THE SECOND CENTURY
1612-1716
The second century of the College history opened quietly. Owen Gwyn was
elected Master by the choice of the Fellows; John Williams, then a
Fellow, afterwards Lord Keeper, Dean of Westminster, Bishop of Lincoln,
and Archbishop of York, exerting himself on Gwyn's behalf. It appears
that Williams in after years repented of the choice, and Thomas Baker,
the historian of the College, speaks slightingly of Gwyn. Still, under
his rule the College flourished, and Williams himself marked the period
by providing the greater part of the funds for the new Library.
King James I. and Prince Charles (afterwards Charles I.) frequently
visited the University; James holding his Court at Trinity, but being
entertained at St. John's. On one of these occasions, comparing the
great Court of Trinity with the two then existing Courts of St. John's,
he is said to have remarked that there was no greater difference between
the two Societies than between a shilling and two sixpences.
[Illustration: _HALL, AND CHAPEL TOWER_]
With the advent of the Stuart kings the practice arose of sending
mandatory letters to Colleges, directing the election of named persons
to fellowships. In theory it may have been correct enough; the statutes
as enacted by Queen Elizabeth reserved to herself and her successors the
power of rescinding or altering them. To direct that the statutory
provisions as to elections should be dispensed with in favour of an
individual was thus within the sovereign's power, however inconvenient
it might prove in practice. One of the special grievances at St. John's
was that King James directed the College to elect a Scotchman, George
Seaton, M.A., to a fellowship, though there was none then actually
vacant. The College obeyed, informing his Majesty that they had made
their statutes wink to fulfil his bidding, and maintained an extra
Fellow for a time. The practice was, however, followed by others; and
Gwyn seems to have been deluged with letters from persons in high
places, begging for his favour at elections. At some Colleges the device
of "pre-elections" seems to have been resorted to; a promising man being
elected to the next fellowship which should be vacant. Thus, when the
vacancy became known, the College could, with a clear conscience, say
that it had been already filled up; there is, however, no trace of this
practice at St. John's.
On Gwyn's death in 1633 there was a disputed election to the mastership,
which Charles I. settled by nominating William Beale. Beale was
originally a Trinity man, but had been for about a year Master of Jesus.
He was a supporter of Laud; he embellished the Chapel, and introduced a
more ornate ritual; under his influence St. John's seems to have been
the only College at Cambridge which fully complied with Laud's
instructions. Thus when the Puritans got the upper hand, Beale and his
College were the subject of their displeasure.
In 1642 King Charles applied to the University for supplies. The
contribution of St. John's was L150 in money and 2065 ounces "grocers
weight" of silver plate. The list of the pieces of plate and of the
donors' names is but melancholy reading; suffice it to say that among
those sent were pieces bearing the names of Thomas Wentworth, Lord
Strafford, and of Thomas Fairfax. The fact that this plate actually
reached the King did not endear the College to the parliamentary party.
Oliver Cromwell surrounded the College, took Dr. Beale a prisoner, and,
to equalise matters, confiscated the communion plate and other
valuables.
Beale, after some imprisonment and wandering, escaped from England and
became chaplain to Lord Cottington and Sir Edward Hyde (afterwards Lord
Clarendon) in their embassy to Spain; he died at Madrid, and was there
secretly buried. A number of the Fellows were also ejected, and for
some time the College was used as a prison. The Chapel was stripped of
the obnoxious ornaments, and other damage done. A little bundle of
papers labelled "Receipts for Army taxes during the Commonwealth" still
reposes, as a memento of these days, in the Muniment Room.
St. John's, which dabbled in Presbyterian doctrines during the days of
Elizabeth, now had these imposed upon it by superior authority. The two
Commonwealth Masters, John Arrowsmith (1644-1653) and Anthony Tuckney
(1653-1661), were able men of Puritan austerity, the rule of the latter
being the more strict; judging from the after careers of its members,
the College was certainly capably directed. A well-authenticated College
tradition relates that when, at an election, the President called upon
the Master to have regard to the "godly," Tuckney replied that no one
showed greater regard for the truly godly than himself, but that he was
determined to choose none but scholars; adding, with practical wisdom,
"They may deceive me in their godliness; they cannot in their
scholarship."
