1518-19), resigned on 7th Jan., 1538-9, probably[180] in dismay at the
course of events in the nation. His successor, Hugh Weston, elected on
8th Jan., was possibly supposed to be on the reforming side; for he was
undisturbed by Edward VI.’s Commissioners; but had to resign in 1555
to the Visitors appointed by Cardinal Pole. Christopher Hargreaves,
elected on 24th Aug., 1555, and confirmed in his place by Cardinal
Pole’s Visitors, died on 15th Oct., 1558. His successor, Henry Henshaw
or Heronshaw, was hardly elected on 24th Oct., when the hopes of the
Romanist party were shattered. The College register, in the greatness
of its anxiety, breaks, on this one occasion, the silence it observes
as to affairs outside the College.[181] “In the year of our Lord 1558,
in November, died the lady of most holy memory, Mary, Queen of England,
and Reginald Poole, Cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury; the body
of the former was buried in Westminster, the body of the latter in
his cathedral church of Canterbury, both on the same day, namely 14th
December. At this date the following were Rector and Fellows of Lincoln
College,” and then follows a list of them. Clearly the writer of this
note did not look forward to remaining long in College. Nor did he;
within two years Henshaw had to resign to Queen Elizabeth’s Visitors.
Francis Babington, who had just been made Master of Balliol by these
Visitors, was transferred to the Rectorship of Lincoln. In this
appointment we can detect the sinister influence which was to direct
elections at Lincoln for some time to come; Babington was chaplain
to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, Chancellor of the University
after 1564. The election was in flagrant violation of the Statutes
which required that the Rector should be chosen from the Fellows or
ex-Fellows of the College. But it was the policy of the Court to break
College traditions, by thrusting outsiders into the chief government:
the same thing was done in other Colleges, the case of Lincoln being
peculiar only in the frequency of the intrusion. Doubts began to be
cast on Babington’s sincerity; he was accused of secretly favouring
Romanism; and in 1563 he found it advisable to betake himself beyond
sea.[182] Leicester was ready with another of his chaplains, John
Bridgwater, who had been Fellow of Brasenose, and was not statutably
eligible for the Rectorship of Lincoln. Again the Court was mistaken in
its man. Under Bridgwater the College became a Romanist seminary, and
continued so for eleven years; and then Bridgwater had to follow his
predecessor across the seas, retiring to Douay, where, Latinising his
name into “Aquapontanus,” he became famous as a theologian. He is still
held in honour among his co-religionists, and I remember several visits
paid to the College in recent years by admirers of his, in hopes of
seeing a portrait of him (but the College has none) or his handwriting
(which we have). Still another of his chaplains was thrust into Lincoln
College by the over-powerful Leicester; this time John Tatham, Fellow
of Merton. But Tatham’s Rectorship was destined to be a brief one:
elected in July 1574, he was buried in All Saints’ Church on 20th Nov.,
1576.
Then there took place a very remarkable contest, six candidates
seeking the Rectorship. Only one, John Gibson, Fellow since 1571, was
statutably qualified; although of only six years’ standing as a Fellow
he was still senior Fellow, a fact eloquent as to the removal of the
older Fellows from the College. Edmund Lilly, of Magd. Coll., another
candidate, relied apparently on his popularity in the University.
The other four candidates relied on compulsion from outside, William
Wilson, of Mert. Coll., being recommended by the Archbishop of
Canterbury, while the Chancellor (Lord Leicester) and the Bishops of
Lincoln and Rochester tried to secure the election of their respective
Chaplains. Leicester’s candidate, John Underhill, was specially
unacceptable to the College, having been removed from his Fellowship at
New College by the Bishop of Winchester (the Visitor there), because
of some malpractices with the College moneys. The Fellows elected John
Gibson; the Bishop of Lincoln refused to admit him. Leicester wrote
threatening letters to the College; summoned several of the Fellows to
London, and browbeat them there. Then, thinking he had now gained his
point, he proceeded to frighten off the other candidates, in order to
leave a clear field for Underhill. The Fellows again elected Gibson;
and the Bishop of Lincoln again refused to admit him. Then the Fellows
elected Wilson; but the Bishop refused to admit him. So that, there
being no help for it, they met again on 22nd June, 1577, and elected
Underhill.
