A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



Christmas 20*. was to be ' bestowed upon the 

 3 best deserving scholars of either form, in books 

 or otherwise, at the high master's discretion, at 

 the breaking-up before the said feasts.' At this 

 meeting Dudley North, esq., was chosen a 

 governor. 



On 15 April, 1661, it was ordered 'that a 

 new school should be built upon the same 

 ground as the present school now standeth.' 

 Moneys out on interest were to be called in, and 

 ' the High Master, his Usher, and the Governors 

 were desired to use their respective interests with 

 such gents as will subscribe ' for the new build- 

 ings ' as speedily as may be.' But the idea of 

 building on the old site was abandoned in favour 

 of the purchase, 7 September, 1662, of a house 

 and grounds in Northgate Street for 215. 

 On 30 October, 1 662, a committee was appointed 

 to take order ' of laying the foundacion of the 

 New Schole ' ; which by a further order of 

 8 March, 1662-3, was to be before 31 March. 

 The new school took two years to build. 



Before it was finished its undoubted inceptor, 

 Dr. Stevens, had retired. On 30 October, 

 1662, ' Doctor Stephens ' was to 'bee att libertie 

 to declare whether he will hold to his lyveing and 

 leave the schoole between this and Lady Day.' 

 On 15 June, 1662, ' intending for the future to 

 imploy himself in the work of the ministry,' he 

 resigned the place of high master. 



Roger North's ' Lives of the Norths ' 1 throw 

 an interesting light on the inner life of the 

 school, and show Dr. Stevens as a staunch 

 cavalier, fully imbued with one prominent charac- 

 teristic of that party what is euphoniously termed 

 ' wet epicureanism.' 



Much may be attributed to the finishing of him 

 (Francis North, Lord Keeper Guildford) at Bury 

 School, under Dr. Stephens, a cavalier master. He 

 was so forward and exact a scholar there that the 

 bulky doctor, in his pedantic strain, used to say he 

 was the crown of all his endeavours. Before he went 

 to Cambridge the master employed him to make an 

 alphabetical index of all the verbs neuter, and he did 

 it so completely that the doctor had it printed with 

 Lilly's Grammar for the proper use of his own school. 



Of Dr. John North we are told : 



His scholastic education was altogether at St. 

 Edmund's Bury, in Suffolk, under Dr. Stephens. . . . 

 The master was pedant enough, and noted for high 

 flights in poetry and criticism, and what we now call 

 jingling, not a little derived from the last age. All 

 which qualities were not amiss in his employment. 

 The worst of him was what his corpulence declared, 

 the being a wet epicure, the common vice of bookish 

 professions. We pass by his partialities, which were 

 indeed scandalous and pernicious to many of his 

 scholars, because they happened to turn in favour of 

 our Doctor, for his master was exceedingly fond and 

 proud of him. One happiness was that he was a 

 noted cavalier . . . [The master] being reputed little 

 better than a malignant, he was forced to use out- 

 wardly an occasional conformity by observing the 



1 Quoted in Gent. Mag. (1850), i, 40. 



church duties and days of super-hypocritical fastings 

 and seekings, wherewith the people in those days were 

 tormented, though now worn out of almost all credi- 

 bility ; and he walked to church after his brigade of 

 boys there to endure the infliction of divers holders- 

 forth, tiring themselves and everybody else ; and by 

 these means he made a shift to hold his school. It 

 happened that in the dawning of the restoration, the 

 cancer of the times mitigated ; and one Dr. Boldero . . . 

 kept a Church of England conventicle at Bury, using 

 the Common prayer ; and our master often went to 

 his congregation, and ordinarily took some of his 

 boarders with him, of whom our doctor was, for the 

 most part, one. . . . After the happy restoration, and 

 while our doctor was still at school, the master took 

 occasion to publish his cavaliership by all the ways he 

 could contrive ; and one was putting all the boarders, 

 who were of the chief families in the country, into 

 red cloaks, because the cavaliers about the court usually 

 wore such, and scarlet was commonly called the king's 

 colour. Of these he had near thirty to parade before 

 him, through that observing town, to church, which 

 made no vulgar appearance. ... I may remember, 

 for the credit of that scarlet troop and their scholastic 

 education, that not above one, or two, of the whole 

 company, after they came to act in their country 

 ministrations, proved anti-monarchic or fanatic. . . . 

 The methods of the school were no slight advantage, 

 for the master required all his scholars to fill a quarter 

 of a sheet of paper with their Latin themes, and write 

 the English on the opposite page. At the presenting 

 them, a desk was set in the middle of the school, 

 where the boy stood and rehearsed his theme in Latin 

 or English, as was required ; and at this act a form or 

 two of boys were called up from the lower end, and 

 placed by way of audience ; and the master had 

 opportunity to correct faults of any kind, pronuncia- 

 tion as well as composition. This discipline, used 

 generally in free schools, might prevent an obloquy, 

 as when it is said that in the grand assemblies for 

 English affairs there are found many talkers, but very 

 few speakers. 



After Dr. Stevens's resignation on 12 Sep- 

 tember, 1663, a committee, of whom Dudley 

 North was one, was appointed to ' review the 

 statutes of the school and prepare such altera- 

 tions as they shall think requisite.' If the new 

 master's memory is to be trusted this revision was 

 undertaken because when the statutes were read 

 over to him, ' on my objection that there were 

 some which I could not observe,' they were 

 altered. But it was only on 30 September the 

 new high master was chosen in the person of 

 Mr. Edward Leeds, ' late high master of the 

 free school of Newark,' at a salary of 40 with 

 the house newly purchased near the school now 

 in building. A year later, 5 September, 1664,. 

 the old school was sold to Rev. John Salkeld for 

 85. The grip of the reaction of the Restora- 

 tion and the Conventicles Acts was now felt in a 

 resolution passed on 27 January, 1664-5, tnat 

 any scholar refusing to attend church and sermon 

 according to the discipline of the Church of 

 England was to be expelled. On 7 August, 

 1665, new statutes were brought up, and a week 

 later sent to the bishop for confirmation. 



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