CD 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 ClMS 
 
COLLEGE 
 
 HISTORIES 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 
 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
m 
 
gantbitattp of 
 
 COLLEGE HISTORIES 
 
 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 BY 
 
 AKTHUR GRAY, M.A. 
 
 FELLOW AND TUTOR OF JESUS COLLEGE 
 PRESIDENT OF THE CAMBRIDGE ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY 
 
 LONDON 
 
 F. E. ROBINSON & CO. 
 
 20 GREAT RUSSELL STREET, BLOOMSBURY 
 
 1902 
 

CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE NUNS OF SAINT RADEGUND - I 
 
 II. THE FOUNDER AND HIS WORK - - 28 
 
 III. THE REFORMATION - 5 1 
 
 IV. ELIZABETH AND JAMES - ?O 
 V. REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH - - 98 
 
 VI. RESTORATION DAYS - - 122 
 
 VII. BETWEEN THE REVOLUTIONS - 141 
 
 VIII. THE JESUS UNITARIANS - 163 
 
 IX. THREE FRIENDS - 189 
 
 X. THE GOTHIC RENASCENCE - - 2O7 
 
 XI. WITHIN LIVING MEMORY - - 222 
 
 APPENDIX - -235 
 
 INDEX - - - - - - 242 
 
 120065 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. VIEW BY LOGGAN (circa 1 688) - - Frontispiece 
 
 II. NORTH TRANSEPT OF THE CHAPEL - Facing 24 
 
 III. ENTRANCE TO THE CLOISTERS 38 
 
 IV. THE HALL - - 9 2 
 V. A CORNER OF THE LIBRARY 134 
 
 VI. VIEW FROM THE FELLOWS' GARDEN l6o 
 VII. THE CHAPEL, LOOKING WEST 2l8 
 VIII. ENTRANCE OF THE NUNNERY CHAPTER- 
 HOUSE ... 234 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE writer of a College history must cut his coat accord- 
 ing to the measure of his cloth. A knowledge of the 
 conditions of his task should make the historian of 
 Jesus take a modest view of its importance ; for, though 
 the tree sprung from Alcock"s acorn has now grown to 
 some size and not a little vigour, for the best part of its 
 existence it was overshadowed by taller neighbours in 
 the academic grove. In fact, except in some short 
 periods of unwonted prosperity, Jesus was, until recent 
 times, emphatically a ' small college, 1 low in revenues, 
 and in numbers competing with Peterhouse and Magda- 
 lene rather than with Caius or Christ's. Nor does the 
 College figure much in the annals of the University. 
 A survey of its history from the first leaves the impres- 
 sion that it generally kept quietly out of the main 
 channel of University affairs. Geographical position 
 may have had something to do with this aloofness, but 
 I think that more is to be attributed to the fact that 
 the shadows of Ely have been a little repressive to 
 vigour and spontaneity in Jesus. The College of 
 Cranmer and Bancroft, of Laurence Sterne and Samuel 
 Taylor Coleridge, may certainly claim to have con- 
 tributed, in proportion to its size, at least as many 
 
vi INTRODUCTION 
 
 names as any other to the roll of famous men whom 
 Cambridge has nurtured. But the greatest of Jesus 
 men cracked the academic shell early in life, and took 
 no considerable part in shaping the destinies of the 
 University. Jesus has had no Fisher or Parker, no 
 Cheke or Bentley. It never marched in advance of the 
 rest of the University, and it produced no leaders of 
 forlorn hopes or confessors in unpopular causes. Except 
 in the two periods of the Great Rebellion and the 
 French Revolution, there are not many incidents in the 
 annals of the College to relieve them of monotony. 
 But my book is principally for Jesus men, and they, it 
 may be hoped, will find matter of interest in details 
 which are of small concernment to the general reader. 
 On the other hand, the materials for illustrating the 
 domestic life of the College are, I think, exceptionally 
 ample. In sketching the daily lives and changing 
 manners of ' dons ' and undergraduates in successive 
 periods I have endeavoured to give my subject more 
 interest and continuity than was to be got by treating 
 it as a bundle of biographies of minor celebrities. 
 
 Much of the matter contained in the chapter on the 
 nunnery is taken from my Priory of Saint Radegund, 
 published by the Cambridge Antiquarian Society in 
 1898. In that chapter I have given my reasons for 
 intruding the subject in a College history. Here I would 
 only add that I have ill accomplished my purpose if I 
 have not made it clear in Chapter II. that the College 
 of Alcock's design was to have been of a totally different 
 plan from that of any other Cambridge college. His 
 scheme for breathing the evangelizing spirit into the 
 dry bones of monasticism had some promise of success 
 
INTRODUCTION vii 
 
 about it in 1496. The lapse of a generation made it a 
 barren anachronism. But the monastic type remained 
 far on into the history of the College, and leaves a trace 
 of itself at this day. The undergraduate, as I have 
 shown, scarcely got a footing in the place before the 
 reign of Elizabeth ; and the fact that at the beginning 
 of the twentieth century Jesus, relatively to its total 
 endowment, is poor in foundation scholarships is in a 
 principal degree due to Alcock^s designed omission of 
 the scholar from the society which he constructed on 
 the monastic model. That this exceptional position of 
 Jesus has not hitherto been recognised is to be ascribed 
 to the circumstance that the earliest existing statutes of 
 the College those of Bishop Stanley, which, no doubt, 
 were in their main features a re-enactment of Alcock^s 
 unaccountably disappeared from observation for some 
 generations. They have never been printed, and they 
 exist in a single copy written in a hand of the eighteenth 
 century. It has been assumed in all recent works on 
 Cambridge that the earliest extant statutes of Jesus 
 were the so-called West statutes, printed in Documents 
 relating to the University and Colleges of Cambridge ; 
 but the ' West ' statutes are, as I have shown, of post- 
 Reformation date. 
 
 To the Master and Fellows of my College are due 
 my grateful thanks for committing the key of the 
 muniment room from time to time to my custody with 
 a liberality for which, I fear, they find no warrant in 
 the statutes. To the Rev. Osmond Fisher, late Fellow 
 and tutor, now Honorary Fellow of the College, I am 
 much indebted for valuable information about times for 
 which he is the sole living witness. And to Mr. C. J. B. 
 
viii 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Gaskoin, M.A., of Jesus College, I am under special 
 obligation for his kindness in devoting, for my advantage, 
 many of his vacation days to the study of the University 
 wills which are deposited at Peterborough. 
 
 'ETrtTroi^ evpitrrcero is the only apology that 
 offer for the many imperfections of a volume to the pre- 
 paration of which many more hours should have been 
 given than are at the disposal of a College tutor. 
 
Or THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY } 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE NUNS OF SAINT RADEGUND 
 
 THROUGHOUT the four centuries of its existence Jesus 
 College has been known by an alias. In the letters 
 patent for its incorporation, which Bishop Alcock 
 obtained from King Henry VII. , it is licensed as ' the 
 College of the Blessed Mary the Virgin, St. John the 
 Evangelist, and the glorious Virgin, St. Radegund, 
 near Cambridge/ The now accepted name, ' Jesus 
 College, 1 has no place in the letters patent; yet it 
 appears, beside the ampler form, in some of the earliest 
 muniments of the new foundation, and even in the 
 fifteenth century had supplanted it in common speech. 
 For then, just as now, the road which leads from Cam- 
 bridge to Barnwell was known as Jesus Lane ; then, 
 also, there was a now forgotten Jesus parish, wherein the 
 College farmers dwelt, and, as contemporary evidence 
 shows, ' heard their divine service ' in Jesus church, and 
 buried their dead in Jesus churchyard. Bishop Stanley, 
 in the preamble of the statutes which he gave to the 
 College about the year 1514, says that the College 
 church was dedicated to the Name of Jesus ; but he 
 did not forget that it had an older ascription, and 
 elsewhere he speaks of it as the church of St. Radegund. 
 
 1 
 
2 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 Since the days of Henry II. that had been its name ; 
 but Radegund herself usurped the honour due to a saint 
 of older claim, and at best was but the junior partner 
 of St. Mary, whose patronage of the site dates from 
 Stephen's reign. 
 
 With these two saints, Mary and Radegund, Bishop 
 Alcock, in his dedication of the College, associated a 
 third, his name-saint, John the Evangelist. But the 
 two former are the real Oeoi evroTrioi of Jesus College. 
 An unbroken tradition of seven centuries and a half 
 connects their names with its site, and confers on it a 
 better title to the epithets ' ancient" and ' religious' than 
 can be claimed by any other College in the University 
 4 ancient,' for the antiquity of its origin far transcends 
 that of the University itself, and ' religious, 1 since the 
 aspect of its buildings and the seclusion of its position 
 recall unmistakably that religious household from which 
 it sprang, the Benedictine nunnery of St. Mary and St. 
 Radegund. 
 
 The story of this nunnery, which is to be the subject 
 of the present chapter, may seem remote from the pur- 
 pose of a college history. If it be so, the apology for 
 its intrusion here must be partly its intrinsic interest, 
 partly the light which it throws on some peculiarities 
 which from the outset distinguished Jesus from other 
 Cambridge colleges, and are not altogether obliterated 
 to-day. The nuns bequeathed a large mass of miscel- 
 laneous documents charters, wills, account-rolls, etc. 
 to the College, and the scrupulous care with which they 
 were originally housed, and, not less, the wholesome 
 neglect which has since respected their repose in the 
 College treasury, have fortunately preserved them 
 
THE NUNS OF ST. RADEGUND 3 
 
 intact to the present time. Their interest lies in the 
 picture which they give us of pre-academic Cambridge ; 
 of an isolated woman's community in an alien world of 
 men ; and of the depravation and decay which came of 
 that isolation, and which ended in the first suppression 
 in England of an indigenous house of religion. What 
 is to be said in this chapter will also help to explain 
 some of the curious monastic features which gave a 
 picturesque distinction to Jesus College the uncol- 
 legiate plan of its buildings, the church shared between 
 College and parish, the free school in the entrance court, 
 the Radegund tithes and Radegund Manor House, and 
 the fair which invaded the College grounds. 
 
 The description of the College in Henry VII.'s letters 
 patent as being ' near Cambridge ' has a curiously retro- 
 spective look about it. In 1496 no burgher would have 
 hesitated to say that Jesus College was in Cambridge, 
 for the town boundary then marched with that of the 
 suburb of Barnwell along the eastern margin of the 
 Close. But this was not so in the earlier days of 
 the nunnery. Then the town limit was at the point 
 in Jesus Lane where Park Street branches from it. 
 Here the road was crossed by a watercourse, which was 
 probably at least as old as the Conquest. Its name 
 was the Lang Rith i.e., long channel but in legal 
 documents it was called the King's Ditch. This ditch, 
 at its upper end, began at the mill near Queens' College, 
 then called the King's Mill. It passed along Mill Lane 
 and Pembroke Street, once known as Langrithes Lane ; 
 from thence it bent in a north-easterly direction to the 
 site of the post-office, took the line of Hobson Street, 
 and, passing through the grounds of Sidney College, 
 
4 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 crossed Jesus Lane, and so was carried along Park 
 Street to the river, which it rejoined nearly opposite Mag- 
 dalene College. As the nunnery was outside the ditch, 
 it was often described as ' without 1 or ' near ' Cambridge. 
 Outside the ditch, towards Trumpington and Barn- 
 well, in a long band stretched a houseless tract which 
 from primitive ages had been part of the Field of Cam- 
 bridge. At its north-eastern end was the townsmen's 
 common pasture-land, which we now call Midsummer 
 Common, and which four centuries ago was known as 
 the Green Croft. The river-water was held up at a 
 higher level then than now, and in winter time the 
 Green Croft was a watery void extending, as a charter 
 of Barnwell Priory describes it, ' in dry and in marsh 
 from the street to the river. 1 On a dry gravelly spur 
 projecting into the Green Croft the nuns planted their 
 cell. The situation was waste enough, yet such as 
 had strong attraction to the religious of monastic ages 
 soli amcenitate satis delectabilis, as the Barnwell 
 chronicler describes the surroundings of the Augus- 
 tinian priory, which occupied a corresponding declivity 
 on the eastern margin of the Green Croft. Material 
 advantages, too, were not wanting to the site. In a 
 portion of the river skirting Jesus Green, and called 
 Nunneslake, the nuns had exclusive fishing rights. A 
 channel which was navigable by the small ' catches ' of 
 the fen waters gave them useful communication with 
 the river, and no doubt served to bring to their doors 
 the Barnack stone which they used in building their 
 church. Enclosed within the walls of their kitchen 
 was an excellent spring, which supplied the needs of the 
 College down to the year 1895, when it pleased the 
 
THE NUNS OF ST. RADEGUND 5 
 
 town authorities, in the course of sewerage works, to 
 divert its supply and to commit the College to the 
 tender mercies and hard water of a company. 
 
 Who the nuns were that first settled by the Green 
 Croft, when and whence they came thither, and by 
 what title they became possessed of their original site, 
 our documents do not record. They started house- 
 keeping in a humble way, without a charter of founda- 
 tion, with neither a church to serve nor a saint to give 
 them name and countenance. What we do know is 
 that they were already in occupation of a portion of 
 the Green Croft site in the opening years of Stephen's 
 reign, and that they found an early, perhaps their first, 
 benefactor in a Bishop of Ely. Bishop Alcock, when 
 he wished to obtain the King's sanction for the sup- 
 pression of the nunnery, went so far as to claim that 
 it was of the foundation and patronage of the Bishops 
 of Ely. He may have been right, though it is not 
 likely that he could have found chapter and verse to 
 support his assertion. To Ely Bishops the nunnery 
 owed what material encouragement it received in the 
 twelfth century, and if any man has the right to share 
 with Alcock the founder's niche over Jesus gateway, 
 that man was Nigellus, second Bishop of the diocese. 
 He succeeded the first Bishop, Hervey, in 1133, and the 
 first of several charters which he gave to the nuns must 
 apparently be dated in one of the earliest years of his 
 episcopate. It is addressed, with Norman magnificence, 
 ' to all barons and men of Saint Etheldrytha, cleric or 
 lay, French or English, 1 and it grants ' to the nuns of 
 the little cell lately instituted without the town of 
 Cantebruge' certain land lying near to other land 
 
6 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 belonging to the same cell. From the Great Inquisi- 
 tion made in the reign of Edward I., generally referred 
 to as the ( Hundred Rolls,' we learn that the land given 
 by the Bishop consisted of four acres adjoining ten acres 
 next the Green Croft, which King Malcolm granted to 
 the nuns as a site for their church. 
 
 To the friendly interest of Nigellus it seems probable 
 that the nunnery owed its first considerable benefaction, 
 a grant by one William the Monk, otherwise le Moyne, 
 of certain land, consisting of two virgates with six acres 
 of meadow, and ' four cottars with their tenure,' in the 
 neighbouring village of Shelford. This le Moyne was 
 in his day a man of might and a close friend of the 
 Bishop. The two were stout upholders of the cause 
 of the Empress against Stephen, and thereby earned 
 the bitter hostility of the Ely monks, who were on the 
 King's side, and loudly complained that the militant 
 Bishop and his friend had despoiled the monastery and 
 the shrine of St. Etheldreda to provide themselves with 
 funds for the war. Of le Moyne we are told by the 
 writer of the Historia Eliensis, Thomas of Ely : 
 
 ' With axes, hammers, and every implement of masonry, 
 he profanely assailed the shrine, and with his own hand 
 robbed it of its metal. But he lived to repent it bitterly. 
 He, who had once been extraordinarily rich and had lacked 
 for nothing, was reduced to such extreme poverty as not 
 even to have the necessaries of life. At last, when he had 
 lost all and knew not whither to turn himself, by urgent 
 entreaty he prevailed on the Ely brethren to receive him 
 into their order, and there, with unceasing lamentation, 
 tears, vigils and prayers deploring his guilt, he ended his 
 days in a sincere penitence.' 
 
THE NUNS OF ST. RADEGUND 7 
 
 After seven centuries and a half the Shelford lands 
 still remain the property of the nuns' heirs and 
 successors a remarkable instance of continuity of title. 
 Domesday tells us that they had once belonged to 
 ' Heraldus comes,' more familiar to us as King Harold. 
 After the fatal day of Senlac they passed to the Con- 
 queror, and by Henry I. were granted to le Moyne. 
 His benefaction to the nuns was for the souls of King 
 Henry and all the faithful in God, and its object was 
 to be the maintenance of one nun for ever. He is 
 described in the charter as a goldsmith (aurifaber), and 
 it was apparently for services in that capacity that he 
 obtained the land from King Henry, for it is recorded 
 that in the reign of Edward I. a descendant of his held 
 land at Shelford by the singular serjeanty of repairing 
 the King's crown whenever required. 
 
 The nuns obtained a confirmation of le Moyne's 
 grant from King Stephen. The date of the confirma- 
 tion is fixed by the curious circumstance that the charter 
 was given at a Bedfordshire village, Meppershall, ' in 
 the siege.' Stephen was engaged in besieging a refrac- 
 tory baron, Milo de Beauchamp, at Bedford in January, 
 1138. In Stephen's charter the nuns are styled 'the 
 nuns of St. Mary.' 
 
 The next benefactor of the nunnery was the Countess 
 Constance, sister of Louis VII. of France and widow of 
 King Stephen's only son, Eustace of Boulogne. She 
 granted the nuns certain exemptions from the royal 
 ' customs ' for all their lands within and without the 
 borough, as well as all the fishing rights which had been 
 possessed by her husband and herself in the waters 
 belonging to the borough. Her grant, which may be 
 
8 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 dated about the year 1154, was for the souls of her 
 husband, Eustace, and of Stephen's Queen, Maud, and 
 for the good estate of King Stephen. Her solicitude 
 for her dead husband derives a touch of living interest 
 from the characters given to the royal pair in the 
 Peterborough version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle : 
 
 ' He was an evil man, and did more harm than good 
 wherever he went : he spoiled the lands and laid thereon 
 heavy taxes. She was a good woman, but she had little 
 bliss of him, and it was not the will of Christ that he 
 should long reign/ 
 
 Sherman, in his Historia Collegn Jesu, says that the 
 nuns always regarded Malcolm IV., King of Scotland, 
 as their founder. If they did so, it was, as Dyer ob- 
 serves, on the principle, Kopvfyov-rai eV /Sao-tXeOo-t, for 
 neither as the first nor as the chief of their benefactors 
 did he deserve such consideration. His interest in the 
 nunnery is to be ascribed to the fact that he was Earl 
 of Huntingdon, the two counties of Cambridge and 
 Huntingdon being then linked in one earldom, as to 
 this day they have a common sheriff. The King's first 
 charter, dated at Huntingdon and addressed ' to all his 
 men, cleric and lay, of the Honour of Huntingdon, 1 
 gave the nuns of Grantebrige ten acres next the Green 
 Croft whereon to build their church. The King stipu- 
 lated for a formal rent of two shillings per annum, and 
 directed his ' minister' to offer the money, when received, 
 at the altar of the nuns' church. In a second charter 
 he released the nuns from all payment or service on 
 account of the land. The two charters are to be dated 
 within the years 1157 and 1164. 
 
THE NUNS OF ST. RADEGUND 9 
 
 In the first of these charters the nuns are styled 
 simply ' the nuns of Grantebrige ' ; in the later they 
 are ' nuns of Saint Mary and Saint Radegund of 
 Cantebrug. 1 This is the earliest occurrence in a charter 
 of the name of St. Radegund, and its appearance is to 
 be explained by a then recent historical circumstance. 
 In the year 1159, King Malcolm took a Scottish army 
 overseas to help Henry II. in his Toulouse campaign 
 against Louis VII. The English and Scottish kings 
 met, we are told, at Poitiers, and during his stay there 
 we must suppose that Malcolm made acquaintance 
 with the cult of St. Radegund. Poitiers is still 'a 
 great worshipper ' of the glorious Virgin ; thither she 
 retired after deserting her pagan consort, the Mero- 
 vingian Lothar, and there she founded her celebrated 
 Abbey of the Holy Cross. Her fame spread to many 
 foreign lands, and not least to England. Four English 
 parish churches are dedicated to her. She had a chapel 
 in old St. Paul's, London, and in Gloucester and Exeter 
 Cathedrals. St. Radegund's Abbey at Bradsole, near 
 Dover, was founded in her honour in 1191. The 
 Glastonbury monks were rich in the possession of one 
 of her bones. In later times the nunnery, the church, 
 and the parish, came to be known simply as St. Rade- 
 gund's. But in strictness the church was dedicated to 
 St. Mary, and the Priory took its name from a chapel 
 of St. Radegund contained in the church no doubt, in 
 the Norman portion erected immediately after Malcolm's 
 gift. 
 
 The curious parish of St. Radegund, whose shadowy 
 existence as a civil parish ended with the Cambridge 
 Award Act of 1857, did not come into being until 
 
10 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 nearly a century after King Malcolm's foundation of 
 the church. The twelfth - century charters of the 
 nunnery do not tell us in what parish the Green Croft 
 site was included. The town boundary was drawn at 
 the King's Ditch, and the nunnery, being outside it, 
 may have been extra-parochial ; certainly it was never 
 held to be in Barnwell. The Cambridge parishes which 
 bordered the nuns' demesne were All Saints' in Jewry 
 so-named as being in the Jews' quarter, and to 
 distinguish it from All Saints' next the Castle and 
 St. Clement's. Attachment to a parish, with conse- 
 quent liability to tithes and altar dues and restriction 
 of the right of sepulture, was strongly repugnant to 
 monastic ideas of independence, and the nuns sought 
 their emancipation at an early period in their history. 
 At some time in the reign of Henry II. they acquired 
 the advowson of All Saints' Church from a certain 
 Sturmi of Cambridge, who inherited the patronage 
 from his ancestors. In 1180 they obtained the 
 rectorial rights from Geoffrey Ridel, Bishop of Ely. 
 The advowson of St. Clement's was given to the 
 Almoner of St. Radegund, about the year 1215, by 
 Hugh, son of Absalon, who appears to have been 
 Alderman of the Gild Merchant of Cambridge. The 
 rectory of the same church was appropriated to the 
 nuns by John de Fontibus, who was Bishop of Ely 
 from 1220 to 1225. These two advowsons still belong 
 to Jesus College, and the rectorial tithes survive in an 
 attenuated form as ' Radegund tithe ' to the present 
 day. 
 
 As was invariably the case where a living was 
 absorbed by a religious house, the parochial clergy 
 
THE NUNS OF ST. RADEGUND 11 
 
 starved on the meagre pittance which was left to them, 
 and the nuns were at constant feud with their vicars on 
 money matters. The vicars of St. Clement's had not 
 even a proper 'manse' to live in, and at times of 
 episcopal visitation made repeated complaints of the 
 leanness of their living. They had a special grievance 
 in the fact that they were required to furnish an annual 
 sum of five marks out of altar-offerings, to provide the 
 sisterhood with the clothing of their order. Such is the 
 persistence of English institutions, even when they have 
 passed through the mill of revolution, that we find this 
 ' clothing money ' regularly paid by the vicars for more 
 than half a century after the feminine beneficiaries had 
 given place to scholars of the other sex. When it 
 became the practice to present resident members of 
 the College to the livings, the complaints of the vicars, 
 which in 1248 were loud enough to reach the ears of 
 Pope Innocent IV., at Rome, were quieted, if not satisfied, 
 and All Saints' parish, since it has become possessed of 
 a fine new church, and a commodious vicarage, can face 
 the situation with comparative equanimity. But the 
 curates of St. Clement's have as good cause now as six 
 centuries ago to complain of the easy liberality of the 
 Bishop of Ely who robbed Clement to enrich Rade- 
 gund. 
 
 With the degree of independence obtained by the 
 impropriation of the two parishes which might reason- 
 ably have claimed their allegiance the nuns were for a 
 while content ; but not for long. Their neighbours, 
 the Augustinian canons of Barn well, had got permission 
 to detach their Priory precincts from the parish in 
 which they were situated, and to make of them a 
 
12 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 peculiar ' parish, i.e., one whose revenues were the 
 peculium, or possession, of a monastic body, and which 
 was exempt from the jurisdiction of the Archdeacon. 
 The nuns copied the example thus given them about 
 the year 1250. The church founded by Malcolm was 
 long in building ; its main fabric, Professor Willis 
 says, was completed about 1245. In dimensions it was 
 very different from the torso which we see to-day. Its 
 great length about 190 feet, far transcending that of 
 any now-existing parish church in Cambridge possibly 
 indicates an original design, such as was common in 
 monastic churches, to set apart a portion of the nave 
 for parish purposes. At all events, when their church 
 was completed, the nuns lost no time in getting sanction 
 to make it parochial. 
 
 At the time when the detachment took place, the 
 nunnery demesne had come to be regarded as parcel of 
 All Saints 1 parish, and the nuns had to compensate the 
 vicars of that parish for the loss of income which they 
 thereby sustained. Of the ancient cleavage a surviving 
 memorial exists in the yearly payment of 40s. which the 
 College still makes to the vicar of All Saints. Save for 
 the benefit which they may have derived from the offer- 
 ings of the nuns, it is not to be supposed that the vicars 
 suffered any considerable pecuniary loss when St. Rade- 
 gund's parish set up for itself, for the latter, from first 
 to last, was a parish in little but in name. It had, 
 indeed, a 'curate, 1 appointed by the nuns without 
 presentation to the Bishop, and receiving from them a 
 yearly stipend of 5 ; the church had a font, and the 
 wills of the parishioners were proved by the nuns' 
 sacrist, and deposited in their treasury. But the parish 
 
THE NUNS OF ST. RADEGUND 13 
 
 was very small. At the time of the Great Inquisition 
 of Edward I. in 1278 it contained four messuages only, 
 all of them the property of the nuns. The parishioners 
 seem to have been for the most part clergy or servants 
 attached to the nunnery. 
 
 This ' peculiar 1 parish existed far into the lifetime of 
 the College, but its later history may best be told while 
 we are dealing with the affairs of the nunnery. The 
 reconstitution of Alcock, as we shall hereafter see, was 
 brought about with the minimum of change which the 
 circumstances allowed. Such features of monastic usage 
 as it was possible for a practically-minded founder, not 
 unconscious of the dawning of new lights in learning, to 
 adapt to College purposes he showed himself anxious 
 to preserve. The parish of St. Radegund was retained, 
 and the earliest statutes of the College, given by Bishop 
 Stanley, Alcock's successor at Ely, in 1514, provided 
 that one of the Fellows should be annually elected 
 curate of the parish church of St. Radegund annexed to 
 the College, and should have the cure of souls of all 
 dwelling there. But the need for a separate parish 
 ceased when the servants of the College were housed 
 within its walls. The farmers of the nunnery demesne 
 lands, which after the dissolution were known as the 
 Manor of St. Radegund, still, indeed, claimed their 
 right to attend the church within the College, and, even 
 so late as the reign of Queen Mary, it is covenanted for 
 them in an extant deed that 
 
 ' both the colledge and the vicare of Alhallows shall suffer 
 hereafter the farmers to come and frequent the colledge 
 church to hear their divine service, accordinglie as it is 
 specified in a payre of indentures betweene the sayde 
 
14 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 master and fellows and the sayde vicare, except it be in 
 the plaigue tyme.' 
 
 But the farmers were few, and even the primitive 
 College society, pusillus grex, as Bishop Stanley calls it, 
 required far more house-room than the thirteen sisters 
 of St. Radegund had done. Alcock, therefore, con- 
 verted into college rooms the portion of the nave 
 which had belonged to the parishioners. Instead of 
 the old western door, portions of which still exist, 
 buried in the walls of the Master's lodge, he made a 
 new door at the south-west angle of the shortened nave. 
 It opened on the parish churchyard, which, as ' Jesus 
 churchyard,' was the burial-ground of the parishioners 
 far into the sixteenth century. 
 
 When and how the parish became absorbed again in 
 that of All Saints' is not clear. Both parish church 
 and curate disappear in the revised statutes which 
 Bishop West (1513-1533) gave to the College. But 
 one long-abiding trace of the former remained in the 
 fair celebrated in the churchyard yearly at the Feast of 
 the Assumption. This fair, known in post-nunnery 
 times as Garlick Fair, was a very ancient institution, 
 for the charter which granted the nuns the privilege of 
 holding it was given to them by King Stephen. Origi- 
 nally it was held on two days, viz., on the vigil and on 
 the feast of the Assumption i.e. 9 August 14, 15 but a 
 charter of Henry VI. extended it to a third day. The 
 nuns' accounts show that at fair time they hired an 
 extra cook to help in the kitchen, and besides the 
 profits derived from catering, they took tolls of the 
 booth-keepers. Profits from tolls, indeed, continued to 
 be accounted for by the College bursars down to the 
 
THE NUNS OF ST. RADEGUND 15 
 
 year 1709. But on the whole the fair did not bring in 
 any substantial returns either to the nuns or to the 
 College, and the competition of the two neighbouring 
 fairs, ' Pot ' Fair, on Midsummer Common, and the more 
 celebrated Sturbridge Fair, near Barn well, carried off all 
 but local custom from Garlick Fair. So King Stephen's 
 fair sank to the level of a village feast, and a self- 
 respecting College felt that its dignity was compromised 
 by the annual exposure of the wares of Autolycus under 
 the chapel walls. Puritanic masters of the College, 
 whose dividends were no longer augmented by the sale 
 of * cakes and ale,' from over the mud wall which parted 
 their private garden from the ' Fair Close ' looked 
 sourly on the vulgar merry-making of their humbler 
 neighbours, and the decree went forth that the fair 
 should be exiled to the furthest western margin of the 
 Close, where it gave its name to Garlick Fair Lane, now 
 called Park Street. Removed from the vicinage of its 
 patron saint, it protracted an obscure existence there 
 until the beginning of the nineteenth century. 
 
 The three centuries which followed King Malcolm's 
 donation brought with them very little to record in 
 the nuns' affairs. Had the Priory possessed a chroni- 
 cler the events on which she would have dwelt would 
 have been the sudden downfall of the bell-tower in 
 1277 ; the dreadful fires which devastated their house 
 and goods in 1313 and in 1376 ; and the equally 
 disastrous gale which 6 prostrated ' their buildings in 
 1390. One hundred and fifty years after the first 
 settlement on the Green Croft the sisters no doubt 
 became aware that the neighbouring town had drawn 
 to itself a miscellaneous lot of scholars, and that some- 
 
16 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 thing called a University was beginning to make a 
 local figure there. Certain of the scholars dwelt in 
 houses rented from the nunnery, which were henceforth 
 known as hostels ; but except in a business aspect 
 their arrival did not greatly interest the sisters. As 
 their names show, the Cambridge nuns were drawn 
 exclusively from the families of local squires and 
 burgesses, and they did not affect a learning beyond 
 their times or their class. The account-rolls which 
 the departing sisters left behind them in 1496 reveal 
 pretty fully the routine of their lives. Books save for 
 the casual mention of the binding of the Lives of 
 the Saints were none of their business ; and works of 
 charity, excepting the customary dole to the poor on 
 Maundy Thursday, and occasional relief to ' poor 
 soldiers disabled in the wars of our lord the King,' 
 scarcely concerned them more. The duties of hospitality 
 in the Guest House make the Cellaress a busy woman. 
 They cost a good deal, but are not unprofitable ; the 
 nuns take in 4 paying guests ' daughters of tradesmen 
 and others. Being ladies, the sisters neither toil nor 
 spin; but the Prioress and the Grangeress have an 
 army of servants, whose daily duties have to be assigned 
 to them ; carters and ploughmen must be sent out to 
 the scattered plots owned by the nunnery in the open 
 fields about Cambridge ; the neatherd has to drive the 
 cattle to distant Willingham fen; the brewer has 
 instructions for malting and brewing the ' peny-ale ' 
 which serves the nuns for ' bevers ' ; and the women- 
 servants are despatched to work in the dairy, to weed 
 the garden, or to weave and to make candles in the 
 hospice. Once in a while a party of the nuns, accom- 
 
THE NUNS OF ST. RADEGUND 17 
 
 panied by their maid-servants, takes boat as far as to 
 Lynn, there to buy stock-fish and Norway timber, and 
 to fetch a letter for the Prioress. 
 
 Occasional glimpses are given us in episcopal registers 
 at Lambeth and Ely of larger occurrences that ruffled at 
 times the quiet of the cloister. Great was the stir when 
 a Visitor deputed by the Archbishop or the Bishop 
 came on his rounds to inspect the nunnery. One such 
 Visitor, Thomas de Wormenhale, commissioned by the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 1373, when the 
 see of Ely was vacant, gives us a curious 4 snapshot ' 
 picture of the little life in St. Radegund's cloister. The 
 sisters are privately and separately examined. Tongues 
 are loosed, and old grievances on that day have privilege 
 to air themselves. The Prioress, Margaret Clanyle, is 
 unpopular ; she spends, and the nunnery is poor. The 
 refectory roof will not keep out the weather, and when 
 it is wet the sisters must take their meals where they 
 can. The clerical staff is unpaid, and celebration for 
 benefactors is scandalously pretermitted. Moreover, 
 discipline is lax, and the nuns, or some of them, get 
 easy permission to gad outside the cloister. Worst is 
 the case of Dame Elizabeth de Cambridge. Being a 
 lady of rank, the daughter, indeed, of that eminent 
 burgess Sir Thomas de Cambridge, she escapes that 
 correction which her reprehensible conduct calls for 
 For the Prioress herself does not deny that Elizabeth 
 is in the habit of withdrawing herself from divine 
 service and allowing friars of different orders, as well as 
 scholars, to visit and converse with her at inopportune 
 times, to the scandal of religion. Furthermore, it is 
 alleged that she murmurs at correction (though the 
 
18 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 complaint is that she does not get it), and provokes 
 discord among the sisters ; and, lastly, that she does 
 not trouble to get up (non curat surgere) to attend 
 matins, as she is bound to do. For the remedying of 
 which abuses the Visitor, easy man, has only two sug- 
 gestions to make : first, that the Prioress must pay her 
 way, when and how she may ; and, secondly, that Dame 
 Elizabeth had better give up quarrelling with her 
 sisters, and get up for matins when she can (cum 
 potent) , if she does not mend her ways she must look 
 to be excommunicated. 
 
 Scandal is generally the key which unlocks the cloister 
 gate, and permits a glance into the interior shadows. 
 Bene vlxit quce bene latuit. Not such was Margaret 
 Cailly, whose sad story was the gossip of the nuns 1 
 parlour in 1389. She came of an old and reputable 
 family which had furnished mayors and bailiffs to 
 Cambridge, and had endowed the nuns with lands at 
 Trumpington. For reasons sufficiently moving her, 
 which we may only surmise, she escaped from the 
 cloister, discarded her religious garb, and sought hiding 
 in the alien diocese of Lincoln. But it so happened 
 that Archbishop Courtenay that year was making 
 metropolitical visitation of that diocese, and it was the 
 ill fortune of Margaret, ' a sheep wandering from the 
 fold among thorns, 1 to come under his notice. The 
 Archbishop, solicitous ' that her blood be not required 
 at our hands,' handed her over to the keeping of his 
 brother of Ely. The Bishop, in turn, passed her on to 
 the custody of her own Prioress, with injunctions that 
 she should be kept in close confinement, under exercise 
 of salutary penance, until she showed signs of contri- 
 
THE NUNS OF ST. RADEGUND 19 
 
 tion for her ' excesses ' ; and, further, that when the 
 said Margaret first entered the chapter-house she should 
 humbly implore pardon of the Prioress and her sisters 
 for her offences. The story ends for us at Margaret's 
 prison door ; but it may be hoped that a second elope- 
 ment relieved the sisterhood of a situation which may 
 well have been as embarrassing to them as it was 
 distressful to the apostate who had tasted the sweet 
 poison of secular liberty. 
 
 Another scene within the nunnery walls, of which 
 the Ely registers permit us to be spectators, is the 
 election of a Prioress in September, 1457. The pro- 
 ceedings in chapter-house and church are set down in 
 much detail, and the vote cast by each of the eleven 
 sisters is duly recorded. The choice of the majority fell 
 on the Sacrist, Joan Lancastre, but we are told that she 
 only accepted the burden laid on her under much pres- 
 sure and with many protestations. The grounds of her 
 reluctance are not far to seek. Though the nuns, so 
 lately as in the year 1451, were fairly paying their way, 
 their financial outlook had clouded in the dark years 
 of civil war which followed. The bell-tower was again 
 in trouble, and, a few months before the election, the 
 Bishop of Ely invited the faithful to lend a helping 
 hand to its repair, and to supply the nuns with church 
 books and vestments. 
 
 Twenty years pass, and Prioress Elizabeth Walton, 
 in 1478, has to confess that the nuns are ' destitute of 
 money for our pore lyflfing, 1 and that they owe their 
 butcher %\ of lawful money of England. To remedy 
 which unsatisfactory state of affairs they adopt the 
 unthrifty course of assigning to him, for a term of nine- 
 
20 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 teen years, the profits of two nunnery tenements in 
 Cambridge. Next the nunnery seal disappears, sold, 
 no doubt, or pawned. The nunnery lands are untilled, 
 or at least yield them no profit. Joan Key in 1482, 
 finding bankruptcy past concealment, vacates her office 
 of Treasuress three months before her term expires, and 
 leaves a heavy tale of debt for her successor to liquidate. 
 Poverty and the growing temptations which come of 
 the proximity of the University bring sad moral depra- 
 vation. The better sisters withdraw to other religious 
 houses. Elizabeth Butlier, aged only sixteen, finds that 
 she cannot serve God at St. Radegund's with as much 
 devotion as she wishes, and seeks a new home at St. 
 Helen's Nunnery, London ; another nun goes to Dav- 
 ington, Kent. 
 
 Matters had reached this desperate pass when, in 
 1486, John Alcock succeeded Bishop Morton in the see 
 of Ely. Next year the Prioress of St. Radegund's died, 
 and the Bishop availed himself of the opportunity to 
 attempt a reformation of the nunnery. His proceed- 
 ings are narrated in his register : 
 
 ' On the twelfth day of October, A.D. 1487, the Bishop 
 visited the house or monastery of the nuns of St. Mary 
 and St. Radegund, then destitute of a Prioress and vacant 
 by the death of the late Prioress, Mistress Joan Cam- 
 brigge . . . and sitting in the chapter-house of the fore- 
 said monastery, on the tribunal, delivered his decree as 
 follows : 
 
 'In the name of God Amen. We, John, by divine 
 permission Bishop of Ely, on the 12th day of October, 
 visiting in our right as ordinary the nunnery of St. Mary 
 and St. Radegund, Cambridge, destitute of the solace of 
 
THE NUNS OF ST. RADEGUND 21 
 
 a Prioress, for certain true, just, notorious, and manifest 
 causes, find all and singular the nuns unfit and disqualified 
 to elect their future Prioress, and therefore decree that in 
 such manner of election they are justly deprived of voice. 
 Wherefore we take upon ourselves the task of providing 
 from some other like religious place a fit person for the 
 vacancy in the said nunnery, the right of electing and 
 providing for the same nunnery having devolved canonic- 
 ally upon us, and having the fear of God before our eyes 
 we thus proceed. 
 
 'And you, Mistress Joan Fulborne, duly and lawfully 
 professed of the order of St. Benedict and long time 
 laudably conversant in the same, for your good religion and 
 integrity, sincere virginity and other merits of prudence 
 and holy conversation credibly reported to us, we appoint 
 and provide to be Prioress of the same house. . . . 
 
 'And consequently, by mandate of the Bishop, the 
 reverend Master William Robynson, bachelor in either law, 
 conducted the same Joan Fulborne to the High Altar, 
 while the nuns, with others, chanted Te Deum, and 
 assigned to her the stall in the choir and the place in the 
 chapter anciently and of custom appointed to the Prioress, 
 and canonically inducted her into the same with all its 
 rights and appurtenances/ 
 
 Whether Alcock, when he attempted the moral re- 
 formation of the Priory, did anything towards the 
 repair of its finances or fabric we do not know. His 
 plans, whatever they were, resulted in blank failure. 
 John Mair, who was resident at Cambridge when the 
 facts were fresh in memory, describes the morals of the 
 sisterhood as all that they should not be. Sherman 
 says that they cast off the veil and voluntarily withdrew, 
 and that the buildings lay for some time deserted and 
 
22 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 desolate. The little parish of St. Radegund, once 
 tenanted by the clergy and servants attached to the 
 nunnery, shared in its depopulation. Nine tenements 
 in Jesus Lane lay vacant in 1497-98 when the collectors 
 of the newly -founded College took stock of the property 
 which fell to them from the nuns 1 portion. 
 
 While the house was in this derelict condition it was 
 visited by the Bishop, in 1495-96. The evidence of what 
 he saw there is given in the letters patent for the 
 foundation of the College, dated June 12, 1496. The 
 buildings and properties of the house are dilapidated 
 and wasted owing to the improvidence, extravagance, 
 and incontinence of the nuns resulting from their 
 proximity to the University of Cambridge. Two nuns 
 only remain : one of them is professed elsewhere, the 
 other is of ill fame(hifamis). They are in abject want, 
 utterly unable to maintain divine services or the works 
 of mercy and piety required of them, and are ready to 
 depart, leaving the house desolate. 
 
 The two last unhappy sisters departing took with 
 them whatever of portable property they could find ; 
 or perhaps there was nothing to take. Certain it is 
 that they left nothing behind nothing except some 
 bundles of deeds, inconsiderable to them, valuable to 
 the incoming scholars and the historian in times to 
 come. One legacy, more important, they left us 
 their church and domestic buildings. At the end of the 
 fifteenth century Cambridge was chiefly remarkable for 
 its monastic establishments. Their great churches and 
 spacious courts were immeasurably grander than any- 
 thing which the colleges had to show. Of the men^s 
 religious houses, save an insignificant fragment of the 
 
THE NUNS OF ST. RADEGUND 23 
 
 Priory at Barnwell, not a vestige is left. The nunnery 
 of St. Radegund remains, disguised and curtailed, but in 
 its main features fairly complete. With the help of 
 documentary evidence from the nuns' muniments and 
 the early College records, it is not difficult to recon- 
 struct its plan and to identify its principal parts with the 
 existing buildings. 
 
 Between the nunnery and Radegund Lane we may 
 picture a considerable stretch of vacant ground. Be- 
 neath the church walls was the parish churchyard ; 
 beyond it, eastward, the Fair Yard, with gates opening 
 to the lane. A footway the present ' chimney 1 
 which was parted from the churchyard by a mud wall, 
 conducted to the western door of the nave and the 
 outer gates of the monastery. Above the gates was a 
 low building containing a single chamber, and next it, 
 westwards, a small attached block, later the school- 
 house, which was probably the nuns 1 almonry. Within 
 the gates was the curia or outer court, of the monastery, 
 which, perhaps, had farm-buildings and offices of various 
 uses irregularly grouped about it. On its eastward side 
 it was flanked by a long range of buildings, substantially 
 the same as we see to-day. But its walls of weathered 
 clunch are now encased in brick, its height has been 
 increased by a second upper floor, and its thatched roof 
 has disappeared. At one end stood, as it still stands, 
 the kitchen, lighted then by narrow lancet-headed 
 windows, but otherwise much as we see it still. In a 
 walled space, still existing, the nuns probably piled 
 their stock-fish in a stack, as it may be seen piled in 
 Norwegian warehouses to-day. The room which is now 
 the kitchen office was then most likely, as it was in early 
 
24 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 College days, the pincerna, or pantry. Next it, south- 
 wards, was the present entry to the cloister; but the entry 
 was formerly further to the south, in what is now a part 
 of the Master's lodge. In the wall of this modern 
 entry, then a chamber, we may note an ancient aper- 
 ture, somewhat widely splayed, which has once been 
 closed by a shutter, of which the hinge remains. It 
 communicates with the pantry, but did not serve the 
 purpose of a window. It is a feature seen in various 
 forms in many monasteries, and called the rota, or turn. 
 Here a nun might, by permission, obtain a stoup of 
 beer from the servant in the pantry. It appears to 
 have been passed to the opening down a box-like case 
 horizontally attached to the pantry wall in such a 
 manner that the two parties could not see or converse 
 with one another. 
 
 The ground-floor rooms below the library were prob- 
 ably occupied by the Cellaress. Above them was the 
 aula, or hall, for the lodging of the nuns 1 guests. It did 
 not communicate with the cloister, but was reached by a 
 ' porch,' or covered staircase, ascending from the curia. 
 The ancient apartment which is now the hall of the 
 Master's lodge was the camera, or dwelling-room of the 
 Prioress. The handsome wainscoted room over it, 
 which two hundred years ago was called the conference 
 chamber, was her solar, or upper chamber. Next it was 
 her oratory, a small room which is now distinguished by 
 a large window of three lights looking into the cloister. 
 On the ground-floor, next the north aisle of the nave, 
 was a room called the vestibule, from which the Prioress 
 had a private access to the church. It is now occupied 
 by the staircase of the lodge. 
 
From a photograph by} [/. Palmer Clarke, Cambridge 
 
 NORTH TRANSEPT OF THE CHAPEL 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
THE NUNS OF ST. RADEGUND 25 
 
 The south walk of the cloister was flanked through- 
 out its length by the nave of the church. The west 
 front had a small tower at the northern angle, and con- 
 tained a central doorway of a thirteenth-century type. 
 Aisles, north and south, lined the nave, that on the 
 north side occupying the position of the present south 
 walk of the cloister. The pier arches of the nave, seven 
 in number on each side, were in character like those in 
 the north transept, but loftier. There was a screen, 
 which probably extended to the full height of the nave, 
 and stood in the position of the present west wall of the 
 chapel ; it served to separate the parochial church from 
 the more eastern portion reserved to the nuns. The 
 upper story of the central tower is an addition of 
 Alcock's time ; the bell-tower of the nuns was probably 
 covered with a low conical roof. The roofs over the 
 four arms of the church were all of high pitch, as is 
 shown by the weather markings on the tower. The 
 transepts each had a chapel on the eastern side. The 
 northern one occupied the position of the present organ - 
 chamber ; that on the south side, if we may judge from 
 the mouldings of the arch opening into the transept, 
 was put up about the time when the steeple fell, in 
 1277. 
 
 In the chancel there was an often-mentioned altar 
 of St. Katherine and other virgins, standing on the 
 north side of the high altar. External to the north 
 wall of the presbytery there was a building of two stories, 
 the upper of which must have obscured the lower part 
 of the lancet windows. It was evidently the Sacrisfs 
 abode, and the aperture is still to be seen on the 
 outer wall, near the north-east angle of the chancel, 
 
26 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 through which she watched the light before the high 
 altar. 
 
 In the north transept may be seen the square-headed 
 doorway, now built up, through which the nuns entered 
 the church from their dormitory. The room immedi- 
 ately outside the door was probably a vestry, through 
 which the nuns passed from the foot of the dormitory 
 stairs. The dormitory must have occupied the whole 
 length of the upper floor of the eastern cloister range. 
 Below it was the chapter-house, the square ending of 
 which projected into what is now the Chapel Court. 
 As was often the case, the floor of the chapter-house and 
 the adjoining walk of the cloister were lowered in order 
 to give a dignified height to this important building 
 without breaking the level of the dormitory floor above. 
 Outside the entrance of the chapter-house we may 
 remark the stone bench, where on Maundy Thursday 
 sat the twelve poor men (or women, perhaps) whose feet 
 were washed by the sisters.* A passage under the dais 
 of the refectory in College days called the Dark Entry 
 conducted to a prolongation of the cloister northwards 
 from the Hall. On the eastern side of the Dark Entry 
 was a room containing a fireplace, which seems to have 
 been the warming house, to which the nuns were per- 
 mitted to retire from the cloister in cold weather ; west- 
 ward of the passage were store-rooms beneath the 
 refectory. The walls of the latter are preserved in the 
 present Hall. The building which continued the eastern 
 cloister range northwards from the refectory contained 
 on the upper floor a large room which may have been 
 
 * An estate at Madingley, called Maundy Sylver, provided the 
 thirty pence which the nuns doled on this occasion. 
 
THE NUNS OF ST. RADEGUND 27 
 
 the novices' dormitory, and next it, at the extremity of 
 the building, was the latrina the last a hardly altered 
 example of thirteenth-century masonry. East from the 
 cloister stretched the nuns' graveyard. The infirmary, 
 a detached building which has wholly vanished, most 
 likely was placed near it. 
 
CHAPTEK II 
 
 THE FOUNDER AND HIS WORK 
 
 THE early Tudor period in University history was the 
 day of great episcopal foundations. Within a space of 
 forty years from the date of Bosworth Field six impor- 
 tant colleges were planted three at either University 
 and all of them were either founded by Bishops, or to 
 Bishops owed the suggestion for their foundation. The 
 earliest of the group was Jesus, Cambridge (1496), the 
 creation of a Bishop of Ely, John Alcock. Next came 
 the twin colleges of Christ's (1505) and St. John's 
 (1511) at Cambridge, which owed their origin to Fisher 
 of Rochester, just as Christ Church, Oxford (1525), was 
 in all but name the foundation of Wolsey of York. 
 Prior in date to Christ Church were the Oxford colleges 
 of Brasenose and Corpus Christi (both in 1512), the 
 former founded in part by Smyth of Lincoln, the latter 
 by Fox of Winchester. And to these illustrious men 
 we may add one who, in the wide field of his munificence, 
 surpassed them all, as in its scale he rivalled even 
 Wolsey Wolsey's predecessor at York, John Rotheram, 
 re-founder of Lincoln, Oxford, benefactor of King's and 
 Pembroke and the University library at Cambridge, and 
 founder of Jesus College at Rotherham. In the fact that 
 
THE FOUNDER AND HIS WORK 29 
 
 of these six episcopal founders five Wolsey being the 
 exception were natives of the northern counties, we 
 perhaps see an indication of the remarkable revival of 
 religious feeling witnessed at this period in Northern 
 England, and of an awakening among the rulers of the 
 Church to a sense of its responsibilities and of its short- 
 comings in those parts. The three Cambridge founders, 
 Rotheram, Alcock, and Fisher, were all Yorkshiremen ; 
 all of them, moreover, connected with the ancient town 
 of Beverley and its collegiate church. Rotheram, who 
 took his name from his birthplace, and there went to 
 school, was Provost of Beverley Church, 1468-72. Alcock 
 and Fisher were both of them born and educated at 
 Beverley. Each of the three received his later educa- 
 tion at Cambridge ; but the Cambridge of Fisher's youth 
 had already taken colouring from the New Learning, 
 and inspired him with educational ideals other than 
 those of his two predecessors. In the lives, the aims, 
 and, it would seem, in the characters also of Rotheram 
 and Alcock, there is a resemblance so close that each 
 reflects the other, and it is not unreasonable to con- 
 jecture that in Rotheram 's completed foundation at his 
 native town we see the suggestion of what Jesus College, 
 Cambridge, should have been had Alcock lived to carry 
 out his designs. 
 
