SCHOOLS 



In his time the first entries relating to the school appear in the Town Records. Among the 

 * Constitucions for the Towne of Bedford made at the Leete there 1 5 August 1 603 ' is one *° 



For viciting of the free schoole and tryall of the schoole master. 



Item yt is agreed that Mr. Maior for the time beinge and his brethren shal nominate and procure 

 fower (four) three or twoo learned men from tyme to tyme to oversee the schoole of the towne, and 

 to heare examyne and take tryall and proofe of the schoolemaster, his abilitie apnes and diligence in 

 teachynge and discrecion for government, that upon his fytnes therein he male be admitted to 

 enioye such liveinge as the maior bayliffs burgesses cominaltie, the founders of the said school, have 

 alreadie and shall appoynt . . . and the said schoolmaster shall onelie contynue and enioie the said 

 schoole and livinge so longe as he shalbe founde diligent . . . and shall obeie such orders to be sett 

 downe as are prescribed in the best schooles, and therein to be recited quarterlie by such fower three 

 or twoo learned men. 



It is to be observed that the corporation thus claimed to be the founders of the school, but 

 they at least wanted it to be conducted like ' the best schools.' On 17 August, 1612,^^ perhaps on 

 the appointment of a new master, the corporation made a similar order 'For the overseeinge of the 

 schoole.' These orders were probably wholly ultra vires, as the right of visitation was not in the 

 corporation, but in New College. The new master was Daniel Gardner, born at Hamsey, Sussex, 

 in 1578, admitted scholar of Winchester in 1590, and of New College 18 September, 1597, ^•■^• 

 1601, and M.A. 1605. He gave up his fellowship for the mastership of Bedford in 1610. Letters 

 preserved at New College *^ afford us a glimpse of the internal management of the school in the latter 

 part of his time. On 4 July, 1629, a letter to the warden of New College from the usher, Giles 

 James, says that the stipend paid to the master was ;^20, and to the usher £10 & year. It appears 

 from a note taken by the warden that the school land in Holborn was then let for ;^50 a year to 

 Mrs. Plunket, a widow, who had paid also ;^50 fine for the new lease, so that the property 

 had already quadrupled in value since Harper's days ; an eloquent witness to the growth of London. 

 The warden very naturally writes * Quere, how they employe the reste, whether to the repayre of 

 the schoole house, to ye poore etc. ? ' James was of ' Immanuell College, Cambridge,' and had 

 been appointed usher by Gardner about four years before, i.e. 1625. On 25 June, 1629, he was, 

 according to his own account, 'violently and unjustly displaced ' and put out of the school, and 

 another usher put in by the corporation, they ' threatening that if . . . Mr. Gardener should resiste 

 them in their sayd courses they would also displace him.' James inclosed a testimonial signed by 

 the vicars, churchwardens, and inhabitants of divers neighbouring places to his ' life and conversation.' 

 Without apparently making the least inquiry of anyone else into the circumstances, the warden 

 Robert Pink (sic) and all the fellows on 9 July sent a letter to the mayor, John Spencer, declaring the 

 corporation's ' proceedings against the said Mr. Giles James to be utterly unlawfull, and therefore 

 frustrate and of noe effect,' and confirming him as usher. To ' Gardner, in whom . . . we 

 use to glorie as an ornament to this our societie,' the warden himself wrote more in sorrow than in 

 anger ' that he should acquiesce in the incroachment on the right of the college.' A very different 

 complexion was put on the case by the answer of ' Gardener,' as he spells his own name. He said 

 that when first appointed he ascertained that the power of appointing an usher was in the college, 

 and that they had delegated it to him. 



I [he says] very unhappilie chose this fellowe to bee usher, being a Mr. of Artes and a minister 

 ... I rejoiced that I had found a man so fit . . . seeing sometimes I could find none willing to 

 supply this place but some . . . utterly unfit. Nowe as he was placed by mee, as by your authoritie, 

 so and no otherwise was he displaced. 



The reasons were 



his continuall negligence, without measure, without end . . . He never came to the schoole before 9 

 of the clocke . . . seldom till 10; in the afternoons he would either not be there at all or . . . some 

 little time,' and this through ' laziness, for as I heare, hee seldom left his bed before nine,' so that 

 Gardener himself was ' forced to teach from 6 o'clock till 5 or 6 at night.' 



But another cause of his removal was 



his crueltie, so greate as that for the time he was there the schoole was like a bridewell, nay an hell : 

 his corrections being cruell, sodaine, enormous and inexorable ; not onely my private dwelling house 

 but the whole street adioyning resounding with the yells and sodaine outcries of his boys, especially in 

 my absence ; for in my presence I somewhat restrained him, so long as hee any whitt cared for me ; 

 having ones so mangled a boy in his mouth and throate as that Dr. Banister, a doctor of physicke . . . 

 feared for his life. 



" Black Bk. fol. 62. <nbid. fol. 71. 



" Printed by the writer under the heading 'The School in 1629' in a supplement to The Ousel, the 

 school paper. No. 240, 1904. 



163 



