The patentees, however, generously offered that if the Lord Treasurer should think “that in passing the patent Her Majesty was hardly dealt with in it, or your zeal for the school to be maintained which is no Free School, so your Honour would procure from Her Majesty a foundation and take the patronage. I can be content there go a better maintenance to the Master, viz. £30 per annum or more, or to do any act your Honour should think conscionable.”
The Dean and Chapter in their answer did not deny that they had diminished the number of priests, clerks, choristers, and scholars in the Hospital, but urged that they no longer got £323 a year as they used to do “by begging,” but now spent more on the Hospital by twenty nobles a year at least than they received. As to the School they said “the Schoolmaster teacheth as many freely as his grant bindeth him unto, for it was never free for all that come thither, but only for the poorer sort.” The schoolmaster himself, Mr. Brown, put in a separate answer. He alleged that “the School was never free to all comers, but only for the choristers of the house and all such other destitute children; as may be gathered by sundry ancient accompts. The Schoolmaster is bound by the words of his patent to entertain 40 poor scholars, whose friends are not able to pay for their teaching, if so many come, and offer their children to be taught freely.” He said that he had never refused any who claimed to be free. As for compounding, that was granted him, in regard that the revenues of the house will neither allow him an usher, nor his diet, as his predecessors had, among the priests. He denied that he was curate of the church as well as schoolmaster, though he acknowledged that having “the lease of the appropriation come into his hands he thought himself bound to do some duty in the church as well as in the school, and therefore entered the ministry the sooner.” “Neither,” he remarked, “is it so strange or odious a matter for a schoolmaster to be a preacher as it seemeth in Mr. Leake’s eyes,” though in this we may fairly say that Mr. Leake’s eyes were more far-seeing than the parson-schoolmaster’s. Then he pays a tribute to his predecessor. “This place prospered well enough under a schoolmaster who was also a preacher, Mr. Edmund Johnson. But then there was some hope that learning and religion might be rewarded; but the daily decreasing and falling away of which reward, as by other sinister means so most apparently by concealments” (this was a side blow at Mr. Leake), “hath discouraged parents to bring up their sons at their book, but even in the Universities also at this day, more is the pity.” He then utters the complaint which the unsuccessful schoolmaster, like the unsuccessful in all professions, has always made, and makes, that there is too much competition. “If there be fewer scholars in S. Anthony’s than have been heretofore, the true cause thereof has to be imputed to the multitude of teachers in every corner both of the city and country, and to the wonted reward of learning, and not to the want of diligence in the schoolmaster there.” Finally, he challenges the facts. “If trial be made it may be that both the number and the learning of his scholars may fall out better than Mr. Leake would have it.”
The end of the whole matter was that it was referred to Her Majesty’s General Attorney, Sir John Pepham, and the Solicitor General, Thomas Gerton. They certified that as the grant of Edward IV., confirmed by Innocent the Pope, had made the Hospital unconditionally a possession of St. George’s College, the purchasers from Her Majesty ought not to molest the Dean and Canons or any of their Governors in the said lands. So Mr. Leake and his friends took nothing by their pains.
Not many years later, however, the Chapter, on the ground that the Hospital cost more than they got from it, tried to withhold payment of the scholarship fund from Oriel College. This roused Oriel to look up the documents, and they counterclaimed not merely the customary £10 : 8s. but the whole twenty-five marks of the original grants and threatened to enter on the Essex lands if it was not paid. Thereon the Windsor Chapter filed a Bill in chancery. Lord Keeper Bacon’s decree, November 17, 1617, founded on an award of Sir Henry Savile, T. Frith, a canon of Windsor, and Joshua Sanders, confirmed the right of Oriel to some payment; but in the absence of any proof from Oriel that they had ever received more, and the presence of proof on the part of Windsor that since they became possessed of St. Anthony’s they had never paid more, the decree was for £10 : 8s. a year only. Windsor paid £30 for costs. The sum of £10 : 8s. a year is still paid to Oriel College by Windsor College, though it is to be feared that not many scholars are now maintained by the payment.
