Page:Terræ-filius- or, the Secret History of the University of Oxford.djvu/379

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APPENDIX

lect their obligations to conscience and oaths, as to withdraw their artifice to the support of your darling Scheme; but you will do well to consider, that violations of the most solemn treaties and engagements are, in these our days, no rarities in sovereign princes.

I shall now come to the Book it self, and point out several passages, in which you seem to have couch'd some Truth, and a great deal of Satire.

Concerning your opinion of the Heads of colleges, you deliver your self thus,[1] "If it should be ask'd why the university, if they had not thought this penalty (of forty shillings) sufficient in 1634, did not increase it? I answer, that this might not then be thought necessary, because the Heads of houses, the immediate judges of the reasons offered for removing from one house to another, being, together with the Chanceller and Proctors from that very time, by a particular statute then made, united into an amicable Body, at once impower'd and obliged to meet weekly[2] in order to deliberate about whatever might concern the honour and interest of this famous feat of learning; it could hardly be conceived possible, that, in any future age, any of the Heads of houses themselves, should so utterly disregard the conscience of their duty, the dignity of their station, the familiarity of their friendship, the peace of the university, and the reputation of their respective societies, as to be guilty of the breach of this statute, had there been no penalty annex'd to it."

I hope, I need not comment upon this passage, nor use any arguments to prove that this complicated charge against the Heads of houses, which you


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  2. Vide my paper No. XXIX. concerning the Ordinantis.