=Queens' College=, Erasmus, Cloisters, Carmelites, Chapel.--Old
Mill Street.--=King's College=, Henry the Sixth, King's and Eton,
Henry's "Will."--King's College Chapel, Wordsworth, Milton,
Windows, Rosa Solis, Screen, Stalls, Vaulting, Side-Chapels, View
from Roof.
When we disembark once more at Silver Street Bridge, we find ourselves
standing beneath the sombre old red-brick walls of Queens', indented
just above us by a small projecting turret which we should not leave
without notice, for it bears the name and, by tradition, was assigned
to the use of the famous Erasmus during the months he spent in
Cambridge. This great light of the Reformation, or, more properly
speaking, of the intellectual revival which led up to it, was brought
here by the influence of the saintly chancellor, Sir Thomas More,
whose great wish was to broaden the University outlook by the
introduction of the Classical spirit. Hitherto its curriculum had been
almost exclusively confined to Aristotelian philosophy, adapted to
dogmatic Christianity by the great mediaeval Schoolmen, especially St.
Thomas Aquinas. Erasmus brought in the knowledge of Greek, which he
had acquired from the learned exiles whom the capture of
Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 had driven to the west. Unhappily
he, in no small degree, depreciated this great gift, by clogging it
with his own self-opinionated pronunciation of the language, instead
of taking it as actually spoken. Strange to say, this "Erasmian"
barbarism shortly became a badge of Protestantism (though Erasmus
himself lived and died a Catholic). It was thus enforced during the
reign of Edward the Sixth, forbidden in that of Mary, and enforced
again under Elizabeth. To this day it remains with us, and cuts us off
from the living tongue of Hellas.
To enter Queens' it is advisable to cross the iron bridge, and recross
the river by Sir Isaac Newton's wooden structure. Passing through the
low doorway into which it leads we find ourselves in the most
picturesque of all College Courts, bounded by the Hall in face of us,
and on the other three sides by a low range of ancient red-brick
cloisters. These once belonged to the Carmelite nuns, who removed to
this site when flooded out of their original quarters at Newnham. In
1538 they sold their House to the College, just in time to escape its
confiscation, at the suppression of the monasteries, by Henry the
Eighth, who, as it was, required the purchase-money to be paid over to
_him_. Having obtained the property Queens' at once built over the
northern cloisters the beautiful gallery which serves as the
drawing-room of the President's Lodge--(it has been stated that the
Head of a College is, in Cambridge, always called the "Master," except
here, where he is "President," and at King's where he is "Provost").
The gallery, which is a wooden construction overhanging the Cloister,
is eighty feet long by twelve in width, with three large oriels
looking into the Court. Those on the other side open into the
President's garden, a charming enclosure abutting upon the river. Both
gallery and garden are, of course, strictly private. Opposite the
gallery, at the south-east corner of the cloisters, is a small Court
of Elizabethan date, known as "Pump Court," and now-a-days as "Erasmus
Court"; while from the north-east corner a tortuous little passage
brings us into a more modern Court, shaded by a fine walnut-tree
(whence its name of "Walnut Tree Court"). Here stands the New Chapel,
the best bit of modern work in all Cambridge, erected in 1895 from the
designs of Messrs. Bodley and Garner. The beautiful proportions and
effective decoration of the interior are specially noteworthy.
[Illustration: _The President's Gallery, Queens' College._]
On the southern side of this court a passage (between the old Chapel
and the Library) leads to the "Old Court," the original enclave of the
College. This has remained practically unaltered since the Foundation,
and is the best example remaining of the way in which a College was
designed of old, after the fashion of the large country-house, as then
built--Haddon Hall, for example, in Derbyshire. The red-brick and the
white stone dressings, have mellowed, as elsewhere in Cambridge, to a
tone of rich sombreness most restful and satisfying to the eye. The
somewhat gaudy clock and clock tower are modern, as is also the yet
gaudier sun-dial often, but erroneously, ascribed to Sir Isaac Newton.
Over the Hall is emblazoned the very elaborate shield of the College,
quartering the six bearings to which the poor little Queen Margaret
laid claim--those of Hungary, Naples, Jerusalem, Anjou, Lorraine, and
De Barre, all within a bordure "vert" added by Queen Elizabeth. Hence
it is that green is to-day the distinctive Queens' colour at boating,
cricket, etc.
Passing out of Queens', beneath the dignified gate-tower, we find
ourselves in Queens' Lane, the quiet byway already referred to. Quiet
byway as it now is, this was once a main street of Cambridge, known as
Mill Street, forming (as it did before the great Colleges of King's,
Trinity, and St. John's were built across it) the line of interior
communication between the two bridges of the town, "the Small Bridge"
by the King's Mill and "The Great Bridge" beneath the Castle. In those
days it was a busy thoroughfare, thick set with burgher houses; now,
in such broken lengths of it as survive, the buildings are almost
wholly Collegiate. As we emerge from Queens' gate, and turn leftwards,
we have on one side the dark-red bricks of that College, on the other
the like buildings of St. Catharine's, while, at the further end of
the street in front, our view is bounded by the white stone of the new
gateway of King's. The whole effect is delightful.
Through this gateway we now make our way into the Premier[16] College
of Cambridge, and soon find ourselves face to face with one of the
most beautiful views of the world. Before us spreads a spacious lawn,
the most extensive in existence,[17] bounded on three sides by the
white and grey walls of College buildings, while on the fourth it
merges into the wooded grass-land of the Backs; the river which
divides it from these being scarcely perceptible from this point. We
get a glimpse, however, of Clare Bridge, terminating the graceful
facade of that College, which is in our immediate front. Behind us are
the nineteenth-century additions to King's, and to our right front the
fine pile of "Gibbs' Buildings," erected, in the eighteenth century,
as a first attempt to approximate in some degree to the wishes of the
Royal Founder, and transfer his College from the cramped position it
had hitherto occupied, at the north of the Chapel, to the ampler site
on the south which he had originally destined for it, and had cleared
for his purpose by buying up and sweeping away, church and all, one of
the most thickly populated parishes in Cambridge, that of "St. John
Zachary" (_i.e._ St. John the Baptist), including a furlong's length
of Mill Street.
