founded “the Hall of the scholars of the Queen” in Oxford. The Royal
license for its foundation was sealed in the Tower of London on the
eighteenth of January, and the statutes of the founder were corrected,
completed and sealed in Oxford on the tenth of February in the year
1340 as men then reckoned, or as we should say 1341.
Eglesfield was chaplain and confessor to Philippa, Queen of Edward
III. He came of gentle blood in Cumberland, and had ten years before
received from the King the hamlet and manor of Ravenwyk or Renwick,
forfeited through rebellion by Andrew of Harcla. This and the property
he had purchased in Oxford as a site for his hall was all that
Eglesfield was able of himself to contribute to its maintenance. His
relations with the Queen and the King were, however, of priceless
service to the new foundation.
Eglesfield seems to have continued for the remainder of his life to
have fostered by his presence and influence the institution he had
founded. In the earliest of the “Long Rolls,” or yearly accounts of
the College, which are preserved, that of 1347-8, his name appears at
the head of the list of the members. In that year sixteen pence is
paid for the hire of a horse for six days, that he may visit London on
the Thursday after the feast of St. Augustine, bishop of the English;
twenty-three shillings is paid for a horse for him to go to Southampton
about the time of the festival of St. Peter _ad vincula_; William of
Hawkesworth, Provost of Oriel, a former Fellow, lends him a horse,
and a penny is put down for a shoe for the same, and a halfpenny for
parchment bought for him for documents executed on the feast of Saints
Cosmo and Damian.
His funeral is celebrated in 1351-2. They made a “great burning for
him,” as of seventeen and a quarter pounds of wax, costing nine
shillings, expended during the year, eleven pounds were used at the
funeral of the founder. Fourpence halfpenny only seems to have been
spent on wine on the same occasion.
A casket containing his remains was transferred from the old chapel to
the vault under the new chapel when the latter was built.
His horn is still used on gaudy-days as the loving-cup. It must have
been mounted in something like its present condition almost from the
beginning, as in the Long Roll of 1416-7 sixteen pence is paid “pro
emendatione aquilae crateris fundatoris.” Other repairs are mentioned
later as in 1584-5, “pro reparatione particulae coronae quae circumdat
operculum cornu xii d.; item, pro reparandis aliis partibus cornu xviii
d.”
His name is also kept alive by the “canting” custom observed in the
College on New Year’s Day, when after dinner the Bursar presents to
each guest a needle threaded with silk of a colour suitable to his
faculty (_aiguille et fil_), and prays for his prosperity in the words
“Take this and be thrifty.”[138]
The object with which the College was founded is set forth in the
statutes as “the cultivation of Theology to the glory of God, the
advance of the Church, and the salvation of souls.” It was to be a
Collegiate Hall of Masters, Chaplains, Theologians, and other scholars
to be advanced to the order of the priesthood. It was founded in the
name of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, to the Glory of our Lord
and of His Mother and of the whole Court of Heaven, for the benefit
of the Universal Church and especially of the Church of England,
for the prosperity of the King and Queen and their children, and
for the salvation of their souls and the souls of their progenitors
and successors, and of the souls of the founder’s family and his
benefactors, especially William of Muskham, Rector of the Church of
Dereham, and for the “_salutare suffragium_” of all the living and the
dead.
The benefactions of Muskham do not seem to have ceased with the
foundation of the College. In 1347 Roger Swynbrok goes to Dereham
on behalf of the College to get money from Muskham, and the hire of
his horse costs eightpence, and there are entries of money received
from Muskham in later years. Other persons besides the members of the
College were interested in him, as in 1362 the oblations for his soul
and the soul of John de Hotham the second Provost amounted to £29
16_s._ 11½_d._
The statutes lay down with considerable minuteness of detail the course
of life which Eglesfield expected the members of his foundation to
follow, and, in connection with the early accounts of the College,
which have been preserved with tolerable completeness, give us some
materials for an account of the social life in the College during the
earlier portion of its history.
It is probable, indeed, that the large and complex establishment, whose
details are developed in Eglesfield’s statutes, rather represent what
he wished for and aimed at than the actual condition of the College at
any time; but there seems to have been always in the College a sincere
desire to carry out, so far as was possible, the prescriptions of the
founder; and, as we shall see, some of his minutest directions have
regulated the practice of the College ever since his days.
