Ii.  A still more important object was the destruction of the episcopal establishment, a consummation most devoutly wished by the saints, by all who objected to the ceremonies in the liturgy, or had been scandalized by the pomp of the prelates, or had smarted under the inflictions of their zeal for the preservation of orthodoxy.  It must be confessed that these prelates, in the season of prosperity, had not borne their facilities with meekness; that the frequency of prosecutions in the ecclesiastical courts had produced irritation and hatred; and that punishments had been often awarded by those courts rigorous beyond the measure of the offence.  But the day of retribution arrived.  Episcopacy was abolished; an impeachment suspended over the heads of most of the bishops, kept them in a state of constant apprehension; and the inferior clergy, wherever the parliamentary arms prevailed, suffered all those severities which they had formerly inflicted on their dissenting brethren.  Their enemies accused them of immorality or malignancy; and the two houses invariably sequestrated their livings, and assigned the profits to other ministers, whose sentiments accorded better with the new

[Footnote 1:  Journals, Aug. 17, 1643.  Collections of Ordinances, 22.]

standard of orthodoxy and patriotism admitted at Westminster.

The same was the fate of the ecclesiastics in the two universities, which had early become objects of jealousy and vengeance to the patriots.  They had for more than a century inculcated the doctrine of passive obedience, and since the commencement of the war had more than once advanced considerable sums to the king.  Oxford, indeed, enjoyed a temporary exemption from their control; but Cambridge was already in their power, and a succession of feuds between the students and the townsmen afforded a decent pretext for their interference.  Soldiers were quartered in the colleges; the painted windows and ornaments of the churches were demolished; and the persons of the inmates were subjected to insults and injuries.  In January, 1644, an ordinance passed for the reform of the university;[a] and it was perhaps fortunate that the ungracious task devolved in the first instance on the military commander, the earl of Manchester, who to a taste for literature added a gentleness of disposition adverse from acts of severity.  Under his superintendence the university was “purified;” and ten heads of houses, with sixty-five fellows, were expelled.  Manchester confined himself to those who, by their hostility to the parliament, had rendered themselves conspicuous, or through fear had already abandoned their stations; but after his departure, the meritorious undertaking was resumed by a committee, and the number of expulsions was carried to two hundred.[1] Thus the clerical establishment gradually crumbled

[Footnote 1:  Journals of Lords, vi. 389; of Commons, Jan. 20, 1644.  Neal, 1, iii. c. 3.  Walker, i. 112.  Querela Cantab. in Merc.  Rust. 178-210.]