minster—that is, of course, of the property of the State

to purposes of secular " graft" by an ecclesiastical

embezzler of Westminster. Just after the dissolution of the monasteries, Henry VIII. took away a great part of the landes and revenues," expelled the "Monkes, and placed there a Bishoppe and a Deane, and certaine prebendaries, but it continued but a very small time in this estate, for Doctor Thirleby was the first and the last Bishop of Westminster, who soone after that hee was made Bishop of this new sea (sic), conveyed the lands of the Bishopricke to certaine great men,* and that done, he was translated from thence to Ely."

In 1544, St. Peter's College, Westminster, received lands of the yearly value of £167, which had been surrendered by the Abbey to be quit of paying the scholars' stipends; two years later the Abbey parted with estates producing £400 per annum for the same reason in regard to the salaries of the teaching staff of the college. Cecil, Lord High Treasurer, granted the college a perpetual annuity of 20 marks, in 1594, as gifts to scholars going up from St. Peter's College to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

By letters patent, dated June 11th, 1560, Elizabeth directed that the statutes of foundation should be drawn up, ordaining that "in remembrance of her father's benefactions to them," the master and fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge, should thenceforth annually elect to their scholarships as many indigent youths as possible from Westminster; and, subsequently, in the eighteenth year of her reign (1576) she issued stringent orders to all the electors, recapitulating and explaining her previous commands. According to these injunctions it would seem the Queen desired the foundation to consist of forty boys, and that in their selection special regard should be given to their disposition, knowledge, and their poverty. The cost of maintaining the school was to fall on the

* Our italics.

revenues at the disposal of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster. In the election of the forty scholars, who were to receive a free education in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, preference was to be accorded to the sons of chapter tenants and to choristers. Let it here be said at once that these latter Indigentes et Pauperes never saw the colour of their money. The scholars were to have an allowance of a small annual sum for commons in hall, and were to receive gowns. It was further provided that there should be engaged for their instruction a head and an undermaster, with certain annual allowances. In addition to the forty scholars, the masters were to be permitted to educate with them other boys, of whom some were to be admitted as pensioners, having commons in the hall with the forty scholars, provided their payment for the same was guaranteed by a tutor. The total number of the school, however, was, it was stipulated, not to exceed 120. Inter alia, Elizabeth ordered that no boy should be admitted under eight years of age or permitted to stay beyond his eighteenth year, and, in directing the forms of examination and election, ruled the latter to be by open voting.

Nominated by her as the council of electors and examiners to determine year after year what indigent boys should be placed on the foundation were the Deans of Westminster and Christ Church, the Master of Trinity, and two Masters of Art (one from each of these colleges), with the headmaster as their coadjutor. By the statute, it is ordained that not less than six scholars yearly shall be drafted to the universities-three to Christ Church, and three to Cambridge-the significant words plures, autem optamus (more also we desire) were added by the Queen.

We may quote the following from the Daily Express of July 20th, 1914, as describing the ceremonial attending a modern "Election Sunday" at St. Peter's College, Westminster :

"ELECTION SUNDAY

"The service at Westminster Abbey to-morrow is perhaps the most picturesque of the year, for it is Election Sunday, when the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, visit Westminster School in order that they may select boys for the Close scholarships at their respective foundations.

A state procession, headed by the Deans of Westminster and Christ Church and the Master of Trinity, followed by the King's scholars in evening dress with nosegays, and surplices unbuttoned, is the feature of the day. The music on Election Sunday is always exceptionally good, and the King's scholars have the privilege of choosing it."

In the previous examination for admission to the college at Westminster no one was to be elected who was likely to become the " heir of an estate of ten pounds yearly value." Precious little attention has been, or is, accorded to this injunction. With singular precision of language, Elizabeth expressed her desire that no partiality should be shown by any of the electors during this examination, and that the best boys should be conscientiously chosen. The latter were entitled to gratuitous board and education.

