CHAP. V. still in em bryo. Decision in the Court of Chancery in favour of the college. During all this time the newly constituted society could scarcely be said to exist. The three fellows received their The college pensions, lodging in the town; and Shorton, in his capacity of master, was rendering valuable service by the energy with which he pushed on the erection of the new buildings, while the infant society awaited with anxious expectation the decision respecting its claim to the estates bequeathed by the lady Margaret. At first there seemed reason for hope that the voice of justice might yet prevail. The cause of the defendants was not altogether unbefriended at court, and Warham, in his double capacity of chancellor of England and archbishop, rendered them good service. At last a tedious suit in chancery terminated in the legal recognition of the validity of the late countess's bequest, and it was thought that the chief cause for anxiety was at an end. But the laborers in the cause of learning were now beginning to enter upon that new stage of difficulty when the little finger of the courtier should be found heavier than the thigh of the monk. Through the influence of 'some potent courtiers,' a fresh suit was instituted by the royal claimant. The executors perceived the hopelessness of a further contest and reluctantly surrendered their claims. The beneficent bequest of the lady Margaret was lost to the college for ever. Fuller, -in recording this 'rape on the Muses,' as he quaintly terms it,-vents his anger, in harmless fashion, on certain nameless 'prowling, progging, projecting promoters,' such as, he says, 'will sometimes creep even into kings' bedchambers.' But the rumour of the day was less indefinite, and it was generally believed that Wolsey had been the leading aggressor1. The loss thus It is certain that, many years after, the college assumed it as tributed to unquestionable that their loss had been mainly owing to his fluence. hostility. It may seem singular that one to whom the learning of that age was so much indebted, should have advised an act of such cruel spoliation. But the sympathies A second suit institut ed by the Crown. The executors abandon their claim. sustained at Wolsey's in PART II. Motives by probably ac of the 'boy-bachelor of Magdalen' were chiefly with his own CHAP. V. university, and very early in his career of power he seems to have detected, with his usual sagacity, the presence of an which he was element hostile to his person and his policy at Cambridge. uated. Along with Fox, he may also have grudged to see the latter university thus enriched by two important foundations, when Oxford,—if we except the then scarce completed foundation of Brazenose, had received no addition to her list of colleges since Magdalen College rose in the year 1457. tors obtain at Ospringe compensa Baker's observations on. estates. It was only through Fisher's direct application, and even then not without considerable difficulty, that, as some compensation for the heavy loss thus sustained, the revenues of another God's House (a decayed society at Ospringe in Kent), with The execu several other estates, producing altogether an income of £80, the Hospital were made over to the college by the Crown. This,' says as a partial Baker, with the lands of the old house, together with the tion. foundress' estate at Fordham which was charged with debts th by her will and came so charged to the college, with some other little things purchased with her moneys at Steukley, Bradley, Isleham and Foxton (the two last alienated or lost), was the original foundation upon which the college was first opened; and whoever dreams of vast revenues or larger endowments, will be mightily mistaken. Her lands put in feoffment for the performance of her will lay in the counties. of Devon, Somerset and Northampton, and though I should be very glad to meet with lands of the foundation in any of these three counties, yet I despair much of such a discovery. But whoever now enjoys the manors of Maxey and Torpell in the county of Northampton, or the manors of Martock, Currey Reyvell, Kynsbury and Queen Camell, in the hundreds of Bulston, Abdike and Horethorn in the county of Somerset, or the manor of Sandford Peverell with the hundred of Allerton in the county of Devon, though they may have a very good title to them, which I will not question, yet whenever they shall be piously and charitably disposed, they cannot bestow them more equitably than by leaving them to St. John's'.' 1 Baker-Mayor, p. 74. CHAP. V. PART II. ing of the COLLEGE OF ST. JOHN THE that they now knew the worst. EVANGELIST, Fisher pre sides at the ceremony. Is delegated to declare the statutes. Such were the circumstances under which the college of St. John the Evangelist was at last opened in July, 1516. Formal open- Fisher presided at the ceremony and was probably thankful He had not anticipated July, 1516. being present, for he had been delegated to the Lateran Council at Rome, and was already counting upon the companionship of Erasmus in the journey thither, when he was recalled by some fortunate chance at the last moment'. To his presence in England at this juncture, the college was solely indebted for the partial compensation which made it the possessor of the estate at Ospringe. He now came up from his palace at Rochester, with full powers, delegated to him by his fellow-executors, to declare the rule of the new society and to arrange the admission of additional fellows and scholars. Thirty-one fellows were elected, and Alan Percy was appointed master in the place of Shorton. The latter, from some reason not recorded, voluntarily retired, carrying with him no slight reputation as an able and vigorous administrator, and was shortly after elected to the mastership of Pembroke College. His successor, a man of greatly inferior abilities, held the mastership only two years, when he in turn gave place to Nicholas Metcalfe, whose long and able rule, as we shall hereafter see, contributed largely to the consolidation and prosperity of the college. Thirty-one fellows elected. Alan Percy succeeds Shorton as master. The statutes given identi of Christ's College. The statutes given by Fisher were, as we have already cal with those stated, identical in their tenour with those of Christ's College; and there were now accordingly two societies commencing their existence at Cambridge, under a rule which may be regarded as almost the exclusive embodiment of his views and aims with respect to college education. It is not 1 'Ante biennium igitur adornaram iter, comes futurus R. Patri D. Ioanni Episcopo Roffensi, viro omnium Episcopalium virtutum genere cumulatissimo: et ut compendio laudes illius explicem, Cantuariensi,' (Warham), 'cui subsidiarius est, simillimo. Verum is ex itinere subito revocatus est. Letter to Cardinal Grymanus, Erasmi Opera, ш 142. 