Chapter XXI: Keble College 461 (5)

It would not be easy to discover in the dry pages of the College accounts, any indication of the domestic quarrels which at this time violently divided the Society. The attempts made by the Archbishop, with the support of the King, to suppress the Lollard doctrines, aroused considerable opposition in the University. In 1395, Pope Boniface IX. had issued a Bull, in answer to a petition from the University, by which the Chancellor was confirmed as the sole authority over all its members, to the exclusion of all archbishops and bishops in England. This Bull, though welcome to the majority of the Congregation, consisting largely of Masters of Arts, was resisted by the higher faculties, and especially by the Canonists; and the King, at the instance of the Archbishop, compelled the University, by the threat of withdrawing all its privileges, to renounce the exemption. Another burning question was the condemnation of the heretical doctrines of Wycliffe. Under considerable pressure from Archbishop Arundel, the University appointed twelve examiners to search Wycliffe’s writings, and extract from them all the erroneous conclusions which deserved condemnation. This task was performed in 1409; but the recalcitrant party among the residents continued to throw considerable difficulty in the way of the Archbishop’s wishes; and Oriel seems to have been an active centre of resistance. In 1411, the Archbishop visited the University, with the double object of asserting his metropolitical authority, which had been threatened by the Papal Bull of exemption, and of crushing out the Lollard heresies. He was not immediately successful; but he had behind him the support of the King, and by the end of the year the obnoxious Bull was revoked, and order was restored. It was probably after this settlement that an enquiry was held at Oriel into the conduct of some of the Fellows who had taken an active part in opposition. William Symon, Robert Dykes, and Thomas Wilton, all Northerners, are charged with being stirrers up and fomenters of discord between the nations; they frequent taverns day and night, they come into College at ten, eleven, or twelve at night, and if they find the gate locked, climb in over the wall. Wilton wakes up the Provost from his sleep, and challenges him to come out and fight. On St Peter’s Eve, 1411, when the College gate was shut by the Provost’s order, he went out with his associates, attacked the Chancellor in his lodgings, and slew a scholar who was within. One witness deposed to seeing him come armed into St. Mary’s Church, and when his sword fell out of his hand, crying out, “There wyl nothing thryve wyt me.” In support of the charge that Oriel College suffered in reputation by reason of the misbehaviour of its Fellows, Mr. John Martyll, then Fellow, deposes that many burgesses of Oxford and the neighbourhood are minded to confiscate the College lands, rents, and tenements. Upon these general charges of domestic misconduct, follow others against Symon and against Master John Byrche of more public importance. Byrche was Proctor in 1411, and Symon in 1412.[135] Both appear to have taken an active part in opposing the attempt of the Chancellor and the Archbishop to correct the ecclesiastical and doctrinal heresies of the University. Byrche as Proctor contrived to carry in the Great Congregation a proposal to suspend the power of the twelve examiners appointed to report on Wycliffe’s heresies; and when the Chancellor met this by dissolving the Congregation, Byrche next day summoned a Small Congregation, and obtained the appointment of judges to pronounce the Chancellor guilty of perjury, and by this means frightened him into resigning his office. When the Archbishop arrived for his visitation, Byrche and Symon held St. Mary’s Church against him, and setting his interdict at naught, they opened the doors, rang the bells, and celebrated high mass. When summoned in their place in College to renounce the Papal Bull of Exemption, they declined to follow the example of their elders and betters, and flatly refused to comply.

Upon these charges a number of witnesses were examined; some, possibly townsmen, giving evidence as to the disturbances in the streets between the Northern and Southern nations; others, notably John Possell, the Provost, Mr. John Martyll, and Mr. Henry Kayll, Fellows, Mr. Nicholas Pont, and Mr. John Walton, speaking to the occurrences in College and in the Convocation House. It does not seem that any very serious results followed from the inquiry; Symon, and a young bachelor Fellow, Robert Buckland, against whom no specific charge was made, confessed themselves in fault; as to the others, nothing more is recorded. A number of further charges were prepared against a still more important member of the College, the Dean, John Rote (or Root), who by his connivance, and by his refusal to support the Provost’s authority, made himself partaker in the misconduct of the younger Fellows, and was justly held to be the “root” of all the evil. Such was the weight of his character in College, that none would venture to go against his opinion; his refusing to interfere, his sitting still and saying nothing when these enormities were reported to the Provost, was a direct encouragement to the offenders. At other times, in Hall, and in the company of the Fellows, he uttered the rankest Lollardism. “Are we to be punished with an interdict on our church for other people’s misdoings? Truly it shall be said of the Archbishop, ‘The devil go with him and break his neck.’ The Archbishop would better take care what he is about. He tried once before to visit the University, and was straightway proscribed the realm. I have heard him say, ‘Do you think that Bishop beyond the sea’--meaning the Pope--‘is to give away my benefices in England? No, by St. Thomas.’” What was this but the battle-cry of the new sect, “Let us break their bonds asunder, and cast away their cords from us”? But no evidence was offered on these charges, and Root remained undisturbed in his College eminence.

