Latin plays were acted during the long winter evenings. Several of these were written by Nicholas Udall (Headmaster, 1534-1541), the author of Ralph Roister Doister, the first English comedy.
For almost two hundred years, from 1563, when William Malim resigned (owing, it is said, to his severity having caused some boys to run away), comparatively obscure men held the office of Headmaster, and were overshadowed by Provosts who left their mark upon the school.
Henry VIII. was one day much astonished when informed by Sir Thomas Wyatt that he had discovered a living of a hundred a year which would be more than enough for him. “We have no such thing in England,” said the King. “Yes, Sir,” replied Sir Thomas, “the Provostship of Eton, where a man has his diet, his lodging, his horse-meat, his servants’ wages, his riding charges, and £100 per annum.”
ETONIAN MARTYRS
During the troublous days of the Reformation Eton appears to have undergone little change; but a number of old Etonians and Fellows went to the stake for Protestantism under Queen Mary.
The names of the Etonians who underwent martyrdom for the reformed faith were John Fuller, who became a scholar of King’s in 1527, and was burnt to death on Jesus Green in Cambridge, April 2, 1556; Robert Glover, scholar of King’s in 1533, burnt to death at Coventry on September 20, 1555; Lawrence Saunders, scholar of King’s in 1538, burnt to death at Coventry on February 8, 1556; John Hullier, scholar of King’s also, in 1588, burnt to death on Jesus Green, Cambridge, on April 2, 1556. “Their faith was strong unto death and they sealed their belief with their blood.”
On the other hand, Dr. Henry Cole, appointed Provost in 1554, behaved in a disgraceful manner. Having advocated the Reformation, he became in Queen Mary’s reign a rigid Romanist, and was appointed by her to preach, before the execution of Cranmer, in St. Mary’s Church at Oxford. He became Dean of St. Paul’s in 1556, and Vicar-General under Cardinal Pole in 1557. Soon after the accession of Elizabeth he was deprived of his Deanery, fined 500 marks, and imprisoned. Whether he was formally deprived of the Provostship, or withdrew silently, does not appear. He died in the Fleet in 1561.
In 1563 and 1570 Queen Elizabeth paid visits to the College, and a memorial of her beneficence is still to be seen on a panel of the College hall.[1]
At that time the school seems to have been divided into seven forms; of these the first three were under the Lower Master—an arrangement which was only altered in 1868, when First and Second Forms ceased to exist and a Fourth Form was included as part of what now corresponds to Lower School. It is a curious coincidence that even in those early days Fourth Form during part of the school hours were under the Lower Master’s control.
“FLOGGING DAY”