CHAPTER XXII.
1646.
Before Parliament sent its propositions to Newcastle, it had commenced the business of establishing Presbyterianism. The Directory had been ordained, and the Prayer Book abolished. Still more was done.
On the 7th of July, 1645, the Westminster Assembly sent up to the two Houses a thoroughly-digested and complete scheme of Presbyterian government.[588] Modified as already represented, the scheme was embodied in an ordinance on the 19th of August, establishing a Presbyterian polity in the city of London. This ordinance commanded that a Congregational Assembly should be formed in each of the city parishes, and that a Classical Assembly should be gathered in each of the twelve classes, or districts, into which the ecclesiastical province of the metropolis was by the ordinance divided. Towards the end of September, the Houses decided that certain persons should try the fitness of lay elders; the triers being three clergymen and six laymen for each class. This was an Erastian arrangement, very displeasing, of course, to the Presbyterians, and, consequently, they refused to carry the measure into effect. In the March following (1646) it became loaded with an additional and still more objectionable provision. Instead of Parliament being constituted simply a final court of appeal, it was now to choose certain Lay Commissioners, who were to act in the first instance as judges of scandalous offences—in fact, were to have in their hands the entire control of Church discipline.[589] This was a measure which weighed too heavily on Presbyterian forbearance; and, therefore, a compromise followed in the month of June, when the Lay Commissioners were withdrawn, and a committee of Lords and Commons was appointed to determine such cases of scandals and offences as had not been already specified. This plan was in accordance with an earlier direction, to the effect that Members of Parliament sitting in the Westminster Assembly should be constituted a tribunal to decide respecting causes of suspension from the Lord's Supper. On the 2nd of October, the county palatine of Lancaster was divided into nine classical presbyteries;[590] and on the 21st of January, 1647, a committee of the two Houses ordered that Essex should form a province including fourteen classes.
Presbyterian Church Government.
Still, presbyteries were not actually formed. In April, 1647, appeared resolutions of the Houses, entitled, "Remedies for removing some Obstructions in Church Government;" and after this, on the 3rd of May, the first Provincial Assembly met in the Convocation House of St. Paul's, including about 108 members. Dr. Gouge, the prolocutor, opened the meetings by a sermon in his own parish church of St. Anne, Blackfriars.[591]
On the 29th of the January following (1648), another Parliamentary ordinance appeared, commanding the committees and commissioners throughout the country—with the assistance of ministers—to divide their respective counties into distinct classical presbyteries; and also specifying that the Chancellors, Vice-Chancellors, and heads of houses should establish the same in the two Universities, and certify the accomplishment of the fact before the 25th of March.
On the 29th of August, a more elaborate order issued from the Lords and Commons, to the effect that all parishes and places whatsoever in England and Wales should be under the government of Congregational, Classical, Provincial, and National Assemblies.[592] To see how the system thus elaborated upon paper, and thus enforced by successive ordinances, worked in this kingdom; or rather, with some exceptions, failed to work at all, we must wait till we reach the history of the Commonwealth Church in the next volume.
1646.
It is now time to direct attention to the final measures adopted with reference to Episcopacy. There remained the old bill of 1642, which had been bandied about between the Parliament and the King, to which the latter had never given consent, and which, therefore, according to the monarchical constitution of the country, had never become law. Virtually it took effect, but constitutionally it had no authority. Other measures were in the same predicament. Parliament, therefore, in the autumn of 1646, commenced a revolutionary proceeding, which really turned England into a republic. The Houses determined that their own ordinances should be valid and sufficient. Ecclesiastical changes were amongst the first to be ratified by this proceeding. The old bill relative to Episcopacy being thrown aside, a new one came before the Lords and Commons, and received the sanction of both Houses on the 9th of October.[593]
This ordinance abolished the titles, sequestered the Church property, and extinguished the jurisdiction of the hierarchy of England.[594]
Ecclesiastical Courts.
