Whewell's Courts.--All Saints' Cross.--The Jewry.--Divinity
School.--=St. John's College=, Trinity and John's, Lady Margaret,
Fisher, Hospital of St. John, Gate Tower, First Court, Hall,
Wordsworth, Compulsory Worship, Combination Room, Second Court,
Library, Great Bible, Third Court, Bridge of Sighs, New Court,
Roof-climbing, Blazers, Wilderness.--=Caius College=, Gonville,
The Three Gates, Kitchen, "Blues."--=Senate House=,
Congregations, Vice-Chancellor, Voting,
Degree-giving.--=University Church=, Mr. Tripos, Golgotha,
Sermons, Tower, Chimes, Jowett.--Market Hill, Peasant Revolt, Wat
Tyler, Bucer and Fagius, Bonfires, Town and Gown.
We are now outside the Great Gate of Trinity; but, across the street,
in front of us, rises yet another gate belonging to the College, and
leading into its two newest Courts, named from Dr. Whewell, who left
this noble memorial of his Mastership.[57] Those who list to enter
them will at once see why the first is popularly known as "the
Spittoon," and the second as "the Billiard Table"; but there is little
more to see or to say about them.
[Footnote 57: Whewell was Master of Trinity from 1841 to 1866.]
The slender and lofty stone cross to the north of these buildings
marks the site of the ancient church of All Saints, which was pulled
down in the middle of last century, to be rebuilt at the further
extremity of its parish, opposite the entrance to Jesus College. Its
earliest name (in the twelfth century) was "All Hallows in the Jewry";
for Cambridge made good its claim to be amongst the larger towns of
England by having, like the most of them, its Ghetto, or quarter (more
or less sharply divided off from the rest), in which alone the Jews
might reside. They were nowhere popular residents, for they were
outside the pale of the Law (which refused to take cognisance of
aliens in race and religion) and mere "chattels" of the Crown. This
position, however ignominious, gave them special privileges as against
their neighbours. They were too useful as financial assets to allow of
their being murdered or robbed by anyone but their Royal owner
himself; and, secure in his protection, they took small pains to
conceal their contempt for their Christian neighbours, who retaliated
by as much petty persecution as they dared, and, now and then, by a
wholesale massacre. Finally matters became so strained that in the
fourteenth century, under Richard the Second, the whole race of Israel
were expelled from England, not to return till the days of Cromwell.
They had originally come to our shores in the train of the Conqueror's
army, thus conveniently enabling the Norman soldiers to turn their
English loot into hard cash. Their quarter in Cambridge was the small
triangular piece of ground between St. John's Street, Sidney Street,
and All Saints' Passage.
North again of All Saints' Cross we see the new red-brick walls and
white stone dressings of the Divinity School, where the Professors of
that subject hold their classes and lectures. Opposite to this rise
the stately buildings of St. John's College. We may note how very near
they approach to those of Trinity. These two great Foundations, so
long holding undisputed pre-eminence in the University, are, in fact,
nearer neighbours than any other two Colleges in Cambridge--nearer,
even, than King's and Clare. The narrow lane that parts their
respective buildings belongs to St. John's, and is bounded on the
Trinity side only by a brick wall. This flimsy partition induced Dr.
Bentley, when congratulated on becoming Master of Trinity, to reply,
with characteristic infelicity, "By the help of my God, I have leapt
over a wall." An unverified tradition hence arose that he had actually
made his way into the College, on the Great Gate being shut against
his entry, by a ladder applied to the wall of the Trinity Fellows'
Bowling Green.[58] Keen as has been the age-long rivalry between
Trinity and St. John's, they have been more closely connected than
any other two Colleges; and no fewer than four times has a Johnian
become Master of Trinity. The respective Founders were also closely
connected; for St. John's was founded (earlier in her grandson's
reign) by Lady Margaret Tudor, grandmother to Henry the Eighth.
[Footnote 58: This Bowling Green lies to the west of Trinity Chapel,
and is one of the choicest gems of Cambridge, a gracious, walled
oblong of turf, with a wooded terrace overlooking the river at its
western end, and at the east, the lately discovered fourteenth century
front of the College Bursary, once forming part of King's Hall. The
privilege of entering this Paradise can only be attained under the
escort of a Fellow.]
This noble lady is one of the choice characters of history. Her
disposition, as depicted for us by the one who knew her best, her
Confessor, the saintly Bishop Fisher, reads almost like an embodiment
of St. Paul's encomium on Charity: "Bounteous she was, and liberal ...
of singular easiness to be spoken unto ... of marvellous gentleness
unto all folk ... unkind to no creature, nor forgetful of any kindness
or service done to her (which is no little part of very nobleness).
She was not vengeable nor cruel; but ready anon to forget and forgive
injuries done unto her, at the least desire or motion made unto her
for the same. Merciful also and piteous she was unto such as was
grieved and wrongfully troubled, and to them that were in poverty or
sickness or any other misery. To God and to the Church full obedient
and tractable, searching His honour and pleasure full busily. A
wareness of herself she had always, to eschew everything that might
dishonour any noble woman.... All England for her death have cause of
weeping."[59]
[Footnote 59: The above quotation, as well as that which follows, is
from the sermon preached by Fisher in Westminster Abbey at her burial.
(I have modernised the spelling.)]
