Long the lawyers’ college, Trinity Hall maintains a staid legal appearance. Its present arrangement is essentially modern, and the earliest remaining portion is the ivy-covered range of chambers forming the northern side of the Garden Court. This is not earlier than 1560, but, as at Caius, much of the interior work of the main court is original. In the upper storey of this range is the primitive Library, fitted in the sixteenth century with low bookshelves, the tops of which form a double reading desk. This very comfortable arrangement has been followed in the small bookshelves of many of the other libraries. The bulk of the College, including the entrance courts and the small quadrangle, was entirely remodelled in the last century, during the mastership of Sir Nathaniel Lloyd (1710-35) and Sir Edward[77] Simpson (1735-64). The Chapel, south of the large court (an unusual position) belongs to 1729, and the Hall on the west side to 1743. Its interior is very creditable to Georgian taste, although not positively faultless. In 1852, the fa?ade of the college was burned down. The present front is due to Salvin, who built the neighbouring hall of Caius much about the same time. The old gate of the college, which opened into the smaller court, is still commemorated by an opening in the wall, affording a picturesque view of the ivy-covered interior. To a later period belong the new buildings in the Garden Court. The Tutor’s House, of white stone, by Mr W. M. Fawcett, is not exactly in harmony with Messrs Grayson & Ould’s brick building on the north side, but the latter has been arranged so as to slope obliquely northward, and front the garden; and a too obvious discord has thus been avoided. In itself, this red-brick work, of a Renaissance order, is one of the best things in modern Cambridge, and fulfils, at least from an outside point of view, all the ideal requirements of a collegiate building.
 
Canon Law, the typical study of the Middle Ages, is the raison d’être of Trinity Hall. William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich, founded the College of the Scholars of the Holy Trinity of Norwich in 1350, in order to furnish his diocese with secular priests. His college occupied substantially the same ground as it does to-day. The founder, who also has a claim to be one of the founders of Caius, did not live long to enjoy his work. He was sent by Edward III. on an embassy to Innocent VI., in one of the numerous attempts at arbitration which varied the Hundred Years’ War. While engaged in these negotiations the Bishop died. His death was due to the climate of Avignon, which, in that season of plague, was more than ordinarily pestilent. “Avenio ventosa,” says the doggrel rhyme, “cum vento fastidiosa, sine vento venenosa.” Englishmen, with their usual mistrust of Papal honesty, said that Bateman had been poisoned. He left his foundations of Trinity Hall and the new Gonville Hall in a very incomplete state, and his executor, Archbishop Simon of Sudbury, although he did what he could in the way of building, was too much occupied with his fatal position in the state to attend closely to the condition of the colleges. In fact, Trinity Hall, composed of a master, twenty fellows and three scholars, was very badly off. Early in the fifteenth century they complained to Archbishop Arundel of the insufficiency of their commons, and obtained a dispensation by which they were empowered to[79] add twopence for each weekday and a groat on the Lord’s day.

Meanwhile, two of the masters of Trinity Hall are found among the list of bishops. These were the canonists Robert de Stretton, Bishop of Lichfield from 1360 to 1386, and Marmaduke Lumley, Bishop of Lincoln from 1450 to 1452. In the year 1525, Stephen Gardiner* became master. He was a native of Bury St Edmund’s and was a fellow of the college. In 1531, he was made Bishop of Winchester, but retained the mastership till his death, esteeming it a refuge to which, in those troublous times, he could always retire. He was, nevertheless, a little out of his reckoning. Although a reformer, he was of the conservative type and was not a persona grata to Edward VI., who deprived him of both his mastership and bishoprick. His supplanter at Winchester was John Poynet; at Trinity Hall he was superseded by Walter Haddon, reputed to be the best Latinist of his time. Haddon was Professor of Law and Rhetoric and Public Orator, and, in addition to this, with the assistance of Sir John Cheke, compiled a new code of ecclesiastical law. His reforming activities gained him the Presidency of Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1552, from which he retired at Queen Mary’s accession. He died some years later and is buried in Christ Church, Newgate Street.

Mary’s reign brought back Gardiner to his college and diocese. Walter Mowse, the second Protestant master, was ousted to make way for[80] the bishop. As Chancellor of England, Gardiner distinguished himself for his reactionary policy, a natural course in one who, having done all he could in the way of reform, knew what gratitude he had to expect from the other side. He died in 1555. There is no doubt that he was an energetic, pushing man who allowed little to stand in his way, and stories were told of how he canvassed for the see of Winchester, doing his best to embitter the last days of Bishop Foxe. He was the bishop who married Philip of Spain to Mary in Winchester Cathedral; and this, with his acts of persecution, have endeared him to the orthodox English historian. But we must make allowance for Protestant hatred, and remember that if such men as Gardiner, Pole, and Gaspar Contarini had lived a century before, we should have been spared the irregularities of the Reformation, while we reaped its advantages. Gardiner’s chantry-chapel is well known to all visitors of Winchester Cathedral. There are two portraits of him in Trinity Hall: one in the Combination Room, another in the Master’s Lodge. A somewhat less single-minded ecclesiastic was Thomas Thirlby,* fellow of the college, and ............