viii

BP. GROSSETETE TAUGHT NOBLES' SONS.

calls in different places sharp, fond, & lewd '-Ascham denounces strongly in the first book of his Scholemaster, and he contrasts their folly in beating into their scholars the hatred of learning with the practice of the wise riders who by gentle allurements breed them up in the love of riding. Indeed, the origin of his book was Sir Wm. Cecil's saying to him "I have strange news brought me this morning, that divers scholars of Eton be run away from the school for fear of beating."

Sir Peter Carew, says Mr Froude, being rather a troublesome boy, was chained in the Haccombe dog-kennel till he ran away from it.

But to return to the training of young men in nobles' houses. I take the following from Fiddes's Appendix to his Life of Wolsey: John de Athon, upon the Constitutions of Othobon, tit. 23, in respect to the Goods of such who dyed intestate, and upon the Word Burones, has the following Passage concerning Grodsted Bishop of Lincoln (who died 9th Oct., 1253),

"Robert surnamed Grodsted of holy memory, late Bishop of Lincoln, when King Henry asked him, as if in wonder, where he learnt the Nurture in which he had instructed the sons of nobles (&) peers of the Realm, whom he kept about him as pages (domisellos”), -since he was not descended from a noble lineage, but from humble (parents) is said to have answered fearlessly, 'In the house or guestcruelty cited from Erasmus's Letters, by Staunton, in his Great Schools of England, p. 179-80.

1 "And therfore do I the more lament that soch [hard] wittes commonlie be either kepte from learning by fond fathers, or bet from learning by lewde scholemasters," ed. Mayor, p. 19. But Ascham reproves parents for paying their masters so badly: "it is pitie, that commonlie more care is had, yea and that emonges verie wise men, to finde out rather a cunnynge man for their horse than a cunnyng man for their children. They say nay in worde, but they do so in deede. For, to the one they will gladlie give a stipend of 200. Crounes by yeare, and loth to offer to the other, 200. shillinges. God, that sitteth in heauen, laugheth their choice to skorne, and rewardeth their liberalitie as it should: for he suffereth them to have tame and well ordered horse, but wilde and unfortunate Children." Ib. p. 20.

2-2 Sanctæ memoria Robertum Cognominatum Grodsted dudum Lincolniendem Episcopum, Regi Henrico quasi admirando, cum interrogavit, ubi Noraturam didicit, quà Filios Nobilium Procerum Regni, quos secum habuit Domisellos, instruxerat, cum non de nobili prosapia, sed de simplicibus traxisset Originem, fertur intrepide respondisse, In Domo seu Hospitio Majorum Regum quam sit Rex Angliæ; Quia Regum, David, Salomonis, & aliorum, vivendi morem didicerat ex Intelligentia scripturarum. 3 DOMICELLUS, Domnicellus, diminutivum a Domnus. Gloss. antiquæ MSS.: Heriles, Domini minores, quod possumus aliter dicere Domnicelli, Ugutio: Domicelli Met Domicellæ dicuntur, quando pulchri juvenes magnatum sunt sicut servientes. Sic porro primitus appellabant magnatum, atque adeo Regum filios. Du Cange.

chambers of greater kings than the King of England'; because he had learnt from understanding the scriptures the manner of life of David, Solomon, & other Kings 2."

Reyner, in his Apostol. Bened. from Saunders acquaints us, that the Sons of the Nobility were placed with Whiting Abbot of Glastenbury for their Education, who was contemporary with the Cardinal, and which Method of Education was continued for some Time afterward.

There is in the Custody of the present Earl of Stafford, a Nobleman of the greatest Humanity and Goodness, an Original of Instructions, by the Earl of Arundell, written in the Year 1620, for the Benefit of his younger Son, the Earl of Stafford's Grandfather, under this Title;

Instructions for you my Son William, how to behave

your self at Norwich.

In these Instructions is the following paragraph, "You shall in all Things reverence honour and obey my Lord Bishop of Norwich, as you would do any of your Parents, esteeminge whatsoever He shall tell or Command you, as if your Grandmother of Arundell, your Mother, or my self, should say it; and in all things esteem your self as my Lord's Page; a breeding which youths of my house far superior to you were accustomed unto, as my Grandfather of Norfolk, and his Brother my good Uncle of Northampton were both bred as Pages with Bishopps, &c."