[Illustration: _Trinity College Chapel and St. John's Gateway._]
Lady Margaret was of Plantagenet stock, being great-granddaughter to
"old John of Gaunt, time honoured Lancaster," and one of the
legitimatised family of the Beauforts. Her first husband was the Welsh
Earl Edmund Tudor, the father of her only child, Henry of Richmond,
who afterwards succeeded to the throne of England as Henry the
Seventh. After his death she twice married again; but none of her
nuptials were of long continuance, and her true life was that of her
widowhood, when she became famed as the Lady Bountiful of the Kingdom:
"the mother of both the Universities; the very patroness of all the
learned men of England;[60] the loving sister of all virtuous and
devout persons; the comforter of all good Religious; the true
defendress of all good priests and clerks; the mirror and example of
honour to all noble men and women; the common mediatrice for all the
common people of this realm.... Everyone that knew her loved her, and
everything she said or did became her." Before her death she had
endowed Preacherships and Professorships of Divinity (which still
remain), both at Oxford and Cambridge, and had seen her first
Collegiate Foundation, that of Christ's College, rise into full life.
Her second and greater Foundation, St. John's College, she only lived
to plan and to endow. When she died, on the 29th of June, 1509 (in the
bright dawn of her grandson's reign and marriage--both alike destined
to end in so miserable a tragedy), the buildings were not yet
commenced.
[Footnote 60: Amongst these we must count Erasmus; who composed the
epitaph on her tomb.]
She left their erection, however, in the best of hands. It was to her
friend and counsellor, Bishop Fisher, who knew her so well, and
appreciated her so dearly, that she committed the carrying out of her
great design. He was markedly qualified for this purpose, not only by
his connection with herself, but by special acquaintance with the
spot. For in him we find yet another link between St. John's and
Trinity. As Master of Michaelhouse,[61] some years earlier, he had
been a close neighbour of the ancient Hospital of St. John, and had
noted how far that venerable fraternity had outlived its usefulness.
Originally a semi-monastic institution, founded in 1135, as a sort of
alms-house for necessitous old men, the lack of any sufficient
discipline had brought it to decay. The attempt made by Bishop Hugh de
Balsham, in the century after its foundation, to leaven it with the
scholars whom he afterwards transported to Peterhouse had proved a
failure, and by the sixteenth century the few Brethren left were far
from satisfactory in their ways.[62] Fisher, therefore, suggested to
Lady Margaret to turn the Hospital into a College, under the same
patronage, and after her death, set promptly to work to make the
requisite alterations in the existing buildings.
[Footnote 61: Michaelhouse was one of the constituent Colleges of
Trinity.]
[Footnote 62: We need not, however, take too literally the statement
in the Instrument of Suppression, that but two ill-conducted Brethren
remained. For, as Mr. Clark has shown, that Instrument was copied
verbatim from the earlier one used for the turning of St. Radegund's
Priory into Jesus College.]
His first act was to enclose a Court, the Gate Tower of which should
worthily commemorate the Foundress. In this his success was complete.
The tower, which to this day forms the main entrance to the College,
is a delightful example of what may be done in architecture by a
skilful use of red brick. The quoining is of stone, and of stone also
are the elaborate decorations. In the centre above the first
string-course a richly-canopied niche contains the statue of St. John
the Evangelist. Below this, and immediately above the gate, is to be
seen Lady Margaret's shield, the three lions of England, quartered
with the three lilies of France, within a bordure barred azure and
argent, supported by the antelopes of the Beaufort family. On either
side of both statue and shield appear the Plantagenet rose and the
Tudor portcullis, each surmounted by an Imperial crown (just as we so
constantly find them in King's College Chapel), and all round is
sprinkled the Margaret flower, the daisy. The whole forms a beautiful
piece of composition which makes us regret that more of Fisher's work
is not left. All the First Court, indeed, is his, but it has been
altered out of all knowledge. Now its chief feature is the soaring
mid-Victorian chapel, the largest in Cambridge (except, of course,
King's), the most pleasing view of which is to be gained from the
Trinity Backs, where the tower, framed in foliage, exquisitely doubles
itself on the surface of the river. This ambitious fabric was built by
Sir Gilbert Scott in the 'sixties; and a line of cement on the lawn of
the Court alone traces for us the foundations of Fisher's original
Chapel.
The Hall ranks in size and beauty next to that of Trinity. The most
interesting of its portraits are those of Lady Margaret, Bishop
Fisher, and the poet Wordsworth, who was a resident member of the
College from 1787 to 1791. His rooms, as he tells in "The Prelude,"
were in the south-western staircase of the "First Court," just above
the kitchen:
"The Evangelist St. John my Patron was:
Three Gothic Courts are his, and in the first
Was my abiding-place, a nook obscure.
Right underneath, the College Kitchens made
A humming sound, less tuneable than bees,
But hardly less industrious, with shrill notes
Of sharp command and scolding intermixed."
Wordsworth was not a very contented student. He shared the anarchical
ideas then floating in the air, and soon to explode in the French
Revolution. College discipline was eminently distasteful to him, and,
above all, he detested the obligation to attend the Services in the
College Chapel (which, indeed, were, in those days, conducted in far
from ideal fashion).[63] In "The Prelude," he breaks out against them
in unmeasured terms:
"Be Folly and False-seeming free to affect
Whatever formal gait of Discipline
Shall raise them highest in their own esteem:
Let them parade amongst the Schools at will,
But spare the House of God! Was ever known
The witless shepherd who persists to drive
A flock that thirsts not to a pool disliked?
