THE EXTERNAL GROWTH OF SHERBORNE SCHOOL. 107 



to teach gratuitously in the Schools maintained at their cost. 

 Indeed, it is more than probable that, at the time when the Abbey 

 was dissolved, none of its members possessed sufficient learning 

 even for the moderate requirements of the secular education of the 

 day. 



In letters patent, then, bearing date May 13th, 1550, the 

 Chantries of Martock, St. Katherine in Gillingham, St. Katherine 

 in Ilminster and Lytchett Matravers, together with the free Chapel 

 of Thornton in the parish of Marnhull, all of them newly sup- 

 pressed by a supplementary act in the first year of Edward's reign, 

 or they would hardly have escaped the rapacity of Henry's 

 favourites, were appointed " by the King's Majesty " for the 

 establishment of a Free Grammar School (Libera Schola Gram- 

 maticalis) in the town of Sherborne ; the income from which 

 sources amounted at the time to 31 marks, or ,20 13s. 4d. One 

 mark was to be paid annually to the Crown as quit-rent, and 

 continued to be paid for several years by the Governors, as feoffees 

 of the King's Manor of Stalbridge. It was left to the trustees, 

 twenty " discreet and honest inhabitants " of the Town, who are 

 constituted a Corporation, with a common seal, " able to sue and be 

 sued," to dispose as they thought fit of the rents and profits of the 

 estates, to elect masters, and to frame orders, or statutes, according 

 to the changes of time and circumstance, with the advice of the 

 Bishop of Bristol ; and the first care of the " Companie," as they 

 style themselves in the first extant Minute-book, which dates back 

 to 1591, must have been to give a local habitation to the School, 

 which so far existed only in endowment and in name. 



This they appear to have done by obtaining permission of 

 Sir John Horsey to use the old " Schole-house," then in ruins, at a 

 nominal rent of 4d. per annum, which is duly accounted for in the 

 earliest account we possess, that of the 3rd year after the granting 

 of the letters patent. In the following year, however, we discover 

 from the curious " accompte " of Jarvis Ayshelee, " Warden and 

 Receptor of the rents and revenues of the said Schole, from the 

 ffeaste of St. Mychell the Archangell, in the ffirste yere of the 



