Highways and Byways in Cambridge and Ely Part 2

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _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 cla.s.ses. 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 cla.s.sed 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 cla.s.sification 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 overpa.s.sed 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, Cla.s.sical, 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, b.u.t.ts,[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 G.o.d'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 bra.s.s, 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. G.o.d. 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _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 pet.i.tion 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 Ma.s.ses 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 a.s.sociated 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 Ma.s.ses 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 superst.i.tion, and their property confiscated for the benefit of the Royal exchequer.

Guilds, like our Benefit Societies, were voluntary a.s.sociations, 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.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _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 Ill.u.s.trated_, p. 133). A gla.s.s 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 surpa.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 s.p.a.ce 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 pa.s.s 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 ma.s.s 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 cla.s.sical 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 compa.s.s.

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Clare Bridge._]