The patronage of the Hall, “the advowson” as he calls it, was to be
vested in his Royal mistress Philippa, and in the Queens consort of
England who shall succeed her. He adds the characteristic detail that,
if a king dies before his successor is married, the patronage shall be
continued to the widow till a Queen consort comes into being.
Philippa had already procured from her husband for the infant College
the Church of Brough under Staynesmore, and this was to be only an
earnest of the benefits the College was to derive from the lofty
patronage the founder thus secured to it. She was the first queen to
be distinguished as patroness and foundress of a Collegiate Hall.
In 1353-4, which seems to have been a year of unusual expense to the
College, among the donations received xxvj pounds iiij shillings is
credited to “domina Regina.”
It was doubtless through the Queen’s influence that the King in 1343
endowed the College with the advowson of Bletchingdon, and in the
following year with the Wardenship of St. Julian’s Hospital, commonly
called God’s House, in Southampton.
The College seems always to have been careful to secure the patronage
of the Queens consort of England. In the muniment room is preserved a
letter from Anne, Richard II.’s queen, to her husband, asking him to
grant letters patent to the College.
In 1603, on the 3rd of August, 48_s._ 6_d._ is allowed to the Provost
for his journey “ad solicitandam dominam reginam pro patronatu
collegii.” This was another Anne, James I.’s wife. A bible was
presented to the Queen which cost 42_s._ 4_d._
It was through Henrietta Maria--Queen Mary, as the College delights
to call her--that Charles I. was supplicated for the advowsons in
Hampshire given by the King to the College in 1626. Caroline, George
II.’s queen, gave £1000 towards the rebuilding of the College in the
eighteenth century; and promised another £1000, which, owing to her
death, still (as the Benefactors’ Book says) remains “unpaid but not
unhoped for.” Charlotte, George III.’s consort, heads the list of those
who subscribed towards the rebuilding of the south-west wing after the
fire of 1778. Queen Adelaide was the last queen entertained within the
walls of the College.
The community was to consist of a Provost and twelve Fellows,
incorporated under the name of “the Hall of the Queen in Oxford,” with
a common seal.
The original body was nominated by the founder, and their names are set
forth in his statutes.
The number thirteen was chosen with reference to the number of our Lord
and His Apostles, “sub mysterio decursus Christi et Apostolorum in
terris.”
Richard of Retteford, Doctor of Divinity, was the first Provost, and
the thirteen came from ten different dioceses. Several of them were, or
had been, Fellows of Merton; one, a Fellow of Exeter.
It was some years before the revenues of the College allowed of the
maintenance of so large a number of Fellows. The first “long roll”
preserved mentions only five persons, including Eglesfield himself,
as receiving a Fellow’s allowance; and eight is the largest number
of Fellows named in any account up to the end of the century. In the
early part of the sixteenth century the numbers rose to about ten,
but dwindled again in the disturbed periods about the middle of the
century. Twelve Fellows first appear in the Long Roll for 1590; and
soon after the number was increased to fourteen, at which the number of
the Fellows on the original foundation seems to have remained till the
first of the two University Commissions of the present century.
By the ordinance of 1858, the number of Fellows of the Consolidated
Foundation was fixed at nineteen; and by the statutes of 1877, the
Fellowships are to be not less in number than fourteen and not more
than sixteen. The actual number is fourteen.
From the earliest times down to the legislation of 1858 the body of
Fellows seems to have been recruited from the junior members of the
foundation, and ordinarily by seniority.
It seems to have soon become a rule that no one should be admitted to a
Fellowship till he had proceeded to his Master’s degree. The University
was often appealed to to grant dispensations to Queen’s men to omit
some of the conditions generally required for that degree in order to
enable them to be elected Fellows.
In 1579 some Bachelors were elected Fellows: “electi socii dum Domini
fuere; sed irrita facta est electio: postea vero electi.”
