All Souls College, Oxford in the Early Eighteenth Century

Scientific and Learned Cultures

and Their Institutions

Editor

M. Feingold (California Institute of Technology)

volume 24

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/slci

 All Souls College, Oxford
in the Early Eighteenth Century
Piety, Political Imposition, and Legacy of
the Glorious Revolution

By

Jeffrey R. Wigelsworth

leiden | boston
Cover illustration: Aerial shot of All Souls College, Oxford. © Jeffrey R. Wigelsworth

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Wigelsworth, Jeffrey R., author.

Title: All Souls College, Oxford in the early eighteenth century : piety,
political imposition, and legacy of the Glorious Revolution / by Jeffrey
R. Wigelsworth.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2018. | Series: Scientific and learned
cultures and their institutions, ISSN 2352-1325 ; Volume 24 | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018026492 (print) | LCCN 2018027555 (ebook) | ISBN
9789004375352 (e-book) | ISBN 9789004375338 (hardback : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: All Souls College (University of Oxford)--History--18th
century. | Gardiner, Bernard, 1668-1726. | Great
Britain--History--Revolution of 1688--Influence.
Classification: LCC LF535 (ebook) | LCC LF535 .W54 2018 (print) | DDC
378.425/74--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018026492

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.

issn 2352-1325
isbn 978-90-04-37533-8 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-37535-2 (e-book)

Copyright 2018 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi,
Brill Sense and Hotei Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without prior written permission from the publisher.
Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided
that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite
910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change.

This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents

Preface vii
Abbreviations xii

Introduction 1

1 Gardiner and the House of Commons Bill 28

2 Gardiner, Matthew Tindal, and The Rights of the Christian

Church Asserted 49

3 Gardiner and the Trouble with Medicine 71

4 Gardiner and the Case of William Blencowe 86

5 John Stead’s Marriage and Gardiner’s Final Loss of Authority 113

6 Gardiner and the Attempted Reform of Universities 144

Conclusion 177

Bibliography 191
Index 202
Preface

As with a lot of my research and writing, this book is a result of serendipity. It

was in the Codrington Library at All Souls College in the summer of 2003 when
I was researching Matthew Tindal for part of my PhD, that I came across the
animated correspondence of Bernard Gardiner. Over the next decade, when-
ever I made trips to Oxford and London, I collected material piecemeal while
I worked on other projects. It has been over the last few years that I have been
able to focus completely, if somewhat sporadically, on this colourful warden,
his disputes within All Souls, and the wider political world of eighteenth cen-
tury England. This resulted in two earlier articles (I thank Oxford University
Press for permission to reuse some material in the present book):

“The Battle for Religion in Eighteenth-Century Oxford: All Souls College,

the Warden, the Fellows, the House of Commons, the Archbishop of Can-
terbury, and the Queen of England,” History of Universities 26/2 (2012):
150–195.
“Of Gowns and Governments: The Spectre of James ii at the University
of Oxford in the early Eighteenth Century,” History of Universities, 27/2
(2013): 116–145.

After completing these pieces, I remained convinced that a more robust story
could be told, one that merited a book-length examination. I hope readers will
agree with me.
Like many modern academics I experience external pressure with respect
to the worthiness and merit of my profession in an age that increasingly ques-
tions the value of the liberal arts. I have no doubt that this environment of
government and public demands for job-ready graduates influenced my inter-
est in Gardiner’s wardenship. I read his enthusiastically argued defenses of the
value of the traditional place of Oxford and All Souls within post 1688-England
with an understanding eye. In many cases I felt for Gardiner and empathized
with his frustrations, even thought I acknowledge that the world he wanted
to maintain is not one in which I would want to live. Gardiner was no doubt
quick-tempered, sharp tongued, fast to the fight (spoiling in fact) and in many
ways entirely disagreeable. But it was his passion for the position that educa-
tion and universities in England, which to his mind carried a somewhat time-
less mission of imparting scholarly aptitude and intellectual rigour, should be
at arm’s length from the vicissitudes of government, that I admired. There is
something captivating about him and his experiences. Writing in 1874, ­Montagu
viii Preface

Burrows, Chichele Professor of Modern History1 at Oxford, commented that,

“Bernard Gardiner is more than a Warden of All Souls. He is a public character
of whom a great deal is to be said, in his capacity of Vice-Chancellor and Pro-
Vice-­Chancellor, at the most critical period of Oxford history in modern
times.”2 There has been little follow-up on Burrow’s astute comment.
While it is not my intention to draw concrete parallels between Gardiner and
the modern age, it is worth reflecting briefly on the contemporary situation of
British universities because the present always shapes conceptions of the past
and my view of Gardiner is no exception. In a scathing commentary, published
in the Chronicle of Higher Education (April 2015), noted English scholar Terry
Eagleton criticized the current state of Britain’s universities and the pressures
these institutions face. With his usual deftness of prose, Eagleton bemoaned
the emphasis on job training, driven by market factors and industry need, in
universities that used to see the goal of education as creating well-rounded in-
dividuals who are able to conceptualize the human condition within multiple
scholarly frameworks. This focus on jobs, employability, and offering courses
that carry a “measurable impact on society,” in Eagleton’s view, converted uni-
versities from centres of higher learning into training centres that will create
human capital for the nation’s business ventures. “Senior professors are now
senior managers, and the air is thick with talk of auditing and accountancy,”
he noted. What is more, “As professors are transformed into managers, so stu-
dents are converted into consumers.” Outside pressure is dictating curriculum
and subject matter. In a somewhat sarcastic predication, Eagleton envisioned
that, “If English departments survive at all, it may simply be to teach business
students the use of the semicolon….”3
In his analysis Eagleton mentioned that the University of Oxford and its
various colleges have remained rather insulated from these changes and “stood
firm” against suggestions of modernization. These colleges, he wrote, are “pre-
modern institutions” that reward inward thinking rather than outward glances
at labour markets and employment statistics. While a lovely thought, it is not
quite borne out in either practical or historical experience. Since the 1950s, and
indeed earlier, Oxford has been a modern university in which the majority of
students pursue various sciences. But, at the same time, outside observers see
Oxford as a medieval antique, a vestige of a bygone age where wealthy young

1 In 1984 the chair was renamed the Chichele Professor of Medieval History.
2 Worthies of All Souls, 349.
3 Terry Eagleton, “The Slow Death of the University,” The Chronicle of Higher Education
(6 April 2015).
Preface ix

men discuss esoteric literature while drinking sherry.4 This contradiction be-
tween perception and reality plays out negatively when Oxford is viewed as a
reflection of the national character. When that character changes, Oxford is
obliged to follow suit. As I will show in this book changes in national charac-
ter also put pressure on Oxford and All Souls in the early eighteenth century.
Along with the monarchy and the Anglican Church, Oxford represents the
establishment. This makes sense because Oxford supplies a greater percent-
age of Britain’s politicians and cabinet ministers than any other university. Be-
tween 1900 and 1985, of the 972 minsters who attended university, about 47%
spent time at Oxford. Consider further that of the twelve Prime Minsters from
Anthony Eden (1955–1957) to Theresa May (2016—), nine were Oxford under-
graduates. Dissatisfaction with the status quo, be it from the general public or
politicians, tends to avoid the monarchy and church as sacrosanct while Ox-
ford bears the brunt of the displeasure.5 For example, the 1963 Committee on
Higher Education heavily criticized Oxford’s claimed right of self-governance
in an age where increasingly large proportions of the university’s operating
budget came from public money.
It was in the aftermath of World War One that the University Grants Com-
mittee (ugc) was set up to distribute a modest amount of funds to the nation’s
universities with the hope of increasing the number of students. But it was fol-
lowing World War Two that such efforts came to fruition when the optimism of
victory led to thoughts of an egalitarian and prosperous British society. When
this did not happen, successive governments and opposition politicians de-
manded a reassessment of universities such as occurred in 1963. This was also
the time of the Anderson Committee report (1960) that established student
grants.6 Under the Conservative administration of Margaret Thatcher (1979–
1990), the process of bringing universities inline with government priorities—
what Stefan Collini dubbed “the Thatcher government’s Kulturkampf against
universities”—was entrenched.7 Both Thatcher and her education minister,
Sir Keith Joseph, saw Oxford as an “anti-business and snobbish” institution

4 Evans, Oxford, ix.

5 Joseph A. Soares, The Decline of Privilege: The Modernization of Oxford University (Stan-
ford: Stanford University, 1999), 1–2, 4, 5; Stefan Collini, What are Universities For? (London:
Penguin, 2012), 31–32; Brockliss, Oxford, vii.
6 A.H. Halsey and Martin Trow, The British Academics (London: Faber and Faber, 1971), 60;
“Report of the Committee on Higher Education appointed by the Prime Minister” (1963) in
Educational Documents: England and Wales 1816–1967, ed. J. Stuart Maclure (London: Chap-
man and Hall, 1968), 288–300; Collini, What are Universities For?, 21–22; Soares, The Decline of
Privilege, 3; Evans, Oxford, 60.
7 Collini, What are Universities For?, 22.
x Preface

that needed to be brought to heel. The ugc was abolished and block grants
replaced by line item funding, which was focussed in targeted directions and to
fulfill specific government wants.8 Oxford now dealt directly with the minister.
John Major, Thatcher’s heir, continued in the same vein: increased enrolment
and decreased funding; thereby reducing the per-student cost of university
education on the public treasury. Subsequent governments have shown little
appetite to turn back the clock and restore Oxford’s historic autonomy.
But what autonomy did Oxford and its colleges really possess, historical-
ly? When the national character changed after 1688, how was this borne by
Oxford and All Souls College? While the motives of those involved were not
identical, modern demands on universities are made within a secular frame-
work compared to the deeply religious convictions that characterise the near-­
confessional state of early-eighteenth century England, the end game was
similar. It is such a history that I address in this book by considering a specific
moment, the lingering political and religious uncertainly in England result-
ing from the traumas engendered by the 1688 Revolution, within a particular
college at the University of Oxford: All Souls and its warden Bernard Gardiner
who held the post from 1702–1726.
For their generosity in Oxford, I am grateful to Janet McMullin and Judith
Curthoys at Christ Church; Julian Reid and the student assistants at Merton
College; Jennifer Thorp at New College; and Norma Aubertin-Potter, Gaye Mor-
gan, along with the wonderful staff at the Codrington Library, All Souls. At the
Bodleian Library, Collin Harris was generous with his time. Staff members at
the British Library were always helpful. Many enjoyable hours were spent in
these archives. I thank the anonymous readers from Brill for their observations
and criticisms on an earlier version of this book, which improved it in many
ways. I also thank Moti Feingold and John Clarke for their astute comments.
I  am very appreciative of the work done by my research assistant Carmen
Cookson-Hills. A Standard Research Grant from The Social Sciences and Hu-
manities Research Council of Canada and the Professional Development Fund
at Red Deer College supported this research.
My wife Alison was a constant source of encouragement, even when it
seemed this book would never find a home and I doubted myself. Her faith in
my abilities is immeasurable and my capacity to offer sufficient thanks pales
in comparison. Would that all historians and writers have someone in their
corners as supportive as the wonderful partner I have in mine.

8 Soares, The Decline of Privilege, 3; William Whyte, Redbrick: A Social and Architectural History
of Britain’s Civic Universities (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 275, 283–285.
Preface xi

I dedicated this book to my parents, Linda and Bob Wigelsworth. Mom did
not live to see this book completed; she did not live to see a lot of much more
important things either. Pulmonary Fibrosis robbed her of a future with her
grandchildren (two of whom she never met) and of sunny days that she will
never know. It was not a battle. A battle assumes that you have a chance to
win, to overcome the opponent. Mom’s disease gave her no chance of victory;
it advanced on her until there was nothing left to take, no new ground to con-
quer. Even then it went back and battered what it had already left in ruins. But
it was in her final year that I saw what true love looks like. Dad’s care for her
and the bond that they shared, each knowing that it would end soon, provided
an example of a marriage to which many will claim they aspire, but that few
will achieve. My admiration for them is as unending as I know their love was
for each other.
Abbreviations

Add. Additional Manuscript

All Souls and the Wider World S.J.D. Green and Peregrine Horden, ed., All Souls
and the Wider World: Statesmen, Scholars, and Ad-
venturers, c. 1850–1950 (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2011).
All Souls Under the Ancien Régime S.J.D. Green and Peregrine Horden, ed., All Souls
Under the Ancien Régime: Politics, Learning, & the
Arts, c. 1600–1850 (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2007).
Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions All Souls College, Oxford, Codrington Library,
Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, 2 volumes.
bl British Library, London
Bod. Bodleian Library, Oxford
Brockliss, Oxford L.W.B. Brockliss, The University of Oxford: A His-
tory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).
Catalogue of the Archives Charles Trice Martin, Catalogue of the Archives in
the Muniment Rooms of All Souls’ College (London,
1877).
Christ Church Christ Church College Library, Oxford
Eighteenth Century L.S. Sutherland and L.G. Mitchell, ed., The History
of the University of Oxford, volume v, The Eigh-
teenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1986).
Evans, Oxford G.R. Evans, The University of Oxford: A New History
(London: I.B. Tauris, 2010).
Georgian Oxford W.R. Ward, Georgian Oxford: University Politics in
the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1958).
Merton Merton College Library, Oxford
New College New College Archives, Oxford
odnb H.C.C. Matthew & Brian Harrison, ed., Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography, 60 volumes
(­Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
The Commons, 1690–1715 Eveline Cruickshanks et al. ed., The History of Par-
liament: The House of Commons 1690–1715, 5 vol-
umes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2002).
Abbreviations xiii

tna The National Archives, London

Wake Correspondence Christ Church Library, Oxford, Correspondence of
William Wake
Warden’s Punishment Book Scott Mandelbrote and John H.R. Davis, The War-
den’s Punishment Book of All Souls College, Oxford.
Oxford Historical Society. New Series, vol. xlv
(Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2013).
Warden’s ms 7 All Souls College, Oxford, Codrington Library,
Warden’s Manuscript 7.
Warden’s ms 9 All Souls College, Oxford, Codrington Library,
Warden’s Manuscript 9.
Warden’s ms 10 All Souls College, Oxford, Codrington Library,
Warden’s Manuscript 10.
Worthies of All Souls Montagu Burrows, Worthies of All Souls: Four Cen-
turies of English History Illustrate From the College
Archives (London, 1874).

Dates: All dates are given with the assumption that the year began on 1 January even
though during the time addressed in this book, England celebrated the New Year on
25 March.

Quotations: I have reproduced the spelling and emphasis found in contemporary

sources, both published and manuscript. For the sake of clarity and readability,
­however, some abbreviations have been silently expanded.
Introduction

It had been a long and frustrating day, one that Bernard Gardiner, Warden of
All Souls College, Oxford, was no doubt glad to have behind him. Spending
a mid-December night in 1709 at the Catherine Wheel in Wycombe (north-
west of London), Gardiner, who was feeling ill, wished for nothing more than
a quiet rest before continuing his journey from Lambeth Palace back to his
college. While in the drier months of summer travel between Oxford and
­London could be accomplished in about thirteen hours, in winter nearly two
days were ­required to complete the excursion.1 Reluctantly, he made the trip
south to meet with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Tenison, to discuss
the case of two fellows of All Souls who refused to take holy orders, a condition
of their fellowships as stipulated in the college statutes. The warden argued
his position with a great deal of vigour, but feared he had not convinced Teni-
son to maintain a strict interpretation of the statutes. Now all he wanted was
sleep. It was not to be. Unknown to Gardiner several fellows, also returning
from Lambeth where they witnessed the proceedings, similarly chose to stay
at the Catherine Wheel. When the fellows learned that the warden shared their
­accommodations, they took the room next to his and hosted a loud party with
music and dancing. The festivities continued long into the night and refused
to be silenced even after the proprietor of the establishment, Mrs. B ­ lacknall,
pleaded with the fellows that Gardiner was not well and had asked for some
consideration. When the sleep-deprived Gardiner finally arrived back in
­Oxford he immediately dispatched a letter to Tenison complaining profusely
at the treatment he had received from the fellows of All Souls.2
The events that led to this incident and those that followed are the sub-
jects of this book. As will be made clear in the following pages, the trials and
tribulations of this mostly forgotten college warden in his attempts to bring
the fellows of All Souls under his authority (approximately between 1708–19)
in the face of political interest and sometimes interference reflect three tre-
mendously important concerns that encompassed England during the early
years of the eighteenth century. Firstly, the most significant of these, is the
memory of James ii and the Revolution of 1688. Throughout this book, I will
attempt to show how All Souls and its warden Gardiner were caught between

1 W.N. Hargreaves-Mawdsley, Oxford in the Age of John Locke (Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press, 1973), 40.
2 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 1, fol. 85. Bernard Gardiner to Archbishop Tenison,
16 December 1709; Catalogue of the Archives, 334.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004375352_002

2 Introduction

competing visions of what England, and consequently Oxford, would look like
following 1688.3 Here I am interested in the implications of the Revolution,
specifically the increased role of Parliament in administering the nation and
growing centralization of governance in England, for the eighteenth-century
interactions between All Souls and the crown, which provide a lens through
which Gardiner’s experiences are seen and brought into focus. While more
than two decades had passed since William stepped onto England’s shore at
Torbay on 5 November 1688, and James ii’s flight to France on 23 December
of the same year, the ripples of these events had not ceased. The results of
the Revolution were neither finalized nor were they completely accepted in
many circles. This was certainly the case in the tremendously conservative
­environment—both politically and religiously—of All Souls. Often accounts
of the Glorious Revolution include Oxford only when discussing James ii’s ac-
tions at Magdalen College and how his meddling in that college’s election was
one of the reasons for William’s arrival.4 But as I argue in this book, conflicting
views of the revolutionary settlement were important factors in the running of
All Souls while Gardiner was warden and that close attention to such localities
adds to our understanding of this defining event in English history.5 Secondly,
combined with this indeterminate political inheritance, was the infamous
trial of Dr Henry Sacheverell in 1710 for his scandalous sermon and the result-
ing resurgence of the Tory traditional vision of church and state that found a
receptive audience at All Souls and emboldened Gardiner’s management of
his college. Thirdly, the death of Queen Anne and subsequent succession of
George i in 1714 caused many issues for Gardiner, as it did for Oxford gener-
ally. Gardiner’s conservatism that had been an asset following 1710 would now

3 While the exact meaning of 1688 continues to be debated among historians, a growing con-
sensus sees it as a true revolution and a pivotal moment in British history. For a summary
of historiographical assessments, see Stephen Taylor, “Afterward: State Formation, Political
­Stability and the Revolution of 1688,” in The Final Crisis of the Stuart Monarchy: The Revolu-
tions of 1688–91 in their British, Atlantic and European Contexts, ed. Tim Harris and Stephen
Taylor (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2013), 273–304.
4 See for example, G.M. Trevelyan, The English Revolution 1688–1689 (1938; London: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1963), 70–72; J.R. Jones, The Revolution of 1688 in England (London: Weidenfield
and Nicolson, 1972); W.A. Speck, Reluctant Revolutionaries: Englishmen and the Revolution of
1688 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 65, 144, 155, 232; Steven Pincus, 1688: The First
Modern Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 173–176, 190, 261.
5 The need for studies of the local reception of the Revolution is seen in Tim Harris, Revolution:
The Great Crisis of the British Monarchy, 1685–1720 (London: Penguin, 2006), 14; Scott Sowerby,
Making Toleration: The Repealers and the Glorious Revolution (Harvard: Harvard University
Press, 2013), 248.
Introduction 3

have to be s­ oftened against charges of disaffection toward the new monarch.

Certainly, there are different contextual frameworks for viewing Gardiner and
All Souls and I chose the ones that seemed to be the most relevant. Others may
disagree with my choices, but in my view the uncertainties of the Revolution-
ary Settlement are the underpinning to the story I relate. While this book is not
a history of these occurrences in English history, each has scores of specialized
studies, it is my hope that what follows will contribute to the understanding
of these moments by illustrating the importance of a specific localized exami-
nation of a circumscribed instance at the University of Oxford and one of its
most unique colleges, All Souls.
While the emphasis in this book is squarely on All Souls and its warden, con-
temporary events within other Oxford colleges—New College, Christ Church,
and Merton College—are integrated into the discussion in order to place
­Gardiner and his experiences within a larger university context and to show
that the he was not alone in his frustrations with his fellows or in his hope that
order and adherence to the statutes would be established during his tenure. As
has been recently commented, “Strife between heads of colleges and fellows
was common at this time.”6 In this regard, Merton College receives the most
attention. As the oldest functioning college (founded in 1264),7 it provides a
nice touchstone for Gardiner’s experiences. Both Merton and All Souls shared
the Archbishop of Canterbury as their Visitor, which allows for a comparative
element when similar episodes at each college required official action. And, in
1425, thirteen years before he founded All Souls, Archbishop Henry Chichele
delivered an important injunction to Merton that increased the number of its
fellows to forty-four to ensure sustained study of the liberal arts; added three
chaplains to the college so that there would be better attendance at religious
services and thus greater demonstrable piety within the college; and that the
accounts should undergo a yearly audit.8 The echoes of this order are seen in
the All Souls statutes.
In a number of colourful incidents—most involving fellows of All Souls
who refused to take holy orders—Gardiner attempted to resist any changes
in college operations or potential alterations to the medieval statutes that
defined it in opposition to repeated insistences that All Souls adapt itself

6 Robin Darwall-Smith, A History of University College, Oxford (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 2008), 237.
7 On paper Balliol College and University College are more ancient, but Merton is the oldest
proper college. See Brockliss, Oxford, 65.
8 Henry Julian White, Merton College, Oxford (1906; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2010), 67.
4 Introduction

to meet the needs of the crown and members of its administration, be they
­secular or ­ecclesiastical. To this end the focus in this book is on larger political
and religious issues within England at the time and how Gardiner’s actions
are ­interwoven with them, Gardiner is the centre of the narrative. Much less
­attention is given to the social environment within All Souls itself or the day-
to-day operation of the college, although these will not be neglected entirely.
It is a tale of personal communications, often spoken behind a veil of bruised
egos and self-assured righteousness, all conducted against a background of
­religious and political turmoil. The story I describe and the characters that
make it such a rich narrative is little known outside of narrow scholarly circles;
even then knowledge is confined mostly to specialists in the history of All Souls
itself.9 One of the reasons this tale has remained untold in its entirety for so
long is that Gardiner waded into interactions between politics, religion, deism,
and medicine in the early eighteenth century. While all of these elements now
­occupy specific fields of academic study, in Gardiner’s day they wove together
seamlessly. In what follows I attempt to preserve this tangled web of concerns
that troubled All Souls and its warden, drawing in some of the most powerful
figures in the nation.
A few words on methodology and approach seem prudent at this point.
I wrote this book within the following understanding of history for which I
claim neither novelty nor innovation. I take it for granted that history is about
people, their actions, and the reasons for those actions.10 I also acknowledge
that the third item on my list—that of reasons—is the most difficult for the
historian to learn. Even when considering modern events, motives and ex-
planations prove elusive to observers, often to the actors themselves. When
­considering the rationale for behaviour associated with people dead for over
three hundred years, the issue appears nearly insurmountable. Here I turn to
the insight offered by R.G. Collingwood. While not much read in contemporary
historiographical debates where theory and ambiguity of linguistic ­meaning
take p
­ recedent, Collingwood still has much to offer historians. He argued that
all history is the history of thought. In his words, “This means rethinking for
himself the thought of his actor, and nothing short of that will make him the
historian of that author’s” action. We may excuse Collingwood’s gendered

9 Worthies of All Souls, 352–360; A.D. Godley, Oxford in the Eighteenth Century (London,
1908), 204–206; Georgian Oxford, 33–34; G.V. Bennett, “University, Society and Church
1688–1714,” in Eighteenth Century, 359–400, 391–392; John Clarke, “Warden Gardiner, All
Souls, and the Church, c. 1688–1760,” in All Souls Under the Ancien Régime, 197–213.
10 Margaret MacMillan, History’s People: Personalities and the Past (Toronto: House of A
­ nansi
Press, 2015), 4–6.
Introduction 5

l­anguage as a product of his time, but his point remains valid. He continues,
“Every event, so far as that event is an expression of human thought, is a con-
scious reaction to a situation….”11 By this he meant that it is the historian’s task
to get inside the head of past people and see the world through their eyes,
­replete with all the assumptions and previous experiences that create any
worldview. For Collingwood, and I believe he is right about this, once the his-
torian knows what happened, he or she already knows why it happened. Again
the unit of analysis for the historian is people.
Connected to this is the unique political and religious landscape of early-­
eighteenth century England. In a classic study that accepted individuals and
their aims as the animators of English political history, Sir Lewis Namier
shunned ideology as the motivating reason for mp’s actions in the 1760s. For
Namier, ambition, personal relationships, friendships, and social climbing
­accounted for the behavior of men in the House of Commons. Like ­Margaret
Thatcher who would argue in the 1980s that there is no society, only i­ ndividuals,
Namier opined that there were no consistent higher reasons e­ xpressed as
shared political platforms, only the self-interest of individual mps.12 While
Namier’s insight was profound for the later years of the eighteenth century,
attempts to project the unassociated individual thesis backward proved less
convincing. This is not to suggest that his work offered nothing to those histo-
rians concerned with the 1710s. The argument that individuals lay at the heart
of the English political scene is well worth remembering and it forms a key
assumption in this book. People acting within their resident network of friend-
ships, antagonists, and personal obligations inform the narrative I present. J.H.
Plumb was correct when he maintained that local politics formed “the basis
of all political power in the eighteenth century.”13 Where I agree more with
Plumb than ­Namier is the acceptance of party platform as enlivening actions
of the individuals met in this book. The last obvious influence on this book
(no doubt there are ­others) is the insights of Geoffrey Holmes. Where ­Namier
and his acolytes saw unattached individuals in the House of Commons,
Holmes argued that the finding does not translate to the early eighteenth cen-
tury as productively as Namierites assumed it would. While mps remained

11 R.G. Collingwood, The Idea of History, Revised Edition, ed. Jan van der Dussen (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1994), 283, 475. I owe my reconnection with Collingwood to the
prefaces in Niall Ferguson’s Civilization: The West and the Rest (London: Allen Lane, 2011),
xx–xxii; Kissinger, 1923–1968: The Idealist (New York: Penguin Press, 2015), xvi.
12 Lewis Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George iii, 2nd ed. (London:
Macmillian and Co. Ltd., 1963).
13 J.H. Plumb, Sir Robert Walpole, The Making of a Statesman (London: Allen Lane, 1956), 42.
6 Introduction

i­ ndividuals and very often political interactions at the time were personal and
influenced by the diversity of temperaments involved, Holmes convincingly
­demonstrated that devotion to party ideology coloured their actions in ways
that ­Namier failed to find in the reign of George iii.14 This is not to suggest
that Whig or Tory ideology on its own drove the events and outcomes we will
discuss. Rather that allegiance to one set of political and theological views or
another helped to shape the worldview of the historical actors. It is recovering
this worldview that Collingwood argued is the business of historians. Thus, in
this book I ­accept the following: history is made by individuals who act within
a set of assumptions about the world and their place in it; these assumptions
are shaped by experiences; individuals live within their locality even when
they act on a larger stage; and that no one is immune to the issues—political,
social, and religious—­characteristic of their age.
As the central protagonist in the story, the details of Bernard Gardiner’s life
need to be established before preceding any farther. He was born and bap-
tised on 25 September 1668, the son of Jane Brocas and Sir William Gardiner,
first baronet, who served as mp for Wigan in 1660. Gardiner matriculated at
Magdalen College in 1684, but lost his demyship (demies were intended to be
elected undergraduate positions at the college, held by students aged between
twelve and twenty-five, but by Gardiner’s day were often maintained until the
holder obtained a fellowship at Magdalen or at another of Oxford’s colleges15)
during James ii’s attempts to catholicize the universities. Gardiner’s memory
of James ii and the monarch’s interference with Oxford colleges and the result-
ing disruption weighed heavy on his mind, as we will see. Earning a ba in 1688,
Gardiner was elected as a jurist fellow of All Souls in 1689. His interest in the
law saw him obtain a Bachelor of Civil Law in 1693 and a Doctor of Civil Law
in 1698. The Visitor of All Souls, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Tenison,
appointed Gardiner as warden in 1702; it was a post Gardiner held until his
death in 1726. Gardiner then became ordained and held the posts of vicar of
Ambrosden (from 1708) and later rector of Hawarden (from 1714). In 1712 he
married Grace Smythe, daughter of William iii’s physician. They had a single
­daughter, Grace. In addition to being Warden of All Souls, Gardiner served the
University of Oxford as Keeper of the Archives (1703–1726) and Vice-­Chancellor
(1712–1715).16 Upon becoming warden, Gardiner believed he had a hallowed

14 D.W. Hayton, “In No One’s Shadow,” in British Politics in the Age of Holmes, ed. Clive Jones
(Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 1–14.
15 Gerald Harriss, “William Waynflete and the Foundation of the College, 1448–1486,” in
Magdalen College Oxford: A History, ed. L.W.B. Brockliss (Oxford: Magdalen College,
2008), 30, 33.
16 The Warden’s Punishment Book, 151–153.
Introduction 7

duty to ensure that All Souls adhered very closely to the statutes drawn up by
its founder, Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury (1414–1443). Through-
out his wardenship, Gardiner held an almost single-minded desire to “recleri-
calize” All Souls, which, in his view, would sustain order and discipline within
the college.17
Chichele founded All Souls College, service to which Gardiner would devote
much of his adult life, in 1438, when the University of Oxford was a little more
than three hundred years old.18 In its earliest days modern observers would
be forgiven for thinking that the university was more of an idea than ­physical
­reality. Although legend credits King Alfred the Great with founding the uni-
versity in 872, the first Oxford school opened in around 1100 and recognition of
­Oxford as a collective entity occurred in 1214. Masters in various topics came
first looking to impart their wisdom to paying students, classrooms and librar-
ies came much later. “University” meant little more than a guild that established
membership rules for the professional association of Masters. The University
of Oxford also held a monopoly on granting degrees in the area and no one
could teach at the university who had not been accepted into the guild. Being
sanctioned by the Church (Catholic at the time) and state conferred benefits.
Oxford began receiving grants of royal privilege in about 1231. About the same
time, Masters started specializing in specific topics such as grammar or logic.
A few Masters offered instruction in the higher subjects of law, theology, or
medicine. From the very beginning, the goal of such educational endeavours
was to produce bureaucrats for both church and state. Even when monasteries
began sending young monks to Oxford around 1280 for a more rigorous educa-
tion than could be had at home, the university’s purpose remained the same.
While some graduates never left the university and stayed to become fellows
and Masters, others departed and became administrative mandarins but most
embarked on careers as parish clergy.19
Chichele worked as a civil lawyer before turning to a career in the ­Catholic
Church and intended that All Souls would offer young adult men the oppor-
tunity to train for legal and clerical professions, with an emphasis on provid-
ing the future clerics of the English Church. He enshrined this purpose in the
­statutes. At their election fellows had to be between eighteen and t­ wenty-six

17 Graham Midgley, University Life in Eighteenth-Century Oxford (New Haven: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 1996), 116; Scott Mandelbrote, “All Souls From Civil War to Glorious Revolution,”
in All Souls Under the Ancien Régime, 75; Clarke, “Warden Gardiner, All Souls, and the
Church,” 199; William Gibson, “Gardiner, Bernard (1668–1726),” in odnb, vol. 21, 413–414.
18 The college might not have celebrated many birthdays had the Warden and Fellows not
received an exception to Henry vi’s Act of Resumption in 1455. tna SC/8/132/6595.
19 Evans, Oxford, 79, 84–86; Brockliss, Oxford, 11–17, 19, 731.
8 Introduction

years of age and have completed at least three years of study at Oxford, ­although
most arrived at All Souls with a degree in hand. Thus the college housed no un-
dergraduates, which in the early years made it similar to other colleges. What
made it exceptional among the colleges, in Gardiner’s time and beyond, was
that All Souls never accepted commoners from the time of the Reformation
onward and even in the modern age has no undergraduates. All Souls was, and
remains, a college of foundationers and graduates focussed on research.20 The
fellows were older too, with an average age of about thirty. A
­ lthough ­fellowships
were for life, and some holders died in their college rooms, the expectation was
that fellows would eventually leave the college in pursuit of a c­ areer, ideally
in the Church of England.21 When it came to selecting s­ uccessful ­candidates
for fellowships, elections taking place in November, preference was given to
men from the archdiocese of Canterbury or, barring that, to those who could
demonstrate kinship with Chichele. There was no promotion from within the
college, again making All Souls unique. A major benefit of being elected as
kin was that these men entered their fellowships immediately, whereas others
began a probationary period that lasted a little over a year ­during which time
their status was that of scholars or probationers, but not fellows.22 Of course,
as a pre-Reformation Archbishop, Chichele was unmarried and had no chil-
dren. Kinship claims were based on relatedness with Chichele’s father, ­Tomas
Chichele, or his two brothers, Sir Robert Chichele and William Chichele, a col-
lateral consanguinity relationship. How determined Chichele was to see his
kinsmen benefit from their family linage is an unanswered question. When
he established the statutes of All Souls, Chichele, and his copyist, borrowed
heavily from those that governed New College, which Chichele had attended.
Some historians speculate that the provision for founder’s kin is included in
the statutes of All Souls simply because it was present in the statutes of New
College and not because of Chichele’s sincere desire to advantage members
of his family, none of whom were fellows of All Souls during the Archbishop’s
­lifetime. Only years after his death did the first kinship claimant make use of
the privilege.23 Nonetheless, this means of being considered for election to a

20 Brockliss, Oxford, 367, 708. There were four Bible Clerks, admitted by the warden, who
were not fellows, nor technically undergraduates, and who received no formal tutoring
from fellows but their studies were the responsibility of one of the chaplains; their main
task was to assist in chapel services. Some clerks flourished in the unstructured environ-
ment while others floundered.
21 Brockliss, Oxford: A History, 281; Darwall-Smith, A History of University College, 94–95.
22 John Davis, “Founder’s Kin,” in All Souls Under the Ancien Régime, 234.
23 G.D. Squibb, Founders’ Kin: Privilege and Pedigree (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1972),
98–99, 9–10. I thank an anonymous reviewer for bringing this book to my attention.
Introduction 9

fellowship became popular in the later eighteenth century and remained so

until the middle of the nineteenth-century when the prize fellowship deter-
mined eligibility. It was also a source of frustration for Gardiner in the 1720s.
In the statutes Chichele set the number of college fellows at forty: “of whom
twenty-four are to hear lectures in, and sedulously to learn, the arts and phi-
losophy, or theology, whom We will have to be called Artists; and sixteen in
the canon and civil law, who are to be called Jurists.”24 That forty percent of
the ­fellows were to be lawyers made All Souls unique within the university
because no other college reserved such a high number of places for law. Only
Trinity Hall in Cambridge boasted more legal scholars at the time.25 These
forty fellows and the warden comprised the society, which voted for fellow-
ships and other college positions. The warden held authority over all members
of the society and about thirty other non-fellows within All Souls.26 Chichele
stipulated further that fellows must take holy orders “within two years after
the completion of his Necessary Regency,” unless a “lawful impediment” pre-
vented the obligation. In such a case the approval of the “Warden, Deans, and
­Bursars, or, if the Warden be absent, by the Vice-Warden, Deans, and Bursars,”
was ­required.27 All Artists and those Jurists who pursued canon law were ex-
pected to comply with the requirement and “advance to the Priesthood.” The
only ­exception applied to Jurist fellows studying civil law. So long as these
Jurists had the “approbation of the Warden and Deans and Bursars, or, in
the absence of the Warden, that of the Vice-Warden and Deans and Bursars
aforesaid” and were applying themselves “in good earnest” during their stud-
ies, making genuine progress without intermission, they were excused from
orders. Archbishop of Canterbury John Whitgift confirmed this exception in
1586. Should their studies lapse, however, Chichele stated that “Our will is that
he do then within one year, to be ­reckoned without intermission, cause him-
self to be advanced to the Priesthood.”28 But with the abolishing of canon law

24 G.R.M. Ward, The Statutes of All Souls College, Oxford. Now Translated into English (Lon-
don, 1841), 4.
25 Charles Crawley, Trinity Hall: The History of a Cambridge College 1350–1975 (Cambridge:
Printed for the College, 1976), 11.
26 Brockliss, Oxford, 76; James MacConica, “The Early Fellowship,” in Unarmed Soldiery:
Studies in the Early History of All Souls College (Oxford: All Souls College, 1996), 36, 38;
Jeremy Catto, “The World of Henry Chichele and the Foundation of All Souls,” in Unarmed
Soldiery, 2; Alex Chalmers, A History of the Colleges, Halls, and Public Buildings, Attached to
the University of Oxford, Including the Lives of the Founders (Oxford: Collingwood and Co.,
1910), 166.
27 Ward, The Statutes of All Souls College, 56.
28 Ward, The Statutes of All Souls College, 57; Whitgift’s confirmation is on 129.
10 Introduction

in England during the 1530s, only the study of civil law that carried no respon-
sibility of taking orders was available at All Souls. Consequently, Jurists at All
Souls could hold their fellowships and not be in orders, but they still had to
comply with the other statutes. As we will see Gardiner took the orders obliga-
tion very seriously when it came to Artists; throughout this book he will invoke
repeatedly the wishes of Chichele in that regard. All Souls’ warden also sat on
the ­Hebdomadal Board. In 1631, during his time as Chancellor of the U ­ niversity,
William Laud (­Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633) established the board,
which consisted of Oxford’s ­Vice-Chancellor and the heads of the individual
colleges who held weekly (hence “­hebdomadal”) meetings to deal with matters
of university ­business and discipline. Where the society was the governance
body of All Souls, the Hebdomadal Board was charged with university admin-
istration as a whole.
Chichele, as Archbishop of Canterbury, ensured a close connection between
All Souls and the English Church by granting to his successor Archbishops the
position of Visitor of All Souls with the power to interpret the statutes and
make binding decisions regarding college affairs. Thus, along with the warden,
the visitor was an important part of All Souls’ governance structure. The war-
den was the first person of contact for the visitor and depending on the per-
sonalities of each man, the relationship could be one of mutual assistance or
could break down into animosity should they not agree on their respective
visions for the college or interpretation of statutes. The entwined connection
between visitor and warden began with the fact that one of the visitor’s duties
was to appoint the warden from a list of names given to him by the fellows of
All Souls. Visitors also had a hand with internal college elections. Should fel-
lowships not be filled, the visitor could make an appointment. In cases where
college officers, such as deans or bursars, were not elected, the visitor had
the power to make an appointment or settle a disputed election. Where the
­situation warranted it, the visitor could send a commission to investigate any
college matter. That is to say the visitor could hold a visitation and then issue a
binding decree.29 On a number of occasions in this book the visitation did not
produce the result that Gardiner wanted.
The duties and expectations for fellows of All Souls, following their elec-
tion, reflect the clerical mission of the college. While fellows did not live in
a cloister, there were some similarities. Not only were fellows expected to be
­unmarried, studious, and pious, they had to reside within the college for the
length of their fellowships. The only exceptions were excused absences that

29 Warden’s Punishment Book, xvii, xviii, xx.

Introduction 11

could be no longer than sixty days. Fellows were to act with politeness and
show respect toward all members of the society. They were not to carry arms
and were to dress in a manner befitting their position as fellows. Although
throughout this book I emphasize fellows of All Souls who ran afoul of Gar-
diner and the wider implications of their disobedience, most fellows existed
peacefully with their warden and supported him in his actions. All forty fel-
lows, along with other college officers, were to be properly dressed when they
ate their meals together in the Hall. Contemporaries marvelled at the luxuri-
ous food enjoyed at the college. One observer suggested that the delectable
delights of the dinner table were on offer because of Gardiner’s reputation as
a glutton who “hath got a new way of stuffing a leg of Mutton roasted. He had
lately one stuffed by his own order with White Hearing out of the Pickle.”30
On feast days fellows took turns preaching. In addition to being in orders and
receiving communion on Easter and Christmas, they were obliged to defend
the statutes of their college in all matters.31 Neglect of any of these responsi-
bilities could bring a reprimand, or worse, from the warden. In cases where
fellows refused to take orders or became married, the warden could evict them
from their fellowships. Very few wardens were as assiduous in policing their
fellows than was Gardiner. This overall emphasis on piety was evident in the
very name of the college. Chichele specified that the fellows of All Souls should
pray for the souls of the faithful departed and especially for those who had
fallen in Henry v’s campaigns in France. Despite the Reformation and the abo-
lition of Chantries in 1547, Gardiner still saw the maintenance of demonstrable
piety—particularly orders—among the fellows as one of his most important
duties.32 Similar statutes existed in other Oxford Colleges and were generally
uncontroversial in that fellows looked for careers in the Church and were eager
to be presented to college livings. Somewhat ironically, All Souls was actually
less priestly than other colleges. Because of the presence of civil lawyers, no
other college in Oxford had so many fellowships reserved for law, and later
physicians, there was greater interest in non-clerical careers and therefore, to
Gardiner’s chagrin, many fellows sought exemption from the obligation to take
orders. In spite of this, All Souls adhered to its medieval statutes (at least some
of them) well past the middle of the nineteenth century, longer than most of

30 Midgley, University Life in Eighteenth-Century Oxford, 28–29, 40–41, quote on 41.

31 Georgian Oxford, 8; Sutherland, University of Oxford in the Eighteenth Century, 11; Warden’s
Punishment Book, xxvi–xxix.
32 John Clarke, “Warden Gardiner, All Souls, and the Church, c. 1688–1760,” in All Souls Under
the Ancien Régime, 197–198.
12 Introduction

Oxford’s other colleges and continued to cultivate a reputation of being an

oddity in the university.33
Becoming Warden of All Souls in 1702, Gardiner inherited the leadership of a
college within a university that, in the words of Dame Lucy Sutherland, “stood
at the centre of that pervasive but intangible structure, the eighteenth-century
Anglican Church”.34 Conservatism and tradition, rather than innovation, were
at the heart of Oxford’s mission to train the Anglican clergy. This was especially
true of All Souls. To a number of observers, most famously E ­ dward Gibbon
who described plenty of academic posturing and little learning in his reflec-
tion upon time spent at Oxford, this emphasis on past practices meant that the
university was not at the nation’s intellectual forefront. The traditional position
of Isaac Newton as one of the Enlightenment’s fathers and as the hero of the
Scientific Revolution has tended to privilege his university home of ­Cambridge
at the expense of its older sibling when historians look at higher education in
eighteenth-century England. It is true that at the end of the eighteenth cen-
tury Oxford still emphasised Latin and Greek authors, along with logic and
ethical reasoning while Cambridge promoted mathematics.35 This divergence
in disciplinary emphasis helps support the view of eighteenth century Oxford
as stagnate and declining in relevance on the national stage. William Clark
describes the era as Oxford’s “nadir.” O­ thers declare that O
­ xford “ceased to be
intellectually interesting” at this time.36 G.R.  Evans’s recent study of politi-
cal interference in Oxford and Cambridge, for example, passes from 1636 and
­William Laud’s time as Chancellor of ­Oxford to the Royal ­Commission of 1850

33 S.J.D. Green, “In Search of the Ancien Régime at All Souls,” in All Souls Under the Ancien
Régime, 1–3.
34 Dame Lucy Sutherland, The University of Oxford in the Eighteenth Century: A Reconsidera-
tion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), 13. See also Bennett, “University, Society and
Church 1688–1714,” 359. For some All Souls remains a stronghold of conservatism. Roy
Porter commented on John Redwood’s view of the Enlightenment that it was written,
“by a fellow of All Souls, Oxford, who, hardly by chance, went on to become a far right
Conservative Party politician and outspoken Eurosceptic … Subsequent neo-­conservative
­historians like J.C.D. Clark, … also did time at All Souls….” Roy Porter, Enlightenment:
­Britain and the Creation of the Modern World (London: Allen Lane, 2000), 5; Brockliss,
O ­ xford, 694 n. 100.
35 Brockliss, Oxford, 139.
36 William Clark, Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2006), 24; Notker Hammerstein, “Epilogue: The Enlighten-
ment,” in History of The University in Europe, Vol. ii, Universities in Early Modern Europe
(1500–1800), ed. H. De Ridder-Symoens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996),
627.
Introduction 13

without addressing or engaging with any eighteenth-century ­examples. Simi-

larly L.W.B. Brockliss argues that “[a]fter 1715, state intervention, both ­direct and
indirect, in the University’s affairs was greatly reduced.”37 Such ­assessments
have coloured perceptions of the institution. While the ­instruction within
­Oxford’s colleges might not have been on par with the novelties offered at
Leiden or Edinburgh, the university itself figured prominently in the day’s po-
litical and theological intrigues. As W.R. Ward characterized it in his influential
work, politics at Oxford was an activity rather than an academic debate.
Determined politicians on the make looked for support from both the pub-
lic and England’s great institutions. But it was not the University of Oxford as a
whole that caught the notice of their ambitious eyes. Ever since the sixteenth
century, the crown and its servants directed attention on the individual col-
leges that collectively comprised the university. Each college was distinctive
and each conformed to individual statutes that determined admission criteria,
student behaviour, fellowship duties, and other matters. Colleges were deemed
more manageable than trying to harness support from the university itself.38
Political management of the local scene shaped the national agenda.
Despite the longstanding goal of producing Anglican clergy who would
serve the country’s religious interests, All Souls was not as strong in that role as
it might have been. Gardiner’s predecessor as warden, Leopold William Finch
(warden, 1687–1702), held a reputation (somewhat unfairly) as someone who
did not respect the statutes, indulged the whims of fellows, owed his position
to the interference of James ii, and seemed to be secularizing All Souls. Finch
is perhaps best known for his confrontation with one of All Souls’ Chaplains,
Jonas Proast, in 1688 over the vacant Camden Professor of History, the oldest
history professorship in England. Finch had designs on the position for himself
and let it be known that he expected the fellows of All Souls to support his
candidacy. When Proast tossed his support behind Henry Dodwell (who would
win the appointment), Finch’s sense of betrayal caused him to dismiss Pro-
ast from the college. “He was arbitrary in expelling Mr Jonas Proast from” the
position of chaplain, according to contemporary opinion.39 Proast and Finch
each published pamphlets that promoted their versions of events. In corre-
spondence with Archbishop of Canterbury, William Sancroft, who among his

37 G.R. Evans, “The Domestic Laws of Oxford and Cambridge: External Interference and In-
ternal Interpretation,” History of Universities xxviii (2014): 72–73; Brockliss, Oxford, 154.
38 Sheldon Rothblatt, The Modern University and its Discontents: The Fate of Newman’s Lega-
cies in Britain and America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 235, 236, 240;
Georgian Oxford, 1–2, 7.
39 bl Landsdowne ms 987, fol. 152.
14 Introduction

other duties served as Visitor to All Souls, Proast asked: “Whether the Chap-
lains of All Souls College are so absolutely subject to the Warden of it, as to be
liable to be displaced by him at pleasure, without remedy.”40 After considering
the matter, Sancroft ruled in Proast’s favour and the chaplain returned to his
post in 1692. This would not be the last time the visitor overruled the warden’s
decision regarding the management of All Souls as will be evident throughout
this book.
While Gardiner might have liked to see himself as different than Finch, and
he was in many ways, there are a number of similarities. According to one as-
sessment, Gardiner was “an earnest, conscientious, and rather intolerant man
with a capacity for acrid comment and bitter repartee when his anger was
aroused.”41 Like Finch, Gardiner believed that he could compel the fellows to
follow his lead when it came to voting for college officers and, when the bal-
lots did not produce the result Gardiner desired, he suggested the warden’s
vote was the only one that mattered. Not only that, Gardiner could be vindic-
tive when he believed he had been wronged or betrayed by the fellows of All
Souls. At the root of these behaviours was, of course, personal feelings, but
also a strong sense of duty to reinstitute a closer following of the founder’s
statutes and resist any seeming return to the actions of James ii on the part
of the English monarch or those who served the crown. In short, Gardiner
wished to ­sustain what he interpreted as the independence of his institution
against those who would use All Souls to further political agendas dictated
from London or elsewhere. That Oxford was to serve as the training ground for
the nation’s clergy and something of a guardian to orthodoxy was not lost on
Gardiner, who believed it was his responsibility to uphold what he saw as the
unchanging intentions first dictated by Chichele as founder in 1438.
In order to fully understand Gardiner’s mindset in the following chapters, it
is helpful to recall, even briefly, the actions of James ii with respect to Oxford
and the legacy they left upon the university generally and Gardiner specifically.
The infamous political landmarks of James’s reign—the ill-fated Monmouth
Rebellion against him, the considerable standing army he maintained, his
November 1685 proroguing of Parliament, his governing through ­appointed
­Catholic office holders, the insisted upon Declaration of Indulgence, the
­resulting trial, and later acquittal, of the seven bishops who refused to abide
by its terms, and the invitation to William the Prince of Orange to set ­matters

40 bl Add. ms 72543, fol. 112, Jonas Proast, 18 June 1691.

41 Quoted in “All Souls College,” in A History of the County of Oxford, iii: The University of
Oxford (Oxford, 1954) <http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=63880&am
p;strquer=Gardiner> [Date accessed: 4 June 2010].
Introduction 15

right—are well known and need not be repeated here. It was in his first year
as king that James ii, an unapologetic Catholic ruling a Protestant nation, took
an interest in the affairs of Oxford and Cambridge. Although this attention did
not reveal any intent to position Catholics into the colleges of either univer-
sity, it was not long in coming. While Oxford had welcomed the news of the
new king with free beer handed out in the town hall, the infatuation did not
last.42 By 1686 James insisted that John Massey be appointed Dean at Christ
Church. Initially there was little resistance. But, when James also excused
Massey from any religious tests or specific aspects of Anglican worship, it gen-
erated unease in many Oxbridge common rooms. The suspicion was justified
when the Dean publicly declared himself a Catholic and installed a Jesuit as
chaplain. Not only that, Massey then became a Justice of the Peace with no
other intent, critics argued, than to punish any person in Oxford who exhibited
anti-Catholic behaviour.43 At University College, Oxford, where Massey had
been an undergraduate, the situation was similar. In 1686 the Master O ­ badiah
Walker printed and sold Catholic books, with James’s blessing, and had fit-
ted out some rooms within the college as a Catholic chapel.44 Cambridge was
not immune from such measures, and James forced Caius College to admit
two Catholic s­ tudents in 1687.45 For his part, James ii thought that the pres-
ence of Catholics at ­Oxford and Cambridge would encourage other secret
­Catholics to openly declare their faith. It is argued that what James intended to
do with such m ­ easures was to get at least one college at each university to turn
­Catholic, or perhaps to scare Oxford and Cambridge into offering two or more
colleges to Catholicism.46 The universities figured prominently in James’s plan
to promote what he saw as the true faith of Catholicism and what better place
to initiate this strategy than in the colleges that would provide England’s future
clerics.47 This plan, while clearly evident to observers within both universities,
became o­ bvious to the nation at large in early 1687 when James turned his

42 Ibid., 95.
43 Ibid., 174.
44 Robin Darwall-Smith, A History of University College, Oxford (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2008), 208, 209.
45 John Twigg, The University of Cambridge and the English Revolution, 1625–1688 (Wood-
bridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1990), 277, 279; G.R. Evans, The University of Cambridge: A New
History (London: I.B. Tauris, 2010), 221.
46 Twigg, The University of Cambridge and the English Revolution, 277.
47 Angus MacIntyre, “The College, King James ii and the Revolution of 1687–1688,” in Mag-
dalen College and the Crown: Essays for the Tercentenary of the Restoration of the College
1688, ed. Lawrence Brockliss, et al. (Oxford: Printed for the College, 1988), 35.
16 Introduction

­attention to Magdalen College, Oxford where the young Bernard Gardiner was a
student.48
In late March 1687 the President of Magdalen College, Henry Clerke, died.
Within a few days, the Vice-President, Charles Aldworth, announced that
the election of a new president would take place on “Wednesday the 13th
of April following, at nine o’clock in the morning in the Chapel.” Four days
before the election, James ii made clear his desire that Anthony Farmer, ma
(­Trinity ­College, Cambridge) and Pensioner of St. John’s College, Cambridge,
be ­elected forthwith as President. James had issued a letter mandatory and in
­doing so ­followed established precedent. Under Henry viii (26 Hen. viii. c. 1)
the ­English monarch acquired the authority to manage the universities and
other institutions. Elizabeth reasserted the spirit of the Act but vested such
managerial power within persons “nominated and appointed by the Royal
­Letters Patent” (1 Eliz. c. 1). Thus, by the time James took an interest in the Mag-
dalen election, he could seek to supervise the college through the appointment
of his chosen representative. But the process had changed. What had begun as
subtle ­encouragement for the Crown’s candidate, usually asserted in the case
of a vacant post caused by the removal or death of the holder, had morphed
into something more like a demand. In the case of university appointments,
which were kinds of ecclesiastical positions, letters mandatory carried a dou-
ble meaning: meddling with the college’s political structure and promoting a
particular religious confession, Catholic in this case. This was not the first time
James had requested his handpicked candidate be given preferential treat-
ment. One of his surgeons in ordinary had secured a position at St Thomas’s
Hospital on the order of James, then Duke of York.49
Despite James being within his rights, the fellows of Magdalen “most
humbly represented to His Sacred Majesty in their petition … that the said
Mr. Farmer was incapable by their Statutes of being President, and therefore
they did most humbly pray His Majesty to leave them to a free election….”50

48 What follows is based mostly on the documents contained in J.R. Bloxam (ed.), Magdalen
College and King James ii, 1686–1688: A Series of Documents (Oxford, 1886). See also, Emily
Cockayne, et al., “Magdalen in the Age of Reformation, 1558–1688,” in Magdalen College
Oxford: A History, 177–185; Brockliss, Oxford, 208–210.
49 George E. Corrie, The Interference of the Crown with the Affairs of the English Universi-
ties (Cambridge, 1839), 2, 8–9; D.R. Hirschberg, “The Government and Church Patronage
in England, 1660–1760,” Journal of British Studies, 20 (1980): 118; Robert H. George, “The
Charters Granted to English Parliamentary Corporations in 1688,” The English Historical
Review, 55 (1940): 54; Anon., The British Medical Journal (31 August 1895): 555.
50 Document 9: “1687, March 31. Notice of a New Election,” in Magdalen College and King
James ii, 12. Evans, Oxford, 182.
Introduction 17

James also followed precedent in the matter. Magdalen enjoyed a “favoured

relationship” with the Stuarts and Charles ii’s request that Thomas Pierce be
elected President in 1661 was accepted. There were other examples where the
college’s obedient demeanour toward the monarch allowed for royal interven-
tions in elections.51 So, James was genuinely puzzled by how his request was
received. It should be noted that unlike previous crown appointees, Farmer
was ineligible for the position and this was the fact upon which the fellows
rested their opposition. The college officers appealed first to their visitor, Peter
Mews, the Bishop of Winchester, who, on 1 April, wholeheartedly urged them
to observe “your Founder[’]s Statutes in the Election of a Successor.”52 Mews
was a ­devoted Stuart who served with distinction in army of Charles i during
the Civil Wars, but he was more devoted to the Anglican Church. It must have
been after some soul searching that Mews advised the fellows to disobey their
monarch in favour of loyalty to the college statutes and the Anglican faith.53
James ­expected the fellows to comply. “We have thought hereby fit”, he wrote
on 5 April, “effectually to recommend him [Anthony Farmer] to you for the
place of President of our said College now void by the death of Dr. Clerk Presi-
dent thereof: willing and requiring you forthwith, upon receipt thereof, to elect
and admit him the said Anthony Farmer into the said place of President….”54
Following the advice of the Bishop of Winchester to enforce the statutes of
their college and not to be swayed in this matter, Vice-President Aldworth and
the fellows sent a petition to James ii outlining the reasons why they would
not accept Farmer as President. They explained that “Mr Farmer is a Person in
several respects uncapable of that character [required of a president], accord-
ing to our Founder’s Statures.” Once more they requested that the monarch
“leave us to the discharge of our duty.”55 The election took place as previously
announced. And, on 15 April, John Hough, ma (Magdalen), later Bishop of
­Lichfield, was elected President. The visitor confirmed the result on 16 April.56

51 Gerald Harriss, “A Loyal but Troublesome College, 1458–1672,” in Magdalen College and
the Crown: Essays for the Tercentenary of the Restoration of the College 1688, 26–27.
52 Document 13: “1687, 1 April. Letter from the Visitor to the College,” in Magdalen College
and King James ii, 13.
53 MacIntyre, “The College, King James ii and the Revolution of 1687–1688,” 37–38.
54 Document 15: “1687, April 5. The King’s Mandate,” in Magdalen College and King James ii,
14.
55 Document 19: “1687, April 9. Petition from the College to the King,” in Magdalen College
and King James ii, 16–17.
56 Document 36: “1687, April 15–17. Our Proceedings in ye Election of a President;” Docu-
ment 37: “1687, April 16. Election of Dr. Hough Confirmed by the Visitor,” in Magdalen
College and King James ii, 28–34.
18 Introduction

After the election, James ii sent notice via Lord Sunderland in which he ex-
pressed “surprise at those proceedings, and expect[ed] … an account of what
passed upon that occasion….”57 The fellows obliged the monarch and set forth,
in no uncertain terms, the reasons why Farmer was an unacceptable choice:
“He was never fellow either of this College, [or] of New College; which is a
qualification necessary by our Statutes;” moreover, “He is a Stranger, wholly
unacquainted, & unexperienced in the affairs of the College;” and, what
was worse, “He is a person of no good fame.”58 More sensational rationales
followed. Not only did Farmer speak in support of Roman Catholics, he was
reputed to be a “notorious drunkard and womanizer, having been known to
make women ‘Dance naked before him.’” Other times he apparently “kisst …
and tongu’d’ a woman. He also was reported to have “put his hands under a
Faire Ladye’s Coates.”59
James was not satisfied with these explanations and demanded that “the
Fellows of St. Mary Magdalen College should be called to an account for their
disobedience”, and then “ordered the Lords Commissioners for ­Ecclesiastical
Causes to proceed against them.” The proceedings were to be opened on 30
May 1687 at the Council Chambers in Whitehall, where the vice-president
and fellows were to explain their actions.60 Delays meant that nothing hap-
pened until 6 June, at which point the question was put to the representatives
of ­Magdalen why Farmer had not been duly elected. Needing more time to
mount their defence, the fellows asked for and received a postponement un-
til 13 June. Vice-President Aldworth began by reiterating the events that had
brought them all to this point and emphasized the sacred trust that the statutes
of the college instilled in every fellow. It was not something to be taken lightly
or casually, but an obligation endowed upon them by the college’s founder not
to admit any person but the most worthy to be President. This trust could not
be abandoned, not even at the request of the king. Such sentiment continued
to be entrenched at Oxford into the eighteenth century. There was a greater
principle in play. If James had the authority to disregard existing legislation,
such as college statutes, then where did his power really stop? By the same

57 Document 47: “1687, April 21. Lord Sunderland’s Letter to the Vice-President and Fellows,”
in Magdalen College and King James ii, 37.
58 Document 52: “1687, early in May(?) Case of St. M. Magd. Coll. Oxon relating to the elec-
tion of the President according to the Statutes,” in Magdalen College and King James ii, 41.
59 Harris, Revolution, 226.
60 Document 54: “1687, May 28. Proceedings taken Against the College,” Magdalen College
and King James ii, 49.
Introduction 19

logic he could override all offices in the nation, secular and ecclesiastical.
Even property rights might be altered by royal whim. To many it seemed that
James ii was dangerously close to crossing the line into becoming a tyrannical
monarch.61 Perhaps seeing the writing on the wall, Farmer removed himself
from consideration when he, as recorded on 14 August, “disappeared from the
scene, and [was] heard of no more.” Nonetheless, James did not end his efforts
to break Magdalen as one would a wild horse. He simply changed riders. James
ordered that Samuel Parker, the Bishop of Oxford, be elected—acclaimed is
more like it—president. While the fellows would eventually agree to James’s
demand, the monarch’s insistence that they also apologise for their refusal to
elect Farmer was too much. When the fellows declined, James expelled the
lot of them. By August 1688 all but two of the fellows were Catholics and the
college became the locus of Catholic worship in Oxford. Magdalen and Christ
Church were the only two colleges that celebrated the birth of James, Prince
of Wales, on 10 June.62 It was only with the knowledge that William of Orange
planned to invade England to restore the rights of Parliament and ensure the
safety of the Anglican Church, that James made a last-ditch effort to win back
the good will of Oxford by reinstating the members of the college on 5 O­ ctober
1688, one month before the commencement of the English Revolution.63 It
was too little, too late.
James ii had also taken interest in All Souls. Thus, Gardiner was not the
first warden of All Souls who experienced political pressure regarding appoint-
ments, nor would he be the last. His immediate predecessor, Finch, witnessed
this in the autumn of 1688. Appointed warden in 1687 at the young age of
twenty-five, Finch (who incidentally beat out the literary star John Dryden64)
owed his position to the influence, and demand, of James ii. Only five years
previously, Finch’s election as a fellow of All Souls had been resisted in some
college circles due to rumours regarding his character and propensity for drink.
His frequent absences from chapel and prayers resulted in admonishment in
1684. But family connections and paternal standing (his father was the Earl of
Winchilsea) overshadowed Finch’s personal failings and the monarch secured
his advancement to the position of warden through the Archbishop of Canter-
bury as visitor. Finch had a somewhat vindictive side and one of his first acts

61 MacIntyre, “The College, King James ii and the Revolution of 1687–1688,” 64.
62 MacIntyre, “The College, King James ii and the Revolution of 1687–1688,” 66, 67.
63 Pincus, 1688: The First Modern Revolution, 176–177; Evans, Oxford, 182.
64 J.A.W. Bennett, “Dryden and All Souls,” Modern Language Notes 52 (1937): 115–116.
20 Introduction

as warden was to abolish the longstanding fine for fellows not properly turned
out for their morning prayers.65
In spite of owing his position to James ii, Finch was not always an obedi-
ent servant. This became evident in September 1688. The matter concerned
the Vicarage of Barking, located slightly to the northeast of London. In 1557
the ­Vicarage (including both ownership of the residence or rectory and the
advowson, the right to nominate a person to the position of vicar) were given
to All Souls following the Dissolution under Henry viii. All Souls allowed the
­appointed vicar to use the income generated from the rectory on condition
that he pray every Sunday for the soul of William Pownsett, who had secured
the arrangement for the college. Legal disputes between All Souls and the
crown over the advowson were finally resolved in the college’s favour in 1586.
In August 1688 James ii wrote to Finch with a request on behalf of Thomas
Cartwright, Bishop of Chester, who was also the current Vicar of Barking.
Cartwright and James had a previous history. He had been one of the three
royal commissioners sent by James ii to Magdalen College to investigate mat-
ters regarding the election of the president. No doubt James felt that he owed
Cartwright a favour. So when Cartwright decided to vacate the vicarage in 1688
and have his son, John, take up the post, he turned to James ii to ensure this
happened. The monarch obliged and wrote to Finch explaining the situation.

… whereas We are well satisfied of the piety Learning and Loyalty of Our
Trusty and well beloved John Cartwright Master of Arts of Trinity College
in our University of Cambridge, We have thought fit hereby to recom-
mend him to you in the most effectual manner: Willing and requiring you
to present the said John Cartwright to the Said Vicarage of Barking with
the Rights, Tiths, Profits and advantages thereunto belonging any Statute,
Custom, or Constitution notwithstanding. And so expecting your ready
Complyance herein. We bid you Farewell.66

This request surprised Finch, who delayed acting upon it; one might say he
ignored it. Two weeks later, Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of Sunderland, Lord Presi-
dent of the Council, reiterated the king’s demands.

His Majesty was graciously pleased thereupon to recommend the said

Mr Cartwright unto you in a most effectual manner to be presented to the

65 Scott Mandelbrotte, “From Civil War to Glorious Revolution,” in All Souls Under the Ancien
Regime, 75.
66 bl Add. ms 32095, fol. 271a, James ii to Leopold Finch, 13 August 1688.
Introduction 21

said Vicarage. But you having not yielded that obedience unto his Majes-
ties mandate as his Majesty expected, it being only for the changing of a
life to gratify his Lordship ….67

Following this second request, Finch sent a considered response to Sunder-

land. He explained that the matter was without precedent and that the college
needed time to consider it and the implications of a monarch directing the
business of All Souls.

