Chapter V: University Men and National Movements (2)

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When we turn to consider the relation of these distinguished sons to the university which bred them, it is interesting to find how close this has always been. From the first makers of Cambridge to the last, from its earliest distinguished sons to its latest, the individual’s relation to the university has been a close one and the same names come down the centuries and create a homogeneity in Cambridge history which has certainly not received its due meed of recognition. A group of persons--of families--is already assembled in this remote eastern corner of England in the xiii and xiv centuries which contains the elements of our university history: Stantons, de Burghs, Walsinghams, Beauforts, Clares, Greys, Pembrokes are there--and Gaunt and Mortimer the roots of Lancaster and York. If we had looked in upon the town earlier still, in the xi and xii centuries, we should have found Picot--the ancestor of the Pigotts whose name is recorded in Abingdon Pigotts hard by--who succeeded to the honours of Hereward the Wake[418] and who founded the church dedicated to the Norman saint Giles; Peverel who brought the Austin canons to Cambridge, Clare, de Burgh, Fitz-Eustace (or Dunning) and, by the side of these companions of the Conqueror, the sons of the soil--the Frosts and Lightfoots. In the xiii century there were the Dunnings assisting the Merton scholars to establish themselves, Mortimer endowing the Carmelites, the Veres[419] establishing the Dominicans, de Burghs, Walsinghams, Walpoles, and Bassetts,[420] the Greys, and Manfields,[421] and “Cecil at the Castle”--all of whom appear in Edward I.’s Hundred Rolls.

The name of Clare figures on every page of the history of the Plantagenets. The first Gilbert de Clare had been employed to terrorise the East Anglians who held out against William; another Gilbert is at the head of the barons, his son is the guardian of Magna Charta, and _his_ granddaughter founded Clare College. She also built the Greyfriars house at Walsingham in 1346, was, with her kinsmen the Monthermers a great benefactor to the first Augustinian priory founded a hundred years earlier at Stoke Clare[422] and found time

[Sidenote: A.D. 1248.]

to send timber from her estates towards the building of the king’s Hall, as Queen Elizabeth sent a similar gift just two hundred years afterwards to the king’s college of Trinity. The Clares had received 95 lordships in Suffolk, which formed “the honour of Clare,” and they gave their name to the county in Ireland. Through Ralph de Monthermer the founders of Clare and Pembroke were allied, for he was Elizabeth de Clare’s stepfather, and afterwards brother-in-law to Aymer de Valence (see Tables I, II).

[Sidenote: A.D. 1198.]

We first hear of the de Burghs in 1198 when Thomas, brother to Hubert the king’s chamberlain,

[Sidenote: A.D. 1225.]

became guardian to a Bury ward. In 1225 a de Burgh was bishop of Ely, and a hundred years later John de Burgh the 4th earl of Connaught and 2nd earl of Ulster married with Elizabeth de Clare. Towards

[Sidenote: A.D. 1385]

the end of the xiv century another de Burgh, author of the “_Pupilla oculi_” was chancellor of the university, and it is he who purchased the land of S. Margaret’s hostel in 1368.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1291.]

The connexion of the Mortimers with Cambridge also dates from the xiii century: Guy de Mortimer figures in the Cambridge Hundred Rolls as the benefactor of the Carmelite friars, and sixty years later Thomas, son of Sir Constantine de Mortimer, ceded land for King’s Hall.

The name of Walsingham occurs as that of a prior of Ely in 1353. The Walsinghams held two manors

[Sidenote: A.D. 1344.]

in Suffolk, besides land in Cambridge part of which was sold to the king for the site of King’s Hall.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1290-1299.]

There was a Ralph Walpole bishop of Ely, and subsequently of Norwich in the time of Edward I., who gave a messuage to Peterhouse as early as 1290. The Walpoles continued to figure on the roll of this college till in the xvi century the Walpole of that day fled with the Jesuit Parsons to Spain after the trial of Campian; he became vice-rector at Valladolid but was eventually martyred at York five years before the close of the century. Robert and Horace Walpole continued the Cambridge traditions of their family.

With the xiv century other names appear: the Scropes, Gonvilles, Stantons,[423] the families of Cambridge and of Croyland, Haddon,[424] Zouche,[425] and Cavendish, and last but not least Valence, and the house of Gaunt and Beaufort.

