Appendix Delta2: The York Intellectual Line Connecting brothers of Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity at Cornell University, tracing their fraternal Big Brother/Little Brother line to the tri-Founders and their Pledges . . .

Brother Charles Sumner was good friends, and political allies, with brother Carl Schurz, both of whom were tapped into the Pledge Class of 1870.



. . . Charles Sumner studied under Justice . . . Increase Mather was influenced by Joseph Story. . .  John Norton . . . 

. . . Supreme Court Justice Joseph Storey . . . John Norton followed in the tradition studied under Samuel Sewall . . .  of Laurence Chaderton . . . 

. . . Samuel Sewall studied under Samuel . . . Laurence Chaderton was influenced Langdon . . . by Laurence Vaux .

. . . Samuel Langdon studied under Edward Holyoke . . .

. . . Edward Holyoke folllowed in the tradition of Increase Mather . . . 

Below we present short biographies of the York intellectual line of the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity at Cornell University.

“Who defends the House.”

We begin with brother Charles Sumner (Ind. Delta 1867) (New York Alpha 1870), tapped into Phi Kappa Psi at Cornell in the first class after the Founding:

 Charles Sumner (January 6, 1811 – March 11, 1874) was an American politician and statesman from Massachusetts. An academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the antislavery forces in Massachusetts and a leader of the Radical Republicans in the United States Senate during the American Civil War and Reconstruction along with Thaddeus Stevens, who filled that role in the United States House of Representatives. He jumped from party to party, gaining fame as a Republican. One of the most learned statesmen of the era, he specialized in foreign affairs, working closely with Abraham

Lincoln. He devoted his enormous energies

to the destruction of what he considered the Slave Power. Harvard Law

The Slave Power was that is the conspiracy of slave owners to seize control of the federal government and block the progress of liberty. His severe beating in 1856 by South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks's cane on the floor of the United States Senate (Sumner-Brooks affair) helped escalate the tensions that led to war. After years of therapy Sumner returned to the Senate to help lead the Civil War. Sumner was a leading proponent of abolishing slavery to weaken the Confederacy. Although he kept on good terms with Abraham Lincoln, he was a leader of the hard-line Radical Republicans.

As a Radical Republican leader in the Senate during Reconstruction, 1865-1871, Sumner fought hard to provide equal civil and voting rights for the freedmen, and to block ex-Confederates from power. Sumner, teaming with House leader Thaddeus Stevens defeated Andrew Johnson, and imposed their hard-line views on the South. In 1871, however, he broke with President Ulysses Grant; Grant's Senate supporters then took away Sumner's power base, his committee chairmanship. Sumner supported the Liberal Republicans candidate Horace Greeley in 1872 and lost his power inside the Republican party.

Sumner was born in Boston on Irving Street on January 6, 1811. He attended the Boston Latin School. He graduated in 1830 from Harvard College (where he lived in Hollis Hall), and in 1834 from Harvard Law School where he studied jurisprudence with his friend Joseph Story. At Harvard, he was a member of the Porcellian Club with Joseph Story.

In 1834, Sumner was admitted to the bar, entering private practice in Boston, where he partnered with George Stillman Hillard. A visit to Washington filled him with loathing for politics as a career, and he returned to Boston resolved to devote himself to the practice of law. He contributed to the quarterly American Jurist and edited Story's court decisions as well as some law texts. From 1836 to 1837, Sumner lectured at Harvard Law School.

From 1837 to 1840, Sumner traveled extensively in Europe. There he became fluent in French, Spanish, German and Italian, with a command of languages equaled by no American then in public life. He met with many of the leading statesmen in Europe, and secured a deep insight into civil law and government.

Sumner visited England in 1838 where his knowledge of literature, history, and law made him popular with leaders of thought. Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux declared that he "had never met with any man of Sumner's age of such extensive legal knowledge and natural legal intellect." Not until many years after Sumner's death was any other American received so intimately into British intellectual circles.

In 1840, at the age of 29, Sumner returned to Boston to practice law but devoted more time to lecturing at Harvard Law School, to editing court reports, and to contributing to law journals, especially on historical and biographical themes.

A turning point in Sumner's life came when he delivered an Independence Day oration on "The True Grandeur of Nations," in Boston in 1845. He spoke against war, and made an impassioned appeal for freedom and peace.

He became a sought-after orator for formal occasions. His lofty themes and stately eloquence made a profound impression; his platform presence was imposing (he stood six feet and four inches tall, with a massive frame). His voice was clear and of great power; his gestures unconventional and individual, but vigorous and impressive. His literary style was florid, with much detail, allusion, and quotation, often from the Bible as well as ancient Greece and Rome. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote that he delivered speeches "like a cannoneer ramming down cartridges," while Sumner himself said that "you might as well look for a joke in the Book of Revelations."

Sumner cooperated effectively with Horace Mann to improve the system of public education in Massachusetts. He advocated prison reform and opposed the Mexican-American War. He viewed the war as a war of aggression but was primarily concerned that captured territories would expand slavery westward. In 1847, the vigor with which Sumner denounced a Boston congressman's vote in favor of the declaration of war against Mexico made him a leader of the "conscience Whigs," but he declined to accept their nomination for the House of Representatives.

Sumner took an active part in the organizing of the Free Soil Party, in opposition to the Whigs' nomination of a slave-holding southerner for the presidency. In 1848, he was defeated as a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives. He became senator as a Democrat in 1850, but later became a Republican.

In 1851, control of the Massachusetts General Court was secured by the Democrats in coalition with the Free Soilers. However, the legislature deadlocked on who should succeed Daniel Webster in the U.S. Senate. After filling the state positions with Democrats, the Democrats refused to vote for Sumner (the Free Soilers' choice) and urged the selection of a less radical candidate. An impasse of more than three months ensued, which finally resulted in the election of Sumner by a single vote on April 24.

Biographer David Donald has probed Sumner's psychology:

Distrusted by friends and allies, and reciprocating their distrust, a man of "ostentatious culture," "unvarnished egotism," and "'a specimen of prolonged and morbid juvenility,'" Sumner combined a passionate conviction in his own moral purity with a command of nineteenth-century "rhetorical flourishes" and a "remarkable talent for rationalization." Stumbling "into politics largely by accident," elevated to the United States Senate largely by chance, willing to indulge in "Jacksonian demagoguery" for the sake of political expediency, Sumner became a bitter and potent agitator of sectional conflict. Carving out a reputation as the South's most hated foe and the Negro's bravest friend, he inflamed sectional differences, advanced his personal fortunes, and helped bring about national tragedy.

Sumner took his seat in the United States Senate in late 1851, as a Democrat. For the first few sessions, the abolitionist-democratic and reformist Sumner did not push for any of his controversial causes, but observed the workings of the Senate. On August 26, 1852, Sumner, in spite of strenuous efforts to prevent it, delivered his first major speech. Entitled "Freedom National; Slavery Sectional" (a popular abolitionist motto), Sumner attacked the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act and called for its repeal.

The conventions of both the great parties had just affirmed the finality of every provision of the Compromise of 1850. Reckless of political expediency, Sumner moved that the Fugitive Slave Act be forthwith repealed; and for more than three hours he denounced it as a violation of the Constitution, an affront to the public conscience, and an offense against the divine law. The speech provoked a storm of anger in the South, but the North was heartened to find at last a leader whose courage matched his conscience.

In 1856, during the Bloody Kansas crisis when "border ruffians" approached Lawrence, Kansas, Sumner denounced the Kansas-Nebraska Act in the "Crime against Kansas" speech on May 19 and May 20, two days before the sack of Lawrence. Sumner attacked the authors of the act, Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois and Andrew Butler of South Carolina, comparing Douglas to Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. He ridiculed Butler for a speech defect caused by his heart condition.

Sumner said Douglas (who was present in the chamber) was a "noisome, squat, and nameless animal...not a proper model for an American senator." Most serious was his extreme insult of Butler as having taken "a mistress who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight—I mean, the harlot, Slavery." Not content to leave his assault on a political level, Sumner's three hour oration took a very personal and cruel turn as he began to mock the 59 year-old Butler's manner of speech and physical mannerisms, both of which were impaired by a stroke that Butler had suffered earlier.

Two days later, on the afternoon of May 22, Preston Brooks, a congressman from South Carolina and Butler's nephew, confronted Sumner as he sat writing at his desk in the almost empty Senate chamber. Brooks was accompanied by Laurence M. Keitt also of South Carolina and Henry A. Edmundson of Virginia. Brooks said "Mr. Sumner, I have read your speech twice over carefully. It is a libel on South Carolina, and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine."

As Sumner, who was six feet and four inches tall, began to stand up, Brooks began beating Sumner on the head with a thick gutta-percha cane with a gold head. Sumner was trapped under the heavy desk (which was bolted to the floor), but Brooks continued to bash Sumner until he ripped the desk from the floor. By this time, Sumner was blinded by his own blood, and he staggered up the aisle and collapsed, lapsing into unconsciousness. Brooks continued to beat Sumner until he broke his cane, then quietly left the chamber. Several other senators attempted to help Sumner, but were blocked by Keitt who was holding a pistol and shouting "Let them be!"

Sumner did not attend the Senate for the next three years, while recovering from the attack. In addition to the head trauma, he suffered from nightmares, severe headaches and (what is now understood to be) post- traumatic stress disorder. During that period, his enemies subjected him to ridicule and accused him of cowardice for not resuming his duties in the Senate. Nevertheless, the Massachusetts General Court reelected him in November 1856, believing that his vacant chair in the Senate chamber served as a powerful symbol of free speech and resistance to slavery.

