Reformation

This wonderful contemporary document records a grant made by Queen Mary I and her husband, King Philip II of Spain, to the warden and scholars of New College on 21 March 1555 (New College, Oxford, NCA 4618/8). 

During his reign, King Henry VIII had seized land owned by New College in the parish of Hornchurch (Essex) to build Pirgo Palace. After she ascended the throne, the New College leadership appealed to Queen Mary I for compensation for the loss of property and revenue. It seems that they considered this the optimal time to make such a request and ensure a satisfactory resolution to this matter, given that the college’s religious stance was now aligned with the monarch’s beliefs. King Philip and Queen Mary gifted land at Marshfield in South Gloucestershire to New College to replace that lost in Hornchurch. This land had formerly belonged to Tewkesbury Abbey, but was confiscated by the crown during the dissolution of the monasteries. 

The document opens with a beautiful and elaborately decorated first line. It names the grantors, ‘Phillip and Mary rulers by the grace of God’ (Philippus et Maria Dei Gracia Rex). Above the line are pen and ink drawings of a lion and dragon bearing standards, and badges—including the Tudor rose—surrounded by foliage. The bow of the enlarged initial P at the beginning of the text contains a wonderful depiction of the king and queen. They sit enthroned in their finery in a room with a decorated domed ceiling and a tiled floor. Mary holds the orb and sceptre, and Philip a sword and orb. A crown hovers above their heads. 

At the bottom of the document, is a very large, round seal. This is the great seal of Queen Mary I. It has survived in good condition, attached to the parchment with plaited green and white silk cords. The reverse is shown in the image above and the obverse below. This seal imbued the document with authority and authenticity. 

Amazingly, a printed book which was bound for Queen Mary I (BT3.145.20) is now housed in the collections at New College. 

Queen Mary’s book contains—like the volume bound for her father, King Henry VIII (see above)—a religious polemic published as a direct result of the Reformation. Unsurprisingly, however, Mary’s book contains not a pro-Protestant text but a pro-Catholic one. Authored by the Dutch Catholic apologist and papal inquisitor, Joannes Slotanus (d. 1560), it was printed in Cologne in 1555. Slotanus dedicated the work to Mary and her husband, King Philip of Spain, apparently in honour and celebration of their having restored Catholicism to England. Its elaborately decorated binding indicates that this was a presentation copy intended as a gift for Queen Mary I. Her name is prominently displayed on the front, stamped on the upper board ‘Maria. ReGina. Angliæ’ (‘Mary Queen of England’). 

It has been suggested that this special copy was made to mark the announcement, in November 1554, that Mary was expecting a child. There is no evidence, however, of the book having ever been in her possession. It may have been determined that the gift was no longer appropriate when, by July 1555, it had become clear that the queen had actually experienced a phantom pregnancy. It is a bit of a mystery as to how this book found its way to New College. Like the volume bound for King Henry VIII, it may have been gifted to the college as part of the estate of Mary’s archbishop, Cardinal Reginald Pole, who donated many of his own volumes to the college (see below).

After Queen Mary I ascended the English throne in 1553, she saw to the arrest, trial, and eventual execution of Archbishop Cranmer of Canterbury for his Protestant beliefs. In his place, she appointed Cardinal Reginald Pole, her distant cousin. Pole, who spent much of his adult life in Italy, had been a close supporter of Henry VIII until his divorce from Catherine of Aragon and break from Rome. Thereafter, a price was put upon his head and members of his family persecuted and even executed for failing to support the regime. 

Queen Mary and Archbishop Pole worked closely together to restore Catholic beliefs and practices to England—to re-establish monastic communities, reform the clergy, revive Catholic learning in universities, and rebuild a relationship with Rome. They died within hours of each other on 17 November 1558. Pole was the last Catholic archbishop of Canterbury, and Mary the last Catholic queen regnant of England. 

Most of the Greek manuscripts which form part of the spectacular collections at New College Library today were owned by Pole and presented to the college, both by Pole himself and by his close friend and beneficiary of his will, Alvise Priuli. Pole was an alumnus of Magdalen College, Oxford but perhaps chose to bequeath some of his manuscripts to New College because of its ongoing allegiance with and commitment to Catholicism. 

One such manuscript is New College, Oxford, MS 147. This is a copy of the Philokalia, an anthology of works authored by the early Greek Church Father, Origen. It was made for Pole by Bernardino Sandro, a scribe whom he had retained in his own household since 1521. The manuscript was beautifully bound, with a gold-tooled design on the front cover and gilded edges, by a binder who worked for King Henry VIII (see image below). Pole had other volumes bound by this anonymous artisan apparently during his brief return to England from Padua between 1526 and 1532. 