The connexion of the Scropes with Cambridge probably dates from the earlier half of the xiv century. Scropes, as we have seen, figure among the chancellors of the university in that century, and were allied not only to the Mortimers but to the Gonvilles: when therefore we find the representative of the house of Valence who is also a grandson of Roger Mortimer, and whose son married a descendant of the founder of Clare, engaged in a political intrigue with Gaunt,

[Sidenote: A.D. 1371.]

Scrope, and the Master of Pembroke in 1371, and the Scropes[426] Greys and Mortimers conspiring with

[Sidenote: A.D. 1414.]

Richard Earl of Cambridge[426a] early in the next century, we gain a very definite impression of a Cambridge _coterie_.

“---- Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, in their dear care,
And tender preservation of our person”----

are the words which Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Henry V. before his discovery of their treachery.

[Sidenote: Shakespeare and Cambridge men.]

Indeed the historical plays of Shakespeare, from the dawn of our university history in the reign of John to its zenith in that of Henry VIII., place prominently before us our Cambridge protagonists. In “King John” the names of Louis the Dauphin, Chatillon, and de Burgh recall the Cambridge history of two centuries. Chatillon is here the ambassador of Philip of France who calls upon John to surrender his “borrowed majesty” into Prince Arthur’s hands; and in the next century Marie de Chatillon and Elizabeth de Burgh are building colleges. Sir Stephen Scrope figures in “Richard II.” In “Henry IV.” Scroop Archbishop of York and Edward Mortimer, and in “Henry V.” the Earl of Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, appear. In “Henry VI.,” with Beaufort, Mortimer, Suffolk, Somerset, Buckingham and Stafford, Stanley, Woodville, and Margaret of Anjou--all of whom were to play a part in Cambridge history--we have Bassett of the Lancastrian faction, and Vernon representing the Yorkists. The _dramatis personae_ of this play thus include the _dramatis personae_ of King’s and Queens’ Colleges, of Haddon Hall, of Magdalene, and Christ’s. In “Richard III.” Rotherham of York appears, with many others who belong to Cambridge in the xv century; while in “Henry VIII.” even Dr. Butts of Gonville, Henry’s physician, is not omitted.

[Sidenote: xv c.]

[Sidenote: xvi c.]

In the xv century we have some new names. Zouche is there still, and Scrope, and Bassett, and Beaufort, but there are also Langton, Stafford, Pole, Brandon, Stanley, and Babington. In the xvi century Stanley, Brandon, Stafford, Sidney, Audley, Bacon and Cecil, are all prominent names.

These various groups are not independent. The annexed pedigrees will show us that the Clares, Mortimers, de Burghs, Audleys, and Staffords had intermarried: that Valence and Chatillon, Mortimer, Grey, and Hastings, formed one family; that the Beauforts, through John of Gaunt, joined the house of Edward III. to the house of Tudor, and were allied to the Staffords, Nevilles, and Stanleys; that the Scropes were allied to the Mortimers, the Staffords again to the family of Chatillon and to the Woodvilles: the Sidneys to the Brandons, the Brandons to the Greys, the Greys to the Woodvilles;[427] and that the xvi century Audleys intermarried with the Greys as the xiv century Clares had wedded with the Audleys; that through Mortimer, Stafford, Hastings, and Grey, the founders--Clare, de Burgh, Chatillon, Valence, Beaufort, Stafford, Woodville, Audley, and Sidney--form one clan. Before we proceed with the list of well-known Cambridge names from the xvi century onwards, let us notice in passing that certain titles have always clung to Cambridge, no matter who bore them: such are Pembroke, Huntingdon, Buckingham, Suffolk, Leicester.[428]

TABLE I.

PEDIGREE OF CLARE

The descendant of the Duke and Duchess of Clarence became Edward IV., and the ‘honour of Clare’ was thenceforth merged in the crown, and now forms part of the duchy of Lancaster.

TABLE II.

PEDIGREE OF VALENCE

PEDIGREE OF LADY MARGARET

John of Gaunt = Catherine Swynford
|
John Beaufort, = Margaret Holland, dau.
ob. 1410 | of Thomas Earl of Kent.
+--------------------------------------------+
| |
John Duke of = Margaret Beauchamp Edmund = Eleanor Beauchamp, dau. of
Somerset, | of Bletsoe. ob. 1467. | Richard Earl of Warwick.
ob. 1444 | |_________
| |
Lady Margaret = 1st Edmund Tudor Margaret Beaufort = Humphrey
1441-1509, Earl of Richmond Stafford
FOUNDER OF (half brother to ‘Earl of Stafford,’
CHRIST’S AND Henry VI.) by whom slain fighting for
ST. JOHN’S she was the mother House of Lancaster
COLLEGES. of Henry VII. at the battle of
= 2nd Sir Henry Stafford, S. Albans.
younger son of Duke
of Buckingham.
= 3rd Thomas Lord Stanley,
Earl of Derby.