 Of the two men Rotheram was somewhat the older. 
 He was admitted in theology in 1462, and Alcock in 
 canon law in 1469-70. Rotheram was one of the 
 original Fellows of King's, and subsequently became 
 Master of Pembroke ; Alcock's college is uncertain, but 
 there is some likelihood that it was Pembroke. About 
 the same time they were instituted to London rectories : 
 
30 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 Rotheram to St. Vedast's, Alcock to St. Margaret's, Fish 
 Street, and to St. Stephen's, Westminster. Rotheram 
 was consecrated Bishop of Rochester in 1468 ; Alcock 
 succeeded him there in 1472. In 1471 Rotheram went 
 on an embassy to Burgundy, and in the same year 
 Alcock was appointed a commissioner to treat with the 
 King of Scots. From April to September, 1474, the 
 two Bishops, by an arrangement of which no similar 
 instance is known, jointly held the office of Lord Chan- 
 cellor. Rotheram was translated successively to Lincoln 
 in 1471 and to York in 1480; Alcock to Worcester in 
 1476 and to Ely in 1486. Each was conspicuous for 
 his devotion to the cause of Henry VII. Rotheram, 
 dying in May, 1500, nominated Alcock supervisor of 
 his will ; Alcock died on October 1 of the same year. 
 
 Not the least noteworthy point in these singularly 
 parallel lives is the fact that each of the friends founded 
 in his diocese a college dedicated to the Name of Jesus. 
 The license to found Jesus College, Rotherham, was 
 obtained in 1481 ; but the Archbishop only made final 
 provision for its establishment in his will, dated 1498. 
 Alcock, who obtained letters patent for the erection of 
 his college in 1496, was less fortunate in completing his 
 designs for its constitution. The letters patent provide 
 that the College shall consist of a Master, six Fellows, 
 and 'a certain number" 1 of scholars to be trained in 
 grammar. Bishop Nicholas West, in the preamble to 
 the statutes which he gave to the College, says that 
 Alcock designed that it should consist of a Master, six 
 Fellows, and six boys, but he adds that the premature 
 death of the founder prevented him from carrying his 
 pious intentions into effect, that the endowment had 
 
THE FOUNDER AND HIS WORK 31 
 
 subsequently proved insufficient for the maintenance of 
 the number which he had designed, and that he had 
 not lived to frame, perfecte et siifficienter, statutes for its 
 governance. That statutes of some temporary kind 
 were drafted by him seems certain. The earliest extant 
 statutes of the College are those given to it in 1514 
 by James Stanley, Bishop of Ely, and they expressly 
 abrogate all previous statutes. In the interval between 
 Alcock's death and 1514 endowments, large in relation 
 to the primitive foundation, had come to the College, 
 and a somewhat extensive remodelling of the founder's 
 plans was inevitable. Bishop Stanley, however, in his 
 preamble, declares that he ' adheres to the footprints of 
 his most devout predecessor, 1 and in his palimpsest we 
 may probably read the outlines of Alcock's scheme. 
 
 Rotheram's College, in the parish church of his native 
 town, consisted of a provost, six choristers, and three 
 masters, who were to teach respectively grammar, music, 
 and writing. Its objects, stated in the license for its 
 foundation, were twofold : ' To preach the Word of God 
 in the parish of Rotherham and in other places in the 
 diocese of York, and to instruct gratuitously, in the 
 rules of grammar and song, scholars from all parts of 
 England, and especially from the diocese of York.' 
 Alcock's foundation, as we have seen, was designed for 
 a Master, six Fellows and six boys. Rotheram's 
 College was to consist of ten persons for the fanciful 
 reason that, whereas its founder had offended God in 
 His ten commandments, he might benefit by the prayers 
 of the society. Alcock's motive for fixing on a society 
 of thirteen looks like a piece of conservatism, charac- 
 teristic of the man. In many monasteries thirteen was 
 
32 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 the complement of professed members, the number 
 having reference to the original Christian society of our 
 Lord and His Apostles. Probably St. Radegund's 
 nunnery consisted of that number; eleven sisters are 
 named as having^'w* eligendi at the election of Prioress 
 in 1457. 
 
 Rotherarcfs College, according to its measure, was 
 intended to meet two pressing needs of his time, and 
 especially of Northern England a preaching clergy and 
 boys trained for the service of the Church. At the end 
 of the fifteenth century ' both theology and the art of 
 preaching seemed in danger of general neglect. At the 
 English Universities, and consequently throughout the 
 whole country, the sermon was falling into almost 
 complete disuse. 1 * The disfavour with which it was 
 regarded by the heads of the Church was largely due to 
 fear of the activity of the Lollards, which had brought 
 all popular harangues and discourses under suspicion. 
 When the embers of heresy had been extinguished, here 
 and there a reforming Churchman sought to restore 
 among the parish clergy the old preaching activity. In 
 the wide, unmanageable dioceses of the north the lack 
 of an educated, preaching priesthood was most apparent. 
 Bishop Stanley is probably only echoing the language 
 of Alcock when he begins and closes his statutes with 
 an exhortation to the society, whom he addresses as 
 ' scholars of Jesus," 1 so to conduct themselves ' that the 
 Name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be honoured, the 
 clergy multiplied, and the people called to the praise of 
 God. 1 He enacts that of the five foundation Fellows 
 (one of Alcock's six having been suppressed) four shall 
 * Mullinger, The University of Cambridge, vol. i., p. 438. 
 
THE FOUNDER AND HIS WORK 33 
 
 be devoted to the study of theology, and he requires 
 that they shall be chosen from natives of five counties, 
 which, owing to the imperfections of the single existing 
 copy of his statutes, are unspecified. If, as is likely, 
 this county restriction was re-introduced by Stanley 
 from the provisions made by Alcock, it is natural to 
 surmise that the founder's native county was one of 
 those preferred. Certain it is that his small society 
 had a Yorkshireman, Chubbes, of Whitby, for its first 
 Master. He had been a Fellow of Pembroke, and 
 probably from the same society and county came one 
 of the original Fellows of Jesus, William Atkynson. 
 
 The same fear of Lollardism which had stifled preach- 
 ing had caused the teaching profession to be regarded 
 with jealousy by the authorities of the Church.* In a 
 limited part of North-Eastern England William Byng- 
 ham, about the year 1439, found seventy schools void 
 for ' grete scarstee of Maistres of Gramar,' which fifty 
 years previously had been in active use. His foundation 
 of God's House at Cambridge was designed to supply 
 trained masters to these derelict schools. The boys' 
 schools attached to Rotheram's and Alcock's founda- 
 tions were intended to meet the same deficiency. Pre- 
 sumably Alcock meant that one or other of his Fellows 
 should supply the teaching, for his foundation did not 
 include a schoolmaster. The linking of a grammar- 
 school with a house of University students was, of course, 
 no novelty ; the connection of Winchester with New 
 College had been copied by Henry VI. in the association 
 of Eton and King's. But Alcock's plan of including 
 boys and 'dons' within the same walls, and making 
 * Mullinger, The University of Cambridge, vol. i., p. 349. 
 
34 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 them mix in the common life and discipline of hall and 
 chapel, if not absolutely a new thing, had no nearer 
 prototype in an English University than Walter de 
 Merton's provision in the statutes of his college for a 
 Grammaticus and pneri* Though the school was 
 meant to supply a practical need, the pattern of it 
 seems to have been suggested by Alcock's medieval 
 sentiment. There is, indeed, no evidence or likelihood 
 that St. Radegund's nunnery maintained a school, but 
 the same monastic precedent which Alcock apparently 
 followed in fixing the number of his society prescribed 
 the type of his school. It stood in the quarter where 
 monastic schools were always placed, next the gate, in 
 the old building which had served the nuns as their 
 almonry. 
 
 There is one omission in the constitution which 
 Alcock gave to his College which marks it as entirely 
 distinct from the ordinary type of college, whether at 
 Cambridge or Oxford, and is another mark of kinship 
 with liotheram's grammar-school foundation. It is not 
 a little remarkable that his scheme made no provision 
 for the maintenance of undergraduate scholars. The 
 first Fellows nominated by him were clearly men, not 
 youths. Stanley's statutes direct that the Fellows of the 
 original foundation are to study theology or law, as, no 
 doubt, was Alcock's intention. And Stanley's statutes 
 make it equally clear that the pueri, at least in 1514, 
 were simply schoolboys, for they must be under four- 
 teen years of age at admission ; they are to . study, not 
 
 * Merton's boys were placed in Nunhall, a building detached from 
 the college ; they were educated, in some cases, till they were capable 
 of taking a degree. 
 
THE FOUNDER AND HIS WORK 35 
 
 arts, but grammar, and they are to serve as acolytes. 
 It is true that the same statutes provide that a puer, if 
 sufficiently advanced in grammar, may pass to the arts 
 course, and in such a case, as a juvenis, may keep his 
 place on the foundation until he takes his Master's 
 degree; bukjuvenes i.e., undergraduate scholars were 
 not included in Alcock's plan. It may be said that the 
 omission was due to the narrowness of the original 
 endowment, and to the fact that the founder's plans 
 were not carried to completion in his lifetime ; but it 
 is none the less clear that, having to make selection 
 between schoolboys and undergraduates, he gave his 
 preference to the former, and that, though his friends 
 and immediate successors founded several Fellowships, 
 all clerical, and a readership in theology, it occurred to 
 none of them to bestow their wealth on a personage of 
 such obvious consequence as the undergraduate. 
 
 In the endowment of the College Alcock had little 
 part. Whatever his plans may have been, they were 
 frustrated by his death, little more than four years after 
 he had obtained the King's letters patent. As Bishop 
 West says in his statutes, the College was by him, not 
 Jundatum, but fundari coeptum. From the wreckage of 
 the nunnery a good deal was recovered. Indeed, under 
 the competent management of the first Fellows the 
 estates of the dispossessed priory brought in at least as 
 large a sum as the nuns' Treasuress had gathered in 
 times comparatively prosperous. The income of the 
 nuns from all sources in the two years 1449-50 and 
 1450-51 had amounted, respectively, to d77 and 12 
 odd. Though many of the lands and houses were unlet 
 in 1497-98, and many tenants remained in arrears or 
 
 32 
 
36 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 disputed payment, William Pykerell, the collector, 
 managed to put by a net sum of over 10 in that year. 
 His payments were few and formal ; the rebuilding of 
 the dilapidated house had either not begun, or its 
 charges were borne by the Bishop and his friends. We 
 are accustomed to regard Alcock as not only the 
 founder, but also the architect of Jesus ; and for that 
 belief we have the warrant of Bishop West's statement 
 that the College was 'newly built and constructed, 
 almost from its very foundations, 1 by Alcock. Of the 
 competence of the founder as an architect there can be 
 no question. He was comptroller of the royal works 
 and buildings under Henry VII., and his skill and taste 
 are evidenced by his work at Ely, West bury, Malvern, 
 and at Great St. Mary's Church, Cambridge. But the 
 literal acceptation of West's assertion is subject to 
 certain qualifications. Firstly, the nunnery buildings 
 were so far from being removed by Alcock that we now 
 know that he retained them almost entire. Secondly, 
 though the recasting of the old into the newest Per- 
 pendicular fashion was no doubt accomplished through 
 his agency, the builder's hand was in some cases that 
 of one of his friends, Sir Reginald Bray or Sir John 
 Rysley. 
 
 What Alcock and his friends did to adapt the 
 nunnery buildings to College uses may be briefly 
 described. The great church was obviously beyond 
 the requirements of his little community of thirteen, 
 and he wisely decided not to lay on his College the 
 costly burden of its maintenance in its full proportions. 
 The western part of the nave was converted into a 
 three-storied range of chambers. It had once been the 
 
THE FOUNDER AND HIS WORK 37 
 
 parish church, and Alcock, careful as ever of the type, 
 retained for parish uses the shortened nave and the 
 transepts, and made a new door for the use of the 
 parishioners at the south-west corner of the present 
 nave. He destroyed the nave aisles and the transept 
 chapels, and increased the area of the cloister court by 
 adding to it the space occupied by the northern aisle of 
 the nave. The thirteenth-century pier arches of the 
 nave and chancel were filled up, and large Perpendicular 
 windows of the plainest pattern were inserted in the 
 upper part of the walls and in the gables of the south 
 transept and choir. Most of this work was done by Sir 
 John Rysley, who, on the testimony of Bishop Stanley, 
 ' built the nave of the church, and covered the cloister 
 with wood, lead, and fabric.' He died in 1512, and by 
 his will left the College ^160 for completing this work 
 and glazing the windows. The bell-tower again needed 
 the helping hands which Bishop Gray had invited for it 
 forty years before. Its upper story had to come down, 
 and was rebuilt in the same plain style as the nave. If 
 in their recasting of the nuns 1 work Alcock and Rysley 
 worked under disadvantages which, from an aesthetic 
 point of view, are to be regretted, in wood, glass, and 
 those interior adornments which were the glory of 
 fifteenth -century builders, they enriched the church 
 beyond all previous knowledge. Sufficient fragments 
 remain of the beautiful stalls and screen of the founder 
 to justify the judgment of Dr. Shorten, a Jesus man 
 transplanted to the Mastership of St. John's, when he 
 adopted ' the stalles in the southe parte of the Qwyer 
 in Jhesus College in Cambridge ' as the model of those 
 to be put up in the chapel of his adopted College, as 
 
38 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 well as to demonstrate the marked superiority of the 
 original to the copy. 
 
 In the hall the fine roof of Spanish chestnut with its 
 beautiful corbels, the charming oriel, and the quaint 
 window in the western wall, were the additions of Alcock 
 to the nuns' refectory ; or it may be that they were the 
 work of Sir Reginald Bray, whose arms are still dis- 
 played in the window opposite the oriel. The time- 
 worn clunch walls of the nuns 1 refectory and domestic 
 buildings were faced with brick, and the long galleries 
 which furnished interior communication to the different 
 quarters of the nunnery, and the porch, or pentis, ascend- 
 ing from the outer court to the Guest Hall, gave place 
 to staircases. The lodging of the Prioress, with little 
 structural alteration, became the Master's mansum^ and 
 her oratory, altered by the insertion of a Perpendicular 
 east window, was used as the Master's oratory as late as 
 the days of Dr. Reston, Master from 1546 to 1551. 
 The hands which unscrupulously walled up the beautiful 
 Early English work of the chapter-house (discovered 
 in 1893) made atonement in the erection of the pictur- 
 esque gate-tower and the doorcase, bearing Alcock's 
 rebus, in the eastern wall of the outer court. One 
 nunnery building, the sacristy, described in the last 
 chapter, was retained by Alcock to serve as a lodging 
 for distinguished guests of the College, but disappeared 
 early in the sixteenth century. Alcock's adaptation of 
 the whole of the conventual buildings to the require- 
 ments of a college was so ingeniously effected that Bishop 
 West, living in the next generation, seems to have 
 thought that the College buildings were entirely of his 
 creation, and Sherman, writing in the seventeenth 
 
From a photograph by] 
 
 [/. Palmer Clarke, Cambridge 
 
 ENTRANCE TO THE CLOISTERS 
 
THE FOUNDER AND HIS WORK 39 
 
 century, credited him with having deliberately adopted 
 the monastic plan. 
 
 The formal title given to the College in the royal 
 letters patent was 'The College of the most Blessed 
 Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist, and the Glorious 
 Virgin Saint Radegund.' But there can be no doubt of 
 the truth of Sherman's statement that it was the in- 
 tention of the founder from the first that it should be 
 generally known as ' Jesus College/ The church was 
 re-dedicated by him to the Name of Jesus ; the Fellows 
 and scholars are styled Jesuani in Bishop Stanley's 
 statutes; the neighbouring street took the name of 
 Jesus Lane so early as 1497 ; and in legal phrase the 
 words 'commonly called Jesus College' were custom- 
 arily added at a very early date to the formal style. 
 Indeed, it would seem that the title first decided on 
 was 'The College of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary, 
 and Saint John the Evangelist'; for in an address of 
 the Master and Fellows to Henry VII., belonging, ap- 
 parently, to the year 1497, that is the name which 
 they give to their society. Moreover, the original seal 
 of the College has for legend, SIGILLVM COLLEGII IHV : 
 MARIE ET IOHIS : EVAG : CANTEBR. It represents under 
 canopies the Virgin and St. John standing on either side 
 of the Saviour, and the base displays a shield bearing 
 the emblems of the Five Wounds. In Stanley's statutes 
 it is ordained that the Mass of the Name of Jesus shall 
 be celebrated weekly throughout the year, and far into 
 the nineteenth century the College allowed ' exceed- 
 ings ' on Festum Jesu. 
 
 From Alcock we now pass to the men who formed 
 the small society of his newly constituted College, and 
 
40 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 to those of his friends who aided his work and con- 
 tinued it when he had been removed by death. 
 
 William Chubbes, the first Master, was, as we have 
 seen, a native of Whitby, and had been a Fellow and 
 president of Pembroke. He was about seventeen 
 years junior to Alcock, for he was admitted to incept 
 in theology in 1486-87, on which occasion he de- 
 posited as his caution a volume of Scotus, an author on 
 whom he wrote a commentary ; he was likewise author 
 of an Introduction to Logic. It was at his suggestion 
 that Alcock converted the nunnery into a college. 
 Along with Chubbes the acccount roll of 1497-98 gives 
 the names of Edward Griggson, William Pykerell, and 
 Henry Lecheman, who either then or soon afterwards 
 were Fellows ; besides these, William Atkynson, Thomas 
 Greyne, and William Plombe were apparently original 
 Fellows. William Atkynson seems to be identical with 
 a Pembroke man of that name, who was successively a 
 prebend of Southwell and a canon first of Lincoln and 
 then of Windsor. Plombe was appointed by the 
 founder to supervise the building of the College, and in 
 1 497-98 a Grace of the Senate was passed excusing him 
 from attendance at congregations, general processions, 
 and funerals of the dead while he was engaged in the 
 building of Jesus College. 
 
 Within a few years of its inception, and partly within 
 the lifetime of the founder, the meagre endowment of 
 the College was increased by the piety and liberality of 
 a group of benefactors, who were in most cases Alcock's 
 friends, and who contributed to carry out his plans. 
 Of the part taken in the building of the College by 
 Sir John Rysley and Sir Reginald Bray something has 
 
THE FOUNDER AND HIS WORK 41 
 
 already been said. Rysley furthermore founded a 
 readership in theology, and designed other benefactions 
 to the College had he lived. Sherman ascribes the 
 foundation of the readership to John Batemanson, LL.D., 
 and it would seem that its endowment was given jointly 
 by the two. By the Visitors in the third year of Eliza- 
 beth this readership was converted into four College 
 preacherships. It was once held by Cranmer. 
 
 In adjoining windows in the Priory Church of Great 
 Malvern were once to be seen the figures of Alcock, the 
 Bishop of the diocese, and of Sir Reginald Bray, the 
 architect who, under his direction, had re-edified the 
 church. At the court and in politics we find the two 
 men constantly associated in the reign of Henry VII., 
 and Bray's fame and skill in architecture he completed 
 St. George's Chapel at Windsor, and is credited with the 
 design of Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster must 
 especially have brought him into close relation with 
 Alcock, who was comptroller of the royal buildings. In 
 Bray Jesus was again linked with the domus antiqua et 
 religiosa of Pembroke, for he was a benefactor of both 
 Colleges, and his widow, the Lady Katherine Bray, in 
 1506 appointed the Master and Fellows of Pembroke 
 parties to the covenant which she made with Jesus 
 College for the maintenance of a master in grammar 
 for the school in the latter College. 
 
 The school -house, we are expressly told in this deed, 
 had already been built by Alcock. It stood between 
 the gate and the Fellows' garden ; on the upper floor 
 was the boys' dormitory, and a chamber in the gate- 
 tower was allotted to the schoolmaster. He was required 
 to teach gratuitously the College boys and any others 
 
42 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 resorting thither from elsewhere. He was to receive 
 from the College an annual stipend of ten marks, 
 together with meat and drink, wine and wax for divine 
 offices, and the services of the College barber and 
 laundress, as any Fellow of the College. The usher was 
 to teach the smaller and lower boys, and was paid forty 
 shillings annually. He was lodged in the College 
 proper, i.e., in the cloisters. The statutes of Bishop 
 Stanley require that the four College pueri shall be 
 under fourteen years of age at admission, having been 
 previously sufficiently trained in singing, and shall serve 
 as choristers. They are to be maintained by the College 
 and attend grammar-school for four years, unless any 
 should before then be sufficiently learned in grammar, 
 in which case he may study arts or otherwise, as the 
 Master of the College may direct. The boy promoted 
 to the study of arts thereupon took rank as a jurenis. 
 These College juvenes, four in number, were required 
 to be grammatici and dialectic^ skilful in singing and 
 apt for divine services. One of the four was to serve 
 as organist, the others respectively as sacrist, bible-clerk, 
 and gatekeeper, and at refections all of them were 
 to wait at the table of the Master and Fellows. 
 
 The school, as has been said, bore a very important 
 relation to the College as first constituted. The stipend 
 of the schoolmaster, 6 13s. 4d., was as large as that 
 assigned to the Master of the College by Bishop 
 Stanley's statutes, and the usher, with % per annum, 
 was actually better off than a Fellow, who had no 
 money stipend until 1549. Bishop West gave boys 
 trained in the school a preferential claim to Fellow- 
 ships after they had attained B. A. The school survived 
 
THE FOUNDER AND HIS WORK 43 
 
 the Reformation, but the special purpose which Alcock 
 meant it to fulfil, viz., the training of boys as acolytes 
 and choristers, ceased to exist after the Roman ritual 
 disappeared. When the ancient Trivium was re- 
 modelled by the Visitors of Edward VI. in 1549, 
 grammar was discarded as a subject of University 
 teaching, and Jesus was the only College permitted to 
 give instruction in it. The Visitors of Elizabeth 
 originally made the same exception. In the statutes 
 which they drafted in 1569 it was ordained : 
 
 Nemo Grammaticam in ullo Collegio doceat nisi in 
 Collegio Jesu tantum et in Collegiis Trinitatis et Regio 
 quoad choristas. 
 
 But in the revised code of 1570 the exception in the 
 case of Jesus was omitted. The College had anticipated 
 this conclusion by ceasing to pay the stipends of the 
 schoolmaster and usher at Christmas, 1567. 
 
 In the fourteen years which intervened between 
 Alcock's death and the date of Stanley's statutes four 
 Fellowships were added to the six of the original founda- 
 tion. Two of the new Fellowships were given in the 
 fifteenth year of Henry VII. : the first by Thomas 
 Roberts of Over, in the county of Cambridge, endowed 
 with lands in that parish ; the second by will of Roger 
 Thorney, maintained out of certain tenements in South- 
 wark. The third Fellowship, on the authority of Sher- 
 man and a MS. of 1557 called Fundationes Collegn Jesu 
 Cantabrigice, is set down to the credit of Richard Pigott 
 of London, serjeant-at-law. But the Fellow called 
 Pigott's scholar in the Stanley statutes was otherwise 
 known as the Hastings Fellow, and his endowment was 
 
44 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 almost certainly provided by the Lady Jane Hastings, 
 whose first husband was Richard Pigott. Her second 
 husband was Sir Richard Hastings, summoned to Parlia- 
 ment in 1482 as Baron Welles and Willoughby. He 
 died in 1503, and his wife in 1505. The fourth of the 
 additional Fellowships was founded upon the rectorial 
 tithes of Great Shelford, which were given to the College 
 by Bishop Stanley in 1506. The same endowment 
 furnished the stipends of the Master of the College and 
 the schoolmaster. The costs of the appropriation 
 having been borne by the Lady Katherine Bray, the 
 College reserved to her during her lifetime the right of 
 nominating the schoolmaster, and bound itself to 
 celebrate yearly for her and her husband. This was 
 the most valuable benefaction received by the College 
 since its foundation ; it brought in an annual sum of 
 QQ 13s. 4d. Bishop Stanley made it a condition of 
 the grant that the nomination of the Fellow called 
 Stanley's scholar, and also of the Master of the College, 
 should be reserved for ever to the Bishops of Ely. This 
 limitation remained in force until the statutes of 1882 
 gave the right of election in both cases to the Master 
 and Fellows. On the whole, the Bishops of Ely showed 
 honesty and discernment in their appointments to the 
 Mastership. Though they had no scruples about 
 putting their own relations into the Fellowship, they 
 kept the Mastership for men of some academic eminence. 
 The election to the remaining Fellowships rested with 
 the Master and Fellows, but Stanley's statutes prescribe 
 that the Fellow elected by them must be presented to 
 the Bishop and instituted by him. 
 
 The ten Fellowships so far founded were reduced by 
 
THE FOUNDER AND HIS WORK 45 
 
 Bishop Stanley to eight. Besides the Master and 
 Fellows, the society, as enumerated by him, consisted of 
 the four juvenes, the four boys, the schoolmaster and 
 usher, the Master's servant, the cook and undercook. 
 No stipends were provided for the Fellows of the Old 
 Foundation ; the accounts show that they received 
 their commons and no more, and the same was, of course, 
 the case with thejuvenes and pueri. After Bishop Stan- 
 ley 's grant of the rectory of Great Shelford a long interval 
 followed before the stream of benefactions to the College 
 was renewed. Its empty channels were not filled until 
 the cyclone of the Reformation had broken on the Uni- 
 versity. The liberality of benefactors in the generation 
 which succeeded Alcock was not drawn to his old-world 
 ideals and schoolboy types in education ; it flowed more 
 easily in the direction of the Lady Margaret's twin 
 foundations. Only one new endowment fell to the 
 College in the long reign of Henry VIII., that of 
 a Fellowship, given in 1518 by Sir Robert Rede, Chief 
 Justice of the Common Pleas, and once a Fellow of 
 King's Hall. But 'Rede's scoler the Justis,' as he 
 desired that his Fellow should be described, though he 
 shared the liberties of the other Fellows, was, in fact, no 
 more than a chantry priest, charged not with study or 
 teaching, but only with the formal task of celebrating 
 for the founder's soul. More hopeful was his other 
 foundation, which is perpetuated in the well-known 
 Rede lecture. By his will (1518) he left in trust to the 
 Master and Fellows of Jesus an annuity of 20 marks, 
 paid by the Abbey of the Holy Cross at Waltham out 
 of an estate at Babraham, for the maintenance of three 
 ' ordinary ' readers in the University schools viz., in 
 
46 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 Humanity, Logic and Philosophy, moral and natural 
 and for the keeping of his anniversary in St. Mary's 
 Church. The reader in Humanity was commonly called 
 the Terence reader, a title which savours of the old 
 learning, and Duns Scotus and the old translations of 
 Aristotle may have been the text-books of the readers 
 in Logic and Philosophy. But the date of Rede's 
 foundation coincides with the first movement in favour 
 of Greek studies, and Mr. Mullinger regards it as giving 
 an additional sanction to the New Learning. At least, 
 Rede shares with the Lady Margaret the credit of being 
 the first among University benefactors who recognised 
 the need for an endowed Professoriate. 
 
 The statutes of Bishop Stanley did not serve the 
 College for long. He was succeeded at Ely by Bishop 
 Nicholas West, who at some time during his episcopate 
 (1515-33) revised his predecessor's code. The statutes 
 traditionally ascribed to him remained in force until 
 1841. They were first printed in 1852 in Document* 
 relating to the University and Colleges of Cambridge. 
 The four MS. copies of them which existed in the 
 College in Sherman's day are described by him as ' all 
 without date, all imperfect and interpolated, teeming 
 with the careless errata of copyists, inconsistent with 
 themselves, fortified with no episcopal authority.' Sher- 
 man's strictures are not undeserved. The marginalia 
 arid interpolations in these copies leave the original 
 text in some places conjectural. In the Mastership of 
 Dr. Sterne (1633-44) the society, by collation of the 
 existing copies, agreed upon a textus receptus, but it 
 does not appear that this was ever approved by the 
 Visitor. The fact is that the statutes, which have been 
 
THE FOUNDER AND HIS WORK 47 
 
 hitherto regarded as West's, and which are prefaced 
 by his preamble, are in reality a radical recension of his 
 work by the commissioners of Edward VI. in the year 
 1549. This is made abundantly clear by comparing the 
 statutes with the return made by the same commissioners 
 to Henry VIII. in 1546, which latter shows that in 
 their general outlines the provisions made by Stanley 
 were then still in force. From the return we learn that 
 in 1546 the College maintained nine Fellows, viz., the 
 eight mentioned by Stanley and Rede's Fellow ; that the 
 foundation Fellows had no stipend, and the others 
 received severally the sums prescribed by Stanley's 
 statutes ; that Stanley's allowance of 14d. for the weekly 
 commons of each Fellow was unchanged ; and that West 
 had seen no cause to diminish the burden of exequies. 
 The so-called West statutes present to us quite an 
 altered state of affairs. They give the number of 
 Fellows as eleven ; they make no distinction as regards 
 emolument between the Fellows of the original founda- 
 tion and those subsequently added ; they assign to each 
 Fellow a yearly stipend of 26s. 8d., and allow him 16d. 
 weekly for commons. Of exequies they make no mention. 
 If it could be assumed that the statutes called West's 
 were really his work, it might be concluded that the 
 pusillus grex of 1514 had grown considerably in size 
 and wealth before West's death in 1533. But in the 
 truth-telling return of the Commissioners of 1546 we 
 read not progress but paralysis. The College is indeed 
 richer by one Fellowship than in 1514, but, instead of 
 Stanley's four boys and four juvenes, it maintains six 
 discipuli only. Even so its statutable outgoings exceed 
 its income from endowment by ^10 7s. 4d. The 
 
48 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 Bursars 1 accounts of the reigns of Henry VIII. and 
 Edward VI. tell an equally lamentable tale of stagnation 
 and penury. It was the practice of the Bursars of that 
 time to give a complete list of all the chambers in 
 College, the names of their occupants, and the rent paid 
 by those who were not on the foundation. Consequently, 
 it would be possible to present a complete ' List of 
 Residents' for most of the years 1535-51. The list 
 for the year last named may be taken as a specimen. 
 Excluding the schoolmaster and boys, who lived outside 
 the College proper, or cloisters, it enumerates the Master, 
 eight Fellows (five M.A., three B.A.), five graduates 
 other than Fellows (two M.A., three B.A.), eleven dis- 
 cipuli (either five or six of whom are on the foundation), 
 the cook, undercook, and butler. Nine chambers, 
 including, it would seem, the usher's, are empty, several 
 of them per defectum reparacionis. The Fellows and 
 graduates, and some even of the discipuli, occupy each 
 a separate chamber of his own, and there is room to 
 spare. The student-scholar, or undergraduate, is clearly 
 as yet a rare visitant to the void spaces of the College 
 cloister. 
 
 The legislation of Stanley and that of West, what- 
 ever the latter may have amounted to, gave definition 
 to the plan which the founder had shaped, but did not 
 materially modify it. Within fifty years from its 
 foundation his College had become an anachronism, and 
 his claustral community of student priests, not con- 
 cerned with education nor vivified by contact with 
 younger intelligence, came near to perishing as a thing 
 born out of due season. The dawn of better things 
 began with the endowment of scholarships, which was 
 
THE FOUNDER AND HIS WORK 49 
 
 the illuminating feature of the dark days of Edward VI.'s 
 reign. 
 
 The Reformation was as much a revolution in 
 domestic manners as in religion. Perhaps the change 
 was less marked in College society than elsewhere, but 
 Bancroft's pupils would have seen much to wonder at 
 in the routine of life that Cranmer led as undergraduate 
 and Fellow. Of that life some ^glimpses are seen in 
 the statutes of Stanley and West. It is consciously 
 monastic ; the individual has no place in it ; the com- 
 munity is absolutely self-contained. The barber, the 
 two cooks, and the janitor, as much as the Master 
 himself, are statutable members of the foundation, with 
 their allotted chambers, their places in chapel, their 
 allowances in hall. On rare occasions, and for the 
 honour and advantage of the College, the Master, taking 
 with him some of the Fellows, may have prandium or 
 ccena in the parlour, otherwise all meals are taken in 
 the hall. The juvenes wait upon the Master, Fellows, 
 and Fellow- Commoners (i.e., graduates and others not 
 on the foundation). During the meal a boy or ajuvenis 
 reads a passage of Scripture or of some 'authentic' 
 book. Only Latin is to be spoken within the limits 
 of the College. Besides the two common meals there 
 are 'bevers' (Mberia), when all Fellows and others 
 (except the Master and all Doctors in College, who are 
 each entitled to a pint of drink and a small portion of 
 bread) assemble silently in the hall, and withdraw as 
 soon as they have drunk. But anyone by payment 
 may get bread and drink when he will. Each Fellow is 
 allowed a chamber to himself, unless the number of 
 Fellows should ever exceed that of chambers, in which 
 
 4 
 
50 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 case two Fellows may occupy one chamber, but in 
 separate beds. Each class of residents is to be dressed 
 decently, according to its rank, and those in Orders are 
 to be tonsi et coronati. They are not to frequent 
 huntings or taverns ; not to keep hunting dogs, falcons, 
 or sparrow-hawks ; not to play at dice or other games 
 not permitted to the clergy. If any Fellow or scholar 
 strike another ita quod sanguis in aliqua quantitate 
 notabili emanaverit he is to be fined 6s. 8d.; but if 
 the bloodshed be not notabttis, nee sit atrox Icesio, he is 
 to be punished as the Master and Fellows direct ; after 
 three warnings he is to be expelled. No questionist at 
 his B. A. degree, nor any scholar at the prandlum at the 
 beginning of Lent, is to be required to spend more than 
 6s. 8d. on food and drink, nor any M.A. or B.D. more 
 than one mark on the occasion of his degree, unless he 
 has a benefice or patrimony, or wishes to do so. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE REFORMATION 
 
 ON the very threshold of the history of Jesus College 
 we are confronted with the name of Cranmer. The 
 College had scarcely been seven years in existence when 
 he entered it. We do not know the name of any 
 student whose admission preceded his. 
 
 Left an orphan by the death of his father, a Notting- 
 hamshire gentleman, he was entered at Jesus in 1503, 
 at the age of fourteen. We do not know what 
 circumstances may have determined the choice of his 
 College. His age shows that he could not have been 
 one of the boys of the grammar school, and it is 
 doubtful whether the College as yet had any exhibitions 
 for discipuli, or undergraduates. Of the quality of the 
 teaching which he received at Jesus we should be in 
 no doubt, even if we had not the testimony of Foxe. 
 Alcock, as his sermons prove, was a man learned for 
 his times ; but he had not, like his eminent predecessor 
 at Ely, Bishop Gray, drunk from the springs of Greek 
 learning. His training, like that of every Cambridge 
 man of his generation, had been in the 'frivolous 
 questions and obscure glosses ' of Duns Scotus and the 
 schoolmen, and when he looked about him for a Head 
 
52 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 for his new College, William Chubbes, then or later 
 noted for a re-weaving of the old cobwebs in his com- 
 mentary on Scotus, was a natural selection to make. 
 Cranmer may or may not have come under the direct 
 tuition of Chubbes, but we are told that at Cambridge 
 ' he was nursled in the grossest kind of sophistry, logic, 
 philosophy, moral and natural (not in the text of the 
 old philosophers, but chiefly in the dark riddles of 
 Duns and other subtle questionists), to his age of 
 22 years. 1 Neither was his tutor a person to inspire 
 enthusiasm. 'The scholar of such an one I was, 1 he 
 wrote, ' who when he came to any hard chapter, which 
 he well understood not, would find some pretty toy to 
 shift it off, and to skip over to another chapter, of 
 which he could better skill. 1 
 
 With such an instructor, and such a routine of study, 
 he attained the degree of B.A. in 1511-12. After 
 that, we are told, he gave himself to the study of 
 Faber and Erasmus and good Latin authors. The 
 new bent given to his studies was doubtless due to 
 the influence of Erasmus, who began to lecture in 
 Cambridge as the Lady Margaret's Reader in 1511. 
 About that] year Cranmer was elected to a Fellowship 
 at Jesus, and then, as his secretary and biographer, 
 Ralph Morice, quaintly remarks, ' it chanced him to 
 marry a wife. 1 Foxe's account of the matter is that 
 she was a gentleman's daughter, and that she was of 
 affinity to the wife of the innkeeper of the Dolphin. 
 It was objected to Cranmer at his last trial ' that he, 
 being yet free, and before he entered into Holy Orders, 
 married one Joan, surnamed Black or Brown, dwelling 
 at the sign of the Dolphin in Cambridge. Whereunto 
 
THE REFORMATION 53 
 
 he answered that whether she were called black or 
 brown he knew not, but that he married there one 
 Joan, that he granted.' The insinuation that the 
 marriage was in some way discreditable to Cranmer 
 may be set down to malevolent gossip. The Dolphin, 
 which stood at the Bridge Street corner of All Saints 1 
 Passage, on ground now occupied by the Master's 
 Courts of Trinity, was then the principal inn of 
 Cambridge. The innkeeper was a tenant of Jesus 
 College, and at sundry times we find that the College 
 paid for the lodging and entertainment there of guests 
 of consequence. But if the marriage of the young and 
 unknown scholar to the distant connection of an inn- 
 keeper, according to the views of the time, was not 
 necessarily an ill-assorted one, it was, nevertheless, 
 clearly improvident. Though celibacy was not made 
 a condition of the tenure of a Fellowship at Jesus until 
 the statutes of Edward VI., residence in College was 
 strictly insisted on, and in consequence Cranmer vacated 
 his Fellowship. He appears to have lived with his wife 
 at the Dolphin, and he maintained himself by lecturing 
 in theology at the small Benedictine house of Bucking- 
 ham College, which occupied the site of Magdalene 
 College. But within a year from his marriage his wife 
 died in childbed, and immediately 'the Master and 
 Fellowes of Jesus Colledge, desirous again of their old 
 companion, namely for his towardlinesse in learning, 
 chose him againe fellow of the same Colledge. 1 He 
 took the degree of M.A. in 1515, and then, as the 
 College statutes required, devoted himself to the study 
 of theology. By good fortune Erasmus' Greek Testa- 
 ment was published in the following year. Cranmer 
 
54 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 was still a layman, and did not face the responsibilities 
 of ordination until his judgment had been confirmed 
 by five years of study of the Scriptures in the light of 
 the new scholarship. His fame as a theologian was 
 then high in the University. He was appointed by 
 his own College to the readership in theology founded 
 by Sir John Rysley, and by the University was com- 
 monly chosen to examine for degrees in divinity, in 
 which capacity he insisted on a competent knowledge 
 of the Scriptures. 
 
 Historians of the University of Cambridge, from 
 Fuller to Mr. Mullinger, have dwelt with legitimate 
 and patriotic pride on the contrast at this period in the 
 attitude of the two Universities towards the Reforma- 
 tion of Learning. At Oxford the new scholarship 
 6 stormed an entrance ' ; ' barbarous fellows railed 
 against the Greek tongue with great and heinous 
 revilings ' ; in the streets ' Grecians ' were mobbed by 
 crews of young Priams and Hectors. At Cambridge 
 hardly a spark of controversial heat was engendered 
 by the collision of the old and new methods. The 
 course of the transition is traceable at Jesus. The 
 Scotist, Chubbes, was succeeded in the Mastership in 
 1505 by John Eccleston, evidently a man of the old 
 ideas. He was rector of Great Shelford, and merited 
 commemoration for having induced the dunce Bishop 
 of Ely, Stanley, to appropriate his rectory to the 
 College. William Capon, who followed in the Master- 
 ship in 1516, after the brief tenure of Eccleston's 
 immediate successor, Thomas Alcock, was of more 
 stirring quality. His brother John, who preceded him 
 at Cambridge, passed from the abbacy of Hulme in 
 
THE REFORMATION 55 
 
 Norfolk, to which he was elected in 1516, to the see 
 of Bangor in 1533, and to that of Salisbury in 1539. 
 John took the King's side when the divorce question 
 was agitated at Cambridge, and for Cranmer's Bible he 
 translated the Epistles to the Corinthians. William, 
 though he owed the Mastership to Larimer's enemy, 
 Bishop West, was, like his brother, strongly progressive 
 in his views. Wolsey made him his chaplain, and the 
 first Dean of the College which he founded at Ipswich, 
 and afterwards invited him to nominate rising Cambridge 
 scholars for posts in Cardinal College at Oxford, and, 
 as an indication of his leanings, it may be mentioned, 
 on the authority of Strype, that no fewer than eleven 
 of those selected by him were subsequently imprisoned 
 for heresy. Strype's list does not include Cranmer, 
 who declined an offered canonry there. Dr. Shorten, 
 then Master of Pembroke, but originally of Jesus, 
 acted along with Capon in the selection of Cambridge 
 scholars, and among those nominated to canonries at 
 Cardinal College was Richard Harman of Jesus, who 
 graduated M.A. in the same year as Cranmer, and was 
 afterwards his chaplain. 
 
 Of Cranmers other Jesus friends and contemporaries 
 several were noted theologians of the reforming party. 
 Geoffrey Downs, who, as a Fellow of Jesus, was some- 
 what senior to Cranmer, was his lifelong friend and 
 correspondent. John Bale, afterwards Bishop of Ossory, 
 called ( bilious Bale ' by Fuller for the rancour of his 
 attacks on his papal opponents, was another con- 
 temporary of Cranmer's at Jesus. He seems to have 
 come thither from John Capon's Benedictine house at 
 Hulme, and in his Illustres Britanniae Scriptores he says 
 
56 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 that in his first years at Cambridge he ' wandered in 
 ignorance and blindness of mind, without instructor or 
 patron. 1 That, it would seem, was in the early, un- 
 awakened days of the College, for he gratefully com- 
 memorates the acquaintance which he formed at Jesus 
 with many viri doctissimi, notably with Cranmer and 
 Geoffrey Downs, ' once my most worthy father in 
 theology.' Thomas Goodrich, originally of Corpus, 
 was elected a Fellow of Jesus in 1510. He, too, threw 
 in his lot with the Reformers, though not with the 
 whole-heartedness of Cranmer or Bale. He was pro- 
 moted to the see of Ely in 1534, was one of Edward VI.'s 
 Commissioners to visit the University in 1549, and became 
 Lord Chancellor in 1551 . His best title to remembrance 
 is that he revised the Gospel of St. John for Cranmer's 
 Bible, and took part in the compilation of the Book of 
 Common Prayer. Goodrich and Downs assisted Cranmer 
 in the production of the Institution of a Christian Man, 
 and among the editors of the same work were two 
 other Jesus divines : John Edmunds, Fellow in 1517, 
 and, at a later date, Master of Peterhouse, and Robert 
 Okyng, who was commissary to John Capon when the 
 latter was Bishop of Salisbury. 
 
 What individual part was borne by other members 
 of the society in the reform of letters and religion we 
 cannot say ; but that the College, as a whole, main- 
 tained friendly relations with Cranmer in the con- 
 troversial period of his primacy is seen in the genial 
 tone of the letters which he addressed to the Master 
 and Fellows. From Croydon he writes to Dr. Capon : 
 
 'In my right hearty wise I commend me to you. And 
 so certifying you that I send you here a buck to be bestowed 
 
THE REFORMATION 57 
 
 amonges your company within your college. And, foras- 
 much as you have more store of money, and also less need 
 than I at this season, therefore I bequeath you a noble of 
 your purse towards the baking and seasoning of him. And 
 whensoever I have so much money beforehand as I am now 
 behindhand, I shall repay you your noble again. And 
 thus fare you well/ 
 
 At another time we find him kindly interceding with 
 the College in behalf of a certain John Jackson, tenant 
 of St. Radegund's Manor farm, whose goods had been 
 distrained by the College for arrears of rent; and, 
 writing to Cromwell, whose displeasure for some reason 
 had been drawn upon the Master and Fellows for this 
 action, he begs him to suspend his judgment until he 
 (Cranmer) has made inquiry into the matter. 
 
 Capon retired from the Mastership in 1546. His suc- 
 cessor, John Reston, previously a Fellow of the College, 
 and later a Canon of St. Paul's, London, held it until 
 his death in 1551. His period of office was memorable 
 chiefly for the visitation of the University in 1549 and 
 the recasting of the statutes of the College by the Royal 
 Commissioners. The contemporary account of the pro- 
 ceedings of the Commissioners relates that in their tour 
 of inspection of the colleges they came to Jesus on 
 Sunday, May 26, 
 
 'and commawnded six awlters to be pulled down in the 
 body (i.e., the nave and transepts) of the churche, and 
 wente from the churche into a chamber wher certayn 
 images were, and cawsed them to be broken ; and upon 
 complayntes made unto the vysytors of sir Haryson, 
 inceptor in artes and felowe ther, for incontinensye proved 
 he was expulsed his fellowshyppe, and the president, Mr. 
 
58 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 Hunt, discharged of hys office ; and Mr. Badcock had an 
 excommunicacon sette uppe for hym, whereunto he appeard 
 within ii days and was discharged. On the monday they 
 went agayne to Jesus College and ther spente all that 
 daye in examynynge the presydentes and Masters ac- 
 counts/ 
 
 Comparing this account with the proceedings of the 
 Visitors at other colleges, it is evident that they found 
 more to reform at Jesus than at any other College in the 
 University. Of the revision of the College statutes 
 something has already been said. Jesus, with the 
 veteran foundations of Peterhouse and Clare, we are 
 told, took up most of the Visitors' time ; drastic changes 
 were evidently required in its antiquated code. What 
 has here to be noticed is the anticipation of the icono- 
 clasm of the seventeenth century in the treatment of 
 the chapel. Jesus was the only College so treated by 
 the Visitors, and the reason must be either that, in spite 
 of the reforming spirit shown by the society in Capon's 
 time, the old ritual had maintained itself there with 
 fewer changes than elsewhere, or that the Master and 
 Fellows were tainted with reactionary views. The latter 
 conclusion seems the more probable. Of Restons 
 opinions we know little. Sherman says he had an 
 oratory consecrated for himself in the College none 
 other, in fact, than the former oratory of the Prioress 
 and perhaps it was this ' chamber ' which provoked the 
 iconoclastic zeal of the Visitors. The stipulation in his 
 will that the College should maintain an obit for his 
 soul perhaps implies that his sympathies were with the 
 old order of things. His Fellows, with the single 
 exception of Richard Goodrich, nephew of the Bishop 
 
THE REFORMATION 59 
 
 of Ely, and a distinguished lawyer in the reigns of 
 Mary and Elizabeth, were men of no eminence. Why 
 Mr. Hunt was discharged of his office does not appear ; 
 sir Haryson's offence was one often laid to the charge 
 of clerics of the Anti-Reform party. In Mr. Badcock we 
 recognise John Badcock, last of the Priors of Barnwell. 
 He was not a Fellow, but occupied chambers in the 
 College, and farmed the monastery lands and tithes in 
 Cambridge ; as late as 1562 he was incumbent of the 
 parish of Barnwell. 
 
 The Reformation period, however rich in its promise 
 of future vitality, was marked at Cambridge, as at 
 Oxford, by all the outward signs of depression and 
 decay. The unsettled condition of the Church, com- 
 bined with the fear that the Universities would suffer 
 the spoliation which had befallen the monasteries, 
 brought a severe decline in the number of students a 
 decline from which there was no recovery until the 
 reign of Elizabeth. ' No college,' says Fuller, speaking 
 of this time, ' had more scholars therein than hardly 
 those of the foundation ; no volunteers at all, and only 
 persons pressed, in a manner, by their places to reside. 1 
 In the case of Jesus, facts fully corroborate this state- 
 ment. In the six years, 1535-40, seventeen students, 
 all inferior commoners, or sizars, paid fees on admission. 
 The accounts of only eight years between 1540 and 
 1559 are extant ; in none of these years is any such fee 
 recorded to have been paid. But even in this, its 
 darkest hour, there were indications that a fairer future 
 was opening for the College. From 1519 onwards, 
 through the long reign of Henry VIII., the College had 
 received not a penny of new endowment. Now begins 
 
60 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 a stream of new benefactions. About the year 1547 
 Dr. John Andrews, a Canon of St. Paul's, left by will to 
 the College estates at Over and Steeple Morden for the 
 maintenance of two Fellows and two scholars. This 
 legacy was followed by two others the first in 1551, 
 when Dr. Reston founded by will one Fellowship 
 and eight scholarships ; the other in 1558, when Dr. 
 Fuller bequeathed to the College the manor of Graveley 
 to endow four new Fellowships. Including the Fellows 
 and discipuli of the older foundations, the College was 
 thus constituted on the basis of a Master, sixteen 
 Fellows, and eighteen scholars. The number of the 
 latter class still compared unfavourably with the forty- 
 seven scholars maintained on the foundation of the 
 Lady Margaret at Christ's ; but the endowments of 
 Andrews and Reston at last permitted Jesus to take its 
 place among the other colleges as a place of education. 
 When the door was opened to the scholar he was 
 followed by the pensioner, and with the accession of 
 Elizabeth the void places in the cloister began to fill 
 rapidly. In the five years beginning with 1560 
 eighty-two admission fees were paid. 
 
