chapels:--
1. Peterhouse (xvii c.){188a}
2. Michaelhouse (none).
3. King’s Hall (chapel built temp. Edw. IV., and Ric. III. The site
of the present chapel of Trinity College).
4. Clare (1535. The existing chapel is 1764).{188b}
5. Gonville.{188c}
6. Trinity Hall 1474.
7. Corpus 1500, and 1579 (the existing chapel is on the site of the
latter, and was erected 1823).
Existing xvi c. chapels:--
Christ’s 1505 (the original chapel, but defaced); Trinity,
completed 1564-7.
At Caius, the present chapel is on the site of the xvi c. chapel;
and at S. John’s a xix c. structure replaces the xvi c. one, near
the same site.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE GATEWAY, QUEENS’ COLLEGE
This old gateway forms the principal entrance to the College from
Queens’ Lane.]
The oldest ecclesiastical site and building incorporated with a
Cambridge college is therefore the chapel of Jesus (but cf. S. John’s p.
126); the site of the earliest college chapel is at Pembroke--but it is
a site merely; the oldest existing college chapel is King’s.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Queens’ College. A.D. 1448.]
The charter for the foundation of Queens’ College is dated 15 April
1448, but by this date its north and east ranges were already built.
Queen Margaret of Anjou had been so impressed with the beauty and
majesty of the plans for King’s College that she could find no rest till
she had projected her own foundation--Queens’; to endow and perfect
which she set to work with holy emulation; dedicating it in her turn to
her patron saint, Margaret the legendary Virgin and Martyr whose body is
shown at Montefiascone, and to Bernard of Citeaux. Two years previously
the principal of S. Bernard’s hostel had founded a college of S.
Bernard, the site of which he changed in 1447 to the present site of
Queens’. This formed the moral nucleus of the queens’ college; but she
obtained the larger part of the ground, near King’s, from the
Carmelites. This is one of the three colleges in Cambridge built of red
brick, S. John’s and S. Catherine’s being the others. The Queens’
quadrangle is, as Messieurs Willis and Clark tell us, the earliest now
remaining which claims attention for its architectural beauty. It is 99
feet east and west by 84 north and south.[189] The plan is not only a
very perfect example of college architecture, but is a model of the xv
century English manor-house, of the type of Haddon Hall;[190] so that
Queens’ College is as homogeneous a structure as King’s is
heterogeneous. The hall is on the west, adjoining it is the combination
room, above, the President’s lodging with a bedchamber over it. The
north side is kept for the chapel and for the library which is on the
first floor. The chambers are on the east and south sides, the gateway
being in the former. As in other colleges the passage to the grounds
(or, as in this case, to the second court) is between the hall and the
butteries. The west side of the quadrangle which was gradually
cloistered forms the east side of the second court, and is washed by the
Cam. The beautiful gallery on the north has formed part of the lodge
since the xvi century,[191] and connects the old
[Illustration: AN OLD COURT IN QUEENS’ COLLEGE
This is the Cloister Court. In the quaint sixteenth century buildings on
the left is the Gallery, and facing the spectator is the doorway into
the First Court. The Hall is seen on the right of this doorway.]
president’s lodging with a set of rooms on the west side, among which is
the audit room now used as a dining room.
Queens’, like King’s, was originally built with a chapel, and in both
instances the foundation stone of the chapel was that of the college. A
new chapel and buildings now lie beyond the President’s garden on the
north. There is a small court on the south of the cloister court which
contains the rooms occupied by Erasmus, overhanging the college kitchen.
Besides Erasmus, who lived here for at least four years, Fisher was
there as President of the college until 1508, and Old Fuller was another
of its worthies. Henry Bullock, the opposer of Protestantism and friend
of Erasmus, was a fellow, so was Sir T. Smith; Bishop Pearson[192] and
Ockley _alumni_. Henry Hastings Earl of Huntingdon, whose portrait hangs
in the audit room, Manners Earl of Rutland, George Duke of Clarence,
Cecilia Duchess of York, and Maud Countess of Oxford, were among its
benefactors. But its chief benefactor was Andrew Doket, a friar (of what
order is not known) and its first President, who saved the fortunes of
the college after the fall of the House of Lancaster.[193] The picture
of principal interest is also to be found in the lodge--Holbein’s
portrait of Erasmus which was painted during a visit made at the
scholar’s request to England.
The college was originally endowed for a president and 4 fellows, and
their principal study was to be theology. There are now 11 fellowships,
and about 18 scholarships which vary in value from £30 to £60.
Queens’ College is a monument of peace. The Yorkist queen Elizabeth
Woodville continued Margaret of Anjou’s work, and the two queens are the
co-founders of the college. It is Elizabeth Woodville whose portrait
looks down upon us in the hall, and it was she who changed Queen
Margaret’s dedication and called their joint work Queens’ College.[194]
It is also a monument to the unambitious but well-defined revival of
learning that marked the reign of Edward IV., of which Woodville Earl
Rivers, the queen’s brother, Tiptoft Earl of Worcester, and Caxton
himself are the representatives.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Kingly visitors to the university.]
Both King’s and Queens’ Colleges have offered hospitality on several
occasions to English sovereigns. Henry VI. came to lay the foundation
stone of King’s in 1441 and was at King’s Hall in 1445-6 (when he laid
the foundation stone of his second college?), in 1448-9 and in
1452-3.[195] Edward IV. visited the university in 1463 and 1476.
[Illustration: QUEENS’ COLLEGE FROM THE RIVER FRONT
On the left is seen the garden front of the President’s Lodge. The
wooden bridge designed by Etheridge (1749) is known as the Mathematical
Bridge. In the distance are the two old mills--the King’s Mill and the
Bishop’s Mill.]
Henry VII. paid five visits to Cambridge and stayed at Queens’ in 1498
and again in 1506 when he occupied a chamber near the audit room. It was
on this occasion that he attended the service for the eve of S. George’s
day in King’s College chapel clad in the robes of the Garter. Henry
VIII. was by his father’s side during this visit, and came again in
1522. Mary came as far as Sir Robert Huddleston’s when Jane Grey was
proclaimed. Elizabeth was entertained in the Provost’s lodge of King’s,
and it was when repairing to her rooms there after the solemn service in
the chapel that she thanked God “that had sent her to this university
where she was so received as she thought she could not be better.” James
I. visited Cambridge twice in 1615 and was again at Trinity College in
1623 and 1624; Charles I. (who had been Nevile’s guest in 1613) was
entertained there in 1632 and 1642; and Charles II. in the long gallery
at S. John’s in 1681. Anne was there in 1705, George I. in 1717, and
George II. in 1728. Queen Victoria came in 1843 and again in 1847 when
the Prince Consort was installed as Chancellor; and Edward VII. visited
the university in February 1904.
John had been in Cambridge the month before his death, September 1216;
Henry III. was there in the second year of his reign (1218); Edward I.
was there as Prince of Wales in 1270, and lodged again in the castle in
1294. Edward II. was the guest of Barnwell priory in 1326. Edward III.
was there in September 1328. Richard II. was also lodged at Barnwell in
1388.
The Conqueror had been at Cambridge in 1070.
Matilda is the first queen-consort whom we can picture visiting the
university town; Eleanor of Castile was frequently at Walsingham with
Edward,[196] and she gave as we shall see a “chest” to the university.
Margaret of Anjou was never there, but Elizabeth Woodville came in 1468.
The mother of Henry VII. also came to see her college in 1505 and again
with the king in 1506. Elizabeth of York accompanied Henry VII. in 1498;
Catherine of Aragon slept at Queens’ in 1519; and Henrietta Maria was
with the king in 1631-2.
* * * * *
The erection of King’s and Queens’ Colleges opened a period of college
building which lasted sixty years, and closed with the foundation of S.
John’s (in 1509).
[Sidenote: S. Catherine’s College, 1473.]
