A history of the University of Oxford

by George C. Brodrick

Four days afterwards (June 24), the curtain fell on this memorable episode in the history of the University. The garrison of Oxford marched out 3,000 strong, with colours flying and drums beating, in drenching rain, by Magdalen Bridge, through St. Clement’s, over Shotover Hill, between files of Roundhead infantry, lining the whole route, but offering them no injury or affront. About 900 of them laid down their arms on arriving at Thame; 1,100 enlisted for service abroad. Hundreds of civilians preceded or straggled after them; hundreds more, chiefly nobles and gentlemen, accompanied Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice two days later, besides a large body which proceeded northward and westward, through St. Giles’s, with a convoy. Nevertheless, some two thousand remained behind, to whom passes were afterwards given by Fairfax. These consisted mainly of ‘gentlemen and their servants, scholars, citizens, and inhabitants, not properly of the garrison in pay,’ who had been specially permitted by the articles of surrender to choose their own time for departure. The military stores had contained no less than six months’ provision, and seventy barrels of powder were found in the magazine. Indeed, the writer of an official report, addressed to Speaker Lenthall, congratulates the Parliament on the bloodless capture of the great Royalist stronghold, especially as the surrounding fields were soon afterwards flooded, and siege operations would have been greatly impeded. Order now reigned again at Oxford, but the University and colleges were almost emptied of students, and utterly impoverished; notwithstanding which, some of them contributed out of their penury to relieve the poor of the city, and All Souls’ passed a self-denying ordinance ‘that there shall be only one meal a day between this and next Christmas, and so longer, if we shall see occasion.’ Anthony Wood’s brief description of the state of the University after the siege had often been quoted, but deserves a place in every history of the University, since it is the testimony of an eye-witness: ‘The colleges were much out of repair by the negligence of soldiers, courtiers, and others who lay in them; a few chambers which were the meanest (in some colleges none at all) being reserved for the use of the scholars. Their treasure and plate was all gone, the books of some libraries embezzled, and the number of scholars few, and mostly indigent. The halls (wherein, as in some colleges, ale and beer were sold by the penny in their respective butteries) were very ruinous. Further, also, having few or none in them except their respective Principals and families, the chambers in them were, to prevent ruin and injuries of weather, rented out to laicks. In a word, there was scarce the face of an University left, all things being out of order and disturbed.’ This description is confirmed by college records, still extant, one of which attests the desolation of Merton, so long occupied by the Queen’s retainers.

CHAPTER XII.
THE PARLIAMENTARY VISITATION AND THE COMMONWEALTH.

Measures preparatory to the Visitation

The Parliament, then dominated by Presbyterians, lost no time in preparing the University for the coming ‘reformation,’ by sending down seven Presbyterian divines with power to preach in any Oxford church. These preachers were all University men, and included Reynolds, Cheynell, Henry Wilkinson, and Corbet—four scholars of some repute, and less obnoxious than such army chaplains as Hugh Peters, who had already obtruded themselves into the Oxford pulpits. Wood ridicules the effort to convert the academical mind through Presbyterian discourses; but there is evidence that it was not without its effect, though it provoked opposition from the rising sect of the Independents, already established in Oxford, and good Churchmen were edified by a fierce disputation between Cheynell and one Erbury, an Independent army chaplain, formerly of Brasenose College, the favourite of the fanatical soldiery. At the same time a Parliamentary order was issued inhibiting elections to University or college offices, and the making or renewal of leases ‘until the pleasure of Parliament be made known therein.’ Such interventions were of course warmly resented by academical Royalists, especially as the King was still nominally in possession of his throne, and could only be justified on the assumption that sovereign authority now resided in the Parliament alone. On this assumption, however, they were in accordance with the policy of the four last Tudors, who had treated the University as a national institution, to be moulded into conformity with each successive modification of the National Church. Philip, Earl of Pembroke, who had been deposed in 1643 to make room for the Marquis of Hertford, now resumed his office, but does not appear to have exercised any moderating control over the counsels either of the Parliament or of the University. Meanwhile, the conflict between rival preachers and the suspension of academical independence naturally produced a state of anarchy in academical society, whose leading spirits were silently organising themselves against the coming Visitation.

Appointment of the Visitors and the Standing Committee of Parliament

The delay of the Parliament in commencing this Visitation may well have been due to more urgent claims on their energy. On January 30, 1647, the King had been given up at Newcastle to the Parliamentary commissioners, and other events of the greatest moment followed each other in quick succession. Presbyterianism was ostensibly established by the Westminster Assembly, but generally accepted by a small part only of the kingdom, and undermined by the hostility of the Independents. The so-called ‘Four Ordinances’ passed by Parliament, and designed to weaken the power of the army, had been met by a protest from a great meeting of officers held at Saffron Walden. This brought about an acute conflict between these rival powers, and ‘the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament’ were meditating their unsuccessful attempt to disband the army at the very time when they passed an ordinance, on May 1, 1647, ‘for the Visitation and Reformation of the University of Oxford and the several Colleges and Halls therein.’ The object of the Visitation was expressly defined to be ‘the due correction of offences, abuses, and disorders, especially of late times committed there.’ The Visitors were twenty-four in number, fourteen laymen and ten clergymen, with Sir Nathaniel Brent, Warden of Merton College, as the chairman; but the laymen gradually ceased to attend, and the work mainly fell into the hands of the clerical Visitors. Among the lay Visitors were several lawyers, including Brent himself and Prynne; among the clerical visitors were three fellows of Merton, and the Principal of Magdalen Hall, which, like Merton, was strongly tinged with Presbyterian opinions. The Visitors were instructed to inquire by oath concerning those who neglected to take the ‘Solemn League and Covenant’ or the ‘Negative Oath,’ those who opposed the execution of the orders of Parliament concerning the discipline and the Directory, those who contravened ‘any point of doctrine the ignorance whereof doth exclude from the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper,’ and those who had borne arms against the Parliament. By the same ordinance a Standing Committee of Lords and Commons was appointed to receive reports and hear appeals from the Visitors; but it soon outstepped these functions, and sometimes took upon itself the right of legislating directly for the University.

