During the Western rebellion such Magdalene men as were not disqualified by their age or profession for the use of arms had eagerly volunteered to fight for the crown.

It would be difficult to name any corporation in the kingdom which had higher claims to the gratitude of the House of Stuart.
[290] The society consisted of a President, of forty Fellows, of thirty scholars called Demies, and of a train of chaplains, clerks, and choristers.

At the time of the general visitation in the reign of Henry the Eighth the revenues were far greater than those of any similar institution in the realm, greater by nearly one half than those of the magnificent foundation of Henry the Sixth at Cambridge, and considerably more than double those which William of Wykeham had settled on his college at Oxford.

In the days of James the Second the riches of Magdalene were immense, and were exaggerated by report.

The college was popularly said to be wealthier than the wealthiest abbeys of the Continent.