A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



executed to new feoffees ' to the intent that the said Schole and the other 

 charitable uses may be mayneteyned and kepte as thought fitt and sett 

 down by Sir Edward Mountague, knight, and Thomas Melshoe, esquire.' 

 ' If lo or II of the fitter sorte of the Inhabitants shuld not agree upon a 

 Schoolemaster,' he was to be appointed by the bishop of Peterborough. 

 He was to be paid £\2 a year, and the usher £/\.. No part of the 

 income of the lands was ' to be imployed upon the reparation of the 

 church, for that the reparations thereof were to be borne by the parisshe.' 



But there were other influences at work. The defendants objected 

 to the ' articles concernyng the good mayntenaunce of the free schole of 

 Wellingborrowe,' and on 30 October the master reported that a com- 

 promise had been arrived at by the counsel on both sides. This was 

 embodied in twenty-one articles, which the court by its decree the same 

 day confirmed, and these for close on 300 years formed the fundamental 

 statutes of the school. They are set down in the Decree Book, and were 

 by order appended to all subsequent appointments of new feoffees until a 

 Scheme of the Charity Commissioners in 1862. 



The important articles concerning the school are as follows : * — 

 ' Imprimis, that there be one Schole-maister and his usher to teach Latin 

 and to teach to reade, write, and cast accompts, and he to have ^20 by 

 yeare for him and his usher ; Or otherwise that there be one Schole- 

 maister to teach the Latin tongue, and he to have 20 markes by yeare ; 

 And one other distincte Scholemaister to teach to write, reade, and cast 

 accompts, and he to have 20 nobles yerely. These Scholemaisters or 

 Scholemaister to be chosen by the main parte of the inhabitants of 

 the towne of Wendlingburgh that were assessed in the subsidie last 

 before.' 



The power of removing the schoolmasters was entrusted to Sir 

 Edward Mountague, Sir William Heath, Serjeant Yelverton, and Thomas 

 Melshoe, or any two, for their lives, and afterwards to the justices living 

 nearest to Wellingborough or any two of them ; to the petty sessions, 

 in fact. 



' That allowance be given to the scholemaister that last was, and 

 him that nowe is there, for theyre service past by the appoyntement of 

 Sir Edward Mountagu and Mr. Seriaunt Yelverton.' 



This last article is of course proof positive that the school was going 

 on some time before the suit. 



The compromise that resulted in these articles was a great misfortune 

 for the town. The inevitable result of giving the choice between a 

 grammar school of a master and usher and two independent masters, 

 one for grammar — that is, classics or secondary education — and the other 

 for elementary subjects, was that there was continual rivalry, the lower 

 master setting up his horn against the grammar master and, especially in 

 latter days, obtaining money for the maintenance of his school while the 

 upper school was starved. Anyhow the attempt to combine a grammar 



' These are taken from the copies written at the beginning of the first extant Account Book of the 

 Feoffees, beginning 9 and 10 April, 1599, and going down to I April, 1673. 



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