The attack revealed the increasing polarization of the Union in the years before the American Civil War, as Sumner became a hero across the North and Brooks a hero across the South. Northerners were outraged, with the editor of the New York Evening Post, William Cullen Bryant, writing:

The South cannot tolerate free speech anywhere, and would stifle it in Washington with the bludgeon and the bowie-knife, as they are now trying to stifle it in Kansas by massacre, rapine, and murder.

Has it come to this, that we must speak with bated breath in the presence of our Southern masters?... Are we to be chastised as they chastise their slaves? Are we too, slaves, slaves for life, a target for their brutal blows, when we do not comport ourselves to please them?"

The outrage heard across the North was loud and strong, and historian William Gienapp later argued that the success of the new Republican party was uncertain in early 1856; but Brooks’s "assault was of critical importance in transforming the struggling Republican party into a major political force."

Conversely, the act was praised by Southern newspapers; the Richmond Enquirer editorialized that Sumner should be caned "every morning," praising the attack as "good in conception, better in execution, and best of all in consequences" and denounced "these vulgar abolitionists in the Senate" who "have been suffered to run too long without collars. They must be lashed into submission."

After three years Sumner returned to the Senate in 1859. He delivered a speech entitled "The Barbarism of Slavery" in the months leading up to the 1860 presidential election. In the critical months following the election of Abraham Lincoln, Sumner was an unyielding foe to every scheme of compromise with the Confederacy.

After the withdrawal of the Southern senators, Sumner was made chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in March 1861, a powerful position for which he was well-qualified owing to his years and background of European political knowledge, relationships, and experiences.

As chair of the committee, Sumner renewed his efforts to gain diplomatic recognition of Haiti by the United States, which Haiti had sought since winning its independence in 1804. With Southern senators no longer standing in the way, Sumner was successful in 1862. While the Civil War was in progress, Sumner's letters from Richard Cobden and John Bright, from William Ewart Gladstone and George Douglas Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll, were read by Sumner at Lincoln's request to Cabinet, and formed a chief source of knowledge on the delicate political balance pro- and anti-Union in Britain.

In the war scare over the Trent affair (where the U.S. Navy illegally seized high-ranking Confederates from a British Navy ship), it was Sumner's word that convinced Lincoln that James M. Mason and John Slidell must be given up. Again and again Sumner used his chairmanship to block action which threatened to embroil the U.S. in war with England and France. Sumner openly and boldly advocated the policy of emancipation. Lincoln described Sumner as "my idea of a bishop," and consulted him as an embodiment of the conscience of the American people.

Sumner was a longtime enemy of United States Chief Justice Roger Taney, and attacked his decision in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case. In 1865, Sumner said:

I speak what cannot be denied when I declare that the opinion of the Chief Justice in the case of Dred Scott was more thoroughly abominable than anything of the kind in the history of courts. Judicial baseness reached its lowest point on that occasion. You have not forgotten that terrible decision where a most unrighteous judgment was sustained by a falsification of history. Of course, the Constitution of the United States and every principle of Liberty was falsified, but historical truth was falsified also..."

As soon as the Civil War began, Sumner put forward his theory of Reconstruction, that the South had by its own act become felo de se, committing state suicide via secession, and that they be treated as conquered territories that had never been states. He resented the much more generous Reconstruction policy taken by Lincoln, and later by Andrew Johnson, as an encroachment upon the powers of Congress. Throughout the war, Sumner had constituted himself the special champion of blacks, being the most vigorous advocate of emancipation, of enlisting the blacks in the Union army, and of the establishment of the Freedmen's Bureau.

Sumner was unusually far-sighted in his advocacy of voting and civil rights for blacks. His father hated slavery and told Sumner that freeing the slaves would "do us no good" unless they were treated equally by society. Sumner was a close associate of William Ellery Channing, a minister in Boston who influenced many New England intellectuals, including Ralph Waldo Emerson. Channing believed that human beings had an infinite potential to improve themselves. Expanding on this argument, Sumner concluded that environment had "an important, if not controlling influence" in shaping individuals. By creating a society where "knowledge, virtue and religion" took precedence, "the most forlorn shall grow into forms of unimagined strength and beauty." Moral law, then, was as important for governments as it was for individuals, and laws which inhibited a man's ability to grow — like slavery or segregation — were evil. While Sumner often had dark views of contemporary society, his faith in reform was unshakeable; when accused of utopianism, he replied "The Utopias of one age have been the realities of the next."

The annexation of Texas — a new slave-holding state — in 1845 pushed Sumner into taking an active role in the anti-slavery movement. He helped organize an alliance between Democrats and the newly created Free-Soil Party in Massachusetts in 1849. That same year, Sumner represented the plaintiffs in Roberts v. Boston, a case which challenged the legality of segregation. Arguing before the Massachusetts Supreme Court, Sumner noted that schools for blacks were physically inferior and that segregation bred harmful psychological and sociological effects — arguments that would be made in Brown v. Board of Education over a century later. Sumner lost the case, but the Massachusetts legislature eventually abolished school segregation in 1855.

A friend of Samuel Gridley Howe, Sumner was also a guiding force for the American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission. The senator was one of the most prominent advocates for suffrage, along with free homesteads and free public schools for blacks. Sumner's outspoken opposition to slavery made him few friends in the Senate; after delivering his first major speech there in 1852, a senator from Alabama rose and urged that there be no reply to Sumner, saying "The ravings of a maniac may sometimes be dangerous, but the barking of a puppy never did any harm." His uncompromising attitude did not endear him to moderates and sometimes inhibited his effectiveness as a legislator; he was largely excluded from work on the Thirteenth Amendment, in part because he did not get along with Illinois Senator Lyman Trumbull, who chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee and did much of the work on the law. Sumner did introduce an alternate amendment that would have abolished slavery and declare that "all people are equal before the law" — a combination of the Thirteenth Amendment with elements of the Fourteenth Amendment. During Reconstruction, he often attacked civil rights legislation as too weak and fought hard for legislation to give land to freed slaves; unlike many of his contemporaries, he viewed segregation and slavery as two sides of the same coin. He introduced a civil rights bill in 1872 that would have mandated equal accommodation in all public places and required suits brought under the bill to be argued in federal courts. The bill ultimately failed, but Sumner still spoke of it on his deathbed.

In April 1870, Sumner announced that he would work to remove the word "white" from naturalization laws. He had in 1869 and 1869 introduced bills to that effect, but neither came to a vote. On July 2, 1870, Sumner moved to amend a pending bill in a way that would strike the word "white" wherever in all congresssional acts pertaining to naturalization. On July 4, 1870, he said: "Senators undertake to disturb us . . by reminding us of the possibility of large numbers swarming from China; but the answer to all this is very obvious and very simple. If the Chinese come here, they will come for citizenship or merely for labor. If they come for citizenship, then in this desire do they give a pledge of loyalty to our institutions; and where is the peril in such vows? They are peaceful and industrious; how can their citizenship be the occasion of solicitude?" He accused legislators promoting anti-Chinese legislation of betraying the principles of the Declaration of Independence: "Worse than any heathen or pagan abroad are those in our midst who are false to our institutions." But Sumner's bill failed, and from 1870 to 1943 (or in some cases, to 1952) Chinese and other Asians were ineligible for U.S. citizenship.

Sumner was serious and somewhat prickly, but he developed friendships with several prominent Bostonians, particularly Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, whose house he visited regularly in the 1840s. Longfellow's daughters found his stateliness amusing; Sumner would ceremoniously open doors for the children while saying "In presequas" in a sonorous tone.

A bachelor for most of his life, Sumner began courting Alice Mason Hooper, the daughter of Massachusetts congressman Samuel Hooper, in 1866 and the two were married that October. It proved to be a poor match: Sumner could not respond to his wife's humor, and Hooper had a ferocious temper she could not always control. That winter, Hooper began going out to public events with Friedrich von Holstein, a German nobleman. While the two were not having an affair, the relationship caused gossip in Washington, and Hooper refused to stop seeing him. When Holstein was recalled to Prussia in the spring of 1867, Hooper accused Sumner of engineering the action (Sumner always denied this) and the two separated the following September.[14] News of the situation quickly leaked out, to the delight of Sumner's enemies, who referred to him as "The Great Impotency" and claimed (without proof) that Sumner could not perform his marital duties. The situation depressed and embarrassed Sumner; the two were finally divorced on May 10, 1873.

Sumner was strongly opposed to the Reconstruction policy of Johnson, believing it to be far too generous to the South. Johnson was impeached by the House, but the Senate failed to convict him (and thus remove him from office) by a single vote.

Ulysses Grant became a bitter opponent of Sumner in 1870 when the president mistakenly thought that he had secured his support for the annexation of the Dominican Republic.

Sumner had always prized highly his popularity in Great Britain, but he unhesitatingly sacrificed it in taking his stand as to the adjustment of claims against Britain for breaches of neutrality during the war. Sumner laid great stress upon "national claims." He held that Britain's according the rights of belligerents to the Confederacy had doubled the duration of the war, entailing inestimable loss. He therefore insisted that Britain should be required not merely to pay damages for the havoc wreaked by the Confederate Ship Alabama and other cruisers fitted out for Confederate service in her ports, but that, for "that other damage, immense and infinite, caused by the prolongation of the war," Sumner wanted Britain to turn over Canada as payment. (At the Geneva arbitration conference these "national claims" were abandoned.)

Under pressure from the president, he was deposed in March 1871 from the chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations, in which he had served with great effectiveness since 1861. The chief cause of this humiliation was Grant's vindictiveness at Sumner's blocking Grant's plan to annex Santo Domingo. Sumner broke with the Republican party and campaigned for the Liberal Republican Horace Greeley in 1872.

