[322] Fuller places the first vice-chancellor in the year 1417, after Stephen le Scrope and Repingale Bishop of Chichester had held the chancellorship—1414 and 1415. Men “of great employment” began then to fill the position, and hence, he says, the necessity. 1454 is however the date of the earliest vice-chancellor usually given, and there were only intermittent appointments between then and 1500. In that year Richard Fox was chancellor, and Henry Babington vice-chancellor, and was succeeded in 1501 by John Fisher who filled both offices. In 1413 a friar was chosen as “president” of the university in the absence of Chancellor Billingford sent by Henry V. with the Bishop of Ely and the chancellor of the sister university to Rome.
[323] In this body, which was created by act of 19th-20th Vict., are concentrated the powers of the houses of regents and non-regents, the ancient governing body of the university. Its 10 members are chosen from the roll.
[324] The high steward is elected in the same way as the chancellor. He appoints a deputy who must be approved by the senate. The Cambridge high stewardship has been frequently held by favourites of the sovereign; Elizabeth gave it to Leicester, and Henry VII. to Empson. The present holder, Lord Walsingham, bears a name intimately connected with the history of the university.
[325] At the last parliamentary election, January 1906, the university electorate numbered 6972.
[326] The proctors are appointed according to a statutory cycle—they are nominated by the colleges in turn, two colleges nominating each year. The proctors at Oxford originally represented the north countrymen and the south countrymen. Entries of Cambridge proctors exist from 1350. The office, of course, is kin to that of the procurator of monastic orders; and the Cambridge proctors supervised Stourbridge fair, the markets, weights and measures, and all those matters which affected the supply of provisions for the university or its finances: to which were added their scholastic functions.
[327] The first public orator was Richard Croke; Sir T. Smith, Sir J. Cheke, Roger Ascham, and George Herbert the poet, all held the office. Caius supposes that the master of glomery was university orator, whose duty it was to entertain princes and peers and to indite the epistles of the university on great occasions. He supposes also that as “senior regent” he collected and counted the suffrages in all congregations: the Statutes however show us this officer in company with two junior regents sorting the votes cast for the proctors. See also iii. p. 164 n.
[328] Thus a guild order in 1389 runs: the alderman “ssal sende forthe the bedel to alle the bretheren and the systeren.”
[329] We find Archbishop Laud writing of Oxford: “If the university would bring in some bachelors of art to be yeomen-bedels ... they which thrived well and did good service might after be preferred to be esquire-bedels.”
[330] The first esquire or armiger bedell on the Cambridge register is Physwick in the xiv c.; no one else is entered for this office till 1498 when Philip Morgan held it. After him there is another esquire bedell in 1500. The yeoman bedell probably stood in the same relation to the esquire bedell as the trumpeter to the herald. The herald did not blow his own trumpet and the esquire bedell of the university was doubtless not a macebearer. The original two bedells, nevertheless, used to go before the chancellor and masters virgam deferentes; and Balsham in 1275 arranges that the bedell of the master of glomery shall not carry his stave on these occasions, but only when on his superior’s own business. A bedell is mentioned in the xiii c. hostel statute referred to on p. 51.
[331] Letter of Rennell to Stratford Canning, Nov. 16, 1807.