Another ominous vespers in Christ Church Cathedral, besides Anthony Dalaber’s, is on record. On Friday, February 3rd, 1643-4, his Majesty appointed a thanksgiving to be made at Evening Prayer at Christ Church for the taking of Cirencester by Prince Rupert the day before. The doctors were in their red robes; and polished breast-plates and laced buff-coats must have had a brilliant effect under the massive white arches. “But there was no new Form of Thanksgiving said, save only that Form for the victory of Edgehill, and a very solemn anthem, with this several times repeated therein--‘Thou shalt set a Crown of pure gold upon his Head, and upon his Head shall his Crown flourish.’” The scarlet gowns appeared again to welcome the Queen at Tom Gate on July 13th, 1644. There was a fair show of state in the way of trumpets, heralds, and the like; and “Garter, coming last, was accompanied by the Mayor of Oxon in his scarlet and mace on his shoulder.” But Naseby field ended all pageant and hope alike in July 1645, just after Fairfax’s siege of fifteen days on the Headington Hill side without result. The next two years must have been a miserable time. In April 1648, at the “visitation” by the Parliamentary Visitors, the Dean of Christ Church (Dr. Samuel Fell) being in custody in London, Mrs. Fell and her children, with certain ladies, elected to be carried out of the Deanery rather than walk out, and were deposited in the quadrangle in feminine protest against extrusion. Her husband’s name was scored out of the Buttery-Book, with those of seven Canons, the eighth (Dr. Robert Sanderson) being respited during absence; and Dr. Edward Reynolds was substituted, with a new set of Canons. A clean sweep was at the same time made of all “malignant” members, hardly any taking the Parliamentary Oath or the Solemn League and Covenant. In January 1647-8 the Latin version of the Common Prayer, and the Common Prayer itself, ceased in Christ Church. It was maintained by three Christ Church men--John Fell, Richard Allestree, and John Dolben--till the Restoration, in a house in Merton Street, and seems to have escaped interference. A less dire debate than the Parliamentary War was the celebrated controversy with Bentley on _The Epistles of Phalaris_ in 1695. It deserves notice in a chapter on Christ Church.