CHAPTER V
THE COLLEGES OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY
"High potentates and dames of royal birth And mitred fathers in long order go."--GRAY.
The Fourteenth Century an Age of Great Men and Great Events but not of Great Scholars--Petrarch and Richard of Bury--Michael House--The King's Scholars--King's Hall--Clare Hall--Pembroke College--Gonville Hall--Dr. John Caius--His Three Gates of Humility, Virtue, and Honour.
The dates of the foundation of the two Colleges, Clare and Pembroke, which, after an interval of some fifty and seventy years respectively, followed that of Peterhouse, and the names of Lady Elizabeth, Countess of Clare, and of Marie de Valence, Countess of Pembroke, who are associated with them, remind us that we have reached that troublous and romantic time which marked the close of the long and varied reign of the Great Edward, and was the seed-time of those influences which ripened during the longer and still more varied reign of Edward III. Between the year 1326, which was the date of the first foundation of Clare College, the date also of the deposition and murder of Edward II., and the year 1348, which is the date of the foundation of Pembroke and the twenty-first year of Edward III., the distracted country had passed through many vicissitudes. It had seen the great conflict of parties under the leadership of the great houses of Lancaster, Gloucester, and Pembroke, culminating in the king's deposition and in the rise of the power of the English Parliament, and in its division into the two Houses of Lords and Commons. It had seen the growth of the new class of landed gentry, whose close social connection with the baronage on the one hand, and of equally close political connection with the burgesses on the other, had welded the three orders together, and had given to the Parliament that unity of action and feeling on which its powers have ever since mainly depended. It had seen the Common Law rise into the dignity of a science and rapidly become a not unworthy rival of Imperial Jurisprudence. It had seen the close of the great interest of Scottish warfare, and the northern frontier of England carried back to the old line of the Northumbrian kings. It had seen the strife with France brought to what at the moment seemed to be an end, for the battle of Crecy, at which the power of the English chivalry was to teach the world the lesson which they had learned from Robert Bruce thirty years before at Bannockburn, was still in the future, as also was the Hundred Years' War of which that battle was the prelude. It had seen the scandalous schism of the Western Church, and the vision of a Pope at Rome, and another Pope at Avignon, awakening in the mind of the nations an entirely new set of thoughts and feelings with regard to the position of both the Papacy and the Church. The early fourteenth century was indeed an age of great events and of great men; but it was not an age, at least as far as England was concerned, of great scholars. There was no Grosseteste in the fourteenth century. Petrarch, the typical man of letters, the true inspirer of the classical Renaissance, and in a sense the founder of really modern literature, was a great scholar and humanist, but he had no contemporary in England who could be called an equal or a rival. His one English friend, Richard of Bury, Bishop of Durham, book lover as he was--for his _Philobiblon_ we all owe him a debt of gratitude--was after all only an ardent amateur and no scholar. When Petrarch had applied to Richard for some information as to the geography of the Thule of the ancients, the Bishop had put him off with the statement that he had not his books with him, but would write fully on his return home. Though more than once reminded of his promise, he left the disappointed poet without an answer. The fact was, that Richard was not so learned that he could afford to confess his ignorance. He corresponds, in fact, to the earlier humanists of Italy--men who collected manuscripts and saw the possibilities of learning, though they were unable to attain to it themselves. There is much in his _Philobiblon_ of the greatest interest, as, for example, his description of the means by which he had collected his library at Durham College, and his directions to students for its careful use, but despite his own fervid love and somewhat rhetorical praise of learning, there is still a certain personal pathos in the expression of his own impatience with the ignorance and superficiality of the younger students of his day. Writing in the _Philobiblon_ of the prevalent characteristics of Oxford at this time, he writes:--
"Forasmuch as (the students) are not grounded in their first rudiment at the proper time, they build a tottering edifice on an insecure foundation, and then when grown up they are ashamed to learn that which they should have acquired when of tender years, and thus must needs even pay the penalty of having too hastily vaulted into the possession of authority to which they had no claim. For these and like reasons, our young students fail to gain by their scanty lucubrations that sound learning to which the ancients attained, however they may occupy honourable posts, be called by titles, be invested with the garb of office, or be solemnly inducted into the seats of their seniors. Snatched from their cradle and hastily weaned, they get a smattering of the rules of Priscian and Donatus; in their teens and beardless they chatter childishly concerning the Categories and the Perihermenias in the composition of which Aristotle spent his whole soul."[33]
It is to be feared that the decline of learning, which at this period was characteristic, as we thus see, of Oxford, was equally characteristic of Cambridge. Certainly there was no scholar there of the calibre of William of Ockham, or even of Richard of Bury, or of the Merton Realist, Bradwardine, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. It is not indeed until more than a century later when we have reached the age of Wycliffe, the first of the reformers and the last of the schoolmen, that the name of any Cambridge scholar emerges upon the page of history.
