A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



of the week ; and in the Sixth and Seventh Horace or Cicero ; while 

 all three Forms read Cicero on Thursday, and the Mneid on Friday and 

 Saturday. 



A fortnight in every quarter was given up to examinations. 

 John Twychener must have been more of a schoolmaster and less of 

 a theologian than Johnson thought. In 1535 the Valor Ecclesiasticus 1 

 reveals him to us as still engaged in the practice of his profession at the 

 Grammar School, or, as it is now called, the Prebendal School, of 

 Chichester Cathedral. Under the heading of the Prebend of Highleigh 

 is 'John Tychenour, clerk, prebendary there.' The prebend is said to be 

 worth 13 6s. Sd. clear, after a pension paid to the Dean and Chapter of 

 3U. Sd. and jTz paid towards the annual salary of an undermaster of 

 the Chichester Grammar School. The prebend had been annexed to the 

 mastership of the Grammar School by a statute of the cathedral made by 

 Bishop Storey 18 February, I498. 2 It may seem strange to us now that 

 the mastership of the Prebendal School, Chichester, was promotion for 

 the headmaster of Winchester. But though the nominal yearly value 

 of the place may not have been any greater, and was indeed rather less, 

 yet its being coupled with a canonry and with prebendal estates, the 

 fines for renewing the leases of which accrued to the schoolmaster, while 

 probably the number of ' grammar scholars flocking to the said school ' 

 was considerably less than at Winchester, perhaps made it a more 

 desirable piece of preferment. In 1538 Twychener justified, or perhaps 

 gave occasion to Johnson's view of him, by passing on to the prebend of 

 Wittering, to which the theological lectureship of Chichester Cathedral 

 was attached. 



THE DISSOLUTION 



The second Twychener was succeeded in the headmastership in 

 1535 by a person who fell on troublous times and made some trouble 

 in the world himself, John White. He came of a good family, being 

 the younger brother of Sir Thomas White of Farnham, who was lord 

 mayor of London, and a cousin of the Sir Thomas White whose 

 name is well known in the annals of charities, having founded a loan 

 charity for money to be lent to poor tradesmen in twenty-four cities 

 and boroughs, mostly now applied in aid of schools in the respective 

 localities. 



The commissioners appointed under the Act for First Fruits and 

 Tenths did their work quickly. The commission for Hampshire was 

 issued on i February, 1535, and by 2 May the return was finished and 

 sent in. 



Their certificate for Winchester is as follows 3 (the original is in 

 Latin) : 



1 Vakr EeclenasAcut, Record Commission (1811), i. 301. 



* History and Constitution of a Cathedral of the Old Foundation, by Dr. Swainson (1880), p. 107. 



8 Valor Eccleiiasticus, ii. 4. 



300 