[Footnote 16: This rank is one of the privileges due to the Royal
Founder. Another was the exemption of King's men from the authority of
the Proctors; another their right to a Degree without passing the
usual examinations. This was given up in the middle of last century,
and now every King's student is required by the College to take
Honours in some Tripos.]
[Footnote 17: A current story tells how a millionaire, who boasted
that his money should make him a lawn as perfect, was discomfited by
being told that to attain such perfection "you must mow and roll it
regularly for 400 years. That is what has been done here."]
[Illustration: _Oriel in Queens' College._]
For the scale on which Henry VI. intended to build was something
hitherto quite unprecedented, and his plan took years to mature. The
inspiration of it was originally caught from William of Wykeham,
Bishop of Winchester, whose genius first conceived the idea of twinned
Colleges, in the provinces and at the University, from the former of
which the Scholars should pass on to complete their education at the
latter. This idea Wykeham himself first carried into effect by the
foundation of the College at Winchester and of New College at Oxford.
And, fired by his example, Henry VI., when only twenty, resolved on
doing the same thing himself with truly Royal magnificence. His
Scholars should begin their course at Eton, beneath the walls of
Windsor Castle, his birthplace and favourite residence, and should
thence pass to finish it at Cambridge, in the College which he would
there dedicate to his own Patron Saint Nicolas, on whose Feast,
December 6th (still "Founder's Day" to all Etonians and King's men),
he was born.
This was in 1440. He at once put hand to the work, and that same year
signed the Charters for both Colleges; the Head of each being called
"Provost," in order, as he said, "to weld the two Colleges together in
a bond of everlasting brotherhood,"--a bond which actually lasted in
its entirety till 1870, and of which traces even yet remain.
The acquisition of the sites involved complicated legal transactions
which occupied several years; but by 1444 Eton was sufficiently
advanced to receive its first Scholars, a colony brought by William of
Waynflete from Winchester; and by 1446 Henry was able to dedicate the
first stone of his Cambridge chapel. Every dimension of this glorious
edifice he himself worked out with the utmost minuteness, and set
down, as he would have it completed, in that notable record of his
purposes still preserved in the College Library, and known as his
"Will." The word had not in those days its present purely posthumous
signification, but was used of any formal disposition of a man's
estate, or any part of it, to some given purpose.
In this document, "one of the most remarkable works in the English
language," as Mr. J. W. Clark styles it, the King describes his future
College so accurately that a complete plan and elevation of the whole
can be drawn from it. We thus learn that Gibbs' Building represents
what was meant to be the western side of an enclosed court, with a
fountain in the midst of it. The Chapel was to form the northern side
of this court; the entrance, with its turreted gate-tower, the
eastern; the Hall and Library, the western. The great lawn before us
was not to be, as now, an empty space, but was to be occupied, partly
by a small "kitchen court" containing the various offices (bake-house,
brew-house, etc.), partly by a cloistered cemetery between the Chapel
and the river, from the western side of which was to rise a pinnacled
tower, 220 feet high, the rival to that at Magdalen, Oxford, which was
already being planned by William of Waynflete. Another turreted
gate-tower, on the very bank of the river, was to give access to the
College Bridge (further north than the present one). Had this plan
been carried out in its entirety, King's would indeed have been, as
the historian Stow puts it, "such that the like colledge could scarce
have been found again in any Christian land."
[Illustration: _Queens' College Gateway._]
Unhappily its splendid design was brought to nought by the great
tragedy of the Wars of the Roses, which broke out almost immediately.
The singular mildness with which that conflict was waged (except on
the actual field of battle), with no wasting of lands, with no burning
of towns or villages, with no slaughter (and scarcely any plunder) of
non-combatants, permitted the work on the Chapel, which, as we have
seen, was already begun, to proceed, though slowly, and did not even
stop the conveyance of stone from the chosen quarry at Huddleston in
Yorkshire. The payment of the workmen was a harder matter, for Henry
was far from being a wealthy monarch. He and his wife between them had
less than the equivalent of L50,000 per annum, all too little for the
expenses of their position, even in days of peace. Still the pay was
found, in a certain measure, and the workmen came and went till
dispersed by the appalling tidings that their Royal Saint had been
deposed and murdered in the Tower. Then in panic horror they flung
down their tools and fled, with such haste that they did not even
complete the job on a block of stone, already half sawn through, which
lay, as Logan's print of 1680 shows it, in the south-east corner of
the present Great Court, Henry's intended quadrangle, a testimony to
their despair, for upwards of three centuries. Then, when the idea of
carrying out his intention was at last revived, this stone was
appropriately used as the first to be employed for that purpose, the
Foundation Stone of Gibbs' Building.
The work on the Chapel thus abruptly stopped by the Founder's death
remained in abeyance for the remainder of the century. Not till 1508
was it resumed. The shell of the building was finished 1515; the glass
and woodwork being added under Henry the Eighth. But in the end it was
completed substantially in accordance with the Founder's Will, and is
the only part of his design that has been so completed. His huge
campanile, his cloisters, his gate towers, never came into being; and
though the Great Court is now where he meant it to be, it is built in
a fashion very different from his design.
This we see at a glance as we enter it round the southern end of
Gibbs' Building. For it is not an enclosed quadrangle, but formed of
two detached blocks to south and west, while the east side is only a
stone screen, erected in 1825, and of a sadly inferior style. But the
"goodly conduit" of the Founder's Will does rise in the midst,[18] and
the north side is actually formed, as he decreed, by his glorious
Chapel, the most magnificent in the world, which now rises before us
in all its grandeur as we behold it across the Court.
