offices, Lowth observes, "The truth of the matter seems to be, that the
laity in general looked with an evil eye upon the clergy, who had of
late filled for the most part the great posts of honour and profit in
the state; which, as it was obvious to remark, neither lay within their
province nor were suitable to their function and character. The
practice, however improper in itself and liable to objection, yet seems
to have taken its rise from the necessity of the times: the men of
abilities had for a long time been chiefly employed abroad in the wars;
this was the most open road to riches and honours, and every one was
pushing forward in it. Besides, it was not at any time easy to find
among the laity persons properly qualified, in point of knowledge and
letters, to fill with sufficiency some of the highest offices. We see
the king was now obliged to have recourse to the lawyers: they gave as
little satisfaction as the churchmen had done; and in a few years it was
found necessary to discharge them, and to call in the churchmen again."
At the period of Wykeham's election to the see of Winchester, the
bishops of that diocese had no fewer than twelve different castles or
palaces, all furnished and maintained as places of residence. Wykeham's
first undertaking after he found himself in possession of the see was to
set about a thorough repair of these episcopal houses.
To these palaces or castles the bishops of Winchester resorted in
turns, "living, according to the custom of those times, chiefly upon the
produce of their own estates. So great a demand as the bishop had upon
his predecessor's executors for dilapidations could not very soon or
very easily be brought to an accommodation; however, the account was at
last settled between them without proceeding on either side to an action
at law. In the first place they delivered to him the standing stock of
the bishopric due to him by right and custom: namely, 127
draught-horses, 1556 head of black cattle, 3876 weathers, 4777 ewes,
3521 lambs: and afterwards for dilapidations, in cattle, corn, and other
goods, to the value of 1662_l._ 10_s._ sterling."
Before his repairs were accomplished, Wykeham had disbursed twenty
thousand marks of his own revenue. This energetic improver also applied
himself with great zeal and diligence to the reformation of abuses in
the monasteries and religious houses of all sorts throughout his
diocese. The ancient hospital of St. Cross, at Sparkeford, near
Winchester, founded in 1132 by the famous Bishop Henry de Blois, brother
to King Stephen, in particular engaged much of his attention, and the
objects of the charity were indebted to his persevering exertions for
the restoration of many rights and benefits which they had originally
enjoyed, but of which they had been for a long time defrauded.
In 1373 a school at Winchester, founded wholly by the munificence of
this high-minded prelate, was first opened. The history of the endowment
and completion of Winchester College, and of New College at Oxford, for
which Winchester is preparatory, is so well told by Lowth, that we
transcribe his narrative and just remarks without abridgment:--
"At the same time that Wykeham was thus engaged in the reformation of
these charitable institutions, he was forming the plan of a much more
noble and extensive foundation of his own, and taking his measures for
putting it in execution. He had long resolved to dispose of the wealth
which the Divine Providence had so abundantly bestowed upon him to some
charitable use and for the public good, but was greatly embarrassed when
he came to fix his choice upon some design that was like to prove most
beneficial, and least liable to abuse. He tells us himself that upon
this occasion he diligently examined and considered the various rules of
the religious orders, and compared with them the lives of their several
professors; but was obliged with grief to declare that he could not
anywhere find that the ordinances of their founders, according to their
true design and intention, were at present observed by any of them. This
reflection affected him greatly, and inclined him to take the resolution
of distributing his riches to the poor with his own hands, rather than
employ them in establishing an institution which might become a snare
and an occasion of guilt to those for whose benefit it should be
designed. After much deliberation and devout invocation of the Divine
assistance, considering how greatly the number of the clergy had been of
late reduced by continual wars and frequent pestilences, he determined
at last to endeavour to remedy, as far as he was able, this desolation
of the church, by relieving poor scholars in their clerical education;
and to establish two colleges of students, for the honour of God and
increase of his worship, for the support and exaltation of the Christian
faith, and for the improvement of the liberal arts and sciences; hoping
and trusting that men of letters and various knowledge, and bred up in
the fear of God, would see more clearly and attend more strictly to the
obligation lying upon them to observe the rules and directions which he
should give them. Wykeham seems to have come to this resolution, and in
some measure to have formed in his mind his general plan, as early as
his becoming Bishop of Winchester; for we find that in little more than
two years after, he had made purchases of several parcels of ground in
the city of Oxford, which make the chief part of the site of his college
there. His college of Winchester, intended as a nursery for that of
Oxford, was part of his original plan; for as early as the year 1373,
before he proceeded any further in his design for the latter, he
established a school at Winchester, of the same kind with the former,
and for the same purpose. He agreed with Richard de Herton, that for ten
years, beginning from Michaelmas of the year above mentioned, he should
diligently instruct in grammatical learning as many poor scholars as the
bishop should send to him, and no others without his leave; that the
bishop should provide and allow him a proper assistant; and that Herton,
in case of his own illness or necessary absence, should substitute a
proper master to supply his place.
