295
MAGDALEN COLLEGE.
296
portion of College history. The King proposed
Samuel Parker, Bishop of Oxford, in place of his
former nominee : the College, on their part, main-
tained that the place of President was already filled
by the statutable election of Hough, and refused to
consider that election as null. The President and
all but a few of the Fellows were accordingly ejected
by members of the Ecclesiastical Commission, who
claimed to exercise visitatorial authority on behalf of
the King : the Bishop of Oxford was installed as
President by the Commissioners ; and under him the
greater part of the Demies were ejected also. The
places of almost all the members of the foundation
were filled up by the intrusion, under sanction of
mandates from the King, of persons belonging to the
Roman communion. Finally the King gave way,
and the expelled members of the College were re-
stored by their proper Visitor, the Bishop of Win-
chester, a few days before William of Orange landed
at Torbay. From 1688 to 1854 the history of the
College was uneventful. The greater part of this
period, indeed, is marked in the history of the Uni-
versity as a time of intellectual depression, and
Magdalen was no exception to the general rule. It
was by no means the only College in which, during
the 18th century, learning was less important than
politics, and study less attractive, to a majority of
the residents, than pleasures of a lower kind. But
here, as elsewhere, there were not wanting instances
of men who honestly laboured in the cause of learning,
even in the days of which Gibbon has left so dreary a
picture. The list of members of the College during
this period contains the names of many men who
attained distinction in their own day, and of some
who attained more enduring celebrity. To the last
class belonged Dr. Routh, President from 1791 to
1854, whose death in the latter year marks in the
history of Magdalen the end of the old condition of
things. The same year was marked by another
event, in the beginning of the University Commissions,
by whose action, as well as by the action of the
College itself, a great process of change has been
since carried on. The principal changes introduced
by the Commissions, here as elsewhere, have been
those of making the Demyships and Fellowships
"open," of removing the obligation to receive Holy
Orders, which was originally binding upon the
great majority of the Fellows, of limiting the tenure
of Demyships and Fellowships, and of annexing
certain Fellowships to Professorships in the University,
of which the College supplies the whole or some part
of the stipend. The principle change due to the
action of the College itself, apart from the Commis-
sions, has been that of the admission of Commoners
to a number much greater than that contemplated by
the statutes of the founder, a change gradually brought
about, which has resulted in a complete transforma-
tion of the College from what it was within the
memory of its older members.
H. A. Wilson.
For a further account of the Constitution and History of the College by the same author, see The Colleges of Oxford ; Methuen, 1891.
view by bereblock, 1566.— Facsimile from Hearne.