Early proceedings of the Visitors, and suppression of resistance from the University

The proceedings of the Visitors were opened by a citation issued upon May 15, 1647, summoning the University to appear before them on June 4, but an absurd informality led to an adjournment, which the events that followed the seizure of the King at Holmby House prolonged for three months. During the interval, a delegacy appointed by the University to conduct its defence had drawn up a very forcible statement of ‘Reasons’ for not submitting to the new tests about to be imposed. The moderation and ability of this statement did much to consolidate the opposition to the Visitation, furnished a repertory of materials for the answers afterwards made by individual colleges, and earned the special thanks of the Parliament held at Oxford in 1665. The internal struggles between the Presbyterians and the Independents favoured the University, but the Committee of Lords and Commons intervened and armed the Visitors with fresh powers, including that of compelling the production of documents, imprisoning the contumacious, and pronouncing definitive sentences of expulsion. This arbitrary commission, endorsed by the Chancellor of the University, was conferred upon the Visitors in the name of the king, himself a prisoner in the hands of the Parliament. On September 29, 1647, their operations actually commenced with prayers and preaching ‘for three hours together,’ after which all the Heads of Houses were cited to appear, Dean Fell of Christchurch being specially cited as vice-chancellor, and a number of resident fellows were appointed to act as assistants to the Visitors, ‘and to enquire into the behaviour of all Governours, Professors, Officers, and Members.’ A large majority of the University and college authorities offered a resolute though passive resistance, and when the vice-chancellor, as the avowed leader of the malcontents, was seized and imprisoned, the Visitors found their legal action more paralysed than ever for want of any constitutional authority through which their orders could be carried out. The London Committee, however, again came to their rescue, and on November 11, 1647, six Heads of colleges, with three canons of Christchurch, and the two proctors, were forced to appear before this Committee. Selden, Whitelocke, and others stood their friends, but the adverse majority prevailed, and sentence of deprivation was pronounced upon most of them. Still the Visitors’ orders were disregarded, and ‘not a man stirred from his place or removed.’ At last, on February 18, 1648, Reynolds was appointed vice-chancellor by the Earl of Pembroke, and the proctors superseded in favour of men who could be trusted—Crosse of Lincoln and Button of Merton; while the Chancellor himself was deputed, on March 8, to instal the new functionaries in office, and to bring the University into subjection. On March 30 a further order of deprivation was published, embracing the removal of Sheldon from the wardenship of All Souls’, and Hammond from his canonry of Christchurch. About the same time the Visitors were empowered to use the military force at their disposal, and on April 11 the Chancellor himself arrived to enforce obedience. He found the University in a state of almost open mutiny against the Parliament and the Visitors. In spite of fresh orders and the appearance of a body of troops sent down by Fairfax, the Heads of Houses sentenced to expulsion refused to quit their colleges, Mrs. Fell retained possession of the deanery in her husband’s absence, and when the members of Convocation were solemnly cited to meet the Visitors a mere handful responded. Great pains had been taken to mar the dignity of the Chancellor’s reception, and loyal pamphleteers lavished their bitterest jests on the absence of academical ceremony, the presence of soldiers, and the substitution of an English for a Latin address of welcome. But all serious resistance was now vain. During a stay of three days Pembroke was lodged at Merton, where the Visitors usually held their sittings in the Warden’s house, and had already abstracted the University register from the rooms of French, the registrar, who happened to be a fellow of the college. Reynolds was installed as vice-chancellor; ten Heads of colleges were actually ejected, most of the professors and canons of Christchurch shared the same fate; two vacant headships were immediately filled up, and worthy successors were appointed to most of the offices vacated by expulsion; new Masters of Arts were created, some imported from Cambridge, and the Visitors proceeded to purge each college with a view to its re-organisation.

Visitation of colleges. Submissions and expulsions

The details of these collegiate Visitations are beyond the scope of general University history, but they were all conducted on the same principle. Every member of the college, from the Head to the humblest servant, was asked whether he would submit. No evasions were allowed, and the ‘non-submitters’ were at once turned out. At a later period (November 1648) the London Committee insisted on the Visitors tendering also the Negative Oath, involving an abjuration of all connection with the King, his council, or his officers, and the refusal of this new test led to some further expulsions. After the lapse of a year, the London Committee went one step further, and required subscription to ‘the Engagement,’ pledging the signatories to a government without a King or House of Lords. Reynolds, Pocock, and Mills, who had taken all the former tests, resigned their offices rather than submit to this, but it does not seem to have been strictly or universally applied. No exact list of the cases in which the Visitors exercised their jurisdiction can now be made out, but the evidence preserved in the ‘Visitors’ Register,’ which has come down to us, leads to the conclusion that the numbers of the submissions and expulsions were nearly equal, amounting in each case to 400 or 500, and spread over several years. So obstinate was the resistance of some colleges that it was at last thought necessary to proclaim that any expelled members remaining in Oxford should incur the penalty of death. But the functions of the Visitors were by no means purely inquisitorial and judicial. They also superintended, and often personally directed, the whole internal management of colleges, regulating leases, dictating admissions to scholarships and fellowships, making arrangements for examinations, deciding on the rate of allowances, suggesting if not prescribing the alteration of statutes, and overriding corporate rights of self-government with a despotic air which Laud might have envied.