His Majesties Mandatory letter on this Subject countersigned by your

Lordship, containeth in it matters of so extraordinary of nature in many
respects, and of so great consequence to the well being of our College
(having no precedent of the like sent either to us or any other College in
Oxford from any of his Majesties Royall Progenitors) that wee could not
but think it necessary to take good advice thereon.68

Finch also reminded Sunderland that he and the rest of the college were bound
by the statutes and must always act in the best interest of the college and not
the whims of the crown. While appearing somewhat deferential, Finch refused
to commit himself to James’s request. Continuing to drag his feet, Finch then
wrote to Lord Weymouth, former mp for Oxford, a few days later. Here he ex-
plained that the whole affair had a rotten smell. Finch related that some of the
fellows of All Souls had run into John Cartwright who boasted that “there was
a Combination betwixt the King Ye B[isho]p and himself to cheat the College”
out of its rights. Whether the irony of his challenging James ii’s request for an
All Souls appointment was lost on Finch, given his own journey to the warden-
ship, we cannot know. He did write with frustration to Weymouth that “I doe
not yet hear of any other Mandates” for college position and that All Souls
simply requested a free election to the positions under its purview.69 Perhaps
looking for some sympathy from Weymouth and a little indulgence, Finch ex-
plained that while he considered the matter of the vicarage he was immersed
in family tragedy. Finch’s brother Tom had recently returned to England.

I presume your Lordship knows is returned but not with his Wife whom
he buried in the Indies, he suspects she dyed of poison. He tells a very
long and melancholy story of his usage and sufferings, and arrived in a

67 bl Add. ms 32095, fol. 271b, Lord Sunderland to Finch, 27 August 1688.

68 bl Add. ms 32095, fol. 273, All Souls College to Lord Sunderland, 1 September 1688.
69 bl Add. ms 32095, fol. 269v, Finch to Lord Weymouth, 6 September 1688.
22 Introduction

very poor condition, which to ye utmost of my power I endeavoured to

better so as to qualife him to appear in publick.70

Whether this tug at the heartstrings worked or not became a moot point soon
after this letter was sent. A few weeks later William, Stadtholder of the Dutch
Republic and Prince of Orange, invaded England on 5 November 1688 and
­began the English Revolution. By the end of the year James ii fled to France
and the throne was declared vacant. Also escaping with his monarch was
Thomas Cartwright, Bishop of Chester. Getting the last laugh was Finch. All
Souls presented its warden as the candidate to be Vicar of Barking in 1689, a
post Finch held until 1697.
The coronation of William iii ended an unpleasant chapter in the history
of Oxford. Christ Church lost its Catholic Dean when, in the early morning of
30 November 1688, Massey exited somewhat unglamorously through a win-
dow in the Deanery before making his way to London and then to the Jacobite
court at St Germain, just outside of Paris.71 Walker fled University College on
9 ­November 1688, a mere four days after William landed. The former master
would be incarcerated in the Tower of London and released in January 1690.72
Many college heads, and this included Gardiner when he took the reins of All
Souls years later, assumed that the autonomous politics of their quadrangles
would be restored upon the accession of William. What had buoyed this belief
was that one of the reasons William gave for appearing “in armes in the King-
dome of England’ was to counteract James’s interference in both Oxford and
Cambridge, with specific reference made to the affairs at Magdalen College in
the declaration. William claimed that,

evil Counsellors … have turned out a President chosen by the Fellows of

Magdalen College, and afterwards all the fellows of that college, without
so much as citing them before any court that could take legal cognizance
of that affair, or obtaining any Sentence against them by a competent
judge … and now those evil Counsellors have put the said College wholly
in the hands of the Papists….73

70 bl Add. ms 32095, fol. 269v.

71 Judith Curthoys, The Cardinal’s College: Christ Church, Chapter and Verse (London: Profile
Books, 2012), 130–133; Christopher Lewis, “The Deans,” in Christopher Butler, ed., Christ
Church, Oxford: A Portrait of the House (London: Third Millennium Publishing, 2006),
41–42.
72 Darwall-Smith, A History of University College, 216–217.
73 “William’s Declaration, 1688,” in E. Neville Williams, ed., The Eighteenth-Century Constitu-
tion 1688–1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960), 12.
Introduction 23

As it has been put, “one aspect of [James’s] foolishness” was the assault on
local governments, in this case Oxford’s colleges.74 Related to this was the per-
ception in many circles that James ii’s attacks on the internal decision making
process at Magdalen shared much in common with his curtailing of parlia-
mentary independence.75 Yet, no college was so naïve as to think they would
be absolutely independent under William’s administration, nor did Gardiner
think that politics did not wind its way around All Souls—but he did expect
a great deal of freedom when it came to acting in accordance with the man-
date contained in the statutes. However, none of this amounted to the victory
that the various colleges might have wanted. Oxford would still be subject to
royal supremacy and close observation as it had been since the relationship
was reaffirmed in 1636 under Archbishop Laud.76 Any autonomy gained in 1688
was limited.77 Indeed, William iii, the very man who had chased James ii out
of the country, and his successors acted with similar boldness when it came
to the University of Oxford, as we will see. To be fair, though, aside from an
abortive attempted to have Isaac Newton become Provost of King’s College,
Cambridge in 1689, which the fellows rejected because Newton was neither in
orders nor had he ever been a fellow of King’s, William kept his demands for
appointments confined to more minor college positions.78
Although some historians argue that the strong-arm tactics of James ii were
not tried again in efforts to bring aspects of Oxford’s colleges under control
for political purposes,79 the impression inside the university was vastly differ-
ent. “Broadly speaking,” according to a recent assessment, “Oxford accepted
the Revolution Settlement as a fait accompli.”80 But what exactly the various
colleges believed they had accepted and whether or not that fit the perception
within Whitehall had yet to be determined. Several of the colleges, especially

74 Plumb, Sir Robert Walpole, The Making of a Statesman, 39.

75 Sowerby, Making Toleration, 4, 13.
76 Notker Hammerstein, “Relations with Authority,” in H. De Ridder-Symoens, ed., A History
of The University in Europe, vol. 2, Universities in Early Modern Europe (1500–1800) (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 134, 136.
77 Christopher Brooke, “The Syllabus, Religion and Politics 1660–1750,” in Victor Morgan
(ed.), A History of the University of Cambridge, vol. 2, 1546–1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2004), 533–534.
78 D.T. Whiteside, ed., The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton vol. vi, 1684–1691 (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), xxiv n. 48.
79 Nigel Aston, “Queen Anne and Oxford: The Royal Visit 1702 and its Aftermath,” Journal for
Eighteenth-Century Studies 37, no 2 (2014), 172; Brooke, “The Syllabus, Religion and Politics
1660–1750,” 533; Brockliss, Oxford, 154.
80 Crook, Brasenose, 96.
24 Introduction

All Souls during Gardiner’s tenure as warden, understood William’s victory to

mean they were no longer under the whim of the crown, or Parliament, which
would leave the running of the various colleges to the community of scholars
entrusted with that task. This was the ambiguous nature of the 1688 Revolu-
tion. No one disagreed that the king would rule in cooperation with Parlia-
ment, but exactly how that looked in practice remained to be seen, especially
from Gardiner’s viewpoint. Would tradition or innovation prevail? As late as
1790 Richard Price and Edmund Burke still debated the meaning of events.
Where Price praised innovation and increased liberty as a result of what came
to be known as the Glorious Revolution, Burke admired the supposed return
of the older order that had been besieged by a tyrannical Catholic monarch.
Historians accepted the conservative assessment of men like Burke for a long
time. Jonathan Scott makes it clear that defence of both the Church of England
and the rights Parliament explain William’s invasion.81 The revolution was ad-
opted reluctantly but out of necessity to preserve the Protestant order, in the
view of William Speck.82
But was this defence of Anglicanism a step toward the modern nation of
England, or was it an example of deep-seated religious bigotry manifested in
a desire to halt reform and keep the semi-confessional state intact? A fresh
interpretation is offered by Scott Sowerby who argues that the “curious” nature
of 1688 was that in this revolution the attempt to remake the nation, was “spon-
sored by the state” and the “countermovement was aligned against it.”83 As
Sowerby demonstrates, James actually had broad support for proceeding with
his programme of political reforms and religious toleration (for Protestants
and Catholics) from a variety of Christian confessions. In this view, the Revolu-
tion was a conservative reaction against religious reform. Quoting Alexis de
Tocqueville’s assertion that government is at its “most perilous moment” when
“it seeks to mend its way,” Sowerby suggest that James’s experience was similar
and that “the reforms of King James ii enabled the Revolution of 1688–1689.”84
It was only when James attempted to undue, or moderate, some of the more
contentious elements in his reforms—restoring the places of the Magdalen
men in October 1688, for example—that he lost the confidence of the nation.
I will address Steven Pincus’s recent interpretation of 1688 being the first mod-
ern revolution in Chapter 6.

81 Jonathan Scott, England’s Troubles: Seventeenth-Century England’s Political Instability in

European Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
82 Pincus, 1688: The First Modern Revolution, 26, 92; Speck, Reluctant Revolutionaries.
83 Sowerby, Making Toleration, 17.
84 Sowerby, Making Toleration, 3.
Introduction 25

For men like Gardiner who had despised James’s efforts to tolerate Catho-
lics in England’s churches and universities, the arrival of William signalled that
Anglicanism would prevail and that the localized governments of O ­ xford’s
­colleges would endure cocooned within their medieval statutes, untouched
by the emerging political realities of post-1688 England. Nonetheless, the
fact remained that William and subsequent rulers down to George  i and
­beyond held the same power regarding the universities as had James ii. For
its part, the crown believed it had given up none of its power on account of
1688, university oversight included. It was the abuse rather than the mere
exercise of this p ­ ower that would be avoided. While this was indeed the
crown’s view, G ­ ardiner’s ­understanding of the matter was different: use of
that power was tantamount to abuse of that power. During his time as War-
den of All Souls Gardiner felt the reoccurring spooky tingle of Magdalen
déjà vu.
Chapter 1 explores Gardiner’s anxiety in 1708 over a bill rumoured to be pre-
sented in House of Commons that would remove the requirement for college
fellows to be in holy orders, not merely at All Souls but in Oxford generally.
Gardiner’s worry and frustration are cast against a background of Whig-Tory
political wrangling, debates over the controversial practise of ­Occasional
­Conformity, the nature of the English Church, its High-Church and ­Low-Church
defenders, and the participation of an assortment of angry fellows of All Souls
in the affair.
One of the reasons that Gardiner worried over the bill in the House of Com-
mons was his belief that Matthew Tindal, fellow of All Souls and a noted deist,
was a behind-the-scenes leader of the enterprise. Chapter 2 details Gardiner’s
fear that Tindal seemingly spurred on the efforts to undermine the traditional
values of All Souls as embodied in the statutes and promoted heresy within the
college’s walls. Gardiner, and others at All Souls were particularly concerned
with Tindal’s The Rights of the Christian Church (1706), which caused a national
sensation and was the impetus for Gardiner to launch an investigation into the
book’s composition. All of this is described against a background of Tindal’s
critical comments regarding his experience at Oxford and the acrimonious
Convocation Crisis.
Even without the successful passing of the bill in the House of Commons
there was another strategy available for at least a few fellows who wished not
to take orders and yet retain their fellowships at All Souls. Those scholars who
studied medicine were exempt from the orders requirement. Chapter 3 opens
with a short description of the problematic history of medicine at Oxford. It
then focuses on the issues following Gardiner’s denial of the requests brought
forward by Richard Stephens and Pierce Dod to be exempt from holy orders in
26 Introduction

1709. Similar concerns occurred at Merton College and these are explored to
illustrate that Gardiner’s troubles were not his alone.
Chapter 4 presents Gardiner’s most public attempt to prevent what he
saw as interference in the operation of All Souls. He demanded that William
Blencowe, cryptographer in the service of Queen Anne’s administration and
­fellow of All Souls, take holy orders. Blencowe resisted and turned to the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, Tenison, and Lord Sunderland for help. Even the queen
herself commented on the matter. While Blencowe was neither the first nor last
fellow to refuse orders, his case was easily the most sensational as it touched
upon court politics, Sunderland’s political ambition and caustic manner, and
Anne’s desire to have her clerical appointments accepted without debate. Here
we will see how the famous 1710 trial of High-Church provocateur Dr Henry
Sacheverell reshaped not only the political landscape in England at large but
also the more local politics of All Souls.
Chapter 5 brings to light the matter of John Stead, fellow of All Souls, who
lived with two women, and married to neither. Although Stead was not the
only fellow who ran afoul of Gardiner for supposedly being married, thereby
violating the terms of his fellowship, the episode had a tremendous impact
within the college. Included in the cast of characters in this tale are two sisters,
who were looking to gain control of their inheritance, Stead, who takes pity
on them, Gardiner, who believes Stead has acted immorally, the young ladies’
­father and uncle, who attempt to manipulate everything to their advantage,
and two Archbishops of Canterbury along with their respective staffs.
Chapter 6 begins with Archbishop Wake’s removal of some of Gardiner’s
­authority within All Souls following the Stead affair. It then considers the
rapidly changing political scene in England during 1714–1715 and Oxford’s
often-begrudging acceptance of the first Hanoverian monarch. Fears of
­
­political disaffection growing within Oxford and its colleges were serious
­matters for many politicians and these played out both at All Souls and to
the south at Merton College. Within this atmosphere of suspicion, Gardiner
(now Vice Chancellor of Oxford in addition to his position as Warden of All
Souls) sought to assure King George i of Oxford’s loyalty to his majesty. The
chapter then considers the unsuccessful attempts in March 1717 and ­January
1719 to achieve closer administrative control of the universities, as part of
the larger Whig programme of political reform. At its core, this chapter looks
at G
­ ardiner’s response to the efforts of Thomas Parker, Lord Chief Justice
(1710–1718), along with others who made a number of suggestions for “amend-
ments in the statutes” of the universities.
The Conclusion summarizes Gardiner’s view of the 1688 Revolution and
outlines George i’s demands on New College, Oxford regarding admittance to
Introduction 27

a scholarship. Stephen Niblett’s (Gardiner’s successor) troubles as Warden of

All Souls proceed a discussion of the alterations brought to All Souls following
Gardiner’s disagreements with the Visitor and describe the final confrontation
between the warden and Archbishop Wake.
We begin with an act that will be commonplace over the following pages,
the Warden of All Souls College, Bernard Gardiner, writing to the Archbishop
of Canterbury to complain about the behaviour of the fellows of All Souls.
 Chapter 1

Gardiner and the House of Commons Bill

In November 1708, about a year prior to the events at the Catherine Wheel in
Wycombe which opened this book, the Warden of All Souls College, O ­ xford
Bernard Gardiner sent a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas
Tenison, in which he advised Tenison that a movement was underway at All
Souls that threatened the traditional values of the college. Gardiner explained
that several fellows who should have taken orders and become priests in the
Church of England refused to do so. Making matters worse, Gardiner believed
that these same fellows were about to use their political connections to have a
bill introduced in the House of Commons that, if it became law, would remove
the requirement of orders totally, not merely at All Souls but in the University
of Oxford generally. The warden emphasized that such an outcome would be
“contrary to the Plain meaning of our Good Founder and be the Ruin of ye
Society” and pleaded with the Archbishop: “I pray God put it into your Grace’s
mind Speedily to find a Remedy.”1
According to the Laudian Statutes of 1636, there could be no major change
in the operation of the University of Oxford, or in its individual colleges,
­without royal approval either in the form of an Order in Council or an Act of
Parliament (there also could not be “immoderately long hair” for the fellows
of the colleges).2 Given this situation, the attempt to pass a bill in the House of
Commons seemed the only means of proceeding for those fellows, and their
political supporters, who wished to modify the statute’s demands regarding
compulsory holy orders. The rumour of the bill confirmed stereotypes both in
Oxford and in London in an age where partisanship ran rampant.
An introduction into the political environment of the day may be had by
considering the 1701 Act of Settlement (12 and 13 Will 3 c. 2), which became
law a few months before Gardiner’s wardenship began and initiated important
consequences not only for the nation at large but also for the more local politi-
cal worlds of All Souls and Oxford. The most obvious of these was that succes-
sion of a Protestant monarch would be secured and certain. Upon the death
of William iii (Mary having died in 1694), his sister-in-law, Anne (­daughter of

1 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 1, fol. 72. Gardiner to Tenison, 3 November 1708.
2 L.G. Mitchell, “Introduction,” in Eighteenth Century, 5; Jan Morris, The Oxford Book of Oxford
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 78.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004375352_003

Gardiner and the House of Commons Bill 29

James ii), would become queen and should she die without ­surviving ­children,
the crown would pass to the House of Hanover. The matriarch of the ­German
Hanoverians was Electress Sophia, Protestant granddaughter of James i.
­Although the lineage was a relatively minor branch in the Stuart family tree,
the Hanoverians were solidly Protestant and this counted for more than did
the stronger dynastic claims of other Stuarts whose Catholicism made them
unappealing candidates. Indeed, the Act barred Catholics or any heir mar-
ried to a Catholic from becoming king. With Protestant monarchs ensured
on the throne in perpetuity, threats of Catholic plots and treason diminished.
Nonetheless, frequent behaviour within Oxford—city and university—raised
­suspicions in London, as many students and faculty appeared to harbour not
so secret allegiances to the memory of James ii, thus declaring themselves
­Jacobites. The Act of Settlement also continued the profound financial re-
strictions on monarchical prerogative and the crown remained beholden to
­Parliament for the funds needed to run the nation. While the power to declare
war and peace resided with the sovereign, the means to finance any conflict
required political cooperation. As Tim Harris has noted the monarch’s ability
to “harness the economic wealth of the country in the service of the sovereign,”
created “a revolutionary transformation of the English state.”3 In this way cen-
tralization became commonplace in the post-1688 polity and as we will see the
desire to include Oxford within this growing consolidated authority was what
Gardiner sought to prevent based on his understanding of what 1688 meant.
One area not touched by the Act was the crown-in-parliament’s authority over
the universities, Oxford included. While the accession of Anne (being the good
Stuart that she was) in 1702 had buoyed the hopes of Tory-leaning Oxford, that
Whigs came to dominate her government (for the time being) caused concern
in the university community. Anne disappointed Oxford somewhat when she
visited that university only once during her reign. For the university commu-
nity that saw themselves as consistent supporters of the Stuarts and of strong
Anglicanism, this was upsetting. In August 1702 Queen Anne made her single
visit to Oxford, staying at Christ Church, while she and her husband, Prince
George of Denmark, made their way to Bath so that he might find recuperation
in the waters there.4

3 Tim Harris, Revolution: The Great Crisis of the British Monarchy, 1685–1720 (London: Penguin,
2006), 494, 486.
4 Nigel Aston, “Queen Anne and Oxford: The Royal Visit 1702 and its Aftermath,” Journal for
Eighteenth-Century Studies 37, no 2 (2014), 171, 173, 174, 179; Kevin Sharpe, Rebranding Rule:
The Restoration and Revolution Monarch, 1660–1714 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013),
510. Anne visited Cambridge only once, in 1705.
30 Chapter 1

In spite of promises of loyalty to Queen Anne, including several made by

Bernard Gardiner in the later years of her reign, many moderate (often Whig)
mps saw Oxford as potentially seditious and stocked with Tories, if not rabid
Jacobites, ready to impede their efforts to alleviate the divisive nature of reli-
gious debate in the nation. While it is incorrect to see either Whigs or Tories as
modern political parties, those who bore the labels shared a number of posi-
tions. Both Whigs and Tories came of age during the Exclusion Crisis (1679–
1681), the attempted passing of three successive bills in the House of Commons
aimed at preventing Charles ii’s brother James, Duke of York, from becoming
king because of his unwavering Catholicism. Tories opposed each of the bills
because of their unalterable loyalty—often described as passive obedience—
to the monarch and the belief that sovereignty was not granted by subjects
on a contractual basis. In addition to practical submission to the crown, Tories
argued that the Church of England was God’s church and that loyalty to it was
as important as faithfulness to the monarch. Naturally the events of 1688 and
William iii’s acceptance of the crown by Act of Parliament (Tories came to
­lament the increased role that Parliament would play in the legislative agenda
of the nation after 1688) was a bitter pill to swallow for many Tories, as was the
Act of Settlement. Within Oxford, Tory sentiment was common. This was the
university that, on 21 July 1683, had issued what is known as Oxford Decree:

…we command and strictly enjoin all … to whom the care and trust of
instruction of youth in committed, that they diligently instruct … that
this submission and obedience is to be clear, absolute, and without ex-
ception of any state or order of men; also that all supplication, prayers,
intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men, for the King and
all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all
goodness and honesty, for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God
our Saviour.5

It was perhaps the purest statement of Tory passive obedience. That the ­decree
would be republished in 1710, during the peak of events discussed in this
book, illustrated to many moderate politicians that Oxford remained firmly
­entrenched in a pre-1688 mind-set.
As William Nicholson, Bishop of Carlisle, described in a letter of 1711,
­Oxford was “a Nursery wherein your Sprouts of the Royal Foundation are to be
cherish’d a While, til they are to fit to be transplanted (in greater ­maturity) to

5 “Decree of the University of Oxford,” in J.P. Kenyon, ed., The Stuart Constitution: Documents
and Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 473–474.
Gardiner and the House of Commons Bill 31

their ­Original Soil.”6 For their part, Tories looked down from Oxford and saw, as
Jonathan Trelawny, Bishop of Winchester, phrased it around 1709, “in Westmin-
ster Hall, where atheism, socinianism & a proper detestation of ye principles
& government of ye universitys is allowed and justify’d.”7 A ­graduate of Christ
Church, Oxford, Trelawny was a fierce royalist whose loyalty to the monarch
was exceeded only by his devotion to Anglican exclusivity in ­England. He feared
that too much unorthodoxy had crept into the nation through the writings of
deists, which would lead readers to atheism, and that the anti-­Trinitarian the-
ology promoted by Socinian authors would do the same thing. Thus, Protes-
tantism was often the defining feature of who was considered a proper ­English
citizen. But there was more to it than simply denying the authority of the Pope.
Being the correct type of Protestant was key, and here assessments varied
greatly.8 For Tories like Trelawny, only those identifying themselves as Angli-
can (preferably of the High-Church variety) were proper Protestants. While
England was not technically a confessional state, many disagreed and acted as
if anything less than total support of straight-laced ­Anglicanism was a sign of
disloyalty.
Conversely, Whigs had supported the three exclusion bills and argued that
monarchs ruled by the consent of the governed. They feared arbitrary govern-
ment and Roman Catholicism, which to them were often inseparable and seen
most acutely in France under the reign of Louis xiv. Whigs held a less exclu-
sionary view of the Church of England and, generally speaking, welcomed
many Protestants within its definition. Innovation rather than tradition, world-
ly rather than insular, advocacy of a “big and interventionist state” directed by
Parliament run by Whigs “and in their interests rather than an ­absolutist state,”
promoted by the Tories, characterises the Whig outlook.9 Critics like Trelawny
accused them of having no regard for strict Anglicanism: they held so loose a
definition of the English Church it allowed opponents like deists and Socin-
ians a foothold in the nation. Indeed, given that those Tories who saw England
as an Anglican confessional state long after 1688 equated religious dissent, of

6 bl Add. ms 6116, fol. 30v. Bishop Nicholson to William Wake, 17 September 1711.
7 Georgian Oxford, 13, 22, 24, 30, quotation on 34; J. Mordaunt Crook, Brasenose: The Biogra-
phy of an Oxford College (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 57, 95, 97; Mark Knights,
The Devil in Disguise: Deception, Delusion, and Fanaticism in the Early English Enlightenment
(­Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 191–192.
8 Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992),
18–19; Tony Claydon, Europe and the Making of England 1660–1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2007), 62–63.
9 Steven C.A. Pincus and James A. Robinson, “What Really Happened During the Glorious
Revolution,” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 17206 (July 2011), 22.
32 Chapter 1

any kind, as political dissent, Whigs and deists were one and the same.10 In
this view, every challenge to the Anglican hegemony in England was no bet-
ter than open resistance to the crown and the security of the nation generally.
Although, as we have been reminded recently, neither political party “had a
wholly clear, consistent, cohesive, and coherent set of ideological priorities.”
There where certain “core principles” of the type just outlined and these were
often “religious in character.”11 In ways that will be evident in this book, charac-
terizations of the Anglican Church and its place in defining the nation and its
institutions were profoundly political.
When it became clear that the bill to remove the orders requirement for
university fellows was no mere rumour and that plans were afoot to have it
tabled in 1709, Gardiner rallied the troops around him, emphasizing tradition
and the importance of church in England. Gardiner relied upon Oxford mp
William Bromley for news about the bill. Bromley, alumnus of Christ Church,
Oxford, entered the House of Commons in 1690 but caused controversy in 1692
with his travel memoir, Remarks on the Grand Tour of France and Italy, which
seemed very pro-Catholic and pro-Jacobite and contained favourable ­accounts
of Catholic churches that Bromley visited and the tale of his kissing the pope’s
slippers. For a nation with a strong history of anti-Catholic ­sentiment, bor-
dering on paranoia, such seemingly Catholic behaviour cast Bromley in a
­suspicious light. Anti-Catholicism was central to the English religious iden-
tity, as Linda Colley has shown. He was not returned in the election of 1698
­after his unbending High-Church stance set him on the wrong side of Robert
Harley. Harley, who had first sat in the House of Commons in 1690 with Whig
­sympathies, became disenchanted as many of his political colleagues moved
to openly support the monarchy in all matters and formed allegiance to what
would be known as the Whig Junto. Nonetheless, Harley served as Speaker
of the House from 1701–1705 and cultivated a reputation as a moderate and
a pragmatist who would not let ideology—Whig or Tory—override common
sense. He quickly rose to a position of tremendous influence in the House of
Commons before being elevated to the House of Lords as the Earl of Oxford
in 1711.12 In spite of running afoul of Harley, Bromley would be re-elected as

10 J.C.D. Clark, English Society 1660–1832: Religion, Ideology and Politics During the Ancien
Regime, Second Edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 32, 318–321;
Brendan Simmis, Britain’s Europe: A Thousand Years of Conflict and Cooperation (London:
­Allen Lane, 2016), 46–47.
11 Aaron Graham, Corruption, Party, and Government in England, 1702–1713 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2015), 27.
12 Tim Harris, Politics Under the Later Stuarts, 1660–1715 (London: Longman, 1993), 148, 152.
Gardiner and the House of Commons Bill 33

r­ epresentative for Oxford University in 1701; he became a Tory spokesman in

the House of Commons, eventually becoming Speaker of the House in 1710. In
1713 he would be made Secretary of State (northern) and given responsibility
for crucial diplomatic correspondence.13 But much of that was yet to come.
When Bromley wrote on 17 February 1709 that the bill to have holy orders re-
scinded at Oxford “will soon be delivered at the door” of the House of Com-
mons, Gardiner must have read the letter with clenched fists. Were the bill to
pass, it would forever alter the relationship between church and university.
One’s view of the Church of England could cut across Whig and Tory lines,
but it was common for High-Church adherents—those who wished the Church
to be tightly restrictive in its membership, allowing only communicant Angli-
cans to belong and enjoy the political benefits that this provided—to be Tories.
Those of a Low-Church persuasion, who by and large tended to be Whigs, saw
exclusion as too Catholic-like and sought a widely comprehensive Anglican-
ism in the nation. At the extreme end of the Low-Church position were those
whom critics styled “Latitudinarians.” It was said of these clerics that they held
too wide latitude in defining the English Church: they were “gentlemen of wide
swallow,” ready to accept anyone or any belief within the confines of the Eng-
lish Church. Latitudinarians saw themselves as focused on the few essentials
of worship that might unite Protestants under an Anglican banner.14 What is
more, Low-Church supporters frequently decoupled unbreakable l­oyalty to
the crown from Anglicanism worship because the first Protestants were born
from an act of rebellion against the papacy and that a tyrannical ruler might
necessitate a repeat of that action. Low-Churchmen believed that the Church
of England should be concerned with the nation’s salvation and the care of
souls rather than with issues of governance.15 High-Church advocates saw
­Anglicanism and unrelenting support of the monarchy as two sides of the
same coin.
Gardiner falls into the High-Church camp with his devotion to the role of
tradition in the English Church and All Souls’ role in training its future clergy.
His political commitments were squarely Tory.16 Should the bill become law,
Gardiner believed it would only appeal to Whigs and those of a Low-Church

13 A.A. Hanham, “Bromley, William (bap. 1663, d. 1732),” in odnb, vol. 7, 826–827; A.A.
Hanham, “Bromley, William ii (1663–1732),” The Commons 1690–1715, vol. 3, 341–359.
14 John Gascoigne, “Anglican Latitudinarianism and Political Radicalism in the Late Eigh-
teenth Century,” History 71 (1986): 23
15 Claydon, Europe and the Making of England, 253.
16 I cannot agree with William Gibson’s assertion in his odnb entry on Gardiner that “Gar-
diner was a Whig.” Gardiner’s actions indicate that he was solidly Tory in his outlook.
34 Chapter 1

demeanour whom the warden saw as desiring the erosion of High-Church

values in England and granting too many freedoms to Dissenters. Dissent was
perhaps the major political and religious issue during the reigns of William iii
and Anne. Previous Whig efforts to allow Occasional Conformity and possibly
revoke the Test Acts had had High-Church sympathizers like Gardiner on edge
shouting “Church in Danger”, especially after the Tories had failed in their three
previous attempts to legislate an end to the practice of Occasional ­Conformity.
The last defeat was particularly inglorious as the Tories tacked the bill to the
Land Tax in the mistaken belief it would not be voted down.17
The issue at hand was the following. After the Act of Toleration (1689) those
Protestants who were not Anglicans, thus becoming Dissenters, were no lon-
ger subject to prosecution. But the Test Acts (1673, 1678) and the Corporation
Act (1661) remained in effect to essentially ban them from public office. Tories
relied upon these acts to maintain the Anglican monopoly on political power
and feared that any leniency would encourage Dissenters in their thinking that
politics was something to which they might aspire.18 In order to technically
comply with the letter but hardly the sprit of this legislation, Dissenters could
take periodic (merely annual in some assessments) communion in the Angli-
can Church, thereby occasionally conforming.19 To further irritate Tories, the
Whigs had passed another Act of General Pardon in 1708, which temporarily
suspended punishments in ecclesiastical courts. We may speculate that, for
Gardiner, and others in Oxford where the opposition to occasional conformity
was high, complying with the obligations of the Church of England merely
once a year, in order to keep an office, was tantamount to keeping a fellow-
ship at All Souls and not taking orders: both practices were deceitful (saying
one thing and doing another or doing one thing when required to do another)
and made a mockery of what should have been a close relationship between
church and state.20 Indeed, as Mark Knights has pointed out, such h ­ ypocrisy

17 John Spurr, The Post-Reformation: Religion, Politics and Society in Britain, 1603–1714 (­Harlow:
Longman, 2006), 200; John Flaningam, “The Occasional Conformity Controversy: Ideol-
ogy and Party Politics, 1697–1711,” The Journal of British Studies, 17 (1977): 38–39, 46; Mark
Knights, “Occasional Conformity and the Representation of Dissent: Hypocrisy, ­Sincerity,
Moderation and Zeal,” Parliamentary History, 24 (2005): 43; Clark, English ­Society 1660–
1832, 333.
18 G.V. Bennett, “Conflict in the Church,” in Britain After the Glorious Revolution 1689–1714,
ed. Geoffrey Holmes (London: Macmillan, 1969), 161–168; Harris, Politics Under the Later
Stuarts 1660–1715, 152.
19 John Coffey, Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England, 1558–1689 (Harlow: Long-
man, 2000), 199.
20 Brent S. Sirota, “The Occasional Conformity Controversy, Moderation, and the Anglican
Critique of Modernity, 1700–1714,” The Historical Journal 57 (2014): 88–90.
Gardiner and the House of Commons Bill 35

of action was exactly what opponents of Occasional Conformity wished

to end.
After relating what he knew about the plans to present the bill during the
present session in the House of Commons, Bromley revealed to ­Gardiner the
names of the All Souls men who championed the effort. Fellows who wished to
see the statutes changed through legislation were “Mr. Mer[edith], Mr. Dal[ton],
Mr. Littlet[on]: and Mr Blencowe”21 Roger Meredith, Thomas ­Dalton, Fisher
Littteton, and William Blencowe were well-known to Gardiner. ­Blencowe and
his political connections caused Gardiner considerable trouble, as we will see.
On the same day in late 1708 Gardiner had both denied ­Meredith’s request for
dispensation from orders and demanded Littleton to take his ma degree, which
meant that he would be required to be in orders. Gardiner e­ xplained further to
Tension that Meredith and Littleton were civil lawyers which, in his view was
“contrary to ye meaning of Ye Founder, and so declare … I therefore will give
[them] no Dispensation for Orders.”22 Not only did they practise as lawyers
outside of the college, and thereby violate the exception from orders that civil
law afforded them, (Dalton did not, but he refused to take orders nonetheless
on the pretext of being too ill of health to manage the duties of a clergyman)
when they should have been in orders, their attempt to see the bill passed was
“a dangerous Combination carried on by many of ye Fellows …[who] would Fly
to an Act of Parliament to have destroyed ye will of ye Founder,” as Gardiner
would recall to Tenison several months later.23
Some relief came for Gardiner a few days later on 22 February when Bromley
advised him that the bill would have been brought forward in the House that
day “but other business prevented it.”24 The next letter hit Gardiner straight
in the heart, however. Bromley told him that there was a good chance that
the fellows who supported the bill would drop the whole matter, “if I would
impose with you to do what is reasonable & what they say, in justice you ought
to do, they would not prosecute this Matter this Session. My Answer has given
I did not doubt that doing what was just & reasonable, & that I should be glad
to do good offices….”25 So long as Gardiner, in at least some cases, agreed not
to be so rigid and uncompromising in consistently refusing to set aside the
requirement of orders at All Souls, the bill would not be brought forth into the

21 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 2, fol. 12. Bromley to Gardiner, 17 February 1708/09.
22 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions vol. 1, fol. 74. Gardiner to Tenison, 19/29 November 1708.
On Gardiner’s order to Littleton see Warden’s ms 7, entry for 7 November 1708.
23 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions vol. 1, fol. 88. Gardiner to Tenison, 22 December 1709.
24 Knights, “Occasional Conformity,” 53, 56–57; William Bromley to Bernard Gardiner, 17
February; Bromley to Gardiner, 23 February 1709 in Catalogue of the Archives, 342.
25 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions vol. 2, fol. 13. Bromley to Gardiner, 26 February 1708/09.
36 Chapter 1

House of Commons. Gardiner, who saw fellows taking orders as an important

element in maintaining the Anglican confessional state within All Souls and
Oxford in the face of efforts to undermine it, dispatched an impassioned plea
to Tenison that begged the Archbishop to do whatever he could in order to
halt “this abominable design” stating that “Mr Meredith, Blencowe, Littleton,
and Dalton are ye Persons who openly Solicit for this matter.”26 For the man
described by the diarist Thomas Hearne as having a “tricking disposition, &
studying nothing more than to baffle those he does not care for by all the base,
treacherous, & malicious Methods he & his Agents can invent;” and by another
as “tactless and quarrelsome”, compromise was not an option.27 Hearne’s dis-
like of him began when Tenison chose Gardiner as warden over John ­Walrond,
arts fellow of All Souls who had been Dean, Bursar, and Proctor in the 1680s
and whom Hearne described as “one of the Greatest Wits of the Age.”28
A f­ uture falling out between Hearne and Gardiner occurred in 1716. Hearne was
a nonjuror whose refusal to swear an oath to George i made him an uncomfort-
able presence in a university that worried about appearances with the crown.
His loyalty to the Stuarts cost Hearne his position as Architypographus at the
university’s press and the consensus is that that he was also evicted from his
post as Second Keeper of the Bodleian on Gardiner’s order. Hearne certainly
believed that Gardiner was to blame and this no doubt coloured his recollec-
tions of All Souls’ warden.29
That the fate of All Souls might be decided in Parliament would have come
as no surprise to contemporary observers, no matter how much Gardiner
might have lamented the situation. England was a nation of institutions,
be they the brick and mortar type of say Oxford, Cambridge, the Bank of
­England, or the more immaterial type of common law, the rule of law, Angli-
canism, and the Ancient Constitution. Increasingly after 1688 it was through
­institutions that the English public was brought onside with the crown and its
agenda.30 The mechanisms of governance and the rules by which the country

26 Bromley to Gardiner, 26 February 1709; Gardiner to Tenison, 2 March 1709 in Catalogue of

the Archives, 343.
27 Morris, Oxford Book of Oxford, 144; A.D. Godley, Oxford in the Eighteenth Century (London,
1908), 282.
28 John Clarke, “Warden Gardiner, All Souls, and the Church, c. 1688–1760,” in All Souls Under
the Ancien Régime, 199; Hearne incorrectly refers to Walrond as Waldron in his publica-
tions. See Warden’s Punishment Book, 200 for correct details.
29 Matthew Kilburn, “The Fell Legacy 1688–1755,” in The History of the Oxford University
Press, vol. 1, Beginnings to 1780, ed. Ian Gadd (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 129.
30 Christopher Hill, Some Intellectual Consequences of the English Revolution (1980; London:
Phoenix, 1997), 41.
Gardiner and the House of Commons Bill 37

was g­ overned were larger than any one monarch, and this was celebrated in
many quarters, often finding expression in xenophobic sentiment directed at
France. “At the summit of this system,” as described by Aaron Graham, “was
the Parliament in Westminster, a key point of contact where compromises
could be hammered out between competing interests.”31 It was after 1688 that
Parliament became increasing active and, in the assessment offered by Steven
Pincus and James Robinson, “for the first time, became a primarily legislative
body” that responded to petitions brought to its attention by citizens desirous
of some legal change and prepared to work through the efforts of sympathetic
mps. Indeed, localized matters made up a large percentage of the legislation
and frequently skirmishes within local communities became the impetus for
conflicts in Parliament, as the question of orders at All Souls demonstrates.32
It is also indicative of the more intimate and personal nature that political
debates took on during this time.
Not only were several All Souls fellows acting behind the scenes as the im-
petus for the bill, they also presented their case before the English public in
early 1709. This was common practice for petitioners: stressing the tremendous
common welfare involved in their cause and public advantages that would
follow the successful passing of their bill through Parliament. Members of
Parliament tended to view purely local concerns as being beneath the nation-
ally minded ethos of Parliament, so rhetorically enlarging local concerns into
issues of grand importance was a proven strategy for success.33 Reasons for
Repealing that Part of the Statutes of the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford,
which require the taking of Orders under a Penalty, a short pamphlet, appeared
anonymously. While the authors were unknown, Gardiner suspected that the
four fellows of All Souls were responsible. In this he was correct, at least par-
tially: it is acknowledged that Blencowe was the lead author although certainly
the other three contributed to the contents.
In this three-page publication, Blencowe argued that the requirement of
­orders was a relic that belonged to a time long past that bore no relation to the
current age. College statues, he wrote, were important documents in govern-
ing places of higher learning, but “these Statutes should be reduc’d to a Model
more agreeable to the Reason and Policy of the present Times.” The reason

31 Graham, Corruption, Party, and Government in England, 1702–1713, 19, 29.

32 Pincus and Robinson, “What Really Happened During the Glorious Revolution,” 14; Rose-
mary Sweet, “Local Identities and a National Parliament, c. 1660–1860,” in Parliaments,
Nations and Identities in Britain and Ireland, 1660–1860, ed. Julian Hoppit (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 2003), 48, 50.
33 Sweet, “Local Identities and a National Parliament,” 51.
38 Chapter 1

was that colleges in both Oxford and Cambridge trained men who would “bear
great Parts in the Administration of the State, and to the use they might be of,
in promoting the Service of the Publick in a much greater degree than they do,
by the Advancement of all manner of useful Learning.”34 The issue was that
colleges, particularly All Souls, refused to modify their medieval statutes in the
face of changing realities. Blencowe claimed that,

The true reason, perhaps, of these Statutes, was this, The Founders of
most Colleges were Ecclesiastical Men, and according to the Policy of the
Priests of those Ages, had been taught to consider the Body of the Clergy
in which they were incorporated, as distinct from the rest of the State;
and their views were confin’d rather to enrich that Body, than to do real
Service to the Nation in general, wherein they had no dear Pledges to
leave behind ‘em, as dying unmarry’d and Childless.35

While that had been acceptable “before the Reformation of the Church of
­England, in the most illiterate Ages of Christianity”, things were quite differ-
ent in 1709. When the English laity was mostly illiterate, a host of well-trained
men of the cloth who would instruct them in religion was a necessity and en-
suring that enough of these men fulfilled this sacred national duty through
­college statutes that mandated fellows be in orders was prudent. The present
age was quite different, Blencowe wrote. Not least among the differences was
that ­ecclesiastical employment was much scarcer than it had been when the
statutes were first established. Enforcement of orders created a group of cler-
ics who in effect “are restrain’d from the Exercise of that Function in any other
Place but the College, and there they are appointed Expressly to assist in those
Prayers and Offices which are directed to be perpetually continued for the
Memory of their Founders, and of other departed Souls.”36 What a waste of
educated and talented men, Blencowe wrote, who would whittle away the best
years of their lives conducting services in secluded college chapels. Rather than
toiling in anonymity to satisfy the desire of college Founders from a distant
past, Blencowe proposed that, in the eighteenth century men might choose to
serve their nation in different and a more useful way. “Next to Religion”, he sug-
gested, “there is nothing more honourable in a State or more beneficial than

34 bl Cup.645.e.5. (10.) [William Blencowe] Reasons for Repealing that Part of the Statutes
of the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, which require the taking of Orders under a
Penalty (1709), 1. There is also a copy in bl Harley ms 7032, fols. 236r-v, 237.
35 Reasons for Repealing that Part of the Statutes, 1.
36 Reasons for Repealing that Part of the Statutes, 1.
Gardiner and the House of Commons Bill 39

the Law, and nothing more necessary in a Commonwealth than a convenient

number of Men learned in that Profession, to direct others in the fair Prosecu-
tion of their Rights, and to administer Justice, and preserve Peace.”37 However,
if a fellow selected this path, he had to renounce his Oxford fellowship. For
Blencowe this created hypocrisy where fellows now accepted orders, not out
of a sincere calling from God, but “to save a poor place in a College, without
any other view present or future of doing God’s Glory, or Religious Service….”
To avoid this situation, “The Act of Parliament which establishes the present
Form of O ­ rdination, does in effect most plainly require, that Men should enter
into ­Orders upon the Impulse of the Holy Ghost, to promote God’s Glory, that
is, with a view, to do service to God’s Religion, and his Church….”38 Thus, Blen-
cowe submitted that the bill simply allowed men to follow their consciences
when it came to their vocations. He ended by stating that the only reason
­college governors like Gardiner wished to maintain the requirement of holy
orders was that it provided them “with the means of Arbitrary Power over their
inferior Members.”39 In other words, men such as Gardiner enjoyed having au-
thority over fellows of the college and would fight hard to maintain it. Gardiner
had seen these arguments before, albeit in a different format. Fellow of All
Souls Matthew Tindal, the subject of Chapter 2, had claimed in 1706 that all
people ought to have the freedom to worship God as their consciences thought
fit and that any impediment to that right, required ceremonies and official
forms of devotion for example, was mere Priestcraft, meant to create essential
positions for clergy in society rather than ensuring genuine belief in the na-
tion. Blencowe’s publication caused a mild stir (certainly it irritated ­Gardiner)
but after the bill died, it was little discussed. As John Potter, Regius Professor
of Divinity and Canon of Christ Church College, Oxford, put it in a letter to
Gardiner, the Archbishop of Canterbury, “never saw the paper of Reasons till it
had been dispersed over the town”, but that “he believes it will die of itself.”40
As the likelihood that the bill would be tabled seemed certain, more observ-
ers took the matter seriously. It was not only the Warden of All Souls who was
displeased. While Tenison could see the need for the bill, given Gardiner’s un-
bending temperament in dealing with the statutes of All Souls, he could hardly
endorse it. Removing the necessity of orders struck deep at the intended pur-
pose of university education, which was to train future clergy. Unlike others
with whom Gardiner dealt during this time of crisis, Tenison was not an Ox-

37 Reasons for Repealing that Part of the Statutes, 2.

38 Reasons for Repealing that Part of the Statutes, 3.
39 Reasons for Repealing that Part of the Statutes, 3.
40 John Potter to Gardiner, 3 March 1709 in Catalogue of the Archives, 343.
40 Chapter 1

ford alumnus. The Archbishop was a Cambridge man and a graduate of C ­ orpus
Christi College where he also held a fellowship. He was known as a strong op-
ponent of Catholicism and as a man who held Low-Church sympathies. His
political outlook was Whig and under William iii he occupied a number of
important roles. During the reign of Anne, however, his prominence dimin-
ished as the Queen found his Latitudinarianism incompatible with her more
straight-laced Anglicanism and Anne’s desire to appointment bishops that re-
flected her views more faithfully. Given their diverse viewpoint on a number
of issues, it is not surprising that Tenison and Gardiner found themselves at
loggerheads on more than one occasion.
Others shared Tenison’s concerns regarding the bill. A correspondent to
Hearne commented that it was a blow to “the foundations of the Colleges of
both Universityes, under the pretense of having the Statutes repealed, wch
oblige the Fellowes to take H. Orders: but it is visible, that there is a Snake in
the grasse, and the design is mischievous.”41 Archdeacon of Huntingdon White
Kennett confided in correspondence that “I am by no means for it. For beside
the danger of meddling with ye constitution of Collegiate Bodies, I doubt it
may be of ill effect to break in upon the Will of founders and Benefactors; Nor
is it so just to take away the Encouragement allotted to the Study of Divinity.”42
Given the political climate of the age, characterized as the rage of party, sev-
eral observers detected partisanship behind the events: “Some factious, sedi-
tious fellows of Colleges … have been very busy in dispersing [arguments in
favour of repealing] about the court of requests and soliciting the members to
be for it. Twas to have been propos’d to day in the house; the Whiggs seem to be
very hot for it.” Despite the inflamed feelings generated, the bill seemed likely
to fail because, as a contemporary recorded, “all the B[isho]ps and sev[era]
l Members of ye H. of C. (who might be thought favourers of such a Repeal)
having declar’d Openly and Warmly against It. The Speaker had promis’d to do
all He can to prevent Such a Bill’s being brought in, & to Oppose it, if mov’d.”43
This profound reluctance to meddle in the statutes of All Souls and change
the constitution of Oxford itself reflects a much larger concern. As John
­Gascoigne ­explained it, politicians were unwilling to alter the rules governing
Oxford “since their reform would have endangered the already fragile relations

41 Dr. T. Smith to Hearne, 5 March 1709 in Remarks and Collection of Thomas Hearne, 11 vols.,
ed. C.E. Doble et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1885–1921), vol. 2, 173.
42 bl Lansdowne ms 1013, fol. 120r–v., White Kennett to ? early 1709.
43 Remarks and Collection of Thomas Hearne, vol. 2, 437; Georgian Oxford, 33.
Gardiner and the House of Commons Bill 41

­between church and state” in the early part of the eighteenth century.44 Even
extreme Whigs were not foolhardy enough to try and change Oxford, at least
not too severely. It was one thing to attempt legislation that permitted Dissent-
ers a place within the establishment, but quite another to change venerable
institutions like Oxford. In an age of political turmoil, one had to proceed care-
fully, at least for the time being.
While the gossip led many to believe the bill would not see open session, let
alone be passed, Bromley related a different sentiment and a potential solution
in his 2 March 1709 letter to Gardiner. Because of its importance, the letter is
worth quoting at some length.

These 2 Days I have expected that Motion for the Repeal of ye Statutes,
which other Business had put of[f]. This evening a proposition is brought
me by some of those Gentlemen that solicit it, that if I can prevail with
you to let this Matter as far as it concerns ye Fellows be considered, &
that you are disposed to shew Temper in it, they will forbear prosecuting
it this session. I think they mean, that if you will not proceed any far-
ther against them for the present, but let things continue as they are, and
­allow a Treaty of Accommodation after this Parl[iament] rises, they will
be satisfied. I am th[i]s now willing to lay this before you, because I was
at this Juncture, & it is in ye Sense of your best Friends here, that however
unreasonable their Attempt may be shewn to be, yet it is probable they
will now prevail. I submit all to your better judgment’, who will return me
by the first opportunity such an Answer….45

For the man who had introduced each of the unsuccessful bills into the House
of Commons between 1702 and 1704 aimed at ending Occasional Conformity,
the anxiety at the end of the letter is understandable, especially in the face
of what would be yet another Whig victory over the traditional model of the
English Church. However, it should be considered that, at this time, Bromley
was likely manoeuvring himself for a successful run at becoming Speaker of
the House, nominated by the Tory mps, and he needed to be seen as someone
who could get things done, especially with regard to sensitive matters such as

44 John Gascoigne, “Church and State Allied: The Failure of Parliamentary Reform on the
Universities, 1688–1800,” in A.L. Beier et al. (eds), The First Modern Society: Essays in Eng-
lish History in Honour of Lawrence Stone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989),
426.
45 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 2, fol. 15. Bromley to Gardiner, 2 March 1709.
42 Chapter 1

this pending bill. Despite his Jacobite reputation and known Tory sympathies,
Bromley was, in the words of one historian an “unrepentant Tacker” and “arch
Tacker” whose dedication to partisan causes drifted with the political wind.46
So it is likely that his anxious expression to Gardiner was simply rhetoric meant
to push Gardiner into accepting what Bromley had already agreed to outside
of official channels, an example of interpersonal deal-making characteristic
of the political arena where party sentiment shaped policy at the macro-level,
but where face-to-face negotiations ensured its success.47 In this environment
the ability to compromise and make accommodations was key. While Bromley
knew how to play this game, Gardiner lacked the requisite skills. For him com-
promise was tantamount to surrender.
In spite of his loathing of potential House of Commons interference in the
operation of the universities and All Souls in 1709, Gardiner would turn to
Bromley years later to ensure political assistance in securing the success of
his preferred candidate for Regius Professor of Civil Law. Acting in his role of
Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, Gardiner contacted Bromley in 1712 to request that
the son of the current holder be permitted to succeed to his father’s position.
Acting on this request, Bromley wrote to Robert Harley, now Earl of Oxford.

I take the same Opportunity to acquaint your Lordship with an Applica-

tion I have had from my Vice-Chancellor, & I beg Your Favour in it. Our
Professor of Laws Dr Bouchier, being in Years, but in good Health, is desir-
ous to resign his Professorship, could his Majesty be prevailed on to give it
to his son. He is a Fellow of All Souls, a Dr of Law, & very well qualified for
it, & I am assured would be very acceptable to The University.48

Since the appointment of any Regius Professorship was a decision of the

Crown, the appeal to political channels was a necessity. But is an interesting
counterpoint. When external influence might affect a change for which he
was in support, Gardiner never blinked from taking the matter outside of All
Souls’s walls. It was only when the decisions made threatened to take All Souls
in a ­direction he believed to be contrary to the wishes of the Founder did Gar-
diner dig in his heels. It should noted that the appeal for Thomas Bouchier’s
son was successful: James Bouchier was Regius Professor of Civil Law from

46 James Anderson Winn, Queen Anne: Patroness of Arts (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2014), 414, 520.
47 I am grateful to John Clarke for suggesting this interpretation.
48 bl Add. ms 70287, William Bromley to Robert Harley, 13 February 1712.
Gardiner and the House of Commons Bill 43

1712–1736, thereby continuing the family tradition that his father began with
his appointment in 1672.
If we return to the events of March 1709, the same day that Bromley wrote
Gardiner to say the passing of the bill looked promising, Dodington Greville,
former fellow of All Souls and mp for Warwick, also wrote to Gardiner, but he
was more optimistic. Greville, like Bromley, was a committed High Church Tory
who held his alma mater in high esteem and would be buried in the ­chapel.
He told the warden that any confidence that the bill would pass in the House
of Commons was unfounded because it was not going to be introduced during
the current session and, even if it were, there were “very small grounds to hope
for success.”49
As he received these contradictory reports on the possibility of the bill be-
coming law, Gardiner learned of a rumour that Bromley needed to quash as
part of his attempt to soften Gardiner’s stance on the ability of fellows to avoid
orders. Gardiner believed that Littleton and Bromley had struck a deal between
them to ensure that the changes Littleton and his colleagues wished to make at
All Souls and the universities more broadly would take place. E ­ ager to silence
such speculation, Bromley told Gardiner “I must assure you Mr ­Littleton went
down with no Proposal from me, I never saw him.”50 It was true that L­ ittleton
had spoken with one of Bromley’s friends in early February 1709 but he had
had no direct meeting with the Oxford mp. To further his claims of ignorance
regarding Littleton’s designs, Bromley forwarded a letter to Gardiner that
the friend in question sent him detailing what transpired with Littleton. The
friend, one Mr Ward, recalled that:

[Littleton] had since Christmas been brought & recommended to me by a

person of quality and very good principles who had some business in my
hands and I had seen him twice on that business. But I had not the least
knowledge of his relation to All Souls, or being concerned in this a­ ttempt
against ye Statutes of ye Colleges; till Thursday 24 February about noon,
I was told it & Mr Littleton being to come to me that afternoon about
that former business; I immediately applied to that person of quality &
finding him agree with me in apprehending ill consequence in such an
attempt, desired him to dissuade Mr Littleton from it.51

49 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 2, fol. 15. Dodington Greville to Gardiner, 2 March
1709; A.A. Hanham, “Greville, Hon. Dodington (1679–1738),” in The Commons 1690–1715,
vol. 4, 98–99.
50 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions vol. 2, fol. 16. Bromley to Gardiner, 3 March 1708/09.
51 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions vol. 2, fol. 18. Mr Ward to Bromley, 5 February 1708/09.
44 Chapter 1

Ward added that “what a pity I thought it that a Gentleman of a loyal family
& good principles should be engaged in ye first stroke at ye foundation of our
Universities….”
While Ward and Bromley decried Littleton to Gardiner, it seems that they
were not entirely truthful with the warden. Within three days of Littleton’s
meeting with Ward, he sent a letter to Joseph Girdler, mp for Tamworth and
Sergeant at Law (1692). Littleton explained to Girdler that Ward advised him
to “use my Endeavour to get the Bill for which I left Reasons at your Chamber,
deferred for some time, & that Mr Bromley would undertake to have our Griev-
ances redressed” by Gardiner. Girdler was an unlikely ally. He voted in favour
of the Third Occasional Conformity Bill and consistently sided with Tories in
other House of Commons votes.52 His position as Sergeant at Law, however,
suggests why Littleton and the other lawyer fellows at All Souls turned to him.
Sergeants at Law were the legal elite in England and the only ones permitted
to argue in the Court of Common Pleas. From their ranks came judges for the
Common Pleas and the Court of King’s Bench. It is little wonder that ambitious
lawyers such as Littleton and his group sought out Girdler’s support of their
cause. Littleton had also left a copy of Blencowe’s publication, which praised
the positive role lawyers might play in the national welfare, with Girdler. The
deal outlined by Littleton was the same one Bromley related to Gardiner: the
bill would be dropped in exchange for Gardiner easing up on the fellows.
­Although he accepted that a comprise may have to be struck, Littleton urged
Girdler to support the pending bill “since the Prosperity of the Universities
depends upon it; & it is only oppos’d by Heads of Colleges for their sinister
Purposes.”53 This was the same rationale Blencowe employed at the end of his
pamphlet. Whether Girdler decided to support the bill or not is unknown and
became moot.
In politics one day can make all the difference and, on 3 March, Bromley
wrote triumphantly to Gardiner that “Now it is dropped.” But he cautiously
advised Gardiner “to be silent” about it. This is likely a reference to ­Gardiner’s
knowledge of the deal that was arranged to stop the bill, even if Bromley down-
played Littleton’s likely role in securing its success. Two days later both ­Bromley
and Tenison wrote to Gardiner that the bill was dead.54 Gardiner also heard
from others who supported his efforts to maintain All Souls’ traditions in the

52 Stuart Handley, “Girdler, Joseph (?1642–1724)” in The Commons 1690–1715, vol. 4., 20.
53 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions vol. 2, fol. 19. Fisher Littleton to Joseph Girdler, 27 Febru-
ary 1708/09.
54 Bromley to Gardiner, 3 March 1709; Bromley to Gardiner, 5 March 1709; Tenison to Gar-
diner, 5 March 1709 in Catalogue of the Archives, 343–344.
Gardiner and the House of Commons Bill 45

face of those who sought to undermine them. John Hough, Bishop of ­Lichfield
and Coventry, commended him and predicted that “you will be justified to all
ye world whilst you execute your Statutes impartially & I believe there is no
reason to apprehend that ye statues … will ever be set aside by A ­ uthority of
Parliament….”55 Hough certainly knew of what he spoke. A graduate of Mag-
dalen College, Oxford, he had been elected President of Magdalen only to
be denied the position by James ii who was determined to see his preferred
Catholic choice hold the job. Royal interference cost Hough dearly as it had
Gardiner. Little wonder that Hough resented even the speculative p ­ ossibility
of the House of Commons legislating changes at Oxford. Hough would become
Bishop of Oxford and later President of Magdalen College (until 1701) before
advancing to become Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry in 1699.
Days later Bromley wrote with more confidence to Gardiner that, “The at-
tempt of Repealing ye Statutes is not now talked of, those that had engaged in
it are now silent, & it is at least” until the next session of Parliament.56 A little
more than a month later, Bromley contacted Gardiner again to let him know
that the current Parliament sitting was at an end and that “you have nothing
at Present to fear from the Attempts for Repealing ye Statutes.” He also alerted
Gardiner to Littleton’s behaviour, which, as we saw, seems to be disingenuous
chastising given that Littleton’s account of how best to end the controversy over
the bill was the one adopted by Bromley. Nonetheless, Bromley told Gardiner
that “Mr Littleton has certainly given Grave Sensation & deserves the several
Censures” that college statutes might allow.57 Not all observers of these events
shared Bromley’s confidence that the crisis sparked by the bill had come to an
end. Writing to Arthur Charlett, Master of University College, Thomas Tanner
renowned antiquarian scholar and formally a chaplain and fellow at All Souls,
worried that the removal of the bill from the current session of Parliament
“may make it the more certain another year.”58 Tanner’s fear was misplaced
and the bill would never be tabled.
Once the crisis had passed, Gardiner acted against Meredith, Dalton, Blen-
cowe, and especially Littleton. The warden had already compelled ­Meredith to
“take Holy Orders according to Ye Statutes” on 7 November 1708 and by the end
of 1709 he was expelled from his fellowship for refusing to c­ omply. ­Meredith

55 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions vol. 2, fol. 19. Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry to Gar-
diner, 10 March 1708/9.
56 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions vol. 2, fol. 20. Bromley to Gardiner, 12 March 1708/09.
57 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions vol. 2, fol. 21. Bromley to Gardiner, 23 April 1709.
58 Bod. Ballard ms 4 fol. 95v. Thomas Tanner to Arthur Charlett, 10 June 1709; Robin Darwall-
Smith, A History of University College, Oxford (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 225.
46 Chapter 1

would go on to become mp for Kent from 1727–1734.59 ­Dalton received the

same command to be in orders on 6 November 1710, as had Blencowe on 21 July
1709. Littleton had been admonished in 1708 on the same account, but in Oc-
tober 1709 Gardiner found a new charge to levy against him. Loose talk about
intimate relations and political power had Gardiner issuing a reprimand.
Written in his own hand, in the presence of Gardiner, Littleton recorded his
transgression.

I Fisher Littleton do deny that I ever said that Fornication was no sin or
not forbidden in Holy Scripture. But do acknowledge that it is; and I ever
did <& do> affirm that ye full power of this nation both Ecclesiastical and
Civil is on ye Queen and both houses of Parliament & not in the People.60

It does seem somewhat vindictive for Gardiner to formally cite Littleton for
what was likely idle talk. Nonetheless, it clearly indicates Gardiner’s wounded
pride when it came to keeping his fellows in check and any minor infraction or
perceived irregularity would be dealt with quickly.
Littleton and Gardiner continued to spar over their duties at the college
with Gardiner complaining to Tenison that Littleton displayed frequent “inso-
lent and unjust” behaviour toward the warden’s authority.61 The running feud
continued through 1711 when the fellows elected Littleton to be the Dean of
Artists and then followed that with the position of Bursar of Artists in 1712. At
All Souls, the Arts and Law fellows had their own Deans and Bursars. These four
positions were elected yearly and fellows often took turns fulfilling the d­ uties,
although a 1681 Visitor’s Injunction urged selection based on merit rather than
by rotation. Deans of Artists and Deans of Legists had educational respon-
sibilities, but did not supervise studies, and liaised between the warden and
­fellows. Bursars looked after the college’s accounts and finances.62 On several
occasions, Gardiner complained to Tension and others that Littleton ­denied
him reimbursement for expenses and had refused to let a fellow borrow a col-
lege horse for an afternoon because permission had not been received from
Littleton, as bursar, beforehand. Gardiner demanded that Tenison settle the
question of who at All Souls is tasked with permitting horse rides. He argued
that the power to dispense college horses has been with the warden “solely
for all occasions ever since the Foundation” but Littleton implied the power

59 The Warden’s Punishment Book, 176.

60 Warden’s ms 7, entry for 28 October 1709. Angled brackets indicate insertion.
61 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions vol 1, fol. 123. Gardiner to Tenison, 7 November 1711.
62 The Warden’s Punishment Book, xx–xxii.
Gardiner and the House of Commons Bill 47

resides with the two Bursars.63 The matter seems not to have been long last-
ing and Gardiner wrote no more about it to the Archbishop. It is yet another
example of the growing toxic environment at All Souls sustained by the mutual
distrust of warden and some of his fellows spurred on by perceptions of out-
side interference in the college.
Years later another warden, Robert Wyntle of Merton College, experi-
enced similar financial retribution at the hands of his fellows. In 1735 Wyntle
complained to his visitor (sometimes referred to as “patron”), William Wake,
­Archbishop of Canterbury, that the fellows of Merton refused to allow him to
pay workmen who carried out necessary repairs in the college. “Acts of Riot
and Mutiny Decrees” was how Wyntle characterized affairs. The “Bursars be-
fore this had agreed not to pay the Warden any Allocation so now that they
should not pay any of the Workman’s Bills.” Wyntle believed he knew why the
fellows acted this way. It was petty revenge for his “Endeavouring to Reform
the Fellows[,] That the Warden should in effect be deprived.”64 Gardiner would
have empathized. Like his All Souls counterpart, Wyntle wished to enforce the
behaviour of and expectations for the fellows of Merton as enshrined in the
statutes. As had Littleton with Gardiner, these fellows looked to bend the war-
den to their will by restricting his access to money. Wyntle, like Gardiner, did
not succumb to the pressure. Indeed, he explained that ensuring maintenance
of the college occurred was one of his duties as warden. To fail in this regard
might result in “Penalty of Expulsion by the Patron” because he had suffered
“Dilapidations in any Part of the College.”65 Repairs on the college should not
be contingent on whether “Bursars shall be in or out of Humour with the War-
den,” Wyntle wrote. He requested that Wake rule on the matter and not allow
the “Confederacy made amongst the Fellows” to overrule the rights of the war-
den.66 As we will see, the Archbishop, John Potter after 1737, did settle tensions
at Merton following a visitation in 1738.
By December 1715 Littleton was still not in orders and Gardiner made an
official citation against him and affixed the document to Littleton’s chapel
seat.67 But it would take nearly five more years for Littleton to be expelled from
his fellowship in 1720.68 Both Blencowe and Dalton, along with the actions of

63 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions vol 1, fol. 135. Gardiner to Tenison, 16 February 1711/12.
64 Merton, Wyntle Register 1.6, fol. 52.
65 Wyntle Register 1.6, fol. 53.
66 Wyntle Register 1.6, fols. 56. 57.
67 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions vol. 2. Citation against Littleton, 30 December 1715
(items not in bound book, items 358a, Drawer 7).
68 The Warden’s Punishment Book, 171.
48 Chapter 1

other fellows, which will be addressed in separate chapters, continued to cause

Gardiner misery. Regardless of his continuing troubles over Littleton, it is easy
to imagine Gardiner’s pleasure at the end of the whole business regarding the
bill, but he would have been dismayed had he fully realised the reason that the
bill would no longer trouble him. The end of the affair came with the back-
room deal that Bromley had described to Gardiner, who had not agreed to its
terms, and that Littleton had related to Girdler. Nonetheless, the mechanisms
of governance did not halt for the Warden of All Souls and the arrangement
had proceeded without his cooperation. It had become evident that even if the
bill were to be tabled in the House of Commons, its controversial contents and
the certain divisive nature of the debate would ensure its failure, but that the
process would be tremendously disruptive to domestic peace when England
was embroiled in the War of the Spanish Succession (1702–1713). The architects
of the solution were Tenison, Bromley, and Littleton (unacknowledged) who
together drew up an agreement whereby, if the bill were dropped, they would
both use their influence to ensure that reasonable requests for suspension of
requirement to take orders would be successful. Gardiner knew something was
afoot and wrote a quizzical letter to the office of the Archbishop. He did not
understand why Littleton continued to intimate that Tenison supported the
fellows in their efforts and that the archbishop was not “at all angry with ‘em
for what they had done.” What was more, Littleton implied that “a Person of a
very Considerable figure” had meet with Tension to settle the issue of the bill.
Gardiner hoped this was all a lie and urged the Archbishop to put his mind at
ease.69 No reply exists. Despite his speculations, no one had informed Gardiner
about the terms of the deal and he was about to be blind-sided by fellows of All
Souls who wished to avoid taking orders.70 Neither had Gardiner heard the last
of Blencowe, nor Dalton.

