While the University of Oxford has played a greater part in our national history than any other corporation except that of the City of London, the external annals of Merton, as of other Colleges, are comparatively meagre and humble. The corporate life of the College, dating from the Barons’ War, flowed on in an equable course during a century of French Wars, followed by the Wars of the Roses. We know, indeed, that in early times Merton was sometimes represented by its Wardens and Fellows in camps and ecclesiastical synods, as well as in Courts, both at home and abroad. For instance, Bradwardine, afterwards Archbishop, rendered service to Edward III. in negotiations with the French King; Warden Bloxham was employed during the same reign in missions to Scotland and Ireland; two successive Wardens, Rudborn and Gylbert, with several Fellows, are said to have followed Henry V. as chaplains into Normandy, and to have been present at Agincourt; Kemp, a Fellow and future Archbishop, attended the Councils of Basle and Florence; and Abendon, Gylbert’s successor in the Wardenship, earned fame as delegate of the University at the Council of Constance. But the College, as a body, was unmoved either by continental expeditions, or by the storms which racked English society in the Middle Ages; and its “Register,” which commences in 1482, is for the most part ominously silent on the great political commotions of later periods. During the reign of Henry VII., indeed, occasional mention of public affairs is to be found in its pages. Such are the references to extraordinary floods, storms, or frosts; to the Sweating Sickness; to the Battle of Bosworth Field; to Perkin Warbeck’s Revolt, and other insurrectionary movements of that age; to notable executions; to the birth, marriage, and death of Prince Arthur; to the death of Pope Alexander VI., and to Lady Margaret’s endowment of a Theological Professorship. After the reign of Henry VII. the brief entries in this domestic chronicle, like the monotonous series of cases in the Law Reports, almost ignore Civil War and Revolution, betraying no change of style or conscious spirit of innovation; and it is from other sources that we must learn the events which enable us to interpret some passages in the Register itself.