"Wykeham's munificence proceeded always from a constant generous
principle, a true spirit of liberality. It was not owing to a casual
impulse or a sudden emotion, but was the effect of mature deliberation
and prudent choice. His enjoyment of riches consisted in employing them
in acts of beneficence, and while they were increasing upon him, he was
continually devising proper means of disposing of them for the good of
the public, not delaying it till the time of his death, when he could
keep them no longer, nor leaving to the care of others what he could
better execute himself; but forming his good designs early, and, as soon
as he had the ability, putting them in execution, that he might have the
satisfaction of seeing the beneficial effects of them, and that by
constant observation and due experience he might from time to time
improve and perfect them, so as to render them yet more beneficial."
The pious and patriotic exertions of the good bishop were interrupted
for a time by a political storm which rose against him in 1376, the last
year of the reign of Edward III. He had been appointed one of the
council established to superintend the conduct of affairs on the
petition of the parliament which met in April of that year; and in
consequence became a principal object of the resentment of the Duke of
Lancaster and his party, who, after the death of the Black Prince in
June, and the rise of the parliament in July, took possession of the
superannuated and dying king, and proceeded to overthrow all the reforms
that had been lately made in the government, and to effect, as far as
they could, the ruin of all concerned in them. By the duke's contrivance
eight articles were exhibited against the bishop at the beginning of the
next Michaelmas term, charging him with various acts of pecuniary
defalcation, oppression, and other sorts of misgovernment while he had
been in office many years before as keeper of the privy seal and lord
chancellor. He was heard in his defence, before a commission of bishops,
peers, and privy councillors, about the middle of November, when
judgment was given against him upon one of the articles, involving at
the utmost a mere irregularity; and upon this, under the influence that
then prevailed at court, an order was immediately issued for the
sequestration of the revenues of his bishopric, and he was at the same
time forbidden, in the king's name, to come within twenty miles of the
court. The next parliament, which met on the 27th of January, 1377, was
wholly devoted to Lancaster; and when, soon after, on the petition of
the Commons, an act of general pardon was issued by the king, in
consideration of its being the year of his jubilee, the Bishop of
Winchester alone was specially excepted out of its provisions. All this,
in the circumstances of the time, may be taken as the best attestation
to Wykeham's patriotism and integrity. His brethren of the clergy,
however, assembled in convocation, now took up his cause with great
zeal; and, whether in consequence of their bold representations on the
subject to the king, or for some other reason, it was soon deemed
expedient to drop the proceedings against him, and on the 18th of June
his temporalities were restored to him, on condition of his fitting out
three ships of war for the defence of the kingdom and maintaining them
at sea for a quarter of a year. And even from this mulct he was released
on the accession of Richard II., a few days after. But the loss
nevertheless to which he had been subjected by his prosecution is said
to have amounted to ten thousand marks.
