Head, a deputy was elected, on each occasion afresh, it would appear. For the older Fellows to have larger revenue and greater influence, seems have been common in all Colleges, although it might be difficult to point out any express Statute to this effect in many of them. This is too natural to deserve further remark.

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I will here cite, only as an isolated curiosity, the meaning of which is not clear to me, a document with the date 1464, entitled, An amicable Agreement or Compact between Queen's College, Cambridge, and Eton College, with the Wykehamite College, at Oxford, [i. e. New College,] and near Winchester; that they may rejoice [ut se gaudent] in mutual defence." This document is mentioned in the Oxoniana, and is printed at length (if I am not mistaken) in Rymer.

There is one point, however, which requires further explanation - namely, the Veto of the Head of the College. The Liberal Opposition brings forward this point among others, as a usurpation of the Elizabethan period, and they certainly can appeal to the contemporaneous complaints of their predecessors: - yet, whatever may be the propriety of such power in such hands, this arrangement belongs so completely to the original disposition of College matters, that it is probably taken for granted in the Statutes. In fact, when we reflect that a College was originally a society of youths, and in part boys, brought together for the purposes of study, whose superior director was an elder man of talent,* to whom was confided their superintendence, and the direction of their corporate affairs, it is almost impossible to imagine that he did not posses a Veto. If the Fellows themselves chose their Principal, and jointly decided all matters of importance, as elections, &c., this rendered a supreme Veto so much the more necessary. For the same reason, and lest an unsuitable man be chosen as Head, the Visitor also had a Veto on his election: and

* [Without disrespect to the numerous able men, who have filled or fill this post, the assertion in the text seems far too strong. Poverty, not Talent, is the indispensable Statutory qualification for being a Fellow in most Colleges and in none whatever

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can it be pretended that the Statutes justify a strong presumption that the Head will be an abler man than the Fellows. But theVeto, if I rightly understand, is that of the Head against the Fellows, some of whom also may be older than the Head.]

this is the reason why his qualifications are not in all Statutes exactly defined. It was as superfluous expressly to recognize his Veto, as the Visitor's. Decisions, which he could neither approve nor execute, and elections, which he refused to ratify, naturally remained in suspense, until the Visitor had decided: and it was always to be presumed, that the latter would support the anthority of the Head. We do not speak here of wilful and arbitrary conduct, manœuvres, or evil intrigues. These were exceptions, in which the Fellows also were able to have recourse to the Visitor. At the same time, we are by no means without distincter evidence, in support of the Veto. In the first place, the Chancellor and Heads of the Colleges in Cambridge declared very decidedly before the Council of State, in reply to the complaints of the Opposition in 1572, (Lamb p. 384,) that the negative vote was contained in the Statutes of all the Colleges, with the exception of two or three. Beside this, they appealed to a Royal Ordinance of 1543, concerning the government of Colleges; nor can any one take it amiss, that I lay more stress upon this testimony, than upon the vague, confused, and exaggerated complaints of the Opposition, which moreover are directed chiefly against the injurious tendencies of this Veto, and but seldom attack it as a usurpation. Unfortunately, I am scarcely able to judge of the College Statutes, either in Oxford or Cambridge, from personal inspection. Neither Wood, Parker, Dyer, nor any one else gives satisfactory explanations in this respect. The statutes, however, which are communicated by Parker (p. 178) as given by Richard II. to King's Hall in Cambridge, contain matter referring to this point. In the first place, there are many regulations in them, which mark the great power of the Head over the Fellows in matters of discipline. The following document is a proof of this : — " In all great and arduous business of the said house, the aforesaid Warden shall undertake nothing without the consent of all the Fellows, or of the greater part of them but in all other business, the Warden may ordain, and dispose as may seem most fit," &c.- Should any one still doubt whether the Veto of the Warden is here implicitly expressed; (i. e. the principle, that no matters of importance can be undertaken

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unless he concurs with the majority of the Fellows,) the sense of the following, at all events, is* evident. Also, if any person or persons be elected to any office by the Warden and the majority of the Committee (comitiva), &c., let it not be lawful to decline this office."-As to the admission of new Fellows, the final veto may certainly be found in the duty of the Head to examine new candidates. The Statutes of Oriel College, communicated by Hearne, fully agree in this particular. In the very first Statutes, we have the following (Thorkelowe, appendix, p. 304): "No letter shall be written or signed with the said seal, unless first examined by the said Provost and Guardians [Trustees? custodes]; or, if it concern any great matter, by the said Society, and sealed in their presence.” — In other words, the principle is precisely the same as that above alluded to. It may be found even still more decidedly, in the title, introduction, and manner of drawing up of all the later Statutes, in which mention is made, at the same time, of the position of the Visitor—for instance, in the supplementary Statutes of 1364 (p. 307). "The ordinances," they are called, "of the Provost and Scholars of the House of the Blessed Mary, at Oxford, confirmed by Henry, Bishop of Lincoln, by the common consent of the said," &c. And further on we find the passage, "Let all men know, that the ordinances written below were made and established by the Provost and

