XIX.

WORCESTER COLLEGE.

BY THE REV. C. H. O. DANIEL, M.A., FELLOW OF WORCESTER COLLEGE.

_Gloucester College_, 1283-1539.

The beginnings of the history of Gloucester College anticipate by nine years the establishment of Merton College upon its present site and under statutes which had assumed their final shape, by three years the code of rules drawn up by the University for the University Hall, and by one year the date of the statutes of Balliol College, statutes which preceded the establishment of students upon the present site of that College. It was in 1283 that John Giffarde, Baron of Brimsfield, on St. John the Evangelist’s day, being present in St. Peter’s Abbey at Gloucester, founded Gloucester College, “extra muros Oxoniæ,” as a house of study for thirteen monks of that abbey, appropriating for their support the revenues of the church of Chipping Norton. This was the first monastic College established in Oxford. It differed from the Hall which not long after was built for the Benedictines of Durham, in that, while Durham College admitted secular students, Gloucester College was limited to monks of the Benedictine Order. It was not long before the other great English Benedictine Houses, whose students when sent to Oxford had hitherto been placed in scattered lodgings, recognized the advantage of bringing them together under common discipline and instruction and a common Head. They obtained permission therefore of the Abbey of Gloucester to share with them their house at Oxford, and to add to the existing buildings several lodgings, each appropriated to the use of one or more of the Benedictine Houses. The building made over in the first place by Giffarde had been originally the mansion of Gilbert Clare earl of Gloucester, for whom it had the advantage of being close to the Royal palace of Beaumont, in Magdalen Parish. His arms were in Antony Wood’s day still to be seen “fairly depicted in the window of the Common Hall.” It subsequently passed into the hands of the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, and was exempt from Episcopal and archidiaconal jurisdiction “a tempore cujus memoria non existit.” It was from the Hospitallers that Giffarde bought the house which he made over to Gloucester Abbey. In 1290 or 1291, upon the agreement to admit other Benedictine Houses to a joint use of the College, the founder purchased four other tenements, and, obtaining a license in mortmain from Edward I., conveyed the whole to the Prior and monks. Thereupon was held at Abingdon a General Chapter of the Abbots and Priors of the Order, at which provisions were made for regulating the new buildings to be erected and for providing contributions towards the expenses, while rules were drawn up for the conduct of the College. All Benedictines of the Province of Canterbury were to have right of admission to “our common House in Stockwell Street,” and all the students were to have an equal vote in the election of the Prior. The strife and canvassing which took place over these popular elections in time arose to such a head as to create a scandal in the order, to remedy which it was decreed by a General Chapter that the author of any such disturbance should be punished by degradation and perpetual excommunication. The monks themselves, differing in this respect from the subsequent foundation of Durham College, were not permitted to study or be conversant with secular students; they were bound to attend divine service on solemn and festival days; to observe disputations constantly in term-time; to have divinity disputations once a week, and the presiding moderator was endowed with a salary of £10 per annum out of the common stock of the Order, which provided also for the expenses of their Exercises and Degrees in the matter of fees and entertainments. It was the duty of the Prior to enforce all regulations and to see that the monks preached often, as well in the Latin as in the vulgar tongue. It was further jealously stipulated that in their exercises they should “answer” under one of their own Order, a trace of the struggle between the religious orders and the University which arose to such a height in the case of the various orders of Friars.

Few structures carry their history and their purpose upon their face in a more obvious or more picturesque manner than do the still surviving remains of the old Benedictine colony. Each settlement possessed a lodging of its own “divided (though all for the most part adjoining to each other) by particular roofs, partitions, and various forms of structure, and known from each other, like so many colonies and tribes, (though one at once inhabited by several abbies,) by arms and rebuses that are depicted and cut in stone over each door.” These words of Antony à Wood are a perfect description of the cottage-like row of tenements which still form the south side of the present quadrangle, and partially apply to the small southern quadrangle, though many of the features have been in this case obliterated. But on the north side all that now remains of what is represented in Loggan’s well-known print is the ancient doorway of the College, surmounted by two shields, (there used to be three, bearing respectively the arms of Gloucester, Glastonbury and St. Alban’s,) and the adjoining buildings, which are of the same character as the tenements on the south side. The first lodgings on the north side were allotted, we are told, to the monks of Abingdon: the next were built for the monks of Gloucester. These in later days became the lodgings of the Principal of Gloucester Hall, an arrangement followed in the position of the present lodgings of the Provost of the College. On the five lodgings of the south side one may see still in place the shields described by A. Wood. Over the door at the S.W. corner is a shield bearing a mitre over a comb and a tun, with the letter W (interpreted as the rebus of Walter Compton, or else in reference to Winchcombe Abbey). Another shield bears three cups surmounted by a ducal coronet. Between these is a small niche. The chambers next in order were assigned by tradition to Westminster Abbey; and the central lodgings of the five were “partly for Ramsey and Winchcombe Abbies.” Over the doors of the easternmost lodgings again are shields, the first bearing a “griffin sergreant,” the other a plain cross. Another plain shield remains _in situ_ in the small quadrangle; one has been removed and built into the garden wall of the present kitchen.

