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[iii]
]CAMBRIDGE PAPERS

BY
W. W. ROUSE BALL
FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON
1918
[All rights reserved]

[v]
]PREFACE.

This volume contains papers on some questions of local history put together, mostly for undergraduate societies and magazines, at various times during the last twenty-five years. I have included a memoir, written for a London Society, on Newton’s Principia, a work that profoundly affected the development of University studies in the eighteenth century, and a chapter on the History of the Mathematical Tripos, which at one time appeared in my Mathematical Recreations and Essays, since these are concerned with Cambridge subjects.

I print the papers, whether long or short, and whether read at length or, as was more often the case, curtailed in delivery, substantially in the form in which they were first written. This leaves allusions which bear evidence to their domestic origin, and involves, in those of them dealing with cognate subjects, some repetition of facts. If these are defects they could be removed only by rewriting much of what appears here; it seems to me preferable to let the essays stand in their original forms, save occasionally for the addition of a paragraph or [vi] ]sentence dealing with what has happened since they were first presented. The dates in the text are reckoned in the modern style, taking the year as beginning on the first day of January.

W. W. ROUSE BALL.

Trinity College, Cambridge.
January, 1918.

[vii]
]TABLE OF CONTENTS.

[1]
]PART I.
Concerning Trinity College.

[3]
]CHAPTER I.
THE FOUNDATION OF TRINITY COLLEGE.

Trinity College was founded by Henry VIII in 1546. To obtain a site for it, he suppressed King’s Hall and Michael-House, two medieval colleges which were built on or owned most of the ground now occupied by the Great Court, and with their revenues, largely augmented by property of dissolved monasteries, he endowed it. The scheme of the College and his objects in founding it are stated in his letters patent of 19 December 1546, and particulars of the income assigned by him to the foundation are set out in his charter of dotation dated 24 December 1546. These documents have been printed^[1] and are readily accessible, but the history of the events leading up to the foundation of the College is less generally known. I cannot promise that the story in itself is interesting but the material facts have never before been brought together^[2] so its telling is justified.

[4]
]After the dissolution of the monastic houses, anxiety was felt in Cambridge and Oxford lest they should suffer a similar fate. The policy of the suppression of the two universities and the confiscation of their property was openly advocated by politicians at court, and naturally great alarm was felt when in 1544 an Act^[3] was passed empowering the king to dissolve any college at either university, and appropriate its possessions.

The universities were right in thinking that the danger was pressing, for Parker, who played a leading part in the affair, has put on record^[4] the fact that after the passing of the Act certain courtiers importunately sued the king to have the possessions of both bodies surveyed, meaning afterwards to obtain the same on easy terms. In these circumstances the Cambridge authorities, says Strype, “looked about them and made all the friends they could at court to save themselves.” In particular they urgently begged the aid of two of their professors, John Cheke, then acting as tutor to the prince of Wales, and Thomas Smith, then clerk to the queen’s council. Here is the letter^[5] of the senate to Smith on the subject:

Si tu is es, Clarissime Smithe, in quem Academia haec Cantabrigiensis universas vires suas, universa pietatis jura [5] ]exercuerit, si tibi uni omnia doctrinae suae genera, omnia reipub. ornamenta libentissime contulerit, si fructum gloriae suae in te uno jactaverit, si spem salutis suae in te potissimum reposuerit: age ergo, et mente ac cogitatione tua complectere, quid tu vicissim illi debes, quid illa, quid literae, quid respublica, quid Deus ipse pro tantis pietatis officiis, quibus sic dignitas tua efflorescit, justissime requirit: Academia nil debet tibi, imo omnia sua in te transfudit. Et propterea abs te non simpliciter petit beneficium, sed merito repetit officium: nec unam aliquam causam tibi proponit, sed sua omnia, et seipsam tibi committit. Nec sua necesse habet aperire tibi consilia, quorum recessus et diverticula nosti universa. Age igitur quod scis, et velis quod potes, et perfice quod debes. Sic literis, academiae, reipublicae, et religioni; sic Christo et Principi rem debitam et expectatam efficies. Jesus te diutissime servet incolumem.

Parker tells us that the London friends of the University, among whom Smith and Cheke were doubtless conspicuous, wisely took the line of welcoming an enquiry, but begged the king to avoid the expense of a costly investigation. Their representations were successful, and he issued a commission^[6] dated 16 January 1546 to Matthew Parker (then vice-chancellor, and later archbishop of Canterbury), John Redman (warden of King’s Hall, chaplain to the king, and later master of Trinity), and William Mey (president of Queens’, and later archbishop-elect of York) to report to him on the [6] ]revenues of the colleges and the numbers of students sustained therewith. The commissioners were capable and friendly.

The king must have been impatient to know the facts, for in less than a week, on 21 January, he ordered Parker to come to Hampton Court with the report. Immediate compliance was impossible, but the command may well have stimulated the commissioners to act as rapidly as possible. In fact they obtained the services of eleven clerks from the Court of Augmentations in London, and at once set to work to collect information.

The University was keenly alive to the risks it was incurring. To placate the king, the senate, on 13 February, put all its belongings at his service, and when forwarding a copy of the grace to Secretary Sir William Paget it reminded him of the value of the University to the state, and begged his protection. At the same time it addressed the queen, Katharine Parr, through Thomas Smith, imploring her advocacy.^[7]

The queen replied^[8] on 26 February. After complaining that he had written to her in Latin, though he could equally well have expressed himself in the vulgar tongue, she discoursed at length on the duties of members of the University, and, saying that [7] ]she was confident that her wishes in these respects would be fulfilled, she concluded her letter as follows:

I (according to your desires) have attempted my lord the King’s Majesty, for the establishment of your livelihood and possessions: in which, notwithstanding his Majesty’s property and interest, through the consent of the high court of parliament, his Highness being such a patron to good learning, doth tender you so much, that he will rather advance learning and erect new occasion thereof than [to] confound those your ancient and godly institutions, so that learning may hereafter justly ascribe her very original whole conservation and sure stay to our Sovereign Lord.

This was good news, and things now moved rapidly. By the end of February the commissioners had drawn up a detailed report giving the information required. It is printed^[9] at length in the Cambridge Documents, 1852, and occupies nearly 200 pages.

The commissioners in person presented to the king at Hampton Court a brief summary of this report. We do not know the date of this interview, but conjecturally it may be put as being early in March. Parker has left^[10] in his own handwriting a full account of their reception as follows:

In the end, the said commissioners resorted up to Hampton Court to present to the King a brief summary written in a fair sheet of vellum (which very book is yet [8] ]reserved in the college of Corpus Christi) describing the revenues, the reprises, the allowances, and number and stipend of every College. Which book the King diligently perused; and in a certain admiration said to certain of his lords which stood by, that he thought he had not in his realm so many persons so honestly maintained in living by so little land and rent: and where he asked of us what it meant that the most part of Colleges should seem to expend yearly more than their revenues amounted to; we answered that it rose partly of fines for leases and indentures of the farmers renewing their leases, partly of wood sales: whereupon he said to the lords, that pity it were these lands should be altered to make them worse; (at which words some were grieved, for that they disappointed lupos quosdam hiantes). In fine, we sued to the King’s Majesty to be so gracious lord, that he would favour us in the continuance of our possessions such as they were, and that no man by his grace’s letters should require to permute with us to give us worse. He made answer and smiled, that he could not but write for his servants and others, doing the service for the realm in wars and other affairs, but he said he would put us to our choice whether we should gratify them or no, and bade us hold our own, for after his writing he would force us no further. With which words we were well armed, and so departed.

This important interview was followed by a rumour that it was Henry’s intention to found at Cambridge a new and magnificent college to serve as an enduring record of his interest in learning, and perhaps the University may have taken the queen’s letter as indicating what was coming. It is believed that Henry had long entertained vague [9] ]ideas of the kind, but that the definite suggestion, which was encouraged by the queen, originated with Redman, who, as royal chaplain, had constant access to the king and considerable influence with him.

The preparations for Henry’s proposed foundation were made with extreme speed: a wise course in view of his failing health and variable temper. It was decided to take advantage of the Act of 1544 and suppress King’s Hall and Michael-House, using their grounds and adjoining property as the site of the new college. We have no reference to the appointment of commissioners for the business, though there is an allusion, quoted later, to receivers: perhaps the matter was left in the hands of the officials of the Court of Augmentations. Redman was the chief authority at Cambridge in the arrangements that had to be made there, and it was intended that he should be the first master of the new college when it was founded.

The two Societies above mentioned were (save for Peterhouse) the oldest in the University. To Trinity men their history has, naturally, great interest, and I interpolate a few remarks on this and their position in 1546.

The King’s Scholars, normally thirty-two in number and of all ages from fourteen upwards, were established by Edward II under a warden in 1317 and incorporated in 1337. They had for their [10] ]original home a large house (King’s Hall) situated on the grass plot and walk in front of the present chapel, and rapidly acquired all the adjacent land between the High Street (now known as Trinity Street) and the river, extending their buildings in various directions. Popular writers sometimes assert or assume that all medieval colleges were founded for poor students. That is not universally true. No condition of poverty was imposed on the scholars of King’s Hall, nor was their life here penurious: they had a dining-hall, library, common room, chapel, kitchens, a brewery, a vineyard, a garden, and a staff of servants maintained by the Society, while a good many of them also kept their own private servants: they received a liberal allowance for daily commons, clothes and bedding were supplied from the royal wardrobe, and pocket-money was given to buy other things. They were appointed by the crown largely from among the families of court officials, nominations being restricted to those who knew Latin. After completing their course many of these students entered what we may call the higher civil service of the time in church or state.

In the report of the commissioners, the annual income of King’s Hall was returned as £214. 0s. 3d. and the expenses as £263. 16s. 7d.; and it was stated that at the time there were on its boards, a master, twenty-five graduate fellows, and seven [11] ]undergraduate fellows, besides servants. The Society owned the patronage of the livings of Arrington, Bottisham, St Mary’s Cambridge, Chesterton, Fakenham, Felmersham, and Grendon. According to the return, the normal annual expenditure of King’s Hall, if all the scholars resided, required £182. 18s. 4d. for the emoluments of the warden and fellows (namely, £8. 13s. 4d. for the warden, £5. 10s. 0d. for each of twenty-five graduate fellows, and £5. 5s. 0d. for each of seven undergraduate fellows); £32. 2s. 0d. for the college servants (namely, the butler, barber, baker, brewer, laundress, cook, under-cook, and the warden’s servant); £3. 1s. 4d. for the estate officers and quit-rents; £3. 19s. 4d. for the expenses of the chapel services and the bible-clerk; £5. 0s. 0d. for firing for the hall and kitchen; £5. 0s. 0d. for rushes for the hall; £5. 10s. 4d. for the exequies of the founder and the following refections; £29. 1s. 4d. for repairs and renewals; and £10 for extraordinary expenses.

The other College (Michael-House) whose buildings were transferred to Trinity was of a different type. It was founded by Hervey de Stanton in 1324 for a master and six secular clergy who wished to study in the University. Their original home was a large house on the site of the present combination room and the land round it; later they acquired all the property between Foul Lane and the river. At first the Society’s means were barely [12] s]ufficient for its needs, but in time it received many gifts, and the foundation was increased to a master and eight priests with chaplains and bible-clerks. It had an oratory in its House but did not need a chapel as it owned St Michael’s Church; traces of this ownership will be noticed in the arrangement for stalls (to be occupied by members of the Society) in the choir, which is sunk below the level of the nave and chancel.

In the report of the commissioners, the annual income of Michael-House was returned as £141. 13s. 1¾d. and its expenses as £143. 18s. 0d.; and it was stated that there were on its boards a master, eight fellows, and three chaplains, besides servants. Besides St Michael’s Cambridge, the Society owned the patronage of the livings of Barrington, Boxworth, Cheadle, Grundisburgh, and Orwell. According to the return, the normal annual expenditure of Michael-House required a sum of £91. 10s. 8d. for the emoluments of the Society (namely, £7. 6s. 8d. for the master, £47. 17s. 4d. for the six fellows on the original foundation, £11. 6s. 8d. for the two Illegh fellows, £15 for three chaplains, one of whom served Barrington, and £10 for four bible-clerks), £1 for the auditor, £6. 6s. 8d. for college servants (namely, the cook, butler, barber, and laundress), rather more than £17 for the exequies of benefactors, £1. 13s. 4d. for the commemoration [13] ]refection, £20 for repairs, and £6. 6s. 8d. for extraordinary expenses. A clerical society like Michael-House had no difficulty in providing for due celebration of the exequies of its friends, and in fact more than twenty benefactors are mentioned by name as being thus commemorated every year. In 1544, the House, presumably with the object of averting its destruction, began to admit students resident elsewhere in the University, and in a couple of years no less than forty-eight students matriculated from it; the number of admissions must have exceeded this, but what was involved in such cases by admission is uncertain.

A scheme containing a “first plott or proportion” for the new College was prepared for the king by the Court of Augmentations in London; it seems certain that this was worked out in collaboration with Redman. The clerk who drew it up was Thomas Ansill. The College, after its foundation, recognized its obligation to him in the matter and presented him to the vicarage of Barford which was and is in its gift. He preserved a copy of his scheme; this was purchased from his son by one of the fellows in 1611, and given to the College.

The manuscript of the suggested scheme, to which Mr Bird first called my attention, is endorsed Distribucio Collegii and headed “the proporcon diuised for Trinite College.” It is undated, [14] ]but in a later hand it is added that it was made Anno 37 Hen. 8, and therefore before 22 April 1546. From internal evidence it must have been composed in or after March in that year, since those who graduated in that Lent term are described as being of the standing of the degrees then taken. Of those who graduated afterwards some are described correctly, others not so: doubtless Redman knew about the standing of the members of King’s Hall and Michael-House, but he may well have made mistakes about the standing of some of the junior students of other colleges. If however we accept the endorsement as correct, we may fix the date of the composition of the plan as being in the early half of April, 1546. This manuscript has not been printed, and I proceed to describe it.

The object of the compilers of this scheme was to see what income would be required for the suggested new College, and to arrange how the income should be used; incidentally it reveals the general organization proposed. The constitution of the College, the various offices to be created, and the stipends intended are specified. In most cases the names of the proposed fellows, scholars, bedesmen, and servants are given, but generally the allocation of the proposed principal offices is not indicated and probably had not been then arranged. The names of the proposed fellows and scholars [15] ]agree with those appointed later, though the order is not always the same, but the provisional list of bedesmen differs from that of those ultimately nominated.

The Distribucio begins with a statement of the names and suggested stipends of the master and fellows. The stipend of the master was to be £100 a year: that of each of the next fifteen fellows (one of those proposed being a doctor of divinity, ten bachelors of divinity, and four masters of arts) was to be £10 a year and £1 a year for livery: that of each of the next twenty-five fellows (twenty-two of those nominated being masters of arts and three bachelors of arts) was to be £8 a year; that of each of the next twenty fellows and scholars (seven of the nominees being bachelors of arts and thirteen junior scholars) was to be £6. 13s. 4d. a year. The names are given and agree with those in the letters patent of 19 December.

There was to be a schoolmaster (Richard Harman) who was to have £20 a year, an usher of grammar (William Boude) who was to have £10 a year, and provision was made for forty childer grammarians, whose names are given, each of whom was to have £4 a year. This shows that it was intended that the foundation should include students in grammar, and the two teachers specially responsible for them were to be a schoolmaster and usher.

[16]
]The question arises whether it was intended to found a grammar-school connected with the College or whether these grammarians were what we should call undergraduate scholars or exhibitioners. The former view is the correct one, for the royal commissioners in May 1549 definitely asked^[11] the College “to surrender the Grammar Schole.” This was done and the school was then absorbed in the College. Probably at that time the distinction between boys at the grammar-school and junior undergraduates was not regarded as important—the term grammarian or grammaticus being commonly used for a junior undergraduate as well as a school-boy^[12]. This indifference to the distinction between the two classes is illustrated by the fact that of the grammarian school-boys named in the Distribucio, ten were already matriculated members of the University, nine matriculated from Trinity shortly after its foundation, and of the others six matriculated in 1548 or 1549 which is not inconsistent with their having been students of the University in 1546.

In 1547, the accounts include a particular payment for six boys of the grammar-school, and wages for one quarter for the schoolmaster and Mr Boude; thus showing that the school was then being carried on. In 1548, the accounts specify forty-two [17] ]grammatici, in addition to certain graduates and dialectici, as being in residence, but in this year there is no mention of a schoolmaster or an usher though possibly they may be included among the ten lectors for whom provision is made. In 1551 the grammatici appear as discipuli, and thenceforth the grammarians were treated as undergraduate scholars.

The Distribucio next goes on to enumerate seven readers. Three of these were to be public or university readers, of whom one (John Maydew) was to read in divinity, one (John Cheke) in Greek, and one (Thomas Wakefield) in Hebrew, each at £40 a year. The other four were to be fellows of the College, of whom one (Simon Bridges) was to read in divinity at £6. 13s. 4d. a year, two in philosophy at £5 a year each, and one in logic at £5 a year: such stipends to be in addition to their fellowship emoluments. It would seem that Bridges or Briggs declined to accept the nomination to a fellowship at Trinity and accordingly was not appointed to the office. Provision was also made for two under-readers in logic at £2. 3s. 4d. each. Next are mentioned two examiners in scholastic acts at £5 a year each; and two chaplains at £6. 13s. 4d. a year each, one (Henry Man) for the fellows and the other (unnamed) for the childer and bedesmen. I note that Henry Man occupied for many years [18] ]rooms in the Great Court adjoining and on the west side of what is now known as the Queen’s Gate.

The next entry is that of twenty-four almsmen or bedesmen at £6 a year each; the names of all but one are given, but the list differs somewhat from that appearing in the account book of 1547 of those appointed when the College began work. The unnamed bedesman was the cook of Michael-House, and it is impossible not to wonder whether his inclusion in this list (which involved his retirement from the kitchens) was due to the memory of indifferent dinners eaten by Redman when a guest at the high table of that House.

The Distribucio then returns to the enumeration of the officers and servants of the College. There were to be two bursars at £4 a year each; a vice-master at £5 a year; two deans to direct disputations of divinity and philosophy, one at £4 a year, and the other at £3. 6s. 8d. a year; eight bible-clerks, whose names are given, to serve the hall, choir and vestry, and to attend upon the curate when visiting, at £2. 13s. 4d. a year each; an organ-player at £6 a year and his commons; two butlers, the senior at £5 a year and the junior at £4 a year; a manciple at £6. 13s. 4d. a year; a master-cook at £6 a year; two under-cooks, one at £4 a year, and the other at £3. 6s. 8d. a year; and a turn-spit at £2 a year. There was also to be a barber at £5 [19] ]a year; a laundress at £5 a year; a porter at £6 a year; a bricklayer at £4 a year; a carpenter at £4 a year; a mason at £4 a year; two stewards of lands at £5 a year each; an auditor for the lands at £10 a year; a receiver for the lands at £13. 6s. 8d.; and an attorney in the exchequer for the lands at £3. 6s. 8d. Allowance was to be made for the yearly distribution of alms to the amount of £20; and of another £20 to be spent on the mending of highways. The total expenditure contemplated amounts to £1286. At the end in another handwriting is added that allowance (amount unspecified) should be also made for wine and wax, riding, extraordinary charges, and repairs.

