PARLIAMENT WINS | Cromwell Captures Charles I

Oliver Cromwell (L) and King Charles I (R).

November 30, 2018–On this day in 1648, Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army, led by Yorkshireman Sir Thomas Lord Fairfax, captured Charles I in Oxford.

Two months later, the King was beheaded.

King Charles had retreated to loyalist Oxford University after the Parliamentarians defeated Royalist troops at Naseby three years earlier, and Marston Moor before that.

While all the Oxford University colleges except Merton were loyal to the King, and donated their silver plate to help pay for the King's troops, the Oxford townspeople were Parliamentarians.

Charles I was put on trial for high treason. He vociferously claimed the monarch's divine right to rule, which he had been coached to uphold by his father James I. Charles was sentenced to death and was beheaded on January 30.

Charles I was the last reigning English monarch to be executed. After him, Britain's royals have soft-pedaled their divine right to rule. More in Oxford College Arms (Boissevain Books, 2018), p 11.

OXFORD | Russian Heritage

Dr Nina Kruglikova at
Weston Library, Oxford.

What would the main themes be of a Russian Heritage tour of Oxford? 

I asked Nina Kruglikova, a fellow Trinity College, Oxford alum whom I met on a tour led by Felicity Tholstrup of WW2 Oxford earlier this month on the Oxford Weekend. 

Here are some topics for a Russian Heritage tour, which Nina has conducted in the past.

17th Century – Visit to Oxford from Peter the Great. Tsar Peter I ("the Great"), founder of St Petersburg, was born in 1672 and became emperor at ten years of age. He ruled for 43 years. 

He visited Oxford, incognito, staying at the Golden Cross and visiting the Chapel at Trinity College. Even though he was in disguise, he cut such a figure that he attracted attention.

19th Century – Visit from Alexander I. Emperor Alexander (1777-1825) went to Radcliffe Camera to celebrate the victory over Napoleon in 1814. He stayed in the Queen's Room in Merton (where the wife of Charles I lived during the period before Cromwell prevailed over the monarchy). He gave a big vase from Suberia and also a double-headed eagle in a stained-glass window, the arms of the Tsar. One legend is that Alexander caused damage during his visit and the vase and window were repayment.

Peter I ("The Great")

20th Century (A) – Prince Felix Felixovich Yusupov. Yusupov (1887-1967), who as a youth went under the title Count Sumarokov-Elston (Князь Фе́ликс Фе́ликсович Юсу́пов, Граф Сумаро́ков-Эльстон) was for three years, 1909-12, at University College, Oxford. He had lavish parties at Univ. For example, he brought in a famed Russian ballet dancer named Pavlova (a cake is named after her). His best friend from St. Petersburg, Oswald Raynor, was at Oriel.

At the end of his student years at Oxford he was reported to have visited Royal Albert Hall for a full-dress event and to have impressed many onlookers as the best-dressed person in the Hall. Five years later he went to the United States and was depicted in a thinly fictionalized film as having raped his wife. He sued the film company and won.

He is credited along with the Tsar's cousin Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich with killing Father Grigori Yefimovich (Gregory) 1869-1916, the "mad Monk" friend of the family of Tsar Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra. Rasputin died at Yusupov's home; he did not eat the cyanide-laced cookies so he was shot in the head.

Nicolas II – Nice man,
bad tsar.

Yusupov and his wife Irina migrated to England after the assassination of Tsar Nicholas with his wife and five children in 1918. 

There were two revolutions in 1917. The first was by the democratic Duma ruling committee, in February. The Duma forced Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate, ending three centuries of Romanov rule. 

It would be another half a year before the Bolshevik (October) Revolution.  government was formed, after the Socialist revolution in late autumn 1917.

Yusupov and his wife bought a house at 4 Marston Street, Oxford that is now called St Nicholas House. They were interviewed about his 1953 book, Lost Splendor. Prince Yusupov died at St Pancras Hospital in 1963 and is buried at Headington Cemetery outside of Oxford. 

The influence and origins of Rasputin continue to be a mystery, so that when Yusupov died there was interest in his personal papers; however, he apparently burned them.

