It was by thus obtaining influence over Royal and other persons, in conformity with the injunctions of the founder, that Provosts and other members of the College were enabled to benefit it. The monument to Joseph Smith (1730) which faces one who comes out of the College chapel, seems to preserve the memory of an ideal Provost from Eglesfield’s point of view and that which continued to be maintained in the College. “Distinguished for his Learning, Eloquence, Politeness of Manners, Piety and Charity, he with great Prudence and judicious Moderation presided over his College to its general Happiness. Its Interests were the constant Object of his Attention. He was himself a good Benefactor to it, and was blest with the Success of obtaining for it by his respectable Influence, several ample Donations to the very great and perpetual Increase of its Establishment.”
Among the “ample donations” obtained by Provost Smith’s “respectable influence,” the first place belongs to the Hastings foundation. The Lady Elizabeth Hastings, daughter of Theophilus, seventh Earl of Huntingdon, of whom Steele says in the Tatler, “To love her is a liberal education,” bequeathed to the College in 1739 her Manors, Lands, and Hereditaments in Wheldale in the West Riding of Yorkshire, to found five Exhibitions for five poor scholars that had been educated for two years at one or other of twelve schools in Cumberland, Westmorland, and Yorkshire. Each school was to send a candidate, and the candidates were first to be examined at Abberforth or Aberford in Yorkshire by seven neighbouring clergymen, and the ten best exercises were to be sent to the Provost and Fellows, who were to “choose out of them eight of the best performances which appear the best, which done, the names subscribed to those eight shall be fairly written, each in a distinct paper, and the papers rolled up and put into an Urn or Vase, … and after being shaken well together in the Urn shall be drawn out of the same.… And those five whose names are first drawn shall to all Intents and Purposes be held duly elected.… And though this Method of choosing by Lot may be called by some Superstition or Enthusiasm, yet … the advice was given me by an Orthodox and Pious Prelate of the Church of England as leaving something to Providence.” This method of election was observed as late as 1859, the Urn or Vase then employed being the Provost’s man-servant’s hat. In 1769 the lot not drawn was that of Edward Tatham of Heversham School, afterwards Rector of Lincoln College, probably the most notable person who was ever a candidate for a place on this foundation. A more reasonable provision, that if of the original schools any should so far come to decay as to have no scholar returned by the examiners at Aberford in four successive elections, the College should appoint another school from the same county in its stead, has been of great benefit to the Foundation and to education in the counties. The estate devised has increased in value, coals having been got, which were supposed in Lady Betty’s time to be in the estate. Fourteen schools now enjoy the benefits of the Foundation, and nearly thirty Exhibitioners of £90 a year each now take the place of the original five Exhibitioners of £28 a year.
Elaborate regulations were laid down for the election of the Provost, and on one occasion at least the whole course of proceeding had to be gone through.[141] In the oath, which was to precede this as almost all other important ceremonies in the College, the Fellows swear that they will elect the most fit and sufficient of the Fellows to the vacancy.
Disputes have from time to time taken place as to whether a “promoted[142] Fellow” during his year of grace is to be regarded as a Fellow for this purpose. At the time of Wm. Lancaster’s election (1704) a pamphlet was published in opposition to his claims, but it would seem without any effect on the election. The pamphleteer has to allow that several earlier Provosts, among them Henry Boost, who was also Provost of Eton, and Bishop Langton, had never been Fellows at all.
The Provost was to receive five marks in addition to the portion assigned to each of the Fellows, and this was to be increased gradually to forty pounds in case the augmentation of the revenues of the College allowed the number of Fellows prescribed in the statutes to increase. He was to receive this for his ordinary expenses and necessities. The community was to defray any expenses incurred in absence on business, or in the entertainment of visitors who might repair to the College in connection with its affairs.—In 1359-60, Adam, the Provost’s servant, has his expenses paid for a visit to Southampton to see the condition of God’s House while the foreigners were at Winchester. In 1363-4 Henry Whitfield, the Provost, brings in a bill for his expenses on a voyage to the Court of Rome at Avignon on College business connected with the living of Sparsholt in Berks. A century later the Provost is allowed 5s. 10d. for his expenses to London in May 1519 to get money for the building of the chapel. In 1600-1 18d. is paid for a horse sent to fetch the Provost for the election of a principal at St. Edmund Hall.
