Chapter VIII: Notanda (4)

After the dissolution of the religious houses there were in Oxford numbers of deserted buildings, little suited for private residences, but useful only, as they were designed, for corporate life. Some fell into decay, and have now utterly disappeared; others, by the wisdom of men interested in the intellectual revival of the age, were refounded as places of religion, learning, and education. To this latter class belongs the College of S. John Baptist. It occupies the site and some of the buildings of a Bernardine House founded by Archbishop Chichele in 1437, as a place where the Cistercian scholars studying at Oxford “might obtain humane and heavenly knowledge.” By Letters Patent of Henry VI. the Archbishop received leave to “erect a College to the honour of the most glorious Virgin Mary and S. Bernard, in the street commonly called North Gate street, in the parish of S. Mary Magdalene, without the North Gate.”[263] The buildings consisted only of a single block facing westwards, with one wing behind.[264] The hall was built about 1502, and the chapel consecrated in 1530. All of these remain in use. The monks had also a garden, leased at first part from University College and part from Durham College.

At the dissolution in 1539, the lands, buildings, and revenues of S. Bernard’s College were given by Henry VIII. to his newly founded College and Cathedral of Christ Church, in whose possession they remained some sixteen years. In 1555, the deserted buildings were restored to use, and the College refounded under Letters Patent of Philip and Mary, granted at the request of a rich and munificent London trader, Sir Thomas White. He was a Merchant Taylor of renown, who had been Sheriff of London in 1547, and Lord Mayor in the year of Sir Thomas Wyatt’s rebellion, when he had rallied the citizens to the cause of Queen Mary. He had, says a College chronicler,[265] poured over England a torrent of munificence, and now among the many things in which he deserved well of the State, this was the worthiest. There is a legend that he was directed in a dream to found a College hard by where three trunks grew from the root of a single elm,[266] and the tree which was said to have decided him to purchase the buildings of S. Bernard’s was pointed out as still standing in the garden of Dr. Levinz, President of S. John’s College from 1673 to 1697. Beyond the buildings, there was no link between the old Society and the new. The Cistercian tradition had left no trace; Sir Thomas White’s foundation was a new creation.

The College thus founded in 1555, was to be set apart[267] for study of the sciences of Sacred Theology, Philosophy, and good Arts; it was dedicated to the praise and honour of God, of the Blessed Virgin Mary His Mother, and S. John Baptist, and the Society was to consist of a President and thirty graduate or non-graduate scholars. In 1557,[268] both the scope and numbers of the original Foundation were enlarged; Theology, Philosophy, Civil and Canon Law were now declared to be the subjects of study, and the number of Fellows and scholars was raised to fifty, of whom[269] six were to be founder’s kin, two from Coventry, Bristol, and Reading schools, one from Tunbridge and the rest from the Merchant Taylors’ school in London. Twelve were to study Civil and Canon Law, one Medicine, and the rest Theology. There were also added three priests as chaplains, six clerks not priests yet not married, and six choristers. From the first the College was intimately connected with the country round Oxford, for the founder endowed it with the manors of Long Wittenham, Fyfield, Cumnor, Eaton, Kingston-Bagpuze, Frilford and Garford, in the counties of Berks and Oxon, and with sundry advowsons in the neighbourhood. It was at Handborough that the first President, Alexander Belsire, B.D., who was appointed by the Founder, died. He had been Rector for several years, and had retired there when removed from the headship on account of his maintenance of the papal supremacy. Several of the earlier Presidents held the living of Kingston-Bagpuze. In the manor-house at Fyfield the kinsfolk of the founder continued to live on for many generations, paying a nominal rent to the College, which from its piety thus suffered a considerable pecuniary loss at a time when its finances were at a very low ebb.[270] Nearer home, the manor of Walton, which had formerly belonged to the nunnery of Godstow, gave the College a share in the interests of the citizens of Oxford, which has continued to our own time.

During its earlier years Sir Thomas White watched over the institution which he had founded. The statutes which he gave were substantially those of New College, and this return to the scheme of William of Wykeham, which had been so largely adopted at Cambridge, shows that the alterations made by the founders of Magdalen, Corpus Christi, and Trinity, were not felt to be improvements. He had nominated the first President, his own kinsman John James as Vice-President for life, and the earlier Fellows. By his advice probably the second and third Presidents, and certainly the fourth, were appointed. He drew up also the most minute directions for the election and for the binding of the President to the performance of his duties, and for the government of the College. In all he set himself on behalf of the Society to seek peace and ensue it. If any strife should arise which could not within five days be appeased by the President and Deans, it must--so he ruled--be referred to the Warden of New College, the President of Magdalen, and the Dean of Christ Church, and by their decision all must abide. As he drew towards his end he wrote a touching letter of farewell to the Society which lay so near his heart. It runs thus--“Mr. President, with the fellows and scholars, I have me recommended unto you from the bottom of my heart, desiring the Holy Ghost may be among you until the end of the world, and desiring Almighty God that every one of you may love one another as brethren, and I shall desire you all to apply your learning, and so doing God shall give you His blessing, both in this world and in the world to come. And furthermore if any strife or variance do arise among you I shall desire you for God’s love to pacify it as much as you may, and so doing I put no doubt but God shall bless every one of you. And this shall be the last letter that ever I shall send unto you, and therefore I shall desire every one of you to take a copy of it for my sake.[271] No more to you at this time, but the Lord have you in His keeping until the end of the world. Written the 27th of Jan., 1566. I desire you all to pray to God for me that I may end my life with patience, and that He may take me to His mercies. By me, Sir Thomas White, Knight, Alderman of London, and founder of S. John Baptist College in Oxford.”

