About 1550, whilst the famous Richard Cox, Bishop of Ely, was Dean of
Christ-church, Oxford, says Cole, in his Athenæ Cant., "he brought his
wife into the college, who, with the wife of Peter Martyr, a canon of
the same cathedral, were observed to be the first women ever
introduced into a cloister or college, and, upon that account, gave no
small scandal at the time." This reminds me of an anecdote that used
to amuse the under-grads in my day at Cambridge. A certain D.D., head
of a college, a _bachelor_, and in his habits retired to a degree of
solitariness, in an unlucky moment gave a lady that did not want twice
bidding, not bill of exchange, but a _running_ invitation to the
college lodge, to be used at pleasure. She luckily seized the long
vacation for making her appearance, when there were but few students
in residence; but to the confusion of our D.D., her _ten_ daughters
came _en traine_, and the college was not a little scandalized by
their playing shuttlecock in the open court--the lady was in no haste
to go. Report says sundry hints were given in vain. She took his
original _invite_ in its literal sense, to "suit her own convenience."
The anxiety he endured threw our modest D.D. in to a sick-bed, and not
relishing the office of nurse to a bachelor of sixty years' standing,
she decamped, + her ten daughters.
* * * * *