VI.

QUEEN’S COLLEGE.

BY J. R. MAGRATH, D.D., PROVOST OF QUEEN’S.

It is now just five centuries and a half since Robert of Eglesfield founded “the Hall of the scholars of the Queen” in Oxford. The Royal license for its foundation was sealed in the Tower of London on the eighteenth of January, and the statutes of the founder were corrected, completed and sealed in Oxford on the tenth of February in the year 1340 as men then reckoned, or as we should say 1341.

Eglesfield was chaplain and confessor to Philippa, Queen of Edward III. He came of gentle blood in Cumberland, and had ten years before received from the King the hamlet and manor of Ravenwyk or Renwick, forfeited through rebellion by Andrew of Harcla. This and the property he had purchased in Oxford as a site for his hall was all that Eglesfield was able of himself to contribute to its maintenance. His relations with the Queen and the King were, however, of priceless service to the new foundation.

Eglesfield seems to have continued for the remainder of his life to have fostered by his presence and influence the institution he had founded. In the earliest of the “Long Rolls,” or yearly accounts of the College, which are preserved, that of 1347-8, his name appears at the head of the list of the members. In that year sixteen pence is paid for the hire of a horse for six days, that he may visit London on the Thursday after the feast of St. Augustine, bishop of the English; twenty-three shillings is paid for a horse for him to go to Southampton about the time of the festival of St. Peter _ad vincula_; William of Hawkesworth, Provost of Oriel, a former Fellow, lends him a horse, and a penny is put down for a shoe for the same, and a halfpenny for parchment bought for him for documents executed on the feast of Saints Cosmo and Damian.

His funeral is celebrated in 1351-2. They made a “great burning for him,” as of seventeen and a quarter pounds of wax, costing nine shillings, expended during the year, eleven pounds were used at the funeral of the founder. Fourpence halfpenny only seems to have been spent on wine on the same occasion.

A casket containing his remains was transferred from the old chapel to the vault under the new chapel when the latter was built.

His horn is still used on gaudy-days as the loving-cup. It must have been mounted in something like its present condition almost from the beginning, as in the Long Roll of 1416-7 sixteen pence is paid “pro emendatione aquilae crateris fundatoris.” Other repairs are mentioned later as in 1584-5, “pro reparatione particulae coronae quae circumdat operculum cornu xii d.; item, pro reparandis aliis partibus cornu xviii d.”

His name is also kept alive by the “canting” custom observed in the College on New Year’s Day, when after dinner the Bursar presents to each guest a needle threaded with silk of a colour suitable to his faculty (_aiguille et fil_), and prays for his prosperity in the words “Take this and be thrifty.”[138]

The object with which the College was founded is set forth in the statutes as “the cultivation of Theology to the glory of God, the advance of the Church, and the salvation of souls.” It was to be a Collegiate Hall of Masters, Chaplains, Theologians, and other scholars to be advanced to the order of the priesthood. It was founded in the name of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, to the Glory of our Lord and of His Mother and of the whole Court of Heaven, for the benefit of the Universal Church and especially of the Church of England, for the prosperity of the King and Queen and their children, and for the salvation of their souls and the souls of their progenitors and successors, and of the souls of the founder’s family and his benefactors, especially William of Muskham, Rector of the Church of Dereham, and for the “_salutare suffragium_” of all the living and the dead.

The benefactions of Muskham do not seem to have ceased with the foundation of the College. In 1347 Roger Swynbrok goes to Dereham on behalf of the College to get money from Muskham, and the hire of his horse costs eightpence, and there are entries of money received from Muskham in later years. Other persons besides the members of the College were interested in him, as in 1362 the oblations for his soul and the soul of John de Hotham the second Provost amounted to £29 16_s._ 11½_d._

The statutes lay down with considerable minuteness of detail the course of life which Eglesfield expected the members of his foundation to follow, and, in connection with the early accounts of the College, which have been preserved with tolerable completeness, give us some materials for an account of the social life in the College during the earlier portion of its history.

It is probable, indeed, that the large and complex establishment, whose details are developed in Eglesfield’s statutes, rather represent what he wished for and aimed at than the actual condition of the College at any time; but there seems to have been always in the College a sincere desire to carry out, so far as was possible, the prescriptions of the founder; and, as we shall see, some of his minutest directions have regulated the practice of the College ever since his days.

The patronage of the Hall, “the advowson” as he calls it, was to be vested in his Royal mistress Philippa, and in the Queens consort of England who shall succeed her. He adds the characteristic detail that, if a king dies before his successor is married, the patronage shall be continued to the widow till a Queen consort comes into being.

Philippa had already procured from her husband for the infant College the Church of Brough under Staynesmore, and this was to be only an earnest of the benefits the College was to derive from the lofty patronage the founder thus secured to it. She was the first queen to be distinguished as patroness and foundress of a Collegiate Hall.

In 1353-4, which seems to have been a year of unusual expense to the College, among the donations received xxvj pounds iiij shillings is credited to “domina Regina.”

It was doubtless through the Queen’s influence that the King in 1343 endowed the College with the advowson of Bletchingdon, and in the following year with the Wardenship of St. Julian’s Hospital, commonly called God’s House, in Southampton.

The College seems always to have been careful to secure the patronage of the Queens consort of England. In the muniment room is preserved a letter from Anne, Richard II.’s queen, to her husband, asking him to grant letters patent to the College.

