The banquet just described took place, as already mentioned, after Wolsey’s surrender of the palace to the King, and by the latter’s orders. Henry VIII. no doubt knew that the Cardinal was the man to carry them out well, for he would take a personal interest and pleasure in so doing, seeing that the banquets and masques so prevalent in that King’s reign had nowhere been more magnificently ordered than at Hampton Court and Whitehall, as already intimated above. But it is strange that the King should have abstained from appearing at the banquet given to his royal friend’s ambassadors. As soon as Henry had obtained possession of Hampton Court, he began making extensive alterations in the buildings; the Great Hall as it now appears was his work. Having a taste for art,[#] he employed Holbein, many of whose works are now at Hampton Court. Items of the expenses of building have come down to us. Thus in 1527, from February 26 to March 25, there was paid to the Freemason builders, to the master, John Molton, at 12d. per day, 6s.; to the warden, William Reynolds, at 5s. the week, 20s.; to the setters, Nicholas Seyworth and three others, at 3s. 8d. per week, 13s. 8d.; to others, at 3s. 4d. the week, 13s. 4d. Some of the workmen evidently took frequent holidays. The clerk of the works had 8d. a day, and the writing clerks 6d. each. [#] A superstition has been cherished from classical days that artistic and literary culture softens and refines manners. Henry VIII. had both, and yet what a brute, brutal in every respect, he was! Dr. Johnson was another instance of bearishness coupled with learning; and Porson, soaked though he was with Greek and Latin lore and wisdom, was a savage, with whom no gentleman could associate for any length of time. _Emolliet mores_, what a delusion!