Highways and Byways in Cambridge and Ely
by John William Edward Conybeare · English · Gutenberg #38735 · 881,041 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Highways and Byways in Cambridge and Ely
Author: John William Edward Conybeare
Illustrator: Frederick Landseer Maur Griggs
Release date: February 1, 2012 [eBook #38735]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38735
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS IN CAMBRIDGE AND ELY ***
Produced by Colin Bell, Christine P. Travers and the Online
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file was produced from images generously made available
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HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS
IN
CAMBRIDGE AND ELY
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGO
ATLANTA . SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd
TORONTO
[Illustration: _Ely Cathedral. Western Tower._]
_HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS_
IN
_CAMBRIDGE AND ELY_
BY THE
Rev. EDWARD CONYBEARE
AUTHOR OF
"HISTORY OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE," "RIDES AROUND CAMBRIDGE," ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
FREDERICK L. GRIGGS
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1910
RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, Limited.
BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND
BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
PREFACE
The Highways of Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely are usually
regarded as unattractive compared with those of England in general.
Nor is this criticism wholly unfair. The county does lack the features
which most make for picturesque rural scenery. There are no high
hills, little even of undulation, and, what is yet more fatal, a sad
sparsity of timber. The Highways, then, seem to the traveller merely
stretches of ground to be got over as speedily as may be, and he
rejoices that their flatness lends itself so well to this end.
It is however far otherwise with the Byways. These abound with
picturesque nooks and corners. In every village charming features are
to be found,--thatched and timbered cottages, hedgerow elms, bright
willow-shaded watercourses, old-time village greens, and, above all,
old-time village churches, often noble, and never without artistic and
historical interest of high order. Few counties better repay
exploration than Cambridgeshire.
And if the Highways are devoid of attraction during their course
through the country districts, they make up for it by the supreme
beauty and interest of their passage through the towns. Cambridge
itself is, as all know, amongst the loveliest and most interesting
places in existence, with its world-famed colleges and its
epoch-making history. And Ely stands in the very first rank amongst
the glorious cathedrals of England.
To introduce my readers, then, to the unique interest of these two
places, with special regard to the points mostly passed over in
guide-books, has been my chief purpose in the following pages. And to
those who may think that a disproportionate amount of my space has
been allotted to these, I would apologise by reminding them that the
vast majority of travellers perforce confine their visits to such
special centres, and have no time for exploring country lanes. But
those who can make the time will find it (as this book, I hope, will
show them) time well spent, and their exploration no small treat.
I need scarcely add that on such well-worn themes originality is
hardly possible, and that I have made use both of my own earlier
writings on the subject, and of those of others, my debt to whom I
gratefully acknowledge. Most especially am I bound to do so with
regard to Messrs. Atkinson and Clark, whose monumental work "Cambridge
Described" is a veritable mine of information, and to Professor and
Mrs. Hughes for the help which I have found in their "County Geography
of Cambridgeshire."
EDWARD CONYBEARE.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I PAGE
Cambridge Greenery. -- The Backs. -- The Lawns. -- Logan's Views. --
Old Common Fields. -- Old Cambridge. -- Origin of Cambridge. -- The
Castle. -- Camboritum. -- Granta-ceaster. -- Danes in Cambridge. --
Cambridgeshire formed. -- Battle of Ringmere. -- Norman Conquest. --
The Jewry. -- Religious Houses. -- Rise of University. -- Town and
Gown. -- Proctors. -- The Colleges. -- Examinations. -- College
Life. -- Cambridge and Oxford 1
CHAPTER II
Entrance to Cambridge. -- Railways. -- Roman Catholic Church. --
Street runlets, Hobson, Perne. -- Fitzwilliam Museum. --
=Peterhouse=, Chapel, Deer-park. -- Little St. Mary's Church,
Washington Arms. -- Gray's window. -- =Pembroke College=, Large and
Small Colleges, "Querela Cantabrigiensis," Ridley's Farewell. -- St.
Botolph's Church. -- The King's Ditch. -- =Corpus Christi College=,
Cambridge Guilds, St. Benet's Church, Firehooks, Corpus Library,
Corpus Ghost. -- =St. Catherine's College.= -- King's Parade. --
Pitt Press. -- Newnham Bridge, Hermits. -- The Backs River, College
Bridges, Hithes 20
CHAPTER III
=Queens' College=, Erasmus, Cloisters, Carmelites, Chapel. -- Old
Mill Street. -- =King's College=, Henry VI, King's and Eton, Henry's
"Will." -- King's College Chapel, Wordsworth, Milton, Windows, Rosa
Solis, Screens, Stalls, Vaulting, Side-Chapels, View from Roof 47
CHAPTER IV
Spiked gates. -- Old Kings. -- =University Library=, Origin, Growth,
Codex Bezae. -- =Trinity Hall=, Colours, Library. -- =Clare College=,
"Poison Cup," Court, Bridge, Avenue. -- The Backs, Sirdar Bonfire,
College Gardens. -- =Trinity College=, Michaelhouse, King's Hall,
Henry VIII, Boat-clubs, Avenue, College Livings, Bridge, Library,
Byron, Nevile's Court, Cloisters, Echo, "Freshman's Pillar," Prince
Edward, Royal Ball, Goodhart, Buttery, College Plate, Grace-cup,
Kitchen, Hall, Combination Room, Marquis of Granby, Tutors, Old
Court, Fountain, Gate Towers, Clock, Lodge, Chapel, Newton, Organ,
Bentley, Windows, Macaulay 78
CHAPTER V
Whewell's Courts. -- All Saints' Cross. -- The Jewry. -- Divinity
School. -- =St. John's College=, Trinity and John's, Lady Margaret,
Fisher, Hospital of St. John, Gate Tower, First Court, Hall,
Wordsworth, Compulsory Worship, Combination Room, Second Court,
Library, Great Bible, Third Court, Bridge of Sighs, New Court,
Roof-climbing, Blazers, Wilderness. -- =Caius College=, Gonville,
The Three Gates, Kitchen, "Blues." -- =Senate House=, Congregations,
Vice-Chancellor, Voting, Degree-giving. -- =University Church=, Mr.
Tripos, Golgotha, Sermons, Tower, Chimes, Jowett. -- Market Hill,
Peasant Revolt, Wat Tyler, Bucer and Fagius, Bonfires, Town and
Gown 103
CHAPTER VI
Round Church. -- Union Society. -- The "Great Bridge," Hithe. --
=Magdalene College=, Buckingham College, Pepys, Charles Kingsley,
the "College Window," Master's Garden. -- Castle Hill, Camboritum,
Cromwell's Rampart, Repulse of Charles I, the "Borough," View from
Castle. -- St. Peter's Church. -- "School of Pythagoras." --
Westminster College. -- Ridley Hall. -- =Newnham College.= --
=Selwyn College.= -- Convent of St. Radegund, Bishop Alcock. --
Midsummer Common. -- Boat Houses, Bumping Races. -- =Jesus College=,
"Chimney," Cloisters, Chapter House, Chapel, Cranmer, Coleridge 132
CHAPTER VII
=Sidney College=, Oliver Cromwell, Fellow Commoners. -- Holy
Trinity, Simeon, Henry Martyn. -- =Christ's College=, "God's House,"
Lady Margaret, Flogging of Students, Bathing forbidden, Milton,
Lycidas, Gardens, Paley, Darwin. -- Great St. Andrew's, Bishop
Perry. -- =Emmanuel College=, Harvard, Sancroft, Chapel, Ponds. --
University Museums. -- =Downing College=, Miss Edgeworth. -- Coe
Fen. -- First Mile Stone. -- Barnwell, Priory, Abbey Church. --
Lepers' Chapel, Stourbridge Fair, Vanity Fair 151
CHAPTER VIII
Roads from Cambridge. -- Cambs and Isle of Ely, Girvii, East Angles,
Mercians, Formation of County. -- Newmarket Road. -- Quy. -- Fleam
Dyke. -- Devil's Dyke. -- Icknield Way. -- Iceni, Ostorius,
Boadicea. -- Newmarket Heath, First Racing. -- Exning, Anna. --
Snailwell. -- Fordham. -- Soham, St. Felix. -- Stuntney. -- Wicken.
-- Chippenham. -- Isleham, Lectern. -- Eastern Heights. -- Chevely,
Cambridge Corporation. -- Kirtling. -- Wood Ditton. -- Stetchworth.
-- Borough Green. -- Bottisham. -- Swaffham Bulbeck. -- The Lodes.
-- Swaffham Prior. -- Reach, Peat, Submerged Forest. -- Burwell,
Church, Clunch, Brass, Castle, Geoffry de Magnaville 168
CHAPTER IX
Hills Road. -- Gog Magogs. -- Vandlebury. -- Babraham, Peter Pence.
-- Old Railway. -- Hildersham, Brasses, Clapper Stile. -- Linton. --
Horseheath. -- Bartlow, St. Christopher, Battle of Assandun. --
Cherry Hinton, War Ditches, Saffron. -- Teversham. -- Fulbourn,
Brasses. -- Wilbraham. -- Fleam Dyke, Wild Flowers, Butterflies,
Ostorius, Last Cambs Battle. -- Balsham, Battle of Ringmere,
Massacre, Church Brasses, Grooved Stones 201
CHAPTER X
London Road. -- Trumpington, Church, Brass, Chaucer's Mill, Byron's
Pool, Upper River. -- Grantchester, Church. -- Cam and Granta. --
The Shelfords. -- Sawston, Old-world Industries, Hall, Hiding-Hole,
"Little John." -- Whittlesford, Old Hospital. -- Duxford. -- Triplow
Heath, Civil War. -- Fowlmere, Hinxton, Sacring Bell. -- Ickleton,
Monolith Pillars. -- Chesterford. -- Icknield Way. -- Saffron
Walden 219
CHAPTER XI
London Road. -- Hauxton Bridge, Indulgences, Church, Becket Fresco.
-- Burnt Mill. -- Haslingfield. -- White Hill, View, Clunch Pits,
Chapel, Papal Bulla. -- Barrington, Green, Church, Porch Seats,
Chest, Fountains, Finds, Coprolite Digging, Hall. -- Foxton. --
Shepreth. -- Meldreth, Parish Stocks. -- Melbourn, Shipmoney. --
Royston, Origin, Cave, Heath. -- Bassingbourn, Old Accounts,
Villenage. -- Black Death. -- Ashwell, Source of Cam, Church,
Graffiti. -- Akeman Street. -- Barton Butts. -- Comberton Maze. --
Harlton Church, Old Pit. -- Orwell Maypole, Church, Epitaph. --
Wimpole Hall, Queen Victoria. -- Arrington. -- Shingay,
Hospitallers, Fairy Cart. -- Wendy. -- Artesian Wells. -- Guilden
Morden, Screen, St. Edmund, Confessionals 235
CHAPTER XII
Oxford Road, Observatory, Neptune, Cambridge Discoveries. -- Coton.
-- Madingley. -- Hardwick. -- Toft, St. Hubert. -- Childerley,
Charles I. -- Knapwell. -- Bourn. -- Caxton. -- Eltisley, St.
Pandiania, Storm. -- St. Neot's, Neotus and Alfred. -- Paxton Hill.
-- Godmanchester, Port Meadow. -- Huntingdon, Cromwell's Penance. --
The Hemingfords. -- St. Ives. -- Holywell. -- Overcote. -- Earith,
the Bedford Rivers, "Parallax" 265
CHAPTER XIII
Island of Ely. -- Haddenham. -- Aldreth, Conqueror's Causeway,
Belsars Hill. -- Wilburton. -- Sutton. -- Wentworth. -- Via Devana.
-- Girton, College. -- Oakington, Holdsworth. -- Elsworth. --
Conington, Ancient Bells. -- Long Stanton, Queen Elizabeth. --
Willingham, Stone Chamber. -- Over, Gurgoyles. -- Swavesey, Finials.
-- Ely Road. -- Chesterton. -- Fen Ditton. -- Milton, Altar Rails.
-- Horningsea. -- Bait's Bite, Start of Race. -- Clayhithe. --
Waterbeach. -- Car Dyke. -- Denny. -- Stretham. -- Upware. -- Wicken
Fen. 282
CHAPTER XIV
Ely. -- Island and Isle. -- St. Augustine. -- St. Etheldreda, Life,
Death, Burial, St. Audrey's Fair. -- Danish Sack of Ely. -- Alfred's
College. -- Abbey Restored. -- Brithnoth, Song of Maldon. -- Battle
of Assundun. -- Canute at Ely. -- Edward the Confessor. -- Alfred
the Etheling. -- Camp of Refuge, Hereward, Norman Conquest, Tabula
Eliensis, Nomenclature, Norman Minster. -- Bishops of Ely, Rule over
Isle. -- Ely Place, Ely House 303
CHAPTER XV
Bishop Northwold. -- Presbytery Dedicated. -- Barons at Ely. -- Fall
of Tower, Alan of Walsingham, Octagon. -- Queen Philippa. -- Lady
Chapel, John of Wisbech, Bishop Goodrich. -- Bishop Alcock. --
Bishop West. -- Styles of Architecture. -- Monastic Industries. --
Mediaeval Account Books. -- Clothing and Food of Monks. --
Benedictine Rule. -- Dissolution of Abbey. -- Bishop Thirlby. --
Bishop Wren. -- Bishop Gunning. -- Bishop Turner 324
CHAPTER XVI
Approach to Ely. -- The Park. -- Walpole Gate. -- Crauden Chapel. --
Western Tower, Galilee. -- Nave. -- Baptistery. -- Roof. -- Prior's
Door. -- Cloisters. -- Owen's Cross. -- Octagon. -- Alan's Grave. --
Transepts. -- St. Edmund's Chapel. -- Choir Stalls. -- Presbytery.
-- Norman Piers. -- Reredos. -- Candlesticks 344
CHAPTER XVII
Monuments. -- West's Chapel. -- Alcock's Chapel. -- Northwold
Cenotaph. -- Bassevi. -- Shrine of Etheldreda. -- Lady Chapel. --
View from Tower. -- Triforium. -- Exterior of Minster. -- Palace,
"Duties" of Goodrich. -- St. Mary's. -- St. Cross. -- Cromwell's
House. -- Cromwell at Ely. -- St. John's Farm. -- Theological
College. -- Waterworks. -- Basket-making 366
CHAPTER XVIII
Boundary of Fens. -- Roman Works, Car Dyke, Sea Wall, Causeway. --
Archipelago. -- Littleport, Agrarian Riots. -- Denver Sluice. --
Roslyn Pit. -- Fenland Abbeys, Chatteris, Ramsey, Peterborough,
Thorney, Crowland 386
CHAPTER XIX
Draining of Fens -- Monastic Works, Morton's Learn. -- Diversion of
Ouse. -- Local Government, Jurats, Discontent. -- Jacobean polemics.
-- First Drainage Company. -- Rising of Fen-men. -- Second Company,
Huguenot Labourers. -- Third Company, Earl of Bedford, Vermuyden. --
Old River. -- Cromwell. -- Fourth Company, Prisoner Slaves, New
River, Denver Sluice. -- Later Developments 398
CHAPTER XX
Coveney. -- Manea. -- Doddington. -- March, Angel Roof. --
Whittlesea. -- Old Course of Ouse, Well Stream. -- Upwell, Outwell.
-- Emneth. -- Elm. -- The Marshland -- West Walton. -- Walsoken. --
Walpole. -- Cross Keys. -- Leverington. -- Tydd. -- Wisbech, Church,
Trade, Castle, Catholic Prisoners, Clarkson. -- The Wash. -- King
John. 409
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
ELY CATHEDRAL, WESTERN TOWER _Frontispiece_
MAP OF CAMBRIDGE _Facing_ 1
ST. BENET'S CHURCH AND CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE 1
PETERHOUSE WALL, COE FEN 5
THE BACKS, CLARE COLLEGE GATE 9
ST. MICHAEL'S AND ALL ANGELS 13
ORIEL IN LIBRARY, ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE 18
PETERHOUSE 24
ST. MARY THE LESS, SOUTH SIDE 27
PETERHOUSE FROM ST. MARY'S CHURCHYARD 29
ST. BOTOLPH'S CHURCH 33
ST. BENET'S CHURCH, INTERIOR 37
CLARE BRIDGE 42
ST. JOHN'S BRIDGE 45
THE PRESIDENT'S GALLERY, QUEENS' COLLEGE 49
ORIEL IN QUEENS' COLLEGE 51
QUEENS' COLLEGE GATEWAY 53
CLARE COLLEGE FROM KING'S 57
KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL 61
OLD GATE OF KING'S COLLEGE 81
OLD SCHOOLS' QUADRANGLE 87
CLARE COLLEGE FROM BRIDGE 93
TRINITY BRIDGE 99
THE FOUNTAIN, TRINITY COLLEGE 103
TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL AND ST. JOHN'S GATEWAY 111
HALL, ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE 115
ORIEL IN SECOND COURT OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE 117
THE GATE OF HONOUR, CAIUS COLLEGE 123
PEAS HILL 130
THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 135
ST. PETER'S CHURCH 139
REMAINS OF ST. RADEGUND'S PRIORY 141
JESUS COLLEGE GATEWAY 143
THE BACK COURT, JESUS COLLEGE 145
JESUS COLLEGE CHAPEL, EAST END 147
ORIEL OF HALL, JESUS COLLEGE 149
CHRIST'S COLLEGE CHAPEL 153
EMMANUEL COLLEGE 157
THE LEPERS' CHAPEL, BARNWELL 163
QUY CHURCH 170
FORDHAM CHURCH 177
FORDHAM 179
SOHAM 181
SWAFFHAM BULBECK 191
SWAFFHAM PRIOR 192
SWAFFHAM PRIOR CHURCHES 193
THE CASTLE MOAT, BURWELL 195
BURWELL CHURCH, WEST END 197
BURWELL CHURCH, N.E. VIEW 199
CHERRY HINTON CHURCH 207
GREAT WILBRAHAM CHURCH 211
GREAT WILBRAHAM 212
LITTLE WILBRAHAM 213
BALSHAM TOWER 214
COTTAGE AT BALSHAM 217
GREAT SHELFORD CHURCH 223
WHITTLESFORD 227
ST. PETER'S CHURCH, DUXFORD 229
HASLINGFIELD CHURCH 237
FARMHOUSE AT HASLINGFIELD 239
SOUTH PORCH, BARRINGTON CHURCH 241
SHEPRETH 243
MELBOURN 245
ASHWELL 249
ASHWELL CHURCH FROM THE N.W. 251
ASHWELL CHURCH 253
GREAT EVERSDEN 257
ROOD SCREEN, GUILDEN MORDEN CHURCH 261
COTTAGE AT STEEPLE MORDEN 263
COTON 269
COTTAGE AT TOFT 271
WILBURTON 284
THE BURYSTEAD, WILBURTON 285
SUTTON CHURCH 287
ALL SAINTS' CHURCH, LONG STANTON 291
OVER, SOUTH PORCH 293
OVER 294
SWAVESEY 296
SWAVESEY CHURCH 297
COTTAGE AT RAMPTON 299
DOVECOTE AT RAMPTON 300
THE QUAY, ELY 301
THE NORTH TRIFORIUM OF THE NAVE, ELY 305
WEST AISLE OF THE NORTH TRANSEPT, ELY 311
ELY: THE PRESBYTERY 327
ELY LANTERN 333
PRIOR CRAUDEN'S CHAPEL 347
SOUTH AISLE OF THE NAVE, ELY 351
THE TOWER FROM THE CLOISTERS 357
CATHEDRAL TOWERS 361
ST. MARY'S CHURCH 378
THE CATHEDRAL FROM THE WEST FEN ROAD 380
ST. JOHN'S FARM 383
WILLOW WALK 385
ST. WENDREDA'S CHURCH, MARCH 391
THE OLD FENLAND (NORTHERN DISTRICT) 404
THE OLD FENLAND (SOUTHERN DISTRICT) 405
ELM CHURCH 412
WALPOLE ST. PETER 414
LEVERINGTON 417
BELL TOWER, TYDD ST. GILES 419
WISBECH CHURCH 423
THE OLD COURT OF CORPUS 431
HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS
IN
CAMBRIDGE AND ELY
[Illustration: _Walker & Boutall sc._ Cambridge]
[Illustration: _St. Benet's Church and Corpus Christi College._]
HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS
IN
CAMBRIDGESHIRE
CHAPTER I
Cambridge Greenery.--The "Backs."--The Lawns.--Logan's
Views.--Old Common Fields.--Old Cambridge.--Origin of
Cambridge.--The Castle.--Camboritum.--Granta-ceaster.--Danes in
Cambridge.--Cambridgeshire formed.--Battle of Ringmere.--Norman
Conquest.--The Jewry.--Religious Houses.--Rise of
University.--Town and Gown.--Proctors.--The
Colleges.--Examinations.--College Life.--Cambridge and Oxford.
