Eton College. Eton College is a 13-18 independent boarding school and sixth form for boys in the parish of Eton, near Windsor in Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore, as a sister institution to King's College, Cambridge, making it the 18th-oldest Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference school. Eton's history and influence have made Eton one of the most prestigious schools in the world. Following the public school tradition, Eton is a full boarding school, which means pupils live at the school seven days a week, and it is one of only four such remaining single-sex boys', boarding-only independent senior schools in the United Kingdom. The remainder have since become co-educational: Rugby, Charterhouse, Westminster, and Shrewsbury. Merchant Taylors' is now a day school. Eton has educated prime ministers, world leaders, Nobel laureates and generations of the aristocracy and has been referred to as the chief nurse of England's statesmen. Eton charges up to E42,501 per year. Eton was noted as being the sixth most expensive HMC boarding school in the UK in 2013/14, however the school admits some boys with modest parental income: in 2011 it was reported that around 250 boys received significant financial help from the school, with the figure rising to 263 pupils in 2014, receiving the equivalent of around 60% of school fee assistance, whilst a further 63 received their education free of charge. Eton has also announced plans to increase the figure to around 320 pupils, with 70 educated free of charge, with the intention that the number of pupils receiving financial assistance from the school continues to increase. Eton College was founded by King Henry VI as a charity school to provide free education to 70 poor boys who would then go on to King's College, Cambridge, founded by the same King in 1441. Henry took Winchester College as his model, visiting on many occasions, borrowing its statutes and removing its headmaster and some of the scholars to start his new school. When Henry VI founded the school, he granted it a large number of endowments, including much valuable land. The group of feoffees appointed by the king to receive forfeited lands of the Alien Priories for the endowment of Eton were as follows: Archbishop Chichele. Bishop Stafford. Bishop Lowe. Bishop Ayscough. William de la Pole, 1st Marquess of Suffolk. John Somerset, Chancellor of the Exchequer and the king's doctor. Thomas Beckington, Archdeacon of Buckingham, the king's secretary and later Keeper of the Privy Seal. Richard Andrew, first Warden of All Souls College, Oxford, later the king's secretary. Adam Moleyns, Clerk of the Council. John Hampton of Kniver, Staffordshire, an Esquire of the Body. James Fiennes, another member of the Royal Household. William Tresham, another member of the Royal Household. It was intended to have formidable buildings and several religious relics, supposedly including a part of the True Cross and the Crown of Thorns. He persuaded the then Pope, Eugene IV, to grant him a privilege unparalleled anywhere in England: the right to grant indulgences to penitents on the Feast of the Assumption. The college also came into possession of one of England's Apocalypse manuscripts. However, when Henry was deposed by King Edward IV in 1461, the new King annulled all grants to the school and removed most of its assets and treasures to St George's Chapel, Windsor, on the other side of the River Thames. Legend has it that Edward's mistress, Jane Shore, intervened on the school's behalf. She was able to save a good part of the school, although the royal bequest and the number of staff were much reduced. Construction of the chapel, originally intended to be slightly over twice as long, with 18, or possibly 17, bays was stopped when Henry VI was deposed. Only the Quire of the intended building was completed. Eton's first Headmaster, William Waynflete, founder of Magdalen College, Oxford and previously Head Master of Winchester College, built the ante-chapel that completed the chapel. The important wall paintings in the chapel and the brick north range of the present School Yard also date from the 1480s; the lower storeys of the cloister, including College Hall, were built between 1441 and 1460. As the school suffered reduced income while still under construction, the completion and further development of the school has since depended to some extent on wealthy benefactors.
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