SCHOOLS 



Bill of St. John's College, Cambridge, was on 

 25 June elected provost at the queen's command, 

 as is evidenced by a payment to a messenger, who 

 ' brought the quenes majestie's letters.' Master 

 first of St. John's and then of Trinity, Cambridge, 

 whence he was ejected by Mary, he had been 

 restored to Trinity, and in 1560 was made Dean 

 of Westminster, holding all these offices together. 

 He died a year later, IO July 1561. At Eton 

 he replaced the altar by a communion table on 

 9 November, and had the beautiful but ' super- 

 stitious* pictures painted in 1480 whitewashed 

 by the college barber, so preserving them for re- 

 discovery in 184.8. 



The next head master, William Malim, is a 

 man of some fame, by reason of an account of 

 the school in his time which was, until the dis- 

 covery of the two curricula of 1524 and 1530, 

 given above, the earliest known. He was an 

 Etonian who was admitted to King's 14 August 

 1548. The roll of the year was headed by a 

 man who was even more famous in the scholastic 

 profession, Richard Mulcaster, afterwards sur- 

 master of St. Paul's and head master of Merchant 

 Taylors' Schools, and author of The Elemtntarie, 

 a plea for the use of the English language instead 

 of Latin as the medium of instruction. Malim 

 is said m to have been born in 1533, but that 

 is impossible. Eton scholars were not super- 

 annuated for King's till they had reached their 

 nineteenth birthday, and competition was too 

 keen for boys of fifteen to have a chance. He 

 must have been born at earliest in 1530. He be- 

 came B.A. in 1553, M.A. 1556. He became 

 a jurist fellow 124 14 January 1559, and the in- 

 adequacy of the emoluments and prospects of the 

 civil law drove him, like many other jurist fellows 

 of King's and New College, to schoolmastering. 

 He therefore sought and obtained the succession 

 to Barker as head master of Eton. Among his 

 earliest works at Eton was the preparation of the 

 salvo of Latin verses, the burden of which was 

 mostly an invitation to marry and produce an 

 heir to the throne as quickly as possible, with 

 which he and 44 boys greeted the queen on New 

 Year's Day 1559-60. His time at Eton is 

 noteworthy for three several documents of great 

 importance in the history not only of Eton, but 

 of education in general. They are the school 

 bills in 1560 of the two brothers Cavendish, one 

 of whom became the first Earl of Devonshire ; the 

 fetus Consuetudinarium of Eton in 1561 ; and 

 Roger Ascham's Scho/emaiter, the writing of 

 which was suggested by a flogging scandal in 

 1 563. The school bills m are extremely inter- 

 esting. The two boys, Henry and William 



'" Diet. Nat. Bug. ; J. H. Lnpton. 



114 This icems to be the explanation of the state- 

 ment in Diet. Nat. Biog. that be was ' ordered to study 

 civil law.' 



m Printed in the Retrotpeclivt Review (1828) and 

 in Etonians (Mar. and Sept. 1904). 



Cavendish, just under nine and ten years old 

 when sent to Eton, were the sons of Sir William 

 Cavendish of Chatsworth, who rose to wealth 

 and note as Wolsey's steward and had died in 

 1557, and of the famous Bess of Hard wick, who 

 for her third husband married the Earl of Shrews- 

 bury, but was now married to Sir William St. 

 Loe, captain of the guard. At their entry St. 

 Loe wrote to his wife, ' The Amnar M saluteth 

 the, and sayeth no jenttlemen's chyldren in Ing- 

 land shalbe better welcum, nor better loked unto 

 than owre boyes.' The bills begin with an 

 introductory dinner ' at the inne* on 21 October 

 1560, at which two sons of 'Sir Frauncis Knolles* 

 were present. It cost a penny under half a crown 

 for bread and beer, soup, boiled mutton, roast 

 mutton, 'a lytull chicken \d. and 4^. for fire 

 morning and evening in their chamber there.' 

 On 23 October the boys 'with ther man, dyd 

 beginne thcr bord at Richard Hylles,' at lew. a 

 week for the two boys and 3*. 4^. a week for 

 their man, besides firewood, which for a month 

 cost 9s. Sd. Their whole outfit is given. It 

 shows that oppidans, as well as collegers, wore 

 gowns. The gowns, 4 yds. each of black frieze 

 (fryse) at if. 8< a yard, cost 131. \d. and making 

 u. 4</. Two 'friseardo coates' and two ' dub- 

 letts' of jane fustian, with black silk buttons, 

 kersey hose lined with linen, ' sloppes ' lined with 

 cotton, were provided ; and four shirts each of 

 fine holland, with coarse holland lining for the 

 collars. Two ' combes ' cost -id. ; two pairs of 

 shoes (showes) 1 6d., and soleing the old ones, 

 <)d. ; a ' payr of knyffes ' 6d., and ' two payr of 

 furred gloves with strynges at them ' $d. They 

 had for 6d. an initiatory ' braykfast for the cum- 

 panye of formes in the scole, according to the use 

 of the scole,' the ' company ' probably being that 

 of the two forms in which the boys were placed. 

 Their arma scha/astica consisted of ' Lucian's 

 Dialogues, 4</.' ; 'the Kynges Grammar, Marcus 

 Tullius' Offices, Fabulae ./Esopi, and 2 bokcs 

 of waxlight ' ; but as the books were ' sent by Mr. 

 Fletwood,' their prices are unfortunately not 

 given. An ' Isope Fabulls,' perhaps in English, 

 added in the following month cost i^d. ' Two 

 qucre of why te paper' cost 8</., and 'ij pennsand 

 cornetts,' or ink-horns, cost lod. 'Geven to a 

 man to see bayre bayting, and a camcll in the 

 colledge as other schollers did.' 



On 25 November the boys and their servant 

 left 'oste Hyll,' and 'did bcgon ther bord in the 

 colledge.' In other words they became commen- 

 sals or commoners in college, as two of the 2O 

 ' sons of noblemen or special friends of the college." 

 For this they paid 3 1 21. a quarter, or 3*. a week 

 each, while their man's board for a month was 

 23*. They also paid quarterage ' quarterydgc, 



'" Almoner : the fellow charged in the old dayt 

 with the distribution of the broken meat! and alms of 

 the college. 



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