XVIII.— PEMBROKE COLLEGE.
Formerly Broadgates Hall.
ESCENT from an old Hall. — This College is a post -Reformation
foundation, having been constituted as a Society in 1624. But it
carried on the life of " the most ancient 1 ' and one of the most consider-
able of the Halls, and has therefore had a continuous existence of
many centuries. Originally the novices of S. Frideswyde's Priory
were instructed here, but later the place is found in the occupation of
clerks studying the Civil and Canon Law under a Principal, and
seems to have been the most distinguished of a number of hostels for
legists clustered round S. Aldate's Church, of which a room over the
south aisle was used as a Law school and library of chained books.
This picturesque feature of the Church remained till 1843. The
students met daily for divine service in the aisle beneath, which after-
wards became the chapel of Pembroke until 1728, the upper storey
becoming the College library, which purpose it served till 1 709.
The Hall was called Segrym's (from a family who had once held it of the Priory) till the accession of Henry VI. when, a large entrance being made, it came to be known as Broadgates Hall. Fuller gives an Oxfordshire by word: — "Send farthingales to Broadgates Hall in Oxford." King Henry VIII. annexed it to his new foundation across the road ; but it continued to be a place of importance, being much resorted to by young men of rank and wealth. In the time of James I. it had 131 members, being exceeded in size by only five colleges and one (Magdalen) Hall. The following names are those of Broadgates students : — Bishop Bonner, entered 1512, died in the Marshalsea 1569 ; Heywoode "the Epigrammatist," whose Interludes (1520) satirizing the clergy, are among our earliest dramatic writings; Peele the dramatist; Fitzjeffrey, "the poet of Broadgates Hall" (1572); Archbishop Yonge (1560); Baker, entered 1590, Benedictine monk, mystic, and chronicler; John Pym, the politician, entered 1599 ; Randolph the ambassador; Beaumont the poet, entered 1596; Cardinal Repyngdon ; Storie, hanged at Tyburn; Peter Smart, puritan poet, Cosin's assailant ; Camden the antiquary, author of the grace still used after meat in Hall ; Sir Thomas Browne, author of the delightful Religio Medici, who forms a link between Broadgates and Pembroke. He delivered a Latin oration as senior fellow commoner at the inauguration of the College.
Pembroke College. — The conversion of the Hall into a College came about in this way. Thomas Tesdale, maltster and merchant, of Glympton, Oxon, a fortnight before his decease, in 1610, bequeathed ^5000 for the purchase of lands, etc. , to maintain seven fellows and six scholars to be elected from the free grammar school in Abingdon into any college in Oxford. Abbot, the then Lord Primate, desired to secure this foundation for Balliol College, and a provisional agreement was signed with the Mayor and burgesses of Abingdon, on the strength of which Balliol purchased for ,£300 a building for the housing of Tesdale's fellows and scholars. But twelve years after Tesdale's death his foundation was augmented by a benefaction of Richard Wightwick, B. D., rector of East Ilsley, so as to support ten fellows and ten scholars. This turned the thoughts of the citizens of Abingdon in a more ambitious direction, and they desired the foundation of a separate and independent College. An Act of Parliament was got and a petition presented to the King, who by letters patents, dated June 29th, 1624, con- stituted Broadgates Hall, which had been fixed upon as a likely stock on which to graft the new foundation, to be "one perpetual College of divinity, civil and canon law, arts, medicine and other sciences; to consist of one master or governour, ten fellows, ten scholars, or more or fewer, to be known by the name of ' the Master Fellows and Scholars of the College of Pembroke in the University of Oxford, of the foundation of King James, at the costs and charges of Thomas Tesdale and Richard Wightwicke." The new College was named from Shakspeare's friend and patron William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, a Maecenas of that age, who as Chancellor was already Visitor of Broadgates, and from whom, had not his death happened suddenly, the College hoped to
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