to be Lord Chief Justice of England. | realm, the Universities of Oxford and One Richard Allibone, who was even Cambridge. more ignorant of the law than Wright, and who, as a Roman Catholic, was incapable of holding office, was appointed a puisne Judge of the King's Bench. Sir Bartholomew Shower, equally notorious as a servile Tory and a tedious orator, became Recorder of London. When these changes had been made, several deserters were brought to trial. They were convicted in the face of the letter and of the spirit of the law. Some received sentence of death at the bar of the King's Bench, and some at the Old Bailey. They were hanged in sight of the regiments to which they had belonged; and care was taken that the executions should be announced in the London Gazette, which very seldom noticed such events.*

The power of those bodies has during many ages been great; but it was at the height during the latter part of the seventeenth century. None of the neighbouring countries could boast of such splendid and opulent seats of learning. The schools of Edinburgh and Glasgow, of Leyden and Utrecht, of Louvain and Leipsic, of Padua and Bologna, seemed mean to scholars who had been educated in the magnificent foundations of Wykeham and Wolsey, of Henry the Sixth and Henry the Eighth. Literature and science were, in the academical system of England, surrounded with pomp, armed with magistracy, and closely allied with all the most august institutions of the State. To be the Chancellor of an University It may well be believed, that the was a distinction eagerly sought by the law, so grossly insulted by magnates of the realm. To represent ings of the courts which derived from it an University in Parliament was a Commis- all their authority, and which favourite object of the ambition of sion. were in the habit of looking to statesmen. Nobles and even princes it as their guide, would be little re- were proud to receive from an Unispected by a tribunal which had origi-versity the privilege of wearing the nated in tyrannical caprice. The new doctoral scarlet. The curious were atHigh Commission had, during the first months of its existence, merely inhibited clergymen from exercising spiritual functions. The rights of property had remained untouched. But, early in the year 1687, it was determined to strike at freehold interests, and to impress on every Anglican priest and prelate the conviction that, if he refused to lend his aid for the purpose of destroying the Church of which he was a minister, he would in an hour be reduced to beggary.

Proceed

High

The Universities.

It would have been prudent to try the first experiment on some obscure individual. But the government was under an infatuation such as, in a more simple age, would have been called judicial. War was therefore at once declared against the two most venerable corporations of the

* See the statutes 18 Henry 6. c. 19. ; 2 & 3 Ed. 6. c. 2.; Eachard's History of the Revolution; Kennet; iii. 468.; North's Life of Guildford, 247.; London Gazette, April 18. May 23. 1687; Vindication of the E. of R. (Earl of Rochester).

tracted to the Universities by ancient buildings rich with the tracery of the middle ages, by modern buildings which exhibited the highest skill of Jones and Wren, by noble halls and chapels, by museums, by botanical gardens, and by the only great public libraries which the kingdom then contained. The state which Oxford especially displayed on solemn occasions rivalled that of sovereign princes. When her Chancellor, the venerable Duke of Ormond, sate in his embroidered mantle on his throne under the painted ceiling of the Sheldonian theatre, surrounded by hundreds of graduates robed according to their rank, while the noblest youths of England were solemnly presented to him as candidates for academical honours, he made an appearance scarcely less regal than that which his master made in the Banqueting House of Whitehall. At the Universities had been formed the minds of almost all the eminent clergymen, lawyers, physicians, wits, poets, and orators of the land, and of a large proportion of the nobility and of the

