To-day the disadvantages are greater still. Far the larger number of people approach Oxford by train, and although on drawing near the city from the south a sight is obtained of towers and spires, it is by no means a happy point of view; and the visitor is probably engaged in getting his bag out of the rack and collecting his papers and umbrella, when he might be obtaining a first impression, though a poor one, of Oxford. Should he be more fortunate, and approach by motor car, again he loses much. A vision, perhaps, for a moment, as he tops some rising ground, and then, before he has had time to gasp his admiration, he finds himself bounded on either side by the unlovely villas of a suburb.
No, the coaching days were the best for those who wanted to see what Oxford looked like as a whole. From the top of the London coach, as Headington Hill was reached, there must have been on a summer morning a minute or two of ecstasy for those who first caught sight of the glittering city at their feet. Not quite so fair a view, but beautiful enough, was theirs who came by way of Cumnor from the Berkshire Downs; but the coach top was the place, from whichever side the traveller came.
And yet there is something better still. I would have, could I arrange it for my friend, a more gradual approach yet. I would take him off the converging roads while yet Oxford was unseen. I would lead him in the early morning of a summer day—it must ever be summer—away where the river washes the feet of the old town of Abingdon, and thence by pleasant paths through Sunningwell we would ascend Boar's Hill. There on a grassy spot, a hanging wood partly revealed below us, we would lie face downwards on the turf and gaze on Oxford lying far below—the Oxford Turner saw—Oxford in fairy wreaths of light-blue haze, which as they part, now here now there, reveal her sparkling beauty. There is no other place so fit to see her first; no day too long to gaze on her from here, and mark fresh beauties as the shadows change. Here we would lie and marvel at the scene, then let the dreams of days gone by—the days that wove the long romance of Oxford—enthral us till we hardly know whether time is or was.
Away there to the east and south the river shines. Now in the heat of summer well within its reedy banks, but often spreading itself in flood-time far and wide. So those two Franciscans find it. They draw near to Oxford, but when a mile or two from Abingdon are checked by many waters, and take refuge in a house in a wood belonging to the monastery of that place. Nearly seven hundred years ago! And yet they come into the dream as if it all had happened yesterday, and they were still to set on foot the labours of their order in the low wooden slums of St. Ebbe's, and still to train such men as Duns Scotus and Roger Bacon.
And the scene changes as the eye follows the river to the city walls. There is a mellower sunshine on the plain, and autumn mists hang lightly over tower and spire. What is that slender blue column which rises above the centre of the town and melts into the hazy air? Surely it is the smoke of the pyre on which the martyrs have but now perished! Ridley and Latimer—for months they have been face to face with death. Their figures move through the streets. From Bocardo, the town prison, they are led to separate confinement in other parts of the city. Now to St. Mary's Church, now to the Divinity School are they taken to be examined—a miserable farce—by those who seek to curry favour with a bloody queen. At last the end. Was it this morning that the sheriff's officers came to lead Ridley from the mayor's house, where he had passed a peaceful night, and risen to write a letter on behalf of certain tenants of his in London, that justice might be done them when he died? There he goes in close custody, dressed in his bishop's gown and tippet, with a velvet scull cap on his head. Behind him comes Latimer, an old, old man in threadbare gown and leathern girdle, keeping up as well as he can with the rest. They pass along what is now called Cornmarket Street, and under the Bocardo gateway, where is St. Michael's Church, and as they get close beneath the prison each casts a look upwards if he should see Archbishop Cranmer at the window.
OXFORD FROM HEADINGTON HILL
So they go on a few yards more till the city ditch is reached, which now is Broad Street. There are the crowd, the faggots, and the stake. No time is lost. Cheerfully they two embrace and strip themselves for death. The chains secure them to the posts. The bags of gunpowder are hung around their necks. They loudly commend their souls to God. Soon comes release to the aged Latimer. The flames have leapt up to the powder, and in a moment his sufferings are done. Not so merciful is the end of his brother martyr. Slowly, with shocking agony, his lower limbs are burnt away, and not till he has suffered the extremity of pain does he at last join Latimer in Paradise. That little slender column of blue smoke! So was the dream provoked, and the pathetic tragedy of 1555 has passed before our eyes to-day.
The summer sun shines out, a gentle air blows off the mists, and from afar the road to Woodstock is all lively with a gallant company. Mary is dead. The University have sent a deputation to meet Elizabeth the Queen at Godstow. No longer a prisoner at Woodstock, she rides gaily into Oxford. At the northern gate she is welcomed by the mayor, and the city bestows its gifts of plate and money. For days her scholarly mind is entertained with public disputations, relieved at intervals by theatrical shows. It is all brilliant and light-hearted; a weight has been taken from the country.