[Footnote 18: His statue surmounts it, flanked by two figures
representing Science (gazing at the Chapel) and Religion (with her
eyes devoutly fixed upon the Hall). To leap across from the lawn to
the pedestal of this group is a feat seldom accomplished.]
And if the outside view is impressive, that which greets us when we
enter is absolutely overpowering in its majesty. The sense of space
and repose; the up-running lines of the shafting catching the eye
whithersoever it turns, and leading it up to the myriad-celled spans
of the vault; the subdued light through the pictured windows staining
the venerable masonry; the great organ, upborne by the rich oaken
screen, dominating the whole vista, combine to form, as has been well
said, "a _Sursum Corda_ done into stone," uplifting indeed to heart
and sense alike. And when to this feast of visual harmony is added the
feast of aural harmony, when the clear and mellow voices of the Choir
blend with the majestic tones of the organ,
"And thunder-music, rolling, shakes
The prophets blazoned on the panes,"
we can understand how the inspiration of the scene has thrilled poet
after poet, not Tennyson only, as above quoted, but Wordsworth, and
even Milton, Puritan as he was, yet more. To the former King's College
Chapel suggested one of the most exquisite of his sonnets:
"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 and 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."
And Milton, when he came under the spell of this most glorious
sanctuary, forwent all his conscientious objections to the Laudian
revival of ornate services, "the scrannel pipes of wretched straw,"
and all the rest of his denunciations, and was, in spite of himself,
carried away into forgetfulness of all save the glory and the beauty
around him. Hear him in "Il Penseroso":
"But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloister's pale,
And love the high embowed roof,
With antique pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow
To the full-voiced choir below,
In Service high and Anthem clear,
As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstasies
And bring all Heaven before mine eyes."
[Illustration: _Clare College from King's._]
This passage is memorable, not only for its own intrinsic loveliness,
but because we, very probably, have in it a key to the great
historical puzzle connected with King's College Chapel. How came these
"storied windows," with their hundreds of pictured prophets, saints,
and angels, to escape the ruthless destruction which was meted out to
all such "idolatrous" representations, throughout the length and
breadth of the county, by the Parliamentary authorities at Cambridge?
William Dowsing, their authorised agent, went from church to church,
in town and village, shattering and defacing, and has left us a minute
record of his proceedings, in which he evidently took a keen personal
delight. Thus, amongst the colleges we have already noticed, he tells
us that, at Peterhouse, "we pulled down two mighty great Angells with
wings, and diverse other Angells, and the four Evangelists, and Peter
with his Keies over the Chappell Dore, and about 100 Chirubims." At
Queens' "we beat down a 110 superstitious pictures, besides
Chirubims"; and so on, with monotonous repetition, entry after entry.
The account also records the sums which each college had to pay him
for his trouble, and such a sum (of extra amount in consideration of
the magnitude of the task) was actually paid him by the Bursar of
King's. Yet here are the windows before our eyes to-day in unbroken,
unblemished dignity.
No contemporary explanation is forthcoming, and the true facts of the
case seem to have been kept so close, and to have been known to so
few, that no tradition, even, of them was handed down to posterity. As
time went on, the wildest and most impossible theories were evolved to
account for the marvel. It was gravely said that the windows had been
taken down by the Fellows themselves in a single night, and securely
buried from the baffled spite of the Roundheads before morning, till
better times; the place of each being known to one Fellow only! That
the west window alone remained plain till the latter part of the
nineteenth century (a peculiarity really not explained by history),
was held proof positive that the Fellow in charge of that particular
burial was done to death by the Puritans without betraying his secret;
which equally defied the researches of later generations. Such
searches were actually made. A more sentimental variant of the story
made the hider a pious little chorister, shot down by Cromwell in the
chapel itself for refusing to reveal where lay his precious charge!
Through the empty casement a white dove flew in, and hovered over the
heroic innocent! It need scarcely be pointed out that to remove the
glass from a single one of these huge windows would be a work of days
for a fully equipped band of professional glaziers supplied with
scaffolding; yet these absurd tales were gravely repeated, and the
missing window was actually sought for. The truth of the matter will,
probably, now never be known. But it is certain that the windows could
not have been spared without the connivance, at least, of Oliver
Cromwell, whose influence was at that time paramount in Cambridge; and
it is a plausible conjecture that his protection of them was due to
the intercession of his friend John Milton, to whom, as we have seen,
the Chapel and its "dim religious light" meant so much.
A full study of these wonderful windows, crowded as they are with
marvellously elaborate detail, is a work demanding hours of close
attention under the direction of a competent guide. Even for the
cursory examination which will suffice most of us the use of a
guide-book is essential; and it is fortunate that one has been brought
out (purchasable at any Cambridge book-shop for the modest sum of
sixpence) by Dr. M. R. James, the present Provost of King's, who is
the supreme European authority on ancient stained glass.
The general scheme of decoration is the representation of the life of
Our Lady (to whom the College is dedicated), beginning in the
westernmost window of the north side, with her traditional birth, and
going on round the Chapel, till it ends, in the westernmost window of
the south side, with her Assumption and Coronation. But as the
traditions concerning her did not provide a sufficient number of
scenes for the requirements of the designer, the series is eked out,
not only by various incidents in her Son's life wherein she does not
appear (such as His Baptism, Temptation, and Passion), but by the
three windows to the western side of the great screen on the south
being filled with subjects drawn from the stories of St. Peter and St.
Paul; all being, however, within the traditional period of her
life-time.