On the Restoration, Dr. Peter Gunning, afterwards Bishop of Ely, was
made Master; and the Earl of Manchester, who, as an officer of the
Parliament, was the means of ejecting many of the Fellows, now directed
that some of them should be restored to their places. An interesting
College custom dates from this period: on the 29th of May in each year
the College butler decorates the Hall and Kitchen with fresh oak boughs;
there is no order to that effect, but--"it has always been done."
[Illustration: THE COLLEGE ARMS]
The rest of this century of the College existence, with the exception of
one exciting event, passed quietly enough. Such troubles as there were
in College were but eddies of the storms in the world outside. Of the
"seven Bishops" sent to the Tower by King James II. in 1688, three were
of St. John's: Francis Turner, Bishop of Ely (who had been Master of the
College from 1670 to 1679); John Lake, Bishop of Chichester; and Thomas
White, Bishop of Peterborough.
The event of College interest was the fate of the nonjuring Fellows. The
Nonjurors were those who, on various grounds, honourable enough,
declined to take the oath of allegiance to King William and Queen Mary.
Under the law they were liable to be deprived of their places and
emoluments. At St. John's twenty Fellows and eight scholars took up the
nonjuring position. In the rest of the University there were but
fourteen in all, and the same number at the University of Oxford. No
explanation seems to be forthcoming as to why there was this
preponderance of opinion at St. John's. It is difficult to believe that
it was enthusiasm for the cause of James II.; for when in 1687 that King
directed the University to admit Father Alban Francis, a Benedictine
monk, to the degree of M.A. without making the subscription or taking
the oaths required for a degree, Thomas Smoult and John Billers, members
of the College (the latter afterwards a Nonjuror), maintained the right
of the University to refuse the degree before the notorious Judge
Jeffreys, after the Vice-Chancellor and Isaac Newton had been silenced.
Humphrey Gower was at this time Master of the College; he was of Puritan
origin, and entered the College during the Commonwealth. After the
Restoration he joined the Church of England, and though his sympathies
were with the Nonjurors, he took the oaths and retained his mastership
after the flight of King James. He had been for less than six months
Master of Jesus before becoming Master of St. John's. Abraham de la
Pryme, a member of St. John's, has handed down an irreverent jest on his
appointment. "Our master, they say, is a mighty, high, proud man.... He
came from Jesus College to be master here, and he was so sevear that he
was commonly called the divel of Jesus; and when he was made master here
some unlucky scholars broke this jest upon him--that now the divel was
entered into the heard of swine; for us Johnians are abusively called
hoggs."
In 1693 the Court of King's Bench issued a _mandamus_ calling upon Gower
to remove those Fellows who had not taken the oath. Defence upon the
merits of the case there was none; but Gower or his legal advisers
opposed the mandate with great skill on technical points, and after much
litigation the Court had to admit that its procedure was irregular, and
the matter dropped for some twenty-four years. During this period some
of the Fellows in question died, others ceded their fellowships owing to
the combined action of the general law and the College statutes. Under
the latter Fellows were bound, when of proper standing, to proceed to
the B.D. degree, but the oath of allegiance was required of those who
took the degree, and so fellowships were forfeited. Thomas Baker, the
historian, who was one of the Nonjurors, had taken the B.D. degree
before 1688, so this cause did not operate in his case. But on the
accession of King George I., an abjuration oath was required, and the
meshes of the net being now smaller, the then Master, Dr. Jenkin, had no
other course but to eject Baker and others. The College did all it could
to soften the blow, and allowed Baker to reside in College until his
death in 1740. He worked unweariedly at his manuscript collections and
at the history of the College. The latter was first published in 1869,
under the editorship of Professor John E. B. Mayor; with the editor's
additions it forms a record of a College such as almost no other
foundation can show. Baker's learning and accuracy are undoubted; but it
may be permitted (even to a member of his College) to hint that Baker's
judgments are a little severe, and his views somewhat narrow.
One notable improvement in the College records dates from this century.
