ILLUSTRISSIMO DOMINO ROBERTO MARCHIONI DE SARISBURIA PRAENOBILIS ORDINIS PERISCELIDIS EQUITI SERENISSIMAE BRITANNIARUM REGINAE CONSILIARIO PRINCIPALI ACADEMIAE OXONIENSIS CANCELLARIO COLLEGII PEMBROCHIAE VISITATORI BENIGNISSIMO HAEC QUALIACUMQUE TEMPORIS PRAETERITI MONUMENTA CUM PERMISSU HUMILLIME DEDICAT AUTHOR 'MAY this the youngest College in England have the happiness of a youngest Child, who commonly have in their Mother's love what they lack in the land of their Father.' THOMAS FULLER, in 1662. PREFACE. IT might be impossible to do for one of the greater foundations what is here attempted for a small College, to bring together, namely, in a single volume all that is known of its history, and interweave therewith a kind of Athenae, or series of biographical sketches, of its best remembered sons. The domestic life of these houses of learning is usually sequestered and uneventful. It is difficult for the historian of any particular College 'proprie dicere' even the 'communia' of ancient observance and picturesque tradition which are shared by all-those incongruities between ourselves and our surroundings which are to strangers the attractive charm of Oxford. The chief interest then of an educational institution must always lie in the sons whom (to use the old phrase) it has given to serve God in Church and State. It would indeed be a task worth doing to show on the one hand how probably every College is linked to the successive unfolding movements of thought, literature, and politics by some notable influence contributed by it to the national life, and on the other hand how each is representative of a period. Pembroke, one of the three Stuart Colleges 1, had an old pedigree and considerable fame before the grant of its charter by James the First, and, either as Hall or College, records many eminent and honourable names on its roll. Of a succession of great canonists, 1 Wadham 1610, Pembroke 1624, Worcester 1714. Repyngdon, Bonner, and Story played bold parts in the pre Jewell resided and taught lude or drama of the Reformation. here at a critical part of his career. of law, and of action in the spacious Tudor times were such as Heywoode, Beaumont, Peele, FitzGeffrey, Dyer, Randolph, and the Carews. Pym and Speaker Rous were leaders. in the troubled days that followed. Camden, Corbet, Browne, Collier, exemplify in different ways the Stuart literature. Chief Justice Scroggs recalls the State trials of 'Popish Plot' days. Lord Chancellor Harcourt links us to the wits and tory politicians of 'great Anna's' Augustan age. In the early Georgian period there were almost contemporary at Pembroke the greatest moralist and man of letters, the greatest jurist, and the most famous preacher of the eighteenth century; and of the College days of Johnson and Whitefield, as also of Shenstone and Henderson, interesting records are preserved. Finally, an archbishop has been contributed to each of the primatial sees of Canterbury, York, and Armagh. The difficulty must be to set bounds to the human interest of a College history. Omnia pontus erant, deerant quoque littora ponto.' In some cases, no doubt, the fame of an alumnus has to be shared with another College. If omissions or inaccuracies in so wide a field of history and biography are noticed, the literary limitations of a Wiltshire village may be a plea for indulgence. The author's task has been made much easier by earlier publications of the Oxford Historical Society, and by Mr. Foster's monumental work. The existence of the Alumni Oxonienses has rendered it unnecessary to give in every case dates of degrees and detailed biographical particulars. Other obligations I must be content gratefully to acknowledge without always naming them. But I may express my especial gratitude to a friend of many years, GEORGE WOOD, Fellow of Pembroke, who has made rather than found time amid tutorial and bursarial duties to revise the proof-sheets of this book, and without whose vigilant help its blemishes would have been many more. I have to thank the Reverend the Master and the Fellows for giving me access to the College muniments, as well as for individual assistance. I had designed to append a catalogue of Fellows, Scholars, Gentlemen-Commoners, Commoners, and Servitors; but the addition of four or five thousand names would have so swollen the bulk of the volume that it has been thought undesirable. My rough materials for the purpose, collected chiefly out of the Alumni Oxonienses, will be deposited in the College library, as an assistance towards a Registrum Collegii, to be compiled, perhaps, by some future generation. DOUGLAS MACLEANE. Lent, 1897. |