Part 21

Adjoining Trinity Hall is the beautiful court of Clare College, dating from the time of the Civil Wars, when it replaced older structures. Its exterior is most attractive to visitors, exhibiting the pleasing architecture of the sixteenth century. The river-front is much admired, while the gateway is marked by quaint lantern-like windows. In the library is one of the rare Bibles of Sixtus V., and in the Master's Lodge is kept the poison-cup of Clare, which is both curious and beautiful. The gentle lady's mournful fate has been told by Scott in _Marmion_. Tillotson and other famous divines were students at Clare, and the college also claims Chaucer, but this is doubtful, though the college figures in his story of the "Miller of Trumpington," and also adjuts upon Trumpington Street. Upon the opposite side of this street is Great St. Mary's Church, the university church, an attractive building of Perpendicular architecture and having fine chimes of bells. Here the vice chancellor listens to a sermon every Sunday afternoon in term-time. Formerly, on these occasions, the "heads and doctors" of the university sat in an enclosed gallery built like a sort of gigantic opera-box, and profanely called the "Golgotha." A huge pulpit faced them on the other end of the church, and the centre formed a sort of pit. Modern improvements have, however, swept this away, replacing it with ordinary pews.

KING'S, CORPUS CHRISTI, AND QUEENS' COLLEGES.

Trumpington Street broadens into the King's Parade, and here, entered through a modern buttressed screen pierced with openings filled with tracery, is King's College. It was founded by Henry VI. in 1440, and in immediate connection with the school at Eton, from which the more advanced scholars were to be transferred. The great King's Chapel, which gives an idea of the grand scale on which this college was to be constructed, is the special boast of Cambridge. It is two hundred and eighty feet long, forty-five feet wide, and seventy-eight feet high, with a marvellously fretted roof of stone, and large windows at the sides and ends filled with beautiful stained glass. This is the most imposing of all the buildings in Cambridge, and occupies the entire northern side of the college court. Its fine doorway is regarded as the most pleasing part of the exterior design. The stained-glass windows are divided into an upper and lower series of pictures. The lower is a continuous chain of gospel history, while the upper exhibits the Old-Testament types of the subjects represented below. Although designed on such a magnificent scale, the Wars of the Roses interfered with the completion of King's College, and even the chapel was not finished until Henry VIII.'s reign. The other college buildings are modern.

Adjoining King's is Corpus Christi College, the buildings being almost entirely modern. Of the ancient structure one small court alone remains, a picturesque steep-roofed building almost smothered in ivy. Corpus Christi Hall is said to have been partly designed after the great hall of Kenilworth. In its library are the famous manuscripts rescued from the suppressed monasteries, there being four hundred interesting and curious volumes of these precious documents, which are most jealously guarded. Opposite Corpus is St. Catharine's College, with a comparatively plain hall and chapel. Behind this is Queens' College, an antique structure, though not a very ancient foundation. Its entrance-tower is of brick, and a quaint low cloister runs around the interior court. Within is Erasmus's Court, where are pointed out the rooms once occupied by that great scholar. Across the river a wooden bridge leads to a terrace by the water-side with an overhanging border of elms, and known as Erasmus's Walk. This college was founded by the rival queens, Margaret of Anjou and Elizabeth Widvile, and though it is very proud of having had the great scholar of the Reformation within its halls, he does not seem to have entirely reciprocated the pleasure; for he complains in a letter to a friend that while there "he was blockaded with the plague, beset with thieves, and drugged with bad wine." Returning to Trumpington Street, we find on the western side the University Printing Press, named from the younger statesman the Pitt Press. He represented the university in Parliament, and the lofty square and pinnacled tower of this printing-office is one of the most conspicuous objects in Cambridge. Yet even this structure has its contrasts, for the "Cantabs" consider that its architecture is as bad as its typography is good.

OTHER CAMBRIDGE COLLEGES.