69 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions vol 2, fol. 20. Gardiner to John Potter, 18 March 1708/09.
70 Clarke, “Warden Gardiner, All Souls, and the Church,” 200, 201.
 Chapter 2

Gardiner, Matthew Tindal, and The Rights

of the Christian Church Asserted

Another reason that Bernard Gardiner feared the tabling and potential pass-
ing of the bill in the House of Commons that would revoke the requirements
for orders, was his belief that Matthew Tindal, Jurist fellow of All Souls and
noted deist, was a behind-the-scenes leader of the endeavour. Tindal had a
long ­history with All Souls. And, he had connections to several of the people
influencing and driving the events that caused Gardiner difficulty.
Born around 1657 to a well-off family, Tindal matriculated at Lincoln Col-
lege, Oxford in 1673 and there studied under the tutelage of George Hickes,
­celebrated scholar of Anglo-Saxon languages but soon to be a nonjuror fol-
lowing the coronation of William iii. Tindal then moved to Exeter College and
graduated with a ba in 1676. Two years later, he was elected to a law fellow-
ship at All Souls in 1678 (which he held until his death in 1733) and earned
a ­Bachelors of Law in 1679 followed by a Doctor of Civil Law in 1685. That
same year he became an advocate in the Arches Court of Canterbury (dealing
with matters of ecclesiastical law) and announced himself a Roman C ­ atholic.
There is reason to be suspicious of the sincerity of Tindal’s conversion be-
cause 1685 was also the year that James ii came to the throne. A committed
­Catholic, James ii made no secret of his desire to see Catholicism rise in the
universities. In this pro-papal atmosphere Tindal made a bid in 1687 to become
­Warden of All Souls but lost to James’s appointee Leopold Finch. The loss of
position coincidently coincided with Tindal’s conversion back to Anglicanism,
which he formally announced when he received communion on 15 April 1688.
Thereafter he would attend services sporadically but enough to demonstrate
conformity. Following the English Revolution of 1688 Tindal served the new
monarchs, William and Mary, as Deputy Judge Advocate of Their Majesties’
Fleet during 1689. For his services, Tindal received an annual payment of £200.1
Tindal’s obituaries, appearing in several London newspapers in 1733, noted
with ­approval his legal skills and his fellowship at All Souls. The same notices

1 Jeffrey R. Wigelsworth, Deism in Enlightenment England: Theology, Politics, and Newtonian

Public Science (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009), 17, 19; Stephen Lalor, Mat-
thew Tindal, Freethinker: An Eighteenth-Century Assault on Religion (London: Continuum,
2006), 9–10. For Tindal’s admittance to the Arches Court see Bod. Tanner ms 31 fol. 229.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004375352_004

50 Chapter 2

decried his deism, lamented that he was often at the forefront of England’s
most controversial theological debates, and a few suggested that Tindal never
sincerely abandoned his youthful flirtation with Catholicism and that he had
died a secret papist.2
Without getting bogged down in the nuances of theology and sometimes
contested meanings, “deism” (occasionally critics used the term “­freethinking”)
in England is usefully defined as a theological position which denies that God
would intervene in the world in a manner occurring outside the regular ­order
of nature, that people are able to understand the dictates of God because the
­author of nature acts in ways knowable to human reason, rejection of the
Trinity, belief that many institutionalized religious practices are priestcraft
(­designed to solidify the status of clergy rather than care for souls), a Latitu-
dinarian Whig political outlook, and a few other traits.3 The deist controversy,
when its enthusiasts most enraged their opponents, occurred roughly between
1696 and the early 1740s, and was an attack on both the political authority
claimed by religion in some definitions of the English Church, that offered
by High-Churchmen for example, and on the allocation of power in English
society more generally.4 Although Tindal was a major contributor to these
debates and was known far beyond the college’s walls, he had yet to publish
­Christianity as Old as the Creation (1730), the book that cemented his status
as a deist and has become known to historians as the “deist’s bible.” Given
­Tindal’s later infamous place in both contemporary and historical assessments
of the e­ ighteenth century, scholars have asserted that he occupied a promi-
nent role in the ­controversies enveloping All Souls.5 But as the other chapters
in this book illustrate, there were many factors occurring simultaneously that
caused Gardiner’s troubles; to privilege one over the others is not to grasp fully
the swirling nature of the events. That being said, Tindal was a problem for
­Gardiner at time when the warden did not need another one.
In the aftermath of 1688 supporters of William’s arrival and his subsequent
overthrowing of James ii in the name of Parliamentary independence and
Anglican security, characterized the events in apocalyptic terms and hinted
that the reign of the new king might signal commencement of the millen-
nium. Even the future Archbishop of Canterbury William Wake, himself

2 Daily Post, 20 August 1733; Universal Spectator, 18 August 1733 and 25 August 1733.
3 Wigelsworth, Deism in Enlightenment England, 196–197.
4 Justin Champion, The Pillars of Priestcraft Shaken: The Church of England and its Enemies
1660–1730 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 11, 17.
5 For example see: Worthies of All Souls, 399; G.V. Bennett, “University, Society and Church
1688–1714,” The Eighteenth Century, 391.
Gardiner, Tindal & The Rights of Christian Church Asserted 51

s­ omething of a Latitudinarian, spoke of William iii as the fulfilment of “­sacred

prophecy.”6 And yet despite this biblically inspired optimism, John Spurr sug-
gests that ­ultimately, “The Church of England was the great loser from the
Revolution of 1688.”7 Many eighteenth-century observers would have agreed.
This seeming paradox is explained by returning to the unsettled legacy of the
Revolution, which helps to situate Gardiner’s anxiety over Tindal at All Souls.
Yes, William had halted the promotion of Catholicism within England’s insti-
tutions but his own somewhat lukewarm feelings toward religion had him less
than e­ nthusiastic about restoring Anglican hegemony in the nation. None-
theless, High-Church Anglicans, and this included Gardiner, believed that
­William would do just that. They were disappointed when the 1689 Toleration
Act permitted a variety of Protestant confessions in England and Low Church
values seemed in ascendency. As Frank O’Gorman puts it, the defenders of
the confessional state faced consistent assault in the post-1688 years. But that
did not mean adherents were ready to lay down their arms and embrace Prot-
estant pluralism, certainly Gardiner was not so inclined. Even though deism
was granted no cover in the Toleration Act, deists, like Tindal, were able to
publish their books without fear of prosecution, although this likely had more
to do with the lapsing of the Licencing Act in 1695.8 Regardless, the fact that
Tindal authored his works within the walls of All Souls, a college that should
have been purely Anglican and one of the pillars of Anglican supremacy, likely
caused Gardiner sleepless nights.
In 1706 Tindal published The Rights of the Christian Church Asserted, a
book that has been described as “the most thoroughgoing assault on clerical
­authority to appear before the … reign of George i.”9 Not only did this work,
and the controversy it engendered, appear at the same time as Gardiner’s
tense relationship with some of his fellows, thereby adding a further com-
plication to the life of the warden, its composition occurred during a stormy
period in English politics and religion: the Convocation Crisis, 1701–1706.

6 Warren Johnston, Revelation Restored: The Apocalypse in Later Seventeenth-Century England

(Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2011), 202–204.
7 John Spurr, The Post-Reformation: Religion, Politics, and Society, 1603–1714 (Harlow: Longman,
2006), 204.
8 John Coffey, Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England, 1558–1689 (Harlow: Pearson,
2000), 191, 204; Alexandra Walsham, Charitable Hatred: Tolerance and Intolerance in England,
1500–1700 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006), 24, 267, 321; G.V. Bennett, “Con-
flict in the Church,” in Britain After the Glorious Revolution 1689–1714, ed. Geoffrey Holmes
(London: Macmillan, 1969), 163–165.
9 Brent S. Sirota, The Christian Monitors: The Church of England and the Age of Benevolence,
1680–1730 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014), 174.
52 Chapter 2

­ onvocation (­sometimes Synod) was the council of the Anglican Church

C
called to decide doctrinal or administrated issues. The body approved the
Book of Common Prayer in 1660, for example. Like Parliament, Convocation
consisted of an ­upper and a lower chamber. The affair began when the High-
Churchman Francis ­Atterbury (an Oxford alumnus of Christ Church and its
future Dean) ­demanded that ­Convocation be recognized as equal in status
to Parliament rather than subordinate to it and the monarch. Atterbury was
motivated to see a stronger ­position for Convocation within the governance
structure of the nation f­ollowing that a­ ssembly’s 1701 decision that it held no
legal basis to prosecute the deist John Toland for his infamous Christianity Not
M
­ ysterious (1696)—the book acknowledged as initiating the deist controversy
in ­England—because the e­ xpiring of the Licensing Act in 1695 had removed
any legal impediment to its being published. That Toland had composed much
of his book, “to show, that there is no such thing as Mystery in our Religion,”
during 1694 while he railed loudly in Oxford coffeehouses against priestcraft
and too narrow definitions of religion in England was not lost on Atterbury
who viewed the university and its surroundings as bulwarks of High-Church
exclusionary sentiment. Moreover, Toland’s argument likely had been directed
against ­Robert South, canon of Christ Church, Oxford, whose 1694 sermon
“Christianity Mysterious, and the Wisdom of God in Making it so,” argued that
true religion was “full of mysterious” doctrines that human reason could never
decipher and thus must accept on faith rather than reason. Toland countered
that any important element of religion—what God demands for salvation, as
an example—must be knowable by and reasonable to human understand-
ing.10 Like South before him, Atterbury had been a student at Westminster
before moving to Christ Church and it is probable that he felt a connection to
the man whose arguments Toland had belittled and that this was part of the
reason for Atterbury’s advocacy of Convocation.
At the time of the controversy Convocation was divided between the High-
Church minded Tories who comprised much of the lower chamber and the
Low-Church Whig Bishops who sat in the upper chamber. The Whigs believed
in a comprehensive and tolerant Anglicanism, which would remain the state
church, but one that encompassed a variety of Protestants in name of religious
peace. Indeed, Whigs and Low Church advocates saw the inclusion of Dissent-
ers, whose beliefs were not disruptive to the civil peace, within their vision of
the church as inevitable. They also saw the church as governed by the ­monarch,

10 Wigelsworth, Deism in Enlightenment England, 21–24; Gerard Reedy, Robert South (1634–
1716): An introduction to his life and sermons (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1992), 142–150.
Gardiner, Tindal & The Rights of Christian Church Asserted 53

through royal supremacy, whose sovereignty was granted by the populace. In

the words of Edmund Gibson, future Bishop of London, who argued that the
Archbishop of Canterbury may call or prorogue Convocation as he saw fit, “Has
not the Whig-interest, as Supported by a competent number of Bishops and
­Clergy, been the united strength, upon which the Protestant Cause has rested /
and stood it’s [sic] ground, ever since the Revolution? and can a Protestants
­Establishment subsist, and be safe upon any other bottom?”11 And for ­Gibson
adherence to Whig principles was key to defending the English Church, which
­itself was “one Branch of the Institution” of government. Tindal certainly agreed.
“Government must be derived from Consent,” he had argued in a 1694 publi-
cation.12 Conversely, the Tories argued for an exclusionary Anglicanism that
­upheld tradition, accepted no modernization, and while the monarch re-
mained the head of the religion, the population owed passive obedience to
the crown and church. Tories believed that the public good was not founded
upon principles of following one’s conscience in matters of religion nor was it
grounded in notions of popular sovereignty. Their assessment was that good
citizens (they would have preferred the term “subjects”) conformed to the
­piety and political rule of the establishment, defined by tradition. If needed,
this conformity would be enforced through legal means and if individual lib-
erties were casualties then that the price the nation would have to pay for
­stability. It is no surprise that clergy of these stripes condemned the practise
of Occasional Conformity and supported Gardiner in his quest to enforce the
statutes of All Souls and his insistence that fellows be in orders.13 At stake was
nothing less than the destiny of England itself. If things did not change, and
change soon, the future of the church was bleak because it would no longer be
Anglican, rather it would be a mongrel institution that bred weak Protestants
and not the robust Anglicans that Tories believed were crucial to maintain-
ing national virtue. It was not a question of what did the people want, it was
a question of what was good for them, their souls, and for England. In such a
view, directive was better than choice.

11 Bod. ms Eng. d. 2405, fol. 32r.

12 Matthew Tindal, An Essay Concerning Obedience to the Supreme Powers, and the Duty of
Subjects in all Revolutions (London, 1694), 3. Although it should be pointed out that Tindal
and Gibson disagreed about much regarding theology and would challenge one another
in print in the 1720s. For a while Gibson was thought to have destroyed all of Tindal’s
­papers after procuring them following Tindal’s death.
13 Shelly Burtt, Vritue Transformed: Political Argument in England, 1688–1740 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1992), 19, 20, 21; H.T. Dickinson, Liberty and Property: Political
Ideology in Eighteenth-Century Britain (New York: Holmes and Meier Publishers, 1977),
84–85.
54 Chapter 2

For Tindal, passive obedience to a monarch or church (likely any ­authority)

was an impediment to individual happiness. “Had the Doctrine of Passive-
Obedience been all-along practised,” Tindal hypothesized, “Mankind would
have been in a more slavish condition than any now are, that live under the
most Tyrannical Governments.”14 As a result of the ecclesiastical squabbling
in Convocation, where upper and lower houses remained locked in embit-
tered opposition over competing visions of the English Church and England
itself, the relationship between religion and civil authority was a timely sub-
ject for Tindal’s book.15 Not mentioned explicitly, although certainly in play,
was the relationship between the crown and the universities. The acrimony
in ­Convocation was so extreme that Queen Anne ordered the body prorogued
in February 1706. She made it clear that her appointed bishops had priority in
matters of church governance and that Convocation was subordinate to these
men. It was only in November 1710 that Convocation reopened.
Though he released The Rights of the Christian Church anonymously, ­Tindal
became known as its author very quickly. Writing from Berlin in 1707, Willam
Ayerst, dd, who served the diplomat Robert Sutton, complained to ­Arthur
Charlett, Master of University College, Oxford, that “The noise [of] Mr. ­Tyndal’s
Book has reach’d hither & one of the King’s chaplains has been talking to me
about it.” He grumbled further that Oxford University seemed unwilling to pun-
ish Tindal or do much to curtail the writings of a man, whom Ayerst described
as “Another of ye Same race” as Toland.16 Other contemporaries, such as the
third Earl Shaftesbury, agreed that Tindal was the most likely author.17 This
identification of Tindal with Toland threatened to tarnish the reputation of All
Souls as a pious Anglican institution. That many within Oxford saw ­Tindal’s
presence as detrimental to the maintenance good religion, is seen in the recol-
lections of Jonas Proast, former chaplain at All Souls and High-Church Tory,

14 Tindal, An Essay Concerning Obedience, 12; Jeffrey R. Wigelsworth, “‘God can require noth-
ing of us, but what makes for our Happiness’: Matthew Tindal on Toleration,” in Athe-
ism and Deism Revalued, Heterodox Religious Identities in Britain, 1650–1800, ed. Wayne
­Hudson, Diego Lucci, and Jeffrey R. Wigelsworth (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2014), 147–148.
15 Geoffrey Holmes, British Politics in the Age of Anne (London: St. Martin’s Press, 1967), 98.
When the Bangorian controversy caused further acrimony in Convocation and the nation
at large in 1717, Whig politicians had the institution closed. It would not meet again until
1851. See B.W. Young, Religion and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century England (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1998), 31–32.
16 Bod. Ballard ms 27 fol. 37v. Ayerst to Charlett, 26 November 1707.
17 Shaftesbury to Michael Ainsworth, 3 June 1709, in The Life, Unpublished Letters, and Philo-
sophical Regimen of Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury, ed. Benjamin Rand (facsimile reprint,
London: Thoemmes Press, 1995), 403.
Gardiner, Tindal & The Rights of Christian Church Asserted 55

who claimed in 1696 that Tindal “while strolling in the quad before diner, de-
clared ‘that there neither is, nor can be, any revealed religion.’”18
Tindal began his book by addressing the state of the English Church
through a consideration of who were its best stewards: High-Churchman or
Low-Churchmen. Tindal’s conclusion, which he would elaborate in the body of
the work, was that High-Churchmen were the greatest menace to the church
because “they who raise the greatest Noise about the Danger of the Church,
are the greatest Enemies to it.” Narrow definitions created an exclusionary at-
mosphere in religion and the nation, Tindal argued, whereas Low-Churchmen,
with their wider comprehension, offered England a church that welcomed all
Protestants. Authority over the church, Tindal argued, after tracing the history
of royal supremacy, resided with the monarch in combination with Parliament
and that Anne would exhibit “Goodness and Tenderness” when she displayed
due care and consideration for her subjects. Tindal supported this position by
explaining that there could not be two competing powers in England—one
ecclesiastical and the other secular—because since the time of Henry viii
the English Church agreed, like the nation itself, that the monarch was the
supreme authority.19 For men like Hickes, Tindal’s position threatened to make
Christianity little more than a branch of government with priests officers of
the state, rather than the religion of God cared for by the ministers of Jesus
Christ.20
The monarch’s duty to provide an atmosphere free of persecution for her
subjects had been a reoccurring theme in Tindal’s previous works on gov-
ernment and found expression here. Just as Toland had borrowed from the
­theology of John Locke to support his arguments in Christianity Not Mysterious,
Tindal derived his positions from the political theory of the famed philoso-
pher.21 Tindal proposed that in exchange for protection, the ruler received the
consent of those over whom he or she governed. This had been most evident
with the English Revolution of 1688. Continuing with the same Lockean lan-
guage, Tindal explained that “the only Right a Conqueror has, is built on the

18 Quoted in Mark Goldie, “John Locke, Jonas Proast and Religious Toleration 1688–1692,” in
The Church of England C. 1689–C. 1833, ed. John Walsh, Colin Haydon and Stephen Taylor
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 156.
19 Matthew Tindal, The Rights of the Christian Church Asserted, against the Romish, and
All Other Priests Who Claim an Independent Power over It. The Fourth Edition Corrected
(­London, 1709), iii, lxxxi, lxxxii; Jacqueline Rose, Godly Kinship in Restoration England: The
Politics of the Royal Supremacy, 1660–1688 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011),
281; Lalor, Matthew Tindal, 64.
20 Sirota, The Christian Monitors, 178.
21 Wigelsworth, Deism in Enlightenment England, 22–23; Lalor, Matthew Tindal, 62.
56 Chapter 2

Consent of those, who by their former Governor’s being no longer able to pro-
tect “em, were reduc”d to a State of Nature, and consequently at liberty to pay
Obedience to the Conqueror, upon his taking “em into his Protection.”22 Thus,
when James ii’s Catholicism annulled his duty to safeguard Protestantism in
England, and he fled for France, he forfeited his right to govern and by default
his supremacy over the Church of England. William and Mary’s promise to
­allow Protestantism to flourish provided them the consent of the body politic,
through act of Parliament.
Jacobites, who remained loyal to the absentee monarch James, threatened
the stability of England, Tindal claimed, because “never did any Men more
grossly and notoriously sacrifice the Ends of Both Civil and Ecclesiastical
­Government.” In Tindal’s view, support for James ii was the same as support
for the French king Louis xiv or, indeed, the Pope; both encouraged the cloud
of Catholicism to increase its shadow of darkness over Europe. Any true lover
of England, Tindal stated, must support the Protestant succession and Angli-
can Church. Jacobites were an impediment to progress because they refused
to accept the outcome of 1688. Turning further back in history for support,
­Tindal recalled that “In Queen Elizabeth’s Reign there was no Notion of Passive
­Obedience” to narrow the membership of the English Church. In this same
­tradition was Queen Anne who extended “her Favour to all her People.” What
was more, Anne “can distinguish True Religion from Priestcraft, and will not
suffer her Power to be made subservient to the ill Purposes of a Party [The
Tories], whose restless Malice is never to be satisfy’d, without treading on the
Necks of all who are not as bigotted as themselves.” By making the care of
the religion something that was only their providence, High-Church priests
assured themselves a privileged place in society. Whereas, in reality, religion
was indeed an important aspect of life, but its care was entrusted to all people
through their monarch and Parliament.23
As the Church of England fell under the auspices of the ­Crown-in-­Parliament,
at least in Tindal’s assessment, it is not surprising that the University of Oxford
as one of the chief incubators of future clerics received ­specific notice in Tindal’s
book.24 We can be certain that Gardiner read theses passages with the utmost
care. Being a fellow of All Souls, when Tindal wrote “Oxford” or “­University”
his meaning was no doubt informed by the local ­experiences within his own

22 Tindal, The Rights of the Christian Church Asserted, 9.

23 Tindal, The Rights of the Christian Church Asserted, 145, 250, 272, 131, 135; Champion, The
Pillars of Priestcraft Shaken, 137.
24 Dmitri Levitin, “Matthew Tindal’s Rights of the Christian Church (1706) and the Church-
State Relationship,” The Historical Journal 54 (2011): 720.
Gardiner, Tindal & The Rights of Christian Church Asserted 57

college. In Chapter 8 of The Rights of the Christian Church, Tindal ­decried the
Oxford Decree of 1683 and wrote that it was promoted by “infamous” school-
masters who “betray’d their Pupils, the young Nobility and G ­ entry, into a Belief,
That Men were Slaves by Nature, and that they cou’d not free themselves, how
soever they suffer’d from the Insolency of Tyrants.” Here he challenges the Tory
doctrine of passive obedience and wonders why a university would instruct
students to accept tyranny from their rulers, be they spiritual or political. Giv-
en that Tindal believed such instruction was taking place at ­Oxford, he sug-
gested that the university was not loyal to Queen Anne because “an absolute,
unconditional Obedience to K. James was declar’d by that University as the
Doctrine of the Church, which they were bound to abide by.” On the next page
Tindal stated baldly “I never heard that the U­ niversity, … recanted that wicked
Decree.”25 Moreover, in a later publication Tindal ­reflected upon his own early
experience at Lincoln College and how as a wide-eyed young pupil (he used
the term “rasa tabula” to describe himself) he ­assumed that “all Human and
Divine Knowledge was to be had” at Oxford and that he quickly fell into “the
then Prevailing notions” about passive obedience and the power of clergy.
Only later Tindal came to realize that he was being taught falsehoods.26 It was
a clear accusation of Jacobitism not only taking root in the university but of
it being actively encouraged. Moreover, as evidence of this assertion, Tindal
singled out the preaching of William Tilly, F­ ellow of Christ Church and Rector
of Albury, who was the loudest High-Church voice in Oxford prior to Henry
Sacheverell’s infamous sermon in late 1709, as an example of the disaffection
growing within the university community.27 Tindal knew of what he wrote. On
19 July 1705 Tilly delivered a sermon before the university that was one of the
first to utilize the phrase “church in danger” in reference to the threat posed to
Anglicanism from Occasional Conformity, too much toleration, and too little
passive obedience. Many copycat sermons followed and William Cavendish,
Lord Hartington, commented that Oxford had become filled with “Trumpet-
ers of Rebellion.”28 How strange, Tindal wrote, for Oxford to give the pulpit to
men like Tilly while claiming loyalty to the current crown. He then offered a

25 Tindal, The Rights of the Christian Church Asserted, 298, 299, 300.
26 Matthew Tindal, A Second Defence of the Rights of the Christian Church, Occasion’d by
two late Indictments against a Bookseller and his Servant, for selling one of the said Book
(­London, 1708), 172.
27 Tindal saw Tilly and Sacheverell as cut from the same cloth. Indeed, Tilly admired Sache-
verell and used part of a 1710 pamphlet to offering him support.
28 Tindal, The Rights of the Christian Church Asserted, 301; G.V. Bennett, “The Era of Party
Zeal 1702–1714,” in Eighteenth Century, 77.
58 Chapter 2

solution to the apparent estrangement from Crown-in-Parliament growing in

the university.

As the best Things, if corrupted, become the worst; so the Universities

cannot have too great Encouragement, while they instruct the Youth in
such Principles as are for the Good of All her Majesty’s Subjects; but if
they take quite a contrary Method, and teach such Doctrines are for the
Good of none of her Majesty’s except themselves, nothing can be more to
the Prejudice of the Publick.29

Exactly what sort of “Encouragement” would be suitable to make Oxford bene-

ficial for the country was not made clear, but given Tindal’s view of the crown’s
leadership role in maintaining the national religion and his Whig politics,
we may safely assume that it would involve court oversight. The passage also
explains Tindal’s motivation for encouraging the efforts his contemporaries
made in the House of Commons to overturn the requirement that fellowship
holders be in orders. While not everyone agreed with Tindal’s characterization
of humanity’s relationship with God as outlined in his book, his characteriza-
tion of Oxford as an institution that bred uncompromising passive obedience
and disaffection from the current regime, that required close attention from
the administration, added to what was taken to be common knowledge in
many circles. Little wonder then, that Gardiner worried so much about Tindal
and his book.
Most of the critics of The Rights of the Christian Church, and there were
many, were angered by Tindal’s characterization of Anglicanism, provi-
dence, and God, however, rather than his depiction of Oxford. For example,
the reverend William Law, himself a High-Church Tory, who would refuse to
swear a­ llegiance to George i, disputed Tindal by asserting that “we can have
no ­notions of God, but such that are mysterious and inconceivable.” Tindal
countered that it was basically atheism to worship a God whom one did not
understand ­because ­reverence would be offered to a deity that could not be
conceived. People would worship the unknowable. Tindal continued that in-
dividuals must be free to worship God in a way that best fit their sensibili-
ties and consciences, within a generous Anglican confession that welcomed
rather then excluded.30 William Blencowe would adopt a similar stance when

29 Tindal, The Rights of the Christian Church Asserted, 302.

30 William Law, The Case of Reason, or Natural Religion, Fairly and Fully Stated. In answer
to a Book, entitled, Christianity as old as the Creation (London, 1731) in The Works of the
Gardiner, Tindal & The Rights of Christian Church Asserted 59

it came to choosing one’s career, as the previous chapter illustrated and his
­characterization of the authority wielded by the heads of colleges had much
in common with Tindal’s description of priestcraft. Not surprisingly, Gardiner
linked Tindal, Blencowe, and the effort to eliminate orders at All Souls. Since
Tindal believed God ­created humanity with the power to know Him, Tindal ex-
pected all people would come to hold a proper view of God if given the chance to
explore their beliefs. What prevented this proposition from being more w ­ idely
known were the ­actions of authors and preachers, Law and Tilly for ­example,
who depicted God as mysterious and unknowable. As proof of his thesis that
God would not impose Himself on humanity and permit people to find their
way to Him in a manner most compatible with their consciences, Tindal noted
that “God, a­ fter he had accepted the Political Government of the Jews, wou’d
reign no longer over “em than they were willing.” Therefore, in his assessment,
humanity was able to come to God because “God wou’d not reign over the Jews,
till they had agreed to the Covenant … because, by his Law of ­Nature having
allow’d ­Mankind a Right of chusing their own Governors, he wou’d not as King
deprive “em of a Right which he had before as God given “em in common with
the rest of the World.”31 The same was true of earthly ­monarchs who could rule
only as far as the sovereignty granted by their ­subjects extended. There was no
passive obedience to be found in Tindal’s politics.
Daniel Waterland, dd, religious conservative, who was Master of Magda-
lene College, Cambridge, denied Tindal’s assertion by arguing that “God does
not want our leave for the making of a law, neither needs he to wait for our
­acceptance, to render it valid.” For Waterland it was not up to humanity to
­accept or reject God’s laws or governance. People have an obligation to obey
God, not to enter into a contractual relationship with the creator of the uni-
verse. To do as Tindal advocated would “bring down the laws of God to the
lusts and passion of corrupt man, and to find some pretext or other for taking
off r­ eligious restraints, that they may be at liberty to follow their pleasures, and
to do only what is right in their own eyes, instead of attending to the voice of
God.”32

Reverend William Law, m.a. 9 vols. (London, 1892), 2: 100; Matthew Tindal, A Defence of the
Rights of the Christian Church. In Two Parts. 2nd ed. cor. (London, 1709), 5, 10.
31 Matthew Tindal, A Second Defence of the Rights of the Christian Church, Occasion’d by two
late Indictments against a Bookseller and his Servant, for selling one of the said Books in A
Defence of the Rights of the Christian Church, 112, 118–119.
32 Daniel Waterland, Scripture Vindicated, 3 Parts (1730–33) in The Works of The Rev. Daniel
Waterland, d.d., ed., William Van Mildert, D.D. vol. 4, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1843), Part 2, 262; Part 1, 169; Young, Religion and Enlightenment, 35–38.
60 Chapter 2

Tindal’s book received more than eighteen and perhaps as many as thirty
separate refutations and challenges. Even Jonathan Swift considered a re-
sponse but never proceeded past the planning stages.33 Tindal replied to
­numerous challenges in A Defence of the Rights of the Christian Church (1709).
The work’s main antagonist was William Wotton, frs, spokesperson for the
“moderns” in the famed Battle of the Books, who had composed The Rights
of the Clergy in the Christian Church to persuade readers that Tindal’s notions
were little more than wordplay composed by an author too convinced of his
own genius. In response Tindal repeated his arguments and further revealed
his indebtedness to Locke’s political theory. Good governments, Tindal con-
tended, ­renounced ­tyranny and arbitrary power in all their forms. Just as God
does not act ­arbitrarily and outside the bounds of established laws of nature,
earthly rulers may not act outside the laws of nations. Relying on Locke’s
­Second Treatise on G ­ overnment, Tindal wrote that there are two rules governing
humanity: “the Honour of God and the Good of Mankind, which are in effect
the same.”34 Once consent toward a monarch has been removed, such as hap-
pened with James ii, any person who adheres to that past government becomes
an impediment to the national happiness. This was the case with J­acobites,
nonjurors, and those High-Churchmen who refused to permit any diversity of
religion in England. Tindal argued that the events of 1688 had made their views
obsolete.
It is in The Rights of the Christian Church and its defenses that Tindal clearly
situates himself within the tradition of Erastianism, the belief that civil au-
thority extended over churches.35 While the position could be used to justify
persecution of religious difference on the grounds that religious dissent was
basically political dissent and a threat to civil harmony, Tindal was not that
extreme. He argued for a tolerant English church, overseen by the monarch.
This church would allow all honest Protestants to be members. For the good
of the nation, people must be free to worship God as their consciences saw
fit. As long as that belief was not divisive and did not pose a threat to English
society or the peace therein, Tindal argued that the monarch had the duty to
ensure a widely comprehensive church. Others would build on notions like
Tindal’s and go further by stating that the monarch even had the obligation to

33 Jonathan Swift to Charles Ford, 8 March 1709 in The Letters of Jonathan Swift to Charles
Ford, ed. David Nichol Smith (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1935), 5; Lalor, Matthew Tin-
dal, 73. There is disagreement on the number of replies and accounts vary.
34 Tindal, A Defence of the Rights of the Christian Church, 165, 168.
35 Coffey, Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England, 36.
Gardiner, Tindal & The Rights of Christian Church Asserted 61

t­ olerate ­heresy, so long as it was not a public threat or nuisance.36 We can e­ asily
see how this might translate into promoting crown or administrative oversight
of the universities, particularly All Souls. In the same way that churches, in
Tindal’s assessment, were part of the royal prerogative to maintain peace,
­Oxford might too fall under such rules. His earlier statement about offering
the institution “Encouragement” to promote views that were supportive of the
­administration are instructive. Years previously he had made a more categori-
cal statement to that effect. The monarch, Tindal explained, “must have a Right
to command the Natural Force of those that expect his Protection, to enable
him the better to put his Laws and Decrees in execution.”37 As Oxford and its
colleges were under the purview of the crown, its operation could be legiti-
mately directed for the betterment of the nation at large, as royal privilege and
act of Parliament deemed fit. It seems safe to assume that Gardiner would have
understood the implication of Tindal’s writing for the independence of his col-
lege in this way.
While the House of Commons ordered Tindal’s book publically burned, he
escaped without a scratch.38 This did not go unnoticed in Oxford. Hickes, Tin-
dal’s tutor at Lincoln, wrote to Charlett on 3 June 1707, urging action against
his former pupil.39 A year later Tindal still retained his fellowship at All Souls
and Hickes once again wrote Charlett on 10 August 1708 complaining that,
“I am sorry to understand … there is no disposition at Oxford to prosecute the
Deist scribe Dr Tindal … to convict him of being the writer of the Rights.” This
deeply troubled Hickes who explained that it was the duty of the colleges to
defend the Christian religion.40 Hickes himself had taken action in 1707 when
he composed a two-volume, 600-page reply to Tindal’s arguments. His position
was the antithesis to Tindal’s: the English church and its priests composed a di-
vinely generated body that operated independently of the earthly monarch.41
Substitute “college” for “church” and Hickes’s argument was Gardiner’s. Tindal
responded to Hickes in a pair of 1710 books that attacked High-Churchmen
and their vision for the English Church. In one Tindal described Hickes as
“­Fanatical” in his desire to establish High-Church values in the nation, and in

36 Coffey, Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England, 206; Lalor, Matthew Tindal, 67.
37 Tindal, An Essay Concerning Obedience, 2.
38 Wigelsworth, Deism in Enlightenment England, 59–60; Champion, The Pillars of Priestcraft
Shaken, 97–98, 136–137.
39 Bod. Ballard ms 12, fol. 95. George Hickes to Arthur Charlett, 3 June 1707.
40 Bod. Ballard ms 12, fol. 105r. Hickes to Charlett, 10 August, 1708.
41 William J. Bulman, Anglican Enlightenment: Orientalism, Religion and Politics in England
and its Empire, 1648–1715 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 279–280.
62 Chapter 2

the other argued that Hickes pressed people to swear loyalty and obedience to
the monarch and Church “contrary to their Consciences.”42
Hickes seems not to have known that Gardiner was, in fact, keeping an
eye on Tindal’s activities. As the rumours over the impending bill before the
House of Commons ran through All Souls, Gardiner wrote to Edmund Gib-
son, at this time Rector at Lambeth, regarding what he saw as assaults on
the college statutes. Gardiner described “new attempts which are daily made
upon ye Statutes, and for resisting of which ye Junior Part are become my En-
emies, daring all” other fellows to abandon their holy orders. More troubling
was that “Dr. Tindal shelters himself in ye Band” of fellows conspiring to avoid
orders. ­Gardiner was right. Tindal’s name is preserved in records of meetings
held by fellows to plan their actions against the statutes.43 It should be noted
that ­Tindal worked on behalf of others because his fellowship was in civil law,
which according to Chichele’s statutes did not carry the requirement of orders,
which was moot anyway following the elimination of canon law.44 While he
could not command Tindal to take orders, Gardiner did worry about All Souls
being turned into a haven for secular lawyers inspired and led by Tindal. In the
letter sent to Thomas Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury, on 3 November 1708,
outlining the threat posed to All Souls by the bill, Gardiner also explained that
“I hear there is proof offer’d by a person who transcrib’d [them, that] many
pages of ye Rights of ye Church were written by Dr. Tindal: if my power will
reach to take upon Oath I will hear it.”45 For Gardiner the bill, Tindal, and The
Rights of the C­ hristian Church must have seemed as united in reality as they
were rhetorically in his letter to Tenison. Tindal likely associated with those
who wanted the bill passed because of his wish that people be allowed to fol-
low their c­ onsciences in matters or religion and Gardiner feared that perhaps
he encouraged others in the All Souls community to accept his theological
views.46 This would be confirmed when the enquiry at All Souls took place in
late October 1710.

42 Matthew Tindal, New High-Church Turn’d Old Presbyterian (London, 1710), 12; Matthew
Tindal, The Jacobitism Perjury and Popery of High-Church-Priests (London, 1710), 10.
43 Bod. All Souls ms dd b. 16 fol. 13v; Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol.2 fol. 84. Gardiner
to Gibson, 12 January 1708.
44 Gardiner’s inability to force Tindal into orders has been misunderstood in some previous
assessments of events at All Souls. See Lalor, Matthew Tindal, 98–99; Wayne Hudson, En-
lightenment and Modernity: The English Deists and Reform (London: Pickering and Chatto,
2009), 5.
45 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 2 fol. 72. Gardiner to Tenison, 3 November 1708.
46 John Clarke, “Warden Gardiner, All Souls, and the Church, c. 1688–1760,” in All Souls Under
the Ancien Régime, 98–99.
Gardiner, Tindal & The Rights of Christian Church Asserted 63

The investigation focused on John Silke, the Rector of Bradford. Under oath
Silke testified that “in the Years 1699, 1700, 1701, and 1702, being then Servitor of
All Souls College Oxon; He did several times Inscribe every chapter together
with the Preface & contents of Each Chapter of a Book now publish’d & Entitl’d
The Rights of the Christian Asserted.” In his statement Silke revealed that the
book had a more provocative earlier title: “A Vindication of the King’s Suprem-
acy in Matters Ecclesiastical,” which would have made Tindal’s Erastianism
immediately evident. Silke hinted that he had little choice in assisting Tindal
and that “he transcribed it by the order of Dr. Matthew Tindal Fellow of the
said College.” Moreover, “He did Copy the Whole Book as [it was] prepar’d for
the Press; particularly the Propositions above written by the Order of the Doc-
tor, part of Which were dictated to the said deponent from the Doctor’s own
mouth; and part was transcrib’d from original Papers which the said Deponent
well knows to be written by the hand of the said Doctor Matthew Tindal.”47
Thomas Brathwaite, dcl and Warden of New College, and Arthur Charlett wit-
nessed Silke’s deposition. To Gardiner this report confirmed what he already
suspected: Tindal was a disruptive force in All Souls and used his position as
a fellow to nurture heresy in others, not only in servitors like Silke (socially
inferior students, but not fellows, who could study in a college but who often
were required to act as servants) who were in need of Tindal’s money, but in
the other fellows. Tindal’s involvement in the movement to have the bill passed
had been driven home to Gardiner in the 2 March 1709 letter Dodrington Gre-
ville had sent him stating that the bill was unlikely to pass. Greville advised
him that “This design has been in agitation this 3 years, for about that time,
Dr. Tindal came to me with those fallacious arguments, which are now urged
as reasons.”48 While there seemed little that Gardiner could do directly against
Tindal, he did attempt some revenge when he opposed (unsuccessfully) Fisher
Littleton’s degree for supposedly defending “that wicked book call’d The Rights
of ye Christian Church.”49 This was likely a smokescreen for the real reason that
Gardiner disliked Littleton; his advocacy for the Commons bill would have
placed him on Gardiner’s list of enemies, as we saw. Yet it further linked Tindal
and efforts to change All Souls.
Silke published his own account of the episode in 1735—two years after
­Tindal’s death—as The Religious, Rational and Moral Conduct of Mathew Tindal.

47 bl Add. ms 22083, fol. 4r.

48 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 1 fol. 15. Greville to Gardiner, 2 March 1709; Graham
Midgley, University Life in Eighteenth-Century Oxford (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1996), 7–9.
49 Godley, Oxford in the Eighteenth Century, 184.
64 Chapter 2

In the book Silke attempted to distance himself from a man whom he de­
scribed as “that great Apostate and Corrupter of the Principles and Morals of
the Youth of the present Age” and most likely an atheist.50 This episode may
have been what reverend Thomas Tanner, former chaplain of All Souls and
future Bishop of St. Asaph, had in mind when he complained in 1717 about All
Souls’ sullied reputation. The college had, he lamented, “furnish’d” the nation
with “all sorts of” deism. Nevertheless he hoped that people would realise “that
we are not all quite corrupted.”51 One of those whom Silke believed Tindal cor-
rupted was William Blencowe, who is the subject of Chapter 4.
Tindal also associated with at least one political figure whose actions would
trouble Gardiner. As Chapter 4 will illustrate, Charles Spencer, Lord Sunder-
land was a thorn in Gardiner’s side during 1709–1710. Documents reveal that
Tindal and Sunderland certainly had at least a professional relationship from
1718 onward, but there is reason to believe that their communication pre-
dates this and extends further back into the centre of Gardiner’s struggles at
All Souls. In 1718 the unity of Whig mps in the House of Commons shattered
over the direction that George i was taking England’s foreign policy particu-
larly in the Baltic. Siding with their monarch were Lord Stanhope and Lord
Sunderland who now faced an opposition of Whigs led by Robert Walpole
and his brother-in-law Charles Townshend. Tindal publicly supported, albeit
again anonymously, Sunderland and those who remained loyal to George i.
In The Defection Consider’d, and the Designs of those who divided the Friends of
the Government, set in a True Light (1718), Tindal reprimanded the Walpolean
Whigs. In this brief work Tindal began by stating that he was reluctant to write
about these affairs but a “due Regard for the Publick” had convinced him to
him to remark upon the “late Behaviour of certain Persons, whom, before I
was very much esteem’d.” Here Tindal means Walpole and his supporters. Prior
to the separation, Tindal saw that Whigs (certainly not Tories) were the only
political group capable of promoting “the common Good.” But with the pres-
ent arrangement, “to see Things take a quite different Turn, and the Hopes of
good Men miserably frustrated, must provoke the Indignation of all.”52 There
was no upside to this political posturing, Tindal argued. In his view the only
thing the defection did was to encourage Jacobites and Tories who “began to

50 [John Silke] The Religious, Rational and Moral Conduct of Mathew Tindal, l.l.d. late Fellow
of All Souls College in Oxford (London 1735), p. 1.
51 Bod. Ballard ms 4 fol. 134r. Thomas Tanner to Charlett, 16 September 1717, written from All
Souls.
52 Matthew Tindal, The Defection Consider’d, and the Designs of those who divided the Friends
of the Government, set in a True Light (London, 1718), pp. 3, 4.
Gardiner, Tindal & The Rights of Christian Church Asserted 65

look on their Game as lost, and think it in vain any longer to strive against the
Stream, have Now, their Hopes reviv’d, and are wonderfully elated; and ev’ry
where declare, that the Whiggs will do That for them.” This was no small matter
to a scholar in Oxford, given that the university already carried the suspicion
of promoting disaffection from the monarch. For Tindal, it was clear that a
political house divided could not withstand the danger of Jacobites. To survive
this crisis, Tindal maintained that every Whig must rally around Sunderland.53
Although he did not affix his name to this work, critics identified Tindal’s
­position with his earlier advocacy for a widely comprehensive church. In the
view of one unidentified opponent, Tindal “is in no way particular in” the
Anglican Church and “gives us tacitly to understand, that he’s a downright
­Leveller,” who “would put Protestants of all Degrees and Opinions, upon the
same Bottom.”54 The “Leveller” accusation was particularly inflammatory,
­referring as it did to the social equality—some might say proto-communism—
movement that took root in 1647 during the uncertainty of the Civil Wars lead-
ing to an army mutiny before it was suppressed.55 With the analogy, Tindal’s
antagonist meant that he sought to make all religions in England equal, with
the goal of eroding and ultimately eliminating Anglican priority in the nation.
This had been the suspicion of both Gardiner and Silke some ten years earlier
and this present assessment no doubt confirmed their fears.
The first extant piece of private correspondence between Tindal and Sun-
derland is dated 1 April 1720. After apologizing for the rushed composition of
the letter and poor quality of his ink, Tindal praised Sunderland, his policies,
his loyalty to George i, and wrote that he was disheartened to read the fre-
quent public attacks on Sunderland and his character. Tindal offered to write
a rebuttal to the peer’s critics and to “employ my studies in the Summer as
your Lordship shall direct.” Assuring Sunderland of his trustworthiness, Tindal
concluded by emphasising that “the persons I chiefly attack may be a proof of
what regard I have for your interest” and that he would wait patiently for an
answer. While no explicit reply exists, Tindal did receive a summons to meet
with an unnamed government minister in late September. Clearly, Tindal was
involved in the administration’s affairs.56

53 Tindal, The Defection Consider’d, 5, 61.

54 Anonymous, The Defection Detected; or, Faults Laid on the Right Side (London, 1718), 21–22.
55 Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolu-
tion (1972; Harmondsworth: Pelican Books, 1982), 107–150.
56 bl ms Add. 61650 fol. 64. Mathew Tindal to Lord Sunderland, 1 April 1720; tna sp 35/23
fol. 55a. Tindal to?, 22 September 1720. Lalor, Matthew Tindal, Freethinker, 95–96.
66 Chapter 2

Like many others in England, Tindal would be lured by the promises of

quick money in the South Sea Company. The business was little more than a
means to repackage a portion of the national debt and sell it to the public as
shares in the company. While the South Sea Company never did any actual
trading in South America in spite of its monopoly on American trade, the value
of its shares rose sharply as it managed an increasingly large proportion of the
debt.57 Similar to any number of financial schemes that seemingly built their
houses on sand, the end was dramatic. As did many others, Tindal suffered
financial ruin following the burst of the Bubble. Tindal directed his request
for compensation to none other than Sunderland. On 2 August 1721 he once
more wrote to Sunderland telling him that “After all the Parliament had done
for the relief of the Sufferers by the South Sea, I find I am a loser of about 900
in the Redemables.” Tindal felt some hesitancy in asking for assistance consid-
ering “how very generous you have already been, to help me at this pinch if I
could think of any other means.” This is a provocative statement. Tindal clearly
implies that the two men had communicated previously and that ­Tindal had
performed service for Sunderland. As Tindal had two talents: law and polem-
ical author, we may be certain that his aid to Sunderland involved political
matters. Had Gardiner known about this connection, it would only have ce-
mented in his mind that men like Sunderland were intimate with those fel-
lows of All Souls who wished to undermine his college. Did Tindal compose
The Defection Consider’d on request? Contemporary scuttlebutt claimed that
Sunderland had been responsible for Tindal’s £200 yearly government pension
which had been granted to him not because of his legal service to the crown
in 1689 but because Sunderland had been pleased with Tindal’s various pro-
Whig pamphlets, specifically The Rights of the Christian Church. The uncer-
tainty originates in the fact that the payment was not widely known until after
Tindal’s death and its origin something of a mystery. A number of observers
believed that Sunderland had initiated the payment in 1706, which had then
been renewed under subsequent minsters. One contemporary commentator
went so far as to claim that Queen Anne herself had been so pleased with the
arguments found in The Rights of the Christian Church that she arranged for
Tindal to receive £500 for the work.58 In his history of Oxford L.W.B. Brockliss
goes further and suggests that Tindal kept his fellowship “[t]hanks to govern-
ment protection.”59 Not wishing charity, Tindal promised Sunderland that he
had the “materials by me for a book which wou’d go near to make me whole”

57 John Carswell, The South Sea Bubble, Revised Edition (1993; London: Sutton, 2001).
58 Lalor, Matthew Tindal, 26–27.
59 Brockliss, Oxford, 212.
Gardiner, Tindal & The Rights of Christian Church Asserted 67

and allow for the repayment of any money given to him. But Tindal was unsure
as to when he might be able to capitalise on this expected source of revenue
because, “I am afraid the publishing it wou’d, not be proper at this juncture,
since it wou’d, being far bolder, make a greater noise then even the Rights of the
Church did.”60 Although he did not mention a title for the book, Tindal likely
meant Christianity as Old as the Creation—of all his publications from about
1721 onward, it was the only book that caused the anticipated stir.
Controversy that followed Tindal while he lived stuck to him after his death
in 1733. The terms of Tindal’s will, and the ownership of his manuscripts,
caused a bitter confrontation first in private and then in a public dispute con-
ducted in the Grub Street Journal, for the better part of two years. The episode
began when the infamous bookseller and composer of scandalous biographies
­Edmund Curll published a copy of Tindal’s will in October 1733. Less than a
month later, the Grub Street Journal printed a letter that questioned the legiti-
macy of the will and rejected the claim of the will’s only heir. The author of the
letter was Tindal’s nephew Nicolas Tindal and the unnamed beneficiary was
Eustace Budgell, who has further indirect connections to the events at All Souls
as we will see in Chapter 5. Budgell had studied at Oxford and served in the
Irish Parliament as mp for Mullingar during 1715–1727. He contributed to The
Spectator (1711–1712), published by his cousin Joseph Addison.61 As had ­Tindal,
Budgell lost almost all of his money in the South Sea Company. His overall
character is suspect and his pauper’s existence after the loss of his wealth in
1721 leads to thoughts of a dubious and possibly exploitative friendship with
the elderly Tindal. According to Budgell, Tindal acted as his patron and loaned
him £2,100, a princely sum at the time. The disputed section of the will, as
published by Curll, stated that Tindal bequeathed to Budgell “the Sum of two
thousand one hundred Pounds … my Strong Box, my Diamond Ring, and all my
Manuscript-Books, Papers, and Writings.”62 Despite Nicholas’s assertions to the
contrary, it would seem that Budgell was telling the truth, at least partially. In
the days before Tindal died, the physician, and fellow of All Souls, Pierce Dod
visited Tindal. Dod, whose desire to study medicine without taking holy orders
vexed Gardiner, will be the subject of the next c­ hapter. ­Describing his meetings
with Tindal to George Clarke, former fellow of All Souls then in the service of
Queen Anne, Dod stated that, “Three or four hours before he dyed [Tindal]

60 bl Add. 61650 fol. 87. Tindal to Sunderland, 2 August 1721.

61 “Budgell, Eustace (1686–1737), in The Oxford Companion to English Literature, 5th edition,
ed., Margaret Drabble (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 143.
62 The Grub Street Journal, 18 October; 22 November; David Berman and Stephen Lalor, “The
Suppression of Christianity as Old as the Creation Vol. ii,” Notes and Queries, 229 (1984).
68 Chapter 2

sent for Eustace Budgell the person whom he has entrusted with his choice
remains, & something much more valuable Ye best part of his fortune.”63 Al-
though Dod did not specify the amount of the “fortune” given to Budgell, he is
clear that such a bequest had been made.
Included among the manuscripts purportedly given to Budgell was the sec-
ond part of Christianity as Old as the Creation. Budgell committed suicide in
1737, and no complete second volume has ever surfaced. Only a partial intro-
duction of the book exists which circulated around 1732.64 Nicholas Tindal,
who ironically had a long and successful career in the English Church, refused
to believe that his uncle had rejected his entire family in favour of Budgell.
Nicholas continued to raise doubts in the Grub Street Journal. On 6 December
1733 Nicholas argued that the will was “contrary to what his uncle had lately
told him.” Budgell replied that the will was genuine. The editor of the Grub
Street Journal also questioned the will’s authenticity and asked sceptically why
Tindal would have misspelled his own name three times and why he seems to
have given away £800 more than he was reportedly worth. There was, the editor
wrote, “some secret mystery in this affair.” The will and Budgell’s claims upon
Tindal’s money even made an appearance in Alexander Pope’s satire “Epistle
to Dr Arbuthnot.”65 On 17 January 1734 the saga continued. Nicholas went to
Budgell’s home and demanded to inspect the will. Having seen the document,
Nicholas opened Tindal’s strongbox to find only £1100 present, not the £2100
Nicholas expected. Tindal’s nephew “who before suspected foul play, was now
by this information and other circumstances, strongly confirmed in his suspi-
cions.” While the dispute continued into March 1734, the will was eventually
proven a forgery, though not before Budgell threatened to take his case directly
to the House of Commons. However, with the Excise Crisis occupying the Ad-
ministration’s time, it is unlikely that Budgell would have found a sympathetic
ear.66

63 bl Egerton ms 2618, fol. 229v–230r, Pierce Dod to George Clarke, September 8, 1733. Lalor,
Matthew Tindal, 17.
64 Bod. Rawl. 4o 92. Matthew Tindal, Introduction. The Reason Why This Second Volume of
Christianity as Old as the Creation, has not Appeared Sooner (London [published?], 1732?).
Lalor, Matthew Tindal, 156.
65 Lines 367–368: “Let Budgel charge low Grubstreet on his quill, / And write whate’er he
pleas’d, except his Will.”
66 Some details of the controversy are paraphrased from Wigelsworth, Deism in Enlighten-
ment England. See also The Grub Street Journal, 6 December 1733; 17 January; 7 March; 30
March 1734; J.H. Plumb, Sir Robert Walpole: The King’s Minister (London: The Cresset Press,
1960), 233–283.
Gardiner, Tindal & The Rights of Christian Church Asserted 69

Dod’s description of Tindal’s last days and final hours presented the fellow
of All Souls as very suspicious of established religion, and orthodox theology.
The physician asked Tindal if he believed in the afterlife:

As to future concerns he was under no manner of Apprehension[.] He

said that if there was a God He was sure He should go to a Merciful One,
Not a evil and vengeful one, such as One as He is describ’d to be & always
shews Himself in Scripture: But to say the Truth I verily think He did not
believe a future state, for I have formerly asked him, that very seriously
what He thought wou’d become of him after this life, He has answer’d me
as seriously that He thought he shou’d know no more of it than Ye Dirt
under my horse[’]s feet.67

Even in his last hours, Tindal did not give the answers Dod wanted to hear.
There would be no deathbed conversion to orthodox Anglicanism. Tindal
­refused to believe what he could not know through his reason and remained a
deist with his last breath. Regarding the nature of God, Dod told Clarke:

There happen’d to be a Picture of our Saviour upon the Cross in the Room
where [Tindal] lay, & What is remarkable it was just in his view, so that if
he did but open his eyes, he cou’d hardly avoid looking upon it. He looked
upon this picture with some interest during the time that He was upon ye
above blessed Gospels, & concluded wch … How is it possible, say he, that
I should ever believe that fellow to be ye Son of God.68

For Tindal there would be no final acceptance of the Trinity. To anyone familiar
with his works, this last denial of the Trinity would not have surprised. In the
1690s he wrote, “how it is possible, since God and a Divine Person are the very
same Being, that there should be three Persons and but one God; is it not say-
ing that there are three Gods, and but one?” He then called acceptance of the
Trinity “absurd.”69 And, in his famous Christianity as Old as the Creation, Tindal
singled out Oxford as an institution dedicated to advancing what he saw as the
fallaciousness of the Trinity. “What Absurdities have not People brought into
Religion,” he asked, “Nay, have not some people, if the University of Oxford is

67 bl Egerton ms 2618, fol. 229v.

68 bl Egerton ms 2618, fol. 230r.
69 Matthew Tindal, A Letter To the Reverend the Clergy of both Universities, Concerning the
Trinity and the Athanasian Creed (London, 1694), 6, 7.
70 Chapter 2

a good Judge, advanc’d false, impious, and heretical Doctrines concerning the
Godhead”?70
Gardiner died six years before Tindal. Had he lived to read Dod’s letter, it
would have confirmed what he long suspected: Tindal was an agitator in the
college promoting his deism, sullying the reputation of the university, and
urging fellows not to take holy orders as required by the statutes. But here
­Tindal’s reputation was greater than his actual danger within All Souls. While
he ­associated with the fellows who wished to avoid holy orders, and his publi-
cations certainly made life difficult for Gardiner, Tindal’s efforts between 1706
and about 1709 were occupied primarily with the four editions of Rights of
the Christian Church that appeared during this time and composing lengthy
­replies to his critics.71 He was not the driving force behind the movement. He
was, however, another troubling piece in a puzzle of problems that character-
ised All Souls under Gardiner’s supervision.

70 Matthew Tindal, Christianity as Old as the Creation (London, 1730), 291.

71 Lalor, Matthew Tindal, 83.
 Chapter 3

Gardiner and the Trouble with Medicine

Even without the passing of the bill in the House of Commons, there was
­another strategy available for at least a few fellows who wished to keep their
fellowships while not taking orders, although it required some sleight of hand
and reliance on tradition rather than Henry Chichele’s statutes. Those fellows
who studied and practiced medicine (the contemporary term was “physic” or
“physick”) could be exempt from the orders requirement, in certain circum-
stances. The situation, however, was not clear cut: how many of these positions
existed, were they dispensed at the discretion of the warden, and what was the
relationship between fellows in medicine and those in arts?1 These were the
questions that troubled Bernard Gardiner at the same time as he sought proof
that Matthew Tindal had written The Rights of the Christian Church and as he
waited anxiously to learn the outcome of the proposed bill that would remove
the orders requirement for all Oxford fellows should it become law.
The concern over physician fellows at All Souls, and Oxford generally, was
an issue that predated Gardiner’s wardenship. Medicine, one of the higher
graduate faculties along with law and theology, had been contentious at
­Oxford since the 1200s because it was thought to distract students from the
more proper study of theology. This lack of prestige and resulting neglect by
the best and brightest saw medicine in Oxford suffer as the smallest of all
the faculties, in terms of scholars, into the sixteenth century.2 Despite Henry
viii’s creation of the Regius Professor of Physic (renamed “of Medicine” in the
modern age) at Oxford in 1549, many at the university (and All Souls) looked
down their noses at the discipline. There was some justification for this aca-
demic snobbery. Physician graduates from Oxford rarely ventured further
afield than London and were considerably less respected then their continen-
tally educated counterparts. One of the reasons that Oxford did not produce
many physicians was that the institution’s decidedly medieval pedagogy based
on theoretical knowledge informed by ancient authors, could not compete
with the innovative curriculum offered in such places as Leiden, and then
­Scotland in the later eighteenth century, when it came to attracting students.3

1 Worthies of All Souls, 354.

2 Roger French, Medicine Before Science: The Business of Medicine from the Middle Ages to the
Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 89, 93.
3 C. Webster, “The Medical Faculty and the Physic Garden,” in Eighteenth Century, 699, 700;
Brockliss, Oxford, 278.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004375352_005

72 Chapter 3

Nonetheless, the need for professions other than clerical in England had col-
lege visitors urging the specialization of higher faculties among the colleges of
Oxford and Cambridge in 1549. According to this plan, All Souls would house
and train civil lawyers. But the instillation of this order did not proceed past
the visitation stage much to the relief of the colleges, which resented any in-
trusion into their operations, let alone stipulations regarding the subjects that
would be taught or studied within their walls.4 By the eighteenth century the
dismal state of medical education at Oxford prompted the physician John
­Radcliffe to found the Radcliffe Travelling Fellowship in 1715, as a bequest from
his estate, which afforded the opportunity of continental study for promising
students of medicine.
Conversely, theology remained the learned pursuit most defended by
various wardens of All Souls, including Gardiner. Promotion of the Anglican
Church was “the University’s raison d’être” and that this mission “occupied
the energies of the most intellectually active dons.”5 It is easy to see why. As a
whole Oxford University was finely set up to train future clergy: each college
had a chapel and was a home for many accomplished clerics and those train-
ing to enter careers in the church. Religious education was part of all students’
college lives, whether they entered a church profession or not. Because the
statutes of All Souls required fellows to have completed at least three years of
studies at Oxford prior to their election, Gardiner assumed his fellows were
dedicated scholars, who accepted that holy orders would be part of their fel-
lowship duties, whether they viewed their fellowships as a life-long position or
as a sort of staging ground before moving to a parish. Every college, All Souls
being no exception, required all of its fellows to attend chapel, although com-
pliance waned during the eighteenth century.6 A fellow of All Souls who did
not eagerly participate in the religious life and services of his college, risked
raising the ire of his warden. Moreover, the study of theology was highly struc-
tured and had been since the Middle Ages; medicine by contrast was much less
proscribed in terms of texts or authoritative authors. Thus many condemned
medicine as a less rigorous intellectual pursuit than theology.
The threat that medicine might pose to the traditional values of All Souls
­became apparent in the sixteenth century. During 1572, in the middle years
of the reign of Elizabeth i, fellow of All Souls Henry Wood obtained royal per-
mission “to continue as a physician not entering the ministry,” although “his

4 Evans, Oxford, 125, 138, 205; Brockliss, Oxford, 93, 277.

5 Brockliss, Oxford, 73, quote on 316.
6 R. Greaves, “Religion in the University 1715–1800,” in Eighteenth Century, 402, 403; V.H.H.
Green, “Religion in the Colleges 1715–1800,” in Eighteenth Century, 425.
Gardiner and the Trouble with Medicine 73

time was expired to be minister or leave the College.” Wood had appealed to
the Queen during her travels through Oxfordshire when she visited Wood-
stock in August 1572, although exactly how he managed to secure a meeting is
not known. Nor is it clear why Elizabeth took an interest in Wood’s request to
maintain his fellowship in medicine and not enter orders. The Queen’s deci-
sion irritated Robert Hovenden, Warden of All Souls (1571–1614) and the Visitor
of All Souls, Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker (1559–1575). Parker,
who helped compose the Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican Church, and who
had been a favourite of Elizabeth’s mother Anne Boleyn, saw the preservation
of religion in England through proper channels—higher education at Oxford
being one of these—as a pillar of national stability. Little wonder then that he
sided with Hovenden who demanded that all fellows of All Souls fulfil their
duties to be in orders (except for civil lawyers). The Archbishop communicated
his displeasure to the Lord Treasurer, William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley. Prior
to this appointment Burghley held the post of Secretary of State in addition
to leading the Privy Council. He carried tremendous influence with Elizabeth
and this made him the point of contact for winning the monarch’s preference.
A recent biography puts it this way: “He was at the centre of ­everything and
his influence was everywhere.”7 Wood, for example, who knew that Queen’s
message would not sit well with Hovenden and Parker, sought support from
Burghley. Parker likewise followed suit. “Indede the saide Wood,” Parker wrote
to Burghley on 17 August 1572, “is stept in a manifest perjurie to sue for any
dispensations agaynst the founder’s ordinance, willing them all to be inclyned
to be priestes and at convenient tyme to take the same order.”8 Parker, who
counted Burghley a friend, explained further that to exempt men like Wood
would be to halt the progress of religion in England and make a mockery of
All Souls’ statutes as written by the founder. Not only that, Parker explained
that Wood’s character was questionable: Wood was a man who never hon-
oured an oath and his dispensation was an insult to other fellows of All Souls
who abided by what was demanded of them by both statute and tradition.
One week later Hovenden and several other fellows of All Souls also wrote
to the Lord Treasurer explaining that they could not accept the Queen’s dis-
pensation for Mr. Wood to remain at All Souls and not be in orders. To help
bolster his arguments, Hovenden included a copy of All Souls’ statutes.9

7 Stephen Alford, Burghley: William Cecil at the Court of Elizabeth i (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2008), 198.
8 Catalogue of the Archives, p. x. bl Lansdowne ms 15, fol. 73, Matthew Parker to William Cecil,
17 August 1572.
9 bl Lansdowne ms 15, fol. 114, Hovenden to Cecil, 24 August 1572.
74 Chapter 3

No official, or g­ overnmental minister, Hovenden and Parker agreed, could vio-

late the statutes of All Souls’ founder and overrule the warden or visitor. To
defend himself, Wood sent his own account of the Queen’s favor to Burghley.10
While the outcome of all this in the short term was that Wood kept his fellow-
ship, the longer-term results rippled into Gardiner’s day. Following his defeat,
Hovenden and the new Archbishop Edmund Grindal (1576–1583), appointed
on the recommendation of Burghley, worked together to ensure firmer control
over the fellows of All Souls and stricter adherence to the college statutes.11
Both men were particularly keen to have physician fellows be in orders and
reside within the college. Hovenden’s power over the fellows increased fur-
ther thanks to Grindal’s successor as Archbishop of Canterbury John ­Whitgift
(1583–1604). Under Whitgift’s authority, as visitor, Hovenden received the
power to veto dispensations from orders, even if the fellow in question had
the support of the majority of the other fellows and college officers.12 Over a
hundred years later Gardiner expressed the same sentiments, and claimed this
authority, when fellows attempted to avoid orders by switching their studies to
medicine, based on the precedent that Wood’s case established.
There was more at stake than simply allowing a few fellows to become phy-
sicians. Indeed, for men like Gardiner, and Hovenden before him, the very
presence of medicine in the college brought with it the threat of unbelief if
not outright atheism. While civil lawyers might be a threat to the piety of All
Souls as we saw with Matthew Tindal, medicine was potentially more harm-
ful. As historian of medicine Andrew Cunningham explains, “the seventeenth
century called it ‘the scandal of my profession’, the view that physicians were
tantamount to atheists. That was still the case in the eighteenth century, and
medical men were certainly among the leaders when it came to flirting with
atheism.”13 Peering into the human body and perhaps suggesting a material
and mechanical means of life, physicians could be viewed with scepticism by
those who saw an immaterial soul as the source of life. This is not to say that
all physicians believed material contrivances accounted for life, but there ex-
isted a persuasive belief that this was true. It was also the case that by the
later sixteenth century Anglican physicians in orders became a rarity because

10 bl Lansdowne ms 15, 123, Wood to Cecil, August 1572.