In 1603, on the 3rd of August, 48_s._ 6_d._ is allowed to the Provost for his journey “ad solicitandam dominam reginam pro patronatu collegii.” This was another Anne, James I.’s wife. A bible was presented to the Queen which cost 42_s._ 4_d._

It was through Henrietta Maria--Queen Mary, as the College delights to call her--that Charles I. was supplicated for the advowsons in Hampshire given by the King to the College in 1626. Caroline, George II.’s queen, gave £1000 towards the rebuilding of the College in the eighteenth century; and promised another £1000, which, owing to her death, still (as the Benefactors’ Book says) remains “unpaid but not unhoped for.” Charlotte, George III.’s consort, heads the list of those who subscribed towards the rebuilding of the south-west wing after the fire of 1778. Queen Adelaide was the last queen entertained within the walls of the College.

The community was to consist of a Provost and twelve Fellows, incorporated under the name of “the Hall of the Queen in Oxford,” with a common seal.

The original body was nominated by the founder, and their names are set forth in his statutes.

The number thirteen was chosen with reference to the number of our Lord and His Apostles, “sub mysterio decursus Christi et Apostolorum in terris.”

Richard of Retteford, Doctor of Divinity, was the first Provost, and the thirteen came from ten different dioceses. Several of them were, or had been, Fellows of Merton; one, a Fellow of Exeter.

It was some years before the revenues of the College allowed of the maintenance of so large a number of Fellows. The first “long roll” preserved mentions only five persons, including Eglesfield himself, as receiving a Fellow’s allowance; and eight is the largest number of Fellows named in any account up to the end of the century. In the early part of the sixteenth century the numbers rose to about ten, but dwindled again in the disturbed periods about the middle of the century. Twelve Fellows first appear in the Long Roll for 1590; and soon after the number was increased to fourteen, at which the number of the Fellows on the original foundation seems to have remained till the first of the two University Commissions of the present century.

By the ordinance of 1858, the number of Fellows of the Consolidated Foundation was fixed at nineteen; and by the statutes of 1877, the Fellowships are to be not less in number than fourteen and not more than sixteen. The actual number is fourteen.

From the earliest times down to the legislation of 1858 the body of Fellows seems to have been recruited from the junior members of the foundation, and ordinarily by seniority.

It seems to have soon become a rule that no one should be admitted to a Fellowship till he had proceeded to his Master’s degree. The University was often appealed to to grant dispensations to Queen’s men to omit some of the conditions generally required for that degree in order to enable them to be elected Fellows.

In 1579 some Bachelors were elected Fellows: “electi socii dum Domini fuere; sed irrita facta est electio: postea vero electi.”

The names given to the different orders of foundationers perhaps deserve a passing notice. The Fellows, as we should call them, were the “Scholares,” who, with the “Praepositus,” or Provost, constituted the Corporation. They are in the original statutes called indifferently “Scholares” and “Socii.” The first name under which other recipients of Eglesfield’s bounty appear is that of “Pueri,” or “Pueri eleemosynarii.” By the end of the fourteenth century the name “Servientes” came to be applied to an intermediate order, between the “socii” and the “pueri,” recruited from the latter. In 1407, for instance, Bell is a “pauper puer”; in 1413 Ds. Walter Bell is a “serviens”; and in 1416 Mr. Walter Bell, who was for the previous Michaelmas Term, and for the first term of the year, still “serviens” and chaplain, becomes a Fellow. A candidate for the foundation seems to have entered the College as a “pauper puer”; to have become a “serviens” on taking his Bachelor’s degree; and to have been eligible to a Fellowship as soon as he had proceeded to the degree of M.A.

The distinction between the three orders seems to have been maintained, though with some variety in the names given to the orders and some laxity in their application. Chaplains who are Masters are sometimes loosely called “pueri” even as early as the middle of the fifteenth century; and about 1570 the term “servientes” seems to have gone out of use and the name “pueri” to have been transferred to the Bachelors.

Soon after this a fourth order appears intermediate between the first and second, of “magistri non-socii,” or Masters on the foundation. It might often be convenient for a B.A. to proceed to his M.A. degree before a Fellowship was ready for him. The Chaplains were generally appointed from among these Masters. In the University Calendar of 1828 there appear as many as nine of these expectants.

Before the end of the fifteenth century we find the lowest order called “pueri domus,” and then “pueri de taberta” or “taberto” or “tabarto.” The first appearance of this famous appellation seems to be in the Long Roll for 1472. The tabard from which the Taberdars, as we now call them, derived their name appears early in the accounts of the College. Under the expenses of the boys in 1364-5 occurs:--“Item, cissori pro cota Ad. de Spersholt cum capic. tabard. et calig. xii d.”

The livery of the boys seems always to have been a special part of the provision made by the College for them: 25_s._ 4_d._ is expended in 1407 “in vestura pauperum puerorum”; and when Thomas Eglesfield is promoted in 1416 from Leylonde Hall, where the College had paid 1_s._ 4_d._ for a term’s schooling for him to Mr. John Leylande and 5_d._ for his batells, the first expenditure on his account as a poor boy of the College is “pro factura togae & tabard. ejusd. xii d.” Those who are wise in such matters may be able to calculate the size of the tabard from the datum that eight yards of cloth, at a cost of 14_s._ 8_d._, were provided in 1437 “pro duobus pueris domus, pro tabard. suis.” In 1503, 37_s._ 4_d._ is paid “pro liberatura iiij puerorum domus”; and in 1519, 56_s._ for the same for six boys.

The College had probably its pattern for the tabard, but no trace of a description of it has yet been discovered. The word seems, from Ducange, to have been used for almost every sort of upper garment, from the long tabard worn by the Priests of the Hospital of Elsingspittal with tunic, supertunic and hood, to the round mantles or tabards of moderate length permitted by the council of Buda to be worn by Prelates, and the “renones,” or capes coming down to the reins, which the French call “tabart.” It seems now to be only applied to the herald’s coat.

The four orders in their latest manifestation previous to the legislation of 1858 were--1, Fellows; 2, Masters of Arts on the Foundation; 3, Taberdars or Bachelors of Arts on the Foundation; 4, Probationary Scholars, who were undergraduates. Under the subsequent arrangements the name Taberdar has been reserved for the eight senior open scholars.