In 1473 Robert Woodlark chancellor of the university and third provost
of King’s, and one of the original scholars of that foundation, built a
small college dedicated to the Glorious Virgin Martyr S. Catherine of
Alexandria, with the object of extending “the usefulness of Church
preaching, and the study of theology, philosophy, and other arts within
the Church of England.” The present red brick structure was erected two
hundred years later, this being the only college except Clare which has
been entirely rebuilt since its foundation. S. Catherine’s, or “Cat’s”
as the
[Illustration: GATEWAY OF ST. CATHERINE’S COLLEGE
This is a view of the old Renaissance Gateway (1679), being the entrance
to the College from Queens’ Lane.] undergraduate familiarly calls it,
is remarkable for the number of bishops it has educated, among whom were
Archbishop Sandys, May of Carlisle, Brownrigg of Exeter, all of whom
were Masters of the college, as was Overall of Norwich who migrated from
S. John’s: John Lightfoot, the orientalist, was its 16th Master, and
Strype (who came here from Jesus), James Shirley the last of the
dramatists,[197] Ray the naturalist, and Addenbrooke the founder of the
well known hospital of that name at Cambridge, were also educated here.
The hall[198] was founded for a master and 3 fellows, and now maintains
6 fellows and 26 scholars.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Jesus College 1495.]
The next college is a solitary instance of the adaptation of monastic
architecture to collegiate purposes in Cambridge. Alcock Bishop of Ely
and joint lord chancellor with Rotherham obtained from Alexander VI.
(1496/7) the dissolution of the ancient Benedictine nunnery of S.
Rhadegund, and founded there a college which he dedicated to the
_Blessed Virgin Mary, S. John Evangelist, and the glorious Virgin S.
Rhadegund_. Its name of Jesus College records the growing cult of the
name of Jesus, and the substitution was approved by the founder
himself.[199]
If at Queens’ we are in a xv century manor-house, at Jesus we are in a
monastery; and might well imagine ourselves for a moment back in one of
the busiest centres of old Cambridge if we pace the cloisters just
before hall time when the stir is suggestive of the life of a great
monastery. Even the legend “Song Room” over a doorway falls in with the
illusion. James I. said that if he lived in the university he would pray
at King’s, eat at Trinity, and study and sleep at Jesus.
The chapel is the original conventual church[200] as rebuilt by Alcock.
It contains xii century work, and represents the transition from Norman
to Early English. The character of the college has been consistently
evangelical in spite of the fact that Bancroft the Laudian archbishop
before Laud, was here, and that he migrated here from Christ’s on
account of the latter’s reputation for Puritanism. Cranmer was scholar,
and fellow until his marriage, and was readmitted fellow when his wife
died a year later. Archbishops Bancroft and Sterne, Laurence Sterne,
Bale Bishop of Ossory, Strype, Fulke Greville, Fenton, Fawkes (the
poet), Hartley, and S. T. Coleridge were members. The college which was
founded for 6 fellows and 6 scholars, now maintains 16 fellows and some
20 scholars. The statutes
[Illustration: GATEWAY OF JESUS COLLEGE]
were indited by James Stanley Bishop of Ely, stepson of Lady Margaret,
and modified by his successor Nicholas West. Jesus College scholars were
commended by the founder to the perpetual tutelage of the bishops of
Ely, who when they lie there are said to lie in their own house.[201]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Christ’s College A.D. 1505.]
Ten years later a most interesting foundation was made. A college called
God’s House had, as we have seen, been founded in the reign of Henry VI.
and was appropriated by that monarch as part of the site of King’s
College. The foundation was a far-off echo of the plague in the previous
century, and when the king took possession of the site he appears to
have intended to endow a considerable college in its place in the parish
of S. Andrew where he erected another God’s House.[202] It was this
design, left unfulfilled (for the house only supported four of the
sixty scholars whom Henry VI. had himself proposed to maintain there)
that John Fisher, chancellor of the university and Bishop of Rochester,
brought to the notice of Lady Margaret Beaufort, daughter of the first
Duke of Somerset, Countess of Richmond and Derby, the wife of Edmund
Tudor and mother of Henry VII.; and on the site of God’s House she
erected her own Christ’s College, and made John Sickling its Proctor
first Master. The quadrangle was encased in stone in the xviii century,
but the gateway with its statue and armorials of the founder, and the
oriel over the entrance to the Master’s lodge recall the founder’s time.
Facing the gateway are the hall, the old combination room, and the
lodge, and above were a set of rooms reserved for the founder’s own use;
a turret staircase led therefrom to both hall and garden, as was the
custom in a master’s lodge. On the east of this “Tree court” is a
building in the renascence style, thought to be one of the finest
examples in England, and to have been the work of Inigo Jones (1642).
The gold plate of the college was a bequest of Lady Margaret’s and there
is none finer in the university. Christ’s is also noted for its gardens.
No college has been richer in great men. Milton was here for seven
years, Henry More the Platonist, Latimer the scholar-bishop and martyr,
Leland the antiquary, Nicholas Saunderson, Paley of the “Evidences,”
Archbishops Grindal and Bancroft, Bishop Porteous,
[Illustration: THE GATEWAY OF CHRIST’S COLLEGE FROM ST. ANDREW’S STREET
The Gateway is coeval with the founding of the College, and dates from
the first decade of the sixteenth century.]
Sir Walter Mildmay,[203] Charles Darwin, and Sir John Seeley. Lightfoot
the great Hebraist of his century, and Cudworth, were both Masters in
the xvii century; and in the previous century Exmew the Carthusian
martyr (1535) and Richard Hall (afterwards Canon of Cambray), Fisher’s
biographer, were inmates. Here Milton wrote his hymn on the Nativity,
and here he formed his friendship with Edward King--fellow of the
college--in whose memory _Lycidas_ was written.
The college was endowed for 12 fellows at least, half of whom were to
hail from those northern counties in which both Lady Margaret and Fisher
were interested; the total endowment was for 60 persons. There are now
15 fellowships, 30 scholarships (£30 to £70) and some 4 sizarships of
the value of £50 a year.[204]
Grammar, the original study of God’s House,[205] and arts were to be
studied in addition to theology, but excluding law and medicine; and for
the first time in college statutes lectures on the classical orators and
poets are provided for, an attention to polite letters for their own
sake which is supposed to have been due to the influence of Erasmus.
[Sidenote: The Lady Margaret.]
The Lady Margaret, for with this title alone her memory is preserved at
both universities, has, perhaps, no rival in Cambridge as both an
interesting and an important figure in its history. She appears to have
been one of the first in that age to understand that the university was
to replace the monastery as the channel of English learning, and to
endow colleges rather than religious houses. The two splendid
foundations which owe their existence to her bear upon them a stronger
personal impress than others. Alone of non-resident founders she
retained for her own use a lodge in the college she founded. An anecdote
when she was staying at Christ’s, preserved for us by Fuller, comes
across the centuries vivid with her personality. There is no episode in
any university to compare with the scholastic partnership of Lady
Margaret and Bishop Fisher, her chaplain, perpetual chancellor of the
university, and Master of Michaelhouse. Both were in their measure
“reformers before the reformation,” both joined to the spirit of piety
an abounding appreciation of the spirit of knowledge. At Cambridge and
Oxford she founded those readerships in theology known as the Lady
Margaret Professorships, and at Cambridge she instituted the Lady
Margaret preachership. She died on 29 June 1509, and Erasmus wrote her
epitaph in Westminster Abbey.[206]
[Sidenote: Cardinal Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and perpetual
chancellor of the university.]
Fisher lived many years after her, and completed the foundation of S.
John’s. He pronounced that discourse at her obsequies which is our chief
source of information about her.[207] Fisher was imprisoned, like Thomas
More, for refusing to admit the
[Illustration: THE FELLOWS’ BUILDING IN CHRIST’S COLLEGE
This building is in the Second Court. The design is attributed to Inigo
Jones. Through it we pass into the Fellows’ Garden, where we shall find
the famous mulberry tree sacred to Milton.]
royal supremacy in things ecclesiastical; covered with rags, and worn
with neglect and ill-treatment, but consoled by a filial and courageous
letter from his sons at S. John’s, he was led out to die on June 22,
1534, the New Testament in his hand open at the words: “This is eternal
life, to know Thee the only true God.” He stands alone among the bishops
of England to give his life for the principle for which the layman
Thomas More laid down his. Pole in a letter to Charles V. narrates that
Henry VIII. had said he supposed “that I” (Pole) “had never in all my
travels met one who in letters and virtue could be compared to the
Bishop of Rochester.”
