CHAPTER VI

Round Church.--Union Society.--The "Great Bridge," Hithe.--=Magdalene College=, Buckingham College, Pepys, Charles Kingsley, the "College Window," Master's Garden.--Castle Hill, Camboritum, Cromwell's Rampart, Repulse of Charles I, the "Borough," View from Castle.--St. Peter's Church.--"School of Pythagoras."--Westminster College.--Ridley Hall.--=Newnham College.=--=Selwyn College.=--Convent of St. Radegund, Bishop Alcock.--Midsummer Common.--Boat Houses, Bumping Races.--=Jesus College=, "Chimney," Cloisters, Chapter House, Chapel, Cranmer, Coleridge.

Starting once more from the Great Gate of Trinity and turning northwards past St. John's we soon reach the "Via Devana," the old Roman road which, as has been said, is the backbone of Cambridge, traversing the town, under various names, from end to end. At this point of its course it is called Bridge-street. Opposite to us, as we enter it, rises one of the most distinctive buildings of Cambridge, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, popularly known as "the Round Church." Its strange shape is an echo of the Crusading period, during the whole of which such reproductions of the famous church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, the deliverance of which from the Turks was the Crusaders' dream, were erected in various parts of England. Earliest in date comes the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Northampton, built at the very beginning of the twelfth century, in the opening fervour of the first Crusade, which has also given us the beautiful old chapel of Ludlow Castle (now in ruins) and this church in Cambridge. The gallant but fruitless effort of Richard Coeur de Lion to retrieve the disastrous loss of Jerusalem is commemorated by the Temple Church in London, completed at the very close of that century; while the yet more fruitless endeavours of Edward the First, a century later again, in the last expiring flash of Crusading zeal, inspired the latest of our English Round Churches, that of Maplestead in Essex. In all these churches the reproduction of their original is of a very modified character.

So it is with our Cambridge example. It consists, indeed, (or, rather originally consisted) of a circular nave surrounded by an ambulatory, like its Jerusalem prototype, and _may_, like it, have had a domed roof, though this is scarcely probable. But there the likeness must always have ended; and the structure has, in later days, been altered and re-altered time after time. At first there was probably a small semicircular eastern apse, which within a century gave place to an Early English chancel. This, in turn, was superseded by the present chancel with its aisles, built in the fifteenth century, when an octagonal bell-tower was also erected over the nave. Finally, in 1841, the newly-formed "Camden Society" for the restoration of ancient churches was permitted to work its will upon this one, and proceeded to reconstruct it in accordance with what they imagined ought to have been the design of its first builders.[88] And this imaginary ideal, with its pointed roof and tiny Norman windows, is all that we now see. Nevertheless, the sight, more especially inside, is impressive in no small degree.

[Footnote 88: This design included the undoubted feature of a stone altar, the setting up of which gave occasion, after much litigation, for the promulgation of the well-known Judgment, which declares that in the Church of England the Law permits only a movable wooden table.]

[Illustration: _The Church of the Holy Sepulchre._]

Behind the Round Church rise the sumptuous rooms of the "Union[89] Society," a University club primarily instituted as an association for the cultivation of oratory amongst undergraduates, which has now added to its central debating hall a library, dining-room, smoking-room, and the other adjuncts of a first-class club. Here, on each Tuesday evening during Term, debates are held, usually on current political or social situations, theological polemics being strictly barred. When the Society was first instituted, in the early decades of the nineteenth century, current politics were also prohibited (by the University authorities), and could only be discussed under a decent veil of reference to antiquity. But the comparative merits of the causes championed by Caesar and Pompey, or by the Cavaliers and Roundheads, were so easily made to apply to the burning questions of the day, that the prohibition speedily become obsolete. Many a well-known Parliamentary orator has won his first fame on the benches of the Union, Lord Macaulay being a notable example. His perfervid outpourings here swept away all opposition, and his friend and contemporary, Mackworth Praed, records how the issue of any debate is irrevocably decided--

"When the Favourite comes, With his trumpets and drums, And his arms, and his metaphors, crossed."

[Footnote 89: So called because in union with the twin Society at Oxford; members of each having, _ipso facto_, all the privileges of membership in the other.]

Leaving the Round Church behind us, and proceeding westwards, we pass the Church of St. Clement, with its inscription DEUM COLE ("Worship God"), which has nothing to detain us, and shortly arrive at "the Great Bridge,"[90] that famous passage of the river to which the town owes its name and its very existence. It can never have been an imposing structure, in spite of its high-sounding title, and is now represented by an exceedingly commonplace iron span. But, as the only passage of the Cam approachable by an army, in fore-drainage days, for many a long mile, it was of old a strategic point of first-class importance, and more than once played a notable part in English history. Its possession by the anti-monarchical forces shattered the last efforts both of King John and of Charles the First, and brought about, as we shall see, the speedy ruin and death of the former.