Within a fortnight from the writing of this letter the founder died. He was buried with solemn ceremonial in the College chapel, where his coffin was found intact when that of Laud was laid beside it nearly a century later. A funeral oration was preached by one of the most brilliant of the junior Fellows, Edmund Campion, soon to win wider notoriety, and eventually to die a shameful death.

The loss of the founder made more evident the weaknesses with which the College had had to struggle from the first. It was wretchedly poor. The munificence of Sir Thomas White himself had more than exhausted his purse. He died a poor man; much of what he had intended for the College never reached it,--it would have been less still but for the scarcely judicial assistance, “partly by pious persuasions and partly by judicious delays,” of his executor Sir William Cordell, who was Master of the Rolls,--and some of the estates, like Fyfield, were burdened with encumbrances which he had left behind. Nor was this all. Before the end of the century one of the Bursars seems to have embezzled the College money and fled, becoming a Papist, and getting employment where his antecedents were not known, as paymaster to an Archduke of Austria. As early as 1577 the expenses had to be cut down; the chapel foundation was reduced if not altogether suspended. But the College not only suffered from pecuniary troubles; it seems to have been peculiarly affected by the religious changes of the time. So long as the founder had lived, his tact had smoothed the difficulties of the transition from the Marian to the Elizabethan rule. Two at least of the earlier Presidents were deprived for asserting the Pope’s supremacy, yet the change was managed without disturbance. But when the wise counsels of the founder could no longer be heard, and when the Papal Court had declared itself the bitter foe of Elizabeth, Fellow after Fellow retired, or was deprived, and joined the Roman party. For this cause no less than six members of the foundation are recorded within a few years to have been imprisoned. Some, like Gregory Martin, who had been tutor to the Duke of Norfolk’s children, and was afterwards the translator of the “Rheims Bible,” fled over sea; some died in hiding, some in English gaols. One, Edmund Campion, a brilliant orator and a bold defender of the Papal jurisdiction, became a Jesuit, was mixed up in several political intrigues, and eventually was hanged at Tyburn. It might seem as though the little College, poor and divided, would never weather the storm. That it did so was no doubt due to the patience and devotion of its members. During its darkest years, at the end of the sixteenth century, there were found philosophers and theologians, such as Dr. John Case,[272] and skilful administrators such as Dr. Francis Willis (President, 1577-1590), poets and rhetoricians, and London merchants, who gave their talents and their money to support the fame of the struggling Society.

By the beginning of the sixteenth century the College was on its feet again; before a quarter of the century had passed its influence was the most important in the University. Great men had begun to send their sons there. In 1564 came two sons of the Earl of Shrewsbury; in 1572 two Stanleys and young Lord Strange. At the accession of James I. few Colleges had among their members so many men already distinguished or soon to win distinction. Tobie Matthew, a former President, had risen to be Dean, and then Bishop, of Durham, and died Archbishop of York. Sir William Paddy, a Fellow and notable benefactor, was the King’s physician. John Buckeridge (President, 1605-1611) became Bishop first of Rochester and then of Ely. A Fellow of the College had been the Maiden Queen’s ambassador to Russia; many others were famous in the law courts. But two men especially were destined to play a part on a wider scene. In 1602 William Juxon, a lad of gentle birth, from Sussex, matriculated at S. John’s. William Laud, born at Reading on October 7th, 1573, elected a Fellow of S. John’s College at the early age of twenty, was Proctor in the year of the King’s accession. From this year the history of the College may be considered to be inseparable from that of the little energetic personage who left so great a mark upon the history of the English Church.

On the 18th of January, 1605, Dr. John Buckeridge was elected President on the death of Ralph Hutchinson. In August of the same year, King James visited the University. At the gate of S. John’s “three young youths[273] in habit and attire like nymphs, confronted him, representing England, Scotland, and Ireland, and talking dialogue-wise each to other of their state, at last concluding yielding up themselves to his gracious government. The Scholars stood all on one side of the street; and the strangers of all sorts on the other. The Scholars stood first, then the Bachelors, and last the Masters of Arts.” Two days afterwards, at the end of a long day, the King saw a comedy, called _Vertumnuus_, written by Dr. Gwynne, a Fellow of S. John’s. “It was acted much better than either of the other that he had seen before, yet the King was so over-wearied that after a while he distasted it and fell asleep. When he awaked he would have been gone, saying, ‘I marvel what they think me to be,’ with such other like speeches, showing his dislike thereof. Yet he did tarry till they had ended it, which was after one of the clock.”