MS 147 is inscribed with the initials ‘R.P.C.’ on the first folio and the note ‘Donum Reginaldi Pole Cardinalis Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis MDLVII’ on the front flyleaf (see images below); this records that Pole gave this book to New College in 1557, the year before his death.

From 1561, the Crown instituted an extensive series of visitations designed to root out Catholics and enforce conformity with the Elizabethan settlement. Regular visitations by the Bishop of Winchester to assess the general academic and disciplinary state of the college were mandated by its statutes and had been conducted since its foundation. However, the Elizabethan visitations were primarily concerned to ensure that New College, which was viewed as a hotbed for Catholicism, toed the line. 

Many of the original documents relating to the visitations conducted during the reign of Queen Elizabeth have been lost from the New College Archives. However, there does survive a citation, under the seal of Thomas Cooper, Bishop of Winchester, for a visitation of New College (NCA 12461) which is pictured below.

Dated 21 June 1585, it notifies the Warden and other members of the college leadership, including the Senior Tutor, that they would need to be present to answer questions and produce documentation regarding the college’s operation and the behaviour of its members. The schedule that was attached to the citation has since been lost. This would have contained some of the specific questions that the bishop required the representatives of the college to answer during his visitation. 

Earlier visitations, including those conducted by Bishop Cooper’s predecessor—Bishop Horne—found that New College remained staunchly Catholic. Only the warden and nine fellows took the required oaths in 1561; two fellows protested that only the mass was allowed by college’s statutes. In 1566, 23 fellows refused to subscribe to the Articles of Religion (a list of 39 of the English Church’s core doctrines and beliefs). 

As a direct consequence of these visitations, over half of the fellows were expelled from New College during the first decade of Elizabeth’s reign. Between these expulsions and the flight of many of its Catholic scholars to the Continent, New College lost many of its key intellectual figures and, consequently, its academic direction and unique institutional identity greatly suffered. 

Many of its former members, however, continued to publish texts defending Catholicism and attacking Queen Elizabeth I from their exile on the Continent. Click on the links below to learn more. 

Nicholas Sander (d. 1581) was a Wykehamist, educated at Winchester College and New College, who was made a fellow in 1548. He resigned his fellowship following Queen Elizabeth I’s ascension to the throne. He left England for Rome by 1560 and, after a few years there, travelled to Leuven (in modern-day Belgium). It was in Leuven that he published, in 1571, De Visibili Monarchia Ecclesiae—a defence of Catholicism and the Pope against the English Reformation. Our copy of this, Sander’s major work, is a re-print of the text dating to 1592 (BT3.158.3). In it, he argued that the papal monarchy had been instituted by God and that all rulers should submit to the Pope’s supreme authority. As part of this work, Sanders printed the papal bull issued by Pope Pius V (Regnans in Excelsis) which excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I and declared her a heretic. He also included a martyrology of Catholics who had been killed for their faith. 

Nicholas Harpsfield (d. 1575) was a devoutly Catholic religious controversialist and historian. Like Sander, he had been educated at both Winchester College and New College. Harpsfield left Oxford during the reign of King Edward VI, fleeing the implementation of Protestant religious policies. He returned to England during the reign of Queen Mary I, where he worked with Cardinal Pole to reinstitute Catholicism. Harpsfield was openly and vocally hostile to the Protestant regime of Mary’s sister and successor, Queen Elizabeth I. Consequently, he was stripped of all his religious offices and incomes, and subsequently incarcerated in Fleet Prison. 

Whilst imprisoned, Harpsfield published several substantial works in defence of the Catholic faith. The longest of these was published in Antwerp in 1566 under the pseudonym Alan Cope. It is entitled Dialogi sex contra summi pontificatus, monasticae vitae, sanctorum, sacrarum imaginum oppugnatores, et pseudomartyres (BT3.15.14). The title page from New College’s copy of this text is pictured above. It was written in response to and refutation of John Foxe’s Actes and monuments of matters most speciall and memorable, happening in the Church, with an universall historie of the same, arguably one of the greatest Protestant historical works of the Reformation. More commonly known as Foxe’s Book of Maryrs, it is a polemical account of the sufferings and death of Protestants under the Catholic Church, particularly in England and Scotland. Harpsfield mounted a sustained and systematic critique of Foxe’s martyrologies. In response, Foxe updated and enlarged the Book of Martyrs, taking into account Harpsfield’s criticisms to improve his narrative. We have a copy of this second edition of Foxe’s work at New College Library (BT1.48.7).