SIXTEENTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT TIME. 53 
the case at Lewisham, since we are told that Colfe preached twice 
every Lord’s Day and expounded some portion of Holy Scripture 
on Wednesdays, Fridays and Holy Days. Nevertheless, a section 
of the parishioners petitioned Parliament for a lecturer, and a 
Mr. John Batchelor was appointed. The Vicar and his friends 
offered strong opposition to the arrangement, and so much so that 
the original petitioners addressed a complaint to the House of 
Lords in 1643 and an order was issued to restore Mr. Batchelor to 
the lectureship. We hear no more of the matter except that the 
‘‘impudent lecturer,” as Colfe calls him, endeavoured to get the 
vicar deprived of his vicarage. Nehemiah Wallington mentioned 
above addressed a long letter to Mr. Colfe, in which he urged him 
to give up the use of the Prayer Book and upbraided him for his 
want of sympathy with the lecturer. 
That Colfe and the parishioners generally took the Solemn 
League and Covenant in 1644 is practically certain, since no 
exceptions were allowed and refusal meant deprivation and fine, 
but there is no documentary evidence on the subject, all the parish 
papers having been burnt in 1830. In 1645 the use of the Book of 
Common Prayer was forbidden under heavy penalties. In 1648 
Colfe wrote to the Leathersellers saying that the hardness of the 
times and other things had obstructed the settling of the work he 
intended for the parish, and it was not until four years later that 
he was able to complete the buildings for the Grammar School, 
which was opened on 1oth June, 1652, on a site granted by 
Mr. Raynold Graham, Lord of the Manor, with the consent of the 
Court Leet, being then part of Blackheath. To the school was 
attached a free library, and a reading school was also set up near 
the church where what we should call an elementary education 
was given, it being :ntended-that- the most-deserving boys should 
go on to the Grammar School and so to the University. A 
complete system of education, in fact (see Plate 8, page 43). 
Thus did this benefactor-to the parish pass his days until his 
death on the 5th December, 1657. 
Mr. Raynold Graham, who had purchased the Manor of 
Lewisham in 1640, married Susannah, second daughter of Sir 
William Washington, of Packington, in Leicestershire, whose 
eldest daughter, Elizabeth, had married Colonel William Legge, a 
devoted adherent of CharlesJ.. Mr. Graham had no children, and 
on the 30th May, 1673, he conveyed the manor to his nephew, 
George Legge. Mrs. Graham continued to live in the parish, in 
Dartmouth Row, until her death in February, 1699, and sometime 
prior to 1695" built* the*first portion of a chapel there for the 
residents around, which has since in an enlarged form become the 
Church of the Ascension. 
The Legges, who thus became the Lords of the Manor, claim 
descent from Thomas Legge, Lord Mayor of London in 1346 
and 1354. His great grandson, William, went to Ireland, and it 
was Edward, the son of this William Legge, who may be said to 
