OX FORD
MAGDALEN
COLLEGE
HISTORIES
OXFORD
MAGDALEN COLLEGE
of
COLLEGE HISTORIES
•
[AGDALEN COLLEGI
BY
H. A. WILSON, M.A.
FELLOW, LIBRARIAN, AND FOUNDER'S CHAPLAIN OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE
GRBA
of
COLLEGE HISTORIES
MAGDALEN COLLEGE
BY
H. A. WILSON, M.A.
FELLOW, LIBRARIAN, AND FOUNDER'S CHAPLAIN OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE
LONDON F. E. ROBINSON AND CO.
20 GREAT RUSSELL STREET, BLOOMSBUBY 1899
UFS35
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON &> Co. At the Ballantyne Press
PREFACE
THE task which has been attempted in the preparation of this volume has not been an easy one ; but the difficulty has not been in the lack of material. The original records of the College, charters, accounts, and registers of various kinds are abundant. As to the biography of the members of the College, and many matters connected with its history, the labours of the late Dr. Bloxam have brought together a large and useful collection of material, which is only in part represented by the seven volumes of his published Register of the College, and by the two volumes of the New Series, already published by Mr. Macray. I can hardly sufficiently acknowledge the debt which this volume owes to the labours of these zealous workers, and in particular to Mr. Macray's careful scrutiny of the College muniments and accounts. In my own examination of the documents I have rarely found anything worth notice which had escaped his observation; and, while I have endeavoured throughout to form my own judgment on the evidence, the cases in which I have seen reason to differ from his view are extremely rare.
While the work has in one way been aided by this wealth of material, it has been necessary to go over a great deal of ground, and it has not been an easy matter to present the results in any readable form within the compass of a single volume of strictly limited size. It would, indeed, have been a simpler task to write a much
336566
vi PREFACE
larger book ; but,, apart from the fact that this volume is one of a series, and that its scale must needs be regulated accordingly, it may, I think, be said that the time for the production of a thorough and complete histoiy of the College has not yet come. Such a history will be much more possible when the whole mass of Dr. Bloxarn's collection has been subjected to the same process ot sifting, correction, and addition which has been already applied to some portions of its contents in Mr. Macray's supplementary series of the Register. Some day or other, I trust, the work will be undertaken by hands more skilful than my own. In the meantime, I hope that the present volume may serve the purpose of a brief and fairly trustworthy summary, which may be of use to those who wish to know something of the history of the College, and may itself preserve some facts and record some evidences which might otherwise be forgotten.
My thanks for much kind help are due to many members of the College, past and present, who have aided me by supplying information, or by criticism of particular portions of the work. In other matters, I would wish most gratefully to acknowledge the assistance of Mr. R. P. Jones, Commoner of the College, who kindly undertook to supply photographs for the illustration of the volume, and of Mr. H. Hurst, to whose skill I owe the execution of the ground-plan of the College buildings.
H. A. WILSON.
MAGDALEN COLLEGE, July 24, 1899.
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. THE FOUNDATION
ii. THE FOUNDER'S BUILDINGS ..... 20
in. THE FOUNDER'S STATUTES ..... 33
IV. THE EARLY YEARS OF THE COLLEGE, 1480-1507 . 45
V JOHN CLAYMOND, JOHN HIGDON, LAURENCE
STUBBS, 1507-28 ...... 60
VI. THOMAS KNOLLYS, 1528-36 ..... 72
VII. OWEN OGLETHORPE, 1536-52 8l
VIII. WALTER HADDON, OWEN OGLETHORPE, ARTHUR
COLE, THOMAS COVENEY, 1552-58 ... 99
IX. THOMAS COVENEY, LAURENCE HUMFREY, 1558-89 112
X. NICOLAS BOND, JOHN HARDING, WILLIAM LANG-
TON, 1589-1626 ....... 133
XI. ACCEPTED FREWEN, JOHN OLIVER, 1626-46 . . 145
XII. JOHN OLIVER, JOHN WILKINSON, THOMAS GOOD-
WIN, 1646-60 ....... 159
XIII. JOHN OLIVER, THOMAS PIERCE, HENRY CLERKE,
1660-87 ........ 176
viii CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
XIV. THE CONTEST WITH JAMES II., 1687-88 . . IQ2
XV. THE COLLEGE FROM l688 TO 179! . . .211
XVI. MARTIN JOSEPH ROUTH, 1791-1854 . . . . 23!
XVII. THE UNIVERSITY COMMISSIONS . . . . . 250
APPENDICES . . ... . . . 264
INDEX . . . . . • ,• • • 283
ILLUSTRATIONS
BIRDSEYE VIEW FROM LOGGAN'S Oxonid IllllS-
trata, SHOWING THE BUILDINGS OF THE
COLLEGE AS THEY WERE IN 1675 . . Frontispiece
THE "FOUNDER'S TOWER" FROM THE EAST, SHOWING THE ADJOINING PARTS OF THE
WEST SIDE OF THE CLOISTER . . . Facing fiage 24
From a. Pliotograph by Mr. R. P. Jones
THE GREAT TOWER, FROM THE NORTH, SHOW- ING IN THE FOREGROUND PART OF THE
CHAPEL, HALL, AND SOUTH CLOISTER . ,,48
From a Photograph by Mr. R. P. Jones
INTERIOR OF THE HALL, SHOWING THE PAN- ELLING ERECTED IN 154! .... ,, 82 From a Photograph by Mr. R. P. Jones
VIEW FROM THE PRESIDENT'S GARDEN, SHOW- ' ING PART OF THE LODGINGS (BEHIND WHICH
is THE FOUNDER'S TOWER), THE " GRAMMAR HALL " (BEHIND WHICH ARE THE MUNIMENT TOWER, THE GREAT TOWER, AND THE WEST FRONT OF THE CHAPEL), AND THE TOWER AND ADJOINING PORTION OF S. SWITHUN'S BUILDINGS ,, II
From a Photograph by Mr. R. P. Jones
x ILLUSTRATIONS
THE " GRAMMAR HALL" FROM THE SOUTH-EAST Facing page 144 From a Photograph by Mr. R. P. Jones
VIEW FROM THE EAST SIDE OF THE WALKS,
IN WINTER ....... „ IQO
From a Photograph by Mr. R. P. Jones
INTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL (LOOKING WEST), SHOWING THE CHOIR-SCEEEN AND STALLS
DESIGNED BY COTTINGHAM .... ,, 238
From a Photograph by Mr. R. P. Jones
CHAPTER I
THE FOUNDATION
THE College of S. Mary Magdalen in the University of Oxford, commonly called Magdalen College, was founded in the reign of Henry VI. by William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester. Of the Founder's early life, and of his family, little is known. He was the son of Richard Patten (otherwise called Richard Barbour) of Wainfleet, a small town on the Lincolnshire coast. As to his father's position in life, various accounts have been given ; of all alike it may be said that the evidence on which they rest is doubtful or scanty. The story that he followed the occupation of a barber, if true, may account for one of the names by which he was known ; but it seems no less likely that the story is derived from the name. According to another account, he was a merchant ; and it has been alleged that the effigy on his tomb represents him in the dress of " a wealthy merchant or yeoman.1' The former statement has such authority as belongs to " local tradition " existing in the early years of the present century ; as to the latter, it may be said that the costume in question is not such as to warrant any positive statement as to the quality of the wearer. Pedigree-makers, from the seventeenth century onwards, have stated that his immediate ancestors settled at Wainfleet, and trace his descent to
2 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
a family which is assigned sometimes to Essex, some- times to Lincolnshire, and sometimes to Derbyshire. His wife Margery is said to have been the daughter of Sir William Brereton, who was governor of Caen during the French war of Henry V.
Richard and Margery Patten had two sons, William, the Founder of Magdalen College, and John, who became Archdeacon of Surrey and Dean of Chichester. The Lancashire family of Patten claim descent from a third son, Richard, who is said to have settled at Baslow in Derbyshire. But such evidence as is supplied by documents relating to William Waynflete is not in favour of this connection. The Bishop makes no mention of any kinsman in his will ; nor did he make any provision in his College for " founder's kin " such as was made by Wykeham at Winchester and at New College, or by Chicheley at All Souls. Moreover, a few years after the Bishop's death, we find Juliana Chirchestile, his uncle's grand-daughter, claiming the position of his " heiress," a claim inconsistent with the theory which makes Richard Patten of Baslow his brother.
It is certain that Waynflete studied at Oxford, and that he obtained the degree of Bachelor of Divinity ; but it is not certain whether he was a member of any , college in the University. It has been believed that he was educated at Winchester, or at New College, or at both of Wykeham's foundations ; but he was not a foundation-member of either ; nor does his name appear among the commensales of Winchester, while New College in its early days admitted none but founda- tioners. Leland has been cited as stating that Bishop Longland of Lincoln (who was admitted to Magdalen
THE FOUNDATION 3
soon after Waynflete's death, and must have known persons who remembered their Founder), had told him that Waynflete was a member of New College. But Leland, while he places Waynflete at New College, does not do so on Longland's authority. The point for which he quotes Longland as his informant is not the place of Waynflete's education, but that of his birth.
This, no doubt, was the town from which he took the name by which he was known through most of his long life, and which was also adopted by his brother John. The name was not an uncommon one. At least one other William Waynflete is mentioned in the records of the diocese of Lincoln between 1415 and 1431, and at least two more appear in the records of Bath and Wells about the same time. It has been thought that the Founder of Magdalen College is to be identified with one " William Waynflete of Spalding " who was ordained sub-deacon in December 1420, deacon in February 1421, and priest in December 1426, by Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln.* If this conjecture be right, it may be inferred that Waynflete was at least twenty-three years of age in February 1421, and that he had, from 1420 to 1426, some special connection with Spalding Priory, being at this time " unbeneficed.11 But it is a conjecture, not a certainty.
The first event in his life for which a clear date can
* Chandler, in his Life of Waynflete, states the dates and places of these ordinations incorrectly; and his apparent citation of Fleming's register, in the statement that "William Barbor " was made sub- deacon " by the stile of William Waynflete " is misleading. There is nothing in the form of the entry in Fleming's register to suggest that the sub-deacon had ever been known as William Barbor, or that he was the same person as the acolyte William Barbor men- tioned in an earlier entry.
4 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
be given is his appointment as Master of the school at Winchester in 1429. He held this office till 1442, and during his tenure received from Cardinal Beaufort the Mastership of the Hospital of S. Mary Magdalen, an almshouse near Winchester. To his connection with this foundation, probably, the College which he after- wards founded in Oxford may trace the cause of its own dedication title.
In 1440 Henry VI., who was engaged in planning the foundation of his colleges at Eton and Cambridge, visited Winchester, and no doubt learned something of Waynflete's capacity. The next year he named him in the foundation-charter of Eton as one of the six Fellows of the new college ; and in 1442 Waynflete left Winchester to reside at Eton, where he held the Mastership of the school for a short time. In December 1443 he became Provost of Eton, and before April 1447 he had been admitted a member of the King's council. That he was regarded as standing high in the King's favour may be gathered from a letter addressed to him by the University of Oxford, probably soon after the death of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (February 1447), praying him to use his influence to secure to the University the possession of books pro- mised to the University Library by the late Duke, which had not been actually sent, but remained among the Duke's possessions at the time of his decease.
On April 11, 1447, Cardinal Beaufort, who had held the See of Winchester for more than forty years, died.
On the very day of his uncle's death, without waiting for a formal request from the chapter of S. Swithun's, the King wrote to the Prior and convent, authorising them to proceed at once to the election of Beaufort's
THE FOUNDATION 5
successor, and recommending Waynflete as the person whom they should choose. On the 13th, having probably received their letter, sent on the 12th, announcing the vacancy of the See, and asking for the accustomed conge cTelire, he wrote again, directing them to make their election forthwith, without waiting for a licence under the Great Seal, and again recommended Waynflete. The election took place accordingly on the 15th, the mode adopted being that technically described as quasi per inspirationem. Requests for the confirmation of their choice were sent by the electors to the King and to the Pope ; and, all the usual formalities being duly completed, Waynflete was consecrated on July 13, in the Chapel of Eton College. His enthronement at Win- chester was deferred, and did not take place till the January following.
His connection as Master with Wykeham's great foundation of Winchester, his double connection with the later foundation of Eton, his work in managing the details of Henry's scheme for Eton and King's College, perhaps influenced the new Bishop in the way of leading him to use his own advancement for the furtherance of learning. His experience of Oxford, perhaps, had shown him the need of further endow- ments. At any rate, he seems to have conceived the design of a new foundation very soon after his eleva- tion, and to have lost no time in carrying it into effect.
He obtained, in the first place, the King's licence to found a Hall in the University of Oxford for the study of theology and philosophy. The new corporation was to consist of a President and fifty graduate Scholars, less or more, having a common seal, and receiving permis-
6 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
sion to hold lands in mortmain to the value of one hundred pounds a year. It was to be governed by statutes given by the Founder, and to be known by the name of the Hall of S. Mary Magdalen, or Magdalen Hall.* The patent authorising the Foundation was sealed on May 6, 1448.
The next step was the acquisition of a site. For this purpose Waynflete obtained, through the agency of John Godmanston, at an annual rent of £6 6s. 8d., certain tenements in the parishes of S. Peter in the East, and S. John Baptist, belonging to the Hospital of S. John. Two of these tenements were conveyed by Godmanston to Waynflete, to be the site of the new Hall, on August 1 ; the rest were held over to be con- veyed to the new corporation when it should be consti- tuted.
The whole of the buildings and grounds thus acquired lay within the city walls, on the south side of the High Street. Taken together, they probably covered the greater part of the space enclosed by the High Street on the north, " Jonyslane " (now Merton Street) on the south, Horsmull Lane (now called Logic Lane) on the west, and the lane now known as King Street on the east. The two tenements selected as the site of Waynflete's new Hall were Bostar Hall (also called, in earlier deeds, " Borstalle " Hall) and Hare Hall. Bostar Hall, with its garden, covered a strip of ground measuring 135 feet by 37 feet, having a narrow front towards the High Street, separated by at least one tenement from Horsmull Lane, and having on its
* The pronunciation of the name current in the University is as old as this charter, which, mentioning the vernacular name as well as the formal title, gives the former as " Maudelayne Halle."
THE FOUNDATION 7
eastern side a tenement (now represented by No. 85 High Street) known as the "Saracen's Head." The garden lay to the south of the Hall, and formed the northern boundary of Hare Hall, adjoining the garden of that tenement. Hare Hall itself lay to the south of its own garden, and together with it covered an area measuring 75 feet by 66 feet, bounded on the west by Horsmull Lane, and on the east by the garden of an inn called the " Tabard," afterwards known as the " Angel." The « Tabard " itself had a frontage to the High Street, probably coinciding with the western part of the present Examination Schools. Between its High Street front and that of the " Saracen's Head " there was at least one tenement. Thus the site of Waynflete's first foundation, the original Magdalen Hall, lay be- tween the present Schools and Logic Lane, near to, and in part bordering on, the latter. It formed part of the property sold by Magdalen College in 1884 to Univer- sity College. The greater part of the other properties acquired for the Hall, which also passed, as we shall see, at a later stage, into the possession of Magdalen College, were sold to the University at various times between 1860 and 1871.
Having thus obtained a site for his Hall, and made other provision for its enlargement and partial endow- ment, Waynflete proceeded, by a charter given on August 20, 1448, to found his new corporation. The charter names as the first President John Horley, or Hornley, a Bachelor of Divinity. The first Scholars, also named in the deed, were all graduates in Arts ; they numbered twenty in all, thirteen Masters and seven Bachelors. In the event of a vacancy in the Presidentship, the Scholars were to elect a new Head,
8 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
and to present him for confirmation to the Bishop of Winchester for the time being. New Scholars were to be elected by the President and Scholars ; but all elec- tions were to be subject to ordinances and statutes to be given at a future time by the Founder for the gov- ernment of the Hall. Pending the giving of such statutes, no doubt, the Founder himself would fill up vacancies or add to the number of the Scholars as he thought fit. And during the ten years for which the life of the Hall lasted it does not appear that any such statutes or ordinances as the charter -contemplates were given to the society.
As to its growth or condition during the ten years there is but little evidence. It is clear that the pro- perties, other than Bostar Hall and Hare Hall, obtained by Godmanston from the Hospital of S. John, were conveyed to the President and Scholars. The rent due for them to the Hospital was paid by Godmanston, who, no doubt, acted in this matter, as in that of the transfer, as the agent of the Founder. Some of these premises, it may be, were actually occupied by the members of the Hall, if the accommodation in the new Magdalen Hall itself was insufficient ; but some of them were leased to tenants, and thus provided income for the new foundation. The same was the case with other neighbouring tenements which were rented by the President and Scholars ; the " Saracen's Head," which they held from the Church of S. Peter in the East, and other properties, also close to the Hall itself, leased to them by University College and by the Convent of Littlemore. It may be conjectured that Waynflete's first design was to acquire on a permanent tenure the whole of the ground and buildings enclosed by the four
THE FOUNDATION 9
streets already mentioned, and to employ them for the extension of his Hall. But within ten years from the date of his charter he formed a different design of wider scope, and himself attained a position which enabled him to carry that design into effect.
During these ten years we find him, on more than one occasion, taking a prominent part in the events of the time. He was one of the lords sent to offer a pardon to Cadets followers in the insurrection of 1450, one of those sent to confer with the Duke of York in 1452 ; he was the chief of the commissioners sent by the Lords to Henry VI. in his illness in 1454, and took part in the proceedings of the council during the protectorate of the Duke of York till the King's recovery in 1455. In October 1456 he succeeded Archbishop Bourchier as Lord Chancellor. Within a few days of the time when he received the Great Seal the first important steps were taken in the scheme, which he must have already had in view for some time, of enlarging and remodel- ling his foundation in Oxford. The scheme had for its result the acquisition of the whole property of the Hospital of S. John Baptist, with its site and buildings, and the establishment in the place of the Hospital of a new foundation under the name of Magdalen College.
Before describing the steps by which this new design was carried into effect, something must be said of the history and character of the Hospital of S. John. It was not an academical foundation, but independent of the University. The precise date at which it had its beginning is not known. In the fifteenth century Henry III. was recognised as its founder, and the date of his foundation is said to have been 1233. It would
10 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
appear, however, that Henry's action was not the founda- tion of a new institution ; he refounded and endowed a body already existing before his accession, and provided its members with a site for new buildings, and perhaps with the buildings themselves. Of these he is said to have himself placed the first stone. But there seems to be good evidence that the Hospital was then no new thing. Some of its lands had been given to it by King John ; from him also, as Earl of Moretain, it had received the endowment of a rent-charge upon certain property granted by him to Hugh de Malannay ; and several of the deeds by which lands and houses in Oxford were conveyed to it are apparently earlier in date than the first charter granted to it by Henry III. But if, as these facts seem to show, Henry cannot be regarded as the original founder of the Hospital, he may certainly be accounted its second founder : the statutes by which it was governed probably date from his reign, and his first grant points to its establishment on a new site, and to a new epoch in its history.
In 1231 Henry gave to the Hospital the mill known as King's Mill, situated at the Headington end of the path now known as Mesopotamia ; he gave also, as a site for rebuilding the Hospital, the Jews' garden outside the east gate of Oxford, providing that space was to be reserved for a burial-ground for the Jews. This ground formed at least part of the present site of Magdalen College and part of the site of the Physic Garden ; in the former, the buildings of the Hospital were placed, while the ground on the south side of the road most probably continued to be used as a burial-ground by the Jews until their expulsion from England in 1290. Other grants of lands, privileges, and exemptions were
THE FOUNDATION 11
made and confirmed to the Hospital by Henry III. and several of his successors.
The corporation thus endowed was entitled " the Master and Brethren of the Hospital of S. John Baptist." Their object was " the relief of poor Scholars and other ' miserable ' persons."" They were under the Rule of S. Augustine, having also a special code of statutes. The statutes are preserved in a fifteenth- century MS. now in the Bodleian Library,* and show something more of the character and working of the Hospital than can be gathered from the documents relating to its property. Even from the latter, it appears that sisters formed part of the community ; but the full membership seems to have been limited to the master and brethren, the number of the latter being limited to that required for the tending of the sick poor who were lodged in the "infirmary.1'* This appears from the statutes to have been the principal mode in which relief was given, but probably food and lodging were also provided for needy travellers and pilgrims. The officers of the Hospital were the "master,"" or " warden " (who was elected by the brethren, and con- firmed in his appointment by the King), the " cellarer1' and the " sacrist."" Of the two subordinate officers, the " cellarer " acted as the masters vice-gerent, while the " sacrist,1' in addition to such duties as commonly belonged to his office in a religious house, was charged with the care of the " infirmary " and its inmates. The brethren had a common dormitory and a common refectory ; they wore a distinctive habit of brown stuff with a cross on the left breast, and over this, out of doors, a cloak, apparently of the same colour, marked * Its press-mark in 1899 was "MS. Top. Oxf. d. 8."
