society was strengthened by such men as Sir William Petty, the first of English economists, Dr Ward, the mathematician, Robert Boyle and Christopher Wren. In the lodgings of Wilkins or Petty they would meet and discuss the circulation of the blood or the shape of Saturn, the Copernican hypothesis, the improvement of telescopes or Nature’s abhorrence of a vacuum—any subject, in fact, which did not lead them into the bogs of theology or politics.
“That miracle of a youth,” Dr Christopher Wren, was one of those deputed by the University (1667) to take a letter of thanks to Henry Howard, heir to the Duke of Norfolk, for his princely gift of the Arundel Marbles to the University. This gift the University owed to the kindly offices of John Evelyn, the diarist. The marbles were laid in the Proscholium till the Sheldonian Theatre was finished. Ingeniously designed by Wren to accommodate the University at the “Act” or “Encænia,” this theatre was consecrated by Archbishop Sheldon (1669), at whose cost it was erected. Sheldon was a warden of All Souls’, put out under the Commonwealth and afterwards restored, before being promoted to the Primacy.
Wren left many other marks of his genius upon Oxford. The chapel of B.N.C. is said to be from his design, and may be, for it reveals the struggle that was going on (1656) between the Oxford Gothic, as the beautiful fan-tracery of the ceiling and the windows bear witness, and the Italian style of the rest of the building. Wren migrated from Wadham to All Souls’, presenting on his departure a clock (now in the ante-chapel) to the college where he had been a fellow-commoner. In the college of which he, with Sydenham, was made a fellow under the Commonwealth, he made the great and accurate sun-dial, with its motto “Pereunt et Imputantur,” that adorns the back quadrangle. His pupil Hawksmoor it was who designed the twin towers of All Souls’ and the quadrangle at Queen’s, whilst Wren himself designed the chapel, which he reckoned one of his best works. At Trinity he gave advice to Dean Aldrich, made suggestions which were not taken, and actually designed the north wing of the garden quadrangle, one of the first Italian buildings in Oxford. At Christ Church he added, as we have seen, the octagonal cupola to Wolsey’s Tower. The buttresses in Exeter Garden which support the Bodleian are also the result of his advice. The beautifully proportioned building close to the Sheldonian was presently built (1683, Wood, architect) by the University to house the valuable collection of curiosities presented to it by Elias Ashmole.
When the plague broke out in London, Charles and his court fled to Oxford (September 1665), where, since July, a watch had been set to keep out infected persons flying from London. The King and Duke of York lodged at Christ Church; whilst, all under the rank of master at Merton having been sent to their homes, the Queen took up her abode there till the following February. Once more courtiers filled the college instead of scholars; the loose manners of the court were introduced into the college precincts; the King’s mistress, Lady Castlemaine, bore him a bastard in December, and libels were pinned up on the doors of Merton concerning that event. It is sadly recorded that founders’ prayers had to be recited in English, because there were more women than scholars in the chapel. And as for the courtiers, though they were neat and gay in their apparel, yet were they, so says the offended scholar, “very nasty and beastly; rude, rough, whoremongers; vain, empty and careless.”