nobody knew him, except Jo Harris the carpenter, until at last he recounted so many accurate memories and circumstances that his family welcomed him back.
. . .
Francis Potter, a reclusive 18 , monkish man whom I have never met, even though he used to live in Trinity College and his brother Hannibal whom I know well still does, has a book with the booksellers called An Interpretation of the Number 666 . It is said the idea for it came to him seventeen years ago as he climbed and counted the stairs to his college room. He has extracted 25 as the nearest square root to the Number of the Beast and contrasted it with 12: the square root of 144, the number of the Church. Potter, whom I would love to meet, argues that 25 is a fatal and unfortunate number. In the Book of Revelation he has found many instances of the number 12; in the Roman Church he has found many instances of 25. There were 12 Apostles, but 25 cardinals in the Church of Rome. There were 12 Commandments in the Apostles’ Creed, but 25 Articles of the Roman faith, published by Pius IV after the Council of Trent. The High Altar in St Peter’s Church in Rome is surmounted by a gilded cross, 25 hands high, and the High Altar itself is an exact cube 25 x 25 feet. Christ began to do his father’s work when he was 12 years old; but priests, deacons and subdeacons of the Roman Church reach vocational maturity at 25. The Church’s main holidays, including Christmas, are held on the 25th of the month. As I lie awake at night in Broad Chalke, reading, missing Oxford, wishing I could return there, I imagine Potter waking in a cold sweat, terrified of being brought before the Pope in Rome and condemned to death for his ideas. Thoughts of the Antichrist fill my mind as the rising sun throws a lattice of intersecting lines across the bedroom floor. Those who talk of politics say a universal darkness is gathering. The King and his Parliament are irreconcilably at odds. Chaos will break over England.
. . .
I have met 19 and become friends with the divine and mathematician Edward Davenant, vicar of Gillingham in Dorset. He is of great diligence in study and well versed in all kinds of learning. He tells me he has no esteem for astrology at all. He is helping me learn algebra; his daughters are already algebrists.
. . .
23 October
On this day the Battle of Edgehill was fought in southern Warwickshire: the war is begun. Neither the King’s nor the Parliament’s army triumphed. The result is inconclusive and the King has resumed his march on London, but is thwarted in arriving there.
. . .
Anno 1643
February
I have revolted against my father. With much ado, I have overridden his fearful anxiety and am once again in Oxford, where King Charles has entered the city like Apollo and taken it back from the Parliament’s soldiers. As I rode back here I saw perhaps a dozen soldiers, belonging to the King’s garrison in Abingdon, keeping watch near the barrow on Cutchinlow Hill. They stood guard in a great pit so that if the enemy comes, only their heads will be shot at. Oxford is crowded with soldiers. The King resides in Christ Church and his Queen in Merton College. A special path has been laid through the grounds of Corpus Christi for them to visit each other. Sometimes the visits are secret, sometimes ceremonial. The court has been shrunken in scale and mapped on to Oxford and the King’s army is billeted here: he is gathering his forces. There are already several thousand foot soldiers and three troops of horses, but more keep coming. The city is too small to cope. It is overfull, disease-ridden, people in the street are hungry and dying. All the colleges have become barracks; Magdalen Hall is an arsenal; where once was the corn market men make bullets, so grain is stored now in the Academic Schools and those that labour there produce military uniforms not arguments or scholarship; Oxford Castle is a prison; Osney Abbey a powder mill.
. . .
Osney Abbey is a ruin in
. . .
Francis Potter, a reclusive 18 , monkish man whom I have never met, even though he used to live in Trinity College and his brother Hannibal whom I know well still does, has a book with the booksellers called An Interpretation of the Number 666 . It is said the idea for it came to him seventeen years ago as he climbed and counted the stairs to his college room. He has extracted 25 as the nearest square root to the Number of the Beast and contrasted it with 12: the square root of 144, the number of the Church. Potter, whom I would love to meet, argues that 25 is a fatal and unfortunate number. In the Book of Revelation he has found many instances of the number 12; in the Roman Church he has found many instances of 25. There were 12 Apostles, but 25 cardinals in the Church of Rome. There were 12 Commandments in the Apostles’ Creed, but 25 Articles of the Roman faith, published by Pius IV after the Council of Trent. The High Altar in St Peter’s Church in Rome is surmounted by a gilded cross, 25 hands high, and the High Altar itself is an exact cube 25 x 25 feet. Christ began to do his father’s work when he was 12 years old; but priests, deacons and subdeacons of the Roman Church reach vocational maturity at 25. The Church’s main holidays, including Christmas, are held on the 25th of the month. As I lie awake at night in Broad Chalke, reading, missing Oxford, wishing I could return there, I imagine Potter waking in a cold sweat, terrified of being brought before the Pope in Rome and condemned to death for his ideas. Thoughts of the Antichrist fill my mind as the rising sun throws a lattice of intersecting lines across the bedroom floor. Those who talk of politics say a universal darkness is gathering. The King and his Parliament are irreconcilably at odds. Chaos will break over England.
. . .
I have met 19 and become friends with the divine and mathematician Edward Davenant, vicar of Gillingham in Dorset. He is of great diligence in study and well versed in all kinds of learning. He tells me he has no esteem for astrology at all. He is helping me learn algebra; his daughters are already algebrists.
. . .
23 October
On this day the Battle of Edgehill was fought in southern Warwickshire: the war is begun. Neither the King’s nor the Parliament’s army triumphed. The result is inconclusive and the King has resumed his march on London, but is thwarted in arriving there.
. . .
Anno 1643
February
I have revolted against my father. With much ado, I have overridden his fearful anxiety and am once again in Oxford, where King Charles has entered the city like Apollo and taken it back from the Parliament’s soldiers. As I rode back here I saw perhaps a dozen soldiers, belonging to the King’s garrison in Abingdon, keeping watch near the barrow on Cutchinlow Hill. They stood guard in a great pit so that if the enemy comes, only their heads will be shot at. Oxford is crowded with soldiers. The King resides in Christ Church and his Queen in Merton College. A special path has been laid through the grounds of Corpus Christi for them to visit each other. Sometimes the visits are secret, sometimes ceremonial. The court has been shrunken in scale and mapped on to Oxford and the King’s army is billeted here: he is gathering his forces. There are already several thousand foot soldiers and three troops of horses, but more keep coming. The city is too small to cope. It is overfull, disease-ridden, people in the street are hungry and dying. All the colleges have become barracks; Magdalen Hall is an arsenal; where once was the corn market men make bullets, so grain is stored now in the Academic Schools and those that labour there produce military uniforms not arguments or scholarship; Oxford Castle is a prison; Osney Abbey a powder mill.
. . .
Osney Abbey is a ruin in
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