At this time the University was greatly influenced by Calvinist doctrines. It was from S. John’s that the first opposition to the prevalent opinions came, and it was thus that William Laud first became famous. Laud was ordained deacon and priest by Dr. Young, Bishop of Rochester, who, “finding his study raised above the systems and opinions of the age, upon the noble foundations of the fathers, councils, and the ecclesiastical historians, early presaged that if he lived he would be an instrument of restoring the Church from the narrow and private principles of modern times to the more enlarged, liberal, and public sentiments of the apostolic and primitive ages.” Dr. Young was right in his prophecy, for Laud was soon the leader of the reaction against Calvinism in the University, as he was afterwards successful in asserting more liberal and Catholic sentiments in the Anglican Church at large. By maintaining in theological lectures and sermons before the University the doctrine of baptismal regeneration and the divine institution of Episcopacy, he made himself prominent in opposition to the chief authorities of the day, who were all imbued with Calvinistic views. It was reckoned, so in later years he told Heylin, a heresy to speak to him, and a suspicion of heresy to salute him as he walked in the street. Yet he had no lack of friends; the most eminent members of his own College seem always to have stood by him,--we have Sir William Paddy’s approval of an University sermon that had caused much offence,--and before long he found the whole University converted to his views. There were sermons and pamphlets and answers and counterblasts, inquiries by Vice-Chancellor and Doctors, threats of suspension, murmurs of disloyalty to the Church, as there have often been since in Oxford theological tempests; but the misconception and bitter feeling were gradually overcome by the steadfast conscientiousness of Laud. He received a number of preferments outside the University, was especially honoured by Bishop Neile of Rochester, and resigned his Fellowship in 1610 to devote himself entirely to parochial work. At the end of that year, however, Dr. Buckeridge, President of S. John’s, was elected Bishop of Rochester in succession to Dr. Neile, and by his advice and support Laud was proposed for the vacant headship of the College. Calvinist influence in the University was set to work to induce the King to prevent the appointment, but without success, and Laud was elected on May 10th, 1611. The election was marked by keen and violent party feeling. When the nomination papers had been laid on the altar (as was the custom in College elections down to within living memory), and the Vice-President was about to announce the result, one of the Fellows, Richard Baylie, snatched the papers from his hands and tore them in pieces. It is characteristic of Laud’s freedom from personal animosity, that he passed over this act of irritable partisanship and showed special favour to the culprit. He procured the choice of Baylie as Proctor in 1615, afterwards made him his chaplain, married him to his niece, supported his election in 1632 to the Presidency itself, and in 1636 appointed him Vice-Chancellor of the University. In the same year, 1611, Laud became one of the King’s chaplains, and from this time was not without royal influence to assist him in his University contests.

He had still great difficulties to contend with. Dr. Abbot, Regius Professor of Divinity and brother of the Primate, preached against him in S. Mary’s, his assertion of anti-Calvinistic doctrine, or Arminianism as it was now called, being the cause of complaint. “Might not Christ say, what art thou? Romish or English, Papist or Protestant?--or what art thou? A mongrel compound of both; a Protestant by ordination, a Papist in point of free will, inherent righteousness, and the like. A Protestant in receiving the Sacrament, a Papist in the doctrine of the Sacrament. What, do you think there be two heavens? If there be, get you to the other and place yourself there, for into this where I am ye shall not come.” To such coarse stuff as this was Laud compelled to listen; he “was fain to sit patiently” among the heads of houses, and “hear himself abused almost an hour together, being pointed at.” But this was merely the vindictive retort of a vanquished party.

In 1616 the King sent some instructions to the Vice-Chancellor which exercised a powerful effect on the theology and discipline of the University. Care was to be taken that the selected preachers throughout the city should conform to the doctrine of the Church, and that students in Divinity should be “excited to bestow their time on the Fathers and Councils, schoolmen, histories and controversies, … making them the grounds of their studies in divinity.” In the same year Laud was made Dean of Gloucester. In 1621 he became Bishop of S. David’s, and resigned the headship of the College. During the following years he does not seem to have been much in Oxford, and it was not till 1630, when he was made Chancellor, that he exercised effective control over the University. While he was busied in the affairs of the Church at large, and was rising step by step to the highest ecclesiastical preferment, his College, under the government of Dr. William Juxon, grew in prosperity. Sir William Paddy, always a benefactor, gave a “pneumatick organ of great cost,” and by his will endowed an organist with singing men, and left books and money to the Society of which he was, says a College chronicler, a member as munificent as learned. The organ, though its erection was made by Prynne one of the accusations against Laud, escaped destruction during the Rebellion, and was in use till 1768. Bishop Buckeridge left more money to the College, and altar furniture for the chapel. Within the years 1616-1636 large sums of money came in, and gifts of land and advowsons of livings were made by persons more or less connected with the College; the buildings were added to, and by the time when Laud, as Bishop of London and Chancellor of the University, had set himself to “build at S. John’s in Oxford, where I was bred up, for the good and safety of that College,” the College, still much less than a century old, was freed from the pecuniary troubles which so much crippled it in its earlier years.