A weight must surely hang on days begun
And ended with such mockery. Be wise,
Ye Presidents[64] and Deans, and to your bells
Give seasonable rest, for 'tis a sound
Hollow as ever vexed the tranquil air;
And your officious doings bring disgrace
On the plain steeples of our English Church,
Whose worship, 'mid remotest village trees
Suffers for this."
[Footnote 63: There was no attempt at music, no organ even, anywhere
save at King's, Trinity, and St. John's, and these three Colleges kept
between them a choir of six "lay clerks" (elderly for the most part),
who used to hurry from service to service, as did also the single
organist employed! And this went on till 1842!]
[Footnote 64: At St. John's, the title of President is given to the
Vice-master of the College.]
It is interesting to note that these sentiments are echoed, a year or
two later, from Oxford, by Southey, then also in his youthful paroxysm
of Revolutionary fervour. He lets himself go in his "Ode to the Chapel
Bell":
"O how I hate the sound! It is the knell
That still a requiem tolls to Comfort's hour;
And loth am I, at Superstition's bell,
To quit, or Morpheus', or the Muse's bower.
Better to lie and doze than gape amain,
Hearing still mumbled o'er the same eternal strain,
* * * * *
The snuffling, snaffling Fellow's nasal tone,
And Romish rites retained, though Romish faith be flown."
[Illustration: _Hall, St. John's College._]
The Hall of St. John's was the scene of notable Christmas feasting in
the good old days of academic prosperity. Daily, from Christmas to
Twelfth Night, boars' heads, turkeys, gargantuan pasties, and cups of
a peculiarly enticing composition, went the round of the board. After
the fatal agricultural depression of the 'seventies these hospitable
doings dwindled more and more, till now they are wholly of the past.
From the Hall we can often obtain permission to ascend to the unique
glory of St. John's College, the Combination Room, which is
incomparably finer than any other apartment of the same kind, either
at Oxford or Cambridge. It is a spacious panelled gallery, running
east and west, nearly 100 feet in length, lighted by transomed
windows[65] along the southern side, and with a richly decorated
plaster ceiling, the work of the same Italian artists who erected the
fountain in the Great Court of Trinity, just at the time when this
room was in building. For here we have got beyond Lady Margaret's
"First" Court. The Combination Room forms the north side of the
"Second" Court, erected at the very end of the sixteenth century
(simultaneously with the Great Court of Trinity) by another noble
benefactress, Lady Mary Cavendish, Countess of Shrewsbury, whose coat
of arms (Cavendish impaled with Talbot) stands over the western gate.
[Footnote 65: In one of these windows should be noted a portrait of
Henrietta Maria, the Queen of Charles the First, who was once
entertained in this apartment.]
This splendid benefaction was intended to be anonymous, as was also
that which, in the "Third" Court, has given to St. John's yet another
unique beauty, its exquisite Library, which (like the Combination
Room) stands at the head, architecturally, of all College libraries,
whether at Oxford or Cambridge. The benefactor in this case was Dr.
John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln and Keeper of the Great Seal. His
initials, as has been already mentioned, may be seen upon the outside
of the western wall, beside the beautiful oriel window, overlooking
the river, with which the room terminates, and his escutcheon hangs on
the eastern wall, inside, over the door. For in his case, too, as in
that of Lady Mary Cavendish, the secret leaked out before the work was
finished, and in 1624 the letters I. L. C. S. (denoting Iohannes
Lincolnensis Custos Sigilli) disclosed to passers-by the donor's
identity.
The original bookcases of dark oak still project from either wall.
They have mostly been heightened to make room for more books, but the
additional shelves have been added not above but at the bottom, so
that the sloping desks of the old tops still remain, though too high
to be used; but the pair nearest the door remain at their original
height. In the panelled end of each shelf may be noticed a tiny
folding door, which on being opened proves to contain the catalogue,
in crabbed early seventeenth century writing, of the books which the
shelf held when first filled. The Library, however, contains nothing
of any very special interest, its most noteworthy exhibit being an
edition de luxe of the "Great Bible" issued in 1540 by Royal authority
under the auspices of Archbishop Cranmer. This was the first English
Bible authorised to be read in churches, and a copy was ordered to be
set up in every parish church throughout the realm; the object being
that every man might have access to it, and read for his own
edification. He was not, however, allowed to take it home with him,
and it was usually chained to the reading-desk to prevent this. And,
as yet, there was no provision for any reading of Scripture in public
worship, beyond the Epistles and Gospels of the Mass, the "sense"
(_i.e._ the English) of which each parish priest had long been bound
to give his congregation every Sunday as best he might.
[Illustration: _Oriel in Second Court of St. John's College._]
This first Authorised Version was founded on the work of Miles
Coverdale, published five years earlier, with a specially fulsome
dedication to King Henry the Eighth, who, in consideration of his
recent breach with the Papacy,[66] is described as "our Moses ... who
hath brought us out ... from the cruel hands of our spiritual Pharao."
In this edition (of which we have here a copy printed on vellum, and
perhaps destined for the King's own hands) this idea is enlarged upon
in a highly elaborated frontispiece. Henry sits, smiling imperially,
in the middle of the page, distributing Bibles right and left to all
sorts and conditions of men--bishops, clergy, monks, nobles, commons,
artisans, husbandmen, and, notably, prisoners;--while out of every
mouth proceeds a label bearing the universal acclamation "Vivat Rex,"
the English equivalent of which, "God save the King," is first found
in this Version.