12 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
with " a double cross " in front. They were expressly forbidden to retain any private property ; all their goods were to be in common.
Of the sisters (" sorores conversae ") the statutes say little ; but it would seem that they were governed by the same rule as the brethren. They probably had their own buildings apart from the others, and managed the women's department of the " infirmary." But it is not clear that they always formed part of the Hospital establishment ; there is no mention of any sisters in the majority of the documents, and it seems that there were none at the time when the Hospital was transferred to Magdalen College.
The Hospital buildings were probably scattered over the area included in its precincts, which contained, besides the space occupied by the buildings, some meadow-land and gardens, and one or more plots of burial-ground. Of the buildings themselves there are few remains. In the line of the present College buildings facing the street, a blocked-up doorway, to the west of the Tower, marks one of the entrances to the Hospital. Between this doorway and the pre- sent Porter's Lodge stood a building, consisting of a vaulted chamber with a chapel above it, which in the sixteenth century was known as the " alms-house." Something of its character may be seen from a seven- teenth-century painting, now in the President's Lodgings.* This chapel, in 1594, was stated by the President and Fellows to be the only remaining portion of the
* The painting is engraved in Skelton's Oxonia Antigua : part of the engraving is reproduced in Ingram's Memorials of Oxford. It was apparently executed after 1635, and before 1665, when the " alms- house" was converted into " chambers," and altered externally so as to present a front uniform with the adjoining buildings.
THE FOUNDATION 13
Hospital buildings.* Wood, however, believed that the College Kitchen (which still remains), the "Divinity Reader's Lodgings " (now removed), which stood near the Kitchen by the Cherwell, and the stables which Loggan's plate shows near the entrance to the Walks, were all part of the fabric of S. John's Hospital.f
The Hospital was exempt from diocesan jurisdiction, and was directly subject to the King as its patron and visitor. Its affairs, therefore, were now a matter in which Waynflete, as Chancellor, had some official con- cern. His previous dealings with the Hospital had probably given him some personal knowledge of its condition, and that condition was not satisfactory. The number of its members was so far reduced that it consisted only of a master and four brethren. Its property was ill-managed, its revenues were not spent in the relief of the poor, and its rule and statutes were not observed. Waynflete proposed to annex the Hos- pital to his own foundation, and as a first step the King granted the patronage of the Hospital to him and his successors in the See of Winchester, and the Hospital itself and its possessions to the President and Scholars of Magdalen Hall, to whom the master and brethren were authorised to make a surrender. This grant was made on October 27, 1456. In May of the next year Richard Vyse, the master, promises his consent to Waynflete's scheme, provided that the Hospital can be legally united to the College of S. Mary Magdalen, and
* The document containing this statement is in the Harleian MS. 4240.
f The author of Observations on the original Architecture of S. Mary Magdalen College [J. C. Buckler] supposes that some portions of the Hospital buildings were incorporated in the north side of the cloister quadrangle.
14 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
that he himself shall be duly compensated. On July 5, 1457, the master and brethren authorise their attorneys to give seisin of the Hospital and its posses- sions to Magdalen Hall. On July 18 a licence is granted to Waynflete to found the College of S. Mary Magdalen, consisting of a President and sixty graduate Scholars (more or less) studying theology and philosophy, on a site which probably corresponded with the precincts of the Hospital. It is described as being bounded on the east by the Cherwell, on the south by the highway from East-gate to East-bridge, on the east by the highway from East-gate to Canditch (now Long Wall Street), and on the north by the lands of Holy well. A few days later the President and Scholars of Magdalen Hall make a temporary grant to Richard Vyse of the Hospital and all its possessions, to be held till Sep- tember 30 following. This, no doubt, was part of the scheme of compensation. On September 25 they convey to Waynflete the site for his new foundation, and on September 30 Waynflete founds the College of S. Mary Magdalen on this site, in terms of the licence of July 18, naming as the first President William Tybard, Bachelor of Divinity, and as the first Scholars three Masters and three Bachelors of Arts. Of these six, four were among the original Scholars of Magdalen Hall.
The next stage in the process is the annexation of the Hospital to the new College. On October 13, 1457, the King grants letters patent reciting the sub- stance of his letters of October 27 of the previous year, and the fact that the Hospital has in accordance with those letters been made over to the Hall. The letters set forth the state of the Hospital as described above, and grant to Waynflete licence, on receiving the sane-
THE FOUNDATION 15
tion of the Pope or any other sufficient ecclesiastical authority, to convert the Hospital into a College of secular persons studying theology and philosophy. Waynflete and the President and Scholars of his College are authorised, notwithstanding the Statute of Pro- visors, to receive and publish papal bulls for this purpose, and the President and Scholars are permitted to hold lands, &c., to the value of £500 a year. On March 14, 1458, Calixtus III. grants a commission to the Bishops of Lincoln, Worcester and Hereford, or any of them, to inquire into the facts stated in a petition presented to him, for the suppression of the Hospital and its incorporation with the College which Waynflete had been licensed to found. The commissioners are authorised to sanction such suppression and annexation, whereby, as it is said, Waynflete proposes to " change earthly things to heavenly, and things transitory to things eternal " by providing in place of the Hospital a College of a President, secular Scholars and other " ministri," for the service of God and for the study of theology and philosophy, of whom some are to teach these sciences to all comers without fee, at the cost of the College. The commissioners are also authorised to grant to Richard Vyse and to the brethren dispensations to enable them to hold ecclesiastical benefices. The Bishop of Hereford appears to have acted in the matter, and a notarial instrument, no doubt drawn up for the purposes of the commission, records the consent of Richard Vyse. In this the gratuitous teaching of theology and philosophy is again mentioned; and it may be gathered that such teaching was intended to replace the "earthly and transitory" relief which it had been the purpose of the Hospital to supply. The pro-
16 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
ceedings of the commission were probably brought to a close before June IS, 1458, on which day Waynflete issued another charter founding the College, couched in almost exactly the same terms as that of July 18, 1457, but making no mention of any precise number of Scholars, that point being left to be determined by the statutes afterwards to be made by him for the govern- ment of his new foundation.
The remaining steps, the surrender to the College of the Hall and the Hospital by the President and Scholars of Magdalen Hall, the decree of the Bishop of Hereford, suppressing the Hospital and annexing it to the College, the grants of pensions of £4tQ a year to the master, and c^PlO a year to each of the brethren, follow in due course. It is not clear what provision was made for John Horley and the remaining members of the Hall ; most of them, probably, became members of the College under the presidency of William Tybard. The Hall, as a separate body, appears no more.
So far as the foundation and the partial endowment of the College were concerned, Waynflete's work was thus completed by the end of June 1458. But no new buildings were as yet provided. The members of the College probably lodged in the premises of the Hall, and in those vacated by the members of the Hospital. The fulfilment of any designs for additional buildings which Waynflete may have formed was long delayed.
In 1460, just before the battle of Northampton, Waynflete resigned the office of Chancellor, and de- livered up the seal to the King in his tent on July 7. Three days later the King was a prisoner. In the events which followed Waynflete seems to have taken no active share. 'That he acquiesced in the
THE FOUNDATION 17
assumption of the crown by Edward IV. may be inferred from the fact that in 1462 he received a pardon for all acts down to November 4, 1461, wherein the interests of his College were guarded by an allowance of posses- sions received in mortmain. The charters granted to the Hospital and the College were also confirmed by Edward in 1467, and fresh pardons granted to the Founder in 1468 and 1472. In the latter year there was also a pardon to Tybard as President of the College, with confirmation of possessions in mortmain. These pardons were not obtained without cost. Waynflete had undertaken to pay to Edward the sum of 5000 marks " for contynuance of his gode grace and favour to the said reverend Fader to be shewed," and a dis- charge for that sum, given to him on July 9, 1471, remains in the College muniment-room.
During these years a strange series of negotiations had been in progress, which had for their result a large increase to the property of the College. Sir John Fastolf, a wealthy knight who had seen much service in the French wars, died at his castle of Caister in Norfolk, in November 1459. His latter years had been occupied in schemes for increasing, securing, and disposing of his estates, and by his neighbours in plans for securing to themselves a share of what he would leave behind him at his death. He had executed several deeds, appoint- ing various bodies of trustees to hold portions of his property, and on his death a will was produced by which he left, in effect, all his property in Norfolk and Suffolk to John Paston, one of his trustees, subject to the payment of a sum of money to his other executors and to the trust of founding at Caister a College " of seven priests and seven poor folk.11 The genuineness of
18 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
the will was disputed : it was suggested that it was a forgery made by Paston, or by some one else for his interest. Some of the other executors refused to re- cognise Paston's claims, and acted independently of him, while neighbouring landowners laid hands on such parts of Fastolf s property as they thought specially desirable. The Duke of Suffolk and Lord Scales took possession of certain manors ; the Duke of Norfolk annexed Caister itself. Long and complex law proceedings followed, and the strife was not confined to the law courts. Norfolk, who had been compelled to loose his hold of Caister, renewed his claim, alleging that he had purchased the castle from some of the executors, and as the Pastons would not surrender possession the castle was besieged by the Duke with a force of 3000 men. In the end, after the Duke's death, the Paston family recovered Caister ; but before that time it had been agreed that Fastolf s proposed College should be transferred to Oxford, and incorporated in Waynflete's foundation ; and for this purpose lands of considerable value were made over to Waynflete for the benefit of his College. The precise manner in which Fastolf s foundation was represented will be seen presently ; it was determined some years later by the statutes of the College. The transference of the foundation was sanctioned in 1474 by Sixtus IV.
In the same year the College acquired a less impor- tant addition to its resources by the annexation of the Priory of Sele in Sussex. The patronage of this house, originally an "alien priory" dependent on the Bene- dictine monastery of S. Florent, near Saumur, had been granted to Waynflete in 1459, probably with a view to its suppression. The decree for its annexation was
THE FOUNDATION 19
made in 1471, but the College only took possession in 1474, on the deprivation of the Prior. In 1471 there was only one resident monk, who had hardly sufficient maintenance, the revenues being wasted by the Prior, who was non-resident, and whose proceedings, from the time when he had obtained his office by a simoniacal bargain with his predecessor, had not been of the most reputable kind. With the Priory there passed to the College several benefices in Sussex, including Sele (or Beeding), Bramber, and the two Shorehams.
The more settled state of public affairs which followed on the death of Henry VI. and on EdwaixTs secure possession of the throne gave an opportunity for carry- ing out Waynflete^s schemes for College buildings, and it is not unlikely that the accessions to the wealth of the College which have just been mentioned enabled him to proceed with greater freedom in the work which now began.
[The principal authorities for the contents of this chapter (besides the printed works mentioned in the notes) are charters and deeds in the muniment-room of the College, and the Statutes of S. John's Hospital, in the Bodleian Library. Of the College muniments there is a MS. calendar in the College Library, made by the Rev. W. D. Macray. Several of the documents relating to Fastolfs property and intended foundation are printed in Mr. Gairdner's edition of the Paston Letters.']
CHAPTER II
THE FOUNDER'S BUILDINGS
WAY^FLETE'S plans for the buildings of his College were, no doubt, affected to some extent by the fact that the site which he had acquired was already in part occupied by the buildings of the Hospital. Some por- tions of these it was probably thought well to retain ; but it is not possible to say how far this method was followed. The Hospital chapel, as we have seen, was allowed to remain standing ; and it is probable that the buildings to the west of this chapel, which form the south side of what is known as S. John's Quadrangle, occupy the same site with a part of the ancient Hospital, and perhaps include some portions of its fabric. If the line of the Hospital buildings was continued from the chapel eastwards, towards the Cherwell, probably this portion also was left standing for a time. But the build- ings to the east of the Tower, and those between the Tower and the Hospital chapel, forming, with the College Chapel and Hall, the boundary lines of the space called the Chaplains' Quadrangle, belong to a time more than twenty years after Waynflete's death. During his life- time nothing seems to have been done to provide new buildings in this part of the College, though it is not unlikely that their erection formed part of his general design.
THE FOUNDER'S BUILDINGS 21
The works actually carried out under the direction of the Founder were placed under the superintendence of Richard Berne, or Bernes, who had been one of the original Scholars of Magdalen Hall, and was one of the six Scholars named in the foundation-charters of the College. He held the office of Vice-President from 1469 to his death in 1499. With regard to the build- ings, his functions seem to have been those of superin- tending their progress, of receiving and expending the sums sent by the Founder to defray their cost, and of keeping the accounts. The principal workman was William Orcheyerd, otherwise called William Mason, who carried out particular portions of the building paid for as piecework, undertook special contracts for other parts, furnished designs for some of the details, and probably acted as the practical manager of the whole.
The work first taken in hand was the building of the enclosing walls, which was begun in 1467, and occupied about six years. The outlays in the first years are chiefly for the quarrying of stone at Headington, for pre- paring lime, for carting stone, lime, sand and gravel to the College, for digging foundations and removing the soil dug out. Two walls were also built in the first two years. One of these is described as the wall "about the garden.1' It probably followed, at least in part of its course, nearly the same line as that of the present south wall of the " Grove." The other went eastwards from " the Hall of the College " (that is, probably, from the eastern end of the site intended for the Hall) to the Cherwell, and was then continued southwards along the river bank, probably to meet some existing wall or building. The "great wall" along the western
22 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
boundary was next begun — that is to say, the wall which separates the " Grove " from what is now called Long Wall Street, ending near Holywell Church. The " lesser wall " along the northern boundary, towards Holywell Mill and the Cherwell, was carried out in the fifth and sixth years of the work.
It is in the building of the "great wall" that Orcheyeixfs name first appears in the accounts, and from this point onwards the masons are divided into two classes — the "freemasons," of whom Orcheyerd was apparently the head, being paid for certain classes of work by the piece, the " rowmasons " (or laihomi po?ientes) with their labourers receiving payment for the most part by the day. It may be worth while to note that the accounts do not bear out the tradition, recorded by Hearne, that " when Magdalen College in Oxford was built the workmen had only a penny a day." The lowest rate of wages which they show, paid to the masons1 labourers, is 3^d. a day. Some of the labourers receive 4<d. a day ; the wages of the " row- masons " themselves vary from 4>^d. to 6d.
The preparations for the actual buildings of the College were apparently begun in the latter part of 1473. Stone was brought from Headington, where the College now apparently owned one quarry (worked in two divisions) and rented others from the King and from Sir Edmund Rede, from Wheatley, Taynton, and Milton. Earth, perhaps that removed from the foundations of the wall, was carted from the " Grove " to raise the level of the ground on which the buildings were to stand. The "foundation -stone" of the build- ing was blessed by Robert Toly, Bishop of S. David's, and laid by William Tybard, on May 5, 1474, " in the
THE FOUNDER'S BUILDINGS 23
midst of the high altar." On the same day a breakfast was provided for the Bishop ; the charge for this, which is treated as part of the building expenses, amounted to 34?. 6d. The whole outlay to the end of 1474 was ^285, and the details of the yearns expenditure show that good progress was made. They include payments for the stonework of the windows in the choir of the Chapel, and of the lesser windows of the nave, for that of the windows of the Hall and the chambers below it, for the doorways of these chambers and of the Buttery, and for the framework of the windows of the chambers below the Hall. Before the end of the year a large quantity of timber had been purchased and sawn up to be ready for the joiner- work. This was mostly brought from Shotover and from Wychwood.
In 1475 William Orcheyerd undertakes to make a great window of seven lights in the west end of the Chapel, according to the "portraiture11 made by him, for twenty marks. He also contracts for the stonework of the cloister windows and buttresses as agreed upon " by the advice and provision " of Richard Bernes, for twelve doors and 102 windows for the chambers in the cloister, and for the windows in the Library : each of the latter windows being of two lights. The standard for the work in the chambers and Library is taken from All Souls : the windows are " to be as good as or better than " those in the corresponding parts of All Souls College.
Other contracts made by Orcheyerd in 1479 probably mark the conclusion of the whole work. These are for buttresses and battlements of ashlar for the Chapel, Hall, Library and cloister chambers, and for the two towers ; for the " vyse " (i.e., the winding staircase) of
24 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
" the great tower " and for the spire upon it ; for the pinnacles of the towers, Chapel, and Hall.
The " great tower " here mentioned is, of course, not the present bell-tower, which is of later date. It is, no doubt, the tower over what was the principal entrance to the cloisters, commonly called the " Founder's Tower." The other tower is the low tower at the north-west corner of the Chapel, in the rooms of which, above the Chapel porch, the College charters and other " muni- ments" are kept. Another tower was roofed in the year when the Chapel was begun. It is described as "in the wall towards the College meadows," and is probably identical with a tower "by the water" mentioned in the accounts for building the walls, and with what was afterwards known as the " Song School." Under that name it appears in Agas' map. From the building accounts it appears to have been furnished with a " vyse," and to have had two moulded windows. It stood just by the Cherwell end of the present "New Buildings," and was demolished to make room for them in 1734.
In the general arrangement of his buildings, Wayn- flete imitated, as to some very important points, the model furnished by Wykeham's design at New College. The Chapel and Hall, taken together, form one side of the Quadrangle ; the wall which separates them forms the east end of the Chapel, which has no east window ; the Hall is placed in the upper storey of its portion of the block, having rooms below it on the ground floor. One of these, now the Fellows1 Common-room, was the vestry of the Chapel, with which it communicated by two doorways, one on each side of the high altar. These doorways into the vestibulum are mentioned in the
From a photograph by] [Ronald P. Jones, Magd. Coll.
THE FOUNDER'S TOWER
THE FOUNDER'S BUILDINGS 25
building accounts, but they had been long blocked up and forgotten when they were discovered shortly before the " restoration " of the Chapel in 1829. The other principal room below the Hall was the " exchequer " or Bursary.
As to the form of the Chapel, again, Waynflete followed in the main the plan adopted by Wykeham at New College and by Chicheley at All Souls, which was revived in the seventeenth century at Wadham, and followed by the builders of the later Chapels of Oriel and Brasenose. The Chapel consists of a choir and a very short nave with two aisles. On the south side of the choir there was a small square transept of the same height as the choir itself. The traces of the arch may still be seen on the outside of the south wall. This transept remained until the eighteenth century. Its roof is shown in Loggan's print, and it appears also in the view and the ground-plan of the College in Williams1 Oxonia Depicta (1726-33) and in the Oxford Almanacs for 1730 and 1731. It is most likely that its removal took place before the end of 1733, as it does not appear in the map of Oxford engraved by Toms in that year.* The reason for its destruction is unknown and the purpose for which it was intended is uncertain. In Ingram's Memorials of Oxford and in Buckler's work on the architecture of the College it is called the " Arundel Chapel " ; but this is a mistake. The Arundel altar is mentioned in Waynflete's statutes as situated in the nave of the Chapel : and the directions contained in the statutes seem to warrant the inference that (with one
* This map is included in Williams' Oxonia Depicta : the plates referred to above, contained in the same work, are probably of rather earlier date.
26 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
exception to be mentioned directly) there was no altar in the choir save the high altar. It seems possible that the transept was merely a recess intended to provide space for the small organs or other instruments which were used to accompany the voices of the choir.
A small oratory constructed in the thickness of the north wall of the choir, close to the high altar, and separated from the choir by a stone screen, contained an altar which was occasionally used for the daily Requiem mass. There were six altars in the nave, at one of which (the "Arundel altar") the earliest of the four daily masses was said. It was probably to allow this altar to be seen from the interior of the muniment- tower that the small window was made which still appears, though partly blocked up, in the north wall of the ante-chapel.