20th Century (B) – Charles Sydney Gibbes. Son of John Gibbs (sic – he added the "e" later in life), he did the Moral Sciences Tripos at St John's College, Cambridge. He became the tutor to the children of Tsar Nicholas II. He was deeply distressed a perceived betrayal of the Tsar by his British relatives, but the Great War was going so badly that all of the countries were fearful of revolution. One view is that George V's wife Mary was hostile to the Tsar's family because they lorded over her at Osborne on the Isle of Wight when Victoria was still alive. After Nicholas II and his family were assassinated, Gibbes first became a monk and then became an Orthodox priest in Oxford, taking the name Nicholas out of respect for the Tsar and his family.

20th Century (C) – Leonid Pasternak. The father of Boris Pasternak, Leonid lived in Park Town, Oxford. He was an artist and his house is now a museum, full of his paintings.

21st Century – St Nicholas Church. The church that Nina and other Russian Orthodox faithful attend is at the previously mentioned #4 Marston Road (St Nicholas House), near the intersection with Ferry Road. It used to be the Anglican church of St Nicholas. They have Sunday services from 10:30 until 1:30 pm or later.

HERALDRY: Oriel~ (Updated May 15, 2018)

Oriel College, Oxford
arms.

Blazon: Gules three Lions passant guardant in pale Or a bordure engrailed Argent. (A lion is passant if viewed from the side with his head facing the viewer. A lion is guardant or gardant if his front right leg is raised, although the passant lions tend to have only three feet on the ground. In pale means the lions are lined up in a column, one above the other.)

Authority: These Royal Arms of England were used by the Plantagenet kings, from Richard I ("Lionheart") to Henry III and Edwards I, II and III. We could find no evidence that the college's differencing by a bordure engrailed argent has been granted, but the arms have been used for so long that they are now "ancient".

Nominee: The College was founded in 1324 by Adam de Brome during the reign of Edward II (ruled 1307-1377). Edward is the titular founder of the college, which is why the Royal Arms are used.  The Bordure may have been informed by de Brome's coat of arms, which includes the rare bordure engrailed argent.

College History. The College was once known as King's Hall and has absorbed both St. Mary's Hall and Bedel Hall Soon after the foundation in 1326 as the College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, it was given a property called La Oriole, on the site of the present Front Quadrangle, and gradually the college came to be called by that name. Oriel was Oxford's fifth college, and the first to be royally founded. It began with a Provost and 10 Fellows. Students could pursue Theology, Law and Medicine. Three Provosts went on to become Bishops. It was the college of Walter Raleigh and Thomas More. In the early 1500s the first undergraduates arrived. Oriel survived the turbulence of the religious Reformation. By the end of the century more space was needed. Between 1620 and 1642 the medieval buildings were replaced by the present front quadrangle, which housed some of the court of King Charles I while Oxford was briefly his capital before he was defeated and beheaded by Cromwell. In the 1700s Oriel attracted its first transatlantic students, sons of planters in Virginia, one of whom later regretted employing a young surveyor, George Washington. Oriel expanded into a second quadrangle and built its Senior Library to house a large gift of books. Oriel in the 18th century  produced famed parson-naturalist Gilbert White. From 1780 to 1830 Oriel led the way in reforming academic standards, the brilliant Noetic era and then the Oxford Movement to revitalize the Church of England. The Oriel Fellowships were opened up to competitive examination and many of those who arrived, like Dr Thomas Arnold and John Henry Newman, made their mark.

Recent History. From the 1980s on Oriel College has grown rapidly, like the rest of Oxford, as graduate professional and specialty studies flourished and women were admitted in 1985. Oriel now has about 50 Fellows, 300 undergraduates and 200 graduate students. In recent weeks Ntokozo Qwabe, a 24-year-old Rhodes scholar from South Africa, has led a campaign to remove an Oriel College plaque to Cecil Rhodes and also a statue of Rhodes. Oriel College has started a process for removing the plaque. Qwabe was reported two days ago by the British Daily Telegraph as claiming that:

• Students at Oxford endure “systemic racism, patriarchy and other oppressions” on a daily basis.
• The university’s admissions and staff recruitment systems systematically exclude certain groups of people.
• Oxford’s architecture is laid out in a “racist and violent” way. 
• The British media treat him and his supporters like “terrorists” for challenging the establishment.

Other Posts on Heraldry at Oxford etc.:  HERALDRY SUPERLINK.