In 1872, he introduced in the Senate a resolution providing that the names of Civil War battles should not be placed on the regimental colors of army regiments. The Massachusetts legislature denounced this battle-flag resolution as "an insult to the loyal soldiery of the nation" and as "meeting the unqualified condemnation of the people of the Commonwealth." For more than a year all efforts– headed by the poet John Greenleaf Whittier– to rescind that censure were without avail, but early in 1874 it was annulled. His last words uttered around his closest colleagues and friends was noted to be "save my civil rights bill".

Charles Sumner died in Washington, D.C., March 11, 1874. He lay in state in the U.S. Capitol rotunda, and was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Sumner was the scholar in politics. He could never be induced to suit his action to the political expediency of the moment. "The slave of principles, I call no party master," was the proud avowal with which he began his service in the Senate. For the tasks of Reconstruction he showed little aptitude. He was less a builder than a prophet. His was the first clear program proposed in Congress for the reform of the civil service. It was his dauntless courage in denouncing compromise, in demanding the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act, and in insisting upon emancipation, that made him the chief initiating force in the struggle that put an end to slavery. Brother Charles Sumner (Ind. Delta 1867)(New York Alpha 1870), studied under Justice Joseph Story:

 Joseph Story was born at Marblehead, Massachusetts. His father was Elisha Story (1743-1805), a member of the Sons of Liberty, who took part in the Boston Tea Party in 1773. He fought in the battle of Bunker Hill and at Lexington and Concord. He was surgeon in Colonel Little's Essex Regiment and served with Washington at Long Island, White Plains, and Trenton. His mother was Mehitable Pedrick, the daughter of a wealthy Loyalist merchant who lost most of his fortune during the Revolution. Growing up in the aftermath of the Revolution, Joseph absorbed from both of his parents republican values, Unitarian theology, a heritage of Puritan idealism, a fierce sense of nationalism, and an Harvard University unbending dedication to public service.

Story studied at the Marblehead Academy until the fall of 1794 when his father withdrew him from school because the schoolmaster, William Harris (later president of Columbia University), beat Story with a ruler for some minor offense. Harvard refused to admit the fifteen-year-old Story because he lacked sufficient education. Crestfallen, Story studied at home and by January was sufficiently prepared to enter the university. At Harvard he thrived on studying and scholarship and neither drank nor caroused in any other noticeable way. He graduated in 1798, second in his class. After college Story returned to Marblehead to read law with Samuel Sewall, then a congressman and later chief justice of Massachusetts. He later read law with Samuel Putnam in Salem.

He was admitted to the bar at Salem, Massachusetts, in 1801, and soon attained eminence in his profession. Although Essex County, where he practiced, was a Federalist stronghold, Story gravitated to the Jeffersonian Republicans, working closely with the powerful Crowninshield family. Their patronage helped him gain a seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, where he served from 1805 to 1808 and in 1811, when he was elected Speaker. Meanwhile, he was a representative in Congress from December 1808 to March 1809, succeeding Jacob Crowninshield after his death.

Story's first wife, Mary Lynde Oliver, died in June 1805, shortly after their marriage. His father had died two months earlier, and Story responded to these combined losses by burying himself in work. Later in 1805 he married Sarah Waldo Wetmore, the daughter of Judge William Wetmore of the Boston Court of Common Pleas. Sarah Story became an invalid after the death of their third surviving child in 1831. Altogether they had seven children, but only two, Mary and William Wetmore Story, sculptor and lawyer, survived to adulthood. A sculpture of Joseph Story by W.W. Story is in the entrance to the Harvard Law School Library. W.W. Story also authored The Life and Letters of Joseph Story (2 vols., Boston and London, 1851), in which he edited out some embarrassing correspondence concerning Story's suggestions on how to adopt a new fugitive slave law.

In November 1811, at the age of thirty-two, he became, by President Madison's appointment, the youngest appointed Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. This position he retained until his death. Here he found his true sphere of work. The traditions of the American people, their strong prejudice for the local supremacy of the states and against a centralized government, had yielded reluctantly to the establishment of the Federal legislative and executive in 1789. The Federal judiciary had been organized at the same time but had never grasped the full measure of its powers.

Soon after Story's appointment, the Supreme Court began to bring out into plain view the powers which the United States Constitution had given it over state courts and state legislation. The leading place in this work belongs to Chief Justice John Marshall, but Story has a very large share in that remarkable series of decisions and opinions, from 1812 until 1832, by which time the work was accomplished. For instance, Story wrote the opinion for a unanimous court in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee following Marshall's recusal. In addition to this he built up the department of admiralty law in the United States federal courts; he devoted much attention to equity jurisprudence and rendered invaluable services to the department of patent law. In 1819 he attracted much attention by his vigorous charges to grand juries denouncing the slave trade, and in 1820 he was a prominent member of the Massachusetts Convention called to revise the state constitution.

Of all of Story's opinions, non-lawyers are most likely to be familiar with the case of the Amistad, which was the basis for a 1997 movie of the same name by Steven Spielberg. Oddly, Story was played by an actual retired Supreme Court justice, Harry Blackmun (and is apparently so far the only Supreme Court justice to have been portrayed by another in a motion picture).

In 1829 he became the first Dane Professor of Law at Harvard University, and continued until his death to hold this position, meeting with remarkable success as a teacher and winning the affection of his students, whom he imbued with much of his own enthusiasm. His industry was unremitting, and, besides attending to his duties as an associate justice and a professor of law, he wrote many reviews and magazine articles, delivered various orations on public occasions, and published a large number of works on legal subjects, which won high praise on both sides of the Atlantic. Associate Justice Joseph Story read the law under Judge Samuel Sewall:

 Samuel Sewall (b. December 11, 1757, Boston, Massachusetts – June 8, 1814 Wiscasset, Massachusetts (now Maine)) was an American lawyer. He graduated from Harvard College (AB 1776, AM 1779, honorary LLD 1808), and set up practice as a lawyer in Marblehead. He served as a member of the state legislature in 1783 and from 1788 to 1796. He represented Massachusetts in the U.S. House from 1797 to 1800, and from 1800 to 1814 served as a judge of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, serving as Chief Justice in 1814. He died at Wiscasset while holding a court there. In 1781 he married Abigail Devereux; they had a family of at least six sons and two daughters. . Harvard University

Sewall's great-grandfather Samuel Sewall was a judge at the Salem witch trials in colonial Massachusetts, and subsequently Chief Justice of Massachusetts.

Judge Samuel Sewall studied at Harvard under the Reverend Samuel Langdon:

 Samuel Langdon (January 12, 1723 – November 29, 1797) was a U.S. Congregational clergyman and educator. After serving as pastor in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, he was appointed president of Harvard University in 1774. He held that post until 1780. Born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1723, Langdon attended Boston Latin School and graduated from Harvard in 1740. While teaching in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, he studied theology, and was licensed to preach. In 1745, he was appointed chaplain of a regiment, and was present at the capture of Fortress Louisbourg. On his return, he was appointed assistant to Reverend James Fitch of the North Church of Portsmouth. He was Harvard University ordained as pastor in 1747, and continued in that charge till 1774, when he became president of Harvard.

At Harvard, his ardent patriotism led him to adopt measures that were obnoxious to the Tory students, and although he endeavored to administer the government of the college with justice, his resignation was virtually compelled in 1780. The following year, he became pastor of the Congregational church at Hampton Falls, New Hampshire.

In 1788, he was a delegate to the New Hampshire convention that adopted the Constitution of the United States, often led its debates, and did much to remove prejudice against the constitution.

Langdon was distinguished as a scholar and theologian, and exerted a wide influence in his community. The University of Aberdeen gave him the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1762. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences from its foundation. He published "Summary of Christian Faith and Practice" (1768); "Observations on the Revelations " (1791); "Remarks on the Leading Sentiments of Dr. Hopkins's System of Doctrines" (1794)" and many sermons. In 1761, in connection with Colonel Joseph Blanchard, he prepared and published a map of New Hampshire.

Langdon died in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire on 29 November 1797.

The Reverend Samuel Langdon studied at Harvard under Edward Holyoke:

 Edward Holyoke (June 26, 1689 – June 1, 1769) was an early American clergyman and educator. He studied at Harvard College (B.A., 1705; M.A., 1708) and served as Congregational minister in Marblehead, Massachusetts. In 1737 he was appointed president of his alma mater and served in that position for the rest of his life. Nearly 80 years old when he died, he was the oldest person to occupy the presidency of Harvard.

Harvard University

Edward Holyoke was influenced by the Reverend Increase Mather:

 The Reverend Increase Mather (June 21, 1639 – August 23, 1723) was a major figure in the early history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Province of Massachusetts Bay (now the Federal state of Massachusetts). He was a Puritan minister who was involved with the government of the colony, the administration of Harvard College, and most notoriously, the Salem witch trials. He was the father of the influential Cotton Mather. Mather was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts on June 21, 1639 to Rev. Richard Mather and Kathrine Holt Mather following their participation in the Great Migration from England due to nonconformity with the Church of England. He was the Harvard University youngest of six[4] brothers: Samuel, Nathaniel, Eleazar, Joseph, Timothy. His parents were highly religious, and three of his brothers (Samuel, Nathaniel and Eleazar) also became ministers.

In 1651 Mather was admitted to Harvard where he roomed with and studied under John Norton. When he graduated (1656) with a B.A., he began to train for the ministry and gave his first sermon on his eighteenth birthday. He quickly left Massachusetts and went to Ireland, where he studied at Trinity College in Dublin for a M.A. He graduated with it in 1659 and spent the next 3 years as a chaplain attached to a garrison in the Channel Islands.

Harvard was to later award him the first honorary degree in the New World, a S.T.D., in 1692.

In 1661, with the advent of the English Restoration and resurgence of Anglicanism, Increase returned to Massachusetts, where he married Maria Cotton. She was his stepsister by virtue of his father's marriage to Sarah Hankredge, the widow of John Cotton and mother of Maria. She gave birth to Cotton Mather in February.

