THE UNIVERSITY UNDER CHARLES I. AND LAUD.
[Sidenote: Parliament at Oxford]
The death of James I. and the succession of Charles I. produced no
break in the continuity either of national or of academical history.
With less shrewdness than his father, but more of dignity in his
character and bearing, Charles possessed equal obstinacy, and equally
regarded it as his mission to curtail the liberties of his people, in
the interests of the Crown, by the aid of the new State Church. The
profligate and unscrupulous Buckingham retained all his ascendency,
and was Charles’s trusted confidant in politics. Abbot was still
Archbishop of Canterbury, and crowned the young King in Westminster
Abbey, while Laud officiated as Dean of Westminster. But Laud was
Charles’s real adviser in Church affairs, and his evil counsels soon
brought about the disgrace of his rival, Abbot, when the archbishop,
reverting to his earlier principles, boldly opposed the arbitrary and
oppressive policy of the Court. Though he was no longer president of
St. John’s College, his influence over the academical body was never
relaxed, and was constantly exercised on behalf of Arminianism in the
Church, and absolutism in the State. It was some time, however, before
the University was directly affected by the storms which clouded the
political horizon from the very beginning of Charles’s reign. His first
Parliament, it is true, was adjourned to Oxford in the Long Vacation
of 1625, on account of the plague then raging in London, and all
the colleges and halls were cleared, by order of the Privy Council,
for the reception of the members. The Privy Council itself met at
Christchurch, the House of Commons sat in the divinity school, and the
Lords ‘in the north part of the picture gallery,’ but the Parliament,
having refused to grant supplies, was dissolved within a fortnight.
The plague, however, had followed it to Oxford, and the commencement
of Michaelmas term had to be postponed until November 9. In 1628 the
election of proctors was attended with more than ordinary tumult; the
Chancellor intervened, and ultimately the King took the matter into his
own hands, referring the decision of it to a committee, including Laud,
who practically dictated their nominees to the University Convocation.
In February 1629, the House of Commons, which had obtained the King’s
assent to the Petition of Right, took upon itself, by a letter from the
Speaker, to call for a return of all persons known to have contravened
the Articles of Religion. The proctors so far recognised the validity
of the order as to institute an inquiry, but Parliament was prorogued
not long afterwards, and the question seems to have dropped. The
incident, however, is not without its importance, as indicating the
disposition of Parliament, now roused into active opposition, to share
with the Crown the control of the University. On August 27 in the same
year, Charles I., during his stay at Woodstock, paid his first state
visit to Oxford, and was entertained with his queen in Merton College,
where she was destined to be lodged so long during the Civil War,
of which the premonitory signs were already visible to far-sighted
observers.
[Sidenote: Chancellorship of Laud]
In April 1630, the Earl of Pembroke died, and Laud, now bishop of
London, was elected Chancellor of the University by a very narrow
majority over Philip, Earl of Montgomery, Pembroke’s younger brother.
His chancellorship lasted eleven years, and was terminated by his
resignation in 1641. However narrow may have been his Church policy,
he was a true and loyal son of the University, by which he deserves to
be remembered as an earnest reformer and liberal benefactor. It was
at his instance that in 1629, the year before he became Chancellor,
a final end was put to the riotous election of proctors which had so
often disgraced the University for centuries. This was effected by the
simple device of constructing a cycle, extending over twenty-three
years, within which period a certain number of turns was assigned to
each college, according to its size and dignity. The inventor of this
cycle was Peter Turner, of Merton, a great mathematician in his day,
and it fulfilled its object by entrusting the nomination of proctors to
individual colleges, each of which could exercise a deliberate choice,
instead of leaving it to be fought out by the academical democracy.
This salutary change was accepted by the University Convocation on
the recommendation of the king and the Earl of Pembroke, but its real
originator was Laud. His efforts to reform the discipline and morals
of the University were equally well meant, though conceived in an
almost Puritanical spirit which might have won the approval of the
‘Precisians,’ who hated him so bitterly, and not without good cause.
