routine well satirised by Warton in the _Rambler_, the ability and
energy of some of the tutors, particularly Kett, Ingram, Wilson, and
Short, enabled the College to take a leading place in the revival
of Oxford as a place of education at the opening of the nineteenth
century. The fellow-commoners gradually drop off; among the last
were Ar. French first Lord De Freyne, and the late Earl of Erne. But
the scholarships, always virtually open owing to the latitude as to
counties allowed by the Founder, began to be held by really able
men, and the elections to them became an honour keenly competed for.
The number of fellowships was small, and the choice subject to some
limitations, so that Trinity could not retain all its ablest scholars;
but it succeeded in retaining their affection. Cardinal Newman for
instance (admitted as a commoner, 1816; scholar, 1818[?]), had time
to remember his first college at a critical moment of his life; of his
leaving Oxford in 1846 he writes, “I called on Dr. Ogle [the Regius
Professor of Medicine], one of my very oldest friends, for he was my
private tutor when I was an undergraduate. In him I took leave of my
first College, Trinity, which was dear to me, and which held on its
foundation so many who had been kind to me both when I was a boy, and
all through my Oxford life. Trinity had never been unkind to me. There
used to be much snapdragon growing on the walls opposite my freshman’s
room there, and I had for years taken it as the emblem of my own
perpetual residence even unto death in my University.” Newman was made
an Honorary Fellow in 1878; and in 1885, on sending to the library a
set of his works, wrote, “This May the 18th is the anniversary of the
Monday on which in 1818 I was elected a member of your foundation. May
your yearly festival ever be as happy a day to you all as in 1818 it
was to me.”
At one time it seemed as if Trinity might take a lead in the Tractarian
movement; but the influence possibly of Ingram and Haddan directed
the attention of their pupils to historical studies, at first
ecclesiastical, but afterwards of a more general character. It is too
early at present to estimate the exact place of individuals in the
literature of the nineteenth century; but among those who will be
said to have “flourished” since 1800, and by whose work the influence
of Trinity on the period may be judged, may be mentioned the late
Archdeacon Randall, Rev. Isaac Williams the poet and theologian,
Rev. W. J. Copeland, J. W. Bowden, Rev. W. H. Guillemard, Sir G. K.
Rickards, Rev. A. W. Haddan, the elder Herman Merivale, Mountague
Bernard the international jurist, Bishops Claughton of St. Alban’s,
Stubbs of Oxford, Basil Jones of St. David’s, and Davidson of
Rochester, Vere (Lord) Hobart Governor of Madras, Roundell Palmer Earl
of Selborne, Ralph (Lord) Lingen, Professors Rawlinson, Freeman, Dicey,
Sanday, Bryce, Pelham, Ramsay, Rev. Sir G. Cox, Rev. North Pinder, Rev.
Isaac Gregory Smith, Bosworth Smith, the travellers William Gifford
Palgrave and Sir Richard Burton, to omit more junior present and recent
members of the foundation and commoners. Some of those mentioned when
scholars were famed for the “Trinity ἦθος,” which denoted “considerable
classical attainments and certain theological susceptibilities.”
The annals of the College during this period can only be glanced at.
Dr. James Ingram, president 1824-1850, was well known as one of the
first authorities on English antiquities and Anglo-Saxon literature: by
the undergraduates he was looked upon as what an old pupil has called
a “physical force man.” He left to the College a large and valuable
collection of topographical and antiquarian books. The next president,
Dr. John Wilson, of whose great care for the College estates and
archives many striking proofs remain, was one of those Heads of Houses
who adopted a _non possumus_ attitude towards the first University
Commission; he resigned in 1866, and retired to Woodperry House, where
he died in 1873. His successor, the Rev. Samuel William Wayte, had
been one of the secretaries to the Commissioners; he conferred great
benefits on the College by his careful management of the property,
and exercised considerable influence in the University. In 1878 he
retired to Clifton, where he still lives. In electing in his place
the Rev. John Percival, head master of Clifton College, who had never
been on the books of Trinity, the fellows took a step unusual but not
unprecedented in College history; in 1887 he resigned, on accepting the
headmastership of Rugby School. Under Dr. Percival the new statutes
of the Commission of 1877-81 came into force; to them is due a slight
increase which has taken place in the number of Scholars. The number
of commoners had already exceeded the traditional limit of “forty men
and forty horses,” and partly in consequence of this, it was determined
to build; between 1883 and 1887 the large block of rooms and the
new president’s lodgings in the front quadrangle, both by Mr. T. G.