Lady Margaret was the representative of John of Gaunt and the House of Lancaster, as Elizabeth de Clare was the ancestor of the House of York.

TABLE III.

PEDIGREE OF THE DUKES OF BUCKINGHAM

PEDIGREE OF AUDLEY OF WALDEN

Thomas 1st Lord Audley of Walden = 2ndly Elizabeth Grey, dau.
(1488-1544) | of Marquess of Dorset.
FOUNDER OF MAGDALENE COLLEGE. |
|
+---------------------------+-------+
| |
Eleanor = 1stly Despenser. Margaret = 1stly Dudley Duke of
= 2ndly Lord Zouche Northumberland (beheaded).
of Mortimer. = 2ndly Thomas Howard
Duke of Norfolk (beheaded).

Thomas was very possibly descended from the ancient family of that name which intermarried with the Clares, Staffords, and Greys.

TABLE IV.

PEDIGREE OF STAFFORD AND AUDLEY

Edward Stafford = Eleanor Percy, dau. of
3rd Duke of | 10th Earl of Northumberland.
Buckingham, |
beheaded 1521. |
FOUNDER OF BUCKINGHAM |
(now Magdalene) COLLEGE. |
|
Thomas Howard = Elizabeth Stafford
3rd Duke of | (2nd wife).
Norfolk, ob. 1554. |
|
Henry Howard ‘Earl = Frances de Vere,
of Surrey’ (the poet) | dau. of John Earl
beheaded 1547. | of Oxford.
|
+-----------------------------+-------------------+
| |
Thomas Howard = 2ndly Margaret, dau. of Henry Howard
4th Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Lord Audley of Earl of Northampton,
beheaded 1572. Walden, widow of Robert ob. 1624 (King’s
Dudley. _Daughter of the_ Coll. Cambs).
_founder of Magdalene_ Chancellor of the
_College._ University.

Their son Thomas Howard (ob. 1626) was created Earl of Suffolk, and was Chancellor of the University.

PEDIGREE OF SIDNEY

Nicholas Sidney = Anne, sister of William Brandon,
| father of Charles Duke of Suffolk.
|
Sir William,
ob. 1553.
|
+----------------------------+
| |
Thomas Ratcliffe Earl = 2ndly Frances, Sir Henry = Mary, dau. of
of Sussex, ob. 9 March 1589, ob. 1586, | John Dudley
Lord Deputy for FOUNDER OF SIDNEY resident | Duke of
Ireland, 1557. SUSSEX COLLEGE. of Wales | Northumberland.
and Lord |
Deputy for |
Ireland. |
|
+-------------------------------+-------------------+--|
| | |
Sir Philip Sidney = a dau. of Robert Sidney Henry Herbert = 3rdly Mary.
ob. 1586. Sir Francis created Earl Earl of Pembroke
Walsingham. of Leicester, (2nd earl
She married ob. 1616. of this line).
2ndly Robert
Devereux Earl of
Essex (beheaded 1600),
and 3rdly Richard de Burgh
the ‘great Earl’ of Clanricarde.

The names of great Cantabrigians hardly ever appear singly in the annals of the university, and as there are family groups among founders so there are also among its other benefactors and distinguished representatives. Babington, Bacon, Beaumont, Bryan, Cavendish, Cecil, Coleridge, Darwin, Devereux, Fletcher, Greville, Harvey, Langton, Lightfoot, Lytton, Manners, Montague, Neville, Newton, Palmer, Shepard, Taylor, Thackeray, Temple, Wordsworth--all form such groups, and have provided the university not only with great names, but with a family history.

No name has clung more steadily to Cambridge than Babington--it was known there at least as early as the xv century, and was that of the 25th abbot of Bury in the time of Henry VI. Henry Babington was vice-chancellor in 1500; Dr. Humphrey Babington built the two sets of rooms on the south side of Nevile’s court known as ‘the Babington rooms,’ in 1681, and his family have given prominent members to the university ever since. One of the Bacons was the last Master of Gonville, and Nicholas Bacon and his two sons were at Corpus and Trinity. Beaumont is a Peterhouse name; but in the reign of Elizabeth Dr. Robert Beaumont was Master of Trinity and vice-chancellor, and a Beaumont was Master of Peterhouse

[Sidenote: Temp. Ric. ii. 1380-1397.]

in the xviii century. Towards the end of the xiv century William Cavendish was fellow and master of the same college, and John Cavendish had been chancellor in 1380. In Gray’s time Lord John Cavendish was at Cambridge, in the next century Henry Cavendish the scientist; and the connexion of this family with the university has never been severed.

