The Royal Grammar School Worcester had originally…
1561 CE
The Royal Grammar School Worcester had originally been founded as a secular monastic school in Worcester around 685 by Bishop Bosel, which makes it the 5th oldest school in the United Kingdom and the 6th in the world.
Located outside the monastic precincts (as with The King's School, Canterbury), it had catered for the relatives of monks and children intending to go into the monastery.
An attempt had been made in 1501 at establishing a rival school in the city, but the Bishop of Worcester at the time, Sylvestre de Giglis, passed a law that stated any person who set up a school in the city or monastic precincts would be excommunicated.
Thus all rivals ceased to exist, and the headmaster of that said school, Hugh Cratford MA, had been created headmaster of the City School in 1504.
Henry VIII had, however, in 1541 founded a new school in Worcester; The King's School Worcester, based on the former site of the Royal Grammar School, then became a rival school, with the rivalry manifesting itself in sports fixtures between the two schools.
After a petition by some notable citizens of Worcester to endow the school permanently, the school is given a Royal Charter by Queen Elizabeth I in 1561 and a governing body known as the Six Masters was set up, which remains as the governing body of the new RGS Worcester school today.