122

HISTORY OP ENGLAND.

CHAP.

vm.

1687 .

more than once sent to prison for haranguing in conventicles.• He did not succeed in frightening the Magdalene men. Inanswer to his alarming hints he was reminded that in the lastgeneration thirty-four out of the forty Fellows had cheerfullyleft their beloved cloisters and gardens, their hall and theirchapel, and had gone forth not knowing where they shouldfind a meal or a bed, rather than violate the oath of allegiance.The King now wished them to violate another oath. Heshould find that the old spirit was not extinct.

Then Penn tried a gentler tone. He had an interviewwith Hough and with some of the Fellows, and, after manyprofessions of sympathy and friendship, began to hint at acompromise. The King could not bear to be crossed. Thecollege must give way. Parker must be admitted. But hewas in very bad health. All his preferments would soon bevacant. “Doctor Hough,” said Penn, “may then be Bishopof Oxford. How should you like that, gentlemen?” Pennh^i 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 had been allowed the value of the tithes in the purchasemoney. According to his own principles, he would havecommitted a great sin if he had interfered for the purposeof obtaining a benefice on the most honourable terms for themost pious divine. Yet to such a degree had his mannersbeen corrupted by evil communications, and his understand-ing obscured by inordinate zeal for a single object, that hedid not scruple to become a broker in simony of a peculiarlydiscreditable kind, and to use a bishopric as a bait to tempta divine to perjury. Hough replied with civil contempt thathe wanted nothing from the crown but common justice. “Westand,” he said, “on our statutes and our oaths: but, evensetting aside our statutes and oaths, we feel that we have ourreligion to defend. The Papists have robbed us of UniversityCollege. They have robbed us of Christ Church. The fightis now for Magdalene. They will soon have all the rest.”

Penn was foolish enough to answer that he really believedthat the Papists would now be content. “University,” he