Cambridge (England) -- Description and travel; University of Cambridge
QUEENS'.--After the founding of Corpus there came an interval of
nearly a century before the eight colleges then existing were added
to. Henry VI. founded King's in 1441, and seven years later his young
Queen Margaret of Anjou, who was only eighteen, was induced by Andrew
Docket to take over his very modest beginning in the way of a college.
It was refounded under the name of Queen's College, having in the two
previous years of its existence been dedicated to St. Bernard. As in
the case of King's, the progress of Margaret's college was handicapped
by the Wars of the Roses, but fortunately Edward IV.'s Queen,
Elizabeth Woodville, espoused the cause of Margaret's college when
Docket appealed to her for help.
Above all other memories this college glories in its associations with
Erasmus, who was probably advised to go there by Bishop Fisher. There
are certain of his letters extant which he dates from Queens', and it
is interesting to find that he wrote in a querulous fashion of the bad
wine and beer he had to drink when his friend Ammonius failed to send
him his usual cask of the best Greek wine. He also complained of being
beset by thieves, and being shut up because of plague, but it need not
be thought from this that Cambridge was much worse than other places.
Of all the colleges in the University Queens' belongs most completely
to other days. Its picturesque red brick entrance tower is the best of
this type of gateway, which is such a distinctive feature of
Cambridge, and the first court is similar to St. John's, with which
Bishop Fisher was so closely connected as Lady Margaret Beaufort's
executor. In the inner court, whose west front makes a charming
picture from the river, is the President's Lodge occupying the north
side. Its oriel windows and rough cast walls of quite jovial contours
overhanging the dark cloisters beneath strike a different note to
anything else in Cambridge. Restoration has altered the appearance of
the hall since its early days, but it is an interesting building, with
some notable portraits and good stained glass. The court, named after
Erasmus, at the south-west angle of the college was, it is much to be
regretted, rebuilt by Essex in the latter part of the eighteenth
century; but for this the view of the river front from the curiously
constructed footbridge would have been far finer than it is. Like the
sundial in the first court, this bridge, leading to soft meadows
beneath the shade of great trees, is attributed to Sir Isaac Newton.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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