We have seen that Jesus and St John’s Colleges were founded by means of the dissolution of monastic houses. Magdalene, founded thirty-one years after St John’s, was merely the final step in the secularisation of a religious house. In 1428 Henry VI. granted the site of the present college to the monks of Crowland, who wished to found a hostel at Cambridge for the use of their scholars at that University. The Abbeys of Ely, Ramsey and Walden joined with Crowland in the work, and contributed to the building. In the latter half of the century this theological college, as we should call it, received substantial aid from Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, whose favours were continued in 1519 by his son Edward. In recognition of the benefactions of Duke Henry, the hostel took its title of Buckingham College. The foundation seems to have departed gradually from its original purpose, for laymen were admitted to it before the dissolution. However, it was only natural that, when Crowland surrendered to the King, its dependent house should surrender also. The crown resumed the property in December, 1539. Henry VIII. granted the messuages of Buckingham College to Thomas, Lord Audley of Walden, who also became possessed of Walden Abbey. In all probability, the original connection between the abbey and the college induced him to refound the institution on a new plan. He reconstituted it in 1542 under the name of the College of St Mary Magdalene. Since his day, through all the vicissitudes of his family, Magdalene College has remained under the protection and patronage of the owner of Audley End, a stately and beautiful appendage to the noblest country house in England. His work was carried on by his successors. At his death he left a daughter, the lady whose magnificent portrait by Lucas van Heere hangs in the great hall at Audley End. She married the Duke of Norfolk, who, in 1564, being at Cambridge with Queen Elizabeth, generously promised the college an annuity of £40 until they had finished the “quadrant of their college,” and further endowed the society, which was become much impoverished, with landed property. Norfolk’s liberality was supplemented by the contributions of the Lord Chief Justice Sir Christopher Wray,* who had been one of the lay students of Buckingham College.
The college was never large, and its history is scanty. Its first master of any importance was Dr Thomas Nevile, who reigned from 1582 to 1593, and then removed to Trinity. His fame belongs to the history of the latter college. In the great concussion of the seventeenth century, Magdalene adhered, as was natural, to the royalist side, and its master, Dr Rainbow,* was rewarded after the Restoration with the Bishoprick of Carlisle. Nicholas Ferrar,* the famous superior of the community at Little Gidding, and the friend of Crashaw and Herbert, was a member of this college as well as of Clare, and his portrait, with that of his mother, is preserved in the Master’s Lodge. This saintly man, like Herbert, was happy in dying before the troubles of his party began. But one naturally connects Magdalene less with Ferrar than with an individual of a very different order. Mr Samuel Pepys was entered at Trinity in 1650, but, for some reason, preferred Magdalene. By no means a scholar, he enjoyed the social advantages of the University, and in after years remembered the grateful flavour of Goody Mulliner’s stewed prunes, which he used to buy “over against the college.” His eventual generosity to Magdalene was something of an accident. During the closing years of his life, the college was raising the exquisite eastern building. Pepys was then casting about for a suitable destination for his library, and there is no doubt that the singularly admirable qualities of the new building, as well as his own prepossession for Magdalene, aided his decision. By his will, he bequeathed his library to his nephew, Mr Jackson (another Magdalene man), as his trustee, and provided that, at the death of this gentleman, it should pass to Magdalene, and, by an express stipulation, be housed in the New Building “and any part thereof, at my nephew’s selection.” The document contained certain reservations in favour of Trinity. Its whole wording shows an amusing caution. After a preamble, in which he expresses his apprehension of the danger which might befall the books at the hands of an incompetent heir, he proceeds to leave them, at his nephew’s death, to one of the two Universities, but to Cambridge rather than to Oxford. Then he states his preference for a private to a public library, and confines the private libraries to Trinity and Magdalene. Finally, he prefers Magdalene to Trinity, but provides that, in case of specified losses, the books are forfeit to the latter college. In this respect, he imitates Parker’s bequest to Corpus. “And that for a yet further security herein, the sᵈ two colleges of Trinity and Magdalen have a reciprocall check upon one another; and that college, wᶜʰ shall be in present possession of the sᵈ Library, be subject to an annual visitation from the other, and to the forfeiture thereof, to the like possession and use of the other, upon conviction of any breach of their sᵈ covenants.”