 Eight years only separated the visitation of King 
 Edward's Commissioners from that of the Commissioners 
 deputed by Cardinal Pole in the third year of Queen 
 Mary (January, 1557), and in the brief interim the 
 whole society had been changed. The sweating sick- 
 ness, whereof many died in Cambridge in 1551, 'patients 
 ending or mending in twenty-four hours, 1 seems to have 
 been accountable for the disappearance of several of the 
 old names from the list, for Dr. Reston and two, at 
 least, of the Fellows died in the summer of that year. 
 
THE REFORMATION 61 
 
 Restores successor in the Mastership, Edmond Per- 
 poynte, B.D., lived only five years after his appoint- 
 ment ; he died in January, 1557, only two days before 
 the Marian Commissioners came to Cambridge. Their 
 advent was looked forward to with great apprehension 
 by the Vice-Chancellor and authorities, who sought to 
 find a claim for exemption among the bulls of the 
 University, 'but fownde not pregnant matter." That 
 their alarm was not unreasonable was proved by the 
 brutalities of the Pope's Datary, Ormanet, especially in 
 the exhumation and burning of the bodies of the 
 Reformers, Bucer and Fagius. The diary of John Mere, 
 one of the esquire-bedells, graphically describes how the 
 Visitors progressed through the colleges, making inquisi- 
 tion for heretical books, and rating Masters and Fellows 
 for their bungling attempts to revive the half-forgotten 
 rites of the Roman Church. The masterless society of 
 Jesus seems to have passed its examination pretty well ; 
 at least, there is no record of angry comment on its 
 shortcomings. College tradition connects one abiding 
 feature with this visitation the two stone crosses, set 
 up, as it is said, by the Commissioners' orders, in the 
 highest story of Alcock's gate-tower. 
 
 Whatever deficiencies the Visitors may have noted in 
 the chapel appointments and ritual, clearly the Fellows, 
 under their new Head, John Fuller, LL.D., made haste 
 to repair them. Dr. Fuller was of All Souls', Oxford, 
 and he brought with him to Cambridge the uncom- 
 promising rigour of the Roman party then dominant 
 at the sister University. He was indeed a generous 
 benefactor of the College, vir non sine honore nomi- 
 nandus, as Sherman says. But in the pages of the 
 
62 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 Acts and Monuments he figures as the relentless sup- 
 pressor of heresy in the diocese of Ely, of which he was 
 Chancellor. When he first entered the Master's lodge 
 at Jesus the grass had scarcely yet grown on the spot 
 where John Hullier, by his sentence, had been burnt 
 on Jesus Green. From Oxford presumably came the 
 suggestion for the splendours which in the two years 
 of his sway distinguished the chapel ritual at Jesus. 
 In these years, as in no other, the chapel expenses rank 
 first in the Bursar's payments, preceding even the 
 stipends of the Master and Fellows. The following are 
 a few out of a long list of items of expenditure on the 
 services of the sacettum, and relate to the last fifteen 
 months of his rule. 
 
 1557-58 For wine and singing bread* the hole yeare, 5 s . 
 For M r Smythe for 7 lib. and a qr. of waxe, 
 
 whereof 5 lib. was in beting candlef, and 
 
 2 lib. and a qr. in y e tapers, with y e making, 
 
 7 s 3 d . 
 For 4 antiphonars mending, and a masse book 
 
 and a psalter binding, 4 s . 
 The trindlej, 12 d . 
 At Easter for 9 lib. waxe put into 6 tapers for 
 
 the sepulchre, 9 s . 
 
 A paschall of 3 lib. with the making, 3 8 4 d . 
 4 li. of beting candles for Judas||, 4 s . 
 
 * I.e., the host. 
 
 t Beting candle, tapers for kindling. 
 
 % A roll of consecrated wax. 
 
 A large taper which burnt before the altar on Easter-eve and 
 Easter-day. 
 
 || The Judas cross, used at the service of Tenebra on Wednesday 
 in Holy Week. Candles were arranged on it, and successively put 
 out as the service proceeded. 
 
THE REFORMATION 63 
 
 For a cope of blewe damaske with flowers and 
 an orfres of dunne velvet, 20 s . 
 
 For a cope of greene bawdkin * with an orfres 
 of grene, 10 s . 
 
 To Will" 1 Alain, of Rysbroke, for 3 newe feasts, 
 videl. y e transfiguration, Jesus feast, and y e 
 visitation, and 4 leves of y e newe antiphonar, 
 and one to the olde, after 18 d the leafe, 22 s . 
 
 To y e stationers for binding bookes for prick- 
 song, 10 d . 
 
 1558-59 To Will m Alain, of Risbroke, for binding of an 
 
 anthiphonar, with all stuff, carridge and 
 
 recarridge, l6 8 8 d . 
 Smithe, y e chandeler, for tenne pound of beting 
 
 candell spent between Ester and Saint 
 
 Nicholas daie, 10 s . 
 A dagge of yron way ing 2 li. et di. for Saint 
 
 Christopher, 7 s 5 d . 
 To Bell, the carpenter, hanging up Saint 
 
 Christopher, 20 d . 
 At tenebre Wenesdaie, 4> li. of beting candell, 
 
 3 s . 
 To three processioners in Englishe, 6 d . 
 
 From the meridian effulgence betokened by these 
 entries we descend at one plunge into the chillest of 
 Puritanism. The extraordinary suddenness of the 
 transition is evidenced by the accounts of the very next 
 year, 1559-60. There is no need to select among the 
 items of expenditure on the templum ; the list stands 
 briefly thus : 
 
 * Gold-embroidered silk from Baldach or Bagdad. 
 
64 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 For a communion table, 7 s . 
 
 For 2 deskes, 3 s . 
 
 To the deane for candel for wynter, 6 s . 
 
 To the deane for wyne and bread e, 10 d . 
 
 We rub our eyes and ask whether in twelve months 
 the whole Marian society has been carried off by ' the 
 sweat, 1 or ' outed ' by another Commission. Nothing of 
 the kind. The Fellows of the last year of Mary are the 
 Fellows of the first year of Elizabeth ; no new name is 
 added to the list, no old name disappears. Fuller, 
 indeed, is Master no more ; within a month of the deaths 
 of Queen Mary and Cardinal Pole, he followed them to 
 the grave (December, 1558). In his place Thirleby, 
 the Marian Bishop of Ely, at once (January, 1559) 
 appointed Thomas Redman, B.D., one of the original 
 Fellows of Trinity. But Redman, described in 1561 as 
 an unlearned Popish recusant, was deprived in the early 
 months of 1 560, and nothing that he could effect pre- 
 vented the new Commissioners who visited the Univer- 
 sity in September, 1559, from making short work of the 
 4 superstitious rags ' left by the late Master. Fuller's 
 body, laid in the choir of the chapel, was yet ' green in 
 earth ' when the undoing of his work there began. At 
 the foot of those very accounts of 1558-59 which wit- 
 ness to the magnificence of the ritual at Jesus in the 
 earlier year there are appended three notes of expendi- 
 ture, which are as a finger-post to mark the parting of 
 the ways : 
 
 Item, a comunyon boke to baxter, 5 s 4 d . 
 
 Item, to the same for eight psalters, after 2 s the pece, 16 s . 
 
 Item, for carrying dust out of the chappell, 2 d . 
 
THE REFORMATION 65 
 
 Pulveris exigui jactu : with the removal of that two- 
 penny dust-load ended, as far as Jesus was concerned, 
 the Reformation broils. When the noise of battle was 
 renewed the opposing camps were not Reformed and 
 Roman, but Puritan and Anglican. 
 
 The statutes given to the College in 1549 were revised 
 by the Visitors of 1559, and this recension remained in 
 force until 1841. The changes were few, and were 
 embodied in a single supplementary statute. The 
 number of Fellowships was fixed at sixteen, five having 
 been added by Reston and Fuller since 1549. Each 
 Fellow had a fixed yearly stipend of % in addition to 
 commons, a small increase of the 1549 allowance. The 
 Visitors made no provision for an alteration in the 
 value of money; the number of Fellows was to be 
 increased or reduced as the revenues of the College might 
 require. Pedantic conservatism stereotyped the Eliza- 
 bethan arrangement, and, until the principle of the 
 'dividend 1 was brought in by the statutes of 1841, the 
 Bursars in their accounts kept up the fiction of the % 
 stipend. The real income of the Fellows was derived 
 from fines on beneficial leases and from certain adventi- 
 tious sources, included in an informal supplement to the 
 Audit accounts, known as the 6 Dividend Paper. 1 The 
 scholarships were to be fifteen in number. Though the 
 amount allowed to the scholars for commons was pro- 
 gressively increased, they received no money stipend 
 until 1861. 
 
 One change introduced by the Visitors of 1559 was 
 of more than domestic interest. Four Fellows were 
 assigned by them to the faculty of Civil Law, for the 
 reason given that that study is in republica pernecessarium. 
 
 5 
 
66 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 The attention of the Commissioners of 1549 had been 
 drawn to the neglect of the study at Cambridge, and, 
 with the object of supplying competent jurists for the 
 diplomatic service of the State, a proposal was made by 
 them to combine the two halls of Clare and Trinity 
 into a single College of Civil Law. By the statutes of 
 Bishop Stanley one of the original Fellowships at Jesus 
 was reserved to law ; a second was afterwards added on 
 Andrews 1 foundation ; by Queen Elizabeth's Visitors 
 two of Fuller's four Fellowships were allotted to Civil 
 Law. 
 
 The statutes of 1559 seem never to have been con- 
 firmed by the Bishop of Ely as Visitor. They were 
 obviously hastily executed, and left untouched many of 
 the arrangements of 1549, which had been rendered 
 obsolete by recent endowments. The discrepancies and 
 deficiencies of the manuscript copies rendered a strict 
 compliance with their provisions, in some matters, 
 impracticable. But as they prescribed a constitution 
 which, in form at least, the society maintained for 
 280 years, it is worth while giving an outline of their 
 principal features. 
 
 The MASTER or KEEPER (custos) must be a Doctor 
 either in Divinity or in Civil Law, or at least a 
 Licentiate or Bachelor in Divinity. The appointment 
 of the Master rests with the Bishop of Ely. He must 
 reside three weeks in each quarter, but may have leave 
 of absence from the Bishop ad placitum, provided that he 
 resides forty days in all in each year. This was a 
 relaxation of the statute of West, which required the 
 Master to reside continuously except for two months 
 in the year. The Mastership in nearly every case until 
 
THE REFORMATION 67 
 
 1885 was held along with some benefice in the diocese 
 of Ely, and the intention of the statute of 1559 was 
 to allow him to reside for the greater part of the year 
 at his cure. Among his duties the Master is charged 
 with the collection of the College revenues. He may 
 employ a Receptor, but is personally responsible for 
 disbursements, and is required to submit his accounts 
 each year to an Auditor, appointed and paid by the 
 society. The statutes recognise no such officer as a 
 Bursar. In the absence of the Master, his duties were 
 performed by the President, one of the Fellows nomi- 
 nated by him. 
 
 The FELLOWS are to be unmarried ; this condition 
 had not been exacted in the statutes of Stanley or 
 West. On the occurrence of each vacancy the Master 
 and Fellows are to present two persons to the Bishop 
 of Ely, of whom he is to elect one. Those presented 
 must be B.A., at least, necessitous, and, among other 
 conditions, sufficiently trained in singing. The Fellows 
 are required to reside continuously, except for fifty 
 days in each year, when they are permitted to visit 
 their parents and benefactors, and obtain ' exhibition ' 
 for their maintenance ; otherwise they are not allowed 
 to spend the night outside the College, nor to walk or 
 ride more than one mile beyond the University. There 
 must not be two Fellows of the same county, and the 
 number from the northern counties (which are specified) 
 must be the same, as from the southern. The Fellow 
 on the Shelford foundation is to be nominated and 
 elected exclusively by the Bishop of Ely. 
 
 The SCHOLARS are to study grammar, rhetoric, logic, 
 mathematics, or philosophy, and that they may give their 
 
 52 
 
68 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 time specially to these studies, they must be properly 
 instructed in singing before their admission, so that 
 they may take part with the Fellows in divine services. 
 They are elected by the Master and Fellows, and if 
 they attain to the degree of B.A. within six years, 
 and are fitted by character and learning, they are 
 to be preferred to extranei in nominations to Fellow- 
 ships. 
 
 The GRAMMAR MASTER is to be appointed by the 
 Master of the College, with consent of the Bishop. 
 The other conditions of his office, and that of the 
 USHER, have been already stated. The school and its 
 masters ceased to exist in 1570. The Master's servant 
 is to have ' second commons ' i.e., the same as the 
 scholars and is to act as janitor. The wages of the 
 barber and laundress are to be determined by the 
 Master. The barber survived as a College functionary 
 until the beginning of the nineteenth century. 
 
 The annual officiaries are to be a Seneschal and a 
 Dean. The Seneschal is to provide fuel, kitchen neces- 
 saries, salt fish, salt, beer, etc. The Dean is to preside 
 at all disputations, and to have charge of all books, 
 church vestments, jewels, ornaments, etc. 
 
 One of the Fellows is to be Lector, and is to give 
 daily lectures in metaphysics and philosophy, and once 
 a week in mathematics, at which last all Fellows and 
 Bachelor Fellow- Commoners are to attend. The auditors 
 are to repeat the substance of the lecture on the 
 following day. The lecturer is to receive a yearly 
 stipend of 26s. 8d. from the College, as well as 8d. 
 quarterly from each Fellow-Commoner, 6d. from scholars, 
 and 4d. from sizars. 
 
THE REFORMATION 69 
 
 Of sizars the Master may have two, but no Fellow or 
 Fellow-Commoner may have more than one. 
 
 So many Fellow-Commoners or Perendinants may be 
 admitted as there are vacant chambers in the College. 
 They are to pay room-rent, and a sum of five shillings 
 on admission. The Fellow-Commoner who is admitted 
 to second commons pays an admission fee of one 
 shilling. The class of Fellow-Commoners, it is to be 
 noted, includes all grades of paying members of the 
 College. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 ELIZABETH AND JAMES 
 
 THE promptness with which the Fellows of Jesus 
 accepted the new ritual and articles of faith on Eliza- 
 beth's accession has already been remarked. The same 
 easy compliance with the latest pattern of orthodoxy 
 was to be witnessed in every one of the colleges of 
 Cambridge. Here and there a Head who refused the 
 oath of supremacy was removed, among them John 
 Redman, the newly appointed Master of Jesus ; but of 
 the bulk of the Fellows it would seem that no test was 
 exacted, and none were expelled.* The alacrity with 
 which they passed over to the victorious camp has been, 
 not altogether unjustly, ascribed to servility and self- 
 interest, but something also may be set down to mere 
 indecision resulting from a decade of incessant varia- 
 tions in the pole of authorized belief. The Fellows of 
 those days were mostly young men ; indeed, at Jesus 
 not one of the society had been a member of it ten 
 
 * The Senior Fellow of Jesus, Dr. Edyll, disappears from the list 
 of Fellows in 1559. He died that year, and his will (dated in April) 
 shows some dubiety as to the rites appropriate for his commemoration. 
 He directs his burial in Jesus College Chapel, ' with masse or other 
 prayers as the Church shall appoynt to be songe or saide' for his soul. 
 
ELIZABETH AND JAMES 71 
 
 years previously. They had not grown up in religious 
 beliefs consecrated by tradition, and, unlike the Heads, 
 they did not stand committed by their record in the 
 past to any particular creed. At Jesus, moreover, 
 there were special reasons which made conformity to 
 the views that found favour in high places at all times 
 a natural, and in the sixteenth century an almost 
 inevitable course. The nominee of the Bishop of Ely 
 in the Master's lodge at Jesus was not likely to be out 
 of harmony with the views of his patron, and, backed 
 by the Visitor, the Master was omnipotent in the 
 Fellows' parlour. Some of the Fellows, we may believe, 
 coerced by Marian Masters, yet cherished a genuine, if 
 timid sympathy with Protestant ideas. For when 
 Fuller died they did not wait for the arrival of the 
 Queen's Commissioners, but, as we have seen, made a 
 particularly clean sweep of the Roman garnishings of 
 the chapel before the Bursar had made up his books in 
 September. Their zeal may have been sincere, for, at 
 the time, it was questionably politic. The new Master 
 and the Visitor were pronounced Romanists. But the 
 power behind them was gone. Thirleby was deprived in 
 1559, and Redman in February, 1560, and it is doubt- 
 ful whether the latter ever occupied the Master's lodge. 
 The date of his successor's appointment would imply 
 that he was put into the Mastership by Bishop Cox, 
 but Edward Gascoyn was scarcely the man to find 
 favour with so Puritan a Bishop ; it is more likely that 
 he owed his place to the Crown, acting in the vacancy 
 of the see. In the Acts and Monuments he is pilloried 
 as a persecuting inquisitor, sadly routed in theological 
 dispute by godly Alice Driver, the Ipswich martyr. 
 
72 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 Bishop Cox, though Gascoyn was his Chancellor and a 
 prebendary of Ely, coldly certifies : ' Master Edward 
 Gascoyn there (i.e., at Ely) is a Deacon ; does not much 
 reside there, but at Cambridge, where he lives ; is LL.D. ; 
 not qualified for preaching, nor has he any special license 
 for it ; nor does he keep hospitality there. 1 His tenure 
 of the Mastership was brief; he retired in 1562. His 
 successor, John Lakin, barely held office for a twelve- 
 month. 
 
 If Gascoyn retained any private leanings to the old 
 faith, he was impotent to control the Protestant zeal of 
 his Fellows. How it fared with the outward forms of 
 religion under his rule is plainly shown by the following 
 among many similar entries in the Bursars books : 
 
 1559-60 Templum. For wyne and bread, 10 d (this is 
 
 for the whole year). 
 For a comunyon table, 7 s . 
 
 1 560-6 1 Promptuarium. Payed to M r Rynsted in ex- 
 change of y e broken challys for a silver salte 
 percell gylte, 50 8 . 
 
 1561-62 For pasting y e table of y e comaundements, 2 d . 
 
 The item for sacramental bread and wine in 1559-60 
 is significant. In 1557-58, when the old ritual was 
 triumphant, the year's expenditure under this head was 
 five shillings. In the whole of Elizabeth's reign, in 
 contempt of the rubric which prescribed that there shall 
 be in all colleges a communion ' every Sunday at the 
 least,' it appears that the communion was only celebrated 
 on the three great festivals. In 1560-61 the charge 
 for bread and wine was actually only fourpence, and in 
 1565-66, and again in 1576-77, there were only two 
 
ELIZABETH AND JAMES 73 
 
 communions. In 1643-44, when the leanings of the 
 Master and Fellows were strongly Anglican, the number 
 of celebrations was six. 
 
 Since Capon's retirement in 1546 six Masters had 
 successively come and gone in the space of seventeen 
 years. Thomas Ithell, LL.D., who succeeded Lakin, 
 held office for sixteen years, and, as he was a man of 
 character and intelligence, his comparatively long reign 
 makes an epoch in the history of the College. He 
 had been a Fellow of Magdalene, was an absentee 
 prebendary of St. Patrick's, Dublin, and, along with 
 the Mastership, held the usual variety of preferments 
 in Ely diocese. By the Puritan party at Cambridge 
 he was reckoned 'a faint professor,' identified with 
 'enemies unto God's gospel,' such as Dr. Cains. It 
 was even alleged that he countenanced, or at least 
 concealed, his brother, a ' Lovainist,' and an emissary 
 sent by the Church of Rome to corrupt the scholars. 
 Of this brother Strype says : 
 
 ' At length he was discovered ; and the Vice- Chancellor 
 sent Intelligence of it to the Chancellor, the Lord Treasurer 
 Burleigh ; and he was put into the Custody of his Brother, 
 in order to reform him. But he was too well principled at 
 Lovain, that any good should be done to him. So that his 
 Brother was rather to proceed to some Restraint and 
 Punishment. But he escaped soon, and was gone ; which 
 gave some just Cause of Suspicion of the Brother himself.' 
 
 There were undoubtedly some of the Heads to whom 
 the suspicion that they favoured the cause of Rome, 
 and looked for a restoration of its rites, might justly 
 apply; but it does not seem that Ithell was one of 
 them. In Puritan times he might be described as a 
 
74 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 High Churchman, and when clerical discipline in the 
 University verged on dissolution, he gave a firm sup- 
 port to the authority of Archbishop Parker and the 
 Chancellor Burleigh. When Cartwright, the leader of 
 the ultra- Calvinistic party at Cambridge, was arraigned 
 before the Heads for schismatic opinions, Ithell con- 
 curred in the sentence which deprived him of the Lady 
 Margaret Professorship. The Chancellor regarded him 
 as a trustworthy, capable man. He was appointed 
 Commissary of the University, a Visitor of King's 
 College in 1569, a Commissioner for the revision of the 
 University statutes in 1570, and for those of St. John's 
 College in 1576. 
 
 In his own College Ithell's rule was accepted without 
 question or cavil. He was content to leave the chapel 
 ritual as he found it. The highly Protestant pattern 
 which it took in 1558 was retained until long after 
 Elizabeth's death. On the other hand, Jesus was spared 
 the fanatical displays of Puritan zeal which brought 
 on some colleges the stern rebuke of Burleigh. In 1565 
 many of the Fellows and students of Trinity and 
 St. John's rejected the use of the surplice in chapel ; 
 in many colleges the painted windows were destroyed. 
 At Jesus small indications in the Bursar's books show 
 that a more moderate spirit prevailed. ' Albs ' and 
 4 chapel gear ' are washed ; windows containing pictures 
 of St. Peter and St. Ignatius are tolerated, and even 
 repaired. And though we gather from the same source 
 that the introduction, in the year 1567, of ' the Geneva 
 psalmes in meter' in the chapel services was followed 
 at no long interval by the sale of 4 the orgaines,' it 
 would be rash to infer from this and like symptoms 
 
ELIZABETH AND JAMES 75 
 
 of slight regard for ceremonial beauty that Jesus in 
 the last half of the sixteenth century was a particu- 
 larly Puritan college. 'High' views of church dis- 
 cipline were then compatible with what would now be 
 deemed a very 'low' type of ritual. During the latter 
 part of IthelPs reign there was no question about 
 the side on which the society of Jesus was ranged; 
 it was uncompromisingly hostile to the Protestant 
 extremists. 
 
 An indication of this, clearly traceable to Ithell's 
 influence, is to be seen in the migration of Richard 
 Bancroft, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, from 
 Christ's to Jesus at the end of 1569. Bancroft and 
 Ithell were apparently related through their mothers, 
 whose family name was Curwen or Corren. Through 
 them they claimed kinship with Hugh Curwen, who 
 was Archbishop of Dublin from 1555 to 1567, and 
 afterwards Bishop of Oxford ; and Bancroft, as well as 
 Ithell, was a prebendary of St. Patrick's, Dublin. 
 Bancroft, after taking his B.A. degree, left Christ's 
 because it lay under suspicion of ' Novelism ' i.e., 
 Puritan doctrine and he was apparently attracted to 
 Jesus as much by the unquestioned orthodoxy of its 
 society as by his relationship to the Master.* He was 
 never elected to a Fellowship, but, as Sherman says, 
 had almost as much power as the Master, was eminent 
 as a tutor, and advanced many of his pupils to 
 Fellowships. He lived in College, on the staircase next 
 the oriel of the Hall, until the year 1586. From his 
 
 * Another migrant from Christ's to Jesus was Hugh Bellot, after- 
 wards Bishop of Bangor and of Chester. He came to Jesus in 1566, 
 having been elected a Fellow in that year. 
 
76 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 tutors chamber at Jesus he took with him to the see 
 of London something too much of the tone and temper 
 of a 'don.' At the Hampton Court Conference he 
 rated the Puritan divines for appearing before the King 
 ' in Turkey gowns, not in their scholastic habits sorting 
 to their degree ' ; and in their attitude he could see 
 nothing but a wilful insubordination. But, in a nobler 
 sense, he was in his high place a tutor to the last. 
 ' It is undeniable,"* says Mr. Gardiner, ' that, within the 
 limits prescribed by the Elizabethan system, the clergy 
 were advancing under his superintendence in intelligence 
 and vigour." 1 
 
 Almost simultaneously with Bancroft's migration 
 from Christ's, Jesus adopted as a Fellow one who, in his 
 time, was not less celebrated as a tutor than Bancroft, 
 and, like him, was the lifelong antagonist of the 
 Puritans. This was the well-known Dr. Legge, who 
 came from Trinity in 1568, and was destined to be 
 Dr. Caius' successor in the Mastership of Caius College- 
 The mere circumstance that Caius, whose 'perverse 
 stomach to the professors of the gospel ' was so notorious, 
 should in his will have nominated Legge, ' his trusty 
 and well-beloved friend, 1 as his successor is a sufficient 
 indication of the sympathies of the latter, and marked 
 him out for the railing attacks of the Calvinist party in 
 the University. ' An horrible papist ' he seemed to the 
 recalcitrant Fellows over whom he presided. Among 
 other items of complaint which they brought against 
 him it was alleged that ' the master hathe used con- 
 tinuall and expressive loud singinge and noyse of organs 
 to the great disturbance of our studies,' a practice 
 which seemed to them inconsistent with the spirit of 
 
ELIZABETH AND JAMES 77 
 
 their statutes, which did not permit small birds to be 
 kept in College, ' for troublinge the students." Legge 
 is best remembered now for his Latin play, Richardus 
 Tertius, a subject in which he anticipated the tragedy 
 of Shakespeare. But Legge's play was acted at St. 
 John's, not at Jesus, and only after he had ceased to be 
 a Fellow of the latter College. Plays, usually Latin, 
 were regularly acted at Jesus twice or thrice a year 
 in the last half of the sixteenth century,' but the name 
 of Legge is not mentioned in connection with any of 
 them. 
 
 Shortly after Legge became Master of Caius he was 
 followed to that College by another Fellow of Jesus, 
 Richard Swale, who was admitted a Fellow of Caius in 
 1577, and became its president in 1581. The same 
 charges of papistical tendencies were brought against 
 him as against Legge. Both of them long outlived 
 the attacks made upon them, and Swale, as a civilian, 
 attained to eminence in the service of the State. With 
 Bancroft he served in a diplomatic mission sent to 
 Emden in 1600 to confer with ambassadors from 
 Denmark, and he was selected for his learning to assist 
 at the Hampton Court Conference. He was knighted 
 by James I. in 1603. 
 
 Conspicuous among the Jesus worthies of IthelFs 
 time was Fulke Greville, the poet-philosopher, after- 
 wards Lord Brooke, 4 Servant to Queen Elizabeth, Con- 
 celler to King James, Frend to Sir Philip Sidney,' as, 
 in words of his own choosing, he is described in his 
 epitaph. Tradition connects his name with Trinity, 
 and his arms are in a window of the hall of that 
 college ; but there is no record of his admission there. 
 
78 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 At Jesus he was entered as a Fellow- Commoner in 1568, 
 under the tutorship of Mr. Legge, and as it was in 
 that year that Legge removed from Trinity to Jesus, it 
 is possible that Greville had been originally placed 
 under his care at Trinity, and accompanied his migra- 
 tion to Jesus. His friend and schoolfellow, Philip 
 Sidney, went to Christ Church, Oxford, at the same 
 time that he came to Cambridge. To the memory of 
 Sidney he dedicated his monumental volume of grave, 
 sententious verse, which was not published until long 
 after both the friends were dead. Greville survived 
 Sidney for a whole generation, and died by an assassin's 
 hand in 1628. At Cambridge he established a Pro- 
 fessorship of History, and appointed to it the celebrated 
 Dorislaus ; but the endowment which should have main- 
 tained it was ' lost by the iniquity of the times ' of the 
 Rebellion. Among the records of Jesus there is a 
 curious letter, addressed by him in 1617, when he was 
 an old man, to the then Master, Dr. Duport. In it he 
 protests his love to the College, his ' old nurse/ and 
 expresses his wish to be allowed, at his own expense, 
 to convert the west end of the chapel into College 
 chambers. His well-meant scheme never took effect. 
 Some fortunate obstacle, which we cannot guess at, 
 preserved the ancient nave. A few years previously, in 
 1612, he visited his old college, and received from it a 
 gift of c a par gloves ' costing sixteen shillings. 
 
 Dr. I theH's Mastership ended with his death in 1579. 
 The firmness and capacity of his government had 
 brought the College into high repute, and the number 
 of its students more than doubled during his tenure 
 of office. The number of admissions was largest in 
 
ELIZABETH AND JAMES 79 
 
 1567-68, the year in which Legge became a Fellow, 
 when it reached a total of forty-four. So large a 
 number was never reached again during the next three 
 centuries. The cloister court, with the small building 
 which extended its eastern range northwards from the 
 Hall, had previously provided ample room for the 
 members of the College. About this year the deserted 
 school-house in the entrance court was converted into 
 chambers to provide for the increased number of 
 residents. The gross revenue of the College had risen 
 from Z4>5 in 1559-60 to <323 in 1569-70, the increase 
 being due solely to improvement in the letting value of 
 houses and land, for the College had received no fresh 
 endowment. Nevertheless, it would have been alto- 
 gether unable to meet the extraordinary expenditure 
 involved in the building operations necessitated by its 
 growth in numbers had it not hit upon an inexpensive 
 method of providing for its needs. The church of 
 St. Clement, the rectory and advowson of which 
 belonged to the Master and Fellows, had lately fallen 
 on evil days. Its steeple, about this time, ' was much 
 decayed and vanished quite away ' ; its timbers of heart 
 of oak helped to build the house of an alderman next 
 the churchyard. It occurred to the Master and Fellows 
 that the chancel, for the maintenance of which they 
 were responsible, might be converted into a source of 
 profit. They accordingly pulled it down, and carried 
 4 93 lode of stone ' to the College, where it was employed 
 in alterations in the school-house and offices. All 
 Saints 1 Church had been pillaged in a similar fashion 
 in 1563, when 'six lode of tyle-stone from Allhallowes' 
 had been brought to the College and applied to its 
 
80 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 uses. Such devices in building wereno thing accounted 
 of in the days of Elizabeth. 
 
 Dr. John Bell, who succeeded Ithell, was not a man 
 of conspicuous abilities. Educated at St. John's, and 
 from thence elected to a Fellowship at Peterhouse, he 
 passed through the ordinary curriculum of preferments 
 in Ely diocese, and attained to the Deanery in 1589, 
 when he resigned the Mastership. His successor, John 
 Duport, D.D., was not appointed until the following 
 year. After the death of Bishop Cox, in 1581, the see 
 of Ely remained vacant for eighteen years, during which 
 time Elizabeth received its whole profits. Dr. Duport 
 was probably appointed by the Commissioners for the 
 administration of the diocese, one of whom was his 
 predecessor, Dr. Bell. He was, it would seem, the first 
 Master of Jesus who had been both an undergraduate 
 and a Fellow of the College. He was admitted in 1563, 
 the year when Ithell became Master, and he came from 
 IthelPs county, Leicestershire. He was elected to a 
 Fellowship in 1571, but resigned it and ceased to reside 
 in 1582. Of Masters of Jesus he was the first who 
 could lay claim to distinction as a scholar, and he helped 
 in the production of the Authorized Version of the 
 Bible. He died about Christmas, 1617. 
 
 In the religious controversies which divided the 
 University during the Masterships of Bell and Duport, 
 Jesus, to use the phrase of Kingsley in describing the 
 attitude of Cambridge towards Essays and Reviews, 
 ' lay in magnificent repose. 1 Outside its walls the drift 
 in the direction of Puritanism was with difficulty checked 
 by authority. Among the older colleges it was especi- 
 ally strong at Christ's and St. John's, and the founda- 
 
ELIZABETH AND JAMES 81 
 
 tion of Emmanuel in 1584 was destined to give it a 
 fresh and powerful impetus. At Jesus the rule of 
 Anglicanism was accepted without any hint of dissent, 
 and from IthelPs day was maintained as an unbroken 
 tradition until the ejection of its society by the Earl of 
 Manchester at the outbreak of the Rebellion. The 
 only notable member of the College who took the 
 Puritan side was John Dod, who became a Fellow in 
 1578. Dod, it is said, was one of the Puritan leaders, 
 including Cartwright, Chaderton, and Fulk, who at- 
 tended secret meetings in St. John's College, when 
 Travers 1 Ecclesiastical Discipline was considered and 
 adopted by the party as the authoritative exposition of 
 its theory of a Christian Church. But Dod was no 
 violent partisan : Puritanus, verum modestus, pacificns 
 is Sherman's description of him. ' He was a Passive 
 Nonconformist? says Fuller, 'not loving anyone the 
 worse for difference in judgment about Ceremonies, but 
 all the better for their unity of affections in grace and 
 goodness. He used to retrench some hot spirits when 
 enveighing against Bishops, telling them how God, 
 under that government, had given a marvelous increase 
 to the Gospell, and that godly men might comfortably 
 comport therewith, under which learning and religion 
 had so manifest an Improvement. 1 He was a man of 
 learning, and, in his day, c an exquisite Hebrician. 1 He 
 never broke away from the Established Church, though, 
 on account of his views, he was suspended in all the 
 benefices which he successively held. He died, at the 
 age of eighty-six, in 1 645, ' with whom, 1 says Fuller, 
 < the Old Puritan may seem to expire, and in his grave 
 to be interr'd. 1 
 
 6 
 
82 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 An interesting and somewhat enigmatical personage 
 belonging to this period of Jesus history was William 
 Petty, elected to a Fellowship in 1612. His original 
 college was Christ's, where he had taken his M.A. 
 degree ; and before he was elected at Jesus he had 
 been for some years Master of the grammar-school at 
 Beverley, the same school which had given Bishop 
 Alcock his education. From thence we are told that 
 he brought to Jesus many pupils, sons of generosi as 
 well as sizars. He was perhaps the first Englishman 
 who visited Greece with the express purpose of explora- 
 tion and the collection of classical antiquities, and his 
 career unrecorded in the Dictionary of National 
 Biography was a foreshadowing in the early seven- 
 teenth century of that of another eminent Jesus Fellow, 
 Professor E. D. Clarke, at the end of the eighteenth. 
 He was chaplain to that Earl of Arundel who collected 
 the Arundel marbles, and he accompanied the Earl's 
 eldest son on his travels in France, Spain, and Italy. 
 Afterwards he was sent abroad frequently by the Earl, 
 with the object of searching for manuscripts, coins and 
 sculptures, and in 1624 we hear of him 'turning of all 
 stones' at Constantinople, Troy, Pergamus, and else- 
 where. The graphically interesting story of his diggings 
 and researches is told in the letters of Sir Thomas Roe, 
 Ambassador at Constantinople, to the Earl.* Sherman 
 says that he afterwards settled at Athens, and there in 
 some sort became a public professor of Greek an illus- 
 tration of the proverb yXavK 'Afl^afe and this re- 
 markable association in letters of Cambridge and Athens 
 
 * Ancient Marbles in Great Britain^ by A. Michaelis, pp. 185-205 
 (English translation). 
 
ELIZABETH AND JAMES 83 
 
 reminds him of the old legend, whereof Lydgate sang, 
 that Anaximander and Anaxagoras were amongst the 
 first teachers in the university founded by the mythical 
 prince, Canteber of Spain. Petty returned to England, 
 and when he died, left %QO to Jesus College; but, 
 owing to the dishonesty of his executor, the College 
 never received his bequest. 
 
 The monotonous Mastership of Dr. Duport was only 
 relieved by formal events, chief among which were the 
 two visits of King James I. to Cambridge in March and 
 May, 1615. It was the first time that the College had 
 received a Sovereign, for Elizabeth, when she was at 
 Cambridge in 1564, had omitted to go to Jesus 'because 
 it stood far out of the way. 1 When English Sovereigns 
 began to attend race-meetings at Newmarket, Jesus 
 proved to be not so far out of their way. King Jameses 
 visits were preceded by one from Prince Charles and his 
 brother-in-law, the ill-starred Elector Palatine Frederick, 
 in March, 1613. They came to Jesus as they were leav- 
 ing the town for Newmarket, and were entertained with 
 ' Rennish wine ' and a Latin oration, still extant in 
 manuscript. Nor were they spared elegiac effusions, the 
 quality of which may be illustrated by the following 
 specimen : 
 
 ' Anglo- Britannus eram, sed venit Carolus hospes : 
 Anglo -Britannus eram, Scoto-Britannus ero. 
 
 Scoto-Britannus eram, Fredericus venit at hospes : 
 Scoto-Britannus eram, Rheno-Britannus ero. 
 
 Quisquis erara, vel ero, Fredericus Carolus adsunt : 
 Anglo-Brito-Scoto-Rheno-Jesuanus ero.' 
 
 The Elector Palatine, the Protestant hero who had 
 married the Princess Elizabeth a month before the 
 
 62 
 
84 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 Cambridge visit, was vastly popular at the time, and in 
 this year the College had helped the insolvent King 
 James to provide a dowry for his daughter by a vote of 
 the remarkable sum of seventeen shillings and sixpence 
 ' for y e princesse y e Lady Elizabeth aide. 1 The King was 
 so pleased with the reception of the two Princes that he 
 announced his intention of gracing the University with 
 his royal presence in the winter of 1614-15. The 
 Bursar's accounts show that elaborate preparations were 
 made ' against y e Kings comming ' (March, 1615). 
 ' Musitions ' were hired for the eventful day, the chapel 
 windows were mended, the tapestry in the Hall was 
 taken down, mended and brushed, snow and dirt were 
 carried out of the College, and the Hall and cloisters 
 were strewn with rushes. James repeated his visit later 
 in the same year, and on both occasions was at Jesus. 
 His Majesty was pleased to bestow special commenda- 
 tion on the aspect and surroundings of the College. 
 Musarum Cantabrigicnslum Museum was his name for 
 it, and college memories fondly treasured the royal 
 utterance that, ' were he to choose, he would pray at 
 King's, dine at Trinity, and study and sleep at Jesus/ 
 
 The harmony which had previously marked the rela- 
 tions between the Master and the Fellows of Jesus was 
 destined to be broken when Duport was succeeded 
 in the Mastership by Dr. Roger Andrewes. Andrewes 
 had some titles to distinction. He had been a Fellow 
 of Pembroke, of which college his brother, the amiable 
 and pious Lancelot Andrewes, was Master from 1589 to 
 1605. Like his predecessor, Duport, he was one of the 
 Cambridge divines selected to make the translation of 
 the Bible known as the Authorized Version. He owed 
 
ELIZABETH AND JAMES 85 
 
 his advancement to the Mastership to the offices of his 
 brother, who was Bishop of Ely and Visitor of the 
 College from 1609 to 1619. But Roger had none of his 
 brother's grace of character. He was overbearing and 
 quarrelsome, and for the well-being of the College he 
 showed the most contemptuous disregard. He held 
 several canonries and other preferments, and seems to 
 have resided little at Cambridge. The statutes assigned 
 to the Master the management of the College estates 
 and finances, and his neglect and incapacity led to an 
 intolerable condition of affairs which is revealed in a 
 series of papers in the University archives belonging to 
 the year 1628. The first is a petition addressed by the 
 Fellows to the King, the date of which is not given : 
 
 ' To the Kings Most Excellent Majesty : The Humble Petition 
 of the Fellows of Jesus Colledge in Cambridge 
 
 ' HUMBLY SHOWETH that whereas Dr. Andrewes, Master 
 of the said Colledge, by his detaining the monies due unto 
 the Colledge Treasury and the Fellows' dividends, which 
 are their whole means and Maintenance : As also by divers 
 other breaches of their local statutes is like to bring the 
 Society to Dissolution unless some present Course be taken 
 for the redress of the present Evils and preventing the 
 future imminent Dangers which his bad Government doth 
 threaten : And whereas in the Vacancy of the See of Ely 
 (the Bishop whereof being the Visiter of the said Colledge) 
 your Majesty's petitioners have no way of Redress but to 
 your Majesty 
 
 'Their humble Petition is your Majesty would be 
 graciously pleased of your Princely Zeal and wonted Royal 
 Care of the good of such Foundations and seminaries of 
 Piety and Literature to refer the hearing of the Society's 
 
86 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 Grievances to the Vice-Chancellor and some other Masters 
 of Colledges who may have power to examine and reform 
 the present Enormities and prevent future Disorders. 
 And (as in duty bound) they will not cease to pray for 
 your Majesty's Long and Happy Reign/ etc. 
 
 The King, in his reply, dated from Newmarket, 
 February 29, 1627-28, referred the Fellows' petition to 
 the Vice-Chancellor and Heads of Houses of the Uni- 
 versity, authorizing them to call the Master and the 
 Fellows before them to examine the truth of the com- 
 plaints, and to certify His Majesty what they thought 
 fit to be done for the righting of the society and the 
 better government of the College in the future. In 
 consequence of the King's reference, the Vice-Chancellor, 
 Dr. Bainbrigge, Master of Christ's, together with the 
 Heads of Peterhouse, Corpus, and Queens', summoned Dr. 
 Andrewes and the Fellows before them. The Fellows 
 submitted two long lists of grievances to them. The chief 
 article which they laid to the Master's charge was that 
 he detained various sums of College money, amounting 
 in all to 500, of which part should have been carried 
 into the Treasure-house, and part should have supplied 
 the Fellows' dividends. The Master, they said, had 
 given no account of the Treasury for the past two years, 
 and when he last came to the College, three months 
 after the proper time for the Audit, he refused to pay 
 any of the Fellows their dividends amounting to 
 11 lls. lOd. each unless they would 4 sett their 
 hands ' to the Audit Book, affirming that a certain 
 sum due to the Treasury had been paid to it, which 
 was not the fact. Seven of the Fellows, being reduced 
 to destitution, were unable to discharge their debts to 
 
ELIZABETH AND JAMES 87 
 
 the College, and so were put out of commons. ' Extra- 
 ordinary entreaty ' was made to the Master to pay the 
 dividends, but he absolutely refused to do so, * except 
 they would yeld to borrow them of him, w ch some for 
 extreem necessity yeelded unto, and so they gave him 
 Bills of y r hands for y r owne; and yet he payd not 
 above half, notwithstanding that y e Fellowes were con- 
 tented to let him have in his hands 145 libi , taken then 
 for Leases, set a purpose to supply his want. 1 Not- 
 withstanding the direction of the statutes that the 
 Master should supply the Steward with money for the 
 purchase of household necessaries, for eighteen months 
 past he had neglected to do so, and in consequence the 
 Steward had been obliged irregularly to borrow sums 
 amounting to 20 from the Treasury. The College 
 officers and labourers could not get their wages at the 
 due time, and the College was brought into such dis- 
 credit that ' neither Butcher, Baker, Collier, Sedgeman 
 nor Peutrer would trust it without the personall en- 
 gagement of particular Fellowes. 1 The Master had 
 never rendered any account of the Library ; he did not 
 view, or appoint any of the Fellows to view, the repairs 
 on College estates, and by his neglect the fabric of the 
 College was ' very much ruinated.' In general matters 
 his conduct was not less injurious to the interests of the 
 College. By the disrespect which he had shown to 
 benefactors he had given ' just occasion of discourage- 
 ment to all present well-wiHers.' He had used the 
 Fellows 'most contemptuouslie, making them come 4 
 or 5 tymes before he will speake with them, and, when 
 they have accesse, revileing, threatning and factiouslie 
 irritating them one against the other.' He had pro- 
 
88 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 nounced one of the Fellows Dean, though only a minority 
 of the Fellows had voted for him. He had not dined 
 or supped in the Hall for more than seven years. He 
 kept no discipline, and had 'done no act of justice 
 upon just complaints, disclaiming the charge of (i.e., 
 responsibility for) Fellow-Commoners and Pensioners." 
 Lastly, he was charged with making false entries in 
 the register, and with having torn a whole statute (we 
 are not told which) out of the Statute-Book, so that it 
 was never read with the others in the chapel at the 
 time appointed by the statutes. 
 
 Andrewes"* answer to the objections of the Fellows 
 amounts to a confession of the general truth of the 
 facts alleged, and his attempted avoidance of them 
 serves only to emphasize the unscrupulous character of 
 the man. The dividends, he said, were not due until 
 the accounts had been passed by the Fellows. In spite 
 of their obstinacy in declining to sign the Audit Book, 
 he had paid some part of them, and had offered to 
 lend the rest. His omission to make up the accounts 
 at the proper time and to provide the Steward with 
 funds he excuses by the statement that he had been 
 called to London by the news of the death of his 
 brother, the Bishop, and had been detained there by 
 sickness. Some of his answers are redolent of the 
 contemptuous usage which the Fellows found so hard 
 to bear. Among other matters, they had objected to 
 him that he had not delivered six yards of velvet ' w ch 
 was in exchange of an old cope, w ch by importunity he 
 optayned two years since, promising to bring them y e 
 next tyme he came, notwithstanding he hath been 
 often demanded it. 1 To which the Master replied 
 
ELIZABETH AND JAMES 89 
 
 ' that indeed he promised five yards of velvet, but since 
 he findeth he hath no use of the coape, if the Fellowes 
 persist in their unkindnesse, he will restore it againe." 
 
 In March or April the delegated Heads reported to 
 the King the result of their inquiries. They find that 
 the Fellows have good cause for petitioning for their 
 relief. For the righting of their grievances they recom- 
 mend that Dr. Andrewes be required immediately to 
 make up all his accounts with the College, to deliver 
 any sums which he owes into the Treasury, and to pay 
 the Fellows and others their dividends and dues ; that, 
 notwithstanding the provision of the statutes, which 
 assigned to the Master the collection and control of 
 the College revenues, the Master and Fellows should at 
 once and ever hereafter appoint one of the society to 
 be Bursar, and to account for all receipts and disburse- 
 ments ; and, finally, that the Fellows should subscribe 
 their names to the unaudited accounts, and that this 
 subscription should be a sufficient discharge to Dr. 
 Andrewes. The other defects complained of, they 
 suppose, may easily be redressed by the Visitor. 
 
 The King ordered the Vice - Chancellor to take 
 immediate steps to right the society and remove its 
 grievances. But the recommendations of the Heads 
 seemingly bore no fruit. No Bursar was appointed; 
 the Fellows did not sign the Audit Book, and in no 
 single year from 1626 to the end of his Mastership 
 were Andrewes' accounts approved by them. It does 
 not appear what steps the Fellows took to call attention 
 to the Master's contumacity. Four years passed before 
 they were relieved of his tyranny. At last the King 
 wrote a letter to him the date is not given to the 
 
90 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 effect that ' whereas he had, contrary to statute, 
 absented himself from Jesus College two years at the 
 least, he had given just cause why he should be made 
 an example of Justice ; but the King, remembering the 
 favour he bore to his late worthy Servant, the Doctor's 
 Brother, was pleased to forbear public disgrace, so as 
 the Doctor made presentlie a voluntary Cession and 
 Surrender of that Mastership.' Andrewes accordingly 
 resigned in 1632, CKODV aetcovrL 76 6vfj,a>, as Sherman 
 puts it. He died three years later. 
 
 The falsification of the College register was one of 
 the counts in the indictment against Andrewes ; in one 
 case an entry signed with his name only has been 
 scored out, presumably by the Fellows. Nevertheless, 
 against his many failings may be set the one redeeming 
 merit, which may apparently be credited to him, of 
 having introduced, probably from Pembroke, the practice 
 of keeping an official College register. It dates from 
 the first year of his Mastership (1618), and has been con- 
 tinued without interruption ever since. Its entries are, 
 for the most part, formal admissions, sealings, elections 
 to scholarships, presentations to livings, nominations and 
 inductions of Fellows, licenses, testimonials, etc. ; but 
 it is none the less invaluable to the College historian. 
 
 John Eliot probably entered the College before the 
 first date in the new register, for his admission does 
 not appear in it, though he is recorded as taking his 
 B.A. in 1622, and as obtaining College testimonials for 
 ordination in 1625. Religious motives caused him to 
 join the new settlement in Massachusetts in 1631. He 
 was not the first member of the College who for con- 
 science" 1 sake sought a home in the New World. Francis 
 
ELIZABETH AND JAMES 91 
 
 Higginson, admitted at Jesus in 1608, but B.A. of 
 St. John's in 1609, and afterwards minister of the 
 church of Salem, had died there in the year before 
 Eliot's arrival. He was a scholar as well as an eloquent 
 preacher, and his New England's Plantation is a valu- 
 able record of early settlement days. Eliot's famous 
 Bible, in the language of the Massachusetts Indians, 
 the earliest of missionary Bibles, was completed and 
 printed at Cambridge, New England, in 1663. The 
 first edition is very rare, and has been sold for as much 
 as %QO. A copy of it, presented by Eliot himself, 
 and bearing his autograph and a dedicatory Latin 
 distich, is one of the most treasured possessions of the 
 College library. In memory of the 'Apostle to the 
 Indians ' an Eliot Prize for theology has been founded 
 in recent years at Jesus by the liberality of his de- 
 scendants and other donors in the United States. 
 
 The Bursars' accounts furnish us with a wealth of 
 suggestion for reconstructing life at Jesus during the 
 reigns of Elizabeth and James I. The age of the 
 tradesman and his bills had not yet come in. The 
 College bought its own materials, and hired its own 
 labour. Consequently, every item of expenditure in 
 the way of building, repairs, and housekeeping is faith- 
 fully recorded in the Audit Books. Very often the 
 ' scholars ' were glad to eke out their small allowances 
 by doing odd jobs, for which the Bursar paid them. 
 Trifling sums might be earned by keeping the wood- 
 yard or coalhouse, or by winding the chapel clock, or 
 by attending to the buttery in the butler's absence, 
 or by carrying the clippings of the hedge, which served 
 for fuel, from the Close into the College. Very often 
 
92 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 a Fellow employs his ' puple ' to glaze his windows.* 
 This was mostly about the years 1571-78, previous to 
 which time, it would seem, that windows in chambers 
 were mostly unglazed. Chimneys and fireplaces in 
 rooms came in much about the same time. 
 
