her auspices the restored Abbey and the new Cathedral' both vanished away. One of the first acts of her reign 2 was to erect a new institution in place of her father's cathedral and her sister's convent.

'By the inspiration of the Divine clemency' [so she describes her motive and her object], 'on considering and revolving in our mind 'from what various dangers of our life and many kinds of death with 'which we have been on every side encompassed, the great and good God with His powerful arm hath delivered us His handmaid, destitute ' of all human assistance, and protected under the shadow of His wings, 'hath at length advanced us to the height of our royal majesty, and by 'His sole goodness placed us in the throne of this our kingdom, we 'think it our duty in the first place. . . . to the intent that true 'religion and the true worship of Him, without which we are either 'like to brutes in cruelty or to beasts in folly, may in the aforesaid monastery, where for many years since they had been banished, be 'restored and reformed, and brought back to the primitive form of 'genuine and brotherly sincerity; correcting, and as much as we can, 'entirely forgetting, the enormities in which the life and profession of 'the monks had for a long time in a deplorable manner erred. And 'therefore we have used our endeavours, as far as human infirmity can foresee, that hereafter the documents of the sacred oracles out of which 'as out of the clearest fountains the purest waters of Divine truth may 'and ought to be drawn, and the pure sacraments of our salutary 'redemption be there administered, that the youth, who in the stock of our republic, like certain tender twigs, daily increase, may be 'liberally trained up in useful letters, to the greater ornament of the same republic, that the aged destitute of strength, those especially 'who shall have well and gravely served about our person, or otherwise 'about the public business of our kingdom, may be suitably nourished in things necessary for sustenance; lastly, that offices of charity to 'the poor of Christ,' and general works of public utility, be continued.

6

She then specially names the monumental character of the church, and especially the tomb of her grandfather, The the most powerful and prudent of the kings of the College 'age,' as furnishing a fit site, and proceeds to establish St. Peter.

Church of

the Cathedral Church.' (State Papers, 1562; see ibid. 1689.) It appears as late as in the dedication of South's Sermon to Dolben; and even on Lord Mansfield's monument.

2 Her portrait in the Deanery, traditionally said to have been given by her to Dean Goodman, was really (as appears from an inscription at the back) given to the Deanery by Dean Wilcocks.

the Dean and twelve Prebendaries, under the name of the College, or Collegiate Church of St. Peter, Westminster.

Library.

Henceforth the institution became, strictly speaking, a great academical as well as an ecclesiastical body. The old Dormitory of the monks had already been divided into two compartments. These two compartments were now to be repaired and furnished for collegiate purposes, upon contribution of such 'godly-disposed persons as have and will contribute thereunto.' The Chapter The smaller or northern portion was devoted to the 1574. 'Library.' The Dean, Goodman, soon began to form a Library, and had given towards it a 'Complutensian Bible,' and a Hebrew Vocabulary.' This Library was apparently intended to have been in some other part of the conventual buildings, and it is not till some years later that it 1591. was ordered to be transferred to the great room 'before the old Dorter.' Its present aspect is described in a well-known passage of Washington Irving :

1517.

2

I found myself in a lofty antique hall, the roof supported by massive joists of old English oak. It was soberly lighted by a row of Gothic windows at a considerable height from the floor, and which apparently opened upon the roofs of the Cloisters. An ancient picture, of some reverend dignitary of the Church in his robes,3 hung over the fireplace. Around the hall and in a small gallery were the books, arranged in carved oaken cases. They consisted principally of old polemical writers, and were much more worn by time than use. In the centre of the Library was a solitary table, with two or three books on it, an inkstand without ink, and a few pens parched by long disuse. The place seemed fitted for quiet study and meditation. It was buried deep among the massive walls of the Abbey, and shut up from the tumult of the world. I could only hear now and then the shouts of the schoolboys faintly swelling from the Cloisters, and the sound of a bell tolling for prayers, that echoed soberly along the roofs of the Abbey. By degrees the shouts of merriment grew fainter and fainter, and at length died away. The bell ceased to toll, and a profound silence reigned through the dusky hall.4

It was, however, long before this chamber was fully appropriated to its present purpose. The century had well 1591. nigh run out its sands, and Elizabeth's reign was all but

1587.

1 Chapter Book, 1571.

2 The successive stages of the formation of the Library appear in the Chapter Book, Dec. 2. 1574, May 26, 1587, Dec. 3, 1591.

Dean Williams. (See p. 417.)

4 Irving's Sketch Book, i. 227-229. See Botfield's Cathedral Libraries of England (pp. 430-464), which gives a general account of the contents of the Westminster Library.

The School

closed, when the order, issued in the year before the Armada, was carried out, and then only as regards the southern and larger part of the original Dormitory, which had been devoted to the Schoolroom. Down to that time the Schoolroom, like the Library, had been in some other room. chamber of the monastery. But this chamber, wherever it was, became more evidently unfit for its purpose-too low ' and too little for receiving the number of scholars.' 2 1599. Accordingly, whilst the Library was left to wait, the Schoolroom was pressed forward with all convenient speed.' New 'charitable contributions' were gathered;' and probably by the beginning of the seventeenth century it was prepared for the uses to which it has ever since been destined. Although in great part rebuilt in this century, it still occupies the same space. Its walls are covered with famous names, which in long hereditary descent rival, probably, any place of education in England. Its roof is of the thirteenth century, one of its windows of the eleventh. From its conchlike 3 termination has sprung in several of the public schools the name of 'shell,' for the special class that occupies the analogous position. The monastic Granary, which under Dean Benson had still been retained for the corn of the Chapter, now became, and continued to be for nearly two hundred years, the The old Scholars' Dormitory. The Abbot's Refectory became Dormitory. the Hall of the whole establishment. The Dean and Hall. Prebendaries continued to dine there, at least on certain days, till the middle of the seventeenth century; and then, as they gradually withdrew from it to their own houses, it was left to the Scholars. Once a year the ancient custom is revived, when on Rogation Monday the Dean and Chapter receive in the Hall the former Westminster Scholars, and hear the recitation of the Epigrams, which have contributed for so many years their