The name, style, and dignity of archbishop and bishops were to be known no more. At one sweep church property belonging to them was transferred to other hands. "All counties palatine, honours, manors, lordships, stiles, circuits, precincts, castles, granges, messuages, mills, lands, tenements, meadows, pastures, parsonages, appropriate titles, oblations, obventions, pensions, portions of tithes, parsonages, vicarages, churches, chapels, advowsons, donatives, nominations, rights of patronage and presentations, parks, woods, rents, reversions, services, annuities, franchises, liberties, privileges, immunities, rights of action and of entry, interests, titles of entry, conditions, common court leet, and courts baron, and all other possessions," with all and every their appurtenances, became vested in ecclesiastical commissioners. Another ordinance, bearing date the 16th of November, gave authority to the commissioners to sell such property for the benefit of the Commonwealth, with a special reservation in favour of the jura regalia of the palatine of Durham, and the jura regalia of the bishopric of Ely.[595] No cathedrals, churches, chapels, or churchyards, however, were to be disposed of; neither was anything in the ordinance to affect the property of Serjeants' Inn, or Lincoln's Inn. Careful provision is made by the ordinance for securing the property to purchasers, and for preserving the funds so realized. The first of these ordinances also stated that no one was to use any archiepiscopal or episcopal jurisdiction; that the sheriffs of counties where any felony was to be tried should present to the judge some fit person to do such things as, by the office of the ordinary, had used to be done, and "that all issues triable by the ordinary or bishop shall be tried by jury in usual course."
1646.
Ecclesiastical Courts.
That last line legalized an extensive revolution. Ecclesiastical Courts in England, as noticed in our introduction, were of high antiquity and of large jurisdiction. From the time of the Conqueror they had taken cognizance of church matters and public morals. After the Reformation their authority continued. Moral offences, not provided for by common law, heresy, schism, and ecclesiastical disobedience, questions touching marriage and divorce, together with the proving of wills, remained, as before, subject to the ecclesiastical courts. Though interfered with to some extent by the Court of High Commission, the old Church Courts retained much of their former business down to the time when the Long Parliament was opened. Consistories held in provincial cathedrals might be somewhat quiet, but proceedings before Archidiaconal tribunals were often exciting enough when enquiries were made into village scandals; whilst Doctors' Commons continued a centre of the greatest activity. There sat the Consistory Court of the Bishop of London, the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, and the Court of Arches. The judges and advocates received no small attention, and were paid no little reverence, as they appeared in black velvet caps and hoods lined with taffeta or miniver; the proctors being only a little less dignified with their hoods of lambskin, whilst actuaries, registrars, and beadles were busy in their attendance. Citations, bills, and answers, proofs, witnesses, and presumptions, with all their slow and expensive machinery, were patiently kept at work by ecclesiastical lawyers, and were anxiously waited for and watched by ecclesiastical and lay litigants. But with the opening of the Parliament came a change. Amongst the many jeu d'esprits of the time is one belonging to the year 1641, entitled, "The Spiritual Courts epitomised in a Dialogue between two Proctors, Busy-Body and Scrape-All," with a woodcut on the title page representing the Bishops' Court in great confusion.[596] Complaints couched in very exceptionable phraseology indicate that the Prerogative, the Consistory, and the Archdeacon's Courts, which "used to be crowded like money in a usurer's bag, are very quiet and peaceable now;" "no more false Latin," no more "ten pounds for a probate to Mr. Copper-nose, the English proctor," "and no more prying into people's actions." An end had come to inventories, such as terrified all Bloomsbury, Covent Garden, Long Acre, and Beech Lane. No more pretended caveats, and bills which would exceed a tailor's. On a curious broadside, entitled, "The Last Will and Testament of Doctors' Commons," the same exultation over the decline of the courts is rudely and vulgarly expressed in very queer cuts and in very bad English. The Court is represented as very aged, and sorely shaken both in body and mind by a Westminster ague. That which affected Doctors' Commons would shake all the consistorial and commissory courts throughout the country.
Ecclesiastical causes necessarily fell into confusion. The ordinance, however, of October, would settle the question, and sweep all issues, determinable of old by the ordinary or bishop, into the common law courts, there to be tried by juries in the usual way. This would effect not only a great professional change disastrous to ecclesiastical lawyers, and apparent in the deserted yard of Doctors' Commons, but would occasion a great social change also. People would now carry cases touching marriage and divorce to the sessions or the assizes. As to one important point, however, that of wills, the authority of the old courts of registration survived the ejection of bishops, and the abolition of their order. In the Bishop's principal Registry and Consistory Court at Exeter, wills are found in the first case up to the year 1653, in the second, up to the year 1650, when a gap occurs as far as 1660. In the Archdeacon of Sudbury's Registry, wills also are found belonging to 1652, and the years preceding. In the Chapter House of York, there are transcripts of wills to 1650, and from 1650 originals occur. In the Archdeaconry of Taunton, wills did not cease to be registered till 1649, in the Archdeaconry of Huntingdon, not till 1653.[597] A new law with respect to the probate of wills was passed in the last-mentioned year.[598]
1646.
