Annals of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, A.D. 1598-A.D. 1867: With a Preliminary Notice of the earlier Library founded in the Fourteenth CenturyMacray, William Dunn
History
Annals of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, A.D. 1598-A.D. 1867: With a Preliminary Notice of the earlier Library founded in the Fourteenth Century
Macray, William Dunn
Bodleian Library
Another reason for Selden's withholding his library in its entirety has,
however, been assigned, besides those mentioned above, and this, too, by
closely contemporary writers. In July, 1649, the new intruded officers
and fellows of Magdalene College found in the Muniment-room in the
cloister-tower of the College, a large sum of money in the old coinage
called _Spur-royals_[117], or _Ryals_, amounting to £1400, the
equivalent of which had been left by the Founder as a reserve fund for
law expenses, for re-erecting or repairing buildings destroyed by fire,
&c., or for other extraordinary charges. This gold had been laid up and
counted in Q. Elizabeth's time and had remained untouched since then;
consequently, although some of the old members of the College were aware
of its existence, to the new-comers it seemed a welcome and unexpected
discovery, especially as the College was at the time heavily in debt.
They immediately proceeded to divide it among all the members on the
Foundation proportionately, not excluding the choristers, (who were at
that time undergraduates), the Puritan President, Wilkinson, being alone
opposed to such an illegal proceeding, and being with difficulty
prevailed upon to accept £100 as his share, which, however, upon his
death-bed he charged his executors to repay. The spur-royals were
exchanged at the rate of 18_s._ 6_d._ to 20_s._each, and each fellow had
33 of them. But when the fact of this embezzlement of corporate funds
became known, the College was called to account by Parliament, and,
although they attempted to defend themselves, they individually deemed
it wise to refund the greater, or a considerable, part of what had been
abstracted.[118] Fuller, whose _Church History_ was published in the
year following Selden's death, after telling this scandalous story,
proceeds thus (book ix. p. 234):--'Sure I am, a great antiquarie lately
deceased (rich as well in his state as learning) at the hearing hereof
quitted all his intention of benefaction to Oxford or any place else, on
suspition it would be diverted to other uses, on the same token that he
merrily said, I think the best way for a man to perpetuate his memory is
to procure the Pope to canonize him for a saint, for then he shall be
sure to be remembred in their Calender; whereas otherwise I see all
Protestant charity subject to the covetousness of posterity to devour
it, and bury the donor thereof in oblivion.' And the name of this 'great
antiquarie' was supplied in 1659 by the Puritan writer Henry Hickman,
who, as a Demy of Magdalene College, had shared in the spoils. He, in
the Appendix to his _Justification of the Fathers and Schoolmen_, gives
(in answer to a passage in Heylin's _Examen Historicum_) a full account
of the dividing of the gold, adding, 'which, as is said, did hinder Mr.
John Selden from bestowing his library on the University.' And Wood
(_Hist. and Antiq._ by Gutch, ii. 942) says that he had been told that
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