The proceedings at Oxford are still more remarkable. A vacancy occurred in the highest office in Magdalen College. Notwithstanding the vested power of the Fellows to choose a President, Royal letters of nomination had been sometimes sent; and, as in deference to Royalty, such letters of nomination had been accepted and obeyed, precedents could be pleaded in this instance for the interference of the King. He recommended Anthony Farmer, a man who laboured under the threefold disqualification, of not being a moral character, of not being a Protestant Churchman, and of neither being, nor ever having been, a Fellow either of Magdalen or New College. The last circumstance, on statutory grounds alone, sufficed to exclude this nominee. The Fellows, of course, objected to him, and requested His Majesty to recommend another person. The election had been fixed for the 13th of April. The day arrived, without a further nomination from the Crown. At an adjourned meeting on the 15th, no notice having been taken of their request, the Fellows proceeded to make their election, and their choice fell on Dr. John Hough, a person of high reputation, whose firmness throughout the following troubles, have won for him a lasting renown. In June the Fellows were summoned to appear before the Commission, at Whitehall, to answer for what they had done. Jeffreys, the King’s evil star—whose conduct, both on the Bench and at the Council Board, must be pronounced one of the greatest curses, and whose appointment to the custody of the Great Seal must be held as one of the greatest crimes of this inglorious reign—badgered the deputation sent from Oxford to represent the College, as he had before badgered the deputation sent from Cambridge. “Who is this man?” he asked, as Dr. Fairfax raised a question touching the validity of the Commission. “Pray, what commission have you to be so impudent in Court? This man ought to be kept in a dark room. Why do you suffer him without a guardian? Why did not you bring him to me to beg him? Pray, let the officers seize him.” Hough’s election was declared void, and Fairfax was suspended from his Fellowship;[194] but the nomination of such a man as Farmer was too outrageous to be pursued any further, even by the impudent despotism which had already defied law and order to an intolerable extent.
PROMOTION OF ROMANISTS.
In August, James nominated to the Presidency of Magdalen, Parker, Bishop of Oxford, with whose character the reader is already acquainted. His unpopularity with Protestants had now been increased by the publication not only of his reasons for abrogating the test introduced to exclude Papists, but by his excusing the doctrines of Transubstantiation, and his vindicating the Romanists from the charge of idolatry. To nominate Parker offended the University for two reasons. No vacancy, in fact, existed, since Hough could claim office by virtue of his College election; besides, the Bishop had never been a Fellow of either of the Colleges specified in the Statutes. In September the King himself visited Oxford, determined to subdue the refractory body. The interview has been often described; the following account, substantially the same as that given in the State Trials[195] is preserved in MS. in the Record Office.
“The Lord Sunderland sent orders to the Fellows of Magdalen College to attend the King on Sunday last, at eleven o’clock, or at three in the afternoon.
“They waited accordingly. Dr. Pudsey, Speaker.
“K.—‘What’s your name? Are you Dr. Pudsey?’
“Dr. P.—‘Yes, may it please your Majesty.’
“K.—‘Did you receive my letter?’
“Dr. P.—‘Yes, Sir, we did.’
“K.—‘Then you have not dealt with me like gentlemen: you have done very uncivilly by me, and undutifully.’