Sir Thomas More, who was born in 1480, was brought up in the house of Cardinal Morton. Roper says that he was

"received into the house of the right reverend, wise, and learned prelate Cardinal Morton, where, though he was young of years, yet would he at Christmas-tide suddenly sometimes step in among the players, and never studying for the matter make a part of his own there presently among them, which made the lookers on more sport than all the players beside. In whose wit and towardness the Cardinal much delighting would say of him unto the nobles that divers times dined with him, This child here waiting at the table, whosoever shall live to see it, will prove a marvellous man. Whereupon for his better furtherance in learning he placed him at Oxford, &c." (Roper's Life of More, ed. Singer, 1822, p. 3.)

Cresacre More in his Life of More (ed. 1828, p. 17) states the same thing more fully, and gives the remark of the Cardinal more accurately, thus:-" that that boy there waiting on him, whoever should live to see it, would prove a marvellous rare man.' Through Wolsey's household, says Professor Brewer, almost all the

1 Mr Bruce sends me the More extracts.

X

YOUNG NOBLES IN WOLSEY'S HOUSEHOLD.

Officials of Henry the Eighth's time passed. Cavendish, in his Life of Wolsey (vol. i. p. 38, ed. Singer, 1825) says of the Cardinal, "And at meals, there was continually in his chamber a board kept for his Chamberlains, and Gentlemen Ushers, having with them a mess of the young Lords, and another for gentlemen." Among these young Lords, we learn at p. 57, was

"my Lord Percy, the son and heir of the Earl of Northumberland, [who] then attended upon the Lord Cardinal, and was also his servitor; and when it chanced the Lord Cardinal at any time to repair to the court, the Lord Percy would then resort for his pastime unto the queen's chamber, and there would fall in dalliance among the queen's maidens, being at the last more conversant with Mistress Anne Boleyn than with any other; so that there grew such a secret love between them that, at length they were insured together, intending to marry 1"

Among the persons daily attendant upon Wolsey in his house, down-lying and up-rising, Cavendish enumerates "of Lords nine or ten, who had each of them allowed two servants; and the Earl of Derby had allowed five men" (p. 36-7). On this Singer prints a note, which looks like a guess, signed Growe, "Those Lords that were placed in the great and privy chambers were Wards, and as such paid for their board and education." It will be seen below that he had a particular officer called "Instructor of his Wards" (Cavendish, p. 38, 1. 2). Why I suppose the note to be a guess is, because at p. 33 Cavendish has stated that Wolsey "had also a great number daily attending upon him, both of noblemen and worthy gentlemen, of great estimation and possessions, with no small number of the tallest yeomen that he could get in all his realm; in so much that well was that nobleman and gentleman that might prefer any tall and comely yeoman unto his service."

In the household of the Earl of Northumberland in 1511 were ".. yong gentlemen at their fryndes fynding,2 in my lords house for

1 How Wolsey broke off the insurance is very well told. Mistress Anne was "sent home again to her father for a season; whereat she smoked"; but she was revoked unto the Court," and "after she knew the king's pleasure and the great love that he bare her in the bottom of his stomach, then she began to look very hault and stout, having all manner of jewels or rich apparel that might be gotten with money" (p. 67).

2 Under the heading " Gentylmen of Houshold, viz. Kervers, Sewars, Cupberers, and Gentillmen Waiters" in the North. Household Books, p. 40, we find

1

the hoole yere and "Haunsmen ande Yong Gentlemen at thir Fryndes fynding v[j] (As to say, Hanshmen iij. And Yong Gentlemen iij " p. 254,) no doubt for the purpose of learning manners, &c. And that such youths would be found in the house of every noble of importance I believe, for as Walter Mapes (? ab. 1160-90 A.D.) says of the great nobles, in his poem De diversis ordinibus hominum, the example of manners goes out from their houses, Exemplar morum domibus procedit eorum. That these houses were in some instances only the finishing schools for our well-born young men after previous teaching at home and at College is possible (though the cases of Sir Thomas More and Ascham are exactly the other way), but the Lord Percy last named had a schoolmaster in his house, "The Maister of Graimer j", p. 254; "Lyverays for the Maister of Gramer in Housholde: Item Half a Loof of Houshold Breide, a Pottell of Beere, and two White Lyghts," p. 97. "Every Scolemaister techyng Grammer in the Hous C s." (p. 47, 51). Edward IV.'s henxmen were taught grammar; and if the Pastons are to be taken as a type of their class, our nobles and gentry at the end of the 15th century must have been able to read and write freely. Chaucer's Squire could write, and though the custom of sealing deeds and not signing them prevailed, more or less, till Henry VIII.'s time, it is doubtful whether this implied inability of the sealers to write. Mr Chappell says that in Henry VIII.'s time half our nobility were then writing ballads. Still, the bad spelling and grammar of most of the letters up to that period, and the general ignorance of our upper classes were, says Professor Brewer, the reason why the whole government of the country was in the hands of ecclesiastics. Even in Henry the Eighth's