The new quadrangle, which was begun in July 1631, when the King gave two hundred tons of wood from the royal forests of Stow and Shotover to aid in the building, was a magnificent expression of the donor’s generosity and love for the College. It was completed in 1636, and Laud, now Archbishop of Canterbury, having assigned by special direction the new rooms to the library, to the President, and for the use of commoners, made elaborate preparations to receive the King and Queen when they “invited themselves” to him. They brought with them the King’s nephew, the Elector Palatine and Prince Rupert, who were entered on the books of S. John’s. Laud’s College and his new library were the centre of the entertainments that marked their stay in Oxford. The Archbishop’s own words[274] give the best account of the festivities. On the 30th of August, 1636, he says, “When they were come to S. John’s they first viewed the new building, and that done I attended them up to the Library stairs, where as soon as I began to ascend the music began and they had a fine short song fitted for them as they ascended the stairs. In the Library they were welcomed to the College with a short speech made by one of the Fellows (Abraham Wright). And dinner being ready they passed from the old into the new library, built by myself, where the King, the Queen and the Prince Elector dined at one table which stood cross at the upper end. And Prince Rupert with all the lords and ladies present, which were very many, dined at a long table in the same room. When dinner was ended I attended the King and the Queen together with the nobles into several withdrawing chambers, where they entertained themselves for the space of an hour. And in the meantime I caused the windows of the hall to be shut, the candles lighted, and all things made ready for the play to begin. When these things were fitted, I gave notice to the King and Queen and attended them into the hall. … The play[275] was very good and the action. It was merry and without offence, and so gave a great deal of content. In the middle of the play I ordered a short banquet for the King, the Queen, and the lords. And the College was at that time so well furnished as that they did not borrow any one actor from any College in town. The play ended, the King and Queen went to Christ Church.” A contemporary notes among the quaintnesses of the entertainment that “the baked meats were so contrived by the cook, that there was first the forms of archbishops, then bishops, doctors, etc., seen in order, wherein the King and courtiers took much content.” “No man,” says Laud, “went out at the gates, courtier or other, but content; which was a happiness quite beyond expectation.” The next day, when the royal party had left, the Chancellor entertained the University authorities, “which gave the University a great deal of content, being that which had never been done by any Chancellor before.” “I sat with them,” he says, “at table; we were merry, and very glad that all things had so passed to the great satisfaction of the King and the honour of that place.”

By this time Laud had not only given to his own College a notable position in the University, but had reformed and legislated for the University itself. The statutes had long been in confusion; Convocation in any case of difficulty passed a new rule which frequently conflicted with the old statutes, and the government of the undergraduates seems to have been very lax. The University submitted its laws to the Chancellor, who, with the aid of a learned lawyer of Merton College, revised and codified them. How he desired that the students should be ruled may be seen by his careful direction to the heads of Colleges,[276] that “the youths should conform themselves to the public discipline of the University. … And particularly see that none, youth or other, be suffered to go in boots or spurs, or to wear their hair undecently long, or with a lock in the present fashion, or with slashed doublets, or in any light or garish colours; and that noblemen’s sons may conform in everything, as others do, during the time of their abode there, which will teach them to know the difference of places and order betimes; and when they grow up to be men it will make them look back upon that place with honour to it and reputation to you.” So successful was he in impressing the spirit of discipline and self-restraint, that Sir John Coke was able to congratulate the University in 1636 that “scholars are no more found in taverns, nor seen loitering in the streets or other places of idleness or ill-example, but all contain themselves within the walls of their Colleges, and in the schools or public libraries, wherein I confess you have at length gotten the start, and by your virtue and merit have made this University, which before had no paragon in any foreign country, now to go beyond itself and give a glorious example to others not to go behind.” In the Register of S. John’s College there are curious examples of the discipline maintained. To take an instance from a somewhat later time, under the date of April 4th, 1668, we have “Memorandum, that I, Thomas Tuer, being convented and convicted, _secunda vice_, before the Vice-President and Seniors of the breach of the statutes _de morum honestate_ by injuriously striking Sir Waple, was for this my fault according to the statutes on that behalf put out of commons for 15 days. Thomas Tuer.”

By his example of conscientious perseverance, by his devotion to learning, and by his munificent building and endowment, Laud had brought both his College and the University to a high standard of culture and research. These were indeed the halcyon days of S. John’s, when Laud, its “second founder,” was Chancellor of the University and Primate of all England; Juxon his pious and sagacious successor as President was Bishop of London and Lord Treasurer; and Dr. Richard Baylie governed the College, whose annalist says that never was there more diligent scholar, more learned Fellow, or more prudent Head.[277] But the University soon fell on evil days; discipline was dissolved, teaching and learning were alike suspended, and the streets rang with the summons to arms. The city bore for several years the aspect at once of a camp, and of an exiled Court. In these troubles S. John’s had its full share. Scholars joined the King’s troops, Fellows were driven from their country livings, the College gave up its treasures to the Royal cause. In the College Register of 1642 is inserted the following letter--“Charles R. Trusty and well beloved, we greet you well. We are so well satisfied with your readiness and Affection to our service that we cannot doubt but you will take all occasions to express the same. And as we are ready to sell or engage any of our lands, so we have melted down our Plate for the payment of our Army raised for our defence and the preservation of the Kingdom. And having received several quantities of Plate from divers of our loving subjects we have removed our Mint hither to our City of Oxford for the coining thereof. And we do hereby desire you that you will send unto us all such plate of what kind soever which belongs to your College, promising you to see the same justly repaid unto you after the rate of 5_s._ the ounce for white, and 5_s._ 6_d._ for gilt plate as soon as God shall enable us. For assure yourselves we shall never let persons of whom we have so great a care to suffer for their affection unto us, but shall take special order for the repayment of what you have already lent to us according to our promise. … And we assure ourselves of the very great willingness to gratify us herein, since besides the more public considerations you cannot but know how much yourselves are concerned in our sufferings. And we shall always remember this particular service to your advantage. Given at our Court at Oxford this 6th day of Jan. 1642 (1643).”

