SCHOOLS 



in Berkshire, and gave in exchange lands in Hampshire, Dorsetshire and 

 Wiltshire which belonged to various dissolved monasteries. The four 

 houses of friars at Winchester, particularly those of the Carmelites in 

 what used to be Sickhouse Meads, and Meads, and the Austin or 

 Augustinian Friars close by, were no doubt a valuable acquisition, while 

 the rectories of Portsmouth and Portsea have proved not unprofitable. 

 But the other exchanges have turned out from the point of view of the 

 college to be ' of gold for brass, the worth of 100 oxen for that of nine.' 

 It gave away the prospect of an enormous ' unearned increment ' arising 

 from land which, owing to the growth of London, has become valuable 

 building land, for scattered and distant agricultural farms. Probably 

 neither party contemplated anything like the difference that has since 

 taken place in the prospective value, but we may be pretty sure that the 

 college would not willingly have exchanged a compact property near 

 London for the remote and scattered fragments it received. In con- 

 sequence the account roll in Edward VI. 's first year exhibits far greater 

 change of property from that of 1398 than any that has occurred since. 

 In fact except for the further exchange made by Edward VI. of the 

 manor of Endford, Wiltshire, for half a dozen scattered manors in Surrey, 

 Somerset and Gloucestershire, and the sale to Queen Victoria of a large 

 part of the Barton property for the creation of the Osborne House 

 estate, the property remains substantially unaltered. 



EARLY CELEBRITIES 



The opening of the college in its new buildings was an event of 

 national importance. It is mentioned in the chronicles of the time, 

 while the Account Rolls and Hall Books bear witness to the large 

 number of strangers who came to see it and were hospitably entertained. 

 Among the more notable visitors were the Duke of Brittany, who came 

 in 1396, and was entertained with French bread among other luxuries ; 

 while Henry IV. in his first year paid a visit in state, and received a 

 present of two swans, his bread and pastry being specially baked by 

 the founder's baker, lent for the occasion. The college was called in 

 Hampshire for some centuries, as its sister college at Oxford still is, par 

 excellence, the New College. The Old College of St. Elizabeth, which 

 received a quit rent of 2d. a year on ' meads,' the cricket field, entered 

 it as received from 'the New College'; and in the accounts of the cor- 

 poration of Basingstoke 'the Warden of the New College,' viz. of Win- 

 chester, is entered among the landowners of the borough throughout the 

 fifteenth century. In the reign of Henry VIII. Gardiner, when Bishop 

 of Winchester, wrote of it as 'the New College beside Winchester.' 

 The disappearance of the old college in the reign of Edward VI. saved 

 it from being for ever labelled, like St. Mary's College, Oxford, with 

 that anachronistic title, though it was still occasionally used, as in Queen 

 Elizabeth's letters patent, in 1560, allowing the Latin Prayer Book. 



The school was immediately and marvellously successful in its 

 primary object of turning out learned clerics. Winchester scholars 



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