SCHOOLS 



The two parochial incumbents take all the 

 profits and do nothing for the poor. 



In consideracyon whereof yt maye please the Kinges 

 maiestie of his most charitable benignitie, moved 

 with pittie in that behalfe, to convene the revenues 

 and profits of some of the said promocions in to 

 sume godly foundacion, whearby the said pover 

 inhabitantes daily there multiplying may be relieved, 

 and the yowght instructed and browghte upp vertu- 

 ously, or otherwyse accordinge to his most godly and 

 discrete wisedome ; and the seide inhabitantes shall 

 dayly praye to God for the prosperous preservacyon 

 of his most excellente maiestie longe to endure. 



This piteous petition, which is evidently incor- 

 porated in the certificate in the form framed by 

 the inhabitants themselves, took no effect till 

 Protector Somerset had given place to the much 

 maligned John Dudley, duke of Northumber- 

 land. At last on 25 July, 1 1550, an order was 

 made by Richard Sakevyle, then chancellor of 

 the Court of Augmentations, in pursuance of 

 instructions from the Privy Council, to 



make a graunte of the premysses unto William 

 May, D.D. and deane of Paules ; Nicholas Bakon, 

 [afterwards Lord Keeper and father of the more 

 famous Lord Chancellor Bacon], John Eyer and 

 Christopher Peyton, esquyers ; William Tassel, 

 Stephen Hayward, gentlemen ; Roger Barbour, and 

 eight others, ' of Bury Seynt Edmonde, yomen ' to 

 the use of a scole ther to be founded by the kinges 

 Maiestie in like maner and forme as the scole of 

 Sherborne is graunted, reservyng unto the kinges 

 maiestie in the name of a yerely rente 28/. 



The premises in question were lands of the 

 Chantry in Kirketon alias Shotley, worth 100s. 

 a year, subject to a yearly distribution to the 

 poor, which the king was to discharge ; the 

 chantry called Clopton's chantry founded by 

 Sir William Clopton, worth £6 gs. Sd. ; the 

 manor of Calingham Hall worth £8 a year, 

 part of the possessions of a chantry founded by 

 Sir John Freye, knight, in Little Saint Bartho- 

 lomew's, London ; and certain other lands in 

 Kirketon alias Shotley worth gross 4OJ. Sd. and 

 net 38*. n,d. a year, part of lands, given by will 

 of Nicholas Fikkett for ' the sepulcre light ' 

 i.e. the light at the Easter sepulchre, in the 

 churches of Kelmeton and Shotley and for doles 

 every Friday to poor men of those parishes, the 

 repairs of the churches and his own obit. The 

 whole yearly value of the property to be granted 

 to the school was £2 1 8s. 



By letters patent under the Great Seal dated 

 at Leighes 3 August, 1550, 



at the humble petition of the inhabitants of the 

 town of Bury Saint Edmunds the king granted that 

 there should be henceforth a grammar school called 

 ' the Free Grammar School of King Edward VI ' 

 for the education institution and instruction of boys 



1 By a slip of the pen the date was given as 1552, 

 Engl. Schools at the Reformation, 222, from P. R. O. 

 ' Particulars for Schools,' Roll ii. 



and youths there in grammar for ever to endure ; 

 and he erected the school of a master (magistro sett 

 pedagogo) and usher (hipodidascalo seu subpedagogo). 



The foundation was therefore entirely opei> 

 with no special trust for or privilege to the inhabi- 

 tants of the town. And that the king's 'inten- 

 tion might better take effect ' he granted the 

 lands before mentioned to 16 persons named 

 and incorporated them as ' governors of the 

 goods possessions and revenues of the Free Gram- 

 mar School of King Edward VI of Bury St. 

 Edmunds in the county of Suffolk' with licence 

 to hold other lands in mortmain up to £10 a 

 year. The governors were empowered to make 

 statutes with the advice of the Bishop of 

 Norwich for the time being — a sufficient proof 

 that a free school did not mean as has been 

 sometimes wildly alleged a school free from 

 ecclesiastical jurisdiction. 



The school has been claimed as the first and 

 earliest of Edward VI so-called foundations, for 

 no better reason apparently than that in a casual 

 and entirely imperfect and erroneous list con- 

 cocted by Stow it was put first. The warrant 

 already granted directing the Bury charter to be 

 drafted after the model of the Sherborne charter 

 is sufficient refutation of the claim. The 

 Sherborne charter was dated in May and the Bury 

 charter in August, 1550. Nor is that all. As 

 has been shown 2 the free grammar schools of 

 St. Albans and Berkhampstead, of Stamford and 

 Pocklington were founded or rather refounded by 

 Act of Parliament in the first year of Edward VI, 

 Bury was not till the fourth year. And if insist- 

 ence is placed on foundation by charter instead of 

 by Act of Parliament, or on new endowment 

 being given out of confiscated chantries, Saffron 

 Walden, the charter of which was given on 

 18 February, 2 Edward VI, i.e. 1548, and 

 divers others must take precedence of Sherborne 

 and Bury. 



It was supposed that the original statutes 

 made in 1550 had wholly disappeared, though 

 they were mentioned by Edward Leedes, head 

 master in 1683, as then existing and as printed. 

 No copy can be found at Bury, but one is- 

 fortunately preserved in the British Museum. 3 

 As Edwardian statutes are exceedingly rare these 

 must be treated at some length. Dr. Donaldson 

 described them as beginning with a complimen- 

 tary address to the master. This is hardly 

 the case. The preface is an extremely prig- 

 gish discourse on the importance of having 

 good masters and still more good rules to govern 

 them, and consequently an endeavour ' to em- 

 brace in the decrees the whole method of 

 teaching of our school, which are contained in the 

 chapters following.' Then follow 62 chapters 



* V.C.H. Herts, ii, Lines, ii, 1'orks. i. 



* Lans.1. MSS. 119. I am indebted to Lord 

 Francis Hervey for this reference. He printed the 

 statutes in 18S8. 



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