Possell, who is stated to have been sixty years of age at the time of the commission of enquiry, seems to have died in September 1414; and the proceedings which followed further illustrate the divided condition of the College. A prominent candidate for the Provostship was Rote, already conspicuous for his outspoken Lollardism, and who, by his adversaries’ own admissions, was of far more weight and influence in the College than the old and timid Provost. An election was held, seemingly in the following October, at which he was chosen; and he obtained confirmation from the Bishop of Lincoln on November 17th. But the validity of the proceedings was at once contested by Mr. John Martyll, one of the Fellows, on the ground of want of notice; and Rote’s claim to the office was kept in suspense, pending an appeal to Rome. From the College accounts, the payments due to the Provost seem to have been made to Rote, under a salvo, pending the appeal. Archbishop Courtenay, who had lately succeeded Arundel, interfered, and summoned the parties before him at Lambeth, where on 14th February, 1415, Rote renounced his claims. A new election took place, at which Dr. William Corffe was chosen; and he was confirmed by the Bishop of Lincoln, on the 16th of March following, by John Martyll, his proxy. He appears then to have been absent from England, representing the University at the Council of Constance. From this embassy he perhaps never returned; the proceedings of the Council record him as present in June 1415; and a note in a MS. in the College library states that he died at Constance. His name occurs as Provost in a deed dated 14th May, 1416; and he is mentioned as “in remotis agens” 3rd April, 1417. His death may be presumed to have occurred about September 1417.

The period from 1429 to 1476, during which the College was under the rule of its four great provosts--John Carpenter, Walter Lyhert, John Hals, and Henry Sampson--was one of exceptional brilliance and prosperity. Hitherto the College had been one of the most slenderly endowed; but during this period a stream of benefactions flowed in upon it, which materially altered its position. The first and most considerable addition which it received was the legacy of John Frank, Master of the Rolls, who left the sum of £1000 for the support of four additional Fellows. The money was judiciously invested in the purchase of the Manor of Wadley, near Faringdon, once the property of the Abbey of Stanley, Wilts, and which had lately been forfeited to the Crown. This property was acquired in 1440, and the statute providing for the enlargement of the Foundation is dated 13th May, 1441. The adjoining estate of Littleworth was purchased some time later by Hals, then Bishop of Lichfield, and also given to the College. The manors of Dene and Chalford,[136] in the parishes of Spelsbury and Enstone, Oxon, were acquired by Carpenter, who had become Bishop of Worcester in 1443, and were given by his will to the College, for the support of a Fellow from the diocese of Worcester. Somewhat later William Smyth, Bishop of Lincoln, and afterwards one of the founders of Brasenose College, founded another Fellowship for his own diocese, and endowed the College with the manor of Shenington, near Banbury. The last considerable addition to the College property was made by Richard Dudley, sometime Fellow, who in 1525 gave the manor of Swainswick, near Bath, to maintain two Fellows. The whole of these new endowments, which exceed many times over the value of the original possessions of the College, were acquired in a period of less than a hundred years, and they are the lasting memorial of what until recent times must be considered the most splendid period in the College history.

By these benefactions the number of Fellows, fixed at ten in the Foundation Statutes, was raised to eighteen, at which it remained down to the changes of recent times. Four of these, founded by John Frank, were to be chosen out of the counties of Wilts, Dorset, Somerset, and Devon; one, founded by Bishop Carpenter, from the diocese of Worcester; and one, founded by Bishop Smyth, from the diocese of Lincoln. The two Fellowships founded by Dudley were not made subject to any restriction; but the College bound itself, in acknowledgment of Carpenter’s benefaction, to assign one of the original Fellowships also to the diocese of Worcester. This provision was repealed in 1821. There were therefore from the reign of Henry VIII. onwards seven Fellowships limited in the first instance to certain counties and dioceses, and eleven which were subject to no restriction. And there never grew up at any time any class of junior members of the Foundation, entitled by statute or custom to succeed to Fellowships, or indeed any class whatever, corresponding to the scholars, postmasters or demies, to be found at most other Colleges. Certain Exhibitions were indeed established by Bishop Carpenter and Bishop Lyhert, and charged upon lands given by them to St. Anthony’s Hospital in London. Others, again, were founded by Richard Dudley. But neither the Exhibitions of St. Anthony nor the Dudley Exhibitions ever grew to the least importance. The small stipends originally assigned to them were never increased; and with the change in the value of money, they sank into complete insignificance.

New statutes to regulate these additions to the Foundation were enacted in 1441, 1483, and in 1507. From another statute in 1504 dates the establishment of the College Register, which thenceforward becomes the sole authentic record of the history of the College. This Register is directed to be kept not by the Provost, but by the Dean; and a similar practice was established about the same time in several other Colleges, such as Merton, where the Register begins in 1482, Magdalen, Brasenose, and others. It was probably thought that the duty would be better discharged by a subordinate officer, who could be called to account by his superior, than by the Head himself, whose negligence it was no one person’s business to correct. The Oriel Register, though first instituted by the statute of 1504, contains also the record of some transactions of earlier date; and the statute was probably intended to put upon a regular footing a practice which had already begun, and which was found to be of service. If this Register had been employed as the statute directed, in recording “omnia acta et decreta, per Praepositum et Scholares capitulariter facta,” it would be invaluable for the history of the College; but unfortunately the tendency soon showed itself to confine the entries to a limited number of cases, such as the elections and admissions of the Provost and Fellows, and to leave unnoticed many matters belonging to the ordinary daily life of the Society, for the insertion of which no exact precedent was found. When at a later time the character of the College changed from a small Society of graduate students to an educational institution, receiving undergraduate members, scarcely any notice is to be discovered in the Register which betrays the existence of tutors or pupils, or of any other members of the Society besides the Provosts and Fellows.

