They returned, but almost immediately all scholars were commanded by a writ from the King to quit the town and stay at home until he should recall them after the session of Parliament then about to be held at Oxford. The King, it was officially explained, could not be responsible for the conduct of the fierce and untamed lords who would be assembled together there and would be sure to come into conflict with the students. Perhaps the more urgent motive was fear lest the students should openly and actively side with the barons, with whom, it was known, the majority of them were in sympathy.
The fact was that in the great struggle against the Crown in which England was now involved, the clergy and the Universities ranged themselves with the towns on the side of Simon de Montfort. Ejected from Oxford, many of the students openly joined his cause and repaired at once to Northampton.
For a time all went well with the King. As if to demonstrate his faith in the justice of his cause, he braved popular superstition and passing within the walls of Oxford paid his devotions at the shrine of S. Frideswide. The meeting of Parliament failed to bring about any reconciliation. Reinforced by a detachment of Scottish allies—“untamed and fierce” enough, no doubt—Henry left Oxford and marched on Northampton. Foremost in its defence was a band of Oxford students, who so enraged the King by the effective use they made of their bows and slings and catapults, that he swore to hang them all when he had taken the town. Take the town he did, and he would have kept his oath had he not been deterred by the reminder that he would by such an act lose the support of all those nobles and followers whose sons and kinsmen were students. But the victorious career of the King was almost at an end. The vengeance of S. Frideswide was wrought at the battle of Lewes. Simon de Montfort found himself head of the State, and one of his first acts was to order the scholars to return to their University.
Such keen, occasionally violent, interest in politics seems, in these days, characteristic of the German or Russian rather than the English University student. Nowadays the political enthusiasm of the undergraduate is mild, and his discussion of politics is academic. In the debating hall of the Union, or in the more retired meeting-places of the smaller political clubs, like the Canning, the Chatham, the Palmerston or the Russell, he discusses the questions of the day. But his discussions lack as a rule the sense of reality, and they suffer accordingly. Occasionally, when a Cabinet Minister has been persuaded to dine and talk with one or other of these clubs, or when the speaker is one who is deliberately practising for the part he means to take in after-life, the debates are neither uninteresting nor entirely valueless. And at the worst they give those who take part in them a facility of speech and some knowledge of political questions. But it is not so that the University exercises any influence on current events. Nor, except in so far as they warn practical men to vote the other way, are those
occasional manifestoes, which a few professors sign and publish, of any great importance. But it is through the press and through Parliament that the voice of young Oxford is heard. It is through the minds and the examples of those statesmen and administrators, who have imbibed their principles of life and action within her precincts, and have been trained in her schools and on her river or playing-fields, that the influence of the University is reflected on the outer world. Nor is it only the men like Lord Salisbury, Lord Rosebery and Mr Gladstone, who guide the country at home, or like Lord Milner and Lord Curzon, who give their best work to Greater Britain, that are the true sons of the University; it is the plain, hard-working clergymen and civilians, also, who, by their lives of honest and unselfish toil, hand on the torch of good conduct and high ideals which has been entrusted to them.
Oxford had some share in the events which led to the deposition of Edward II. The King wrote to the Chancellor, masters and scholars calling upon them to resist his enemies. On the approach of Roger de Mortimer, a supporter of the Queen, he wrote again enjoining them not to allow him to enter the city, but to keep Smith Gate shut, lest he should enter by that way. But when the King was a refugee in Wales, the Queen came to Islip. She would not come to Oxford till “she saw it secure.” But when the burghers came to her with presents she was satisfied. She took up her residence at the White Friars, and the Mortimers theirs at Osney. And a sermon was preached by the Bishop of Hereford, who demonstrated from his text, “My head grieveth me,” that an evil head, meaning the King, not otherwise to be cured, must be taken away. The majority of scholars apparently agreed with him.