Life is filled with tragic juxtapositions. JK Rowling writes stories that light up the lives of many, and uses her wealth to improve people’s lives in vast, real and tangible ways. She is also condemned by some of those she inspired for refusing to accept that being male or female is a question of the mind, not the body. Thomas More is a venerated Catholic saint, and died for his faith. He was also the Lord Chancellor who oversaw the first burnings of Protestants in Tudor England, helping to set in train the religious conflict that raged for decades afterwards.
Ultimately, people are complex; trite as it may be to observe it. For most of us, who only lightly touch the world, this means that we do little real good, but also little real wrong. The repercussions of our actions, for good or ill, do not echo down the ages, but quickly fade, like the ripples from a pebble cast into a pond. When the time comes to memorialise our deeds, it can be easy to focus on the good, forgetting the slurs and the bursts of anger. For those who aspire to and reach great heights, it is harder. This is particularly the case for wealthy benefactors whose endowments helped found and sustain ancient institutions, like Oxford and Cambridge colleges. Few will have done so while remaining virginally pure.
Tobias Rustat is a case in point. A patron of the University of Cambridge, and of Jesus College in particular, he was a courtier to Charles II. His money helped fund the first books purchased by the Cambridge University Library, and a college scholarship for orphan sons of Anglican clergy. Following a request in his will, and in recognition of his patronage to the college, he was buried in its chapel. Nearby, a large marble memorial, bearing his likeness flanked by two cherubim, with an inscription below giving testament to his fidelity and to his industry, draws the eye of those who enter.
Like many of his peers and contemporaries—including Samuel Pepys—Rustat also invested in the Royal African Company. A mercantile enterprise founded to exploit western Africa’s gold reserves, it quickly turned to slave trading, eventually transporting more enslaved Africans to the Americas than any other trading company. It earned a reputation, even then, for callous brutality; it branded those whom it enslaved with “DoY”, and scarring them as the property of the Duke of York. It is this part of Rustat’s legacy that Jesus College wishes to focus on; it sought to relocate the Rustat memorial, saying that its presence “creates a serious obstacle to the Chapel’s ability to provide a credible Christian ministry… and a safe space for college events”. Rather than have his marble visage looking out over college services, the Fellows wanted Rustat’s memorial to be re-erected elsewhere—originally in a wine cellar, but now in an exhibition and study space.
The chapel of Jesus College is one of the most ancient churches in Cambridge; it stood for five decades before the cornerstones of the University were laid. Over the centuries, it has faced and overcome fire, the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, the Civil War, Republicanism and Restoration, before ultimately being shaped into the form it takes today by Pugin’s Gothic Revival. It is this architecture and history that warranted the Chapel’s Grade I listing, protecting it from fleeting, contemporary urges to destroy.
As a consequence, the Fellows could not simply tear down the memorial, replacing it with something more suited to contemporary tastes. This is what the Ecclesiastical Court’s decision has upheld, with David Hodge QC, the Deputy Chancellor of the Anglican diocese of Ely, refusing to accept that the harm done to the building’s “special architectural and historic interest” is not “substantially outweighed by the resulting public benefits, in terms of pastoral well-being and opportunities for mission”.
Over the course of the hearings, Judge Hodge heard evidence from the Master and some Fellows of Jesus College, as well as from experts on architecture and history. For those who wished to see Rustat removed, the case was clear and consistent. Sonita Alleyne, the Master (and the first black female head of a Cambridge college) gave evidence emphasising that the college is a “living, breathing community”, and its chapel is a place from which “no one should feel excluded”. To this end, she said, “we need to take away what might be an impediment for those… who come to the Chapel in moments of… need.” This is strong rhetoric, but it is rhetoric that depends upon a clouded view of the past.
As Judge Hodge wrote in his judgment, while much of the evidence from the college in support of removal was “powerful and emotive”, he still rejected its case. He concluded that much of the opposition to Rustat was based in an “entirely false narrative” about his wealth. Not only had Rustat begun to give money to the college before he ever invested in the Royal African Company, but he made a loss, not a profit, on his investments there. While this does not diminish the fact that he still saw fit to invest in a company that traded in humanity, the knowledge that the money he gave to the college is not tainted with the blood of enslaved Africans may act as a salve for some.
Life is not always comfortable, and nor should we expect it to be. Students who gave evidence to the court about how they no longer attend chapel because it leaves them feeling angry and distressed may want to consider how their actions may be judged by generations to come. In 2020, Jesus College opened a new China Centre, which aims to “deepen mutual understanding between China and the West”. Much of the funding for this initiative has come from the Chinese government, while the director of the centre, Professor Peter Nolan, who is a Fellow of Jesus, has taken stances sympathetic to President Xi’s nationalist, authoritarian government.
Last year Professor Nolan cautioned students from holding public debates on the treatment of the Uighurs, saying there was not a “homogeneous, correct view about what is happening in Xinjiang” and that the students should be wary of Jesus College being “perceived as… campaigning… for freedom for Weiwu’ers [Uighurs]”. Given they are sharing their living spaces with fellows who hold views like this, perhaps the students would find their time better spent trying to address the contemporary suffering and persecution of another minority group, rather than obsessing about the wrongs of the past.
As well as these practical reasons to question the hostility towards Rustat’s memorial, the Bible is filled with examples of those who have erred, committing great wrongs, but who have gone on to repent and receive salvation. Simon Peter denied Jesus three times; King David lusted after a woman whose husband he had sent to his death in battle; Saul persecuted and martyred Christians. All three are still admired and venerated in spite—perhaps even because—of their wrongs.
If we only elevate and respect those who retain the purity of infancy, we will find that the hallowed halls of our ancestors are cavernous and echoing. No human acts with unalloyed good throughout life. Even those we have held up as icons—such as Martin Luther King—have had their reputations and legacy tarnished, as we learn more about their lives, and as our values shift and evolve. This does not mean that every statue or memorial must be preserved, but that people’s actions should be seen in context and in proportion. When it comes to statues of little architectural importance, representing people who grossly profited from the trafficking of human lives—like Edward Colston—the case is clear. Statues and memorials like that do great harm and little good.
We should not use this precedent as justification for tearing down every statue or memorial, however. As Professor Lawrence Goldman noted when giving evidence against the removal of the Rustat Memorial, the Chapel’s memorial to Archbishop Cranmer, one of the “most distinguished sons of the College”, is also a memorial to a man who persecuted and killed people for practising their faith in the way they saw fit. His actions were abhorrent to many then, and are abhorrent to all today. If Rustat was to go, he argued, then so should Cranmer, and so should all statues and memorials, until the exhibition space planned to house the Rustat Memorial became a graveyard of sinners, and the walls of Jesus Chapel were bleached white.
At the heart of Christianity is the knowledge that we are all sinners in need of forgiveness. Jesus College would do better to forgive Rustat his wrongs, and to reflect upon its own.
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