Pembroke College, near the Pitt Press, has a chapel designed by Christopher Wren and recently enlarged. This was the college of Spenser and Gray, the latter having migrated from the neighboring Peterhouse because of the practical jokes the students played upon him. It was also Pitt's college. Opposite Pembroke is Peterhouse, or St. Peter's College, the most ancient foundation in Cambridge, established by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely, in 1284. Beyond Peterhouse is the Fitzwilliam Museum, a most successful reproduction of classic architecture, built and maintained by a legacy of $500,000 left by Viscount Fitzwilliam in 1816. It contains an excellent art and literary collection, which was begun by the viscount. This is regarded as probably the finest classical building constructed in the present century in England. A short distance beyond, at the end of a water-course, is an attractive hexagonal structure with niched recesses and ornamental capstones. This is Hobson's Conduit, erected in 1614 by Thomas Hobson. This benefactor of Cambridge was a carrier between London and the university, and is said to have been the originator of "Hobson's Choice." The youngest foundation at Cambridge is Downing College, erected in 1807, an unobtrusive structure, and near by is Emmanuel College, built on the site of a Dominican convent and designed by Wren. It was founded by Sir Walter Mildmay, the Puritan, in 1584, who on going to court was taxed by Queen Mary with having erected a Puritan college. "No, madam," he replied, "far be it from me to countenance anything contrary to your established laws, but I have set an acorn, which when it becomes an oak God alone knows what will be the fruit thereof." Sir William Temple was educated at Emmanuel. Christ's College is near by, chiefly interesting from its associations with Milton, whose rooms are still pointed out, while a mulberry tree that he planted is preserved in the garden. Latimer and Paley, with a host of other divines, were students here. This college was founded by Queen Margaret, mother of Henry VII., and some beautiful silver plate, her gift to the Fellows, is still preserved. At Sidney-Sussex College Cromwell was a Fellow in 1616, and his crayon portrait hangs in the dining-hall. Owing to want of means, he left without taking a degree. An oriel window projecting over the street is said to mark his chamber. Upon Bridge Street is the Round Church, or St. Sepulchre's Church, obtaining its name from its circular Norman nave, this being one of the four "Temple churches" still remaining in England. Across the Cam stands Magdalene College, founded in 1519 by Baron Thomas Audley of Walden. Within the building behind it are the literary collections of Samuel Pepys, who was secretary to the Admiralty in the reigns of Charles II. and James II., together with the manuscript of his famous diary, a book of marvellous gossip, recording the peccadilloes of its author, the jealousy of his wife, and the corruptions of the court. He was educated at Magdalene.

Jesus Lane leads out of Bridge Street to Jesus College, remotely placed on the river-bank, and of which the chief building of interest is the chapel, a fine Gothic structure. This college is upon the site of a Benedictine nunnery founded in 1133, and is entered by a lofty brick gate-tower which is much admired, and was constructed soon after the foundation of the college in 1497 by the Bishop of Ely, whose successors until this day retain the gift of the mastership. From Jesus Lane a path leads down to the boat-houses on the river bank, where each college has a boat-club wearing a distinctive dress. The racecourse is at the Long Reach, just below the town. Of the ancient Cambridge Castle, built by the Conqueror in 1068, nothing remains but the mound upon Castle Hill, where the county courts are now located. Cambridge, however, has little besides its university buildings to attract attention. In the suburbs are two colleges for the instruction of lady students, and two miles away is Trumpington, near which is the site of the mill told of in Chaucer's Canterbury tale of the _Miller of Trumpington_. The place is now used for gates to admit the river-water into Byron's Pool, which is so called because the poet frequently bathed in it when he was an undergraduate of Trinity College.

THE FENLAND.

The river Cam below Cambridge flows through that country of reclaimed marshland which ultimately ends in the Wash, between Norfolk and Lincolnshire, and is known as the Fenland. This "Great Level of the Fens" has been drained and reclaimed by the labors of successive generations of engineers, and contains about six hundred and eighty thousand acres of the richest lands in England, being as much the product of engineering skill as Holland itself. Not many centuries ago this vast surface, covering two thousand square miles, was entirely abandoned to the waters, forming an immense estuary of the Wash, into which various rivers discharge the rainfall of Central England. In winter it was an inland sea and in summer a noxious swamp. The more elevated parts were overgrown with tall reeds that in the distance looked like fields of waving corn, and immense flocks of wild-fowl haunted them. Into this dismal swamp the rivers brought down their freshets, the waters mingling and winding by devious channels before they reached the sea. The silt with which they were laden became deposited in the basin of the Fens, and thus the river-beds were choked up, compelling the intercepted waters to force new channels through the ooze; hence there are numerous abandoned beds of old rivers still traceable amid the level of the Fens. This region now is drained and dyked, but in earlier times it was a wilderness of shallow waters and reedy islets, with frequent "islands" of firmer and more elevated ground. These were availed of for the monasteries of the Fenland--Ely, Peterborough, Crowland, and others, all established by the Benedictines. The abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, although situated some distance from the marshland, may also be classed among the religious houses of the Fens. This abbey, which is a short distance east of Cambridge, was built in the eleventh century as the shrine of St. Edmund, King of East Anglia, who was killed by the Danes about the year 870. It soon became one of the wealthiest English monasteries, and was the chief religious centre of that section. Only ruins remain, the chief being the abbey-gate, now the property of the Marquis of Bristol, and the Norman tower and church, which have recently been restored. In the suburbs of Bury is Hengrave Hall, one of the most interesting Tudor mansions remaining in the kingdom. Originally, it was three times its present size, and was built by Sir Thomas Kytson about 1525. Its gate-house is rich in details, and the many windows and projections of the southern front group picturesquely.