The instrument by which, on the accession of the young king, Wykeham
was relieved from the pains and penalties which a dominant party had
imposed upon him, is very full and explicit. It sets forth "that the
king, reflecting upon the great damages and hardships that the Bishop of
Winchester hath sustained on occasion of the said impeachment, and
revolving in his mind the many acceptable, useful, and laudable services
which the said bishop with great labour and expense hath long performed
for his grandfather, the many high offices which he hath held under his
grandfather and father, and the special affection and sincere love which
his father while he lived always bore towards the said bishop, out of
his special favour and with his certain knowledge, and also by advice
and consent of his uncle the Duke of Lancaster and other prelates and
lords of his council, remits and pardons all the aforesaid articles, and
all other crimes and offences whatsoever in the amplest terms, and in
the fullest manner, the exception of the said bishop in the Act of Grace
passed in the last parliament of the late king, and all other statutes
to the contrary notwithstanding; concluding with a clause to this
effect: 'Willing that all men should know that, although we have granted
to the Bishop of Winchester the said pardons and graces, nevertheless we
do not think the said bishop to be in anywise chargeable, in the sight
of God, with any of the matters thus by us pardoned, remitted, or
released unto him, but do hold him to be, as to all and every of them,
wholly innocent and guiltless.'"
His pardon was immediately followed by his employment in offices of
trust and authority, where his great abilities and force of character
gave assurance of a just and wise administration. As soon as Wykeham was
released from his troubles he hastened to apply himself anew to the
carrying forward and completion of his two colleges. The business of
teaching appears to have commenced both at Winchester and at Oxford in
1373; Pope Urban VI.'s bull of licence for founding Winchester College
was granted 1st June, 1378; the building of the College at Oxford, which
he called "St. Mary College of Winchester in Oxford," was begun in 1380,
and was finished in 1386; that of the College at Winchester was begun in
1387, and was finished in 1393. The papal bull confirming the statutes
of the college at Oxford is dated 19th July, 1398. As soon as his two
colleges were erected, he entered upon another great work, which still
remains a monument of his taste and munificence: he resolved to rebuild
his cathedral in the greater part of its extent. This undertaking he
commenced in 1395, and he just lived to see it brought to a close in
about ten years after.
The Bishop of Winchester was one of the fourteen persons appointed in
1386, on the petition of the parliament, instigated by the king's uncle,
the Duke of Gloucester, to be a council to the king for one year, and in
fact for that term to exercise all the powers of government. As soon as
the parliament was dismissed. Richard made an attempt to break from the
yoke thus imposed upon him; the commission and statute appointing the
council were declared by the judges, on the royal command, to be illegal
and null, and to have involved all who had been concerned in procuring
them in the guilt of treason. Upon this the Duke of Gloucester and his
friends raised an army of forty thousand men. Having encamped before
London, they sent a deputation, of which the Bishop of Winchester was a
member, to the king; the deputies were graciously received, and returned
with proposals for an accommodation; but in the mean time a body of
forces which had been raised for the king in Wales and Cheshire, under
the command of his minion the Duke of Ireland, was encountered by the
Earl of Derby and a part of the army of the confederated lords at
Radcott Bridge in Oxfordshire, and entirely defeated. This blow
compelled Richard to yield for the present. But in May, 1389, another
revolution in the government was effected by the king suddenly declaring
himself to be of age, and removing the Duke of Gloucester and his
friends from the council-board. He did not, however, dispense with the
services of the Bishop of Winchester, but, on the contrary, forced him
again to accept the great seal. Wykeham remained chancellor till the
27th of September, 1391, when he retired from office, Gloucester having
by this time been restored to his place in the council, and all parties
having been for the present again reconciled, in a great measure, it is
probable, through the bishop's mediation. From this date Wykeham appears
to have taken little or no share in public affairs. In 1397, when the
Duke of Gloucester was put to death, and several of those who had joined
him in taking arms in 1386 were attainted for that treason, the Bishop
of Winchester and others were, at the intercession of the Commons,
declared by the king from the throne in parliament not to have been
implicated in what their fellow-commissioners had done. Wykeham was
present in the parliament held 30th September, 1399, when Richard was
deposed, and also in the first parliament of Henry IV., summoned a few
days after; but this was the last which he attended. He continued,
however, in the active discharge of his episcopal duties for two or
three years longer, and was able to transact business till within four
days of his death, which took place at South Waltham, about eight
o'clock on the morning of Saturday the 27th of September, 1404.
