t escort and with the money--Henry had promised the Duke
de Bourbon 100,000 crowns a month--to Geneva. Here he heard the
comforting news that the Swiss and Frenchmen were so certain of robbing
him that they had already 'lotted every of the captains his portion of
the said money.' With great speed and secrecy he caused it to be 'packed
in bales, trussed with baggage, as oats or old clothes, to make it
bulky, and nicked with a merchant's mark.' As a further precaution he
begged the help of the Duke of Savoy, who eventually allowed muleteers
in his service to hire mules as if for his own use to take it across the
mountains, and 'so bruit it to be carried as his stuff unto the Duchess
his wife.' Arrived at Chambery, the secret of the bales was allowed to
leak a very little, and Sir John, knowing that there were 'divers
ambushes and enterprises set for to attrap me,' set out again with his
bales towards Geneva. Out of sight of the town he altered his course for
Mont Cenis. And this expedient was in itself a blind, for two or three
days before Sir John's departure the treasure had been sent very
secretly on other mules to Turin, where it arrived safely. He finishes
his account with conscious simplicity: 'Which ways was occasion, as I
think the said enterprises to fail of their purpose.'

Sir John met with many very exciting adventures, of which perhaps the
most interesting is one that happened to him at Bologna, for here he was
very skilfully rescued from an unpleasant position by the great Thomas
Cromwell, then a practically unknown soldier. Sir John was passing
through the town, when he was very treacherously stopped and surrounded
in his hotel by the municipal authorities. Cromwell managed to persuade
them that he was a Neapolitan acquaintance of Sir John, and that if he
might speak to him he would be able to induce the knight to surrender
himself into their hands. But what he actually did was to suggest to Sir
John that he should change clothes with a servant that Cromwell had
brought with him, and in this disguise he helped him to escape from the
town.

When Cromwell came to England, it was Sir John who first commended him
to Wolsey's notice.

In the reign of Charles I, William, Lord Russell (afterwards Earl of
Bedford), and Pym, the great commoner, were returned together as
co-members for Tavistock; and when war was declared the Earl of Bedford
sided with the Parliament and was appointed to raise the Devonshire
Milit