For To Scholarship They Joined A Native Force Of Character
Which Gave A Most Felicitous Introduction To England Of The Fine Things
Of The Mind Which They Brought Home With Them.
By their example they
gave an impetus to travel for education's sake which lesser men could
never have done.
Though through Grocyn, Linacre and Tunstall, Greek was better taught in
England than in Italy, according to Erasmus,[15] at the time Henry VIII.
came to the throne, the idea of Italy as the goal of scholars persisted.
Rich churchmen, patrons of letters, launched promising students on to
the Continent to give them a complete education; as Richard Fox, Founder
of Corpus Christi, sent Edward Wotton to Padua, "to improve his learning
and chiefly to learn Greek,"[16] or Thomas Langton, Bishop of
Winchester, supported Richard Pace at the same university.[17] To
Reginald Pole, the scholar's life in Italy made so strong 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.
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