THE DON--(_continued_)
Proctors--The Black Book--Personal spite and the taking of a
degree--The case of Meadowcourt of Merton--Extract from Black
Book--The taverner and the Proctor--Izaak Walton and the senior
Proctor--Amhurst’s character sketch of a certain Proctor.
The Proctor and his bull-dogs (entailing sudden scuttlings down side
streets, which, if abortive, lead to the nine o’clock string outside that
gentleman’s door, and the unwilling disbursement of goodly sums--the fine
for being out of college at an unstatutable hour was 40s.!--because
forsooth, a man had the misfortune to cross his path without being arrayed
in statutable garb), loomed darkly on the eighteenth-century skyline.
Wrapped in the safe embrace of trencher and gown it was possible to watch
the great Proctors
“... march in state
With velvet sleeves and scarlet gown,
Some with white wigs so hugely grown
They seem to ape in some degree
The dome of Radcliffe’s Library.”
It was the redoubtable senior Proctor who was the guardian of the Black
Book, the register of the university, in which he recorded the name of any
person who affronted him or the university. The mere inscription of a name
in the Proctor’s book may not seem a very fearful punishment, but it takes
on a darker aspect when it is discovered that no person so recorded might
proceed to his degree till he had given satisfaction to the Proctor who
had put him in. Amhurst explained that the Black Book into which the
Proctors put anybody “at whom, whether justly or not, they shall take
offence ... was at first design’d to punish refractory persons and immoral
offenders; but at present it is made use of to vent party spleen and is
fill’d up with whigs, constitutioners, and bangorians. So long as the
university has this rod in her hand, it is no wonder that high-church
triumphs over her most powerful adversaries; nor can we be at all
surpriz’d that Whiggism declines with the constitution club in Oxford,
when we behold people stigmatiz’d in the Black Book, and excluded from
their degrees for soberly rejoicing upon King George’s birthnight, and
drinking his majesty’s health.”
The question of making satisfaction to the Proctor who had inscribed a
name in that “dreadful and gloomy volume” was, in many cases at least, a
difficult and lengthy proceeding. The Merton Undergraduate, Meadowcourt,
who, as Steward of the Constitution Club, prevailed upon the Proctor to
join in drinking King George’s health, was prevented for two years from
taking his degree. The “binge” was a quite considerable affair. Party
feeling ran high, and the Charles II. partisans gathered in their hundreds
outside the tavern in which the Constitutioners had foregathered. Amid
booing and hissing, they threw lighted squibs in at the windows. In a
subsequent interview with Mr Holt, the Proctor, Meadowcourt, having
apologised, learned that as far as Holt was concerned he had nothing
further to fear, but that Holt’s brother Proctor, Mr White of Christ
Church, was vastly incensed, and had desired that “the power of taking
cognisance of, and proceeding against all that was done that night, might
be placed in his hands.” To this Holt had agreed. Consequently Meadowcourt
found himself compelled to seek out Mr White. The interview was short and
stormy, the Proctor being in “an ungovernable passion, insomuch that he
often brandished his arm at him.”
[Illustration: MERTON COLLEGE.]
Out of the doings of that adventurous, amusing and wholly reprehensible
evening the proctor White concocted the following charges which were duly
recorded in the Black Book, in all their pompous length:--
“_June 28th, 1716._
“Let Mr Carty of university College be kept from his degree, for which
he stands next, for the space of one whole year.
“1. For prophaning, with mad intemperance, that day, on which he
ought, with sober chearfulness, to have commemorated the restoration
of King Charles the second and the royal family, nay, of monarchy
itself, and the church itself.
“2. For drinking in company with those persons, who insolently boast
of their loyalty to King George, and endeavour to render almost all
the university, besides themselves, suspected of dissaffection.
“3. For calling together a great mob of people, as if to see a shew,
and drinking impious execrations, out of the tavern window, against
several worthy persons, who are the best friends to the church and the
king; by this means provoking the beholders to return them the same
abuses; from whence followed a detestable breach of the peace.
“4. For refusing to go home to his college after nine o’clock at
night, though he was more than once commanded to do it, by the junior
proctor, who came thither to quell the riot.
