Aldersgate, and acted as his assistant. Before long he was engaged as domestic chaplain to Lord Chandos, and took up his residence at Harefield, near Uxbridge. While he was there Lady Chandos paid him 80l. a year, an unusually large salary, the greater part of which he spent on enabling the poor of the neighbourhood to send their children to school, and to buy bibles. Besides performing his duties at Harefield he voluntarily undertook a week-day lecture at Uxbridge, which was thronged with hearers. This led to an offer of a living made him by a Mr. Duke, a gentleman of Devonshire. Conant, however, declined it, because he could not conscientiously agree to the doctrines of the dominant faction. For the same reason, when, in 1647, the covenant was pressed on all members of colleges, he resigned his fellowship at Exeter, by a letter dated from Harefield 27 Sept. It seems, therefore, that Wood must be in error when he says (Hist. and Antiq.) that he was one of the fellows who accused the sub-rector Tozer to the parliamentary visitors, for the inquiry was not held until 21 March 1647-8, six months after he had resigned his fellowship, and as he had not been in Oxford since he left in 1642, he could not have been acquainted with the facts of the case (Life, 8 ; Biog. Brit. iii. 1435).
On the death of Hakewill, the rector of Exeter, in 1649, the fellows of the college on 7 June elected Conant as his successor ; and, as the college had suffered greatly from the absence of the last rector, they pressed him to accept the office, knowing that if he did so he would reside among them. Conant agreed, and was admitted on the 29th of the same month (Boase, Register of Exeter). He restored the discipline of the college. He enforced regular attendance at chapel, and reached himself every Sunday morning, nee a week he held a catechetical lecture for undergraduates, in which he went over Piscator's 'Aphorisms' and Woollebius's 'Compendium;' he also taught a divinity class in his own lodgings, going through the prophetical books of the bible with more advanced students. He used to visit the chambers and studies of the young scholars, and if he found any reading a modern book would 'send him to Tally.' Exeter flourished greatly under his rule ; there were more students than could be lodged within the college walls, and many came from beyond sea to enter the college (ib. ; Life). Conant did not sign the engagement without some scruples, and when he did so he appended certain provisos which eased his conscience (Prince). With the rectorship he held the living of Kidlington, near Oxford, where he preached twice on Sundays ; he also gave lectures at the churches of All Saints, St. Michael, and St. Mary Magdalen in Oxford. In August 1651 he married Elizabeth, youngest daughter of Dr. Edward Reynolds, then rector of Braunston, Northamptonshire (afterwards bishop of Norwich). He took what answered to priest's orders at Salisbury on 28 Oct. 1652, and on 29 May 1654 he received the D.D. degree, and 'answered the doctors at the act with great applause.' In December of the same year, on the death of Dr. Hoyle, he was made professor of divinity, and read two lectures each week on the Annotations of Grotius. When the parliament expelled Dr. Sanderson from the divinity professorship, the royal endowment was taken away from the chair. In order to make up for this loss the Protector in 1657 gave Conant the impropriate rectory of Abergele, Denbighshire. On 9 Oct. of this year Conant was admitted vice-chancellor, and held the office until August 1660. He was exceedingly popular in the university. He reversed the policy of his predecessor Owen, who had tried to put down the wearing of caps and hoods, as badges of popery. He opposed Cromwell's plan of granting a charter constituting Durham College a university, and he quashed a mischievous scheme for petitioning Richard Cromwell and the parliament to appoint local visitors for the different colleges in place of the episcopal and other non-resident ex-officio visitors. In the matter of discipline he appears to have exercised proctorial authority in his own person, taking 'his rounds at late hours to ferret the young students from public and other suspected houses' (Life).
Conant advocated the restoration, and on 15 June 1660 attended the court with the proctors and others to congratulate the king, and to offer the book of verses entitled 'Britannia Rediviva,' composed for the occasion by members of the university. As Abergele rectory belonged to the bishopric of St. Asaph, he resigned it voluntarily, though he had received a grant of it from the crown, and he also lost his professorship, as the chair was again taken by its rightful occupant, Sanderson. In March 1661 the king invited him to take part in the Savoy Conference. As no change was made in the liturgy that was satisfactory to the men with whom he was used to act, he decided to refuse conformity, and accordingly on 2 Sept. 1662 he was deprived of the rectorship of the college (Boase). After staying some while in Oxford he settled at Northampton. He refused to form a separatist congregation, and applied himself to the study of the doctrines of the church of England. Finally he decided to conform, and
