The Coronation of William and Mary was observed by a special Act ceremony, in which one of the pieces recited was “Magdalena Ridens,” Magdalen smiling in triumph at the flight of her oppressor. October 25, 1688, was the day on which James had restored the ejected fellows. Ever since the college has observed that day, and yearly the members pledge each other in a loving-cup, Jus suum cuique.

CHAPTER X
JACOBITE OXFORD—AND AFTER

AMONG the demies elected at Magdalen the year after the expelled fellows returned was Joseph Addison, whose name is traditionally connected with the northern part of the Magdalen walks, where the kingfisher “flashes adown the river, a flame of blue,” and Henry Sacheverell, his friend and chamber-fellow. The former outlined the pacific policy of the Hanoverians in the Freeholder; for the latter, when he hung out his “bloody flag and banner of defiance” against the existing order, as for Atterbury, Oxford was loud with the cheers of “honest” men. For during the first half of the eighteenth century Oxford was violently Jacobite.

John Locke, who had been suspected of complicity in Shaftesbury’s design against the succession, and had been removed (1684) from his student’s place at Christ Church in accordance with the directions of a royal mandate, had warned William that the good effects of the revolution would be lost if no care was taken to regulate the Universities. But the Hanoverians avoided oppressive measures. The Tory Wine Club, under the cabalistic name of High Borlace, to which no member of a Whig college like Wadham, Christ Church, Exeter or Merton might belong, was allowed to meet annually at the King’s Head Tavern on 18th August to toast the King across the water and drink confusion to the rival Constitution Club. But the triumph of the Whigs at the accession of George I. and the disappointment of “honest” men, led to a great riot on the first anniversary of the birthday of the new sovereign.

“Mobs paraded the streets, shouting for the Pretender and putting a stop to every kind of rejoicing. The Constitution Club had gathered to commemorate the day at the King’s Head. The windows were illuminated and preparations made for a bonfire. Tossing up their caps and scattering money among the rabble that flocked to the front of the hotel, the Jacobite gownsmen egged them on with shouts of ‘No George,’ ‘James for ever,’ ‘Ormond,’ or ‘Bolingbroke!’ The faggots were torn to pieces, showers of brickbats were thrown into the clubroom. The Constitutioners were glad to escape with their lives by a back-door. Thus baffled the mob rolled on to attack all illuminated houses. Every Whig window was smashed. The meeting house was entered and gutted.... At last the mob dispersed for the night, publicly giving out that ‘the glorious work’ was left unfinished till to-morrow. The twenty-ninth of May was associated with too significant reminiscences to be allowed to pass in quiet. Sunday though it was, the streets were filled with people running up and down with oak-boughs in their hats, shouting, ‘King James, the true King. No usurper! The Good Duke of Ormond.’ The streets were brilliantly illuminated, and wherever disregard was shown to the mob’s fiat, the windows were broken.... The crowds grew thicker and noisier towards even. A rumour had got abroad that Oriel had given shelter to some of the Constitutionalists. The mob rushed to the attack and threatened to break open the closely-barred gates. At this moment a shot from a window wounded one of the ringleaders, a gownsman of Brasenose, and the crowd fled in confusion to break fresh windows, gut the houses of dissenters, and pull down the chapels of Anabaptists and Quakers” (Green).

The omission of rejoicings on the birthday of the Prince of Wales led to further disturbance. The major of a recruiting party then in Oxford drew out his regiment to celebrate the day. They were attacked by the crowd, and were obliged to have resource to blank cartridges. The matter was made the occasion of a grand debate in the House of Lords. But in the meantime the Government had shown its appreciation of the dangerous disloyalty of Oxford by dispatching Major-General Pepper thither with a number of dragoons, on the outbreak of Mar’s Rebellion. Martial law was at once proclaimed, and suitable measures were taken “to overawe the University.” The Crown had recently purchased Bishop Moore’s magnificent library and presented it to Cambridge. The difference in the treatment of the two Universities inspired Dr Trapp, the first Professor of Poetry, to write the famous epigram:

“The King, observing with judicious eyes
The wants of his two Universities,
To Oxford sent a troop of horse; and why?
That learned body wanted loyalty.
To Cambridge books he sent, as well discerning
How much that loyal body wanted learning.”

To which the Cambridge wit, Sir Thomas Browne, retorted with still greater neatness and point:

“The King to Oxford sent a troop of horse
For Tories own no argument but force;
With equal care to Cambridge books he sent,
For Whigs admit no force but argument.”

The famous county election of 1754, when the Jacobite rioters held the approach to Broad Street, but the Whigs managed to slip through Exeter College and so gain the polling booths, shows that Oxford had not changed its sentiments, but when Tory principles mounted the throne with George III., Jacobitism disappeared like a dream. The reign of Toryism did little to promote the cause of learning or conduct. During the eighteenth century examinations for a degree were little better than a farce;