But meanwhile the collegiate system of the University was slowly being developed. Some forty years after the foundation of Peterhouse, in the year 1324, Hervey de Stanton, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Canon of Bath and Wells, obtained from Edward II. permission to found at Cambridge the College of "the Scholars of St. Michael." The college itself, Michaelhouse, has long been merged in the great foundation of Trinity, but its original statutes still exist and show that they were conceived in a somewhat less liberal spirit than that of the code of Hugh de Balsham. The monk and the friar are excluded from the society, but the Rule of Merton is not mentioned. Two years afterwards, in 1326, we find thirty-two scholars known as the "King's Scholars" maintained at the University by Edward II. It seems probable that it had been the intention of the King in this way to encourage the study of the civil and the canon law, for books on these subjects were presented by him, presumably for the use of the scholars, to Simon de Bury their warden, and were subsequently taken away at the command of Queen Isabella. The King had also intended to provide a hall of residence for these "children of our chapel," but the execution of this design of establishing a "King's Hall" was left to his son Edward III. The poet Gray, in his "Installation Ode," has represented Edward III.--
"Great Edward with the lilies on his brow, From haughty Gallia torn,"
in virtue of his foundation of King's Hall, which was subsequently absorbed in the greater society, as the founder of Trinity College. But the honour evidently belongs with more justice to his father. It was, however, by Edward III. that the Hall was built near the Hospital of S. John, "to the honour of God, the Blessed Virgin, and all the Saints, and for the soul of the Lord Edward his father, late King of England, of famous memory, and the souls of Philippa, Queen of England, his most dear consort, and of his children and progenitors."[34]
The statutes of King's Hall give an interesting contemporary picture of collegiate life. The preamble moralises upon "the unbridled weakness of humanity, prone by nature and from youth to evil, ignorant how to abstain from things unlawful, easily falling into crime." It is required that each scholar on his admission be proved to be of "good and reputable conversation." He is not to be admitted under fourteen years of age. His knowledge of Latin must be such as to qualify him for the study of logic, or of whatever other branch of learning the master shall decide, upon examination of his capacity, he is best fitted to follow. The scholars were provided with lodging, food, and clothing. The sum allowed for the weekly maintenance of a King's scholar was fourteen pence, an unusually liberal allowance for weekly commons, suggesting the idea that the foundation was probably designed for students of the wealthier class, an indication which is further borne out by the prohibitions with respect to the frequenting of taverns, the introduction of dogs within the College precincts, the wearing of short swords and peaked shoes (_contra honestatem clericalem_), the use of bows, flutes, catapults, and the oft-repeated exhortation to orderly conduct.
