CHAPTER VIII. SIXTEENTH CENTURY LAWYERS AND CANONISTS. WHILE Broadgates Hall (now comprising at least New College and Abingdon Chambers, Broadgates itself, Cambey's and Mine) was extending its borders to right and left, the long-gathering storm of ecclesiastical reformation broke over the land, shaking especially the Universities. The unendowed Halls were affected by the course of events even more than the Colleges, since the confiscation of the monastic revenues deprived the poorer clerks of their exhibitions and means of support, and the University was almost destitute of scholars.' At the beginning of Elizabeth's reign only nine Halls, the number of the Muses, were left, viz. Alban, Broadgates, Hart, Gloucester, White, New Inn, Edmund, St. Mary, and Magdalen. Three of these are mentioned by Nicholas Robinson1 as still devoted to legal studies Candida, Lata, Nova, studiis civilibus apta, The times were not favourable to the Civil Law. Not only were 1 Queen Elizabeth in Oxford, 1566. Wood however, under date 1551, says that 'the present Halls' (those i. e. that were halls in his day), especially those of Edmund and New Inn, were void of Students' (Gutch, ii. 110). English Universities, i. § 81. THE REFORMATION AND CIVIL LAW. 75 sought permission from the Pope for ecclesiastics to study the Civil Law, that they might have counsellors. There was, it is true, a strongly Cæsarean feeling in Henry VIII and his son. The jurists having been encouraged to exclude the artists' from the Convocation which met on April 8, 1530, to consider the Divorce, the King next forbade the granting by Oxford of degrees in Canon Law, but endowed a Civil Law Professorship, with a salary of £40, together with chairs of Theology, Greek, Hebrew, and Medicine. Edward VI's Letters Patents of 1549 recite that it hath been shewn us that the study of the Civil Law is almost extinct. We therefore impose care and solicitude on you ut quibus poteritis viis et modis illud excitetis et amplificetis.' The king prescribed that the Law Reader should lecture on the Pandects, the Code, or the Ecclesiastical Laws of the Realm. He seems to have purposed to gather all the civilians into one College', the physicians into another. During Elizabeth's reign the Universities, so violently handled, were gathering anew their scattered force. Whereas in 1551, of 1015 names on the Oxford buttery books, 'the greater part were absent and had taken their last farewell,' the students now began to return. The Schools of Arts were no longer used by laundresses to dry their clothes in. The Puritan idea that the old exercises were ridiculous and degrees anti-Christian was weakened, and the 'barbarous insolencies upon treasures of good letters' stopped. But the graduates in jurisprudence were still few. Nevertheless Broadgates Hall was presided over by a succession of able lawyers, some of whom were men of eminence in an eminent age. It did more perhaps than any English institution to keep the Law of Nations alive. When in 1603 the dissolution of the faculty was feared, the Chancellor declared that this Academy possesses four heads or ornaments, upon which as its firmest foundations the whole structure of the University has been placed, that is the faculties of Theology, Jurisprudence, Medicine, and Artes Humaniores; of which if one were taken away the fall of the whole edifice would ensue.' And James I gave the University the right to elect two burgesses who should be grave and learned men professing the Civil Law. The first Principal of note was Wolsey's friend, BRIAN HIGDEN (1505-1508), B.C.L. 1500, LL.D. 1506, May 282. 1 Doctors' Commons, incorporated in 1768 as 'the College of Doctors of Law exercent in the Ecclesiastical and Admiralty Courts,' was founded by Dr. Hervie, Dean of Arches, in 1568. It was demolished in 1894. Trinity Hall was founded chiefly for civilians. There is said to have been a college for professors of civil and canon law in London as early as the eighth century! See Registrum Univ. vol. i. ed. Boase, O. H. S., p. 290. 