THE GREATER COLLEGES
St. John's.--With its three successive courts and their beautiful
gateways of mellowed red brick, St. John's is very reminiscent of
Hampton Court. Both belong to the Tudor period, and both have
undergone restorations and have buildings of stone added in a much
later and entirely different style. Across the river stands the fourth
court linked with the earlier buildings by the exceedingly beautiful
"Bridge of Sighs."
To learn the story of the building of St. John's is a simple matter,
for the first court we enter is the earliest, and those that succeed
stand in chronological order,--eliminating, of course, Sir Gilbert
Scott's chapel and the alterations of an obviously later period than
the courts as a whole.
To Lady Margaret Beaufort, the foundress of the college, or, more
accurately, to her executor, adviser and confessor, John Fisher,
Bishop of Rochester, who carried out her wishes, we owe the first
court, with its stately gateway of red brick and stone. It was built
between 1511 and 1520 on the site of St. John's Hospital of Black
Canons, suppressed as early as 1509.
[Illustration: THE LIBRARY WINDOW ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE FROM THE BRIDGE
OF SIGHS. From this spot beautiful views are obtained up and down the
river.]
The second court, also possessing a beautiful gate tower, was added
between 1595 and 1620, the expense being mainly borne by Mary
Cavendish, Countess of Shrewsbury, whose statue adorns the gateway.
Filling the space between the second court and the river comes the
third, begun in 1623, when John Williams, then Lord Keeper and Bishop
of Lincoln, and afterwards Archbishop of York, gave money for erecting
the library whose bay window, projecting into the silent waters of the
Cam, takes a high place among the architectural treasures of
Cambridge. If anyone carries a solitary date in his head after a visit
to the University it is almost sure to be 1624, the year of the
building of this library, for the figures stand out boldly above the
Gothic window just mentioned. The remaining sides of the third court
were built through the generosity of various benefactors, and then
came a long pause, for it was not until after the first quarter of the
nineteenth century had elapsed that the college was extended to the
other side of the river. This new court came into existence, together
with the delightful "Bridge of Sighs," between the years 1826 and
1831, when Thomas Rickman, an architect whose lectures and published
treatises had given him a wide reputation, was entrusted with the
work. The new buildings were not an artistic success, in spite of the
elaborate Gothic cloister, with its stupendous gateway and the
imposing scale of the whole pile. Their deficiencies might be masked
or at least diminished if ivy were allowed to cover the unpleasing
wall spaces, and perhaps if these lines are ever read by the proper
authority such a simple and inexpensive but highly desirable
improvement will come to pass.
The stranger approaching St. John's College for the first time might
be easily pardoned for mistaking the chapel for a parish church, and
those familiar with the buildings cannot by any mental process feel
that the aggressive bulk of Sir Gilbert Scott's ill-conceived edifice
is anything but a crude invasion. More than half a century has passed
since this great chapel replaced the Tudor building which had
unluckily come to be regarded as inadequate, but the ponderous Early
Decorated tower is scarcely less of an intrusion than when its masonry
stood forth in all its garish whiteness against the time-worn brick of
Lady Margaret Beaufort's court. A Perpendicular tower would have added
a culminating and satisfying feature to the whole cluster of courts,
and by this time would have been so toned down by the action of
weather that it would have fallen into place as naturally as the Tudor
Gothic of the Houses of Parliament has done in relation to Westminster
Abbey. Like Truro Cathedral, and other modern buildings imitating the
Early English style, the interior is more successful than the
exterior; the light, subdued and enriched by passing through the
stained glass of the large west window (by Clayton and Bell) and
others of less merit, tones down the appearance of newness and gives
to the masonry of 1869 a suggestion of the glamour of the Middle Ages.
Fortunately, some of the stalls with their "miserere" seats were
preserved when the former chapel was taken down, and these, with an
Early English piscina, are now in the chancel of the modern building.
The Tudor Gothic altar tomb of one of Lady Margaret's executors--Hugh
Ashton, Archdeacon of York--has also been preserved.
