SCHOOLS 



Cross. In the first flush of victory, on 27 Feb- 

 ruary 1460-1, Edward, Duke of York and Earl 

 of March and Ulster (Ulvestre), the day before 

 his entry into London, as ' vray and just heire ' 

 of England, granted letters of protection to the 

 ' Provoste and fellowship of the collage of Eton,' 

 desiring everyone not to hurt, trouble or vex 

 them ' neither them in their lyve loids goods 

 or catalls, robbe despoyle ner vexe.' On 

 4 August 1461 Edward IV assumed the crown. 

 By an Act of his first Parliament, 4 November 

 1461, all the grants of Henry VI, not expressly 

 saved, were made void, and resumed into the 

 king's hands. This of course did not dissolve 

 the college, which, being an ecclesiastical estab- 

 lishment, created and confirmed under the 

 supreme ecclesiastical power of the Pope, was 

 not disestablished or dissoluble by the temporal 

 act of king or Parliament. But the endowment 

 was at Edward's mercy. It says much for 

 Edward's policy, and indeed magnanimity, that 

 he not only spared the college itself, though it 

 was the favourite and most conspicuous work of 

 the man who had killed his father and robbed 

 him of his inheritance, but re-endowed it. By 

 patent 23 February 1462,** he granted as from 

 14 March 1461 to Provost Westbury and the 

 college, to pray for himself and Cicely his 

 mother, and the soul of Richard Duke of York, 

 the hospital of St. Peter, Windsor, apparently a 

 new property not previously enjoyed by Eton ; 

 two manors of Ogbourne Priory ; and the prio- 

 ries of Stratfield Saye, and of Cogges and Minster 

 Lovell, Oxfordshire ; Greeting, Suffolk, and 

 Evcrdon, Northants, Docking and Sporle, Nor- 

 folk ; Lyminster, Sussex ; part of Ogbourne 

 Priory ; Clatford and Hullavington, Wiltshire ; 

 Piddlehinton, Dorset, and Stogursey (Stoke 

 Courcy), Somerset ; with certain apportus due to 

 foreign monasteries. The bulk of the property, 

 however, was gran ted away. Thus on 26 February 

 1462,** Brimpsfield, Gloucestershire, Charlton, 

 Wiltshire, Povington, Dorset, Weedon Beck, 

 Northants, and other Eton properties were granted 

 to William Beaufitz for ten years, he accounting 

 to the Exchequer for any surplus income over 

 I ,OOO marks a year. Some of these, e.g. Povington 

 and Weedon Beck, were afterwards recovered. 

 On 3 August following, perhaps to attract the 

 support of the Church, which owed so much to 

 the house of Lancaster, Edward actually set up 

 again the alien priory of Deerhurst, granting it ** 

 with all its possessions, which Eton had enjoyed, 

 to a monk of Westminster named Buckland, 

 ' according to the original foundation and inten- 

 tion of Edward the Confessor.' But he was 

 not to pay tribute to the foreign superior, the 

 abbey of St. Denis, during war with France. 

 Five years afterwards, on the allegation that 



" Pat. I Edw. IV, pt. iii, m. 24. 



" Ibid. pt. iv, m. 11. 



Ibid. 2 Edw. IV, pt. i, m. J. 



Buckland had wasted the property and only 

 maintained out of it himself and one secular 

 chaplain, the king by Act of Parliament 3 July 

 1467, took back the priory, and on 25 July** 

 annexed it to Tewkesbury Abbey. 



Meanwhile, incensed perhaps at the continued 

 resistance of the Lancastrians, and determined 

 to stamp out all the works of Henry, Edward 

 represented to Pope Pius II that the Eton build- 

 ings were unfinished, and the college could not 

 carry out its work. So the pope on 13 Novem- 

 ber 1463 issued a bull suppressing the college as 

 a separate entity, and incorporating it with St. 

 George's, Windsor. This ' Bull of Union,' as 

 it has been called, provided that the site was not 

 ' to revert to profane uses,' and that ' its accus- 

 tomed charges were to be properly supported,'** 

 while its members were to retain their rank and 

 emoluments. It would not appear that the col- 

 lege or school ceased. It was, in fact, treated 

 much as the Hospital of St. John at Basingstoke, 

 when annexed to Merton by Walter Merton ; or 

 of St. Bartholomew, Oxford, when annexed to 

 Oriel College by Edward III ; or of St. James, 

 London, when annexed to Eton itself. The 

 effect was that the institution was not destroyed, 

 but all its surplus revenues, after meeting the 

 fixed charges, went to the absorbing college in- 

 stead of to its own augmentation. The union 

 so far took effect, as appears from entries in the 

 audit rolls relating to the subsequent retransfer 

 to Eton, that the bulk of the bells, plate, jewels, 

 and ornaments of the chapel, even the very 

 horses of the stable, were taken to Windsor. 

 The Eton Audit Rolls ceased from 1461 to 

 1467. King's College, which as regards its 

 building was in a much less advanced state than 

 Eton, seems to have been suspended. The list 

 of admissions of scholars at King's stops in 1459, 

 and was not resumed till 1466, when only three 

 scholars were elected. The school may have 

 gone on in a truncated form ; but whether there 

 were any scholars in college, after those existing 

 in 1463 had left, is doubtful. Clement Smythe 

 seems to have found his position as fellow so 

 precarious, that he returned to the teaching 

 profession, becoming head master of Winchester 

 at Michaelmas 1464, where he remained till 

 Lady Day 1467, when he again became head 

 master at Eton. 



Provost Westbury wisely bowed to the storm 

 at the time. But two years later, 13 July 1465," 



* Pat. 7 Edw. IV, pt. iii, m. 5. 

 ** ' Congrue tupportentur oncra consueta.' 

 11 Maxwell Lyte gives the date as 13 July 1463, 

 and says that in hit protest Westbury ignored the Bull 

 of Union. If 1463 were the correct date, Westbury 

 could hardly have done otherwise, as the bull was not 

 issued till four months later. But in point of fact 

 he did refer to what had been done two yean before, 

 in the words in which he protested against union by 

 ' papal or any other authority.' 



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