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between the

ers and the

factory balance sheet'. Parker, who with the other commis- CHAP. L sioners and some of the courtiers was present at Hampton Intervie Court when Henry perused the report, has left on record in his own handwriting the royal comments and the royal decision. As the king glanced down the parchment, he was fain. to admit that he thought he had not in his realme so many persons so honestly maynteyned in lyvyng bi so little lond and rent'. When he enquired the reason why nearly all the colleges seemed involved in an expenditure so much exceeding their revenue, he received for reply that 'yt rose partly of fynes for leases and indentures of the fermours renewing ther leasys, partly of wood salys". Thereupon he significantly observed that 'petye it wer these londes shuld be altered to make them worse,' at which wordes,' says Parker, som wer grieved for that they disapoynted lupos quosdam hiantes. In fine we sued to the Kinges Majestie to be so gracious lorde, that he wolde favour us in the contynuance of our possessions such as thei were, and that no man by his grace's letters shulde require to permute with us to gyve us worse.' Then Henry smiled and put forward the plea to which we have already referred,-of the necessity under which he found himself of rewarding the servants of the state. But he added, says the narrator, that 'he wold put us to our choyce wether we shulde gratifie them or no, and bad us hold our owne, for aftyer his wryting he wolde force us no furder. With which wordes we were wel armyd and so departed'.

a new colleg

The averting of despoliation had not been the only result Rumours of Smith's eloquent pleading with Katharine. In her reply

1 Cooper, Annals, 1 431–8.

This sentence is partially explained by Mr Froude's statement that, in anticipation of dissolution, the lands belonging to some foundations had been granted away in leases upon lives, the incumbents securing their personal interests by fines' (Hist. of England, iv 193). In the visitation of Trinity Hall in 1519, it was found that the society, in alarm at the proposed amalgamation of their foundation with Claro

Hall, had granted three frandulent
leases' to 'three of the yong felowes.'
State Papers, Dom. Edwd. vi, vol, vit.
See also Cooper, Annals, 1123. Fuller
implies that the rentals of college
lands, like those of the monasteries,
had not been raised in proportion to
the general rise of prices at this pe
riod. Hist. of the Unir, (ed. Prickett
and Wright), p. 235.

3 Lamb, Documents, p. 60; Par-
ker Correspondence, pp. 33-36.

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to the university, she intimated that it was her lord's desire

rather to advance learning and erecte new occasion thereof, than to confound those your ancyent and godly instytutions','-a vague assurance, indeed, especially when proceeding from royal lips, but destined in this instance to a splendid realisation. Before two months had elapsed, the long-coveted Fbuildings of the Franciscans, with their stately church and the surrounding cloisters, were seen falling before the hammer of the workman, not however to furnish plunder to the courtier but to serve as material in the erection of a magnificent royal college. On the ground adjacent to King's Hall and Michaelhouse foundations were dug and walls begun. to rise, the commencement, it was rumoured, of a more imposing edifice than had ever before graced the university'. A few months later it became known, that the master and follows of Michaelhouse and the master and scholars of King's Hall had, for the furtherance of the same object, been called upon to surrender their respective houses into the royal hands. At the same time, the society of Gonville Hall was summoned to surrender (in return for an annual pension of £3) the ancient building known as Fiswick's Hostel', which stood on the northern limits of the proposed site".

1 Lamb, Documents, p. 71; Strype, Memorials, vol. 1. pt. i. c. 16.

A particular Survave made the 20th of May, anno regni Regis Henrici Octavi 38, of the late dissolved House of the Grey Freers within the Un versity of Cambridge, as hereafter foweth, that is to say: The Church and Cloyesters with all other the Hes thereupon bil led bine defrced and taken towards the bilding of the K's Majestie's New College, in Cambrile, and therefore valued.

The Soyle whereof with the Or
chard, Brewhouse, Malthouse, M
buse, and Garder, within the Wallis
teftine yerely worth to be letten
fure Pounds six Shillings and eight
Ience stering.

Vis, et Examinat. per me Ro.
Chester, Supervis, Domini Re-
sibidem.
C. MSS. XIM 228.

June 30: 3th of Edward vi.