The Cecils appear at Cambridge with the rise of Burleigh’s family in Elizabeth’s reign, and they were connected with the Bacons a family which also came into prominence at the same time; the great Bacon was Burleigh’s nephew, and the Cecils were kinsmen of other celebrated Cambridge men--Cheke, Hatton, Howard, and the founder of the Brownists. Moreover one of the early Cecils had been made water

[Sidenote: Temp. Hen. viii.]

bailiff of Whittlesey (‘bailiff of Whittlesey mere’) and keeper of the swans in the fen district. William, first Lord Burleigh, was born in his mother’s house at Bourn--the place which gave its name to the barony held successively by Hereward, Picot, and Peverel. The third and fifth lords married with the Manners, the sixth with a Cavendish. Both the Cecils of Elizabeth’s time were chancellors of the university; Burleigh’s eldest son Thomas Earl of Exeter and Lady Dorothy Nevill his wife gave no less than £108 a year to Clare Hall, and ‘Mr. Cecil’ was moderator when James visited the university in 1615. Darwin had been preceded at Cambridge by old Erasmus Darwin, botanist and poet, the ‘Sweet Harmonist of Flora’s court’ as Cowper calls the ancestor of the man who gave us the great harmonizing hypothesis of the century.[430] Fletcher is another Cambridge name. Fletcher Bishop of London was at Corpus, so was his son the dramatist; Giles the brother of the bishop, one of Elizabeth’s ambassadors, was at King’s, his two poet sons were Cambridge men, and there was a scientific Fletcher at Caius in the xvi century. Greville or Grenville is another Cambridge name: Fulke Greville, first Lord Brooke (whose mother was a Neville) was at Jesus College, so was his cousin the second lord, whose father had been sent to Trinity in 1595 by Robert Devereux Earl of Essex with a letter of advice on Cambridge studies written by another old Cantabrigian, Bacon. The first Lord Lansdowne in the time of Charles II. and Sir Bevil Greville (ob. 1706) were both at Trinity.

The Suffolk name of Hervey is another which has always figured in Cambridge--there was Hervey Dunning in the xiiith and Hervey de Stanton in the xiv century; a Harvey succeeded Gardiner and Haddon in the Mastership of Trinity Hall, of which he was a considerable benefactor, and was vice-chancellor in 1560, Gabriel Harvey, a kinsman of Sir Thomas Smith’s, was a fellow of this college and of Pembroke, William Harvey was at Caius. Langton[431] is an ancient and honoured name; it was that of the 6th Master of Pembroke, of John Langton chancellor of the university in the time of Henry VI., of Thomas Bishop of Winchester, and other Cambridge men. Lightfoot is a name which was known in the fen before the Conquest, and was that of the eminent Cambridge Hebraist two hundred years before the Bishop of Durham studied there. The Lyttons have been known at the university since the xvii century, Sir Rowland Lytton the antiquary was a member of Sidney Sussex College[432] and Bulwer Lytton was at Trinity Hall. The Montagues and Montacutes have been important since the day when Simon Montacute Bishop of Ely befriended Peterhouse. Through the xvii century, the first Master of Sidney Sussex, Richard Bishop of Norwich (the antiquary), the 2nd Earl of Manchester, and Charles Montague (afterwards Lord Halifax) who, with Prior, replied to Dryden’s “Hind and Panther,” were all Cambridge men; and Sir Sidney Montague of Barnwell was one of Charles I.’s Masters of the

[Sidenote: A.D. 1627.]

