PROVOSTS OF ROTHERHAM COLLEGE.

BY JOHN GUEST, F.S. A.

THE College of Jesus at Rotherham, some account of the Provosts of which is here given, was built by Thomas de Rotherham, Archbishop of York. In his remarkable Will he says, "Because I was born in the town of Rotherham, and baptized in the parish church of the same town, and so at that same place was born into the world, and also born again by the holy bath flowing from the side of Jesus, whose name, O, if I loved as I ought and would! Lest I should seem notwithstanding an ungrateful forgetter of these things, I will that a perpetual College of the name of Jesus be raised in the foresaid town in the same place in which the foundation was laid at the feast of St. Gregory, in the twenty-second year of King Edward the fourth, and in which I was born. In which place also [was] a teacher of grammar, who came to Rotherham by I know not what fate, but I believe it was by the grace of God he came thither, who taught me and other youths, whereof others with me reached higher stations. Therefore desiring to return thanks to the Saviour, and to magnify that cause, lest I should seem unthankful, and forgetful of the benefits of God and of whence I came: I have determined with myself, firstly to establish there forever, an Instructor in Grammar, teaching all persons gratuitously. And because I have seen the chautry priests there boarding separately in laymen's places, to their scandal and the ruin of others, I have willed secondly, to make a common place for them."

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Thus moved, he wills that the first master should teach Grammar; "and because I have seen thirdly, that many parishioners belong to that church, and many rude and mountain men gather to it, that they may love the religion of Christ better, and more often visit, honour, and love His Church, I have established one other perpetual Fellow teaching singing gratuitously, &c, and I have established for ever, six choristers or boys, that divine service may be more honourably celebrated there." Fourthly, because many youths are found there of very quick intelligence, and do not wish to reach the dignity of priesthood, that such others may be better fitted for mechanical arts and other (occupations), I have willed and do will that there be a third Fellow, who shall teach gratuitously the art of writing and reckoning, and shall be called the Chaplain of St. Katherine, &c. But because the art of writing, music, and Grammar in like manner are subordinated to, and do serve the divine law and Gospel, I have established and do ordain and will, over these three, one divine who shall be at least a Bachelor in Divinity, and shall be bound to preach the Word of God, through all my province, according to the Statutes thereof made, who shall be called the Provost, &c."

Ample stipends are specified, and every requirement provided for; the Statutes of the College are a master piece of administrative foresight a sort of public table for strangers is ordered-and the distribution of certain alms enjoined. Such, in his own truly pious words, and most praiseworthy intentions were the great purposes for

which his college was erected, and most amply endowed, inasmuch, as if it had had the good fortune, like Winchester, to have escaped the irrespective rapacity of the spoiler in the reign of Edward VI., it would now, like that famous seat of learning, be to the great honour and advantage not only of the town, but of the county in which it is placed.

Perhaps few men attained more rapid or higher distinction in the perturbed period in which he lived; he was, says Cole, Chaplain to King Edward IV., Provost of Beverley, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, Bishop of Rochester and Lincoln, Chancellor of England and of the University of Cambridge, Archbishop of York, and Secretary to four kings. Having as far as was prudent, or perhaps possible for a prelate, after the death of his great patron Edward IV., resisted the usurpation of Richard III., he retired to his diocese and gave himself up to the more truly glorious career of promoting the advancement of religion; and by such means as his College at Rotherham, promoting in the soundest and most comprehensive manner the enlightenment and elevation of every rank and condition of the people with whom he had during his life been brought into pastoral connection.

In the Certificate of Colleges, at its suppression, it is described as "The Mansion House of the said College, with a garden and an orchard within the claustrum of the same of two acres, and one house near unto the said college wherein the three free schools be kept-the gate-house with two little turrets-the chapel on the east side of the said gate-house with a crested roof, a chamber on the west side of the said gate-house with like roof." It is a significant example of " to what base uses we may come." Leland, who visited Rotherham whilst it was still flourishing, says of it, that it was a very faire college, sumptuously builded of brike." "As red as Rotherham College," was a proverbial phrase; but in 1591, Cuthbert Shirebrook, a dignified ecclesiastic says, "You shall now hear of the fall of a college within three miles of where I was born and now do dwell, for I learned at the school in the said town at the free school, founded by the founder of the said college, which is a fair house yet standing, but God knows how long it shall stand, &c."

