A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



that were in Wotton, because the said Sir Robert did always singe and saye 

 his masses in the mornynge.' 



Moore was at school there three or four years before the end of the 

 reign of Henry VIII, and during the first year of the reign of Edward VI 

 ' till the masse was put down.' He and other boys helped Sir Robert 



in his masses especially in the parte of the Confiteor and in the Oremus pro animabus and 

 some other partes, and when he came to the Memento then they that helped in the said 

 masses did take to theire master a libell or a paper wherein was the names of suche dead 

 persons sett downe, as their friendes or kyndred desired there shoulde be prayed and remem- 

 bered in the said masses, for every of which named they gave a penney, the odd penney 

 whereof this deponent or his fellows most commonly had. Theire said master standinge 

 before the alter and the waxe tapers that were allwayes kept burnynge standinge thereupon, 

 alsoe this deponent and his fellowe in their surplices kneelinge there one on the one side of 

 their saide master and the other on his other side uppon 2 cusheynes which were theire kept. 



Sir Robert held the school lands and * the tennants thereof came to a 

 courte holden at the said schoolehouse or chaunteray house once in 2 yeres 

 or oftener.' Sir Robert, though he was, as we saw, over sixty in i 548, ' kept 

 him only to the schoole all King Edward's dayes as muche as his troubles 

 woulde give him leave, being muche questioned about keepinge a yonge 

 woman secretly in the said schoolehouse.' We may remember that the 

 chantry commissioners had noted him as ' not mete in disciplyne nor 

 behaviour.' 



Moore named eight people still alive who had been with him in the 

 school and assisted in the masses, including Thomas Pardye alias Mopars, who 

 was afterwards belonging to the church at Berkeley, and Robert Thompson, 

 ' afterwards clarke to oulde Sir Thomas Throckmorton.' 



Thomas Plomer, aged 85, also remembered being a scholar, and said 

 it was 



thought to bee a pece of good learninge and a kynde of freindshipp to the parents in that 

 part to have their children admitted to helpe the preiste . . . especiallie upon All Souls 

 day (2 Nov.) when was rememberance of ... soules most cheifely and in the richest robes. 



And Sir Robert when he came to name the founders and pray for them 

 would doe it with a verie greate obeysaunce and bowinge of his heade and 

 bodye.' He named other boys of Combe, of Wortley, of Hawkesbury, who 

 had been at the school with him. Thomas Cole, another ' old ' boy, said 

 that there were * comonly aboute 20 or 30 schoolers at most tymes and 

 seldom did any schooler staye above 7 or 8 yeares, but were then placed 

 abroade.' He used to help to sing mass in his surplice ' as well as he coulde, 

 wiche was but meanely, and did answer to certaine prayers in Lattine words, 

 which he then understode not and hathe long since forgotten, as theire master 

 beforehand had taughte him and others, whiche,' as he naively remarks, 

 ' made theire fathers and mothers a great deale the more to esteeme of him 

 and his masses.' He also mentions other boys who had helped in the masses 



* for that the best sorte of the schollers did soe by turnes.' Another witness, 

 Edward Dawe, * broad weaver ' (i.e. weaver of broad cloth), said that the 



* ile ' in which the mass was said came to be * called Sir Robert's He for that 

 he was preiste and schoole master there above 40 yeres, and outlived one or 

 twoe generations of the other two preistes that in King Henry's dayes was in 

 Wotton churche,' and told how he ' hath often tymes since talked with them 



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