ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

1

PEDIGREE C (continued).

OF WOMBRIDGE, AND OF STUBBS, HUSBAND OF MRS. DOROTHEA, WIGHTWICK, FROM THE CO-FOUNDER'S COUSIN HUMPHREY.

DESCENT OF FRANCIS WIGHTWICK

178

PEDIGREE OF THE WIGHTWICK FAMILY.

[blocks in formation]

Thomas Ann Tristram. Great-grandparents of Stubbs Wightwick *, of Great
Bloxwich, J.P., D.L. (ob. 1858) DOROTHEA, 3rd dau. of Ric. Fryer, esqre.,
M.P., of the Wergs, Staffs. The main Wightwick line ended with him.

2 Aunt to Jane Lane, who saved King Charles II after Worcester fight.

[graphic]

1 Vide infra, among Benefactors.

PEDIGREE C (continued).

COLLATERAL BRANCH OF THE WIGHTWICK FAMILY.

[blocks in formation]

PEDIGREE OF THE WIGHTWICK FAMILY.

[blocks in formation]

1 To 'my sonne Henrye Wightwicke' were left by his father 'my best gowne, my best satten suits of apparell, my cloake, my saddle, and all my

bookes.'

N 2

179

[graphic]

CHAPTER XIV.

NATALITIA AND STATUTES.

THE Letters Patents and the Charter of Mortmain, dated on the festival of St. Peter the Apostle (June 29), 1624, were read in the common hall on August 5, and at the same time the new Master, Fellows, and Scholars were formally admitted. There was present a large and distinguished company, including the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Prideaux, Robert Lord Dormer, afterwards Earl of Carnarvon, and William Dormer his brother, Sir Francis Godolphin, knight, Sir John Smith, knight, Dr. Daniel Featley (Archbishop Abbot's chaplain), the Proctors, a great number of other Masters, and the Mayor, Recorder, and principal Burgesses of Abingdon. The coFounder, Richard Wightwick, was, it seems, not present. He lived at no great distance, at East Ilsley, but was advanced in years.

3

1 Both entered Exeter this year. Lord Carnarvon fell at Newbury in 1643, being lieutenant-general of the King's forces. Sir Fleetwood Dormer, a cousin, entered Pembroke in 1634. He settled in Virginia.

2 He entered Exeter June 25, 1624. Sidney Earl of Godolphin, Lord High Treasurer, was his third son.

3 Or Fairclough (Fertlow), son of the cook of Magdalen and C. C. C. He was fellow of Corpus. While chaplain to the embassy at Paris he had much learned controversy with the doctors of the Sorbonne. His rectory at Acton was occupied in 1642 by the Roundheads, who taking him 'to be a Papist, or at least that he had a Pope in his belly, they drank and eat up his Provision, burnt down a Barn of his full of Corn, and two Stables, the loss amounting to 2117, and at the same time did not only greatly profane the Church there by their beastly actions, but also burnt the rails, pull'd down the Font, broke the windows and I know not what' (Athenae, ii. 37). They also sought him in the Church to murder him. Featly was however placed in the Assembly of Divines, but, excepting to the Covenant, was judged by the Commons to be a Spye and a betrayer of the Parliaments cause, was seised upon, committed Prisoner to the Lord Petre's house, and his Rectories taken away.' He was allowed, however, to go to Chelsea College, of which he was Provost, to die. Though a Calvinist, his character and polemical abilities are highly extolled by Wood. 'He was of small stature, yet he had a great soul and had all learning compacted in him. He was most seriously and soundly pious and devout.' See Life and Times, ii.

244, n. 3.

CHARTER AND GRANT OF ARMS.

181

When he made his will, four and a half years later, he was 'weak in body.'

Having recited the terms of the Tesdale benefaction, the Patent (as quoted in Wood MS.) proceeds :

'And wheras also Richard Wightwike doth intent to name and elect certaine other fellowes and scholars from ye said schoole into some certaine coll. in ye universitie for ye maintenance of whom he doth indeavour to settle lands and tenements for their maintenance, and thereupon ye Major Ballives and Burgesses of Abingdon supplicated ye King yt he (Will: E. of pembr. chanc. of ye universitie granting his consent) would grant yt within broadgates hall in yo university of Oxon he would constitute a Colledge consisting of Mr fellowes and scholars and yt he would grant to ye sd Mr and fellowes yt they might be made capable to receive lands tenements and hereditaments, the King ordaines and constitutes y within ye said hall of Brodgates be one perpetuall coll of divinity civil and common law arts medicine and other good arts and yt it shld consist of one Mr 10 fellowes and 10 graduat or non-graduate scholars. And ye King further grants yt it shld be a body politick known by yo name of the Master Fellows and Scholars of the foundation of King James at the cost and charges of Thomas Tesdale and Richard Wightwicke. The King assigns nominates and constitutes Thomas Clayton M.D. ye first and modern Mr of ye said coll.'