He published in 1676 A Brief History of the Warr with the Indians in New- England, a contemporary account of King Philip's War. He was ordained as minister of the Old North Church (the original Old North meetinghouse), whose congregation included many of the upper class and governing class, on May 27, 1664. He held this post until he died. By virtue of his position he quickly became one of the most influential people in the colony, both religiously and politically.

In June 11, 1685 he became the Acting President of Harvard University (then Harvard College) and steadily advanced: A little over a year later on July 23, 1686 he was appointed the Rector. On June 27, 1692 he became the President of Harvard, a position which he held until September 6, 1701.

He was rarely present on campus or in the town, especially during his term of Rector as he was out of the Colony for all but two years of his term in that office. Despite his absences he did make some changes: reimplementation of Greek and Hebrew instruction, replacement of classical Roman authors with Biblical and Christian authors in ethics classes, enactment of requirements that students attend classes regularly, live and eat on campus and that seniors not haze other students.

While politics and Puritan religion were closely related during Increase's life time, his first direct involvement with politics occurred as a result of James II of England's manipulation of the New England governments. In 1686 James revoked the Charter of Massachusetts in the process of creating the unresponsible Dominion of New England.

The Dominion was headed by Edmund Andros, who not only disliked puritanism and was haughty, but ruled as a near absolute dictator: Town meetings were outlawed, leaving the Dominion without consent of the government was outlawed, marriage was removed from the clergy and the Old South Church was temporarily appropriated for Anglican services. Also disliked by the Puritan status quo was the 1687 Declaration of Indulgence, prohibiting discrimination against Catholics. When Mather successfully roused opposition to the charter revokation, he was nearly framed for treason. He then traveled to London (eluding spies out to catch him) to petition the King.

While engaged in petitioning he published pieces to build popular support for his positions, such as A Narrative of the Miseries of New-England, By Reason of an Arbitrary Government Erected there Under Sir Edmund Andros (1688) and A Brief Relation for the Confirmation of Charter Privileges (1691).

While there he attempted to get the old charter restored and a royal charter for Harvard; however, he abandoned that course and changed his petitions to a new charter not lacking any of the rights previously granted. Following the Glorious Revolution and subsequent overthrow of Andros, a new charter was granted to the colony. The 1692 charter was a major departure from its predecessor, granting sweeping home rule, establishing an elective legislature, enfranchising all freeholders (previously only men admitted to a congregation could vote), and uniting the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Plymouth Colony. Following Andros' deposition and arrest, he had William Phips appointed as Royal Governor and they returned to Massachusetts, arriving on May 14 1692.

Following his return, the administration of Harvard grew increasingly insistent that he reside nearer to the institution. Not wanting to leave his Second Church, he didn't, eventually resigning the Presidency.

As an influential member of the community, Increase was involved in the notorious witch hysteria of Salem, Massachusetts. As the court of oyer and terminer was beginning to hear cases of suspected witchcraft, Increase published "The Return of Several Ministers Consulted", which urged moderation in the use and credence of "spectral evidence". In June and July 1692 as the trials and executions began to increase, Increase made a number of sermons interpreted as a plea to cool the heated atmosphere. In September he published Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits Personating Men, Witchcrafts, infallible Proofs of Guilt in such as are accused with that Crime (more commonly known as just "Cases of conscience concerning evil spirits"), which defended the judges and trials, but strongly denounced the spectral evidence used by them. It contained his famous version of Blackstone's formulation, that "It were better that Ten Suspected Witches should escape, than that one Innocent Person should be Condemned". Afterwards, his reputation was not improved by his involvement and association with the trials, nor by his subsequent refusal to denounce them. His refusal to repudiate was likely because of his longtime friendship with the judges involved. He was also defamed by Robert Calef in his harshly critical More Wonders of the Invisible World (referred to as More Wonders of the Spiritual World by the Encyclopedia Britannica Eleventh Edition).

Following Maria's death in August 1714, he remarried. On September 27, 1722 he fainted and was bedridden thereafter. In August of 1723 he suffered bladder failure and died three weeks later on August 23, 1723 in Boston.

Throughout his life Mather was a staunch Puritan, opposing anything openly contradictory to, mutually exclusive with, or potentially "distracting" from his religious beliefs. He supported suppression of intoxication, unnecessary effort on Sundays and ostentatious clothing. He was initially opposed to the Half-Way Covenant but later supported it. He firmly believed in the direct appearance of God's disfavor in everyday life, e.g. the weather, political situations, attacks by "Indians", fires and floods, etc.

He was strenuous in attempting to keep people to his idea of morality, making strong use of jeremiads to try and prevent indifference and especially to try and get government officials to enforce public morality. During his tenure at Harvard he regularly stamped out any relaxation of Puritan strictness, such as latitudinarianism, which had flourished during his overseas absence.

Following his acceptance of the Covenant, Solomon Stoddard and others attempted to further liberalize Puritanism by baptism of children who had nonmember parents and admittance of all but the openly immoral to services.[7] To try and stop this, he had a synod called in an attempt to outlaw similar measures. A declaration was adopted, but never made binding.[7] Following this, reform-minded members were sent to the body and it took on a less conservative tone, bitterly disappointing Mather.

The stated reason for his first name was "...the never-to-be-forgotten increase, of every sort, wherewith God favoured the country about the time of his nativity." The Reverend Increase Mather roomed at Harvard with the Reverend John Norton:

 John Norton, clergyman, born in Stortford, Hertfordshire, England, 6 May, 1606; died in Boston, Massachusetts, 5 April, 1663. He was educated at Cambridge University and became a curate in his native town. Having embraced the tenets of the Puritans he came to Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1635, and preached there during the winter. Early in 1636 he removed to Boston, and before the close of the year became minister of the church at Ipswich. He was an active member of the convention that formed the "Cambridge platform" in 1648. In 1652 he became colleague of Reverend John Wilson as minister of the First church at Boston, and in 1662 he accompanied Peterhouse, Governor Bradstreet as agent of the colony to Cambridge University present an address to Charles II after his restoration, and to petition in behalf of New England.

The king assured them that he would confirm the charter of the colony, but he required that justice should be administered in his name, and attached other conditions that the colonists regarded as arbitrary. Upon the return of the agents to Massachusetts they were regarded with suspicion, and the report was circulated that they had sold the liberties of the country. This greatly affected Mr. Norton's popularity as a preacher, and it is supposed that it hastened his death.

The first Latin book that was composed in the colonies, "Responsio ad totam questionum syllogen" (London, 1848), was by him, and was written in answer to questions relating to church government that were sent to New England from Holland by Apollonius. He also wrote " A Discussion on the Sufferings of Christ" (1653); " The Orthodox Evangelist " (1654) ; "Election Sermon " (1657); " Life of Reverend John Cotton" (1658); " The Heart of New England Rent by the Blasphemies of the Present Generation " (1660) ; a letter in Latin to John Dury, a catechism, and other works.

He left some writings in an unfinished state, of which the principal one was a large "Body of Divinity," which is preserved in the archives of the Massachusetts historical society. His life was written by Reverend Alexander W. McClure in "Lives of the Chief Fathers of New England" (1850).- His nephew, John, born in Ipswich, Massachusetts, in 1651; died in 1716, was the son of Reverend William Norton. His mother was the daughter of Emanuel Downing, and the niece of Governor John Winthrop. He was graduated at Harvard in 1671, and ordained as successor to Reverend Peter Hobart over the First church, in Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1678.

In the same year he married, and published a "Funeral Elegy" upon Mrs. Anne Bradstreet, a stiff production of little merit except piety of sentiment and propriety of formal versification. Professor Moses Coit Tyler, in his" History of American Literature," ascribes poetic genius to its author, which indicates that his poem was not inferior to the average verses of his contemporaries. His only other publication was an "Election Sermon," delivered 26 May, 1708, and published under the title of " An Essay tending to promote Education." Mr. Norton was a pious scholar, and is reported to have been an amiable man, beloved and respected in the community of which he was the spiritual head. The Hingham meeting-house in which he preached and which is represented in the illustration was built in 1681. and still stands. It is the oldest house of worship in New England.

His descendant, Andrews, clergyman, born in Hingham, Massachusetts, 31 December, 1786; died in Newport, Rhode Island, 18 September, 1852, was graduated at Harvard in 1804, and afterward pursued a course of literary and theological study there. After serving as tutor at Bowdoin in 1809-'10, and at Harvard in 1811-'12, he became editor of "The General Repository." From 1813 till 1821 he was librarian at Harvard, and in the former year he became lecturer on biblical criticism and interpretation. In 1819 he was elected Dexter professor of sacred literature in the new divinity school at Cambridge, which chair he occupied till 1830, when ill health forced him to resign. He spent the rest of his days in literary retirement at Cambridge until 1849, when he made Newport his summer residence.

In his theological views and writings Mr. Norton united opposite schools of thought. He was radical as a critic and interpreter, conservative as an expositor of Christian doctrine, and while leading the van in the Unitarian protest against Calvinism he was foremost in opposition to the naturalistic school, of which Theo- dote Parker was the principal representative. As a lecturer on scriptural interpretation he had few equals and no superiors in the United States. Besides contributing to numerous periodicals, he edited the " Miscellaneous Writings of Charles Eliot " (1814); the " Poems of Mrs. Hemans" (1826) ; and, in conjunction with Charles Folsom, " The Select Journal of Foreign Periodical Literature" (4 vols., Boston, 1833-'4) ; and wrote "A Statement of the Reasons for not believing the Doctrines of Trinitarians as Concerning the Nature of God and the Person of Christ" (Boston, 1833 ; new ed., with a memoir of the author, 1856); "Historical Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels " (3 vols., 1837'-44) ;" Tracts Concerning Christianity "(Cambridge, 1852) ; " A Translation of the Gospels, with Notes" (2 vols., 1855) ; and " The Internal Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels" (1855). He was also the author of fugitive poems.