The effect, in relation to public morals, of the abolition of Bishop's Courts, and of the disuse of those which were Archidiaconal, has been too much overlooked. Though the old church discipline, by calling in the aid of the civil power, contradicted the spirit of Christianity, though it was often completely frustrated, and though for really religious ends it proved generally ineffectual; yet it would, in some cases, check the immorality of a parish, whatever might be the evils—in the way of slander, injustice, and heart-burning—which it called into existence. And, at any rate, the destruction of a tribunal before which people were liable to be cited for unchastity and other vices not cognizable by the secular courts, is an important fact in the history of those times, and indicates the occurrence of a considerable judicial and social revolution. No doubt the Presbyterians, in their scheme of discipline, and the Long Parliament, in its acts against immorality, endeavoured to supply what they considered a defect, after they had accomplished the abolition of the old system.
Payment of Tithes.
The ordinance just described only transferred into the hands of commissioners the property and revenues pertaining to bishoprics; it did not touch advowsons and tithes in general, or affect parochial and other ecclesiastical edifices. The right of presentation to livings remained in the hands of patrons, where the right had not been forfeited by delinquency, and tithes continued to be claimed as in former days; but the method of recovering them had undergone a change. Public opinion appears to have become altogether unsettled respecting the question of ministerial support.
In the month of November, 1646, "The Moderate Intelligencer" informs its readers of a petition from the county of Kent being presented to Parliament against the support of ministers by the payment of tithes. It was submitted to the legislature that all clergymen should receive the same amount of salary, according to the part of England in which they resided. These Kentish advisers recommended that in parishes north of the river Trent the stipend should be £100 per annum; and that on the south side of it ought to amount to £150. The reason alleged for equal salaries being paid to all incumbents in each of these districts was, that the arrangement would prevent ministers from hunting after preferment. The petitioners notice that some people said—who had "little scripture or reason for their opinion"—that tithes were unlawful, and that "men should be at the pleasure of the people," in other words, should be left to be provided for on the voluntary system; others, it is observed, would, to avoid strife, fain have ministers paid their tithes in money, not in kind, and they also advocated the repeal of statutes forbidding the clergy to hold farms, or to cultivate the practice of husbandry. It is also mentioned that some persons advocated a new division of parishes, making them all of the same size.
1647.
However truly the newspapers might reflect diversities of opinion on this subject, whatever sympathy some puritan farmers or some puritan parsons might feel with these inhabitants of Kent, Parliament firmly maintained the rights of tithe property. In August, 1647, came forth another ordinance,[599] confirming the prior one of 1644, and removing doubts raised as to whether it extended to ministers inducted by parliamentary authority. It mentions appeals brought into Chancery for vexation and delay, and ordains that no such appeals should be admitted until the party appealing paid into court, or into the hands of justices of the peace, the value of the tithes in dispute. This ordinance was to continue in force until the first of November, 1648. The April of that year brought another ordinance,[600] cancelling a proviso in the ordinance of 1644, for placing beyond its reach the city of London, and committing the enforcement of these ecclesiastical dues to the Lord Mayor and justices within their jurisdiction.[601]
Church Dues.
A newspaper of the 4th of November, 1646, informed the public of a bill introduced that day for repairing churches, and for giving power to compel people to contribute towards needful and pious works; the power to be vested not merely in churchwardens, but in justices of the peace. Mention is also made of a committee to meet in the Star Chamber, for the purpose of considering what course had best be adopted, whether by commitment or otherwise, in order to compel payment from those who refused to contribute according to the ordinary assessments. More than a year after these reports were printed, the Lords and Commons, on the 9th of February, 1647-8, ordained that churchwardens should be chosen annually by the inhabitants of every parish and chapelry, on the Monday or Tuesday of Easter Week, and that they, with the overseers of the poor, should, upon public notice, "make rates or assessments by taxation of every inhabitant." Churchwardens were also to receive any rents and profits which had been given for repairing parochial edifices; and, when churchwardens became negligent of their duties, two neighbouring justices of the peace were empowered to interfere, and to give order for necessary repairs. The ordinance was not to extend to churches "ruined" by the "unhappy wars, extremity of age, or other casualties," nor was it to apply to any cathedral or collegiate churches, all of which were "to be repaired as formerly they have been used and accustomed."[602]
1645.
