then passed to a cousin, Edward, 3rd earl (c. 1699–1755), and eventually became extinct with Alfred, the 6th earl (1809–1853).
Harley’s statesmanship may seem but intrigue and finesse, but his character is set forth in the brightest colours in the poems of Pope and the prose of Swift. The Irish dean was his discriminating friend in the hours of prosperity, his unswerving advocate in adversity. The books and manuscripts which the 1st earl of Oxford and his son collected were among the glories of their age. The manuscripts became the property of the nation in 1753 and are now in the British Museum; the books were sold to a bookseller called Thomas Osborne in 1742 and described in a printed catalogue of five volumes (1743–1745), Dr Johnson writing an account of the library. A selection of the rarer pamphlets and tracts, which was made by William Oldys, was printed in eight volumes (1744–1746), with a preface by Johnson. The best edition is that of Thomas Park, ten volumes (1808–1813). In the recollection of the Harleian manuscripts, the Harleian library and the Harleian Miscellany, the family name will never die.
Bibliography.—The best life of Harley is by E. S. Roscoe (1902). Articles relating to him are in Engl. Hist. Rev. xv. 238-250 (Defoe and Harley by Thomas Bateson); Trans. of the Royal Hist. Soc. xiv. N.S. 69-121 (development of political parties temp. Q. Anne by W. Frewen Lord); Edinburgh Review, clxxxvii. 151-178, cxciii. 457-488 (Harley papers). For his relations with St John see Walter Sichel’s Bolingbroke (1901–1902, 2 vols.); for those with Swift, consult the Journal to Stella and Sir Henry Craik’s Life of Swift (2nd ed., 1894, 2 vols.). (W. P. C.)
OXFORD, a city, municipal and parliamentary borough,
the county town of Oxfordshire, England, and the seat of a
famous university.[1] Pop. (1901) 49,336. It is situated on the
river Thames, 51 m. by road and 6334 m. by rail W.N.W. of London.
It is served by the main northern line of the Great Western railway,
and by a branch from the London & North-Western system
at Bletchley; while the Thames, and the Oxford canal, running
north from it, afford water communications. The ancient nucleus
of the city stands on a low gravel ridge between the Thames and
its tributary the Cherwell, which here flow with meandering
courses and many branches and backwaters through flat meadows.
Modern extensions of Oxford cross both rivers, the suburbs of
Osney and Botley lying to the west, Grandpont to the south, and
St Clement’s to the east beyond the Cherwell. To the north
is a large modern residential district. The low meadow land is
bounded east and west by well-wooded hills, rising rather
abruptly, though only to a slight elevation, seldom exceeding
500 ft. Several points on these hills command celebrated views,
such as that from Bagley Hill to the S.W., or from Elsfield to
the N.E., from which only the inner Oxford is visible, with its
collegiate buildings, towers and spires—a peerless city.
Main roads from east to west and from north to south intersect near the centre of ancient Oxford at a point called Carfax,[2] and form four principal streets. High Street (east). Queen Street (west), Cornmarket Street (north) and St Aldate’s (south).[3] Cornmarket Street is continued northward by Magdalen Street, and near their point of junction Magdalen Street is intersected by a thoroughfare formed, from west to east, by George Street, Broad Street, Holywell Street and Long Wall Street, the last of which sweeps south to join High Street not far from Magdalen Bridge over the Cherwell. This thoroughfare is thus detailed, because it approximately indicates the northern and north-eastern confines of the ancient city. The old walls indeed (of which there are many fragments, notably a very fine range in New College garden) indicate a somewhat smaller area than that defined by these streets. Their line, which slightly varied, as excavations have shown, in different ages, bent south-westward from Cornmarket Street, where stood the north gate, till it reached the enceinte of the castle, which lies at the west of the old city, flanked on one side by a branch of the Thames. From the castle the southern wall ran east, along the modern Brewers’ Street; the south gate of the city was in St Aldate’s Street, where it is joined by this lane, and the walls then continued along the north side of Christ Church meadow, and north-eastward to the east gate, which stood in High Street near the junction of Long Wall Street. Oxford had thus a strong position: the castle and the Thames protected it on the east; the two rivers, the walls and the water-meadows between them on the south and east; and on the north the wall and a deep ditch, of which vestiges may be traced, as between Broad and Ship Streets.