RELIGION: Oxford v. Cambridge (Updated Dec. 6, 2015)

Martyrs' Memorial from the Randolph Hotel.
Balliol, and Back Entrance of Trinity, behind.
Oxford photos by JTMarlin, September 2012.

America's bloody Civil War was fought over states' rights and slavery. Britain's Civil War (1642-51) was primarily about religion.

However, there is an interesting connection between the two civil wars. The religious wars in England in the 16th and 17th centuries continued to be played out in the American colonies and then the United States because:

• The settlers approved by the Crown were more likely to be in the southern colonies. 
• The dissidents went to the northeast.
• The Revolution originated in the northeast and the southern states were convinced to join. 
• After the United States was established, the differences among the two regions became more prominent.

A monument at the heart of Oxford is a reminder of how much Oxford and Cambridge were at the center of Britain's religious battles, and had an influence on the way the Revolution and Civil War played out in America.

The history takes us to Cambridge to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.

Catholic Persecution of Protestants, Oxford v. Cambridge

The east-facing view in Oxford from the Randolph Hotel's "Presidential Suite", where President Clinton once stayed, is of the Martyrs' Memorial. Behind it in grey stone is Balliol College, then the back entrance to Trinity College, and then St. John's.

The Memorial was erected to the memory of two Church of England archbishops and one bishop who were burned in 1555-56 at the behest of the ruling Catholic clergy - during the reign of Catholic Queen "Bloody" Mary I (1553-1558). Mary Tudor was the daughter of Henry VIII, who created the Church of England, and Roman Catholic Catherine of Aragon. Mary remained loyal to Roman Catholicism. She was preceded and succeeded by Protestants, Edward VI and Queen Elizabeth I.

Martyrs' Memorial from the Randolph.
Detail of statue by Henry Weekes.

The three martyrs, ironically known as "Oxford Martyrs" although they were all Cambridge men, were Thomas Cranmer (Jesus College), Nicholas Ridley (Pembroke College) and Hugh Latimer (Clare College).

A friend from Cambridge, David River, told me there is a saying at Cambridge: "Cambridge makes martyrs. Oxford burns them."

Of the three martyrs, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, was the most important, since he served as Henry VIII's adviser on obtaining an annulment of Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon and he was the architect of the Reformation.

Martyrs' Memorial from
Ground. Balliol Behind.

The martyrdoms of the Protestant bishops - whose offense was being unwilling to profess faith in the transubstantiation of the Eucharist - occurred in front of Balliol on Broad Street, and is marked by a cross in the middle of the street and a plaque on the Balliol wall nearby referring to it. The Memorial replaced a house, creating a space that allows this part of Oxford to include a bus stop and bicycle park.

The Protestant reign of Elizabeth I was benign after that of Mary. But during the reign of Charles I,  dissident Protestants became restless about the privileges of the established church, and Parliament responded by building up its army, which was used by Oliver Cromwell to seize power.  

The Civil War (1642-1651) - Cambridge Pilgrims vs. Oxford Orthodoxy

At Sidney Sussex College at Cambridge earlier this month, I visited the gravesite, since 1960, of Oliver Cromwell's head.

Oliver Cromwell was born in Huntington, near Cambridge, in 1599. He began his studies at Sidney Sussex on the day that Shakespeare died, April 23, 1616. Oliver's father died that year and Cromwell left the University after one year to support his family. He married and had many children.

He had a religious conversion to Puritanism in the 1630s, and rallied support from Protestants who dissented from the Church of England. The different sides of the Civil War were therefore complex, with the addition of Irish and Scottish nationalist concerns.

Portrait of Oliver Cromwell (1599-
1658) hanging in Hall at Sidney
Sussex College, Cambridge.
Photo by JT Marlin, June 2014.

Cromwell was elected to Parliament from Huntington in 1628 and then represented Cambridge in the Short Parliament of 1640 and the Long Parliament of 1640-49. In the meantime he advanced in the Parliamentary Army, from cavalry leader to a commander of the New Model Army created in 1645-46. He made Cambridge the military HQ of the Eastern Association of Counties. The country was divided into 11 military areas, each commanded by a major-general picked by Cromwell.

Cromwell almost single-handedly caused a break in the British monarchy. He led troops reporting to Parliament and tracked Charles I down in Oxford, defeating loyalist troops and putting Cromwell at the head of the government.