Following the Cam northward from Cambridge through the marshland, we come to the Isle of Ely, the great "fortress of the Fens," and standing upon its highest ground the cathedral of Ely. Here St. Etheldreda founded a monastery in the seventh century, which ultimately became a cathedral, Ely having been given a bishop in 1109. The present buildings date all the way from the eleventh to the sixteenth century, so that they give specimens of all Gothic styles. The cathedral is five hundred and thirty-seven feet long, and from the summit of its western tower can be gained a fine view of the spreading fens and lowlands of Cambridgeshire, amid which stands the Isle of Ely. One of the finest views of this tower is that obtained from the road leading to Ely Close. Before drainage had improved the surrounding country this was one of the strongest fortresses in England, and it was also one of the last to yield to the Norman Conquest, its reduction causing King William heavy loss. Afterwards he regarded it as among his most loyal strongholds. The lofty tower, and indeed the whole cathedral, are landmarks for the entire country round, and from the rising ground at Cambridge, fully twenty miles to the southward, can be seen standing out against the sky. From the dykes and fields and meadows that have replaced the marshes along the Cam and Ouse the huge tower can be seen looming up in stately grandeur. It is almost the sole attraction of the sleepy little country town. The great feature of this massive cathedral is the wonderful central octagon, with its dome-like roof crowned by a lofty lantern, which is said to be the only Gothic dome of its kind in existence in England or France. We are told that the original cathedral had a central tower, which for some time showed signs of instability, until on one winter's morning in 1321 it came down with an earthquake crash and severed the cathedral into four arms. In reconstructing it, to ensure security, the entire breadth of the church was taken as a base for the octagon, so that it was more than three times as large as the original square tower. Magnificent windows are inserted in the exterior faces of the octagon, and the entire cathedral has been recently restored. It was to Bishop Cox, who then presided over the see of Ely, that Queen Elizabeth, when he objected to the alienation of certain church property, wrote her famous letter:

"PROUD PRELATE: You know what you were before I made you what you are; if you do not immediately comply with my request, by God, I will unfrock you."

"ELIZABETH R."

The bishop, it is almost unnecessary to say, surrendered. The town contains little of interest beyond some quaint old houses.

PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL.

North-westward of Ely, and just on the border of the Fenland, Saxulf, a thane of Mercia who had acquired great wealth, founded the first and most powerful of the great Benedictine abbeys of this region in the year 655. Around this celebrated religious house has grown the town of Peterborough, now one of the chief railway-junctions in Midland England. The remains of the monastic buildings, and especially of the cathedral, are magnificent, the great feature of the latter being its western front, which was completed in the thirteenth century, and has three great open arches, making probably the finest church-portico in Europe. On the left of the cathedral is the chancel of Becket's Chapel, now a grammar-school, while on the right is the ancient gateway of the abbot's lodgings, which has become the entrance to the bishop's palace. The main part of the cathedral is Norman, though portions are Early English. It is built in the form of a cross, with a smaller transept at the western end, while the choir terminates in an apse, and a central tower rises from four supporting arches. Within the cathedral, over the doorway, is a picture of old Scarlet, Peterborough's noted sexton, who buried Catharine of Arragon and Mary Queen of Scots. The nave has an ancient wooden roof, carefully preserved and painted with various devices. The transept arches are fine specimens of Norman work. Queen Catharine lies under a slab in the aisle of St. John's Chapel, but the remains of Queen Mary were removed to Westminster Abbey by James I., to the magnificent tomb he prepared there for his mother.

CROWLAND ABBEY.

