A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



pany of any woman kinde. Be very free to 

 your master. Speak often with him, acquaint 

 him with all your temptations, and dangers, and 

 troubles. . . . Go to your master for whatever 

 you want, pens, incke, or paper or anything 

 ... he will supply you. . . If you finde the 

 temptations of the place too strong for you, I am 

 resolved to remove you before the Devil have 

 prevailed to farre over you.' The boy must have 

 been a boarder with one of the fellows. Again, 

 Andrew Marvell, the poet and M.P. for Hull, 

 lived at Eton in the house of one of the fellows, 

 John Oxenbridge, in charge of Dutton, a ward 

 of Cromwell's. So that though the war no 

 doubt diminished the numbers of oppidans, as 

 it did the revenues of everybody, it is clear that 

 if there was a slackening, there was no cessation, 

 in the flow of boys to the school. 



The election of 1645 was held in the ordinary 

 way. The roll to King's was headed by 

 Christopher Wase, who, after being head master 

 of Tonbridge School, migrated to Oxford, where 

 he became Esquire Bedell of Law, and got 

 together materials for a history of schools, which 

 unfortunately still remain in MS. 135 At Eton 

 as at other schools, notably Westminster, a 

 remarkable result of the biblical furore of the 

 time was the stimulus given to Hebrew. John 

 Janeway is recorded as passing an examination 

 in the language at the election. 136 



Provost Rous issued on 7 August 1646 some 

 'Rules for the Schollers.' They dealt chiefly 

 with religion, substituting for the old prayers a 

 psalm and prayers at getting up at 5 a.m. and 

 going to bed at 8 p.m., and providing for notes 

 of sermons and catechizing on 'the Lord's Day.' 

 The provost provided a preacher at 50 a year 

 out of his own pocket. On 13 February 1648-9 

 an Act of Parliament abolished deans and chap- 

 ters, and ordained a sale of their temporalities. 

 The spiritualities, tithes and livings, were reserved 

 for the Trustees for the Maintenance of Minis- 

 ters to make provision for preaching ministers 

 and schoolmasters. On 29 May it was thought 

 desirable, owing, no doubt, to the reservation in 

 the former Act, to pass ' an Act declaring that 

 the Act for abolishing of Deans and Chapters 

 doth not extend to the colleges of Winchester 

 and Eton.' But as the Act had contained an 

 express direction that all revenues, even of the 

 abolished chapters, which 'before 1st December 

 1641 had been or ought to have been paid to 

 the maintenance of any Grammar School or 

 Scholars, should continue to be paid,' any fears 

 for Eton, which was not under a chapter, must 

 have been groundless, 137 and the Act was due to 

 excessive caution, owing to the fancied resem- 

 blance of Eton to Westminster. On the same 



135 At C.C.C. Oxf. 

 186 Maxwell Lyte, op. cit. 246. 

 137 Yet Mr.Wasey Sterry, Annals of Eton Coll. (1898), 

 says ' the college nearly lost all its property.' 



day the committee for regulating the universities 

 was ordered to nominate visitors ' for regulating 

 Winchester and Eaton.' On 12 October 1649 

 various officials were by Ordinance of the House 

 required to sign ' the engagement ' 'to be true 

 and faithful to the commonwealth of England as 

 the same is now established without a king or a 

 house of Lords,' and among them are the ' mas- 

 ters, fellows, and schoolmasters 138 in Eton, Win- 

 chester, and Westminster Colleges.' Only one 

 fellow of Eton refused the test and was deprived 

 John Hales, called ' the ever memorable ' by ' the 

 wits,' because he was a great conversationalist 

 and anecdotist. At first he had held latitu- 

 dinarian views, which he suppressed to become 

 chaplain to Laud and Canon of Windsor. After 

 his deprivation he went on living at Eton, where 

 he died in 1656. He is recorded as 'loving 

 canary.' 



Nicholas Gray, the head master who had suc- 

 ceeded Norris in 1646, is alleged 139 to have been 

 deprived for the same reason. But this statement 

 appears to be refuted by facts cited by those who 

 made it. Gray was an old Westminster, and 

 student of Christ Church, who had been appointed 

 first head master of Charterhouse in 1614,3 post 

 which he had to resign on marriage. He was 

 then made head master of Merchant Taylors' 

 School, which he resigned in 1632 for the vicarage 

 of Saffron Walden, Essex. Here he quarrelled 

 with the head master of the grammar school, 

 because, as was alleged, he wanted to convert 

 him into a kind of curate, and to take boarders 

 for the school. Gray must have been a Puritan 

 and Parliamentarian, or he would not have been 

 appointed by Rous to the head-mastership of Eton. 

 The date of the appointment cannot be exactly 

 ascertained, as there are no accounts preserved 

 between 1641, when Norris was still master, 

 and the year 1646-7, when Gray was paid for 

 the whole year. It is certain that he was not 

 ejected on the ' engagement.' For he ^>ad re- 

 tired from the mastership more than a year before 

 the execution of Charles I, his successor, Home, 

 appearing in the audit books as head master for 

 the whole year Michaelmas 16489, while 

 Gray was paid up to Michaelmas 1648. Gray 

 could hardly have been expelled from his post 

 for refusing an engagement not invented till a 

 year after he had left. The mistake seems to 

 have originated with Anthony Wood, who, how- 

 ever, does not say that Gray was turned out of 

 the mastership, but out of a fellowship and a 

 living. But Wood did not know the facts, for he 

 made Gray become master in 1631. Moreover 

 he is notoriously unscrupulous in his assertions as 

 to any ' Roundheads ' or their doings. In point 

 of fact there must have been some sort of bar- 



138 Not the scholars, as Maxwell Lyte (op. cit. 

 p. 248), perhaps from a misreading of 'schoolemrs.' 



139 Maxwell Lyte, op. cit. 251 ; Sterry, op. cit. 

 128 ; Cust, op. cit. 88. 



196 



