In the Bodleian (MS. Rawl. D. 985) there is a volume of copies of Latin letters written by Robert Batt of Brasenose, chiefly to a brother, in which among much of the usual rhetoric there is also curious information about the life of the College. They range from 1581 to 1585, and we read of his complaints to the Principal because a junior man is put into his study (_musæum_), of an archery meeting at Oxford, which much distracts the young Batt, and of the visit of the Prince Alaskie to Oxford. He asks his Cambridge brother to come up for Commem, and with Yorkshire bluntness writes letters to the Master and a Fellow of University College, asking for a Fellowship! So too in 1609-11 we find ten letters from Richard Taylor as tutor to Sir Peter Legh’s son (Hist. Manuscripts Commission, _Report 3_, 1872, p. 268), which throw light on College affairs and expenses of that time. In the Register of the Parliamentary Visitors of the University from 1647 to 1658 we obtain an insight into the condition of the College, which shows it to have been in a creditable state. At first the College is as Royalist as any, the proportion of submitters to those who were willing to endure actual expulsion rather than acknowledge the Visitors’ rights, being probably only twelve to twenty-three, in May 1648. Their Principal, Dr. Samuel Radcliffe, had already, on Jan. 6, been deprived of his office, and Daniel Greenwood, a submitter, had been on April 13, put in his place. But the spirit of the College is abundantly shown by the proceedings which ensued on Dr. Radcliffe’s death. Three days after that event, on June 29, the Society, to use Wood’s words, “(taking no notice that the Visitors had entred Mr. Greenwood Principal) put up a citation on the Chappel door (as by Statute they were required) to summon the Fellows to election. The Visitors thereupon send for Mr. Thom. Sixsmith and two more Fellows of that House to command them to surcease and submit to their new Principal Mr. Greenwood; but they gave them fair words, went home, and within four days after [July 13] chose among themselves, in a Fellow’s Chamber, at the West end of the old Library, Mr. Thom. Yate, one of their Society.” The Visitors immediately deposed him, in favour of Greenwood; but at the Restoration Dr. Yate’s claims were at once recognized, and he long enjoyed the headship. This resistance by the Fellows was proved to be not lawlessness but loyalty, for when resistance was of no avail, they “speedily[219] recovered their working order, and gave but little trouble to the Visitors,” a contrast to the general example of other Colleges.