queens’ disputes with jesus the honour of being the most picturesque college in cambridge, and both are none the less picturesque because they hide themselves away in a corner. dates are here a little difficult to determine, for the gate-tower and the two brick courts from king’s lane to the river are strongly marked with the stamp of medieval religion, and part of the side towards silver street has an air of undiluted antiquity which, in cambridge, it is refreshing to recognise. still, supposing the present buildings to have been begun about 1475, the gate-tower cannot have been finished long before 1500. this is clear if we compare it with the towers at jesus, christ’s and st john’s, all of which were built between 1497 and 1520, jesus being the earliest of all. this is not the most conspicuous of them, but it is the boldest,[123] and the arrangement of its corner turrets is especially admirable. the court on which it opens is small and simple, and its features are very much the same as those which appear in the oldest parts of st john’s. the hall on the west side is a restoration of the old hall, which was brought into agreement with last century taste. it has a pleasant interior, and the woodwork of the doors is good. on the north side of the court is the curious sun-dial constructed by sir isaac newton; the turret on which it is displayed is modern, but is an excellent ornament to the court. beneath it is a passage to the more modern part of the college, east of which is the old chapel, a perpendicular building much modernised by essex in 1773.
through the hall screens is the second court, surrounded by low, tunnel-like cloisters with plain, wide openings in each bay. this charming court owes a great deal of its beauty to the president’s lodge, which occupies the whole of the northern side. this quaint elizabethan building, with its high gables and bulging sides, appears to advantage from every point, and the oriels of its picture-gallery, so arranged that,[124] none being opposite another, the light is equally distributed throughout, go to make an exquisite picture which can hardly be excelled. on the opposite side of the court, however, is the small enclosure which, although known as erasmus court, has very little to remind us of erasmus. essex, who did so much harm in cambridge, rebuilt this corner of the college in his formal manner about 1773. from the wooden bridge at the end of the court, the damage done by this addition to the river fa?ade can be properly estimated. the bridge itself dates from 1746, and is said to have been designed by newton on a geometrical principle. it leads to the small garden known as erasmus’ walk.
returning to the eastern side of the college, we find, north of the first court, a wing in line with the gateway-tower, continuing the front of the college along king’s lane. this, which was built about 1617, is not very remarkable, and appears to have been intended for use rather than ornament. everything north of this is modern. the northernmost range of chambers was built by mr w. m. fawcett in 1886. although it is very good in its way, its juxtaposition[127] to the new court of king’s is fatal to its beauty. here, too, mr bodley has been at work. his new chapel, the most recent addition to the buildings, is a pretty but not a very successful piece of work. the interior is elaborately fitted with a very complete set of stalls, and the organ-case and reredos are very fair reproductions of medieval painting. mr kempe’s windows and the flemish altar-piece deserve admiration, but the south side of the building has been spoiled by some very poor glass by hardman, taken from the old chapel. queens’, on the whole, if we except the president’s lodge, depends on its delightful general effect rather than on any very special architectural merit.
in 1446 andrew doket, rector of st botolph’s church, founded the college of st bernard for a president and four fellows. the site which he chose for his foundation was east of the present college, and comprehended an oblong strip of ground running from what was then milne street eastwards to trumpington street—in fact, part of the site occupied by st catharine’s. doket, who may be regarded as a second edmund gonville, was first president of his college. however, his original idea was small and its success was scarcely inevitable. henry vi. had just founded his splendid college at the other end of[128] milne street, and doket conceived the happy idea of inducing his queen to perpetuate her name in the same way. margaret of anjou, who was then, as mr atkinson points out, only fifteen years old, showed great readiness in emulating her husband. she consented in 1448 to refound the college under the name of the queen’s college of st margaret and st bernard, and petitioned henry for a charter, which was readily granted. the buildings were begun about this time on the present site. the history of queens’ college thus offers an interesting parallel to that of the similarly named college at oxford. in both cases the first idea is due to a clerk in holy orders, who invites the reigning queen to occupy his foundation. margaret of anjou has been since looked upon as the chief foundress and benefactress of the college. in gratitude, the society adopted her coat-of-arms, and, although this was superseded no less than three times by other devices, it was adopted again in 1575, and is now, with the addition of a bordure, the escutcheon of the college. this magnificent piece of heraldry, which attracts all eyes by its prominent situation in the first court, recalls the claims of the house of anjou to european sovereignty. the unfortunate history of margaret’s father, rené of provence, and her brother, the duke of calabria, is the key to the shield. its quarterings include the arms of the kingdoms of hungary, the two sicilies and jerusalem in the upper half, and, in the lower, those of the county of anjou and the duchies of bar and lorraine.
the thirty-six years of doket’s presidency were interrupted by the wars of the roses, which prevented the building from going on. doket, however, like so many heads of houses in subsequent years, had an affection for his college which hindered him from displaying any political prejudice. in 1465, when edward iv. was firmly established on the english throne, he applied for help to queen elizabeth wydvil. this lady owed her position at court to a situation in queen margaret’s retinue, and she readily accepted his offer. just as her husband helped on the building of the chapel of king’s, she extended her aid to this other lancastrian foundation, and, under her protection, the work of building proceeded. the only alterations due to yorkist patronage were a new coat-of-arms for the college, and the change of the title from queen’s college in the singular to queens’ college in the plural. the invocation of st margaret and st bernard was retained without alteration. the floriated cross of st margaret and st bernard’s crosier are to be seen upon the groined roof of the gateway, and, later on, when richard iii. gave a new coat-of-arms to the college in place of that granted by edward iv., these emblems appear surmounted by the well-known boar’s head.
