However, Mr. William Smith, Rector of Melsonby, and above twelve years Senior Fellow of our Society, who in the year 1728 published his learned Annals of the College, sets it down that King Alfred was not mentioned in the College prayers as chief founder until the reign of Charles I., and he relates how “that Dr. Clayton, after he was chosen Master (in 1665), when he first heard King Alfred named in the collect before William of Durham, openly and aloud cried out in the chapel, ‘_There is no King Alfred there_.’” For at an earlier date it had been of custom to pray indeed for the soul of King Alfred, but only in the following order-- “I commend also unto your devout Prayers, the souls departed out of this world, especially The Soul of William of Durham, our chief Founder. The Soul of Mr. Walter Skirlaw, especial Benefactor. The Soul of King Alfred, Founder of the University. The Soul of King Henry the 5th. The Souls of Henry Percy, first Earl of Northumberland; Henry the 2nd Earl, and my Ladies their Wives, with all their Issue out of the World departed.… The Souls of all them that have been Fellows, and all good Doers. And for the Souls of all them that God would have be prayed for.” The date of this form of prayer is concurrent with Philip and Mary; between whose reign and that of Charles I. it is therefore certain that King Alfred was lifted in our prayers from being Founder only of the University to the being Founder of our College. And in so much as during many generations the belief that this college was founded by King Alfred has, by all who are competent to judge, been condemned for false and erroneous, I will follow the example of the learned antiquarian already mentioned, and recount its true foundation by William of Durham; eschewing the scruples of those brave interpreters of the law, who in the year 1727 said in Westminster Hall, “that King Alfred must be confirmed our Founder, for the sake of Religion itself, which would receive a greater scandal by a determination on the other Side, than it had by all the Atheists, Deists, and Apostates, from Julian down to Collins; that a succession of Clergymen for so many years should return thanks for an Idol, or mere Nothing, in Ridicule and Banter of God and Religion, must not be suffered in a court of Justice.”[2]