Save in what appertains to "real poverty," the school remains under the letter of these statutes at the present day, and admission to Westminster is gained after a somewhat lengthy period of competition (termed standing-out") between the candidates for that honour. This examination lasts over seven weeks in the spring of each year. By the early statutes the boys were required to attend "daily praiers in Henry the Seventh's Chapel at six o'clock in the morning," and orders were issued that the "Deans and Prebendaries doe kepe commons together in the halle, and likewise the scholemaster and usher and Her Maiestie's scholars, and also the servants and officers of the saide colledge." Furthermore, it is ordained that "the schollars' allowance is in the saide hall after the rate of a provision made by the Deane and the Prebendaries— viz., a bushel of wheate for twenty pence, a barrell of

duble beare for three shillings and fourpence, and the fuel after a certain rate." It appears, too, that there was a house erected at Chiswick "with chambers and shelter for the summer tyme, and if there should be occasion of sickness; which house cost the building five hundred pounds."

Widmore says that, "for this rural school Westminster is indebted to one Gabriel Goodman, Dean of Westminster, who had been Prebendary of Chiswick in St. Paul's Cathedral"; and Fuller informs us that Gabriel purchased a fair house, with land thereto, at Chiswick, in Middlesex, where, with his own hands, he set a fair row of elms, now grown up to great beauty and height, for a retiring place for the masters and scholars of Westminster in the heat of summer, or in any time of infection." It is also worth noting that Lancelot Andrewes, the erudite Bishop of Winchester, celebrated for his elegant and impassioned delivery and the beauty of his style with its splendid cadences, and editor of the A.V., was accustomed in summer time to retire to the fair house at Chiswick, where, in the shade of the elms, he initiated Westminster boys into the mysteries of Greek and Latin grammar. Andrewes was of the type of educator, rare in that age, who taught, not merely without flagellation, but without a word of austerity or act of compulsion.

One of the sixteenth century schoolmasters at Westminster was Alexander Nowell, afterwards Dean of St. Paul's, in his day renowned as an angler. Nowell seems to have had a genius for getting into trouble with the constituted authorities. On one occasion he preached a Lenten sermon before Queen Elizabeth, in St. Paul's, "wherein he dealt plainly and faithfully with her " shortcomings, when she "called out to him to retire from that ungodly digression and return to his text." On another occasion, he placed a new and richly-bound prayer-book embellished with pictures of saints and martyrs on the Queen's cushion at St. Paul's, intending it as a New Year's

gift (January 1st, 1562). No sooner, however, had Elizabeth got into her pew and set eyes on the book than, in a rage, she imperiously ordered the verger to fetch her old book. Unless he were blind or myopic, Nowell could scarcely have failed to notice the interlude, and thoughts of the inevitable jacketing in the vestry after sermon-time could hardly have lent fire to his eloquence. Sure enough, the Benediction had hardly left his lips when the majestic presence was at the vestry door, and the decanal ears were ringing and burning with a sharp reprimand anent infringing our proclamation against images, pictures, and Romish relics."

To this Westminster headmaster Fuller quaintly attributes the accidental invention of bottled beer. "Whilst Nowell was a-catching of fishes, Bonner (the fanatical Romanist Bishop of London under the Marian régime), “was a-catching of Nowell, and, understanding who he was, designed him for the shambles." Nowell, indeed, was in such danger that he dared not even return to his house to make preparations for flight; but, “like an honest angler, he had taken provision for the day, and when, in the first year of England's deliverance, he returned to his country and his old haunts, he remembered that on the day of his flight he had left a bottle of beer in a safe place on the bank." He searched but "found no bottle, but a gun, such was the sound at the opening thereof, and this is believed (casualty is the mother of more inventions than industry) the original of bottled ale in England."

The consequences of libel in the days of the pre-Civil War period were, as some may think, just a trifle more fearsome than the blaring publicity of three or four modern newspaper columns, rioting in a succession of lurid cross-headings. At any rate, one of the masters of St. Peter's School, by name Lambert Osbolstone, M.A., was brave or foolhardy enough to wing his pesky little shafts at majestic Archbishop Laud, so that, as was said