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PART II.

debted to Fisher for the latter benefaction; while, in the CHAP. V. design that next claims our attention, the foundation of a new college, it is certain that the countess was not only decided in her choice between the two universities by his counsels, but that neither Oxford nor Cambridge would have been thus enriched had those counsels been wanting.

founders in

Among the most noticeable characteristics of the mu- Motives of nificence of nearly all founders of great institutions in these these times. præ-reformation times, is one on which it would perhaps be unwise to insist too strongly as detracting from the merit of really generous acts, but which cannot be altogether disregarded in estimating the motives that led to the alienation of so much wealth. It is certain that the patrons of learning never themselves sought to disguise the fact that their own spiritual welfare entered largely into their calculations. Throughout the Middle Ages, the Augustinian theory, set forth with so much emphasis by Peter Lombard in the Sentences,—that good deeds are to be performed, not from conformity to any abstract conception of right and wrong, but as acts of obedience to the mandates of the Great Disposer of earthly events and human destinies1,-was the all-prevailing doctrine; and this principle, conjoined with the belief in purgatory, not unfrequently imparts to the designs of genuine benevolence an air of deliberate calculation that might seem, to a superficial observer, to divest them of all claim to disinterestedness. The efficacy of prayers offered up on behalf of those in purgatory was universally taught. The more masses offered up for the souls of the departed, the shorter, it was held, would be the period of their suffering. And thus it was rarely indeed that either a church was built, or a monastery, college, or 'hospital' founded, without a proviso requiring that every year so many masses or prayers should be offered for the spiritual repose of the founder or foundress and of their families. Both the lady Margaret professor and the lady Margaret preacher were bound to pray at stated seasons, and whenever they took part as celebrants in the mass, for

1 See supra, p. 59, note 4.

PART II.

Design of the

connexion

with the

abbey of

CHAP. V. the souls of the countess and certain of her relations. While respecting king Henry, we learn on the authority of Fisher, that notwithstanding his habitual parsimony, 'there was in his realm no virtuous man that he might be credibly informed of, but he gave him a continual remembrance yearly and daily to pray for him; some ten marks and some ten countess in pounds. But the prayers of the secular clergy were never so highly prized as those of the regulars, and over the mind Westminster. of the devout countess the great community of Westminster, with its ancient sanctity, new splendour, and imposing organisation, appears to have exercised no ordinary fascination. The gorgeous chapel in the abbey church, which perpetuates the memory of her royal son, was already commenced, and it was designed that at his side she too should find her earthly resting place; and though the wealth of the abbey was enormous and had been already largely augmented by her liberality, it would seem that her remaining charities would have been similarly bestowed, had it not been for the disinterested and unanswerable remonstrances of Fisher. 'That,' in the language of Baker, 'the religious house at Westminster was already wealthy enough (as it was the richest in England), and did not want support or maintenance,--that the schools of learning were meanly endowed, the provisions for scholars very few and small, and colleges yet wanting to their maintenance, that by such foundations she might have two ends and designs at once, might double her charity and double her reward, by affording as well supports to learning as encouragements to virtue','-were cogent arguments that fortunately prevailed over the superstitious devotion of the countess, and brought it to pass that her wealth, instead of of the univer- Swelling the coffers soon to be plundered so mercilessly3, was sity. given to the foundation of two societies, which, after having graced the university for more than three centuries with

She is dissuaded by the arguments of Fisher.

Signal gain

1 Lewis, Life of Fisher, 1 30.
2 Baker-Mayor, p. 59.

3 Nothing shows more clearly
the force of the shock that followed,
than the upheaving even of the solid
rock of the Abbey as it came on.

Nothing shows more clearly the hold which the Abbey had laid on the affections of the English people, than that it stood the shock as firmly as it did.' Dean Stanley, Memorials of Westminster Abbey, p. 167.

PART II.

many a distinguished name, are still contributing with un- CHAP. V. diminished efficiency to its reputation, adornment, and usefulness.

God's House

dation.

The foundation of God's House, as a school of grammar History of under the government of the authorities of Clare and in the from its founimmediate vicinity of the college, has already come under our notice'. Shortly after its foundation, in consequence of the numerous alterations involved in the erection of King's College, it was removed to St. Andrew's parish'; here it appears to have attained to independence of Clare College, being aided by a grant from Henry VI of property once in possession,-' two cottages formerly belonging to the abbey of Tiltey and a tenement adjoining which had formerly belonged to the abbess of Denny, with gardens adjacent.' We Design of learn indeed from the charter of Christ's College, that it was the design of the good monarch 'to have endowed the society with revenues sufficient for the maintenance of sixty scholars, but the revenues actually granted sufficed only for four".'

Henry VI.

the revenues

In the second of Edward IV we find the society receiving a Accessions to slight accession of revenue in the shape of a rent of ten marks of the society. -'which the prior of Monmouth used to pay to the chief lord of the priory in foreign parts,'—and also a rent of forty shillings which the prior of Newstead-upon-Ancolme used to pay to the abbat and convent of Longvillers. Such was the foundation Design of the which the lady Margaret, acting under the advice of Fisher ret. as above described, resolved to take under her protection, and to raise from a grammar school to a school of arts. The revenues of the present society afford accordingly an instance

1 See p. 349, and Licencia fundandi collegium vulgariter nuncupatum Goddeshous (given 20 Henry vi), in Documents, 1 155-9.