Jackson, were constructed; Kettell Hall was bought from Oriel, and the
picturesque cottages on Broad Street and the old president’s house
converted into college rooms. A large portion of the money necessary
for these purposes was contributed by present and past members of the
foundation, and other graduates of the College.
We may conclude by mentioning some other important benefactions of the
present century. James Ford, B.D., rector of Navestock, left funds for
the purchase of advowsons, and for exhibitions appropriated to certain
schools; the Millard bequest provides an endowment for natural science.
A present of money from a “Member of the College” has been spent on
portraits for the hall; an organ for the chapel was given by President
Wayte; and seven windows of stained-glass representing Durham College
saints, have recently been given by the Rev. Henry George Woods, M.A.,
the present President, to whom this account of Trinity College may be
appropriately inscribed.
* * * * *
NOTE.--It is impossible to form a complete list of the persons educated
at Trinity College, since the first general Register of Admissions
commences only in 1646, and the entries are not autograph till 1664.
But an approximate estimate may be made from various records, such as
(1) the Admission Registers A, B, and C, 1646-1891, (2) the formal
admissions before a notary public of the Scholars or Fellows from 1555,
contained in the College Registers, (3) the Bursars’ annual account
from 1579-1646 of Caution-money paid by Commoners, (4) the University
Registers, which give some names not contained in the preceding,
principally of the “poor scholars” who did not pay Caution-money. The
total numbers seem to be not much under 6000, and of this nearly 1000
persons have been members of the foundation.--H. E. D. B.
XV.
S. JOHN BAPTIST COLLEGE.
BY THE REV. W. H. HUTTON, M.A., FELLOW OF S. JOHN’S.
After the dissolution of the religious houses there were in Oxford
numbers of deserted buildings, little suited for private residences,
but useful only, as they were designed, for corporate life. Some fell
into decay, and have now utterly disappeared; others, by the wisdom of
men interested in the intellectual revival of the age, were refounded
as places of religion, learning, and education. To this latter class
belongs the College of S. John Baptist. It occupies the site and some
of the buildings of a Bernardine House founded by Archbishop Chichele
in 1437, as a place where the Cistercian scholars studying at Oxford
“might obtain humane and heavenly knowledge.” By Letters Patent of
Henry VI. the Archbishop received leave to “erect a College to the
honour of the most glorious Virgin Mary and S. Bernard, in the street
commonly called North Gate street, in the parish of S. Mary Magdalene,
without the North Gate.”[263] The buildings consisted only of a single
block facing westwards, with one wing behind.[264] The hall was built
about 1502, and the chapel consecrated in 1530. All of these remain in
use. The monks had also a garden, leased at first part from University
College and part from Durham College.
At the dissolution in 1539, the lands, buildings, and revenues of S.
Bernard’s College were given by Henry VIII. to his newly founded
College and Cathedral of Christ Church, in whose possession they
remained some sixteen years. In 1555, the deserted buildings were
restored to use, and the College refounded under Letters Patent of
Philip and Mary, granted at the request of a rich and munificent
London trader, Sir Thomas White. He was a Merchant Taylor of renown,
who had been Sheriff of London in 1547, and Lord Mayor in the year of
Sir Thomas Wyatt’s rebellion, when he had rallied the citizens to the
cause of Queen Mary. He had, says a College chronicler,[265] poured
over England a torrent of munificence, and now among the many things
in which he deserved well of the State, this was the worthiest. There
is a legend that he was directed in a dream to found a College hard by
where three trunks grew from the root of a single elm,[266] and the
tree which was said to have decided him to purchase the buildings of
S. Bernard’s was pointed out as still standing in the garden of Dr.
Levinz, President of S. John’s College from 1673 to 1697. Beyond the
buildings, there was no link between the old Society and the new. The
Cistercian tradition had left no trace; Sir Thomas White’s foundation
was a new creation.
