The Colleges of Oxford: Their History and Traditions: XXI Chapters Contributed by Members of the Colleges — John Shaqi
The Colleges of Oxford: Their History and Traditions: XXI Chapters Contributed by Members of the Colleges
History
The Colleges of Oxford: Their History and Traditions: XXI Chapters Contributed by Members of the Colleges
University of Oxford -- History
Another member of the College of the same name, but who achieved
more fame, was Obadiah Walker, who was already a Fellow under Thomas
Walker’s mastership, and was ejected by the Long Parliament along with
him, and also with his old tutor, Mr. Abraham Woodhead. Woodhead and O.
Walker retired abroad and visited Rome and many other places. At the
Restoration they both regained their Fellowships, but Woodhead never
more conformed to the English Church. O. Walker, however, continued
to take the Sacrament in the College chapel, and after that he was
elected Master distributed it to the other Fellows, till, on the
accession of James II., he “openly declared himself a Romanist, and
got a dispensation from his Majesty for himself and two Fellows, his
converts, who held their places till the king’s flight, notwithstanding
the laws to the contrary.” William Smith, who was a resident Fellow at
the time, has “many good things to say of Obadiah Walker, as that he
was neither proud nor covetous, and framed his usual discourse against
the Puritans on one side, and the Jesuits on the other, as the chief
disturbers of the peace, and hinderers of all concessions and agreement
amongst all true members of the Catholic Church.” He complains,
however, that “as soon as he declared himself a Roman Catholic, he
provided him and his party of Jesuits for their Priests; concerning
the first of which (I think he went by the name of Mr. Edwards) there
is this remarkable story, that having had mass said for some time in a
garret, he afterwards procured a mandate from K. James to seize on the
lower half of a side of the quadrangle, next adjoining to the College
chapel, by which he deprived us of two low rooms, their studies and
their bed-chambers; and after all the partitions were removed, it was
someway or other consecrated, as we suppose, to Divine services; for
they had mass there every day, and sermons at least in the afternoons
on the Lord’s Day.”
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