A new ground of offence to the Visitor, and new occasion for his interference, occurred in 1677. Matthew Curtois, a Probationer Fellow, just on the point of admission to actuality, being at the time a Master of Arts and in Holy Orders, seems to have been guilty of an act of sexual immorality within the College walls. The Fellows, or a majority of them, very properly refused to admit him to an actual Fellwoship, and thereby his Probationary Fellowship lapsed, and he lost the rights of the College. He appealed direct to the king, whether it was that there was some doubt as to his right of appeal to the Visitor, or that Morley, defeated in Ritchell's case, had counselled this mode of procedure. The king referred the matter to the Visitor, who reported that "the proceedings were not agreeable to the Statutes of the College, but that many irregularities had been committed, which, if permitted or connived at, might tend to the violation of the discipline and government settled in the College." Hereupon, the appeal was remitted to the Bishop's absolute determination, as "the sole Visitor of the College, and the proper judge of any differences that might arise in it." Morley, armed with this plenary authority, proceeded to make the utmost use of it for the humiliation of the College. In a long decision, dated February 8, 167⁷/₈, he decrees Curtois' restoration to his probationership, and, immediately afterwards, his admission to actuality, together with a full pecuniary indemnity for any losses he might have sustained during the period of his expulsion, on the sole condition that he should make an abject apology for his offence, and implore the Divine forgiveness, on his knees, publicly, at dinner time, in the Hall. But with this humiliation of Curtois he couples an almost equally humiliating requirement addressed to the Fellows who had taken part in his expulsion, commanding them to sign a paper "acknowledging their fault and offence," in not previously consulting the Visitor on the meaning of the Statute under which they acted, and begging his pardon in the most humble form of words which persons in their position could be asked to subscribe. Those that were absent were to repair to the College for the purpose, and the document was to be signed by those who were present within two days of its reception. The tone both of this document and of the one to be noticed presently is as insolent and overbearing as the pride and arrogance of office could inspire. We are glad to find that the form sent was never subscribed at all, and no form till several days after the prescribed limit, during which time probably negotiations were going on between the Visitor and the Fellows. Curtois, of course, made his acknowledgement in the form in which it was sent.
This whole affair is curiously characteristic of the Restoration period. Curtois must have smiled, as he referred his case to the king. And His Sacred Majesty, if he became personally cognisant of it, must have been glad to devolve such a business on the Visitor, while the Bishop would hardly be extreme to mark amiss vices ratified by so high a sanction and so much in vogue in fashionable society.