Pembroke Hall, Cambridge

“ SAMPSON, THOMAS (1517?–1589) , puritan divine, born at Playford, Suffolk, about 1517, was educated at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. There is no evidence to show that he took a degree at Cambridge. It is said that he also studied at Oxford, but it is only certain that he was admitted a student of the Inner Temple, London, in February 1546–7 (Cooke, Students admitted to the Inner Temple, p. 2) . ”

“ FOLBURY, GEORGE (d. 1540) , master of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, graduated B.A. at Cambridge in 1514, was preacher to the university in 1519, took the degree of B.D. in 1524, was presented to a canonry and to the prebend of North Newbald in his church of York in March 1531, to the rectory of Maidwell, Northamptonshire, on 20 Feb. 1533-4, elected master of Pembroke Hall in 1537, and died between 10 July and 10 Nov. ”

“ His contemporary, the poet Gray, who was as much at home at Pembroke as at Peterhouse, wrote in 1747 that Smart ‘must be abîmé in a very short time by his debts.’ At this very time Smart was amusing himself by writing a ‘comedy,’ or rather an extravaganza, which he called ‘A Trip to Cambridge, or the Grateful Fair,’ which was acted during the summer of 1747 in Pembroke Hall, and was said to be the last play acted in Cambridge by undergraduates until comparatively recent times. ”

“ By the xv century the buildings round a courtyard easily assume the plan of the new domestic dwelling of that epoch, of which the type is Haddon Hall Derbyshire and, in Cambridge, Queens’ College: the college domus of the xiv century becomes the quadrangular manor-house of the xvth and xvith. In such a scheme of public buildings only a few scholars could be lodged in the main court, and smaller quadrangles for their accommodation were therefore added. University Hostel formed one side of such a second court in Pembroke ”

“ Other similar foundations were soon created: the King’s Scholars (later incorporated as King’s Hall) in 1317, Michael-House in 1324, Clare in 1325, Pembroke in 1347, Gonville in 1348, Trinity Hall in 1350, and Corpus Christi in 1352. Every new college that was established provided fresh definite ties with the locality, and rendered less likely the break-up of the University and the scattering of its members—a serious risk to which in early days it was always subject. ”

“ Pembroke College, Cambridge, reduced from Loggan's print, taken about 1688.
A, Chapel; B, Library; C, Hall; D, Master's Lodge; E, Kitchen; F, Master's Garden; G, Fellows' Garden.
The upper chamber (solarium) which Thomas Cobham (Bishop of Worcester 1317-27) began to build over the old [150] Congregation House on the north side of S. Mary's Church, Oxford, about 1320, for the reception of the books which he intended to present to the University, is the earliest of these libraries in existence. ”

“ In Lady Pembroke’s Summer Dressing-room there is a Gothic window by Price, “to whom Parliament granted £5,000 for having discovered the ancient method of staining glass.”
The Hall.
The house is made thoroughly comfortable as a home; it has never been abandoned by the family, but has been their continual residence. Everywhere, consequently, there is an aspect of thorough comfort. Grace, elegance, and indeed splendour, are sufficiently apparent, but the obvious study has long been to render the dwelling in all respects the abode of an English nobleman who loved to live among his own people. ”

“ Under this window a hunting-party of these rude lads raised in the early morning the cry of fire; the poet’s night-capped head appeared and was at once withdrawn. This, or little more than this, was the simple fact out of which arose the legend still current at Cambridge. The servile authorities of Peterhouse treated Gray’s complaints with scant respect, and he migrated to Pembroke College. ”

“ The picturesque and collegiate-looking building which arose in 1873 for the accommodation of 21 students, was thus the first residential college for women ever built in connexion with a university. It was, like Pembroke, the result of a woman’s intention to found and finish a domus seu aula scholarium, the scholars being, for the first time, of the sex of the founder. ”

