king to be consulted as to changes in the university (Univ. Coll. Register). On this errand he remained away till nearly the end of the month, and on his recommendation his friend Massey is said to have been appointed dean of Christ Church. After Walker's return he did not go to prayers or receive the sacrament in the college chapel (Wood, Life, iii. 177). One result of his interviews with the king soon became apparent, for by a letter from James, dated 28 Jan. 1686, it was ordered that the revenue of the fellowship set free by the death of Edward Hinchcliffe should be sequestered into the hands of the master and applied ‘to such uses as we shall appoint, any custom or constitution of our said college to the contrary’ (ib. p. 110). In April in this year mass was held in the master's lodging, and on 3 May 1686 the master and three others were granted a royal license and dispensation ‘to absent themselves from church, common prayer, and from taking the oaths of supremacy and allegiance,’ and under the same authority were empowered to travel to London and Westminster, and to come and remain in the presence of the queen consort and queen dowager. This curious dispensation was effected by immediate warrant signed by the solicitor-general, as it could not have been safely passed under the privy seal (Evelyn, Diary, ed. Bray, iii. 21). In the same month Walker was also granted a license to print for twenty-one years a list of thirty-seven Roman catholic works, the only restriction being that the sale in any one year was not to exceed twenty thousand, and a private press for this purpose was erected in the college in the following year. He was also able at this time to exercise influence over the printing operations of the university; for under the will of Dr. Fell, who died on 10 July 1686, the patent of printing granted by Charles II was made over to Walker and two others (Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. App. p. 692). A chapel for public use was opened in the college on 15 Aug. 1686, rooms on the ground floor of the east side of the quadrangle, ‘in the entry leading from the quad on the right hand,’ being appropriated for the purpose; and the sequestered fellowship was applied for the maintenance of a priest, a Jesuit named Wakeman (Smith, Annals of University College). On the occasion of the king's visit to Oxford in September 1687, Walker (who had been created a J.P. for the county of Oxford, 7 July 1687) gave a public entertainment in the college, and James was present at vespers in the new chapel. Walker was consulted by the king as to the appointment of a new president of Magdalen; his sympathy was entirely with the sovereign, nothing, in his view, being plainer ‘than yt he who makes us corporations hath power also to unmake us’ (Bloxam, Magdalen College and James II, pp. 94, 237). By this expression of opinion and his general conduct his unpopularity was greatly increased, ‘popery being the aversion of town and university’ (ib.) In January 1688 the traders in the town complained of ‘the scholars being frighted away because of popery,’ and, says Wood, ‘Obadiah Walker has the curses of all both great and small’ (Wood, Life, iii. 209). The master, however, boldly pursued his course, and in February 1688 erected the king's statue over the inside of the college gate (ib. iii. 194). By means of correspondence he attempted this year to convert his old friend and pupil, Dr. John Radcliffe [q. v.] In a final letter (written 22 May 1688) to the doctor, whom he was quite unable to convince, Walker declared that he had only been confirmed in his profession of faith by reading Tillotson's book on the real presence, in deference to Radcliffe's wishes, and in the same letter he speaks of ‘that faith which, after many years of adhering to a contrary persuasion, I have through God's mercy embraced’ (Pittis, Memoirs of Dr. Radcliffe, ed. 1715, p. 18). The young wits of Christ Church were the authors of the following doggerel catch, which by their order was sung by ‘a poor natural’ at the master's door:
Oh, old Obadiah,
Sing Ave Maria,
But so will not I a
for why a
I had rather be a fool than a knave a
(Hist. MSS. Comm. 12th Rep. App. vii. 200). Four days after the arrival of the Prince of Orange, Walker left Oxford, and before leaving moved his books and ‘bar'd up his door next the street’ (Wood, Life and Times, vol. iii. 9 Nov. 1688). His intention was to follow the king abroad, but on 11 Dec. he was stopped and arrested at Sittingbourne, in the company of Gifford, bishop of Madura, and Poulton, master of the school in the Savoy. The refugees were first committed to Maidstone gaol, and then conveyed to London and imprisoned in the Tower. On this event a somewhat scurrilous pamphlet was published in Oxford, entitled ‘A Dialogue between Father Gifford, the Popish President of Maudlin, and Obadiah Walker, on their new college preferment in Newgate.’ Meantime the vice-chancellor and the visitors of University College, having received a complaint from the fellows, met on 27 Jan. 1688–9, and agreed to summon the fellows