A first glance at the windows produces only the effect of a gorgeous
maze of colouring, through which we marvel that any clue should have
been found. Next to the general effect of the ineffably harmonious
blending of hues, the audacious vividness of the hues themselves, red
and green and blue and gold and purple, is what first impresses the
eye. Then we notice how, down the central light of each window, stand,
one above another, four great figures, human or angelic, each
displaying an inscribed scroll.[19] These figures are known as the
Messengers, and when not Angels they are Old Testament Prophets. Their
scrolls, which are in Latin, refer, sometimes by direct description,
oftener by a suggestive text, to the subjects depicted in the Lights
on either hand of them. The inscriptions, however, are of very little
practical use to the visitor. Age has rendered many of them wholly,
and more partially, illegible; while the black-letter characters of
their crowded Latin words are not easy to decipher at the best. They
are, moreover, by no means free from actual blunders, and the
connection between text and scene is sometimes far from obvious. Their
interest, in fact, is for experts; and less-gifted visitors will do
well to content themselves with the interpretation given in the
guide-book.
[Footnote 19: These figures are somewhat larger than life-size.]
The same advice applies to the glass in general. It is not worth while
to spend on a detailed study of the windows the time necessarily
involved. Much of the work is excellent, and almost every window has
its points of interest, but much, especially amongst the heads of the
figures, is far from pleasing. This fact is largely owing to a
considerable "restoration" undertaken in the Early Victorian era; when
the art of glass-painting was at a sadly low ebb, and when the
uncurbed restorer positively revelled in substituting for ancient
decay his spick-and-span modern conceptions. But, as has been said,
almost every window has features deserving that time should be made
for their notice, which we now proceed to point out.
Each window contains four scenes, the upper and lower, to left and
right of the central "Messengers," being normally co-related as Type
and Antitype. This relation, however, is not universal, and does not
occur in the first window of the series (that in the north-west corner
of the Chapel), where the four scenes consecutively illustrate the
legend connected with the birth of Our Lady. The story runs that her
parents, Joachim and Anna, were childless even unto old age, and that,
in consequence, Joachim, on presenting his offering in the Temple, was
insulted by the High Priest. As he sadly sought retirement in the
country an Angel appeared to him with the message that he should
return to Jerusalem, where his wife would meet him at the Temple gate,
and a daughter would be born to them.
The upper left-hand of the window shows the mitred High-Priest waving
away Joachim, who is sorrowfully departing. His face is beautifully
rendered. In the upper right-hand corner we see him kneeling before a
green and gold angel hovering downwards. The rural surroundings are
suggested by a pastoral composition. Note the sheep-dog and the
shepherd's bagpipes.
[Illustration: _King's College Chapel._]
In the lower left-hand light Joachim and Anna are meeting before the
Temple gate; and in the right-hand Anna is sitting up in a blue bed
with red curtains, watching the infant Mary being washed. Mary has
long golden curls, and her face is that of an adult; but Dr. James
considers this head a later insertion. This window is known to have
been repeatedly and promiscuously repaired (even as early as 1590),
and was in utter confusion till the latest releading (1896). The
repairs seem to have been executed with any old bits of glass the
glazier might happen to have in stock. On one fragment (now removed)
some coins of Charles the First were represented. Most of the windows
have suffered, more or less, in this way, but none (except that over
the south door) to the same extent as this first window, which though
the first in order of subject, seems not to have been the first
inserted, or at least completed; for at the top may be read the date
1527, whereas the window over the screen on the north side contains
that of 1517.
These two dates are respectively near the inception and the completion
of the glazing, which was begun 1515, the year when Luther began the
Reformation by the publication of his famous Theses, and finished
1531, the year in which that Reformation was first inaugurated in
England by the King being declared Supreme Head of the Anglican
Church. The windows, however, must have been designed at a date
considerably earlier, for in the heraldic devices which fill the small
top lights Henry the Seventh, not Henry the Eighth, is treated
throughout as the reigning monarch; his shield being blazoned in the
central compartment, while the latter is only commemorated by the
initials H. K.,--the last standing for his ill-fated wife Katharine of
Aragon. These heraldic devices are the same in all the windows, and
show the rival roses of York and Lancaster, the Tudor Portcullis and
Hawthorn Bush, the Fleur-de-lys, and the initials H. E. (for Henry the
Seventh and his Queen, Elizabeth of York). All the glass is of English
manufacture, the work of four London firms, but it seems probable that
the artists were to some extent under both Flemish and Italian
influence.
Passing on to the second window, we find it thus arranged:
TYPE | TYPE
Presentation of a golden table in | The Marriage of Tobias and Sara.
the Temple at Delphi. | (_Tobit_ vii. 13.)
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
Presentation of the Virgin in the | The Marriage of Mary and Joseph.
Temple at Jerusalem. |
The first scene here is the only instance in the Chapel of a
non-Scriptural incident being made use of as a Type. It is the
Classical legend (found in Valerius Maximus, an obscure Latin writer
used in the sixteenth century as a school book), which tells how a
question as to the ownership of a golden table found in the nets of
some Milesian fishermen was referred to the Delphic oracle of Apollo
for solution. To whom should this table of pure gold be made over? The
Oracle replied "To the Wisest." The prize was therefore given to
Thales, the wisest Milesian of the day, who modestly passed it on to
another sage, and he to yet another. Finally, after thus going the
round of the Seven Wise Men of Greece, it came into the hands of Solon
the Athenian, who declared that "the Wisest" could be no other than
Apollo himself, and accordingly presented the table to the God in the
Temple of Delphi. By a strange application, this tale was considered,
in mediaeval literature, as typical of the Presentation of the Virgin
in the Temple at Jerusalem; her purity and that of the gold being,
apparently, the connecting idea.
