It has been well insisted on by Mr. Heron, the Roman Catholic historian of Trinity College, that the Charter of Elizabeth is neither exclusive nor bigoted as regards creed. Religion, civility, and learning are the objects to be promoted, and it is notorious that the great Queen’s policy, as regards the first, was to insist upon outward conformity with the State religion without further inquisition. A considerable number of the Corporation which endowed the new College were Roman Catholics, and we know that even the Usshers had near relations of that creed. There was no insistence that the Fellows should take orders—we know that Provost Temple, and Fullerton and Hamilton, among the earliest Fellows, were laymen,—and though in very early days the degree of Doctor conferred was apparently always that in Theology, the Charter provides for all the Faculties, and it was soon felt that Theology and the training of clergy were becoming too exclusively the work of the place. The constant advices from Chancellors and from other advisers to give special advantages to the natives, and the repeated attempts to teach the Irish language, and through its medium to educate the Irish, show plainly that they understood Elizabeth’s foundation as intended for the whole country, and more especially for those of doubtful loyalty in their creed, who were tempted to go abroad for their education.
“A certain illustrious Baron,” says Father Fitz-Simons, writing in 1603, “whose lady, my principal benefactress, sent his son to Trinity College. Notwithstanding my obligations to them for my support, I, with the utmost freedom, earnestness, and severity, informed and taught them, that it was a most impious thing, and a detestable scandal, to expose their child to such education. The boy was taken away at once, and so were others, after that good example. The College authorities are greatly enraged at this, as they had never before attracted any [Roman Catholic] pupil of respectability, and do not now hope to get any for the future. Hence I must be prepared for all the persecution which their impiety and hatred can bring down upon me.”[24]
On the other hand, the early Provosts imported from Cambridge, Travers, Alvey, Temple, were men who were baulked in their English promotion by their acknowledged Puritanism—a school created or promoted by that desperate bigot Cartwright, who preached the most violent Genevan doctrines from his Chair of Divinity in Cambridge. But these men, who certainly were second to none in the intolerance of their principles, were themselves in danger of persecution from the Episcopal party in England. Complaints were urged against Temple for neglecting to wear a surplice in Chapel—a great stumbling-block in those days; the Puritanism of the College was openly assailed, so that its Governors were rather occupied in defending themselves than in attacking the creed of others. Any sect which is in danger of persecution is compelled so far to advocate toleration; we may be sure that the Irish Fellows who lived among Catholics in a Catholic nation curbed any excessive zeal on the part of the Puritan Provosts; and so we find that they did not scruple to admit natives whom they suspected, or even knew, to be Papists. Moreover, the Fellows and their Provost were very busy in constitution-mongering. They had the power by Charter of making and altering statutes—a source of perpetual dispute; and, besides, the Plantation of Ulster by James I. in 1610 gave them their first large estates, which were secured to them by the influence of Fullerton and Hamilton, already mentioned as Scottish agents of the King. Provost Temple spent most of his time either in framing statutes or in quarrelling about leases with his Fellows.
A review of the various documents still extant concerning these quarrels shows that the first of the lay Provosts was not inferior in importance to his two successors in the eighteenth century, and that in his day all the main problems which have since agitated the Corporation were raised and discussed.
In the first place we may name the distinction between University and College, one often attempted by theorists, and which may any day become of serious importance if a new College were founded under the University, but one which has practically had no influence in the history of Trinity College. We even find such hybrid titles as Fellow of the University, and Professor of the College, used by people who ought to have known the impropriety.[25] Temple, with the consent of his Fellows, sought to obtain a separate Charter for a University, and drew up, for this and the College, Statutes which Dr. Stubbs has quoted.
The second point in Temple’s policy was an innovation which took root, and transformed the whole history of the College. It was the distinction of Senior and junior Fellows, not merely into separate classes as regards salary and duties, but into Governors and subjects. It was rightly felt that, after some years’ constant lecturing, the Fellows who still adhered to the College should have leisure for their studies, and for literary work, as well as a better income, in reward of their services. But when Temple made a College Statute that the Seniors should govern not only the scholars and ordinary students, but also the Junior Fellows and Probationers (which last correspond somewhat to our present Non-Tutor Fellows), he soon came into conflict with the Charter, which gave many privileges—the election, for example, of the Provost—to all the Fellows without distinction; and on this question arose a great dispute immediately on Temple’s death, there being actually two Provosts elected—one (Mede) by the Seniors, the other (R. Ussher) by the Juniors. Bedell was only elected by a compromise between the two parties, with distinct protests on the part of the Juniors.[26] The Caroline Statutes finally decided the matter, and gave the whole control to the Seniors.
Whether this great change, introduced by Temple, and certainly promoted by Ussher, has been a benefit or an injury to the College, is a question not easy to answer. There is no doubt that a small body, such as the Governing Board of Provost and Senior Fellows, is far more likely to carry out a consistent policy, and even to decide promptly, where discussion and divergence of opinion among a larger number cause delay and paralyse action. But, on the other hand, the concentration of power into the hands of a small and irremovable body sets temptations before its members to look after their own interests unduly, and cumulate upon themselves offices and emoluments to the damage of the Corporation.
The reservation of a large number of offices to the Senior Fellows, and the consequent appointment, occasionally, of incompetent persons to discharge important duties, were the necessary result of such an arrangement, and might be of great injury to the Corporation. It might even result in the trafficking in offices, or in acts of distinct injustice towards the other members of the Corporation, which could not have been committed had the acts of the Governing Body been subject to the public criticism and control of the whole body of Fellows.
On the other hand, as some working Committee must be selected to administer the affairs of the College, nothing was more obvious to Temple or to Ussher than that those who had been Fellows for eight or ten years should be preferred to those who had just entered the Corporation. In a body, however, of celibates, with many good livings and other promotions around them, it never occurred to the framers of the Statute that new circumstances would arise which made a Fellowship practically a life office, and thus placed the government in the hands of a group of men, of whom many were disabled by age, and, moreover, distracted by family cares. We should not stare with more wonder at a Vice-Provost of 40, than would Ussher have stared at a Junior Fellow of 40 years’ standing. Had such things been even dimly foreseen, it would have been easy to avoid the danger of accumulating emolument and office upon incompetent persons by making the Governing Body elective from the whole Corporation.
The third question which arose in Provost Temple’s day was the proper leasing of the College estates. The tendency to take present profit at the expense of our successors, or to postpone the interests of the abstract Corporation to the claims of private friendship, is nowhere more conspicuous than in the document Dr. Stubbs has printed (p. 32), in which the Provost, and two Senior Fellows, the greatest names at the foundation, and the most attached friends of the College, James Ussher and Luke Challoner, actually consent to lease for ever all the Ulster estates to Sir James Hamilton, their old personal friend and colleague, who had helped the College to obtain these lands from the King. Had the earnest endeavours of these two excellent Senior Fellows been carried out, the College would not have owned nearly so many hundreds, as it now owns thousands, in Ulster. This calamity was only averted by the active interference of the Junior Fellows, who obtained an order from the State forbidding the Board to give perpetual leases. Nevertheless, so long as the Senior Fellows divided the renewal fines, there was constant danger of the rents of the College being cut down, and the incomes of the lessors being increased: it redounds to the credit of this “Venetian Council” that, after such vast opportunities of plundering public property, only some few cases of breach of public trust can be asserted against them. One of the most manifest attempts has been just noticed. Another was partly carried through by Temple. He obtained a lease, and appointed his son Seneschal of the Manor of Slutmulrooney—a delightful title, but also a solid estate, which he evidently coveted for a family property.[27]