nion. Their school-exercises were made in some degree to take the religious character of the season. Thus on All Souls' Day their verses were to be on the hope of immortality, and the blessedness of souls who depart in the faith of Christ; on the feast of St. John Baptist they made songs and pictures on the life of the great precursor, with which they adorned their college dormitory, hanging them about with green boughs and bunches of wild thyme. With all their prayers, however, they found time for study, and hard study too; not only was Latin versification encouraged among them, but they were encouraged to talk in Latin: the "Præpositors" kept strict order in schoolhours, and Friday was very appropriately set apart as the flogging day.

But do not let our readers suppose that the life of an Eton boy in Catholic times was made up of nothing but prayer, study, and flogging. Plenty of all these there was, no doubt, but there was also plenty of play. And what joyous hearty play! What May-Day gambols in springtime, and what glorious expeditions into Windsor Forest during the nutting season! All these are gravely authorised in the "Customary." "On the feasts of SS. Philip and James," we read, "if it seem good to the masters, and if the weather be fair, those who will may rise at four, and go out to gather branches of May, provided that they wet not their feet; and they may then adorn the windows of their dormitory with green leaves, and make the house. odoriferous with fragrant herbs." Their verses that day were to be in praise of "the sweet vernal time" of May. And "on a certain day in September" (probably Holy-Cross Day) "a play day shall be freely granted to the scholars, that they may go out and gather nuts; of which, when they have brought them home, they shall offer a portion to their masters. Before they have permission, however, to gather the nuts, they shall write verses describing the abundant fertility of the fruits of autumn, and the coming of winter with its bitter cold." Moreover, on St. Peter's Day and on Midsummer Eve they were to have their bonfires; and on the feast of St. Nicholas they elected their boy-bishop with extraordinary solemnity.

L

*

The rule that the boys should share their nuts with their masters is an accidental illustration of the close and affectionate tie which in Catholic times united the teacher and his scholars. We say in Catholic times, because undoubtedly the manner in which the office of teaching was then regarded took its colour from the faith. It was looked on as a vocation, not a profession; a trust from God, not a mere means of gaining a livelihood. "O pious Jesu," exclaims a great teacher, "who would be ashamed for Thy sake to be humble to little boys? Who should be puffed up with the conceit of his own learning, and disdainful of their ignorance, when Thou, God blessed for ever, in whom are all the treasures of the wisdom and the knowledge of God, didst receive little children into Thine arms? Come then with confidence," he continues; "we will mutually communicate to each other spiritual good things: for I do not require temporal things from you; I will impart to you learning, and you shall give me your prayers; or rather, we will all pray one for another, that we may be saved and so we shall rejoice the angels, and find mercy with the Father, whilst we listen to His voice."

Such was the true spirit of Catholic schoolmasters: it had been the spirit of that long line of saintly men who in England had shed such glory on the teacher's office; and it was also the spirit of William of Waynflete. He seemed to have inherited the gifts of one whose mitre he was ere long destined to wear, namely the great St. Ethelwold, whom he not a little resembled in more respects than one. Of him we read that "it was his delight to teach boys and youths, to explain to them Latin books in the English tongue, to instruct them in the rules of grammar and prosody, and to allure them by cheerful language to study and improvement." These words might have been spoken of Waynflete; he too loved prosody and grammar with all his heart, and he knew how to make them loved

* Gerson.

+ St. Ethelwold, besides his love of children and "grammar learning." was a noted church architect, and rebuilt not only his own cathedral of Winchester, but also the churches of Ely, Peterborough, and Thorney.

by others. The company of children was always delightful to him; and they, in their turn, were irresistibly attracted to him by his sweet and gentle manners. The humility, which was his favourite virtue, taught him to make himself little to little ones, well knowing that, to use the words of Gerson, "they are no mean portion of the Church of God;" and so far from considering the labour of teaching as an irksome burden, he was wont to look back on the years he spent at Eton as the happiest of his life. Very willingly would he have been content to have sought no higher preferment than the provostship of the Royal College; but in 1447 a very different career opened before him, and he found himself called upon to exchange his life of studious retirement for the cares and dignity of a mitre.

CHAPTER III.

The king's marriage. Margaret of Anjou enters London. Death of Gloucester, and of Beaufort. Waynflete appointed to the see of Winchester. His humility. His enthronisation. State of education in England during the reign of Henry VI. Waynflete's projected college. Political troubles.