At the same time as the chapel was rebuilt, Sir Gilbert Scott rebuilt
parts of the first and second courts. He demolished the Master's
Lodge, added two bays to the Hall in keeping with the other parts of
the structure, and built a new staircase and lobby for the Combination
Room, which is considered without a rival in Cambridge or Oxford. It
is a long panelled room occupying all the upper floor of the north
side of the second court and with its richly ornamented plaster
ceiling, its long row of windows looking into the beautiful
Elizabethan court, its portraits of certain of the college's
distinguished sons in solemn gold frames, it would be hard to find
more pleasing surroundings for the leisured discussion of subjects
which the fellows find in keeping with their after-dinner port. There
is an inner room at one end, and continuing in the same line and
opening into it, so that a gallery of great length is formed, is the
splendid library, built nearly three centuries ago and unchanged in
the passing of all those years.
The library of St. John's is rich in examples of early printing by
Caxton and others whose books come under the heading of incunabula,
but it would have been vastly richer in such early literature had
Bishop Fisher's splendid collection--"the notablest library of books
in all England, two long galleries full"--been allowed to come where
the good prelate had intended. When he was deprived, attainted, and
finally beheaded in 1535 for refusing to accept Henry as supreme head
of the Church, his library was confiscated, and what became of it I do
not know. Over the high table in the hall, a long and rather narrow
structure with a dim light owing to its dark panelling, hangs a
portrait of Lady Margaret Beaufort, the foundress of the college, and
on either side of this pale Tudor lady are paintings of Archbishop
Williams, who built the library, and Sir Ralph Hare. The most
interesting portraits are, however, in the master's lodge, rebuilt by
Sir Gilbert Scott on a new site north of the library.
[Illustration]
It was through no sudden or isolated emotion that Lady Margaret was
led to found this college in 1509, the year of her death, for she had
four years earlier re-established the languishing grammar college,
called God's House, under the new name of Christ's College, and had
been a benefactress to Oxford as well. On the outer gateways of both
her colleges, therefore, we see the great antelopes of the Beauforts
supporting the arms of Lady Margaret, with her emblem, the daisy,
forming a background. Sprinkled freely over the buildings, too, are
the Tudor rose and the Beaufort portcullis.
St. John's Hospital, which stood on the site of the present college,
had been founded in 1135, and was suppressed in 1509, when it had
shrunk to possessing two brethren only. The interest of this small
foundation of Black Canons would have been small had it not been
attached to Ely, and through that connection made the basis of Bishop
Balsham's historic experiment already mentioned.
The founding of St. John's by a lady of even such distinction as the
mother of Henry VII. could not alone have placed the college in the
position it now occupies: such a consummation could only have been
brought about by the capacity and learning of those to whom has
successively fallen the task of carrying out her wishes, from Bishop
Fisher down to the present time. To mention all, or even the chief, of
these rulers of the college is not possible here, and before saying
farewell to the lovely old courts, we have only space to mention that
among the famous students were Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford,
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; Matthew Prior, the poet-statesman; William
Wilberforce, and William Wordsworth.
KING'S COLLEGE.--Henry VI. was only twenty when, in 1441, he founded
King's College. In that year the pious young Sovereign himself laid
the foundation stone, and five years later it is believed that he
performed the same ceremony in relation to the chapel, which grew to
perfection so slowly that it was not until 1515 that the structure had
assumed its present stately form.
It was Henry's plan to associate his college at Eton, which he founded
at the same time, with King's. The school he had established under the
shadow of his palace at Windsor was to be the nursery for his
foundation at Cambridge in the same fashion as William of Wykeham had
connected Winchester and New College, Oxford. Henry's first plan was
for a smaller college than the splendid foundation he afterwards began
to achieve with the endowments obtained from the recently-suppressed
alien monasteries. Had the young King's reign been peaceful, there is
little doubt that a complete college carried out on such magnificent
lines as the chapel would have come into being; but Henry became
involved in a disastrous civil war, and his ambitious plans for a
great quadrangle and cloister, three other courts, one on the opposite
side of the river connected with a covered bridge and an imposing gate
tower as well, never came to fruition. Fortunately, Henry's successor,
anxious to be called the founder of the college, subscribed towards
the continuance of the chapel, but he also diverted (a mild expression
for robbery) a large part of Henry's endowments. Richard III., in his
brief reign, found time to contribute £700 to the college, but it was
not until the very end of the next reign that Henry VII., in 1508,
devoted the first of two sums of £5,000 to the chapel, so that the
work of finishing the building could go forward to its completion,
which took place in 1515.
