Stephen College

College was a skilled joiner: evidence of his work still survives to this day, in the form of the wooden panelling that he made for the Stationers Hall in 1674.

He made himself notorious by his declamations against the papists, by writing and singing political ballads, and by inventing a weapon for self-defence at close quarters, which he called 'the Protestant flail'.

When Parliament moved to Oxford, in March 1681, College went there on horseback, ostentatiously displaying weapons and wearing defensive armour, speaking threateningly against King Charles II, and advocating resistance.

He was indicted at the Old Bailey on 8 July for seditious words and actions, but saved by the influence of Slingsby Bethel and Henry Cornish, sheriffs of whig sympathies.

Aaron Smith, a lawyer favoured by William Russell and others of the “country party” or whig opposition, wished to defend College, something the understanding at the time of the adversarial system made problematic.

Stephen Dugdale bore witness of treasonable talk, and that College avowed himself the author of various libels, the pretended 'Letter, intercepted, to Roger L'Estrange', and the ballad of 'The Raree Show,' to the tune of Rochester's 'I am a senseless thing, with a hey.'

But Shewin, Hickman, and Elizabeth Oliver tried to weaken the credit of Bryan Haynes, and Titus Oates violently assailed Turberville.

Dugdale, Turberville, and John 'Narrative Smith' swore positively to the guilt of College; Oates, Boldron, and others contradicted their testimony, and exposed the worthlessness of their personal character.

His family was admitted to see him, and attempts were made to obtain a remission of the sentence, but the sole concession granted was that his quarters should be delivered to his friends.