His son. Charles Eliot, author, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 16 November, 1827, was graduated at Harvard in 1846, and shortly afterward entered a Boston countinghouse to gain a knowledge of the East India trade. In 1849 he went as supercargo of a ship bound for India, in which country he travelled extensively, and returned home through Europe in 1851. He made other visits to Europe in 1855-'7, and from 1868 till 1873. In 1855 he edited with Dr. Ezra Abbot his father's translation of the gospels with notes (2 vols.), and his "Internal Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels." During the civil war he edited at Boston the papers issued by the Loyal publication society, and in 1864- '8 he was joint editor with James Russell Lowell of the "North American Review." He has published "Considerations on some Recent Social Theories" (Boston, 1853) ; "The New Life of Dante," an essay, with translations (Cambridge, 1859); "Notes of Travel and Study in Italy" (1860) : "A Review of a Translation into Italian of the 'Commentary' by Benvenuto da Imola on the ' Divina Commedia' " (1861) ; "The Soldier of the Good Cause" (Boston, 1861); " William Blake's Illustrations of the Book of Job, with Sketch of the Artist's Life and Works" (1875) ; "List of the Principal Books relating to the Life and Works of Michael Angelo, with Notes" (Cambridge, 1879) ; and "Historical Studies of Church-Building in the Middle Ages: Venice, Siena, Florence" (New York, 1880).

The Reverend John Norton was influenced by Laurence Chaderton:

 Laurence Chaderton (c. 1536 – 13 November 1640), Puritan divine, was born in Lees, in the parish of Oldham, Lancshire, probably in September 1536, being the second son of Edmund Chaderton, a gentleman of an ancient and wealthy family, and a zealous Catholic. Under the tuition of Laurence Vaux, a priest, he became an able scholar. In 1564 he entered Christ's College, Cambridge, where, after a short time, he formally adopted the reformed doctrines and was in consequence disinherited by his father. In 1567 he was elected a fellow of his college, and subsequently was chosen lecturer of St. Clement's Church, Cambridge, where he preached to admiring audiences for many years. He was a man of moderate views, Christ’s College, though numbering among his friends Cambridge extremists like Thomas Cartwright and William Perkins. So great was his reputation that when Sir Walter Mildmay founded Emmanuel College in 1584, he chose Chaderton for the first master, and on his expressing some reluctance, declared that if he would not accept the office the foundation should not go on.

In 1604 Chaderton was appointed one of the four divines for managing the cause of the Puritans at the Hampton Court Conference. He was also among the translators of the King James Version of the Bible. In 1578 he had taken the degree of B.D., and in 1613 he was created D.D. At this period he made provision for twelve fellows and above forty scholars in Emmanuel College. Fearing that he might have a successor who held Arminian doctrines, he resigned the mastership in favor of John Preston, but survived him, and lived also to see the college presided over successively by William Sancroft and Richard Holdsworth. He died at the age of about 103, preserving his bodily and mental faculties to the end.

Chaderton published a sermon preached at St Paul's Cross about 1580, and a treatise of his On Justification was printed by Anthony Thysius, professor of divinity at Leiden. Some other works by him on theological subjects remain in manuscript (as of 1911).

The divine Laurence Chaderton was tutored by Lawrence Vaux, the Martyr:

 Lawrence Vaux, Canon regular, author of a catechism, martyr in prison, b. Blackrod, Lancashire, 1519; d. in the Clink, Southwark, 1585. Educated at the Manchester Grammer School and at Oxford, he was ordained in 1542, and took the degree of B.D. in 1556, studying in Queen’s College and Corpus Christi School. He was first a fellow, and then, 1558, warden of Manchester College, a parish church which had been endowed as a collegiate by Thomas, fifth Baron la Warr, 1421, and re-established by Queen Mary, 1557. In 1559 Elizabeth's ecclesiastical commissioners held a visitation in Manchester College, and summoned the warden and fellows before them. However, Queen’s College & Corpus knowing what to expect, Vaux had removed Christi College himself and the college deeds and church Oxford place to a place of safe hiding. He was now a marked man, and after a time he took refuge in Louvain, 1561.

He was first ordained a priest at Oxford’s Collegiate Church in 1542, and was a Fellow of the Manchester College, until it was dissolved and he was reduced to the status of curate with a salary of £12 9s 6d per annum (now £12.47). Lawrence Vaux was the last Roman Catholic warden of the Collegiate Church at Manchester (now the Machester Cathedral). Born in Blackrod, in the ancient parish of Bolton-le-Moors, he presided over the Cathedral during a period of religious and political turmoil and strife.

The accession of Queen Mary to the throne of England caused a turn in his fortunes, when the Collegiate Church was restored and Vaux was appointed as Warden in 1558. He was popular and much admired by his parishioners. When Elizabeth I acceded to the throne it was to mark the beginning of his bad fortune. Her Act of Uniformity in 1559 required all Catholics to conform to the Anglican service and to take an oath of loyalty to her as head of the Church of England, which Vaux refused to do.

He fled to Ireland, taking all the church's silver and gold plate, the vestments and deeds. He had many of these hidden by sympathisers at Standish in Lancashire, and made legal provision for their return when the church was restored to the Catholic faith. From Ireland he went to Louvain in France, where there existed a number of English Catholic exiles like himself, and he took to teaching, writing and publishing.

Here he seems to have kept a school for the children of the English exiles, then comparatively numerous, for whom in fact he compiled his catechism. Meanwhile in England there was considerable uncertainty among the faithful as to how far it was lawful to conform outwardly with the State religion. Pius V commissioned two of the exiles at Louvain, Doctors Sanders and Harding, to publish his decision, informing the Catholics that to frequent the Anglican rite services was a mortal sin.

Vaux was in Rome in 1566; in a private audience with Pius V instructed him more fully as to the scope of his decision, and finally the task of making known the papal sentence in England was delegated to him. He returned therefore and conducted a vigorous and successful campaign against the schismatical practice, especially in his native Lancashire. This activity drew down the anger of the Government on his head, and in February, 1568, a queen's writ was issued for his arrest; this document mentions also Allen, though he was not in the country at the time. Vaux again escaped and returned to Louvain.

Here, now at the age of fifty-four, he sought and obtained admission among the canons regular in the Priory of St. Martin's. He was clothed in the habit on St. Lawrence's Day, 10 August, 1572, and made his profession the following May. Before taking the vows he drew up a legal document to provide for the safe custody of the deeds and valuables which he had saved from the commissioners at Manchester, "until such time as the college should be restored to the Catholic Faith, or until Catholics should live in it".

So great was the esteem in which Father Lawrence was held by the canons that shortly after his profession he was appointed sub-prior; and when the prior resigned in 1577, to pass over to the Carthusians, there was a strong movement to elect Vaux in his stead. Some, however, apparently feared that he would use his position to introduce a large number of his fellow-countrymen with a view to training them for the English Mission; a marginal note in the "Priory Chronicle" records, "Caenobium nostrum in seminarium pene erectum Anglorum."

Three years later at the instance of Allen, he was summoned to Reims by papal authority to take up once more the perilous missionary work in England ; the Chronicle notes his departure "with the blessing and leave of his Prior ", 24 June, 1580. Vaux left Reims on 1 Aug., and Boulogne on the 12th, arriving that day at Dover in company with a Catholic soldier named Tichborne and a Frenchman, who turned traitor.

Escaping detection at Dover, the two Englishmen passed on to Canterbury, and thence to Rochester, where they were arrested on information lodged by the spy. After several examinations Vaux was finally committed by the Bishop of London to the Gatehouse Prison, Westminster. According to an account of the arrest in the "Douay Diaries", Bishop Aylmer demanded: "What relation are you to that Vaux who wrote a popish catechism in English?" The aged priest admitted his authorship and that confession settled his fate.

For the first three years of his imprisonment, owing chiefly to the wealth and influence of noble friends, Vaux was treated with comparative mildness. In a letter which he sent to the Prior of St. Martin's a few months after his arrest he speaks quite cheerfully of his condition and surroundings. But later another letter addressed to John Coppage, Aug., 1583, was intercepted and the following sentence underlined by some member of the Council: My friends here be many and of much worship, especially since my Catechism came forth. This communication also mentioned the disposal of as many as 300 copies in the Manchester district alone.

Thereupon the aged confessor was transferred to the Clink.

According to Strype, he was brought up again before the relentless Aylmer, in 1585, and found guilty "and so in danger of death". What happened further we do not know ; if actually sentenced, he must have been reprieved. In all probability he was abandoned to a lingering death in prison. The common tradition is represented by this contemporary item from St. Martin's Chronicle: "The venerable Father Lawrence Vaux, martyr. . .for the confession of the Catholic Faith thrown into prison, where he was starved to death, and so gained the crown of martyrdom, 1585."

Vaux's catechism, to which we may fairly attribute his imprisonment and death, was first published in Louvain, in 1567. Six further editions in rapid succession, emanating from Antwerp and Liège, testified to its widespread popularity and effectiveness. The Liège, 1583, issue was reprinted with an excellent biographical introduction for the Chetham Society by Thomas Graves Law, in 1885. This edition contains also Vaux's paper on "The Use and Meaning of Ceremonies ", and a few further pages of instruction added by the Liège publisher. The catechism is practically formed on the same liens as its successor of today, explaining in sequence the Apostles' Creed, the Pater and Ave (but the latter has not the second half, Holy Mary ), the Commandments (these at considerable length), the sacraments, and the offices of Christian justice. The treatise on the ceremonies discusses the use of holy water, candles, incense, vestments, etc. The style is old-fashioned, but the matter in both is as useful and edifying today as it was four centuries ago.