Another important source of information is the series of Treasurer’s accounts, known as the Style. These begin in 1450, almost immediately after the election of Provost Sampson, and the plan then introduced, of which he may possibly have been the author, has lasted in unbroken continuity to the present time. For some time this account records the whole of the pecuniary transactions of the College; but after the act of Elizabeth (18 Eliz. c. 6) came into operation, and the surplus revenue of each year became divisible among the Provost and Fellows, the practice soon established itself of excluding from both sides of the account items of a novel or exceptional character. The rents of the College estates are given in the fullest detail; but no mention is made of the fines taken on the renewal of leases, although these began very early to form an important part of the College revenue. The whole of the domestic side of the account, the charges upon members outside the Foundation, and the cost of their maintenance, the fees paid by undergraduates to tutors and College officers, servants’ wages, and other similar items, are nowhere noticed. When in the seventeenth century the whole fabric of the College was pulled down and rebuilt, it would be difficult to find in the pages of the Style any entry which would give a hint that any unusual outlay was in progress.

The century which followed the resignation of Provost Sampson in 1475, presents very little of general interest. At the visitation of the College by Atwater, Bishop of Lincoln, in 1520, among other matters of minor consequence, occurs the first recorded instance of an abuse which was probably then and for long afterwards not unfrequent. Thomas Stock had resigned his Fellowship in favour of John Throckmorton, keeping back his resignation until he was sure that Throckmorton would be elected. “Hoc potest trahi in exemplum perniciosum. Ita quod in posterum socii resignabunt loca sua quibus voluerint. Dominus injunxit ne deinceps aliquis talia faceret in electionibus ibidem.” The Injunctions of Bishop Longland, following on his visitation in 1531, seem to show a growing laxity of discipline. The Provost, then Thomas Ware, is admonished to be personally resident in the College, and to attend more diligently to his duties. The Bachelors are to observe the regular hours of study in the library at night, and not to introduce strangers into their sleeping-rooms. The new classical learning (“recentiores literae, lingua Latina, et opera poetica”) is not to be pursued to the prejudice of the older studies, the “Termini Doctorum antiquorum.” The disputations and exercises are to be kept up as in former times; the Provost, Dean, and senior masters are to attend the disputations, and to be ready to solve the doubtful points. No Fellow is to go out of residence without the leave of the Provost or the Dean, and then only for a limited time, whether in term or vacation. The vacant Fellowships are to be filled up in a month’s time, and no Fellowship to remain vacant in future longer than one month.

Fifteen years later another set of Injunctions was issued by the same Bishop. The Fellows are again enjoined to be diligent in their studies, giving themselves to philosophy for three years following their admission, and then going on to divinity. The unseemly behaviour of Mr. Edmund Crispyne calls for special reprimand; he is to give up blasphemy and profane swearing; he is not to let his beard grow, or to wear plaited shirts, or boots of a lay cut; he is to be respectful and obedient to the Provost and Dean, on pain of excommunication and deprivation of his Fellowship. Mention is made of St. Mary Hall as a place of education under the control of the College, but distinct from it. The door opening from the College into the Hall is to be walled up, and no communication between the two to be allowed henceforth. The College is to appoint a fit person to be Principal of the Hall, who is to provide suitable lectures for the instruction of the students there.

The Reformation makes but little mark in the recorded history of the College. No difficulty was met with by the King’s Commissioner, Dr. Cox, when he came in 1534 to require the acknowledgment of the Royal supremacy. Four years later came the orders for depriving Becket of the honours of saintship, and for removing his name from all service-books. The thoroughness with which these orders were carried out is remarkably illustrated at Oriel, where even in so obscure a place as the Calendar prefixed to the Register of College Muniments, the days marked for the observance of St. Thomas have been carefully obliterated. There was, however, one member of Oriel, Edward Powell, who distinguished himself by his opposition to the King’s policy. He had been Fellow of the College from about 1495 to 1505; afterwards he became Canon of Salisbury, and also held other ecclesiastical preferments. On the first appearance of Luther’s writings he was selected by the University as one of the defenders of orthodoxy, and recommended as such to the King. When, however, the question of the King’s divorce arose, Powell was retained by Queen Katherine as her ablest advocate; and from that time he was conspicuous by his resistance to the King. In 1540 he was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Smithfield for denying the Royal supremacy, and for refusing to take the oath of succession.

In the pages of the College Register the affairs of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital play a much more important part than any changes in religion. It was in 1536 that the long-standing dispute between the College and the City respecting the payment appropriated to the support of the almsmen was finally settled. The charge, £23 0_s._ 5_d._, out of the fee farm rent of the town, had been granted by Henry I. on the first establishment of the Hospital; but ever since the annexation to the College by Edward III., great difficulty had been experienced in obtaining punctual payment. Charters confirming the charge had been obtained from nearly every sovereign through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; but the City persevered in disputing its liability. In 1536 both parties agreed to stand to the award of two Barons of the Exchequer, and by their decision the payment was settled at the reduced amount of £19 a year, and the nomination of the almsmen was transferred to the city.

On the resignation of Provost Haynes in 1550, the King’s Council endeavoured to procure the election of Dr. William Turner, a prominent Protestant divine, honourably known as one of the fathers of English Botany. The Fellows, perhaps anticipating interference, held their election on the day of Haynes’ resignation, and chose Mr. John Smyth, afterwards Margaret Professor of Divinity. Smyth was promptly despatched to the Bishop of Lincoln for confirmation, and on his return to the College was duly installed Provost. Some days afterwards the Dean was summoned to attend the Council and to give an account of the College proceedings. His explanations were apparently accepted, and no further action was taken. Smyth retained his place through all the changes of religion under Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth. On his resignation in 1565, Roger Marbeck of Christchurch, and Public Orator, was chosen, although not statutably qualified, having never been a Fellow. It is possible, though not hinted at in the account of the election, that he was recommended either by the Queen or by some other powerful personage; and a dispensation was obtained from the Visitor authorising a departure from the regulations of the Statutes. Marbeck held the office only two years, and was succeeded by John Belly, Provost 1566 to 1574.