[Footnote 66: It need scarcely be pointed out that this breach was not
made from any Protestant zeal, but only to enable the King to put away
the wife he was tired of, and marry Anne Boleyn, which the Pope would
not authorise.]
The main approach to the Library is by a fine stone staircase in the
north-western corner of the "Second Court;" but access is more
generally obtained at present by an unpretending doorway in the middle
of the northern side of the "Third Court." This door opens into the
lower storey of the Library, which contains nothing of interest except
a not very inspired statue of Wordsworth. Hence a circular iron stair
leads up to the Library proper.
The "three Gothic courts," mentioned in Wordsworth's "Prelude" as
belonging to St. John's, sufficed the College till the reign of George
the Fourth. When it was then determined to expand, the bold departure
was taken of erecting the new buildings on the other side of the
river. Never, before or since, has any other College, either at Oxford
or Cambridge, done the like; and one could wish that the experiment
had been made at a period when architecture was at a less debased
level. It was the period which Sir Walter Scott, in the "Antiquary,"
has in mind when he says "The Lord deliver me from this Gothic
generation." But, of that period, the "New Court," as it is called, is
a favourable specimen, most especially the grated[67] bridge
connecting it with the main body of the College, which has a really
graceful span. The idea of this structure was suggested by the Bridge
of Sighs at Venice, and it is commonly known by that name, which
provokes unkind comparisons. From it we get good views of the Library
oriel to the north, and, on the other side, of the older bridge
belonging to St. John's, three arches in the characteristic Johnian
style of red brick with stone dressings, built at the end of the
seventeenth century.
[Footnote 67: The gratings are to prevent any nocturnal escape from
College. Only one man is ever known to have "squeezed himself betwixt
the bars."]
The New Court has practically but one side, the ends being very
slightly returned, running east and west, with a quasi-cupola in the
centre, surrounded by pinnacles and surmounted by a gilded vane. It is
hard to believe, but it is quite historical, that one morning (in the
'sixties) this vane was found to be decked out in the brilliant
scarlet "blazer"[68] of the College boat club, the perpetrator (who
was never discovered) having actually scaled the roof by means of one
of the water-pipes! And it was some time before the resources of
civilisation in the hands of the College authorities availed to abate
the outrage.
[Footnote 68: This word, now used of all flannel sporting jackets,
was, for several decades--till nearly 1880, in fact--confined to the
fiery coats of the St. John's (or, officially, "Lady Margaret") Boat
Club. When, about that date, the question of having a "universal
blazer" was debated by the undergraduates, an elderly clergyman
protested, in all shocked seriousness, against the "incendiary
tendencies" of such a notion.]
The New Court, on its southern side, is separated by a traceried
cloister from the College Backs. On passing through the gate of this
it is well to bear to the left and walk along the bank of the river,
here overhung by magnificent elms, and affording a picturesque
prospect of the Trinity buildings on the other side. The grounds of
both Colleges to the west of the river are here divided up into a
series of lawn-tennis courts, and are parted from each other by a
broad ditch, which runs beneath the boughs of bowery horse-chestnut
trees. In spring the Trinity bank of this ditch is bright with
daffodils, the Johnian with narcissus. An iron foot-bridge, common to
both Colleges, with a gate at either end, gives access from one to the
other; but we had best continue by the path which skirts the Johnian
bank. This finally leads out of the College grounds into the Backs
proper, by a fine iron gate bearing a gilded eagle rising from a
crown, the crest borne by Lady Margaret.
Before we reach this, we find water on either side of us; that to the
west being not from the Cam, but a small tributary brooklet which
joins the river near the Great Bridge. It is here dammed up so as to
afford space for the College swans to make merry in, and on the
further side is the Fellows' Garden, known as "the Wilderness." The
wealth of spring flowers here cultivated--snowdrops, daffodils,
crocuses, primroses, anemones, and hyacinths--is delicious in a
country like Cambridgeshire, where Nature supplies their charms with
very niggardly hand in comparison with the more favoured regions of
England. Outside the Eagle gate we are close to the entrance of the
Trinity avenue.
Let us stand once more before the great gate of Trinity. Turning to
the south, instead of the north as before, we find ourselves in a few
score yards with the buildings of a College again to the east and west
of the street at once. This College is commonly known as Caius
(pronounced Keys), and officially as "Gonville and Caius," after the
original founder in the fourteenth century, and the benefactor who,
two hundred years later, so largely developed it as to leave his name
also attached to the site.[69] The former was a simple parish priest,
rector of Terrington, on the Norfolk seaboard of the Wash. His little
college, designated the "College of the Annunciation,"[70] and
consisting only of a Master and three Fellows, found its original
quarters hard by Pembroke, with which it was founded simultaneously in
1347. A few years later, on Gonville's death, his friend and diocesan,
Bishop Bateman of Norwich, moved it to its present site, next door to
his own new college, Trinity Hall.
[Footnote 69: The two infant cherubs which (without any heraldic
authority) act as supporters to the College Shield over the gate of
the new buildings (those to the east of the street) are popularly
supposed to be meant for the innocent souls of the two Founders. The
shield itself (duly granted by the Heralds' College, 1575), comprises
both their Coats with a blue and silver bordure. That of Dr. Caius is
curious; two green serpents standing on their tails upon a green stone
amid flowers of amaranth. This is declared (in the grant) to signify
"Wisdom stayed upon Virtue and adorned with Immortality"--a
characteristic Elizabethan "conceit."]
