The first entry is brought forward by Mr. W. F. Dickes as one of the strongest pieces of evidence in favour of his contention that Holbein obeyed the request contained in the Burgomaster’s letter, and returned to Basel in the winter of 1532, and remained there throughout the following year, so that he could not have painted “The Ambassadors” in England in 1533. He entirely misreads the entry, however, which he regards as a record “of monies due to Holbein for festal decorations on behalf of the two city guilds”[332] (Von Himmel und von Sternen); and he ignores the second entry, which, to be logical, should prove that Holbein was also in Basel in January 1537. No “monies” are entered against these items, as one would gather from his description, so that it is difficult to see how they record sums due to the painter. They were merely lists of names, as Woltmann points out,[333] of members of the Guilds appointed to take their turn of military service on festal occasions. The second entry shows this even more clearly than the first, and from it we learn that Holbein was one of thirteen members thus appointed as banner-bearers. Footnote 332: Dickes, _Holbein’s Ambassadors Unriddled_, p. 3. Footnote 333: Woltmann, i. p. 457. [Sidenote: OFFERED PENSION BY BASEL COUNCIL] It is probable that one of the chief reasons for Holbein’s visit to Basel, in addition to a natural desire to see his family, was to make some arrangement with the Town Council for a further leave of absence. He was now in the actual service of a foreign sovereign, and he ran the risk of losing his rights of citizenship unless he could come to some understanding with the civic authorities. He had taken, as we have seen, no notice of the Council’s urgent request, sent after him to England in the autumn of 1532, and he had ignored the calls made upon him by the Painters’ Guild during the six years of his absence, for fulfilling his share of various official and ceremonial duties. Probably he was quite unaware that such calls had been made. Now, however, that he was in Henry VIII’s pay, it was necessary that some definite arrangement should be made, which would enable him to remain in England at least some years longer without risk of unpleasant consequences. The Council, seeing that he had become a painter of high reputation, known far beyond the confines of Switzerland, were more anxious than ever to keep him in Basel. Aware, however, that they were not rich enough to find him employment as remunerative as that enjoyed by him at the English court, they effected a compromise. A document was drawn up, after consultation with the painter, in which a much more generous offer was made to him than the one proposed in 1532. This agreement, which was signed on behalf of the Council by Jakob Meyer, “zum Hirschen,” after extolling Holbein’s reputation as a painter, offered him a pension of fifty gulden a year, with permission to remain in England for two years longer,