There was a prelusive struggle between town and gown in the year before the war. The chancellorship of Laud had roused opposition; but the University was almost unanimous for Charles, and easily chose [Illustration: MAGDALEN TOWER AND BOTANIC GARDEN The tower of Magdalen College is seen rising over the trees of the Botanic Garden, illumined by the last rays of the setting sun. Beneath the poplar is one of the gate piers, and through an opening in the clipped hedge shows the basin of a fountain. Two girls walk in the meadows.] its side, when he demanded a loan on the eve of the war. Van Ling had just painted the windows of University College chapel. The Dean of Christ Church, or rather “Smith of London,” had just finished the airy over-traceried approach to Christ Church hall, upon which every one looks back as he steps down to the cloisters. Other work was in preparation at Christ Church. But all building suddenly ceased. A brief visit of Parliament troops to the yet unfortified city was recorded by the shattering of the Virgin and her Child over St. Mary’s porch. After Edgehill, the King came to Oxford, and the effect was worse than the mutilation of a Virgin of stone. The University Volunteers, some armed with bows, were drilled in the quadrangle of New College and Christ Church, and skirmished in the Parks. The royal artillery lay in Magdalen Grove. New College tower and cloisters became the arsenal: New Inn Hall the mint. Charles and Queen Henrietta Maria were lodged at Merton. The Court was held at Christ Church. A Fellow of Magdalen and a Fellow of All Souls’ edited the royalist gazette, _Mercurius Aulicus_, “the latter pleasing more with his buffoneries.” The besieging Parliamentarians were spread about the high ground of Headington, and the low fields on the north of the city. The greater number of scholars left Oxford, and their rooms were occupied by ladies and cavaliers. College trees were cut down for use in the defences. A little war, much gallantry and coarseness, drove away learning and tranquillity, unwilling to linger for the sound of Sir John Denham’s smooth and insipid Muse, which produced _Coopers Hill_ in 1642. The Muses were probably in hiding abroad with Lovelace and Marvell; for Milton was writing only prose, and George Wither, a Magdalen man, was a captain of Parliamentary horse at Maidstone. Yet a contemporary pamphlet says that “Robin Goodfellow” found the Muses near Eynsham. “He had not gone as far as Ensham, but he espied the nine Muses in a vintner’s porch crouching close together, and defending themselves as well as they could from the cold visitation of the winter’s night. They were extream poore, and (which is most strange) in so short an absence and distance from Oxford they were grown extreamly ignorant, for they took him for their Apollo, and craved his power and protection to support them.”