Although Cambridge was the center of the Roundheads and Oxford of the Cavaliers, many of the Cambridge colleges were pro-Royalist and gave much of their silver plate to help Charles I. Sidney Sussex sent £100 to help King Charles. When this later came to light, the Master of the College was put in prison.

After Charles was defeated, Cromwell urged Parliament to execute him, to reduce the likelihood of a rescue invasion by troops representing Roman Catholics from Ireland and the Continent.  Cromwell was the third person on the list of those who signed the death warrant for the king.  Charles I was beheaded in 1649. The Queen's website suggests that Charles I was a martyr. On the other hand, future royals tended to be more respectful of Parliament. Charles I was the only monarch in British history to have been executed.

From 1649 to 1653, the Rump Parliament ran England under Cromwell's leadership. Cromwell properly feared a counter-attack from Catholics. Charles I's Queen was a Roman Catholic from France, Henrietta Maria, after whom Maryland is named. Charles II was in France to obtain the support of the Catholic monarch.

Cromwell's Irish Campaign, 1649-1650

Cromwell decided to address first a possible attack from the west, with Royalists in Ireland joining up with Irish Catholic confederates, and he decided to protect his back with a crushing campaign. Cromwell went to Ireland in August 1649 with an army of 6,000 troops to suppress an alliance that threatened to turn into a significant rebellion.

I spent my 10th year of life at Blackrock College in Dublin, Ireland, and one of my most vivid memories was hearing from the Holy Ghost Fathers how brutal Cromwell was to the Irish Catholics on this pre-emptive strike.

Sign in a Cambridge restaurant. It
would be funnier if a Cambridge man
hadn't done just that to Irish children.

Cromwell raised his large army by promising those who put up money for the expedition that their security would be Irish land.  So from the beginning he intended to seize much Irish land and leave it in the hands of his supporters.

The Roundhead army met and overcame resistance in Drogheda, killed the garrison, and then moved on to Wexford, impatient to settle a score from 1641, when many Protestants drowned after defeat by the Catholic Confederates. The Wexford defenders were prepared to surrender and Cromwell sent a message suggesting he would be conciliatory. However, an estimated 2,000 defending soldiers and another 1,500 civilians were slaughtered, a massacre that Irish Catholics do not forget. Cromwell moved on to other Irish towns until Galway fell and the rebellion was declared ended in May 1650.

The aftermath of Cromwell's devastating march around Ireland was a complete change in power.  Penal Laws were instituted to keep the population from organizing any resistance. Cromwell's armed agents rounded up Irish beggars, widows and orphans to be sold as slaves or indentured servants to the sugar plantations of the West Indies. The reprisals were directed not only at Roman Catholics but at Ulster Presbyterians, Church of Ireland members and other minority religions. Priests were hanged, exiled or transported to the West Indies. Puritan preachers were brought over from England to replace them.

Cromwell's Scottish Campaign, Victory over Charles II and His Regime

After leaving Ireland, Cromwell's troops moved on to a 1650-1651 campaign in Scotland, with similarly ruthless treatment of Royalists and other potential rebels. The much-feared invasion from France did occur in 1651, but Cromwell by now had a large, seasoned and trained army ready for the invasion. He prevailed at the Battle of Worcester, bringing the Civil War formally to a close.

From 1653 until his death in 1658, Cromwell dissolved Parliament and ruled as Lord Protector as long as he lived. However, even the English came to dislike living under Cromwell's Puritanical regime. His religious conversion in the 1930s led him to dissent from the Church of England, on the basis that the official church had departed from strict adherence to the Ten Commandments and other rules gleaned from the Bible. The Puritans believed that enjoying too many pleasures meant yielding to the Devil and would lead to damnation.

Cromwell essentially ran a Christian caliphate. He shut down many drinking places and sports events. Swearing was punished by a fine, even imprisonment. On Sundays, work was banned and even going for a walk, if not to an approved church, could lead to a fine. Feast days were replaced by a monthly fast day. Cromwell banned feasting or caroling at Christmas, insisting it be celebrated only as a religious event; for example, in London, soldiers confiscated food being cooked for a Christmas dinner and Christmas decorations were banned.