It must have been in April, or early in May, 1546, that the commissioners, or other officials concerned, took possession of King’s Hall and Michael-House and the ground adjacent thereto. They at once made arrangements to shut up Foul Lane which ran across the present Great Court, to purchase such part of that court as did not belong to King’s Hall and Michael-House, and to enclose the site. Stone and other materials for the new work were taken from the church and cloisters of the dissolved Franciscan monastery which stood on the land now occupied by Sidney Sussex College, and in a survey, dated 20 May 1546, those buildings are described as having been already partially [20] ]demolished in order to provide “towards the building of the King’s Majesty’s new College.”

It is probable that during this time members of King’s Hall and Michael-House were in residence, and possibly also some of the members-elect of Trinity College. The cost of the maintenance of the House and the expenses of the alterations must have been heavy, but in December 1546, the Court of Augmentations was ordered^[13] “to pay Dr Redman of your new College in Cambridge £2000 towards the establishment and building of the same, and in recompense for revenues of their lands for a whole year ended Michaelmas last, because the rents were paid to your Majesty’s receivers before they had out letters patent for their donation.” We have no record of these expenses, but I conjecture that this grant allowed a clean start to be made from Michaelmas 1546.

The members of the new College entered into possession of the buildings and began their academic life as members of Trinity College about Michaelmas 1546. The surrender of King’s Hall and Michael-House to the king took place on 28 October, and arrangements were than made to pension the master and eight fellows of Michael-House and one fellow of King’s Hall. Redman was appointed master of the new foundation.

[21]
]The original members of the Society were selected from the whole University with the addition of a few Oxonians: it is believed that all the nominees were favourable to the new learning and the protestant faith. Of the forty childer grammarians named in the Distribucio all save one accepted the nomination; of these, six had been previously members of Michael-House, one a member of Pembroke, one of Peterhouse, one of St John’s, and one of some unnamed College. Of the sixty students nominated to fellowships or scholarships in the letters patent, fourteen did not reside and presumably refused the nomination. Of the forty-six who accepted the office, thirty-six were graduates and ten were non-graduates. Of these thirty-six nominees, three came from Michael-House, one from King’s Hall, two from Christ’s, one from Corpus, one from King’s, one from Pembroke, two from Peterhouse, one from Queens’, one from St Catharine’s, and three from St John’s: of the colleges or hostels from which the remaining twenty had graduated, I can find no particulars. Of the ten non-graduates who accepted the office, one had been at Pembroke, one at Queens’, two at St John’s, and one at Trinity Hall: of the previous history of the remaining five I know nothing. Of the fourteen who did not reside and presumably declined the offer, eleven were graduates, of whom one had been [22] ]at Corpus, one at King’s, one at Pembroke, three at Queens’, two at St John’s, and two at Oxford, and of the remaining graduate I can find no particulars. Of the three non-graduates who did not accept the nomination, one had been at Michael-House, one at Oxford, and of the other I know nothing. It appears from the account-books that there were also still in residence a few students^[14] who had been members of King’s Hall and Michael-House: it was only courteous to give these deposed students the hospitality of the House, and they occupied a different position to the pensioners and fellow-commoners who later were admitted in considerable numbers. We cannot prove or disprove the presence at this time of other students, but it is most likely that at first there were no residents in College other than those mentioned above.

The legal formalities connected with the surrender of the properties of King’s Hall and Michael-House took a considerable time, and were not completed till 17 December 1546. The letters patent founding the College and the charter of dotation were signed a few days later^[15]. The actual endowment granted was valued at £1640 net a year, [23] ]which must have been deemed ample to provide for the expenses and the maintenance of the House. Comparing this income and the estimated expenditure with those of King’s Hall and Michael-House we gather how much more important than these colleges was the contemplated new foundation.

Thus were King’s Hall and Michael-House dissolved, but only to be merged in a new and nobler Society. The letters patent founding Trinity College state that Henry to the glory and honour of Almighty God and the Holy and Undivided Trinity, for the amplification and establishment of the Christian and true religion, the extirpation of heresy and false opinion, the increase and continuance of divine learning and all kinds of godliness, the knowledge of language, the education of youth in piety virtue discipline and learning, the relief of the poor and destitute, the prosperity of the Church of Christ, and the common good and happiness of his kingdom and subjects, founded and established a College of letters, sciences, philosophy; godliness, and sacred theology, for all time to endure. These are noble objects, and we may look back with honourable pride to the way in which Trinity College has on the whole carried out the intentions of its founder.

The organization of the new College followed closely that outlined in the Distribucio. To meet [24] ]the expenses already incurred during the Michaelmas term the Court of Augmentations^[16] in January 1547 paid Redman £590 “towards the exhibition of King’s Scholars in Cambridge.” This was about one-third of the total intended income of the House, and presumably cleared matters up to 24 December 1546, when the College entered into possession of its endowments. If we may trust the sermon preached in London on 12 December 1550, by Thomas Lever, subsequently master of St John’s College, Trinity had reason to regret the death of Henry in January 1547, for the preacher asserted that a substantial part of the intended endowment was appropriated by courtiers in London; I have never investigated what part (if any) of it was thus lost to the College.

The first account-book of the new College covers the civil year 1547, but only certain selected items of income and expenditure appear therein. It shows total receipts of £786. 16s. 7d. and total payments of £799. 11s. 1½d. Most of the income is said to have come from the “Tower.” I conjecture that rents, etc. were paid to the master who kept the college moneys in the treasury in the Tower, and the bursar in his book accounted only for such portion of it as was handed to him: of other sums [25] ]received or paid on account of the Society, we have no particulars. In most cases the commons (though not the stipends or wages) paid to officers are set out, but up to Lady-Day instead of giving full details there is an entry of £52. 6s. 10d. paid to fellows and scholars for “the first quarter after the erection, besides stipends and wages.” The account-book for the next year, 1548, is better kept. It shows total receipts of £531. 13s. 11½d. and total payments of £528. 12s. 8½d. In the accounts of this year are mentioned a master, fifty graduate fellows (of whom thirteen were bachelors), ten dialectici, forty-two grammarians, and eight bible-clerks. Entries appear of payments for commons to six former members of King’s Hall and Michael-House, but of these only three seem to have been in regular residence. An examination of the early account-books allows us to see something of the development of the College, but a description of this would hardly come within the purview of this paper.

[1] Cambridge Documents issued by the Royal Commissioners, London, 1852, vol. III, pp. 365–410.

[2] This was true some years ago when this paper was written, but since then I have given part of the story in a booklet on the King’s Scholars and King’s Hall which, at the request of the College, I wrote in 1917 for the meeting held to celebrate the six-hundredth anniversary of the execution by Edward II of the writ establishing those scholars in the University of Cambridge.

[3] 37 Henry VIII, cap. 4.

[4] Correspondence of M. Parker, Cambridge, 1852, p. 34.

[5] Life of T. Smith by J. Strype, Oxford, 1820, pp. 29–30.

[6] State Papers, Domestic, 1546, vol. XXI, part i, no. 68. See also J. Lamb’s Documents, London, 1838, pp. 58–59; Correspondence of M. Parker, Cambridge, 1852, p. 34.

[7] State Papers, Domestic, 1546, part i, nos. 203, 204.

[8] Ecclesiastical Memorials by J. Strype, Oxford, 1882, vol. XI, part i, pp. 207–208; Correspondence of M. Parker, p. 36.

[9] Cambridge Documents, vol. I, pp. 105–294.

[10] Correspondence of M. Parker, pp. 35–36; J. Lamb’s Documents, p. 59.

[11] State Papers, Domestic, Edward VI, May 1549.

[12] Senior undergraduates were then commonly termed dialectici.

[13] State Papers, Domestic, 1546, no. 647 (25).

[14] Three fellow-commoners had matriculated from King’s Hall in 1544.

[15] The charter of foundation, dated 19 December, and that of endowment, dated 24 December, are printed at length in the Cambridge Documents, vol. III, pp. 365–410.

[16] C. H. Cooper, Annals of Cambridge, Cambridge, 1842, vol. I, p. 452.

[26]
]CHAPTER II.
THE TUTORIAL SYSTEM.

The word Tutor is used at Cambridge to describe an officer of a College who stands to his pupils in loco parentis; now-a-days he may, but does not necessarily, give direct instruction to them. The object of this chapter is to describe the development of the office in Trinity College.

Trinity College was founded in 1546 by Henry VIII. It is, however, essential in dealing with its early history to bear in mind that it was founded in a pre-existing^[17] University having well-established rules and customs. Nearly all the original members of Trinity had been educated at Cambridge, they were familiar with its traditions, and even the buildings they occupied were associated with the college life of earlier times. It was intended that the Society should promote the reformed religion and the new learning, but there is no reason to suppose that in establishing it, it was wished or proposed to alter the existing practice about the tuition, guidance, and care of the younger students.

In the system in force in the University shortly [27] ]before the foundation of Trinity, the students corresponding to our scholars and sizars lived in endowed colleges (of which eight were founded before 1353 and seven between 1440 and 1520), most of those corresponding to our pensioners in unendowed private hostels (of which in the sixteenth century there were twenty-seven and in earlier times possibly a few more), and most of those belonging to religious orders in monasteries or monastic hostels. A student on admission to the University was apprenticed to some master of arts or doctor who directed the lad’s studies until he took a master’s degree. This graduate was known as the student’s “master”: in the case of a member of a college we may assume that the master was chosen from among the senior members of the House, though it is doubtful if this was necessarily so in the case of the hostels. The head of a college or hostel was responsible for the conduct and control of the lad in non-scholastic matters, but in colleges in later times this work was assigned to a dean. Thus for practical purposes a tutorial system already existed in the medieval system of apprenticeship and control.

The royal scheme for Trinity College comprised a master, fifteen senior fellows, twenty-five middle fellows, twenty junior fellows (of whom, in 1546, thirteen were undergraduates), and forty grammarian school-boys. In addition to these, there were [28] ]servant-students (known as sizars or subsizars), each being attached as gyp to a particular fellow, and receiving education, board, and lodging in lieu of money wages. There is nothing to show whether or not the presence of pensioners was contemplated.

We have a list, apparently complete, of all the intended officers; tutors do not appear among them, though a schoolmaster and usher were provided for the grammarians. Hence it would seem that the relation between an apprenticed undergraduate and his master was regarded as personal, and that the latter was selected and paid by his pupil or pupil’s guardian, and not by or through the College—I conjecture that this was the usual medieval practice. The deans are mentioned as officers of the College, and the discipline of the younger members was part of their business, though no doubt a lad’s master or tutor assisted in enforcing it. The formal charter of foundation was given by Henry in December 1546, but the grammarians are not mentioned therein.

During the next six years, 1546–1552, three important developments took place. First, the grammar-school side of the College was abandoned, and all boys then in the school were entered as scholars of the House; next, and perhaps consequent on the abolition of the school, a distinction between fellows and scholars was drawn; and finally, following the [29] ]growing custom of other colleges, the admission of pensioners was definitely recognized as desirable, thus introducing a class of students below the standing of scholars. Before coming to the subject of tutors it will be well to add a word or two about the pensioners and scholars of these early days.

With the upset of the medieval scheme of education the number of pensioners and fellow-commoners seeking admission to the University greatly decreased, and the reception of a limited number of them in the colleges fairly met the needs of the University. The private hostels were then no longer wanted and being unendowed disappeared. Thus when again, as soon happened, the number of would-be pensioners increased, it was necessary (unless new non-collegiate arrangements were made for their reception in the University) to admit them in larger numbers to the colleges.

At Trinity a limit was, in theory, placed on the number of pensioners admissible, but not on that of fellow-commoners. A pensioner at Trinity, and I suppose also at other colleges, had to be qualified by learning and morals for admission, and I conceive further that his entry was conditional on his finding a fellow who would receive him. A pensioner or fellow-commoner had no rights, and resided only on such terms and as long as the College or the fellow receiving him willed. I believe that students of this class did not [30] ]often stay here for more than three or four years unless in due course they became scholars.

A most important question for the new College was how the supply of scholars and fellows should be provided. In King’s Hall vacancies were filled by royal nomination, and boys came into residence as scholars-elect. We do not know what was proposed in 1546, but I think that, as far as entry to the grammar-school was concerned, nomination by the senior fellows was the most likely method to have been contemplated. The abandonment of the school and the enrolment of all its members as scholars of the House must however have raised the question in an acute form, and it was settled in or before 1552 by the establishment of an annual examination for the election of scholars. Probably from the first it was intended that the new fellows should be formally elected and admitted.

The charter of 1546 contains a reference to statutes to be given later by the king. There was considerable delay in preparing these, and the liberty of action thus left to the Society seems to have been used unwisely, for the commissioners of 1549 reported that its state was “much out of order, governed at large and pleasure for want of statutes ... the fellows for the most part too bad.”

In November 1552 the College received the long-expected [31] ]statutes by which it was to be governed: with their appearance we leave the field of conjecture and come to facts. The foundation as here described included a master, fifty fellows of the standing of master or doctor, and sixty bachelor and undergraduate scholars: provision was also made for student-servants or sizars. Vacancies in the roll of scholars were to be filled by an annual election held at Michaelmas on the result of a two days’ examination. Bachelors of arts and those insane or suffering from contagious disease (a curious conjunction) were ineligible: also there could not, at any one time, be more than three scholars from any one county. The regulation that a bachelor was not eligible for election to a scholarship suggests that a candidate might be in residence as an undergraduate, though it does not exclude the candidature of those who were not already members of the House, but the custom (if it ever existed) of electing non-residents had died out before 1560. The admission of pensioners, not exceeding fifty-four in number, was definitely recognized in 1552: of these the master might take as his pupils four, and each fellow one. The pensioner which every fellow might thus receive was in addition to such scholars as had been assigned to him as pupils, but though scholars had tutors, the fellow responsible for a pensioner is not explicitly described as his tutor. [32] ]It seems that an important part of the duty of a tutor was to see that all payments due to the college from his pupils were made punctually. Scholars, unlike pensioners, had definite rights.

The following are some of the regulations:

Nemo ex discipulis sine tutore in collegio sit, qui fuerit, expellatur. Pupilli tutoribus pareant, honorem paternum et reverentiam exhibeant, quorum cura consumitur in illis informandis et ad pietatem scientiamque instruendis. Tutores fideliter et diligenter quae docenda sunt suos doceant, quae agenda instruant et admoneant. Omnia pupillorum expensa tutores collegio praestent, et singulis mensibus aes debitum pro se et suis quaestoribus solvant. Quod ni fecerint, tantisper commeatu priventur dum pecunia dissolvatur. Pupillus neque a tutore rejiciatur, neque tutorem suum ubi velit mutet nisi legitima de causa a praeside et senatu probanda; qui fecerit collegio excludatur.... In discipulis eligendis praecipua ratio ingenii et inopiae sit, in quibus ut quisque valet maxime ita ceteris proferatur. Eo adjungatur doctrinae studium et mediocris jam profectus, et reliqui temporis spes illum fore ad communem reipublicae posthac idoneum. Horum studium sit ut vitae innocentiam cum doctrinae veritate conjungant, et in veritate rerum inquirendi et honestate persequenda laborent.... Sic sint grammaticis et studiis humanitatis instituti ut inquisitiones aulae sustinere et domesticas exercitationes suscipere possint.... Pensionarii et studiorum socii in collegium recipiantur ... provideatur ut neque praesidi plures quam quatuor neque singulis sociis plures uno pensionario sint.

Grave offences were punishable by expulsion, rustication, etc., and those who committed only [33] ]“minor offences” were liable to penalties of extreme severity. Thus we read:

Quicunque in aliqua parte officii sui negligentior fuerit, et aliquem e magistratibus bene admonentem non audiverit, aut insolentem se ostenderit, si ephoebus sit verberibus sin ex ephoebis excesserit decennali victu careat et uterque praeterea poenitentiam declamatione tostetur.

The text is corrupt, but the meaning is clear. A marginal note suggests the obvious correction that decemdiali should be read for decennali. The deans superintended, even if they did not inflict, corporal punishment when it was ordered.

Another code of statutes was drawn up in 1554, but was never sealed, and thus did not become effective. I need not quote the text which, on tutorial matters, does not differ materially from that of 1560. The draft contains a clause to the effect that the master of the College was not to take more than four pensioners as his pupils, a fellow who was a master of arts or of some superior degree was not to take more than two, and no one else was to take a pensioner as a pupil. The word “two” however has been crossed out and “one” substituted. From this it would seem that the question of how many pensioners it was desirable to admit was already a matter of debate.

In 1560 new statutes were granted to the College, and its constitution as then settled remained [34] ]practically unaltered till 1861. In this code the foundation is described as including a master, sixty fellows, four chaplains, sixty-two scholars, and thirteen sizars or gyps, namely, three for the master and one for each of the ten senior fellows. Henceforth scholars were elected annually in the spring, from undergraduates already in residence. By a gracious provision, whose disappearance in 1861 I regret, it was ordered that forty of the scholarships should be specifically associated with the name of Henry VIII, twenty with that of queen Mary, and two with that of Thomas Allen as pre-eminent benefactors. Pensioners and subsizars were also admissible to the Society on conditions. If fellow-commoners dined at the high table, as seems likely, they may have been reckoned extra numerum. Every student under the degree of master of arts was required to have a tutor, thus regularizing the position of fellow-commoners, pensioners, sizars, and subsizars as members of the College, and bringing them under the same rule as scholars.

The regulations in point are as follows:

Est ea quidem ineuntis aetatis imbecillitas ut provectiorum consilio et prudentia necessario moderanda sit, et propterea statuimus et volumus ut nemo ex baccalaureis, discipulis, pensionariis, sisatoribus, et subsisatoribus tutore careat: qui autem caruerit, nisi intra quindecim dies unum sibi paraverit, e collegio ejiciatur. Pupilli tutoribus pareant, [35] ]honoremque paternum ac reverentiam deferant, quorum studium, labor, et diligentia in illis ad pietatem et scientiam informandis ponitur. Tutores sedulo quae docenda sunt doceant, quaeque etiam agenda instruant admoneantque. Omnia pupillorum expensa tutores collegio praestent, et intra decem dies cujusque mensis finiti aes debitum pro se ac suis omnibus senescallo solvant. Quod ni fecerint, tantisper commeatu priventur dum pecunia a se collegio debita dissolvatur. Cautumque esto ne pupillus quispiam vel stipendium suum a thesaurariis recipiat vel rationem pro se cum eisdem aliquando ineat, sed utrumque per tutorem semper sub poena commeatus menstrui a dicto tutore collegio solvendi fieri volumus.... Pensionarios ut studiorum socios in collegium recipiendos statuimus; sitque in illis recipiendis ratio morum ac doctrinae diligenter habita; magistris artium aut superioris gradus unum, baccalaureis autem nullum omnino concedimus. Nemo illorum admittatur nisi a decano seniore et primario lectore examinatus.

In time, serious discrepancies between the statutes and the practice of the College grew up. Some, but not all, of these were removed in 1844, when the statutes were revised. The sentence above quoted “magistris artium aut superioris gradus unum, baccalaureis autem nullum omnino concedimus” was then struck out.

In 1861 new statutes were given to the College: these contain no mention of pensioners, but merely prescribe that no bachelor or undergraduate shall be without a tutor. The present statutes of 1882 similarly direct that no member of the College in statu pupillari shall be without a tutor.

[36]
]Except by accident, we have no record before 1635 of the names of the tutors of the various students, but it is probable that at first the master regularly entered some undergraduates as his own pupils: certainly Whitgift did so, and so too did some of his successors. It seems most likely also that by 1560 it was already usual for the master to assign a student to that fellow who was to act as his tutor, though of course regard must always have been paid to the wishes of a parent or guardian in this matter. This remained the ordinary custom for perhaps two hundred years.

