Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 43.djvu/28

Pace Norfolk's jester.’ These ‘Epistles’ are not known elsewhere.

[Harwood's Alumni Eton. p. 157; Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. i. 430; Gent. Mag. 1820, ii. 410; Doran's Court Fools.]  PACE, RICHARD (1482?–1536), diplomatist and dean of St. Paul's, is commonly said to have been born in or near Winchester about 1482. His epitaph, as given in Weever, which states that he died in 1532, aged about 40, is clearly wrong. The place and time of his birth can be only inferred from his ‘De Fructu.’ There he tells us that he was brought up under the superintendence of Thomas Langton [q. v.], bishop of Winchester, in a ‘domestica schola’ which the bishop had established; and that his skill in music, as a boy, attracted the bishop's notice. Langton, who was bishop of Winchester from 1493 till 1500, made him his amanuensis, and in due time sent him to study at that ‘nursery of arts,’ Padua. Wood thinks it probable that, before going abroad, he studied at Queen's College, Oxford, of which Langton had been provost. Pace passed from Padua to Ferrara, where Erasmus, writing in 1521, speaks of having met him (Ep. dlxxxix.); and he also spent some time at Bologna, where he was encouraged to continue his studies by a legacy of 10l. a year for seven years left him by his old patron (, Manuscript Collections, xlv. 102). On his return to England he is said to have entered, or re-entered, Queen's College, Oxford. It was probably about this time that he took holy orders; for on 1 May 1510 he was made prebendary of South Muskham, Southwell.

Towards the close of 1509 Pace went in the retinue of Cardinal Bainbridge [q. v.], archbishop of York, to Rome. Bainbridge, like Langton, had been provost of Queen's, and hence, probably, his selection of Pace. When the cardinal perished by the hand of an assassin, on 14 July 1514, his rival at the papal court, Silvestro Gigli [q. v.], bishop of Worcester, was strongly, though it would seem unjustly, suspected of having instigated the murder. Pace exerted himself to the utmost to trace out the author of the crime, and thus exposed himself to Gigli's enmity. But his loyalty to his master was noticed with favour by Pope Leo X, who recommended him to the English king. On his return to England in the spring of 1515, he also brought with him a recommendation to Wolsey from Sir Richard Wingfield, brother of the ambassador at the court of Maximilian. Henry VIII made him his secretary (, De Decanis, p. 237).

In October 1515 Pace was sent by Wolsey on a difficult and somewhat dangerous mission. Henry had become jealous of the growing power of France. Her prestige had been greatly increased by her unexpected victory over the Swiss at the battle of Marignano (14 Sept.) The Swiss, sore at their repulse, might possibly be induced to attack afresh the forces of Francis I on their side of the Alps. Pace was entrusted with a limited amount of English gold and unlimited promises. There is an interesting letter from the English envoy to Wolsey, November 1515, from Zurich, in Cotton MS. Vitell. B. xviii. (printed in History of the Helvetic Confederacy, ii. 424 sqq.; and partly reprinted in Gent. Mag. 1815, pt. i. pp. 308–309). Pace's extant letters graphically describe the incidents of his mission: the insatiable greed of the Swiss, the indiscretion of Sir Robert Wingfield, the caprices and embarrassments of Maximilian, which combined to render abortive the scheme of wresting Milan from the French. His negotiations with the Swiss led more than once to his imprisonment, but in the midst of his cares he found time to compose his treatise, ‘De Fructu.’ It was written, as he tells us in the preface, in a public bath (hypocausto) at Constance, far from books or learned society. His friend Erasmus was offended for a time by a passage which he interpreted as a reflection on his poverty, but the cloud soon passed away. The people of Constance also found fault with some remarks on the drunkenness prevailing among them. On the title-page the author describes himself as ‘primarius secretarius’ of the king, a term which seems rather to denote the king's chief personal secretary than what we should now call a secretary of state (see, ii. 64). His tact and untiring energy were duly appreciated at home, and on his return in 1516 he was appointed secretary of state (, i. 140), besides being rewarded with benefices in the church.

On Sunday 3 Oct. 1518, when a peace between England and France was about to be ratified by a marriage contract between the French infant heir and the almost equally infantine Princess Mary of England, Pace made, before a gorgeous throng in St. Paul's Cathedral, ‘a good and sufficiently long oration,’ ‘De Pace,’ on the blessings of peace. After the death of Maximilian, on 12 Jan. 1519, Henry, Francis I, and Charles (now king of Castile) were all regarded as candidates for the imperial throne. With a view to sounding the electors, without appearing too openly in the matter, Henry sent Pace into Germany. Pace obtained audiences in June and July of the electoral princes, but