The names given to the different orders of foundationers perhaps
deserve a passing notice. The Fellows, as we should call them,
were the “Scholares,” who, with the “Praepositus,” or Provost,
constituted the Corporation. They are in the original statutes called
indifferently “Scholares” and “Socii.” The first name under which
other recipients of Eglesfield’s bounty appear is that of “Pueri,”
or “Pueri eleemosynarii.” By the end of the fourteenth century the
name “Servientes” came to be applied to an intermediate order, between
the “socii” and the “pueri,” recruited from the latter. In 1407,
for instance, Bell is a “pauper puer”; in 1413 Ds. Walter Bell is a
“serviens”; and in 1416 Mr. Walter Bell, who was for the previous
Michaelmas Term, and for the first term of the year, still “serviens”
and chaplain, becomes a Fellow. A candidate for the foundation seems
to have entered the College as a “pauper puer”; to have become a
“serviens” on taking his Bachelor’s degree; and to have been eligible
to a Fellowship as soon as he had proceeded to the degree of M.A.
The distinction between the three orders seems to have been maintained,
though with some variety in the names given to the orders and some
laxity in their application. Chaplains who are Masters are sometimes
loosely called “pueri” even as early as the middle of the fifteenth
century; and about 1570 the term “servientes” seems to have gone out of
use and the name “pueri” to have been transferred to the Bachelors.
Soon after this a fourth order appears intermediate between the first
and second, of “magistri non-socii,” or Masters on the foundation. It
might often be convenient for a B.A. to proceed to his M.A. degree
before a Fellowship was ready for him. The Chaplains were generally
appointed from among these Masters. In the University Calendar of 1828
there appear as many as nine of these expectants.
Before the end of the fifteenth century we find the lowest order called
“pueri domus,” and then “pueri de taberta” or “taberto” or “tabarto.”
The first appearance of this famous appellation seems to be in the Long
Roll for 1472. The tabard from which the Taberdars, as we now call
them, derived their name appears early in the accounts of the College.
Under the expenses of the boys in 1364-5 occurs:--“Item, cissori pro
cota Ad. de Spersholt cum capic. tabard. et calig. xii d.”
The livery of the boys seems always to have been a special part of
the provision made by the College for them: 25_s._ 4_d._ is expended
in 1407 “in vestura pauperum puerorum”; and when Thomas Eglesfield is
promoted in 1416 from Leylonde Hall, where the College had paid 1_s._
4_d._ for a term’s schooling for him to Mr. John Leylande and 5_d._ for
his batells, the first expenditure on his account as a poor boy of the
College is “pro factura togae & tabard. ejusd. xii d.” Those who are
wise in such matters may be able to calculate the size of the tabard
from the datum that eight yards of cloth, at a cost of 14_s._ 8_d._,
were provided in 1437 “pro duobus pueris domus, pro tabard. suis.” In
1503, 37_s._ 4_d._ is paid “pro liberatura iiij puerorum domus”; and in
1519, 56_s._ for the same for six boys.
The College had probably its pattern for the tabard, but no trace of
a description of it has yet been discovered. The word seems, from
Ducange, to have been used for almost every sort of upper garment, from
the long tabard worn by the Priests of the Hospital of Elsingspittal
with tunic, supertunic and hood, to the round mantles or tabards
of moderate length permitted by the council of Buda to be worn by
Prelates, and the “renones,” or capes coming down to the reins, which
the French call “tabart.” It seems now to be only applied to the
herald’s coat.
The four orders in their latest manifestation previous to the
legislation of 1858 were--1, Fellows; 2, Masters of Arts on the
Foundation; 3, Taberdars or Bachelors of Arts on the Foundation; 4,
Probationary Scholars, who were undergraduates. Under the subsequent
arrangements the name Taberdar has been reserved for the eight senior
open scholars.
The Provost was required by Eglesfield to be of mature character, in
Holy Orders, a good manager, and he was to be elected for life. He was
to be elected by the Fellows, and admit Fellows who had been elected;
to devote himself to the rule and care of the College, and to the
administration of its property. He was to see to the collection of the
debts of the College, going to law if necessary on behalf of its rights
and privileges, and to study in all respects to promote the advantage
and enlargement of the Hall by obtaining such influence over Royal and
other persons as he might be able to secure.