(Later, the Oxford Movement resurrected Christmas carols and Oxford's Charles Wesley wrote "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and with his brother earned points for Methodism by championing the revival of caroling. The most popular early carol in America was "Joy to the World", written by English hymn-writer Isaac Watts based on Psalm 98.)

Women were forbidden by the Puritans from wearing makeup or overly colorful dresses. They were required to wear a long black dress that covered them to their shoes, with a white apron and headdress. Puritan men wore black clothes and short hair.  However, Cromwell himself enjoyed hunting, music and games and allowed ample entertainment at his daughter’s wedding.

Cromwell died in September 1658. His coffin was escorted by more than 30,000 soldiers to Westminster Abbey to be buried. His son, Richard Cromwell, took over as the Second Lord Protector in 1658 but lasted only nine months. The nickname the Royalists gave him was "Queen Dick".  In 1659 he quit (or perhaps more likely was encouraged by the army to leave) and exiled himself overseas.

The Restoration of Charles II and the Saga of Cromwell's Head

A 1960 plaque noting that Cromwell's head is buried nearby in
Sidney Sussex College. 

Charles II was invited to return from exile to become king of England. His return was enthusiastically welcomed by a nation tired of the religious wars.

After the Restoration of the monarchy, Charles II ordered Cromwell’s body, along with two co-conspirators, to be dug up and put on "trial" as traitors and regicides. Cromwell's body and those of his colleagues were found guilty and were hanged from the gallows at Tyburn. Cromwell's head was put on display on a 20-foot pike over Westminster Hall until in 1685 wind from a storm outside broke the pike. Cromwell's head was in private hands from 1685 until 1960.

In 1960, Cromwell's head was given to Sidney Sussex, and it was buried there secretly in an undisclosed location somewhere in the ante-chapel of the College. The strange story is told authoritatively on the Westminster Abbey and Sidney Sussex websites.

GW: Feb. 22–Washington's Oxford Ties

Rev. Lawrence Washington,
Brasenose Coll., Oxford

On the occasion of George Washington's 282nd birthday, the Oxford University community might with pride reflect on his multiple Oxford connections.

Long Story Short: Lawrence Washington (1602-1653), the great-great-grandfather of George Washington, became a Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford in 1623. He resigned his Fellowship in 1632 or 1633 to marry (his wife-to-be was already pregnant with her first child) and become the rector of the established church (Church of England) at Purleigh, Essex.

In 1643, Rev. Washington was one of more than 100 ministers whose livings were curtailed or ended by the Puritan ("Roundhead") Parliament under Oliver Cromwell. Their specific crime was refusal to renounce allegiance to Charles II. Lawrence's subsequent impecunity led to his son John and other children migrating to the colony of Virginia - John's grandson Augustine was George Washington's father. So Cromwell's moves against the Church of England helped give birth to the United States of America.

George Washington was an officer in the war against the French, with resources drummed up in Britain by Oxonian William Pitt the Elder. Washington later commanded colonial troops fighting with the help of the French against the British during the Prime Ministership (1770-1782) of Oxonian Lord North. The origin of the Stars and Stripes may be found in Durham County, England, where the Washington coat of arms was created, because the five-pointed mullet first appears there; the oldest surviving example of this coat of arms may be in the Old Library of Trinity College, Oxford.

Oxford in Britain's Religious Wars

Religious wars raged from the time of Henry VIII, whose break with Rome over its reluctance in 1529 to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon had huge repercussions. Henry seized Catholic lands and created the Church of England. Roman Catholic institutions were seized. The impact on Oxford and the Washington family of Henry VIII's action was multiple.

• He took control of Christ Church from his one-time high-flying adviser (whom the Pope named Bishop of Durham in 1523) Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, a Magdalen College, Oxford alum. In 1530, summoned from York to London to be tried for treason, Wolsey died en route. 
• He abolished the study of canon law at Oxford, a major shift from its monastic origins - including Benedictines in Durham to which Lawrence Washington's family, and Trinity College, Oxford (originally created as a place for Durham Abbey monks to study) were closely connected.
• He seized Durham College. The man who handled this matter, Sir Thomas Pope, must have had a crisis of conscience, because he founded a new college on the spot, Trinity College, and required that forever after the college should pray for him. This request has been honored.
• He gave to Lawrence Washington, son of London Alderman John Washington, the property that is known as Sulgrave Manor, where the Washington family lived for many generations. His grandson was Rev. Lawrence Washington, M.A., George Washington's grandfather.

