ENTRANCE GATEWAY, QUEENS’ COLLEGE This old gateway forms the principal entrance to the College from Queens’ Lane.ENTRANCE GATEWAY, QUEENS’ COLLEGEThis 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.
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 builtof 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
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.AN OLD COURT IN QUEENS’ COLLEGEThis 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 Ockleyalumni. 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.
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.
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.QUEENS’ COLLEGE FROM THE RIVER FRONTOn 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).
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
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.GATEWAY OF ST. CATHERINE’S COLLEGEThis 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.
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 theBlessed 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 centresof 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
GATEWAY OF JESUS COLLEGEGATEWAY 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]
Christ’s CollegeA.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,
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.THE GATEWAY OF CHRIST’S COLLEGE FROM ST. ANDREW’S STREETThe 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 memoryLycidaswas 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.
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 ageto 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]
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
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.THE FELLOWS’ BUILDING IN CHRIST’S COLLEGEThis 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.”
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 throughthe 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 becomeunum corpus et unum collegiumwith 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 thereper longa tempora, and Baker
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.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, butfifteen 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 selfCould have more tranquil visions in his youth
—— Scarcely Spenser’s selfCould have more tranquil visions in his youth
—— Scarcely Spenser’s selfCould 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
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.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 themarguerite.[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 areRoger 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.
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.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.
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
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 itTHE 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 theowner 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
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.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.
Trinity CollegeA.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.
King’s HallA.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 tothis 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