Warden Hoveden, whose long rule of forty-three years covered most of the reign of Elizabeth and half that of James I. (1571-1614) was a man of mark. He adorned the old library, now the “great lecture-room,” in the front quadrangle, with the beautiful barrel-roof and panelling which make it the best Elizabethan room in Oxford. He bought and added to the grounds of the College a large house and garden called “the Rose,” where the Warden’s lodgings now stand. He arranged and codified the College books and muniments. He caused to be constructed a splendid and elaborate set of maps of the College estates, ten years before any other College in the University thought of doing such a thing (1596). These maps are worked out on a most minute scale: every tree and house is inserted; and as a proof of how English common-fields were still worked in minutely subdivided slips, only a few yards broad, they are invaluable. One map gives a bird’s-eye view of All Souls, with its two quadrangles as then existing, and is the first good representation of the College that remains. But Hoveden’s greatest achievements were his two victories in struggles with Queen Elizabeth. The first contest concerned the parsonage and tithes of the parish of Stanton Harcourt; the Crown and the College litigated about them for just forty years, 1558-98; but Hoveden had his way, and in the latter year they came back into the hands of the College. In the regrant of the disputed property, the Queen’s reasons are stated to be the poverty of the College and the want of a convenient house near Oxford to which the Fellows might retire in times of pestilence in the University. Epidemical disorders had been very common at the date: in 1570-1 the plague carried off 600 persons, and in 1577 a fearful distemper in consequence of the “Black Assize” was no less fatal. Such a house as Stanton Harcourt parsonage was then of infinite utility, and for more than 200 years the College used to compel its tenants by a covenant in their lease, to “find four chambers in the house, furnished with bedding linen, and woollen for so many of the fellows as shall be sent to lodge there whenever any pestilence or other contagious disorder shall happen in the University.” The second struggle resulted from an attempt of Elizabeth to induce All Souls to grant a lease of all their woods to Lady Stafford, at the ridiculously small rent of twenty pounds per annum. Hoveden resisted stoutly, and his refusal drew down a most disgraceful letter of threats from Sir Walter Raleigh. Sir Walter intimates that the Queen is highly incensed that “subjects of your quality” should presume to chaffer with her, and hints at evils to come if compliance is still refused. The Warden replied that the terms offered were so bad that if they were taken the Fellows would be compelled to give up housekeeping and take to the fields. To this it was answered that “their state was so plentiful by her Majesty’s statute, that they