[Footnote 70: It was not till after Gonville's death that it began to
be called by his name.]
There Gonville Hall, as it was now called, gradually developed, but
remained a very puny bantling till the reign of Queen Mary, when one
of its own scholars took upon himself the task of expanding it. His
name was really Keys, which according to the fashion of the day, was
transliterated into the Latin equivalent Caius, and he was a
celebrated doctor of medicine, President of the College of Physicians,
and himself physician to the Royal household. It was in the interests
of his favourite study that he refounded the college, which to this
day has a specially medical tinge. He was also a singularly devout
man, and the spirit in which he built is exemplified by the three
gates through which we successively pass in our progress through the
College. From Trinity-street we enter beneath a narrow, plain,
low-browed archway, known as the Gate of Humility, and inscribed
HUMILITATIS.[71] A short avenue of lime-trees (also a part of the
Founder's design) leads across the small court to a loftier, wider
portal, over which we may read the word VIRTUTIS. Through this we gain
another court, and, looking back, we discover that in using the Gate
of Virtue we have indeed used the Gate of Wisdom; for it bears the
inscription IO. CAIVS. POSVIT. SAPIENTIAE. And, finally, a small,
beautifully designed turret, rich with Renaissance figures and
pilasters, and inscribed HONORIS, covers our exit through the Gate of
Honour, to which those of Humility, Virtue, and Wisdom have
successively led us on.
[Footnote 71: The present gateway is not, however, the original one,
but erected in mid-Victorian days at the same time as the large
pinnacled gate at the south-east corner of the College, but the humble
character of the original is fairly reproduced.]
This Gate of Honour is really a wonderful little gem of architecture,
quite unique in its design, which is due to Dr. Caius himself, though
the work was not finished till after his death. The turret is an
oblong mass of stone-work, some twelve feet in width by six in depth,
rising to a height of about twenty feet, and topped with a singularly
graceful hexagonal cupola.[72] The view of it, more especially from
the further side of the Court, whence it groups with the Senate House
and University library just outside, and with the soaring pinnacles of
King's College Chapel beyond, is one nowhere to be surpassed. From a
picturesque point of view no one can regret the absence of the
somewhat gaudy coats of paint and gilding with which it originally was
covered; but the result of their removal has been that the stone
(which is soft, and was never intended to stand exposure to the
atmosphere) is rapidly decaying.
[Footnote 72: Each side of the hexagon was originally a sun-dial.]
The paved footway into which the Gate of Honour leads is known as
Senate House Passage,[73] and is still the route along which the
students of the College pass to receive in the Senate House such
honours as their University examinations may have entitled them to. It
forms the southern boundary of the College, which, alone amongst the
Colleges of Cambridge, is wholly surrounded by public ways,
Trinity-street being on the east, Trinity-lane on the north, and
Trinity Hall-lane on the west. The tasteless mass of modern red brick
(erected 1853) at the north-west angle of the block contains the hall;
with the kitchens, by an unusual arrangement, beneath. These kitchens
have an immemorial gastronomic renown in Cambridge, and are credited
with the possession of culinary secrets enabling them to surpass all
rival establishments. In some verses written about the end of the
eighteenth century (concerning a well-known young lady of Cambridge)
we find this referred to:
"The sons of culinary Caius,
Smoaking from the eternal Treat,
Gazed on the Fair with greedy air,
As she were something good to eat:
Even the sad Kingsman lost his gloom awhile,
And forced a melancholy smile.[74]
[Footnote 73: "Passage" is the local name applied to the many paved
footways which intersect Cambridge. They are forbidden ground to
vehicles, including bicycles, a prohibition which constantly brings
undergraduates before the Police Court.]
[Footnote 74: At this date King's was a highly conservative College,
and its discipline strict with a strictness long discarded by the
University at large.]
[Illustration: _The Gate of Honour, Caius College._]
Dr. Caius himself became the first Master of his new College, a post
which he accepted with a reluctance which proved only too well
justified, for he himself was a devout and pious man of the old
school, and wholly out of sympathy with the militant Protestantism
which was then fast becoming the dominating spirit at Cambridge, as in
England generally. He has left in writing his lamentation over the sad
depletion of the University which was the first result of the
Reformation.[75] The wholesale destruction of ancient works of
art--beautifully illuminated service books, and elaborately
embroidered vestments--by which the votaries of the new religion
sought at once to express their loathing of the older faith and to
make its revival the harder, did but recall to him the like policy
pursued by the Pagan antagonists of Jehovah in the days of the
Maccabees. And he did what in him lay to stem the tide, rescuing here
a Missal and there a Chasuble from the iconoclasts, till he had
accumulated in his Lodge quite a little store of these sacred objects.
But the times were too hard for him. He was denounced as a
reactionary, a sympathiser with Popery; a riot broke out among the
College students; the Lodge was stormed; the Papistical relics thrown
out of the window and burnt in the midst of the Court;[76] whilst the
Master and Founder himself was expelled from his own College and (as
he had spent upon it all he had) ended his days in penury and exile.
He was, however, allowed a grave in the chapel, which bears the
touching inscription FUI CAIUS ("I _was_ Caius").