* * * * *
[Sidenote: S. John’s College, A.D. 1509.]
We next come to the most splendid foundation hitherto realised at
Cambridge. The site chosen for a college which held its place through
the xvi century as the first and most brilliant society in the
university, could not have been more appropriate. It was that of S.
John’s Hospital, the first home of Cambridge students, the nucleus of
the university, erected soon after the Conquest in the heart of the
Norman town, and whence the first endowed scholars in christendom set
forth to found a college.[208]
The whole history of the university is epitomised in the street which
has S. John’s at one end of it and Peterhouse at the other: the bishops
of Ely have firm hold of either end, and lying against S. John’s is that
Pythagoras House which Merton bought from the Dunnings when he was
planning his famous foundation in the xiii century. We have seen that it
was at S. John’s Hospital that Balsham introduced secular scholars in
the same century, who should become _unum corpus et unum collegium_ with
the canons. The experiment did not succeed, and the canons saw the
scholars depart with great relief to the other end of what was to prove
the great street of colleges, whose limits were determined by this early
conflict between seculars and religious.
In what year the Ely scholars were settled at S. John’s remains
uncertain, although there is no more important date in Cambridge
history. Simon Montacute, Bishop of Ely, “who knew very well” as the
historian of S. John’s observes, says that the scholars had continued
there _per longa tempora_, and Baker
[Illustration: MILTON’S MULBERRY TREE IN THE FELLOWS’ GARDEN, CHRIST’S
COLLEGE
King James I. is said to have introduced the culture of the mulberry
tree, and it is probable that the one in this garden is the last
survivor of a number bought in 1609. Milton was admitted to this College
in 1625.]
considers that in no construction of words can this be understood
otherwise than as referring to the beginning of Hugh Balsham’s prelacy
at Ely.[209] The licence permitting the seculars to be engrafted on the
old stock with their own endowment, is dated the ninth year of Edward I.
(1280)[210] and the transference to Peterhouse took place three years
after; but the date of the royal licence is no proof that the work to
which it refers was initiated rather than completed and crowned in that
year; Margaret of Anjou, for example, obtained her licence when three
sides of the quadrangle at Queens’ were nearing completion.[211] In any
case the few months intervening between December 23, 1280 and the
decision to remove to Peterhouse could not be described as a “long
time,” and as Balsham had become bishop of the diocese in 1257 it is
most probable that he at once set about what it must certainly be
supposed he had at heart while still subprior of Ely.
With S. John’s we have the first of the large colleges. Henceforth
Trinity and John’s are “the big colleges” the others are “the 14 small
colleges.” It now consists of four large courts, three of which are of
brickwork. The first court was erected between 1509-1616 on the pattern
of the quadrangle at Christ’s. The founder’s grandson Henry VIII., whose
coronation she lived to witness, not only sequestrated a large part of
the funds she had destined for the building, but fifteen years later
beheaded Fisher her executor. The latter himself subscribed to the fund
and was able before he died to erect a college for a Master and 21
fellows--the original design being for 50 fellows. But what thus fell
short of the spirit of the earlier design has since been amply repaired,
and a series of benefactors have made the college one of the most useful
in England, with that large influence on the nation and large power of
helping poorer students which its founders had so greatly at heart.
The Second Court was built chiefly at the expense of Mary Countess of
Shrewsbury in 1595-1620. The Third Court was begun in 1623, with funds
provided by Williams then Bishop of Lincoln, and finished by benefactors
some of whom remained anonymous. The last Court was built in 1826 and is
joined to the college by the “Bridge of Sighs.” Beyond this is the
beautiful “wilderness” commemorated by Wordsworth.
---- Scarcely Spenser’s self
Could have more tranquil visions in his youth
he tells us, than he had had loitering in Cambridge nights under a
“fairy work of earth,” a certain lovely ash, wreathed in ivy. This is
the site of the infirmary of the canons, the only portion of whose
Hospital to be preserved was adapted as a college infirmary and was at
the north side of the First Court: it was destroyed in 1863 when the
present large chapel was built, which is the work of Gilbert Scott, and
is 193 feet long. The large hall
[Illustration: THE GATEWAY AND TOWER OF ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE
The Kirke White memorial is seen in the foreground, and behind it are
the Divinity Schools; to the left is the Gateway of St. John’s, with the
Tower behind it. The enclosed space in the foreground was formerly the
site of All Saints’ Church, pulled down in 1865.]
measures 108 feet, and the portrait of Lady Margaret presides over the
high table. The new combination room, which is now entered from the
second court, was built in 1864, and is 93 feet long. The west side of
the Third Court is cloistered, and from here leads the covered bridge,
called from its resemblance to the bridge at Venice “the Bridge of
Sighs.” The stone bridge near it supplanted the old timber bridge in
1696. As at Queens’, there is a long gallery on the first floor of the
Second Court. Nowhere has the original modest “master’s lodging”
undergone more change than here. The lodging--two rooms over the old
combination room, with an oriel, on the first court--was gradually
extended, again as at Queens’, along the gallery, and ran along part of
the next court. Finally Scott built the present lodge, outside the
courts altogether.
Christ’s and S. John’s are both profusely ornamented with the Tudor and
Beaufort badges of the founder, and with her name-device the
_marguerite_.[212] The ancient gateway has a canopied statue of the
Evangelist. To the north and south of the new chapel porch are statues
of Lady Margaret and of Fisher, and 16 statues of the benefactors and
great members of the college: Mary Cavendish Countess of Shrewsbury,
Sarah Alston Duchess of Somerset, Williams Archbishop of York, and
Linacre who founded the Physics lecture here and at Merton Oxford,
appear among the former. Among the latter are Roger Ascham (fellow)
(those asterisked are effigied); Sir John Cheke (fellow); *Bentley;
*Cecil Lord Burleigh; *Lucius Lord Falkland[213]; Fairfax, the
parliamentary general; *Wentworth Lord Strafford; *Stillingfleet,
*Overall,[214] *Gunning, and Selwyn, prelates; *William Gilbert; *Brook
Taylor the naturalist; *Clarkson the opponent of the slave trade; Cave
the ecclesiastical historian; Metcalfe the most brilliant of its
masters[215]; Matthew Prior, Grindal the classic, Cecil Lord Salisbury,
Ben Jonson, Wordsworth, Kirke White, Rowland Hill, Henry Martyn the
missionary, Horne Tooke, Castlereagh, Palmerston, Wilberforce, Erasmus
Darwin, Colenso, Herschell, Liveing, Adams the discoverer of Neptune,
Benjamin Hall Kennedy, and *Baker the historian of the college. Fisher
arranged a small chapel leading from the college chapel for his own
resting place.[216] The site of S. John’s chapel is as old an
ecclesiastical site as Jesus chapel: the xvi century edifice was
constructed close to the xii century canons’ church, and the fine modern
chapel is on the same site.
The licence for the college dates from 1511; the building was opened in
1516; and the statutes were drawn up by Fisher.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE CHAPEL FROM THE FIRST
COURT
In the corner on the right is seen the Doorway of the Chapel, with the
tower rising above it. On the left is part of the Hall with a fine oriel
window.]
There are now 56 fellowships, 60 foundation scholars each receiving £50
annually, and 9 sizars £35 annually.
* * * * *
The next college which claims our attention must rank among the more
interesting foundations on account of its origin rather than of its
subsequent history.
[Sidenote: Magdalene College, A.D. 1542.]
Near S. John’s Hospital there was a site traditionally connected with
the lectures of Abbot Joffred’s monks in 1109, and which in fact was
afterwards Crowland Abbey property. When a monastic order possessed no
convent in a university town, the monks were obliged to reside in
lodgings, and this led, as we have already seen (i. p. 49) to the
foundation of monastic hostels for their reception. There were two such
hostels at Cambridge--Ely hostel and Monks’ hostel. Ely hostel was the
direct outcome of Benedict XII.’s Constitution in 1337[217] which
reconfirmed an earlier injunction of Honorius III. 1216-27 requiring the
Benedictines and Augustinians to send students in rotation from the
monastery to the university, and provided that monks should live at the
universities under a prior of Benedictines. It was purchased in 1340 (or
earlier) by John de Crawden prior of Ely for the Ely monks and was made
over to Bateman Bishop of Norwich seven years later for his foundation
of Trinity Hall.
