The young archbishop was soon recalled to Scotland, and four years afterward he met his death, fighting bravely by his father's side on the fatal field of Flodden. Before leaving Italy he desired to see Rome, and in his company Erasmus, who had meanwhile returned to Siena, went back again as learned guide and companion. They seem to have gone southward as far as Naples, but to have made only a flying visit even in Rome. Erasmus remained there after his pupil had left, and it is during this final visit that the question of a permanent residence begins to be discussed. As to the possibility or probability that Erasmus would definitely settle at Rome, there is room for difference of opinion. If one may judge from his own allusions there was no country, in which he made any considerable stay, which did not at one time or another occur to him as a possible residence for his declining years, and on this general principle, why not Rome as well as another place? Our study of his character up to this point, however, should lead us at once to understand that, of all places in the world, Rome was least suited to his peculiar genius. Although he was quite capable of defending both sides of any argument, he could not be happy where he must either do this all the time or else commit himself without reserve to the dominant tone of a society which would eventually absorb him completely. Furthermore, the almost inevitable condition of a Roman residence was the holding of an ecclesiastical office and this, no matter how high it might be--the higher in fact the worse--was as far as possible from the line of Erasmus' ambition. Beatus says he was offered the very high function of papal penitentiary, with a hint that this might be a stepping-stone to higher dignities. When we consider the kind of official places filled by many of the Italian humanists, such an offer does not seem improbable. Less clear is one's feeling about a proposition made by the Venetian Cardinal Grimani that Erasmus should attach himself to his personal following and, presumably, continue to live the life of an independent scholar. Erasmus' account of his interview with the cardinal is worth while for us because of its many details. It was written in 1531, after the death of Grimani, and is given in a letter[81] apropos of a reference to the cardinal's services to the cause of letters, especially in maintaining so large and valuable a library. [81] iii.², 1375 A-D. [Illustration: CARDINAL PETER BEMBO. FROM "ERASMI OPERA," PUBLISHED AT LEYDEN, 1703.]