[Footnote 75: "To the Universities," Froude (our most ardent
Protestant historian) tells us, in his _History of England_, "the
Reformation brought with it desolation.... They were called Stables of
Asses--Schools of the Devil.... The Government cancelled the
exhibitions which had been granted for the support of poor Scholars.
They suppressed the Professorships and Lectureships--Degrees were held
anti-Christian. Learning was no necessary adjunct to a creed which
'lay in a nutshell.' ... College Libraries were plundered and burnt.
The Divinity Schools at Oxford were planted with cabbages, and the
laundresses dried clothes in the School of Arts."
At Cambridge Dr. Caius gives a long list of University Hostels,
filled, within his memory, by zealous students, which, when he wrote
had become wholly deserted and taken possession of by the townsfolk.]
[Footnote 76: The pillage was actually presided over by the
Vice-Chancellor of the University, Dr. Whitgift, Master of Trinity,
whose Protestant zeal raised him later to the Archbishopric of
Canterbury.]
The undergraduates of Caius wear a gown of a singular and not very
pleasing violet hue with velvet trimmings. The College "colours" are
light blue and black; the former, which is, as all know, the
University colour, having been granted them to use, in memory of a
famous race, in the early days of College boating, seventy years ago,
when their crew beat the University Eight. It is, of course, an
axiomatic rule of sportsmanship that no Club may assume the insignia
of another (or any colourable imitation thereof), without leave from
the previous users. The earliest "Light Blues" were the Eton Boat
Club, by whose permission the Cambridge Boat Club took the colour. The
Cricket Clubs, at both Eton and Cambridge, were then permitted to use
it, and now this permission has been extended to all engaged as
champions of the University, at athletics, football, etc.
The Senate House, to the entrance of which the Gate of Honour has
brought us, is the nerve-centre of the University. Here are held,
usually on each Thursday during Term, the meetings ("Congregations" is
the official word) of that august body the "Senate," to whose vote all
University legislation must ultimately be submitted. This body,
however, consisting as it does of all who have attained the Degree of
Master of Arts, several thousands in number, is far too large to
initiate that legislation. This is done by a small elected General
Committee, the "Council," and by special Committees (or "Syndicates")
dealing with the various special subjects to be considered. Both
Council and Syndicates also act as executive authorities, and by them
"Graces" embodying this or that proposal are from time to time laid
before the Senate. The Grace is read aloud by one of the Proctors, in
his robes of office, standing beside the Chair, which is occupied by
the Vice-Chancellor.[77] The benches are tenanted by such members of
the Senate as care to be present.[78] There is no discussion;[79] but,
on the Grace being read, any member may utter the words "Non Placet,"
whereupon the Proctor cries "Ad scrutinium," and the congregation
divides; the "Placets," (or "Ayes" as they would be called in
Parliament), moving to the right of the Chair, and the "Non-Placets"
to the left. Should this grouping not sufficiently disclose the sense
of the meeting, a poll is held; each member's vote being given
publicly by writing, on an official form, avouched by his signature.
These papers are then counted by the Proctors, and their respective
numbers read out by the Vice-Chancellor.
[Footnote 77: This officer is the acting Head of the University, and
is appointed by the Council from amongst the Heads of the Colleges,
usually by rota, year by year. The Chancellor, whom he represents, is
always some specially distinguished notability, and is appointed for
life. He is only present on state occasions.]
[Footnote 78: Members are often able to introduce ladies, when there
is likely to be room for them. And undergraduates may listen to
proceedings from the Galleries, where, in defiance of rule, they are
often heard as well as seen, should the business be exciting.]
[Footnote 79: Such discussion as may seem needful has already taken
place before a Meeting of the resident Members of the Senate, who have
spent at least forty nights in Cambridge during the last Academic
year, and whose names are accordingly on the "Electoral Roll." They
are summoned, as required, by the Vice-Chancellor, to discuss the
various matters which it is proposed to embody in "Graces."]
These numbers are usually but small; indeed most of the business is
altogether unopposed. But when some subject which excites general
interest is brought forward, "backwoods-men" flock (and are whipped)
up from all parts of England. Macaulay has given us a humorous poem on
the coach-loads of country clergy thus pitch-forked into Cambridge to
vote against the admission of Roman Catholics to the University; and
within the last few decades, similar scenes were witnessed in
connection with the question of their being allowed a recognised
Public Hostel of their own, and with those of Compulsory Greek, and of
granting Degrees to women.
Such is the procedure at the Senate House; or, rather, such it has
hitherto been, for the whole question of University legislation is
even now in the melting-pot. The use of the building for the chief
University examinations is also dying or dead, now that a vast
"Examination Hall" has been built for that purpose. But Degrees still
continue to be conferred there; the students found worthy by the
examiners successively kneeling before the Vice-Chancellor, and being
admitted by him to their degree in the name of the Trinity. They are
presented by the "Fathers" of their respective Colleges, in a
recognised order, beginning with the Royal Foundations, King's always
coming first and Trinity second. When the Degree of Doctor ("Honoris
causa") is conferred on any distinguished visitors, the place is
thronged, and each in turn is introduced with a laudatory Latin speech
by the "Public Orator," who has to exert his ingenuity in composing
some neat and appropriate epigrammatic remark about him.[80]
[Footnote 80: The office thus requires no mean scholarly and
oratorical powers. When Queen Elizabeth visited Cambridge, the Public
Orator had to make her a laudatory address of half an hour in
duration, without notes, "with the Queen's horse curvetting under her"
(for this was not in the Senate House--yet unbuilt--but in the open
air before King's College Chapel), and with constant mock-modest
interruptions from her Royal lips. Her only thanks were a commendation
of his excellent memory.]
