Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/112

 Parliament he at once recommenced his attack on Dr. Petty; but with no great success, as, although the tribunal to which he now appealed was far more favourable to him, he only succeeded in getting the whole matter once more referred back to the Parliamentary Commissioners for Ireland. He next appears as one of the military junto which called together the Committee of Public Safety, and helped Lambert to drive out the Rump. Then, believing himself to be at last master of the situation, he immediately threatened to detain Dr. Petty in London by force; but Dr. Petty availed himself of the general confusion to escape to Dublin, which, of the two cities, was then the safer place to abide in.

Sankey soon after left London to command the regiments from Ireland in Lambert's army in the North of England. Thence, after vainly attempting to get Dr. Petty sent over a prisoner to England, he plied him with threatening messages, assuring him that the army would support the Brigade's proposals and his own complaint, and that he would show no quarter. These threats were, however, nullified by the series of events which, beginning with the reinstatement of the Rump by Monk, the overthrow of Lambert and the recall of the ejected members of the Long Parliament, ended in the restoration of the King, which had for sometime past been generally recognised as the only way out of the existing confusion.

In another field, however, Sir Hierome, during the brief supremacy of the Rump, was able to aim a successful blow at his antagonist. On August 9, 1659, it is recorded in the books of Brasenose College that Dr. Petty was deprived of his Fellowship. His long absences in Ireland, and, still more, his acquisition of landed property, were solid grounds for urging that he was now disqualified; and it is perhaps not too much to surmise that the watchful eye of the militant Fellow of All Souls took care that, in an age singularly lax on these matters, the disqualification in question should be observed, at least at Brasenose.

After the fall of Lambert, Dr. Petty, though freed from all immediate fear of Sir Hierome and his Anabaptist allies,