The long reign of the next Provost, Anthony Blencowe, covers the period of transition from the old to the new era. The College of the medieval type consisted of the Fellows only. Already Bachelors of Arts at the time of their election, they carried on their studies under the direction of the Head and seniors, proceeding to the higher degrees, and ultimately passing from Oxford to ecclesiastical employment elsewhere. William of Wykeham had indeed made one important innovation on the type which Walter de Merton had created; for the younger members of his foundation were admitted direct from school, and only obtained their first University degree after they had been some years at College. The example of New College was followed at Magdalen and Corpus; but in these cases, as at New College, the admission of undergraduates was only introduced as part of the regulations for members of the Foundation, and it was not in contemplation to make the College a school for all comers. No doubt a few _extranei_, graduate or undergraduate, were occasionally admitted to share the Fellows’ table, and to profit by their advice and companionship; but the bulk of the younger students remained outside the Colleges, lodging in the numerous Halls in the town, and subject only to the discipline of the University. Instances of such _extranei_ are Thomas Arundel, already mentioned as a member of Oriel in the fourteenth century; Henry, Prince of Wales, afterwards Henry V., at Queen’s College; Doctor Thomas Gascoigne, who at different times resided at Oriel, at Lincoln, and at New College. This class survived to recent times in the Fellow commoners, or gentlemen commoners, whose connexion with the Colleges is historically older than the more numerous and important class of commoners, which has overshadowed and ultimately extinguished them. It is worth observing that the three Colleges of William of Wykeham’s type, New College, Magdalen, and Corpus, although they received gentlemen commoners, did not admit ordinary commoners until the changes which followed on the University Commission of 1854. All Souls has remained to the present day a College of Fellows alone.

The religious changes of the sixteenth century were followed by great alterations in the discipline of the University. Acting on pressure from without, a Statute was passed in 1581 requiring all matriculated students to reside in a College or Hall. The old Halls had nearly all disappeared; of the few remaining most were connected more or less closely with one of the Colleges. Queen’s College claimed, and was successful in retaining, St. Edmund’s Hall. Merton had purchased Alban Hall in the earlier part of the century. Magdalen Hall was dependent on Magdalen College. The connexion between Oriel and St. Mary Hall was older and closer than any. The Principal was, invariably, chosen or appointed from among the Fellows. The holders of the small Exhibitions founded by Bishop Carpenter and Dr. Dudley were lodged not in the College but in the Hall; in times of plague the members of the Hall were allowed to remove to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, for a purer air. In the census of the University, taken in 1572, Oriel appears to have numbered forty-two members; of these the Provost and Fellows account for nineteen; three were servants; the remaining twenty, one of whom may be perhaps identified with Sir Walter Raleigh, represent the favoured class of _extranei_, of which we have already spoken. In the same year the members of St. Mary Hall numbered forty-six. The next half century sees this proportion completely reversed. The matriculations at Oriel from 1581 to 1621 average a little over ten a year; those at St. Mary Hall sink to five. The control over the Hall was taken away by the Chancellor, Lord Leicester, though the College might well have made out as good a claim as that successfully asserted by Queen’s College over St. Edmund’s Hall. But the Principals continued to be chosen from among Fellows of Oriel down to the time of the Commonwealth.

As has been already stated, the Register contains but few notices from which it could be gathered that any great change in the character of the College took place at this time. In 1585 the Provost admonishes the Fellows as to the behaviour of their scholars, and they are ordered to be responsible to the butler for the battels of their scholars or pupils. In 1594 an order was made that no Fellow should have more than one poor scholar under the name of batler. In 1595 the Dean is invested with the power of catechising. In 1606 one of the Fellows is appointed public catechist for the instruction of the youth, as required by University Statute. In 1624 a Mr. Jones, not a Fellow, is appointed, on his own application, Praelector in Greek. A Register of the admission of commensales, that is the members of the higher order only, or Fellow commoners, was begun in 1596, and continued to 1610. It contains eighteen names only, the first being that of Robert Pierrepont, afterwards Earl of Kingston. With this exception the admissions into the College have to be collected from the University Matriculation Register, supplemented from about 1620 by the Caution Book.

