Chapel Address

Commemoration

Graham CopeKoga

Chapel Address at Commemoration of Benefactors 10 March 2022 Sir Gregory Winter CBE FRS FMedSci (1970)

The Dean of Chapel challenged me to give an address on the theme of benefaction, rooted, or not, in something in the College’s history. In return, I was promised a blessing, if merited; otherwise, excommunication. This was too interesting a challenge to refuse - so here goes!

My text is the Commemoration Prayer, printed at the beginning of the Order of Service. It lists the major benefactors and exhorts us to remember them. I would like to take a look at a few of these benefactions, and the expectations the benefactors had of the College. An excellent source of information is Robert Neild’s book, Riches and Responsibility; the Financial History of Trinity College.

The first benefaction was in 1317 when Edward II founded the King’s Scholars. The 32 scholars were the children of noblemen, sent from the Chapel Royal to attend Cambridge University. Edward II paid for their meals, rent and clothes, and for the services of a Warden to supervise and beat them from time to time. Edward II was followed by his son, Edward III. He consolidated these arrangements by the foundation of a new College, the King’s Hall in 1337, committing to an annual grant for the scholars’ expenses, and purchasing a house on the site of the Chapel lawn for their accommodation. The annual grant continued to be paid until the King’s Hall was “merged” into Trinity.

Edward II and III made these benefactions for good practical reasons – a pipeline of educated men was needed to serve the State. Furthermore, the Kings could take the long view – they were both Plantagenets, with a sense of history and of

destiny. When Edward II was crowned, the dynasty had been on the throne for more than 100 years, and would survive for nearly 200 years.

Edward III may have had an additional reason for his benefaction. In the letters patent for King’s Hall, we find the phrase “to the honour of God, the Virgin Mother, and all the Saints”. Probably no more than clerical boilerplate. But what follows isn’t quite boilerplate. Reference is made to “the weal [wellbeing] of the souls of his father, himself, his wife, his children and his forefathers…”

This concern for the weal of souls relates to the doctrine of purgatory, a state after death, in which some souls, namely those who have died in God’s grace, are purified and made ready for heaven. It was thought that these souls could benefit from the prayers and pious duties of the living on their behalf. The souls of the others, that is those who had not died in God’s grace, went straight to Hell – and nothing the living could do about it.

Edward III’s benefaction may therefore have satisfied, in part, his duties towards Plantagenet souls in purgatory. But while Edward III’s forefathers, father, wife and children were on his list of souls, the soul of his mother, Isabella, sometimes described as the She-Wolf of France, was not. Not only had she deposed her husband Edward II from the throne, but may also have had a hand in his death. Perhaps her soul was thought to be a lost cause.

From the benefactions of the Plantagenets, we go to those of the Tudors. After the schism with Rome, Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries and seized their assets. By 1545 Henry had armed himself with laws that would allow him to do the same with the Oxbridge colleges. Yet, within the space of a few months, Henry not only spared most colleges, but endowed two new great colleges, one in Oxford (Christ Church) and one in Cambridge (Trinity). Why the apparent change of heart?

Henry was a well-educated young man, and a great patron of education; by the end of his life he had established five Regius Professorships (Divinity, Civil Law, Physic, Hebrew and Greek) in Cambridge University, and the same in Oxford. He had also immersed himself in theological matters, before and after the schism with Rome, playing an active role in shaping the doctrines and practices of the Church he had founded – a disputatious and violent process, that was not settled in Henry’s lifetime.

It is thought that the Queen, Katherine Parr, Henry’s surviving wife, may have played a part in Henry’s change of heart. She claims to have persuaded an ailing

Henry that the future of the Church of England would depend on an educated clergy, that colleges were needed for this purpose, and that it would be a fine thing for his reputation to create a new college.

In any event, in Cambridge, Henry used his powers to merge the King’s Hall with the adjacent Michaelhouse to create Trinity College. Seven hostels and other land seized from the monasteries were added, and provided an apparently generous endowment and space for expansion. It also relieved the Exchequer of its obligation to pay an annual grant to King’s Hall. Henry may have had some premonition of death, and the paperwork was put together in haste.

By the end of 1546, Henry VIII became the founder of the two richest colleges in Oxford and Cambridge, burnishing his credentials as the greatest patron of learning that England had yet seen. He died soon after signing the paperwork, and John Redman, the last Warden of the King’s Hall, became the first Master of Trinity.

In summary, the benefactions of Edward II, Edward III and Henry VIII were given for education, education and education. Edward II placed his royal imprimatur on the establishment of a large cohort of scholars at Cambridge, and both Edward III and Henry VIII consolidated and added to these arrangements. There may also have been additional motives for the benefactions, perhaps for Edward III a pious duty satisfied, and for Henry an eye to his legacy.

