SCHOOLS 



officers of the crown, and obtained grants of the lands conditional on proving 

 the crown title and paying the crown part of the plunder. To become 

 informer of concealed lands became quite a profession. I 



The following is the account of these attacks given by James Smyth, 

 steward of Lord Berkeley temp. Elizabeth and James I : l 



In the utmost skirt of this burrowe * or market towne, or rather in Synwell (as some 

 will) one of the hamblctts of the manor called Wotton Forren (which in this place doe 

 adjoyne) standeth a free grammer schoole, founded in 8 Richard II by Katherine Lady 

 Berkeley, and in the ordinances and statutes the said Lady and her feoffees ordained that the 

 schoolmaster should daily pray in the church of Wotton for the soules of her self, her 

 father, mother, husband, and of others ; whereby through the statute of I Edward VI for 

 the dissolution of chantries it is now supposed to come to the crown. Whereupon divers 

 patents were in the raigne of Queene Elizabeth and of King James, passed of the school- 

 house and lands as concealed (i.e. concealed from the crown so as to prevent them passing 

 to the crown under the Act). Whereby much trouble and expence were occationed ; which 

 soe continued till by the sole presente of myself, tenant to such part of the schoolhouse 

 lands as lye in Nibley with my expence of ^700 at least, as is knowne to you, the same 

 was quieted by a Decree in Chancery in the end of King James his raigne. And the 

 schoole of now incorporated with ordinances and statutes for the regulatinge thereof fit- 

 tinge the present time and the doctrine of the Church of England ; in which condition it 

 flourisheth at this day 1639 ; whereof I doc write here the Tesse referringe him that de- i 

 sircth more to the records themselves, and to a sentence in the Star Chamber in the time of 

 King Charles, against one Benjamin Crokey, almost ever since a runnigate in Ireland, in 

 avoidance of the shame and punishment which now by the sentence of that Court to have 

 byn inflicted upon him for his wicked liblinge and falsehoods ; and lately taken at Bristol 

 upon his returne from Ireland, at this time a prisoner in the Fleetes at my suite, as 

 both of you doe knowe, October 1639. 



A very different tale is, however, told by other people in which Smith 

 himself stands out as principal villain and defacer of the school. An inquisi- 

 tion taken on 19 September, 1621, found that a bill had been filed in the 

 Exchequer by one Edward Byshope against John Smith as defendant to prove 

 that the lands belonging to the school had been given to the crown by the 

 Chantries Act, and an answer was put in by Smith, and a commission issued 

 to take evidence, Smith pretending to defend the action, whereas in point of 

 fact he had ' had the carriage of the commission and entertained Byshope at 

 his house and endeavoured to prove the plaintiff's bill.' In fact the whole 

 proceeding was ' a mere practice of the said Smyth to draw the foundacion 

 within the statute of chauntries.' Further, a certificate to that effect signed 

 by the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishops of London and Winchester 

 was put in. 



The depositions taken in the exchequer suit contain a most interesting 

 picture of the school in the days of Robert Coldwell, the last of the pre- 

 Reformation masters, and his successors. They were taken 8 at Stone 14 July, 

 1616. The oldest inhabitants, headed by John Moore, 'parishe clarke there, 

 aged 83 years and upwards,' gave evidence. He said that the * scholehouse, 

 which hathe bene soe comonlye called since in the later tyme of Henry VIII 

 and after, was more usuallie called the Chaunterye house.' Robert Coldwell 

 * usuallie called Sir Robert, who taught schoole in the said howse was called 

 also the Morrowe Masse Preiste, for difference sake from two other preistes 



1 John Smyth's Lives of the Btrkekji, ii, 401-1. 



' The borough only consisted of 60 acres, and dated from a grant of a fair and market 36 Hen. Ill, 

 to have the same liberties and customs as Tetbury ; ibid. 399. 

 1 P.R.O. Exch. Dep. Mich. 14 Jas. I, No. 23. 



2 401 51 



