mastership of the college, the foundation was not without its famous
sons. They are not, however, very many, and the chief lustre of the
college seems to have found its centre in the master. Richard Crashaw
was in residence here for some time, doubtless attracted by the saintly
fame of the masters of the Stewart epoch. But undoubtedly the greatest
son of the college is Edmund Spenser,* who entered the house probably
during Hutton’s mastership. Of this splendid name Pembroke may well be
proud, although it has no very intimate relation with the life of the
University. Bishop Matthew Wren,* Master of Peterhouse, was a fellow
here. His benefactions are remarkable; they include the fine chapel. He
also bequeathed his silver mitre to the College; and this, although
somewhat ugly in itself, is one of the most valuable pieces of plate in
Cambridge.
Passing over the age of Anne and George I. we come to the long mastership
of Dr Roger Long (* Benj. Wilson) who ruled the college from 1733
to 1770. Long became Lowndean Professor of Astronomy in 1750. His
astronomical studies were commemorated at Pembroke by a hollow sphere of
metal, which had a diameter of eighteen feet and was a complete guide to
the solar system. It was contained in a building which terminated the
north side of the second court, but it was destroyed in 1871. Dr Long was
also much interested in the liberal arts; he was a musician and mechanic;
he was also a wit of a not very refined order. His “Musick Speech”
delivered in Great St Mary’s at the Commencement of 1714, is quoted in
Mr J. W. Clark’s book on Cambridge. He was then fellow of his college.
As master, he was a friend of Thomas Gray. When that sensitive poet left
Peterhouse, he met with a royal reception at Pembroke, which proves that
the college was progressive in the direction of culture. Gray joined the
society, and resided in the second court for fifteen years. His rooms
were famous for their comfort in a day when no one thought of furnishing
a room with more than a table and a few chairs, and the blue pots in
his window were the wonder of Cambridge. He was devoted to his adopted
college, and the influence of its structure may be traced in several
passages of his poems. From 1768 to 1771, he held the chair of Modern
History. There are one or two portraits of him in the college. That by
Benjamin Wilson, now in the Combination Room, was painted after his
death. Another poet, his close friend and personal admirer, William Mason
(* Reynolds) belonged to the society for many years, and died in 1797.
If among poets Pembroke claims Spenser, she can also claim William
Pitt among statesmen. There are two portraits of the illustrious Prime
Minister, one, by Harlow, in the Hall; the other, by Gainsborough, in
the Combination Room. Pitt is, however, the property not so much of a
single college as of the University, whose politics have been largely
directed by his memory. His name is preserved in the Pitt Club, which
was established soon after his death and took his coat of arms. It is
to-day the best social club in the University, and has rooms in Jesus
Lane. In later years, Pembroke elected John Couch Adams (* Herkomer), the
discoverer of Neptune, to a fellowship, thus adding to a list which, if
not long, is at least highly distinguished. Under the mastership of Dr
Searle (* Ouless), who was elected in 1880, it has become an exceedingly
popular college, and its numbers are very largely augmented. Dr Edward
Bickersteth, the late Bishop of the Church of England in Japan, was
among the most celebrated of its recent members, and held an Honorary
Fellowship. The present Bishop of Wakefield is the latest addition to its
roll of prelates.
VI
GONVILLE AND CAIUS COLLEGE
The arrangement of buildings at Caius is rather curious, and no Cambridge
college has been so transformed since its foundation. The chapel is
between the two lesser courts; the hall is at the back of everything,
and its position is far from obvious. Caius may be said to consist of
two halves: the first half, to the east, borders Trinity Street, and
is the New Court; the second and westerly half is an oblong bounded on
three sides by narrow lanes and on the other by the rest of the college.
This second half is again split into two halves, the northern of which,
nearest Trinity Lane, is Gonville Court, and represents the ancient
college removed here in 1353 from the other end of King’s Parade. Beneath
its somewhat modern front an immense quantity of the original work still
exists, and fourteenth-century windows have been discovered. The old
hall and chapel have disappeared, although part of the present chapel
may belong to the original buildings. Caius, however, in refounding the
college, altered everything. He built an additional court, south of the
ancient college. This, too, has been refaced, and is, for the most part,
a comfortable quadrangle of Queen Anne date. But the gates which Caius,
giving play to a strange fancy, built for his college, are still entire.