The Provost was required by Eglesfield to be of mature character, in Holy Orders, a good manager, and he was to be elected for life. He was to be elected by the Fellows, and admit Fellows who had been elected; to devote himself to the rule and care of the College, and to the administration of its property. He was to see to the collection of the debts of the College, going to law if necessary on behalf of its rights and privileges, and to study in all respects to promote the advantage and enlargement of the Hall by obtaining such influence over Royal and other persons as he might be able to secure.

The provision that the Provost should be in Holy Orders seems only once to have been violated. Roger Whelpdale (1404), indeed, seems only to have received priest’s orders after his election; but in the person of Thomas Francis all precedents were violated. He was a Doctor of Medicine, of Christ Church, a native of Chester, and Regius Professor of Medicine; and was in 1561, it would seem by Royal influence, intruded into the Provostship. Serious disturbances seem to have taken place at his inauguration,[139] and in two years he had had enough of it. The irregularity prevailing at the time is evidenced by his offering in an extant letter to nominate Bernard Gilpin, the Apostle of the North, as his successor.[140] The Tudor sovereigns seem in this, as in other matters, to have found it difficult to set limits to their prerogative. Later in Elizabeth’s reign, on Henry Robinson’s promotion from the Provostship to the Bishopric of Carlisle, his chancellor had to write to the College, 8th Oct., 1598, signifying the Queen’s pleasure that the election of a Provost in his room “be respited till her Majesty be informed whether it belongs to her by prerogative, or to the Fellows, to chuse a successor.”

No fault can be found with the Provosts of the College, as a rule, for want of care of its interests. The names of six occur in the Thanksgiving for the Founder and Benefactors of the College; and others could prefer a claim to the same distinction.

Thomas Langton (1487), the first of the six, who was also Fellow of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, where his “Anathema” cup is still to be seen, died Bishop of Winchester, having been nominated just before his death to the Archbishopric of Canterbury. He left memorial legacies both directly to the College, and indirectly to it through a benefaction to God’s House at Southampton. Christopher Bainbridge (1506), the next of the Benefactor Provosts, was Cardinal and Archbishop of York, poisoned at Rome by his steward, and buried under a magnificent renaissance monument which now adorns the Church of St. Thomas à Becket in that city.

A chantry priest was till the Reformation paid £5 6_s._ 8_d._ for celebrating for the souls of these two benefactors in the Church of St. Michael in Bongate near Appleby, the capital of the county in which they were both born.

Henry Robinson (1581), the third on the list, had been Principal of St. Edmund Hall, and died Bishop of Carlisle. His brass in Carlisle Cathedral, of which the College possesses a duplicate, says of his relations with the College, “invenit destructum, reliquit exstructum et instructum.” The College spent, 15th July, 1615, £23 3_s._ 3_d._ in celebrating his obsequies, and provided Chr. Potter with a funeral gown and hood to preach his funeral sermon; £10 was paid in 1617 for engraving his monument on copper, and 31_s._ 6_d._ for some impressions from the plate.

Henry Airay (1598), who succeeds Robinson as Provost and Benefactor, the Elisha to Robinson’s Elijah, as his brass with much variety of symbolic illustration describes him, in spite of his being “a zealous Calvinist,” commends himself to Wood “for his holiness, integrity, learning, grauity, and indefatigable pains in the discharge of his ministerial functions.” The College proved his will at a cost of 41_s._ 8_d._, and spent £19 16_s._ 8_d._ on his funeral, 9th July, 1616.

Timothy Halton (1677), the fifth of the Provosts commemorated in the Thanksgiving, built the present spacious library of the College mainly at his own expense.

William Lancaster (1704), who is sixth, had the chief hand in building the present College. He incurred Hearne’s wrath on private grounds and as a “Whigg,” and is abused by him through many volumes of his Collections; but he commended himself to others of his contemporaries, and the favour in which he was held by the Corporation of Oxford was of great service to the College. In the Mayoralty of Thomas Sellar, Esq., 14th Jan., 1709, it was “agreed that the Provost and Scholars of Queen’s College shall have a lease of so much ground in the high street leading to East Gate as shall be requisite for making their intended new building there strait and uniform from Michaelmas last for one thousand years at a pepper corn rent, gratis and without fine, in respect of the many civilities and kindnesses from time to time showed unto and conferred upon this city and the principal members thereof by Dr. Lancaster.”

It was by thus obtaining influence over Royal and other persons, in conformity with the injunctions of the founder, that Provosts and other members of the College were enabled to benefit it. The monument to Joseph Smith (1730) which faces one who comes out of the College chapel, seems to preserve the memory of an ideal Provost from Eglesfield’s point of view and that which continued to be maintained in the College. “Distinguished for his Learning, Eloquence, Politeness of Manners, Piety and Charity, he with great Prudence and judicious Moderation presided over his College to its general Happiness. Its Interests were the constant Object of his Attention. He was himself a good Benefactor to it, and was blest with the Success of obtaining for it by his respectable Influence, several ample Donations to the very great and perpetual Increase of its Establishment.”