The rights of the College in the matter of the appointment of a Principal of that Hall have always been vigorously asserted against the Chancellor of the University, who nominates the Principals of all other public Halls. In 1636, when the Heads of Colleges and Halls were called upon to give their formal submission to Laud’s new statutes, Chr. Potter, Coll. Reginæ Præpositus, adds his name “Salvo jure Collegii prædicti ad Aulam St. Edmundi.” The record of the proceedings on the occasion of each election of a Principal has been preserved with a care not usually extended to any but the most solemn of the proceedings of the College. On the 18th December, 1614, Mr. French is paid 3s. for writing out the agreement made between the University and the College about the election of a Principal of St. Edmund Hall. The agreement, securing the appointment to the College, was made in 1559. Lord Buckhurst (Chancellor from 1591 to 1608) was advised by Lord Chief Justice Walmsley that it was void, but the law officers of the Crown at the time maintained its validity.[143]
The common seal, the jewels, treasure, bulls, charters, writings, statutes, privileges and muniments of the College were to be kept in a chest with three locks, the keys whereof were to be kept by the Provost, the Treasurer, and the “Camerarius.” The two last were the technical names for the senior and junior Bursars respectively, and were retained in the Long Rolls to a very recent time.
The Foundation was to be in theory open. Like the University, the College was not to close the bosom of its protection to any race or deserving nation; and the Fellows at the time of election swore not only to put away all hatred, fear, and partiality, and to listen to no requests, but also to act without accepting person or country. The conditions of eligibility were distinguished character, poverty and fitness for studying theology with profit. A preference, however, was to be given to suitable persons who were natives of Cumberland and Westmorland, to which this preference was given on account of their waste state, their uninhabited condition, and the scarcity of letters in them. Within these limits too there was to be a preference for founders’ kin. After these a cæteris paribus preference was given to those places wherein the College derived benefit either from ecclesiastical benefices, manors, lands or tenements. These limitations soon practically resulted in confining the Foundation to natives of the two counties. They supplied a steady flow of capable persons; and curiously enough, though so unequal in size and population, in about equal numbers.
Pressure was from time to time applied to the College to admit into the society persons not duly qualified. In the reign of James I., Robert Murray, a Scot, was thus recommended by a Royal letter; and, though the College declined to elect him, it was thought politic to pay him £20 “ne in iniquam pecuniarum erogationem traheretur collegium.” During the time of the usurpation, as a note in the Entrance Book calls it, four Fellows were intruded, who were promptly got rid of at the Restoration of Charles II. Thomas Cartwright, who was afterwards “Tabiter,” and eventually Bishop of Chester, and one of the Commissioners for ejecting the President and Fellows of Magdalen College, is said to have been put into the College by the Parliamentary Visitors during the same period.
The claim to preference as founder’s kin does not seem to have been often advanced. The Thomas Eglesfield, to the purchase of whose tabard reference is made above,[144] seems to have been grandson of the founder’s brother John. At the time of his admission to the College, his father, also called John, seems to have visited the College and taken away with him a son William, who, like Thomas, had been for a term under the instruction of Mr. John Leylonde. This is probably the William who, with his wife, brother, and sister-in-law, receives from the College gloves in 1459 to the value of 12½d. Leylonde seems to have continued to act as private tutor to Thomas after he joined the College, as xs. is paid in 1418, “Magistro Joh. Leylonde pro scolagio Tho. Egylsfelde.” A Christopher Eglesfield was on the Foundation about the same time. Thomas went through all the stages of promotion. He was “puer,” “serviens,” Fellow, and eventually Provost, besides holding the University offices of Proctor and Commissary (or Vice-Chancellor). An Anthony Eglesfield was Fellow of the College in 1577. A James Eglesfield belonged to it in 1615, and a George Eglesfield in 1670. A Gawin Eglesfield, who had been taberdar, and was passed over at an election to Fellows in 1632, claimed election as founder’s kin, and was backed by the Archbishop of York as visitor. The College successfully resisted the claim; but on Gawin’s acknowledgment that the claim was unfounded, to please the visitor, presented him to the living of Weston in Oxfordshire.