His Gate of Humility, a mere postern in the outer buildings, exists no
longer; but Mr Waterhouse preserved the idea in his new building, and
recently his gate has, in accordance with the founder’s design, been made
once again the principal entrance. The Gate of Virtue, leading from the
new court into Caius Court, is a tall Italian building, in which Gothic
and Renaissance forms are most curiously blended. The Italian appearance
of the design is due, no doubt, to the corner turret, which introduces a
very picturesque element into a simple plan.
While the Gate of Virtue subordinates its ornament to general effect,
the last gate, the Gate of Honour, leading appropriately to the Senate
House and schools, attracts by beauty of detail. It was finished in 1574,
the year after Caius’ death, and its design, the heavy architrave with
an Ionic order, and the hexagonal, domed structure at the top, is purely
classical. It is the most charming building of its date in England, and
is a good instance of that love of mere fancy which marks the builders
of the late Italian Renaissance. Caius’ architect was a certain Theodore
Have of Cleves in the Rhenish provinces, who also remodelled the chapel
between this and Gonville’s court, and probably designed the sarcophagus
in which Caius is buried. The bell-tower of the chapel, which agrees
very well with the two gateways, is comparatively new. It is worth while
to enter the chapel, which, although, after numerous alterations, it is
of no particular date or style, has a very pleasant interior, and, in
addition to Caius’ monument, contains that of Dr Perse, the founder of
the Perse Free School in Cambridge. This excellent gentleman, who died in
1617, built most of the original entrance court of the college, in which
Caius’ Gate of Humility was incorporated. In Loggan’s beautiful view of
Caius, these buildings seem to have been of the same style as those in
the second court of St John’s College, the style of which Ralph Symons
built so many delightful examples in Cambridge. They belong to 1617. The
portion of this court south of the Gate of Humility was built in 1619, in
accordance with the will of a late master, Dr Legge.
In 1719, the older courts were faced and the chapel was newly decorated.
This work was continued at intervals through the century. Mr (afterwards
Sir James) Burrough was a fellow in these days, and was the leading
spirit in the work. The college remained untouched until the mastership
of the late Dr Guest. Then, in 1854, Salvin built the Hall, whose
exterior is as hideous as the interior, with its fine open timber roof,
is imposing and beautiful. In 1867 Mr Waterhouse entirely rebuilt
Perse’s court, and, in the following year, added an apse to the chapel.
His court has given a new feature to Cambridge, certainly. But, where
colleges are concerned, Mr Waterhouse is not happy, and this huge pile,
with its square windows, its pyramidal tower, medallions, and rows of
waterspouts, would make a praiseworthy bank or hotel, but, in its
present position, is painfully incongruous.
* * * * *
Very shortly after Marie de Valence had founded Pembroke, Edmund
Gonville, rector of Terrington St Clement’s in Norfolk, founded Gonville
Hall for the instruction of twenty scholars in dialect and other
sciences. He found a site for his hall in what is now Free School Lane,
just behind St Botolph’s Church. The foundation took place in 1348, and,
during Gonville’s lifetime, the name given to the hall was “The Hall of
the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin.” But Gonville died in 1351, when
his executor, the famous William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich, removed
the buildings and placed them opposite his own college of Trinity Hall.
Henceforward, the college was known as Gonville Hall, and the old name
was retained when Caius re-founded it. The small society—for the college
was at first very poor—took possession of its new tenements in 1353,
when William de Rougham became master. The previous master of the house
in Free School Lane was John Colton, who became Primate of Ireland; and
among the masters of Gonville Hall we find the names of John Rickingale,
Bishop of Chichester in 1426, and John Skippe, Bishop of Hereford in 1539.
