Editing Merton College, Oxford (section)

===Parliamentarian sympathies in the Civil War===
During the [[English Civil War]], Merton was the only Oxford college to side with [[Parliament of England|Parliament]]. This was due to an earlier dispute between the Warden, [[Nathaniel Brent]], and the [[Visitor]] of Merton and [[Archbishop of Canterbury]], [[William Laud]]. Brent had been [[Vicar-General]] to Laud, who had held a visitation of Merton College in 1638, and insisted on many radical reforms: his letters to Brent were couched in haughty and decisive language.<ref name = DNB />

Brent, a parliamentarian, moved to London at the start of the Civil War: the college's buildings were commandeered by the [[Royalist]]s and used to house much of [[Charles I of England|Charles I]]'s court when Oxford was the Royalists' capital. This included the King's French wife, [[Queen Henrietta Maria]], who was housed in or near what is now the Queen's Room, the room above the arch between Front and Fellows' Quads. A portrait of Charles I hangs near the Queen's Room as a reminder of the role it played in his court.{{citation needed|date=March 2021}}

Brent gave evidence against Laud in his trial in 1644. After Laud was executed on 10 January 1645, [[John Greaves]], one of the subwardens of Merton and [[Savilian Professor of Astronomy]], drew up a petition for Brent's removal from office; Brent was deposed by Charles I on 27 January 1646 and replaced by [[William Harvey]].<ref name = DNB />

[[Thomas Fairfax]] captured Oxford for the Parliamentarians after its [[Siege of Oxford#Third siege|third siege]] in 1646 and Brent returned from London. However, in 1647, a parliamentary commission (visitation) was set up by Parliament "for the correction of offences, abuses, and disorders" in the University of Oxford. Nathaniel Brent was the president of the visitors.<ref name = DNB>{{cite DNB|wstitle=Brent, Nathaniel|volume=6}}, pp. 262–4</ref> Greaves was accused of sequestrating the college's plate and funds for [[Charles I of England|King Charles I]].<ref name=Ward>[[John Ward (academic)|Ward, John]] (1740). [https://books.google.com/books?id=jp5bAAAAQAAJ ''The Lives of the Professors of Gresham College, to which is prefixed the Life of the Founder, Sir Thomas Gresham''], pp. 144–146 London: John Moore. Google Books full view, retrieved 10 May 2011</ref> Despite a deposition from his brother [[Thomas Greaves (orientalist)|Thomas]], Greaves had lost both his Merton fellowship and his Savilian chair by 9 November 1648.<ref>{{cite book |title=Biographia Britannica Or, The Lives of the Most Eminent Persons who Have Flourished in Great Britain and Ireland, from the Earliest Ages, Down to the Present Times, Vol. 4 |date=1757 |location=London |page=2275 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y4lDAAAAcAAJ&dq=biographica+britannica+greaves&pg=PA2274 |access-date=31 Jan 2022}}</ref>
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