These efforts extended to the colleges of which he was Visitor, and
were carried to the length of minutely regulating every detail of
University life. Attendance at sermons and services, the conduct of
disputations in theology and arts, the relations between Masters of
Arts and Bachelors or students, the forms and fashions of academical
costume, the proper length of scholars’ hair, the hours of meals, the
custody of college gates, the presentation to college benefices, the
management of college property, the use of Latin in conversation as
well as formal business, the enforcement of purity in elections to
fellowships—such are some of the academical concerns which received
from Laud as careful attention as the highest interests of the Church
and the monarchy. In one respect, indeed, the policy of Laud strongly
resembled that of Leicester, for both maintained their influence by
favouritism, and kept up a regular correspondence with confidential
agents at Oxford, through whom they were informed of everything
that passed there. But while Leicester’s inquisitorial vigilance was
directed not only against disturbers of the peace but against persons
suspected of Romanism, that of Laud was directed against Puritans and
Calvinists.
[Sidenote: Compilation of Laudian Statutes]
The greatest and most permanent result of Laud’s chancellorship
was the compilation of the famous code, known as the ‘Laudian’ or
‘Caroline’ Statutes, which continued to govern the University for more
than two centuries. From time immemorial, the University had claimed
and exercised the power of making, repealing, and revising its own
statutes. Under the chancellorship of Archbishop Warham, in 1513, this
power had been delegated to a committee of seven, and again, in 1518,
it was delegated to Cardinal Wolsey, in spite of the Chancellor’s
protest; but in both cases, it was the University Congregation which
conferred the commission, under which, however, very little seems
to have been done. The commissioners of Edward VI. were appointed
under the Great Seal, and drew up the ‘Edwardine Statutes,’ by virtue
of an authority independent of the University. Cardinal Pole, on
the contrary, issued his Ordinances, in his capacity of Chancellor,
provisionally only, until a delegacy of Convocation should decide upon
the necessary alterations. Similar delegacies were appointed by the
authority of Convocation, as it was then called, on several occasions
during the reign of Elizabeth; and though in the reigns of her two
successors many ordinances were sent down by the Crown, they were
not accepted as operative until they had been embodied in statutes,
or adopted in express terms by Convocation. Even in 1628, when the
proctors had endeavoured to obstruct the proposed statutes regulating
proctorial elections, and the king threatened with his condign
displeasure those who should persist in opposing them, Convocation went
through the form of enacting them by its own decree. The same course
was taken in 1629, under Lord Pembroke’s chancellorship, but at Laud’s
instigation, when the delegacy was nominated to codify the statutes,
which then lay, as Laud said, ‘in a miserable confused heap.’ The
work occupied four years, and, when it was completed, the University
placed the new code in the hands of Laud, with full power to make
additions or alterations. He corrected the draught, and in July 1634
directed a copy to be deposited in each college or hall for a year,
during which amendments might be suggested. At last, in June 1636,
Laud finally promulgated, and the King solemnly confirmed, the ‘Corpus
Statutorum,’ as they were officially designated, and the University
Convocation formally accepted them, with the most fulsome professions
of gratitude to its Chancellor, and of confidence in the eternity of
their own legislation. This confidence was not, and could not be,
justified by events; but an impression long prevailed that the Laudian
statutes, though capable of extension, were as incapable of alteration
as the laws of the Medes and Persians. It is, indeed, very remarkable
that, with a few trifling additions, these statutes proved capable of
being worked practically until they were superseded, in many essential
particulars, by the University Reform Act of 1854.