H H

[Our Author's opinion on the matter may be very just, and it is far from my thought to controvert it; but the arguments which he adduces, seem to me to weaken his case. The Col. lege Seal was probably in the keeping of the Provost; and whatever letter or deed was signed with such a seal, legally implicated the whole Collegiate corporation. Hence it was possible that he might even alienate the College property, if some check were not placed on the use of the seal: and to avert this danger, the Statute requires, that in ordinary cases the Custodes, in extraordinary the whole body of Fellows, should have a joint control over the sealing. But how different this from vesting in the Head a right to resist the unanimous wish of the Fellows!]

Scholars," &c. And that this formula was the one generally observed in all Colleges, for such and similar acts, is evident enough from the statements of Wood and others, so that, in this respect, it is almost indifferent, whether we have any really perfect Statutes before us or not: for, although the minor part of them perhaps may have contained a clause expressly declaring that the Head had a right to a Veto, yet the absence of such an express declaration only proves, under the circumstances, that it was looked upon as a fact which no one doubted. It is really a pity, that the confidence with which assertions are made, in order to flatter preconceived opinions devoid of historical truth, should render it necessary to enter into detailed explanations of points, which may be regarded as a matter of course.

NOTE (72) Referred to in Page 150.

Authority of the Heads of Colleges in the University.

We can find, even early in the fourteenth century, traces of a direct communication between the higher Powers and the Heads of the Colleges, in which the latter are looked upon as, at least in conjunction with the Chancellor, Heads of the University.

A Royal Letter, of the year 1339, for the maintenance of the Statutes and Ordinances, against the disorders occasioned by the butchers; is addressed to the Chancellor and the Warden of Merton College (v. Wood). This case, however, cannot be looked upon as an isolated one. On the contrary, it authorizes a conclusion, "à fortiori," that if the Warden of Merton was called upon to give his co-operation in such a case, in which he and his house were by no means directly concerned, and which treated of matters not at all belonging to the University, how much more in those which bore upon the Academic discipline. The want of more documents and notices of this kind (with reference to other Provosts and Wardens) is no argument against this opinion, since so little has been preserved at all.

Next, as to the exercise of Ecclesiastical authority, [by the

Heads,] I know of only one decided instance; but it must not, in consequence, be looked upon as an anomaly. The ninth clause of the Arundelian Constitutions of 1408, refers expressly to the co-operation of the Heads of the Colleges, in watching over and rooting out the Lollard heresies. We need no evidence, (yet

evidence we have,) that, under these circumstances, the Chancellor could not avoid consulting with the Heads of the more considerable Colleges, on the execution of the Statutes, and, consequently, on proposals and discussions which bore reference to them. Independently of the first traces of the Black Congregation, we find that the Chancellor of Oxford, in the fifteenth century, assembled the Principals and Heads of Places, (the word Places being evidently used for Houses,) and called upon them to admonish their scholars, to observe in the strictest manner the prohibition of intercourse issued against the University's hereditary enemy, Alderman Haynes. We cannot suppose, that they would have agreed in such measures, if the prohibition had been issued by the Convocation, against their will. Again, in 1512, the Chancellor consulted with the Heads of Colleges and Halls, as to stricter measures against the Chamberdekyns.—Of course matters took a similar course in Cambridge. I can find no decided evidence upon this point, prior to the first half of the sixteenth century: but that is of such a nature, as to render the ancient origin of proceedings of the kind undoubted. I refer to various writs addressed upon very different subjects, to the Vice-chancellor and Heads of the Colleges, by the Privy Council,-contained in Lamb's Collection.

NOTE (73) REFERRED TO IN PAGE 159.

The Visitations of 1555-7.

[There is something in the dates of this Note, which I cannot understand; but I have not the means of verifying them. I add this notice, merely that they may not be taken for misprints.]

The documents relating to the Visitation of 1556, in Cambridge, and its consequences, together with the journal of the Registrar at * [This argument seems to me to lean decidedly the other way.]