Cambridge Papers

by W. W. Rouse Ball

Mary recognized the interest taken by her father in Trinity and, in furtherance of his design, decided to rebuild the College on a comprehensive plan. She issued orders about this on 24 October 1554, and it was arranged in 1555 that the first large task undertaken in connection with it should be the erection of a new chapel. Preliminary work on this [89] ]was commenced in 1556 and it was then expected that the building would be finished by the end of 1557, but by October of that year the walls were only half-way up: delays ensued and ten years elapsed before the building was completed. The old chapel was unroofed in 1561, and cannot, it would seem, have been used after that date: it is possible it was shut up in the course of 1557, but early in that year it was still in use, for the royal commissioners in January 1557 complained of the absence of lights on the altar and of coals to cense the sacrament. During the years from the closing of the old chapel to 1567 it is uncertain whether the services were held in College or in one of the town churches.

It was originally intended that the new chapel should be a hundred and fifty-seven feet long and thirty-three feet broad, the east end being flush with the street frontage of the Great Gate. The roof was to be curved, open, and relieved with fretwork and oak pendants. There was to be an east window, a west window, eleven windows on the south side, and twelve on the north side from which it follows that it was to be a detached building save for its abutment on staircase E in the Great Court.

It was designed to contain two rows of stalls made after the pattern of those at King’s College, sixty-eight in the upper row with misereres, divided by [90] ]pillars, and with double crests above, and a lower row of stalls not so divided. Unfortunately the contractor got into money difficulties and sold much of the timber which had been bought for the intended roof and stalls, causing the work to fall into arrear.

After the accession of Elizabeth, changes in the plans of the new chapel were made, the length being increased to two hundred and five feet, thus making it project beyond the east side of the Great Court. In 1564 the walls of the building were finished and plastered, and the date 1564 cut on the east gable together with the text from the Vulgate, Matthew xxi. 13, Domus mea domus orationis vocabitur, which in the authorized version runs: “My house shall be called the house of prayer” and is followed by the clause “but ye have made it a den of thieves.” Wags have sometimes continued the inscription by adding the second clause on the chapel either of Trinity or of St John’s as their inclinations led them. The roof, put on in 1565, is of a style earlier than this date, and Willis came to the conclusion that it is the actual roof of the old chapel of King’s Hall supplemented by additional timber to fit it for the larger building: I like to think that we still worship under the roof which sheltered our predecessors more than four centuries ago.

In the year last mentioned, 1565, the stones [91] ]for the pavement were brought from Croyland Abbey and maybe some are still there. In the next year the interior fittings were taken in hand, and the organ screen erected. In the following year, 1567, the windows were glazed with white glass bearing inscriptions, coats of arms, and heraldic badges such as the fleur-de-lys, portcullis, and rose: the organ (a small instrument) and the pulpit were moved from the old chapel, and the stalls put in. It would seem that the wainscotting and wall-seats in the present antechapel are of this date, and possibly came from King’s Hall. Moving from west to east in the completed building there were in succession an antechapel sixty-five feet long, an organ-screen eight feet deep, the chapel seats along some seventy feet, a space of twenty-four feet, the communion table, and a space of thirty-six feet free of encumbrances. The work was finished by Michaelmas, 1567. There is no record of the building having been consecrated.

Mary died in 1558, and on 20 November, the Sunday following the proclamation of Elizabeth, Bill, the former master of the College, preached at St Paul’s Cross in London; the next Sunday, his successor Christopherson preached there. Probably the men disliked one another, and certainly took different views of the position. Some scandal was caused, an the upshot of the affair was that [92] ]Christopherson was sent to prison, while Bill returned to Cambridge, restored to the mastership.

Bill, a discreet courtier, was a favourite at court, and held, under Elizabeth’s favour, the provostship of Eton and the deanery of Westminster together with the mastership of Trinity; it was probably due to his influence that Elizabeth in 1560 issued a commission to procure materials and labour for completing the chapel which had been begun on her sister’s initiative. Baker praised his prudence and temper while master, and added that “if he has shown any frailties or failings here, allowances must be made for difficult times and potent courtiers that are not easily resisted.” In my opinion the services to the College of its first three masters, Redman, Bill, and Christopherson, were of the greatest value, and have hardly received that recognition from posterity which they deserve.

On Bill’s death, the crown offered the mastership to Beaumont, a calvinist whose views were more pronounced than Cecil supposed at the time of the appointment. Beaumont sympathized with the puritan party, whose numbers in the University were now rapidly increasing, but did little to guide them or to check their intolerance which constantly offended public opinion.

The description of the windows in the new chapel does not suggest that figures or catholic symbols [93] ]appeared thereon, but, none the less, the “malcontents” thought them objectionable and in November 1565, broke “all the windows wherein did appear superstition.” In the same term occurred the famous surplice disturbance^[23]. The puritans objected to the use of the surplice in chapel on Sundays, Saints’ days, and their eves, and on a certain “Sunday (in Dr Whitgift’s absence), Mr Cartwright and two of his adherents made three sermons on one day in the chapel so vehemently inveighing against the ceremonies of the church that at evening prayer all the scholars save three [together with one of the chaplains] (viz. Dr Leg, Mr West, Whitaker’s tutor, and the chaplain) cast off their surplices as an abominable relic of superstition”—a curious illustration of how little the calvinists esteemed the value of academic discipline unless they exercised it themselves. The organization of this demonstration was attributed to Cartwright, their leader in the University and a fellow of the College; it was probably due to the disapproval of his conduct in this and similar matters that shortly afterwards he went out of residence for two or more years.

Beaumont died in 1567 and at his request was buried “with no vain jangling of bells nor any other popish ceremonies” in the new chapel, his being [94] ]the first interment in it. He is commemorated by a carving (somewhat difficult to detect) of his face on the tenth principal in the chapel roof reckoned from the east end—it is lettered R. B. Mr. He was succeeded by Whitgift and the result of the subsequent bitter struggle between him and the puritans settled the constitution and policy of the University till the middle of the nineteenth century, but the battle was mainly fought in the senate-house and in London, and is not specially connected with our chapel.