abandoned the project. But the virtues of Henry the Sixth are his best canonisation; nor need he have a fairer shrine than the College which his own piety founded, and which his own bounty endowed.

Having thus sketched the history of the foundation of Eton, and of our Founder, I proceed to the separate consideration of the eminent Etonians of the fifteenth century, and foremost of these stands, our first actual Provost :

WILLIAM OF WAYNFLETE.

THE father of this distinguished statesman, divine, and scholar seems to have sometimes borne the surname of Patten, sometimes that of Barbour. Indeed surnames among the mass of the population were at that period used with little fixity or regularity. William the son was known, at least after the period of his taking holy orders, by the designation of William of Waynflete. The old chronicler, Holinshed, says-"It was a fashion in those days from a learned spirituall man to take awaie the father's surname (were it never so worshipful or ancient) and give him for it the name of the town he was born in." He cites several instances of this, and states "that it in like manner happened to William Waynflete, is a matter right proveable."

Waynflete was educated at Winchester and Oxford, and he seems to have entered into holy orders in the year 1420. His age at this time may be guessed at, but the precise year of his birth is uncertain. In 1429, he was appointed Head-Master of Winchester, and for many years Waynflete discharged his duties there ably, diligently and successfully, when King Henry the Sixth became acquainted with him and resolved to make him the chief of his Eton College. Waynflete thus became an intimate favourite with King Henry; and to his honour be it recorded, that he was true to his royal patron in his adversity as well as in the time of his prosperous fortunes. Waynflete's appointment, first to the HeadMastership and then to the Provostship of Eton, has already been mentioned. His biographer, Chandler, says his family arms had been a field fusily ermine and sable: and that when he was made Provost he inserted on a chief of the second three lilies slipped,

3 Holinshed, 232; Chandler's Life of Waynflete, p. 11.

argent; being part of the arms of the College: which addition he made because from Eton he derived honour and dignity.

In 1447, the wealthy and important see of Winchester became vacant by the death of Cardinal Beaufort: and King Henry, of whom it is truly written that he was "circumspect in ecclesiastical matters, and particularly cautious not to bestow preferment on persons undeserving, or in a manner unworthy of his own dignity," immediately appointed Waynflete to that high episcopal dignity. He was consecrated at Eton on the 13th of July in that year; on which occasion the Winchester College presented him with a horse which cost 67. 13s. 4d.; and gave money (13s. 4d.) to the boys at Eton. And it was at Eton that the new bishop held his first general ordination on Sunday, the 23rd of December following, by special licence from the Bishop of Lincoln.

The

In the next year Waynflete received a peculiarly honourable testimony of the confidence reposed in him by King Henry. King, possibly perceiving the troubles that were about to overwhelm the nation, was solicitous to insure the completion of his two Colleges and made a testamentary provision for it, whereby he declared that "in consideration of the great discretion, the high truth, and the fervent zeal for his welfare," which he had proved in the Bishop of Winchester, he constituted him by his will, dated at Eton on the 12th of March, 1447, his surveyor, executor, and director; and also sole arbiter of any variance which might happen with his feoffees.

Waynflete, in the year after his promotion, founded Magdalen College, Oxford; and exerted himself zealously in the general advancement of learning in that University. He was now also prominently engaged by King Henry in the administration of State affairs; the condition of which was rapidly becoming more and more alarming. The continued ill-success of our arms in France had made the nation discontented with its rulers; and the public disaffection and disorder was fearfully augmented by the factions which raged among the leading nobility. Waynflete took an active and wise part in the suppression of Cade's insurrection. When summoned to attend a council in the tower, where Archbishop Stafford, Lord High Chancellor, had taken refuge, Waynflete forthwith repaired thither to give it as his opinion that by offering hopes of pardon to the mass of the insurgents they 5 Chandler, p. 42.

4 Chandler, p. 40.

might probably win them over without bloodshed. Accordingly, Waynflete formed one of a deputation, which, on the next day, crossed the river and undertook the perilous task of parleying with the rebels. By wisely offering pardon to all but the ringleaders, and by causing a grant of pardon under the Great Seal to be passed and published, Waynflete drew back many to their loyalty; the rest of the rebels began to doubt and distrust each other, and the dispersion of the formidable host of mutineers commenced that very night.