Apart from sweeping revolutions in cathedral establishments, the colleges of Westminster, Eton, Christ Church, and Winchester experienced changes peculiar to themselves. It was provided in 1642 that none of the revenues assigned for scholars and almsmen should be interrupted in consequence of the sequestration of the rents and profits of Archbishops and Bishops, Deans and Chapters. In 1645, a special ordinance provided both for the college and the collegiate church of Westminster, the Deanery being virtually extinct. The Dean and prebends had become delinquents, with the exception of Mr. Lambert Osbolston, who, whilst being a canon of the cathedral, was also master of the school. The school, the almsmen, and the offices, having no one to take care of them now that the ecclesiastical corporation of the Abbey had been dissolved, Parliament proceeded to nominate commissioners, consisting of the Earl of Northumberland and others, who were invested with powers similar to those previously possessed by the Dean and Chapter. Mr. Osbolston was exempted from the forfeiture of the prebendal income, which had been inflicted on all his brethren occupying stalls in the Abbey. With the new Commissioner, the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the Master of Westminster School, were associated in the election of scholars for the latter foundation. The Committee was also directed to make allowances out of the revenues of the collegiate church to the minister who should perform Divine service within its walls.[603]
Universities.
The sequestered estate and profits of the provost of Eton were entrusted to Sir H. Cholmeley, without prejudice either to scholars or fellows. Dr. Richard Stewart was ejected from the provostship, and Francis Rouse appointed in his room.[604] After some discussion, Parliament left new elections in the hands of the provost and fellows.
Great changes came over the Deanery of Windsor and the Chapel of St. George. Spoliation went on without mercy. Precious treasures were seized for military uses. The revenues were sequestered, and out of them the yearly sum of fifty pounds was voted for any such minister as should officiate in the parish church.[605]
As the educational uses of Eton, Westminster, and other public foundations of the kind, preserved their revenues from confiscation, the same also was the case with the two Universities. Their history, which we have hitherto passed over, now demands our attention, and requires us to go back for a few years.
In the battle which the Parliament had to fight with the heads of houses, Cambridge commenced hostilities. In 1642, the Masters and Fellows of the Colleges there sent money and plate to the coffers of the King at York, "many wishing," says Fuller, "that every ounce thereof were a pound for his sake, conceiving it unfitting that they should have superfluities to spare whilst their sovereign wanted necessaries to spend."[606] The University press was employed in printing the King's declarations, and the University pulpit was made to resound with diatribes against the King's enemies. When a demand came for contributions to the Parliament, the University returned a blank refusal. The men who thus took part in the opening strife subjected themselves of course to the fortunes of war. The kingdom being rent in twain, two encampments being pitched face to face, such as threw themselves into the one had no friendship to expect from the other. Hence there followed imprisonments for the plate business, and for like belligerent acts. The Masters of St. John's, Queen's, and Jesus, were lodged in the Tower, where they were joined afterwards by the Vice-Chancellor. Thus far the collision was purely political. University men were treated as malignants.
University of Cambridge.
But in January, 1644, another issue was raised. Political delinquency being still prominently kept in view, it became associated with religious and ecclesiastical criminations. Many complaints—said the ordinance for regulating the University of Cambridge—were made that the service of the country was retarded, that the enemy was strengthened, that the people's souls were starved, and that their minds were diverted from the care of God's cause by the idle, ill-affected, and scandalous clergy. Commissioners therefore were empowered to call before them all provosts, masters, fellows, students, and members who were scandalous in their lives, or ill-affected to the Parliament, or fomenters of the war, or that should wilfully refuse obedience to the orders of the two Houses, or desert their ordinary places of residence. Persons found guilty of any such offences were to suffer the sequestration of their estates and revenues; at the same time, ministers approved by the Westminster Assembly were authorized to succeed to the vacant posts. The Commissioners had power to administer the Covenant under penalties, and to examine and inhibit all persons who should obstruct the reformation sought to be accomplished by the Parliament and the Assembly. The ordinance evidently placed at the mercy of this new Committee every one who, though not scandalous in life, should decline the Covenant or oppose the Westminster decisions. This document bears date the 22nd of January. On the 30th of the same month, an order appeared to make void the places of all officers, ministers, or other attendants upon Chancery, the King's Bench, and the Common Pleas, who should be guilty of the same offences.[607] The ground on which the Presbyterian party now in power chose to place the controversy with the authorities at Cambridge and elsewhere is sufficiently apparent.
