A history of the University of Oxford

by George C. Brodrick

In the summer of 1642, war, though not actually declared, was felt to be inevitable, and both the king and the Parliament were already raising supplies for the autumn campaign. On July 7, Charles I., then at York, addressed a requisition to Prideaux, as vice-chancellor, inviting the colleges to contribute money for his service by way of loan at eight per cent. interest, alleging that similar aid had already been received by his enemies. Convocation immediately voted away all the reserve funds in Savile’s, Bodley’s, and the University chest, but it does not appear that any contributions of plate were made by the colleges on this occasion. On July 12, Parliament issued an order declaring this requisition illegal, and directing watch and guard to be set on all highways about Oxford; but it appears from a letter of the king, dated from Beverley on July 18, that a large subsidy had then reached him. At the same time, he addressed letters to the Commissioners of Array for the county, the high sheriff, and the mayor of Oxford, specially requesting them to protect the University in case of attack. In the middle of August several hundred graduates and students enrolled themselves, in accordance with a royal proclamation, and were regularly drilled in the ‘New Park.’ On August 28, a troop of Royalist horse, under Sir John Byron, entered the city, and the volunteers were virtually placed under his orders, with the apparent consent of the citizens, who, however, did not raise a similar corps for the defence of their own walls. On September 1, a delegacy of thirty members, including the vice-chancellor and proctors, and popularly called ‘The Council of War,’ was appointed for the purpose of arming the scholars and provisioning the Royal troops. But the resolution of the University was shaken when it was discovered, on September 9, that the citizens were in communication with the Parliament, and that a Parliamentary force was about to move on Oxford from Aylesbury. Indeed, the University went so far as to despatch emissaries to parley with the Parliamentary commanders at Aylesbury, who answered them roughly, seized Dr. Pinke, of New College, the deputy vice-chancellor, and sent him as a prisoner to London. On the following day Sir John Byron, with his few troopers, left Oxford to join the king, accompanied by about a hundred scholars, one of whom, Peter Turner, fell into the hands of the enemy in a skirmish near Stow-in-the-Wold, and was lodged in Northampton gaol. On September 12, a body of Parliamentary troops entered the city from Aylesbury, under Colonel Goodwin, who, with other officers, was quartered at Merton College, while their horses were turned out in Christchurch meadow. They were soon followed by Lord Say, the new Parliamentary lord-lieutenant of Oxfordshire. He proceeded to demolish the fortifications already begun, and instituted a search for plate and arms. In fact, however, no college plate was then carried off, except that of Christchurch and University College, which had been hidden away. The other colleges, we are told, were spared, ‘upon condition it should be forthcoming at the Parliament’s appointment, and not in the least employed against them’—a condition almost impossible of fulfilment in the event, which actually occurred, of Oxford becoming the King’s head-quarters. Upon the whole, Lord Say and his men behaved with great forbearance during this short occupation, which ended on September 27 or 28. The gownsmen were disarmed, but no injury was done to buildings or property, beyond some damage to the porch of St. Mary’s Church and the combustion of ‘divers Popish books and pictures.’

Oxford becomes the royal head-quarters

A month later (October 29) Charles I. marched into Oxford by the North Gate, after the battle of Edgehill, at the head of his army, and attended by Prince Rupert, Prince Maurice, and his two sons. Even the mayor and leading citizens welcomed him, while the University received him with open arms, expressed its devotion in Latin orations, and showered degrees on the noblemen and courtiers in his train. The king himself, with the most important personages of his staff, except Rupert and Maurice, was lodged in Christchurch; the officers were distributed among other colleges; the soldiers were billeted about the city. Thenceforward, Oxford became not only the base of operations for the Royal army, but the chief seat of the royal government. Twenty-seven pieces of ordnance were driven into the grove of Magdalen College and ranged there; the citizens were at first disarmed, but a regiment of city volunteers was afterwards formed, and reviewed together with a far more trustworthy regiment of University volunteers. A plan of fortification was prepared by Rallingson, a B.A. of Queen’s College, and defensive works were constructed all round Oxford under the directions of engineers. All inmates of colleges, being of military age, were impressed into labouring personally upon these works for at least one entire day per week, bringing their own tools with them; in default of which they were required to pay twelve pence to the royal treasury. A powder-mill was established at Oseney, and a mint at New Inn Hall, whence the students had fled, under suspicion of Roundhead leanings. Thither were removed all the coining machinery and workmen from the factory which had been established some time before at Shrewsbury, and the New Inn Hall mint was conducted under the direction of Thomas Bushell, formerly the manager of the royal mines in Wales. New College tower and cloisters were converted into an arsenal for arms, procured by repeated searches, the grammar-school for the choristers having been removed to a chamber at the east end of the Hall. The Schools were employed as granaries for the garrison; lectures and exercises were almost wholly suspended; and in the three years from 1643 to 1646 the annual number of B.A. degrees conferred did not exceed fifty. Before long, most of the less warlike and loyal fellows and students retired into the country; those who remained took up arms and kept guard on the walls; the colleges more and more assumed the aspect of barracks; and Oxford, no longer a seat of learning, was divided between the gaieties of a court and the turmoil of a camp.