“5. For being catch’d at the same place again by the senior proctor,
and pretending, as he was admonish’d by him, to go home; but with a
design to drink again.
“Let Mr Meadowcourt of Merton College be kept back from the degree
which he stands for next, for the space of two years; nor be admitted
to supplicate for his grace, until he confesses his manifold crimes,
and asks pardon upon his knees.
“Not only for being an accomplice with Mr Carty in all his faults (or
rather crimes), but also,
“7. For being not only a companion, but likewise a remarkable abetter
of certain officers, who ran up and down the High Street with their
swords drawn, to the great terror of the townsmen and scholars.
“8. For breaking out to that degree of impudence (when the proctor
admonish’d him to go home from the tavern at an unseasonable hour) as
to command all the company with a loud voice, to drink King George’s
health.
“JOH. W., _proc-jun._”
In spite of the many entreaties on his behalf made by several
distinguished persons (“amongst whom were a most noble duke and a
marquis”) Meadowcourt was unable to obtain the remission of his sentence,
and was compelled to wait the full two years before he could proceed to
his degree. At the end of that time both the proctors concerned had
retired, and the Merton man, upon applying to the proctor then in office,
was informed that nothing could be done until both Holt and White had been
consulted. The unfortunate man went from one to the other for weeks. They
“bandied it about, sending Mr Meadowcourt upon sleeveless errands,” till,
at last, having jumbled their learned noddles together, they sent him a
paper containing the following articles, which they insisted should be
read by Mr Meadowcourt publicly in the Convocation House, before he might
proceed to his degree.
“1. I do acknowledge all the crimes laid to my charge in the Black
Book, and that I deserved the punishment imposed on me.
“2. I do acknowledge that the story of my being punish’d on account of
affection to King George, and his illustrious house, is unjust and
injurious, not only to the reputation of the proctor, but of the whole
university.
“3. I do profess sincerely, that I do not believe that I was punish’d
on that account.
“4. I am very thankful for the clemency of the university, in
remitting the ignominious part of the punishment, viz., begging pardon
on my knees.
“5. I beg pardon of Almighty God, of the proctor, and all the masters,
for the offences which I have committed respectively against them; and
I promise that I will, by my future behaviour, make the best amends I
can, for having offended by the worst of examples.”
Having fought the almighty proctors thus far Meadowcourt was not, however,
the man to give in to such an absurdly overwhelming piece of indignity as
that proposed. He refused to read the paper, resolving rather to go
without his degree. He was advised, however, to plead the Act of Grace,
which he did after many further checks and delays. He emerged finally from
the unequal conflict with victory and a degree. This case I think amply
justifies Amhurst’s assertion that the Black Book was used as a weapon
with which the proctors paid off personal insults and old scores, and the
injustice and abuse of the great power which they knew so cunningly how to
wield is only too apparent.
The proctors, naturally enough, were vastly unpopular men and, supposedly,
realising this, did not go one iota out of their way to decrease the
general dislike attaching to them, but rather consoled themselves by
piling on the pains and penalties at every opportunity. The gownsmen were
not the only people who had a rooted objection to them on principle. Even
the townees and tradesmen regarded them with an unfriendly eye, and gave
them no assistance in the detection of Undergraduate delinquents. In
illustration of the light in which they were held by the townspeople
Amhurst related an amusing story.
“A man who liv’d just by a pound in Oxford and kept an ale house put upon
his sign these words ‘_Ale sold here by the Pound_,’ which seduced a great
many young students to go thither out of curiosity to buy liquor, as they
thought, by weight; hearing of which, the vice-chancellor sent for the
landlord to punish him according to statute, which prohibits all ale house
keepers to receive scholars into their houses; but the fellow, being
apprehensive what he was sent for, as soon as he came into the
vice-chancellor’s lodgings, fell a spitting and a spawling about the room;
upon which the vice-chancellor ask’d him in an angry tone, what he meant
by that?
“‘Sir,’ says the fellow, ‘I am come to clear myself.’
“‘Clear yourself, sirrah!’ says the vice-chancellor; ‘but I expect that
you should clear yourself in another manner; they say you sell ale by the
pound.’
“‘No, indeed, Mr Vice-chancellor,’ replies the fellow, ‘I don’t.’