Cambridge has been described by an appreciative American novelist as
"a harmony in grey and green." And indeed it is true that few towns
are so shot through and through with greenery. The London Road enters
the place through two miles of umbrageous leafage; wide, open spaces
of grass-land--Stourbridge Common, Midsummer Common, Coldham Common,
Empty Common, Donkey Common, Peter's Field, Parker's Piece, Christ's
Pieces, Jesus Green, Sheep's Green, Coe Fen--penetrate from the
outskirts, north, south, and east, right to the heart of the town;
while the world-famous "Backs," where the road runs beneath ancestral
elms, between a continuous series of bowery College gardens and
precincts--Queens', King's, Clare, Trinity, St. John's--with their
beckoning vistas of long avenues of lime and chestnut, ring it in to
the west, and form a scene of park-like loveliness to be found nowhere
else on earth. Port Meadow, at Oxford, and the Magdalen Walks, furnish
the nearest comparison; but only to show how far in front Cambridge
stands in greenery. Even inside the Colleges this precedence shows
itself; for in Cambridge every College Court in the place, almost
without exception, unlike so many of the "Quads" of Oxford, has its
central grass-plot.
These lawns, it may be noted, are sacrosanct, not to be profaned by
the foot of anyone but a Fellow of the College[1] itself. No outsider,
from another College, however high in academic rank, may, unless
accompanied by a Fellow, cross over them; still less any member of the
College, old or young, who is not himself a Fellow, nor any casual
visitor, even of the privileged sex. Should any such attempt be made,
the College porters will politely, but quite firmly, remove the
transgressor. This convention is absolutely necessary for the very
existence of the greensward, which, if allowed to be traversed by
all-comers, would speedily be cut up and ruined.
[Footnote 1: The word "Fellow" signifies, in any College, one of the
strictly limited corporation to whom its whole property legally
belongs. This corporation is kept filled up by co-option; the most
distinguished of the junior students being usually chosen.]
This greenery, however, is a comparatively recent development in the
history of Cambridge, most of it dating no further back than the
latter half of the seventeenth century. In the last decade of that
century an artist named David Logan (or Loggan), said to have been of
Danish nationality but Scotch extraction, made a series of views of
the various Cambridge Colleges, elaborated with extraordinary care and
fidelity. So truthful and observant was he that a mysterious bird,
long a puzzle in his drawing of the great court of Trinity, has lately
been discovered, by reference to the College muniments, to have been a
tame eagle then kept by the Society. His views were reissued in 1905
by Mr. J. W. Clark, the greatest living authority on Cambridge
antiquities, and should be consulted by all who are interested in the
development of Cambridge. In these views the existing avenues in the
College enclosures at the "Backs" may be observed, but all of young
trees quite recently planted (as indeed we know to have been the case
from the College records), while right up to these enclosures run open
treeless fields, not meadows, but corn-land, where harvesters may be
seen at work and sheep grazing upon the fallow land. Most of the now
green Commons are in like manner shown to have been then under the
plough.
The late Professor Maitland, whose recent death has been so
irreparable a loss to Cambridge and to the whole historical side of
English education, has shown (in his _Township and Borough_) how truly
these views of Logan's represent the seventeenth century facts, and
how, somewhat earlier, the arable fields had come even to the river
bank on the west of the town; or, to use his own more accurate
language, that the western fields of Cambridge extended to the river
bank. Every old English town and village, it must be remembered, was
in theory (and originally in practice) self-supporting, and contained
within its boundary sufficient arable and pasture land to feed its own
inhabitants and their cattle. These were known as the "Common Fields"
of the place. They were not "Commons" in our modern sense of the word,
but were divided into small holdings amongst the townsmen, each man's
holding consisting of so many tiny strips, never more than an acre in
extent, scattered as widely as possible to make things fair for all.
They were cultivated upon the three course system; every landholder
having the right to pasture a proportionate number of cattle on the
fallow of the year, as well as in the Common Meadows. The Common
Fields of Cambridge comprised about five square miles, with the
inhabited part of the township nearly in the centre, and roughly
coincided with the existing Parliamentary Borough, though somewhat
more extensive.
This inhabited part, the mediaeval town of Cambridge, was comprised,
(at least from the tenth century to the eighteenth,) in the space
bounded by the river on the west, and on the east by a ditch, known
finally as the "King's Ditch," from having been widened by Henry the
Third in the Barons' War. This ditch left the Cam at the "King's
Mill," (the modern representative of which still stands just above
Silver Street Bridge,) and proceeded along the line of Mill Lane,
Pembroke Street, Tibbs Row, Hobson Street, and Park Street, to fall
into the river again opposite Magdalene College. Beyond the "Great
Bridge," from which the place derived its name, a small cluster of
houses climbed the steep bank, on the summit of which stood the
Castle. Our earliest records show this area as by no means thickly
covered with houses. Not only the inhabitants, but all their cattle
lived in it; so there must have been many little farmyards and gardens
interspersed amongst the dwellings.
Domesday Book gives the number of these as only 400, and a couple of
centuries later, in 1279, when the University was already in full
existence, there were scarcely more. By the middle of the eighteenth
century this number had trebled. But even in 1801, as may be seen in
Lyson's plan of the town, the King's Ditch, which was then still an
open watercourse, remained substantially the boundary of inhabited
Cambridge. And the vast suburban extensions in the areas of Barnwell,
Newnham, Chesterton, and Cherry Hinton are mostly very recent indeed;
the bulk in fact belonging to the last half century. Their rise, and
the continuous intrusion of ever fresh University and College
buildings, has had the effect of once more depleting the area of
mediaeval Cambridge, which to-day contains barely 800 houses. The whole
of the University buildings, whether ancient or modern, are contained
within this area, with the exception of the Colleges of Peterhouse,
Pembroke, Christ's and Jesus (which together with a few of the
Museums, stand just beyond the Ditch), and the New Court of St. John's
College, which is on the other side of the river, in the old Common
Field. The ecclesiastical and feminine foundations similarly situated,
Selwyn College, Westminster College, Ridley Hall, Newnham College, and
Girton College, are not recognised by the University as being strictly
"Colleges" at all.
[Illustration: _Peterhouse Wall, Coe Fen._]
Such was old Cambridge; with its eleven ancient parishes of St. Peter,
St. Giles, St. Clement, Holy Trinity, St. Michael, St. Mary (the
greater), St. Edward, St. Benet, St. Botolph, All Saints, and St. John
(which was destroyed to make room for King's College). Before the
twelfth century closed three more churches were added, those of the
Holy Sepulchre, of St. Peter (now St. Mary's the less) outside the
"Trumpington Gate," of St. Andrew (the greater) outside the Barnwell
Gate, and St. Andrew (the less) in the detached suburb which grew up
round the great "Abbey" (really an Augustinian Priory) of Barnwell.
Old Cambridge probably owed its constitution--(quite possibly its very
existence)--to the genius with which "the Children of Alfred," Edward
the Elder and his Sister, the "Lady of the Mercians," reorganised the
Midlands after the great cataclysm of the Danish wars, which in the
previous generation had swept over the district, obliterating all
earlier landmarks and boundaries. One pirate horde, under the most
renowned of all their chieftains, Guthrum--the deadliest antagonist,
and afterwards the most faithful ally, of our great Alfred,--had for a
space settled themselves in Cambridge, and from that strategic
position overawed East Anglia on the one hand and Mercia on the
other.[2]
[Footnote 2: The kingdom of Mercia comprised the Midlands, and was
(roughly) bounded on the north by the Humber and Mersey, on the west
by Wales, on the south by the Thames, and on the east by the Cam and
the Lea.]
The Cambridge which they sacked was not, however, as it would seem,
the later mediaeval town which we have been already considering, but a
much smaller stronghold on the western bank of the River, comprising
what is now known as "Castle End," and is still sometimes called "the
Borough" _par excellence_. At this point the Cam, one bank or other of
which is usually swampy even now, and was actually swamp in early
days, is touched by higher and firmer ground on both sides. The height
to the west is quite respectable, rising some eighty feet above the
stream. Here, therefore, and here alone, was there of old any
convenient passage-way for an army; the river elsewhere forming an
almost insuperable barrier to military operations, from the Fens
almost to its source. Such a site was sure to be amongst the earliest
occupied; and we find, accordingly, that both Romans and Anglo-Saxons
(presumably Mercians) successively held it. Most probably it was also
a British site; but the great Castle mound, which earlier antiquaries
attributed to the Britons, has been shown by Professor Hughes to be,
mainly at least, a Norman work.
This site was the original Cambridge, and may even have been called by
that very name in its earliest form. For it is hard not to identify
the Roman settlement (which the spade shows to have existed here) with
the "Camboritum," which from the "Itinerary of Antoninus" (an official
road book, probably of the third century A.D.) must have been
somewhere in this immediate neighbourhood. And the word Camboritum is
plausibly derived from the British _Cam Rhydd_ "the ford of the Cam."
Cam (which, being interpreted, signifies crooked) may well have been
the British name for a stream with so tortuous a course. But, if so,
it was not continuously used, so far as records can tell us.
The Roman Camboritum doubtless shared the almost universal destruction
of Roman stations which marked the English conquest of Britain; and
the site is described as still "a waste chester" two centuries later,
when the monks of Ely sought amid the ruins for a stone coffin in
which to entomb their foundress, St. Ethelreda. By this time the older
name both of the town and of the river seems to have been forgotten.
The latter was called, by the English, the Granta, and the former was
accordingly known only as Granta-ceaster--the chester, or ruined Roman
city, upon the Granta. (It should be noted that the village now called
Grantchester was, till comparatively recent days, known as Grant-set.)
Yet another century, and we find, in the days of King Egbert, the
grandfather of Alfred and the first King acknowledged by the whole
English nation, that a bridge had been built (or rebuilt) over the old
ford; and therewith the old site of Camboritum had been reoccupied
under the new name of Granta-bridge, by which it is known throughout
mediaeval history. We do not meet with "Cambridge" in literature till
the fourteenth century, nor with "Cam" till almost the date of "Camus,
reverend sire," in Milton's Lycidas.
However this may be, it is pretty certain that the Cambridge on which
Guthrum, in the year 872, marched from Repton was the "Borough" of
Castle End. After holding, or, as one chronicler (Gaimar) would have
us believe, only besieging it, for a whole year, the Danish host
hastily made off to Wareham in Dorsetshire, to take part in that life
and death struggle in the west which began with Alfred's great naval
victory off Swanage, then drove him into hiding at Athelney, and ended
with the Peace of Wedmore. By that treaty all England north of the
Watling Street was ceded to the Danes as an under-kingdom, the
"Dane-Law"; Guthrum, now a Christian and Alfred's godson, being set on
the throne. Cambridge thus became undisputedly a Danish town. The
district around was divided "with a rope" (_i.e._ by chain measure)
amongst the invaders, and submitted as an organic whole, some half
century later, to King Edward the Elder. It was probably at this time
that the town began to extend itself into the East Anglian district to
the east of the Cam. (Throughout its whole length the river, with its
marshy banks, was the boundary between the old English kingdoms of
Mercia and East Anglia; and traces of this are to be found in the
distinctive customs of adjoining villages, on one side or the other of
the stream, even to this day.) The "Saxon," or Romanesque, tower of
St. Benet's Church, may well be of this date, erected by the English
inhabitants dispossessed of their homes in the Borough by the
conquering Danes who lorded it over them.
After its submission to Edward the Elder, Cambridge began its career
as a County Town, giving its name, (as was the case in nearly all
these new Edwardian counties,) to the surrounding district, which thus
became known as Grantabrig-shire. The name covered only the southern
part of the present county; for the Isle of Ely was reconstituted
under the ancient jurisdiction of its great abbots and bishops. To
this day, indeed, it has its own separate County Council, and even a
separate motor-car lettering. The new political unit soon began to
display no small local patriotism; for we read that in the fatal
battle of Ringmere, fought on Ascension Day, 1010, between the fresh
Danish invaders, who were then pouring over the land, and the united
forces of East Anglia under the hero Ulfcytel, "soon fled the East
English. There stood Grantabryg-shire fast only."
[Illustration: _The Backs, Clare College Gate._]
The victorious Danes, naturally, proceeded to wreak special vengeance
on such obstinate foes. The county was ravaged with a ferocity even
beyond the usual Danish harryings, and Cambridge itself was sacked and
burnt. When it arose from its ashes, in the quieter days of the Danish
Canute, the first "King of England," (his native predecessors having
been Kings "of the English,") it was organised, Danish fashion, into
ten Wards, each with its own "Lawman." In the reign of Edward the
Confessor, it had, as we have seen, 400 dwelling-houses (_masurae_),
not urban cottages closely packed in rows, but mostly tenements of the
farmhouse type, each with its farmyard, the abodes of the husbandmen
who owned and tilled the Common Fields of the town.
This number of houses shows Cambridge to have been at this time an
important place, equal in population to a whole average "Hundred,"
with its ten villages; and as such we find it counted for legal
purposes under the Norman and Plantagenet dynasties. But its Common
Fields were by no means proportionately extensive,[3] so that many of
the inhabitants must already have depended upon trade for their
living.
[Footnote 3: An ordinary "Hundred" contained an area some five miles
square, instead of the five square miles which was that of old
Cambridge.]
If Cambridge fared ill at the hands of the Danes, it fared little
better at those of the Normans. William the Conqueror made the place
his headquarters in his operations against Hereward's "Camp of Refuge"
at Ely. This resulted in the ruin of fifty-three out of the 400
houses, besides twenty-seven more pulled down to make room for his new
Castle, which with its outworks and huge central keep occupied the
greater part of the old Roman site to the west of the Bridge. The loss
of these eighty houses probably brought down the population to little
over 2,000 souls. Even with this reduction, however, the town might
still claim to rank in the first class of English cities at the time;
and this is shown by the growth of a Jewry within its walls, in the
area bounded by St. John's College, Trinity College, and Bridge
Street. For the Jews, (who first came into England as camp-followers
of the Norman invaders,) naturally struck for the wealthier towns in
which to form their settlement. As the place grew in importance
Religious Houses began rapidly to spring up in and around it; the
first being the great Augustinian Abbey of Barnwell, founded by Picot,
the Sheriff of Cambridge under William the Conqueror.
The next generation saw Augustinian Canons settled in the town itself,
at the Hospital (now the College) of St. John; and Benedictine nuns at
the Priory of St. Radegund just beyond the King's Ditch, where their
conventual church is still used as the Chapel of Jesus College. A
century later, and friars of all the Orders came flocking into
Cambridge; the Grey Franciscans, the Black Dominicans, the White
Carmelites, the Austin Friars, the Friars of the Sack, the Friars of
Bethlehem. The sites occupied by the first three of these names are
to-day represented by the Colleges of Sidney, Emmanuel, and Queens'.
Friars always made for the chief centres of life, and by the
thirteenth century Cambridge had become emphatically such, by the rise
of that institution destined to give it a perennial fame, the
University.
How this rise of the University came about is an as yet unsolved
problem in history. As in the case of Oxford, the great name of Alfred
was invoked, by unscrupulous mediaeval fabricators, as concerned in its
foundation. And it is possible that there may be really traceable some
distant connection with that great saint and hero. For Alfred actually
did found amidst the ruins of Ely, after its sack by the Danes, a
small College of priests, which lived on to be the nucleus of the
restored Abbey in the days of his grandson Edgar the Peaceful. And it
is also historical fact that this restored Abbey was specially
renowned for the famous school attached to it--so famous as to count
amongst its scholars more than one future monarch. Furthermore we know
that the Ely monks taught in Cambridge also, and this may well have
been the first germ of the University.
At any rate it is certain that, in 1209, when the schools of Oxford
were for a while closed by the Government, as the outcome of a more
than usually outrageous "rag," large numbers of the students migrated
to Cambridge; which seems to point to the place having already some
educational repute. From henceforward, at all events, it attained
European reputation in this respect, for, in 1229, we find another
batch of expelled students, this time from Paris, settling themselves
here, and yet another swarm of Oxonians twenty years later.
The University had now become an organic body, with its Chancellor,
its masters, and its scholars or "clerks," so called because, being
not wholly illiterate, the Law considered them as potential members of
the clerical profession, and gave them special immunities accordingly.
They were not amenable to lay jurisdiction, but only to the milder
"Courts Christian," in which the death-penalty was never inflicted. It
seems not infrequently to have been deserved; for the earliest
undergraduates were, at first, an utterly lawless lot, and made
themselves most unpleasant neighbours to the "burgesses" of the Town.
When first they made their appearance the inhabitants of Cambridge had
just bought the right to call themselves by this dignified name. This
bargain was the upshot of a Royal visit in 1207 from King John, who,
in consideration of a payment of 250 marks, (equivalent to L5,000 at
the present value of money,) granted Cambridge a Charter of
Incorporation, with the right to be governed by a Provost and bailiffs
of their own (instead of by the King's Sheriff), and to regulate their
own markets. Twenty years later, (by a further contribution to the
royal purse,) the Provost acquired the higher title of Mayor.
But almost simultaneously, his prerogatives began to be curtailed by
the rising power of the University, to whose "Taxers" was given, in
1231, the sole right of fixing the rents which might be demanded for
lodgings from the inrushing swarm of students; while the regulation of
the market weights and measures became vested in the Proctors. The
authority of the Taxers died out when the Collegiate system became
universal, but has been revived in recent days by the "Lodging-house
Syndicate": that of the Proctors over the Market has become obsolete;
not so long, however, but that, to this day, there may be seen, in the
possession of the Senior Proctor for each year, an iron cylinder, a
yard long and an inch in diameter, which was, not so many decades ago,
the standard test for the dimensions of every roll of butter sold in
Cambridge. For butter in Cambridge was retailed by the inch; a custom
which still lingers on sporadically amongst our vendors.
The student population speedily became far more numerous than the
townsfolk, and their accommodation must have been no small problem. At
first the need was met wholly by private enterprise: University
lodgers thronged the private houses and the annexes, or "hostels," as
they are named, run up for their sole use by speculative landlords.
These hostels gradually attained to more or less of official
recognition by the University, and paved the way for the setting up of
Colleges.
[Illustration: _St. Michael's and All Angels._]
The first actual College was Peterhouse, founded by Hugh de Balsham,
Bishop of Ely, in 1284, and was of the nature of an experiment, the
success of which it took a whole generation to establish. Once
proved, a host of imitators appeared; and the following generation saw
no fewer than seven similar foundations, Michaelhouse and King's Hall
(the germs of Trinity College), Clare, Pembroke, Gonville, Trinity
Hall, and Corpus Christi College. Then came a break of a century,
followed by another outburst of zeal, which in the next hundred years
produced yet another seven: King's, Queens', St. Catharine's, Jesus,
Christ's, St. John's, and Magdalene. The last four of these were
earlier religious and scholastic foundations remodelled; and a like
process during the half century succeeding the Reformation has given
us the Colleges of Trinity, Caius, Emmanuel, and Sidney. Not till the
nineteenth century was the list added to by the appearance of Downing.
The original idea in all these foundations was to provide, not so much
for the students as for the masters who taught them. To these it was
an immense advantage to be able to dwell together in small groups and
in quiet quarters, where they could engage in research and prepare
their lectures, shut away from the turmoil of the seething crowd of
Town and Gown in the streets. And it speedily appeared that if the
seclusion of a College was helpful to the teacher it was even more
helpful to the taught. For the test applied to students by the
University before conferring upon them a Degree was by public
disputations in the schools, each candidate having to support or
oppose some literary or scientific thesis.
The memory of these wordy "opponencies" is still preserved in the
denomination of "Wrangler" bestowed on the candidates who obtain a
First Class in the Mathematical Examination for an "Honour" Degree,
and by every examination through which such a Degree can be obtained
being called a "Tripos,"[4] from the three-legged stool which played a
notable part in those old ordeals. The test demanded steadiness of
nerve and readiness of wit, as well as mere knowledge; and, in all
these, the Scholar of a College, well catered and cared for, was far
better equipped than his lawless, and often all but foodless,
non-Collegiate competitor.
[Footnote 4: Till the nineteenth century was well advanced the
Mathematical Tripos was the only avenue to the attainment of "Honours"
at Cambridge; so that even such a distinguished scholar as Lord
Macaulay was debarred from them by his inability to pass that
examination, and had to content himself with the lower status of an
"Ordinary" or "Poll" Degree (so called from the Greek [Greek: polloi]
= many, as being the refuge of the common herd of candidates).