11 Alford, Burghley, 206.
12 John Clarke, “Warden Gardiner, All Souls, and the Church, c. 1688–1760,” in All Souls Under
the Ancien Régime, 198.
13 Andrew Cunningham, “‘Where there are three physicians, there are two atheists,’” in Med-
icine and Religion in Enlightenment Europe, ed., Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 1.
Gardiner and the Trouble with Medicine 75

it was increasingly believed that clergy should care for souls, which meant that
they ought not to “minster” to the flesh with medical remedies.14 This situation
augmented the arguments of fellows who wished to study medicine but not
take orders. There was also a simpler reason why Gardiner disliked medicine at
All Souls. Its study meant that practitioners neglected theology and hence dis-
played indifference toward it by refusing to take orders. Many in the eighteenth
century saw indifference to religion, especially orthodox Anglicanism, as the
first step onto the slippery slope that slid people into atheism.15
Even if medicine did not lead explicitly to unbelief, it might act as a seduc-
tive pull toward religious dissension and away from the Anglican orthodoxy
so desired by men like Gardiner. This fear was due to the close association be-
tween medicine and Dissenters, English Protestants who were not Anglican.
Barred from a more traditional clerical calling due to legal restrictions, a good
number of Dissenters saw medicine as a career path on a par with the ministry
and viewed the care of the infirmed as a sort of worldly priesthood.16 In addi-
tion, High Church fears over the practice of occasional conformity that might
allow Dissenters to hold public office may have been on Gardiner’s mind as
he contemplated physicians in All Souls retaining fellowships without taking
orders in the Church of England. While Gardiner was in no danger of having
to stare down Dissenters at All Souls—they could not matriculate at Oxford,
nor take a degree until 1854, and could hold a fellowship only after 1871—the
practices employed by these nonconformists and his own medically inclined
fellows were seen as synonymous and as something to be halted.17 Thus, in
a conservative environment like Oxford, medicine was a profession under a
cloud of suspicion. It continued to be so into the late eighteenth century. The
physician and chemist Thomas Beddoes’s expressions of support for the demo-
cratic ­reform occurring in revolutionary France in 1792 cost him a chance of the
Regius Chair in Chemistry when he was forced to resign from the u­ niversity.

14 R.D. Anderson, European Universities from the Enlightenment to 1914 (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2004), 18; Brockliss, Oxford, 134.
15 Roy Porter, Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World (London: Allen
Lane, 2000), 96–98, 127–128.
16 Peter Elmer, “Medicine, Witchcraft and the Politics of Healing in Late-Seventeenth-­
Century England,” in Medicine and Religion in Enlightenment Europe, 223–241, 225;
­William Birken, “The Dissenting Tradition in English Medicine of the Seventeenth and
Eighteenth Centuries,” Medical History, 39 (1995): 214–215.
17 Spurr, Post-Reformation, 205; John Gascoigne, “Church and State Allied: The Failure of
Parliamentary Reform on the Universities, 1688–1800,” in The First Modern Society: Essays
in English History in Honour of Lawrence Stone, ed. A.L. Beier et al. (Cambridge, 1989), 402.
76 Chapter 3

Then, as in Gardiner’s day, medicine was thought to potentially destabilize or-

der and tradition.18
However much Gardiner disliked the presence of medicine in his college, he
did concede that four fellowships were available for its study. This was a mat-
ter of tradition rather than being stipulated in the statutes because Chichele
made no mention of physicians in his foundation document. Yet, by the later
fifteenth century some fellows who were elected as artists studied medicine,
such as Henry Wood. This became an acceptable academic path so long as the
requirements of the artist fellowship were fulfilled. By Gardiner’s day, prece-
dent dictated that four artists could pursue medicine. Although All Souls never
produce many graduates in medicine—never more than four in any year dur-
ing the entire eighteenth century—it was unique amongst the other colleges
for having even that many fellowships open to medicine.
Although there were four positions in medicine and Gardiner could do little
about it, he could ensure that no more would be created. As he explained in
a letter to Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Tenison in 1709: “I have reduced
the number [of medicine positions] as I promised to do before the whole
­College in 1703.”19 What bothered Gardiner most about medicine was that
holders of these fellowships believed themselves immune from the require-
ment of t­ aking holy orders, even though they were technically artist fellows.
More worryingly for Gardiner, some fellows elected as civil law jurists were
studying medicine rather than law, thereby increasing the medicine fellow-
ships beyond the traditional number of four. It was this particular scheme that
Gardiner sought to curtail in addition to compelling Artists studying medicine
to be in orders. What was worse, these jurist physicians claimed that there was
no requirement for them to be in orders during their fellowships. As much as
Gardiner might protest, they were correct. Fellows in civil law were not obliged
to be in orders. This duplicitousness irritated Gardiner who rightly understood
that these fellows were not students of the law, rather they pretended to be as a
means of circumventing the orders requirement while they pursued medicine.
There is reason to be sympathetic to Gardiner’s objections because very few of
the fellows in civil law, who were actually reading medicine, ever obtained a
licence to practice as physicians. One list compiled in about 1789 of “Instances

18 Trevor H. Levere, “Dr. Thomas Beddoes at Oxford: Radical Poltics in 1788–1793 and the
Fate of the Regius Chair in Chemistry,” Ambix, 28 (1981): 61–69; Larry Stewart, “The Public
Culture of Radical Philosophers in Eighteenth-Century London,” in Science and Dissent in
England, 1688–1945, ed., Paul Wood (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 123.
19 Worthies of All Souls, 354–355; Charles Webster, “The Medical Faculty and the Physic Gar-
den,” in Eighteenth Century, 683–724, 700.
Gardiner and the Trouble with Medicine 77

in which Gentlemen of All Souls & New College (obliged by their private stat-
utes to put on ye Law Gown) have been indulged, as students of Medicine by
the University” contains only eleven names of fellows from both colleges who
fit that description. Of those, six were fellows of All Souls who all held at least a
bcl in addition to their license to practice.20 Although there were undoubtedly
other fellows who went onto medical careers because the list does not contain
the names of any Artist fellows. Nonetheless, Gardiner made his position clear
in a manuscript note written about 1708. “The founder has determined every
Artist to take Orders: And that Physick [medicine] is not Comprehended wth
in ye Arts,” Gardiner jotted on the paper.21 This requires some comment. What
Gardiner meant with the brief and yet revealing statement is that while medi-
cine, as a subject, is outside the field of Arts, it is to be studied by holders of an
artist fellowship, which carried with it the requirement of orders. This could
not be altered, at least in Gardiner’s reading. His dogmatic approach would be
tested in the coming months.
In June of 1709 Gardiner exercised his right as warden and required two
fellows, Richard Stephens and Pierce Dod, who held their positions as artists
“to take holy Orders in Six months after ye 12th day of July next, according to
the Statutes.” Two weeks later, both men refused to comply with the warden’s
request. Gardiner then admonished them to obey.22 This was the procedure:
fellows would first be reminded of their duty to take orders and then if they
still declined, would receive an Admonition to do so. After that, the fellowship
could be declared void. On 14 July, less than two days after Gardiner’s latest
attempt to enforce the statutes, Stephens and Dod appealed to Tenison, Arch-
bishop of Canterbury and Visitor of All Souls, that they be allowed to hold their
fellowships in medicine and not take orders. This too was in keeping with the
rules. In cases of disagreement over elections or unresolved disputes between
warden and fellow, the matter would be put before the visitor.
Responding to the petition of Stephens and Dod, Gardiner wrote to Arch-
bishop Tenison that the founder of All Souls made it a clear requirement for all
artist fellows to take orders and he saw no reason to alter that rule in this case.
He claimed further that “I comply’d with the Ancient Customs in those who
had rec’d great encouragement in that study.” And “I looked upon it. Orders
to be ye chief design of ye Founder….”23 A worried Gardiner explained further
that yet another fellow expressed interest in studying medicine at the expense

20 New College ms 3067 “Fellows in Medicine at All Souls and New College.”
21 Bod. All Souls ms dd b.16 fol. 1.
22 Warden’s Manuscript 7, Entries for 29 June and 12 July 1709.
23 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 1 fol. 79. Gardiner to Tenison, 14 July 1709.
78 Chapter 3

of holy orders. Tenison replied a week later to say that he agreed with Gardiner:
there should not be as many fellowships in medicine as there appeared to be
at All Souls and he supported the warden’s efforts to curtail them.24 However,
a few months after this letter Tenison received one from Lord Sunderland on
behalf of William Blencowe, another fellow of All Souls, which would alter his
view on the matter and his relationship with Gardiner and All Souls. We will
address this in the next chapter; for now we will remain focused on the issue
of exemptions from order based on a desire to study medicine that troubled
Gardiner.
While initially Gardiner saw the case of Stephens and Dod as a private col-
lege matter, he soon took his cause before the English public in a short pam-
phlet, published in 1709: Reasons Against the Profession of Physick in All Souls
College, Oxon. More especially, If used as an Argument to Release the Fellows
There, from the Obligation to taking upon Them Holy Orders. Why he did so is not
known, but perhaps his experience with the impending bill before the House
of ­Commons is instructive. Those fellows who attempted to have the bill intro-
duced produced a pamphlet that outlined their case to the public. Gardiner,
who was always ready to turn any situation to his personal advantage, now
adopted the same strategy. While their pamphlet had not secured victory for
the fellows of All Souls there is little doubt that Gardiner saw merit in making
the wider community aware of his efforts to maintain the traditional values of
All Souls. Gardiner’s descriptive title clearly indicates that his position had not
changed since his manuscript note had summarized his thoughts a year previ-
ously: medicine was a smokescreen for fellows who wished to retain the ben-
efits of a fellowship at All Souls but who had no intention of taking orders as
required by statute. Repeatedly in the pamphlet Gardiner invoked the memory
of Archbishop Whitgift upon whose confirmation of the warden’s veto Gar-
diner relied so heavily in his exchanges with the fellows of All Souls.
Gardiner’s work is hardly compelling reading. His prose lacked the rhetori-
cal punch and stylistic flourishes utilized by William Blencowe and associates
in their pamphlet. The thirteen pages of text are filled with paraphrases of
the college statutes and historical precedent. Even the most attentive Oxford
chinwag would have found it heavy going. Gardiner began by setting before
his readers the key element contained in the rules governing the college. “The
whole Tenour of the Statutes shews,” he explained, “That the Foundation was
Design’d for Men in Orders; or however, that Physick was not Consider’d as a
Study to Qualify Persons to be Elected into it.” He then went over the intended
make-up of fellows with some in law and the remainder in Arts who “were

24 Tenison to Gardiner, 23 July 1709 in Catalogue of the Archives, 333.

Gardiner and the Trouble with Medicine 79

design’d to be Clergymen, in the strict Sense of that Word.”25 For Gardiner no

ambiguity existed, if one was an artist then one was in orders (or very soon
would be). Seeking support in the desires of All Souls’ founder, Gardiner
­emphasized that at the creation of the college “no Notice is taken of P ­ hysick.”
He concedes that medicine had indeed become a “Superior Faculty in the Uni-
versity, together with Divinity, and Canon or Civil Law.”26 But this did not mean,
he wrote, that membership in medicine absolved one from the responsibility
of taking orders because in his reading of the matter fellows who ­studied medi-
cine were elected as artists. Thus, Gardiner interpreted the statutes to mean
that before proceeding to study medicine the said scholar must have been a
regular arts fellow in good standing.

It has been shew’d already, That every Artist is to be a Master of Arts, and
that every Master of Arts is to be in Orders: Wherefore He, who comes
in here an Artist, is to be consider’d as such, and not as Physician; which
Study of Physick may be a Necessity of his own creating, and for which
he may deserve Censure, but it must not hinder the Founder’s Will from
­being fulfill’d upon him, in his being oblige’d to be a Priest.27

The sequence of events, Gardiner argued, cannot be disrupted. Fellows in

arts are to be working toward an ma (and hence take orders) before becom-
ing a physician. Orders were not a barrier to the practice of medicine. Rather,
­orders were the first step and one that could not be leaped over to reach the
desired destination. In the wider academic interpretation of things Gardiner
was also on solid footing. Medieval Oxford scholars saw the study of medicine
as building upon principles from philosophy, itself deeply embedded in the
works of Aristotle. Medicine was not to be learned or studied on its own; it was
the ­secondary step following a secure foundation in philosophical ­instruction.
Philosophy, or arts, had to precede the learning of medicine, which was a
­higher discipline because it rested on previous knowledge.28 Gardiner’s in-
sistence that medical fellows first hold an ma was in keeping with medieval
­precedent that he seemed to value so highly in the face of modern intrusion
into his college.

25 Bernard Gardiner, Reasons Against the Profession of Physicks in All Souls College, Oxon.
More especially, If used as an Argument to Release the Fellows There, from the Obligation to
taking upon Them Holy orders (n. p. c.1709), 1.
26 Gardiner, Reasons Against the Profession of Physicks in All Souls College, 2.
27 Gardiner, Reasons Against the Profession of Physicks in All Souls College, 10.
28 French, Medicine Before Science, 81.
80 Chapter 3

By November 1709 the issue of the medicine fellowships held by Stephens

and Dod had become intertwined with the case of William Blencowe, another
fellow of All Souls. For reasons that I will explain shortly, Tenison reversed his
previous assessment and on 23 November wrote strongly to Gardiner that he
could no longer accept the warden’s denial of fellowships for Stephens and
Dod and that he would be conducting a hearing at Lambeth.29 Not altering his
position on the matter, Gardiner replied to the Archbishop that “I find there
are 2 Causes of Appeals brought before Your Grace: one by Mr Dod the other
by Mr Stephens: I am not now about to trouble your Grace with ye merits of
­either, but shew that it seems to me the Appeals are inconcludent & ought to be
rejected….”30 Tenison responded by advising Gardiner that the formal appeals
would go ahead. “I do not delight in giving either yourself or any other Person
unnecessary Trouble,” Tenison wrote, “But Those Appeals being brought to me
in Form & urged as necessary, I could not in justice refuse them.” Gardiner
would be expected to attend in person. Before ending the letter, Tenison of-
fered some advice to the warden: “If animosities go on, ye College will receive
much damage by them.”31
The appeals took place in the middle of December. It should be noted that
Gardiner travelled to Lambeth with the well-wishes of many of the other fellows
of All Souls, who voted that “Mr Warden being cited to Lambeth, should have
the liberty of taking what Counsell he thought fit” when presenting his case be-
fore Tenison. Among the fellows who voted to support the position was Tindal,
which illustrates that Gardiner and his fellows were not in perpetual conflict
and suggests that Tindal, the accomplished lawyer, did not approve of fellows
potentially pretending to study law as a means of circumventing the statutes.
In this instance, Tindal and Gardiner were in agreement.32 Notwithstanding
Gardiner’s righteous convictions, the Archbishop ruled in favour of Stephens
and Dod. Insult was added to injury when Gardiner checked into the Catherine
Wheel for his return trip to Oxford in the episode that opened this book.
For the next while Gardiner occupied himself with issues surrounding
­Blencowe, although doubtlessly he continued to stew over the hearing at
Lambeth and his loss of a night’s sleep in Wycombe. We know this to be the
case because almost a year after the event, Gardiner was still trying to bring

29 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 1 fol. 80. Tenison to Gardiner, 23 November 1709.
30 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 1 fol. 81. Gardiner to Tenison, 25 November 1709.
31 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. fol. 82. Tenison to Gardiner, 29 November 1709.
32 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 1 fol. 84. List of names and vote results, 2 December
1709. On 13 December The Post Boy newspaper printed a notice about the hearing that
explained Gardiner was “endeavouring to deprive ‘em of their Fellowships for not taking
Orders, tho’ they study Physick.”
Gardiner and the Trouble with Medicine 81

some ­punishment upon his noisy fellows. In early October 1710 he wrote to
Mrs B ­ lacknall, proprietor of Catherine Wheel, “to send me word on this P­ aper,
whether or no[t] any Enquiry was ever made by Order of the Archbishop of
Canterbury concerning the Rude behaviour of the All Souls fellows.”33 ­Gardiner
had expected swift action because Tenison promised him an immediate
­inquiry into the events. Nonetheless, Mrs Blacknall returned the ­disappointing
news that “This comes to assure you I never heard anything from the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury nor his orders concerning those gentlemen….”34 That the
Archbishop seemed not to consider it a matter of importance was confirmed
when Gardiner was told that there would be no inquest into those events be-
cause “Mrs. Blacknall, the hostess, did what she could to prevent Gardiner’s
being disturbed.”
Second-guessing his performance at Lambeth, Gardiner offered to send
Tension a revised and more polished version of his testimony that he believed
would be strengthened by his consultation of documents in the college ar-
chives relating to “the founder’s intentions.”35 The Archbishop did not take
Gardiner up on his offer. The decision regarding Stephens and Dod arrived at
All Souls on 10 January 1710 in a letter from Tenison. The Archbishop told Gar-
diner: “You will herewith receive the interlocutory decrees which I have made
in the appeals lately brought before me by Mr Dod and Mr Stephens, which I
would have you take care may be entered in the college books.”36 Both men
would be permitted to keep their fellowship and not be in orders.
A visitation would also be scheduled for 1 June to address other matters that
Tenison thought best dealt with by his presence in the college. Not only had
Gardiner suffered a defeat in Lambeth but now the details were to be entered
into the official college record. His humiliation continued as Stephens and Dod
proceeded to act as if the warden held no authority over them. Worse still the
topic of Dod and Stephens was much discussed by other members of the col-
lege who spoke also of challenging what many viewed as Gardiner’s unreason-
able and out-dated demands.37 Tenison’s visitation was delayed throughout
May 1710, initially because of the Archbishop’s illness and later because of a

33 Appeals and Visitor’s Injunctions, vol. 1 fol. 97. Gardiner to Mrs. Blacknall 2 October 1710.
34 Appeals and Visitor’s Injunctions, vol. 1 fol. 97. Gardiner to Mrs. Blacknall 2 October 1710.
Her reply is on the same folio; Tenison to Gardiner, 17 December 1709 in Catalogue of the
Archives, 334.
35 Gardiner to Tenison, 17 December 1709 in Catalogue of the Archives, 334.
36 Tenison to Gardiner, 10 January 1710 in Catalogue of the Archives, 320.
37 Gardiner to Tenison, 8 February 1710 in Catalogue of the Archives, 334.
82 Chapter 3

smallpox outbreak in Oxford. Nonetheless, Gardiner anxiously inquired with

Tenison about a revised date so that order might be restored to All Souls.38
Tenison’s visitation occurred in the autumn of 1710 and went badly for the
warden. The number of medicine fellowships would remain at four, but the
warden’s veto over dispensations from holy orders was revoked as was his au-
thority regarding the enforcement of college residency. Only Gardiner’s veto
regarding the election of college officers and of the initial election of fellows
remained. Certainly this order may be traced to the end of the bill discussed
in Chapter 1 and the deal that had been arranged to kill it. We must none-
theless admit that Gardiner’s steadfast refusal to even consider exemptions
from orders, to bend even slightly, was likely one of the key causes of Tenison’s
actions against him. John Clarke explains that, “The Warden’s authority had
been so badly damaged that it was hard for him to retain even a semblance
of control.”39 It seems what Tenison did was return to the original meaning of
Chichele’s statutes and then modifed them slightly, but tellingly. Whereas All
Souls’ Founder permitted exemptions from orders if the “Warden, Deans, and
Bursars” agreed, Tenison emphasized the portion of the statutes that outlined
the procedure in the event of the warden’s absence: “Vice-Warden, Deans, and
Bursars” needed to be in agreement regarding the dispensation. The Arch-
bishop added that Gardiner, or any other warden, could not veto or overrule
that decision. Following the visitation, Gardiner set aside his frustration with
­Stephens and Dod and dedicated himself to restoring his power within the
college and putting a stop to what he viewed as the erosion of the statutes.
Here the warden became fixated on the trivial. Letters to Tenison include com-
plaints about napkin usage and fellows who returned to the college after the
gates had been shut for the night. Most irritating was that now fellows openly
joked amongst themselves about annoying Gardiner on purpose.40
Gardiner’s experiences were not unique amongst the heads of Oxford’s col-
leges. Similar issues appeared at Merton College during the period that Robert
Wyntle was its warden, 1734–1750.41 Wyntle had been elected a fellow of M
­ erton
in 1708. He was then awarded one of the first Radcliffe Travelling Fellowships
in 1715, which allowed him to spend the years 1716, 1723, and 1726 abroad study-
ing medicine before taking his md in 1727. The new warden sought to i­mpose

38 Tenison to Gardiner, 16 May 1710; Gardiner to Tenison, 25/6 May 1710 in Catalogue of the
Archives, 335.
39 Clarke, “Warden Gardiner, All Souls, and the Church,” 204; Worthies of All Souls, 355.
40 For example see Gardiner to Tenison, 7 June 1711 in Catalogue of the Archives, 336.
41 Details of Wyntle’s life are found in G.H. Martin and J.R.L. Highfield, A History of Merton
College, Oxford (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 237, 248–255.
Gardiner and the Trouble with Medicine 83

order and discipline on an institution that in his view lacked both. There is
of course an irony here in that medicine seemingly threatened to undo the
piousness of All Souls, while at Merton a physician warden demanded that
his fellows conform to the college statutes. Wyntle believed that the fellows
of Merton had become lazy in their duties, too comfortable in the college en-
vironment, did not give the warden his due, and many of them earned too
much income from outside sources.42 Like Gardiner he began posting a series
of reports—“the most trivial questions” in the words of one historian—to the
college visitor, the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Potter. We do not know if
Potter was aware of the animosity that had plagued the relationship between
Tenison and Gardiner in 1710 or if this motivated his timely action into affairs
at Merton, but Potter wasted little time in dispatching an inquiry. In fact, ­Potter
arranged frequent visitations at Merton between September 1737 and May
1738. The examiners heard from those who argued that Wyntle would not be
satisfied with “scarce anything less than absolute power” within the college.43
Wyntle responded that he only did what was in the best interest of Merton and
its society. He also complained that several fellows came to chapel services
with their pet dogs. The warden did not appreciate the canine choir of barks
and howls, although other attendees thought the spectacle humorous.
In 1738 Potter issued a decree that brought the bickering to an end. “If any
Fellow appealed to him on any matter save the greatest import,” the Archbish-
op wrote, “he should be accounted an enemy to the peace of the Society. As for
the warden, instead of making unintelligible complaints, he had far better live
peaceably and attend to his duties.”44 Potter went on and described the atmo-
sphere that ought to envelope Merton:

Lastly I do in the Presence of God, and of the company here assembled

demean yourselves with all respect and duty toward your Warden laying
aside, and as much as may be, forgetting all former Prejudices and Ani-
mosities; & You the Warden to treat your fellows with civility and Cour-
tesy, giving no Offense by any … Language or deportment; and all of you
more especially you the Warden as your duty requires to attend divine
services in a regular and Exemplary manner and in all other respects,
so to be behave yourselves as will most effectually promote the Glory of
God.45

42 I.G. Doolittle, “College Administration,” in Eighteenth Century, 253.

43 Quote in Bernard W. Henderson, Merton College (London, 1899), 158.
44 Quoted in Henderson, Merton College, 158–159.
45 Merton, Wyntle Register 1.4 fol. 48v “part of the Visitation Decree, 8 July 1738.”
84 Chapter 3

Should discord again seize control of the college, Potter stated emphatically
that, “in Regard to the Peace and good Order of your College,” the “the Statutes
of your Founder, the Rule prescribed by your former Patrons, and our own late
Injunctions” would be a sufficient guide to settle matters.46
Potter also took the opportunity afforded him by the visitation to address
another matter that had troubled an earlier warden of Merton, John Holland.47
It was a concern Gardiner would have understood. Upon his election as war-
den in 1709, Holland revived the requirement that fellows of Merton partici-
pate in public divinity disputations. He made repeated requests to the fellows
to ensure that this, his “Earnest desire,” took place.48 Like Gardiner who be-
lieved that he had to restore academic rigor and adherence to fellowship duties
at All Souls following the rather infamous tenure of his predecessor Leopold
Finch, Holland found himself having to clean up Merton after the wardenship
of Edmund Marten, a man famed for permitting “an utter neglect of all Disci-
pline” to take hold in the college. Under Marten, who tended to be more inter-
ested in his own academic area of medicine rather than theological pursuits,
Merton had allowed the disputations to be abandoned, and Holland worked
diligently to reassert them. Where a fellow refused to act in accordance with
Holland’s orders, he would be fined.49 This was, of course, Gardiner’s fear: too
much medicine and too little theology at All Souls. Years later Potter agreed
with Holland’s assessment of fellows’ duties and in his 1738 decree stated
that “every Person hereafter elected into any Fellowship … [should be] apply-
ing themselves wholly to the study of Divinity.”50 The force of Potter’s words
proved effective and never again did he or any other Archbishop have to rein-
state peace at Merton. This conclusion does raise a speculative question: had
Tenison been bolder and more assertive with Gardiner, would All Souls have

46 Wyntle Register 1.4 fols. 71r–v.

47 The two wardens were also joined beyond the grave. Both men requested in their respec-
tive wills to be buried in Merton’s chapel with unadorned monuments and Wyntle be-
queathed £70 to Merton’s “patronage chest” because it was “the same Sum that was given
by the late Doctor Holland.” But Wyntle was mistaken. Holland actually gave “to Merton
College in the University of Oxford, the Sum of Sixty Pounds which Sum of Sixty Pounds
I advise and direct to be applied toward the purchasing of the Advowson of a parsonage
for the use of the Warden and Fellows….” See Holland’s will in tna Prob. 11/665/391 fol.
294r and Wyntle’s in tna Prob. 11/782/187 fol. 279v–280r.
48 Merton, Holland’s Register 4.21, fols. 7, 9, 59.
49 Martin and Highfield, A History of Merton College, 236, 239; Doolittle, “College Adminis-
tration,” 262.
50 bl Add. ms 14268 fol. 40v. On the importance of this landmark visitation see: Brockliss,
Oxford, 156.
Gardiner and the Trouble with Medicine 85

been less trouble for its visitor? Given the warden’s personality and his uncon-
ditional commitment to preserving the college as per the Founder’s intentions,
it is likely that no amount of assertiveness on visitor’s part would have ended
Gardiner’s complaints.
Despite Gardiner’s misgivings about their fellowships—he was still writ-
ing to Tenison in March 1711 with what he claimed was new evidence that fel-
lows could not be in medicine without holding an ma and therefore the ruling
in their favour was a mistake—both Stephens and Dod became physicians.
Almost nothing is known about Stephens’s subsequent medical career other
than he practiced in Winchester and resigned his fellowship in 1715 to ­marry.51
Dod went on to be fairly well known and in some circles rather infamous. He
continued to annoy his warden, however. In November 1711 he sent a letter
to Tension that hinted Gardiner’s reporting of college accounts was inaccu-
rate, and that the warden collected a larger emolument than he was entitled,
although he did not go so far as to suggest embezzlement. The Archbishop
read this accusation with close consideration because Gardiner was known to
squander college resources and submit questionable expenses. But Gardiner
and some fellows persuaded Tension to ignore Dod’s innuendo and curtail the
warden’s income only so far as additions that had accumulated since the time
of Leopold Finch.52 Dod was elected to the Royal College of Physicians in 1719,
made physician at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in 1725, and elected a Fellow of
the Royal Society in 1730. He was also a strong opponent of smallpox inocula-
tions. In later years Dod continued to associate with some of the fellows of
All Souls who had attempted to change the orders requirement. He visited
Matthew Tindal in 1733 just days before Tindal died, as we saw in the previous
chapter. Although the two men had mutual college experiences, Dod did not
abide by Tindal’s politics or deism. Writing to Dr George Clarke, a close friend
of Gardiner’s, afterward Dod stated: “This is the best account that I can give
you of this poor creature. The same vanity which seduc’d him to be so much
out of the way most part of his life continued with him to the last, and he
was as proud of dying hard as ever he was to be reputed a Top Free Thinker.”53
A ­desire not to become priests was about all Dod and Tindal had in common,
but it was enough for them to be linked in the mind of Gardiner.

51 The Warden’s Punishment Book, 192.

52 Gardiner to Tenison, 30 November 1711 in Catalogue of the Archives, 338; Clarke, “Warden
Gardiner, All Souls, and the Church,” 202.
53 bl Egerton ms 2618 fol. 229. Pierce Dod to George Clarke, 8 September 1733. Gardiner
bequeathed Clarke all his papers relating to the college, see tna, prob 11/609/146 fol. 73r.
 Chapter 4

Gardiner and the Case of William Blencowe

What was most troublesome for Bernard Gardiner in his management of All
Souls, even more than the threat of the bill in the House of Commons, more
than the deist Matthew Tindal’s apparent behind-the-scenes manoeuvring of
fellows and his anti-clerical writing, and more than the issue of medicine at All
Souls, was the refusal of William Blencowe to take orders. While he was not the
only fellow of All Souls who rejected this statutory requirement, the sensation
his case caused, both within the college and within the wider political scene
of the day, merits special attention because of the people involved and the
impact it had on the Gardiner.
Blencowe came from a distinguished family. His father was John Blencowe,
an influential Whig who served as a judge of the common pleas and as baron
of the exchequer. His maternal grandfather was mathematician John Wallis,
famous for his work in infinitesimals and protracted debates with Thomas
Hobbes regarding the geometry problem of squaring the circle. Blencowe’s
election to an arts fellowship at All Souls in 1702 had been secured through
the efforts of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Tenison. In addition to
the fellowship, Blencowe worked (from about 1700) for the administration
as a code-breaker, most crucially during the tense period of the War of The
Spanish Succession (1702–1713) where his fluency in the French language and
skills in cryptography made him a valuable asset.1 Wallis had also worked as
a cryptographer for Parliament during the Civil Wars. Apparently Wallis was
disturbed, perhaps jealous, over the payment Blencowe received for his work.
Edmund Gibson, at the time chaplain to Tenison, wrote to Arthur Charlett,
Master of University College, that Tenison was making inquiries with the Trea-
sury whether a pension had been presented to Blencowe for services rendered
to Parliament and the Crown, “and when he found how the matter stood would
write to Dr Wallis about it.”2 After investigating, Tenison concluded in Febru-
ary 1701 that Blencowe was indeed receiving payment and that the “failure of
the Treasury in Dr Wallis’s case must certainly be for want of solicitation” and

1 Karl de Leeuw, “The Black Chamber in the Dutch Republic During the War of the Spanish
Succession and Its Aftermath, 1707–1715,” The Historical Journal, 42 (1999): 133–156, 143; Bur-
rows, Worthies of All Souls, 356; T.F. Henderson, “Blencowe, William (1683–1712),” rev. Philip
Carter, in odnb, vol. 6, 203–204.
2 Bod. Ballad ms 6 fol. 24v. Edmund Gibson to Arthur Charlett, October 1700.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004375352_006

Gardiner and the Case of William Blencowe 87

that others who had served Parliament in a similar manner had “their Pensions
duly pay’d, and Mr Blencowe’s is of the same nature….”3 Consequently, Wallis
was granted the same (backdated) payment as his grandson for his work dur-
ing the 1640s.
England’s participation in the War of The Spanish Succession aimed at safe-
guarding its Protestant monarchy and ending the potential of French conti-
nental dominance through the House of Bourbon occupying both the thrones
of Spain and France. England faced this possibility through the will of Span-
ish monarch Carlos ii, a sad and sickly ruler who had stubbornly clung to life
while the opportunistic political vultures of Europe circled over his head eager
to divide Spain’s enormous wealth amongst themselves in two Partition Trea-
ties. Learning what others had in mind for his vast empire following his death,
Carlos reacted by ensuring chaos to those who would have carved up Spain’s
holdings when he bequeathed all his territories to Philip d’Anjou, grandson of
the French king Louis xiv. When Carlos finally died in 1700, Louis xiv acted
on the terms of the will and installed Philip as monarch of Spain. While this
was resented in England, Louis enraged William iii in September 1701 when
he recognized the son of the exiled James ii as the rightful king of England,
Scotland, and Ireland, thereby breaking a promise made to William in 1697 in
the Treaty of Ryswick. A freak riding accident killed William in March of 1702
as he prepared the nation for war.4 Thus it was Queen Anne who led England
into the conflict when war was declared in May of that same year.
The War of the Spanish Succession would last nearly all of her reign. Al-
though England remained somewhat jittery throughout the war over the
strength and shared vision of its allies in the Grand Alliance, political anxiety
at home proved most distracting. The tremendous cost of the war and neces-
sity of taxation to pay for it meant that Parliamentary sessions and debates
took on great importance. This use of public money to fund an increasing bel-
licose foreign policy initiated by William iii and bestowed to his successors
turned England into “a fiscal-military state, one dominated by the task of wag-
ing war,” as John Brewer characterises it.5 Brewer argues further that House of
Commons debates focussed less on the obvious need for taxation and more
on who ought to control and direct this money. Thus, every pending bill and
every speech was put under the microscope during this time. In what has been
rightly called the rage of party, Whig and Tory politicians and all variety of

3 Ballad ms 6 fol. 41v. Gibson to Charlett, 12 February 1701.

4 John A. Lynn, The Wars of Louis xiv 1667–1714 (London: Longman, 1999), 263, 269, 272.
5 John Brewer, The Sinews of Power: War, Money, and the English State, 1688–1783 (Harvard:
­Harvard University Press, 1990), 27.
88 Chapter 4

mixes in between attempted to turn everything into an advantage. Such was

the partisan divide in England that contemporaries lamented that “parties very
much animated against one another” and “there being very few, if any, who
stand neuters in the dispute, without ranging themselves under one of these
denominations” of Whig or Tory.6 In this heated political atmosphere that had
at least one writer speculating that things would never be calmed except by
a civil war, even legislation that proposed changes to the universities, or the
excusing of a fellow from his required duties, came to be invested with deeper
political meaning.
For his service to the crown during this time of war, Blencowe received an
annual payment, as outlined in a 15 June 1709 memorandum:

We did grant and allow unto John Wallis Dr in Divinity (since deceased)
and William Blencowe his Grandson and the Survivor of therein One an-
nuity or yearly summe of One Hundred Pounds to be had and received at
the Receipt of our Exchequer during our Pleasure in Consideration of the
Good Services of the Said Dr John Wallis in Instructing the Same Grand-
son in the Art of Decyphering and for encouraging the said ­William
­Blencowe to attend the Learning thereof with Industry and application
for Our Service.7

He became so proficient at his task that £100 was deemed insufficient recom-
pense and the payment was raised to £200 by the end of 1709. Blencowe had
initiated the increase himself and made the request to Charles Spencer, the
3rd Earl of Sunderland and Secretary of State for the Southern Department.
Sunderland replied that “Having laid before Her Majesty the pains & trouble
you take in descyphering [sic] Letters and how small recompense you have
hitherto had for that Service, Her Ma[jes]ty is so Sensible of it that for your
future Encouragement She has ordered your Salary to be doubled….” As prom-
ised, he then sent a dispatch to the Lord Treasurer. In his reply to Blencowe,
Sunderland advised him further that “I was well pleas’d with this opportunity
of doing any part toward enabling you to undergo with the great cheerfulness
the difficult work that is incumbent upon you, and in any other occasion that
may offer, you may depend upon the best Offices in the Power of &c.”8

6 Quoted in Steven C.A. Pincus and James A. Robinson, “What Really Happened During the
Glorious Revolution,” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 17206 (July
2011), 10–12.
7 Appeals and Visitor’s Injunctions, vol. 2 fol. 27.
8 bl Add. ms 61652, fol. 137. Sunderland to Blencowe, 25 April 1709. Sunderland’s letter to the
Lord Treasurer is also on fol. 137.
Gardiner and the Case of William Blencowe 89

Gardiner considered this amount of money too much for Blencowe to still
require his fellowship when it might go to a more worthy person in need.
Chichele had addressed the question of extra income in the college statutes.
Any fellow who possessed an “inheritance, secular fee, or yearly pension,”
that was greater than “the value in common years of one hundred shillings,”
he wrote, would have six months to resign their fellowship or would be re-
moved by the warden. In cases where a fellow obtained an “Ecclesiastical Ben-
efice” that generated more than ten marks (approximately £6 13s 0d) of an-
nual income, the fellow had a year to resign from the college.9 Thus, Gardiner
was correct in his reading of the situation created by Blencowe’s stipend. In
an age where a typical Oxford fellow earned about £40 per year during the
time Gardiner was warden (it would jump to as much as £181 by the end of
the eighteenth century), Blencowe’s £200 violated the statutes.10 But it was not
the money that most troubled Gardiner it was the fact that Blencowe had not
taken holy orders.
This was not the only example of the head of an Oxford college dealing with
prosperous young men who wanted to retain their fellowships while continu-
ing to receive income from other sources. About the same time that events un-
folded at All Souls, less than 530 feet to the south, similar matters played out at
Merton College. On 1 March 1710, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas ­Tenison
sent John Holland, Warden of Merton College, his “interlocutory Degree” re-
lating to actions he had taken as visitor regarding several unsettled matters
within the college.11 One of unresolved issues to which Tenison referred fo-
cussed on the election of fellows and the amount of additional income that
fellows could receive above their college stipends. Here Tenison tramped over
well-worn ground. Fellowship holders at Merton were to be devoted to a life
of scholarship and have financial need of the stipend. Those of more wealthy
means were expected to support themselves in their learned pursuits. How
much income a fellow could maintain while keeping his fellowship was a de-
cades old concern. During his infamous tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury,
William Laud decreed that fellows of Merton could not own land that gener-
ated more than eight marks (£5 6s 8d) annual income. The problem was that
this amount, while hardly trivial in 1640, was an obsolete measure in 1710. Thus
in the letter to Holland, Tenison stated “that part of the tenth Injunction of

9 G.R.M. Ward, The Statutes of All Souls College, Oxford. Now Translated into English
(­London, 1841), 108–109. The amount of income allowable from an office was raised to £40
in 1720 and again in 1826 to £100.
10 John Clarke, “Warden Gardiner, All Souls, and the Church, c. 1688–1760,” All Souls Under
the Ancien Régime, 198; Brockliss, Oxford, 283.
11 bl Add. ms 14268 fol. 35v.
90 Chapter 4

Arch-Bishop Laud’s which directed that no Benefice in the Presentation of

the Warden & Fellows be the value of never so small shall be held together
with Fellowship, be and is suspended.”12 In order to allow for extra income,
which reflected the rising social status of the fellows of Merton, Tenison re-
vised the rule so that land generating more than £50 would hereby be con-
sidered incompatible with a fellowship. With the new limit set, Tenison then
ordered fellows with income known to exceed this amount to either sell their
land or forfeit their fellowship. The 1710 letter referred specially to one fellow,
a “Mr. Frank,” who was to give up his living generated from “Woodeaton on or
­before the twenty fifth Day of March next ensuing, [or] his Fellowship shall be
void from that Day….” Others saw the writing on the wall and voluntarily relin-
quished their fellowships before being forced to do so.13 Nonetheless, it was a
matter that also concerned Holland’s successor Robert Wyntle who raised the
issue again with Archbishop of Canterbury John Potter during the visitations
of 1738. Only in 1754 when Archbishop Herring raised the limit on income to
£80 did the question become settled.14
On 21 July 1709 Gardiner officially required Blencowe to take orders or resign
his fellowship.15 That he had to take this step puzzled Gardiner, who recalled
in a letter to Tenison that “Mr Blencowe’s Father has told me more than once
or twice here, that his son should give me no trouble [when] his time came for
Holy Orders; I am sorry to find such ill beginning in him.”16 Despite his father’s
assurances, Blencowe did not comply with Gardiner’s directive and over the
next few months attempted to secure a way of avoiding orders while still re-
taining his arts fellowship. His first effort, as we saw, had been supporting the
bill to remove the orders requirement by helping to compose (anonymously)
Reasons for Repealing that Part of the Statutes of the Universities of Cambridge
and Oxford, which require the taking of Orders under a Penalty. After the fail-
ure of the bill, Blencowe turned to other channels and reached out to Sunder-
land in the hopes that the peer would intercede on his behalf with Gardiner.
It was a prudent move. Sunderland provided Blencowe his assignments in
code-breaking and, what is more, Sunderland relied upon men like Blencowe

12 bl Add. ms 14268 fols. 35v–36r.

13 bl Add. ms 14268 fol. 36r; G.H. Martin and J.R.L. Highfield, A History of Merton College,
Oxford (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 251. On Holland’s investigation into the
value of Woodeaton see Merton, Holland Register 4.21, fol. 15.
14 Martin and Highfield, A History of Merton College, 252.
15 Warden’s Manuscript 7, entry for 21 July 1709.
16 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 1, fol. 74, Gardiner to Tenison, 19 & 29 November
1708.
Gardiner and the Case of William Blencowe 91

to keep abreast of happenings in France, especially crucial during wartime.

While Blencowe achieved excellent productivity until summer 1709, his speed
in deciphering the coded letters dropped rapidly. Certainly it could be, as Blen-
cowe explained to Sunderland about a recent code, that “I find it so very large
(running up to near 1000 figures) & so exceeding difficult being perfectly with-
out order. That I almost despair making any discovery of it….”17 There also ex-
ists the possibility that Blencowe was too distracted by pressure being applied
to him from Gardiner to concentrate fully on his task. Given how nearly his
decline in efficiency coincided with Gardiner’s action against him, this cannot
be dismissed out of hand.18 Furthermore, Sunderland and Blencowe were both
loyal Whigs and the opportunity to inconvenience the Tory-leaning Gardiner
in an age of political strife while hopefully restoring Blencowe to his previous
proficiency was something that had to be tried. Blencowe perhaps went too
far, however, when he told Gardiner “to his face that they [here he certainly
means, the Fellows and Whigs] had made a common purse against him.”19 It
was, however, an example of the way that politics could be exceeding personal
throughout the era.
Sunderland accepted Blencowe’s request for assistance and wrote to Arch-
bishop of Canterbury Tenison on 17 November 1709 that, “Whereas it has
been represented to Her Ma[jes]ty that Dr Bernard Gardiner Warden of All
Souls College in Oxford is proceeding … a motion of Wm Blencowe” because
­Blencowe had not entered “Orders according to ye time prescribed by one of
the Statutes of their Founder.” Yet, Sunderland reminded Tenison that service
to the monarch was a legitimate reason for not complying with the require-
ment or apparently the limit on a fellow’s extra income. As Blencowe clearly
worked for the crown, his responsibilities in this regard ought to supersede
the warden’s demands. To further Blencowe’s cause with Tenison, Sunderland
prompted the Visitor of All Souls to be mindful of Queen Anne’s prerogative re-
garding the universities and that her request regarding Blencowe “be accepted
as the justest Cause for favour.”20
How carefully Anne actually considered the matter is open to interpretation
and a great deal rests on her personal feelings toward Sunderland. The earl
had some religious baggage in that his father had converted to Catholicism in
1687 during the reign of James ii and went into exile after 1689. There was no
suggestion that Sunderland held sympathetic views toward his father’s religion

17 bl Add. ms 61575 fol. 36. Blencowe to Sunderland, 16 April 1710.

18 See Blencowe’s letters to Sunderland in bl Add. ms 61575 fols. 1–34.
19 Quoted in Worthies of All Souls, 357.
20 bl Add. ms 61652 fol. 185r–v. Sunderland to Tenison, 17 November 1709.
92 Chapter 4

and contemporary accounts accepted his sincere Protestantism. While familial

ties to Catholicism did not harm Sunderland’s political career, his personality
did threaten its success. Not only did he approve of republican ideology, which
irritated the queen, he displayed, “a disagreeable impetuosity and ungraceful
manner of speaking which left him not till a very few years before his death,”
in the view of Lord Raby, Ambassador in Berlin. Anne had reluctantly appoint-
ed Sunderland as Secretary of State on 3 December 1706 and did so primarily
on the recommendation of Robert Harley who worried that the current ad-
ministration seemed too Tory-centred and that some Whigs would have to be
brought on board to achieve a greater balance of partisan sentiment. Despite
the fact that Sunderland was then married (his second) to Anne Churchill,
daughter of the Queen’s close friend Sarah Churchill, wife of famed military
commander the Duke of Marlborough, Anne had little affection for Sunder-
land. She made it clear in correspondence that “if he did anything I did not
like” Sunderland would be forced to “take his leave.”21 Relying on his family’s
connection to the monarch, which seems to have exacerbated his frequently
discourteous manner, Sunderland was known to take liberties with Anne and,
in an assessment offered by Jonathan Swift, often displayed a “rough way of
treating his sovereign.” Moreover, Anne found Sunderland’s manner filled with
“violent temper and sour carriage.”22 Even Sunderland’s father-in-law, the Duke
of Marlborough, urged caution and more tact when dealing with the queen. So
when Sunderland approached Anne about Blencowe’s treatment at the hands
of Gardiner, it is possible that she simply wanted to end the conversation and
acquiesced to the earl’s request.
Two days later, on 19 November 1709, Gardiner learned what Blencowe had
persuaded Sunderland to do. The news arrived at the college in a letter from
Archbishop Tenison. “I have received a letter from the Right Honourable the
Earl of Sunderland,” Tenison told Gardiner, “in which is signified her Majesty’s
Pleasure relating to Mr William Blencowe one of the Fellows of the College
of All Souls in Oxford, & in Her immediate Service.” The letter contained a
copy of the above memorandum Sunderland had sent to Tenison. After re-
minding Tenison that the statutes of All Souls regarding the requirement of
fellows to take orders might be overlooked “for just causes,” Sunderland stated:
“whereas the said Wm Blencowe is employed by Her Majesty for the Decipher-
ing of Letters, which service frequently requires a great deal of time & Labour,”
Blencowe’s important work could not be impacted by “[i]nterruptions from
the prosecution of a new study & profession. Her Majesty is pleased hereby to

21 Anne Somerset, Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion (New York: Alfred A, Knopf, 2013), 313.
22 Quoted in Somerset, Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion, 354.
Gardiner and the Case of William Blencowe 93

signify Her Pleasure, That your Grace would restrain the said Warden by such
means as your Grace find most effective & proper from any further vexation....”
Furthermore, Blencowe “may be quieted in the Ample enjoyment of the profits
and privileges of his Said Fellowship as fully as if he were in Orders & ­Resident
in the Same College.”23 Sunderland’s strategy was to stress Blencowe’s service
to the monarch during wartime. As Kevin Sharpe has noted, Queen Anne
maintained a strong focus on the war throughout its duration and stood ready
to mobilize all resources necessary to fight it be they material, monetary, or
manpower.24 There is little doubt that Sunderland presented Blencowe’s situa-
tion to the queen as that of someone devoted to the national interest and eager
to aid in the war but whose facility to do so was being restricted by antiquated
college policy.
Having relayed the Queen’s commands, Tenison expanded on Gardiner’s
duties with respect to Blencowe. Service to the crown would be considered a
sufficient reason for avoiding orders and Blencowe must be allowed to the “full
& Free engagement of his Fellowship, with all ye Rights, Profits, & ­Enrolement
thereunto Belonging.” What was more, and what likely stuck in Gardiner’s
craw, he had to personally communicate this decision to Blencowe. The con-
versation took place on 23 November, the same day that Gardiner learned that
Tenison could no longer approve the refusal to grant physic fellowships to
Richard Stephens and Pierce Dod.25
This was not the first time Gardiner had witnessed Queen Anne’s personal
interest in the university. In 1702, during Gardiner’s first year as Warden of All
Souls, Anne made her only visit to Oxford, lodging at Christ Church, while she
and her husband, Prince George of Denmark, made their way to Bath.26 Many
in the university expected that Anne would smile upon them following her
short stopover. Anne was dismayed by her father’s (James ii) interference with
England’s universities through his pursuit of installing Catholics in prominent
positions in 1687, which were, as she expressed in a letter to her sister Mary, wife
of William iii, “directly against the laws of the land.”27 Her views in this matter
were known, and it therefore came as no surprise that the university commu-
nity praised Anne during the overnight stay. As the university c­ ommunity had

23 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 2 fol. 28. Tenison to Gardiner, 19 November 1709.
24 Kevin Sharpe, Rebranding Rule: The Restoration and Revolution Monarchy, 1660–1714 (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 517.
25 Catalogue of the Archives, 346.
26 Nigel Aston, “Queen Anne and Oxford: The Royal Visit 1702 and its Aftermath,” Journal for
Eighteenth-Century Studies 37, no 2 (2014), 171, 173, 174.
27 Somerset, Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion, 78.
94 Chapter 4

done to celebrate other events relating to the royal family or those of national
importance, there were poems read in her honour.28 “But you more gentle In-
fluence imparts / Wonder at once, and Pleasure our Hearts.” She was, the poet,
Simon Harcourt, suggested, a welcomed change from former “haughty Mon-
archs.” Clearly an unspoken reference to her father, or perhaps even the French
king Louis xiv. The poem also hinted that Anne would not follow her father
and meddle in University affairs and that she would prove herself the “happy
Guardian” of Oxford. Another celebratory poem by Heneage Finch (son of
an mp) hoped it would be Anne who “Secures our Quiet.”29 Despite this hope
held by many in Oxford, and in the view of some modern historians, that Anne
would not act as had her father by intruding in the university’s daily business,
Sunderland, Blencowe, and Gardiner all knew better.30
Nor was that brief visit Gardiner’s only previous experience with the Queen.
It was early in 1708, during his tenure as Keeper of the Archives, that an epi-
sode at Christ Church caught his attention. On 28 February 1708 the Bishop of
Winchester, Jonathan Trelawny, wrote to Lord Sunderland to advise him of a
change about to be enacted at Christ Church.

This is to certifie that, Mr Milles Chaplain of Christ Church in Oxford, and

now Doctor of Divinity in Dublin, having [been] above Twelve months
since, by Her Majesty’s Letters Patent constituted Greek Professor in the
University of Oxford, has not made and Subscribed the Declaration, wch
the Act of Uniformity do[e]s require; whereby the Place of the Greek Pro-
fessor is by the Said Act, declared Void; as if the Person who has the ­Patent
were actually dead. This is within the Compasse of my own Knowledge,
the Subscription books being in my own keeping; and what I am bound
by my office to declare, since the place has been wholly neglected and
Mr  Milles has done no manner of Duty in it, either by himself or any
other Person, to the great dishonour of the University and its Discipline.31

While this would seem a straightforward matter of removing the holder of

an important post who had failed to comply with the terms of his appoint-
ment and had been disgracefully negligent in the discharge of his duties—he
had not delivered a single lecture—there was more going on than might be

28 D.K. Money, “A Diff’rent Sounding Lyre: Oxford Commemorative Verse in English, 1613–
1834,” Bodleian Library Journal 16 (1997): 42–92.
29 Winn, Queen Anne: Patroness of Arts, 251, 253.
30 Aston, “Queen Anne and Oxford: The Royal Visit 1702 and its Aftermath,” 172.
31 bl Add. ms 61612 fol. 10.
Gardiner and the Case of William Blencowe 95

­immediately evident.32 From the perspective of Oxford, it seemed like outside

political interference and served as a reminder of what James ii had meant
to England; it was also symptomatic of power struggles within government.
Certainly this view would not have been far from Gardiner’s mind given his
personal experiences with James’s policies. Consider Trelawny himself. He had
been one of the seven Bishops (Bristol) tried in 1688 for petitioning against
James ii’s Declaration of Indulgence. His acquittal, and that of all seven ac-
cused, was cause for great celebration in London.33 Thus when Trelawny, now
Bishop of Winchester, accused Milles of not conforming with the 1662 Act of
Uniformity, he condemned the chaplain of Christ Church for not adhering to
the Church of England, something that Trelawny himself had risked prison or
worse to defend. To allow Milles to continue in the position would be to re-
wind the clock to the era of James ii. But there was more. Milles owed his posi-
tion, which he accepted in 1707, to the direct action of Queen Anne, through a
Letter Patent. For Trelawny it must have seemed like 1688 all over again, with
the monarch appointing persons of dubious Anglican credentials to impor-
tant university posts, in this case to one of the five Regius Professorships at
­Oxford created by Henry viii. While it must be remembered that Queen Anne
was entirely within her rights to make Milles a Regius Professor, and this was
not technically an example of explicit royal interference in the university, the
choice was hardly welcome at Oxford.
Thomas Milles likely cared little about losing the professorship. He had larg-
er aspirations. Made Regius Professor of Greek on 17 February 1707, he became
chaplain to the Earl of Pembroke that May. This was an important position
as Pembroke had recently been appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Having
linked himself to Pembroke’s rising political star, Milles expected great things.
He would not be disappointed. When the Bishopric of Waterford and Lismore
became vacant in 1708, Pembroke pushed for Milles to be appointed. On 11
March 1708, within eleven days of losing his Regius Professorship, Milles was
so appointed.34 This too came with a certain degree of political intrigue and
Queen Anne’s royal prerogative.
The appointment of the Bishop of Waterford and Lismore was the sub-
ject of political gossip for several weeks. In a 5 February 1708 letter Jonathan

32 M.L. Clarke, “Classical Studies,” in Eighteenth Century, 513–533, 513.

33 Tim Harris, Politics Under the Later Stuarts: Party Conflict in a Divided Society 1660–1715
(London, 1993), 128; Steve Pincus, 1688: The First Modern Revolution (New Haven: Yale Uni-
versity Press, 2009), 193.
34 C.H. Firth, “Dean Swift and Ecclesiastical Preferment,” Review of English Studies, 2
(1926): 2.
96 Chapter 4

Swift commented that although speculation suggested that Milles would get
the position, Whig politicians “were strongly engaged for another person.” But
Swift feared that “the choice already made was.”35 For Swift this was more than
idle conversation. His had been one of the names bantered about to fill the
bishopric and it may very well have been Swift himself whom the Whigs had
preferred over Milles.36 Pembroke, however, had considerable political clout,
having served the administration of William iii in the Admiralty and briefly as
President of the Royal Society of London. In early 1708 Pembroke, a moderate
politician in an era of Whig resurgence served Queen Anne as Lord President
of the Council; within a year, he would become Lord High Admiral. It is likely,
then, that he had the ear of the Queen.37 Backroom dealings were suspected
and Thomas Hearne opined in his typical caustic manner that no other ex-
planation seemed sound. “Miles had not one qualification,” he noted, “either
as to parts, learning, prudence, or honesty, and I do (as do others) take him to
be the most meanly fitted for Bishop that was ever preferred in this manner
from the establishment of Episcopacy in these parts.” These were strong words
about a man who was also known to “kiss a great many ladies.”38 Nonetheless,
the decision rested with Anne, who is known to have taken tremendous inter-
est in appointing bishops (more than in other aspects of her royal ­privilege).
She explained that “I think myself obliged to fill the bishops” bench with those
that will be a credit to it and the Church.”39 She was a monarch known for
­stubbornness—one biographer calls her “obstinate”—in her political will,
and her strong sense of duty in choosing bishops made any discussion of the
matter an uphill battle.40 Anne issued orders without rhetoric or justification.
Her decrees were “business-like” and brief. She did not look to debate matters
following a decision. In his magisterial study, Sharpe characterizes Anne’s at-
titude as intolerant of disobedience that might lead to disorder.41 An episode
in 1707, just prior to the Milles case, illustrates the point.
In 1707 Anne initially refused to nominate John Potter as Regius Professor
of Divinity at Oxford even though he had been recommended strongly by the
Duke of Marlborough, husband of her close friend Sarah Churchill. Potter

35 Jonathan Swift to Archbishop King, 5 February 1708, in Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., 19
vols. ed. Walter Scott (Edinburgh, 1814), vol. 15, 263–264.
36 Firth, “Dean Swift and Ecclesiastical Preferment,” 2.
37 Georgian Oxford, 29; Edward Gregg, Queen Anne (London: ark Paperbacks, 1984), 284.
38 Hearne quoted in Firth, “Dean Swift and Ecclesiastical Preferment,” 2.
39 Anne quoted in Firth, “Dean Swift and Ecclesiastical Preferment,” 15.
40 Gregg, Queen Anne, 233.
41 Sharpe, Rebranding Rule, 510, 518.
Gardiner and the Case of William Blencowe 97

would have seemed the obvious choice. In 1704 he had been made chaplain
to Archbishop Tenison and then chaplain-in-ordinary to the Queen. Some-
what ironically, Potter had declined the Regius Professorship in Greek, which
was then held by Milles, because he occupied himself with divinity studies.
Notwithstanding this, Anne disliked Potter’s strong allegiance to the Whig
principles of 1688 and had made it clear that she desired to appoint George
Smalridge instead. On paper Smalridge was a fair choice. He had been edu-
cated at Christ Church and was friendly with Francis Atterbury, soon to be
Dean of Christ Church (1711–13).42 He had worked as a deputy for William Jane,
the former Regius Professor of Divinity. Despite these credentials, Smalridge’s
­Jacobite sympathies made him intolerable to Whigs and unacceptable as a
candidate when the position became vacant in 1707. Anne knew what she was
doing. As G.V. Bennett argues, this was all part of the Queen’s efforts to resist
the political domineering of the Whigs led by Sunderland’s father-in-law Marl-
borough and to create a moderate government composed of both Whigs and
Tories.43 (No doubt Pembroke’s moderate politics made his choice of Milles an
attractive one to Anne.) Smalridge would get the last laugh when he eventu-
ally became a canon of Christ Church in 1711, and Dean in 1713. By 1714 he was
Bishop of B­ ristol, holding what had been Trelawny’s post in 1688. Anne even-
tually yielded to Marlborough’s advocacy and appointed Potter.44 Potter rose
rapidly afterward: Bishop of Oxford from 1715 and successor to William Wake
as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1737.
When Christ Church expelled Milles from the Regius Professorship for
which Anne had nominated him—her second preferred Regius candidate
to be rejected—her anger must have been palpable. When the Bishopric of
Waterford became vacant, she appointed the man in whom she had already
taken an interest, and made it clear that she would not be defied. There can be
little doubt that when Sunderland advised Anne that the Warden of All Souls
troubled one of her servants, she believed it and acted accordingly, even if her
dislike of Sunderland sped the meeting along. Therefore, in late 1709, Gardiner
found himself once more dealing with the Queen, although in a much more
personal way as he sought an end to Blencowe’s exemption from orders.

42 Lewis, “The Deans,” 41, 43; Judith Curthoys, The Cardinal’s College: Christ Church, Chapter
and Verse (London: Profile Books, 2012), 154–155. Potter, Smalridge, and Atterbury were
active members of the college. See Christ Church, “The Chapter Book (1689–1713),” fols.
121v–122r, 132r–v, 136, 143, 147, 148.
43 G.V. Bennett, “Robert Harley, the Godolphin Ministry and the Bishop Crisis of 1707,” Eng-
lish Historical Review, 82 (1967): 726–746.
44 Gregg, Queen Anne, 241–242.
98 Chapter 4

Still reeling from the crown’s imposition of measures contrary to the found-
er’s wishes enshrined in the statutes by which he directed All Souls, Gardiner,
as we know, travelled to Lambeth for his unsuccessful meeting regarding the
appeals of Stephens and Dod. The events at the Catherine Wheel were no
doubt made more enraging for Gardiner when he learned that Blencowe had
been one the fellows of All Souls in the room next to his while he tried to sleep.
Gardiner spent the a few days after returning to Oxford in the archives of the
university. As he explained to Tenison on 17 December 1709, the purpose was
to find certain proof of the Founder’s intentions regarding statutes and rules,
the chief concern being the exception granted to Blencowe for service to the
crown. Gardiner again mentions the commotion caused by Blencowe and oth-
ers in Wycombe which were “to ye great scandal of ye College.”45
By 20 December 1709, Gardiner prevailed upon William Bromley to have
Henry Compton, current Bishop of London, former Bishop of Oxford, and one
of those who had invited William of Orange’s invasion in 1688, speak with the
Queen about removing her support for Blencowe. Gardiner knew that Comp-
ton had some influence with Anne—he had presided at her wedding to George
of Denmark and provided comfort to Anne when George died in 1708—and
that the bishop supported a High-Church platform.46 Bromley advised Gar-
diner that it was too soon to tell what might come of Compton’s conversation
with the Queen. Tenison wrote worriedly to Gardiner the next day that the
entire situation with Blencowe was getting worse for all those involved.47
Gardiner became more anxious waiting for news from London when
­Blencowe, feeling energized by Sunderland’s letter, began making noises
about taking a more active role in All Souls despite not being in orders and
basically residing in London. Cautioning Tenison that such involvement
by Blencowe would be “dangerous” to college politics, Gardiner hoped the
Archbishop would do something to curtail Blencowe’s bravado.48 Outright
disbelief must describe Gardiner’s state of mind when Blencowe demanded
at the end of ­December to be made a Rector of Theology (responsible for or-
ganizing theological exercises for other fellows) and to be elected the Dean
of Arts. Blencowe, who seems never to have expressed any prior interest in
theology or church governance, insisted that his desire to be rector had to be

45 Catalogue of the Archives, 334; Appeals and Visitor’s Injunctions, vol. 1 fol. 86. Gardiner to
Tenison, 17 December 1709.
46 Andrew M. Coleby, “Compton, Henry (1631/2–1713),” in odnb, vol. 12, 883–889.
47 Bromley to Gardiner, 20 December 1709 in Catalogue of the Archives, 346; Appeals and
Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 1 fol. 87. Tenison to Gardiner, 21 December 1709.
48 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 1 fol. 88. Gardiner to Tenison, 22 December 1709.
Gardiner and the Case of William Blencowe 99

fulfilled ­because Lord Sunderland’s letter had granted him all the rights of his
Fellowship. Gardiner reported being very surprised at Blencowe’s position on
the matter but nonetheless complied. Gardiner would not, however, bypass a
proper election and unilaterally appoint Blencowe as Dean of Arts. In a 27 De-
cember 1709 letter, Gardiner wrote to Tenison: “on Monday last Mr Blencowe
came & ask’d me to be Dean of Arts, att ye same time saying he look’d upon Ld.
Sunderland’s Letter to give him a title.” This was Gardiner’s worry: that Blen-
cowe would initiate a secular revolution at All Souls. As he explained further, “I
thought Elections had been Free” and that Blencowe could not simply demand
the position. A proper election was the only way to proceed and, as we will see
below, Gardiner spent a great deal of time after this episode enquiring into the
Warden’s role in the election of college officers. When the election for the Dean
of Arts took place “in my Lodgings as usual,” Gardiner related to Tenison, one
of those in attendance “said he heard Mr Blencowe expected to be the man. I
[Gardiner] could hardly believe it because of ye 2 letters from yr Gr: and Ld.
Sunderland. However I deferred ye Election till he was sent for. He came, & to
our Great surprise, he asked for it.” In spite of his demand, Blencowe was not
elected—that position went to Timothy Owen who held a divinity degree and
would become Rector of St. Mary the Virgin, Buckland in 1713—but for Gar-
diner the situation was now unbearable. Blencowe saw the position of Rector
of Theology chiefly as a means of irritating Gardiner because he did not fulfil
any of the duties. Gardiner wrote to Tenison on 5 March 1711 “Mr Blencowe was
The last Rector, & I believe never was in The Chappel either as Disputant, or
Rector yet in his life.”49
Many things changed in 1710 and Gardiner’s relationship with his quar-
relsome fellows was one of them. The year began with uncertainty, however.
Compton wrote in early February that he had been able to meet with Queen
Anne and made Gardiner’s case to her majesty, yet the Queen seemed un-
moved.50 Nonetheless, Gardiner remained certain that better days were ahead.
The reason for Gardiner’s renewed belief that something might be done about
Blencowe, whose victory in avoiding orders while retaining his fellowship in-
spired talk that others might do the same, came as a result of an infamous
sermon delivered at St Paul’s before the Mayor of London on 5 November 1709.
On the celebrated anniversaries of the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot in

49 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 1 fol. 90. Gardiner to Tenison 27 December 1709. See
Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 1 fol. 106. Gardiner to Tenison 5 March 1711. I am
grateful to Norma Aubertin-Potter for the details of the 1709 election. Another election
took place in 1710 and the successful candidate was Richard Chichele.
50 Compton to Gardiner, 3 February 1710 in Catalogue of the Archives, 346.
100 Chapter 4

1605, and the arrival of William of Orange in 1688, Tory firebrand Dr Henry
Sacheverell thundered his provocative sermon “The Perils of False Brethren,
both in Church, and State,” which, as the title suggests, took inspiration from
2 Corinthians 11: 26, in which Paul describes the dangers encountered in his
journey among the “perils among false brethren.” Sacheverell outlined the
contemporary dangers that threatened to lead the faithful away from the true
religion—including the promotion of atheism, deism, and Socinianism—and
proper reverence for the monarch, by the false brethren, whom he identified
as the “New Preachers, and New Politicians.” The danger in following the “new”
was the erosion of Tory-promoted passive obedience.