A. Wood gives a list of the abbies which sent their monks to Gloucester College. These were Gloucester, Glastonbury, St. Alban’s, Tavistock, Burton, Chertsey, Coventry, Evesham, Eynsham, St. Edmondsbury, Winchcombe, Abbotsbury, Michelney, Malmesbury, Rochester, Norwich. It may be presumed that other Houses of the Order made use of the place, among those whose representatives were present at the Chapter held at Salisbury the day after the interment of Queen Eleanor, 1291, when the Prior for the time being, Henry de Helm, was invested with the government of the College, and provision was made for the election of his successor.

We do not at this early date find any mention of Refectory or Chapel. The parish church was, no doubt, as in other cases, frequented by the student-monks for divine services, but they also had licence to have a portable altar. It was not till 1420, in the prioralty of Thomas de Ledbury, that John Whethamsted, Abbot of St. Alban’s, formerly Prior, contributed largely to the erection of a chapel, which stood upon the site of the present chapel. Its ruins are figured in Loggan’s sketch. He built also a Library on the south side of the chapel, at right angles to it, the five windows of which, giving upon Stockwell Street, are also depicted in Loggan’s sketch. Upon this Library he bestowed many books both of his own collection and of his own writing; and at his instance Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, besides other benefactions, gave many books to the Library. The benefits conferred by Whethamsted were such that a Convocation of the Order styled him “chief benefactor and second founder of the College.” One other name, a name of local interest, we find associated with the place as its benefactor--that of Sir Peter Besils, of Abingdon. Thus a century of dignified prosperity was assured to the College, during which period it numbered among its _alumni_ John Langden, Bishop of Rochester; Thomas Mylling, Abbot of Westminster and afterwards Bishop of Hereford; Antony Richer, Abbot of Eynsham, afterwards Bishop of Llandaff; Thomas Walsingham the chronicler.

The dissolution of the monasteries of course involved the suppression of the Benedictine College; Whethamsted’s Chapel and Library were reduced to a ruin; and the books “were partly lost and purchased, and

## partly conveyed to some of the other College Libraries,” where Wood

professes to have seen them “still bearing their donor’s name.”

_Bishop of Oxford’s Palace_, 1542-1557(?).

The College, its buildings and grounds, remained in the hands of the Crown till the thirty-fourth year of Henry’s reign, when, upon his founding the Bishoprick of Oxford, the seat of which was at Osney, it was allotted to the Bishop for his palace, and was for a certain time occupied by Bishop King, who had been the last Abbot of Osney. On the transfer of the See within three years to the church of St. Frideswyde, the endowments which had been attached to the Bishoprick and temporarily resigned to the Crown were conveyed to the new foundation, the intention of Henry VIII., who had died in the meantime, being carried out by Edward VI. But there is no mention among the endowments thus re-conveyed of Gloucester College, which remained in the possession of the Crown until it was granted by Elizabeth, in the second year of her reign, to William Doddington. He at once made it over to the newly-founded College of St. John Baptist, for whom it was purchased by the founder. The legend runs that Sir Thomas Whyte was inclined for a while to Gloucester Hall as the site of his new College, but that a dream directed him to the selection of St. Bernard’s College.

The Bishop of Oxford in 1604 revived his claim to the Hall, maintaining that the surrender to the Crown had not been acknowledged by Bishop King, nor duly enrolled in Chancery, and to try his rights he “did make an entry by night and by water, and did drive away the horses depasturing on the land belonging to the said Hall.” He failed however to make good his claim against St. John’s College.

_Gloucester Hall_, 1559-1714.

Sir Thomas Whyte effected considerable repairs in his new purchase, and converted it into a Hall with the name of the Principal and Scholars of St. John Baptist’s Hall: the Principal was to be a Fellow of St. John’s College, elected by that Society and admitted by the Chancellor of the University. On St. John Baptist’s day, 1560, the first Principal, William Stock, and one hundred Scholars took their first commons in the old monks’ Refectory. It was in the September of this same year that the body of Amy Robsart, Robert Dudley’s ill-fated wife, was secretly brought from Cumnor to Gloucester College, and lay there till the burial at St. Mary’s, “the great chamber where the mourners did dine, and that where the gentlewomen did dine, and beneath the stairs a great hall being all hung with black cloth, and garnished with scutcheons.”[334] Before long the patronage of this Hall passed with that of others into the hands of the Chancellor, this same Robert Dudley, then become Earl of Leicester, so that the restriction to Fellows of St. John’s College was no longer observed.

There are but few notices of the Hall to be found in the Register of St. John’s College. Under date 1567 there is entry of the lease of a chamber, formerly the Library, to William Stocke, Principal of the Hall. In 1573 it was ordered that at the election of a Principal to succeed Mr. Stocke it be covenanted that Sir Geo. Peckham may quietly enjoy his lodging there. And again in 1608 there is entered a grant of six timber trees out of Bagley Wood towards building a chapel. This was in the principalship of Dr. Hawley, in whose time it was that the old Hall for a second time, if the legend of Sir Thomas Whyte be credited, won the regard of an intending Founder; Nicholas Wadham selected it as the site of his projected College, and his widow, Dorothy, sought to carry out his intention, and purchase it. But the scheme went off; for the Principal, Dr. Hawley, refused to resign his interest in the Hall, except upon the Foundress naming him as the first Warden of her College.

