Oxford University

If a primary motive behind the enfranchisement of the universities in 1604 had been to supply them with the means to state their case for special treatment in national legislation, then this facility was needed more than ever in the mid-seventeenth century. Beyond the particular, potentially destructive, issues raised by parliamentary visitation was the incidental fall-out of reforming legislation such as that curbing pluralism (a perennial threat to academics dependent on an outside income) or abolishing dean and chapter lands. Unprecedented debates on education and on the role of ordained ministry initiated inside and outside Parliament had the potential to strike at the very root of the universities’ existence. At the same time, jurisdictional clashes with neighbouring civic authorities, against which the enfranchisement was probably also designed to establish an avenue of redress, tended to become complicated by war and its attendant upheavals. HP Commons 1604-1629, s.v. ‘Oxford University’. At Oxford the response to a time of undoubted crisis was, on the whole, to draw representatives from similar groups of non-residents to those who had supplied Members before 1630, but to choose individuals with more proven records of commitment to the university’s interests and with, if anything, greater likelihood of participating at the centre of power in London.

Not all of the difficulties later encountered were apparent in 1640, of course. According to the register of convocation, which met for an election of burgesses on 9 March, voices were ‘unanimous’ for Sir Francis Windebanke* and Sir John Danvers*. Bodl. OUA, NEP/supra/Reg. R. pp. 169v-70; C219/42, 1A/3/41. If the gathering, probably held in the recently completed Convocation House ‘purpose-built’ by Chancellor William Laud, was stage-managed with the determination shown by the archbishop in controlling other facets of institutional life, then it is conceivable that no dissent was expressed there on the day. Hist. Univ. Oxford, iv. 160-1. Furthermore, Danvers had occupied the seat four times already and was a personally charming man of genuine intellectual ability with a wide circle of scholarly friends. Even if he was promoted by the university’s steward, Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, or by other opponents of Laud within the academic body, he probably had broad appeal as well as the stature to defend a university that was attracting enemies. However, it seems unlikely at this juncture that there was not some opposition after the publishing of the writ on 4 March to the senior candidate probably, according to custom, nominated by the chancellor or vice-chancellor. Hist. Univ. Oxford, iv. 197-8. Not only was Windebanke, as a secretary of state, perceived as at the heart of unpopular facets of Charles I’s and Laud’s regime of the 1630s, but he was also strongly suspected of Catholic sympathies. Although he proved apparently silent in the Short Parliament his presence was perhaps in the minds of fellow Members who complained on 29 April of popish infiltration. In two interventions Sir Thomas Littleton*, speaking ‘against a nursery of Jesuits, tolerated in England, instanced … Oxford’, while John Pym* had ‘heard that mass was said in Oxford’ and that when objections were made to the vice-chancellor, the latter ‘replied that he durst do nothing in it because it received countenance from above’. Procs Short Parl. 182, 204.

An impression of underlying controversy is sustained by the evidence of the election of 17 October. After a summer of bitter confrontations with the corporation, and especially Alderman John Nixon*, over matters such as the university’s attempt to exert what it considered its superior authority over the night watch in the city, convocation significantly did not choose either Windebanke or Danvers. As indicated, Windebanke was perhaps manifestly not the man for the job; Danvers, who had had a higher profile in the House, was perhaps distracted by financial difficulties, but since he patently retained an interest in parliamentary politics it is surprising if he did not stand. Yet the election of Sir Thomas Rowe* and John Selden*, again entered as unanimous, was almost certainly not entirely so. Bodl. OUA, NEP/supra/Reg. R. pp. 181v-2; C219/43, 4/6/101. Rowe, a diplomat like his 1620s predecessors Sir Isaac Wake† and Sir Thomas Edmondes†, like them could not reasonably be relied upon – at an even more critical time – as an advocate at Westminster, and indeed he was duly posted abroad in April 1641. A friend of Laud, he had recently been made a privy councillor and had supported the war against the Scots, although perhaps the moderation which he was to display later in promoting an accommodation between king and Parliament was already evident to voters in Oxford disposed to be swayed by this. The claim by Anthony Wood that Rowe was chosen ‘by the suffrages of all there’ in October 1640 might be explicable in these terms or by an acceptance of the customs of nomination, but it remains questionable. More striking is Wood’s assertion that John Selden, the lawyer respected on all sides and with the experience and long-term London residence lacked by Rowe, could manage to gain only ‘the better part’ of the vote: ‘some few there were with Dr [John] Prideaux of Exeter and Dr [Paul] Hood of Lincoln College, of the anti-Arminian or puritan party, that were chiefly for Sir Nathanael Brent’. The warden of Merton College, a former enforcer for Laud, had since fallen out with the archbishop and aligned himself with Pembroke, but the influence of his supporters was not yet able to prevail: ‘being out-vied with votes, [they] sat down in peace’. Wood, Hist. Univ. Oxford, ii. 424; ‘Nathanael Brent’, Oxford DNB. Conceivably, there had been a parallel occurrence earlier in the proceedings of the spring.

In the midst of his more general service to Parliament, Selden was to be a doughty champion of the university in the Commons before, during and after the occupation of Oxford by the king, until he withdrew at Pride’s Purge. Subsequently he continued to advocate mitigation of the most drastic effects of visitation, to wield influence behind the scenes and to promote scholarship at Oxford. Rowe, on the other hand, died in November 1644 before achieving anything with his efforts at mediation. After the surrender of the city, a writ for an election to replace him was eventually ordered on 18 November 1646, but it was either not issued or not acted upon. CJ iv. 724b.

