St. Paul's School.
There was a school attached to St. Paul's long before Colet's day, just as there is one now, independent of the school of Colet's foundation, and devoted mainly to the instruction of the Cathedral choristers. Soon after Colet's appointment to the Deanery in 1505 he experienced no little dissatisfaction with the Cathedral School, where great laxity prevailed, more especially in the religious education of the "children of Paul's," and so, about the year 1509—the year of Henry's accession—having recently come into a considerable estate by the death of his father, he set about acquiring a small property situate at the east end of St. Paul's Church for the purpose of establishing another school which would better realise[pg 351] his own ideal of what a school should be than the existing Cathedral School. Colet's School grew apace. In 1511 he was in negotiation with the Court of Aldermen for the purchase "of a certen grounde of the citie for an entre to be hadde into his new gramer scole."[1046] By January of the next year (1512) he had succeeded in obtaining the assent both of the Court of Aldermen and Common Council to the purchase by him of a "certen grounde in the Olde Chaunge for the inlargyng of his gramer scole in Powly's Churcheyerd" for the sum of £30.[1047] The property was conveyed to him by deed, dated the 27th September, which deed was sealed with the common seal on the 7th October following.[1048] The question as to whom he should entrust the management of his school caused Colet no little anxiety. He eventually decided to confide its revenues and management entirely to the Mercers' Company, and when asked the reason for his so doing replied that "though there was nothing certain in human affairs he yet found the least corruption in them."[1049]
Considerable rivalry existed among the various grammar schools of the city, more especially between the boys of Colet's School and the boys of the more ancient foundation of St. Antony, which, for a long time, had the reputation for turning out the best scholars. Public disputations were held in the open air. The St. Paul's boys meeting St. Antony's boys would derisively call them St. Antony's pigs, that saint being generally represented with a pig following[pg 352] him, and challenge them to a disputation; the latter would retaliate by styling their rivals "pigeons of St. Paul's," from the bird which then, as now, frequented St. Paul's Churchyard. From questions of grammar, writes Stow,[1050] they usually fell to blows "with their satchels full of books, many times in great heaps, that they troubled the streets and passengers." After the decay of St. Antony's School the rivalry was taken up, but in a more friendly way, by the later foundation of the Merchant Taylors' School.
Provincial grammar schools founded by citizens of London.
But the citizens of London did not limit their efforts in the cause of education to their own city. Throughout the country there are to be found grammar schools which owe their establishment to the liberal-mindedness and open-handed generosity of the city merchant.[1051] Their existence bears testimony to the kindly feeling which men who had grown rich in London still bore to the provincial town or village which gave them birth and which they had left in early life to seek their fortune in the great metropolis.
To take but a few instances: Sir John Percival, a merchant-tailor, who in 1487 filled the subordinate office of Lord Mayor's carver, performing his duties so well that the mayor, Sir Henry Colet, nominated him one of the sheriffs for the year ensuing by the time honoured custom of drinking to him at a public dinner, founded a school at Macclesfield. Stephen[pg 353] Jenyns, another merchant-tailor, did the same thing at Wolverhampton. Sir Thomas White, another member of the same company, founded two schools in the provinces, one at Reading and another at Bristol, besides the College of St. John at Oxford. Sir William Harper, yet another merchant-tailor, established a school at Bedford.
The Mercers' Company rivalled the Merchant-Taylors' in the number of schools established in the country through the liberality of its members. Sir John Gresham founded one at Holt, in Norfolk; Sir Rowland Hill, an ancestor of the originator of the Penny Postal scheme, another at Drayton, in Shropshire; whilst schools at Horsham, in Sussex, and West Lavington, in Wiltshire, were erected by two other mercers, Richard Collier and William Dauntsey. There exist at the present day at least four schools which owe their foundation to wealthy members of the Grocers' Company, the well known school at Oundle, co. Northampton, upon which the Company have expended on capital account the sum of £35,000, having been founded by Sir William Laxton; another at Sevenoaks, in Kent, by William Sevenoke, a native of the place, who rose from very humble circumstances to the chief magistracy of the city; another at Witney, in Oxfordshire, by Henry Box, and another at Colwall, co. Hereford, by Humphry Walwyn. Sir Andrew Judd, a member of the Skinners' Company, established a school at Tonbridge, whilst Sir Wolstan Dixie, another skinner, performed the same charitable act at Market Bosworth. Lastly, Sir George Monoux and Thomas Russell, both of them members of the Drapers' Company, founded[pg 354] schools at Walthamstow and at Barton-under-Needwood, co. Stafford, respectively.
Birth of the Princess Mary, Feb., 1516.
On the Feast of St. Matthew (21 Sept.), 1515, a messenger arrived in the city from Wolsey desiring the mayor and aldermen to attend that evening at St. Paul's to return thanks to Almighty God for the queen, who was quick with child. The summons was obeyed,[1052] and in the following February (1516) the Princess Mary was born.
The city and Cardinal Wolsey, 1516.