1 I have forborne here, as elsewhere, to go at length into the history of the School. It opens a new field, which one not bred at Westminster has hardly any right to enter, and which has been elaborately illustrated by Westminster scholars themselves in the Census Alumnorum Westmonasteriensium, and Lusus Alteri Westmonasterienses. For a brief and lively account of its main features, I may refer to two articles on Westminster School' (by an old schoolfellow of my own), in Blackwood's Magazine for July and

5

School

The College

lively comments on the events of each passing generation.' The great tables, once believed to be of chestnut-wood, but now known to be elm, were, according to a doubtful tradition, presented by Elizabeth from the wrecks of the Spanish Armada. The round holes in their solid planks are ascribed to the cannon-balls of the English ships. They may, however, be the traces of a less illustrious warfare. Till the time of Dean Buckland, who substituted a modern stove, the Hall was warmed by a huge brazier, of which the smoke escaped through the open roof. The surface of the tables is unquestionably indented with the burning coals thence tossed to and fro by the scholars; and the hands of the late venerable Primate (Archbishop Longley) bore to the end of his life the scorching traces of the bars on which he fell as a boy in leaping over the blazing fire.

The collegiate character of the institution was still further kept up, by the close connection which Elizabeth fostered

Its connec

tion with

Christ

Church,

Oxford, and
Trinity
Coilege,

2

6

between the College of Westminster and the two great collegiate houses of Christ Church and Trinity, founded or refounded by her father, at Oxford and Cambridge. Together they formed the three Royal Colleges,' as Cambridge. if to keep alive Lord Burleigh's scheme of making Westminster the third University of England.' The heads of the three were together to preside over the examinations of the School. The oath of the members of the Chapter of Westminster was almost identical with that of the Masters and Fellows of Trinity and Queen's Colleges, Cambridge; couched in the magnificent phraseology of that first age of the Reformation, that they would always prefer truth to custom, the Bible to 'tradition '—('vera consuetis, scripta non scriptis, semper ante'habiturum ') ——that they would embrace with their whole soul 'the true religion of Christ.' The constitution of the body was that not so much of a Cathedral as of a College. The Dean was in the position of the Head;' the Masters in the position of the College Tutors or Lecturers. In the college constitution. hall the Dean and the Prebendaries dined, as the Master and Fellows, or as the Dean and Chapter at Christ

Its collegiate

The present custom in its present form dates from 1857. See Lusus West. ii. 262.

2 It is also found in King Edward's statutes for the University of Cambridge, as part of the oath to be re

quired of Graduates in Divinity and Masters of Arts. From the oath in the Elizabeth Statutes of St. John's, in other respects identical, this clause is curiously omitted.

Church, at the High Table; and below sate all the other members of the body. If the Prebendaries were absent, then, and seemingly not otherwise, it was the duty of the Headmaster to be present.' The Garden of the Infirmary, which henceforth became the College Garden,' was, like the spots so called at Oxford and Cambridge, the exclusive possession of the Chapter, as there of the Heads and Fellows of the Colleges.2 So largely was the ecclesiastical element blended with the scholastic, that the Dean, from time to time, seemed almost to supersede the functions of the Headmaster. In the time of Queen Elizabeth he even took boarders into his house. In the time of James I., as we shall see, he became the instructor of the boys. 'I have placed Lord Barry,' says Cecil, 'at the Dean's 'at Westminster. I have provided bedding and all of my own, 'with some other things, meaning that for his diet and resi'dence it shall cost him nothing.'

As years have rolled on, the union, once so close, between the different parts of the Collegiate body, has gradually been disentangled; and at times the interests of the School may have been overshadowed by those of the Chapter. Yet it may be truly said that the impulse of that first impact has never entirely ceased. The Headmasters of Westminster have again and again been potentates of the first magnitude in the collegiate circle. They were appointed to preach sermons for the Prebendaries. They not seldom were Prebendaries themselves. The names of Camden and of Busby were, till our own times, the chief glories of the great profession they adorned; and of all the Schools which the Princes of the Reformation planted in the heart of the Cathedrals of England, Westminster is the only one which adequately rose to the expectation of the Royal Founders.

As in the Monastery, so in the Collegiate Church, the fortunes of the institution must be traced through the history, partly of its chiefs, partly of its buildings. William THE DEANS. Bill, the first Elizabethan Dean, lived only long enough to complete the Collegiate Statutes, which, however, William Bill, were never confirmed by the Sovereign. He was buried, among his predecessors the Abbots, in the Chapel of St. Benedict. There also, after forty years, was laid his successor, Gabriel Goodman," the Welshman, of

1 Chapter Book, 1563.

2 Ibid. 1564 and 1606.

Ibid. Nov. 14, 1564.

1560-61;

buried July

22, in the

Chapel of St.

Benedict.

• Machyn's Diary, July 22, 1561. 5 See Memoirs of Dean Goodman by Archdeacon Newcome (Ruthin, 1816.)