Some information on tutorial affairs in the sixteenth century may be gathered from an account-book kept by Whitgift, covering parts of the years 1570 to 1576, and containing statements of the charges he made as tutor: the names of thirty-nine men are given. In the history of Trinity College which I wrote for my pupils some years ago, I published a few of these bills. I give here a few details illustrative of the many matters with which a tutor was then concerned.

The payment made to him as tutor varied in different cases, but 6s. 8d. a quarter for a sizar, 10s. for a pensioner, and 13s. 4d. for a fellow-commoner were usual sums. In a few cases there are records of an admission-fee to the College or a fee for entering into commons: the normal payment [37] ]for this was 15s. for a pensioner, and 20s. for a fellow-commoner—there is no mention of any such charge in the case of a sizar. The cost of the silly ceremony by which the senior undergraduates initiated a freshman, known as his salting, was charged in the bills, and varied from 8d. for a sizar and 1s. 4d. for a pensioner to 4s. for a fellow-commoner. The charge for matriculation appears to have been 4d. for a sizar, 1s. for a pensioner, and 2s. for a fellow-commoner.

Of course the cost of the purchase of books comes in most of the accounts. Aristotle, Plato, Sophocles, and Demosthenes constantly appear among Greek writers, Homer and Xenophon only once; Cicero, Caesar, Sallust, and Lucian occur often among the Latin authors, Livy only once. Euripides and Horace are noticeable by their absence. I have not observed any mathematical books. Works by Seton and Erasmus are frequently mentioned. Among English books we have a prayer-book charged at 1s., a service-book at 1s. 8d., a bible at 9s., and a testament at 2s. The charge for a bible in Latin was 7s. and for a new testament in Greek 2s. A Greek grammar cost 1s., 1s. 2d., or 1s. 4d.; a Hebrew grammar 1s. which seems cheap. Paper was charged 4d. by the quire and 2s. 6d. by the half-ream: the cost of a bundle of pens and an inkhorn was usually 4d. or 6d.

[38]
]Clothes appear to have been expensive, but naturally the cost varied widely according to the status of the student. Apparently at that time the wardrobes of men were fairly extensive: the prices of the various articles are set out in full. I hesitate to distinguish academic gowns from other robes, but the charge of 4s. to John Waring, a pensioner, for his gown and square cap, as also the charge of 2s. 6d. for making a gown and hood for Phillip Harrison, another pensioner, must, I think, be taken to refer to academic costumes. The cost of a surplice to Richard Therald, a sizar, was 4s., but to Henry Gates, a fellow-commoner, was as much as 11s. 7d.

As to amusements, the richer students seem to have kept or hired horses at considerable cost. Horse-hire to London varied from 4s. to 8s.; to Lincoln from 3s. 6d. to 4s. 8d. Bows and arrows constantly appear in the bills—the price of a bow ranging from 1s. 4d. to 3s. Tennis was another popular amusement of the day. The court stood on the site of the north end of the present library, and the keeper of the court was regarded as a college servant; there are no charges in connection with the bats, balls, or use of the court.

It may be interesting to notice that coals were used regularly as well as wood: they were sold at 1s. 3d. a sack. Candles were charged at either [39] ]3d. or 4d. a pound. Among miscellaneous things 6d. was charged for an hour-glass; 4d. for a mouse-trap; 10d. for a scabbard for a rapier; and 10s. for a lute. A set of singing lessons cost 3s. and a set of dancing lessons 6s.

Sickness appears to have been common. In general we have no record of the duration of illnesses, and the charges for doctors and chemists varied widely. The charge for plucking out one tooth seems to have been 1s. 4d., but for two teeth the dentist reduced his charge to 1s. a tooth.

We get another aspect of student and tutorial affairs in the next century (in 1659) contained in a long letter from which I gave extracts in the history of the College to which I have already referred. Robert Creighton, pronounced Crickt-on, of Somersetshire, a Westminster boy and a scholar of the House, was then a candidate for a fellowship. At the time there were in residence a good many zealots, introduced into the Society under presbyterian or Cromwellian auspices, and one of these, a year senior to Creighton, was also a candidate for a fellowship. Just before the election some of the scholars were playing tennis in the college court when the ball by chance struck one of them in the eye. On this Creighton called out “Oh God, Oh God, the scholar’s eye is stroke out,” whereon his competitor accused him to the authorities as a profane person who took [40] ]God’s name in vain; and as confirmation added that he never came to the private prayer meetings of the students. By good luck the master was Wilkins, afterwards bishop of Chester, who owed his appointment more to the fact that he had married Cromwell’s sister than to his devotion to the doctrines of the Independents. It is clear that he disapproved of the complaint, but he considered it prudent to summon a meeting of the seniority to hear the case and examine witnesses. Creighton’s tutor, Duport (who gave us our large silver salt-cellar), spoke up for his pupil, and thereon the master said that the charge looked like malice, and it did not matter much if Creighton did neglect to go to the private prayer meetings of undergraduates since he never failed to go to chapel and to his tutor’s lectures. He then proposed, if we may trust our authority, that the seniority should at once reject the informer and his friends, and elect to the vacant fellowships the accused and his friends, and so it was done. Such were elections then!

It is satisfactory to add that public opinion in the College was against those who trumped up this ridiculous charge, and on the day after the election the following notice was found on the screens. “He that informed against Ds Creighton deserves to have his breech kickt on.” An amusing glimpse of life under the Commonwealth. Note that the tutor [41] ]gave lectures to his pupils, and from the tutorial point of view observe the esteem gained by regular attendance thereat.

No obligation to take pupils seems ever to have been imposed on fellows, though a pupil once taken could not be transferred. This, and the fact that scholars were elected only from students already in residence, made it undesirable to retain any rule to the effect that a fellow should not have more than one pensioner as a pupil. Hence in time those who liked tutorial work and did it well were allowed to have more than one pensioner pupil, and gradually the bulk of the entries came to be made under a comparatively few tutors.

The average annual entry of students at Trinity during the years 1551 to 1600 was fifty-one, during the years 1601 to 1650 was fifty, and during the years 1651 to 1700 was thirty-nine. During the years 1701 to 1750, it sank to twenty-seven: this diminution being partly due to the Bentley scandals. During the years 1751 to 1800 the average annual entry was thirty-seven, during the years 1801 to 1850 was one hundred and sixteen, during the years 1851 to 1900 was one hundred and seventy-four, and during the years 1901 to 1913 was one hundred and ninety-nine.

Let us see how the men were divided among the tutors. From April to December 1635, twenty-eight [42] ]students were admitted who were distributed among seventeen tutors, of whom eleven had only one pupil and none had more than four pupils. Taking every tenth year thenceforward, we find that in 1645, there were (excluding ten fellows intruded by order of parliament) fifty-seven entries; of these fifty-one were divided among ten tutors. In 1655, there were fifty-three normal entries divided among twelve tutors; in 1665, forty-three entries divided among six tutors; in 1675, forty-nine entries divided among twelve tutors; in 1685, thirty-four entries divided among five tutors; and in 1695, twenty-eight entries divided among four tutors. In 1705, there were twenty-nine entries, of these twenty-eight students were divided among three tutors. In 1715, there were fourteen entries divided among six tutors; in 1725, thirty-four entries divided among twelve tutors; in 1735, twenty-eight entries divided among six tutors; and in 1745, twenty-one entries divided among eight tutors.

In 1755 there were only two fellows acting as tutors, namely S. Whisson and J. Backhouse. Thenceforth there were definite tutorial “sides,” each under one tutor or joint tutors, a tutor being appointed to a side when a vacancy occurred; and every admission to the College being made on a designated side. In effect the work of a tutor was now regarded as being of a character which should occupy [43] ]a man’s whole energies, and it was generally held that a tutor, while he held office, had not, and ought not to have, leisure during term-time for independent work. From 1755 to 1822 there were two sides. In 1822 a third side was created. In 1872 one of the sides (being the lineal successor of Backhouse’s side) was divided into two. These four sides are to-day designated in the college office by the letters A, B, C, D; side A being that created in 1822, sides B and D being the two made out of the successor of Backhouse’s side, and side C being the lineal successor of Whisson’s side. [In the pre-war days of 1914 side A was under Dr Barnes, side B under Mr Laurence, side C under Mr Whetham, and side D under Dr Fletcher.]

Proceeding by decades in the same way as before, the entries on each of the two sides (denoted by C and BD) which existed from 1755 to 1822 were in 1755, nineteen and ten; in 1765, four and six; in 1775, twenty-one and twenty-four; in 1785, eighteen and twenty-nine; in 1795, twenty-nine and seventeen; in 1805, forty-two and twenty-six; and in 1815, fifty-one and thirty-six. From 1822 to 1872 there were three sides (denoted by C, BD, A): the normal entries on these were in 1825, forty-two, fifty-five, forty-one; in 1835, forty, forty-five, fifty-three; in 1845, fifty, sixty-eight, forty-nine; in 1855, fifty-three, forty-eight, fifty; and in 1865, fifty-eight, [44] ]nineteen, sixty. Since 1872 there have been four sides (denoted by C, B, D, A) which were made approximately equal: the normal entries on these were in 1875, forty-one, forty, forty-four, forty; in 1885, forty-nine, forty-four, forty-five, forty-eight; in 1895, forty-eight, thirty-eight, fifty, fifty-one; and in 1905, fifty, fifty-three, fifty, fifty-seven.

Until 1755 the number of pupils in residence in any one term assigned to an individual tutor was not large, and a tutor interested in any particular aspect of a subject likely to be studied was generally available: hence it was usually possible for a tutor to give personally the teaching and guidance required by his pupils. There were then no lecture-rooms in College, so probably all instruction was given in the tutor’s rooms and was informal in character. With the establishment in 1755 of sides, this system of teaching required modification, and in the course of the latter half of the eighteenth century it became the custom for a tutor to supplement his teaching by the services of another fellow or other fellows. These officers, known as Assistant-Tutors, were appointed and paid by individual tutors; they lectured regularly, took an important part in the life of the Society, and occupied a recognized position.

A marked development of the system of formal lectures is indicated by the erection in 1835 of a [45] ]block of four large and four medium-sized lecture-rooms. No other important changes were made for another thirty years, and until 1868 instruction remained normally organized by sides; indeed it was only by arrangement that lectures on one side were open to men on the other sides, though in fairness it must be added that an arrangement for throwing them open was made as a matter of course whenever it seemed desirable. The retention to so late a date of appointments by sides was due to the fact that the finances of the four sides were then kept as separate accounts.

This scheme, clumsy and illogical though it was, might have worked fairly well as long as the great majority of honour men read nothing but mathematics, classics, and perhaps theology, but it was condemned by the fact that the authorities allowed it to be superseded in practice by an elaborate system of private tuition paid for by the individual students. With the introduction of new subjects (like law, history, and various branches of science) and the development of the corresponding triposes, it became necessary to recast the scheme of teaching if adequate college instruction on such subjects was to be provided. The earliest appointment of a college lecturer (as contrasted with an assistant-tutor nominally attached to a particular side) was made in 1868, his lectures being open to all [46] ]students of the Society, and his stipend not charged on the funds of a particular side. This was soon followed by the placing of all educational appointments and finance in the hands of the College without regard to sides; and shortly afterwards the lecture-room accommodation was considerably extended.

About this time a further step was taken by throwing most of the advanced lectures open to members of other colleges. Thus in a few years instruction by tutorial sides was replaced by college lectures and class-work, and then this, to a large extent, by teaching organized on a university basis, supplemented by individual and catechetical instruction in college: with this, the custom of using private tuition has largely disappeared. Ultimately the title of assistant-tutor was dropped; the last appointment under that title was made in 1885, but from about 1870 we may say that practically the duties of an assistant-tutor were those of a lecturer. Thenceforth tutors also took their share of lecturing on subjects connected with their own lines of study, and did not confine their instruction to their own pupils, though for a year or two lectures on elementary mathematics and classics to freshmen on each particular side survived as a historic curiosity. These changes led to the existing scheme under which tutorial and tuition duties are separated, and thus the giving of direct instruction to [47] ]his pupils is not now necessarily part of the duties of a tutor.

The sequence of tutors on each side has been published, and I am sorely tempted to add various anecdotes on the way in which some of these officers fulfilled their duties, but such additions lie outside the object of this essay.

Of course during this long period there have been bad as well as good tutors, but I think everyone will admit that on the whole the system has worked well. Its special characteristic is a personal relation between the tutor and the pupil, materially strengthened by constant intercourse and by the fact that practically all the correspondence with the parents of the pupil passes through the hands of the tutor: experience shows that the tutorial influence has not been weakened by the fact that in most cases direct instruction is now given by other lecturers.

[17] The history of the University prior to 1546 covers some three centuries and a half, that is, about as long a period as has elapsed since 1546.

[48]
]CHAPTER III.
THE WESTMINSTER SCHOLARS.

The relations between Trinity College and Westminster School have always been of an intimate character. Under the Elizabethan statutes of the two foundations a limited number of boys from the school were entitled, if duly qualified, to election to scholarships at Trinity, and later an attempt was made to extend the privilege to fellowships. The whole matter is now one of ancient history, but it may be interesting to put on record some of the facts connected with it.

The school at Westminster owes its foundation to queen Elizabeth. Of course the abbey is many centuries older, and in a sense so is the school, for a grammar-school (in addition to the choir-school) had been attached to the medieval monastery, though doubtless it existed only at the pleasure of the monks. When Henry VIII created the diocese of Westminster with the former abbey as its cathedral, he also established a school connected with it. The diocese soon disappeared, and later the church and buildings were given by queen Mary to the Benedictines. The arrangement made [49] ]by Mary was in turn annulled by Elizabeth, who, shortly after her succession founded the collegiate Church of St Peter, divided into two branches, one ecclesiastical and the other scholastic, the whole being placed under the rule of the dean and chapter. Thus Elizabeth is rightly designated as the founder of the present school, though a link with the past has been preserved in the fact that the sequence of headmasters dates by custom from 1540. The buildings were divided between the two sides of the College; for the scholastic side, one part of the monastic dormitory was made into a school-room, the granary was turned into a school dormitory, and the boys were allowed the use of the refectory for meals.

The queen interested herself in the school she had established; its connection with particular colleges at the universities was suggested by the precedents of Winchester and Eton, and it was natural that she should desire to associate it closely with the Houses at Cambridge and Oxford which had been founded by her father. There is some reason to think that the details of the arrangement made were due to Bill, the first dean of Westminster, who was at the same time master of Trinity and provost of Eton; a fortunate pluralist!

On 29 March 1560, Elizabeth gave new statutes to Trinity College, Cambridge, and in statute 13, [50] ]dealing with the sixty-two scholars of the College, she directed as follows:

Sumantur autem potissimum et eligantur ex eorum numero, si modo idonei et ceteris pares reperiantur qui Schola Regia Westmonasterii educati ... sint.... Ex aliis regni partibus ac locis indifferenter ad numerum supplendum qui maxime idonei videbuntur, semper sumantur.

In June 1560, she gave statutes to the Collegiate Church at Westminster, and in statute 6, dealing with the forty scholars of the school, she directed that three scholars from the school should be elected annually to the foundation of Christ Church, Oxford, and three to that of Trinity College, Cambridge. It is said that the queen did not ratify these statutes. Be this as it may, in the following year, on 11 June 1561, she sent to Trinity College letters patent referring to the Westminster statutes as indicating her wishes in the matter, and expressing her desire that the Society should select as many scholars from Westminster as was possible. This then was the position in 1561, and it was recognised these letters were binding and conferred rights on duly qualified Westminster scholars.

Throughout the three centuries of the existence of these rights, candidates usually preferred the Christ Church studentships, which, being tenable under certain conditions for life, were much more valuable than Trinity scholarships, since the latter [51] ]ran out in less than seven years. Perhaps too the boys were attracted to Christ Church rather than to Trinity by the fact that there they formed a larger proportion of the whole Society than in Henry’s foundation by the Cam. Further a boy elected to Christ Church entered sooner into the emoluments of his studentship than a boy elected to Trinity—the latter not being admitted to his scholarship until the next annual election of scholars which took place in the following spring, usually some six months after he had commenced residence.

There were only forty scholars at Westminster and a provision for the election from them every year of six scholars to the two universities was more than ample. Thus in 1561 one scholar was elected to each university, during each of the six following years, 1562–67, two scholars were elected to each university, in 1568, six scholars were for the first time presented, and each university took three. In 1569 the school again presented three boys for election at Trinity, but the master, Whitgift, refused to elect more than two, alleging that there were not vacancies in the House for more than that number. Thereon the scholar or his friends appealed to Sir William Cecil, the chancellor of the University. Correspondence ensued, but the Society refused to give way on the particular election. On the general question the College [52] ]addressed a letter^[18], dated 3 July 1569, to Cecil entreating him to interpose with the queen to lighten the burden imposed on Trinity by the royal statutes, and asserting that the Westminster scholars took up so many places as to act to the detriment of other and more worthy students. The crown assented to this proposal, and it was agreed that thenceforth three scholars should be chosen every third year, and not necessarily more than two in the other years.

This arrangement lasted but a short time, for a year or two later, perhaps in 1575, Goodman, dean of Westminster, petitioned^[19] the lord treasurer to confirm or re-enact the original statutes whereby three Westminster scholars were to be elected each year to each of the two universities. The petition was granted, and, I conjecture, was the occasion of the letters patent sent by the queen on 7 February 1576, to Trinity College, Cambridge, and Christ Church, Oxford, wherein she repeated and explained her former injunctions. In these letters she stated that Westminster scholars were not to be allowed to remain at the school after attaining the age of eighteen, and in regard to their coming to one of the universities she directed:

Quamvis cupimus plurimos e nostris Discipulis Westmonasterii ad Academias in dicta Collegia quotannis [53] ]promoveri, tamen ne incertus sit omnino numerus, sex ad minimum, videlicet, tres in Ecclesiam Christi Oxonii et tres in Collegium Trinitatis, singulis annis, si aut tot loca vacua ... aut tot idonei e nostris Discipulis Westmonasterii reperti fuerint, admitti volumus; Plures autem optamus, si ita praefatis Electoribus commodum videbitur.

In fact, however, the former custom of electing three scholars every third year and two scholars in each of the other years continued until 1588 after which it became usual, though the custom was not invariable, to elect at least three scholars to each university each year. During the forty-seven years from 1561 to 1607 inclusive, one hundred and thirteen scholars in all were elected from Westminster to Trinity, of whom forty became fellows.

In 1603 James I came to the throne. He interested himself in the school and was prepared to intervene in its interests or what he regarded as such. The earliest case of difficulty in the new reign occurred at the election in 1604 when the king directed the master of Trinity, Nevile, to whom in fact he was under some obligations, to take a boy, by name Albert Moreton, as one of the scholars of Trinity^[20]. The boy was ignorant, and Nevile politely but definitely refused to accept him. The matter was not urged further, and though on some occasions later the Trinity electors consented under [54] ]pressure to alter the order in which candidates were elected, their right to reject on the ground of ignorance was not again disputed. Three years later, the College was faced by a more serious question concerning its connection with Westminster.