It was this enlargement of its numbers that made it necessary for the College to take in hand the question of rebuilding the fabric in a manner suitable to the new requirements. The buildings then existing had been erected at different times, and had gradually been brought into the form of a quadrangle, occupying the site of the older part of the present College. These are shown in Neale’s drawing, made in 1566. The chapel on the south side was that built by Richard, Earl of Arundel, about 1373. The Hall on the north side had been rebuilt about the year 1535, partly by the contributions of former Fellows. Provost Blencowe died in 1618, and was succeeded by Mr. William Lewis, Chaplain to Lord Bacon, and afterwards Master of St. Cross, and Prebendary of Winchester. Lewis’ election was not unanimous, and though he was duly presented to the Bishop of Lincoln and confirmed by him, he thought it necessary to obtain a further ratification of his title from his patron. This proceeding is remarkable, as it is almost the solitary instance in which the original statutes of January 1326, superseded almost immediately after their issue by the Lincoln statutes of May in the same year, were quoted or acted upon. The Chancellor, assuming cognizance of the case as of an election in discord, pronounced in favour of Lewis, and by an order entered in the College Register and authenticated by his own hand, confirmed Lewis in his place. Lewis held the office for three years only, during which time, however, the design of the new building was determined upon, and the first part completed. Blencowe had left the sum of £1300 to be applied in the first instance to the west side--“the primaria pars Collegii.” This was undertaken in 1619, and in the following year the south side was also taken down and rebuilt. Besides Blencowe’s legacy, £300 was forthcoming from a College fund, and plate was sold to the value of £90. The College groves at Stowford and Bartlemas supplied some of the timber; the stone came from the College quarry at Headington. Timber was also sold from other College estates. But it was in obtaining contributions from former members, and from great people connected with Oriel, that Provost Lewis’ talent was most remarkable. His skill in writing letters--“elegant, in a winning, persuasive way”--was long quoted as an example to other heads of Colleges. This “art, in which he excelled,” had recommended him to Lord Bacon, and it was by his patron’s advice that he employed it in the service of the College. Among those whom he laid under contribution were the Earl of Kingston and Sir Robert Harley, whose arms are still to be seen in the windows of the Hall. Lewis resigned the Provostship in 1621, and was succeeded by John Tolson. The completion of the new quadrangle was postponed for some years, though the design had probably been determined on from the first. In 1636 large sums of money were again raised by contributions from present and former members, and the north and east sides of the quadrangle were erected.

The plan of the new College is in its main features similar to that of Wadham, erected 1613, and of University, which was built some years after Oriel. In all of these the chapel and hall stand together opposite to the gateway, and form one side of a quadrangle. The other three sides are of uniform height, consisting of three stories, containing chambers for the Fellows and other members. In Oriel the library occupied a part of the upper story on the north side. The hall is approached by a flight of steps under a portico on the centre of the east side; above this portico are the figures of the Virgin and Child, to whom the College is dedicated, and of King Edward II., the founder, and King Charles I. in whose reign it was set up. Round the portico ran the legend in stone--“Regnante Carolo.” By an unaccountable blunder, this last figure has been described in all accounts of the College as being that of King Edward III.; but there can be no doubt, both from the dress and from the features, that it represents King Charles, and no one else. Over the doorways round the quadrangle were stone shields bearing the arms of the four great benefactors--Frank, Carpenter, Smyth, and Dudley, and of the three Provosts--Blencowe, Lewis, and Tolson--under whom the new building was planned and executed. Blencowe’s are also to be seen in the treasury in the tower, and upon the College gate. The whole building was completed in 1642, when the chapel was first used for divine service.

This great work had scarcely been completed when the Civil War broke out. In January 1642-3, the King being at Oxford, the College plate was demanded: 29 lbs. 0 oz. 5 dwt. of gilt, and 52 lbs. 7 oz. 14 dwt. of white plate was given, the College retaining only its founder’s cup, and two other small articles--a mazer bowl and a cocoa-nut cup, believed to have been the gift of Bishop Carpenter. A few days afterwards a weekly contribution of £40 was assessed upon the Colleges and Halls for the expenses of fortifying the city; the charge upon Oriel was fixed at £1. This charge was joyfully acquiesced in by the College, “ita quod faxit Deus Musae una cum Rege suo contra ingrassantes hostium turmas tutius agant ac felicius.” But these hopes were not to be realised; and the hardships of the siege soon came to tell heavily on the College finances. The high price of provisions, the difficulty of getting in rents, the debts incurred for the College building, must have seriously crippled their resources; and grievous complaints of their inability to complete the October audit occur in the years 1643, 1644, and 1645. In the last of these years extraordinary expedients had to be resorted to in order to maintain even the common table; leases were renewed or promised in reversion on almost any terms; the Oxford tenants were solicited to pay their rents in advance, on the promise of considerate treatment at their next renewal; all the timber at Bartlemas was felled at one stroke and converted into money. Even these heroic remedies were inadequate; and in March 1645-6 the commons’ allowance was reduced to one-half, and the elections to vacant Fellowships suspended. The surrender of the city to the Parliament in the summer of 1646 must have been felt as a great relief. From that time, although the times were not altogether prosperous, the distress of the years of siege never reappeared with the same acuteness. The numbers of the undergraduate members, which had sunk to almost nothing, soon revived; and the College was able to build a Ball Court for their diversion in the back part of their premises. The Hospital of St. Bartholomew was rebuilt in 1651. Although now converted to other uses, this good gray stone house, with its eight chambers for the eight almsmen, still stands and bears its history on its face. On the several doorways, and also on the chapel, which, though not rebuilt, was refitted and beautified, are the date of the work, and the initials of the College,[137] the Provost, and the Treasurers.

The Parliamentary Visitation which descended upon Oxford in the year following the siege dealt on the whole very tenderly with Oriel. It is possible that Prynne, an old Oriel man, who was an active member of the London Committee, may have stood its friend. The answers of the Provost and Fellows to the Visitors’ questions were in almost every case such as merited expulsion; but in the result only five Fellows were removed, and of these two were soon afterwards allowed to return to their place. Two Fellowships were suspended by the Visitors’ order, in order to pay off the debts under which the College lay. Others were filled up by the Visitors or the London Committee during the years 1648 and 1652. After the latter year no further interference seems to have taken place, and on the death of Saunders, in 1652-3, Robert Say was elected in the accustomed form, and admitted without any confirmation from external authority. He held office till 1691, when he died after a long but uneventful reign of nearly forty years.

