Page:The histories of Launceston and Dunheved, in the county of Cornwall.djvu/383

WEEK ST. MARY SCHOOL. 347 legacy of ^20, and she had probably enriched him and her other poor relations whilst dwelling among them at Week St. Mary. We suggest that John Bonaventure, mayor of Launceston in 15 12, was the legatee brother. Third, the chantry at Week St. Mary could not have existed earlier than the year 1500. Its foundress is supposed to have died in 1530. The certificates are answers to enquiries issued 1546-7 and 1548-9 respectively. The chantry was already in decay, and unable to support itself. Launceston had a larger population, was the county town, and a place of great resort, but its revenues were heavily charged. It had priests, bridges, a gaol, poor prisoners, and almshouses to maintain. On public grounds therefore, as well as for the convenience and comfort of the two scholastic foundations themselves, and of the persons attached to them, the Commissioners advised that the Week St. Mary establishment should be sent to, and united with, or absorbed in, that of Launceston, and the advice was followed by the young king's Protector. The stipends of the schoolmaster, usher, manciple, and laundress who were actually holding office at the time of their transfer to Launceston were, we hope, honestly paid out of the income from W T eek St. Mary during the life of each holder ; but we regret that we are unable to trace the chantry revenues, or their application, from the moment of the disruption of the establishment at Week St. Mary. It is probable that under the statute 1 Edward VI. for the suppression of chantries those revenues sooner or later glided into royal hands. English people sometimes express a grateful surprise at the large number of grammar schools, and free schools, which were founded in the reigns of Edward VI. and his sister, Queen Elizabeth. We do not wish to detract from the actual merit of these sovereigns, but it is just that we should remember what vast revenues their late father, Henry VIII., had placed in their hands by suppressing the