2 Fisher had received, just before leaving Rochester, a copy of Eras mus's Novum Instrumentum, and he hastened to acknowledge it. Etsi plurimis negotiis impediar (paro enim me Cantabrigiam iturum pro collegio nunc tandem instituendo), noluitamen ut. is tuus Petrus meis litteris vacuus ad te rediret. Ingentium gratiarum debitorem me constituisti ob Instrumentum Novum, tua opera ex Græco traductum, quo me donaveras.' Erasmi Opera, 1 1587. PART II. Illustration of Fisher's difficult to recognise in the different provisions at once the CHAP. V. strength and the weakness of his character. His life presents us with more than one significant proof, how little mere they afford moral rectitude of purpose avails to preserve men from character. pitiable superstition and fatal mistakes. As his faith in the past amounted to a foolish credulity, so his distrust of the future became an unreasoning dread. And consequently, we here find, side by side with a wise innovation upon the existing course of studies, a pusillanimous anxiety to guard against all future innovations whatever. Nor can it be accepted as a sufficient justification of this vague jealousy of succeeding administrators, that herein he only imitated the example of William of Wykeham, just as Wainflete had imitated it at King's. The experiences that surrounded men at the time that Fisher drew up the rule of Christ's College, were of a very different character from those of a century before. The age in which he lived was manifestly one in which the old order of things was breaking up; and the leaders of thought at so significant a crisis were specially called upon, not only to recognise this fact in their own policy, but to foresee the possibility, if not the probability, of yet greater changes in the future. In proof that there were those who The clauses could thus rightly interpret the signs of the times, we may against all point to one illustrious example. Within two years after vation conthe day when St. John's College was formally opened, a con- a clause in temporary of Fisher,—in no way his inferior in integrity of butes of St. life, in earnestness of purpose, in ripe learning, or even in the practice of a rigid asceticism, but gifted with that spirit of 'prophetic liberality,' as it has been termed1, in which Fisher was so signally deficient,-drew up a body of statutes as the rule of a foundation for the education of youth, to which he had consecrated his entire patrimony. In the original statutes of St. Paul's School' given by John Colet, we find the following clause,-a provision which every would-be bene 1 Dean Milman, Essays, p. 105. 2 St. Paul's School was founded by Colet in the year 1510, as a school where the Latin adulterate which ignorant blind fools brought into this world' should be 'utterly ab anished and excluded,' and 'to in- directed future inno trasted with Paul's School. sta PART II. CHAP. V. factor of his race in future times will do well to ponder, ere he seeks to ensure for any institution immunity from the great law of human progress, the law of frequent and constant change, lest securities devised against imaginary evils prove eventually a shelter for actual abuses, and the stepping-stones laid down for one generation become the stumbling blocks of another : ERASMUS. b. 1467 (?). d. 1536. 'And notwithstanding the statutes and ordinances before written, in which I have declared my mind and will; yet because in time to come many things may and shall survive and grow by many occasions and causes which at the making of this book was not possible to come to mind; in consideration of the assured truth and circumspect wisdom and faithful goodness of the mercery of London, to whom I have confided all the care of the school, and trusting in their fidelity and love that they have to God and man, and to the school; and also believing verily that they shall always dread the great wrath of God:-Both all this that is said, and all that is not said, which hereafter shall come into my mind while I live, to be said, I leave it wholly to their discretion and charity: I mean of the wardens and assistances of the fellowship, with such other counsel as they shall call unto them,-good lettered and learned men,they to add and diminish of this book and to supply it in every default'.' The presence of Erasmus in Cambridge in the year 1506, and his admission to the doctorial degree, have already come under our notice. Of his visit on that occasion there is nothing more to be recorded, as none of his extant letters were written during his stay, or supply us with any further His second details; but, either in the year 1509 or 1510, he repeated his bridge, 1509- visit, and resided for a period of not less than four years. His lengthened sojourn at the university on this occasion, is Object of his probably to be attributed to the inducements held out by Fisher, whose influence appears to have obtained for him the privilege of residence in Queens' College,-though Fisher himself was no longer president of the society; and a room visit to Cam 1510. visit. 1 Seebohm, Oxford Reformers, 4652. |