 Frequent mention is made of the ' studies." These 
 were spaces partitioned off in two or three corners of 
 the chamber, each, as a rule, lighted by its own 
 window, and occupied in the daytime by a student, 
 while the middle space served in common for sleeping 
 purposes. Some of these, perhaps, survive in modern 
 gyp-rooms. Some rooms in the Master's lodging were 
 wainscoted or lined with ' buckram,' and Fellows 
 sometimes bequeath their ' hangings ' to their friends ; 
 but the walls were often left bare. Sometimes the 
 tenants painted them with patterns or texts, still dis- 
 coverable under modern AJ wall- papers. A transient 
 occupant of rooms that once were Bancroft's adorned 
 his walls with the text in large Roman capitals : NON 
 
 HABEMVS HIC MAXKXTKM CIVITATEM SKD FVTVIIAM IX- 
 
 QVIRIMVS. HER. 13. Heavy doors at the foot of the 
 staircase shut it off from the court at night. The 
 illumination of the cloister court was provided by a 
 'great and litle lanthorn/ which required to be 
 periodically horned. 
 
 The common life centred in the Hall. There the 
 lectures were given. There (not, perhaps, only there) 
 Fellow and pupil washed, using the 'bason and ewer 
 
 * The bequest of ' overworn clothing ' to sizars, which is common 
 in the wills of Fellows who died in College in the sixteenth and early 
 seventeenth centuries, illustrates the homely relations which existed 
 between tutor and pupil. 
 
I''rorn ct photograph by] 
 
 [/. Palmer Clarke, Cambridge 
 
 THE HALL 
 
ELIZABETH AND JAMES 93 
 
 customably sett upon y e borde over y e stocks.' There 
 on winter evenings the scholars, unless they were rich 
 enough to 'size 1 for coals in their own rooms, drew 
 their forms round the common fire, which blazed on 
 the spacious hearth, now concealed behind the panels 
 of the northern wall a place of much importance, if 
 we may judge from the frequent references to it in the 
 accounts, and full of memories, we may be sure, of 
 Cambridge days to many a squire and parson in after- 
 life. For this fireplace the College set up a ' mantil- 
 tree ' and made ' doggs of our owne stuffe ' in 1574. 
 ' A pare of fyre-irons to burn sea-cole for y e hall ' was 
 got in 1572, and bellows in 1600. The Hall was the 
 one comfortably furnished apartment in the College. 
 At the lower end was a screen. The walls were not 
 wainscoted, but hung with ' arresse,' or ' clothes ' 
 most likely painted which from time to time were 
 taken down, dusted, and ' ayered abrbade.' The floor 
 was < tiled,' probably with stone, and on occasions 
 strewn with rushes. There was a long table for the 
 Fellows' use, but the scholars took their meals at 
 trestles, which were removed when the Hall was wanted 
 for general purposes. The Master sat on a chair, the 
 Fellows on forms (as they did until 1875). There was 
 a ' cort cobbord,' on which vessels of silver or pewter 
 were placed; 'an oyster table'; and a 'desk which y e 
 schollers read upon,' on which was laid ' the byble for 
 y e schollers to read in y e hall' during meals, as the 
 statutes directed. The most singular feature to modern 
 eyes was the stocks, which stood by the screen at the 
 entrance. Stocking was a usual punishment for the 
 contumacious undergraduate or bachelor, and similar 
 
94 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 incentives to virtue existed in other college halls. By 
 a decree of the Heads of Houses in 1571 it was enacted 
 that any person in statu pupillari presuming to bathe 
 in a river, pond, or any other water in the county of 
 Cambridge, should be flogged in the presence of all the 
 members of his college, and, if he were a Bachelor of 
 Arts, should be set in the stocks for a whole day in the 
 college hall, and should pay a fine of 10s. towards the 
 commons of all the members of the college before he 
 was let out. To the alternative punishment of flogging, 
 which it is said that Milton underwent at Chrises, the 
 Jesus books possibly refer in a mysterious entry which 
 occurs in the year 1582, when one of the Fellows, 
 Mr. Murgetrod, received the handsome sum of 5s. lOd. 
 pro puero vapulando. But the largeness of the sum 
 and the exceptional circumstance that the words are 
 Latin suggest that Puer Vapulans may have been the 
 title of a Latin play, of which Mr. Murgetrod was 
 author or stage director. 
 
 Plays, usually in Latin, were performed in College 
 throughout the whole of this period ; the first mention 
 of them is in 1561, the last in 1622. The occasions for 
 acting them were the * breakings up ' at Christmas, the 
 Annunciation and the Commencement. One of the 
 Fellows was always responsible for their management. 
 In 1563 the Adelphl and the Curculio were acted ; next 
 year the Eunucus ; in 1580 the Bacchides. There was 
 a 'dialogg and shewe" at Christmas, 1564, and Mr. 
 Forthe had a'sheweMn 1568. In 1564 the Bursar 
 paid the large sum of 6s. * for a parasites cote and hose, 
 for the stuffe and makinge of it. 1 ' Making a theatre ' 
 in the same year cost only 12d., but the stage cost as 
 
ELIZABETH AND JAMES 95 
 
 much as 23s. 2d. in 1577, and much larger sums were 
 sometimes spent on the plays. In 1569 'y e Good wife 
 Linsey ' receives 2s. 8d. for ' a platter and a sawser lost 
 at the playes, 1 which, as they weighed 4 lb., were 
 evidently of pewter ; in later years the College pro- 
 vided its own ' comodie pott. 1 The stage was usually 
 in the Hall, but sometimes the plays were acted in the 
 chapel. The occasion was commonly an opportunity 
 for what would now be called a 'rag. 1 The Bursar 
 frequently had to pay for broken windows ; once the 
 clock was 'broke. 1 On another occasion considerable 
 damage was done by a torch, ' which burned in y e toppe 
 of y e Hall. 1 
 
 Of the diet of the Fellows and better-off scholars the 
 Bursars 1 accounts do not give us all the information that 
 we should like to have. For their private sizings they 
 reckoned with the Steward, who only accounted to the 
 Bursar for necessaries, such as stock-fish, salt-fish, salt, 
 bread, beer, oatmeal. There was a fish-house in the 
 kitchen and another in the cloister, in which the dry 
 stock-fish was piled on layers of sedge in a high stack, 
 the top of which was reached by a ladder. The College 
 supplied its own poultry ; there was a hen-house and a 
 dove-house, and frequent payments were made to old 
 men and boys for killing buzzards and polecats which 
 threatened them. The College also kept swans, attended 
 to by 'swanyards, 1 at Willingham and Bassingbourn. 
 It contracted with a warrener at Newmarket for the 
 supply of ' conyes, 1 at lOd. a couple, from Michaelmas 
 to Shrovetide. At the Feast of Jesus and on Audit 
 day there are ' exceedings 1 ; on the latter occasion we 
 hear of powdered beef and 'dubbell Beare, 1 and the 
 
96 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 College tenant at Shelford regularly supplied a boar. 
 Tobacco at the Audit was first paid for in 1657. The 
 dishes used at meals, it would seem, were exclusively of 
 pewter, but the salt cellars were of silver; wooden 
 trenchers had apparently quite gone out of use. An 
 old pewter dish in the writer's possession bears the 
 stamp of the College in black-letter characters of the 
 early part of the sixteenth century. From time to time 
 the College sent its old ' vessell, 1 as the pewter service 
 was called, to Sturbridge Fair to be exchanged for new. 
 Of the amusements of our Elizabethan predecessors at 
 Jesus the Bursars have naturally less to tell. There 
 was a 'tenis cort' in 1572, which was in or next to the 
 portion of the nunnery cloister which then existed in 
 the third or 'Pump 1 court on the north side of the 
 Hall. In 1604 a new tennis-court was built, which cost 
 the College 8 7s. 6d., 'besides a pretor collected 
 amongst y e schollars.' A bowling-alley is mentioned in 
 1631. In 1582 the Graveley tenants brought hens to 
 the Master and Fellows at Shrovetide, and it may be 
 conjectured that they suffered the usual fate of Shrove- 
 -tide hens. Bonfires were a recognised institution, for 
 which Midsummer day and, after 1604, November 5 
 were the principal occasions. So far was authority from 
 condemning such performances that when Dr. Whitaker, 
 Master of St. John's, was charged with lack of loyalty 
 in celebrating the anniversary of the Queen's accession 
 in his college, to prove the falsehood of the allegation 
 he assured Lord Burghley that there were * bone fiers in 
 both courtes of the College. 1 At Jesus, among other 
 occasions, there were bonfires for Queen Elizabeth's 
 proclamation in 1558, for the peace with France in 
 
ELIZABETH AND JAMES 97 
 
 1559, noticeably on Charles I.'s coronation day in 1648, 
 and, even more curiously, on the day of his decapitation 
 in 1668. Football was so popular at Cambridge in the 
 days of Elizabeth and James I. that we cannot doubt 
 that it was played on Jesus Close. But on account of 
 disturbances which took place at a match between 
 ' certain schollers of Cambridge and divers of Chester- 
 ton,' the Heads found it necessary to pass an edict 
 against football matches, except within the precincts of 
 the colleges, 'not permitting any stranger or scholars 
 of other colleges or houses to play with them, or in their 
 company,' which must have considerably detracted 
 from the interest of the game. In the years 1594- 
 1604 there existed a College boat, but it does not 
 appear whether it was used for recreation. It had a 
 canvas ' tilth ' or awning, and besides oars had a ' conte,' 
 or punting pole, and a ' haylinge line.' 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 
 
 THE Mastership of Roger Andrewes carries us over the 
 first seven years of the reign of Charles I., but may be 
 regarded as belonging wholly to that of his father. 
 Save for the differences between the Master and the 
 Fellows, it was a time of absolute quiescence in the 
 history of the College. In the general forward move- 
 ment of the University Jesus had hardly held its place 
 since IthelFs death, and from the active controversies of 
 the day its resident members had generally held aloof. 
 The religious attitude of the society during the last 
 half of the sixteenth century had been sufficiently clear. 
 Less Protestant than other colleges in the reign of 
 Edward VI., it had been more Roman in the days of 
 revived Romanism, and more Anglican in the long war 
 waged against the Cambridge Puritans by Parker, 
 Whitgift, and Bancroft. With the exception of John 
 Dod, no prominent exponent of Genevan views was 
 counted among the Fellows of Jesus. None of them 
 had drawn upon himself the censure of the Vice- 
 Chancellor or Heads for heterodox views expressed 
 in the pulpit of St. Mary^s. Among the rank and file 
 of its students there were a few, such as Frederick 
 
REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 99 
 
 Higginson and John Eliot, who, later in life, were 
 pressed into Nonconformity by the rigid rule of Laud. 
 But hitherto no intestine differences on questions of 
 doctrine or discipline had broken the quiet of the 
 cloisters, and the shock of the revolution of 1642 fell 
 upon a college at unity with itself. 
 
 William Beale, D.D., who was appointed to the 
 Mastership on the resignation of Dr. Andrewes, might, 
 perhaps, under altered conditions, have left a name for 
 scholarly attainments as distinguished as that of either 
 of his immediate predecessors. He had been a West- 
 minster scholar of Trinity, graduated as B. A. in 1609-10, 
 and was chosen a Fellow of Jesus in 1611. He resigned 
 his Fellowship in 1625, and probably left Cambridge 
 at the same time. His success as a tutor had been 
 marked ; his pupils, we are told, were very numerous, 
 and many of them were sons of noblemen and gentlemen 
 of rank. Hyde, afterwards Lord Clarendon, styles him 
 his worthy and learned chaplain ; Baker says he was 
 one of the best administrators that the University ever 
 had. He resigned the Mastership of Jesus when he was 
 elected to that of St. John's, early in 1634, but he did 
 not cease to interest himself in the well-being of his old 
 College, and liberally contributed to the cost of the new 
 buildings there, put up in the Mastership of his suc- 
 cessor, Dr. Sterne. With Sterne, as we shall see, it was 
 his lot to be intimately associated in the troublous 
 days that presently befell the University. 
 
 It is the peculiar distinction of Jesus College that in 
 the four centuries of its existence it has furnished to the 
 Church of England not less than five Archbishops 
 Cranmer, Bancroft, Herring and Hutton of Canterbury, 
 
 72 
 
X^\B Aft7*V 
 
 f OF THE 
 
 f UNIVERSITY J 
 100 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 and Sterne of York. The eminence to which he attained 
 after the Restoration is not, however, the chief ground 
 on which a Jesus man should recall with veneration the 
 name of Richard Sterne. Had he died obscurely in 
 exile, as Dr. Beale did, he would still deserve to be 
 remembered as the greatest of the Masters of Jesus. 
 His tenure of rule was limited to a space of scarcely 
 eight years, but the energetic and reforming spirit which 
 he applied to the work of his office made those years, 
 independently of the dramatic incidents which coloured 
 them, an epoch in the College history, and, in some 
 sense, the beginning of its modern period. 
 
 Richard Sterne, a native of Mansfield, Notts, had 
 been a scholar of Trinity, graduated B.A. there in 
 1614-15, was elected a Fellow of Corpus in 1620, and 
 was admitted Master of Jesus March 7, 1633-34, on 
 which day the Master and Fellows of Corpus brought 
 him to his new College, and were entertained by the 
 society of Jesus. About the same time he became 
 chaplain to Archbishop Laud, and, along with Dr. 
 Beale of St. John's and Dr. Cosin of Peterhouse, he 
 became prominent in championing Laudian views of 
 Church discipline at Cambridge. In 1635 Laud claimed 
 as Metropolitan the right of visiting the University in 
 matters ecclesiastical. The claim was disputed by the 
 University, and, though the King in Council decided in 
 favour of the Archbishop, the threatened visitation never 
 took place. However, a report of ' Certain Disorders in 
 Cambridge to be considered in my Visitation ' was drawn 
 up and sent to Laud by either Sterne or Cosin. It 
 presents a curious and interesting picture of the lament- 
 able neglect of decency and reverence into which the chapel 
 
REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 101 
 
 services had fallen. Five colleges, of which Jesus was 
 one, were excepted from its strictures, and of them the 
 report merely says : ' They endeavour for order and have 
 brought it to some good passe : Yet here for Apparel 
 and fasting-night suppers are they faultie still.' Sterne 
 attended Laud on the scaffold, and printed the address 
 which he made to the people before his death.* 
 
 Among the first questions which claimed the atten- 
 tion of the new Master was that of the management of 
 the College finances. In spite of alterations in the 
 value of money and the increase in the annual income, 
 the mode of distribution of the revenues prescribed by 
 the statutes was rigidly adhered to in the audited 
 accounts which were submitted to the Visitor. Since 
 1557 the practice appears to have grown up of carrying 
 the over-plus of receipts after payment of the statutable 
 charges to another account, which came to be known as 
 ' the Dividend Paper. ' This was never submitted to 
 the Visitor. As it included all land and house rents 
 other than those anciently reserved, as well as the fines 
 on leases, the dividend naturally became a matter of far 
 more consequence to the Fellows than their statutable 
 emoluments. Hitherto there had been no recognised 
 method of distributing the dividend money. An un- 
 scrupulous Master, such as Andrewes, might avail himself 
 of his position as Bursar to appropriate the whole amount. 
 Two months after he entered on office Sterne and the 
 Fellows adopted the arrangement that the proceeds of fines 
 should be divided into twenty parts, whereof two should 
 
 * It is worth remarking that Thomas Carr, who was Stafford's 
 chaplain and attended him on the scaffold, was a Fellow of Jesus 
 (admitted Fellow in 1612). 
 
102 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 go to the use of the College, two to the Master, and one 
 to each of the Fellows. At the same time they sensibly 
 agreed to drop the practice of giving leases for lives. 
 
 Though the settlement on the dividend question was, 
 no doubt, a practical one, it contained in it the seeds of 
 evil. To the Fellows of early times, who received only 
 a small stipend of fixed amount, the value of a Fellow- 
 ship consisted mainly in the right to occupy College 
 rooms and the allowance for commons. Their pecuniary 
 income was derived almost entirely from pupils. Resi- 
 dence in College was therefore a practical necessity, and, 
 indeed, was strictly required by the statutes, except in 
 special cases approved by the Master. The arrange- 
 ment of 1634, while it indefinitely increased the value 
 of a Fellowship, left no provision for augmenting the 
 stipends of the official lecturers. The Head Lector, the 
 Greek Lector, and the two Sublectors continued to exist, 
 and to draw the pittances which the statutes allowed 
 them, augmented by the groats contributed by their 
 auditors, but it was inevitable that their offices should 
 become practical sinecures. In course of time the 
 official staff was reduced to a single Lector, and one of 
 his principal duties was to deliver a ridiculous Latin 
 speech once a year in the College Hall. Scribbled 
 specimens of such orations may be found among the 
 lumber of the Library weary exhibitions of pedantic 
 humour, crammed with tags from Juvenal and Virgil, 
 jests on the founder's cocks displayed in the Hall 
 windows, remonstrances against the boatus ' which, it 
 seems, undergraduates raised during chapel service, 
 exhortations to early rising, and such domestic matters. 
 The last stage of degeneration was reached when the 
 
REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 103 
 
 sole function left to the 'Praelector' was that of 
 presenting for degrees, when it was his duty to vouch 
 for the doctrina of candidates with whose intellectual 
 furnishing his office gave him no concern. 
 
 The increased value of a Fellowship, especially in 
 relation to the emoluments of a tutor, also tended to 
 encourage non-residence. From this date licenses for 
 Fellows ' to absent themselves, 1 usually for a few months 
 at a time, but in some cases for indefinite periods, are 
 of constant occurrence in the register. Clerical Fellows 
 divided their time between the College and their cures, 
 and those attached to the study of civil law naturally 
 found employment in London or in the service of the 
 State abroad. Fellows who were absent, with per- 
 mission, from Cambridge received both their statutable 
 stipend and their dividend during the period of their 
 non-residence. 
 
 During the neglectful days of the Mastership of 
 Roger Andrewes the number of students had fallen to a 
 low ebb. In the last five years of his rule, 1628-1632, 
 only forty-one admission fees were accounted for. In 
 the year of Beale's accession the admissions went up 
 with a sudden bound to forty-two, and in the five years 
 ending 1638 the total recorded was 119. In 1641 
 ninety residents were assessed to poll-tax. The number 
 cannot be considered very high, for it was exceeded by 
 Catharine Hall and Magdalene, and was less than half 
 the total credited to Emmanuel. But since the last 
 addition to the chamber space of the College, in 1568, 
 the standard of comfort had greatly advanced. In 
 particular the large number of Fellow- Commoners at- 
 tracted to the College by Beale and Sterne made some 
 
104 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 extension of chamber room an imperative necessity. 
 In 1637 the College decided to proceed with the erec- 
 tion of a range of buildings on the north side of the 
 entrance court, facing the gate-tower and the small 
 school-house block. The building operations went on 
 for three years, and when they were brought to a con- 
 clusion in January, 1641-42, the total sum expended on 
 them was found to be <1,544. As the College had 
 apparently no reserve fund, special measures had to be 
 taken for raising so large a sum. It was agreed that 
 for five years following the Audit of 1639 a sum of 4>0 
 should annually be set aside for the new building, 26 
 in each year from the dividends of the Master and 
 Fellows, and the remainder from the chest. One hundred 
 pounds was obtained on loan, and the remainder was 
 contributed by the piety of various members of the 
 College, whose names, with the amount of their dona- 
 tions, are recorded in the Form for Commemoration of 
 Benefactors. 
 
 The meagre details of expenditure included in the 
 Bursars 1 accounts of the first thirty years of the seven- 
 teenth century under the head of Templum point to the 
 continued neglect of the chapel and its services. A 
 dawning regard for ritual is suggested by a payment 
 for nine Latin service-books in the first year of Beale's 
 Mastership. Hitherto the Latin version of the Common 
 Prayer-Book, which had been specially sanctioned for 
 use in College chapels, had been almost entirely neglected 
 at Cambridge, owing to the prejudice of the Puritan 
 party. Laud had brought it into use at Oxford, and 
 its introduction at Jesus may be set down to his 
 influence. It was left to Sterne to carry into full effect 
 
REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 105 
 
 Laud's views as to church appointments and ceremonial. 
 His first step, taken in 1634, six months after he 
 became Master, was to introduce an organ in the 
 chapel. Its builder, Robert Dallam, received %QQ 
 from the College. An organist was appointed, with a 
 salary which was provided by a quarterly tax of 12d., 
 levied on all whose names were on the College books, 
 except sizars, who, in lieu of payment, were required to 
 blow the organ in turn. Wax-tapers were provided by 
 a similar tax of 6d. Two years later the College paid 
 a sum of 31 16s. 9d. for 'y e raile, floore, freeze, hang- 
 ings, etc., about the altar, together with y e Letany 
 desk,' the last of which, a double stool of characteristic 
 Jacobean workmanship, remains in use to the present 
 day. New plate for the Communion Service was pro- 
 vided in 1639. 
 
 Had it been possible for the Master and Fellows, as 
 they sat at their * audit chear ' in the founder's chamber 
 on January 12, 1641-42, to exclude from their thoughts 
 the troubles brewing in the political world, they must 
 have regarded their position and prospects with con- 
 siderable complacency. They had that day closed the 
 New Building account ; the College had acquired a 
 range of chambers fairer to outward view and more 
 commodious than the old cloister buildings, and Sher- 
 man says that it was free from debt ; the number of its 
 students was at least as large as it had ever been within 
 living memory ; the Fellows were at harmony among 
 themselves, and shared the Master's satisfaction in the 
 restoration to the chapel services of that beauty and 
 reverence which had been wanting since the changes of 
 1558. But it is not hazardous to guess that their talk 
 
106 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 was of other and less cheerful matters. Eight days 
 before their Audit meeting the King had made his 
 abortive attempt to arrest the five members ; the final 
 rupture with Parliament and the King's departure for 
 York was the latest piece of intelligence that had 
 reached them from London. The national question 
 was already involved in one personal to themselves. 
 The committee which the House of Commons, in its 
 last session, had empowered to consider abuses in 
 religion and civil government at the Universities had 
 singled out Jesus as the first object of its inquiries at 
 Cambridge, and the Master and Fellows had been com- 
 pelled to bring up their statutes and account-books to 
 be examined by the committee, sitting in London. 
 And, though trouble on that account was perhaps for 
 the moment over-past, a deeper anxiety must have 
 occupied their thoughts in connection with the recent 
 order of the Commons requiring Heads of Colleges to 
 displace the Communion table from the east end of their 
 chapels, to take away the rails and level the chancel, to 
 remove crucifixes, tapers, and basons from the Com- 
 munion table to undo, in fact, all that the society of 
 Jesus had been at such pains to effect in the improve- 
 ment of the chapel services. 
 
 Trouble deepened as the year 1642 advanced. There 
 was plague in the town in the summer, and the College 
 contributed to the relief of the ' visited. 1 On June 29 
 the King addressed a letter to the Vice-Chancellor, 
 requesting the University and Colleges to contribute 
 money for his defence. On July 24 he followed it up 
 with a request that the Colleges would send him their 
 plate. To both applications Jesus College gave a 
 
REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 107 
 
 prompt and favourable answer. On July 29 it passed 
 an order that 1,201 ounces of plate the pieces being 
 specified in a list should be delivered to Mr. John 
 Poley for the King's use, and on August 29 it obtained 
 a loan from a friend of the Master's, at Newstead in 
 Nottinghamshire, with the same object. The plate, 
 with that contributed by other colleges, was safely 
 conveyed to the King at Nottingham, in spite of the 
 vigilance of Cromwell, who lay in wait for it with a 
 disorderly band of peasants on the road between Cam- 
 bridge and Huntingdon. 
 
 Retribution was swift to overtake the Heads who 
 were chiefly responsible for sending the plate. The 
 story of Dr. Sterne's treatment is told in Walker's 
 Sufferings of the Clergy : 
 
 ' Together with Dr. Beale, Master of St. Johns, and Dr. 
 Martin, Master of Queens, he was seized by Cromwell (who 
 had with some Parties of Soldiers surrounded the several 
 Chapels, whilst the Scholars were at Prayers) and carried 
 in Triumph to London. ... In the Villages, as they 
 passed from Cambridge to London, the People were called 
 by some of their Agents to come and Abuse and Revile 
 them : They were also led leisurely through the midst of 
 Bartholomew Fair ; as they passed along they were enter- 
 tained with Exclamations, Reproaches, Scorns and Curses ; 
 and it was a great Providence, considering the Prejudice 
 which the People had to them, that they found no worse 
 Usage. After their Confinement (in the Tower), tho' they 
 often Petitioned to be heard, yet they could never obtain 
 either a Trial, or their Liberty. They had been a full 
 Year under Restraint in other Prisons, when they were at 
 length, Friday, August 11, 1643, by order of the Parlia- 
 ment, sent on board the Ship ; the name of which was the 
 
108 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 Prosperous Saylor, then lying at Wapping. . . . Being 
 come on Shipboard, they were instantly put under Hatches, 
 where the Decks were so Low, that they could not stand 
 upright ; and yet were denied Stools to sit on, or so much 
 as a Burthen of Straw to hj on. Into this Little Ease, in a 
 small Ship, they crowd no less than 80 Prisoners of Quality ; 
 and that they might stifle one another, having no more 
 Breath than what they suck'd from one another's Mouth, 
 most maliciously and (Certainly) to a Murthcrous Intent, 
 they stop up all the small Augur-Holes, and all other inlets 
 which might relieve them with Fresh Air.' 
 
 In December, 1642, the Fellows of the three colleges 
 joined in a petition to the House of Commons for the 
 release of the imprisoned Masters, but the House took 
 no further notice of it than to order the latter to be 
 transferred from the Tower to the custody of c the 
 Keeper of Lord Peters^s House in Aldersgate Street, to 
 be there kept until the pleasure of this House be 
 further known. 1 Dr. Sterne was allowed to perform 
 the last offices of piety to his old friend, Archbishop 
 Laud, on the scaffold at Tower Hill, and soon after- 
 wards regained his liberty. He seems to have been in 
 trouble again in 1650-51, the year of Worcester fight, 
 for the Audit accounts of that year have an enigmatical 
 item : ' To Bailies for apprehending Dr. Sterne, 1.* 
 In the following year there is a charge for ' the Butler's 
 journey to Dr. Sterne, 1 who was then, possibly, at 
 Stevenage, where, until the Restoration, he maintained 
 himself by keeping a school. Dr. Beale, less happy 
 than his successor in the Lodge at Jesus, did not live to 
 see the triumph of the cause for which he suffered. He 
 died at Madrid in 1651. Baker says that to prevent 
 
REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 109 
 
 his body from falling into the hands of the Inquisitors 
 it was buried in quicklime beneath the floor of the 
 chamber in which he died. 
 
 Sterne was not at once deprived of the Mastership 
 when he was arrested, and the Fellows continued to 
 pay his dues to Mrs. Sterne until they were themselves 
 dispossessed. On February 23, 1642-43, they agreed : 
 
 ' Intuitu periculorum undique impendentium omnes 
 socii veniam absentiae concessam habent usque ad festum 
 Michaelis.' 
 
 On November 7, 1643, it was agreed by the President 
 and nine Fellows to extend this leave of absence until 
 Michaelmas, 1644. 
 
 It was a bitter constraint that rendered these resolu- 
 tions necessary. During the year 1643 Cambridge was 
 converted by Cromwell into an armed camp, and no 
 scholar was allowed to pass outside the town unless a 
 townsman vouched that he was a ' confider.' A breast- 
 work was raised at the eastern end of Jesus Lane, and 
 Jesus Grove ' no idolatrous one,' says Fuller was cut 
 down. 
 
 ' Multitudes of soldiers/ says the Querela Cantabrigiensis, 
 ' were quarter'd in those Glorious and Ancient Structures 
 which the Devout and Royal Founders design' d for 
 Sanctuaries of Learning and Piety : but were made by them 
 mere Spittals and Bawdy Houses for sick and debauch' d 
 Soldiers. To this must be added that they Tore and 
 Defac'd the Buildings, Pull'd down and Burn'd the Wains- 
 cote of the Chambers, the Bedsteds, Chairs, Stools, and 
 Shelves for Books.' 
 
 The following entries in the Bursars' book suggest 
 
110 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 conditions of life which must have been intolerable to 
 the quiet scholar : 
 
 1643-44 'To soldiers y* came to be billetted, Oct. 20, 
 
 1643, 2 s 6 d .' 
 
 ' For mending windows, locks, bedsteads, etc., 
 broken by y e souldiers billetted in y e Col- 
 lege, 18V 
 
 1644-45 'To three troopers out three days in Bedford- 
 shire, 6 8 .' 
 
 After the resolution passed in November, 1643, the 
 majority of the Fellows quitted the College. But before 
 they went they took down and concealed the organ, 
 and buried the College plate such of it as had not 
 gone to the King in the Master's orchard. Through- 
 out the year following nothing but formal business was 
 transacted. The register only notices two admissions, 
 and only three undergraduates had license ad respond- 
 endum qucestioni. 
 
 In the last days of the same year the notorious 
 William Dowsing came to Cambridge armed with power 
 to put in execution the ordinance of Parliament for the 
 reformation of churches and chapels. The curious diary 
 kept by this ignorant enthusiast informs us of the 
 extent of his depredations. He visited Jesus on 
 December 28, and, in the presence of one of the 
 Fellows, Mr. Boyleston, ' digg'd up the Steps there 
 and brake downe Superstitions of Saints and Angels, 
 120 at the least.' Mr. Boyleston may have been an 
 unwilling witness of the desecration, but the fact that 
 he was one of the two Fellows who were not ' outed ' by 
 the Earl of Manchester in the following year raises a 
 presumption that he was an assenting party. The 
 
REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 111 
 
 ' superstitions ' which were broken down were evidently 
 in the windows. The Audit Book this year mentions 
 payments amounting in all to 10 16s. Od. for mending 
 windows in the chapel, and there is another item of 
 3 6s. 6d. ' for levelling y e chapel, tiles, lime, sand and 
 labourers 1 wages.' During the levelling the workmen 
 discovered the coffin lid of Berta Rosata, which now lies 
 in the south transept, but presumably was then in the 
 chancel. 
 
 On January 22, 1643-44, the Houses of Parliament 
 passed an Ordinance for Regulating the University of 
 Cambridge which empowered the Earl of Manchester to 
 endeavour the reformation of the University, and to 
 eject such Masters or Fellows of colleges as were scan- 
 dalous in their lives or doctrines, or opposed the pro- 
 ceedings of Parliament. The Earl came to Cambridge 
 in February, and notified the Masters and scholars of 
 each college to be in residence on March 10 next en- 
 suing, then to answer such things as should be demanded 
 by him. Stephen Hall, the President of Jesus, seems 
 to have ignored the summons. The Audit Book dis- 
 appeared, and was not produced for inspection. The 
 Sequestrators were obliged to force the locks of the 
 Treasury, and of the College plate three pieces only 
 were discoverable. For this contumacy though the 
 assigned reason was his refusal to take the Covenant 
 the President was ejected on March 15. This was the 
 first ejection by Parliamentary order at Cambridge. 
 Hall was also imprisoned for more than three years in 
 the Compter in Southwark. On April 12 the Earl 
 came in person to the chapel, and in presence of all the 
 Fellows then resident declared Thomas Young to be 
 
112 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 Master of th College in the room of Dr. Sterne, 
 put him in the Master's stall, and delivered to him the 
 statutes of the College. The new Master signed a 
 declaration in the register that he would promote piety 
 and learning in the College agreeably to the late Solemn 
 National League and Covenant. Probably only two 
 Fellows were present at the induction, for the re- 
 mainder, fourteen in number, were all ejected before 
 the year was ended. The two who made their peace 
 and apparently accepted the Covenant were John 
 Boyleston and Thomas Allen. Of these renegades 
 Sherman, who was a furious Royalist, somewhat ob- 
 scurely remarks : ' The one (i.e., Boyleston) stood behind 
 a curtain to witness the evils which others endured with 
 firmness and courage ; the other, afflicted to behold the 
 exequies of his Alma Mater, made his own life a filial 
 offering at her grave, and, to escape the hands of wicked 
 rebels, laid violent hands upon himself. 1 Neither of 
 them retained their Fellowships after Michaelmas, 1645. 
 Boyleston retired to a living in Derbyshire, overlived 
 the Restoration, and died a Canon of Lichfield. Seven 
 of the vacant Fellowships were filled up by the Earl 
 of Manchester between October 3, 1644, and May 5, 
 1645, and a few more in succeeding years. But until the 
 Restoration the number of Fellows was never greater 
 than twelve. 
 
 In a volume of old letters and documents which is 
 in the Library there is an account of some Fellow- 
 Commoners of the College written by a Mr. Thomas 
 Cannon, who was a Fellow from 1609 to 1637. Among 
 them are several who served with distinction in the 
 Civil Wars on the side either of King or Parliament. 
 
REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 113 
 
 Among Parliamentary officers may be mentioned Colonel 
 Ralph Welden, who commanded a brigade at the siege 
 of Bristol in 1645, and was afterwards Parliamentary 
 Governor of Plymouth ; Colonel Edward Aldrich, 
 Governor of Aylesbury; and Sir Richard Onslow, a 
 prominent member of the Long Parliament, and 
 Colonel at the siege of Basing House. On the King's 
 side were Lord Charles Goring, who, with his brother, 
 the better-known Lord George Goring, commanded in 
 the royal cavalry ; he fought at Newbury, and after- 
 wards became Earl of Norwich ; Sir John Watts, 
 Governor for the King of Chirk Castle, and one of the 
 prisoners taken at the siege of Colchester; and Sir 
 William Boteler, killed at Cropredy Bridge. 
 
 Except the three mentioned in Cannon's list, it would 
 be difficult to point to any Jesus man of eminence on 
 the Parliamentary side. The men who had come under 
 the influence of Beale when he was tutor were, with 
 scarcely an exception, devoted Royalists. Some of the 
 more remarkable of them deserve a brief mention here. 
 Sir John Bramston (adm. 1593) became Chief Justice 
 of the King's Bench in 1635 ; against his private opinion 
 he concurred with the other judges in pronouncing the 
 legality of ship-money, and was consequently threatened 
 by the Commons with impeachment. Christopher 
 Hatton (adm. 1619-20) came of a family many of 
 whose members were educated at Jesus. He was a 
 member of the Long Parliament, joined the King at 
 Oxford, was raised to the peerage as Baron Hatton of 
 Kirby in 1643, and after the Restoration was Governor 
 of Guernsey. He had bright parts, says Roger North, 
 and professed to be religious, for he published Hattorfs 
 
 8 
 
114 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 Psalms, with a prayer suitable to each ; nevertheless, he 
 deserted his family, and ' diverted himself with players 
 and such idle people. 1 Sir Richard Fanshawe, who was 
 Hatton's cousin (adm. 1623), was secretary to Prince 
 Charles, and generally in attendance on him during the 
 Civil War. At the Restoration he was elected M.P. 
 for the University, and in 1663 was appointed Ambas- 
 sador to Spain. His poetical translations of Horace, 
 Guarini's Pastor Fido, and the Lus'iad deserve a high 
 place in the literature of his time. Peter Vowel (adm. 
 1622) was a notability of another kind ; he was 4 school- 
 master at Islington, 1 and executed in 1654 for complicity 
 in Gerard's plot against the Protector. 
 
 Among the clergy who suffered in the Rebellion there 
 were not less than five Jesus men who then or later 
 were Bishops. Thomas Westfield (Fellow in 1598), 
 Bishop of Bristol, 1642; Griffith Williams (adm. 1599), 
 Bishop of Ossory, 1641 ; John Owen (originally of 
 Christ's, Fellow of Jesus in 1599), Bishop of St. Asaph, 
 1629 ; Humphrey Henchman (adm. 1608, migrated 
 next year to Christ's), Bishop of Salisbury, 1660, and of 
 London, 1663 ; Robert Morgan (adm. 1624), Bishop of 
 Bangor, 1666. 
 
 Thomas Young had been approved for the Master- 
 ship by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, of 
 which he was himself a member. He had been Milton's 
 tutor before the poet went to St. Paul's School, and a 
 friendly correspondence had been kept up between them 
 in later years. He had won credit by his book, Dies 
 Dominica (1639), on the observance of the Sabbath, 
 but it was his activity in controversial theology which 
 commended him to the Assembly. ' Presbyterianorum 
 
REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 115 
 
 Smectymnianorum Primipilus ' is Sherman's contemptu- 
 ous description of him, referring to the leading part 
 which he took in the work published under the assumed 
 name, Smectymnuus, a name made up of the initials of 
 the five contributing divines, T and Y standing for 
 Thomas Young. The book, which was an answer to 
 Bishop HalPs defence of the Liturgy and Episcopalian 
 government entitled An Humble Remonstrance to the High 
 Court of Parliament, is best remembered now for the 
 reason that Milton championed the cause of his former 
 teacher in the Apology for Smectymnuus. Young 
 was a Scotchman, and had not graduated at either of 
 the English Universities. Such a man might seem to 
 the divines eminently calculated to carry out that 
 reformation, ' as well of the statutes as of the members 
 of the College, 1 of which the Earl of Manchester gave 
 warning in the mandate for his admission. Singularly 
 little is to be gathered of his career as Master. So 
 much is evident, that he did not attempt any very 
 striking changes. In spite of his anti-episcopalian bias, 
 he was a King's man, and even when Charles was a 
 prisoner in the hands of the Parliament there were 
 sanctioned bonfires in the cloister- court on his corona- 
 tion day. His reputation as a minister in the eastern 
 counties, where he held the living of Stowmarket, 
 attracted to the College considerable numbers of the 
 sons of Puritan families in that quarter. In spite of the 
 disturbance of the Civil War the College rapidly re- 
 gained its numbers. In the five years ending 1649 
 ninety-two admissions were accounted for. 
 
 In October, 1649, the Parliament ordered the Com- 
 mittee for Reforming the Universities to call upon all 
 
 82 
 
116 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 Heads and Fellows of colleges to subscribe the Engage- 
 ment, whereby they pledged themselves to be faithful 
 to the Commonwealth of England, as established, 
 without a King or House of Lords. Thomas Young 
 fell under the general suspicion with which the Govern- 
 ment looked upon the Presbyterian ministers after the 
 Battle of Dunbar, and, as he took no notice of the 
 summons to subscribe, he was ejected from the Master- 
 ship on November 14, 1650, and in his place the 
 Committee appointed Mr. John Worthington, a Fellow 
 of Emmanuel. Four of the Fellows, Bantoft, Whit- 
 field, Tilney, and Yarburgh, were dispossessed for the 
 same reason and about the same time. 
 
 One of the two Fellows appointed in the vacant 
 places was John Sherman of Queens'. The historian of 
 Jesus College deserves something more than a passing 
 recognition in a history which is in part based on his 
 labours. He was a native of Dedham in Essex. From 
 one branch of his family, which emigrated in the seven- 
 teenth century to the American plantations, sprang the 
 celebrated General Sherman. The fact that Sherman 
 subscribed the Engagement casts a shadow of suspicion 
 on the fervid royalism which colours his Historia. His 
 partisanship is indeed a serious deduction from the 
 value of his work, so far as it relates to his own times. 
 Conveniently forgetting the manner of his own acquisi- 
 tion of a Fellowship, he passes over the interesting 
 Commonwealth period with a sneering mention of 
 Young and Worthington as intruded into the Master- 
 ship ' authoritate, si Dis placet, Parliamentarian He 
 writes a pompous Latin which savours of the College 
 exercise ; but in questions of fact he may generally be 
 
REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 117 
 
 relied on. His materials were derived from a diligent 
 examination of College and nunnery documents, as well 
 as from printed sources, and for the times immediately 
 preceding his own he drew on the recollections of older 
 residents of the College. He became a Canon and 
 Archdeacon of Salisbury, died in 1671, and was buried 
 in the chancel of the College chapel. His Historia, 
 dedicated to Dr. Boldero, was carried down approxi- 
 mately to the year of his death. A printed edition, 
 containing, however, only a portion of Sherman's work, 
 was brought out in 1840 by J. O. Halliwell, afterwards 
 better known as the Shakespearian scholar, Halliwell- 
 Phillipps ; but it teems with errors, and has little value. 
 It was in a happy hour that the Commissioners, 
 looking around them for a successor to the ejected 
 Young, made choice of John Worthington. At this 
 distance of time his chief title to remembrance is that 
 he was one of the group of Cambridge Platonists, and 
 the editor of the works of ' the incomparable ' Joseph 
 Mede and of John Smith's Select Discourses. To his 
 contemporaries he was endeared by the lovable qualities 
 of his character, qualities readable to us in his letters 
 and diary (published by the Chetham Society). They 
 may be expressed in the eulogium which Archbishop 
 Tillotson pronounced in his funeral sermon. 
 
 ' His whole Demeanour was Pious and Grave ; and yet 
 not blemish'd with any Moroseness or fond Affectation. 
 And as his Knowledge was great, so was his Humility. 
 He was a zealous and sincere Friend where he profess' d 
 Kindness. . . . He was universally inoffensive, kind and 
 obliging, even to those that differ' d from him : And, to set 
 off these Virtues, there was added to them, in a very 
 
118 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 eminent degree, the Ornament of a meek and quiet Spirit, 
 which in the sight of God is of great Price. Especially in 
 Debates and Controversies of Religion he was not apt to 
 be passionate and contentious. . . . But that which was 
 most singularly Eminent in him was the Publickness of his 
 Spirit, and his great Zeal and Industry to be profitable and 
 useful to the World, especially in those things which 
 tended to the promoting of Learning and Piety.' 
 
 The new Master, indeed, had none of the intract- 
 ability of his Presbyterian predecessor, and, as he had 
 received episcopal Orders, his appointment was regarded 
 with some degree of favour by the exiled Churchmen. 
 Though his predecessor had been ' outed ' for declining 
 the Engagement, it seems that Worthington was not 
 asked to accept it, nor had he taken the Covenant. H e 
 had been moved to deep sorrow by the death of King 
 Charles, and, preaching on the occasion, he chose for his 
 texts, 'The beauty of Israel is slain. How are the 
 mighty fallen P and ' Behold and see if there be any 
 sorrow like unto our sorrow. 1 Of his appointment at 
 Jesus Worthington writes : ' When I came hither first 
 it was not my seeking, and I could have left it as 
 willingly for Dr. Sterne, if he could have brought him- 
 self in. He desired of me to accept of it, and procured 
 the Fellows to desire me. 1 Sundry symptoms show that 
 old grudges presently died away under the Master's 
 gentle influence. In 1651 ' widow Welsh,' inspired, no 
 doubt, by some of the old society, became the means of 
 restoring the lost Audit Book. Next year, through the 
 agency of a certain Mr. Buck, one of the Esquire Bedels, 
 the buried plate was brought to light. In the same 
 year the organ was discovered ; the time had not yet 
 
REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 119 
 
 come when it could be replaced in the chapel, but the 
 c discovery ' looks as though it had a delicate reference 
 to Worthington's devotion to music. 
 
 The year 1660, of course, brought the restoration of 
 the old society, or rather the remnant of it spared by 
 death or matrimony. Of the fourteen ejected Fellows 
 three only were reinstated, the President, Stephen 
 Hall, being one of them. Two of the three died, and 
 the third resigned his place within two years from their 
 restoration. Had the number of the restored been 
 greater it might have gone hard with some of the 
 intruded Fellows ; but as there were only twelve of the 
 latter, the statutable number of Fellowships would not 
 be exceeded by the inclusion of them all. But institu- 
 tion by the Visitor must, of course, be a condition of 
 the retention of their places, for during the interregnum 
 the College had been empowered by order of the House 
 of Commons (November 7, 1645) to elect and admit 
 Fellows without presenting any names to the Bishop of 
 Ely, who was then a prisoner in the Tower. ' It was 
 suspected that there would have been a refusall of 
 some. 1 But Matthew Wren, the restored Bishop of Ely, 
 * was very fair and civill towards them, and dispatched 
 them without the usuall height of the fees, and per- 
 suaded them to studiousness and peace, against all 
 animosities, etc.' The unanimity with which the in- 
 truded Fellows submitted themselves, and the readiness 
 of the Bishop to accept their submission, show that they 
 had not committed themselves to any opinions hostile 
 to episcopacy. Some of them Sherman being of the 
 number were perfervid Churchmen and Royalists, and 
 made no secret of their attitude in the interval between 
 
120 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 Cromwell's death and the proclamation of Charles. At 
 the Commencement in July, 1660, before Worthington 
 had left the lodge, a Johnian prevaricator, in his 
 speech, styled the ' Jesuits ' papists, with double refer- 
 ence to their name and religious leanings. A Jesus 
 prevaricator, on the following day, retorted with an 
 ingenious play on the familiar nickname of the Johnians, 
 ' Cum sus audet contendere cum Jesuitis, turn certe 
 " Suis et ipsa Roma viribus ruit." '* 
 
 Justice could not be complete without the restoration 
 of the Mastership to Sterne ; but before he returned to 
 the College it was well understood that he was destined 
 for the bishopric of Carlisle. WorthingtoiVs friends 
 hoped that after a formal cession of his office he might 
 be reappointed to it by the Visitor. But Bishop Wren 
 had already decided on giving it to Dr. Pearson. With 
 unruffled serenity Worthington withdrew with his 
 young wife to his poor vicarage at Fen Ditton, k stand- 
 ing bleek and alone, and therefore obnoxious to the 
 cold weather and the violence of disbanded soldiers, of 
 which there have been some late proofs. 1 At Ditton 
 he hoped that he might still be able to do service to 
 the University, though his disposition was inclined 
 rather to devotional retirement, ' about which I did love 
 to talk with worthy Mr. Thristcross, who knew Mr. 
 Ferrar and Little Gedding. 1 There is a charming 
 interchange of courtesies in the letters which passed 
 between him and Dr. Sterne on the subject of the 
 return of the latter to the lodge, and when Dr. and Mrs. 
 Sterne arrived there they were entertained by the out- 
 
 * The speech of the Jesus prevaricator is printed in The Hutton 
 Correspondence (Surtees Society's publications). 
 
REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 
 
 going Master with an elaborate musical performance in 
 their honour. 
 
 Worthington died in 1671 at Hackney, where he was 
 at the time lecturer in the parish church. His only 
 son, John, was admitted a pensioner of the College in 
 1680. He declined the oaths at the Revolution, and, 
 dying in 1737, left by will a sum of ,800 to the Master 
 and Fellows for the purpose of founding a new Fellow- 
 ship. This portion of the will remained unadministered 
 until 1766, and in that year the College declined the 
 benefaction on the ground that it was insufficient for 
 the maintenance of a Fellow on the conditions required 
 by the statutes. 
 
 Sterne became Archbishop of York in 1664 and died 
 in 1683. In 1671 he gave to the College an annual 
 rent-charge of ^40, to make provision for four scholars, 
 two of them born in that part of Yorkshire which is in 
 the diocese of York, the other two born in Notting- 
 hamshire, and of them one in Sterne's native town, 
 Mansfield. The Archbishop's great-grandson, Laurence 
 Sterne, was a scholar on this foundation. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 RESTORATION DAYS 
 
 DK. WORTHINGTON left the lodge on November 3, 
 1660, to take up his abode at Ditton, and on Decem- 
 ber 4 following he notes in his diary: 'This day 
 Dr. Pearson was admitted Master of Jesus College.'' 
 The selection of so great a scholar for the Mastership 
 is creditable to the discernment of the restored Visitor, 
 Bishop Wren. Undoubtedly Pearson's is the greatest 
 name in the list of Masters of Jesus, but his Cambridge 
 career is connected not so much with Jesus as with 
 King's, where he was a Fellow, or with Trinity, to the 
 Mastership of which he was translated by royal man- 
 date in April, 1662. To his famous Exposition of the 
 Creed (published in 1659) he principally owed his 
 nomination to the Mastership of Jesus. ' His extensive 
 knowledge, personal integrity and prudence, 1 the 
 Bishop's letter to the Fellows says, 'will be a model 
 to the whole society.' During the few months in which 
 he held the Mastership he acted as a delegate at the 
 Savoy Conference, was selected to revise the Prayer- 
 Book, and was made Lady Margaret's Reader in 
 Divinity. There is no portrait of him at Jesus, and 
 his only monument there is the inscription which he 
 
RESTORATION DAYS 123 
 
 caused to be placed in the chapel on the grave of his 
 old friend Stephen Hall, the sturdy President of 1644. 
 
 Even more ephemeral than Pearson's tenure of the 
 Mastership was that of his successor, Dr. Joseph 
 Beaumont. His history is bound up with that of 
 Peterhouse, of which college he was a Fellow from 
 1636 until his ejection in 1644, and to it he returned 
 as Master in April, 1663. He was admitted Master 
 of Jesus on April 19, 1662. He owed the preferment 
 to both Masterships to his father-in-law, Bishop Wren. 
 4 Vir Musis charissimus,' Sherman says of him, and 
 though his poetry soon lost its vogue, he deserves a 
 place among the lesser poetic lights of the seventeenth 
 century. His colossal production, Psyche, is of the 
 same pattern of versified philosophy as More's Song 1 of 
 the Soul ; but in prose he assailed the tenets of More 
 and the Latitudinarians. In the twelve months of his 
 Mastership he took in hand the restoration of the 
 chapel and its services to the conditions existing pre- 
 vious to 1643. Nothing seems to have been done to 
 the fabric, but 4 the Cherubims ' were ' cleared ' and set 
 up ; evidently they had been hidden in anticipation 
 of Dowsing's raid. Some of the old Communion plate, 
 dug up from the Master's orchard, was refashioned, and 
 additions were made to it. The organ was put back 
 in its place, and, somewhat later, the celebrated organ- 
 builder, Thamar, was engaged to tune and repair it. 
 
 Only one of the Fellows refused the declaration 
 which the Act of Uniformity imposed on all Heads, 
 Fellows, and other office-holders in the Universities. 
 The single stickler for conscience was Edmund Hough 
 (elected February, 1655-56). The grounds of his 
 
124 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 objection are not clear. Sherman says that he was 
 ' ecclesiae films, 1 and after his ejection he conformed, 
 and died Vicar of Halifax, Yorkshire; but, says 
 Calamy, ' he carried it in a very friendly manner to the 
 Dissenters.' 
 
