Within a fortnight from the writing of this letter the founder died. He was buried with solemn ceremonial in the College chapel, where his coffin was found intact when that of Laud was laid beside it nearly a century later. A funeral oration was preached by one of the most brilliant of the junior Fellows, Edmund Campion, soon to win wider notoriety, and eventually to die a shameful death.
The loss of the founder made more evident the weaknesses with which the College had had to struggle from the first. It was wretchedly poor. The munificence of Sir Thomas White himself had more than exhausted his purse. He died a poor man; much of what he had intended for the College never reached it,—it would have been less still but for the scarcely judicial assistance, “partly by pious persuasions and partly by judicious delays,” of his executor Sir William Cordell, who was Master of the Rolls,—and some of the estates, like Fyfield, were burdened with encumbrances which he had left behind. Nor was this all. Before the end of the century one of the Bursars seems to have embezzled the College money and fled, becoming a Papist, and getting employment where his antecedents were not known, as paymaster to an Archduke of Austria. As early as 1577 the expenses had to be cut down; the chapel foundation was reduced if not altogether suspended. But the College not only suffered from pecuniary troubles; it seems to have been peculiarly affected by the religious changes of the time. So long as the founder had lived, his tact had smoothed the difficulties of the transition from the Marian to the Elizabethan rule. Two at least of the earlier Presidents were deprived for asserting the Pope’s supremacy, yet the change was managed without disturbance. But when the wise counsels of the founder could no longer be heard, and when the Papal Court had declared itself the bitter foe of Elizabeth, Fellow after Fellow retired, or was deprived, and joined the Roman party. For this cause no less than six members of the foundation are recorded within a few years to have been imprisoned. Some, like Gregory Martin, who had been tutor to the Duke of Norfolk’s children, and was afterwards the translator of the “Rheims Bible,” fled over sea; some died in hiding, some in English gaols. One, Edmund Campion, a brilliant orator and a bold defender of the Papal jurisdiction, became a Jesuit, was mixed up in several political intrigues, and eventually was hanged at Tyburn. It might seem as though the little College, poor and divided, would never weather the storm. That it did so was no doubt due to the patience and devotion of its members. During its darkest years, at the end of the sixteenth century, there were found philosophers and theologians, such as Dr. John Case,[272] and skilful administrators such as Dr. Francis Willis (President, 1577-1590), poets and rhetoricians, and London merchants, who gave their talents and their money to support the fame of the struggling Society.
By the beginning of the sixteenth century the College was on its feet again; before a quarter of the century had passed its influence was the most important in the University. Great men had begun to send their sons there. In 1564 came two sons of the Earl of Shrewsbury; in 1572 two Stanleys and young Lord Strange. At the accession of James I. few Colleges had among their members so many men already distinguished or soon to win distinction. Tobie Matthew, a former President, had risen to be Dean, and then Bishop, of Durham, and died Archbishop of York. Sir William Paddy, a Fellow and notable benefactor, was the King’s physician. John Buckeridge (President, 1605-1611) became Bishop first of Rochester and then of Ely. A Fellow of the College had been the Maiden Queen’s ambassador to Russia; many others were famous in the law courts. But two men especially were destined to play a part on a wider scene. In 1602 William Juxon, a lad of gentle birth, from Sussex, matriculated at S. John’s. William Laud, born at Reading on October 7th, 1573, elected a Fellow of S. John’s College at the early age of twenty, was Proctor in the year of the King’s accession. From this year the history of the College may be considered to be inseparable from that of the little energetic personage who left so great a mark upon the history of the English Church.
On the 18th of January, 1605, Dr. John Buckeridge was elected President on the death of Ralph Hutchinson. In August of the same year, King James visited the University. At the gate of S. John’s “three young youths[273] in habit and attire like nymphs, confronted him, representing England, Scotland, and Ireland, and talking dialogue-wise each to other of their state, at last concluding yielding up themselves to his gracious government. The Scholars stood all on one side of the street; and the strangers of all sorts on the other. The Scholars stood first, then the Bachelors, and last the Masters of Arts.” Two days afterwards, at the end of a long day, the King saw a comedy, called Vertumnuus, written by Dr. Gwynne, a Fellow of S. John’s. “It was acted much better than either of the other that he had seen before, yet the King was so over-wearied that after a while he distasted it and fell asleep. When he awaked he would have been gone, saying, ‘I marvel what they think me to be,’ with such other like speeches, showing his dislike thereof. Yet he did tarry till they had ended it, which was after one of the clock.”