Following upon the establishment of Michaelhouse and King's Hall, in the year 1326 the University in its corporate capacity obtained a royal licence to settle a body of scholars in two houses in Milne Street. This college was called University Hall, a title already adopted by a similar foundation at Oxford. The Chancellor of the University at the time was a certain Richard de Badew. The foundation, however, did not at first meet with much success. In 1336 its revenues were found insufficient to support more than ten scholars. In 1338, however, we find Elizabeth de Burgh, Countess of Clare and granddaughter of Edward I., coming to the help of the struggling society. By the death of her brother, the Earl of Gloucester, at the battle of Bannockburn, leaving no issue, the whole of a very princely estate came into the possession of the Lady Clare and her two sisters. Having, by a deed dated 6th April 1338, received from Richard de Badew, who therein calls himself "Founder, Patron, and Advocate of the House called the Hall of the University of Cambridge," all the rights and titles of University Hall, the Lady Clare refounded it, and supplied the endowments which hitherto it had lacked. The name of the Hall was changed to Clare House (_Domus de Clare_). As early, however, as 1346 we find it styled Clare Hall, a name which it bore down to our own times, when, by resolution of the master and fellows in 1856, it was changed to Clare College. The following preamble to the statutes of the College, which were granted in 1359, are perhaps worthy of quotation as exhibiting, in spite of its quaint confusion of the "Pearl of Great Price" with "the Candle set upon a Candlestick," the pious and withal businesslike and sensible spirit of the foundress:--
"To all the sons of our Holy Mother Church, who shall look into these pages, Elizabeth de Burgh, Lady de Clare, wishes health and remembrance of this transaction. Experience, which is the mistress of all things, clearly teaches that in every rank of life, as well temporal as ecclesiastical, a knowledge of literature is of no small advantage; which though it is searched into by many persons in many different ways, yet in a University, a place that is distinguished for the flourishing of general study, it is more completely acquired; and after it has been obtained, she sends forth her scholars who have tasted its sweets, apt and suitable men in the Church of God and in the State, men who will rise to various ranks according to the measure of their deserts. Desiring therefore, since this consideration has come over us, to extend as far as God has allowed us, for the furtherance of Divine worship, and for the advance and good of the State, this kind of knowledge which in consequence of a great number of men having been taken away by the fangs of pestilence, is now beginning lamentably to fail; we have turned the attention of our mind to the University of Cambridge, in the Diocese of Ely; where there is a body of students, and to a Hall therein, hitherto commonly called University Hall, which already exists of our foundation, and which we would have to bear the name of the House of Clare and no other, for ever, and have caused it to be enlarged in its resources out of the wealth given us by God and in the number of students; in order that the Pearl of Great Price, Knowledge, found and acquired by them by means of study and learning in the said University, may not lie hid beneath a bushel, but be published abroad; and by being published give light to those who walk in the dark paths of ignorance. And in order that the Scholars residing in our aforesaid House of Clare, under the protection of a more steadfast peace and with the advantage of concord, may choose to engage with more free will in study, we have carefully made certain statutes and ordinances to last for ever."[35]
The distinguishing characteristic of these statutes is the great liberality they show in the requirements with respect to the professedly clerical element. This, as the preamble, in fact, suggests, was the result of a desire to fill up the terrible gap caused in the ranks of the clergy by the outbreak of the Black Death, which first made its appearance in England in the year 1348, and caused the destruction of two and a half millions of the population in a single year.[36]
The Scholars or Fellows are to be twenty in number, of whom six are to be in priest's orders at the time of their admission. The remaining fellows are to be selected from bachelors or sophisters in arts, or from "skilful and well-conducted" civilians and canonists, but only two fellows may be civilians, and only one a canonist. The clauses relating to the scheme of studies are, moreover, apparently intended to discourage both these branches of law.
Of the further progress of the College in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries we have no record, for the archives perished in the fire which almost totally destroyed the early buildings in the year 1521. In the seventeenth century, shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War, it was proposed to rebuild the whole College, but owing to the troubles of that time it was not until the beginning of the eighteenth century, in the year 1715, that the work was finished. "The buildings are," said the late Professor Willis, "among the most beautiful, from their situation and general outline, that he could point out in the University."
