SCHOOLS 



1548,° addressed to the chancellor of the duchy, 

 finding 



that a Grammer Scole hath heretofore been continually 

 kept in the parish of Preston with the revenues of the 

 chauntrey of Our Lady founded in the church there and 

 that the Scolemaster there had for his wages yerely of 

 the revenues of the same chauntrey £^z i (>s. i^ti. which 

 scole IS very meete and necessary to continue, 



it was ordered that 



the same scole shall continue and that Nicholas Banis- 

 ter, Scolemaster there, shall bee and remayne in the 

 same rowme and that he shall have for his stipend and 

 wages 56/. 2d. yearly. 



The continued stipend was thus cut down from 

 the amount found by the chantry certificate to 

 within about 2s. of that stated in the Fakr Eccle- 

 siasticus of eleven years before, but on what prin- 

 ciple is not clear. The stipend duly appears 

 in the Duchy Ministers' Accounts ' in 2 & 3 

 Edward VI and 3 & 4 and 4 & 5 Philip and Mary 

 as paid to Nicholas Banastre, schoolmaster in the 

 parish of Preston [ludimagistro). But in 1559-60 

 and 1560-1 the payment is entered but struck 

 out as not paid, and after 1562-3 no further 

 mention of the payment occurs. The reason no 

 doubt was that Banastre was in 1561 found to 

 be a ' recusant at large,' and confined to the 

 county of Lancaster ' the town of Preston ex- 

 cepted.' He was called an * unlerned scolemaster,' 

 and a rank Jesuit. On 21 February, 1567-8, 

 when the bishop of Chester was ordered to hold 

 a visitation to see that 'no obstinate persons 

 having been justly deprived of offices of ministry 

 be secretly maintained,' Banastre appears among 

 those priests who had been refused the ministry 

 because of ' the contempt and evill opinion ' 

 which they had of religion. 



Meanwhile the lands of the chantry itself were 

 from Easter 1549 * leased to William Kenyon for 

 twenty-one years. The corporation, of which 

 Lawrence Banastre, probably the schoolmaster's 

 brother, was mayor, in the beginning of Philip 

 and Mary's reign applied to the Duchy Court to 

 set aside the lease on the ground that for 100 

 years past there had been a free school at Preston 

 ' for the educacion and bryngyng up of young 

 children,' with lands worth 5 marks (,^3 6s. 8fl?.) a 

 year, and that Kenyon had by ' sinister means ' 

 proved that these lands were part of the chantry 

 endowment, and obtained a lease ' to the great 

 injury of the inhabitants and bringing up of yong 

 children of the towne and the countrey there 

 nyghe adjoyning.' The application was not 

 successful. It was quite clear that the endow- 

 ment fell within the Chantries Act. Nor, as the 

 stipend was continued under Mildmay's warrant, 

 did it much matter to the school at that time, 



* A. F. Leach, Engl. Schools at the Reform. 123, 

 from Duchy of Lane. Div. xxv, R. i, No. 8. 



' Bdle. 173, No. 2714, 2722 ; bdle 174, No. 2723. 



° Wallace, End. Char. p. 3 1 note ; Duchy of Lane. 

 Drft. Leases, ^. 



though it did afterwards when the value of money 

 diminished. Kenyon's rent was duly accounted 

 for in the Ministers' Accounts until the end of 

 Philip and Mary's reign. Then the chantry 

 lands were granted to the Savoy Hospital, 20 June, 

 1558, after which the rent would, of course, be 

 paid to the hospital, and so appears no more in 

 the Duchy Ministers' Accounts. 



Probably Banastre was deprived of office in 

 1561, since at the gild of 1562 William Clayton 

 appears as schoolmaster. No doubt he was paid 

 by the corporation. The statement made in 

 1528 that the chantry lands were of the annual 

 value of 0) suggests that there were other school 

 lands besides those of the value of ^^3 6^. ^d. a year 

 let to Kenyon of which the corporation were 

 trustees, and the existence of which secured the 

 continuance of the school. It is quite certain 

 that j^2 i6f. was not adequate pay for a school- 

 master even in the days of Edward IV, much less 

 in the days of Edward VI, and Banastre's pay 

 must have been made up from some other source. 

 As the school was a free grammar school, that 

 source could not have been tuition fees ; it must 

 have been endowment in some form, and per- 

 manent endowment rather than a voluntary pay- 

 ment by the corporation. That after the loss of 

 the chantry lands and the cession of the crown 

 payments in lieu of them the status of the school 

 was maintained — that is, that the income of the 

 master was kept up — is clear from the next master, 

 Peter Carter, being a fellow of St. John's College, 

 Cambridge. His tombstone in the churchyard 

 was inscribed ' to the effect that he was ' author 

 of annotations on John Seton's Logic and died 

 nearly 60 yeres old a.d. 1590.' 



His successor was William Gellibrand, of 

 Ramsgreave, near Blackburn, B.A., Brasenose 

 College, 14 January, 1569. He appears as school- 

 master on the Gild Roll in 1602. On 26 August, 

 1607, he became rector of Warrington. Henry 

 Yates seems to have followed, holding office 

 from 1607. During his time a definite assign- 

 ment of income was made to the school. On 

 24 August, 1 612, the corporation ordered that 

 the two bailiffs should, in lieu of the amounts 

 formerly expended by ancient custom at Easter 

 for beer, cheese, bread, and ale for the mayor, 

 burgesses, and strangers, pay 



to the new scholemaster for this towne of Preston or 

 to his use the sum of twentie marke in parte of pay- 

 ment of his stipent and wages, that is to say, either 

 of them [fi 1 3/. \d., 



and all future bailiffs were required to pay 

 ^13 6j. 8^. 'yearelie' between them. We are 

 left to guess what the whole amount of the 

 stipend or wages was and whence derived. But 

 we should not be far wrong in supposing that 

 the whole was ;^20 a year, out of which the 

 usher was paid {Ji 13s. 4^. 



' Henry Fishwick, Hist. Preston, 208. 



571 



