A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



But the accounts appear to show ^ that no payment was made to him or 

 any schoolmaster there during Edward VI's time, as the entry of the 

 amount payable is made in each year at the rate of ^Tig, not £ii Sl year; 

 but at the end of the entry, where the amount actually paid in the year 

 is stated, appear the words ' nothing, because not paid.' Probably 

 Curtis had obtained other preferment and no successor was appointed. 

 In the first year of Philip and Mary ^ John Orton, ' schoolmaster 

 assigned out of the foundation of the chantry of Blisworth,' was paid 

 ^lo. For the rest of the reign no entry of any sum paid or payable to 

 the school can be found. In the reign of Elizabeth the payment was 

 revived ^ by a decree of the Court of Exchequer, and Philip Colinson, 

 ' Schoolmaster ' {Ludimagistro) of the Grammar School of Blisworth, re- 

 ceived ;rii,the full and proper amount. In 1617 Samuel Preston, 

 ' Schoolmaster of Blisworthe,' received the payment, and the school 

 continued. No later benefactor came to its rescue. By the time of the 

 Restoration the shrunken value of money must have made the stipend 

 merely nominal. In 18 18 Carlisle* could obtain no information about 

 its condition. At the time of Lord Brougham's Commission ^ all 

 trace of a grammar school had disappeared, and the stipend has ever 

 since been a mere nucleus for the salary of an elementary schoolmaster. 

 Such was the result of Edward VI's great Act for the amendment of 

 chantries by converting them ' to good and godly uses as in erecting of 

 Grammar Schools to the education of youth in virtue and learning ' on 

 a foundation which at its inception gave its master a larger salary than 

 that of Eton. Yet, bv a strange perversion of history, in the chrono- 

 logical list of schools furnished by the Endowed Schools Commission 

 in 1867 Edward VI figures as the founder of the school he brought 

 to nought. 



ROTHWELL GRAMMAR SCHOOL 



Rothwell School shared a like fate. A free school there,* endowed 

 with lands and tenements given by divers persons, unknown at the time 

 of its dissolution in 1 548, to the maintenance of a free school for ever, 

 had lands and tenements producing income of the net value of ^3 4J-. i \d.^ 

 which went to the support of Giles Pikering, the schoolmaster, of the 

 age of 38 years, 'well learned.' He was continued and paid^ for the 

 first few years of Edward VI's reign. But in 155 1—2* the amount is 

 entered, but noted as not paid. Payment was resumed to him as school- 

 master of the school in Rothwell under an Exchequer decree, 1 2 June, 



' P.R.O. Exch. Mins'. AcctJ. a-3 Edw. VI, et seq. ' Ibid. No. 72. 



^ Ibid. 9—10 Eliz. No. 56. Some very interesting evidence as to the state of Blisworth School 

 under Elizabeth will be found in P.R.O. Exchequer Special Commissions, No. 1,693, 35 Eliz. Hilary, 

 but it is too long for insertion here. There is an incidental notice that Courteenhall School was 

 regarded as a grammar school. 



' Endowed Grammar Schools, ii, 202. ' C.C.R. xxiii, 174. 



° English Schools at the Reformation, 148— 9, from Chantry Certificate 35, No. 12. 



' P.R.O. Exch. Mins'. Accts. 2-3 Edw. VI. * Ibid. 5-6 Edw. VI, No. 78. 



230 