At this time the University was greatly influenced by Calvinist doctrines. It was from S. John’s that the first opposition to the prevalent opinions came, and it was thus that William Laud first became famous. Laud was ordained deacon and priest by Dr. Young, Bishop of Rochester, who, “finding his study raised above the systems and opinions of the age, upon the noble foundations of the fathers, councils, and the ecclesiastical historians, early presaged that if he lived he would be an instrument of restoring the Church from the narrow and private principles of modern times to the more enlarged, liberal, and public sentiments of the apostolic and primitive ages.” Dr. Young was right in his prophecy, for Laud was soon the leader of the reaction against Calvinism in the University, as he was afterwards successful in asserting more liberal and Catholic sentiments in the Anglican Church at large. By maintaining in theological lectures and sermons before the University the doctrine of baptismal regeneration and the divine institution of Episcopacy, he made himself prominent in opposition to the chief authorities of the day, who were all imbued with Calvinistic views. It was reckoned, so in later years he told Heylin, a heresy to speak to him, and a suspicion of heresy to salute him as he walked in the street. Yet he had no lack of friends; the most eminent members of his own College seem always to have stood by him,—we have Sir William Paddy’s approval of an University sermon that had caused much offence,—and before long he found the whole University converted to his views. There were sermons and pamphlets and answers and counterblasts, inquiries by Vice-Chancellor and Doctors, threats of suspension, murmurs of disloyalty to the Church, as there have often been since in Oxford theological tempests; but the misconception and bitter feeling were gradually overcome by the steadfast conscientiousness of Laud. He received a number of preferments outside the University, was especially honoured by Bishop Neile of Rochester, and resigned his Fellowship in 1610 to devote himself entirely to parochial work. At the end of that year, however, Dr. Buckeridge, President of S. John’s, was elected Bishop of Rochester in succession to Dr. Neile, and by his advice and support Laud was proposed for the vacant headship of the College. Calvinist influence in the University was set to work to induce the King to prevent the appointment, but without success, and Laud was elected on May 10th, 1611. The election was marked by keen and violent party feeling. When the nomination papers had been laid on the altar (as was the custom in College elections down to within living memory), and the Vice-President was about to announce the result, one of the Fellows, Richard Baylie, snatched the papers from his hands and tore them in pieces. It is characteristic of Laud’s freedom from personal animosity, that he passed over this act of irritable partisanship and showed special favour to the culprit. He procured the choice of Baylie as Proctor in 1615, afterwards made him his chaplain, married him to his niece, supported his election in 1632 to the Presidency itself, and in 1636 appointed him Vice-Chancellor of the University. In the same year, 1611, Laud became one of the King’s chaplains, and from this time was not without royal influence to assist him in his University contests.
He had still great difficulties to contend with. Dr. Abbot, Regius Professor of Divinity and brother of the Primate, preached against him in S. Mary’s, his assertion of anti-Calvinistic doctrine, or Arminianism as it was now called, being the cause of complaint. “Might not Christ say, what art thou? Romish or English, Papist or Protestant?—or what art thou? A mongrel compound of both; a Protestant by ordination, a Papist in point of free will, inherent righteousness, and the like. A Protestant in receiving the Sacrament, a Papist in the doctrine of the Sacrament. What, do you think there be two heavens? If there be, get you to the other and place yourself there, for into this where I am ye shall not come.” To such coarse stuff as this was Laud compelled to listen; he “was fain to sit patiently” among the heads of houses, and “hear himself abused almost an hour together, being pointed at.” But this was merely the vindictive retort of a vanquished party.
In 1616 the King sent some instructions to the Vice-Chancellor which exercised a powerful effect on the theology and discipline of the University. Care was to be taken that the selected preachers throughout the city should conform to the doctrine of the Church, and that students in Divinity should be “excited to bestow their time on the Fathers and Councils, schoolmen, histories and controversies, … making them the grounds of their studies in divinity.” In the same year Laud was made Dean of Gloucester. In 1621 he became Bishop of S. David’s, and resigned the headship of the College. During the following years he does not seem to have been much in Oxford, and it was not till 1630, when he was made Chancellor, that he exercised effective control over the University. While he was busied in the affairs of the Church at large, and was rising step by step to the highest ecclesiastical preferment, his College, under the government of Dr. William Juxon, grew in prosperity. Sir William Paddy, always a benefactor, gave a “pneumatick organ of great cost,” and by his will endowed an organist with singing men, and left books and money to the Society of which he was, says a College chronicler, a member as munificent as learned. The organ, though its erection was made by Prynne one of the accusations against Laud, escaped destruction during the Rebellion, and was in use till 1768. Bishop Buckeridge left more money to the College, and altar furniture for the chapel. Within the years 1616-1636 large sums of money came in, and gifts of land and advowsons of livings were made by persons more or less connected with the College; the buildings were added to, and by the time when Laud, as Bishop of London and Chancellor of the University, had set himself to “build at S. John’s in Oxford, where I was bred up, for the good and safety of that College,” the College, still much less than a century old, was freed from the pecuniary troubles which so much crippled it in its earlier years.