In Principal Hawley’s time it may be inferred that the Hall was at a low ebb in point of numbers; but among its students was one whose quaint, adventurous career had its fit commencement in those picturesque ruins. Thomas Coryate the Odcombian--that strange amalgam of shrewdness, buffoonery, learning, and adventure--became a member of the Hall in 1596. He passed his life in wandering afoot--a pauper pilgrim--through the East. He was so apt a linguist as to silence “a laundry woman, a famous scold,” in her own Hindustani. From the Court of the Great Mogul he dated epistles, which were the amusement of the wits, and are now the treasures of the collector of literary curiosities. These, and the “Crudities hastily gobbled up,” a record of his earlier wanderings in Europe, will preserve his memory, when men of more serious consequence have passed into oblivion.

At this low ebb of the Hall’s chequered existence, it seems to have been a common practice to let lodgings to persons not necessarily connected with the Hall. We have already seen how Sir George Peckham occupied a lodging in Principal Stocke’s time; the famous Thomas Allen again in the reign of Elizabeth and James found a refuge here for many years; and now Degory Whear, who had been, with Camden, a member of Broadgates Hall, and then Fellow of Exeter, retiring with his wife to Oxford upon his patron’s death, had rooms allotted to him in Gloucester Hall. In 1622 he was, through Allen’s interest, appointed by Camden the first Professor on his History Foundation, and retained this chair, together with the Principalship of the Hall to which he was nominated in 1626, until his death in 1647. Degory Whear, though the friend and _protégé_ of so good antiquaries as Allen and Camden, finds amusingly scant favour in the eyes of Antony Wood, who bestows upon him the faint praise that “he was esteemed by some a learned and genteel man, and by others a Calvinist. He left behind him a widow and children, who soon after became poor, and whether the Females lived honestly, ’tis not for me to dispute it.”

The fame or vigour of Degory Whear, with the reputation of Thomas Allen, revived the decaying fortunes of the Hall; for we are told that “in his time there were 100 students: and some being persons of quality, ten or twelve met in their doublets of cloth of gold and silver.” Among other noticeable names Christopher Merritt, Fellow of the Royal Society, was admitted in 1632, and Richard Lovelace in 1634. At that date there were ninety-two students in the Hall (Wood’s _Life_, ii. 246). Degory Whear not only filled his Hall with students, but carried out many much-needed repairs of the buildings. The chapel, for instance, to the erection of which we have seen that St. John’s contributed six timber trees from Bagley Wood, was now by his exertions completed; the Hall and other buildings were repaired; books were purchased for the Library, plate for the Buttery. In a MS. book preserved in the College Library are set forth the names of donors to these objects between the years 1630 and 1640. Among the entries are the following--“_Kenelmus Digby_ Eques auratus 2 li. _Johannes Pym_ armiger 20s. _Rogerus Griffin_ civis Oxon. e Collegio pistorum donavit 2 millia scandularum ad valorem 22 solid. _Johannes Rousæus_ publicæ Bibliothecæ præfectus 1 li. 2s. _Samuel Fell_ S. Th. Doctor 5 li. _Thomas Clayton_ Regius in Medicina Professor 2 li. _Guil. Burton_ LL. Baccalaureatus gradum suscepturus 2 li. 10s.” This last was at first a student at Queen’s, where he was the contemporary and friend of Gerard Langbaine, but, his means failing him, Mr. Allen brought him to Gloucester Hall, and conferred on him the Greek Lecture there. As the friend of Langbaine it may be supposed he would have a friendly leaning to the plays which at this time, Wood says, were acted by stealth “in Kettle Hall, or at Holywell Mill, or in the Refectory at Gloucester Hall” (_Life_, ii. 148). He subsequently became the Usher to the famous Thomas Farnaby, and at last Master of the School of Kingston-on-Thames. His “Graecæ Linguæ Historia; sive oratio habita olim Oxoniis in Aula Glevocestrensi ante XX & VI annos,” was published in 1657 with a laudatory letter of Langbaine’s, and a dedication to his pupil Thomas Thynne.

We next have an account of the expenditure upon the chapel--“Imprimis fabro murario sive cæmentario 25 li 10s. Materiario sive fabro tignario 38 li 10s. Gypsatori et scandulario 10 li. 11s. Vitriario 4 li 6s. fabro ferrario 7 li 10s. pictori 1 li 4s. storealatori 00 9s.”

The Hall too was put into repair; for this Thomas Allen’s legacy of £10 was employed, as also for the purchase of an _armarium_ or bookcase, “parieti inferioris sacelli affixum.” But in spite of this safeguard, the books, Wood says, with pathetic simplicity, “though kept in a large press, have been thieved away for the most part, and are now dwindled to an inconsiderable nothing.” Under the date 1637 there is an entry of a contribution of 40 shillings to the expenses of the University in the reception of the King and Queen. It may be noted that these disbursements seem to have required the assent of the Masters of the Hall as well as of the Principal.

There are two papers in the University Archives bearing the signature of Degory Whear as Principal, which give some information as to fees and customary observances of the Hall. Commoners upon admission paid to the House 4_s._, to the College officers (Manciple, Butler and Cook) 4_s._ Semi-commoners or Battlers, to the House 2_s._, to the officers 1_s._ 6_d._ A “Poor Scholar” paid nothing. Every Commoner paid weekly to the Butler 1_d._, towards the Servitors of the Hall a halfpenny. He also paid quarterly 1_s._ for wages to the Manciple and Cook, besides a varying sum for Decrements, a term which covered kitchen fuel, table-cloths, utensils, &c. This item sometimes amounted to 5_s._ a quarter, never more. On taking any Degree 10_s._ was paid to the Principal, and another 10_s._ to the House, or else there was given a presentation Dinner. The Principal further received only the chamber rents, out of which he kept the chambers in repair, and paid quarterly to two Moderators or Readers the sum of £1 6_s._ 8_d._ It appears that it was the custom for every Commoner to take his turn as Steward, go to market with the Manciple and Cook, see the provisions bought for ready money, apportion the amount for each meal, attend to oversee the divisions at Dinner and Supper, and be accountable for any Commons sent to private chambers. At the end of every quarter the accounts were inspected by the Principal and such of the Masters as he pleased to send for. On Act Monday it had been customary for the proceeding Masters to keep a common supper in the Hall, but this charge had of late years been turned to the building of an Oratory, the flooring of the Hall, the purchase of plate and of books.

