SCHOOLS 



the time being to be content with the 20 given by Her Majesty. It 

 was also ordered that Helmes should be examined by the bishop of 

 Gloucester and Dr. Rudd, the dean, concerning his abilities to teach 

 and aptness to train up scholars, with power to remove him if they 

 thought good. 1 



In the result Helmes was continued as schoolmaster, for his name appears 

 as such as late as 1614, at which date the regular entries in the vestry book 

 commence. But the churchwardens as plainly resisted the order concerning 

 the payment of the 8 ; for on complaint of Helmes to the Lord Chancellor, in 

 1603, a Commission of Charitable Uses was issued under the Act of 1601, to 

 Sir Henry Poole, Sir John Hungerford, George Master, esq., and others ; when 

 a jury found that the churchwardens and others, as feoffees of Jones's lands, 

 had by deed indented in 1567 apportioned 8 yearly to the free grammar 

 school, which 8 having been regularly paid to the schoolmaster from 1567 

 to 1583, had since that time been withheld and detained.* A decree now 

 finally settled the payment of the 8 as obligatory. Under the order power 

 was given to the master to receive the 8 from the tenants of Jones's land 

 direct ; but afterwards, on petition to Lord Chancellor Bacon by the church- 

 wardens, this order was varied and the payment was again entrusted to the 

 feoffees. 



The suitable place in which the school would appear to have been held 

 in 1 570 was Dyer Street, for in a list of unsold fee-farm rents arising from 

 ancient chantry lands, &c., in 1649 appears a tenement in Dyer Street called 

 the Schoolhouse. 8 In 1534 Elizabeth Tolle, widow of Robert Richard, 

 formerly bailiff of the town and founder of the chantry of St. Anthony, be- 

 queathed 10 towards 'the repairing of a new schoolhouse.' * The word 

 ' repair ' is similarly used in a will of 1492, concerning the new porch of the 

 church, ad repara tionem n<rvi porticus.* Whatever was done then, the building 

 was much out of repair at the beginning of the seventeenth century, but 

 owing to the general dissatisfaction with Mr. Helmes nothing was done to 

 remedy matters. Accordingly in May, 1 609, he wrote as follows : 



To the right honorable the Earle of Salisbury Lord high Treasurer of England. Male 

 it please your good Lordship to understand that after many petitions exhibited to the late 

 Lord Treasurer for the repairinge of the Kinges Majestie's free grammer schoole within the 

 Towne of Circester he graunted a survey to be made of the same schole, which survey was 

 accomplished and delivered to his Lordships handes accordinge to his commandment, and the 

 content thereof was, that 2OO poundes would not repair it, with a letter from my Lord 

 Davers 6 to justific the needfulnes thereof. Your poore supplicant Thomas Helmes, schoole- 

 maister driven to povertie by reason of a suite dependinge betwixt him there being and 

 some of the chiefest of that towne, for the recoverye of eight poundes by the yeare due unto 

 the saide schoole, which suite did continue for the space of twentie and one yeares, being 

 nevertheless contenanced by the right Hon. the old Lord Treasurer, your father, and Doctor 

 Master, 7 as long as they did live, most humbly therefore pray your good Lordship to be a 



1 Exch. Dec. and Ord. Vol. 14, fol. 330. ' Vestry Bk. \^^a,^. 



1 Harlcian MS. 5013, fol. 76. 4 Will at Somerset House, Hogan, quat. 17. 



' Ibid. Doggett, p. 1 1 8. 



' Henry Lord Danvers, afterwards created earl of Danby, was at that time the owner of what is now Lord 

 Bathurst's Home Park, and built the first house there. His father, Sir J. Danvers, had bought the estate 

 from Sir T. Parry, steward of Queen Elizabeth's household, who was the original grantee from the crown of 

 that part of the abbey property. 



' Dr. Master, physician to Queen Elizabeth, bought the site of the abbey with certain lands, and built 

 the original modern Abbey House. He died in 1588. George Master, mentioned on this page, was 

 his son. 



2 393 50 



