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The Dean and Chapter of St. Paul, London, being seised in fee of Montjoy-house, on the scite of which Doctors Commons has been since erected, made a lease thereof, by indenture dated the 8th of April 1555, to Sir Thomas Pope, knt. for fifty years, to commence from Michaelmas 1567, at the rent of £5 per ann. This term afterwards vested in the Master, Fellows, and Scholars of Trinity-Hall; and there being an ancient society of Doctors [241] and Professors in the civil and canon laws, but not incorporated, who had associated themselves in commons for the practice of those laws; and the Master, Fellows, and Scholars of the said college, being many of them of the Doctors Society, and by their foundation of the same faculty; and the Society of Doctors being removed from Paternoster-Bow, where they formerly had been, into Montjoy-house, and intending to fix the society there; it was agreed, that a further lease should be made of the said house and premises.

Accordingly, on the 2d of February 1567, the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul, as well in consideration of the great ruin and decay of the said house and premises, and of the great charges to be expended by the Master, Fellows, and Scholars, and their successors, in new building divers apartments therein, as also for that the Advocates and Doctors of the Arches in London, and others of that Society, learned men or Graduates of the universities, should inhabit therein, and for other considerations, did lease the said house and premises to the said Master, Fellows, and Scholars of Trinity-Hall for ninety-nine years, at £5 8s. per ann. to commence from the end of Sir Thomas Pope’s lease, with an express covenant from the said Master, Fellows, and Scholars, with the Dean and Chapter and their successors, that the said messuage and gardens should be occupied by the said Advocates and Doctors; and the Master of Trinity-Hall, for the time being, was to have an apartment therein.

And the Dean and Chapter thereby covenanted, that if the Master, Fellows, and Scholars of Trinity-Hall, their successors or assigns, should at any time during the said term of ninety-nine years, offer to surrender the said lease; that then, upon reasonable request, the Dean and Chapter, or their successors should make to the said Master, Fellows, and Scholars, or their successors, another lease of the premises, for the fine of £20 for the number of so many years, and with all and singular the same covenants and conditions contained in this lease. And the Master, Fellows, and Scholars covenanted with the Dean and Chapter and their successors, that the Master, Fellows, and Scholars should pay 8s. per ann. to the Dean and Chapter during the term in Sir Thomas Pope's lease; and that the Master, Fellows, and Scholars, or their successors, should not at any time thereafter assign or alienate the lease to any other than to the whole company of Advocates and Doctors of the Arches and others of their society, to be used as aforesaid, and not otherwise, without the express consent of the Dean and Chapter, or their successors, first had in writing. And that whensoever thereafter, as well during the said term of fifty, as the term of ninety-nine years, the Dean and Chapter, or their successors, should happen to have need of any council or advice in any cause or question concerning the ecclesiastical laws of this realm, that then the Advocates or Doctors of the Arches, on reasonable request from time to time by the Dean and Chapter and their successors, should freely give their best advice and council to them, in every such matter or question.

[242] In the 13th of Eliz. an act of parliament was made, whereby after reciting, that long and unreasonable lease made by Colleges, Deans and Chapters, Parsons,