The Senate House is a stately classical building, running east and
west, erected in the early decades of the eighteenth century. Up to
that date the functions which it now discharges were served partly by
the old Schools (now the University Library), which have been already
spoken of, and which adjoin it on the west, and partly by the
University Church (called here, as at Oxford, "Great St. Mary's"),
which stands hard by to the east. The legislative meetings of the
Senate were held in the former,[81] the Degrees were conferred, and
other gatherings held, in the latter.
[Footnote 81: One apartment was called the Regent House, as being thus
used by the Governing Body of the University.]
This was all very well before the Reformation, whilst reverence for
consecrated places still held its own; but, after that great
convulsion, the proceedings too frequently were markedly
unecclesiastical in tone. The conferring of Degrees was originally a
solemn function beginning with High Mass, and continuing with a
serious _viva voce_ exercise of the candidates in the presence of the
Vice-Chancellor. But when the Reformation had made it fashionable to
show a healthy Protestant contempt for the old Catholic superstitions,
the whole ceremony was deliberately turned into a farce. The
questioning of the candidates was no longer done by grave University
officials, but by an "old" (_i.e._ a senior) Bachelor, who sat upon a
three-legged stool, and made his interrogations as profane and
scurrilous as possible. He was known, from his stool, as "Mr. Tripos,"
and so essential a part of the proceedings did he become that "Tripos"
got to be (as it still is) the regular name for an "Honour"
examination at Cambridge. To judge by the few that have come down to
us, the jokes current on these occasions were poor to the last degree.
Thus, in 1657, we read that two Oxonians, got up as hobby-horses,
presented themselves, giving as their qualification that they "had
smith's work at their digits' ends," (Smith being a then current
writer of school books). They were duly admitted, on the ground that
"such _equitation_ gave them an _equitable_ claim!" And all this was
in the church; where, indeed, far less innocent performances were
constantly given, including stage-plays and recitations in which the
most solemn mysteries of the Catholic Faith were often travestied and
held up to ridicule.[82]
[Footnote 82: As Protestantism lost its first militant fervour, these
performances more and more dropped their polemical features. But they
still remained most inappropriate for a place of worship. We have seen
how the higher minds of the University, such as Dr. Barrow, felt about
them before the seventeenth century came to an end. (See p. 104.)]
The church which was thus so long profaned is of late Perpendicular
architecture. Huge galleries have been inserted for the accommodation
of such undergraduates as may attend; the nave being appropriated to
the Master of Arts. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
the east end was filled with tier above tier of semicircular benches
for the seniors of the University, from whose prevailingly bald heads
this elevation became profanely known as "Golgotha." All is now
arranged in decent fashion, and since the building of the Senate House
the church has only been used for strictly ecclesiastical purposes.
Here each Sunday afternoon is preached the "University Sermon," the
preacher being some clergyman selected by the Council of the Senate.
No service is held in connection with this sermon, but the preacher,
before commencing, reads from the pulpit what is known as the "Bidding
Prayer"--a long list of subjects for intercession, comprising the
various authorities in Church and State, the Clergy, and (as the
source of their supply) the Universities and Colleges. Amongst these
"as in private duty bound" the preacher specifically names the College
to which he himself belongs, finally concluding with the Lord's
Prayer.[83] The sermon is officially attended by the Vice-Chancellor
and Proctors, who gather in the Senate House and cross the street in
procession to the West door of the church. One of the Proctors carries
the University Bible, a ponderous tome suspended by a chain; and in
front is borne the silver mace of the University, by an official
designated the "Esquire Bedell."
[Footnote 83: On the Sunday after All Saints' Day, when the "Lady
Margaret Preacher," appointed by the Vice-Chancellor, officiates, he
begins by reading the long roll of benefactors to the University from
the earliest times; in itself a specially inspiring predication.]
The church has witnessed various vicissitudes of doctrine. Here,
during the first outbreak of Protestantism, the Missal was solemnly
torn up and burnt amid the hooting of the crowd; and when, a century
later, the Puritans gained the ascendancy, a like fate befell the Book
of Common Prayer, Cromwell himself presiding at the ceremony. This was
on Good Friday, 1643, when the Vice-Chancellor and several other Heads
of Colleges were, for refusing to abet the proceeding, shut up in the
church "all the long cold night, without fire or candle." They were
afterwards haled to London, and, after being pelted through the City,
were subjected to a sort of Black Hole treatment, under hatches on
board a hulk in the river, with all port-holes closed, and no air
"save such as they could suck from each others' breaths," as the
"Querela Cantabrigiensis" piteously complains.
Till lately the tower of Great St. Mary's was a historical record of
the stirring scenes amid which it arose, for it was slowly built
during the course of no fewer than 120 years, being begun in the last
decade of the fifteenth century and finished in the first of the
seventeenth. Thus the lower stages were of Perpendicular Gothic, the
higher of Renaissance style. Unhappily the Victorian restorers took it
in hand, and rebuilt the top as, in their view, it would have been
built had it been completed without this long delay, so that all
historical interest is now lost. It contains a fine peal of twelve
bells, on which sound the famous chimes composed in 1790 by Dr.
