PART IL ates CHAP. III. conclusion, a code was given to the college by Elizabeth Woodville', the queen of Edward IV, who however reserved to herself, the president and five of the senior fellows, full power to alter or rescind any of the provisions during her lifetime. Elizabeth Woodville had once sympathised strongly with the Lancastrian party: she had been one of the ladies in waiting attached to the person of Margaret of Anjou, and her husband had fallen fighting for the Lancastria a cause; it is not improbable therefore that sympathy with her former mistress, then passing her days in retirement in Anjou, may have prompted her to accede to the prayer of Andrew Doket, the first president of the society, and to take the new foundation, henceforth written Queens' College, under her protection. Granted at etition of The duties of our royal prerogative,' says the preamble, 'require, piety suggests, natural reason demands, that we Pred should be specially solicitous concerning those matters where by the safety of souls and the public good are promoted, and poor scholars, desirous of advancing themselves in the knowledge of letters, are assisted in their need.' At the humble request and special requisition' of Andrew Doket, and by the advice of the royal counsellors assembled for the purpose, statutes are accordingly given for the consolidating and strengthening of the new society. The foundation is designed for the support of a president and twelve fellows,all of whom are to be in priest's orders. Every fellow must, Status requl at the time of his election, be of not lower status than that of a questionist if a student in arts, or a scholar, if in theology. When elected he is bound to devote his time either to philosophy or to theology, until he shall have proceeded in be pursued the intervening stages and finally taken his doctor's degree. On becoming a master of arts he is qualified to teach in the Ictureslly trivium and quadrivium for the space of three years; a function which, as it appears to have been a source of emolument, being rewarded by a fixed salary from the college, carlates for fellow minable eration ef three years. 1 I am indebted to the conrtesy of the President of Queens', the Rev. George Phillips, D.D., for permission to use the manuscript copy of these statutes, which have never been printed. is limited to that period; its exercise, on the other hand, is CHAP not obligatory, provided that the fellow's time be devoted to the study of the liberal sciences, or to that of the natural, moral, or metaphysica! philosophy of Aristotle. On the completion of these three years, if a fellow should have no desire to study theology or to proceed in that faculty, he is permitted to turn his attention to either the canon or the civil law: but this can only be by the consent of the master and the majority of the fellows, and the concessive character of the clause would incline us to infer that such a course would be the exception rather than the rule. Respecting Andrew Doket, the first president of Queens', a we have sufficient information to enable us to surmise the character of the influence that prevailed in the college of St. Bernard and subsequently in Queens' College during the thirty-eight years of his energetic rule. He had before been principal of St. Bernard's hostel, and incumbent of St. Botolph's church, and within four years from the time that the foregoing statutes were given by Elizabeth Woodville, we find him executing a deed of fraternisation between the society over which he presided and the Franciscans, who foundation then occupied the present site of Sidney. We have evidence also which would lead us to conclude that he was a hard student of the canon law, but nothing to indicate that he was in any way a promoter of that new learning which already before his death was beginning to be heard of at Cambridge'. A far humbler society was the next to rise after the two royal foundations. Among the scholars on the original foundation of King's College, was Robert Woodlark, afterwards founder and master of St. Catherine's Hall. On Chedworth's retirement from the provostship of King's, when elected to the bishopric of Lincoln, Woodlark was appointed his successor, and under his guidance the college wrung from the university those fatal concessions which have already engaged our attention. That he was an able administrator may 1 Hist. of Queens' College, by Rev. W. G. Searle, pp. 53, 54, PART II. His energetic character. CHAP. IIL be inferred from the prominent part assigned to him on different occasions. His name appears foremost among those of the syndicate appointed for the erection of the new schools; he was clerk of the works at King's College, and the spirit with which he carried on the buildings during the civil wars, when Henry VI was a prisoner, earned him but an indifferent recompense: for confiding in the fortunes of the house of Lancaster, and relying probably on his royal master for reimbursement, he was left to sustain a