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"The foundation whereof was not to mark a malt-house, as it is now used"—for the last seventy or eighty years the only remaining side of the quadrangle has been the College Inn-and what was the garden entrance, in the ruins of which still remains part of a fine Italian door-way, is now about to give place to a bonding warehouse, for wines, &c.

"Perpetual," " for ever," are the words frequently used by the noble prelate and pious founder-it was "sumptously builded," magnificently endowed-the detail of gold and silver and jewelled chalices, and other services for the altar, and of gorgeous vestments for the priests, almost takes away the breath, and, as if from his knowledge of the turbulence of the times, his last bequest is, that his executors may have of his goods 200 pounds (a vast sum in those days) "to the end and use, and not otherwise, nor in any other manner, that my College of Jesus of Rotherham shall be defended with that money if

it be wronged." And yet in some seventy or eighty years, all this grand and gracious provision for the welfare of those he loved and sought to raise to a higher life, was swept away by the "superstitious rage 'gainst superstition" of a young king, and the rapacity of dissolute nobles, which the vast plunder of the monastery had been insufficient to satisfy.

In a long parchment roll of emblazoned pedigrees at Wortley Hall, where mention is made of Sir Thomas Wortley, of the great services performed by him under four kings, it is said, " And as for his worthy house-keeping it was such, that Bishop Rotherham, Archbishop of York, whyle he was building his College at Rotherham, did for the most part remain with him at Wortley."

In the "Testamenta Eboracensia," in reference to Archbishop Rotherham's Will, Canon Raine has the following-Note "I simply put on record here, a few illustrative notes on what is probably the most noble and striking will of a mediæval Bishop in existence." connection with this Mr. Raine further says, "I give a more accurate list of the earlier Provosts" of Rotherham College.

In

Mr. William Greybern, S.T.P., appointed the first Provost in 1482-3, Edmund Carter and William Alynson being at the same time made the first Fellows. In 1474 he was collated to the rectory of Sherrington, Bucks. This he exchanged on September 20, 1486, with John Proctor, for the rectory of Handsworth. On March 15, 1489-90, he was collated to a stall in St. Sepulchre's chapel, York. This be resigned in 1501. His will is dated July 21, 1501. To be buried within Jesus' choir within Rotherham church if I die there. To the poor at my buriall £5. To each altar in the church of Banbury 12d. To the repair of Banbury bridge 6s. 8d. To the poor in the new almshouse at Banbury 6s. 8d. To the bells at Rotherham church 6s. 8d. To keep up Rotherham bridge 3s. 4d. To Robert Masham the use of my portifer during his life. For an obit for me £20. The residue towards the exhibition of poor scholars at Grammar School and University. Executors, Robert Holden, of Rotherham. Robert Masham and William Moore. [Pr. Dec. 18, 1501. (Reg. Test. Dec. and capit. Ebor. ii. 29. b.)]

Mr. Richard Hoton, S.T.B., collated Feb. 4, 1501-2, on the death of Greybern. He resigned in 1508-9, receiving a retiring pension of £10 per annum.

Mr. Robert Cutler, S.T.B., collated March 4, 1508-9, on Hoton's retirement. On October 24, 1497, letters dismissory were granted to Robert Cutler, of Rotherham, scholar. He must not be confounded with Robert Cutler, vicar of All Saints', Pontefract, who died in 1503-4. Mr. Robert Neville, S.T.B., collated Jan. 9, 1517-18, on the death of Cutler, (Reg. Wolsey, 106 b.) He was, I believe, of South Leverton, co. Notts., and had letters dismissory granted to him Dec. 9, 1505, being then A.B. On Oct. 2, 1506, Mr. Robert Neville was instituted to the rectory of Grove, Notts., on the presentation of Humphrey Hercy, Esq. He died in 1550, being at that time rector of Ordsall, vicar of Almondbury, prebendary of Bilton, at York, to which he was collated Jan. 30, 1549-50, and prebendary of Gaia Minor, at

Lichfield, to which he was appointed in 1528. He was possibly the person who was appointed to the living of Staunton, dioc. Salisbury, in 1530, and to the 12th stall at Canterbury (Le Neve 1, 61). -Testamenta Eboracensia, vol. 4, 1868, Raine.

