Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/393

 10 s. VIIL OCT. as, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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may have been contaminated by the " Princess " Olive MB. THOMS is entitled to great praise. HOBACE BLEACKLEY.

(To be continued.)

Although from time to time during the last half century correspondents of N. & Q.' have repeatedly sought to pierce the veil of obscurity which shrouds the history of Hannah Lightfoot, they have one and all been completely baffled. The late MB. THOMS indeed asserted that in his opinion the alleged liaison between George III. and the " Fair Quaker " was a mere myth ; but after studying the many communications which ' N. & Q.' has received on the sub- ject, and carefully considering the atmo- sphere of the Court at Leicester House in the last years of the reign of George II., I am inclined to think it not unlikely that Hannah had the honour as the French say to " deniaiser " the youthful Prince of Wales, though she may not have lived " under his protection," nor a " secret marriage " ever been dreamed of. My im- pression on this subject has been confirmed by the perusal of a copy (of indisputable authenticity) of a very curious holograph letter from George III. to Lord Bute, in which the monarch, after consenting to give up, on the minister's advice, his intention of " proposing " to Lady Sarah Lennox, de- sires the Earl to forthwith procure him a consort of royal birth, frankly stating that his passions were similar to those of other young men. The tone of this letter by no means excludes the theory that the King was not an absolute novice ; and if this were so, no one is more likely to have acted as " go - between " than Miss Chudleigh, then and for many years previously one of the Princess Dowager's favourite attend- ants ; and it is undoubted that until her famous trial took place she always enjoyed the favour and protection of the King.

H.

SHAKESPEARE'S SCHOOL: SOME EARLY MASTERS.

THE GILD OF THE HOLY CBOSS, founded in 1269 by Robert de Stratford (afterward Bishop of Chichester and Chancellor o England) and his family, gradually organized and fostered education in the little War wickshire town of Stratford-upon-Avon In 1484 another native, one Thomas Jolyffr a priest substantially endowed th Grammar School, which had already pos

essed a local habitation and a name for iver half a century ; and finally, on 7 June r 553, the " pious Tiger-Cub," acting under he advice of John Dudley, Duke of North- umberland (at that time Lord of the Borough f Stratford), reconstituted the same out f the wreckage left by the Reformation. ?his school was, according to Strype, the ast " founded " by Edward VI. in his short ife.

Mr. A. F. Leach, F.S.A., kindly informed me that he had noticed an instance of a ocal schoolmaster being ordained deacon in 1295 with William of Grenefield, rector of Stratford (afterwards Archbishop of York and Chancellor of England). The same authority also had little doubt that the Richard Foxe, B.A., master of this school L7 to 22 Edward IV. is identical with the- 'ounder of Corpus Christi, the first Renais- sance College in Oxford (see ' D.N.B.,' xx. 150). Foxe's successor as master of the- school was William Smyth or Smith, B.A. [n 1484 the soul of this Master Smyth,. " clerico et scolaris gramatico," was prayed for. He was, perhaps, the chaplain of the* same names who took his B.A. degree at Oxford on 3 Nov., 1453. The Edward Darby who appears as master before 1564 may have been the Edward Derby or Darby who took his B.A. degree at the elder Un- versity on 19 Feb., 1527. John Brown- sworde was master 1564-7. A certain John Brownswerd (1540 ?-89), poet, who received his education partly at Oxford and partly at Cambridge, where he is said to have- graduated, died master of Macclesfield Grammar School (see ' D.N.B.,' vii. 86).

The three masters Walter Roche (1570-72),. Simon Hunt (1572-5), and Thomas Jenkins- (1579) are interesting from the fact that they probably superintended the early education of William Shakespeare. Walter Roche was admitted a scholar of C.C.C., Oxon, on 16 Feb., 1554, from Lancaster ; was a Devon Probationary Fellow in 1558 ; and took his B.A. degree on 1 June, 1559. If I am correct in identifying him with the " Roach " who was a chorister at the same college in 1552, he would, in accordance with the statutes of his founder Bishop Foxe of Winchester, himself in all probability a Magdalen man have received his secular- education at Magdalen College School under Thomas Cooper, afterwards Bishop of Win- chester (see President T. Fowler's ' History of C.C.C., Oxon,' 1893, pp. 387, 429 ; Boase's ' Register of Oxford University,' i. 240). It was in the school of Waynflete's College- that Alexander was first supplanted by the-