The College thus founded in 1555, was to be set apart[267] for study
of the sciences of Sacred Theology, Philosophy, and good Arts; it was
dedicated to the praise and honour of God, of the Blessed Virgin Mary
His Mother, and S. John Baptist, and the Society was to consist of a
President and thirty graduate or non-graduate scholars. In 1557,[268]
both the scope and numbers of the original Foundation were enlarged;
Theology, Philosophy, Civil and Canon Law were now declared to be the
subjects of study, and the number of Fellows and scholars was raised to
fifty, of whom[269] six were to be founder’s kin, two from Coventry,
Bristol, and Reading schools, one from Tunbridge and the rest from the
Merchant Taylors’ school in London. Twelve were to study Civil and
Canon Law, one Medicine, and the rest Theology. There were also added
three priests as chaplains, six clerks not priests yet not married, and
six choristers. From the first the College was intimately connected
with the country round Oxford, for the founder endowed it with the
manors of Long Wittenham, Fyfield, Cumnor, Eaton, Kingston-Bagpuze,
Frilford and Garford, in the counties of Berks and Oxon, and with
sundry advowsons in the neighbourhood. It was at Handborough that the
first President, Alexander Belsire, B.D., who was appointed by the
Founder, died. He had been Rector for several years, and had retired
there when removed from the headship on account of his maintenance of
the papal supremacy. Several of the earlier Presidents held the living
of Kingston-Bagpuze. In the manor-house at Fyfield the kinsfolk of the
founder continued to live on for many generations, paying a nominal
rent to the College, which from its piety thus suffered a considerable
pecuniary loss at a time when its finances were at a very low ebb.[270]
Nearer home, the manor of Walton, which had formerly belonged to the
nunnery of Godstow, gave the College a share in the interests of the
citizens of Oxford, which has continued to our own time.
During its earlier years Sir Thomas White watched over the institution
which he had founded. The statutes which he gave were substantially
those of New College, and this return to the scheme of William of
Wykeham, which had been so largely adopted at Cambridge, shows that
the alterations made by the founders of Magdalen, Corpus Christi, and
Trinity, were not felt to be improvements. He had nominated the first
President, his own kinsman John James as Vice-President for life,
and the earlier Fellows. By his advice probably the second and third
Presidents, and certainly the fourth, were appointed. He drew up also
the most minute directions for the election and for the binding of the
President to the performance of his duties, and for the government
of the College. In all he set himself on behalf of the Society to
seek peace and ensue it. If any strife should arise which could not
within five days be appeased by the President and Deans, it must--so
he ruled--be referred to the Warden of New College, the President of
Magdalen, and the Dean of Christ Church, and by their decision all
must abide. As he drew towards his end he wrote a touching letter of
farewell to the Society which lay so near his heart. It runs thus--“Mr.
President, with the fellows and scholars, I have me recommended unto
you from the bottom of my heart, desiring the Holy Ghost may be among
you until the end of the world, and desiring Almighty God that every
one of you may love one another as brethren, and I shall desire you all
to apply your learning, and so doing God shall give you His blessing,
both in this world and in the world to come. And furthermore if any
strife or variance do arise among you I shall desire you for God’s love
to pacify it as much as you may, and so doing I put no doubt but God
shall bless every one of you. And this shall be the last letter that
ever I shall send unto you, and therefore I shall desire every one
of you to take a copy of it for my sake.[271] No more to you at this
time, but the Lord have you in His keeping until the end of the world.
Written the 27th of Jan., 1566. I desire you all to pray to God for
me that I may end my life with patience, and that He may take me to
His mercies. By me, Sir Thomas White, Knight, Alderman of London, and
founder of S. John Baptist College in Oxford.”
Within a fortnight from the writing of this letter the founder died.
He was buried with solemn ceremonial in the College chapel, where his
coffin was found intact when that of Laud was laid beside it nearly
a century later. A funeral oration was preached by one of the most
brilliant of the junior Fellows, Edmund Campion, soon to win wider
notoriety, and eventually to die a shameful death.