John Jackson died in 1724, and the precious legacy passed to Magdalene. Its value is incontestable, and no treasure is to this day more jealously guarded. The inscription “Bibliotheca Pepysiana,” and Pepys’ motto, “Mens cujusque is est quisque,” were put up on the building after the arrival of the books. The value of the bequest was more fully illustrated when, in the present century, Lord Braybrooke, a Magdalene man himself and visitor of the college, translated Pepys’ cypher diary and gave that unvarnished picture of contemporary manners to the world, opening thereby a most fruitful mine of research, as well as discovering a hidden classic. Dr Peter Peckard,* master from 1781 to 1797, enriched the library with his own collection. He was Dean of Peterborough. The see of Peterborough, at the beginning of the same century, was held by a Magdalene man, Dr Richard Cumberland, whose very exhaustive treatise on Jewish Weights and Measures, as well as his polemical essay in answer to Hobbes, are still remembered, although seldom read. The name of Daniel Waterland,* master from 1713 to 1746, is of greater fame in the history of controversial theology.
The present century, from 1813 to the present day, is covered by the long masterships of an uncle and a nephew. The first of these was the Hon. George Neville Grenville, Dean of Windsor (* Pickersgill); the second is the present master, the Hon. Latimer Neville, who has ruled his college for forty-five years. The Nevilles of Audley End are descendants of the founder in the female line. The first Lord Braybrooke, the editor of Pepys’ Diary, was a Neville of Billingsbear in Essex, and succeeded the last Lord Howard de Walden, of the family of Griffin, on the death of that nobleman without male issue. During the century, Magdalene has had some reputation as a fashionable college; but the amusing American critic, Mr Everett, spoke of it somewhat unjustly when he said that “it is a favourite home for young men who are of the opinion, either from conjecture or experience, that other colleges are too strict for them.” It has, like other small colleges, produced an excellent percentage of scholars and learned men. Our opinions as to the literary merits of Charles Kingsley (* Lowes Dickinson) may be divided, but there can be no question as to his abiding influence on English letters. He is equally well known as parish priest, cathedral dignitary, novelist and poet, and Professor of Modern History. The roll of living members includes the name of Professor Alfred Newton (* Lowes Dickinson), and the genial and kindly influence of the late Mr Frank Pattrick (* Dickinson), Tutor and President of the college, is gratefully remembered by the latest and youngest of those who have pursued their studies at Magdalene.
XVI
TRINITY COLLEGE
The Great Court of Trinity represents the earlier foundations of King’s Hall and Michael House. Of these, the latter was the older, and its buildings occupied a position nearly corresponding to the south-western angle of the present court. It may safely be supposed that, up to the last half of the eighteenth century, some remains of the original building were allowed to exist, although Dr Nevile had probably faced them in accordance with his general design. In 1771, however, James Essex made a radical alteration in this corner, and the only part which was thought worthy of preservation was the kitchen. This quaint room, entered by a passage from the hall-screens, still survives, and may be regarded as the nucleus of the modern Trinity. The next relic of importance is the King’s Tower, which now blocks up the west end of the Chapel, and occupies the centre of the north side of the court. It stood originally a little south-east of its present site, and opened at the junction of two lanes, one of which ran diagonally from the old church of All Saints’ to the Cam, while the other, coming from the present Trinity Lane, was bounded on the west by the small court of Michael House. Now, of course, the tower, removed and rebuilt, shows very little trace of antiquity, and the oldest part of it is the statue of Edward III., which stands above the gateway, and bears the inscription “Tertius Edwardus fama super aethera notus.” This may be ascribed to the reign of Edward IV. Later on, in the reign of Henry VII., the foundation of the great gateway was laid, and a chapel for the scholars of King’s Hall was built.