'Constant in his duty towards the Church and the King': Robert Nelson's 'Life of Dr. George Bull'
I do declare and promise, that I will be true and faithful to the Commonwealth of England, as it is now established, without a King or House of Lords. This was The Engagement, the oath of allegiance required by the Parliamentarian authorities after the execution of the Royal Martyr in January 1649. In his 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull , Robert Nelson provides an account of the young Bull - then an undergraduate in Exeter College, Oxford - refusing to take The Engagement: Mr. Bull had not been admitted two in Exeter College before the Engagement was imposed upon the Nation by a pretended Act of Parliament, which passed in January, 1649. The Kingly Office being abolished upon the Murder of an excellent Prince, it was declared, that for the time to come England should be governed as a Commonwealth by Parliament; that was, by that handful of Men who by their Art and Power, and Villainy, had wrought that wonderful Alteration. And that they might secure their new Government, and have some Obl...