Cam

opulent gentry. It is also to be ob- all the colleges had been melted down served that the connection between the to supply his military chest. scholar and the school did not terminate bridge was not less loyally disposed. with his residence. He often continued She had sent a large part of her plate to be through life a member of the to the royal camp; and the rest would academical body, and to vote as such at have followed had not the town been all important elections. He therefore seized by the troops of the Parliament. regarded his old haunts by the Cam Both Universities had been treated and the Isis with even more than the with extreme severity by the victorious affection which educated men ordina- Puritans. Both had hailed the Rerily feel for the place of their education. storation with delight. Both had steaThere was no corner of England in dily opposed the Exclusion Bill. Both which both Universities had not grateful had expressed the deepest horror at and zealous sons. Any attack on the the Rye House plot. Cambridge had honour or interests of either Cambridge not only deposed her Chancellor Monor Oxford was certain to excite the mouth, but had marked her abhorrence resentment of a powerful, active, and of his treason in a manner unworthy of intelligent class, scattered over every a seat of learning, by committing to the county from Northumberland to Corn- flames the canvass on which his pleaswall. ing face and figure had been portrayed by the utmost skill of Kneller.* ford, which lay nearer to the Western insurgents, had given still stronger proofs of loyalty. The students, under the sanction of their preceptors, had taken arms by hundreds in defence of hereditary right. Such were the bodies which James now determined to insult and plunder in direct defiance of the laws and of his plighted faith.

Ox

against

Cam

The resident graduates, as a body, were perhaps not superior positively to the resident graduates of our time: but they occupied a far higher position as compared with the rest of the community. For Cambridge and Oxford were then the only two provincial towns in the kingdom in which could be found a large number of men whose understandings had been highly cultivated. Even the capital felt great respect for Several Acts of Parliament, as clear the authority of the Universities, not as any that were to be found in Proceedonly on questions of divinity, of natural the statute book, had provided ings philosophy, and of classical antiquity, that no person should be ad- the Unibut also on points which capitals gene-mitted to any degree in either city of rally claim the right of deciding in the University without taking the bridge. last resort. From Will's coffee house, oath of supremacy, and another oath of and from the pit of the theatre royal similar character called the oath of in Drury Lane, an appeal lay to the obedience. Nevertheless, in February two great national seats of taste and 1687, a royal letter was sent to Camlearning. Plays which had been enthu- bridge directing that a Benedictine siastically applauded in London were monk, named Alban Francis, should be not thought out of danger till they admitted a Master of Arts. had undergone the more severe judg- The academical functionaries, diment of audiences familiar with Sopho-vided between reverence for the King cles and Terence.* and reverence for the law, were in The great moral and intellectual in-great distress. Messengers were desfluence of the English Universities had patched in all haste to the Duke of been strenuously exerted on the side of Albemarle, who had succeeded Monthe crown. The head quarters of mouth as Chancellor of the University. Charles the First had been at Oxford; He was requested to represent the and the silver tankards and salvers of

* Dryden's Prologues and Cibber's Memoirs contain abundant proofs of the estimation in which the taste of the Oxonians was held by the most admired poets and actors.

* See the poem called Advice to the Painter upon the Defeat of the Rebels in the West. See also another poem, a most detestable one, on the same subject, by Stepney, who was then studying at Trinity College.

matter properly to the King. Mean- right to a place in all collections of the while the Registrar and Bedells waited works of English poets. To this day on Francis, and informed him that, if accordingly his insipid essays in rhyme he would take the oaths according to and his paltry songs to Amoretta and law, he should instantly be admitted. Gloriana are reprinted in company with He refused to be sworn, remonstrated Comus and Alexander's Feast. The with the officers of the University on consequence is that our generation their disregard of the royal mandate, knows Mulgrave chiefly as a poetaster, and, finding them resolute, took horse, and despises him as such. In truth and hastened to relate his grievances however he was, by the acknowledg at Whitehall. ment of those who neither loved nor The heads of the colleges now as- esteemed him, a man distinguished by sembled in council. The best legal fine parts, and in parliamentary eloopinions were taken, and were decidedly quence inferior to scarcely any orator in favour of the course which had been of his time. His moral character was pursued. But a second letter from entitled to no respect. He was a liberSunderland, in high and menacing tine without that openness of heart terms, was already on the road. Albe- and hand which sometimes makes libermarle informed the University, with tinism amiable, and a haughty aristomany expressions of concern, that he crat without that elevation of sentiment had done his best, but that he had been which sometimes makes aristocratical coldly and ungraciously received by the haughtiness respectable. The satirists King. The academical body, alarmed of the age nicknamed him Lord Allby the royal displeasure, and conscien- pride, and pronounced it strange that a tiously desirous to meet the royal man who had so exalted a sense of his wishes, but determined not to violate dignity should be so hard and niggardly the clear law of the land, submitted in all pecuniary dealings. the humblest and most respectful ex-given deep offence to the royal family planations, but to no purpose. In a by venturing to entertain the hope tha short time came down a summons cit- he might win the heart and hand of the ing the Vicechancellor and the Senate Princess Anne. Disappointed in this to appear before the new High Com- attempt, he had exerted himself to mission at Westminster on the twenty-regain by meanness the favour which first of April. The Vicechancellor was to attend in person: the Senate, which consists of all the Doctors and Masters of the University, was to send deputies.