“In answer to his Majesty’s letters,” says the Register, “it was consented and unanimously agreed by the President and Fellows of the College that the plate of the College should be delivered unto his Majesty’s use.” It was melted down, and the coin so struck was stamped with the initials of the President, Dr. Richard Baylie.

In June 1643 the King wrote again to the College, asking that some of its members should subscribe 4_s._ a week for a month for the support of soldiers: “we do assure you on the word of a king that this charge shall lie on you but one month.” Soon after this Laud resigned his Chancellorship in a touching letter from his prison, and in making his will showed the deepest attachment to the College where he “was bred.” Baylie, who was his executor, was not long suffered to remain in his post. The Parliamentary Commission which visited the University in January 1648 ordered that the President of S. John’s College, “being adjudged guilty of high contempt by denial of the authority of Parliament, be removed from” his office, “and accordingly the said Dr. Baylie is required forthwith to yield obedience hereunto, and to remove from the said College and quit the said place, and all emoluments, rights and appointments thereunto belonging.” They abolished the choral service, appropriating Sir William Paddy’s endowment to the increase of the President’s salary. These Commissioners, says Dr. Joseph Taylor, were men “in whom there was nothing lacking save religion, virtue, and learning,” and the oath which they required of the Fellows, for the sake of ejecting them when they refused it, was “as ridiculous as it was detestable.” In the place of the existing foundation they put as President Francis Cheynell, the zealot who had anathematized Chillingworth as he lay dying (a man, says Taylor, “non tantum fanaticus sed et furiosus”), and they filled the Fellowships with men collected anywhere and than the majority of whom “there could be nothing more ignorant or more abject.” Cheynell held the Presidency only two years, when he was obliged to make choice between it and a valuable living in Sussex. He was succeeded by one Thankful or Gracious Owen, a Fellow of Lincoln College, under whose rule the College languished in poverty and neglect until the Restoration, its property dissipated and its learning in decay.

The return of the King brought back Head and Fellows. A blank page in the College Register is followed by a lease signed by “R. Baylie,” without note or comment on his deprivation or return. The first results of the Restoration were works of piety. Before long the body of the aged Juxon was laid near the founder beneath the altar in the chapel. It was now possible to carry out the last wish of Laud himself, who in his will had desired “to be buried in the chapel of S. John Baptist College, under the altar or communion table there.” All was done privately, as he had himself directed. Yet the stillness of night, the torches and the flickering candles, the reverence of the restored foundation to the greatest and most loyal of its sons, must have given a unique solemnity to the scene. “The day then, or rather the night,” says Anthony Wood, “being appointed wherein he should come to Oxon, most of the Fellows, about sixteen or twenty in number, went to meet him towards Wheatley, and after they had met him, about seven of the clock on Friday, July 24th, 1663, they came to Oxon at ten at night, with the said number before him, and his corpse lying on a horse litter on four wheels drawn by four horses, following, and a coach after that. In the same way they went up to S. Mary’s Church, then up Cat’s Street, then to the back-door of S. John’s Grove; where, taking his coffin out, they conveyed [it] to the chapel; when Mr. Gisbey, Fellow of that house and Vice-President, had spoke a speech, they laid him inclosed in a wooden coffin in a little vault at the upper end of the chancel between the founder’s and Archbishop Juxon’s.”

