Lord Say had at first occupied Oxford with a Parliamentary force for a few days, and carried away much plate from Christ Church, particularly all Dr. Samuel Fell’s (the Dean’s). Iconoclasm began with his zealous followers, not quite to his satisfaction, as it included a precious statue of the King at New College. This was September 19th. On October 29th, just after Edgehill, the King occupied Oxford, keeping his Court in Christ Church with Prince Charles as long as he remained.
Another ominous vespers in Christ Church Cathedral, besides Anthony Dalaber’s, is on record. On Friday, February 3rd, 1643-4, his Majesty appointed a thanksgiving to be made at Evening Prayer at Christ Church for the taking of Cirencester by Prince Rupert the day before. The doctors were in their red robes; and polished breast-plates and laced buff-coats must have had a brilliant effect under the massive white arches. “But there was no new Form of Thanksgiving said, save only that Form for the victory of Edgehill, and a very solemn anthem, with this several times repeated therein—‘Thou shalt set a Crown of pure gold upon his Head, and upon his Head shall his Crown flourish.’”
The scarlet gowns appeared again to welcome the Queen at Tom Gate on July 13th, 1644. There was a fair show of state in the way of trumpets, heralds, and the like; and “Garter, coming last, was accompanied by the Mayor of Oxon in his scarlet and mace on his shoulder.” But Naseby field ended all pageant and hope alike in July 1645, just after Fairfax’s siege of fifteen days on the Headington Hill side without result. The next two years must have been a miserable time.
In April 1648, at the “visitation” by the Parliamentary Visitors, the Dean of Christ Church (Dr. Samuel Fell) being in custody in London, Mrs. Fell and her children, with certain ladies, elected to be carried out of the Deanery rather than walk out, and were deposited in the quadrangle in feminine protest against extrusion. Her husband’s name was scored out of the Buttery-Book, with those of seven Canons, the eighth (Dr. Robert Sanderson) being respited during absence; and Dr. Edward Reynolds was substituted, with a new set of Canons. A clean sweep was at the same time made of all “malignant” members, hardly any taking the Parliamentary Oath or the Solemn League and Covenant. In January 1647-8 the Latin version of the Common Prayer, and the Common Prayer itself, ceased in Christ Church. It was maintained by three Christ Church men—John Fell, Richard Allestree, and John Dolben—till the Restoration, in a house in Merton Street, and seems to have escaped interference.
A less dire debate than the Parliamentary War was the celebrated controversy with Bentley on The Epistles of Phalaris in 1695. It deserves notice in a chapter on Christ Church.
The Hon. Charles Boyle, afterwards second Earl of Orrery, is wickedly described by Bentley as “the young gentleman of great hopes, whose name is set to the new edition” of Phalaris; and, as Boyle was but nineteen years of age at the time of publication, it may be considered certain that he received very material assistance from Dr. Atterbury, Dr. Friend, and from the admired Dean Aldrich. Perhaps all four had a very different idea of accurate criticism from that style of it which Bentley initiated in England, and which now seems somewhat overpowered by the burden of its research. The celebrated answer to Bentley’s Dissertation, published under Boyle’s name in 1689, was really a joint production of the leading Christ Church men, and Atterbury claimed a principal share. Between them they made a good fight for it; but it is difficult for any set of men, however learned, ingenious, and petulantly witty, to maintain a long controversy at the stress of being wholly wrong. Unquestionably it was premature in Aldrich to set young noblemen in their teens to publish editions of writers believed to have been contemporary with Pythagoras or thereabouts. Nevertheless such critical work as they could do would probably teach them something more than a dilettante knowledge of language: and this the Dean evidently understood to be a chief want of his time. Boyle was no match for Bentley; but he came to be an accomplished and gallant gentleman who never through a stirring life forsook the love of learning, or of his old abode of learning—perhaps rather, of literature. He could see the vast shapes of the natural sciences advancing with new wonders; and was the benefactor of George Graham, who named his great planetary instrument after his title. His gifts to the Christ Church Library should be commemorated; and he is one instance out of a great number of men who have made Christ Church to themselves a home of friends, and so from their Alma Mater forward have faced the world together.
Aldrich could not work miracles of discipline or reform the manners of the Restoration. He has been blamed for allowing too much license to pupils of high degree, and because he failed to correct the habits of intemperance in which many of them had been educated. It may have been so; and he must suffer with all tutors. The very name connotes a false position, and a most difficult duty; to find means to persuade without any power to control, and to reduce untamed lads to order who have never seen it before. Military service was the only alternative method in that day, where they regulated each other’s folly by the duello, or at all events might be referred to the provost-marshal. But Aldrich had to do what he could by the way of letters and culture; to try to awaken the higher instincts, the better ambitions, and natural virtues; since every religious restraint was scouted as Puritanism and every devout aspiration as Popery. He had to contend with a most dissipated and drunken age, whose coarse and direct temptations had already a hold on his charge; nor is it easy to see how he could cure what St. John, Pulteney, Carteret, and the rest had learned in evil homes and schools. The morale of the aristocracy was still that of a beaten army; nor was the public’s much better.
Aldrich’s many accomplishments have left varied traces behind them. “The merry Christ Church Bells,” the celebrated catch, is a living remembrance of him, happier than most men leave; Peckwater Quadrangle would be stately and handsome enough, but for the leprous Headington stone; he must have had the Themistoclean power of doing just what was wanted at the time. But his achievement was after all the Oxford Logic. Till twenty years ago, most tutors found that all its shortcomings led straight to explanations. It was like the noble and kindly conservatism of Mansel, to spend his great learning on the notes and prolegomena which have developed the good old manual into a valuable treatise on Logic and Psychology.
The name of Cyril Jackson marks a period of twenty-six years from 1783-1809, which may be compared to Aldrich’s best days with better discipline. His life marks a restoration of order and efficiency in Christ Church which has never been lost, and he chose to have no other monument. He was wedded to his House, and it was enough for one lifetime to make her love and obey him as he did. His statue and picture give the idea of clearness, courage, and benevolence. The straightforward face is unconsciously commanding, and seems made to judge of a man. There is a dignity of presence; but Christ Church never was yet governed by deportment only, and there must have been much more than that about the great Dean who would be nothing more than Dean. Spartam nactus est, hanc exornabat: and Jackson’s discipline, if not Spartan, was perfectly real. He did not invent new rules; but worked the old ones with a just and determined spirit, using “all the advantages which a capacious mind, an enlarged knowledge of the world, a spirit of command or guidance, and an unconquerable perseverance, could confer.” I have heard old country gentlemen speak of Jackson, still seeming to delight in him as a beloved person whom it was natural to obey, and as a leader of men sure to lead right.