The House of Lords sat in the Geometry School, the House of Commons in the Convocation House, whilst the Divinity School and the Greek School were employed as a committee room and the Star Chamber. After sitting for a month and passing the Act which prohibited dissenting ministers from coming within five miles of any city, Parliament broke up in October. When this Act was suspended in 1672 and Nonconformists were allowed to meet in towns, provided they took out a licence, the Independents
and Baptists set up meeting-houses in Oxford, the Baptists meeting first in Magdalen Street and then in S. Ebbe’s Parish. The Nonconformist chapels were destroyed in the Jacobite riot of 1715, but in 1720 a new chapel was built behind the present chapel in the New Road by the Baptists and Presbyterians in common.
The Oxford Gazette made its first appearance during Charles’ visit, the first number coming out on 7th November 1665.
Again, in 1681, Parliament was summoned by Charles II. to meet at Oxford on 21st March. He had written in January choosing Merton, Corpus and Christ Church to house him, his Queen, his Court[38] and his Parliament. The scholars as usual departed, but in a week the King dissolved the wicked, or week-ed, Parliament, and the collegians returned to their quarters and the use of their silver plate, which they had wisely hidden from their guests.
“We scholars were expelled awhile to let the Senators in,
But they behaved themselves so ill that we returned again,”
sang the poet of the day. For the rest of his reign the monarch was nearly absolute. “Now I am King of England, and was not before,” he remarked; and he signalised his victory over the Exclusionist Party, who wished to guard against the danger of a Catholic king, by procuring, at Oxford, the condemnation of Stephen College, a Protestant joiner, who was forthwith hung in the Castle-yard.