The most interesting period of the College history was during the reigns of the Stuarts. The same spirit of devotion to the Church and loyalty to the throne which had animated Laud and Juxon still breathed in their successors. Tobias Rustat, Esquire, Yeoman of the Robes to Charles II., and Under Housekeeper of Hampton Court, left a large sum to endow loyal lectures--two on “the day of the horrid and most execrable murder of that most glorious Prince and Martyr”; one to be read by the Dean of Divinity, and the other by “some one of the most ingenious Scholars or Fellows whom the President shall appoint,” setting forth the “barbarous cruelty of that unparalleled parricide”; one by the Dean of Law on October 23rd, “which was the day wherein Rebellion did appear solemnly armed against Majesty”; and a fourth on the 29th of May, “setting forth the glory and happiness of that day,” which saw the birth of Charles II. and his “triumphant return.” There is in the College library a curious portrait of Charles I., over which in a minute hand several Psalms are written. Tradition has it that when the “merry monarch” visited Oxford he asked for this eccentric piece of work, and that when, on leaving, in recognition of his loyal welcome he offered to give the Fellows anything they should ask, they declared that no gift could be so precious as the restoration to them of the portrait of his father. The story, true or not, could only be told of a College which was famous as the home of devoted loyalty to the Stuarts. It was Dr. Peter Mews (or Meaux), Baylie’s successor as President, who lent his carriage horses to draw the royal cannon to Sedgmoor. When Nicholas Amherst (the author of a collection of scurrilous essays which he called after the name of the licensed buffoon at the Encænia, Terræ Filius) was expelled the College for his irregularities, he made up a plausible tale that the reason for his expulsion was that he was the only man loyal to the Hanoverian line in a nest of Jacobites. He lost no opportunity of attacking the College, with no regard for truth or consistency. Dr. Delaune (President 1698-1728) was his most prominent victim. Once, says he, that learned President was affronted in the theatre by Terrae Filius, who called out to him by name as he came in, shaking a box and dice, and crying “_Jacta est alea_, doctor, seven’s the main,” in allusion to “a scandalous report handed about by the doctor’s enemies, that he had lost great sums of other people’s money at dice.” But Jacobitism was an accusation much more plausible, and we are inclined not altogether to disbelieve him when he says that the Latitudinarian Hoadly was abused in a Latin oration in chapel as “iste malus logicus, pejor politicus, pessimus theologus; a bad logician, a worse statesman, and the worst of all divines.” Dr. Richard Rawlinson, who had been a gentleman commoner of the College, and left to it on his death in 1755 the bulk of his estate, was a typical antiquary and worshipper of the exiled House. His collection of letters and MSS., the researches which he made into the early history of the Foundation, are among the most cherished possessions of the College. “Ubi thesaurus ibi cor” is the motto of the urn in chapel which contains his heart. His “treasure” was divided between S. John’s and the Bodleian; his heart, which had beaten with an equal affection for the Stuarts and for the College, remained among those who shared his semi-sentimental attachment. It was said of Dr. Holmes (President 1728-48) that he was probably the first Fellow, and certainly the first Head, of the College who was loyal to the Hanoverian Succession. Almost within living memory the Fellows of S. John’s in their Common Room, “a large handsome room, the scene of a great deal of learning and a great many puns,”[278] toasted the king “over the water.” Up till the middle of the present century, indeed, it was a college of survivals. The old loyal lectures were read, the old “gaudies” held, the old rules maintained. Throughout the eighteenth century the founder’s order against absence from College was strictly observed: all permissions to be away from Oxford were carefully recorded in the Register. Leave was at first only granted on the business of the College, or the king, or a bishop; and it is said of one Dr. Sherard that he had to give up his Fellowship when he had exhausted the list of the Episcopal bench. Even Doctors of Divinity were obliged to get license to “go down.” Dr. Smith, though Master of Merchant Taylors’ School (died 1730), could not teach his boys without the College leave to be absent from Oxford. Only in recent years has iconoclastic modernism destroyed the old progresses round the College estates, formal fishing of the College waters, and festive commemoration of days of ecclesiastical or royalist note. The history of the last and of the present century lies outside the scope of this sketch, and the share that S. John’s has had in the important movements of the last seventy years is left untold. Much has undergone change, at the hands of Time and of Parliamentary Commissions; but there still lingers one feature of the old life of the University which elsewhere has passed away. S. John’s alone of all the Colleges has (1891) no married Fellows; thus here as it can scarcely be elsewhere, the College life is most closely centered within the College walls.

XVI.

JESUS COLLEGE.

BY THE REV. LL. THOMAS, M.A., VICE-PRINCIPAL OF JESUS COLLEGE.

Jesus College was the first Protestant Society established in Oxford, and its appearance marks an epoch in the history of the University; for “if Christ Church was the last and grandest effort of expiring Mediævalism, if Trinity and St. John’s commemorated the re-action under Philip and Mary, Jesus, by its very name, took its stand as the first Protestant College.”[279]

It may seem at first sight that there ought to be little difficulty in tracing the origin and settlement of a College which thus came into being in the latter half of the sixteenth century; but, partly because much is obscure in the history of the institution out of which it was erected, and partly because there are practically no College records for the first sixty years of its own existence, the historian of Jesus College has very scanty materials for his account of its foundation and early annals, and has to put down much which rests rather on inference than on documentary evidence.

About the year 1460, John Rowse, the Warwick antiquary, wrote down a list[280] of Halls and other places of study in Oxford. In this four Halls are mentioned, all for “legists,” that is, students of Canon and of Civil Law, viz. White, Hawk, Laurence, and Elm Halls, which stood on the site now occupied by Jesus College. These represented a once greater number of Halls, for Laurence Hall had absorbed Plomer (or Plummer) Hall; and in White Hall had been merged another White Hall,[281] which stood back to back with it, and apparently (but the evidence is hardly tangible) other Halls. In the next century the number of Halls was still further reduced, and by 1552 we find White Hall alone left,[282] having possibly drawn into its own precincts the buildings of its old neighbours. This White Hall stood on the north side of Cheyney Lane (now called Market Street), a short distance from the corner where it enters the Turl. It was a very old place of study, being mentioned as early as 1262, and having a well-marked succession of Principals from 1436 to 1552.

The point of capital importance in view of its relation to Jesus College is whether, about the time of the Reformation, White Hall became distinctly a Hall for Welsh students; but that point cannot be determined. The occasional and imperfect lists of members of White Hall found up to 1552 exhibit only a few Welsh names, from which it may perhaps be inferred that Welshmen were then in a distinct minority in this Hall. The two graduates of White Hall who are mentioned in 1562[283] are both Welsh, as also are their pupils; but these notices are a mere accident. If, however, Jesus College took over the inmates of White Hall, they must have been mostly Welshmen, because the first College list[284] (1572-3, two years after the foundation) exhibits almost exclusively Welsh names. On the whole, it is best to say that the evidence does not justify the belief that White Hall, which Jesus College superseded, was distinctly a Hall of Welsh students.