"At the Freres: 8 stooles for masons to hewe stone off; a roofe tymbre over the Hall at Freres, lying in a store house...... Three sowes of lead, of which one licth where ye Church stode, etc." This shows to what use the Grey Freyers House was converted, viz. towards the building of Trinity College. Baker MSS. xxx 137.

* Founded in 1303 by William Fis. wick, beadle of the university,-the terin Physick Ho tel' being a corruption of his na ne. Here young scholars belonging to Gonvill Hall were first instituted.' Blome ficid, Annals of Gonville and Caius College in Documents, 11 370; see also 11 3734. The only trace (Mr Aldis Wright informs me) now existing of the annual pens.on of £3 is a quit rent of 104. still annually paid by Trinity to Caius College,

Hence the conecit of Fuller, that Trinity College was 'so cailed, not

of TRINITY COLLIGE:

Dec. 1516

And on the 19th of December, 1546, the royal letters were CHAPL granted for the foundation of a college of literature, the Foundation sciences, philosophy, good arts, and sacred theology; consisting of one master and sixty fellows and scholars', to be called 'TRYNITIE COLLEGE, within the towne and universitie of Cambrydge, of Kynge Henry the Eights foundacion'.'

a notable

of the

opposed to

the R

No Cambridge foundation and probably no academic The college institution in Europe furnishes so striking an example as illustration does Trinity College of the change from the mediaeval to the modern, as modern conception of education and learning. It rose on the val, sp ruin of the monasteries. For many a long year after, the Franciscan precincts exhibited only a wide expanse of orchard ground, whereon a few outbuildings were all that remained of the stately structure which had once moved the admiration. of the passer-by. If it were asked to what uses the former fabric had been converted, men pointed to where, scarcely a hundred paces distant, a new and noble college met the view'. In its endowment that college illustrated yet more fully the process of the great revolution, an illustration which, it deserves to be noticed, may still be traced in a somewhat remarkable manner in the extensive church patronage possessed by this society.

cularly ob

It is a fact familiar to the student of the history of these This part times, that, in the gigantic system of impropriations which servable in had long been going on, the monasteries had been largely enriched by the application to their own uses of the great

only because dedicated to God, One in three persons, but also because made by King Henry the Eighth, one of Three Colleges.' Fuller-Prickett and Wright, p. 83.

The cnumeration as given in the Charter of Lotation (Documents, 111 367) does not distinguish between fellows and scholars; Baker (MSS. XI 324) conjectures that the last ten 'at least' were only scholars, According to Dr Richardson's MS. Register,' says Dyer, there were also forty grammar scholars, a schoolmaster, and an usher.' Privileges, 11

77.

Cooper, Annals, 1 411.

M. II.

Fragments of very fine early Gothic tracery and some Norman mouldings were found in the course of a reparation of the chapel in the present century, and are now in the Master's garden. The present Master, to whom I am much indebted for criticism of the above account, says, 'I have no doubt they came from the despoiled "Freres,' "-at any rate the later fragments' (Letter of April 4, 1880). Mr J. Willis Clark informs me that he has come to the conclu sion that although the chapel was probably begun in 1551-55, it was probably not until 1557 that the work began to make any real progress.

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the form a its existing

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patronage

CHAPL tithes paid by the church lands which formed part of their endowment, which were thus often, to quote the expression of Hallam, 'diverted from the legitimate object of maintaining the incumbent to swell the pomp of some remote abbot'.' In no case do these tithes appear to have been restored, at the dissolution of the monasteries, to the Church; instead of enriching the monastery, they were simply applied to enrich the Crown or the courtier. On the present occasion Trinity College stood in the position of the courtier, and like him. seems to have recognised no obligation to restore the great tithes to their ancient use; nor indeed, it must in justice be aded, is there any probability that such a course would have been looked upon as in harmony with the royal founder's design'. But even in the general corruption then prevalent, there were those who could not shut their eyes to the anomaly involved in the spectacle of a college designed mainly for the education of the clergy deriving its chief revenues from the impropriation of church livings. The fyrst parte of reformacion,' said the high-minded Lever at Paul's Cross, 'is to restore and geue agayne all suche thynges as have bene wrongfullye taken and abused....Why dyd God cause the abeyes to be destroyed, but for papystycall abuses? And why shoulde not God plage the vnyuersityes and byshops kepynge and meddelynge wyth improperacions, that bee the same papysticall and deuilish abuses'?' It is however certain that little discretion had been left to the authorities of Trinity College in this matter. In the very same sermon, Lever distinctly implies that the blame of these impropriations rested almost solely with the courtiers, and he makes reference to some daring act of malversation on their part whereby, it would seem, property representing many hundred pounds' of the royal bounty had been diverted from the new foundation, to which, in consequence, the impropriate tithes

'Const. Hist, of England (ed. 1869),

177.