We conclude with Lowth's just eulogium upon the high-minded munificence
of this remarkable man:--"We frequently hear of men who, by the force of
their genius, by their industry, or by their good fortune, have raised
themselves from the lowest stations to the highest degrees of honour,
power, and wealth; but how seldom do we meet with those who have made a
proper use of the advantages which they have thus happily acquired, and
considered them as deposited in their hands by Providence for the
general benefit of mankind? In this respect Wykeham stands an uncommon
and almost singular example of generosity and public spirit. By the time
that he had reached the meridian of life, he had acquired great wealth;
and the remainder of his days he employed not in increasing it to no
reasonable end, but in bestowing it in every way that piety, charity,
and liberality could devise. The latter half of a long life he spent in
one continued series of generous actions and great designs, for the good
of his friends, of the poor, and of his country. His beneficence was
ever vigilant, active, and persevering: it was not only ready to answer
when opportunity called, but sought it out when it did not offer itself.
No man seems to have tasted more sensibly the pleasure of doing good;
and no man had ever a greater share of this exquisite enjoyment. The
foundation of his colleges, the principal monuments of his munificence,
was as well calculated for the real use of the public, and as
judiciously planned as it was nobly and generously executed. Whatever
Wykeham's attainments in letters were, he had at least the good sense to
see that the clergy, though they had almost engrossed the whole learning
of that age, yet were very deficient in real and useful knowledge;
besides that by the particular distresses of the times, and the havoc
that several successive plagues had made in all ranks of the people, but
especially among the clergy, the church was at a loss for a proper
supply of such as were tolerably qualified for the performance of the
common service. It was not vanity and ostentation that suggested this
design to him; he was prompted to it by the notorious exigence of the
times and the real demands of the public. The deliberation with which he
entered upon it, and the constant attention with which he pursued it for
above thirty years, shows how much he set his heart upon the success of
his undertaking, and how earnestly he endeavoured to secure the
effectual attainment of the end proposed, the promotion of true piety
and learning. In a word, as he was in his own time a general blessing to
his country, in which his bounty was freely imparted to every object
that could come within the reach of his influence, so the memory of this
great man merits the universal regard of posterity, as of one whose
pious and munificent designs were directed to the general good of
mankind, and were extended to the latest ages."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] 'History of the Life of King Henry II.' i. 281.--Henry,
when he first made his appearance in England, attracted observation,
among other things, by being dressed, after the manner of boys in his
native country, in a coat or jacket with short skirts, or perhaps
without any skirts at all; whence they gave him the sobriquet of
_curt-mantle_. This we learn from the writer of 'Brompton's Chronicle,'
who, in giving an account of Henry's death, after telling us that those
present, in their rapacity, stripped the royal corpse, and that it lay
for a long time naked, till a boy threw over the lower part of it a
short cloak, absurdly observes that thus was fulfilled the surname which
the king had borne from his infancy, originally given to him because he
had first brought the fashion of the short coat from Anjou into
England.--Twisden, _Scriptores_ x. 1150.
[2] Twisden, Scriptores, p. 346.
