With these and similar injunctions the founder launched the College on its voyage across the centuries. Into the details of that voyage there is no further room to go. Whatever affected the history of the country affected the history of the University, and whatever affected the history of the University affected the history of the College. Wycliff stayed within the College, and Nicholas of Hereford, who translated for him the Old Testament, was a Fellow. Henry Whitfield, Provost, and three Fellows, one of them John of Trevisa, all four west-countrymen, were expelled for Wycliffism. The phases of the Reformation in England are accurately reflected in the College accounts. A Royal Commission visits the College in 1545, and Rudd, one of the Fellows, is expelled. Eightpence is paid, “pro vino & orengis commissionariis.” Three years later 6s. 2d. is paid, “dolantibus meremium & diripientibus imagines in sacello.” The wheel comes round, and in 1555, 9s. is paid, “pro ligatione et coopertura unius portiphorii, duorum processionalium, unius missalis, unius gradalis, unius antiphonarii & unius hymnarii.” But the reaction is only temporary, and in 1560 appears 4s. 8d., “pro destruendo altaria.”
The College contributes others besides the Wycliffites and Rudd as victims to the struggles of the times. John Bost is a martyr for Roman Catholicism; as Michael Hudson later, for the King against the Parliament. Thomas Smith’s case is the hardest of all; as, having been turned out of his Fellowship at Magdalen for refusing to elect Bishop Parker as President, he is turned out again later on for refusing to take the oath of allegiance to William III.
The College shared the fortunes of the University in the days of the Stuarts. His Majesty desires the College, 5th Jan., 1642-3, to lend him all plate of what kind soever belonging to the College, and promises to see the same repaid after the rate of 5s. per ounce for white, and 5s. 6d. for gilt plate; and nine days later Mr. Stannix, thesaurarius, delivers to Sir William Parkhurst for his Majesty’s use such a collection of tankards, two-eared potts, white large bowles and lesser bowles, salts and gilt bowles, and spoones and gobletts, as the College shall never see again, 2319 oz. of both sorts, worth in all £591 1s. 9d. And then the Provost and scholars, as things grow worse, petition Sir Thomas Glemham that—whereas parcel of the works on the west side of Northgate had been assigned to Magdalen and Queen’s College jointly, and Queen’s College had already performed more than in a due proportion would have come to their share, most of them labouring in their own persons by the space of twelve days at the least, while those of Magdalen assisted, some very slenderly and some not at all—that a proportionable part of the work yet unfinish’d may be set forth to themselves in particular apart from Magdalen; and this is ordered to be done. And then the king goes down, and the parliamentary visitors appear; and “This is the answer of mee, Jo. Fisher (Master of Arts and Chaplaine of Queenes Colledge), and which I shall acknowledge is myne: That I cannot without perjury submitt to this visitation, and therefore I will not submitt. Ita est: Jo. Fisher.” And John Fisher and others are reported to the Committee of Lords and Commons and lose their places. And George Phillip and James Bedford and William Barksdale and Moses Foxcraft appear in the Register of Fellows as “Intrusi tempore usurpationis, exclusi ad Restaurationem Caroli Secundi.”
And in all these crises, and those which have followed, “sons of Eglesfield” have been called to play their part. Thomas Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln; Henry Compton, Bishop of London; Thomas Cartwright, Bishop of Chester; Thomas Lamplugh, Archbishop of York; Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London; William Nicholson, Archbishop of Cashel; Thomas Tanner, Bishop of St. Asaph; William Van Mildert, Bishop of Durham; William Thomson, Archbishop of York, among Prelates: John Owen, Dean of Christ Church; John Mill and Richard Cecil, among Divines: Sir John Davies, Sir Thomas Overbury, William Wycherly, Joseph Addison, Thomas Tickell, William Collins, William Mitford, Jeremy Bentham, Francis Jeffrey, among men of letters: Gerard Langbaine, Thomas Hyde, Thomas Hudson, Edward Thwaites, Christopher Rawlinson, Edward Rowe Mores, Thomas Tyrwhitt, among scholars; Edmund Halley and Henry Highton, among men of science; Sir Edward Nicholas, Sir John Banks, and Sir Joseph Williamson, among lawyers and statesmen—are but a selection of the more distinguished of those to whose equipment the College has contributed in a greater or less degree. May those who now and shall hereafter occupy their places avoid their errors and emulate their virtues.
VII.
NEW COLLEGE.
By the Rev. Hastings Rashdall, M.A., late Scholar of New College, Fellow of Hertford College.
[A MS. life of Wykeham ascribed to Warden Chaundler, but probably only corrected by him, remains in the possession of the College. The Historica Descriptio complectens vitam ac res gestas Wicami, Londini 1597, is the work of Martyn. There are two scholarly lives of the Founder by Lowth (edit. 2, London 1759) and G. H. Moberly (Winchester 1887), but they give little information about the College. Walcott’s William of Wykeham and his Colleges (Winchester 1852) is the fullest College history that we possess, but it leaves something to be desired. I have to thank the Warden of New College, the Rev. W. A. Spooner, and the Rev. H. B. George for several valuable suggestions or corrections.]
More has been written about the lives of the Oxford College founders than about the institutions which they founded. In some cases the life of a founder properly belongs to the history of his College; the life of William of Wykeham is part of the history of England. For our present purpose, therefore, it is unnecessary to trace his public and political career; but we cannot appreciate the aim of such an institution as New College without understanding the kind of man in whose brain the scheme originated.