There is extant an amusing account of the controversy between Clare Hall and King's College, caused by the desire of the former to procure a certain piece of land for purposes of recreation on the east side of the Cam, called Butt Close, belonging to King's. Here are two of the letters which passed between the rival litigants.
"_The Answer of Clare-Hall to Certaine Reasons of King's College touching Butt-Close._
"1. To the first we answer:--Iº. That y{e} annoyance of y{e} windes gathering betweene y^{e} Chappell and our Colledge is farre greater and more detriment to y^{t} Chappell, then any benefitt which they can imagine to receiue by y{e} shelter of our Colledge from wind and sunne.
"2º. That y^{e} Colledge of Clare-hall being sett so neare as now it is, they will not only be sheltered from wind and sunne, but much deprived both of ayre and light.
"3º. That y^{e} remove all of Clare Hall 70 feet westward will take away little or no considerable privacy from their gardens and walkes; for y{t} one of their gardens is farre remote, and y^{e} nearer fenced with a very high wall, and a vine spread upon a long frame, under which they doe and may privately walke."
"_A Reply of King's Colledge to y^{e} Answer of Clare-Hall._
"1. The wind so gathering breeds no detriment to our Chappell, nor did ever putt us to any reparacions there. The upper battlements at the west end haue sometimes suffered from y^{e} wind, but y^{e} wind could not there be straightned by Clare-hall, w^{ch} scarce reacheth to y^{e} fourth part of y^{e} height.
"2º. No whit at all, for our lower story hath fewer windowes y^{t} way: the other are so high y^{t} Clare-Hall darkens them not, and hath windows so large y^{t} both for light and ayre no chambers in any Coll. exceed them.
"3º. The farther garden is not farre remote, being scarce 25 yards distant from their intended building; y^{e} nearer is on one side fenced with a high wall indeed, but y^{t} wall is fraudulently alleaged by them, and beside y^{e} purpose: for y^{t} wall y^{t} stands between their view and y^{e} garden is not much aboue 6 feet in height: and y^{t} we haue any vine or frame there to walke under is manifestly untrue."[37]
However, the controversy was settled in favour of Clare-Hall by a letter from the King.
A tradition has long prevailed that Clare-Hall was the College mentioned by the poet Chaucer in his "Reeve's Tale," in the lines--
"And nameliche ther was a greet collegge, Men clepen the Soler-Halle at Cantebregge."
There appears, however, to be good reason for thinking that the Soler Hall was in reality Garrett Hostel, a _soler_ or sun-chamber being the equivalent of a garret. For the tradition also that Chaucer himself was a Clare man there is no authority. The College may well be satisfied with the list of authentic names of great men which give lustre to the roll of its scholars--Hugh Latimer, the reformer and fellow-martyr of Ridley; Nicholas Ferrar, the founder of the religious community of Little Gidding; Wheelock, the great Saxon and oriental scholar; Ralph Cudworth, leader of the Cambridge Platonists; Archbishop Tillotson and his pupil the philosopher, Thomas Burnett; Whiston, the translator of "Josephus"; Cole, the antiquary; Maseres, the lawyer and mathematician.
The foundation of Pembroke College, like that of Clare Hall, was also due to the private sorrow of a noble lady. The poet Gray, himself a Pembroke man, in the lines of his "Installation Ode," where he commemorates the founders of the University--
"All that on Granta's fruitful plain Rich streams of royal bounty poured,"
speaks of this lady as
"...sad Chatillon on her bridal morn, That wept her bleeding love."
This is in allusion to the somewhat doubtful story thus told by Fuller--
"Mary de Saint Paul, daughter to Guido Castillion, Earl of S. Paul in France, third wife to Audomare de Valentia, Earl of Pembroke, maid, wife, and widow all in a day (her husband being unhappily slain at a tilting at her nuptials), sequestered herself on that sad accident from all worldly delights, bequeathed her soul to God, and her estate to pious uses, amongst which this is principal, that she founded in Cambridge the College of Mary de Valentia, commonly called Pembroke Hall."
