Politics and Patronage: Grammar Schools in Sixteenth-Century London

This thesis studies four aspects of grammar school education in sixteenth-century London: school foundations, schoolmasters, students, and university admission. We have picked six schools for study: St Paul’s School, Christ’s Hospital, Merchant Taylors School, Westminster School, Harrow School, and Highgate School. These were selected because they were founded and run by different kinds of individuals and institutions. The relationship between schools and politics has largely been overlooked by historians in the past, but as we find, sixteenth-century London schools were closely related to contemporary politics. In each of the four aspects, we find different individuals and institutions, including the monarch, the Church, politicians, and university colleges actively took part in the management of the schools, both positively and negatively. By studying their actions and relationships with each other, this research provided a better picture of politics in sixteenth-century English society.