In 1607, James I addressed letters patent to Trinity College, in which after referring to the letters patent already mentioned, he ordered them to be strictly observed, and intimated that thereafter the scholars of Trinity should be taken chiefly from Westminster school if duly qualified. He then continued that he observed that the scholars who had been elected to Christ Church were notable for their learning and subsequent distinction, and regretted that this was not so in the case of the scholars elected to Trinity, a fact which he attributed to their want of succession to fellowships and to their leaving the University as soon as they had taken the degree of master. Accordingly he ordered that Westminster scholars at Trinity who had taken the bachelor’s degree should, unless deficient in learning or good conduct, be promoted to fellowships in preference to other candidates. He further ordered that any Westminster scholar in the College, who had not been admitted to a fellowship before taking a master’s degree, might remain resident an additional two years during which time he should be eligible to a fellowship, subject to lawful exceptions. [55] ]The letters are dated 27 June 1607, but it would appear that they were not presented until September of that year.

Deep resentment was felt at this order, for Trinity attached great importance to the desirability of electing as fellows the best candidates, though it was admitted that candidates from places where the House had property had statutable claims for special consideration. The College took immediate steps to protect itself, and in support of its position addressed to the chancellor of the University, the earl of Salisbury, a petition accompanied by a reasoned memorandum. These documents are not dated, but I think may be assigned to the Michaelmas term, 1607.

The petition is briefly to beg the chancellor to assist the College in obtaining a review of the letters patent with the object of maintaining its ancient privileges and former liberties; the letters patent being said to be contrary to the intentions of its founder, and to its statutes^[21]. The wording is humble and courtly.

The memorandum that accompanied the petition is more outspoken. It is long, but it is so interesting that I shall venture to quote from or describe it at [56] ]length. I conjecture that it was composed by Nevile. It contains fourteen assertions or arguments to the following effect:

1. It is inconvenient that so large a College as Trinity should be restrained unto a particular School, and it can be easily shown that other Schools have furnished Trinity with students of much better hope and proof than Westminster hath done or is likely to do, for the whole number of Westminster boys who are eligible to both Universities are but forty, and there are seldom more than eight or nine candidates for the six vacancies at the two Universities.

2. To alter or subvert the ancient liberties of one of the chiefest Colleges in Christendom and to divert from the uses intended by his Majesty’s Predecessors a foundation like Trinity in order to satisfy private humour or under the pretence of benefitting an ordinary School is a great indignity to his Majesty’s Sacred Person, Power, and Prerogative.

3. The suggestion that boys coming to Trinity do not become Fellows, Doctors, Deans, and Bishops as do boys entering Christ Church is untrue, frivolous, and unfair: it is untrue, because, in fact, of the existing sixty Fellows of the College, more than one-sixth have come from Westminster, and at Trinity the custom is to prefer the worthy: it is frivolous, for the fact of a man having once been at school at Westminster is not the cause of his advancement to the position of a Doctor, Dean, or Bishop: and it is unfair, “for although Christ Church in Oxford be a most magnificent and royal foundation, and hath bred in all ages as learned, wise, and worthy prelates as the kingdom hath, yet Trinity College in Cambridge hath had no less royal founders, and if we fail in our Westminster brood (as otherwise I hope we do not) either the defect hath been [57] ]in themselves or else (which rather we suppose) it may be imputed to those good means the other College hath, being also a Cathedral Church and having Cannons both richly beneficed and highly dignified which doth enable them to Doctorships, Deaneries, and Bishopricks—a great blessing of God that our poor College wanteth.”

4. “Howbeit in that kind of fruitfulness we also are not destitute of God’s gracious blessing; for ... besides Doctors in all faculties to the number at the least of sixty, Deans to the number of eleven, Publick Professors to the number of ten, the two Archbishops, Canterbury and York, the most Reverend Fathers Whitgift and Hutton, and seven other principal Prelates of this kingdom, namely, Fletcher of London, Still of Bath and Wells, Babington of Worcester, Redman of Norwich, Rud of St Davids, Bennet of Hereford, and Gouldesborough of Gloucester, all of them simul et semel Bishops of this kingdom ... are such a demonstrative instance as we think no other College in either University can afford the like—and not one of these chosen out of Westminster School.”

5. “It is to be doubted whether there can be the like success if our Elections out of a private School shall be indubitate and certain; we rather think there can be no readier means to make Droanes and Loyterers in Colleges, nor any worse prejudice or more deadly bane unto learning and vertue, then when the rewards, and means thereof are tyed to persons, times, and places, and made regular and certain.”

6. The proposal would do a grave injustice to other students who might be men of great abilities.

7. The proposal would defeat the express wishes of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth, all of whom are to be reckoned as founders as well as benefactors of Trinity College.

[58]
]8 and 9. The proposal would be contrary to the existing statutes of the College, and to the oaths taken by the Master and Fellows on admission.

10. Preferences of this character are injurious to the particular School, the College, and the whole University, and a constant source of discord and contention.

11. “It is also against the Policy and common-wealth of a kingdom to restrain and abridge places and preferments originally meant, founded, and hitherto with good success employed for the common benefit of that kingdom to a private School: for benefits and privileges are to be amplified and not restrained; publick rewards are not to be applied to private places, purposes, or respects.”

12. Interference with the intentions and directions, of previous benefactors is contrary to public policy, and tends to prevent future benefactions.

13. This implies that Nevile had accepted the office of master of Trinity College under promises which rendered it inequitable that the college statutes should, during his tenure of the post, be altered against his wishes, but it is stated that this argument, though noted, is not to be pressed.

14. This raises some technical points, especially as to whether statutes of a College given under the great seal can be varied by letters patent without explicit reference to the clauses altered or repealed.

The memorandum concludes with a request that the College may have liberty to ask the opinion of the Judges on the questions raised, and thus obtain the benefit of the king’s “most equal just and princely laws.”

The use of the personal pronoun in one or two cases and the reference in the thirteenth paragraph to Nevile suggest that the document was composed by him. I cannot find out anything about the result [59] ]of the petition, but I conjecture that nothing came of it. Nevile however was not inclined to let the matter rest, and no doubt the esteem felt for him at court and his personal popularity were of great assistance to the Society in the negotiations that followed.

It was a few months later, in May 1608, at the annual election of scholars at Westminster that Nevile took the next step in defence of the college position. The following account of the election is based on a paper preserved at Westminster:

The Master of Trinity College (Nevile) refused to take the oath which was required, previously to the election, by the Law of the land as well as by the local Statutes. He also refused to elect to his College the three Scholars ordered by the Letters Patent of the Crown. The oath however was taken by the Dean of Westminster (Neile) and the Dean of Christ Church (King), as well as by their assistants, and by the Master of the School (Ireland). The Dean of Westminster then demanded, in writing, that the election should proceed; when the Master of Trinity College referred to some composition by which he stated he would be governed. To this the Dean of Westminster replied, that he knew of no such composition, and that, if it had existed, it was necessarily set aside by the Letters Patent of Queen Elizabeth and of His Majesty; whereon the Master of Trinity College observed, though with much protestation of his loyalty, that he did not allow the validity of the Letters Patent.

The other Electors, however, having agreed to proceed, the nine Scholars who had been examined were called in to hear the Statute read for the election to the two Colleges. The Master of Trinity then said that he had not places [60] ]enough vacant in his College. [In fact in April he and the Seniority had filled up all scholarships then vacant and pre-elected men to succeed to scholarships as vacancies occurred.] To this it was replied, that the want of vacancies had been occasioned by pre-elections of supernumerary Scholars, that the words of the Statute were disjunctive, and there was a clause commanding such Scholars to be received if they were fit. The Master of Trinity College did not deny the fitness of the candidates, but still refused to elect. In this wrangling the whole morning was wasted.

At length they went to dinner. After this, a fear having been expressed, that this “distraction” might become troublesome to their friends, “perhaps to His Majesty,” and “not without some obloquy” to themselves, the Master of Trinity College proposed a private settlement, naming October for it. The suggestion was favourably received by the Electors other than the Dean of Westminster. The latter however affirmed, that with his consent less than three Scholars should never be taken by Trinity College and three by Christ Church if the School produced so many fit Scholars: and as to that part of the Letters Patent, which related to the election of Westminster Scholars at Trinity College to Fellowships, he required that they should be taken in preference to others, if their qualifications were equal; stating at the same time, that the clause declaring them eligible to Fellowships two years after their degree of A.M. had arisen solely from the practice of pre-electing so many Fellows, that for three or four years together no election took place; and the Westminster Scholars at Trinity College were driven out to seek a better fortune elsewhere. The Master of Trinity College allowed that the practice of pre-elections was wrong; and it was at length agreed that if this were discontinued, that part of the King’s Letters concerning the eligibility of Westminster Scholars two years after their [61] ]degree of A.M. should not be urged against the local statute of Trinity College, De Gradibus Suscipiendis. Thereupon the Master of Trinity College took for his College as Scholars three candidates, to wit, Hacket, Shirley, and Herbert.

The three scholars so taken obtained fellowships in due course, Hacket became chaplain to James I, Charles I, and later to Charles II, suffered cruel persecution under the commonwealth, and at the restoration was made bishop of Lichfield: the Bishop’s Hostel was erected at his cost. An incident in Shirley’s career is chronicled below (see p. 223). Herbert was the well-known poet and divine. If the above account is reliable, and there is no reason to doubt its accuracy, the most important question in dispute, namely the preferential right of Westminsters to election to fellowships at Trinity, was left open. Nevile however had no intention to allow the matter to drop, and having made his protest at Westminster, he now secured the good services of his friend and Cambridge contemporary, Richard Bancroft, archbishop of Canterbury, who undertook to act as mediator in drawing up a “friendly and full” settlement of the question.

An agreement, drafted I feel confident by Nevile, was submitted to the archbishop and, after he had made a few alterations, was accepted by the dean and chapter of Westminster. The seniority of Trinity College, on 5 September 1608, passed a [62] ]minute that the matter “be referred to our Master against the 13^th of October,” and the deed is so dated, but its execution must have been delayed since there is a minute of the seniority, 8 December 1608, ordering that the composition with Westminster should be engrossed and sealed at the audit so as to be delivered before 1 February 1609.

The deed embodying this agreement was made between the dean and chapter of Westminster and Trinity College, and provided that the College should take yearly three scholars from Westminster School to be scholars of the College, and that there should be no pre-elections of supernumerary fellows to the prejudice of the Westminster scholars if deserving of fellowships. In consideration of these definite obligations the dean and chapter of Westminster agreed that the letters patent of 1607 should never be urged against the College by the dean and chapter or the schoolmaster or ushers or scholars of Westminster, and that the College should have such full power to elect fellows as had been previously enjoyed, excepting only the practice of pre-elections. To the deed is appended a statement that it was made with the privity and approbation of the archbishop of Canterbury, the earl of Salisbury (lord high treasurer of England and chancellor of the University of Cambridge), and of the earl of Northampton (the lord privy seal), all of whom signed [63] ]it. This conclusion of the affair may be regarded as a personal triumph for Nevile.

The arrangement was submitted to the king who in a letter directed to the College approved it, but required that the Westminster scholars each year should be granted seniority over other scholars of Trinity of their year and not be hindered by pre-elections: he did not however withdraw or rescind the previous letters patent. I have never seen the text of this letter but its contents are indisputable, and there are various subsequent references to it. The obligation to allow this seniority to the Westminster scholars was henceforth recognized by the College as binding on it.

The advisers of Trinity seem to have been doubtful whether it would be admitted that this second letter implied the rescission of the letters of 1607, and since there was every reason to avoid raising the question whether royal letters or mandates could be set aside or modified by private arrangements, it was wise to let matters run on as long as the agreement of 1608 was carried out by the school authorities. There is however a memorandum, ascribed to January 1610 in the State Papers, showing that “the recent grant by the King for the students of Trinity College, Cambridge, to be chosen from the Westminster scholars is prejudicial to the interests of Trinity,” which seems to imply that further negotiations took [64] ]place. I have not seen the memorandum and know nothing more about this than here appears.

During the sixteen years following this settlement, that is, from 1608 to 1623 inclusive, fifty-eight scholars were elected from Westminster to Trinity, of whom sixteen became fellows.

In 1623–24 a fresh dispute occurred. It would appear that while Trinity carried out its undertaking relating to the election of scholars from Westminster, it again began to pre-elect fellows with the object, it was said, of preventing any claim being made on behalf of the Westminster scholars in residence. Whether this was done in self-protection against unjustifiable claims or was a deliberate breach of the agreement of 1608 we do not know. An appeal to the crown on behalf of the school ensued, and on 7 September 1623, the king sent letters patent to the College as follows:

Trusty and well beloved we greet you well. Being much interested in the prosperity and well-fare of that our College which is both our immediate Foundation and the fairest in all our kingdoms, and furnished, for the most part with the extracions of our own free-school at Westminster, we cannot but be very sensible of any alteration in the government of the same.

Whereas therefore we are given to understand that younger students of that College have of late years been totally disheartened in their studies by a new and unwarrantable device of pre-electing more Fellows than there are places vacant at the time of that Election and the [65] ]Scholars of our own School (in whose loyalty and affection we are so much interested from their cradles) strangely discouraged and disgraced by being cast in their seniority behind all the Scholars and Fellows in their several Elections though never so exceeding in learning and education, we straightly will and require you that from this time forward ye do forbear all manner of pre-elections whatsoever as the pest and bane of all learning and succession; and that also you bear that regard and respect to the Scholars of that our own Royal School in giving them in all such elections respect and precedency which we are informed they fully deserve before all other of what country soever. Lastly, whereas we are given to understand that heretofore a corrupt custom hath crept into that our College of turning elections into particular nominations of the Master and the several Seniors which smells altogether of partialitie and corruption we do straightly will and require you the said Master of our College of whom we conceive a very good opinion, to see that hereafter all elections as well of Scholars as of Fellows be done according to the local statutes of your College and carried about with that pluralitie of voices therein required.

What reply (if any) the College made or could make I do not know, but presumably the answer was not satisfactory as these letters were followed by the appointment of royal commissioners to enquire into the Westminster elections. There is extant a letter from the master of Trinity (Richardson) dated 9 June 1624, to one of the commissioners, asking to be excused from attending the usual election of Westminster scholars, on account of [66] ]poor health. Probably this was regarded as an impertinence, and he must have been reprimanded since we have a letter dated 26 June signed by the master and six of the senior fellows, deprecating the royal displeasure, offering the most humble submission, promising to obey in anything that his majesty might command, but begging that present compliance might not be drawn into an example against the College. Richardson and James I died in March 1625, and the enquiry seems to have been then dropped.

The election in 1636 was interesting. It is said that among the candidates was Cowley who had already written various poems and a comedy showing distinct ability. The story runs that the boy failed badly in grammar, and the Trinity electors, insisting that this was conclusive, rejected him as a Westminster scholar, but offered him an ordinary scholarship at Trinity, which he accepted. Against this are the fact that he had been entered at Trinity as a pensioner in April, a few weeks before the election at Westminster, and the improbability that the electors would have drawn such a distinction between Westminster and other scholars of the House. Still old-time anecdotes are not to be lightly rejected: at any rate Cowley came into residence in due course and was made a scholar in the same term as the four boys taken from Westminster by the electors, these five [67] ]students being the only scholars elected by the College in 1637.

During the seventy-seven years from 1624 to 1700 inclusive, three hundred and fifty-six scholars were elected from Westminster to Trinity, of whom one hundred and twenty-six became fellows. During the fifty years, 1701 to 1750, out of one hundred and eighty-seven Westminster scholars at Trinity sixty-two became fellows; during the fifty years, 1751 to 1800, out of one hundred and eighty, thirty became fellows; and during the fifty-six years, 1801 to 1856, out of one hundred and seventy, four became fellows. Throughout this long period the friendly relations between the College and the school suffered no change.

In 1727 there was a curious echo of the controversy of 1607. A strange suggestion had been made, apparently with the tacit approval of the authorities of Westminster, that new statutes should be given to Trinity constituting the dean and chapter of Westminster Visitors of the College, and it was decided by the advocates of the movement to open the campaign by asking the dean of Westminster to call the attention of the master of Trinity (Bentley), to the “Letters Anno Quinto Jacobi Primi.” Bentley replied on 5 March 1727, denied their validity and argued that even if originally valid, they could not be pressed after more [68] ]than a century during which time “they had never been acted upon”: he added that, if antiquated letters were still binding, there were various matters in which he had powers, whose exercise might prove singularly inconvenient to those who had raised the question. This was really conclusive, but further consideration had shown the inherent weakness or folly of the original idea, and the chapter was wise enough to proceed no further with the matter.

Shortly afterwards, probably at the following election at Westminster, Bentley is said to have referred to the dean’s communication, and remarked that the authority of the letters of 1607 would doubtless have seemed stronger, at any rate to the dean’s predecessor (Atterbury), if not to the chapter, could they have been described as “Anno Primo Jacobi Tertii”—an irrelevant remark, but it carried a sting, for Atterbury’s devotion to the cause of the Pretender was deeply resented by the government.

From an unknown date until the early years of the nineteenth century, Westminster scholars at Trinity were allowed the privilege of wearing academic gowns of a cut different from those of other undergraduates and further distinguished by having on the sleeves a violet button with a silk loop. The gowns of all pensioners in the University were then [69] ]black and (except for those worn by Westminsters) cut to a common pattern. The Westminster distinction was discontinued when the present system of different gowns for different Colleges was introduced.

During the first half of the nineteenth century the numbers in the school fell seriously, and well-founded complaints were made about the standard of scholarship attained by the scholars elected to the universities. In 1856, as the result of negotiations, initiated by Whewell, the arrangements with Trinity were completely recast, and it was agreed on 5 December 1856 that the school should abandon the right of Westminster boys to election to scholarships at Trinity, and that in filling up open emoluments in Trinity, former Westminster boys should enjoy no preference. In consideration of this release, the Society undertook to establish at its own cost, exhibitions, not more than three to be awarded each year, for boys elected from the school who were otherwise qualified for admission to the College; every such exhibitioner, if so deserving, to be eligible for a college scholarship tenable with the exhibition. This was approved by the queen in council on 25 June 1857. It was further agreed that the Westminster exhibitioners were to be placed on the same footing as exhibitioners elected by open competition before commencing [70] ]residence. The mode of election is settled by the school statutes, but it would seem that the Trinity electors have no right to demand intellectual attainments beyond those required at the time for admission to the College. The exhibitions are not now confined to scholars of the school.

So ends the story of Westminster Scholars at Trinity College, Cambridge. During the two hundred and ninety-six years from 1561 to 1856 inclusive, one thousand and sixty-four scholars had been elected from Westminster to Trinity (or say 3.6 a year), of whom two hundred and seventy-eight (or say one in four) had become fellows. In conclusion I may add that in 1869 in virtue of the powers given by the Public Schools Act, 1868, the dean and chapter of Westminster, the dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and the master of Trinity College, Cambridge, created a new Governing Body in whom the governance of the school has been since vested.

[18] See Life of Whitgift by J. Strype, London, 1718, pp. 13, 14 and Appendix, pp. 7, 8.

[19] Life of Whitgift by J. Strype, London, 1718, Appendix, p. 9.

[20] State Papers, Domestic, 1604, p. 185.

[21] According to Dean Peacock, royal letters and orders, at variance with college statutes, were binding only if explicitly or tacitly accepted by the Society. That may have been technically correct, but it is very doubtful if Tudor or Stuart sovereigns would have admitted it.

[71]
]CHAPTER IV.
THE SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO UNDERGRADUATES.

