But all these severities produced an effect directly the opposite of
that which he had anticipated. The spirit of Englishmen, that sturdy
spirit which no King of the House of Stuart could ever be taught by
experience to understand, swelled up high and strong against injustice.
Oxford, the quiet scat of learning and loyalty, was in a state
resembling that of the City of London on the morning after the attempt
of Charles the First to seize the five members. The Vicechancellor had
been asked to dine with the Commissioners on the day of the expulsion.
He refused. "My taste," he said, "differs from that of Colonel Kirke. I
cannot eat my meals with appetite under a gallows." The scholars refused
to pull off their caps to the new rulers of Magdalene College. Smith was
nicknamed Doctor Roguery, and was publicly insulted in a coffeehouse.
When Charnock summoned the Demies to perform their academical exercises
before him, they answered that they were deprived of their lawful
governors and would submit to no usurped authority. They assembled apart
both for study and for divine service. Attempts were made to corrupt
them by offers of the lucrative fellowships which had just been declared
vacant: but one undergraduate after another manfully answered that his
conscience would not suffer him to profit by injustice. One lad who was
induced to take a fellowship was turned out of the hall by the rest.
Youths were invited from other colleges, but with small success. The
richest foundation in the kingdom seemed to have lost all attractions
for needy students. Meanwhile, in London and all over the country, money
was collected for the support of the ejected Fellows. The Princess of
Orange, to the great joy of all Protestants, subscribed two hundred
pounds. Still, however, the King held on his course. The expulsion of
the Fellows was soon followed by the expulsion of a crowd of Demies.
All this time the new President was fast sinking under bodily and mental
disease. He had made a last feeble effort to serve the government by
publishing, at the very time when the college was in a state of open
rebellion against his authority, a defence of the Declaration of
Indulgence, or rather a defence of the doctrine of transubstantiation.
This piece called forth many answers, and particularly one from Burnet,
written with extraordinary vigour and acrimony. A few weeks after
the expulsion of the Demies, Parker died in the house of which he
had violently t