In the window we see the offering of the golden table; Apollo being
represented by a golden image bearing a shield emblazoned with the
Sun, and a banner. Beneath is Mary, as a young girl dressed in blue,
walking up the steps of the Temple; an incident much dwelt on in the
legend. In the upper Marriage scene note the Angel Raphael, the
comrade and guide of Tobias; and, in the lower, Joseph's rod, the sign
from which (a dove appearing upon it) marked him out, amongst all her
suitors, as Mary's destined husband. This scene suggests a
reminiscence of Raphael's well-known cartoon on the subject, which had
lately been painted.
* * * * *
In the third window the arrangement is:
TYPE | TYPE
The Fall | The Burning Bush
(Eve's disobedience). | (remaining unconsumed).
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
The Annunciation | The Nativity
(Mary's obedience). | (Mary remaining a Virgin).
Note the human head and hands of the Serpent, and the brilliant
ruddiness of the apple. Also the ruby flames of the bush, and the
representation of God the Father at its summit. Moses is in the act of
putting off his shoes from his feet. In the Nativity scene the Babe
can only be discovered by following the gaze of the child Angels who
are clustering round in adoration. Contrary to the usual convention,
which shows Him sitting on His Mother's knee as if a couple of years
old, He is here represented realistically as an actual new-born baby.
Above both lower lights in this window is a renaissance arcading.
* * * * *
In the fourth window we have:
TYPE | TYPE
The Circumcision of Isaac. | The visit of the Queen of Sheba
| to Solomon.
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
The Circumcision of Christ. | The visit of the Wise Men to
| Christ.
The face of Abraham and that of the officiating priest below are both
good, and so is that of the Queen. The Epiphany Star is a fine object,
and the effect of its light irradiating the thatch of the manger-shed
is most powerfully rendered.
* * * * *
The fifth window gives us
TYPE | TYPE
The Legal Purification of a woman. | Jacob's flight from the
| vengeance of Esau.
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
The Purification of Mary. | The Flight into Egypt.
In the Purification scene the faces of Simeon, who is the main figure,
Mary, and Joseph (carrying the dove-cage), are all worth looking at.
So is Joseph in the Flight episode; which, however, is chiefly
remarkable for introducing in the back-ground a legend from a late
carol, which tells how Herod's soldiers pursued the Holy Family, and
how the pursuit was miraculously checked. The fugitives met a
husbandman, and instructed him to answer any inquiry for them by
saying, "They passed whilst I was sowing this corn"; which was
actually the case. But, lo! when the pursuers shortly came up the corn
had sprung up, and was ripe already to harvest. It takes some little
trouble to decipher this scene. The Purification is seen through an
arcade of the Temple, on the frieze of which is a group of classical
horsemen like those of the Parthenon.
* * * * *
The next window is that over the great organ screen dividing the
ante-chapel from the choir. It is arranged thus:
TYPE | TYPE
The Golden Calf | The Massacre of the Seed Royal by
(the introduction of Idolatry). | Queen Athaliah.
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
The idols of Egypt falling before | The Massacre of the Innocents by
the Holy Child | King Herod.
(the overthrow of Idolatry). |
The Golden Calf is set high on a magnificent ruby pillar. Before it
Moses is breaking the Tables of the Law; one fragment of which shows a
Flemish inscription. Below, an idol is falling headlong from a
precisely similar pillar. The kneeling figure in this scene is the
Governor Aphrodisius, who was converted by the miracle; as is recorded
in the apocryphal "Gospel of the Infancy." In the Massacre scene Queen
Athaliah is represented by a conventional figure of the _Virgo
Coronata_ (with her Babe in her arms). The artist evidently had this
figure in stock, and used it rather than take the trouble of producing
something less incorrect. Near her there is a minutely depicted
mediaeval thatched house worthy of notice. So is the business-like
callousness in the expression on the leading soldier's countenance.
This window bears, as has been said, the date 1517, written 15017.
* * * * *
We are now in the choir, where our first window gives:
TYPE | TYPE
Naaman washing in Jordan. | Esau tempted by Jacob to sell
| his birthright.
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
Christ baptised in Jordan. | Christ tempted by the Devil.
All three Temptations are given, the first being in the foreground.
The countenance of the Devil (as a respectable old man) is a
marvellous study.
* * * * *
The second window in the choir is:
TYPE | TYPE
The raising of the Shunamite's son.| The Triumph of David
| (I _Sam._ xvii).
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
The raising of Lazarus. | The Triumphal Entry.
The Shunamite's house is another bit of minute detail. Note the dishes
on the shelf in front. Note also the magnificently gigantic head of
Goliath borne by David on the point of the Philistine's own huge
sword.
* * * * *
The third window:
TYPE | TYPE
The Manna. | The Fall of the Angels.
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
The Last Supper. | The Agony in Gethsemane.
The manna is shown as falling in the shape of Communion Breads. Below,
Christ gives the sop to the red-haired Judas, while Peter, who thus
becomes aware of the traitor's identity, clenches his fist with a
gesture of menace extraordinarily forcible.
The connection between the right-hand subjects is not obvious. Dr.
James suggests that it refers to Christ's speaking of the casting out
of Satan as a result of His Passion (John xii. 31). The smaller scale
of this scene, and the nimbi given to Christ and the Apostles point to
its having been the work of a special artist.
* * * * *
The fourth choir window:
TYPE | TYPE
Cain murders Abel. | The mocking of David by Shimei.
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
Judas betrays Christ. | The mocking of Christ.
Cain is killing Abel with a large bone. Note the ruby fires of their
respective altars in the back-ground, Abel's spiring upwards in full
flame, while Cain's is blown down to the earth. In the betrayal scene
the face of Malchus, as he lies upon the ground with his broken
lantern under him, should be observed. It is highly expressive.
* * * * *
The fifth window:
TYPE | TYPE
Jeremiah in prison. | Noah mocked by Ham.
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
Christ before Annas. | Christ mocked by Herod.