Lawrence Vaux, the Martyr, sought refuge at Louvain in the lowland, under the school of thought advanced by Adrian of Utrecht:

 In the late Middle Ages the faculties of theology fulfilled the role of doctrinal authority in the Church. The members of the Louvain faculty of theology during the first half of the sixteenth century, Adrian of Utrecht (vice- chancellor of the university in 1497-1519 and pope in 1522-23) and his disciples, found themselves necessitated to take a position towards and pass a judgment on the important intellectual movements of their time: reform movements of the late Middle Ages, humanism and the Lutheran and the Swiss Reformation. The theology of Adrian of Utrecht, James Latomus, John Driedo, Ruard Tapper and the other members of the faculty is featured by the confrontation with these movements. Adrian of Utrecht was later elected Pope Hadrian VI, the University of Louvain only Dutch pontiff in the history of the Vatican.

Pope Adrian VI (Utrecht, March 2, 1459 – September 14, 1523), born Adriaan Florenszoon Boeyens, served as Bishop of Rome from 9th January 1522 until his death some 18 months later. He was the last non-Italian pope until John Paul II, 456 years later. He is, together with Marcellus II, one of two 'modern' popes to retain his baptismal name after election. He is buried in the German national church in Rome, Santa Maria dell'Anima. He is the only Dutchman to have become pope.

He was born Adriaan Florisz Boeyens under modest circumstances in the city of Utrecht, which was then the capital of the bishopric of Utrecht, the Netherlands. He was the son of Floris/Florens Boeyens van Utrecht, also born in Utrecht, and his wife Gertruid. Utrecht was at that time part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. In Germany Adrian is sometimes considered a German pope, as the Holy Roman Empire was largely inhabited by Germans, but especially because of the nationalist influence of the 19th century. His nationality (not ethnicity, which was undoubtly Dutch) more accurately was that of an 'imperial subject' rather than 'German'. Nevertheless 'German' is often used as the demonym of the Holy Roman Empire, though not always correctly.

Adrian was probably born in a house on the corner of the Brandsteeg and Oude Gracht that was owned by his grandfather Boudewijn (Boeyen for short). His father, a carpenter and likely shipwright, died when Adrian was 10 years or younger. Adrian VI studied from a very young age under the Brethren of the Common Life, either at Zwolle or Deventer and was also a student of the Latin school (now Gymnasium Celeanum) in Zwolle. In June 1476, he started his studies at the University of Leuven, where he pursued philosophy, theology and Canon Law, due to a scholarship granted by Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, becoming a Doctor of Theology in 1491, Dean of St. Peter's and vice-chancellor of the university. His lectures were published, as recreated from his students' notes; among those who attended was the young Erasmus.

In 1507 he was appointed tutor to Emperor Maximilian I's (1493 – 1519) seven year old grandson, Charles, who was later to become Emperor Charles V (1519 – 56). In 1515 Adrian was sent to Spain on a diplomatic errand, and after his arrival at the Imperial Court in Toledo, Charles V secured his succession to the See of Tortosa, and on 14 November 1516 commissioned him Inquisitor General of Aragon. The following year, Pope Leo X (1513 – 21) created Adrian a cardinal, naming him Cardinal Priest of the Basilica of Saints John and Paul.

During the minority of Charles V, Adrian was named to serve with Francisco Cardinal Jimenez de Cisneros as co-regent of Spain. After the death of the Jimenez, Adrian was appointed (14 March 1518) General of the Reunited Inquisitions of Castile and Aragon, in which capacity he acted until his departure for Rome. During this period, Charles V left for the Netherlands in 1520, making the future pope Regent of Spain, during which time he had to deal with the Revolt of the Comuneros.

In the conclave after the death of the Medici Pope Leo X, his cousin, Cardinal Giulio de' Medici was the leading figure. With Spanish and French cardinals in a deadlock, the absent Adrian was proposed as a compromise and on January 9, 1522 he was elected by an almost unanimous vote. Charles V was delighted upon hearing that his tutor had been elected to the papacy but soon realised that Adrian VI was determined to reign impartially. Francis I of France, who feared that Adrian would become a tool of the Emperor, and had uttered threats of a schism, later relented and sent an embassy to present his homage. Fears of a Spanish Avignon based on the strength of his relationship with the Emperor as his former tutor and regent proved baseless, and Adrian left for Italy at the earliest opportunity, making his solemn entry into Rome on 29 August. He was crowned in St. Peter's Basilica on the 31 August 1522, at the age of sixty- three and immediately entered upon the path of the reformer. The 1908 edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia characterised the task that faced him:

"To extirpate inveterate abuses; to reform a court which thrived on corruption, and detested the very name of reform; to hold in leash young and warlike princes, ready to bound at each other's throats; to stem the rising torrent of revolt in Germany; to save Christendom from the Turks, who from Belgrade now threatened Hungary, and if Rhodes fell would be masters of the Mediterranean-- these were herculean labours for one who was in his sixty-third year, had never seen Italy, and was sure to be despised by the Romans as a 'barbarian'.

His plan was to attack notorious abuses one by one; but in his attempt to improve the system of indulgences he was hampered by his cardinals; and he found reducing the number of matrimonial dispensations to be impossible as the income had been farmed out for years in advance by Pope Leo X.

The Italians saw in him as a pedantic foreign professor, blind to the beauty of classical antiquity. Musicians such as Carpentras, the composer and singer from Avignon who was master of the papal chapel under Leo X, left Rome due to Adrian VI's indifference to the arts.

Adrian was not successful as a peacemaker among Christian princes, whom he hoped to unite in a war against the Turks. In August 1523 he was forced into an alliance with the Empire, England, Venice, against France; meanwhile in 1522 the Sultan Suleiman I (1520 – 66) had conquered Rhodes.

In his reaction to the early stages of the Lutheran revolt, Adrian VI did not completely understand the gravity of the situation. At the Diet of Nuremberg which opened in December 1522 he was represented by Francesco Chiericati, whose private instructions contain the frank admission that the disorder of the Church was perhaps the fault of the Roman Curia itself, and that it should be reformed. However, the former professor and Inquisitor General was strongly opposed to any change in doctrinal, and demanded that Luther be punished for teaching heresy.

The pope was mocked by the people of Rome on the Pasquino.

The statement in one of his works that a pope may err, privately or in a minor decree, including matters of faith, attracted attention. Catholics claim that it was a private opinion, not an official pronouncement and therefore does not conflict with the dogma of papal infallibility. Catholic apologists point to the fact that Adrian VI merely theoreticised about the issue.

Adrian VI died on 14 September 1523, after a somewhat brief tenure. Most of his official papers were lost after his death. He published Quaestiones in quartum sententiarum praesertim circa sacramenta (Paris, 1512, 1516, 1518, 1537; Rome, 1522), and Quaestiones quodlibeticae XII. (1st ed., Leuven, 1515).

Pope Adrian VI was a character in Christopher Marlowe's theatre play The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (1604).

Italian writer Luigi Malerba used the confusion among the leaders of the Catholic Church, which was created by Adrian's unexpected election, as backdrop for his 1995 novel, Le maschere (The Masks), about the struggle between two Roman cardinals for a well-endowed church office.

Adrian VI was the last non-Italian pope until Pope John Paul II was elected in 1978. Most of Adrian VI's official papers disappeared soon after his death. He published Quaestiones in quartum sententiarum praesertim circa sacramenta (Paris, 1512, 1516, 1518, 1537; Rome, 1522), and Quaestiones quodlibeticae XII. (1st ed., Louvain, 1515).

The intellectual efforts of Adrian of Utrecht were patronized by Margaret of York:

 Margaret of York (May 3, 1446 – November 23, 1503) – also by marriage known as Margaret of Burgundy – was a daughter of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York and Cecily Neville. She was the third wife of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and acted as a protector of the Duchy after his death. She was also the sister of two Kings of England, Edward IV and Richard III. She was born at Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire, England, and she died at Mechelen in the Low Countries. The mother of Charles the Bold, Duchess Isabel of Burgundy, was through her blood-ties and her perception of Burgundian interests pro- English: a granddaughter of John of Gaunt, and consequently sympathetic to the House of Lancaster, she also saw that Burgundian trade, from which the Duchy drew its vast The House of York wealth, depended upon friendly relations with England, and for this reason she was prepared to favour any English faction which was willing to favour Burgundy.

By 1454, she favoured the House of York, headed by Margaret's father, Richard, Duke of York: although the King of England, Henry VI, was the head of the House of Lancaster, his wife, Margaret of Anjou, was a niece of Burgundy's bitter enemy, Charles VII, and was herself an enemy of the Burgundians; Richard of York, by contrast, shared Burgundy's enmity towards the French, and preferred the Burgundians. Because of this, when Richard of York came to power in 1453-54, during Henry VI's first period of insanity, negotiations were made between himself and Isabel for a marriage between Charles the Bold, then Count of Charolais, and one of York's unmarried daughters, of whom the 8-year old Margaret was the youngest. The negotiations petered out, however, due to power struggles in England, and the preference of Charles' father, Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, for a French alliance. Philip had Charles betrothed to Isabella of Bourbon, the daughter of Charles I, Duke of Bourbon and Agnes of Burgundy, in late March 1454, and the pair were married on 31 October 1454.

