A history of the University of Oxford

by George C. Brodrick

The accession of Mary, in 1553, ushered in a short-lived reaction. As the leading Romanist divines had quitted Oxford on the proclamation of Edward VI., so now the leading Protestants, headed by Peter Martyr, were fain to make their escape, though not till after Jewell had been employed to draw up a congratulatory epistle to the Queen, whose policy was not fully revealed at the outset of her reign. Heads and fellows of colleges were released from their obligation to renounce the authority of the Pope, the Mass superseded the Common Prayer-book, and Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, instituted a Visitation of the three colleges under his own personal jurisdiction. After the execution of Lady Jane Grey and the Queen’s marriage with Philip II. the spirit of persecution rapidly developed itself, all statutes passed against the Papacy since the twentieth year of Henry VIII. were repealed, the statutes passed against heretics in the reigns of Henry IV. and Henry V. were revived, and Oxford became the scene of those Protestant martyrdoms which have left an indelible impression of horror and sympathy in the English mind. Several victims of Catholic intolerance had already perished at the stake, when Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer were brought to Oxford for the purpose of undergoing the solemn farce of an academical trial, and thus implicating the University in the guilt of their intended condemnation. At a convocation held in St. Mary’s Church a body of Oxford doctors was commissioned to dispute against the Protestant bishops on the Eucharist, in concert with a body of Cambridge doctors similarly commissioned. The so-called ‘disputation’ took place in the Divinity School. A day was assigned to each prisoner, the academical judgment was of course given against them, the judicial sentence soon followed, and on October 15, 1555, Ridley and Latimer were led out to be burned in Canditch, opposite Balliol College, where a sermon was preached before the stake by Dr. Richard Smyth on the text, ‘Though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.’ Cranmer’s execution was delayed for months, since it required the sanction of Rome, and his courage, as is well known, gave way under the fear of death. His recantation came too late to save his life, yet he was called upon to repeat it in St. Mary’s Church on his way to his doom. Instead of doing so, he publicly retracted it before the assembled University, with earnest professions of remorse. He was not allowed to conclude his address, but hurried off with brutal eagerness, to give at the stake that marvellous example of heroic constancy which has atoned for all his past errors in the eyes of Protestants, and crowned the martyrdoms of the English Reformation. From that moment the cause of the Catholic reaction was desperate in the University, no less than in the nation. Queen Mary conferred upon it many benefits and favours, and won the servile homage of its official representatives, but she never won the hearts of the students, and the news of her death was received with no less rejoicing in Oxford than in other parts of England.

Visitation and reforms of Cardinal Pole

In the meantime, however, a fresh Visitation of the University was set on foot, in 1556, by Cardinal Pole, who, having succeeded Gardiner as chancellor of Cambridge in the previous year, now succeeded Sir John Mason, the first lay chancellor of Oxford. He was the last in that line of cardinals, beginning with Beaufort, who, armed with the title of Legatus à latere, assumed to govern the English Church, as it had never been governed before, under the direct orders of the Pope. The Visitors deputed by him proceeded to hunt out certain obnoxious persons who had not withdrawn from Oxford, to burn all the English Bibles which they could find in the common market-place, and to purge the libraries of Protestant books. The Cardinal soon afterwards caused the University and college statutes to be revised, chiefly for the purpose of correcting recent innovations. For instance, while Edward VI.’s commissioners had authorised the use of English in college halls, Cardinal Pole restored the old rule against speaking any language but Latin. It was also an avowed object of the revision to restore the supremacy of Aristotle and the study of scholastic philosophy. These changes, having scarcely been effected before they were reversed, fill less space in University annals than an incident of comparatively trivial importance, which must have outraged the Protestant sympathies of the Oxford townspeople. The wife of Peter Martyr had been interred in Christchurch Cathedral, near the relics of St. Frideswide. Pole now directed the dean, no unwilling agent, to exhume the body and cast it into unconsecrated ground. The Dean improved upon his instructions by having it buried under a dunghill, whence it was again disinterred, mingled with the relics of St. Frideswide, and finally committed to the grave in the year 1561. No wonder that Queen Mary’s patronage proved a poor substitute for academical freedom, that learning continued to decline, that even sermons were rare and ill-attended, that lectures were almost suspended, that few ‘proceeded’ in any of the faculties, and that it was thought necessary to reduce the qualification of standing for the M.A. degree in order to reinforce the University with Masters.

Foundation of Trinity and St. John’s Colleges

Two colleges, it is true, Trinity and St. John’s, owe their origin to Mary’s reign, and both were founded by Roman Catholics, but upon the ruins of monastic institutions, and before the Marian persecutions had borne fruit in the University. These colleges, as semi-Catholic foundations of the Reformation era, may fitly be regarded as forming landmarks between mediæval and modern Oxford.