Waynflete's choice of the site for his Chapel and Hall, probably determined by the position of some of the Hospital buildings which he meant to retain, made it impossible for him to follow Wykeham's design in regard to the treatment of the cloister. At New College the cloister forms a separate quadrangle, having its east walk parallel to the west front of the Chapel. At Magdalen, the west front of the Chapel came too near the line of the street (and probably of buildings facing the street) to allow room for a cloister on the site of S. John's Quadrangle. The west front of the Chapel, the effect of which must have been much finer before the alteration which converted Orcheyerd's great window of seven lights into an indifferent picture-frame, was thus left open to view. The cloister was placed to the north of the Chapel, and made part of the buildings of the main Quadrangle. It was constructed with a flat
THE FOUNDER'S BUILDINGS 27
timber roof, so as to carry, on three of its four sides, part of the upper storey of the buildings. The south walk, adjoining the Chapel and Hall, was not intended to carry any superstructure, and its erection was not taken in hand at once. The number of cloister windows specified in Orcheyerd's tender was evidently not in- tended to cover those of the south cloister as well as of the other three sides. This walk may not have formed part of the Founder's design ; it was not completed till 1490-91, some years after his death. A small oratory was placed upon its roof close to the angle of the Chapel wall. This, no doubt, communicated with the rooms in the upper storey of the west side. It was not replaced when the south cloister was rebuilt in 1827.
From each side of the cloister there was a path towards the centre of the enclosure, where, as in some monastic houses, the lavatory was placed. Its site appears from an entry in the accounts for 1483, for the repair of the " lavacrum in medio claustri."
The Chapel was connected with the cloister by a porch which has long been used as the ordinary entrance to the Quadrangle, but was originally meant to serve as the entrance from the cloister to the Chapel. The main entrance to the cloister was by the gateway under the Founder's Tower. Over this gate was the principal chamber of the President, to whom also belonged the rooms of the upper storey between the tower and the Chapel, and some of the rooms on the ground floor of this side. The Library occupied its present place in the upper storey to the north of the tower, but did not extend to the end of the west front. The whole of the north and east sides of the Quadrangle were divided into chambers for the use of members of the College
28 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
and of such guests as were lodged within its walls. The Kitchen (probably the old kitchen of the Hospital) was outside the Quadrangle, between the Hall and the Cherwell. Another kitchen, for the service of the President, was also outside the Quadrangle, on the west, probably on ground now covered by the additional buildings of the Lodgings.
The date when the building of the Chapel was com- pleted cannot be accurately stated ; it is clear, how- ever, that it was not quite finished in April 1479, and as there is no record of its consecration in the Register which begins in August 1480, it may be assumed that the consecration took place before the date of the first entry in the Register. A manuscript note in the calendar of a breviary which belonged to some member of the College in the first half of the sixteenth century shows that October 20 was observed as the anniversary of the consecration. It would seem, more- over, that the College buildings were occupied before August 1480, for on April 10, 1480, an agreement was made by the College with the Vicar of S. Peter's in the East as to tithes and oblations within its precincts. The Vicar resigns all these to the College, receiving from it an annual grant by way of compensation. On July 6 in the same year Rotherham, Bishop of Lincoln, transfers the College from his own diocesan jurisdiction to that of the Bishop of Winchester, and this transfer- ence was confirmed by the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln on July 22 of the same year. These arrangements seem to show that the College buildings were already brought into use, and it appears that grammar teaching was given within the College from the Easter of 1480, before the buildings of the Grammar School were begun.
THE FOUNDER'S BUILDINGS 29
These buildings, the last important part of the College erected in the Founder's lifetime, were begun in August 1480. They stood outside the west gate of the College, on the ground between the present S. Swithun's Buildings and the small block which now bears the name of the " Grammar Hall," a name by which the School and the buildings immediately adj oin- ing it were known in the fifteenth century. The School buildings themselves consisted of a schoolroom with chambers for the Master and Usher, and a kitchen. The present " Grammar Hall " in part belonged to the ancient building, in part to a group of buildings which grew up round it, and were occupied as a hall by students of the University, probably for the most part attending the teaching of the Grammar Master. The society of students inhabiting these buildings were under a Principal, who paid rent to the College for the buildings. The earliest of these Principals is mentioned in the College accounts as making payment for the "Grammar Hall," but this name seems to have been very soon laid aside in favour of the name of " Magdalen Hall," by which the buildings and the society inhabiting them are alike described from the first years of the six- teenth century onwards. The connection of the Hall with the College was at first a close one, in so far that the early Principals were all, or almost all, Fellows of the College. But, apart from this personal connection, and from the fact that the College were the owners of the site of the Hall, and received rent for it, the two societies were entirely separate. The College had no jurisdiction over the Hall, or over any persons residing in it who were not also members of the College itself. At a later time, indeed, a different view prevailed, and
30 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
KEY TO THE GROUND-PLAN
Buildings of the Hospital of S. John, incorporated in Waynflete's buildings, marked ==
Other early buildings of the College (before 1500) marked — —
Later buildings, still remaining, marked
Sites of various buildings now removed, marked — — —
A. Chapel of the Hospital, altered 1665. B. Kitchen (?) of the Hospital, now part of the College Kitchen. C. Site of Hospital buildings, afterwards the Divinity Reader's Lodgings, removed 1783. D. Site of old Stables, shown in Loggan's print ; date of removal unknown. E. Probable site of part of the Hospital buildings : the whole of this front was rebuilt in 1822.
F. Chapel of the College, begun 1474. G. Hall. H. The "Founder's Tower." I. The muniment-tower. K. Site of entrance gates : new gate (Inigo Jones) erected in 1635 ; another (A. W. Pugin) in 1844 : removed in 1883. L. Site of the old Grammar School: the upper storey sand the building adjoining were after wards occupied by Magdalen Hall. School-room removed 1828. M. The President's Lodgings. Buildings additional to the rooms in the Founder's Tower erected (probably on this site) in 1485 : altered and increased at various times. The present Lodgings begun 1886. N. Site of the Gallery, or " Election-chamber," built probably c. 1520-30, removed 1770. O. The Great Tower, begun 1492, finished c. 1506. P. Later buildings of the Chaplain's Quadrangle, built 1507-9. Q. " Kitchen staircase," built 1635. R. South part of S. John's Quadrangle (perhaps includes part of the Hospital buildings): altered or rebuilt c. 1635. S. "West's Buildings," erected 1783. T. " S. Swithun's Buildings," begun 1880. V. Site of the buildings of Magdalen Hall, erected at various times between 1480 and 1820.
i. Position of the great Oak-tree, which fell in 1789. 2. Site of the cross opposite to the entrance to the Hospital, destroyed 1562. 3. Position of outdoor pulpit, formerly connected with the Hospital Chapel. 4. Site of transept, removed c. 1731. 5. Position of oratory on the roof of the cloister, finished 1491, removed in 1827 when the south cloister was rebuilt,
THE FOUNDER'S BUILDINGS
31
32 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
it was supposed that the Hall, as well as the College, was founded by Waynflete, while the College claimed the right to nominate the Principals of the Hall. But the proceedings which followed upon this claim, and which resulted in the establishment of the independence of the Hall, belong to the later history. It may be sufficient here to note the fact that the origin of the Hall is to be traced to the time when the School and the buildings adjoining it were first erected.
[The original authorities used for this Chapter are the early building accounts preserved in the muniment-room of the College (a transcript of which is in the College Library), and the deeds and contracts relating to the buildings, also in the muniment-room. These deeds are included in the Calendar of the College muniments made by Mr. Macray. Some details are derived from entries in the earliest Register of the College, known as "Ledger A," from early account-books, and from the portions of the Founder's Statutes relating to the Chapel.]
CHAPTER III
THE FOUNDER'S STATUTES
WILLIAM TYBARD, the President appointed by the foundation-charter, governed the College for more than twenty years without Statutes. But when the society was about to pass into a new condition of life, and to be brought into full working order in its new home, he may have felt himself unequal to the task of its management. He was now an old man, and his health was failing. It seemed good, therefore, that he should resign his office, and that the charge which he had held should be given into other hands.
As his successor Waynflete chose Richard Mayew, a Doctor of Theology, who had been a Fellow of New College ; and Mayew, sent to the College by the Founder, arrived on August 23, 1480. He was " honourably received " by Tybard, who on the same day resigned the Presidentship. On the 24th Mayew took the oath prescribed by the Founder, and exhibited to the Scholars a letter from Waynflete, directing them to receive and obey him as their President. He also produced certain Statutes made by Waynflete as to the obedience due to him, and as to the dress of the members of the College, which the Scholars were called upon to swear that they would observe. About one- third of the whole number refused, and were suspended
34 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
from the benefits of membership until they complied. They do not seem to have made long delay. At the same time Richard Berne was declared to be a " true and perpetual Fellow " of the College, and readmitted to the office of Vice-President. The other Scholars (one Bachelor of Theology, twenty-eight Masters and seven Bachelors of Arts) remained on the footing of Scholars on " probation.1' This fact, and the difficulty as to the oath, together with the significant record that Mayew, before assuming office, delivered an " oration exhorting to peace and concord," may perhaps suggest that the last period of Tybard's government had not been tranquil. But it may be that Waynflete was not yet prepared to organise the College completely, and chose to keep everything for the present much as it had been, only providing the new President with an efficient and permanent lieutenant. William Collett, one of the Scholars on probation, was appointed Bursar.
In January 1481, Sixtus IV., by a bull, confirmed Waynflete^s Statutes for the College, together with the transference of the College from the diocesan jurisdic- tion of Lincoln to that of Winchester. The Statutes, therefore, were apparently already formulated ; but they were not as yet promulgated by the Founder to the College in a complete form.
On September 20, 1481, the Founder himself came to visit the College, and was received " not only as Founder but as Ordinary and Visitor." He brought with him deeds to be stored in the muniment-room, and about 800 volumes of books to be added to the Library. Two days later, Edward IV. came from Woodstock to see the College and passed the night within the walls.
THE FOUNDER'S STATUTES 35
Waynflete seems to have made a longer stay, and was present at an election of Bursars on October 10.
Early in the next year some discussion seems to have arisen on the election of Proctors, a fruitful cause of strife in any College which contained members of the two opposing parties of North and South. Waynflete wrote to direct that the College should act in such matters as the majority might decide, and that those who would not agree to abide by the decision of the majority should be ejected from their place. Three Masters, not named in the record, refused to accept this decision, and were ejected accordingly, " which thing was very well pleasing to the Founder.11
In July 1482, Mayew brought to the College certain additional Statutes received from Waynflete, chiefly treating of the elections and admissions of the Scholars. In accordance with these various elections took place, so that the body of Scholars was made practically com- plete. In the first place a number of Scholars were admitted as " true and perpetual Fellows." The three Deans were then chosen by the President and the thirteen senior Fellows, and the President, Vice-Presi- dent and Deans proceeded to elect Scholars described as ," medios comunarios," commonly called Demies. Next a number of Scholars were elected " to a year of proba- tion " — that is, to the position of " probationer Fellows," who might at the end of a year be admitted as "true and perpetual." The whole number of places appointed in the Statutes was not, however, as yet filled up ; and occasional elections continued to be made at short intervals for some time.
As in the buildings of his College, so also in the Statutes by which it was to be governed, which had
36 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
probably now, for the most part, been delivered, Waynflete evidently followed in many points the model of Wykeham's foundation at New College. He fre- quently borrows the language of WykehanTs Statutes with little or no change. But there are important differences as well as points of agreement. These were, no doubt, partly due to the desire to provide for new educational needs, but they were also due in part to the fact that the College was the successor and represen- tative of the Hospital of S. John.
In the number of his Scholars, Waynflete follows Wykeham. Magdalen, like New College, was to be a College of a President and seventy Scholars. But while in WykehanVs scheme all the Scholars, after two years1 probation, were members of the society on prac- tically equal terms, the case was different in Magdalen. Both at New College and at Magdalen a certain weight was given to the senior members ; in certain matters a limited number of the senior Fellows acted with the Head ; and certain officers were entrusted with definite authority. But, otherwise, Wykeham's Scholars, after their term of probation, were on an equality. They were alike in name, in allowance, in the possession of the right, which may be said to be the test of full member- ship, of voting in the election of their Head. At Magdalen the Scholars are divided into two classes, with a clear line between them. The Fellows, forty in number, form one class ; the thirty Demies form another. The tenure of the Demies is limited : the allowance of a Demy is half the allowance of a Fellow. The Fellows alone have a voice in choosing the Presi- dent. The election of the two classes is guided by different rules.
THE FOUNDER'S STATUTES 37
The Demies were to be chosen by the President, Vice- President and three Deans. They were to be selected from parishes or places in which the College had pos- sessions, or from counties within which such possessions were situated. They must have reached their twelfth year ; they must not retain their Demyships after their twenty-fifth year. They were not to begin the study of Logic and Sophistry till they had been sufficiently instructed in Grammar, and two or three at least of their number were to devote themselves to the study of Grammar, Poetry and " other arts of humanity," with a view of qualifying themselves for teaching others.
The Fellows, who were to be chosen in the first place for admission to a year of probation, were to be elected by the President and the whole body of Fellows. They were, as a rule, to be Bachelors or Masters of Arts, and were to be chosen from certain dioceses and counties. Five were to be from the diocese of Winchester, seven from Lincolnshire, four from Oxfordshire, four from the diocese of Norwich, three from Berkshire, two from the diocese of Chichester, two from Gloucestershire, two from Warwickshire ; Buckingham, Kent, Nottingham, Essex, Somerset, London, Northampton, and Wiltshire were each to supply one. Two, who were to be " chap- lains " on the foundation of Thomas Ingledew, were to be, if possible, from the dioceses of York or Durham ; and one, in respect of the benefaction of John Forman, was to be chosen from Yorkshire.*
* These were maximum numbers. There were, e.g., to be not more than five Winchester Fellows. The provision was evaded by a practice which soon grew up and long continued, by which Fellows were chosen as for one county or diocese though actually belonging to another, being "transferred" to their proper diocese or county when a vacancy occurred.
38 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
As to the studies of the Fellows, again, there is a marked difference between Wykeham's directions and those of Waynflete. Wykeham places the study of the Civil and Canon Law next to the study of Theology. Twenty of his Scholars were to be Jurists. Waynflete brings into prominence the study of Moral and Natural Philosophy. Two or three of his forty Fellows may be allowed to study Civil or Canon Law, two or three to study Medicine. The rest are to devote themselves to Theology or to Philosophy.
Wykeham had directed that one or more of the Fellows of his College should be chosen to give instruc- tion to the juniors in the faculties of Arts and Civil Law. Waynflete, while adopting this section of the New College Statutes, altered it to suit his own purpose. The instruction so given was to be especially in Logic and Sophistry : the Jurists might, at the discretion of the President and one of the Deans, be allowed to share in the advantages of tuition : and the time during which the juniors were to be allowed instruction was slightly extended. But at Magdalen the teaching under this clause formed part of a more fully developed scheme, which made it possible for a member of the College to obtain teaching, through his whole University course, within the College itself.
The Grammar Master and the Usher provided the instruction which Wykehamfs Scholars would have obtained at Winchester before their election to New College. The College lecturers carried them on a stage farther, by teaching Logic and Sophistry; and the higher teaching of the faculties of Arts and Theology were provided for by the appointment of Readers, one in Natural Philosophy, one in Moral Philosophy or
THE FOUNDER'S STATUTES 39
Metaphysics, and one in Theology. These Readers were to be chosen from outside the College, if by that means better teachers could be obtained. If they were not Fellows, they were to have, besides their stipend as Readers, an allowance equal to that of a Fellow, and to be entitled to succeed to the first Fellowships that might become vacant, without regard to diocese or county. The stipends of the Readers were fixed at a high rate : the two Philosophy Readers were each to have £6 13«s. 4<d. a year, the Theology Reader £10 a year.
Thus the only members of the College for whose teaching no regular provision was made were the students -of Law and Medicine, two classes strictly limited in number, and existing in the College not as a matter of course, but, so to say, accidentally and on sufferance. This was an important advance on WykehanVs scheme. But the advance was greater than this would imply. Waynflete's scheme (no doubt in fulfilment of the pledge given when the Hospital was annexed to the College) provided that the three Readers were to give instruction without fee to all comers, whether members of the College or not, " regulars " as well as " seculars/1 The Grammar Master and his assistant were also to teach all comers without fee or charge, and Waynflete thus extended the benefits which he substituted for those formerly dispensed by the Hospital beyond the limits of his undertaking. Not only in Theology and Philosophy, but also in Grammar, and in the studies included under that term, free teaching was provided at the cost of the College.
These parts of Waynflete's scheme are notable for two reasons: the importance which he gives to the teaching of "Grammar11 and the other "arts of
40 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
humanity,*" and his recognition of Natural and Moral Philosophy, rather than of the Civil and Canon Law, as studies auxiliary to Theology, may be said to mark his attitude towards the learning of the Renaissance. The endowment of public teaching, carried a step farther several years afterwards by the Lady Margaret's foundation of the first University Professorship, may be said to have had its beginning in the Readerships founded by Waynflete at Magdalen.
Both at New College and at Magdalen the choir of the Chapel formed an important part of the foundation. The number of priests as compared with that of clerks was much less in Waynflete's foundation than in that of Wykeham, though the whole number of the choir was almost the same. At Magdalen, provision was made for four priests, eight clerks, and sixteen choristers. At New College, the priests were to be ten and the clerks three. At Magdalen an "instructor of the choristers " was to be added, if none of the Chaplains or Clerks was willing to undertake the office. For an organist, as such, there was no provision: but in practice the "informator choristarum " seems to have generally acted as organist, receiving a stipend for his work in each capacity.
The " seven priests " of Fastolf s transferred foundation were represented by the four Chaplains, the junior priest among the Fellows, and the two Fellows appointed to say two of the daily masses. They had no special allowance in respect of Fastolf s endowment. The seven eldest Demies, representing the " seven poor folk," each received, according to the Statutes, one penny a week ; and to them, in later times, a College jest gave the title of " FalstafTs buckram men.11
THE FOUNDER'S STATUTES 41
The directions of the Statutes as to the daily prayers of the members of the College follow with curious exactness the parallel rules of Wykeham : there are, of course, differences of detail, but the main outline is the same. In the rules laid down for the Chapel services there is rather more divergence. At New College the daily masses (to be said, as a rule, by the Chaplains) were more numerous than those prescribed at Magdalen, where two out of the four were assigned to Fellows, the Chaplains being appointed only for the mass de die, on ordinary days. In both Colleges the use of Sarum was to be followed, except as to certain specified points.
Wykeham's Statutes had not allowed the introduction of commensales, or non-foundationers living as members of the College. This system had probably grown in Oxford since the foundation of New College, and Waynflete definitely recognised it, while he limited the number who might be so admitted. They were not to be more than twenty, and the privilege was to be reserved for the sons of noble and powerful friends of the College. Those so admitted were to live at the charge of their own kindred, not at that of the College, and were to be placed under the care and guidance of " creancers " who were to act as sureties for the due payment of their College accounts.
The management of the College was placed by the Statutes for the most part in the hands of the President, but he was required in some minor matters to have the advice and consent of one or more of the Deans; in more important matters the thirteen senior Fellows were to act as his assistants, and in cases in which the interests of the College were seriously involved he was
42 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
to consult with the whole body of Fellows. The Vice- President, Deans, and Bursars were to be chosen by the President and thirteen seniors. The Vice-President had the duty of general superintendence under the President, and took his place in a vacancy, or in the absence of the President. The Deans were three in number, the Dean of Divinity having special charge of the Scholars in his own faculty and in that of Canon Law, the two Deans of Arts superintending the Scholars in Arts, Civil Law, and Medicine. The three Bursars were charged with the receiving of rent and other College income, and with the payment of sums due by the College. The purchases of the ordinary supplies for the members were under the supervision of a Fellow appointed as Steward (seneschallus) from week to week, and of the manciple, who was the principal College servant. For special works of importance, such as new buildings, the general practice seems to have been that adopted by the Founder : a Fellow was chosen to act as superintendent of the work, accounting for all sums received and expended by him.
In his directions for the choice of a President, the Founder departed from Wykeham's rules, and framed a scheme which seems to have been original, so far as Oxford Colleges wrere concerned. The whole body of Fellows were to choose two persons, from among those who were or had been Fellows either of Magdalen or of New College. Of these two, the thirteen seniors were to choose one as President. The plan, perhaps, was suggested by Chicheley's Statute for All Souls, where two candidates were to be named, but the choice between them was to be made by the Visitor. At Magdalen the person finally selected by the thirteen seniors was to be
THE FOUNDER'S STATUTES 43
presented to the Visitor for the confirmation of his election. The office of Visitor was vested in the Bishop of Winchester for the time being, or in the guardian of the spirituality in case of a vacancy in the See.