These proceedings caused great indignation in the University; and a
petition was drawn up, worded in very strong terms, entreating the
Archbishop of Canterbury to undertake the defence of the University
against the “iniquity, wrong, and violence” which had been done. This
was signed by resident B.D.’s and M.A.’s, and presented to his Grace,
who passed it on to Leicester. Leicester thereupon wrote a long letter
to Convocation, trying to justify his action, and threatening to resign
his Chancellorship of the University if further attacked in this matter.
Underhill’s first step after his election was to begin a new register,
and to tear out of the old register all records of the proceedings
since the death of Tatham; so that the only entry in the College
books concerning this controversy is that Underhill was “unanimously
elected.” Leicester visited the College in 1585, and the Latin
congratulatory verses on that occasion are among the earliest printed
of Oxford contributions to that particularly dull form of literature.
Underhill remained rector till 1590. By that time the see of Oxford
had been vacant twenty years; and, as the leases of the episcopal
estates were running out, Sir Francis Walsingham required a bishop who
would make new leases and give him a share of the fines. He selected
Underhill for this purpose, who was consecrated Bishop of Oxford in
December 1589, and resigned the Rectorship of the College in 1590. His
patron, having no further use for him after the renewal of the leases,
neglected him; and Underhill died in poverty and disgrace in May 1592.
Leicester being now dead, the College at this vacancy was left to
choose its own head; and Richard Kilby, Fellow since 1578, was elected
sixteenth rector on 10th December, 1590. Kilby’s Rectorship proved one
continuous domestic struggle, which has left its mark in the College
register in scored-out pages and blotted entries, as plainly as an
actual battle leaves its mark in fields of grain trampled down by
contending armies. The question was about the number of Fellows. In
Underhill’s Rectorship the College appears to have been impoverished,
and unable to pay the full body of Fellows their allowances. Kilby’s
policy was to leave the Fellowships vacant, in order to keep up the
income of the present holders; the opposition in College desired to
fill up the Fellowships and to submit to a reduction of stipend all
round.
In April 1592 the number of Fellows had fallen to nine. On 24th April
three Fellows were elected; this election was quashed by the Visitor
on 8th December of the same year. But the Fellows returned to the
charge, and elected three Fellows on 15th December, and five others
on 16th December, 1592; so that in 1593 the College consists of the
Rector and the full number of Fellows (_i. e._ fifteen). Vacancies
occur rapidly, the Fellowships being so small in value. In 1596, and
again in 1599, elections of one Fellow are made, are appealed against,
but confirmed by the Visitor. In 1600 the number of Fellows had again
fallen as low as ten, and the Fellows wished to proceed to an election;
but the Rector (Kilby) tried to prevent their doing so by retiring to
the country. The Subrector, (Edmund Underhill) called a meeting, and
on 3rd November, 1600, the Fellows, in the Rector’s absence, elected
into two vacancies. Kilby induced the Visitor to quash these elections;
Edmund Underhill appealed to the Archbishop of Canterbury as primate of
the southern province. This was against the statutes, which directed
that no Fellow should invoke any other judge than the Visitor; and on
this ground, on 4th May, 1602, Kilby procured Underhill’s expulsion.
At the end of 1605 there were only five Fellows remaining; by 2nd May,
1606, two more had resigned. On the next day the Rector and the three
Fellows remaining elected eight new Fellows, the last of the eight
being certainly not the least, but the most illustrious Lincoln name of
the century, Robert Sanderson, the prince of casuists.
