In one of the public streets the martyrs Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer were burned. The spot is opposite Balliol College, and marked by a very imposing brown sandstone Gothic monument about thirty feet high, erected in 1841, from designs by Gilbert Scott.
Latimer and Ridley were led to the stake Oct. 16, 1555. A bag of gunpowder was fastened about the body of the former,—probably as an act of charity, to hasten his death,—and so he died immediately. While being bound, he said to his companion: "Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out." It never has been extinguished, and will continue to "shine brighter and brighter, to the perfect day."
Latimer and Ridley, John Rogers, who was burned at Smithfield, Feb. 4 of the same year, and Cranmer, burned in Oxford March 21, 1556, were graduates of Cambridge, the rival university of Oxford. These two distinguished seats of learning are to England what Harvard College and Yale are to New England. Cambridge has long been recognized as liberal and reformatory in tendency, while Oxford has prided herself on her conservatism. Dean Stanley, in a late speech, ventured the remark that Cambridge was celebrated for educating men to be martyrs, and Oxford for burning them. Cranmer was a fellow-laborer with Latimer and Ridley. He was arrested and cited to appear at Rome within eighty days, but could not do so, and was condemned as contumacious. He was at first firm, but the fear of death overcame him and he recanted, and repeated his recantation many times, but without avail. In his last effort he declared that he had been the greatest of persecutors, and comparing himself to the penitent thief, humbly begged for pardon; but in spite of all, on March 21, 1556, Queen Mary—who had a bitter hatred towards him, as did the bishops, who were resolved not only on his degradation but his death—directed him to prepare for the stake. A recantation was given him, which he was ordered to read publicly to the spectators. He transcribed and signed it, and kept a copy, which he altered, making a disavowal of his recantations. After listening to a sermon, he finally avowed himself a Protestant, declaring that he would die in his old faith; that he believed neither in papal supremacy nor in transubstantiation, proclaiming that the hand which had signed his recantation should be the first to suffer from the fire. He was taken to the spot where Latimer and Ridley were burnt the October before, and died like them, his death adding light to the candle which could never be put out. As the flames rose about him he thrust in his right hand, and held it there till it was consumed, crying aloud, "This hand hath offended; this unworthy right hand." His last audible words were, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."
The city has been for centuries one of great respectability and repute, and Charles I. once made it his headquarters. The cathedral attached to Christ's College is on the site of a priory, founded in the eighth century. It is Gothic, of the style of the twelfth century, and has a spire 146 feet high. This is one of the five cathedrals of England having spires; but it is, however, only a remnant of a church which, probably, when entire, had little merit. St. Peter's is the oldest church in Oxford; but St. Mary's is also venerable, and has a steeple 180 feet high.
The Bodleian Library, opened in 1602, contains three hundred thousand volumes. There is connected with the library a museum containing many portraits of distinguished people. In this room, among other prominent objects of interest, is an oaken chair, once a part of the ship in which Sir Francis Drake made his celebrated voyage around the world. He set sail from Plymouth, England, Dec. 13, 1577, over three hundred years ago, and reached home again in November, 1580. He died and was buried at sea, near Puerto Bello, Dec. 27, 1595.
The poet Cowley, in 1662, composed the following verse, which is engraven on a silver plate and affixed to the chair:—
To this great ship, which round the Globe has run,
And matched in race the chariot of the sun,
This Pythagorian ship (for it may claim
Without presumption, so deserved a name)
By knowledge once, and transformation now,
In her new shape this sacred port allow.
Drake and his ship, could not have wished from Fate,
An happier station, or more blest estate;
For lo! a seat of endless rest is given,
To her in Oxford, and to him in Heaven.
Here is exhibited the lantern used by Guy Fawkes in the memorable plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament, Nov. 5, 1605. It is an ordinary lantern, with holes through the tin. In fact, it is precisely like those used in New England fifty years ago.
The college buildings are mostly built of yellowish sandstone, now bedimmed with age, and many of them are much decayed. They are unlike our college buildings, being constructed with an imposing façade, through whose centre is an arch, under the second story, opening into an enclosed quadrangle. These quadrangles vary in dimensions, from one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet square, and the students' rooms open into them. Out of the quadrangle nearest the street, similar arches may often lead into other quadrangles in the rear of the first, or at its sides; so that the establishment may be extended, in a series of buildings, without losing its primal characteristics.
These roofless squares have velvet grass, with wide walks around the outside, against the buildings, and cross-paths leading to the doorways and arches. Scrupulously clean is every inch of college ground in Oxford. Not a piece of paper litters the lawn; and many students have flower-pots at their windows. Fuschias, petunias, nasturtiums, and geraniums were abundant. The buildings vary in design, but are all three or four stories high. Some of them are built out flush; and others have corridors, cloister-like, under the second story, around their quadrangles.