In most of the provisions of the Statutes which deal with the daily life of the members of the College the influence of Wykeham's Statutes is clearly marked. The enactments as to dress, as to the use of Latin in conversation, as to the closing of the gates, and the like, are very similar to those at New College. But there are some curious differences of detail. Card- playing now seemed to require a special mention among prohibited amusements. On the other hand, Waynflete does not forbid chess, which Wykeham had classed among " noxious and inordinate " games. Nor does he, like Wykeham (who alleges among his reasons possible danger to the ornaments of the Chapel screen), think it necessary to forbid dancing and wrestling in the Hall or Chapel.
The distribution of rooms among the members of the College was to be made on the principle of placing several inmates in each room : in the larger rooms there were to be two " principal " beds and two " trookyll beddys " ; in the smaller, two " principal " beds and one " trookyll" bed, if space allowed. The Fellows who occupied the " principal " beds were to have special charge of the Demies and Choristers who were quartered in the same room. The juniors in each room, no doubt, were expected to keep the rooms in order, and to "fag" for the seniors. The servants of the College, though apparently more numerous than those of New College, were few, and had special duties assigned to them. The Choristers waited in Hall, a custom which was retained
44 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
until 1802, and continued, as a form, at the "Gaudy" for many years after that date.
The observance of the Statutes was, of course, enforced by penalties : for various breaches of them loss of com- mons for one or more days was prescribed; in other cases the penalty was to be fixed by the officers who dealt with the offence. Attendance at lectures (which began at six in the morning) and at disputations within the College, was enforced by like means. Once every year a " scrutiny " was to be held, when those reported as offenders were to be " reformed and corrected," the accused not being allowed to know the names of the persons who reported them; and the Visitor was entitled, either at the request of the President or Officers, or of the Senior Fellows, or of the whole College, or on his own account, to visit the College, in person or by commissaries, to inquire into the state of its affairs, and rectify what seemed to be amiss.
The Code of Statutes was apparently, as we have seen, not all delivered at once : the Founder, during his life, added enactments and explanations from time to time, as need required : but for practical purposes the scheme may be regarded as completed when the College was organised by the admission of its various constituents and the election of its body of officers. Before the end of the year 1482, Waynflete^s foundation was in full working order.
[The original authorities used for this chapter are the Founder's Statutes and " Ledger A."]
CHAPTER IV
THE EARLY YEARS OF THE COLLEGE
(1480-1507)
THE records of the College during the Presidency of Mayew and his immediate successors are scanty. The "Register,'" or "Ledger,"" in which documents of im- portance were copied, begins in August 1480 ; but the first volumes of this series are imperfect ; they contain no record of matters which might have been expected to find a place in them ; and the early account-books of the College, though many of them have been preserved, and supply numerous interesting hints and suggest some odd questions on antiquarian points, do not afford much in the way of definite statement as material for history.
During the remaining years of his life the Founder obtained for his College considerable additions to its property by means of the annexation of ecclesiastical foundations. The Hospital, or Chantry, of Romney, the Chapel of S. Katharine at Wanborough, the two Hospitals of SS. John and James at Brackley and Aynho, were annexed, after due inquiry, between 1481 and 1485. In 1484 Waynflete issued a commission for annexing the Augustinian Priory of Selborne in Hamp- shire, a house which had long been in an unsatisfactory state. Wykeham had " visited " it, and endeavoured
46 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
to reform it : Waynflete had removed more than one Prior without effecting improvement, and at last deter- mined to suppress it. The formal process was twice carried through, probably on account of some flaw in the first proceedings ; and the final sanction of Pope Innocent VIII. for all these annexations was only given a few months before Waynflete's death.
In 1483 the Founder again came to Oxford, to pre- pare for a visit from Richard III., who was making a progress through England after his appropriation of the throne. The new King arrived on July 24 : he was met on entering Oxford by the Chancellor and Masters of the University and "received proces- sionally " at Magdalen by Waynflete and the members of the College. He remained at Magdalen, with the nobles and bishops of his train, for two days. On the 25th, at his command, disputations were held before him in the Hall, and those who took part in them were rewarded by gifts of money and venison. Among the disputants was William Grocyn, now Reader in Theology, who " responded " in the Divinity disputation, and re- ceived a buck and 5 marks. Richard seems to have made a good impression, both on the University and on the College : the College record of his visit closes with the words " Vivat rex in eternum."
In the same year some additions to the Statutes were promulgated : the most important of these deals with the " livery,*" or allowance for clothing, to be made to the members of the College : another fixes the weekly allowance of the resident Demies at 8d.9 or half the maximum allowance to Fellows. The Fellows1 allowance continued to vary within certain limits according to the price of corn.
EARLY YEARS OF THE COLLEGE 47
In 1485, Waynflete appears to have lent ^100 to Richard III. shortly before the landing of Richmond, but he probably welcomed the result of the battle of Bosworth; and Mayew attended the coronation of Henry VII. "by command of the Founder." Henry was, no doubt, aware of Waynflete's old attachment to the House of Lancaster, and the College had other friends at Court in the persons of Morton, afterwards Archbishop and Cardinal, and of Richard Fox, who had probably himself been for a time one of its mem- bers. The Act of Resumption passed? in Henry's first Parliament contained a clause guarding the interests of the College.
The Founder died on August 11, 1486. By his will, dated April 27 in the same year, he directed that all his manors (with one exception), his lands and tenements, not belonging to his See, should be applied for the perpetual use of his College, the needs of which were to be favourably considered by his executors, and relieved as far as possible from the residue of his estate. After his death a large amount of movables, including probably much of the furniture of his private chapel, was brought from Waltham to the College; three carts were employed in conveying the goods. It was, no doubt, at this time that the College obtained his staff and mitre, and other pontifical ornaments. Of these the only relics now in the posses- sion of the College are his sandals and buskins, and some pieces of embroidery which perhaps formed part of the ornaments of some other vestment. The mitre and crosier, as we shall see, were lost in the troubles of the seventeenth century. A copy of the Statutes, which he directed to be sent to the College after his death, is also
48 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
preserved in the Library. He was buried, as he enjoined in his will, in the beautiful little chapel of S. Mary Magdalen, which he had built in the cathedral church of Winchester.
In 1487 or 1488 the College was visited by Henry VII., who made a characteristically frugal offering at the altar in the Chapel. He continued, during his lifetime, to show favour to Waynflete's foundation in various ways. Mayew stood high in his estimation, became his almoner, and was employed by him at different times for important services.
The buildings of the College received about this time some important additions. Between 1485 and 1488 new buildings were erected as part of the President's Lodgings " between his chamber and his kitchen," on the site, probably, of the present Lodgings. In 1487 the " house of the School of the Choristers " was finished. This may have been some building in connection with the " Song School " already mentioned, which included, in the eighteenth century, rooms occupied by the organist.* In 1490 the south cloister was built, the old walls near the Kitchen were rebuilt, and a great gate with a postern erected. In 1492 a more important work was begun. On August 9 of that year the " first corner-stone " of the new bell-tower was laid by the President. The building of this tower seems to have been nearly com- pleted in 1504, as in the year 1504-5 the bells were removed to it, and an old bell-tower (probably part of the Hospital buildings), the site of which cannot be determined, was pulled down.
The principal mason employed in the work was
* Hearne, noting its demolition in February 1734, speaks of it as " the organist's house."
From a photograph by] [Ronald P. Jones, Magd. Coll.
SOUTH SIDE OF THE CLOISTERS SHOWING PARTS OF THE CHAPEL, HALL, AND BELL-TOWER
EARLY YEARS OF THE COLLEGE 49
named Raynold or Raynolds ; the work was at first supervised by Richard Gosmore, and afterwards by Thomas Prutt; but the accounts of the years during which the building was in progress are incomplete, and it is possible that other Fellows besides these two may have been specially concerned in its superintendence.
Two questions, one of historical and one of anti- quarian interest, relating to the Tower, may be briefly dealt with here. The first relates to Wolsey 's connec- tion with the building. There is no evidence that he was either the originator of the plan of building the Tower, or the architect who designed it. It is not certain that he was a Fellow, or, indeed, a member of the College at all, at the time when the work began. His name first appears in the existing records in 1497, and it then stands in the list of Fellows in a position which suggests that his election as Probationer took place in 1491 or 1492. He would in this case have been among the j uniors of the Fellows, both in age and in College standing, at the time when the Tower was begun. Had he been the designer of the Tower he would most likely have been appointed to supervise its erection. But this task was fulfilled by Gosmore, one of the senior Fellows, apparently till 1499. During part of that year Wolsey was Junior Bursar ; but there is nothing in the accounts which suggests that he had any special charge of the building. In the year 1499-1500 he was Senior Bursar ; but the accounts of that year are not now to be found. In 1500 he became Dean of Divinity, and from that year onwards Prutt appears to have been supervisor of the Tower. If Wolsey acted in that capacity at all it must have been in 1499 or 1500. In October of the latter year he was instituted to the
D
50 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
Rectory of Lymington, a benefice which was not, ac- cording to the Statutes, tenable with a Fellowship for more than a year. He therefore probably ceased to be Fellow by October 1501. The College records do not bear out the story, related by some of his biographers, that he left the College because he had wrongly applied some of its funds to the building of the Tower. He remained in College after his term of office as Bursar, holding another office.
The other question relates to the custom of singing on the Tower in the early morning on the first of May. It has been alleged that this usage has some special connection with the benefactions of Henry VII., and with the observance of the " obit " of the King on the same day. This account of the matter takes various forms. It has been stated that a payment made to the College by the Rectory of Slymbridge is intended, or was directed by Henry VII., to be applied to the main- tenance of the custom. It has been stated that the hymn which is now sung every year is the surviving relic of a former custom of saying a yearly requiem mass for the King on the top of the Tower. This legend is sometimes combined with the other.
That mass was ever said on the top of the Tower is a thing exceedingly unlikely, and there is no evidence of such a proceeding. The hymn now sung is not part of the service of the requiem mass according to any use. It was written in the seventeenth century by Dr. Thomas Smith (Fellow 1665-92), and set to the music to which it is still sung, as part of the College " grace," by Benjamin Rogers, who was Organist from 1664 to 1686.
Henry VII. possibly did contribute to the building of the Tower ; certain sums received, during the time when
EARLY YEARS OF THE COLLEGE 51
the work was proceeding, from the " collectors of the fifteenth" were applied to this purpose, and as the College (as representing the Hospital) claimed, and was allowed, exemption from payment of fifteenths, these sums were probably donations from the Crown. He did grant a licence for the conveyance to the College of the advowsons of Slymbridge and of Findon ; and in connection with the annexation of Findon to the Col- lege, the College undertook to keep an " obit " for him every year. But there is no evidence which connects these facts with the usage of singing on the Tower. The charge of £10 on the Rectory of Slymbridge most probably represents, by composition, the charge of a third part of the tithe of that Rectory, granted to the College in 1501 by the Bishop of Worcester, not for the maintenance of any special custom, but for the general purposes of the College. The annual commemoration of Henry VII. was originally fixed on the 2nd or 3rd of October, not on the first of May, though it has been held at the latter time certainly since the early part of the sixteenth century.
It seems not unlikely that the usage of singing on the Tower began when the Tower itself was new, and that it had its origin in an inauguration ceremony, for which the early hours of May-day might then have seemed a reasonable occasion. How the " obit " of Henry VII. came to be held on the same day is not clear. The first of May was not the day either of the King^s death or of his burial ; but it falls between the two, and may have been the day on which the College kept an " obit " for him in the year of his decease, and been treated from that year onwards as the proper day for his annual remembrance.
52 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
As to the singing itself, it appears, from the earliest account we have of it, not to have been originally a religious ceremony at all. Wood says concerning it : —
" The choral Ministers of this House do, according to an ancient custom, salute Flora every year on the first of May at four in the morning with vocal music of several parts. Which having been sometimes well performed hath given great content to the neighbourhood and auditors under- neath."*
This suggests something of the nature of a secular concert; and it appears that in the middle of the eighteenth century the performance was
"a merry Concert of both Vocal and Instrumental Music, consisting of several merry Ketches, and lasting almost 2 hours, "f
This concert, as in Wood's day, began at four in the morning. The adoption of the present hour of five, and the substitution of the hymn from the College " grace " for the " merry ketches," are believed to have been due to stress of weather on a particular occasion in the latter part of the eighteenth century, when, the usual concert being found impossible, the Organist and choir ascended the Tower and sang the hymn, choosing it, probably, as a piece of which the words and the music were alike known by heart.'! The alteration, once made, was no doubt found to save trouble in " rehearsals," and
* Wood, Colleges and Halls, p. 350.
f John Pointer, Oxoniensis Academia, p. 66.
J This account of the matter depends on information given by the late Dr. Bloxam. He probably derived his knowledge from Dr. Routh, whose personal recollections of the College went back to 1771.
EARLY YEARS OF THE COLLEGE 53
to relieve the choir from an observance which must, in cold or wet weather, have been burdensome. It was only natural that the exception should become the rule. The wearing of surplices by the choir and other founda- tioners was introduced at a later time still,* after the regular use of the hymn had turned a secular observance into a religious one.
During the course of the year 1495-6 the King's eldest son, Arthur Prince of Wales, a boy of nine or ten years of age, was an inmate of the College on two occasions, residing apparently within the President's Lodgings during his stay. Of these visits there is no record beyond entries in the accounts : but the College possesses an interesting memorial of the prince, belong- ing to a rather later date. One of the ancient pieces of tapestry preserved in the Lodgings represents the marriage of Arthur to Katharine of Arragon. The other pieces appear to be of the same period, and it may be conjectured that they came to the College from Mayew, to whom they may have been given either by Henry or by his son at the time of the marriage, when Mayew was one of the envoys who conducted Katharine to England.
In the year after Wolsey's Bursarship the three Bursars seem to have got into difficulties with their accounts, and at the end of the year were "in non mediocri debito Collegio." They promised to make good the deficit by Whitsunday next, and their accounts were passed on these terms. But from further notes it appears that the promise was not fulfilled at the proper time, and that their successors were hampered by
* This change, according to Dr. Bloxam, was made in 1844 by the direction of Dr. Routh.
54 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
charges which had been unduly deferred. The accounts for 1501-2 are incomplete, and do not show whether the sum due to the College was actually made good or not. In 1502-3 there was again trouble in the Bursary of a more serious kind. The chest was robbed of a sum of £11%. The three Bursars made oath as to the fact, and their statement on the subject, signed by the President, appears at the end of the year's accounts. In the following year the College expended money more than once in consulting astrologers with a view to dis- covering the thief or recovering the lost money : but no satisfactory result seems to have followed. The Bursars themselves seem to have been held free from blame : one of them was re-elected the following year, while another became Dean of Divinity, and the third one of the Deans of Arts. More significant, perhaps, is the fact that no charge is made against any of them in connection with this matter in the proceedings of Fox's Visitation a few years later, though two of the three were much concerned in the disputes which led to the visitation. It is not unlikely that the fact of the robbery represents the basis of the story concerning Wolsey, which is recorded by Archbishop Parker, that he left the College because he had broken into the Bursary, and kept out of the way till the memory of his theft had been for- gotten.* This story, again, has perhaps been modified by more friendly biographers into the legend already mentioned as to expenditure on the building of the Tower.f But, as we have seen, Wolsey had in all probability left Oxford before the robbery took place. In October 1504 Mayew was consecrated as Bishop
* Parker, De Antiq. Bntannicae Ecclesiae (fol. 1605), p. 309.
t Fiddes, in his Life of Wolsey, seems to combine the two myths.
EARLY YEARS OF THE COLLEGE 55
of Hereford, but continued for a time to hold the Presidentship together with his See. This arrangement probably tended to diminish still further the regularity of his residence in College, which had been interrupted by frequent absences. The additional state which he maintained as Bishop was also burdensome to the College, which had to find accommodation for a larger number of servants, and for additional horses. The cost of this, and especially of building a new stable, begun in this year, was matter of some complaint. But a more serious result of the arrangement was the rise of a dispute in the College as to its legality under the Statutes. Two opposing factions were formed, one of which asserted, while the other denied, that the office of President was incompatible with Mayew's new preferment. Other causes of strife also seem to have been plentiful, and the general discipline of the College seems to have been much relaxed. The quarrels, how- ever, continued to smoulder for a time, without breaking out into flame.
In 1505, after the Tower had been completed, we find the first mention of the College clock. The mechanism of the present clock, however, though antiquated, is not of such a kind as to suggest that it is really the same with the " clock of new iron " which a mason, a painter, and a beer-brewer contracted to make for the sum of <£] 0, to go sufficiently and truly for a year and a day from All Saints1 Day of 1505.
In 1506 the crisis which had been for some time impending at last arrived. The Vice-President, John Stokesley, and other officers of the College acting with him, appear to have formally declared that Mayew was no longer to be regarded as President of the College.
56 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
This took place some time in November. The Bursars, when summoned to submit their accounts before Christmas, refused to do so ; and Mayew, together with several Fellows who supported him, apparently declared the officers' places vacant, and proceeded to elect others in their room before the year's accounts were passed. The Visitor, being consulted by the recalcitrant officers^ declared that the President's place could not be held together with the Bishopric of Hereford, thus practically deciding that the Presidentship was vacant. He pro- hibited further action in the dispute, and sent John Dowman, his Vicar-General, to visit the College as his Commissary.
The Visitation, which lasted from January 20 to January 30, 1507, is fully recorded in the Episcopal Register at Winchester. Fifty -one questions were drawn up, to which the members of the College who were examined were required to give answer on oath. The result of this method was that complaints were made by each of the witnesses against other members of the College, some of them being admitted by the persons concerned, some of them being apparently mere scandals, based on gossip or invention. The persons most prominent in the two factions were naturally the subjects of many complaints. Against Stokesley his opponents brought charges of adultery, of receiving stolen goods, of concealing the thief and smuggling him away disguised as a Carmelite friar, and of having baptized a cat at Coly weston " pro inveniendo thesauro." He was also charged with heresy, but this is probably intended to refer to the practice of magical arts in the matter of the cat. On the other hand it was alleged that the rival Vice-President and his supporters had
EARLY YEARS OF THE COLLEGE 57
conspired to defame Stokesley's character, and to suborn evidence against him. They had also conspired to get one of the Bursars arrested on a charge of felony.
It appeared that many of the Fellows kept dogs, one of them also having a ferret, and that they made frequent poaching expeditions ; some of them recom- mended the Junior Bachelors and Scholars to hunt u by day and night." Lectures and disputations were not regularly held, and attendance at them was not duly enforced : absence from College without leave was apparently not uncommon. In Chapel, the services were not performed as they ought to be : some of the members of the College walked in the nave during service, while others went to sleep : the Clerks were negligent : one of the Chaplains (who had also dis- tinguished himself by climbing the great gate of the College) was frequently absent, and negligent when present. The use of Latin in conversation, enjoined by the Statutes, had been laid aside. There were factions in the College, and several members were in the habit of wearing arms. The servants, and in particular the porter, were negligent. Strangers were frequently brought into College, contrary to the Statute. In fact, the statements made to the Commissary showed that the College was much disorganised.
So far as any clear impression can be drawn from the mass of contradictory evidence, it would seem that on the whole Stokesley and those who acted with him had been endeavouring to restore order, and that the opposing party, headed by Gold, the Vice-President appointed in Stokesley's room, had been more concerned than Stokesley's adherents in the violation of the Statutes, though in this matter neither party was free
58 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
from blame. The Commissary seems to have taken this view of the matter ; for Gold was expelled on the double ground of perjury and contumacy. Stokesley was examined as to the more serious charges made against him, which he denied on oath : no one appeared to give evidence in support of the charges ; and the Commissary " admitted him to purgation." He produced " compurgators " (including one 'of the opposite party), and was acquitted. The same course was followed in the case of Stokys, another Fellow against whom a grave charge had been made. Other scandalous charges which appear in the answers delivered by one or more Fellows seem to have been ignored : probably the Commissary thought them not worth further inquiry.
The principal members of the two parties (Gold excepted) were solemnly admonished to avoid further strife. Some penalties were imposed for breaches of Statute, especially in the matter of card-playing, while others were left to be dealt with by the College officers, who were admonished to perform their duties in this respect. Injunctions were laid upon the members of the College with regard to the better observance of points which needed reformation, and the Commissary departed, leaving the College in the charge of Stokesley: the Presidentship remained for a time in abeyance.
