A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



when the school was separately and additionally endowed by Chipsey, 

 seven years before. 



In 1557 an Act of Parliament, 2 and 3 Philip and Mary, vested in 

 Cardinal Pole, the papal legate, all ecclesiastical benefices which had 

 come to the crown by the dissolution of religious houses. Under this 

 Act the corporation and parishioners petitioned the legate for a grant of 

 the church of St Gregory for a schoolhouse. They stated that the 

 church, which had been appropriated to the monastery of St. Andrew's, 

 was dilapidated and not worth repair, while divine service had not been 

 performed in it for some time ; that a townsman had given part of his 

 substance for the use of a schoolmaster to teach the youth morals and 

 learning ; but a fit place was wanting in which the school might be 

 kept, and that it would be of utility to the town if the church were 

 applied to the erection of a school. The papal legate had no scruple 

 in imitating Edward III, Henry VI, Henry VIII, and Edward VI, and 

 applying ecclesiastical property to the advancement of education. With 

 all the power of the pope, and with the consent of John White (ex- 

 headmaster of Winchester), bishop of Lincoln, the see of Peterborough, 

 which had been carved out of Lincoln, being then vacant, Cardinal Pole, 

 by deed of 12 March, 1556—7, united and incorporated the parish of 

 St. Gregory with the parish of All Saints. He granted the site and 

 church of St. Gregory, thus rendered useless, with its tower, bells, and 

 lead, to the mayor and the parishioners for the purpose of the school, 

 and the priest's house, worth 6/. a year, for the house of the school- 

 master, on their undertaking to keep both school and house in repair, 

 and to maintain a priest to help in serving the cure of All Saints' parish. 



It is not quite clear whether the church was pulled down and a 

 new school erected, or whether the church itself was adapted for the 

 school, as was the church of St. Peter in the neighbouring town of 

 Stamford, where it is so used unto this day. The ' Book of the Orders 

 of Assembly ' or Town Minute Book of Northampton begins only in the 

 year 1551, and an entry begun relating to the price of lead and other 

 materials of the church is imperfect.^ 



The next mention of the school is in 1565, when it was agreed 

 that ' Mr. Thackaray, school master of the Free School,' and his 

 successors should be paid ^Tio a year by the chamberlain from the 

 free school rents ; the residue being appropriated 'to the use of the 

 chamber.' Three years afterwards, 12 March, 1568, a committee was 

 appointed to ' enquire and aske of all men as well off the towne as off 

 the country their benevolence towardes a ussher for the Free Schole.' 

 The response to this appeal was either not adequate or not permanent 

 enough, as in 1584 an effort was made to obtain an endowment for the 

 usher by a further appropriation of ecclesiastical property to education. 

 The ' Assembly ' on 1 3 July ordered a letter to be ' directed to the Lord 

 Bishoppe of Peterborowe ' for the procuring and getting of the ' vicar- 

 edge ' of St. Mary's towards the maintenance and keeping of one usher for 



' Borough Records, ii, 351. 

 236 