Triposes in many other branches of knowledge, classical, scientific,
legal, historical, and linguistic, have since been added.]
Thus every College found itself confronted by a great demand for
admissions, which was met by the introduction of Scholars, so far as
the pecuniary resources of the Foundation would admit, and,
ultimately, by the admission of "Pensioners";--students who, without
being members of the Foundation, were willing to pay for a share in
its educational advantages. These Pensioners finally came to
outnumber, (in every College), the masters and scholars together, as
they do still. The original non-Collegiate students proportionately
dwindled in number; till the depopulation of the University during the
religious ups and downs of the Reformation era put an end to them
altogether. For three hundred years afterwards no one was admitted to
the University unless attached to one of the Colleges, till, in the
later decades of the nineteenth century, the great expansion which
marked that period called Non-Collegiate Students, on a limited and
tentative scale, once more into existence.
Substantially, however, at the present day, the Colleges _are_
Cambridge; and to the visitor their buildings completely out-bulk
those which belong to the University--the Senate House, the University
Church and Library, the Examination Hall, and the various Museums and
Laboratories. Each College consists of an enclosed precinct, (to which
the students are confined at night,) containing blocks of apartments,
(usually arranged in "Courts,") for Fellows, Scholars, and Pensioners,
a special "Lodge" for the Master; a Chapel; a Library; and a Hall,
with Kitchen and Buttery attached. Here the Masters sit at the "High
Table" on a dais across the upper end of the Hall, and the students at
less pretentious boards arranged longitudinally. All are bound to dine
in Hall, unless by special leave; but other meals may be in your own
rooms, of which each student has a suite of three, in which he is said
to "keep." All three are within one general outer door, or "oak," to
be opened only by a latch-key, and "sported" whenever the owner
desires his citadel to be inaccessible. Over the oak, on the outside,
is painted his name (always in white capital letters upon a black
ground), while at the foot of each staircase a similarly painted list
gives the names of all the men whose rooms are to be found upon it.
Each student's suite invariably comprises a sitting (or "keeping")
room, a bedroom, and a pantry, or "gyp-room." This last name records
the fact that till lately the functions of a housemaid were discharged
by male servants known as "gyps,"[5] who are now almost universally
superseded by female "bedmakers" appointed by the College Tutors.
[Footnote 5: These corresponded to the still existing "Scouts" at
Oxford.]
The Tutors are immediately responsible for the general supervision of
the students in the College: the actual teaching is done by Lecturers
in the various subjects, who have special apartments, "Lecture Rooms,"
provided in every College for their purposes. Every student has to
attend a certain quota of lectures, but otherwise is very much left to
educate himself, his progress being checked by periodical College
examinations, in addition to those required by the University to be
passed before he can be admitted to a Degree. The lowest Degree is
that of B.A. (Bachelor of Arts). Three years after attaining this a
man may proceed to become M.A. (Master of Arts), when he ceases to be
"in statu pupillari," and is no longer subject to the authority of the
Proctors.
These officers perambulate the town after dark to punish University
wrong-doers, usually by a fine of 6_s._ 8_d._, or some multiple of
that sum, the unit being a survival from mediaeval numismatics, as
equivalent to half a "Mark." More serious offences are met by
"Rustication," for a Term or a year, during which the offender may not
show himself in Cambridge, and, in extreme cases, by expulsion from
the University altogether. These punishments can also be inflicted by
the authorities of each College on the students of that College. But
in this domestic forum, for smaller offences the place of fines is
taken by "gating" for a certain period, during which the nocturnal
enclosure of the culprit begins at some earlier hour than usual.
As a regular rule the College gates are shut at ten p.m., after which
no outsider (student or visitor) may enter, and no inmate (under the
Degree of M.A.) pass out; though to students already out uncensured
admission is given until midnight. Once inside the gates the student
is under no obligation to keep to his own rooms, but has the run of
the College all night. He is bound, however, to spend his nights
within the walls, and not even for a single night may he be absent
without a duly signed _exeat_ from the College authorities giving him
leave. And, as he must be in residence when they require it of him, so
is he also forbidden to be in residence at such seasons as they bar;
during the greater part of each Vacation, for example, comprising half
the year.
Theoretically the Three Terms into which the Academic Year is divided
consist of about ten weeks apiece; but, in practice, they have only
eight of "Full Term," during which residence is compulsory. The first
of these is the "Michaelmas," or, as it is popularly called the
"October" term, lasting from about mid-October to mid-December. After
the Christmas vacation follows the "Lent" term, from the middle of
January to the middle of March. Then comes a month of Easter vacation,
and then the "Easter" (more generally known as the "May") term; at the
end of which the close of the working year is celebrated by a series
of social festivities in connection with the College boat races,
collectively designated "the May Week," though invariably taking place
in June. Finally comes the "Long Vacation" (the last word being
omitted in popular parlance), lasting till a new year begins in
October. Many of the more studious men are, however, permitted to
reside during July and August for the purposes of private reading. A
man in residence, we may mention, is said to be "up"; thus we meet
with such phrases as "coming up," "going down," and being "sent down,"
when ordered to leave Cambridge, temporarily or permanently, for
disciplinary reasons.
All this is very unlike Continental or American University life, but
is almost the ditto of Oxford. For Cambridge is the sister-daughter of
Oxford. It was by Oxonian colonists that the University of Cambridge
was begun; the earliest Cambridge College, Peterhouse, was not only
suggested by the earliest Oxford Foundation, Merton, but borrowed its
very Statutes; and the development of the two seats of learning has
twinned itself throughout the centuries to an extent unparalleled
elsewhere in history. The result is that to-day there are no two
places in the world so alike, socially, intellectually, and even
physically, as Oxford and Cambridge. The latter has at present the
larger number of students; but each has approximately the same number
of Colleges, and of satellite Collegiate institutions, formally or
informally connected with the University (_e.g._, the Ladies'
Colleges); and in each the Academic organisation, the social code,
and the life led by both students and teachers, is almost absolutely
identical. To experts well acquainted with both places the minute
shades of difference are of extreme interest; but to the average
visitor the places are as like as twin sisters. The very names of the
Colleges are the same in no less than a third of the cases. If there
is a Trinity at Cambridge there is also a Trinity at Oxford, if there
is a Magdalen at Oxford there is a Magdalene at Cambridge; while St.
John's, Jesus, Corpus Christi, and Pembroke are all in like manner
duplicated. And, both at Oxford and Cambridge, Colleges are named from
Queens; though a subtle difference in spelling (Queen's and Queens')
records the fact that, while one Queen founded the Oxford College, two
were concerned in the Cambridge foundation.
[Illustration: _Oriel in Library, St. John's College._]
With regard to picturesqueness and architectural merit it is difficult
to assign the pre-eminence to either place, so far as the University
and Collegiate buildings are concerned. Of each distinctive feature,
considered separately, the choicest specimen is to be found in
Cambridge--the best College Chapel at King's; the finest College Hall
and College Courts at Trinity; the most characteristic and beautiful
Library at St. John's. But, out-taken these, Oxford can show several
examples of each feature better than the next best at Cambridge. And,
apart from the University buildings, the town of Cambridge, with its
narrow streets and mean public edifices, is hopelessly outclassed by
the beautiful city of Oxford. Invidious comparisons, however, are, in
the case of sisters, more than ordinarily odious.
CHAPTER II
Entrance to Cambridge.--Railways.--Roman Catholic Church.--Street
runlets, Hobson, Perne.--Fitzwilliam Museum.--=Peterhouse=,
Chapel, Deer-park.--Little St. Mary's Church, Washington
Arms.--Gray's window.--=Pembroke College=, Large and Small
Colleges, "Querela Cantabrigiensis," Ridley's farewell.--St.
Botolph's Church.--The King's Ditch.--=Corpus Christi College=,
Cambridge Guilds, St. Benet's Church, Fire-hooks, Corpus Library,
Corpus Ghost.--=St. Catharine's College.=--King's Parade.--Pitt
Press.--Newnham Bridge, Hermits.--The Backs River, College
Bridges, Hithes.
Having thus given the reader a very meagre and sketchy outline of the
sort of knowledge needful for a due appreciation of Cambridge, and
leaving him to fill in such details as he pleases from the numberless
histories and guide books, large and small (and for the most part
excellent) which he will find quite readily accessible, we will now
suppose him to be entering the town.
Should he do this from the railway station he will have to face a mile
or so of "long unlovely street" to begin with. For when railroads were
first made--(the Great Eastern line from London to Cambridge being
constructed in 1845)--they were regarded with extreme suspicion and
dislike by the authorities of both Universities. The noise of the
trains, it was declared, would be fatal to their studies; the facility
of running up to London would hopelessly demoralise their
undergraduates; bad characters from the metropolis would come down in
shoals to prey upon them. Thus both Oxford and Cambridge strenuously
opposed any near approach of this new-fangled abomination to their
hallowed precincts. Oxford actually succeeded in keeping the main line
of the Great Western as far off from it as Didcot, ten miles away,
whence it did not penetrate to the city itself till a considerably
later date, when prejudice had been overcome by the patent advantages
of the new locomotion, and a station hard by was welcomed. At Oxford,
therefore, no such distance divides the railway and the Colleges as at
Cambridge, where from the first the station stood in its present
place. This, at the date of its construction, was far beyond even the
outermost buildings of the town, with which it is connected by the old
Roman road, the main artery of Cambridge, running straight, as Roman
roads do run, for miles on either side to the "Great Bridge." To
antiquarians this road is known as the Via Devana, because its
objective is supposed to have been the old Roman city of Deva
(Chester); during its passage through Cambridge it has no fewer than
seven official designations, to the frequent discomfiture of
strangers.
Where it conducts the visitor townwards from the railway station it
presents, as we have said, a somewhat dreary vista; dignified only by
the beautifully proportioned spire of the Roman Catholic Church, built
in 1885. The erection of this edifice was due to the generosity of a
single benefactor, Mrs. Lyne-Stephens, a French lady, who, early in
the reign of Queen Victoria, won fame and fortune as the most renowned
ballet dancer of the London stage. The Church is popularly called, in
Cambridge, a Cathedral; but this is a misnomer, for the Bishop's See
is not here but at Northampton.
The cross-roads at which the church is placed rejoice in the inane
designation of Hyde Park Corner. The best approach to Cambridge is by
the westward road of the four, which leads into the London Road (or
Trumpington Road, as it is here called), that umbrageous avenue of
leafage spoken of in our opening sentences. Keeping along this towards
the town, we find ourselves confronted with one of the prettiest and
most uncommon amongst the minor attractions of Cambridge, the runlets
of clear water which sparkle along the side of either pavement.
This pleasant feature is attributed to the benevolence of an ancient
Cambridge worthy, Thomas Hobson, who dwelt here from the reign of Henry
the Eighth to that of Charles the First. By trade he was a "carrier," a
profession which at that date included not merely the transport of goods
but the provision of locomotion for passengers--then almost wholly
equestrian. Thus Hobson not only himself travelled regularly to and
from London with his stage-waggon, but kept a large stable of horses,
not fewer than "forty good cattle," ready for hire--even supplying his
customers with boots and whips for their journey. But he was very
autocratic in the matter, and would never allow any steed to be chosen
except in accordance with his will. "This or none" he would say to any
hirer who dared to remonstrate. And his business was so prosperous that
he could afford to say it, and thus give rise to the still current
expression "Hobson's Choice." He rose to be Mayor of Cambridge, and his
portrait still hangs in the Guildhall.
Finally when he died, at the age of eighty-six, in 1630, he gained the
honour of a serio-comic epitaph from Milton, then a student of
Christ's College, "on the University Carrier who sickened in the time
of his Vacancy, on being forbid to go to London by reason of the
Plague."
"Here lieth one who did most truly prove
That he could never die while he could move;
So hung his destiny, never to rot
While he might still jog on and keep his trot.
* * * * *
Rest, that gives all men life, gave him his death,
And too much breathing put him out of breath;
Nor were it contradiction to affirm
Too long Vacation hastened on his Term.
* * * * *
But had his doings lasted as they were
He had been an immortal carrier."
The popular tradition, (attested by an inscription on the fountain in
the Market Place,) which gives this hero the whole credit of the
street runlets, seems, however, to go too far, though they were
certainly first made during his life-time. Their source is in some
springs which issue from the chalk near Great Shelford, four miles
south-east of Cambridge, and which are called, as such sources are
commonly called hereabouts, "The Nine Wells"--nine being used as an
indefinite number. It is interesting to remember that this conception
evolved itself also amongst the ancient Greeks, who talked of the
"Nine Fountains" at Athens, and the "Nine Ways" at Amphipolis, with
exactly the same indefiniteness of numeration. The ancient outfall of
these springs seems to have been by what is now called "Vicar's
Brook," which is bridged by the London Road at the first milestone
from Cambridge. Till the eighteenth century the bridge was a ford,
known as Trumpington Ford. The earliest proposal to intercept the
stream near this spot and divert its course through the town, was due,
not to Hobson, but to another worthy (or unworthy) contemporary of
his, Dr. Andrew Perne, then Master of Peterhouse College, a divine of
such an accommodating breadth of view that he alone, amongst all the
higher authorities of the University, succeeded in retaining his post
and his emoluments throughout the horrible see-saw of the Reformation
period.
We first hear of him in the reign of Edward the Sixth, as a Protestant
of such stalwart calibre that he destroyed as "idolatrous" almost
every single book in the University Library. Under Mary he figures as
no less ardent a Catholic, even to the degree of digging up and
publicly burning (in default of living heretics) the corpses of the
celebrated Protestant teachers Bucer and Fagius. Finally the accession
of Elizabeth convinced him once more that Protestantism was the truest
form of Christianity; and she lived long enough to keep him from again
changing his principles. This amazing versatility naturally did not
pass without comment. The wits of the University coined from his name
the Latin verb _pernare_ "to be a turn-coat," and declared that the
A.P. which showed on a new weather-cock given by him to his College
stood for A Protestant or A Papist indifferently.
It was this man who, in 1574, started the idea of bringing the
Shelford water into Cambridge. The plan was carried out by
"Undertakers" (who hoped to make money by it), in 1610, and amongst
these Hobson would seem to have been the predominant partner.
[Illustration: _Peterhouse._]
Accompanied by the rippling of these runlets (which only represent a
very small amount of the water brought by "Hobson's Conduit" into
Cambridge) we shortly reach our first University edifice, the
Fitzwilliam Museum, fronted by a singularly fine facade of classical
architecture, and having in the Entrance Hall a really magnificent
staircase of coloured marbles. It should be noted that the four lions
which flank the facade are (unlike those in Trafalgar Square) all in
differing attitudes. The Museum (which is open to the public three
days in the week and to members of the University on all days)
contains a fine collection of pictures and antiques, the nucleus of
which is a bequest made in 1816 by Viscount Fitzwilliam. The Egyptian
section is specially noteworthy, and the water-colours by Turner. The
building was commenced in 1837, but was not finally completed till
1875, when the cost had run up to a hundred and fifteen thousand
pounds.
The long-fronted Hospital on the opposite side of the road is the
modern representative of an ancient institution which gave to this
region, then quite the extremity of Cambridge, the name (as appears in
our oldest maps) of Spittal End.
Adjoining the Museum we find ourselves arriving at our first College,
St. Peter's College, more commonly called Peterhouse, the same of
which the inevitable Dr. Perne was so long Master. (We may here note
that in Cambridge this name "Master" is the designation of the Head of
every College except King's, which has a "Provost," and Queens', with
its "President.") Peterhouse, as has been mentioned in our first
chapter, was the earliest College to be founded in Cambridge. Its
founder Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely, derived his idea from Merton
College at Oxford, which had been in existence some twenty years when,
in 1281, he introduced its system into Cambridge, and even adopted its
very statutes. He first designed to incorporate his College with the
already existing quasi-monastic Brotherhood of the Hospital of St.
John (now St. John's College). The double Rule, however, bred so many
quarrels that he settled his "Scholars of Ely" on their present site;
their abode being dubbed Peterhouse from the adjoining church of St.
Peter (now St. Mary's the Less), which for three hundred and fifty
years served as the College Chapel, and is still connected by a
covered passage with the College buildings.
The existing Chapel was built by yet another Bishop of Ely closely
connected with the College, Dr. Matthew Wren, Master here 1625-1634.
He was uncle to the great Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of St.
Paul's, and had enough architectural originality of his own to aim at
copying the beautiful tracery of the mediaeval church-builders. It was
the first time that any such attempt had been made in England; and
this going behind the Reformation roused the Protestant feeling of the
time to fury. Men declared it incredible that there could be "so much
Popery in so small a chapel"; and when the Civil War gave the
Puritans their opportunity Wren paid for being so far in advance of
his age by an imprisonment of not less than eighteen years, till
released, in 1660, by the Restoration. The Chapel windows are now
filled with some fine Munich glass, the only example of this work in
Cambridge.
Besides the Chapel, the Library here is remarkable, and the
"Combination Room" boasts itself as almost, if not quite, the finest
apartment of its kind in all Cambridge. This name, we may mention, is
given in every College to the parlour whither the M.A.'s retire, after
dining in Hall, for wine, dessert, and conversation.[6] That of
Peterhouse is a luxurious apartment, panelled with oak, and with
stained-glass windows.
[Footnote 6: The corresponding Oxford name is "Common Room."]
Another feature of the College is its little deer park, the only one
in Cambridge, and, with the exception of Magdalen College, Oxford, the
only one in either University. Access to this is obtained by passing
through the passage between the Hall and the Kitchen. Beyond the deer
park again an iron gate leads to the College Gardens, the only College
Gardens in Cambridge which visitors may freely enter. And they are
well worth entering.
There is, however, no way through this College, as there is through
many, and we must leave it through the same gate as we entered by,
thus returning to the street. Over the gate we observe the coat of
arms belonging to the College, the armorial bearings of the founder
surrounded by a border of crowns. This feature will be seen in every
College, for each has its own arms, and these are invariably
emblazoned above the entrance.
[Illustration: _St. Mary the Less, South side._]
Architecturally attached to Peterhouse is, as has been said, the
church of St. Mary "the less," so called in contradistinction to
"Great" St. Mary's, which here, as at Oxford, is the designation of
the "University Church." This is the only really beautiful church in
Cambridge, the tracery of the windows being exquisite flowing
Decorated. All date from the fourteenth century, when the present
structure displaced the earlier church dedicated to St. Peter. One
feature of interest here is a monument put up to Richard Washington,
who was minister of this church in the beginning of the eighteenth
century. He was of the same family as the great George Washington, and
in the coat of arms here displayed we may see the origin of the
American Stars and Stripes, while the crest has become the American
eagle.[7]
[Footnote 7: The Washington arms are, in heraldic language: Barry of
four, gules and argent. On a chief azure three mullets of the second.
Crest, a demi-eaglet sable rising from an earl's coronet.]
To the west of the church we get a view of the back of Peterhouse in
its untouched picturesqueness, abutting on the churchyard, at the end
of which comes another Museum, that of Classical Archaeology. This is
reached by a narrow lane, having the church on one side, and on the
other "Emmanuel," the leading Congregationalist place of worship in
Cambridge. As we return between these into the street we should look
up at the buildings of Peterhouse and notice, in front of the window
at the top corner of the ivy-clad wall, an erection of stout iron
bars. By these hangs a tale; for the window belongs to the rooms
traditionally occupied by the poet Gray when in residence here. It is
said that he caused these bars to be put up, from his constitutional
dread of fire, and that he kept a stout rope constantly affixed to
them as a means of escape in case of need. Awakened one night by
shouts of "Fire! Fire!" he slid down this rope in deshabille--to find
himself plunged at the bottom into a huge vat of water placed there by
his friends. So runs the tale; which adds that Gray migrated in
disgust from Peterhouse to Pembroke. That he did so migrate is quite
historical.
To reach his new College, Gray had only to cross the street; for
almost immediately opposite to Peterhouse are seen the more widely
extended buildings of Pembroke. Not so very many years ago they were
the less widely extended of the two; for while Peterhouse has remained
comparatively stationary, Pembroke, more than any other College, has
partaken in the wonderful expansion which the last half century has
wrought in the number of University students at Cambridge.