[Footnote 90: So called to distinguish it from the smaller town bridges by Newnham Mill and Garret Hostel.]

To the North of the Bridge, and on the Eastern bank of the River, is the last of the many "Hithes" (or Quays), of which we read so much in connection with old Cambridge, remaining in actual use for traffic. Here we may to this day see exemplified the ancient local proverb, "Here water kindleth fire;" for barges loaded with fire-wood and turf from the fens still discharge their cargoes at this spot.

The old name of the Great Bridge has, for at least a century,[91] been commonly superseded by the appellation of "Magdalene Bridge," which provokes singularly humiliating comparisons with the beautiful structure bearing that name at Oxford. In both cases it is derived from the adjoining College of St. Mary Magdalene (spelt, by a mere freak, at Oxford without the final e). Our College, however, is of a sadly lower grade than that at Oxford, with its ideal tower, and its beautiful chapel, and its grey cloisters, and its green "Walks" beside the Cherwell. Here we have but little beauty, and no very great historical interest. The College was first founded, in the middle of the fifteenth century, for the benefit of Benedictine students. It belonged to the great Abbey of Crowland, in the Huntingdonshire Fenland (though Ely, and other neighbouring Benedictine Houses, took

## part in the building), and was called Buckingham College, from its

first special benefactor, Henry Stafford, the second Duke of Buckingham. At the suppression of the Abbeys, this College, like all other monastic property, was confiscated by King Henry the Eighth, who granted it to his favourite, Thomas Audley, Lord Chancellor. By him it was re-founded under its present name, and the nomination of the Master continues, even to this day, to be vested in his descendants. The existing representative of his family is Lord Braybrooke;[92] the name of whose seat, at Audley End, near Saffron Walden in Essex, records the fact that the whole property of the Benedictine Abbey of Walden was also granted to Lord Chancellor Audley. This Abbey had shared in the building of Buckingham College.

[Footnote 91: We find "Magdalene Bridge" in Wordsworth's "Prelude."]

[Footnote 92: Over the entrance gateway may be seen the arms of Lord Braybrooke's family, the Nevilles. These are also the arms of the College.]

The beginnings of the re-founded College were on a very small scale, with only a single College servant (who acted as cook). Even forty years later this number, as Dr. Caius tells us, had only increased to three. To this day, indeed, Magdalene remains a small and select College. It consists of a single Court, representing Buckingham College, and the further side only of a second Court beyond. This isolated side, an admirable arcade, built at the close of the seventeenth century, contains the special treasure of the College, the collection of books bequeathed to it by the famous diarist, Samuel Pepys. This remains, as he himself arranged it, in twelve oaken "presses" with glass doors; the books on each shelf being brought to a common top level by appropriately graduated blocks of wood (shaped in imitation of their backs) inserted under each. The Library is on view on Tuesdays and Thursdays during Full Term, from 11.30 to 1 o'clock. Over the door is the Pepys motto: _Mens cujusque is est quisque._ ("Each man's mind is his very Self.")

Pepys had been a student here, and his portrait, by Lely, hangs in the Hall. So does that of another distinguished Magdalene man, Charles Kingsley, who was in residence 1839 to 1842. College tradition still records how he used surreptitiously to climb out of the College in the very early summer mornings, to be off on one of those piscatorial excursions which he so dearly loved. Another well-known writer connected with Magdalene is Mr. A. C. Benson, whose "College Window" was in the ground floor of the Pepysian Library range, on the North side, looking into the gardens of the Master's Lodge. In these gardens is a high terraced walk, beneath an old wall. Both terrace and wall are supposed to be connected with the ancient defences of Cambridge, but this is not proven.

[Illustration: _St. Peter's Church._]

We have, however, now come to the region where those defences did actually exist. For beyond this wall to the West rises the steep slope, partly natural and partly artificial, of the "Castle Hill," towering into the great mound on which stood the Norman Keep. This was built by William the Conqueror; but long before his day the site, defensible by nature, and commanding the all-important passage of the river, had been utilised for military purposes. Here, probably, was a British post, the _Cam-Rhydd_ or "Ford of the Cam," which became the Roman Camboritum.[93] Here Oliver Cromwell, as commander over the forces of the "Associated Counties,"[94] set up fortifications which baffled the gallant effort to retrieve his fallen fortunes made by Charles the First after the fatal battle of Naseby. Having there left his matchless infantry, "lying with their pikes charged every way as when they lived," the unfortunate monarch, with the remains of his cavalry, broke through the network of the enemies' squadrons in full pursuit "like hounds after a fresh stag," and made a dash for the Eastern Counties, "where he had a party forming." Huntingdon he took by surprise, and "twice affronted the lines of Cambridge." But these were too strong to be rushed by horse-soldiers, and, as there was no other passage over the Cam, he had to retire, finally evading his pursuers, and making his way safely to Oxford, with all the loot acquired in this raid, "six waggons loaded with money, two thousand horses, and three thousand head of cattle." And the remembrance of Anglo-Saxon lines of defence round the site is perpetuated in the name "Borough," which still clings to it.

