SCHOOLS belonged to the monastery of Crowland ; and the rectory of Edlington, of the value of ^^6, to the monastery of Bardney,* while the monastery of St. Mary of Leicester received £1^ from the rectory of Bulkington.' Under leases granted by Elizabeth earlier in her reign and recited in the letters patent of 1588-9 and 1591, the various properties sold to Robert Johnson had been let as follows : Leake for 31 years at ;/^i6 a year ; Barholm-cum-Stowe for terms of life at £6 4J. 2cl. a year ; Whaplode for terms of life at j^22 Js. a year, together with an annual dis- tribution of beans and peas to the poor of the parish in Lent ; Bulkington for 2 1 years at j^ 1 7 a year ; and the quarters of barley at Edlington for terms of life at £g 51. a year, and a fine of j^3 6s. 8ei. at each death. So that there seems to have been little change in their value between 1535 ^n'i I590' ■^^l these endowments must have passed to the Crown at the time of the suppression of the monasteries or under the Chantries Acts of Henry VIII and Edward VI. The advowsons of the churches of Leake and Barholm also formed part of the endowment of Johnson's schools and hospitals, and were held by masters or ushers during office or on retire- ment until the middle of the 19th century. The founder, Robert Johnson, was a pluralist cleric, and in establishing schools and hospitals for the poor, endowed with the cheaply pur- chased spoils of the monasteries, was merely acting in accordance with the traditions of his class. Some part of his fortune may have been inherited, seeing that ' he was borne of worship- full parentes,' ^^ his father, Maurice Johnson, a merchant of the staple and a dyer, having thrice held the highest civic office at Stamford, viz. that of alderman," as well as having represented the borough in Parliament in 1 529-36 ^" with David Cecil, grandfather of Lord Burghley, while his mother's family claimed descent from the de Lacys, Earls of Lincoln. Nichols " states that by the custom of borough-English, which obtained at Stamford, Robert, the younger son, succeeded to his father's property there, while his elder brother " inherited his mother's ' ya/or Ecd. (Rec. Com.), iv, 85. The manor of Whaplode is included among the possessions of Crow- land Abbey in Domesday Book (fol. 346/5). ' Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), iv, 81. The rectory of Edlington was given to Bardney Abbey some time during the 12th century [F.C.H. Lines, ii, 102). ' Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), iv, 146. The rectory of Bulkington was given to St. Mary's Abbey by Roger de Watervill at or near the time of its foundation (i 143). '" Johnson's epitaph ; see Infra, p. 264. " Under Edward the Fourth's charter of incorpora- tion. " Parliaments of Engl, i, 309. " Lit. J nee. vi, 163. " Geoffrey, fellow of St. John's College, Cam- bridge, in 1562, minister of Leicester and confrater of Wigston's Hospital from 1569, in the chapel of which he was buried. estates at Clun in Shropshire. According to report also Robert Johnson was not unfortunate, from the pecuniary point of view, in his marriages." Born in 1540, his father died while he was quite a boy, and he was brought up under the care of an uncle at Stanground, who sent him to the neighbouring grammar school at Peterborough. Here he must have been a pupil ot Thomas Hare, the second master of the school after its refoundation.^' Thence he proceeded, like most boys from the East Midlands, to Cambridge, matriculating on 18 March 1557-8 as a sizar at Clare Hall,!^ but soon migrating to Trinity. On i October 1563 he was admitted a junior fellow [soehu minor) of the college, and on 3 May 1564 a full fellow [socius major), subsequently acting as steward {senescallus). He ' commenced ' M.A. in 1564, and on 20 February 1564-5 was incor- porated at Oxford. In 1571 he proceeded to the degree of ' Bachelerof Divinitie.' According to his son's account, ' by leave of this [Trinity] CoUedge, and by licence under Queen Elizabeths owne hand, for three )eares absence [probably 1564-8] abrode for studie and licence to cary 20 marks over with him in monie, [he] travelled into Fraunce, and studied at Paris and other places in that famous kingdome.' Some time before 1571 he became chaplain-examiner to the lord keeper. Sir Nicholas Bacon,^" acting as his secretary for church patronage : ' where hee to his uttermost promoted religion and learning, and learned and godly men, giving some in the universities, that he knew to be learned, pious, grave men, notice when a good or competent living was falne void, that they might come and gett it as freely as might be.' ^' This influential connexion was doubtless the secret of his own ecclesiastical appointments, which included a " He married three times : first, Susanna, only sister and heiress of Jeremy Davers, fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge; secondly, Mary Head, of the Heads of Hillingdon and Wootton — her son Abraham was baptized 7 July 1577; thirdly, a widow, Margaret Wheler, sister of Dr. Lilly (Nichols, Lit. Anee. vi, 167). " V.C.H. Northants, ii, 207. " The statement of his son, that he was 'fellow first of Clare Hall, and after of Trinity College,' is untrustworthy. '* MS. account of Abraham Johnson's family, pre- pared by him in 1637, with the object of obtaining for himself ' as fair and noble a coat of arms as possible.' The document is in the possession of Mr. A. C. Johnson, the hereditary trustee of the ' founda- tion.' " His future patron had also studied at Paris.
- ' The identification of the chaplain of the lord
keeper with the founder is a matter of dispute. For a discussion of the point see C. R. Bingham, Our Founder, being some account of Archdeacon 'Johnson, App. B. ■' Abraham Johnson's MS. account. 263