 Hough was the tutor under whom John Strype, the 
 ecclesiastical historian, was admitted, March 29, 1662. 
 Strype, or Strijp, as his name is written in the 
 register, came & a Protestant refugee family, whose 
 original home was in the Spanish Netherlands. 
 Educated at St. Paul's School, he was attracted to 
 Jesus by one of the exhibitions there in the gift of the 
 Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's. After the expulsion 
 of his tutor Strype's family thought the College ' too 
 superstishus ' for his continuance there, and he mi- 
 grated in 1663 to Catharine Hall. His short con- 
 nection with Jesus would not need commemoration 
 were it not that to it we are indebted for an extremely 
 interesting account of undergraduate life in the College, 
 contained in a letter which he wrote to his mother in 
 London soon after his first coming to Cambridge. 
 
 ' Do not wonder/ he writes, ' so much at our Commons : 
 they are more than many Colleges have. Trinity itself 
 (where Herring and Davies are), which is the famousest 
 College in the University, have but three half-pence. We 
 have roast meat, dinner and supper, throughout the 
 week ; and such meat as you know I had not use to care 
 for ; and that is Veal ; but now I have learnt to eat it. 
 Sometimes, neverthelesse, we have boiled meat, with 
 pottage; and beef and mutton, which I am glad of; 
 except Fridays and Saturdays, and sometimes Wednesdays ; 
 which days we have fish at dinner, and tansy or pudding 
 for supper. Our parts then are slender enough. But 
 
RESTORATION DAYS 125 
 
 there is this remedy : we may retire unto the Butteries, 
 and there take a half-pennie loafe and butter or cheese ; 
 or else to the Kitchen, and take there what the Cook hath. 
 But for my part, I am sure, I never visited the Kitchen 
 yet, since I have been here, and the Butteries but seldom 
 after meals ; unlesse for a Ciza, that is for a Farthing-worth 
 of Small-beer ; so that lesse than a Peny in Beer doth serve 
 me a whole Day. Neverthelesse, sometimes we have 
 Exceedings ; then we have two or three Dishes (but that 
 is very rare) ; otherwise never but one ; so that a Cake 
 and a Cheese would be very welcome to me ; and a Neat's 
 tongue, or some such thing, if it would not require too 
 much money. If you do intend to send me anything, 
 do not send it yet, until you hear further of me when I 
 would have them sent ; and that is, when I have got 
 me a Chamber ; for as yet, I am in a Chamber that doth 
 not at all please me. I have thoughts of one, which 
 is a very handsome one, and one pair of stairs high, 
 and that looketh into the Master's garden. The price 
 is but 20s. per annum, ten whereof a Knight's son, and 
 lately admitted into this College, doth pay; though 
 he did not come till about Midsummer, so that I shall 
 have but 10s. to pay a year; besides my income, which 
 may be about 40s. or thereabouts. . . . My breakings- 
 out are now all gone. Indeed I was afraid at my first 
 coming it would have proved the Itch ; but I am fairly rid 
 on it ; but I fear I shall get it, let me do what I can ; for 
 there are many here that have it cruelly. Some of them 
 take strong purges that would kill a horse, weeks together 
 for it, to get it away, and are hardly rid of it. At my 
 first Coming I laid alone ; but since, my Tutor desired me 
 to let a very clear lad lay with me, and an Alderman's 
 son of Colchester, which I could not deny, being newly 
 come ; he hath laid with me now for almost a fortnight, 
 
126 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 and will do till he can provide himself with a Chamber. 
 I have been with all my Acquaintance, who have entreated 
 me very courteously, especially Jonathan Houghton. I 
 went to his Chamber the Friday night I first came, and 
 there he made me stay and sup with him, and would have 
 had me laid with him that night, and was extraordinary 
 kind to me. . . . We go twice a day to Chapel ; in the 
 morning about 7, and in the evening about 5. After we 
 come from Chapel in the morning, which is towards 8, we 
 go to the Butteries for our breakfast, which is usually five 
 Farthings ; an half penny loaf and butter, and a cize of 
 beer. But sometimes I go to an honest House near the 
 College, and have a pint of milk boiled for my breakfast.' 
 
 Since the time of Duport Jesus had been ruled by a 
 succession of Masters, each of whom had been dis- 
 tinguished for scholarship. In the appointments of 
 Pearson and Beaumont, Bishop Wren had respected 
 the high tradition which for seventy years had been 
 associated with the office; but personal and political 
 considerations guided him in the choice of Beaumont's 
 successor. Dr. Edmund Boldero, who was admitted 
 Master on May 27, 1663, had been prominent as a 
 ' sufferer ' in the Royalist cause, and when it came to the 
 turn of the faithful to reap their reward he was not 
 the man to allow his claims to be overlooked. He was 
 of Wren's own college, Pembroke ; had been extruded 
 from his Fellowship there in 1644, and had afterwards 
 been kept in London by the Parliament, at excessive 
 charges to himself. After his liberation he had taken 
 service in Scotland as a captain under Montrose, and 
 ' between the ladder and the rope had narrowly escaped 
 hanging. 1 Later he is heard of at Bury St. Edmund's, 
 where he kept a Church of England conventicle, using 
 
RESTORATION DAYS 127 
 
 the Common Prayer. At the Restoration he became 
 Bishop Wren's chaplain. Gilbert WakefielcTs story of 
 the manner in which he obtained the Mastership is 
 palpably an invention, but, for all that, may reflect 
 something of the character of the soldier-divine. 
 
 ' On a vacancy of the mastership, Boldero, without any 
 pretensions to the appointment, in plain English, plucks up 
 his spirits, or, in Homer's language, "speaks to his mag- 
 nanimous mind," and presents his petition to the Bishop. 
 " Who are you ?" says his Lordship. " I know nothing of 
 you ; I never heard of you before." " My Lord, I have 
 suffered long and severely for my attachment to our royal 
 master, as well as your Lordship has. I believe your Lord- 
 ship and I have been in all the gaols in England." " What 
 does the fellow mean ? Man ! I never was confined in any 
 prison but the Tower." " And, my Lord," said Boldero, 
 " I have been in all the rest myself." The Bishop's heart 
 relented, and he good-naturedly admitted the claim of his 
 petitioner.' 
 
 Walker, writing in 1714, says of Boldero: 'He is 
 well remembered at this Day for a Man of an honest 
 good Meaning, tho 1 he would often be very unfortunate 
 in expressing it. 1 Under his sway, though perhaps the 
 cause lay rather in the general abandonment of ideals 
 which accompanied the Restoration than in the Master's 
 example, there can be no doubt that the College started 
 on the downward plane of indolent dilettantism, which 
 passed for refinement in the combination-rooms of 
 Cambridge when the enthusiasms of the war-time had 
 passed away. John North, who was admitted as a 
 4 Nobleman ' at Jesus in February, 1660, and became a 
 Fellow in September, 1666, found there a society in 
 
128 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 which his habitual sobriety was deemed extraordinary. 
 6 After dinner, and in evenings, he kept company with 
 the fellows and fellow-commoners in the garden; but 
 not for long, for he could not be pleased with such 
 insipid pastime as bowls, or less material discourse, 
 such as town tales, or punning, and the like.' At 
 length ' he declined the parlour, and consorted rather 
 with the younger gentlemen than the grave, and, as he 
 thought, perhaps, empty seniors of the College.' His 
 dislike for the society of the Fellows was met by a 
 corresponding ' morosity ' on their part, and North at 
 last sacrificed his Fellowship and migrated to Trinity, 
 where he found better company, especially that of 
 Newton and Barrow. 
 
 Dr. North was a good, if not a great, scholar, and a 
 lover of books even more than a scholar. He became 
 Regius Professor of Greek in 1672, when he was only 
 twenty-eight, succeeded Barrow in the Mastership of 
 Trinity in 1677, and died in 1683. For our knowledge of 
 his life and character we are indebted to his biography, 
 which in its entertaining discursiveness is more than a 
 biography, written by his younger brother, the well- 
 known Roger North. Roger was admitted as a Fellow- 
 Commoner at Jesus in October, 1667, under the tuition 
 of his brother, the Doctor, and he gossips pleasantly 
 enough of his own undergraduate days in his Auto- 
 biography. 
 
 ' At Cambridge I lived a year, in which time nothing 
 extraordinary happened to me, unless it were that I was 
 forced to live in the quality of a nobleman, with a very 
 strait allowance. I was not capable to conduct myself, but 
 had a brother who was in the place of tutor, and provided 
 
RESTORATION DAYS 129 
 
 all things for me. Besides the first cost of a gown which 
 was not over rich, few of ordinary quality spent less than I 
 did. And it chiefly lay in not going in company, for I had 
 not confidence, nor money, and very seldom on my own 
 account made or received a visit. ... I did most 
 extremely envy the common scholars for the joy they had 
 at football, and lament my own condition, that was tied up 
 by quality from mixing with them, and enjoying the 
 freedom of rambling that they had. And not having 
 either money or assurance to mix with my equals, who 
 were wild and extravagant enough, was obliged to walk 
 with grave seniors, and to know no other diversion. . . . 
 As to study there, I followed my own appetite, which was 
 to natural philosophy, which they call physics, and par- 
 ticularly Descartes, whose works I dare say I read over 
 three times before I understood him. . . . And at that 
 time new philosophy was a sort of heresy, and my brother 
 cared not to encourage me much in it.' 
 
 The old books on physics he could not 'thresh at,' 
 but he found delight in mathematics, especially in 
 Barrow's Euclid. Algebra he 'was not a match for,' 
 and logic he did not touch upon. In after life he 
 showed his regard for his old College by ordering that 
 the original MS. of his Eocamen, a book of memoirs of 
 the reign of Charles II., much valued by Lord Macaulay, 
 should be deposited in its Library, where it still 
 remains. In 1730, more than sixty years after his own 
 admission, he sent his second son, Montagu, to Jesus, 
 and there is extant a series of sensible, fatherly letters 
 (printed by Dr. Jessopp in his edition of the Auto- 
 biography), which he addressed to the young scholar 
 at Cambridge. They have much of the easy, con- 
 versational grace which characterizes his Eocamen and 
 
 9 
 
130 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 Memoirs, and in their tone and the unconstrained 
 relations which they show between father and son they 
 are nearer akin to modern habits of mind than to the 
 Restoration days when the writer was a freshman. 
 Undergraduate life had greatly changed since then, as 
 he reminds his son. The days were past when two or 
 three undergraduates shared a chamber with their tutor. 
 Montagu had a chamber, ' I cannot say too good, but much 
 too big for you, for it held Doctor North and myself. 
 My study was up a little stair by the bedside, and his 
 by the chimney. The greatest inconvenience is the 
 sun's heat in summer afternoons, and then we retired 
 to the bedchamber. 1 Roger's little study, in a garret 
 at the west end of the Hall, remains much as he may 
 have left it, the only unaltered study in the College- 
 Some amateur hand, possibly his, has adorned its wain- 
 scot with roughly-executed paintings, among them the 
 two crowing cocks whose answering labels, CJOD et/u 
 d\eKT(0p and otmw? KOI eya), every Jesus man is familiar 
 with. 
 
 In 1665 Cambridge suffered from a dreadful outbreak 
 of plague. Several College servants at Jesus received 
 charitable allowances when they were 'visited,' but it 
 does not appear that there were any fatal cases within 
 the College precincts. On August 7 all the Fellows 
 had leave of absence until the cessation of the epidemic, 
 but three of them voluntarily remained at their posts. 
 In the summer of the following year the pestilence 
 returned with increased fatality. On June 25 a meeting 
 of the society was called, evidently in haste, for the 
 conclusions were entered not in the register, but on 
 a vacant leaf of the Plate Book. The Fellows were 
 
RESTORATION DAYS 131 
 
 allowed to remain away from the College until the 
 following November, or later if necessary. In case it 
 should be unsafe for any of them to remain, careful 
 persons were to be brought in to secure the College. 
 Meals were to be taken in the Buttery. 
 
 John Flamsteed, the chief of Jesus men of science, 
 was admitted a sizar on December 21, 1670. He was 
 then twenty-four years of age, had already contributed 
 astronomical papers to the Philosophical Transactions of 
 the Royal Society, and was known to Newton and 
 Barrow. While at Jesus he commenced, with a seven- 
 foot telescope and a wooden quadrant of eighteen 
 inches radius, those observations which, protracted 
 through a laborious lifetime, bore fruit in his British 
 Catalogue, 'one of the proudest productions of the 
 Royal Observatory at Greenwich. 1 He was appointed 
 to the new office of Astronomer Royal in 1675, but the 
 tenuity of his stipend compelled him throughout life to 
 take private pupils and labour as a country parson. 
 His life was embittered and his fame in his lifetime 
 dimmed by a professional quarrel with Newton, by 
 whom, not without reason, he conceived himself to 
 have been neglected and disparaged. But later times 
 have done ampler justice to the great observer whose 
 labours consecrated Flamsteed Hill for all time as the 
 omphalos of English astronomy. 
 
 The Restoration period is remarkable for the number 
 of scholarship endowments which it brought to the 
 College. The first, in 1671, was the already-mentioned 
 foundation of the four Sterne scholarships. In 1675 
 two more, for boys from Sevenoaks School, were given 
 by Lady Boswell, relict of Sir William Boswell, formerly 
 
 92 
 
JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 Fellow, and Ambassador at the Hague in the reign of 
 Charles I. In 1677 Dr. Henry Brunsell, Prebendary of 
 Ely, founded three exhibitions; and in 1682 John 
 Somervile bequeathed a scholarship for a boy educated 
 at Loughborough School. But the most important was 
 the noble foundation of the Rustat scholarships in 1671. 
 Tobias Rustat, the founder, was the son of Robert 
 Rustat, Rector of Skeffington, Leicestershire, who was 
 admitted at Jesus in the year 1580. The family took 
 its name apparently from the lordship of Rustadt in 
 Saxony. Tobias had not received a University educa- 
 tion ; indeed, he had received very little education of 
 any kind ; ' a very simple, ignorant, but honest and 
 loyal creature" Evelyn calls him. He was born in 1606, 
 and in his younger days had accompanied the Earl of 
 Denbigh's son, Viscount Fielding, on an embassy to the 
 Venetian Court. From the ' italianate ' morals of Venice, 
 notorious in the early seventeenth century for their 
 corrupting influence on English travellers, he remained 
 conspicuously free. A companion in this embassy 
 describes him as ' a sober person and religious ; he was 
 the most diligent attending servant in the whole family, 
 early and late, very exact and complete and in his 
 place ; which hath since often brought to my mind that 
 of Solomon, The hand of the diligent maketh rich, 
 Proverbs 10, 4<th verse. ' The source of his wealth was 
 a fortunate investment the purchase from the needy 
 King of the reversion of the place of Yeoman of the 
 Robes to the young Prince of Wales, afterwards 
 Charles II. He attended on the Prince during the 
 Civil War, and was with him and the Queen at Paris 
 after 1645. He acted as a confidential courier between 
 
RESTORATION DAYS 133 
 
 the exiled Court and the Royalists in England, and was 
 personally engaged in the Kentish rising in July, 1648. 
 In the skirmish at Nonsuch which ended this enterprise 
 he was the means of saving the life of the young Duke 
 of Buckingham. He shared the poverty and distresses 
 of the Royalists at Paris and the Hague, and obtained 
 his reward at the Restoration when, his reversion having 
 fallen, he got the place of Yeoman of the Robes, and 
 was made besides keeper of the royal palace of Hampton 
 Court. Within a few years he grew very rich, ' by his 
 wonderful frugality, 1 as Evelyn says. He survived the 
 Stuart dynasty, and received an allowance in the reign 
 of William III. among other old household servants of 
 Charles II. He died, ' a bachelour, 1 on March 15, 
 1693-94, at the age of eighty-seven, and, at his own 
 desire, was buried in the College chapel. The College 
 gratefully commemorated its benefactor by putting up in 
 his memory a large monument of white marble, which, 
 among a variety of armorial and other devices, has his 
 portrait in medallion. The inscription beneath, of his 
 own composition, says : 
 
 ' The greatest part of the estate he gathered by God's 
 blessing, the King's favour and his Industry, he disposed 
 in his Lifetime in Workes of Charity ; and found the more 
 he bestowed on Churches, Hospitalls, Universities and 
 Colledges, and upon Poor Widows and Orphans of Ortho- 
 dox Ministers, the more he had at the year's end/ 
 
 A list of his many benefactions, amounting in the 
 total to ^10,695, is among the documents in the College 
 muniment-room. Among them are gifts of ^?1,000 each 
 to the University Library at Cambridge and to St. John's 
 
134 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 College (Laud's college) at Oxford; and of ^1,020 for 
 the purchase of a fee farm at Non-Eaton for pensions 
 to widows of orthodox clergymen, to be nominated by 
 the Master and Fellows of Jesus. 
 
 Rustafs directions as regards his scholarship founda- 
 tion were precise, and were embodied in statutes framed 
 by himself and approved by the Visitor. The scholars 
 were to be ' sonnes of Clergymen already dead who had 
 taken y e Holy Order of Priesthood according to y e 
 Rights and Usages of y e Church of England. 1 An 
 alteration of the statutes in 1861 extended the benefits 
 of the foundation to the sons of living clergymen. The 
 number of scholars was to be nine, and their stipend 
 15 each. By subsequent additions to the original 
 foundation the Rustat Scholarship Fund was largely 
 increased, and at the present day amounts to about 
 750 per annum. The scholars on the Rustat founda- 
 tion are still distinguished by a special gown of cloth 
 prescribed by the founder. 
 
 Dr. Boldero deserves to be had in remembrance chiefly 
 on account of his services and benefactions to the College 
 Library ; as the Latin inscription over its entrance 
 informs us, ' he constructed anew the bookcases, be- 
 stowed much pains in arranging the classes, and, to 
 complete his good services, bequeathed all his books to 
 the Library." The long, low room in which it is con- 
 tained is not the least venerable and interesting part 
 of a College rich above its fellows in the charms of 
 antiquity. The open roof of oak remains exactly as 
 we may suppose it was finished by Bishop Alcock, and 
 the seal of his workmanship is yet to be seen in the 
 cocks sculptured on the doorcase and painted in the 
 
c 
 
RESTORATION DAYS 135 
 
 windows which look into the cloister. Each window 
 has two lights, and in each light is a cock standing on 
 a globe, the Bishop's rebus. Beneath the cocks is 
 inscribed in Latin the designation of the class of books 
 which adjoins each window, Phisica, Lex Civilis, and so 
 forth ; and labels issuing from the cocks' beaks contain 
 texts from the Vulgate or the Fathers appropriate to 
 the subject of the books in the class. For example, 
 the class of the Canon Law has for its pair of texts the 
 two passages from the Psalms, Legem statuit ei in via 
 quam elegit (Ps. xxiv. 12) and Legem pone mihi domine 
 viam iustificacionum tuarum (Ps. cxix. 33). A feature 
 of the room, now singular, but once common in college 
 libraries, is a human skeleton contained in a wooden 
 case with a glass door ; probably it dates from the later 
 years of the seventeenth century, when the study of 
 anatomy began- to attract attention in the University. 
 
 Sherman says that the Library was scantily furnished 
 before the year 1600, and it probably contained few 
 books when Boldero took it in hand.* It received con- 
 siderable bequests both of money and books in the 
 latter half of the seventeenth century. Its principal 
 endowment proceeds from a bequest of William Grim- 
 baldston, M.D., in 1725. It contains a good collection 
 of monastic MSS., most of them given by Thomas Man, 
 Fellow in 1685. Man successively held the livings of 
 Helmsley (near to Rievaux Abbey) and Northallerton 
 (in the gift of the Dean and Chapter of Durham), and 
 
 * The books in the Library were originally chained, according to the 
 usual practice of the Middle Ages, as is shown by the rivets remaining 
 on many of them, and by entries in the accounts e.g. t 1557-58, 'to 
 the smithe for nailes and cheyning bokes in the librarye, 5d.' Twelve 
 books were chained in the chapel in 1579-80. 
 
136 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 seems to have had exceptional opportunities for picking 
 up books from the libraries of Yorkshire and Durham 
 religious houses. A catalogue of the MSS. has been 
 printed by Dr. M. R. James (Cambridge University 
 Press, 1895). 
 
 Dr. Boldero died on July 5, 1 679, and was succeeded 
 by Dr. Humphry Gower. But Gower's tenure of office 
 was of the shortest, for he resigned on December of the 
 same year on election to the Mastership of his old 
 college, St. John's. He was a man of doggedly tenaci- 
 ous character, as he showed in 1693, when he resisted a 
 mandamus to eject the non-juring Fellows of St. John's. 
 The strictness of his rule at that college made him 
 unpopular with the undergraduates, one of whom, 
 Abraham De la Pryme, has handed down the irreverent 
 jest made on his appointment there: 
 
 ' Our master, they say, is a mighty high proud man. . . . 
 He came from Jesus College to be master here, and he was 
 so sevear that he was commonly called the divel of Jesus ; 
 and when he was made master here some unlucky scholars 
 broke this jest upon him that now the divel was entered 
 into the heard of swine ; for us Johnians are abusively 
 called hoggs.' 
 
 Dr. William Say well, who filled the place vacated by 
 Dr. Gower, was, like him, a Johnian (Fellow in 1666). 
 He had some reputation in his day as a controversial 
 theologian, and championed the cause of the Church 
 against Baxter. His Mastership, which ended with his 
 death on June 9, 1701, was altogether uneventful. The 
 evil days of James II. passed, on the whole, quietly 
 enough in our College history, but brought trouble to 
 
RESTORATION DAYS 137 
 
 one of the junior Fellows, Edward Spence. In a sermon 
 preached before the University on November 5, 1686, 
 he imprudently reflected on the Roman Church. For 
 this he was prosecuted at the instance of Joshua Basset, 
 Fellow of Caius and a suspected Papist, who next year 
 was thrust by the King into the Mastership of Sidney. 
 Spence had to make a public recantation in the Senate 
 House, and the disgrace seems to have affected the poor 
 man's wits. He died lunatic, but a Fellow to the last, 
 in 1735. The entire society acquiesced in the Revolu- 
 tion of 1688. Nevertheless, among the rank and file of 
 the College there were a few adherents of the fallen 
 Stuarts, the most noteworthy among whom were 
 Laurence Ho well (adm. 1681) and Nathaniel Spinckes 
 (adm. 1672). Howell, a learned but vitriolic contro- 
 versialist, was sentenced to whipping, fine and imprison- 
 ment for a seditious libel on George I. ; the whipping 
 was remitted in consideration of the fact that he was 
 a clergyman, but he died in Newgate Prison in 1720. 
 Spinckes, a man of high character, warm charity and 
 wide learning, was author of The Sick Man Visited, a 
 work which went through many editions in the early 
 part of the eighteenth century. He was consecrated 
 Bishop in 1713 by Dr. Hickes, the non-juring Bishop 
 of Thetford, and died in 1727. On the accession of 
 George I. only one of the Fellows, Samuel Townsend 
 (elected in 1707), refused the oaths and was deprived of 
 his Fellowship. Not until the crisis of the French 
 Revolution do we hear of another ejection from a 
 Fellowship at Jesus on political grounds. 
 
 The religious battle-cries which had been the vital 
 breath of the University since Reformation days died 
 
138 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 away after 1688 in controversial bickerings which were 
 of small concern to the nation at large. Triumphant 
 orthodoxy henceforth kept the doors of the University 
 barred equally against the Papist and the Protestant 
 Dissenter, and Churchmanship lost its energy when 
 it had removed its antagonists. None the less it 
 remained sleeplessly on guard against the intrusions 
 of heterodoxy, and the case of Whiston, who, for 
 suspected Arianism, was banished from Cambridge and 
 deprived of his professorship in 1710, shows how little 
 Whig doctrines of toleration found favour in the Uni- 
 versity. In the last decade of the seventeenth century 
 Quakers were the object of almost as much suspicion as 
 Romanists ; indeed, the Quaker was regarded as the 
 ally of the Pope, if he were not a Papist in disguise. 
 To the authorities of Jesus the sect was the more 
 obnoxious because its meetings were held at the 
 house of a shoemaker, named Brazier, in Jesus Lane, 
 and if, as seems probable, this house was on the site of 
 the present Friends 1 Meeting House, the objectionable 
 conventicle was on the verge of the College Close. 
 Severe measures, then, were deemed necessary when it 
 was discovered that an undergraduate of the College 
 was frequenting the Quaker meetings, and the follow- 
 ing recantation was exacted from him and entered, 
 with his signature, in the register on February 14, 
 1698-99 : 
 
 'Whereas I, Roger Kelsall, have been guilty of very 
 great offences to y e dishonour of God and y e Xtian Religion, 
 to y e Disgrace and Scandall of y e College and University, by 
 frequenting y e Quakers' meetings and countenancing y fc 
 dangerous Sect, and publickly maintaining their erroneous 
 
RESTORATION DAYS 139 
 
 principles, and also by revileing y e Holy Sacraments of 
 Baptism and y e Lord's Supper, and accusing y e Rites and 
 Ceremonies of y e Church of England of Superstition, and 
 further for refusing to act according to my Duty and 
 Station in y e Colledge : for all w ch I deserve to be severely 
 censured : I do here in y e presence of God, and you all, 
 solemnly profess and declare that I am heartily sorry for 
 y e same, and beg pardon of God and you for y e Scandall 
 I have given you : And do sincerely promise (by God's 
 assistance) to avoid y e like miscarriages for y e time to come, 
 and in all things to comport myself as becomes a Schollar 
 and a Christian/ 
 
 The poor boy speedily forgot his abjuration. The 
 next entry, dated March 4, tells us that Roger Kelsall, 
 having secretly withdrawn from College, and having 
 thrown in his lot with the Quakers Quassatores, as the 
 Latin has it and having publicly professed their insane 
 doctrines, is, by unanimous consent of the President and 
 Fellows, pronounced expelled. 
 
 The College made no addition to its buildings in the 
 latter part of the seventeenth century, and the altera- 
 tions were few and unimportant. Sherman, the historian, 
 and another Fellow, Charles Gibson, each left by will 
 the sum of 100 for the adornment of the chapel. 
 These bequests enabled the College in 1675 to pave the 
 chancel with black and white marble, and to carry out 
 some minor repairs. In 1684 the east end of the chapel 
 within the rails was wainscoted at the expense of the 
 Master, Dr. Saywell, and the President, Dr. Cooke. In 
 1692 the Parlour was altered. It was approached in 
 those days by the ' Parlour staircase ' now popularly 
 called ' Cow Lane ' in the angle of the cloister court. 
 
140 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 Very little is heard of it before the Restoration, but 
 not long after that event it began to be fitted up in a 
 modern style of comfort. The Fellows as late as 1666 
 still sat on forms there, but six leather chairs had been 
 bought for it in 1665, and others followed soon after- 
 wards. We first hear of a carpet there in 1682: 'an 
 apple-roster for y e Parlo r ' was got in 1691. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 BETWEEN THE REVOLUTIONS 
 
 THE long Mastership of Dr. Charles Ashton (1701-52) 
 occupied almost exactly the first half of the eighteenth 
 century. Among the admissions of that period are to 
 be found the names of several men who attained 
 eminence in their day. Foremost among them is 
 Laurence Sterne, and in the list are included two 
 Archbishops of Canterbury, Herring and Hutton, and 
 the honoured names of David Hartley and John Jortin, 
 both of them Fellows of the College. We have learnt, 
 not without reason, to look upon the early Georgian 
 period as one of intellectual stagnation at the Uni- 
 versities, when the nation looked for stimulus and 
 suggestion anywhere rather than to its historic centres 
 of learning. It might be supposed, from the fact that 
 Jesus still bred pupils of such distinction, that it was 
 less affected than other colleges by the sterility of the 
 times, and still faithfully performed its task as a place 
 of education as well as of sound learning. 
 
 All the evidence we possess contradicts such a flatter- 
 ing conclusion. Scarcely even in the dark days of 
 Edward VI. and Mary, when learning was discounted 
 and bankruptcy and dissolution imminent, had the 
 
142 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 College descended to so low a position in numbers 
 and perhaps in reputation. The drop in numbers was 
 in sympathy with a corresponding decline in the 
 University generally. The useful tables in Mr. Bass 
 Mullinger's History of the University of Cambridge 
 (included in the series of Epochs of Church History) 
 show that the number of admissions to B.A. degree at 
 Cambridge reached a maximum of 290 in 1623, declin- 
 ing afterwards during the Civil War, and rising again 
 in 1672 to 255. After the latter year there was a long 
 and steady decline until the minimum was reached about 
 the middle of the eighteenth century ; between 1750 
 and 1775 the number of B.A. degrees only once reached 
 100. At Jesus the fall in numbers was even more 
 accentuated than in other colleges. The following 
 figures for three separate periods, each of five years, 
 illustrate the progressive decline. The numbers are of 
 admissions to the three classes of Fellow-Commoners, 
 pensioners and sizars, of B.A. degrees taken, and of 
 testimonials for Holy Orders. The first period is shared 
 between the Masterships of Dr. Boldero and Dr. Say- 
 well, the second is of the first, and the third of the last, 
 years of Dr. Ashton^s Mastership. 
 
 
 Fellow- 
 Com- 
 
 Pen- 
 
 Sizars. 
 
 Total 
 Admis- 
 
 B.A. 
 
 Testi. 
 
 / 
 
 moners. 
 
 sioners. 
 
 
 sions. 
 
 
 monial 
 
 1676-71680-1 
 
 7 
 
 43 
 
 64 
 
 114 
 
 69 
 
 62 
 
 1702-31706-7 
 
 12 
 
 34 
 
 44 
 
 90 
 
 67 
 
 71 
 
 1747-81751-2 
 
 2 
 
 8 
 
 19 
 
 29 
 
 14 
 
 30 
 
 The figures for the last period bring to light two 
 features which reflect on the efficiency of the College as 
 a place of general education even more unfavourably 
 than the drop in the number of admissions. In the 
 
BETWEEN THE REVOLUTIONS 143 
 
 first place, only one-half of its few students qualified 
 for a degree, and, secondly, practically every under- 
 graduate was a candidate for Orders, and obtained the 
 College testimonial whether he graduated or not. Never 
 was the sway of the Church more undisputed in the 
 Universities, and especially at Jesus, than in the first 
 half of the eighteenth century. The Nonconformist 
 had no place in the College at all ; but it would seem 
 that in denying him entrance it in effect shut its doors 
 also on many a worthy bidden guest, and gave the 
 stamp of its approval to such as had not 
 
 ' learned aught the least 
 That to the faithful herdsman's art belongs.' 
 
 Another circumstance will be noted, that the class of 
 pensioners ' volunteers, 1 as Fuller calls them had 
 become all but extinct. The gentleman or merchant 
 who was able to pay for his son's education either did 
 not send him to the University, or had no confidence 
 that he would get what he paid for at Jesus. Rustat's 
 foundation kept up a thin circulation of undergraduate 
 blood which saved the College from absolute deliquium ; 
 but the oft-recurring description of the applicant for 
 admission as clerici defuncti fillus is an indication that 
 the typical undergraduate at Jesus came of a class which 
 was held in those days in low social esteem, and from 
 the most indigent members of it. 
 
 Yet in the first years at least of Ashton's Mastership 
 the Fellows of Jesus were men furnished with ability 
 and, in one field, entitled to respect for scholarship. 
 It was for Jesus the day of patristic theology a study, 
 indeed, of unquestioned value and importance, but one 
 
144 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 which was outside the curriculum of the ordinary under- 
 graduate, and, in the low esteem in which theological 
 learning was generally held at Cambridge, attracted far 
 less attention in the period with which we are dealing 
 than in the preceding or following centuries. But no 
 Jesus Fellow won himself a prominent place in the new 
 studies of mathematics and physics which for a century 
 after Newton's death practically monopolized the arena 
 of the Cambridge schools. In Humanities no Jesus 
 Fellow followed where Bentley showed the way. No 
 civil lawyer went out from Jesus, as in the seventeenth 
 century, equipped for the service of the State. The 
 tutor at Jesus was not greatly concerned in the subjects 
 which were, or should have been, of most living interest 
 to his pupil. The old intimacy in daily life, too, was 
 disappearing. John North ' lay with his tutor ' in the 
 same bed, it would seem when he was a freshman, and, 
 when he was a Fellow, shared a bedroom with his Fellow- 
 Commoner brother. His nephew Montagu, a pensioner, 
 had, as we have seen, a chamber to himself, and much 
 too big for him. From Renews letters we learn that 
 one tutor, Grigg, in the first decade of the century, 
 kept up something of the old friendly relations, and at 
 least ' sat ' with his pupil. But ' don ' and undergradu- 
 ate drifted apart when the Fellow shut himself up in a 
 solitary study, or hovered between Cambridge and a 
 country incumbency. The tie must have been altogether 
 snapped when it became the practice to allot the fresh- 
 man to two or three tutors, as was the rule in the middle 
 of the century. 
 
 Dr. Ashton, Say well's successor in the Mastership, 
 was of Queens' College ; had been elected to a Fellow- 
 
BETWEEN THE REVOLUTIONS 145 
 
 ship there in 1687; afterwards became chaplain to 
 Symon Patrick, Bishop of Ely, and by him was selected 
 for the Mastership of Jesus. If learning, virtue, and 
 amiability were the only necessary qualifications for the 
 headship of a College, the Bishop was justified in his 
 appointment. But it was Dr. Ashton's misfortune that 
 his unquestioned merits were obscured by an insuperable 
 diffidence. In College he led a very retired and studious 
 life, only quitting Cambridge when a chapter meeting 
 required his presence at Ely. His manuscript volumes 
 of commentary and annotated books in the College 
 Library attest the range and profundity of his learning, 
 but he could never be prevailed upon to publish any- 
 thing in his own name. After his death one of the 
 Fellows, Francis Keller, brought out an edition of 
 Justin Martyr's Apologies from Dr. Ashton's MS. notes ; 
 another Fellow, Dr. Warren, was assisted by him 
 in the preparation of an edition of the Commentary of 
 Hierocles; a century later a third Fellow, Dr. H. A. 
 Woodham, availed himself of Ashton's materials in the 
 preparation of an edition of Tertullian. 
 
 On the vacancy in the Lady Margaret Professorship 
 occasioned by the death of Dr. Gower in 1711, Ash ton 
 was strongly urged by his friends in the University to 
 put himself forward as a candidate.* ' Why should you 
 be still wanting to yourself ? Shake off that hurtfull 
 shynesse,' wrote his friend, Charles Roderick, Provost of 
 King's. But Ashton was proof against solicitation. 
 
 * There are several letters, addressed to Dr. Ashton, on the subject 
 of this election and that to the Regius Professorship in 1717 in a 
 volume of Old Letters and Documents, which is in the College 
 Library. 
 
 10 
 
146 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 The crisis of his life came at the election to the Regius 
 Professorship of Divinity in 1717. Theological learn- 
 ing, it was acknowledged, was at a low ebb in the 
 University. There was but one man whose qualifica- 
 tions for the chair could compare with Ashton's, and 
 that man was Bentley. Bentley, indeed, as Master of 
 Trinity, was disqualified from holding the Professorship 
 by a clause in the statute of foundation expressly pro- 
 hibiting the Professor from holding any office in Trinity, 
 to which college the Professorship is attached. But 
 the University was sufficiently acquainted with the 
 audacity of Bentley's character to feel assured that he 
 would override the statute in his own interest if he 
 had the opportunity. Strong pressure was put on 
 Ashton to allow himself to be nominated. Dr. Laney, 
 Master of Pembroke, wrote to him : 'It is you, and you 
 only, that can rescue the University from disgrace or 
 slavery in this election ; for if Dr. B. should carry his 
 point, nobody out of Trinity Coll edge must ever here- 
 after expect any of the three (Regius) professorships.' 
 ' I know you want neither the profit nor the honour of 
 the place," wrote Sherlock from the Temple, ' but the 
 University wants you. Should you refuse it at this 
 time I shall never expect to see the credit of the chair 
 retrieved. 11 While Ashton hesitated Bentley acted with 
 unscrupulous vigour. Dr. Grigg, Master of Clare, was 
 Vice- Chancellor and ex-officio an elector to the Pro- 
 fessorship. He had been a Fellow of Jesus, and was 
 under obligations to Dr. Ashton which it was not con- 
 venient to forget. Of the other six electors one only, 
 the President of Queens 1 , was Bentley 's supporter ; the 
 remainder viz. the two senior Fellows of Trinity, and 
 
BETWEEN THE REVOLUTIONS 147 
 
 the Heads of King's, St. John's, and Christ's were known 
 to be his uncompromising opponents. Through the 
 agency of the Chancellor, the Duke of Somerset, Bent- 
 ley prevailed on Grigg to absent himself from Cambridge, 
 and to nominate Bentley himself as his deputy. Armed 
 with the Vice-Chancellor's powers, he then summoned a 
 meeting of the electors at a time when the two senior 
 Fellows of his college were unable to attend, and, in 
 accordance with the statute, their places were taken by 
 the two next in seniority, who, as it happened, were 
 favourable to his cause. The remaining three electors, 
 finding the result of the meeting a foregone conclusion, 
 did not present themselves, and so, to the amazement 
 of the University, Bentley was chosen Professor without 
 opposition. 
 
 Ashton, as a Tory, had political as well as personal 
 grounds for disliking the great Aristarchus, and, on his 
 side, Bentley did not refrain from expressing his con- 
 tempt for his timid opponent. ' Tradition reports,' 
 says Bishop Monk, ' that on occasion of some meeting 
 where, after a question had been long discussed, Dr. 
 Ashton observed that " it was not quite clear to him," 
 the Master of Trinity briskly demanded, " Are we, then, 
 to wait until your mud has subsided ?" ' But Ashton 
 was generous enough to recognise his enemy's greatness 
 in scholarship, and expressed strong disapproval of an 
 ill-natured attack upon him made by a Fellow of Jesus, 
 Styan Thirlby, in the preface of his edition of Justin 
 Martyr, published in 1720. 
 
 The letters of young William Reneu to the historian 
 Strype, preserved among the Baumgartner Papers in 
 the University Library, give us a remarkable picture of 
 
 102 
 
148 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 men and manners at Jesus in the reign of Queen Anne. 
 Reneu, like Strype, was the son of a Huguenot settled in 
 London, and from his eighth to his thirteenth year he 
 boarded with Strype at his parsonage in Essex. Reneu 
 was admitted a sizar on June 26, 1705, at the age of six- 
 teen, and came up as a freshman in the following October. 
 On October 9 the boy writes his first impressions of the 
 College. ' The lads ' are up to the ears in division about 
 High Church and Low Church, Whig and Tory. His 
 tutor, the same William Grigg who afterwards became 
 Master of Clare and lent himself to Bentley's designs on 
 the Regius Professorship, is learned and kind ; he sits with 
 Reneu and advises him as to reading 'Terence, or other 
 good classical authors/ Mr. Grigg lectures daily at 
 8 a.m. on Logic and Greek Testament, and three times 
 a week on mathematics. In his second year Reneu is 
 reading the Tusculan Questions and Homer, besides 
 English books, and also attends Mr. Grigg's lectures on 
 Clarke's Physics. For exercise he has the choice of 
 shooting, hunting, coursing, and football.* He is 
 advised to ' smoak very much, 1 but only, as he explains 
 to Strype, for the benefit of his sore eyes, and he 
 will take care to conceal it from his father, who 
 
 * 'As for camping-balls, that bubble-boy hath a shop in every college 
 in Cambridge,' says Roger North, writing to his son Montagu at Jesus 
 in 1730. Roger remembered how in his own undergraduate days he 
 had looked with envy on the scholars' games at football, in which his 
 dignity as a Fellow-Commoner did not allow him to participate. The 
 game ceased to be played at Cambridge before the end of the century. 
 Dr. Corrie, in his diary, December 10, 1838, remarks that, passing by 
 Parker's Piece on that day, he ' saw some forty gownsmen playing at 
 football. The novelty and liveliness of the scene was very amusing.' 
 Wakefield mentions among the amusements of his undergraduate days 
 (1772-76) fishing and cricket. This is the earliest mention of cricket 
 at Jesus. 
 
BETWEEN THE REVOLUTIONS 149 
 
 had as lieve see him dead as with a pipe in his mouth. 
 In January, 1708-09, he takes his degree, and is 'capped ' 
 by the Vice- Chancellor. As a B.A. he hopes to live 
 handsomely on <^?60 per annum, but presently finds this 
 an under-estimate, and complains that his father is a 
 little hard upon him in making him find himself in 
 clothes and all other conveniences and necessaries out 
 of an allowance of ^50 per annum and his scholar- 
 ship, which he rates at W more.* ' I wish he don't 
 hinder me of y e Fellowship I expect by forcing me to 
 live so close in college, for fellows expect to be treated 
 now and then by youngsters that expect to be members 
 of y e society. 1 A southern Fellowship Reneu is a 
 southern man may drop any day ; speculating on 
 which probability old Mr. Reneu sends the Master half 
 a chest of Florence, and as much to Mr. Grigg, ' which, 
 you may be sure, won't be to my disadvantage. 1 This 
 ingenuous avowal possibly called to Strype's recollection 
 the Act of Elizabeth (1589), given in his Annals -, which 
 prohibited bribery and treating in elections to Fellow- 
 ships and scholarships. In November, 1710, the long- 
 expected contingency presents itself. A southern Fellow 
 is desperately ill. Mr. Allix,t one of the Fellows, is 
 about to post to London, to make what interest he can 
 with the Bishop of Ely for his brother. Reneu's tutor 
 advises him to be as quick in his motions as Allix 
 
 * Montagu North, who was a pensioner, had an allowance of 80 
 per annum, and was expected to pay his tailor's and milliner's bills 
 out of it. 
 
 f Peter Allix, D.D., was the son of a Huguenot divine; was 
 originally of Queens', where he graduated B.A. ; was appointed to 
 the Bishop of Ely's Fellowship at Jesus in 1704-05 ; became Dean of 
 Gloucester, 1729, and of Ely, 1730. His brother never became a 
 Fellow of Jesus. 
 
150 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 'there's nothing like striking while y e Iron is hot." 
 Reneu will start for London as soon as he hears of the 
 gentleman's death ; will Strype call with him on the 
 Bishop ? Reneu senior even goes to the Bishop before 
 it is certain that the man is dead. It is disappointing 
 that Strype's influence with the Bishop ' had not y e 
 good effect you and I expected ' ; indeed, he gave ' all 
 y e trouble he possibly could. 1 Nevertheless, the Fellow- 
 ship is secured, and 'all y e fellows respect me for 
 coming of so well, and I don't doubt I shall live very 
 comfortably among y m .' Next year Reneu is con- 
 sidering the advisability of ' putting on a Cassock,' as 
 there is a small college living which will be vacant in 
 six months ; ' it is just %Q per annum, and a place 
 where there are no Cri ticks, so yt a young man need not 
 be much concerned, tho' his sermons are not extra- 
 ordinary.' The career of this self-helpful young man 
 was cut short by death in 1721. 
 
 The lives of the two Archbishops, Thomas Herring 
 and Matthew Hutton, s~how a degree of parallelism 
 which is really extraordinary. They were born in the 
 same year, 1693, and entered at Jesus in 1710, Herring 
 one day before Hutton, which small priority of time 
 Herring maintained in the successive steps which led 
 each to Canterbury. They were both of them Whigs 
 and Latitudinarians, and Dr. Ashton and the Fellows 
 were High Church Tories. Seeing no hope of prefer- 
 ment in their own College, they migrated, Herring to 
 Corpus, Hutton to Christ's ; at their adopted colleges 
 they were elected to Fellowships, Herring in 1716, 
 Hutton the next year. Herring was promoted succes- 
 sively to the sees of Bangor in 1737, York in 1743, and 
 
BETWEEN THE REVOLUTIONS 151 
 
 Canterbury in 1747, and Hutton directly followed him 
 in each of them. Herring died in 1757, and Hutton, 
 after holding the Primacy for one year only, in 1758. 
 
 John Jortin's Life of Erasmus has long been super- 
 seded, and scarcely justifies the reputation which it 
 conferred on its author in his lifetime; but his 
 Contributions to Ecclesiastical History contain matter 
 which is still valuable, and have the recommendation of 
 clear criticism and a vivid style. He was the son of 
 a Huguenot refugee, Renatus Jordain, and, after educa- 
 tion at the Charterhouse, entered at Jesus in 1715, and 
 was elected Fellow in 1721. While he was an under- 
 graduate he was selected by his tutor, Styan Thirlby, 
 to translate some passages from Eustathius for the 
 notes to Pope's Homer, and presumed to make some 
 corrections in Pope^s work, which the poet silently 
 adopted. 
 
 David Hartley, the father of Associationism in 
 Psychology, a native of Halifax, was admitted in April, 
 1722, and became a Fellow in 1726. In the following 
 year he received college testimonials for ordination, 
 but gave up the intention of taking Orders and became a 
 physician. He vacated his Fellowship by marriage in 
 1730. His Observations on Mart, published in 1749, 
 shared with the writings of Locke, Hume, and Paley 
 the distinction of becoming a text-book in the schools 
 at Cambridge, and gave a strong impetus to rationalism 
 in the University. Nowhere was his influence more 
 strongly felt than in his own College. In the last 
 quarter of the eighteenth century, as we shall presently 
 show, Jesus College, which till then had always walked 
 in the most decorous paths of Anglican orthodoxy. 
 
152 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 under such guides as Tyrwhitt and Frend manifested 
 decided tendencies towards extreme Latitudinarianism. 
 Coleridge, in his undergraduate days, warmed with the 
 ardour of the French Revolution, ranked Hartley with 
 Milton, Newton, and, more significantly, with Dr. 
 Priestley, among ' coadjutors of God. 1 
 
 ' He, of mortal kind 
 
 Wisest, he first who mark'd the ideal tribe 
 Up the fine fibres through the sentient brain.' 
 
 The portrait of old Archbishop Sterne which hangs 
 on the eastern wall of the Hall is but a poor copy 
 there is a picture from life in the lodge but it derives 
 interest from the inscription on the frame recording 
 that it was the gift of Laurence Sterne, an alumnus of 
 the College. The severe eyes of the Caroline divine 
 Baxter speaks of his ' mortified aspect, 1 and his picture 
 warrants the description seem to seek out the portrait 
 of his great-grandson, Laurence, which hangs half-way 
 down the northern wall, and to rest with peculiar 
 disfavour on the figure of the trim and smiling young 
 cleric, so unlike his idea of what a priest and scholar 
 should be. ' I well remember,' says Tristram Shandv, 
 ' when my father went up along with me to enter my 
 name at Jesus College in * * * *, it was a matter of 
 just wonder with my worthy tutor and two or three 
 fellows of that learned society that a man who knew 
 not so much as the names of his tools ' in logic, be it 
 understood ' should be able to work after that fashion 
 with them. 1 The day so well remembered was, in fact, 
 July 6, 1733, and Tristram's tutor was Mr. Charles 
 Cannon, who died in the following year ; and, curiously 
 
BETWEEN THE REVOLUTIONS 153 
 
 enough, the register is convicted of a carelessness 
 almost as reprehensible as Susannah's in the matter of 
 the freshman's Christian name, which in the first 
 instance was ' Nicodemus'd ' into Henry. Sterne was 
 nearly twenty when he was admitted, and no father 
 accompanied him to Cambridge; for Roger Sterne, 
 'lieutenant in Handaside's regiment,' had died two 
 years before. The poor sizar had, however, a friend 
 and patron in his uncle, Jaques Sterne, a Canon of 
 York, who had himself been a scholar of Jesus. Before 
 his admission Laurence had doubtless been promised a 
 Sterne scholarship, and though he did not possess the 
 necessary qualification of being a native of Yorkshire 
 or of Nottinghamshire, the College overlooked that 
 circumstance in consideration of his kindred to the 
 founder, and elected him at the end of his first year's 
 residence. He did not, however, matriculate in the 
 University until March, 1735. Of his undergraduate 
 career we know hardly anything. He incurred debts 
 which long embarrassed him, but of ordinary misde- 
 meanours, such as required admonition coram magistro 
 et sociis, none are laid to his charge in the College 
 records. In the little society at Jesus he formed one 
 acquaintance which proved lasting. This was with an 
 un wholesomely-minded youth named John Hall, after- 
 wards Hall - Stevenson, two years Sterne's junior in 
 standing, who figures as Eugenius in Tristram 
 Shandy, and was claimed by Sterne as a relation. In 
 later life he published some ' lean and flashy ' books 
 of verse, called Crazy Tales, in a style of humour 
 labelled ' Shandean,' and presided over a club of ' De- 
 moniacks,' Sterne being one of them, at Crazy Castle, 
 
154 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 as he called his seat at Skelton. College tradition long 
 told how the two friends ' used to study together under 
 a large wallnutt-tree in the inner (? outer) court, where 
 one of "em wrote underneath these lines : 
 
 This shou'd be the Tree of Knowledge, 
 As it stands in so very wise a Colledge.' 
 
 The ancient tree thus associated with the memory of 
 Laurence Sterne was in his day one of the sights of 
 Cambridge. We hear of it as early as 1592, when it 
 seems that there was an arbour under or near it. In 
 1710 the space which its branches covered measured 
 96 feet across from side to side. It is said to have 
 overshadowed every room in the court, and perhaps 
 for that reason was cut down about the end of the 
 eighteenth century. 
 
