Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/34

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [KPS. V.JAN. 13,

the "crown," and that when completed these muskets were served out to the Queen's soldiers both in England and Holland. May we not conclude that a musket of an improved pattern came into use towards the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign, and that it was known to the British troops then in the service of the Dutch Republic as a "Brown bus," which term degenerated into "Brown Bess"?

CHARLES DALTON. 32, West Cromwell Road, S.W.

MAGDALEN COLLEGE SCHOOL AND THE

'D.N.B.' (See 10 th S. iv. 21, 101, 182, 244, 364.)

WHEN the Parliamentary Commission for visiting the University actually began work, Magdalen was the first college to be visited. On 5 May, 1648, answers being invited from various members of the College to the ques- tion, "Do you submit to the authority of Parliament in this visitation 1 " twenty-eight replies were received, but only one submis- sion. One chorister, John Drake, produced a long and elaborate reply, refusing to submit, " if the word Submitt signifie that the 2 Houses of Parliament, without and against his most excellent Majestie, have a lawfull power to visite this Universitie, either by themselves or others." This, like the pro- fessed incapacity of the commoners to answer so weighty a question in any way, was pro- bably intended to annoy. On 17 May Hugh Phillips, "chorister and but a schooleboy 14 yeare old," says : "I confesse that I am not scholler sufficient to give an Answere to this Question propounded." Thomas Home, chorister, acknowledges " the Visitation, as it cometh from the Kinge and Parliament, otherwise I cannot conscionably submitt to it." Humfrey Simpson, chorister, replies : "Your Question is too obscure for me to answere, but howsoever I cannot submitt to the Visitation.' 7 These four, with the pos- sible exception of Phillips, were eventually expelled. In the sequel at least two-thirds of the Demies and most of the choristers were deprived. The grammar master, William White, was deprived, and his place supplied by the usher, Thomas Houghton, or Hawton, who submitted (v. * Register of Visitors of University of Oxford, 1647-58/ ed. Prof. M. Burrows).

In July, 1649, a large sum of money (pro- bably worth nearly 1,500/.) was discovered in a chest in the muniment- room. This was the reserve fund provided by the founder for use in emergencies, and mentioned in his statutes.

The coins were for the most part "old Edwards" or "spur- royals" and "angels," and were now divided among the members of the foundation, even the choristers and servants obtaining a share. Edward IV. first struck the rose noble, or ryal, in 1465, the reverse bearing in the centre his badges of the rose on sun. In later times- these coins, and their successors, were called "spur-ryals," from the resemblance of the pointed form of the sun's rays to the star-like spur of the period. Ultimately, after the Restoration, a large part of the sum abstracted was made good and replaced in the chest. At the same time the old order of things- was in some fashion restored, eight Demies being replaced, all of whom retired the next year.

William Reeks, a member of the School recommended by Lord Chancellor Clarendon, became Fellow in 1671, and died four years- later. He left a detailed allegorical explana- tion of the curious figures which adorn the buttresses on three sides of the cloister. These figures, set up in 1508-9, were painted upon the occasion of the royal visit when James I. pronounced Magdalen to be "the most absolute building in Oxford." In 1672 William Harris of M.C.S. was recommended by the King for a Demyship (Bloxam, iii. 204 ; Wilson, 63n, 165, 170, 177). A -chorister of 1662, Thomas Collins of Bristol, was after- wards Vice-Principal of Gloucester Hall (now Worcester College), and from 1673 until his death, fifty years later, Master of M.C.S. He was a friend of Anthony Wood, whose body he assisted in bearing to the grave in Merton Chapel, and also of Thomas Hearne. The latter declares him to have been "a good Preacher, a good Scholar, and

ejected by James II.] was his bestowing a Prebend of Lichfield upon Mr. Collins, Schoolmaster of Magdalen." Again, on 21 April, 1719, Hearne called "upon Mr. Collins of Magd. Coll. to-day between two- and three. He was reading Pope's Homer, which he mightily admires. He useth a little hour-glass, which he says he brought with him when he first came to Oxford." His portrait by an unknown artist is at M.C.S. A pupil of his, one Thomas Goodwyn, Demy in 1675, and expelled by James II. 's Com- missioners, died Archdeacon of Derby and "a very good scholar." Another of seven years later, Richard Watkins, expelled on the same occasion, became, in calmer times, Vice- President of the College. Another, Daniel