Of the Fellows of the College during the seventeenth century, not many achieved any distinction. Humphrey Lloyd, elected Fellow in 1631, and removed by the Visitors in 1648, became Bishop of Bangor. William Talbot, successively Bishop of Oxford, Salisbury, and Durham; Sir John Holt, who, after the Revolution, became Lord Chief Justice of England; and Sir William Scroggs, one of his predecessors, who gained an unenviable reputation in the political trials which arose out of the Popish Plot, were educated at Oriel, but were not Fellows. The most eminent name among the Fellows is undoubtedly John Robinson, Bishop of Bristol and afterwards of London, Lord Privy Seal, and the chief negotiator of the Peace of Utrecht. Soon after his election in 1675, he obtained leave to reside abroad, as chaplain to the English Minister at Stockholm. His benefactions to the College will be more conveniently mentioned later. With these exceptions the list of Fellows contains very few eminent names; and the same remark continues to be true in the main throughout the eighteenth century. The truth probably is that the system of election to Fellowships was tainted with corruption. Buying and selling of places was a common practice in the age of the Restoration, and it has survived to our own time in the army. In many Colleges this evil was to some extent kept in check by the establishment of a regular succession from Scholars to Fellows; but at Oriel, as has been already observed, the choice of the electors was absolutely free, and, valuable as this freedom may be when honestly exercised, it is capable of leading to corruption of the worst kind. In 1673 a complaint was made to the Bishop of Lincoln, the Visitor, by James Davenant, Fellow, against the conduct of the Provost at a recent election. The Bishop issued a commission to the Vice-Chancellor (Peter Mews, Bishop of Bath and Wells), Dr. Fell (Dean of Christ Church), and Dr. Yates (Principal of Brasenose), to visit the College. The conduct of the business seems to have been chiefly in Fell’s hands; and in his letters to the Bishop he expresses in strong terms his opinion of the state of things he found in Oriel. He writes, 1st Aug. 1673--“When this Devil of buying & selling is once cast out your Lordship will I hope take care that he return not again lest he bring seven worse than himself into the house after ’tis swept and garnisht.” He recommends various regulations for checking the evil; among them that the election be by the major part of the whole Society, “else ’twill always be in the Provost’s power to watch his opportunity & when the house is thin strike up an election”; also that the successor be immediately admitted, “for there is a cheat in some houses by keeping the successor out for a good while after the election.” The Bishop on this report issued a decree, 24th Jan., 1673-4, prescribing the proceeding in elections. Not to be baffled, the Provost, Say, hit upon the ingenious device of obtaining a Royal letter of recommendation for the candidate whose election he desired, and a letter was sent in favour of Thomas Twitty for the next vacancy. He was probably elected and admitted upon this recommendation; though the Vice-Chancellor refused to allow him to subscribe as Fellow. The Bishop made his remonstrances at Court, and obtained the withdrawal of the King’s letter, and Twitty’s election was annulled before it had been entered in the College Register. The Provost seems to have written an insolent letter to the Bishop, such (says Fell) “as in another age a valianter man would not have written to a Visitor.” Fell goes on--“Though I am afraid that with a very little diligence the being a party to Twitty’s proceedings may be made out, yet it will not be safe to animadvert on that act, however criminal, as a fault, for notwithstanding the present concession, the Court will never endure to have the prerogative of laying laws asleep called in question. As to the letter I think ’twill be much the best way not to answer it. It is below the dignity of a Visitor to contest in empty words. If the Provost goes on with his Hectoring ’tis possible he may run himself so in the briers that ’twill not be easy for him to get out.”

The regulations of Bishop Fuller were more fully established by a statute made by the College with the Visitor’s approval in 1721, when the day of election was fixed to the Friday in Easter week, and the examination on the Thursday before. But new disputes had already begun which led to unexpected but most important consequences. At the Fellowship election in July 1721, Henry Edmunds, of Jesus, the hero of the ensuing struggle, received the votes of nine Fellows against those of three other Fellows and the Provost. The Provost rejected Edmunds and admitted his own candidate. Edmunds appealed to the Visitor, who upheld the Provost. On the Friday after Easter, 1723, Edmunds stood again, and he and four other candidates were chosen by a majority of the electors into the five vacant Fellowships. The Provost refused to admit them, and was again upheld by the Visitor, who claimed that the right of filling up the vacancies had devolved upon himself. Three places he proceeded to fill up at once; as to the other two he seems to have been in consultation with the Provost as to his choice, but not to have made any nomination. At the election in the following April 1724, two candidates received the votes of eight of the Fellows, against the votes of the Provost and of one other Fellow only, Mr. Joseph Bowles. The Provost as before refused to admit them. Edmunds now brought his action in the Common Pleas on behalf of himself and his four companions, claiming to have been legally elected. He took his stand on the original Foundation Statutes of January 1326, and claimed that the Crown and not the Bishop of Lincoln was the true and lawful Visitor of the College. These statutes, as has been already mentioned, were superseded within six months of their issue, and although in a few rare instances, questions had been brought before the King or his Chancellor, the Visitatorial authority of the Bishop had never before been disputed, but had been repeatedly exercised and acquiesced in for four hundred years. The case was tried at bar, before Chief Justice Eyre, and the three puisne judges, and a special jury; and on the 14th May, 1726, judgment was given in Edmunds’ favour. The authority of the statutes of Jan. 1326 was established, and the Crown declared to be the sole Visitor. Edmunds and his four co-plaintiffs, as also the two candidates chosen in 1724, were admitted to their Fellowships in July 1726 by the Dean, the Provost refusing, on the ingenious plea that if the Crown was Visitor, it was for the Crown and not for the Common Pleas to decide on the validity of the election.

