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the creature of either party, and the Borgias, Cibos, and 
Roveres all found him a useful minister, and treated him as 
such. 
The first public office which we know that he held is that 
he was sent as Ambassador to Scotland by Innocent VIII. to 
compose the quarrels between James III. and his nobles. But 
before his arrival the pusillanimous King had perished, after 
his flight from the field at Stirling. Adrian had, however, 
already proceeded as far as London, where he contracted the 
friendship of Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, and also of 
the King himself, who on Adrian’s return to Rome wrote 
personally to the Pope (12th November, 1488), that ‘‘ he had 
been glad to see him on account of his own merits and virtues.” 
Henry VII. also appointed him his proctor for the despatch of 
all his causes at the Papal Court, where he endeavoured to 
obtain for Henry the Papal dispensation for his marriage with 
Margaret, the sister of the Archduke Philip. In 1489 he was 
made notary of the Apostolic Chamber, and was sent again to 
England as Collector of Peter’s Pence—an office requiring 
the greatest tact and delicacy. It was necessary that the 
sheep should be shorn with the utmost skill, and the shearers 
watched as carefully as the wool. 
The letter of the collector before Adrian is most amusing, 
but when it was found that the powers conferred upon Adrian 
were not in Henry’s opinion as great as those possessed by his 
predecessor, the King himself wrote to the Pope requesting 
that the ambiguous phrases should be corrected, and signed 
himself, ‘‘ Your Holinesses most devoted son, Henry.” It 
was not as a tax-gatherer he regarded him, but as an ambassa- 
dor, who had been endeavouring to effect peace between 
France, Burgundy, and England. Adrian had tried to induce 
Henry to request France to abolish the Pragmatic Sanction 
and to join the Holy League. The duties of collector- 
ship required the exercise of caution and discrimination. 
Alexander III. had started the sale of indulgences, and the 
Pope requested the aid of Henry to publish the brief, which 
Henry was loth to do, as he had been obliged to tax his sub- 
jects to repel an invasion by the Scots who, being allies of 
France, had commenced an attack as soon as they knew 
Henry had joined the league. 
Between the rapacious Pope and the miserly King, the 
Legate had no bed of roses, but heso managed matters that he 
was granted letters of naturalisation and a prebendal stall in 