Ely then had been the pioneer in providing this accommodation, which
served for Ely monks alone, and which, as we see, was speedily
abolished. Those few Houses which still elected to send their monks to
Cambridge[218] maintained them there thenceforth under the care of “the
prior of students”; and it was owing to the energy of one of these
Cambridge priors that Monks’ hostel was projected in 1428, at a time
when, as is then stated, no house existed for Crowland or other
Benedictine monks, and the religious either shared the hostels with
seculars or lived in lodgings in the town. The site for Monks’ hostel
consisted of two messuages granted in that year to the abbot of Crowland
by the Cambridge burgesses. Crowland, Ely, Ramsey, and Walden each built
portions for their own students.[219] Nearly a hundred years later, on
the eve of the Reformation, Edward Stafford Duke of Buckingham refounded
this hostel as Buckingham College. It was not
[Illustration: THE SECOND COURT OF ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE
The doorway on the right leads into the First Court. The Dining Hall is
in the building on the right and the Combination Room on the left of the
picture. In the background is the Chapel Tower with the sunset light
upon it]
completed at the time of his attainder two years afterwards (1521) and
the property escheated in due course as a cell of Crowland Abbey to the
crown.[220]
How soon Monks’ hostel became “the monks’ hostel of Buckingham” is by no
means clear. That the Dukes of Buckingham were early patrons must be
admitted on the evidence; for even if the house was not known as
Buckingham College in 1465, it was known as “the hostel called Bokyngham
college” in 1483 while it was still Crowland property, and both hall and
chapel were probably the gift of “deep revolving, witty Buckingham” the
second Duke Henry.
“I have in this world sustained great damage and injury in serving the
king’s highness, which this grant shall recompense.” So wrote Lord
Chancellor Audley in a letter begging for a share of the plunder when
Henry had determined on the suppression of the monasteries. The share he
wanted and got was Walden Abbey in Essex on the borders of
Cambridgeshire, and here he established himself on the site which his
son was to transform into the mansion of Audley-End. He did more; he
proposed to himself, apparently, some sort of expiation to balance the
“recompense,” and in 1542 changed Buckingham into Magdalene College
which he re-endowed. We have seen that Walden Abbey was itself one of
the builders of Monks’ hostel.
The mastership of the college is in the gift of the owner of Audley-End
(now Lord Braybrooke). Nothing of the xv century building remains. A
window of Pugin’s adorns the chapel[221] replacing the old altar-piece
which is now in the library. The combination room leads from the
musicians’ gallery of the pleasant hall, the only instance of this
arrangement in Cambridge.[222] In the time of Fuller, Magdalene was a
college of reading men: “The scholars of this college, though farthest
from the schools, were in my time the first to be observed there, and to
as good purpose as any.”[223] Twenty years ago it was the fashionable
college, and its members lived in private lodgings, attending neither
hall nor chapel. Magdalene is in the parish of S. Giles, and it has been
conjectured that it occupies the site of the house of the canons of S.
Giles before they removed to Barnwell. There is however no evidence for
this, and there are no documents at Magdalene earlier than Stafford’s
time.[224]
Archbishop Grindal,[225] Robert Rede chief justice in 1509, Cumberland
Bishop of Peterborough, and Kingsley were educated here. So was Pepys,
the diarist, who bequeathed to the college his extraordinary
collection
[Illustration: THE COMBINATION ROOM, ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE
This Gallery is used by the Fellows and is 93 feet long. It contains
portraits of many College worthies. The approach to it is by a Turret
Staircase in the Second Court. Its panelled walls and rich plaster-work
ceiling make it one of the finest specimens of its kind left in
England.]
of books, engravings, maps, and plans. The Pepysian library is now
preserved in a separate hall, in the donor’s own bookshelves constructed
after a plan of his own. It is by far the most interesting thing in the
college, and would be unique anywhere. It is to be hoped we may soon
have an official catalogue of its contents.
Magdalene is a small college, it has about 40 inmates, of whom 5 are
fellows. In Fuller’s time it held 140 persons, 11 being fellows and 22
scholars, the rest being as usual the college officers, domestics, and
students.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Trinity College A.D. 1546.]
With Trinity College are joined together in indissoluble matrimony the
two great periods of college building, and the culminating point of the
renascence is reached: so that Trinity, alone, represents Cambridge
architecturally and morally in its historical character of a university
of the rebirth from its dawn to its meridian.
[Sidenote: King’s Hall A.D. 1337.]
When Henry VIII., whose effigy adorns the great gate, proposed to make a
vast college on this site, he was proposing to expand the “great
college” built by Edward III. whose effigy graces the older gateway
within the court. Edward II. had maintained thirteen students at
Cambridge as early as 1317 and the number was increased later to
thirty-two: it was however left to his son to carry out the design of a
“House-of-Scholars of the King.”[226] We have already had frequently to
refer to this building, in which new interest has been awakened since
the restoration (in 1904-6) of part of the old Hall lying behind King
Edward’s gateway towards the bowling green, and presenting architectural
features fully justifying its xiv century fame as the most considerable
collegiate enterprise thitherto undertaken. The Hall lay to the north
west of the present quadrangle, covering the space now occupied by the
ante-chapel,[227] Edward’s gate, and the Master’s lodge. The acquisition
of the site affords a most interesting glimpse into contemporary
Cambridge history: for no site represented such various interests and
recalled so many of the great local names. The first plot of ground
obtained was a messuage of Robert de Croyland’s in 1336. Eight years
later Edmund Walsyngham’s house was purchased; the house of Sir John de
Cambridge who was knight of the shire and alderman of the guild of S.
Mary was sold to the college in 1350 by his son Thomas; and the next
year saw the purchase from Thomas son of Sir Constantine de Mortimer, of
a waste parcel of land next the river and S. John’s Hospital, called the
Cornhythe, which abutted on the last named property. Croyland’s and
Walsyngham’s houses were first adapted, and formed a small irregular
quadrangle. Later in the xiv century a new (irregular) court was
constructed on the north of the present chapel. The original entrance
was situated where the sundial now is; here stood the Great Gate, the
present
[Illustration: THE LIBRARY WINDOW, ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE, FROM THE BRIDGE
OF SIGHS
From this spot beautiful views are obtained up and down the river.]
Entrance Gate being built as late as 1535 to give King’s Hall a frontage
on the High Street. The Hall rebuilt in the later xiv century and added
to in the xvth was however only the nucleus of Henry VIII.’s college. To
the south west stood Michaelhouse; this too was absorbed in the new
building, and its second dedication to the holy and undivided Trinity
was retained in Henry’s college. Seven other buildings--all university
hostels--were also absorbed--Gregory’s, Crouched, Physwick, S.
Margaret’s, Tyled, Gerard’s, and Oving’s. The present kitchen occupies
part of the site of Michaelhouse; Physwick stood between the Queen’s
Gate and Trinity Street; and the other hostels were grouped round these
in S. Michael’s and King’s Hall Lanes.[228]
The work which had been begun by Lady Margaret at Christ’s and S.
John’s--the final substitution of the college for the monastery
school--was now completed by her grandson, the great despoiler of the
monasteries, who appears to have designed Trinity College as a splendid
atonement for the destruction of so many homes of learning. It was
largely endowed with abbey lands, and Henry’s undeniable interest in
erudition seems to have found its ultimate satisfaction in a foundation
into which there entered every element of that “new learning” which was
humanistic before it was Protestant. That provision was here to be made
for a wider field of knowledge than any hitherto contemplated in or out
of a university, seems amply proved by the words of the founder; who,
after declaring that the college is intended for the “development and
perpetuation of religion” (a well-chosen form of words?), continues
thus: “_for the cultivation of wholesome study in all departments of
learning, knowledge of languages_, the education of youth in piety,
virtue, self-restraint, and knowledge; charity towards the poor, and the
relief of the afflicted and distressed.” The programme was so liberal
that Mary herself endowed the college with monastic property, and
Elizabeth completed the chapel which her sister had begun.
