most remarkable; the latter in the shape of its ante-chapel is a
combination of the short nave found at New College and of transepts
such as are found at Merton; while in the tracery of the windows of its
choir it furnishes a continual puzzle to architectural theorists; for
though undoubtedly every stone of it was built at the beginning of the
seventeenth century, and though the wood-work is pure Jacobean, the
windows both in their tracery and in their mouldings belong to a period
one hundred and fifty years earlier. In fact the chapel is exactly one
of the magnificent choirs with which the churches of Somerset abound,
and it is difficult to believe that the resemblance is not more than
accidental; for in the building documents of the College we have clear
evidence of both materials and workmen coming from the county of the
founder. The cost of the whole building was £11,360.
Even before it was finished, the new Foundation received a munificent
present in the shape of the library of Dr. Philip Bisse, Archdeacon
of Taunton, who dying about 1612 left some two thousand books (valued
at £1700?); these books are all distinguished by having their titles
carefully inscribed in black letter characters on the sides of their
pages, near the top, and may be not unworthily compared to the famous
library, the cataloguing of which made Dominie Sampson so happy a
man. The foundress made Dr. Bisse’s nephew an original Fellow of her
College, though he had not yet taken a degree, “Ob singularem amorem
avunculi ejus,” and also had painted the portrait of the Archdeacon in
full doctor’s robes, which still adorns the library.
On April 20th, 1613, the first Warden, Robert Wright, formerly Fellow
of Trinity College and Canon of Wells, was admitted at St. Mary’s, and
in the afternoon of the same day he in turn admitted the Fellows and
scholars nominated by the foundress. Wright, however, very shortly
resigned his position, because (says Wood) he was not allowed to marry.
The foundation of the College seems to have attracted considerable
attention elsewhere than in Oxford. Among the State Papers in the year
1613 is calendared (somewhat incongruously) a parody of the statutes
of Gotam College, founded by Sir Thomas à Cuniculis,[310] with a
license from the Emperor of Morea; and from the first the number of men
matriculated was very large, and the class from which they were drawn
a wealthy one. This is most clearly proved by the fact that although
the College had been in existence less than thirty years when the Civil
War broke out, the amount of plate surrendered by it to the King was
only surpassed by one other Foundation. The College still possesses
an inventory of articles given, which make up “100 lbs. of white
plate and 23 lbs. of gilt plate.” As might have been expected, a large
proportion of the members of the College at this period, and for long
after, came from the West country; two-thirds, probably, were from
Dorset, Somerset, or Devon; and this connection has happily never been
entirely broken. Among these West countrymen was the famous Admiral,
Robert Blake, who graduated from Wadham in 1617 at the age of twenty,
and was still in residence six years later. His portrait now hangs in
the hall.
During this first period of College life, down to the outbreak of the
rebellion, two events deserve a passing notice. The first of these
was the fierce controversy[311] waged between James Harrington, one
of the original Fellows, and the rest of the Foundation, as to his
right to retain his place, although he possessed an annual pension
of £40 a year. There are numerous references to this in the Calendar
of State Papers; and Laud, as Bishop of Bath and Wells, was put to
no small trouble to decide it. In the end Harrington apologized for
“having behaved himself in gesture and speeches very uncivilly”; but
the quarrel only ended with the expiration of his Fellowship in 1631.
Much more important was the attempt of King James, in 1618, to obtain
a Fellowship for William Durham of St. Andrews, “notwithstanding anie
thing in your statutes to the contrarie.” Unfortunately we know very
little about this early parallel to James II.’s attempt at Magdalen;
but the College clearly was successful in upholding its rights.
It is perhaps not altogether fanciful to trace the feelings of the
College as to James I. in the register next year (1619), when its usual
dry formality is given up, and Carew Ralegh the son of the King’s late
victim, is entered as “fortissimi doctissimique equitis Gualteri Ralegh
filius.”
Wadham, during this same period, completed its material fabric by
receiving the gift of the large east window of the chapel from Sir
John Strangways, the founder’s nephew; it was made on the premises by
Bernard van Ling, and the total cost was £113 17_s._ 5_d._ (including
the maker’s battels for ten months and a week--£2 17_s._ 8_d._).
