It was Henry’s plan to associate his college at Eton, which he founded at the same time, with King’s.  The school he had established under the shadow of his palace at Windsor was to be the nursery for his foundation at Cambridge in the same fashion as William of Wykeham had connected Winchester and New College, Oxford.  Henry’s first plan was for a smaller college than the splendid foundation he afterwards began to achieve with the endowments obtained from the recently-suppressed alien monasteries.  Had the young King’s reign been peaceful, there is little doubt that a complete college carried out on such magnificent lines as the chapel would have come into being; but Henry became involved in a disastrous civil war, and his ambitious plans for a great quadrangle and cloister, three other courts, one on the opposite side of the river connected with a covered bridge and an imposing gate tower as well, never came to fruition.  Fortunately, Henry’s successor, anxious to be called the founder of the college, subscribed towards the continuance of the chapel, but he also diverted (a mild expression for robbery) a large part of Henry’s endowments.  Richard III., in his brief reign, found time to contribute L700 to the college, but it was not until the very end of the next reign that Henry VII., in 1508, devoted the first of two sums of L5,000 to the chapel, so that the work of finishing the building could go forward to its completion, which took place in 1515.

At the present time the chapel is on the north side of the college, but when originally planned it stood on the south, for the single court which was built is now incorporated in the University Library, and the existing buildings, all comparatively modern, stand in somewhat disjointed fashion to the south, and extend from King’s Parade down to the river.  Fellows’ Building, the isolated block running north and south between the chapel and this long perspective of bastard Gothic, was designed by Gibbs in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, and its severe lines, broken by an open archway in the centre, are a remarkable contrast to the graceful detail, of the chapel.  Framed by the great arch, there is a delicious peep of smooth lawn sloping slightly to the river, with a forest-like background beyond.

In the other buildings of King’s it is hard to find any interest, for the crude Gothic of William Wilkins, even when we remember that he designed the National Gallery, St. George’s Hospital, and other landmarks of London, is altogether depressing.  Even the big hall, presided over by a portrait of Sir Robert Walpole, is unsatisfying.  It is the custom to scoff at the gateway and stone arcading Wilkins afterwards threw across the fourth side of the grassy court of the college; but, although its crocketed finials are curious, and we wonder at the lack of resource which led to such a mass of unwarranted ornament, it is not aggressive, neither does it jar with the academic repose of King’s Parade.