In this way Mayew's government of the College came to an end in a time of confusion and disorder. But the twenty-six years of his rule had been, in some respects, years of prosperity. Under him the College numbered among its members not a few who were men of mark in the University, and some who, in later life, were dis- tinguished as scholars, statesmen, or ecclesiastics.
EARLY YEARS OF THE COLLEGE 59
William Grocyn, as we have seen, was a member of Magdalen before he left England to study on the Continent. John Roper, one of Grocyn^s successors as Divinity Reader, was a distinguished theologian. The Grammar teaching of the College, on which the Founder laid much stress, was carried on by scholars like Anwykyll, Holte, and Stanbridge, whose methods and works, maintained and improved by their pupils, Whittinton and Lilye, set the standard of teaching in English schools. It was under Mayew that his suc- cessors, Claymond and Higdon, eminent among the heads of Oxford Colleges in the sixteenth century, had their training. Whether John Colet can be claimed as a member of Magdalen is doubtful : but if, as has been supposed, he was a Commoner of the College, he must have been admitted in the early years of Mayew's Presidency. Stokesley, whom we have seen as Vice- President in the last days of Mayew, became afterwards Bishop of London.
Wolsey, as we have seen, was Fellow during this period. So was his successor in the See of York, Edward Lee, a scholar of repute, though hardly equal to the task of controversy with Erasmus. So were his successors in the See of Lincoln, William Atwater and John Longland. Waynflete^s foundation, within twenty years from his death, had certainly established for itself a high position as a place of learning, able to furnish men for service in Church and State.
[The principal original authorities for this chapter are the deeds and early account-books in the College muniment-room, entries in "Ledger A," and the record of Fox's Visitation, of which a tran- script is in the College Library.]
CHAPTER V
JOHN CLAYMOND, JOHN HIGDON, LAURENCE STUBBS, 1507-1528
THE records of the Visitation do not give any direct information as to the date at which Mayew ceased to be President, but it may be inferred that Fox's decision as to the " incompatibility " of his office as President with his Bishopric took effect either in the last days of 1506 or in the first days of January 1507.* From some documents appended to a copy of the process of the Visitation, recently discovered at Farnham Castle, it appears that on January 20 (the day on which the Visitation began) the Fellows proceeded to elect a new President, and that their choice fell upon John Veysey, otherwise known as John Harman, a former Fellow, who was at the time Archdeacon of Chester.f Veysey, however, did not accept the Presidentship, and in the following April formally renounced all claim to the office, and resigned it into the hands of the Visitor. Fox declared the Presidentship vacant, and ordered a new election, and on May 3, 1507, John Claymond was
* The citation of the Visitor on January 14, 1507, is directed to the Vice-President.
f He became Bishop of Exeter in 1519, and resigned the See in 1551. He was restored to it in 1553, and died in the following year.
JOHN CLAYMOND 61
chosen as Veysey's successor.* His election was reported to the Visitor in a letter setting forth the whole process, dated on May 14, and on May 16 the President- elect was presented to the Visitor by Stokesley, and the election was confirmed.
The choice made by the Fellows, whether it was spontaneous or suggested to them by Fox, was certainly a good one. The new President was one under whose rule peace was likely to be restored and maintained. He was distinguished in his own day for his piety and learning, and remembered long afterwards as a " a man full of devotion and alms-deeds." Even the " martyr- ologist " Foxe, when he mentions him, is careful to say that he does so " for reverence and learning's sake," and forbears to scoff at an instance of the devotion which he practised.
Claymond had been a Demy and afterwards a Fellow of the College, which he had entered in 1484 at the age of sixteen. His intimacy with Bishop Fox had probably begun while he was still a Demy ; Fox, in 1517, speaks of it as having extended over more than thirty years. At the time when he became President he had already been advanced, probably by Fox's influence, to more than one preferment, and had recently been made Master of the Hospital of S. Cross at Winchester. While resident in Oxford he held several benefices, and
* In the first "scrutiny" all the Fellows present (twenty-two in number) named Claymond as one of their two candidates ; twenty named as their second candidate John Veysey, the other two voted for Claymond and Richard Gosmore. Claymond was then chosen by the thirteen seniors. It may be remarked that in the documents relating to his election Claymond is described as " John Claymond alias Coward." His use of the second surname seems to be otherwise unknown.
62 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
was no doubt one of the wealthiest persons in the University. His wealth was employed for the benefit of the Colleges with which he was connected, of the parishes from which it was in part derived, and of the city of Oxford and its inhabitants. Most of his benefactions, however, belong to the later period of his life, after he had ceased to be President of Magdalen, and those which are directly connected with the College may be more conveniently mentioned elsewhere. Of his learning and literary ability his biographer Schepreve has much to say ; and the language he uses is perhaps exaggerated. But it is clear that in this respect also Claymond^s reputation stood high. He was the friend of Erasmus and of More, and was in correspondence with other noted scholars of his time, both in England and abroad.
In the first year of Claymond's Presidentship there took place one of those temporary migrations of the College of which we find traces from time to time in the sixteenth century when plague or other infectious sick- ness made Oxford unsafe. The early years of the century seem to have been very unhealthy, and there are frequent indications of partial removal of the members of the College between 1500 and 1505. But in 1507-8 we can, from the nature of the records, estimate the extent of the migration more clearly. During six weeks in the summer and six weeks of the term beginning in November the residents in College seem to have consisted only of about a dozen Fellows, the four Chaplains, seven Clerks and a few Choristers, and six servants. The rest of the body were quartered apparently for the most part at Witney, but in part at Brackley, Thame, Burford, and elsewhere. The Hospital
JOHN CLAYMOND 63
at Brackley had been marked out by the Founder as a place to which migration might be made, but Witney seems to have been on several occasions the main place of settlement.
Within the College the growth of the buildings was continued. It has been supposed that the Tower was originally intended to stand alone, and the existence of window-spaces in its lower storey, blocked up and hidden by the buildings which adjoin it, would certainly seem to suggest this. But these buildings were begun almost immediately after the completion of the Tower. The building " between the Hall and the new tower " was begun in 1507-8, and finished in 1508-9. The block between the Tower and the ancient Chapel of the Hospital belongs, in all probability, to the same time and may be covered by the phrase "juxta novam turrim." The idea of leaving the Tower standing by itself, if it was entertained, must have been abandoned almost at once after its erection, if not while that work was still in progress.
One of the most curious features of the College buildings, the series of figures which adorn the buttresses of three sides of the cloister, belongs to this period. These figures, the significance of which has been the subject of many conjectures, were set up in 1508—9.* In the following year there are again considerable charges
* A detailed explanation of the figures, treated as a connected allegorical series, was written by William Reeks, who became Fellow in 1671 and died in 1675. His MS. treatise is in the College Library. The figures are no doubt in some cases symbolical : those under the windows of the Library, for instance, seem to typify the various branches of study — Arts, Divinity, Law, and Medicine. Others represent persons mentioned in Scripture : others, again, are heraldic emblems.
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for carriage of materials and labour, but the nature of the work is not clearly specified : part of it was on the " clerks1 chambers," perhaps forming part of the "Chaplains' quadrangle." In 1512-13 certain build- ings near the Cher well seem to have been repaired, and mention is made of a wall " between the kitchen and the music-school." This has been supposed to refer to a wall separating the two buildings. But they were actually divided, not only by a considerable space, but by a block of buildings ; the old stable shown in Loggan's print stood midway between them. Perhaps the wall thus described was really the wall along the banks of the Cherwell, connecting the " song-school " with the kitchen and neighbouring buildings. But it does not seem possible to say decidedly what buildings were in progress at this time, or what their exact situation was. The accounts of 1510-11 and 1511-12 are rather in- complete.
Perhaps the best testimony that can be given to the prosperity of the College under Claymond's rule is to be found in the facts relating to his departure from it. He left it in 1516, to become the first President of Corpus Christi College, founded by his friend Bishop Fox. Among the other members of the new foundation several were or had been on the foundation of Magdalen, or otherwise connected with the College. The most notable of these were Robert Morwent, Fellow and Lecturer in Logic, who was appointed by Fox to be sociis compar at Corpus, and permanent Vice- President of that society; Edward Wotton, also Fellow, who became sociis compar and Greek Lecturer of Corpus; and Reginald Pole, afterwards Cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury, who was made Fellow of Corpus a few
JOHN HIGDON 65
years later. Pole, who had apparently been a Commoner of Magdalen, having " exhibition " from the Priory of St. Frideswide, was not, like Morwent and Wotton, bound by an oath which hindered him from becoming Fellow in another College. Both Morwent and Wotton seem to have retained their connection with Magdalen after they were transferred to Corpus : Wotton, who had leave of absence in order to study abroad before undertaking his new duties, apparently continued to hold his room at Magdalen while residing in Italy.
Fox, as we have seen, had good reason to know what the condition of the College had been at the time of Mayew's retirement : he had no doubt watched the course of events since that time ; and it is significant that he should have chosen from its members those to whom he committed the charge of his own foundation. He seems, indeed, to have aimed at a close connection between the two Colleges. His Statutes bear somewhat the same relation to Waynflete's which Waynflete's bear to those of Wykeham. The members of Fox's founda- tion, moreover, were bidden to avail themselves of the free teaching given by Waynflete's foundation. The choristers were to be instructed in grammar at Magdalen School : the students in Arts and in Theology were to attend the lectures of Waynflete^s Readers ; * and to this end the members of Corpus were directed, in any migration in time of plague, to take up their abode, if possible, near to that occupied for the time by the members of Magdalen.
Claymond was succeeded in the Presidentship by his intimate friend John Higdon, who had been chosen
* This rule seems to have been kept till the early years of the seventeenth century.
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Fellow about 1495, and had, after holding various College offices, been presented to the Rectory of East Bridgeford in 1504. He would therefore have ceased to hold his Fellowship in 1505. His election as President seems to have taken place in December 1516.* The first years of his term of office were uneventful, but some discontent seems to have been growing up in the College at the strictness of his rule, which led in 1520 to a second Visitation by Bishop Fox. This was also held by Dr. John Dowman as Com- missary, having on this occasion, it would seem, the assistance of Claymond as an assessor. The process began in September and lasted, with adjournments, till December. The record is less voluminous than that of 1506, and the matters revealed by the answers to the visitation-questions are for the most part less serious. There were, however, a certain number of charges made against the President, to which he gave answers. It was alleged that he was negligent in requiring the Bursars to settle their accounts, and in some other matters of superintendence ; that he had made excessive demands upon the College funds for outlays upon the Lodgings,! and for allowances for himself and his
* Mr. Macray (Register, N,S. vol. i. p. 70) gives December 1517 as the date. But Higdon appears on March 5, 15 if, as President of Magdalen, acting for Bishop Fox in giving seisin of the buildings of Corpus to the first President and Fellows, and is also mentioned as President in documents dated in August of the ninth year of Henry VIII. The date of the proceedings at C.C.C. is given " secundum computationem Anglicanam," and seems to show that Higdon was elected before March 1517. There is no doubt some confusion in the dating of the accounts by the regnal years : but the error seems to be in the dates of those preceding that from which Mr. Macray has extracted the entries on p. 70 of his Register.
f The exact nature of the additions or alterations in question cannot be clearly made out.
JOHN HIGDON 67
guests. He was also said to be too ready to listen to complaints, too hasty in dealing with them, and too severe in his punishments, especially in the case of Demies.* One of the junior Fellows, who admitted that he had fixed a threatening and insulting letter upon a door belonging to the Lodgings, alleged by way of excuse that the President had been too hard upon him. | The complaints, for the most part, are rather vague, while Higdon's answers are clear and precise. The Commissary seems to have upheld the President throughout, and to have left things much as he found them, after admonishing some offenders and inflicting minor penalties on a few others.
The remainder of Higdon's tenure of office was marked by no event of special importance in the history of the College. But these years, and indeed the whole time of his Presidentship, formed a notable epoch in the history of the University ; and in the transactions of this period some members of the College had no small share.
As in the wider field of English statesmanship and diplomacy, so also in the smaller field of University politics, the principal figure of the time is that of Thomas Wolsey. His rapid rise to power had begun almost at once upon his leaving Oxford, and he now enjoyed almost unbounded authority, uniting in his
* This refers to cases where, no penalty being appointed by the Statutes, the choice of punishments was left to the discretion of the President, either singly or conjointly with some other officer. Higdon seems to have adopted the method of corporal punishment, and it is suggested that he had some satisfaction in applying it.
t The excuse was not admitted, and the Commissary set the offender an "imposition." He was to be confined to the Library for a certain time every day and to write comments on two books of Aristotle.
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own person the secular power of the Chancellor of the realm, and the ecclesiastical power which he exercised in virtue of his commission from the Pope as legatus a latere. His influence on the affairs of Oxford at this time was twofold. On the one hand he was actively supporting the University in its long-standing contest with the burgesses of the town ; on the other, receiving from the University the surrender of its privileges, and superseding the authority of its Chancellor, he . had undertaken the tasks of revising its Statutes, and of promoting the cause of the New Learning by the endowment of special teaching within its bounds.
During the years which had passed since he had departed from Oxford he had maintained friendly relations with the members of his College. He had been entertained within its walls, had from time to time received gifts from the society, and sent gifts in return, and several of his principal agents in his dealings with the University were, or had been, members of the foundation. Thus John Longland, formerly Fellow, was employed, both before and after his election to the see of Lincoln, as Wolsey's representative to the University. Among the CardinaFs chaplains, who were employed in different ways in University affairs, Laurence Stubbs, Robert Cartar, and Richard Stokys were all Magdalen men. Of these Stubbs acted for a time as Commissary of the University, and was appointed, together with Claymond, Higdon, and others, to attend on Wolsey^s behalf to certain matters connected with his great scheme for the founding of Cardinal College. Cartar, who had been one of Stokesley^s chief supporters in the latter days of Mayew"*s Presidency, had a large share in the work of framing new Statutes for the Uni-
LAURENCE STUBBS 69
versity, and was aided in his work by William Gryce, one of the Fellows of Magdalen.
On the establishment of Cardinal College Higdon was chosen by Wolsey to be the first Dean : while four at least of the original Canons were taken from among the members of Magdalen. Thus the College for a second time within ten years sent out a colony to aid in forming a new foundation. The Canonries of Cardinal College, perhaps, were not regarded as falling within the terms of the oath which had prevented Morwent and Wotton from being named as Fellows of Corpus : and the Fellows who were appointed Canons f seem for a time to have retained their places at Magdalen.
Higdon resigned his office as President in November 1525, and Wolsey appears to have interested himself in the election of his successor. A letter from the College to the Cardinal thanks him for his recommendation of a President, but declines to make any promise before- hand. On November 22 Laurence Stubbs was elected : and a second letter to Wolsey shows that he had been the person recommended to the choice of the Fellows. His period of office, however, was very short. In June 1527 he appears to have resigned: and the Fellows, acting upon his resignation, proceeded to elect his successor on July 4. The record of the election con- tained in the College " Ledger " has been partly erased and altered by the substitution, in one or two places, of the dates belonging to another election ; * but it is clear that the two persons named at the first " scrutiny "
* This was apparently done in order that the document might serve as a rough copy for the similar form drawn up at the next Presidential election.
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by a majority of the whole College were Richard Stokys and John Burgess. Between these two, accord- ing to the Statute, the thirteen senior Fellows had to choose. They chose Burgess, who was declared elected. The election was set aside, on some ground which does not appear, by Wolsey's intervention. On August 6, Stubbs writes to the Cardinal :
" And in the most humble wise I do thank your Grace for my restitucion of the possession of my Presedentship of Magdalen College at Oxford which I am and ever shalbe redy to leve at your gracioux commandment by caus I shall may the better apply your besenesses. My lord of Wynchester myndid to have preventid your Visitacion ther, which Doctor Claybrok hath substancially begon and contynued I trust to yor pleasor, and Mr Burges the latly pretendid to be elect, and his electors, be fain in such contempts towards your Grace and brech of the statuts ther, as without your mercy be to theym shewid many of theym shall not only be expelled but abide further cor- rexion. The said M1 Burges yet detenyth Ixxv11 of the College money to defend hym self with which he toke out of the seid College chest called cista pro placitis
* Mr. Macray is less exact than usual when he says (Register, N. S. vol. i. p. 141) that Burgess " was elected . . . over Richard Stokes, although the votes were equal, being seven for each." The record of many of the votes given in the first " scrutiny " has been erased. But of thirty-three Fellows present it is clear that (each naming at this stage two persons), ten at least voted for Stokys and Burgess, and eight at least for Robert Cartar and Antony Molyneux. The latter part of the record shows that Stokys and Burgess had a majority at the first " scrutiny," and that the thirteen seniors (of whom seven had originally voted for Stokys and Burgess, and six for Cartar and Molyneux) then chose Burgess as against Stokys. An equality of votes in the final " scrutiny " was impossible, as each of the thirteen had to give his vote for one of two candidates.
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defendendis ; and I do think is not able to make recom- pence and restitucion thereof."*
From this we may infer that Wolsey made a Visitation of the College by his Legatine authority, superseding the authority of the Bishop of Winchester, and that Laurence Stubbs was replaced as President. He did not long retain the office, but resigned in January 152|, when Thomas Knollys was chosen in his room.f Disputes between Stubbs and the College continued, and were still pending in 1530, when they were referred first to two arbitrators and then to Wolsey himself, t One of the documents excepts from the arbitration a sum said to have been paid by Burgess to Stubbs. It is not clear how the matter ended.
* Ellis, Original Letters (3rd Series), vol. ii. p. 66.
t He was apparently named by all the electors at the first vote, most of them naming with him John Higdon. Cartar was named by a few, Stubbs and Claymond by one or two voters. The thirteen Seniors chose Knollys as against Higdon, whose nomination was probably a mere compliment.
^ Mr. Macray says (Register, N.S. vol. i. p. 129) that this reference was to Wolsey and the Bishop of Winchester; but in 1530 Wolsey was administering the diocese of Winchester, and the documents in the Ledger describe him as Bishop of Winchester as well as Archbishop of York.
CHAPTER VI
THOMAS KNOLLYS, 1528-1536
As early as 1521 the University had sent four divines to London at Wolsey's desire, to take part in a con- sultation as to the best means of checking the Lutheran doctrines, which were beginning to make their influence felt in England. Three out of the four were, or had been, members of Magdalen College. Thomas Brinknell of Lincoln had been Grammar Master; John Kynton, a Franciscan, had shortly before held the office of Reader in Theology ; and John Roper was holding the same office at the time. They not only took part in the discussion in London, but also shared in a later con- ference on the same matter in Oxford, and in the preparation of books and tractates against the new opinions. A few years later the University itself was agitated by the spread of Lutheranism and by the means taken for its suppression.
The principal centre of the new doctrines in Oxford was Wolsey's new foundation of Cardinal College. To this Society he had brought a number of scholars from Cambridge, who, as Wood tells us, " had been trained up in that poor and low kind of learning there used," and whom "the Cardinal, out of pity, encouraged. " It was among these Cambridge men that Luther^s doctrines found their first adherents in Oxford. With
THOMAS KNOLLYS 73
them were associated several members of other colleges, and among the " brethren " were some from Magdalen. That this should be so was perhaps the result of the intercourse which went on between the members of Magdalen and those of Cardinal College : but it may also have been due in part to the influence of Tyndale, who, while dwelling in Magdalen Hall, had attracted to his Bible-readings some of the younger Fellows of the College.
