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King's Hall, Cambridge
King's Hall was once one of the constituent colleges of Cambridge, and the 2nd to be founded, in 1317. It no longer exists, as it was combined with Michaelhouse in the late 16th century by King Henry VIII, as one of his last acts. At the time, the king had been wiping out and seizing church lands from abbeys and monasteries. The universities of Oxford and Cambridge, being both full of clerics and quite rich, expected to be next in line.
The king duly passed an Act of Parliament that allowed him to suppress (and confiscate the property of) any college he wished, but the universities used their contacts to plead with his 6th wife, Catherine Parr. The queen persuaded her husband not to close them down, but to create a new college. The king did not want to use royal funds, so he instead combined 2 colleges (King's Hall and Michaelhouse) and 7 hostels (Physwick (formerly part of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge), Gregory's, Ovyng's, Catherine's, Garratt, Margaret's, and Tyler's) to form Trinity in 1547. This, combined with lands confiscated from the Church, caused Trinity to be the richest and biggest college.
King's Hall was located in what is now the northern section of Great Court, Trinity College, Cambridge, and there still stands an original building from that time. It is found off Great Court next to the Chapel, and contains some of the most coveted rooms in the College, generally held only by long-standing fellows of great academic merit. Unfortunately, the last buildings of Michaelhouse where recorded as being knocked down with the completion of the southern section of Great Court.
King's Hall was established by King Edward II to provide chancery clerks for his administration, and was very rich compared to Michaelhouse, which occupied the southern area of Great Court. It is thought that the king had great plans to create a college to rival Oxford's Christ Church College with great new architecture, but he died a few weeks after the college was created. Today, Trinity remains the largest and richest of all the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge.
This article draws from 'Trinity College - An Historical Sketch' by GM Trevelyan, along with information from various individuals associated with the College and the University.
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