Jacobite demonstrations. A troop of horse sent to Oxford

On May 28, 1715, being the first anniversary of George I.’s birthday since his accession, the Whig club had assembled to commemorate the day at the King’s Head tavern. They were attacked by a Tory mob, and a fray ensued, which broke out afresh on the following day, being the Restoration-day. The Heads of Houses, and even the grand jury for the county, sheltered the aggressors, and reserved all their rebukes for the obnoxious club. The government naturally took a different view of the case, and called for explanations. Feeling that matters, had gone far enough, the University authorities took means to suppress Jacobite demonstrations on June 10, the Pretender’s birthday; but they were at no pains to conceal their real inclinations. On the impeachment and resignation of Ormond, the University hastened to elect his brother, the Earl of Arran, as his successor in the chancellorship, and conferred the degree of D.C.L. on Sir Constantine Phipps, a Tory of Tories, with special marks of honour, while its representatives in Parliament were prominent leaders of the same party. At last the patience of the government was exhausted. On the birthday of the Prince of Wales there were no signs of rejoicing, and complaint of this omission was made to the mayor by an officer in command of a recruiting party then in Oxford. Another disturbance ensued, of which conflicting accounts were sent to London, and the whole affair came before the House of Lords in the course of a debate on the Mutiny Bill. The University was ably represented, and a plausible defence was offered on its behalf, but the verdict of the House was unfavourable. In the meantime, an address to the Crown voted by the University on the outbreak of the rebellion in Scotland had met with the reception which its insincerity deserved, and the government determined to employ decisive measures. A body of dragoons under Major-General Pepper entered Oxford, martial law was at once proclaimed, and the students were ordered to remain within their colleges on pain of being marched off to military execution. After a few seizures had been made, the dragoons were replaced by Colonel Handyside’s regiment of foot, which continued to be quartered in Oxford for the express purpose of overawing the University—no unnecessary measure when a rebellion of unknown extent had been planned not only in Scotland and the north of England but in the western counties. It was on this occasion that an Oxford wit contrasted the King’s severe treatment of Oxford with his munificent present of a library to Cambridge in lines which, together with the Cambridge repartee, have become historical.

The Constitution Club. Government scheme for reforming the University

On May 29 of the following year, while Colonel Handyside’s regiment was still in Oxford, the Constitution Club was again the scene of a political commotion, though of a less serious nature. Meadowcourt, the steward of the club, having forced the junior proctor to drink the King’s health, was suspended from his degree for the space of two years; and it was further ordered that he should not be allowed to supplicate for his grace ‘until he confesses his manifold crimes and asks pardon upon his knees.’ In spite of the King’s Act of Grace, to which he skilfully appealed, he was twice refused his M.A. degree. He lived, however, to bring the disaffection of the University under the notice of the government in 1719, when the vice-chancellor refused to notice a disloyal sermon preached by Warton, though he was disappointed to receive no more than a letter of thanks for his zeal. Other Whigs endured similar persecutions; the Whig satirist, Amherst, was driven out of St. John’s College, and social penalties were freely inflicted on members of Merton, Exeter, Christchurch, and Wadham, then suspected of being anti-Jacobite societies. The Constitution Club died out before the end of George I.’s reign, and many academical Whigs became so disheartened as to conceal their principles or even to affect Toryism for the sake of preferment. Indeed, the avowed hostility of Oxford and the doubtful fidelity of Cambridge to the reigning dynasty were regarded with so much anxiety at Court that it was seriously contemplated to introduce a Bill to suspend the constitution of both Universities. The draught of this Bill empowered the ‘King to nominate and appoint all and every the Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, Proctors, and other officers of the said Universities, and all Heads of Houses, Fellows, Students, Chaplains, Scholars, and Exhibitioners, and all members of and in all and every the College and Colleges, Hall and Halls in the said Universities or either of them, upon all and every vacancy and vacancies,’ &c. This provisional administration was to last for seven years, and the project of it was approved by fifteen bishops. Lord Macclesfield, the Lord Chancellor, had drawn up a separate plan of reform with the same object of controlling the University through government patronage. The election of Heads was to be vested in the great officers of State, with the concurrence of the Visitor and the bishop. The disposition of all other college emoluments was to be placed in the hands of a commission. The fellowships were to be limited to a term of twenty years, lest they should conduce to idleness and self-indulgence. Professorships and minor fellowships charged with educational duties were to be founded. The benefices of the Crown and the nobility were to be conferred only on ‘well-affected persons.’ Colleges in which ‘honest and loyal men’ predominate were to be specially favoured in the distribution of Crown patronage, ‘till the true interest in them was become superior to all opposition.’ Happily wiser counsels prevailed, and there is reason to believe that Archbishop Wake was largely instrumental in averting the danger. He knew that Oxford Tories could only be influenced through Tory leaders, and discreetly used such mediation to keep the factious spirit of the University within tolerable bounds, until the design against its independence was abandoned. But George I. never deigned to visit Oxford, being the first sovereign who had failed to do so since the reign of Mary.

Gradual decline of Jacobitism in Oxford during the reign of George II.

