THE STORY OF ENGLISH EDUCATION. 267 



Wlien we regard the great movement known as the Eeformation 

 apart from the local incidents that appear to have precipitated it, we 

 seem to see, in the present connection at any rate, the working of 

 long ripening issues. The crown in the fifteenth century had been 

 glad enough to play off Eome against a rebellious and heretical com- 

 monalty and a dangerous baronage. The opening of the sixteenth 

 century presented a new scene of action, from which the feudal barons 

 had disappeared. The commonalty and the king had now one thing 

 in common : the old-standing hatred of papal interference and foreign 

 taxation; while the moving force of the new learning was urging both 

 king and people, unconsciously enough perhaps, towards the same end. 

 The Eenaissance, the lessons of history, and the hope of gain, all com- 

 bined to make men see in a free and purified church that vision of na- 

 tional liberty and national isolation which had always been the ideal of 

 English statesmen from Alfred onwards. So the Eeformation came, 

 affirming, only in more downright fashion, the policy laid down by 

 Edward III. in the famous statute of Provisors of Benefices. The 

 independence of the church of England indeed had been asserted over 

 and over again from British times to Magna Charta, from Magna Charta 

 down to the Eeformation-Parliament, which, in the seven years from 

 1529 to 1536, finally did away with de facto papal supremacy. The 

 notable fact of the Eeformation legislation for us is that it finally 

 broke the bond that Eome in the teeth of history and the law had 

 bound round England. The separation from Eome played a notable 

 part in the history of English education. The first result was an 

 unhappy one. I have pointed out that in the century immediately pre- 

 ceding the Eeformation the educational system in England was in 

 many ways effective. In fact there was a primary class of schools 

 that fed the grammar schools, while the grammar schools fed the 

 universities. There are still extant a considerable number of both 

 primary and secondary schools that were created during that period; 

 but the number is but a small proportion of the noble medieval system. 

 Henry VIII. and the ministers of his son Edward VI. in their haste 

 to abolish all traces of Eome, to divert all papal taxation and to 

 absorb the property of papal foundations, destroyed innumerable educa- 

 tional foundations. The chantry legislation alone would have com- 

 passed the practical destruction of the medieval system. It is, how- 

 ever, probable, nay, almost certain, that the Tudors had no desire in 

 any way to injure national education. The advancement of learning 

 was a thing dear to the hearts of Henry VIII., Edward VI., 

 Mary I. and Elizabeth, but learning itself fell before the progress 

 of a definite and destructive political policy. It was intended to 

 recreate the destroyed foundations, but the funds nominally allocated 

 for this purpose were diverted to other and less laudable uses. 



The course of destruction, however, left the universities untouched — 



