found Oxford "empty as to scholars, but pretty well replenished with
Parliamentarian soldiers." In his opinion the young men of the city and
the University had reaped less benefit from the Royalist occupation than
their seniors; the latter had gained "great store of wealth from the
court and royalists that had for several years continued among them";
the former he "found many of them to have been debauched by bearing
arms, and doing the duties belonging to soldiers, as watching, warding,
and sitting in tipling houses for whole nights together." Nor were the
spiritual teachers sent by Parliament to restore good manners and
religion, in Wood's opinion, fitted for their mission: they were six
Presbyterian Ministers, "two of them fooles, two knaves, two madmen."

With the history of Oxford for the next eighteen months, important and
interesting though it is, we are not concerned. The scholars returned
slowly to the half-empty colleges, where admissions had dwindled almost
to vanishing point. At Wadham, for instance, the admissions in 1643 were
only seven; in 1644, three; in 1645, none; in 1646, seven; in 1647, when
the worst of the fighting was over, they rose to nineteen. The
Independents and the Presbyterians were now in possession of Oxford. In
spite of both oppressors the undergraduates, of Wood's College at least,
enjoyed themselves, as undergraduates do in the darkest times, and
played "high jinks" on Candlemas Day, compelling the freshmen "to
speake some pretty apothegme or make a jest or bull," or take strange
oaths "over an old shoe," and suffer indignities if they were shy or
stupid. "Naturam expellas furca tamen usque recurrit."

CHAPTER III.

WILKINS' WARDENSHIP.

In 1647 a Commission, as it would now be called, was appointed by
Parliament to conduct the visitation of the University. 'Lord have mercy
upon us; or, the Visitation at Oxford,' is the title of one of the
numerous pamphlets relating to this Oxford revolution; Tragi-comoedia
Oxonienses' is the title of another, and both suggest curious
reflections to Oxonians at the present time. The visitors did their
business effectually. They set to work in 1648, and purged the
University by ejecting from the colleges all who did not by a certain
day give in their assurance that they would submit to the visitors and
their visitation appointed by Parliament. No party in our country can
claim the monopoly of loyalty to conviction attested by self-sacrifice.