The Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools.

It was established in the 12th cetury by monks to provide ediucation for anyone who could pay. During the dissoloution of the monsteries it was threatened but the King himself established scholarships there and later Queen Elizabeth refounded it in 1560 - a year now taken as the official founding year.

It was in the 17th century that Dr Busby established the reputation of the school for several hundreds of years, as much by his classical learning as for his ruthless discipline of the birch. Busby prayed publicly Up School for the safety of the Crown, on the very day of Charles I's execution, and then locked the boys inside to prevent their going to watch the spectacle a few hundred yards away. Regardless of politics, thrashing Royalist and Puritan boys alike without fear or favour, Busby also took part in Oliver Cromwell's funeral procession, when a Westminster schoolboy succeeded in snatching the "Majesty Scutcheon" from the coffin (it was given to the School by his family two hundred years later). Busby remained in office throughout the Civil War and the Commonwealth, when the school was governed by Parliamentary Commissioners, and well into the Restoration.

In 1679, a group of scholars killed a bailiff, ostensibly in defence of the Abbey's traditional right of sanctuary, but possibly because the man was trying to arrest a consort of the boys. Dr Busby obtained a royal pardon for his scholars from Charles II, and added the cost to the school bills.

In the seventeenth, the poet John Dryden, philosopher John Locke, scientist Robert Hooke composer Henry Purcell and architect Christopher Wren were all pupils at the school.

(Extract based upon wikipedia entry)

In The Last Seal Ben starts his remarkable adventure being caned by Busby at Westmister before heading off. It features twice more in the story.