Among the “ample donations” obtained by Provost Smith’s “respectable influence,” the first place belongs to the Hastings foundation. The Lady Elizabeth Hastings, daughter of Theophilus, seventh Earl of Huntingdon, of whom Steele says in the _Tatler_, “To love her is a liberal education,” bequeathed to the College in 1739 her Manors, Lands, and Hereditaments in Wheldale in the West Riding of Yorkshire, to found five Exhibitions for five poor scholars that had been educated for two years at one or other of twelve schools in Cumberland, Westmorland, and Yorkshire. Each school was to send a candidate, and the candidates were first to be examined at Abberforth or Aberford in Yorkshire by seven neighbouring clergymen, and the ten best exercises were to be sent to the Provost and Fellows, who were to “choose out of them eight of the best performances which appear the best, which done, the names subscribed to those eight shall be fairly written, each in a distinct paper, and the papers rolled up and put into an Urn or Vase, … and after being shaken well together in the Urn shall be drawn out of the same.… And those five whose names are first drawn shall to all Intents and Purposes be held duly elected.… And though this Method of choosing by Lot may be called by some Superstition or Enthusiasm, yet … the advice was given me by an Orthodox and Pious Prelate of the Church of England as leaving something to Providence.” This method of election was observed as late as 1859, the Urn or Vase then employed being the Provost’s man-servant’s hat. In 1769 the lot not drawn was that of Edward Tatham of Heversham School, afterwards Rector of Lincoln College, probably the most notable person who was ever a candidate for a place on this foundation. A more reasonable provision, that if of the original schools any should so far come to decay as to have no scholar returned by the examiners at Aberford in four successive elections, the College should appoint another school from the same county in its stead, has been of great benefit to the Foundation and to education in the counties. The estate devised has increased in value, coals having been got, which were supposed in Lady Betty’s time to be in the estate. Fourteen schools now enjoy the benefits of the Foundation, and nearly thirty Exhibitioners of £90 a year each now take the place of the original five Exhibitioners of £28 a year.

Elaborate regulations were laid down for the election of the Provost, and on one occasion at least the whole course of proceeding had to be gone through.[141] In the oath, which was to precede this as almost all other important ceremonies in the College, the Fellows swear that they will elect the most fit and sufficient of the Fellows to the vacancy.

Disputes have from time to time taken place as to whether a “promoted[142] Fellow” during his year of grace is to be regarded as a Fellow for this purpose. At the time of Wm. Lancaster’s election (1704) a pamphlet was published in opposition to his claims, but it would seem without any effect on the election. The pamphleteer has to allow that several earlier Provosts, among them Henry Boost, who was also Provost of Eton, and Bishop Langton, had never been Fellows at all.

The Provost was to receive five marks in addition to the portion assigned to each of the Fellows, and this was to be increased gradually to forty pounds in case the augmentation of the revenues of the College allowed the number of Fellows prescribed in the statutes to increase. He was to receive this for his ordinary expenses and necessities. The community was to defray any expenses incurred in absence on business, or in the entertainment of visitors who might repair to the College in connection with its affairs.--In 1359-60, Adam, the Provost’s servant, has his expenses paid for a visit to Southampton to see the condition of God’s House while the foreigners were at Winchester. In 1363-4 Henry Whitfield, the Provost, brings in a bill for his expenses on a voyage to the Court of Rome at Avignon on College business connected with the living of Sparsholt in Berks. A century later the Provost is allowed 5_s._ 10_d._ for his expenses to London in May 1519 to get money for the building of the chapel. In 1600-1 18_d._ is paid for a horse sent to fetch the Provost for the election of a principal at St. Edmund Hall.

The rights of the College in the matter of the appointment of a Principal of that Hall have always been vigorously asserted against the Chancellor of the University, who nominates the Principals of all other public Halls. In 1636, when the Heads of Colleges and Halls were called upon to give their formal submission to Laud’s new statutes, Chr. Potter, Coll. Reginæ Præpositus, adds his name “Salvo jure Collegii prædicti ad Aulam St. Edmundi.” The record of the proceedings on the occasion of each election of a Principal has been preserved with a care not usually extended to any but the most solemn of the proceedings of the College. On the 18th December, 1614, Mr. French is paid 3_s._ for writing out the agreement made between the University and the College about the election of a Principal of St. Edmund Hall. The agreement, securing the appointment to the College, was made in 1559. Lord Buckhurst (Chancellor from 1591 to 1608) was advised by Lord Chief Justice Walmsley that it was void, but the law officers of the Crown at the time maintained its validity.[143]

The common seal, the jewels, treasure, bulls, charters, writings, statutes, privileges and muniments of the College were to be kept in a chest with three locks, the keys whereof were to be kept by the Provost, the Treasurer, and the “Camerarius.” The two last were the technical names for the senior and junior Bursars respectively, and were retained in the Long Rolls to a very recent time.

The Foundation was to be in theory open. Like the University, the College was not to close the bosom of its protection to any race or deserving nation; and the Fellows at the time of election swore not only to put away all hatred, fear, and partiality, and to listen to no requests, but also to act without accepting person or country. The conditions of eligibility were distinguished character, poverty and fitness for studying theology with profit. A preference, however, was to be given to suitable persons who were natives of Cumberland and Westmorland, to which this preference was given on account of their waste state, their uninhabited condition, and the scarcity of letters in them. Within these limits too there was to be a preference for founders’ kin. After these a _cæteris paribus_ preference was given to those places wherein the College derived benefit either from ecclesiastical benefices, manors, lands or tenements. These limitations soon practically resulted in confining the Foundation to natives of the two counties. They supplied a steady flow of capable persons; and curiously enough, though so unequal in size and population, in about equal numbers.

Pressure was from time to time applied to the College to admit into the society persons not duly qualified. In the reign of James I., Robert Murray, a Scot, was thus recommended by a Royal letter; and, though the College declined to elect him, it was thought politic to pay him £20 “ne in iniquam pecuniarum erogationem traheretur collegium.” During the time of the usurpation, as a note in the Entrance Book calls it, four Fellows were intruded, who were promptly got rid of at the Restoration of Charles II. Thomas Cartwright, who was afterwards “Tabiter,” and eventually Bishop of Chester, and one of the Commissioners for ejecting the President and Fellows of Magdalen College, is said to have been put into the College by the Parliamentary Visitors during the same period.