No building, indeed, in either university suggests in the same way and
in the same degree that delightful mental combination of form and space
which is the mark of the “Cambridge mind” in science if it is not so in
literature. As we pass into the great court the buildings we see neither
shut out the light nor hem in the thoughts. The enclosure they suggest
is that formal enclosure of point and line which enables us to make
propositions about infinity. Of all scholastic buildings in the world
the great court of Trinity is that which best suggests the majesty and
spaciousness of learning. Here one receives an impression of adequacy,
balance, clearness, spaciousness, elevation, serenity, a certain high
power of the imagination--the mathematical qualities, the qualities of
the seeker after truth: an impression of the simple force of what is
simply clear, the simple grandeur of that which can dispense with the
mysterious; of the dignity which accompanies those who have looked upon
things as
[Illustration: OLD GATEWAY AND BRIDGE
These buildings form part of St. John’s College, and look on to the
river. The Tower of the College Chapel is seen in the background.]
they are in themselves, and have nothing adventitious to offer, yet what
they offer holds a curious power of satisfying.
Does a man see all this as he walks into Trinity and learn from it the
lesson which Cambridge spreads before him, or does he take it with him
under the gateway and let Trinity Great Court represent for him what he
already knows of Cambridge? What does it matter whether it suggests so
much or is allowed to represent so much?
Trinity Great Court covers more than 90,000 square feet--an area of over
2 acres--and is the largest in any college. The building, carried out
under Edward VI., received considerable modification during the
mastership of Nevile (1593-1615) dean of Canterbury, who arranged the
court on its present plan, erected the “Queen’s gateway” and the fine
renascence fountain, enlarged the original lodge, and built the hall and
kitchen. On the west side, facing us as we enter, is the hall (1604)
which was modelled on that of the Middle Temple. Next it are two
combination rooms--the centre for generations of Cambridge fellows who
first had their assembling room in King’s Hall hard by[229]--but the
façade here was spoiled in the xviii century when the oriel and frontage
of the old hall of Michaelhouse were removed. A Jacobean porch leads us
into the lodge, which occupies the site of King’s Hall lodge. The great
scholar Bentley, Master from 1700 to 1742, built the staircase and
otherwise left his mark here. His excursions into the classical were,
however, curtailed during the mastership of Whewell (1840) when
Alexander Beresford Hope subscribed to restore the Gothic character of
the front and built the picturesque oriel.[230] The inscription stating
that he had restored its ancient aspect to the house during the
mastership of Whewell gave rise to the following amusing paraphrase:--
This is the House that Hope built.
This is the Master, rude and rough,
Who lives in the House that Hope built.
These are the seniors, greedy and gruff,
Who toady the Master, rude and rough,
Who lives in the House that Hope built.[231]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1555-1564.]
The chapel, on the north, was built by Mary, and
[Illustration: PEPYS’ LIBRARY, MAGDALENE COLLEGE
This range of old buildings houses the Pepysian Library. The style is
seventeenth century.]
is one of the few churches erected in her reign, as Trinity College is
itself one of the few places where her name is held in affection. Though
it has none of the greatness of King’s chapel, it yields to none in
interest. The site is that of the chapel of King’s Hall built for the
scholars by Edward IV., the materials of which, with stone from the
Greyfriars’ house, the fen abbey of Ramsey, and Peterhouse, and lead
from the Greyfriars and Mildenhall, were used in the construction.
Elizabeth completed it nine years later (1564). The ante-chapel contains
the statue of Newton,
---- with his prism and silent face,
The marble index of a mind for ever
Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone
a work of Roubiliac’s considered by Chantrey to be the noblest of
English statues. Bacon, Barrow, Macaulay, and Whewell have also statues
here, while Richard Porson is commemorated by a bust. Along the wall
which faces us as we enter are sixteen memorial brasses chiefly to
remarkable fellows of the college who have died within the last twenty
years.
The great court leads in the usual way, by hall and butteries, to
Nevile’s court, another work of Dr. Nevile’s, and here the library--to
the building of which Newton contributed--was erected by subscription,
the foundation stone being laid on February 26, 1676. The architect was
Wren who also designed the bookcases of the “stately library” as those
who had determined on its foundation had called it in anticipation. The
wood of the cases is Norway oak which has been stained to imitate cedar.
The building is very rich with decoration inside and out; the length is
194 feet as compared with the chapel 210 feet and the hall 100 feet. The
staircase and pavement are of marble. Pedestals with busts of members of
the college line the room on either side. The library contains 90,000
volumes, with 1900 MSS. including a Sarum missal on vellum of 1500,
Milton’s rough draft notes of “Paradise Lost,” the _Codex Augiensis_ of
Paul’s Epistles, four MSS. of Wyclif’s bible, and the Canterbury
psalter.[232]
A New Court, to which George IV. contributed, was erected in the first
quarter of the xix century and Dr. Whewell built, at his own expense,
the Master’s Court. Upon the site of Garret’s hostel, the then bishop of
Lichfield erected in 1670 a small building known as “Bishop’s hostel”
which is used as students’ quarters, and the proceeds of letting it are
spent according to the founder’s direction in the purchase of books for
the library. Macaulay “kept” here when he first went up to Cambridge.
[Illustration: THE GATEWAY OF TRINITY COLLEGE
The Great Entrance Gate, constructed about 1518-35. The panels over the
arch commemorate King Edward the Third and his six sons. The Master’s
lodge is seen in the distance through the gateway.]
[Sidenote: The Mastership.]
The Mastership of Trinity has been, ever since the Reformation, one of
the most important offices in the university; but it is rendered still
more distinguished by the great men who have successively filled it. The
last Master of King’s Hall became the first Master of Trinity and has
had among his successors Isaac Barrow, William Bill, Whitgift, Wilkins,
Bentley, and Whewell. Its chief benefactor Nevile was eighth Master.
Trinity has been equally great in literature and science, and has
effected more for both in the three hundred and fifty years of its
existence than any other centre of learning. Among its fellows it counts
Newton, Adam Sedgwick, Ray, Barrow, Porson, Roger Cotes, Macaulay,
Whewell, Westcott, Airy, Clerk Maxwell, Cayley, Hort, Thirlwall, Jebb.
Among lawyers Bacon, Coke, and Lyndhurst; among prelates Tunstall,[233]
Whitgift, Lightfoot. Among other famous _alumni_ are Robert Devereux,
Cotton, Spelman, Thackeray, Granville (_M.A._ 1679), Peacock, Kinglake,
Trench, De Morgan, F. D. Maurice, and the late Duke of Rutland (Lord
John Manners). Among poets, Byron, Dryden, Andrew Marvell, Tennyson,
Donne, Cowley, George Herbert, Monckton-Milnes. Another historic
friendship like that between Spenser and Kirke at Pembroke, Milton and
King at Christ’s, and Gray and Walpole, grew up in the shadow of
Trinity--the friendship of Tennyson and Arthur Hallam commemorated in
_In Memoriam_.
There are 60 fellowships, 74 scholarships worth each £100 a year, and 16
sizarships of the value of £80 each. The students of Trinity number
one-fourth of the undergraduate population. The college is not only the
largest but the most important scholastic institution in the world:
“being at this day” writes Fuller, “the stateliest and most uniform
college in Christendom, out of which may be carved three Dutch
universities.” Among the college livings are the university church of S.
Mary’s, S. Michael’s (the old church attached to Michaelhouse)
Chesterton Vicarage and several rectories and vicarages in the dioceses
of Ely, York, Lincoln, Lichfield, London, Peterborough, and Carlisle,
which include most of those belonging to King’s Hall and Michaelhouse,
with the exception of the Norwich benefices.[234]
[Sidenote: Gateways.]
The gateway of Trinity with its four towers, the two interior being the
larger and furnished with staircases, reminds us that the ornamental
gateway was the last architectural addition to the college quadrangle.