Farther northward in the Fenland, and over the border in Lincolnshire, was the Benedictine abbey of "courteous Crowland," though its remains are now scanty. It derives its name from the "Land of Crows," which in this part is drained by the Welland River and the great Bedford Level. On one of the many islands of firmer soil abounding in this oozy region the monks constructed their monastery, but had little space for cultivation, and brought their food from remoter possessions. Now, Crowland is no longer an island, for the drainage has made fast land all about, and the ruins have attracted a straggling village. Here is the famous "triangular bridge," a relic of the abbey. Three streams met, and the bridge was made to accommodate the monks, who, from whatever direction they approached, had to cross one of them. The streams now are conveyed underground, but the bridge remains like a stranded monster which the tide has abandoned, and gives the children a play-place. Its steep half-arches, meeting in the centre, are climbed by rough steps. The dissolved abbey served as a quarry for the village, and hence on this strange bridge and on all the houses fragments of worked stone and of sculpture everywhere appear. It was located at the eastern end of the village, where its ruins still stand up as a guide across the fens, seen from afar. Most of it is in complete ruin, but the north aisle of the nave has been sufficiently preserved to serve as the parish church of Crowland; round about the church and the ruins extends the village graveyard. Set up in the porch beneath the tower is a memorial for William Hill, the sexton, who died in 1792. When forty years old he was blinded by exposure during a snowfall, yet he lived for twenty-five years afterwards, able to find his way everywhere and to know every grave in the churchyard.

In the earlier days of Christianity the solitudes in this Fenland had peculiar attractions for the hermits who fled from the world to embrace an ascetic life. Thus the islands each gradually got its hermit, and the great monasteries grew up by degrees, starting usually in the cell of some recluse. Guthlac, who lived in the seventh century, was of the royal House of Mercia, and voluntarily exiled himself in the Fens. This region was then, according to popular belief, the haunt of myriads of evil spirits, who delighted in attacking the hermits. They assaulted Guthlac in hosts, disturbed him by strange noises, once carried him far away to the icy regions of the North, and not seldom took the form of crows, the easier to torment him; but his steady prayers and penance ultimately put them to flight, and the existence of his cell became known to the world. Ethelbald fled to Guthlac for refuge, and the hermit predicted he would become king, which in time came to pass. Guthlac died at Crowland, and the grateful king built a stone church there. The buildings increased, their great treasure being of course the tomb of the hermit, which became a source of many miracles. The Northmen in the ninth century plundered and destroyed Crowland, but it was restored, and in Edward the Confessor's time was one of the five religious houses ruled by the powerful abbot of Peterborough. It became the shrine of Waltheof, the Earl of Northampton beheaded for opposing William the Conqueror, and Crowland was thus made a stronghold of English feeling against the Normans, like the other monasteries of the Fens. Its fame declined somewhat after the Conquest, though its hospitality was fully maintained. It had little subsequent history. The abbey was garrisoned by the Royalists, and captured by Cromwell in 1643, after which it fell into ruin. Such has been the fate of almost all the religious houses in the Fens, the merits of which the people in the olden time judged according to a local rhyme which yet survives:

"Ramsay, the bounteous of gold and of fee; Crowland, as courteous as courteous may be; Spalding the rich, and Peterborough the proud; Sawtrey, by the way, that poor abbaye, Gave more alms in one day than all they."

NORWICH.

Proceeding eastward out of the Fenland and among the hills of Norfolk, the little river Wensum is found to have cut a broad, deep, and trench-like valley into the chalk and gravel plateau. Upon the elevated bank of the river is the irregularly picturesque town of Norwich, with the castle keep rising above the undulating mass of buildings, and the cathedral and its noble spire overtopping the lower portion of the city on the right hand. Norwich is an ancient town, but very little is known with certainty about it anterior to the Danish invasions. We are told that its original location was at the more southerly castle of Caister, whence the inhabitants migrated to the present site, for--

"Caister was a city when Norwich was none, And Norwich was built of Caister stone."

Canute held possession of Norwich and had a castle there, but the present castle seems to date from the Norman Conquest, when it was granted to Ralph de Quader, who turned traitor to the king, causing Norfolk to be besieged, captured, and greatly injured. Then the castle was granted to Roger Bigod. The town grew, and became especially prosperous from the settlement there of numerous Flemish weavers in the fourteenth century and of Walloons in Elizabeth's reign. It managed to keep pretty well out of the Civil Wars, but a local historian says, "The inhabitants have been saved from stagnation by the exceeding bitterness with which all party and local political questions are discussed and contested, and by the hearty way in which all classes throw themselves into all really patriotic movements, when their party feeling occasionally sleeps for a month or two." Norwich is pre-eminently a town of churches, into the construction of which flint enters largely, it being dressed with great skill into small roughened cubical blocks.