Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Morwen, Robert
MORWEN, MORWENT, or MORWYN, ROBERT (1486?–1558), president of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, was born at Harpery, near Gloucester. He was admitted B.A. at Oxford 8 Feb. 1506–7, from which date we may infer that he was probably born about 1486. He incepted as Master of Arts 30 June 1511. In 1510 he had become fellow of Magdalen College, and there filled various college offices. Shortly after Bishop Richard Foxe [q. v.] had founded his new college of Corpus Christi, he constituted, by letter dated 22 June 1517, Morwent perpetual vice-president and sociis compar. Morwent could not be made a fellow, eo nomine, because on his admission to his fellowship at Magdalen he had taken an oath that he would not accept a fellowship at any other college. In the supplementary statutes of 1527 Bishop Foxe nominated Morwent, whose industry and zeal he highly commended, to be successor to the first president, John Claymond [q. v.], taking the precaution to provide that this act should not be drawn into a precedent. A few days after Claymond's death Morwent was sworn president, 26 Nov. 1537. His practical capacity seems to be placed beyond doubt, but he appears, as Laurence Humfrey points out in his ‘Life of Jewel’ (p. 22), to have been rather a patron of learned men than a learned man himself. In a sermon preached before the university, according to Wood (Colleges and Halls, p. 395), he was styled ‘pater patriæ literatæ Oxoniensis.’ Morwent must have possessed the gift of pliancy as well as prudence, for he retained the presidency through the troubled times that intervened between 1537 and 1558.
There can be no doubt that Morwent was one of the secret catholics who outwardly conformed during Edward VI's time, and in return were allowed to retain their preferments. But on 31 May 1552 he was summoned before the council, together with two of the fellows, Walshe and Allen, ‘for using upon Corpus Christi day other service than was appointed by the “Book of Service”’ On 15 June they were committed to the Fleet. ‘And a letter was sent to the College, to appoint Jewel [see Jewel, John] to govern the College during the imprisonment of the President.’ ‘July 17, the Warden of the Fleet was ordered to release the President of Corpus Christi, upon his being bound in a bond of 200l. to appear next term before the Council. Allen, upon his conforming to the King's orders, was restored to his Fellowship’ (Strype, Memorials, bk. ii. ch. xviii.) Shortly after the accession of Mary, when Bishop Gardiner's commission visited the college, the president and Walshe boasted that throughout the time of King Edward they had carefully secreted and preserved all the ornaments, vessels, copes, cushions, plate, candlesticks, &c., which in the reign of Henry VIII had been used for the catholic service. ‘In what condition,’ says Wood (Annals, sub 1553), ‘they found that College was such as if no Reformation at all had been there.’
On 25 Jan. 1555–6 Morwent was appointed, in convocation, one of the delegacy for selling the shelves and seats in the university library. ‘The books of the public library,’ says Mr. Macray (Annals of the Bodleian Library, 2nd ed. p. 13), ‘had all disappeared; what need then to retain the shelves and stalls, when no one thought of replacing their contents?’ In 1556 Morwent was nominated on Pole's commission for visiting the university. It was this commission which disinterred Catherine, the wife of Peter Martyr, who had been buried in the cathedral, near the reliques of St. Frideswide.
Fulman quotes from the ‘Hist. Exhumationis et Restitutionis Catherinæ Uxoris Pet. Mart.,’ fol. 197 b, printed at the end of Conrad Hubert's ‘Life of Bucer and Fagius,’ the graphic character of Morwent: ‘Fuit Morwennus satis annosus pater, et parcus senex, ad rem tuendam paterfamilias bonus: ad doctrinæ et religionis controversias vindicandas judex parum aptus, acerrimus tamen vetustatis suæ defensor.’ Friendly feelings seem to have subsisted between the president and his undergraduates, and Jewel in his earlier days at Corpus wrote at the new year some kindly verses on Morwent's dog, to which the president was much attached. He is said to have subsequently regretted the share which he was afterwards instigated to take in bringing about Jewel's departure from the college at the beginning of the Marian persecutions. Morwent died 16 Aug. 1558, three months before Queen Mary's death.
[Humfrey's Life of Jewel; Strype's Memorials; Wood's Annals; Wood's Colleges and Halls; Conrad Hubert's Life of Bucer and Fagius; Macray's Annals of the Bodleian Library; C.C.C. Register, vol. i.; Fulman MSS. in C.C.C. Library, vol. ix.; C.C.C. Statutes; Fowler's Hist. of C.C.C. in Oxf. Hist. Soc. vol. xxv.]