The first ornamental archway was the great gate built for King’s Hall in
1426.[235] It was copied in the turreted gateway of Queens’ College, and
afterwards in the old gateway of King’s,[236] and in the present
gateways of
[Illustration: THE GREAT COURT, TRINITY COLLEGE
The largest at either University or in Europe. We see the Great Gate in
the picture on the right, facing us--the Chapel. To the left of the
Chapel is seen King Edward’s Gate, fourteenth century. The beautiful
Fountain in the middle of the picture is in the Renaissance style, and
was built by Nevile in 1602, and rebuilt in 1716.]
Christ’s and S. John’s, and even in that second gateway of King’s Hall
which is the present entrance gate of Trinity.[237] The only gateway in
Cambridge which varies completely from these models is Alcock’s at
Jesus, which is much lighter in character. The xvi century gateways of
Caius are “the first specimens of the revival of stone work.”[238] The
ornamental gateway is a distinctive feature of Cambridge college
architecture. The room over the gate was used as a muniment room; in S.
John’s the chamber in the tower serves this purpose.
[Sidenote: Caius College A.D. 1557.]
In 1557 Doctor John Keys (whose name was Latinised as Caius) built and
incorporated with Gonville Hall a college for scientific research and
medical studies--the illustrious society which has since been known as
Gonville and Caius College.
Keys or Caius was one of the great physicians of the xvi century;
physician to Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, and President of the
College of Physicians. He was a Yorkshireman by race but a native of
Norwich, and had been Principal of Physwick hostel which was at that
time attached to Gonville Hall. Italian universities had turned his mind
from the study of divinity to that of medicine and he became a doctor in
that faculty at Padua in 1541, two years after leaving Cambridge. At
Padua he lived with one of the earliest anatomists--Vesalius; and he
himself lectured for twenty years on anatomy to the surgeons in London,
at the request of Henry VIII.[239] He was Master of the college of which
he was co-founder, but regularly spent the emoluments on fresh buildings
at Caius. He was not only a great naturalist, the first English
anatomist, a great physician, and an eminent classic,[240] but also a
distinguished antiquary, and to him we owe one of the most valuable
histories of the university. He had withal “a perverse stomach to the
professors of the gospel,” and clung like Metcalfe of S. John’s and
Baker of King’s to the old religion and the old ways of worship.[241] He
is buried in the college chapel, and the simple words _Fui Caius_ are
inscribed over him. The foundation-stone of Caius he had himself
inscribed: _Johannes Caius posuit sapientiae_; “John Caius dedicated it
to knowledge.”
He built his college in two parallel ranges, east and west; a chapel and
the Master’s lodge occupying the north side. On the south was a low wall
with a gateway. “We decree,” he writes in the statutes of Caius, “that
no building be constructed which shall shut in the entire south side of
the college of our foundation, lest for lack of free ventilation the air
should become foul.” This appreciation of the all-importance of air and
sun to living organisms was more than three hundred years in advance of
his time. If his instructions be not carried out, he says, the health of
the college will be impaired, and disease and death will ensue. Closed
quadrangles had been built in Cambridge ever
[Illustration: THE HALL OF TRINITY COLLEGE FROM NEVILE’S COURT
This is sometimes called the Cloister Court, and was built at the
expense of Dr. Nevile about 1612. The principal building in this picture
is the Dining Hall with its beautiful oriel window. Passing up the steps
and through the passage we enter the Great Court, where we get another
fine view of this Hall. Lord Byron occupied rooms in Nevile’s Court.]
since the erection of Pembroke College, but no more were built there
after the time of Caius.[242] Andrew Perne of Peterhouse was a
contemporary stickler for hygienic conditions in the colleges; he saw to
it that only pure water should be available “for the avoiding of the
annoyance, infection, and contagion ordinarily arising through the
uncleanness” of King’s Ditch “to the great endammaging” of health and
welfare.
The college founded by Gonville is still known as Gonville Court in the
joint college; but the other buildings are entirely new and make a
modern show at the corner of King’s Parade not necessarily justified by
the modernness of the science pursued within their walls.
In the xv century Gonville was peopled with monastic students: it is
said that when Humphrey de la Pole and Gresham were studying there the
other scholars were nearly all religious. If the monks of Ely, Crowland,
Ramsey, and Walden lived at Monks’ hostel, the monks of Norwich priory
had been allowed by a special papal exemption to continue to frequent
Gonville and Trinity Halls, as they had done since Bateman’s time.[243]
The Suffolk monks of Butley, black Benedictines from Bury, Cistercians
from Lewes, and Austin canons from Westacre in Norfolk were also to be
found there.[244] Gonville Hall was always regarded as the papal
favourite at Cambridge; yet by 1530 Nix Bishop of Norwich in a letter to
the primate Warham asserts that not one of the clerks at Gonville but
“savoured of the frying pan.”
Caius has always been a doctors’ college; Harvey, Glisson the anatomist,
and a long roll of eminent surgeons and physicians here received their
education. Jeremy Taylor and Sir Thomas Gresham the only one of the
Merchant Adventurers known to have been at a university, and founder of
the Royal Exchange, were also sons of this house; as was Samuel Clarke
(_b._ Norwich 1675) the metaphysician, “the lad of Caius.”
There are 22 fellows and some 36 scholars and exhibitioners, the value
varying from £100 down to £20. There are also two chapel-clerkships (£38
for one year), and the Tancred medical studentships each worth £100 a
year.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Emmanuel 1584.]
We now come to the last two colleges to be founded in the xvi century.
Emmanuel was founded by Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of
[Illustration: NEVILE’S GATE, TRINITY COLLEGE
To the left are the College kitchens and on the right is Bishop’s
Hostel. The buildings on the left are among the most ancient in this
college. Through the picturesque old gateway we see up the lane into
Trinity Street.]
the Exchequer to Elizabeth, in 1584, his object being to plant the seed
of Puritanism in the university. The site he chose was the suppressed
house of the Dominicans, and Ralph Symons, the architect who worked with
so much skill and judgment at S. John’s and under Nevile at Trinity,
converted the friary buildings into the Puritan college. The friars’
church is now the college hall and the library which at one time served
as a chapel was it is said the convent refectory. The college chapel was
built, from Wren’s designs, by Sancroft Archbishop of Canterbury
(1668-78); and the college itself was rebuilt in the xviii and xix
centuries. Emmanuel has preserved an evangelical character, the relic of
its original Calvinism in doctrine and Puritanism in discipline; and the
clerical students of Ridley Hall are recruited chiefly from here. “In
Emmanuel College they do follow a private course of public prayer, after
their own fashion”; the chapel used was unconsecrated, the communion was
received sitting. The contrast must have been all the greater at this
time--the beginning of the xvii century--when incense was burning and
Latin was sung in other Cambridge chapels.
The name of Emmanuel College recalls the movement with which it was
connected later in that century: when Whichcote, Cudworth, Smith, and
Culverwell of Emmanuel, and More of Christ’s led the van of philosophic
thought.[245] Besides Cudworth, Emmanuel has nurtured at least four
eminent representatives of learning and science, Flamsteed, Wallis,
Foster, Horrox; and one great statesman, Sir William Temple; and as a
representative churchman, Sancroft who was also Master of the college.
Samuel Parr was here; and William Law, the author of the “Serious Call,”
was a nonjuring fellow. Harvard went from Emmanuel to America where he
founded the university which bears his name.
There are 16 fellowships, 30 scholarships, and 4 sizarships.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Sidney Sussex 1594.]
Sidney Sussex, the last of the xvi century colleges, was also built in
Elizabeth’s reign, on the site of the Greyfriars’ as Emmanuel rose on
the site of the Blackfriars’ house. Frances Sidney, daughter of Sir
William Sidney and wife to the third Earl of Sussex, bequeathed the
money for the foundation, and her executors purchased the property from
Trinity College. The ubiquitous Ralph Symons was the architect; but the
college was modernised in the early xix century. There are two courts:
the hall and lodge in one, the chapel and library in the other. In this
last is a x century pontifical from a northern diocese, probably Durham.
The character of the college has always remained Protestant, this and
Emmanuel being the first Protestant foundations in the university.
