Cromwell’s Soldiers at a Disputation at Oxford
It was a custom of Dr. Kettel, while President of Trinity College, Oxford (says Tom Warton, citing the MSS. of Dr. Bathurst, in his Appendix to his Life of Sir Thomas Pope,) “to attend daily the DISPUTATIONS in the college-hall, on which occasions he constantly wore a large black furred muff. Before him stood an hour-glass, brought by himself into the hall, and placed on the table, for ascertaining the time of the continuance of the exercise, which was to last an hour at least. One morning, after Cromwell’s soldiers had taken possession of Oxford, a halberdier rushed into the hall during this controversy, and plucking off our venerable Doctor’s muff, threw it in his face, and then, with a stroke of his halberd, broke the hour-glass in pieces. The Doctor, though old and infirm, instantly seized the soldier by the collar, who was soon overpowered, by the assistance of the disputants. The halberd was carried out of the hall in triumph before the Doctor; but the prisoner, with his halberd, was quickly rescued by a party of soldiers, who stood at the bottom of the hall, and had enjoyed the whole transaction.” It was in the grove of this college, during Monmouth’s Rebellion of 1685, that Sir Philip Bertie, a younger son of Robert Earl of Lindsay, who was a member of Trinity College, and had spoken a copy of verses in the theatre at Oxford, in 1683, to the Duke and Dutchess a York, &c., trained a company, chiefly of his own college, of which he was captain, in the militia of the university.