It was during the mastership of Skippe’s predecessor, William Bokenham,
that John Caius entered the college as an undergraduate. After he had
taken his degree he was for a few years Principal of Physwick Hostel,
a small house affiliated to Gonville Hall. He left Cambridge, however,
about 1540, and travelled to foreign universities, studying medicine
at Padua and other academies. He was a man of culture, and his taste
was doubtless stimulated by the splendid productions of the Italian
Renaissance. We may, in fact, regard him as one of the greatest English
humanists, and, like so many of them, as one of the greatest benefactors
to his university. On his return to England he practised as a physician,
and received the appointment of court physician to Edward VI. and,
afterwards, to Queen Mary. In 1555, he was elected President of the
College of Physicians. Having thus risen to considerable eminence, he
determined to do something for Gonville Hall. Philip and Mary granted
him letters patent in 1557, with which he refounded the college. In this
way he gave that impetus to medical study which has since made Caius
pre-eminently a doctor’s college. His beautiful buildings are sufficient
testimony to the elegant taste which he had matured in Italy. Thomas
Bacon, master of Gonville Hall and first master of the new foundation,
died in 1559, and the society elected Caius to the mastership. At first
he was reluctant to accept the dignity, and prevailed so far as to refuse
his income as master. His mastership lasted until his death in 1573. He
was one of the most disinterested of all Cambridge benefactors, and his
learning and talents are beyond praise. One odd feature of his career,
which is very characteristic of the uncritical spirit of the time, is
his dispute with Dr Key of Oxford as to the relative antiquity of the
two universities. To some astonishing legend of Key’s, he replied that
Cambridge was founded in the year 3538 B.C. by one Cantaber, a Spanish
prince, alleging many weighty statements on behalf of his accurate
chronology. His _History of Cambridge_ contains more trustworthy
information than this, but he was singularly prone to the acceptation
of spurious etymologies and vain traditions. His contemporaries held
him to be something of an atheist, and complained that he showed “a
perverse stomach to professors of the gospel.” This probably means little
more than that he was content with the old religion. He died away from
Cambridge, but his body was brought from London to be buried. It was met
at Trumpington Ford by the Vice-Chancellor and a procession, who escorted
it into Cambridge with almost royal honours.
Among other gifts to the college, Caius left the silver mace encircled
with serpents, which is called _Caduceus prudentis gubernatoris_. It was
directed to be carried in procession before the master with the _Liber
Cognitionis_ and the _Pulvinar reverentiae_. There are three portraits of
Caius in various parts of the college. That in the Hall, which represents
him holding a pink, is the best.
A notable son of Gonville Hall was Sir Thomas Gresham, well known as
the founder of the Royal Exchange. He died in 1579, so that he had
probably taken his degree before Caius’ time. Caius was succeeded in
the mastership by Dr Legge, a lawyer and Master in Chancery, who was
also Regius Professor of Civil Law. In his day came into residence
William Harvey of Folkestone, one of the great glories of the college.
His discovery of the circulation of the blood created a revolution in
medical science. There are three portraits of Harvey in Caius: one of
them, in the Master’s Lodge, is attributed to Rembrandt; another in the
Combination Room, is a replica of the picture at the Royal College of
Physicians. Another great doctor, John Gostlin,* Regius Professor of
Physic, became master in 1618. He is said to have objected to the wearing
of boots as “more fit for gallants than for civil students.” He also gave
the Bull Inn, which was his property, to Catharine Hall.
If Caius has its doctors, it has also its prelates. William Linwood, Lord
Keeper under Henry VI., and Bishop of St David’s in 1442, is commemorated
by one of the medallions on the west front. A famous name among others
is that of Nicholas Shaxton, Bishop of Salisbury in 1535. The long
mastership of Thomas Batchcroft,* who was ejected by the Parliamentary
Commissioners and restored in 1660, was distinguished by the residence
of Jeremy Taylor. This great divine’s father was a barber in Cambridge,
and sent his son to Dr Perse’s new Free School. Naturally, as a scholar
brought up at a school which had been founded from Caius, Taylor became
an undergraduate at Caius. He was a precocious theologian, and early
attracted the notice of Laud, who transferred him to Oxford and procured
him a fellowship at All Souls’. He became Bishop of Down and Connor, and
died at Lisburn in 1667. Among theologians his name stands very high,
and, as a writer of English, he is in his own style unsurpassed. Cosin
also, a no less illustrious example of piety and devout Churchmanship,
was bred at Caius, before he became Master of Peterhouse. Both Taylor
and Cosin figure in the medallions of the façade. The portrait of Taylor
in the Hall is a copy of his picture at All Souls’. There is also a
portrait of Cosin painted in 1666. Other prelates of this period are
Francis Marsh, Bishop of Limerick and Archbishop of Dublin, Hartstrong,
Bishop of Ossory, and Francis White, Bishop, first of Norwich, and then
of Ely. To much the same date belongs Judge Jeffreys. A very disreputable
undergraduate was Titus Oates, of whom a vehement writer says that he was
“a liar from the beginning, cheated his tailor of a gown, which he denied
with horrid imprecations.” His career at Cambridge had a sudden end, but
he managed to obtain a doctor’s degree at Salamanca. Thomas Shadwell, who
is famous as one of Dryden’s _bêtes noires_, was also a member of Caius.