[Illustration: _Peterhouse, from St. Mary's Churchyard._]
From the Restoration onwards the Colleges of Cambridge were for two
hundred years, till the middle of the nineteenth century, divisible in
numerical strength between two strongly marked classes. At the top
came the two great Societies of Trinity and St. John's; of which the
former gradually drew ahead, and came to have some four hundred
students to St. John's two hundred. The remaining fifteen Foundations
were classed together as the "Small Colleges"; the largest of them
being well under a hundred strong, and the smallest (amongst them
Pembroke) small indeed. But with the great extension of the University
curriculum, by the addition of a host of literary and scientific
subjects to the Mathematics which had previously been the sole avenue
to a Degree, there has come as marked an increase in the number of
students, and the old College classification has broken down. Trinity,
indeed, remains at the top, even more than ever, having almost doubled
its overwhelming numbers; but St. John's has been caught up and
overpassed by several of the once "small" Colleges, amongst them by
Pembroke. And yet, in the year 1858, Pembroke had only one solitary
freshman; and he migrated to Caius, in dread, as the tale then ran, of
being divided into sections by the authorities, to satisfy the demands
of the Mathematical, Classical, and Philosophical lecturers provided
by the College.
The result is that Pembroke, even beyond most Colleges, is a medley of
architectural additions. When Gray migrated to it, and for a century
thereafter, the modest range of low white stone which still contains
the main entrance, formed the whole frontage; the College buildings
being a small quadrangle about half the size of the present First
Court. It was, in fact (except for a new Chapel, built by Wren in
1663, and still in use), no larger than it was at its first
foundation, in 1346, by Mary, widow of Amory de Valence, Earl of
Pembroke, and daughter of Guy, Count of Chatillon and St. Paul. Her
widowhood was brought about, according to tradition, by her husband
being accidentally slain, before her eyes, on their very wedding day,
at the tournament held to celebrate the nuptials. Modern criticism
disputes this tragic tale, but it was believed in Gray's day, and he
has referred, in his well-known list of the Founders of Cambridge
Colleges, to
"sad Chatillon, on her bridal morn
Who wept her bleeding love."
On her widowhood, however occasioned, she retired from the world, and
took the veil at Denny Abbey, between Cambridge and Ely. The College
was founded by her in her husband's memory, and has ever since
displayed her armorial bearings, the coats of Valence and St. Paul
dimidiated.
At the time of the Civil War, the "Querela Cantabrigiensis" (a
contemporary publication, written in the Royalist interest), in
denouncing the misdeeds of the Parliamentary forces, complains
bitterly that "fourscore ragged soldiers, who had been lowzing before
Crowland nigh a fortnight, were turned loose into Pembroke Hall, being
one of the least Halls of the University, to kennel there, and charged
by their officers to shift for themselves, who, without more ado,
broke open the Fellows' and Scholars' chambers, and took their beds
from under them."
A century before this we find Bishop Ridley, the famous Protestant
martyr, dwelling on this College (of which he had been Master) in his
touching farewell to Cambridge, composed shortly before his execution:
"Farewell, Pembroke Hall, of late my own College, my care and my
charge ... mine own dear College! In thy orchard--(the walls,
butts,[8] and trees, if they could speak, would bear me
witness)--I learnt without book almost all Paul's Epistles; yea,
and I ween all the Canonical Epistles also, save only the
Apocalypse--of which study, although in time a great part did
depart from me, yet the sweet smell thereof I trust I shall carry
with me into Heaven; for the profit thereof I think I have felt
in all my lifetime ever after. And, I ween, of late there was
that did the like. The Lord grant that this zeal and love toward
that part of God's Word, which is a key and true commentary to
all the Holy Scripture, may ever abide in that College so long as
the world shall endure."
[Footnote 8: This word reminds us that archery practice was, in
England, a regular feature of mediaeval College life.]
Besides Bishop Ridley, Pembroke can boast other well-known Protestant
divines of the Reformation era, Grindal, Archbishop of Canterbury,
Whitgift, his successor, and Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester.
The mitre and pastoral staff of the last named (both of brass, and the
former quite unwearable) are preserved amongst the College treasures.
So is also a magnificent silver-gilt cup, the gift of the Foundress,
which still goes round the High Table on special Feast Days. It bears
two inscriptions in old English characters. Round the bowl is an
exhortation to "drenk and mak gud cher" for love of St. Dennis--to
whom Marie de Valence, as a Frenchwoman, had a special devotion--while
round the stem are the words "M.V. God. help.at.ned."
This cup is the more valuable as being almost the only piece of
mediaeval plate still surviving in Cambridge. In ancient days the
College Halls and Chapels were abundantly supplied, but when the Civil
War broke out the loyal Gownsmen, with one accord, devoted all their
silver to the service of the King and sent it off to him at Oxford.
But it never got there; for Cromwell gained his first distinction by
pouncing upon the convoy "with a ragged rout of peasants," and then
compelled the surrender of what little was left in Cambridge. How this
cup escaped is not known.
Nor is Pembroke's lay list of distinguished alumni less notable than
its clerical. Besides Gray, it has another poet of the first rank in
Edmund Spenser, and no less a statesman than the younger Pitt. Amongst
men of science it counts the late Sir George Gabriel Stokes, whose
memory is still fresh, and the all too much forgotten seventeenth
century astronomer, Dr. Long. Of the latter a striking memorial long
remained in the College--a copper globe, eighteen feet in diameter,
pierced to represent the celestial sphere, and so arranged that thirty
observers at once could find place within it and see the sequence of
the constellations as the globe revolved. Unhappily this object of
unique interest has been improved off the face of the earth, amongst
the various innovations to which Pembroke has specially lent itself.
The original foundation of this College (which was for some time more
commonly called "Marie Valence Hall") consisted of a Master, fifteen
scholars, and four Bible clerks. It has now twelve Fellows,
thirty-three scholars, and upwards of two hundred students in
residence.
[Illustration: _St. Botolph's Church._]
A few yards from Pembroke stands the Parish Church of St. Botolph,
which, according to the original design of the Foundress, would have
been as closely connected with the College as is Little St. Mary's
with Peterhouse. In the first inception of the Collegiate system the
idea was that the Members of each College (which was only regarded as
a glorified dwelling house of the period, and the Society of which,
till their "Hall" was built, were, actually, to begin with, quartered
in already existing dwelling houses) should worship in the nearest
Parish Church, like other parishioners. Only by special licence from
the Pope could a private Chapel for a College, or any other mansion,
be erected. That granted by Pope Urban the Fifth (during the Papal
exile at Avignon) for the Chapel of Pembroke is still extant in the
Papal Register. It is dated July 1366, and runs as follows:
"To the Warden and College of Scholars of Valence Marie Hall,
Cambridge:
License, on the petition of their Foundress, Mary de Sancto
Paulo, Countess of Pembroke, to have a Chapel founded and built
by the said Countess within their walls, wherein Masses and other
Divine Offices may be celebrated by Priests of the said College;
saving the rights of the Parish Church."
The Parochial rights here spoken of mean the exclusive right of the
Parish Priest to celebrate marriages and to receive the dues known as
"Easter Offerings "and "Surplice Fees."
The dedication of St. Botolph's Church notifies us that we are now
entering Cambridge proper. For this Saint, who was historically an
abbot, the pioneer of the Benedictine Order in East Anglia, became
adopted by travellers as their special patron; and his churches were,
accordingly, placed for the most part at the gates of towns that his
benediction might speed the parting voyager. We thus find them at no
fewer than four of the London exits, Aldgate, Aldersgate, Bishopsgate,
and Billingsgate, and in more than sixty other places, mostly in East
Anglia. That which we are now considering was associated with the
entrance to Cambridge known as "Trumpington Gate," where the mediaeval
traveller from London made his way into the town by crossing the
ancient defensive work called "The King's Ditch."
The construction of this great trench was popularly ascribed to King
Henry the Third, who, in his struggle with the Barons, desired to keep
a firm hold on the important strategic centre of Cambridge. There is
some reason, however, to suppose that he did not actually initiate the
idea of thus insulating the town by running a ditch across the bend of
the river on which it stands, but merely deepened and widened an
earlier trench, originally made, perhaps, by the Danes during their
occupation of the place, and remade by King John. However this may
be, the ditch utterly failed of its purpose. Not only was it unequal
to keeping the Barons out, but it could not even preserve the town
from being pillaged by a local marauder, Geoffry de Magnaville or
Maundeville, who made his lair in the neighbouring fens.
The King's Ditch left the river at "the King's Mill" (now Newnham
Mill), and re-entered it opposite Magdalene College. It remained an
open watercourse (and a common sewer) till near the beginning of the
nineteenth century, when it was filled in, none too soon, for sanitary
reasons. Timber bridges spanned the stream at "Barnwell Gate," where
the "Via Devana" entered the town, as well as here at "Trumpington
Gate." These gates themselves, if they ever had any material
existence, were probably, at the most, little more than toll-bars.
St. Botolph's Church was intended, as we have seen, to be specially
connected with Pembroke College. Between them, however, there has
always existed a block of buildings, while immediately adjoining the
church on the other side there has arisen a College of later
foundation, that of St. Mary and Corpus Christi, familiarly known as
"Corpus." Unlike the other Colleges of Cambridge, this owes its
existence not to the generosity of any private benefactor, but to that
of two mediaeval Guilds, the Guild of St. Mary and the Guild of Corpus
Christi, which combined to leave future ages this splendid memorial of
their beneficence.
These Guilds were merely two out of many such bodies in the Cambridge
of that day; for the Guild was the Benefit Society of the mediaeval
period, and every respectable citizen was enrolled in one--often,
indeed, in more than one. The Guild, collectively, saw to the personal
interests of its members; aided them in distress, old age, and
sickness; contributed towards the expenses of their burial; and
finally provided Masses for their souls. This last item ultimately
proved fatal to the Guilds, which were suppressed wholesale at the
Reformation, as being thus tainted with Popish superstition, and their
property confiscated for the benefit of the Royal exchequer.
Guilds, like our Benefit Societies, were voluntary associations,
co-opting their members, and established on various bases. Earliest to
rise, in all English boroughs, was the Merchant Guild, which regulated
the entire trade of the town; fixing at its general meetings, called
"Morning Talks," the market price of each staple commodity, and the
hours and places at which it might be bought and sold, besides
punishing rigorously (by fine or expulsion from the Guild) any unfair
dealing, such as underselling, or "regrating,"--_i.e._, making a
"corner" in any article as we should now say. Somewhat later each
craft began to have its own Guild, supplanting to a large extent the
older and more general organisation, whose executive insensibly became
merged in the Town Council. To this day, however, the building in
which that Council meets for its "Morning Talks," is called the
Guildhall in most English towns.
Besides the trading Guilds, there arose others organised on a
definitely religious basis, the members of which were bound to special
devotion in some particular direction, from which the Guild took its
name. Amongst these were the two to whom we owe the existence of
"Corpus"--those of "Corpus Christi" and "Blessed Mary," the former
having been (in 1342) the original inceptors of the idea. The armorial
bearings of the College still testify to its double origin, being,
quarterly, three lilies, (the emblems of Our Lady,) and a pelican "in
her piety" (_i.e._, feeding her young with her own blood, as
contemporary legend imagined to be the case), as a reference to the
Holy Eucharist.
The College, which was founded 1352, was originally intended only for
the education of a small number of priests, and consisted only of one
small court, now known as the Old Court, which happily still exists in
almost its original condition. It is a venerable and secluded spot,
with ivy-grown walls and mullioned lattices, well worth a visit. From
its north-eastern corner extends a long gallery pierced by an archway,
connecting the College with the Church of St. Benedict, or "Benet," as
it is commonly vocalised.[9] From this connection the College became
popularly known as "Benet College," just as Peterhouse was so called
from its like connection with the ancient church of "St. Peter by
Trumpington Gate." But while Peterhouse retains its old designation,
that of "Benet" has now become wholly disused, though only within the
last century.
[Footnote 9: This is shown in our first wood-cut.]
[Illustration: _St. Benet's Church, Interior._]
This connecting gallery is of red brick, toned by age into delicious
mellowness, and is best seen from the back of the College, where a
quiet little lane ("Free School Lane"), one of the most charming
amongst the byways of Cambridge, gives access through the above
mentioned archway into the quiet little church yard of this quiet
little church, with its Saxon tower, the oldest monument of
ecclesiastical architecture in Cambridge, and one of the most
picturesque. The precise date of its erection, and how the church came
to exist at all, is, and will probably remain, an unsolved problem in
history. Some authorities imagine that it points to an East Anglian
settlement to the east of the Cam, distinct from the Mercian
"Grantabridge" on the western bank, where the old Roman town once
stood; others believe that it was built by the English inhabitants
expelled from that town by the Danes in the time of King Alfred.
Whatever may be the truth there is no small fascination in this
venerable relic of the old English days, with its "long and short"
stonework, the rudely-fashioned Romanesque pilasters in its windows,
and the nondescript "portal-guarding" lions of its interior archway.
The body of the church has been altered and re-altered time and again
during the ages: at the bases of the present chancel-arch those of two
earlier predecessors may be observed, and the south wall of the
chancel is honeycombed with disused openings once leading into the
Collegiate buildings of Corpus, while the existing stairway (also
disused) is seen in the eastern corner of the south aisle. The church
is thus of rare interest to the architectural student, and its history
has been exhaustively dealt with by Mr. Atkinson (_Cambridge
Illustrated_, p. 133). A glass case in the south aisle contains
various relics of antiquity belonging to it, and beside them an
ancient iron "fire-hook," used of old for tearing down blazing roofs
and buildings.[10]
[Footnote 10: The speediest possible destruction of such buildings was
the only way of dealing with fires before effective engines came in,
which was not until the nineteenth century. Rings to facilitate the
use of fire-hooks are to be found under the eaves of many old houses
hereabout. The hooks had 30 foot handles, mounted on a pair of
wheels.]
Out-taken the Old Court, Corpus has nothing in the way of buildings
that has either beauty or interest, the College having been
remorselessly remodelled about 1825. But the contents of its Library
surpass all else of the kind in Cambridge, containing, as it does,
what is probably the identical Gospel Book used by St. Augustine in
his conversion of the English, and what is probably the identical copy
of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle written for King Alfred, if not by his
own hand. These priceless treasures once formed part of the library
of Canterbury Abbey, which was sold by Henry the Eighth, at its
suppression, as waste paper. Such relics as survived twenty years of
this profanation were rescued by Archbishop Parker (the first
Protestant Archbishop), in Elizabeth's reign, and were presented by
him to the College, of which he had been Master.[11] To guard, so far
as possible, against their again coming "to such base uses," he
accompanied his gift with the condition that if a certain number of
the MSS. were ever missing, the whole should pass to Caius College,
and thence to Trinity Hall in case of a like loss. The authorities of
these Colleges have (and exercise) the right of annual inspection: so
far quite fruitlessly, as no single MS. has disappeared during the
last three centuries. But the result has been to render this Library
harder of access to visitors than any other, and it can only be seen
by special arrangement with the Librarian, who has to be present in
person, along with some other Fellow or Scholar of the College, before
strangers can be introduced.
[Footnote 11: Bishop Latimer, the Protestant martyr, also belonged to
Corpus.]
Corpus has the reputation of being haunted by a ghost, the existence
of which has been taken quite seriously even within the present
century. But the tale of its origin has a most suspicious number of
variants. Some hold it to be the spirit of a poor motherless girl of
seventeen, the daughter of Dr. Spenser (Master from 1667 to 1693), who
died of fright at being discovered by her father while enjoying a
clandestine interview with her undergraduate lover. (This tragedy is
fairly historical.) Others declare that it is the lover; who was
locked, or locked himself, into a cupboard, where he died of
suffocation! Others again have a tale of a student from King's, who
(in order not to haunt his own College) came hither to kill himself!
That strange noises, not yet accounted for, are heard in some of the
rooms, is, apparently, an established fact.
Opposite the Gate-tower of Corpus an open roadside esplanade, shaded
by lime trees, marks the still vacant space destined by St.
Catharine's College, in the seventeenth century, for a Library, to
complete its red-brick quadrangle, a design which has come to nothing.
The interior of the Court, which is not without dignity, still lies
open to view, shut in only by what was then meant to be a merely
temporary iron railing, with St. Catharine's wheel conspicuous above
the entrance. The College was founded as a kind of satellite to King's
College, by Robert Woodlark, the third Provost of that great
Foundation, in 1475. It has always remained a small and comparatively
poor Society.
If we pass through the Court, such as it is, of St. Catharine's,
(familiarly known as "Cat's,") the western gate will bring us out into
Queens' Lane. We shall, however, do better to reach this most
fascinating of all Cambridge byways not thus but through the College
from which it derives its name, Queens'. To do this we must turn
westwards down Silver Street, a few yards south of St. Catharine's,
and just opposite St. Botolph's Church. Before taking this turn we
should give a glance northward along Trumpington Street at the
splendid mass of Collegiate and University buildings which here come
into view. High above all rises the glorious fabric of King's College
Chapel, while, beyond it, the classical facades of the Senate House
and the University Library, the fine gateway of Caius College, and the
further off tower of St. John's College, fill the eye with a
delightful sense of aesthetic culture and harmony.
Entering Silver Street, a mean thoroughfare, all too narrow for its
volume of traffic, and demanding no small caution from all and sundry,
we have on our left a building for all the world like a College--so
frequently, indeed, mistaken for one by newcomers, as to have gained
the nickname of "the Freshman's College." In reality this is the
University Printing Press, or the Pitt Press, as it is commonly
called; the existing frontage opposite Pembroke having been erected in
1831, in memory of that statesman, who was a member of Pembroke
College.[12] All the official printing of the University is done here,
and the building also serves as the quarters of the University
Registrary, who keeps the record of Entrances, Degrees, etc.
[Footnote 12: The University had licensed printers from the time of
Henry the Eighth, but did not set up a Press of its own till the
eighteenth century, when influenced by the great scholar and critic
Richard Bentley.]
At the end of Silver Street, which is, happily, little over a hundred
yards in length, we reach an iron bridge over the Cam; its placid
stream "footing slow," as Milton says (in Lycidas), and only some
thirty feet in breadth. Above the bridge, however, it widens out into
a broad pool, enlivened by the rush of water from the "King's Mill,"
beyond which the eye ranges over the open levels of "Sheep's Green."
Both the mill and the bridge are amongst the oldest features of
Cambridge, and the tolls payable at both were in mediaeval times a
Royal monopoly. The King's agent in collecting them on this bridge
(known as "The Small Bridge" in contradistinction to the more
important structure beneath the Castle) was a hermit, for whose
accommodation a small bridge-house and chapel were built. This curious
use of hermits, as keepers of roads and bridges, was common in
Cambridgeshire before the Reformation.
At Silver Street bridge the river enters on its course through the
enchanted ground of the "Backs," and the visitor will do well to take
water at the adjoining boat-house; for the stream here forms for half
a mile a byway lovely beyond words, not to be matched elsewhere in all
the world; flowing, as it does, between venerable piles of academic
masonry, and "trim gardens," the haunts of "retired leisure";
umbrageous, as it is, with the shade of lime, and elm, and beech, and
chestnut, and weeping willow, and laburnum; spanned, as it is, by
bridge after bridge, each a new revelation of exquisite design.
First we find ourselves with the old red brick fabric of Queens'
College on the one bank and the thicket of "Queens' Grove" on the
other, joined together by a wooden bridge, attributed to Sir Isaac
Newton, the Great Natural Philosopher and discoverer of the Law of
Gravity. A miracle of ingenious construction is this bridge, formed of
a series of mutually supporting beams requiring not a single bolt to
hold them together. Such at least it was till a few years ago, when
the old timbers, after two hundred years' wear, fell into decay and
had to be replaced, as nearly in facsimile as modern skill could
compass.
A few yards further and the red brick of Queens' gives place to the
white stone of King's; the proximity reminding us that the Founders of
these two beautiful Colleges were husband and wife, "the Royal Saint,"
King Henry the Sixth, and his heroic Consort, Margaret of Anjou. Poor
young things! They were but twenty-two and fifteen respectively when
they began these monuments of their liberality and devotion--upon the
very eve of that miserable conflict, the wars of "the rival Roses,"
which brought about the downfall and death of both. But their work
survived them, to be completed by Royal successors; King's by Henry
the Seventh, Queens' by Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Henry's rival,
Edward the Fourth of York.
[Illustration: _Clare Bridge._]
King's Bridge, beneath which we now glide, is a single delicate rib of
stone, a marked contrast to the elaborate woodwork of Queens', and to
the three arches of grey stone and balustraded parapet of Clare, the
next in order. Between these the river widens, and the view opens out
on either side; a spacious meadow dotted and bounded with elms and
limes on the west, and on the east as spacious a lawn beyond which
rise the buildings of King's and of Clare College, and the west front
of that glory of Cambridge and of the world, King's College Chapel.