All that authentic history records is that the Earl of Pembroke died suddenly whilst on a mission to the Court of France in June 1324. His widow expended a large part of her very considerable fortune both in France and England on works of piety. In 1342 she founded the Abbey of Denny in Cambridgeshire for nuns of the Order of S. Clare. The Charter of Foundation of Pembroke College is dated 9th June 1348. It is to be regretted that the earliest Rule given to the College, or to the _Aula seu Domus de Valence Marie_, the Hall of Valence Marie, as it was at first called, is not extant. A revised rule of the conjectural date of 1366, and another of perhaps not more than ten years later, furnished, however, the data upon which Dr. Ainslie, Master of the College from 1828 to 1870, drew up an abstract of its constitution and early history.[38] The most interesting feature of this constitution is the provision made in the first instance for the management of the College by the Franciscans, and its abolition on a later revision. According to the first code--"the head of the College was to be elected by the fellows, and to be distinguished by the title of the Keeper of the House." There were to be annually elected two rectors, _the one a Friar Minor_, the other a secular. This provision of the two rectors was abolished in the later code, and with it apparently all official connection between the College and the Franciscan Order, and it may be perhaps conjectured all association also with the sister foundation at Denny, concerning which the foundress, in her final _Vale_ of the earlier code, had given to the fellows of the House of Valence Marie the following quaint direction, that "on all occasions they should give their best counsel and aid to the Abbess and Sisters of Denny, who had from her a common origin with them."
The exact date at which the building of the College was begun is not known, but it was probably not long after the purchase of the site in 1346. Many of the original buildings which remained down to 1874 were destroyed in the reconstruction of the College at that time. It is now only possible to imagine many of the most picturesque features of that building, of which Queen Elizabeth, on her visit to Cambridge in 1564, enthusiastically exclaimed in passing, "_O domus antiqua et religiosa!_" by consulting the print of the College published by Loggan about 1688. Of the interesting old features still left, we have the chapel at the corner of Trumpington Street and Pembroke Street, built in 1360 and refaced in 1663, and the line of buildings extending down Pembroke Street to the new master's lodge and the Scott building of modern date. The old chapel has been used as a library since 1663, when the new chapel, whose west end abuts on Trumpington Street, was built by Sir Christopher Wren. The cloister, called Hitcham's Cloister, which joins the Wren Chapel to the fine old entrance gateway, and the Hitcham building[39] on the south side of the inner court, are dated 1666 and 1659 respectively. All the rest of the College is modern.
The early foundation of Pembroke College had some connection, as we have seen, with the Franciscan Order. The early foundation of Gonville Hall, which followed that of Pembroke in 1348, had a somewhat similar connection with the Dominicans. Edward Gonville, its founder, was vicar-general of the diocese of Ely, and rector of Ferrington and Rushworth in Norfolk. In that county he had been instrumental in causing the foundation of a Dominican house at Thetford. Two years before his death he settled a master and two fellows in some tenements he had bought in Luteburgh Lane, now called Free School Lane, on a site almost coinciding with the present master's garden of Corpus, and gave to his college the name of "the Hall of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin." But he died in 1351, and left the completion of his design to his executor, Bishop Bateman of Norwich. Bateman removed Gonville Hall to the north-west corner of its present site, adjoining the "Hall of the Holy Trinity," which he was himself endowing at the same period. However, he too died within a few years, leaving both foundations immature. The statutes of both halls are extant, and exhibit an interesting contrast of ideal--the one that of a country parson of the fourteenth century, moved by the simple desire to do something for the encouragement of learning, and especially of theology, in the men of his own profession--the other that of a Bishop, a learned canonist and