The Fox Hunter

Of all the titles in England that are not bestowed by the Crown, one of the most prized for a man of distinction is that of Chancellor of Oxford. The post is almost entirely ornamental, and only twice in the last 150 years--once in 1907 and again in 1925--has there even been a public contest. And so, when the university's establishment began looking for a man to succeed the late Lord Halifax, who had been chancellor since 1933 and had won the hearts of town and gown alike by keeping a noisome gasworks out of the city, it let it be known that the affair would be handled, as usual, without fuss.

One day in January, Sir Maurice Bowra. 61, warden of Wadham College, author of The Greek Experience, and acting vice chancellor, called a meeting of all "heads of colleges and permanent private halls." The meeting (36 colleges, five of them women's) went down as smoothly as a glass of old port. There was talk of Lord Salisbury, but he, it turned out, had won only a "pass" and not a "first" degree. Lord Attlee had at least been a "second," but at 77 he was getting on. Then someone mentioned the name of tall, suave Sir Oliver Franks, 55, onetime professor of philosophy, former provost of Queens College, ex-Ambassador to the U.S., and now chairman of Lloyds Bank, one of Britain's biggest. With little ado. 28 of the 36 decided that Sir Oliver should be the man.

Brains & Tongues. The heads of colleges may not have meant to be highhanded, but that was what they seemed to a dabbling of dons. On the inspiration of Hugh Trevor-Roper, disputatious Regius Professor of modern history (The Last Days of Hitler), the dons found themselves with a candidate of their own--an old Balliol man who was then traveling in Africa. Off went a telegram to ask the traveler if he would accept. After an appropriate delay, and a sounding out of chances, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, 66, said that he would.

From then on, the battle raged among England's keenest brains and sharpest tongues, though neither candidate was gauche enough to say anything himself. Looking over the list of people supporting Sir Oliver, Trevor-Roper dubbed it a "miserable list of names collected from highways and hedges." "I am with those," replied the master of Pembroke, "who feel that the chancellorship should be in the hands of a person who is neither in controversial politics nor in ministerial office." Someone cattily remembered that Trevor-Roper had been appointed Regius Professor by none other than Prime Minister Macmillan.

Hapless Precedent. Bemused, its barricades bristling with aphorisms, Oxford lost to Cambridge in rugby, badminton and lacrosse. In the press, antiquarians wryly recalled the dark days of 1907, when Lord Curzon, former Viceroy of India, defeated Lord Rosebery, former Prime Minister, by going to such extremes as dragging the Ambassador to Belgium all the way across the Channel to vote. Others recalled that former Prime Minister Lord Oxford and Asquith, who lost to a relatively unknown opponent, had taken his defeat hard in 1925. In order to find a precedent for a Prime Minister's seeking the job while in office, historians had to go all the way back to George III's hapless Lord North, whose other distinction was to lose the American colonies.

For many insiders, the whole thing had become an exercise in serious frivolity. But not for all. Thundered the London Times: "To be either Prime Minister of England or Chancellor of Oxford University is each sufficient for any one man . . . We hope the majority of Oxford M.A.s, whether existing, delapsed, or newly recruited, will elect Sir Oliver Franks."

Oliverus v. Haraldus. Last week, on the two official voting days, 3,673 out of Oxford's eligible 30,000 M.A.s* turned up in robes to vote. One by one, in the great room where Parliament met in 1665 to escape the plague of London, they marked their ballots for Oliverum Shewell Franks or Mauricium Haraldum Macmillan. Education Minister Sir David Eccles was among those who had to revalidate their degrees to vote, a process that brought Oxford an unexpected windfall of $6,000 in fees. One train brought down Aviation Minister Duncan Sandys from London. Old Laborite Lord Beveridge, 81, tottered in just in time. One M.A. came in a wheelchair, another in an ambulance. By week's end, Oxford had a new chancellor: Mauricius Haraldus Macmillan.

Why had the Prime Minister, who had won by only 279 votes, risked his prestige in a battle that so many regarded as frivolous and others as even "shameful"? According to one don who asked him, Macmillan had a characteristic reason. "It's like fox hunting," he said. "Nobody cares about the fox. It's the chase that counts."

* A degree that is automatic after a student has 1) earned his B.A., 2) kept his name on the books for 21 terms, and 3) handed over a fee of -L-8 (roughly $25).

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