Chapel and Quad. Source: Lang. Click on image to enlarge it.
The site on which Pembroke now stands was formerly occupied by Segrym's Hall, "a nursery of learning,” and ”the most ancient of all Halls.” In the time of Henry VI. its name was changed to Broadgates Hall, a great entrance gateway having been built. It was one of the leading halls of Oxford, and occupied by students attending the civil law lectures then held in the room built over the south aisle of St Aldate's Church, where was a chained law library. This library, like many others, suffered cruel loss at the time of the Re formation; ”many MSS. guilty of no other superstition than red letters in the front or titles were condemned to the fire.... Such books wherein ap peared angles (angels) were thought sufficient to be de stroyed because accounted papish, or diabolical, or both”; and Broadgates Hall was appropriated by Henry VIII. Of the old buildings little remains except the ancient refectory, now used as a library.
Pembroke itself was founded by Thomas Tisdall, a wealthy maltster, and Mayor of Abingdon, and Richard Wightwicke, B. D., of Balliol, the former of whom left a sum of money, augmented by the latter, for the maintenance of a certain number of fellows and scholars to be elected from the grammar School at Abingdon. Broadgates Hall was accordingly bought, and letters patent of James I. declared the new foundation to be ”one perpetual college of divinity, civil and canon law, arts, medicine and other sciences; to consist of one master or governour, ten fellows, ten scholars, or more or fewer, to be known by the name of ”the Master, Fellows and Scholars of the College of Pembroke, in the University of Oxford.” It was named after that Earl of Pembroke, then Chancellor of the University, who was Shakespeare's friend and patron, and “the most universally loved and esteemed of any man of that age.” . . . .
Among famous names connected with Pembroke are: Bishop Bonner, John Hey wood, one of the earliest English dramatists, Francis Beaumont, the poet, William Camden, the antiquary, John Pym, Sir Thomas Browne, author of ”Religio Medici,” Shenstone, the poet, George Whitfield, the great Wesleyan, Sir William Blackstone, Bishop Jeune, and Mr G. W. Steevens, the war correspondent.
Coming out again into St Aldate's, we turn up it to the left until we come to Blue Boar Lane, leading into Bear Lane, at the end of which we see Oriel.
Bibliography
Lang, Elsie M. The Oxford Colleges. London: T. Werner. HathiTrust online version of a copy in the University of Michigan Library. Web. 8 November 2022.
Last modified 3 December 2022