SCHOOLS 



were performed, including a masque of friars and a masque of nuns, at the end of which the friars 

 and nuns danced together. 



It was become almost a binding custom at this time for lord mayors to do what bishops had 

 done in earlier times, and found or endow schools in their native places. Among the early 

 instances of this fashion is that of Sir Edmund Shaa or Shaw, goldsmith and Lord Mayor, in the 

 foundation of Stockport Grammar School in 1484, while Sir John Percival, merchant tailor and Lord | 

 Mayor, in whose house Harper lived, had founded the grammar school at Macclesfield ' hard by 

 where he was born ... for gentlemen's sons and other goodmen's children of the town and 

 country thereabouts,' in 1502 ; and Sir Stephen Janyns or Jennings, also merchant tailor and Lord 

 Mayor, had endowed Wolverhampton Grammar School in 1508; Sir Thomas White, merchant 

 tailor and Lord Mayor, had founded St. John's College, Oxford, in 1555, and endowed the school of 

 Reading, his native place, with scholarships there. The Mercers' Company had established the 

 Mercers' School in 1542. The year before Harper's mayoralty, one of his fellow tailors, Richard 

 Hilles, gave the Merchant Taylors' Company ;^500 to buy the manor of the Rose, and established 

 the Merchant Taylors' School in it. On 24 September, 1561, the Company, with Harper present, 

 settled the statutes of the school, making it the largest school then existing, provision being made for 

 250 boys, of whom 100 were to be free scholars, and appointed Richard Mulcaster the first head 

 master. Harper, during his mayoralty, on 16 August, 1562, attended the first visitation of the 

 school, when Grindall, afterwards archbishop, examined the ushers and boys, and made a favourable 

 report. 



All these precedents must have moved Harper, even if he had not, as we have seen reason to 

 believe, already been moved to carry on or assist in carrying on Bedford School. 



Two years after his mayoralty Harper bought the lands subsequently given to the school. 

 They were conveyed by deed '^ of bargain and sale, 30 September, 1564, made ' betwene 

 Sir William Harper Knyght citizen and alderman of the citie of London of the one partie and 

 Cesar Adelmare '* gentleman and doctor in phisick on the other partie.' Harper was already the 

 tenant of the lands, though probably the tenancy was only of recent creation, for conveyancing 

 reasons, to avoid the older and more expensive system of fine and recovery. The lands are 

 described as 



All the said thirtene acres and one rode of medow late in the tenure of the said Peter Peckeam 

 and now in the tenure and occupacion of the said Sir William Harper ... in the paryshe of Saincte 

 Andrew in Holbome ... to the late monastery of Chartrehouse nyghe the citie of London late dis- 

 solved of late belonging ; of which . . . three acres and three rodes there together in lengthe from 

 the Northe parte or syde of certen dyche gardens and houses of the late Priourie . . . towards and 

 nygh to the strete of Holbome of the southe parte, towards the northe parte or syde of a diche of one 

 crofte of lande called Lytle Condytte strette of the north, and in bredeth extendinge from the west 

 parte or syde of a diche of londe . . . parcell of a certen tenement once called the Red Lyon . . . 

 being in the hinder part of a certen house once called the Coke and late called the Rose . . . and 

 7 acres l rode and a halfe rode ... lye together towardes . . . the Rose of the last partie from the 

 gardens of the said late Pryour and covent nyghe the Bell . . . also all his ryght in one way . . . 

 leading from the Quenes strete of Holbome. The remaining 3 acres were in the Little Condytt 

 strette. 



These lands Adelmare bargained and sold to Sir William Harper and Dame Alice his wife 

 their heirs and assigns for ever. 



The joining of Dame Alice in this conveyance, and by consequence in the subsequent 

 conveyance to the school, has given rise to all sorts of romantic statements. It has been said that 

 she was a daughter of Cesar Adelmare the vendor, and that the land was a gift to her, so that the 

 benefaction was not Harper's but hers. But this deed, hitherto unnoticed by local historians, refutes 

 that for the sale is expressed to be ' in consideracion of one hundreth and fowerscore pounds of good 

 and lawfull money of England.' As we know that afterwards the land was let for ^12 a year, 

 /"180 amounts to fifteen years' purchase of the reversion, so that the conveyance can hardly be 

 called a gift. Further, Cesar Adelmare was a well-known person, an Italian doctor of Padua, who 

 came to England in 1550, and became physician to Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, and was 

 father of a better known man, who dropped the name of Adelmare, and as Sir Julius Caesar became 

 judo-e of the Admiralty Court and Master of the Rolls. Adelmare's three daughters are known, and 

 none of them was Alice. Wyatt and Blythe fall back on the assertion that Dame Alice was 

 ' probably related to Adelmare, for the name of Alice was a favourite one in the family.' This is 

 mere assertion, as nothing is known of the Adelmare family further back than Adelmare's father, a 

 doctor of laws, and no Alice is produced. In point of fact, the heralds' visitation of London in 



'« Corp. Rec. 



^ Not as in Records of the Corp. of Bedford (1883) Caesar Alderman. The name should be Adelmare. 



159 



