A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE 



and were worth £<) lis. Sd.a. year gross, and ,^8 13;. id. net. Unfortunately, the commissioners 

 do not tell us the date of the deed. The Chantries Act of Henry VIII was permissive, giving him 

 power to enter on any chantries. This power was exercised in very few cases, and the brotherhood 

 of Bedford was not one of the few. The commissioners, under the compulsory Chantries Act of 

 Edward VI, give the details of the property of the brotherhood, which include ' Ferme of another 

 tenement in the hands of Margaret Harper 8x.' We may safely assume that Margaret Harper was 

 mother or sister of Sir William Harper. Eight shillings was a good rent for a house and meant one 

 of the better sort. For instance, Thomas Negoose, clerk, who was the chantry priest of Corpus 

 Christi with an income of ^^8 131. i^. a year, lived in a house of which the rent was only 6s. 8d. a 

 year. 



The next item of information forthcoming about the brotherhood and chantry is in an order 

 book for leases of chantry lands. Among them ^' is a terrier of the property of the Corpus Christi 

 Chantry and of part of the lands of the Trinity Gild or Brotherhood. At the end is a ' Memoran- 

 dum, that there is delyvered unto one Mr. Harper, the particulars of all the landes and possessions 

 belonging to the said late chantrie and brotherhodd.' 



The inference is irresistible that this Mr. Harper is our founder, and that he was then already 

 contemplating the refoundation of the school by the purchase of these chantry lands, which he brought 

 to completion from other and, as it turned out, more lucrative sources, nearly 20 years later. These 

 chantry and brotherhood lands were not sold to Harper, but by order of the ' Lord Protector's Grace,' 

 20 November, 1548, a lease of 21 years was granted to John Johnson, 'yeoman of the male,' i.e. a 

 post ofKce official. 



But there is evidence that in the very same year the present school at Bedford was started or 

 restarted. At New College, Oxford, there is a register of fellows carefully compiled from the muni- 

 ments by the late warden, the Rev. J. E. Sewell, who is on record as having visited and examined 

 Bedford School in 1838, but only died in January, 1903, at the age of 92, after a wardenship of 42 

 years. In this register it appears that on 8 October, 1548, a new fellow was elected ' in the place of 

 Edmund Grene betaking himself to teaching boys in the county of Bedford ' (' conferentis se ad 

 informandum pueros in comitatu Bedford '). As the official title of the head master of Winchester 

 was informator, the statement that he left to ' inform ' boys in Bedfordshire is as much as to say 

 that he became head master of Bedford School. For there was no other grammar school in Bed- 

 fordshire at this time except the small foundation at Houghton Regis, the incumbent of which was 

 John Cowper. 



This Edmund Grene was described as 'of Hounslow, Wynton diocese,' when admitted 

 a scholar of Winchester College in 1537 ^* ^^^ ^S^ of twelve. He was admitted a scholar 

 or probationary fellow of New College, 9 March, 1541-2, being then presumably eighteen 

 years old, and ftiU fellow two years later. He took his B.A. degree in 1545. The entry as to his 

 leaving his fellowship to inform boys in Bedfordshire leaves no doubt that he was the Edmund 

 Grene who, as will be seen, was named as the first head master in Harper's endowment 

 deed of 1566, and that he had in fact been at the school ever since October, 1548. This explains 

 what has hitherto been inexplicable, why the corporation of Bedford in 1552 obtained letters patent 

 giving them licence in mortmain to establish a school, when in fact it was not established till more 

 than twenty years later. Harper, already intending to endow the school, meanwhile found the 

 money for carrying it on out of his income, just as William of Wykeham had done at Winchester 

 itself, carrying on the college school from 1369 as an unendowed school, and then formally founding 

 it under royal charter and papal bulls in 1382, but not completing the endowment of the building 

 till 1394. 



The letters patent made at Ely 15 August 6 Edward VI, 1552, purport to be made 'at the 

 humble petition of the Mayor, Bailiffs, Burgesses and commonalty of the town of Bedford for the 

 erection and establishment of a free and perpetual school there for the institution and instruction of 

 boys and youths,' and accordingly grant licence to them ' to erect make found and establish a 

 free and perpetual Grammar School in our aforesaid town for the education institution and instruc- 

 tion of boys and youths in grammar, literature and good manners, to endure for ever, and that school 

 to consist of one master or pedagogue and one under-pedagogue or usher to continue for ever.' ^ 



And that the said intention of the corporation ' may take better effect,' the king gave licence that 

 they might receive from anybody and hold lands to the ' annual value of ^^40 above all charges and 

 reprises in and to the maintenance (sustentacionem) of the aforesaid master or pedagogue and under- 

 pedagogue or usher,' and ' for marrying poor maidens of the said town, and for nourishing and 

 educating poor boys of that place, and also for distributing alms of the remainder, or surplus of the 



" Karl. MS. 605, fol. 67. 



^° ' Et schola ilia fore de uno magistro sive peJagogo et uno subpedagogo sive ypodidasculo pro perpetuo 

 continuare.' There is something wrong about this, as the sentence is governed by 'possint et valeant ' but it 

 seems to be so written on the patent roll. 



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