In early days no record was made of the names of those who joined the
College. The statutes of King Henry VIII. enjoined that a register
should be kept of all those admitted to scholarships and fellowships or
College offices. This was begun in 1545, and has been continued to the
present time. The entries of scholars and Fellows are in the autograph
of those admitted, and if they possessed no other interest, have that
of providing numerous examples of contemporary handwriting. But of those
not admitted on the foundation, or of those admitted prior to 1545,
there is no official College record.
Dr. Owen Gwyn and the seniors of his day passed a rule that "the
register of the College should have a book provided him wherein he
should from time to time write and register the names, parents, county,
school, age, and tutor of every one to be admitted to the College." This
was commenced in January 1629-30, and has been continued, with varying
care and exactness, ever since. It seems probable that the initiative in
this matter was due to Gwyn, as few Masters have so carefully preserved
their official correspondence.
Just before this general register commenced, three notable men joined
the College: Thomas Wentworth, afterwards Earl of Strafford; Thomas
Fairfax, afterwards Lord Fairfax, the victor at Naseby; and Lucius Cary,
Viscount Falkland, who fell in Newbury fight in September 1643.
Complimentary letters to the first and last of these, with the replies,
have been preserved. Falkland, in his reply, complains that of the
titles given to him by the College "that which I shold most willingly
have acknowledged and mought with most justice clayme you were not
pleased to vouchsafe me, that of a St. John's man."
Of others who entered we may name: Sir Ingram Hopton, son of Ralph,
first Baron Hopton, who entered as a Fellow Commoner 12th May 1631. Sir
Ingram fell at the battle of Winceby, 11th October 1643. He there
unhorsed Oliver Cromwell in a charge, and knocked him down again as he
rose, but was himself killed.
Titus Oates, "the infamous," first entered at Caius 29th June 1667,
migrating to St. John's, where he entered 2nd February 1668-69. Thomas
Baker for once abandons his decorous reticence and states of Oates: "He
was a lyar from the beginning, he stole and cheated his taylor of a
gown, which he denied with horrid imprecations, and afterwards at a
communion, being admonisht and advised by his Tutor, confest the fact."
Matthew Prior, the poet, was both scholar and Fellow of the College,
holding his fellowship until his death. Robert Herrick, though he
graduated at Trinity Hall, was sometime a Fellow Commoner here. Thomas
Forster of Adderstone, general to the "Old Pretender," and commander of
the Jacobite army in 1715, entered the College as a Fellow Commoner 3rd
July 1700. Brook Taylor, well known to mathematicians as the discoverer
of "Taylor's theorem," entered as a Fellow Commoner 3rd April 1701.
While David Mossom of Greenwich, who entered the College as a sizar 5th
June 1705, after being ordained, emigrated to America, and became
rector of St. Peter's Church, New Kent County, Virginia. He was the
officiating clergyman at the marriage of George Washington in St.
Peter's Church.
We get an amusing glimpse of the importance of the Master of a College
in the following anecdote: "In the year 1712 my old friend, Matthew
Prior, who was then Fellow of St. John's, and who not long before had
been employed by the Queen as her Plenipotentiary at the Court of
France, came to Cambridge; and the next morning paid a visit to the
Master of his own College. The Master (Dr. Jenkin) loved Mr. Prior's
principles, had a great opinion of his abilities, and a respect for his
character in the world; but then he had much greater respect for
himself. He knew his own dignity too well to suffer a Fellow of his
College to sit down in his presence. He kept his seat himself, and let
the Queen's Ambassador stand. Such was the temper, not of a
Vice-Chancellor, but of a simple Master of a College. I remember, by the
way, an extempore epigram of Matt's on the reception he had there met
with. We did not reckon in those days that he had a very happy turn for
an epigram; but the occasion was tempting; and he struck it off as he
was walking from St. John's College to the Rose, where we dined
together. It was addressed to the Master:--
"'I _stood_, Sir, patient at your feet,
Before your elbow chair;
But make a bishop's throne your seat,
I'll _kneel_ before you there.
One only thing can keep you down,
For your great soul too mean;
You'd not, to mount a bishop's throne,
Pay _homage_ to the Queen.'"