The justice of their final policy ought to be tested by the principles upon which it was avowedly based, not by any laxity of method in the carrying of it out. It is said that, in several instances, those who were entrusted with the execution of the ordinance were very lenient, and did not eject all who refused submission; but this does not affect the character of the enactment. According to Archbishop Tillotson, most of the fellows of King's were exempted through the interest of Dr. Witchcot—an exception which is not at all irreconcilable with Fuller's statement—himself a Cambridge man—that "this Covenant being offered, was generally refused, whereupon the recusants were ordered without any delay to pack out of the University three days after their ejection." Fuller does not say that the order took effect in all cases.[608]
University of Cambridge.
A document in the State Paper Office opens a window through which one can plainly see how sequestrations went on at Cambridge. Houses were rifled, and goods seized. The effects were sold according to appraisements. The books of Dr. Cosin, Master of Peter House and Dean of Durham, were valued at £247 10s., and must have formed a good library for those days. The furniture of Dr. Laney, Master of Pembroke, is all inventoried, down to "blankets," "leather chairs," and "fire irons." The books of Mr. Heath, of Barnet College, are valued at £14; and Mr. Couldham's, of Queen's, at £10. Horses and furniture are mentioned, and articles are described as taken away in carts under the care of soldiers. Zealous partisans received rewards for information relative to concealed property. An infamous soldier was paid for divulging the secret where books belonging to his brother might be found.
University of Cambridge.
Thus a political offence provoked the anger and occasioned the interference of Parliament. But the interference aimed at a religious result through a revival of Puritanism. The East-Anglian University, true to its traditional liberality, fostered that movement towards the end of the sixteenth century, as it had promoted the Reformation fifty years before. In 1565, the University was restive under the yoke of ceremonies, and almost all the men of St. John's came to chapel without hoods or surplices.[609] When Mildmay had founded Emmanuel College (1585), the Queen said: "Sir Walter, I hear you have erected a Puritan foundation." He replied: "No, madam; far be it from me to countenance anything contrary to your established laws; but I have set an acorn, which, when it becomes an oak, God alone knows what will be the fruit thereof."[610] The fruit proved Puritan to the heart's core; and the fact is commemorated in a satire about thirty years afterwards. Its unconsecrated chapel, standing north and south, instead of orientating after the prescribed fashion, has been pronounced "typical of its doctrinal sentiments."[611] Sidney, too, was Puritan, and so was Catherine Hall, the last so persistently, and to such a degree, that it is said not to have contributed one fellow or scholar to the number of the ejected in 1644.[612] Cambridge had the credit of being "a nest of Puritans" in the middle of King James's reign. Perkins and Sibbs, ministers of that class, were exceedingly popular with both the gownsmen and the townspeople. The University for many years supplied by far the majority of the leading Presbyterian Divines;[613] and four out of the five dissenting brethren at Westminster were from Cambridge.[614] Traces of Puritanism existed in Trinity College even so late as 1636. In some tutors' chambers "the private prayers were longer and louder by far" than in chapel.[615] But, before the civil wars, a change in the opposite direction set in. Peter House under Cosin, St. John's under Beale, Queen's under Martin, and Jesus under Sterne, were becoming more and more centres of Anglo-Catholicism. The influence of Laud may be distinctly traced through the last two of these heads of houses—Martin and Sterne having been chaplains to the Archbishop. Nor was the Archbishop himself inactive at Cambridge. The reports about Trinity just noticed were placed in his hands preparatory to his intended visitation in 1636. So far did some go in the anti-Puritan movement that, according to report, at the commencement, in July, 1633, Dr. Collins eulogized Bellarmine, and Dr. Duncan defended some of his theses.[616] Complaints were made by Puritans of altars, vestments, and Jesuit activity. Organs were erected, and the worship in Peter House Chapel incurred the displeasure of the Long Parliament.[617] To judge of the extent to which anti-Presbyterian views prevailed at Cambridge in 1644, we may state that, of residents, it seems about a tenth part of the number was ejected.[618]
The history of Oxford is not altogether like that of Cambridge. The source of three religious impulses of very different kinds, connected respectively with great theological names of very different character—Wesley, Pusey, and Jowett—the Midland University, central and many-sided in its religious spirit, as it is in its geographical position, did much to promote the Reformation, and did something to foster Puritanism. It produced Reynolds, the Presbyterian, and Owen, the Independent. A Puritan wave stirred the waters of the University in 1640. But influence of that kind at Oxford was feeble, compared with its sweep at Cambridge; and the Laudian impetus to Anglo-Catholicism most strongly marked the elder University. Laud was Chancellor of Oxford, and here, of course, his restless brain and untiring hands would specially prosecute the favourite business of his life. Accordingly, instances of his minute, constant, and zealous interference abound throughout his memoirs and papers.[618] He had a very large share in producing that opposition to Puritanism and the Parliament, which characterized Oxford at the commencement of the civil wars.
