Free The Perfect King by Ian Mortimer Page A

important is the question of who influenced his thinking, and who expanded his intellectual horizons. With regard to this question, it is noticeable that Bury's appointment as Edward's chamberlain at Chester came to an end just before 18 July 1324, when he was described as 'lately' the chamberlain. 78 After this date, although he remained a royal clerk, he seems to have occupied no identifiable position until February 1326 (after which he was regularly appointed by Edward to important positions). The king gave the Savoy Palace to Edward on 14 July 1324. It seems that this may mark the occasion of Bury leaving his post as chamberlain of Chester and becoming Edward's tutor in London.
    This would be a tentative assumption, based only on the legend and a coincidence of dates, if it were not for two other facts. Unusually for a royal clerk, Bury was (and is) famous for his very extensive library, and because of this may well have attracted the attention of Edward's mother, Queen Isabella, who was herself a great lover of books. 8 " The second fact is the very great trust Edward placed in Bury in later years, suggesting a relationship stronger than that of a distant chamberlain and his lord. When Edward was empowered to appoint a constable of Bordeaux in 1325, Bury was the man selected. While it seems sensible to presume that Bury met the prince on at least an occasional basis prior to July 1324 - perhaps when delivering sums of money from Chester to Edward's treasurer in the south - it seems equally sensible to presume that he saw him more regularly after that date. Edward clearly had a very high regard for the man, and it seems foolish to ignore the probability that this high regard was due to Bury impressing him with his trustworthiness and apparent learning.
    The word 'apparent' is used here advisedly. Bury's contemporary, Adam Murimuth, who knew him, described him as a mediocre man of letters w ho dressed modestl y and died like a pauper but who, 'wishing to be considered a great scholar', acquired a huge number of books, so many 'that five great carts were not sufficient to carry them'. Bury's biographer,
    William Chambre, claimed he had so many books in his chamber that one could not stand up without treading on them. As Murimuth suggests, large numbers of books are not in themselves a sign of scholarship. In addition, Bury seems only to have written one original text, the Phil obiblon ('the Love of Books'), and that is a very personal and unusual book indeed. We must therefore ask the question, how scholarly was Bury?
    The answer to this question.lies in the Philo biblon itself. It is an enthusiastic rant about the virtues of books: 'In books I find the dead as if they were alive; in books I foresee things to come; in books warlike affairs are set forth; from books come forth the laws of peace.' Its subject is not scholarship, or a survey of literature, but a justification of the acquisition and possession of books through the knowledge potentially to be gained from them. This is totally in line with what one would expect of a man of great ambition, to whom knowledge was important but whose service did not permit him to spend time in scholarly contemplation. It is likely that Bury's acquisitiveness with regard to books sprang from a thirst for influence, and possession of knowledge — albeit in book form - was one means of gaining this influence. Indeed, one suspects that Bury relished the potential of knowledge more than knowledge itself.
    If Bury became Edward's tutor, or one of his tutors, in July 1324, our next question has to be what he might have taught his royal charge. We could answer this in two ways. We could elaborate on the formal education of the time, and we might presume that Bury stuck to the curriculum. Edward would have probably found this tedious, as he was inclined to activity and adventure more than study. The alternative is to look at the Philo biblon to see whether Bury might have supplied Edward with