The years which follow, from this election to the breaking out of
the Civil War, present two aspects. Externally tokens of prosperity
are not wanting. The buildings were considerably increased. In 1610
Sir Thomas Rotheram, probably the same who had been Fellow from 1586
to 1593 and Bursar[183] in 1592, and apparently of kin to the second
Founder,[184] built the west side of the chapel quadrangle. The chapel
itself, with its beautiful glass (said to be the work of an artist
Abbott, brother of the Archbishop), was the gift of John Williams,
Bishop of Lincoln and Visitor of the College. Bishop Williams at the
same time (1628-1631) built the east side of the chapel quadrangle. The
work cost more than he had promised to give, and the College had to
complete it at its own charges; £90 being spent on this work in 1629,
“as being all the sum that my lord our benefactor did require or the
College could spare.” It is curious to find[185] the same benefactor
doing exactly the same thing in the fixed sum he gave (and would not
increase) for building the library at St. John’s College in Cambridge.
If we turn, however, to the domestic annals of the College during
this period we find an unlovely picture of turbulence and disorder.
Fellows and Commoners alike are accused of boorish insolence, of
swinish intemperance, of quarrelling and fighting. Bursars mismanage
their trust and fail to render account of the College moneys they have
received. Fellows try to defraud the College by marrying in secret and
retaining their Fellowships. Two or three of the less scandalous scenes
will be sufficient to indicate the violence of the times. On 20th
November, 1634, Thomas Goldsmith, B.A., had to read a public apology in
chapel for “a most cruel and barbarous assault” on William Carminow, an
undergraduate. In December 1634 Thomas Smith, an M.A. commoner, made
“a desperate and barbarous assault” on Nicholas North, another M.A.
commoner, in the room of the latter. The same Thomas Smith a month
before had been ordered by the Rector “to take his dogs[186] out of the
College,” which order he had treated with contempt. In October 1636
Richard Kilby and John Webberley, two Fellows, fell out and fought; and
“Mr. Kilbye’s face was sore bruised and beaten.” The College ordered
Webberley “to pay the charge of the surgeon for healing of Mr. Kilbye’s
face.”
We must pass very hastily over the period from 1641 to the Restoration,
not because the annals of Lincoln are lacking in interest during
these years, but because space presses and the chief incidents have
been noted in Wood’s _History of the University_ and in Burrows’
_Register of the Parliamentary Visitation_. Paul Hood, the Rector,
being a Puritan, kept his place under the Commonwealth, and having
been constitutionally elected before the Civil War, retained it at the
Restoration. Ten Fellows were ejected by the Parliamentary Visitors,
and ten put into their place, at least six of them being persons of
unsatisfactory character. At the Restoration Hood got the King’s
Commissioners to eject those of the ten who remained, and seven Fellows
were elected in their place, the only name of interest among these
being that of Henry Foulis, famous in his own age for his violent and
bulky invectives against Presbyterianism and Romanism.
Lincoln College was singularly fortunate during the latter half of
the seventeenth and for the greater part of the eighteenth centuries.
Hood, at the Restoration, was in extreme old age, and left the whole
management of the College to Nathaniel Crewe (Subrector 1664-1668),
so that it fairly escaped the break-down in manners, morals, and
studies which the Restoration brought to many Colleges. Crewe, after
a short Rectorship of four years (1668-1672), was raised to the
Episcopal Bench; and at the close of his long life proved our greatest
benefactor. When he resigned Crewe used his influence to get Thomas
Marshall elected Rector, a good scholar and a good governor; who, on
his death in 1685, left his estate to the College. His successor,
Fitz-herbert Adams, was also a considerable benefactor. Of John Morley
and Euseby Isham, who followed, John Wesley speaks in the highest
terms. Richard Hutchins, twenty-third Rector (1755-1781), was a model
disciplinarian and an excellent man of business; and, following
Marshall’s example, left his estate for the endowment of scholarships.
During this happy period much was done to improve the College, which
can only be touched on in the briefest outline here. In 1662 John Lord
Crewe of Steane (father of Nathaniel) converted the old chapel--which
since the consecration of the new chapel on 15th September, 1631,
had lain empty--into a library, which it still remains, and changed
the library into a set of rooms. In 1662 the room under the library
westwards was set aside as a room where the Fellows might have their
common fires and hold their College meetings;[187] it is still the
Fellows’ morning-room. In 1684 the common-room was wainscotted at a
cost of £90, Dr. John Radcliffe subscribing £10, and George Hickes
and John Kettlewell each £5. In 1686 Fitz-herbert Adams spent £470
on repairing and beautifying the chapel. In 1697-1700 the hall was
wainscotted at a cost of £270, to which Lord Crewe gave £100. Rector
Hutchins bought from Magdalen College some of the houses between the
College and All Saints’ Church, and left money to purchase the others,
so as to form the present College garden.
