More, who laid down their lives rather than prove disloyal to the
successor of St. Peter.

Nor was education generally neglected in the country. The lists of
students attending Oxford and Cambridge[3] in so far as they have been
preserved point to the fact that in the days immediately preceding the
Reformation these great seats of learning were in a most flourishing
condition, and that for them the religious revolt fell little short of
proving disastrous. The explanation of the sudden drop in the number
of students attending the universities is to be found partially at
least in the disturbed condition of the country, but more particularly
in the destruction of the religious houses, which sent up many of
their members to Oxford and Cambridge, and which prepared a great
number of pupils in their schools for university matriculation, as
well as in the confiscation of the funds out of which bishops,
chapters, monasteries, religious confraternities, and religious
guilds, presented exhibitions to enable the children of the poor to
avail themselves of the advantages of higher education. Nor was
England of the fifteenth century without a good system of secondary
schools. It is a common belief that Edward VI. was the founder of
English secondary colleges, and that during the first fifty years
after the Reformation more was done for this department of education
than had been done in the preceding three hundred years. That such a
belief is entirely erroneous may be proved from the records of the
commissions held in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., from
which it appears that there were close on three hundred secondary
schools in England before 1549, and that Henry VIII. and particularly
Edward VI. ought to be regarded as the despoilers rather than as the
patrons of the English colleges. Distinct from the universities and
from the mere primary schools there were in existence at the beginning