Oliver Cromwell was enrolled a member the day of Shakespeare’s death,
and Fuller the ecclesiastical historian was here for many years. Sterne
the founder of the
[Illustration:
TRINITY COLLEGE BRIDGE AND AVENUE, WITH GATE LEADING INTO THE NEW
COURT
The Bridge was built in 1763 by Wilkins. The trees in the Avenue in
foreground were planted in 1671-72.]
Irish College of Surgeons, Archbishop Bramhall, Henry Martyn,[246] May
the poet, and Seth Ward are among its worthies. Edward Montague, Earl of
Manchester, of whom the historian writes that he “loved his country with
too unskilful a tenderness” was a member of this college, and carried
out Cromwell’s destructive programme at his university. No one mentions
the founder of Sidney Sussex without saying that she was aunt to Sir
Philip, and it is a title of honour even for the founder of a college:
did not Fulke Greville have himself described in his epitaph as “Frend
to Sir Philip Sidney”?
There are 10 fellows and 36 scholars on the foundation, besides
sizarships of the value of £27 a year.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Downing 1803.]
One college has been built at Cambridge in modern times. The founder,
who bequeathed his property for the purpose, was Sir George Downing of
Gamlingay Park, Cambridgeshire, whose father was a graduate of Clare.
Wilkins (the architect of the modern portions of King’s and Corpus and
of the New Court of Trinity) began the structure in 1807, but he only
completed the west and east sides. The town has since grown up to the
college, which has large pleasure grounds. A “Downing” professorship of
law and another of medicine were also endowed by the founder. Six of the
8 college fellowships must be held by students of law or medicine; and
there are 10 scholars on the foundation.
Taking the place of the older hostels, but inversely as regards their
relative proportion to the colleges, there are now 6 hostels, colleges
in all but university status, with resident students reading for the
usual university examinations. There are also two post-graduate hostels.
The oldest of these are _Newnham_ (1871) and _Girton_ (1873) which are
described in another chapter. _Cavendish College_ on the Hills Road was
opened in 1876 by the County College Association and admitted students
from sixteen years old. It was recognised as a public hostel (November
9, 1882) but was closed nine years later.
_Ridley Hall_ was erected in 1880 for theological students who have
taken their degree. Its object is the maintenance of Reformation
principles.
_Selwyn College_ was founded in 1882, by subscription, in memory of
Bishop Selwyn, and for the maintenance of Church of England principles,
to whose members it is restricted. This institution occupies a somewhat
anomalous position in the university, for it is the only hostel on
avowedly “denominational” lines publicly recognised by and therefore
forming part of the academic society. Cambridge has set its face against
the recognition of colleges intended to meet the interests of one
religious section of the community to the exclusion of others, on the
ground that members of all religious communities may now receive
instruction in any of the colleges, and suffer no interference with
their religion, and also in pursuance of the main principle that a
university education is of greater use
[Illustration: CAIUS COLLEGE AND THE SENATE HOUSE FROM ST. MARY’S
PASSAGE
On the left is the Senate House, built 1772-30. The building facing the
spectator is the South Front of Gonville and Caius College by Waterhouse
(1870). Through the railings on the right is the Tower of Great St.
Mary’s. The street is King’s Parade.]
and value when young men are not classed and separated according to
their religious divisions. Thus when the Catholic hostel of _S. Edmund_
applied for recognition in 1898, the “grace” was refused, in spite of
the fact that many members of the university unconnected with any
religious denomination, voted in its favour. _S. Edmund’s House_ was
founded by the Duke of Norfolk in 1897, and is for clerical students
working for a tripos or other advanced work recognised in the
university. It ranks as a licensed lodging house. A Benedictine hostel,
_Benet House_, was founded in the same year, and supported by the father
of the present abbot of Downside. A few professed monks, who are entered
as members of Christ’s or some other college, pursue there the usual
university course.
_Westminster College_ is a post-graduate college for the Presbyterian
Church of England, founded in Cambridge in 1899 (removed from London).
_Cheshunt_ theological _College_, founded by the Countess of Huntingdon
in 1768, has just been removed to Cambridge, and is there lodged in
temporary premises. Undergraduate and post-graduate students are
received, the former being non-collegiate members of the university.
Students and staff must be of the Evangelical Reformed faith, but are
free to enter the ministry of the established or any Free Church
responding to that description.
These four last are the result of the abolition of the test act (1871)
which kept our universities closed both to catholics and nonconformists:
but Benet and S. Edmund’s houses were projected when the prohibition to
catholics, maintained by Cardinal Manning, was withdrawn.
[Sidenote: A note on the nationality of Cambridge founders.]
Hugh de Balsham, founder of Peterhouse, 1284, Cambridge. Ob. 1286,
bur. before the high altar, Ely.
Hervey de Stanton, founder of Michaelhouse, 1324. Ob. York 1327,
bur. in S. Michael’s church near his college.
Richard de Badew, founder of University Hall, 1326, Chelmsford,
Essex.
King’s Hall, Edward II. and Edward III., 1337.
Elizabeth de Clare, founder of Clare Hall, 1338 b. at Acre of
Norman settlers in England, Wales and Ireland; married to two
Irishmen. Ob. 1360, bur. Ware, Herts.
Marie de Chatillon, founder of Pembroke Hall, 1347. French, married
a Welsh earl. Ob. 1377, bur. in the choir of Denney Abbey.[247]
Edmund Gonville, founder of Gonville Hall, 1348. East Anglian. Ob.
1351.
William Bateman, founder of Trinity Hall, 1350, East Anglian (b.
Norwich). Ob. 1354, bur. Avignon.
Two Cambridge guilds, founders of Corpus Christi College, 1352.
William Byngham co-founder with Henry VI. of God’s House, 1439,
1448 (Rector of S. John Zachary, London; Proctor of the university
in 1447) (Fuller pp. 150, 161).
King’s College, Henry VI., 1441.
Margaret of Anjou, founder of Queens’ College, 1448, French. Ob.
1482, bur. at the cathedral of Angers.[248]
Elizabeth Woodville, co-founder of Queens’. Northants. Ob. 1492,
bur. at Windsor, near Edward IV.
Robert Woodlark, founder of S. Catherine’s, 1473, b. Wakerly near
Stamford, Northants. Ob. 1479.
John Alcock, founder of Jesus College, 1495, b. Beverley, Yorks.
Ob. 1500, bur. at Ely.
Margaret Beaufort, founder of Christ’s and S. John’s Colleges,
1505, 1509, b. Bletsoe, Beds.[249] Ob. 1509, bur. Westminster
Abbey, in the south aisle of Hen. VII.’s chapel.
John Fisher (her coadjutor) b. Beverley, Yorks. Beheaded 1534, bur.
in the Tower.
Magdalene College [first founded by the Fen abbeys and Walden 1428]
Henry and Edward Stafford 2nd and 3rd Dukes of Buckingham, then
Thomas first Baron Audley of Walden 1544. The two former (whose
family came from Staffordshire) were beheaded 1483 and 1521, and
bur. at Salisbury, and Austinfriars, London.[250] Lord Audley b.
Essex, ob. 1544, bur. Saffron Walden.
Trinity College, Henry VIII., 1546.
John Caius, founder of Caius College 1557. Yorks, but b. Norwich,
ob. 1573, bur. in the college chapel.
Sir Walter Mildmay, founder of Emmanuel College, 1584, Chelmsford,
Essex. Ob. 1589, bur. at S. Bartholomew the Great, London.
Frances Sidney, founder of Sidney Sussex College, 1595, Kent (the
family came from Anjou with Henry II.). [Her father and husband
were both Lords deputy for Ireland, and her father also President
of Wales.] Ob. 9th March 1589, bur. Westminster Abbey.
Sir George Downing, founder of Downing College, 1803,
Cambridgeshire. Ob. 1749, bur. Croydon, Cambridgeshire.
[Illustration: THE GATE OF VIRTUE, GONVILLE AND CAIUS COLLEGE
This picture represents the Court built by Caius, who refounded the
College. The Gate of Humility faces the spectator. This is the west
side, and over the gate are the words Io CAIVS POSVIT SAPIENTIAE 1567.
