and he now determined to devote a portion of his wealth to the promotion of education in Rutland. ‘Finding none,’ says Fuller, ‘he left as many free schools in Rutland as there were market towns therein, one at Oakham, another at Uppingham, well faced with buildings and lined with endowments.’ The schools were founded in 1584, the statutes requiring that the master should in each case be an ‘honest and discreet man, master of arts, and diligent in his place, painful in the educating of children in good learning and religion, such as can make a Greek and Latin verse.’ In each town the ancient ‘hospital’ was at the same time restored and re-endowed; and in 1587, at Johnson's petition, a charter was granted by Elizabeth, appointing ‘governors of the goods, possessions, and revenues of the Free Grammar Schools of Robert Johnson, clerk.’ On 27 June 1591 Johnson was installed archdeacon of Leicester, and about the same time was elected an honorary fellow of Jesus College, Oxford. He was buried at Luffenham, 24 July 1625, in the chancel of his church, where a brass plate, now in the chancel wall, bears a lengthy inscription recording his virtues and his charities. He was a benefactor to Clare, St. John's, Emmanuel, and Sidney Sussex Colleges, at each of which he founded five divinity scholarships. His will and the statutes for his schools, given in 1625, are printed in the account of his life by Mr. C. R. Bingham.
Johnson was three times married. His first wife, who died within a year of their marriage, was Susannah Davers, sister of Jeremy Davers, a fellow of Clare Hall. His second wife was Mary Herd, only sister of Richard Herd, steward to Sir Francis Walsingham, and mother of Abraham Johnson, who wrote a life of his father. In 1599 he married his third wife, a widow named Margaret Wheeler, sister to Dr. Lilley. The son Abraham married as his second wife a daughter of Laurence Chaderton, the first master of Emmanuel College, and had by her a numerous family. The archdeacon lived to see three grandsons graduate at that college.
[Strype's Life of Archbishop Parker; Fuller's Worthies; Le Neve's Fasti, iii. 400, ii. 499; Wood's Fasti, ed. Bliss, p. 200; Wright's Hist. of Rutland; Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, vi. pt. i.; Add. MS. 31043, f. 16; Bingham's Our Founder: some Account of Archdeacon Johnson, &c., 1884, in which some use has been made of the manuscript Life by Abraham Johnson. According to Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. i. 323, Robert Johnson, the archdeacon of Leicester, was not Sir Nicholas Bacon's chaplain; the latter, it is assumed, was Robert Johnson, a puritan, who died in the Gatehouse in 1574. This supposition, however, directly contravenes Abraham Johnson's statement that his father was the lord keeper's chaplain, a statement which appears to have been unknown to Messrs. Cooper.]
JOHNSON, ROBERT (fl. 1626), lutenist and composer, was in 1574 a member of Sir Thomas Kytson's household at Hengrave Hall, Suffolk. In April 1575 he took part in an entertainment provided at Kenilworth by the Earl of Leicester for Queen Elizabeth. Subsequently he came to London, at what date is unknown, but not later than 1610. Dr. Wilson described him as a musician of Shakespeare's company, second only to John Dowland as a performer on the flute, and hence Dr. Rimbault, in his tract ‘Who was Jack Wilson?’ (Lond. 1846), surmises that ‘Wilson may have been Johnson's pupil.’ In 1611 Johnson was in the service of Prince Henry as musician, at an annual salary of 40l. He was afterwards musician to Charles I. His name occurs in a document dated 20 Dec. 1625, which exempts the king's musicians from the payment of certain subsidies, and again in a warrant of 11 July 1626, insuring him a pension of 60l. as ‘king's musician.’
While in London, Johnson composed several pieces for the theatres, including: 1. Music to Middleton's tragi-comedy, ‘The Witch,’ 1610. This is reprinted in Rimbault's ‘Ancient Vocal Music of England,’ as is also a ballad of Johnson's, ‘As I walked forth one summer day.’ 2. Music to Shakespeare's ‘Tempest,’ 1612. Johnson was thus the first to set both of Ariel's songs, ‘Full fadom five thy father lies,’ subsequently harmonised for three voices by Dr. John Wilson in his ‘Cheerful Ayres or Ballads’ (Oxford, 1660), and ‘Where the Bee sucks,’ also harmonised by Wilson, and printed in Hullah's ‘Singers' Library’ (No. 21, 1859) (see Malone, Shakespeare, xv. 61; A List of all the Songs and Passages in Shakespeare which have been set to Music, New Shakspere Soc.) 3. Songs for Beaumont and Fletcher's ‘Valentinian’ and the ‘Mad Lover,’ 1617. 4. Music for Ben Jonson's ‘Masque of the Gipsies,’ 1621. Some of the songs for this remain in manuscript in the Music School, Oxford.
He was one of the contributors to Leighton's ‘Teares or Lamentacions,’ 1614, and the author of a ‘Pavana’ and three ‘Almans,’ included in the manuscript collection known as ‘Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Book,’ and preserved in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge. Some catches by Johnson in manuscript are in the library of the Sacred Harmonic Society, and the manuscript of an instrumental piece by him is preserved in the Grand-ducal Library of Wolfenbüttel.