In Whear’s time then the Hall must be regarded as having attained its highest prosperity, due no doubt partly to the energy and distinction of the Principal, but due also in great measure to the influence and reputation of Mr. Thomas Allen, to whom the Principal himself had owed his promotion. This distinguished mathematician and antiquary, “being much inclined to a retired life, and averse from taking Holy Orders,”[335] about 1570 resigned his Fellowship at Trinity College, and took up his residence in Gloucester Hall, where he remained until his death in 1632. His intimate relations with the Chancellor, the Earl of Leicester, at once marked and increased his distinction, while it exposed him to the attacks of Leicester’s enemies. Leicester would have nominated him to a Bishoprick, and the malignant author of “Leycester’s Commonwealth” stigmatizes him as one of Leicester’s spies and intelligencers in the University, and couples him with his friend John Dee as an atheist and Leicester’s agent “for figuring and conjuring.” Indeed his reputation as a mathematician (“he was,” says his pupil Burton, “the very soul and sun of all the Mathematicians of his time”) caused him to be regarded by the vulgar as a magician. Fuller says of him that “he succeeded to the skill and scandal of Friar Bacon,” and that his servitor would tell the gaping enquirer that “he met the spirits coming up the stairs like bees.” Indeed in those days when horoscopes were in fashion the mathematician merged into the astrologer; the friend of John Dee not unnaturally was supposed to have dealings in magical arts, and Leicester’s patronage of both would give countenance to the reputation. But the friendship of the most learned men of the time--of Bodley, Saville, Camden, Cotton, Spelman, Selden--is an indication of Allen’s genuine attainments. Bodley by his will bequeaths to Mr. Wm. Gent of Gloucester Hall “my best gown and my best cloak, and the next gown and cloak to my best I do bequeath to Mr. Thomas Allen of the same Hall.” Camden also leaves him in his will the sum of £16.[336] Allen’s valuable collection of MSS. passed into the hands of his eccentric pupil, Sir Kenelm Digby, by whom they were placed in Sir Thomas Bodley’s newly-founded library.

On Whear’s decease in 1647 Tobias Garbrand, of Dutch descent, was made Principal by the Earl of Pembroke as Chancellor. He was ejected at the Restoration in 1660. From this date the fortunes of the Hall seemed to have reached their lowest depth.[337] If a stray gleam of fortune lit upon the place, it was only to suffer immediate eclipse. Thus, when John Warner, Bishop of Rochester, left a foundation in 1666 for the maintenance of four Scotch scholars to be trained as ministers, and the Masters and Fellows of Balliol College were unwilling to receive them, as being not in any way advantageous to the House, they were for a time placed in Gloucester Hall. But when Dr. Good became Master of Balliol in 1672, Gutch remarks with quiet humour, “he took order that they should be translated thither, and there they yet continue.”

The fortunes of the Hall sank lower and lower, till a time came when it remained for several years entirely untenanted by students. It shared in the general depression of the University, to which Wood bears evidence. “Not one Scholar matric. in 1675, 1676, 1677, 1678, not one Scholar in Gloucester Hall, only the Principal and his family, and two or three more families that live there in some part to keep it from ruin, the paths are grown over with grass, the way into the Hall and Chapel made up with boards.”

Prideaux, writing to Ellis (Sept. 18, 1676), says--“Gloucester Hall is like to be demolished, the charge of Chimney money being so great that Byrom Eaton will scarce live there any longer. There hath been no scholars there these three or four years: for all which time the hall being in arrears for this tax the collectors have at last fallen upon the principal, who being by the Act liable to the payment, hath made great complaints about the town and created us very good sport; but the old fool hath been forced to pay the money, which hath amounted to a considerable sum.”