In 1600 St. Anthony’s School must have been in very low water. A curious compact was made by Mr. Thomas Smith, the schoolmaster in that year, with Mr. Thomas Bradshaw. The latter was to come to the school with “a dozen of his own scholars at the least” and to teach all the poor children in the parish of St. Benet Finck “being offered and brought unto him according to the limitation of the patent,” and hold the office of teacher or master conjointly with Mr. T. Smith, taking all the profits of his own pupils, while Mr. Smith was to take the profit on those brought in by him. Neither was to interfere with the teaching or management of the other’s scholars, except in case one of them was ill or absent, when the other was to teach the whole school. The scholars belonging to either were to be placed equally on both sides of the school. Finally, on payment at any time of £10 by Bradshaw, he was to have an assignment of Smith’s patent and place. The Chapter do not seem to have relished this bargain, as there are some notes attached to this agreement as to the terms of the original grant to Smith, which included a condition to appoint a deputy, and to teach free as many children as were brought thither up to forty; and to keep a register of such free scholars, to be exhibited to the Dean whenever required, and it is remarked that the arrangement with Bradshaw was a breach of these conditions. A draft surrender of the mastership by Smith, May 1, 43 Elizabeth (1601), is with this paper. It was not, however, executed by him, as ten years afterwards he is found still keeping the Hospital accounts as receiver and paying himself “pro informatione scholarium.” In 1622-23 William Walker acted in the same capacity as receiver and schoolmaster, and duly paid himself and twelve almsmen and women their stipends. In 1661-62, the latest account preserved shows him still acting in the double capacity, but receiving the augmented salary of £25 a year.
In 1666 St. Anthony’s was burnt with the rest of London. The church was rebuilt after the Fire for the French Church, and still continues. But the school seems never to have been rebuilt, and when Strype published his edition of Stow in 1720 it no longer existed. So ended this once famous school.
We must now return from the later history of St. Anthony’s School to its beginning. It was founded, as we have seen, in 1441. Five years afterwards there is a series of documents which are evidence of some struggle going on in regard to education in London, the exact purport and the result of which are equally obscure. All we know is that on May 3, 24 Henry VI., i.e. 1446, a writ of Privy Seal was sent to the Chancellor directing him to issue letters patent, which was duly done on May 6, dealing with schools in London. The letters patent are of course in Latin, in which language they long remained, but the Privy Seal, which is verbatim to the same effect, was in English. It begins by a recital which is almost an echo of the Petition to Parliament in 1394. The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London “considered the great ‘abusions’ that have been of long time in London, that many and divers persons not sufficiently instructed in grammar presumed to hold common grammar schools in great deceit of their scholars, as also of the friends that find them to school,” and so they had “in their great wisdom” devised a remedy. They had ordained 5 schools of grammar and “no moo” within the said city; “one within the churchyard of St. Paul; another within the collegiate church of St. Martin; the third in Bow Church (Beate Marie de Arcubus, in the Letters Patent); the fourth in the church of St. Dunstan in the East; the 5th in our hospital of St. Anthony within our said city.” This they had openly declared by their letters patent thereupon made. The King, therefore, ordered his letters patent to be made confirming the letters of the bishops, and commanding “all our subjittes of our said citee “that they, nor none of them, trouble nor impeach the masters of the said schools in any wise in this “partie,” but rather help and assist them inasmuch as in them is. The letters patent were duly issued on the day the writ of Privy Seal was delivered, as the Act of Parliament required. This patent was misinterpreted by Stow[[119]] as creating schools “besides St. Paul’s” in the places named, only he puts St. Dunstan on the West for St. Dunstan in the East. He repeats this error[[120]] apropos of Bow Church, which he says was a grammar school by commandment of Henry VI., whereas, as we have seen, it existed before the reign of Henry II. Stow then goes on: “And in the next year, to wit 1394 (sic), the said King ordained by Parliament that four other Grammar schools should be created.” It is curious that in all the editions till Strype’s this extraordinary error of making 1394 the next year to 1446 was repeated. No doubt Stow had become acquainted with the ordinance of Richard II. and mixed it up with that of Henry VI. and never noticed the confusion. It is the case that in February 1446/7 an ordinance was made in Parliament about London schools. It was founded upon a very remarkable petition. The full wise and discreet Commons were asked “to consider the great number of Grammar Schools that sometime were in divers parts of the realm, beside those that were in London and how few ‘ben in these days.’ This,” they say, “causes great hurt not only in the spiritual part of the church, where often times it appears too openly in some persons with great shame”—we feel inclined to call Name, name!—“but also in temporal part, to whom it is full expedient to have competent congruity for many causes”—whatever that may mean. The petitioners go on to point out how London is “the common concourse of this land,” not only for Londoners born, but for others who come up, “some for lack of schoolmasters in their own country, and some for the great alms of Lords, Merchants and others,” so that many poor creatures would never have gained the “virtue and cunning” they have without such alms. Therefore they say it is desirable to have in London “a sufficient number of Schools and good Informers of Grammar” (the headmaster of Winchester’s title is Magister Informator), “and not for the singular avail of 2 or 3 persons, grievously to hurt the multitude of young people of all this London.” “For where,” they sententiously observe, “there is a great number of learners and few teachers, and all the learners be compelled to go to the same few teachers, and to no other, the Masters wax rich in money, and the learners poor in cunning, as experience openly shows, against all virtue and order of weal public.”
Four parsons, Mr. William Lichfield of All Hallows the Great, Thames Street; Mr. Gilbert (Worthington) of St. Andrew’s in Holborn, suburb of the City; Mr. John Cole of St. Peter’s, Cornhill; and John Neell of St. Mary Abchurch, and Master of St. Thomas Acon’s Hospital, were, they say, stirred to devotion and pity by such considerations, and therefore asked that the rectors and their successors in their respective parishes may “ordain, create, establish and set a person sufficiently learned in grammar, and there to teach to all that will learn” with power of removal and new appointment in the rectors. The answer was “The King wills that it be do as it is desired, so that it be done by the advice of the Ordinary, or else of the Archbishop of Canterbury for the time being.”
It has been assumed that these schools were set up accordingly. Stow states it for a fact as to St. Peter’s, Cornhill,[[121]] St. Andrew’s, Holborn,[[122]] and St. Thomas of Acon’s Hospital,[[123]] and has been followed by other writers. It is doubtful if a single one of these schools was ever established, except that in St. Thomas of Acon’s Hospital. The very unusual form of the King’s answer to the petition at once raises suspicion. The first clause of it is the common formula for consent to a “private” bill, “Le roi fait comme il est desiré.” But it is followed by the very significant condition “so that it be by the advice of the Ordinary, the Bishop of London, or the Archbishop.” A veto was thus given to the very two officials who, doubtless under much the same pressure, had, only the year before, limited the schools in London to five: of which three were immemorial, that of St. Anthony’s Hospital in an exempt place of the Crown’s patronage was already established with the consent of the Bishop, and the fifth St. Dunstan’s was, like St. Mary-le-Bow, a “peculiar” of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is not very likely, therefore, that the Archbishop and Bishop would be eager to assist in almost doubling the number of authorised schools in London. As regards St. Andrew’s and All Hallows the Great it is practically certain that no school was ever established. The two petitioning parsons of these churches both died very soon afterwards. The will of Gilbert Worthington of St. Andrew’s, Holborn, is given in Strype’s edition of Stow.[[124]] It was made July 28, 1447, and was proved on August 12 following. The only reference to schools or education in it is a bequest of five marks to his brother Walter to put him to school, and 40s. to the poor scholars of God’s House in Cambridge, just founded by Bingham. The inscription on his tomb, also preserved,[[125]] makes no mention of any school foundation. Neither Stow nor any one else states that there was any evidence of a school at St. Andrew’s. The date of the death of the parson of All Hallows, William Lichfield, is not given by Newcourt in the Repertorium, but as it there appears that Thomas Westleigh, S.T.B., was appointed to the rectory, vacant on the death of Lichfield, on November 1448, he must have died some time before that date. No proof of any grammar school having been kept here has yet been produced.