 Something of the Shandean influence may have rested 
 on the two minor poets, Francis Fawkes and Thomas 
 Nevile, who entered the College about a year after 
 Sterne took his B.A. degree, and within six months of 
 each other. Fawkes, a jovial Kentish parson, translated 
 Theocritus with the assistance of Jortin, and after- 
 wards versified Apollonius Rhodius, Anacreon and Bion. 
 He is remembered, if at all, for his song, ' The Brown 
 Jug/ Nevile, who was elected to a Fellowship in 1746, 
 published Imitations of Horace, Juvenal, and Pers'ni.s. 
 He was also the reputed author of The Capitade, a 
 scurrilous attack on the Heads of Houses at Cambridge, 
 first printed in the London Evening Post, November 1, 
 1750. The only creditable feature in this discreditable 
 performance was that he respected the Head of his 
 own College, the venerable Dr. Ashton : 
 
BETWEEN THE REVOLUTIONS 155 
 
 ' Ashton the wise, the learn'd, the ag'd, the good, 
 Whose soul unmov'd Temptation hath withstood ; 
 Heedless of courts and courtiers to his trust 
 He steadfast lives, nor dares to be unjust ; 
 Gen'rous, sincere, free as when life began, 
 He rests a college monarch, yet a worthy man/ 
 
 Religion, except in outward forms, or as matter for 
 doctrinal controversy, slumbered at Cambridge through 
 all the long years of Ashton's Mastership. Methodism 
 was, indeed, astir in the country, but as yet no answer- 
 ing breath of religious emotion had stirred the dull 
 waters of Cambridge formalism. The name of Henry 
 Venn among the admissions of 1742, when he migrated 
 to Jesus after three months' residence at St. John's, is, 
 however, a premonition of the great movement of Cam- 
 bridge evangelicalism, prolonged far into the next 
 century by Venn's pupil and friend, Charles Simeon. 
 But Venn, the son of a High Church clergyman, did not 
 adopt evangelical views until after he had taken his 
 degree and had removed to a London curacy. He was 
 elected to a Fellowship at Queens' in 1749, and published 
 his Complete Duty of Man in 1763. 
 
 In 1752, when Dr. Ashton died, Bishop Gooch 
 appointed in his room Philip Yonge, D.D., a Fellow of 
 Trinity and, at the time of his appointment, Public 
 Orator and a Canon of Westminster. He resigned the 
 Mastership in 1758 on his promotion to the bishopric 
 of Bristol, was translated to Norwich in 1761, and died 
 in 1783. The six years of his reign at Jesus were 
 altogether unremarkable. The total of admissions 
 showed no sign of recovery, and there was the same 
 extraordinary disproportion as in Ashton's last years 
 
156 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 between the numbers of those who received college 
 testimonials for ordination and of those who attained 
 the B.A. degree. 
 
 In the year 1747-48 begins the series of Tripos lists 
 contained in the University calendar. The first Jesus 
 name of any distinction which occurs in them is that of 
 Samuel Hallifax, who is set down as third Wrangler in 
 1754. But he owed his place in the list to the pre- 
 rogative possessed in those days by the Vice-Chancellor 
 Dr. Yonge was Vice-Chan eel lor in 1754 of placing 
 one nominee where he pleased in the order of merit, 
 and Hallifax did not actually take the tripos examina- 
 tion at all. He was, however, Senior Chancellor's 
 Medallist in 1754 and Members 1 Prizeman in 1756. 
 Elected to a Fellowship in 1756, he resigned it in 1760 
 and migrated to Trinity Hall, where he was a successful 
 tutor. He held the two Arabic professorships simul- 
 taneously, and, being a gentleman of happy versatility 
 of talent, resigned them both for the chair of Civil 
 Law. He became successively Bishop of Gloucester in 
 1781 and of St. Asaph in 1789. Thomas Castley, a 
 Westmorland man, was Senior Wrangler and second 
 Chancellor's Medallist in 1755, the first Medallist being 
 another Jesus man, East Apthorp, a native of New 
 England, afterwards a Prebendary of St. Paul's. Of a 
 more remarkable man than any of these, Robert 
 Tyrwhitt, lowest Wrangler in 1757, something will be 
 said in the next chapter. 
 
 John Lakin, who held the Mastership for a twelve- 
 month in 1562-63, William Beale, who held it for a 
 like period in 1633-34, John Retson and John Duport 
 were the only Fellows of Jesus who had so far been 
 
BETWEEN THE REVOLUTIONS 157 
 
 advanced to the Headship. Dr. Lynford Caryl, who 
 succeeded Bishop Yonge, had been admitted a sizar of 
 the College in 1723, was a Fellow from 1733 to 1750, 
 and acted as Bursar for some part of that time. He 
 resigned his Fellowship on being appointed a Pre- 
 bendary of Canterbury, and in the following year 
 became Registrary of the University. He was all that 
 a Bursar and Registrary should be accurate, indus- 
 trious, and methodical. At Canterbury he arranged 
 the chapter documents, which had been previously left 
 in inextricable disorder, and he rendered the same 
 service to the Jesus muniments. He arranged and 
 catalogued the College and nunnery records, made a 
 systematic transcript of the register, continued down 
 to his own time the biographical notes in Sherman's 
 Historia, and revived the 'Conclusion Book, 1 which 
 had been begun but discontinued after a few months' 
 trial at the commencement of Dr. Yonge's Mastership. 
 After 1758 the entries in the register are confined to 
 purely formal matters, and the more important business 
 of the College is contained in the ' Conclusion Book, 1 
 which is written entirely in English. Dr. Caryl had a 
 reputation for unimpeachable integrity ; was esteemed 
 without an equal in the prudent and dexterous manage- 
 ment of University elections; was distinguished by a 
 solemnity of manner and precision in expression about 
 which Gilbert Wakefield has some anecdotes ; wrote in 
 a very clear and beautiful hand, and was evidently fond 
 of penmanship. Of more vivifying qualities of mind 
 and character which he may have possessed we are 
 uninformed. 
 
 The admissions to the College fell to their lowest 
 
158 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 point about the time of Dr. Caryl's appointment. In 
 the five years ending 1764 only twenty-three under- 
 graduates of all classes entered the College ; sixteen 
 B.A. degrees were taken, and college testimonials were 
 given in eighteen instances. From this time to the end 
 of the century there was a slight progressive increase 
 in numbers. In the period 1790-94 the entries were 
 forty-one, B.A. degrees nineteen, and not fewer than 
 twenty-nine members of the College obtained testi- 
 monials for orders. 
 
 Of the languid years during which Dr. Caryl pre- 
 sided over Jesus little need be said. Gilbert Wakefield 
 (adm. 1772), in his autobiographic Memoirs, gives us no 
 favourable impression of the efficiency of the teaching 
 staff in his undergraduate days. Yet Wakefield was 
 quite disposed to regard its shortcomings with leniency, 
 and his loyalty to the College amounted to enthusiasm. 
 Things were not quite so bad as Gibbon had found 
 them, twenty years before, at Magdalen, Oxford. 
 Indeed, Wakefield expresses devout gratitude that his 
 father (a Jesus man himself) was not prevailed upon to 
 enter him at Christ Church, Oxford, where orthodox 
 theology, High Church politics, and passive obedience 
 sat enthroned, and spread a stupefying influence around 
 them. His tutors, he says, were placid, amiable men, 
 of respectable abilities, but deficient in activity and 
 zeal. He found college lectures in algebra and logic 
 odious beyond conception, and could not prevail upon 
 himself to open Euclid, 'the old carpenter.' He had 
 no private tutor to direct his studies until a few months 
 before his degree, when a Mr. Mounsey, lately elected 
 a Fellow of the College from Peterhouse, took a friendly 
 
BETWEEN THE REVOLUTIONS 159 
 
 interest in him. Under his direction Wakefield, though 
 to the last 'a mean proficient in the higher parts of 
 algebra and fluxions, 1 made such progress in his mathe- 
 matical studies that he was placed second in the list of 
 Wranglers in the Tripos of 1776. From his perfunctory 
 mathematical work he turned with enthusiasm to classics. 
 He competed unsuccessfully for the newly-established 
 Browne Medals in 1775, but gained the second Chan- 
 cellor's Medal in 1776, and the second Members 1 Prize 
 in 1777 and 1778. He was elected to a Fellowship in 
 April, 1776, and vacated it by marriage three years 
 later. 
 
 Wakefield's Memoirs give a measure of the man's 
 garrulous inconsequence and vanity. Alike in politics, 
 religion, and scholarship, he showed himself altogether 
 lacking in discretion. In 1799 he was imprisoned in 
 Dorchester gaol for expressing a treasonable wish that 
 the French Revolutionists would invade and conquer 
 England. In 1797 he published an ill-judged attack 
 on Person's edition of the Hecuba, which provoked 
 Person's retort, 'What's Hecuba to him, or he to 
 Hecuba ?' It is not a little remarkable that, at the 
 time when Cambridge scholarship had attained in 
 Person's work its highest perfection of exactness, the 
 ' incurably inaccurate' productions of Wakefield should 
 have passed as creditable specimens of criticism. Yet 
 his edition of Lucretius (1796-97) imposed on scholars 
 far more competent than himself, and held its ground 
 until it was displaced by Lachmann's great work on the 
 same author. Wakefield's reputation for scholarship 
 received its coup-de-grace in the preface to Professor 
 Munro's edition of Lucretius. 
 
160 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 Though the old practice of lodging Fellows and their 
 pupils, two or more, in a single room was given up 
 about the beginning of the period reviewed in this 
 chapter, the deplenishment of the College rendered 
 any extension of chamber space unnecessary. The 
 alterations in the buildings made at this time had for 
 their object either their embellishment, according to 
 prevalent fashions in architecture and decoration, or 
 the comfort of their occupants. In external appear- 
 ance the most important change was that made in the 
 years 1718-1720, when the entire front of the College 
 was heightened. This was effected by adding a third 
 story to the portion of the lodge which is between the 
 gate and the west end of the chapel, and by converting 
 the garrets in the highest floor of the old school-house 
 range westward of the gate into chambers covered 
 by a low-pitched roof. The cost of the addition to the 
 lodge was %66, part of which was defrayed out of a 
 legacy of <100 given by Dr. Charles Proby. 'The 
 remaining summ, 1 writes Dr. Ashton, ' I paid out of my 
 own money, chusing to have that for my share in the 
 expense of a work so much for y e use and ornament of 
 y e College. 1 The alterations in the range westward of 
 the gate, including the wainscoting of the chambers, 
 were paid for by subscriptions obtained from members 
 of the College. The effect of these changes, which Dr. 
 Ashton contemplated with such satisfaction, was to 
 ruin the picturesque front shown in Loggan's design. 
 Alcock's graceful gate-tower was three parts buried in 
 the mass right and left of it; the dormer windows, 
 breaking the roof-slope at irregular intervals, were ruled 
 out; the turret at the angle of the lodge and chapel, 
 
BETWEEN THE REVOLUTIONS 161 
 
 once the north-western tower of the nuns 1 church, was 
 obliterated ; and all the windows, except those on the 
 ground-floor, which were out of sight from the approach 
 to the College, were regularly sashed in the approved 
 Italian fashion.* Some sacrifice to uniformity was 
 permitted on the side next the court, where the 
 windows on the highest floor were made to correspond 
 with those in the older buildings. 
 
 Alterations to the Hall were taken in hand in 1703, 
 when it was paved with freestone and wainscoted (in 
 deal) after an ' Italian ' design. A new bell-turret was 
 at the same time put up. Then, too, the piers of red 
 brick and stone which flank the iron gate at the end of 
 ' the Chimney ' next Jesus Lane were built. Previously 
 the gate had been a wooden one set in an arch in the 
 boundary wall of the College. The chapel, fortunately, 
 suffered from nothing worse than neglect. Its size and 
 the uncompromising character of its Gothicism made 
 its adaptation to eighteenth-century models of elegance 
 an undertaking beyond the resources of the society. 
 The task of classicizing it was reserved to a more opulent 
 generation and a Unitarian benefactor. Almost the 
 only items connected with it which can be gleaned from 
 the Accounts and the Conclusion Book in the period 
 1702-81 relate to the stipend of the clock-keeper 
 and to the organ. In 1764 the society agreed to dis- 
 continue the salary paid to the organist, and the organ 
 speedily fell into disrepair. Cole has a note about it 
 in his MSS. : 
 
 * In the muniment room there is a paper of Accounts of the New 
 Building of 1719. They show that the windows were sashed then, 
 and not in 1791, as stated in Willis and Clark's Architectural History, 
 vol. ii., p. 176. 
 
 11 
 
162 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 ' I was told, Mar. 4, 1776, by a Domestick of the College 
 that tho' they have a very good Organ in the Chapel, to 
 which the Singing men used to resort on Surplice Nights, 
 and always made use of in my Time of being in the 
 University, that it is now laid aside as a useless Piece of 
 Lumber and Expence. I suppose the Revenue appro- 
 priated to it is now applied to other more profitable uses/ 
 
 The last stage in the history of this organ the 
 same which was hidden to escape destruction at the 
 hands of Dowsing and so graciously restored to Dr. 
 Worthington was reached in 1790, when it was agreed 
 by the society ' to make a present of the remains of our 
 Organ to the Parish of All Saints in Cambridge.'' 
 
iCHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE JESUS UNITARIANS 
 
 DR. ASHTON'S long rule had preserved at Jesus half way 
 into the eighteenth century the creeds and prejudices 
 of the close of the seventeenth. He lived to witness 
 the final downfall of the exiled royal family, to whose 
 principles, we are told, if not to their persons, he was 
 devotedly attached ; and he had seen latitudinarianism 
 notably in the persons of his pupils, Herring and 
 Hutton enthroned in the high places of the Church. 
 But in the studies and in the parlour of the College 
 High Church Anglicanism held its ground as firmly as 
 in the days of Bancroft and Richard Sterne. Deism, 
 Socinianism, Methodism, had successively invaded the 
 world and the University, but had altogether failed to 
 find an entrance to the cloisters of Jesus. Ashton^s 
 death in 1752 led to a complete detachment from the 
 old ideas. The change did not come at once; but 
 during the Masterships of Yonge and Caryl the seeds 
 which fructified in the French Revolution period were 
 germinating in the minds of certain undergraduates 
 who became Fellows of the College in the generation 
 which succeeded Ashton. Under their influence the 
 formerly sleepy society became one of the most active 
 
164 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 in the University. The neglectful tutors of the earlier 
 time were replaced by men of warm sympathies, apt to 
 impress their character and views on their pupils. 
 Religious enthusiasm awoke, and in some cases took 
 an extreme form.* The interest of the Fellows was 
 transferred from books to life, and, as a consequence, 
 the minds of their pupils were less chained to the old 
 routine of studies. At no period in its history had the 
 College a more brilliant set of undergraduates than in 
 the last decade of the eighteenth century, when it 
 included among them such men as William Otter, 
 E. D. Clarke, Robert Malthus, and S. T. Coleridge. 
 
 Some of the merit of infusing this new life was due 
 to the two men who successively held the Mastership in 
 the last years of the century. Richard Beadon, Master 
 from 1781 to 1789, was educated at Blunders School, 
 Tiverton, and at St. John's (adm. 1754). He was 
 eighth Wrangler and senior Chancellor's Medallist in 
 1758, became Fellow and tutor of his college, and in 
 1768 was elected Public Orator. After he became 
 Master of Jesus he was placed in charge of Prince 
 Frederick William, afterwards Duke of Gloucester and 
 Chancellor of the University, then an undergraduate at 
 Trinity. His portrait at the lodge presents a hand- 
 some, prosperous-looking man, with an air of cheerful 
 activity which is in marked contrast with the pinched 
 and mortified features of Dr. Ash ton and the severely 
 repressive countenance of Dr. Caryl, whose pictures 
 hang near it. Beadon was, no doubt, a courtier, and 
 
 * The Rev. Thomas Philip Foley ' Handsome Foley,' as he was 
 called was Fellow from 1780 to 1790 ; he became a devoted adherent 
 of Joanna Southcote, and acted as her secretary. See Gunning's 
 Reminiscences, vol. i., pp. 62-71. 
 
v 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 THE JESUS UNITARIANS 165 
 
 his attentions to the young Prince won him the favour 
 of the King, who made him Bishop of Gloucester in 
 1789, and translated him to Bath and Wells in 1802. 
 Nevertheless, he was an excellent Master and Vice- 
 Chancellor, and left a name for kindness and hospitality. 
 The fame and popularity which he had won as a tutor 
 was an attraction to young men of ability, and he was 
 the first Master since the Revolution who seems to have 
 had a genuine liking and sympathy for the under- 
 graduate. His successor, William Pearce (1789-1820) 
 had been, like him, a Fellow and tutor of St. John's ; 
 graduated in 1767 as third Wrangler and second 
 Chancellor's Medallist ; became Public Orator in 1778 ; 
 and was successively Master of the Temple (1787-97), 
 and Dean of Ely (1797-1820). The inscription on his 
 monument in the chapel proclaims him as a champion 
 of the King, the Church, and Christian verity a 
 character perhaps earned by the part which he played 
 in the Frend dispute. His action in that matter was, 
 perhaps, arbitrary, but arbitrary measures had some 
 measure of justification in 1795. Moreover, the pro- 
 ceedings were initiated, not by the Master, but by some 
 of the Fellows in his absence ; and it is to his credit 
 that, having ranged himself against Frend in the 
 College issue, he abstained from taking part, as a Head, 
 in the trial before the Vice-Chancellor's Court. What- 
 ever may be thought at this distance of time of his 
 action, it may be observed that, but for some petulant 
 remarks of Frend himself, there was no suggestion either 
 in the College or outside it that it was dictated by any 
 but conscientious motives, and it is certain that the 
 tension of the time caused no break in the friendly 
 
166 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 relations between him and the Fellows, whichever side 
 they took in the dispute. He had the reputation of 
 being a wit and one of the best talkers in the Univer- 
 sity. The stories that are told of his relations with 
 Coleridge show that he could be severe on occasions ; 
 but there was a compliment in his severity, and 
 Coleridge was flattered by thinking that the Master 
 saw something in him that was not of the common 
 run. 
 
 But if Beadon and Pearce did a good deal to 
 popularize the College and to increase its academic 
 efficiency, the real credit of inspiring it with wider aims, 
 and with ambitions that did not stop at the Tripos or 
 wither in a College living, belongs to the two Unitarians, 
 Tyrwhitt and Frend. Cambridge Unitarianism was no 
 sudden growth. The doctrine of the Trinity, more 
 than any other, had occupied the field of religious 
 controversy in the University ever since the commence- 
 ment of the eighteenth century, when Whiston, for 
 sentiments labelled Arian, but really a fantastic evolu- 
 tion of his own, had been expelled from the University 
 and deprived of the Lucasian Professorship of Mathe- 
 matics (1710). He subsequently left the communion 
 of the Church and joined the General Baptists. But, 
 as a rule, the earlier leaders of the Unitarian attack on 
 the orthodox position remained within the fold of the 
 Church. Dr. Samuel Clarke (of Caius), who succeeded 
 Whiston as the leader of the Arians, was Rector of 
 St. James's, Westminster; he advised his followers to 
 disregard the difficulties of subscription, and to remain 
 within the Church ' to leaven the mass. 1 Among his 
 principal lieutenants was John Jackson, admitted at 
 
THE JESUS UNITARIANS 167 
 
 Jesus in 1702, sometimes called 'the Chronologist, 1 * 
 from his valuable work, Chronological Antiquities, 
 published in 1752. Though after ordination he refused 
 further subscription, and thereby forfeited a prebendal 
 stall at Salisbury, he performed his duties as a parish 
 priest to the last. In the last quarter of the century 
 the gulf which divided Cambridge Arians from the 
 Church gradually widened. Ex hypothesi, every 
 graduate, as he had subscribed the Articles at his 
 degree, was a member of the Church of England ; but 
 many renounced the connection. Nowhere was the 
 revolt against subscription more marked than at Jesus. 
 John Braithwaite, Fellow from 1754 to 1789, refused 
 all College livings from scruples connected with the 
 Articles. Gilbert Wakefield bitterly reprobated his own 
 disingenuousness in accepting deacon's orders in spite 
 of his Arian convictions, and, from an objection to 
 renewing his subscription, he never took the M.A. 
 degree. Tyrwhitt proposed a Grace in 1771 for the 
 abolition of subscription at the B.A. degree; the 
 attempt was not successful, but it led in the following 
 year to the substitution, in place of subscription, of 
 a declaration on the part of the candidate that he 
 was bona-fide a member of the Church of England. 
 Dr. Thomas Edwards, Fellow in 1783-85, proposed a 
 Grace in 1787 to abolish the declaration; he was 
 author of a work on The Limits and Importance of 
 Free Inquiry in Matters of Religion. Frend actively 
 supported Edwards' proposal, renounced his Orders, and 
 severed his connection with the Church. 
 
 Robert Tyrwhitt was born in 1735, and was twenty- 
 two years the senior of Frend. He was admitted in 
 
168 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 1753, graduated in 1757, being lowest in the wranglers 
 of his year, was elected to a Fellowship in November, 
 1759, and immediately after was appointed Praelector 
 Graecus by the College. He was ordained a month after 
 he became a Fellow, but never took a cure. His deep 
 religious feeling, devotion to learning, and amiable 
 character gave him a strong attractive power in his 
 College and the University. Wakefield, though he 
 denies that he was seduced by Tyrwhitt from the paths 
 of orthodoxy, allows that his character for sincerity in 
 the search for religious truth aroused the interest of the 
 undergraduates of his time. Tyrwhitt was first drawn 
 to adopt Unitarian views by the study of Dr. Clarke's 
 works. In 1777 he resigned his Fellowship for religious 
 motives and gave up attending chapel. He devoted 
 himself to the study of Hebrew, and in 1784 joined a 
 Unitarian society for promoting knowledge of the 
 Scriptures. Later, however, he seceded from the 
 London Unitarian society on the ground that in one 
 of its publications it had used language which he 
 deemed offensive with regard to the belief in the Second 
 Person of the Trinity. His habits were simple, and by 
 his brother's death he came into property which made 
 him a comparatively wealthy man ; a large part of his 
 income was spent in private charity, and during his 
 lifetime he bestowed 1,200 upon the College. Dying, 
 at the age of eighty, in 1817, he left ^4,000 by 
 will to the University for the promotion of Hebrew 
 study, with which sum the scholarships known by his 
 name were founded. A Latin inscription of singular 
 beauty on his grave in the chapel records that within 
 the walls of the College, which he had loved above all 
 
THE JESUS UNITARIANS 169 
 
 things, and in his lifetime had adorned with amplest 
 gifts, he had lived for more than sixty years : ' Vitam 
 umbratilem excoluit et literarum sacrarum studio et 
 quieti deditus secretum iter peregit.' The gentle 
 wisdom of his character is brought into relief by the 
 contrast with the untempered zeal of Frend. 
 
 William Frend was originally of Christ's. He was 
 second Wrangler and second Smithes Prizeman in 1780; 
 migrated to Jesus, on the advice of Dr. Caryl, in the 
 same year, and was forthwith elected to a scholarship, 
 and in the following year to a Fellowship. He was 
 ordained in 1780, became Vicar of Madingley, and was 
 zealous in the performance of his parish duties. At the 
 same time he held the position of College tutor with 
 conspicuous success. Among his pupils were Edward 
 Otter, second Wrangler in 1786, and his brother 
 William, fourth Wrangler in 1790, Malthus and 
 E. D. Clarke. As all of these men became respected 
 and orthodox clergymen, we may credit Frend's state- 
 ment that he never employed his position as tutor to 
 influence the minds of his pupils in the direction of his 
 own religious views. In 1787 he became a convert to 
 Unitarianism, resigned his living, and published an 
 Address to the Inhabitants of Cambridge advocating 
 his new creed. For this, in the following year, he was 
 removed by Dr. Bead on from the tutorship, an office 
 which was worth 150 a year. He appealed to the 
 Visitor, but without success. On the advice of his 
 friends he travelled for a time on the Continent. 
 Returning to Cambridge, he devoted himself to the 
 study of Hebrew, and translated the historical books 
 of the Old Testament for Dr. Priestley's new translation 
 
170 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 of the Scriptures. His relations with the rest of the 
 society were so far friendly. ' Mr. Frend's company, 1 
 writes Coleridge in January, 1792, 'is by no means 
 invidious. On the contrary, Pearce himself is very 
 intimate with him.'* Among the Fellows there were 
 some who were his warm friends and supporters, though 
 they did not share his views, nor allow their partizan- 
 ship to interrupt relations with those who took the 
 other side of the dispute. Among his opponents there 
 were some men whose political views were narrow, but 
 they were at least not more illiberal than the great 
 majority of Cambridge residents outside Trinity. The 
 religious motives on which they based their attack were 
 perhaps mingled with some personal resentment at the 
 unconcealed contempt with which Frend regarded the 
 clerical ' don. 1 But Gunning and Coleridge both of 
 them passionate partizans of Frend are witnesses that 
 some of his opponents among the Fellows Mathew, the 
 President, and Plampin, one of the tutors, especially 
 were honourable and kindly gentlemen. Moreover, 
 the view which the majority of the Fellows took of 
 Frend's celebrated pamphlet was that which would have 
 been taken in 1793 by the whole of the clergy and 
 nine-tenths of the educated laity. And Frend's in- 
 timacy with Priestley, whose house had been burnt by 
 the Birmingham mob in 1791, made him trebly suspect. 
 It was whispered that there was a Jacobin party in the 
 University, who had opened a treasonable correspon- 
 dence with the National Convention, and that their 
 names and letters were in the hands of the Govern- 
 ment. Five persons were said to be concerned in it, 
 and it was generally supposed that Frend was one of 
 
THE JESUS UNITARIANS 171 
 
 them ; Dr. Edwards, of Jesus, was said to be another. 
 The supposed plot was a mere fiction, and perhaps 
 nobody very seriously believed in it; Gunning says that 
 he once dined with a party at which the five con- 
 spirators, for the first time in their lives, found them- 
 selves in the same room together. Yet a man of less 
 suspicious antecedents than Frend's would have found it 
 dangerous to express views more moderate than his at 
 a time when nervous alarms of sedition agitated the 
 Government and country. On the last day of 1792 
 Tom Paine's effigy was burnt by the mob on the Market 
 Hill at Cambridge. Before that, on December 15, at a 
 large meeting in the Town Hall, it was resolved, among 
 other things, 'to bring to punishment all such who 
 shall distribute or bring to the public eye any pamphlets 
 or papers containing opinions or sentiments tending to 
 promote disaffection and encourage sedition.' Within 
 two months of this warning (February 16, 1793) the 
 publication was announced of Frend's pamphlet, Peace 
 and Union recommended to the Associated Bodies of 
 Republicans and Anti-Republicans. 
 
 The political contents of this pamphlet were such as 
 no sane judgment could have held to be dangerous. 
 Frend was not, de parti pris, a Republican, nor a 
 believer in the political perfectibility which was 
 preached by the French Revolutionists. Reform of 
 Parliament, Triennial Elections, Abolition of the Game 
 Laws, Political Education of the Electorate, etc., were 
 his harmless recommendations, and they were urged in 
 temperate language. But it must be admitted that in 
 speaking of religious matters he used language which, 
 if only on grounds of taste, was highly discreditable. 
 
172 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 In speaking of the most solemn rites, not only those of 
 the English Church, but such as are common to all 
 Christian sects, he expressed himself with a flippancy 
 and irreverence which even his friends could not defend. 
 On February 22, a week after the publication of the 
 pamphlet, the resident Fellows met and passed the 
 following resolution : 
 
 ' Resolved, that a pamphlet entitled Peace and Union, 
 lately published by W. Frend, M. A., Fellow of this college, 
 appears to us to have been written with the evil intent of 
 prejudicing the clergy in the eyes of the laity, of degrading 
 in the publick esteem the doctrines and rites of the 
 Established Church, and of disturbing the harmony of 
 Society. And that, as we feel it to be our particular duty 
 to disavow principles calculated to mislead the minds of 
 young men entrusted to our care, a copy of the said 
 pamphlet be sent both to the Vice-Chancellor of the 
 University, and to the Visitor of the College, inclosed 
 in a letter to each, expressing our disapprobation of the 
 opinions therein delivered, and humbly requesting them 
 to take such measures as in their judgment may appear 
 most proper for the effectual suppression of their dangerous 
 tendency.' 
 
 Five Fellows signed this resolution. Outside the 
 College action was taken by twenty- seven members of 
 the University, who met on March 4 at the lodge of the 
 Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Milner, President of Queens' 1 , and 
 entered into resolutions to prosecute the author. For 
 the present it will be convenient to follow the course 
 of events in the College ; later we shall retum to 
 the proceedings in the Vice-Chancellor's Court. The 
 Master, after taking legal advice, summoned a meeting 
 
THE JESUS UNITARIANS 173 
 
 of the Fellows on April 3. Ten Fellows, not counting 
 Frend, were present. After the meeting had gone on 
 for about an hour Frend was called into the parlour by 
 the porter, and the Master, in the presence of the 
 Fellows, showing him the pamphlet, asked him whether 
 he avowed himself the author of it. Frend, acting on 
 legal advice, declined either to admit or to deny the 
 authorship, and demanded a written accusation stating 
 the passages in the pamphlet referred to and the 
 statutes against which he had offended. He was asked 
 to withdraw, and late in the evening was called in 
 again and informed that the meeting declined to 
 deliver a written charge, and that, if he would not 
 proceed on his defence, the meeting would proceed 
 without it. His reply was that he would proceed as 
 soon as the conditions for which he had already asked 
 were complied with. Next morning he was again 
 summoned to the parlour. He demanded to see the 
 proceedings of the meeting of the previous day, and 
 was informed that this would not be allowed. He 
 urged that he had a material objection to propose, but 
 the Master declined to hear him, saying that, if he had 
 anything to say in his defence, it should have been 
 said yesterday. He then read from a written paper the 
 following resolution : 
 
 'It is the opinion of this meeting that Mr. Frend be 
 removed from the college, that is, from the precincts of the 
 college, and from residence in it, till he shall produce such 
 proofs of good behaviour as shall be satisfactory to the 
 master and major part of the fellows, and that he may 
 be allowed a month from this time to settle his affairs in 
 college.' 
 
174 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 The Master and six Fellows agreed to this resolution ; 
 four Fellows voted against it. Against the decision of 
 the majority Frend appealed on April 17 to the Visitor, 
 requesting his interposition on the grounds that no 
 exceptionable passages in the pamphlet nor any 
 statutes of the College against which he had offended 
 had been pointed out ; that he had had no opportunity 
 of vindicating himself from the charges ; that it did 
 not appear from the statutes of the College that the 
 Master and six Fellows, or any other number less than 
 the majority of all the Fellows, were competent to 
 inflict any punishment on a Fellow ; and that the 
 sentence of removal from the College was not warranted 
 by the statutes. The Master and five Fellows in their 
 reply addressed to the Bishop alleged that their dis- 
 approbation was not based on detached passages, but 
 on the general tenor and tendency of the composition. 
 In answer to the objection that no laws of the College 
 against which Frend had offended had been pointed 
 out, they claimed that the College, quatenus a college, 
 had an inherent right, independently of any express or 
 particular statute, to take cognizance of and to punish 
 offences contra bonos mores committed by its members. 
 To the objection that a majority of all the Fellows was 
 required for the infliction of punishment on any of their 
 number they answered that their sentence was virtually 
 passed by a majority of all the Fellows, inasmuch as a 
 majority of those present at the meeting had concurred 
 in it. They admitted that the sentence of removal 
 from the College was not expressly marked out in the 
 statutes, but pointed out that they conferred a power of 
 total expulsion, and claimed that the necessary authority 
 
THE JESUS UNITARIANS 175 
 
 which the College possessed in all cases of discipline 
 entitled it to pronounce the lighter sentence, whether 
 specifically described in the statutes or not. The 
 answer of the Master and the five Fellows shows that 
 they were quite aware that there was nothing within 
 the four corners of the statutes to warrant the punish- 
 ment on which they had determined. In support of 
 their position they point out that temporary amotion 
 was a punishment well known and frequent in the 
 practice of all colleges ; but the obvious answer to this 
 was that Frend's amotion was not intended to be 
 temporary, and that, if the temporary removal of a 
 Fellow existed at all as a practice, it was at those colleges 
 whose statutes sanctioned it, which was not the case 
 at Jesus. 
 
 Frend's appeal was supported by a protest on the 
 part of three of the dissident Fellows, Newton, White- 
 head, and Edward Otter. A long correspondence 
 followed, resulting in the dismissal of the appeal by 
 the Visitor and in the confirmation of the sentence of 
 the College. Up to this time Frend had been generally 
 resident in College. On July 26, at a meeting of the 
 Master and all the resident Fellows, it was agreed : 
 
 ' That if Mr. Frend does not quit the college according 
 to the sentence, no time should be lost in enforcing the 
 sentence in the manner pointed out by Sir William Scott* 
 in an opinion given by him on this occasion.' 
 
 The Master and two Fellows signed this conclusion ; 
 in consequence of it the Master wrote to Frend, who 
 happened then to be absent from the College, inform- 
 ing him that on and after August 2 admission to the 
 
176 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 College would be denied him. Frend, in his printed 
 account of the proceedings against him, describes how 
 the sentence was enforced : 
 
 ' On that day (August 2) Mr. Frend returned to College, 
 and about twelve o'clock received an intimation in writing 
 from the master that the College servants were prohibited 
 from supplying him in future with necessaries. Between 
 three and four he went, according to a previous engage- 
 ment, into the town to dinner, and soon heard that, im- 
 mediately upon his going out, the College gates were all 
 shut. About seven he went down to the College, found 
 the great gate shut, rang the bell, and, on the porter's 
 opening the gate, walked in, and in a tone of authority, 
 reprimanded the porter for shutting the gates at so un- 
 reasonable an hour. From thence he went to the lodge 
 to expostulate with the master on the absurdity of these 
 proceedings, and, not finding him at home, left a note, 
 desiring the master to declare whether the gates were 
 shut by his order or not. After having thus shown his 
 perfect contempt of the master's orders, he returned to his 
 friend's house, and spent only one morning afterwards in 
 College. On the twenty-seventh of September, indeed, he 
 intended to revisit the College, but found that Mr. Plampin, 
 from the malignity of whose zeal nothing else could be 
 expected, had taken the precaution to order the gates to 
 be shut, and an iron chain to be kept across the great 
 door.' 
 
 Though they excluded Frend from the College, the 
 victorious party did not venture to propose that he 
 should be deprived of the emoluments of his Fellowship, 
 which he retained for many years, and only resigned on 
 his marriage in 1808. On leaving the University he 
 
THE JESUS UNITARIANS 177 
 
 went to London, where he became secretary and actuary 
 of the Rock Assurance Company. He lived there in 
 good society, actively co-operated with Burdett, Home 
 Tooke, and other Radical leaders, and died, long after 
 the generation who had fought over his case were in 
 their graves, in 1841. 
 
 Something has still to be said of the proceedings 
 against Frend in the Vice-Chancellor's Court, which 
 terminated some time before his expulsion from the 
 College. The ' promoter ' of the indictment was Dr. 
 Kipling of St. John's, who at the time was acting as 
 deputy for the Regius Professor of Divinity, Dr. Watson, 
 Bishop of Llandaff. His qualifications for the pro- 
 fessoriate were scanty, and his dubious Latinity and 
 pompous bearing exposed him to the jibes and flouts 
 of all the wits in the University. Throughout the pro- 
 ceedings Frend poured contempt and scorn on the poor 
 man. A dramatic incident in the trial was when a 
 certain Grace of 1603, on which Kipling based his case, 
 was found on examination to have no existence in the 
 Registrary's copy of the University Grace-Book. It 
 was unfortunate for Frend that the Vice-Chancellor of 
 the year was the celebrated Dr. Isaac Milner, President 
 of Queens'. The party in the University opposed to 
 Frend was composed largely of the Methodists, or 
 'Saints,' as they were then called, and among them 
 Milner figured as light and leader. With very question- 
 able propriety he had permitted the meeting of the 
 twenty-seven, at which the prosecution was resolved on, 
 to take place in Queens' lodge, and though he was not 
 actually present at that meeting, he had from the first 
 shown a decided bias against Frend. In the address 
 
 12 
 
178 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 which he made to the undergraduates when he delivered 
 judgment in the Senate House he took credit to him- 
 self for never having been suspected of being fond of 
 possessing offices or dignities. But it was pretty well 
 understood that he desired to stand well with the 
 Ministry, and after the trial he took pains to impress on 
 Pitt that the expulsion of Frend had caused the down- 
 fall of Jacobinism in the University. The Vice-Chan- 
 cellor's Court met for the first time on May 3, and was 
 continued by adjournments until May 30, when Frend 
 was called upon to retract and confess his error. When 
 the form of recantation was handed to him and he was 
 asked to subscribe it, he replied melodramatically that 
 he would sooner cut off his hand than sign it. There- 
 upon the Vice-Chancellor, with the assent of the 
 majority of the Heads of colleges, who constituted the 
 court, pronounced sentence of banishment from the 
 University. On the day following the trial Frend gave 
 notice of his intention to appeal against the decision, 
 and a new court of delegates was shortly afterwards 
 appointed to hear his objections. Both this court and 
 that of the King's Bench, to which Frend subsequently 
 carried the case, upheld the original sentence. It is the 
 defect of academic decrees that the power is often lack- 
 ing to enforce them. Thus it happened that Frend 
 was present in the Senate House at the Commencement, 
 after the confirmation of the sentence, when Dr. Kipling, 
 'in a violent declamation in bad Latin, addressed a 
 formal prayer to the Supreme Being on the success of 
 his late labours," and in the course of his harangue 
 alluded to Frend as exsul et extorris, though he was 
 actually at the doctor's elbow. 
 
THE JESUS UNITARIANS 179 
 
 A scene in the Senate House during Trend's trial 
 serves to introduce one of the most famous of the sons 
 of Jesus, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Gunning, in his 
 Reminiscences, is our authority for the story, and it shall 
 be told in his words : 
 
 'The Undergraduates were unanimous in favour of 
 Mr. Frend, and every satirical remark reflecting upon the 
 conduct and motives of his prosecutors was vociferously 
 applauded. At length the Court desired the Proctors to 
 interfere. Mr. Farish, the Senior Proctor, having marked 
 one man who had particularly distinguished himself by 
 applauding, and noted his position in the gallery, selected 
 him as a fit subject for punishment. He went into the 
 gallery, and having previously ascertained the exact 
 situation of the culprit, he touched a person, whom he 
 supposed to be the same, on the shoulder, and asked him 
 his name and college. The person thus addressed assured 
 him that he had been perfectly quiet. Farish replied ; 
 " I have been watching you for a long time, and have seen 
 you repeatedly clapping your hands." " I wish this were 
 possible," said the man, and, turning round, exhibited an 
 arm so deformed that his hands could not by any pos- 
 sibility be brought together ; this exculpation was received 
 with repeated rounds of applause, which continued for 
 some minutes. The name of the young man was Charnock, 
 and his College Clare Hall ; the real culprit was 
 S. T. Coleridge of Jesus College, who, having observed 
 that the Proctor had noticed him, and was coming into 
 the gallery, turned round to the person who was standing 
 behind him, and made an offer of exchanging places, which 
 was gladly accepted by the unsuspecting man. Coleridge 
 immediately retreated, and, mixing with the crowd, 
 entirely escaped suspicion. This conduct on the part of 
 
180 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 Coleridge was severely censured by the Undergraduates, 
 as it was quite clear that, to escape punishment himself, 
 he would have subjected an innocent man to rustication 
 or expulsion.' 
 
 Gunning's anecdote has to be corrected in one respect. 
 A writer in the Athenaeum says that the version of the 
 story given in after-life by Coleridge himself was that 
 Charnock, like Coleridge, felt strongly in favour of the 
 accused, and it had been previously agreed between 
 them that Coleridge should be most violent in oppo- 
 sition to the Vice-Chancellor, and that if his conduct 
 excited observation, when the Proctor was sent up, he 
 should slip away, and leave Charnock to take his place 
 and bear the brunt of the affray. 
 
 In order of time Coleridge's admission at Jesus 
 (February 5, 1791) comes after that of some of the 
 men who are reserved to the next chapter. He is 
 mentioned here because of his connection with the 
 Jesus Unitarians. Until he reached the age of twenty- 
 six it must be remembered that his professed creed was 
 Unitarianism, to which he was converted by Frend. 
 There was a time in his life, not long after he left 
 the University, when he announced himself to preach 
 in the Unitarian Chapel at Bath as ' the Rev. 
 S. T. Coleridge, of Jesus College, Cambridge, 1 * and, to 
 mark his severance from the ' gentlemen in black, 1 so 
 much reprobated in Frend's tract, performed that 
 office in blue coat and white waistcoat. It was the 
 overwhelming influence of the French Revolution that 
 gave the bent to his early views on politics and religion, 
 quite independently of such a minor consideration as 
 the selection of his College ; a youth of his precocious 
 
THE JESUS UNITARIANS 181 
 
 and susceptible nature might as well have been a 
 Unitarian at Queens' or an anti-Pittite at St. John's. 
 But he could hardly have lighted in 1791 on a College 
 where he would have found so much encouragement in 
 the expression of his enthusiasms as at Jesus, or where 
 the interchange of ideas on the great topics of the day 
 was so unfettered. The ordinary restrictions on frank 
 communication between ' don ' and undergraduate did 
 not exist in the case of Frend and Edwards, neither of 
 whom held College office. If young Coleridge took 
 colouring from their ideas, he also gave them of his 
 own. In one of his letters to Southey, written in 1794. 
 he describes a tea-party at the house of Dr. Edwards, 
 at which the great Pantisocratic scheme was maintained 
 by himself in a discussion which lasted six hours, and 
 left the doctor convinced of the impregnability of the 
 system. 
 
 Coleridge was, no doubt, attracted to Jesus by the 
 hope of getting a Rustat Scholarship, and, in fact, he 
 was admitted to one in his first term of residence, 
 November, 1791. The annual value of a Rustat 
 Scholarship was then about ^14, and a gratuity of 
 15 was allowed to scholars who 'appeared' at the 
 Rustat examination in Easter week. Coleridge received 
 this gratuity three times. At first he seriously devoted 
 himself to the prescribed studies of the day. In his 
 second term he gained the College prize for a Latin 
 Declamation on the subject of ' Posthumous Fame.' It 
 is still extant in a book in the Library, in a hand- 
 writing apparently that of Coleridge. It is a very 
 perfunctory performance, and the sentiments which it 
 expresses Cromwell is compared to Catiline and to 
 
182 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 men who, like Eratosthenes, gloriam super ruinav ct 
 incendia ponunt are very unlike Coleridge's notions of 
 a year or two later. In his first year he won the Browne 
 Medal for a Greek Ode, the subject being the 'Slave 
 Trade. 1 In his second year he competed again, but 
 unsuccessfully, with an Ode on the 'Praise of Astronomy." 
 He thought this second ode better than the other; 
 there is a translation of it by Southey. In the same 
 year he was a competitor for the Craven Scholarship. 
 Out of about eighteen candidates, he was one of four 
 selected, among the four being Butler, afterwards Head- 
 master of Harrow, and Keate, afterwards Headmaster 
 of Eton. Coleridge was unsuccessful, and the failure 
 damped his ardour. There was then no Classical Tripos ; 
 to obtain a Chancellor's Medal it was necessary that 
 a candidate should have obtained Honours in mathe- 
 matics, and for mathematics Coleridge had neither 
 aptitude nor inclination. So faded all visions of 
 University Honours and a College Fellowship, on which 
 at one time, we are told, Coleridge had set his heart. 
 The last record of his academic" successes is that of his 
 election to a Foundation Scholarship at Jesus in 1793. 
 
 But long before this expiring flicker ig the way of 
 academic distinction, Coleridge had turned his thoughts 
 to altogether different matters. He devoured books 
 insatiably, and seems to have haunted the College 
 Library. Metaphysics, poetry, travel, medicine, but 
 chiefly politics and religion, all interested him by 
 turns. He told Cottle that he believed that by his 
 constant recommendations he had sold a whole edition 
 of some books, particularly among freshmen at Cam- 
 bridge, whom he advised to purchase three works 
 
THE JESUS UNITARIANS 183 
 
 Simpson's Euclid, Hartley On Man, and Bowles" Poems. 
 Under the inspiration of Bowles he wrote a good deal 
 of poetry himself, some pieces of which appeared 
 in the Cambridge Intelligencer, a newly-established 
 Radical paper, edited by a remarkable man, Benjamin 
 Flower, with whom Coleridge made acquaintance. 
 Among the poems of his College days may be remem- 
 bered 4 A Wish written in Jesus Wood, February 10, 
 1792,' and the too celebrated 'Monologue to a Young 
 Jackass in Jesus Piece. 1 Another little piece, written 
 apparently late in his Cambridge career, deserves notice 
 for the circumstances of its composition it was scribbled 
 in a prayer-book in the College Chapel as well as for 
 the grave, regretful tone in which he refers in it to his 
 neglected ' hours of youth."* There is another reference 
 to the same subject in his 6 Lines on an Autumnal 
 Evening,' written about the same time, where he 
 alludes to the period 
 
 f when from the Muses' calm abode 
 I came, with Learning's meed not unbestowed ; 
 Whenas she twined a laurel round my brow, 
 And met my kiss, and half returned my vow.' 
 
 The best picture of Coleridge in his College rooms 
 is to be seen in a letter to the Gentleman's Magazine, 
 written in 1834, just after the poet's death, by his old 
 school and undergraduate friend, C. V. Le Grice : 
 
 'He was very studious, but his reading was desultory 
 and capricious. He took little exercise for the sake of 
 exercise ; but he was ready at any time to unbend his 
 mind in conversation, and for the sake of this his room (the 
 ground-floor room on the right-hand of the staircase facing 
 
184 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 the great gate) was a constant rendezvous of conversation- 
 loving friends. What evenings have I spent in those 
 rooms ! What little suppers, or sizings, as they were 
 called, have I enjoyed, when JEschylus and Plato and 
 Thucydides were pushed aside with a pile of lexicons, etc., 
 to discuss the pamphlets of the day. Ever and anon a 
 pamphlet issued from the pen of Burke. There was no 
 need of having the book before us. Coleridge had read 
 it in the morning, and in the evening he would repeat 
 whole pages verbatim. Frend's trial was then in progress. 
 Pamphlets swarmed from the press. Coleridge had read 
 them all ; and in the evening, with our negus, we had 
 them viva-voce gloriously.' 
 
 When Coleridge returned to College in October, 1793, 
 it was to find that Frend had been excluded from it. 
 Possibly that circumstance may have brought to a 
 climax the dissatisfaction with his position at Cam- 
 bridge which had for some time been growing in his 
 breast. But there were other and more ordinary 
 reasons for that feeling. He had lost all ambition 
 of obtaining University honours, and he had landed 
 himself seriously in debt Gillman says that it was by 
 giving carte blanche to a tradesman for the furnishing 
 of his rooms, but his family ascribed it to dissipated 
 habits, and, though Coleridge deeply and honestly 
 resented their suspicions, his admissions in later life 
 show that they were not entirely baseless. ' At Jesus, 1 
 he writes, ' the heaviest of my offences consisted in the 
 folly of assuming the show of vices from which I was 
 all but free, and which, in the comparatively few 
 exceptions, left loathing and self-disgust in my mind ;' 
 and he argues the comparatively venial character of his 
 
THE JESUS UNITARIANS 185 
 
 transgressions from the fact that his extravagations ' 
 did not lose him the esteem of a single fellow-collegiate. 
 Whatever the cause, shortly after the beginning of 
 the October term it was discovered that Coleridge had 
 vanished from College without leaving a trace. The 
 Rustat Book shows that he only resided five weeks in 
 that term. He was heavily indebted to his tutor, and, 
 as weeks went by without news of his whereabouts, the 
 College was compelled to pass an order (December 19, 
 1793) : < Agreed, that if Coleridge, who has left College 
 without leave, should not return within a month from 
 this day, and pay his debts to his tutor, or give reason- 
 able security that they should be paid, his name be 
 taken off the Boards.' Just a fortnight before the 
 College passed this resolution its truant scholar had 
 enlisted in the 15th Dragoons in the assumed name of 
 Silas Tomkins Comberbacke. 
 
 With his regimental experiences we have no concern 
 here; it is enough to say that they were altogether 
 unhappy. It was a profound relief to him when his 
 elder brother, George, who had acted as his guardian 
 since his father's death, procured his discharge. This 
 was in April, 1794, and Coleridge at once returned to 
 Jesus. On the 10th of that month it is recorded in the 
 register, ' Coleridge admonitus est per Magistrum in 
 prsesentia Sociorum.' In a letter to his brother Coleridge 
 says that Dr. Pearce behaved with great asperity, but 
 the Fellows were disposed to leniency. He was sentenced 
 to a month's confinement to the precincts of the College, 
 and to translate the works of Demetrius Phalereus into 
 English. Dr. Pearce probably understood Coleridge 
 better than the Fellows did at least, Coleridge saw 
 
186 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 an implied compliment in the latter part of his sentence. 
 ' The Demetrius is dry, and utterly untransferable to 
 modern use, and yet from the Doctor's words I suspect 
 that he wishes it to be a publication, as he has more 
 than once sent to know how I go on, and pressed me to 
 exert erudition in some notes and to write a preface/ 
 
 The May term of 1794 seems to have been got 
 through with great decorum. Coleridge politely in- 
 formed his less studious friends that he must drop 
 their acquaintance, and possibly he did so. Among 
 Jesus friends with whom he remained more or less 
 intimate were George Caldwell (senior Chancellor's 
 Medallist in 1795), John Brooke, and William John 
 Lushington ('a man of Briarean intellect" 1 ), all of 
 them men of his own year, who afterwards became 
 Fellows of the College. To prove the sincerity of his 
 resolutions he began a new Greek ode, which aimed at 
 correctness and perspicuity, not genius. 
 