These words are taken from the inscription on the foundation stone.]
It will be seen that the university owes most to Cambridge itself and
East Anglia; and next to two counties which have always been in strict
relation to it, Yorkshire and Essex. Two of the founders of colleges
were French. Both Welsh and Irish names have been from the first
represented, but Cambridge owes nothing to Scotland.[251] Even as late
as 1535 when Henry issued the royal injunctions to the university during
the chancellorship of Cromwell, there were students from every diocese
and district of England, and from Wales and Ireland, at Cambridge, but
Scotland is not mentioned.[252] Of the 4 countesses who founded
colleges, one was twice married to Irishmen, and two married Welshmen.
Of the 14 (non-royal) men founders (including the third Duke of
Buckingham and Fisher) 5 were East Anglian (3 Cambridgeshire), 3 were
East-Saxons, 3 Yorkshiremen, one a Northamptonshire man, and one came
from Staffordshire. To Beverley the university owes Fisher and Alcock,
to Chelmsford Badew and Mildmay, to Norwich Bateman and Caius.
Of the 6 women founders, two were French (Chatillon and Queen Margaret)
one was of French extraction (Sidney), the Clares were Normans,
Elizabeth Clare and Chatillon were Plantagenets through Henry III. and
Edward, Margaret Beaufort and Buckingham by descent from Edward III.;
Elizabeth Woodville was half French through her mother Jaquetta of
Luxembourg, daughter of Peter Comte de Saint-Paul. Thus, curiously
enough, two of the women founders hailed from Anjou (Margaret and
Frances Sidney) and two from Saint-Paul (Chatillon and Elizabeth
Woodville).
The colleges they founded favoured different provinces.
[Sidenote: Scope of their foundations.]
Marie Valence, wished French fellows to be preferred to others of
equal merits, and, failing these, scholars from the college
rectories.[253]
Gonville wished to benefit East Anglian clergy.
Bateman wished chiefly to benefit clergy of the diocese of Norwich.
Henry VI. decided that failing scholars from the parishes of Eton
or King’s, Buckinghamshire and Cambridgeshire should have the
preference.
Margaret of Anjou’s college was, by Andrew Doket, allied with the
Cambridge Greyfriars.
Margaret Beaufort and Fisher favoured the northern districts of
Richmond, Derby, Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland, York,
Lancashire, and Nottingham, from which half at least of the
scholars were to come.
Sidney Sussex College was, by its “bye-founder” Sir Francis Clerk,
endowed for students from Bedfordshire.
Hervey de Stanton founded Michaelhouse for clergy, and for the
study of theology.
The special character given to Peterhouse by Balsham was the studious
pursuit of letters, arts, Aristotle, canon law or theology. There were
to be 2 scholars for civil and canon law, and one for medicine; and poor
bible-clerks were to be instructed in grammar.
Marie Valence founded Pembroke for the study of arts as well as
theology.
Elizabeth de Burgh founded Clare for general learning. Three poor
boys were to be instructed in grammar, logic, and singing.
Edmund Gonville made the 7 Arts the foundation for a theological
training. (Bateman abolished its theological character.)
William Bateman founded Trinity Hall for the study of law only.
The two Guilds of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin founded
their college for scholars in sacred orders, and for the study of
theology and canon law.
William Byngham established God’s House for the study of grammar
among the clergy of the north-eastern counties.
Henry VI. required all the scholars of King’s to be candidates for
sacred orders, and made theology and arts the principal but not the
exclusive faculties.
Margaret of Anjou made theology the principal study at Queens’, and
in her college law was only tolerated. The master of arts must
either teach the _trivium_ and _quadrivium_ for 3 years, or devote
the same time to the liberal sciences or Aristotle.
Robert Woodlark made his fellows restrict their studies by vow to
“philosophy and sacred theology”--his college of S. Catherine was
founded to promote Church interests exclusively.
John Alcock required that the scholars of Jesus College when they
had graduated in arts, should devote themselves to the study of
theology. Canon law was prohibited, but one out of the 12 fellows
might be a student of civil law.
Margaret Beaufort founded Christ’s for the study of grammar, arts,
and theology, but law and medicine were excluded.
Edward III. and Henry VIII. founded King’s Hall and Trinity College
for general learning.
John Caius founded his college for the pursuit of science.
Sir Walter Mildmay founded Emmanuel for clergy who should maintain
the principles of the Reformation.
Sir George Downing founded his college for the study of law and
medicine.
[Illustration: THE GATE OF HONOUR, CAIUS COLLEGE
In the background on the right appear the buildings of the University
Library, one of the Turrets of King’s Chapel in the distance, and the
Senate House is seen on the left.]
Hence Michaelhouse, Gonville, Corpus, God’s House, King’s, Catherine’s,
Jesus, and Emmanuel were destined for a clerical curriculum only.
Bateman contemplated the union of the diplomatic career with the
clerical; and although there were many jurists’ hostels his is the only
college founded and endowed for the exclusive study of law. Caius is the
only college founded and endowed for the natural sciences and medicine;
but in the xiii century Balsham, in the xvith Caius, and in the xixth
Downing, all provided for medical studies. Similarly in the xiii, xiv,
and xvi centuries Balsham, Edward III., Elizabeth de Burgh and Henry
VIII. each founded a college for the pursuit of general knowledge.[254]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Wealth of the university.
Sources of revenue.]
Throughout the xiiith, xivth, and xvth centuries the university was
certainly a very poor corporation. It took a hundred years to build
three sides of the Schools quadrangle, and the money for the important
schools of Philosophy and Civil Law collected by Chancellor Booth in the
xv century was only got together by taxing the university.
The university as distinguished from the colleges has never been a
wealthy society, and its sources of revenue are now much the same as
they have always been. There are the capitation fees of members of the
university. Fees for matriculation, for the public examinations, and for
graduation, and proctors’ fines.
[Illustration: THE FIRST COURT OF EMMANUEL COLLEGE]
The income of Burwell rectory and of a farm at Barton, The trading
profits of the University Press; and one new source of income--the
annual contribution from each of the colleges, in proportion to its
revenues, provided for by statute in 1882. The vice-chancellor delivers
an annual statement of expenditure, which includes the upkeep of the
Senate House and Schools, of the University church, the Registrary’s
office, the observatory, museums and lecture rooms, and a yearly
contribution to the library: the salaries of professors and public
examiners, and the stipends and salaries of university officers and
servants.[255]
[Sidenote: College wealth and property.]
The original property of colleges was in land, benefices, and plate. The
portable property was laid by in a _chest_ kept in the muniment room:
here title deeds, charters, rare books, college plate, and legacies _in
specie_ were treasured; the last being drawn upon for the purpose for
which they were bequeathed until exhausted. Benefactors to a college
presented it with a “chest,” and hence the “University Chest” is still
the name for its revenue. Queen Eleanor presented a “chest” of a hundred
marks to the university in 1293 (“The Queen’s Chest”); and Elizabeth,
Duchess of Norfolk, enriched the public treasury with a thousand marks
in the reign of Henry VII. when the “chests” had been “embezzled to
private men’s profit”; a gift “which put the university in stock
again.”[256] The “Ely Chest” was given in 1320 by John sometime Prior of
Ely and Bishop of Norwich, and the other principal givers were country
parsons, university chancellors, a “citizen of London” in 1344, and
Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter (“Exeter’s Chest”) in 1401.
The wealth of the colleges differs greatly. Trinity college has a gross
income of over £74,000 and the next richest college is S. John’s. The
poorer colleges have gross incomes varying from 4 to £9000.[257] The
proportion contributed at Cambridge and Oxford for the royal loan of
1522 is interesting. At Oxford, New College and Magdalen contributed
most, more than eight times as much as Exeter and Queens’ (£40) which
gave least.[258] At Cambridge, King’s College and King’s Hall were the
richest corporations and contributed the same sums as New College and
Magdalen Oxford.
[Illustration: THE OLD COURT IN EMMANUEL COLLEGE
The large stained-glass window of the Hall is seen on the right, and
beyond that the window of the Combination Room. The Dormer window of
Harvard’s room is seen on the extreme left.]