The new quadrangle, which was begun in July 1631, when the King gave two hundred tons of wood from the royal forests of Stow and Shotover to aid in the building, was a magnificent expression of the donor’s generosity and love for the College. It was completed in 1636, and Laud, now Archbishop of Canterbury, having assigned by special direction the new rooms to the library, to the President, and for the use of commoners, made elaborate preparations to receive the King and Queen when they “invited themselves” to him. They brought with them the King’s nephew, the Elector Palatine and Prince Rupert, who were entered on the books of S. John’s. Laud’s College and his new library were the centre of the entertainments that marked their stay in Oxford. The Archbishop’s own words[274] give the best account of the festivities. On the 30th of August, 1636, he says, “When they were come to S. John’s they first viewed the new building, and that done I attended them up to the Library stairs, where as soon as I began to ascend the music began and they had a fine short song fitted for them as they ascended the stairs. In the Library they were welcomed to the College with a short speech made by one of the Fellows (Abraham Wright). And dinner being ready they passed from the old into the new library, built by myself, where the King, the Queen and the Prince Elector dined at one table which stood cross at the upper end. And Prince Rupert with all the lords and ladies present, which were very many, dined at a long table in the same room. When dinner was ended I attended the King and the Queen together with the nobles into several withdrawing chambers, where they entertained themselves for the space of an hour. And in the meantime I caused the windows of the hall to be shut, the candles lighted, and all things made ready for the play to begin. When these things were fitted, I gave notice to the King and Queen and attended them into the hall. … The play[275] was very good and the action. It was merry and without offence, and so gave a great deal of content. In the middle of the play I ordered a short banquet for the King, the Queen, and the lords. And the College was at that time so well furnished as that they did not borrow any one actor from any College in town. The play ended, the King and Queen went to Christ Church.” A contemporary notes among the quaintnesses of the entertainment that “the baked meats were so contrived by the cook, that there was first the forms of archbishops, then bishops, doctors, etc., seen in order, wherein the King and courtiers took much content.” “No man,” says Laud, “went out at the gates, courtier or other, but content; which was a happiness quite beyond expectation.” The next day, when the royal party had left, the Chancellor entertained the University authorities, “which gave the University a great deal of content, being that which had never been done by any Chancellor before.” “I sat with them,” he says, “at table; we were merry, and very glad that all things had so passed to the great satisfaction of the King and the honour of that place.”
By this time Laud had not only given to his own College a notable position in the University, but had reformed and legislated for the University itself. The statutes had long been in confusion; Convocation in any case of difficulty passed a new rule which frequently conflicted with the old statutes, and the government of the undergraduates seems to have been very lax. The University submitted its laws to the Chancellor, who, with the aid of a learned lawyer of Merton College, revised and codified them. How he desired that the students should be ruled may be seen by his careful direction to the heads of Colleges,[276] that “the youths should conform themselves to the public discipline of the University. … And particularly see that none, youth or other, be suffered to go in boots or spurs, or to wear their hair undecently long, or with a lock in the present fashion, or with slashed doublets, or in any light or garish colours; and that noblemen’s sons may conform in everything, as others do, during the time of their abode there, which will teach them to know the difference of places and order betimes; and when they grow up to be men it will make them look back upon that place with honour to it and reputation to you.” So successful was he in impressing the spirit of discipline and self-restraint, that Sir John Coke was able to congratulate the University in 1636 that “scholars are no more found in taverns, nor seen loitering in the streets or other places of idleness or ill-example, but all contain themselves within the walls of their Colleges, and in the schools or public libraries, wherein I confess you have at length gotten the start, and by your virtue and merit have made this University, which before had no paragon in any foreign country, now to go beyond itself and give a glorious example to others not to go behind.” In the Register of S. John’s College there are curious examples of the discipline maintained. To take an instance from a somewhat later time, under the date of April 4th, 1668, we have “Memorandum, that I, Thomas Tuer, being convented and convicted, secunda vice, before the Vice-President and Seniors of the breach of the statutes de morum honestate by injuriously striking Sir Waple, was for this my fault according to the statutes on that behalf put out of commons for 15 days. Thomas Tuer.”