, 149
Master, first mentions of, 23, 37, 69; elected by the Fellows, 74, 78, 80, 81, 82, 85, 87, 91 ; appointed by the Chan- cellor, 92, 104 ; appointed by the Archbishop, 98; appointed by Par- liament, 114, 116, 118, 121 ; elected by the Fellows, 126, 131, 150, 157, 158; disputed election, 173, 174 ; elected by the Fellows, 185, 187, 193, 199, 204
Master's Lodgings, 63, 69, 79, 159, 218, 219
Masters, list of, 31, 53, 74, 95, 122, 156, 184
Matthew, Toby, 87
Maurice, Thomas, 182
Medd, Peter, 214 note
Mellish, George, 199
Melsonby Rectory, 178 note
Meiiziea, Thomas, 189
Monckton, Sir Philip, 110
Morisoii, Robert, 155
Mortimer, Dr., 190 note
Myers, Robert : his benefaction, 200
NAILOK, John, 138
Nevile, John, 164
Nevill, Cavendish, 173 note
Newdigate, Sir Roger, 180, 188, 209, 225
Nicholas de Farnham, 9-11
Nicholson, Francis, 136 and note, 151
Noreys, Philip, 57
Northcote, Lord, 204 note
Nourse, Timothy, 132, 133 and note
GATES, Titus : his connection with Tonge,
117, 134, 135
Oseuey Abbey, lawsuit with, 3, 61 Owen, Vice-Chancellor, 118 Gxenden, Ashton, 198
PARIS UNIVERSITY, connection with, 9,
11, 12
Parsons, Robert, 154 Polham, Henry : his letter quoted, 151
240
INDEX
Perrot, Simon : his benefaction, 90
Pierson, Peter, 75, 76 note
Pigott, Arthur, 189
Plate, list of, in 1422, 71 note ; pawned for Charles I., 107, 108 ; replenished, 120
Plot, Robert, 7, 148 note, 160 and note
Plumer, Sir Thomas, 189, 226
Plumptre, Frederick, Master, 184 ; cha- racter, 199 ; his benefaction, 200 ; his death, 204 ; his window, 213 ; buried in the chapel, 214 ; his portrait in the hall, 225
Pokelyngton, John, Master, 31 ; his journey to London, 45
Potter, John, Archbishop, 160 ; his por- trait in the Hall and in the Master's Lodgings, 225
Prickett, 164 and note, 166 note
Printing press, Obadiah Walker's, 136, 143, 144, 147
RADCLIFFE, Sir George, 98 and note, 100, 101, 153
Radcliffe, James, 92
Radcliffe, John : pupil of Obadiah Walker, 148 ; gives Walker shelter, 152 ; his letter to Walker, 152 note ; his early life, 168 ; physician to William III., 169 and note ; his bene- factions, 170 ; his window, 213 ; his statue, 219 ; his portrait in the hall, 225
Radcliffe, Jonas, 100, 214
Radcliffe, Thomas, 107, 122, 153
Radeford, Laurence, 37, 38
Radeford, Richard, 52
Radnor, Earl of, 190, 225
Reading, William, 155, 160
Reed, Mrs. : her gift for the chapel, 211
Religion : the College founded for the study of theology, 1, 3, 12, 17, 21, 22, 25, 27, 28, 49, 68, 72, 90, 126 ; its sym- pathy with the Reformation, 53-57, 80, 83, 103, 123 ; Roman Catholic phase, 131-152 ; its orthodoxy, 161, 196 ; obli- gation to take Orders repealed, 202, 203
Richard II., petition to, 1, 41; his assistance, 45
Richardson, Sir John, 193, 225
Richardson, Richard, 148 note
Ridley, C. J., 196 and note
Ridley, Nicholas, the reformer, 78
Riplingham, Robert de : his benefaction, 34
Rochester School, 103
Rokysburgh, John, Master, 53, 74
Rose Hall purchased, 35
Rowley, George, Master, 184 ; as Dean, 195 ; elected as Master, 198 ; Vice- Chancellor, death, 199 ; buried in the chapel, 214
Russell, John, 127
ST. FRIDESWIDE'S, lawsuit with, 39
St. Mary's Church, 50, 56, 76, 133, 136, 138, 170, 175
St. Peter's Church, 50, 87, 125, 168
Salisbury, Lord, 204 note
Salveyn, Anthony, Master, 74; his religious views, 82, 83