At the petition of Hugo Price, or Ap Rice, Doctor of Laws, Treasurer of St. Davids, Queen Elizabeth granted the first Letters Patent, dated the 27th of June, 1571, establishing “quoddam Collegium eruditionis scientiarum, philosophiae, bonarum artium, linguarum cognitionis, Hebraicae, Graecae, et Latinae, ad finalem sacrae Theologiae professionem,” and conferring on the new foundation all the lands, buildings, and personalty of White Hall. From these words of the Foundation Charter it appears that the College was primarily intended to be a place of training for theologians; a secondary object is thus summed up, “denique ad Ecclesiae Christi, regni nostri, ac subditorum nostrorum communem utilitatem et felicitatem.”

Soon after the issue of the Letters Patent, but it is not known exactly when, the building of the College began, the first portion erected being two stories of the east front and two staircases[285] of the southern side of the outer quadrangle. For many years, probably till 1618, the work was not extended, and the following story is handed down. A stone was inserted in the wall on the south side of the gateway, bearing this inscription--

“Struxit Hugo Prisius tibi clara palatia, Iesu,
Ut Doctor Legum pectora docta daret.”

“Nondum,” laughed a University wit, one Christopher Rainald,

“Nondum struxit Hugo, vix fundamenta locavit:
Det Deus ut possis dicere ‘struxit Hugo’!”

Of the first founder, Hugo Price, very little is known. “He was born,” Wood says, “at Brecknock,[286] bred up as ’tis generally thought, in Oseney Abbey, under an uncle of his that was a Canon there;” he did not long survive the foundation of the College, and was buried (August 1574) in the Priory Church at Brecon.

The Letters Patent provide for the constitution of the College to consist of a Principal, eight Fellows, and eight Scholars, nominate persons to fill all these places, and arrange for future appointments.

The Principal nominated was David Powell, Doctor of Laws. Among the Fellows may be noticed Robert Johnson, B.D.,[287] afterwards Archdeacon of Leicester, the founder of Uppingham and Oakham Schools. Among the scholars Thomas Dove, afterwards Bishop of Peterborough, and Lancelot Andrews, Bishop successively of Chichester, Ely, and Winchester. The College is then incorporated, invested with corporate legal powers and a common seal, and united with the University “ut pars, parcella, et membrum.” Concession is granted to Hugo Price to endow the College with lands and revenues to the amount of a clear £60 per annum, and to the College to receive further endowments to the extent of £100 a year; and finally an important body of Commissioners is appointed (including Lord Burghley and other magnates, and the Chancellor or Vice-Chancellor of the University, together with the Principal and two Fellows), to draw up all the necessary statutes for the government of the College. There is also a tradition that leave was given to the College to receive a supply of timber from the royal forests of Stow and Shotover towards the erection of the fabric.

The second Letters Patent of Queen Elizabeth were issued on the 7th day of July, 1589, eighteen years after the first patent. Their object appears to have been to appoint Francis Bevans to the Principalship, to authorize the College to receive further benefactions to the amount of £200 a year, and to nominate a still more important body of Commissioners to draw up the College statutes. These second Commissioners included several ecclesiastical and legal dignitaries, the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor of the University, the Principal, and apparently three Fellows of the College, and Richard Harrys, Principal of Brasenose College. The presence of the last-mentioned Commissioner probably accounts for the fact that the new statutes were framed upon the model of the Brasenose statutes. There seems to have been some delay in drawing up these statutes, but they were finally completed and ordered to be written “fayre in a Booke.” This “Booke” seems to have been sent from one Commissioner to another for approval and correction, and at least once was reported to be lost; but was eventually recovered and deposited in the College.

The third Letters Patent concerning the College are those of King James I., dated June 1st, 1621, in the fiftieth year of the College. After reciting both the Letters Patent of Queen Elizabeth, the King confirms the establishment of the College; arranges for the addition and co-optation of eight additional Fellows and eight additional scholars; and incorporates the College anew to consist of sixteen Fellows and sixteen scholars. Further, Sir Eubule Thelwall, one of the Masters of the Court of Chancery, is nominated to the Principalship; and vacancies in the Fellowships and scholarships are filled up. It is worthy of notice that two of the original Fellows, Robert Johnson and John Higgenson, and two of the original scholars, Lancelot Andrews and Thomas Dove, are still retaining their places.

It is remarkable that in the three documents above-mentioned there is no word or expression which implies any local limitation of the College. There is no direct or indirect allusion to place of birth or education in the Letters Patent or in the statutes. And yet the founder was a Welshman, and probably intended his new foundation to be a Welsh College. The Tudors were always ready to acknowledge their Welsh origin; hence the readiness of Queen Elizabeth to accede to the request of Dr. Hugo Price, and even to contribute something of her royal bounty. Yet no formal means were adopted to secure and continue the connection of the College with Wales. If we review the lists of the Fellows nominated in the two Letters Patent of Elizabeth, we know by the names only (even apart from our actual knowledge from other sources) that they are not all Welshmen. But it is otherwise with the Principals. Every one of these, from the foundation to the end of the eighteenth century, shows by his name[288] his connection with Wales. The times in which Dr. Hugo Price lived were times of somewhat despotic government; the Principal appointed the Foundationers; and it may have seemed a sufficient safeguard to the first founder if it should become a tradition that the Principal must be a Welshman. At any rate, if it was not his intention to secure the connection with Wales by such means, it does not seem possible that he could have selected any which would have been more successful. From the time of the Restoration it is exceedingly rare to find the admission of any one to a Scholarship or Fellowship who was not qualified for the preferment by birth in Wales. It is only important to notice that this exclusiveness grew up by custom and tradition, but was not ordained by statute or authority. In the time of Sir Leoline Jenkins a fixed system was adopted,[289] and certain Fellowships and Scholarships were assigned respectively to North and South Wales; but it was not so at the first.