* * * * *
We have now reached the last window of the northern range, that in the
north-east corner of the Chapel. It shows us:
TYPE | TYPE
Job scourged by Satan. | Solomon crowned by his mother.
| (_Cant._ iii. 11.)
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
Christ scourged by Pilate. | Christ crowned with thorns.
In the scourging scene we may note the singularly unpleasing features
and expression of the Saviour's face; which Dr. James holds to be
purposely so delineated, in reference to the words of Isaiah: "He hath
no form nor comeliness, and when we see Him there is no beauty that we
should desire Him." We do not, indeed, find in the entire series of
windows one single attempt to represent Him worthily. The conventional
face, familiar throughout the ages to Christian Art, even from the
first century, and probably a real recollection of Him, is
consistently departed from (as is characteristic of the Renaissance
period), and with it has gone every divine and exalted association.
Where even the genius of Michael Angelo failed, we cannot look to find
the glassworkers of London succeeding.
* * * * *
The great east window has no central messengers, and thus contains six
scenes, each occupying three lights, arranged thus:
The Nailing to the | Christ crucified | The Descent from the
Cross. | (the Piercing). | Cross.
| |
Ecce Homo! | The Sentence. | The Way of Sorrows.
There is little to call for special notice in this window. Structural
conditions necessitate the Cross being of abnormal height. In the
background of the Way of Sorrows is a vivid ruby patch, which may be
meant for the Field of Blood.
* * * * *
Turning to the south-east window, we are confronted with an entirely
exceptional development. The whole of the upper half is occupied with
a single subject (the Brazen Serpent), and that in Early Victorian
glass inconceivably poor and crude. The lower half is ancient and
typical, the type and antitype being placed side by side:
TYPE | ANTITYPE
Naomi bewailing her husband. | The Holy Women bewailing Christ.
(_Ruth_ i. 20.) |
The history of this marked departure from the norm is that the
buildings of the Great Court were planned to abut upon the Chapel
here, so as to block the lower half of the window, for which,
accordingly, no glass was provided. That which is there now was
originally in the upper half and was moved down in 1841, the Brazen
Serpent being substituted for it. The remaining windows on this side
of the choir also underwent a sad amount of "restoration" at the same
period.
* * * * *
The next window (the fifteenth in the entire sequence) is of the
normal arrangement.
TYPE | TYPE
Joseph cast into the pit. | The overthrow of Pharaoh.
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
Christ laid in the Sepulchre. | The Harrying of Hell.
The last scene is a most forcible representation of Christ's
victorious "Harrying of Hell," as conceived by mediaeval imagination
and referred to by Dante in his Inferno. The Conqueror of Death has
forced His resistless way through the shattered gates of Hell, on
which He stands, treading under His feet the gigantic leaden-coloured
bulk of their demon warder. Before Him kneels Adam, at last rescued
from his age-long captivity, and other Holy Souls. In the back-ground
a blue devil gazes in dismay from the red mouth of Hell (represented
after the usual mediaeval fashion, as an actual mouth, with teeth,
etc.), while another, in livid green, is dancing with demoniac rage
above, and yet another, white and gold, is scudding away in terror as
fast as his wings will carry him.
* * * * *
The remaining windows of the choir on this side deal with the
Resurrection. In the first of these (the third from the east) the
subjects are:
TYPE | TYPE
Jonah escaping from the Fish. | Tobias appearing to his mother
| (who had thought him dead).
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
Christ arising from the Sepulchre. | Christ appearing to His Mother.
The Fish is represented as a long green sea-serpent with a black,
cavernous mouth, out of which Jonah is stepping. In the background is
a ship, and, beyond, Nineveh. The Sepulchre is in the frequent
unscriptural shape of a table monument.
In the right-hand type, Tobias has his dog with him, and also his
angel guardian Raphael. That Christ appeared to His Mother is first
found in St. Ambrose, who mentions it as undoubted. She is here shown
kneeling at a prayer-desk.
* * * * *
In the next window we find:
TYPE | TYPE
Reuben finds Joseph taken away | Darius, at the Lions' den, sees
from the pit. | Daniel living.
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
The Marys find Jesus taken away |Mary Magdalene, at the Sepulchre,
from the Sepulchre. | sees Jesus living.
In the last scene Christ is represented with a spade, inasmuch as Mary
Magdalene supposed Him to be the gardener. Her very pronounced
costume, with its astonishing golden ear-covers, is probably a German
fashion of the early sixteenth century.
* * * * *
The fifth window gives the story of Christ's appearance to the
disciples who went to Emmaus:
TYPE | TYPE
Tobias, on his journey, is joined | Habakkuk shares his meal with
by the angel Raphael, in | Daniel at Babylon.
appearance a wayfaring man. | (_Bel and the Dragon_, v. 33.)
(_Tobit_, v. 4.) |
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
The two disciples on their journey | Christ shares the meal of
are joined by Christ, in | disciples at Emmaus.
appearance a wayfaring man. |
Observe that the bread in Our Lord's hand appears to be, not broken,
but cut clean as with a knife. There was a mediaeval legend to the
effect that He showed His divine power by thus breaking it. Note, too,
Raphael's brilliant green and crimson wings, put in to denote his
angelic nature, though the story postulates their absence.
* * * * *
The following window (that next to the screen) deals with the story of
St. Thomas (John xx.), and has been wrongly arranged: what are now the
right-hand scenes should be the left so as to come first. It now
stands thus:
TYPE | TYPE
The Prodigal Son returns to his | Joseph meets Jacob in Egypt.
Father. |
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
Thomas returns to belief in Jesus.| Jesus meets His Disciples at
| Supper.
We find in the first scene here what is perhaps the most ably drawn
figure in the entire series of windows, that of the Elder Brother.
Observe the utter contempt and disgust written on his face and in his
whole attitude. He wears a pair of most aggressively red leggings.