The Earl of Mulgrave.

He had

he had forfeited by presumption. His epitaph, written by himself, still informs all who pass through Westminster Abbey that he lived and died a sceptic in religion; and we learn from his When the appointed day arrived, a memoirs, written by himself, that one great concourse filled the Coun- of his favourite subjects of mirth was cil chamber. Jeffreys sate at the Romish superstition. Yet he bethe head of the board. Ro-gan, as soon as James was on the chester, since the white staff had been throne, to express a strong inclination taken from him, was no longer a mem- towards Popery, and at length in priber. In his stead appeared the Lord vate affected to be a convert. This Chamberlain, John Sheffield, Earl of abject hypocrisy had been rewarded Mulgrave. The fate of this nobleman by a place in the Ecclesiastical Comhas, in one respect, resembled the fate mission.* of his colleague Sprat. Mulgrave wrote verses which scarcely ever rose above absolute mediocrity; but as he was a man of high note in the political and fashionable world, these verses found admirers. Time dissolved the charm, but, unfortunately for him, not until his lines had acquired a prescriptive |

*Mackay's character of Sheffield, with 1688; Life of John, Duke of BuckinghamSwift's note; the Satire on the Deponents. shire, 1729; Barillon, Aug. 30. 1687. I have a manuscript lampoon on Mulgrave, dated 1690. It is not destitute of spirit. The most

remarkable lines are these:

"Peters (Petre) to-day and Burnet to-morrow, Knaves of all sides and religions he'll woo.

"

appeared the Vicechancellor of the University of Cambridge, Doctor John Pechell. He was a man of no great ability or vigour; but he was accompanied by eight distinguished academicians, elected by the Senate. One of these was Isaac Newton, Fellow of Trinity College, and Professor of mathematics. His genius was then in the fullest vigour. The great work, which entitles him to the highest place among the geometricians and natural philosophers of all ages and of all nations, had been some time printing under the sanction of the Royal Society, and was almost ready for publication. He was the steady friend of civil liberty and of the Protestant religion: but his habits by no means fitted him for the conflicts of active life. He therefore stood modestly silent among the delegates, and left to men more versed in practical business the task of pleading the cause of his beloved University.

Before that formidable tribunal now would hear nothing. He soon found out that the Vicechancellor was weak, ignorant, and timid, and therefore gave a loose to all that insolence which had long been the terror of the Old Bailey. The unfortunate Doctor, unaccustomed to such a presence and to such treatment, was soon harassed and scared into helpless agitation. When other academicians who were more capable of defending their cause attempted to speak they were rudely silenced. "You are not Vicechancellor. When you are, you may talk. Till then it will become you to hold your peace." The defendants were thrust out of the court without a hearing. In a short time they were called in again, and informed that the Commissioners had determined to deprive Pechell of the Vicechancellorship, and to suspend him from all the emoluments to which he was entitled as Master of a college, emoluments which were strictly of the nature of freehold property. "As for you," said Jeffreys to the delegates, "most of you are divines. I will therefore send you home with a text of scripture, 'Go your way and sin no more, lest a worse thing happen to you.'"*