Even today, those elements of the Commemoration Prayer for “the education of youth in piety, virtue, discipline, and learning…[for] the common good and happiness of his kingdom and subjects” live on, more prosaically, in the first part of the charitable object of the College as registered with the Charity Commission, for: “the advancement for the public benefit of education, religion, learning and research”.

Unfortunately, after Henry’s death, it was discovered that the new endowments didn’t bring in as much income as expected. According to the College, this “by reason of the decayed tenements and the negligence of the first auditors and surveyors”. I seem to remember similar reasons being given for the over-run of costs in the recent refurbishment of New Court. The College complained to Henry’s successor, the boy king Edward VI; no luck, he died, and so to Mary Tudor.

Mary had wanted to have public prayers for the soul of her father, “conceiving his case not so desperate but capable of benefit thereby”. She was told this was impossible for “one dying so notorious a schismatic” – essentially no purgatory

for Henry’s soul – it was damned. But she was also told that “in expression of her private affection for her father’s memory to add to Trinity College as the best monument he had left.” This advice came from her chaplain and confessor, none other than the Master of Trinity, Bishop Christopherson, and Mary complied. As well as her hopes for a lasting memory of Henry, Mary also hoped that the colleges would be able to provide scholars able to “tear out by the roots the perverse opinions of false prophets”.

Bishop Christopherson took Mary’s wishes to heart, and did his best to eradicate heresies, and heretics, including two men from the Fens, William Wolsey, a Constable of Welney, Upwell and Robert Pygot, a painter from Wisbech. Their heresy was in denying the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation – that the bread and wine on the altar literally becomes the body and blood of Christ after consecration by the priest. There is a plaque in Ely marking the spot where these two heretics were burned at the stake after declining to sign a statement of belief compiled by Bishop Christopherson.

Centuries passed, and the College continued to educate the scholars under its charge, albeit with a lapse in the 18th century, which we confess, and for which we truly repent. There were occasional appeals for buildings, including the Wren Library, and New Court (then termed King’s Court in appreciation of the large donation from King George IV). But Whewell’s Court was given to the College by our former Master William Whewell, who not only bought the site, but also paid for the building. This was the only way he could get his project through the Fellowship.

Other good fortune followed. In the early 1880s, William George Pearce came up to Trinity, and graduated in law. He had inherited a fortune from his father, and spent the rest of his life enjoying himself and being generous to all around. He died in 1907, in middle age, fortunately before spending the entire fortune, and left the remainder to Trinity – according to his mother, because he loved his College. The net value of the estate was about £250,000, or around £30 million in present day terms, mostly held in the shares of two shipbuilders, then depressed. The College didn’t sell the shares immediately, but waited until they had peaked during the First World War. The income from the reinvested proceeds boosted the College’s external income by 15%, making it the largest benefaction since Tudor times.

Since then, the College’s wealth has been further augmented by the investment skills of the Bursars, in particular by John Bradfield’s development of Felixstowe Docks and of the Cambridge Science Park, and from the sale of land for

development. In recent years, in common with other universities and Oxbridge colleges, Trinity set up a Development Office. This has helped connect Trinity with its alumni through reports and newsletters, and to raise money for the College.

The Annual Report is a mine of statistics on donations, and lists of donors. Over the last nine years the College raised or was pledged £51.3 million pounds from 3457 Trinity donors; in the words of today’s lesson [2 Cor 9, v6-12], “not reluctantly or under compulsion”, but “cheerful givers”. And I daresay as promised, “you will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us”.

Trinity’s income is now large enough that it can act as a benefactor beyond its own walls, and the College has made many donations to the Collegiate University. Such donations are consistent with the second part of our charitable object, “the maintenance and development of a College in the University and City of Cambridge”. Clearly, Trinity is immersed in the Collegiate University, and will stand or fall by its success, or otherwise; not only are the donations the right thing to do, but are in the College’s own interests.

As well as regular donations to the poorer Colleges, usually for building projects, Trinity made founding benefactions to Darwin College (the first graduate-only college and the first to admit both men and women), to the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences (for collaborative research in mathematics), to the Newton Trust (for support of research in the University), and to the Cambridge Trusts (for support of scholarships for foreign students). The College also continues to make annual donations to the Newton Trust and to the Cambridge Trusts, and responds to emergencies in the University, such as for the support of Cambridge students and academics facing hardship arising from the conflict in Ukraine.

In summary, the College has been supported by the generosity and good will of benefactors for 700 years. For 700 years, our benefactors have believed in the value of education and learning for the common good, and for 700 years the College has delivered. In addition, the College has supported the University and the poorer Colleges in the same mission. How much more important does that mission seem as we witness the ignorance, lies and unreason driving the horrors in Ukraine? And how much more grateful should we be to our benefactors, and to commemorate them and their gifts?