A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



was not to be a mere demonstration at starting, 

 it was provided 



That these acts and orders do continue until such 

 time as the Controlers be notified of others being 

 taught in Eton more profitable to scholars ; then it 

 is lawful to the Controlers to add to the forms that 

 be more profitable and to leave what are not profit- 

 able at their discretion. 



In 1529" came Richard Cox, the fourth 

 Etonian and Kingsman to become master. 

 Born at Whaddon, Buckinghamshire, 92 he went 

 from Eton to King's in 1519, taking his B.A. 

 degree 1523-4. Wolsey made him a junior 

 canon of his new Cardinal College at Oxford, 

 so he took his M.A. degree there, 2 July 1526. 

 He first appears in the Eton audit book as 

 Informator for the year beginning Michaelmas 

 1529, with Edmund Janson or Jonson, a Win- 

 chester and New College man, who had come 

 a term before, as Hostiarius ; and he continued 

 there till 1535. The ushers under him after 

 Jonson were William Pury or Pery, Michaelmas 

 1532 to Midsummer 1533 ; and William Bag- 

 ley, who had gone to King's in 1527, from 

 Midsummer 1533. On retirement from the 

 mastership Cox returned to Cambridge, and took 

 his B.D. degree in 1535, and his D.D. in 1537. 

 On 24 November 1540, he was made Arch- 

 deacon of Ely on the king's appointment. He 

 was one of the commissioners for making statutes 

 for the cathedrals of the new foundation estab- 

 lished by Henry VIII, on the dissolution of the 

 monastic chapters and monasteries, and was him- 

 self made a canon on the new foundation of 

 Ely. He was designated Bishop of Southwell 

 when that collegiate church was intended to be 

 converted into a cathedral ; but the execution of 

 the intention was deferred for 335 years. On 

 8 January 1543-4 he became dean of the new 

 Oxford cathedral at Oseney, and, when it was 

 abolished, Dean of Christ Church, which he 

 scandalized by introducing a wife. He was 

 tutor and then almoner to Edward VI, first as 

 prince then as king ; Canon of Windsor 1548 ; 

 Dean of Westminster 1549. On Mary's in- 

 coming he was sent to the Tower for treason, 

 but let out, though deprived of all his prefer- 

 ments. He fled to Frankfort. On Elizabeth's 

 accession he returned to become Bishop of Ely 

 29 July 1559, took an active part in the con- 

 troversies of the reign, and died 22 July 1581. 

 That he was a good Latin verse writer is shown 

 by his correspondence with Walter Haddon, his 

 pupil at Eton (on the roll for King's 1533), who 

 had written from his sick bed : 



Vix caput attollens e lecto scribere carmen 

 Qui vult, is voluit scribere plura. Vale. 



" Not 1528, as Maxwell Lyte. 



" In Cooper, Athen. Cant., he is absurdly guessed 

 to have ' had his first education in the small Benedic- 

 tine Priory of St. Leonard Snelshall, Whaddon,' as if 

 Benedictine priories taught outsiders. 



Dr. Cox to Walter Haddon his scholar : 



Te magis optarem salvum sine carmine, fill, 

 Quam sine te salvo carmina multa. Vale. 



By a fortunate accident a curriculum of Eton 

 during Cox's term of office has been preserved in 

 the town records of Saffron Walden, in Essex. 

 There had long been a grammar school there, 

 the monoply of which was asserted in I423- 93 

 By deed 3 December 1517, John Leche, vicar 

 of that place, possibly the Winchester scholar of 

 that name in 1445, endowed the Trinity Gild, 

 which he had assisted to found three years before, 

 'with land for a priest so that' when the gild 

 ' be abill to make the seid service worth i o a 

 year . . . the seid preest shalbe a profound 

 gramarion, to thintent that he may teche gramar 

 within the towne of Waldeyn, after the rourme 

 of the scole of Winchester or of Eton.' The 

 endowment did rot take effect till his sister, 

 Dame Jane Bradbury, by deed of 18 May 1525, 

 gave further endowment, and appointed William 

 Dawson, clerk, 'approvyd as an able syngyng 

 man and a profound gramarion, accordyng to 

 the mynd of Master Leche ' with proviso that 

 every future master should be 'a suffycyent 

 grammarion to tech chyldren grammer after the 

 order and use of techyng grammer in the 

 scolys of Wynchester and Eton.' 



To ensure this someone at Walden obtained 

 from the head masters of Winchester and Eton 

 copies of their ' Order and Use,' and they were 

 solemnly entered in the Mayor's book. They 

 were printed by Thomas Wright, the celebrated 

 antiquary, 94 in 1853, as ' Rules of the Free School 

 of Saffron Walden,' and even Sir Henry Max- 

 well Lyte quotes them 95 as made for that school 

 ' when Richard Cox an Etonian was master.' 

 But it is clear that Cox was never master there, 

 but being master at Eton in 1530 he furnished 

 Dawson with a copy of the Eton ' use.' As the 

 document is of the first importance in the history 

 of English education, it is now given in full, as 

 corrected from the original. 



THIS vs THE ORDER OF THE SAME SCHOLE USYD BY 

 ME RICHARD Cox, SCHOLEMASTER. 



They come to schole at vj of the Clok in ye morn- 

 yng & they say Deus misereatur with a Colecte ; at 

 ix they say De profundis & go to brekefaste. With 



* Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. viii, App. 281. 



M Arch, xxxiv, 37. 



95 Hist. Eton Coll. (and ed. 1899), 147. Thanks 

 to Mr. Bryan Ackland, who enabled me to see the 

 original, it was shown apropos of the Winchester 

 ' order ' that Richard Cox and John Twichencr, mis- 

 printed Twithen by Wright, were the masters of Eton 

 and Winchester respectively, who furnished the orders 

 of their schools to Walden as model in 1530 ; V.C.H. 

 Hants, ii, 298 ; and V.C.H. Essex, ii, 21. In 

 Etonlana, May 1907, a correct description of the 

 document is given, but the document itself is repro- 

 duced with all its mistakes from Archaeologia. 



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