The pendulum swung the other way with Henry's Catholic daughter by Catherine of Aragon, "Bloody" Mary Tudor. She tried to turn back the clock, burning 280 Anglican leaders at the stake during her five-year reign - notably Bishops Latimer and Ridley, and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, who were condemned to death when they would not renounce their Protestantism. Latimer and Ridley, and later Cranmer, were burned outside Balliol College, Oxford. The site where they were burned is marked by a cross in the road outside Balliol. Their deaths are commemorated by the Martyrs' Memorial at Broad and St. Giles. Although they are collectively called the "Oxford Martyrs", Henry Latimer, Bishop of Worcester and Adviser to Edward VI, was at Clare College, Cambridge, as David River has informed me. The other two martyrs also studied at Cambridge. "Cambridge makes martyrs, Oxford burns them," is the Cambridge mantra. The Memorial was erected in part through the efforts of John Henry Newman, who was an undergraduate at Trinity College, Oxford, and became a Fellow of Oriel College; Newman's immersion in the Oxford Movement led to his conversion to Roman Catholicism.

Oliver Cromwell

Queen Elizabeth I restored the primacy of the Church of England, while showing tolerance toward Catholics. After her death in 1603, the reign of the Stuarts began under James I and Charles I.

Religious rivalries returned as the monarchy came under attack from Parliament and the Church of England attracted a new opponent, the Puritan dissenters. During the Civil War, Oxford served as the home base for Charles I, as the University was staunchly royalist ("Cavalier"). In 1642 the Oxford colleges donated most of their plate to Charles. In 1642-1646, Charles held court at Christ Church, while Queen Henrietta Maria was at Merton College. Other colleges hosted the rest of the court.

Eventually, Oxford was besieged by Oliver Cromwell and his "Roundheads" (Puritans) and they prevailed. The consequences were again multiple:

• In 1649 Charles I was beheaded, the only British monarch to meet that fate.
• During the Parliamentary interregnum, Oxford was punished for its support of the king, as Oliver Cromwell - former MP from Cambridge (1640-1649) -  became Chancellor of Oxford University in 1650 and systematically replaced some unfriendly college masters with Roundhead academics.
• Clerics with "livings" (established churches) who refused to renounce allegiance to Charles II were demoted, either losing their livings or being switched to a less comfortable one. (Hoppin, p. 123.)

After 11 years the monarchy was restored under Charles II and the eight surviving signers of Charles I's death warrant (Cromwell was the ninth) were themselves put to death. Charles II, the Merry Monarch, convened Parliament at Oxford for one week in March 1681.

Impact on Oxford Alum Rev. Lawrence Washington

The see-sawing political environment took its toll on Lawrence Washington's career. He was the fifth son of Lawrence Washington (1565-1616) of Sulgrave Manor, Northamptonshire, son of Robert Washington (1544-1619) of Sulgrave by his first wife Elizabeth Lyte. Sulgrave Manor, incidentally, is a delightful place to visit and, as one might expect, is extremely welcoming to Americans.

Brasenose College Coat of Arms
showing a Bishop's miter and other
religious charges.

Young Lawrence Washington was admitted to Brasenose College, Oxford in 1619, graduating with a BA in 1623. He was elected a Fellow of the College within a week. In 1626 he was awarded the MA. In 1627 he was appointed lector, and in 1631 proctor. One source suggests that as Proctor he made decisions relating to offenses by nonconforming clerics, which could have been held against him when the Roundheads came to power. In 1632 he obtained a BD degree and not long after left the university. His letter of resignation is sealed with the three-mullet-two-bar Washington coat of arms.

One can surmise that Lawrence Washington left Oxford to take up the rectorship of Purleigh. But different stories are told about his departure. One is that he married Amphilis (also spelled in some places Amphillis or Amphyllis) Twigden in December 1633 after she was pregnant with their first child, John, and Brasenose required its Fellows to remain unmarried. He was 33 when he married. Amphilis was the daughter of John and Anne Twigden of Little Creaton, Northamptonshire. (One source says her maiden name was Amphillis Roades; possibly Roades was her middle maiden name.)  John Washington (great-grandfather of George Washington) was born shortly after his parents' marriage - Lawrence and Amphilis subsequently had two more sons and three daughters. Three of their children went to Virginia; one of them returned later in life.

