Sua,-An editorial in the Tablet some time in 1925,, summing up the Buscot-Burton controversy on this subject, said : "The Tablet must not adjudicate: it can only hint at a famous dispute in history which gave us, by way of amicable settlement, a Primate of England and a Primate of All England. Cannot the joint wisdom of Herts and Staffs produce some equally ingenious solution?" Max' I suggest that the matter be settled by St. Edmund's retaining the title of "The Oldest Catholic School" (which neither Canon Buscot nor myself questioned) and Cotton that of "The Oldest Catholic College" (founded on English soil in both eases).
Dr. Kelly's letter supplied some m
corrections and information for which I am grateful. But I maintain, and in view of what I have said above n cannot be accused of grinding an axe n for Cotton, that the evidence he produces about Twyford being Standon's acestor is not entirely convincing. I am one of those who think that "to identify the school at Twyford with another established at Standon is an exaggeration." Milner contradicts himself in the two passages I quoted from Ward. "Twyford was ruined and dissolved in 1745" and "Twyford was after that removed to Standen." The latter statement also bears the marks of having been made in haste as, even in 1749, such a removal would hardly take four years. (The school at Betley, boys and master, removed to Sedgley in a covered waggon on March 25, 1763. That is what might really be called a removal.) Stonor's "Standon was designed L succeed Twyford" as well as bearin: Dr. Kelly's interpretation, cook mean that the school was founded tr make up for the loss of Twyford. anc: does not necessarily imply that the) were the same school, or that one w the descendant of the othe to
r.
The comparison of the Rules an Customs of Twyford and Standon mean a similar they are, might a lot. or nothing: the first rules, and the system of studies, at Sedgley Park were modelled on, and similar to,
u as those of Douai. This w also the case at Standon, I believe, and the first presidents of Betley, Sedgley and Standon were all Douai men, but, on this evidence, I should not like to claim that Douai was the ancestor of Cotton.
Cotton College, North Staffordshire.
F. G. Roberts