brated motto which he added to his arms (of which probably he might have received a grant when he began to rise in the world) I imagine was intended by him to intimate something of this kind: Manners makyth Man: the true meaning of which, as he designed it, I presume to be, though it has commonly been understood otherwise, that a man's real worth is to be estimated not from the outward and accidental advantages of birth, rank, and fortune, but from the endowments of his mind and his moral qualifications. In this sense it bears a proper relation to his arms, and contains a just apology for those ensigns of his newly acquired dignity. Conscious to himself that his claim to honour is unexceptionable, as founded upon truth and reason, he in a manner makes his appeal to the world; alleging that neither high birth, to which he makes no pretensions, nor high station, upon which he does not value himself, but

"Virtue alone is true nobility.""

He was put to school at Winchester, not by his father, who had not the means, but by some wealthy patron, who is traditionally said to have been Nicholas Uvedale, lord of the manor of Wykeham and governor of Winchester Castle. The tradition further asserts that, after leaving school, he became secretary to Uvedale; and that he was secretary to the constable of Winchester Castle is stated in a written account compiled in his own time. Afterwards he is said to have been recommended by Uvedale to Edyngton, bishop of Winchester, and then by those two friends to have been made known to King Edward III. There seems to be no reason for supposing that he ever studied at Oxford, as has been affirmed by some of the later writers of his life. It is evident, indeed, that he had not had a university education, and that he never pretended to any skill in the favourite scholastic learning of his age. His strength lay in his natural genius, in his knowledge of mankind and talent for business; and probably the only art or science he had much cultivated was architecture.

He is said in an ancient contemporary account to have

been brought to court when he was no more than three or four and twenty, which would be about the year 1348; but the earliest office which there is the evidence of records for his having held, is that of clerk of all the king's works in his manors of Henle and Yesthampsted, his patent for which is dated 10th of May, 1356. On the 30th of October in the same year he was made surveyor of the king's works at the castle and in the park of Windsor. It is affirmed by a contemporary writer to have been at his instigation that King Edward pulled down and rebuilt great part of Windsor Castle. Wykeham had the sole superintendence of the work. Queenborough Castle, in the Isle of Sheppy, was also built under his direction.

The king now began to reward him bountifully. He had probably taken deacon's orders at an early age; Lowth finds him designated 'clericus,' or clerk, in 1352. It was not, however, till the 5th of December, 1361, that he was admitted to the order of acolyte : he was ordained sub-deacon on the 12th of March, 1362, and priest on the 12th of June following. Meanwhile his first ecclesiastical preferment, the rectory of Pulham in Norfolk, had been conferred upon him by the king's presentation on the 30th of November, 1357. On the 1st of March, 1359, he was presented by the king to the prebend of Flixton, in the church of Lichfield. On the 16th of April following he had a grant of 2007. a year from the crown, over and above all his former appointments, till he should get quiet possession of the church of Pulham, his induction into which living had been opposed by the court of Rome. On the 10th of July in the same year, he was appointed chief warden and surveyor of the king's castles of Windsor, Leeds, Dovor, and Hadham, and of the manors of Old and New Windsor, Wichemer, and sundry other other castles and manors, with the parks belonging to them. On the 5th of May, 1360, he received the king's grant of the deanery of the royal free chapel or collegiate church of St. Martin-le-Grand, London. In October, 1360, he attended upon the king at Calais, probably in quality of public notary, when the

treaty of Bretigny was solemnly confirmed by the oaths of Edward and King John of France. Numerous additional preferments in the church were heaped upon him in the course of the next three years. By June, 1363, moreover he had been appointed to the office of warden and justiciary of the king's forests on this side Trent. On the 14th of March, 1364, he had by royal grant an assignment of twenty shillings a-day out of the exchequer. On the 11th of May, 1364, he was made keeper of the privy seal, and soon after he is styled secretary to the king, or what we should now call principal secretary of state. In May, 1365, he was commissioned by the king, with the chancellor, the treasurer, and the Earl of Arundel, to treat of the ransom of the King of Scotland (David II., taken at the battle of Nevil's Cross in 1346), and the prolonging of the truce with the Scots. And not long after this he is designated, in a paper printed in the Foedera,' chief of the privy council and governor of the great council, which phrases, however, Lowth supposes do not express titles of office, but only the great influence and authority which he had in those assemblies. "There are several other preferments, both ecclesiastical and civil," adds Lowth,