A Grant of Arms accompanied the instrument of foundation. Burke gives them thus: Per pale azure and gules, three lions rampant, two and one, argent (for Herbert). A chief per pale, or and argent, charged on the dexter side with a rose gules and on the sinister side with a thistle vert (for King James). This is incorrect, as a glance at the actual grant in the muniment-room shows. The chief should be argent and or, as they are blazoned over the door of the Library. But the error, reproduced in Burgon's Arms of the Colleges and on the New Schools, is almost as old as the foundation of Pembroke. The University being exempt from the wholesome jurisdiction of the Heralds' College', it is stated that only two or three of the colleges have a correct shield.

1 Somerset and Bluemantle appeared in 1634 'in their rich coates,' but the University disallowed their commission. Moreover there was sent to the vicechancellor a table of all the College arms blasoned in their proper collours and mettalls set forth by authoritie by Jo. Scott; and that the Colledges could not shewe the heraldes any other armes than them there sett forth, and so it would be needlesse for them to enquyre any further about it' (Life and Times, iv. 52). Wood records of the year 1670, 'Sir Edw. Bish came to visit.' The boat clubs are the leading offenders against heraldic laws, especially the law which forbids the placing of a colour upon a colour, but only on a metal. At Pembroke for a short time the Eight actually bore a white rose on a crimson cap, as though York and Lancaster had never fought! The College colours are cerise and white.

[blocks in formation]

Wightwick's arms are, Azure, on a chevron argent, between three pheons or, as many crosses patée gules.

Tesdale's are, Argent, a chevron, vert, between three teasells proper. Wood mistakes these for leaves or pineapples, vert1. Dean Burgon (who, however, is wrong in his suggestion that the thistle in the College coat should be a teazle 2) saw that they must be a cant on Tesdale's name. Dale the herald describes the arms rightly. The teazles, however, were assumed by the Berkshire family without a grant from Heralds' College. The original blazon was Sable, three pheons argent.

The first oration was delivered by 'THOMAS BROWNE, Studiosus non Graduatus Commensalis Collegii,' afterwards famous as the author of the Religio Medici. He addresses his auditors for the last time by the old name of 'Lateportenses.' They wonder, no doubt, whether he has risen to speak in invidiam Pembrochianorum an in gratiam.' But they have not met to pour forth lamentations over the grave of the Hall. 'En Aulam vestram vagam & àdéσTотov (quem enim hujus domûs patrem aut fundatorem recolimus ?) in tutelam recepit Mecaenas nobilissimus,' who is about to make of a Hall of brick a College of marble, which no envy, or only passing envy, shall look upon. He insists on the continuity of Hall and College: Eadem jura omnia, idem Magister et Principalis, eaedem aedes, nisi quod nobiliores, Lateportensis Pembrochiensis et vice versâ Pembrochiensis Lateportensis, Tros Tyriusque hoc tantum discrimine, quod nos prius titulo nescio quo forte Ironico appellatos jam vere magnificum nomen insigniet.'

The second oration was delivered by JOHN LEE, B.A., one of the new scholars, extremely flowery, and packed with elaborate mytho

1 Gutch, iii. 627.

2 The arms of Tesdale, the unintentional founder of a new College, are not used by the Society. The bearings are those of the Earl of Pembroke, with an augmentation granted by James I of a chief of the badges of England and Scotland. That the latter may have been considered particularly happy in view of the fact that the arms of Tesdale contain a thistle or "teazle" as their principal charge is probable. It has been said that the original grant to the College placed the rose of England upon an argent field, and the thistle of Scotland upon or, in order to equalize as far as possible the honours due to the two countries, and probably also as a delicate compliment to King James. It is to be observed that the portraits of the co-Founder in the hall, dating from 1624, have the arms of the College as they are now borne' (Notes on the Heraldry of the Colleges, by Mr. Percival Landon, in Archaeologia Oxoniensis, part iv, 1894). The last statement is an error. Tesdale's and Wightwick's portraits have a correct shield.

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »