The period of the Civil War is a gap in academical history. Its monuments are only traces of destruction, such as the defacement of Papistical images and window paintings by the Puritan soldiery, and the sad absence of the old College plate, of which two thousand five hundred ounces went to the Royal mint in New Inn Hall, only a few most sacred pieces, such as the Founder's drinking-horn at Queen's, and the covered cup, reputed that of the Founder, at Corpus, being left to console us for the irreparable loss. Exeter College alone seems to have shown compunction; perhaps there had remained in her something of the free spirit for which in the days of Wycliffe she had been noted. Art and taste may mourn, but the University, as a centre of Episcopalianism, had little cause to complain; for the war was justly called the Bishops' war, and by the Episcopal Church and the Queen, between them, Charles was brought to the block. Oxford was bound by her ecclesiasticism to the Royal cause, and she had the ill luck to be highly available as a place of arms from her position between the two rivers, while she formed an advanced post to the Western country in which the strength of the King's cause lay. During those years the University was in buff and bandolier, on the drill ground instead of in the Schools, while the Colleges were filled with the exiled Court and its ghost of a Parliament. Traces of works connecting the two rivers were not long ago to be seen, and tradition points to the angle in the old city wall under Merton College as the spot where Windebank, a Royalist officer, was shot for surrendering his post. There was a reign of garrison manners as well as of garrison duties, and to the few who still cared for the objects of the University, even if they were Royalists, the surrender of the city to the Parliament may well have been a relief. * * * * *