concessions, in retaining those privileges which have formed CHAP. m the distinctive feature of the foundation up to our own day'. It has been conjectured, and the conjecture is sufficiently plausible, that this imperium in imperio which this society succeeded in establishing, took its alleged justification in those immunities and privileges which the Mendicants so long enjoyed and for which they so strenuously contended”. However this may have been it will scarcely be denied by the most enthusiastic admirers of the conception of William of Wykeham, that the triumph gained by the fellows of King's College largely partook of the character of a Cadma-an victory, and it reflects no little honour on the integrity and sagacity of its first provost that he protested so vigorously against so suicidal a policy. It would indeed be useless to assert that a society which has sent forth scholars like Sir John Cheke, Richard Croke, Walter Haddon, Winterton, Hyde, and Michell, mathematicians like Oughtred, moralists like Whichcote, theologians like Pearson, antiquarians like Cole, and even poets like Waller, has not added lustre to the university of which it forms a part; but it would be equally useless to deny that when its actual utility, measured by the number and celebrity of those whom it has nurtured, is compared with that of other foundations of far humbler resources, its princely revenues and its actual services seem singularly disproportionate. For more than a century from its commencement this royal foundation was by far the wealthiest in the university. In the survey of the commissioners, Parker, Redman, and Mey, in the year 1546, its A singular illustration of the im munitica granted to the college dur ing the life time of the foun ler is to be found in an act passed in the year 1473 for raising 13,000 archers for the king's service, wherein a clanse expressly exempts the provost and scholars of this foundation from the oblation of furnishing their quota to the levy imposed on the county of Cambrid,e. Rot. Parliament, v 212. Cooper, Annale, 1 205. Hook, Laces of the Archhipt., w 4. It is certan that, in the spirit in which its statutes were conceived, King's College malo a closer ap. Some of their most remarkalle PAST IL PART II CHAP. III. revenues were double those of St. John's, which stood second, and were only surpassed when the large endowment of Trinity arose at the end of the same year'. The comparative wealth of these three colleges remained nearly the same, until the far wider activity of the two younger foundations reaped a natural and honorable reward in the grateful munificence of their sons and the generous sympathy of strangers; while the foundation of Henry VI, shut in and narrowed by endless restrictions, debarred from expansion with the requirements of the age, and self-excluded from cooperation and free intercourse with the university at large, long remained, to borrow the expression of dean Peacock, 'a splendid cenotaph of learning,'—a signal warning to founders in all ages against seeking to measure the exigencies and opportunities of future generations by those of their own day, and a notable illustration of the unwisdom which in a scrupulous adherence to the letter of a founder's instructions violates the spirit of his purpose. Tomation QUEENS' Another royal foundation followed upon that of King's. In the year 1445 the party led by cardinal Beaufort had succeeded in bringing about the marriage of the youthful monarch with Margaret of Anjou, daughter of Réné, titular king of Sicily and of Jerusalem. It was hoped that the policy of the vacillating and feeble husband might be strengthened by the influence of a consort endowed with many rare qualities. The civil wars were not calculated for the exhibition of the feminine virtues, but there is sufficient Margaret of reason for believing that Margaret of Anjou, though her name is associated with so much that belongs to the darkest phase of human nature, was cruel rather by necessity than by disposition or choice. But whatever may have been the PART IL Terits or demerits of her personal character, it is certain that CHAP her sympathies were entirely with the Ultramontanists, and her policy was systematically directed to the encouragement of friendly relations with her own country, in opposition to " the popular party represented by the duke of Gloucester. It was during a brief lull in that tempestuous century, when the war in France had been suspended by a truce, and the civil war at home had not commenced, that the following petition was addressed by this royal lady to her husband :— To the King my souverain lord. BESECHETH mekely Margarete quene of Englond youred humble wif, forasmuche as youre moost noble grace hath newely ordeined and stablisshed a collage of seint Bernard in the Universite of Cambrigge with multitude of grete and faire privilages perpetuelly appurtenyng unto the same as in youre les patentes therupon made more plainly hit appereth In the whiche universite is no collage founded by eny quene of Englond hider toward, Plese hit therfore unto youre highnesse to geve and graunte unto youre seide humble wif the fondacon and determinacon of the seid collage to be cailed and named the Quenes