[3] The original is, "De David legitur, ad commendationem
decoris ejus, quoniam rufus erat. Vos autem dominum regem subrufum
hactenus extitisse noveritis, nisi quia colorem hunc venerabilis
senectus et superveniens canities aliquantulum alteravit." The writer of
an amusing article on 'Ancient Collections of Private Letters,' in the
'Quarterly Review' for April, 1837 (vol. lviii, pp. 414-464), renders
the latter of these sentences thus:--"You are aware that his complexion
and hair were a little red, but the approach of old age has altered this
somewhat, and the hair is turning grey." Peter of Blois's Latin is not
purer than that of the generality of the writers of his age; but he
would not have used _noveritis_ for _novistis_, as this translation
would imply that he did. As to the sense in which he uses _rufus_ and
_subrufus_, there may be more doubt. In our English version of the
Bible, David is described as ruddy, or of a florid complexion; but the
word in the Vulgate is _rufus_, which, at least in middle-age Latin, may
signify either red-faced or red-haired. King William II., however, was
certainly called Rufus from the redness of his complexion--either
because it was excessive, or perhaps to distinguish him from his father
of the same name, who may have been a man of a dark complexion. On the
other hand, the immediately subsequent mention of the beginning greyness
(_superveniens canities_) may seem to favour the notion that Peter of
Blois means here to speak of David as having been red-haired, and of
Henry as having also had originally hair of a reddish colour. Dr.
Lingard, however, we observe, understands, as we have done, that what is
indicated is Henry's florid complexion. (_Hist. Eng._, ii. 194, edit. of
1837.) We may notice, by the bye, that the writer in the 'Quarterly
Review' has throughout his article inadvertently designated Henry II. as
Henry Beauclerc, whereas it was his grandfather, the first Henry, who
was known by that name.
[4] The Latin is "equestres tibiae," which the writer in the
'Quarterly Review,' amusingly enough, translates, "his shins like a
horse's." We presume there can be no doubt that what we have given in
the text is the true meaning. At any rate, the _tibiae_ described as
_equestres_ must be equestrian, not equine, shins or shanks--those of a
horseman, not of a horse.
[5] The original is "Vestibus utitur expeditis;" and the
Quarterly Reviewer's translation is, "He uses--a tight dress." _Vestis
expedita_ is not, we believe, a classical Latin phrase, and its
signification may perhaps admit of some doubt; but it ought to mean
rather a light than a tight dress.
[6] These two are in the same book.
[7] These two are in the same book.
[8] Poultry.
[9] Meet, fit, reasonable.
[10] For the night, apparently.
[11] Standards.
[12] Lord Hailes says the French term, _hastiers_, means stands
on each of which several spits were turned.
[13] Day.
[14] Descended
[15] Lose, ruin.
[16] When besieged in Hennebon by Charles of Blois, "the
Countess herself," says Froissart, "ware harness on her body, and rode
on a great courser fro street to street, desiring her people to make
good defence; and she caused damozelles and other women to cut short
their kirtles, and to carry stones, and pots full of chalk, to the
walls, to be cast down to their enemies. This lady did there an hardy
enterprise; she mounted up to the height of a tower to see how the
Frenchmen were ordered without; she saw how that all the lords and other
people of the host were all gone out of their field to the assault; then
she took again her courser, armed as she was, and caused three hundred
men a horseback to be ready, and she went with them to another gate,
whereas there was not assault; she issued out, and her company, and
dashed into the French lodgings, and cut down tents and set fire in
their lodgings; she found no defence there, but a certain of varlets and
boys, who ran away." On another occasion, in a sea-fight, we are told,
"the Countess that day was worth a man; she had the heart of a lion, and
had in her hand a sharp glaive, wherewith she fought fiercely."
[17] Duty.
[18] Honourable.
[19] Request.
[20] There are about twenty variations of the mode of spelling
the name. Wiclif, Wicliffe, and Wycliffe are the most common modes. In
strict propriety we ought to write _De_ Wiclif.
[21] In the Gentleman's Mag. 1841, an attempt was made to show
that the warden of Canterbury Hall was another John Wiclif (or
_Wiclive_). The writer proves that there was another of that name, then
rector of Mayfield in Sussex, for which living he was indebted to the
friendship of Islip, but he does not succeed in identifying him with the
warden of Canterbury; if the wardens of Canterbury and Baliol could be
shown to be different persons, it would, however, remove some
difficulties that had been pointed out long before this curious
discovery was made (see Vaughan's 'Life of Wycliffe,' i. 272, note).
Wiclif nowhere mentions his connexion with Canterbury Hall himself, but
it seems to be referred to by his contemporaries.