[Sidenote: Main provisions of the Laudian Statutes]
These statutes were for the most part, a digest of those already in
force, but embodied also new regulations of great importance, such
as those for the government of the University by the ‘Hebdomadal
Board,’ for the election of proctors according to the cycle recently
established, for the nomination of ‘collectors’ (to preside over
‘determinations’), and for the conduct of public examinations. The
principle of placing the main control of academical affairs in the
hands of heads of colleges and halls had already been established
by Leicester, but it was now reduced to a fundamental law, and the
vice-chancellor, with the Heads of Houses and proctors, was formally
entrusted with the whole administration of the University. This statute
effectually stereotyped the administrative monopoly of the colleges,
and destroyed all trace of the old democratic constitution which had
been controlled only by the authority of the mediæval Church. The same
oligarchical tendency may be discerned in the statute which converted
the popular and public election of proctors by the common suffrages of
all the Masters into a private election by the Doctors and Masters of
a certain standing in each college, however beneficial its effect may
have been in checking the abuses of tumultuous canvassing. While the
dignity of the procuratorial office was thus sensibly reduced, that of
the vice-chancellor’s office was proportionably enhanced. The Laudian
Code legalised the practice resumed by Leicester, directing that the
vice-chancellor should be nominated annually from the heads of colleges
by the Chancellor, with the assent of Convocation. As vicegerent of the
Chancellor, and chairman of the Hebdomadal Board, he gradually acquired
a position of greater authority and independence than had formerly
belonged to him. Under Laud’s chancellorship, indeed, he was expected
to make a weekly report to his chief on the state of the University;
but later Chancellors were neither so conscientious nor so meddlesome,
and, in default of urgent necessity for their intervention, were at
last content to be regarded as ornamental personages, rather than as
the actual rulers of the University. One of the vice-chancellor’s chief
duties at this period was to guard the orthodoxy of the University
pulpit, and there are numerous instances of preachers being summoned
before him for controverting Arminian doctrines, and forced to sign
humble recantations of their errors. Where they proved refractory, the
royal prerogative was promptly invoked to coerce them.
[Sidenote: Studies and examinations under the Laudian Statutes]
The course of study, and standard of examination, prescribed by
the Laudian statutes were so much beyond the requirements of later
times that we may well doubt whether either can have been strictly
enforced. The B.A. degree, which then concluded the first stage of
an academical career, might be taken at the end of the fourth year,
and the student was bound to have attended lectures in grammar,
rhetoric, the Ethics, Politics, and Economics of Aristotle, logic,
moral philosophy, geometry, and Greek. In order to attain the M.A.
degree, three more years were to be spent in studying geometry,
astronomy, metaphysics, natural philosophy, Greek, and Hebrew. Making
every allowance for the longer residence of those days, as well as for
the lower conception of proficiency in these subjects, we cannot but
admire the comprehensive range of this curriculum, and admit that if
it was actually accomplished by a majority of students, the race of
passmen in the seventeenth century must have been cast in an heroic
mould. Disputations, which had long fallen into discredit, were now
superseded by a system of public examinations, the germs of which are
to be found in an obsolete statute of 1588, if not in the earlier
statutes of Edward VI. The examinations for the B.A. and M.A. degrees,
respectively, were to be in the subjects in which the candidates were
statutably bound to have previously heard lectures, and special regard
was to be paid to fluency in Latin, but they can scarcely have been
effective according to modern ideas. They were to be conducted, in
rotation, by all the regent masters, under the orders of the senior
proctor; the method of interrogation seems to have been exclusively
oral; and the authority of Aristotle was to be paramount within the
whole sphere of his voluminous writings. As the ordinary period of
residence waxed shorter, and the University relaxed its authority over
its own teachers, the examination system of Laud, though it nominally
survived for more than a century and a half, became almost as illusory
as the old scholastic disputations.
[Sidenote: Services of Laud to the University]
The effusive gratitude manifested by the University towards Laud, on
the publication of his ‘Caroline’ statutes, was partly, no doubt,
the expression of party spirit, but it was also justified by his
great services. He presented to the Library a splendid collection of
Oriental manuscripts, besides procuring valuable gifts of literary
treasures from others; he founded and endowed the professorship of
Arabic; he persuaded the King to annex canonries of Christchurch to
the professorship of Hebrew and the office of Public Orator—which
last grant was never confirmed by Parliament; he obtained for the
University the right of printing Bibles, hitherto the monopoly of the
King’s printers; and he secured for it a new charter extending all
its ancient liberties and privileges. Two important acquisitions made
by the University under the chancellorship of Laud are not known to
have been specially due to his initiative. The earlier of these was
the foundation of the Botanic Gardens in 1632, though its completion
was delayed by the Civil War. The Convocation House, adjoining the
Divinity School, was begun in 1634 and finished in 1638, with an
extension of the Bodleian Library above it, and the _apodyterium_ at
its north end, where the Chancellor’s Court is still held. It was
first used in October 1638. By this time, if we may trust Anthony
Wood, the University had recovered its popularity, and numbered at
least 4,000 scholars. No wonder that loyal sons of Oxford looked back
with fond regret to Laud’s chancellorship during the evil days of the
Civil War and the Commonwealth. Nor should it be forgotten that if his
intolerance of schism made him a persecutor of the Puritans, he also
set himself to exclude Romish priests from the University; or that he
reconverted Chillingworth to Anglicanism, and rewarded with a canonry
the learning of John Hales, whose views of Church government conflicted
greatly with his own.
