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have given the equivalent of upper grammar school in the next four from eleven to about fourteen.
In this latter period, we have another set of verses upon Elizabeth's attainments. Bishop Parkhurst has an epigram addressed to Princess Elizabeth under date of 1547, in which he speaks of having seen her "yesterday." Parkhurst says Elizabeth surpasses the praises of all by many parasangs, and pays his respects to her learning thus:
Linguam tacco quod Gallicam Probe sones & Italam.
Taceo quad & Graecanica
Sit lingua ad vnguem cognita.s
If the epigram upon Elizabeth was not revised before publication, then we have the word of one who became a bishop that Princess Elizabeth already had her Greek "ad unguem" not later than 154'7, while Grindal was still teaching her, and before Ascham began his marvelous work. Since Elizabeth was at the time around fourteen, she ought to have had at least the elements of Greek some years before.
When Grindal died in January, 1548, Ascham, his friend and teacher during almost seven years at St. John's,4 began maneuvering for the place and got it. Ascham's endeavors should thus have begun at approximately university level. As a matter of fact, we shall see that Elizabeth's studies were on final grammar school work. So it may be that Elizabeth had not received the same zealous training as her older sister Mary or her brother Edward. Or it may be that Elizabeth had proved less "docile." By July, 1549, Ascham was thinking of returning to Cambridge, and before the end of January, 155o, had done so.b Since Ascham himself says that he served almost two years, the term of his teaching thus began presumably in or not long after February,¬ 1548, shortly after Grindal's death, when Elizabeth had been fourteen from the preceding September, and ended certainly in or shortly before January, 55o, after Elizabeth was sixteen the preceding September. According to contemporary standards, Elizabeth was thus already a full-grown woman when
" Iohannis Parkhorsti Ludicra sine Epigrammata Iuuenilia (London, 1573), pp. 46-47. Copy in University of Illinois Library. Parkhurst also has an epigram upon Cox, Cook, and Cheke as tutors of King Edward (Ibid., p. 58). Michael Toil tes, xaibsv r s aparpErrr.Ki (c. 1547), pp. 49-5o, has a puff for Elizabeth's study of Latin and Greek, but gives nothing definite (copy in University of Illinois Library, formerly Arundel-Lumley-British Museum).
' Giles, Ascham, Vol. I, pp. 53, 158, 16o, 272. Giles, Ascham, Vol. I, pp. 167, 174.
Grant says about February, but he may be guessing too.
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