CHAPTER VIII.
REIGN OF ELIZABETH AND CHANCELLORSHIP OF LEICESTER.

Visitation under Elizabeth and policy of Archbishop Parker

With the accession of Elizabeth, in November 1558, the scenes were rapidly shifted, and the parts of the chief actors strangely reversed. For a while, in the quaint language of Anthony Wood, ‘two religions being now as ’twere on foot, divers of the chiefest of the University retired and absented themselves till they saw how affairs would proceed.’ They had not long to wait. Though she received graciously a deputation from the University, headed by Dr. Tresham, canon of Christchurch, and Dr. Raynolds, Warden of Merton, the Queen lost no time in announcing that she intended to visit it, and made a suspensory order in regard to all academical elections. In June she nominated a body of Visitors to ‘make a mild and gentle, not rigorous, reformation.’ One of these Visitors was Bishop Cox, of Ely, who had acted in a similar capacity under Edward VI., and the Visitation was conducted on much the same principles, except that it was less destructive. Still, compliance with the Act of Supremacy just passed was strictly enforced, and nine Heads of colleges, as well as the Dean and two canons of Christchurch, proving recusants, were ejected or forced to resign. Among these were Raynolds and Tresham, the former of whom died in prison. A considerable number of fellows are mentioned as having been expelled for refusing the oath, but the majority conformed. Some Protestant exiles returned from Zurich, Strasburg, and other foreign towns, where they had suffered great privations; but it is certain that Oxford lost many Catholic scholars whom she could ill spare, and suffered far more from the Elizabethan proscriptions than Cambridge, where the Reformation had been more firmly established. Peter Martyr and Jewell attested the intellectual and moral degeneracy of the University at the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign, nor could it have been otherwise after such rapid vicissitudes in religious doctrine and ecclesiastical government, unsettling the minds of students, and keeping academical rulers in a constant state of suspense or time-serving. It is certainly significant that in the very year after the Act of Uniformity was passed, establishing the revised Common Prayer-book, the Queen authorised the use of a Latin version thereof in college chapels in order to promote familiarity with Latin. But it is probable that this, like other concessions, was also due to a desire, which she fully shared with Archbishop Parker, to favour the growth of an Anglo-Catholic instead of a Puritan Church, and to encourage the Protestants without estranging the Romanists. Meanwhile Sampson, the dean of Christchurch, and Humphrey, the president of Magdalen, were zealous promoters of the Puritan movement, and as such distrusted by the queen, especially as they were known to be in correspondence with Geneva.

Chancellorship of Leicester

In the year 1564 Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, became chancellor of the University, and continued in office nearly twenty-four years. With the exception of Sir John Mason, elected in 1552, and the Earl of Arundel, elected in 1558, he was the first layman who had held this high office, which, moreover, had always been filled by some resident member of the University up to the year 1484. Non-resident and courtier as he was, however, the office was no sinecure in his hands. During his long tenure of it, his influence made itself felt in every department of University life, and was mainly exercised in favour of the Puritans. For this reason, we cannot accept Anthony Wood’s censure of him as that of an impartial historian, nor can it be denied that he took a genuine interest in the affairs of the University, and effected some useful reforms. One valuable concession obtained by the University under his chancellorship, and probably at his instance, was its incorporation in 1571 by an Act of Parliament, investing the ‘chancellor, masters, and scholars’ with the rights of perpetual succession, and confirming to it all the other privileges conferred upon it by previous monarchs. This parliamentary title relieved it from the necessity of seeking a new charter from each succeeding king, and is the organic statute by which its franchises are now secured. In the same year an Act was passed which, supplemented by further Acts passed five years later, has done more than any other to save the revenues of colleges from dissipation. The immense influx of gold from America, lowering the value of money, had proportionately raised the nominal value of land, and private landowners were reaping the advantage in sales and leases. The governing bodies of colleges, in turn, were exacting increased fines on granting long leases at low rentals, to the injury of their successors. The Act of 13th Elizabeth checked this practice by enacting that college leases should be for twenty-one years, or three lives at most, with a reservation of the customary rent; but means were found to evade the Act, and it was necessary to make it more stringent. This was done by Acts of 18th Elizabeth, the more important of which, ‘for the maintenance of colleges,’ is sometimes attributed to the foresight of Sir Thomas Smith, and sometimes to that of Lord Burghley. It requires that one-third part at least of the rents to be reserved in college leases shall be payable in corn or in malt, at 6s. 8d. per quarter and 5s. per quarter respectively. As prices rose, this one-third ultimately far outweighed in value the remaining two-thirds, and became ‘a second additional endowment’ to colleges.