The Grand Security of our Government, and the very Pillar upon which
it stands, is founded upon the Steady Belief of the Subject’s Obligation to
an Absolute, and Unconditional Obedience to the Supream [sic] Power, in
All Things Lawful, and the utter Illegality of Resistance upon any Pretence
whatsoever.51

The stinging attack was directed at those, mostly Whigs, whom Sacheverell
saw as condoning too much toleration in the English church and who saw no
room for religion in politics. It was a High-Church manifesto.
Sacheverell was an Oxford product, having held a demyship and then fel-
lowship (1701–1713) at Magdalen College, in addition to earning a dd. During
his fellowship at Magdalen, Sacheverell’s “ambition and eagerness for public-
ity told against him,” as described in a recent assessment of his college days.52
What is more, Sacheverell could not resist a chance to stand in the limelight,
lacked tact when articulating his positions, and was generally unpopular
amongst the other fellows. These same traits were apparent in his 1709 sermon,
which should have come as no surprise to anyone who paid attention. Seven
years earlier Sacheverell delivered “The Political Union” in which he cheered
an “indissoluble union” between church and state while shouting at Dissent-
ers and others whom he deemed to be overly tolerant. That sermon had been
preached in Oxford at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, which is
diagonally across from All Souls. Within three weeks, more than 50,000 copies
of the “The Perils of False Brethren” sermon were printed and estimates place

51 Henry Sacheverell, The Perils of False Brethren, both in Church and State (London, 1709), 19,
“new” on 20.
52 Robin Darwall-Smith, “The Monks of Magdalen, 1688–1854,” in Magdalen College Oxford:
A History, ed. L.W.B. Brockliss (Oxford: Magdalen College, 2008), 335.
Gardiner and the Case of William Blencowe 101

the number of readers at half a million. Sacheverell ensured that students at

Magdalen had access to his words. Printer Henry Clement would testify under
oath before the House of Commons that Sacheverell had thousands of copies
of the sermon printed in 8vo (about 6 x 9 inches, which made the work easier
to circulate). Among the intended recipients of the free copies were “all the
Fellows of Magdalen College.”53
Whig mps spent the winter of 1709–10 deciding on the proper course of ac-
tion. Impeachment against Sacheverell for high crimes and misdemeanours
began on 27 February 1710 and was conducted in the House of Lords. One of
those leading the prosecution was Thomas Parker (later Earl of Macclesfield),
a rising Whig political star who was named Lord Chief Justice of Queen’s
Bench during the trial. It is generally agreed that Anne’s elevation of Parker
acknowledged her acceptance that Sacheverell would be found guilty and the
promotion was an olive branch to the Whigs. Tory critics charged that Parker’s
examination verged on ill behaviour: “he laid aside all that Softeness, & good
Manners, and the fine Gentleman you always see in his other Conversation,
and took up that Malice, Spleen, and mean Artifices … but what will not that
Party make a man doe!”54 Another commented that he was “sure the Whiggs
will be satisfy’d” by Parker’s actions in the House of Lords.55 Clearly it was a
partisan investigation of the doctor. In later years Parker advocated sweep-
ing changes to England’s universities. The trouble this caused Gardiner is dis-
cussed in Chapter 6.
William Wake, then Bishop of Lincoln, undoubtedly captured the mood of
many when he wrote in his diary that “To morrow comes the unhappy tryall
of Dr Sacheverell; I pray God bring it to a good Conclusion.” Despite Wake’s
best hopes the second day of the trial saw protests in the streets—­Sacheverell’s
supporters attacked dissenting meeting houses in London—calmed only by
the presence of soldiers.56 While the peace was very welcome, the expense
of providing it was resented widely. Playing a prominent part in the affair,
and hoping to crush the growing grassroots support for the Tories, was Lord
Sunderland. As Secretary of State for the Southern Department, Sunderland
held responsibility for southern England, Wales, Ireland, and the American

53 “Copy of the Examination of Henry Clements before the House of Commons” in The State
Trial of Doctor Henry Sacheverell, ed. Brian Cowan (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 223.
54 Stuart Handley, “Parker, Thomas (1667–1732),” in The Commons 1690–1715, vol. 5, 99–102.
Cowan, The State Trial of Doctor Henry Sacheverell, 35–37, 67.
55 Cowan, The State Trial of Doctor Henry Sacheverell, 268.
56 Geoffrey Holmes, The Trial of Doctor Sacheverell (London, 1973), 46, 62, 72–79; Lambeth
Palace Library, ms 1770 William Wake’s Diary, fol. 92v. Entry for 26 February 1710.
102 Chapter 4

Colonies. London and the peace therein fell within his purview. All throughout
the lead up to Sacheverell’s trial and during, Sunderland sought to keep the
groundswell of Tory support minimized and those who offered overenthusi-
astic support for the rancorous theologian punished. Letters from his office
describe various actions meant to suppress the “the Mob being assembled in a
riotous manner.”57 This was not a time to talk or for restrained action, as Sun-
derland wrote to the Duke of Bedford:

The Queen being informed that the Mob being assembled in a riotous
Manner has already committed very great Disorders, & that there is too
much reason to apprehend further mischief if timely and effectual mea-
sures be not taken to suppress this Rabble … if the Militia meet with any
Resistance from the mutinous Rabble they are even to fire upon them, if
other means are judged insufficient to quell them.58

Such notices were commonly issued from Sunderland’s office as he attempted

to halt the spread of “insolent Behaviour” leading to “riotous proceedings in
the City of London in defiance of Her Majesty’s Government and the Justice
of the Nation.”59 What troubled him most, aside from the damage to property,
was the “Ferment that has been raised among the inferior Sort of People by
some disaffected Persons, many seditious Libels calculated for their under-
standings, are daily cried about the Streets of London and Westminster.”60 In
other words, persons of low intellect might believe the Tory propaganda and
turn against the Queen’s minsters and administration. While Sunderland acted
to protect his own interest in the short term, he would eventually lose.
Following a ten-day trial, a guilty verdict was pronounced against Sache-
verell on 23 March 1710. Guilty though he was, the punishment was lenient:
he received a three-year prohibition from preaching and the common hang-
man was to burn copies of his speeches in the presence of London officials,
including the Mayor. Many Tories saw this mild sentence as a moral victory
over the Whigs.61 Oxford welcomed the news with enthusiasm and Sacheverell

57 bl Add. ms 61610, fol. 45, Sunderland to Justices of the Peace, 1 March 1709/10.
58 bl Add. ms 61610, fol. 47, Sunderland to Duke of Bedford, 1 March 1709/10.
59 bl Add. ms 61610, fol. 79, Sunderland to Attorney General, 10 April 1710.
60 bl Add. ms 61610, fol. 81 Sunderland to Chairman of the Fellows of ye Peace for Middle-
sex, 15 April 1710.
61 Tim Harris, Politics Under the Later Stuarts: Party Conflict in a Divided Society 1660–1715
(London: Longman, 1993), 180–182; Cowan, ed., The State Trial of Doctor Henry Sacheverell,
39.
Gardiner and the Case of William Blencowe 103

e­ mbarked on a tour to visit supporters and thank his well wishers. On 19 June he
travelled to Oxford where the Vice-Chancellor William Lancaster hosted him.
As one historian has put it, this was “a good moment to be an Oxford Tory.”62
Remaining a fellow of Magdalen throughout the affair, Sacheverell read daily
prayers in the college chapel upon his return to Oxford. When his preaching
ban expired in 1713, Sacheverell became rector of St Andrew’s Holborn and re-
signed his fellowship.63 Bromley wrote to Francis Atterbury that High Church
values seemed once more on the rise in Oxford and that “Our ringing of bells
in this neighbourhood, and particularly at Coventry, began yesterday, and has
continued all this day and evening. Lord Leigh has fired his guns three times …
as part of Dr. Sacheverell’s entertainment.”64 The Whigs had misread the po-
litical climate. Their belief that the trial and (hopefully) imprisonment of a
vocal High-Church Tory, who denounced the current order, would rally those
of a moderate religious and political temperament to their camp backfired
completely. What they failed to acknowledge was the currency that Tory ideals
continued to hold in many corners of the nation.65 This was made event when
the general election that followed in the autumn of 1710 (first session was held
on 25 November) was a resounding victory for the Tories. We may assume that
many in the university were pleased with the result. This was the time that
the Oxford Decree was reprinted, with its platform of passive obedience to-
ward the monarch and English Church. Lines such as the intent of the decree’s
adherents to protect the monarch and Church from “…certain propositions
contained in divers books and writings … repugnant to the Holy Scriptures,
degrees of Councils, writings of the Fathers … also destructive of the kingly
government, the safety of his Majesty’s person, the public peace, the laws of
nature and bonds of human society,” appealed to the sensibilities of those who
supported Sacheverell.66 Not everyone who visited Magdelen during the up-
roar caused by Sacheverell approved of the preacher’s manner. The German
bibliophile and author of travel narratives Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach of-
fered a rather different view of the man in the account of his j­ ourneys through

62 J. Mordaunt Crook, Brasenose: The Biography of an Oxford College (Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 2008), 125.
63 Darwall-Smith, “The Monks of Magdalen, 1688–1854,” 336.
64 Bromley to Atterbury, 23 September 1710, in The Epistolary Correspondence, Visitation
Charges, Speeches, and Miscellanies, of the Right Reverend Francis Atterbury, D.D. (London,
1783), 28; Cowan, ed., The State Trial of Doctor Henry Sacheverell, 40.
65 H.T. Dickinson, Liberty and Property: Political Ideology in Eighteenth-Century Britain (New
York: Holmes and Meier Publishers, 1977), 49.
66 “decree of the University of Oxford,” in J.P. Kenyon, ed., The Stuart Constitution: Docu-
ments and Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 471.
104 Chapter 4

Oxford in1710. Commenting on the grotesques that decorated the outside of

the college’s walls, he remarked that, “What a pity that monster or brute of a
Dr. Sacheverell, who is a member of this college and staying here at present, is
not sitting up there among the rest.”67 Moreover, von Uffenbach attended one
of Sacheverell’s services at Magdelen and was surprised to see that “such an
upstanding and pleasant looking man should every have commenced so foul
a business.”68
One of the casualties of this change of political landscape was Sunderland,
whom Anne now felt free to dismiss. Rejecting the impassioned pleas of Sarah
Churchill on behalf of her son-in-law, followed by an intimation of blackmail
(Sarah hinted she would make public all of the queen’s letters to her), Anne
removed Sunderland from his position as Secretary of State for the South-
ern Department. Even Marlborough’s protest that Sunderland’s loss of place
would weigh heavy on his heart and may even hamper the English war effort
on the Continent did not move Anne.69 She demanded his resignation on 14
June 1710. Her decision was personal, as Swift explained: “It is most certain that
when the Queen first began to change her servants, it was not from a dislike of
things but of persons, and those persons were a very small number.”70 She had
Henry Boyle (the Secretary of State for the Northern Department) go to Sun-
derland’s home to obtain the seals. Sunderland turned down the pension that
Anne offered him. William Legge, Earl of Dartmouth (he voted to acquit Sa-
cheverell) replaced Sunderland in the portfolio, which pleased Tories and Tory
sympathisers like Gardiner. Sunderland’s removal was the only major shakeup
following the Sacheverell trial and 1710 elections. The impact of this at All Souls
was profound. Blencowe lost his advocate and Gardiner saw better days ahead.
Consequently in the summer of 1710 Gardiner decided that the political cli-
mate had changed enough that his position against Blencowe might be seen in
a favourable light and he made a formal petition to the Queen that Blencowe
be required to take orders as commanded by college statutes. Testimony be-
gan in late October and early November. This was also the time that Gardiner
learned about John Silke’s evidence regarding Matthew Tindal’s authorship of
The Rights of the Christian Church and Silke’s further claim that Tindal had or-
dered him to copy the text for the printer. For Gardiner, who believed that his

67 Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach, Oxford in 1710, ed. W.H. Quarrell and W.J.C. Quarrell
(­Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1928), 39. I thank an anonymous reviewer for bringing this book
to my attention.
68 von Uffenbach, Oxford in 1710, 41.
69 Somerset, Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion, 414–416.
70 Quoted in Winn, Queen Anne: Patroness of Arts, 528.
Gardiner and the Case of William Blencowe 105

college was under threat from men like Tindal, that the Whigs had bullied him
(a charge that he would have felt even more strongly had he know that Sunder-
land likely employed Tindal as an author of propaganda, as we noted earlier),
and that Tenison’s recent visitation had left him somewhat ineffectual in his
own college, the new Tory administration was very welcome.71
The hearing opened with both Gardiner and Blencowe invited to offer
statements before the Attorney General, Sir Edward Northey, and the Solici-
tor General, Robert Raymond. Each man, father and son-in-law, owed much
to the Tory resurgence. Northey, a moderate Tory, became Attorney General in
1701 and was reappointed in 1702 under Anne (in the same year as his knight-
hood). He was replaced in 1707 but reappointed to the post on 19 October
1710, and on 16 December 1710 became an mp following a by-election.72 The
younger ­Raymond had come to notice as a rising legal star in 1709 when he ap-
peared before the House of Lords arguing against the Foreign and Protestants
­Naturalization Act (1708) on behalf of the City of London. He was a short-lived
member of Sacheverell’s legal defence team—Northey had refused a similar
position in December 1709—but appears to have been unable to stomach the
too High-Church nature of the intended defence. Nonetheless Raymond be-
came ­Solicitor General on 13 May 1710 and in the October election became an
mp. He, like his father-in-law Northey, regularly voted with the Tory ministry.73
Even before the proceedings got under way, momentum was with Gardiner.
Northey promised him that once the hearing ended and the final report was
drawn up he would personally take the results to William Legge, Lord Dart-
mouth, Secretary of State for the Southern Department, so that it could be
passed more quickly to Queen Anne. After listening to Gardiner and Blencowe,
the Attorney and Solicitor Generals heard from Tenison, who continued to as-
sert that Blencowe’s “occupation as a decipherer [was] a lawful impediment
in his way to Holy Orders.”74 There was precedent for Tenison’s analysis of

71 Georgian Oxford, 38; Worthies of All Souls, 358–359; Clarke, “Warden Gardiner, All Souls,
and the Church,” 200; On Tindal and Sunderland see bl Add. ms 61650 fol. 64. Tindal to
Sunderland, 1 April 1720; bl Add. ms 61650 fol. 87. Tindal to Sunderland, 2 August 1721.
Jeffrey R. Wigelsworth, Deism in Enlightenment England: Theology, Politics, and Newtonian
Public Science (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009), 169.
72 Stuart Handley, “Northey, Sir Edward (1652–1723),” in odnb, vol. 41, 150–151; Richard
­Harrison, “Northey, Sir Edward (1652–1723), in The Commons 1690–1715, vol. 4, 1047–1049.
73 David Lemmings, “Raymond, Robert, first Baron Raymond (1673–1733),” in odnb, vol. 46,
191–192; D.W. Hayton, “Raymond, Robert (1673–1733)” in The Commons 1690–1715, vol. 5,
259–260.
74 Catalogue of the Archives, 347.
106 Chapter 4

the situation. In 1694 the Archbishop of Canterbury John Tillotson had writ-
ten to Warden Finch telling him that “it is my opinion that such clauses [in
the All Souls” statutes regarding regulating fellows] shall be constructed with
a tacit exception for those which are abroad in His Majesty’s immediate ser-
vice, whose attendance on his Majesty ought not to be to their prejudice, but
they ought to be esteemed as present in the said College.”75 Thus, Tenison fol-
lowed the reasoning of his immediate predecessor in the matter. Yet it must be
noted that Tillotson referred to those who were overseas in the service of the
crown, while Tenison related his opinion on a fellow in service of the crown,
but who lived in London and did not want to take orders. The question to be
determined was whether royal employment displaced requirements placed on
college fellows. Despite Tenison’s assessment, the warden’s supporters were
hopeful. Bromley wrote warmly to Gardiner on 2 December 1710, suggesting
that the verdict was immanent. Gardiner had no reason to worry, Bromley told
him, because “Your affair stands so well that there is no doubt of such a deter-
mination as you desire.”76 The warden was less confident and he continued to
write to Tenison on a regular basis. My “Letters swell into Volumes,” Gardiner
told him, “wherefore I beg pardon from being so tedious.”77 John Bettesworth,
Principal Official of the Court of Arches and Vicar-General, replied for Tenison,
who showed signs of growing tired of affairs at All Souls: “His Grace, having the
interest of Your College always at heart, cannot but be so sensibly concerned at
ye continuance of Your unhappy divisions….”78 Tenison’s further exasperation
is clear in a letter of 13 February 1711 where he told Gardiner that the warden’s
last letter was “of some length and contains many particulars, to wch I cannot
return a present Answer. But, however, if the great Indisposition, under which
I labour, does not hinder me, you may expect a further account some time
this week.” Beneath this reply Gardiner wrote: “There came no answer or other
account….”
The verdict regarding Blencowe appeared to be imminent on 23 December
when Northey and Raymond began communicating their findings to Queen
Anne. In the preamble they reiterated that, “In humble obedience to your maj-
esty’s Commands Signified to us by the Ld of Dartmouth wee have considered
of the annex’d Petition of Dr. Bernard Gardiner Warden of All Souls College in
Oxford whereby he has presented to your Majesty.” As he had done since the

75 Quoted in Worthies of All Souls, 355.

76 Bromley to Gardiner, 2 December 1710 in Catalogue of the Archives, 347.
77 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 1 fol. 99. Gardiner to Tenison 10 November 1710.
78 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 1 fol. 130. John Bettesworth to Gardiner 11 December
1710; Appeals and Visitor’s Injunctions, vol. 1 fol. 103.
Gardiner and the Case of William Blencowe 107

first rumblings were heard about a House of Commons bill nearly two years
earlier, Gardiner used the college statutes as his defence along with the desire
of “ye Founder of the Sd College” that all fellows be in orders. The chief charge
against Blencowe was not that he was disruptive in the college or that he seemed
to take pleasure in humiliating Gardiner, but solely “That Mr. W. Blencowe is
one of the Fellows appointed by Statutes to go into Orders & [but] neglected
to do so in 4 years after he was Master of Arts tho he was admonished there to
within 6 months.”79 In his petition Gardiner related how, with three months
left in his grace period, Blencowe had obtained a letter from Lord Sunderland
who claimed in the Queen’s name that Blencowe was too busy working for the
crown to take orders and he ought to be relieved from doing so but be allowed
to keep the fellowship at All Souls. Gardiner testified such an exemption did
not “Satisfy himself that the reasons of Mr Blencowe are Sufficient to justifie
his not complying … for several Years [it did] not hinder the deciphering … any
more than it did his Grandfather Dr. Wallis an eminent Divine [who] made
use of 50 years in that Business.”80 If Wallis could be in orders and still serve
the nation then so could Blencowe. For Gardiner the matter could not be put
more simply. Northey and Raymond left it to the Queen to decide if Blencowe’s
duties for her were indeed too strenuous to prevent his taking orders. The no-
tice ends with Gardiner’s desire that “On the whole Matter In regard it is only
prayed by the Warden’s Petition that your Majesty would be graciously pleas’d
to Signifie that he may execute ye Statutes of the Said College without incur-
ring Your Majesty’s Displeasure.”81
Throughout January 1711 Gardiner waited at All Souls for news of the out-
come. He expressed dissatisfaction over the report written by Northey and
Raymond because he did not think it favourable enough to his position. When
he learned that any judgment would be delayed because “Mr. Blencowe will
not be in town till Tuesday, so the Attorney General has put off the business till
Wednesday. He thinks it reasonable that Blencowe should be heard before he
makes any amendment to the report,” Gardiner was furious.82 Taking matters
into his own hands, Gardiner wrote directly to Northey and Raymond, who
passed the letter along to the Queen:

79 bl Add. ms 61575 fol. 45. Northey and Raymond to Queen Anne, 23 December 1710. There
is a nearly identical copy of this report in Wake Correspondence, vol. 16 letter 133 and in
bl Stowe ms 597 fols. 15r–19r. I relied upon the Add. ms 61575 version, but I consulted the
others.
80 bl Add. ms 61575 fol. 46.
81 bl Add. ms 61575 fol. 48.
82 Catalogue of the Archives, 348.
108 Chapter 4

And it being also prayed by the Petitioner That your Majesty will not al-
low the Pretences of Mr Blencowe to be an Occasion of Suspending the
Authority of the Said Statutes which Prayer was made in regard in said
Secretaries Letter. It is expressed That your Majesty could not doubt but
that in Cases which admitted of Excuse or Indulgence your Majesties Ser-
vice would be always looked upon as the justest Cause for favour, we most
humbly submit to your Majesty, whether your Majesty will be please’d to
declare That your Majesty does not approve on Mr Blencowe’s insisting
on his being in Your Service to excuse him from conforming to the Stat-
utues of the Said College.83

Gardiner hoped that the original dispensation granted Blencowe in the

Queen’s name had been given hastily and without her being in full possession
of the facts. In other words he imagined that Sunderland had merely told Anne
that an unnamed college warden was being unreasonable toward one of her
servants and that once the whole account was known, the Queen would with-
draw her consent.84
The end of the affair came in February 1711 when Queen Anne contacted
Lord Dartmouth to state that she “does not approve of Blencowe’s excusing
himself from conforming with the statutes, and desiring a letter to be drawn
up to that effect.” Gardiner learned of the decision from Bishop of London,
Henry Compton, who agreed with the warden that the wording was entirely
too mild considering that Gardiner believed that Blencowe and Sunderland
had told half-truths to win over the Queen. Both men hoped that a stronger of-
ficial version would be drawn up before being sent to All Souls; one that more
fully chastised Blencowe and his behaviour.85 On 1 March 1711 the official word
on Blencowe came to Tenison (as Visitor of All Souls) from Lord Dartmouth.
Tenison received instruction that,

Her Majesty is pleased to declare that she doth not approve of Mr

­Blencowe—(a Fellow of that College) his insisting on his being in her
Majesty’s service, to excuse him from conforming to the Statutes thereof,
nor that the said letter from the E. of Sunderland then Secretary of State
to your Grace should be made use of for that Purpose.

83 bl Stowe ms 597, fol. 19v. Northey and Raymond to Queen Anne, 24 January 1711.
84 Worthies of All Souls, 358.
85 Compton to Gardiner, 23 February 1711 in Worthies of All Souls, 349.
Gardiner and the Case of William Blencowe 109

Moreover,

By her Majesty’s command this signification to Your Grace that the said
Letter of the late Secretary was transmitted to the Said College by you,
your Grace will be pleased likewise to transmit her Majesty’s Declaration
herein to the said College with all convenient speed to the end that all
Persons may know and to have notice of her Majesty’s gracious inten-
tions and Pleasure in this behalf.86

Gardiner at last had his victory. That it had been related by Dartmouth, who
replaced Sunderland as Secretary of State for the Southern Department on 15
July 1710, no doubt made it all the more sweet. While the evidence presented
had changed Anne’s mind, her decision is also in keeping with contemporary
comments. Her letters reveal that she lamented her father’s infamous imposi-
tion upon Oxford during 1687 and while she did not approval of Bromley’s at-
tempts to pass an Occasional Conformity Bill in 1703—“I should have been very
glad it had not been brought into the House of Common”—by 1711 she advised
Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury, that he would be tasked with “carefully
consider[ing] what defects there are in the present discipline of the Church,
and what further provision may be requisite towards removing them….”87 For
Anne it seems that reinvigorating the English Church included upholding a
precise interpretation of All Soul’s statutes. Sunderland’s notice impinging
upon Gardiner’s authority in All Souls would be joined by this letter which al-
lowed the warden to do what he had wanted all along: enforce the statutes as
written by the founder and keep All Souls an ally of the Church of England. It
was a somewhat hollow victory when, within days of Gardiner inserting Dart-
mouth’s letter into the college register, some unknown person or persons tore
out the letter and that from Sunderland. Words had power and without the
words to back it up, perhaps the thief believed that Gardiner’s authority to
require holy orders would be restricted. It was not to be. Gardiner instituted

86 bl Add. ms 61303, fols 119v–120r. Dartmouth to Tenison, 1 March 1711. There is also a copy
in Wake Correspondence, vol. 16 letter 134. I have used the bl material, but I consulted the
other version.
87 Anne to the Princess of Orange, 9 May 1687; Anne to the Duchess of Marlborough, De-
cember 1709; Anne to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 20 August 1711 in The Letters and
Diplomatic Instructions of Queen Anne, ed. Beatrice Curtis Brown (London: Cassell, 1968),
29, 129, 339.
110 Chapter 4

an investigation to find the missing pieces of paper but to no avail. A year later
he personally copied the relevant parts of the letters into the college records.88
Following the decision against him, Blencowe fell into a depression. He
would have to take orders or resign his fellowship and his career seemed to be
stalled after the election of 1710 had evicted his Whig supporters from the gov-
ernment. To make matters worse he “found himself left to the warden’s mercy,”
as G.V. Bennett phrased it.89 It seems fair to speculate that Gardiner would
have taken a personal interest in Blencowe’s studies verging on obsession. The
situation was too much for Blencowe and on the evening of 25 August 1712 he
climbed into his bed and shot himself. Almost immediately speculation and
innuendo about Blencowe’s motivation ran rampant. Silke, who had written
harshly against Tindal, sneered that Blencowe’s depression and loss of will to
live resulted from spending too much time with Tindal. Although never men-
tioning Blencowe by name, it is obvious whom Silke meant when he wrote
that,

Another of the Doctor’s [Tindal’s] disciples was a young Barrister …

whose learning was as deep as Tindal’s was shallow, and to whom the
Doctor was thought to be very much beholden when he was compiling
the famous book, The Rights of the Christian Church, &c … But the best
things corrupted become the worst. Nevertheless, in pity to his tragic
end, for he fell by his own hands a little before Autumn in the year 1712,
and in respect to his relatives, I spare mentioning his name.90

Hearne was slightly more generous in his assessment, although still cited Blen-
cowe’s friendship with Tindal as part of the reason for his downfall.

He was a man of excellent natural parts, and understood the Art of

­ ecyphering tolerably well, he having been taught by his grandfather,
D
Dr. Wallis … He was also seemingly a man of gravity and sincerity, but
alas! it was too notorious that he was very great with Collins and Tyndale,
and other vile republican rascals, and was looked upon to be one of the

88 Catalogue of the Archives, 336, 338, 350.

89 Bennett, “University, Society and Church 1688–1714,” 391. Appeals and Visitors’ Injunc-
tions, vol. 1 fol. 133.
90 Silke, Religious, Rational and Moral Conduct of Mathew Tindal, 29. Blencowe was not the
first fellow of All Souls to commit suicide. Thomas Creech hanged himself in rooms across
the street from the college in about 1699, according to the memoir of Zacharias Conrad
von Uffenbach. See von Uffenbach, Oxford in 1710, 69.
Gardiner and the Case of William Blencowe 111

g­ reatest republicans in the nation. Two or three years since he drew up

and published a paper for repealing those College Statutes that oblige
Fellows of Houses to go into Orders. In short, he was a proud, fanatical
whig, and was discontented because the whigs were turned out as they
deserved, and by that means he lost the hopes he had conceived of pre-
ferment. And perhaps it troubled him too that he had lately been baffled
by Dr. Gardiner, Warden of All Souls….91

Unfortunately, Gardiner did not commit any thoughts to paper regarding

­Blencowe’s suicide.
Looking back on these events in 1719, Gardiner wrote to William Wake, since
1716 Archbishop of Canterbury, that he believed he had no choice in proceed-
ing against Blencowe. Partially Blencowe’s success in receiving exemption
from holy orders, temporary though it was, encouraged other fellows to launch
appeals to avoid what Gardiner saw as their unalterable duty as members of
the college. Gardiner knew that should such appeals be allowed to continue,
inspired by the Blencowe precedent, his fight against them would “be attended
with Expense.”92 Indeed, he knew of what he spoke. “It cost me Sixty pounds
to have ye Tryal” against Blencowe, Gardiner wrote to Wake, “but I who had
suffered by King James’s attempting to force his Dispensations on Magd[alen]
Coll. Thought it my Duty to hinder such a Precedent here.”93 For Gardiner, one
form of royal interference in Oxford colleges was the same as another. If it was
wrong when James ii had tried to insert Catholics into college communities in
the late 1680s, especially at Magdalen College, thereby depriving Gardiner of
his scholarship, it was equally wrong for Anne, at the behest of Sunderland, to
remove the religious foundation of the colleges. It was not a personal vendetta
(although that was likely part of the reason for his zeal) against Blencowe that
he had conducted. Gardiner saw himself as the guardian of All Souls. It was
a matter of principle argued for the greater good of the college. Prosecuting
Blencowe was simply a means to the desired end of preserving the wishes of
the founder.
Despite his triumph, Blencowe was never far from the warden’s thoughts
when he dealt with other fellows. A case in point occurred in late 1713 when
Gardiner attempted to evict John Willes, one of All Souls’ Deans, and William
West from their fellowships. Both men received pensions for unspecified naval

91 Thomas Hearne, Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, 11 volumes, ed. C.E. Doble et
al. (Oxford, 1885–1921), vol. 4, 439.
92 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 1 fol. 137, Gardiner to Bettesworth, 29 March 1712.
93 Wake Correspondence, vol. 16 fol. 135v. Gardiner to Wake, 4 December 1719.
112 Chapter 4

duties, but the origin of the money is not the issue. As he had with Blencowe,
Gardiner believed that amount of the payments was too high for either men to
require the income from their fellowships. What is more, Willes had been pres-
ent at the lodgings in Wycombe and participated in the festivities that robbed
Gardiner of a night’s sleep. In a draft copy of the remarks Gardiner planned
to make before Tension in answer to the appeals made by Willes and West, he
revealed just how much Blencowe plagued his thoughts. Crossed out in the
second line of the speech is Blencowe’s name, replaced by the pronoun “him”
referring to Willes.94 In this latest example of conflict between warden and fel-
low, Gardiner seems to have accepted the advice sent him by William Bromley
that “you can have no relief” by proceeding in the matter. Bromley had corre-
sponded with Tension who advised him that no appeal appearing before the
Archbishop can be refused, “tho’ it be very troublesome to me, in my frequent
very ill state of health” and official proceedings would have to follow should
Gardiner wish to take the matter further.95 After two postponements, no more
is heard of the problem. As this illustrates, Blencowe continued to haunt Gar-
diner as the lengthy and bitter process of the affair somewhat alienated All
Souls from its Visitor, the Archbishop of Canterbury. This became most evident
when John Stead approached Gardiner seeking dispensation from orders.

94 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 2 (Items not in the bound book), Item 347, Drawer
7, Draft of Gardiner’s Speech to be given in the Archbishop’s Court, ca. November 1713.
95 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 2 (Items not in the bound book), Items 349 and 350.
Bromley to Gardiner, 24 December 1713 and Tenison to Bromley, 30 December 1713.
 Chapter 5

John Stead’s Marriage and Gardiner’s

Final Loss of Authority

Bernard Gardiner had a little less than five years to enjoy the new Tory-leaning
administration, its High-Church agenda, and his victory over William Blen-
cowe.1 With the death of Queen Anne in 1714, inaugurating the Hanoverian
era and the Whig resurgence, which is the subject of Chapter 6, a number
of fellows of All Souls once more ignored the warden’s insistence that they
take orders. When Gardiner protested to the new Archbishop of Canterbury
­William Wake (Tenison having died in December 1715), he found little support
and should have expected nothing else. Tenison was Wake’s mentor and Wake
owed his initial bishopric to the lobbying of Tenison whose insistence over-
came Queen Anne’s desire to appoint all English bishops on her own authority,
without interference. Created Bishop of Lincoln during the later stages of the
Convocation Crisis, Wake composed two lengthy defences of royal supremacy
over the Church of England, the clerics of which should be seen as servants of
the crown. In Erastian language Wake had written in 1697 that the majority of
England’s clergy had been “brought to [a] sense of their Duty” and “Submitted
to the King.” Five years later in 1703 he argued that Convocation could never
meet “without the King’s Consent” and had no independence from the mon-
arch.2 Thus Wake declared Henry Sacheverell guilty and his objection to High-
Church exclusionary politics had him vote against the Occasional Conformity
Act.3 That Wake would hold positions favourable to the crown and adminis-
tration should not surprise. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the visitor of All
Souls, was a political as much as a clerical position and that both Tenison and
Wake served God, monarch, and Parliament. Any ruling made by Wake and

1 E. Neville Williams, The Eighteenth-Century Constitution 1699–1815: Documents and Commen-

tary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960), 334–337.
2 William Wake, The Authority of Christian Princes over their Ecclesiastical Synods Asserted
(London, 1697), 355; Wake, The State of the Church of England (London, 1703), 83.
3 Norman Sykes, “Archbishop Wake and the Whig Party: 1716–23: A Study in Incompatibility
of Temperament,” Cambridge Historical Journal, 2 (1945): 95; Jacqueline Rose, “By Law Es-
tablished: The Church of England and the Royal Supremacy,” in The Later Stuart Church,
1660–1714, ed. Grant Tapsell (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012), 35.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004375352_007

114 Chapter 5

before him Tenison that impacted All Souls was certainly measured against
those three metrics.
A frustrated Gardiner wrote to Wake in June of 1716, that “It was that Good
Designs of a founder are necessary,”

it has been so with ye Compass of a few years last past; when such Licen-
tiousness has appeared in this College, especially in ye most Principle
Design of Ye Founder, That of Holy orders, as No Age or Place can equal:
and if a Visitor will not please to look into what a Warden thus complains
of, ye Warden must be Persecuted most unjustly and intolerably for thus
adventuring to do his Duty.4

Over the next few months, tensions at All Souls did not ease. Indeed, the same
issues kept reappearing: holy orders, medicine, and respect for the Warden’s
opinion. Although the events of this chapter are less obviously linked to the
legacy of 1688, differences of High-Church and Low-Church conceptions of
Anglicanism, fear over creeping Catholicism, and the extent to which a fellow
might be forced to take orders in a Church of England that many understood
in increasingly comprehensive terms, make what follows an important compo-
nent in conceptualizing Gardiner and his wardenship.
In a November 1716 letter to Wake, Gardiner urged the Archbishop to do
something “to consider my Complaint against ye Dispensation from Holy Or-
ders.” The reason for Gardiner’s latest anxiety began in January of 1715 when
one John Stead, an arts fellow, had been granted a dispensation from orders to
study medicine. The problem was, as Gardiner complained toward the end of
1716, there “are ye 4 Persons already Dispensed as a Physician; and if Mr Stead
may be a 5th, there is no Determinate number” and the Founder’s wishes, with
respect to the number of fellows in orders, would have to be ignored.5 For Gar-
diner the same slippery slope that existed in 1709 with Dod and Stephens, had
rematerialized in 1716: more fellows allowed to evade college requirements
meant the end of the pious community of scholars envisaged by the Founder
and coveted by the Warden. By December of that year Gardiner worried greatly
over the state of All Souls. There were so few fellows in orders, he wrote to
Wake, that it “lyes upon 4 Fellows to do ye Duty of 13 who at this time ought to
be Priests.”6 In the summer of 1717 Gardiner counselled Wake: “My Lord this [is]
Such a State as this College was never before reduce to.” How far had r­ eligious

4 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15 fol. 71r. Gardiner to Wake, 8 June 1716.

5 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15 fol. 73r. Gardiner to Wake, 23 November 1716.
6 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15 fol. 85v. Gardiner to Wake, 22 December 1716.
John Stead’s Marriage and Gardiner’s Final Loss of Authority 115

duties been neglected? “[T]here was no Sermon in our Chapel either on Xmas
day or Michaelmass day last.” The incessant letters and constant reporting to
Wake required an explanation and Gardiner provided one in November 1718
that elegantly summed up his feelings. He had an “Obligation to Complain,
from my Pious Founder’s Statutes,” which was the “True and ye only reason
I can give.”7 Perceived duty moved him to act as he did. There could be no
clearer account of Gardiner’s motives. This last batch of grievances began with
a little known fellow of All Souls, John Stead, whose living arrangements with
a young woman and her sister initiated the near complete loss of Gardiner’s
authority at All Souls.
Gadiner’s dealings with Stead bring to mind several of the stories in Arthur
Conon Doyle’s Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892)—notably “The Adven-
tures of the Copper Beeches,” “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” and “The
Case of Identity”—which involve attempts by unscrupulous fathers or step-
fathers to defraud their daughters. Similar elements are present in the events
that surround Stead and Gardiner. Included in this tale are two sisters, look-
ing to gain control of their inheritance, a fellow of the college who takes pity
on them, the Warden who believes the fellow has acted immorally, and the
young ladies” father and uncle who are determined to manipulate everything
to their own advantage. Smaller roles are taken by two Archbishops of Canter-
bury (and members of their staffs) and a deceased aunt whose bequest sets the
story in motion.
The animosity between Stead and Gardiner came to light in late 1714 when
on Monday, 29 November 1714, Gardiner wrote to Thomas Tenison, then Arch-
bishop of Canterbury. Early in that month Stead, fellow of All Souls, sought an
exemption from taking orders. Stead had matriculated at Balliol College in 1701,
earning his ba in 1705. He was elected to an All Souls fellowship (arts) in 1709
and took his ma in February 1710. The diarist Thomas Hearne, who rarely had
a kind word for anything about All Souls, mentioned that Stead was elected
after five unsuccessful attempts.8 When Gardiner asked why he was unwill-
ing to take orders, Stead replied that he wished to study medicine and that
such fellows were not required to take orders, as we saw in Chapter 3. ­Gardiner
explained to Tenison that he advised Stead the four medical fellowships were
already occupied and that the number could not be increased. Stead then
tried another tactic and “alleag’d for an Impediment yt he was not prepared

7 Wake Correspondence, vol. 16 letter 114. Gardiner to Wake, 27 November 1718.

8 Thomas Hearne, Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, 11 volumes, ed. C.E. Doble et al.
(Oxford, 1885–1921), vol. 2, 297.
116 Chapter 5

for H: Orders.”9 This angered Gardiner who derided Stead and said laziness was
no excuse for putting off college expectations. Undeterred, Stead appealed to
the other officers and fellows of the college who, despite Gardiner’s objection,
collectively granted him an exception from orders. It was the legacy of the ap-
peals of Stephens and Dod that had allowed this to happen. Following his 1710
visitation, Tenison permitted fellows to be exempt from orders if a majority
of the Bursars, Deans, Subwarden, and Warden agreed with the fellow’s rea-
sons for the exemption. Important to note here is that Gardiner possessed no
veto and could be outvoted by the other officers. (This change came during the
middle of the Blencowe affair and it seems that Tenison’s order did not apply
retroactively, which would have rendered Blencowe’s case moot.) The Warden
told Tenison, “I hope a time will come, when my Dissent will cause a mark to be
put on these Unsuitable Dispensations,”10 and then went on to repeat his argu-
ment that unpreparedness ought not be allowed to stand as a reason for avoid-
ing orders. Gardiner pointed out that, if Stead’s approach was accepted, any-
one wishing to evade orders would say that they were similarly unprepared.11
Obviously, Stead had made himself even more obnoxious to Gardiner by suc-
cessfully appealing to the senior officers of the College—clearly a blow to the
warden’s authority. But the problem for Gardiner was that he knew from ex-
perience that he could not rely on the Visitor’s support. For both personal and
political reasons, Tenison, who counted himself a Low Church Latitudinarian,
was far from sure that it was wise to insist people to take orders against their
will. Like other Whig leaning bishops, Tenison held a comprehensive view of
the Anglican Church rather than the exclusionary position of Gardiner and
the Tories. If Tension was prepared to broaden the Protestant confession that
defined the Church of England, he was unlikely to force a fellow of All Souls
to take orders, provided that the avoidance of orders did not violate the col-
lege statutes or an injunction from the visitor. Thus, Stead’s circumvention of
the orders requirement was entirely proper, even though Gardiner disagreed.
If Gardiner really wanted to discredit Stead in the eyes of the Archbishop, he
would have to find something upon which the Archbishop would be more

9 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 1, fol. 144r. Gardiner to Tenison, 29 November 1714.
A copy of the letter also exists in Wake Correspondence, vol. 15 fols. 66r–67r.
10 Gardiner to Tenison, 29 November 1714.
11 See James McConica, “The Early Fellowship,” in Unarmed Soldiery: Studies in the Early
History of All Souls College (Oxford: All Souls College, 1996), 36, 38; Jeremy Catto, “The
World of Henry Chichele and the Foundation of All Souls,” in Unarmed Soldiery, 2; Alex
Chalmers, A History of the Colleges, Halls, and Public Buildings, Attached to the University
of Oxford, Including the Lives of the Founders (Oxford: Collingwood and Co., 1910), 166.
John Stead’s Marriage and Gardiner’s Final Loss of Authority 117

­dependable. Whatever differences there might be on the obligation to take or-

ders, Gardiner must have calculated that Tenison would be sure to back him
on another matter—the principle that Fellows of Colleges must be unmarried,
with marriage resulting in the immediate loss of a Fellowship and its income.
It should be noted that many heads of colleges often provided recently mar-
ried fellows a grace period of one year, sometimes two, during which time they
retained their fellowship while they looked for other employment.12
Some did not and the experience of Robert Wyntle, Warden of Merton ­College
is instructive. In 1737 Wyntle wrote to Archbishop of Canterbury John Potter,
the college Patron or Visitor about one the fellows of Merton John Marten, md.
A few years earlier Marten had taken a “house in George Street York-­Buildings”
in Bath to build a practice as a physician. While he resided out of the college,
Marten “took a lady and her mother” into his residence.13 When the medical
practise failed to thrive, Marten moved back to Oxford with the expectation
of continuing his fellowship. Wyntle objected because, as he commented to
Potter,

By the Statutes of the Founder … Divinity being the end of ye Studies of

a Scholar of Merton and Priesthood of Divinity there was no Occasion of
any Expressed Statute to enjoyn Celibacy which was Necessary to Priest-
hood. […] After the Reformation Tho’ Marriage was allowed to Priests in
like manner as to Lay men. Yet this State was judged incompatible with
that Strict Residence which the Statutes enjoyned & Contradictory to
Discipline. Every fellow therefore that did Marry at that time was obliged
to Resign His Fellowship & so likewise from that time to this Day has ev-
ery Fellow been Obliged.14

What was worse, Marten denied that he was actually married to the unnamed
woman, despite Wyntle’s insistence that Marten come clean before Merton’s
Patron. Even though Wyntle could find “no direct proof of the Marriage,” he
felt obliged to bring the affair to Potter’s attention because Marten treated
his “wife” contemptibly. “The Complaints the Lady makes from time to time
of the ill treatment she received from the Dr in being forced to keep [other]
women about her to humour him is known to every Person in Oxford,” Wyntle

12 Graham Midgley, University Life in Eighteenth-Century Oxford (New Haven: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 1996), 87–88; Brockliss, Oxford, 281.
13 Merton, Wyntle Register 1.6, fol. 90.
14 Wyntle Register 1.6, fol. 89.
118 Chapter 5

i­nformed the Archbishop.15 Should nothing be done about Marten, Wyntle

worried that others would follow his example and deny genuine marriages in
order to retain fellowships at Merton. Indeed he feared that this was already
occurring because he was “further informed that Besides Dr. John Marten
There are Fellows said by the publick to be married,” although he provided no
names. Not only would these fellows be guilty of violating the statutes regard-
ing marriage, they were also deceitful in lying about the marriage. How could
Potter condone either practice?
Wyntle and Marten had a history that predated this controversy. When the
former Warden of Merton, John Holland, died in 1734 it was Marten, as sub-
warden and senior fellow, who wrote to Potter in June of that year with a list
of three names to be considered for the vacant wardenship. Among the names
were Wyntle and Marten’s own. When Potter chose Wyntle “into the Office of
Warden of Merton College in Oxford,” we cannot know if Marten harboured
any jealously or animosity.16 We do know that he became dismissive of Potter’s
authority over him.
It was not marriage that ultimately cost Marten his fellowship. It was his
inheritance of the administration of eight acres of land in Kiddington worth
about £120 annually that caused Potter to rule that, “Dr John Marten now
is and for many years last past hath been possessed of a more ample yearly
­[Severance] than ought to be held with his Fellowship in the said College.
And therefore Decree that the said Dr John Marten be no longer taken to
be ­Fellow of the said College nor entitled to any of the profits belonging to the
Fellows thereof.”17 Upon learning this decision, Wyntle went immediately to
Marten’s room in the college and “did order the College Smith to put a padlock
thereon.”18
Marten knew that Potter would rule as he did and planed accordingly. Even
before Wyntle locked the door to his lodgings, Marten formally “applied to his
Majesties Court of Kings Bench at Westminster for his Majesties Writt of Pro-
hibition to be directed to his Grace prohibiting him from Exercising any Visita-
tion Power over the said John Marten.”19 The crux of the argument was that the
Founder of Merton College, Walter de Merton, had not named the Archbishop
of Canterbury explicitly as visitor or patron of the college. In the 1264 Statutes

15 Wyntle Register 1.6, fol. 90.

16 Merton, Wyntle Register 1.4, fols. 17, 19.
17 Wyntle Register 1.4, fol. 42v “The Sentence in relation of Dr Marten’s Fellowship [1 June
1738].”
18 Wyntle Register 1.4, fol. 43.
19 Wyntle Register 1.4, fol. 43.
John Stead’s Marriage and Gardiner’s Final Loss of Authority 119

de Merton specified the Bishop of Winchester as visitor, but changed his mind
about a decade later, without altering the text of the statutes. Marten proposed
that the order against him was not binding because the Archbishop of Can-
terbury was not named in the statutes. Thus, Potter was called to explain the
relationship between his office and Merton, no doubt to his great annoyance.
He explained that for nearly 500 years,

or thereabouts Exercised Visitation powers Over this College and there-

upon the whole court was clearly of the Opinion that his present Grace
the Archbishop of Canterbury is Patron or Visitor of Merton College upon
which the following Rule was made by the court / Upon Reading the last
Rule and the Affidavit of Robert Wyntle and upon hearing the Council of
both sides, it is Ordered that the said Ruling be discharged upon the Mo-
tion of Mr Marten.20

Marten lost his fellowship. The truthfulness of his marriage was moot. Wyntle,
and as we will see Gardiner, held firm to what was contained in the college
statutes: fellows must be bachelors.
It must have been with some satisfaction that Gardiner could say that he
possessed trustworthy information that Stead had, “for 2 years been suppos’d
to be Marryed to one Mrs. Barb[ara] Piers” and they shared a house outside
of Oxford. This was not the first time Gardiner had made the accusation. Two
years earlier, he had informed Tenison that Stead reportedly lived with “his
Wife within 10 miles of Oxford, as I am credibly informed.”21 Despite the gos-
sip about Stead, the Warden did not pursue the matter. But now that Stead
was attempting to evade orders, Gardiner became more concerned about his
domestic arrangements. For Gardiner, the beauty of the situation was not just
that Stead would lose his fellowship if he were married. Like Marten years later,
if Stead were concealing his marriage in order to keep his fellowship, he would
be guilty of dishonesty, but if he were truly not married, yet cohabiting with
a woman he would be guilty of immorality. Either transgression would cost
Stead his fellowship. Of course, Stead was not the first fellow of All Souls sus-
pected of marriage, nor would he be the last. But his circumstance caused such
a stir that it merits particular attention.

20 Wyntle Register 1.4, fol. 44v. G.H. Martin and J.R.L. Highfield, A History of Merton College,
Oxford (Oxford: Oxford University 1997), 250.
21 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 1, fol. 140. Gardiner to Tenison, 28 May 1712. Stead
took a leave of absence that summer. See Warden’s ms 9, entry for 20 August 1714.
120 Chapter 5

Past experience buoyed Gardiner’s hopes for a quick and fairly painless
resolution to this issue of a married fellow. On 6 November 1710 Gardiner ad-
monished Fellow of All Souls Thomas Dalton for not being in Holy Orders as
required by the Statutes.22 Like Matthew Tindal, Dalton was a secular lawyer
with Whig sympathies. This link irritated Gardiner who would claim (wrong-
ly) on several occasions that the Founder of the college made no provisions
for secular lawyer fellows. To Gardiner’s further anger, Dalton was also one of
the proponents, along with William Blencowe, Roger Meredith, and Fisher
Littleton of the failed bill in the House of Commons, which was the subject
of Chapter 1. Gardiner sought to declare Dalton’s fellowship void in May 1711,
but following the controversy over medicine fellowships, he no longer had the
power to deny dispensations from orders. Dalton went on the offensive and
postponed the decision against him by securing the testimony of a physician
who stipulated that “Dalton has very weak Lungs, & that any vehement use of
them will be very likely to throw him into a Consumption, & that it may be very
inconsistent with his health to do the Duty & Office of a Clergy-man.”23 This
exemption worked for a while. Gardiner then learned that Dalton “lives pub-
lickly with his Wife & Child in London.”24 With this information sent to Teni-
son in May 1714, Gardiner hoped that Dalton’s fellowship would be terminated.
Unfortunately for Gardiner, he did not receive a reply from Tenison. Given that
the Archbishop had only recently put the Blencowe matter, along with that
of Stephens and Dodd, behind him, another controversy at All Souls over the
requirement of fellows was likely too much to bear. Not waiting for a reply,
Gardiner wrote again in August. “I was forced to proceed without any answer
from your Grace” and that he had conducted an investigation into Dalton’s sus-
pected marriage. In depositions dated 17 August 1714, Gardiner secured what
he deemed conclusive proof that “Mr Dalton was privately married in a house
in Chantory Lane to a Daughter of Richard Dyott Esq. about a year ago and that
they have established together as Husband and Wife ever since, and that since
such Cohabitation there has been a child born & Christened.”25 By November
Tenison had still not replied, which must indicate a profound reluctance to
wade back into the turbulent waters of All Souls. Still without an answer from

22 Warden’s ms 7, entry for 6 November 1710.

23 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 2 (Items not in the bound book), Item 356, Drawer
7, 22 November 1712.
24 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 1, fol. 140. Gardiner to Tenison, 28 May 1712.
25 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 1, fol. 142. Gardiner to Tension, 27 August 1714. On
Gardiner proceeding against Dalton, see Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 2 (Items
not in the bound book), Item 357, Drawer 7, Citation against Dalton, 16 July 1714.
John Stead’s Marriage and Gardiner’s Final Loss of Authority 121

Tenison, who would explain later that ill health prevented the fulfillment of
many of his duties, Gardiner received a Christmas present from Dalton, who
sent the Warden the following brief note: “Having been married six months I
desire you w[oul]d on that acc[oun]t declare void ye Fellowship of.”26 Thus
ended the matter of Dalton.
Gardiner thought the same speedy resolution would occur with Stead’s
­refusal to take orders and his suspected marriage.27 The source of the ­Warden’s
information about Stead’s possible matrimony came from Barbara’s uncle,
­William Piers, described by Gardiner as “a Rev’d Clergyman.” William ap-
proached Gardiner on behalf of his brother John Piers—“ye young lady’s
­Father”—to complain that Stead was not only married to Barbara but actively
prevented John Piers from seeing his daughter. William (born 1661) and John
(born 1656) were the grandsons of William Piers, Bishop of Peterborough
(1630–32), Bishop of Bath and Wells (1632–1670), and Vice-Chancellor of Ox-
ford (1621–1624). John lived as a gentleman in Denton, Oxfordshire; William
held several degrees (including a bd) and a fellowship from Emanuel College,
Cambridge. William was incorporated at Oxford in 1698 and held a reputation
as a fine editor of Greek plays.28 Upon hearing William’s story regarding Bar-
bara’s predicament, Gardiner demanded to see Stead in November 1714. “In
our presence, [William Piers] asked Mr Stead if he were married to his Niece,
Barbara Mr Stead said That he was not. Mr Piers stood amaz’d at his Impu-
dence, saying then you do my poor Niece an unspeakable injury; and then
[said] he [would] wait on Your Grace before now to make complaint of it to
you.”29 Accordingly, Gardiner brought the matter to Tenison’s attention, no
doubt hoping that the Archbishop would act to lift Barbara’s “imprisonment”
and perhaps force Stead to take orders. Gardiner further explained that he had
“forbid Mr.  Stead all further Conversation with her” but Stead refused, leav-
ing the Warden to complain, “he won’t do it withstanding any things I said.”30
During the examination Stead had actually stated that he was not really mar-
ried to Barbara, while conceding that he and Barbara—together with Barbara’s
younger sister—lived under the same roof. Stead insisted, however, that he
merely acted as the young ladies” guardian—but declined to elaborate further.

26 Appeals and Visitors Injunctions, vol. 1, fol. 146. Dalton to Gardiner, 25 December 1714.
27 Recall also that Stephens who held a medicine fellowship resigned it before marrying.
Little wonder that Gardiner believed this matter would be ended quickly.
28 I am grateful to John Clarke for his searches in “Oxford University Alumni 1500–1886” for
this information about the Piers brothers.
29 Gardiner to Tenison, 29 November 1714, fol. 144v.
30 Gardiner to Tenison, 29 November 1714, fol. 144v.
122 Chapter 5

Of course, if Stead were telling the truth, Gardiner’s attempts to discredit him
in the eyes of the Archbishop would be weakened. But it is clear that Gardiner
did not believe Stead and ended his letter to the Visitor by begging him to end
the scandal Stead’s action had brought “ye College.”
The following April (1715) Gardiner complained to Tenison that “Mr Stead’s
Case is now becoming very notorious.” The warden explained how in the mid-
dle of January he had called Stead to appear before himself and the Dean of
Arts and once more reprimanded him for his irregular domestic arrangements.
Stead then astonished Gardiner by claiming that Tension was already aware of
the situation, but had declined to intervene. Much to Gardiner’s consternation,
Stead refused to provide any more details or elaborate on Tenison’s apparent
acceptance, if not approval, of Stead’s actions. Gardiner was perplexed further
when the Piers brothers told him that their pleas to Tenison to save the honour
of the young ladies had gone unanswered.31 Why would Tenison ignore Stead’s
behaviour? Gardiner had no answers.
We know that Gardiner took an interest in the wellbeing of women, spe-
cifically widows. In his will, Gardiner bequeathed £200 to “Mr Stone’s Hospital
in St. Clements Parish near Oxford” for the purposes of adding “a clergyman’s
widow” to the number of women housed there. While it cannot be determined
if the Stead matter, with its apparent poor treatment of the nieces of a clergy-
man, had any bearing on the gift, the fact that the will is dated 15 April 1717
suggests that it may not have been far from his mind.32
This concern over the welfare of women could be seen in an additional
accusation brought against Stead. Not only was he apparently detaining the
women and keeping them from their friends and family, but “the Youngest of
‘em [Mary] just before last Easter told ye Minister of her Parish that She Should
Shortly own herself a Papist.” On the basis of reports provided by the Piers
brothers, although—as far as can be determined—never actually conducting
any investigation himself, Gardiner informed Tenison that a known Catholic
who had a fine chapel complete with relics, to which “many Romish Priests
resort,” lived near Stead. It is difficult to be certain to which chapel Gardiner
referred. The most famous Catholic house in the area was Stonor Park, fifteen
miles distant from Mary. But without more details, we cannot be sure. Poor
Mary Piers could receive no spiritual help from her uncle or father because
Stead “will not suffer either of ye Young Women to come to ‘em.” While Stead
was not directly responsible for Mary’s potential conversion to Catholicism, he
clearly was not much of a guardian and the sisters would be better off under

31 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fols. 67r–v. Gardiner to Tenison, 27 April 1715.
32 For Gardiner’s will, see tna prob 11/609/146 fols. 72v–73r.
John Stead’s Marriage and Gardiner’s Final Loss of Authority 123

the care of the Piers brothers, so Gardiner advised Tenison. Once more, Gar-
diner asked why the Archbishop had not answered the letters from William
Piers or taken a more serious interest in the matter.33
In November 1715 Gardiner wrote to Edmund Gibson, Rector of Lambeth,
Tenison’s chaplain and Librarian of Lambeth Palace.34 Gibson, shortly to be-
come Bishop of Lincoln and later Bishop of London, was a close friend to
­Tenison. Gardiner told Gibson of his astonishment at the contents of a letter–­
written on behalf of Tenison-that Gibson had sent to William Piers. In the let-
ter Gibson wrote that the Archbishop denied any knowledge of Stead or the
two women and that unless an “Appeal or Complaint” came to him directly
“from ye College,” nothing could be done by his office.35 In his reply to Gibson,
Gardiner listed all the previous letters he had sent to Tenison relating to Stead
and his cohabitation with Barbara and Mary. Gardiner’s position was particu-
larly embarrassing because he had kept the Piers brothers informed of the ef-
forts he had made on their behalf. He told Gibson, “Sr. you can’t imagine, that
I will be thought a Lyar by Mr. Piers and his Brother, to whom I have so often
Said, as well as to others. that I have layd the matter of Mr. Steed before ye Visi-
tour, wch yet his Grace now says he does not remember.”36 If Tenison was not
moved to help him personally, then Gardiner requested that the Archbishop
think of “ye poor Ladies, their Father and Family” along with the disrepute
Stead’s behaviour brought down on All Souls.37
There seems little question that Gardiner feared history was about to repeat
itself. As we saw earlier William Blencowe had sought exemption from taking
orders in 1709. That affair dragged on for two years until Gardiner successfully
petitioned the Queen and obtained a ruling that stated Blencowe’s service to
the crown was no impediment to his taking orders. But the Blencowe inci-
dent strained relations between the Warden and the Visitor, strains that were
still apparent when the Stead issue arose. In view of all the trouble there had
been between Gardiner and the fellows of All Souls—and Blencowe was by no
means the only one to quarrel with Gardiner—it is no wonder that ­Tenison
was reluctant to embroil himself again in the affairs of the College, whose
hot-tempered Warden had caused so much unpleasantness and difficulty. It is

33 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fol. 67v. Gardiner to Tenison, 7 May 1715. See also the copy
in Appeals and Visitors Injunctions, vol. 1, fol. 150.
34 Warden’s ms 10, no folios, entry for 17 November 1715.
35 Wake Correspondence vol. 15, fol. 65r. Gardiner to Gibson, 22 November 1715. There is also
a copy of this letter in Appeals and Visitors Injunctions, vol. 1, fol. 151.
36 Wake Correspondence vol. 15, fol. 65v.
37 Wake Correspondence vol. 15, fol. 65v.
124 Chapter 5

an example of how eighteenth-century English politics could be exceedingly

personal.
With Blencowe likely in mind and having received no satisfaction from ei-
ther Tenison or Gibson, Gardiner became determined to proceed against Stead,
within the College. Early in 1716 he drew up a formal Latin complaint that set
out Stead’s transgression: he was married to Barbara Piers and lived with her
along with Barbara’s younger sister Mary.38 Stead’s response described Gar-
diner’s complaints as a “pretended cause” and—most sensationally—alleged
that they were part of a plot “promoted against him by John Piers & William
Piers.” Stead denied “that he did declare that he was married to … Barbara Piers
or to that Effect; and he doth not conceive that he is oblig’d to tell whether
he is married or not….”39 All he admitted was that the three of them shared a
house in the county of Oxford where they dined together. Stead pointed out
that the sisters (both women being older than twenty-one) paid him for the
cost of their food and drink. There existed “a good friendship between the said
­Barbara Piers, and this Respondent.”
The origin of this arrangement is also addressed. Stead claimed his “Cham-
bers in All Souls College being very prejudicial to his health He … did take Lodg-
ings” outside of the town.40 Stead did not say how College accommodations
damaged his health, although it might be noted that the new Back Quadrangle
in All Souls—where the rooms would be more in accordance with eighteenth
century taste—had yet to be built. The most likely explanation, however, is
that, given Gardiner’s earlier refusal to excuse him from orders, Stead simply
wanted to keep personal contact with the Warden to a minimum. While living
out of College, Stead met and befriended Barbara and Mary. He explained that
he had dined frequently at the home of Mr. Piers where they had all met. Soon
the two of them—Barbara and Stead—took walks in public places. A friend-
ship developed and Stead finally learned the sisters’ tragic story:

Mrs Alice Darryl Aunt to ye said Barbara and Mary Piers, did by her last
Will & Testament leave an estate in Land in Denton in ye Parish of Cud-
desdon to ye said Barbara, & Mary Piers to be dispos’d of as they pleas’d;
and that ye said Alice Darryl did by word of mouth not long before she
dyed desire the said Barbara & Mary Piers, not to live with their Father ye
said John Piers during the life time of his now wife, who is their mother-
in-law [i.e. stepmother]….41

38 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 2, fol. 93. Articles offered against John Stead, ma.
39 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 2, fol. 94. Answers of John Stead.
40 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 2, fol. 94.
41 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 2, fol. 94.
John Stead’s Marriage and Gardiner’s Final Loss of Authority 125

The aunt had feared that, if the sisters remained at home, their father and
stepmother would take the inheritance and leave the girls with nothing. Stead
insists that Alice Darryl’s fears had proved prophetic. He had direct knowledge
that John and William Piers had taken timber from the Cuddesdon property
without the sisters’ consent. Pity and a sense of justice then induced Stead to
invite Barbara and Mary to live with him. To ensure the safety of the estate,
which would become the joint property of the sisters at a future date—the de-
tails to be managed by “Mr Heywood an Attorney in Oxford”—Stead allowed
his name to be inserted on various Deeds, “but this Respondent’s name is only
made use of in Trust….”42 Thus, Stead believed he had acted properly in help-
ing the sisters with their attempts to thwart the dishonest intentions of their
father and uncle, men who wanted to strip the estate of its most valuable assets
and who were clearly indifferent both to the interests of the girls and to the
final wishes of the Alice Darryl.
If we enquire into the financial history of William and John, their need for
money becomes apparent. When the Bishop William Piers died in 1670 he left
the estate of Denton to his son John (father of William and John Piers), who
in later years sold half the land and the manor house to the known scoun-
drel Eustace Budgell, who as we recall from Chapter 2 was the unsuccessful
promoter of a fraudulent will attributed to Matthew Tindal. Continuing his
shady dealings, Budgell was often delinquent on payments to John Piers, Sr.
and his sons. Relations were acrimonious and resulted in less revenue than
predicted flowing into the Piers’s family treasury.43 This increased after Bud-
gell’s disastrous flirtation with promises of easy money in the South Sea Com-
pany and subsequent bursting of the bubble left him destitute. Chronically
in debt afterwards, Budgell attempted to win some financial reward when he
wrote to the Earl of Hardwicke, The Lord Chancellor, in March 1737. Budgell
confided in Hardwicke that he knew of “a most Corrupt & wicked and infa-
mous Practice among the officers of Your Lordship’s Court; a Practice which
I humbly apprehend strikes at the very foundation of Justice.”44 Without go-
ing into specifics, or rather refusing to, in the letter outlining this vague claim,
Budgell advised Hardwicke that he would wait on the Lord at seven o’clock
the following evening. While not explicitly asking for a reward, Budgell implies
he expected some recompense for the complete information. Hardwicke had
no time for speculation, rumour, and innuendo; he did not keep the appoint-
ment and claimed to have misread the proposed meeting time. But Budgell

42 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 2, fol. 94.