Robert Brady,* Keeper of the Records and Regius Professor of Physic, was
master for forty years after Batchcroft’s death. He was a supporter of
the royal prerogative in its most extreme form, and wrote a History of
England to prove his views. Two clergymen were educated at Caius in his
time; Prince, who wrote the Worthies of Devon, and Jeremy Collier, the
stout antagonist of Restoration drama. Another long mastership was that
of Sir Thomas Gooch,* from 1716 to 1754, who, during the same period,
was Bishop successively of Bristol, Norwich and Ely. He was succeeded in
1754 by Sir James Burrough, who, for many years before, had interested
himself in the architectural condition of Cambridge, and had had a hand
in altering almost every college. He was not an unsuccessful architect,
although an amateur, but his work is very unequal and it degenerated with
the taste of the epoch. Although one of the best known masters, as far
as Cambridge is concerned, there is no portrait of him in the college.
Another Cambridge architect, William Wilkins, was also a Caius man.
Burrough’s successor was Dr John Smith, afterwards Lowndean Professor of
Astronomy, who lived till 1795. There is a portrait of him by Reynolds in
the Master’s Lodge. Later masters have not been so famous. Mr Clark tells
us that Dr Benedict Chapman (* Philips) was the last head of a house who
rode out in top-boots. Perhaps the name on which Cambridge men will dwell
with most affection in connexion with Caius is that of John Hookham
Frere, whose translations of Aristophanes have a place in English
literature. The mastership of Dr Ferrers,* which began in 1880, has been
marked by great progress. The college is no longer exclusively medical,
but is winning yearly honours in all the schools, and it has created a
good precedent by granting fellowships as a reward of proficiency rather
than of mere academic distinction. It has, however, produced, all through
its history, great members of every profession. Among its lawyers have
been Lord Chancellor Thurlow* and Baron Alderson.* And of its divines,
while it reckons the late Dr Harvey Goodwin, Bishop of Carlisle, among
the number, the last, but not the least, is the heroic Charles Frederick
Mackenzie,* first Bishop of the Universities Mission to Central Africa.
Its latest living bishop is Dr Wallis, who was consecrated Bishop of
Wellington in New Zealand a year or two ago.
VII
TRINITY HALL
Long the lawyers’ college, Trinity Hall maintains a staid legal
appearance. Its present arrangement is essentially modern, and the
earliest remaining portion is the ivy-covered range of chambers forming
the northern side of the Garden Court. This is not earlier than 1560,
but, as at Caius, much of the interior work of the main court is
original. In the upper storey of this range is the primitive Library,
fitted in the sixteenth century with low bookshelves, the tops of which
form a double reading desk. This very comfortable arrangement has been
followed in the small bookshelves of many of the other libraries.
The bulk of the College, including the entrance courts and the small
quadrangle, was entirely remodelled in the last century, during the
mastership of Sir Nathaniel Lloyd (1710-35) and Sir Edward Simpson
(1735-64). The Chapel, south of the large court (an unusual position)
belongs to 1729, and the Hall on the west side to 1743. Its interior is
very creditable to Georgian taste, although not positively faultless. In
1852, the façade of the college was burned down. The present front is
due to Salvin, who built the neighbouring hall of Caius much about the
same time. The old gate of the college, which opened into the smaller
court, is still commemorated by an opening in the wall, affording a
picturesque view of the ivy-covered interior. To a later period belong
the new buildings in the Garden Court. The Tutor’s House, of white stone,
by Mr W. M. Fawcett, is not exactly in harmony with Messrs Grayson &
Ould’s brick building on the north side, but the latter has been arranged
so as to slope obliquely northward, and front the garden; and a too
obvious discord has thus been avoided. In itself, this red-brick work,
of a Renaissance order, is one of the best things in modern Cambridge,
and fulfils, at least from an outside point of view, all the ideal
requirements of a collegiate building.
* * * * *
Canon Law, the typical study of the Middle Ages, is the _raison d’être_
of Trinity Hall. William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich, founded the
College of the Scholars of the Holy Trinity of Norwich in 1350, in
order to furnish his diocese with secular priests. His college occupied
substantially the same ground as it does to-day. The founder, who also
has a claim to be one of the founders of Caius, did not live long to
enjoy his work. He was sent by Edward III. on an embassy to Innocent
VI., in one of the numerous attempts at arbitration which varied the
Hundred Years’ War. While engaged in these negotiations the Bishop died.