This is an account of a famous struggle some eighty years ago between the authorities and the undergraduates of Trinity College on the subject of attendance at chapel. The story is not to the credit of the authorities, but, for what it is worth, here it is.

There is a prelude to it concerned with a controversy in 1834 between Thirlwall, later the statesman-bishop of St David’s, and Wordsworth, then master of the House, which raised the question of the advisability of compelling undergraduates to be present at religious services in College. At that time regular attendance at chapel was required—as for centuries previously it had been—from all students as a matter of discipline, and the rule in force on the subject was embodied in a college order of 22 April 1824, as follows:

Agreed by the Master and Seniors that every Undergraduate not having an aegrotat or dormiat do attend Morning Chapel five times at the least in every week, or four times at the least including Sunday; and the same number of times in the Evening, under penalty that the week in which anyone shall not have so attended be not [72] ]reckoned towards keeping the Term of such Undergraduate—unless such omission be repaired by extra attendance the week following.

Absentees were punished, and those who offended frequently were liable to expulsion.

Until the era of the Reform Bill some regulation like this was accepted as a matter of course, but when, in that period of enquiry, all things were put to the proof, doubts as to its wisdom began to be voiced. In 1834 Thirlwall, then assistant-tutor to Whewell, in an open letter dated 21 May, while advocating the admission of dissenters to the University, lamented the constant repetition in college chapels of a mechanical service, believing the practice to be detrimental to the interests of religion: he further expressed the opinion that attendance at chapel services should be voluntary. He referred to a then recent statement by Wordsworth in which the latter had said “the alternative is not here between compulsory religion (as it is called) and any other religion, but between compulsory religion and no religion at all,” and on this remarked:

I cannot indeed draw such delicate distinctions as my friend seems to make in this passage; for as the epithet compulsory applied to religion appears to me contradictory, the difference between a compulsory religion and no religion at all is too subtle for my grasp. But if for religion we substitute [73] ]the word service, which would probably better express his meaning, then I should quite agree with him, that, in this case, a voluntary service would soon be changed into no service at all: that is, the persons who are now compelled to attend, if they were left at liberty, would stay away. And this is the very reason why I think it would be better that they should be allowed to do so.

The argument was amplified in a second letter dated 13 June. This was skilful enough as a piece of dialectics though hardly likely to convince opponents.

That an officer of the college should express such views and in this way was regarded by Wordsworth as scandalous, and five days after the publication of the first letter, without asking for any explanation, he, with the consent or approval of Whewell and the two deans (Thorp and Carus), removed Thirlwall from his office of assistant-tutor. This arbitrary act was generally resented in the Society even by those who disagreed with Thirlwall or thought that he had been indiscreet in his advocacy; some too considered the act unstatutable, but Thirlwall refused to appeal to the Visitor, and shortly afterwards left Cambridge on his appointment, in November 1834, by the lord chancellor, to the important living of Kirby-under-dale in Yorkshire.

Two years later, in 1836, while the matter was still a subject of debate, Carus was made senior dean. [74] ]He was a kindly man, leader in the University of the school of thought associated with Simeon’s name, but, whether rightly or wrongly, was regarded as unsympathetic by those who did not think as he did on religious questions. Carus detested the view taken by Thirlwall, and far from conciliating college opinion, which had been outraged by Wordsworth’s action, urged the seniority (a Board consisting of the master and the eight senior resident fellows to which, under the Elizabethan statutes, the government of the College was entrusted) to re-draft the rule of 1824 and make clear or stiffen the penalties for non-obedience. The seniority agreed, and on 7 February 1838, issued the following order:

Agreed by the Master and Seniors, that all Undergraduate Scholars, and Foundation Sizars do attend Chapel eight times at the least in every week, that is twice on Sunday and once every other day; the Scholars, on pain of losing ipso facto their statutable allowance for Commons, and such additions as have since been made by the College in the way of augmentation to the Commons, for every week when there has been a failure of such attendance as is above described; and the Sizars, on pain of incurring ipso facto an equivalent deduction in money from their allowances.

Agreed also, that a like attendance be required from all other Undergraduates; and that in case of failure, the Parties so offending be forthwith admonished by the Deans; and if, after such admonition, irregularity be persisted in, notice be sent by the Dean to the Tutor, that a warning from him [75] ]also may timely be given: after which, if both these means shall fail in producing regularity, the offender shall be reported by the Dean to the Master (or, in his absence, to the Vice-Master) to receive a formal admonition from him, in the presence of the Dean, a record of which shall be preserved: and finally, in all cases where such formal admonition shall have been incurred three times, the offender shall ipso facto be removed from the College, either entirely, or for one or more Terms, according to the circumstances of the case; a record of this sentence being also preserved.

Authority is given to the Deans to grant occasional leave of absence, on special application made previously, but not otherwise. Also on any casual failure of attendance, it is allowed to Deans to accept (in order to make up the deficiency) an equivalent attendance on other days during the same week only; any failure on Sundays to be compensated by attendance twice on other days.

According to college tradition, which came to me from C. W. King, an undergraduate of the time, a deputation of scholars, who remonstrated on the severity of these sanctions, was informed by Carus that attendance at chapel was not so much a duty as a privilege, which was valued the most by those who were oldest and therefore best qualified to form an opinion on the subject—a boomerang argument which obviously was dangerous unless the fellows themselves attended chapel with the regularity desired from undergraduates.

On this rebuff, certain students formed a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Undergraduates. [76] ]Its founders issued a notice asking whether what was forced on undergraduates was practised by dons; and that facts might speak for themselves, they announced that they would issue marking-sheets showing the attendance week by week of the fellows in chapel. Copies of these marking-sheets were put (surreptitiously) on the college screens, sent to London clubs, and widely circulated. All efforts by the deans to discover the authors or the printer employed failed; I understand, however, that W. J. Conybeare, G. E. L. Cotton, J. S. Howson, C. L. Rose, and C. J. Tindal were its chief promoters, and that the printer was Metcalfe of 9 Trinity Street. Copies of these marking-sheets are now very rare, but a few years ago one came into the market which I was fortunate enough to secure. It is bound in blue calf, stamped with the college arms having as supporters two undergraduates in knee breeches waving their caps, and with the motto Nemo me impune lacessit.

The first sheet is for the week ending 17 February 1838, and shows the attendances, morning and evening, of the master and the eighteen fellows then in residence. Each of the two deans attended ten times, but they were in a peculiar position, for it was their duty, as the Society pointed out, to go twice a day and therefore fourteen times in each week. Only one of the other fellows, Perry, later [77] ]bishop of Melbourne, complied with the rule imposed on undergraduates, four fellows went only once, and four not at all. To this sheet the Society appended the following note:

Does then this new regulation of the Master and Seniors proceed from any religious motive? Do they practice (sic) what they force on the Undergraduates? They are very regular in their attendance in Hall, but why are their places vacant in Chapel?

The next week showed a slight improvement in the attendances. The Society congratulated itself on this, and in some general remarks indicated what it expected from the fellows, copying these from the notices on the subject issued by Carus. It should be said that in the sheets those who were ill or away from Cambridge, were marked with an aeg or abs, so any such explanation of the absence of the others from chapel was impossible.

In the third week the improvement continued, and three fellows in addition to the master and the deans complied with the rule, but this was the high water-mark of attendance, and after all it did not come to much. The Society expressed its gratification at this, which it was pleased to treat as the result of its efforts, and at the same time issued the following notice:

A prize for general regularity, and good behaviour when in Chapel, has been instituted by the Society, who are as anxious to reward merit as they are to punish immorality. [78] ]But whilst they thus wish to instil into the minds of the Fellows those Religious feelings which, owing to a bad education, they may possibly be without, the Society most distinctly declare that they shall not be guided merely by an outward show of religion. It is not, therefore, enough to go merely eight times a week to Chapel, and when there to utter the responses so loud as to attract attention, or otherwise disturb the prayers of Undergraduates. Such conduct will at all times be severely punished.... For convenience of those members of Trinity College now residing in London, six copies of this publication are sent weekly to each of the University Clubs there.

In the fourth week, apart from the indefatigable Perry and the two deans, no one came up to the prescribed standard. On this result the Society remarked:

The Society regret much that during the last week great laxity has prevailed among the Fellows in general with regard to their attendance in Chapel. This is the more to be lamented, as they had been for the two previous weeks so much more regular than usual. This irregularity cannot proceed from ill health, for they have been constantly to Hall, although they are not compelled to go there more than five times in each week. The Society, however, still hopes that in the ensuing week they will be able to make a more favourable report both of their attendance in Chapel, as also of their good conduct when there. As was before stated, any Fellow who shall, owing to any wine-party, or other sufficient reason, be prevented from attending, will be excused on sending a note previously to the Secretary of the Society, and his absence will be counted as presence. [The last seven words were a quotation from a note by [79] ]Carus.] It is agreed by the Master and Seniors that all Undergraduates do go eight times at least each week! Why then do they not set us a better example?

These publications were widely disseminated and led to the production of a number of epigrams and lampoons which were scattered broadcast in the University. The Society appended to this sheet a note that its members had “no connexion whatever with any of those abusive and profane publications which have been so industriously circulated during the last two weeks.”

The sheet for the week ending 17 March, announced the success of the movement, though in this return only Carus and Perry came up to the standard. Appended to the sheet were the following notes:

The Society in laying the first list of this month before the public, have much reason to be pleased with the success of the work which they have undertaken, for they have been informed, on very good authority, that the Cruelty System will not be continued more than a week longer, but that the Master and Seniors have determined to come to a new Agreement about Chapels.... If this should be the case, the end which the Society had in view will be accomplished, and the weekly publications will be discontinued, until called again into life by some new act of Cruelty upon the much enduring Undergraduates, but not otherwise. The Fellows have been very irregular during the last week, in their attendance at Chapel; so much so that only two of the whole number in residence have kept the number, which the [80] ]Undergraduates are compelled to keep, on pain of being ipso facto rusticated, either entirely, or for one or more terms. And yet one Member of Trinity College was really sent away during the past week (who had always been seven times each week before) because he had the courage to object to compulsory attendance at Chapel, especially from those men who had set him such an example!

In the course of the next week a printed notice appeared on the screens reducing the number of compulsory attendances in chapel to two on Sundays and four during the week. The paper, type, and setting look as if this were issued by the authorities. I have, however, seen a contemporary letter in which it is said that this notice was in fact a forgery: the suggestion being that the men were tired of the joke, and invented this way of terminating the episode. I cannot say whether the deans modified their rule, and the question of the genuineness of this notice must be left undecided. It is true that no extant minute of the seniority exists about any new regulation, but the records of the proceedings of that body are so imperfect that no conclusion can be drawn from this.

The Society in publishing its last sheet, namely, that for the week ending 24 March, concluded with the following class list and notes:

The examination of the Fellows is now finished: and in arranging the different classes the Secretary has attached to each person’s name his number of marks, in order to do [81] ]away with any appearance of favour shewn more to one than another, as is too often the case in other Examinations.

First Class.
*Carus	72
Perry	66
*Barnes	50
Second Class.
Heath	42
Wordsworth Senior	38
Thorp	35
Whewell	34
Blakesley	30
Third Class.
Peacock	28
Thompson	19
Brown	17
Dobson	13
Martin	12
Last Class.
Wordsworth Junior	9
Sedgwick	5
Field	4
Donaldson	3
Burcham	0
Walsh	0

* The two gentlemen marked with an asterisk are respectively Senior and Junior Dean, whose duty it is to go twice every day to Chapel.

The Prize Medal for regular attendance at chapel and good conduct when there, has been awarded to Mr Perry, who has passed an examination highly creditable to himself and family. He was only 18 marks below the highest number which he could possibly have gained. It is, therefore, to be hoped Mr P. will be more regular and do still better next term. With respect to the two Gentlemen who are not classed, the Secretary need hardly say that he does not envy them their feelings on the present occasion. In consequence of the New Agreement, the Chapel Lists will ipso facto be discontinued for the future.

In the above list the master is designated as Wordsworth Senior. The prize was awarded to Perry the future bishop, but instead of the promised medal he was given a bible. This was secured for the College in 1906, and now rests in our library. It is bound in calf, stamped with the arms and [82] ]supporters assumed by the Society, and bears the inscription “From the Undergraduates of Trinity College to the Rev. Charles Perry, M.A., as a mark of affection and esteem for the good example which he set them and the rest of the College by his constant attendance at Chapel.” I have been informed that to each of the two fellows who did not attend at all there was sent a small bible with an inscription therein of the Society’s hope that its presence among his books might in the future encourage him to perform tasks which he believed to be important even though he found them unpleasant.

The doggerel verses to which I have alluded as appearing in connection with the struggle were, as far as I have seen them, poor stuff as literary productions, and some were highly improper. The author of one of the worst of them was discovered and expelled from the College, 12 March 1838. I possess copies of four or five of these productions, their value consists entirely in giving us stories then current about dons and things academic—stories, I may add, which appear generally to have had no foundation in fact. The best set of verses, supposed to be addressed on Saturday evening by a man to his bedmaker, is a parody of Tennyson’s May Queen. It begins: “You must mind and call me early—call me early, d’ye hear? For I in morning chapel to-morrow [83] ]must appear,” and on the whole runs easily. There is nothing in these squibs which deserves remembrance or needs any further notice here.

There ends the story, and no comments on it or the actors in it are needed. It may be added as a postscript, that for a long time subsequent to this incident some attendance at chapel was required from all who had no good reason to ask for exemption, and that as time went on the requirements gradually grew less. The question of making attendance at chapel compulsory on those who have not yet fully attained years of discretion is admittedly difficult, and made more so by the fact that while such attendance is approved and rigorously imposed every day of the week at most public boarding schools on lads up to the age of eighteen or nineteen, it is regarded as unthinkable in the case of young graduates of twenty-one or so. Trinity College finally adopted the view advocated by Thirlwall, and to-day attendance at chapel services is voluntary.

[84]
]CHAPTER V.
THE COLLEGE CHAPEL.

The College Chapel, as it appears to-day, is described in many of the guide-books which are pressed on the casual traveller in Cambridge. I am not here concerned with the accounts of it there given, for in this paper I intend to deal with little beyond its history and traditions.

It is a matter of common knowledge that the present chapel was built under the auspices of the Tudor queens, Mary and Elizabeth, on the site of the old chapel of King’s Hall. Let me begin by tracing briefly the history of these successive buildings, and their connection with college developments.

King’s Hall owed its origin to the establishment of scholars in the University of Cambridge by Edward II in 1317, and was put on a permanent footing by Edward III in 1337. The original home of the Society was a large two-storeyed house, built of wood and thatched, bought from Robert de Croyland, and situated on the ground now occupied by the walks and grass plot in front of the chapel. No chapel or oratory was connected with it, and the [85] ]Society worshipped in All Saints’ church which then stood on the green in Trinity Street facing our present chapel.

In 1375 the College began the erection on the ground to the north and west of its house of a larger building comprising a cloister court with various extensions. The west side of this court, some hundred and twenty feet long, is still standing and faces the bowling green: the other three sides and the extensions have been destroyed. These buildings were of three storeys, built of stone, brick, or rubble, and tiled: they were finished about 1438, and the old mansion of Robert de Croyland was then pulled down. Into the inner quadrangle of this cloister court there projected from the middle of its western face a wooden erection some fifteen feet long by fifteen feet wide, built in 1419–24 over what is now the junior combination room, and containing on its upper floor an oratory which opened on to a gallery over the cloisters on that side of the court. A list of the service-books, plate, copes and other vestments, altar-cloths, curtains, gold embroidery, etc., kept in this oratory in 1479 is given in my booklet of 1917 on King’s Hall. The building was small and the Society continued to use All Saints’ church for its more important services.

The desirability of having a chapel large enough [86] ]for all college purposes was obvious, and in 1464 the Society began the erection of such a building, on ground beyond the eastern extension of the cloister court. This new chapel, which covered part of the site of our present chapel, was about a hundred feet long and thirty feet broad, that is roughly half the length of and the same breadth as the present chapel: it was built of stones, squared and supplied ready for use, which according to Caius came from the large banqueting hall of the Castle then being pulled down and probably by purchase from King’s College to whom these materials had been granted. It was wainscotted, and was fitted with stalls and carved woodwork; the high altar, like that of the older oratory, was of wood and the interior walls above the wainscotting were plastered and whitewashed; the sum spent suggests that the fittings were not elaborate. The work was finished in 1499, but probably the chapel was used from 1485 onwards: of course the plate, service-books, etc., were removed to it from the old oratory.

Trinity College, on its foundation in 1546, naturally made use of this chapel, for it was the only one available on the site^[22] of the new College. [87] ]It is fairly certain that it was then fitted up with additional seats and probably redecorated

: the provision of a new organ and a new lectern happen to be specifically mentioned.

Edward VI ascended the throne in 1547, and barely had the interior of the chapel of King’s Hall been adapted to the needs of the new foundation than the College was required to remove all popish traces from it. The altar and steps were taken down, and a communion table set up, most likely in the middle of the chapel. The books, copes, vestments, and altar ornaments which had come down from old times were sold: they realized no less than £140. 8s. 8d., and the magnitude of the sum obtained in such unfavourable conditions shows that the services must have been conducted with considerable pomp. There is to-day in the library a standing censer boat, ascribed to the end of the fourteenth century or the early years of the [88] ]fifteenth century, with traces on it of its ancient gilding, but there is no record as to how or when it came to us. King’s Hall did in fact own among its chapel vessels a “ship of silver” which probably means a censer boat, and it may be that this is the vessel in question. With this possible (but doubtful) exception all our medieval chapel plate has gone.

When in 1553 Mary succeeded her brother, the Roman religion was restored, and the chapel again adapted to the old forms of worship. Perhaps remonstrance was made by the master, Bill, who had been appointed in 1551 on Redman’s death and was a strong Anglican: at any rate he was deprived of his office. The expulsion was dramatic and apparently physical, for as he was sitting in his stall in the chapel two members of the House, Mr Boys and Mr Gray, approached and “removed him ... in a rude and insolent way.” Declining any contest he retired to Bedfordshire, and was succeeded as master by Christopherson, the queen’s chaplain and confessor.

Mary recognized the interest taken by her father in Trinity and, in furtherance of his design, decided to rebuild the College on a comprehensive plan. She issued orders about this on 24 October 1554, and it was arranged in 1555 that the first large task undertaken in connection with it should be the erection of a new chapel. Preliminary work on this [89] ]was commenced in 1556 and it was then expected that the building would be finished by the end of 1557, but by October of that year the walls were only half-way up: delays ensued and ten years elapsed before the building was completed. The old chapel was unroofed in 1561, and cannot, it would seem, have been used after that date: it is possible it was shut up in the course of 1557, but early in that year it was still in use, for the royal commissioners in January 1557 complained of the absence of lights on the altar and of coals to cense the sacrament. During the years from the closing of the old chapel to 1567 it is uncertain whether the services were held in College or in one of the town churches.

It was originally intended that the new chapel should be a hundred and fifty-seven feet long and thirty-three feet broad, the east end being flush with the street frontage of the Great Gate. The roof was to be curved, open, and relieved with fretwork and oak pendants. There was to be an east window, a west window, eleven windows on the south side, and twelve on the north side from which it follows that it was to be a detached building save for its abutment on staircase E in the Great Court.

It was designed to contain two rows of stalls made after the pattern of those at King’s College, sixty-eight in the upper row with misereres, divided by [90] ]pillars, and with double crests above, and a lower row of stalls not so divided. Unfortunately the contractor got into money difficulties and sold much of the timber which had been bought for the intended roof and stalls, causing the work to fall into arrear.