During this period also the roll of the Fellows received some of its
more famous names. The two eminent non-jurors, George Hickes and John
Kettlewell; the celebrated physician, John Radcliffe; John Potter,
whose Greek scholarship promoted him to the see of Canterbury; and John
Wesley,[188] by and by to win a name only less famous than that of
Wycliffe in the history of religion in England, may be cited.
The long period of prosperity which Lincoln College had enjoyed
during the later part of the seventeenth and the earlier part of the
eighteenth centuries was followed in the end of the eighteenth and the
beginning of the nineteenth centuries by a period of decline, during
which the College had its full share in the general stagnation of the
University, and was chiefly notable for the grotesque eccentricities
of its rector, Edward Tatham (Rector 1792-1834). Tatham, an M.A. of
Queen’s College, had been elected into a Yorkshire Fellowship at
Lincoln in 1782. Shortly after his election he came into conflict with
the Rector (John Horner) over a number of points in the interpretation
of the statutes; and after several appeals to the Visitor, was
successful in his contention. In 1790 he distinguished himself by the
ponderous learning, and the vigorous, if coarse, style of his Bampton
Lectures, _The Chart and Scale of Truth by which to find the cause
of Error_ (published in 1790 in two volumes; a copy in the College
library has additional MS. notes by the author). In March 1792 he was
elected Rector, and one of his first achievements was the use he made
of his old practice in controversy over the statutes to obtain from
the Visitor an unstatutable augmentation of the stipend of the Rector.
In the old obits, the Rector, being celebrant, had been assigned
double the allowance of any Fellow; and in elections, according to an
almost universal custom in Oxford Colleges, his vote counted for two.
By emphasizing these points and suppressing contradictory evidence,
Tatham persuaded the Visitor to decree that for the future the Rector’s
Fellowship should receive double of _all_ the allowances of an ordinary
Fellowship. Tatham was known as a forcible but most unconventional
preacher; and one phrase of his, used in the University pulpit,[189]
has become almost proverbial, that namely in which he wished that “all
the Jarman[190] philosophers were at the bottom of the Jarman ocean,”
forgetting in the heat of his rhetoric to make it plain to his audience
whether he meant the writers or their writings. In University business
Tatham was at war with the Hebdomadal Board, and used to brow-beat its
members, accusing them of “intrigues, cabals, and subterfuges.” He was
therefore well-hated by many of his contemporaries, and a great subject
of those pasquils and lampoons which, orally and in writing, circulated
freely in the University. In several of these Tatham had been compared
in features and disposition to the “devil,” who, after the fashion of
the similar grotesque at Lincoln Cathedral, “looked over Lincoln” from
his niche on the quadrangle-side of the gate-tower. Irritated at this,
Tatham ordered the leaden figure to be taken down.[191] Then came out
a lampoon, longer and more bitter than any before, in which the wit
consists in making the word “devil” occur as often as possible in every
quatrain, and the point is to suggest that when Tatham was returning
from dining out (“full of politics, learning, and port was his pate”)
the devil, tired of standing so long inactive, had flown off with him
into space; where leaving him, the devil returned to establish himself
in person in the Rectorship and to govern the College with the help of
“two imps, called tutors.” During the later years of his life Tatham
availed himself of the large liberty of non-residence allowed the
Rector by the then statutes, and lived chiefly in the rectory-house at
Combe. There he enjoyed the pleasures of a rough country life, farming
the glebe, and devoting himself with marked success to the rearing
of his special breed of pigs. He rarely visited Oxford; and when he
did, always brought with him in his dog-cart a pair of his pigs to be
exposed for sale in the pig-market, which was then held in High Street
beside All Saints Church. On these occasions his dress is described by
a contemporary to have been so strictly in keeping with his favourite
pursuit that he ran no risk of being mistaken for a Doctor of Divinity
or the head of a College. There was, however, one occasion on which
Tatham came out in his “scarlet,” with great effect. The College had
some rights in the naming of the master of Skipton Grammar School,
Yorkshire. On occasion of a vacancy the local governors were disposed
to dispute the claim. Tatham went north, at the previous stage put on
his Doctor’s robes, drove into Skipton attired in their splendour, and
dazzled the opposition into acknowledging the College claim. He died on
24th April, 1834, aged 84.
