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. Among
such items as "L8, 18s. to Hanybell Zinzano, for drinks and other
medicines for the King's Horses"; and, "20s. to the fellow with the
dancing dog," is the entry of "a year's exhibition to Mason, the King's
scholar at Paris, L3, 6s. 8d."[29]

Another educational investment of the King's was Thomas Smith,
afterwards as excellent an ambassador as Mason, whom he supported at
Cambridge, and according to Camden, at riper years made choice of to be
sent into Italy. "For even till our days," says Camden under the year
1577, "certain young men of promising hopes, out of both Universities,
have been maintained in foreign countries, at the King's charge, for the
more complete polishing of their Parts and Studies."[30] The diplomatic
career thus opened to young courtiers, if they proved themselves fit for
service by experience in foreign countries, was therefore as strong a
motive for travel as the desire to reach the source of humanism.

This again merged into the pursuit of a still more informal
education--the sort which comes from "seeing the world." The marriage of
Mary Tudor to Louis XII., and later the subtle bond of humanism and high
spirits which existed between Francis I. and his "very dear and
well-beloved good brother, cousin and gossip, perpetual ally and perfect
friend," Henry the Eighth, led a good many of Henry's courtiers to
attend the French court at one time or another--particularly the most
dashing favourites, and leaders of fashion, the "friskers," as Andrew
Boorde calls them,[31] such as Charles Brandon, George Boleyn, Francis
Bryan, Nicholas Carew, or Henry Fitzroy. With any ambassador went a bevy
of young gentlemen, who on their return diffused a certain mysterious
sophistication which was the envy of home-keeping