76 SOME PRINCIPALS-HIGDEN, ARCHE. On giving up his principality he became parson successively of Buchenhall (1508), of Kirkby (1511), and of Nettleton (1513). In 1508 Higden was preferred to a stall at Lincoln, becoming sub-dean in 1511. In 1515 he was made archdeacon of the West Riding of York, the next year (June 20) canon of York, with the prebend of Ulleskelf-where Leland says he built ‘a pleasant house'—and a week later Dean of York. He was also canon of St. Paul's. He may have owed his preferments in part to his having been on the council of Henry VII's natural son, the Duke of Richmond; but he appears to have been a man of striking ability. In 1526, Dean Higden was a Commissioner with Ralph Fane, Earl of Westmoreland, for the signing a treaty of peace with the King of Scots, which they effected with great quickness and success. The next year we find him writing to Wolsey complaining of the transference of ecclesiastical causes from his court to London. After the Cardinal's fall, however, he continued on a friendly footing with Cromwell. As he grew old his intellects seem to have given way. Colyns, treasurer of York, writes to Cromwell, Jan. 12, 1538, that the Dean was 'a crasytt.' There was some design of pensioning him off, but he died in his office on June 5, 1539, and was buried in the south cross aisle of the Minster. The brass and epitaph have disappeared. He presented the church with a fine cope. He is styled by Wood a 'Benefactor to Learning,' and a fellowship at Brasenose was founded by him. In 1508 his name appears as a 'judex ad inquirendum de pace' between Allhallows Church and St. Martin's1. Brian's brother, John Higden, was President of Magdalen and the first Dean of King Henry the Eighth's College. RICHARD ARCHE, or ARCHER, LL.B., Principal 1526, was vicar of Ramsbury, 1518, and of Avebury, 1520. He supplicated for D.C.L., Jan. 18, 153, but was not then admitted. Richard Wolman dying at that time, Cromwell succeeded him in the deanery of Windsor, and Arche stepped into his prebendal stall. At the same time the King made him one of his chaplains. He was vicar of Hanney, near Wantage, 1543, and rector of Clewer, 1554. In that year he became canon of Sarum, having already, on Innocents' Day, 1551, succeeded Matthew Wootton as treasurer there. On the walls of a cell in the Beauchamp Tower are rudely cut the words: 1570: IHON-STORE. DOCTOR.' They were carved during his last imprisonment by JOHN STORY, who has been diversely regarded as 'a harmless old man,' and as the worst, next to Bonner, of the persecutors of the reformed beliefs. Strype says that he was at Broadgates with Bonner, but the dates refute this. Story was first at Henxey Hall in St. Aldate's parish, whence he proceeded D.C.L. July 29, 1538 (B.C.L. May 8, 1531). In 1537 he was elected Reg. Univ. vol. i. p. 296. Principal of Broadgates, being a most noted Civilian and Canonist of his time.' When Henry VIII's Commissioners established the Civil Law Lecture, Story, who already, it appears, had some kind of salary from the King, was appointed chief Moderator. Afterwards performing excellent service at the Siege of Bologne in Picardie, in the administration of the Civil Law under the Lord-Marshall there, the King, in consideration thereof, did renew his former grant of the said Lecture in form of Letters Patent for the term of life of the said John, in the Year 1546 or thereabouts, joyning with him for his ease Mr. Rob. Weston, Fellow of All Souls College,' and afterwards Principal of Broadgates. He was also an advocate of Doctors' Commons. The Puritan historians accuse him of very irregular conduct while at Oxford. At Mary's accession his patent was renewed, but Story resigned the Regius Professor's chair to Aubrey, and became Chancellor of the dioceses of London and Oxford, and dean of the Arches. He sate in Parliament for Hindon, 1547-52, for East Grinstead, 1553, for Bramber, 1554, for Ludgershall, 1554, 1555, for Downton, 1558. In Edward's first Parliament Story, speaking against the Prayer Book, boldly cited the text 'Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child' (Eccl. x. 16). He then retired into Flanders till Mary's accession. Story was Queen's Proctor at the trial of Archbishop Cranmer in St. Mary's, being 'a furious zealot for the religion of Boner' (Coote). At the trial of Philpots he said: 'I tell thee that there hath never yet been any one burnt but I have spoken with him and have been a cause of his despatch.' Philpots: 'You have the more to answer for, master doctor, as you shall find in another world.' Philpots avowed however that Joan Bocher had deserved her burning, 'because