In the work of distributing Lutheran tracts and copies of Tyndale^s version of the New Testament, one Thomas Garret or Garrard, who had been Fellow of Magdalen, was very active. He had left Oxford, and become curate in the London parish of All Hallows*, Honey Lane, where he and his rector were both engaged in this sort of traffic. In 1527 he returned to Oxford, with a large stock of books which he sold in the University, especially to students of Hebrew and Greek, and also in other places. Early in 1528, Wolsey sent orders for his arrest, and he was taken in charge by Cotysford, the Rector of Lincoln, who happened at the time to be "Commissary,'" or Vice-Chancellor. One Anthony Dalaber, of S. Alban Hall, who was also an active member of the " brotherhood," has left an account, preserved by Foxe, of the events which followed. Garret, who had been locked up in Cotysford's rooms at Lincoln, made his escape, and went to Gloucester College, to a Benedictine monk who had been one of his customers. Failing to find him, he came to Dalaber, who was at the time lodging in Gloucester College, and borrowed a coat from him to replace his own gown and hood. So disguised he set off for Wales. Dalaber at once went to Cardinal College, to give Clarke, a leading
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"brother," notice of what had happened, and on his way met William Edon, a Fellow of Magdalen, and a " brother," who had come to give warning of Garret's arrest and of the fact that they were all " undone." While Dalaber was waiting in S. Frideswide's Church, where the Dean and Canons were at evensong, Cotysford arrived, in great dismay, to announce to Higdon that his prisoner had vanished, and Dalaber witnessed the interview which followed, during the service, outside the choir, between the Dean, the Commissary, and Dr. London, the Warden of New College, who came "puffing, blustering, and blowing, like a hungry and greedy lion seeking his prey." Higdon and London blamed Cotysford for his negligence, so that he " wept for sorrow"; and the three separated, to send out " servants and spies " and take such means as they could for Garret's recapture. Later on, the Lutherans met together, and discussed the state of their affairs. Dalaber supped with some "brethren" at Corpus, spent the night at S. Alban Hall, and the next day found that his rooms at Gloucester College had been effectively searched. To the Prior of the College, who sent for him on his return, he told a tale, circumstantial but wholly untrue, as to Garret's move- ments : * and he repeated this fiction on oath when examined at Lincoln by Cotysford, Higdon, and London. His narrative omits the fact that, while he stuck to his story about Garret, he gave other information which led to the arrest of many members of the " brotherhood " and to the seizure of a large quantity of Garret's books. Of Garret himself, no trace was to be found; and
* " This tale," he remarks, " I thought meetest, though it were nothing so."
THOMAS KNOLLYS 75
Cotysford, being " in extreme pensyfhess," had recourse to an astrologer, who told another story, more likely than Dalaber's, but equally untrue. The more prac- tical method of watching the sea-port towns resulted a few days later in Garrets recapture near Bristol. He was sent to London, to the custody of Wolsey.
Of the Oxford " brotherhood " many members, in- cluding four of the Canons of Cardinal College, were arrested and suffered a severe imprisonment. Most of them recanted. Longland, the Bishop of Lincoln, seems to have desired the punishment of three of the whole number, and of these Garret, whom he describes as " a very subtyll, crafty, soleyne, and an untrewe man " was one. Garret, however, who had written to Wolsey praying for release from excommunication, and also made a formal recantation of all his heresies, was allowed to escape, with another of the three, after having taken part in a procession, in which most of the other prisoners also appeared, carrying faggots from S. Mary's Church to S. Frides widens, and on the way casting into a bonfire made at Carfax for the purpose certain books, which had most likely formed part of Garret's stock.*
William Edon, the other Magdalen " brother " mentioned by Dalaber, is not heard of in the proceedings, but his name does not appear as Fellow after Knollys' election. He may have absconded when the rest of the " brotherhood "" were captured. Garret, after his public penance, seems to have been for a time confined at Oseney. He afterwards became one of Latimer's
* Three of the prisoners (including one of those marked out by Longland) died in prison, either (as Foxe says) from the hardships they endured, or (as a contemporary letter says) from the "sweating sickness" then prevalent in Oxford. They had not been formally reconciled, but by Higdon's direction they had Christian burial.
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chaplains, and enjoyed the patronage of Thomas Cromwell. He was ultimately burnt at Smithfield in 1540, under an act of attainder, on the ground of heresy.
With these proceedings against the "brotherhood," which coincided with the first months of Knollys' Presi- dentship, Lutheranism ceased for a time to be a cause of disquiet in Oxford. Another question, however, began to occupy men's minds, and in the controversy concerning it some Magdalen men had a considerable share. John Long- land was the chief agent employed in Oxford to secure the judgment of the University in favour of the King's divorce ; with him was associated Nicholas de Burgo, a Dominican from Italy, who held the office of Reader in Theology from 1526 to 1535. Knollys himself was one of the divines consulted on the subject ; and no doubt other members of the College had a share in the pro- longed discussions which took place concerning it within the University. But so far as internal affairs were concerned, the time of Knollys' rule seems to have been tranquil. By the fall of Wolsey the College lost a powerful friend and patron,* but its fortunes were not, like those of Cardinal College, bound up with Wolsey 's ; and the loss was to some extent balanced by the rise of Edward Lee, Wolsey's successor in the See of York, who was also a former Fellow and a constant friend to his old College, while he never reached a position which enabled him to interfere, as Wolsey had done, with its management of its affairs.
The events which followed upon Wolsey 's fall, im- portant as they were, have left but few traces in the
* On Wolsey's death, his "exequies" were apparently observed in the College. A charge of 6s. 8d. on this score appears in the accounts ; but the sum has been crossed out.
THOMAS KNOLLYS 77
College records. But some traces there are. The legislation of 1534 was followed, early in the next year, by a Visitation held by Cranmer as Metropolitan. The return made in reply to the citation is followed in the College " Ledger " by a document which, at the Visita- tion, was sealed by the College and signed by its members. In this they declare and promise for them- selves and their successors their fidelity and allegiance to the King, his wife Anne, and the issue of the marriage : they accept the statement that the King is " caput ecclesie anglicane " ; they deny the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome in the same terms which had been adopted by the University in the previous year ; and they pledge themselves not to name him in their sermons or prayers as Pope or " summus pontifex," but only as Bishop of Rome or of the Roman Church. This document, which is said to be the unanimous act of the whole body, is dated March 13, 1534.
Some months later, in September, the University and its Colleges were " visited " by Commissioners on behalf of the King, who seem to have begun their operations with Magdalen. One result appears in a letter ad- dressed to the King by the whole of the members of the College, similar in purport to the declaration of March 13, but rather more minute and precise in its terms, and without mention of the matter of succession. This was sealed, in presence of some of the Commis- sioners, on September 7. The Commissioners, in their well-known report of September 12, say that at Magdalen they had found the lectures in Theology, Moral and Natural Philosophy, and "the Latin tongue'1* well kept. To these they had added a lecture in Greek.
* The Latin lecture is no doubt that of the Grammar Master.
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They seem to have been met by some objection to this addition, for a letter of twenty of the Fellows to Cromwell, on September 9, petitions in its favour, as not being (as some alleged) contrary to the Statutes, and as likely to be of great benefit to learning, tending to " the abolishment of their sophistry, Duns, and such like stuff." * It was, perhaps, to support the views of the upholders of " Duns " that one of the Fellows was sent "ad curiam regiam pro reformatione articulorum in visitatione d. regis." But the Commissioners had ap- parently overruled the objections before September 12. f Perhaps another trace of this Visitation may be found in a charge for new painted glass in the Chapel, pro- bably to replace some which appeared unduly com- plimentary to the Bishop of Rome.
The dissolution of the monasteries had a curious effect on one piece of College property. After the annexation of Sele Priory to the College, a lease of the buildings had been granted, in accordance with Waynflete^s desire, to the Carmelite Friars of Shoreham, whose own house was falling into decay, and was in danger from the inroads of the sea. The Friars had already deserted the Priory buildings when they were taken over as monastic property by the Royal Com- missioners. They were granted by Henry to Richard Andrewes and Nicholas Temple, from whom they were
* Calendar of Letters, etc., Henry VIII. vol. ix. No. 312.
t There seems to be no record of any payment for a Greek lecture in the accounts before that of the year 1540 : after that date such a payment occurs regularly, while the old payments to the Readers of Philosophy and occasional payments to Lecturers in Logic, etc. are continued as before. In the accounts of 1541 and 1542 there is a charge for a lecturer in Geography ; this was probably an experiment made by the College itself, and not a result of the Visitation.
THOMAS KNOLLYS 79
bought back, on behalf of the College, some years after- wards.
In this case the College was a loser by the suppres- sion : whether it gained by the purchase, made in 1539, of the building-materials of the dormitory of the Dominican house in Oxford is less certain : it does not appear how the materials were employed.* Another purchase, which may perhaps have been also one of monastic property, will be mentioned later, f
During Knollys"* Presidentship a good deal of work was done in repairs and additions to the fabric of the College. The most important addition was one made to the Presidents Lodgings, which must have been of considerable extent.:} As to the exact position or purpose of the building nothing is certainly known; but it seems most likely that it, taken together with the additions made under Higdon, included most of the buildings which appear in Loggan's print forming the north and south sides of a small Quadrangle to the west of the buildings of the cloister.
In 1533-4 a large sum was spent upon the repairs and gilding of the high altar in the Chapel, and upon new copes and other " ornaments " made by " broderars," several of whom were for some time quartered in the College. The whole amount thus expended was nearly <£J130. In the same year there was an unusual expendi-
* The fabric and the work of demolition cost £g 6s. id.
t See p. 83, infra.
% It cost something over ^55. Mr. Macray (Register, N.S. vol. ii. p. 6) dates the work in 1531 : but a reference to Wolsey contained in the same account suggests that the year is probably that ending at Martinmas or Michaelmas 1530. This view is supported by the fact that the charge for the Cardinal's "exequies" already men- tioned appears in the next year's accounts, which therefore probably include the time of Wolsey's decease, November 1530.
80 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
ture for firewood and " coal," occasioned by the keeping up of large fires in the College as a safeguard against infection in time of plague : as usual in such unhealthy seasons there was a partial migration of the College to Brackley. Among those who remained in Oxford there seems to have been a good deal of sickness.
Some months before the visit of the King's Commis- sioners, Cromwell had been negotiating for the resigna- tion of Knollys and the election in his place of Thomas Marshall, a former Fellow. Knollys was apparently willing to retire, but reported that the Fellows were not favourable to Marshall ; and Cromwell, after some further inquiry through Claymond and Dr. London, seems to have let the matter drop. In the beginning of 1536 he attempted a similar arrangement, in favour of another candidate, with better success. Twenty-seven of the Fellows assured him of their willingness, in the event of Knollys1 death, to elect, on the King's recom- mendation, the person whom he now suggested ; and having given this pledge, subject to a contingency which they perhaps regarded as remote, they found that Knollys' resignation, within a fortnight from the date of their letter, left the Presidentship open for Crom well's candidate.*
* Calendar of Letters, etc., Henry VIII. vol. viii. No. 790; vol. x. No. 109. The date of Knollys' resignation appears from the instrument announcing the election of his successor, in "Ledger" C.
CHAPTER VII
OWEN OGLETHORPE, 1536-1552
THE candidate recommended to the College as Knollys' successor was Owen Oglethorpe, who had become Fellow in 1524, and had held the Readership in Moral Philosophy during the two years preceding Knollys1 resignation. The nomination was apparently most acceptable to the College. It was perhaps to be ex- pected that his election would be unanimous,* but the terms of the letter to the Visitor announcing the result show something of the esteem in which Oglethorpe was held. He is described as
" preclarissimis virtutibus ornatum, maxima prudentia, summa eruditione, inestimabili etiam benignitate celeber- rimum in sepedicto vestro collegio."
The time was one when the head of a College cer- tainly stood in need of some of these qualities : and Oglethorpe seems to have managed both his own affairs and those of the society with such success as could hardly have been attained without them. His own preferments increased rapidly : within the ten years which followed his election as President he was pre-
* He received the vote of all the electors at the first " scrutiny," a majority naming Michael Drumme as the second candidate. The thirteen Seniors unanimously chose Oglethorpe.
F
82 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
sented to a prebend at Lincoln, to two at Ripon, to one in " the King's College v in Oxford,* to a canonry at Windsor, and to five rectories. In 1540 he was selected as one of the divines appointed to prepare an exposition of Christian doctrine, whose work had for its result the "Necessary Doctrine and Erudition" of 1543. From his replies to certain questions proposed to the members of this commission, it may be gathered that he was among the more conservative part of the body.f
During the ten years just mentioned — that is to say, during a time when most of the Colleges were suffering from depression — Magdalen, under Oglethorpe's guidance, was fairly prosperous. According to Wood (writing of the year 1539) the Colleges in this period "enjoyed no more than what would fill the endowed places in them." Magdalen, a society consisting almost entirely of foun- dation-members, probably suffered less from loss of numerical strength than many other Colleges. But funds were not lacking for necessary purposes, or even for outlays which, if funds were scarce, would probably have been postponed or avoided. Thus in the years 1537 and 1538 much decorative work was done in the Lodgings; in 1541 embroiderers were again engaged on work for the Chapel, for a long time and at large cost ; and in the same year there was another important outlay upon the decoration of the College Hall. Hitherto the walls of this room were probably covered with hangings : the " linen-fold " panelling which now
* This foundation, which lasted for a few years only, was inter- mediate between Wolsey's foundation of Cardinal College and the later foundation of Christ Church.
t The replies appear (with one or two obvious errors in transcrip- tion or printing) in Burnet's History of the Reformation (Records, Part I. Book iii. No. 21).
OWEN OGLETHORPE 83
lines three sides of it dates, in part at least, from this year. The charges for the work are set out pretty fully in the yearns accounts under the separate head of " Custus caelaturae in aula.11 They include a payment "pro ducentis ly waynscotts emptis londini,11 further payments for bringing the purchase by water from London to Henley, and thence by road to Oxford, and also payments to the wood-carvers, painters, and other workmen.*
The principal carvers were named Bolton and Frost, the latter being employed partly in touching-up and improving work which had been rather roughly done by the former, especially, it would seem, on the frieze above the " linen-fold " panels at the west end of the Hall. It seems likely that the work done at this time was confined to this part of the room, where the date of 1541 still remains on one of the figured panels in- serted in the "linen-fold.11 In the centre of these figured panels, among groups representing the acts of S. Mary Magdalen, appears the half-length effigy of Henry VIII., whose rather singular position is probably due not so much to any sanctity which might be sup- posed to belong, virtute officii, to the " Supreme Head,11 as to the fact that he was a temporal patron of Ogle- thorpe, and so indirectly of the College also.
Buckler mentions, but does not accept, a tradition that the panelling at the west end of the Hall came from Reading Abbey. As we have seen, it appears to have been for the most part purchased in London : but the " waynscotts " may have been part of the spoil of
* The interpretation of the details here given differs from that of Mr. Macray (Register, N.S. vol. ii. p. 20), who supposes that the work done was that of re-roofing the Hall.
84 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
the recently dissolved monastery, which had come into the hands of some one in London, who offered them for sale. In any case, the groups of figures and the heraldic carvings, as well as the frieze, were no doubt executed for the decoration of the College.
Other notable outlays during the first ten years of Oglethorpe's Presidentship occur in the accounts for 1536, on additional buildings in the School ; for 1537, on repairs to the walk by the Cherwell ; for 1539, on large purchases of books for the Library, and on ex- tensive repairs to the Chapel of S. John;* and for 1543, on some additions "in parte clericorum."
These facts show that at least as regards its finances the College was flourishing. On the other hand, its members were not lacking in distinction : among those whom it retained or acquired as Fellows and Demies during this period not a few were, or afterwards became, men of note. But the activity of the time was to a great extent controversial ; and as parties in the College became more evenly balanced, by the addition of mem- bers who attached themselves to the more extreme school of reformers, it was almost inevitable that the peace of the society should be disturbed as soon as a crisis occurred.
The crisis came when the restraining power of Henry was " taken out of the way/' The first person in Oxford who took advantage of the new condition of things was John Harley, formerly Fellow, and now
* This Chapel had ceased, some years before this time, to be used for service. There is a regular charge in the accounts year by year for candles burnt in it ; but the form which is sometimes given to the entry shows that the candles were used at the time when the philosophy lectures were being delivered, and that the Chapel had become a lecture-room.
OWEN OGLETHORPE 85
Master of the School, who preached one of the Uni- versity sermons at S. Peter's in the East in the Lent of 1547, in which, according to one authority,* he set forth the doctrine of "justification by faith alone " ; according to another,!
"he spake very boldly against the Pope, his party, and such" matters that he thought were superstitious, which, with his new doctrine, troubled some very much ; but others that were inclined to a Reformation were thereby comforted."
The Vice-Chancellor was not comforted, and " hurried him up to London for a Heretick," but, perceiving that Harley had had a clearer view of the situation than himself, " let him loose, and hushed up the business.""
In 1530 the College had provided itself with a book in which to set down " crimina et detectiones sociorum et scolarium." Of this record, in its earliest stage, no trace remains, but from 1547 onwards its place is to some extent taken by the series of volumes known as " the Vice-President's Register." The character of these records varies in some degree with the conditions of the time, and also, no doubt, with the discretion exercised by each successive keeper of the Register as to the sort of matter which he should record, and the exactness of detail which he should observe. Hence, while at some points the Register supplies a continuous history of particular matters, and at others preserves important documents, it is often a merely formal record of " leaves of absence," admonitions, and penalties. With regard to the last class of entries, it may be remarked that they most frequently occur in the earliest
* Humfrey, Vita luelli, pp. 69, 70. f Wood, Annals, 1547.
86 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
portion of the Register, and that they do not ordinarily refer to offences which would be dealt with by a single officer of the College, but to those in which, under the Statutes, other officers acted with the President or Vice- President. For the first century covered by the Register its contents are almost entirely of this formal kind; in the latter part of the seventeenth century it is to some extent a collection of documents ; in the eighteenth, and for most years of the nineteenth, it chiefly consists of records concerning the succession to Fellowships, Demyships, and offices in the College, with occasional notices of other events.* In the period which we have now reached it is chiefly useful for such information as it supplies as to individual members of the College ; the general course of events is more clearly shown by scattered entries in the College accounts and by documents preserved elsewhere.
Before the end of 1547 but little change seems to have taken place : the only entry in the accounts which points in this direction is a charge for a payment to painters "obliterantibus Imagines tabulatorum ecclesiae." They received 2s. 8d. for their work, which, whatever the pictures may have been which were thus defaced, was probably not very extensive. The next year, how- ever, brought with it serious troubles. In April 1548 notice was given of a Royal Visitation of the University, while in the meantime a general suspension of elections to any places vacant in the Colleges was enjoined, and
* The first volume of the Register was probably removed from the College in 1648 : after the Restoration, the record was continued in another volume which had been begun in the meantime. But the first volume, which perhaps remained in the hands of the President, continued to be used for certain records, and contains entries made at various times down to Dr. Routh's day.
OWEN OGLETHORPE 87
the attempting of " any act or acts, thing or things,1' prejudicial to the Visitation was forbidden.
It was argued, apparently, that this prohibition in effect suspended all Colleges from any action under their Statutes, and from any proceedings against offenders. Some months later, when it appeared that the Visitation was deferred, the College requested that they might be allowed to proceed to elect Fellows and Demies according to the Statutes, and also
"That, untill the King's honourable Counsaill shall hereafter appoynte other Ordinances for the governance of the Universitie, we may have our House governed by our Founder's Statutes, upon consideration that such a number cannot be ruled without Lawes and Statutes."
In support of this request they set forth
"The enormities which hath chanced sith certaine young and wilfull persons have bin persuaded that the execution of our Statutes was restrayned by the said letters.
" Bickley a young man and a private person * ... on Whitsonday eavin in the middle of Divine service presumed to go to the high Aulter in Magdalen College, and then and there before the face of a great multitude most unreverently toke away the Sacrament, and broke it in peeces, to the great offence of a great nomber, whereof many were strangers coming that high eavin to here Divine service.
" One Williams,! a Bachelor of Arte, pulled a Priest
* He was about thirty years of age, a Master of Arts, and a Fellow of about seven years' standing. He had been Greek Reader in the previous year.
t He had been a Clerk, and had been intruded into a Fellowship in the last days of Henry VIII., by the authority of Cox, Dean of Ch. Ch., the King's delegate.
88 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
from the Aulter after he was past the Gospel, and flong away his book ; whereby that day the Statutes were broken and he ran into wilfull perjurie.
" And he with other yong men, some bringing hatchets, came into the church, and marred there such books as were not bought for xl11."
Besides these proceedings,* they speak in general terms of
"Much other inconvenience unseemly for students, and especially young men, as brech of our Statutes, utter contempt, contumacy, conspiracy, dissolutnes, dissention and trouble."
Matters were probably not made easier for the authori- ties of the College by a letter sent to them by Somerset on June 6 (about three weeks after Bick ley's act), urging them to "redresse of religion," and suggesting a model :
" And herein do we not incite you to any undecent innova- tion, but evin as we here say of Mr Coxe's, the King's Almoner's, commendable beginning in his house, so wolde we here of the sequell of yours."
The College, in their application to the Council, declare that the President and officers " willingly have studied to the reformacion of things," and that they had taken the course of regularly using the " Order of
* Bickley's action is mentioned (as a thing praiseworthy) by Humfrey in his Vita luelli: he does not mention Williams, but does mention some disorderly proceedings by Henry Bull and Thomas Bentham, who were at this time junior Fellows. No record of any of these matters appears in the V. P. 's Register, which contains no mention of any offence or penalty in the months immediately following the notice of the Visitation.
