s educated at Corpus or at Christ Church: there is a
conflict of testimony on this point, but Corpus was probably his
college. At the age of twenty-three he married Dorothy Petre. She was
two years younger than her husband, born in 1534, the daughter of Sir
William Petre of Writtle in Essex, near which much of the College
property now lies. For his zeal in suppressing the monasteries Sir
William had been rewarded by the grant of a large estate, and Wadham, so
long a Whig and Evangelical College, was by the vicissitudes of fortune
built both pecuniarily and materially on the ruins of the Roman Catholic
Church.

The young couple were wealthy and lived their lives in state at
Merrifield, where they kept an open house, "an inn at all times for
their friends, and a court at Christmas." Yet, owing probably to the
management of Dorothy, a notable and prudent wife, they saved money, and
the childless pair determined to devote their wealth to "the purposes of
religion, learning, and education." Their creed, like that of many
waverers in those days of transition, was by no means clear, possibly
even to themselves. The Wadhams were suspected of being Recusants, and
Dorothy was presented as such, even in the year 1613 when the College
was completed. This may have given rise to Antony Wood's story that
Nicholas was minded to found a College at Venice for Roman Catholic
students, but the balance of probabilities is against its truth.

It has been pointed out by Mr Jackson, on the suggestion of Mr Thorley,
the late Warden, that "the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 may
have weakened his (Wadham's) attachment, in common with that of many
liberal and loyal Catholics, to the cause of the old faith"; further,
that "the Venice scheme comes very near, if it does not amount to, an
offence which the law had anticipated and actually forbidden, and it
would have exposed its author to the direful penalties of Pramunire,
which by a Statute of 27 Elizabeth were denounced against any person
contributing to the support of any College of Jesuits, or Seminary,
erected, or hereafter to be erected, beyond the sea": and finally, Mr
Jackson dwells on many evidences from facts that the Founder was in his
later years strictly conformable to the Reformed Church. These are
weighty arguments, and to them may be added others worthy of
consideration. To a daughter of Sir William Petre her husband's design,
if he ever entertained it, would have been more