Dr. Carter died in September 1727, and notwithstanding his disagreement with the Fellows, he showed his affection for the College by leaving to it his whole residuary estate. He had already, by the help of Bishop Robinson, obtained the annexation to his office of a prebend at Rochester, and he provided for its further endowment by leaving £1000 for the purchase of a living to be held by the Provost. With this money the living of Purleigh, in Essex, was bought in 1730. Hitherto the Provostship had been but scantily endowed. The Parliamentary Visitors in 1648 had scheduled it as one of the Headships that required augmentation. The fixed stipend and the allowances prescribed by the statutes had, with the change in the value of money, shrunk to small proportions; the principal part of his income was derived from the dividend and the fines.

Both these sources of income were of modern growth. By the Act 18 Eliz., leases of College estates were limited to twenty-one years, and one-third of the old rent was to be reserved in corn. House property might be let for not longer than forty years. The beneficial effect of these Acts on the corporate revenue was not immediate; in many cases long terms had been granted shortly before, which did not expire for many years. Notably the College estate at Wadley had been let in 1539 for 208 years; and in 1736, when this long period was approaching its end, the lessees petitioned Parliament to interfere and prevent them being deprived of what they had so long treated as their own property. But few leases were of this extravagant duration; and in the course of the seventeenth century the College income was considerably increased. The Provost, however, received no more than one Fellow’s share and a half in the dividend, _i. e._ the surplus income of the year, and one share only of the fines. The ecclesiastical preferment which Provost Carter secured to the Headship resulted in making it one of the best endowed places in Oxford, without imposing any additional charge on the College.

Bishop Robinson, who obtained the Rochester stall for the Provost, was also a benefactor in other ways. He founded three Exhibitions, to be held by bachelor students; and he also erected at his own expense an additional building on the east side of the College garden, containing six sets of chambers, three of which were to be occupied by his Exhibitioners. Dr. Carter erected at the same time a similar building on the west side.

The effect of the decision given in the Court of Common Pleas, was to restore the authority of the Foundation Statutes of January 1326. Under these Statutes only an actual Fellow could be chosen Provost, and the election must be unanimous. On Dr. Carter’s death, Mr. Walter Hodges was chosen by a majority of votes only, but he was confirmed by the Lord Chancellor, Lord King, upon whom, under these circumstances, the election had devolved. Henceforward, the Fellows agreed to make the formal election unanimous in every case, and no further instance of a disputed election occurred.

The history of the College during the remainder of the eighteenth century was quiet, decorous and uneventful. Its undergraduate members were drawn from all classes, but always included many young men of rank and family. Some of these showed their affection for the College in after life by benefactions more or less important. Henry, fourth Duke of Beaufort, founded four exhibitions for the counties of Gloucester, Monmouth and Glamorgan. Mrs. Ludwell, a sister of Dr. Carter, gave an estate in Kent for the support of two exhibitioners from that county. Edward, Lord Leigh, who died in 1786, bequeathed to the College the entire collection of books in his house at Stoneleigh. For the reception of this bequest, the new Library was built in the following year at the north end of the College garden.

Of the few eminent names connected with the College in the last century, that of Bishop Butler is the greatest. He entered Oriel in 1715, and his early rise in his profession was in a great measure due to the acquaintance he there made with Charles Talbot, afterwards Lord Chancellor, who recommended him to the patronage of his father, the Bishop of Durham, also an old member of the College. William Hawkins, elected Fellow in 1700, was an eminent lawyer, whose treatise of the Pleas of the Crown still keeps its place as a standard legal work. William Gerrard Hamilton, admitted in 1745, is still remembered as an early patron of Burke, and for his speech in the great debate in Nov. 1755, by which he gained his nickname. Gilbert White, of Selborne, among all the Fellows of Oriel of this period, has left the most lasting name. Yet his College history is in curious contrast to the reputation which is popularly attached to him. Instead of being, as is often supposed, the model clergyman, residing on his cure, and interested in all the concerns of the parish in which his duty lay, he was, from a College point of view, a rich, sinecure, pluralist non-resident. He held his Fellowship for fifty years, 1743-1793, during which period he was out of residence except for the year 1752-3, when the Proctorship fell to the College turn, and he came up to claim it. In 1757 he similarly asserted his right to take and hold with his Fellowship the small College living of Moreton Pinkney, Northants, with the avowed intention of not residing. Even at that time the conscience of the College was shocked at this proposal, and the claim was only reluctantly admitted. White continued to enjoy the emoluments of his Fellowship and of his College living, while he resided on his patrimonial estate at Selborne; and although it was much doubted whether his fortune did not exceed the amount which was allowed by the Statutes, he acted on the maxim that anything can be held by a man who can hold his tongue, and he continued to enjoy his Fellowship and his living till his death.

It was not till near the close of the century that the College took the decisive step which at once lifted it above its old level of respectable mediocrity, and gave it the first place in Oxford. As has been already shown, the election to Fellowships was singularly free from restriction; for most of them there was no limitation of birth, locality, or kindred; and no class of junior members had any title to succession or preference. When in 1795 Edward Copleston was invited from Corpus to stand for the vacant Fellowship, the first precedent was set for making the Oriel Fellowship the highest prize of an Oxford career. The old habit of giving weight to personal recommendations was not at once immediately laid aside. Even when Thomas Arnold was elected in 1815, it was still necessary for the Fellows to be lectured against allowing themselves to be prejudiced by the reports in Oxford that the candidate was a forward and conceited young man. But the better principle had the victory: the last election in which the older motives were allowed to prevail was in 1798, and from that time the College continued year after year to renew itself without fear or favour out of the most brilliant and promising of the younger students.

