Trumpington Street broadens into the King's Parade, and here, entered
through a modern buttressed screen pierced with openings filled with
tracery, is King's College. It was founded by Henry VI. in 1440, and in
immediate connection with the school at Eton, from which the more
advanced scholars were to be transferred. The great King's Chapel, which
gives an idea of the grand scale on which this college was to be
constructed, is the special boast of Cambridge. It is two hundred and
eighty feet long, forty-five feet wide, and seventy-eight feet high,
with a marvellously fretted roof of stone, and large windows at the
sides and ends filled with beautiful stained glass. This is the most
imposing of all the buildings in Cambridge, and occupies the entire
northern side of the college court. Its fine doorway is regarded as the
most pleasing part of the exterior design. The stained-glass windows are
divided into an upper and lower series of pictures. The lower is a
continuous chain of gospel history, while the upper exhibits the
Old-Testament types of the subjects represented below. Although designed
on such a magnificent scale, the Wars of the Roses interfered with the
completion of King's College, and even the chapel was not finished until
Henry VIII.'s reign. The other college buildings are modern.
[Illustration: KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL--INTERIOR.]
Adjoining King's is Corpus Christi College, the buildings being almost
entirely modern. Of the ancient structure one small court alone remains,
a picturesque steep-roofed building almost smothered in ivy. Corpus
Christi Hall is said to have been partly designed after the great hall
of Kenilworth. In its library are the famous manuscripts rescued from
the suppressed monasteries, there being four hundred interesting and
curious volumes of these precious documents, which are most jealously
guarded. Opposite Corpus is St. Catharine's College, with a
comparatively plain hall and chapel. Behind this is Queens' College, an
antique structure, though not a very ancient foundation. Its
entrance-tower is of brick, and a quaint low cloister runs around the
interior court. Within is Erasmus's Court, where are pointed out the
rooms once occupied by that great scholar. Across the river a wooden
bridge leads to a terrace by the water-side with an overhanging border
of elms, and known as Erasmus's Walk. This college was founded by the
rival queens, Margaret of Anjou and Elizabeth Widvile, and though it is
very proud of having had the great scholar of the Reformation within its
halls, he does not seem to have entirely reciprocated the pleasure; for
he complains in a letter to a friend that while there "he was blockaded
with the plague, beset with thieves, and drugged with bad wine."
Returning to Trumpington Street, we find on the western side the
University Printing Press, named from the younger statesman the Pitt
Press. He represented the university in Parliament, and the lofty square
and pinnacled tower of this printing-office is one of the most
conspicuous objects in Cambridge. Yet even this structure has its
contrasts, for the "Cantabs" consider that its architecture is as bad as
its typography is good.
[Illustration: DOORWAY OF KINGS COLLEGE CHAPEL.]