“It should seeme by some that she served three in France successively; Mary of England maryed to Lewis the twelfth, an. 1514, with whome she went out of England, but Lewis dying the first of January following, and that Queene (being) to returne home, sooner than either Sir Thomas Bullen or some other of her frendes liked she should, she was preferred to Clauda, daughter to Lewis XII. and wife to Francis I. then Queene (it is likely upon the commendation of Mary the Dowager), who not long after dying, an. 1524, not yet weary of France she went to live with Marguerite, Dutchess of Alançon and Berry, a Lady much commended for her favor towards good letters, but never enough for the Protestant religion then in the infancy—from her, if I am not deceived, she first learnt the grounds of the Protestant religion; so that England may seem to owe some part of her happyness derived from that Lady.” (Twysden’s Notes quoted by Singer in his ed. of Cavendish’s Life of Wolsey, 1825, p. 57.)
As Henry VIII. fell in love with his wife’s maid of honour,—“began to kindle the brand of amours” at the light of Anne Boleyn’s beauty, “her excellent gesture and behaviour,”—so we find in later times rich young men became enamoured of poor young women staying in the same house with them. Mr Bruce sends me an instance:
“the young lady was niece, you will perceive, to a well-beneficed clergyman, and a thriving gentleman well-advanced in the public service. She had lost her mother, and her father was in debt and difficulties. She was therefore placed by the influence of her uncles in a well-known family in Wiltshire.”
State Papers. Dom. Car. I. Vol. ccclii. No. 29. Dr Matthew Nicholas, afterwards Dean of St Paul’s, to Edward Nicholas, Clerk of the Council, and afterwards Secretary of State. Dated, West Dean, April 4, 1637.
“I have spoken with Miss Evelyn since I wrote last unto you, and enquired of her the cause which moued her to displace my coson
Hunton. She told me much accordinge to what she had sayd unto my coson Hunton, with this addition, that she had respect in it as well unto her good as her owne convenience, for hauinge nowe noe employment for her but her needle, she founde that sittinge still at her worke made her sickly, and therefore thought she might doe better in another seruice where she might haue the orderinge of an huswifely charge, for which (she told me) she had made her very able. I expressed myselfe tender of the disgrace which would lay uppon my coson in beinge displaced in such a manner by warninge giuen, wherof whatsoeuer were the cause, it would be imagined by all that knowe it not, to be in her ill carriage, and wished she had done me that fauour as to haue acquainted me with her intents in such time as I might haue taken some course to haue disposed of her before it had bin knowne that she was to leaue her: she slubbered it ouer with a slight excuse that she had acquainted my wife ... but for my satisfaction she told me that she would be as mindfull of her when God should call her as if she were with her, and in testimony of her good likinge of her seruice she would allowe her forty shillings yearly towarde her maintainance as longe as herself should liue. I am soe well acquainted with what she hath as yet disposed to her by will, and soe little value forty shillings to my coson Hunton’s credit, as I gaue her noe thankes. Mr Downes (I heare) is sent for home by his father with an intent to keepe him with him, but I doe imagine that when my coson Hunton shall be other where disposed off, he shall returne; for my conceit is stronge that the feare of his beinge match’d to his disadvantage, who was placed with Mr Evelyn a youth to be bred for his preferment, hath caused this alteration; howsoever there be noe wordes made of it. I confess that when I have bin told of the good will that was obserued betweene my coson Hunton and Mr Downes, I did put it by with my coson Huntons protestation to the contrary, and was willinge by that neglect to have suffered it to have come to pass (if it mought have bin) because I thought it would haue bin to her aduantage, but nowe that the busines is come to this issue (as whatsoeuer be pretended I am confident this is the cause of my cosons partinge) I begin to quæstion my discretion.... Good brother, let me haue your aduise what to do.”
PRIVATE TUITION IN EARLY ENGLAND.
[2.] Home and Private Education. Of these, more or less must have been going on all over England, by private tutors at home, or in the houses of the latter. “In five years (after my baptism) I was handed over by my father to Siward, a noble priest, to be trained in letters, to whose mastery I was subdued during five years learning the first rudiments. But in the eleventh year of my age I was given up by my own father for the love of God, and destined to enter the service of the eternal King.” —Orderic, vol. ii. p. 301, ed. Prevost.
From Adam de Marisco’s Letters, 53, we find that Henry and Almeric, the eldest and youngest sons of the Earl of Montfort, were put under Grosseteste for tuition, he being then a Bishop. At Paris, John of Salisbury (who died in 1180) gained a living by teaching the sons of noblemen,—(instruendos susceperam, ? took them in to board). —Metalogicus, lib. 11, c. 10.
Henry of Huntingdon says, “Richard, the king’s (Henry I.’s) bastard son, was honourably brought up (festive nutritus) by our Bishop Robert (Blote of Lincoln), and duly reverenced by me and others in the same household I lived in.” —Anglia Sacra, vol. ii. p. 696. Giraldus Cambrensis speaks of beating his coætanei et conscolares terræ suæ, of being reproved for idleness by his uncle, the Bishop of St David’s, and of being constantly chaffed by two of his uncle’s chaplains, who used to decline durus and stultus to him. Also he alludes to the rod. Probably there was some sort of school at either Pembroke or St David’s[24a].—De Rebus a se Gestis, lib. 1, c. 2.[25]