88 



James Ley, Earl of Marlborough, 



youngest son. We do not know where he received the rudiments 

 of his education, but in 1569, when he was about seventeen, he 

 matriculated at B. N. C. at Oxford. It is probable that he was 

 intended for the clerical profession, for his father was patron of 

 Teffont Evias, to which, when it became vacant in 1569, he nomi- 

 nated his son, James, who held the living until he resigned it in 

 1576. 1 



Aubrey mentions this, and says that Mr. Ash, of Teffont, has his 

 institution and induction, and supposes that the butler must have 

 read the prayers whilst the Vicar was studying, first at Oxford, and 

 then at Lincolns Inn. Canon Jackson cannot understand how such 

 an abuse as the presentation of a youth of seventeen, who, of course, 

 was not in holy orders, could have happened. Such abuses were 

 common before the Reformation. William of Wykeham successively 

 held three prebendal stalls in Salisbury Cathedral, besides other 

 preferment, whilst he was only an acolyte ; and Henry VIII. pro- 

 vided for the education of Reginald Pole, afterwards Cardinal and 

 Archbishop of Canterbury, by making him Dean of Exeter whilst 

 still a youth. That the Reformation did not at once correct all these 

 abuses appears from a sermon preached by Bishop Jewel, in which 

 he denounces the misuse of Church patronage which was frequently 

 made ; " A gentleman," he says, " cannot keep a house unless he 

 have a parsonage or two to farm in his possession." Minutes of a 

 license are in existence in Archbishop Laud's handwriting, em- 

 powering a youth, who bore the title of Dr. Tucker and Vicar of 

 Old Windsor, to read divine service, although he was not in deacon's 

 orders nor twenty years of age. There is some doubt whether George 

 Herbert was even a deacon when he was appointed to the Vicarage 



1 That such abuses were connived at by dispensations in the reign of Queen 

 Elizabeth is evident from Archbishop Grindal's account of his Court of Faculties 

 made to the Queen and Council, in which it is observed : — " Dispensations for a 

 minor (as he is termed, tbat is, for one whose age forbids ordination) are not 

 granted to any, but to those who at the least are sixteen years old and are resident 

 students in the Universities." The Archbishop proposed to abolish dispensations 

 for children and young men under age to take ecclesiastical promotions. Strype 

 Grind , p. 302. Remains of Abp. Grindal, Parker Society, p. 450. 