After the accession of Elizabeth, changes in the plans of the new chapel were made, the length being increased to two hundred and five feet, thus making it project beyond the east side of the Great Court. In 1564 the walls of the building were finished and plastered, and the date 1564 cut on the east gable together with the text from the Vulgate, Matthew xxi. 13, Domus mea domus orationis vocabitur, which in the authorized version runs: “My house shall be called the house of prayer” and is followed by the clause “but ye have made it a den of thieves.” Wags have sometimes continued the inscription by adding the second clause on the chapel either of Trinity or of St John’s as their inclinations led them. The roof, put on in 1565, is of a style earlier than this date, and Willis came to the conclusion that it is the actual roof of the old chapel of King’s Hall supplemented by additional timber to fit it for the larger building: I like to think that we still worship under the roof which sheltered our predecessors more than four centuries ago.

In the year last mentioned, 1565, the stones [91] ]for the pavement were brought from Croyland Abbey and maybe some are still there. In the next year the interior fittings were taken in hand, and the organ screen erected. In the following year, 1567, the windows were glazed with white glass bearing inscriptions, coats of arms, and heraldic badges such as the fleur-de-lys, portcullis, and rose: the organ (a small instrument) and the pulpit were moved from the old chapel, and the stalls put in. It would seem that the wainscotting and wall-seats in the present antechapel are of this date, and possibly came from King’s Hall. Moving from west to east in the completed building there were in succession an antechapel sixty-five feet long, an organ-screen eight feet deep, the chapel seats along some seventy feet, a space of twenty-four feet, the communion table, and a space of thirty-six feet free of encumbrances. The work was finished by Michaelmas, 1567. There is no record of the building having been consecrated.

Mary died in 1558, and on 20 November, the Sunday following the proclamation of Elizabeth, Bill, the former master of the College, preached at St Paul’s Cross in London; the next Sunday, his successor Christopherson preached there. Probably the men disliked one another, and certainly took different views of the position. Some scandal was caused, an the upshot of the affair was that [92] ]Christopherson was sent to prison, while Bill returned to Cambridge, restored to the mastership.

Bill, a discreet courtier, was a favourite at court, and held, under Elizabeth’s favour, the provostship of Eton and the deanery of Westminster together with the mastership of Trinity; it was probably due to his influence that Elizabeth in 1560 issued a commission to procure materials and labour for completing the chapel which had been begun on her sister’s initiative. Baker praised his prudence and temper while master, and added that “if he has shown any frailties or failings here, allowances must be made for difficult times and potent courtiers that are not easily resisted.” In my opinion the services to the College of its first three masters, Redman, Bill, and Christopherson, were of the greatest value, and have hardly received that recognition from posterity which they deserve.

On Bill’s death, the crown offered the mastership to Beaumont, a calvinist whose views were more pronounced than Cecil supposed at the time of the appointment. Beaumont sympathized with the puritan party, whose numbers in the University were now rapidly increasing, but did little to guide them or to check their intolerance which constantly offended public opinion.

The description of the windows in the new chapel does not suggest that figures or catholic symbols [93] ]appeared thereon, but, none the less, the “malcontents” thought them objectionable and in November 1565, broke “all the windows wherein did appear superstition.” In the same term occurred the famous surplice disturbance^[23]. The puritans objected to the use of the surplice in chapel on Sundays, Saints’ days, and their eves, and on a certain “Sunday (in Dr Whitgift’s absence), Mr Cartwright and two of his adherents made three sermons on one day in the chapel so vehemently inveighing against the ceremonies of the church that at evening prayer all the scholars save three [together with one of the chaplains] (viz. Dr Leg, Mr West, Whitaker’s tutor, and the chaplain) cast off their surplices as an abominable relic of superstition”—a curious illustration of how little the calvinists esteemed the value of academic discipline unless they exercised it themselves. The organization of this demonstration was attributed to Cartwright, their leader in the University and a fellow of the College; it was probably due to the disapproval of his conduct in this and similar matters that shortly afterwards he went out of residence for two or more years.

Beaumont died in 1567 and at his request was buried “with no vain jangling of bells nor any other popish ceremonies” in the new chapel, his being [94] ]the first interment in it. He is commemorated by a carving (somewhat difficult to detect) of his face on the tenth principal in the chapel roof reckoned from the east end—it is lettered R. B. Mr. He was succeeded by Whitgift and the result of the subsequent bitter struggle between him and the puritans settled the constitution and policy of the University till the middle of the nineteenth century, but the battle was mainly fought in the senate-house and in London, and is not specially connected with our chapel.

Alterations to the organ were made in 1594, and elaborate hangings placed in the organ loft in 1604. Thenceforward repairs and reconstructions of the organ followed one another every few years. The history of the instrument has been published in pamphlet form, and I shall not again refer to its successive enlargements. The west window was blocked up about this time owing to the removal of King Edward’s Tower to its present position.

There is an account of college doings in chapel in 1635 in the following memorandum sent to Laud, and endorsed by him as embodying matter which he intended to examine during an intended visit to Cambridge in September 1636.

In Trinity College, they have been long noted to be negligent of the chapel and of prayers in it; the best come [95] ]but seldom, and by their example the rest make small account of service. In some tutors’ chambers (who have three or four score pupils), the private prayers are longer and louder by far at night than they are at Chapel in the evening. Some fellows are there, who scarce see the inside of the chapel thrice in a year, nor public hall, nor St Mary’s Church, and (they say) impugn all.

A quire is there founded for Sundays and holydays, but the quiremen are so negligent and unskilful, that, unless it be an anthem, they often sing the hymns no otherwise than in the common psalmerie tune. And to mend the matter, they have divers dry choristers (as they call them), such as never could and never meane to sing a note, and yet enjoy, and are put in to take the benefit of those places professedly. They have a large chapel, and yet the boyes rows of pews are placed just in the middle of the chapel, before and behind the Communion-table, which some there are about to reform.

They lean, or sit, or kneele at prayers, everyone in a several posture as he pleases. At the name of Jesus few will bow, and when the creed is repeated, many of the boyes, by some men’s directions, turn towards the west door. Their surplices and song-books, and other furniture for divine service, is very mean. The cloth that lies upon the table not worth 14d. He that executes, steps over the exhortation and begins, Wherefore I pray and beseech you, &c. They use no Litany for the most part, but in Lent only, and in Lent only upon Sundays, and when they say it, it is at the Communion-table. They repeat not the Creed after the Gospel, and instead of the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis, they will at pleasure (sometimes when the quiremen are present) sing the 23rd or some other riming Psalm.... They have lately taken advice, and are about mending their chapel, if it holds.

Fellows ... (when of the degree of M.A.) and fellow-commoners, [96] ]take themselves generally to have a privilege to miss prayers, as well as the public table of the hall. From hence it comes to pass, that so many of that ranke are to be founde at those times, either in taverns and towne-houses, or at some other pleasant imployments, where they please.

Whether all this was true or not we cannot say, but at any rate in the following year, 1636, the College spent a considerable sum on alterations and decorations in the chapel. The communion table was removed to the east end and the ground there raised, a pavement of stone and marble laid down, the walls were panelled, and rich hangings provided. Charles I, with his son the prince of Wales, visited the chapel in March 1642, and was much pleased therewith: we read at this time of candlesticks, tapers, and a crucifix on the altar; other references show that the ritual was high.

The next year 1643 saw a great change, for the parliamentary party secured control of the town and district. The order compelling the use of the surplice on certain days was now rescinded, and under Dowsing the chapel was purged, the altar steps levelled, the altar taken away, and a wooden communion table without rails set up in the middle of the chapel; the organ and hangings were removed; and certain figures, painted on the walls at the east end whitewashed. The zealots did not think the reforms had gone far enough, but [97] ]no other changes were forced on the College, and a few months later the Society made a money present “to some of Major Scot’s souldiers who defended the chappell from the rudenesse of the rest.” A few years later, on 12 March 1647, Sir Thomas Fairfax then in command of the district came, and was received “in great state ... in the Chapel, he was presented with a rich bible, and in the hall with a sumptuous banquet”—a pleasant combination.

At the restoration, the original altar of 1643 was recovered and replaced at the east end, a screen of rich mosaic work erected behind it, and as far as practicable the chapel restored to its former appearance. Doubtless, however, practices continued which to-day would strike us as unseemly, for I notice that in 1665 “it was agreed that Dod have the place of keeping the dogs out of the chapel.”

In the early years of the eighteenth century the condition of the fabric caused anxiety; after only a little more than a century’s wear the roof was found to be in a dangerous condition, and a portion of one of the external walls in danger of falling. It was determined to place the building, inside as well as outside, in thorough repair. Work began in 1706 and was nearly thirty years in progress. The fellows and a few friends subscribed a large part of the cost, and the rest was paid out of corporate [98] ]income. In the plan adopted, which is associated with the names of Bentley and Cotes, the east window was blocked, and the present stalls, baldachino, organ-screen, and wainscotting erected: the design of the latter is excellent of its kind, though not altogether suited to the architecture of the building. Some of the old stalls are said to have been removed to St Michael’s church, and the tradition may be accepted as probable. Later in the century, 1787–88, the roof was painted in white and gold.

The number of residents in College in the early half of this century was small, and probably the chapel was in regular use during most of its restoration. A trivial incident at this time afforded some amusement. Complaints had been made that Bentley—an illustrious scholar, genuinely interested in promoting learning, but as master of Trinity arrogant, unscrupulous, and dishonest—never went to chapel though required to do so by the statutes. This was true enough, and he determined to silence his critics by appearing again. But so long had he been absent that the door of his stall had got fixed and could not be opened till the lock had been wrenched off.

Prof. Hughes has called my attention to some unpublished notes^[24] by a friendly visitor about the [99] ]chapel services on Saturday and Sunday evenings in the fourth decade of the eighteenth century. The writer says that interpolated in the evening prayers were elaborate musical performances sometimes involving two symphonies^[25] and two anthems in which the choir, organ, and six violins took part; he also repeats more than once that the building was crowded [by strangers] and the noise so great that little of the service could be heard. Thus, to quote one instance, under date of 28 May 1738, he writes:

This evening I was at Trinity Colledge Chapple where there was so great a crowd that nothing could be heard of the whole service, I could see the Readers lips go, but, not so much as heare the least sound of his voice, and when Dr Walker read the 2d Leason could I only heare the sound of his voice but not to distinguish one word. There was great difference in the Musick part from what used to be, for the symphony was first by the Organ and then by 6 violins in 3 parts to all which the Organ was the base. After the reading the first and 2nd Lessons, 3 men sang the [blank] to which the Choire was the Corus. Before the Prayer for the King there was another Symphony by the Organ, & Violins, and the Anthem was Sung by one man, to which the choir was likewise the chorus.

Throughout most of the eighteenth century, a good many of the fellows resident in Cambridge held livings in the vicinity. They were accustomed to ride out on Sunday to their cures, hold services, [100] ]and return home to a comfortable supper the same evening, but in general neglected their parishes during the rest of the week. Thus if a parishioner died, the funeral was deferred till the following Sunday; and if a marriage-service was to be held in the village, it had to wait for a free Sunday. In these circumstances the bride and bridegroom often settled the matter by coming into Cambridge for the ceremony, and during the first half of this century our chapel was constantly borrowed for such marriage services; after the Marriage Act of 26 George II, cap. 33, this use of it became illegal unless a special license were obtained. Since that Act, it has been used only once for such a purpose, namely, for the marriage of Miss Butler on 18 December 1901.

Coming to the nineteenth century, we have numerous notes about the chapel and the services. At the beginning of this period the author of Alma Mater (J. M. F. Wright, who commenced residence in 1817) gives an unfavourable account of the services, saying that they were gabbled through as fast as possible amid a great deal of talking. The first part of this statement may be correct, but as to the second probably conversation was rare, and such as took place, though not condemned by public opinion, was subdued and was held only in recesses, one of which was known as iniquity corner. In fact, [101] ]we may take it that the vast majority of the undergraduates acted as gentlemen though they attended chapel reluctantly and merely as a matter of discipline. Attendance was required at seven o’clock in the morning, not a convenient hour, albeit considerably later than that usual in Tudor times.

In 1831 the fabric was again thoroughly repaired, the roof redecorated, certain stalls elevated, desks at the east end constructed, and a new scheme of lighting by candelabra introduced. A few years later, in 1838, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Undergraduates concerned themselves with marking the attendance of fellows in chapel. That incident I have described elsewhere.

In 1867–75 the building was again thoroughly overhauled, the south side faced with stone, a porch, a new vestry, and a choir-room built, the organ screen moved a few feet westward, the walls and roof painted, gilding used freely on the panelling, the windows filled with stained glass, backed benches and kneeling stools introduced for undergraduates, and the building lighted with gas. During part of the time occupied by this restoration, the College used St Michael’s church as its chapel.

According to the scheme of decoration, adopted on the advice of Lightfoot and Westcott, if we proceed eastwards up the chapel we are supposed to note, in order, the frescoes on the walls (which [102] ]represent old testament heroes and teachers) and paintings on the roof (which illustrate the Benedicite), leading up through Jewish history to the birth of Christ, and then, returning westward, to have suggested to us, by the successive windows, the historical development of Christianity and the growth of learning particularly in the University and College. A man might worship many years in the chapel before he discovered this design.

The panels in the sacrarium are replaced by intarsia work in which all the woods used are of their natural colours. The sixteenth-century silver cross on the communion table came from Spain. The wrought-iron gas standards here and through the chapel are also worthy of note; fortunately they were allowed to remain when the electric light was introduced. All this, as well as the scheme of decoration of the antechapel, is described in guide-books with more or less accuracy.

Probably the services were never rendered more effectively than in the years following this restoration. Attendance on Sunday evening was required unless absentees could urge conscientious or other good reasons for exemption, but a large proportion of those who might have obtained exemption did, in fact, take part in the Sunday services. More benches were placed in the chapel than are there now, and the building, with every seat occupied and [103] ]everyone (save a few privileged visitors) in a surplice, presented a most impressive scene. Electric light was introduced in 1893, and has added much to the comfort of congregations in winter evenings.

In former days members of the Society who died in College were not infrequently buried in the chapel—a shocking thing to permit in a building in constant use, though sanctioned by the custom of many centuries. There are a good many tombstones scattered over the floor, and copies of all the inscriptions have been published. I wonder how many members of the Society know that among those here buried is one woman, bearing the strange Christian name of Elismar. The last interment in the chapel took place in October 1886, and further burials are now forbidden unless sanctioned by the Home Office.

The building has always been used for various secular purposes, such as elections to scholarships and fellowships; the admission of scholars, fellows, and officers; the affixing of the College seal to documents, and the delivery of declamations by students. Within recent years lectures in the antechapel and an oration in the chapel have been delivered. I believe the view that a church or chapel is intended only for the performance of religious services is modern and unwarranted by history: at any rate our records give no authority for it.

[22] On the site acquired for the College were situated the buildings of King’s Hall, Michael-House, Physwick’s Hostel, and some private hostels or boarding houses. Members of private hostels used their parish churches. All the students in Physwick’s Hostel were members of Gonville Hall, and used the chapel of that Hall. The members of Michael-House used St Michael’s church: this House had been founded in 1324 by Hervey de Stanton for a master and six fellows, who if not priests at the time of admission, had to take orders within one year; and later two more fellows, three chaplains, and four bible clerks were added to the foundation, which was intended for secular clergy studying in the University. The church of St Michael was appropriated to it, and rebuilt by its founder for use as its chapel. The fellows had in their House an oratory, and in March 1393, the bishop of Ely granted them leave to build a chapel, but their history and convenience alike made them wish to continue to use St Michael’s church as their regular chapel.

[23] Fuller’s History of Cambridge, reprint 1840, p. 265. Fuller mistakenly assigned the disturbance to 1566–67 instead of 1565–66.

[24] Since published in the Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, 22 May 1916, vol. XX, pp. 114–116.

[25] When I first came into residence a survival of this interpolated symphony existed in a long organ solo which preceded the anthem.

[104]
]CHAPTER VI.
SOME COLLEGE TREASURES.

Those who live among beautiful surroundings and in constant touch with works of art are often apt to take their privileges for granted. Members of Trinity are proud of the buildings of the College and the grounds in which they are placed, and most of us know something of their history and characteristic features. But with our art treasures there is less general acquaintance, and so perhaps it may not be out of place to jot down a few notes on some of them—chiefly pictures and plate—in which I take pleasure.

Of the contents of the library I say nothing, for a volume would be needed to describe them even briefly. The illuminated manuscripts and the early printed books attract most attention, but there are numerous other subjects in which the library must be ranked among the most important in Great Britain. I have often been told by undergraduates that they have never been in the building except once when they signed the Admission Book. That is true enough of some men, but those who are interested in rare and famous books and yet never visit the Library neglect exceptional opportunities.

[105]
]Of oil portraits—in all nearly two hundred—of former members of the College, we own a valuable collection, and they illustrate in a remarkable way how many distinguished men have been educated here. Identification is easy as labels are placed on most of the pictures. Unfortunately we have no gallery in which they can be shown. Some are put in the hall, some in the master’s lodge, some in the combination room, and some in the library, lecture-rooms, etc. Those in the lodge are set off well, but the others are not hung to advantage.

About twenty-five years ago a proposal was made to raise subscriptions for an art gallery to be built along the edge of the river starting from the present north end of the library and extending over the land now occupied by the master’s stables and the end of his garden. At that time the proposal did not receive much favour, but now I sometimes wonder if we were wise in putting the plan on one side. Certainly we have more canvasses than we can exhibit satisfactorily. The hall, too, would look a more dignified apartment if the pictures, except for one or two on the dais, were taken away: recently their temporary removal was necessitated by repairs to the woodwork, and the improvement in the appearance of the room was noticeable. The general effect of such a clearance may be judged by a visit to the hall of the Middle [106] ]Temple in London. The dimensions of the body of that hall are the same as ours, but instead of pictures on the side walls, each small oak panel bears an armorial shield: these harmonise well with the architectural lines of the building. Where, as is the case with our neighbours at St John’s, the panelling is low and there is above it a big stretch of stone or painted wall, pictures add to the effect, but this is not the case where the panelling is high.

Of all our pictures I suppose the one which attracts most attention is that of Henry VIII which hangs over the dais at the north end of the hall: it was given us by Robert Beaumont, who held the mastership from 1561 to 1567. The artist was Hans Eworth, a Dutchman who lived in London circ. 1543–75, and worked with or under the influence of Antonio Moro: the portrait was taken from or founded on that of the king in the fresco painted by Holbein in 1537 on a wall of the privy chamber in Whitehall palace. This fresco, which was destroyed in the fire of 1698 and till then deservedly treated as one of the art treasures of London, contained portraits of Henry VII and Henry VIII with their queens, Elizabeth of York and Jane Seymour. Holbein’s studies for the heads of the two kings have been preserved, and are at Chatsworth and Munich. Most of the extant portraits of Henry VIII are copied from or founded on this fresco. Signs [107] ]of deterioration in the fresco were noticeable in the reign of Charles II, and by his orders it was copied by Remée, a French painter then resident in London. The original fresco was on each side of and above a fireplace or window. Instead of depicting this, the artist represented this space as occupied by a pedestal containing an inscription: his delineation of the faces of the sovereigns is poor, but he has preserved Holbein’s general design. Two copies of the reproduction are extant, one of which is in the royal collection and the other at Petworth.