The provision that the Provost should be in Holy Orders seems only once
to have been violated. Roger Whelpdale (1404), indeed, seems only to
have received priest’s orders after his election; but in the person
of Thomas Francis all precedents were violated. He was a Doctor of
Medicine, of Christ Church, a native of Chester, and Regius Professor
of Medicine; and was in 1561, it would seem by Royal influence,
intruded into the Provostship. Serious disturbances seem to have taken
place at his inauguration,[139] and in two years he had had enough
of it. The irregularity prevailing at the time is evidenced by his
offering in an extant letter to nominate Bernard Gilpin, the Apostle of
the North, as his successor.[140] The Tudor sovereigns seem in this,
as in other matters, to have found it difficult to set limits to their
prerogative. Later in Elizabeth’s reign, on Henry Robinson’s promotion
from the Provostship to the Bishopric of Carlisle, his chancellor
had to write to the College, 8th Oct., 1598, signifying the Queen’s
pleasure that the election of a Provost in his room “be respited till
her Majesty be informed whether it belongs to her by prerogative, or to
the Fellows, to chuse a successor.”
No fault can be found with the Provosts of the College, as a rule,
for want of care of its interests. The names of six occur in the
Thanksgiving for the Founder and Benefactors of the College; and others
could prefer a claim to the same distinction.
Thomas Langton (1487), the first of the six, who was also Fellow of
Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, where his “Anathema” cup is still to be seen,
died Bishop of Winchester, having been nominated just before his death
to the Archbishopric of Canterbury. He left memorial legacies both
directly to the College, and indirectly to it through a benefaction to
God’s House at Southampton. Christopher Bainbridge (1506), the next of
the Benefactor Provosts, was Cardinal and Archbishop of York, poisoned
at Rome by his steward, and buried under a magnificent renaissance
monument which now adorns the Church of St. Thomas à Becket in that
city.
A chantry priest was till the Reformation paid £5 6_s._ 8_d._ for
celebrating for the souls of these two benefactors in the Church of St.
Michael in Bongate near Appleby, the capital of the county in which
they were both born.
Henry Robinson (1581), the third on the list, had been Principal of
St. Edmund Hall, and died Bishop of Carlisle. His brass in Carlisle
Cathedral, of which the College possesses a duplicate, says of his
relations with the College, “invenit destructum, reliquit exstructum
et instructum.” The College spent, 15th July, 1615, £23 3_s._ 3_d._
in celebrating his obsequies, and provided Chr. Potter with a funeral
gown and hood to preach his funeral sermon; £10 was paid in 1617 for
engraving his monument on copper, and 31_s._ 6_d._ for some impressions
from the plate.
Henry Airay (1598), who succeeds Robinson as Provost and Benefactor,
the Elisha to Robinson’s Elijah, as his brass with much variety of
symbolic illustration describes him, in spite of his being “a zealous
Calvinist,” commends himself to Wood “for his holiness, integrity,
learning, grauity, and indefatigable pains in the discharge of his
ministerial functions.” The College proved his will at a cost of 41_s._
8_d._, and spent £19 16_s._ 8_d._ on his funeral, 9th July, 1616.
Timothy Halton (1677), the fifth of the Provosts commemorated in the
Thanksgiving, built the present spacious library of the College mainly
at his own expense.
William Lancaster (1704), who is sixth, had the chief hand in building
the present College. He incurred Hearne’s wrath on private grounds
and as a “Whigg,” and is abused by him through many volumes of his
Collections; but he commended himself to others of his contemporaries,
and the favour in which he was held by the Corporation of Oxford was
of great service to the College. In the Mayoralty of Thomas Sellar,
Esq., 14th Jan., 1709, it was “agreed that the Provost and Scholars
of Queen’s College shall have a lease of so much ground in the high
street leading to East Gate as shall be requisite for making their
intended new building there strait and uniform from Michaelmas last for
one thousand years at a pepper corn rent, gratis and without fine, in
respect of the many civilities and kindnesses from time to time showed
unto and conferred upon this city and the principal members thereof by
Dr. Lancaster.”
