The English Spy, page 230 by Bernard Blackmantle
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the are true to ye kinge. So on bothe may learning and honour lighte, Let all men gailie singe.{1}
~265~~
1 The above imitation of the style of the ancient ballad is founded on traditional circumstances said to have occurred when the pacific king James visited Oxford.--Bernard Blackmantle.
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 d