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.