Oxford, indeed, enjoyed a temporary
exemption from their control; but Cambridge was already in their power,
and a succession of feuds between the students and the townsmen afforded
a decent pretext for their interference. Soldiers were quartered in
the colleges; the painted windows and ornaments of the churches were
demolished; and the persons of the inmates were subjected to insults and
injuries. In January, 1644, an ordinance passed for the reform of the
university;[a] and it was perhaps fortunate that the ungracious task
devolved in the first instance on the military commander, the earl of
Manchester, who to a taste for literature added a gentleness of disposition
adverse from acts of severity. Under his superintendence the university
was "purified;" and ten heads of houses, with sixty-five fellows, were
expelled. Manchester confined himself to those who, by their hostility to
the parliament, had rendered themselves conspicuous, or through fear had
already abandoned their stations; but after his departure, the meritorious
undertaking was resumed by a committee, and the number of expulsions was
carried to two hundred.[1] Thus the clerical establishment gradually
crumbled
[Footnote 1: Journals of Lords, vi. 389; of Commons, Jan.
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