A HISTORY OF RUTLAND canonry of Peterborough (i 570), vacated about 1575, a canonry of Norwicli (1570), vacated in 1576, a prebend at Rochester (1570), a canonry of Windsor (1572), the rectory of North Luften- ham (1574), ' where he . . . preached painfully and kept good hospitality . . some 50 yeres,' " and the archdeaconry of Leicester (159 1 ). About tiiis time he was elected to an honorary fellowship at Jesus College, Oxford.-' Curiously enough, though his father was a Roman Catholic,^ the son was in his early days a strong evangelical. Sum- moned to Lambeth in 1 57 1 and refusing to sign the Three Articles, he was suspended ; but he surrendered within a few weeks,"^ and this tem- porary lapse does not seem to have been remem- bered against him. The emoluments reaped in the course of his subsequent successful career provided him, no doubt, with ample means for immortalizing his name through charitable works in his native countryside. The extent to which the buildings and en- dowments of the schools and hospitals were due to Johnson is a matter of dispute. Wright,-^ in 1684, just a century after their inception, says that they were built and endowed by ' his charit- able collections, or, as Cambden calls it, e stirpe collaticia,-' and, more especially, out of certain concealed lands, which he begg'd of Queen Elizabeth for this purpose.' The first edition of Camden was published in 1586 and the enlarged edition in 1607, and the testimony of such a careful writer cannot be lightly disregarded. It is also to be observed that the founder's epitaph does not distinctly claim him to have been the sole founder.-* Fuller,-' writing in 1662, ampli- fies Camden's statement : Johnson, he says, 'effectually moved those of the vicinage to con- tribute to the building and endowing of the schools money or money worth ; stones, timber, carriage, Siz.; not slighting the smallest guift, especially if proportionable to the giver's estate. Hereby finding none, he left as many Free Schools in Rutland as there were market towns therein ; one at Oakeham, another at Upping- ham, well faced with buildings and lined with endowments.' He goes on to state that John- son, having been so far only ' a nurse to the charity of others,' ' afterwards proved a fruitful " Abraham Johnson's MS. account. " Wood, Fasti Oxon. i, 165. " M.iurice Johnson's will. " Strype, Lifi of Archbp. Parker, ii, 70, 71. The surrender was probably formal and he did not change his principles, as is shown by his appointment of pro- nounced Puritans like Robert Rushbrooke and Jeremy Whitaker, as masters of his schools. " Hist, of Rutland, 103, 132. " ' from contributory sources,' ue. by subscription ; Camden, Brit. ' Rutland.' " See infra. " Worthies, ii, 23, 24. So in 1573 and 1574 the Grammar School at Leicester had been built with material taken from the decayed church of St. Peter. parent in his own person, becoming a consider- able benefactor to Emmanuel and Sidney Colledges in Cambridge.' In spite then of Abraham Johnson's express claim that his father was ' sole founder and endower with foure hun- dred markes hereditaments for ever,' '" it is prob- able that interested friends and neighbours con- tributed money or material. Wright's own addition to Camden's statement, however, may be due to a confusion of what Robert Johnson did in preserving William Dalby's hospital ^' at Oak- ham from confiscation, with the separate estab- lishment of his own hospital. Tipper, the notorious 'fishing grantee,' '-sought to obtain for himself a grant of the property of the former hospital, the hospital of St. John the Evangelist and St. Anne, on the ground that it was confis- cate under the Chantries Acts, because of ' some superstitious additions of ohiti and lamps to the service of God there established,' but had been concealed. Johnson prevented this attempt at robbing the town by persuading the trustees to surrender the hospital to Queen Elizabeth's commissioners, appointed 13 September 1593 to inquire concerning colleges, hospitals, and alms- houses in Rutland, and by securing its refounda- tion four years later, 3 May 1597.'* The latter part of Fuller's statement is due to the same con- fusion, and is also incomplete, in mentioning two only, instead of four," colleges at Cambridge at which Johnson established scholarships. There can be no doubt that if Johnson was not actually sole founder, he was certainly chief founder of the schools and hospitals at Oakham and Uppingham. The epitaph on Johnson in North Luffenham Church deserves to be reproduced at length, as well for its literary as for its historic interest. Robert Jhonson Bacheler of Divinitie a painfuD preacher Parson of Northluffenham Had a Godlie care of Religion and a Charitable minde to the poore. He erected a faire free Gramar schoole in Okeham. He erected a faire free Gramar schoole in Uppingham. He appointed to each of his schooles a schoolemaster and an ussher. He erected the hospitalle of Christe in Okeham. He erected the hospitalle of Christe in Uppingham. He procured for them a corporation and a mortmaine of fower hundred markes whereby well disposed people maie give unto them as god shall move their hartes. He bought landes of Quene Elizabeth towardes the maintenance of them. He provided place in eache of the hospitalles for rxiiii poore people. '° Abraham Johnson's MS. Account. " See ante, 'Religious Houses.' " Abraham Johnson's Account. " Referred to in Pat. 39 Eliz. pt. xi, m. 20. " Ibid.
- ^ The colleges omitted are St. John's and Clare ;
see infra, p. 267. 264