Loggan’s picturesque view, taken in 1675, suggests a mournful desolation, and the pathetic motto which it bears--“Quare fecit Dominus sic domui huic?”--is eloquent of decay. Dr. Byrom Eaton, Archdeacon of Stow, and then of Leicester, had held the Principality for thirty years, when in 1692 he resigned it to make way for a younger and more vigorous man. Such was found in Dr. Woodroffe, one of the Canons of Christ Church, whose nomination to the Deanery by James II. in 1688 had been cancelled at the Revolution in favour of Dean Aldrich. Woodroffe is described by Wood as “a man of a generous and public spirit, who bestowed several hundred pounds in repairing (the place) and making it a fit habitation for the Muses, which being done he by his great interest among the gentry made it flourish with hopeful sprouts.” The hopeful sprouts, however, do not seem to have been so very numerous after all, since we find the entry in Wood’s _Life_ under date Jan. 1694--“I was with Dr. Woodroffe, and he told me he had six in Commons at Gloucester Hall, his 2 sons two.” Prideaux’s letters to Ellis contain several references to Dr. Woodroffe, the reverse of complimentary--ludicrous accounts of sermons, which he confesses to be hearsay accounts, accusations of heiress hunting, of whimsical ill-temper, of want of dignity. “Last night he had Madam Walcup at his lodgings, and stood with her in a great window next the quadrangle, where he was seen by Mr. Dean himself and almost all the house toying with her most ridiculously and fanning himself with her fan for almost all the afternoon.” But Prideaux’s gossip was probably inspired by personal antipathies and College jealousies. Woodroffe was no doubt a keen, bustling, pushing man.[338] He was shrewd enough, at any rate, to marry a good fortune; but became involved in difficulties, which led to the sequestration of his canonry. He seems to have lost no opportunity of advertising himself and combining “public spirit” with private advantage. Such was the man who became associated with one of the most interesting though short-lived experiments in the history of the University--the establishment of a Greek College. Some seventy years had passed since Cyril Lucar, Patriarch first of Alexandria and then of Constantinople, had sent to England a Greek youth, Metrophanes Critopylos, whom Abp. Abbott placed at Balliol College, of which his brother had not long before been Master. Here Critopylos remained as a student till about 1622, when he returned to the East, and subsequently became Patriarch of Alexandria in the room of Cyril Lucar. Nothing more seems to have come of this particular overture, but the English Chaplains of Constantinople, Smyrna, and Aleppo, kept open to some extent the communications with the Eastern Church. At last, upon the representations of Joseph Georgirenes, Metropolitan of Samos (a man who subsequently took refuge in London, and had built for him as a Greek church what is now St. Mary’s, Crown St. Soho), Archbishop Sancroft and others who favoured the hope of reunion with the Eastern Church promoted a scheme for the education of a body of Greek youths at Oxford, and the establishment of a Greek College there. Foremost amongst Oxford sympathizers was Dr. Woodroffe, the newly appointed Principal of Gloucester Hall. In a letter to Callinicos, the Patriarch of Constantinople, he suggests that twenty students, five from each of the four patriarchates, should be sent over to the Greek College now founded at Oxford (Gloucester Hall), which had been placed “on the same rank footing and privilege which the other Colleges enjoy there.” He explains the course of study to be pursued, and suggests the advantage of a reciprocity of students, as also of books and manuscripts. He designates the three English chaplains named above as convenient channels of communication. The scheme contemplated an annual succession of students, who were to be of two classes. For two years they were to converse in Ancient Greek, and then to learn Latin and Hebrew. They were to study Aristotle, Plato, the Greek Fathers, and Controversial Divinity. The services were to be in Greek, and public exercises were to be performed in Greek, as directed by the Vice-Chancellor. Their habit was to be “the gravest worn in their country,” and finally they were to be returned to their respective Patriarchs with a report of the progress made. Trustees were to manage the funds of the College, which was to be supported by voluntary contributions. This bold scheme was but partially attempted, and before long came to a disastrous end. Mr. Ffoulkes, who first claimed attention in the “Union Review” for the Greek College, which, as he observes, had been strangely ignored by Wood’s continuators, quotes from Mr. E. Stevens, a nonjuror, and enthusiastic advocate of “Reunion,” his account of the experiment and its breakdown. Five young Grecians were in 1698 brought from Smyrna and placed in Gloucester Hall. Three of them were, according to Mr. Stephens, lured away by Roman emissaries: two of these, brothers, after various adventures, took refuge with Mr. Stephens, and were at last sent home “with their faith unscathed.” The third was decoyed to Paris, to the Greek College lately established there, presumably in rivalry of the Oxford scheme. There appears too to have been another establishment set up in friendly rivalry at Halle in Saxony. But the most fatal blow was the mismanagement of the College itself. “Though they who came first were well enough ordered for some time; yet afterwards they and those who came after them were so ill-accommodated both for their studies and other necessaries, that some of them staid not many months, and others would have been gone if they had known how; and there are now but two left there.”[339] Add to these drawbacks the temptations of London, and it is not surprising that the Oxford College received its quietus in a missive from Constantinople. “The irregular life of certain priests and laymen of the Eastern Church, living in London, is a matter of great concern to the Church. Wherefore the Church forbids any to go and study at Oxford, be they ever so willing.” This was in 1705. From that moment, as Mr. Ffoulkes picturesquely says, the Greek College “disappears like a dream.” Of its students one name only is preserved to us. We find in _Hearne_ (March 15th, 1707)--“Francis Prasalendius, a Græcian of the Isle of Corcyra, lately a student in the Public Library, and of Gloucester Hall, has printed a book in the Greek language (writ very well as I am informed by one of the Græcians of Glouc. Hall) against Traditions, in which he falls upon Dr. Woodroffe very smartly.”

