SCHOOLS 



as a ' good old man, less able every day.' He 

 was no doubt educated at Newark Grammar 

 School under Mr. Nicholas Bellerby. He owed 

 a large part of his promotion in life to Richard 

 Savage, Archbishop of York, 1 501-7 ; for in his 

 will Magnus desired that if he died at or near 

 York he might be buried in the cathedral there, 

 ' as nighe as convenyentlie maye be to the tombe 

 of my lord Savage, who was my singular good lorde 

 and maister.' He first comes to light as rector of 

 South Collingham in Nottinghamshire, a living 

 in the gift of the Abbot of Peterborough, on 

 16 November 1498. On 25 May 1544^* 

 Magnus is mentioned by the Archbishop of York 

 in some statutes made by him for Ripon Minster, 

 which were read before him by ' Master Thomas 

 Magnus our secretary {secretarium).' In June 

 1504 he was made by Archbishop Savage arch- 

 deacon of the East Riding, the highest ecclesi- 

 astical promotion which he attained, which gave 

 him the title by which he was generally known. 

 His accumulation of other preferments was con- 

 siderable. In 1504 he was made sacristan or 

 head of the collegiate church of St. Mary and 

 the Holy Angels, 'commonly called Sepulcre 

 chapell,' a sort of archiepiscopal mortuary chapel, 

 which stood near the archbishop's palace against 

 the north side of the nave of York Minster. The 

 sacristanship was worth £i\ lys. b^d. in 1535, 

 plus whatever savings arose out of the absences 

 of the twelve prebendaries, who got 3^. a day for 

 attendance at mattins, mass, and vespers, the total 

 amounting to ;^43 S^. in 1546. At the acces- 

 sion of Henry VIII Magnus entered the royal 

 service, and was made a royal chaplain. He was 

 employed for many years on business in the north 

 of England and embassies to Scotland, and as 

 adviser of Queen Margaret of Scotland, the 

 king's sister. He became a member of the Privy 

 Council. On 14 August 151 7 he was made 

 dean of the collegiate church of Bridgnorth 

 Castle, which brought him in £^0 a year. In 



15 1 9 he was given a canonry in the collegiate 

 church of Llandewi Brefi with the living of 

 Llanbadarn, Cardigan, worth ^b a year. In 



1520 he was made a canon of Windsor, re- 

 ceiving j^5i If. 10^. a year in 1535 ; in 1521 

 canon of Lincoln with the prebend of North 

 Kelsey, exchanged next year for that of Cor- 

 ringham, worth ;^38 lbs. bd. a year. He also 

 became master of Bootham, or the Horse Fair 

 Hospital, for aged clerics, just outside the walls 

 of York, which was suppressed by Cardinal 

 Pole, its endowment being transferred to and 

 still forming the endowment of St. Peter's 

 School, York, the cathedral grammar school. It 

 added to his income ;^ 1 1 a year. Magnus was 

 also master of St. Leonard's Hospital, York, 

 which brought him in some ;^362 a year (^{^4,000 

 of our money). This hospital spent ^30 a year 

 in maintenance of ' 1 2 choristers and clerks, there 



'* Mem. Ripon (Surt. See. 1901), iv, 281. 



dwelling for their instruction both in song and 

 in grammar (tarn in cantu quam in scientia gram- 

 maticali), as well in eatables as drinkables and in 

 clothing and other necessaries ' ; an institution 

 which may have suggested Magnus's own song 

 school. Besides this he was rector ^' of Kirkby 

 in Cleveland (;^2o), of Bedale (;^89 4^. 8^.) 

 and of Sessay (;^I7),^* all in Yorkshire, ' of 

 Meifod Pool and Guilsfield, in deanery of St. 

 Asaph,' ^*'' and vicar of Kendal (which was 

 appropriated to St. Mary's Abbey, York),, 

 ;^92 5j. ; and he did not despise the chapel 

 of Whipstrode, Hampshire,^' with its poor 

 little income of ^^3 bs. id. In Nottingham- 

 shire itself he only held one promotion, the 

 wardenship of Sibthorpe College, which brought 

 in clear ^^25 i8f. 8^. No wonder he was rich 

 enough to hire from Eton College in 1530,'° in 

 what is now St. James's Palace, the ' great house ' 

 or 'mansion house' of St. James's Hospital, which 

 had been annexed to Eton chiefly to provide the 

 provost with a town house. Magnus grumbled 

 in 1530'^ that he had to give up St. James's for 

 the season and reside at Sibthorpe because the 

 King's laws being so strait he must reside in one 

 of his benefices. When Wolsey wanted to stay 

 there, after his fall, on his way north, Magnus 

 pleaded that it was ' unmeet,' unless he were there 

 to receive him ; being too small even for his own 

 retinue. His total income from ecclesiastical pre- 

 ferments was somej£743 13;. 6^. in 1535, and is 

 estimated ^^ at ,^615 13^. <)d. in 1546, when he 

 had resigned some of them. The former sum was 

 nearly two-thirds of the whole income of Eton, 

 and more than two-thirds of the whole income of 

 Winchester College, by far the richest school 

 foundations of the kingdom. It is equivalent to at 

 least ;^i4,8oo a year of our money and relatively 

 is worth a great deal more. This was besides 

 his secular pay as ambassador and member of the 

 Privy Council, member of the Court of Wards, 

 &c., which amounted to at least another ^^300 

 a year. In fact, he must have been one of the 

 richest men of the day below the rank of a 

 bishop. It is therefore not surprising that with 

 the examples of Colet and Wolsey, and a host 

 of others before him, he complied with the 

 almost binding custom of the day, and like them 

 endowed and made free of fees the grammar 

 school of his native place. It was apparently 

 during his enforced residence in the college of 

 Sibthorpe (which Magnus afterwards surrendered 

 to the Crown 17 April 1545 '' and bought back 

 as joint purchaser with Richard Whalley, ' esquire 



" Falor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 89. *" Ibid. 98. 



'*" Land P. Henry VIII, xx (i), g. 846 (93). 

 " Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), ii, 21. 

 '» Eton Coll. Audit R. under date. 

 "L. and P. Hen. VIII, iv (3), 6341, quoted by 

 Brown. 



'' Tork. Chant. (Surt. Soc), ii, 428. 

 '' L. and P. Hen. VIII, xx fi). i;34. 



203 



