The White Horse Tavern or White Horse Inn[1] was a tavern in 16th-century Cambridge, which became known during the English Reformation as the meeting place of a group of Cambridge University fellows who were Protestant reformers. The tavern was located on the site of King's Lane, to the west of King's Parade.[2] When the King's College screen was extended in 1870, the tavern was demolished, but a blue plaque on the college's Chetwynd Court commemorates it.[3]
The group of dons is believed to have started meeting there as early as 1521.[4] According to the historian Geoffrey Elton, they were nicknamed "Little Germany" with reference to their interest in Lutheran ideas.[5] Among those who attended were the future Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer, the future Bishop of Worcester Hugh Latimer; and the reformers Robert Barnes and Thomas Bilney. The group also included future conservatives such as Stephen Gardiner, the future Bishop of Winchester. Others who met at the tavern included Miles Coverdale, Matthew Parker, William Tyndale, Nicholas Shaxton, John Rogers and John Bale.[2]
See also
editNotes
edit- ^ Friaries: Austin friars, Cambridge
- ^ a b Elisabeth Leedham-Green (1996). A Concise History of the University of Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. p. 44.
- ^ King’s Parade / Senate House Hill
- ^ J. D. Mackie, The Earlier Tudors, 1485-1558 (OUP, 1991), p. 343.
- ^ Geoffrey Rudolph Elton, England under the Tudors: Third Edition (Routledge, 2005), p. 111.