II parts of Christendom to the same for learning and CHAP virtue and showed her of the notable lectures that ; should be there, and of the exercitations of learning, and how the students should be limited by the readers to the same; likewise in the exposition of the Bible, and expressed to Her Grace the number of your house, the divine service of your college, and of the great suffrages of prayer ye have made her participant of."5 erecting his The success of this great plan was henceforth one Wolsey's of the principal objects of Wolsey's life. It has been motives in usual to speak of it as if the Cardinal had proposed Colleges it to himself simply as a costly monument of his ambition; and if any measure of praise has been accorded to his memory in respect to it, the praise has generally been accompanied by some depreciatory expressions, implying that if his work was good at any rate his motive was bad. This is most unworthy treatment of the great founder's memory. There is not one word of his on record to show that personal ambition had anything to do with this noble undertaking; and even if there were, it would be far more generous and just to look upon such an ambition as one of the weaknesses to which even the greatest minds may be subject, than to treat it as if it were a proof of criminal baseness. But the real truth is, that Wolsey had as honourable motives in founding Christ Church as De Merton, Waynfleet, or William of Wykeham had in founding Merton, Magdalen, and New Colleges; and, above all, the gratitude that Oxford and England at large owe to such promoters of sound learning, there is this due to Wolsey from the Church of England, that she 5 Ellis' Orig. Letters, I. i. 181. II CHAP owes him grateful remembrance for an honest and energetic attempt to guide the course of the Reformation by means of a vast educational institution, whose influence should be deeply impressed upon that and succeeding generations. The foundation of this great college-an university within an university, as it was called by somewas a fragment of a plan for carrying out an object that the hearts of many wise men were at that time set on--that of extending the pastoral and educational portion of the Church's system, and compressing the monastic part. Another mighty fragment was the establishment of a college or university (as Proposed Stow calls it) in London, where the Canon and Civil foundation Law should be made as prominent objects of study lege for as Mathematics are at Cambridge. And, considerLondon ing the close alliance between the clergy and the art of healing in those days, it is scarcely too much to College of say that the College of Physicians (which was Physicians founded chiefly by Wolsey) was another portion." of a Col Law in plan for suppres smaller monas As it was clearly impossible for such a vast scheme to be carried out by private funds, so it was natural Wolsey's for Wolsey to look to the monastic foundations for them, the diminishing of their number being thought sion of the beneficial rather than injurious to the Church and kingdom. It had long been foreseen that, in reforming the monasteries, a large number of them must be extinguished as useless sinecures; and this idea of utilizing their property for educational objects, and for promoting Church extension among the growing population of the country, was one worthy of a great teries 6 Linacre, the first president, was in priest's orders, Rector of Wigan and Prebendary of Wells, and of the Collegiate Chapel of St. Ste phen in Westminster Palace. When he resigned the latter he was succeeded by another clerical physician, Edward Fynche, II rity from Pope. statesman. One can only marvel at the perverseness CHAP of party spirit, which has looked with so much disfavour on Wolsey's scheme for the appropriation of monastic property, and with so much toleration on that of the King. When, therefore, the Cardinal By authoobtained bulls from the Pope, and letters patent from the King the Crown for the suppression of twenty small mon- and the asteries, and the appropriation of their lands to the foundation of Christ Church, he was really carrying out a very wise reform of the monastic system." In continuation of it he afterwards obtained similar authority for suppressing all monasteries which had fewer than twelve inmates, and sending these to the larger establishments,—making as many bishoprics as he considered necessary out of the large town monasteries by means of the funds thus acquired. What a grand educational and diocesan system would Wolsey have developed in the Church of England had his plans been permitted to prosper ! cence of The nucleus of the great college at Oxford was found ready to hand by Wolsey in the Benedictine priory of St. Frideswide, the largest of all the twenty religious houses appropriated for the purpose, and the adjoining Canterbury Hall. From the trans- Probable actions already mentioned between Wolsey and the acquiesAugustinians, it is probable that the monks as- monks in sented to his plans, and that the Chapter adjourned from St. Mary's, Leicester, to St. Frideswide's Oxford had some reference to them. It was calculated to smooth the way for an agreement between them that the new college would be so large as to be 7 It may be added that he was following in the steps of Bishop Waynfleet, who founded Mag dalen, Wolsey's own college,-in dissolution II CHAP capable of providing for most of those displaced by the dissolution of the twenty small monasteries. For Wolsey's plans were so extensive as to require one hundred and eighty-six officials for the college, including a dean, sub-dean, sixty senior canons, forty junior canons, thirteen chaplains, &c., with an endowment for hospitality towards strangers and the relief of the poor, which would entail a further addition to the number. The number of students calculated for must have been at least five hundred, but probably many more, for even the attenuated plan carried out by the King provided for one hundred. Grandeur of Wol sey's design still traceable Some trace still remains of the grandeur which would have characterized the buildings, had they been finished according to Wolsey's designs. The first stage of the "Tom" tower is his work, and so is the plan of the great quadrangle. What the tower would have been may be imagined by comparing the dimensions of its existing portion with Wolsey's other Oxford tower, that of Magdalen College; and what the quadrangle would have been, may be partly understood by observing the arches on the walls, which still indicate the magnificent cloister for which they were prepared. The latter was omitted altogether in the subsequent foundation, and the tower remained a ruin until Sir Christopher Wren surmounted the fragment with the octagon turret, now so familiar to all who know Oxford. But the confiscation of Wolsey's possessions extinguished the grandeur of these plans. The King appropriated to his private use the monastic lands and revenues which had been, without any sacrilege, appropriated to a public and sacred purpose by Wolsey; and out of these confiscated revenues he doled out sufficient for carrying on as cheaply as possible the work which had been so nobly begun. The arches in the walls and the lower stage of the projected tower remain as melancholy monuments, which testify alike to the defeated magnificence of the subject and the victorious meanness of the King. 8 CHAP II As a feeder to this great college, Wolsey founded Begins the College at another on a smaller scale at Ipswich, his native Ipswich place, where he proposed to prepare boys for Oxford, about A.D. 1526 as in Wykeham's College at Winchester. This was commenced some years after Christ Church, but may be mentioned here as it was part of the same great scheme. Gardiner, Lee, and Cromwell were his principal agents in establishing the Ipswich College, and William Capon was appointed to be Dean in 1529. In September of that year, the three former carried to Ipswich a large portion of the Cardinal's "stuff," including copes, vestments, altar-cloths, plate, and other furniture for the chapel, together with hangings and all other things necessary for furnishing the great hall. The foundationstone was laid, and the college dedicated in the name of St. Mary, after some progress had been made with the buildings; and the stone itself was discovered in a wall about a hundred years ago, with an inscription to the effect that it was laid by John Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, on June 15, 1528.1 8 The Priory of Canwell, in Leicestershire, was one of those appropriated by Wolsey to the foundation of the college. On his fall, Henry VIII. appropriated it instead to the purpose of compounding with an old creditor of the Crown, who had received a pension of 500 marks yearly under a grant of Edward III. Collier's Ecc. Hist., iv. 120. 9 This was all appropriated by the King. See a letter of Capon's Ellis' Orig. Letters, III. ii. 231. 1 It is now inserted in the wall of the anteroon leading to the chapterhouse of Christ Church, Oxford, the following being the inscription,"Anno Christi MDXXVIII. et Regni Henrici Octavi Regis Angliæ xx. mensis vero Junii xv. Positum |
