rty and of the Protestant religion: but
his habits by no means fitted him for the conflicts of active life. He
therefore stood modestly silent among the delegates, and left to men
more versed in practical business the task of pleading the cause of his
beloved University.

Never was there a clearer case. The law was express. The practice had
been almost invariably in conformity with the law. It might perhaps have
happened that, on a day of great solemnity, when many honorary degrees
were conferred, a person who had not taken the oaths might have passed
in the crowd. But such an irregularity, the effect of mere haste and
inadvertence, could not be cited as a precedent. Foreign ambassadors of
various religions, and in particular one Mussulman, had been admitted
without the oaths. But it might well be doubted whether such cases fell
within the reason and spirit of the Acts of Parliament. It was not even
pretended that any person to whom the oaths had been tendered and who
had refused them had ever taken a degree; and this was the situation in
which Francis stood. The delegates offered to prove that, in the late
reign, several royal mandates had been treated as nullities because
the persons recommended had not chosen to qualify according to law, and
that, on such occasions, the government had always acquiesced in the
propriety of the course taken by the University. But Jeffreys would hear
nothing. He soon found out that the Vice chancellor was weak, ignorant,
and timid, and therefore gave a loose to all that insolence which
had long been the terror of the Old Bailey. The unfortunate Doctor,
unaccustomed to such a presence and to such treatment, was soon harassed
and scared into helpless agitation. When other academicians who were
more capable of defending their cause attempted to speak they were
rudely silenced. "You are not Vicechancellor. When you are, you may
talk. Till then it will become you to hold your peace." The defendants
were thrust out of the court without a hearing. In a short time
they were called in, again, and informed that the Commissioners had
determined to deprive Pechell of the Vicechancellorship, and to suspend
him from all the emoluments to which he was entitled as Master of
a college, emoluments which were strictly of the nature of freehold
property. "As for you," said Jeffreys to the delegates, "most of you are
divines. I will therefore send you home with a text of scripture, 'Go
your way and sin no m