[110] The great seal could not be carried out of the king’s dominions without violating the law; letters patent were passed to enable Dr. Taylor to hold it in his absence.
[111] Stradiots and Arbenois. These were light armed cavalry, said by Guicciardini to have been Greek mercenaries in the service of Venice, retaining their Greek name στρατιώται. Arbenois is Albanians, Albanois, Fr. The following passage from Nicot Thresor de la Langue Françoise, ed. 1606. fol. will fully explain this:
“A présent on apelle en particulier Albanois ces hommes de cheval armez à la légère, autrement dit Stratiote, ou Stradiots (par la consonne moyenne), qui portent les chapeaux à haute testière, desquels on se sert pour chevaux légers, qui viennent dudit pays d’Albanie, dont les Papes se servent encore de ce temps és garnisons de plusieurs villes du Saint siège, Albani, olim Epirotæ.”
[112] In like manner, we saw, a little above, that at Calais he gave “benediction and pardon.” From a letter to the cardinal, from Humfrey Monmouth, confined in the Tower on suspicion of heresy, we may gather what notion was entertained, even by comparatively enlightened men, of the efficacy of these pardons. "If I had broken most part of the Ten Commandments of God, being penitent and confessed (I should be forgiven) by reason of certain pardons that I have, the which my company and I had graunted, whan we were at Rome, going to Jerusalem, of the holy father the pope, a pœna et a culpa, for certain times in the year: and that, I trust in God, I received at Easter last past. Furthermore I received, when your grace was last at Pawles, I trust in God, your pardon of a pœna et a culpa; the which I believe verily, if I had done never so great offences, being penitent and confessed, and axing forgiveness, that I should have forgiveness." Strype’s Ecclesiast. Memor. vol. i. p. 248. Appendix. The cardinal had also a bull granted by Pope Leo Xth. A. D. 1518. to give in certain cases and conditions plenary remission from all sins. Fiddes, p. 48. Appendix. W.
[113] Among other distinguished honours conferred by Francis upon the Cardinal was the singular privilege of pardoning and releasing prisoners and delinquents confined in the towns through which he passed, in the same manner as the king himself was used to do: the only culprits excluded from the power of pardon given him by this patent were those guilty of the most capital crimes.
[114] i. e. Switzers. Cavendish revels in his subsequent description of the tall Scots who formed the French king’s body guard.
Whose mule if it should be sold
So gayly trapped with velvet and gold
And given to us for our schare,