_Worcester College, founded 1714._

But while the Greek College was still perishing of inanition, its principal was engaged in a scheme of a more ambitious though less interesting nature. A Worcestershire Baronet, Sir Thomas Cookes, had made known his desire through the Bishop of Worcester of founding a College at Oxford; £10,000 was the sum he proposed for an endowment. There was competition for the prize. Dr. Woodroffe wanted to secure it for Gloucester Hall, Dr. Mill for St. Edmund Hall, Dr. Lancaster for Magdalen Hall; Balliol College was at one time the favourite object, at another a workhouse for his county. The choice inclined to Gloucester Hall, but was well-nigh lost; for Woodroffe had inserted in the charter a clause providing that the King should have liberty to put in and turn out the Fellows at his pleasure. With the recent experience of Magdalen fresh in men’s minds, such intervention of the crown was not likely to find favour, and Bishop Stillingfleet drily observed that “kings have already had enough to do with our Colleges.” The hopes of Edmund Hall rose high; for indeed the Bishop had, according to Hearne, nominated that Hall in the first place. However Dr. Woodroffe prudently withdrew his clause, and in 1698 a charter passed the great seal for the incorporation of the Hall under the title of the Provost, Fellows, and Scholars of Worcester College, with Dr. Woodroffe for the first Provost.[340] This was followed by a Ratification dated November 18th, naming the Bishop of Worcester as Visitor, and the Bishop of Oxford as his assessor in difficult cases, and making elaborate provision for the organization, conduct, and educational system of the College. There were to be twelve Fellows, six Senior Tutors, six Junior Sub-Tutors, and eight Scholars, chosen from the Founder’s schools of Bromsgrove and Feckenham, or, failing them, from Worcester and Hartlebury. Each Fellow and Scholar was to have £14 per annum, the Provost double that amount. There were to be Lectureships, two “solemnes” in Theology and History, three ordinary in Mathematics, Philosophy, and Philology; the Lecture in Theology to be catechetical, on the model of that at Balliol, and to be given in the chapel. The Prælector of History was to lecture from seven to nine on Sundays on Biblical history. The others were to lecture at the discretion of the Provost five or at least four times a week. An elaborate scheme of medical and other studies was prescribed. There was a carefully-graduated scale of payments “obeuntibus cursus et acta,” ending with 13_s._ 4_d._ for the speech in commemoration of the Founder. The Provost was to allot a cubiculum to one or at the most to two occupants. In winter the afternoon chapel service was to be at three, the morning service at seven, but in summer at six. This was to consist of a shorter Latin form “ad usum Ecclesiæ Xti,” with a chapter of the Bible in Greek. Private prayers and Bible-reading were enjoined for each day, and two hours specified for Sunday. A chapter in Greek or Latin was to be read at meal-times in Hall. Offenders against rules were to be “gated” or sent into seclusion, “quasi minor quædam excommunicatio,” or else to be exiled to the ante-chapel. As regards the cook, butler, &c. the Aularian Statutes were to be observed.

After all the Charter remained a dead letter. Sir Thomas Cookes, anxious to find excuses for putting off Dr. Woodroffe’s importunities, claimed for his heirs the nomination to the Headship; and after two years the Chancellor conceded this point. It was objected that the Chancellor had not the power to make this concession without the consent of Convocation: which was never asked; and if it had, would not have been given. Sir Thomas found fresh reasons for hanging back. The fact that Gloucester Hall was a leasehold and that St. John’s were supposed to have been forbidden by their Founder to part with the fee simple was one of these difficulties. Then there were the Statutes, which Sir Thomas Cookes persistently refused to sign, “nor would he pay one farthing for passing the Charter.” In 1701 he died, leaving his £10,000 in the hands of certain Bishops, with the Vice-Chancellor and the Heads of Houses, for the carrying out his intentions. The money was left to accumulate for some years till it amounted to £15,000. In the meantime Dr. Woodroffe tries to obtain an Act in 1702 for settling the money on Gloucester Hall, the lease of which he proposed St. John’s College should make perpetual at the then rent of £5 10_s._ The Bill, however, was thrown out on the second reading. At Oxford, it is clear, there was a powerful opposition to Dr. Woodroffe and his claim for Gloucester Hall. On Nov. 22, 1707, nineteen out of the thirty Trustees met in the Convocation House, and on the ground that “the erecting of Buildings would make the charity of less use than endowing some Hall in Oxford already built,” determined “to fix the Charity at Magdalen Hall, and to endow Fellows and Scholars there.” On the other hand the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Worcester, the Bishop of Oxford and others were in favour of carrying out what they believed to be in spite of all his vacillation the final determination of Sir Thomas Cookes in favour of Gloucester Hall. They deposed moreover[341] that “the ground Plats of Gloucester Hall and the Gloucester Hall buildings Quadrangles and Gardens are 3 times as much as Magdalen Hall, and the ground on which the buildings of Gloucester Hall stand is twice as much as that of Magdalen Hall, and there are large and capacious chambers in Gloucester Hall to receive 20 scholars, and 9 are inhabited, and the principal’s lodgings are in good repair and fit for a family of 12 persons, and there is a large Hall, Chapel, Buttery and Kitchen, and a large common room lately wainscoted and sash windows, and in laying out about £500 in repairs there will be good conveniency for 60 scholars, and the place is pleasantly situated and in a good air.” Dr. Woodroffe dies in 1711, his ambition still unfulfilled, and a Fellow of St. John’s, Dr. Richard Blechynden, succeeds to the Principalship of an empty Hall. There was, according to Hearne, hardly one Scholar in the place. At last the trustees saw their way to carrying out the will of Sir Thomas Cookes. St. John’s College in 1713 agrees to alienate Gloucester Hall for the sum of £200, and a quit-rent of 20_s._ per annum. In the following year, two days only before the Queen’s death, a Charter of Incorporation, for the second time, passes the great seal, and Gloucester Hall or College is finally merged in Worcester College. The foundation was now to consist of a Provost, six Fellows, and six Scholars, whose emoluments were to be on a somewhat more liberal scale than that of the original statutes. Fellows and Scholars were to be allowed sixpence a day for commons, the Fellows to have £30 per annum, the Scholars 13_s._ 8_d._ a quarter, the Provost £80 per annum, but no allowance for commons. Among the other “ministri” was to be a Tonsor, receiving an annual salary of 20_s._ This important official lingered on in diminished importance till the present generation. The Bishops of Worcester and Oxford and the Vice-Chancellor were appointed Visitors. In other respects the provisions of the new Statutes were much simplified. The scheme of Lectureships was omitted; so were the elaborate directions as to studies, private devotions, &c., as well as the scale of payments on the performance of exercises. Latin was to be the ordinary speech, “so far as might be convenient,” except at College meetings. Undergraduates were to “dispute” every day, and write weekly Themes; Bachelors to “dispute” twice a week, and make a Terminal “Declamation.” Candidates for Degrees were to oppose or respond on a problem set by the Provost in the College Hall, while candidates for the M.A. Degree had the option of commenting on a passage of Aristotle. On the Degree Day a Bachelor was to give a supper, or pay 20_s._ for the College uses. The supper given by an M.A. was not to exceed 40_s._