The Civil War affected Wadham as it did the rest of the University. Its
plate disappeared as has been said, only the Communion plate (“donum
fundatricis”) being spared; its students were largely displaced to
make room for the King’s supporters, among whom the Attorney-General,
Sir Edward Herbert, seems to have made Wadham a kind of family
residence. After the final defeat of the King, the Warden, Pytt, and
the great majority of the Foundation were deprived by the Parliamentary
Commissioners. But it may be fairly said that the changes made did
far more good than harm to the College. The man appointed to the
vacant Wardenship was the famous John Wilkins, divine, philosopher,
and mathematician, who enjoyed the almost unique honour of being
promoted by the Parliament, by Richard Cromwell, and by Charles
II., and to whom the College owes the honour of being the cradle of
the Royal Society. Evelyn records in his _Diary_ (July 13th, 1654),
how “we all dined at that most obliging and universally-curious Dr.
Wilkins’s, at Wadham Coll.”--and speaks of the wonderful contrivances
and curiosities, scientific and mechanical, which he saw there. Round
Wilkins gathered the society of learned men who had previously begun
to meet in London, and who were afterwards incorporated as the Royal
Society. The historian of that famous body, Dr. Sprat, afterwards
Bishop of Rochester and himself a member of the Foundation of Wadham
College, records[312] how “the first meetings were made in Dr. Wilkins
his lodgings, in Wadham College, which was then the place of resort
for virtuous and learned men,” and that from their meetings came
the great advantage, that “there was a race of young men provided
against the next age, whose minds receiving their first impressions
of sober and generous knowledge were invincibly armed against all the
encroachments of enthusiasm.” The traditional place of these meetings
is the great room over the gateway, though this is more than doubtful.
Of the original members, there belonged to Wadham College, besides
Wilkins--Richard Napier, Seth Ward, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, the
famous mathematician; and last but not least, that “prodigious young
scholar, Mr. Christopher Wren,” who after being a Fellow Commoner at
Wadham College, was elected Fellow of All Souls, and who showed his
affection for his original College by the present of the College clock
and a beautiful sugar-castor, of which the latter is still in daily
use, while the face, at any rate, of the former remains in its old
place. The works of the clock are preserved in the ante-chapel as a
curiosity.
Warden Wilkins had for two hundred years the distinction of being
the only married Warden of Wadham. His wife was a sister of the
Lord Protector, with whom he had great influence, which he used
for the benefit of the University as a whole, and of individual
Royalists. Anthony Wood seems mistaken in saying that Wilkins owed his
dispensation to marry to his connection with Cromwell. The original MS.
in the possession of the College bears date January 20th, 1652 (four
years before Wilkins actually married), and comes from the Visitors of
the University of Oxford. Of both Wren and Wilkins there are portraits
in the Hall.
The most distinguished undergraduates of this period were John, Lord
Lovelace, who took a prominent part in the Revolution (a fine portrait
of him by Laroon hangs in the College hall), William Lloyd, afterwards
Bishop of St. Asaph, and one of the famous “Seven Bishops,” and the
notorious Mr. Charles Sedley, a donor of plate to the College, all of
whom matriculated in 1655. An even better known member of Wadham was
John Wilmot, the wicked Earl of Rochester, who matriculated in 1659,
immediately after Warden Wilkins had been promoted to the Mastership
of Trinity College, Cambridge; but as he proceeded to his M.A. in
September 1661, being then well under fourteen, he probably did not
give much trouble to the disciplinary authorities. John Mayow too,
the distinguished physician and chemist, who became scholar in 1659,
continued the scientific traditions of the College.
Wilkins and three of his four successors all became Bishops; of these
the most famous was Ironside, who, as Vice-Chancellor in 1688, ventured
to oppose James II. in his arbitrary proceedings against Magdalen.
The fall of James saved Ironside, who was made Bishop of Bristol (and
afterwards of Hereford) by William III., and was succeeded by Warden
Dunster, the object of Thomas Hearne’s hatred and contempt. He accuses
him[313] of being “one of the violentest Whigs and most rascally
Low Churchmen” of the time, and of various other defects, physical
and moral, which may perhaps be conjectured to be in Hearne’s mind
convertible terms with the above.
Wadham as a whole during this period was strongly Whig and Low Church;
not improbably this was due to its close connection with the West
country, where the suppression of Monmouth’s rebellion had taught men
to hate the Stuarts; but whatever the reason, the fact is undoubted.