43 A History of the County of Oxford, vol. 5. <british-history.ac.uk>. For examples of the ani-
mosity between Budgell and Piers see tna C11/2219/20 and tna C11/490/30 among others.
44 bl Add. ms 35586, fol. 12, Eustace Budgell to the 1st Lord Hardwicke, 18 March 1737.
126 Chapter 5

suspected he was being ­purposely avoided and replied: “I found by Yr Servant

that my last Letter had produced an unlucky mistake, and that Yr Lordship ex-
pected me at 7 this Morning: I am pretty confident that if Yr Lordship pleases
to look once again into my last Letter, you will find that I mentioned 7 at Night,
tho’ tis true the word Night was interlined.”45 As far as can be determined the
two never met and Budgell never exposed the conspiracy he claimed to have
uncovered. His despair grew and within weeks of these letters he committed
suicide. Thus, we may surmise that when John, Sr. died and the remaining half
of the Denton estate passed to John, the money it generated was paltry indeed.
It is no surprise then that, in 1716, the brothers looked for a means to increase
their income.
Gardiner was not impressed by Stead’s explanation of affairs and it is not
difficult to see why. William and Johns Piers had clearly been successful in
convincing him of their innocence and of Stead’s turpitude. One incontrovert-
ible fact was that Stead lived out of College. While residence was less scrupu-
lously enforced in the early-eighteenth century than in earlier times, Chichele
had stipulated that all fellows should reside in College and, as we have seen, a
desire to uphold the Founder’s ideals was the guiding principle of Gardiner’s
wardenship.
Most crucially, the brothers insisted that Stead was married to Barbara. Of
course, in 1438 when All Souls was founded, priests were required to be celi-
bate and it followed that if fellows were to become priests then they too must
be celibate. It is true that, at the Reformation, priests were allowed to marry,
but that did not mean that fellows were also allowed to marry. College statutes
retained the old prohibition. Indeed, in eighteenth century Oxford, the normal
pattern was for a fellow to take orders and then wait to be presented to a living
which would allow him to marry at the same time that he vacated his fellow-
ship. It is also true that Heads of Houses—who were not technically Fellows—
were allowed to marry (Gardiner himself was married), as were most holders
of University Chairs. The general prohibition on marriage was not removed
until 1870. What is more, Gardiner was a staunch High-Church Anglican, like
many Magdalen men. And, High-Church sympathies did not entail any sympa-
thy for Popery and, hence, not the least of Stead’s enormities was the fact that
he had allowed Mary Piers to become Catholic.
Arguments like that would have appealed to Gardiner and it is hardly sur-
prising that he readily believed all that William and John Piers told him and
hence championed their cause so fervently. Discounting Stead’s version of
events completely, Gardiner now wrote to William Wake, Tenison’s successor

45 bl Add. ms 35586, fol. 14 Eustace Budgell to the 1st Lord Hardwicke, 19 March 1737.
John Stead’s Marriage and Gardiner’s Final Loss of Authority 127

as Archbishop of Canterbury. Although not as Latitudinarian as Tenison, Wake

was similarly of a Low Church mindset and shared many of his processor’s
views when it came to allowing people, including college fellows, to follow
their consciences in matters of religion rather than be forced into religious
conformity. While Wake possessed Erastian sentiment regarding the crown’s
authority over the English church, he did view the nation’s two universities as
“a Kind of Public Benefit to the Church and Kingdom,” institutions that should
adhere to the “Principles of Religion.”46 Thus, on the one hand, the chief task of
Oxford and Cambridge was religious education and that should not change.
On the other hand, the universities needed to recognise that they were under
royal authority as vested in “the Christian Prince.”47 Gardiner had already con-
gratulated Wake on his appointment, noting that members “of this College,
who are immediately under your Visitations, as well as the Church as Nation
may expect great Advantage.”48 Although he expressed written support for the
new Archbishop, Gardiner had to be persuaded to attend the enthronement
in later December with the reminder that “Respect is cheap, and makes a good
impression at first.” For someone who needed the Archbishop on his side as
he sought to establish order and ensure that fellows adhered to the Statutes,
attendance would be a prudent move.49 Gardiner clearly hoped that Wake
would prove more sympathetic than Tenison had been and take resolute ac-
tion against Stead and in favour of William and John Piers.
William Piers had already written to Wake, explaining how Stead had kept
the sisters from their father and refused to admit to his marriage to Barbara.
But as William explained to Gardiner, Wake’s response had merely been to re-
peat Tenison’s insistence that any compliant against a Fellow of All Souls must
come from the college. Thus, Gardiner duly contacted Wake on 8 June 1716.
The Warden did not go over old ground but urged the Archbishop to read the
letters sent to his predecessor. He implied strongly that Tenison had deliber-
ately ignored his pleas on purpose, arguing that “if a Visitour will not please
to look into what a Warden thus complains of, ye Warden must be Persecuted
most unjustly and intolerably.” In other words, Gardiner was trying to per-
suade Wake that he should undertake a thorough investigation, to make up for
­Tenison’s negligence.50

46 Wake, The Authority of Christian Princes, 336.

47 Wake, The State of the Church, xii, 587.
48 William Wake Correspondence vol. 6, fol. 28. Gardiner to Wake, 18 January 1715/16.
49 Appeals and Visitor’s Injunctions, vol. 2 (Items not in the bound book), Item 360, Drawer
7. Sir N. Lloyd to Gardiner, 31 December 1715.
50 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fol. 71r. Gardiner to Wake, 8 June 1716.
128 Chapter 5

While Gardiner was clearly irritated with Stead’s cohabitation and sus-
pected marriage, the issue that bothered Gardiner most was the refusal to take
orders. The layman Stead continued to hold his fellowship and the officers of
the college had just granted him let another year’s exemption from the Stat-
ute, notwithstanding Gardiner’s objection and negative vote. What was worse,
Tenison had allowed Stead to be the fifth fellow in medicine when tradition
held that there should be only four such fellows. Gardiner continued to insist
that, “The Warden can’t be so outvoted by any number of Fellows in any Case,”
pleading that his views must prevail even against a clear majority of the college
officers.51
Gardiner did not particularly welcome the presence of medicine at All
Souls, but he accepted that four fellowships were available for its study. As we
saw, what he did object to was the use of medicine simply as a device to avoid
orders. This belief turned into action in June of 1709 when Gardiner instructed,
Richard Stephens and Pierce Dod, “to take Holy Orders in Six months after ye
12th day of July next, according to the Statutes,” which resulted in a number
of setbacks for Gardiner as well as an unpleasant evening at an inn outside of
London, as Chapter 3 illustrated.
Remember that in an effort to ensure that no further disputes would come
his way, Tenison scheduled a Visitation for June 1710 which turned out very
poorly for Gardiner. The Archbishop removed the warden’s veto on dispensa-
tions from orders, but he did retain the veto for the election of college officers.
By June 1711 Gardiner’s power seemed to have been eroded, at least that was the
view taken by many fellows. The Warden lamented to John Bettesworth, Vicar
General and Dean and Principal Official of the Court of Arches—effectively
chief officer of the ecclesiastical courts, that several fellows made a mockery of
“all Discipline” and seemed determined to encroach “upon ye Warden’s power.
“These things ought not to be,” complained Gardiner.52
Bettesworth was sympathetic and, less than five weeks later, made clear his
support for Gardiner’s interpretation of the Statutes that required all fellows of
All Souls be assiduous in their duties. He issued the following decree. Prayers
“both morning and evening” would be “duly kept and observed” on penalty of
censure. Moreover, all fellows were to be in “Priests Orders within five years”
unless an approved reason prevented it. Here, though, Bettesworth maintained
the decision made by Tenison. Such reasons required the endorsement of the
Warden (or Subwarden) and “the Dean and Bursars or the majority part of

51 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fol. 72r.

52 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 1, fol. 114. Gardiner to Bettesworth, 7 June 1711.
John Stead’s Marriage and Gardiner’s Final Loss of Authority 129

those five.” Without such endorsement fellows would lose their fellowships.53
While this appeared to favour Gardiner, it still meant that he could be out-
voted on requests for exemption from orders. This had been Stead’s tactic in
­November  1714. Gardiner never accepted that he could be overruled and in
early September 1711 he wrote to Tenison insisting that any election within the
college, for any position, must include his “necessary voice.” As visitor, Teni-
son had the task—no doubt tedious—of answering Gardiner’s complaints. By
­December 1711, strains began to show. Writing on behalf of Tenison, B
­ ettesworth
scolded Gardiner that “His Grace, having the interests of Your College always
at heart, cannot but be sensibly concerned at ye continuance of your unhappy
divisions. Which He had reason to hope might have been effectually healed by
his Injunction.”54
Now, in August 1716, Gardiner formally admonished Stead for a variety of
­offenses. On 20 August, Stead, now referred to as “pretended Fellow of All Souls
Coll. Oxon” was called to appear before the Warden, Sub-warden, Deans and
Bursars to answer for being married; being absent from the college, “without
leave”; and for being in possession of a library book past the due date. No re-
cords exist of the hearing and it may not have taken place.
In late November 1716, Gardiner again contacted Wake about Stead’s hold-
ing a fellowship on the supposed pretence of studying medicine. Gardiner had
hoped—in vain—for an answer to his June letter before the vote on Stead’s
request for a further dispensation from orders. This vote too had gone against
Gardiner: “Our Election is over and again ye Deans and Bursars have consented
to a Dispensation for Mr Stead for another year, on ye same Pretence, viz. of his
being Studious in Medicine.”55 This was the third time the Deans and Bursars
had granted Stead’s request to be excused from orders, even though it meant
there were now five fellows in medicine rather than the usual four. Gardiner
had no official recourse but asked rhetorically, “if Mr Stead may be dispensed
wth for 3 years successively as he has now been, why not for 10 or 20 years &
which in effect is giving a perpetual Dispensation….”56 Where would it stop?
Why would Wake not enforce the Statutes? Gardiner could only wait for an-
swers and concluded this recent letter by enquiring, on a request from William

53 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 1, fol. 115. Decrees of the Visitation held by Dr Bet-
tesworth, 19 July 1711.
54 Appeals and Visitors Injunctions, vol. 1, fol. 130. Bettesworth to Gardiner, 11 December 1711.
55 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fol. 73r. Gardiner to Wake, 23 November 1716. Stead had
taken an approved absence from All Souls earlier in the month, which although likely ir-
ritated Gardiner, he still signed the Orders. See Warden’s ms 10, entry for 6 November 1716.
56 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fol. 73r.
130 Chapter 5

Piers, if “your Grace had considered Mr Stead’s being in ye manner he does wth
his Niece Mrs. Barbara Piers?”57
Shortly afterwards, Stead raised the stakes by allowing his name to be put
forward for election as Bursar of Arts. As Stead explained in a petition to Wake,
he received a majority of votes when the election was held on 17 December.
Yet, Gardiner did not approve and “still refuse[s] to swear and admit yr Peti-
tioner into ye said office.”58 Did the memory of Fischer Littleton as Bursar in
1712 continue to haunt Gardiner’s memory? Thus the post remained vacant,
yet the Statutes made it clear that only the Bursar could conduct the financial
aspects of College business. Hence Stead urged Wake to “interpose Yr author-
ity” and allow him to take up the post to which he had been duly elected. In
support, Stead included an affidavit signed by all the electors, including the
Sub-warden, that they had all voted for Stead.59
The following day, 20 December, Gardiner sent a counter-petition to Lam-
beth. It began mildly enough: “Wee have had ye ill luck not to Agree in ye Elec-
tion of a Bursar of Arts this year.”60 Gardiner then explained that Stead had
been elected but had not received the warden’s positive vote and without it
the election could not be confirmed. Gardiner therefore began the process of
nullifying the election and composing the appropriate documents for Wake’s
approval. The letter ended with a determined restatement of his position: “Tis
hard your Grace or any one else, should have so much trouble about a Person,
who, as it appears to me, ought not to be esteemd a Fellow of ye College att all,
and if so, not Eligible into any Office.”61
On 20 December, without waiting for a reply, Gardiner again wrote to Wake
giving further reasons why he refused to allow Stead to become Bursar of Arts.
After apologizing for troubling the Archbishop, although reminding him that it
was his duty as Visitor to settle such matters, Gardiner observed:

The Case of Mr Steed whom I did not Vote for, your Grace is not unac-
quainted with. I have had Such Complaints against him as tho about a
matter of a very private nature and difficult to be proved, yet, they give
such Offense to our Discipline, that I cannot Consent to promote him to
an Office.62

57 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fol. 74v.

58 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fol. 76r. Petition of John Stead, December 1716.
59 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fol. 78. Votes for Bursar of Arts, 19 December 1716.
60 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fol. 79r. Gardiner to Wake, 20 December 1716.
61 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fol. 80r.
62 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fol. 82r. Gardiner to Wake, 21 December 1716.
John Stead’s Marriage and Gardiner’s Final Loss of Authority 131

There were two reasons why Stead could not be Bursar: first, he was not in
orders and hence in violation of the conditions of his Fellowship, notwith-
standing his dispensations; second he had supposedly been married, since
­“Easter 1711,” according to reports Gardiner had received from William and
John Piers. Such behaviour could not be rewarded with an important position
at All Souls.63 What was more, Gardiner intimated that Stead was an embez-
zler and how could someone so untrustworthy fulfill the responsibilities of
Bursar? This accusation seems to have been an afterthought, but the strategy
had some merit. There was a precedent for the Visitor to deal with bursars who
were not performing their duties with honesty. Tenison ruled on a similar mat-
ter at Merton College in 1710 where bursars were guilty of embezzlement. The
Archbishop ordered that the money be repaid out of the income generated
from the perpetrators’ fellowships, which they seem to have been allowed to
retain.64 This was not the only example of a bursar making off with ill-gotten
money. Years later, in 1729, the Warden of Merton College, John Holland, re-
corded that one Dr Tovey had been allowed by an unnamed banker in London
to become overdrawn “whilst he was Bursar £38. 02. 9.” Holland immediately
notified Tovey, who claimed to be unaware of the situation that the warden
called “an Extraordinary thing & unprecedented and ought highly to be re-
sented by this coll[ege].”65 Gardiner ended by by stating how he had begged
Tenison to deal with Stead, to no avail. He hoped Wake would achieve better
results for All Souls.
That same late-December day, the Fellows who had chosen Stead as Bur-
sar of Arts sent their account of the election to Wake. They stressed that the
majority of the fellows had voted for Stead, insisting that there would be “ill
Consequences of allowing to ye Warden” to have a binding negative vote in
college elections.66 Since the election had been conducted in accordance with
the statutes, “the under-written Fellows,” requested that Wake accept the elec-
tion result and not reward Gardiner’s stubbornness when events in All Souls
displeased him. Many contemporaries, not only those within All Souls, were
aware of Gardiner’s reputation for inflexibility bordering on the unreasonable.
Other complainants to Wake referred to the Warden’s “usual obstinacy” and
that his “prejudices and Passions affect the character of one of the soberest,

63 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fol. 82r.

64 bl Add. ms 14268 fol. 36v.
65 Merton, Warden Holland’s Register 4.22, fol. 15. Merton’s Bursars were among the first to
use the services of London bankers to administer college funds. As this examples shows,
the enterprise did not always run smoothly.
66 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fol. 83r. Electors of Stead to Wake, 21 December 1716.
132 Chapter 5

most studious, modest, & most virtuous young men” who had fallen on the
wrong side of his temper.67
Gardiner received an answer from Wake’s office on 27 December, but it
merely acknowledged Gardiner’s “Devolution of the Office of Bursar of Arts.”68
The writer, the appropriately named Richard Chicheley, a member of the Arch-
bishops’ staff, advised Gardiner that Wake would give the matter all the atten-
tion he thought it deserved.
Early in January 1717, Bettesworth informed Gardiner of the situation. Wake
now possessed the “Instrument of Devolution for ye Office of Bursar of Arts,
& at ye same time a petition from Mr Stead [and] a Certificate under ye hands
of the other Electors” who voted for Stead. But Wake required a more com-
plete explanation as to why Gardiner had dissented from the election and
evidence to substantiate Stead’s alleged invalid dispensation from orders to
which Gardiner frequently referred. Bettesworth contacted the electors by
separate post.69
Gardiner did as he was requested and Bettesworth replied on 19 January.
Writing on behalf of Wake, Bettesworth feared that the case was being mud-
died by the introduction of issues that had no bearing on whether Stead should
become Bursar of Arts. Wake believed that Gardiner could not decide whether
his real objection to Stead was the dispensation from orders or his supposed
marriage. But that no longer mattered because the only evidence in which
Wake was interested related to why the Warden’s positive vote was a necessary
condition of a successful election. Gardiner had ten days to provide that infor-
mation. No “further pleadings” would be admitted. Upon receipt of Gardiner’s
reasons, Stead would also be given ten days to compose his response.70
Nine days later, Gardiner outlined his reasons for disallowing Stead’s elec-
tion as Bursar of Arts. He believed that the Warden’s vote was a necessary con-
dition of anyone being chosen an officer of the college and provided examples
of previous cases when the Warden’s vote had been deemed a requirement.
That the Warden had not exercised this power—effectively amounting to a
veto—on a regular basis was due to the “Tenderness of the Wardens in not
­frequently using their Power on that occasion but it seems but a necessary

67 Wake Correspondence vol. 16, fols. 128 and 129. Abington to Wake, 6 November 1719 and
S. Harrison to Wake, 16 November 1719.
68 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 2, fol. 96. Richard Chicheley to Gardiner, 27 Decem-
ber 171.
69 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 2, fol. 97. Bettesworth to Gardiner, 3 January 1717.
70 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 2, fol. 99. Bettesworth to Gardiner, 19 January 1717.
John Stead’s Marriage and Gardiner’s Final Loss of Authority 133

Trust reposed in them for ye Good Government of Ye College….”71 Although

used infrequently, limited use did not mean that the requirement of the War-
den’s positive vote did not exist.
This was not the first time Gardiner had been involved in disputes about his
role in college elections; nor was he the only Oxford warden to believe that his
vote was the most important: in 1738 the Warden of Merton, Robert Wyntle,
attempted to veto the election of three fellowship only to be overruled by the
visitor.72 In 1709, the issue had been the “weight” of the Warden’s vote when
Stephens and Dod had been elected to medical fellowships in the face of Gar-
diner’s objections and when, later in the same year, Blencowe tried to become
Dean of Arts and Rector of Theology. In the spring of 1709 while he waited to
see how the Blencowe matter would play out, Gardiner had gathered opin-
ions from those he trusted regarding the warden’s authority to remove non-­
compliant fellows from their posts and the weight the warden’s vote ought to
carry in the election of fellows. One of his first letters went to the nonjuror
and former fellow of All Souls (1685–1688) Hugh Wynne. According to Hearne,
Wynne “was deprived of his fellowship at All Souls College, & of his Chancel-
lorship of St Asaph upon the late wicked Revolution for his Loyalty since which
he lived privately for the most part in Oxford.”73 Wynne, who in February 1709
had wished Gardiner “success in his endeavour to promote the clerical order’
at All Souls, now advised that he should have no trouble in declaring a fellow-
ship vacant if the holder refused to take orders.74 Events with Stephens, Dod,
and Blencowe prevented Gardiner from acting on this advice but the senti-
ment was not forgotten. After petitioning the Queen, Gardiner investigated his
rights as warden and the importance of his vote in college elections. One of
the actions that he wished to retain was scrutinizing the votes of fellows. This
meant that once votes were cast, the warden was permitted to see the ballots
before voting himself. The warden never voted blind. In support of his posi-
tion, Gardiner obtained the following declaration:

71 Appeals and Visitors Injunctions, vol. 2, fol. 102. Gardiner to Wake, 28 January 1717 Another
copy of the letter is in Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fol. 92r.
72 I.G. Doolittle, “College Administration,” in Eighteenth Century, 231; Martin and Highfield,
A History of Merton College, Oxford, 255.
73 Thomas Hearne, Reliquiae Hearnianae: The Remains of Thomas Hearne, 3 vols. ed., Philip
Bliss (London, 1869), vol. 2, 113.
74 Wynne to Gardiner, 6 February 1709; Wynne to Gardiner, 8 May 1709 in Catalogue of the
Archive, 333.
134 Chapter 5

at every Election of Scholars into All Souls College Oxon where we have
been present, the Fellows have used to write their Votes promiscuously
into the papers lying before the Warden, as well as before the Deans; and
that ye Warden has always inspected ye scrutinies as well as ye Deans:
and this practice we take to be in Conformity to ye Stat: of Elections.75

Regarding the necessity of the Warden’s positive vote for a candidate fellow,
a number of All Souls alumni wrote to Gardiner with their recollection of
past practices. The letters began arriving in December 1710, which certainly
would have raised Gardiner’s mood as he waited to learn the Blencowe v­ erdict.
­William Richards wrote to Gardiner on 31 December 1710 telling him that “All
ye time I lived in yr College, ye Warden had his Negative Voice in Election of
Fellows; Some of ye Fellows would now & then grumble at it; but I never heard
any one pretend yt it was ever otherwise.”76 William Trumbull, fellow of All
Souls from 1657–70 and mp for Oxford from 1695–8, related that the warden,
“was believed to have a necessary Voice and during my time (and I have of-
ten heard ye same from several Senior Fellows there) this was ye Practice.”77
Similarly Wynne wrote that during his time at All Souls “November 1662 to
November 1691 ye Warden of All Souls College was always accounted to have
a Necessary or Negative Vote in ye Election of Scholars into ye said College.”78
The consensus was that the warden of All Souls held the power to deny a fel-
lowship with his single negative vote.
There was, however, one dissenting opinion. In testimony first recorded on 7
October 1710 Sir Christopher Wren contradicted the others. Wren recalled that,

I do hereby certify, yt ye Warden of All Souls College Oxford whilst I was

Fellow of the same College never us’d a Negative Vote in ye Election of
Fellows into the Said College; nor did I ever hear yt ye said Warden did
claim any such power; but were always conducted & determined by a
Majority of Fellows in Elections.79

75 Wake Correspondence, vol. 16 letter 142, 2. No correspondents.

76 Wake Correspondence, vol. 16 letter 142, 22. William Richards to Gardiner, 31 December
1710.
77 Wake Correspondence, vol. 16 letter 142, 16. William Trumbull to Bernard Gardiner, 2 Janu-
ary 1711; A.A. Hanham, “Trumbull, Sir William (1639–1716),” in The Commons 1690–1715, vol.
5, 691–702.
78 Wake Correspondence, vol. 16 letter 142, 21. Wynne to Gardiner, 20 March 1711.
79 Wake Correspondence, vol. 16 letter 142, 23. “An Account of yt Testimony given by
Sr. Christopher Wren.”
John Stead’s Marriage and Gardiner’s Final Loss of Authority 135

Wren had been elected to his fellowship in 1653 (resigned in 1661), long before
he gained fame as the man who redesigned London following the Great Fire.80
By 1710 he was much absorbed in others matters and perhaps did not give as
much attention to the question as he might have. At least this was Gardiner’s
hope. In response to Wren’s statement Gardiner initiated a small-scale investi-
gation as to why Wren seemed to stand “single against very many Testimonies
of his own time.” Several months passed before Gardiner received a response
from Edmund Halley, the man he had asked to speak to Wren. Since 1704 Halley
held the post of Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford and made his home
in Queen’s College. It is unlikely that he and Gardiner were friends: certainly
they did not move in the same society, nor did they share commonality in poli-
tics or religion.81 But as Warden of All Souls, Gardiner could expect a favour
from one of the university’s leading lights. Halley complied with Gardiner’s
request in a letter dated 5 April 1711. He explained that Wren had been shown
the other accounts which disagreed with what Wren had sent to Gardiner, but
that Wren remained steadfast in his remembrances.

I found him determined to abide by what he has Certified; which as I under-

stand was, That he did not Remember in his time ye Warden: to have used
a Negative Vote; and that if it had been otherwise, he may well have for-
gotten it, being now fourscore; or rather being often absent, it might be, &
he knows nothing of it.

Halley continued to relate that,

he could not remember no otherwise, than he had done, & if he were

mistaken he could not help it. This is all I could make of him, and am
sorry I have been able to render you so little service in this matter….82

Had the news come a month or so earlier, Gardiner might have taken it hard-
er than he appears to have. Timing likely explains why no more came of this
matter. It had been a little more than four weeks since the official verdict had
come from Lord Dartmouth regarding the Queen’s displeasure over Blencowe’s

80 Lisa Jardine, On a Grander Scale: The Outstanding Life of Sir Christopher Wren (New York,
Harper, 2002), 70; Roger White, “Christopher Wren’s Architectural Projects in Oxford” in
All Souls Under the Ancien Régime, 114.
81 Alan Cook, Edmund Halley: Charting the Heavens and the Seas (Oxford, Oxford University
Press, 1998), 321–333.
82 Wake Correspondence, vol. 16 letter 142, 24–25. Edmund Halley to Gardiner, 5 April 1711.
136 Chapter 5

­avoidance of orders. Gardiner no longer needed historical precedent to sup-

port his efforts in making All Souls a pious institution, nor did he need the
agreement of England’s most famous architect; he had received leave from
Queen Anne to act in compliance with the statutes. This was all he wanted
and needed. There is little doubt that Gardiner believed himself to be on solid
ground when he acted against Stead. The belief was misplaced. When Wake
held a visitation in 1716 he denied that the warden had the power to override
the results of college elections, although his veto appears to have been left un-
touched in the order. Nonetheless, Gardiner refused to budge.
Stead duly composed his response in February 1717, making no less than
twenty-eight points in support of his contention that he was the rightful
Bursar of Arts. He argued that all “Electors or, none have negations, there
­being no distinct power given to [the Warden’s] vote, more, than to ye rest.”
He continued: “The plain Consequence of allowing it wou’d be strong strife,
& ­Devolutions. And I believe this Claim of a Negative by every Elector, will be
thought more likely to be the cause of doubting the results of each election.”
Had the Founder intended a negative vote for the warden, he would have made
this clear in the Statutes and not ambiguous, as evident in the very fact that an
appeal to the Visitor was now required to settle the matter. Stead thought it
strange that Gardiner did not quote directly from the Statutes “since the War-
den with regard to the Statutes which he always used to be fond of quoting
w[he]n they serv’d his interests does not decline the thought of producing any
to support his pretended Power….” Yet in this occasion all Gardiner did cite was
“Custom in general” for the Warden’s necessary vote.83
William Piers now re-entered the controversy, writing to Wake on 6 F­ ebruary
to express his concern for the wellbeing of his nieces Barbara and Mary, al-
though following this latest letter he promised not to trouble the Archbishop
with his family’s difficulties. Piers once more described Barbara’s “ruinous Cir-
cumstances” and how the unmarried Mary, watches helplessly as Stead and
Barbara spend her portion of the inheritance. While acknowledging that such
concerns are outside the normal remit of an Archbishop, Piers pleaded with
Wake to help him so that his “unhappy niece may no longer live under ye Scan-
dalous management of so wretched a person.” Mary would be better off under
the care of her father John and uncle William, and the estate itself would bene-
fit. Barbara, he believed, was Stead’s wife and had been for five or six years, but
he could not be sure.84 The timing of the letter is suspicious in that it reached

83 Appeals and Visitors Injunctions, vol. 2, fol. 104. “Mr Stead’s Answers to the Warden’s Rea-
sons for not admitting him Bursar of Arts.”
84 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fol. 100. William Piers to Wake, 6 February 1717.
John Stead’s Marriage and Gardiner’s Final Loss of Authority 137

Wake just as the Archbishop began his deliberations on Stead’s claim to the
rightful Bursar of Arts. Did Gardiner prevail upon Piers to send another letter?
The two were in contact and Gardiner had made frequent efforts on behalf of
the Piers brothers. Was this a case of quid pro quo?
It seems not to matter, because the next letter cast the affair in a different
light. Finally Barbara and Mary Piers told their side of the story in a letter they
sent to Wake. While we cannot be sure this was the sisters’ first letter—in 1714
Stead had intimated that Tenison was in possession of the facts earlier—this
is the only extant piece of correspondence. The letter was written by Mary
and also signed by Barbara. The styles of handwriting are markedly different.
Barbara’s signature is very rough whereas Mary’s hand is refined and elegant.
Much of the letter confirmed the account given by Stead in 1715. The sisters
explained that when their aunt died, her executors “would have played us very
slippery tricks had not Mr Stead showed an early stop of his friendship toward
us by threatening to call them into Chancery.” As to why they did not live with
their uncle or father:

…during the week before [the aunt] died, [she begged] that wee would
not live with our Father; at least during the life of our mother in law. Wee
had very great reason to obey our Aunt’s will because she knows very
well, that had she not brought us up from our infancy, and afterwards …
we had been turned naked into the world … neither our father nor uncle
took any care of us, or any thought of us during our Aunt’s life. Neither do
wee suppose, the concern they seem to have for us att this time arises so
much for the sake of our persons as how they shall get into the possession
of our estate.

The aunt warned the sisters that the father would try to mortgage their estate
and all it held for his advantage. Mary then described how when they lived
with their father for about six months, “we both looked like moving skeletons;
and we believe had we continued there long, we had bin [freed] of our whole
substances….”85 They were coming forward now with their tale of fatherly ne-
glect and abuse to save Stead’s reputation and to ensure that Gardiner did not
deprive him of his College post on the strength of a scandalous rumour initi-
ated by John and William Piers. Referring to Gardiner’s proceedings against
Stead, the women “are afraid so much persecution of this nature, may in time
wear out his [Stead’s] friendship towards us, which must end in our ruin. We
likewise humbly Move your grace to interpose your Authority, that the ­Warden

85 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fol. 101r. Barbara and Mary Piers to Wake, ca. February 1717.
138 Chapter 5

shall not take that liberty, after he has met with so little success, in his daily
quarrels with the Gentleman of his own College, that out of revenge he shall
not dart his poison upon us….”86 Interestingly Mary made no mention of con-
verting to Catholicism. Given that the intent of the letter was to vindicate
Stead, if the rumour of her conversion were true, she would probably have
wanted to remove any responsibility from him, although, given the strength
of anti-Catholic sentiment in the eighteenth century, she may have considered
discretion as the better part of valour. Still it is a noticeable absence in the let-
ter which described the rest of the affair in great detail.
There was still the question of Stead’s election. On 12 February, Bettesworth
sent a copy of Stead’s responses to Gardiner. Knowing from experience that
Gardiner was always liable to bring up seemingly unrelated points, Wake in-
structed Bettesworth to tell the Warden to keep his reply “restrained to what
has been offered by Mr Stead, without aiming at new matters. ” The Visitor
would then announce his decision.87 Eight days later Gardiner acknowledged
receipt of Bettesworth’s letter and promised a response by the end of the
week—adding “His [Stead’s] Answers are long and something out of the way.
I will take up some time in Writing ye Reply.”88
Gardiner attempted to counter every point made by his adversary, in his
reply. Citing precedent, Gardiner quoted Archbishop John Whitgift who had
advised an earlier Warden (Robert Hovenden) “The long continued use and
Custom of your College being the best interpreter of your Founder’s meaning
and Statutes made by him.”89 The remaining seventeen pages mostly repeat
this claim that practises—such as the Warden’s negative vote—that had a long
tradition and were accepted by custom, were as valid as if they had been ex-
plicitly stated in the Statutes. Gardiner concluded somewhat grandly:

let any one compare the description of a Person capable to be Warden,

with the qualifications of one who may be Elected scholar, let him com-
pare the Solemmities of each Election … Let him compare these with the
circumstances in the Election of a Scholar or Fellow, and then judge if
their common Founder esteem’d them to be of the same Orders with the
Warden.90

86 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fol. 102r.

87 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 2, fol. 105. Bettesworth to Gardiner, 12 February 1717.
88 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 2, fol. 106. Gardiner to Bettesworth, 20 February
1717.
89 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 2, fol. 107. “The Reply of Dr. B. Gardiner of All Souls
Coll: Oxford to a Paper Submitted [by] Mr Stead.”
90 Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, vol. 2, fol. 107.
John Stead’s Marriage and Gardiner’s Final Loss of Authority 139

Gardiner finished by claiming that the wellbeing of the college rested upon his
shoulders alone and that this sacred trust meant that his vote had to count for
more than those of fellows.
Not willing to leave the matter alone, Gardiner followed that letter with a
“Humble Petition” dated 23 February. He protested that Stead had extracted his
responses to Gardiner’s arguments to produce several manuscript pamphlets,
each containing unflattering descriptions of the Warden. Gardiner explained
that Stead circulated these writings within All Souls to discredit him in the
eyes of the other fellows. While Gardiner confined his formal reply to Stead’s
arguments, as required by Wake, he felt impelled to send a separate complaint
to the Archbishop about Stead’s behaviour, which “abus’d the said Warden
more than once, twice, thrice, or four times.”91
The resolution to the issue—including an attempt to soothe the Warden’s
bruised ego—finally came in late March 1717 when Gardiner read Wake’s de-
cision to the fellows of All Souls gathered in the Common Hall. In the order,
Wake explained that he considered carefully the testimony of Stead and Gar-
diner, consulted the Statutes, and conferred with “great Number of ye best
Lawyers, as well Common Lawyers, as Citizens; I have examined every thing
that has been offered.” After the preamble, Wake, announced that he “Con-
firmed ye Election of Mr. Stead as Bursar of Arts,” but then immediately con-
demned Stead’s behaviour. Stead had “forgotten ye respect and duty which he
owes to him as a Fellow of his College and I must therefore desire that he may
be admonished by you [Gardiner], as I do hereby myself admonish him of his
fault; and require Him to behave Himself more decently and discreetly towards
ye Warden for ye time to come.” It is easy to imagine Gardiner’s satisfaction
as he read that passage and likely looked directly at Stead, who we know was
in attendance. Nonetheless, despite the gesture to Gardiner, Stead had won
and—what was probably worse—Wake was clearly irritated at being dragged
into what he regarded as a relatively trivial matter and made it clear that he
did not wish to have any future involvement in Gardiner’s seemingly endless
disputes with the fellows: “I shall be very unwilling to pursue this Method any
more hereafter … But indeed I hope your good agreement will prevent both
yourselves, and me, any further trouble of this kind.”92 In other words, Gardin-
er would be on his own to deal with his fellows and election outcomes at the
college. With no prospect of further backing from the visitor, Gardiner gave up,
ceasing to act formally against fellows for their transgressions, or a­ ttempting

91 Appeals and Visitors Injunctions, vol. 2, fol. 108. “The Humble Petition of Bernard Gar-
diner, 23 February 1717.”
92 Warden’s ms 7, entry for 23 March 1717.
140 Chapter 5

to punish them through formal channels. We should also note that in his later
years Gardiner suffered from painful and debilitating flare-ups of gout that cer-
tainly distracted him from the actions of the fellows. The All Souls book that
records disciplinary actions by the Warden contains no entries between March
1717 and 19 December 1738.
After reading the letter from Wake, Gardiner immediately and “Publickly
Admonished” Stead. While the exact words he used are not recorded, the
summary states that Gardiner pointed out Stead’s “past fault mentioned in ye
said Letter; and required to behave himself toward ye Warden for ye time to
come according to the directions of his Grace our Visitor signify’d by ye same
Letter.”93 Here the story should have ended, but there was one final twist. After
receiving his admonition from Gardiner, Stead vanished from All Souls. There
was nothing unusual about this as fellows frequently requested time away from
College. Stead had received permission to be absent on 15 July, 3  ­November
171194 and again on 17 November 1715.95 But now he was gone without notice,
a violation of the terms of his fellowship. Whatever Stead’s reasons for his ab-
sence, Gardiner wanted him back in All Souls so that he could carry out the
duties of Bursar.
Gardiner again wrote to Wake, even though the Archbishop had made it
clear that he wanted the College to settle its own affairs. In discussions on the
matter between Bettesworth and Wake, Bettesworth commented that he was
“humbly of the opinion, that nothing can justify Mr Stead’s continuing in ab-
senting himself from ye duty of His Office ever since his admission thereunto.”96
Bettesworth then explained that, by pure chance, he had encountered Stead
in London the previous day and had advised him that the Archbishop desired
the “Officers of ye College” to “constantly reside” there and fulfill their duties,
especially the Bursars “who have ye management of the revenue of ye House,
& are sworn to a faithful administration.” Stead claimed that his absence was
due to “attending his Patients” as a physician. Reminding Stead of the some-
what unusual, although entirely proper, nature of the dispensation from orders
that allowed him to study and practice medicine, Bettesworth warned him that
Wake would not approve the neglect of responsibilities at All Souls. Gardiner
was already angry, Bettesworth advised him, and, on this occasion, would have
Wake’s full support. Stead understood that this time he could not win against

93 Warden’s ms 7, Admonishment of Stead, March 1717.

94 Warden’s ms 9, entries for 15 July 1711and 3 November 1711.
95 Warden’s ms 10, no folios, entry for 17 November 1715.
96 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fol. 128r. Bettesworth to Wake, 17 April 1717.
John Stead’s Marriage and Gardiner’s Final Loss of Authority 141

the Warden and assured Bettesworth that “He had already taken place in ye fly-
ing coach for to morrow & [promised to] give Your Grace no further Trouble.”97
Stead returned to and took up his duties as Bursar, but, even then, the Gar-
diner was not satisfied. He continued to insist that the dispensation from or-
ders given to Stead had been illegal and on 11 June 1717 sent one last complaint
to Wake—who duly passed it on to Bettesworth. It is clear that Bettesworth
now shared Wake’s irritation with All Souls in general and with its warden in
particular. The tone of Bettesworth’s reply to Gardiner was unfriendly. His an-
noyance was evident when he explained that, during their chance meeting in
London, he had told Stead to return to Oxford, but had said nothing about his
dispensation. Bettesworth’s memory was defective in that his earlier account
of the meeting contains a number of comments on the nature of the dispensa-
tion, a topic that continued to obsess Gardiner. Understandably, Bettesworth
was unwilling to comment on what Stead might have said when he finally re-
turned to All Souls. Gardiner alleged that Stead had boasted to several people
that both Bettesworth and Wake knew that there were serious doubts about
the validity of his dispensation but, largely because they disliked Gardiner, had
declined to do anything about it and sent Stead back to All Souls in order to
make as much trouble as possible for the Warden. Bettesworth denied the al-
legation: “I must add that You Sir mistake me & I could wish it were ye only
misrepresentation I had lay’d under.” He added that the Archbishop of Can-
terbury as Visitor would not “summon a fellow of a College to appear before
him on every complaint” from the Warden. In effect, Bettesworth told Gardiner
that he should put his own College in order and not run to the Visitor for assis-
tance whenever there was a problem. Bettesworth ended with a barbed com-
ment: if the warden had taken the trouble to find indisputable proof of Stead’s
marriage to Barbara Piers—instead of relying on rumour and innuendo—“He
[Stead] must have been dismissed” from his fellowship and the tedious and
time-consuming saga of the election to the Bursarship would have been avoid-
ed.98 This was hardly fair in that it is unlikely that Bettesworth would have
been ignorant of the letter Mary and Barbara had sent to Wake explaining their
living arrangement with Stead and the untrustworthiness of their father and
uncle. Gardiner made no further mention of Stead in his correspondence.
Back at Lambeth, Bettesworth and Wake continued to discuss Gardiner and
the tone of his numerous letters to the Archbishop. Bettesworth’s exaspera-
tion with Gardiner’s persistent writing and all too frequent complaints from
All Souls is very clear. “I dare not make any remarks on ye Warden’s Letter,” he

97 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fol. 129.

98 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fols. 136r–v. Bettesworth to Gardiner, 27 June 1717.
142 Chapter 5

wrote to Wake, “but that ye respects therein shewn to Your Grace is like, that
was usual with him in ye time of my Late Lord; & must humbly [ask] whether
any answer should be given.”99 For Bettesworth, Gardiner’s cavalier attitude
and often-aggressive tone in correspondence with the current Archbishop and
his predecessor Tenison was too much. Silence was a better answer rather than
encouragement, believed Bettesworth. Wake, ever devoted to duty, saw things
differently. Shortly after the advice from Bettesworth, which Wake seems to
have ignored, he wrote words of encouragement to Gardiner. “I shall never
account it any trouble be inform’d by you at any time which you shall think
yourself obliged, by such a Sacred tie, to lay before me,”100 he told the war-
den in what was surely a welcome message. Despite all that had transpired
regarding Stead and Gardiner’s frustration over the whole affair, it seemed
that Wake would lend a sympathetic ear to complaints originating from All
Souls, which may be gleaned from the abundant letters Gardiner dispatched
­subsequently.101 Willingness to listen did not translate into willingness to act,
however, or at least not to act how Gardiner wished. Between them Bettesworth
and Wake contemplated Gardiner’s request for a Visitation to put the college in
compliance with the Founder’s wishes. Writing to Wake, Bettesworth made the
case that since Gardiner was “now in earnest, I humbly submit it to you Grace,
not as my Opinion singly, but as I have therein Ye concurrence of several of ye
most Eminent Civilians, Judges & Advocates, such as have often been engaged
in Visitation work either as Assessors or Council & there best acquainted with
it, that Your Graces as Visitor cannot take notice of everything there enacted”
at All Souls.102 Sometimes, Bettesworth advised, Gardiner would have to clean
up his own mess.
While this episode needs an ending, a definitive one that ties up all the loose
ends is difficult to fashion. Stead kept his fellowship and remained Bursar of
Arts until the end of his one-year term in 1717 (Thomas Newsham replaced
him in 1718). He followed the Bursarship with the position of Proctor.103 Did
Stead’s relationship with Gardiner ever become civil? It is hard to say. But a
clue is found in Gardiner’s will which, written in 1717, requested that the Bur-
sar of Arts be one of his pallbearers.104 This does not necessary mean Stead,

99 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fol. 137. Bettesworth to Wake, 4 July 1717.
100 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fol. 140. Wake to Gardiner, 12 October 1717.
101 See Wake Correspondence, vol. 16, letters 114 and 116 as examples.
102 Wake Correspondence, vol. 16, letter 117. Bettesworth to Wake, 29 January 1718/19.
103 John Le Neve and Thomas Duffus Hardy (eds.), Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, vol. 3 (London,
1854), 497.
104 tna, prob 11/609/146 fol. 73r.
John Stead’s Marriage and Gardiner’s Final Loss of Authority 143

but he did hold the position when Gardiner drafted his will. Although perhaps
we should not make too much of this inclusion because Gardiner requested
other college officers perform the duty too. There was little time for reconcilia-
tion, however: Stead died on 7 October 1718.105 As to Stead’s living arrangement
with Barbara and Mary, there is only speculation. It is doubtful he was married
to Barbara. Following Stead’s death, the point was moot. Barbara did marry a
­William Cary and it seems her sister Mary married William’s brother Peter. The
sisters, now Barbara and Mary Cary, continued to squabble with their father
over their estate and income generated from it.106
What is certain is that this affair represents the last resemblance of Gar-
diner’s authority at All Souls. While he could take some solace from his pub-
lic denunciation of Stead, Gardiner’s personal victory was short-lived. When
Wake held another Visitation in 1719, he removed the Warden’s veto completely
in the selection of any college officer. Given the carnival-like atmosphere sur-
rounding the election of Stead as bursar, this move by Wake is entirely un-
derstandable. Somewhat paradoxically, Wake encouraged Gardiner to present
issues before him. Gardiner was now powerless to prevent persons he might
deem unworthy of being elected to key positions within his college. Reflect-
ing on his position at All Souls that same year, Gardiner moaned to Wake that
“I believe there is hardly such another Instance of trouble given to any Head of
a House in either University, as had been given me these many years.”107 In this
he was right; although much of the trouble he brought on himself.

105 I am grateful to Gaye Morgan, Assistant Librarian and Conservator at the Codrington Li-
brary, All Souls, for the information about Stead’s death which comes from Remarks and
Collections of Thomas Hearne (Oxford: Oxford Historical Society, 1902), vol. 4, 236.
106 tna C11/435/127 fol. 1.
107 Clarke, “Warden Gardiner, All Souls, and the Church, c. 1688–1760,” 205. Wake Correspon-
dence, vol. 16, letter 125. Gardiner to Wake, 30 October 1719.
 Chapter 6

Gardiner and the Attempted Reform of Universities

Exploring further into contemporary events between 1715 and 1719, allows
Archbishop Wake’s rulings against Bernard Gardiner, which resulted in the
loss of much of the warden’s authority within All Souls, to be viewed against is-
sues of national concern that would not be kept at bay by ancient statutes and
venerable college walls. Several related factors, some broad and others specific
to happenings within Oxford help to shine greater light upon the Archbishop’s
actions against Gardiner’s authority regarding college elections and dispen-
sations from orders. Wake’s response reflected the changing realities of Ha-
noverian England: specifically that Parliament was the legislative body of the
­nation and that Erastian views of the Church of England held sway within the
corridors of power.
The attainment of the English crown by the German born George i, the first
member of the House of Hanover to do so, in 1714, caused excitement in some
circles and apprehension combined with inaction in others. Within hours of
Anne’s death on 1 August 1714, several disgruntled Tories and Jacobite sympa-
thizers including the Duke of Ormonde (since 1688 Chancellor of Oxford) and
the Bishop of Rochester Francis Atterbury (formerly Dean of Christ Church
1711–1713) met to discuss what actions could be taken to prevent George from
becoming king. Rebellion from Scotland seemed the only viable option with
Ormonde pegged to take a leading role.1 The conversation was vigorous and
heartfelt, but ultimately it produced little of lasting substance and only the
most serious High-Church Tories saw any hope that their discussed activities
would halt the lawful succession. Even Atterbury, who had argued in support
of elevating the importance of Convocation in the governance structure of the
nation, swore allegiance to the new Hanoverain regime, although he remained
a vocal critic of it. The bishop’s Tory stance and High-Church views made his
loyalty suspect in the eyes of the Whigs who would soon dominate the ad-
ministration.2 What is more, Atterbury’s association with Christ Church and
that college’s Tory reputation, further cast a cloud of suspicion over Oxford as
a whole. How much the university identified with Atterbury is questionable,

1 Archiblad S. Foord, His Majesty’s Opposition, 1714–1830 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964),
15, 44.
2 Jeffrey R. Wigelsworth, Deism in Enlightenment England: Theology, Politics, and Newtonian
Public Science (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009), 30–31.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004375352_008

Gardiner and the Attempted Reform of Universities 145

however. He is reputed to have been the “most unpopular head” in “five centu-
ries” of Christ Church’s history, a man for whom politics was always a greater
attraction than academics. His tenure as Dean was marked by attempts to exert
sole control over all aspects of college governance and no tear was shed when
Queen Anne appointed him Bishop of Rochester in 1713. Atterbury’s successor
George Smalridge had little political ambition and looked to calmly steer the
college through the Hanoverian succession by stepping Christ Church away
from politics and toward academics.3 In the immediate period surrounding
the succession, what was worse for the university’s reputation than Atterbury’s
part in the opposition to George i was Chancellor Ormonde’s role. When the
abortive Atterbury Plot designed to restore the Stuarts, became known and
halted in 1722, however, many observers had their suspicions about the institu-
tion further confirmed.
George i had the distinction of being the first monarch to ascend to the
throne in accordance with the terms set out in the Act of Settlement. In other
words, his attainment of the crown came by act of Parliament and not through
an act of God or by right of dynastic succession. He accepted that the con-
ditions of his rule were crafted to limit his individual power and strengthen
the liberties of his subjects. But George i was hardly a prize. Aside from his
Protestant beliefs, there was little for the English public to adore about their
new king: he spoke no English, refused to learn, his marriage was a farce, and
his mistresses were an embarrassment. Jacobites argued for English pride and
played upon German stereotypes in their earliest reactions against George i,
who at age fifty-four, they claimed, would not be one for new tricks.4
For hardnosed Jacobites who still saw the son of James ii, James Francis Ed-
ward, known to historians as the Old Pretender, as their rightful king, the sight
of George i was almost too much to bear when he finally set foot in England
on 18 September, a full seven weeks after Queen Anne’s death. Nonetheless,
James, styled James iii by his supporters, refused to abandon his Catholicism
as a means of winning over the nation, which might have rallied around an-
other Stuart monarch had fears of Rome and popish conspiracies not made
the present option disagreeable. Robert Harley, political pragmatist that he
was, knew that there could be no Stuart resurrection. James iii was too French
to be trusted to uphold the constitution of England and, as the memory of

3 Judith Curthoys, The Cardinal’s College: Christ Church, Chapter and Verse (London: Profile
Books, 2012), 148–155.
4 Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992),
46, 47; Hannah Smith, Georgian Monarchy: Politics and Culture, 1714–1760 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2006), 2, 6.
146 Chapter 6

James ii demonstrated, the security of “our religion … cannot be under a

Papist.”5 Loyalty to the Stuarts in Scotland, however, had many true believers
willing to hold their Protestant noses and fight to put James upon the throne.
Led by the Duke of Ormonde and the Earl of Mar, the Jacobite rising of 1715,
known simply as the ’15, hoped for victory with the aid of France. It was not to
be. The death of the French king Louis xiv in September 1715 resulted in his
young great-grandson becoming monarch. With the Duke of Orleans fulfill-
ing the role of regent, the early years of Louis xv lacked the aggressive foreign
policy and appetite for war that had characterized the last years of the former
king. Jacobites waited in vain for French help that never came. What might
have been a major turning point in English history became a cautionary tale
to be on alert for Jacobites whose calls of usurpation were louder than their
ability to carry out the task. Ormonde fled to France after being declared a
traitor and charged with High Crimes and Misdemeanours. Still, even the hint
of Jacobitism cast suspicion upon any group (particularly Tories), institution,
or indeed college that appeared not sufficiently pleased that George i was the
new king long past any legitimate prospective of Jacobite uprisings.6
In September 1714 Whigs replaced Tories in the ministry of George i, who
made no secret of his impatience with Tory sanctimony and their often stub-
born devotion to Stuarts that to him seemed more Jacobite than anything else.
The new king also distrusted Tories because of their willingness to make sepa-
rate peace with France during the War of the Spanish Succession and thereby
abandon England’s allies, including Hanover. One of the crown’s powers that
remained intact in Hanoverian England was the ability of the king to choose
his own ministers. This was the key to the governance of the nation because
George i both ruled with and dispensed favours through his ministers. None-
theless, the king remained the heart of politics.7 It was no surprise then that
Whigs came to control the Privy Council, which was reduced by George from
the eighty it had been under Anne to thirty-two. The decrease by more than
half meant that every place was even more important than it had been under
the previous regime and the holders of these precious positions had coveted
access to George. The recently created Cabinet, however, carried out the real

5 H.T. Dickinson, Liberty and Property: Political Ideology in Eighteenth-Century Britain (New
York: Holmes and Meier Publishers, 1977), 41. Harley quoted in Linda Colley, In Defiance of
Oligarchy: The Tory Party 1714–1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 42.
6 W.A. Speck, Stability and Strife: England, 1714–1760 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1977), 169–170; Foord, His Majesty’s Opposition, 65.
7 John M. Beattie, The English Court in the Reign of George i (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1967), 3, 217; Foord, His Majesty’s Opposition, 17.
Gardiner and the Attempted Reform of Universities 147

day-to-day business of the nation. Here too Whigs dominated. Those possess-
ing political power attracted followers and built networks sustained by pa-
tronage, the promise of patronage, and the putting in of a good word with the
monarch. Networks of loyalty extended from the corridors through which mps
walked to the manicured grounds of All Souls. Colouring all of these personal
interactions were party allegiances.
The first general election of George’s reign (royal proclamation issued on 15
January 1715) returned a Whig majority; when the House of Commons opened
on 15 March 1715, 341 Whigs opposed 217 Tories. While the Tories formed a for-
midable opposition for a while, the ’15 rebellion in the autumn meant that
Whig accusations of Tory disloyalty to the crown found a receptive audience.
With the last Tory minister removed in 1716, all of those men to whom Anne
had turned following the Sacheverell affair lost their places. These were also
the men who had created the political atmosphere in which Gardiner proceed-
ed against William Blencowe and who had buoyed his attempts to return All
Souls to the institution envisaged by its founder. Now the situation was quite
a bit different. For the first time in English history, there were no holdovers
from the previous rule. The political slate was wiped clean and the new office
holders were keen to maintain their places and keep their Whig colleagues in
the ascendency. Even at a more local level Whigs replaced Tories as Justices of
Peace. How long would it be before attempts were made to bring Oxford’s col-
leges onside with the growing Whig oligarchy?
Included among the Whigs who now formed the near monolithic admin-
istration was Lord Sunderland, who had been Blencowe’s champion and Gar-
diner’s irritant. The formation of a nearly single-party government, famously
described by J.H. Plumb as “the growth of political stability”, left little appetite
for the Tory exclusionary mind-set in politics and religion, especially follow-
ing the ’15 and the discovery in 1717 of another planned, but never enacted,
Swedish-supported Jacobite rebellion.8 To ensure that they would have time
to deliver on their agenda, and maintain access to the monarch, Whigs passed
the Septennial Act on 7 May 1716 (all of the remaining 147 Tories voted against
it), which expanded the former Triennial Act: “this present parliament, and all
parliaments that shall at any time hereafter be called, assembled or held, shall
and may respectively have continuance for seven years….”9 One of the reasons

8 Letters Which passed between Count Gyllenborg, the Barons Gortz, Sparre, and Others; Relating
to the Design of raising a Rebellion in his Majesty’s Dominions, to be supported by a Force from
Sweden (London, 1717).
9 “The Septennial Act, 1716” in The Eighteenth-Century Constitution 1688–1815, ed. E. Neville
Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960), 189.
148 Chapter 6

offered for this legislation, other than naked political ambition, included the
uncertainty of renewed Jacobite challenges, which could be answered only by
a strong Whig administration that could not be distracted by more frequent
electioneering. Their seats secure for the better part of a decade, Whigs quickly
made it clear that Tory-backed laws designed to limit religious choice based on
obsolete notions of a confessional state would be undone. That legislated tol-
eration of Protestants, at least partially, would be the order of the day became
clear when, in 1719, the Occasional Conformity Act was revoked. As Geoffrey
Holmes put it, the “most strident and divisive voices” in the English Church had
been “stifled.”10 Taking such an egalitarian line with the Anglican Church was
part of the governance strategy adopted by George i and later George ii, as the
work of Hannah Smith illustrates. Smith suggests that the first two Hanove-
rian monarchs “rejected sacrality” in their reigns, which is to say that they did
not characterise their rule within the same religious terms as was more com-
mon with former kings. With an outward-looking focus on the Continental,
George i brought a new approach to the English monarchy that emphasised
“militarism, anti-sacralism, and frugality” which he carried with him from Ger-
many and which Frederick the Great would make into an “Enlightened style
of kingship.”11 As others have noted, good citizenship under George i became
characterised by “thrift, honestly and industry” and that forcing ideals upon
people would not achieve its desired end of strengthening the nation through
religious uniformity or passive obedience. England’s virtue was greater than
any individual and the nation would survive without everyone in agreement.12
In this new political milieu Gardiner faced challenges to this authority; it was
no longer the post-Sacheverell political world in which he had thrived.
Wake’s rebukes to Gardiner are linked to unsuccessful attempts in March
1717 and January 1719 to achieve closer administrative control over the univer-
sities, precipitated, in part, by riots occurring in Oxford during 1715. On the
accession of George i, Gardiner—by then also Vice-Chancellor of Oxford

10 John Spurr, The Post-Reformation: Religion, Politics and Society in Britain, 1603–1714 (Har-
low: Longman, 2006), 218; J.H. Plumb, The Growth of Political Stability in England 1675–1725
(London: Macmillan, 1967); Geoffrey Holmes, The Making of a Great Power: Late Stuart
and early Gregorian Britain 1660–1722 (London: Longman, 1993), 365; John Brewer, Party
Politics and Popular Politics at the Accession of George iii (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1976), 41.
11 Smith, Georgian Monarchy, 15, 245.
12 Shelly Burtt, Vritue Transformed: Political Argument in England, 1688–1740 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1992), 160–161; Peter N. Miller, Defining the Common Good:
Empire, Religion, and Philosophy in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1994).
Gardiner and the Attempted Reform of Universities 149

(1712–15)—sent strong pledges of loyalty to the new monarch. Even Tories like
William Bromley, who had apprised Gardiner of the efforts to introduce a bill
into the House of Commons designed to remove the requirement of fellows
to take orders, declared allegiance. Although Bromley continued to hold his
post as Secretary of State during the brief regency period between the death
of Anne and the arrival of George i, he declined to serve in the new king’s ad-
ministration even though he was one of the few Tories to be offered a place.13
Yet not all of Oxford was so exuberant. Some rogue preachers within the uni-
versity proclaimed George i to be a tyrant and usurper. Correspondence sent
to Archbishop Wake described unnamed “Scholars hissing and rude behaviour
to Persons of the best quality in the University.”14 The mayor of Oxford, Rich-
ard Broadwater, received an anonymous letter, dated 2 August 1714 (the day
after Anne’s death), ordering him to proclaim James iii the rightful king or face
unspecified harm. The new mayor, Daniel Webb (term began September 1714)
ignored the advice given to his predecessor and on 20 October 1714 attended
the coronation of George i where he assumed the traditional role in the pro-
ceedings afforded to the Mayor of Oxford: he served as one of the butlers at the
Coronation dinner, a task for which he received a knighthood.
Within months of Webb’s return to Oxford, tempers had not cooled. George i
remained controversial within the city and colleges. On 28 May 1715 the newly
formed Constitution Club—whose membership consisted of staunch Whigs
with republican leanings—celebrated George i’s birthday with a grand bonfire.
Oxford’s sky regularly glowed with fires during the eighteenth-century, often
ignited following various feasts marking special occasions.15 What transpired
at these specific festivities remains a matter of some conjecture with compet-
ing accounts laying claim to the truth. Those who had sympathy toward the
club recalled that as the flames burned, an angry mob marched toward them
chanting political slogans such as “down with Whigs”, “No George” and “James
forever.” Bathed by the firelight, the mob smashed windows and ransacked a
Presbyterian meetinghouse. Such acts of violence were common occurrences
at celebratory events where often the revellers included opportunistic petty
criminals as well as enthusiastic supporters of the particular anniversary.16
Others, who had no ties to the Constitution Club, claimed that club members

13 Speck, Stability and Strife, 172.

14 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fol. 3. “The Present State of the University of Oxford.”
15 W.N. Hargreaves-Mawdsley, Oxford in the Age of John Locke (Norman: University of Okla-
homa Press, 1973), 29.
16 Alexandra Walsham, Charitable Hatred: Toleration and Intolerance in England, 1500–1700
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006), 131–132.
150 Chapter 6

themselves instigated the violence through specific acts of provocation: burn-

ing effigies of Henry Sacheverell and of Queen Anne, for example. No one
seems to have disputed the destruction caused by opponents of the club. The
only unresolved question was whether the club itself bore some responsibil-
ity for inflaming tensions. As it so happened the next night, 29 May, was the
anniversary of the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660. On this occasion sup-
porters of the Stuarts assembled on Oxford’s streets. The gathering soon be-
came unruly and the crowd shattered any window not illuminated in honour
of Charles ii’s return from exile following the conclusion of the failed repub-
lican experiment under the Cromwell Protectorate. After this forty-eight hour
period of unrest, the order came from London that the university and Webb,
as mayor, must condemn both the violence and those who would take up the
cause of the Stuarts. Although it is difficult to say with certainly how Jacobite
Oxford was in reality, the university was now under the microscope of parti-
san suspicion focused on the institution by Whigs in London.17 While George i
did not seek to create “an official culture of loyalism” as that attempted by
James ii, for example, the Hanoverian monarchs did impart a profound “zeal”
to please them, as Smith notes. What is more, the perceived pressure within
many corners of England to appear loyal was immense. Because faithfulness
and dutifulness to the monarch and his administration were not dispensed as
top-down attributes during the reign of George i, they became a “commercial
commodity” that the king’s subjects utilized “as a tool for negotiation, express-
ing allegiance and gratitude.”18 Without the monarch attempting to win loyalty
through actions that were meant to create dedicated followers, it was up to
individuals to show it in themselves and in the institutions they managed.
Gardiner felt the gaze most acutely after Bromley urged him to take what-
ever action was necessary to halt the activities of those who threatened to
blacken Oxford’s reputation. As Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, Gardiner now car-
ried on with the task of rooting out and then reprimanding any student or
fellow who showed signs of disaffection toward the monarch. His was a task
undertaken in solitude because he had no Chancellor with whom he might
confer. While it is true that a Chancellor had many public and ceremonial du-
ties, the day-to-day running of the university rested with the Vice-Chancellor.
Such responsibilities could be grand, as Gardiner faced in 1715, or somewhat
more mundane. One of the responsibilities of the Vice Chancellor was to re-
solve financial disputes involving members of the university. In 1719 Gardiner

17 Robin Darwall-Smith, A History of University College, Oxford (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 2008), 242.
18 Smith, Georgian Monarch, 245.
Gardiner and the Attempted Reform of Universities 151

had to settle a quarrel that revolved around “Mr Holands Bill to Mr Thornwith
for Teaching him upon the Lute.”19 In addition Gardiner was one of the Del-
egates of the University Press from 1712–1726 and continued to be Keeper of the
Archives until 1726. The duties of being a Delegate were not onerous, but they
did involve meetings throughout the year.20 These and similar matters paled
in comparison to pressure Gardiner faced in 1715 from the administration and
once more found himself defending the honour of the institution. Looking up
from London, Oxford seemed to harbour dubious loyalty to the new monarch
and that pro-Stuart shouts amongst the crowd that smashed a few windows
was symptomatic of a larger disease called disaffection. Gardiner’s solitude re-
sulted from the fact that the current Chancellor of Oxford was a fugitive. The
absentee Chancellor was none other than James Butler, the Second Duke of
Ormonde, whose command of the Jacobite forces during the failed ’15 had him
fleeing to safety in France. The public head of the university had tried to over-
throw George i. What was more, Wake received a number of letters from con-
cerned observers at Oxford. The following is typical: “You cannot be ignorant
of the deplorable condition of the University of Oxford, in which there is an
entire opposition to His Majesty & His Government … The Principles of Rebel-
lion are diffused from hence thro[ugh] the whole Nation.” The correspondent
went further and suggested, “this is a matter of so much consequence that it
should be worth the Government’s while to look after it. The Peace of the king-
dom does in a great measure depend upon amending the Universities, for one
of these things will inevitably follow, that the King must lose his crown of this
University must be Reform’d.”21 Could there be any wonder why Gardiner felt
pressure to affirm Oxford’s loyalties? Moreover, it was common knowledge that
University College had provided Henry Sacheverell more than £32 to help with
the cost of his defence during the 1710 affair and that college’s Master, Arthur
Charlett, was reputed to have toasted Ormonde’s health during a meal with the
Dean of Christ Church.22 Ormonde himself was known to have lodged at All
Souls when he visited Oxford.
Without a sitting Chancellor, Gardiner declared the office vacant and a new
election was held. After counting the ballots Ormonde’s brother, Lord Arran,

19 bl Add. ms 29604 fols. 41–48, Vice Chancellor of Oxford Court.