THE gentlest and holiest king who had reigned since the Confessor had fallen upon evil times; and his long minority had served to foster a turbulent spirit among his haughty nobles, which it needed the hand of a master to restrain, Not such was Henry of Windsor; and Beaufort, who knew him well, and judged that he needed the support of a stronger and more masculine character than his own, proposed to him an alliance with a princess whose commanding talents would, as he trusted, supply for his nephew's lack of firmness. This was Margaret, daughter of King Réné of Anjou, à princess whose only dowry was her beauty and her powerful mind. The want of a richer inheritance made the marriage scheme an unpopular one in England; yet when, in the May of 1445, the young queen, then only in her sixteenth year, entered London after the solemnisation of her espousals with Henry at Tichfield Abbey, her exquisite beauty and gracious manners won over the sturdiest grumblers; and nobles and citizens alike

flung away their discontent, stuck their caps full of daisies, and fairly lost their hearts to their beautiful sovereign.

Yet there were some who continued to view the young queen with no friendly eye; and among them was Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, the king's uncle, and the heirpresumptive to the throne. His plans of treason, whatever they may have been, were cut short by his arrest and subsequent death; which those who draw their notices from the pages of Shakespeare will conclude to have been a violent one, but which his own personal friend, Whethamstede, Abbot of St. Albans, a most impartial witness, declares to have been simply the result of sudden illness. Even Shakespeare represents Henry as wholly innocent of his uncle's death, and as bitterly regretting it; although he ever held him to have been guilty of treasonable designs against himself. The charge of murder is laid at the door of his great rival Cardinal Beaufort; though a careful examination of the facts will satisfy any inquirer of the falsehood of the tale. Beaufort had for some time previously withdrawn from the court, and retired to his own diocese. There was little to urge him to such a crime at a moment when his own life was fast ebbing, and when his consciousness of his approaching end was evinced by a careful and deliberate preparation for eternity. Never, probably, has poetic genius succeeded in giving more universal credit to an idle calumny than in the case of the death of Beaufort. We all know the picture drawn by Shakespeare: yet those who from childhood have been familiar with the ravings of his "black despair," as they are so marvellously described by the pen of the great poet, and represented on the canvas of Fuseli, will do well to look on another and a truer picture.

On the 29th of March 1447, the great hall of Wolvesey palace presented a striking spectacle: there were gathered all the clergy of Winchester, and all the monks of the cathedral; they sat in solemn order around a bier, on which lay the cardinal, his hands joined upon his breast, while he listened to the funeral dirge which was sung over him, as though for one already dead. Then followed the whole funeral ceremony, and the reading of his will, by

which all his wealth was bequeathed to the poor. Next day a solemn Mass of Requiem was celebrated; after which Beaufort took leave of his friends and was carried back to his chamber, which he never left again. He died on the 11th of April; and whatever the errors of his life may have been, he was deeply and sincerely lamented by his nephew. When the cardinal's executors offered the king a present of 2007. out of his estate, Henry refused to accept it. "He was ever a most kind uncle to me whilst he lived," he said; may God reward him! Fulfil his intentions, for I will not touch his money." It was accordingly given to the two royal colleges, and Henry's next thought was to provide his successor in the see of Winchester. There was nothing on which this king bestowed more solicitude than the filling up of ecclesiastical dignities; but in the present instance he did not hesitate in his choice. The provost of Eton had long been marked out for promotion; but Henry's appointments had before now been cancelled by his powerful minister Suffolk, who had even gone so far as to deprive Stambery, the king's confessor, of the bishopric of Norwich, to which he had been named by Henry. This circumstance was probably in his mind when he announced his intentions to Waynflete. "Master William," he said, addressing him by the familiar appellation which he was accustomed to use to his beloved "should you provost, obtain a benefice by our favour, do you look to be able to retain it?" Waynflete replied that he would do with diligence whatever the king might order. "Then our will and order is," returned Henry, "that you be Bishop of Winchester." No time had indeed been lost in notifying the royal will to the parties concerned in the election. On the very day of Beaufort's death the congé-d'élire was sent to Winchester, with a strong recommendation of "our right trusty and well-beloved clerk and councillor, Master William Waynflete, Provost of Eton." The election was made unanimously, and a deputation of the chapter was despatched to Eton to announce the news to the Bishop elect. Waynflete heard it with a heavy heart; he had found all that his heart desired in the cloisters of Winton and Eton; and as for worldly honours, they had but little