The New Learning.
To the apostles of the New Learning—as the revival of letters which commenced in the last reign came to be called—to Erasmus, to Archbishop Warham, to More and to Colet, the war at its outset had been eminently distasteful. With the accession of Henry VIII to the throne they had hoped for better things. War was to be for ever banished and a "new order" was to prevail.
Thomas More.
Of its connection with More and Colet the City is justly proud. At the opening of Henry's reign the future lord chancellor was executing the duties of the comparatively unimportant post of under-sheriff or judge of the Poultry Compter, a post which he continued to hold until 1517.[1040] He had received his education in the city at St. Antony's School in Threadneedle Street, a school which had already achieved a great reputation and afterwards reckoned among its pupils the famous Whitgift. Later in life he shut himself up for four years in the Charterhouse of London, living a life of devotion and prayer, but without taking any vow.[1041]
Dean Colet.
The father of John Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, had taken an active part in municipal life. Henry Colet had been alderman first of Farringdon Ward Without and afterwards of the Wards of Castle Baynard and Cornhill,[1042] and as alderman of the last mentioned ward[pg 349] he had died towards the close of 1505. He had served as sheriff in 1477 and as mayor in 1486.
Education in the city.
Up to the time of Henry VI education had been carried on in the city chiefly by means of schools attached to the various city churches and religious houses. By order of Henry VI, and at the instigation of four city ministers,[1043] grammar schools were established in several parishes. The school of St. Antony attached to the hospital of the same name, of which Dr. John Carpenter was at the time master, received an endowment from Henry VI for the maintenance of scholars at Oxford. The school continued to flourish some time after the dissolution of the hospital. There was also a school attached to the hospital of St. Thomas of Acon, as famous in its day as that of St. Antony, but of which little is known until after the suppression of the religious houses by Henry VIII, when it passed into the hands of the Mercers' Company and became known, as it is to this day, as the Mercers' School.
The City of London School.
The Dr. John Carpenter just mentioned must not be confounded with the Town Clerk of that name, the compiler of the famous Liber Albus and the founder of the City of London School. There is little known of the foundation of this latter school beyond the statement made by Stow a century and a-half later, that he "gave tenements to the city for the finding and bringing up of four poor men's children with meat, drink, apparel, learning at the schools in the universities, etc., until they be preferred, and[pg 350] then others in their places for ever."[1044] Within the last few years the City Chamberlain's accounts—touching "the lands of Mr. John Carpenter, sometyme commen clarke of this cittie"—have been brought to light, and serve to supplement in a small way Stow's meagre but valuable statement. The rental or amount with which the Chamberlain charged himself for the year 1565 or 1566 is there set down as £41 0s. 4d., and the discharge—embracing a quit rent due to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, and expenses incurred in overseeing, clothing and feeding four poor children "being founde at scoole and lerning by the bequeste of the sayde Master Carpenter"—amounted to £19 12s. 8d., leaving a balance to the City of £21 7s. 8d.[1045] From so modest a beginning arose the school which, situate on the Thames Embankment, now numbers over 700 scholars.