SCHOOLS 



seem to have gone on every year without interruption. Even the 

 annual hunt of the boys went on, as the item of 5-r. for the waggon on 

 the hunting day occurs as usual. 1 



How little Winchester School had to fear is shown by the attempt 

 made by Warden Harris to obtain the exemption of the college from the 

 excise imposed by Parliament in 1646, through Nicholas Love, their 

 correspondence being preserved in the college muniments. 



The excise question took a long time to settle, for on 26 March, 

 1647, Love wrote to Harris, 'till we come to handle the matter for 

 Oxford, little can be done in the House. The Committee is going down 

 to visit the Colleges, and uppon their report a rise will be taken by all 

 schollers and schollers' friends to exempt them from publique imposi- 

 tions. For the meantime I have prevailed with the Commissioners of 

 the Excise to intimate a connivency.' In the result the college was not 

 exempted, though Winchester does not seem to have paid anything 

 except on beer sold to strangers (biria batillata ab extranet's) . 



The visitation of Oxford University was a serious affair to Wyke- 

 hamists. On the death of Warden Pincke, who had taken a leading 

 part in organizing Oxford volunteers for the king, on 2 November, 1 647, 

 Parliament forbade a new election. The fellows applied to Lord Say, 

 who told them that they would be free to elect Josiah White, ' the 

 patriarch of Dorchester,' a good Wykehamist. But they foolishly 

 elected Henry Stringer, a violent Royalist, whose election was of course 

 quashed, and George Marshall, a Parliamentary chaplain, of St. John's 

 College, Cambridge, was intruded in his place. The fellows pleaded 

 their oaths on admission as the reason for refusing to admit any visitation 

 but that of the bishop, and were expelled to the number of thirty, out of 

 a nominal total of seventy. 



At first efforts were made to fill the void with Wykehamists, the 

 Parliamentary Committee ordering, 2 2 August, 1648, that first founder's 

 kin, then scholars of Winchester, and then superannuated scholars should 

 be elected. On 6 June three founder's kin, George, John and Nathaniel 

 Danvers, and five ' Winchester College superannuates ' were nominated 

 for election by ' Mr. Nathaniel Fines, but the bulk of the fellowships 

 were filled up from outsiders, though the Winchester boys do not seem 

 to have been actually deprived of their rights for even one election.' 



Meanwhile, on 4 May, 1649, Parliament had directed that the com- 

 mittees for regulating Oxford ' take care of the regulating of the 

 University of Cambridge and Winchester College,' and Sir Henry 

 Mildmay, General Ireton and Mr. Love (Nicholas Love) were, amongst 

 others, added to the committee. On 14 June Love wrote to the warden, 

 hoping that he and the warden of New College would so settle things at 

 the election that both colleges ' may rest without any further disturb- 



1 e.g. Bursar's Book, 1642-3, at end of second term, i.e. near Lady-day, 'In solutis 5/. pro 

 plaustro die venationis.' 



a Register of the Visitors of the University of Oxford, 1647-58 (Camden Society, 1881, No. 29, 

 ed. by Professor Montagu Burrows), p. 180. 



327 



