The Choir stalls date from Henry the Eighth, but the elaborate coats of arms carved over each were not added till 1633, and the canopies not till 1675. The magnificent brass lectern was given by Provost Hacombleyn, at the opening of the chapel; but the present altar is a very modern addition, having been only put up in the twentieth century. It stands, as directed by the Founder, no fewer than 16 feet from the eastern wall. The wood-work of the sanctuary walls is not even yet (1910) fully completed. It is of Renaissance character, as is also the altar. The lighting of the Chapel, it should be said, is still, happily, done only with candles; and, on a winter afternoon, their twinkling points of fire, in endless range, amid the vasty gloom, give an impression of mysterious solemnity to be obtained nowhere else.
Beautiful as the Chapel is, it would, had the designs of the Founder been carried out, have been yet more beautiful. His Will expressly deprecates that "superfluitie of too gret curious werkes of entaille and besy moulding" which the ante-chapel now exhibits in the elaborate series of Royal coats of arms beneath every window. They are beautifully carved, it is true, and we may note that the attitudes of the supporters (the Tudor dragon and greyhound) are in no two cases identical. But the whole effect is somewhat to weary the eye. So also do the perpetual roses and portcullises with which the walls are bestudded. One of the former, however, deserves special notice, as in it is framed one of the very few mediæval images of Our Lady which has weathered the storm of the Reformation. It is to be found at the southern corner of the west wall, and is what is known as a Rosa Solis. The inner petals are sun-rays, and in the midst is the "Woman clothed with the sun." (The White Rose of York is also sometimes represented in the windows as a sun-rose, the sun being also a Yorkist badge, but in this the rays are external to the flower.)
The walls, then, would have been less ornate, and more truly beautiful for the absence of profuse ornament, had the Founder's design been carried out. And we can see that even the exquisite roof was meant to be yet more lovely than as it now enraptures the eye. If we look at one of the soaring pilasters and follow up its lines, we shall see that each of the flutings is prolonged in a rib of the fan vaulting. No, not quite each. There is one member which has no such prolongation, but ends meaninglessly at the capital. And this tells us that the pilasters were designed to carry not a fan but a liern vaulting; so called because it appears to be a mesh of intertwined ivy (lierre) binding the fabric together. And beautiful as a fan roof is, a liern roof is capable of expressing harmonies of proportion yet more delicate and soul-satisfying. How subtle and exalted these harmonies would have been here we shall best learn if we have the good fortune to gain admission to the range of small side-chapels which flank the fane on either hand, nestling between the mighty buttresses. For in these, while the more western have the fan roof, the eastern and earlier built show liern vaulting of the most delicious character.
These side-chapels were intended each to have an altar, at which the Priest to whom it was assigned should say his own Mass daily, while all should meet later before the High Altar to assist at the Collegiate Mass. They are now used for various subsidiary purposes connected with the services. One contains the heating apparatus, another the hydraulic bellows of the organ, while many are mere lumber-rooms. These last are those abutting on the Choir, which have no opening into the Nave, such as those adjoining the ante-chapel possess. Through the gratings we may note some stained glass of an entirely different character from that in the Chapel windows. It is, in fact, of the previous (Fifteenth) Century, and thus older than the Chapel itself. From what earlier building it has been transferred is uncertain. Tradition, for some unknown reason, assigns it to Ramsey Abbey; but it seems more reasonable to suppose that it came from the old church of St. John Zachary hard by, when that was pulled down to make room for the College, and its fragments, as excavation has shown, utilised for levelling the site.
In one of the southern side-chapels will be found a verger, from whom it is well worth while to obtain access to the roof of the Chapel. This is reached by a wide spiral stairway in the north-western turret. Our first goal is a small door (the key of which should be specially asked for) leading into a narrow loop-holed passage, from which we can scramble into the space between the two roofs of the Chapel. We are here on the top of the fan vaulting which we have so much admired from below, and can note with what wondrous skill its huge stones are dovetailed into one another with the round keystone boss in the centre of each span. Above, and only just above, our heads are the mighty beams of Spanish chestnut composing the upper roof, the long vista being lighted by a small grated window at either end.
Returning to the staircase it does not take many steps more to bring us to the roof proper, with its open-work parapets and long leaden slope. This should be climbed to get the full benefit of the view, and those gifted with steadiness of head and sureness of foot will do well to make their way along the ridge from end to end, for each has its own beauties to show. To the West we see below us the great lawn, and the court of Clare, and the river, and the delicious verdure of the Backs, amid which rise the red walls of the Ladies' College at Newnham, and the adjoining Anglican foundation of Selwyn; while beyond is the open country, bounded by the low chalk upland stretching from Madingley Hill on the North to Barrington Hill on the South. The spire, so conspicuous on the summit of this range, is that of Hardwicke Church. To the South we can distinguish the places already described, (the little glass dome of the Fitzwilliam Museum, and the graceful spire of Our Lady's Church, being conspicuous objects,) and, beyond, the distant range of the East-Anglian Heights from the furthest north-east to the furthest south-west, that form the watershed of the wide valley of the Cam. To the East, the tower of the University Church, Great St. Mary's, raises its turrets almost to the level of our feet, and we look down on a maze of Cambridge house-roofs bright with the variegated tiling which is their special and beautiful characteristic. Beyond them the near promontory of the Gog Magog Hills juts out from the East-Anglian Heights on which lies Newmarket. To the North come College after College, Clare, Trinity Hall, Caius, Trinity, St. John's, Magdalene; while the University Library and the Senate House lie nearer still. Due north, across these, and across the wide-flung plain beyond them, the plain of the Southern Fenland, we can, if the day be clear, discern on the far horizon the shadowy towers of Ely Cathedral, fifteen miles away as the crow flies.
CHAPTER IV
Spiked gates.—Old King's.—University Library, Origin, Growth, Codex Bezæ.—Trinity Hall, Colours, Library.—Clare College, "Poison Cup," Court, Bridge, Avenue.—The Backs, Sirdar Bonfire, College Gardens.—Trinity College, Michaelhouse, King's Hall, Henry the Eighth, Boat-clubs, Avenue, College Livings, Bridge, Library, Byron, Nevile's Court, Cloisters, Echo, "Freshman's Pillar," Prince Edward, Royal Ball, Goodhart, Buttery, College Plate, Grace-cup, Kitchen, Hall, Combination Room, Marquis of Granby, Tutors, Old Court, Fountain, Gate Towers, Clock, Lodge, Chapel, Newton, Organ, Bentley, Windows, Macaulay.
On leaving King's Chapel we should give a glance to the marked line of demarcation between the whitish stone of which the lower courses are built and that employed in the upper.[21] It is of historical interest as showing how far the work had progressed before the long break caused by the Founder's death. Then, passing round the West Front, and noting the exquisitely delicate tracery of the canopies over the empty niches on either side of the door (wherein the two saints Mary and Nicolas to whom the building is dedicated were destined to stand) we leave the College by the iron gate on the North.
The formidable chevaux-de-frise which crown this gate are supposed at once to figure and to emphasise the danger run by such presumptuous students as dare to contemplate illicit exit from or entrance into the College during prohibited hours. It has already been said that between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. no undergraduate resident in College may leave its precincts, and no outsider may enter, under divers pains and penalties. Every College supplements this moral pressure by more or less effectual and awe-inspiring physical barriers. None however are more fearsome to see, and less effective in fact, than these. For not only can the College be entered or left with comparative ease by way of the Backs, but even this ghastly array of spikes is not unscalable to those who know the trick of it. Tennyson, as will be remembered, has referred to this exploit in his "Princess."