OWEN OGLETHORPE 89
Communion"* at the principal mass, following the model of the King^s Chapel (i.e., probably S. George^s Chapel at Windsor, of which Oglethorpe was a canon) ; the other daily masses, "as lady masse and morrow masse,11 they had " stayed,11 pending further directions from the Council, or injunctions from the Visitors. This would naturally seem to mean that these masses were discontinued ; but it is to be observed that the report lays stress on the need of some dispensing authority, and that the accounts for the year show payments to those who celebrated the masses, with no suggestion of their discontinuance during any part of the year. " All manner of ceremonies,11 including that of the blessing of the font, had been left off; and the Sacrament
"was never set up again sith that Bickley unreverently misused hit."
This request was probably transmitted to the Council in June or July 1548, and the College was authorised, on July 23, to proceed to hold the usual election in the accustomed way, " except ye shall thinke the alteration of some ceremonye therein decent for the tyme.11
On July 15 Queen Katharine, "nuper defuncti Henrici Octavi optimae memoriae principis uxor postrema,11 visited Oxford, and was entertained at Magdalen, " convivio longe splendidissimo,11 at a cost of £%1 13«s. 4<d. Later in the year certain of the Fellows complained to Somerset that Oglethorpe dissuaded the College from giving effect to the letters urging " redresse of religion,1" and had suggested that the intention of these letters was
* This was set forth in March 1548, and was intended to be used in combination with the Ordinary and Canon of the Mass.
90 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
really to involve the College in a charge of perjury and violation of its Statutes, in order to obtain a sufficient pretext for its dissolution. In November, Oglethorpe and eighteen of the Fellows reply to these accusations : they assert they are " most ready to furder godly pro- ceedings," and that Oglethorpe's position had been, that without dispensation, warrant, or express prohibition, neither he nor the College could properly set aside or alter what they had sworn to observe. They ask the Protector :
" not to tender the wrongful complaynte unjustly supported against me the President, but rather to take some godly order eyther by visitation, commission or otherwise, as may stand with Godd's trew honour and the avoydyng the danger of perjurie, as well towards them [the Fellows] as me, with the redresse of charitie and good order, by the division and lack of right obediens to rewlars decreased among us ; whereby good lerning may be the better furthered, and Godde's trew honour the better magnified."
The Visitation, however, did not actually begin till the end of May 1549. Its early proceedings are succinctly recorded in a note in one of the " Admission Registers."
"Octavo die Maii a° d1 1549 fatalis commissio dirigitur sigillata pro Universitate Oxon. Universitas autem citata est in 24 diem eiusdem."
"Quarto die Junii A° D1 1549 ... regii delegati ubi consedissent in aede divae mariae sacra pro veteribus universitatis statutis suffecerunt nova eaque obtulerunt necnon ab omnibus religiose observari praeceperunt. Quo etiam die singulis collegiis noviter praescriptas iniunctiones protulerunt."
Possibly the injunctions thus delivered to the College
OWEN OGLETHORPE 91
may have been those of which a mutilated copy remains in the muniment-room.* But the influence of the Visitors may be seen more certainly in the accounts for the year 1549. The payments for the daily masses are here described as having been "converted into ex- hibitions by order of the King's delegates." There is a charge for destroying images or pictures, and a con- siderable outlay for joiner's work and painting in the Chapel, probably incurred in setting up a screen to replace the work destroyed, or to conceal its ruins. It is likely that the influence of the Visitors may be traced also in the fact that in the latter part of the year Bickley became one of the Deans of Arts, replacing one who had belonged to the opposite party.
In a letter addressed by the society to Cranmer in 1550, mention is made of a riotous attack on the College in the summer of 1549, which had been resisted with closed gates, but in which the lands of the College had been much damaged and the lives of its members endangered. It is not known what this tumult was. It may have occurred during the Visitation, when Peter Martyr's disputations caused much excitement in the city ; or it may have been an incident of the riots or rebellious gatherings which took place in Oxfordshire in July 1549. The College, lying outside the city walls, would be specially exposed to attack by a mob attempt- ing to enter Oxford from the east. It is probably to this occasion that reference is made in the accounts in a charge " pro expensis in excubiis tempore commotionis."
* The document has been printed by Mr. Macray (Register, N.S. vol. ii. p. 23). The character of its missing portion may be gathered from the almost similar injunctions addressed to All Souls College, which are printed as an appendix to the Statutes of A II Souls College, 1853. Probably both are of later date. See pp. 92-3.
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The letter to Cranmer was occasioned by certain ordinances brought by Cox to the College in February 1549-50 from the Council. These forbade the applica- tion of any College endowments to the teaching of "Grammar""; they ordered that all endowments in- tended for Chaplains, Clerks, and Choristers should be diverted to " the most necessary uses of good letters " ; that no Fellow should retain his place beyond twenty years, unless he were also a public Reader; and that there should always be an Irishman among the Fellows. These injunctions the College, unanimously, resolved to oppose as destructive of the foundation. They sent delegates to the Council to urge their objections. The Grammar School, they maintained, was an essential part of Waynflete's design, which had been of the greatest benefit not only to the College, but to the University and the City of Oxford. The members of the choir were not occupied in music alone, but also in academical study. If they had to dismiss all the members of the College who were endowed as members of the choir and all who were studying grammar the Society would lose about sixty of its number. They pleaded also for the " perpetuity " of Fellowships, urging that " continuance alone makith profound lerned men," that few Fellows remained long, and that the govern- ment of the College and the management of its affairs required the presence of some members of age, authority, and experience. As to the Irish Fellow, they prayed
" for that by our ordinances we can receive none into our fellowship,* that we may be thereof disburdened, so that
* The Fellowships were all appropriated to particular counties and dioceses in England.
OWEN OGLETHORPE 93
we fyiide one Irishman in the stede of one of our other students."
The delegates were supported in their plea by a petition from the Mayor and citizens of Oxford, who represented that the system by which their sons, entering various Colleges as scholars or " quiristers," obtained their grammar training at Magdalen School without charge to their families, had been of great advantage to the city in the past, and specially pleaded for "the continuance of this only school of all the shire."
It was to support the appeal to the Council that Cranmer's influence was invoked : and although some of the statements made in support of the appeal, as to the number of scholars who would be removed, were disputed, the appeal was in the end successful. One delegate, however, had to spend eight weeks in London before a favourable answer could be secured.*
Later in the same year ten of the Fellows sent to the Council a petition against Oglethorpe, together with a series of twenty -five articles, in which he was charged with disobedience to the injunctions of the King and his Visitors, with oppressing those who favoured the progress of reformation and with unduly promoting those who opposed it. Oglethorpe replied to the charges in writing, and was perhaps summoned to answer in person also. He certainly was cited before the Council in this year, and was at one time reported to have been "imprisoned for superstition.1' But his
* The prohibition of Grammar students, the limitation of the tenure of Fellowships, and the Irish Fellow all appear in the Ordi- nances for All Souls, and were probably included in the similar code for Magdalen. If so, it would seem that these documents belong to February 15!$ , not to June 1549.
94 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
defence seems to have been for the time accepted as sufficient. One or two of the articles and replies show what his attitude at this time was, and give some light on the state of things existing in the College at the moment.
Thus the first article against -him sets forth that although
" he had subscribyd unto the King's majestie's boke con- cerning the servys, he notwythstanding upon Marie Magdalene day next followyng sayd a superstitius collecte contrarie to the sayd boke."
To this he answers briefly :
" Ad mendacii scopulum in ipso portu impingunt. Transtuli collectam quae in regio volumine habetur."
The third article complains that :
" he usithe to minister the communyon as popyshlie as may be with beckings, dockings, and shewinge hit unto the people."
And Oglethorpe replies :
" Turpiter calumniantur : minus enim ago quam per librum licet."
These articles and replies suggest that Oglethorpe, in using the English book, while not availing himself to the full of the freedom which its rubrics allowed, acted on the principle of interpreting its directions by the light of traditional usage in minor matters of cere- monial.*
Of the oppression of which the petitioners complain
* The petition, articles, and replies are printed in Bloxam's Register, vol. ii. pp. 309 sqq.
OWEN OGLETHORPE 95
there is no evidence in the Register. One of the com- plainants (Laurence Humfrey) was "put out of com- mons " for one day,* and another Fellow was admonished for absence from the Chapel services. Two more of the complainants (Williams and Taynter) were admonished in June 1550,
"propter leve jurgium cum decano et exclamationes in claustro et cubiculis " ;
and the only other penalty recorded about this time is that appointed for Perkins, a B.A. Fellow, who had spread scandalous reports about another of the reform- ing party. He was put out of commons for three days, and ordered to write two speeches, one against slanderers, and the other in praise of silence and modesty.
In this year the section of the accounts relating to the Chapel contains few entries, but one of these is curious. It is a charge for incense to fumigate the Chapel " post ustionem organorum." W'hether the bum- ing of the organs was intentional or the result of an accident it is, of course, impossible to say. In another part of the year's accounts there is a charge for the entertainment of the eminent foreign reformers, Bucer and Peter Martyr ; they were received as the guests of the President, at the cost of the College. Peter Martyr, who was established at Christ Church as Regius Pro- fessor, seems to have delivered lectures at Magdalen during the time of his residence in Oxford. This, at least, seems the most natural explanation of payments made in these years for the ringing of a bell at the time of his lectures.
* In other words, he was deprived of one day's allowance.
96 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
At the beginning of 1551, probably as a result of the renewal of the Visitation, the high altar in the Chapel was destroyed ; the east wall, behind the place where it had stood, was bricked up and plastered. A table was substituted, which was made by Henry Bolton at a cost of 15,?. Psalters, anthems, and music for the Com- munion service were purchased. Peter Martyr, Cover- dale, and others were entertained in College.
The complaints against Oglethorpe seem to have been in some measure renewed, and the Council were pro- bably aware that he was not likely to lend himself to further proceedings of the sort which they now had in view. Negotiations were begun with a view to his re- tirement and for the appointment of his successor. A suggestion, indeed, of his removal by preferment had been made in September 1550, when William Turner, a Cambridge man, had offered himself to Cecil as a candi- date for the Presidentship, but afterwards, finding him- self to be ineligible under the Statutes, withdrew. Oglethorpe, at the request of a majority of the Fellows, determined to remain, rather than, by accepting pre- ferment, to leave the Presidentship vacant for an intruder. John Harley who, as a former Fellow, was qualified for election, seems to have been suggested as a successor, but would not, apparently, have been accept- able to the extreme reformers. The " papists " would have been willing to accept him, and he was therefore unsatisfactory to his own party. Thus in January 155f, Walter Bower (one of those who petitioned against Oglethorpe) wrote to William Turner, whom he supposed to be still in the field, urging him to press his claims and take advantage of the King^s favour to keep out Harley : —
OWEN OGLETHORPE 97
"To conclude for godd's luve Mr Turner steke to hit lustely as we do and wyll to yow. We had rather kepe Mr Presydent than receyue Mr Harley. . . . Yow shall have our dayly prayers but this know yow that yf hit cum to eleccyon they will chouse Harleye for the papysts can awaye wyth hym well yenouthe."
In the meantime, however, no change took place. But before July 1552 Oglethorpe appears to have made up his mind to resign at the Michaelmas following, and letters were sent to the College in the name of the King, recommending for election Walter Haddon, a Cambridge man, distinguished both as a scholar and a " civilian," who was at the time Master of Trinity Hall. On July 3 the College addressed a petition to the King, acknowledging the merits of Haddon and his fitness for the post, but pointing out that he was not qualified for election under the Statutes. He had never been of the foundation of Magdalen, he was also " not a minister," and they could not, therefore, elect him, though they would have most willingly received him had he been eligible. They pointed out that there were members of the College who were in every way qualified, and that the nomination of one who was not even a member of the University was a slight upon Oxford. They prayed that the King would not " co-acte " them, but permit them to make a free election.
It does not appear what reply was given to this petition, but Haddon^s nomination was not withdrawn. Oglethorpe and Haddon, in August, made an agree- ment by which the latter undertook that Oglethorpe should be restored to the King's favour, should be cleared from all complaints against him, and be recom-
98 MAGDALEN COLLEGE
mended for preferment.* On September 27 Oglethorpe actually resigned, and on October 1 Haddon was "elected/1
The letter presenting Haddon to the Visitor f suffi- ciently attests the fact that the election was made under compulsion. It sets forth that Haddon was chosen in view of two letters from the King in his favour, and of a special mandate dispensing with the impediments of statutes and oaths, and forbidding the Fellows to proceed to the election of any other person. It implies that the election was not made in the usual form, but
"omissis quibusdam praescriptiimculis alioqui in hac electione requisitis sed quae in praesenti observare non potuimus.''
It is stated that the election was made " unanimiter," and the letter describes Haddon as
" non tarn singular! quadam eruditione clarum quam aliis praeclarissimis virtutibus celeberrimum, virum uti speramus natum ad conciliandam confirmandamque inter nos con- cordiam in tuo praefato collegio."
[The extracts from various State Papers in this chapter have been taken from transcripts made for Dr. Bloxam, now in the College Library.]
* From this document it is evident that a somewhat similar agree- ment had been made by Oglethorpe with his own predecessor, to whom a pension of £40 a year had been promised, with other advantages, upon his retirement.
f John Ponet was at this time occupying the See of Winchester.
CHAPTER VIII
WALTER HADDON, OWEN OGLETHORPE, ARTHUR COLE, THOMAS COVENEY
1552-1558
THE election of Walter Haddon was confirmed by the Visitor, and on October 10, 1552, he took possession of his place as President. This was no doubt a triumph for the party which had opposed Oglethorpe, and the effective power of that party was soon increased by a redistribution of offices which made Bickley Vice- President, and established as two of the three Deans Mullins and Bentham, members of the same faction. The third Dean, Taynter, had also been among Ogle- thorpe^s opponents, but was perhaps less zealous. Under this management it may be supposed that the reactionary, and even the moderate, members of the College were ill at ease : and some of them withdrew. But so far as the Register shows, the difficulties of preserving order were chiefly due to the zeal of the extreme reformers : and the most serious penalties recorded during the brief period of Haddon's rule (except in the case of a junior Fellow, whose "youthful levity'" was "chastised,"" pending inquiry into some charges against him, by a long term of " gating," and the requirements of weekly summaries of lectures and
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of a declamation " in luxum ") are those inflicted upon unauthorised preachers who were instant out of season.
Laurence Style, or Steell, and Robert Paley, appear to have gone on a preaching expedition to Thame. The Register records that they were " heavily punished,11 the latter for preaching without a licence, the former for " interpreting Scripture without being called to the ministry," and that they barely escaped expulsion. A few weeks later, Paley, instead of the usual Saturday " exercise in profane history and philosophy," proceeded to deliver "justam concionem sacram " in the Hall. He was " put out of commons " for a month and ordered to make a declamation on the usefulness and necessity of logic and philosophy.
Julins Palmer, who afterwards became an ardent Protestant, and suffered death for his religious opinions during the Marian persecution, is said by Foxe to have been expelled from his Fellowship by Haddon for " Popish pranks." But the Register contains no men- tion of this : all that is here recorded of him in it is that leave of absence was given to him to act as tutor in the family " cuiusdam generosi." The admission register shows that he vacated his Fellowship soon afterwards; but there is no mention in the College records of either the " pranks " or the alleged penalty.
The most notable fact of Haddon's Presidentship was the dispersion of the vestments and other goods of the Chapel. These, valued at about ^1000, were sold for about ^50, and the sum thus received, together with <£J120 taken from the College treasury, was " con- sumed " in making various alterations, of which a large part seems to have been in the Lodgings. In the Chapel there was probably little left to do, and little
WALTER HADDON , : . 101
was done, except the construction of a seat " in parva capella," which occupied a good deal of time.
The death of Edward VI., the collapse of Northum- berland's schemes in favour of Lady Jane Grey, and the accession of Mary were events which caused much dismay to the dominant party in Magdalen. The Queen's proclamation as to religion, on August 18, 1553, was followed two days after by letters to the Chancellors of Oxford and Cambridge, enjoining the full observance of the ancient Statutes. A special letter from the Queen was also sent to Magdalen, annulling all ordinances made contrary to the Statutes since the death of Henry VIII. The day before this arrived Haddon had obtained from the thirteen seniors leave to be absent for a month " in procuratione negotiorum suipsius " : and his example was followed by several of the most prominent reformers. Before the end of Sep- tember Bentham, Mullins, Bower, Humfrey, Sail, and Kirke, all members of the extreme party, had sought for and obtained leave of absence for various periods.
Gardiner, who had been restored to the see of Winchester, issued a citation* to the College to attend a visitation to be held on October 26. On October 30 Haddon resigned : and the next day the Fellows pro- ceeded to elect his successor.
According to Laurence Humfrey, the Commissaries found on their arrival that there was not in the College any priest to say mass, or any Fellow who would hear it ; that .there was no boy to respond, no altar and no vestments. They were therefore obliged to say mass themselves without the presence of any spectators. The
* The citation was dated October 2, and was received October 18. Haddon's reply is dated October 23.
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juniors who refused to attend "popish prayers " were whipped : but Bentham, the Dean of Arts, who himself refused to say mass, refused also to punish others for absence from " popish prayers."" About fourteen mem- bers of the College were ejected, according to Humfrey, who manages to suggest that he was himself one of the number.*
Even when Humfrey's statements are extracted from the florid language in which he conveys them, there is some reason to doubt their exact agreement with the facts of the case. There were probably, in spite of the changes in the personnel of the College during the last few years, some priests among the Fellows who, like Bentham, had been ordained before the time of the Edwardine service-books, and who would have been both able and willing to say mass " according to the use of Sarum." The altars had, as we have seen, been destroyed, and the vestments sold. But the accounts show payments on October 28 for work done in restoring the high altar. If the whole body of the Fellows had refused to hear mass, there would have been an ejection on a much larger scale than that which Humfrey records. But from the instrument announcing the election of Haddon's successor, it appears that at the meeting for the election a mass de Spiritu sancto was said at the high altar, and that twenty Fellows, of whom Humfrey himself was one, were present, and took part in the election.
The instrument of election states that all the Fellows
* Vita luelli, pp. 70 sqq. Humfrey says of Haddon that he chose to lose his place and dignity rather than to remain in possession " cum dedecore et sempiterna Dei offensione. " He himself for some time retained his Fellowship, though he soon went abroad. He had already had leave of absence for this purpose.
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were present in Oxford at the time when the vacancy occurred, so that there was no need to wait for the return of absent electors : and the number actually taking part in the election seems at first sight to suggest that the Visitation had reduced the Fellows by expul- sions to one-half of their full number. But many vacancies had occurred in the preceding year, and eleven of the forty Fellowships were, at the time when the Visitation began, held by probationers, who had no voice in the election. The remaining nine had probably been already ejected by the Commissaries, or absented themselves from the election.
The whole number of Fellows who vacated in the year ending July 22, 1554, was sixteen, including three probationers and four of those present at the election. The remaining nine names may be taken to be those of the actual Fellows removed at the Visitation ; they were all of the class whom Wood describes as " zealous, if not violent, Protestants.1'* Bickley, Mullins, Bower, Williams, Paley, and Bentham were all among them. These nine Fellows received a special grant of money "ex voluntate inquisitor urn""; and there is no record of a like payment at this time to any other member of the Society. It is therefore most likely that, though some others withdrew from the College voluntarily at a later time, these were the only persons ejected at the Visitation.
In the election of Haddon's successor on October 31, Owen Oglethorpe and Thomas Slithurst were chosen at
* Annals, 1553. Wood does not give the details correctly. He mentions Foxe (the Martyrologist), Humfrey, Bull, and Renniger as among the expelled. Bull and Renniger had vacated before July 29, I553- Humfrey remained, and Foxe had resigned in 1545 or 1546.
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the first " scrutiny ," the former receiving twelve and the latter eleven votes. The other candidates named were Robert Morwent (the President of Corpus) and John Somer, of whom Morwent had nine votes and Somer eight. Most of the Fellows who named Oglethorpe gave their second vote to Morwent, while most of Slithurst's supporters voted also for Somer. A few named Oglethorpe and Slithurst. At the second stage of the election, ten of the thirteen seniors voted for Oglethorpe and three for Slithurst; and thus Oglethorpe was elected President for the second time.*
On December 3 the College sent a letter of thanks to Gardiner for the restoration by his Visitation of their ancient Statutes, expressed in terms of much respect and gratitude ; and before the end of the year much had been done to restore to some extent the former aspect of things. The Chapel, in particular, had been furnished with its former number of altars ; some vest- ments and books had also been purchased for its service: but a good deal still remained to be done, and the accounts for the next two or three years show that the restoration both of the fabric and the ornaments was a work of some time.
