Oxford and Its Story

by Cecil Headlam

It was proposed that the question should be referred to a packed committee. But the Masters of Arts refused to entrust the matter wholly to the Faculty of Theology. They claimed to nominate a certain number of delegates. Their attitude provoked sharp reproval and further threats from the imperious monarch.

The youths of the University were warned not to play masters, or they would soon learn that “it is not good to stir up a hornets’ nest.”

Persuasion was used by the Archbishop and the Bishop of Lincoln. The example of Paris and Cambridge was quoted. The aid of Dr Foxe, who had proved his skill by obtaining the decree at Cambridge, was called in. Learned arguments were provided by Nicholas de Burgo, an Italian friar. But there was no doubt about the popular feeling on the question. Pieces of hemp and rough drawings of gallows were affixed to the gate of the bishop’s lodging; both he and Father Nicholas were pelted with stones in the open street; the women of Oxford supported Catherine with such vehemence, that thirty of them had to be shut up in Bocardo. The King had dispatched two of his courtiers to Oxford: the Duke of Suffolk and Sir William Fitzwilliam. The former imprisoned the women; the latter distributed money to the more venal of the graduates. “No indifferency was used in the whole matter.”

Threats and bribes at last prevailed. A committee carefully packed was appointed with power to decide in the name of the University. A verdict was obtained which corresponded to the Cambridge decree. The important reservation, “if the marriage had been consummated,” was added to the decision that marriage with the widow of a deceased brother was contrary to the divine and human law.

Cranmer, who had succeeded Warham as Archbishop of Canterbury, pronounced the King’s marriage with Catherine null and void. In the following year the University was asked to concur in the foregone decision in favour of separation from Rome. The authority of the Pope in England was abolished, and the monasteries were rendered liable to visitation by commission under the Great Seal. The Act of Supremacy followed. Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More were executed for denying the royal supremacy, and Thomas Cromwell was appointed Vicar-General of England.

His failure to procure a decree invalidating Henry’s marriage meant the downfall of Wolsey. His downfall involved the fortunes of his college. It was rumoured at once that the buildings were to be demolished, because they bore at every prominent point escutcheons carved with the arms of the proud Cardinal. Wolsey had “gathered into his College whatsoever excellent thing there was in the whole realm.” The rich vestments and ornaments with which he had furnished S. Frideswide’s Church were quickly “disposed” by the King. The disposal of this and other property, lands, offices, plate and tapestries forfeited under the statute of Praemunire, and carefully catalogued for his royal master by the fallen minister, had obvious pecuniary advantages. And as in London, York Place, the palace which the Cardinal had occupied and rebuilt as Archbishop of York, was confiscated and its name changed to Whitehall; so, when “bluff Harry broke into the spence,” he converted Cardinal’s College into “King Henry VIII.’s College at Oxford” consisting of a dean and twelve canons only (1532).

Henry had been besought to be gracious to the college; but he replied that it deserved no favour at his hands, for most of its members had opposed his wishes in the matter of the divorce. The prospect of the dissolution of his college at Oxford, foreshadowed by that of his great foundation at Ipswich, caused Wolsey infinite sorrow. To Thomas Cromwell he wrote that he could not sleep for the thought of it, and could not write unto him for weeping and sorrow. He appealed with all the passion of despair to the King and those in power, that the “sharpness and rigour of the law should not be visited upon these poor innocents.” In response to a petition from the whole college, Henry replied that he would not dissolve it entirely. He intended, he said, to have an honourable college there,

“but not so great or of such magnificence as my Lord Cardinal intended to have, for it is not thought meet for the common weal of our realm. Yet we will have a College honourably to maintain the service of God and literature.”

The purely ecclesiastical foundation of 1532 was not calculated to maintain the service of literature. It was surrendered twelve years afterwards to the King, whose commissioners received on the same day the surrender of the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary at Osney, the new cathedral body formed at the ancient abbey upon the creation of the see and diocese of Oxford (1542). The way was thus cleared for the final arrangement by which (4th November 1546) the episcopal see was transferred from Osney and united with the collegiate corporation under the title it bears to-day, Ecclesia Christi Cathedralis Oxon; ex fundatione Regis Henrici Octavi. Thus S. Frideswide’s Church became the Cathedral Church of Christ in Oxford, and also the chapel of the college now at last called Christ Church. The foundation now consisted of a dean, eight canons, eight chaplains, sixty scholars and forty children, besides an organist, singing men, servants and almsmen. It was still, then, a foundation of extraordinary magnificence.