University of Oxford.
1646.
Phases of conflict, similar to those in the case of Cambridge, may be recognized with greater distinctness in the case of Oxford. We have seen already, from our account of the military occupation of the latter University by the King, that it assumed an attitude of determined defiance towards the Parliament. What would be figurative in reference to Cambridge is perfectly literal in reference to Oxford. Colleges became barracks, and gownsmen soldiers. The University therefore could not be regarded as otherwise than in a state of rebellion against the Parliament—now actually the supreme power. Consequently, when the city was taken, the University was treated as a conquered enemy. To demand subscription and fealty was the least thing which the conquerors could do. To remove from office those who were disaffected was but a measure of common prudence. Besides, such a state of demoralization had come over the whole institution,[620] and war had so driven away learning and discipline, that reformation was imperative. Accordingly, in September, 1646, Commissioners went down to Oxford. Citations were issued requiring officers, fellows, and scholars, to appear at the Convocation House, between the hours of nine and eleven o'clock in the forenoon. The Presbyterian visitors had worship, and a sermon, which detained them till nearly eleven. A story is related, that the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Fell, had the clock put forward, so that it struck the hour before the Commissioners arrived. At all events, as the latter were coming in, they were met by the University authorities going out, the beadle in attendance, exclaiming, "Make way here for Mr. Vice-Chancellor." The visitors did so, when Mr. Vice-Chancellor moving his hat, passed by them, saying, "How do ye, gentlemen, 'tis past eleven o'clock." After this indignity a new Commission was appointed, but the visitors on the second occasion fared no better than their predecessors. Their orders were not only disobeyed, but also "despised and contemned." The heads of Colleges asked, by "what authority they were summoned;" and resolutely refused to give up books and papers, the keys of the Convocation House, and the beadles' staves. The Proctors protested against the citation they had received as illegal, and claimed to be exclusively under the authority of the King and his visitors. Patiently persisting in the assertion of its own power, Parliament allowed the malcontents to be heard by counsel; after which, their answer was pronounced an insult to the authority of the two Houses. Fell was then declared to have forfeited, by his contumacy, the deanery of Christ Church; but the declaration, when posted on the walls of that establishment was torn down and trampled under foot. Mrs. Fell also gave much trouble, and being imbued with an obstinacy like her husband's, had to be forcibly carried out in her chair, by the hands of the soldiers, into the quadrangle. Possession could not be taken of Magdalen, All Souls, and other Colleges, without breaking open the doors.[621]
University of Oxford.
There, as in Cambridge, notwithstanding the virulence of the opposition, some of the Parliamentarian party were willing to wink at evasions of the Covenant. Isaak Walton tells a story of some one who, "observing Dr. Morley's behaviour and reason, and enquiring of him, and hearing a good report of his morals, was therefore willing to afford him a peculiar favour." He proposed that Morley should ride out of Oxford as the visitors rode in, and not return until they left again, undertaking to secure for him his canonry without molestation. The kind offer, though gratefully acknowledged, was respectfully declined.[622]
An instance of practical gratitude may also be mentioned in connexion with the Oxford ejectment. Dr. Laurence, Master of Baliol, and Margaret professor, had, during the wars, shewn marked kindness to Colonel Valentine Walton, an officer in the Parliament army, who had been taken prisoner after Edge Hill fight, and confined at Oxford—the prisoner being indebted to the professor for his release. The obligation thus contracted, Walton repaid when Laurence suffered ejectment. He settled on his friend a little chapelry called Colne, in the parish of Somersham in Huntingdonshire, augmenting its value by adding to it the tithes of Colne. This benefice Laurence had become qualified to enjoy, by receiving a certificate of the Oxford Commissioners, to the effect, that he had engaged to observe the Directory in all ecclesiastical administrations—to preach practical divinity to the people—and to forbear teaching any opinions which the reformed church condemned.[623]
1646.