Item, Gentillmen in Housholde ix, Viz. ij Carvers for my Loords Boorde, and a Servant bitwixt theym both, except thai be at their frendis fyndyng, and than ather of theym to have a Servant.-Two Sewars for my Lordis Boorde, and a Servant bitwixt theym, except they be at their Friendis fyndynge, and than ather of theym to have a Servant.—ij Cupberers for my Lorde and my Lady, and a Servant allowed bitwixt theym, except they be at their Frendis fyndynge, And than ather of theym to have a Servant allowid.

Under the next heading "My Lordis Hansmen at the fyndynge of my Lorde, and Yonge Gentyllmen at there Frendys fyndynge," is

Item, my Lordis Hansmen iij. Yonge Gentyllmen in Houshold at their Frendis fyndynge ij =

=V.

1 Grammar usually means Latin. T. Wright.

xii

KNOWLEDGE OF FRENCH, TEMP. HEN. VIII.

time, Sir Thomas Boleyn is said to have been the only noble at Court who could speak French with any degree of fluency, and so was learned enough to be sent on an embassy abroad. But this may be questioned. Yet Wolsey, speaking to his Lord Chamberlain and Comptroller when they

"showed him that it seemed to them there should be some noblemen and strangers [Henry VIII. and his courtiers masked] arrived at his bridge, as ambassadors from some foreign prince. With that, quoth the Cardinal, 'I shall desire you, because ye can speak French, to take the pains to go down into the hall to encounter and to receive them, according to their estates, and to conduct them into this chamber' (Cavendish, p. 51). Then spake my Lord Chamberlain unto them in French, declaring my Lord Cardinal's mind (p. 53).” The general opinion of our gentry as to the study of Letters, before and about 1500 A.D., is probably well represented by the opinion of one of them stated by. Pace, in his Prefatory Letter to Colet, prefixed to the former's De Fructu".

1 The exceptions must have been many and marked.

2 Richardi Pacei, invictissimi Regis Angliæ primarii Secretarii, eiusque apud Elvetios Oratoris, De Fructu qui ex Doctrinæ percipitur, Liber.

Colophon. Basileae apud Io. Frobenium, mense VIII.bri. an. M.D.XVII. Restat ut iam tibi explicem, quid me moueat ad libellum hoc titulo conscribendum et publicandum. Quum duobus annis plus minus iam præteritis, ex Romana urbe in patriam redijssem, inter-fui cuidam conuiuio multis incognitus. Vbi quum satis fuisset potatum, unus, nescio quis, ex conuiuis, non imprudens, ut ex uerbis uultuque conijcere licuit, cœpit mentionem facere de liberis suis bene instituendis. Et primum omnium, bonum præceptorem illis sibi quærendum, & scholam omnino frequentandam censuit. Aderat forte unus ex his, quos nos generosos uocamus, & qui semper cornu aliquod a tergo pendens gestant, acsi etiam inter prandendum uenarentur. Is audita literarum laude, percitus repentina ira, furibundus prorupit in hæc uerba. Quid nugaris, inquit, amice? abeant in malam rem istæ stultæ literæ, omnes docti sunt mendici, etiam Erasmus ille doctissimus (ut audio) pauper est, & in quadam sua epistola vocat τŋy KaTápatov πενιαν uxorem suam, id est, execrandam paupertatem, & uehementer conqueritur se son posse illam humeris suis usque in Baðvкýτeα móvтov, id est, profundum mare excutere. (Corpus dei iuro) uolo filius meus pendeat potius, quam literis studcat. Decet enim generosorum filios, apte inflare cornu, perite uenari, accipitrem pulchre gestare & educare. Studia uero literarum, rusticorum filiis sunt relinquenda. Hic ego cohibere me non potui, quin aliquid homini loquacissimo, in defensionem bonarum literarum, responderem. Non uideris, inquam, mihi bone uir recte sentire, nam si ueniret ad regem aliquis uir exterus, quales sunt principum oratores, & ei dandum esset responsum, filius tuus sic ut tu uis, institutus, inflaret duntaxat cornu, & rusticorum filij docti, ad respondendum uocarentur, ac filio tuo uenatori uel aucupi longe anteponerentur, & sua erudita