A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



tion of the friars and to see that of the gilds 

 and chantries. 



Who was master of the school when Magnus 

 thus renewed its strength is not known. The 

 Trinity Gild Account for I54O-I, 41 happily 

 preserved in the first minute book of the cor- 

 poration established on its ruin, contains the 

 name of Master Haryson, teacher of gram- 

 marians (Mag. Haryson, Informator grammati- 

 corum), among the list of members ' now in 

 town ' paying the usual subscription of 8d. 

 His name follows that of Anthony Forster, the 

 bailiff and his wife, which follows those of the 

 vicar and fifteen chantry priests. It is suggested 

 in Mr. Brown's History that he is the same 

 person to whom in 1512, nearly thirty years 

 before, Henry Carnbull, Archdeacon of York, 

 gave a legacy in the terms ' unto Maistir 

 Herryson, the lerned man, 2O*.,' bequeathing to 

 Magnus ' a standyng cop all gilted with a cover 

 with dropes oppon it.' Carnbull of course 

 knew Magnus, his brother archdeacon, whom 

 he had preceded in the archdeaconry of the 

 East Riding. He was a Yorkshire man from 

 Rotherham, like the archbishop of that name, 

 whom he assisted in the foundation of Rother- 

 ham College with its three free schools of 

 grammar, song, and writing. But that was in 

 1480. He belonged to an earlier generation 

 than Magnus and had no connexion with 

 Nottinghamshire. Schoolmasters in those days 

 were generally quite young when appointed. It 

 is not, therefore, very probable that the two 

 Harrisons are identical. The monument of the 

 first master of the song school is extant on the 

 wall of the vestry: ' Here lyeth buried the bodye 

 of Robarte Kyrkbye the first Mr of ye songe 

 Scoole of this Towne of Newarke, in which 

 rowme he was plaste by Master Thomas 

 Magnus, ye fownder thereof, and continued a 

 worthy teacher therein ye space of xlii yeares, 

 who departed this lyfe ye xixth of March in 

 ye yeare of our lorde God 1573 an ^ Here 

 lyeth also Elizabeth his wyfe who dyed before 

 hime ye xvii of November 1566, to whome 

 God sende a joyfull resurrectio.' 



This Robert Kirkbye Mr. Brown identifies with 

 Robert Kirkbye, singing-man, who is mentioned 

 in a deed of 23 May 1507, a power of attorney 

 to Robert Baxter to make livery of seisin of 'a 

 toft in Osmondthorpe, alias North gate, in the 

 tenure of Robert Kyrkebe, syngyng man,' to 

 Robert Howys, baker. Assuming that Kirkby 

 was then twenty-four years old this would make 

 him when he died ninety years old, and forty- 

 eight when appointed song-schoolmaster. Thus 

 the identification seems doubtful. On the other 

 hand, Magnus himself was seventy when he 

 founded the school. So it is possible that to both 

 schools he appointed men who, though above or 



close on forty, seemed to him quite young. Kirkby 

 appears as still living in ' Bargate and Norgate,* 

 in the Gild Roll of 1540-1 : ' Mag. Kyrkby et 

 Elizabeth uxor ejus.' The song school would 

 not therefore appear to have been carried on in 

 the same place as the grammar school. Perhaps 

 it enjoyed the old grammar schoolhouse, which 

 as we have seen was in Northgate. 



It is curious that with his avowed preference 

 for priests as schoolmasters, Magnus should thus 

 have appointed a layman, and a married man to 

 boot, as first song schoolmaster. But it was 

 apparently hard to get a man in orders who was 

 a good organist, as even in the statutes of Eton 

 College in 1443 there is a special exception of 

 the requirement of being a celibate cleric in the 

 case of the organist. 



In 1545 Harryson had ceased to be grammar 

 schoolmaster, Magister Brockett appearing as 

 preceptor grammaticorum in the gild list of that 

 year. 43 



In 1547, in pursuance of a policy inaugurated 

 by Henry VIII of making the great ecclesiastics 

 give up their temporal lordships of towns, the 

 Bishop of Lincoln surrendered to the Crown 

 the borough, wapentake, and castle of Newark,, 

 and certain manors, receiving in exchange other 

 lands or tithes, chiefly monastic spoils. On 21 

 December 1549 by letters patent of the Crown 

 a municipal corporation was established in New- 

 ark consisting of an ' alderman and 1 2 assistants 

 inhabitants of the town,' the last alderman of 

 the Trinity Gild, who had also been the bishop's 

 bailiff, becoming the first alderman of the new- 

 corporation. 



That Magnus' own foundation was not itself 

 confiscated as superstitious by reason of the 

 chantry and obit attached may be explained prob- 

 ably by its not having been put into mortmain 

 or incorporated, and to the saving provision that 

 the two masters were not necessarily to be 

 priests and had not themselves to perform the 

 masses and obits. 



Magnus himself survived the foundation some 

 eighteen years. Three years after it, in 1535,. 

 he was active in preaching in his archdeaconry 

 against the papal supremacy; in 1537 ne 

 assisted at the suppression of Bridlington Priory 

 and other monasteries, and as a member of the 

 Council of the North took part in the proceedings 

 against the vicar of Newark, Henry Lytherland,. 

 hanged for high treason in taking part in the 

 Pilgrimage of Grace. Magnus surrendered to- 

 the Crown St. Leonard's Hospital at York 

 I December 1539, and was allowed to retain 

 the principal mansion house, a grange, a fishery, 

 money and goods. On 17 April 1545*' he 

 surrendered ' the college or chantry ' of Sib- 

 thorpe, and on 4 July 1545 for 197 6s. 



" Brown, op. cit. i, 250. 



41 Brown, op. cit. ii, 194. 



43 L. and P. Hen. Vlll, xx (i), 534. 



208 



