Elizabeth visited the College, and gently rebuked the Puritan
tendencies of the then President, Dr. Humphrey, who carried his
scruples so far as to object to the academical scarlet he had to wear
as a Doctor of Divinity, because it savoured of the "Scarlet Woman."
"Dr. Humphrey," said the queen, with the tact alike of a Tudor
sovereign and of a true woman, "methinks this gown and habit become
you very well, and I marvel that you are so strait-laced on this
point--but I come not now to chide." This President complained that
his headship was "more payneful than gayneful," a charge not usually
brought against headships at Oxford.
In the seventeenth century, Magdalen was, for a short time, the very
centre of England's interest. James II, in his desire to force Roman
Catholicism on Oxford, tried to fill the vacant Presidency with one
of his co-religionists. His first nominee was not only disqualified
under the statutes, but was also a man of so notoriously bad a
character that even the king had to drop him. Meanwhile, the fellows,
having waited, in order to oblige James, till the last possible
moment allowed by the statutes, filled up the vacancy by electing one
of their own number, John Hough.
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