The famous 'Guy Fawkes' Lantern,' which is to this day such an object of
interest in the Picture Gallery to most sight-seers, was presented to
the University by Robert Heywood, M.A., Brasenose College, who had been
Proctor in 1639. It came into his possession from his being the son of a
Justice of the Peace who assisted in searching the cellars of the
Parliament House, and arrested Fawkes with the lantern in his hand. In
1640 this Justice Heywood was wounded by a Roman Catholic when, while
still holding office as a Justice for Westminster, he was engaged in
proposing the oaths to the recusants of that city[102]. The following
inscription is attached to it, engraved upon a brass plate: 'Lāterna
illa ipsa, qua usus est et cum qua deprehensus Guido Faux in crypta
subterranea, ubi domo Parlamenti difflandæ operam dabat. Ex dono Rob.
Heywood, nuper Academiæ Procuratoris, Apr. 4, 1641.' From being for many
years exposed to the handling of every visitor, it became much broken;
but it has now for a long time been secured from further injury by being
enclosed in a glass case.
In May an order was made by the Curators that no strangers should have
the use of any MSS. without finding sureties for the safety of the same,
in consequence of a suspicion that whole pages had been in some cases
abstracted. Hereupon a very earnest, and, in sooth, indignant,
remonstrance was presented to the 'Curatores vigilantissimi' by the
strangers then residing in Oxford 'studiorum causa.' The original
document is preserved in Wood MS. F. 27, and is signed by eleven persons
from Prussia and other parts of Germany, six Danes, and one Englishman
(John Wyberd), a medical student. Some of these visitors are found, by
reference to the Register of Readers, to have been students for a
considerable time; the Baron ab Eulenberg, for instance, having been
admitted on Jan. 18, 1638-9, and one Ven, a Dane, in 1633. The
memorialists say that there is not even the very slightest ground for
attributing such an offence to any of them, and that the Librarian
himself candidly confesses that it has never been proved to him that
strangers have ever done anything of the kind; they urge the difficulty
of their finding sponsors for their honesty when they themselves are
strangers and foreigners; they appeal to Bodley's own statutes as
providing sufficiently for the contingency by ordering the Librarian to
number the pages of a MS. before giving it out, and to examine it when
returned; they fortify their arguments by abundant references to the
civil law; they upbraid those who,--'internecino exterorum atque
advenarum odio æstuantes (O celebratam Britanniæ
hospitalitatem!),'--have originated the calumny; and, finally, warn the
Curators against giving occasion for suspicion to the learned men of the
whole world that 'doctos Angliæ viros, priscæ hospitalitatis immemores,
majori exterorum quam Athenienses Megarensium odio flagrare.' The
memorial is endorsed: 'De hac re amplius deliberandum censebant Præfecti
ult. Maii, 1641;' and no doubt the obnoxious order was soon repealed.
Half a century later, on Nov. 8, 1693, the order was in a certain degree
renewed: it was then enjoined 'that no one be permitted to _transcribe_
any manuscript, but such as have a right to study in the Library.' The
revival, however, was not due to any revived fear of foreigners; the
following reason is given in a letter of information on Library matters
from Dr. Hyde to Hudson, his successor, written on the latter's
appointment in 1701:--'Some in the University have been very troublesome
in pressing that their Servitors may transcribe manuscripts for them,
though not sworn to the Library, nor yet capable of being sworn;
wherefore the Curators made an order (as you will find in the Book of
Orders in the Archives) "that none were capable of transcribing, except
those who had the right of studying in the Library," viz.
Batchelors[103].' But no doubt this order also soon became dormant, even
if it were not definitely repealed.
[102] Neal's _History of the Puritans_, i. 688.
[103] Walker's _Letters of Eminent Men_, 1813, vol. i. p. 175.