English Travellers of the Renaissance | Page 5

an appeal that he could never be reclaimed by Henry VIII. Shunning all implication in the tumult of the political world, he slipped back to Padua, and there surrounded himself with friends,--"singular fellows, such as ever absented themselves from the court, desiring to live holily."[18] To his household at Padua gravitated other English students fond of "good company and the love of learned men"; Thomas Lupset,[19] the confidant of Erasmus and Richard Pace; Thomas Winter,[20] Wolsey's reputed natural son; Thomas Starkey,[21] the historian; George Lily,[22] son of the grammarian; Michael Throgmorton, and Richard Morison,[23] ambassador-to-be.
There were other elements that contributed to the growth of travel besides the desire to become exquisitely learned. The ambition of Henry VIII. to be a power in European politics opened the liveliest intercourse with the Continent. It was soon found that a special combination of qualities was needed in the ambassadors to carry out his aspirations. Churchmen, like the ungrateful Pole, for whose education he had generously subscribed, were often unpliable to his views of the Pope; a good old English gentleman, though devoted, might be like Sir Robert Wingfield, simple, unsophisticated, and the laughingstock of foreigners.[24] A courtier, such as Lord Rochford, who could play tennis, make verses, and become "intime" at the court of Francis I., could not hold his own in disputes of papal authority with highly educated ecclesiastics.[25] Hence it came about that the choice of an ambassador fell more and more upon men of sound education who also knew something of foreign countries: such as Sir Thomas Wyatt, or Sir Richard Wingfield, of Cambridge and Gray's Inn, who had studied at Ferrara[26]; Sir Nicholas Wotton, who had lived in Perugia, and graduated doctor of civil and canon law[27]; or Anthony St Lieger, who, according to Lloyd, "when twelve years of age was sent for his grammar learning with his tutor into France, for his carriage into Italy, for his philosophy to Cambridge, for his law to Gray's Inn: and for that which completed all, the government of himself, to court; where his debonairness and freedom took with the king, as his solidity and wisdom with the Cardinal."[28] Sometimes Henry was even at pains to pick out and send abroad promising university students with a view to training them especially for diplomacy. On one of his visits to Oxford he was impressed with the comely presence and flowing expression of John Mason, who, though the son of a cowherd, was notable at the university for his "polite and majestick speaking."
King Henry disposed of him in foreign parts, to add practical experience to his speculative studies, and paid for his education out of the king's Privy Purse, as we see by the royal expenses for September 1530. Among such items as "￡8, 18s. to Hanybell Zinzano, for drinks and other medicines for the King's Horses"; and, "20s. to the fellow with the dancing dog," is the entry of "a year's exhibition to Mason, the King's scholar at Paris, ￡3, 6s. 8d."[29]
Another educational investment of the King's was Thomas Smith, afterwards as excellent an ambassador as Mason, whom he supported at Cambridge, and according to Camden, at riper years made choice of to be sent into Italy. "For even till our days," says Camden under the year 1577, "certain young men of promising hopes, out of both Universities, have been maintained in foreign countries, at the King's charge, for the more complete polishing of their Parts and Studies."[30] The diplomatic career thus opened to young courtiers, if they proved themselves fit for service by experience in foreign countries, was therefore as strong a motive for travel as the desire to reach the source of humanism.
This again merged into the pursuit of a still more informal education--the sort which comes from "seeing the world." The marriage of Mary Tudor to Louis XII., and later the subtle bond of humanism and high spirits which existed between Francis I. and his "very dear and well-beloved good brother, cousin and gossip, perpetual ally and perfect friend," Henry the Eighth, led a good many of Henry's courtiers to attend the French court at one time or another--particularly the most dashing favourites, and leaders of fashion, the "friskers," as Andrew Boorde calls them,[31] such as Charles Brandon, George Boleyn, Francis Bryan, Nicholas Carew, or Henry Fitzroy. With any ambassador went a bevy of young gentlemen, who on their return diffused a certain mysterious sophistication which was the envy of home-keeping youth. According to Hall, when they came back to England they were "all French in eating and drinking and apparel, yea, and in the French vices and brags: so that all the estates of England were by them laughed at, the ladies and gentlewomen were dispraised, and nothing by them was praised, but if it were after the French