WHEN asked how he managed to preserve his school during the turbulence of the 17th century,

Busby said: "The fathers rule the country, the mothers rule the fathers, the boys rule their mothers, and I

rule the boys." The story, probably apocryphal, is a fair assessment of the school's proximity to the seat of power.

That the school prayed for King Charles I on the morning of his execution was not held against it. Parliament protected its endowments from sequestration under the "Root and Branch" Act for the abolition of ecclesiastical corporations. The headmaster was careful not to identify the school with any particular regime. The Royalist Sackvilles sent their sons there, and so did the Parliamentarian Russells.

His predecessor, the Revd Lambert Osbaldeston, had been deprived and put in the pillory for calling Archbishop Laud "the little meddling hocus-pocus". Busby was more prudent, although he did not always conceal his views.

"You were of another faith when you were under me," he said when he met a former pupil who had seceded to Rome. "How dared you change it?"

"The Lord had need of me," was the reply.

Busby's response was: "I never knew the Lord had need of anything but once, and then it was an ass."

He was a Prayer Book man, and despised the Directory for Public Worship, which had replaced the Book of Common Prayer under the Commonwealth. He held clandestine services according to the proscribed rite of the BCP in his house, which a former pupil and future bishop, Edward Wetenhall, described as "a more regular church than most we had publicly".

Philip Henry, a leading Dissenter, recalled with gratitude not only his headmaster's severity, but also "the solemn preparation for the Communion then observed". His piety was mentioned, too, by Anthony à Wood, the usually scabrous Oxford antiquary. Busby, he said, "was a person eminent and exemplary for piety and justice, an encourager of virtuous and forward youth, of great learning and hospitality".

John Evelyn, the diarist, was present as the pupils competed for election to the universities. "I heard and saw such exercises . . . in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic . . . as wonderfully astonished me in such youths . . . some of them not above 12 or 13 years of age."

Pupils, especially those who boarded in the headmaster's house, were exposed to the breadth of his enquiring mind and conversation. The diarist John Aubrey reported that Robert Hooke, the inventor of the microscope, learnt the organ, was "very mechanical", and invented "thirty several ways of flying" during his time as a boarder.

Busby claimed to have birched 16 future bishops - a modest score, considering his innings of nearly 60 years.

During his lifetime, and by his will, he disposed of considerable wealth in support of debtors, impoverished clergy, lectureships, and parish libraries. To this day, trustees manage his several benefactions.

His portrait in Christ Church hall (above) depicts humour and strength; his hat says much. His account books reveal an extensive wardrobe, including an "Indian gown", and a pair of hose in the "Spanish fashion". He also enjoyed wine and tobacco.

"Busby's genius for education", Richard Steele wrote in 1714, "had as great an effect upon the age he lived in, as that of any ancient philosopher, without excepting one, had upon his contemporaries."

The Revd Adrian Leak is Priest-in-Charge of Withyham, in the diocese of Chichester.

Richard Busby (1606-95) was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford, where he stayed as a tutor for ten years. In 1638, he was appointed headmaster of Westminster, and he remained in post until his death nearly 60 years later. He was ordained in 1639. He was admired by his former students as the greatest teacher of his age, and feared in equal measure as its most vigorous disciplinarian. Among his pupils were Christopher Wren, John Locke, and John Dryden. He died on 5 April 1695. His grave is in Westminster Abbey.