Aspect of the University during the queen’s residence

This transformation was completed in July 1643, when Henrietta Maria joined the King at Oxford. Charles I. rode out to meet the Queen, whose passionate and sinister counsels were about to cost him his throne and his life. She was received with great ceremony at Christchurch, and conducted by the King himself to Merton College by a back way, made expressly through gardens belonging to Christchurch and Corpus Christi College into Merton Grove. There she was saluted with the usual Latin oration, and took possession of the apartment still known as ‘the Queen’s room,’ which she occupied, with the adjoining drawing-room, until the following April. Seldom in history, and never in the annals of the University, have characters so diverse been grouped together into so brilliant and picturesque a society as that which thronged the good city of Oxford during the Queen’s residence in the autumn and winter of 1643—the last happy interlude of her ill-starred life. Notwithstanding the paralysis of academical studies, grave dons and gay young students were still to be seen in the streets, but too often in no academical garb and affecting the airs of cavaliers, as they mingled with the ladies of the court in Christchurch walks and Trinity College gardens, or with roystering troopers in the guard-houses at Rewley, where they entertained their ruder comrades with flashes of academic wit. Most of the citizens, too, were glad to remain, secretly cherishing, perhaps, the hope of a future retribution, but not unwilling to levy high rents for the lodging of those nobles and military officers for whom there was no room in the colleges. With these were blended in strange variety other elements imported from the metropolis or the country—lawyers who had come down to attend the courts held by the Lord Keeper and one of his judicial brethren; the faithful remnant of the Lords and Commons, who sat in one of the Schools and the Convocation-house respectively, while the University Acts were performed once more in St. Mary’s Church; loyal gentlemen driven out of their manor-houses by the enemy; clergymen expelled from their parsonages; foreigners seeking audiences of the perplexed and vacillating King; needy poets, musicians, and players in the service of the Court, who acted interludes or Shakespearian pieces in the college halls. Services were still performed in the chapels; sermons were preached from the pulpit of St. Mary’s; degrees were conferred wholesale, as rewards for loyal service, until they were so depreciated that at last the King promised to recommend no more candidates for them; the outward appearances of academical routine were maintained with decorum; the King dined and supped in public, moving freely among his devoted adherents with the royal grace and easy dignity which long seemed to have perished with the Stuarts; the Queen held those receptions at Merton College of which a tradition has survived to our own prosaic days; newspapers were published for the first time in Oxford, and all the resources of courtly literature were employed to enliven a spectacle over which the awful catastrophe of that historical tragedy, unforeseen by the actors themselves, has shed a lurid glamour, never equalled by the romance of fiction.

