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.  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.”