A casket containing his remains was transferred from the old chapel to the vault under the new chapel when the latter was built.
His horn is still used on gaudy-days as the loving-cup. It must have been mounted in something like its present condition almost from the beginning, as in the Long Roll of 1416-7 sixteen pence is paid “pro emendatione aquilae crateris fundatoris.” Other repairs are mentioned later as in 1584-5, “pro reparatione particulae coronae quae circumdat operculum cornu xii d.; item, pro reparandis aliis partibus cornu xviii d.”
His name is also kept alive by the “canting” custom observed in the College on New Year’s Day, when after dinner the Bursar presents to each guest a needle threaded with silk of a colour suitable to his faculty (aiguille et fil), and prays for his prosperity in the words “Take this and be thrifty.”[138]
The object with which the College was founded is set forth in the statutes as “the cultivation of Theology to the glory of God, the advance of the Church, and the salvation of souls.” It was to be a Collegiate Hall of Masters, Chaplains, Theologians, and other scholars to be advanced to the order of the priesthood. It was founded in the name of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, to the Glory of our Lord and of His Mother and of the whole Court of Heaven, for the benefit of the Universal Church and especially of the Church of England, for the prosperity of the King and Queen and their children, and for the salvation of their souls and the souls of their progenitors and successors, and of the souls of the founder’s family and his benefactors, especially William of Muskham, Rector of the Church of Dereham, and for the “salutare suffragium” of all the living and the dead.
The benefactions of Muskham do not seem to have ceased with the foundation of the College. In 1347 Roger Swynbrok goes to Dereham on behalf of the College to get money from Muskham, and the hire of his horse costs eightpence, and there are entries of money received from Muskham in later years. Other persons besides the members of the College were interested in him, as in 1362 the oblations for his soul and the soul of John de Hotham the second Provost amounted to £29 16s. 11½d.
The statutes lay down with considerable minuteness of detail the course of life which Eglesfield expected the members of his foundation to follow, and, in connection with the early accounts of the College, which have been preserved with tolerable completeness, give us some materials for an account of the social life in the College during the earlier portion of its history.
It is probable, indeed, that the large and complex establishment, whose details are developed in Eglesfield’s statutes, rather represent what he wished for and aimed at than the actual condition of the College at any time; but there seems to have been always in the College a sincere desire to carry out, so far as was possible, the prescriptions of the founder; and, as we shall see, some of his minutest directions have regulated the practice of the College ever since his days.
The patronage of the Hall, “the advowson” as he calls it, was to be vested in his Royal mistress Philippa, and in the Queens consort of England who shall succeed her. He adds the characteristic detail that, if a king dies before his successor is married, the patronage shall be continued to the widow till a Queen consort comes into being.
Philippa had already procured from her husband for the infant College the Church of Brough under Staynesmore, and this was to be only an earnest of the benefits the College was to derive from the lofty patronage the founder thus secured to it. She was the first queen to be distinguished as patroness and foundress of a Collegiate Hall.
In 1353-4, which seems to have been a year of unusual expense to the College, among the donations received xxvj pounds iiij shillings is credited to “domina Regina.”