The loss of the founder made more evident the weaknesses with which the
College had had to struggle from the first. It was wretchedly poor.
The munificence of Sir Thomas White himself had more than exhausted
his purse. He died a poor man; much of what he had intended for the
College never reached it,--it would have been less still but for the
scarcely judicial assistance, “partly by pious persuasions and partly
by judicious delays,” of his executor Sir William Cordell, who was
Master of the Rolls,--and some of the estates, like Fyfield, were
burdened with encumbrances which he had left behind. Nor was this
all. Before the end of the century one of the Bursars seems to have
embezzled the College money and fled, becoming a Papist, and getting
employment where his antecedents were not known, as paymaster to an
Archduke of Austria. As early as 1577 the expenses had to be cut down;
the chapel foundation was reduced if not altogether suspended. But the
College not only suffered from pecuniary troubles; it seems to have
been peculiarly affected by the religious changes of the time. So long
as the founder had lived, his tact had smoothed the difficulties of the
transition from the Marian to the Elizabethan rule. Two at least of the
earlier Presidents were deprived for asserting the Pope’s supremacy,
yet the change was managed without disturbance. But when the wise
counsels of the founder could no longer be heard, and when the Papal
Court had declared itself the bitter foe of Elizabeth, Fellow after
Fellow retired, or was deprived, and joined the Roman party. For this
cause no less than six members of the foundation are recorded within a
few years to have been imprisoned. Some, like Gregory Martin, who had
been tutor to the Duke of Norfolk’s children, and was afterwards the
translator of the “Rheims Bible,” fled over sea; some died in hiding,
some in English gaols. One, Edmund Campion, a brilliant orator and a
bold defender of the Papal jurisdiction, became a Jesuit, was mixed up
in several political intrigues, and eventually was hanged at Tyburn. It
might seem as though the little College, poor and divided, would never
weather the storm. That it did so was no doubt due to the patience and
devotion of its members. During its darkest years, at the end of the
sixteenth century, there were found philosophers and theologians, such
as Dr. John Case,[272] and skilful administrators such as Dr. Francis
Willis (President, 1577-1590), poets and rhetoricians, and London
merchants, who gave their talents and their money to support the fame
of the struggling Society.
By the beginning of the sixteenth century the College was on its feet
again; before a quarter of the century had passed its influence was the
most important in the University. Great men had begun to send their
sons there. In 1564 came two sons of the Earl of Shrewsbury; in 1572
two Stanleys and young Lord Strange. At the accession of James I. few
Colleges had among their members so many men already distinguished or
soon to win distinction. Tobie Matthew, a former President, had risen
to be Dean, and then Bishop, of Durham, and died Archbishop of York.
Sir William Paddy, a Fellow and notable benefactor, was the King’s
physician. John Buckeridge (President, 1605-1611) became Bishop first
of Rochester and then of Ely. A Fellow of the College had been the
Maiden Queen’s ambassador to Russia; many others were famous in the
law courts. But two men especially were destined to play a part on a
wider scene. In 1602 William Juxon, a lad of gentle birth, from Sussex,
matriculated at S. John’s. William Laud, born at Reading on October
7th, 1573, elected a Fellow of S. John’s College at the early age of
twenty, was Proctor in the year of the King’s accession. From this year
the history of the College may be considered to be inseparable from
that of the little energetic personage who left so great a mark upon
the history of the English Church.
On the 18th of January, 1605, Dr. John Buckeridge was elected President
on the death of Ralph Hutchinson. In August of the same year, King
James visited the University. At the gate of S. John’s “three
young youths[273] in habit and attire like nymphs, confronted him,
representing England, Scotland, and Ireland, and talking dialogue-wise
each to other of their state, at last concluding yielding up themselves
to his gracious government. The Scholars stood all on one side of the
street; and the strangers of all sorts on the other. The Scholars stood
first, then the Bachelors, and last the Masters of Arts.” Two days
afterwards, at the end of a long day, the King saw a comedy, called
_Vertumnuus_, written by Dr. Gwynne, a Fellow of S. John’s. “It was
acted much better than either of the other that he had seen before, yet
the King was so over-wearied that after a while he distasted it and
fell asleep. When he awaked he would have been gone, saying, ‘I marvel
what they think me to be,’ with such other like speeches, showing his
dislike thereof. Yet he did tarry till they had ended it, which was
after one of the clock.”