Margaret, being a useful bargaining tool to her family, was still unmarried at age 20, when Isabella of Bourbon died in September 1465. She had borne Charles only a daughter, Mary, which made it an imperative for him to remarry and father a son. The situation had changed since 1454: Charles was now highly respected by his father, who had in his old age entrusted the rule of Burgundy to his son; Charles was pro-English, and wished to make an English marriage and alliance against the French. For her own part, Margaret's family were far more powerful and secure than they had been in 1454: her father had been killed at the Battle of Wakefield in 1461, but her brother was now King Edward IV, opposed ineffectively only by Margaret of Anjou and her son by Henry VI, Edward of Westminster; this made Margaret a far more valuable bride than she had been as the mere daughter of a Duke. Because of this, Charles send his close advisor, Guillaume de Clugny, to London weeks after Isabella's death, to propose to Edward IV a marriage between Charles and Margaret. Edward responded warmly, and in the Spring of 1466 sent his brother-in-law, Lord Scales, to Burgundy, where Scales made a formal offer of Margaret's hand in marriage to Charles, and put forward Edward's own proposal of a reciprocal marriage between Charles' daughter Mary and Edward's brother, George, Duke of Clarence.

Margaret married into a fabled house, becoming the Duchess of Burgundy.

The marriage did not take place immediately, however. Continued talks were required, particularly since Charles was unwilling to marry his only child and potential heiress to Clarence, and these talks were undertaken by Anthony, Grand Bastard of Burgundy, Charles' half-brother. But added problems were introduced by the French: Louis XI did not want an alliance between Burgundy and England, his two greatest enemies. Louis accordingly tried to break the two apart, by offering the hand of his elder daughter, Anne, to Charles, that of his younger daughter, Jeanne, to Edward's youngest brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and that of his brother-in-law, Philip of Bresse, to Margaret. Edward showed interest in the latter two propositions, offending Charles the Bold, and delaying the Anglo-Burgundian relations.

Instead, in 1466, Margaret was betrothed to Dom Pedro, Constable of Portugal, whom the rebellious Catalans had invited to become their King. Pedro was himself a nephew of Isabel, the Duchess of Burgundy, and the betrothal thus signified an attempt to placate Burgundy. It was not to be, however; worn out by illness, disappointments, sorrow and overwork, Pedro died on 29 June 1466, leaving Margaret available once more.

By 1467, the situation had changed again. Philip the Good had died, and Charles the Bold had become Duke of Burgundy. Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, had turned against Edward IV, and was plotting against him with French support. Edward in such circumstances needed the support of Charles, and provided no further obstacles to the marriage negotiations, formally agreeing to it in October 1467. Negotiations between the Duke's mother, Isabel, and the King of England's brothers-in-law, Lords Scales and Rivers, then proceeded between December 1467 and June 1468. During this time, Louis XI did all he could to prevent the marriage, demanding that the Pope refuse to give a dispensation for the marriage (the pair were cousins in the fourth degree), promising trade favours to the English, undermining Edward's credit with the international bankers to prevent him being able to pay for Margaret's dowry, encouraging a Lancastrian invasion of Wales, and slandering Margaret, claiming that she was not a virgin and had borne a bastard son. He was ignored, however, a dispensation was secured after Burgundian bribes secured Papal acquiescence, and a complex agreement was drawn up between England and Burgundy, covering mutual defence, trade, currency exchange, fishing rights and freedom of travel, all based around the marriage between the Duke and Margaret. By the terms of the marriage contract, Margaret retained her rights to the English throne, and her dowry was promised to Burgundy even if she died within the first year (often, the dowry would return to the bride's family under such circumstances). For his own part, Charles dowered Margaret with the cities of Mechelen, Oudenaarde and Dendermonde.

The marriage contract was completed in February 1468, and signed by Edward IV in March. The Papal dispensation arrived in late May, and preparations to send Margaret to Burgundy began. There was little enthusiasm for it outside Burgundy - the French naturally detested this union between their two enemies, whilst the English merchants, who still suffered from restrictions on the sale of their cloth in England, showed their disapproval by attacking Dutch and Flemish merchants amongst them.

Margaret left Margate for Sluys on 23 June 1468. Lord Scales escorted her to meet her future bridegroom. Despite Louis XI having ordered his ships to seize her on her journey, her convoy crossed without incident, reaching Sluys on the evening of the 25th. The following day, she met with her bridegroom's mother, Isabel, and daughter, Mary; the meeting was a success, and the three of them would remain close friends for the rest of their mutual lives. On 27th June, she met Charles for the first time, and the pair were privately married between 5am and 6am on 3 July, in the house of a wealthy merchant of Damme. Charles then left for Bruges, allowing the new Duchess the honour of entering separately a few hours later.

The celebrations that followed were extravagant even by the standards of the Burgundians, who were already noted for their opulence and generous festivities. The bride made her Joyous Entry in a golden litter drawn by white horses, wearing upon her head a coronet. During this procession, she charmed the burghers of Bruges when she chose to wave to them rather than shut herself away from the wind and rain. In the city itself, wine spurted freely from sculpted archers and artificial pelicans in artificial trees; the canals were decorated with torches, and the bridges decked with flowers; the arms of the happy couple were displayed everywhere, accompanied by the mottoes of the pair: Charles' Je l'ay emprins ("I have undertaken it") and Margaret's Bien en aviengne ("May good come of it"). The celebrations also included the "Tournament of the Golden Tree" that was arranged around an elaborately detailed allegory, designed to honor the bride.

When the Duke and Duchess appeared there, both wore magnificent crowns: Margaret's crown (made in about 1461) was adorned with pearls, and with enamelled white roses for the House of York set between red, green and white enamelled letters of her name, with gold C's and M's, entwined with lovers' knots (it can still be seen in the treasury at Aachen Cathedral). The removal of the crown to Aachen was significant, since it allowed its survival from the ravages of the later English Civil War which involved the destruction of all the main English Crown Jewels. It thus remains the only medieval royal British crown still surviving.

Charles wore an equally splendid crown, accompanied by a golden gown encrusted with diamonds, pearls and great jewels. The parades, the streets lined with tapestry hung from houses, the feasting, the masques and allegorical entertainments, the jewels, impressed all observers as "the marriage of the century". It is reenacted at Bruges for tourists every five years with the next event in 2012 the last one having taken place in August 2007.

Although the marriage produced no children, Margaret proved a valuable asset to Burgundy. Immediately after her wedding, she journeyed with her stepdaughter Mary through Flanders, Brabant and Hainault, visiting the great towns: Ursel, Ghent, Dendermonde, Asse, Brussels, Oudenaarde and Kortrijk were all impressed by her intelligence and capability. Less valuable, perhaps, were the family connections she brought. In 1469, her brother, Edward IV, attempted to present Charles the Bold with the Order of the Garter, an honour which would have made Charles guilty of treason against Louis XI had he accepted it; although the Dowager Duchess Isabel warned her son to refuse the offer, he accepted, giving Louis XI an excuse for further machinations against Burgundy. In the same year, Edward IV and his brother the Duke of Gloucester were forced to flee England, when their brother the Duke of Clarence, and his father-in-law the Earl of Warwick, rebelled and drove the King into exile; Charles was forced to intercede on the part of his brother-in-law, ordering the London merchants to swear loyalty to Edward under threat of losing their trading rights in Burgundy, a threat that proved successful. But the next year, Margaret was left despairing when Clarence and Warwick supported a French-backed Lancastrian invasion of England: although she, together with her mother Cicely, Dowager Duchess of York, attempted to reconcile Clarence and Edward IV, the rebellion continued, and on 2 October 1470 the Lancastrians were returned to power and Edward had fled to Margaret and Charles in Burgundy.

Her brother's overthrow lessened Margaret's dynastic worth; this, together with regard for her brother, made her plead passionately to her husband that he support Edward and make measures to restore him. Nonetheless, her husband paid little attention to her begging; when he decided to support Edward, it was when he had decided for himself that it was in his best interests to oppose the Lancastrian rule of England, backed as it was by a France which had in early December 1470 been encouraged by the English situation to declare war on Burgundy. Even so, by 4 January 1471, Charles had agreed to support the King- in-exile in regaining the English throne, and this renewal of friendship between the two men was followed by Edward visiting Margaret at Hesdin until 13 January, the first time the pair had seen one another since Margaret's departure from England. By April, Edward was back in England: Margaret followed events carefully, requesting meticulous details of events in England, and was pleased to note the reconciliation between Clarence and Edward. She also provided her mother-in-law, Isabel, with information on the progress of Edward's campaign to regain the throne: it was she, for example, who replied to Isabel's questions over alleged disrespectful treatment of the Earl of Warwick, by explaining that Edward had "heard that nobody in the city believed that Warwick and his brother were dead, so he [Edward] had their bodies brought to St Paul's where they were laid out and uncovered from the chest upwards in the sight of everybody." Edward IV was successfully restored; Edward of Westminster, the son and heir of Henry VI, had been executed upon the orders of the restored King, and when Henry VI, who had been briefly restored, was murdered in his cell in the Tower of London two weeks later, Edward IV was considered to blame. The two deaths brought to an end the direct line of the House of Lancaster.

By this time, Isabel's health was beginning to fail; in June 1471, she drew up her will, in which she bequeathed her favourite residence of La-Motte-au-Bois to Margaret. Yet, at the same time, Isabel and Charles struck against Margaret's family: with Henry VI and his son dead, Isabel was one of the most senior members of the House of Lancaster, and had a good claim to the English throne; this claim she legally transferred to Charles in July, which would allow Charles later that year to officially claim the English throne, in despite of his brother-in-law the Yorkist King of England. However, Charles chose not to press the claim, finding it more to his advantage to maintain his support of Edward IV.