Brasenose Colleges records show that Lawrence Washington left the college owing 17/10 (17 shillings, 10 pence) personally and £9-5/9 uncollected from one of his students. In today's dollars that would be about $200 in personal debt and $2,000 owed by a student, accounting for inflation but not interest. The college's records note that "Mr. Washington to be sued", but there is no record of a suit. In 1924 some visiting attorneys from North America jocularly produced a pound note to pay Washington's personal debt. However, some defenders of the Washington family wrote a letter to the Daily Express denying that the debt was truly owed, and an article making the same point ensued in the New York Herald.

Washington was appointed rector of Purleigh, Essex, in 1632. He lost this appointment in 1643 during the Civil War along with more than 100 other English ministers, for alleged treason directed against Parliament. He was given a smaller parish, Little Braxted, Essex. His wife, Amphylis, did not go with him. Instead, she and her many children lived with her mother and stepfather, Andrew Knowling, in Tring, Herts. Lawrence Washington died in poverty.

Seeing too little opportunity in England, John emigrated to Virginia in 1656 (other sources say 1657 or 1658). John married, in 1656, Anne (also spelled Ann in some places) Pope (d. 1668), daughter of Nathaniel Pope of Virginia, by whom he had two sons, Lawrence (grandfather of George Washington) and John, and a daughter, Anne.  John Washington's son Lawrence married Mildred Warner, daughter of Col. Augustine Warner, and their had two sons, the younger one named Augustine, born 1715 and died 1743. Augustine was George Washington's father.

George Washington and Oxonians Pitt and North

George Washington.

The eldest of six children born to his father Augustine Washington's from his second wife, Mary Ball, George Washington was born in 1732 at Wakefield Plantation, Virginia. After his father died when he was 11, his half-brother Lawrence provided some guidance. Lawrence had served in the Royal Navy and young George considered a naval career, but his mother was opposed.

Instead, at 16, Washington joined the staff of Lord Fairfax, surveying land in Virginia and what later became West Virginia. In 1753, the British governor appointed George Washington a major in the militia. Accompanied by a guide, Washington went to Fort Le Boeuf, Penn. to give an ultimatum to French authorities to cease fortification in English territory. In 1754, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and then colonel, and Washington led a force to challenge French control of the Ohio River Valley. However, the force was defeated at Fort Necessity, Penn. The French and Indian War (1754-63) was under way.

In this war, the support of Trinity College, Oxford alum William Pitt the Elder, later the 1st Earl of Chatham, was crucial. Pitt was an implacable foe of France and helped drive the French from the colonies, making possible independence of the colonies from Britain.

After a few months as a civilian, in 1755, Washington reentered the militia with the courtesy title of colonel, as an aide to Scotland-born Gen. Edward Braddock. Washington barely survived when the French defeated the general in the Battle of the Monongahela, Penn.; Braddock gave Washington his military sash, which Washington wore proudly in some portraits. Washington's bravery earned him back his colonel title and command of the Virginia militia forces.

Early in 1759, again he resigned and headed back to Mount Vernon, where he wed Martha Dandridge Custis, a widow and mother of two children, whom he reared as his own. During 1759-74, he managed his farms and sat in the Virginia House of Burgesses. He supported initial protests against British policies and became a Whig leader, aligning himself with Pitt's party.

The problem with the French and Indian war was that it was expensive for Britain to send troops and ships to fight the French. Another Trinity College, Oxford alumnus, Lord North decided it was only fair for the colonies to help pay down the debts that Britain incurred for the war, through taxes on imports... such as tea.

The independence for the colonies that Pitt made possible by scattering the French became a fervent goal of George Washington when he represented Virginia at the First and Second Continental Congresses. In 1775, after skirmishes with the British at Lexington and Concord, Congress appointed him as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. Overcoming major supply problems, he developed a well-trained fighting force that continually harassed British forces Scottish-style while major confrontations.

Finally, with the aid of the French fleet and army, he won a key victory over the British at Yorktown, Va., in 1781. During the next two years, he denounced proposals that the military take over the government, including the idea of appointing him king. He was then elected the country's first president.

