SCHOOLS 



with ten prcstes and six clarkcs, at wichc obbit there shall be delt and distributed in alms 

 among poore people lOcW. at least, also that the said scolemaister and usher shall appoint and 

 assign the scolers of the said scole to say such ccrtaine prayers at their departing in the 

 evening as shall be devised and appointed by the said Lord La Warre. 



The existing almsfolk were to stay there for the rest of their lives with $d. a 

 week pension, and a priest kept * until such time as the said scole be ordered 

 and made and also a scolemaister resident and in possession there.' In con- 

 sideration of all this Lord La Warr ' doth renounce and relinquish all his 

 interest, title, right and claim to dwell in the said house, hospital and other 

 the premises as in the patronage or foundacion thereof, saving only to him 

 such preheminence in his name of the said foundacion and in such prayers and 

 suffrages as before is rehearsed.' 



Why fourteen years had been allowed to elapse before any steps 

 were taken to carry out the elder Thome's will we do not know. It 

 may have been because the widow Jane or Johan Thorne was still alive ; 

 a declaration of the jewels given by her will to the church of St. Nicholas, 

 made on 15 October, 1524, was enrolled in the mayor's court 14 March, 

 1 524-5. l Or it may have been owing to the absence in Spain of Robert 

 Thorne the younger. 



No time was now lost in carrying out the deed of covenant, for we learn 

 from a subsequent deed of 1561 that in Easter term 1531-2 'the said Robert 

 Thorne, of London, merchant, Nicholas Thorne, of Bristow, his brother, and 

 John Goodriche, derk, by two severall writtes of entre in the post by them 

 brought,' did recover against ' Crofte and Delaware, the master and the patron 



6 messuages, 300 acres of land, fower score acres of mede, 200 acres of pasture, 10 acres of 

 woodd and 405. rente* the outlying property, and ' 40 messuages, 30 gardens, I o acres of 

 lande, 6 acres of mede, 20 acres of pasture and 401. rent with th'appurtenances in the- townc 

 of Bristowe and the suburbes To the uses and intents that they their heires or assignes 

 shulde geve the same premisses, specified in the said recoverie, to the Mayer aldermen and 

 comynaltie of Bristowe and to their successors for ever to and for the errecion establisshement 

 and contynuaunce of a fre Gramer schole to be erected within the said howse of the 

 Bartillmewes, and to establishe theire one Scholemaster and one or two usshers for the same. 



In other words the grantors suffered a recovery to uses and the grantees 

 entered. But Robert Thorne the younger had delayed too long in carrying 

 out his father's will. Only two months after the Letters Patent, ' beyng 

 sekely but in my perfight mynde and reason such as it hath pleased God to 

 geve me' he made his testament and last will 17 May, 1532.' After other 

 personal legacies: 'Also I bequethe towarde the making upp of the Free scole 

 of Saincte Barthilmews in Brystow 300 sterling and more that my Lord 

 de la Warr owyth as by his obligacion apperithe.' 



Besides that he bequeathed ' to Thomas Moffett, maister of the Grammer 

 scole in Bristowe 25 and to Robert Moffett his sonne 10' ; the gift to the 

 son showing that, like so many other schoolmasters at this date, Moffatt was 

 not in holy orders. He also gave jC5 to the corporation of Bristol as a loan 

 charity, to be lent free of interest to young men setting up in business as 

 cloth-workers. The whole residue was given to his brother Nicholas. A 

 mercer and three cloth-workers witnessed the will, which was proved in the 

 Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 10 October, 1532. 



1 Great Red Book. f Great Red Book, fol. 267. 



363 