As might be expected, Lincoln College did not prosper during Tatham’s
rectorship. A scholarship was lost. Sir George Wheler, a Commoner
of the College, had left in 1719 a yearly rent-charge of £10 on a
house in St. Margaret’s parish, Westminster, to certain trustees “to
pay to a poor scholar in Lincoln College that shall have been bred
up in the grammar school at Wye.” From 1735 to 1759 no payment was
made; and then the Rev. Granville Wheler, in recognition of arrears,
increased the rent-charge to £20, and directed that if no boy was sent
from Wye, the scholarship should be open to any grammar school in
England. In Horner’s and Tatham’s time the matter was neglected; and
the benefaction is now for ever lost to the College. Again, part of
the money received from the city in payment for the grand old College
garden, which by Act of Parliament was taken to form the present
Market, was invested in Government securities; but the books were so
carelessly kept that the exact details required by the Exchequer could
not afterwards be collected from them: so that part of the property of
Lincoln College is amongst those “unclaimed” dividends out of which the
new Law Courts were built. It is surely unjust that the nation should
thus make a College suffer for the negligence of one generation of its
officers. There was also great degeneracy in the _personnel_ of the
College. Oxford was then passing through that phase of hard-drinking
which within living memory still afflicted society in country places;
and from this vice Lincoln College was not exempt. Several of the
Fellows had curacies or small livings in the neighbourhood of Oxford,
to which they rode out, as represented in a well-known cartoon of the
time, on Saturday morning, returning to the College on Monday. On
Monday evening, therefore, they were all met together, and preparations
were made for a “wet night.” When the Fellows entered Common-room after
Hall, a bottle of port was standing on the side-board for each of their
number. These finished there would be a second (and as liberal) supply,
and very probably after that several of them would slip out to bring an
extra bottle from their private stores. Two instances of the _corruptio
optimi_ of the times--the degradation of men who had received a
University education--may be cited. A Fellow of Lincoln College got
into debt, and his Fellowship was sequestrated by his creditors, who
allowed him a small pittance out of its proceeds, and applied the rest
to the liquidation of his debts; he became an ordinary tramp, and died
in the casual ward at Northampton, after holding his Fellowship for
twenty-five years. An ex-Fellow, incumbent of one of the more distant
and valuable College livings, got, by his own extravagance, into the
clutches of the money-lenders, who sequestrated his living and confined
him in Oxford Debtors’ prison, where he remained year after year
till his death. When, in 1854, the new incumbent went to the living,
he found that the parishioners, unable to get anything out of their
Rector, had helped themselves from the Rectory-house; windows, doors,
staircases, floors, slates, stones had been taken away, and the ruins,
sold at auction, fetched less than £10.
The tuition in College became of the meanest and poorest stamp. The
public lectures consisted in the lecturer hearing the men translate
without comment a few lines of Virgil or Homer in the morning; and the
informal instruction was equally paltry. One story of a Lincoln tutor
of the time may be set down here, though it is probably exceptional
and not typical. The narrator, an Archdeacon, “Venerable” not only
by title but by years, said--“I was pupil to Mr. ----, and I did not
altogether approve of his method of tuition. His method, sir, was this:
I read through with him the greater part of the second extant decade of
Livy, in which, as you are aware, the name of Hannibal not infrequently
occurs. There was a bottle of port on the table; and whenever we came
to the name of that Carthaginian general, my tutor would replenish
his glass, saying, ‘Here’s that old fellow again; we must drink his
health,’ never failing to suit the action to the word.”