“ Pembroke pledged himself to die in the cause, amid general applause. The same evening Mary was proclaimed queen at the cross at Cheapside, and at St. Paul's. Pembroke took possession of the Tower, and Arundel, with Lord Paget, galloped off with the great seal and a letter from the council, which he delivered to Mary at Framlingham Castle in Suffolk (tjie draft of this letter is printed in Sir Henry Ellis's 2nd series of 'Original Letters,' ii. 243, from Lansdowne MS. 3) . He then hastened to Cambridge to secure Northumberland. ”

“ Gell, the antiquary and explorer of Pompeii, who died in 1836, was also an Emmanuel man. But the present century, although the standard of work and scholarship has been high, is not prolific in eminent names. Our greatest living historian, Dr Creighton, held a fellowship at Emmanuel according to the terms of the Dixie Professorship, but Cambridge cannot count him as her own. At present, the college is rapidly increasing in numbers and emulates the modern popularity of Pembroke ”

“ William Herbert, 3rd earl of Pembroke (1580–1630) , son of the 2nd earl and his famous countess, was a conspicuous figure in the society of his time and at the court of James I. Several times he found himself opposed to the schemes of the duke of Buckingham, and he was keenly interested in the colonization of America. He was lord chamberlain of the royal household from 1615 to 1625 and lord steward from 1626 to 1630. He was chancellor of the university of Oxford in 1624 when Thomas Tesdale and Richard Wightwick re founded Broadgates Hall and named it Pembroke College in his honour. ”

“ Entering Silver Street, a mean thoroughfare, all too narrow for its volume of traffic, and demanding no small caution from all and sundry, we have on our left a building for all the world like a College—so frequently, indeed, mistaken for one by newcomers, as to have gained the nickname of "the Freshman's College." In reality this is the University Printing Press, or the Pitt Press, as it is commonly called; the existing frontage opposite Pembroke having been erected in 1831, in memory of that statesman, who was a member of Pembroke College. ”

“ With regard to picturesqueness and architectural merit it is difficult to assign the pre-eminence to either place, so far as the University and Collegiate buildings are concerned. Of each distinctive feature, considered separately, the choicest specimen is to be found in Cambridge—the best College Chapel at King's; the finest College Hall and College Courts at Trinity; the most characteristic and beautiful Library at St. John's. But, out-taken these, Oxford can show several examples of each feature better than the next best at Cambridge. ”

“ The accounts of the institution remain, and point to a style of living which would not be very highly accounted of now, but was positively luxurious for medieval Cambridge. The scholars attended chapel at St Mary’s by the Market and All Saints’ in the Jewry, until, in Edward IV.’s reign, they obtained leave to found a chapel for themselves. King’s Hall naturally became the nucleus of Henry’s college, and the lesser buildings found their centre in its court, enlarged and beautified. John Redman, the last master of King’s Hall, became the first master of Trinity College. ”

“ This arrangement is still found in some of the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, such as those of New College, Christchurch, Wadham and Magdalen, Oxford, and in Trinity College, Cambridge. In private mansions, however, the kitchen and offices have been removed to a greater distance, and the great hall is only used for banquets. ”

“ The architectural detail of the Sheldonian Theatre, which, however, is chiefly remarkable for its noble interior, is much in advance of the Pembroke chapel; but its completion did not take place till 1669, and he had by that time had plenty of time for education in correct classical expression, and the lesson was effectively learnt. The elegant façade of the chapel of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, commenced in 1668, shows full command of architectural technicality. ”

“ I have already spoken of Ella Longspée and the Lady Devorgilla, and in the following century their noble example was followed by Philippa of Hainault, the foundress of Queen’s College, Oxford, and Mary de St. Pol, the widowed countess of Pembroke, who founded Pembroke College, Cambridge, and was chosen on account of her virtue and learning to direct the education of Queen Philippa’s daughters. No one can study the histories of those times without being frequently struck by the superiority which appears in the characters of their illustrious women. ”