This reach of the river used, a few years ago, to be the scene of a
pretty annual merry-making, known as the "Boat Show," which formed
part of the attractions of the "May Week."[13] Hither the College
boats which had been contending for precedence in the May Races used
to row up in procession and draw up side by side in a mass occupying
the whole breadth of the stream. Each crew rose in turn with uplifted
oars to salute the victors who had attained (or retained) the Headship
of the River; after which the procession returned to the boat houses
two miles below. (The races were rowed two miles below again, where
the stream is wide enough for the due manipulation of an
eight-oar.)[14]
[Footnote 13: See page 17.]
[Footnote 14: See Chapter VI.]
Clare Bridge passed, the College gardens of Clare and Trinity Hall
(which last must not be confounded with the larger and later
foundation of Trinity College) flank our course on either side for a
short space, till the next bridge, Garret Hostel Bridge, which
proclaims its non-Collegiate origin by being (like Newnham Bridge) a
tasteless structure of iron. It is, in fact, a public thoroughfare;
the road leading to it, Garret Hostel Lane, being the solitary
survival of the dozen or so of little streets which gave access to the
River from mediaeval Cambridge, till the banks were usurped by the
Colleges. And in its name we have the last surviving reminder of those
"Hostels," or officially recognised lodging houses, which, before
Colleges came into being (and for some while after), provided
accommodation for the swarming students of the mediaeval University.
Garret Hostel itself, together with others, was swallowed up by the
gigantic College which we now reach, Trinity. Trinity Bridge, a
cycloidal curve carried on three arches, is led up to on either side
by the "long walk of limes" sung by Tennyson in "In Memoriam"; and the
splendid range of chestnuts which, as we pass beneath it, opens upon
us to the north-west, forms the boundary between the paddocks of
Trinity and St. John's. On the east rises the vast fabric of Trinity
Library built by Sir Christopher Wren, with its magnificent range of
arched windows and its warm yellow sandstone, an occasional violet
block adding to the effect, a veritable feast of quiet colour,
especially when glowing in the evening sun, and contrasting pleasingly
with the paler tint of the New Court of St. John's College, which,
with its plethora of crocketed pinnacles, here bounds our view to the
left front. To the right front rises the square tower of St. John's
Chapel, picturesquely reflected in the still waters.
A slight bend in the stream, overhung by great elms, brings us to St.
John's Bridge, a fine three arched structure of brick and stone built
in 1696.[15] Beyond it the College buildings rise, like those of
Queens', directly from the water--to the west the white stone
abutments of the New Court, to the east the red brick walls and oriel
window of the Library, the most beautiful building of its class in
either Cambridge or Oxford. On it we can read the date 1624, and the
letters I. L. C. S. standing for _Johannes Lincolnensis Custos
Sigilli_, which commemorate the benefactor John Williams, Bishop of
Lincoln, and Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, to whose generosity we owe
this gem of architecture. In his day, and for long after, St. John's
was quite the largest College in Cambridge, rivalled only, for a
moment, by Emmanuel. The present supremacy of Trinity did not begin
till late in the eighteenth century.
[Footnote 15: Sculptures over the piers represent the bridge itself, a
very unusual feature.]
The river is here spanned by the latest of the College bridges, a
single arch of stone high in air, carrying a pathway vaulted over with
stone and lighted on either side by grated windows, after the fashion
of the "Bridge of Sighs" at Venice. It was built about 1830 to form a
communication between the older part of the College on the eastern
side of the river and the recently erected New Court on the western,
while giving no opportunity for illicit leaving of the College. As has
been already stated, students, while bound to be inside the College
gates all night, are not bound to keep to their rooms, but may wander
about the Courts at any hour.
[Illustration: _St. John's Bridge._]
With St. John's the Collegiate buildings cease and are succeeded by
the last remaining "Hithes," or quays, used for commercial traffic,
which of old lined the banks for the whole length of Cambridge. We
read of Corn Hithe, Pease Hithe, Flax Hithe, Garlic Hithe and others.
For the river was to old Cambridge all and more than all that the
railways are now, the great artery of traffic, by which goods were far
more easily and cheaply conveyed than along the roads of the period,
which were always rough and often mere "Sloughs of Despond." Most
especially was this the case with fuel, so that in the seventeenth
century it was a familiar local saying that "here water kindleth
fire." These ancient hithes, like the street-ways leading to them,
have been almost all absorbed by the various College precincts. The
last, as we have said, are to be seen yet, still in use, with barges
(still laden chiefly with firewood) lying at them, below St. John's,
by the side of the "Great Bridge," that famous passage of the river to
which Cambridge owes both its name and its very existence. Opposite
the lowest of them there is one more riverside College, Magdalene, an
old monastic educational establishment turned to its present purpose
at the time of the Reformation by Lord Thomas Audley of Saffron
Walden, a courtier of King Henry the Eighth, who had obtained a grant
of it from that rapacious monarch.
Our Cam byway here ends; for the river here passes out of the
populated area of Cambridge. It is noteworthy that this area abuts on
its banks to the same extent and no more than it did seven hundred
years ago. The King's Ditch, which then bounded it, left the stream at
the King's Mill, where our voyage started, and rejoined it just
opposite Magdalene, where that voyage closes. It is well worth while,
however, to retrace our course, for we shall find fresh loveliness in
the reverse views of the exquisite scenery through which we have
passed; and may note the many disused archways in the College walls,
which tell how, scarcely a generation ago, this unique gem of English
landscape was actually defiled by being used as a shamelessly open
sewer.
CHAPTER III
=Queens' College=, Erasmus, Cloisters, Carmelites, Chapel.--Old
Mill Street.--=King's College=, Henry the Sixth, King's and Eton,
Henry's "Will."--King's College Chapel, Wordsworth, Milton,
Windows, Rosa Solis, Screen, Stalls, Vaulting, Side-Chapels, View
from Roof.
When we disembark once more at Silver Street Bridge, we find ourselves
standing beneath the sombre old red-brick walls of Queens', indented
just above us by a small projecting turret which we should not leave
without notice, for it bears the name and, by tradition, was assigned
to the use of the famous Erasmus during the months he spent in
Cambridge. This great light of the Reformation, or, more properly
speaking, of the intellectual revival which led up to it, was brought
here by the influence of the saintly chancellor, Sir Thomas More,
whose great wish was to broaden the University outlook by the
introduction of the Classical spirit. Hitherto its curriculum had been
almost exclusively confined to Aristotelian philosophy, adapted to
dogmatic Christianity by the great mediaeval Schoolmen, especially St.
Thomas Aquinas. Erasmus brought in the knowledge of Greek, which he
had acquired from the learned exiles whom the capture of
Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 had driven to the west. Unhappily
he, in no small degree, depreciated this great gift, by clogging it
with his own self-opinionated pronunciation of the language, instead
of taking it as actually spoken. Strange to say, this "Erasmian"
barbarism shortly became a badge of Protestantism (though Erasmus
himself lived and died a Catholic). It was thus enforced during the
reign of Edward the Sixth, forbidden in that of Mary, and enforced
again under Elizabeth. To this day it remains with us, and cuts us off
from the living tongue of Hellas.
To enter Queens' it is advisable to cross the iron bridge, and recross
the river by Sir Isaac Newton's wooden structure. Passing through the
low doorway into which it leads we find ourselves in the most
picturesque of all College Courts, bounded by the Hall in face of us,
and on the other three sides by a low range of ancient red-brick
cloisters. These once belonged to the Carmelite nuns, who removed to
this site when flooded out of their original quarters at Newnham. In
1538 they sold their House to the College, just in time to escape its
confiscation, at the suppression of the monasteries, by Henry the
Eighth, who, as it was, required the purchase-money to be paid over to
_him_. Having obtained the property Queens' at once built over the
northern cloisters the beautiful gallery which serves as the
drawing-room of the President's Lodge--(it has been stated that the
Head of a College is, in Cambridge, always called the "Master," except
here, where he is "President," and at King's where he is "Provost").
The gallery, which is a wooden construction overhanging the Cloister,
is eighty feet long by twelve in width, with three large oriels
looking into the Court. Those on the other side open into the
President's garden, a charming enclosure abutting upon the river. Both
gallery and garden are, of course, strictly private. Opposite the
gallery, at the south-east corner of the cloisters, is a small Court
of Elizabethan date, known as "Pump Court," and now-a-days as "Erasmus
Court"; while from the north-east corner a tortuous little passage
brings us into a more modern Court, shaded by a fine walnut-tree
(whence its name of "Walnut Tree Court"). Here stands the New Chapel,
the best bit of modern work in all Cambridge, erected in 1895 from the
designs of Messrs. Bodley and Garner. The beautiful proportions and
effective decoration of the interior are specially noteworthy.
[Illustration: _The President's Gallery, Queens' College._]
On the southern side of this court a passage (between the old Chapel
and the Library) leads to the "Old Court," the original enclave of the
College. This has remained practically unaltered since the Foundation,
and is the best example remaining of the way in which a College was
designed of old, after the fashion of the large country-house, as then
built--Haddon Hall, for example, in Derbyshire. The red-brick and the
white stone dressings, have mellowed, as elsewhere in Cambridge, to a
tone of rich sombreness most restful and satisfying to the eye. The
somewhat gaudy clock and clock tower are modern, as is also the yet
gaudier sun-dial often, but erroneously, ascribed to Sir Isaac Newton.
Over the Hall is emblazoned the very elaborate shield of the College,
quartering the six bearings to which the poor little Queen Margaret
laid claim--those of Hungary, Naples, Jerusalem, Anjou, Lorraine, and
De Barre, all within a bordure "vert" added by Queen Elizabeth. Hence
it is that green is to-day the distinctive Queens' colour at boating,
cricket, etc.
Passing out of Queens', beneath the dignified gate-tower, we find
ourselves in Queens' Lane, the quiet byway already referred to. Quiet
byway as it now is, this was once a main street of Cambridge, known as
Mill Street, forming (as it did before the great Colleges of King's,
Trinity, and St. John's were built across it) the line of interior
communication between the two bridges of the town, "the Small Bridge"
by the King's Mill and "The Great Bridge" beneath the Castle. In those
days it was a busy thoroughfare, thick set with burgher houses; now,
in such broken lengths of it as survive, the buildings are almost
wholly Collegiate. As we emerge from Queens' gate, and turn leftwards,
we have on one side the dark-red bricks of that College, on the other
the like buildings of St. Catharine's, while, at the further end of
the street in front, our view is bounded by the white stone of the new
gateway of King's. The whole effect is delightful.
Through this gateway we now make our way into the Premier[16] College
of Cambridge, and soon find ourselves face to face with one of the
most beautiful views of the world. Before us spreads a spacious lawn,
the most extensive in existence,[17] bounded on three sides by the
white and grey walls of College buildings, while on the fourth it
merges into the wooded grass-land of the Backs; the river which
divides it from these being scarcely perceptible from this point. We
get a glimpse, however, of Clare Bridge, terminating the graceful
facade of that College, which is in our immediate front. Behind us are
the nineteenth-century additions to King's, and to our right front the
fine pile of "Gibbs' Buildings," erected, in the eighteenth century,
as a first attempt to approximate in some degree to the wishes of the
Royal Founder, and transfer his College from the cramped position it
had hitherto occupied, at the north of the Chapel, to the ampler site
on the south which he had originally destined for it, and had cleared
for his purpose by buying up and sweeping away, church and all, one of
the most thickly populated parishes in Cambridge, that of "St. John
Zachary" (_i.e._ St. John the Baptist), including a furlong's length
of Mill Street.
[Footnote 16: This rank is one of the privileges due to the Royal
Founder. Another was the exemption of King's men from the authority of
the Proctors; another their right to a Degree without passing the
usual examinations. This was given up in the middle of last century,
and now every King's student is required by the College to take
Honours in some Tripos.]
[Footnote 17: A current story tells how a millionaire, who boasted
that his money should make him a lawn as perfect, was discomfited by
being told that to attain such perfection "you must mow and roll it
regularly for 400 years. That is what has been done here."]
[Illustration: _Oriel in Queens' College._]
For the scale on which Henry VI. intended to build was something
hitherto quite unprecedented, and his plan took years to mature. The
inspiration of it was originally caught from William of Wykeham,
Bishop of Winchester, whose genius first conceived the idea of twinned
Colleges, in the provinces and at the University, from the former of
which the Scholars should pass on to complete their education at the
latter. This idea Wykeham himself first carried into effect by the
foundation of the College at Winchester and of New College at Oxford.
And, fired by his example, Henry VI., when only twenty, resolved on
doing the same thing himself with truly Royal magnificence. His
Scholars should begin their course at Eton, beneath the walls of
Windsor Castle, his birthplace and favourite residence, and should
thence pass to finish it at Cambridge, in the College which he would
there dedicate to his own Patron Saint Nicolas, on whose Feast,
December 6th (still "Founder's Day" to all Etonians and King's men),
he was born.
This was in 1440. He at once put hand to the work, and that same year
signed the Charters for both Colleges; the Head of each being called
"Provost," in order, as he said, "to weld the two Colleges together in
a bond of everlasting brotherhood,"--a bond which actually lasted in
its entirety till 1870, and of which traces even yet remain.
The acquisition of the sites involved complicated legal transactions
which occupied several years; but by 1444 Eton was sufficiently
advanced to receive its first Scholars, a colony brought by William of
Waynflete from Winchester; and by 1446 Henry was able to dedicate the
first stone of his Cambridge chapel. Every dimension of this glorious
edifice he himself worked out with the utmost minuteness, and set
down, as he would have it completed, in that notable record of his
purposes still preserved in the College Library, and known as his
"Will." The word had not in those days its present purely posthumous
signification, but was used of any formal disposition of a man's
estate, or any part of it, to some given purpose.
In this document, "one of the most remarkable works in the English
language," as Mr. J. W. Clark styles it, the King describes his future
College so accurately that a complete plan and elevation of the whole
can be drawn from it. We thus learn that Gibbs' Building represents
what was meant to be the western side of an enclosed court, with a
fountain in the midst of it. The Chapel was to form the northern side
of this court; the entrance, with its turreted gate-tower, the
eastern; the Hall and Library, the western. The great lawn before us
was not to be, as now, an empty space, but was to be occupied, partly
by a small "kitchen court" containing the various offices (bake-house,
brew-house, etc.), partly by a cloistered cemetery between the Chapel
and the river, from the western side of which was to rise a pinnacled
tower, 220 feet high, the rival to that at Magdalen, Oxford, which was
already being planned by William of Waynflete. Another turreted
gate-tower, on the very bank of the river, was to give access to the
College Bridge (further north than the present one). Had this plan
been carried out in its entirety, King's would indeed have been, as
the historian Stow puts it, "such that the like colledge could scarce
have been found again in any Christian land."
[Illustration: _Queens' College Gateway._]
Unhappily its splendid design was brought to nought by the great
tragedy of the Wars of the Roses, which broke out almost immediately.
The singular mildness with which that conflict was waged (except on
the actual field of battle), with no wasting of lands, with no burning
of towns or villages, with no slaughter (and scarcely any plunder) of
non-combatants, permitted the work on the Chapel, which, as we have
seen, was already begun, to proceed, though slowly, and did not even
stop the conveyance of stone from the chosen quarry at Huddleston in
Yorkshire. The payment of the workmen was a harder matter, for Henry
was far from being a wealthy monarch. He and his wife between them had
less than the equivalent of L50,000 per annum, all too little for the
expenses of their position, even in days of peace. Still the pay was
found, in a certain measure, and the workmen came and went till
dispersed by the appalling tidings that their Royal Saint had been
deposed and murdered in the Tower. Then in panic horror they flung
down their tools and fled, with such haste that they did not even
complete the job on a block of stone, already half sawn through, which
lay, as Logan's print of 1680 shows it, in the south-east corner of
the present Great Court, Henry's intended quadrangle, a testimony to
their despair, for upwards of three centuries. Then, when the idea of
carrying out his intention was at last revived, this stone was
appropriately used as the first to be employed for that purpose, the
Foundation Stone of Gibbs' Building.
The work on the Chapel thus abruptly stopped by the Founder's death
remained in abeyance for the remainder of the century. Not till 1508
was it resumed. The shell of the building was finished 1515; the glass
and woodwork being added under Henry the Eighth. But in the end it was
completed substantially in accordance with the Founder's Will, and is
the only part of his design that has been so completed. His huge
campanile, his cloisters, his gate towers, never came into being; and
though the Great Court is now where he meant it to be, it is built in
a fashion very different from his design.
This we see at a glance as we enter it round the southern end of
Gibbs' Building. For it is not an enclosed quadrangle, but formed of
two detached blocks to south and west, while the east side is only a
stone screen, erected in 1825, and of a sadly inferior style. But the
"goodly conduit" of the Founder's Will does rise in the midst,[18] and
the north side is actually formed, as he decreed, by his glorious
Chapel, the most magnificent in the world, which now rises before us
in all its grandeur as we behold it across the Court.
[Footnote 18: His statue surmounts it, flanked by two figures
representing Science (gazing at the Chapel) and Religion (with her
eyes devoutly fixed upon the Hall). To leap across from the lawn to
the pedestal of this group is a feat seldom accomplished.]
And if the outside view is impressive, that which greets us when we
enter is absolutely overpowering in its majesty. The sense of space
and repose; the up-running lines of the shafting catching the eye
whithersoever it turns, and leading it up to the myriad-celled spans
of the vault; the subdued light through the pictured windows staining
the venerable masonry; the great organ, upborne by the rich oaken
screen, dominating the whole vista, combine to form, as has been well
said, "a _Sursum Corda_ done into stone," uplifting indeed to heart
and sense alike. And when to this feast of visual harmony is added the
feast of aural harmony, when the clear and mellow voices of the Choir
blend with the majestic tones of the organ,
"And thunder-music, rolling, shakes
The prophets blazoned on the panes,"
we can understand how the inspiration of the scene has thrilled poet
after poet, not Tennyson only, as above quoted, but Wordsworth, and
even Milton, Puritan as he was, yet more. To the former King's College
Chapel suggested one of the most exquisite of his sonnets:
"Tax not the Royal Saint with vain expense,
With ill-matched aims the architect, who planned,
Albeit labouring for a scanty band
Of white-robed scholars only, this immense
And glorious work of fine intelligence.
'Give all thou canst! High Heaven rejects the lore
Of nicely calculated less and more.'
So deemed the man who fashioned for the sense
These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof,
Self-poised, and scooped into ten thousand cells,
Where light and shade repose, where Music dwells,
Lingering and wandering on as loth to die;
Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
That they were born for immortality."
And Milton, when he came under the spell of this most glorious
sanctuary, forwent all his conscientious objections to the Laudian
revival of ornate services, "the scrannel pipes of wretched straw,"
and all the rest of his denunciations, and was, in spite of himself,
carried away into forgetfulness of all save the glory and the beauty
around him. Hear him in "Il Penseroso":
"But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloister's pale,
And love the high embowed roof,
With antique pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow
To the full-voiced choir below,
In Service high and Anthem clear,
As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstasies
And bring all Heaven before mine eyes."
[Illustration: _Clare College from King's._]
This passage is memorable, not only for its own intrinsic loveliness,
but because we, very probably, have in it a key to the great
historical puzzle connected with King's College Chapel. How came these
"storied windows," with their hundreds of pictured prophets, saints,
and angels, to escape the ruthless destruction which was meted out to
all such "idolatrous" representations, throughout the length and
breadth of the county, by the Parliamentary authorities at Cambridge?
William Dowsing, their authorised agent, went from church to church,
in town and village, shattering and defacing, and has left us a minute
record of his proceedings, in which he evidently took a keen personal
delight. Thus, amongst the colleges we have already noticed, he tells
us that, at Peterhouse, "we pulled down two mighty great Angells with
wings, and diverse other Angells, and the four Evangelists, and Peter
with his Keies over the Chappell Dore, and about 100 Chirubims." At
Queens' "we beat down a 110 superstitious pictures, besides
Chirubims"; and so on, with monotonous repetition, entry after entry.
The account also records the sums which each college had to pay him
for his trouble, and such a sum (of extra amount in consideration of
the magnitude of the task) was actually paid him by the Bursar of
King's. Yet here are the windows before our eyes to-day in unbroken,
unblemished dignity.
