on of the tumults, left London, Harvey
attended him, and was at the fight of Edgehill with him; and during the
fight the Prince and the Duke of York were committed to his care. He
told me that he withdrew with them under a hedge, and tooke out of his
pockett a booke and read; but he had not read very long before a bullet
of a great gun grazed on the ground neare him, which made him remove his
station.... I first sawe him at Oxford, 1642, after Edgehill fight, but
was then too young to be acquainted with so great a doctor. I remember
he came severall times to our Coll. (Trin.) to George Bathurst, B.D.,
who had a hen to hatch egges in his chamber, which they dayly opened to
see the progress and way of generation."

In 1645, Charles, after the execution of Archbishop Laud, took upon
himself the functions of visitor of Merton College, and having removed
Sir Nathaniel Brent from the office of warden for having joined "the
Rebells now in armes against" him, he directed the Fellows to take the
necessary steps for the election of a successor. This course consisted
in giving in three names to the visitor, in order that one of the three
(the one named first, probably) should be appointed. Harvey was so named
by five out of the seven Fellows voting, and was accordingly duly
elected. A couple of days after his admission he summoned the Fellows
into the hall and made a speech to them, in which he pointed out that
it was likely enough that some of his predecessors had sought the office
in order to enrich themselves, but that his intentions were quite of
another kind, wishing as he did to increase the wealth and prosperity of
the college; and he finished by exhorting them to cherish mutual concord
and amity. After the surrender of Oxford, July, 1646, Harvey retired
from the court. He was in his sixty-ninth year, and doubtless found the
hardships and inconveniences which the miserable war entailed far from
conducive to health. The rest and seclusion to be had at the residence
of one or other of his brothers offered him the much-needed opportunity
of renewing his inquiries into the subject of generation, and it is of
this time that Dr. Ent speaks in the preface to the published work on
that subject which appeared in 1651. "Harassed with anxious and in the
end not much availing cares, about Christmas last, I sought to rid my
spirit of the cloud that oppressed it, by a visit to that great man, the
chief honour and ornament of our college,