t the surplice, who had run the risk of being
disinherited rather than take off his hat to the princes of the blood,
and who had been more than once sent to prison for haranguing in
conventicles. He did not succeed in frightening the Magdalene men. In
answer to his alarming hints he was reminded that in the last generation
thirty-four out of the forty Fellows had cheerfully left their beloved
cloisters and gardens, their hall and their chapel, and had gone forth
not knowing where they should find a meal or a bed, rather than violate
the oath of allegiance. The King now wished them to violate another
oath. He should find that the old spirit was not extinct.

Then Penn tried a gentler tone. He had an interview with Hough and
with some of the Fellows, and, after many professions of sympathy and
friendship, began to hint at a compromise. The King could not bear to be
crossed. The college must give way. Parker must be admitted. But he was
in very bad health. All his preferments would soon be vacant. "Doctor
Hough," said Penn, "may then be Bishop of Oxford. How should you like
that, gentlemen?" Penn had passed his life in declaiming against a
hireling ministry. He held that he was bound to refuse the payment of
tithes, and this even when he had bought land chargeable with tithes,
and hallowed the value of the tithes in the purchase money. According
to his own principles, he would have committed a great sin if he
had interfered for the purpose of obtaining a benefice on the most
honourable terms for the most pious divine. Yet to such a degree had
his manners been corrupted by evil communications, and his understanding
obscured by inordinate zeal for a single object, that he did not scruple
to become a broker in simony of a peculiarly discreditable kind, and to
use a bishopric as a bait to tempt a divine to perjury. Hough replied
with civil contempt that he wanted nothing from the crown but common
justice. "We stand," he said, "on our statutes and our oaths: but, even
setting aside our statutes and oaths, we feel that we have our religion
to defend. The Papists have robbed us of University College. They have
robbed us of Christ Church. The fight is now for Magdalene. They will
soon have all the rest."

Penn was foolish enough to answer that he really believed that the
Papists would now be content. "University," he said, "is a pleasant
college. Christ Church is a noble place. Magdalene is a fine building.
The situation is conve