vines, and could aid the King only by their prayers
and their pecuniary contributions. But one member of the body, a Doctor
of Civil Law, raised a troop of undergraduates, and fell fighting
bravely at their head against the soldiers of Essex. When hostilities
had terminated, and the Roundheads were masters of England, six sevenths
of the members of the foundation refused to make any submission to
usurped authority. They were consequently ejected from their dwellings
and deprived of their revenues. After the Restoration the survivors
returned to their pleasant abode. They had now been succeeded by a new
generation which inherited their opinions and their spirit. During the
Western rebellion such Magdalene men as were not disqualified by their
age or profession for the use of arms had eagerly volunteered to fight
for the crown. It would be difficult to name any corporation in the
kingdom which had higher claims to the gratitude of the House of Stuart.
[290]

The society consisted of a President, of forty Fellows, of thirty
scholars called Demies, and of a train of chaplains, clerks, and
choristers. At the time of the general visitation in the reign of Henry
the Eighth the revenues were far greater than those of any similar
institution in the realm, greater by nearly one half than those of the
magnificent foundation of Henry the Sixth at Cambridge, and considerably
more than double those which William of Wykeham had settled on his
college at Oxford. In the days of James the Second the riches of
Magdalene were immense, and were exaggerated by report. The college
was popularly said to be wealthier than the wealthiest abbeys of the
Continent. When the leases fell in,--so ran the vulgar rumour,--the
rents would be raised to the prodigious sum of forty thousand pounds a
year. [291]

The Fellows were, by the statutes which their founder had drawn up,
empowered to select their own President from among persons who were, or
had been, Fellows either of their society or of New College. This power
had generally been exercised with freedom. But in some instances royal
letters had been received recommending to the choice of the corporation
qualified persons who were in favour at court; and on such occasions it
had been the practice to show respect to the wishes of the sovereign.

In March 1687, the President of the college died. One of the Fellows,
Doctor Thomas Smith, popularly nicknamed Rabbi Smith, a distinguished
traveller, book-