By His Majesty’s desire he noticed the liberty which several persons in holy orders had taken to wear their own hair and perukes of an unusual and unbecoming length, and rebuked them for it, strictly enjoining that all such, who professed the study of Divinity, should wear their hair in a manner more suitable to the gravity and sobriety of their profession. He also blamed them in His Majesty’s name for reading sermons, and commanded that preaching from MS., which took a beginning with the disorders of the late times, should be wholly laid aside, and that preachers should deliver their sermons, both in Latin and English, by memory or without book, as being a way of preaching which His Majesty judged most agreeable to the use of all foreign Churches, to the former custom of the University, and the nature and intention of the holy exercise itself.[366] These injunctions were anticipated at Oxford, where James, Duke of Ormond, continued Chancellor from 1669 to 1688. [Sidenote: UNIVERSITIES.] “It is not long since,” writes Dr. Ralph Bathurst, President of Trinity, “we had notice of the Duke of Monmouth’s letter, written by His Majesty’s command, to the University of Cambridge, against _long hair_ and the _reading of sermons_. It was here thought advisable to obviate the like reproof to ourselves, by an early compliance with His Majesty’s desires, though we think ourselves much more blameless than they, especially in the last particular. To this end, I have this day published a programme, the copy whereof I have made bold to send you.”[367]