At the present time the chapel is on the north side of the college,
but when originally planned it stood on the south, for the single
court which was built is now incorporated in the University Library,
and the existing buildings, all comparatively modern, stand in
somewhat disjointed fashion to the south, and extend from King's
Parade down to the river. Fellows' Building, the isolated block
running north and south between the chapel and this long perspective
of bastard Gothic, was designed by Gibbs in the first quarter of the
eighteenth century, and its severe lines, broken by an open archway in
the centre, are a remarkable contrast to the graceful detail, of the
chapel. Framed by the great arch, there is a delicious peep of smooth
lawn sloping slightly to the river, with a forest-like background
beyond.
In the other buildings of King's it is hard to find any interest, for
the crude Gothic of William Wilkins, even when we remember that he
designed the National Gallery, St. George's Hospital, and other
landmarks of London, is altogether depressing. Even the big hall,
presided over by a portrait of Sir Robert Walpole, is unsatisfying. It
is the custom to scoff at the gateway and stone arcading Wilkins
afterwards threw across the fourth side of the grassy court of the
college; but, although its crocketed finials are curious, and we
wonder at the lack of resource which led to such a mass of unwarranted
ornament, it is not aggressive, neither does it jar with the academic
repose of King's Parade.
[Illustration: IN THE CHOIR OF KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL. This Chapel and
that of Henry VII at Westminster and St. George's at Windsor, are the
finest examples of the gorgeous fan tracery belonging to the last
phase of English gothic architecture.]
Owing to the extreme uniformity of the exterior of the chapel the eye
seems to take in all there is to see in one sweeping vision, refusing
subconsciously to look individually at each of the twelve identical
bays, each with its vast window of regularly repeated design. But
there are some things it would be a pity to pass over, for to do so
would be to fail to appreciate the profound skill of the mediaeval
architects and craftsmen who could rear a marvellous stone roof upon
walls so largely composed of glass. In this building, like its only
two rivals in the world--St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle and
Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster--the wall space between the windows
has shrunk to the absolute minimum; in fact, nothing is left beyond
the bare width required for the buttresses, and to build those
reinforcements with sufficient strength to take the thrust of a
vaulted stone roof must have required consummate capacity and skill.
At Eton, where, however, the stone roof was never built, the
buttresses planned to carry it appear so enormous that the building
seems to be all buttress, but here such an impression could never for
a moment be gained, for the chapel filling each bay completely masks
the widest portion of the adjoining buttresses. The upper portions are
so admirably proportioned that they taper up to a comparatively slight
finial with the most perfect gradations.
Directly we enter the chapel our eyes are raised to look at the roof
which necessitated that stately row of buttresses, but for a time it
is hard to think of anything but the splendour of colour and detail in
this vast aisleless nave, and we think of what Henry's college might
have been had the whole plan been carried out in keeping with this
perfect work. Wordsworth's familiar lines present themselves as more
fitting than prose to describe this consummation of the pain and
struggle of generations of workers since the dawn of Gothic on English
soil:
Tax not the royal Saint with vain expense,
With ill-matched aims the architect who planned--
Albeit labouring for a scanty band
Of white-robed Scholars only--this immense
And glorious work of fine intelligence!
Give all thou canst; high heaven rejects the lore
Of nicely-calculated less or more;
So deemed the man who fashioned for the sense
These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof
Self-poised, and scooped into ten thousand cells,
Where light and shade repose, where music dwells
Lingering--and wandering on as loth to die;
Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
That they were born for immortality.