Salveyn, Richard, Master, 74 : an ab- sentee Fellow, 79 ; resigned, 81
Savile, Sir George, 95-97 note
Savile, John, 128, 129 note
Say, William, 110, 111 note
Scott, Gilbert, 212, 215
Scott, John : Lord Eldon, 188 and note ; resigns his fellowship, 189 ; his statue, 215, 216 ; his portrait in the hall and in the Master's Lodgings, 225
Scott, William: Lord Stowell, 187; Reader in Greek and Professor of Ancient History, 188 ; Dean and tutor, 189 ; resigns his fellowship, 193 ; the Stowell fellowship, 199; his statue, 215, 216 ; his portrait in the hall and in the Master's Lodgings, 225
Seal, an early impression of the, 13 note ; described, Appendix A, 223, 224
Selborne, Lord, 204 note
Shelley, Lady, 220
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 195-197, 220
Shelley, Sir Timothy, 195
Shepherd, Dr. : his benefaction, 200, 226
Sherwood, John, 68
Shirewood, William, 52
Sibthorpe, John, 189
Sidmouth, Lady : founds the Stowell fellowship, 199
Silvester, Thomas, 113
Skirlaw, Walter: special benefactor, 7 note, 9 ; his donation of books, 51 ; his great abilities, 57 ; his benefactions, 58, 59 ; figure and arms in the chapel windows, 67, 211 note; his exhibition, 78, 203
Smith, Goldwin, 202
Smith, William : quoted, 4, 9, 11, 15, 19, 40, 104, 117, 138, 145, 147 ; might have been Master, 157; supervised Char-
INDEX
241
lett's election, 158; quoted, 161; in opposition to Charlett, 165 ; writes Annals of University College, 176 ; his great work, 177 ; his transcripts, 178 and note; Hearne's opinion of him, 179 and note
Smoking forbidden, 101, 102
Somerset, Charles, Duko of Beaufort, 181
Somerset, Henry, Duke of Beaufort, 181
Sorbonne, the, 12, 20, 27
Spicer's Hall, 33, 34, 49, 63
Squire, William, 120, 123 and note, 124, 154
Stanihurst, Richard, 87
Stanley, Arthur, Fellow and tutor, 200 ; his great influence, 201 ; secretary to the University Commission, 202 ; Dean of Westminster, 204 ; his portrait in the hall, 225
Statutes, the early, 10, 20-29; the Chandler statutes, 68-70 ; Elizabethan charter, 89 ; statutes revised, 124, 179, 202, 203
Stedman, Rowland, 119, 154
Stone, Francis, 182
Stowell. See Scott
Strafford, Lord, 97
Strode, Thomas, 154
TAYLOR, Francis, 173 note
Tempest, Mr., 171 note
Thompson, Mr., 129 and note
Thornhill, Richard, 110
Thornton, Thomas, 118
Thorpe, Charles, 183, 233
Thorpe, John, 155, 160
Tilson, Henry, 94
Todd, Hugh, 137 and note, 148 note, 155
Tomson, Giles, 87
Tonge, Ezreel, 116 and notet 117 and note,
118-120, 135 and note Trigge, Francis, 93 Twiss, Sir Travers, 198 Twyne, Brian, 4 note, 5, 6, 42 note, 86
note, 108 note Twysden, John, 153
UNDERGRADUATES : first mention of, 26, 27, 58, 70, 71 ; their age, 99 and note, 109 ; their amusements, 100, 101, 127, 198, 200 ; their number, 82, 102, 112 note, 175 note ; gentlemen commoners, 127, 142 note, 145, 171, 181, 189, 191, 192 ; discipline, 101, 102, 126, 127, 161, 192,
193, 196, 197 ; their studies, 26, 87, 88, 01, 162, 163, 180, 185, 188 ; their library, 215
University, the : its close connection with the College, 12, 13, 16, 21-24, 29, 30, 53