Of the new College Principal Blechynden was named as the first Provost; of the six Fellows, one, Roger Bouchier, was already a member of the Hall--“a man of great reading in various sorts of learning, the greatest man in England for Divinity.”[342] The others were Thomas Clymer of All Souls’, Robert Burd of St. John’s, William Bradley of New Inn Hall, Joseph Penn of Wadham, and Samuel Creswick of Pembroke, who was afterwards Dean of Wells.

It was not till 1720, that with the modest sum of £798 0_s._ 3_d._, the remnant of a disputed bequest of Mrs. Margaret Alcorne, the newly-founded College was enabled to commence the “restoration” of its buildings. Had the designs of Dr. Clarke, illustrated by the Oxford Almanack of 1741, which were similar in character to those of Hawkesmoor and other architects for the reconstruction of Brasenose, All Souls’, and Magdalen, been carried out, the picturesque history of the place would have been entirely effaced, and a quadrangle of “correct” and “elegant” monotony would have satisfied the taste of Dean Aldrich and the amateurs of the day. Fortunately the means were wanting; all that was put in hand at first were the Chapel, Hall, and Library. By the liberality of Dr. Clarke the interior of the Library was completed in 1736, its exterior in 1746. The Hall was at last finished in 1784, while the Chapel still remained incompleted in 1786, the date of Gutch’s account--nor does the College Register give any indication on the point. But in the meantime two considerable benefactors arose, who contributed new Foundations to the corporation. Dr. Clarke, Fellow of All Souls’ and Member for the University, left an endowment for six Fellowships and three Scholarships, together with his valuable library, while Mrs. Sarah Eaton, daughter of the former principal, bequeathed an endowment for seven Fellowships and five Scholarships to be held by the sons of clergymen. These new Foundations were incorporated by Charter in 1744. For lodging Dr. Clarke’s Foundation the demolition of the old buildings on the north side of the quadrangle was begun, and nine sets of rooms erected by his trustees, 1753-9, while in 1773 the remainder of the old north side was swept away, and twelve sets of rooms built for Mrs. Eaton’s Foundation, together with the present Provost’s lodgings. Meanwhile the College was providently with such resources as it possessed enlarging its borders. In 1741 it purchased of St. John’s College for £850 the garden ground on the south side of the College, and in 1744 the gardens and meadows to the north and west, “together with the house called the Cock and Bottle.” In 1801 it bought for £1330 the “King’s Head,” opposite to the front of the College, and in 1813 enfranchised the premises on the east front held under lease of the City; while in 1806 it cleared away “Woodroffe’s Folly,” a building erected by that Principal opposite the front of the College, for which St. John’s received a valuation of £401 16_s._ The College thus became surrounded with an open belt, destined to be an incalculable boon in the modern days of building extension. The garden ground on the south side was in 1813 ordered to be kept in hand for the use of the Fellows, and it was about the year 1827 that the late Mr. Greswell signalized his Bursarship by laying out the ornamental grounds, as they now exist. These gardens, falling to a piece of water, together with the fortunate preservation of an open quadrangle, a mode of construction for the merits of which Sir Christopher Wren contended at Trinity,[343] secured to the College the sanitary as well as the picturesque advantages of a _rus in urbe_--a “_rus_” so rural that, the tradition runs, a tutor of the last generation would take his gun, and slip down between his lectures to the pool for a shot at a stray snipe.