During the earlier years of Walpole’s administration the University seems to have been comparatively free from political turmoil. Many of the gownsmen, however, took part with the citizens in the disorderly revels, lasting for three nights, which celebrated the withdrawal of the Excise Bill, in 1733, when the healths of Ormond, Bolingbroke, and James III. were publicly drunk round the bonfires. On the other hand, in the following year the University accorded an enthusiastic reception to the Prince of Orange, who came to marry the Princess Anne. The city shared in these festivities, conferring its freedom upon the prince at the north gate on his return from Blenheim, while bell-ringing, illuminations, and bonfires were kept up for three nights together. Still covert Jacobitism found expression in the University pulpit, and John Wesley, desiring to guard himself against the imputation of it when he preached before the University in 1734, got the vice-chancellor to read and approve his sermon beforehand. Even after the suppression of the rebellion in 1745 it was not extinct, and in 1748 the government resorted to somewhat excessive severity against three students who had toasted the Pretender, although the vice-chancellor and proctors, apprehensive of the result, had issued a peremptory order declaring their resolution to put down seditious practices. Further proceedings were instituted against the vice-chancellor and the University itself, but the motion was negatived by the Court. The government, however, was not appeased. When the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was proclaimed at Oxford, the vice-chancellor, Heads of Houses, professors, and proctors took care to participate in public rejoicings with the mayor and corporation, but a congratulatory address from the University on this event was rejected with disdain. The loyalty of the University was still justly distrusted. In 1754 Dr. King, a notorious Jacobite, and Principal of St. Mary Hall, elicited rounds of applause from the whole audience in the theatre, filled with peers, members of Parliament, and country gentlemen, by thrice pausing upon the word Redeat, purposely introduced into his speech to gratify ‘the Old Interest.’ No wonder that in the same year Pitt denounced Oxford Jacobitism in the House of Commons; notwithstanding which, in the following year (1755), a Tory and Jacobite mob, guarding the approaches to the polling-booths at the county election for days together, prevented the Whigs from giving their votes. Again, in 1759, Lord Westmoreland, who had been a zealous Hanoverian, but had afterwards turned Jacobite out of resentment against Sir Robert Walpole, was elected by the University as its Chancellor. Yet the days of Oxford Jacobitism were already numbered; it was well nigh dead as a creed, and it soon ceased to be a fashion. The marvellous victories of the same year kindled genuine enthusiasm among the gownsmen, and a most fulsome address was presented to George II. by the Oxford Convocation, begging ‘leave to approach your sacred person with hearts full of duty and affection,’ and applauding the measures taken ‘for the support of the Protestant religion and the liberties of Europe.’

Revival of loyalty after the accession of George III. His visits to Oxford

With the accession of George III. Jacobitism disappeared or faded into Toryism of the modern type. In its congratulatory address the University took special credit to itself for having been ‘ever faithful to monarchy on the most trying occasions.’ The King’s reply was guarded, recommending ‘sound principles of religious and civil duties early instilled into the minds of youth.’ His advice seems to have been adopted; at all events, we hear no more of academical Jacobitism, loyalty to George III. became fashionable, Dr. King himself appeared at Court, and the University was probably sincere when, in 1763, it proposed inviolable ‘attachment to your Majesty’s person and government.’ It may perhaps have been in recognition of this salutary change in its attitude that in 1768 the Speaker of the House of Commons paid it an elaborate compliment, in censuring the authorities of Oxford City for a gross act of political corruption, specially recommending for imitation the conduct of their learned neighbour. In the following year, the University presented another address to the Crown deprecating political agitation ‘under pretence of defending civil and religious liberties,’ and assuring his Majesty of its determination to imbue its students with sound principles. By a happy inconsistency, academical loyalists now managed to reconcile their old worship of the king de jure with a hearty acceptance of the Hanoverian succession. Probably Dr. Nowell, Principal of St. Mary Hall, fairly represented these sentiments when he reasserted the doctrines of divine right and passive obedience in a sermon preached before the House of Commons in 1772, for which he was first thanked and then censured. It deserves notice, however, that a more liberal spirit already made itself felt in regard to religious toleration. Though Sir Roger Newdigate, on behalf of the University, stoutly opposed the relief of clergymen from subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles, a strong minority in the Oxford Convocation supported, in February 1773, a proposal for requiring from candidates for matriculation only a declaration of conformity to the worship and liturgy of the Established Church. An attempt was afterwards made to qualify the effect of subscription by appending to the statute requiring it an explanatory note whereby it was virtually reduced to a declaration of conformity, but the legal validity of such an enactment was challenged, and the proposal was quietly dropped. In March 1779, a petition was presented by the University, through its chancellor, Lord North, against the Dissenters’ Toleration Bill, then before Parliament. This petition embodied a protest against the principle of allowing dissenting ministers and schoolmasters to preach and teach without making any profession of belief in Christianity or revelation, but the petitioners were careful to describe themselves as friends of toleration, so far as it could be reconciled with the interests of Christianity and the Established Church. These were the sentiments of the King himself, and a crowning proof of its fidelity to George III. was given by the University in 1783, when it publicly thanked the King for dismissing the Coalition Ministry (including its own Chancellor), and giving his confidence to Pitt—a service which the king rewarded by visiting Oxford twice from Nuneham Park, in 1785 and 1786. On each occasion he received an enthusiastic welcome, but as it was in the middle of the Long Vacation, he stayed but a few hours, and the traditional solemnities of royal visits were not repeated. A like enthusiasm was shown by the University on his recovery from his first illness in 1788.

CHAPTER XV.
UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

Decay of University education in the eighteenth century