[Illustration: John Dee, the Wizard Warden] [Illustration] CHAPTER V. THE COLLEGE AND THE “WIZARD WARDEN” OF MANCHESTER. Of those who make up the mighty tide of human life that daily sweeps along the great highway of traffic between the Manchester Exchange and the Victoria Railway Station, how few there are who ever give even a passing thought to the quaint mediæval relic that stands within a few yards of them—almost the only relic of bygone days that Manchester now possesses—the College. Pass through the arched portal into the great quadrangle, the College Yard as it is called, and what a striking contrast is presented. Without, all is noise and hurry and bustle; within, quietude and seclusion prevail. The old place is almost the only link that connects the Manchester of the present with the Manchester of yore; and surely it is something to feel that within this eager, striving, money-getting Babylon there is a little Zoar where you may escape from the turmoil, and the whirl, and the worry of the busy city, and, forgetting your own chronology, allow the memory to wander along the dim grass-grown aisles of antiquity, recalling the scenes and episodes and half-forgotten incidents that illustrate the changes society has undergone, and show how the past may be made a guide for the present and the future. A wealth of interest gathers round this old time-worn memorial, and its history is entwined with that of the town itself. That lively and imaginative antiquary, Whitaker, has striven to prove that upon its site the subjects of the Cæsars erected their summer camp, but the story, it must be confessed, rests on but a slender foundation. There is little doubt, however, that the Saxon thegn fixed his abode here, and dispensed justice according to the rude fashion of the times—which means that he did what seemed right in his own eyes, and hanged those who ventured to question the propriety of his proceedings. The Norman barons who succeeded him, the Gresleys and the La Warres, the men who bore themselves well and bravely at Crecy, Agincourt, and Poictiers, held their court here for generations, until good old Thomas La Warre, the last of the line, the priest-lord as he has been called—for he held the rectory as well as the barony of Manchester—gave up his ancestral home as a permanent residence for the warden and fellows of the ancient parish church which he caused to be collegiated. But the splendid provision he bequeathed was not long enjoyed by the ecclesiastics for whom it was intended. In 1547, when the minor religious houses were suppressed, the college was dissolved, and the lands, with the building of the College House, reverted to Edward VI., who granted them to Edward Earl of Derby, subject to the payment by him of some small pensions and other charges. On Queen Mary’s accession the Church was re-collegiated, and the deeds of alienation in part recalled. But the College House and the lands pertaining to it were never recovered,