 But when he came back to Cambridge in the following 
 September he came sevenfold possessed with the demons 
 of revolt. ' Since I quitted this room,' he writes to 
 Sou they, ' what and how important events have been 
 evolved. America ! Southey ! Miss Fricker ! . . . 
 Pantisocracy ! Oh, I shall have such a scheme of it.' 
 The wonderful Pantisocratic project, an ideal society 
 which was to recall Astraea to earth in a colony on the 
 banks of the Susquehannah, was the talk of the Univer- 
 sity. Small wonder that Dr. Pearce and the Fellows 
 were seriously uneasy about this new extravagance of 
 their favoured prodigal, and their annoyance was in- 
 creased by the publication in October of ' The Fall of 
 Robespierre, An Historical Drama, by S. T. Coleridge,' 
 
THE JESUS UNITARIANS 187 
 
 dedicated to a fellow-student at Jesus, H. Martin, who 
 paid for its publication. Southey had written two acts 
 of the play, but 'it would be ridiculous to put two 
 names to such a work, 1 said Coleridge, who was under 
 no delusion as to its literary merits, though he was 
 willing to appropriate to himself the notoriety which 
 its authorship conferred. Dr. Pearce took, him severely 
 to task for its supposed Jacobinism, but Coleridge cut 
 short the discussion by assuring the Master that he 
 mistook the matter altogether; that he was neither 
 Jacobin nor Democrat, but a Pantisocrat. The College 
 which had condemned Trend's pamphlet was scarcely 
 likely to condone Coleridge's poem. Possibly there 
 were threatenings of another convening. But, if so, 
 Coleridge anticipated judgment by taking himself off 
 this time for good. The Rustat Book shows that he 
 resided nine weeks in this term. On December 16 we 
 hear of him in London in the company of Holcroft, 
 Godwin, and the editor of the Morning Chronicle. 
 On December 17 he has heard that 'they are making 
 a row about him at Jesus 1 ; but, indeed, the College 
 showed extraordinary patience in its treatment of him. 
 All through the Lent term of 1795 it kept the door 
 open for his return, and duly credited him with 
 % 11s. 6d., as his stipend in that term as a non- 
 resident Rustat scholar. At last, on April 6, they 
 were forced to the melancholy conclusion : ' Whereas 
 Coleridge is still in arrears with his Tutors, and has 
 been absent for some time from College (where we know 
 not), it is ordered by the Master and Fellows that his 
 name be taken off the boards on the 14th day of June 
 next, unless cause be shown to the contrary, or some 
 
188 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 one of the Fellows declares himself willing to be his 
 Tutor before that time, and that his present Tutors 
 do endeavour to inform him of this order. 1 
 
 So closed Coleridge's career at Jesus. It was forty 
 years before he again set foot in Cambridge namely, in 
 1833, on the occasion of a meeting of the British 
 Association. ' My emotions, 1 he wrote, ' at revisiting 
 the University were at first overwhelming. I could not 
 speak for an hour ; yet my feelings, on the whole, were 
 very pleasurable." It is pleasant to think that in later 
 life Coleridge always spoke with kindly and grateful 
 feelings of his old College, and even in younger days no 
 expression of anger or disdain towards it ever escaped 
 him. It was otherwise with his friend Southey, whose 
 lines on ' The Chapel Bell, 1 written in undergraduate 
 days, fiercely attack the ' snuffling, snaffling Fellows 1 
 and 'Romish rites 1 of Balliol, Oxford. Of his Jesus 
 days, when he allowed himself to recall them, Coleridge 
 never spoke but with affection. ' In an inauspicious 
 hour I left the friendly cloisters and happy grove of 
 quiet, ever-honoured Jesus College, Cambridge ' ; so he 
 writes in his Biographia Literaria. And in The Friend 
 he cannot pass the name of Dr. Jortin, the biographer 
 of Erasmus, without an appended note describing him 
 as ' one of the many illustrious nurselings of the College 
 to which I deem it no small honour to have belonged 
 Jesus, Cambridge. 1 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THREE FRIENDS 
 
 MALTHUS, William Otter, and E. D. Clarke had recently 
 taken their B.A. degree when Coleridge came to Jesus 
 as a freshman in 1791. It does not appear that he 
 made their acquaintance ; at least, they were not of his 
 'set. 1 They were, all of them, admitted under the 
 tutorship of Frend, but they do not seem to have been 
 touched with his Unitarian and revolutionary sym- 
 pathies. The three were fast friends while they were 
 at Jesus, and their intimacy lasted through life. Otter, 
 surviving the others, wrote the Life and Remains of 
 Clarke (1829) and the biographical sketch of Malthus 
 prefixed to the 1836 edition of the Principles of Political 
 Economy. He was brother of Edward Otter, second 
 Wrangler in 1786, who was one of the minority of 
 Fellows who supported Frend in 1793. William was 
 fourth Wrangler in 1790, became a Fellow in 1796, 
 and remained in residence as tutor until 1804. He was 
 the first Principal of King's College, London (appointed 
 in 1828), became Bishop of Chichester in 1830, and 
 died in 1840. 
 
 Thomas Robert Malthus, who was the eldest of the 
 three, was admitted at Jesus in 1784. Everything in 
 
190 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 his antecedent life should have predisposed him to 
 advanced views in religion and politics. He received 
 his first teaching from his father, who had some ac- 
 quaintance with Rousseau and was an ardent admirer 
 of Condorcet and Godwin. Afterwards he became a 
 pupil of Gilbert Wakefield at a Dissenting school at 
 Warrington, and it was on WakefiekTs advice that he 
 was sent to Jesus. But so far was he from adopting 
 the views of Wakefield and Frend that, after leaving 
 Cambridge, he took Orders, and for a time held a 
 country curacy. He was ninth Wrangler in 1788, and 
 succeeded to a Fellowship in June, 1793, three months 
 after the College had passed sentence of expulsion on 
 Frend. A controversy with Godwin led to the publica- 
 tion (in 1798) of his Essay on Population. With the 
 object of collecting information he travelled in 1799 
 to Hamburg and Sweden in company with three Jesus 
 friends, William Otter, Clarke, and Cripps, and he 
 added notes to the last volume of Clarke's Travels. In 
 1801 he met William Pitt at a supper at Jesus College 
 lodge, when the conversation was chiefly directed to 
 poetry and foreign politics. Possibly Malthus's Essay 
 came in for discussion also ; at least, Pitt became a 
 convert to the economical views of Malthus, and 
 probably helped him to the Professorship of History 
 and Political Economy which he obtained at Haileybury 
 College in 1805. Malthus married and resigned his 
 Fellowship in 1804. 
 
 The name of Edward Daniel Clarke, ' Viator celeber- 
 rimus,' is now scarcely remembered outside the walls of 
 the College of which he was so distinguished an orna- 
 ment in the first two decades of the last century. He 
 
THREE FRIENDS 191 
 
 was admitted in the same year as William Otter (1786) 
 at the early age of sixteen. Dr. Beadon, then Master, 
 procured for him the place of chapel clerk, and on the 
 death of his father, which happened in his second term, 
 he was elected to a Rustat Scholarship. His under- 
 graduate studies were of the discursive kind which 
 characterized much of his work in later life. For mathe- 
 matics he, like Coleridge, had no taste, and in the then 
 constitution and practice of the College there was 
 nothing to encourage the study of classics. ' All the 
 classical lectures, 1 says Otter, ' which were given during 
 the three years of his residence were confined to the 
 two little tracts of Tacitus, De Moribus Germanorum 
 and De Vita Agricolac^ and the only occasions upon 
 which he was called upon to revise his classical know- 
 ledge were the delivery of a Latin declamation in the 
 chapel once a year, and the usual examination of the 
 Rustat scholars at Easter, for which latter no great 
 preparation was required. 1 He found relaxation from 
 the perfunctory studies of the place in the subjects of 
 history, antiquities, and especially in English poetry, 
 his favourite author being Gray. ' Distinguished 
 members of the College ' the < dons ' we may suppose 
 them to have been ' were glad to relax their severer 
 labours in light and tasteful discussions ' with him on 
 such topics. The story which tells of the balloon made 
 by him in his third year shows either that he found 
 special favour with the powers that were, or that under- 
 graduates were more emancipated from the conventions 
 of discipline a hundred years ago than they are 
 to-day : 
 
192 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 ' This balloon, which was magnificent in its size and 
 splendid in its decorations, was constructed and manoeuvred, 
 from first to last, entirely by himself. It was the contriv- 
 ance of many anxious thoughts, and the labour of many 
 weeks, to bring it to what he wished ; and when at last 
 it was completed to his satisfaction, and had been suspended 
 for some days in the College Hall, of which it occupied the 
 whole height, he announced a time for its ascension. There 
 was nothing at that period very new in balloons* or very 
 curious in the species which he had adopted ; but by 
 some means he had contrived to disseminate not only 
 within the walls of his own College, but throughout the 
 whole University, a prodigious curiosity respecting the fate 
 of his experiment. On the day appointed a vast concourse 
 of people was assembled, both within and around the 
 College ; and the balloon, having been brought to its 
 station, the grass-plot within the cloisters, was happily 
 launched by himself, amidst the applause of all ranks and 
 degrees of gownsmen, who had crowded the roof as well as 
 the area of the cloisters, and filled the contiguous apartments 
 of the Master's lodge. The whole scene, in short, suc- 
 ceeded to his utmost wish ; nor is it easy to forget the 
 delight which flashed from his eye and the triumphant 
 wave of his cap when the machine, with its little freight 
 (a kitten), having cleared the College battlements, was seen 
 soaring in full security over the towers of the great gate. 
 Its course was followed on horseback by several persons, 
 who had voluntarily undertaken to recover it ; and all 
 went home delighted with an exhibition upon which 
 nobody would have ventured in such a place but himself.' 
 
 Clarke's humble attainments in mathematics were 
 
 * Mr. Astley, famous for his circus at Westminster Bridge, sent up 
 two balloons from Emmanuel College Close in 1784, and in 1786 there 
 was an ascent from the grounds of Trinity Hall. 
 
THREE FRIENDS 193 
 
 rewarded by a place among the junior Optimes in the 
 Tripos of 1790. For the time this inglorious result 
 closed his connection with the College. He became 
 private tutor to a nephew of the Duke of Dorset, and 
 in 1792 accompanied Lord Berwick (afterwards Ambas- 
 sador at the Court of Naples), who was of Clarke's year 
 at Jesus, on a Continental tour, remaining abroad, with 
 only a few weeks' interval, until the summer of 1794. 
 Afterwards he acted as tutor in the families of various 
 titled people, and travelled with his pupils in Scotland 
 and Wales. So it came about that he never met 
 Coleridge at Jesus. He was elected to a Fellowship in 
 June, 1795, and returned to College as Bursar in 1798. 
 To Clarke's restless spirit the routine of College life was 
 supremely distasteful. For a time he took up the study 
 of chemistry with some enthusiasm, but he was delighted 
 when an opportunity presented itself of renewing his 
 foreign travels. The funds for doing so were provided 
 by a Fellow-Commoner of the College, John Martin 
 Cripps, who had lately succeeded to property near 
 Clarke's home in Sussex. He was warmly attached to 
 Clarke, and came to Cambridge with him in 1798, with 
 the object of supplying, under his tuition, the defects 
 of a limited education. Starting in May, 1799, they 
 were accompanied through North Germany and Sweden 
 by William Otter and Malthus, and afterwards pro- 
 longed their tour through Russia to Palestine, Egypt, 
 Turkey, and Greece, returning to Cambridge in October, 
 1802. 
 
 ' In the course of this tour/ says Gunning, ' Clarke 
 wrote repeatedly to his Cambridge friends. His letters 
 were always lively, and his descriptions very graphic. 
 
 13 
 
194 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 The country he travelled through being little known, 
 they excited the greatest attention. I recollect dining 
 with Outram (the Public Orator), when a packet arrived 
 from Clarke. The first letter began with these words: 
 " Here I am, eating strawberries within the Arctic Circle." 
 We were so intent on his dessert that we forgot our own.' 
 
 The interest which his letters aroused was more than 
 sustained when he brought with him to Cambridge the 
 collections, scientific and archaeological, which he had 
 formed during his travels. His MSS., including an early 
 Plato from Patmos, went to the Bodleian Library at 
 Oxford ; his coins were sold to a private collector ; of 
 the marbles some were secured by the British Museum, 
 others were presented to the University of Cambridge. 
 Among the latter was the celebrated Cistophorus from 
 Eleusis, which Clarke, with more enthusiasm than 
 knowledge, affirmed to be a ' Ceres ' ; it is now in the 
 Fitz william Museum. It excited extraordinary interest ; 
 artists and men of letters came from far to see it. * As 
 for our Master, 1 wrote Clarke, 'he pulls off his gown 
 and dances round it.' The University conferred on 
 Clarke the degree of LL.D., and on Cripps that of M.A. 
 One monument of Clarke's Oriental travels survives to 
 perpetuate his memory in his own College the fine 
 Oriental plane which is the chief feature of the Fellows 1 
 garden. As an inscription on a plate affixed to its 
 trunk records, the seeds were brought from Thermopylae 
 and planted there by Clarke himself in 1802. 
 
 Clarke settled down quietly in College to arrange his 
 collections and to write the six volumes of his Travels, 
 the first of which appeared in 1812. Some verses, 
 addressed by him to Otter, describe his College rooms 
 
THREE FRIENDS 195 
 
 on the first floor of the staircase opposite the Gate, 
 Coleridge's staircase hung with art treasures collected 
 at home and abroad. 
 
 ' Say, will your thoughts to Rhadegunda roam, 
 And view the wanderer in his peaceful home ? 
 While Fancy, waking, paints the well-known scene : 
 The walls monastic, and the college green ; 
 The chamber hung with painting's deathless dyes, 
 Where breathing canvas bids old Shakespeare rise ; 
 The tints which Venice from a Titian drew, 
 De Heem's warm touch and Herman's silver hue/ etc. 
 
 By the supposed portrait of Shakespeare there hangs 
 a tale. Clarke bought it for a guinea of a shoemaker, 
 in whose shop he found it covered with dirt. He had 
 it cleaned, and, having persuaded himself that it was a 
 portrait of Shakespeare by Mark Garrard, he put it in 
 a magnificent frame and obtained permission to exhibit 
 it in the University Library. Kerrich, the principal 
 librarian, who was an authority on painting, pro- 
 nounced it to be a portrait of an Elector Palatine; 
 but so great was the influence of Clarke's name that 
 on the first day of the exhibition upwards of 3,000 
 persons went to see it. Clarke wrote a small pamphlet 
 to prove that it was an original Shakespeare. Finally, 
 however, he made a present of it to the shoemaker of 
 whom he purchased it. 
 
 In the summer of 1803 the threat of a French 
 invasion produced a remarkable outburst of patriotic 
 spirit throughout the nation, and volunteer corps for 
 the defence of the country were enrolled in all parts 
 of England. Cambridgeshire provided 2,886 volun- 
 teers, for whose equipment upwards of .6,000 was 
 
 132 
 
196 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 locally subscribed, the University contributing ,1,000. 
 A University corps, consisting of four companies of 
 light infantry, including gownsmen of every rank and 
 degree, was enrolled. The Heads and tutors allowed 
 one hour each day for the purpose of drill, and a Grace 
 was passed allowing the term to students of the Univer- 
 sity who might be absent on military service. At each 
 of the crises, 1803, 1859, and 1899, Jesus has answered 
 the call to arms with enthusiasm, and ' dons ** and 
 undergraduates have vied with one another in making 
 themselves efficient volunteers. In 1803 the 'dons'* 
 set a particularly good example. Clergymen in those 
 days were not allowed to bear arms, but Otter, the 
 tutor, was on the committee, and twenty-one out of 
 the 180 members of the corps came from Jesus. 
 Clarke threw himself with characteristic impetuosity 
 into the volunteering business. A letter of his, addressed 
 to a College friend and dated November 15, 1803, 
 gives an interesting picture of the enthusiasm awakened 
 in the University, and of the healthy unanimity which 
 animated the College in this as well as other matters. 
 
 'I am just come from practising the light infantry 
 manoeuvres, over all the hedges and ditches, towards 
 Madingley, wet, muddy, and oozing at every pore. 
 Malthus left me this morning ; but still new lions pour in 
 nimporte I The Bursar talks of building a new Com- 
 bination Room ; and certainly we must have a new table 
 in the Hall we have not room even for the members of 
 the College, and still less for lions, who always occupy con- 
 siderable space. ... At present nothing is talked of in 
 Cambridge but the drill who shoulders best, and who 
 trod down Beverley's heels in close marching. Yesterday 
 
THREE FRIENDS 197 
 
 we had a sort of sham fight on Parker's Piece, and they all 
 allow we do better than the Town Volunteers. We 
 paraded through the streets from Clare Hall to Parker's 
 Piece with a full band of music. The corps is intended as 
 a nursery of corps, to supply the nation with officers and 
 drill-serjeants. We are all officers in turn. At present 
 the corps consists of four companies of thirty men in each, 
 commanded by Captain Bircham as general, and by 
 Thackery, myself, Johnson, and Dr. Sill, with covering 
 Serjeants who succeed to our posts when we fall into the 
 ranks.' 
 
 In 1805 Clarke succeeded his friend Otter in the 
 office of Senior Tutor, but vacated both that and his 
 Fellowship by marriage in the following year. He was 
 ordained in 1805 by his old friend, Dr. Beadon, Bishop 
 of Bath and Wells, and was instituted shortly after to 
 the College living of Harlton. Harlton, like other 
 College livings near Cambridge, had then no parsonage, 
 and Clarke lived first in Cambridge, afterwards at 
 Anstey Hall, Trumpington. In 1807 he began his 
 celebrated courses of lectures on Mineralogy, a subject 
 in which he had always taken a great, if not profoundly 
 scientific, interest, and to illustrate which he had made 
 large collections during his travels. The study of 
 science was then at an extremely low ebb in the Univer- 
 sity ; mineralogy in particular was little known or 
 studied. Scientific accuracy was not looked for, nor 
 did Clarke pretend to it ; but his hearers were charmed 
 with the brilliance of his imagination and the eloquence 
 of his digressions.* A contemporary jeu (Tesprit, 
 * He got the name of 'Stone' Clarke, to distinguish him from 
 * Bone ' Clark, the anatomy Professor, and ' Tone ' Clarke, otherwise 
 John Clarke Whitfield, Professor of Music. 
 
198 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 attributed to Smyth, Professor of History, plays on the 
 discursiveness of Clark e^s treatment of the subject. Some 
 verses may be quoted : 
 
 ' I sing of a Tutor renown'd 
 Who went roving and raving for knowledge, 
 
 And gather'd it all the world round, 
 And brought it in boxes to College ; 
 
 And because Mathematics was clear 
 Too clear for our Metaphysicians 
 
 Introduced Dr. Gall, as I hear, 
 To enlighten his academicians. 
 
 ' His pupils flock'd eagerly round, 
 When they heard there was nothing to bore 'em j 
 
 But guess their surprise when they found 
 A lot of old skulls placed before 'em. 
 
 Astonish'd, confused, and perplext, 
 They stared at their Lecturer able, 
 
 And the freshmen expected that next 
 Old Nick would pop up through the table. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 ' And Flaxman was now at the door 
 To talk of the Ceres divine ; 
 
 And Bircham to settle the corps, 
 And Caldwell to sell him bad wine. 
 
 In the court were five lions from town, 
 And a message came hot from the Master ; 
 
 So that round about, upstairs and down, 
 The plot thicken'd faster and faster.' 
 
 In 1808, by a Grace of the Senate, Clarke was made 
 the first Professor of Mineralogy. In 1817 he was 
 elected University Librarian such was his popularity 
 
THREE FRIENDS 199 
 
 that no candidate for the office appeared against him. 
 He held both appointments until his death in 1822. 
 He was buried in the College chapel, and a monument 
 there erected by his fellow-collegians bears his medallion 
 portrait. His friend, Dr. Pearce, had passed away two 
 years before him. . 
 
 No additions were made to the College buildings 
 during the Masterships of Dr. Beadon and Dr. Pearce, 
 and such alterations as were introduced had for their 
 single object the domestic comfort of the residents. 
 From the Norman arcades in the chapel to the Palladian 
 embellishments of the days of Dr. Ashton, Jesus College, 
 in the middle of the eighteenth century, presented a 
 series of architectural types more complete than any 
 other College in the University. For three quarters of 
 a century after that time the art of architectural design 
 at Cambridge was practically dead, and, except as 
 destroyers, the decadent successors of Gibbs and Hawkes- 
 more left little substantial evidence of their workman- 
 ship. What they did at Jesus was chiefly directed to 
 internal decoration and fittings. About the year 1762 
 the Combination Room was wainscoted, in consequence 
 of a gift of ^100 from Lord Middleton ; the architect 
 employed was ' the ingenious ' Mr. Essex. About the 
 same year the cloister court was ' beautified and rendered 
 more open and airy ' by the same architect. This was 
 effected by substituting plain arches rising from the 
 ground for the square-headed Tudor windows, each of 
 three lights, which in Loggan's design are shown in the 
 walls enclosing the grass-plot. The same desire for 
 additional light induced the Master and Fellows in 
 1801 to lengthen the windows of the Hall by lowering 
 
200 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 the sills to the level of the top of the panelling of the 
 side walls. In the chapel the Perpendicular eastern 
 window of the chancel was altered by Essex during 
 Dr. Beadon's Mastership. 
 
 More important work was undertaken after 1788, in 
 consequence of a gift of ^200 by Mr. Tyrwhitt ' for 
 defraying the expense of repairing and fitting up the 
 Inside of the College Chapel/ Tyrwhitt had parted 
 company with the Church, and had ceased to attend 
 services in the College chapel several years before this 
 time, and his benefaction is significant of his wide 
 tolerance and the importance which he attached to a 
 religious basis in college education. It is needless to 
 say that the reparations were carried out without the 
 slightest regard for architectural congruity or historical 
 associations. But credit is due to Tyrwhitt for under- 
 taking a work which the neglect of a century had made 
 in some form absolutely necessary. The chapel, being 
 unwarmed, must have suffered badly from damp, and 
 was, no doubt, cold and draughty ; the woodwork of 
 stalls and chancel screen was battered and decayed; 
 and if any justification had been thought necessary for 
 veneering the old fabric with classical ornament, it 
 already existed in the wainscoting of the east end of the 
 chancel, which had been done in 1679. No details of 
 the work carried out in consequence of Tyrwhitf s bene- 
 faction are given in the Audit Book ; but it appears 
 that in the years 1789-92 the College spent a sum of 
 <817, including Tyrwhitt's gift, on the work in the 
 chapel. The old stalls were entirely removed, and 
 painted deal seats of an inferior 4 Grecian ' design were 
 substituted for them. Portions of the old woodwork of 
 
THREE FRIENDS 201 
 
 the stalls and screen were sold to the carpenter employed 
 by the College ; other parts were bought by the Rev. 
 Robert Masters, the antiquary and historian of Corpus. 
 It is interesting to know that he paid five and a half 
 guineas for it. It was, fortunately, preserved in Land- 
 beach Church, of which he was rector. Nearly a century 
 later, in 1878, the College repurchased a portion of it 
 from the parish. A fine door of carved oak, which 
 came from Landbeach, and appears to have been brought 
 thither from Jesus Chapel, is now in the south transept 
 of Ely Cathedral. The pulpit and parts of the screen 
 are still at Landbeach. The chancel walls were reduced 
 to one uniform yellow colour, with a band of black at 
 the base. The eastern arch of the tower was walled up, 
 and on the side of it next the chancel a gallery was 
 placed, containing a pew for the Master's family. They 
 entered from the Master's garden through a classical 
 doorway, still to be seen on the outer wall at the south- 
 eastern angle of the tower. The fifteenth-century roof 
 of the chancel and the fine arcade in the triforium of 
 the tower were concealed by plain and flat plaster 
 ceilings. Some years later, in 1815, in consequence of 
 another gift of =400 by Mr. Tyrwhitt, the outer walls, 
 which in parts were much decayed and uneven in surface, 
 were faced with Roman cement ' coloured and finished 
 as stonework,' and the battlements and mouldings were 
 repaired in the same economical material. The general 
 effect of these alterations was regarded at the time with 
 much complacency ; the chancel in particular was con- 
 sidered to have ' an air of great elegance and beauty.' 
 
 This ' restoration ' of Jesus Chapel was one of the 
 last efforts at Cambridge of the school of correctness 
 
202 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 and classicism. Almost before its completion the first 
 gropings after Gothic began. A letter in the Gentle- 
 mans Magazine of September, 1815, states that : 
 
 'The Chapel is undergoing a thorough repair, and is 
 tastefully painting in the chaste style of antient wainscot- 
 ing, by a Gentleman who has evidenced much ability in 
 this peculiar line of his profession, and, when completed, 
 will present an elegant model of Gothick Architecture.' 
 
 When the wainscot was removed for painting and 
 repair, the beautiful thirteenth-century piscina in the 
 chancel was discovered. It is indicative of an altered 
 feeling with regard to the artistic legacies of the past 
 that its beauty was at once recognised, and it was not 
 covered up again. Mr. Hustler, the Bursar, restored 
 the decayed portions at his own expense. He also 
 filled the east window with portraits and armorial 
 bearings in painted glass. Mr. Hustler, as we shall 
 see in the next chapter, was the forerunner of the 
 ecclesiological revival which was so warmly taken up 
 at Jesus in the middle years of last century. 
 
 The Reminiscences of Henry Gunning of Christ's, 
 the well-known Esquire Bedel, present a series of life- 
 like pictures of men and manners at Cambridge in the 
 period covered by the Masterships of Dr. Beadon and 
 Dr. Pearce. That period of forty years witnessed a 
 complete revolution, not only in the manners of under- 
 graduates and 'dons,' but in the attitude of the 
 University to the outer world. The change was 
 brought about partly by the Napoleonic wars, but 
 was due in a greater degree to improved methods of 
 communication. When Gunning came up as a fresh- 
 man in 1784 it was still the fashion for Fellows of 
 
THREE FRIENDS 203 
 
 colleges to reside throughout vacations ; many of them 
 never slept outside the University for years together. 
 ' The last of this class was Mr. Burrell, the Bursar 
 of Catherine Hall, who used to take his daily walk 
 in what is called " The Grove," and who never 
 travelled further than the Senate House, except once 
 during the long vacation, when the Master of the 
 college prevailed upon him to walk half-way to 
 Grantchester.' Times had altered when Dr. Farmer 
 of Emmanuel, entering the vestry of St. Mary's on 
 Ascension Day, boasted that at three o'clock the same 
 morning he had been blowing his pipe with the 
 Worshipful Company of Pewterers. When such rapid 
 locomotion became possible the old secluded life and 
 circumscription of thought came to an abrupt end. 
 The prescribed studies of the place went on in much 
 the same grooves ; indeed, those grooves were narrowed 
 by the absorbing attention paid to mathematics in the 
 schools. But the degree and the University rewards 
 which it brought ceased to be the be-all and the 
 end-all of the thoughts of the more intelligent under- 
 graduates and their teachers, and books were appre- 
 ciated in proportion as they explained life. In the 
 middle of the century the Fellows of Jesus were com- 
 menting on Hierocles and Justin Martyr ; before its 
 end the subjects which engrossed them were Political 
 Economy and Travel. Coleridge and Sterne were not 
 ordinary undergraduates, and Cambridge influences 
 played, no doubt, a minor part in the moulding of 
 their abnormal genius. But they both browsed among 
 books at Jesus, and it is not without significance that 
 Sterne found his mental pabulum in medieval Latinists, 
 
204 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 while Coleridge looked for it in Burke, Priestley, and 
 Bowles. 
 
 In the outward tokens of civilization the town of 
 Cambridge at the end of the eighteenth century had 
 made little advance on the days of Elizabeth. Gunning 
 speaks feelingly of the horrible discomforts of its un- 
 paved and unlighted streets. The undergraduates, he 
 says, when encountered in the dark, were scarcely less 
 ferocious than the members of the ' Mohock and 
 Sweating Clubs/ Yet townspeople feared that if the 
 streets were lighted town-and-gown fights would recur, 
 since in the darkness persons, not being able to re- 
 cognise each other, more frequently passed without 
 quarrelling. Gas was not introduced at Cambridge 
 until 1823 ; four gas-lamps were put up at Jesus that 
 year one at each end of ' the Chimney,"* one in the first 
 court, and one in ' Pump ' court. A poem written by 
 E. D. Clarke in his undergraduate days speaks of 
 
 ' the cold cloister at the midnight hour, 
 When lamps dim glimmering cast a misty light/ 
 
 the lamps in question being the lineal representatives 
 of the 'great and little lanthorns" which served the 
 cloister in Elizabethan times. Staircases, except by 
 private enterprise, were not lighted at all, as appears 
 from a story told by Gunning of one Castley, a Fellow 
 of the College, nicknamed from his unprepossessing 
 appearance 4 Ghastly/ 
 
 ' Castley was a man of very penurious habits, of which 
 the following may be taken as an illustration : John 
 Brooke (a fellow), whose rooms were on the same stair- 
 case, proposed that they should furnish a lamp at their 
 
THREE FRIENDS 205 
 
 mutual charges, to prevent the recurrence of much incon- 
 venience to which they had been subjected of an evening 
 from the darkness of the staircase. Castley said he con- 
 sidered it a piece of needless extravagance ; but after a 
 time he agreed to the proposition, with the condition that 
 he should be allowed to furnish the oil on alternate nights, 
 for he thought the porter, whom Brooke had proposed to 
 employ, would charge too much. This was agreed to. To 
 Brooke's great surprise he frequently found the lamp on 
 Castley' s nights burning brightly at a late hour, whereas 
 when the porter lighted it on his nights, it had burnt out 
 much earlier. One evening, when Brooke was reading in his 
 room, with his door sported, he heard a very quiet step on the 
 landing-place ; and, opening his door gently, he surprised 
 Castley in the very act of puffing out the lamp, by which 
 dexterous manoeuvre, on alternate nights, he was enabled 
 to shirk the expense of providing oil !' 
 
 The dinner-hour was about one o'clock. Wakefield 
 deplored that, since his undergraduate days, the time 
 had been made so late ; in consequence, the practice of 
 taking afternoon tea had fallen into neglect, and the 
 labours of the day were considered to be ended at 
 dinner-time. Suppers and sizing parties filled up the 
 evening, a sizing party differing from a supper in 
 this, that at the former each guest contributed his 
 share to the common meal. At eight o'clock the 
 ' sizing bell ' rang to signify that the ' sizing bill ' was 
 ready. Most colleges had a 'club, 1 which met on 
 stated nights each week in the Combination Room. 
 That at Jesus is frequently mentioned in Clarke's 
 letters. Undergraduates were admitted to it, and 
 card-games were played, but play for high points was 
 
206 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 discountenanced. Pipes and tobacco were regularly 
 provided for College feasts until the end of the period, 
 but by a College order the payment for pipes was dis- 
 continued in 1822. 
 
 The barber was still an important functionary. His 
 shop was originally on the ground-floor of the stair- 
 case next the porter's lodge.* Possibly it had been 
 given up in 1788, when the College passed an order 
 ' that no Barber or Hairdresser be permitted to remain 
 in College on a Sunday after the ceasing of St. Mary's 
 bell in the morning. 1 
 
 * Information supplied by the late Mr. John Swan, auctioneer, of 
 Cambridge. 
 
CHAPTEK X 
 
 THE GOTHIC RENASCENCE 
 
 DR. WILLIAM FRENCH, who was Dr. Pearce's successor 
 in the Mastership (1820), was originally of Caius, 
 graduated there as second Wrangler in 1811, and soon 
 after became Fellow and tutor of Pembroke, which 
 college had already supplied Jesus with three Masters. 
 He owed his appointment to his friendship with Bishop 
 Sparke of Ely, in whose family he had been a private 
 tutor, and through the good offices of the same patron 
 he obtained an Ely canonry in 1832. His abilities 
 were of a respectable order ; he published new transla- 
 tions of the Proverbs (in 1831) and of the Psalms (in 
 1842), and by his business capacity he greatly improved 
 the finances of the College. But he was lacking in the 
 social gifts of his two predecessors, and his magisterial 
 formality of manner was not calculated to attract or 
 inspire. The twenty-nine years of his reign witnessed 
 a gradual and melancholy decline from the high and 
 palmy state which the College held when he became 
 Master. Numbers fell heavily; discipline and morals 
 sank to a very low ebb ; and the inefficiency of the 
 tutors and indolence of their pupils is indicated by the 
 fact that in the whole period only two Jesus men were 
 
208 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 placed among the first ten Wranglers, and seven only 
 gained a first-class in the Classical Tripos. 
 
 At first everything promised well for the College 
 under its new Head. Its numbers had increased with 
 extraordinary rapidity under Dr. Pearce far more 
 rapidly than those of the University generally. The 
 total of admissions in the five years ending in 1821 was 
 168 four times as many as in the first five years of Dr. 
 Pearce's rule, seven times as many as they had been in 
 1760-64. And with increased numbers came a marked 
 change in the social quality of the undergraduates ; 
 whereas the sizars admitted in 1817-21 had dwindled 
 to eleven in all, the Fellow-Commoners had increased to 
 thirty-five. The change was certainly not without its 
 disadvantages. The class of Fellow-Commoners 'Empty 
 Bottles, 1 as they were nicknamed had, says the Gradus 
 ad Cantabr'igiam, ' a kind of prescriptive right to idle- 
 ness, and fashion has inspired it with an habitual con- 
 tempt for discipline. 1 * That they gave a non-reading 
 tone to the College there can be no doubt. Two-thirds 
 of the undergraduates never attained the B.A. degree. 
 The proportion of those who took Orders was at the 
 same time very much reduced. In the eighteenth 
 century, as we have seen, almost every undergraduate of 
 the College applied for testimonial letters ; in 1817-21 
 only one-third of them did so. 
 
 It was, of course, impossible for the College to find 
 rooms within its walls for its overflowing numbers. A 
 College order of 1812 is the first indication that students 
 
 * Felix Vaughan, of Jesus, who was a senior Optima in the Tripos of 
 1790, is said to have been the first Fellow-Commoner in the University 
 who took a degree in Honours. 
 
THE GOTHIC RENASCENCE 209 
 
 in statu pupillari were permitted to ' keep ' in lodgings. 
 In 1822 the Master and Fellows resolved that ' owing 
 to the great Increase in the Number of Members of the 
 College it would be highly desirable to add to the 
 present Buildings,' and contracted with a builder for 
 the erection of twelve additional sets of rooms in Pump 
 Court. No architect was employed, but the builder 
 was instructed to copy the pattern of the adjoining 
 building next the Hall. Staircase 'L 1 was the non- 
 descript result of these conditions. If artistically un- 
 lovely, it certainly has the merit of being commodious. 
 The long rule of Dr. French was illuminated by few 
 names of eminence among the undergraduates of the 
 College. The names of those few were for the most 
 part absent from the Honour lists. Their genius, in 
 whatever shape it showed itself, was certainly not the 
 outcome of any rigorous pressure into academic moulds. 
 Charles Austin (adm. 1819), * whose fame would now 
 be more in proportion to his extraordinary abilities had 
 not his unparalleled success as an advocate tempted him, 
 before his day, to retire from the toils of a career of 
 whose rewards he had had enough,* 1 deserves mention 
 here, not so much for his triumphs in later life at 
 the Parliamentary Bar as for his association in under- 
 graduate days with T. B. Macaulay. Sir G. O. Trevelyan 
 is witness for the vivid impression which he left on his 
 contemporaries. 
 
 ' With his vigour and fervour, his depth of knowledge 
 and breadth of humour, his close reasoning illustrated by 
 an expansive imagination set off, as those gifts were, by 
 the advantage, at that period of life so irresistible, of some 
 
 14 
 
210 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 experience of the world at home and abroad Austin was 
 indeed a king among his fellows 
 
 " Grave, sedate, 
 
 And (if the looks may indicate the age), 
 Our senior some few years : no keener wit, 
 No intellect more subtle, none more bold, 
 Was found in all our host." 
 
 So writes Moultrie, and the testimony of his verse is 
 borne out by John Stuart Mill's prose. " The impression 
 he gave was that of boundless strength, together with 
 talents which, combined with such apparent force of will 
 and character, seemed capable of dominating the world." 
 He certainly was the only man who ever succeeded in 
 dominating Macaulay. Brimming over with ideas that 
 were soon to be known by the name of Utilitarian, a 
 panegyrist of American institutions and an unsparing 
 assailant of ecclesiastical endowments and hereditary 
 privileges, he effectually cured the young undergraduate 
 of his Tory opinions, which were never more than skin 
 deep, and brought him nearer to Radicalism than he ever 
 
 was before or since To this hour men may be 
 
 found in remote parsonages who mildly resent the fascina- 
 tion which Austin of Jesus exercised over Macaulay of 
 Trinity.' 
 
 George Stovin Venables (adm. 1828) was fifth in the 
 first class of the Classical Tripos of 1832 the list of 
 that year being made illustrious by the names of Pro- 
 fessor Lushington, Richard Shilleto, and Dr. Thompson, 
 who were placed above him. He also won the Chan- 
 cellor's Medal for English verse in 1831. He was 
 elected to a Fellowship, and for a short time was tutor 
 of the College. In 1836 he followed Austin to the 
 
THE GOTHIC RENASCENCE 
 
 Parliamentary Bar, and his remarkable literary gifts 
 found expression only in anonymous journalism, notably 
 in the Times, for which, during a long series of years, he 
 wrote the ' Annual Summary of Events,' and in the 
 Saturday Review, which he helped to found. He will 
 be better remembered as one of a group of literary 
 giants of the Victorian era, and as the original from 
 whom Thackeray is said to have drawn his character of 
 George Warrington. Of him Mr. Leslie Stephen writes : 
 
 ' In the company of such men as Mr. Thackeray, Lord 
 Houghton, Mr. Spedding, Lord Tennyson, Mr. Brookfield, 
 and many others not less well known he would be the life 
 and soul of the party, full of fun, revelling in anecdotes, 
 breaking out into Homeric laughter over jokes, the sarcastic 
 wit of which Swift would have been proud of, though he 
 might have sneered at their freedom from envy, hatred, 
 malice, and all uncharitableness.' 
 
 Thomas Attwood Walmisley, who was Professor of 
 Music from 1836 to!856, migrated from Corpus to Jesus 
 in 1834, and took the B.A. degree in 1838. He had 
 taken the degree of Mus. Bac. before he came to the 
 College, and had been organist at Trinity and at 
 St. John's since 1833. His anthem, ' Ponder my words,"* 
 was written for the re-opening of Jesus College Chapel 
 in 1849. 
 
 James Orchard Halliwell, afterwards Halliwell- 
 Phillipps, the Shakespearian scholar, migrated to Jesus 
 from Trinity in 1838. He gained a scholarship and 
 was made librarian. He catalogued the manuscripts 
 in the Library, and edited, with singular carelessness, 
 Sherman's Historia. He projected the Cambridge 
 Antiquarian Society, and was its first secretary. 
 
 142 
 
212 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 Before his nineteenth birthday he was elected a 
 Fellow of the Royal Society. He left Cambridge 
 without a degree in 1840. 
 
 In 1821 the society took the first step towards 
 a reformation of its statutes. Up to this time the 
 College had been governed by the code of Bishop West 
 as amended by the Commissioners of 1549 and 1559. 
 One of West's statutes prescribed that there should not 
 be at the same time two Fellows of the same county, 
 and that the number of Fellows should be equally 
 divided between natives of the northern and the 
 southern parts of England. These restrictions had 
 not been strictly observed, and there are several 
 instances in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 
 of elections to Fellowships of persons who were not 
 natives of England. Royal mandates or the Visitor's 
 license had been frequently employed to overcome the 
 difficulties which arose. John North, in 1666, had been 
 put by mandate into a northern Fellowship, though he 
 was a southern man. ' It is strange," said the Visitor, 
 Bishop Wren, 'that Mr. North should be looked upon as 
 a northern man, who had nothing north about him but 
 his name. 1 King Charles I., by letters patent, in 1635, 
 relaxed the statute so far as restriction to county was 
 concerned, but retained the distinction between north 
 and south. With the consent of the Visitor and the 
 approval of the King in Council a new statute was made, 
 which extended the choice of Fellows to all British 
 subjects. 
 
 In 1837 the society proceeded further in the path of 
 reform by appointing a committee of its members to 
 examine the College statutes, with the view of applying 
 
THE GOTHIC RENASCENCE 213 
 
 to the proper authorities for the abolition of such 
 statutes as had fallen into desuetude, and for the 
 re-formation of such as were not exactly observed. 
 The result of this examination was a recension of the 
 statutes generally, which obtained the sanction of the 
 Visitor, Bishop Allen, and the Privy Council in 1841. 
 Many of the provisions of the old statutes which time 
 had rendered inoperative were allowed to remain, but 
 some important changes in the constitution of the 
 College were introduced. In the first place, six only 
 of the Fellows were henceforth required to be in 
 Orders. The Elizabethan statutes assigned twelve 
 Fellows to the study of Theology, and four to that 
 of Civil Law. Hitherto, by a convenient fiction, lay 
 Fellows had been regarded as students of Civil Law, 
 though since the seventeenth century few of them took 
 degrees in it. Secondly, a new statute gave recognition 
 to the principle of payment of 'dividends 1 to the 
 Master and Fellows. The Elizabethan statutes allowed 
 them only certain fixed payments, and until 1841 the 
 only sanction for the payment of dividends was the 
 College order passed in the days of Dr. Sterne. The 
 result of this and other changes introduced in the 
 new statutes was a great simplification of the Bursar's 
 accounts. 
 
 In other respects the statutes were adapted to altered 
 methods of College instruction for University degrees. 
 The old disputations, presided over by the Dean, gave 
 place in the new code to lectures on Theology, Meta- 
 physics, Philosophy, Logic, Mathematics, and Literae 
 Humaniores. It is to be doubted whether the College 
 really undertook teaching in all these subjects. It is 
 
214 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 equally to be doubted whether, under the conditions 
 presented by the Tripos examination system, it was 
 possible to exact a strict compliance with the new 
 ordinance requiring the Lector Publicus to examine 
 all questionists in order to determine their fitness ad 
 respondendum qucestiom. A new statute, De diviiii.? 
 officiis, supplied a somewhat remarkable omission. The 
 Elizabethan code provided for services in the chapel on 
 Sundays and saints' days only, and on those days only 
 were the Fellows required to attend. On ordinary 
 week-days 'the boys' the word is a survival from 
 Stanley's statutes were to assemble in the chapel once 
 daily, and there to repeat the Apostles 1 Creed, the 
 Ten Commandments, and the Lord's Prayer, in English 
 or Latin, and on Fridays to chant the Litany. The 
 new statute provided for daily services, morning and 
 evening, and for the celebration of the Eucharist at 
 least once in each term, as well as at the three principal 
 festivals. 
 
 Two benefactions received during Dr. French's Master- 
 ship should be mentioned here. The Rev. Edward 
 Otter, Fellow (nephew of the Bishop), gave the proceeds 
 of his Fellowship for the years 1839 and 1840, amount- 
 ing to d308, to found a prize ' for encouraging amongst 
 the undergraduates application to Scriptural study.' 
 In 1839 the College received a bequest of ^6,000 
 from Mrs. Sarah Jones for founding three by-Fellow- 
 ships in memory of the Rev. Thomas Dummer Ley, 
 formerly a member of the College. By the statutes 
 of 1861 the endowment of the Ley by-Fellowships 
 was applied to the maintenance of open scholarships. 
 
 The restoration of the chapel was the great achieve- 
 
THE GOTHIC RENASCENCE 215 
 
 ment of Dr. French's Mastership a work with which 
 the Master's name deserves to be associated, as he was 
 one of the first to interest himself in it. Almost his 
 last appearance in the chapel was on the occasion of 
 its re-opening, on All Saints' Day, 1849, and his 
 monument there is the triplet in the eastern wall, 
 built at his expense, and, after his death, filled by 
 his widow with stained glass to his memory. Jesus 
 was almost the first College to apply itself to that work 
 of restoration which became so universal in the following 
 generation, and which did so much to alter the face of 
 Cambridge, by no means always on principles that were 
 sound or with results that were satisfactory. In ' the 
 forties ' of last century restoration might well have been 
 a very disastrous affair. So far the highest efforts of 
 revived Gothicism at Cambridge had been Wilkins' 
 erections at King's, Corpus, and Trinity, and Rickman's 
 new buildings at St. John's ; and Sidney afforded a recent 
 (1832) and melancholy illustration of the imprudence 
 of translating an old building into a style supposed 
 to be medieval. It was the extreme good fortune of 
 Jesus that the scheme for restoring the chapel, first 
 mooted about 1832, bore no fruit until 1845, and that 
 the architect whom the society then called in to their 
 assistance was Pugin. 
 
 Some experimental work had been started in the 
 chapel in 1828 ; and, though now forgotten, it aroused 
 much interest at the time and gave the first suggestion 
 for the more extensive operations of 1845-49. In 
 the summer of the year mentioned, Mr. Green, the 
 Dean, opened out the westernmost of the five lancets 
 in the north wall of the chancel, which had hitherto 
 
216 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 been blocked, and discovered the blind half-arch which 
 adjoins it, and at the same time removed the wains- 
 coting of 1679. His letters to Dr. French are the first 
 indication of an awakened appreciation of the native 
 beauties of the chapel and a consciousness of the 
 degradation to which it had been subjected in recent 
 times. The contrast between the Early English part 
 and the eastern window the work of Essex, recently 
 embellished with stained glass by Mr. Hustler he 
 describes as ' appauling ' (sic). ' I trust," he writes, 
 ' we shall have great satisfaction when the work is 
 completed. These parts of the chapel will be restored 
 to their pristine beauty. We have not stirred a single 
 stone without authority." 
 
 Mr. Greenes restoration was carried no further at the 
 time ; but interest in the subject was kept awake by 
 two legacies, each of <100, from Mr. Hustler and 
 Mr. Studholme, Fellows, who died in 1832, their 
 bequests being 'in aid of a fund for the restoration 
 of the Chapel/ At the audit of December, 1844, 
 these sums, with accumulated interest, amounted to 
 ^260. Thereupon, 'in consideration of the many 
 years which must elapse before this fund could be 
 adequate to the object proposed, and of the very deep 
 interest taken in the subject by many members of the 
 College,' the Master and Fellows resolved to commence 
 the work at once. They voted a sum of d^oOO for 
 the purpose, and issued an appeal to members of the 
 College. This appeal was sent out by the Dean, 
 the Rev. John Gibson, to whose consummate taste and 
 judgment the successful accomplishment of the enter- 
 prise was in large measure due. With his name will 
 
THE GOTHIC RENASCENCE 217 
 
 always be associated that of the present Nestor of the 
 College, the Rev. Osmond Fisher, now an Honorary 
 Fellow, whose recollections, vividly recalling the men 
 and life of sixty years ago, extend to the days, which, 
 thanks to him and Gibson, now seem so immeasurably 
 remote, when the chapel was a place of bare walls, deal 
 pews, and musicless services. Gibson and Fisher were 
 then junior Fellows, filled with the enthusiasms inspired 
 by the Oxford Movement, who saw in the embellish- 
 ment of the chapel and its services the means of 
 awakening the College from its spiritual torpor. Their 
 views were not altogether in harmony with those of the 
 older Laodicean members of the society, or with the 
 pronounced Evangelicalism of Dr. Corrie, who succeeded 
 Dr. French as Master. But they made a profound 
 impression on many of the undergraduates, and, for 
 the time, gave the College a distinct Anglican impress 
 moderate indeed, but conspicuously contrasted with the 
 indifferentism which then characterized Cambridge in 
 religious matters. The introduction of an organ, a 
 trained choir of boys, and Gregorian chanting, was then 
 a singularity in college chapels, unknown except at 
 King's and Trinity, and, on Sundays and saints 1 days, 
 at St. John's.* Sermons, equally a novelty, were intro- 
 duced as a regular usage in Dr. Corrie's Mastership, 
 when Mr. Fisher was Dean. 
 
 In association with the two Fellows above named, a 
 principal part in the restoration was taken by a Fellow- 
 Commoner of the College, Mr. (afterwards Sir John) 
 Sutton (adm. 1840). He did not read for a degree, 
 
 * Intoned services were first introduced by Mr. Fisher in the Hall 
 while the chapel was under restoration. 
 
218 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 but, being an accomplished musician, acted as organist 
 for some years, and published a book of anthems for use 
 in the chapel. He started the choir school, and taught 
 the boys himself, in general subjects as well as in music, 
 remaining in residence during vacations for that pur- 
 pose. He was much under the influence of Pugin like 
 whom he became, at a later time, a Roman Catholic 
 and it was on his advice that Pugin's services were 
 engaged by the College. Sutton himself paid for the 
 screen, the organ, and the lectern, as well as for Pugin^s 
 designs for the roof and floor. Restoration actually 
 began in 1846, when the lath-and-plaster partition wall 
 filling the eastern tower arch was taken down. An 
 organ chamber on the north side of the choir was 
 built on the foundations, discovered under the soil, of 
 a chapel of nunnery date. Two thirteenth-century 
 arches, which were found complete in the masonry of 
 the wall next the choir, were opened out. Two other 
 arches, communicating with the north transept, were 
 likewise opened, but it was found necessary to fill them 
 with heavy tracery in order to give stability to the 
 tower. In the southern wall of the choir two arches 
 were discovered opposite and corresponding to those on 
 the northern side, and it was at first proposed to open 
 them, and to re-erect on this side the chapel which 
 existed there in nunnery days. Want of funds pre- 
 vented this plan from being carried out, as it may be 
 hoped that it hereafter may be. Its execution would 
 greatly add to the dignity of the chapel. 
 