The last two years of the civil war

During this memorable period, the records of the University and colleges are extremely scanty. The register of Christchurch, then little more than a royal palace, presents almost a blank; that of Merton contains few entries bearing on the great events of which Oxford was the scene or the centre. Early in January 1643, royal letters were issued to all colleges and halls, desiring the loan of their plate, to be melted down and coined for the King’s service, ‘we promising you to see the same justly repayd unto you after the rate of 5/ the ounce for white, and 5/6 for guilt plate, as soon as God shall enable us.’ All the colleges, except New Inn Hall, are stated to have complied, and the aggregate weight of plate thus contributed amounted to some 1,500 lbs., besides about 700 lbs. sent in by six country gentlemen. Nevertheless, in the following June, another levy of 2,000l. was made upon the University and City respectively, to which the City, in an unwonted fit of loyalty, added another 500l. At last, in October 1643, the Heads of Houses agreed that 40l. should be raised weekly during the next twenty weeks, by a levy on colleges and halls, in lieu of all further contributions towards new fortifications. In the same month articles were drawn up by some of the leading residents against the Earl of Pembroke, Chancellor of Oxford, whom they accused of betraying the privileges and neglecting the interests of the University, but whose real crime was complicity with the Parliament, and whom the King caused to be superseded by the Marquis of Hertford. During the summer of this year the fortunes of war had, on the whole, been in the King’s favour; but he had been compelled to abandon his design of occupying London, and, after the indecisive battle of Newbury, in which Falkland was killed, had retreated to Oxford for the winter. Thither he summoned his so-called Parliament in June 1644, and there, yielding to evil advice from his wife, he rejected overtures which might have brought about a peaceful settlement without further bloodshed. On May 29, 1644, a Parliamentary force under the Earl of Essex and Sir William Waller crossed the river at Sandford Ferry, and passed through Cowley over Bullingdon Green, on their way from Abingdon to Islip, but nothing beyond a skirmish took place as they defiled along the heights within sight of the city. The object of this movement, as soon appeared, was to enclose the King with his forces in Oxford; but Charles now showed unexpected resource, and by a masterly night-march eluded the enemy, and pursued Essex westward, while Prince Rupert defeated Waller at Copredy Bridge, where many Oxford scholars were engaged. On June 9 a proclamation of the Privy Council appeared, commanding all persons to lay in provisions for three months, in anticipation of a siege, which, however, did not take place in that year. On July 2 the King’s northern army sustained a crushing defeat at Marston Moor, and the King himself, though successful against Essex, was almost cut off on his return to Oxford. On Sunday, October 6, the city of Oxford, which had been scourged by a plague in the previous year, the natural result of overcrowding, was ravaged by a great fire, attributed to the machinations of the Parliamentary troops at Abingdon. The winter passed quietly at Oxford, and, after the execution of Archbishop Laud in January 1645, negotiations between the King and Parliament were again opened at Uxbridge, but in vain. Soon afterwards the Parliamentary army was remodelled, and placed under the command of Fairfax, who advanced to besiege Oxford, while Charles, who had retired to Chester, hesitated between relieving it and giving battle to Cromwell. On May 22, Oxford was partially invested by Fairfax, and besieged for a fortnight. Fairfax established his own head-quarters at Headington, Wolvercote was held by Major Browne, Cromwell was posted at Wytham, and the roads between that village and South Hincksey were secured by the besiegers. On June 2, the governor made a successful night sally towards Headington, and three days later the siege was hastily abandoned, when Fairfax moved northward to join Cromwell, and on June 14 the Royalist cause was finally shipwrecked at the battle of Naseby. The theatre of war was now shifted from the neighbourhood of Oxford, and the last engagement in the open field took place near Chester in the following September. Oxford still held out for the King, who again fell back upon it for the winter, accompanied by Princes Rupert and Maurice, and gathered around him a great part of the English nobility and gentry still faithful to his fortunes. On December 28 we find him ordering special forms of prayer to be used in college chapels on Wednesdays and Fridays, ‘during these bad times.’

Siege of Oxford, and proposals of Fairfax guaranteeing University privileges

In the spring of 1646, the Parliamentary army devoted itself to besieging the strong places still occupied by the King’s troops, and on May 1 Fairfax again appeared before Oxford, which the King had left in disguise a few days earlier, with only two attendants. The besieging force was distributed round the north side of the city in the same way as before, and on May 11 it was formally summoned to surrender. In the letter of summons, addressed to Sir Thomas Glemham, the governor, Fairfax used language honourable to himself and to Oxford. ‘I very much desire the preservation of that place, so famous for learning, from ruin, which inevitably is like to fall upon it unless you concur.’ More than one conference was held, and some of the privy councillors in Oxford strove to protract the negotiations until the King himself could be consulted. In the end, Fairfax made conciliatory proposals which the Royalist leaders decided to entertain, ‘submitting,’ as they said, ‘to the fate of the kingdom rather than any way distrusting their own strength.’ By the final treaty, concluded on June 20, it was stipulated that both the University and the City should enjoy all their ancient privileges and immunities from taxation. It was further stipulated that colleges should ‘enjoy their ancient form of government, subordinate to the immediate authority and power of Parliament ... and that all churches, chapels, &c., shall be preserved from defacing and spoil.’ It was, however, significantly added that if any removals of Heads or other members of the University should be made by Parliament, the persons so removed should retain their emoluments for six months after the surrender; and there was an ominous proviso, ‘that this shall not extend to any reformation there intended by the Parliament, nor give them any liberty to intermeddle in the government.’

Surrender of Oxford, and subsequent condition of the University