No contemporary explanation is forthcoming, and the true facts of the
case seem to have been kept so close, and to have been known to so
few, that no tradition, even, of them was handed down to posterity. As
time went on, the wildest and most impossible theories were evolved to
account for the marvel. It was gravely said that the windows had been
taken down by the Fellows themselves in a single night, and securely
buried from the baffled spite of the Roundheads before morning, till
better times; the place of each being known to one Fellow only! That
the west window alone remained plain till the latter part of the
nineteenth century (a peculiarity really not explained by history),
was held proof positive that the Fellow in charge of that particular
burial was done to death by the Puritans without betraying his secret;
which equally defied the researches of later generations. Such
searches were actually made. A more sentimental variant of the story
made the hider a pious little chorister, shot down by Cromwell in the
chapel itself for refusing to reveal where lay his precious charge!
Through the empty casement a white dove flew in, and hovered over the
heroic innocent! It need scarcely be pointed out that to remove the
glass from a single one of these huge windows would be a work of days
for a fully equipped band of professional glaziers supplied with
scaffolding; yet these absurd tales were gravely repeated, and the
missing window was actually sought for. The truth of the matter will,
probably, now never be known. But it is certain that the windows could
not have been spared without the connivance, at least, of Oliver
Cromwell, whose influence was at that time paramount in Cambridge; and
it is a plausible conjecture that his protection of them was due to
the intercession of his friend John Milton, to whom, as we have seen,
the Chapel and its "dim religious light" meant so much.
A full study of these wonderful windows, crowded as they are with
marvellously elaborate detail, is a work demanding hours of close
attention under the direction of a competent guide. Even for the
cursory examination which will suffice most of us the use of a
guide-book is essential; and it is fortunate that one has been brought
out (purchasable at any Cambridge book-shop for the modest sum of
sixpence) by Dr. M. R. James, the present Provost of King's, who is
the supreme European authority on ancient stained glass.
The general scheme of decoration is the representation of the life of
Our Lady (to whom the College is dedicated), beginning in the
westernmost window of the north side, with her traditional birth, and
going on round the Chapel, till it ends, in the westernmost window of
the south side, with her Assumption and Coronation. But as the
traditions concerning her did not provide a sufficient number of
scenes for the requirements of the designer, the series is eked out,
not only by various incidents in her Son's life wherein she does not
appear (such as His Baptism, Temptation, and Passion), but by the
three windows to the western side of the great screen on the south
being filled with subjects drawn from the stories of St. Peter and St.
Paul; all being, however, within the traditional period of her
life-time.
A first glance at the windows produces only the effect of a gorgeous
maze of colouring, through which we marvel that any clue should have
been found. Next to the general effect of the ineffably harmonious
blending of hues, the audacious vividness of the hues themselves, red
and green and blue and gold and purple, is what first impresses the
eye. Then we notice how, down the central light of each window, stand,
one above another, four great figures, human or angelic, each
displaying an inscribed scroll.[19] These figures are known as the
Messengers, and when not Angels they are Old Testament Prophets. Their
scrolls, which are in Latin, refer, sometimes by direct description,
oftener by a suggestive text, to the subjects depicted in the Lights
on either hand of them. The inscriptions, however, are of very little
practical use to the visitor. Age has rendered many of them wholly,
and more partially, illegible; while the black-letter characters of
their crowded Latin words are not easy to decipher at the best. They
are, moreover, by no means free from actual blunders, and the
connection between text and scene is sometimes far from obvious. Their
interest, in fact, is for experts; and less-gifted visitors will do
well to content themselves with the interpretation given in the
guide-book.
[Footnote 19: These figures are somewhat larger than life-size.]
The same advice applies to the glass in general. It is not worth while
to spend on a detailed study of the windows the time necessarily
involved. Much of the work is excellent, and almost every window has
its points of interest, but much, especially amongst the heads of the
figures, is far from pleasing. This fact is largely owing to a
considerable "restoration" undertaken in the Early Victorian era; when
the art of glass-painting was at a sadly low ebb, and when the
uncurbed restorer positively revelled in substituting for ancient
decay his spick-and-span modern conceptions. But, as has been said,
almost every window has features deserving that time should be made
for their notice, which we now proceed to point out.
Each window contains four scenes, the upper and lower, to left and
right of the central "Messengers," being normally co-related as Type
and Antitype. This relation, however, is not universal, and does not
occur in the first window of the series (that in the north-west corner
of the Chapel), where the four scenes consecutively illustrate the
legend connected with the birth of Our Lady. The story runs that her
parents, Joachim and Anna, were childless even unto old age, and that,
in consequence, Joachim, on presenting his offering in the Temple, was
insulted by the High Priest. As he sadly sought retirement in the
country an Angel appeared to him with the message that he should
return to Jerusalem, where his wife would meet him at the Temple gate,
and a daughter would be born to them.
The upper left-hand of the window shows the mitred High-Priest waving
away Joachim, who is sorrowfully departing. His face is beautifully
rendered. In the upper right-hand corner we see him kneeling before a
green and gold angel hovering downwards. The rural surroundings are
suggested by a pastoral composition. Note the sheep-dog and the
shepherd's bagpipes.
[Illustration: _King's College Chapel._]
In the lower left-hand light Joachim and Anna are meeting before the
Temple gate; and in the right-hand Anna is sitting up in a blue bed
with red curtains, watching the infant Mary being washed. Mary has
long golden curls, and her face is that of an adult; but Dr. James
considers this head a later insertion. This window is known to have
been repeatedly and promiscuously repaired (even as early as 1590),
and was in utter confusion till the latest releading (1896). The
repairs seem to have been executed with any old bits of glass the
glazier might happen to have in stock. On one fragment (now removed)
some coins of Charles the First were represented. Most of the windows
have suffered, more or less, in this way, but none (except that over
the south door) to the same extent as this first window, which though
the first in order of subject, seems not to have been the first
inserted, or at least completed; for at the top may be read the date
1527, whereas the window over the screen on the north side contains
that of 1517.
These two dates are respectively near the inception and the completion
of the glazing, which was begun 1515, the year when Luther began the
Reformation by the publication of his famous Theses, and finished
1531, the year in which that Reformation was first inaugurated in
England by the King being declared Supreme Head of the Anglican
Church. The windows, however, must have been designed at a date
considerably earlier, for in the heraldic devices which fill the small
top lights Henry the Seventh, not Henry the Eighth, is treated
throughout as the reigning monarch; his shield being blazoned in the
central compartment, while the latter is only commemorated by the
initials H. K.,--the last standing for his ill-fated wife Katharine of
Aragon. These heraldic devices are the same in all the windows, and
show the rival roses of York and Lancaster, the Tudor Portcullis and
Hawthorn Bush, the Fleur-de-lys, and the initials H. E. (for Henry the
Seventh and his Queen, Elizabeth of York). All the glass is of English
manufacture, the work of four London firms, but it seems probable that
the artists were to some extent under both Flemish and Italian
influence.
Passing on to the second window, we find it thus arranged:
TYPE | TYPE
Presentation of a golden table in | The Marriage of Tobias and Sara.
the Temple at Delphi. | (_Tobit_ vii. 13.)
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
Presentation of the Virgin in the | The Marriage of Mary and Joseph.
Temple at Jerusalem. |
The first scene here is the only instance in the Chapel of a
non-Scriptural incident being made use of as a Type. It is the
Classical legend (found in Valerius Maximus, an obscure Latin writer
used in the sixteenth century as a school book), which tells how a
question as to the ownership of a golden table found in the nets of
some Milesian fishermen was referred to the Delphic oracle of Apollo
for solution. To whom should this table of pure gold be made over? The
Oracle replied "To the Wisest." The prize was therefore given to
Thales, the wisest Milesian of the day, who modestly passed it on to
another sage, and he to yet another. Finally, after thus going the
round of the Seven Wise Men of Greece, it came into the hands of Solon
the Athenian, who declared that "the Wisest" could be no other than
Apollo himself, and accordingly presented the table to the God in the
Temple of Delphi. By a strange application, this tale was considered,
in mediaeval literature, as typical of the Presentation of the Virgin
in the Temple at Jerusalem; her purity and that of the gold being,
apparently, the connecting idea.
In the window we see the offering of the golden table; Apollo being
represented by a golden image bearing a shield emblazoned with the
Sun, and a banner. Beneath is Mary, as a young girl dressed in blue,
walking up the steps of the Temple; an incident much dwelt on in the
legend. In the upper Marriage scene note the Angel Raphael, the
comrade and guide of Tobias; and, in the lower, Joseph's rod, the sign
from which (a dove appearing upon it) marked him out, amongst all her
suitors, as Mary's destined husband. This scene suggests a
reminiscence of Raphael's well-known cartoon on the subject, which had
lately been painted.
* * * * *
In the third window the arrangement is:
TYPE | TYPE
The Fall | The Burning Bush
(Eve's disobedience). | (remaining unconsumed).
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
The Annunciation | The Nativity
(Mary's obedience). | (Mary remaining a Virgin).
Note the human head and hands of the Serpent, and the brilliant
ruddiness of the apple. Also the ruby flames of the bush, and the
representation of God the Father at its summit. Moses is in the act of
putting off his shoes from his feet. In the Nativity scene the Babe
can only be discovered by following the gaze of the child Angels who
are clustering round in adoration. Contrary to the usual convention,
which shows Him sitting on His Mother's knee as if a couple of years
old, He is here represented realistically as an actual new-born baby.
Above both lower lights in this window is a renaissance arcading.
* * * * *
In the fourth window we have:
TYPE | TYPE
The Circumcision of Isaac. | The visit of the Queen of Sheba
| to Solomon.
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
The Circumcision of Christ. | The visit of the Wise Men to
| Christ.
The face of Abraham and that of the officiating priest below are both
good, and so is that of the Queen. The Epiphany Star is a fine object,
and the effect of its light irradiating the thatch of the manger-shed
is most powerfully rendered.
* * * * *
The fifth window gives us
TYPE | TYPE
The Legal Purification of a woman. | Jacob's flight from the
| vengeance of Esau.
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
The Purification of Mary. | The Flight into Egypt.
In the Purification scene the faces of Simeon, who is the main figure,
Mary, and Joseph (carrying the dove-cage), are all worth looking at.
So is Joseph in the Flight episode; which, however, is chiefly
remarkable for introducing in the back-ground a legend from a late
carol, which tells how Herod's soldiers pursued the Holy Family, and
how the pursuit was miraculously checked. The fugitives met a
husbandman, and instructed him to answer any inquiry for them by
saying, "They passed whilst I was sowing this corn"; which was
actually the case. But, lo! when the pursuers shortly came up the corn
had sprung up, and was ripe already to harvest. It takes some little
trouble to decipher this scene. The Purification is seen through an
arcade of the Temple, on the frieze of which is a group of classical
horsemen like those of the Parthenon.
* * * * *
The next window is that over the great organ screen dividing the
ante-chapel from the choir. It is arranged thus:
TYPE | TYPE
The Golden Calf | The Massacre of the Seed Royal by
(the introduction of Idolatry). | Queen Athaliah.
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
The idols of Egypt falling before | The Massacre of the Innocents by
the Holy Child | King Herod.
(the overthrow of Idolatry). |
The Golden Calf is set high on a magnificent ruby pillar. Before it
Moses is breaking the Tables of the Law; one fragment of which shows a
Flemish inscription. Below, an idol is falling headlong from a
precisely similar pillar. The kneeling figure in this scene is the
Governor Aphrodisius, who was converted by the miracle; as is recorded
in the apocryphal "Gospel of the Infancy." In the Massacre scene Queen
Athaliah is represented by a conventional figure of the _Virgo
Coronata_ (with her Babe in her arms). The artist evidently had this
figure in stock, and used it rather than take the trouble of producing
something less incorrect. Near her there is a minutely depicted
mediaeval thatched house worthy of notice. So is the business-like
callousness in the expression on the leading soldier's countenance.
This window bears, as has been said, the date 1517, written 15017.
* * * * *
We are now in the choir, where our first window gives:
TYPE | TYPE
Naaman washing in Jordan. | Esau tempted by Jacob to sell
| his birthright.
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
Christ baptised in Jordan. | Christ tempted by the Devil.
All three Temptations are given, the first being in the foreground.
The countenance of the Devil (as a respectable old man) is a
marvellous study.
* * * * *
The second window in the choir is:
TYPE | TYPE
The raising of the Shunamite's son.| The Triumph of David
| (I _Sam._ xvii).
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
The raising of Lazarus. | The Triumphal Entry.
The Shunamite's house is another bit of minute detail. Note the dishes
on the shelf in front. Note also the magnificently gigantic head of
Goliath borne by David on the point of the Philistine's own huge
sword.
* * * * *
The third window:
TYPE | TYPE
The Manna. | The Fall of the Angels.
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
The Last Supper. | The Agony in Gethsemane.
The manna is shown as falling in the shape of Communion Breads. Below,
Christ gives the sop to the red-haired Judas, while Peter, who thus
becomes aware of the traitor's identity, clenches his fist with a
gesture of menace extraordinarily forcible.
The connection between the right-hand subjects is not obvious. Dr.
James suggests that it refers to Christ's speaking of the casting out
of Satan as a result of His Passion (John xii. 31). The smaller scale
of this scene, and the nimbi given to Christ and the Apostles point to
its having been the work of a special artist.
* * * * *
The fourth choir window:
TYPE | TYPE
Cain murders Abel. | The mocking of David by Shimei.
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
Judas betrays Christ. | The mocking of Christ.
Cain is killing Abel with a large bone. Note the ruby fires of their
respective altars in the back-ground, Abel's spiring upwards in full
flame, while Cain's is blown down to the earth. In the betrayal scene
the face of Malchus, as he lies upon the ground with his broken
lantern under him, should be observed. It is highly expressive.
* * * * *
The fifth window:
TYPE | TYPE
Jeremiah in prison. | Noah mocked by Ham.
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
Christ before Annas. | Christ mocked by Herod.
* * * * *
We have now reached the last window of the northern range, that in the
north-east corner of the Chapel. It shows us:
TYPE | TYPE
Job scourged by Satan. | Solomon crowned by his mother.
| (_Cant._ iii. 11.)
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
Christ scourged by Pilate. | Christ crowned with thorns.
In the scourging scene we may note the singularly unpleasing features
and expression of the Saviour's face; which Dr. James holds to be
purposely so delineated, in reference to the words of Isaiah: "He hath
no form nor comeliness, and when we see Him there is no beauty that we
should desire Him." We do not, indeed, find in the entire series of
windows one single attempt to represent Him worthily. The conventional
face, familiar throughout the ages to Christian Art, even from the
first century, and probably a real recollection of Him, is
consistently departed from (as is characteristic of the Renaissance
period), and with it has gone every divine and exalted association.
Where even the genius of Michael Angelo failed, we cannot look to find
the glassworkers of London succeeding.
* * * * *
The great east window has no central messengers, and thus contains six
scenes, each occupying three lights, arranged thus:
The Nailing to the | Christ crucified | The Descent from the
Cross. | (the Piercing). | Cross.
| |
Ecce Homo! | The Sentence. | The Way of Sorrows.
There is little to call for special notice in this window. Structural
conditions necessitate the Cross being of abnormal height. In the
background of the Way of Sorrows is a vivid ruby patch, which may be
meant for the Field of Blood.
* * * * *
Turning to the south-east window, we are confronted with an entirely
exceptional development. The whole of the upper half is occupied with
a single subject (the Brazen Serpent), and that in Early Victorian
glass inconceivably poor and crude. The lower half is ancient and
typical, the type and antitype being placed side by side:
TYPE | ANTITYPE
Naomi bewailing her husband. | The Holy Women bewailing Christ.
(_Ruth_ i. 20.) |
The history of this marked departure from the norm is that the
buildings of the Great Court were planned to abut upon the Chapel
here, so as to block the lower half of the window, for which,
accordingly, no glass was provided. That which is there now was
originally in the upper half and was moved down in 1841, the Brazen
Serpent being substituted for it. The remaining windows on this side
of the choir also underwent a sad amount of "restoration" at the same
period.
* * * * *
The next window (the fifteenth in the entire sequence) is of the
normal arrangement.
TYPE | TYPE
Joseph cast into the pit. | The overthrow of Pharaoh.
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
Christ laid in the Sepulchre. | The Harrying of Hell.
The last scene is a most forcible representation of Christ's
victorious "Harrying of Hell," as conceived by mediaeval imagination
and referred to by Dante in his Inferno. The Conqueror of Death has
forced His resistless way through the shattered gates of Hell, on
which He stands, treading under His feet the gigantic leaden-coloured
bulk of their demon warder. Before Him kneels Adam, at last rescued
from his age-long captivity, and other Holy Souls. In the back-ground
a blue devil gazes in dismay from the red mouth of Hell (represented
after the usual mediaeval fashion, as an actual mouth, with teeth,
etc.), while another, in livid green, is dancing with demoniac rage
above, and yet another, white and gold, is scudding away in terror as
fast as his wings will carry him.
* * * * *
The remaining windows of the choir on this side deal with the
Resurrection. In the first of these (the third from the east) the
subjects are:
TYPE | TYPE
Jonah escaping from the Fish. | Tobias appearing to his mother
| (who had thought him dead).
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
Christ arising from the Sepulchre. | Christ appearing to His Mother.
The Fish is represented as a long green sea-serpent with a black,
cavernous mouth, out of which Jonah is stepping. In the background is
a ship, and, beyond, Nineveh. The Sepulchre is in the frequent
unscriptural shape of a table monument.
In the right-hand type, Tobias has his dog with him, and also his
angel guardian Raphael. That Christ appeared to His Mother is first
found in St. Ambrose, who mentions it as undoubted. She is here shown
kneeling at a prayer-desk.
* * * * *
In the next window we find:
TYPE | TYPE
Reuben finds Joseph taken away | Darius, at the Lions' den, sees
from the pit. | Daniel living.
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
The Marys find Jesus taken away |Mary Magdalene, at the Sepulchre,
from the Sepulchre. | sees Jesus living.
In the last scene Christ is represented with a spade, inasmuch as Mary
Magdalene supposed Him to be the gardener. Her very pronounced
costume, with its astonishing golden ear-covers, is probably a German
fashion of the early sixteenth century.
* * * * *
The fifth window gives the story of Christ's appearance to the
disciples who went to Emmaus:
TYPE | TYPE
Tobias, on his journey, is joined | Habakkuk shares his meal with
by the angel Raphael, in | Daniel at Babylon.
appearance a wayfaring man. | (_Bel and the Dragon_, v. 33.)
(_Tobit_, v. 4.) |
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
The two disciples on their journey | Christ shares the meal of
are joined by Christ, in | disciples at Emmaus.
appearance a wayfaring man. |
Observe that the bread in Our Lord's hand appears to be, not broken,
but cut clean as with a knife. There was a mediaeval legend to the
effect that He showed His divine power by thus breaking it. Note, too,
Raphael's brilliant green and crimson wings, put in to denote his
angelic nature, though the story postulates their absence.
* * * * *
The following window (that next to the screen) deals with the story of
St. Thomas (John xx.), and has been wrongly arranged: what are now the
right-hand scenes should be the left so as to come first. It now
stands thus:
TYPE | TYPE
The Prodigal Son returns to his | Joseph meets Jacob in Egypt.
Father. |
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
Thomas returns to belief in Jesus.| Jesus meets His Disciples at
| Supper.
We find in the first scene here what is perhaps the most ably drawn
figure in the entire series of windows, that of the Elder Brother.
Observe the utter contempt and disgust written on his face and in his
whole attitude. He wears a pair of most aggressively red leggings.
* * * * *
The window over the organ loft shows us the Ascension, and the Coming
of the Holy Ghost.
TYPE | TYPE
Elijah going up into Heaven. | Moses and the Israelites receiving
| the Law at Pentecost.
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
Christ going up into Heaven. | Mary and the Disciples receiving
| the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
Elijah is deliberately turning round in his golden chariot of fire to
cast down his ample ruby mantle upon Elisha. Moses is taking the
Tables of the Law from the hand of God.
* * * * *
The subjects of the three windows between the screen and the south
door are all from the lives of St. Peter and St. Paul, and nearly all
from the Acts of the Apostles, from which also all the texts are
taken. Accordingly the place of the usual prophetic Messengers is, in
these windows, taken by figures of St. Luke (all identical), habited
in the costume worn by a Doctor of Medicine in the sixteenth century.
The series of type and antitype is dropped in these windows, and no
strict chronological order is observed in the sequence of the
subjects. Probably some have been misplaced, either originally or at
one of the various releadings to which they have necessarily been
subjected. Every century brings fresh need for this operation.
The subjects in the first window are:
Peter and the Apostles entering | Peter and John bound and
the Temple. | scourged.
|
Peter and John healing the lame | The Death of Ananias.
man in the Beautiful Gate. |
The design of the last scene is directly copied from Raphael's
well-known cartoon.