collage of sainte Margarete and saint Bernard, or ellis of sainte Margarete vergine and martir and saint Bernard confessour, and therupon for ful evidence thereof to have licence and powir to ley the furst stone in her owne persone or ellis by other depute of her assignement, so that beside the mooste noble and glorieus collage roial of our Lady and saint Nicholas founded by your highnesse may be founded the seid so called Quenes collage to conservacon of oure feith and augmentacon of pure clergie namely of the imparesse of alle sciences and facultees theologie...to the ende there accustumed of plain lecture and exposicōn bo traced with docteurs sentence autentig' performed daily resound twyes by two docteurs notable and wel avised upon the bible aforenoone and maistre of the sentences afternoone to the 1 PART IL Fuller's crit.cista publique audience of alle men frely bothe seculiers and religieus to the magnificence of denominacōn of suche a Quenes collage and to laud and honneure of sexe femenine, like as two noble and devoute contesses of Pembroke and of Clare founded two collages in the same universite called Pembroke halle and Clare halle the whiche are of grete reputācōn for good and worshipful clerk is that by grete multitude have be bredde and brought forth in theym, And of youre more ample grace to graunte that all privileges immunities profits and comodites conteyned in the res patentes above reherced may stonde in theire strength and pouoir after forme and effect of the conteine in them. And she hal ever preye God for you' As Miltiades' trophy in Athens,' says Fuller, 'would not suffer Themistocles to sleep, so this Queen beholding her hus Land's bounty in building King's College was restless in herself with holy emulation until she had produced something of the like nature, a strife wherein wives without brezach of duty may contend with their husbands which shold exceed in pious performances.' The college of St. of Bernard, to which reference is made in Margaret of Anjou's petition, was but a short-lived institution. We find, from the enrolment of the charter of the first foundation preserved in the Public Record Office, that it was designed for the extirpation of heresies and errors, the augmentation of the faith, the advantage of the clergy, and the stability of the church, whose mysteries ought to be entrusted to fit persons.' Bat before it had taken external shape and form, the society acquired land and tenements on a different site from that originally proposed,-the site of the present first court, cloister court, and part of the fellows' building of Queens' College The original charter was accordingly returned into the chancery with the petition that it might be cancelled and anothe er issued, authorising the erection of the college on the newly acquired site next to the house of the Carmelite friars, where greater scope was afforded for future culargements. St. 11 st. of the Queens' College of W. G. Searle, M.A., pp. 15, 16. 'In PART II. The petition was granted and another charter, that of CHAP. IIL August 21, 1447, was accordingly prepared, permitting the foundation of the college of St. Bernard on the new site. this charter,' says Mr Searle, the king appears in some but be degree to claim the credit of being the founder of the college, as the reason for its exemption from all corrodies, pensions, etc. (which might be granted by the king, ratione dicte fundationis nostri) is expressed in the words, eo quod colle gium predictum de fundatione nostra, ut premittitur, existit. ५ It was at this juncture of affairs that Margaret of Anjou f presented her petition, and as the result, the charter of 1447d was like its predecessor cancelled, and the new site with the tenements thereon was transferred to the queen, with licence to make and establish another college to be called the 'Queen's College of St. Margaret and St. Bernard in the university of Cambridge.' In exercise of the permission thans conceded the royal lady, by an instrument bearing date 15 April, 1448, founded a new society, for a president and four fellows; she was at this time searedly twenty years of age, but her abilities and energetie temperament, combined with her commanding position, had already made her perhaps the foremost person in the realm. The archives of the college still preserve to us the aspect under which the work presented itself to her mind, and the motives that led to its vires and conception. It is as the world advances to its old age and as virtue is fading away, as the wonted devotion of mankind is becoming lukewarm, the fear of God declining, and under the conviction that the sacred lore of Cambridge, four fair and immaculate mother, under whose care the whole Church of England lately flourished,' is fast deteriorating, that Margaret of Anjou seeks to lay the foundation stone of the College of St. Margaret and St. Bernaal. We have no evidence that any statutes were given to the new society during the reign of Henry VI, and it is probable that the outbreak of the civil wars called away the attention of royalty to more urgent matters; but in the year 1475, when the sanguinary struggle had been brought to a temporary Hist. of the Queens' College, p. 7. • Ibid. p. 16, |