I was reminded this morning of the
University of Stamford, a short-lived English university founded in 1333 by a breakaway group of lecturers and students from the University of Oxford. Oxford University and Cambridge University lobbied against it and they managed to convince the King to have the university suppressed in 1335. Further lobbying by this duopoly saw no new universities being established until the first half of the 19th century – with Durham, the University of London and University College London
arguing over who gets that honour – whilst Scotland saw its four ancient universities being founded and scores on the continent.
So what happens if Stamford and/or one or more of the
other failed proposals had been successfully founded? Do Oxford and Cambridge lose their preeminent positions, or become first amongst equals? Or do people think they would still be able to maintain their places in the social hierarchy?
Ooh, this could get interesting. I think there's definitely a good possibility of getting another medieval university in England - Oxford and Cambridge really struggled to meet demand in the pre-collegiate era, up to the late 15th century, and again in the 17th century.
Stamford or Northampton are early enough that either could almost be on a level playing field with Oxford and Cambridge; poorer, but only a couple of rich patrons away, not in a totally different universe as a later foundation would be.
Any foundation after the first big colleges at Oxford and Cambridge is always going to struggle financially, once the other lot have an All Souls or a Trinity Cambridge or a New College they've got the wealth to both lobby to squash their competitors and be more attractive to anyone with a choice. We think of Oxbridge as being expensive and socially elite but those are really Victorian things; if you're lucky enough to have a decent grammar school education or equivalent, you can study at Oxbridge right up to the late C18th for really very cheap. Unless of course you put up the money to match them, e.g. if Wolsey had put all his eggs in one basket with his Ipswich foundation, rather than the lion's share of the money going to found Christ Church...
A 17th-century extra English university is again very possible; Cromwell was actively in favour of one for starters and might have founded Durham had he lived a bit longer, though it's hard to see a very small, poorly endowed college in a relatively isolated town closely associated with the boogeyman doing very well in the Restoration even if it managed to survive - unless perhaps the Archbishop of York adopts it because he doesn't like Cantaur's monopoly on all things academic? Gresham's College could have easily evolved into a London equivalent of Edinburgh (as in, what Edinburgh was in the 17th century, a small, poor, cheap and local institution - not the late-C18th powerhouse, at least not straight away) if it could make the leap to actually having its own students, and perhaps end up as an umbrella for the Royal Society and some of the learned professions. The Oxbridge influence over its governance would be a problem but you could see Cromwell making it more independent, or some academically ambitious Archbishop deciding to support it with his own degree-awarding powers.
Once you get a little bit later the Dissenting Academies are basically universities in all but name - albeit very very small ones, even Warrington/Manchester at its height is only in double figures of students and 4-5 academic staff, about the size of an average contemporary Oxford college, at best less than half as big as either of the Aberdeens. Getting them the title and degree-awarding powers in the teeth of the Anglican Supremacy is going to be really, really hard but if someone rich enough wanted to endow one at a point where there's a real scare about Jacobitism at Oxford, it might be just about on the very edge of not being totally ASB.
ETA a totally different possibility is a military academy like the
ancien regime ones in France. Weirdly I think this also might be a Cromwell thing if only because that's the only time prior to the Napoleonic Wars that it would be politically acceptable to have something so pointedly directed at building a self-replicating, professional, career officer corps. It's not exactly a university, but might evolve into one.