Hardly less notable than the presentation of our founder, and far more valuable, is the charming portrait by Joshua Reynolds of the duke of Gloucester (1776–1834) as a boy: the duke was a cousin of George III and afterwards chancellor of the University. Reynolds wrote in his diary that the boy sat for his portrait in March 1780 when he was four years old, and that the finished picture was delivered in January 1788—the charge for it being a hundred guineas. Horace Walpole praised it, but thought it “washy,” an opinion not shared by modern critics who esteem it one of Reynolds’s masterpieces. The picture was left to the College in 1843 by the will of the duke’s sister, the Princess Sophia, with a request that it should be hung in the hall. The legacy was due to the good offices of a freshman of the time—the Hon. Douglas Gordon, [108] ]son of George, fourth earl of Aberdeen. He described the circumstances attending the gift as follows:

When I went up to Trinity in 1842, I used to see a great deal of the princess.... [I was then] a freshman full of admiration for my College of which I used to boast. One day the old princess shewed me the picture, ... and asked if I thought it would look well in the Hall. On my saying what a boon it would be, she very graciously said “You can tell Mr Whewell that I will leave it to the College through you, and I hope you will see this picture placed in a good position.” At her death I took it down to Trinity where I was still an undergraduate.

The portrait of queen Mary on the other side of the dais is a Spanish copy of Antonio Moro’s famous picture which hangs in Madrid. The original is said to have been given to Philip after his engagement to her; it presents her as a woman of strong character but far from beautiful. When the marriage took place, it was unkindly said by a Spanish courtier that whatever were the faults of his master, it must at least be admitted that he recognized the obligation of a gentleman to keep his word.

Of other pictures in the hall those of Tennyson (1809–92) painted in 1890 by G. F. Watts, of the earl of Essex (1566–1601) painted in 1590, of Isaac Newton (1642–1727) painted in 1725 by John Vanderbank, and of Francis Bacon (1561–1626) copied from Van Somer’s portrait in Gray’s Inn are [109] ]specially noticeable. Newton and Barrow (together with Pearson who is mentioned below) played a leading part in the intellectual life in the University towards the close of the seventeenth century, but I need not talk here about this. Barrow, who was a mathematician and divine, had a ready wit. When, previous to his admission to holy orders, he was examined on his faith, the dialogue is said to have been as follows:—Chaplain: Quid est fides? Barrow: Quod non vides. Chaplain: Quid est spes? Barrow: Magna res. Chaplain: Quid est caritas? Barrow: Magna raritas. On which his questioner retired in dudgeon, and reported that there was a candidate for ordination who would only give him “rhyming answers to moral questions”: but the bishop had the sense to recognize that truths can be expressed in rhyme as well as in prose, and Barrow was ordained.

A very pleasing picture is that reputed to be of Byron: this looks like a Raeburn, though it is ascribed to Thomas Lawrence: its history is doubtful, but the absence of any peculiarity in the ear is prima facie evidence that it is not of Byron. Another striking portrait is that of W. H. Thompson (1810–1886) painted in 1881 by Hubert von Herkomer. When Thompson saw the completed portrait of himself, he is said to have remarked, “Do I really look as if I held the world so cheap” and in a print of it in the house of one of my friends, this is inscribed [110] ]on the frame. I ought also to call attention to the window portrait of Richard, duke of York (1411–60), the father of Edward IV and Richard III, which probably comes to us from King’s Hall.

Among other paintings, which at present hang on the hall panelling, are portraits of the following famous members of our College:—Edward White Benson (1829–96) archbishop of Canterbury, Isaac Hawkins Browne (1706–60), Arthur Cayley (1821–95), the earl of Derby (1826–93), Michael Foster (1836–1907), Francis Galton (1822–1911), the earl of Halifax (1661–1715), Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828–92), Richard Claverhouse Jebb (1841–1905), Joseph Joachim (1831–1907) the musician, Thomas Jones (1756–1807), Joseph Barber Lightfoot (1828–89) bishop of Durham, Frederick Denison Maurice (1805–72), James Clerk Maxwell (1831–79), viscount Melbourne (1779–1849), Matthew Raine (1760–1811), Adam Sedgwick (1785–1873), Henry Sidgwick (1838–1900), Charles John Vaughan (1816–97), Brooke Foss Westcott (1825–1901) bishop of Durham, John Westlake (1828–1908), and William Whewell (1794–1866).

Of these, Raine, Jones, Halifax and Hawkins Browne lived in the eighteenth century. The last-named is known to fame through having caused a change in the family reigning in the two Sicilies. In fact, coming to Naples in his travels he danced [111] ]at a court ceremony “with such inconceivable alacrity and vigour” as to provoke universal amusement and amazement: in particular the queen’s laughter was so immoderate that a miscarriage ensued. On such events may the histories of dynasties and empires turn! He is described on this occasion as pirouetting in a “dress of volcano silk with lava buttons”: perhaps it is in this costume that he is depicted on our walls. Having related this anecdote I must in fairness add that he was a poet of considerable ability, a good talker in an age when the standard of conversation was high, and an excellent judge of wine. Most of the portraits are, however, of celebrities of the Victorian age. Of these, Melbourne and Derby were politicians; Benson, Hort, Lightfoot, Vaughan, and Westcott represent the church; Westlake was a lawyer; Jebb a scholar; Maurice and Sidgwick represent ethical philosophy; while Cayley, Foster, Galton, Maxwell, Sedgwick, and Whewell, were men of science.

Among the canvasses above the panelling are portraits of Richard Bentley (1662–1742) the scholar, Edward Coke (1549–1634) the lord chief justice, Cowley (1618–67) the poet, John Dryden (1631–1701) the poet, the earl of Macclesfield (1666–1732), John Pearson (1613–86) bishop of Chester, Robert Smith (1689–1768) the mathematician, and John Wilkins (1614–72) bishop of Chester. Wilkins is [112] ]now almost unknown but he wrote some interesting books, notably one on the ciphers employed in the civil war of the seventeenth century. Another work of his on the possibility of a journey to the moon, provoked the duchess of Newcastle to ask him where she could find a place to bait if she tried the journey: “Madam,” said he, “of all the people in the world I least expected that question from you, who have built so many castles in the air that you may lie every night in one of your own.”

The pictures in the large combination room of Isaac Newton by Thomas Murray, and of Matthew Prior (1664–1721) by Godfrey Kneller are good: the former came to us from a descendant (Mrs Ring) of Newton’s favourite niece, and its history is given in a letter from Charles Simeon to Mansel, master of the College at the time of the gift. The other canvasses are too big for a private apartment, but the portraits of the “proud” duke of Somerset (1662–1748) by Nathaniel Dance, the marquess of Granby (1721–70) by Joshua Reynolds, the duke of Gloucester by John Opie, the marquess of Camden (1759–1840) by Thomas Lawrence, the duke of Grafton (1760–1844) also by Lawrence, and the duke of Sussex (1773–1843) by James Lonsdale, are of some repute: to these there was added in 1915 a portrait of Arthur J. Balfour by P. A. Laszlö de Lombros.

[113]
]Of the peers mentioned above the names of Granby and Somerset are still well known. Granby fought in the Culloden campaign, was colonel of the blues (horse guards) at Minden, 1759; commander of the British contingent in the campaigns of 1760, 1761, and 1762; and in 1766 became commander-in-chief of the army. Delighting in danger, which even when in supreme command he deliberately sought, brave to a fault, an excellent cavalry leader, rich and lavishly generous, he was the idol of the public, and witnesses to his popularity remain in the numerous public-houses scattered far and wide over England which bear his name and arms. Somerset was of a very different type, being a stupid man whose power was chiefly derived from his enormous landed possessions. To the Somerset properties he added, by his marriage with the sole heiress of the earls of Northumberland, the great estates of the Percies. He held the chancellorship of the University for the extraordinary term of sixty years. His title of the “proud duke” commemorates only his arrogance, and was derived from the fact that even to speak to anyone in a menial position was regarded by him as a condescension. His servants were trained to understand his wishes by signs, and numerous footmen surrounded him when in the streets so as to avoid the risk that any people of the lower classes should approach or address him. [114] ]Perhaps the best known of the stories of his pretensions refers to his remark to his second wife who once called his attention to something by touching him with her fan (or according to another version kissed him without asking his leave), “Madam,” said he, drawing himself apart, “my first wife never dared to take such a liberty, and she was a Percy.” As another illustration of his character I may add that he deprived one of his daughters of £20,000 because she had sat down in his presence without asking his leave.

In the lodge there are numerous portraits of former masters of the College, and obviously this is the proper place for such a collection. It is not complete, twelve past masters being unrepresented, but portraits of two of these (namely Wilkins and Pearson) hang in the hall. The most notable picture in this series is that of Nevile, which is properly given the place of honour over the mantelpiece in the dining room which he built. He holds a paper in his right hand, and I like to think that this is intended to suggest the letter which Elizabeth on her death-bed entrusted to him to take to Scotland, informing James VI of that kingdom that she designated him as her successor. In this room too are portraits of Porson and Thompson with whose memories so many excellent academic stories are associated, but I must not linger over these. In [115] ]the drawing room the most striking portraits are those of queen Elizabeth by Mark Gerrard, the duke of Gloucester (1776–1834) in his undergraduate robes by George Romney, and queen Mary probably by Hans Eworth. The painted panels in the entrance hall often escape attention, but are worth looking at, especially in the case of the portraits of Edward III, Henry VII, Elizabeth of York, Mary of Scotland, Edward VI, and queen Mary. The collection of portraits, formed by Dr Butler, of Trinity men who have held judicial appointments is also interesting, but is not generally accessible to visitors.

The pictures in the lecture-rooms and on the walls of the staircase leading to them form a sort of overflow collection, and though of unequal merit, a few are worth attention. There are also some pictures of merit in the library among which I note in particular portraits of Tennyson and Lightfoot.

The engravings of former members of the College placed in the small combination room will repay study. There are at present between one hundred and fifty and two hundred here, but there are many more in portfolios in the library. Several of these have been acquired in recent years through the generosity and knowledge of John Charrington.

The painted glass in the hall shows numerous coats of arms, and anyone acquainted with heraldry [116] ]will find here a rich field of study. The windows could have been filled over and over again with the arms of former famous members of the College, but the matter has been managed in a haphazard way, and many distinguished sons of the House are unrepresented. In spite of some bad glass the collection is interesting. Perhaps however any further account of it here would be more technical than would be justified in a paper like this. Of other glass in the College, the windows in the chapel are typical of the art of 1870, and are only moderately satisfactory. The window at the south end of the library, executed in 1775, was made by Peckitt of York, after a design by Cipriani: it illustrates some curious points in the history of the art of stained glass, but the design is impossible, and the scheme of colour atrocious.

Sculpture, unless it is absolutely first rate, does not represent a man as well as portraiture. The number of pieces of statuary of the first class in Great Britain is small, and in the possession of such pieces the College is extraordinarily fortunate. The statue of Newton, with its proud inscription “Newton qui genus humanum ingenio superavit,” in the antechapel by Roubiliac—“the marble index of a mind for ever voyaging through strange seas of thought alone”—is of the highest merit. It was described by Chantrey as “the noblest of [117] ]English statues,” and I have never seen any modern piece of statuary anywhere which can be ranked superior to it: the man lives and almost moves. Thorwaldsen’s statue of Byron, rejected by the authorities of Westminster Abbey on account of his alleged atheistical opinions, which stands in the library, and that of Bacon in the antechapel may also be reckoned among examples of first-class statuary. Of these three pieces two are by foreigners. There are also in the antechapel statues of Barrow, Macaulay, Whewell, and Tennyson, and in the library a large number of busts. The statues of Edward III on the clock tower, of Henry VIII, James I, Anne of Denmark, and Prince Charles on the great gate, and of queen Elizabeth on the queen’s gate are interesting, though not to be reckoned as works of art.

Old Silver Plate has a peculiar beauty. We have some fine specimens though they are fewer and later than from our history we should expect. Most of the pieces are kept in the butteries, and can be seen by visitors. Twice a year anyone entering the hall will see the junior bursar there with all the plate spread before him checking it by his lists, a pretty spectacle which always suggests to me the picture of the king “in his counting house counting out his money,” and formerly in “May-week” typical pieces were set out on show in the hall.

[118]
]We have a catalogue of the plate—a large and valuable collection—owned by King’s Hall in the fifteenth century, and we may reasonably suppose that this, as well as the plate belonging to Michael-House, came in due course to us; all this has gone with the possible, but doubtful, exception of a censer boat now in the library. We know also that some plate was given us in Tudor and early Stuart times: of this, only five pieces remained to us at the restoration. I take it however that until well into the eighteenth century people were accustomed to regard plate, other than pieces of historic interest, as a convenient way of keeping portable wealth in a form which could be easily turned into coin, and its dispersion in times of emergency when money was wanted is not surprising.

It was customary for noblemen and fellow-commoners to present plate to the House when they completed their academic career: their caution-money being commonly employed for or towards the purpose. After the restoration, thanks to this graceful practice, our possessions of this kind grew rapidly. Unfortunately a good many of our pieces were lost through two burglaries, one in 1795 and the other in 1798; for instance, no less than fifty-five drinking cups some of great beauty were then taken. During the eighteenth century, in colleges and throughout the country, large numbers of [119] ]“standing pieces” of plate were melted down, and the metal used to make spoons and forks; this accounts for the disappearance of some of our treasures of an earlier date. Until 1870 new pieces continued to be added in large numbers: in that year the College abolished the general admission of noblemen and fellow-commoners, holding that distinctions of rank were undesirable in academic life; and since then our collection has increased only by special gifts or by purchase.

Of our pre-commonwealth plate the oldest pieces are two silver-gilt flagons, dated 1607–08, given us in 1636 by John and Bernard Stuart, sons of the duke of Lennox, then about sixteen and fourteen years old. There is in the small combination room a charming print of Vandyke’s portrait of the brothers: both boys were killed during the Civil War, John at Edgehill and Bernard at Rowton Heath. Whistles are placed in the handles of these flagons, so they must have been originally intended for secular use, but they have been included, as far back as our records go, among the communion plate: perhaps the spouts were added when the vessels were placed in the chapel. Our next earliest piece is the handsome cup, dated 1615–16, given us by Nevile probably in 1615: it was originally silver-gilt. The fourth of these pieces is a bursarial rose-water basin and ewer dated 1635–36. We owe it to Ambrose [120] ]Aykerod who was bursar in that year: his arms are engraved on the cup, and the inscriptions on it refer to vows and pledges by him which are now inexplicable. The only other early piece which survived the Civil War was a cup given by John Clarkson between 1610 and 1620 and known from its inscription “Pauper Johannes Dictus Cognomine Clarkson Hunc Cyathum Dono Gratuito Dedit” as the “Pauper Joan Pot”: this was stolen in 1798. Clarkson had matriculated as a sizar in 1553, obtained a scholarship in due course, and graduated B.A. in 1560.

Apart from the four pieces mentioned above, the most striking objects in our collection are the rose-water basins and ewers, the Duport standing salt, the standing or loving cups, the tankards, and the punch-bowls.

We have several notable rose-water basins and ewers. The earliest of these is the set given by the earl of Kent in 1662 to commemorate the passing of the Act of Uniformity. The date is given by a quaint double chronogram: and the central inscription Νιψον ανομηματα μη μοναν οψιν reads alike forwards and backwards. Another beautiful set is that given by the duke of Buckingham in 1671, the circumference of the basin being over seven feet. The visitor should also notice a set of 1740 bequeathed by David Humphrey, and a set of 1748 [121] ]given by William John Bankes. Another set consists of a basin of 1716 given by John Bennet, with a graceful ewer probably made about 1675. This ewer must have been originally a “standing cup” since a whistle is placed in the handle, but a spout was added between 1789 and 1810 with the intention of turning it into a flagon: on it are engraved the Trinity and Westminster arms, and in an early catalogue it is called the Busby cup: its donor is unknown.

There is a curious custom at the high table connected with these dishes. At the end of dinner on ordinary nights, before grace is said, a rose-water dish with an empty ewer is placed before the fellow sitting at the head of each table. I conjecture that this dates from a time when napkins and forks were unknown, and diners were accustomed to rinse their hands in water before rising from the table. Now the appearance of the empty ewer is only a sign that dinner is over. At feasts the ewer contains rose-water which is poured into the dish and passed round the table.

We have a fine specimen of a standing salt in a piece associated with the name of James Duport. Its breadth is nearly ten inches, and its height, without the handles, seven inches. It was these massive salts, and not “trencher salts,” that were originally used to divide the company into those [122] ]that sat above and below the salt; and in the middle ages the standing salt was generally the most valued single piece in the house and the chief ornament on the table. The medieval specimens usually have a cover to protect the salt, and the handles in specimens like ours are said to have been introduced for a similar reason, as a napkin can be twisted round them so as to cover the salt, and thus save it from dust. Our specimen bears the inscription εχετε εν εαυτοις ἁλας και ειρηνευετε εν αλληλοις, together with a statement that it was given by Duport. Probably his gift was made in 1665, when he left the College on his appointment as master of Magdalene. The piece, however, bears the hall-mark 1733–34; here, and in some other cases, it would seem that the original piece was exchanged for a new one, perhaps when repairs were required, and it was the custom in such circumstances to engrave the old inscription on the new piece of plate.

In spite of our losses at the end of the eighteenth century some fine drinking cups and covers still remain in our possession. Notable among these is one of 1691–92 given by Charles and George Firebrace, one of 1697–98 given by Henry Boyle, and one of 1711–12 given by John Verney. We have also a cup and cover of 1726 given by the earl of Sandwich, another of 1729 given by Samuel Husbands, [123] ]another of 1763 given by John Damer, another of 1771 given by George Augustus Henry Cavendish, another of 1776 given by William Greaves, and another of 1780 given by the earl of Mexborough. To these I may add the Lyndhurst silver-gilt cup and cover of 1876–77 given by Sir Theodore Martin. All these are fine specimens of silversmith’s work, and can be used at feasts as loving cups, with the ceremonial customary to such drinking.

The tankards with lids form another striking group of plate, but the larger ones which contain three quarts or more must be regarded as being decorative rather than useful. Conspicuous among these pieces is one, probably made about 1670, given by Thomas Taylor, one of 1698–99 given by Peter Pheasaunt, one of 1699–1700 given by Thomas Alston, one of 1700–01 given by Thomas Bellot, one of 1739–40 given by Thomas Foley, one of 1746–47 given by Francis Vernon, one of 1751–52 given by Charles Paulet, one of 1757–58 given by Edward Fitzgerald, and one of 1762–63 given by Hans Sloane. There is also a fine collection of ale plate. Of the smaller tankards, stoups, and drinking cups there are innumerable specimens. I will not dwell longer over our other pieces. Suffice it is to say that of punch-bowls there are three or four fine specimens of the eighteenth century, as also various snuff-boxes, silver trays, etc. Of candlesticks [124] ]there are between two and three hundred, many of them beautiful pieces of work. Of ordinary domestic plate the stock is large.

There is also a good deal of plate which has been given or assigned for use in the lodge: this includes the Perry silver-gilt dessert service. In the chapel plate besides the flagons already mentioned there are two silver-gilt patens of 1661–62, associated in the early catalogues with the names of John and Bernard Stuart; also an alms-dish of 1673, and an altar cross given in 1894 and said to be of Spanish renaissance work.

I add some particulars of thirteen challenge pieces of plate owned by the Boat and Athletic Clubs: of these, five belong to the First Trinity Boat Club, and eight to the Athletic Club. These pieces are of recent make and their chief interest comes from the inscribed names of the successive holders.