Requests. We have seen how the Nevilles intermarried with the families of Cambridge founders; Henry Neville was proctor, and vice-chancellor in 1560; Thomas Nevile was 8th Master of Trinity[433] and vice-chancellor, and 6th Master of Magdalene, where the name was again recorded in the last Master of the college (Lord Braybrooke). There was a Newton at Cambridge, 6th Master of Peterhouse, contemporary

[Sidenote: A.D. 1381.]

with Beaufort, Thorpe, Scrope, and de Burgh. In the middle of the xvi century another Newton was vice-chancellor; fifty years later Fogg Newton was Provost of King’s and vice-chancellor in the 8th of James I., and an Isaac Newton unknown to fame entered for Peterhouse about the same time as the discoverer of the law of gravitation entered Trinity. Palmer is another well-known name: a John Palmer was proctor in the reign of Elizabeth, Edward Palmer was fellow of Trinity in the reign of Charles I., and Edward Palmer Professor of Arabic, the sheikh Abdullah, was a Cambridge man. Skeltons have been found at

[Sidenote: A.D. 1391.]

the university since a proctor of that name who flourished in the days of Richard II.; Shepards since the days of Elizabeth when there was a proctor of that name; Jeremy Taylor was kin to Rowland Taylor the Cambridge martyr; and Palmerston continued the tradition of the Temples. The Sternes had played a part in Cambridge before the days of Laurence Sterne;[434] Thackeray followed other members of his family to the university, and there have been Wordsworths at Cambridge ever since the poet went to S. John’s and his brother Christopher was Master of Trinity.

Other Cambridge names claim attention. There had been Latimers and Ridleys at Cambridge before the Protestant martyrs. Aldrich belongs to the xvi and xvii centuries. Byngham was not first heard of when the parson of S. John Zachary built God’s House, but is the name of no less a personage than the first Master of Pembroke (Thomas Byngham), and another William Byngham was proctor

[Sidenote: A.D. 1570.]

in the year when Whitgift was vice-chancellor. One of the Bassetts was proctor as late as 1488, and Roger Ascham’s father in the xvi century was steward to the great Yorkshire house of Scrope; Mildmay, the founder of Emmanuel, was brother-in-law to Sir Francis Walsingham, and was allied to the Ratcliffes.[435] There were Days before the Days of King’s; the Harringtons--allied to the Montagues, Stanleys and Sidneys--were Cambridge men; a Hatton was proctor in 1499 and later Provost of King’s, and the Hattons of the time of Elizabeth and her successors--who intermarried with the Montagues--were all benefactors of Jesus College.[436] The northern Percies have often taken part in Cambridge affairs, and Percy Bishop of

[Sidenote: A.D. 1451.]

Carlisle was chancellor of the university in the time of Henry VI. Roger Rotherham was Master of King’s Hall before the days of the great chancellor. There were Somersets at Cambridge from the days of Henry VI., and a Stafford was proctor the year Henry VIII. beheaded

---- bounteous Buckingham
The mirror of all courtesey.

Stokys and Stokes was a well-known name before Sir George Stokes went to Pembroke; Sedgwick was on the papist side in the controversy held before Edward VI.’s commissioners; Tyndale, like Aldrich, belongs to the xvi and xvii centuries. Fitzhugh is a name which flourished at the university in the xv and early xvi centuries. Parker, Paston,[437] Morgan, Cosin and Cousins, and the various forms of Clark are constant Cambridge names. In modern times Macaulay, Trevelyan, Paget, Maitland, and Lyttelton should be added.

The subject of university men must not be dismissed without noticing how many of the most distinguished Cantabrigians never earned a degree. We have already seen (in chapter iii.) that in some periods of greatest intellectual achievement the examination tests at the university were wholly inadequate: what follows is a list of great and prominent men who took no degree at all:--Bacon, Byron, Macaulay (fellow of Trinity), Gray (professor of history),[438] Morland the hydrostatician,[439] Woodward the founder of mineralogy,[440] Donne, Fulke Greville, Parr the classic, Sir William Temple, Cromwell, Pepys and Mildmay both of whom were conspicuous benefactors of the university, Dryden who received his degree by dispensation of the Primate, Stratford de Redcliffe who was created _M.A._ by royal mandamus, Palmerston who graduated “by right of birth.” There was no one so important as Macaulay in 1822 when his name was absent from the tripos list, no one so great as Darwin in the tripos lists of 1831 when he took an ordinary degree.

The Oxford roll of non-graduates is not less distinguished: Sir Thomas More, Sir Matthew Hale, Sir Christopher Hatton, Sir Philip Sidney, Wolsey, Massinger and Beaumont the dramatists, Shaftesbury, Gibbon, Shelley--while Halley the astronomer took his _M.A._ by royal mandamus, and Locke’s degree was irregular. Dublin university has not a dissimilar tale to tell; Burke failed to distinguish himself there, and Swift was given a degree _speciali gratia._

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