“‘Don’t you,’ says the Vice-chancellor again, ‘how do you then?’
“‘Very well,’ replies he, ‘I humbly thank you, Mr Vice-chancellor; pray
how do you, sir?’
“‘Get you gone,’ says the vice-chancellor, ‘for a rascal’; and turned him
downstairs.
“Away went the fellow and meeting with one of the proctors, told him that
the vice-chancellor desired to speak with him immediately; the proctor in
great haste went to know the vice-chancellor’s commands, and the fellow
with him, who told the vice-chancellor, when they came before him, that
here he was.
“‘Here he is!’ says the vice-chancellor, ‘who is here?’
“‘Sir,’ says the impudent alehouse-keeper, ‘you bad me go for a Rascal;
and lo! here I have brought you one.’”
The proctors had the appointment of the examiners, and once now and again
they paid a surprise visit in their official capacity to the schools, when
the examinations (such as they were) were in progress. This was, however,
a “rare and uncommon occurrence.” When prowling the streets in search of
whom they might devour their method was to search the coffee-houses and
smart establishments and give impositions to the “Bucks in boots” upon
whom they pounced. They left the ale-houses alone, or, in Tom Warton’s
words:--
“Nor Proctor thrice with vocal Heel alarms
Our Joys secure, nor deigns the lowly Roof
Of Pot-house snug to visit: wiser he
The splendid Tavern haunts, or Coffee-house....”
Izaak Walton described the senior proctor in 1616 as one who “did not use
his power of punishing to an extremity; but did usually take their names,
and a promise to appear before him unsent for next morning: and when they
did convinced them with such obligingness, and reason added to it, that
they parted from him with such resolutions as the man after God’s own
heart was possessed with, when he said to God, There is mercy with thee,
and therefore thou shalt be feared (Psal. cxxx.). And by this, and a like
behaviour to all men, he was so happy as to lay down this dangerous
employment, as but few, if any have done, even without an enemy.”
The proctorship was therefore a difficult post to fill even a full century
before Amhurst was born to set down in black and white the iniquities of
his own time. Izaak Walton’s proctor was the exception; Amhurst’s seems
to have been the rule, and his character is given by Terrae Filius as
follows:--
“... of Christ Church, a tool that was form’d by nature for vile and
villainous purposes, being advanced to the proctorship, publickly
declar’d, that no constitutioner should take a degree whilst he was in
power. This corrupt and infamous magistrate had formerly been under cure
for lunacy, and was now very far relaps’d into the same distemper. He was
naturally the most proud and insolent tyrant to his betters, who were
below him in the university; but to those above him the most mean and
creeping slave. He was peevish, passionate, and revengeful; loose and
profligate in his morals, though seemingly rigid and severe. In publick, a
serious and solemn hypocrite; in private, a ridiculous and lewd buffoon.
An impudent pretender to sanctity and conscience, which he always us’d as
a cloak for the most unjust and criminal actions. In short, he was so
worthless and despicable a fellow, and had so scandalously overacted his
part in his extravagant zeal against the constitution club, that at the
expiration of his proctorship, when he appear’d as candidate for the
professorship of history, there were not above ten persons, besides the
members of his own college who voted for him.”
The anonymity of the blank space in front of the man’s college is not
sufficient to conceal the fact that this character sketch, a bitter and
pointed attack, was most probably meant for the Mr White who distinguished
himself in the Meadowcourt case. As, however, from many instances, he
appears to have been no better and no worse than the generality of
proctors during the century, there is no reason why Amhurst’s
denunciations should not be credited as descriptive of most of the others
of his kind.
Modern Oxford has reason to congratulate herself that the reins of
government are no longer in such hands. There exist to-day none of the
abuses and vices which were so striking a feature of the eighteenth
century. They have all been swept away. Oxford has purged herself of them,
and in their place are to be found honesty, uprightness, and all the
cardinal virtues. The modern Don has nothing in common with his Georgian
predecessor. He relegates self to a discreet background, and devotes his
entire energies to the interests of those over whom he has authority; and
his pupils, on going down, harbour no feelings of contempt and
ill-feeling, but look on him instead as a man whose friendship is an
honour which must be treasured to the end.