William Gower, upon Dr. Blechynden’s death, was nominated Provost in 1736. He had been admitted Scholar in 1715, the year after the incorporation of the College. He rivalled Thomas Allen in the length of his connection with the College. For 62 years he was borne upon its foundations, as Scholar, Fellow, or Provost. Longevity has been a characteristic of the Provosts of this College. One only, Dr. Sheffield, held his office for so short a period as 18 years. The other three, Gower, Landon, and Cotton, were Provosts respectively for 41, 44, and 41 years--collectively 126 years, and Dr. Cotton kept 70 years of unbroken residence. Dr. Gower was a man of great literary attainments. He left many valuable books to the College Library. Dr. King[344] says that he was “acquainted with three persons only who spoke English with that eloquence and propriety that if all they said had been immediately committed to writing, any judge of the English language would have pronounced it an excellent and very beautiful style.” The other two were Atterbury and Johnson. It was in his second year’s Provostship that Samuel Foote of Worcester School claimed and established a right to a Scholarship as Founder’s kin. His student life was brief and stormy. In 1740 the College passes sentence that “Samuel Foote having by a long-continued course of ill-behaviour rendered himself obnoxious to frequent censure of the Society public and private, and having while he was under censure for lying out of College insolently and presumptuously withdrawn himself and refused to answer to several heinous crimes objected to him, though duly cited by the Provost by an instrument in form, in not appearing to the said citation, for the above reasons his Scholarship is declared void, and he is hereby deprived of all benefit and advantage of the said Scholarship.” This entry gives an interest to the opening of Gower’s Provostship; another of a different character occurs near its close. In 1775 is recorded an injunction of the Visitors of the College “as to the use of napkins in the Common Hall.”

The Provostship of Dr. Landon, 1795-1835, witnessed the commencement of that growth of Oxford, of which our own generation has seen so remarkable a development. The opening up of Beaumont St., as to which the College was in treaty with the city in 1820, materially assisted in drawing Worcester within the comity of Colleges.[345] It was still--and for many years to come--unrecognized upon the Proctorial rota. The first Proctor it nominated in its own right held office in 1863. The College could only be approached either by George St. and Stockwell St., or more directly by the narrow alley called Friar’s Entry; and an amusing picture is given of the stately Vice-Chancellor--“Old Glory” was his soubriquet--preceded by his Bedels, with their gold and silver maces, ducking beneath the fluttering household linen suspended across the alley on washing day. This must have been a trying test of the dignified deportment which had distinguished Dr. Landon as host of the Allied Sovereigns, and gained for him--so it is said--from the Prince Regent the Deanery of Exeter.

The College, thus drawn more directly within the influences of University life, began to feel the impulse given to academical resort by times of peace. New rooms were added; sets long vacant were fitted up for occupants. In 1821 three additional sets were constructed “in the space afforded by the old College chapel.” In 1822 it was ordered that all such apartments not at present inhabited, as shall be found capable of accommodating undergraduates, be immediately prepared for their reception. In 1824 the roof of part of the old building was raised, so as to give six additional sets of rooms. Finally in 1844 a new and handsome kitchen was built and seven additional sets constructed.[346]

The most distinguished inmate of the College in Landon’s time was Thomas de Quincey, of whom his old servant on No. 10 staircase--Common Room man till 1865--retained many memories. He lived a somewhat recluse life. He was always buying fresh books, and was sometimes at a loss how to find money for them. In those days men dressed for Hall: and De Quincey having one day parted with his one waistcoat for the purchase of a book went into Hall hiding his loss of clothing as best he could. But concealment was in vain, and he was promptly sconced for the deficiency. De Quincey crowned the peculiarities of his College career by suddenly leaving Oxford before the close of a brilliant examination.

In 1826 another member of the College--Francis William Newman--received the unique distinction of a present of books (now in the College Library) from his mathematical examiners. Bonamy Price, Arnold’s favourite pupil, shed a lustre upon the next generation of undergraduates. Both of them were subsequently Honorary Fellows of the College, and were present at the celebration of its six hundredth anniversary. Dr. Bloxam, a contemporary of the two, preserves some interesting recollections of the customs of the day. The Bachelors who resided for their M.A. Degree used to appear in Hall in full evening dress, breeches and silk stockings. Undergraduates had left off attending dinner in white neckcloths and evening costume. The table on the right was occupied by the gay men of the College, and was called the “Sinners’ Table.” These formed a class by themselves. The table on the left was called the “Smilers’ Table,” who also formed a distinct set between the “Sinners” and the “Saints,” the latter being the more quiet men, who occupied the table nearest the High Table, on the left. The Fellow Commoners, an institution retained at the present day for the convenience of older men resorting to the University, were at that time young men of fortune, who desired an exemption from the stricter discipline of undergraduate life. They dined at the High Table, and were members of the Common Room. But their affinities lay rather with the occupants of the “Sinners’ Table,” and their existence must have been a perpetual difficulty to a sorely-tried Dean. “Bodley” Coxe, a member of the College in those days, subsequently one of its Honorary Fellows, would tell of the formidable muster of “pinks” in Beaumont St. after a champagne breakfast, and of the excuse which satisfied a simple-minded tutor that the delinquent would not offend again during the whole of the summer.

There has been a great change too in the habits of the Seniors. The tutors, as elsewhere, gave their lectures or rather lessons, consisting of translations by the class, with questions and answers, without form or ceremony in their own rooms. After an early dinner they would retire to an uncarpeted Common Room. There after wine long clay pipes were a regular indulgence. An evening walk or other interlude was succeeded by a hot supper at nine, and the evening finished with a rubber. Dr. Cotton in his time was singular in retiring to his rooms after Common Room without joining the whist and supper party. All these customs have dropped away with the barbers and knee-breeches of our fathers. The Latin form of Morning Prayers was abolished by an excess of reforming zeal, and the Statutes of the College are no longer recited in annual conclave. Ordinances have succeeded statutes, and statutes succeeded ordinances. One ancient custom lingers on--the Porter still makes his morning rounds, and hammers upon the door of each staircase with a wooden mallet. This is a Benedictine usage, an echo of the thirteenth century continuing to haunt the old Benedictine walls.