heavy deficit of nearly £400 which he had advanced from his private fortune'. Such public spirit would alone entitle his memory to be had in lasting remembrance in the university, but 'herein,' says Fuller, he stands alone, without any to accompany him, being the first and last, who was master of one college and at the same time founder of another.' Forbids the stody of the Civil and canon law at MC Cath zine's Hall. There is little in the statutes given by Woodlark to the college which he founded, deserving of remark, beyond the fact that both the canon and the civil law were rigorously excluded from the course of study. The foundation was designed to aid in the exaltation of the Christian faith and the defence and furtherance of holy church by the sowing and administration of the word of God.' It appears to have been the founder's design that it should be exclusively subThe founda servient to the requirements of the secular clergy. The to fit the following oath, to be administered to each of the fellows on his election, shows how completely the whole conception was opposed to that of bishop Bateman:-Item juro quod nunquam consentiam ut aliquis socius hujus collegii sive aulæ ad aliquam aliam scientiam sive facultatem ullo unquam tempore se divertat propter aliquem gradum infra universitatem suscipiendum, præterquam ad philosophiam et sacram theologiam, sed pro posse meo resistam cum ejectu3. tes intended 1 In prosecution of the royal scheme, it was originally commanded that £1000 per annum should be paid to Woodlark out of the estates of the duchy of Lancaster; but owing to the change of dynasty and other canses, a large balance was at last remaining due to the magnanimous provost. Robert Woodlark, by Charles Hardwicke, M.A,, Cam. Antiq. Soc. Accordingly, in the library which Woodlark bestowed on his foundation, not a single volume of the canon or civil law appears. See Catalogue of the Books, etc. edited by Dr Corrie; Cam. Antiq. Soc. Pub, No. 1. If in addition to this fact, we observe that among the few CHA alterations introduced by Chedworth, or Wainfleet, into the statutes given by William of Wykeham to New College at Oxford, the most important was that whereby the students in civil law were reduced from ten to two, and in the canon law from ten to four,-that in the statutes of Queens' College the study of both these branches appears to have been permitted rather than encouraged,-and that in the statutes of Jesus College, which next demand our attention, the study of the canon law was altogether prohibited, while only one of the fellows was allowed to devote himself to the civil law,— we shall have no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that at Cambridge, at least, a manifest reaction with reference to these studies had set in', and that it had become evident to those who sought to foster true learning in her midst, that acquirements which well subserved the purposes of worldly ambition and social success needed but little aid, but that it was far from unnecessary to guard against their attaining to such predominance as to overshadow that higher culture which could only really prosper when pursued as an end in itself and bringing its own reward'' fifteenth century, is to almost pre- CHAP. IIL PART IL of Khade The circumstances attendant upon the foundation of Jesus College, the fourth and last college founded in the Foundation fifteenth century, illustrate both the degeneracy and the higher aims of the age. Among the most ancient religious The runner houses in the town was the nunnery of St. Rhadegund, Fund which, if tradition may be trusted, referred back its origin so far as the year 1133, or not more than forty years later than the foundation of the priory of St. Giles by the wife of Picot the sheriff. The nuns of St. Rhadegund often come under our notice in the early annals of Cambridge. The foundation appears at one time to have enjoyed a fair share of public favour; it was enriched by numerous benefactions, and derived additional prestige from its close The Bunnery connexion with the see of Ely: even so late as the year pron of 1457, we find William Gray,e of the most distinguished under the the bishops of Fay. of the many able men who successively filled the chair of Hugh Balsham, granting a forty days' pardon to all who should contribute to the repair of the conventual church'. But the corruption that so extensively prevailed among the religious houses of every order towards the close of this century invaded likewise the nunnery of St. Rhadegund; The corrupt the revenues of the society were squandered and dissipated; the conduct of the nuns brought grave scandal on their the fteenth profession; and in the reign of Henry VII not more than two remained on the foundation, so that, to borrow the Charter of language of the college charter, 'divine service, hospitality, tion of Jesus or other works of mercy and piety, according to the primary state and tual disso lution with the close of century. the founda College, 14:6. |