His death was due to the climate of Avignon, which, in that season of
plague, was more than ordinarily pestilent. “Avenio ventosa,” says the
doggrel rhyme, “cum vento fastidiosa, sine vento venenosa.” Englishmen,
with their usual mistrust of Papal honesty, said that Bateman had been
poisoned. He left his foundations of Trinity Hall and the new Gonville
Hall in a very incomplete state, and his executor, Archbishop Simon of
Sudbury, although he did what he could in the way of building, was too
much occupied with his fatal position in the state to attend closely
to the condition of the colleges. In fact, Trinity Hall, composed of a
master, twenty fellows and three scholars, was very badly off. Early
in the fifteenth century they complained to Archbishop Arundel of the
insufficiency of their commons, and obtained a dispensation by which
they were empowered to add twopence for each weekday and a groat on the
Lord’s day.
Meanwhile, two of the masters of Trinity Hall are found among the list of
bishops. These were the canonists Robert de Stretton, Bishop of Lichfield
from 1360 to 1386, and Marmaduke Lumley, Bishop of Lincoln from 1450 to
1452. In the year 1525, Stephen Gardiner* became master. He was a native
of Bury St Edmund’s and was a fellow of the college. In 1531, he was
made Bishop of Winchester, but retained the mastership till his death,
esteeming it a refuge to which, in those troublous times, he could always
retire. He was, nevertheless, a little out of his reckoning. Although a
reformer, he was of the conservative type and was not a _persona grata_
to Edward VI., who deprived him of both his mastership and bishoprick.
His supplanter at Winchester was John Poynet; at Trinity Hall he was
superseded by Walter Haddon, reputed to be the best Latinist of his
time. Haddon was Professor of Law and Rhetoric and Public Orator, and,
in addition to this, with the assistance of Sir John Cheke, compiled a
new code of ecclesiastical law. His reforming activities gained him the
Presidency of Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1552, from which he retired at
Queen Mary’s accession. He died some years later and is buried in Christ
Church, Newgate Street.
Mary’s reign brought back Gardiner to his college and diocese. Walter
Mowse, the second Protestant master, was ousted to make way for the
bishop. As Chancellor of England, Gardiner distinguished himself for
his reactionary policy, a natural course in one who, having done all he
could in the way of reform, knew what gratitude he had to expect from the
other side. He died in 1555. There is no doubt that he was an energetic,
pushing man who allowed little to stand in his way, and stories were
told of how he canvassed for the see of Winchester, doing his best to
embitter the last days of Bishop Foxe. He was the bishop who married
Philip of Spain to Mary in Winchester Cathedral; and this, with his acts
of persecution, have endeared him to the orthodox English historian. But
we must make allowance for Protestant hatred, and remember that if such
men as Gardiner, Pole, and Gaspar Contarini had lived a century before,
we should have been spared the irregularities of the Reformation, while
we reaped its advantages. Gardiner’s chantry-chapel is well known to
all visitors of Winchester Cathedral. There are two portraits of him in
Trinity Hall: one in the Combination Room, another in the Master’s Lodge.
A somewhat less single-minded ecclesiastic was Thomas Thirlby,* fellow of
the college, and first and only Bishop of Westminster. He was promoted
in 1550 to Norwich, and to Ely in 1554, when he, too, gained some
reputation as a persecutor of the new religion. Richard Sampson, Bishop
of Lichfield, belongs also to this period.
Henry Hervey, who followed Gardiner, was a great builder, and we owe
the Library to him. From his time onward the college was the legal
centre of Cambridge, and helped to raise English law to a position which
fully realised Bateman’s desire that England should not be “out-lawed”
by other countries. As Canon Law became superseded by Civil Law, the
original purpose of the college and its connexion with Norwich were
quite forgotten. John Cowell, master from 1598 to 1611, was a great foe,
however, to Sir Edward Coke and the common lawyers. His book on the
King’s Prerogative was burned by order of the House of Commons. Another
legal worthy of the time was Sir Robert Naunton, Public Orator, and
author of _Fragmenta Regalia_, who had also some connexion with Trinity
College. He is memorable for an insulting remark which he made to the
Spanish Ambassador, Gondomar, on account of which he was kept a close
prisoner in his own house, stoutly refusing to apologise.