University College : its first site, 31 ; its move to the present site, 32, 35 ; its first purchases, 13, 14, 31, 33-35, 59; its name, 14, 17, 18, 32, 36, 41, 89 ; its buildings, 48, 49, 51, 62-67, 69, 71, 79, 93, 102-106, 125, 129, 130, 133, 169, 170, 205-222 ; its poverty, 21, 32, 48, 60-62, 71, 88, 93, 96, 108 note, 114, 119, 124, 125 ; its loyalty to Charles I., 107-110, 166 ; under the Commonwealth, 111- 119, 128 ; its Roman Catholic period, 137-152, 217 ; changes effected by the University Commissions, 202, 203
Usher, Charles, 164, 165
Ussher, Henry, 87, 93
VISITORIAL AUTHORITY : exercised by the University, 30, 75, 85, 149, 150, 173- 175 ; exercised bv the Crown, 6, 42, 43, 55, 81, 82, 121, 172-177 ; exer- cised by Parliamentary Commission 112-119
WAKEMAN, 147 and note
Waldeby, Roberb, 52, 67
Walker, Obadiah, Master: his book on education, 101 and note ; Bursar, 108 ; delegate to Westminster, 112 ; refuses submission, 113 ; expelled, 113 ; re- stored, 122 ; his letter to Lady Russell, 127 ; his appeals for subscriptions, 129, 130 ; elected Master, 131 ; his religious opinions, 131-133 ; his energy in build- ing, 133 ; accused as a Papist, 134, 135 ; his books forbidden, 136, 137 ; secures Roman Catholic Fellows, 138 ; visits King James, 139; says Mass openly, 140 ; makes a chapel, 141, 142 ; his printing-press, 143 and note; the King's visit, 144, 145 ; commissioner on the Magdalen case, 145; leaves Oxford, 146 ; his character, 147, 148 ; accused of high treason, imprisoned, 149 ; is deposed, 150 ; his old age and death, 152; he ordered the chapel windows, 210 note, 211 ; his books in the library, 217
Walker, Thomas, Master, 95 ; member of St. John's and friend of Laud, 104
INDEX
sympathy with Charles I., 107, 108 ; his private account-book, 109 ; his illness, 112; deposed, 113; expelled, 115; restored, 121 ; alters the Bennet bene- faction, 124; his financial arrange- ments, 125 ; builds the chapel, 125 ; gave MSS. to the library, 216; his eagerness in building, 217 ; his ac- counts, 217, 218
Wanley, Humphrey, 160, 164
Ward, George, 166, 175, 180
Warham, Archbishop, 75, 76
Warneford, Samuel, 189, 233
Washington, James, 110
Washington, Richard, 113, 156
Watkins, Henry, 113
Watson, George, 182
Wentworth, Thomas, 94, 95
Westby : his journey to London, 44
Wetherell, Sir Charles, 193
Wetherell, Nathan, Master, 184; his election, 187 ; his character, 188 : his discipline, 192 ; Dean of Hereford and death, 193 ; buried in the chapel, 214 ; his monument in the ante-chapel, 214
White Hall purchased, 35
White, John : his election, 115
Whyte, Robert, 151
William III. : Dr. Radcliffehis physician, 169 and note
William of Durham : founder, 4, 7 ; his life, 8-13 : his example followed, 17 ; forgotten in the sixteenth cen- tury, 18 ; his fame restored by William Smith, 19, 176 : his early statutes, 20- 30 ; his arms, 67, 211 note, 223, 224
Williamson, Clayton's letters to, 129 note
Wilmot, John Eardly, 182
Wilson, Samuel, 101, 102
Windham, William, 189, 233
Windows, the old, 66, 67 ; the Dutch, 210 and note
Wolveridge, John, 131
Wood, Anthony: quoted, 6, 42, 51, 55, 65, 66, 77, 99, 120, 122, 124, 126, 135 note, 138, 143
Woodhead, Abraham: ejected, 116; restored, 122 ; his letter, 131 ; tutor to Obadiah Walker, 132 ; Roman Catholic, 132 note; his old age, 133 and note; his will, 136 ; his learning, 148 ; his books, 151 ; his Latin speech, 206
Wright, John, 78, 79
Wycliffe, sympathy with, 53, 54
Wytton, Sir Richard, Master, 3 note, 42 note, 53, 60, 69
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