Читать книгу The Book of Trinity College Dublin 1591-1891 онлайн

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The first acts of aggression were demands to appoint creatures of Tyrconnell’s either to an Irish Lecturership which did not exist, or to Junior Fellowships, which required an oath of allegiance to the Crown and of adherence to the Church of England, as ordered by Charles II. in his Act of Uniformity. The Crown had been in the habit of appointing Fellows by mandamus, so that this proceeding was not so high-handed as it would be now-a-days. But the plain intention of James II.’s advisers, and especially of Tyrconnell, the Lord Deputy, was to force Roman Catholics into power and to dispossess Protestant interests. It is to the credit of the adventurers sent down to the College by Tyrconnell that they objected to take the oath. The Lord Deputy then stopped the Concordatum Fund of £400 a-year. It was a moment when the College so clearly felt its increasing numbers, that there was a proposal to sell some of the fast-accumulating plate to find funds in aid of new buildings. Apart from gifts made by the parents of pupils, there was a charge at matriculation for argent, as there still is in some Colleges at Oxford, and it seems to have been thought a convenient way of laying by money which could be easily realised in times of danger. How fast this plate had accumulated since the disasters of 1641 may be inferred from the fact that the College actually embarked 3,990 ounces of silver to be sent to London (7th February, 1687). On the 12th, Tyrconnell was sworn in Lord Deputy, and had the plate seized. The College reclaimed it, and ultimately recovered it on condition of laying out the money in the purchase of land. It seems to have brought 5s. per ounce, and is said to have been “profitably” invested. If the College now possessed it, the money value would not be less than £5 per ounce; its value in adding dignity to the establishment is not easily estimable. As Dr. Stubbs says, the succeeding events are best told from the College Register, which he quotes:—