Some years afterwards the very existence of the College was a second time brought into danger. The scribe who wrote out the charter of 1461-2 (1 Edward IV.), had done his work in a most slovenly manner, dropping here and there words required by the grammatical structure. Unfortunately for the College, in one important place the words “et successoribus” were omitted; and some one in authority, fastening on this omission, suggested that the grant was only to the Rector and Fellows for the time being, and on their death or removal would lapse to the Crown. The College appealed, in 1474, for protection to Thomas Rotheram, Bishop of Lincoln and therefore Visitor of the College, and (from May 1474 to April 1475, and again from Sept. 1475) Lord High Chancellor of England.
The manner of this appeal, as recounted by Subrector Robert Parkinson about 1570, in the College register, is sufficiently dramatic. When Rotheram, in the visitation of his diocese, was at Oxford, the Rector or one of the Fellows of Lincoln College preached before him from the text, Ps. lxxx. (lxxxi.), vers. 14, 15, “Behold and visit this vine, and complete it which thy right hand hath planted.” The preacher described the desolate condition of the College, founded by Rotheram’s predecessor, unprotected from the enemies who sought to destroy it; and his words so moved the bishop that he at once rose up and told the preacher that he would perform his desire.[162]
Rotheram was not slow in fulfilling his promise. To relieve the present necessities of the College he gave, in July 1475, a grant of £4 per annum during his life. Thereafter he completed the front quadrangle by building its southern side;[163] and he very greatly increased the endowments by impropriating[164] the rectories of Long Combe in Oxfordshire and Twyford in Bucks. He increased the number of Fellowships by five; but at least three of these had been provided for by earlier benefactors, one by Finderne, one by Forest and Beckington’s executors, and one (for the study of Canon Law) by John Crosby, Treasurer of Lincoln Cathedral.
To secure the legal position of the College, he obtained from Edward IV., 16th June, 1478, a larger charter. In this the king recites his former charter; mentions the doubt which had arisen by reason of its omitting the words “et successoribus”; and then sets the position of the College as a perpetua persona for ever at rest. In the same charter the king still further increased the amount of lands which the College might hold in mortmain.
On 11th Feb., 1479-80, Rotheram provided for the internal government of the College by the giving of a full body of statutes. Rotheram therefore is justly regarded as our restorer and second founder.
The later years of the fifteenth and the earlier years of the sixteenth centuries increased the estates of the College by four great benefactions. By an agreement with Margaret Parker, widow of William Dagville, a parishioner of All Saints parish, the College in 1488 (5 Henry VIII.) came into possession of considerable property in Oxford,[165] which had been bequeathed by Dagville, subject to his widow’s life interest, by his will dated 2nd June, 1474, and proved 9th Nov., 1476. In 1508 William Smith, Bishop of Lincoln, gave his manors of Senclers in Chalgrove in Oxfordshire, and of Elston (or Bushbury) in Staffordshire. In 1518 Edmund Audley, Bishop of Sarum, gave £400, with which lands in Buckinghamshire were bought. And in 1537 Edward Darby, Fellow in 1493, and now Archdeacon of Stowe, gave a large sum of money, with which lands in Yorkshire were bought. Darby directed that the number of Fellowships should be increased by three, to be nominated by himself in his lifetime (one of the first three whom he nominated as Fellows was Richard Bruarne, afterwards Regius Professor of Hebrew); and afterwards, one to be nominated by the Bishop of Lincoln, the other two to be elected by the College.
In connection with Bishop Smith’s benefaction, we may note here the singular fatality which has led the College in successive ages to quarrel with its benefactors. Writing in 1570, Subrector Robert Parkinson says, “Bishop Smith would have given to our College all that he afterwards gave to Brasenose (founded by him in 1509) had he agreed with the Rector and Fellows that then were.” With Smith’s change of plans, part of Darby’s benefaction went, for he also founded a Fellowship in Brasenose. Sir Nathaniel Lloyd was a chief benefactor in the early eighteenth century to All Souls in Oxford, and to Trinity Hall in Cambridge: in three successive drafts of his will he takes the trouble to write, “I gave £500 to Lincoln College, which was not applied as I directed: so no more from me!” Lord Crewe, our greatest benefactor of modern times, well deserving the title of “our third founder,” was almost provoked[166] to recalling his benefaction. A quarrel with John Radcliffe diverted from Lincoln College the munificence which doubled the buildings of University College and provided for the erection of the Radcliffe Library, the Infirmary, and the Observatory. Other instances, both remote and recent, might also be cited.
Having now brought the history of the endowments of the College to that point where their application within its walls can be conveniently described, it is necessary to leave the annals of the College for a time and consider its organization, as it was arranged for by Rotheram’s statutes, modified slightly by subsequent benefactions.
The College was to consist of (I) the Rector; (II) Fellows; (III) Chaplains; (IV) Commoners; (V) and Servants.
(I) To the Rector was, of course, in general terms committed the government of the College and its members. But he was allowed large limits of absence from College; and he was to be capable of holding any ecclesiastical benefice in conjunction with his rectorship. In the founder’s intention, therefore, the headship of the College was to be an office of dignity, and the holder set free from the ordinary routine of college work. It was also to be a reward of past services to the College, because only a Fellow, or ex-Fellow, was eligible for the office.