arly. "The Presbyterians," he says,
"with their disciples seemed to be very severe in their course of life,
manners or conversation, and habits or apparell; of a Scoth (_i.e._,
Scotch) habit, but especially those that were preachers. The other (the
Independents) were more free, gay, and, with a reserve, frollicsome, of
a gay habit, whether preachers or not." John Owen, Dean of Christ
Church--to be distinguished from Thankful Owen, President of St
John's--seems to have been of a specially gay habit; when
Vice-Chancellor "he had alwaies his hair powdred, cambric bands with
large costly band strings, velvet jacket, his breeches set round at knee
with ribbons pointed, Spanish leather boots with cambric tops, &c.,--all
this was in opposition to prelattical cutt." The habit of a
Vice-Chancellor, even in full dress, is nowadays far less gay, and of
the Presbyterian rather than the Independent fashion. Whatever may have
been their difference in dress, both parties were "void of public and
generous spirits: the Presbyterians for the most part preached nothing
but damnation, the other not, but rather for libertie; yet both joyne
together to pluck downe and silence the prelattical preachers, or at
least to expose their way to scorne." Wood carries his comparisons
further, and tells, perhaps invents, many things about their common
hatred of Maypoles, players, cassocks, surplices, and the use of the
Lord's Prayer in public religious service. He more than hints at darker
sins,--drunkenness, and immorality cloaked by hypocrisy, the favourite
theme of the Restoration dramatists. His account of the Puritan
domination in Oxford is, despite his bitter prejudices, historically
important, and must have been used by Scott when he wrote 'Woodstock.'

It seems at first sight strange that the Independents should have been
"gay," and, even with a reserve, frolicsome, for they were originally
the soldiers of Cromwell's "New Model," "honest and religious men." But
Wood describes them as he knew them many years after Naseby and Marston
Moor, when their character had changed with changing circumstances.
Triumphant success seldom improves the morale of any party. Oxford
proved a Capua to the Independents who lived in it after the strain of
war was over: the very principle of Independency, liberty of opinion and
action given to every Christian congregation, came to be applied to the
life of the individual: freedom to reject any doctrine or practice whi