om their Lord-Lieutenancies. The justices
when questioned simply replied that they would vote according to their
consciences, and send members to Parliament who would protect the
Protestant religion. After repeated "regulations" it was found
impossible to form a corporate body which would return representatives
willing to comply with the royal will. All thought of a Parliament had
to be abandoned; and even the most bigoted courtiers counselled
moderation at this proof of the stubborn opposition which James must
prepare to encounter from the peers, the gentry, and the trading
classes.

[Sidenote: The Attack on the Universities.]

Estranged as he was from the whole body of the nobles and gentry it
remained for James to force the clergy also into an attitude of
resistance. Even the tyranny of the Commission had failed to drive into
open opposition men who had been preaching Sunday after Sunday the
doctrine of passive obedience to the worst of kings. But James who had
now finally abandoned all hope of winning the aid of the Church in his
project cared little for passive obedience. He looked on the refusal of
the clergy to support his plans as freeing him from the pledge he had
given to maintain the Church as established by law; and he resolved to
attack it in the great institutions which had till now been its
strongholds. To secure the Universities for Catholicism was to seize the
only training schools which the English clergy possessed as well as the
only centres of higher education which existed for the English gentry.
It was on such a seizure however that James's mind was set. Little
indeed was done with Cambridge. A Benedictine monk, who presented
himself with royal letters recommending him for the degree of a Master
of Arts, was rejected on his refusal to sign the Articles; and the
Vice-Chancellor was summoned before the Privy Council and punished for
his rejection by deprivation from office. But a violent and obstinate
attack was directed against Oxford. The Master of University College,
Obadiah Walker, who declared himself a Catholic convert, was authorized
to retain his post in defiance of the law. A Roman Catholic named Massey
was presented by the Crown to the Deanery of Christ Church. Magdalen was
the wealthiest College in the University; and James in 1687 recommended
one Farmer, a Catholic of infamous life and not even qualified by
statute for the office, to its vacant headship. The Fellows
remonstrated, and on