* * * * *
The second window gives:
The Conversion of St. Paul. | St. Paul at Damascus and his
| escape in a basket.
|
St. Paul adored at Lystra. | St. Paul stoned at Lystra.
* * * * *
The third window is also Pauline:
St. Paul giving a farewell blessing |St. Paul before the Chief Captain at
before embarkation. | Jerusalem.
|
St. Paul exorcising the demoniac at |St. Paul before Caesar at Rome.
Philippi.
The first of these scenes is interesting. The text (Acts, xvi. 2)
connects it with St. Paul's departure from Troas on his first voyage
to Europe. But the subject seems to be the touching scene at Miletus
(Acts, xx) on his final departure for Jerusalem. The ship here, whence
the boat is rowing to fetch him, should be noticed, as it is a fine
and accurate specimen of sixteenth century naval architecture. Observe
the lateen yard on the mizen mast. The man who drew that ship, unlike
most artists, knew his ropes, they are all in their right places. In
the last scene note the startled and awed expression on Nero's almost
obliterated face, also his Imperial crown.
* * * * *
We have now almost completed our round of the Chapel, and are again at
the south door by which we entered. Only two more windows remain, and
in these we return to the typical treatment of Our Lady's life. That
over the south door has, by accident (as it appears), been more
shattered and defaced than any other in the Chapel. It is arranged
thus:
TYPE | TYPE
The death of Tobit. | The burial of Jacob.
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
The death of Mary. | The burial of Mary.
Mary is dying with the full rites of the Church. St. Peter sprinkles
her with holy water, while St. John places in her hand a lighted
"trindall" (three candles twisted together). The prayer book and cross
are borne by other Apostles. Her bier is covered by a white pall with
gold cross, and two severed hands may (with difficulty) be seen
clinging to it. This refers to the legend that a certain Jew who
sought to overthrow the bier was thus miraculously dismembered, and
did not recover his hands till he penitently besought her to restore
them.
* * * * *
Finally the south-west window completes the wondrous series:
TYPE | TYPE
The Translation of Enoch. | Bathsheba enthroned by her son
| Solomon.
| (_I. Kings_, ii., 19.)
|
ANTITYPE | ANTITYPE
The Assumption of Mary. | Mary crowned by her Son Jesus.
* * * * *
The west window remained unglazed, for some unknown reason, till as
late as 1879, when there arose a benefactor, Mr. Francis Stacey, a
Fellow of the College, who has left this noble memorial of his
generosity. The glass is by Messrs. Clayton and Bell, and the subject,
as is usual in west windows, is the _Last Judgment_. The heraldic
devices in the tracery are not those found in the older windows, but
comprise (in order) the Tudor Portcullis,[20] the Plantagenet Rose,
and the shields of King's College, Eton College, Cambridge University,
King Henry VI., King Henry VII., King Henry VIII., Queen Victoria, and
Stacey. There are also the shields of the See of Lincoln, whose Bishop
is _ex officio_ Visitor of the College, impaling Wordsworth (then
Bishop), and of Okes (then Provost of the College).
[Footnote 20: The Portcullis was adopted by Henry the Seventh as the
Tudor badge, to signify that his claim to the throne was double
(through his mother, Lady Margaret, as well as his wife), even as a
portcullis doubled the defensibility of a castle gate.]
The glass of King's College Chapel by no means exhausts the interest
of the building. The next point to be observed is the great organ
screen, erected during the brief ascendancy of the miserable Ann
Boleyn, whose initials are carved upon it. On either side of the
door-way, within, are emblazoned the twin shields of King's and Eton;
differing only in that the former bears three red roses, the latter
three white lilies (not fleurs-de-lys) on the sable ground beneath the
chief, with its lion of England and fleur-de-lys of France on their
respective red and blue. The organ itself was not put up till 1606,
but the nondescript Renaissance dragons supporting it show that the
case must have been in hand more than half a century earlier. They
are for all the world like Raphael's wonderful creations in the
Vatican. The great trumpeting angels on the top of the organ are
eighteenth century work. Originally much smaller angels stood there,
which in the seventeenth century were replaced by pinnacles. The doors
of the screen belong to the Laudian revival, and bear the arms of
Charles the First. The west door of the Chapel is of the same period,
but the north and south doors are the original ones.
The Choir stalls date from Henry the Eighth, but the elaborate coats
of arms carved over each were not added till 1633, and the canopies
not till 1675. The magnificent brass lectern was given by Provost
Hacombleyn, at the opening of the chapel; but the present altar is a
very modern addition, having been only put up in the twentieth
century. It stands, as directed by the Founder, no fewer than 16 feet
from the eastern wall. The wood-work of the sanctuary walls is not
even yet (1910) fully completed. It is of Renaissance character, as is
also the altar. The lighting of the Chapel, it should be said, is
still, happily, done only with candles; and, on a winter afternoon,
their twinkling points of fire, in endless range, amid the vasty
gloom, give an impression of mysterious solemnity to be obtained
nowhere else.
Beautiful as the Chapel is, it would, had the designs of the Founder
been carried out, have been yet more beautiful. His Will expressly
deprecates that "superfluitie of too gret curious werkes of entaille
and besy moulding" which the ante-chapel now exhibits in the elaborate
series of Royal coats of arms beneath every window. They are
beautifully carved, it is true, and we may note that the attitudes of
the supporters (the Tudor dragon and greyhound) are in no two cases
identical. But the whole effect is somewhat to weary the eye. So also
do the perpetual roses and portcullises with which the walls are
bestudded. One of the former, however, deserves special notice, as in
it is framed one of the very few mediaeval images of Our Lady which has
weathered the storm of the Reformation. It is to be found at the
southern corner of the west wall, and is what is known as a _Rosa
Solis_. The inner petals are sun-rays, and in the midst is the "Woman
clothed with the sun." (The White Rose of York is also sometimes
represented in the windows as a sun-rose, the sun being also a
Yorkist badge, but in this the rays are external to the flower.)
The walls, then, would have been less ornate, and more truly beautiful
for the absence of profuse ornament, had the Founder's design been
carried out. And we can see that even the exquisite roof was meant to
be yet more lovely than as it now enraptures the eye. If we look at
one of the soaring pilasters and follow up its lines, we shall see
that each of the flutings is prolonged in a rib of the fan vaulting.
No, not quite each. There is one member which has no such
prolongation, but ends meaninglessly at the capital. And this tells us
that the pilasters were designed to carry not a fan but a _liern_
vaulting; so called because it appears to be a mesh of intertwined ivy
(_lierre_) binding the fabric together. And beautiful as a fan roof
is, a liern roof is capable of expressing harmonies of proportion yet
more delicate and soul-satisfying. How subtle and exalted these
harmonies would have been here we shall best learn if we have the good
fortune to gain admission to the range of small side-chapels which
flank the fane on either hand, nestling between the mighty buttresses.
For in these, while the more western have the fan roof, the eastern
and earlier built show liern vaulting of the most delicious character.
These side-chapels were intended each to have an altar, at which the
Priest to whom it was assigned should say his own Mass daily, while
all should meet later before the High Altar to assist at the
Collegiate Mass. They are now used for various subsidiary purposes
connected with the services. One contains the heating apparatus,
another the hydraulic bellows of the organ, while many are mere
lumber-rooms. These last are those abutting on the Choir, which have
no opening into the Nave, such as those adjoining the ante-chapel
possess. Through the gratings we may note some stained glass of an
entirely different character from that in the Chapel windows. It is,
in fact, of the previous (Fifteenth) Century, and thus older than the
Chapel itself. From what earlier building it has been transferred is
uncertain. Tradition, for some unknown reason, assigns it to Ramsey
Abbey; but it seems more reasonable to suppose that it came from the
old church of St. John Zachary hard by, when that was pulled down to
make room for the College, and its fragments, as excavation has shown,
utilised for levelling the site.
In one of the southern side-chapels will be found a verger, from whom
it is well worth while to obtain access to the roof of the Chapel.
This is reached by a wide spiral stairway in the north-western turret.
Our first goal is a small door (the key of which should be specially
asked for) leading into a narrow loop-holed passage, from which we can
scramble into the space between the two roofs of the Chapel. We are
here on the top of the fan vaulting which we have so much admired from
below, and can note with what wondrous skill its huge stones are
dovetailed into one another with the round keystone boss in the centre
of each span. Above, and only just above, our heads are the mighty
beams of Spanish chestnut composing the upper roof, the long vista
being lighted by a small grated window at either end.
Returning to the staircase it does not take many steps more to bring
us to the roof proper, with its open-work parapets and long leaden
slope. This should be climbed to get the full benefit of the view, and
those gifted with steadiness of head and sureness of foot will do well
to make their way along the ridge from end to end, for each has its
own beauties to show. To the West we see below us the great lawn, and
the court of Clare, and the river, and the delicious verdure of the
Backs, amid which rise the red walls of the Ladies' College at
Newnham, and the adjoining Anglican foundation of Selwyn; while beyond
is the open country, bounded by the low chalk upland stretching from
Madingley Hill on the North to Barrington Hill on the South. The
spire, so conspicuous on the summit of this range, is that of
Hardwicke Church. To the South we can distinguish the places already
described, (the little glass dome of the Fitzwilliam Museum, and the
graceful spire of Our Lady's Church, being conspicuous objects,) and,
beyond, the distant range of the East-Anglian Heights from the
furthest north-east to the furthest south-west, that form the
watershed of the wide valley of the Cam. To the East, the tower of the
University Church, Great St. Mary's, raises its turrets almost to the
level of our feet, and we look down on a maze of Cambridge house-roofs
bright with the variegated tiling which is their special and
beautiful characteristic. Beyond them the near promontory of the Gog
Magog Hills juts out from the East-Anglian Heights on which lies
Newmarket. To the North come College after College, Clare, Trinity
Hall, Caius, Trinity, St. John's, Magdalene; while the University
Library and the Senate House lie nearer still. Due north, across
these, and across the wide-flung plain beyond them, the plain of the
Southern Fenland, we can, if the day be clear, discern on the far
horizon the shadowy towers of Ely Cathedral, fifteen miles away as the
crow flies.
CHAPTER IV
Spiked gates.--Old King's.--=University Library=, Origin, Growth,
Codex Bezae.--=Trinity Hall=, Colours, Library.--=Clare College=,
"Poison Cup," Court, Bridge, Avenue.--The Backs, Sirdar Bonfire,
College Gardens.--=Trinity College=, Michaelhouse, King's Hall,
Henry the Eighth, Boat-clubs, Avenue, College Livings, Bridge,
Library, Byron, Nevile's Court, Cloisters, Echo, "Freshman's
Pillar," Prince Edward, Royal Ball, Goodhart, Buttery, College
Plate, Grace-cup, Kitchen, Hall, Combination Room, Marquis of
Granby, Tutors, Old Court, Fountain, Gate Towers, Clock, Lodge,
Chapel, Newton, Organ, Bentley, Windows, Macaulay.
On leaving King's Chapel we should give a glance to the marked line of
demarcation between the whitish stone of which the lower courses are
built and that employed in the upper.[21] It is of historical interest
as showing how far the work had progressed before the long break
caused by the Founder's death. Then, passing round the West Front, and
noting the exquisitely delicate tracery of the canopies over the empty
niches on either side of the door (wherein the two saints Mary and
Nicolas to whom the building is dedicated were destined to stand) we
leave the College by the iron gate on the North.
[Footnote 21: The former is from Huddleston in Yorkshire, the latter
from Weldon in Northamptonshire.]
The formidable chevaux-de-frise which crown this gate are supposed at
once to figure and to emphasise the danger run by such presumptuous
students as dare to contemplate illicit exit from or entrance into the
College during prohibited hours. It has already been said that between
10 p.m. and 7 a.m. no undergraduate resident in College may leave its
precincts, and no outsider may enter, under divers pains and
penalties. Every College supplements this moral pressure by more or
less effectual and awe-inspiring physical barriers. None however are
more fearsome to see, and less effective in fact, than these. For not
only can the College be entered or left with comparative ease by way
of the Backs, but even this ghastly array of spikes is not unscalable
to those who know the trick of it. Tennyson, as will be remembered,
has referred to this exploit in his "Princess."
Passing beneath them we find ourselves again in that same ancient
street of Cambridge, here again now a wholly Academic byway, by which
we entered King's. But though we have left the College behind us we
have not yet quite got clear of its associations. The fine modern
Gothic pile to our right embeds, as we see, an ancient gateway. For
more than three and a half centuries this was the entrance to the one
small Court which alone represented the magnificent design of Henry
the Sixth for his Royal Foundation. Not till the nineteenth century
dawned were the students moved to the other side of the Chapel. The
old precincts were then mostly destroyed, and the site made over to
the University Library; for the growth of that magnificent institution
has long taxed to the utmost all the accommodation that can be
provided for it.
The mediaeval Library of the University was a collection of
manuscripts, requiring only one small room. Of its eighteen
book-cases, eight were devoted to Theology, four to Law, and one
apiece to Classics, Mathematics, Medicine, Logic, Moral Philosophy,
and Scholasticism. This original Library was utterly swept away at the
Reformation: Dr. Perne of Peterhouse, when Vice-Chancellor in the
reign of Edward the Sixth, thus signalising his new-born zeal for
Protestantism. A few years later, however, we find him amongst the
first founders of the present Library, which now ranks third amongst
the great Libraries of England; that of the British Museum standing
first, and the Bodleian Library at Oxford second. All three are
entitled to a free copy of every book published in the kingdom; so
that their growth is now-a-days portentously rapid. One of the most
striking features in this Library is the tableful of new books, scores
in number, which is cleared every Friday.
This rapid growth however is modern. The one ancient room sufficed
for the Library, till George the First rewarded the Whig loyalty of
the University by a gift of 30,000 volumes.[22] The expansion thus
begun has continued with accelerated speed. One by one the various
ancient "Schools" which, with the old Library room, formed a small
quadrangle, have been absorbed by its growth; until now the whole
block belongs to it, as well as the old site of King's College, the
main edifice on which, known as "Cockerell's Building," was erected
1837, where the College Hall once stood.
[Footnote 22: This gift called forth a satirical epigram from Oxford;
where the prevalent Toryism was made the pretext for quartering a
regiment of cavalry in the city to suppress Jacobite demonstrations:
"King George, observing with judicious eyes
The state of both his Universities,
To Oxford sent a troop of horse;--and why?
That Learned Body wanted Loyalty.
To Cambridge books he sent; as well discerning
How much that Loyal Body wanted Learning."
A retort (in which the humour is a trifle less spontaneous) was
speedily penned by Sir William Browne, who specialised on epigrams and
left prizes for their encouragement which are still annually awarded:
"The King to Oxford sent a troop of horse,
For Tories own no argument but Force.
With equal skill to Cambridge books he sent;
For Whigs admit no force but Argument."]
The Library is open only to Members of the University (Masters of Arts
having the privilege of taking out not more than ten books at a time)
and such ladies as are fortunate enough to find a place on the
admission list. For this it is needful that two Masters of Arts should
certify that the lady is, to their personal knowledge, seriously
engaged in some branch of study or research. And even when admitted,
she finds herself under disabilities, being forbidden to occupy any
seat except in one room (the oriel window of which is visible from our
standpoint at the gate of King's). Ordinary visitors may only enter
under the escort of an M.A., who may take in six at a time.
[Illustration: _Old Gate of King's College._]
Those who have the good hap to be thus inducted, will, besides the new
books, probably be most impressed by the long range of volumes forming
the catalogue, and by the densely packed shelves of long-forgotten
fiction in the "Novel Room." But the real treasures of the Library are
to be found in Cockerell's Building. Here, in a range of cases, are to
be seen our best Manuscripts, including a Thirteenth Century life of
Edward the Confessor, the illustrations in which were found useful as
a precedent even at the coronation of his latest namesake on the
British Throne. At the extreme end, in a separate case, is the crown
of all, one of the earliest manuscripts of the Gospels, dating from
the Fifth Century. Only four others of equal authority are known, one
in the British Museum, one in the Vatican Library, one at Paris, and
one at St. Petersburg. Ours is known as "D" or "Codex Bezae," from
being the gift of the celebrated Calvinist divine Theodore Beza, who
procured it from a soldier after the sack of its early home, the
Monastery of St. Irenaeus at Lyons, in the Sixteenth Century. It is
noteworthy for containing passages not found in any other Codex, one
of which may be read (in Greek and Latin) on the single leaf here
exposed to view. It narrates how our Lord, "seeing a certain man
working on the Sabbath, said unto him: Man, if thou art doing this
with Knowledge thou art blessed, but if without Knowledge thou art
cursed."
Space does not permit us to enlarge further on the Library; and we
return to our station at the old gate of King's College. As we look
along the lane our view is bounded by the College whose name it now
bears, Trinity Hall. This must not be confounded with the larger and
later Foundation of Trinity College, next door to it beyond. Trinity
Hall was founded in 1350, by Bishop Bateman of Norwich, specially for
the education of Clergy. It has, however, actually, become especially
given to the study of Law, and is yet more widely known by its prowess
in aquatics. Its boat, for the last half century, has never been far
from the Headship of the River, and has oftener attained that coveted
position than any other. The colours of the College, white and black,
are thus of wide renown. They are derived from the College Shield,
which in heraldic language is sable a crescent ermines with a bordure
ermines. Visitors who approach Cambridge by the London road see this
device upon the milestones near the town, which were set up by the
College in the eighteenth century, and were the first milestones
erected in Britain since the days of the Roman occupation.
The Library here (which is open to visitors from noon to 1 P.M. in
Full Term) is the best example left us of what libraries were of old
in Cambridge. It was built about 1560, and still retains its original
book-cases, the tops of which form desks for reading the folios in the
shelves beneath. These were in old days chained to rings sliding on a
locked bar which ran the whole length of each desk. Some of the books
are so chained still, but not in the ancient fashion; for of old books
were shelved with the backs inward, the title being written across the
closed leaves of the front.
Otherwise the College has little to show us; and, instead of seeking
it, we shall do better if we turn westwards through the specially
beautiful iron gate which leads us into Clare College. The coat of
arms beneath which we pass as we enter has its tale to tell concerning
the foundation of the College. They are those of the noble lady who,
in 1338, thus commemorated her widowhood, an example followed, as we
have seen, in the next decade, by Marie de Valence at Pembroke. But
Lady Elizabeth, daughter of Gilbert de Clare (the "Red Earl" mentioned
in _Marmion_), had gone through no fewer than three of these
lamentable experiences. She therefore not only charged her College
Shield with the golden chevronels of Clare impaled with the golden
cross of De Burgh (her latest husband), but surrounded the whole with
a sable bordure besprinkled with golden heraldic tears, bearing
perennial witness to her repeated sorrows. Hence it comes that the
Clare "colours" are to this day black and gold.
Few College edifices convey such a sense of unity as these of Clare.
"Their uniform and harmonious character gives them, at first sight,
the appearance of having been built from one design, and carried out
at one time."[23] As a matter of fact, however, the existing buildings
are of no fewer than five separate dates, each separated by decades,
and extending altogether over nearly a century and a half (1638-1768);
while of the original fourteenth century structure no trace whatever
is left. The eastern and northern sides of the Court are the earliest,
built between 1638 and 1643, when the work was stopped, five years
after its commencement, by the outbreak of the Civil War; while the
stones and beams made ready for its continuance were commandeered by
the Roundheads for the new works which they were then throwing up to
strengthen the defences of Cambridge Castle. Not till 1669 did the
College finances so far recover from this blow as to permit the
resumption of the building. The western side was then built, followed
by the northern (1683-93), while the Chapel was not added till 1768.
But the result of all this patchwork is an exquisite little gem of a
Court, its balustraded walls overshadowed by the towering pinnacles of
King's College, and giving, as we have said, a wonderful sense of
unity, which is partly owing to older work having been altered to
harmonise with the newer.
[Footnote 23: Atkinson and Clark, _Cambridge Described_.]
The College treasury contains some most interesting and beautiful
specimens of sixteenth-century plate. One tankard is known as the
"Poison Cup," because, mounted in the cover, it has a conical fragment
of crystal, such as was supposed, in the pharmacy of the day, to
change colour if poison were poured into the vessel. This cup is of
glass enclosed in exquisitely wrought filigree work. The thumb-piece
is an angel with outspread wings. Another tankard is the "Serpentine
Cup," the bowl being of that stone. This too is enclosed in most
beautiful silver-gilt work, adorned with flowers and fruit and birds
and arabesques. Yet another is the "Falcon Cup," a receptacle in the
shape of that bird, originally intended, it would seem, for holding
sweetmeats. All these were presented to the College by Dr. Butler,
Court Physician to King James the First, of whom Fuller says that "he
was better pleased with presents than money, and ever preferred
rarities before riches."[24]
[Footnote 24: Foster and Atkinson, _Old Cambridge Plate_.]