Jowett,[84] tutor of Trinity Hall, which, since their adoption in the
Westminster clock tower, have spread so widely throughout the country
and the Empire. Their cadences are:
1st Quarter 1236
2nd " 3126, 3213
3rd " 1326, 6213, 1236
4th " 3126, 3213, 1326, 6213
[Footnote 84: It is hard upon Dr. Jowett that his name should have
come down to posterity associated, not with this real contribution to
the gladness of the world, but with a satirical quatrain on the tiny
plot which he reclaimed from the street in the angle of Trinity Hall
adjoining Clare:
"A little garden little Jowett made,
And fenced it with a little palisade;
And would you know the mind of little Jowett,
This little garden will a little show it."]
The hour is struck on the tenor bell. These bells are of eighteenth
century date: two more have been added since.
[Illustration: _Peas Hill._]
Great St. Mary's, for all its University connection, still remains
what it was before the University came into being, a Parish Church;
its Parish consisting of the Market Place, which opens out to the east
of it, and is called locally "Market Hill." Whence this curious use of
the latter word arose is not known, but it is immemorial at Cambridge
for any expansion of a street into something wider. Besides Market
Hill, there are the smaller spaces of Peas Hill and St. Andrew's Hill.
All are utterly flat; yet, so potent is the word in the imagination of
the Cambridge townsfolk, that such expressions as "I wonder the Hill
don't fall down upon you" may be overheard in market disputes. Market
Hill is not very large for its purpose even now; but till the
nineteenth century it was much smaller, with more than one range of
houses encumbering its area. On the southern side stands the
Guildhall, a far from imposing structure, and in the centre rises the
fountain supplied by the water of Hobson's Conduit, as described in
our first chapter. The present structure was erected in 1855, the
earlier one (put up in 1614) being then removed to its present
position at the junction of Lensfield Road and Trumpington Road.[85]
[Footnote 85: There was a fountain here, however, long before Hobson's
day--at least as early as the fourteenth century--but whence the water
came is not known. If, as seems probable, it was a natural spring, its
existence was probably the factor which originally determined the site
of the Market.]
Like the University Church, the Market Place has witnessed many
stirring scenes. Here, in the fierce but short-lived Socialistic
outbreak which we commonly associate with the name of Wat Tyler, when
dreams were afloat of melting down all existing distinctions into one
great _Magna Societas_, which should redress all wrongs and make all
men equal in all things, a mighty bonfire was made by the insurgent
peasantry of all the books and documents which could be looted from
the University Chest in Great St. Mary's, and from the various
Colleges and Hostels then existing. The Mayor of Cambridge was
compelled to give the sanction of his presence to the deed; and
finally the ashes were scattered to the winds, with the cry: "Away
with the skill of the clerks! Away with it!"
Two centuries later, in 1555, the Hill saw another burning, of a more
gruesome character. The Catholic reaction under Queen Mary was then in
full swing; and it was determined to visit with the extreme penalty of
the laws against heresy the corpses of two notable pioneers of the
Reformation, Dr. Bucer and Dr. Fagius. Both were amongst the band of
German Protestants who, under King Edward the Sixth, flocked over to
disseminate the new Religion in England, and both had died while
promulgating their tenets at Cambridge. They were now torn from their
graves, and chained, in their coffins, to the stake, the pyre which
incinerated them being chiefly composed of their own condemned books.
Within the last decade two other notable conflagrations have here been
kindled. When Lord Kitchener, then Sirdar of Egypt, and fresh from his
victories over the Mahdi, visited Cambridge to receive an Honorary
Degree, his presence amongst us was greeted by the wildest orgies. A
huge bonfire was kindled on the Hill, the pile ultimately stretching
diagonally across almost the entire area, and fed with ever fresh
supplies of wood, for which the whole town was scoured. Railings were
torn up wholesale (notably, as has been said, in the Backs), shutters
were wrenched from shop windows, and even doors from houses; while
hoardings, gates, and tradesmen's barrows were seized and devoted to
the flames. Like scenes, a few years later, on a somewhat smaller
scale, celebrated the relief of Ladysmith in the Boer War.
These riotous proceedings were the work of the wilder spirits of
University and Town alike. But in the earlier part of the Nineteenth
Century many a fierce collision between Town and Gown took place on
the Hill. The Fifth of November was the annual occasion consecrated by
custom to these conflicts. Bands of undergraduates paraded the streets
shouting "Gown! Gown!" while bands of the fiercer element amongst the
townsfolk did the like, to the cry of "Town! Town!" Fights were thus
frequent, in spite of the efforts of the authorities, both Civic and
Academic. Gownsmen took to flight at the appearance of the Proctors
and their "Bulldogs,"[86] but it was to re-form elsewhere, and few
were actually caught. The Police, when they came into existence, in
the early 'forties, were more formidable. They invariably took the
side of the Town,[87] and it was due to them that the "Fifth" became
less and less pugilistic, till it is now only a memory. Fisticuffs
were all very well, but batons made the fun not good enough.
[Footnote 86: This is the name bestowed on the stalwart officials a
couple of whom attend each Proctor and exercise such physical coercion
of delinquents as he may bid.]
[Footnote 87: One specially remembered conflict, when Rose Crescent
was held by the Gown against an overwhelming force, till a police
charge drove them in headlong rout to take refuge in Trinity, was made
the subject of a parody of Macaulay's Horatius, to be found in Clark's
_Guide to Cambridge_.]