[Footnote 93: In spite of the enticing similarity of sound, it is fairly established that the word Camboritum is not the parent of the word Cambridge. In mediaeval times we only read of "Granta-bridge."]

[Footnote 94: These were Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambs, Hunts, Beds and Herts, which combined to raise a common force (on the Parliamentary side).]

Many antiquarians, indeed, hold that the Cambridge of early days (anyhow down to the ninth century) was wholly confined to this small area, some quarter of a mile square, and that the extension of the town across the river was due to the expulsion of the inhabitants by Danish and Norman intruders. Be that as it may, we are here undoubtedly in the earliest Cambridge. The Castle has gradually passed away, till no ruins, even, are now left. Its modern representative, the County Court-house, where the Assizes are held, and the County Gaol, stand at the western foot of the great mound, whereon the Norman Keep no longer rises. From the summit is to be obtained a delightful view of Cambridge, with the "green-muffled" ring of the Backs, and the grey inner ring of the river-side Colleges, dominated by King's College Chapel, girding in the western flank of the Town, and starting almost from our feet; the long line of the East Anglian heights bounding our southern and eastern prospect; and to the north the "boundless plain," with the towers of Ely on the far horizon.

Close below us, and really at our very feet, rise the two churches of this earliest Cambridge, that of St. Giles, now merely a handsome modern edifice of imposing size, and that of St. Peter, also modern in its present form, but embodying some ancient features. It is the smallest church in Cambridge, only thirty-five feet in length by fifteen in width, being the reconstructed fragment of a larger structure built in the twelfth century, and pulled down in the eighteenth, when the Parish was united to that of St. Giles. It contains a fine late Norman font, with grotesque figures at each corner--two-tailed Mer-men, each grasping his tails in either hand. At one time the Borough had yet a third church, "All Hallows by the Castle" (so called to distinguish it from "All Hallows in the Jewry"), but this has wholly disappeared, Parish and all.

[Illustration: _Remains of St. Radegund's Priory._]

Beyond the spire of St. Peter's, as seen from the top of Castle Hill, may be distinguished a small mediaeval building, known, for some forgotten reason, by the high-sounding title of "the School of Pythagoras." This lies just off the street to the eastward, at the point where this ceases to be a street, and merges into the open road that runs along the Backs. It is worth seeking out, for it is a picturesque little edifice, and an interesting example of a twelfth-century house built of stone. Wood, or, at the best, brick, were the materials then commonly used. In spite of the name, there is no reason to suppose that it was ever used for scholastic purposes, or anything more than a mere private dwelling-house. But Walter de Merton, the founder of Merton College, Oxford, actually acquired land hereabouts, apparently with some idea of starting a sister establishment at Cambridge. This land still belongs to Merton.

The great red brick and white stone edifice opposite the entrance to the School of Pythagoras is "Westminster College," wherein candidates for the Presbyterian ministry go through their theological course, after completing their secular studies at the University. A like institution for Anglicans, built in like style (which, indeed, is all but universal in modern academic work), is Ridley Hall, at the other end of the Backs. Neither of these is recognised by the University as anything more than a private lodging-house, nor is the similar (but much smaller) Roman Catholic seminary of Edmundhouse, on the slope above Westminster College.

The same non-recognition extends to the great Ladies' College of Newnham, which flings out its widespread "halls" over a lavish space adjoining Ridley. The grand bronze entrance gates to these "vestal precincts," inscribed with the name of the first Principal of the College, Miss Anne Jemima Clough (sister to the poet Arthur Clough) are hard by the more modest entrance to Ridley, and admit the visitor to a scene which reminds us of those in Tennyson's "Princess." And there are almost as many maidens here as he has assigned to his imaginary College, for Newnham is surpassed in the number of its students by Trinity only. Each has her own room, in which the bed becomes by day a sofa. Each is assigned to one of the "Halls," which in many respects are treated as separate entities, but all share the common collegiate life. There is, however, no chapel, for Newnham is most strictly undenominational. Students are, of course, free to attend any place of worship they may prefer, the preference being largely given to King's College Chapel. Hence a French traveller, who came over to study Women's Education in England, is said to have answered when asked on his return what religion was professed at Newnham: "Mostly, I think, the King's religion."