After the University in general had been subdued, a few scholars continued incorrigible. They abused the new authorities, and scattered about the streets scurrilous tracts, entitled, "Pegasus taught to dance to the tune of Lachryme"—"The Owl at Athens"—"The Oxford tragi-comedy," and many more.[624] At last, a serjeant, attended by a file of musqueteers, published before all the College gates by beat of drum a proclamation, that if any persons expelled by the visitors should persist in remaining within the precincts of the University, they should be taken into custody. And a few days afterwards another proclamation appeared, to the effect that if any of the proscribed individuals tarried within five miles of the city, he should be deemed a spy, and be punished with death. This was enough. Oxford was soon cleared of its obnoxious inmates. Probably the University had been encouraged in its resistance by the knowledge of the differences existing between the Parliament and the army. These differences had become so serious, and had been brought so near, that some of the soldiers in the Oxford garrison, sympathizing with the army at head quarters, refused to obey the order of Parliament. Like King Charles, the University hoped to escape under cover of the strife between the two parties who had become their conquerors. In that hope, however, the University, like the King, proved to be mistaken.
University of Oxford.
Looking at the quarrel between the Parliament and the University, we must admit that the Parliament had on its side a right such as invariably follows victory, and such as always waits on established government. But another aspect of this affair remains to be considered, corresponding with the second phase of the Cambridge proceedings. What was ecclesiastical became mixed up with what was political. Not content with requiring obedience to the civil authority, the victors aimed at extinguishing all spiritual power in Oxford save their own. If, in justification or excuse it be pleaded that this came as a necessity, arising out of the civil establishment of religion, then the same plea of justification or excuse is valid in relation to the conduct of the now ejected, but afterwards restored Prelatists, when they turned out Presbyterians and Independents in 1662. The cases, so far as ecclesiastical imposition is concerned, appear to be alike. Those who think the proceedings of 1662 were unrighteous, and that national universities ought not to be subjected to ecclesiastical tests, must, if consistent, also think that the proceedings of 1644 and 1647 were unrighteous in the very same respects.
To remove men of scandalous life was proper, and nobody could complain of the punishment of those who violated university statutes, or wasted university property. Persons also who had taken up arms against the Parliament might be justly considered liable to some kind of penalty. But the articles of enquiry, instead of being confined to such points, were extended so as to embrace the neglect of the Covenant, and all opposition made to the Directory, or to any doctrine, "ignorance whereof doth exclude from the sacrament of the Lord's supper.[625]"
1646.
University of Oxford.
This kind of ecclesiastical inquisition served, as it often did, to put Parliament in an utterly false position. Armed in this manner, the ruling power stood up, not as the shield-bearer of order, but as the sword-bearer of persecution. The University availed itself of the circumstance, and instead of attempting to justify its resistance of the new government—which would have been a difficult task—it immediately betook itself to the doing of what was easy, and employed its ablest pens in drawing up an elaborate paper in Latin and English against the imposition of the new spiritual tests. In this way, men who only paid the penalty of insubordination were enabled to appear, as if carrying in their hands the martyr's palm. The Oxford champions did not plead for religious liberty. They did not found their case on any broad principle of toleration. They did not assert the rights of conscience, or expose the evils of persecution. Sentiments in favour of arbitrary government occurred even in this very manifesto, and a good deal of the reasoning they employed was one-sided, full of special pleading, and altogether unsatisfactory. Yet some of their objections were forcible, as when they urged that the adoption of the Covenant would be incompatible with their subscription to the Prayer Book, and when they complained of Prelacy being ranked with Popery and profaneness. They slyly intimated that they thought reform a necessity in Scotland, as well as in England, and truly said that the policy of the Parliament made the religion of England look like a Parliamentary religion. The following remark, which they offered on the fourth article of the Covenant, was not more galling than it was just:—"That the imposing the Covenant in this article may lay a necessity upon the son to accuse the father, in case he be a malignant, which is contrary to religion, nature, and humanity; or it may open a way for children that are sick of their fathers, to effect their unlawful intentions, by accusing them of malignity; besides, the subjecting ourselves to an arbitrary punishment, at the sole pleasure of such uncertain judges as may be deputed for that effect, is betraying the liberty of the subject."[626]
