SCHOOLS 



learning. In 1502 John Farlington, no doubt of Farlington in Hamp- 

 shire, became headmaster. So little is ascertainable about him that even 

 his name has been rather persistently confounded ' by the annalist with 

 that of an entirely different person, by name Darlington. Darlington 

 was a scholar of 1474, who became a fellow of Winchester in 1490, 

 vicar of Isleworth in 1498 and of Greenwich in 1509, while Farlington 

 was a scholar fifteen years later, scholar of New College in 1493 and 

 headmaster in 1502, and died vicar of Wadhurst, Sussex, in 1527. By 

 his will he gave ' to the Newe College in Oxford, called Wynchester 

 College,' 10 and the choice of two ' reliques,' and to 'the New College 

 in Winchester ' 5, a chalice ' thorough gilte ' and the other of his 

 two ' reliques.' Farlington, like his successors, Edward More in 

 1508-17, and John Twychener 1526-31, retired on a canonry at 

 Chichester, a mark of the strong Wykehamical policy of its bishop, 

 Robert Sherborne who had been master of St. Cross, Winchester, 

 before Farlington became headmaster. He showed his love for Win- 

 chester by founding four new canonries or prebends there, which are 

 tenable only by Wykehamists, and, though non-resident, were specially 

 saved from extinction when other non-resident canonries were swept 

 away in 1848. He made the formularies and prayers at Winchester 

 School the model for his foundation of Rolleston School in Staffordshire 

 in 1520-2. 



More had a reputation as a flogger, which made Christopher Johnson 

 ask Farlington's boys whether, when more suo they wished him away, 

 they did not repent when they got More ; and he congratulated those 

 who were not under More that they lived in softer times. More left his 

 mark at Chichester in his arms on the gateway of the Vicars' Close. 

 From Chichester he returned as warden in 1526 and has left a signal 

 memorial of himself in Election Cup, a silver gilt bowl which managed 

 to escape Charles I., and is the oldest piece of plate the college now 

 possesses. It only appears on table at Election, or, as it is now com- 

 monly called, Domum dinner. His successor, Erlisman, had been head- 

 master of Eton from 1511. To him, or to the warden of the time, 

 Rede, not surely to More, must be attributed the credit of having 

 first given a complete summer holiday to the whole school ; for, 

 according to Mr. Kirby, in the first week of 1518 not a single scholar 

 was in commons, a thing which had never occurred before, and must 

 have been more or less of an accident, as it did not occur again till 1522. 

 The fact is, that whether a scholar went home for the holidays in those 

 days depended not so much on the authorities as on his parents. There 

 was a regular exeat for about a fortnight at that time, when a scholar 

 could go away if his parents lived near enough or were rich enough 

 to send for him. As late as 1682 it was not a universal rule for every 



1 dnnals, p. xi. ; Scholars, pp. 83, 91, 98. He is called in the Account Rolls Mr. Farlton and 

 John Farlyngton, and in his will P.C.C. Porch 22, John Farylton, William Farlton being his brother 

 and executor. 



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