* The Charter of Dotation expressly declares that the master and fellows are to hold the estates adeo plene here et integre ac in tam amplis

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modo et forma prout ultimi abbates, ete......habuerunt,' Documents, 111

381-5.

A sermon preached at Paules Crosse.' Dec. 12, 1550, Lever, Sermons (ed. Arber), pp. 121-5.

offered almost the only remaining source of revenue'. It is CHAP thus that in the long list of livings to which Trinity College presents, no rectorial living appears as derived from monastic church property. The comparatively few rectories to which it has acquired the right of presentation, were either derived through King's Hall or Michaelhouse, as previously appropriated to those foundations, or else were bestowed on the society at a period subsequent to the Reformation'. In this

Was it not a godly and charit able prouysion of the Kynge to geue vnto the vniuersity......mar ye hun dred pounds to the foundaryon and ereccion of a newe Colledge? And was it not a deuilishe denyse of you to tourne all thys the Kinges bonnthouse liberalitye into improperacions of benefices, whyche be papysticall and vncharytable spoyles of most necessarye pronysion for pore paryshes?...He that sette the eares, shall he not heare the sorowfall complaynt of pore paryshes, agaynst you that haue by improperacions clene taken awaye hospitalitye, and muche impared the due liuynges of Gods mynysters, the peoples instructoures and teachers?... He that fashioned the eie, doth he not beholde howe that the beste landes of abbeyes, colleges and chaunteries be in youre handes, and euyll improperacions conweyd to the Kyng and to the univuersities and byshopes landes?' [? handes'] Ibid. p. 121. See, for an able discus. sion of the whole question, bishop Kennet's treatise, On the Impropria. tion of Vicarages, Burnet, long afterwards, spoke of this grievance as the great scandal of our English Reformation.' 'Our fault,' he says, is, that at the dissolution of the monasteries restitution was not made to the parish priests of what the popes had sacrilegiously taken from them.' Burnet-Pocock, Preface to vol. 1, p.

15.

A comparison of the church pa tronage of Trinity with that of St John's will at once suggest the very different conditions under which the respective rights of these two colleges were acquired. The Cambridge Cal endar gives the former as comprising sixty-five livings, of which only ten

are rectories; the latter as comprising fifty-one livings, of which the rectories are thirty-eight. A complete enumeration of the rectorios, churches and advowsons bestowed on Trinity College by Henry vin will be found in Cooper, Annals 1 115-451, In the college statutes of 1560 an endeavour was made in some measure to com. pensate the despoiled parishes by providing that students born in these localities should have the preference, ceteris paribus, in elections to fellowships, see infra, p. 112.

Thus the advow-on of Fakenham was given by Edward 1 to King's Hall, 12 Edw. 3; that of Orwell was bought by Michaelhouse. Hervey de Stanton (see vol. 1 234) bought the perpetual advowson of Cheadle; that of Grandisburgh was purchased by Michaelhouse. Reepham was acquired by exchange for the advowson of North Runcton, which was given to the college in 1623, by Thomas Hope, rector. The advowson of Dickleburgh was given to the college in 16×1 by Dr George Chamberlayne. A third turn of the advowson of Guis. ley was given to the college in 1667 by Sir Thomas Strickland. Gilling was bequeathed by Mr Pigott, the rector, who died in 1812. The alvowson of Loughton was given in 1678 by Francis Crane. That of Papworth Everard was given by Dr Duport in 1671. In the cases of Enfield and Shudy Camps, the great tithes had a ready been impropriated by Sir Thomas Audley and Sir Tho mas Darcy before the king acquired them and gave them to the college.

As regards the impropriations retained by the college, Mr W. Aldis Wright, the bursar (to whose courtesy the author has been indebted for

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