Thus far we are indebted to Mr. Canon Raine.

Richard Jackson.

Robert Newrie, 1534.

Robert Pursglove. The following inscription on a brass plate on his tomb in the chancel of Tideswell Church, of which it is at once an honour and an ornament, contains a somewhat full detail of a remarkable person, and the many changes which distinguished his life. It is engraved in black letter and Roman capital letters, and is here given from a copy taken by Mr. Jewitt.

Under this stone as here doth Ly A corps sometime of fame

in tiddeswall bred and born truely, ROBERT PURSGLOVE by

name

and there brought up by parents care at Schoole & learn= ing trad

till afterwards by UNCLE dear to London he was had

Who WILLIAM BRADSHAW hight by name in pauls wch did him place

and yr at Schoole did him maintain full thrice 3 whole years space

and then into the Abberye was placed as E wish

in Southwarke call'd where it doth Ly Saint MARY OVERIS to OXFORD then who did him Send into that Colledge right And there 14 years dið him find, wh Corpus Christi hight From thence at length away he went, A Clerke of learning great

to GISBURN ABBEY Streight was sent and placd in PRIORS seat BISHOP of HULL he was also ARCHDEACON of NOTTINGHAM PROVOST OF ROTHERAM COLLEDGE too, of YORK eak SuF

FRAGAN

two GRAMER Schooles he did ordain with Land for to Endure

one HOSPITAL for to maintain twelve impotent and poor () GISBURNE thou with TIDDESWALL Town Lement & mourn

you may

for this said CLERK of great renovn Lyeth here compast in clay

though cruell DEATH hath now dow' brought this BODY we here doth ly

yet trump of FAME Stay can he nought to Sound his praise on high

Qui legis hunc versum crebo reliquum memoreris
bile cadaver Sum tuque cadaver e, is.

The slab in which this figure and inscription are inserted, is surrounded by a border-line of brass, bearing an inscription, and at the corners are the four emblems of the Evangelists. The inscription, which is in old English lettering, is as follows:

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+ Christ is to me as life on earth, and death to me is gaine
Because I trust through him alone salbation to obtaine
So brittle is the state of man, so soon it doth decay,

So all the glory of this world must pass and fade away.

This Robert Pursglobe sometyme Bishoppe of Hull deceassed the 2 day of Maii in the pere of our Lord God 1579."

After the various ecclesiastical appointments Pursglove had held it does not seem that the changes of the Reformation met with much acceptance from him, and although under Mary he appears to have conformed, yet when in 1559, the 2nd of Elizabeth, "all spiritual persons holding preferment were required to take the oath of supremacy," he, with all the bishops except Llandaff, gave up their preferments. We can hardly be surprised at this, seeing that strangely enough at three several decennial periods of his life he had been ousted from some important ecclesiastical or scholastic preferment. In 1540, when the rich priory of Gisburn, of which he was prior, was suppressed, and of which it is said in a MS. quoted by Grose, "the pryor lived in the most sumptuous style, being served at table by gentlemen only." About 1550, when as provost of Rotherham college he had to witness the dissolution of that nobly designed and comparatively newly erected college of Jesus; and now again 1560, as archdeacon of Nottingham, and suffragan bishop of Hull, he is deprived of these and other spiritualities, but not empty-handed. He retires from the busy

and eventful arena of public life, which has been to him full of interest, and rich in ecclesiastical distinction, to the village of Tideswell, where he was born, and it would not be easy to find, after such a life, a more utter seclusion from its vanities and vexations than his native place.

The scholastic duties of Rotherham college, and the simpler style of service there, intervened, or it would seem a transition strange enough To point a moral, or adorn a tale,

from the princely state observed at the priory of Gisburn, to the primitive habits, and half-pagan state of the "rude mountain men,” amongst whom he was for so many future years to exercise the virtue of resignation. Let us trust that his tombstone truly records that whatever of worldly holding or homage he had lost, in this High Peak solitude he had found that higher and holier satisfaction which the Queen's supremacy could neither give or take away.

Christ is to me, as life on earth, and death to me is gaine,
Because I trust through him alone salvation to obtain.

With the wealth he had derived from the church in his days of spiritual power, he founded a grammar school and a hospital for twelve poor men at Tideswell, and a grammar school at Gisburn; and