The claim to preference as founder’s kin does not seem to have been often advanced. The Thomas Eglesfield, to the purchase of whose tabard reference is made above,[144] seems to have been grandson of the founder’s brother John. At the time of his admission to the College, his father, also called John, seems to have visited the College and taken away with him a son William, who, like Thomas, had been for a term under the instruction of Mr. John Leylonde. This is probably the William who, with his wife, brother, and sister-in-law, receives from the College gloves in 1459 to the value of 12½_d._ Leylonde seems to have continued to act as private tutor to Thomas after he joined the College, as x_s._ is paid in 1418, “Magistro Joh. Leylonde pro scolagio Tho. Egylsfelde.” A Christopher Eglesfield was on the Foundation about the same time. Thomas went through all the stages of promotion. He was “puer,” “serviens,” Fellow, and eventually Provost, besides holding the University offices of Proctor and Commissary (or Vice-Chancellor). An Anthony Eglesfield was Fellow of the College in 1577. A James Eglesfield belonged to it in 1615, and a George Eglesfield in 1670. A Gawin Eglesfield, who had been taberdar, and was passed over at an election to Fellows in 1632, claimed election as founder’s kin, and was backed by the Archbishop of York as visitor. The College successfully resisted the claim; but on Gawin’s acknowledgment that the claim was unfounded, to please the visitor, presented him to the living of Weston in Oxfordshire.

The College, however, in another way, has from the beginning “opened the bosom of its protection” to students whom it was unwilling out of regard to the preferences of the founder to admit to the pecuniary benefits of the Foundation. Whether it was that the buildings contained more rooms than the slowly growing Foundation was able to fill with its own members, or for some other cause, the receipts of the College have always included “pensiones” for “cameræ” occupied by non-foundationers. The very first Long Roll which has been preserved, that of 1347-8, contains the names of Roger Swynbrok, John Herte, and John Schipton as thus occupying chambers. The word used for the payment has survived in “pensioners,” the name given at Cambridge to those whom we call “commoners.” The pensioners of the fourteenth century probably differed in many respects from the commoners of the nineteenth. The founder was in one sense the first commoner of the College. The Black Prince was perhaps one of the earliest. Dominus Nicholas monachus, the monachus Eboracensis who paid two marks “pro magna camera,” the monachus de Evesham, Robertus canonicus, The Prior of Derbich, Magister John Wicliff, Canonicus Randulphus, the Scriptor Slake, Bewforth, if not Bewforth’s more celebrated pupil, afterwards Henry V., Raymund, Rector of Hisley, the treasurer of Chichester, and numerous other Magistri whose names appear in this relation were probably rather researchers or advanced students than anything more resembling the modern undergraduate. It was not unusual for those who had been Fellows to return to the College after some period of absence from Oxford and from the Foundation. But it is doubtless in this element that we find the first traces in the College of those who now occupy so prominent a place in any view of modern Oxford. By the time the first lists occur of residents in the Colleges, and before the regularly-kept register of entrances begins, the present system seems to have been in full swing. In course of time it became profitable for the College even to extend its buildings for the accommodation of this kind of student, and the “musaea” or “studies” in the “_novum cubiculum_” and in the “_novum aedificium_” became a regular source of revenue.

It was not only through these and other payments that these “commoners” contributed to the well-being of the College. Among its most liberal benefactors some of the foremost have been non-foundationers. So John Michel, in some sense the second founder of the College, like his father and his uncle, who, as he records, “in saeculo rebellionis nunquam satis deflendae sedem quietam per 14 annos hic invenerunt,” a commoner of the College, besides other benefactions, left an endowment for eight Fellows, four scholars, and four exhibitioners, merged by the Commissioners of 1858 with the smaller Foundation of Sir Orlando Bridgman, another commoner, in the original Foundation of Eglesfield. During the hundred years which this Foundation lasted (the first Fellow was elected in 1764, the last in 1861) more than a hundred Fellows elected to enjoy Michel’s liberality contributed an independent element which somewhat modified the monotony of the old north-country corporation. The Michel Fellows were not members of the governing body, and some amusing stories are told of the differences insisted on by some of the less genial of the older order. Yet the “Michels” (_mali catuli_, as the jesting etymology had it) contributed their full share to the glories of the College. A Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, a Chief Justice of Ceylon, a Bishop of St. David’s, three Bampton Lecturers, a Bishop of Newfoundland, a Bishop of Ballarat, a Professor of Arabic,[145] were only the most prominent among a large number of distinguished men who owed something to Michel’s liberality. The value of the Fellowships was small, and the length of tenure limited, and so richer Foundations carried off some of those who had for a while been on this Foundation. So among others Dornford passed in this way through Queen’s from Wadham to Oriel, so Basil Jones from Trinity to University, so Tyler and Garbett back again to Oriel and Brasenose from which they came. The College has not been willing to let Michel’s name be altogether forgot, and the four junior Fellows in the list are still called Michel Fellows.

In quite recent times the College has had to thank a commoner for its latest considerable benefaction, and five scholars will always have occasion to bless the memory of Sir Edward Repps Jodrell.

Some of the most characteristic of Eglesfield’s injunctions were concerned with the Common Table. In the midst of the table was to sit the Provost or his _locum tenens_. No one was to sit on the opposite side in any seat or chair, nor to eat on that side either kneeling or standing. If necessary, room was to be found at a side table.

