Anthony Farmer

Anthony Farmer (born 1657 [Jerome Bertram, [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/9165 ‘Farmer, Anthony (b. 1657)’] , "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 7 Sept 2008] ) was an Englishman nominated by King James II to the office of President of Magdalen College, Oxford. As Farmer was not a member of the college, and was widely believed to be a secret Roman Catholic, his appointment was rejected by the Fellows of the College.Macauley, Thomas Babington, "The History of England from the Accession of James II", Vol II, p. 287] Farmer's appointment and subsequent rejection escalated tension between the King and the Anglican establishment, and was one event among many that led to the Glorious Revolution in 1688. Farmer was also said to be a lascivious druck and womaniser who preferred to be down at the local taverns along the Thames near Oxford that attending to academic duties.,ref name=macauley/> Quite apart from his political leanings, it was a bad character that most appalled the academics led by Dr Henry Fairfax, who chose Dr Hough as President of the College, during the row at the Fifth Commission of Ecclesial Causes in 1687. By contrast Hough was a weighty academic, an Anglican, and popular with the Fellows, who traditionally chose the new appointees. Hough was, moreover, an opponent of Catholicism and absolutism.

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