Washington took the presidential oath of office at Federal Hall, New York City. He tried to maintain harmony between his Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, whose differences reflected party politics. When the French Revolution created war between France and Britain, he ignored the pleas of Jefferson for France and Hamilton for England and the United States stayed out of the war until the British sent soldiers in 1812. Washington did not live to see this; he died at 67 in 1799. The outcome of the war of 1812 was a peace that has formally lasted to this day although Britain was surreptitiously involved in taking sides in the American Civil War, as Oxonian Amanda Foreman has shown in a new book.

Oxford Connections with the Washington Coat of Arms and the American Flag

Washington Coat of Arms in the
Trinity College Old Library.
Photo by JT Marlin.

Trinity College, Oxford has the coat of arms of the Washington family in a window in the Old Library, showing three stars (in heraldry, "mullets"), since they signify that the original knight wore spurs; the older versions of the coat of arms have a hole in the center indicating the axis around which the spur rotated. I have looked at some actual spurs, and I have counted in the range of 24 points, so bringing the number down from eight to six and then to five is a big departure from the spurs I have seen.

Below the stars are three stripes (in heraldic language, "bars") - two red, separated by one white. The Wikipedia entry for "Washington Coat of Arms" suggests that the Trinity window is the oldest surviving version of the coat of arms and the entry does not appear to have been challenged.

Trinity College was created out of Durham College when it was disestablished by Henry VIII. Durham County is where the Washington family originated. The Bishop of Durham sent students to Durham College to study to become Benedictine monks. The connections between Durham and Trinity are numerous.

The Washington coat of arms has been cited as an inspiration for the American flag, the Stars and Stripes. The people who designed the American flag were certainly "informed" by the Washington coat of arms, since it was widely used by George Washington in his correspondence and in items of furniture and decoration in his house. Heraldry experts pooh-pooh the possible influence of the Washington mullets and bars on the Stars and Stripes, for lack of evidence of a connection. But maybe, just maybe, they haven't looked hard enough.

Washington crest.

My view is that the key to the connection between the Stars and Stripes and the Washington crest or coat of arms is the five-pointed stars on the American flag. These stars originally appear in the Washington coat of arms as six-pointed mullets, following the French tradition. The Washington family originated with a Frenchman, Sir William de Hertburn, who took the Wessyngton, later Washington, name from property he acquired in Durham County, England near the Yorkshire border. The patrilineal line is as follows:

1. Patric FitzDolfin de Offerton, c. 1145-1182 2. William FitzPatric de Hertburn, c. 1165-1194 3. William de Washington, c. 1180-1239 4. Walter de Washington, c. 1212-1264 5. William de Washington, c. 1240-1288 6. Robert de Washington, 1265-1324 7. Robert de Washington, c. 1296-1348 8. John de Washington, c. 1346-1408 9. John de Washington, c. 1380-1423 10. Robert Washington, 1404-1483 11. Robert Washington, 1455-1528 12. John Washington, 1478-1528 13. Lawrence Washington, 1500-1583 14. Robert Washington, c. 1544-1623 15. Lawrence Washington, c. 1567-1616 16. Rev. Lawrence Washington, 1602-1653 17. John Washington, c. 1631-1677, emigrated to Virginia. 18. Lawrence Washington, 1659-1698 19. Augustine Washington, 1694-1743 20. George Washington, 1732-1799

Durham County records show that the Washington coat of arms originally had six points on the mullet and at some point they were reduced to five points ("rayons"). Since German heraldry traditionally used eight points and French heraldry used six, the switch from six to five points in the Washington coat of arms has been described in a French heraldry book as "truly revolutionary".

George Washington refused to be considered as a third term as President, was opposed to the establishment of a monarchy in the United States, and thought little of the trappings of power. But he was fiercely family-proud. I believe the reason that the United States has a flag with five-pointed stars is that a British ancestor of George Washington changed the number of points on the mullets of his coat of arms, and those around George Washington knew how he liked to put his family coat of arms on his books and letters. Only one coat of arms of the many related to the family has the five-pointed mullets (see chart facing p. 54 in Charles Arthur Hoppin, The Washington Ancestry (Greenfield, Ohio: Privately printed for Edward Lee McClain, 1932). The history of Trinity College, Oxford and its Washington window are links to this origin.