By 1477, Margaret's position as Duchess of Burgundy was no longer as brilliant as it had been: after Isabel's death in 1471, Charles had become increasingly tyrannical and grandiose, dreaming of assembling a Kingdom of Lotharingia from the North Sea to the Mediterranean; to accomplish this, he warred continuously with his neighbours, who responded by allying against him. Meanwhile, Louis XI had proved masterful at destabilising the Duchy: Edward IV had been detached from his alliance, Charles' reputation and banking credit had been undermined by Louis, and Burgundian trade was choked by French embargoes. By 1476, the Duke was regarded as a tyrant by his people, who were suffering from the French refusal to export their wine and bread to Burgundy, and who dreaded his terrible reprisals against rebels being unleashed on them. In 1476, he arranged for his daughter and heiress, Mary, to be betrothed to Maximilian of Habsburg; on 5 January 1477, he was dead in battle outside Nancy, in Lorraine.

It was in the wake of her husband's death that Margaret proved truly invaluable to Burgundy. She had always been regarded as a skilful and intelligent politician; now, she went beyond even that. To her stepdaughter, Mary, now Duchess of Burgundy, she gave immeasurable guidance and help: using her own experiences in the court of Edward IV, where she had largely avoided being used as a pawn and contributed to the arrangement of her own marriage, she wisely guided the Duchess in deciding her marriage; against the wave of marriage offers that flooded to the two Duchesses in Ghent (from the recently widowed Duke of Clarence, from the 7-year old Dauphin of France, Charles, from a brother of Edward IV's wife, Elizabeth Woodville), she stood firm, and advised Mary to marry Maximilian of Habsburg, the 18-year old son of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III, to whom Charles the Bold had betrothed Mary, and who was ambitious and active enough, in Margaret's opinion, to defend Mary's legacy. She strongly advised Mary to accept Maximilian's suit, and marry him immediately; he arrived in Burgundy on 5 August 1477, and by 17 August had arrived at Ten Waele Castle, in Ghent. He met Mary there - they were both "pale as death", but found each other to their mutual liking - and Margaret took part in the traditional courtly games of love, telling Maximilian before the assembled nobility that his bride "had about her a carnation it behooved him to discover." The carnation duly proved to be in the Duchess's bodice, from which Maximilian carefully removed it. The pair were married the next day, on 18 August.

Burgundy was far from safe: the Duchy of Burgundy itself had already been conquered by the French, who were continuing to attack from all sides, taking advantage of the state's instability. Margaret now moved to secure military support from her brother, Edward IV; he sent enough support to allow Mary and Maximilian to resist the French advances any further, although the Duchy itself remained lost. Louis XI, recognising the danger Margaret posed to him, attempted to buy her off with a French pension and a promise of personally protecting her; she contemptuously refused, and instead sailed to London, where she negotiated a resumption of the Anglo-Burgundian alliance, and renewed trade. Nor did she stop there in supporting Mary and Maximilian; when, on 22 July 1478, Mary gave birth to a son and heir, Philip, Louis XI had rumours spread that the child was in fact a girl. Margaret, who was standing godmother to the child, matter-of-factly disproved the rumour: as the Christening party left the church of St Donat, she conclusively proved that the child was an undoubted male, by undressing him and presenting him to the assembled crowd. In 1480, the next child of Mary and Maximilian was a girl: the Duke and Duchess named her Margaret, after the dowager Duchess.

Margaret was however dealt a devastating blow in 1482: her much loved stepdaughter, Mary, fell from her horse whilst hunting, and broke her back. The injuries were fatal, and Mary died on 27 March. From the personal point of view, this was a harsh blow to Margaret; politically, Mary's death weakened the Burgundian state further. The Burgundians were now sick of war, and unwilling to accept the rule of Maximilian as regent for his son, the 4-year old Duke Philip, or even as guardian of the children. They forced his hand: on 23 December 1482, the Three Estates of the Lowlands signed the Treaty of Arras with Louis XI, granting him the Burgundian Lowlands, Picardy and the county of Boulogne. Margaret was unable to secure assistance from Edward IV, who had made a truce with France; consequently, she and Maximilian were forced to accept the fait accompli. Maximilian brokered a personal peace with Louis by arranging for his daughter, Margaret, to be betrothed to the young Dauphin of France; she was sent to be raised at the French court, taking with her the Free County of Burgundy and the County of Artois with her as a dowry.

This was not the end of the problems for Margaret and Maximilian: the Netherlanders still disliked his rule of the territory. In 1488, he was taken prisoner in Bruges by the citizens, and was freed only upon making far-reaching concessions. The next year, he was summoned back to Austria by his father, the Emperor; Burgundy was left to be governed by Margaret together with the Burgundian Estates, both of whom also undertook the guardianship of the young Duke Philip, although Maximilian continued to take a distant interest in the country, and a greater interest in his children.

By this time, Margaret had already suffered more personal tragedies. Her brother, the Duke of Clarence, had been executed by Edward IV in 1478; Edward himself had died of illness in 1483. Her young nephews, Edward V and Richard, Duke of York, had been imprisoned by her younger brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who proceeded to declare the boys illegitimate, claim the throne as Richard III, and make his young nephews disappear. And finally, Richard himself had been overthrown in 1485 by the leader of the House of Lancaster, Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, a nephew of Henry VI, who went on to become Henry VII, and to marry the daughter of Edward IV, Elizabeth of York. With the death of Richard, the House of York ceased to rule in England. Margaret consequently was a staunch supporter of anyone willing to challenge Tudor, and backed both Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck, even going so far as to acknowledge Warbeck as her nephew, the younger son of Edward IV, the Duke of York. Warbeck was probably an imposter, and would be locked up in the Tower of London and subsequently executed by Henry VII. Henry in fact found Margaret undoubtedly problematic, but there was little he could do, since she was protected by Maximilian.

By 1493, Burgundy was recovering. The marriage of Charles VIII to Duchess Anne of Brittany had allowed the eventual return of his fiance, young Margaret, to Burgundy and the care of her step-grandmother the Dowager Duchess; the Peace of Senlis, which returned her to her family, also returned her dowry of the Counties of Artois and Palatine Burgundy, and laid down that Duke Philip would take up personal rule in the following year when he reached age 16. When this duly took place, in 1494, the Duchy duly gained a measure of stability. In 1496, a double marriage was made: young Margaret married Juan, Prince of Asturias, the heir to the thrones of Castile and Aragon, whilst Philip married Juan's sister, Joanna, who would later be known as "the Mad" due to her insanity. Neither marriage was a success: Juan died shortly after his wedding, and young Margaret, who bore only a still-born child several months after her husband's death, was sent back to Burgundy, blamed for having failed to provide Spain with an heir; Joanna and Philip, by contrast, produced six children, but their marriage was blighted by the Duke's infidelities and the passionate jealousy of his wife.

In 1498, Joanna bore a daughter, Eleanor. In 1500, she bore a son, who was named Charles after his great-grandfather, Charles the Bold, and she bore a daughter, Isabella, in 1501. When, in 1502, the Duke and Duchess left Burgundy for Castile, where they were to be proclaimed heirs, they left the children in the care of Margaret, who already took a great deal of personal responsibility for them. The tales she told the young Charles, of the English Wars of the Roses, would inspire him with notions of chivalry, aristocratic 'romanticism', and the missionary ideals of Burgundy.

Margaret died on 23 November 1503, at the age of 57, shortly after the return of her step-grandson, Philip the Handsome, to Burgundy. Her death in that year allowed her to be spared the grief of Philip's untimely death of typhoid fever in 1506.

William Caxton, who introduced the new art of printing into the Kingdom of England and was a staunch Yorkist supporter, counted Margaret as one of his patrons. The single surviving copy of The Recuyell of the Histories of Troy, his first book printed in the English language (1475), has a specially made engraving showing Caxton presenting the book to Margaret. The volume is now in the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.

Of the many splendid manuscripts commissioned by Margaret when she was Duchess of Burgundy, the richest, most powerful and stylish Duchess of Europe, pride of place goes to the illuminated Visions of Tondal illuminated by Simon Marmion (now at the Getty Museum; a facsimile has been published).

A good-looking woman, but (rarely for the hyperbole of her age) never described as beautiful, Margaret had fine features, and was, at almost 6 feet, very tall, a feature accentuated by her slimness, and her straight and upright bearing. Her eyes were grey, and her mouth was small; her smile allowed her to demonstrate her wry humour, her wit, and her graciousness. In appearance, she was utterly unlike the dark and burly Duke Charles the Bold, who was shorter than her: when they met for the first time, she was forced to bend in order to receive his kiss. But her intelligence was keen, and her will strong; she made a worthy bride for the Duke in nature.

With her husband's family, she got on excellently: she became a mother- figure to her stepdaughter, Mary, who shared Margaret's interests in reading, riding, hunting, and falconry; her mother-in-law, Isabel of Portugal, said of Margaret that she was "well pleased with the sight of this lovely lady, and pleased with her manners and virtues".

A capable ruler, she proved a masterful Duchess; she was a Yorkist in sympathies, but she was before that the Duchess of Burgundy. She bore no male heir to continue the Duchy, but she preserved it from ruin; to her actions can be ascribed the survival of the Burgundian state, and the prevention of French dominance in Europe. Conclusion of the York intellectual line

So what is the lesson of the York line’s intellectual legacy within New York Alpha?

The York line reminds us of our intellectual ties to the founding of the American bar for lawyers, and of the deep tradition we have in the Roman rite of the Christian religion. New York Alpha reached out to practitioners of the Roman rite as early as the 1880s, and the York line reinforces this fact. The line also ends in England’s house of York, thereby tying the Chapter’s fraternal and intellectual lines to the general genealogical research of brother Walt Sheppard (’29)(’32), who did so much to record this information during the mid-20th century.

The York intellectual line is part of New York Alpha’s local Chapter lore, first recorded by brother Cadwalader E. Linthicum (1885)(1889) and preserved by Walter Sheppard (’29)(’32) and Fred E. Hartzch (’28)(’31).

“To know the lore, is to tend the Tree.”