When the sunlight falls athwart the great windows the tracery and the
moulded stonework on either side are painted with "the soft
chequerings" of rainbow hues, and the magnificent glass shows at its
best all its marvellously fine detail, as well as the beauty of its
colour. The whole range of twenty-six windows having been executed
under two contracts, dated 1516 and 1526, there was opportunity for
carrying out a great subject scheme, and thus it was found possible to
illustrate practically the whole Gospel story, culminating in the
Crucifixion in the east window, and continuing into apostolic times
until the death of the Virgin Mary. At the west end is the one modern
window. It represents the Last Judgement. It is safe to say that of
their period this glorious set of windows has no real rival, and it is
hardly possible to do them any justice if the visitor has become a
little jaded with sight-seeing. In one of the windows there is a
splendidly drawn three-masted ship of the period (Henry VIII.'s
reign), high in the bow and stern, with her long-boat in the water
amidships, and every detail of the rigging so clearly shown that the
artist must have drawn it from a vessel in the Low Countries or some
English port. It is one of the best representations of a ship of the
period extant. This is merely an indication of the vivid
archaeological interest of the glass, apart from its beauty in the
wonderful setting of fan vaulting and tall, gracefully moulded shafts.
The splendid oaken screen across the choir, dividing the chapel into
almost equal portions, was put up in 1536, at the same time as nearly
the whole of the stalls. It is rather startling to see the monogram of
Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn, entwined with true lovers' knots, on this
wonderful piece of Renaissance woodwork, for in 1536, the date of the
screen, Anne, charged with unfaithfulness, went to the scaffold. How
was it, we wonder, that these initials were never removed? The screen
also reminds us of the changes in architecture and religion which had
swept over England between the laying of the foundation stone and the
completion of the internal fittings, for, not only had the Gothic
order come to its greatest perfection in this building, and then its
whole traditions been abandoned and a reversion to classic forms taken
place, but the very religion for which the chapel had been built had
been swept away by the Reformation.
The Tudor rose and portcullis frequently repeated within and without
the chapel constantly remind us of the important part Henry VII.
played in the creation of one of the chiefest flowers of the Gothic
order and the architectural triumph of Cambridge.
TRINITY COLLEGE.--Oxford does not possess so large a foundation as
Trinity College, and the spaciousness of the great court impresses the
stranger as something altogether exceptional in collegiate buildings,
but, like the British Constitution, this largest of the colleges only
assumed its present appearance after many changes, including the
disruptive one brought about by Henry VIII. In that masterful manner
of his the destroyer of monasticism, having determined to establish a
new college in Cambridge, dissolved not only King's Hall and Michael
House, two of the earliest foundations, but seven small university
hostels as well. The two old colleges were obliged to surrender their
charters as well as their buildings; the lane separating them was
closed, and then, with considerable revenues obtained from suppressed
monasteries, Henry proceeded to found his great college dedicated to
the Trinity.
There is something in the broad and spacious atmosphere of the Great
Court suggestive of the change from the narrow and cramped thought of
pre-Reformation times to the age when a healthy expansion of ideas was
coming like a fresh breeze upon the mists which had obscured men's
visions. But even as the Reformation did not at once sweep away all
traces of monasticism, so Henry's new college retained for a
considerable time certain of the buildings of the two old foundations
which were afterwards demolished or rebuilt to fit in with the scheme
of a great open court. Thus it was not until the mastership of Thomas
Nevile that King Edward's gate tower was reconstructed in its present
position west of the chapel. On this gate, beneath the somewhat
disfiguring clock, is the statue of Edward III., regarded as a work of
the period of Edward IV.
Shortly before Henry made such drastic changes, King's Hall had been
enlarged and had built itself a fine gateway of red brick with stone
dressings, and this was made the chief entrance to the college. The
upper part and the statue of Henry VIII. on the outer face were added
by Nevile between 1593 and 1615, but otherwise, the gateway is nearly
a whole century earlier.
It is interesting to read the founder's words in regard to the aims of
his new college, for in them we seem to feel his wish to establish an
institution capable in some measure of filling the gap caused by the
suppression of so many homes of learning in England. Trinity was to be
established for "the development and perpetuation of religion" and for
"the cultivation of wholesome study in all departments of learning,
knowledge of languages, the education of youth in piety, virtue,
self-restraint and knowledge; charity towards the poor, and relief of
the afflicted and distressed."
