, Windham,
Strangways; one also of quite different associations, Sedley, who
entered Wadham in 1656, the boon companion later of Rochester, who, also
a Wadham undergraduate, was his junior by four years. Both of them were
libertines and wits, who received at their College, it may be presumed,
an education the precepts of which they did not practise at the Court of
Charles II. Other entries show the continued connection of the College
with the West of England--with Somerset, the Wadhams' county; with
Devon, Dorset, Hampshire, and Gloucestershire.

Enough has been said to prove that Wadham under Wilkins was a college of
high reputation and efficiency. It was a nursery of bishops,
contributing to the bench no less than six, including Wilkins himself; a
nursery also of Fellows of the Royal Society,--Wilkins, Ward, Rooke,
Wren, Sprat, and Pope were original members of the "invisible college."
Not only to the Church and to Science did Wadham do good service, but
more directly to the State, by educating together impartially the youth
of both the great parties. "When the hurly-burly's done, when the
battle's lost and won," it is above all things desirable to allay bitter
feelings, and bring the former combatants together. For this most
difficult and delicate of tasks Wilkins was well qualified. He was
beloved by the Cavaliers because he treated all his undergraduates
kindly, Royalists and Puritans alike, in marked contrast with other
Heads of Houses, who appear to have dealt faithfully with young
Malignants, the sons of their political opponents.

That Wilkins possessed great administrative abilities and vigour is
shown by his work in the University and in his College. He had seen much
of the world, and was in the prime of life, and already a man of
eminence--a combination of qualities as rare in Heads of Houses as in
Cabinet Ministers. He persuaded the Visitors that Wadham and Trinity
were fitted, specially and immediately, in 1651 for freedom to elect
their Fellows--a privilege of which all the Colleges had been deprived
in 1648. The administration of the College estates and finances was
carefully revised, and the Statutes were amended. Wilkins' life was
varied and full of activities outside as well as within his College. He
was selected to deal with problems more difficult and pressing than
Compulsory Pass Greek, or degrees for women. Was Oxford to be
dismantled? Its security had been threatened by a rising of the
"Levelle