“ This Bowling Green lies to the west of Trinity Chapel, and is one of the choicest gems of Cambridge, a gracious, walled oblong of turf, with a wooded terrace overlooking the river at its western end, and at the east, the lately discovered fourteenth century front of the College Bursary, once forming part of King's Hall. The privilege of entering this Paradise can only be attained under the escort of a Fellow. ”

“ And indeed there is hardly perhaps another College in Cambridge which stirs the hearts of its members with a more passionate enthusiasm of loyalty than this, which yet never speaks of itself as a “College,” but always proudly as “The Hall.” It was founded by William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich, in 1350, but it had an earlier origin than this. On the southern part of the present site there stood an old house, which had been provided some thirty years earlier for the use of the student-monks of Ely attending the University by the then Prior. ”

“ Two things only they have left behind them for which they merit gratitude. Firstly, a bundle of deeds and manuscripts, inconsiderable to them, very valuable to the scholars and historians of the future; and secondly, their fine old church and monastic buildings.
In writing in a previous chapter of the buildings of Queens’ we drew attention to the fact that the general plan of the College followed in the main the lines of a large country house such as Haddon Hall. And in degree this is true of the other college buildings in Cambridge. ”

“ One of the prettiest spots in the whole University is the tiny medieval court on the north side of Corpus. You have only to turn your back on the ugly Hall, and look at three sides of a venerable, low quadrangle clothed with ivy and stained with age, and you can imagine yourself back in the days of the Edwards, when the pious members of the Cambridge benefit societies founded the college. Times have changed, and the court has been repaired fairly often ”

“ Of the original buildings of the little hostel nothing remains, and the quadrangle was not commenced until 1424, but the tragedy which befell the college took place in the second half of the eighteenth century, when James Essex, who built the dreary west front of Emmanuel, was turned loose in the court. His hand was fortunately stayed before he had touched the garden side of the southern wing, and the picturesque range of fifteenth-century buildings, including the hall and combination room, remains one of the most pleasing survivals of mediaeval architecture in Cambridge. ”

“ But with the great extension of the University curriculum, by the addition of a host of literary and scientific subjects to the Mathematics which had previously been the sole avenue to a Degree, there has come as marked an increase in the number of students, and the old College classification has broken down. Trinity, indeed, remains at the top, even more than ever, having almost doubled its overwhelming numbers; but St. John's has been caught up and overpassed by several of the once "small" Colleges, amongst them by Pembroke. And yet, in the year 1858, Pembroke had only one solitary freshman ”

“ Literature pure and simple has never been well represented at “the Hall.” Thomas Tusser was educated here, but a great gap exists between the old-fashioned bucolic poet and the next writer. The name of Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton (* copy from Maclise) is, however, not inconsiderable. His part in nineteenth-century literature may be very largely ascribed to his Cambridge associations and friendships. And the growth of an essentially modern science has been stimulated by another Trinity Hall man, Henry Fawcett (* Rathbone) , Postmaster General and Professor of Political Economy from 1863 to 1884. ”

“ To experts well acquainted with both places the minute shades of difference are of extreme interest; but to the average visitor the places are as like as twin sisters. The very names of the Colleges are the same in no less than a third of the cases. If there is a Trinity at Cambridge there is also a Trinity at Oxford, if there is a Magdalen at Oxford there is a Magdalene at Cambridge; while St. John's, Jesus, Corpus Christi, and Pembroke are all in like manner duplicated. And, both at Oxford and Cambridge, Colleges are named from Queens ”

“ The three easternmost bays are taken up by the dining-hall or refectory, the westernmost is devoted to the buttery, the intervening bay is occupied by the screens and passage, at either end of which there still remain the original north and south doorways, interesting as being the earliest example of collegiate architecture in Cambridge. The windows of this hall on the south side date from the end of the fifteenth century. The north-east oriel window and the buttresses on the north side of the hall were added by Sir Gilbert Scott in 1870, who also built the new screen, panelling, and roof. ”