This was the form of the oath:--"I do swear that it is not lawful, upon any pretence whatsoever, to take arms against the King; and that I do abhor that traitorous position of taking arms by his authority against his person, or against those that are commissioned by him, in pursuance of such commissions; and that I will not at any time endeavour any alteration of Government, either in Church or State." [Sidenote: 1665.] Failing to take this oath, Nonconformist ministers were forbidden after the 24th of March following, to come, except as passengers, within five miles of any corporate town or any place where, since the passing of the Act of Oblivion, they had been in the habit of officiating. A payment of forty pounds was prescribed as the penalty for offending against the Act; and those who refused the oath, and did not attend Divine service in the Established Church, incurred incapacity for exercising even the functions of a tutor. Any two county magistrates were empowered, upon oath to them of a violation of this law, to commit the transgressor to prison for six months.[482] The Act of Uniformity had banished Nonconformist ministers from the parish pulpits; the Conventicle Act had broken up the congregations which these ministers had secretly gathered since St. Bartholomew's Day, 1662; and now by the Five Mile Act, these persons were forced into exile, and perhaps reduced to starvation.[483] A spirit of retaliation may be traced in the new enactment. When the Presbyterian visitors, in the year 1646, took possession of the University, and the students proved rebellious, a military proclamation threatened that the refractory who tarried _within five miles of the city_, should be treated as spies.[484] And Cromwell had, by his ordinance in 1655, forbidden ejected ministers to attempt the business of education, or to officiate in their religious calling. Archbishop Sheldon, sitting from day to day in the Hall of Christ Church, as the Bill was read three times, might experience a gratified resentment as he called to mind the former _five mile_ proclamation; and as he thought of his own expulsion from the Wardenship of All Souls', others might indulge in similar reminiscences and feelings.[485] But the revenge proceeded far beyond the provocation. What was done by the Oxford visitors, and those who supported them, was done in a time of war, or immediately afterwards. What was done by the Oxford Parliament was done in a time of peace. Moreover, Cromwell, in his declaration, had prescribed no penalty for disobedience, and had promised to deal leniently with all persons who were well-disposed towards his government;[486] but now, men were required to swear to an abstract proposition which destroyed the last defence of freedom, or to be mulcted in a large penalty, with the superadded hardship of a banishment from home. [Sidenote: FIVE MILE ACT.]