doket died in 1484, and was succeeded by thomas wilkinson, whose rule lasted till 1505. then followed the three years during which john fisher, the celebrated bishop of rochester, was president. this great man was one of that[130] band of scholars and divines who reformed the state of learning in england. queens’ college probably owes to him the chief episode in its history, the residence of erasmus* within its walls. it is improbable that erasmus was at queens’ during fisher’s presidency, as has been so generally supposed. he was invited to england by henry viii. soon after 1509, and fisher had given up the presidency in 1508. no doubt, fisher advised erasmus, who, as fuller says, “might have pickt and chose what house he pleased,” to the cloistral seclusion of queens’; and this is more likely than the somewhat far-fetched alternative that he was “allured with the situation of this colledge so near the river, as rotterdam his native place to the sea.” in fact, erasmus was simply allured to cambridge by the prospect of work, and does not seem to have enjoyed life there at all. three of his letters are dated from queens’ by name, and they, as well as the rest written from no particular address in cambridge, prove that he regarded his work there as a pis aller. he complained of his situation, his food and drink. cambridge beer encouraged the most painful ailments. he wrote to a friend for a cask of greek wine. this rare beverage was finished all too soon; when it was done, he kept the empty cask by him, that he might at least refresh himself with the smell. he was ill most of his time; he was also continually in want of money. his professorships were merely lectureships, and his pay was probably small. had it not been for the[131] patronage of archbishop warham and other lovers of learning, he might have fallen into serious straits. at no time did he realise the value of money. doubtless, he represented himself as more unpleasantly situated than he actually was. like most delicate men, he was very self-conscious, and expected an inordinate amount of praise and flattery, which it is hardly probable that he obtained at cambridge. on a previous visit to oxford, he had been the centre of a group of scholars; at cambridge, he was isolated from his old friends. we can therefore hardly trust to his vivacious narrative for an accurate account of his cambridge life. but, everything taken into consideration, he was seriously discontented, and was glad to leave in 1514. his memory has been more than ordinarily cherished in an university which perhaps caressed him very little in his lifetime, and his prestige has had a salutary influence on cambridge scholarship. when he came to cambridge, he found the old scholastic learning, which he detested, still in vogue; when he left, it was with the consciousness that he had inaugurated a new era.
the next point in the history of queens’ is its acquisition under dr william mey of the carmelite house which lay between the college and the present site of king’s. this house was surrendered to the society in 1538, just before the dissolution; but the interference of the crown delayed the completion of this transaction till 1544. the ground which thus came into[132] the possession of the president and fellows was the foundation of all their future building. dr mey was deprived at the accession of queen mary, but was restored in 1559. he lived for only a year afterwards. his next successor but one was dr william chaderton, of whom fuller has preserved some curious anecdotes. he is reported to have said one day in a wedding sermon “that the choice of a wife is full of hazard, not unlike as if one in a barrel full of serpents should grope for one fish; if (saith he) he ’scape harm of the snakes, and light on a fish, he may be thought fortunate, for perhaps it may be but an eel.” the ingenuity of the comparison is very characteristic of our elizabethan universities, and is not a little in the manner of fuller himself. fuller, indeed, received most of what he would have called his “breeding” at queens’, and, here and at sidney, he picked up that curiously miscellaneous knowledge which has made him one of our most entertaining prose writers. he was essentially a cambridge man, and in all his books, however distant they are from the purpose, we trace a certain appeal to his university. he was not less positive as to its antiquity than dr caius, although he went less far back for its origin. his church history records the foundation of cambridge as an university by sigebert, king of the east anglians, and in the sequel punctiliously refers to the foundation of every college as an important event in the history of the church. he did for cambridge, in a more limited area,[133] what anthony wood did for oxford. his politics were of an undecided kind, and he fell into disfavour with both parliamentarians and royalists, but he was, in fact, a moderate partisan of the king. there is a story that he was to have been made a bishop at the restoration, but he died before the offer was made.
john davenant,* president from 1614 to 1622, was, as bishop of salisbury, one of that galaxy of prelates which relieves the darkness of the civil wars. he was the friend of george herbert, whose parsonage of bemerton was within three miles of salisbury. he died in 1641, before affairs had come to their final climax. it is probable that he was guilty of some of those numerous idolatries which dowsing the iconoclast destroyed on his visit to cambridge. dowsing visited the college on st stephen’s day, 1643, when he “beat down 110 superstitious pictures besides cherubim and ingravings,” and “digged up the steps for three hours.” what dowsing would say to the internal fittings of the new chapel we have no idea! after the storm had passed over and the restoration had given back quiet to the college, its history languished: and, although it has done well in the schools, it cannot be said to have produced many men of great distinction. in isaac milner (* harlow), dean of carlisle and president from 1788 to 1820, it had a church historian of some reputation. simon patrick,* bishop of ely during the reigns of william iii. and queen anne, was[134] a fellow here, and was one of the latest survivors of the laudian school. his account of the opening of edward the confessor’s tomb is preserved in the university library in its original manuscript. he was a great theologian and something of a controversialist. quite recently the familiar figure of dr campion,* vicar of st botolph’s and honorary canon of ely, and president of queens’ for the last five years of his life, has been removed from cambridge. his successor is dr herbert ryle of king’s, who holds with the office the hulsean professorship of divinity.