Trinity men will recollect that there are various races arranged each year by the First Trinity Boat Club, the winners of which receive pots or other prizes, and that in five of these events, the winners, in addition to receiving the special prizes, hold challenge pieces on which are engraved the names of past winners. These challenge pieces are: A two-handled silver chased cup and stand (hall-mark 1836), held by the winner of a sculling race (the [125] ]Macnaughten Sculls) rowed in the Michaelmas Term, open to all members of the Club who have not previously won it or the University Colquhoun Sculls. A two-handled silver cup and stand (hall-mark probably 1857 or 1858), which came to the club from the now defunct Second Trinity Boat Club, held by the winner of a sculling race (the Baines Sculls) rowed in the Lent Term, open to all members who have not previously won it or the Macnaughten Sculls or the University Colquhoun Sculls. Silver oars (hall-mark 1860) held by the winners of a pair-oared race (the Wyatt Pairs) rowed in the Michaelmas Term, open to all members who have not previously won it or the University Magdalene Pairs. Silver oars (hall-mark 1861) which came to the Club from Second Trinity, held by the winners of a pair-oared race (the Dodington Pairs) rowed in the Lent Term, open to all members who have not previously won it or the Wyatt Pairs or the University Magdalene Pairs. Silver Sculls (hall-mark 1897) held by the winners of a double sculling race (the Taxis Sculls) rowed in the Easter Term, open to all members who have not previously won it or the University Magdalene pairs.

Similarly among the sports arranged each year by the Trinity Athletic Club are seven events, the winners of which in addition to receiving special prizes, hold challenge pieces of plate on which are [126] ]engraved the names of past winners. These challenge pieces are: A half-fluted silver bowl and plinth (hall-mark 1887) held by the winner of the mile race. A half-fluted silver bowl and plinth (hall-mark 1899) held by the winner of the half-mile race. A silver chased claret jug with handle (hall-mark 1886) held by the winner of the quarter-mile race. Four silver candlesticks (hall-mark 1899) held by the winner of the hundred yards race. A two-handled half-fluted silver cup (hall-mark 1888) held by the winner of the hurdles race. A two-handled silver bowl (hall-mark 1896) held by the winner of the long jump. A silver salver (hall-mark 1896) held by the winner of the high jump. Finally there is a two-handled silver chased cup and plinth (hall-mark 1892) held by the man who scores most marks in the various events.

It may be thought that I have occupied too much space in giving bare lists of pieces of plate, but the shapes of some of the pieces are so good and the surface of old silver, when carefully tended, has such a beautiful texture that I believe it may be worth calling the attention of any interested in such things to some of our possessions of this kind. Only societies and families with continuous records dating from a distant past can show such collections.

[127]
]CHAPTER VII.
THE COLLEGE AUDITORS.

There is no reference in our earliest college statutes—those of 1552—to an Auditor, but the extant accounts show that the office existed from the foundation of the College in 1546. Definite regulations for the appointment were proposed in the draft statutes of 1554, and were embodied in the statutes of 1560. By these the auditor was made one of the statutable officers of the Society: the post was held for long periods, and it was not permissible to perform the duties by proxy. The statute in question was re-enacted in 1844. By the statutes of 1861 the office was made annual, and tenable only during pleasure. It remains annual under the present statutes, but a definite proviso was inserted in 1882 that it is not tenable by a fellow or officer of the House, and a clause was introduced providing for the appointment from among the fellows of an Assessor or Assessors who should be present during the audit.

From the foundation of the College, its financial year ran from Michaelmas to Michaelmas, and the audit of each year was concluded in the following December. At first the annual honorarium of the [128] ]auditor seems to have been £10 with an allowance of £2 for travelling expenses, stationery, etc., but before the end of the sixteenth century it had been reduced to £5, with an augmentation of £3. 6s. 8d. and some allowances.

The form of the declaratio computi was much as at present, and generally, with but small variations, it takes the form now stereotyped “and so the said A. B. Senior (or Junior) Bursar upon the foot of this his account for one whole year ending Michaelmas ... oweth unto the College the sum of....” In some cases, and notably in the seventeenth century, the sums include fractions of a penny, even as small as one thirty-second part thereof. Presumably the audit was always followed by a “feast,” as still remains the custom.

Of the occupants of the office from 1546 to 1618 the information in the college books is incomplete. The only auditors previous to 1618 whose names I have noticed, with the years in which they held office, are Edward Burnell, 1553, 1561, 1563 and 1564; Adam Winthrop, 1606; and Richard Brooke, 1614. I have not, however, read the account-books through from cover to cover, and it may be that there are references which have escaped me. Luckily Winthrop’s diary and some memoranda from 1595 to 1621 are extant, and contain references to a few earlier dates. From these we can take our [129] ]continuous record back to the year ending Michaelmas 1593, when he was auditor. He resigned in 1610, and was succeeded by Brooke. Brooke was acting in 1615, and had commons in 1616, and I have no doubt acted in 1617. From 1618 onwards we can, from one source or another, make out the names of those who held the office. The handwritings of the earlier auditors have marked characteristics. They suggest that there was one auditor from 1547 to 1552, another from 1553 to 1578, who must have been Edward Burnell, another from 1579 to 1591, and another from 1592 to 1609, who must have been Adam Winthrop. But I present these as mere surmises, and I do not attempt to go back beyond 1593.

Our roll then is as follows. From 1547 to 1592 we cannot definitely say more than that Edward Burnell was auditor for a period which included the years 1553 to 1564, for no doubt his tenure was unbroken. From 1593 the sequence runs thus:

Adam Winthrop, 1593 (or earlier) to 1609; Richard Brooke, 1610 to 1617; Robert Spicer, 1618 to 1628; Francis Hughes, 1629 to 1668; Samuel Newton, 1669 to 1717, Newton resigned in 1674, and thereon he and William Ellis were appointed to the office, with remainder to the survivor of them, but apparently William Ellis never acted; Denys L’Isle, 1718 to 1726; William Greaves, 1727 to 1778; Robert [130] ]Graham, 1779 to 1791; Samuel Knight, 1792 to 1811; Nicholas Conyngham Tindal, 1812 to 1825; James Parke, 1826 to 1828; Andrew Amos, 1829 to 1836; John George Shaw-Lefevre, 1837 to 1851; George Denman, 1852 to 1862; George Valentine Yool, 1863 to 1869; Augustus Arthur VanSittart, 1870 to 1881; John Willis Clark, 1882 to 1908. Since 1908 the office has been held by a professional accountant. The dates given indicate the ends of the audit year: thus the audit of 1669 was for the year 1668–69. It will be noticed that during the three hundred and sixteen years from 1593 to 1908, there were, if we omit William Ellis, only seventeen auditors, giving an average tenure of more than eighteen years. Of these seventeen auditors at least eleven have been lawyers and four ultimately rose to the Bench. I add a few biographical notes on these auditors.

Of Edward Burnell, the earliest holder of the office whose name I have given, I know nothing. His successor Adam Winthrop, 1548–1623, the son of a prominent London merchant and reformer, had been admitted as a fellow-commoner at Magdalene in 1567, and had left the University without a degree. He had been called to the bar, but did not practise, and was content to fill the rôle of a well-to-do country squire. He was an intimate friend of Still, master of Trinity from 1577 to 1593, whose sister he married in 1574, and whose wife [131] ]was his connection by marriage. I conjecture that he owed the office to Still’s influence. Winthrop was a fair scholar, an indifferent poet, and somewhat of a pedant. His tomb is at Groton, Suffolk. More than one of his descendants were distinguished. In particular his son, John, 1588–1649, who was admitted to Trinity College in 1602, was the founder of the well-known American family of this name; and his great-great-grandson, Sir George Downing was the founder of Downing College.

Winthrop seems to have done the whole of the audit work at the end of the Michaelmas term of each year. Thus in 1601 he wrote:

The ivth of Decemb. I ridde to Cambride & beganne the Auditt the 7th beinge Monday. The xiiijth of Decembre I returned from the Auditt & did see the Sonne in the Eclips about 12 of the Clock at noone.

Perhaps his resignation was made at the suggestion of the College, for early in 1610 he wrote:

Dr Meriton came to speake with me about the resignation of my office in Trinity College to Mr Brookes.... I surrendered my Auditorship in Trinitye College to the Mr fellows & schollers before a pub. notary.... I dyned at Dr Meriton’s in Hadley & received of him xxlb for my Auditorshippe.... Mr Rich. Brooke the nue Auditor of Trinity College was at my house in Groton to whom I dd. divers paper books & Roles touchinge his Office.

Of the next three auditors I can discover very little. Richard Brooke was appointed in 1610. [132] ]The following conclusion of 8 June 1615, seems to refer to him, “concluded that Mr Brookes in regard of his paines taken divers times for the Colledge that he shoulde ... have given him Twentye pounds,” and during his visits in the following year be allowed commons. We may assume that he held office till the end of 1617. A Richard Brookes had entered at Queens’ as a fellow-commoner in 1587, but whether he was the subsequent auditor there is nothing to show. In 1618 we have the copy of the appointment of Robert Spicer. He held office till the end of 1628, since a conclusion of 3 June 1629, appointed in his place Francis Hughes. Hughes, who held the office till his death in October 1669, was admitted a scholar in 1616, graduated M.A. in 1623, was one of the esquire-bedells, and occupied rooms in College at the time of his death.

The next occupant of the office was Samuel Newton, 1629–1718, a prominent attorney in the town and mayor in 1671. He was not a member of the University. His diary from 1662 to 1717 preserved in the library of Downing College, contains an account of his election to the post in the chapel by the master and seniors, he being present in the antechapel. He attended next day in his gown, was sworn to the faithful discharge of his duties, and signed the roll of college officers. He [133] ]proved thoroughly efficient. For his services at the audit in 1669 he received the fee of £5 with the customary augmentation of £3. 6s. 8d., a sum of £6. 13s. 4d. for engrossing the audit rolls, which henceforth were kept excellently, a sum of £1 for preparing a book of arrears, and a sum of £1. 2s. 8d. for stationery. He also received from the junior bursar, billets of wood of the value of 6s. 8d.; from the steward, a “warp of lyng” of the value of 6s. 8d.; from the manciple, a “coller of brawne, also a dish of wild fowle or 6s. 8d.”; and from the brewhouse, “2 barrels of strong beere.”

In 1674 Newton surrendered his patent of appointment as auditor, but he was immediately reappointed jointly with his cousin, William Ellis, with remainder to the survivor of them. They were at the same time appointed on the same conditions to the office of college registrar, then vacant by the death of a Mr T. Griffith. According to Newton’s diary, William Ellis proceeded M.A. in 1670, but his name does not appear in the list of graduati, unless indeed he is the Wm Ellis who received the degree per lit. reg. in 1671. The college account-books continued to be signed by Newton, and I have not noticed in them evidence that Ellis ever took any part in the audit. The Society’s solicitors and attorneys have frequently acted as registrars, and it may be that Ellis was in partnership [134] ]with Newton, and was for that reason made with him joint auditor and registrar.

Samuel Newton died in 1718 in his ninetieth year. For the three years, 1715, 1716, and 1717, the books were audited by John Newton, presumably his son or grandson, as his deputy. No doubt the arrangement was made in consequence of the failing health of the old gentleman whose signature in 1714 was very shaky. The appointment of a deputy was invalid under the statute, but it must have been made with the approval of Bentley, and perhaps of the seniority. At any rate John Newton conducted the audit, and signed the books as deputy auditor.

Newton was succeeded in 1718 as auditor and registrar by Denys L’Isle. L’Isle had been a fellow-commoner of Trinity Hall, admitted in 1712, graduated LL.B. in 1715, who had gone down and in 1716 taken his name off the books. He was a vigorous and not too scrupulous barrister. He owed his appointment to Bentley, and he showed “extraordinary activity and zeal in promoting all” his benefactor’s “wishes and interests” and represented him in some of his disputes. Whatever view may be taken of Bentley’s character, no one can justify his conduct in regard to the college finances. A notable scandal occurred in the audit of 1722. In the accounts of that year large sums were charged [135] ]to the College for works at the lodge and other sums spent by the master which had not been sanctioned by the Society. Undoubtedly the charges were illegal, but Bentley and L’Isle refused to allow the accounts to be examined by the seniority. In fact in this, as in other matters, L’Isle had no scruple in screening Bentley from the consequences of acts which were neither legal nor honourable.

L’Isle died in 1727, and was succeeded as auditor, steward of the courts, and registrar by William Greaves. Greaves had in 1719 migrated to Clare, Cambridge, from Brasenose, Oxford; he graduated B.A. in 1720, and in 1722 was elected at Clare to a fellowship which he held till 1742. He was a barrister and an able man: he too owed his office to Bentley, and acted as his counsel in many of his tortuous proceedings. Through Bentley’s influence Greaves had in 1726 been made commissary of the University, an office which he held till 1778. The letters patent to the office of college auditor were made out for the term of his life, but a question having been raised as to whether this was statutable, he surrendered them, and the College granted new patents for the term of fifty years if he should live so long. I suppose he was duly admitted to the office, for probably an acute lawyer would have seen to this, but there is no record of the fact in our books.

Greaves seems to have performed his duties as [136] ]auditor in an honourable manner. After the audit of 1778, he surrendered his office at the close of fifty years’ tenure of it: he then received a present of plate from the College, with their thanks for his long and faithful services. Six years later he made a donation to the Society of £100 to found an annual prize for an essay on the character of King William the Third. After nearly a century it was said that the essayists had exhausted the subject, and in 1882 the College got leave to substitute for it one connected with the history of the British Empire.

Robert Graham, 1744–1836, a lawyer of note, succeeded Greaves. Graham had graduated as third wrangler in 1766, and in the following year had been elected to a fellowship. He held the office till after the audit of 1791. He was made a baron of the exchequer in 1799, and proved a singularly inefficient judge. He retired from the bench in 1827.

Graham’s chief distinction is said to have been his urbanity, and at the Bar it was currently believed that no one but his sempstress had power to ruffle his equanimity. He was somewhat pompous, and an adventure of his at the assizes at Newcastle afforded much amusement to his contemporaries. There, on one occasion just before charging the grand jury, he tumbled, unnoticed, into the river from the garden of the house where he lodged, but [137] ]luckily was hauled out by some passing watermen. The rough remedies of the quay-side failed to restore consciousness, and the bystanders, supposing he was drowned, carted him to a dead-house, where he was stripped and laid out. The coroner’s jury, summoned with unusual celerity, had viewed the body, and were considering their verdict when, to their surprise he showed signs of life and came to himself. His position was not altogether dignified, but realizing at once that it is always incumbent on a judge to move in state, he was by his directions fetched from the mortuary in the sheriff’s carriage, with the trumpeters, and usual ceremonial.

Of Graham’s successor, Samuel Knight, 1755–1829, I know little. He had been admitted as a pensioner in 1772, became a fellow-commoner in 1774, and graduated in the poll in 1776. Apparently he had no special qualifications for the post beyond being a pleasant member of society. He resigned in 1812, and died in 1829.

After Knight’s resignation, the post was offered to Nicholas Conyngham Tindal, 1776–1846, a lawyer of distinction. He had graduated in 1799 as eighth wrangler, was a Chancellor’s medalist, and had been elected to a fellowship in 1801, which, as he did not take orders, he had vacated in due course in accordance with the provisions of the Elizabethan statutes. The plan of offering the post to a distinguished [138] ]past fellow now became the custom, and all the auditors hereafter mentioned were past fellows of the college.

Tindal was one of the counsel for queen Caroline; he is celebrated in the history of the courts for having secured to a criminal client the right of wager of battle, which had long fallen into disuse but had not been abolished by statute. He was member for the University from 1827 to 1829 in which year he was made chief justice of the Common Pleas; he held that office till his death in 1846. Though not specially successful as an advocate, he had a profound knowledge of law and was an excellent judge. His enormous dimensions are commemorated in a print in my possession with the inscription “Judges of A Size,” representing him standing by Joshua Williams one of his colleagues on assize, who was very diminutive; probably this is an ancient joke.

The next auditor was James Parke, 1782–1868, a lawyer of even greater distinction. He had graduated in 1803 as fifth wrangler, and had been Craven scholar, Browne’s medalist and Chancellor’s medalist. In 1804 he had been elected to a fellowship. He was one of the counsel briefed against queen Caroline. He was made a judge in 1828, and of course then resigned the office of auditor, which he thus held for only three years.

[139]
]Parke had a profound knowledge of the common law, and admired, and was a rigid adherent of, ancient forms and customs. The fact was well known, and led to a curious scene, when on one occasion, while giving a judgment, he fainted. Cold water and smelling salts were applied without success, whereon a somewhat malicious colleague brought from an adjacent room an ancient volume of reports, black with the dust of ages, and banged it under the nostrils of the judge. It may have been a coincidence, but Parke at once revived, and in a few minutes was able to proceed with the business in hand.

At one time when Parke was trying a criminal case the prisoner confessed his crime to his advocate, who thereupon (most improperly) acquainted the judge with the fact and asked his advice. Parke rebuked the barrister for informing him of the prisoner’s guilt, but added that counsel was not the less bound to defend his client to the best of his ability. The case has been often cited, and states the practice of the bar; it being of course assumed that nothing is said or done for the defence which an honourable man might not say or do.

Parke’s subsequent career served to settle a constitutional question of great importance. In 1856 he was created Baron Wensleydale with a life peerage. It was decided that the power of the [140] ]crown to create life peerages had been lost by disuse. He was then made a baron with the usual remainder in tail male.

Parke was followed as auditor by Andrew Amos, 1791–1860, also a lawyer of distinction. He had graduated as fifth wrangler in 1813, and in 1815 had been elected to a fellowship. He was appointed auditor in 1829. He had a large arbitration practice, acted on the Criminal Law Commission, and was professor of English Law in London. In 1837 he was appointed legal member of the Indian Council, and on his departure for the East had to resign his office in the college. On the first vacancy after his return to England, he was, in 1848, elected Downing Professor of Laws in Cambridge, and occupied the chair until his death.

Amos was succeeded by John George Shaw-Lefevre, 1797–1879. Shaw-Lefevre had been senior wrangler and first Smith’s prize man in 1818, and had been elected to a fellowship in the following year. Like his predecessors he was a barrister, but most of his time was taken up with duties connected with public departments. He settled the county divisions under the Reform Act of 1832, and was a member of numerous Commissions, notably those connected with compensation for the abolition of slavery, with the Poor Law Act, with the creation of South Australia, with ecclesiastical affairs, and with [141] ]the Indian Civil Service: till 1875 he was busily engaged in public affairs. He stood unsuccessfully for parliament in the university contest of 1847. He resigned the auditorship after the audit of 1851. His tenure of the post is commemorated by his gift of the chandelier which hangs in the large combination room.

The next auditor was the Hon. George Denman, 1819–1896, also a lawyer. Denman had been senior classic in 1842, and had been elected to a fellowship in the following year. He had always kept up his connection with the College, where he had numerous friends. He became auditor in 1852. Like his predecessor he stood unsuccessfully for parliament as a representative of the University: this was in 1856. Subsequently he was appointed counsel to the University. He entered parliament in 1859, and owing to press of work gave up his college office at the close of the audit of 1862. After a distinguished legal career he was raised in 1872 to the bench. He was a good scholar, had a fine presence, and to the end of his life was popular with all classes of Cambridge society.