keys embroidered on back and breast and on the housings of
his mule, appeared at the head of a gallant train in the papal liveries,
two of whom carried the gilded pillars, the insignia of office, and two
more, a scarlet and gold-covered box or casket containing the Cardinal's
hat. Probably no such reception of the dignity was ever prepared
elsewhere, and all was calculated to give magnificent ideas of the
office of Cardinal and of the power of the Pope to those who had not
been let into the secret that the messenger had been met at Dover; and
thus magnificently fitted out to satisfy the requirements of the
butcher's son of Ipswich, and of one of the most ostentatious of courts.

Old Gaffer Martin Fulford had muttered in his bed that such pomp had not
been the way in the time of the true old royal blood, and that display
had come in with the upstart slips of the Red Rose--as he still chose to
style the Tudors; and he maundered away about the beauty and affability
of Edward the Fourth till nobody could understand him, and Perronel only
threw in her "ay, grandad," or "yea, gaffer," when she thought it was
expected of her.

Ambrose had an unfailing appetite for the sermons of Dean Colet, who was
to preach on this occasion in Westminster Abbey, and his uncle had given
him counsel how to obtain standing ground there, entering before the
procession. He was alone, his friends Tibble and Lucas both had that
part of the Lollard temper which loathed the pride and wealth of the
great political clergy, and in spite of their admiration for the Dean
they could not quite forgive his taking part in the pomp of such a
raree-show.

But Ambrose's devotion to the Dean, to say nothing of youthful
curiosity, outweighed all those scruples, and as he listened, he was
carried along by the curious sermon in which the preacher likened the
orders of the hierarchy below to that of the nine orders of the Angels,
making the rank of Cardinal correspond to that of the Seraphim, aglow
with love. Of that holy flame, the scarlet robes were the type to the
spiritualised mind of Colet, while others saw in them only the relic of
the imperial purple of old Rome; and some beheld them as the token that
Wolsey was one step nearer the supreme height that he coveted so
earnestly. But the great and successful man found himself personally
addressed, bidden not to be puffed up with his own greatness, and
stringently reminded of the highest example of humility, s