It was by thus obtaining influence over Royal and other persons,
in conformity with the injunctions of the founder, that Provosts
and other members of the College were enabled to benefit it. The
monument to Joseph Smith (1730) which faces one who comes out of the
College chapel, seems to preserve the memory of an ideal Provost from
Eglesfield’s point of view and that which continued to be maintained
in the College. “Distinguished for his Learning, Eloquence, Politeness
of Manners, Piety and Charity, he with great Prudence and judicious
Moderation presided over his College to its general Happiness. Its
Interests were the constant Object of his Attention. He was himself a
good Benefactor to it, and was blest with the Success of obtaining for
it by his respectable Influence, several ample Donations to the very
great and perpetual Increase of its Establishment.”
Among the “ample donations” obtained by Provost Smith’s “respectable
influence,” the first place belongs to the Hastings foundation. The
Lady Elizabeth Hastings, daughter of Theophilus, seventh Earl of
Huntingdon, of whom Steele says in the _Tatler_, “To love her is a
liberal education,” bequeathed to the College in 1739 her Manors,
Lands, and Hereditaments in Wheldale in the West Riding of Yorkshire,
to found five Exhibitions for five poor scholars that had been educated
for two years at one or other of twelve schools in Cumberland,
Westmorland, and Yorkshire. Each school was to send a candidate, and
the candidates were first to be examined at Abberforth or Aberford in
Yorkshire by seven neighbouring clergymen, and the ten best exercises
were to be sent to the Provost and Fellows, who were to “choose out of
them eight of the best performances which appear the best, which done,
the names subscribed to those eight shall be fairly written, each in a
distinct paper, and the papers rolled up and put into an Urn or Vase,
… and after being shaken well together in the Urn shall be drawn out
of the same.… And those five whose names are first drawn shall to all
Intents and Purposes be held duly elected.… And though this Method
of choosing by Lot may be called by some Superstition or Enthusiasm,
yet … the advice was given me by an Orthodox and Pious Prelate of the
Church of England as leaving something to Providence.” This method of
election was observed as late as 1859, the Urn or Vase then employed
being the Provost’s man-servant’s hat. In 1769 the lot not drawn was
that of Edward Tatham of Heversham School, afterwards Rector of Lincoln
College, probably the most notable person who was ever a candidate for
a place on this foundation. A more reasonable provision, that if of the
original schools any should so far come to decay as to have no scholar
returned by the examiners at Aberford in four successive elections,
the College should appoint another school from the same county in its
stead, has been of great benefit to the Foundation and to education in
the counties. The estate devised has increased in value, coals having
been got, which were supposed in Lady Betty’s time to be in the estate.
Fourteen schools now enjoy the benefits of the Foundation, and nearly
thirty Exhibitioners of £90 a year each now take the place of the
original five Exhibitioners of £28 a year.
Elaborate regulations were laid down for the election of the Provost,
and on one occasion at least the whole course of proceeding had to be
gone through.[141] In the oath, which was to precede this as almost all
other important ceremonies in the College, the Fellows swear that they
will elect the most fit and sufficient of the Fellows to the vacancy.
Disputes have from time to time taken place as to whether a
“promoted[142] Fellow” during his year of grace is to be regarded as a
Fellow for this purpose. At the time of Wm. Lancaster’s election (1704)
a pamphlet was published in opposition to his claims, but it would seem
without any effect on the election. The pamphleteer has to allow that
several earlier Provosts, among them Henry Boost, who was also Provost
of Eton, and Bishop Langton, had never been Fellows at all.
The Provost was to receive five marks in addition to the portion
assigned to each of the Fellows, and this was to be increased gradually
to forty pounds in case the augmentation of the revenues of the College
allowed the number of Fellows prescribed in the statutes to increase.
He was to receive this for his ordinary expenses and necessities. The
community was to defray any expenses incurred in absence on business,
or in the entertainment of visitors who might repair to the College in
connection with its affairs.--In 1359-60, Adam, the Provost’s servant,
has his expenses paid for a visit to Southampton to see the condition
of God’s House while the foreigners were at Winchester. In 1363-4 Henry
Whitfield, the Provost, brings in a bill for his expenses on a voyage
to the Court of Rome at Avignon on College business connected with the
living of Sparsholt in Berks. A century later the Provost is allowed
5_s._ 10_d._ for his expenses to London in May 1519 to get money for
the building of the chapel. In 1600-1 18_d._ is paid for a horse sent
to fetch the Provost for the election of a principal at St. Edmund Hall.