26 f.YTA' OD I ' TOR J '. 



The funds accumulated in the strong box of a fairly 

 \vealth\- corporation were probably large, though it is quite pos- 

 sible that they might have been the savings of many years. This 

 is curiously illustrated from the domestic accounts of King's 

 College, Cambridge. The accounts of this college give gene- 

 rally, when the document in which they are copied out is 

 what is called the Mundum Book, what the receipts of the 

 college are for the year. But they do not give the accumu- 

 lations. It is very possible that the knowledge of this amount 

 was entrusted only to a few persons. 



Now when the troubles of the Parliamentary war were 

 followed by the victory of the army, the royalists suffered 

 severely in the visitation of both Universities. They were 

 mainly evicted, either for original * malignancy,' or for refusing 

 to take the Engagement. In accordance with this discipline 

 of the victors, King's College, Cambridge, was put into the 

 hands of an intrusive body of fellows. What accumulated 

 treasure they found I have not discovered, but the annual 

 audit of the college bears testimony to the spoliation. In 

 1647 they divide the comparatively modest sum of 828 ; 

 in 1648 they took 2624 i6s. 8d. ; in 1649 4550 2s. ^d. 

 They had now I suppose drained the greater part of the 

 college treasure, and had left not much more than that 

 which it was absolutely necessary to keep in hand, for in the 

 next two years they got no more than 628 ijs. 6d. and 

 55 5^- $d. But in 1652 they divided 2093 os. 2d., which 

 I suspect nearly exhausted the stock, for in 1653 they appro- 

 priated only 533 ijs. 2., and nothing during the next two 

 years. During the remaining five years of their rule, they 

 absorbed on an average ,1057 15^. 8d. Their example was 

 followed by the restored fellows or their successors, who found 

 themselves in possession of a surplus during the next ten 

 years of 7982 is. ic*/., which they conceived available for 

 division. But for three of these years there is no note of 

 a division, and if we conclude that in these years income and 

 expenditure were nearly balanced, and there was nothing which 