busy man of state, long resident at the Papal court at Avignon, regarded by the Pope as "the flower of civilians and canonists," desirous above all things by his College foundation of recruiting the ranks of his clergy, thinned by the Black Death, with men trained, as he himself had been, in the canon and civil law. It was the Bishop's ideal that triumphed. Gonville's statutes requiring an almost exclusively theological training for his scholars were abolished, and the course of study in the two halls assimilated, Bateman, as founder of the two societies, by a deed dated 1353, ratifying an agreement of fraternal affection and mutual help between the two societies, as "scions of the same stock"; assigning, however, the precedence to the members of Trinity Hall, "_tanquam fratres primo geniti_."[40] The fellows were by this agreement bound to live together in amity like brothers, to take counsel together in legal and other difficulties, to wear robes or cloaks of the same pattern, and to consort together at academic ceremonies. Thus Gonville Hall was fairly started on its way. It ranked from the first as a small foundation, and though it gradually added to its buildings and acquired various endowments, it did not materially increase its area for two centuries. The ancient walls of its early buildings--its chapel, hall, library, and master's lodge--are all doubtless still standing, though coated over with the ashlar placed on them in 1754. The ancient beams of the roof of the old hall are still to be seen in the attics of the present tutor's house. The upper room over the passage which leads from Gonville to Caius Court is the ancient chamber of the lodge where the early masters used to sleep, very little changed. The old main entrance to the College was in Trinity Lane, a thoroughfare so filthy in the reign of Richard II. that the King himself was appealed to, in order to check the "_horror abominabilis_" through which students had to plunge on their way to the schools. From time to time new benefactors of the College came, though for the most part of a minor sort; some of whom, however, have left quaint traces behind them. Of such was a certain Cluniac monk, John Household by name, a student in 1513, who in his will dated 1543 thus bequeaths--"To the College in Cambrydge called Gunvyle Hall, my longer table-clothe, my two awter (altar) pillows, with their bears of black satten bordered with velvet pirled with goulde: also a frontelet with the salutation of Our Lady curely wroughte with goulde; and besides two suts of vestements having everythinge belonging to the adorning of a preste to say masse: the one is a light greene having white ends, and the other a duned Taphada," whatever that may be. He also leaves his books, "protesting that whatsoever be founde in my bookes I intend to dye a veray Catholical Christen man, and the King's letheman and trewe subjecte." This might seem to speak well, perhaps, for the catholicity of the College in the thirty-fourth year of Henry VIII., and yet thirteen years earlier Bishop Nix of Norwich had written to Archbishop Warham: "I hear no clerk that hath come out lately of Gunwel Haule but saverith of the frying panne, though he speak never so holely." Anyhow about this time the College became notorious as a hotbed of reformed opinions. It was, however, at this time also that a young student was trained within its walls, who, after a distinguished career at Cambridge--it would be an anachronism to call him senior wrangler, but his name stands first in that list which afterwards developed into the Mathematical Tripos--passed to the university of Padua to study medicine under the great anatomist, Vesalius, ultimately becoming a professor there, and returning to England, and to medical practice in London, and having presumably amassed a fortune in the process, formed the design of enlarging what he pathetically describes as "that pore house now called Gonville Hall." On September 4, 1557, John Caius obtained the charter for his new foundation, and the ancient name of Gonville Hall was changed to that of Gonville and Caius College. In the following year the new benefactor was elected Master, and the remaining years of his life were spent, on the one hand, in quarrelling with Fellows about "College copes, vestments, albes, crosses, tapers ... and all massynge abominations;" and, on the other, in designing and carrying out those noble architectural additions to the College which give to the buildings of Caius College their chief interest.
