The first master was appointed in 1598. He was Dr James Montagu,* and became Bishop of Winchester, where he died in 1618. But, in spite of this augury, the history of Sidney is the reverse of prelatical. Of late years, the college has somewhat retrieved its past record, but, on the whole, its distinction is Puritan. It is, however, a college whose history finds its centre in one event, and that event is vague and shadowy. In the college books, under the date April 23rd, 1616, is the following inscription, “Oliverus Cromwell, Huntingdoniensis, admissus ad commensum sociorum Aprilis vicesimo sexto; Tutore Magᵒ Ricardo Howlet.” Few colleges boast such a fellow-commoner. The note which follows, written in after years by a good Royalist, is worth transcribing: “Hic fuit grandis ille impostor, carnifex perditissimus, qui, pientissimo rege Carolo primo nefaria caede sublato, ipsum usurpavit thronum, et tria regna per quinque ferme annorum spatium, sub protectoris nomine, indomita tyrannide vexavit.” Vexavit, as Polonius would say, is good. No language is more abusive than aptly handled Latin! This “big impostor and most damn’d butcher” stayed at Cambridge till July, 1617, and then, like many great men, left without taking his degree. His contribution to the social life of his college has been stigmatised as discreditable, but this is probably invidious rumour and nothing more. The window of his room—which, by the way, dates from 1827 or thereabout—is still shown to the credulous. There is an admirable portrait of him in the hall, which was presented to the college, with a rather unnecessary parade of anonymity, by Mr Holles of the Hyde in Essex.
The great name of Cromwell must not, however, suffer us to forget the names of the good and pious men whom Sidney has nurtured. Dr Edmund Calamy, the famous Nonconformist divine, was a member of the college. So was Thomas Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man. So, too, were Jones of Nayland, the revivalist and hymn-writer, and an even more famous Evangelical preacher, Thomas Cecil. Sidney had, indeed, a very conspicuous share in the revival of spiritual life at the end of the last century. On the other hand, the college produced, by way of an anomaly, Sir Roger l’Estrange, the Royalist pamphleteer, whose sympathies were certainly apart from his education. The laborious antiquary, Thomas Rymer of the Fœdera, was also a Sidney man. In our own century it has been recorded that—
There was a young man of Sid. Sussex
Who stated that w + x
Was the same as xw!
So they said, “We will trouble you
To confine those ideas to Sid. Sussex.”
But any such misconception has been rectified by the present master, Mr Charles Smith, whose mathematical text-books are classics in their own branch of literature. And, among living members of the college, we may notice the present Bishop of Bloemfontein, Dr John Wale Hicks, who is not only celebrated for his equal skill in medicine and divinity, but, as tutor of his college and vicar of Little St Mary’s, has had perhaps the greatest spiritual influence on modern Cambridge life. Although Sidney is a small college, there is none which is so remarkable for the patriotism and good-fellowship existing among its undergraduates; and, within very recent years, it has supplied the University with excellent athletes, and one of its members has become president of the Union.