she stood against one of the manifest articles of the faith, contrary to the Scriptures.' Story was employed to restore the roods and images. He made a bold and passionate speech, openly in Parliament, against the princess Elizabeth, affirming the folly of lopping branches from the tree of Heresy when the root was suffered to remain. He could hardly hope at her accession to escape the axe and cord, if once trapped. Thrown into hold he broke out and escaped overseas to Antwerp, 'where he continued a most bloody persecutor, still raging against God's saints with fire and sword. Insomuch as he, growing to be familiar and right dear to the Duke of Alva, received special commission from him to search the ships for goods forfeited and for English books' (Foxe). For this office he was recommended by his knowledge of civil law. The hatred with which he was held by his countrymen rested less on religious grounds, it has been thought, than on commercial resentment. 'At length being invited under hand to search the Ship of one Parker, an English Man, went unwarily therein: Whereupon Parker causing the hatches to be shut when Storie was searching under deck, he hoised sail and brought him Prisoner into England about the beginning of Decemb. 1570. So that being clap'd up close Prisoner within the Tower of London 78 ARCHBISHOP YOUNG. did undergo several examinations'. He repeatedly refused the oath of the Supremacy, and declined even to plead, audaciously declaring himself no subject of the Queen's. He would only say, 'I wish for my part that I had done more than I did.' He was accused of treasonable correspondence with the Nevilles and Nortons. After being prayed for and animated in his faith by John Fekenham, Abbot of Westminster, a fellow-prisoner, the old man was drawn on a hurdle to Tyburn, June 1, 1571. The scene on the scaffold, after he had delivered a 'grave and becoming' address, was one of revolting and indescribable horror. After death, his head was set on London bridge and his quarters on four gates of the City. He had wished to be buried within the Grey Friars of Louvain, to which convent he had left 20 florens' for his funeral exequies. He had been a lay brother of that order and a signal benefactor. Together with More, Fisher, and others of that bloody time, John Story has been beatified by the papal see. Strype describes him as 'worse than Boner. Yet notwithstanding Story is made a saint at Rome, and his martyrdom printed and set up in the English College there. He was the son of Nicholas and Joan Story. Several other Principals were persons of eminence. One, THOMAS YONGE, became Archbishop of York and Lord President of the North. Wood writes: 3 'Thomas Yong a learned Civilian, Son of John [son of Brian] Yong of Pembrokshire by Elianor his Wife, was born in that County, became a Student in the Univ. of Oxon (in Broadgates hall as it seems) about the year 1528 [B.A. 1529, M.A. 1534], where applying his muse to the study of the Civil Law took a degree in that faculty nine years after [1538], being then in sacred Orders.' D.C.L. 1565. He held various Welsh preferments. 'In 1542 he was made principal of the said hall, and soon after Chantor and Canon of S. Davids; where, being much scandalized at the unworthy actions of Rob. Ferrar Bishop of that place, did, with others, draw up articles against him; which being proved before the Kings Commissioners, the said Bishop was imprison'd in the time of K. Ed. 6. In the reign of Q. Mary, Th. Yong fled from the nation for religion sake, and remained in Germany in an obscure condition during her time. But when Q. Elizabeth came to the Crown, and H. Morgan, another accuser of Rob. Ferrar had been depriv'd of his Bishoprick of S. Davids, the said Yong was design'd to succeed him.' He was Spital preacher in 1557, was consecrated in January, 1559, but a year later by Parker's advice was 1 Ath. i. 132. 2 Annals, I. (ii) 297. 4 3 Strype (Annals, I. (i) 370) blames Yonge, though he 'was charactered to be a virtuous and godly man.' Farrar would not visit his cathedral. He suffered by burning under Mary. He was one of six who had the courage to avow reformed opinions in the first Convocation of Mary's reign. The place of his exile was Wesel. Scory and about a hundred others shared it. These refugees did not scruple the use of the Common Prayer. |