CHAPTER XV.

WIGHTWICK'S FOUNDATION-ABINGDON SCHOOL.

WIGHTWICK'S benefaction was at the date of the Patent of Foundation still in intention. By an indenture dated June 1, 1625, he granted to his nephew Samuel Wightwick a lease for ninety-nine years of his manors and estates at Marlstone, Thatcham, Bucklebury, and Bowdones, all in Berkshire'; and subsequently, on August 1, 1628, granted a further lease of the same properties for a term of 400 years, to commence at the expiration of the former lease, subject to a yearly payment of £70. To another nephew, Walter Wightwick, he gave like leases, for the same terms, of his property called Quarrels, in the parish of Appleton, Berks, subject to a reserved rent of £30. On August 13, 1628, after decreeing that each of his fellows should receive from his rents £20 yearly, and each scholar £10, he ordained that the rent-holders should pay £500 for the building of chambers in the new College and for the stipend of the Master, ex fundatione sua, viz. £300 for the years 1625, 1626, 1627, at the Michaelmas next coming, another £100 in 1628, O. S. (one moiety on September 29, and the other on March 24), and in 1629 two further instalments of £50 each. The salary of the Master ex fundatione sua was to be £10 a year. Quae omnia, Deo volente, perficientur intra tempus praedictum, viz. intra vicesimum quintum diem Martii anno 1630; adeo ut omnes Socii et Scholares meae fundationis percipient stipendia et pensiones suas in vel a vicesimo quinto die Martii 1630, et postea in perpetuum.' Six weeks later, on Sept. 30, 1628, Wightwick enfeoffed all the lands, whose leases he had granted to his nephews, to Pembroke College, granting it the reserved rents of £70 and £30. These the College still receives. The actual properties, now greatly increased in value, will not come into its possession for another 230 years. The statutes provide for a pro rata reduction of stipends in case of diminution in the income of the foundation. In his will, made Jan. 11, 163, a few days before his death,

1 The Marlstone property (625 acres, is now in the hands of Messrs. Huntley and Palmer.

194 FOUR-YEAR-OLD FELLOWS AND SCHOLARS.

Wightwick asks the College to accept an annuity of £10 issuing out of the lands of Thomas Hinde, 'for the use and benefitt of the Master and his successors,' in lieu of £200 which he had promised for the purchasing of a like annuity.

Wightwick's benefaction, though now of inconsiderable value, seemed to those nearer his time to be a very large one. Fuller says:

What the yearly value of his living was I know not, and have cause to believe it not very great: however one would conjecture his Benefice a Bishoprick by his bounty to Pembroke Colledge.... When he departed this life is to me unknown.' More modern gifts by those of his name and kindred to the College have largely augmented its usefulness. Richard Wightwick's other possessions appear to have been small, since in his last testament he disposes of but £200 personalty and one piece of realty. He therein speaks of himself as 'co-Founder,' and he can scarcely be denied the title, considering that but for his bounty, which was no mere deathbed bequest, but an actual bestowal during his lifetime of £100 of income, Pembroke College would not have been founded.

Like most other founders he retained, or was given, the right of nominating the first persons who were to profit by it. 'Quos omnes,' the statutes provide, durante vita naturali, quales quando et quomodo sibi videbitur, licebit sibi ad arbitrium eligere et amovere ; nec eorum aliquis post mortem suam sub praetextu defectus aetatis gradus aut literarum amovebitur.' In the Patent of June 29, 1624, the first Tesdale and Wightwick fellows and scholars are named. On Dec. 6, 1632, there is an injunction of Bishop' Laud, as Visitor, allowing one fellow and three scholars, of Wightwick's kin and nominated by him, they being at the date of the injunction twelve years old and at school, to receive their full pensions, albeit nonresident, until their seventeenth year, if meanwhile they remain 'in ludo literario, ut instructiores ad bonarum artium studia ad Collegium accedant,' for the reason that 'fundator consanguineis suis ejus aetatis in Socios et Scholares nominatis in eo indulsisse videatur'; but it was not to be a precedent for the future. Wightwick died in January, 168. The fellow and scholars mentioned in the injunction must therefore have been but four years old, if they were of those first appointed in 1624, and in any case of tender age when nominated. The Bishop decrees a deduction of 3s. for each week of absence in the case of other fellows, and 1s. 6d. in the case of other scholars (four days' residence sufficing to the week); but Henry and George 1 It is signed Guil. Londin.,' but a later decree, W. Cant.'