who informed him that there was no hurt in ale. Accordingly the master told his men that since the Vice-Chancellor said there was no hurt in ale, though truly he thought there was, he would give them leave to drink it. “So now,” Prideaux concludes, “they may be sots by authority.”
In 1682, Wood notes, “fighting occasioned by drunkenness fell out in S. John’s common chamber.” Common rooms, it may be observed, which were regarded as a luxurious innovation, had been introduced into Oxford in 1661 by Merton, where the room over the kitchen, with the cock-loft over it, was turned into a room “for the common use of the Fellows.” Other colleges quickly followed an example which had been set eleven years before in the Combination Room of Trinity at Cambridge.
The accession of James II. was hailed at Oxford with many expressions of loyalty. A large bonfire was lit at Carfax and five barrels of beer broached in the Town Hall, to be drunk by all comers. There were bonfires in all the colleges, where the respective societies drank a health, kneeling, to the King and Royal Family. At Merton, Wood tells us, “the gravest and greatest seniors of the house were mellow that night, as at other Colleges.” And the coronation was celebrated by a sermon and bonfire at S. Mary’s and “great extraordinaries in eating and drinking in each College.” But there were many townsmen who had been ready (1683) to shout for “a Monmouth! a Monmouth! no York!” and after Monmouth’s Rebellion, when the University raised a regiment, whose uniforms at any rate were gallant, several of the citizens were arrested as rebels. It was not long before the bigotry and tyranny of James drove the University itself into that resistance to the royal authority which was so alien to its teaching and tradition. For James set himself to convert the training-place of the English clergy into a Roman Catholic seminary.
The accession of a sovereign attached to the Roman Church had been the signal for many who had hitherto concealed their opinions to avow their devotion to that communion. The Master of University College was one of those who had conformed to the rites of the Anglican Church whilst supporting so far as he dared, in the pulpit and the press, the doctrines of Rome. He now openly avowed his conversion and did his utmost to promote the Roman Catholic cause. Ave Maria Obadiah, as he was nicknamed from an academic catch of the time, was authorised by the King to appropriate some college rooms for a chapel under the Roman ritual. He had already been absolved by a royal dispensation from the duty of attending the services of the Church of England, and from taking the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy. Walker’s doings were at first received with ridicule and then with indignation. But secure of the King’s favour, he continued on his Romanising way. He erected a press at the back of the college, and published, under royal licence, a series of controversial books maintaining Romish doctrines. The University was disgusted and alarmed at this deliberate attempt to undermine the National Church in the very centre of its chief stronghold. A pamphlet war ensued, but it was a war in which the King made it evident on the occasion of a visit to Oxford in 1687 that he was on the side of Obadiah. A statue of the monarch was set up over the gateway of the large quadrangle of University College to commemorate the visit of the royal “reformer of heresy.”
At Christ Church, meanwhile, Massey, a convert and creature of Walker, had been appointed dean by the Crown and installed without protest by the Chapter. The old refectory of Canterbury College was fitted up as a private chapel for the dean’s use, and James attended mass there. At All Souls’, too, the fellows had admitted as warden the nominee planted on them by the royal prerogative. But James was not to have it all his own way with the colleges. Men had stiffer backs at Magdalen.
The office of President was vacant. The King recommended for election Anthony Farmer, a disreputable Cantab of notoriously bad character, who had migrated to Oxford, and who, never having been fellow either of Magdalen or New College, had no qualification for the presidentship. But he was reputed to be inclined to Romanism. This virtue was apparently sufficient in James’ eyes; he ignored the objections stated by the fellows. The fellows in turn ignored the mandate of James and elected Dr Hough, a man to whom there could be no objection. Cited to appear before the Ecclesiastical Commission on complaint that they had disregarded the King’s mandate, the Vice-President and fellows, through their delegates, justified their action by reference to their statutes and the character of Farmer. Jefferies, who presided, had to admit that Farmer was proved to the court to be “a very bad man.” The college was commanded to elect another tool of the King’s, Parker, Bishop of Oxford. The college held that the place of President was already filled. To enforce obedience, James now came over from Woodstock (3rd September) in person.
The King wore a scarlet coat, and an old beaver hat edged with a little lace, not worth a groat, as some of the people shouted. He proceeded very slowly to the North Gate, where he found eight poor women all clad in white, some of whom strewed the way before the King with herbs,
“which made a very great smell in all the street, continuing so all the night till the rain came. When he came to Quatervois he was entertained with the wind music or waits belonging to the city and University, who stood over the Penniless Bench—all which time and after the Conduit ran claret for the vulgar.”
The fellows of Magdalen were summoned to the royal presence in Christ Church Hall, where they were rudely reprimanded and bidden to go to their chapel and elect the bishop forthwith or they should know what it was to feel the weight of a king’s hand. “Is this your Church of England loyalty?” James cried. “Get you gone. I am King. I will be obeyed!” Curious to think that William Penn, who had formerly been sent down from Christ Church for Nonconformity, was present at this scene; and a servitor of Exeter, the father of the Wesleys, quitted it, “resolved to give the tyrant no kind of support.” The fellows protested their loyalty, but declared that it was not in their power to do what the King required. Penn, the courtly Quaker, endeavoured to bring about a compromise, but seems to have been convinced at last that an agreement was impossible. Hough’s comment on these negotiations was, “It is resolved that the Papists must have our College. All that we can do is, to let the world see that they take it from us, and that we do not give it up.” A commission was appointed. Hough, who refused to surrender his lodgings, was declared contumacious, and his name was struck off the books. His lodgings were broken open; Parker was introduced. Twenty-five of the fellows were expelled, and were declared incapable of ecclesiastical preferment. The demies, who refused to recognise Parker, were not interfered with by the commission; they remained in the college holding chapel services and disputations among themselves and ignoring the Papist fellows who were being introduced. When they refused to obey the officers nominated by the King, eighteen of them were expelled. Parker died, and Gifford, a Papist of the Sorbonne, was appointed. All but two of the original fellows were now ejected, and their places were being filled up with Roman Catholics when it was brought home to James that he had been going too fast. He began to bid desperately for the support he had alienated. He restored the ejected fellows, but they had scarcely returned when William’s supporters, under Lord Lovelace, entered Oxford in force. They were received at the East Gate by the mayor and magistrates in their black gowns, who went with them up the High Street amid the shouts and congratulations of the people.
Meantime the Master of University had fled to London with his nominee, the Dean of Christ. He was captured by the mob and thrown into the Tower on a charge of high treason. And at Oxford “trade,” to use the judicious metaphor of an Oxford priest, “declined.” The Jesuits, who had been “in a very hopeful way and had three public shops (chapels) open” there, found all their schemes frustrated. The intrigue and plotting of years were brought to nought.