State of

Never was there a clearer case. The law was express. The practice had been almost invariably in conformity with the law. It might perhaps have happened that, on a day of great so- These proceedings might seem suflemnity, when many honorary degrees ficiently unjust and violent. were conferred, a person who had not But the King had already Oxford. taken the oaths might have passed in begun to treat Oxford with the crowd. But such an irregularity, such rigour that the rigour shown the effect of mere haste and inadvert- towards Cambridge might, by compaence, could not be cited as a precedent. rison, be called lenity. Already UniForeign ambassadors of various reli-versity College had been turned by gions, and in particular one Mussulman, Obadiah Walker into a Roman Catholic had been admitted without the oaths. seminary. Already Christ Church was But it might well be doubted whether governed by a Roman Catholic Dean. such cases fell within the reason and Mass was already said daily in both spirit of the Acts of Parliament. It those colleges. The tranquil and was not even pretended that any person majestic city, so long the stronghold of to whom the oaths had been tendered monarchical principles, was agitated by and who had refused them had ever passions which it had never before taken a degree; and this was the situa-known. The undergraduates, with the tion in which Francis stood. The dele- connivance of those who were in gates offered to prove that, in the late authority over them, hooted the memreign, several royal mandates had been bers of Walker's congregation, and treated as nullities because the persons chanted satirical ditties under his recommended had not chosen to qualify windows. according to law, and that, on such serenades which then disturbed the occasions, the government had always acquiesced in the propriety of the course taken by the University. But Jeffreys

Some fragments of the

* See the proceedings against the University of Cambridge in the collection of State Trials.

High Street have been preserved. The burden of one ballad was this:

"Old Obadiah

Sings Ave Maria.'

ex

When the actors came down to Oxford, the public feeling was pressed still more strongly. Howard's Committee was performed. This play, written soon after the Restoration, exhibited the Puritans in an odious and contemptible light, and had therefore been, during a quarter of a century, a favourite with Oxonian audiences. It was now a greater favourite than ever; for, by a lucky coincidence, one of the most conspicuous characters was an old hypocrite named Obadiah. The audience shouted with delight when, in the last scene, Obadiah was dragged in with a halter round his neck; and the acclamations redoubled when one of the players, departing from the written text of the comedy, proclaimed that Obadiah should be hanged because he had changed his religion. The King was much provoked by this insult. So mutinous indeed was the temper of the University that one of the newly raised regiments, the same which is now called the Second Dragoon Guards, was quartered at Oxford for the purpose of preventing an outbreak.*

to march against the Western insurgents should now be with difficulty kept down by sword and carbine, these were signs full of evil omen to the House of Stuart. The warning, however, was lost on the dull, stubborn, selfwilled tyrant. He was resolved to transfer to his own Church all the wealthiest and most splendid foundations of England. It was to no purpose that the best and wisest of his Roman Catholic counsellors remonstrated. They represented to him that he had it in his power to render a great service to the cause of his religion without violating the rights of property. A grant of two thousand pounds a year from his privy purse would support a Jesuit college at Oxford. Such a sum he might easily spare. Such a college, provided with able, learned, and zealous teachers, would be a formidable rival to the old academical institutions, which exhibited but too many symptoms of the languor almost inseparable from opulence and security. King James's College would soon be, by the confession even of Protestants, the first place of education in the island, as respected both science the most effectual and the least inviand moral discipline. This would be These events ought to have convinced dious method by which the Church of James that he had entered on a course England could be humbled and the which must lead him to his ruin. To Church of Rome exalted. The Earl the clamours of London he had been of Ailesbury, one of the most devoted long accustomed. They had been servants of the_royal family, declared raised against him, sometimes unthat, though a Protestant, and by no justly, and sometimes vainly. He had means rich, he would himself contrirepeatedly braved them, and might bute a thousand pounds towards this brave them still. But that Oxford, design, rather than that his master the seat of loyalty, the head quarters should violate the rights of property, of the Cavalier army, the place where and break faith with the Establishe his father and brother had held their Church.* The scheme, however, found court when they thought themselves no favour in the sight of the King. It insecure in their stormy capital, the was indeed ill suited, in more ways place where the writings of the great one, to his ungentle nature. For republican teachers had recently been to bend and break the spirits of men committed to the flames, should now gave him pleasure; and to part with What he be in a ferment of discontent, that his money gave him pain. those highspirited youths who a few had not the generosity to do at his own months before had eagerly volunteered expense he determined to do at the expense of others. When once he was

*Wood's Athens Oxonienses; Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber; Van Citters, March 1686.

than