20 The History of the Oxford University Press, vol. 1, Beginnings to 1780, ed. Ian Gadd (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2013), 638, 641, 643.
21 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fols. 5–6. J. Russell to Wake, 27 November 1715. Nigel Aston,
“Queen Anne and Oxford: The Royal Visit 1702 and its Aftermath,” Journal for Eighteenth-
Century Studies 37, no 2 (2014), 179.
22 Darwall-Smith, A History of University College, 242, 243.
152 Chapter 6

recently Master-General of the Ordnance (1712–1714), won by a landslide. This

was just one of many of his brother’s former titles and honours that Arran re-
ceived. While Gardiner was pleased to have the position filled, perhaps he was
not pleased with the occupant. Like his brother, Arran was a hardnosed Tory
who held out no olive branch to Whigs.23 Not surprisingly, Whig officials and
mps continued to see Oxford University as a breeding ground for disaffected
political action. Such was the impression Gardiner had to dissuade.
Oxford’s reputation so concerned Gardiner that he authored a short pam-
phlet in 1717, which outlined the events described above with the goal of re-
storing the university’s credibility with George i. He explained that rather
than condoning the actions of those who would slander the name and title of
George i (Gardiner noted that it was no more than a few individuals and hardly
endemic) university officials were determined to discover “any such Persons,
as may have given Offence to the Government, since His Majesty’s happy Ac-
cession to the Throne.”24 In addition to his narrative account, Gardiner includ-
ed transcribed documents relating to the period of unrest to strengthen his
case. The documents detail how, upon receiving the threatening letter, which
advised Broadwater as mayor at the time to “delay proclaiming Hanover as
long as you can … for you cannot do it without certain hazard of your life…”,
he immediately contacted Gardiner as Vice-Chancellor of Oxford to express
his outrage.25 Gardiner then convened a meeting to “Discover the Author or
Authors of the said Letter” who claimed of themselves in the letter that “we
are many.” In the hopes of speeding up the process and to provide an incentive
to would be informers, Gardiner authorised a reward of £100 to anyone who
could provide the names of the letter’s author or authors.
Afterward, he contacted Bromley, at this time still Secretary of State for the
Northern Department, to describe these events. In his reply Bromley assured
Gardiner that “it could not be doubted by any who have a true Knowledge of
our University, but you would your Selves act according to the Principles of
Loyalty you instill in those committed to your Care.”26 To ensure that George
i himself knew of Oxford’s loyalty, Gardiner had “The Humble Address of the
Chancellors, Masters, and Scholars of the University of Oxford” presented to

23 The summation of this episode comes from Ward, Georgian Oxford, 53–59; P. Langford,
“Tories and Jacobites 1714–1751,” in Eighteenth Century, 103–105.
24 Bernard Gardiner, A Plain Relation of Some Late Passages at Oxford (Oxford, 1717), 1.
25 “Copy of a Treasonable Letter deliver’d at the Mayor’s House” in Gardiner, A Plain Rela-
tion, Appendix, 1.
26 “Copy of Mr. Secretary Bromley’s Letter to the Vice-Chancellor,” in Gardiner, A Plain Rela-
tion, Appendix, 2.
Gardiner and the Attempted Reform of Universities 153

the king on 24 September 1714. George I was satisfied and replied that “I am
highly pleased with the Assurances of Duty so Affectionately express’d in your
Address. You could not have given me a more satisfactory Instance of it.”27
When the riots of 28 and 29 May occurred in 1715 Gardiner explained to Lord
Townshend, who had replaced Bromley as Secretary of State for the North-
ern Department as part of the purging of Tories from the administration, how
he was “very much Concern’d to hear of the Disorders which have happen’d
There…” and that he would “make Enquiry after the Persons, who have been
Guilty of those Offenses.”28 Not only would Gardiner initiate the inquiry, he
and Charlett advised Oxford tutors to be attentive to the actions of their pu-
pils and every college official was to be watchful of any Oxford student they
encountered with the city.29 Their efforts appear to have had the desired effect
because Charlett could write about the “Flourishing State of … All Souls” in
correspondence sent about this same time.30
The Vice-Chancellor’s pledge and other action aimed at demonstrating loy-
alty to George I were not enough and a Grand Jury assembled at the Oxford
Assizes on 5 August 1715 to investigate the matter and hear testimony. The con-
clusion reached was that,

the late Tumultuous and Riotious Proceeding in this City, had their first
Rise from a sett of Men, whose Principles are Opposed to Monarchy, and
all good Orders and Government; shrouding their ill Designs under the
specious Name of a Constitution-Club … That the Vice-Chancellor and
Governors of the University, have Proceeded according to their Statutes,
and will inflict the severest Punishments upon all, who shall be found to
have Offended.31

Gardiner’s efforts carried the day. The Grand Jury agreed that he and the uni-
versity were not to blame for the actions of a few hot-headed Jacobite plotters
whose voices were likely stronger than their desire for treason. At the end of
1715 Gardiner had done all he could to assure the monarchy and administration

27 “To which Address His Majesty was Pleased to return the following most Gracious
Answer,” in Gardiner, A Plain Relation, Appendix, 4.
28 “Copy of a Letter from Dr. Gardiner, the Vice Chancellor, to My Lord Townshend,”
in ­Gardiner, A Plain Relation, Appendix, 7.
29 “Programma,” in Gardiner, A Plain Relation, Appendix, 6.
30 Bod. Ballard ms 4, fol. 121v. Thomas Tanner to Arthur Charlett, 30 April 1715.
31 “Representation of the Grand-Jury at Oxford Assizes,” in Gardiner, A Plain Relation,
­Appendix, 9.
154 Chapter 6

of Oxford’s loyalty. Nonetheless, this did not safeguard his authority within
All Souls. When Wake confirmed the previous ruling that Gardiner could no
longer veto dispensations from orders and removed the warden’s veto over all
college elections in 1716, ostensibly over the tediousness of the John Stead af-
fair, the trustworthiness of Oxford to manage its own affairs to the satisfactory
desire of the crown as prominently displayed in spring of 1715 could not have
been far from his mind.
At the same time as these events, political manoeuvring occurred within
Merton College, especially while John Holland was warden. In contrast to the
troublesome relationship that he experienced with Gardiner, Archbishop Teni-
son believed that Holland was someone with whom he could work produc-
tively. The evidence suggests he was correct. Holland, a known Whig, became
warden in 1709 when Tenison chose him from the list of three candidates pro-
posed by the Senior Fellows of the college, as was the usual practice. From this
time onward Merton was reliable in its support for the Whig cause. In an age of
political strife, this was a great coup for the Whigs, who thereby gained influ-
ence in an Oxford college later renowned for its wealth, even if during the early
eighteenth century money was something of a problem. According to a 1715
description, Merton was one of very few Oxford colleges “whose heads are not
violent Tories or Jacobites.”32 That Merton was Whig in the eighteenth century
set it in good standing in many of London’s political circles, but in Oxford itself
some imagined that the college was keeping tabs on anything that seemed to
indicate dissatisfaction with the current administration.33 Following a series of
physician wardens, Holland, who was a theologian, attempted to bring a new
sense of identity and obligation to the fellows. His epitaph describes him as:

a serious theologian who adhered closely to orthodoxy, a fluent and lively

speaker. As far as his character and behaviour were concerned, he was
endowed with a kindly and gentle nature which he improved by applica-
tion. He very rarely took offense, and if he did so, soon put the matter out
of his mind and completely forgot it. Even those who were opposed to
him he treated so kindly that you would have thought that he also loved
them according to the rule of scripture.34

32 Georgian Oxford, 40, 99; Paul Langford, “Tories and Jacobites 1714–1751,” Eighteenth Cen-
tury, 99–127, 105.
33 Evans, Oxford, 186.
34 G.H. Martin & J.R.L. Highfield, A History of Merton College, Oxford (Oxford, 1997), 237–238.
Gardiner and the Attempted Reform of Universities 155

In comparison with Gardiner, Holland was something of a calming force, but

he too would be embroiled in controversy.
Under Holland’s wardenship, it was almost unheard of for a Tory to be elected
to a vacant fellowship at Merton. Indeed, Holland took pleasure in ensuring
the election of Whig fellows even in cases where the Tories seemed on the rise.
Such was the case during the 1716 elections, which attracted many interested
onlookers.35 In a November 1715 letter to Archbishop Tenison, one anonymous
observer—“I do not think fit to add my name, for fear it become Known”—­
expressed anxiety that the University of Oxford had been infected with strong
opposition to the king and that the “Principles of Opposition have taken deep-
er Root than You or any Person else can imagine.” Moreover, open expressions
of support for the failed Jacobite rising in Scotland were said to be encouraged
amongst the study body. To stop this perceived spread of High-Church senti-
ment, the battle would have to be waged at the level of college elections, or so
the correspondent argued, and at Merton specifically. “There will presently af-
ter Christmas”, he explained, “be a New Election of 7 or perhaps 8 New Fellows”
and “if it will be a Tory Election … the College is lost forever.”36 As warden, Hol-
land might ensure a Whig majority, but his character appeared to be an issue.
“[D]r Holland the Warden is (I think) an Honest Man, But he’s timorous, wants
courage; or else encouragement, to stem the Tyde that runs violently against
him. And this might & ought to be given him, by His Grace, a Secretary of
State, or some Person in Authority.”37 To bolster Holland’s fortitude, a show of
support was requested so that he would find the courage to halt the perceived
spread of Toryism at Oxford. It turned out that such official intervention was
not needed, not least because Tenison’s anonymous correspondent had under-
estimated Holland’s resolve.
With Holland’s vote, one of the fellowships went to Thomas Herne. Herne
earned a ba at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in 1715, before moving to Ox-
fordshire. He served as tutor to the grandson of William, Lord Russell (who had
been executed in 1683 for his part in the Rye House Plot) at the likely behest
of Russell’s widow.38 This pedigree made Herne something of a minor Whig

35 Georgian Oxford, 100; G.V. Bennett, “Against the Tide: Oxford under William iii,” in Eigh-
teenth Century, 47.
36 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15 fols. 4r–v. J.R. to Thomas Tenison, “The Present State of the
University of Oxford,” 27 November 1715.
37 J.R. to Thomas Tenison, “The Present State of the University of Oxford,” fol. 4v.
38 W.C. Sydney, “Herne, Thomas (d.1722),” rev. S.J. Skedd, odnb [http://www.oxforddnb.com/
view/article/13087, accessed 24 Nov 2011].
156 Chapter 6

celebrity and no doubt a candidate whom Holland desired to have a place in

Merton. Although Herne would take his fellowship and eventually proceed to
an ma on 11 October 1718, the path travelled to get there contained many twists
and obstacles. The importance of Herne being allowed to hold the fellowship
was enormous because the number of known Tories elected was dangerously
close to the number of Whigs, and in this high-stakes game, a single fellow-
ship might tip the balance.39 The Tory fellows went on the offensive, writing
to whomever they could in an attempt to bar Herne’s election as a fellow.
By 13 February 1716, officials had grown weary of such tactics; Lord Somers di-
rected that Holland’s choice of Herne be accepted and the matter ended.40
Holland’s supporters believed that “if we want Whigs’ he “will be glad with all
his soul to make them” more easily obtain fellowships.41 While some Senior
Fellows disapproved of the attempts made on behalf of Herne, the opposition
actually brought others to his side—“The less encouragement that Mr Hern
[sic] meets with from others makes me the more warm in his Cause”, as one
put it—in the end the fellows agreed to elect Herne.42 Herne continued to be
a subject of interest for Holland as the warden duly recorded his 1720 death in
the Register, one of only a few such occurrences where the death of a fellow
merited a notation. While this episode lends credence to an early twentieth-
century assessment that “Merton no [longer] figured prominently in big politi-
cal movements” of the eighteenth century, it does show that the college was
not immune to their effects.43
Wake’s order to Gardiner, regarding the warden’s ability to override college
elections, and the political interest in fellowship elections at Merton, also sig-
nalled that changes were in the works to bring Oxford (and Cambridge) under
closer control of the monarch and administration. In one example from either
late 1715 or early 1716 William Fleetwood, Bishop of Ely, a steadfast Whig and
strong supporter of the Hanoverian succession, wrote to William Wake that,
“15 B[isho]ps, had thought it reasonable that the King should have the Dis-
posal of all Offices, Headships, & Scholarships & within the 2 Universities” for
a period of seven years to ensure that both bodies were sufficiently faithful to

39 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15 fol. 49r. “The Names of the Senior Fellows Of Merton
College.”
40 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15 fol. 51r. Edward Tenison to William Wake, 13 February 1716.
41 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15 fols. 52r–v. Extracted from a letter to Dr Wyntle, sent from
Oxford, 10 February 1716.
42 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15 fol. 53v. Extracted from Dr Wyntle’s Letter to Dr Tenison, no
date.
43 Henry Julian White, Merton College, Oxford (1906; Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2010), 84–85.
Gardiner and the Attempted Reform of Universities 157

the crown.44 While this did not proceed past the conversational stage, the idea
would reappear a short while later.
The reason why the Bishop of Ely and others sought to establish more con-
trol within Oxford and its colleges, relates back to the English Revolution of
1688. There was never any serious debate about the monarch remaining the
head of government and that the mechanisms of governance would similar-
ly continue intact following the revolution.45 Yet, in a major re-evaluation of
events, Steve Pincus argues that the actions constitute a modern revolution
because of their duration and long-term consequences (intended and not)
and the fact that the protagonists “wanted to radically remake English state
and society.”46 James ii saw the best governance strategy was one that relied
upon a strong and nearly absolute English monarchy, which promoted reli-
gious pluralism (albeit with sympathy toward Catholics) and worked through
a sizeable bureaucracy. When he became sovereign William iii agreed that
bureaucracy would define England, but he accepted that the institutions of
that ­bureaucracy, particularly Parliament, would have independence from the
crown and that religious toleration (with complete Protestant priority, rather
than James’ insistence that Catholics be included) would carry the day. The
two men also differed in conceptions of political economy that are not ger-
mane to issues that troubled Gardiner. One of the unexpected consequences
of William’s arrival, as I have argued in this book, was that Gardiner believed
that All Souls would be immune to many of the “modern” changes wrought by
the events of 1688, and that rather than looking forward to the dawn of a new
era, he wished to turn back the clock to a time before James ii’s behaviour
necessitated a Dutch invasion. While Gardiner welcomed the arrival of Wil-
liam and the subsequent Revolution, his understanding of its meaning was not
one shared by later administrations. For Gardiner the importance of 1688 was
the safeguarding of the Anglican Church and the institutions that sustained
it, All Souls College for example, from Catholic impositions. His position is ex-
plained in the interpretation offered by Tim Harris who suggests that James’s
biggest mistake was a failure to see that the monarchy’s power was based on
“an alliance between the crown and the Tory-Anglican interest.”47 Nowhere in
Gardiner’s assessment of events did he believe that post-1688 England would

44 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15 fol. 8, William, Bishop of Ely to Wake, nd.

45 J.H. Plumb, Sir Robert Walpole, The Making of a Statesman (London: Allen Lane, 1956), 42.
46 Steve Pincus, 1688: The First Modern Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009),
474, 485, 486.
47 Tim Harris, Revolution: The Great Crisis of the British Monarchy, 1685–1720 (London:
Penguin, 2006), 29.
158 Chapter 6

continue the hands-on approach in running the nation that James ii had at-
tempted. Nor would he have expected that Parliament became the instru-
ment of this management. Gardiner was part of the “countermovement [that]
was aligned against” James’ remaking of England, to borrow Scott Sowerby’s
phrase. This “countermovement” attitude continued to colour Gardiner’s view
of things long after James had sailed for France. His desire to see to the reestab-
lishment of an Anglican centred state in which All Souls provided the clerics
who would sustain it, explains many of his actions. Nonetheless, as the gover-
nance of England became more and more a matter of election outcomes and
party wrangling in the House of Commons, the need to consolidate political
resources of all types, university positions included, into one manageable asset
became obvious, at least to the monarch and his or her servants. As Pincus re-
veals, James attempted to modernize the English bureaucracy by replacing lo-
cal figures who owed their positions to community connections, with experts
of known credentials and ideological agendas. James lost the confidence of
the nation in his insistence that these mandarins must be Roman Catholic, but
what he began was too good an idea to simply abandon in the post-1688 era.
Modernization, and the centralization of the national bureaucracy as Harris
has styled it, was the new reality, albeit within a Protestant confession and us-
ing the same instruments that James had supported.48 Gardiner thought differ-
ently and expected more autonomy for his running of All Souls.
In 1717 and 1719 Thomas Parker, Lord Chief Justice (1710–1718) and later First
Earl of Macclesfield, made a number of suggestions for “amendments in the
statutes” of the universities. Parker has connections to earlier events. He served
as an mp for Derby from 1705–1710. His ability as a lawyer and debater, nursed
in Lord Sunderland thoughts of proposing Parker as Speaker of the House, al-
though this came to nought. Parker was also close to Sunderland’s in-laws, John
and Sarah Churchill, the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough. Parker’s letters to
the Duchess overflow with flowery prose and salutations that stand out in an
age where “I am your most humble and obedient servant” concluded even the
most causal correspondence. “Your Grace is infinitely good: … I am beyond ye
power of words to express…”; “You do me too much Honour, but no Mortall can
be more sensible of it,” he wrote to her.49 When discussing the Duke, Parker
was equally exuberant: Marlborough “was certainly (tis u ­ nquestionable) the

48 Harris, Revolution, 516. Harris and Pincus hold differing interpretations of the 1688 Revo-
lution and I do not meant to suggest agreement on their part by combing their assess-
ments here.
49 See bl Add. ms 61469 fols. 27 and 30 as examples.
Gardiner and the Attempted Reform of Universities 159

greatest General the world ever saw: the Heroes of Antiquity cannot by any
measure Stand the Comparison with him; victory constantly attended his
steps….”50 What catapulted Parker to great renown was his participation in the
prosecution of Dr Henry Sacheverell. As a talented Whig lawyer in the House
of Commons, Parker played a major role in the trial. His participation was so
crucial to the prosecution that proceedings were adjourned during his illness
in February 1710 and resumed only when he recovered. Witnesses to the trial
describe Parker’s return to the proceedings following his sickness. Speaking
barely above a whisper, he accused Sacheverell of manipulating biblical pas-
sages to suit his Tory agenda and that the preacher refused to condemn re-
sistance to the present administration.51 As we saw, the Pyrrhic victory in the
trial led to the change of political climate that allowed Gardiner to confidently
proceed with his petition against Blencowe and ultimately cost Sunderland his
position. Sacheverell’s trial was Parker’s final act in the House of Commons.52
Soon after he accepted the position of Lord Chief Justice and it was in this ca-
pacity that he floated the idea for reforming the universities.
Before he did so, Parker was already involved in Oxford matters. In Septem-
ber 1714 one David Wilkins wrote to Parker requesting that he be appointed
Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford, which also made the holder a Canon of
Christ Church. As we saw earlier, these professorship were a prerogative of the
Crown and those who sought the positions often campaigned to administra-
tion officials in the hopes of gaining an advocate who would intercede with the
monarch. Wilkins hoped to tie his cause to Parker’s “authority, wch is powerful
enough to carry it before any body, to recommend me to this place. Your Lord-
ship cannot bestow this favour upon any body That has more satisfaction in Ye
Study of That Profession, & That wishes more to live at Oxford.”53 The plea did
not work and in 1715 the Professorship went to Robert Clavering, former fellow
of University College who would become Bishop of Llandoff (1724–1728) and
then Bishop of Peterborough (1729–1747).
It was in early 1717 that Parker sent Wake an outline of a proposed bill that
would place greater oversight on both Cambridge and Oxford, should it be-
come law. At a previous meeting the two men had discussed the bill and with
this current letter Parker sent “your Grace, a copy of ye enacting part of ye Bill
prepared according to the last thought when I had the honour to wait upon

50 bl Add. ms 61469, fol. 36.

51 Brian Cowan, ed., The State Trial of Doctor Henry Sacheverell (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell,
2012), 55.
52 Stuart Handley, “Parker, Thomas (1667–1732),” in The Commons 1690–1715, vol. 5, 99–102.
53 bl Stowe ms 750 fol. 60, David Wilkins to Thomas Parker, 21 September 1714.
160 Chapter 6

your Grace.”54 The bill responded to the fears emanating from Oxford follow-
ing the Jacobite rising of 1715 with claims that the university, and its colleges,
“have been infected with Principles of Sedition.” And that “Riots & tumults
have disturbed the peace of the Universities & affronted ye Government.” The
disruptions to studious order were so great that George i had dispatched a gar-
rison to the city to ensure peace. Also on the monarch’s mind was the ines-
capable fact that Oxford’s chancellor, Ormonde had attempted to topple the
king. That Ormonde’s Tory brother succeeded him was hardly reassuring in
London.55 In order to stop the spread of disaffection from the monarchy, the
bill declared all “Nominations & Appointment of all & every the Chancellor
Vice Chancellor Proctors & other Officers of ye said Universities and all Heads
of Houses Fellows Students Chaplains Scholars Exhibitioners & all Members
of & in all & every the College & … every Vacancy & Vacancies of the Said Of-
fices Places & … which shall become void … next ensuing shall be & is & are
wholly vested in the Kings most excellent Majesty.”56 The intent of this pas-
sage, which was what Bishop of Ely had also recommended to Wake months
earlier, was obvious. Only men of verified loyalty to the crown would be ap-
pointed to positions within either university. This would also, of course, render
Gardiner completely impotent within All Souls when it came to promoting
his preferred applicant and powerless to stop the appointment of candidates
he deemed unworthy of being a college officer. The bill also recommended a
reduction in the number of fellows in orders, if not the outright removal of that
fellowship requirement. That Parliament was a now legislative body and “the
new locus of authority and decision-making in British politics,” in the words of
Steven Pincus and James Robinson, was a direct result of the 1688 Revolution.57
The Whig mps who ran George i’s government wanted a state that reflected
their interests and not the semi-confessional one that Tories desired. This will
be clear as we explore the contents of Parker’s bill and associated legislation.
In another more detailed description, Parker set out the clear objectives of
the bill with further allusions to recent events at Oxford.

As the disloyal behaviour of the Universities since his Majesty’s happy

Accession to the Crown seem to have brought on a necessity of finding

54 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15 fol. 9, Parker to Wake, n.d.

55 Basil Williams, Stanhope: A study in Eighteenth-century War and Diplomacy (1932; Oxford:
The Clarendon Press, 1968), 399.
56 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15 fol. 10v–11r.
57 Steven C.A. Pincus and James A. Robinson, “What Really Happened During the Glorious
Revolution,” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 17206 (July 2011), 15.
Gardiner and the Attempted Reform of Universities 161

out some effectual method of amending and regulating them, I thought

this a proper occasion to offer what I think would make those bodys more
useful to the Nation, by the increase of Learning and Augmenting the
number of those who might have the benefit of a learned Education as
well as by bringing those seats of literature to a better sense of their duty
to their King and Country.58

The rationale behind Parker’s suggestion contained echoes of what Blencowe

and the other fellows of All Souls offered in 1709 during their attempt to legislate
an end to orders: universities ought to produce scholars of useful knowledge
that would benefit the government, lawyers for example, who would assist the
interests of the country and not solely thinkers who pursued esoteric matter
of religion. There was a danger in allowing the business of universities to be
entirely religious, Parker added. “Faction and disaffection in the Universities
since blind Zeal for a party, & especially where the Church and Religion are
drawn into the Cry,” was the chief cause of disillusionment toward the mon-
arch. Recall that this had been Matthew Tindal’s concern in 1706. What Parker
offered was a means to ensure that the individual colleges, comprising the
universities, were loyal to the monarch first and foremost. Such specified and,
indeed, legally enforced loyalty would prevent the colleges from retaining their
perceived statuses as minor fiefdoms ruled by wardens (in the case of All Souls)
who saw within the quadrangle the rightful exercise of their power outside the
bounds of royal prerogative. This would be ended by the proposal to set all
nominations for college positions within the privilege of the crown for a period
of seven years. No more would Gardiner be able to appeal to Archbishop Wake
every time he found himself overruled by his fellows. There would be no more
internal elections for college posts at all, decisions would be made and the
successful candidate’s name communicated. Wake’s support for the bill was
tied to his desire to maintain peace at Oxford through the instillation of loyal
officials and ensuring that the exclusionary Tory attitude did not take hold in
either university, which as he had argued in an earlier work served the “Publick
Benefit” and were subordinate to the king and the mechanism through which
the monarch governed the nation, such as Parliament.59 The Archbishop also
understood that the bill would end the cause of Gardiner’s griping over fellows
of All Souls likely as a happy consequence.

58 bl Stowe ms 799 fol. 2r. “A memorial relating to the Universities, suggesting amendments
in the statutes ca. 1717/18.”
59 Williams, Stanhope, 400.
162 Chapter 6

This was hardly the first measure designed to ensure Oxford’s loyalty to the
monarch and its support of scholarly activity promoted by administration of-
ficials. In 1536 Henry viii dispatched investigators to the university to inquire
into the institution’s support of him. One the colleges shaped by this mission
was All Souls, which added lectureships in Greek and Latin in order to sat-
isfy the court’s admiration of Humanist learning.60 This oversight continued
through the remaining years of the Tudor monarchs and into the Stuart age.
As L.W.B. Brockliss recently describes it, Oxford “was seldom far from central
government’s thoughts.”61
Parker noted that he believed too many college men were prevented from
finding useful employment because of their obligations to study theology.
With reminiscences of Blencowe’s appeal, although there is no evidence that
Parker had this in mind when he wrote, the Lord Chief Justice urged “That any
Fellow desiring it shall have leave to be absent from the College six months at a
time so as not to excuse him from any Office or exercise yt should come to his
Turn during those six months, in order to push his fortune in the World….”62
Had this been law in 1709–1710, the entire Blencowe matter would have been
unnecessary. Blecowe could have declared himself out of the college for six
months to “push his fortune in the World” as a cryptographer under the or-
ders of Lord Sunderland and the issue settled. Parker was not so naïve as to
completely remove the requirement for holy orders from fellowship holders in
colleges, but he did greatly expand the grace period and the number of fellows
who did not have to take orders. He proposed that “there might be allowed in
every College an equal number of Fellows not in orders to the number of Facul-
ty places allowed by the Founders” and that an interval of ten years ought to be
established for fellows to make a career for themselves outside of the college
walls before taking orders should their career path come to naught.63 What
would have irritated Gardiner was the assumption that fellows kept their col-
lege positions while they built career prospects. Parker’s plan gave these men
the security to seek employment while not having to worry about income or
the demands of taking orders.
The actual text of the proposed bill is quite short, but its brevity belies its
importance. Were it to pass, Oxford would be irrevocably changed. Given
its length, the bill, “An Act For the Better Government and Regulating of Ye

60 Brockliss, Oxford, 131.

61 Brockliss, Oxford, 151.
62 bl Stowe ms 799 fol. 4r.
63 bl Stowe ms 799 fol. 5r.
Gardiner and the Attempted Reform of Universities 163

S­ everal Statutes and Orders of Ye Universities of Oxford & Cambridge and the
Colleges & Halls therein,” is worth presenting in its entirety.

Where as the Several Colleges and Halls in Ye University’s of Oxford and

Cambridge are still Under Several Rules and Statutes of their Several Pop-
ish founders and others and many are become absolet [sic] Useless and
Inconsistent with our Present Protestant Establishment Under his Most
Sacred Majesty King George.
Be it enacted by his Present Majesty, by the advice and Consent of the
Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in the Present of Parliament
Assembled that the Chancellors, Vice Chancellors of both Universities
and all heads of Colleges and Halls within the Said Universities.
After Notice shall Deliver true Copy’s of all their Statutes and orders
by which Each University, College and Hall is Governed to such person as
his said Majesty shall appoint to Alter and Amend the same, which Said
Statutes <and Rules> so amended shall be and be esteemed the only Stat-
utes and Rules by which the Several University Colleges and Halls shall be
governed by and Under the Penalty or Penalties.64

Let us pause here and consider the potential act to this point. The opening
rhetoric clearly links the operational mandate of the colleges, All Souls for ex-
ample, to the values of a bygone era and a superseded religious confession. The
Catholic nation that embraced the rules created by “Several Popish founders”
no longer existed and with the modern country proudly flying Protestant co-
lours both at home and abroad, institutions of learning that originated within
this Catholic mind-set needed to be altered to reflect the values of eighteenth-
century England, religious and political. The changes to the college statutes
were mandated by the crown, which acted not on the guidance of university
men, but rather on the advice of peers and mps. Just as the fortunes of the na-
tion writ large were debated in the House of Commons, so too would the future
directions of Oxford and Cambridge’s colleges be settled. This reinforced the
idea that universities were not the independent bodies that they claimed to
be. Any freedom of action was granted to them rather than inherent within
them. There can be little doubt that Gardiner saw things quite differently from
the Warden’s Lodge. It mattered not. Should the bill become law, Gardiner, like
the heads of all other colleges, would be expected to present a copy of his stat-
utes to the committee for consideration and likely alteration. Once amended—
there is little point in supposing that statutes would have been returned

64 bl Add. ms 61495, fols. 92v–93r. Angled brackets indicate insertion of text.

164 Chapter 6

without any modification—the new rules of governance would have to be ad-

opted without recourse or appeal on the part of the college head, Gardiner for
example. Should this not happen, proscribed penalties would be enacted. Ex-
actly what this entailed was not made clear. The meat of the act followed next.

Be it Further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid that no Chancellor shall

be for life, nor no Chancellor or Vice Chancellor Shall Enter into his or
Their Offices without his Majesties Consent first had.
Be it Further Enacted that no Decree or Judgement of the Chancellor
or Vice Chancellor shall be final, But that Every Person or Persons which
shall think him or themselves aggrieved may appeal to Any of his Majes-
ties Court of Records in Westminster.
Be it Further Enacted that his Majestie Shall have Power to Nominate
[the] Heads of Colleges and Halls by whatsoever names they are called by
So they are not Fellows of that Foundation.
Be it Further Enacted that all Decrees Enjoyning the Reading of Par-
ticular Books, by Either Students or Masters and Prohibiting the Reading
others may be totally <Repealed and Declared> Void: and no such De-
crees or Orders to be made for the Future.65

In these important clauses the right of the Crown to oversee almost all aspects
of college appointment is spelled out clearly. There would be no head of a col-
lege not approved of, and subsequently appointed, by the Crown. This would
ensure that only men who were favorable to the current administration served
in positions of authority within the colleges. Here political connections and
acumen might matter more than a person’s history with a particular college or
university. Even if someone did win the good graces of the monarch and find
himself the head of a college, no decision he made would be considered the
final word on the matter. Anyone in the college would have the right to pro-
test an order made by the head. Given Gardiner’s experiences in trying to have
his decisions or vetoes enforced at All Souls, this particular piece of the bill
must have hit hard. The last clause seems innocuous on the surface but might
have had tremendous implications. Consider the fervor over fellows in medi-
cal studies at All Souls. Understood one way, the act states that no book, any
book, may be mandated by the head of a college. So, in the case of medicine,
no fellow could be compelled to stop reading and studying medical books in
favour of the Bible, or other religious text, with the understanding that doing

65 bl Add ms 61495, fols. 94v–95r.

Gardiner and the Attempted Reform of Universities 165

so would lead to taking orders. No longer would Gardiner be able to dictate the
studies pursued by his fellows. While this had basically been the case following
Wake’s order regarding Stead, this made the point even more clearly. Fellows
and students were to enter studies that interested them and not because of
rules created in the medieval era. Producing young men of quality who would
advantage the nation seems the obvious goal.
Always informed about happenings in London that might impact All Souls,
Gardiner reacted with alarm when he learned about the “University Bill.”
Whereas Charlett wrote to the university’s new Chancellor to say how devoted
University College was to the “illustrious House of Hanover” as a show of loyalty,
Gardiner immediately complained to Wake.66 Gardiner feared that a lately
published pamphlet—An Account of Cambridge (1717)—by Edmund Miller,
Sergeant at Law, had influenced the Members of Parliament to act against the
universities, without due care. A Lay Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge,
Miller urged the initiation of royal oversight to reign in the behavior of Richard
Bentley, Master of that college. Bentley first rose to fame as a Classics schol-
ar and then in 1692 as the inaugural Boyle Lecturer, a series of sermons en-
dowed by the will of the natural philosopher Robert Boyle designed to defend
Christianity from perceived attacks. Relying heavily on Isaac Newton’s work
in astronomy, Bentley used his lectures to demonstrate the existence of God
through an appeal to the operation of the cosmos. Despite Bentley’s learned
reputation, Miller argued that he exercised too much control over the college
and insisted on too rigid ecclesiastical duties for the fellows. What had trou-
bled Miller initially was that in 1709 Bentley funded college refurbishment by
withholding 10% from all fellowship stipends. In contrast to Gardiner’s worry,
Thomas Tanner, former fellow of All Souls, thought the Trinity affair some-
what amusing in correspondence with Charlett. His tongue firmly in his cheek,
Tanner told Charlett “a most terrible war” had broken “out at Trinity College
Cambridge—both sides are got into Print” and that the entire episode “will
make you smile.”67 Things were tenser inside Trinity. With Miller assuming a
leadership role, Trinity’s fellows protested to their visitor, the Bishop of Ely,
John Moore (the arguments of his successor, Fleetwood in favour of university
reform should be seen in the light of these dealing with Bentley and later af-
fairs at Trinity). When the case against Bentley was decided, the Master was
found guilty of violating several collage statutes. But the death of Moore in 1714

66 Darwall-Smith, A History of University College, 243.

67 Ballard ms 4, fol. 102r. Tanner to Charlett, 15 May 1710; the two mentioned events at Trinity
in other letters such as fol. 110r (21 September 1713).
166 Chapter 6

put the matter on hiatus.68 The environment within Trinity remained edgy,
however. This anxiety is evident in a formal petition sent to Wake by John Col-
batch, a fellow of the college, in mid-September 1716. In the accompanying let-
ter, Colbatch informed the Archbishop that he offered “plain Truths” on the
fellows’ disputes with Bentley which he described, “with a Liberty that is not
to be take on other occasions.” Hopeful that candor would persuade Wake to
rule against Bentley’s loose interpretation of Trinity’s laws when it came to
stipends, Colbatch explained that, “The College Revenues are as much or more
mismanag’d and misapply’d than before” and that the procedures outlined in
the college’s statutes “are grown wholly into disuse.”69 He continued to outline
the sorry condition into which Trinity had lapsed: “The Discipline of the Col-
lege was never so much neglected” and that the once proud institution had
fallen into a “wretched state.”70 A year later, Miller’s public arguments against
Bentley in 1717 bore similarity to the claims made against Gardiner during 1709
when several fellows of All Souls failed in their attempt to have college statutes
amended though an Act of Parliament. Although, An Account of Cambridge
decried events at Trinity, it nonetheless suggested that Oxford was a greater
problem for the crown due to that university’s suspect loyalty and reputation
for encouraging disaffection from the monarch.71 Parker would have agreed. To
Gardiner it must have seemed that 1717 was a repeat of 1709, especially since
Parker was a Trinity alumnus.72 There is little need to speculate that Gardiner
saw Parker’s bill as an instrument designed to sooth the feelings of Trinity’s fel-
lows and that All Souls would suffer collateral damage.
As much as Gardiner saw the bill as a personal attack on him and his col-
lege, it was actually part of a larger program meant to cement the power of
Whigs as mps in the House of Commons and as Peers in the House of Lords.
Involved in the plan were such leading political figures as James Stanhope, 1st
Viscount Stanhope, Thomas Pelham-Holles, The Duke of Newcastle, Sunder-
land, Wake, and of course Parker. As Lord Chamberlain—the senior officer of

68 Edmund Miller, An Account of Cambridge (London, 1717). G.R. Evans, The University of
Cambridge: A New History (London: I.B. Tauris, 2010), 226–227. On Bentley as Boyle Lec-
turer see Larry Stewart, The Rise of Public Science: Rhetoric, Technology, and Natural Phi-
losophy in Newtonian Britain, 1660–1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992),
64–67.
69 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15 fols.147r–v, John Colbatch to Wake, 17 September 1716.
70 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15 fols.147v, 148r.
71 Heather Ellis, Generational Conflict and University Reform: Oxford in the Age of Revolution
(Leiden: Brill, 2012), 34.
72 John Gascoigne, Cambridge in Age of Enlightenment: Science, Religion and Politics from the
Restoration to the French Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 92.
Gardiner and the Attempted Reform of Universities 167

the Royal Household—Newcastle had the king’s ear. Stanhope’s role as chief
minister similarly gave him access. Such contact was crucial because in the
early-eighteenth century the king remained the centre of England’s political
life and it was he who orchestrated the political world through his patronage
and his handpicked ministers, as John M. Beattie’s classic study demonstrat-
ed.73 Just as it was within the monarch’s right to choose ministers who would
display consistent loyalty to the royal agenda, the heads of the universities
would fall under a similar expectation. In addition to the “University Bill,” pro-
ponents of reform envisaged the firm establishment of a “Protestant dynasty”
sustained by Whig principles. This entailed a Peerage Bill, which would have
created several new Scottish peers who were loyal Whigs and then prohibit the
creation of new peers, thereby fixing the House of Lords in its current makeup,
and the repeal of the Septennial Act, the purpose of which is less clear. Some
observers see the potential abolishment of the Septennial Act as a means to
end mandated elections, thereby ensure a Whig permanency in government.
Others suggest the goal was to revert to the Triennial Act, which would have
guaranteed more or less constant campaigning and appeals to the public while
the Whigs held the upper hand.74 In October of 1719 Sunderland wrote to New-
castle to express his confidence that all three bills, which were part of achiev-
ing the same ends, would soon become English law. “Our efforts in all Parts
go as well as can be wish’d,” Sunderland reported. What was more, “the king
is more determined than ever to permit with rigour the measures you & Yr
friends wish[.] [H]e is resolv’d to push the Peerage Bill, The University Bill, &
the Repeal of the Septennial Bill, if this won’t unite the Whigs, nothing will.”75
Not only were the Whigs looking to secure their places and shape the political
landscape for generations, George i backed the efforts. This linkage between
the “University Bill” and the others is further spelled out in correspondence
between Newcastle and Stanhope dated later in October 1719.

I entirely agree that every thing ought to be proposed that may be an

enducem[en]t to bring about so solid a good as this Bill would be, &
therefore I cannot but think ye University Bill very proper to that end, as
being agreeable to ye Party, & a solid advantage to ye Publick.76

73 Beattie, The English Court, 2–3.

74 Williams, Stanhope, 401, 403, 410–411.
75 bl Add. ms 32686, fols. 149r–v, James Stanhope to Duke of Newcastle, 11 [22?] October
1719.
76 Duke of Newcastle to James Stanhope, 14 October 1719 in Williams, Stanhope, 459.
168 Chapter 6

The “University Bill” would have guaranteed that the nurseries of future politi-
cians and clergy were closely monitored by the administration and that op-
positional outlooks—read Tory and Jacobite—never took root amongst the
officers in charge of running the various colleges. Suppressing political disaf-
fection in the nation had been one of Newcastle’s priorities since at least Sep-
tember 1715 when he received notice that George i had issued an “an order in
council to inforce [sic] more strongly the putting in execution the Laws con-
cerning Papists, Non-Jurors & others disaffected Persons.” For the new king,
Tories and the Oxford colleges that seemed to create them, were similarly part
of the “disaffected.” Newcastle was given responsibility to see that “the due &
punctual execution of that order” came to be for “the Peace & Wellfare of this
Kingdome.”77 That these efforts irritated Gardiner was hardly the sole intent,
but for the Whig political architects of them limiting the authority of the War-
den of All Souls would have been seen as a happy outcome.
In mid-March 1717 Gardiner wrote to Wake expressing dismay that “such a
mischievous Design” in the form of “ye rumour of a Bill preparing to make
several Alterations in College Statutes” should even be considered in Parlia-
ment. Gardiner advised Wake that his duty as the head of an Oxford college
required him to “oppose as much as be in my power” the proposed bill.78 In an-
other letter posted five days later, Gardiner assured Wake that he did not think
Miller’s book had played a role in this bill, to assume the opposite was to give
too much credit to a publication that Gardiner readily dismissed. Nonetheless,
the warden did believe that “King, and his Ministers” and several Members of
Parliament did think some care had to be taken with the universities. After
telling Wake that he desired peace within the nation, he retorted that “I am
sorry there has been any Occasion given to the Government to think any thing
needful to be done for the better ordering of those Illustrious Corporations”
and that he would do all he could to keep the “Old Constitution, as much as
may be, from being infringed.”79
Impatient as always, Gardiner waited a mere six days before reiterating his
position to Wake. Referencing his investigation into the unpleasantness that
occurred in Oxford during the autumn of 1715, Gardiner reminded Wake of all
he had done to secure Oxford’s reputation with George i. “During ye time I was
Vice Chancellor here since his Majesty’s Happy Accession to the throne (which
was from Aug. 1 1714 to Oct. 6 1715) I took all imaginable care that all things
tending to create any disturbance as far as they came to my knowledge, should

77 bl Add. ms 32686, fol. 50, Townsend to Duke of Newcastle, 21 September 1715.

78 Wake Correspondence, vol, 15, fols. 20–21, Gardiner to Wake, 17 March 1716/7.
79 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15 fols. 22–23 Gardiner to Wake, 21 March 1717.
Gardiner and the Attempted Reform of Universities 169

be discontinued and suppres’d.” For Gardiner the matter was settled: Oxford
was loyal to the monarch. There was no need for the Crown to modify the uni-
versity through oversight. From his perspective, the query, “We are not sen-
sible how we have offended” the administration so much as to require this bill,
seems an honest one.80 More anxious was the letter sent to Wake by the new
Vice Chancellor of Oxford, John Baron: Master of Balliol College. Baron did not
dismiss the influence of Miller’s work as easily as had Gardiner and viewed it as
“some evil designs” that are “forming by our enemies against the two Universi-
ties; and not knowing how soon their misrepresentations may prevail towards
bringing a Bill into Parliament to our Prejudice.” In no uncertain terms and
eschewing the rhetoric of which Gardiner was fond, Baron solicited Wake’s “in-
terest to prevent or oppose it.”81
Parker was not the only person, as Miller and the Bishop of Ely demonstrate,
who harboured such designs on the university. Others too contemplated “the
methods, which may be fit to be us’d, in order to dispose the University in Gen-
eral to become by degrees truly and heartily well affected to his Majesty’s Gov-
ernment” which indicates the timeliness and importance of the issue.82 What
troubled this anonymous author was the “Arbitrary power, which the Univer-
sity, in the present constitution of Things, (as it has been shewn before) may
exercise over its members.”83 Blencowe, Stead, Dobbs, and others at All Souls
would have approved. As did Parker, this author claimed the best way to get the
universities back on side with the monarch and administration would be to re-
ward loyal universities and colleges which produced scholars who focused on
knowledge that would be useful to nation and did not spend their time debat-
ing theology. Those colleges that got behind the plan would be compensated
financially and seen as friends of the monarch, while those who refused to
cooperate would be penalized, although the punitive terms were not defined.
During this period of attempts to remake Oxford and, by extension, All Souls
through legislation, Gardiner was heavily involved in physically remaking his
college and these efforts have some bearing on the relationships between the
warden and his fellows. Of course Gardiner was not the only Warden of All
Souls who left an architectural mark in Oxford. One-time fellow of All Souls
Christopher Wren designed the Sheldonian Theatre, which was financed by
Gilbert Sheldon, most known as an Archbishop of Canterbury (1663–1677) but
he had also served as Warden of All Souls during the turbulent years of the

80 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fol. 26 Gardiner to Wake, 27 March 1717.

81 Wake Correspondence, vol. 15, fol. 24, John Baron to Wake, 18 March 1716/17.
82 bl Stowe ms 799 fol. 9r.
83 bl Stowe ms 799 fol. 10r.
170 Chapter 6

Civil Wars.84 The planning for the additions and new buildings—specifical-
ly the north quadrangle, part of which now holds the Codrington Library—­
occurred long before Parker’s determinations at university reform, but the
results came to fruition during the height of tensions over the Earl’s efforts.
One of the reasons necessitating the expansion was that the college could not
house all of its fellows. The higher social standing of All Souls’ fellows (there
were no commoners), meant that many rooms in the Old Quadrangle that
had been originally purposed to accommodate two students were redone into
single rooms that were more in keeping with the expectations of gentlemen
scholars.85
Fellow of All Souls Dr George Clarke, elected in 1680 as a jurist, proposed to
fund new lodgings out of his own pocket. He worked in various posts under
Charles ii and had been elected as mp for Oxford University in November 1685
but Parliament was prorogued before he could sit. Under Anne’s administra-
tion he acted as secretary to the Queen’s husband, Prince George of Denmark,
from 1702 and served as Lord High Admiral while he sat as mp for East Looe.
Clarke was loyal to Oxford and voted in favour of Oxford University mp Wil-
liam Bromley becoming Speaker of the House in 1705. This led to a falling out
between Clarke and Prince George who had expected Clarke’s support for his
Whig candidate, although Clarke’s friendship with Gardiner was strengthened
by the move. Following this minor political drama, Clarke retired to All Souls
and began construction of suitable home on college grounds.
Clarke was an amateur architect and Gardiner recorded the project in “the
Warden’s Register and College Benefactor’s Book.” He noted that “George Clark
Fellow of the College wherein he desires leave to build himself Lodgings in the
College for his owne life, and then to come to the use of the College for ever;
to which the College readily consent.”86 The fruit of this labour was completed
in 1706 with what is presently the Warden’s Lodge on High Street.87 Gardiner
also documented the acquisition of neighbouring properties such as “an old
house, adjoyning to the Warden’s Lodgings, of Joanna Fry, widow” to add to the
college’s growing footprint.88 The college also entered into complicated pay-
ment schemes for use of land near the University Church of St Mary the Virgin
during the reign of George i.89 With grander ideas in mind, Clarke consulted

84 Hargreaves-Mawdsley, Oxford in the Age of John Locke, 30, 90.

85 Howard Colvin and J.S.G. Simmons, All Souls: An Oxford College and its Buildings (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1989), 20.
86 Warden’s ms 3, fol. 79 v, Bernard Gardiner entry for 1703.
87 Colvin and Simmons, All Souls, 22.
88 Warden’s ms 3, fol. 79v, Gardiner entry for 1704, in Colvin and Simmons, All Souls, 82.
89 Bod. ms Eng. c. 3197, fols. 42–56.
Gardiner and the Attempted Reform of Universities 171

with other architects to recreate All Souls. His plan focussed on the land to
the north where he envisioned a major new edifice. One of those who came
forward to assist the project was Nicholas Hawksmoor who was already distin-
guished for working along side Wren in rebuilding London following the Great
Fire of 1666. Hawksmoor presented Clarke with several sketches of ambitious
buildings that were well beyond the college’s means.90 Aware of the benefits
that Clarke brought to All Souls with his architectural dreams, Gardiner was
always keen to admit young men of quality into All Souls for their money and
social connections to help fund the building projects. He went so far as to write
in records: “God send us more such ample Benefactors.”91
Gardiner valued the financial contributions made to his college by wealthy
fellows so much that in at least one case he ignored fellowship requirements,
of both extra income and residency, to ensure that the college would receive a
promised donation. Sir Nathanael Lloyd was elected to an All Souls Fellowship
as a Jurist in 1689. He became Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 1710 and
held the post until 1735. Lloyd wrote many letters to Gardiner requesting that
he be allowed to retain his fellowship even though he was head of college and
clearly resided in Cambridge. On the advice of others Gardiner decided it was
best to humour Lylod, who was described as “easily offended” than to risk los-
ing him as a benefactor. Lloyd resigned his fellowship in 1723. The accommoda-
tion paid off and Lloyd bequeathed £1000 to All Souls “to finish the North Pile,
or, if finished, toward completing the Library.”92 This does raise an interesting
question: how assiduously would Gardiner have pursued Blencowe and others
had they promised grand donations to the college?
Speculation aside, the trouble that the various fellows caused Gardiner
negatively impacted the building projects. As a close companion of Gardin-
er’s, Clarke was disturbed by the erosion of the warden’s authority within
the college and the frequency with which the fellows of All Souls appealed
to their Visitor when the burdens of the fellowships clashed with their per-
sonal ambitions. Clarke, who has been described as “inflexibly obstinate on
points of principle,” found the current atmosphere at All Souls so contrary to
what the founder intended, changed his will to reflect his displeasure.93 Rather

90 Colvin and Simmons, All Souls, 25; Brockliss, Oxford, 173.

91 Warden’s ms 3, fol. 80, Gardiner entry for 1706, in Colvin and Simmons, All Souls, 82. John
Clarke, “Warden Gardiner, All Souls, and the Church, c. 1688–1760,” All Souls Under the
Ancien Régime, 211.
92 Charles Crawley, Trinity Hall: The History of a Cambridge College 1350–1975 (Cambridge:
Printed for the College, 1976), 116–118.
93 Tim Clayton, “Clarke: Father and Son,” in All Souls Under the Ancien Régime, 129.
172 Chapter 6

than leave the bulk of his estate to the college, Worcester College received the
majority of his patronages on condition that “there shall be no appeal to the
Visitors, anywhere else, from the electors’ choice of Fellows and Scholars …
to avoid the shameful and unnecessary expenses which I have known some
visitors to put Colleges to, upon such occasions, and to prevent their arbitrary
and partial proceedings.”94 Without specially naming All Souls, it is clear that
the animosity between Gardiner and his fellows had cost the college Clarke’s
benefactions.
Gardiner’s prayer for more benefactors was answered in 1710 when word
reached him that Christopher Codrington (elected to a fellowship at All Souls
in 1690) had died in the Caribbean. In his will Codrington left to All Souls
the sum of £10,000 (£6,000 to fund the cost of constructing a new library and
£4,000 to furnish it with books). Codrington, appointed Governor-General of
the Leeward Islands in 1698, following the death of his father who previously
held the post, was a noted collector of books and his bibliophile sensibilities
also extended to donating his personal collection, reputedly numbering 12,000
volumes, to his envisioned library. The gift was grist for the gossip mill in Ox-
ford and Tanner wrote approvingly to Charlett, “As no body has nearer of heart
the peace and prosperity of All-Souls than My Self, so your confirmation … of
Codrington’s benefaction was most welcome.”95 According to chatter collected
by Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach during his 1710 visit to Oxford and subse-
quently recording in his travelogue, Codrington was an exceedingly clever man
who represented the university when king William iii visited in 1695.

King William came to Oxford for the first time and was to be received
in the Sheldonian Theatre, the Orator of the University was taken ill the
same day, and amongst all the members of the University (the scandal of
it!) no one could be found who could really make a speech. So Codring-
ton dressed himself up as a professor and in the name of the University
delivered a brilliant address in Latin, which greatly pleased the King, who
did not recognize him.96

As much as von Uffenbach admired and praised Codrington, he questioned the

worthiness of All Souls to receive such a prestigious gift. It was he wrote, “an

94 Quoted in Georgian Oxford, 122.

95 Ballard ms 4, fol. 105v. Tanner to Charlett, July 1710.
96 Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach, Oxford in 1710, ed. W.H. Quarrell and W.J.C. Quarrell
(­Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1928), 61; Brockliss, Oxford, 289–290, 296–297.
Gardiner and the Attempted Reform of Universities 173

amazing sum of money, which could have been turned to better purpose than
making a palace for these worthless Fellows, as they for the most part are.” Also
quizzical about why All Souls received this donation was Thomas Hearne, at
the time Assistant Keeper of the Bodleian Library (he would be Second Keeper
in 1712), who dismissed the quality of the collection but supposed that if Codri-
gnton wished to donated his books to a library in Oxford that the Bodleian was
a more appropriate home for them rather than Gardiner’s college.97 While von
Uffenbach would have agreed that the college was an undeserving recipient,
he did not share Hearne’s assessment of the books. In his view, it was a valu-
able library of “new and costly publications in French Spanish and Italian.” But
it was only at All Souls, and no other Oxford college, that von Uffenbach found
“scarcely anyone in the place, no one at least who could or would show us the
library or unlock anything,” when he paid a visit on 18 September 1710.98 For
von Uffenbach All Souls seemed home to absentee fellows who could not be
bothered to show courtesy to a continental traveller. Did they truly merit Co-
drington’s generosity? Gardiner would have been dismayed at this depiction of
All Souls, but it would have girded his loins to ensure that fellows of the college
were devoted in their duties and in residence so that unflattering portrayals
of the college such as offered by von Uffenbach would be a thing of the past.
Given that Von Uffenbach came to All Souls while Gardiner was preparing to
have his petition against Blencowe’s dispensation from orders heard by the At-
torney and Solicitor Generals, and all the other matters occurring simultane-
ously, the German’s words would have confirmed to Gardiner that he had to
stay the course lest this unflattering characterization of All Souls be turned
into a stereotype.
Although the bequest would be tied up in court for some time because the
executor of the will, Codrington’s cousin, William Codrington, refused to make
good on his relative’s promise, the money finally came to the college.99 With
this news, Hawksmoor’s plans changed and the eventually named Codrington
Library became the focal point of the new quadrangle, rather than ornate ac-
commodations for fellows, when he submitted new sketches in 1715.100 The ex-
terior was completed over the period of 1716–1720.

97 Scott Mandelbrote, “The Vision of Christopher Codrington,” in All Souls Under the Ancien
Régime, 147; Matthew Kilburn, “The Fell Legacy 1688–1755,” in The History of the Oxford
University Press, vol. 1, 128.
98 von Uffenbach, Oxford in 1710, 61, 69, 52.
99 Birke Häcker, “A case note on All Souls v. Cod[d]rington (1720),” The Rabel Journal of Com-
parative and International Private Law, 76 (2012): 1053–1056.
100 Colvin and Simmons, All Souls, 30.
174 Chapter 6

With construction underway, and Clarke contributing marble for the walls
of the chapel, Gardiner should have been pleased with the entire proceedings.
But it was not so. He wrote to William Wake in April 1719 complaining that
in his absence from the college, several fellows had met and made changes
to the interior plans: “that ye Room in ye new Southern Tower up two flights
of stairs, should be a common room, and that it should be Wainscoted with
Deal to ye height of the Door at least, and that it should be painted and fit-
ted up for that purpose.”101 Gardiner protested that the Subwarden who called
the meeting had no basis to do so—his purview resided in disciplinary mat-
ters only and certainly not interior design—and that the space had been des-
ignated by Gardiner to do with as he thought best, once accommodation for
the fellows had been secured. Besides, the existing common room was more
than sufficient, in his view.102 Gardiner would have complained even more
were he to know that in the later years of the eighteenth century the common
room became renowned for having “the best Port in Oxford.” In fact some of
the fellows of All Souls “have tost off four Bottles of it a Day, for several Years
together.”103 The warden envisaged greater plans for the expansion of All Souls
that involved a land swap with New College (a section of its warden’s garden
for a portion of All Souls’ land on which construction had already begun) and
negotiations over windows and the height of shades that would overlook New
College. These were still being negotiated in 1746, twenty-years after Gardiner’s
death.104 While Gardiner did not live to see the completion of the interior of
the library when it was ready to contain books in 1751, his involvement in these
eighteenth century building projects illustrates both devotion to the college
and his seemingly perpetual frustration with the behaviour of his fellows.
George Clarke brought more to All Souls than money, his political histo-
ry and devotion to the university made him an ideal candidate to represent
Oxford again should an opportunity present itself. As early as 1710 Gardiner
and Charlett were scheming to have Clarke elected as one of the university’s
two mps. Nothing came of the plan and the election of 1715 saw Oxford return
Bromley and Sir William Whitelock, a strong Tory who made public denun-
ciations against the Hanoverian succession. When Whitelock died in 1717 the
feeling around Oxford was that given the suspicion the university was already

101 Wake Correspondence, vol. 16, letter 118, Gardiner to Wake, 17 April 1719.
102 Wake Correspondence, vol. 16, letter 118, Gardiner to Wake, 17 April 1719.
103 Quoted in Graham Midgely, University Life in Eighteenth-Century Oxford (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1996), 50.
104 New College ms 666 “Documents related to windows overlooking All Souls.”
Gardiner and the Attempted Reform of Universities 175

under for loyalty to the monarch, a more moderate Tory, to work cooperatively
with George i and his administration, in addition to portraying Oxford in a
favourable light while defending its traditions, would be the right choice to re-
place Whitelock. Gardiner, Charlett, and Dean of Christ Church George Smal-
ridge championed Clarke as the successor.105 However, not everyone at All
Souls agreed and once again Pierce Dod caused trouble for his warden when
he mounted his own candidacy to replace Whitelock. Commenting on Dod’s
efforts, Tanner lamented to Charlett that “I was troubled to hear … that there
was an interest forming against Dr Clarke especially in our College.” Tanner
disapproved of Dod and hoped that Clarke, whom he described as a “worthy
Gentleman” who would be “able to serve the University.”106 The problem for
Gardiner was that Dod appeared to be cut from the same political cloth as
was Whitelock and contemporaries characterized him as, “somewhat beyond a
Tory” being nearly a Jacobite. W.R. Ward describes Dod as conducting his elec-
tion campaign “on behalf of the younger and rabid Tories” within Oxford.107
The three college heads worked against Dod and ensured that Clarke won the
election. There appears to have been little lingering animosity between Dod
and Clarke, who would later correspond regarding the death of Matthew Tin-
dal. When Clarke took his seat, Gardiner’s expectations were fulfilled. As an mp
Clarke was known to be “one of the university’s men in London” who frequent-
ly kept his friend updated on matters than might impact All Souls. Between
Bromley and Clarke, Gardiner was as well informed about the University Bill
as was anyone in England at the time.
The bill containing Parker’s proposals failed to pass first reading in 1717 and
another—ultimately unsuccessful—attempt came in early 1719. Both had
Wake’s support, especially as one of its key goals should the bill become law
was to prevent any political disaffection from growing within Cambridge and
Oxford. The final failure of the bill came about because the measure was inti-
mately joined with the deeply unpopular Peerage Bill (1719), which would have
limited the monarch’s ability to create new peers and virtually guaranteed a
Whig dominated House of Lords in perpetuity. With the defeat of the Peerage
Bill in December of 1719 (269 to 177), there was little appetite for any dramat-
ic reforming legislation, at least for the time being. Nothing more was heard

105 Clayton, “Clarke: Father and Son,” 123–124; Georgian Oxford, 120–121.
106 Ballard ms 4, fol. 123r–v, Tanner to Charlett.
107 P. Langford, “Tories and Jacobites 1714–1751” in Eighteenth Century, 99–127, 112; Georgian
Oxford, 120; Gordon Goodwin, “Dod, Peirce (1683–1754),” rev. Andrea Rusnock, in odnb,
vol. 16, 385–386.
176 Chapter 6

about the “University Bill.”108 There can be little reservation that the Archbish-
op’s experiences with All Souls were a motivating factor in his support of the
bills. While the bill would never be tabled again, Wake’s orders to Gardiner in
1716 and 1719 that opened this chapter indicate that he, like almost all the other
participants met in this book, saw All Souls as but one piece in a larger political
game.109

108 Holmes, The Making of a Great Power, 226–227, 431; Williams, Stanhope, 413, 416; Ellis,
Generation Conflict and University Reform, 35.
109 Wake Correspondence, vol. 16 letter 129. Gardiner to Wake, 20 April 1719; Clarke, “Warden
Gardiner and the Church,” 205; Sykes, “Archbishop Wake and the Whig Party,” 104.
Conclusion

For Bernard Gardiner the meaning of the 1688 Revolution was not open to in-
terpretation. Simply put, in his view, when William, Stadtholder of the Dutch
Republic and Prince of Orange arrived in England, the traditional Anglican
confessional state of England would be restored. Any “modernization,” to bor-
row a term from Steve Pincus, introduced into the management of the nation
by James ii would be ended. All of Gardiner’s actions with respect to the op-
eration of All Souls College make this evident. His anxiety over the bill meant
to removed the orders requirement at Oxford, his objection to more fellows
of All Souls pursuing medicine, his loathing of Matthew Tindal’s writings that
promoted Erastianism and mocked the education he had received at Oxford,
his single-minded pursuit of William Blencowe to take orders, his dogged at-
tack on John Stead’s living arrangements, and his determinations to stop the
“University Bill” are confirmation of this. As he commented following his suc-
cess over Blencowe, it was a sense of duty to prevent a reoccurrence of James’s
actions at Magdalen that had motivated him. Like Edmund Burke who argued
in 1790 that the 1688 Revolution was an extraordinary event necessitated by a
particular monarch and not something from which general principles could be
drawn but that its purpose was to “preserve our ancient indisputable laws and
liberties,” Gardiner saw the outcome of the Glorious Revolution as granting
him license to gaze backward to an age of Anglican exclusiveness.1
Gardiner’s entry in the original Dictionary of National Biography describes
his character as “conscientious, indomitable, stern, [and] uncompromising.”
After completing this book, I see nothing in those words with which I would
disagree. I would also agree with the label of “exceedingly obnoxious” when
describing Gardiner’s management style.2 But what seemed “obnoxious” to
later observers would have appeared to Gardiner, whose conscience was in-
deed stern when it came to acting in a manner best aligned with Tory ideology
and the wishes of Henry Chichele, as steely resolve for what was right, both
for the nation and All Souls. If tradition and the wishes of the founder were
“obnoxious” then Gardiner would have been so proudly. These traits appeared
again and again in his management of All Souls and his vision for the college.
We may be certain that Gardiner would not have shared the assessment of the

1 Edmund Burke, “The Significance of the Revolution of 1688–1689,” quoted in C. Fred Alford,
Narrative, Nature, and the Natural Law (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 18.
2 “Gardiner, Bernard (1668–1726),” in The Dictionary of National Biography, 22 vols. ed. Leslie
Stephen and Sidney Lee (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1917), vol. 7, 852.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004375352_009

178 Conclusion

Nonconformist minster Richard Price who in 1789 saw in the English Revolu-
tion authorization to resist power if it were deemed abusive, choose gover-
nors and then remove them for misconduct, and to follow one’s conscience in
matters of religion. The Warden of All Souls sought the reestablishment of the
confessional state, which in his view would soon resurface under the watchful
eye of the new king William iii. Gardiner was, to once more adopt the insight
of Scott Sowerby part of the “countermovement” that “was aligned against”
the reforming measures of James ii.3 His support of the 1688 Revolution was
predicated on the removal of a Catholic monarch, yes, but also that the demise
of James signalled an end to all of his policies, not only toleration of Catholi-
cism. Even though this did not always bubble to the surface in every instance
where Gardiner sought to maintain the traditional mandate of All Souls, it ap-
peared frequently enough that there seems little question of its importance in
guiding his actions. Gardiner’s problem, as we have also seen, was that those
who held the reigns of political power in eighteenth-century England, here it
was mostly Whigs with a brief Tory resurgence, did not abide his view of 1688.
For them, the Revolution inaugurated the modern state that Pincus described,
managed through Parliament and built upon the principle of centralization as
Tim Harris put it, and that it resulted in “the chaining up of fanaticism alike
in politics and in religion,” to quote G.M. Trevelyan’s classic assessment.4 The
proposed House of Commons bill in Chapter 1, the dispensations from orders
so that fellows could purse practical professions such as medicine in Chapter 3
or cryptography in Chapter 4, the attempted passing of the “University Bill” in
Chapter 6 all indicate that various administrations saw ending uncompromis-
ing Anglicanism and the promotion of centralized government as priorities. It
is true that none of these measures were entirely successful, but they were all
seeds that would flower in the coming decades. Ultimately, Gardiner’s image
of All Souls did not carry the day. Like the Carolingian hero Roland who would
be overwhelmed on the field of battle despite his valiant rear-guard action,
Gardiner’s vision of All Souls and his resistance to any outside pressure aimed
at amending that view would be overrun by the desires of state and monarch.
What Gardiner’s time at All Souls makes clear is that in the immediate af-
termath of the Glorious Revolution, before the long-term consequence had
been played out in the nation, both views of the 1688 Revolution were correct:
that it was modern and traditional at the same time. What mattered was one’s

3 Scott Sowerby, Making Toleration: The Repealers and the Glorious Revolution (Harvard:
­Harvard University Press, 2013), 17.
4 G.M. Trevelyan, The English Revolution 1688–1689 (1938; London: Oxford University Press,
1963). 241–242.
Conclusion 179

perspective and expectation. This is further evident if we consider events that

occurred within Oxford during the year of Gardiner’s death.
The same month that Gardiner died in 1726, the head of another Oxford col-
lege found that he was forced to choose between yielding to a royal request and
maintaining his oath to uphold the founder’s decrees. It occurred at New Col-
lege, the institution that Archbishop Chichele had attended and from which
he had formed the statutes of All Souls. It was in April 1726 the Warden of
New College, Henry Bigg, and the Warden of Winchester College, John Dobson,
wrote a joint reply to George i’s insistence that one John Trenchard Bromfield
be admitted to a scholarship at Winchester College.5
As had James ii in 1688 at Magdalen, and Anne in 1709 at All Souls, George i
issued a letter mandatory. Such letters were a continuing right of the crown, as
we have seen, but their perceived abuse under James ii was common knowl-
edge. After 1688 letters mandatory were deemed an aspect of royal prerogative
needing restraint, especially in cases where the crown required that a specific
person be given preferment toward a university position. After William iii ac-
cepted the throne in February 1689, the king and both universities agreed that
letters mandatory should be issued only in cases initiated by the University
Chancellor or heads of the colleges with specific details regarding the appli-
cant’s qualifications. In no case would a simple demand be deemed sufficient,
although the monarch still retained that power.6 Since neither Bigg nor Dob-
son had made any request to George i regarding Bromfield, they were taken
aback by the king’s communication. Although the request was made in his
name, it is likely that George i had no actual involvement in this matter and
that a minister initiated the intervention as a means of deploying patronage
in support of his own position. Recall Lord Sunderland’s actions on behalf of
William Blencowe. Nonetheless, the wardens addressed their response to the
monarch and crafted their arguments as if he were the recipient. What was
more, the arrival of the letter seemed contrary to the experience of an earlier
Warden of New College, Richard Traffles (1701–1703), who received a promise
in 1702 from William iii, a mere few weeks before he died, not to issue letters
mandatory to either New College or Winchester College.7
New College and Winchester College had been linked since the fourteenth
century when William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, founded both in-
stitutions: New College in 1379 and Winchester in 1382. Wykeham created New

5 Quoted in Thomas Frederick Kirby, Annals of Winchester College (Oxford, 1892), 75 n.3.
6 Ralph M. William, “John Dyer’s Degree from Cambridge,” Modern Language Notes, 61 (1946),
172–175, 173.
7 Georgian Oxford, 110.
180 Conclusion

College to exalt and honour Christ Crucified and the Virgin Mary. He envisaged
that the college would offer professional training in theology rather than serve
as the locus of general scholarship. Given this intent, and that Chichele fash-
ioned All Souls’ statutes on New College’s, it is no surprise that All Souls shared
this clerical mission. To ensure that sufficient numbers of quality students were
available for positions in New College, Wykeham created Winchester College
as school for “poor boys.” He further stipulated that only Winchester students
would be admitted to New College.8
In terms similar to those used by the Magdalen fellows, and so many times
by Gardiner, the wardens objected to the king’s request on the grounds that
“we are bound by a solemn oath, yearly taken, before we enter upon the duty of
Electors, not to be sway’d by fear, or favour, entreaty, or reward.”9 Elected War-
den of New College in 1725, Bigg would serve for five years before leaving that
position to take up the wardenship of Winchester, following Dobson who had
also served as Warden of New College (1720–1725) immediately before Bigg.10
Incidentally it was Dobson with whom Gardiner negotiated the potential land
swap between New College and All Souls in 1722. Surrender to the royal order,
which basically amounted to a guaranteed admission to New College after a
kind of apprenticeship at Winchester, would contravene their oaths to admit
only duly elected persons into scholarships at Winchester College. As com-
mentators would note, it seemed 1687 at Magdalen College all over again, thus
history might justify their refusal to comply with the monarch.

