William Grindal (died 1548) was an English scholar. A dear friend, pupil and protégé of Roger Ascham's at St John's College, Cambridge, he became tutor to Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen Elizabeth, and laid the foundations of her education in the Latin and Greek languages before dying prematurely of the plague in 1548. Origins, and study with Roger Ascham Very little is known of William Grindal's origins. It is suggested he came from Cumberland, which was the origin of Edmund Grindal (Archbishop of Canterbury), born at St Bees in 1519, the son of a farmer named William Grindal, although the relationship between them, if any, has not been demonstrated. Both studied in the University of Cambridge during the 1530s and 1540s. A relationship may be suggested in a letter dated January 22, 1548 from Roger Ascham to Princess Elizabeth, soon after William's death, in which he says "you must not hope, now that your own Grindal is dead, to get a better tutor in his place than is that other Grindal, who comes as near to him in sweetness and gentleness of manners as he does in name and in kindred." Possibly this "other Grindal" refers to Edmund, who was at that time M.A. and Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, though there were other clergymen of that name. William came as a poor scholar to St John's College: Roger Ascham wrote in his praise to Johannes Sturmius in January 1551, "He was my pupil in Cambridge, and from his youth he was grounded in Greek and Latin letters within the walls of my room for about seven years." William graduated B.A. in 1541/2, and was admitted to Fellowship at St John's on 14 March 1542/3. His friendship with Ascham was evidently very close: Ascham referred to him often as "my Grindal", "and if there were any other word in the whole language of friendship, of necessity, of dearness, of devotion, which might signify a closer and more binding conjunction than "my", I would most gladly apply it to the memory of my Grindal... He had such a conduct, intellect, memory and judgement as scarcely any man in England has attained whom I have ever seen." Grindal was studying at the time when Ascham's teacher, John Cheke (of St John's College), and his friend Thomas Smith, both royal Exhibitioners, were introducing their revolution in the pronunciation of the ancient Greek, and