Page:The National Gazetteer - A Topographical Dictionary of the British Islands, Volume 3.djvu/151

Rh OXFORD. 139 OXFORD. these it was settled that all foreigners should quit the kingdom,, and that 24 persons should he chosen, 12 by the king and 12 by the barons, to represent the people in the threo parliaments which, by the sixth statute, woro to be held annually. This is the first clear account we have of the sitting of a house of commons, and tho general use of the word " parliament," although Coke, in his Institutes, asserts that this word was used as early as tho reign of Edward the Confessor in 1041. During this reign Duns Scotus lectured, and Roger Bacon died at Oxford. In 1326 Isabella, the queen of Edward II., resided here while engaged in her war against the king and his favourites, the Spensers. During the reign of Edward III., who was educated at Oxford, and after- wards went to reside at Woodstock (where Edward the Black Prince was born in 1327), a most dreadful riot broke out between tho scholars and the townspeople. It began on the feast of St. Scholastica, 10th February, 1354, at a tavern called the " Mermaid," which stood at a spot called " Pennyless," or " Butter-Bench," near tho E. end of old Carfax church. The fighting and tumult lasted for three days, and some of the students were killed and others severely wounded. The consequence of this was that the citizens lost several of their privileges, and were debarred from the rights of tho Church. In addi- tion to this they were heavily fined, and enjoined to perform certain acts of penance annually to tho University authorities, and it was not until 1825 that the statute enforcing these laws was finally repealed. In this reign the poet Chaucer flourished, and from his " Canterbury Pilgrims " we learn that Oxford was, even in his time, devoted to those studies for which she is so renowned. In Richard II.'s reign (13771399) John Wycliffe was master of Balliol College (1361). In 1399 preparations were made for a grand tournament at Oxford, at which the Earls of Huntingdon, Kent, Salisbury, and Rutland, with Sir Thomas Blount and others, intended to seize the king, Henry IV., and to restore Richard. Their plot, however, was discovered, and Sir Thomas Blount, Sir Bennet Shelley, and 18 others were executed in tho Greenditch at Oxford in 1400, while the rebel lords and their accomplices suffered elsewhere. Henry V. was educated at Oxford, and in Henry VI.'s reign his son, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, gave a sum of money for building a portion of that renowned library which is now known as the " Bodleian." It acquired its present name from Sir Thomas Bodley, who was its most muni- ficent patron, and endowed it both with lands and money in 1598, but in a letter written to the Duko of Gloucester by the University in 1445, he is styled its founder, and at his death in 1447 he left to it several MSS., and 100 for tho completion of that portion of the building which ho had begun. Cardinal Beaufort ; John Kempe, Archbishop of York and Lord Chan- cellor; Thomas Kempe, Bishop of London ; John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor, and other distinguished persons contributed to its enlarge- ment and improvement ; but before the end of the reign of Edward IV., in 1483, it had been so mismanaged and neglected, that, literally, not one single volume was left in it. In fact, it had become so thoroughly plundered that it was quite useless, and the University finding, in 1556, that the losses had never been replaced, and that tho building still remained desolate and unavailable for all purposes of study, sold off the benches, bookcases, furniture, &c., and left merely the bare walls. In this state it remained till 1598, when Thomas Bodley, a fellow of Merton College, resolved to restore it. By ontributions of books and money from himself and his friends, he secured it an endowment, and towards the end of 1602 it possessed upwards of 2,000 volumes, and was then again thrown open to students. In 14S1 the city was visited by Edward IV, ind in 1483 by Richard III., and by Prince Arthur in, ( ". In 1498 Erasmus was resident there, nnd af .ated with Linnaeus, Latimer, Sir Thomas Mora/ .id several of the most eminent men of tho period./ n 1510 it was visited by Henry VIII., and by Ciuln, and was formed by tho king into a separate sco, the seat of tho episcopate, which at first was the church of the Abbey of Osney, having been removed to Oxford in 1545. At tho dissolution of tho monasteries Oxford suffered considerably, both in its influence and its revenues. In 1550 commissioners were appointed by Edward VI. to visit and reform tho Uni- versity, and a great many valuable books and MSS. were destroyed by them in their zeal to abolish every- thing which seemed to tend towards the weakening of tho principles of the Reformers. In Mary's reign a com- mission was sent down to Oxford to re-establish Popish rites and observances there, and to dispute publicly with Archbishop Cranmer and bishops Latimer and Ridley upon various points of doctrine. The end of tho matter was, that when these prelates refused to recant tho Protestant opinions which they had professed, tho convocation sentenced them to be burned. This sentence was accordingly carried out in 1555-6 in the modern Broad-street, which was then called Caiiditch, and a stone opposite the door of tho lodgings of tho Master of Balliol still marks the spot on which they suffered. An Eleanor cross, called the "Martyrs' Memorial," standing at tho N. end of St. Maiy Magdalene's church, and an appropriately decorated " martyrs' aisle," added to the church in 1841, now servo to commemorate thoevent. In 1564 Robert Dudley, tho notorious Earl of Leicester, was made Chancellor of Oxford, and in 1566 his royal mis- tress, Elizabeth, visited the city. She was received at Cur- fax church, when a professor made a speech in Greek, and her Majesty replied in the same language. She remained in Oxford five days, hearing plays and attending public disputations on science, logic, and politics, and honoured the city again with her presence in 1592, when similar proceedings took place. In 1605 King James I. visited tho city (accompanied by the queen and the Princo of Wales), and again went there in 1614. In this reign Prince Charles, tho Princo Palatine, and tho French and Spanish ambassadors woro received there ; and a full account of all tho entertainments given at their receptions, and those of Elizabeth and James I., will be found in Nichols's "Progresses" of these two sove- reigns. During tho succeeding reign tho Archbishop of Canterbury, as Chancellor of tho University, received the king, the queen, the Elector Palatine and his brother, Prince Rupert, at an acadomial entertainment in 1636; and during the troublous times of this period the parliament often sat at Oxford, whilst at the com- mencement of the parliamentary war, Lord Say drove away Sir John Byron, and held the city for tho parlia- ment. After the battle of Edgehill, Charles I. seized it and made it his headquarters. Sir Thomas Fairfax afterwards reduced it by famine, and during tho plague in 1665 the parliament and the law courts sat hero. Again in 1681 a parliament sat here, but only for a few days. In 1687 James II. held a parliament in Oxford, and in tho same year, in consequence of the disputes which arose with respect to the presidency of Magdalen College the king having commanded tho follows to elect Dr. Parker, a Papist his Majesty went in person to the University. The upshot of the matter was that the king's orders were executed, the college being filled with Roman Catholics. This state of things, however, was not allowed to continue long, and in the ensuing year tho college was restored to its rights. In 1702 Queen Anno visited tho University. In 1714 Dr. John Radcliffe left 40,000 to the University of Oxford ; and a library and observatory, still called after his name, are among the notable objects of tho city. In 1715 tho cause of the Pretender was warmly espoused in many parts of tho kingdom, and several persons, suspected of being favourable to him, wore seized in Oxford by General Pepper, who had occupied it on behalf of the king. Towards the end of 1731 a valuable collection of MSS., written by Sir Henry Spelman, and others, upon political, ecclesiastical, and University questions, was added to tho Bodleian. In 1768 tho mayor and several members of the ccrooration of Oxford were sent to New-