We do confess that, in the reigns of King Charles the Second and King
James, mandatory letters have, from time to time, taken place in our
Elections, to the grief of our Predecessors; but at length upon an humble
representation made to King William, his Majesty was pleas’d to return
this most gracious answer “God forbid that I should hinder any of my
Colleges from observing their Statutes.” It pleased God soon after to take
to himself his late Majesty King William, of Glorious memory; but the

8 R.L. Storey, “The Foundation and the Medieval College, 1379–1530,” in John Buxton and
Penry Williams, ed., New College Oxford, 1379–1979 (Oxford: Oxford: University Press, 1979),
3–43, 6–7.
9 bl Add. ms 36136 fol. 75.
10 Williams, “From the Reformation to the Era of Reform,” 61–62; Ward, Georgian Oxford, 111.
The elections of Dobson and Bigg as Wardens of New College are recorded in New Col-
lege ms 5065 “Mr Dobson’s Confirmation by the Visitor to be Warden of New College 1720”
and ms 5066 “The Election of Bigg.” Dobson’s election as warden of Winchester is found
in ms 5082 “Election in 1724 of Dobson to Winchester[:] Scrutiny Paper.” Of the 43 names
recorded, each voted in favour of “Rev. Dr Dobson.”
Conclusion 181

representation above mention’d meeting with like favour and success at

the hands of his Successor, her late Majesty Queen Anne we have hitherto
enjoy’d the freedom of election, agreeable to the trust repos’d in us by our
Founder….11

Only during the reign of James ii did the monarch issue such orders, but hap-
pily, under William, it was agreed that the crown would not meddle in uni-
versity affairs. William could hardly do otherwise considering that one of his
reasons for invading England had been James’s disregard for the university as
evidenced in his intrusion of unwelcomed persons, Catholics in that case. Bigg
and Dobson hoped that George i would follow the example of William rather
than that of James ii.12
George’s reply left that hope in tatters. “We have thought fit hereby to rec-
ommend him to you”, he explained once more, “in the most effectual manner,
Willing and Requiring you to Elect and admit him the said John Trenchard
Bromfield a Child of that Our College of Winchester at the next Election; and
so not doubting of your ready compliance herein, We bid you farewell….”13
George did not expect a debate. He had precedent on his side. Despite the ac-
count of Bigg and Dobson that suggested William had set universities outside
of royal management, William’s actions reveal something different. Between
1689 and 1702 William promoted twenty-four candidates during elections at
New College and Winchester and in each case he “expected to be obeyed.”14
After James ii fled England his practices remained, even in the hands of the
man who had chased him away. To be fair, William does appear to have kept
his promise to Traffles in the last few days of his reign.15 Nonetheless, George
i believed that his actions were entirely appropriate and simply followed the
path established by his predecessors.
An investigation ensued to see if the Statutes of either New College or Win-
chester allowed the monarch to override the electoral process. For George i it
was matter of obeying a royal order. But for the wardens there was a greater
principle in play. Years later one contemporary recalled how “in the year 1726,
John Trenchard Bromfield obtained a royal mandate for a nomination at the
election in Wykeham’s college of Winchester, to the great displeasure of the
warden and fellows who opposed this mandate. In the expostulation which

11 bl Add. ms 36136 fol. 75.

12 bl Add. ms 36136 fols. 75–76.
13 bl Add. ms 36136 fol. 80.
14 bl Add. ms 36136 fols. 100r–v.
15 bl Add. ms 36136 fol. 84.
182 Conclusion

they made on this occasion, they returned to the same arguments that had
been employed in the contest at Magdalen college; and, in particular, they en-
deavoured to discredit the practice of [letters mandatory].”16 Thus it appears
that for the wardens, 1726 corresponded with the three-year reign of James ii
and New College substituted for Magdalen.
There was more to the affair than the unpleasant memory of James ii’s ac-
tions in Oxford, however. A great deal of the issue revolved around the person
of Bromfield, or rather Bromfield’s father, and had begun ten years earlier. A
­ fter
the Jacobite uprising of 1715, some believed that the students at Winchester
were being turned into Jacobites “and at the assizes on March 6, 1716–7, the
grand jury actually presented the College for disaffection….” One of the mem-
bers of the jury was John Bromfield. In part the charges read as follows:

It being notorious that the late Unnaturall Rebellion and p’sent threat-
ened Invasion are the Effects of P’judice and bad Educacon, and that not
so much as the least Shaddovv of grievance or ground of Complaint was
ever alledged against our most Gracious Sovereign or his Administrator!
by the first Contrivers and Promoters of either. We therefore, considering
that it is the duty as well as Interest of all such who p’fer the mild Govern-
ment of his Majesty before Arbitrary power and Slavery to check as much
as in them lyes those Principles in the bud which are found by experience
to grow up into such open Violence, and which cunning and designing
Men do industriously propagate among our Youth to the great Corrup-
tion of their Manners, and the manifest disturbance of the public peace:
and being credibly informed that the Scollars of that noble Foundation
commonly called Winchester Colledge are now taught to emulate each
other in factious and party Principles….17

Despite these charges, no evidence was presented and consequently no ac-

tion was taken against Winchester. It should be remembered that this same
atmosphere of Jacobite paranoia had been felt at Merton and had affected that
college’s 1716 election, as discussed above. Winchester itself had raised more
than £500 to help fight the War of the Spanish Succession against France and
this action was seen as a sign of its unimpeachable loyalty to the crown. Thus it
is understandable that ten years later when John Bromfield tried to get his son
a fellowship, Winchester would repeatedly turn him down. Memories of the

16 John Milner, Letters to a Prebendary: Being an Answer to Reflections on Popery (2nd edn,
London, 1801), 373.
17 Quoted in Kirby, Annals of Winchester College, 386.
Conclusion 183

man who had attempted to sully the reputation of Winchester extended to his
son, fairly or not. When Bromfield looked to the king to intercede on his behalf,
the wardens were displeased that the very monarch, to whom New College and
Winchester had shown such loyalty by supporting the Protestant succession,
would now attempt to interfere in their internal business.
In early September 1726 the Duke of Newcastle, Secretary of State (south-
ern department) wrote to Bigg acknowledging receipt of the petition offered
by the wardens against the king’s letter. Newcastle related that the wardens
ought to consider the king’s request carefully.18 Following this message, both
­Dobson and Bigg made the trip to London to meet with Newcastle and make
their case in person. They found a sympathetic audience in the person of
Charles Delafaye, who worked as one of the under-secretaries to Newcastle
with a concentration on home affairs. Delafaye studied at All Souls and worked
in several governmental departments since 1699 and with Newcastle specifi-
cally from 1724.19 According to a memorandum, written by either Dobson or
Bigg, Delafaye, “immediately having heard our business, began to Excuse ye
Office ‘that if they had done a wrong thing, it was only by their being misled
… that we might depend upon his majesty’s goodness not only for not doing
any injustice, but never unkind [to] any of his Colleges….’” He also stated that
“We were the best Judges of [just] how far we cou’d comply with his Majesty’s
pleasure.” Having received this somewhat mixed and apologetic message from
the office of the secretary and admitting to “great perplexity what we should
resolve in ye Case”, the wardens continued to refuse Bromfield’s admittance.
Moreover, they seemed to believe that tacit permission for doing so had been
given by Newcastle through Delafaye.20 After the meeting, Delafaye wrote to
the wardens on 16 September and commented on how impressed both he
and Newcastle had been with their presentation of the case. “His Grace has
ordered me to add that your Representation to the King upon this Subject,
& your whole behaviour in this Transaction has been wth so much Duty and
Respect toward his Majesty, that […] it cannot be imagined any thing you shall
think your selves under an indispensable Obligation …” to do in maintaining
the college’s statutes was done with any intended malice toward the king.21

18 New College ms 1038 “To The Revd Dr Bigg Warden of New College in Oxon.” September
1726.
19 J.C. Sainty, “Delafaye, Charles (1677–1762),” odnb [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/ar
ticle/39578, accessed 10 June 2013].
20 New College ms 1038 “Memorandum.”
21 New College ms 1038, “To the Rev the Warden of New College in Oxford and of Win-
chester,” 16 September 1726.
184 Conclusion

While neither Delafaye nor Newcastle would comment on the proper course
of action, they did not suggest capitulation. Indeed, Delafaye noted that any
response given to the king’s command ought to be “left [entirely] in your own
Judgment” with no pressure being applied from that office. When Dobson and
Bigg returned to Winchester, they explained the proceedings to the “Electors at
ye Warden’s lodgings,” of which they approved and “we met again in the Elec-
tion chamber, & continu’d the Business of the Election.”22 Rather than leave
an open space on the register that would be reserved for Bromfield, as George
had requested while the matter was unsettled, Dobson and Bigg did something
different. After considering their options, it was decided that, the “readiest &
most literal way of obeying His M order to keep those places open; We therefore,
before all others, to be chosen into Winchester College did Nominate & Elect
J.T. Bromesfield [sic] into Winchester.”23 The Latin memo written after this
note discourages any thought of submission on the part of the two wardens.
Bromfield would indeed be admitted, on condition that George’s letter be ac-
cepted. It was not and Bromfield never attended Winchester.
At the end of this indeterminate investigation, even Bishop of London said
that nothing could be done to force the admittance of the younger Bromfield
unless the Attorney General found a loophole in the college’s statutes.24 He
did not. John Trenchard Bromfield was eventually admitted to Oxford but not
to New College. He matriculated at Merton College in 1729, earning a ba three
years later and then an ma in 1736. Bromfield became a fellow of Merton and
seems to have carried a disregard for college authority with him. He caused
the warden Robert Wyntle grief when he and the some of the other fellows
wrote to Wyntle requesting that he not invite a visitation from the Archbishop
of Canterbury in 1737. Despite the plea, John Potter’s visitation did take place
and resulted in the strong condemnation of the behaviour within the college,
as we saw in Chapter 3.25 In the example of Bromfield at New College, we once
more see the memory of James ii and the unsettled legacy of 1688 informing
the governance of an Oxford college. Had he been alive, Gardiner would surely
have empathised with his New College counterpart.

22 New College ms 1038, “An Account of our Proceedings in the Election at Winchester
­ ollege, Sept. 6, 1726.”
C
23 New College ms 1038, “An Account of our Proceedings in the Election at Winchester
­College, Sept. 6, 1726.”
24 Georgian Oxford, 111.
25 “Bromfield, John Trenchard,” in The Members of the University of Oxford, 1715–1886: Their
Parentage, Birthplace, and Year of Birth, with a Record of Their Degrees, 3 vols. (London,
1887), vol. 1, 166; Merton College, Wyntle Register 1.4, fol. 38v.
Conclusion 185

Like New College All Souls faced pressures directed at forced admission, af-
ter Gardiner’s death. Under Stephen Niblett’s wardenship (1726–1766) All Souls
experienced some of the same issues that had vexed Gardiner. The difference in
these examples was the rareness and quick resolution of them. Niblett earned
an ma from The Queen’s College, Oxford, in 1720 and was elected a fellow of
All Souls late the same year. Soon after becoming warden at the age of twenty-
nine, a position he would hold for more than forty years, Niblett obtained a
bd in 1727 and then a dd in January 1730. The general assessment of Niblett is
that he was deemed an uncontroversial candidate, who would not cause ten-
sion, and offered the college a breath of fresh air following the cantankerous
period of Gardiner’s wardenship. The “nonentity” description of him seems
harsh, however.26 In 1728 Gardiner’s successor stared down the attempts of
John Anstis, Sr. to obtain an All Souls fellowship for his son John Anstis, Jr. John
Sr. was something of a social climber and managed to secure himself the posi-
tion of Garter of the Kings Arms in 1718. Equally desirous of preferment for his
son, John Sr. petitioned George ii to intervene with Niblett and ensure Junior
the fellowship.27 John Jr. had graduated from Corpus Christi College, Oxford in
1725, worked as a genealogist, and became Blanc Coursier Herald in 1727. The
strategy employed by John Sr. was clever: he conducted extensive research in
his family’s history, no doubt ably aided by his son, in the hopes of determin-
ing a link to Henry Chichele, Founder of All Souls. If a family lineage could
be determined, John Sr. believed that Junior was automatically entitled to a
fellowship on the basis of being founder’s kin. Satisfied with the findings, the
Anstis’s appealed to Niblett who summarily dismissed the request. Father and
son then made the following plea to George ii:

Yet your Majesties humble Petitioner who is descended of the Blood

of the said Archbishop Chichele & who hath all the Several Qualifica-
tions mentioned in the Said Statutes of admission, was refused by the
­Warden & Fellows to Stand even as a Candidate, upon Pretence that the
Offices he holds by your Majesties Favour & Bounty render him not eli-
gible, And His Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, who takes upon
himself to be the sole Visitor of the college would not admit him.28

26 John Clarke, “Warden Niblett and the Mortiman Bill,” in All Souls Under the Ancien Ré-
gime, 217–218, 219.
27 bl Stowe ms 799, fol. 23 r., “The Memorial & Petition of John Anstis, Junior Garter King of
Arms.” (1728) See http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1715-1754/member/
anstis-john-1669-1744.
28 bl Stowe ms 799, fols. 23v–24r.
186 Conclusion

The visitor in this case was none other than William Wake who had lived
through the spectacle at All Souls that had enveloped the fellowships of Blen-
cowe, Stead, and others. While it is true that John Jr.’s heraldry post made him
ineligible for the fellowship at All Souls, Wake’s desire to avoid another trou-
blesome and politically sensitive appointment at the college cannot be over
emphasised.
Demonstrating kinship with the Founder would be a successful admittance
strategy at All Souls until the middle of the nineteenth century. And yet, kin-
ship privilege was not employed much before the sixteenth-century and might
not have been something Chichele desired. When three fellows were elected
on the basis of being kinsmen in the early sixteenth century, the Archbishop of
Canterbury cautioned All Souls against valuing bloodline over academic skill.
The warning worked for a while, but between about 1650 and 1703, thirty-six
more kinsmen were elected fellows and then no more for twenty years.29 Al-
though as the Anstis case illustrates, being kin with Chichele did not automati-
cally lead to an All Souls fellowship.
Ironically, it was Wake who had opened the floodgates for the election of
the founder’s kin when in 1723 he ruled on the matter of Robert Wood who
claimed kinship with Chichele but whose election Gardiner denied on the ba-
sis of Wood not being sufficiently skilled in Greek and Latin.30 Wake knew he
had to proceed carefully in this mater because even though he attended Christ
Church, Wake himself was founder’s kin with Chichele: his paternal great-
great-great grandfather had married the granddaughter of one of Chichele’s
nieces. His wife was also founder’s kin. In spite of this familial connection to
All Souls, there is agreement that it did not influence Wake’s dealings with the
college.31 This was yet another example of Wake butting heads with Gardiner,
who was tormented by gout during the proceedings. Denying kinship privilege
on the basis of deficient learning was a common strategy among college fellows
who did not want to see any an increase of the founder’s kinsmen at All Souls.
Unlike the other episodes outlined in this book, this was an instance when
Gardiner acted with the support of the majority of the college officers. It was

29 John Davis “Founder’s Kin,” in All Souls Under the Ancien Régime, 243, 245; Adrian
Wooldridge, “Prizes, Fellowships, and Open Competition in All Souls, c. 1850–1950,” in All
Souls and the Wider World, 16, 15.
30 Details of the affair are taken from G.D. Squibb, Founders’ Kin: Privilege and Pedigree
(­Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1972), 43, 60; Davis “Founder’s Kin,” 233–238.
31 Since the Archbishop’s only son died in infancy, there was no opportunity for him to le-
verage kinship into an All Souls fellowship for his child. His grandson, Thomas Bennet
became a fellow of All Souls by virtue of founder’s kin in 1750 followed by two great-
grandsons in 1766 and 1769. See Squibb, Founders’ Kin, 61.
Conclusion 187

to no avail. To avoid accusations of impropriety, Wake confined his ruling to

matters of jurisdiction and determined Wood’s excellent acumen in classical
languages through an examination supervised by scholars from Oriel College.
The Archbishop then issued an injunction in Wood’s favour and ruled that All
Souls’ statutes must be interpreted literally when it came to the founders’ kin.
This came on the heels of a heated exchange between Wake and Gardiner at
Lambeth Palace during the college’s appeal of Wood’s fellowship, which cer-
tainly showed the signs of lingering animosity between the two. “I am your
Visitor,” Wake told him, “in the place of your Founder … and if I should think
it proper to send you an Injunction … you would be obliged … to obey it.” Gar-
diner was not intimidated and replied that should Wake issue an injunction
that appeared contrary to the good operation of the college, “we should think
ourselves obliged … peremptorily to disobey it, and by the grace of God, so we
would.”32 Sticking to principles was an expensive proposition. The appeal re-
garding Wood involved as many as eight lawyers working on behalf of All Souls
and all told cost the college £700. Little wonder then, that Gardiner raised no
more opposition to his visitor.
Indeed the fight seemed to have left him. Upon receiving Wake’s order that
Wood be admitted to a fellowship, Gardiner sent a brief and rather crestfallen
reply.33 Two years later when the election of fellowships could not be settled
in November 1725 because Gardiner did not think All Souls should “bring in
three Persons of Baliol College, which has already Sent us many of our pres-
ent Members,” he did not attack the Society and claim right of veto over the
election of new fellows, which he never did lose.34 Rather Gardiner relayed the
dispute to Wake and awaited a resolution. When Wake ruled three weeks later,
Gardiner sent him thanks and remarked that “I doubt not but they [the new
fellows appointed by Wake] will behave themselves with all duty and Respect
to your Grace, their Benefactor; and will answer the Expectations of our Pious
Founder and all Good men.”35 In the end this was all the Gardiner had ever
wanted from the fellows of All Souls.
An issue that evoked an air of familiarity in the corridors of All Souls oc-
curred some fifteen years after the Wood affair. In late 1738 Niblett required
that ­Richard Henley take orders or renounce his fellowship.36 Henley com-
plied. More than a decade later, in 1750, Thomas Bever received an ­official

32 Worthies of All Souls, 383–384.

33 Wake Correspondence, vol. 16, Letter 194. Gardiner to Wake, 16 July 1723.
34 Wake Correspondence, vol. 16, Letter 209. Gardiner to Wake, 7 November 1725.
35 Wake Correspondence, vol. 16, Letter 210. Gardiner to Wake, 25 November 1725.
36 The Warden’s Punishment, 100.
188 Conclusion

­admonishment for being absent from the college without permission. In re-
sponse Bever issued a formal apology that was entered into the warden’s files.37
There were no overwrought dramas here, no lengthy appeals to the visitor, and
no academic tantrums by the warden. Does this mean that the fellows were
more cordial and assiduous in their college duties? It seems unlikely. What
changed more profoundly, since Gardiner’s day, was the authority that Niblett
could wield as warden. The legacies of Thomas Tenison’s visitation in 1710,
which revoked the warden’s ability to veto dispensations from holy orders (fol-
lowing the controversy over fellowships in medicine as we saw in Chapter 3)
and William Wake’s 1719 visitation that denied the warden the power to veto
the election of any college officer (coming on the heels of John Stead’s sup-
posed marriage as described in Chapter 5 and elaborated in Chapter 6) had
dramatically curtailed the autonomous decision making power of Gardiner
and ensuing wardens. It would be nearly a hundred years before a warden of
All Souls entered a disciplinary matter into the college’s records.

…
For Bernard Gardiner the real All Souls was not the physical buildings, although
he did care about them; rather, it was a palace of the mind where fellows read
theology in pursuit of divinity to serve the Anglican Church and at a higher
level God. Here Gardiner would agree with the recent polemic of Stefan Collini
who argued that universities should be “a protected space in which thoughts
and ideas … can be pursued to the highest level” without pausing to consider
the economic return on such an erudite endeavour.38 Gardiner would go fur-
ther than Collini in that for him fellows had an imperative (not simply the op-
portunity alluded to by Collini) to pursue theology even if its benefit was not
immediately obvious to those outside the college. It was a debt fellows owed
to All Souls’ founder Archbishop Chichele. Acceptance of a fellowship was ac-
ceptance of this responsibility. Indeed, Gardiner’s desire to achieve his goal of
fellows actively studying theological topics in the service of higher intellectual
ideals that were undeterred by the political or economic realms, motivated
virtually all of his actions described in this book. To Gardiner All Souls’ value
in the nation—producing Anglican clergy—was entirely self-evident and did
not require justification. Tradition was its own defence. What was apparent to
Gardiner, however, was not so to others who countered that the college should
fashion more young men with immediately practical job skills and not merely

37 The Warden’s Punishment Book, 101–102.

38 Stefan Collini, What are Universities For? (London: Penguin, 2012), 86–87.
Conclusion 189

the ability to think deeply about things. Such was the plea of Blencowe and
Lord Macclesfield. Attempts to introduce Parliamentary legislation aimed at
eliminating the requirement for fellows to hold holy orders illustrate that Gar-
diner’s sense of the obvious did not extend broadly.
Similar arguments appear in current debates. Collini wrote that critics chal-
lenge the purpose of universities when the institutions’ value to society at large
is not self-evident.39 In today’s world where anyone with an Internet connec-
tion counts him or herself an expert and equates the ability to “Google” some-
thing as doing research, Humanities classes that teach research, writing, and
rhetoric are seen as passé. But then as now, this view misses something im-
portant. Martha C. Nussbaum characterized the issue clearly when she writes
that universities’ growing emphasis on “applied skills suited to profit making,”
will create “generations of useful machines, rather than complete citizens who
can think for themselves, criticize tradition, and understand the significance
of another person’s sufferings and achievements.”40 Fellows of All Souls who
stayed true to Chichele’s vision would develop their inner selves, become more
aware of the world of ideas and see themselves as part of a great intellectual
community that transcended specific occupations such as medicine or civil
law. It is true that Gardiner’s scheme would see fellows train for clerical ca-
reers and in this sense his view was decidedly narrower than that articulat-
ed by modern commentators. Nonetheless, his intent echoes today. Michael
S. Roth’s eloquent defence of liberal education proposed that attending a uni-
versity should expand a person, make him or her think outwardly and see that
they are part of a larger whole, a community of scholars producing a body of
work that characterizes the human condition. That is to say, students can re-
make themselves, challenge who they were and grow beyond their family his-
tory, be more than a collection of job specific skills that are easily dated should
that profession become obsolete.41 The ability to write well and think critically
has no best before date. In a way this was what Gardiner fought so fiercely to
maintain at All Souls: a college that sent well rounded men into the world.
He lamented that some fellows turned their backs on this noble pursuit and
sought a trade rather than an education. In his short 2015 book, Fareed Zakaria
supported the merits inner reflection as the true value of liberal education.
He saw the benefit of studying history, music, biology, and physics as being

39 Collini, What are Universities For?, 92–93.

40 Martha C. Nussbaum, Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2010), 2.
41 Michael S. Roth, Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2014), 181.
190 Conclusion

less about i­ mmediately obviously job skills and more about nurturing the self.
“This may not help make a living, but it will help make a life.”42 Gardiner could
hardly have said it better.
It is easy to think Gardiner an anachronism of bigoted certainty in an age of
looming change. It is easy because his vision for All Souls and expectation of
the England that would be shaped by the events of 1688 were both consumed
by history. The issue presented in this book is not that he was wrong, but that
he thought he was right; why he argued so passionately and wrote to his supe-
riors with equal parts anxiety and righteous anger over what was happening
both within the college and the nation at large. In an age where England stood
at a crossroads of either remaking itself to be less exclusive in religion and less
authoritarian in its monarch or of returning to those things because they were
comfortable and familiar, Gardiner did not change his mind. He never wavered
once in his belief that tradition trumps innovation and that the past is a better
model for the present than the uncertainties of the future. Gardiner saw him-
self as one link in a chain that extended back to Archbishop Henry Chichele,
and like Charles Dickens’s character Jacob Marley, that chain weighed heavily
on his soul. Certainly the links crafted by a few previous wardens did not shine
very brightly and were tarnished through neglect of their duty, but Gardiner
would ensure that the link he bequeathed to the chain from his wardenship
was polished to the same mirror finish, as was Chichele’s.

42 Fareed Zakaria, In Defense of a Liberal Education (New York: W.W. Norton & Company,
2015), 150.
Bibliography

Manuscripts Sources

All Souls College, Oxford

Appeals and Visitors’ Injunctions, 2 volumes.
Warden’s Manuscript 7.
Warden’s Manuscript 9.
Warden’s Manuscript 10.

Bodleian Library, Oxford

All Souls MS DD b. 16.
Ballard MS 4.
Ballard MS 6.
Ballard MS 12.
Ballard MS 27.
Eng. d. 2405.
Rawl. 4o 92.
Tanner MS 31.

British Library, London

Add. MS 6116.
Add. MS 14268.
Add. MS 22083.
Add. MS 29604.
Add. MS 32095.
Add. MS 32686.
Add. MS 35586.
Add. MS 36136.
Add. MS 61303.
Add. MS 61469.
Add. MS 61495.
Add. MS 61575.
Add. MS 61610.
Add. MS 61612.
Add. MS 61650.
Add. MS 61652.
Add. MS 70287.
192 Bibliography

Add. MS 72543.
Cup. 645.e.5. (10.).
Egerton MS 261.
Egerton MS 2618.
Lansdowne MS 15.
Lansdowne MS 987.
Lansdowne MS 1013.
Harley MS 7032.
Stowe MS 597.
Stowe MS 750.
Stowe MS 799.

Christ Church College, Oxford

The Chapter Book (1689–1713).
William Wake Correspondence, volumes 6, 15, and 16.

Lambeth Palace Library

MS 1770.

Merton College, Oxford

Holland Register 4.21.
Holland Register 4.22.
Wyntle Register 1.4.
Wyntle Register 1.6.

New College, Oxford

MS 666.
MS 1038.
MS 3067.
MS 5065.
MS 5066.
MS 5082.

The National Archives

C11/435/127.
C11/490/30.
C11/2219/20.
PROB 11/609/146.
PROB 11/665/391.
Bibliography 193

PROB 11/782/187.
SP 35/23 fol. 55a.

Newspapers and Periodicals

The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Daily Post.
The Grub Street Journal.
The Post Boy.
Universal Spectator.

Published Primary Sources

Anonymous. The Defection Detected; or, Faults Laid on the Right Side. London, 1718.
Atterbury, Francis. The Epistolary Correspondence, Visitation Charges, Speeches, and
Miscellanies, of the Right Reverend Francis Atterbury, D.D. London, 1783.
Bloxam, J.R., ed. Magdalen College and King James II, 1686–1688: A Series of Documents.
Oxford, 1886.
Brown, Beatrice Curtis, ed. The Letters and Diplomatic Instructions of Queen Anne.
London: Cassell, 1968.
Cooper, Anthony Ashley. The Life, Unpublished Letters, and Philosophical Regimen
of Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury. ed. Benjamin Rand. Facsimile reprint. London:
Thoemmes Press, 1995.
Cowan, Brian, ed. The State Trial of Doctor Henry Sacheverell. Chichester: Wiley-­
Blackwell, 2012.
Gardiner, Bernard. Reasons Against the Profession of Physicks in All Souls College, Oxon.
More especially, If used as an Argument to Release the Fellows There, from the Obliga-
tion to taking upon Them Holy orders (n. p. c.1709).
Gardiner, Bernard. A Plain Relation of Some Late Passages at Oxford. Oxford, 1717.
Hearne, Thomas. Reliquiae Hearnianae: The Remains of Thomas Hearne, ed. Philip
Bliss. 3 volumes. London, 1869.
Hearne, Thomas. Remarks and Collection of Thomas Hearne, ed. C.E. Doble et al. 11 vol-
umes. Oxford, 1885–1921.
Kirby, Thomas Frederick, ed. Annals of Winchester College. Oxford, 1892.
Law, William. The Case of Reason, or Natural Religion, Fairly and Fully Stated. In answer
to a Book, entitled, Christianity as old as the Creation (1731). In The Works of the Rever-
end William Law, M.A. volume 2. London, 1892.
194 Bibliography

Maclure, J. Stuart, ed. Educational Documents: England and Wales 1816–1967. London:
Chapman and Hall, 1968.
Mandelbrote, Scott and John H.R. Davis. The Warden’s Punishment Book of All Souls
College Oxford. Oxford Historical Society. New Series, vol. XLV. Woodbridge: The
Boydell Press, 2013.
Martin, Charles Trice. Catalogue of the Archives in the Muniment Rooms of All Souls’
College. London, 1877.
Miller, Edmund. An Account of Cambridge. London, 1717.
Milner, John. Letters to a Prebendary: Being an Answer to Reflections on Popery. Second
Edition. London, 1801.
Morris, Jan. The Oxford Book of Oxford. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.
Sacheverell, Henry. The Perils of False Brethren, both in Church and State. London,
1709.
[Silke, John] The Religious, Rational and Moral Conduct of Mathew Tindal, L.L.D. late
Fellow of All Souls College in Oxford. London 1735.
Smith, David Nichol, ed. The Letters of Jonathan Swift to Charles Ford. Oxford: The Clar-
endon Press, 1935.
Swift, Jonathan. Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., ed. Walter Scott. 19 volumes. Edinburgh,
1814.
Tindal, Matthew. An Essay Concerning Obedience to the Supreme Powers, and the Duty
of Subjects in all Revolutions. London, 1694a.
Tindal, Matthew. A Letter To the Reverend the Clergy of both Universities, Concerning the
Trinity and the Athanasian Creed. London, 1694b.
Tindal, Matthew. A Second Defence of the Rights of the Christian Church, Occasion’d by
two late Indictments against a Bookseller and his Servant. London, 1708.
Tindal, Matthew. The Rights of the Christian Church Asserted, against the Romish, and
All Other Priests Who Claim an Independent Power over It. The Fourth Edition Cor-
rected. London, 1709a.
Tindal, Matthew. A Defence of the Rights of the Christian Church. In Two Parts. Second
Edition Corrected. London, 1709b.
Tindal, Matthew. New High-Church Turn’d Old Presbyterian. London, 1710a.
Tindal, Matthew. The Jacobitism Perjury and Popery of High-Church-Priests. London,
1710b.
Tindal, Matthew. The Defection Consider’d, and the Designs of those who divided the
Friends of the Government, set in a True Light. London, 1718.
von Uffenbach, Zacharias Conrad. Oxford in 1710, ed. W.H. Quarrell and W.J.C. Quarrell.
Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1928.
Wake, William. The Authority of Christian Princes over their Ecclesiastical Synods As-
serted. London, 1697.
Wake, William. The State of the Church of England. London, 1703.
Bibliography 195

Ward, G.R.M. trans., The Statutes of All Souls College, Oxford. Now Translated into Eng-
lish. London, 1841.
Waterland, Daniel. Scripture Vindicated, 3 Parts (1730–33). In The Works of The Rev. Dan-
iel Waterland, D.D., ed. William Van Mildert, D.D. volume 4, Second Edition. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1843.
Williams, E. Neville, ed. The Eighteenth-Century Constitution 1688–1815. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1960.

Published Secondary Sources

Alford, C. Fred. Narrative, Nature, and the Natural Law. New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2010.
Alford, Stephen. Burghley: William Cecil at the Court of Elizabeth I. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2008.
Anderson, R.D. European Universities from the Enlightenment to 1914. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2004.
Aston, Nigel. “Queen Anne and Oxford: The Royal Visit 1702 and its Aftermath.” Journal
for Eighteenth-Century Studies 37, no 2 (2014): 171–184.
Beattie, John M. The English Court in the Reign of George I. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1967.
Beier, A.L. et al., ed. The First Modern Society: Essays in English History in Honour of
Lawrence Stone. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Bennett, J.A.W. “Dryden and All Souls.” Modern Language Notes 52 (1937): 115–116.
Bennett, G.V. “Robert Harley, the Godolphin Ministry and the Bishop Crisis of 1707.”
English Historical Review, 82 (1967): 726–746.
Berman, David and Stephen Lalor, “The Suppression of Christianity as Old as the
Creation Vol. II.” Notes and Queries, 229 (1984): 3–6.
Birken, William. “The Dissenting Tradition in English Medicine of the Seventeenth and
Eighteenth Centuries.” Medical History, 39 (1995): 197–218.
Brewer, John. Party Politics and Popular Politics at the Accession of George III.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Brewer, John. The Sinews of Power: War, Money, and the English State, 1688–1783.
Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1990.
Brockliss, L.W.B. The University of Oxford: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2016.
Brockliss, L.W.B., ed. Magdalen College and the Crown: Essays for the Tercentenary of the
Restoration of the College 1688. Oxford: Printed for the College, 1988.
Brockliss, L.W.B. ed. Magdalen College Oxford: A History. Oxford: Magdalen College,
2008.
196 Bibliography

Bulman, William J. Anglican Enlightenment: Orientalism, Religion and Politics in Eng-

land and its Empire, 1648–1715. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
Burrows, Montagu. Worthies of All Souls: Four Centuries of English History Illustrate
From the College Archives. London, 1874.
Burtt, Shelly. Vritue Transformed: Political Argument in England, 1688–1740. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Butler, Christopher. ed. Christ Church, Oxford: A Portrait of the House. London: Third
Millennium Publishing, 2006.
Buxton, John and Penry Williams, ed. New College Oxford, 1379–1979. Oxford: Oxford:
University Press, 1979.
Carswell, John. The South Sea Bubble, Revised Edition. London: Sutton, 2001.
Catto, R.J.A., et al. ed. Unarmed Soldiery: Studies in the Early History of All Souls College.
Oxford: All Souls College, 1996.
Chalmers, Alex. A History of the Colleges, Halls, and Public Buildings, Attached to the
University of Oxford, Including the Lives of the Founders. Oxford: Collingwood and
Co., 1910.
Champion, Justin. The Pillars of Priestcraft Shaken: The Church of England and its
Enemies 1660–1730. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Clark, J.C.D. English Society 1660–1832, Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2000.
Clark, William. Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2006.
Claydon, Tony. Europe and the Making of England 1660–1760. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2007.
Coffey, John. Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England, 1558–1689. Harlow: Long-
man, 2000.
Colley, Linda. In Defiance of Oligarchy: The Tory Party 1714–1760. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1982.
Colley, Linda. Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837. New Haven: Yale University Press,
1992.
Collini, Stefan. What are Universities For? London: Penguin, 2012.
Collingwood, R.G. The Idea of History, Revised Edition, ed. Jan van der Dussen. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1994.
Colvin, Howard and J.S.G. Simmons, All Souls: An Oxford College and its Buildings.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Cook, Alan. Edmund Halley: Charting the Heavens and the Seas. Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1998.
Corrie, George E. The Interference of the Crown with the Affairs of the English Universi-
ties. Cambridge, 1839.
Crawley, Charles. Trinity Hall: The History of a Cambridge College 1350–1975. Cambridge:
Printed for the College, 1976.
Bibliography 197

Crook, J. Mordaunt. Brasenose: The Biography of an Oxford College. Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2008.
Cruickshanks, Eveline et al. ed., The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1690–
1715, 5 volumes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Curthoys, Judith. The Cardinal’s College: Christ Church, Chapter and Verse. London:
Profile Books, 2012.
Darwall-Smith, Robin. A History of University College, Oxford. Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 2008.
de Leeuw, Karl. “The Black Chamber in the Dutch Republic During the War of the
Spanish Succession and Its Aftermath, 1707–1715.” The Historical Journal, 42 (1999):
133–156.
de Ridder-Symoens, H. ed. A History of The University in Europe, volume 2. Universities
in Early Modern Europe (1500–1800). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Dickinson, H.T. Liberty and Property: Political Ideology in Eighteenth-Century Britain.
New York: Holmes and Meier Publishers, 1977.
Drabble, Margaret, ed. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Fifth Edition.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.
Ellis, Heather. Generational Conflict and University Reform: Oxford in the Age of Revolu-
tion. Leiden: Brill, 2012.
Evans, G.R. The University of Oxford: A New History. London: I.B. Tauris, 2010a.
Evans, G.R. The University of Cambridge: A New History. London: I.B. Tauris, 2010b.
Evans, G.R. “The Domestic Laws of Oxford and Cambridge: External Interference and
Internal Interpretation,” History of Universities XXVIII (2014): 66–104.
Firth, C.H. “Dean Swift and Ecclesiastical Preferment.” Review of English Studies, 2
(1926): 1–17.
Foord, Archiblad S. His Majesty’s Opposition, 1714–1830. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1964.
Flaningam, John. “The Occasional Conformity Controversy: Ideology and Party Poli-
tics, 1697–1711.” The Journal of British Studies, 17 (1977): 38–62.
French, Roger. Medicine Before Science: The Business of Medicine from the Middle Ages
to the Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Gascoigne, John. “Anglican Latitudinarianism and Political Radicalism in the Late
Eighteenth Century.” History 71 (1986): 22–38.
Gascoigne, John. Cambridge in Age of Enlightenment: Science, Religion and Politics from
the Restoration to the French Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1989.
George, Robert H. “The Charters Granted to English Parliamentary Corporations in
1688.” The English Historical Review, 55 (1940): 47–56.
Godley, A.D. Oxford in the Eighteenth Century. London, 1908.
Graham, Aaron. Corruption, Party, and Government in England, 1702–1713. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2015.
198 Bibliography

Green, S.J.D. and Peregrine Horden, ed. All Souls Under the Ancien Régime: Politics,
Learning, & the Arts, c. 1600–1850. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Green, S.J.D. and Peregrine Horden. ed. All Souls and the Wider World: Statesmen, Schol-
ars, and Adventurers, c. 1850–1950. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Gregg, Edward. Queen Anne. London: ARK Paperbacks, 1984.
Grell, Ole Peter and Andrew Cunningham, ed. Medicine and Religion in Enlightenment
Europe. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007.
Häcker, Birke. “A case note on All Souls v. Cod[d]rington (1720),” The Rabel Journal of
Comparative and International Private Law, 76 (2012): 1051–1077.
Hargreaves-Mawdsley, W.N. Oxford in the Age of John Locke. Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1973.
Harris, Tim. Politics Under the Later Stuarts 1660–1715. London: Longman, 1993.
Harris, Tim. Revolution: The Great Crisis of the British Monarchy, 1685–1720. London:
Penguin, 2006.
Harris, Tim and Stephen Taylor, ed. The Final Crisis of the Stuart Monarchy: The Revolu-
tions of 1688–91 in their British, Atlantic and European Contexts. Woodbridge: Boydell
and Brewer, 2013.
Henderson, Bernard W. Merton College. London, 1899.
Hill, Christopher. The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English
Revolution. 1972; Harmondsworth: Pelican Books, 1982.
Hill, Christopher. Some Intellectual Consequences of the English Revolution. 1980;
London: Phoenix, 1997.
Hirschberg, D.R. “The Government and Church Patronage in England, 1660–1760.”
Journal of British Studies, 20 (1980): 109–139.
Holmes, Geoffrey. British Politics in the Age of Anne. London: St. Martin’s Press, 1967.
Holmes, Geoffrey. The Making of a Great Power: Late Stuart and early Gregorian Britain
1660–1722. London: Longman, 1993.
Holmes, Geoffrey, ed. Britain After the Glorious Revolution 1689–1714. London: Macmil-
lan, 1969.
Hudson, Wayne. Enlightenment and Modernity: The English Deists and Reform. London:
Pickering and Chatto, 2009.
Hudson, Wayne, Diego Lucci, and Jeffrey R. Wigelsworth, ed. Atheism and Deism Re-
valued, Heterodox Religious Identities in Britain, 1650–1800. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2014.
Jardine, Lisa. On a Grander Scale: The Outstanding Life of Sir Christopher Wren. New
York, Harper, 2002.
Johnston, Warren. Revelation Restored: The Apocalypse in Later Seventeenth-Century
England. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2011.
Jones, Clive. British Politics in the Age of Holmes. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
Jones, J.R. The Revolution of 1688 in England. London: Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1972.
Knights, Mark. “Occasional Conformity and the Representation of Dissent: Hypocrisy,
Sincerity, Moderation and Zeal.” Parliamentary History, 24 (2005): 41–57.
Bibliography 199

Knights, Mark. The Devil in Disguise: Deception, Delusion, and Fanaticism in the Early
English Enlightenment. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Lalor, Stephen. Matthew Tindal, Freethinker: An Eighteenth-Century Assault on Religion.
London: Continuum, 2006.
Levere, Trevor H. “Dr. Thomas Beddoes at Oxford: Radical Poltics in 1788–1793 and the
Fate of the Regius Chair in Chemistry.” Ambix, 28 (1981): 61–69.
Levitin, Dmitri. “Matthew Tindal’s Rights of the Christian Church (1706) and the Church-
State Relationship.” The Historical Journal 54 (2011): 717–740.
Lynn, John A. The Wars of Louis XIV 1667–1714. London: Longman, 1999.
MacMillan, Margaret. History’s People: Personalities and the Past. Toronto: House of
Anansi Press, 2015.
Martin, G.H. and J.R.L. Highfield. A History of Merton College, Oxford. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1997.
Midgley, Graham. University Life in Eighteenth-Century Oxford. New Haven: Yale Uni-
versity Press, 1996.
Miller, Peter N. Defining the Common Good: Empire, Religion, and Philosophy in
Eighteenth-Century Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Namier, Lewis. The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III, 2nd ed. London:
Macmillian and Co. Ltd., 1963.
Nussbaum, Martha C. Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2010.
Pincus, Steven. 1688: The First Modern Revolution. New Haven: Yale University Press,
2009.
Pincus, Steven C.A. and James A. Robinson. “What Really Happened During the Glori-
ous Revolution.” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 17206. July
2011.
Plumb, J.H. Sir Robert Walpole, The Making of a Statesman. London: Allen Lane, 1956.
Plumb, J.H. Sir Robert Walpole: The King’s Minister. London: The Cresset Press, 1960.
Plumb, J.H. The Growth of Political Stability in England 1675–1725. London: Macmillan,
1967.
Porter, Roy. Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World. London, Allen
Lane, 2000.
Reedy, Gerard. Robert South (1634–1716): An introduction to his life and sermons. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Rose, Jacqueline. Godly Kingship in Restoration England: The Politics of the Royal
Supremacy, 1660–1688. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Rose, Jacqueline. “By Law Established: The Church of England and the Royal Supremacy.”
In The Later Stuart Church, 1660–1714. Edited by Grant Tapsell Manchester: Man-
chester University Press, 2012.
Roth, Michael S. Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2014.
200 Bibliography

Rothblatt, Sheldon. The Modern University and its Discontents: The Fate of Newman’s
Legacies in Britain and America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Scott, Jonathan. England’s Troubles: Seventeenth-Century England’s Political Instability
in European Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Scott, Peter. “All Souls of Oxford,” Change 5, no. 5 (1973): 25.
Sharpe, Kevin. Rebranding Rule: The Restoration and Revolution Monarch, 1660–1714.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013.
Simmis, Brendan. Britain’s Europe: A Thousand Years of Conflict and Cooperation.
London: Allen Lane, 2016.
Sirota, Brent S. “The Occasional Conformity Controversy, Moderation, and the Angli-
can Critique of Modernity, 1700–1714,” The Historical Journal 57 (2014a): 81–105.
Sirota, Brent S. The Christian Monitors: The Church of England and the Age of Benevo-
lence, 1680–1730 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014b).
Smith, Hannah. Georgian Monarchy: Politics and Culture, 1714–1760. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Soares, Joseph A. The Decline of Privilege: The Modernization of Oxford University. Stan-
ford: Stanford University, 1999.
Somerset, Anne. Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion. New York: Alfred A, Knopf, 2013.
Sowerby, Scott. Making Toleration: The Repealers and the Glorious Revolution. Harvard:
Harvard University Press, 2013.
Speck, W.A. Stability and Strife: England, 1714–1760. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1977.
Speck, W.A. Reluctant Revolutionaries: Englishmen and the Revolution of 1688. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1988.
Spurr, John. The Post-Reformation: Religion, Politics, and Society, 1603–1714. Harlow:
Longman, 2006.
Squibb, G.D. Founders’ Kin: Privilege and Pedigree. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1972.
Stewart, Larry. The Rise of Public Science: Rhetoric, Technology, and Natural Philosophy
in Newtonian Britain, 1660–1750. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Sutherland, Dame Lucy. The University of Oxford in the Eighteenth Century: A Reconsid-
eration. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973.
Sutherland, L.S. and L.G. Mitchell, ed. The History of the University of Oxford, volume
V, The Eighteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Sweet, Rosemary. “Local Identities and a National Parliament, c. 1660–1860.” In Par-
liaments, Nations and Identities in Britain and Ireland, 1660–1860. Edited by Julian
­Hoppit. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003.
Sykes, Norman. “Archbishop Wake and the Whig Party: 1716–23: A Study in Incompat-
ibility of Temperament.” Cambridge Historical Journal, 2 (1945): 93–112.
Trevelyan, G.M. The English Revolution 1688–1689. 1938; London: Oxford University
Press, 1963.
Bibliography 201

Twigg, John. The University of Cambridge and the English Revolution, 1625–1688. Wood-
bridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1990.
Walsh, John, et al. ed. The Church of England C. 1689–C. 1833. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1993.
Walsham, Alexandra. Charitable Hatred: Tolerance and Intolerance in England, 1500–
1700. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006.
Ward, W.R. Georgian Oxford: University Politics in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford:
­Oxford University Press, 1958.
White, Henry Julian. Merton College, Oxford. 1906; Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2010.
Whiteside, D.T. ed., The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton vol. vi, 1684–1691. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974.
Whyte, William. Redbrick: A Social and Architectural History of Britain’s Civic Universi-
ties. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Wigelsworth, Jeffrey R. Deism in Enlightenment England: Theology, Politics, and Newto-
nian Public Science. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009.
Wigelsworth, Jeffrey R. “‘God can require nothing of us, but what makes for our Hap-
piness’: Matthew Tindal on Toleration.” In Atheism and Deism Revalued, Heterodox
Religious Identities in Britain, 1650–1800. Edited by Wayne Hudson, Diego Lucci, and
Jeffrey R. Wigelsworth. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2014.
Williams, Basil. Stanhope: A study in Eighteenth-century War and Diplomacy. 1932;
reprint. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1968.
Winn, James Anderson. Queen Anne: Patroness of Arts. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2014.
Wood, Paul, ed. Science and Dissent in England, 1688–1945. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004.
Young, B.W. Religion and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century England. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1998.
Zakaria, Fareed. In Defense of a Liberal Education. New York: W.W. Norton & Company,
2015.
Index
Act of General Pardon (1708) 34
Act of Settlement (1701) 28–29, 145
Act of Toleration (1689) 34
Aldworth, Charles 16, 17
All Souls College, Oxford
conservatism of 2, 12, 12n34
duties of fellows 10–11, 72, 77–78
fellowship types 9–10, 62, 76
founding of 7–10
uniqueness of 3, 8, 11–12
Anne (Queen) 2, 28, 29, 30, 57, 87, 95, 99,
136, 150
and War of the Spanish Succession 93
Blencowe’s exception from
orders 107–108
death of 144, 145, 149
ends Convocation Crisis 54
political temperament of 93, 96, 97,
109, 113
relationship with Sunderland 91–92
visits University of Oxford 29, 93–94
Anstis, John Sr.
All Souls fellowship for John Jr. 185
Anstis, John Jr.
at Corpus Christi College 185
Archbishop of Canterbury See Laud; Parker
(Matthew); Potter; Tenison; Whitgift;
Wake
Arran, Lord
succeeds to his brother’s titles 151–152
Atterbury, Francis 52, 103
as Dean of Christ Church 145
Jacobitism of 144–145
Ayerst, William 54
Barron, John
“University Bill” 169
Beattie, John 167
Beddoes, Thomas 75
Bennett, G. V. 97, 110
Bentley, Richard
Boyle Lecturer 165
dispute with fellows of Trinity 165–166
Bettesworth, John  106, 132, 138
discusses Gardiner with Wake 141–142
supports Gardiner’s management of All
Souls 128–129
Bever, Thomas 187–188
Bible Clerks 8n20
Bigg, Henry
elected Warden of New College 180,
180n10
responds to George I 179–181, 183–184
Warden of New College 179
Bishop of Ely (William Fleetwood)
Plan to reform universities 156–157, 169
Blacknall, Mrs. (proprietor of Catherine
Wheel) 1, 81
Blencowe, John
father of William Blencowe 86, 90
Blencowe, William 35, 36, 45, 46,
47, 48, 58–59, 64, 80, 112, 120, 133,
162, 169
and dispute with Gardiner 86–112
passim 123–124, 134, 177
assisted by Sunderland 90–93, 99, 179
author of Reasons for Repealing that Part
of the Statutes of the Universities of Cam-
bridge and Oxford 37, 44, 90, 161
ordered by Gardiner to be in orders 90
requests college positions 98–99
ruling against 106–110
suicide 110–111
work as cryptographer 86, 88
Boyle, Henry 104
Brewer, John 87
Broadwater, Richard 149
Brockliss, L. W. B. 13, 66, 162
Bromfield, John (father of John Trenchard
Bromfield)
serves on grand jury 182
Bromfield, John Trenchard
contested election to Winchester
College 179–184
matriculates at Merton College 184
Bromley, William 32–33, 103, 109, 112, 174
corresponds with Gardiner about House
of Commons Bill 35, 41, 44, 45
corresponds with Gardiner about
Blencowe 98
Index 203

elected Speaker of the House 33, 41–42, bequeaths money and books to All
170 Souls 172–173
Secretary of State 149, 150, 152, 153 intellect of 172
Budgell, Eustace Codrington Library ix, 170
corresponds with Earl of construction of 174
Hardwicke 125–126 Colbatch, John
loses money in South Sea Bubble 125 writes to Wake about Bentley 166
makes claim on Tindal’s estate 67–68, Collini, Stefan 188–189
125 Collingwood, R. G. 4–5
rents estate from John Piers 125–126 Compton, Henry 98, 108
Burke, Edmund 24, 177 Constitution Club
Burrows, Montagu x involvement in Oxford riots 149–150
Convocation Crisis 51–53
Cambridge, University of 12 Corporation Act (1661) 34
Caius College 15 Creech, Thomas
Trinity College 165–166 suicide of 110n90
Trinity Hall 9, 171 Cunningham, Andrew 74
Carlos ii 87 Curll, Edmund
Cecil, William (1st Baron Burghley) 73, 74 publishes false Tindal will 67
Charles ii
Restoration 150 Dalton, Thomas 35, 36, 45, 46, 47, 48
Charlett, Arthur (Master of University marriage of 120–121
College) 45, 86, 153, 165, 175 Darryl, Alice 124–125, 137
on Codrington’s bequest to All Souls 172 Delafaye, Charles
on Tindal 54, 61 Under-secretary to Duke of
toasts Ormonde 151 Newcastle 183
Chichele, Henry 3, 7, 11, 177 Involvement with Bigg and Dobson of
creates Founder’s Kin at All Souls 8–9, New College 183–184
186–187 Dobson, John
as founder of All Souls and its Stat- elected Warden of Winchester 180,
utes 7–9, 14, 71, 74, 82, 85, 107, 120, 179 180n10
Christ Church, Oxford 3, 29, 31 responds to George I 179–181, 183–184
removal of Regius Professor of Warden of Winchester 179
Greek 94–95, 97 Dod, Pierce 133, 169
Churchill, John (1st Duke of Marlbor- attempts to be mp for University of
ough) 96, 97, 104, 158 Oxford 175
Churchill, Sarah 96, 104, 158 corresponds with Clarke about Tin-
Clark, William 12 dal 67, 69, 70, 85
Clarke, George medicine fellowship of 77–80, 85, 93, 98,
corresponds with Dod about Tindal 67, 114, 116, 128
69, 70, 85
friendship with Gardiner 171–72 Eagleton, Terry x
leaves money to Worcester College  Election of 1715 147
172 Elizabeth I 16, 72–74
mp for University of Oxford 174–175 English Revolution (1688) 30
plans for new buildings at All historiographical views of 24, 29, 160
Souls 170–172 legacy of at University of Oxford 1–2, 3,
Clarke, John 82 36–37, 157–158, 178–179
Codrington, Christopher providential view of 50–51
204 Index

Evans, G. R. 12 views on medical fellowships at All

Exclusion Crisis 30 Souls 76–85
view of All Souls 188–189, 190
Farmer, Antony 16, 18–19 weight of Warden’s vote in college
Fellowship types at All Souls 9–10 elections 133–135
obligations of 10–11 Gascoigne, John 40
Finch, Leopold 14, 106 George I 2, 58, 148, 151, 152, 153, 168
Becomes Warden of All Souls 19, 49 succeeds to English throne 144, 145, 146,
dispute over Camden Professor of 149
History 13–14 imparts desire to please 148, 150
dispute with James ii 19–22 issues letter mandatory to New College,
Oxford 179
Gardiner, Bernard ix, x, xii, 1, 2, 11, 13, 16, 23, George ii 148
30, 112, 184 Gibbon, Edward 12
admonishes Stead 129, 141–142 Gibson, Edmund 53, 86
and dispute with Blencowe 86–112 Gardiner writes to about Tindal 62
apologizes to Tenison for so many Gardiner write to about Tenison 123
letters 106 Girdler, Joseph 44
author of Reasons Against the Profession of Glorious Revolution See English Revolution
Physick in All Souls College 78–79 Graham, Aaron 37
becomes Warden 12 Greville, Dodington 43, 63
biographical details 6–7 Grindal, Edmund 74
comments on Tindal 62–64, 70
corresponds with Bromley about House of Halley, Edmund 135
Commons Bill 35, 41, 44, 45 Harley, Robert 32, 42, 92
corresponds with Tenison about House of accepts Hanoverian succession 145–146
Commons Bill 28, 36, 39–40, 43, 44 Harris, Tim 29
delegate of University Press 151 Hawksmoor, Nicholas 171
disputes Wood’s fellowship 186–187 Herne, Thomas
hold inquiry into Tindal’s authorship Fellowship at Merton 155–156
of The Rights of the Christian Church Hearne, Thomas 40, 115, 133
Asserted 62–63 comments on Blencowe’s death 110–111
loss of authority at All Souls 81–82, 116, dislike of Gardiner 36
128, 136, 143, 144, 148, 154, 156, 188 on Codrington’s bequest to All Souls 173
married fellows 126 Henley, Richard 187
objects to Stead as Bursar of Arts 129– Henry V 16
133, 136, 138–139 Hickes, George 55
perceived authority over fellows 14 Tindal’s tutor at Lincoln College,
plans to expand All Souls 170–171, 174 ­Oxford 49, 61
political leanings of 33–34, 126 urges action against Tindal 61
reasons for acting against Blencowe 111 Holland, John 84n47
Stead’s marriage and 119–130, 136, 139 death of 118
supported by High-Church clergy 53 election of Whig fellows at
understanding of English Revolution 29, Merton 154–156
114, 157–158, 177–178, 190 epitaph of 154
“University Bill” 163–164, 165, 168 embezzlement by Bursars 131
upholds Chichele vision 188–189, 190 looks to increase piety at Merton 84
Vice-Chancellor of Oxford 150–151, 152, issue of fellows’s income 89–90
153 Whig politics of 156
Index
Holmes, Geoffrey 5–6, 148
Hough, John 17, 45
Hovenden, Robert 73
Jacobites 29, 56, 144, 145, 147, 153
The ’15 146, 182
James ii 1, 2, 29, 87, 95, 150, 158
dispute with Finch at All Souls 19–22
dispute at Magalen College 14–19, 23, 24,
177, 181
issues letter mandatory 16
memory of at Oxford 14, 157, 184
James Francis Edward (son of James ii)
Old Pretender 145
Kennett, White 40
Knights, Mark 34–35
Lambeth Palace 1, 80
Law, William 58, 59
Laud, William 10, 12, 89
Legge, William (Earl of Dartmouth) 104, 105,
106, 108, 109, 135
Littleton, Fisher
elected Bursar at All Souls 130
Gardiner acts against 45, 46
expelled from fellowship 47
involvement with House of Commons
bill 35, 36, 43–44, 120
Lloyd, Nathaneal
bequest to All Souls 171
Louis xiv, 87, 146
Magdalen College, Oxford 2, 101, 103,
104
dispute with James ii 14–19, 111, 177
Mar, Earl of
Jacobite actions of 146
Marten, John
Merton fellowship 117–119
Massey, John 15, 22
medicine (physick) fellowships at All
Souls 71–85, 164
Gardiner reduces number of 76, 78
jurist fellows holding 76–77
Meredith, Roger 35, 36, 45–46, 120
Merton College 3, 82–84, 89–90, 117–119, 131,
154–156
1738 visitation 83–84, 90
205
founding of 118
statutes of 118–119
Mews, Peter (Bishop of Winchester) 17
Miller, Edmund 169
An Account of Cambridge 165, 166
Milles, Thomas 94–96, 97
Moore, John (Bishop of Ely) 165
Namier, Lewis 5
New College, Oxford 3, 174
dispute with George I 179–184
Newton, Isaac 12
Niblett, Stephen
disputes with John Anstis’s
fellowship 185–186
interactions with fellows 187–188
Warden of All Souls 185, 188
Nicholson, William (Bishop of Carlisle) 30
Northey, Edward
as Attorney General 105
involved in Blencowe affair 105–106, 107
Nussbaum, Martha C. 189
Occasional Conformity 34, 41, 53, 109, 113,
148
Ormonde, Duke of
Chancellor of Oxford 144, 151, 160
Jacobite actions of 144–145, 151
lodges at All Souls 151
participation in ’15 145
Oxford Decree 57, 103
Oxford, University of
1536 attempt at reform 162
Alfred the Great credited with
founding 7
assessment of English Revolution
at 23–24, 25, 29
Bishop of Ely’s reform attempts 156–157
disaffection of 152, 153, 160
founding of 7
Grand Jury determines loyalty to
crown 153–154
Laudian Statutes (1636) 28
modern attempts at reform of vii-x
Parker’s reform attempts 159–169,
175–176
political usefulness of 13
protests against George I 148–149, 151
reaction to Sacheverell verdict 102–103
206
Oxford, University of (cont.)
study of medicine at 71–72, 79
study of theology at 72
Tindal’s view of 56–58, 69–70
Parker, Matthew 73
Parker, Samuel (Bishop of Oxford) 19
Parker, Thomas (Earl of Macclesfield) 169
plan to reform universities 158–165, 170
prosecution of Sacheverell 101, 159
Pelham-Holles, Thomas (Duke of Newcastle)
involvement with Bigg and Dobson of
New College 183–184
“University Bill” 166–168
Pembroke, Earl of 95, 96
Physick See medicine
Piers, Barbara
supposed marriage to Stead 119, 121, 123,
124, 126, 136, 137
marries William Cary 143
Piers, John (father to William and John) 125,
126, 131
Piers, John (father to Barbara and Mary) 121,
124, 126
Piers, Mary
Catholicism of 122
lives with Stead 122, 123, 124, 126, 136, 137
marries Peter Cary 143
Piers, William (uncle to Barbara and
Mary) 121, 123, 124, 126, 127, 131, 136
Piers, William (grandfather of John and
William) 121
death of 125
Pincus, Steven 24, 37, 157, 160, 177
Plumb, J. H. 5, 147
Pope, Alexander 68
Potter, John 96, 97, 117
1738 visitation at Merton College 47,
83–84, 184
Price, Richard 24, 178
Privy Council 146
Proast, Jonas 13
dispute over Camden Professor of
History 13–14
view of Tindal 54–55
Radcliffe, John
Radcliffe Travelling Fellowship 72
Raymond, Robert
as Solicitor General 105
Index
involved in Blencowe affair 105–106, 107
Robinson, James 37, 160
Roth, Michael S. 189
Richards, William 134
Sacheverell, Henry 57, 150
“Perils of False Brethren” sermon 99–101
Scott, Jonathan 24
Septennial Act (1716) 147–148
Sharpe, Kevin 93
Sheldon, Gilbert 169
Silke, John 104
and The Rights of the Christian Church
Asserted 63–64
comments on Blencowe’s death 110
publishes The Religious, Rational and
Moral Conduct of Mathew Tindal 63–64
Smalridge, George 97, 145, 175
Smith, Hannah 148, 150
Sowerby, Scott 24, 158, 178
South, Robert 52
South Sea Company 66, 125
Speck, William 24
Spencer, Charles (3rd Earl of Sunder-
land) 64, 94
and Queen Anne 91–92, 93, 104, 109
as Blencowe’s advocate 90–93, 99, 162,
179
reaction to Sacheverell 101–102
relationship with Tindal 64–67
“University Bill” 166–168
Spencer, Robert (2nd Earl of
Sunderland) 20–21
Stanhope, James (1st Viscount Stanhope)
“University Bill” 166–168
Stead, John 112, 169
death of 143
elected Bursar of Arts 129–133, 136, 137,
138–139, 142
looks to avoid holy orders 115–116
marriage of 115, 117, 119–130, 136,
139, 177
medicine fellowship of 114, 128
relationship with Gardiner 142–143
Stephens, Richard 133
medicine fellowship of 77–80, 85, 93, 98,
115, 116, 128
Stonor Park 122
Sutherland, Lucy 12
Swift, Jonathan 60, 92, 96, 104
Index
Tanner, Thomas 45, 64, 165
Tenison, Thomas 1, 6, 28, 76, 77, 81, 86, 106,
108
1710 visitation of All Souls 81–82, 116,
128, 188
mentors Wake 113
political views of 113, 116
relationship with Gardiner 123–124
Test Acts (1673, 1678) 34
Thirty-Nine Articles 73
Tillotson, John 106
Tilly, William 57, 59
Tindal, Matthew ix, 53, 74, 120
as deist 50, 51, 69–70
background of 49–50
Christianity as Old as the Creation 50, 67
controversy over his will 67–68
critics of 58–60
erastianism of 60–61, 177
pension of 49, 66
relationship with Sunderland 64–67
service to the crown 49
The Rights of the Christian
Church Asserted 51–67 passim 71,
104–105
uses John Locke’s work 55, 60
view of English Revolution 55–56
view of University of Oxford 56–58, 69,
161
Tindal, Nicholas 67–68
Toland, John 54, 55
controversy over Christianity not
Mysterious 52
Tories 30, 31, 87–88
lose of places under George I 146,
147–148
resurgence following Sacheverell’s
trial 103–104, 113
view of Anglican Church held by 33–34,
53
Traffles, Richard 179
Trelawny, Jonathan (Bishop of Win-
chester) 31, 94, 95
Trevelyan, G. M. 178
Trumbull, William 134
“University Bill” 159–169, 177
failure of 175–176
University College
Support for Sacheverell 151
207
Vicarage of Barking 20
Thomas Cartwright as Vicar 20, 22
attempts to secure the position for his
son 20–21
Visitor of All Souls 10, 108, 112, 116
See Archbishops of Canterbury
von Uffenbach, Zacharias Conrad 103–104
on Codrington’s bequest to All
Souls 172–173
Wake, William 47, 50, 101
deals with Anstis’s fellowship 186
1716 Visitation at All Souls 136, 154
1719 Visitation at All Souls 143, 188
becomes Archbishop of Canterbury 113,
127
corresponds with Parker about “University
Bill” 160, 161
Founders Kin at All Souls 186–187
Gardiner corresponds with 111, 114–115,
126–127
relationship with Gardiner 139–140,
141–142, 168–169
rulings at All Souls 144, 148, 156
rules on Wood’s fellowship
Trinity College 166
Walker, Obadiah 15, 22
Wallis, John 86, 87, 107
Walpole, Robert
Tindal’s critique of 64
War of the Spanish Succession 86, 87, 93,
146
Winchester College raises money to
support 182
Ward, W. R. 13, 175
Warden of All Souls
authority of 9–10
Waterland, Daniel
critiques Tindal 59
Webb, Daniel 149
West, William 111–112
Weymouth, Lord 21
Whigs 41, 87–88
origins of in Exclusion Crisis 30, 31–32
reaction against Sacheverell 101
rise to power under George I 146,
147–148
view of Anglican Church held by 33–34
Whitelock, William 174–175
Whitgift, John 9, 74
208
Willes, John 111–112
William iii (Prince of Orange) 178
arrives in England 2, 50, 157, 177
attitude toward universities 179
death of 28, 87
denounces James ii’s actions at Magdalen
College 22–23
invades England 14, 19, 98
prepares for War of the Spanish
Succession 87
issues letters mandatory at New College,
Oxford 181
Wood, Henry
medicine fellowship of 72–74, 76
Wood, Robert
claims fellowship at All Souls as founder’s
kin 186–187
Index
Wotton, William
critiques Tindal 60
Wren, Christopher 169
comments on authority of All Souls’
Warden 134–135
Wynne, Hugh 133, 134
Wyntle, Robert 47, 84n47
becomes Warden of Merton 118
looks to impose order at Merton
College 82–83
issue of fellows’s income 90
married fellows at Merton 117–119
weight of Warden’s vote 133
Zakaria, Fareed 189–190