Probably there is no other College hall in England which boasts of
portraits both of the “Glorious Deliverer” and of George I.
As might be expected, Hearne’s account of the College is extremely
black. He dwells on the blasphemies[314] for which a certain Mr.
Bear of Wadham was refused his degree; and even the distinguished
scholar, Dr. Hody, the Regius Professor of Greek and Archdeacon of
Oxford, is continually attacked by him, though he admits “he was very
useful.”[315] Hody, both in his life and by his will, showed himself
a loyal son of his College. Dying at the early age of forty-six,
he bequeathed the reversion of his property to Wadham, for the
encouragement of Hebrew and Greek studies; and the ten exhibitions
he founded (now made into four scholarships) have been especially
successful in developing the study of the former language. A far
greater scholar than Hody belongs in part to Wadham at the same period.
In 1687 Richard Bentley was incorporated M.A. of Oxford from St. John’s
College, Cambridge, and put his name on the books of Wadham. He was in
Oxford as tutor to the son of Bishop Stillingfleet.
Almost to the same period belong the buildings erected on the south
side of the College (No. IX. staircase), which were begun in 1693,
and finished next year; it was intended to build a similar block on
the north side, beyond the Warden’s lodgings, as is shown in some old
prints, but this was never carried out. I am unable to assign a date
to No. X. staircase. It certainly belonged to the College before the
final purchase of the staircase next the King’s Arms (No. XI.), which
was made early in the present century: there exists a drawing of it in
a much earlier style of architecture than the present, or than that of
No. IX.
The only other person worthy of special mention connected with the
College at this period, was Arthur Onslow, Speaker of the House of
Commons throughout the reign of George II., who matriculated in 1708;
his affection for Wadham is illustrated by the splendid service-books
presented by him to the chapel, while two excellent portraits show the
pride which the College felt in him.
The fifty years which follow the promotion of Warden Baker to the
see of Norwich in 1727 were an undistinguished period in the history
of Wadham, as in that of the University generally. Of the four
Wardens, only one, Lisle, became a bishop, and there is reason to
think the College was in a bad state; very few of its members rose
to distinction, though James Harris of Salisbury, the author of
_Hermes_[316] (whose portrait by Reynolds hangs in the hall), Creech,
the translator of Lucretius, and Kennicott, the Hebrew scholar, might
be mentioned.
But in Warden Wills, who was appointed in 1783, the College found its
most liberal benefactor since the death of the foundress. It was in
his time that the present beautiful garden was laid out on the site
of the old formal walks, with a mound in the centre, which appear in
the prints of the last century. It has been conjectured with some
probability that “Capability” Brown had a hand in the laying out of the
garden as it now is. Whoever was the gardener, it may be confidently
asserted that a finer result was never produced in so small a space.
Warden Wills in another way increased the beauty of the College, by
buying for the use of the Warden the lease of a large piece of land
to the north of the College property; of this the College afterwards
bought the freehold from Merton, and it was incorporated with the
Warden’s garden.
Early in this century too the College received its final extension
in the way of rooms, by purchasing from the University the buildings
between itself and the King’s Arms, which had formerly been used by the
Clarendon Press; the old name of No. XI. staircase, “Bible warehouse,”
long preserved in the books of the College the memory of the old use of
the buildings: probably the site had belonged to the College from the
first, and it was only the remainder of a lease that was now bought.
This purchase was made in the Wardenship of Dr. Tournay, who presided
over the College with dignity and success for twenty-five years till
1831, when he resigned. The most distinguished member of Wadham during
his time was undoubtedly Richard Bethell, afterwards Lord Westbury,
who was elected scholar in 1815, before he had completed his fifteenth
year. This fact is duly recorded, at his own especial wish, on his
monument in the ante-chapel, as having been the foundation of his
subsequent success.
Shortly after the resignation of Warden Tournay, the chapel was taken
in hand by the “Gothic Renovators,” a new ceiling was put on, and the
whole of the east end was recast by the introduction of some elaborate
tabernacle work, which, if not entirely appropriate in design, is yet
interesting as displaying a careful study of mediæval models most
unusual so early as 1834.