In February 1553-4 Oglethorpe was appointed Dean of Windsor ; and in April 1554 he was named as one of the Oxford doctors chosen to dispute, in combination with certain Cambridge divines, against Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer during their imprisonment in Oxford. On
* All the candidates had been Fellows of the College. Slithurst, who afterwards became the first President of Trinity College, was probably a kinsman of Richard Slithurst, who presided at the election as senior Fellow, the Vice-President's office being vacant by Bickley's expulsion.
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April 7, 1555, he resigned the Presidentship,* and Arthur Cole, a former Fellow, was chosen in his room on April 22. The election was practically unanimous, as all the twenty-three Fellows present voted for Cole at the first " scrutiny. " As their second candidate, nineteen named Robert Morwent, while Thomas Slithurst, John Somer, Thomas Marshall,! and Owen Oglethorpe had each one vote.
Cole, who was at the time of his election a Canon of Windsor, had formerly been in the service of Wolsey, for whom he had acted as cross-bearer. His tenure of the Presidentship was short : and during the time for which it lasted he seems to have been frequently absent from the College, partly on the ground of ill-health. He died on July 18, 1558, and was buried in the Chapel.J
The election of his successor took place on August 2, when thirty-seven Fellows were present. At the first " scrutiny " the two candidates chosen were Henry Henshaw, who received twenty votes, and Thomas Coveney, who received twenty-one. Both were actually Fellows at the time, and Coveney was holding, not for the first time, the office of Bursar. The majority of the thirteen seniors had named Thomas Slithurst and Robert Morwent in the first "scrutiny"; but in the final
* He was soon afterwards made Registrar of the Order of the Garter. In 1557 he became Bishop of Carlisle. He was the Bishop who crowned Queen Elizabeth in 1559, but was deprived in the same year, refusing the oath of supremacy. He died on December
3i. I559-
t Marshall, a former Fellow, was the same person who had been suggested in 1535 by Cromwell as a successor to Knollys.
£ A brass to his memory, on which he is represented in the dress of a Canon of Windsor, is in the Choir, under the steps of the lectern.
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scrutiny Coveney was elected unanimously in preference to Henshaw.* He is described as "non solum doctus sed circumspectus ac providus." He was a Bachelor of Medicine, and became Doctor in the same faculty in 1560. A decree of Thomas White, Bishop of Win- chester, dated August 6, 1558, seems to show that he was not, at the time of his election, in priest's orders. The Visitor declares that the nomination of one who was not a priest ought not to have been made, but that, having been made, it should hold good. Probably Coveney was ordained priest soon afterwards. He was instituted to a rectory a few months after his election as President.!
Thus during the short time covered by Mary's reign the College had three (or, if Haddon be reckoned, four) successive Heads. Wood implies that under the rule of Oglethorpe and those who followed him the Protestant members of the Society "suffered much by expulsion, punishments, and I know not what.^f The Register
* Slithurst received sixteen and Morwent fifteen votes. Two other candidates were named, Henshaw voting for Coveney and John Pearson, Coveney for Henshaw and Parkhurst (probably Robert Parkhurst, sometime Fellow). Henshaw was chosen as Rector of Lincoln College a few months later. This, it may be noted, was the last of many elections in which votes were given for Morwent. He died just a fortnight later. The College, in which he had many friends during his life, still commemorates him as a benefactor.
t Ten days after the election the Queen sent a letter recommend- ing three candidates for the Presidentship, Thomas Slithurst, Thomas Marshall (now Archdeacon of Lincoln), and John Somer. This letter, which might have turned the scale in Slithurst's favour, was, of course, too late to have any effect. It may be noted that the fact that Coveney and Henshaw had a clear majority at the first "scrutiny" was due to the votes of five Fellows who had been admitted from their probation only a very few days before the election took place. J Annals, 1558.
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hardly bears out this view. The greater part of the penalties recorded are for offences of a kind not con- nected with religious controversy ; they are for negligence in attendance at lectures and disputations, for definite breaches of the Statutes in matters of ordinary discipline, or, in some cases, for immorality. There are, no doubt, frequent admonitions to attend mass and other services regularly,* but these injunctions are not often followed by penalties, and the penalties are, in such matters, of a slight character. The only instance of an unusual penalty in this matter is that laid upon Aldworth, a Probationer, in November 1555. He had previously been warned and punished on various grounds ; and, on coming " intempestive " to mass in the exequies of Henry VI.,f he was severely censured, and ordered to attend the early mass every day, and to pray on his knees by the southern pillar of the ante-chapel, so that " illius prava opinione et malis moribus laesi resipiscentiae et novae pietatis exemplo sanarentur." A few months later he was again in trouble, " propter verba quaedam contumeliosa in sacerdotes," for which he lost a week's commons. At the end of his year of probation he was not admitted Fellow, having perhaps withdrawn before that time arrived.
* These were not given solely in the interests of religious con- formity. Thus on November 4, 1555, the B.A. Probationers are ordered to attend early mass regularly, " quia circa studia desides inventi sunt." On the roth, three B.A.s absent from the early mass are ordered to work at philosophy for an hour every day for the next week.
f So in the Register, probably by a clerical error for Henry III., who was commemorated in the College (as the principal benefactor of S. John's Hospital) on November 16. The commemoration has long been observed, by a confusion between the two S. Edmund's days, on November 20.
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Of the others who withdrew or were removed from the College a good many had been repeatedly admonished for idleness and other misconduct. One or two seem to have been thoroughly disreputable. One in particular was " luxui et lusibus inhonestis nimium deditus," and had sold the books needed for his studies in order to find funds for these pursuits. Some of the others had been associated with him in one or more of his delin- quencies.* Laurence Style, who remained Fellow throughout this time, had obtained leave to study medicine, perhaps with the view of avoiding theological pitfalls. In July 1555, he took to wearing " an indecorous dress, most unsuitable for a clerk," for which he was severely censured, and ordered never to wear such a dress again outside his own room. In July 1557 he made an unsuccessful attempt at medical practice, and was charged with administering an unwholesome dose (" cataposia minus salubria ") to a Chaplain of Queen's. He was warned to make no further ventures until he had been licensed by the University to practise, and at the same time received an injunction "to attend all the divine offices from the beginning to the end." Whether this was intended for his spiritual benefit, or to keep him occupied and secure the safety of the public, does not appear. Some time later, in 1559, his taste in costume brought him into trouble again. He was once more censured on account of a cloak which he had worn (perhaps the same garment as before, which
* Foxe says that Julins Palmer, already mentioned, was restored to his place under Mary, and left it after his conversion to* Pro- testantism. There is no record of his re-admission, but he may have had a special allowance. One of his name lost a week's commons in 1555 for wrangling with the Vice-President.
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he had ventured to wear again when times had changed), and was bound over to abstain from wearing it under pain of expulsion.
Another curious case is that of John Sheppard, the "informator choristarum," who had captured a poor boy at Malmesbury and brought him in chains to Oxford, probably with the view of pressing him into the service of the choir. He was fined a week's com- mons, on the ground that he had brought a stranger into College without leave. But about a fortnight later, some further details became known. His " immite factum " had brought discredit upon the College ; and as he . had represented himself, on his journey to Oxford, as "the principal officer of the College after the President," the odium of his pro- ceedings had fallen upon the Vice-President. Sheppard was again " sharply admonished for his impudence,11 but apparently escaped any further penalty.
On the whole, the record of the time suggests that while the College during Mary's reign was probably not a comfortable residence for members of the Protestant party, no great severity was used towards them. In the case of Laurence Humfrey, indeed, the authorities showed much kindness and consideration, of which Humfrey himself makes no mention at all. Just before Gardiner's Visitation, he had been licensed to enter on the study of law, and had been permitted to go abroad, retaining his allowance as Fellow, with an extra year's leave of absence. In December 1554 his leave of absence was renewed till the following July, and his allowance continued. In March 1555 another Fellow was allowed to succeed to the licence to study law, but it was specially provided that this should not be to
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Humfrey's prejudice.* In June of the same year the officers, in a resolution which speaks in high terms of Humfrey^s character, learning, and ability, prolonged his leave of absence till midsummer 1556, provided that he kept clear of places frequented by heretics, and avoided the company of heretical teachers. His allow- ance, and all emoluments which he would have received if in residence, were to be paid to him quarterly, on the receipt of letters showing him to be still alive. Humfrey was at this time residing at Zurich, and did not return to College at the end of his leave of absence, which was not again renewed. The officers probably thought that they had gone as far as they could in this direction ; and at the election in July 1556 his Fellow- ship was treated as vacant, and filled up by an election of another Fellow in his stead.
Wood, speaking of the state of the various Colleges at this time, says that Magdalen men shared with those of Christ Church the reputation of being good rhetori- cians, but " men of no ground in disputations." f One reason for this, no doubt, lay in the fact that the time was not favourable to study ; but it was also certainly due in part to the numerous changes in the membership of the body. A large proportion of the Fellows were young, and had not made much progress in the study of philosophy or theology : probably the number of those studying in the higher faculties was small. But care seems to have been taken to provide as Theology Headers men regarded as capable teachers. Richard Smith, who was for some time Regius Professor, and
* It was, no doubt, supposed that his leave of absence might not be renewed, and that the law place would become vacant, t Annals, 1557.
THOMAS COVENEY 111
had a high standing among the scholastic theologians, acted as Theology Reader in 1555, and was succeeded by the Dominican John de Villa Garcina. It is also worth notice that, although the changes made in recent years were annulled by the Queen's letter and by Gardiner's Visitation, the Greek lecture was maintained.*
During this period no very extensive works were carried out in the way of alteration or addition to the fabric of the College. Save for some rather costly additions to the Lodgings, and repairs effected there in 1557, it may be said that the only important work done during Mary's reign was the restoring or replacing of what had been destroyed in the Chapel.
No visitation of the plague occurred during this time of sufficient gravity to give cause for a migration ; but in the summer of 1555 an emergency of another kind interrupted the course of residence; and leave of absence for a month was given to a large body of the Fellows (eight, besides the Probationers, being, however, required to remain in residence) on account of the extreme scarcity of wheat in Oxford.
Among the persons entertained in Magdalen between 1553 and 1558 were the Commission of Doctors ap- pointed to dispute with Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer ; Doctors Martin and Story, the civilians who represented the Sovereigns in the process of Cranmer's condemna- tion ; Walter Haddon, the former intruded President, and the Commissioners sent to the University by Cardinal Pole. To Pole himself, on his return to England, the College had sent a congratulatory letter.f
* This lecture was perhaps regarded as outside the scope of the Queen's injunction ; it had been instituted, though not actually established, before the death of Henry VIII.
t Printed by Dr. Bloxam, Register, ii. 326.
CHAPTER IX
THOMAS COVENEY, LAURENCE HUMFREY
1558-1589
THE first few months after the death of Mary and the accession of Elizabeth were a time of suspense and un- certainty ; and the College records, as we might expect, show that the prevailing unsettlement had its effect in various ways upon the society. The provision, on March 23, 1559, of a preacher for the next S. John Baptist's day, subject to the condition that the statutes of the realm should allow him to perform his function, and the repeated dispensation given to another Fellow, postponing the date by which his ordination should be deemed necessary? illustrate some of the difficulties of the time.* But apart from such matters, the change in the condition of affairs seems to have given rise to some disorders within the College. The persons most con- cerned were some of the junior Fellows, who seem to have thought the time opportune for showing their disregard of ordinary rules. The offence of spending the night outside the College was unusually frequent,
* The doubt as to the lawfulness of a sermon was due to the fact that, as the Bill for Uniformity had not yet become law, preaching was at the time suspended by the Queen's proclamation of December 1558. The dispensation as to the time of ordination was rendered necessary by the position of affairs in the time imme- diately preceding the consecration of Archbishop Parker.
THOMAS COVENEY 113
and the quiet of the cloisters was broken by noisy disputes among the inmates. Some of the junior Fellows, perhaps by way of deriding those who wore the tonsure, took to shaving their own heads ; but their jest was turned against themselves by an order (more than once enforced by loss of commons) that they should wear night-caps till their hair had grown again.* One John Mansell made himself especially trouble- some, and was frequently " put out of commons." He not only shaved his head and refused to wear a night- cap, but stole apples from the garden, interrupted " public exercises," and used " indecorous words." He was also one of nine Fellows who refused to take part in an election in October 1559, and were in consequence threatened with the penalties of perjury.f They were saved from the loss of their Fellowships by the inter- vention of the Queen's Commissioners. After this crisis the College seems to have been more tranquil.
According to Wood, the Commissioners sent by Elizabeth restored in the various Colleges those " that were ejected or left their places in Queen Mary's reign." J This was not the case at Magdalen. The vacancies which occurred were filled up in the ordinary way. Nor does it appear that many vacancies were created by
* Wood (Annals, 1558) supposes that those who shaved their heads were "Catholicks." But they seem all to have been of the " Pro- testant " party, to which most of the delinquents at this time belonged.
f The names of the nine Fellows concerned have been torn out of the Vice-President's Register, and are known only from a refer- ence to their case in some later proceedings. It is there alleged that they were actually expelled, but the record in the Register rather suggests that the sentence of expulsion (the penalty for " per- jury ") was not actually put in force.
t Annals, 1559.
H
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expulsion, as Wood seems to suggest.* The influence of the Commission may perhaps have hastened the removal of the altars and images from the Chapel, recorded in the accounts for 1559, and it is not unlikely that these and other proceedings following on the Acts of Supremacy arid Uniformity led to the withdrawal of several members of the College in 1559 and 1560. But the majority seem to have accepted the changes with less demur than was made by the members of some other foundations.!
* Annals, 1560. Wood's account of the proceedings of these years is confused and inexact. In the year ending July 15 60 seven Fellow- ships became vacant. Three of the outgoing Fellows were appa- rently "recusants," but one of them (Alan Cope, who afterwards became a Canon of S. Peter's at Rome) was still Fellow in 1560, and was, therefore, probably not displaced by the Commissioners. The three were imprisoned for a time in 1560, when a grant of money was made to them by the College. A fourth had leave of absence " promotionis causa," with a condition which suggests that he was not inclined to accept the Book of Common Prayer. In the year ending July 1561 the number of outgoing Fellows was larger, and included several of the probationers admitted in 1559. But there is nothing to show that any one retired by compulsion in either year. The case of John Wright, mentioned by Wood in 1560, belongs to 1562, and Wright remained Fellow till 1571.
f The entries as to alterations in the Chapel in the " Liber com- puti " of 1559 are not dated, and are not in order of time. Thus the payment for copies of the English service-book precedes a charge for " oil and chrism." It is worth notice, perhaps, that the payments for the masses of the Blessed Virgin and the masses " pro defunctis" are continued under those names in 1559 and 1560, though the payment for the " missa matutinalis" has become one " pro stipendio precum matutinarum." In 1561 these payments are classed as "pensiones eorum qui pro missis precibus inserviunt " ; that for the requiem mass becoming " pro precibus fundatori de- cretis," that for the Lady mass "pro precibus divae Mariae conse- cratis." In 1563 the latter payment becomes a payment for sermons; the "preces fundatori decretae" remain, being called in later accounts " preces fundatoris," or " Founder's prayers."
THOMAS COVENEY 115
Thus when Robert Horn, the Bishop of Winchester, ' came in September 1561 to hold a Visitation of his Colleges in Oxford, he found Magdalen much more " conformable " than New College, Corpus, or Trinity. The points which he proposed for acceptance were three — the Queen's Supremacy, the order of the Book of Common Prayer, and the Queen's Injunctions — points which, as he says, were generally accepted throughout the realm. In the other three Colleges, after much persuasion, he obtained few subscriptions, and those not without protests.
"The iiijth colledge of Mawdlens I founde thoroly in those matters conformable like as I did also many hand- some and towarde in lerninge and therwith in Religion forwarde for whose cause and for veray many and notable enormyties obiected to D. Coveney their President being also thought an enemy to the syncere Religion of Christ and therewith an evill husbande for the Colledge wherof moche matter appeared by his own confession uppon his examynacion I have with good deliberacion and iust grounde depryved him of his said office which thing also I was the moar enforced to do least a great many of the moost handsome younge men sholde have departed and left the house as they playnly sayd they wolde in case he contynued head there so manyfestly both unworthie and enfringing the Statutes of the Colledge." *
Coveney appealed against his deprivation to the Queen, and a commission was appointed by the Court of Chancery to consider his case. It was apparently held
•* Horn's letter to Cecil, September 26, 1561. It is to be observed that the reason alleged by Wood and others who follow him for Coveney's deprivation, that he was not in Holy Orders, is not men- tioned by Horn at all. See p. 106 supra.
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that the appeal could not be entertained, and that Coveney^s remedy must be sought by some other process. Coveney seems to have taken no further step in the matter, and the only effect of his appeal was to delay the election of his successor.
Even before Coveney's deprivation the name of a possible successor had been suggested to some of the Fellows and favourably received by them. The person proposed was Laurence Humfrey, who, having married during his exile, had returned to England, and was now resident in Oxford, where he had become Regius Pro- fessor of Divinity in 1560. He was apparently anxious to obtain further preferment, and had been recom- mended by Parker and Grindal for a headship, without success.* Whether he had any similar recommendation or any letters from the Queen to support his candida- ture at Magdalen does not appear ; but he was elected President on December 11, 1561. At the first " scrutiny " he received twenty -five votes, all the Fellows but one naming him. John Mullins was named as a second candidate by seventeen, Thomas Bickley by eight ; Michael Renniger and James Bond each received one vote. The thirteen seniors unanimously chose Humfrey, and the result is said to have been received " omnium et singulorum consensu et applausu."
As we have seen, Humfrey had been regarded, some
* Strype (Life of Parker, p. 102) supposes that this recommenda- tion was addressed to Magdalen, and that it was the Fellows of Magdalen whose objections to him he rehearses in a letter criticising the person whom they preferred. But one of these objections (that he was not "gremial") would not have been made at Magdalen. It was "ad socios Coll. V." that he had been recommended, and this most probably means University College. Dr. Caius, the person preferred to Humfrey and denounced by him, was elected Master of University in 1561.
LAURENCE HUMFREY 117
years earlier, as a student of unusual ability and pro- mise. In exile he had added to his reputation, and he was now distinguished both as a scholar and as a divine. He was an able preacher and a ready contro- versialist. In such matters he had probably no equal among the members of the College, and few within the University. Both in his College and in the University he made his mark, and it remained for many years after his own time. But with his learning and ability were united some qualities less desirable in the head of a College. If his theological reading was wide, it must be confessed that his theological sympathies were limited : he was himself a Calvinist, and was little inclined to tolerate the opinions of any other school of thought. He lacked, as many on both sides have lacked, the sense of proportion in matters of ritual controversy : and his prolonged refusal to conform to what was enjoined by authority in the matter of eccle- siastical vestments and academical dress gave rise to serious difficulties both for himself and for his College. In temporal matters, while he was ready to give to others, he was sometimes, perhaps, rather too anxious to get for himself ; but it would seem only fair to remember that he was not, as some former Presidents had been, a wealthy man, and that he was, as no former President had been, a married man with a large family.
Some of his qualities were soon shown. Four weeks after his election, finding that his new preferment might stand in the way of his obtaining a Canonry at Christ Church, which had been promised to him, he wrote to Cecil, pleading that the promise might be fulfilled, citing instances of similar pluralism, and urging that his Presidentship was " more worshipful than profitable,
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more payneful than gayneful." * A fortnight later he wrote again to the same purpose, but without effect.
In the Chapel, during 1561, the "tabulae," or " reredoses," of the altars had been removed, the sedilia built up, and the " theatrum crucifixi " (probably the rood-loft) pulled down. In 1562 the work was carried rather further : the remains of the altars were destroyed and the pavement levelled ; a pulpit was set up ; and the small chapel on the north side of the choir was fitted with benches for the use of the President's wife. In this year also the cross opposite the entrance to the Hospital, which had hitherto been suffered to remain, was destroyed at a cost of 11$. 4<d. In January 1563, the College granted to Humfrey and others a com- mission
" to alter, sell, alien, and dispose the copes, vestiments and hangings of the church of the said college, according to