They were to meet twice in the day for meals at regular hours. They were to be summoned by a “clarion” blown so as to be heard by all the members of the foundation. Among the charges in the accounts for 1452-3 is 2_s._ 4_d._ for the repair of the trumpet. In 1595-7, either for repair or a new one, there was paid 8_s._ “pro tuba”; and in 1604-5 “pro tuba et vectura a Lond. et emendatione,” 28_s._ In 1666 a magnificent silver trumpet was presented by Sir Joseph Williamson, one of the most liberal of the benefactors as he was one of the most loyal of the sons of the College, to which he was never weary of expressing his obligations and his affection. By a curious accident his extensive private correspondence has become incorporated with the Domestic State Papers of the period, and those who are searching for the more secret springs of the public policy of his age have their attention arrested by the details of his familiar relations with his College friends. So too at an earlier time among the State Papers of the reign of James I. are included the Latin verses and orations, the sermon-notes and other occasional papers of a Queen’s undergraduate, who was afterwards to be Mr. Secretary Nicholas. And along with these are letters to him from a sister, promising stockings, and asking sympathy for toothache and the mumps; and this three hundred years ago.

As they sat at table, before them was to be read the Bible by a Chaplain. They were to pay attention to him, and not prevent his being heard by loquacity or shouting. They were to speak at table “modeste,” and in French or Latin unless in obedience to the law of politeness to converse with a visitor in his own language, or for some other reasonable cause. Unseemly talk or jesting was to be avoided, and punished if necessary by the Provost. Up to the beginning of the present century it was the practice for the porter to bring at the beginning of dinner a Greek Testament to the Fellow presiding at the High Table who returned it to him indicating a verse, and saying, “Legat (so and so),” naming the scholar of the week. The porter then took the book to the scholar and gave it him, saying, “Legat,” and the book after the verse had been read was carried away by the porter. When this custom was abolished does not appear, but Provost Jackson remembered that it prevailed when he came into residence (1808).

At both meals, at all times of the year, that their garments might conform to the colour of the blood of the Lord, all the Fellows were to wear purple robes, and if Doctors of Theology or of Decrees, the robes were to be furred with black budge. The Chaplains were to wear white robes, and the Provost was to see that those of each grade wore robes of uniform colour.

The Students in Arts[146] among the poor boys were to dispute a sophism among themselves once or twice a week, under the guidance of an “artist,”[147] who was to look after them, superintend their disputations, and otherwise supervise their instruction. The “grammarians”[148] were to have “collationes” before their instructor every day except Sundays and “double feasts.” The Clerks of the Chapel were to instruct the poor boys in singing. All the instructors, artists, grammarians and musicians were to be diligent in watching the progress of the students and in instructing them, and were to swear to be so.

The Students in Theology[149] were to hold theological disputations every week on Saturday, Friday, or some other convenient day, which were to be superintended by the Provost or his _locum tenens_, or the senior present at the disputation; and at these all the theologians except the Provost, who would be very much busied about the affairs of “the Hall,” _i. e._ of the College, were bound to be present unless prevented by some lawful cause.

The number of scholars was to be increased as the means of the College allowed. A Provost or anybody else who opposed such increase was to be expelled.

For the maintenance of each scholar a sum of ten marks annually was to be set aside. Of this, at least 1_s._ 6_d._, and not more than 2_s._, was to be appropriated to his weekly commons. Anything saved under this head out of 2_s._ in the week was to be devoted to alms and no other purpose. The remainder of the ten marks was to go to the scholars to provide them with clothes and other necessaries. The Provost was to look to the character of the clothes. If they went far in country or town, they were not to wear simple or double “hoods,” but long “collobia” (frocks, sleeveless or with short sleeves), or other suitable garments; and they were not to go alone.

An absent Fellow was to forfeit his commons in the long vacation, and the rest of his allowance also at other times, unless he were absent on the business of the Hall. Additional reasons for the enjoyment of commons in absence were subsequently approved. Pestilence in Oxford was a common excuse. In 1400-1, 1_s._ 6_d._ is allowed for the commons of William Warton and Peter de la Mare in time of pestilence. Similarly in 1625-6, £7 4_s._ is allowed to the Fellows dispersed in time of pestilence. Equally urgent reasons commended themselves during the reign of Charles I. In 1642 payments are made to Fellows, Chaplains, boys and servants in place of commons, when the College was for seven weeks dissolved owing to the advance of the enemy; and this in the same “computus,” with seven payments for bonfires on the occasion of seven Royalist victories. A Fellow received for each week 5_s._, a Chaplain and a boy 2_s._ 6_d._, a servant 2_s._ Three Fellows away in the North got smaller payments during eleven months.

In order that there might be plenty to give away, the Scholars and Chaplains were to have two courses at meals on ordinary days, and on the five great feasts--Christmas, Easter, Whitsuntide, the Assumption, and All Saints Day--an extra course with a suitable quantity of wine. Court manners were to be observed at meals and other times.

How soon the custom of bringing in a boar’s head at Christmas began does not appear, nor is the date of the carol sung on the occasion ascertained. Wynkin de Worde’s version, which differs in some

## particulars from that used in the College, was printed as early as

1521. On the 24th December, 1660, £1 10_s._ is paid “pictori Hawkins caput apri in festo nativitatis adornanti.” This suggests that the head was then, as now, “adorned” with banners bearing coats of arms: Richard Hawkins was a heraldic painter resident in Oxford, an intimate of Anthony Wood.

The expenses of any Fellows sent out of Oxford on College business were to be defrayed by the Community. They were to bring an account of their expenses at the end of the journey, which was to be audited by the Provost, Treasurer, and Camerarius, who were to disallow them if in their judgment excessive; and if the three auditors could not agree on this point, the judgment of the Provost was to decide. Thus, in 1386-7, Mr. Richard Brown the Camerarius and Senior Fellow is repaid 12_s._ 4_d._, his expenses for a journey to Devonshire to get the books bequeathed to the College by Mr. Henry Whitfield, as well as 20_d._ for the carriage of the said books. Ten years later two and a half marks are paid for Mr. Thomas Burton’s expenses in going to the Archbishop of York. In 1411-12 the same Fellow pays a visit on College business to the Roman court.

