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.
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