Trinity college.—­Oxford does not possess so large a foundation as Trinity College, and the spaciousness of the great court impresses the stranger as something altogether exceptional in collegiate buildings, but, like the British Constitution, this largest of the colleges only assumed its present appearance after many changes, including the disruptive one brought about by Henry VIII.  In that masterful manner of his the destroyer of monasticism, having determined to establish a new college in Cambridge, dissolved not only King’s Hall and Michael House, two of the earliest foundations, but seven small university hostels as well.  The two old colleges were obliged to surrender their charters as well as their buildings; the lane separating them was closed, and then, with considerable revenues obtained from suppressed monasteries, Henry proceeded to found his great college dedicated to the Trinity.

There is something in the broad and spacious atmosphere of the Great Court suggestive of the change from the narrow and cramped thought of pre-Reformation times to the age when a healthy expansion of ideas was coming like a fresh breeze upon the mists which had obscured men’s visions.  But even as the Reformation did not at once sweep away all traces of monasticism, so Henry’s new college retained for a considerable time certain of the buildings of the two old foundations which were afterwards demolished or rebuilt to fit in with the scheme of a great open court.  Thus it was not until the mastership of Thomas Nevile that King Edward’s gate tower was reconstructed in its present position west of the chapel.  On this gate, beneath the somewhat disfiguring clock, is the statue of Edward III., regarded as a work of the period of Edward IV.

Shortly before Henry made such drastic changes, King’s Hall had been enlarged and had built itself a fine gateway of red brick with stone dressings, and this was made the chief entrance to the college.  The upper part and the statue of Henry VIII. on the outer face were added by Nevile between 1593 and 1615, but otherwise, the gateway is nearly a whole century earlier.

It is interesting to read the founder’s words in regard to the aims of his new college, for in them we seem to feel his wish to establish an institution capable in some measure of filling the gap caused by the suppression of so many homes of learning in England.  Trinity was to be established for “the development and perpetuation of religion” and for “the cultivation of wholesome study in all departments of learning, knowledge of languages, the education of youth in piety, virtue, self-restraint and knowledge; charity towards the poor, and relief of the afflicted and distressed.”