If the revenues of the College allowed, thrice in the year, at the end of each term, a portion beyond the commons was to be divided among the Fellows fairly, according to the amount of their residence. On the day of this division the statutes of the College were to be read among themselves by the Provost and scholars, and a solemn mass of the Holy Trinity to be said in the College Chapel, or Parochial Church, “if they got one,” for the King, Queen Philippa, the other benefactors of the Hall, and other persons specified in the statutes, and for all the faithful living and dead. After the solemn mass the Provost was to inquire separately of each of the Fellows as to the behaviour of the rest in the matters of obedience to the statutes, honesty of deportment, and progress in study. Special regulations were laid down for the conduct of this inquiry. These regularly recurring inquiries might be supplemented by special inquiries whenever the Provost thought it necessary; and at the peril of his soul he was to see that the boys, the chaplains, and the other “_ministri_” conducted themselves properly. All accused persons were to be allowed to purge themselves privately, peacefully, and honestly, but not scandalously or contentiously. No scholar or poor boy was to be expelled except with consent of a majority of the College. The Provost inflicted other punishments after taking counsel with one or two of the scholars.

The Provost was allowed to keep a servant or clerk, to whose maintenance he was to contribute. The other Masters or scholars were prohibited from burdening the community by the introduction of strangers or relatives, and especially of poor clerks of their own or private servants. This was not to prevent hospitality being shown at the expense of the entertainer, in the hall or in his own chamber, to friends, of any rank, from the city or outside, who might come to see one of the community. A visitor on business of the community was to be properly entertained in the hall or Provost’s lodging at the common expense.

Nor did this in later times prevent such services as were rendered by a “fag” at a public school some fifty years ago from being rendered in College for a salary by the poorer students to the richer. So George Fothergill, in 1723, writes home--“My Tutor has given me a gentleman commoner last night, w^{ch} I call’d up this morning. So that for calling up I have about 5 pounds per year, viz. 5_s._ a quarter of each of the 3 com̄oners w^{ch} I had before, w^{ch} comes to 3 pounds a year, & 10_s._ a quarter for this Gent: Com: w^{ch} makes up 5 pounds.”

Harriers, hounds, hawks, and other such animals were not to be kept in the Hall or its precincts by any of the scholars. It was not thought fitting that poor men living mainly on alms should give the bread of the sons of men for the dogs to eat, and woe to those who play among the birds of the air. The “_extructio pullophylacii_” in 1590 would probably not be regarded as a violation of the statute, nor “_le henhouse_,” probably the same building which is referred to a few years later. A caged eagle also seems from time to time to have been kept in the College, in connection with the founder’s name and the arms of the College. In 1661, 5_s._ 3_d._ is paid, “_operculum fabricanti ad concludendam aquilam domini praepositi_.”

The use of musical instruments was prohibited within the College except during the hours of general refreshment, as likely to produce levity and insolence, and to afford occasion of distraction from study. This of course did not apply to the musical instruments employed in the chapel service. There was an organ in chapel from very early times. In 1436-7 4_d._ is paid among the expenses of the chapel “pro emendatione organorum”; and in 1490-1 “organa reparantur.” In 1676-7 £1 12_s._ is paid “famulis domini episcopi Londinensis organum musicum afferentibus.” This was Bishop Compton, who crowned William III., and who had been a gentleman commoner of the College. The present organ, perhaps the largest in Oxford, is mainly due to the skill and liberality of Leighton George Hayne, D.Mus., and sometime Coryphæus of the University, who, with the support of the late Archbishop of York, revived the musical service which had for many years been interrupted.

All sorts of games of dice, chess, and others giving opportunity of losing money, were prohibited, especially dice and other similar games which give occasion for strife and often beggary to the player. An exception was made for such games occasionally played, not in the hall, for recreation only, when it did not interfere with study or divine service. All Chaplains, poor clerks, servants, and other inhabitants of the Hall were bound by this prohibition, and the Provost or his _locum tenens_ were bound on pain of perjury to inflict the penalties which might be necessary to stop these or other infractions of the statutes. When stage plays came into vogue the College followed the fashion. In the accounts of 1572-3, 3_s._ 8_d._ is paid “pro fabricatione scenae in aula ad tragicam comoediam narrandam,” and 7_s._ 5_d._ “in expensis tragicae comediae in natal. Xti.”

The chambers and studies were to be assigned to the scholars by the Provost, who was to assign, except for special reasons, according to seniority. There were to be at least two in each chamber unless the status or pre-eminence of the quality of any of the scholars should require otherwise. The arrangement of rooms adopted in the front quadrangle when the College was rebuilt seems to retain a trace of the old regulations. A large “chamber” with two “studies” recalls the days when John Boast and Henry Ewbank were chamber-fellows or “chums” in their youth, before the dark time when the younger man was the cause of the elder being butchered alive for exercising his priestly functions in England.[150] Nowadays in the rare case of two brothers or intimate friends living together in a set of rooms, the old disposition is reversed, the chamber becomes the joint study, and the two studies the separate bed-chambers.

Except for urgent cause, or by leave of the Provost or his _locum tenens_, the scholars were not to have meals except in the hall, and they were to avoid, in accordance with the laws of temperance, expensive and luxurious meals of all kinds, suppers and other eatings and drinkings. The Provost or his _locum tenens_ was to restrain all such excess.

The scholars were not to pass the night outside the College in the town or its suburbs unless leave had been previously obtained from the Provost, his _locum tenens_, or the senior in hall; and the application for leave must specify the cause for which such leave is asked.

