Courtesy of Fr. Milton T. Walsh, author of Ronald Knox as Apologist: Wit, Laughter and the Popish Creed, who recently returned from a trip to England. From the Ronald Knox Society website:
It can be argued that Ronald Knox’s happiest years were spent at Eton: it was here that his considerable talents first found public expression, and some of his closest friendships were formed. The College of Our Lady of Eton was founded by King Henry VI in 1440, who founded the College of Our Lady and St. Nicholas, commonly known as “King’s College”, at Cambridge a year later. King Henry founded Eton for the education of 70 poor boys; these “collegers” were joined by other students who lived in the town (“oppidans”). Today there are nearly 1300 students at Eton, over two hundred of whom are Catholic, but the original college of seventy continues. The collegers can be distinguished from the other students by a cloak worn over the uniform worn by all Etonians. Knox was one of these collegers, so much of his time at Eton was spent in the buildings surrounding the chapel, the heart of Eton.
I was fortunate to have as my guide Mr. Michael Meredith, who has just retired as librarian to the college. He was pleased to introduce me to “Ronnie Knox’s Eton”, and began the tour in the courtyard between the chapel and the residence of the seventy college boys. In the middle of the yard stands a statue of King Henry VI; the statue faces forward, toward the gate of the courtyard, but his figure is turned so that he gazes upon the residence of his seventy poor scholars. Ronald Knox had a great devotion to King Henry, whose cause for canonization was well underway at the end of the fifteenth century. The Reformation derailed the process, but in the 1920s Knox and Shane Leslie published an English translation of the record of miracles assembled in the fifteenth century.
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