[Illustration: _Jesus College Gateway._]

The other Ladies' College, at Girton, has got a chapel, where the Church of England services are performed. This is the oldest of all the ladies' colleges connected with Oxford or Cambridge, and hence comes its position no less than two miles to the west of Castle Hill; for when the idea was first started, the close proximity of young men was deprecated almost in the trenchant spirit of Princess Ida. The very first start, indeed, was made (in 1869) no less than thirty miles away, at Hitchin, and only when this was found intolerable did the pioneers move (in 1872) to Girton.[95] There the beautiful grounds and splendid range of buildings give an impression of space rivalling Newnham; but the College is not nearly so large, and is somewhat more select. Here each student has a sitting-room as well as a bedroom, after the fashion of the men's Colleges.

[Footnote 95: Newnham is just younger, having been opened 1875. It then consisted of one Hall only.]

Immediately to the north of Newnham is Selwyn College, a denominational institution belonging to the Church of England, corresponding to Keble College at Oxford, and, like it, recognised by the University, not indeed as a College, but as a "Public Hostel," whose undergraduates are not mere "non-collegiate students." Such "unattached" students are under a "Censor" and a special syndicate, and have a centre in the "Fitzwilliam Hall" (close to the museum of that name), where they have to report themselves daily.

[Illustration: _The Back Court, Jesus College._]

Looking eastwards from the Castle Hill, we see a wide, open green stretching from the further bank of the river, and beyond it a low church tower rising amid trees. This is the tower of Jesus College Chapel, once the Priory Church of St. Radegund. This lady was a Frankish queen of the sixth century, and a friend of the poet Venantius, the author of the well-known hymns _Vexilla Regis_ and _Pange Lingua_. Under her dedication a Benedictine nunnery was founded here at the beginning of the eleventh century. It was never a large or wealthy institution, but continued to flourish for four hundred years and more. In 1455 its account books, still preserved among the archives of Jesus College, show an income of L70 per annum, equivalent in purchasing power to some L1,200 at the present value of money. Every Benedictine nun ranked socially as a gentlewoman, so that this income needed careful administration to make it suffice for the nine or ten sisters in residence. The Convent, however, was at this date quite solvent, but in less than twenty years a single incapable Prioress had run it deep in debt. The butcher's bill alone then amounted to L21 (equivalent to over L350), and, having no cash to pay withal, the nuns were taking two of his daughters free amongst the boarders whom they educated. They were also alienating their capital, so that the income was rapidly dwindling. In 1481 it had decreased by more than 50 per cent., and was only L30. The next Prioress was a strong and capable ruler, imposed upon the convent by the Bishop of the Diocese, who was its Visitor. But things had gone too far, and, in spite of her efforts, the place dwindled away. By 1496 there were only two nuns left, and, under Royal license, the convent was turned into "Jesus College" by the same Visitor. His name was Alcock, so his coat of arms bore three cocks' heads, with yet another cock for crest. This device confronts us at every turn in our passage through the College.

[Illustration: _Jesus College Chapel, East End._]

To reach it from Castle Hill, the most pleasant way is by descending the street, and turning to the left past St. Giles' Church. This road will soon bring us to the river, at a lock, where we cross by an iron foot-bridge. We are now on the open Green we saw from above, which is known as "Midsummer Common," from the great fair held there at that season. As we make our way over it, we see to our left along the river bank the long white boathouses[96] of the various colleges; for it is not till below this lock that the river becomes navigable for an eight-oar, and all the University rowing is done between it and that next below, at Baitsbite, three miles and more down the stream to the northward. Baitsbite[97] is the starting-point of the annual college races, held at the conclusion of the May Term.[98] As is well known, these are decided by "bumping," the boats all starting simultaneously one behind another, with a clear interval of two lengths between each. Any boat making a bump takes the place of its defeated rival in the next race, and has the privilege of rowing back to its boat-house with its flag flying.[99] This is also done by the boat Head of the River, which, of course, cannot bump, though it may be bumped. Should a boat make its bump on each of the four evenings that the races last, the crew are said to "get their oars," each man's oar becoming his personal property and being usually hung in his rooms as a trophy, appropriately painted with the College colours. These colours are also worn for racing; the most easily recognised being the bright scarlet of Lady Margaret (St. John's), the black and white of Trinity Hall, the green of Queens', the black and yellow of Clare, and the red and black of Jesus. The flags always bear the College arms, except that "First Trinity" fly the three crowned lions of King Edward the Third.

[Footnote 96: These are large wooden edifices containing sheds for the boats below and dressing-rooms for the crews above.]

[Footnote 97: See