OCRed data provided
for searching only. EDUCATING THE "PRINCE"; PRINCE EDWARD lox
serving as tutors to Elizabeth and Edward, with Cheke as chief-incommand of the group. One suspects that behind Cheke himself was his brother-in-law, that William Cecil, also of this St. John's group of friends, who was to become the great Lord Burghley.
We may thus best begin with Cheke's own endeavors upon Edward. It was then conventional for a boy to begin his grammar school learning at seven. So when King Henry was preparing in July, 1544, for one of his favorite amusements, a campaign in France, he thought it time before going to provide this stage of training for Edward, who would be seven in October.' The record runs:
Item, His Majeste woll that my Lord Prince shall, on Wednesdaye next, remove to Hamptoncourte; and that the Lord Chaurtcelour, and thErle of Hertford, shall repayre thither on Thoresdaye, and there discharge all the ladyes and gentlewomen out of the house; and also admit and swere Sir Richard Page Chamberlayn to my Lord Prince, Mr. Sydney to be avaunced to the office of Sward, Jasper Horsey to be chief Gentleman of his Privey Chambre, and Mr. Cox to be his Aulmoner, and he that is now Aulmoner to be Deane, and Mr. Cheke as a suppliment to Mr. Cox, both for the bettere instruccion of the Prince, and the diligent teaching of suche children as be appointed to attende uppon him .4
Edward himself phrases the matter thus:
Afterward was brought up, til he came to six yeres old, amoung the wemen s At the sixt yere of his age, he was brought up in learning by Mr. Doctour Cox, who was after his amner, and Jhon Chieke, Mr of Art, tow wel learnid men, who sought to bring him up in learning of [I] toungues, [2] of the scriptures, [31 of philosophie, and [4] all liberal sciences.e
The implication in both these statements seems to be that Cox had
been Edward's teacher before he became almoner in July 1544, and that now classical education was to begin, with Cheke helping to teach both Edward and the select group of his companions.
Edward would before beginning his classical education in July 1 544 have been taught to read and to write English. But of this stage
i Henry Fitzroy had been started upon his grammar school work at about the same age (Carver, ifcalastus, p. xxxiv).
State Papers . . . King Henry the Eighth, Parts I and II (1830), p. 764.
5 Cf. Elyot, "After that a childe is come to seuen yeres of age/ I holds it expedient that he be taken fro the company of women" (Elyot, Goutrnour (1531), fol. tor; Croft, Vol. I, p. 35). Edward knew the technical phrase.
¹ Nichols, j. G., Literary Remains of King Edward the Sixth, Vol. II, pp. log-21o. One should notice the objectives stated in the last sentence. Edward's remark that Cox was "after his amner" has led Nichols to refer to Cox's letters patent as King's Almoner on March i6, i site. But since Edward had become king, Cox would require a new patent at this date if he was to retain that office in the new household.
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