"In his architectural works," says Mr. Atkinson, "Caius shews practical common sense combined with the love of symbolism. His court is formed by two ranges of building on the east and west, and on the north by the old chapel and lodge. To the south the court is purposely left open, and the erection of buildings on this side is expressly forbidden by one of his statutes, lest the air from being confined within a narrow space should become foul. The same care is shewn in another statute which imposes on any one who throws dirt or offal into the court, or who airs beds or bedlinen there, a fine of three shillings and fourpence. In his will also he requires that 'there be mayntayned a lustie and healthie, honest, true, and unmarried man of fortie years of age and upwardes to kepe cleane and swete the pavementes.'"[41]
The love of Dr. Caius for symbolism is shown most conspicuously in his design of the famous three Gates of Humility, of Virtue, and of Honour, which were intended to typify, by the increasing richness of their design, the path of the student from the time of his entrance to the College, to the day when he passed to the schools to take his Degree in Arts. The Gate of Humility was a simple archway with an entablature supported by pilasters, forming the new entrance to the College from Trinity Street, or as it was then called, High Street, immediately opposite St. Michael's Church. On the inside of this gate there was a frieze on which was carved the word HUMILITATIS. From this gate there led a broad walk, bordered by trees, much in the fashion of the present avenue entrance to Jesus College, to the Gate of Virtue, a simple and admirable gateway tower in the range of the new buildings, forming the eastern side of the court, still known as Caius Court.
"The word VIRTUTIS is inscribed on the frieze above the arch on the eastern side, in the spandrils of which are two female figures leaning forwards. That on the left holds a leaf in her left hand, and a palm branch in her right; that on the right a purse in her right hand, and a cornucopia in her left. The western side of this gate has on its frieze, 'IO. CAIUS POSUIT SAPIENTIÆ, 1567,' an inscription manifestly derived from that on the foundation stone laid by Dr. Caius. Hence this gate is sometimes described as the Gate of Wisdom, a name which has however no authority. In the spandrils on this side are the arms of Dr. Caius."[42]
In the centre of the south wall, forming the frontage to Schools Street, stands the Gate of Honour. It is a singularly beautiful and picturesque composition, "built of squared hard stone wrought according to the very form and figure which Dr. Caius in his lifetime had himself traced out for the architect."[43] It was not built until two years after Caius' death, that is about the year 1575. It is considered probable that the architect was Theodore Havens of Cleves, who was undoubtedly the designer of "the great murall diall" over the archway leading into Gonville Court, and of the column "wrought with wondrous skill containing 60 sun-dialls ... and the coat armour of those who were of gentle birth at that time in the College," standing in the centre of Caius Court, and of the "Sacred Tower," on the south side of the Chapel, all since destroyed.
Beautiful as the Gate of Honour still remains, it must have had a very different appearance when it left the architect's hand. Many of its most interesting features have wholly vanished. Among the illustrations to Willis and Clark's "History" there is an interesting attempt to restore the gateway with all its original details. At each angle, immediately above the lowest cornice, there was a tall pinnacle. Another group of pinnacles surrounded the middle stage, one at each corner of the hexagonal tower. On each face of the hexagon there was a sun-dial, and "at its apex a weathercock in the form of a serpent and dove." In the spandrils of the arch next the court are the arms of Dr. Caius, on an oval shield, "two serpents erect, their tails nowed together," and "between them a book." On the frieze is carved the word HONORIS. The whole of the stonework was originally painted white, and some parts, such as the sun-dials, the roses in the circular panels, and the coats-of-arms, were brilliant with colour and gold. The last payment for this "painting and gilding" bears date 1696 in the Bursar's book. Dr. Caius died in 1573, and was buried in the Chapel. On his monument are inscribed two short sentences--_Vivit post funera virtus_ and _Fui Caius_.
And so we may leave him and his College, and also perhaps fitly end this chapter with the kindly words with which Fuller commends to posterity the memory of this great College benefactor:--
"Some since have sought to blast his memory by reporting him a papist; no great crime to such who consider the time when he was born, and foreign places wherein he was bred: however, this I dare say in his just defence, he never mentioneth protestants but with due respect, and sometimes occasionally doth condemn the superstitious credulity of popish miracles. Besides, after he had resigned his mastership to Dr. Legg, he lived fellow-commoner in the College, and having built himself a little seat in the chapel, was constantly present at protestant prayers. If any say all this amounts but to a lukewarm religion, we leave the heat of his faith to God's sole judgment, and the light of his good works to men's imitation."[44]