Passing through the court, we come to the beautiful bridge, already
familiar to us from the river. Its balustraded parapet is surmounted
by fourteen large balls of stone, thirteen of them whole, and one out
of which a cantle of nearly a quarter of its bulk has, for some
unknown reason and at some unknown date, been cut. A cheap laugh may
thus be obtained by challenging a stranger to count these balls
accurately; for the missing cantle, being turned towards the river, is
quite invisible from the bridge itself. Another feature in connection
with these balls is that one of them is visibly much newer than the
rest (which, like the bridge, date from the middle of the seventeenth
century). This is due to a not very far off feud between Clare and St.
John's, when a piratical Johnian crew came up the river after dark and
stormed the bridge. Before the enraged Clare men could open the iron
gate under the College archway and pour out to the rescue, the enemy
had begun throwing the balls into the water, where one sank so deep
into the muddy bottom that it could never be recovered.
From the bridge we get a lovely view of the College "Backs." To the
south the single slender arch of King's Bridge flings itself over the
river in the graceful curve which is all its own; to the north we see
the iron span of Garret Hostel Bridge, hiding from us the beauties of
Trinity Bridge beyond. But, if there be no ripple upon the water, the
three graceful arches of this invisible bridge are seen reflected upon
the glassy surface with a specially charming effect. The whole view is
amongst the world's loveliest, especially in the May term, when the
Master's little garden to our right glows with bright colour, answered
across the stream by that of the Fellows; when the water is alive with
gay little craft, gigs, punts, and canoes; and when the "ambrosial
dark" of the Avenue before us beckons us on to explore the delights of
its umbrageous depths. It was planted in 1691, and is carried for 150
yards on a wide embankment, dense with shrubs and closed with
jealously-spiked gates at either end, across what was once an island
in the river (known as Butts Close), till it debouches on to the
elm-shaded length of greensward described in our opening page, and
named, in old maps of Cambridge, "King's College Back-sides." The
whole does, in fact, belong to King's, but the many rights of way
which traverse it make it practically an open park.
Not so long ago oaken railings (still to be seen in places) ran
between it and the road, till a visit from Lord Kitchener (then Sirdar
of Egypt, fresh from his Ethiopian victories) was made the occasion of
a gigantic bonfire in the Market Place, to feed which the whole were
torn up and carried away by gangs of enthusiastic undergraduates. A
like fate befell the wooden palings and gates of the College gardens
across the road, now replaced by iron, and altogether the damage done
ran into hundreds of pounds; while the town police and the University
proctors waited for each other to act until too late. There are three
of these College gardens on end--King's, Clare, and Trinity; and
rarely lovely they are, with their wide "smooth-shaven" lawns, broken
into glades by clumps of ornamental trees. But each can only be
entered under the aegis of a Fellow of its own respective College, and
they are so carefully planted out from the road that scarcely even a
glimpse can be gained of the delights within, "where no profaner eye
may look."
Leaving these on our left we proceed along the northward-leading path
till we reach the fine iron gate which bears the escutcheon of
Cambridge's mightiest College, Trinity, a College more than twice as
large as any other, numbering something like 700 residents, students
and teachers together. Like London, which an Indian visitor once
described as "not a city, but a herd of cities," Trinity may be
described as a conjoined herd of colleges, for it was created by the
amalgamation of no fewer than nine earlier institutions. Two of these,
Michaelhouse[25] and King's Hall, were amongst the most noteworthy
colleges in Cambridge. The former was founded by Henry de Stanton,
Chancellor to King Edward the Second, in 1323, and was thus, next to
Peterhouse, the oldest college in Cambridge. And King's Hall was but a
few years younger, being founded by King Edward the Third in 1336.
Indeed, it may claim to be actually the elder in embryonic existence,
for Edward the Second, in 1317, was already maintaining
scholars--"children of our Chapel" as his writ calls them--in
Cambridge. And that these "children" (who were required to be at least
fourteen years of age on coming into residence) were quartered
hereabouts is evident from King's Hall having been built across the
line of an ancient street running down to the river and known as
"King's Childer Lane." The town agreed to the expropriation of this
lane in consideration of one red rose annually to be paid by the
College to the Corporation on Midsummer Day. The remaining seven
foundations incorporated in Trinity College were hostels (institutions
for lodging students, more or less organised in college fashion, but
not recognised by the University as colleges). These were St.
Catharine's Hostel, Physwick Hostel, Crutched Hostel, Gregory's
Hostel, Tyled Hostel, Oving's Inn, and St. Gerard's or "Garret"
Hostel; which last, as we have seen, is still kept in memory by the
name of the public bridge crossing the river between Trinity and
Clare.
[Footnote 25: Michaelhouse (like Peterhouse) derived its name from the
neighbouring church which was used for worship by the Scholars till
they got a chapel of their own.]
[Illustration: _Old Schools' Quadrangle._]
All these, Colleges and Hostels alike, were seized upon by Henry the
Eighth, when that rapacious and unprincipled monarch desired to pose
(in 1546, a year before his death) as a Pious Founder, and go down to
posterity as a benefactor. He gained this credit cheaply; for not only
did he thus get his edifices ready made, but their endowments also;
while such additional endowments as he bestowed on his new College
were almost wholly derived from the spoil of the Abbeys suppressed by
him. Nor did he fail to take toll of each transfer of this stolen
property for the benefit of his exchequer. His professed object,
meanwhile, was "to educate Youth in piety, virtue, self-restraint,
charity towards the poor, and relief of the distressed." His alumni,
in short, were to be made as opposite to himself in character as
possible.
From the very first, Trinity thus became almost the largest and
wealthiest College in Cambridge. For a century it disputed the
headship of the University with its neighbour, St. John's College, and
for another century and more sang second to that great rival. But in
1785 it drew ahead, and since that date has improved its lead without
a check, till now it stands not only first but without a second. So
large is it that it cannot, for very sportsmanship, row as a whole in
the bumping races, but has to be divided for that purpose into two
boat clubs, denominated respectively "First Trinity" and "Third
Trinity,"--or, in common speech, "First" and "Third" simply. The
former is the original "Trinity Boat Club" and this is still its
official name, whence it is also known as the "T.B.C." It wears the
original Trinity colours,--dark blue,[26] with the badge of a golden
lion and three crowns, the device of King Edward the Third. The latter
consists of Trinity men from the two great rowing schools, Eton and
Westminster. It is, of course, a very much smaller body than "First,"
but, as its members come up ready-made oarsmen, it has been almost as
frequently Head of the River. Both boats are always in the first
flight. Once there existed a "Second Trinity" club, which has long
since ceased to maintain its existence.
[Footnote 26: The T.B.C. boat was one of the two first boats to appear
on the river. The other was the "Lady Margaret" or St. John's boat,
whose colours were (and are) bright red. These two boats used to row
along, challenging each other, by sound of bugle, to extempore bursts
of racing. This was in the Twenties. The first regular College races
began in the year 1827; but only five Colleges rowed (Trinity, St.
John's, Caius, Jesus and Emmanuel). Not till 1859 were all
represented.]
We enter the precincts of this great College by "that long walk of
limes," up which Tennyson passed, as he tells us in "In Memoriam,"
when he re-visited Cambridge, "to view the rooms" once inhabited by
his friend and hero, Arthur Hallam.[27] This avenue was planted in
1672,[28] and leads us to the fine cycloidal[29] bridge, built at the
same period. After crossing this, we should not keep straight, which
would bring us into the "New Court" where Hallam dwelt (a poor bit of
architecture erected 1825), but rather turn to the left, by the path
that sweeps along the bank of the river, with its fine weeping
willows. Looking back, as we leave the bridge behind us, we may admire
the climbing agility which frequently enables undergraduates to
descend to the projecting piers just above the water, and find their
way back again, without a ducking.
[Footnote 27: Hallam's rooms were on the southern side of the New
Court, in the central staircase (letter G), and were the western set
on the first floor. Tennyson himself never "kept" in College, but had
lodgings, first in Rose Crescent, and afterwards opposite the Bull
Hotel.]
[Footnote 28: Its line was determined by the distant spire of Coton
Church which for two centuries closed the vista. (It is now hidden by
these trees.) A current witticism was that the view symbolised a
Trinity Fellowship--a long, straight-forward prospect, closed by a
village church. Till the year 1878 every Fellow had to become a Priest
of the Established Church within seven years, on pain of forfeiting
his Fellowship. After this he was a Fellow for life, unless he
married. And each Fellow in turn had a right to any College living
that fell vacant. All this is altered now. Fellows are elected
unconditionally for a limited period (which may be renewed), and
College livings are assigned to the best men to be had, whether of
Trinity or not.]
[Footnote 29: A cycloid is the curve described by any single point on
the rim of a rolling wheel.]
We have here in front of us the New Court of St. John's College, seen
across its lawn-tennis grounds; while to our left is the magnificent
range of horse-chestnuts along the boundary of the two Colleges.
Splendid at all times, these are seen at their very best when duly
touched by frost. To our right rises the fine mass of Trinity Library,
built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1675; whose walls of warm-coloured
stone have been already dwelt upon. The lower portion of the building
forms an open cloister, with grated windows and gates barring it from
the Backs where we stand.
Through one of these gates our path leads us, and we find ourselves
within the College, and at the door of the Library. At certain hours,
usually between three and four in the afternoon, this is open to
visitors; at others the escort of a Member of the College is needed.
Of all the College Libraries in Cambridge this is the most interesting
in its miscellaneous contents. Mounting the wide stone stair-way, we
enter the long, wide, lofty, vaulted gallery, with a series of wooden
book-cases projecting from either wall all along its course. The
carved wreaths of flowers and leaves and fruitage which adorn these
cases deserve careful notice. They are by Grinling Gibbons, probably
the most wonderful wood carver who ever lived, and their intricacies
bear striking testimony to his almost superhuman skill. In the
recesses between the cases are to be seen sundry curios, from the
College estates and other sources, while more are to be found in the
long ranges of glass-covered tables topping the smaller book-shelves
which line either side of the central passage way. Roman and
Anglo-Saxon antiquities, and a splendid series of coins and medals,
are here exhibited. Amongst the miscellaneous curios are a model of
Caesar's famous bridge across the Rhine and a globe of the planet Mars.
What will, however, first catch our eye on entering, will be the
window at the southern end of the room, with its painted glass so
unlike anything to be seen elsewhere. It is, in fact, unique, having
been made in the middle of the eighteenth century by the discoverer of
this particular method of staining glass, who kept the process
secret--a secret which died with him and has never been recovered. The
window cannot be called artistically beautiful, and the subject is
weird. The University of Cambridge, represented as a lady in a
somewhat scanty robe of yellow, is presenting Sir Isaac Newton to King
George the Third (who did not come to the Throne till 1760, many years
after the great philosopher died), while the transaction is being
recorded by Francis Bacon Lord Verulam of Elizabethan fame!
Beneath this window is Thorwaldsen's fine marble statue of Lord Byron,
one of Trinity's greatest poets. This was originally intended for
Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, but the Dean and Chapter of the
period so strongly disapproved of Byron's morality that they refused
it a place there. Apart from his poetical genius, he as little
deserved to be honoured in Trinity library; for, as an undergraduate,
he not only accomplished the apparently impossible feat of climbing by
night to the roof (which others have more than once done since)[30]
but abominably disfigured the statues upon it, in which he has had,
happily, no imitators. Other relics of him are preserved hard by,
which are supposed to bear upon the thrilling question as to how far
he had or had not a club foot.[31]
[Footnote 30: Nocturnal exploration of the College roofs has been so
favourite an amusement amongst undergraduates that not long ago a book
was actually published entitled _The Roof-Climber's Guide to Trinity
College_. Every eminence in the College has been scaled, save only the
Great Gate Tower. The Hon. C. S. Rolls, who was afterwards the first
man to fly from England to France and back, and who fell a martyr to
his zeal for aviation, was, in his day, the most daring and systematic
of all Trinity roof-climbers.]
[Footnote 31: Byron himself was morbidly sensitive on this point. Mr.
Clark (_Guide to Cambridge_, p. 140) tells how he abused a friend who
fell behind out of courtesy: "Ah! I see you wish to spy out my
deformity." He was in residence 1805-8.]
For these few will care; but this end of the library contains things
which few can fail to care about. Here is the death-mask of Sir Isaac
Newton, and a reflecting telescope, on the model invented by him. Here
is Thackeray's manuscript of "Esmond," and Tennyson's manuscript of
"In Memoriam." Here is Milton's manuscript of "Lycidas," and his first
design for "Paradise Lost," all cut and scored about with alterations
and corrections, showing that he originally designed his great poem to
be a drama, the characters of which (headed by Moses) are here listed.
Here, too, is a copy of the "Solemn League and Covenant" imposed on
all men by the Puritans at the time of the Great Rebellion.[32] This
was found hidden amongst the rafters of a village church near
Cambridge.
[Footnote 32: This instrument bound its subscribers to zealous
endeavour, far from any "detestable indifference and neutrality," for
the "extirpation of Popery, Prelacy, ... Archbishops, Bishops, Deans,
Chapters, Archdeacons, and all that Hierarchy." Every adult in the
kingdom had to sign this very thoroughgoing test, on pain of
imprisonment.]
And here is a copy of the famous Indulgence sold by Tetzel, Luther's
denunciation of which gave the signal for the earliest outburst of
Protestantism at the Reformation. When the crabbed old printing is
deciphered it proves to be a startlingly mild document, no licence to
commit sin, as is generally supposed, but merely granting to the
purchaser the privilege of confessing, once in his life, to a priest
of his own choice instead of to the parson in whose parish he dwelt.
The priest so chosen is given authority to absolve from nearly all
sins, but not from the heinous offence of buying alum from anyone
except the Pope, in whose territory it had, at that date (1515), been
recently discovered. Alum was in those days a most valuable substance,
and had hitherto been attainable only at the Turkish town of Roc, in
Syria, whence the name of "rock alum" still surviving in use amongst
pharmacopoeists. To buy it there was not only to take money out of the
pocket of the Pope, but to put it into those of the enemies of
Christendom. Hence the heinousness of the offence.
Trinity library forms the western side of one of the Courts of the
College, known as "Nevile's Court" (from Dr. Thomas Nevile, Master at
the close of the sixteenth century, who planned and began it in 1610),
and also as "Cloister Court," from the wide cloisters which surround
it on the north, south, and west. The eastern side is formed by the
Hall, raised four feet above the ground level, and reached by a
beautiful balustraded and terraced staircase of stone. It is the
finest college hall in either university, and was also the work of
Nevile.
In the northern cloister which leads us to it, there are sundry points
not to be overlooked. As we look along it from the library entrance we
perceive at the far end a door with a stalwart iron knocker. Now there
is a fine echo in this cloister, and a stamp of the foot at our end
will evoke a sound from the door precisely like that of a knocker. So
great a part does illusion play in human impressions, that five people
out of six, when they hear this sound, are ready to declare that they
have seen the knocker actually move. It was by timing this echo, we
may mention, that Sir Isaac Newton first measured the velocity of
sound. The echoing properties of these cloisters are referred to by
Tennyson in the "Princess":
"our cloisters echoed frosty feet."
The massive block which pillars the angle of the cloister is known as
the "Freshman's Pillar"; a favourite old-time amusement of the junior
students (not yet wholly disremembered) having been to traverse the
very narrow base-top right round, without setting foot to the ground.
In old times, indeed until the last quarter of the nineteenth century,
these cloisters played a notable part in undergraduate life. Athletic
pursuits were far less general than now, and exercise was largely
pedestrian. On a wet day, accordingly, when the roads were uninviting,
the cloisters used to be crowded with a veritable swarm of trampers,
doing "quarter-deck" from end to end of the three covered sides of the
court.
[Illustration: _Clare College from Bridge._]
The stair-case entrances here lead to specially delightsome sets of
rooms, with oak panels and beautiful plaster ceilings. One of these
was occupied by the late Duke of Clarence, when, as "Prince Edward,"
he was an undergraduate of Trinity, mingling freely with the college
life around him, and making himself generally beloved by his simple
unaffected pleasantness.[33] His royal father, when Prince of Wales,
was also an undergraduate of Trinity; but Court etiquette was stricter
in those days, and, instead of being in College, he was quartered at
Madingley Hall, four miles away. A few months after his wedding, in
June, 1864, he brought his beautiful bride to visit Cambridge and take
all hearts by storm. In their honour the whole area of Nevile's Court
was tented in and floored over and made into one vast ball-room, which
included the cloisters and the hall stairway. The former were used for
promenading, all the best settees and arm-chairs to be found in
College being commandeered to be placed in them; the Hall served for
supper; while the band was housed beneath the Library. All was
beautifully decorated and lighted (though it was before the days even
of paraffin lamps), and the whole scene was one of unforgettable
brilliance.[34] The cost was, naturally, something portentous; but
those were the times of academic prosperity, before the great
agricultural depression of the following decade brought down rents,
and with them college incomes, almost (sometimes altogether) from
pounds to shillings.[35]
[Footnote 33: These same rooms (on the south-westernmost staircase)
were probably those occupied by Lord Byron.]
[Footnote 34: The entrance was from the New Court, which communicates
with Nevile's Court by an arcade in the southern cloister of the
latter.]
[Footnote 35: All the Colleges have thus suffered severely; King's
being hit hardest of all. Trinity was less seriously affected, owing
to the fact that much of its land lies in the North of England.]
The beautiful rooms of Nevile's Court are mostly held by Fellows of
the College whose names may be known in the doorway lists by the "Mr."
prefixed to them. Over one doorway we see a small bronze bust, set up
as a memorial to Mr. Goodhart who once "kept" there and was an object
of special admiration to all who knew him. He was, in fact, a kind of
Admirable Crichton; not only a man of great intellectual power (as
Fellows of Trinity must needs be, for these fellowships are the "blue
riband" of the University), but excellent at all athletic pursuits,
and able to do successfully whatever thing he set his hand to. It is
recorded that on one occasion a bet was laid that he could not make
himself an entire suit of clothes, and wear them for a month without
their amateur origin being detected. Goodhart won the bet.
Beautiful as Nevile's Court is, it was originally yet more beautiful,
with transomed windows, and gabled dormers instead of the present
eighteenth century parapet. These are shown in a view "after Logan,"
given by Atkinson,[36] from the terrace before the Hall, by which we
leave the court, passing through a low and massive wicket gate of
black oak. This admits us into the "screens," a short and narrow
passage having the Hall on one side, and, on the other, the kitchen
and the Buttery. This last word has no connection with butter (though
butter is here issued), but is derived from _butler_, as being the
place where the ale for the hall dinners is served out. Its door, as
is universal in such places, is a "hatch," the upper and lower halves
of the door opening independently, and a broad sill on the top of the
latter forming a sort of counter across which the business of the
place is transacted. Of old the buttery served as an office, where
much of the clerical work of the College was done; but this branch of
its usefulness is now transferred to a special department.
[Footnote 36: _Cambridge Described_, p. 444.]
When each College brewed its own ale and baked its own bread, as was
the case till some half-century ago, the Buttery was a really
important place. Even now the daily ration of bread and butter to
which each Collegian in residence has a right, is here booked to him.
This ration is called his "Commons." If for any approved reason he
does not desire to draw it in any given week he is said to be "out of
Commons"; and if, as sometimes happens, he is deprived of the right
for misconduct, he is said to be "discommonsed" for such or such a
period. (The equivalent phrase at Oxford is "to be crossed at the
Buttery.") The Buttery officials also have charge of the adjoining
strong-room in which the magnificent store of the College plate is
secured; mighty salvers and bowls and "grace-cups,"[37] besides
dishes, and the hundreds of spoons and forks, all the gifts of
benefactor after benefactor since the College was first founded. A
visitor may sometimes be fortunate enough to get a sight of these
resplendent piles.
[Footnote 37: A "Grace-cup" is a large silver tankard which at College
feasts is solemnly passed down the High Table, each guest in turn
standing up to drink it. Three, indeed, must always be so standing,
the drinker, the last man, and the next man; whence the cup has
sometimes three handles. At each potation the three concerned formally
bow to each other.]
A sight of the kitchen, which adjoins the Buttery, can almost always
be had, and is worth having; though the glory of the place has largely
departed with the substitution of gas stoves for the old open ranges,
six
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