* * * * *
The window over the organ loft shows us the Ascension, and the Coming
of the Holy Ghost.
TYPE | TYPE
Elijah going up into Heaven. | Moses and the Israelites receiving
| the Law at Pentecost.
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
Christ going up into Heaven. | Mary and the Disciples receiving
| the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
Elijah is deliberately turning round in his golden chariot of fire to
cast down his ample ruby mantle upon Elisha. Moses is taking the
Tables of the Law from the hand of God.
* * * * *
The subjects of the three windows between the screen and the south
door are all from the lives of St. Peter and St. Paul, and nearly all
from the Acts of the Apostles, from which also all the texts are
taken. Accordingly the place of the usual prophetic Messengers is, in
these windows, taken by figures of St. Luke (all identical), habited
in the costume worn by a Doctor of Medicine in the sixteenth century.
The series of type and antitype is dropped in these windows, and no
strict chronological order is observed in the sequence of the
subjects. Probably some have been misplaced, either originally or at
one of the various releadings to which they have necessarily been
subjected. Every century brings fresh need for this operation.
The subjects in the first window are:
Peter and the Apostles entering | Peter and John bound and
the Temple. | scourged.
|
Peter and John healing the lame | The Death of Ananias.
man in the Beautiful Gate. |
The design of the last scene is directly copied from Raphael's
well-known cartoon.
* * * * *
The second window gives:
The Conversion of St. Paul. | St. Paul at Damascus and his
| escape in a basket.
|
St. Paul adored at Lystra. | St. Paul stoned at Lystra.
* * * * *
The third window is also Pauline:
St. Paul giving a farewell blessing |St. Paul before the Chief Captain at
before embarkation. | Jerusalem.
|
St. Paul exorcising the demoniac at |St. Paul before Caesar at Rome.
Philippi.
The first of these scenes is interesting. The text (Acts, xvi. 2)
connects it with St. Paul's departure from Troas on his first voyage
to Europe. But the subject seems to be the touching scene at Miletus
(Acts, xx) on his final departure for Jerusalem. The ship here, whence
the boat is rowing to fetch him, should be noticed, as it is a fine
and accurate specimen of sixteenth century naval architecture. Observe
the lateen yard on the mizen mast. The man who drew that ship, unlike
most artists, knew his ropes, they are all in their right places. In
the last scene note the startled and awed expression on Nero's almost
obliterated face, also his Imperial crown.
* * * * *
We have now almost completed our round of the Chapel, and are again at
the south door by which we entered. Only two more windows remain, and
in these we return to the typical treatment of Our Lady's life. That
over the south door has, by accident (as it appears), been more
shattered and defaced than any other in the Chapel. It is arranged
thus:
TYPE | TYPE
The death of Tobit. | The burial of Jacob.
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
The death of Mary. | The burial of Mary.
Mary is dying with the full rites of the Church. St. Peter sprinkles
her with holy water, while St. John places in her hand a lighted
"trindall" (three candles twisted together). The prayer book and cross
are borne by other Apostles. Her bier is covered by a white pall with
gold cross, and two severed hands may (with difficulty) be seen
clinging to it. This refers to the legend that a certain Jew who
sought to overthrow the bier was thus miraculously dismembered, and
did not recover his hands till he penitently besought her to restore
them.
* * * * *
Finally the south-west window completes the wondrous series:
TYPE | TYPE
The Translation of Enoch. | Bathsheba enthroned by her son
| Solomon.
| (_I. Kings_, ii., 19.)
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
The Assumption of Mary. | Mary crowned by her Son Jesus.
* * * * *
The west window remained unglazed, for some unknown reason, till as
late as 1879, when there arose a benefactor, Mr. Francis Stacey, a
Fellow of the College, who has left this noble memorial of his
generosity. The glass is by Messrs. Clayton and Bell, and the subject,
as is usual in west windows, is the _Last Judgment_. The heraldic
devices in the tracery are not those found in the older windows, but
comprise (in order) the Tudor Portcullis,[20] the Plantagenet Rose,
and the shields of King's College, Eton College, Cambridge University,
King Henry VI., King Henry VII., King Henry VIII., Queen Victoria, and
Stacey. There are also the shields of the See of Lincoln, whose Bishop
is _ex officio_ Visitor of the College, impaling Wordsworth (then
Bishop), and of Okes (then Provost of the College).
[Footnote 20: The Portcullis was adopted by Henry the Seventh as the
Tudor badge, to signify that his claim to the throne was double
(through his mother, Lady Margaret, as well as his wife), even as a
portcullis doubled the defensibility of a castle gate.]
The glass of King's College Chapel by no means exhausts the interest
of the building. The next point to be observed is the great organ
screen, erected during the brief ascendancy of the miserable Ann
Boleyn, whose initials are carved upon it. On either side of the
door-way, within, are emblazoned the twin shields of King's and Eton;
differing only in that the former bears three red roses, the latter
three white lilies (not fleurs-de-lys) on the sable ground beneath the
chief, with its lion of England and fleur-de-lys of France on their
respective red and blue. The organ itself was not put up till 1606,
but the nondescript Renaissance dragons supporting it show that the
case must have been in hand more than half a century earlier. They
are for all the world like Raphael's wonderful creations in the
Vatican. The great trumpeting angels on the top of the organ are
eighteenth century work. Originally much smaller angels stood there,
which in the seventeenth century were replaced by pinnacles. The doors
of the screen belong to the Laudian revival, and bear the arms of
Charles the First. The west door of the Chapel is of the same period,
but the north and south doors are the original ones.
