[2] He was vicar of Cranbrook in Kent in 1590, rector of the ancient church of St Margaret's in Stanford Rivers in Essex,[3] and was presented by the Queen as prebendary of Yatesbury in Wiltshire in January 1592.
Elementarie is, in this respect, a call to national pride: "forenners and strangers do wonder at vs, both for the vncertaintie in our writing, and the inconstancie in our letters."
Richard Mulcaster's unique contribution is not only inventing the name "footeball"[dubious – discuss] but also providing the earliest evidence of organised team football.
He referred to the many benefits of "footeball" in his personal publication of 1581 in English entitled Positions Wherein Those Primitive Circumstances Be Examined, Which Are Necessarie for the Training up of Children.
[7] Mulcaster describes a game for small teams that is organised under the auspices of a referee (and is therefore the first evidence that his game had evolved from disordered and violent "mob" football): "Some smaller number with such overlooking, sorted into sides and standings, not meeting with their bodies so boisterously to trie their strength: nor shouldring or shuffing one another so barbarously ... may use footeball for as much good to the body, by the chiefe use of the legges".