An
account on a broad-sheet in the British Museum tells how Wolsey came
with the most part of the bishops of the realm, "where he was received
with procession and censed by Mr. Richard Pace, Dean of the said
church." Pace was a native of Winchester, who had won the favour of
two successive bishops of that See, and been educated by them. One of
them sent him to the Continent to complete his course. He took Orders
in 1510, and his evident ability induced Wolsey to employ him in more
than one delicate and difficult case of foreign diplomacy, and also
brought him to the favourable notice of the King, who, after many
other preferments, made him Dean of St. Paul's on the death of Colet.
He was held to be the very ablest of diplomatists, was a friend of
Erasmus, and followed Colet in favouring "the new learning." It was he
and Sir T. More who persuaded the King to found Greek professorships
at Oxford and Cambridge.
But to return to the ceremony at St. Paul's. "After the Dean had duly
censed him, the Cardinal, while four doctors bore a canopy of gold
over him, went to the high altar, where he made his obligation; which
done, he went, as before, to the Cross in the churchyard, where was a
scaffold set up.
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