Page:The History of CRGS.djvu/16

 As has already been stated the Statutes for the governance of the 1539 school were to be framed by laymen, without interference by the Bishop of London. Lord Audley died in 1544, and meanwhile the municipality appropriated all the chantry lands for their own uses, though paying the schoolmaster a stipend of £6 13s. 4d. There is mention of a schoolmaster (ludi magister), one Robert Cock, in a lease of 1540 (Oath Book, 1540-1; Rot. 20). In 1553 Robert Wrennald was paid £6 13s. 4d., and in 1558 Richard Whittel received the same sum (Morant, III, 9). In 1574 a Thomas Lovell resigned the post of schoolmaster, and William Barkeley was elected in his place (Victoria County History, Essex, II). But beyond the allotment of the stipend nothing seems to have been done, and in 1578 the Burgesses petitioned Sir Francis Walsingham, Secretary of State, informing him that the conditions of the Letters Patent of 1539 had not been fulfilled, and requesting him to use his influence with the Queen to have the matter rectified. This was effected by the Letters Patent of 1584, when on regranting the endowments of the two chantries it was stipulated that the stipend was to be provided not out of the town funds, but in rentals of properties assigned to the schoolmaster himself; and as a further safeguard the Bishop of London, who with the Dean of St. Paul's was to frame the Statutes, was appointed in perpetuity Visitor of the School.

In August, 1584, an assembly at Colchester made the following orders :- "Imprimis, yt ys concluded, agreed, and ordered by the said Bayliffs, Aldermen, and Commonaltye of the said Towne that the howse called Westons, which hath byn used to be a Grammar Schole-howse, in the parishe of All-Saints, shall be purchased of John Christmas, Gent., and that he the said John Christmas shall have for his right in the said house, of the Bayliffs and Commonaltye of the Town, 20 L. of lawful money of England, and that the assuerance for the same howse shall be made by the advice of the Councell of the same Towne.

"Item, yt ys agreed that the said howse shal be the free Grammar Schole-howse of the same Towne and that Edward Watson Master of Artes shal be Grammar Schole—Master of the said Towne, duering the pleasure of the said Bayliffs and Cominaltye."

This decree went on to assign certain lands to the School (and the master) and made provision for the election of "syxteen free Schollars " by the Balliffs, specifying that theirs was to be the only valid nomination.

At this point we first hear of "the howse called Westons," which was to serve as the Grammar School house for three centuries. It will be noticed that it had "byn used to be a Grammar Schole-howse," and that it was to be purchased of John Christmas. A John Christmas was a Bailiff in 1539, when the first grant of the chantries was made, and will have been responsible for the 14