With the Nominated Parliament in prospect, Gerard Langbaine of Queen’s College wrote to his friend and patron Selden on 22 April 1653, expressing what he implied was a general desire that the latter should stand again. The university, on whose sufferings he had expatiated constantly in many earlier letters, now had grounds for hope. ‘The late tropics in state affairs do a little amaze, but not daunt us: we dare not despair of our commonwealth if a new representation shall be chosen.’ Langbaine and colleagues understood, ‘it will be allowed our university to nominate one’; ‘how far our chancellor will interpose we know not, but if we be left to ourselves and you would but permit, I doubt not but the generality of votes would run upon you’. Bodl. Selden 109 supra, f. 338. In the event, no seat was specifically earmarked for the university. However, insofar as the chancellor, Oliver Cromwell*, did ‘interpose’ to include a university voice among the three Members for Oxfordshire, then it is likely that his proposal was his physician, Dr Jonathan Goddard*, Brent’s successor as warden of Merton College. Wood, Fasti, 192. In the absence of Selden, whose health may have precluded him in any case, Goddard should have satisfied at least some aspirations. He belonged to a wide intellectual circle in Oxford and with fellow county Member Sir Charles Wolseley*, a son-in-law of William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, was considered a friend of the universities and godly learning.

In the first protectorate Parliament the university gained its one seat. It is not clear whether it was on recommendation from the chancellor or as a result of a campaign by John Wilkins, warden of Wadham College, or by independent choice that on 27 June 1654 convocation elected Dr John Owen*, vice-chancellor since September 1652. Bodl. OUA, NEP/supra/Reg. T. pp. 162, 249; Cal. Baxter Corresp. i. 152. Either way it is noteworthy that those who promoted the return did not appear to anticipate a problem of eligibility, or indeed to experience one until some time after Parliament met on 3 September. While the case of another MP ‘who is in holy orders and therefore disabled’ was referred to the committee for privileges on 9 October, it was not until mid-November that the university visibly woke up to the possibility of losing its representative. CJ vii. 375a. On the 21st, following a meeting of delegates the day before, convocation approved a letter to the committee, explaining that

whereas your petitioners did with much unanimity make choice of Dr John Owen to serve in Parliament as their burgess [they] do now understand that there is some question made about his capacity of sitting as a Member.

They requested that, ‘before anything be determined’ the committee ‘would be pleased to hear what the university shall offer concerning it’. Their plea was intended to be conveyed by a deputation and there is no record of their arguments. What happened next is unknown, except that Owen seems not to have occupied his seat and the resolution that ‘if they do not prevail’ the petitioners ‘should seek a new writ’ seems not to have come to fruition. Bodl. OUA, NEP/supra/Reg. T. p. 254-5. The university continued to be reliant on cultivating support where it could in pursuit of such goals as the preservation of the study of civil law, threatened by the abolition of ecclesiastical courts. Bodl. OUA, NEP/supra/Reg. T., p. 252-3.

By 1656 Selden was dead and Nathaniel Fiennes I* had effectively inherited his mantle. A fellow campaigner against the visitors’ excesses, a credible intellectual and a well-qualified and long-standing student of civil law, by this date he was also lord keeper of the great seal. On 22 August 1656 he was elected to the Commons as the single Member for the university, this time not just unanimously but with acclamation (‘unanimi consensu et acclamatione’). Bodl. OUA, NEP/supra/Reg. T. p. 289. In the first session of the Parliament the university was able to exploit its direct access to the Commons, but in December 1657 Fiennes was called to the Other House and its formal representation was forfeited once again. Bodl. OUA, NEP/supra/Reg. T. p. 294.

The election held on 4 January 1659 in response to notice given by sheriff Unton Croke II* on 25 December was contested, although the names of the unsuccessful candidates are unknown. Bodl. OUA, NEP/supra/Reg. T. p. 332-3. The university’s choice may be seen the product of a Presbyterian, or at least conservative, resurgence, as well as of its continuing concern with the study of law. The eminent serjeant-at-law Matthew Hale* was a notable moderate; he had been retained as counsel by the university at the latest by September 1649 and at this date he was also, as Selden’s chief executor, engaged in negotiations over the transfer of the latter’s books and manuscripts to the Bodleian Library. Bodl. OUA, W.P.alpha.15; NEP/supra/Reg. T, pp. 73, 349-50; Reg. Ta. p. 7. Dr John Mylles* was a civilian in the tradition of pre-war Members; having refused the Engagement and been ejected from Christ Church, he had since been readmitted to the commission of the peace. He was sufficiently in tune with the changing times and, presumably, the university’s interests, to be re-elected to the Convention on 12 April 1660 in the face of considerable pressure to opt for William Lenthall* from General George Monck* and from Lenthall himself. In a letter of 3 April the former Speaker appealed to what he considered a widely acknowledged record of assistance to the university, to which he had ‘ever paid’ ‘respects and services’ and which had spared them ‘inconvenience’. Bodl. OUA, NEP/supra/Reg. Ta. pp. 10-12. No evidence has yet come to light of what those services entailed.