 The architect employed so far had been Mr. Salvin, 
 but, as the College was not satisfied with his plans, he 
 was asked to withdraw, and after an interval, during 
 
From a photograph by\ \J. Palmer Clarke, Cambridge 
 
 THE CHAPEL, LOOKING WEST 
 
THE GOTHIC RENASCENCE 219 
 
 which Gibson and his colleagues took the work into 
 their own hands, Pugin was brought in to complete the 
 restoration. In the north transept the Norman triplet 
 in the north wall was discovered and the wall repaired. 
 The floor concealing the triform m in the tower was 
 removed. The tower piers were strengthened, and the 
 mouldings were cleared and repaired. In the choir the 
 great eastern window and the upper part of the wall 
 containing it were entirely removed. It must be 
 borne in mind that this window and wall had been 
 so frequently tampered with that Alcock's design had 
 been already destroyed. A series of three lancets with 
 blank intervening panels was placed in the wall, their 
 form and arrangement being suggested by remains 
 discovered in the masonry. Above them was added 
 a cinquefoil window, designed by Pugin. The side 
 walls were lowered to their original height, and a new 
 roof, following the pitch of the first pointed roof, as 
 indicated by the water-line on the tower, was raised on 
 them. The timber of Alcock^s low-pitched roof was 
 employed in forming the visible parts of the new one. 
 The stalls were designed chiefly by Gibson and Fisher 
 with the help of Rattee. They took their suggestions 
 from the stalls at St. John's (see p. 37), from panelling 
 at Histon, from the remains at Landbeach, and from 
 two book-board ends which were preserved in the lodge. 
 The screen and altar-table were designed by Pugin. 
 He also furnished the design for the glass of the 
 windows in the eastern wall, the details being copied 
 from Chartres, and for the floor, in which he intro- 
 duced the marble of the pavement laid down in 1675, 
 intermixed with encaustic tiles. 
 
220 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 On All Saints' Day, 1849, the chapel was re-opened 
 with a full choral service, 'said and sung, 1 as a con- 
 temporary account says, ' in the manner of our cathedral 
 churches, as was the case originally in all college chapels 
 in the University. 1 The outlay up to December, 1848, 
 was ^3,189, of which sum ^1,119 had been obtained 
 by subscriptions, and the rest was contributed by the 
 College. A great deal has since been done to repair 
 and embellish the chapel, and, though these works 
 belong to the Mastership of Dr. Corrie, it is convenient 
 here to follow without interruption the successive steps 
 which have brought the chapel to the condition in 
 which we see it at present. Between 1852 and 1858 
 the lancet windows in the north and south walls of the 
 choir and the two three-light windows opposite the 
 organ chamber were filled with stained glass designed 
 by Pugin. In 1862 threatening cracks appeared in the 
 arches and piers of the tower, in consequence of which 
 the College decided, on the advice of its architect, 
 Mr. Bodley, to take down the upper stage of the tower, 
 and in its place to erect a light wooden belfry. For- 
 tunately, Mr. Fisher was able to induce the Master and 
 Fellows to rescind this order, and expedients were con- 
 trived for removing the danger without taking down 
 any part of the tower. The roofs of the nave and the 
 south transept were next repaired, and the interior 
 ceilings decorated. The floor of the nave and transepts 
 was excavated to the level of the bases of the piers, and 
 a new pavement was laid down. In 1873 it was resolved 
 to glaze all the windows in the nave and transepts, and 
 it was wisely decided, before beginning, to set out a 
 scheme of the whole series. Designs were obtained 
 
THE GOTHIC RENASCENCE 221 
 
 from Mr. (afterwards Sir Edward) Burne Jones, and 
 the glass was executed by Messrs. Morris, Faulkner 
 and Co. The rich and harmonious colouring of these 
 windows adds greatly to the beauty and solemnity of 
 the interior. In 1884 the cement covering was removed 
 from the walls of the nave and north transept, next the 
 cloister, and the whole was refaced with ashlar. During 
 the work an arcade of round-headed arches was dis- 
 covered in the external face of the north transept wall. 
 The next addition to the furnishing of the chapel was 
 less satisfactory. The numbers of the College had so 
 greatly increased since 1850 that it was found necessary 
 to hold the Sunday services in the nave and transepts, 
 the choir being placed under the tower. The existing 
 organ not being sufficiently powerful to direct the choir 
 at such a distance, the Master and Fellows purchased a 
 new one. This was a fine instrument built by Messrs. 
 Norman and Beard, of Norwich ; but, unfortunately, it 
 had not been designed for the chapel, and in size and 
 appearance was quite unsuited to it. The only position 
 in which, on account of its bulk, it could possibly be 
 placed was at the western end of the nave, where it is 
 useless for services held in the choir. ' Placed on high ' 
 there it blocks two of the new windows by Burne Jones, 
 and ruins the proportions of the nave. Subsequently 
 the whole cost of its purchase and erection was 
 defrayed by the liberality of a member of the College, 
 Mr. L. M. Rate. In 1898 a large picture of the 
 Venetian school, representing 'The Last Supper,' was 
 given to the chapel by another member of the College, 
 Mr. R. W. Wheeler ; it is hung on the south wall of 
 the choir. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 WITHIN LIVING MEMORY 
 
 IN October, 1849, the present Master came up, a fresh- 
 man from Shrewsbury School, accomplishing the last 
 stage of his journey from Wales by the Bedford coach, 
 which in those days was the link of communication 
 between Cambridge and the North- Western Railway. 
 Dr. French was still Master of the College, and in the 
 month in which the freshman matriculated was present 
 at the opening of the chapel after its restoration. 
 From that time to the present the Master has been a 
 continuous resident in the College. Few Jesus men 
 have known it so long ; none have been identified for 
 so many years with every phase of its energies ; and 
 among the men of his generation there is none whose 
 memory is better stored with recollections of the 
 'humours 1 of old College days, or who has an equal 
 art in reproducing the characters and scenes of fifty 
 years of Cambridge life. The story of that half-century 
 is in every sense matter of living memory when the 
 Master tells it. 
 
 Dr. French died a few days after he had attended 
 the service at the re-opening of the chapel in November, 
 1849. George John Elwes Corrie (he dropped the 
 
WITHIN LIVING MEMORY 223 
 
 second name), who succeeded him in the same month, 
 was, at the time of his appointment, Examining Chap- 
 lain to Dr. Turton, the Bishop of Ely. In years he 
 was almost Dr. French's contemporary, and in 1849 he 
 had already been for a whole generation a prominent 
 figure at Cambridge. He was born in 1793, graduated 
 in 1817, and at the time of his appointment at Jesus 
 had been for thirty-two years tutor of St. Catharine's. 
 Since 1838 he had combined that office with the 
 Norrisian Professorship of Divinity. In more than 
 years he recalled times far bygone. His white hairs, 
 old-fashioned courtesy, and grave deliberation of speech 
 suggested that he was an older man than he actually 
 was ; and his memories and habits of thought linked 
 him with the times of George III. In his last days he 
 would recall how as a child he had sat on his grand- 
 father's knee and listened to his tales of the Culloden 
 campaign, in which he shared as a Colonel on the 
 Hanoverian side. Politically he was firmly rooted in 
 the principles of Castlereagh and Eldon. His religious 
 views were those of an Evangelical High Churchman, 
 equally opposed to Dissent and Popery. On the latter 
 and on the Ritualist party, which he regarded as its 
 congener, he waged throughout life a truceless war- 
 fare. The story goes but no doubt it is an invention 
 that a deputation of undergraduates waited on him 
 to inform him that they had raised a sum of money to 
 purchase adornments for the chapel, which in the 
 Master's eyes were inconsistent with the simplicity 
 of Protestant worship. The Master listened to the 
 statement of their desires, and replied with parental 
 pity : ' My young friends, sin and the devil have put 
 
224 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 these foolish thoughts in your innocent young hearts. 
 Good-morning. 1 His caustic humour, his reputation 
 for learning, and the patriarchal age to which he 
 attained, made him the object of a distant and some- 
 what awful veneration on the part of the ordinary 
 undergraduate. The few who were favoured with an 
 invitation to the lodge found, with some surprise, that 
 he was a good judge of horseflesh, and in his time had 
 been an excellent shot. Beyond the walls of his College 
 he was known as an eminently successful Professor, 
 esteemed as a beacon-light by the Evangelical clergy, 
 and reverenced for the sanctity of his life and his 
 unaltering devotion to principle. ' Votis, studiis, mori- 
 bus, Christo devotissimus,** the words in which he is 
 described on a memorial tablet in the chapel, not 
 inaptly sum up the qualities for which his memory is 
 honoured. 
 
 In learning, devoutness, and attachment to the ideals 
 of a bygone generation, as well as by the length of 
 his rule, Dr. Corrie challenged comparison with his 
 eighteenth - century predecessor, Dr. Ashton. But 
 he was no recluse, and to his virtues he added a 
 practical shrewdness which Dr. Ashton did not possess. 
 Nevertheless, the early years of his Mastership witnessed 
 a decline in the numbers at Jesus which could only be 
 paralleled by the collapsed condition of the College in 
 the latter days of Ashton. Between 1830 and 1849 
 the number of admissions had remained pretty con- 
 stant, the yearly average being seventeen. Under Dr. 
 Corrie the College at first maintained and slightly 
 improved its numbers. But after 1853 there was a 
 disastrous drop. In 1858 there were only seven fresh- 
 
WITHIN LIVING MEMORY 225 
 
 men, in 1859 six, in 1860 nine. The fault lay notori- 
 ously in the bad example of certain individuals whom 
 Dr. Come was constrained to eliminate. 
 
 Dr. (then Mr.) Corrie served the office of Vice- 
 Chancellor in 1850-51. The time was a critical one. 
 Neither in numerical growth nor in their educational 
 methods had the old Universities kept pace with the 
 general advance of the country since Waterloo. Their 
 failure was generally attributed to the obsolete char- 
 acter of the statutes of Elizabeth, which still governed 
 the Universities and the majority of the colleges. A 
 memorial addressed by a large number of graduates of 
 both Universities to the Premier of the time, Lord 
 John Russell, resulted in the issuing of a Royal 
 Commission to inquire into the discipline, studies, 
 and revenues of the Universities and their colleges. To 
 the investigations of the Commissioners Dr. Corrie, both 
 as Vice-Chancellor and as Master of Jesus, offered a 
 stubborn resistance. He absolutely declined to answer 
 any of the questions which they addressed to him, 
 informing them roundly that he regarded their Com- 
 mission as unconstitutional, and of a kind that was 
 never issued except in the worst times. The Fellows 
 supported, or at least acquiesced in, the opposition of 
 the Master, and Jesus, with four other Cambridge 
 colleges, held altogether aloof from the proceedings of 
 the Commissioners. In 1856 Parliamentary Commis- 
 sioners were appointed with power, under certain restric- 
 tions, to frame new statutes for the University and 
 colleges, and in 1860 they submitted to the College a 
 body of new statutes, in thirty-five chapters, designed 
 to supersede the code of 1841. But nine of these 
 
 15 
 
226 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 chapters were objected to by the College as being 
 ' prejudicial to it as a place of learning and education,' 
 and consequently never took effect ; on several important 
 subjects the Commissioners did not effectually legislate 
 at all. The old grotesquenesses of the Elizabethan 
 statutes which had survived the reforms of Bishop 
 Allen were left intact, and the few alterations that 
 were incorporated, significantly enough, were directed 
 to riveting the hold of orthodox Anglicanism on the 
 revenues of the College and the consciences of its bene- 
 ficiaries. A new statute provided for the amotion of 
 the Master if he openly seceded from the English 
 Church, and, for the first time, the Fellows on admission 
 were required to affirm their adhesion to its beliefs.* 
 The only addition to the subjects of examination pre- 
 scribed to the scholars of the College was 'the Elements 
 of Natural and Revealed Religion.' The extraordinary 
 blindness of the society to the new requirements of the 
 times is answerable for the fact that until the date of 
 the new statutes of 1882 Jesus was rarely able to assert 
 its proper place in the Honour lists of the University. 
 The only changes which were of material benefit to the 
 College were introduced in certain supplemental statutes 
 (in English), and were concerned with the emoluments 
 of the scholars. The Fellowships on the Ley founda- 
 tion and a number of minor scholarship endowments 
 were merged henceforth in an Open Scholarship Fund, 
 
 * In 1856 a College order directed the removal from the College 
 boards of the name of a certain M. A. compounder on the ground ' of 
 his having joined the Romish Mission in this Country.' The College 
 did not venture to impose a sentence of such doubtful legality on 
 Trend and the Unitarians ; for an ' outing ' of a graduate on such a 
 pretext the historian has to look back 200 years. 
 
WITHIN LIVING MEMORY 227 
 
 to which it was further directed that a twentieth part 
 of the net divisible revenues of the College should be 
 applied. This twentieth part took the place of the 
 allowances for rooms and commons which, until 1860, 
 had been the sole emoluments of the scholars. The 
 whole annual sum assigned to open scholarships, includ- 
 ing the proceeds of the merged foundations, amounted 
 only to 550, which was scarcely more than the value 
 of two Fellowships. In the middle of the nineteenth 
 century the spirit of Alcock still ' walked abroad ' ; his 
 omission to provide for scholars on his foundation was 
 not seriously repaired until 1882. 
 
 It was in the decade of the ' seventies ' that the 
 College sprang into the athletic prominence which has 
 been its greatest glory in modern times. It was, not 
 unnaturally, accompanied by a great rise in the number 
 of the undergraduates. But it was not the fact that 
 athletic success, whatever stimulus it afterwards gave, 
 was the first cause of that rise. The elevation of Jesus 
 into the first rank of ' small ' colleges dates from the 
 year 1861, when Dr. (then Mr.) Cleave became the 
 tutor. The entries, which in the previous year had 
 been nine, mounted with a bound to thirty, and main- 
 tained themselves at about that annual figure until 
 1869. Mr. H. A. Morgan, the present Master, 
 succeeded Dr. Cleave in 1864. What the College owes 
 to his vigorous influence no Jesus man needs to be told. 
 But it required many years of strenuous effort on his 
 part to lift it to the unique position which it occupied 
 in the last fifteen years of his tutorship. He found a 
 forcible and untiring collaborator in his namesake, the 
 Dean, Mr. E. H. Morgan. Magnificent in physique, 
 
 152 
 
228 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 trumpet-tongued in accent, terrible in rebuke, there lived 
 no kinder-hearted ' don ' in Cambridge than the great 
 Dean of Jesus. In addition to his professional duties 
 and the gratuitous pains which he devoted to the service 
 of the University Boat, Cricket, and Athletic Clubs, 
 his masterful spirit found an outlet for its energies in 
 the important building operations which were carried 
 out at Jesus between 1869 and 1886, chiefly under 
 his direction. In those high and palmy days ' the 
 Master, 1 'the Tutor, 1 and 'the Dean 1 formed a great 
 triumvirate, unparalleled in the eyes of Jesus under- 
 graduates in the history of their own or any other 
 College. 
 
 In the year 1870 the admissions rose from thirty-two 
 to fifty-three. During the last few years the College 
 boat had been patiently climbing from place to place, 
 but as yet had attained no very conspicuous success. 
 The sudden increase in the number of undergraduates 
 was attributable to other causes. It had been antici- 
 pated by the erection, in 1869-70, of the Waterhouse 
 building, which provided twenty-three additional sets 
 of chambers. At the same time, the pleasure-garden in 
 the Third Court, which had previously been ' the Cook's 
 garden, 1 was laid out on the plan shown in Loggan's 
 design of the College. As the number of residents 
 continued to rise rapidly, it became necessary to make 
 new arrangements in the Hall and kitchen. Hitherto 
 the Hall had been approached by two flights of steps, 
 ascending the one from the Cloisters, the other from 
 Pump Court, and meeting on a landing outside the screen. 
 By substituting a staircase external to the Hall range, 
 on its northern side, the space occupied by the landing 
 
WITHIN LIVING MEMORY 229 
 
 was now included in the Hall, the screen being moved 
 the space of one bay westward. The room, formerly a 
 lecture room, westward of the landing, was converted 
 into a serving -room, and a new lecture-room, with a 
 servants' hall beneath it, was built on the northern 
 side of the new staircase. In the Hall warming 
 appliances were introduced, and a new floor of oak 
 was at the same time laid down on the old floor of 
 Ketton slabs. The apparent height of the Hall was 
 thereby reduced by twelve inches a regrettable ex- 
 pedient, which will be condoned by those who remember 
 the severe climatic conditions of the old arrangements. 
 Diners in the Hall from this happy period dated the 
 discovery that gravy was not a convertible expression 
 for cold fat. 
 
 In 1875 the College boat attained the proud position 
 of Head of the River. It kept it for the unexampled 
 space of eleven years. <Non anni domuere decem, 
 non mille carinae ' was the not unapt quotation of 
 Chanticlere, the College magazine, when the decade 
 of its premiership was completed, and the occasion 
 was celebrated by a ball in the Guildhall. And 
 in other branches of athletics the prowess of Jesus 
 was firmly established. But the chronicle of its 
 athletic triumphs is written in another part of this 
 History. The inflow of freshmen became phenomenal ; 
 in 1878 they numbered eighty-seven, in the next year 
 seventy-four. These numbers were never again equalled. 
 Already it was clear that the addition to the buildings 
 made in 1870 was wholly insufficient to meet the ex- 
 panded needs of the College. Two-thirds of the under- 
 graduates ' kept ' in lodgings. The nave and transepts, 
 
230 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 to which the Sunday services were transferred from the 
 chancel, were barely sufficient to seat the assembled 
 College. 
 
 In 1877 the Master's peace of mind was disturbed 
 by the intrusion of a fresh University Commission. 
 The Fellows of that time were of a temper wholly 
 different from that of their predecessors in 1860. The 
 great changes which had overtaken the University and 
 College in the seventeen years which had intervened 
 made the necessity of a radical revision of the statutes 
 patent even to the most conservative. The variety of 
 subjects introduced in the new triposes, and the great 
 increase in the number of its students, made it an impos- 
 sibility for the College to provide an adequate teaching 
 staff from among its own Fellows. In a pamphlet, 
 published in 1871, On the tenure of Fellowships, con- 
 sidered especially zvith reference to College Tutors and 
 Lecturers, Mr. H. A. Morgan, by suggestion, anticipated 
 some of the reforms which the Commissioners brought 
 about. Dr. Corrie resigned himself to the inevitable, 
 but he prefaced his reply to the inquiries of the Com- 
 missioners with the characteristic remark : ' In the first 
 place, I trust the Commissioners will excuse me for 
 stating it to be my opinion that the present chief want 
 of the University is exemption from the disturbing 
 powers of Royal or Parliamentary Commissions. 1 
 
 The changes introduced by the statutes of 1882, 
 which were the outcome of the Commissioners'* labours, 
 constituted a veritable revolution in the history of 
 Jesus College. Some of these changes such as the 
 limitation of the emoluments of Fellowships, the 
 abolition of celibacy as a condition of their tenure, 
 
WITHIN LIVING MEMORY 231 
 
 the limitation of the period during which unofficial 
 Fellowships were tenable, and the obligation imposed 
 on the College of contributing to the common funds 
 of the University were features introduced into the 
 statutes of all colleges alike. A few of those which 
 concerned Jesus individually may be mentioned. To 
 the Master and Fellows was given the right to elect 
 to the Mastership and to all Fellowships, unfettered by 
 any reference to the Bishop of Ely. Religious tests 
 were no longer required of a Fellow on his admission, 
 and clerical restrictions were abolished. The pro- 
 portion of the College revenue allotted to the Open 
 Scholarship Fund was augmented from a twentieth to 
 a tenth part. In the present year (1902) the College 
 has obtained powers still further to increase the amount 
 so appropriated. 
 
 In 1882 William Welsh, scholar of the College, 
 attained the position of Senior Wrangler. That 
 honour had not fallen to Jesus since 1755. No Jesus 
 man headed the Classical Tripos in the fifty-nine years 
 when it was arranged in order of merit, though James 
 Robertson, afterwards Headmaster of Haileybury, was 
 second in 1859. The first Chancellor's Medal for Classics 
 fell to a Rustat scholar, T. G. Johnson, in 1899. 
 
 The College boat-house was built in 1883 at a cost of 
 !L ,200, mostly obtained from subscriptions of past and 
 present members of the College. Mr. W. M. Fawcett, 
 M.A. of the College, furnished the plans. The clock- 
 turret was the gift of Mr. H. A. Morgan in 1885. In 
 1901 the Master and Fellows purchased the freehold of 
 the site for the benefit of the club. 
 
 In 1885 the College completed the largest addition 
 
232 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 to its buildings which it had yet made. The wing 
 erected on the eastern side of the new f Chapel Court ' 
 contains thirty-five sets of chambers and a large lecture- 
 room. It was designed by Messrs. Carpenter and 
 Ingelow. At the same time the sash windows on the 
 eastward side of the opposite range of old buildings 
 were altered to the pattern of the westward windows in 
 the same range. The sash windows facing the Fellows' 
 garden in the southern range of the entrance court had 
 been displaced some years previously ; those in the 
 outward side of the Master's lodge remained until 1886. 
 At the same time as the Chapel Court range two tutors' 
 houses were built, the one near the south-east corner of 
 the Chapel Court, the other at the western end of the 
 Waterhouse building. These last furnished material 
 evidence of the wholly new social conditions introduced 
 by the statutes of 1882. 
 
 Dr. Corrie did not long survive to witness the effects 
 of the changes which he had so vehemently deprecated, 
 but which he finally accepted with a benignant tolerance. 
 Faithful in service to his College, he performed the 
 duties of Bursar with tact and efficiency until past his 
 eightieth birthday, and to a yet more advanced age, as 
 long as failing eyesight allowed, he continued to give 
 theological lectures and to preach once in each term in 
 the chapel. He died in the lodge on September 20, 
 1885, at the great age of ninety-two, and was buried in 
 the churchyard of Newton, in the Isle of Ely, of which 
 parish he had been Rector since 1850. A Theological 
 Prize, founded by his friends in 1886, perpetuates his 
 memory in the College. 
 
 For the first time, perhaps, in the history of the 
 
WITHIN LIVING MEMORY 233 
 
 College the Fellows met to choose their Master. Their 
 selection of Mr. Henry Arthur Morgan had been antici- 
 pated by every friend of the College ; it was as obvious 
 then as it has since proved happy. 
 
 Recent years have furnished few events of interest to 
 the annals of the College. The most important of them 
 has been the foundation, in 1890, of two or more scholar- 
 ships, each of the annual value of 4<0 to 60, tenable 
 by Bachelors of Arts who are candidates for Holy 
 Orders. They were established by Sir Edward Kay, 
 Lord Justice of Appeal, in memory of his wife, Lady 
 Kay, daughter of Dr. French. Next must be mentioned 
 the discovery of the early thirteenth-century arches 
 forming the entrance to the nuns' chapter-house. The 
 manner of their discovery was this : Mr. Osmond 
 Fisher, a recently - elected Honorary Fellow of the 
 College, recollected a certain vacation, about the year 
 1840, when he, an undergraduate, happened to be in 
 residence, the only other occupant of the College being 
 the senior Fellow, Mr. Dickes. Repairs were going on, 
 in the course of which a portion of the cement covering 
 the eastern wall of the cloister was removed, whereby 
 traces of a Gothic arcade were disclosed. Filled with 
 enthusiasm, the undergraduate repaired to the Fellow 
 to request that the arches might not be covered up 
 again, at least until the College reassembled. But Mr. 
 Dickes was an old man he graduated in 1793 and 
 had no sympathy with new-fangled ecclesiological fads.* 
 Cement was neat and cheaper than restoration ; so the 
 
 * Tradition says that on one occasion Mr. Dickes advocated the 
 demolition of the chapel tower on the ground that it made his chimney 
 smoke. 
 
234 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 arches were buried again, and no more said. But 
 Mr. Fisher did not forget, and, on his suggestion, 
 search was made for them in the Easter vacation of 
 1893. After they had been brought to light, Mr. 
 Micklethwaite, the architect consulted by the College, 
 secured their stability without attempting ' restoration.' 
 After 1890 Jesus lost its athletic predominance, and 
 since then has suffered a decline of numbers. But the 
 years which closed the nineteenth and began the 
 twentieth century have witnessed a marked develop- 
 ment of vitality in directions new and old. The boat, 
 which at one time sank to a comparatively low place on 
 the river, through a series of years has been approach- 
 ing its old honourable place, and is now higher than it 
 has been for fifteen years past. On the football and 
 cricket ground and on the running path the reputation 
 of the College has been sustained and enhanced. Its 
 long list of ' Blues ' grows longer each year by many 
 additions. And not the least element in the satisfac- 
 tion of Jesus men, past and present, is the worthy per- 
 formance of recent alumni of the College in the Tripos 
 lists and other examinations of the University. In the 
 Civil Services, whether at home or in India and China, 
 many young Jesus men are carrying out the Imperial 
 mission of England. Many others have earned distinc- 
 tion, and some have laid down their lives on the battle- 
 ground of South Africa. Having such evidence on all 
 sides of the metal of its present generation, the College 
 of Bishop Alcock begins the fifth century of its existence 
 with the confident anticipation that 'the greatest is 
 behind/ 
 
From a photograph by] [Steam Brothers, Cambridge 
 
 ENTRANCE OF THE NUNNERY CHAPTERHOUSE 
 

 UNIVERSITY 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 ATHLETICS 
 
 v Tnicras ava.y/)0'affd' dperds. 
 tipfoeTai Trdvr' iv /Spax^crrots. 
 
 PINDAR. 
 
 THE first pages in a History of the College to which most 
 Jesus men will naturally turn will be those which deal 
 with athletic matters. The subject deserves a volume to 
 itself. To attempt even a summary of it in the narrow 
 limits of an appendix is a task like that of putting Homer 
 in a nutshell. A mere list of Jesus ' Blues ' would extend 
 to several pages. Those whose names are printed in The 
 Book of Blues (1900) number 178 ; many of them are 
 'double Blues/ and several have to be added for the 
 last two years. 
 
 ROWING. 
 
 The Records of the J.C.B.C. from 1827 to 1885 have 
 been printed in two volumes, edited by H. Armytage, 
 captain in 1884-85. They supply most of the facts in this 
 short account. 
 
 The history of the Club is as ancient as it is honourable. 
 The earliest extant Minute book dates from 1839. But it 
 is on record that in 1827, when Cambridge boat-racing 
 
236 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 began, the Jesus six-oar started fourth on the river, the 
 boats above it being two Trinity boats, a ten-oar and an 
 eight-oar, and a John's eight-oar. Races that year lasted 
 thirty-two days, and there was a great deal of bumping 
 and re-bumping, and boats were taken off and put on again 
 at discretion. The crews were changed almost every night. 
 In 1841 Jesus bumped Caius on the first night of the races 
 and rowed Head ; but Caius sent to London for two old 
 oars and re-bumped on the fifth night. There was very 
 little system about the racing until 1857. In 1846 there 
 were only eight men in the College who could row, so the 
 Cannibal (i.e., the second) boat was taken off, and in 1847 
 the first boat disappeared also. In 186l Mr. Morgan is 
 reported to have urged that ' the crew of the second boat 
 ought to go into partial training/ 
 
 In 1868, starting seventeenth, the Jesus boat made four 
 bumps, and in the following years rose to tenth, eighth, 
 and seventh. Next year (1872) was an .Annus Mirabilis. 
 Jesus failed to bump the first night, but went up a place 
 on each of the remaining nights, ending second on the 
 river. Lady Margaret, stroked by J. H. D. Goldie, this 
 year gained the Headship of the River by bumping First 
 Trinity on the fifth night. The issue between Jesus and 
 Lady Margaret, undecided at Cambridge, was fought out 
 at Henley, where both crews were entered for the Ladies' 
 Plate. Lady Margaret was defeated in its heat by Pem- 
 broke, Oxford, which in turn was beaten by Jesus in the 
 final heat by no less than five lengths. Of the Jesus crew 
 Mr. W. B. Woodgate, in the Pall Mall Gazette, wrote: 
 ' They are by far the best crew that has been seen at 
 Henley, and had they learnt to slide' Cambridge in 
 1872 had not adopted the novel invention of the sliding 
 seat ' they would have taken the Grand Challenge Cup 
 to Cambridge.' 
 
APPENDIX 237 
 
 The 1872 crew contained only one 'Blue/ the cox. 
 But in 1873 three Jesus men (one of them being Edwyn 
 Hoskyns, now Bishop of Burnley) rowed in the winning 
 Cambridge crew. From this year until 1884, inclusive, no 
 Cambridge boat contained less than two Jesus men. In 
 1876 (a victorious year) there were five; in 1877, 1878, 
 1879, and again in 1882 there were four. 
 
 In 1873 Jesus for the first time won the University 
 fours. On the first night of 1875 Jesus bumped 'First/ 
 which had been hard-pressed by it in the preceding year, 
 and rowed Head of the River. As all the world knows, it 
 held the position for eleven years in succession. During 
 the whole period its place was seldom seriously threatened, 
 but May 18, 1876, was an anxious night. In the first race 
 Jesus held its own with comparative ease ; but on the 
 second night the stroke, P. W. Brancker, was prevented 
 from rowing by sadden illness. ' In this dilemma resort was 
 had to that gallant oarsman, Mr. Rhodes, who gave up a 
 cricket match, in which he was playing on the close, in 
 order to take Mr. Brancker's place.' At one time ' First ' 
 was within two yards of bumping, but ' Mr. Rhodes kept 
 up a burst of most brilliant spurts, thanks to which we 
 gained the post intact/ Mr. Brancker was able to resume 
 his place for the remaining nights, and ' First ' was never 
 again dangerous. 
 
 In 1879 the J.C.B.C. attained the summit of its ambition 
 by winning at Henley both the Grand Challenge Cup for 
 eights, and the Stewards' Cup for fours, each of them by 
 a length and a half. With the exception of the cox, the 
 Jesus eight was composed entirely of ' Blues.' Once 
 again, in 1885, Jesus won the Grand Challenge Cup this 
 time with the same crew which had rowed in the previous 
 May races. 
 
 In 1886 bad fortune attended the boat. The brothers 
 
238 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 F. and S. Fairbairn were taken- ill, and had to retire from 
 the crew, the one on the eve of the races, the other while 
 they were in progress. Under these disheartening circum- 
 stances the boat held its own with difficulty in the first 
 race, but on the second night fell to Trinity Hall, and 
 ended fourth on the river. The following ten years 
 witnessed a gradual decline, varied by intermittent suc- 
 cesses. The lowest point was reached in 1897, when the 
 boat ended eleventh on the river. In recent years it has 
 gone far to recover its lost ground. A very successful 
 year was 190J, when the boat ascended three places, and 
 when, for the first time in the history of the Club, 
 the Colquhoun Sculls were carried off by a Jesus man, 
 T. Drysdale. In the present year (1902) the boat has 
 climbed to fourth place, and in the Lent races to third ; 
 also the J.C.B.C. has again taken up the wondrous tale of 
 its Henley triumphs. 
 
 The following is believed to be a full list of Jesus rowing 
 Blues: 1829, W. T. Thompson; 1836 and 1839, E. S. 
 Stanley; 1840 and 1841, J. M. Ridley; 1842, W. Watson 
 and J. M. Ridley (J. M. Ridley also rowed in the C.U.B.C. 
 crew at Henley in 1843); 1844, H. Venables ; 1869 and 
 1870, J. H. Ridley; 1872, C. H. Roberts (cox); 1873, 
 E. Hoskyns, W. C. Lecky-Brown, and H. E. Rhodes; 
 1874, G. F. Armytage, W. C. Lecky-Brown, and H. E. 
 Rhodes; 1875, C. A. Phillips and H. E. Rhodes; 1876, 
 P. W. Brancker, C. Gurdon, T. E. Hockin, H. E. Rhodes, 
 and C. D. Shafto ; 1877, B. G. Hoskyns, C. Gurdon, 
 T. E. Hockin, and C. D. Shafto; 1878, L. R. Jones, 
 C. Gurdon, T. E. Hockin, and E. H. Prest ; 1879, E, H. 
 Prest, C. Gurdon, T. E. Hockin, and C. Fairbairn; 1880, 
 E. H. Prest, C. N. Armytage, and W. W. Baillie; 1881, 
 P. W. Atkin and A. M. Hutchinson ; 1882, L. R. Jones, 
 A. M. Hutchinson, P. W. Atkin, and S. Fairbairn; 1883, 
 
APPENDIX 239 
 
 P. W. Atkin and S. Fairbairn; 1884, F. Straker and 
 C. E. Tyndale-Biscoe (cox); 1886 and 1887, S. Fairbairn; 
 1892, R. G. Neill; 1898, A. W. Swanston ; 1902, T. 
 Drysdale. 
 
 The most notable victories of the J.C.B.C. have been as 
 follows. The University Fours in 1873, 1874 (a dead heat 
 with First Trinity), 1875, 1876, 1877, 1880, and 1881. 
 The Magdalene Pairs in 1872, 1874, 1876, and 1880 ; they 
 were also won in 1879 by T. E. Hockin with Watson- 
 Taylor of Magdalene. The Colquhoun Sculls in 1901. At 
 Henley Jesus crews won the Grand Challenge in 1879 and 
 1885 ; the Stewards' in 1879; the Ladies' in 1872, 1873, 
 1876, 1877, and 1878; the Visitors' in 1877 and 1902; 
 and the Wyfold in 1882 and 1892. 
 
 CRICKET. 
 
 The glories of the Cricket Club have rivalled, and at 
 times surpassed, those of the Boat Club. Of the early 
 doings of the J.C.C.C. there is, unfortunately, no record ; 
 but the list of ' Blues ' given below shows that the College 
 had generally a fair share of representatives in the Oxford 
 match. The palmiest days of Jesus cricket began with 
 the advent of G. MacGregor and S. M. J. Woods in 
 1888. The season of 1890 was phenomenal ; of fourteen 
 matches played thirteen were won, and the remaining one 
 was drawn ; Trinity was defeated by eight wickets. In 
 county cricket Jesus names are almost as plentiful as 
 blackberries. It is sufficient to record that at the time 
 of writing no less than four first-class counties are cap- 
 tained by Jesus men, viz. Middlesex by G. MacGregor, 
 Somerset by S. M. J. Woods, Notts by A. O. Jones, and 
 Hampshire by A. J. L. Hill. The first three have repre- 
 sented England against Australia. 
 
240 JESUS COLLEGE 
 
 Jesus has contributed the following names to the 
 University eleven: 1836, F. N. Micklethwaite ; 1839, 
 1840, 1841, and 1842, T. A. Anson ; 1852, H. S. White ; 
 1866, 1868, and 1869, W. B. Weighell ; 1870 and 1871, 
 E. E. Harrison Ward ; 1873 and 1874, H. M. Sims; 1875, 
 H. M. Sims and C. M. Sharpe ; 1876 and 1877, H. T. 
 Luddington; 1880, O. P. Lancashire; 1883 and 1884, 
 H. G. Topham ; 1887, A. M. Sutthery ; 1888, S. M. J. 
 Woods and G. MacGregor; 1889, S. M. J W T oods, E. R. 
 de Little, and G. MacGregor; 1890, G. MacGregor, 
 S. M. J. Woods, and A. J. L. Hill; 1891, W. I. Rowell, 
 A. J. L. Hill, G. MacGregor, and S. M. J. Woods; 1892, 
 A. J. L. Hill; 1893, T. N. Perkins, A. J. L. Hill, and 
 A. O. Jones; 1894, T. N. Perkins and H. Gray; 1895, 
 J. Burrough and H. Gray ; 1898, A. T. Coode ; 1900 and 
 1901, R. N. R. Blaker ; 1902, R. N. R. Blaker and 
 J. Gilman. 
 
 FOOTBALL. 
 
 In Association Football Jesus men have occupied fifty- 
 nine places in the thirty teams which have represented 
 Cambridge against Oxford. Among those who obtained 
 International colours were W. N. Cobbold, B. W. Spilsbury, 
 and F. J. Anderson. Mr. Cobbold's career was especially 
 remarkable. He played for England in his freshman year, 
 and captained the English team in 1886, while still at 
 Cambridge. 
 
 In Rugby Union Football sixty-three places in the 
 Oxford match have been filled by Jesus men since 1873. 
 Those who obtained International honours were C. Gurdon, 
 E. B. B. Brutton, E. P. Alexander, M. T. Scott, A. Robin- 
 son, W. Martin Scott, S. M. J. W T oods, G. MacGregor, 
 A. F. C. Luxmoore, R. W. Bell, and J. W. Sagar. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 ATHLETIC CLUB. 
 
 The rise of athletics at Jesus and the organization of the 
 Inter-University contest are associated with the name of 
 P. M. Thornton, now M. P. for Clapham. He was the first 
 Jesus athletic 'Blue/ and ran in the Mile and Quarter- 
 mile races in 1864. Since then Jesus has only failed to be 
 represented in the Inter- University sports in four years, the 
 exceptions being 1865, 1887, 1888, and 1893. In 1878 
 no fewer than eight Jesus athletes were included in the 
 Cambridge team, one of them being engaged in two 
 events. The following have won events for Cambridge. 
 Hundred Yards: 1880, E. L. Lucas; 1891, C. J. B. 
 Monypenny. Quarter-mile: 1868, J. H. Ridley; 1877 
 and 1878, W. H. Churchill; 1892, C. J. B. Monypenny; 
 1898, W. J. Harrison. Mile: 1868, W. C. Gibbs. Half- 
 mile: 1899 and 1900, H. E. Graham. Hurdles: 1875 
 and 1876, A. B. Loder. High Jump : 1878, E. Baddeley ; 
 1897, E. H. Cholmeley. Long Jump: 1884, O. Grabham ; 
 1895, W. Mendelson. Hammer: 1866, G. R. Thornton; 
 1878, E, Baddeley ; 1882, H. Birley ; 1890, N. M. Cohen. 
 Weight: 1890, M. B. Elder. The Three-mile race has 
 yet to be won by a Jesus man. 
 
 16 
 
INDEX 
 
 ALCOCK, John (Bp.), 20, 29, 80, 80 
 
 Alcock, Thomas 54 
 
 Aldrich, Edw., 113 
 
 AU Saints, parish of, 10, 79 
 
 Allen, Thomas, 112 
 
 Allix, Peter, 149 
 
 Andrewes, Roger, 84-90 
 
 Andrews, John, 60 
 
 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 8 
 
 Apthorp, East, 15 
 
 Arundel marbles, 82 
 
 Ashton, Charles, 144-147, 154, 160 
 
 Atkynson, William, 40 
 
 Audit book, 91 
 
 Austin, Charles, 209 
 
 BADCOCK, John, 59 
 
 Bale, John (Bp.), 55 
 
 Balloon ascent, 192 
 
 Bancroft, Richard (Abp.), 75, 92 
 
 Barber, the College, 68, 205 
 
 Barnwell, last Prior of, 59 
 
 Batemanson, John, 41 
 
 Beadon, Richard (Bp.), 164 
 
 Beale, William, 99, 107, 108 
 
 Beaumont, Joseph, 123 
 
 Bell, John, 80 
 
 Bellot, Hugh (Bp.X 75 
 
 Bentley, Dr., 146, 147 
 
 Berta Rosata, 111 
 
 Berwick, Lord, 114 
 
 Beverley, 29, 82 
 
 1 Severs,' 49 
 
 Boat, the College : in 1594, 97 ; in 1875, 
 
 229 
 
 Boathouse, 231 
 
 Boldero, Edmund, 121, 134, 136 
 Bonfires, 96, 97 
 Boswell, Sir William, 131 
 
 Boteler, Sir William, 113 
 
 Boylestone, John, 110, 112 
 
 Braithwaite, John, 167 
 
 Bramston, Sir John, 113 
 
 Bray, Sir Reginald and LadyKatherine 
 
 38, 41, 44 
 
 Brooke, John, 186, 204 
 Brunsell, Henry, 132 
 Buckingham College, 53 
 Byngham, William, 32 
 
 CAILLY, Margaret, 18 
 
 Caldwell, George, 186 
 
 Cannon, Charles, 152 
 
 Cannon, Thomas, 112 
 
 Capitade, The, 154 
 
 Capon, William, 54, 56 
 
 Cardinal College, 55 
 
 Caryl, Lynford, 157 
 
 Castley, Thomas, senior, 156 
 
 Castley, Thomas, junior, 204 
 
 Celibacy, 53 
 
 Chapel, the, 25, 106, 123, 200-202, 214-221 
 
 Chapter-house, the, 26, 233, 234 
 
 Charles I., letters of, 89, 90, 106 
 
 Charles, visit of Prince, 83 
 
 ' Chimney,' the, 23 
 
 Chubbes, William, 32, 40, 52 
 
 Civil Law Fellowships, 65, 213 
 
 Clanyle, Margaret, 19 
 
 Clarke, E. D., 190 
 
 Clarke, Samuel, 166 
 
 Clement, parish of Saint, 10, 11, 79 
 
 ' Club,' the, 205 
 
 Coleridge, S. T., 170, 179-188 
 
 Commissioners of 1546, 47 ; of 1549, 57 ; 
 
 of 1557, 60 ; of 1559, 65 ; of 1851 and 
 
 1856, 225 ; of 1877, 230 
 Communion service, 72, 214 
 
INDEX 
 
 243 
 
 Constance, Countess, 7 
 Corrie, G. B., 222-332 
 'Cow lane,' 139 
 Cranmer, Thomas, 51-57 
 Cricket, 148 
 Cripps, J. M., 193 
 Curwen, Hugh (Abp.), 75 
 
 ' DARK ENTRY,' the, 26 
 Dickes, Thomas, 233 
 1 Dividend Paper,' the, 65, 101, 213 
 Dod, John, 81 
 Dolphin Inn, the, 53 
 Downs, Geoffrey, 55, 56 
 Dowsing, William, 110 
 Duport, John, 80 
 
 ECCLESTON, John, 54 
 
 Edmunds, John, 56 
 
 Edwards, Thomas, 167, 171, 181 
 
 Eliensis, Historia, 6 
 
 Eliot, John, 90,91 
 
 Ely Fellowship, 44 
 
 Ely, Thomas of, 6 
 
 Erasmus, 52, 53 
 
 Eustace of Boulogne, 7 
 
 ' FAIR CLOSE,' the, 15 
 Fanshawe, Sir Richard, 114 
 Farmer, Dr., 203 
 Fawkes, Francis, 154 
 Fellow Commoners, 112, 208 
 Fisher, Bp., 29 
 Fisher, Osmond, 217, 220, 233 
 Flamsteed, John, 131 
 Foley, T. P., 164 (note) 
 Fontibus, John de (Bp.), 10 
 Football, 97, 148 
 Frederick, Elector Palatine, 83 
 French, William, 206 
 Frend, William, 169-180 
 Fulborne, Joan, 14 
 Fuller, John, 61, 64 
 
 GARLICK FAIR, 14 
 
 Gas, introduction of, 204 
 
 Gascoyn, Edward, 71, 72 
 
 Gibson, Charles, 139 
 
 Gibson, John, 216-219 
 
 Glass windows, introduction of, 92 
 
 Gloucester, Frederick William, Duke of, 
 
 164 
 
 God's House, 32 
 Goodrich, Richard, 58 
 Goodrich, Thomas (Bp.), 56 
 Goring, Lord Charles, 113 
 
 Gower, Humphry, 136 
 
 Grammar School, the, 33-35, 41, 42 
 
 Grammar, teaching of, 33, 43 
 
 Greek learning at Cambridge, 54 
 
 Green, Charles, 215, 216 
 
 Green Croft, the, 5 
 
 Greville, Fulk (Lord Brooke), 77, 78 
 
 Grigg, William, 146, 148 
 
 Grimbaldston, William, 135 
 
 Grove, the, 109 
 
 HALL, the, 92, 161, 199, 228, 229 
 Hall, Stephen, 111, 123 
 Hall-Stevenson, John, 153 
 Hallifax, Samuel (Bp.), 156 
 Halliwell-Phillipps, J. O., 117, 211 
 Harman, Richard, 55 
 Hartley, David, 151, 183 
 Hastings, Lady Jane, 43 
 Hatton, Christopher (Lord), 113 
 Henchman, Humphrey (Bp.), 114 
 Henry II., King, 9 
 Herring, Thomas (Abp.), 150 
 Higginson, Francis, 91 
 Hough, Edmund, 123, 124 
 Howell, Lawrence, 137 
 Hullier, John, 62 
 Hulme Abbey, 54, 55 
 Hustler, William, 202, 216 
 Hutton, Matthew (Abp.), 150 
 
 Institution of a Christian Man, the, 56 
 Intelligencer, the Cambridge, 188 
 Ithell, Thomas, 73 
 
 JACKSON, John, 166, 167 
 
 Jacobins (supposed) at Cambridge, 17 
 
 James T., visits of King, in 1615, 83 
 
 Jesus Churchyard, 14 
 
 Jesus College, title of, 39 
 
 Jesus College at Rotherham, 30, 31 
 
 John, College of Saint, 37, 120, 136 
 
 John's, Saint (at Oxford), 133 
 
 Jortin, John, 151, 181 
 
 KATHERINE, altar of Saint, 25 
 Keller, Francis, 145 
 Kelsall, Roger, 138 
 King's Ditch, the, 3 
 Kipling, Dr., 177, 178 
 
 LANCASTRE, Joan, 19 
 Landbeach, 201, 219 
 Latin Prayer-Book, 104 
 Laud, Abp., 100, 101 
 Lector, the, 102 
 
244 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Legge, Thomas, 76, 77 
 Ley Fellowships, 214 
 Library, the, 134 
 Lushington, W. J., 186 
 
 MACAULAY, T. B., 209, 210 
 Malcolm IV., King, 8, 9 
 Malthus, T. R., 189, 190 
 Man, Thomas, 135 
 Manchester, Earl of, 111 
 Mere, John, 61 
 Merton College, 34 
 Milner, Dr. Isaac, 177 
 Milton, John, 114, 115 
 Morgan, E.H., 227, 228 
 Morgan, H. A., 222-234 
 Morgan, Robert (Bp.), 114 
 Moyne, William le, 6 
 
 NEVILE, Thomas, 154 
 Nigellus (Bp.), 5 
 North, John, 127, 128, 144, 212 
 North, Roger, 128-130, 148 
 Nunneslake, 4 
 
 OKYNO, Robert, 56 
 
 Onslow, Sir Richard, 113 
 
 Oratory, 24, 58 
 
 Organ, 74, 105, 161, 217, 221 
 
 Otter Prize, 214 
 
 Otter, William (Bp.), 189 
 
 Owen, John (Bp.), 114 
 
 Oxford, 54, 61 
 
 PARLOUR, 139 
 
 Pearce, William, 105, 185, 187 
 
 Pearson, John (Bp.), 120, 122, 123 
 
 Pembroke College, 29, 32, 41 
 
 Pensioners, 143 
 
 Perpoynt, Edmund, 61 
 
 Petty, William, 82 
 
 Pewter dishes, 96 
 
 Pigott, Richard, 43 
 
 Piscina, 202 
 
 Plague, 106, 180 
 
 Plays, 77, 94, 95 
 
 Plombe, William, 40 
 
 Poitiers, 9 
 
 Prelector, 103 
 
 QUAKERS, 138, 139 
 
 RADEGUND, Saint, 9 
 Radegund Manor, 57 
 Radegund Parish, 9, 12, 15 
 Rede, Sir Robert, 45 
 
 Redman, Thomas, 64, 71 
 Register, the College, 90 
 Reneu, William, 147-150 
 Reston, John, 57, 58, 60 
 Ridel, Geoffrey (Bp.), 10 
 Roberts, Thomas, 43 
 Robespierre, The Fall of, 186 
 ' Rota,' the, 24 
 Rotheram, Abp., 29, 30 
 Rotherham, Jesus College at, 30, 31 
 Rustat, Tobias, 132 
 Rysley, Sir John, 37, 41 
 
 SASH windows, 161 
 
 Saywell, William, 136 
 
 Scotus, Duns, 40 
 
 School, the Grammar, 33, 35, 41 
 
 Shelford, 7, 44 
 
 Sherman, John, 116, 117, 139, 157 
 
 Shorten, Dr., 87, 55 
 
 Sidney, Sir Philip, 78 
 
 Sizing parties, 205 
 
 Somervile, John, 132 
 
 Spence, Edward, 137 
 
 Spinckes, Nathaniel, 137 
 
 Stanley, Bp., 44 
 
 Statutes of Bishop Stanley, 49 ; of Bishop 
 
 West, 46, 49 ; of 1559, 65-69 ; of Bishop 
 
 Allen, 212-214 ; of 18.X), 225-227 ; of 1882, 
 
 230, 231 
 
 Stephen, King, 7 
 Sterne, Laurence, 121, 153, 154 
 Sterne, Richard (Abp.), 100, 107, 108, 113, 
 
 120, 121, 152 
 Stocks, 93, 94 
 
 Strype, John, 124-126, 148-150 
 Sutton, Sir John, 217, 218 
 Swale, Sir Richard, 77 
 Sweating sickness, 60 
 
 TENNIS court, 96 
 Terence reader, 46 
 Testimonials for Orders, 148 
 Theology, Study of, 143 
 Thirlby, Styan, 147, 151 
 Thirleby, Bp., 64, 71 
 Thorney, Roger, 43 
 Towusend, Samuel, 137 
 Travers' Ecclesiastical Discipline, 81 
 Tyrwhitt, Robert, 157, 167-169 
 
 VENABLES, G. S., 210, 211 
 Venn, Henry, 155 
 Visitation of the Nunnery, 17, 20 
 Volunteer Corps, 195-197 
 Vowel, Peter, 114 
 
INDEX 
 
 245 
 
 WAKEFIELD Gilbert, 127, 158, 159, 167 
 
 Wall-hangings, 93 
 
 Walmisley, T. A., 211 
 
 Walnut-tree, 154 
 
 Walton, Elizabeth, 19 
 
 Warren, Richard, 145 
 
 Watts, Sir John, 113 
 
 Welden, Ralph, 113 
 
 West, Nicholas (Bp.), 46 
 
 Westfield, Thomas (Bp.), 114 
 
 Williams, Griffith (Bp.), 114 
 
 Wolsey, Cardinal, 55 
 
 Woodham, H. A., 145 
 
 Worthington, John, 116-121 
 
 Wren, Matthew (Bp.), 122, 123, 126, 127 
 
 YONGE, Philip, 155 
 
 Young, Thomas, 111, 114, 115 
 
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