Of the history of the College since 1831 there is not space to say
much. Under Warden Symons it became recognized as the stronghold of
Evangelicalism in the University; so much was this the case that on his
nomination to the Vice-Chancellorship in 1844, he was opposed by the
Tractarian party; but this unprecedented step met with no success, as
the Chancellor’s nomination was confirmed by 883 votes to 183. It was
during his tenure of the Vice-Chancellorship (1844-8) that proceedings
were taken against Mr. Ward, and against Tract No. XC. But if on the
one hand the College produced leading lights of the Evangelical school,
like Mr. Fox and Mr. Vores, it also lays claim to Dr. Church, the late
Dean of St. Paul’s, and Father Mackonochie. It may well be doubted
whether there ever was a more brilliant period in the history of Wadham
than about the middle of the century, when Dr. Congreve was Tutor and
one of the leaders in the University of the “Intellectual Reaction”
against the Tractarian movement. With him as Tutor was associated the
late Warden, Dr. Griffiths, whose name will be always remembered as
that of one whose true interest throughout life was in his College, and
who ranks among its benefactors by his bequests, especially that of his
collection of prints and drawings illustrative of the history of the
College and of those who had been educated at it.
Under them within less than ten years there were in residence as
undergraduates the present Bishop of Wakefield, the late Professor
Shirley, Dr. Johnson the Bishop of Calcutta, Mr. B. B. Rogers the
scholarly translator of Aristophanes, Mr. Frederic Harrison, the
present Warden, Professor Beesly, Dr. Bridges afterwards Fellow of
Oriel, Dr. Codrington the missionary and philologer, and others who
might be mentioned, who have won distinction in ways most various.
Wadham carried off three Brasenose Fellowships in succession within a
very short space of time, just as in 1849 its Boat Club had “swept the
board” at Henley; these were but the outward signs of the intellectual
and physical activity of the College. And here its story must be left,
for we are already among contemporaries, while the action of the
Commission of 1854-5 has drawn a gulf for good or ill between old and
modern Oxford. Enough has been said to show that the sons of Wadham
have not been altogether unworthy of a College of which other than her
own sons have said that to know her and “to love her was a liberal
education.”
XVIII.
PEMBROKE COLLEGE.
BY THE REV. DOUGLAS MACLEANE, M.A., FELLOW OF PEMBROKE.
Pembroke College has its name from William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke,
Shakespeare’s friend and patron, thought to be “Mr. W. H.,” the “onlie
begetter” of the Sonnets. Clarendon calls him “the most universally
loved and esteemed of any man of that age.” This Society, constituted
as a College in 1624, is one of the younger Oxford foundations. But
there had been a considerable place of religion and learning here from
the earliest times, Pembroke College having for centuries previously
existed as _Broadgates_, or, more anciently still, _Segrym’s_ Hall.
Wood calls this Hall “that venerable piece of antiquity.” He believes
that St. Frideswyde’s Priory had here a distinguished mansion, from
which the canons received an immemorial quit rent, and that here their
novices were instructed. In Domesday it is called Segrim’s Mansions,
a family of that name then and for generations afterward holding it
from the priory in demesne, with obligation to repair the city wall.
But in the 38th of Henry III. Richard Segrym, by a charter of quit
claim, surrenders for ever to God and the Church of St. Frideswyde,
“that great messuage which is situated in the corner of the churchyard
of St. Aldate’s,” the canons agreeing to receive him into their family
fraternity, and after his death to find a chaplain canon to celebrate
service yearly for his soul, the souls of his father and mother, and
the soul of Christiana Pady.
From a very early date this house was occupied by clerks, studying the
Civil and Canon Law. It is described as a “nursery of learning,” and
“the most ancient of all Halls.” It retained the name Segrym (sometimes
Segreve) Hall till the accession of Henry VI., when, a large entrance
being made,[317] it came thenceforth to be called Broadgates Hall,
though there were in Oxford several other houses of this name. It was
the most distinguished of a number of hostels occupied by legists, and
clustered round St. Aldate’s Church, then a centre of the study of
Civil Law, which had come into vogue in the twelfth century. A chamber
built over the south aisle (Docklington’s aisle) of that church was
used as a Civil Law School and also as a law library, the books being
kept in chests, but afterwards chained. Such a library of chained
books still exists over one of the aisles of Wimborne Minster. The
aisle below was used by the students before and after the Reformation.
The “Chapel in St. Eldad’s” (Hutten[318] tells us) “is peculier and
propper to Broadgates, where they daily meete for the celebration of
Divine Service.” The fine monument of John Noble, LL.B., Principal of
Broadgates, was formerly in this aisle.