It was the head of Oriel, Provost Eveleigh, who, backed by the growing reputation of his College, induced the Hebdomadal Board to institute the new system of examination for honours. Under this system Oriel soon took and long retained the first place. It was an Oriel Fellow who, as Headmaster of the Grammar School at Rugby, succeeded, as was foretold of him, in changing the whole face of Public School Education in this country. It was another Fellow who brought about that religious movement which has worked a still greater change in the Church of England.

_List of Provosts._

1326. Adam de Brome: first Provost under Charter of 21 Jan.
1325-6: died 16 June 1332.

1332. William de Leverton: instituted 27 June 1332: died 21
Nov. 1348.

1348. William de Hawkesworth: election confirmed 20 Dec. 1348:
died 8 April 1349.

1349. William de Daventre: elected 1349: died June 1373.

1373. John de Colyntre: elected 8 July 1373: died c. 1385.

1385. [Headship in dispute between Thomas Kirkton and John de
Middleton.]

1387. John de Middleton: confirmed 26 Feb. 1386-7: died 27 June
1394.

1394. John de Maldon: elected 3 July 1394: died Jan. 1401-2.

1402. [Headship in dispute between John Paxton and John
Possell.]

1402. John Possell: died Sept. 1414.

1414. [John Rote: elected and confirmed 17 Nov. 1414, but
resigned his claim 14 Feb. 1414-15.]

1415. William Corffe: confirmed 16 March 1414-15: died about
Sept. 1417.

1417. [Headship in dispute between Richard Garsdale and Thomas
Leyntwardyn.]

1419. Thomas Leyntwardyn: died 1421.

1421. Henry Kayle: confirmed 3 Dec. 1421: died 1422.

1422. [Headship in dispute between Nicholas Herry and another.]

1426. Nicholas Herry: first decision in his favour given 30 July
1424: final decision given 29 Jan. 1425-6: died 1427.

1427. John Carpenter: resigned 1435.

1435. Walter Lyhert: elected 3 June 1435: resigned 28 Feb.
1445-6.

1446. John Hals: elected 24 March 1445-6: resigned 4 March
1448-9.

1449. Henry Sampson: resigned 1475.

1475. Thomas Hawkyns: elected Nov. 1475: died Feb. 1477-8.

1478. John Taylor: elected 8 Feb. 1477-8: died 23 Dec. 1492.

1493. Thomas Cornysh: elected 5 Feb. 1492-3: resigned 26 Oct.
1507.

1507. Edmund Wylsford: elected 30 Oct. 1507: died 3 Oct. 1516.

1516. James More: elected 14 Oct. 1516: resigned 12 Nov. 1530.

1530. Thomas Ware: elected 16 Nov. 1530: resigned 6 Dec. 1538.

1538. Henry Mynne: elected 6 Dec. 1538: died 13 Oct. 1540.

1540. William Haynes: elected 18 Oct. 1540: resigned 17 June
1550.

1550. John Smyth: elected 17 June 1550: resigned 2 March 1564-5.

1565. Roger Marbeck: elected 9 March 1564-5: resigned 24 June
1566.

1566. John Belly: elected 25 June 1566: resigned 3 Feb. 1573-4.

1574. Antony Blencowe: elected 10 Feb. 1573-4: died 25 Jan.
1617-18.

1618. William Lewis: elected 28 March 1618: resigned 29 June
1621.

1621. John Tolson: elected 5 July 1621: died 16 Dec. 1644.

1644. John Saunders: elected 19 Dec. 1644: died 20 March 1652-3.

1653. Robert Say: elected 23 March 1652-3: died 24 Nov. 1691.

1691. George Royse: elected 1 Dec. 1691: died 23 April 1708.

1708. George Carter: elected 6 May 1708: died 30 Sept. 1727.

1727. Walter Hodges: elected 24 Oct. 1727: died 14 Jan. 1757.

1757. Chardin Musgrave: elected 27 Jan. 1757: died 29 Jan. 1768.

1768. John Clarke: elected 12 Feb. 1768: died 21 Nov. 1781.

1781. John Eveleigh: elected 5 Dec. 1781: died 10 Dec. 1814.

1814. Edward Copleston: elected 22 Dec. 1814: resigned 29 Jan.
1828.

1828. Edward Hawkins: elected 31 Jan. 1828: died 18 Nov. 1882.

1882. David Binning Monro: elected 20 Dec. 1882.

VI.

QUEEN’S COLLEGE.

BY J. R. MAGRATH, D.D., PROVOST OF QUEEN’S.

It is now just five centuries and a half since Robert of Eglesfield founded “the Hall of the scholars of the Queen” in Oxford. The Royal license for its foundation was sealed in the Tower of London on the eighteenth of January, and the statutes of the founder were corrected, completed and sealed in Oxford on the tenth of February in the year 1340 as men then reckoned, or as we should say 1341.

Eglesfield was chaplain and confessor to Philippa, Queen of Edward III. He came of gentle blood in Cumberland, and had ten years before received from the King the hamlet and manor of Ravenwyk or Renwick, forfeited through rebellion by Andrew of Harcla. This and the property he had purchased in Oxford as a site for his hall was all that Eglesfield was able of himself to contribute to its maintenance. His relations with the Queen and the King were, however, of priceless service to the new foundation.