Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

274 WILLIAM OF WYKEHAM.
the plague, he deemed that he could not make a
better use of his wealth than to devote it to the
needs of poor scholars aspiring to the priesthood.
To this end he founded a grammar school at Winchester,
which was to be a sort of nursery to a
college at Oxford (1373). His whole scheme was to
provide for the perpetual maintenance Und instruc- "
tion of two hundred poor scholars. The grammar
*
school at Winchester was to prepare the way for
Oxford, that is to say, each foundation was to complete
the other. Henry VI. alone followed in the
footsteps of Wykeham, and copied his design in his
royal foundations of Eton and Cambridge.1
"
Already, however, a stronger dissolving element
than the Black Death was in the field. With the
gathering shadows Edward III. breathed his last
on '21st June, 1377. The policy of the Edwards
ended with him.
1 Lowth, Life of Wykeham, p. 182.