The Choir stalls date from Henry the Eighth, but the elaborate coats
of arms carved over each were not added till 1633, and the canopies
not till 1675. The magnificent brass lectern was given by Provost
Hacombleyn, at the opening of the chapel; but the present altar is a
very modern addition, having been only put up in the twentieth
century. It stands, as directed by the Founder, no fewer than 16 feet
from the eastern wall. The wood-work of the sanctuary walls is not
even yet (1910) fully completed. It is of Renaissance character, as is
also the altar. The lighting of the Chapel, it should be said, is
still, happily, done only with candles; and, on a winter afternoon,
their twinkling points of fire, in endless range, amid the vasty
gloom, give an impression of mysterious solemnity to be obtained
nowhere else.
Beautiful as the Chapel is, it would, had the designs of the Founder
been carried out, have been yet more beautiful. His Will expressly
deprecates that "superfluitie of too gret curious werkes of entaille
and besy moulding" which the ante-chapel now exhibits in the elaborate
series of Royal coats of arms beneath every window. They are
beautifully carved, it is true, and we may note that the attitudes of
the supporters (the Tudor dragon and greyhound) are in no two cases
identical. But the whole effect is somewhat to weary the eye. So also
do the perpetual roses and portcullises with which the walls are
bestudded. One of the former, however, deserves special notice, as in
it is framed one of the very few mediaeval images of Our Lady which has
weathered the storm of the Reformation. It is to be found at the
southern corner of the west wall, and is what is known as a _Rosa
Solis_. The inner petals are sun-rays, and in the midst is the "Woman
clothed with the sun." (The White Rose of York is also sometimes
represented in the windows as a sun-rose, the sun being also a
Yorkist badge, but in this the rays are external to the flower.)
The walls, then, would have been less ornate, and more truly beautiful
for the absence of profuse ornament, had the Founder's design been
carried out. And we can see that even the exquisite roof was meant to
be yet more lovely than as it now enraptures the eye. If we look at
one of the soaring pilasters and follow up its lines, we shall see
that each of the flutings is prolonged in a rib of the fan vaulting.
No, not quite each. There is one member which has no such
prolongation, but ends meaninglessly at the capital. And this tells us
that the pilasters were designed to carry not a fan but a _liern_
vaulting; so called because it appears to be a mesh of intertwined ivy
(_lierre_) binding the fabric together. And beautiful as a fan roof
is, a liern roof is capable of expressing harmonies of proportion yet
more delicate and soul-satisfying. How subtle and exalted these
harmonies would have been here we shall best learn if we have the good
fortune to gain admission to the range of small side-chapels which
flank the fane on either hand, nestling between the mighty buttresses.
For in these, while the more western have the fan roof, the eastern
and earlier built show liern vaulting of the most delicious character.
These side-chapels were intended each to have an altar, at which the
Priest to whom it was assigned should say his own Mass daily, while
all should meet later before the High Altar to assist at the
Collegiate Mass. They are now used for various subsidiary purposes
connected with the services. One contains the heating apparatus,
another the hydraulic bellows of the organ, while many are mere
lumber-rooms. These last are those abutting on the Choir, which have
no opening into the Nave, such as those adjoining the ante-chapel
possess. Through the gratings we may note some stained glass of an
entirely different character from that in the Chapel windows. It is,
in fact, of the previous (Fifteenth) Century, and thus older than the
Chapel itself. From what earlier building it has been transferred is
uncertain. Tradition, for some unknown reason, assigns it to Ramsey
Abbey; but it seems more reasonable to suppose that it came from the
old church of St. John Zachary hard by, when that was pulled down to
make room for the College, and its fragments, as excavation has shown,
utilised for levelling the site.
In one of the southern side-chapels will be found a verger, from whom
it is well worth while to obtain access to the roof of the Chapel.
This is reached by a wide spiral stairway in the north-western turret.
Our first goal is a small door (the key of which should be specially
asked for) leading into a narrow loop-holed passage, from which we can
scramble into the space between the two roofs of the Chapel. We are
here on the top of the fan vaulting which we have so much admired from
below, and can note with what wondrous skill its huge stones are
dovetailed into one another with the round keystone boss in the centre
of each span. Above, and only just above, our heads are the mighty
beams of Spanish chestnut composing the upper roof, the long vista
being lighted by a small grated window at either end.
Returning to the staircase it does not take many steps more to bring
us to the roof proper, with its open-work parapets and long leaden
slope. This should be climbed to get the full benefit of the view, and
those gifted with steadiness of head and sureness of foot will do well
to make their way along the ridge from end to end, for each has its
own beauties to show. To the West we see below us the great lawn, and
the court of Clare, and the river, and the delicious verdure of the
Backs, amid which rise the red walls of the Ladies' College at
Newnham, and the adjoining Anglican foundation of Selwyn; while beyond
is the open country, bounded by the low chalk upland stretching from
Madingley Hill on the North to Barrington Hill on the South. The
spire, so conspicuous on the summit of this range, is that of
Hardwicke Church. To the South we can distinguish the places already
described, (the little glass dome of the Fitzwilliam Museum, and the
graceful spire of Our Lady's Church, being conspicuous objects,) and,
beyond, the distant range of the East-Anglian Heights from the
furthest north-east to the furthest south-west, that form the
watershed of the wide valley of the Cam. To the East, the tower of the
University Church, Great St. Mary's, raises its turrets almost to the
level of our feet, and we look down on a maze of Cambridge house-roofs
bright with the variegated tiling which is their special and
beautiful characteristic. Beyond them the near promontory of the Gog
Magog Hills juts out from the East-Anglian Heights on which lies
Newmarket. To the North come College after College, Clare, Trinity
Hall, Caius, Trinity, St. John's, Magdalene; while the University
Library and the Senate House lie nearer still. Due north, across
these, and across the wide-flung plain beyond them, the plain of the
Southern Fenland, we can, if the day be clear, discern on the far
horizon the shadowy towers of Ely Cathedral, fifteen miles away as the
crow flies.