SCHOOLS 



sentiment into that of " The Queen's Free School." ' By the existing 

 scheme, made by the Charity Commissioners under the Endowed Schools 

 Acts and approved by the queen in council on 6 May, 1886, the old 

 name was not restored, but the school was dubbed Queen Mary's School. 

 This misleading misnomer lends authority to the false derivation of the 

 school from Queen Mary, of ensanguined memory, and diverts attention 

 from its real founders, those inhabitants of Basingstoke and the neighbour- 

 hood who were members of the Brotherhood or Gild of the Holy Ghost, 

 which maintained it. 



When exactly either the school or the brotherhood of the Holy 

 Ghost was founded cannot be determined. In 1867 the Schools Inquiry 

 Commission, following the report made in 1825 of the ' Commissioners 

 of Inquiry concerning charities, 1 commonly called Lord Brougham's 

 Commission, reported that the school and gild were founded by Richard 

 (Fox), Bishop of Winchester, and Lord Sandys, under licence from Henry 

 VIII. in 1525, and re-established by Philip and Mary in 1557. But, 

 as will be shown, the licence from Henry VIII. in 1524 was not a 

 foundation of the gild, nor did the foundation take place under it ; and 

 the school is not mentioned in the licence. 



The first certain mention of the existence of the school is in 1548, 

 when the commissioners under the Act for the dissolution of Colleges 

 and Chantries of the first year of Edward VI., commonly called the 

 Chantries Act, reported 2 that there was in Basingstoke subject to the Act 

 a ' Brotherhood of the Chapel of the Holy Ghost,' the endowments of 

 which, amounting to 5 ijs. $d. a year net, were employed in paying 

 a schoolmaster to teach children grammar, and had so been for the last 

 ten years. As this document, which is the foundation of the history of 

 the school, has been incorrectly printed in the History of Basingstoke by 

 Mr. Baigent and Mr. Millard, late vicar of Basingstoke, it is here given 

 in full. 3 The commissioners for Hampshire were Sir John Mason, kt. ; 

 George Powlet, John Kingsmill, Nicholas Tichebourne, esquires ; 

 Edmund Clarke, Nicholas Vaux and Richard Gifford, gentlemen. 

 They report under the heading of: 



DECANATUS DE BASINGSTOKE 



2. BASINGSTOKE 



The Brotherhood of the chapell of the Holly goost. Founded of the devocion of the 

 inhabitantes at the begynnyng, there to fynd a prest for ever, and sythens employed to the 

 intent to fynd a schole Master to teache children grammar, whiche hathe been so continually 

 kept thes I O yeres last past unto this daye ; whereunto belongen, viz. : Landes and tenements 

 in Basingstoke to the yerely value of fjb 1 3*. Whereof 



Resolute, 15*. 4^. Et Remanet, 5 175. Sd. whiche is yerely paid to the said schole Master. 

 Ornamentes and plate belonging to the same brotherhood, Delyvered by Inventory Indented 

 by the commissioners to the wardens of the said Brotherhood, valued at 281. 



1 Report referred to as Char. Com. Rep. xiv. 377. 



* A History of the indent Town and Manor of Baitngstoke, by Francis Joseph Baigent and James 

 Elwin Millard (C. J. Jacob, Basingstoke, 1889). This book is afterwards referred to as Basingstoke. 



3 English Schools at the Reformation, 1546-8 (Archibald Constable & Co., Westminster, 1896), 

 p. 89. 



4 Chant. Cert. No. 54 Hants. 



ii 369 47 