which he is said to have held; but I do not mention them, because the authorities produced for them are such as I cannot entirely depend upon. And, as to his ecclesiastical benefices already mentioned, the practice of exchanging them was then so common, that 'tis hard to determine precisely which of them he held altogether at any one time." There is extant, however, an account given in by himself on occasion of the bull of Pope Urban V. against pluralities, of the entire number and value of his church benefices, as the matter stood in the year 1366; and from this statement, in which Wykeham calls himself "Sir William of Wykeham, clerk, archdeacon of Lincoln, and secretary of our lord the illustrious King of England, and keeper of his privy seal, it appears that the total produce of those which he had held when the account was demanded was 8737. 6s. 8d.,

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and of those of which he remained in possession when it was given in, 8427.”

Froissart, speaking of the English court at this period, says, "At this time reigned a priest called William of Wykeham. This William of Wykeham was much in favour with the King of England, that everything was done by him, and nothing was done without him."

Upon the death of William de Edyngton, on the 8th of October, 1366, Wykeham was immediately, upon the king's earnest recommendation, elected by the prior and convent of Winchester to succeed him as bishop of that sec. He was not consecrated till the 10th of October in the year following; but this delay, till an adjustment was effected of the conflicting pretensions of the royal authority and the court of Rome, was evidently occasioned, as Lowth has shown, only by a contention between the king and the pope as to which of them should have the largest share in Wykeham's promotion. Meanwhile he had been appointed by the king lord high chancellor of England; he was confirmed in that office on the 17th of September, 1367.

He continued chancellor till the 14th of March, 1371, when he delivered back to the king both the great and the privy seals, on the change of ministry made in compliance with a petition presented shortly before by the Lords and Commons, complaining of the mischiefs which had resulted from the government of the kingdom having for a long time been in the hands of men of the church, and praying that secular men only might be appointed to the principal offices both in the king's courts and household. There is no appearance, however, of this complaint being specially directed against any part of the conduct of the Bishop of Winchester, who assisted at the ceremony of constituting his successor in the chancellorship, and seems to have for years after this continued to retain both the favour of the king and the goodwill of the parliament, and even to have remained in habits of intimate and confidential connexion with the Duke of Lan

caster, to whose influence the removal of the clergy from the offices of state is said to have been owing.

With reference to the complaint that men of the church filled high civil offices, Lowth observes, "The truth of the matter seems to be, that the laity in general looked with an evil eye upon the clergy, who had of late filled for the most part the great posts of honour and profit in the state; which, as it was obvious to remark, neither lay within their province nor were suitable to their function and character. The practice, however improper in itself and liable to objection, yet seems to have taken its rise from the necessity of the times: the men of abilities had for a long time been chiefly employed abroad in the wars; this was the most open road to riches and honours, and every one was pushing forward in it. Besides, it was not at any time easy to find among the laity persons properly qualified, in point of knowledge and letters, to fill with sufficiency some of the highest offices. We see the king was now obliged to have recourse to the lawyers: they gave as little satisfaction as the churchmen had done; and in a few years it was found necessary to discharge them, and to call in the churchmen again."

At the period of Wykeham's election to the see of Winchester, the bishops of that diocese had no fewer than twelve different castles or palaces, all furnished and maintained as places of residence. Wykeham's first undertaking after he found himself in possession of the see was to set about a thorough repair of these episcopal houses.

To these palaces or castles the bishops of Winchester resorted in turns, "living, according to the custom of those times, chiefly upon the produce of their own estates. So great a demand as the bishop had upon his predecessor's executors for dilapidations could not very soon or very easily be brought to an accommodation; however, the account was at last settled between them without proceeding on either side to an action at law. In the first place they delivered to him the standing stock of the bishopric due to him by right and custom: