loved to have his own way and could not bear to be thwarted. Penn, therefore, exhorted the Fellows not to rely on the goodness of their cause, but to submit, or at least to temporise. Such counsel came strangely from one who had himself been expelled from the University for raising a riot about the surplice, who had run the risk of being disinherited rather than take off his hat to the princes of the blood, and who had been more than once sent to prison for haranguing in conventicles. He did not succeed in frightening the Magdalene men. In answer to his alarming hints he was reminded that in the last generation thirty-four out of the forty Fellows had cheerfully left their beloved cloisters and gardens, their hall and their chapel, and had gone forth not knowing where they should find a meal or a bed rather than violate the oath of allegiance. The King now wished them to violate another oath. He should find that the old spirit was not extinct. * See Penn's Letter to Bailey, one of the Fellows of the College, in the Impartial Relation printed at Oxford in 1688. It has lately been asserted that Penn most certainly did not write this letter. Now, the evidence which proves the letter to be his is irresistible. Bailey, to whom the letter was addressed, ascribed it to Penn, and sent an answer to Penn. In a very short time both the letter and the answer appeared in print. Many thousands of copies were circulated. Penn was pointed out to the whole world as the author of the letter; and it is not pretended that he met this public accusation with a public contradiction. Everybody therefore believed, and was perfectly warranted in believing, that he was the author. The letter was repeatedly quoted as his, during his own lifetime, not merely in fugitive pamphlets, such as the History of the Ecclesiastical Commission, published in 1711, but in grave and elaborate books which were meant to descend to posterity. Boyer, in his History of William the Third, printed immediately after that King's death, and reprinted in 1703, pronounced the letter to be Penn's, and added some severe reflections on the writer. Kennet, in the bulky History of England published in 1706, a history which had a large sale and produced a great sensation, adopted the very words of Boyer. When these works appeared, Penn was not only alive, but in the full enjoyment of his faculties. He cannot have been 46 Such is the evidence on one side. I am not aware that any evidence deserving a serious answer has been produced on the other. (1857.) CHAP. VIII. CHAP. VIII. Then Penn tried a gentler tone. He had an interview with Hough and with some of the Fellows, and, after many professions of sympathy and friendship, began to hint at a compromise. The King could not bear to be crossed. The college must give way. Parker must be admitted. But he was in very bad health. All his preferments would soon be vacant. "Doctor Hough," said Penn, "may then be Bishop of Oxford. How should you like that, gentlemen ?"* Penn had passed his life in declaiming against a hireling ministry. He held that he was bound to refuse the payment of tithes, and this even when he had bought land chargeable with tithes and had been allowed the value of the tithes in the purchase money. According to his own principles, he would have committed a great sin if he had interfered for the purpose of obtaining a benefice on the most honourable terms for the most pious divine. Yet to such a degree had his manners been corrupted by evil communications, and his understanding obscured by inordinate zeal for a single object, that he did not scruple to become a broker in simony of a peculiarly discreditable kind, and to use a bishopric as a bait to tempt a divine to perjury. Hough replied with civil contempt that he wanted nothing from the Crown but common justice. "We stand," he said, "on our statutes and our oaths: but even setting aside our statutes and oaths, we feel that we have our religion to defend. The Papists Here again I have been accused of calumniating Penn; and some show of a case has been made out by suppression amounting to falsification. It is as serted that Penn did not "begin to hint at a compromise;" and in proof of this assertion, a few words, quoted from the letter in which Hough gives an account of the interview, are printed in italics. These words are, "I thank God, he did not offer any proposal by way of accommodation." These words, taken by themselves, undoubtedly seem to prove that Penn did not begin to hint at a compromise. But their effect is very different indeed when they are read in connection with words which immediately follow, without the intervention of a full stop, but which have been carefully suppressed. The whole sentence runs thus: "I thank God, he did not offer any proposal by way of accommodation; only once, upon the mention of the Bishop of Oxford's indisposition, he said, smiling, 'If the Bishop of Oxford die, Dr. Hough may be made Bishop. What think you of that, gentlemen?'" Can anything be clearer than that the latter part of the sentence limits the general assertion contained in the former part? Everybody knows that only is perpetually used as synonymous with except that. Instances will readily occur to all who are well acquainted with the English Bible, a book from the authority of which there is no appeal when the question is about the force of an English word. We read in the Book of Genesis, to go no further, that every living thing was destroyed; and Noah only remained, and they that were with him in the ark; and that Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; only the land of the priests bought he not. The defenders of Penn reason exactly like a commentator who should construe these passages to mean that Noah was drowned in the flood, and that Joseph bought the land of the priests for Pharaoh. (1857). have robbed us of University College. They have robbed us of Christ Church. The fight is now for Magdalene. They will soon have all the rest." Penn was foolish enough to answer that he really believed that the Papists would now be content. "University," he said, "is a pleasant college. Christ Church is a noble place. Magdalene is a fine building. The situation is convenient. The walks by the river are delightful. If the Roman Catholics are reasonable they will be satisfied with these." This absurd avowal would alone have made it impossible for Hough and his brethren to yield.* The negotiation was broken off; and the King hastened to make the disobedient know, as he had threatened, what it was to incur his displeasure. CHAP. VIII. Eccle siastical sioners A special commission was directed to Cartwright, Bishop Special of Chester, to Wright, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and to Sir Thomas Jenner, a Baron of the Exchequer, appointing Commisthem to exercise visitatorial jurisdiction over the college. On sent to the twentieth of October they arrived at Oxford, escorted by Oxford. three troops of cavalry with drawn swords. On the following morning the Commissioners took their seats in the hall of Magdalene. Cartwright pronounced a loyal oration, which, a few years before, would have called forth the acclamations of an Oxonian audience, but which was now heard with sullen indignation. A long dispute followed. The president defended his rights with skill, temper, and resolution. He professed great respect for the royal authority: but he steadily maintained that he had by the laws of England a freehold interest in the house and revenues annexed to the Presidency. Of that interest he could not be deprived by an arbitrary mandate of the Sovereign. "Will you submit," said the Bishop, "to our visitation ?" "I submit to it," said Hough with great dexterity, "so far as it is consistent with the laws, and no further." "Will you deliver up the key of your lodg * I will give one other specimen of the arts which are thought legitimate where the fame of Penn is concerned. To vindicate the language which he held on this occasion, if we suppose him to have meant what he said, is plainly impossible. We are therefore told that he was in a merry mood; that his benevolent heart was so much exhilarated by the sight of several pious and learned men who were about to be reduced to beggary for observing their oaths and adhering to their religion, that he could not help joking; and that it would be most unjust to treat his charming face- 112 VIII. CHAP. ings?" said Cartwright. Hough remained silent. The ques- Protest of Parker. And now Hough himself craved permission to address a few words to the Commissioners. They consented with much civility, perhaps expecting from the calmness and suavity of his manner that he would make some concession. "My Lords," said he, "you have this day deprived me of my freehold: I hereby protest against all your proceedings as illegal, unjust, and null; and I appeal from you to our Sovereign Lord the King in his courts of justice." A loud murmur of applause arose from the gownsmen who filled the hall. The Commissioners were furious. Search was made for the offenders, but in vain. Then the rage of the whole board was turned "Do not think to huff us, sir," cried Jenner, against Hough. "I will uphold His punning on the President's name. Majesty's authority," said Wright, "while I have breath in my body. All this comes of your popular protest. You have broken the peace. You shall answer it in the King's Bench. I bind you over in one thousand pounds to appear there next term. I will see whether the civil power cannot manage you. If that is not enough, you shall have the military too." In truth Oxford was in a state which made the Commissioners not a little uneasy. The soldiers were ordered to have their carbines loaded. It was said that an express was sent to London for the purpose of hastening the arrival of more troops. No disturbance however took place. The Bishop of Oxford was quietly installed by proxy: but only two members of Many signs Magdalene College attended the ceremony. showed that the spirit of resistance had spread to the common people. The porter of the college threw down his keys. The butler refused to scratch Hough's name out of the buttery No blacksmith could book, and was instantly dismissed. be found in the whole city who would force the lock of the President's lodgings. It was necessary for the Commissioners to employ their own servants, who broke open the door with iron bars. The sermons which on the following Sunday were preached in the University Church were full of reflections such as stung Cartwright to the quick, though such as he could not discreetly resent. And here, if James had not been infatuated, the matter might have stopped. The Fellows in general were not inclined to carry their resistance further. They were of opinion that, by refusing to assist in the admission of the intruder, they had sufficiently proved their respect for their statutes and oaths, and that, since he was now in actual possession, they might justifiably submit to him as their head, till he should be removed by sentence of a competent court. Only one Fellow, Doctor Fairfax, refused to yield even to this extent. The Commissioners would gladly have compromised the dispute on these terms; and during a few hours there was a truce which many thought likely to end in an amicable arrangement but soon all was again in confusion. The Fellows found that the popular voice loudly accused them of pusillanimity. The townsmen already talked ironically of a Magdalene conscience, and exclaimed that the brave Hough and the honest Fairfax had been betrayed and abandoned. Still more annoying were the sneers of Obadiah Walker and his brother renegades. This then, said those apostates, was the end of all the big words in which the society had declared itself resolved to stand by its lawful President and by its Protestant faith. While the Fellows, bitterly annoyed by the public censure, were regretting the modified submission which they had consented to make, they learned that this submission was by no means satisfactory to the King. It was not enough, he said, that they offered to obey the Bishop of Oxford as President in fact. They must distinctly admit the Commission and all that had been done under it to be legal: they must acknowledge that they had acted undutifully they must declare themselves penitent: they must promise to behave better in future, must implore His Majesty's pardon, and must lay themselves at his feet. Two Fellows, of whom the King had no complaint to make, Charnock and Smith, were excused from the obligation of making these degrading apologies. Even James never committed a grosser error. The Fellows, already angry with themselves for having conceded so much, and galled by the censure of the world, eagerly caught at the opportunity which was now offered them of regaining the public esteem. With one voice they declared that they would never ask pardon for being in the right, or admit that the CHAP. VIII. |