Page:The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey.pdf/10

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the street, which he re-edified very sumptuously, garnishing the same, on the outside thereof, with cardinals' hats and arms, badges and cognisaunces of the cardinal, with divers other devices, in so glorious a sort, that he thought thereby to appease his old unkind displeasure.

Now may this be a good example and precedent to men in authority, which will sometimes work their will without wit, to remember in their authority, how authority may decay; and whom they punish of will more than of justice, may after be advanced in the public weal to high dignities and governance, and they based as low, who will then seek the means to be revenged of old wrongs sustained wrongfully before. Who would have thought then, when Sir Amyas Paulet punished this poor scholar, that ever he should have attained to be Chancellor of England, considering his baseness in every condition. These be wonderful works of God and fortune. Therefore I would wish all men in authority and dignity to know and fear God in all their triumphs and glory; considering in all their doings, that authorities be not permanent, but may slide and vanish, as princes' pleasures do alter and change.

Then, as all living things must of very necessity pay the due debt of nature, which no earthly creature can resist, it chanced the Lord Marquess to depart out of this present life. After whose death the schoolmaster, considering then with himself to be but a small beneficed man, and to have lost his fellowship in the College (for, as I understand, if a fellow of that college be once promoted to a benefice he shall by the rules of the house be dismissed of his fellowship), and perceiving himself to be also destitute of his singular good lord, thought not to be long unprovided of some other succour or staff, to defend him from all such storms as he lately sustained.

And in his travail thereabout, he fell in acquaintance with one Sir John Nanfant, a very grave and ancient knight, who had a great room in Calais under King Harry the Seventh. This knight he served, and behaved him so discreetly and justly, that he received the special favour of his said master; insomuch that for his wit, gravity, and just behaviour, he committed all the charge of his office unto his chaplain. And, as I understand, the office was the treasurership of Calais, who was, in consideration of his great age, discharged of his chargeable room, and returned again into England, intending to live at more quiet. And through his instant labour and especial favour his chaplain was promoted to the king‟s service, and made his chaplain. And when he had once cast anchor in10