but none, however royal his demeanour, however high his
literary rank, none to compare with him, Wolsey the great Cardinal, the
founder of the place.

It is worth while before we explore further to think for a few moments
about this wonderful personality, one of the most remarkable of all
Oxford's sons. At the very end of the fifteenth century he is discovered
as a Junior Fellow of Magdalen, then as Dean of Divinity, and in the
first years of the next century as Rector of Lymington. Rapidly climbing
the ecclesiastical tree, he reappears as Cardinal Archbishop of York,
and resumes his close connection with Oxford, in the guise of a great
promoter of learning, paying the salaries of lecturers out of his own
pocket and so on. But the position of a mere patron of education did not
satisfy his ambition. He determined on founding a college which should
eclipse even that of Wykeham--the already famous New College. He was a
rich man, but the vast undertaking upon which he had set his heart could
not be paid for out of the private purse of any living man. He was in
high favour with the King, and persuaded him to allow him to plunder
the monasteries, and devote the proceeds to the expenses of the great
foundation which he called Cardinal's College. Besides several small
religious houses, he, in 1522, obtained the surrender of the Priory of
St. Frideswide in Oxford itself.

Wolsey was possessed of sufficient funds to make a beginning. Clearing
away some portion of the old Church of St. Frideswide, he laid the
foundation of what afterwards became Christ Church in the summer of
1525. The work went on apace, but in a very few years there came a
serious check. Henry VIII had made up his mind to marry Ann Boleyn, and
this particular matrimonial venture had a curious influence on the
fortunes of the College. It came about in this way. To marry Ann, it was
necessary for the King to get his marriage with Catherine dissolved. The
Papacy declined to grant the decree. The ultimate result of this was
Henry's determination to free himself and his country from the power of
Rome. This in its turn resulted in Wolsey's downfall. The work of
building Cardinal's College ceased, and there was a great probability
that the beginning already made would be demolished. The King, however,
changed his mind, and in 1532 refounded and endowed it. It now received
the name of King Henry VIII's College. This title it bore for some
fourteen years, at the end of