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 parapet, DIVINITY SCHOOLS. — From Mackenzie and Pugin.

XIX.— WORCESTER COLLEGE.

HE Baron of Brimsfield, John Giffarde, made over, in 1283, to the Benedictine Abbey of St. Peter at Gloucester, a house which he had purchased from the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, and which had originally been the mansion of Gilbert Clare, Earl of Gloucester. It was to be a House of Study for thirteen monks of that Abbey, under the name of Gloucester College. This Benedictine Foundation was the first House of a Monastic Order established in Oxford : unlike Durham College, which was founded shortly afterwards, it admitted no secular students, but was solely for members of the Order. Within ten years the scheme of the College was enlarged, and it became the Oxford I louse of Study for the novices of the great Benedictine Houses generally, such as Glastonbury, St. Albans, Westminster, Evesham, Malmesbury, Norwich. These, separately or jointly, erected several tenements for their students, some of which still remain as described by Wood. But all were equally under control of the Prior, who was elected by the votes of all the students, and were governed by regulations enacted in a General Chapter of the Benedictine Order — regulations which jealously provided for the social isolation, and academical independence of the students. St. Alban's naturally, from its rank among the Benedictine Houses, holds the most important place in the record of their Oxford College. Abbot Whethamsted, who had been its Prior, was so great a benefactor as to be styled " the second Founder " of the College. He contributed largely to the erection of a Chapel (1420), built a Library, and equipped it with books, to which, at his instance, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, made large additions. The dissolution of the Monasteries involved the suppression of the Benedictine College, and its appro- priation by the Crown. Whethamsted 's Chapel and Library were reduced to a ruin ; and the contents of the latter were lost, or dispersed among the other College Libraries, where Wood professes to have seen them " still bear their donor's name."

When Henry VIII. founded the Bishoprick at Osney, Gloucester College was made over to the Eishop for his palace, but in the transference of the Bishoprick to Oxford, it passed again to the Crown, and was ultimately pur- chased by Sir Thomas Whyte for his new foundation of St. John's College. By him it was converted into a Hall with the name of the Principal and Scholars of St. John's Hall : and on St. John Baptist's day 1560, the first Principal, William Stock, and one hundred Scholars took their first commons in the old monks' Refectory. It was in that same year that the body of Amy Robsart was secretly brought from Cumnor to Gloucester College, and lay there in a kind of state till the burial at St Mary's.

St. John Baptist's Hall, or Gloucester Hall (for the old name soon re-asserted itself), had a chequered, but on the whole languishing existence. Men who retired for one reason or another from other Colleges found asylum there for themselves, and sometimes for their families. Thomas Allen, and Degory Whear, Camden's first History Professor, in this way occupied lodgings in the Hall ; of which the latter became Principal in 1626. Whear repaired Hall and Library and Chapel. Under his vigorous administration, assisted by Allen's reputation, the number of the Students rapidly increased. We are told "there were 100 Students; and some being persons of quality, ten or twelve met in their doublets of cloth of gold and silver. " Christopher Merritt, Fellow of the Royal Society, Richard Lovelace, and Sir Kenelm Digby, were during this period members of the Hall. But this brief prosperity came to an end with the outbreak of the Civil Wars. It was deserted of its Students ; its

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