Eglesfield
The celebrated founder of Queen’s College, Oxford, who was a native of Cumberland, and confessor to Philippa, Queen of Edward the Third, gave the College, for its arms, three spread eagles; but a singular custom, according to a rebus, has been founded upon the fanciful derivation of his name, from aiguille, needle, and fil, thread; and it became a commemorative mark of respect, continued to this day, for each member of the College to receive from the Bursar, on New Year’s Day, a needle and thread, with the advice, “Take this and be thrifty.” “These conceits were not unusual at the time the College was founded,” says Chalmers, in his History of Oxford, “and are sometimes thought trifling, merely because we cannot trace their original use and signification. Hollingshed informs us, that when the Prince of Wales, afterwards Henry the Fifth, who was educated at this College, went to Court in order to clear himself from certain charges of disaffection, he wore a gown of blue satin, full of oilet holes, and at every hole a needle hanging by a silk thread. This is supposed to prove at least, that he was an academician of Queen’s, and it may be conjectured that this was the original academical dress.” The same writer says, the Founder ordered that the Society should “be called to their meals by the sound of the trumpet (a practice which still prevails, as does a similar one at the Middle Temple, London,) and the Fellows being placed on one side of the table in robes of scarlet (those of the Doctor’s faced with black fur,) were to oppose in philosophy the poor scholars, who, in token of submission and humility, kept on the other side. As late as the last century the Fellows and Taberders used sometimes to dispute on Sundays and holidays.