At this time the University was greatly influenced by Calvinist
doctrines. It was from S. John’s that the first opposition to the
prevalent opinions came, and it was thus that William Laud first
became famous. Laud was ordained deacon and priest by Dr. Young,
Bishop of Rochester, who, “finding his study raised above the systems
and opinions of the age, upon the noble foundations of the fathers,
councils, and the ecclesiastical historians, early presaged that if
he lived he would be an instrument of restoring the Church from the
narrow and private principles of modern times to the more enlarged,
liberal, and public sentiments of the apostolic and primitive ages.”
Dr. Young was right in his prophecy, for Laud was soon the leader of
the reaction against Calvinism in the University, as he was afterwards
successful in asserting more liberal and Catholic sentiments in the
Anglican Church at large. By maintaining in theological lectures and
sermons before the University the doctrine of baptismal regeneration
and the divine institution of Episcopacy, he made himself prominent in
opposition to the chief authorities of the day, who were all imbued
with Calvinistic views. It was reckoned, so in later years he told
Heylin, a heresy to speak to him, and a suspicion of heresy to salute
him as he walked in the street. Yet he had no lack of friends; the
most eminent members of his own College seem always to have stood by
him,--we have Sir William Paddy’s approval of an University sermon
that had caused much offence,--and before long he found the whole
University converted to his views. There were sermons and pamphlets
and answers and counterblasts, inquiries by Vice-Chancellor and
Doctors, threats of suspension, murmurs of disloyalty to the Church,
as there have often been since in Oxford theological tempests; but
the misconception and bitter feeling were gradually overcome by
the steadfast conscientiousness of Laud. He received a number of
preferments outside the University, was especially honoured by Bishop
Neile of Rochester, and resigned his Fellowship in 1610 to devote
himself entirely to parochial work. At the end of that year, however,
Dr. Buckeridge, President of S. John’s, was elected Bishop of Rochester
in succession to Dr. Neile, and by his advice and support Laud was
proposed for the vacant headship of the College. Calvinist influence
in the University was set to work to induce the King to prevent the
appointment, but without success, and Laud was elected on May 10th,
1611. The election was marked by keen and violent party feeling. When
the nomination papers had been laid on the altar (as was the custom in
College elections down to within living memory), and the Vice-President
was about to announce the result, one of the Fellows, Richard Baylie,
snatched the papers from his hands and tore them in pieces. It is
characteristic of Laud’s freedom from personal animosity, that he
passed over this act of irritable partisanship and showed special
favour to the culprit. He procured the choice of Baylie as Proctor
in 1615, afterwards made him his chaplain, married him to his niece,
supported his election in 1632 to the Presidency itself, and in 1636
appointed him Vice-Chancellor of the University. In the same year,
1611, Laud became one of the King’s chaplains, and from this time was
not without royal influence to assist him in his University contests.
He had still great difficulties to contend with. Dr. Abbot, Regius
Professor of Divinity and brother of the Primate, preached against
him in S. Mary’s, his assertion of anti-Calvinistic doctrine, or
Arminianism as it was now called, being the cause of complaint.
“Might not Christ say, what art thou? Romish or English, Papist or
Protestant?--or what art thou? A mongrel compound of both; a Protestant
by ordination, a Papist in point of free will, inherent righteousness,
and the like. A Protestant in receiving the Sacrament, a Papist in the
doctrine of the Sacrament. What, do you think there be two heavens? If
there be, get you to the other and place yourself there, for into this
where I am ye shall not come.” To such coarse stuff as this was Laud
compelled to listen; he “was fain to sit patiently” among the heads of
houses, and “hear himself abused almost an hour together, being pointed
at.” But this was merely the vindictive retort of a vanquished party.