2 The fact that Christ's College stood in this parish is said to have decided the historian, John Major, in his choice of a college (St. Andrew being the patron saint of his nation). He resided at Christ's for about a year. Cooper, Athena, 1 93.

3 There is no mention in the licence, given 24 Hen. vi, of the master and scholars of Clare Hall; but the head of the society of God's House is still

spoken of as a proctor (procurator).

4 Cooper, Annals, 1 189; Nichols, Royal Wills, 369. The society was also endowed with certain revenues from the monasteries of Monmouth, Totness, Newstead, Sawtrey, and Causwell in South Wales; with the priory of Chipstowe, the priory and manor of Ikeham, and the advowsons of Fen Drayton and of Naumby in Lincolnshire. Documents, III 168-9.

5 Documents, 1 59. The same grants had been made in the preceding reign (Ibid. p. 55); there would consequently appear to have been a resumption.

lady Marga

PART II

CHAP. V. of a double conversion,-from monastic uses to those of a grammar school, and from those of a grammar school to those of a college.

The precise time at which Fisher resigned his mastership at Michaelhouse, is not recorded, but in the year 1505 we find one John Fotehede elected to the post', and Fisher's retirement was therefore probably somewhat earlier. Though chancellor of the university, the duties of that office were such as he could for the most part easily delegate to his subordinate, and the affairs of his bishopric and the necessity for frequent attendance at court may naturally have induced him to make his palace at Rochester his habitual residence. So soon however as the countess had resolved upon carrying out her new scheme, his presence at Cambridge, in order to superintend the new works, became apparently indispensable; and it appears that his election to the presidency of Queens' Fisher elect- College, which now took place, was not improbably designed, as Lewis suggests, as a means of providing him with a suitable place of residence during the erection of Christ's College. The president of the former society, Thomas Wilkinson, voluntarily retired from his post at the request of the countess, and his place for the next three years was filled by Fisher. There can be little doubt that while the latter rendered important service to the rising society, it was in no way at the expense of the one over which he presided, for we find that when he resigned the presidency in 1508, the fellows were unanimous in their expressions of regret, and that, at their urgent request, he undertook the responsibility of appointing his successor.

ed president of Queens' College, Apr. 12, 1505.

Foundation

of CHRIST'S

COLLEGE, 1505.

In the year 1505 appeared the royal charter for the foundation of Christ's College, wherein, after a recital of the facts already mentioned together with numerous other details,

1 Cooper, Athenæ, 1 23.

Lewis, Life of Fisher, 1 16.

3 Wilkinson had succeeded Andrew Doket in the presidentship in 1484, and was probably at this time an elderly man. He died in 1511.

4 The bishop,' they said, 'was a man that, without flattery, was very

dear to them all not only on account of his ingenuous humanity, but for his excellent learning and prudence, who they wished had as great a desire to be their president, as they had of continuing him.' Lewis, Life of Fisher, p. 26.

PART II.

it was notified that king Henry, at the representations of his CHAP. V. mother and other noble and trustworthy persons,-percarissimæ matris nostræ necnon aliorum nobilium et fide dignorumand having regard to her great desire to exalt and increase the Christian faith, her anxiety for her own spiritual welfare, and the sincere love which she had ever borne 'our uncle' (Henry VI), while he lived,-had conceded to her permission to carry into full effect the designs of her illustrious relative. That is to say, to enlarge and endow the aforesaid God's House sufficiently for the reception and support of any number of scholars not exceeding sixty, who should be instructed in grammar or in the other liberal sciences and faculties or in sacred theology. The arrival of the charter was soon followed by the intelligence of the countess's noble benefactions; and the university next learned that the humble and struggling society hitherto known as God's House, had received, under its new designation as Christ's College, endowments which placed it fourth, in respect of revenue, among existing colleges1.

settled on

by the lady

'On the 14th of July, 1507,' says Cooper, 'the king Estates granted to the countess the abbey of St. Mary de Pratis, at the society Creyke in Norfolk, with licence to assign the same to this Margaret. college, to which it was subsequently granted with the sanction of the pope. The king, by other letters patent of the same date, empowered the countess to grant to the college the advowson of Manobre in Pembrokeshire, which she accordingly did. She also granted the manors of Malton, Meldreth, and Beach, with lands in those places, and in Whaddon, Kneesworth, Oakington, Orwell, and Barrington,

1 It is to be observed that the new college was an extension not a suppression of the original institution,

the developement of a grammar school into a college for the whole course of the trivium and quadrivium. The mode of procedure was therefore altogether different from that whereby the nunnery of St. Rhadegund was converted into Jesus College, and the house of the Brethren of St. John into St. John's College; of this the expressions addere, annectere, unire,-used with respect to the election of the new scholars by the exist

ing society, and the appointment
of John Sickling, the proctor of God's
House, to the mastership of Christ's,
are evident proof. Baker, in his
History of St. John's College, speaks
of the old society as having been
'suppressed upon the founding of
Christ's College,' and considers that
this suppression' was the reason
that we meet with so few degrees
in grammar after that foundation.'
He also, with equal inaccuracy, speaks
of God's House as originally an
adjunct to King's College instead of
to Clare. See Baker-Mayor, p. 30.

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