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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. xn. JULY 31, im

Manwood, a great authority on ' Forest Laws/ 1615, says : "To assart is to destroy any covert by the rooting up of the same, to make it to continue a plaine."

That this sense was recognized little more than a century ago is shown by Lowe's ' Agricultural Survey of Notts,' 1794, wherein following a list of Gedling " coppices," is added a separate reference to 53 acres odd of " Plains." Furthermore, a contemporary survey of the royal hays of Birkland and Bilhagh, Sherwood Forest, records the varying extents of " wood " and " plain " in each of the several subdivisions. More- over, an accompanying plan proves that these terms were applied respectively to woodland and to treeless land.

A. STAPLETON.

39, Burford Road, Nottingham.

OXFORD PARLIAMENTARY LEADERS IN THE CIVIL WAR.

(Concluded from p. 22.)

To New College belong William Fiennes, second Baron and first Viscount Save and Sele, " Old Subtlety," and his second son Nathaniel Fiennes, Parliamentary Governor of Bristol, which he surrendered to Prince Rupert. Saye and Sele was High Steward of his University 1641-3 and 1646-60. The Fiennes family enjoyed various privileges as founder's kin at Winchester and New Colleges ; and it is probably owing to their mythical connexion with Wykeham that his twin foundations came off as well as they did under the rule of the Puritans. Philip Herbert, fourth Earl of Pembroke and first of Montgomery, was of this house. Succeeding Laud as Chancellor of his University, he superintended the visitation of the Colleges and ejection of Royalists. He was patron of Van Dyck, and the vounger of " the incomparable pair of brethren " to whom the first folio of Shake- speare's works was inscribed in 1623.

New College educated the following Puritan divines : William Twisse, Prolo- cutor of the Westminster Assembly, whose remains were cast out of the Abbey after the Restoration ; John White, " the patriarch of Dorchester " ; John Harris, Regius Professor of Greek and Warden of Winchester ; and Hugh Robinson, Head Master of Winchester and Archdeacon of Gloucester, who lost his appointments, but eventually took the Covenant. Stephen Charnock of Emmanuel, Cambridge, was an intruded Fellow.

Trinity College numbers among her worthies Cromwell's son-in-law Henry Ireton, soldier and regicide ; Edmund Ludlow, soldier, author, and regicide ; Sir Richard Newdigate, Bt., Judge ; William Laurence, lawyer and M.P. ; James Harrington, who, although he faithfully attended Charles I. in his imprisonment, was theoretically a. democrat and author of ' Oceana ' ; William Hook, chaplain to Cromwell ; Gaspar Hickes, a member of the Westminster Assembly ; John Packer, M.P., friend of Eliot, secretary to Buckingham, and one of the Parliamentary Visitors to the University ; and Zouch Tate, M.P., proposer of the famous " self-denying ordinance" in 1644, and an other of the Parlia- mentary Visitors. Robert Harris, the in- truded President of Trinity, was an active Visitor.

Robert Devereux, third Earl of Essex and general of the Parliamentary Army, was at Merton College-; so also was the celebrated Puritan divine Francis Cheynell, intruded President of St. John's, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, and the violent adversary of Chillingworth. Like his oppo- nent, Cheynell was a native of Oxford ; and the city was more inclined to Puritanism than was the University. Sir Nathaniel Brent, Warden of Merton, was President of the Parliamentary Commission for Visita- tion of the Universities. Edward Reynolds (Warden after the Restoration and Bishop of Norwich), as a moderate Anglican who was ready to accept an accommodation, was Dean of Christ Church and Vice-Chancellor under the Puritan regime.

Hart Hall (now Hertford College) claims John Selden as her son. His studies in the Inner Temple procured him the title of " the great dictator of learning of the English nation." He sat in the Long Parliament as burgess for the University ; but for a man of learning he was very slightly indebted to his Alma Mater. To this Hall also belong Sir John Glynne, the judge who made a long address to the Protector in favour of Cromwell' s assumption of the crown, which he printed on the Restoration as evidence that ho had always been at heart a monarchist ; and Adrian Scrope the regicide.

To University College belong the notorious Henry Marten, soldier, politician, and regicide, but " as far from a Puritan as light is from darknesse" ; William Gay the regicide ; Ezreel Tongue, divine and ally of Titus Oates ; John Flavel, Presbyterian divine ; and Rowland Stedman, Nonconformist divine and intruded scholar.