Ammonius, writing to Erasmus, says: "Your Archbishop, with the King's good leave, has laid down his post, which that of York, _after much importunity_, has accepted of, and behaves most beautifully."
[76] This is noticed by the satirist Roy, in his invective against Wolsey:
Before him rydeth two prestes stronge, And they beare two crosses right longe, Gapinge in every man's face: After them follow two lay-men secular, And each of them holdinge a pillar In their hondes, insteade of a mace. Then followeth my lord on his mule Trapped with gold, &c.
Dr. Wordsworth, misled by Anstis, has erroneously attributed this satire to Skelton, confounding it probably with that writer's
[77] Even so early as the reign of Henry III, the annual amount of the benefices in the hands of Italians, in this kingdom, was 70,000 marks; more than three times the value of the whole revenue of the crown. _M. Paris, in Vit. Hen. III. Ann. 1252._
[78] These are termed _under pastelers_, in the more recent MSS.
[79] The _Gospeller_ was the priest who read the Gospel. The _Pisteller_, the clerk who read the Epistle.
[80] _Revestry_, from the French _Revestir_; contractedly written _Vestry_.
[81] Those Lords that were placed in the great and privy chambers were _Wards_, and as such paid for their board and education. It will be seen below that he had a particular officer called "Instructor of his Wards." _Grove._
[82] Among whom, as we shall see below, was the eldest son of the Earl of Northumberland. This was according to a practice much more ancient than the time of Wolsey; agreeably to which, young men of the most exalted rank resided in the families of distinguished ecclesiastics, under the denomination of pages, but more probably for the purposes of education than of service. In this way Sir Thomas More was brought up under Cardinal Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury; of whom he has given a very interesting character in his Utopia. From Fiddes's Appendix to the Life of Wolsey, p. 19, it appears that the custom was at least as old as the time of Grosthed, Bishop of Lincoln, in the reign of Henry III, and that it continued for some time during the seventeenth century. In a paper, written by the Earl of Arundel, in the year 1620, and intitled _Instructions for you my son William, how to behave yourself at Norwich_, the earl charges him, "You shall in all things reverence, honour, and obey my Lord Bishop of Norwich, as you would do any of your parents: esteeminge whatsoever he shall tell or command you, as if your grandmother of Arundell, your mother, or myself should say it: and in all things esteem yourself as my lord's page; a breeding, which youths of my house, far superior to you, were accustomed unto; as my grandfather of Norfolk, and his brother, my good uncle of Northampton, were both bredd as pages with bishopps." See also Paul's _Life of Archbishop Whitgift_, p. 97.