the "great school." It stood probably alongside the Church of St. Mary-at-the-Walls, and may indeed have been joined to its west end. This early school was almost certainly in some manner under the control of the Bishops of London; and since the modern school from 1584 until recently was always under the control of the Bishops of London it is presumed that this indicates that the modern school is directly descended from the earlier.
CHAPTER 2
By Letters Patent dated July 6th in the 26th year of her reign (1584) Queen Elizabeth authorised the foundation of a "free Grammar-School" in Colchester, granting for that purpose to the Bailiffs and Commonalty (the sixteenth century equivalent of Mayor and Corporation) the endowments of two former chantries, with instructions to allot from this source such properties as would yield an annual income of 20 marks for the maintenance of the schoolmaster. As has been explained above (p. 3) this grant cancelled an earlier grant of 1539, which has been lost for that reason; but in a preamble these new Letters Patent recite a story which in part bridges the intervening gap of 45 years. We are told that on November 12th, 1539, Henry VIII had granted the same two chantries to the Bailiffs, Burgesses, and Commonalty "to erect and maintain within the said town a free School" to meet the needs of the municipality, and had ordered that Statutes and Ordinances for the government of the School should be framed by Thomas, Lord Audley of Walden, then Lord Chancellor, working with the Bailiffs, Burgesses, and Commonalty. But the money had not been so used, nor the Statutes been framed, as was discovered by an inquisition at Stratford Langthorne, when it was further disclosed (or alleged) that the grant itself was invalid on account of the inclusion of the word "Burgesses," the town having been incorporated in the names of Bailiffs and Commonalty alone.
This brief story may be somewhat enlarged. The two chantries were those of Joseph Elianore, founded in 1348 in St. Mary-at—the-Walls, and of John de Colchester, founded in 1321 in St. Helen's Chapel. Elianore, a Bailiff of the Town, amply endowed his chantry for two chaplains "to pray daily for his good estate as long as he lived and after his decease for his Soul, and for the souls of Philippa, John, Hubert, and Elias, and all his benefactors and for the souls of all faithful persons departed this life." John de Colchester, Rector of Tendring, made provision "for one priest to perform divine service daily in St. Helen's Chapel aforesaid for the health of his soul, and of the souls of his ancestors parents and heirs." The advowsons rested with the founders until their deaths and then devolved to the Bailiffs and Commonalty. This accounts perhaps for the fact that these two chantries were suppressed eight years before the general Dissolution of Chantries by Edward VI (1547).
