It is not clear whether this worldly but sound advice was given to Wilkins before or after he became a country clergyman, for the words "continuing in the University" might mean either residence there, or occasional visits to it. Coursing of a hare was, perhaps is, an amusement equally of University men and of the country clergy: the last alone can tell us whether they still "goe a courseing accidentally"—(the word is worth noting)—and whether conversations of this profitable kind occur in the intervals of sport. But the date of the incident is of less importance than its result; it was the turning-point of Wilkins' life. When he became chaplain to Lord Say and Seale he was introduced into a sphere of politics and action.
William Fiennes, the first Viscount, was a man of light and leading in the Parliamentary party; "the oracle," as Clarendon styles him, "of those who were called Puritans in the worst sense, and steered all their counsels and designs." He deserved his nickname, Old Subtlely, for he had a clear insight into the real issues from the very beginning of the great quarrel: he headed in Oxfordshire the resistance to the levying of Ship-money, and was the champion of the Independents, the most determined of the king's opponents. His sons, John and Nathaniel Fiennes, were no less resolute and effective Puritans than the head of their house; more so indeed, for they were believed, and soon known to be, "for root and branch."
At Broughton, Wilkins, now chaplain and resident there, met the most prominent men of the party which was against the Government. He must have heard "great argument about it and about"; whether "evermore he came out by the same door wherein he went" we cannot tell, for he possessed to an extraordinary degree the faculty of seeing the two sides of a question: as he stayed at Broughton "with very good likeing" for five or six years, it may be presumed that the discreet and morigerous man concealed the difficulty which he felt in accepting some of the views maintained at Broughton. Some light is thrown on his real opinions by words found in the sermon preached at his funeral by Lloyd, his friend and pupil. "When some thought these dissents ground enough for war, he declared himself against it, and confirmed others in their allegiance: he profest to the last a great hatred of that horrible rebellion." He doubtless resembled another Latitudinarian—Cudworth—whom Burnet describes as "a man of great competence and prudence upon which his enemies did very falsely accuse him of craft and dissimulation."
When the Civil War broke out Wilkins removed to London and became Chaplain to Lord Berkeley, and later to Charles Lewis, Prince Elector Palatine, nephew of Charles I., and elder brother of Prince Rupert. The Elector was then an émigré in England, hoping to be restored to his dominions by the aid of his uncle, who was then struggling to hold his own inheritance. During his seven years' residence in London, Wilkins became the friend, perhaps the leader, of the natural philosophers, who later formed themselves into the Royal Society. Thus, before he had reached "the middle of the way of life," he had seen much of the world. Like Ulysses, whom in many ways he resembled, "he saw the cities of many men and knew their mind."
Dr Walter Pope, his half-brother, who wrote a life of Bishop Ward, and, curiously enough, a life also of Claude Duval, the famous highwayman, which had a wider circulation, says of Wilkins that he was "a learned man and a lover of such; of comely aspect and gentlemanlike behaviour. He had been bred in the court, and was also a piece of a traveller." The last sentence refers mainly to Wilkins' life after the Restoration; but he had travelled before then, and his acquaintance with the Fiennes', with the Elector, and with London society, had taught him "gentlemanlike behaviour" before he became a Head of a House,—a lesson which, apparently, some other Heads in his time had not learnt; for Pope goes on to say, "He had nothing of bigotry, unmannerliness or censoriousness, which then were in the zenith amongst some of the Heads and Fellows of Colleges in Oxford." It is to be hoped that such criticisms would not now be made on the manners of the senior members of the University, and that in this respect Oxford has been reformed, to the approval of all concerned.
While Wilkins was experimenting and philosophising in London, events had been marching rapidly in England and in Oxford. In Wood's 'Life and Times' is written the history of the city of Oxford, of the University and of himself, from the day of his birth till his death in 1681. The three histories are mingled in a quaint and incoherent fashion. Wood is a chronicler like Aubrey, his friend, with whom he quarrelled, as antiquarians and historians do. Both were industrious, uncritical, and—Wood especially—sometimes venomous; both were vivid and picturesque, keen observers, and had a wonderful power of saying much in few words.
Antony Wood, the son of Thomas Wood, Bachelor of Arts and of Civil Law, was born in 1632 at Oxford, where his father lived, in the Collegiate parish of St John Baptist de Merton. He was educated at New College School, in Oxford, and later at Thame Grammar School; was admitted into Merton College at the age of fifteen as a "filius generosi," and became Bible Clerk in 1650. When ten years old he saw the king, with his army of foot, his two sons, Charles and James, his nephews, Rupert and Maurice, enter Oxford after the battle of Edgehill. The incident was impressed on his memory by the expulsion of his father from the house in Merton Street, and the removal of the boys of New College School to the choristers' chamber at the east end of the College hall, "a dark nasty room, very unfit for such a purpose, which made the scholars often complaine, but in vaine." From this time onward Wood, a clever and observant boy, kept both his ears and eyes open, and accumulated from all quarters materials for his narrative which covers fifty years, the most interesting and important half century in the history of Oxford.
"Your orthodox historian puts
In foremost rank the soldier thus,
The redcoat bully in his boots