[Sidenote: Last five years of Laud’s chancellorship]
Though Laud continued to preside over the University until 1641, the
glory of his chancellorship was crowned by a solemn visit of the King
and Queen to Oxford at the end of August 1636. This visit lasted
three days, and was attended by all the usual ceremonials, including
the performance of comedies at Christchurch, and St. John’s, Laud’s
own college. The Elector Palatine and his brother, the famous Prince
Rupert, received honorary M.A. degrees on this occasion. After this
it may well be imagined that Laud had little or no leisure for
academical cares until his resignation of the chancellorship by a
pathetic letter dated from the Tower on June 26, 1641. Within this
interval of five years, the great controversy about the payment of
ship-money had come to a head; judgment had been given against John
Hampden; Prynne, Burton, and Eastwick had been condemned to the pillory
for their writings; Charles’s fourth Parliament had met after eleven
years of personal government and been promptly dissolved; the Scotch
army, after halting on the border in 1639, had invaded Yorkshire in
1640; the High Commission Court had been closed for ever; the Long
Parliament had commenced its sittings, and impeached both Strafford
and Laud; the Triennial Act had been passed; the bishops had been
excluded from the House of Lords; the King had agreed that Parliament
should not be adjourned or dissolved without its own consent; Strafford
had been executed; and the ‘Root and Branch Bill’ for the abolition
of Episcopacy had been read in the Commons. Nevertheless, Laud had
found time for close and constant attention to University and college
business. It was in 1638 that he instituted a regular examination
for the B.A. and M.A. degrees. In 1639, he sent another donation of
books, gave stringent directions for the repression of disorders in
the Convocation House, and made special efforts to put down drinking
parties in colleges and halls, which had come into vogue, since
‘the scholars (not excepting the seniors) had been hunted out of
alehouses and taverns by the vice-chancellor and proctors constant
walking’—a result of his own disciplinary vigour. In November 1640,
he sent his last present of books, pleading a want of leisure, for
the first time, in excuse for the brevity of his letter. He was now
in the hands of his enemies, and it was freely alleged in the House
of Commons that, through his influence, the University was infected
with Popery. Accordingly, on December 14, a statement was drawn up and
signed by all the Heads of Houses, except Rogers, Principal of New Inn
Hall, declaring ‘that they knew not any one member of this University
guilty of, or addicted to, Popery.’ Parliament, however, ordered the
books and registers of the University to be sent up to London, with a
view of extracting materials from the Acts of Convocation to serve as
evidence against Laud. Among the offences imputed to him at his trial,
several related specially to his administration of the University. He
was accused of causing old crucifixes to be repaired and new ones to
be set up; of turning Communion tables ‘altarwise,’ railing them in,
and enjoining that obeisance should be made to them; of encouraging
the use of copes; of instituting Latin prayers in Lent; of introducing
superstitious processions; above all, of erecting ‘a very scandalous
statue of the Virgin Mary, with Christ in her arms,’ over the new porch
of St. Mary’s Church. Some of these alleged acts were denied by the
archbishop; others were admitted and defended as consistent with the
received doctrine of the Church. Perhaps none of them would be regarded
by an impartial critic of Laud’s trial as heinous enough to sustain a
charge of high treason, or, indeed, as having any bearing whatever on
such a charge.
