SCHOOLS 



This chantry was founded by Edward Love- 

 kyn in the year 1309, under letters patent of 

 the crown of 1 1 January/ and of the Bishop 

 of Winchester of 20 July " that year. It 

 appears to owe its foundation to its founder's 

 gratitude at unexpected payment of a bad 

 debt due from the crown. Edward Lovekyn 

 had supplied ' the provision made for the 

 king's household (oustel) at the party (partie) 

 which he gave on his betrothal to my lady 

 the queen ' — Edward I.'s second wife, Mar- 

 garet. The contract was for 1,000 marks, 

 equivalent, probably, to about ;f 20,000 of our 

 money. The fee farm rent of the town of 

 Kingston payable to the crown was assigned 

 to Lovekyn for repayment of the sum ; but 

 he could not get the rent as Kingston had 

 been assigned to the queen as part of her 

 dower. So he was then given a charge on the 

 tenths payable to the king from the neigh- 

 bouring abbey of Chertsey, to the extent of 

 ;C240, but the abbot refused to pay without 

 authority under the great seal, which was accor- 

 dingly given by a patent, 29 November 1303. 

 A further patent, ii April 1307, was made 

 out charging another £240 on the revenues of 

 the duchy of Aquitaine, but this patent was 

 not acted on before the death of Edward I. 

 It therefore apparently became void. A 

 new patent confirming it was granted by 

 Edward II., 16 July 1309, and on the next 

 day the episcopal license for the chantry was 

 granted. So that it does really appear that 

 gratitude for recovery of the debt was a proxi- 

 mate cause of the foundation of the chapel 

 and school. The endowment consisted ori- 

 ginally of a rent-charge of 5 marks (£3 6s. M). 

 Robert Lovekyn, the founder's heir, seems to 

 have withheld payment, as first the bishop, in 

 1312,^ and then the archbishop,* in 1327, 

 interfered on its behalf against him. Twenty 

 years afterwards the chaplain was not resident, 

 and the chapel is said, in the usual exaggerated 

 language of the time, to have threatened 

 ruin.* In 1352 the founder's son or nephew, 

 John Lovekyn, a stock fishmonger. Lord 

 Mayor of London,' rebuilt the chapel and 

 obtained license to treble its endowment by 

 grants of land to the value of ;£i2 a year.' On 

 7 May 1353,* he granted two houses in the 



' Pat. 2 Edw. II. ii. m. 4. 



2 Episc. Reg. Woodlock, f. 112b. 



3 Winton. Epis. Reg. Woodlock, f. 125b. 

 < Ibid. Reynolds, f. 56b. 



5 Ibid. Edendon, ii. f. 7b. The phrase merely 

 meant that it needed structural repairs. 



" He had been Sheriff in 1342, and was again 

 Mayor in 1365 and 1366. 



' Pat. 26 Edw. III. iii. 13. 



« Ibid. 27 Edw. III. i. 7. This was not, as Major 



street in which Lovekyn lived, in St. Michael's, 

 Crooked Lane, London, ' in part satisfaction.' 

 Two years later the new endowment, which 

 comprised 9 messuages, 10 shops, a mill, 120 

 acres of arable land, 10 acres of meadow and 

 120 acres of pasture, besides rents of 35^. in 

 Kingston, was completed. On 5 May 1355," 

 Lovekyn executed his Foundation Ordinance 

 regulating the endowment. The foundation 

 was to consist of a warden and one chaplain, 

 others being added if funds allowed, living 

 together in the manse or mansion behind the 

 chapel. The warden was to manage and 

 receive the revenues, giving each of the other 

 chaplains £2 a year and a gown, besides his 

 board (which at this time cost about a shilling 

 a week) and lodging in the manse. In chapel 

 they were to wear amices with black fur. The 

 duties specified were entirely chantry duties 

 to say the usual Hours and Offices and Masses 

 for the dead. There is not, it must be ad- 

 mitted, a word about keeping school. But 

 this is by no means a conclusive argument 

 against a school being intended as part of the 

 foundation. Even William of Wykeham, in 

 the Statutes of Winchester College, with its 

 elaborate chantry provisions occupying sixty- 

 eight closely printed octavo pages, hardly 

 devotes five lines to the conduct of the school. 

 Lovekyn's chantry was augmented in 1368 by 

 John Wenge,*° and again in 1371," by Sir 

 William Walworth, the lord mayor who mur- 

 dered Wat Tyler, and was Lovekyn's appren- 

 tice and executor, and married his wadow.^' 

 There seems to be no evidence that there were 

 ever more than two chaplains in the chantry. 

 The friction which appears from provisions 

 in Lovekyn's chantry deed to have already 

 existed between the vicar and the chantry 

 chaplains, probably explains the next refer- 

 ence to the school at Kingston. On 27 

 November 1377, William of Wykeham, as 

 bishop, confirmed" an augmentation of the 

 vicarage, which he had extorted from the 

 Priory of Merton to which the living was 

 appropriated, the canons of which took the 

 profits, leaving the vicar a bare pittance. 

 One of the last provisions of the ordinance 



Heales supposed, a further endowment beyond 

 that of the former patent. 



5 Winton. Epis. Reg. Wykeham, f. 268, vol. ii. 

 of Mr. T. F. Kirby's edition Hants Rec. Soc. 



i» Exch. ancient deeds, p. 15, No. 18. It is, how- 

 ever, very likely that this deed was in pursuance of 

 Lovekyn's will. 



" Pat. 45 Edw. III. i. 12. 



" Hustings Wills, ii. 117, 251. 



" Winton. Epis. Reg. Wykeham, f. 163a. Mr. 

 Kirby, in his edition, ii. 287, only gives an English 

 abstract of it. 



157 



