Page:The Early English Organ Builders and their work.djvu/45

 In 1486, William Wotton, "orkyn maker," constructed a "pair of organs" for the chapel of Magdalen College, Oxford, for the sum of twenty-eight pounds. Two years afterwards he repaired the organ, at a cost of forty shillings. In 1487 he entered into an agreement with the Warden of Merton College to make an organ "lyke unto the newe payr of organs of the chapel of St. Mary Magdalen," for the same sum. This instrument was to be finished by the vigil of Whitsuntide, 1489, and placed in the new roodloft of the chapel.

A very curious and interesting story in connection with this builder is told by Anthony Wood, in his "Annals," A.D. 1486. It is to the following effect:

"'A certain poor priest of Oxford, named William Symonds, of the age of twenty-eight years, having a youth of a crafty wit and comely presence to his pupil, contrived (in hope to raise himself to some great Bishoprick), and brought it so to pass, that the said youth should be vulgarly reported by certain noble persons, that bore good will to the House of York, to be Edward, Earl of Warwick, son of the Duke of"