ST JOHN THE BAPTIST’S COLLEGE

The college of St John the Baptist was founded in 1437 as St Bernard’s College by Henry Chichele,[1] archbishop of Canterbury. It was in­tended to be a house of studies for the Cistercians.[2] In Henry VIII’s reign, it was dissolved with the rest of the monasteries, but was revived for secular students under its present title by Sir Thomas White[3] in 1555.
There is a statue of St Bernard on the outside of the gatehouse front­ing St Giles’ Street, and one of the Baptist on the inside. The chapel, hall and parts of the first quadrangle date from monastic times. The second quadrangle and the beautiful garden front were built by Arch­bishop Laud.[4] Both he and Bishop Juxon,[5] who attended Charles I[6] on the scaffold, were buried here. Edmund Campion[7] and Cuthbert Mayne[8] the future martyrs, were members of the college.


With Trinity, St John’s was founded under the Catholic Queen Mary Tudor, to go some way to restore University life, religious and academic, after the depredations of the previous two reigns. After the restoration of Protestantism under Queen Elizabeth, it produced many Catholic martyrs, not only St Edmund Campion, SJ, who became convinced of the truth of Catholicism in the course of his studies at St John’s (martyred 1581), and St Cuthbert Mayne (proto-martyr of seminary priests, martyred in 1577), but also Blessed Edward Stransham (1585), St John Roberts, the first superior of the Benedictine community now at Downside (1610), Blessed Thomas Hemerford, Blessed Edward James and Martin Sherton.

Bl William Hartely, a student of St John's ejected for being a Catholic in 1579, became a seminary priest and was posted to Oxford in 1580 to promote vocations. It was Hartely who was responsible for distributing Campion's Decem Rationes on the pews of St Mary's. He was martyred at Tyburn in 1588.

St John’s College was a strong supporter of King Charles I in the Civil War, and his son Charles II in the Restoration. So firm were the men of St John’s against Cromwell, that, of 44 Fellows, commoners and servants examined by a Cromwellian commission, only four submitted to the new government’s demands. The rest were ejected from the college by force, many going into exile. Many returned in the Restoration.

For more history of St John’s, see their site.

[1] Archbishop of Canterbury 1414-1443.
[2] The Cistercians or White Monks were a reform of the Benedictines. The abbey of Cîteaux was founded by St Robert of Molesme (lived c. 1029-1111) in 1092, but the system was codified by St Stephen Harding (lived c. 1050-1134), the third abbot of Cîteaux and an Englishman. The reform was really a return to primitive Benedictinism, but it introduced a centralized form of government for those houses which belonged to the movement. The tunic, cowl and hood are white, the scapular black. There were a hundred monasteries belonging to the Cistercians in England at the time of the dissolution.
[3] Lived 1492-1567.
[4] President of St John's 1611-1621, bishop of St David's 1621-1626, of Bath and Wells 1626-1628, of London 1628-1633, archbishop of Canterbury 1633-1645.
[5] President of St John's 1621-1633, bishop of London 1633-1649, archbishop of Canterbury 1660-1663.
[6] Reigned 1625-1649.
[7] Lived 1540-1581. Jesuit priest.
[8] Died 1577. Seminary priest.