A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

By act of parliament the case stands thus: By the 23 Eliz. c. 1. If any person or persons, body politic or corporate, shall keep or maintain any schoolmaster which shall not repair to some church, chapel, or usual place of common prayer, or be allowed by the bishop or ordinary of the diocese where such schoolmaster shall be so kept, he shall, upon conviction in the courts at Westminster, or at the assizes, or quarter sessions of the peace, forfeit for every month so keeping him £10; one-third to the king, one-third to the poor, and one-third to him that shall sue: and such schoolmaster or teacher, presuming to teach contrary to this act, and being thereof lawfully convict, shall be disabled to be a teacher of youth, and suffer imprisonment without bail or mainprise for one year.

By the 1 Jac. I. c. 4, s. 9. No person shall keep any school, or be a schoolmaster, out of any of the universities or colleges of this realm, except it be in some public or free grammar school, or in some such nobleman’s or gentleman’s house as are not recusants, or where the same schoolmaster shall be specially licensed thereunto by the archbishop, bishop, or guardian of the spiritualities of that diocese; upon pain that, as well the schoolmaster, as also the party that shall retain or maintain any such schoolmaster, shall forfeit each of them for every day so wittingly offending 40s.; half to the king, and half to him that shall sue.

And by the 13 & 14 Car. II. c. 4. Every schoolmaster keeping any public or private school, and every person instructing or teaching any youth in any house or private family as a tutor or schoolmaster, shall, before his admission, subscribe the declaration following, viz. “I, A. B., do declare, that I will conform to the liturgy of the Church of England, as it is now by law established.” Which shall be subscribed before the archbishop, bishop, or ordinary of the diocese; on pain that every person so failing in such subscription shall forfeit his school, and be utterly disabled, and ipso facto deprived of the same, and the said school shall be void as if such person so failing were naturally dead.

And if any schoolmaster, or other person, instructing or teaching youth in any private house or family as a tutor or schoolmaster, shall instruct or teach any youth as a tutor or schoolmaster before licence obtained from the archbishop, bishop, or ordinary of the diocese, according to the laws and statutes of this realm, (for which he shall pay 12d. only,) and before such subscription as aforesaid, he shall for the first offence suffer three months’ imprisonment, without bail; and, for every second and other such offence, shall suffer three months’ imprisonment, without bail, and also forfeit to the king the sum of £5. (S. 8, 9, 10, 1.)

M. 9 G. II. The King against the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry. A mandamus issued to the bishop to grant a licence to Rushworth a clergyman, who was nominated usher of a free grammar school within his diocese. To which he returned, that a caveat had been entered by some of the principal inhabitants of the place, with articles annexed, accusing him of drunkenness, incontinency, and neglect of preaching and reading prayers; and that the caveat being warned, he was proceeding to inquire into the truth of these things when the mandamus came; and therefore he had suspended the licensing him. And without entering much into the arguments, whether the bishop hath the power of licensing, the court held, that the return should be allowed as a temporary excuse; for though the act of the 13 & 14 Car. II. c. 4, obligeth them only to assent to and subscribe the declaration, yet it adds, “according to the laws and statutes of this realm;” which presupposeth some necessary qualifications, which it is reasonable should be examined into.

And by Canon 137. “Every schoolmaster shall, at the bishop’s first visitation, or at the next visitation after his admission, exhibit his licence, to be by the said bishop either allowed, or (if there be just cause) disallowed and rejected.”

By the 11 & 12 Will. III. c. 4. If any Papist, or person making profession of the Popish religion, shall keep school, or take upon himself the education or government or boarding of youth, he shall be adjudged to perpetual imprisonment in such place within this kingdom as the king by advice of his privy council shall appoint.

In Bales’s case, M. 21 Car. II., it was held, that where the patronage of a school is not in the ordinary, but in feoffees or other patrons, the ordinary cannot put a man out; and a prohibition was granted; the suggestion for which was, that he came in by election, and that it was his freehold.

Upon which Dr. Gibson justly observes, that if this be any bar to his being deprived by ordinary authority, the presentation to a benefice by a lay patron, and the parson’s freehold in that benefice, would be as good a plea against the deprivation of the parson by the like authority. And yet this plea hath been always rejected by the temporal courts. And in one circumstance at least, the being deprived of a school, notwithstanding the notion of a freehold, is more naturally supposed, than deprivation of a benefice; because the licence to a school is only during pleasure, whereas the institution to a benefice is absolute and unlimited.—Gibson, 1110.

By Canon 78. “In what parish church or chapel soever there is a curate, which is a master of arts, or bachelor of arts, or is otherwise well able to teach youth, and will willingly so do, for the better increase of his living, and training up of children in principles of true religion, we will and ordain that a licence to teach youth of the parish where he serveth be granted to none by the ordinary of that place, but only to the said curate: provided always, that this constitution shall not extend to any parish or chapel in country towns, where there is a public school founded already; in which case we think it not meet to allow any to teach grammar, but only him that is allowed for the said public school.”