Nor were they well-digested
reports alone that were transmitted to the sovereign: they
came accompanied with many rare and curious articles, grateful
to the taste of one who was not only a religious reformer but
a dilettante; golden candlesticks and costly chalices;
sometimes a jewelled pix; fantastic spoons and patens, rings
for the fingers and the ear; occasionally a fair-written and
blazoned manuscript--suitable offering to the royal scholar.
Greymount was noticed; sent for; promoted in the household;
knighted; might doubtless have been sworn of the council, and
in due time have become a minister; but his was a discreet
ambition--of an accumulative rather than an aspiring
character. He served the king faithfully in all domestic
matters that required an unimpassioned, unscrupulous agent;
fashioned his creed and conscience according to the royal
model in all its freaks; seized the right moment to get sundry
grants of abbey lands, and contrived in that dangerous age to
save both his head and his estate.
The Greymount family having planted themselves in the land,
faithful to the policy of the founder, avoided the public gaze
during the troubled period that followed the reformation; and
even during the more orderly reign of Elizabeth, rather sought
their increase in alliances than in court favour.
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