Avise Gibson, wife unto Nicholas Gibson, grocer, one of the sheriffs 1539, by license of her husband, founded a free school at Radclyffe, near unto London, appointing to the same, for the instruction of sixty poor men’s children, a schoolmaster and usher with fifty pounds; she also built alms houses for fourteen poor aged persons, each of them to receive quarterly six shillings and eight pence the piece for ever; the government of which free school and alms houses she left in confidence to the Coopers in London. This virtuous gentlewoman was after joined in marriage with Sir Anthony Knevet, knight, and so called the Lady Knevet; a fair painted table of her picture was placed in the chapel which she had built there, but of late removed thence, by the like reason as the Grocer’s arms fixed on the outer wall of the schoolhouse are pulled down, and the Coopers set in place.[124] Margaret Danne, widow to William Danne, ironmonger, one of the sheriffs of London, gave by her testament to the ironmongers, two thousand pounds, to be lent to young men of that company, paying after the rate of five pounds in the year for every hundred; which one hundred pounds so rising yearly, to be employed on charitable actions, as she then appointed, but not performed in more than thirty years after. Dame Mary Ramsey, wife to Sir Thomas Ramsey, mayor about the year 1577, being seised of lands in fee simple of her inheritance to the yearly value of two hundred and forty-three pounds, by his consent gave the same to Christ’s hospital in London towards the relief of poor children there, and other ways, as in my _Summary_ and _Abridgment_ I have long since expressed; which gift she in her widowhood confirmed and augmented, as is showed by monuments in Christ’s hospital erected. Thus much for the worthiness of citizens in this city, touching whom John Lidgate, a monk of Bury, in the reign of Henry VI., made (amongst other) these verses following:-- “Of seaven things I prayse this citty. Of true meaning and faithful observance; Of righteousnes, truth, and equity; Of stablenes aye kept in legiance; And for of vertue thou hast suffisance, In this lond here, and other londs all, The kinges chamber of custome, men thee call.” Having thus in generality handled the original, the walls, gates, ditches, and fresh waters, the bridges, towers, and castles, the schools of learning and house of law, the orders and customs, sports and pastimes, watchings and martial exercises, and lastly the honour and worthiness of the citizens, I am now to set down the distribution of this city into parts; and more especially to declare the antiquities noteworthy in every of the same; and how both the whole and parts have been from time to time ruled and governed. FOOTNOTES: [120] “To London in greater quantitie.”--_1st edition_, p. 80.