e, Bishop of Chichester; and Thomas
White, Bishop of Peterborough.

The event of College interest was the fate of the nonjuring Fellows. The
Nonjurors were those who, on various grounds, honourable enough,
declined to take the oath of allegiance to King William and Queen Mary.
Under the law they were liable to be deprived of their places and
emoluments. At St. John's twenty Fellows and eight scholars took up the
nonjuring position. In the rest of the University there were but
fourteen in all, and the same number at the University of Oxford. No
explanation seems to be forthcoming as to why there was this
preponderance of opinion at St. John's. It is difficult to believe that
it was enthusiasm for the cause of James II.; for when in 1687 that King
directed the University to admit Father Alban Francis, a Benedictine
monk, to the degree of M.A. without making the subscription or taking
the oaths required for a degree, Thomas Smoult and John Billers, members
of the College (the latter afterwards a Nonjuror), maintained the right
of the University to refuse the degree before the notorious Judge
Jeffreys, after the Vice-Chancellor and Isaac Newton had been silenced.

Humphrey Gower was at this time Master of the College; he was of Puritan
origin, and entered the College during the Commonwealth. After the
Restoration he joined the Church of England, and though his sympathies
were with the Nonjurors, he took the oaths and retained his mastership
after the flight of King James. He had been for less than six months
Master of Jesus before becoming Master of St. John's. Abraham de la
Pryme, a member of St. John's, has handed down an irreverent jest on his
appointment. "Our master, they say, is a mighty, high, proud man.... He
came from Jesus College to be master here, and he was so sevear that he
was commonly called the divel of Jesus; and when he was made master here
some unlucky scholars broke this jest upon him--that now the divel was
entered into the heard of swine; for us Johnians are abusively called
hoggs."

In 1693 the Court of King's Bench issued a _mandamus_ calling upon Gower
to remove those Fellows who had not taken the oath. Defence upon the
merits of the case there was none; but Gower or his legal advisers
opposed the mandate with great skill on technical points, and after much
litigation the Court had to admit that its procedure was irregular, and
the matter dropped for some twenty-four years. During this period som