Of the first six Principals, five were Fellows of All Souls, and only two in Holy Orders. The diversity in the authority by which they were appointed is to be remarked. The first and third were nominated by the Crown in the Letters Patent; of the appointment of the second there is no record; the fourth was “elected Principal, 17th May, 1602, by three Fellows that were then in the College”; the fifth was nominated by the Chancellor of the University, and admitted, under his mandate, by the Vice-Chancellor, 8th September, 1613, no Fellows appearing or claiming the right of election; the sixth Principal was nominated by the Chancellor, and admitted by the Vice-Chancellor, after a contest with the Fellows, which brought about the final settlement of the dispute in favour of the College by the third Letters Patent.

The cause of this uncertainty is not difficult to discover. Had the College been definitely constituted, the statutes would have provided for the filling up of vacancies in the ordinary way of election by the Fellows. But the Royal Commissioners had neglected to settle the College by statutes, and the Chancellor of the University claimed to appoint the Principal of the College as he had enjoyed the right of appointing the Principal of White Hall.

The question between the claims of the Fellows and of the Chancellor was brought to an issue in 1620. On 29th June in that year the Chancellor (Lord Pembroke) nominated Francis Mansell (his kinsman and chaplain) Principal on the death of Griffith Powell; and on 3rd July the Vice-Chancellor (Dr. John Prideaux, Rector of Exeter) admitted him in spite of the protests of the Fellows who claimed the election. On 13th July, Mansell expelled from their Fellowships three of his chief opponents; and on 17th July the Vice-Chancellor interposed in Mansell’s favour the authority of his office against a fourth.[290]

The subsequent stages in the dispute are not upon record; but that Mansell felt his position insecure is obvious from his resignation of the Principalship and his return to his All Souls Fellowship before his year of grace at that College had expired. His successor, Eubule Thelwall, by what authority appointed is not known, obtained within a year the third Letters Patent under which the constitution of the College was finally determined, and the right of election secured to the Fellows.

Griffith Powell, the fifth Principal, had been a considerable benefactor, and was the first to extend the buildings of the College since the foundation. He began to enlarge it by the addition of the buttery, kitchen, and hall; but dying before they could be completed, he left them, together with the south side of the outer quadrangle, to be completed by Sir Eubule Thelwall, “that most bountiful person, who left nothing undone that might conduce to the good of the College.” Francis Mansell, his successor, was a Fellow of All Souls, but had been a commoner of the College. He was third son of Sir Francis Mansell, of Muddlescomb, in the county of Carmarthen. Of him we have very full information from the _Life_,[291] by Sir Leoline Jenkins, which presents a most interesting and vivid picture of the troublous times in which he lived. Dr. Francis Mansell performed the unprecedented feat of holding the Principalship three times, being twice appointed, and once restored, to the office. He watched the growth of the buildings under the two great benefactors--Sir Eubule Thelwall and Sir Leoline Jenkins; and he himself aided the work by his advice, gifts, and diligence in collecting contributions.

On Mansell’s resignation of the Principalship in 1621 his place was filled by Sir Eubule Thelwall. He was the fifth son of John Thelwall of Bathavarn Park in the county of Denbigh, bred in Trinity College in Cambridge till he was Bachelor of Arts, then coming to Oxford, was incorporated here in the same degree in 1579. Afterwards Master of Arts of this University, Counsellor at Law, Master of the Alienation Office, and one of the Masters in Chancery, he was admitted Principal in the month of May 1621. He procured from King James a new charter (mentioned above), and greatly increased the buildings of the College, not only completing the kitchen, buttery, and hall, but adding a house for the Principal, and the chapel--which, however, was afterwards enlarged by the addition (in 1636) of a sacrarium. He also built a library, “with a walk under,” probably a colonnade, to the north of the Hall and west of his new house; but it is doubtful whether he meant this to be a permanent building. He enlarged the foundation, augmented the endowments of the College, and enriched the library with books. He died October 8th, 1630, and was buried in the chapel.

On the death of Sir Eubule Thelwall, Dr. Francis Mansell was again appointed to the Headship. Encouraged, perhaps, by the example of his predecessor, he, in his second tenure of the office, greatly enlarged the buildings of the College, “for though our Principall had no fonds but that of his owne Zeale, such was the Interest, which his Relation in Blood to the many noble Families and (which was more prevailing) his public and pious Spirit, had procured him, that he had Contributions sufficient in view to finish and perfect his new Quadrangle; S^{r} George Vaughan of Ffoulkston in Wiltshire having declared that himselfe would be at the whole charge of the west end, which was designed to be the Library; but all these pious designes and contributions were lost by the dispersions and Ruines that by the Warr befell those who intended to be our Benefactors.”[292] Notwithstanding, Dr. Mansell was able to effect much, for he pulled down Thelwall’s library, which does not seem to have been a satisfactory building, and erected the north and south sides of the inner quadrangle. He also enriched the College with revenues and benefices, some of which appear to have been since alienated.