A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



The scholars were deprived of their chance of seeing this famous state 

 trial by being sent to Silkstead, a farm some three or four miles off on 

 the downs. 



A visitation of the college by Archbishop Bancroft occurred on 

 ii January, 1605.* The injunctions issued as a result do not throw 

 much light on the internal economy of the school, being mainly 

 concerned with the administration of the property and with ensuring the 

 concurrence of the fellows in it, particularly as regards the taking of 

 fines, which were now becoming more important than the rents. The 

 order that the ' dyett ' of the fellows shall only be taken in the college 

 hall, except in case of sickness, witnesses to the beginning of the break- 

 up of the collegiate life. The most important from the school point of 

 view is that (No. 10) which directed the electors both to Winchester 

 and New College to act as a body in electing the most worthy and ' not 

 singly to name any scholar to be chosen, or report or give cause to report 

 this or that place to be the place, nomination or election ' of any one 

 elector. It is probable therefore that the system was already in vogue 

 under which the election to Winchester was become a system of 

 patronage, or at least the members of the electoral body took it in turn 

 to nominate. The order of electors was this : 



i. Founder's kin, who had an absolute right so long as there were 

 not already ten in the college. 2. The Crown. 3. The Bishop of 

 Winchester. 4. The Warden of New College. 5. The Warden of 

 Winchester. 6. The Senior Poser. 7. The Junior Poser. 8. The 

 Subwarden of Winchester. 9. The Headmaster ; and then the last six in 

 order da capo, 



That this was the method of election in 1686* has been shown by 

 notes on the Long Roll in that year, which follow the same order as 

 was publicly set out, as the recognized mode of election, in the history of 

 Winchester 3 published in 1773, except that the Crown and the Bishop 

 had then ceased to nominate. That it existed probably in 1569 may be 

 inferred from the statement of Headmaster Harmar quoted above, that he 

 was ' Her ' (i.e. the Queen's) Scholar. Accordingly his name comes 

 second on the roll for that year, next below Richard Fiennes, afterwards 

 Lord Saye and Sele, who was founder's kin, while Adam Home, who 

 bore the name of the Bishop of Winchester of the time, was third. 

 There are no means of knowing who appointed the rest, but the 

 significance of the beginning of the roll is highly suggestive. The 

 practice was too natural and too profitable to the electors to be 

 abandoned at the bidding of Archbishop Bancroft, an outsider who had 

 no practical means of enforcing his orders. It continued to thrive till 

 competitive examination was instituted nearly two centuries and a half 

 later. 



Equally futile was the next injunction that * neither the School- 



1 Wilkins' ConclRa, iv. 434. Holgate's Long Rolli, pp. xlvii., Iv. 



? The History and dntiyuities of Winchester (printed by J. Wilkes, 1773), i. 173, 



320 