A Fellow, poor cleric, or Chaplain expelled was not to have any remedy against the College by law or otherwise, and was to renounce any right to such remedy under the obligation of an oath at the time of his admission to the Hall. The College sometimes showed compassion to former Fellows who fell into misfortune: 28th September, 1625, 50_s._ is paid to Mr. Lancaster formerly a Fellow, now reduced to the depths of misery, and in following years a similar payment is made, the amount being raised later to £4.

A scholar was to forfeit his emolument by entering religion, by transferring himself to anybody’s obedience, by being absent except on College business or by special leave of the Provost for more than the greater half of a full term, or for wilfully neglecting to take the prescribed steps of advancement in study.

Offences generally were to be tried by the Provost and two assessors, and punished by the Provost with the consent of the scholars.

The College was to bake its own bread and brew its own beer within the College, by its own servants acting under the supervision of the steward of the week and of the treasurer’s clerk. Every loaf before it was baked was to weigh 46_s._ 8_d._ sterling, from whatever market the corn came, and of whatever kind the bread was; and this weight was not to be changed whatever was the price of corn.

A sum of £40 specially given for this purpose by the founder was always to remain in hand, to be set apart at the beginning of each year, and accounted for at the end as ready-money or floating balance, to be used for buying stores of victuals and fuel, and not to be employed in part or whole for any other purpose.

The Scholars were to have a horse-mill of their own to grind their wheat, barley, and other corn within the College, or at least very near thereto, to save the excessive tolls and payments to millers which might otherwise fall upon them.

With these and similar injunctions the founder launched the College on its voyage across the centuries. Into the details of that voyage there is no further room to go. Whatever affected the history of the country affected the history of the University, and whatever affected the history of the University affected the history of the College. Wycliff stayed within the College, and Nicholas of Hereford, who translated for him the Old Testament, was a Fellow. Henry Whitfield, Provost, and three Fellows, one of them John of Trevisa, all four west-countrymen, were expelled for Wycliffism. The phases of the Reformation in England are accurately reflected in the College accounts. A Royal Commission visits the College in 1545, and Rudd, one of the Fellows, is expelled. Eightpence is paid, “pro vino & orengis commissionariis.” Three years later 6_s._ 2_d._ is paid, “dolantibus meremium & diripientibus imagines in sacello.” The wheel comes round, and in 1555, 9_s._ is paid, “pro ligatione et coopertura unius portiphorii, duorum processionalium, unius missalis, unius gradalis, unius antiphonarii & unius hymnarii.” But the reaction is only temporary, and in 1560 appears 4_s._ 8_d._, “pro destruendo altaria.”

The College contributes others besides the Wycliffites and Rudd as victims to the struggles of the times. John Bost is a martyr for Roman Catholicism; as Michael Hudson later, for the King against the Parliament. Thomas Smith’s case is the hardest of all; as, having been turned out of his Fellowship at Magdalen for refusing to elect Bishop Parker as President, he is turned out again later on for refusing to take the oath of allegiance to William III.

The College shared the fortunes of the University in the days of the Stuarts. His Majesty desires the College, 5th Jan., 1642-3, to lend him all plate of what kind soever belonging to the College, and promises to see the same repaid after the rate of 5_s._ per ounce for white, and 5_s._ 6_d._ for gilt plate; and nine days later Mr. Stannix, thesaurarius, delivers to Sir William Parkhurst for his Majesty’s use such a collection of tankards, two-eared potts, white large bowles and lesser bowles, salts and gilt bowles, and spoones and gobletts, as the College shall never see again, 2319 oz. of both sorts, worth in all £591 1_s._ 9_d._ And then the Provost and scholars, as things grow worse, petition Sir Thomas Glemham that--whereas parcel of the works on the west side of Northgate had been assigned to Magdalen and Queen’s College jointly, and Queen’s College had already performed more than in a due proportion would have come to their share, most of them labouring in their own persons by the space of twelve days at the least, while those of Magdalen assisted, some very slenderly and some not at all--that a proportionable part of the work yet unfinish’d may be set forth to themselves in particular apart from Magdalen; and this is ordered to be done. And then the king goes down, and the parliamentary visitors appear; and “This is the answer of mee, Jo. Fisher (Master of Arts and Chaplaine of Queenes Colledge), and which I shall acknowledge is myne: That I cannot without perjury submitt to this visitation, and therefore I will not submitt. _Ita est_: Jo. Fisher.” And John Fisher and others are reported to the Committee of Lords and Commons and lose their places. And George Phillip and James Bedford and William Barksdale and Moses Foxcraft appear in the Register of Fellows as “Intrusi tempore usurpationis, exclusi ad Restaurationem Caroli Secundi.”

And in all these crises, and those which have followed, “sons of Eglesfield” have been called to play their part. Thomas Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln; Henry Compton, Bishop of London; Thomas Cartwright, Bishop of Chester; Thomas Lamplugh, Archbishop of York; Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London; William Nicholson, Archbishop of Cashel; Thomas Tanner, Bishop of St. Asaph; William Van Mildert, Bishop of Durham; William Thomson, Archbishop of York, among Prelates: John Owen, Dean of Christ Church; John Mill and Richard Cecil, among Divines: Sir John Davies, Sir Thomas Overbury, William Wycherly, Joseph Addison, Thomas Tickell, William Collins, William Mitford, Jeremy Bentham, Francis Jeffrey, among men of letters: Gerard Langbaine, Thomas Hyde, Thomas Hudson, Edward Thwaites, Christopher Rawlinson, Edward Rowe Mores, Thomas Tyrwhitt, among scholars; Edmund Halley and Henry Highton, among men of science; Sir Edward Nicholas, Sir John Banks, and Sir Joseph Williamson, among lawyers and statesmen--are but a selection of the more distinguished of those to whose equipment the College has contributed in a greater or less degree. May those who now and shall hereafter occupy their places avoid their errors and emulate their virtues.