To the right on entering the great gateway is the chapel, a late Tudor
building begun by Queen Mary and finished by her sister Elizabeth
about the year 1567. The exterior is quite mediaeval, and all the
internal woodwork, including the great _baldachino_ of gilded oak, the
stalls and the organ screen dividing the chapel into two, dates from
the beginning of the eighteenth century. In the ante-chapel the memory
of some of the college's most distinguished sons is perpetuated in
white marble. Among them we see Macaulay and Newton, whose rooms were
between the great gate and the chapel, Tennyson, Whewell--the master
who built the courts bearing his name, was active in revising the
college statutes, and died in 1866--Newton, Bacon, Wordsworth and
others.
On the west side of the court, beginning at the northern end, we find
ourselves in front of the Lodge, which is the residence of the Master
of the College. The public are unable to see the fine interior with
its beautiful dining- and drawing-rooms and the interesting
collection of college portraits hanging there, but they can see the
famous oriel window built in 1843 with a contribution of £1,000 from
Alexander Beresford-Hope. This sum, however, even with £250 from
Whewell, who had just been elected to the mastership, did not cover
the cost, and the fellows had to make up the deficit. It was suggested
that Whewell might have contributed more had not his wife dissuaded
him, and a fellow wrote a parody of "The House that Jack Built" which
culminated in this verse:
This is the architect who is rather a muff,
Who bamboozled those seniors that cut up so rough,
When they saw the inscription, or rather the puff,
Placed by the master so rude and so gruff,
Who married the maid so Tory and tough,
And lived in the house that Hope built.
The Latin inscription, omitting any reference to the part the fellows
took in building the oriel, may still be read on the window.
In the centre of this side of the court is a doorway approached by a
flight of steps, and, from the passage to which this leads, we enter
the Hall. It was built in the first decade of the seventeenth century,
and the screen over the entrance with the musicians' gallery behind
belongs to that period.
[Illustration: THE ENTRANCE GATEWAY OF TRINITY COLLEGE. Trinity was
expanded by Henry III from the "great college" built by Edward III.
The gateway dates from about 1535.]
Unfortunately, the panelling along the sides has replaced the old
woodwork in recent times. This beautiful refectory resembles in many
ways the Middle Temple Hall in London. The measurements are similar,
it has bay windows projecting at either end of the high table, a
minstrels' gallery at the opposite end, and well into the last century
was heated by a great charcoal brazier in the centre. The fumes found
their way into every corner of the hall before reaching their outlet
in the lantern. Among the numerous portraits on the walls there are
several of famous men. Among them we find Dryden, Vaughan, Thompson
(by Herkomer), the Duke of Gloucester (by Sir Joshua Reynolds), Coke
(the great lawyer), Thackeray, Tennyson (by G.F. Watts), Cowley and
Bentley. On the other side of the entrance passage are the kitchens
with the combination rooms above, where more notable portraits hang.
The remainder of the court is composed of living-rooms broken by the
Queen's Gate, a fine tower built in 1597 facing King Edward's Gate. It
has a statue of Elizabeth in a niche and the arms of Nevile and
Archbishop Whitgift.
Nevile's Court is approached by the passage giving entrance to the
hall. The eastern half was built when Nevile was master between 1593
and 1615, and the library designed by Sir Christopher Wren occupies
the river frontage. To the casual observer this building is a
comparatively commonplace one, built in two stories, but although it
allows space for the arcaded cloister to go beneath it, the library
above consists of one floor and the interior does not in the least
follow the external lines. On great occasions Nevile's Court is turned
into a most attractive semi-open-air ball or reception room. One
memorable occasion was when the late King Edward, shortly after his
marriage, was entertained with his beautiful young bride at a ball
given at his old college.
Passing out of the court to the lovely riverside lawns, shaded by tall
elms and chestnuts, we experience the ever-fresh thrill of the
Cambridge "Backs," and, crossing Trinity Bridge, walk down the stately
avenue leading away from the river with glimpses of the colleges seen
through the trees so full of suggestive beauty as to belong almost to
a city of dreams.
There are other courts belonging to Trinity, including two gloomy ones
of recent times on the opposite side of Trinity Street, but there is,
alas! no space left to tell of their many associations.