In a similar spirit of wisdom and moderation, Waynflete seems to have earnestly, though ineffectually, exerted his influence both spiritual and temporal to avert the threatening outbreak of civil war, between the partisans of the claims of the House of York, and the adherents of the reigning dynasty. He was with King Henry when the Yorkist and the Lancastrians were first arrayed in arms against each other on Blackheath, in 1452. Waynflete was then employed by his sovereign on the welcome task of going to the camp of the enemies, to inquire into the causes of their rising in arms, and to propose terms of reconciliation. He succeeded in bringing about a temporary compromise between the parties; and at least delayed the shedding of English blood in civil war. In 1456, Waynflete was appointed Lord Chancellor of England: an office then usually appropriated to ecclesiastics. Waynflete held the Great Seal of England for three years and nine months; a period of civil warfare, during which he firmly adhered to the House of Lancaster, and presided in some of the most important Parliaments that were convened in Henry's name during that struggle. He continued high in Henry's favour, and loyal to Henry's cause to the very last. And after the overthrow of the Lancastrians, though at first menaced with the displeasure of Edward the Fourth, he continued unmolested and respected by the victorious Yorkists. He lived to see the triumph of Henry the Seventh, and to rejoice at the dissensions, which had so long afflicted England, being terminated by that Prince's marriage with Elizabeth of York. Waynflete died in 1486, having been Bishop of Winchester for thirty-nine years. During the latter part of his long life the duties of his See, and the affairs of his own foundation, Magdalen College, Oxford, principally occupied his attention. But he was not unmindful of Eton. Leland, the old antiquary, writes that he had been informed on good authority

that "a good part of the building of Eton College accrued by means, and at the expense of Waynflete; for he was a very great favourer of the work begun by King Henry, but left very imperfect and rawly." And, as Chandler observes, we have documentary evidence to corroborate this. Waynflete appears in the accounts, as an annual pecuniary benefactor to Eton, as early as 1441, and for many years after that date. He agreed with one Orgard, or Orchyrd, for the digging of a quantity of stone at Hemington, to be delivered within a limited time for the use of Eton, and of his own College. He also contracted for lead for Eton, in 1482. In the same year (25th July), Dr. Berne, his Vice-president, paid by his order from the revenue of Magdalen for the carriage of stone for the chapel at Eton. It is probable that the stone work of both Colleges was then nearly finished, as the quarry at Hemington was let to a stone-mason, at the end of 1482.°

One of the earliest scholars who received part of their education at Eton was THOMAS ROTHERHAM, who obtained in after life the high dignities of Archbishop, Cardinal, and Lord High Chancellor of England.

He took the surname of Rotherham from the town of that name in Yorkshire, where he was born. The name of his family was Scott. Fuller remarks, of Rotherham's adopting the name of his birth-place, "This I observe the rather, because he was (according to my exactest inquiry,) the last clergyman of note with such an assumed surname : which custom began now to grow out of fashion: and clergymen began, like other men, to be called by the name of their fathers." Rotherham was admitted a scholar of King's College, Cambridge, from Eton, in the month of July, 1444. Lord Campbell, in his "Lives of the Chancellors," says of him :--" He studied at King's College, Cambridge, and was one of the earliest Fellows on this Royal foundation, which has since produced so many distinguished men; three Chancellors - Rotherham, Goodrich, and Camden, and many most eminent lawyers as Chief Justice Sir James Mansfield, Chief Justice Sir Vicary Gibbs, Mr. Justice Patteson, Mr. Justice Dampier, and his son the present Judge of the Stannary Court."

Fuller, after mentioning Rotherham's being a Fellow of King's, tells us, "that he was afterwards Master of Pembroke Hall, in

6 Chandler, p. 154.

7 Lord Campbell is inaccurate as to him.

Cambridge, and Chancellor of that University: here he built of his own proper cost (saving something helped by the scholars) the fair gate of the school [the little school under the University Library] with fair walks on each side, and a library on the east thereof. Many have mistaken this for the performance of King Richard the Third, merely because his crest, the boar, is set up therein. Whereas the truth is that Rotherham, having felt the sharp tusks of that boar (when imprisoned by the aforesaid king, for resigning the great seal of England to Elizabeth, relict of Edward the Fourth), advanced his arms thereon, merely to ingratiate himself."

He was while young, on account of his reputation for learning and piety, chosen by the Earl of Oxford to be his Chaplain. Rotherham's connection with that nobleman brought him under the notice of Edward the Fourth, who took him into his own service, and finding him to be an able and steady partisan of the House of York, treated him with marked favour. Through the patronage which Rotherham thus acquired, he went, as old Fuller expresses it, through many Church preferments, being successively Provost of Beverley, Bishop of Rochester, Lincoln, and Archbishop of York. On his appointment to the last mentioned high office, the Pope made him a Cardinal, with the title of Cardinal of Saint Cecilia. It is, however, by his inferior but more English ecclesiastical title of Archbishop Rotherham, that historians generally speak of him.

During the time that Rotherham was Bishop of Lincoln, King Edward committed the Great Seal of England to his custody. Lord Campbell, who terms Rotherham "the distinguished successor" of Chancellor Booth, thus describes the first part of his career as a statesman and a judge :

-

"Soon after his elevation to the office of Chancellor he was called to open a session of Parliament after a prorogation, and by holding out the prospect of a French war he contrived to obtain supplies of unexampled amount. In the beginning of the following year he passed a great number of bills of attainder and restitution, with a view to the permanent depression of the Lancastrians. On the 14th of March, by the King's command, he returned thanks to the three estates, and dissolved the Parliament, which had lasted near two years and a half. Since the beginning of Parliaments

81 Parl. Hist. 433.