The importance of the Halls dates from 1420, when unattached students
were abolished, and every scholar or scholar’s servant was obliged
to dwell in a hall governed by a responsible principal. After the
great fire of 1190 they were built of stone. They contained a common
room for meals, a kitchen, and a few bedrooms, each scholar paying
7_s._ 6_d._ or 13_s._ 4_d._ a year for rent. Every undergraduate was
bound to attend lectures. Discipline however was not very strict. One
summer’s night in 1520, an ever-recurring dispute happening between the
University and the city respecting the authority to patrol the streets,
certain scholars of Broadgates had an encounter with the town watch, in
which one watchman was killed and one severely hurt. The delinquents
fleeing were banished by the University, but allowed after a few months
to return on condition of paying a fine of 6_s._ 8_d._, contributing
1_s._ 8_d._ to repair the staff of the inferior bedell of Arts, and
having three masses said for the good estate of the Regent Masters and
the soul of the slain man.
Broadgates Hall becoming a place of importance, and being obliged
to extend its limits, acquired a tenement to the east belonging
to Abingdon Abbey, the monks of which owned also a moiety of St.
Aldate’s Church, the other moiety having passed to St. Frideswyde’s,
according to a curious story related by Wood.[319] A little further
east still was a tenement which the Principal of Broadgates rented
from New College (_temp._ Henry VII.) for 6_s._ 8_d._ In 1566 Nicholas
Robinson[320] mentions Broadgates among the eight leading Halls, and
as especially given up to the study of Civil Law. In 1609 Nicholas
Fitzherbert[321] says it was a resort of young men of rank and wealth.
In 1612 it had 46 graduate members, 62 scholars and commoners, 22
servitors and domestics, in all 131 members, being exceeded in numbers
by only five Colleges and one Hall, viz. Christ Church, 240; Magdalen,
246; Brasenose, 227; Queen’s, 267; Exeter, 206; Magdalen Hall, 161. A
century later Pembroke had only between 50 and 60 residents, and in the
preceding century, when Oxford had been for a while almost empty, the
numbers must have been few. The zeal of the reforming Visitors in 1550
had left the chamber above Docklington’s aisle four naked walls. “The
ancient libraries were by their appointment rifled. Many MSS., guilty
of no other superstition than red letters in the front or titles were
condemned to the fire … such books wherein appeared angles [angels]
were thought sufficient to be destroyed because accounted Papish, or
diabolical, or both.” We read of two noble libraries being sold for
40_s._ for waste paper.
Henry VIII., in 1546, annexed Broadgates, together with the housing of
Abingdon to the new College established by Wolsey under a Papal bull
on the site and out of the revenues of St. Frideswyde’s--successively
Cardinal College, King Henry VIII.’s College, and Christ Church.
Broadgates Hall then had filled no inconsiderable part as a place of
learning when it became Pembroke College. The history of the foundation
of Pembroke is interesting. Thomas Tesdale, or Tisdall (descended
from the Tisdalls of Tisdall in the north of England), was a clothier
to Queen Elizabeth’s army, and afterwards attended the Court. Having
settled at Abingdon as a maltster he there filled the posts of Bailiff,
principal Burgess and Mayor. Finally he removed to Glympton, Oxon,
where trading in wool, tillage, and grazing he attained to a very
great estate, of which he made charitable and pious use, his house
never being shut against the poor. He maintained a weekly lecture
at Glympton, and endowed Christ’s Hospital in Abingdon. The tablet
placed in Glympton Church to his wife Maud records the many parishes
where “she lovingly annointed Christ Jesus in his poore members.” A
fortnight before Tesdale’s decease in 1610, he made a will bequeathing
the large sum of £5000 to purchase lands, etc., for maintaining seven
Fellows and six Scholars to be elected from the free Grammar School in
Abingdon into any College in Oxford. This foundation Abbot, Archbishop
of Canterbury, sometime Fellow of Balliol (his brother Robert at this
time being Master), was anxious to secure for that Society; and the
Mayor and burgesses of Abingdon falling in with the plan a provisional
agreement was signed, on the strength of which Balliol College bought,
with £300 of Tesdale’s money, the building called Cæsar’s Lodgings, for
the reception of Tesdale’s new Fellows and scholars, and they for a
time were housed there.