_Intestine broils and civil wars of Oxford_.--Anthony Wood, the faithful historian of Oxford, gives an account of a quarrel between the partisans of St. Guinbald and the residents of Oxford, in the days of Alfred, on his refounding the university, A.D. 886. After his death the continual inroads of the Danes kept the Oxonians in perpetual alarm, and in the year 979 they destroyed the town by fire, and repeated their outrage upon the new built town in 1002. Seven years after, Swein, the Danish leader, was repulsed by the inhabitants in a similar attempt, who took vengeance on their im-placable enemy by a general massacre on the feast of St. Brice. In the civil commotions under the Saxon prince, Oxford had again its full share of the evils of war. After the death of Harold, William the Conqueror was bravely opposed by the citizens in his attempt to enter Oxford, which effecting by force, he was so much exas- perated at their attachment to Harold, that he bestowed the government of the town on Robert de Oilgo, a Norman, with permission to build a castle to keep his Oxford subjects in awe. The disturbances during the reign of Stephen and his successor were frequent, and in the reign of John, A. D. 1209, an unfortunate occurrence threatened the entire destruction of Oxford as a seat of learning. A student, engaged in thoughtless diversion, killed a woman, and fled from justice. A band of citizens, with the mayor at their head, surrounded the hall to which he belonged, and demanded the offender; on being informed of his absence, the lawless multitude seized three of the students, who were entirely unconnected with the transaction, and ob-tained an order from the weak king (whose dislike to the clergy is known), to put the innocent persons to death--an order which was but too promptly obeyed. The scholars, justly en-raged by this treatment, quitted Oxford, some to Cambridge and Reading, and others to Maidstone, in Kent. The offended students also applied to the Pope, who laid the city under an interdict and discharged all professors from teaching in it. This step completely humbled the citizens, who sent a deputation of the most respectable to wait on the Pope's legate (then at Westminster) to acknowledge their rashness and request mercy; the legate (Nicholas, Bishop of Tusculum, ) granted their petition only on the most humiliating terms. The mayor and corporation were en-joined, by way of penance, to proceed annually, on the day dedicated to St. Nicholas, to all the parish churches bare-headed, with hempen halters round their necks, and whips in their hands, on their bare feet, and in their' shirts, and there pray the benefit of absolution from the priests, repeating the penitential