An early rivalry between the universities of Oxford and Cambridge led to the circulation of many groundless legends respecting their foundation. For example, those which connected Oxford with “Brute the Trojan,” King Mempric (1009 B.C.), and the Druids, are not found before the 14th century. The town is as a fact much older than the university. History. The historian, John Richard Green, epitomizes the relation between the two corporations when he shows[4] that “Oxford had already seen five centuries of borough life before a student appeared within its streets. . . . The university found Oxford a busy, prosperous borough, and reduced it to a cluster of lodging-houses. It found it among the first of English municipalities, and it so utterly crushed its freedom that the recovery of some of the commonest rights of self-government has only been brought about by recent legislation.” A poor Romano-British village may have existed on the peninsula between Thames and Cherwell, but no Roman road of importance passed within 3 m. of it. In the 8th century an indication of the existence of Oxford is found in the legend of St Frideswide, a holy woman who is said to have died in 735, and to have founded a nunnery on the site of the present cathedral. Coins of King Alfred have been discovered (though not at Oxford) bearing the name Oksnaforda or Orsnaforda, which seems to prove the existence of a mint at Oxford. It is clear, at any rate, that Oxford was already important as a frontier town between Mercia and Wessex when the first unquestionable mention of it occurs, namely in the English Chronicle under the year 912, when Edward the Elder “took to himself” London and Oxford. The name points to a ford for oxen across the Thames, though some have connected the syllable “ox-” with a Celtic word meaning “water,” comparing it with Ouse, Osney and Exford. The first mention of the townsmen of Oxford is in the English Chronicle of 1013, and that of its trade in the Abingdon Chronicle, which mentions the toll paid from the 11th century to the abbot of Abingdon by boats passing that town. Notices during that century prove the growing importance of Oxford. As the chief stronghold in the upper Thames valley it sustained various attacks by the Danes, being burned in 979, 1002 and 1010, while in 1013 Sweyn took hostages from it. It had also a considerable political importance, and several gemots were held here, as in 1015, when the two Danish thanes Sigfrith and Morkere were treacherously killed by the Mercian Edric; in 1020, when Canute chose Oxford as the scene of the confirmation of “Edgar’s law” by Danes and English; in 1036, when Harold I. was chosen king, and in 1065. But Oxford must have suffered heavily about the time of the Conquest, for according to the Domesday Survey (which for Oxford is unusually complete) a great proportion of the “mansions” (106 out of 297) and houses (478 out of 721) were ruined or unoccupied. The city, however, had already a market, and under the strong hand of the Norman sheriff Robert d’Oili (c. 1070–1119) it prospered steadily. He made heavy exactions on the townsfolk, though it may be noted that they withheld from him Port Meadow, the great meadow of 440 acres which is still a feature of the low riverside tract north of Oxford. But d’Oili did much for Oxford, and the strong tower of the castle and possibly that of St Michael’s church are extant relics of his building activity. His nephew, another Robert, who held the castle after him, founded in 1129 the most notable building that
- ↑ See also Universities.
- ↑ This word, which occurs elsewhere in England, means a place where four roads meet. Its ultimate origin is the Latin quadrifurcus, four-forked. Earlier English forms are carfuks, carrefore. The modern French is carrefour.
- ↑ In the common speech of the university some streets are never spoken of as such, but, e.g., as “the High,” “the Corn” (i.e. Cornmarket), “the Broad.” St Aldate’s is pronounced St Olds, and the Cherwell (pronounced Charwell) is called “the Char.”
- ↑ In his essay on “The Early History of Oxford,” reprinted from Stray Studies, in Studies in Oxford History, by the Oxford Historical Society (1901).
