A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



monasteries were trustees, would have been confiscated to the crown as part of the monastic 

 possessions. 



In the reign of Edward VI the chantry certificate of 1548 13 shows the school going on, but 

 conducted by the usher during a vacancy in the mastership. Probably this may have been because 

 of the dissolution of the priory ; the prior having been given the patronage of the mastership, it 

 would then naturally devolve on the crown, which was always difficult to move in such matters. 



The feet that the school was continued in spite of the direction in the founder's will for 

 masses for her soul, is an indication that the commissioners at that time did not take the view, after- 

 wards enforced by the courts, that ' a little venom poisons the whole cup ' and that the superstitious 

 use of masses for the founder's soul caused the foundation to be confiscated as a chantry though the 

 main purpose of it was a school. 



The grammar Scole in Southouer nexte Lewes, of the Foundacion of Agnes Morly 

 There is a grammer schole Founded there to have a prieste Scholemaister to teache children and 

 to say Masse for the Founder, and to have for his labour and for an vsher 5, and the rest for 

 reparacions yerlie, and for other charges, to be kepte in a cheste in which there is now 72 or there 

 aboutes remaynneng for the receptes, whereof it were convenient to have your letter, lest they do 

 bestowe yt otherwayes, which is lyke they will doo, which Scholemaster and vsher shulde alwaies be 

 named by the prior of Lewes and his successors. 



There is nowe no scholemaster there, but only an vsher, and for that it is a populous towne and 

 moche youth the inabitauntes do require to haue some lerned man to be admitted to the same, 

 bicause nowe the Kyng, in the right of the late monastery of lewes, Intituled to be Founder ; and the 

 proffittes of the said landes, besides the Scholehous, is clere towardes the reparacions and charges 

 aforesaid 19 6s. $J. 



There is one Otley, parson of Rype, which is very well lerned, mete to be scolemaster there, if 

 he will take it vppon hym. 



Continuatur ichola quousque. 



'Otley, parson of Rype,' was Thomas Otley demy 1532 and fellow 1536 of Magdalen 

 College, Oxford, where he was lecturer in logic, and in 1541 in Greek. But as he became vicar 

 of Burwash in 1549 it is probable that he never took on the task of being a schoolmaster at 

 Lewes. 



In 1611 Thomas Blunt, barber, bequeathed an annuity of ^3 a year to the school. In 1630 

 the best-known pupil of the school went to it, and his going there shows that it then occupied a high 

 position, as it was selected as an alternative to Eton. This pupil was the diarist Evelyn. 



1628 I " was now put to school to one Mr. Potts, in the Cliff, at Lewes, Irom whom, on the yth 

 of January, 1630, I went to the Free School at Southover, near the town, of which .... now 

 Edward Snatt was the master, under whom I remained till I was sent to the University. 



1632 My father .... intended to have placed me at Eaton ; but, not being so provident for 

 my own benefit, and unreasonably terrified with the report of the severe discipline there, 

 I was sent back to Lewes ; which perverseness of mine I have since a thousand times deplored. 



3rd April, 1637 I left school, where, till about the last year, I had been extremely remiss in my 

 studies ; so I went to the University rather out of shame of abiding longer at school, than 

 for any fitness, as by sad experience I found ; which put me to re-learn all that I had neglected 

 or but perfunctorily gained. 



The Rev. Edward Snatt, of Lewes, wrote 25 May, 1657, thanking Evelyn for the first book 

 of translation of Lucretius which he had sent. 16 



Whence Edward Snatt came has not been traced. His son William went to Magdalen 

 College, Oxford, 14 December, 1660, and became a canon of Chichester. 



The St. John's College, Cambridge, register shows us that the school maintained its position 

 under Mr. Snatt's successors, and went on during the Civil War. For on 1 1 April, 1646, Edward, 

 son of Anthony Beecher, tailor, of Lewes, was admitted a sizar there at the age of 1 6 ; < bred under 

 Mr. Golding.' In 1682, Timothy, son of Thomas Burrell, gentleman, of Cuckfield, bred under 

 Mr. Whalley, aged 1 8, was admitted to St. John's College. 



In 1700 the school again sends a gentleman, son of Thomas Denham of Withyham, Lewes, 

 this time as a pensioner to St. John's College, the master being Mr. Reading. 



In 1716 Mr. Pierce sent John Latham, son of the parson of Etch ingham, and in 1729 

 Willoughby Barry, son of a surgeon in Essex (so presumably a boarder), both as pensioners to 

 St. John's. 



As the Christian names of these masters are not given it is impossible to identify them. 

 In 1709 Mrs. Mary Jenkins, of the parish of Chelsea of Middlesex, gave by will dated 

 October, to Thomas Lord Pelham, Henry Pelham the elder, esq., Henry Pelham the younger 



11 A. F. Leach, Eagl. Sc6. at the Reformation, 224, from Chant. Cert 

 " Evelyn, Diary (1850), i, 6. Ibid, iii, 95. 



414 



