CHRONICLE

of

forne of the principal events.
in the

LIFE, WORKS, an&WfMES

of
ROGER ASCHAM,

Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. Author Tutor to Princess, after*
wards Queen Elizabeth. Secretary of Embassy under Edward VI Latin
Secretary to Queens Mary and Elizabeth Friend of Queen Elizabeth, £c.

* Probable or approximate dates.

THE chief contemporary authorities for the life of Ascham are his own
works, particularly his Letters, and a Latin oration De vitQ, et 0&£tM Roger i
Asc/tami, wntten by Rev. Dr. Edward Graunt or Grant, Headmaster of
Westminster School, and ' the most noted Latiniste and Grecian of his time.'
This oration is affixed to the first collection of Ascham's Letters , the date of
Grant's dedication to which is 16 Feb. 1^76.

The figures in brackets, as (40), in the present work, refer to Ascham's
letters as arranged in Dr. Giles' edition,

1509- flptU 22. ftenrp VHO. sticceetts to tjie tljnme.

1511-13. 3 Hen. VIII. c. 3. required— under penalty on default of iad per
month — all subjects under 60, not lame, decrepid, or maimed, or
havmgany other lawful Impediment, the Clergy Judges &c excepted :
to use shooting in the long bow. Parents were to provide every boy
from 7 to 17 years, with a bow and two arrows . after 17, he was to
find himself a bow and four arrows. Every Bower for every Ewe
bow he made was to make ' at the lest ij Bowes of Elme Wiche or other
Wode of mean price,' under penalty of Imprisonment for 8 days.
Butts were to be provided in every town, Aliens were not to shoot
with the long bow without licence.

3 Hen. VIII. c. 13. confirms 19. Hen. VII. c 4 'against shooting in
Cross-bowes £c,' which enacted that no one with less than 200 marks
a year should use. This act increased the qualification from aoo to
300 marks.— Statutes of the Realm. Hi. 2$. 32.

f *I515. ROGER ASCHAM was born in the year i$i£, at Kirby

Wiske, (or Kirby Widce,) a village near North Allerton
in Yorkshire, of a family above the vulgar. His father,
John Ascham, was house-steward in the family of Lord
Scroop, and is said to have borne an unblemished repu-
tation for honesty and uprightness of life. Margaret,
wife of John Ascham, was allied to many consideiable
families, but her maiden name is not known. She had
three sons, Thomas, Antony, and Roger, besides some
daughters ; and we learn from a letter (21) wntten by her
son Roger, in the year 1^44, that she and her husband
having lived together forty-seven years, at last died on
the same day and almost at the same hour.

Roger's first years were spent under his father's roof,
but lie was received at a very youthful age into the
family of Sir Antony Wmgfield, who furnished money
for his education, and placed Roger, together with his
own ions, under a tutor, whose name was R Bond. The
boy had by nature a taste for books, and showed his good
taste by reading English in preference to Latin, with