mportant, because "some writers tell us that he was hurried away by
the Devill in a terrible raging wind on the 30th of August," a statement
which the chronicler might have been expected to believe. Richard
Cromwell was proclaimed Protector at Oxford on September 6th, in the
usual places where kings had been proclaimed. The ceremony was disturbed
by young scholars, who pelted with carrots and turnips the mayor,
recorder, and town clerk, as well as Colonel Upton and his troopers.
These missiles were symptoms of the reaction which was fast approaching.
It belongs to the history of England, but so far as it showed itself in
Oxford, it is part of the life of Wilkins. It must have given him much
to think of during the last year of his Wardenship. In February 1659 the
Vice-Chancellor wrote to the Dean of Christ Church, then in London, that
"he must make haste to Oxford, for godliness laye a gasping." Nathaniel
Crewe of Lincoln had in the same month drawn up a petition, which Wood
signed, to put out the Visitors. He was a Presbyterian, and ready to
have the Visitors "put downe, notwithstanding he had before submitted
to them and had paid to them reverence and obedience. The Independants,
who called themselves the godly party, drew up a petition contrary to
the former, and said 'twas for the cause of Christ." The feud between
the two parties was no less bitter, when their supremacy in Oxford was
drawing to its end, than it had been many years before. Which of the
petitions did Wilkins sign?

A year later, in February 1660, Monk made a speech to Parliament of
doubtful meaning, exhorting his hearers to be careful "that neither the
Cavalier nor the phanatique party have yet a share in your civil or
military power,"--on which utterance Wood notes that "the word
phanatique comes much into fashion after this." Monk's meaning was
quickly interpreted for him, both in London and in Oxford,--on February
13th "there was great rejoicing here at Oxon for the news of a free
parliament, ringing of bells, bonfires, &c.: there were rumps (_i.e._,
tayles of sheep) flung in a bonfire at Queen's Coll., and some at Dr
Palmer's window at All Soles." The joy of the Royalists especially was
manifested by the reading at Magdalen parish church of Common Prayer,
"after it had been omitted to be read in public places in Oxon since the
surrender of the city or in 1647." All the tokens of Monarchy were
restored: "the signe of the King's Head had been dashed