[Sidenote: Eminent members of the University in the generation
preceding the Civil Wars]
Whatever may have been the shortcomings of Oxford in the generation
which preceded the Civil War, it certainly produced a number of
men whose learning and piety might have adorned a happier and more
peaceful age. Among the Heads of colleges who held office under Laud’s
short chancellorship were John Prideaux, Sir Nathaniel Brent, Gilbert
Sheldon, Brian Duppa, Samuel Fell, and Juxon, and while the headships
of colleges were filled by such men as these, others not less eminent
represented the University in other capacities. In his rectory at
Penshurst, and afterwards in his rooms at Christchurch, Hammond was
maturing a theological knowledge which has placed him among standard
English divines; Bainbridge was prosecuting at Merton important
researches in astronomical science; Earle, afterwards tutor to Prince
Charles, and bishop of Salisbury, was serving in the office of senior
proctor; Selden was acting as burgess for the University; and Brian
Twyne was amassing those antiquarian stores which supplied the most
valuable materials for the marvellous industry of Anthony Wood.
[Sidenote: University life in the generation preceding the Civil Wars]
The characteristic features of University life in the period
immediately preceding the Civil War contrasted equally with those which
had distinguished it in the Middle Ages and those which distinguish
it in the present day. The academical community had become far less
democratic and more outwardly decorous since the suppression of
‘chamber-dekyns,’ and the concentration of all the students into
colleges and halls. The Heads of colleges, invested with special
privileges and absolute control over University legislation, were now
permanently resident, and had greater power of keeping good order
than had ever belonged to the proctors, vainly striving to enforce
discipline among thousands of beggarly non-collegiate students. On
the other hand, there was less unity in college society; for, while
Bachelor fellows were still an inferior grade, and bound to ‘cap’
Master fellows in the quadrangles, a new class of ‘commoners’ had
sprung up, mostly consisting of richer men, and holding aloof from
members of the foundation. ‘Town and gown rows’ were not unknown,
and the ancient jealousy between the city and the University was
intensified by the growth of religious and political differences; but
the peace was far better kept, and the streets of Oxford were no longer
the scene of sanguinary affrays. Whether the morality of the students
was essentially improved is open to more doubt. Judging by the constant
repetition of censures on their conduct from chancellors and Visitors,
we might infer that Oxford was quite demoralised. After all, however,
most of these censures are not so much directed against grave offences
as against extravagance in dress and breaches of academical decorum,
and it is impossible not to suspect that over-regulation had something
to do with the perverse neglect of rules among undergraduates. It is
the variety of legitimate outlets for youthful spirits and energy
which in modern times has been found the best antidote for youthful
vices, and if we realise the conditions of undergraduate society in the
earlier part of the seventeenth century, we shall rather be disposed
to wonder at the standard of virtue being so high as it seems to have
been. One of these conditions was the overcrowding of colleges due to
the disappearance of hostels. Where two or three students habitually
shared the same room, and a poor scholar rarely enjoyed the comfort of
a bed to himself, unless it were a truckle-bed in his patron’s chamber,
the self-respect and graceful courtesy which is now traditional
among well-bred young Englishmen at the University could scarcely be
cultivated at all. The tutorial system already existed in colleges,
and the personal relations thus established between tutors and pupils
were sometimes productive of very beneficial results; but outside these
relations there was little sympathy and kindly intercourse between
members of different colleges or different classes in the same college.
Manly sports were not unknown, but they were chiefly of the rougher
sort, and discouraged by the authorities. We hear little of boating, or
even of riding, and cricket had not yet been invented, but football was
vigorously played, and led to so many warlike encounters between the
combatants that it was regarded with little favour by vice-chancellors.
Archery was still practised, as well as quoits, and ninepins or
skittles, but these last games were coupled with bull-baiting,
bear-baiting, cock-fights, common plays, and public shows, in official
warnings to undergraduates against unlawful pastimes. Even James I.,
who prided himself on his ‘Book of Sports’ as much as on his invectives
against tobacco, issued royal letters condemning them, apparently
because, though not intrinsically evil, they brought great crowds of
people together, who might break out into disorder. In short, it may
safely be said that an Oxford student in the reigns of James I. and
Charles I. had less recognised liberty than a public-school boy in the
reign of Victoria, the natural result of which was that he was all
the more disposed to rebel against discipline. Meanwhile his studies,
though mainly classical in their subjects, and mainly conducted within
the walls of his college, were largely scholastic in their methods. The
University was still, above all, a training-school for the clerical
profession rather than for the general world.